ICYMI: GOP Candidate For Governor Panders To Anti-Vaxxers, Matt Shea Supporters

GOP Continues to Push Dangerous, Anti-Health Measures During Pandemic

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | July 10, 2020

With ballots dropping in a week, all the WA GOP can do is imitate the least popular president in a century:

In case you missed the latest deep dive on how Trumpian the WA GOP’s candidates have become, key excerpts below from The Stranger’s report on the their fundraising leader Joshua Freed:  

Pandering to Anti-Vaxxers

Freed also appeared eager to scoop up Washington’s small but loud anti-vaxxer coalition. When asked if the government should mandate a COVID-19 vaccine or give everyone “the right to choose if they want it or not,” Freed took the bait and lobbed a non sequitur at abortion supporters.

“People should have the right to choose whether they want [it],” Freed said. “I hear from the other side of the aisle that it’s my body, my choice. If that’s true, it’s so interesting that they’re pushing for mandatory vaccination.”

Let’s set aside the fact that no one is seriously talking about forcing people to take a coronavirus vaccine—though if people were seriously talking about that it would be Trump and his ghouls, who need the vaccine in order to fully reopen the economy. It would not be “interesting” to observe that someone who supports abortion also supports forced vaccination against a deadly respiratory virus. Aborting a fetus directly affects exactly one person, while refusing a vaccine directly endangers the lives of entire communities—especially, in this case, kids and the elderly. Abortion is “my body, my choice;” anti-vaccination is my body, your consequences.

In any event, in case there was any confusion, Freed blew his anti-vaxxer dog whistle moments later, after being asked how he’d “roll back” requirements to vaccinate kids if they want to attend public schools. “Well, again, I think we should not require forced vaccinations,” he said.

Praise of Matt Shea:

“To increase his support, Freed will need to bridge the east-west divide that obtains even in Washington’s Republican politics. At the Kittitas County Governor’s Forum on Monday afternoon, Freed got that chance when someone in the crowd asked him if he stood behind former Rep. Matt Shea, who declined to run for re-election this year after an independent investigator concluded that he’d planned acts of domestic terrorism.

Freed’s stance on the controversial topic of whether to support a guy who promoted training child soldiers for the holy war will not surprise you.

First Freed described the issue as a divide between Shea and House Republican Minority Leader J.T. Wilcox, who helped block Shea’s expulsion from the legislature if not the caucus. He then blamed Democrats for blowing up the issue in a purely political effort to divide Republicans, suggested the matter would have been better handled “behind closed doors,” and then issued a call for unity: “What I want to see is J.T. and Matt come together and find a way that they could quietly move through this and find a greater understanding. I don’t think that it was properly handled in such a way to be able to move forward,” Freed said. “So for me, I’ll stand with both in the sense that we need to be Republicans standing up for conservative values, for fiscal responsible issues.”