GET READY FOR ROILING POPULIST COVID LOCKDOWN BACKLASH:

The backlash is coming.

It already seems clear that the first major political and cultural eruption of the Biden years will be a roiling populist backlash against the next round of COVID-19 lockdowns and other restrictions on ordinary life.

We saw this sentiment play out in sporadic anti-lockdown demonstrations last spring, and it has driven ongoing resistance to masks. But it is, in all likelihood, about to reach a entirely new level — fueled by exhaustion with the virus, infuriating displays of elite hypocrisy and the shattered credibility of the public-health establishment.

The ascension of Joe Biden will add force to the reaction. It is an iron law of American politics that whichever party doesn’t control the presidency will suspect the other of plotting to impose a tyranny, so the fear and loathing of COVID-19 restrictions, somewhat muted on the right while Donald Trump was president, will deepen and intensify.

The right’s populism and limited-government impulse, which separated in the Trump years, will presumably be reunited in the push against lockdowns in a way that they haven’t been since the days of the Tea Party.

“Lockdowns. Mask police. Curfews. What about freedom?” asked conservative Rep. Jim Jordan in a recent tweet, forecasting things to come.

Why would there be any backlash, when AP is “reporting” that “The pandemic has forced people to spend more time with themselves than ever. It has reshaped and broadened the way many think about how they treat themselves — what has come to be called self-care. People are baking, gardening and learning new skills.” Lockdowns are a wonderful thing in the AP collective mindset!

As Twitchy asks, “Remember when the AP was something you could trust? Good times.” Yes, but that was quite a long time ago. At the end of the otherwise calm spring of 2008, AP was busy reminding people that “Everything Seemingly is Spinning Out of Control,” to help prime the pump for the coming Obama era.