New York Times Admits: Not All Unvaccinated Are Trump Supporters

The New York Times has long struggled with the question of whether or not its news pages should report facts that undermine the claims made by its opinion writers and their allies. Sometimes, the answer is no. But when the answer is yes — when the Times’ news reporters tell the truth — we get what James Taranto used to call “two papers in one.” So it is with Saturday’s Times report on unvaccinated Americans.

The current ideological push from the left is to paint skepticism of and resistance to the COVID vaccines as overwhelmingly a right-wing phenomenon, concentrated among the Trumpiest precincts of the Republican base. That is illustrated by the conspiracy theory I discussed Friday, as well as by the furious response to Michael Brendan Dougherty’s column on persuading the unvaccinated. As Ross Douthat summed up that response in his own Times column, many journalists regard

About the Author

Dan McLaughlin

Dan McLaughlin is a senior writer at National Review Online and a fellow at National Review Institute.

Featured Tags

The New York Times has long struggled with the question of whether or not its news pages should report facts that undermine the claims made by its opinion writers and their allies. Sometimes, the answer is no. But when the answer is yes — when the Times’ news reporters tell the truth — we get what James Taranto used to call “two papers in one.” So it is with Saturday’s Times report on unvaccinated Americans.

The current ideological push from the left is to paint skepticism of and resistance to the COVID vaccines as overwhelmingly a right-wing phenomenon, concentrated among the Trumpiest precincts of the Republican base. That is illustrated by the conspiracy theory I discussed Friday, as well as by the furious response to Michael Brendan Dougherty’s column on persuading the unvaccinated. As Ross Douthat summed up that response in his own Times column, many journalists regard