"Deniers"

Since March of 2020, I have written many dozens of posts critical of the federal, state, and local government response to COVID-19. Economic lockdowns, business closures, mask mandates, school closures, overly severe vaccine mandates and an overriding sense of censorship and virtue signalling pervaded any discussion of alternative approaches to the virus. This authoritarian atmosphere, cheered by mainstream media and promoted by supposedly non-political government agencies, has now been proven to have done great and possibly irreparable harm to lives and livelihoods.

Leaders, particularly (but not solely) those with blue ideology, allowed a combination of fear, innumeracy, and scientific ignorance to define panicky and ineffective policies. They embraced authoritarian dictates and used the virus to gain political advantage. They succeeded in the short term, but sowed havoc that exists to this day.

Alex Washburne has posted a 20-part twitter thread that is well worth reading in its entirely. It begins:

Researchers and scientists who should have been heard were aggressively censored by the likes of bureaucrats such as Anthony Fauci, who worked behind the scenes to be sure they were marginalized. They were condemned as "deniers" and even "murderers" by know-nothing commentators and politicians. But through it all, the "deniers" were right—about the virology, the epidemiology, the societal affects, the negative impacts on children, the economic damage—all of it.

You'd think that the collection of catastrophists (in politics, in the bureaucracy, in the media) would have learned from all of this, but they have not. You think at least some would apologize, but they can not. You hope that if they remain in power (a frightening thought), they will take a less censorious approach, but they will not.

They have normalized insanity, convinced many that authoritarian policies are a good thing, and acted to censor those who disagree. All without shame, remorse, or culpability.