With the new CDC guidance essentially acknowledging what we stated here earlier, that everyone in America is going to get COVID and there is no point in fretting about infections anymore, President Joe Biden has admitted that his entire presidential campaign was based on a fallacy.
The only hope he had of defeating former President Donald Trump was to use the coronavirus against him, blaming Trump for the virus’s spread and promising that he would “shut down the virus, not the country.”
After a year, Biden has spectacularly failed in keeping this promise. The new CDC guidance is an admission that there will be no shutting down the coronavirus, not now and not ever. Biden had a year to deal with the virus, and now it is spreading faster than ever before. It is not because of anything specific he did — it is because his promise to fix it was never sincere.
In fact, it was a promise that Biden never had any business making. The virus was not Trump’s fault nor did it spread especially fast because of anything Trump did. Indeed, Biden has now retreated from his talk of defeating the coronavirus and embraced Trump’s position that the virus is a problem best handled by state and local governments — that there is “no federal solution” to the COVID pandemic. This was always true, and it took Biden a very long time to admit it. It must be hard to admit that everything you campaigned on for president was disingenuous.
Then again, it is politically necessary to admit it at this point because voters are turning against Biden. His lack of leadership on an issue where he promised to lead has backfired. Most of all, people are weary of useless but burdensome, and in some cases even counterproductive, COVID restrictions that have them facing empty store shelves, a lack of service, and frightening inflation levels that are eroding their wages and savings.
By promising to wipe out the coronavirus through federal government action, Biden took on a burden he couldn’t shoulder. Worse, under his watch, the public health bureaucracy has discredited itself by giving specious advice and showing troubling obedience to special interests, such as the malingering teachers unions that fought to keep schools closed against all scientific sense and reason.
Between all the mixed messages and the hopelessly impractical, burdensome shutdowns and mandates being given — some mayors and governors are even trying to order people to go back to old restrictions — most of America is already ignoring guidance at this point. In fact, outside of a few coastal cities, most people went back months ago to life as it was before.
It stood to reason that eventually the federal government would have to come off its ridiculous position and adapt its advice to the needs of the real world.
As long as it’s finally acceptable to adjust COVID restrictions to the reality of the situation, Biden ought to take the next step and drop his vaccine requirements for employers, healthcare workers, and government contractors. Biden doesn’t even have to admit he was wrong. He can just say omicron has changed the situation and that these mandates are no longer cost-effective considering the decrease in the virus’s severity. It would be the closest Biden could ever come to claiming victory over COVID.
