Biden’s Vaccine Push Aligns Him With a Fed-Up, Vaccinated Majority

As the president took forceful new steps to pressure Americans to get inoculated, he argued that they were urgently needed health measures. In his allies’ view, they were also good politics.

FAIRFAX, Va. — Terry Orie, a 61-year-old real estate agent, has skipped vacations because of the pandemic. She has canceled plans with friends. She has bristled at the frustrations of communicating with clients when everybody is wearing masks. Ms. Orie is fed up with the coronavirus’s effects on her life. And she knows exactly whom to blame. “I don’t get it, I don’t get why they don’t wear masks and why they won’t get vaccinated,” she said Friday, sitting outside a Whole Foods in Fairfax with her 14-year-old toy poodle, Tootsie. “People think it’s their God-given right to put everybody else’s health at risk.” After President Biden resisted comprehensive vaccine mandates for months, his forceful steps on Thursday to pressure the 80 million unvaccinated Americans to get their shots put him squarely on the side of what had been a fairly quiet but increasingly frustrated majority: vaccinated Americans who see the unvaccinated as selfishly endangering others and holding the country back.