WWDD (What Will Dolly Do)?

By Baxter

If you were a hotshot young physician, ready to embark on a stellar career, would you accept a job in the state of Tennessee right now?

We cats know we sound like a broken record. But we don't understand why major employers in red states aren't crying foul on Republican policies that make those states less attractive places to live and work.

Recruiters at companies in Texas, Oklahoma, Florida and South Dakota, just to name a few, should be aghast — how will they convince talented young people to relocate there when the GOP is diminishing the quality of life? What millennials would be interested in living somewhere they can't easily vote or get birth control or an abortion? What smart professionals would be enticed by a state where college students are surveyed on their political beliefs, or where they can get run over with impunity by a MAGAt with a pickup truck?

And now, it's Tennessee, whose department of health has just stopped its outreach to children and teens about vaccines — including COVID — and has dumped its medical director for opposing the change.

Here's a fun fact: Of the top 50 employers in Tennessee, nearly half are healthcare providers or medically affiliated. Are they going to stay silent? More to the point, will vaccine promoter and benefactor Dolly Parton? We cats hope not. In the meantime, we HISS.