'Male MAGA mouths': Conservative explains how anti-vaxxers are ​spreading the COVID Delta variant

Although the highly infectious Delta variant has been driving a COVID-19 surge in the United States, the anti-vaxxer movement continues to urge Americans not to get vaccinated for COVID-19. Never Trump conservative Amanda Carpenter, in an article published by The Bulwark on August 9, expresses her frustration with anti-vaxxers who are promoting the spread of the Delta variant and making life difficult for vaccinated Americans.

"Well, it's happening," writes Carpenter, who is often featured as a conservative pundit on CNN. "Hope you didn't burn all your masks. Despite the sacrifice from millions who lost work, couldn't go to school, and lived like hermits for a year in support of the common good, coronavirus is surging again. All thanks to a large minority of Americans who stubbornly refuse vaccination."

Medical workers, Carpenter notes, are among those suffering because of "male MAGA mouths."

"Medical staff did not sign up for a self-inflicted, voluntary pandemic of the unvaccinated," Carpenter explains. "Vaccines are now readily available at no cost. There's absolutely no reason for the medical community to be going through this again."

Anti-vaxxers, Carpenter stresses, are not only hurting themselves, but the vaccinated as well.

"Having 30% of the country unvaccinated means that there will be more suffering from COVID," Carpenter says. "It's just a matter of who bears it and how terrible it is. And the problem is: It won't just be unvaccinated adults reaping the consequences of their own choices."

According to Carpenter, "Choices have consequences. And if a third of the country won't get vaccinated, then the rest of us are left with our own set of choices. Do we want vaccine passports, workplace vaccine mandates, and masking requirements for fully grown adults — or kids on ventilators?"

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 70% of U.S. adults have been at least partially vaccinated for COVID-19 — which, Carpenter notes, is "good news." But the "bad news," she adds, is that "wasn't enough in time to stop the Delta variant."

In an op-ed published on August 6, USA Today Executive Editor Nicolle Carroll describes some of the debates she has been having with her brother, Chris Carroll, who refuses to get vaccinated.

Carroll notes, "My brother, Chris Carroll…. says fully vaccinated people are getting breakthrough viruses, so why bother? The vaccinated can get COVID…. So, does politics play into his decision not to get a vaccine? Absolutely, he says. He doesn't trust the president. But the vaccine was developed under President Donald Trump, I pointed out. 'He was under pressure' to get a vaccine quickly to reopen the economy, Chris replied…. Chris is a Christian conservative and lifelong Texan."

While Nicolle Carroll's op-ed tries to explain the unvaccinated to those who do favor vaccination — such as Nicolle Carroll herself — Carpenter has clearly run out of patience.

In her Bulwark article, the conservative pundit argues, "So, who should we have compassion for? The people who wind up in the ER after refusing to get vaccinated? Or the healthcare workers working around the clock to save their lives? For the hurt feelings of the anti-vaxxers who feel looked down upon? Or the children being hospitalized because a preventable pandemic is raging out of control again?.... We're at the point — passed it, really — where compassion is becoming a finite resource."