The Liberal Retreat From Mandates (2)

I wrote earlier today about the rather sudden reversal on the part of blue state politicians, who apparently think “the science” has changed so that vaccine and mask mandates can now be done away with. The real driver, of course, is politics. Glenn Reynolds takes up this theme in his New York Post column. Many links in the original are omitted here:

Lockdowns — which the World Health Organization disavows except in very narrow, short-term circumstances and which are unsupported by science — have dragged on and on. Teachers unions kept schools closed month after month in blue states, and even children as young as 2 are being forced to mask despite no scientific support for doing so.

Indeed, masking has become a political statement, to the point that Democrats routinely report wearing masks outdoors simply to ensure they won’t be mistaken for Republicans.

Anyone who disagreed with this approach was accused of “spreading misinformation,” engaging in “conspiracy theories” and generally wanting everyone’s grandma to die.

This is the insane environment we have endured for the last two years.

As recently as last month, when newly elected Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin ended mandatory mask rules in Virginia public schools, Democrats were calling him, essentially, a mass murderer.

But the times they are a-changin’!

But that was then. All of a sudden, we are told, “The science has changed.”

No, really, those were the words of CNN medical “expert” Dr. Leana Wen, leading Reason’s Robby Soave to ask, “Has anything fundamentally changed in the last six months, except for Democrats finally, belatedly realizing that militant masking is a political loser? The science didn’t change, the politics changed.”

Heh. Just ask the Canadian truckers. Actually, “the science” has proved remarkably malleable over the last two years. “The science” was said to support whatever the Democratic Party found expedient at a particular moment, in the context of a grossly exaggerated fear of the Wuhan virus.

Famously in Canada, truckers have occupied the grounds of the national Parliament in Ottawa, honking their horns and demanding change. In front of the House of Commons, meanwhile, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s defense of ever-stricter COVID restrictions got him mocked and jeered by members, with opposition leader Candice Bergen challenging him to “follow the science, follow the evidence, end the restrictions, end the mandates.”

Canadian provinces are starting to drop their rules. Alberta caved to the truckers and ended its vaccine-passport regulation. Trudeau is even facing defections from his own party, as Liberal Party member Joel Lightbound denounced mandatory vaccinations. Trudeau’s efforts to smear the truckers as Russian agents, Nazis and perpetrators of “anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, anti-Black racism, homophobia and transphobia” failed as it turns out a majority of Canadians support the truckers and want COVID restrictions lifted.

As Glenn notes, there is nothing more pathetic than liberals’ attempt to smear their common-sense opposition with labels of “racism,” “sexism,” and so on. These days, I don’t think those smears have any impact on anyone. So what is the result?

Likewise in the United States, COVID rules are suddenly falling. Just weeks after Youngkin was called a murderer for ending mask rules, Democrats in the Virginia Senate voted with Republicans to pass a statute . . . ending mask rules. Connecticut’s Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont is ending school mask rules as of the end of this month. Colorado’s Democratic Gov. Jared Polis is doing the same.

We’re seeing similar actions from New Jersey’s Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy and Delaware’s Democratic Gov. John Carney. (Georgia’s wannabe governor Stacey Abrams backs masking in schools but not enough to stop her taking her own mask off for a photo opportunity with masked kids.)

In the words of blogger Lawrence Person, “Not since the collapse of the Hindenburg Line in 1918 have such bitterly held positions been abandoned so quickly.”

Heh. The saving grace in a democracy is that every once in a while, the politicians need to face the voters. The November 2022 election has concentrated the minds of liberal politicians, and a headlong flight from mandates is the result. Glenn gets the last word:

You don’t need a weatherman to see which way the wind blows, and the political winds are moving toward a dismantlement of the past two years’ COVID excesses. It’s about time.

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