Patrick J. Buchanan
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
The protesters seem to be saying: We deplore the losses and know the risks, but we cannot live our lives behind closed doors in our homes until the elites tell us, as though we were children, when we may go out in the yard.
On March 24, President Donald Trump said he wanted the country and the economy “opened up and just raring to go by Easter.”
Easter came and went. And Trump was mocked for being aspirational and unrealistic. Yet, with Ascension Thursday at hand, 40 days after Easter, the president seems to have been ahead of his time.
The country, as a whole, is, and has been, opening up. Sunday’s New York Times reports that, for weeks now, more than two-thirds of the states have been relaxing restrictions as Trump had urged.
The reasons: weariness with the lockdown and sheltering in place, a growing belief that the worst of the pandemic is behind us and undeniably positive news from several fronts in the coronavirus war.
“New Cases in U.S. Slow,” ran The New York Times top headline Sunday, adding the cautionary warning, “Posing Risks of Complacency.”
The facts suggest a positive trend. The number of newly confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. has been dropping for a month. The number of deaths has fallen from 2,200 a day in April to closer to 1,400 a day in mid-May. Several days last week recorded fewer than 1,000 deaths, an awful toll but a clear improvement over April.
As of Friday, the rate of new cases of the coronavirus was declining in 19 states and rising in only three. New Orleans and Detroit have seen sharp drops. The number of new cases in New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island has dropped. New cases in Cass County, Indiana, and Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where meatpacking plants had seen outbreaks, have declined.
“On eight of the past nine days,” said the Times, “there have been fewer deaths announced than there were seven days prior, indicating that the virus toll appears to be easing. More than half of the 24 counties that have recorded the most coronavirus deaths, including Oakland County, Mich., and Hartford County, Conn., are seeing sustained declines.”
Still, the thrust of the Times article was about the new crisis we will be courting, should we try to resume normal activities too soon. Do that, says the Times, and we could easily forfeit all the progress we have made.
Message: Social distancing, sheltering in place, wearing masks, working at home — the practices that broke the back of the pandemic — should be sustained for those able to do so.
Clearly, the opening in many states has been driven by popular protest and public demand. Crowds have ignored social distancing to demonstrate for an end to the shutdown. Protesters have refused to wear masks and engaged in the time-honored practice since the ’60s of civil defiance and disobedience.
The protesters seem to be saying: We deplore the losses and know the risks, but we cannot live our lives behind closed doors in our homes until the elites tell us, as though we were children, when we may go out in the yard.
Hence, the next question we are all likely to confront:
If there is a sudden resurgence of the coronavirus, a second wave, and the media elite and blue state governors demand a new shutdown, a new closure of beaches, parks, shops, restaurants and churches, will the people of this republic comply with those demands or defy them?
Will the nation answer back to the elites: We did that. We sheltered in place. We wore the masks. We socially distanced. We stayed in our homes. We stayed home from work. We have done all we were told to do to contain the virus. But, now, with the shutdown having put 36 million Americans on unemployment and sunk our GDP to Depression-era levels, we’re going back to work.
The political divide has already begun to appear.
Among those making the case for ending the shutdown and reopening the country and economy will be Trump, red state governors like Ron DeSantis in Florida and Brian Kemp in Georgia, conservatives in Congress and populists.
The proponents of a second shutdown will be liberal governors and mayors, the mainstream media and the Nancy Pelosi wing of Congress.
It should not go unmentioned that the latter’s political interests are best served the longer the shutdown endures and the worse the economic situation on Nov. 3. If the economy has failed to begin a robust recovery by fall, the greater the odds that Joe Biden wins the White House.
Yet, even if the pandemic returns in the fall, the establishment cannot keep the country closed indefinitely.
Prediction: If the people conclude they have done all they can do to mitigate the suffering from a virus they cannot eradicate, they will resist the imposition of another shutdown, and the establishment will have neither the will nor ability to push them back into their homes.
Ultimately, the people will decide when this shutdown ends, and when a plurality so concludes, the elites will be swept aside.
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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
The American people should not have gone along with the first lock down. The lock downs were done illegally, the Gov. had no authority
If it were strictly government and media, I’d go along with a permanent lockdown.
Or perhaps a lockup would be even better. 🙂
As there is no test for covid-19 and as doctors are instructed to put it on death certificates, we are unlikely ever to find out the truth. Apart of course from the fact that nobody seems to be dying of anything else. The graph for Sweden for total deaths for the first few months of this year, charted over a 20-year period shows that, if anything, there is a slight downturn in 2020.
The sooner more people wake up to the fact that they have been had big time, the better things will be for everyone.
It isn’t a matter of “elites” telling the citizenry when they can go back out in the yard. This is a public health crisis. The actions being taken are intended to protect the entire society. It remains a crisis today because of the incompetent response of American leadership. Trump insisted from the beginning that there was nothing to worry about. He claimed that it was “nothing worse than a bad case of flu.” The first deaths from the Corona virus occurred on the same day in South Korea and the US. South Korea took extraordinary public health measures and effectively… Read more »
the actions being taken are to protect the banks, the elites and theeir ill-gotten wealth – fixed it for you
Apparently you forgot that Trump banned travel from China in late January. It was in the middle of the Impeachment trial for non existent laws and the House prosecutor’s were trying to make the trial last as long as possible and offered up a slew of witnesses wanted. If they had gotten their way the trial might still be going on and during the trial the Senate is forbidden to carry out any other business. The meaning of this is that the Covid-19 virus would have spread and there would have been nothing the Federal government could have done as… Read more »
From the information so far, the States that have opened up are seeing marked reductions in cases. If one was a contrarian one could make the argument that lock down and isolation actually made the situation worse. I live in Kentucky farm country. Our few cases came from the county seat. I was too busy painting the house, repairing my deck, mowing my over 1/2 acre of land and begrudgingly soaking up a ton of Vitamin D. I also have a full home gym since we figured it was cheaper than a gym subscription over time. Oh, and we are… Read more »
There is no pandemic just as there is no real justification for the US ‘War on Terror’. It’s another cover for massive asset theft and for furthering the financial and ideological interests of the post-WWII US neo-liberal globalist bloc.
The Flu causes many thousands of deaths all over the World every year and we don’t lockdown the population and we can’t do it for this. We have to bite the bullet and open up. A major portion of deaths from the Flu and COVID-19 are in Nursing Homes and those over 65 and those with many medical problems. It is the same with the Flu. Those who recover don’t get it again. End lockdown.
Pat fails to mention that, despite being Republican or Democrat, a majority of Americans in every poll has supported the lockdowns and social distancing. The minority who don’t seem to understand science or pandemics are clamoring for “opening up” before any of the states have met the 14-day guideline that the WH itself suggested. If we do have a second wave, there will be no need for “blue” or “red” governors to act — companies will do what the meat packing industry did: shut down voluntarily due to a massive infection and death rate. If that’s what the fringe minority… Read more »
Put the best anti-viral into your sinus and lungs where this virus grows….breath the vapors of ethyl alcohol. You can buy liquor made for human consumption, 190 proof or 95% EA, and taxed, as Ever-Clear. Put a small amount on a cloth, cup your hands and breath into the nose and mouth (careful it is strong).
PUT THE BEST ANTI-VIRAL THERE IS, AS A VAPOR, EXACTLY WHERE THE VIRUS GROWS…THE SINUS AND LUNGS.
Do not use denatured, Isopropyl or any other alcohol.