ROGER SIMON: Djokovic Actually the Big Winner in Australia—and So Are We.

Australia’s schizoid and sadistic treatment of Djokovic became just another symbol of this multi-national mess. But it could mark its opera bouffe apotheosis.

That is why I agree with Richard Fernandez of the Belmont Club, a Sydney resident and old friend of mine, that a tremendous backlash is brewing in Oz and, I would certainly add, here in the United States as well, once COVID is over.

And, as I wrote earlier and many others have surmised, the Omicron variant is heralding that end, behaving as most viruses do at the end of a pandemic, weakening as it becomes more communicative. Soon enough it will be another irritation we must face, but rarely a fatal one.

The problem engendered by this is that much of the leadership in Sydney and Washington will be very reluctant to let go of it.

We see that all around us, particularly in the Biden administration where they cling to COVID-19 just as Obama claimed conservatives clung to their guns and religion, only more so.

Resistance, however, is building. What will be its watchword? Who will be the first to say “Mr. Biden, tear off that mask!”

Fernandez put the situation this way: “Already the signs of political disillusion are plain to see, from Joe Biden’s collapse in the polls, the SCOTUS rejection of his vaccine mandate, Boris Johnson’s slipping hold on power to Novak Djokovic’s amazing one-man stand against Australia’s vaccine visa policy: a worldwide storm is brewing and it will break over the political scene in 2022.”

Related: Australian Government Admits Letting Djokovic Stay Would’ve Undermined COVID Police State.