For Some Michigan Socialists, Whitmer Didn’t Go Far Enough During Covid
Lockdowns and masking might never have ended if these folks were in charge
How was your Covid?
If you liked it when the world stopped turning, the economy stopped humming, and kids stopped learning, by order of the governor, you would love Michigan if the socialists ran it.
Many socialists think the government didn’t go far enough in their restrictions.
A new poll commissioned by Michigan Enjoyer found that almost 45% of the 600 likely voters polled are willing to give grace to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. They think she did the best she could with the information she had.
Whitmer has made this argument herself, though she can admit “the information she had” was “very little” or “very bad.”
Another 36%, including myself, believe that Covid restrictions went too far. I think it was always foolish to say that 10 million Michiganders should react the same way to the virus, without considering individual risk factors.
Whitmer says America needed a “national plan” during Covid, while ignoring that 98% of Michigan’s Covid spending came from the feds. I believe we needed 10 million individual plans, not for everybody to act as if a bad flu would kill them.
For socialists, it’s a much different story. Many of them don’t think Whitmer went hard enough.
While 84% of liberals believe Whitmer did the best she could with the info she had, only 64% of socialists think so. But another 28% of socialists don’t believe Whitmer went far enough.
A Boston Globe story traveled the world this month. A lesbian bar in Greenfield, Massachusetts, called the Last Ditch Bar and Arts Venue, relaxed its Covid masking policy over the summer.
It didn’t ban masks. It didn’t rescind the mask policy forever. For one day per week, it made KN-95 mask optional. That’s it.
The backlash was immediate, and harsh. The bar’s customers turned on it, calling the bar’s owners ableist and elitist and accusing them of trying to kill its patrons.
The problem with the hysterical Covid response is that some people took the authority figures on TV seriously. And literally. They believe that a KN-95 mask and the 11th booster shot are the only barrier from certain death.
And when those same authority figures traveled widely, stopped wearing masks, and stopped talking about Covid, the Covid hysterical stayed in the Punxsutawney of the mind, a permanent Groundhog Day where it was always March 2020—and don’t you dare flip the page on the calendar.
There are people who, as a result of Covid hysteria, will never not wear masks. Even when they drive alone.
They refuse to breathe free air. They view free air as a violence committed against them.
And if they had power, you, and your kids, and your business, would have to play by their rules.
This is not an academic concern, or unique to East Coast lesbians. Just as it was in 2020, the mainstream media is in on it too. The Boston Globe story might have portrayed the regulars of Last Ditch as the butt of the joke.
But others in the media see a return to Covid hysteria as a good piece of business. And if it helps Democrats turn President Donald Trump into a lame duck his last two years, all the better.
USA Today is trying to inspire a new round of Covid hysteria. The Detroit Free Press, which is under the Gannett umbrella with USA Today, has joined the effort.
The Detroit News, whose reporters explained Covid restrictions rather than challenge them, might soon join the party. It has the inclinations, and it’s also owned by Gannett.
USA Today published a supposedly scary-looking map tracing “Covid-19 wastewater viral activity levels,” which finds most every state in the union above the “baseline” for cases.
A bad day for the world is a good day for a newsroom. News is bad news. For many news outlets, 2020 was a record year for website traffic. When you have a captive audience, you get more clicks.
If there were another round of lockdowns, Flock cameras would make matters worse. Drivers wouldn’t just be captured on camera, their entire routine could be traced. They could be singled out for involuntary quarantine—stay home until the government says you can leave. Or perhaps an Australia-style quarantine, where they are interned into quarantine camps.
Laugh at the Last Ditch lesbians. That story is designed for you to laugh. But know that if socialists hold any more power than they now have, Covid round one was just the warmup. It was a test, and we failed it.
By the end of round two, we would no longer be the Michigan or the America you grew up in.
