How dare you Americans choose to invoke Freedom! This makes MSNBC’s Zeeshan Aleem upset
Why ‘Freedom’ Is Winning Out Over Covid
It should be noted that MSNBC keeps changing the headline. The above is what Real Clear Politics pulled this morning. It now reads with subhead
Republicans ignored Covid to protect Trump. Now they’re motivated by something worse.
Call it the “Make Covid Great Again” agenda.
Remember when Pelosi and AOC and other Dems were saying to go visit your Chinese takeout place, just get out there and live your life? And liberal news outlets were saying COVID was no worse than the flu? And mad when Trump implemented travel bans? What Aleem means is that most Republican govs didn’t instituted significant restrictions on the citizens
A striking number of the top Republican contenders for a 2024 presidential run are increasingly bucking commonsense measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and framing them as tyrannical, even as the delta variant of the coronavirus wreaks havoc on their own constituents. Call it the “Make Covid Great Again” agenda — a commitment to gamble on people’s lives to stand out as conservative leaders and stay at the front of the pack for a potential White House bid.
He means masking. Which didn’t work. And won’t work. And will simply harden the positions of people who could be convinced to get the vaccine into saying “nope, what’s the point?”
“In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott has banned local governments from implementing mask requirements even as he pleads for emergency medical help in combating a surge in coronavirus cases from the delta variant. In South Dakota, Gov. Kristi Noem welcomed hundreds of thousands of revelers to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, which last year bore characteristics of a superspreader event. And in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis is waging war on school districts seeking to defy his executive order prohibiting mask mandates for students — while the state’s rates of hospitalization from Covid surge past the worst levels of 2020.”
Masking wouldn’t stop this. No mention of Obama’s big party and the skyrocketing infection rate in the Martha’s Vineyard county
But while some Republicans have sought to heed expert advice about Covid-19, it has become a mark of political ambition to paint basic public health protocols to prevent Covid transmission as a Trojan horse for totalitarianism.
We all saw the way many Democrats acted since this began. And we all see them play Mask Theater, putting on the masks for the cameras and taking them off when out of view. Has Aleem asked why press secretary Jenn Psaki fails to wear a mask in violation of Biden’s mask mandate on federal property? Why Biden does so?
DeSantis, who has consistently strived to present himself a natural successor to Trump, warned against the specter of a “Faucian dystopia” at a right-wing conference this summer, calling for conservatives to say “no to lockdowns, no to school closures, no to restrictions and no [to] mandates.”
So, it seems Aleem and Dems want those things?
2024 is certainly a long way off, but in American politics, the presidential race is more or less ever-present. (It’s terrible, but it’s just another exceptional feature of our political system and culture.) There are already a lot of signs that Republican jockeying for the spotlight will further politicize measures to protect the public in a bid to claim the mantle of fiercest freedom fighter. In the meantime, the public will pay the price for their callous extremism.
Freedom is bad in Liberal World.
America’s Elites Want To Control You More Than They Want To Control COVID
Are you wealthier, freer, or happier than you were a year and a half ago? Assuming you aren’t on the board of a large multinational corporation or don’t belong to the political establishment, it’s almost certain that your life, just like the lives of millions of other Americans, has gotten harder since the onset of the pandemic.
But while average Americans have suffered, our elites have taken advantage of the pandemic at every turn to enact new measures that fulfill their overarching agenda. There’s perhaps no example more obvious or egregious than the seismic changes to our voting process that’ve led many to question the legitimacy of our electoral system, but other power grabs have had more acute consequences in our day-to-day lives.
The government-mandated shutdowns, for example, have laid waste to any belief that our freedom to peaceably assemble, even to take part in religious ceremonies, is still intact. For many more, particularly children, lockdowns have stunted their educational and social development, all of which is a small price to pay for our elites to pay for what some are calling “one of the greatest wealth transfers in history.â€
It’s worth reading the rest.
Read: MSNBC Seems Upset That Freedom Is Winning Over Chinese Flu Fascism »