If He’s Elected, Biden Will Keep The Pandemic Going To Use Its Power
An erroneous idea is gaining steam on the right: that their consolation prize of a Biden election will be an 'end' to COVID-19. Parties other than Biden have too much invested in the pandemic to let that happen, however.
By Georgi Boorman
September 15, 2020
A comforting belief has found purchase among members of the right who’ve been demoralized by months of lockdown restrictions.
“Here’s a prediction for the November election,†Federalist political editor John Daniel Davidson wrote in these pages recently. “If Joe Biden wins, the coronavirus pandemic will all but disappear overnight.â€
As Davidson argues, “Keeping the country locked down in the name of the pandemic is a way for [Democratic mayors and governors] to hurt Trump, which is the only thing they really care about. Once he’s gone, the rationale for lockdowns, mask mandates, and doom and gloom rhetoric is gone, too.â€
As tempting as it is to believe there’s a consolation prize for a Biden-Harris win, this argument ignores one of the key truisms of politics: Politicians seek power, and leftist ones especially. The pandemic response has handed Democrats a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to grow dependence on government, thereby establishing permanent entitlements and buying votes; pass pork-barrel spending for special interests under cover of pandemic relief; and leverage reopenings of businesses, churches, and schools to check more things off their hard-left wishlist, from killing the economy to address climate change to defunding the police.
What leftist would want to put the brakes on this bullet train to woke nanny-statism? Even if Biden is mostly using the pandemic to drag Trump, other parties at all levels of government have vested interests in continuing to stifle American life.
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https://thefederalist.com/2020/09/15/if-hes-elected-biden-will-keep-the-pandemic-going-to-use-its-power/
