Neither Left Nor Right, But Catholic . . . The Politics Of The Coronavirus
By STEPHEN M. KRASON
The coronavirus situation in the U.S. from the beginning has been a subject of misinformation, misconceptions, and mired in the political and social conflicts that are tearing at the country. One of the latter concerns the actions of the elite and its attempt to get more and more control. A figure identified with the coronavirus all along has been Dr. Anthony Fauci, the epidemiologist at the NIH. President Trump turned to him right at the beginning. Only later was it revealed that he had provided federal money to China’s Wuhan lab, where the virus apparently escaped from, for it to engage in research that may have led to it.
A major medical expert, then, helped to cause the situation we have been faced with and now we have medical experts telling us to get one or another vaccine that were rushed into use without the usual extended testing to determine effectiveness and safety. In fact, it might be better to call them “non-vaccine vaccines” since they really are RNA manipulation instead of traditional vaccines. This type of vaccine has not been tried before, and — apparently because of a sense of urgency about addressing the present coronavirus situation — was not required by the CDC to have the amount of testing normally required. It seems almost as if a large number of members of the public are the subjects of an experiment to see if the vaccines will work and what the side-effects will be.
In fact, the virologist/inventor of the mRNA vaccine has said the vaccines being used are making the virus more infectious. What has become increasingly apparent is that the medical experts are engaging in a lot of guesswork in how to deal with the coronavirus. What we are seeing, in effect, is one of the most striking examples in American history of rule by experts — almost a kind of technocracy.
A major source of trouble in American life today has been a media out of control, and that certainly has been evident with the coronavirus odyssey. From misreporting to hyped-up claims about the character of the situation to ignoring facts to further its political narrative, we have seen all these aspects of a mainstream media out of control with the coronavirus situation. Following the lead of Democratic politicians that it lines up with, it has played a major role in helping to spawn the climate of fear that has swept the country during all this. A proper perspective has been missing.
While we have to acknowledge the harsh realities — people have died around the country from the coronavirus — we also have to recognize that at least 97 percent of people who get the virus recover. This isn’t the Black Death — bubonic plague — of the Middle Ages. Moreover, the media have been noticeably silent about the dangers of the “savior” vaccines: how some have become very sick from them and, in fact, some have died from them — according to some sources, the number is several thousand. There has been little mention about the historical warnings of rushing vaccines into use, as seen with the consequences of the initial polio vaccine and the problems encountered by trying to rush the development of a swine flu vaccine.
The media and the politicians pushing the vaccines have not even talked much about the very question of their effectiveness, how some people who get the vaccine still come down with coronavirus. At the same time, the media — only because of the political narrative they want to push — will hardly say anything about how certain drugs, such as ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, and remdesivir seem to be quite effective in combating the disease.
It is likely that the media don’t want to acknowledge the value of hydroxychloroquine because Trump promoted it. After all, the media wouldn’t want to do anything to make Trump look good, even when he’s no longer in the White House.
From the beginning fear, speculation, and a regimen of inaccuracies have driven the discussion about the coronavirus, instead of a balanced, factual assessment of the situation. We were told that hospitals would be overrun, but it didn’t happen. The impression was given that the disease would be more devastating to the population across the board than it has been. Even though children are not particularly susceptible to the disease, we closed schools, separated them in classrooms, and insisted they wear masks.
Masking has been pushed from early on, even though a plethora of evidence makes clear that the cloth masks that are overwhelmingly used afford limited protection, don’t necessarily stop the spread of the virus from the wearer to others, and often cause other physical problems for the person wearing them a long time.
Public officials showed classically poor judgment and complete loss of perspective in the early months of the virus by their sweeping shutdown mandates, which had the effect — as was completely foreseeable — of damaging the economy. Instead of reasoned, measured steps to protect the public, they went to an irresponsible extreme. State Governors Ron DeSantis of Florida and Kristi Noem of South Dakota are to be commended for refusing to take such a rash action and keeping their states open.
Church leaders — including Catholic bishops — made a similar mistake, by shutting down churches and canceling worship services. The result has probably been a permanent decline in church attendance.
We have been preached to about how in the course of all this we have to put science above politics, but political considerations have so often seemed to rule. We have seen this in the unwillingness, especially of the Biden administration and the Democrats, to point to China as the culprit in this.
Doubtful Constitutionality
The mask admonitions and even mandates and now the closing of access to public places to people who are not vaccinated in New York City and elsewhere and Biden’s national mandate for businesses to require vaccinations of their employees are not driven by science, as is indicated by what has been said. They are put forth because the politicians in power want to be able to say to the voters that they are doing something — even if they know it won’t work. In other words, it’s the political considerations.
Speaking about Biden’s vaccine mandate, it is of doubtful constitutionality — something, again, that the mainstream media do not much speak about. It is a massive overreach of executive authority. While it’s true that presidential power historically waxes in times of crisis, it is doubtful that the coronavirus truly represents that (the Civil War, war and other serious national security situations, and perhaps the Great Depression were true examples). Regardless, such a mandate almost certainly would require congressional authorization; such a sweeping restriction on American businesses with penalties attached can only be done by statute.
Then, there’s the further question of whether such subject matter as this even falls within the scope of federal power. Biden’s attempt to at least partly cover himself by relying on OSHA’s statutory authority also falls flat. That statutory provision pertains to hazardous workplace situations — obviously unsafe conditions, presence of toxic agents, etc. — not viruses. It’s a clear attempt to twist the law to justify a policy initiative.
The most obvious way to overturn vaccine mandates on employees is what we have seen in places like the rural hospital in upstate New York. The employees en masse should just walk out. Indeed, something akin to a general strike may be called for to respond to this. If most employees of businesses walked off the job, they could not be replaced and, of course, the businesses couldn’t operate. Within a few days, business leaders would scramble to get their workers back and would begin to pressure Biden — and the other lesser politicians of his ilk — to lift mandates. It may be time for a coordinated effort around the country to make this happen.
Finally, why are leading elected officials — mostly, but not exclusively, Democrats — addressing the coronavirus situation with such restrictive, heavy-handed policies? Could it be because it lays the groundwork for a regimen of permanent expanded control over people’s lives, of more centralized governmental control — that it aims to acclimate them to it?
Could that open the door to expanded government control over the economy, to usher in some version of socialism? Would they also like to use this to make the opponents of the left’s cultural agenda finally fall in line?
As former Chicago mayor and Clintonite Rahm Emanuel famously once said, “Never let a crisis go to waste.”
- + + (Stephen M. Krason’s Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic column appears frequently in The Wanderer. He is professor of political science and legal studies and associate director of the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at Franciscan University of Steubenville. He is also co-founder and president of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists and a lawyer. Among his books are: Abortion: Politics, Morality, and the Constitution; The Public Order and the Sacred Order; The Transformation of the American Democratic Republic; and Catholicism and American Political Ideologies. The views expressed here are his own.)
