Ol’ Brad Paisley is weighing in on the vaccine debate.
Yesterday, Brad Paisley joined the First Lady Jill Biden at Ole Smoky Distillery in downtown Nashville for a quick concert and pop-up vaccine clinic. According to The Tennessean, only about 10 people showed up to receive vaccines and Jill was booed when mention of Tennessee being one of the lowest-vaccinated states in the country.
“Well, you are booing yourselves.”
Approximately 41% of Tennesseans have received at least one dose of a vaccine, which is the sixth-lowest in the United States.
But Brad went further in an interview with MSNBC, calling vaccination the “most patriotic” thing you can do:
“I feel like knowing my people, where I come from, I’m from West Virginia. A small town of 1200 people, this is the kind of community where immediately if a house is on fire, before the fire department can get there, there are a lot of people with buckets trying to put the fire out already. They band together, they do what it takes to help their neighbor.
So all my fans have been fed… they are seeing disinformation everywhere, and they are being told that the water doesn’t put the fire out. So it is a really strange thing to try to be louder than that disinformation.
And I think that, when they realize that it is the patriotic thing, when they realize that this is for the greater good, they will do it.
And I also think the incentives work… the idea of positive reinforcement where tickets are given to people who get vaccinated. I like the lottery systems that states are doing… it’s a shame we have to, but at the same time, whatever it takes because the variant is coming.”
He went on to say that the original anti-vaccine movement started with the Hollywood Elite:
“It is an interesting thing when you look at what happens and how this became what it is. I think back to the original anti-vaccine movement, which sort of started, I think, I could be wrong, but I see it as almost starting with the Hollywood elite that didn’t want their kids vaccinated because of a bunked report.
I think that there is a level of reaching these folks that you have to say look, the way to be the most productive citizen, the way to be the person that helps, is to get this.
The patriotic thing to do is when you raise your arm and say ‘America, get a shot in it.’ That is the way that you are the most patriotic.
I don’t think they understand necessarily just all the things that go into this about the patriotic moment we’re in. How as a nation we are stronger with this because I think you’re gonna have a choice.
The choice is, you get the vaccine and don’t get Covid, the other choice is you get the Covid and you don’t get the vaccine. And it kind of feels like a really important patriotic moment for all of us.”
John Rich disagreed…
He asked him to expand in the following tweet:
Brad also mentioned the late, great John Prine during his performance, saying if had a time machine, he’d go back and give John the vaccine.
“If I had a time machine, I would go back to November, I would give him that vaccine and he would be here. Of course, we can’t do that. All we have is the future. Let’s save whoever is next.”
Paisley recently announced his Tour 2021 featuring Jimmie Allen and Kameron Marlowe, and is also set to play the 4th of July celebration in downtown Nashville this year.
Dubbed Let Freedom Sing!, it will be Nashville’s first large public event this year.
