The GOP Goes to War With Business Over Vaccination

Vaccination mandates are the new political battleground. And now cruise lines are caught in the middle.

One of the most important stories in American politics right now is the growing fissure between Republicans and big business, which historically was the constituency that Republican politicians, at least, were most invested in protecting. The tension between the GOP and big corporations arose because of the emergence of what’s sometimes called “woke capitalism,” with companies taking positions at odds with Republicans on issues like LGBTQ rights, abortion, and, most recently, voting rights. But now that tension is being aggravated by a new issue: Covid vaccination requirements.

Even as widespread vaccination has helped bring down Covid infection, hospitalization, and death rates across the country, vaccines have — like seemingly everything else these days — become a partisan issue, with a surprisingly high percentage of GOP voters saying they either definitely will not get the vaccine or are still hesitant to do so. And while most high-profile GOP politicians (far-right outliers like Marjorie Taylor Greene aside) describe themselves as pro-vaccine, they’ve seized on an opposition to vaccine mandates as a way to cater to vaccine skeptics.