It’s believed by many Republican political experts that the 2020 election broke for Biden because of the constant, relentless, exaggerated, and unfair criticism of Donald Trump’s response to the pandemic. Despite warnings that their unhinged rhetoric was hindering the government’s response to the pandemic, the Democrat’s hysteria — and the media’s complicity in that strategy — doomed the Trump campaign to defeat.
Now the Democrats are complaining that Republicans are deliberately undermining Joe Biden’s pandemic policies of vaccine mandates, mask-wearing, and other COVID-19 mitigation efforts for political reasons.
“They’ve done everything possible to ensure that we can’t get past it,” Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) said of the Republicans. “They’ve fought mask requirements, vaccine requirements. They’ve spread misinformation. They have amplified dangerous conspiracy theories.
“There is one group to blame in this country for the continued spread of COVID,” she added, “and that’s those actors who have done each and every one of those things.”
Right. If Republicans would just sit down, shut up, and behave themselves, the pandemic would be over and everything would be fabulous.
COVID is spreading because that’s what viruses do, not because the GOP is willing it. The current effort by the administration to stop the omicron variant from spreading is laughable, considering the “success” they had in stopping the delta variant and every other variant that’s hit the United States. A virus is as a virus does, and the bug will continue to spread as long as there are other humans close by.
By the time the first cases of omicron were identified, it was already far too late to stop it.
Related: Is The Omicron Variant The ‘Midterm Election Variant’?
Biden is worse than King Canute ordering the tide not to come in. He’s dealing with a force of nature and is either so stupid or so besotted with partisan politics that he can’t admit it.
“It’s definitely hypocrisy,” said Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.). “The Republicans — the party that’s supposed to be for individual responsibility — is not taking the responsibility of telling the people that are within their communities, within their districts and states, to take the step that’s in line with that philosophy, which is to become vaccinated to control the pandemic.”
Huh? The party of “individual responsibility” isn’t taking responsibility for everybody else? I don’t think Rep. Gomez knows what “individual responsibility” means — an admittedly difficult chore for someone with a collective consciousness.
Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), former head of the Progressive Caucus, predicted the GOP’s “blame Biden” campaign will backfire, citing the unprecedented nature of the global pandemic and the limited audience the message is targeting.
“Most people know that this is not the federal government’s problem, what’s happening potentially with a variant in another country being spread by people watching Fox News in the United States. … That’s a problem on their side,” he said. “Don’t forget, almost all of their messaging these days is to an audience of one — Donald Trump.”
That’s easily the most ignorant, partisan statement made about the pandemic to date. “People watching Fox News” are responsible for spreading the omicron variant? I suppose if they watch CNN or MSNBC they’re immune, right?
But Pocan managed to get all his talking points on the issue into one neat, little paragraph. “Not the government’s problem,” “the fault of Fox News,” and Trump! Trump! Trump!
A magnificent blowhard.
The spectacle of a failing government response to the pandemic is politically potent. Democrats had better be prepared for Republicans to turn the tables and use the same talking points against Biden that they used against Trump.
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