Jeff Backer asserts his personal Covid shot stance

Rep. Jeff Backer

Representative Jeff Backer was puzzling in recent comments about the Covid vaccine. A local media operation performed the public service of asking Rep. Backer about this. I think the interviewer had a suspicion about what Backer's inclinations were likely to be, based on reputation. Backer comes off as quite the conservative Republican. 

Maybe I should put "conservative" in quotes. People presenting themselves as conservative have historically been far more sensible than today's leading strain, the Trump strain. We continue to see the big blue Trump campaign sign on the outskirts of town, the north end. It's close to the Greeley Plumbing building which I'm informed is the new home to the Morris Chamber of Commerce. Does the Chamber feel comfortable being so close to that sign? 

Granted, we are definitely in Trump country out here in the hinterlands. Still, we're in an overall environment where Democrats are more than holding their own. The Republicans can resist nationally with the "filibuster." 

Our local radio newshound asked Backer in a seemingly innocent way if he had gotten the vaccine shot. The obvious answer would be "yes" from an opinion leader like our state representative, someone of supposedly sound mind. Our politicians of today can veer out of "sound mind" territory. So Backer, my candidate for "Bullwinkle is a dope" today, said "I have not" gotten the shot, in the April 7 interview. This was midway in an interview that started out by covering the usual ground. 

Our radio guy put Backer's vaccine answer in the headline on its website. Good to expose this, but bad that we have someone like our state rep talking like he's an anti-vaxxer. He seemed self-contradictory: He said he wouldn't get the shot but "that doesn't mean I don't encourage others." Huh? 

The most obvious immediate rebuttal to the rep is that "you don't get the shot just for yourself, you get it for those around you." The radio guy was too polite to start engaging in this kind of verbal combat. "Conservatives" of today are so prickly, a pol like Backer might well have become unsettled. "Oh, you're being political (or politically correct)," he might say. 

Trump when he was president assailed a press person at a press conference for being "politically correct" by wearing a mask. This was our president for four years, surely someone who Backer and Torrey Westrom voted for. 

 

Concerted effort needed

We are trying to stem the tide of the pandemic this spring across America. There is plenty of vaccine out there now. Backer could take care of this so routinely. It's so common sense. But we have this "Bullwinkle" state rep now - boomers will get the reference - who once had a photo of himself under a "Bluestem Prairie" web headline: "Jeff Backer hates liberal homosexual money, solicits socially conservative campaign cash."

The article under the headline included the exclamation "leaping lesbians!" Society has fundamentally moved on from the gay rights tussle, having opened the door to inclusion for the LGBTQ community. It's not even something we talk about much anymore. The sky doesn't fall. 

I attend an ELCA Lutheran church in a synod that got torn when the issue seemed hot-button. We took the courageous inclusive stance. It's over now, the conflict, and we proceed as ELCAers with our focus in the same place as always. We're over it. We all should be. And there should be no "issue" whatsoever in getting the vaccine shot. 

We know there will always be some flat-Earth people out there, deniers with varying shades. But we can move forward with our elected leaders taking the right sensible attitude. Our representative is obviously not doing that. It's no fun beating up on the guy. But he clearly went on the record over the radio airwaves, saying not only that he hadn't gotten the shot, but "I'm not going to get it." 

Groping for rationale, he explained that "I believe I had it," the sickness, thus I suppose he figures he might have gained immunity. But his documentation was sketchy. He talked about how he was "really tired one day." 

"I kept away from folks," he said. 

But he explained that his stance "doesn't mean I don't encourage others (to get the shot)." 

He added in his groping that he wanted others more at-need or at-risk to get in line ahead of him. Again, when you get the shot you are protecting others, not just yourself. And again, reports indicate there is plenty of vaccine supply. So I can only conclude that Backer is really basing his stance on something ideological. 

I would implore him to consider that the Reverend Franklin Graham is encouraging everyone to get the vaccine shot. There, does that do it? 

Our radio newshound had an April 9 headline on the kmrs-kkok site: "Vaccine refusal may make herd immunity impossible." In the text: "Herd immunity will be impossible to reach if large swaths of the American public refuse to take it." 

How much logic and reason needs to be thrust in the face of our state representative, Jeff Backer? From Mediate: "Stunning poll: two-thirds of Republicans still trust Trump for 'medical advice.' " Note "medical advice" in quotes. 

Don't you think we can be 100 percent certain that Backer and Westrom were Trump voters? Any chance either voted for Biden? We all miss Jay McNamar, don't we? Our legislative district turns its lonely eyes to you, Jay. Instead we have Bullwinkle.

 

Addendum: I'm informed our new Chamber manager is Summer Anderson, Morris native. Might she promote the resurrecting of Prairie Pioneer Days as something close to what it once was? That might be dreaming. Does she know that 2021 is Morris' Sesquicentennial year? Is planning in the works for recognition of that? I know the pandemic circumstances make it tough, although with luck we'll drift toward normality this coming summer. Media reports are mixed on the likelihood of that. The Centennial was a huge deal in Morris in 1971. There seems less community spirit now. Is the digital world and culture dehumanizing us? Is it globalization and automation?

 

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com