I tend to think that all politicians are at least a little bit corrupt. Most don’t start out that way but the instant they win their election, the switch gets flipped and they immediately start thinking about getting reelected again. So, regardless of the issue they face, their decision is clouded by the impact it will have on their chance of staying in office. This isn’t a Left or Right problem. All politicians are affected by it. This phenomenon/affliction is very apparent if you look at the response to the coronavirus.
No reasonable person would believe that the virus is “issue-aware” and affects one group of protesters more than another (or, apparently, skips one group entirely). Further, no reasonable person would believe that politicians believe that either. So what’s going on? The politicians that pretended that the BLM protests were somehow less dangerous than going to the beach, or more important than protesting/supporting other causes, were simply playing the odds. By supporting the BLM protests, they believe that it gives them the best chance to get people to vote for them and therefore get reelected.
We’ve been told that we’re not allowed to have funerals. But, there were numerous politicians front-and-center at George Floyd’s funeral along with thousands of other people. Did they attend his funeral because they care deeply about George Floyd and the BLM cause? Maybe partly. But it also made a great photo op and gave them a chance to “virtue signal” in front of a lot of potential voters.
When was the last time you remember a politician admitting they were wrong? I’m sure it’s happened at least once throughout the course of history but I honestly can’t remember a single time where an elected official admitted that they made a mistake.
The numbers they’ve relied on to justify their overreaction to the coronavirus are wrong. They’re not even close to accurate. I’ve already written about how the number of new cases is an irrelevant number so I won’t report it here. Though that’s still being used as a reason for re-closing businesses. But I will mention again that most of the people who are currently catching the disease are not getting sick. So, while the number of new cases is on the rise (although there is no accurate count), the death rate continues to trend downward. Though no one know exactly what the death rate is, if you look at only the raw (and overinflated) number of cases and deaths, it is still below the predicted number.
The initial response to the coronavirus was based on flawed assumptions. The model they were using predicted the worst-case scenario which was wildly exaggerated. They used that model, and the panic it caused, to justify closing down businesses, forcing people to stay at home and ruining the financial well-being of tens of millions of Americans. And now they’re stuck going down that path. Because to change course would be to admit that they were wrong.
It’s obvious now that their initial “the sky is falling” reaction was wrong. It is true, some people die from the disease but many, many more people contract the disease and are just fine. But, instead of admitting they made a mistake, they’ve doubled down. They continue to rely on faulty statistics hoping that the general public won’t spot the problems with their “logic”.
Even if the politicians were to suddenly come to believe that everything should be reopened, they couldn’t act on it. Because a lot of people would be really pissed off. And they would never, ever get reelected. Can you imagine a politician saying “Sorry about ruining your business for no reason. My bad.”? I can’t. The best we could hope for is an accelerated reopening of the economy as “more data becomes available”.
Likewise, if the politicians suddenly realized that the BLM movement is based on a faulty premise and is being used to advance the cause of Marxism rather than help the black community, they’d have a hard time walking back the support they’ve given to the movement. Because doing so would be admitting a mistake, and that would cost them the next election.
