Democrats were against the COVID vaccines before they were for them and then mandated them. Now, they may be laying the groundwork for a huge reversal to oppose those vaccines again, or at least to back off their power-grabbing, job-destroying mandates.

Before the 2020 election, Democrats and their allies in the media cast doubt upon any potential vaccine that Donald Trump had a hand in creating. “I will say that I would not trust Donald Trump,” opined Kamala Harris on a potential vaccine. “I will not take his word for it.” Numerous such examples abound.

As usual, Democrats wanted to have their cake and eat it too. Joe Biden won largely by hammering home the false claim that “Trump has done nothing to stop the coronavirus.” After the election, Biden eventually claimed credit for the COVID vaccines.

Democrats didn’t stop with sowing mistrust, though. According to lefty journalist Nate Silver, “liberal public health elites” pressured Pfizer to “change its original protocols” so its vaccine approval wouldn’t happen until after the election. Sure enough, Silver said the push from the Left “had the convenient side-effect of delaying any vaccine announcement until after the election” — timing we immediately questioned.

Now, leftists are complaining that Trump’s Operation Warp Speed went too fast on the vaccines. For obvious reasons, Trump administration officials wanted a vaccine announcement before the election. But congressional Democrats are still playing Captain Ahab and are out to get Moby Trump for … something. In a report released by the House select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis, Democrats allege that Trump stalled FDA efforts to extend vaccine studies, thereby rushing approval. He also tweeted a few things about the FDA and others. Worse, Democrats say Trump pressed for official reauthorization of a certain drug that “fact-checkers” have determined shall not be named (on conservative websites) but that starts with “hydroxy” and ends with “chloroquine.”

“These assaults on our nation’s public health institutions undermined the nation’s coronavirus response,” thundered Congressman James Clyburn, “and are precisely why we must never again settle for leaders who prioritize politics over keeping Americans safe.” Clyburn, as you may recall, salvaged the Biden campaign in South Carolina, so you might say he has a personal stake in this. As already noted, Democrats are hardly pure as the wind-driven snow when it comes to politicizing the pandemic response.

Besides, as Silver put it, “‘Trump pushed for vaccine approvals too fast’ is the worst possible critique of the Trump administration’s COVID policy.”

So, why would Democrats be targeting Trump for “rushing” a vaccine that they eventually wanted mandated? And why now?

Could it be that Joe and Jill Biden are both recovering from double bouts of COVID despite having every booster shot available? (“Pandemic of the unvaccinated” indeed. The novel vaccines have proven to be far less effective than advertised at stopping infection.) Could it be the myocarditis and other health issues among vaccinated and otherwise very healthy individuals? What about all those job losses or school restrictions from mandating a vaccine with such shortcomings and possible side-effects?

To be sure, almost everything Donald Trump does is at least in some way about Donald Trump. He wanted to win reelection, and spearheading a record-fast, pandemic-stopping vaccine would have helped. And as we warned early on in the pandemic, his erratic handling of the response would cost him the election. The irony is that Democrats are most irked by the fact that Trump behaves like they do.

The Democrats’ newfound skepticism is entirely political. The vaccines were not a pandemic panacea, and Democrats need a scapegoat to help them back off while absolving their megadonors in the pharmaceutical industry of responsibility. Trump is that scapegoat for “disrupting the science,” or something.

Footnote: Moderna is suing Pfizer for patent infringement on its “innovative mRNA technology platform” used to develop the COVID vaccine. Pfizer has earned $22 billion on its vaccine compared to Moderna’s $10.4 billion. We can now add legal fun to the political wrangling.