Sarah Palin owns herself by saying she will only get vaccinated ‘over her dead body’

Former Republican vice presidential candidate and governor of Alaska Sarah Palin has managed to own herself with her some very contradictory anti-vax rhetoric.

Palin, who ran for office alongside John McCain in 2008, doesn’t pop up too often in US media these days but she was arguably the first of the unapologetic and controversial conservatives to make it into mainstream media.

The 57-year-old doesn’t currently make many public appearances but she did show up at Turning Point USA’s “AmericaFest 2021” conference in Phoenix, Arizona.

As part of her conversation with Turning Point’s founder Charlie Kirk, the biggest topic was obviously the one thing that has gotten many conservatives’ backs up in the past 12 months: the Covid vaccine.

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Much like other Republicans, Palin is refusing to take the Covid vaccine even in the face of the omicron variant which is quickly spreading throughout the globe.

Palin’s choice of words though, when protesting the vaccine, left a lot to be desired: “It’ll be over my dead body that I’ll have to get a shot. I will not do that. I won’t do it, and they better not touch my kids either.”

We don’t really need to point out the obvious here but saying that you will only a vaccine – designed to keep you alive against a virus that has already killed more than 5 million people – when you are dead, feels like the cognitive dissonance that only someone on the US right-wing could come up with.

Needless to say, mockery of Palin’s contradictory quote has been rife on social media.

What makes Palin’s statement even more confusing is that she actually tested positive for Covid in March and even told everyone to take the necessary precautions to stop the spread of the illness.

At the time she said: “I strongly encourage everyone to use common sense to avoid spreading this and every other virus out there,” she says in her statement. “There are more viruses than there are stars in the sky, meaning we’ll never avoid every source of illness or danger … but please be vigilant, don’t be frightened, and I advise reprioritizing some personal time and resources to ensure as healthy a lifestyle as you can create so when viruses do hit, you have at least some armour to fight it.”

What a difference nine months makes...