The polling firm that proudly served Joe Biden in 2020 has some advice for Democrats. Impact Research wrote a memo, which is circulating on Capitol Hill, alerting Democrats that no one likes their policies regarding COVID-19. Prepare for the most comprehensive attempt to retcon the last two years we have seen yet as Democrats now understand that their political fate depends on embracing reality.
Impact Research is advocating for Democrats to declare that their leadership has defeated the threat from COVID-19 and claim the win. The title of the memo is “Taking the Win Over COVID-19.” From the memo:
After two years that necessitated lockdowns, travel bans, school closures, mask mandates, and nearly a million deaths, nearly every American finally has the tools to protect themselves from this virus. It’s time for Democrats to take credit for ending the COVID crisis phase of the COVID war, point to important victories like vaccine distribution and providing economic stability to Americans, and fully enter the rebuilding phase that comes after any war.
There was no war. There were artificial economic and education shutdowns that many public health experts objected to from early in the pandemic. Once it became clear that the virus was a serious threat to people over the age of 65 who had other health issues and not the younger, healthier populations, thousands of health experts, researchers, and clinicians signed on to the Great Barrington Declaration in October 2020.
The document provided clear guidance to get low-risk younger adults back to work and children back to school. At the same time, it called for creativity and local action to protect the vulnerable until treatment or vaccines became available. Dr. Francis Collins and Dr. Anthony Fauci actively sought to discredit these ideas and maintain harsh restrictions. Vulnerable and elderly Americans died by the hundreds of thousands anyway.
The memo from Impact goes on from the introduction to make several strategic suggestions. The first is to “Declare the crisis phase of COVID over and push for feeling and acting more normal.” To support this idea, the consultants assert:
Democrats have a tremendous opportunity to claim an incredible, historic success – they vaccinated hundreds of millions of people, prevented the economy from going into freefall, kept small businesses from going under, and got people back to work safely.
Almost none of this is true. While hundreds of millions may have received vaccines, that achievement and the person leading the distribution began under President Trump. General Gus Perna was one of the few Trump administration holdovers, and he led the planning and distribution of vaccines under both presidents. And no one would have been vaccinated at all without Opearion Warp Speed, which was vaccinating one million Americans a day before Inauguration Day.