FOR THE PAST two years, the country has endured one failed COVID policy after another, but not without injury, and now we face a test of resiliency that requires bold and honest leadership to redirect the country back toward its foundations in freedom.
Lockdowns, which have been packaged into a variety of draconian policies, devastated our once free civilization. Measures such as school closures, hybrid learning environments, restrictions on sporting and cultural events, private business closures, travel restrictions, stay-at-home orders, religious institution closures, and curfews robbed us of joy and purpose without any discernible benefit.
According to a February meta-analysis from Johns Hopkins University, “lockdowns have had little to no public health effects [and] they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted. In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.”
Lockdowns as a public health policy bizarrely were based on nothing more than a simple hypothesis conjured up in a 14-year-old’s science project, yet public health experts in positions of governmental authority eagerly thrust this life-changing measure on the public and governors enforced it with threats of fines and imprisonment. I suppose no one can fault politicians in the early days of COVID, who faced enormous pressure from a terrified public to do something, but proper disease management likely required capitalistic ideas such as searching for therapeutics and adequately staffing the health care system. Ultimately, history once again proved that a centralized, one-sized-fits-all mentality is not suitable for human nature and results in misery every single time it’s tried.
Once enough time had passed to prove the failure of lockdown policies, leaders with common sense started to unwind the damage, but for the left, the lockdowns and the subsequent mask and vaccine mandates had become a religion of virtue signaling and control. In New Hampshire, Democrats campaigned on these failed policies during the 2020 election, as well as a healthy dose of Trump-bashing, and voters flatly rejected them. Republicans regained the majority in the state Legislature by campaigning on reopening society and fixing the ruined economy it left in its wake. New Hampshire became the only state in 2020 to flip both the state House and Senate to the right.
Elsewhere, fear seemed more entrenched and the left continued its reign of terror. Democrat politicians enacted rolling lockdowns and mandated measures against all science and reason, destroying people’s lives and livelihoods as well as their physical, emotional and psychological health. Taking up the mantle of excessive spending, they then decided to throw even more fiat money to the wind while continuing to subvert the economic engine that funds government spending. It’s no surprise we’re facing the worst supply chain failures and inflation in decades. The consequences of these catastrophic policies will haunt us for generations.
As this virus has evolved to become less virulent, public opinion has shifted further against COVID policies. Most people now have natural immunity or have been vaccinated, and they would like their lives back. Democrats are now in tactical retreat, hoping to save themselves from a slaughter in the upcoming election. Sadly, Republicans seem far too willing to allow Democrats to slink off into the night rather than publicly rebuke them for their policies that cost so many lives and livelihoods.
Far too many Granite Staters lost their jobs, shut down their businesses and watched their children stagnate in their educational and emotional development. Many suffered from severe mental health breakdowns, and some tragically took their own lives. Others lost their lives to treatable and preventable diseases because they weren’t able to access proper health care to diagnose and treat them. The federal government continues to harass health care workers and the military with vaccine mandates, and many private corporations have succumbed to the mandate culture as well. Now, we’re all suffering under crippling inflation, making economic recovery an even more distant hope.
Democrats championed the failed policies that got us here, employing psychological abuse to force us into compliance. They and their media minions called us “selfish” for wanting to provide for ourselves and educate our children. They bullied us with accusations of “killing grandma” when we sought irreplaceable human contact. They told us to sacrifice for the “common good,” yet again, and subject ourselves to experimental medication just to get back to work. Republicans have stood by and let them do this for far too long, but the time has come to say “Enough!” There must be a day of reckoning. Those who promoted these measures must be held accountable. Our future depends on it.