When In Doubt, Blame A Republican For COVID Deaths

Throughout the COVID crisis, we’ve witnessed an amazing display of leftist logic. No matter the circumstances, Republicans were always at fault.

When the coronavirus first swept the nation in early 2020, the deaths were concentrated almost entirely in the country’s liberal enclaves: New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania.

And we know a big reason: Democratic governors in those states panicked and ordered nursing homes to take sick elderly out of hospitals, even if they were positive for COVID. The result was that nursing homes turned into death camps.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was even caught red-handed lying about the number of nursing home deaths to cover up this tragedy.

Yet at the time, blame for every COVID death in the country was pinned on the supposed ineptitude of President Donald Trump (rather than communist China, where the blame ultimately rests).

That was almost exactly how candidate Joe Biden framed it, as a matter of fact. “If the president had done his job, had done his job from the beginning, all the people would still be alive,” Biden said during the presidential campaign, as the death toll reached 200,000. “All the people. I’m not making this up. Just look at the data.”

Trump did, to be sure, send lots of mixed messages about COVID. But so did Democrats.  Biden himself attacked Trump’s supposed xenophobia after he quickly slapped a travel ban from China – before we knew of any cases in the U.S. Top Democrats, along with the sainted Anthony Fauci, were publicly downplaying the disease early on, telling people not to worry, not to bother with masks, and get out and party.

Never mind. Now that Biden’s in charge, he and the rest of the liberal chorus is blaming … Republican governors for the current rise in COVID cases.

As the Washington Examiner put it:

The White House is increasingly taking aim at Republican governors who have relaxed COVID-19 restrictions, casting what President Joe Biden once described as a ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated’ as a pandemic of the red states.

This shift in tone comes as the pandemic’s resurgence takes a toll on Biden’s job approval ratings, dropping him below 50% in some national polls. His top two targets are Govs. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas, chief executives of the two biggest red states and national symbols of a rival model for managing the virus, who have banned mandates for masks or vaccines.

‘I say to these governors: Please help. But if you aren’t going to help, at least get out of the way,’ Biden said in a speech about the latest wave of the pandemic on Tuesday. ‘The people are trying to do the right thing. Use your power to save lives.’

DeSantis was having none of this. He responded that Biden is “lecturing people about imposing COVID restrictions and lockdowns and not only doing nothing to stop the border surge but actually facilitating it, bringing in people from over 100 different countries across the southern border.”

And, while the number of new COVID cases are up the most in Florida and Texas, in close third is deep, deep blue California. It’s not a coincidence that these are three of the most populous states in the nation. Two of the three also happen to be border states with Mexico.

Meanwhile, the 10 states with the biggest percentage increase in cases in the past seven days include Vermont, Hawaii, Oregon, Rhode Island. States with the smallest increases include Utah, Missouri, Kansas, Wyoming, and Arizona, according to the New York Times COVID tracker.

Plus, as we pointed out previously, vaccination rates are lowest among traditionally Democratic groups – minorities and the young. And the most influential anti-vaxxers in the country are on the left. So blaming the rapid spread of the Delta virus on Trump-supporting red-neck insurrectionists does nobody any good.

Let’s be clear. COVID is a highly contagious disease that was going to spread throughout the population no matter what. Research – science, that is – shows that lockdowns didn’t work at stopping its spread, that mask mandates are ineffective, school closures pointless, and that the risk of death from COVID is concentrated almost entirely among the very sick and elderly. Instead of focusing efforts on vulnerable populations, Democrats worked overtime to politicize the COVID pandemic as soon as it emerged as a possible electoral weapon. (While blaming Republicans for politicizing it.)

Since the left insisted on blaming the president for its early spread, then the current president should now take responsibility for its resurgence.

That seems logical to us.