There are two ways to go about looking at the Covid-19 pandemic....and the lockdowns....and the vaccinations....and everything else associated with the last three years. I'll describe both. The first is what actually happened.
The most important election ever.....(or so we were told....that's what we have been told for every election in the past thirty years....the coming 2024 election is now the most important election)....the most important election ever for America.....Trump vs Biden....was just beginning the primary season. Trump was riding high....so high! The February 4, 2020 State of the Union Address was to be more of a coronation. The election would obviously be a blowout with the economic statistics. The Republican side of the aisle was having a party....the only down side was that Rush was ill....but he was there and awarded his Presidential Medal of Freedom. Surely he was deserving of such an honor....after decades of holding the line....even though he missed it entirely with Donald Trump.
Amidst all the fanfare there was a concern. A virus had been detected in China....could it be the pandemic that so many virologists had warned of for so long. No....we weren't going to let anything get in the way of Trump's reelection.....nothing was as important as that. Even John MacArthur had stood before his congregation and boldly stated...."There is no Pandemic." Trump blundered his way for months....Fauci and others doing their best to listen to him in the briefings....before giving the real information.
We all were waiting for good news on a vaccine....then that news came....and we were thankful....this was before the narrative changed and we were told how evil vaccinations were. There were difficult lockdowns....and the economy was surely going to be hurt. The new republican elites began to panic.... for this was going to affect the November election. All the great economic figures.....(forget the $26 trillion dollar debt)....were going to disappear. Trump might lose because voters always voted their wallets.
Something had to be done. The reality of the election had to take precedence over the pandemic. Lockdowns were now evil. Vaccinations were now evil. The experts were now evil. All of a sudden....churches that never preach the gospel of Jesus Christ....were great bastions of the faith.....as they were being closed temporarily....but plenty of wonderful and faithful churches closed their doors....and waited patiently for the Lord. We are still doing all of this today....as we somehow have to appear as the heroes of the pandemic....the pandemic in which we fought all the way those with lifetimes of experience preparing for and dealing with viruses. We have to go after Dr. Fauci....anything we can possibly get on him....to cover up what we had done.
What we should have done is come together as a people and focus on the coronavirus. In order to do that we needed to come to grips with the fact that there was indeed a real pandemic. We never really did that. We attacked anything that the now....'other side'....tried to do. Vaccinations became evil. Masks were persecution. Lockdowns were concentration camps. Dr. Fauci....who had given his life to the study of viruses....and who also was awarded the same Presidential Medal of Freedom....by a republican president....became to us another Dr. Mengele. We destroyed his reputation....evangelicals tagged along with the lynching. We will destroy anyone who gets in our way....because that is what we do in our new incarnation as MAGA evangelicals.
These pandemics happen occasionally. We are not special....exempt from world wars and pandemics....as we think that we are. We now need to see how it started....but not in a Stalinesque fashion....with show trials.
We can and should examine what was done during the height of the pandemic. Were mistakes made....other than Trump's? What if mistakes were made? Do we treat them as crimes? It was a pandemic....the very nature of responding to emergencies is problematic. What are we going to do when the nation goes to war? Do we threaten congressional hearings to throw generals in jail?
What are we going to do if there is another pandemic? Well we already made that decision. We're not going to do anything. We have become experts at raw data....analysis not being necessary....and scientific literacy only for wonks and eggheads. How long until we ban the scientific method....along with civics and truth and fairness and debate?
Addendum: How much empathy have we shown lately for the children in the Ukraine…..or over the past few decades….the children in Syria….or any one of a number of other trouble spots….but have our children wear a mask and we are as heartbroken for their suffering….and their psyche might be damaged? We have used the word….’snowflakes’….for decades….but is that what we are now? Give us five minutes and we will find an article supporting our alarm....for there is always an article somewhere....that we will copy and display for others to see! We used to be frustrated by the Left for doing this...but we have become no better than they are.
