The Aaron Rodgers vaccine controversy has managed to escalate all the way up to White House.
Of course, it’s been extremely well-publicized at this point, but I’ll recap really quick.
At the beginning of the season, Aaron Rodgers told the media that he had been “immunized” during a preseason conference, which most took to mean that he received a COVID vaccine.
However, despite the misrepresentations and outrage by the media, both the NFL and the Green Bay Packers, as well as Rodgers’ teammates knew he wasn’t vaccinated. Unvaccinated players have a much more robust list of COVID-19 protocols they need to follow.
When he tested positive, the reaction from the public ranged widely, with his estranged father supporting his decision, and people like Terry Bradshaw ripping him on national TV with some misleading information of their own in regards to Aaron taking Ivermectin after consulting his doctor (and Joe Rogan).
He was fined for not properly wearing a mask during post game press conferences, and missed one game when he tested positive, but for some, it wasn’t enough. Howard Stern went as far to say that he should be kicked out of the league.
However last month, in the aftermath of the cluster of tornados that tragically ripped though parts of Kentucky, President Joe Biden told a Packers fan that her quarterback needed to get vaccinated:
“Tell that quarterback he’s gotta get the vaccine.”
However, Rodgers didn’t take to kindly to that.
He had some choice words for President Joe Biden in a recent interview with ESPN’s Kevin Van Valkenburg:
“When the president of the United States says, ‘This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated,’ it’s because him and his constituents, which, I don’t know how there are any if you watch any of his attempts at public speaking, but I guess he got 81 million votes.
But when you say stuff like that, and then you have the CDC, which, how do you even trust them, but then they come out and talk about 75% of the COVID deaths have at least four comorbidities.
And you still have this fake White House set saying that this is the pandemic of the unvaccinated, that’s not helping the conversation.”
For Rodgers, the bulk of the vaccine issue comes down to censorship:
“When in the course of human history has the side that’s doing the censoring and trying to shut people up and make them show papers and marginalize a part of the community ever been [the correct side]?
We’re censoring dissenting opinions? What are we trying to do? Save people from being able to determine the validity on their own or to listen and to think about things and come to their own conclusion?
Freedom of speech is dangerous now if it doesn’t align with the mainstream narrative? That’s, I think first and foremost, what I wanted people to understand, and what people should understand is that there’s censorship in this country going on right now.
When you censor and make pariahs out of anybody who questions what you believe in or what the mainstream narrative is, that doesn’t make any sense.”
The Green Bay Packers are set to take on the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Divisional round today.
Rodgers, a Northern California native, was famously asked on draft day in 2005 if he was disappointed that the San Francisco 49ers didn’t draft, and his response was epic:
