When dealing with politicians, the less logical the statement or action, the more political the statement or action. This truism is notably evident as we contend with the pandemic of COVID-19 and its attendant pandemic of illogic.
For example, Governors Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.), Gretchen Whitmer (D-Mich.), and Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.), have instituted continuing lockdowns—some of questionable state and federal constitutional validity—to defeat the novel coronavirus.
In Whitmer’s case, she has been notoriously lax about providing the sources of and the actual data driving her decision—now a unilateral one— to extend her emergency powers over the citizenry, not for the purpose of “flattening the curve” (which already has been done), but to prevent a hypothetical “second wave.”
One need not be a constitutional scholar to be concerned by the threat of a governor unilaterally imposing constitutionally dubious emergency powers to stop a hypothetical event; however, to be the victim of the pandemic of illogic, it seems one’s governor is required not to give a whit.
But all of these governors—and far too many others—have succumbed to the pandemic of illogic.
Why are these governors not giving more sober consideration to the urgency of opening up their economies? After all, more 33 million people are now unemployed; the societal consequences of this government-mandated economic depression are already manifesting themselves, including deaths; and state and local budgets are heading toward bankruptcy.
The governors say they will not risk one life to add a point to the Dow—or some similar pat talking point. As they well know, however, their own actions are presently and detrimentally impacting lives and livelihoods.
Why, then, are they risking more deaths and human despair? Is it just so their lockdowns can add another point to the dole?
No, the reason is far simpler: these governors are going to ransom their citizenry to avoid being held accountable for their mistakes—some of which have proven deadly.
The Left has defended the Chinese Communist Party to blame President Trump for the spread of the virus. This well suits the Left’s goal of defeating President Trump in November. It also allows governors such as Cuomo, Whitmer, and Newsom to demand the federal government—i.e., Trump—pay for the budget damage caused by their continued, egregious lockdowns. If the federal ransom is not forthcoming, these governors will allege Trump doesn’t care about the citizens of these states. Why? Because Trump won’t spend taxpayers’ money to cover for the unnecessary budgetary and economic damage done by these governors.
Worse, governors who responsibly have opened up their states’ economies after achieving the announced original goal of flattening the curve so hospitals were not overrun, will be punished for their wise leadership. That so many of these governors are Republicans will simply allow these Democratic governors to whine they are being politically discriminated against by a GOP administration in Washington. The elitist media water carriers will be happy to amplify this tendentious tripe.
But these are only some of the monetary consequences of these governors’ failures. Ultimately, they can be resolved. There are consequences of these governors’ actions that can never be remedied or redeemed.
At the very time their administrations are demanding citizens be locked down to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, the administrations of Cuomo, Whitmer, and Newsom have pursued policies to lock in COVID-19 positive senior citizens with the most vulnerable amongst us—their fellow senior citizens.
This illogic can be ascribed, in part, to the abject failure of the models that predicted the hospitals would be overrun and the graveyards would be overflowing. (That these same wildly inaccurate modelers are still relied upon for anything other than a cautionary tale about prognosticating a pandemic, is yet another example of the pandemic of illogic.)
Lost in all of this is the fact that one of the first instances to come to the public’s awareness of the virus was the story of how it devastated residents of a Washington state nursing home. Since then we also have seen new treatment facilities rapidly become available after the onset of the pandemic and now many of these have a low census or have already closed due to lack of patients.
Nevertheless, these governors’ injurious policies remain in force. As the pandemic of illogic spread and grew deadly, family members couldn’t visit their loved ones in senior facilities, while these same governors sent infected seniors back to facilities tragically ill-equipped to care for them or prevent the spread of the virus to their other residents. The deaths of senior citizens then mounted.
In this pandemic of illogic, galling ironies abound: Newsom announces the virus’s spread in California came from a salon, but is mum about his administration’s role in spreading the virus among California’s highly vulnerable senior population.
Cuomo, whose state is responsible for much of the spread of the virus throughout the nation, is baffled by how his residents who have been locked down are still getting the virus, but does not bother to muse upon how senior citizens who also had been locked down in their facilities have been infected. This is likely because the answer is due to the actions of his administration.
And while Michigan’s senior citizens are dying due to her administration’s actions, Whitmer does in fact cite them—to justify expanding her own powers without legislative authorization.
These governors and their media abettors will lay the lethal consequences of their decisions during the pandemic and their continued lockdowns at the doorstep of President Trump. It is not logical. It is political. And, yes, it proves yet another truism regarding the Left: they project their sins unto their victims.