Biden’s vaccine mandate theater

That was the whole point of the speech — to show Biden acting like a leader on an issue important to New York Times readers. It had nothing to do with convincing the unvaccinated to get vaccinated. We can tell by Biden’s rhetoric.

Biden blamed the unvaccinated for taking up hospital beds for vaccinated cancer and heart attack patients. He outright accused them of killing other unvaccinated Americans. “We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin,” Biden yelled. “And your refusal has cost all of us.” If only Biden had been so tough on the Taliban.

These threats and this derision might be worth it if there was any chance they would actually cause the unvaccinated to get vaccinated. But they won’t. Last week, an ABC News poll asked unvaccinated people what they would do if their employer made them choose between getting vaccinated and quitting their job. Just 18% said they would get vaccinated, while 72% said they would quit.

And with a record-high 10.9 million jobs currently open, a wave of new job quits is the last thing the economy needs right now. Worse, the White House seemingly hasn’t considered exactly who the unvaccinated are. According to the Census Bureau, almost 25% of them live in households making under $25,000 a year. Over half live in households earning less than $50,000 a year. And Biden wants to fire all these people? Where is the compassion?

Moreover, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, black and Hispanic communities have far lower vaccination rates than white communities. Where is the concern for “equity?”

Biden isn’t concerned about hurting poor minority communities as long as he can blame Republican governors for the continued spread of the virus. “There are elected officials actively working to undermine the fight against COVID,” Biden claimed without any evidence. “If these governors won’t help us beat the pandemic, I’ll use my power as president to get them out of the way.”

What a ridiculously pompous and ineffectual threat. Biden has no power to remove duly elected governors from office. He would have no such power even if some of them were undermining efforts to stop the spread of COVID — not that any of them are actually doing so.

Biden’s power to force private employers to adopt a vaccine mandate for their employees is a bit murkier. The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 does empower the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to issue “Emergency Temporary Standards” that are immediately enforceable for six months until a permanent regulation goes through the standard rule-making process. Employers and employees affected by the mandate can challenge it in court, where OSHA must show that employees “are exposed to grave danger from exposure to substances or agents” and that the mandate is “necessary” to protect employees from the danger.

OSHA has not used this power since 1983, when the Supreme Court struck down a temporary asbestos rule because OSHA did not provide enough evidence the regulation would save lives during the six months before a permanent regulation could be written. The causal link between vaccine mandates and protecting the lives of unvaccinated workers is stronger here, but the court may also find that the temporary rule isn’t narrowly tailored enough for the many different environments in which people work.

But we already know Biden doesn’t care how the court will rule on one of his emergency COVID executive actions. He famously admitted the Supreme Court was likely to throw out his eviction moratorium earlier this year (it did), and this didn’t stop him from putting an illegal order into effect.

But by flailing his arms, making loud noises, and issuing executive actions that may or may not ever go into effect, Biden proved to his base that he is … fighting! He is fighting evil Republicans for them!

That was the only point of his doomed eviction moratorium, and it is also the only point of his ineffectual vaccine mandate.