Two Years Too Late, Dems Follow the Science to Save Midterm Chances
Last week, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky announced that the agency she oversees will begin prioritizing hospital numbers as the metric to guide COVID-19 restrictions. There is even a rumor swirling that the CDC will soon lift its recommendation for masking indoors.
Though this is good news, the CDC’s shift in focus is not to be lauded. Neither are the decisions that have been made in states like New Jersey, Connecticut, and New York to drop COVID-19 mandates. Not only are these decisions not praiseworthy — they are suspicious and deserving of voters’ careful scrutiny.
After nearly two years of upending lives, destroying businesses through lockdowns, and permanently scarring a generation of students with school closures in the name of safety, Democrats are reversing course at lightning speed. Does anyone else have whiplash? This is the party of Karen, who it seems only yesterday was telling us that folks who eat indoors or opt out of wearing masks are “literally killing people.”
So what gives? Why are Democrats now suggesting that we learn to live with the virus, as if they weren’t the ones who fueled the flames of COVID-19 hysteria and perpetuated lockdowns far beyond what was ever helpful or necessary?
There are two reasons why Democrats are giving us whiplash with their COVID-19 stances. First, public opinion is souring on COVID-19 mandates. Americans are itching for a real post-pandemic society that resembles life before the outbreak, even if the virus will be sticking around.
Piling onto the public’s disillusionment with the Democratic Party is the disaster that is President Joe Biden, who brainlessly promised that he would “defeat” the virus and is facing approval ratings that keep sinking lower and lower.
This leads us to the second reason. Democrats know that if they don’t turn things around quickly, they are about to face an ugly reckoning in the midterm elections.
But as Democrats remove masks from their campaign ads in an attempt to cover up their cruel mask tyranny and lockdown hysterics, voters must not forget that Democrats are the ones who prolonged and instituted nightmare lockdowns and mandates in the first place.
What took Democrats roughly two years to do, Republican leaders have been doing since the onset of the pandemic. They correctly looked to hospitalization numbers as the metric to guide reopenings and mandates. Even so, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp was attacked by Democrats and the mainstream media for opening his state in April 2020, despite the fact that his decision was in line with the Coronavirus Task Force’s phased reopening guide.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was also unfairly made into the Left’s punching bag for reopening his state in June 2020, when hospitalizations and case numbers were on the downslope. Republicans by and large backed reopen protests across the country.
Research shows us that lockdowns don’t work, and as more Americans wake up to this truth, Democrats are reeling. In light of this evidence, their COVID-19 track record stands out not just as anti-science, but as incredibly inhumane.
They made decisions based on feelings and deprived people of their livelihoods, all to keep their power trip going. But hey, at least disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo got an Emmy out of it, right?
“Follow the science,” they said. If Democrats ever try to tell you that theirs is the party of science again, the only appropriate response would be to laugh in their faces. Fifteen days to slow the spread has turned into nearly two years.
As we head into the midterm elections, Democrats will try to repudiate and bury the role they played in ruining lives. But Americans know better and will remember Democrats’ grave sins at the ballot box, even as Democrats try to take credit for the ultimate unmasking.
Adam Brandon is the president of FreedomWorks and the author of “A Republic, Not a Democracy: How to Restore Sanity in America.
