I’ve asked a politically astute friend the question that now, a year after the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic has passed, is tormenting most “scientists”: Has the Coronavirus dragon been slain?
And I’ve been careful in our correspondence to put the word
“scientists” in quotes to indicate a doubtful use of a word, because my friend,
no longer professionally connected with politics, has said elsewhere that there
is no “science” of coronavirus – merely scientists, some more politically and
economically self-interested in outcomes than others.
There are, she says, tons of money to be made by keeping the
population in a fearful frenzy. Among most salespersons, fear is the nail in the
coffin of buyer resistance. My friend believes this is especially true with
regard to politicians, whose product generally is ethereally non-material -- in
part a serious business surrounded by a lake of campaign propaganda.
“Would you believe it,” she winks at me in her hand written letter, “politicians many times embrace doubtful policies for campaign reasons, and not because the prosperity of the republic depends upon their efficacy.”
This was followed by a slighting reference to President Joe Biden’s reckless border
policies, which appear to be little more than an unraveling of former President
Donald’s Trump’s various attempts to ban illegal entry into the United States
by citizens of Honduras and Guatemala via Mexico. Democrats apparently prefer
semi-permeable borders. It has been supposed by some that Honduran citizens may
at some point be allowed to vote in American elections.
“Everything with progressives,” my friend believes, “is
permeable and permissible.”
The mask we all have
been forced to wear she regards as a symbol of subservience and submission to
autocratic governors such as New York’s Andrew Cuomo who, according to multiple
witnesses, is a serial employee molester.
Most recently, having been accused by seven women of
unwanted erotic advances, Cuomo appears to be digging in his victimization
heels. In the midst of defections within his own party, not to mention a
serious examination on nursing home inattentions by New York’s Attorney General, Cuomo has said he ain’t
quitting.
No quitter he. Cuomo has survived a media exposure of his conspicuous
failings in nursing home Coronavirus rescue, in the course of which many aged
New Yorkers who depend on the kindness of strangers have died. Cuomo, the recipient
of an Emmy for his communication skills during the pandemic, has a very thick
skin and a lizard brain that can detect political payback miles away.
Recently, two powerful New York Democrats, U.S. Senate
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, have called upon
Cuomo to resign. “Confronting and overcoming the Covid crisis, the two said in
a joint statement, “requires sure and steady leadership. We commend the brave
actions of the individuals who have come forward with serious allegations of
abuse and misconduct. Due to the multiple, credible sexual harassment and
misconduct allegations, it is clear that Governor Cuomo has lost the confidence
of his governing partners and the people of New York. Governor Cuomo should
resign.”
This turgid prose, written very likely under the noses of a
half dozen lawyers, may seem to some a betrayal of affection. But it is, as mafia
figures might say, business only. Among incumbent politicians, all clambering up
the greasy political pole, there are no enduring friendships, merely useful and
mutually beneficial business relationships. When the party of the first part
becomes a liability to the party of the second part, divorce ensues. Cuomo
certainly understands the rules governing political divorce.
In the calculus of non-politicians, the avoidable deaths in
New York nursing homes -- and the ensuing cover-up, always worse in the
journalistic imagination than the crime itself -- should be more disastrous to
empathetic politicians than the execrable molestations of political employees.
The first is the result of bad policies, the second of bad manners. It is at
this point probable that many politicians of both parties may agree with ordinary citizens, some of whom think that resigning on a charge of bad
manners will forestall an embarrassing and close media examination of failed policies
embraced by many other blue-state progressive governors across the fruited
plains.
Here in Connecticut, Governor Ned Lamont – far less an
abrasive and irritating egoist than Cuomo or former Governor Dan Malloy,
according to recent stories in
Connecticut’s media – is rated highly in polls owing to his handling of the
Coronavirus plague, even though Lamont has not been awarded an Emmy.
There is a “but.”
Thanks to herd immunity and what some Republicans are
calling, out of earshot of journalists, “the Trump vaccine”, Coronavirus is stumbling
toward the bone yard, as have many of Cuomo’s nursing home victims. And after
the deluge, comes the status quo, a reversion to things as there were before
Coronavirus pumped up Lamont’s poll numbers.
All good things and all bad things both have their appointed
ends. As Coronavirus recedes and the funds issuing from empathetic Democrats in
the nation’s capital peter out, as one-time funds often do, Connecticut will be
left to its own resources which, following all the spending contingent upon the
receipt of “free” federal funds, will be in sad disrepair. Connecticut’s status
quo, before the arrival of Coronavirus and Lamont’s improved poll ratings, had
deteriorated considerably, owing mostly to the state’s chronic unwillingness to reduce past debts through – permanent, long-term cuts in spending.
There is nothing in Connecticut’s three decade old record
that suggests the state’s liberal big-spenders have any stomach for reductions
in spending, and so we are headed back to the future: more spending, more debt,
more taxes, more political irresponsibility and a weaker state, leaching to
other states a capital that cannot be recovered – the creativity and resourcefulness
of men and women who once prospered in what was once called “the constitution
state,” in which liberty equals creativity equals prosperity.
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