Written by Michael Palomba
Just 5 days after the inauguration of President Joe Biden, California has lifted the regional stay-at-home order and curfew statewide.
While some may assume that this decision was made because of some sort of change in the science surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, that isn’t the case.
“COVID-19 is still here and still deadly, so our work is not over, but it’s important to recognize our collective actions saved lives and we are turning a critical corner,” Dr. Tomas Aragon, the state’s public health director, said in a statement.
The move to reopen comes after the state refused to share key COVID-19 data with the public, claiming it may be too complex for the public to interpret.
“At the moment the projections are not being shared publicly,” Department of Public Health spokeswoman Ali Bay said in an email.
While the science hasn’t changed and California still ranks dead last for vaccine distribution, the move to reopen is not surprising. Democratic governors from New York and Illinois quickly changed their tune about shutting down the economy once Biden won the election, and Gov. Newsom is just following suit.
On January 20th, NY Governor Andrew Cuomo tweeted that the cost of staying shutdown is “too high,” despite being a strong proponent of the shutdowns throughout former President Donald Trump’s term.
We simply cannot stay closed until the vaccine hits critical mass. The cost is too high. We will have nothing left to open. We must reopen the economy, but we must do it smartly and safely.#SOTS2021
— Archive: Governor Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) January 11, 2021
And just this weekend Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois lifted some of the COVID-19 restrictions that have been crippling the economy for the past few months. Again, as a quote from the Governor indicates, the science hasn’t changed
“The risk of a resurgence in Illinois, particularly with extremely contagious new variants, is serious,” Pritzker said on Friday.
While the act of crippling the economy, and making millions of Americans suffer the consequences, solely to make former President Trump’s economy look bad is despicable, it should not have been unexpected. Democrats have a history of using a crisis to their advantage, no matter the consequences.
In a 60 Minutes interview earlier this month, Nancy Pelosi attempted to blame the 8 month hold-up of a COVID-19 stimulus bill on Republicans, saying “But that was their obstruction.” However, she was quickly pushed into a corner by interviewer Lesley Stahl who said “No, yours too.” Ms. Pelosi quickly got defensive and continued attacking Republicans for the delay.
Ms. Stahl did not back down, saying “There’s a member of your caucus who said specifically we look like obstructionists and it was a mistake.”
Back in October, House Democrats passed an extremely partisan $2.2 trillion relief bill that had no chance in the Senate. Republicans, eager to help the American people, were willing to pass a smaller bill aimed at getting assistance directly to the people, and then work on another bill that would focus on other aspects of the pandemic, but Democrats were not on board.
Another motivation for the sudden about-face on the stay-at-home order in California is the recall campaign that Gov. Newsom is facing. The petition has over 1.2M signatures and poses a real threat to his power. So, now that Biden is president, Mr. Newsom is free to end the lockdown and all the bad publicity he’s received as a result. To sign the recall petition visit Rescue California’s website.
Democrats ‘never let a crisis go to waste’ mentality has caused harm to millions of Americans both in California and across the nation. While the consequences may end soon because Biden has been elected and Democrats are now eager for society to flourish, we must not forget how they abused their power for political gain and we must take that power back from these corrupt officials in 2022.
