Hysteria has kept woke Democrats in business for nearly six years.
It all began with Trump. To Democrats and their “mainstream” media echo chambers, he wasn’t merely a bad president. No, his cavalier way with facts (never before heard of in politics!), mean-spirited rhetoric (for the first time in history!) and impulse to rein in regulatory excess (lock him up!) made him a threat to democracy before he even took office.
The mania — including an obsession with Russia Russia Russia and the mistaken belief that Trump had colluded with Putin to win the presidency — drove progressives to CNN’s screaming chyrons like junkies toward smack.
By the time Trump truly did overstep — with his mendacious effort to delegitimize Joe Biden’s presidential victory in 2020 — the Democrats had moved on to a hysteria even more insidious. The pandemic, of course. Propelled by propaganda about infrequent, short-lived instances of “overwhelmed hospitals,” the fear factor gave cover for every woke pipedream. Normally sane people were so scared, they put up with locked-down stores, offices, restaurants, schools and still off-limits subway toilets. The government, without resistance, seized control over business, our social lives and even the number of inches between masked-up school kids.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo went so far as to limit movie theater capacity to exactly 33% even though he sent thousands of elderly COVID victims to certain deaths in nursing homes. This wasn’t “following the science.” Cuomo was, like his fellow power-hungry Democrats, high on public paranoia, issuing edicts based on whims. Biden even embarked on a $3 trillion remaking of American society — all in the name of a Covid “emergency,” of course.
Now, as the Omicron variant has waned, many in blue states are still clinging to life under the authoritarian umbrella. A January 2022 study showed that Democrats were much less likely than Republicans to attend a crowded party, indoor sporting event, hair salon or grocery store, even though a greater share of lefties have received the COVID-19 booster, and have almost no reason to worry about being hospitalized, much less dying. Earlier this month, Dr. Anthony Fauci said we’ll soon see the end of the “full-blown pandemic.” And, once that happens, what will the woke do next? How will they cope without COVID? Leftist Democrats will need to find a different bogeyman. But, rest assured, they will persist on chasing a bizarre agenda from Planet Woke.
Meanwhile, Democrats have little interest in the multitude of immediate life-and-death issues that actually keep Americans up at night. Skyrocketing blue-state crime has turned major metropolises across America into a free-fire zone. But many progressives remain committed to a mass effort to defund the police. Parts of San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City resemble homeless shantytowns. But progressive DAs don’t want to prosecute criminals or push anyone to clean up their act. Unchecked inflation is bringing ruin mainly to working-class families who once provided the Democratic Party’s bedrock support. All overblown, according to Biden and his team.
The nation needs a healthy, contentious rivalry between our two major parties. But with midterm elections just nine months away, the progressive left still doesn’t get American voters, and doesn’t want to either. Republicans, meanwhile, are smelling a November blowout — a distinct possibility that is, truly, the biggest thing Democrats should be hysterical about.