Getting Freedom Wrong

How will U.S. President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandates shape America’s struggle to manage COVID-19? Timothy Caulfield on the new government initiative, the place of individual rights, and the uncertain future of the pandemic. “Yes, you could bring a legal challenge, and who knows how that would play out, but it’s not obviously true that these laws inappropriately infringe on your constitutional rights.” The Man Has a Plan How will U.S. President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandates shape America’s struggle to manage COVID-19? Timothy Caulfield on the new government initiative, the place of individual rights, and the uncertain future of the pandemic. In the White House’s most aggressive move yet to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, U.S. President Joe Biden recently announced a new [“action plan.”]( it, federal workers and contractors must all be vaccinated, and the employees of private companies with at least 100 workers must likewise or else get tested weekly for the virus. Speaking to the minority of the U.S. population that remains unvaccinated, Biden said, “We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us.” Still, many Americans continue to refuse. Right-wing media is replete with anger and indignation about the new mandates, while 24 Republican state attorneys general are threatening legal action, [claiming]( that they represent not just an undue restriction on individual liberty but a “public health disaster that will displace vulnerable workers and exacerbate a nationwide hospital staffing crisis, with severe consequences for all Americans.” What are the actual public-health outcomes likely to be here? Timothy Caulfield is the Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy at the University of Alberta. According to Caulfield, the mandates will certainly increase the number of fully vaccinated Americans, possibly even by 5 to 10 percent. But this impact will vary across the U.S., including between Democratic- and Republican-leaning states, given how politically polarized the issue of vaccination is. Caulfield acknowledges that some businesses—even businesses that support vaccination—are worrying about losing employees who object to the mandates; and he anticipates a major backlash, grounded in the belief that the mandates violate Americans’ individual rights, despite the extent to which the unvaccinated are prolonging the pandemic and restricting their fellow citizens’ ability to return to the normal freedoms of everyday life. ——— Graham Vyse: To start with the basics, how will these new mandates affect the overall vaccination rate in the U.S.? Timothy Caulfield: If you just look at vaccines in people’s arms, I think they’re going to work. I think you’re going to see an uptick. The big questions are where they’re going to work and to what degree. We’re likely going to see jurisdictional variation. The U.S. is such a diverse country politically, you’re likely to see that reflected in how the population responds to these mandates. But if we look at evidence from other countries—or even historical evidence—we know mandates work. They work best on people who are complacent or moderately hesitant about getting vaccinated. There’s an open question about the degree to which they’re going to work on hardcore deniers and those who are politically and ideologically motivated against vaccination. More from Timothy Caulfield at The Signal: “There’s a majority of Americans that supports mandates, but we’re going to see a very strong backlash. We’re going to see people marching in the streets. There’s research about how framing dissent in the context of ideology and the language of rights makes it more likely you’re going to convince people than trying to use misinformation or twisted science. Framing it as a moral idea allows mandate opponents to sidestep the lack of evidence to support their position, because it becomes about choice, about freedom—even if that language is being used in an inaccurate way.” “When you’re talking to someone one-on-one about vaccine hesitancy, it never works to shame. You should always listen, though it can be difficult. Does that rule hold at the national level? I get Biden’s frustration, and I think most vaccinated people are feeling the same way—that the unvaccinated have brought on this fourth wave of the virus or, at a minimum, made the pandemic so much worse, costing their communities not just in health and lives but also economically. I think that frustration is one of the reasons why Biden felt his move was politically viable.” “Had you asked me in June, I would have said that the implementation of a sensible public-health policy is going to have a dramatically positive impact on how the pandemic plays out. But as we’ve learned over the last couple of months, it’s become so unpredictable—not just the virus, but how the public responds to it.” ——— Every Which Way How much trouble is French democracy in? Marc Weitzmann on the Republic’s struggles with illiberalism and fear. (Originally published 2021 | 06.25) A sense that French democracy is in danger is about as old as French democracy itself. Since the French Revolution of 1789, there have been strong divisions in French between support for modern ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity, and anti-modern reaction. This rift has reemerged over and again—notably, at the turn of the century, during the Dreyfus Affair, when French public opinion split over the issue of a French-Jewish army officer falsely accused of treason, and again during World War II, when Nazi Germany occupied half the country. More recently, challenges to France’s tradition of secular liberalism have come from a complex array of ideologies—right-wing Catholic traditionalism, as before, but also radical Islamism, as well as an illiberal left. With the integrity of liberal democracies strained worldwide, is France’s distinctively under threat today? The French journalist and novelist [Marc Weitzmann]( is the author of [Hate]( on the rise of anti-Semitism in France, and a contributor to a number of publications in his country and the United States. According to Weitzmann, a set of factors, including its colonial history and geography, have made France “especially sensitive to political crisis.” The influence of French anti-modern thinkers is meanwhile now growing, extending even to the American right. France is, Weitzmann says, unusually resistant to some of the excesses of American-style progressive identity politics, but the state of French democracy, shaken by terrorist attacks and rising anti-Semitism, “may get worse before it gets better.” ——— ——— [The Signal]( is a new, independent digital publication exploring vital questions in democratic life and the human world—and sustained entirely by readers like you. To support The Signal and for full access: We recently resolved a broken-link issue with our opt-out function. If you’ve received this in error, our apologies—you can immediately unsubscribe below. Thank you. © 2021 The Signal The Signal | 717 N St. NW, Ste. One, Washington, DC 20011 [Unsubscribe {EMAIL}]( [Constant Contact Data Notice]( Sent by newsletters@thesgnl.email