Jonathan Reisman

President Biden, Governor Mills and Democratic tyrants across the country moved towards the permanent pandemic state last week with mask mandates for the vaccinated, vaccine mandates, and mandated obeisance to the “science” they selectively cherry picked. However, the “science” mask slipped off when Presidential spokesliar Jen Psaki explained that the reason for the making supposedly well protected and safe vaccinated people mask up was because she said so.
“PETER DOOCY: "If vaccines work...then why do people who have the vaccine need to now wear masks?" PSAKI: "The public health leaders in our Administration have made the determination, based on data, that that is a way to make sure they're protected"
The “science” and “data” turned out to be shaky, flawed and largely nonexistent…until you understood it was political science and cherry picked public health data that was driving the CDC and Ministry of Truth.
The Public Health Propaganda Ministry has flooded the zone with stories of increasing caseloads associated with the Delta variant. Sounds very concerning. What the Public Health Politboro conveniently omits, however, is that hospitalizations and fatalities are not spiking, due to vaccinations and better treatment protocols. Furthermore, while blaming and shaming the unvaccinated and suggesting that most are rural evangelical Trump supporters who do not care about their community, the left has conveniently ignored the fact that it is urban African American and Hispanic communities with the highest vaccine resistance/hesitancy. Those are Biden voters. It is the political, not the biological science that the left and Democrats are following here.
The political science says that the pandemic was and is a gift to power hungry Democrats- to change election rules in their favor, destroy the Trump economy, empower the teachers’ unions and the deep state bureaucracy, discredit and shame opponents, engage in tyranny and generally take advantage of the crisis. The return of and potential permanence of mask mandates (which I predicted last winter even as my liberal colleagues pooh-poohed such  predictions as right wing conspiracy misinformation) is nothing more than the Democrats following the political science to preserve their power. It is not clear that it will work…it depends on what percentage of the population remain freedom loving patriots and what percentage has been converted to (or always was) sheep. Mask mandates will separate the mutton from the mix.

Jon Reisman is an associate professor of economics and public policy at the University of Maine at Machias. His views are his own. Mr. Reisman welcomes comments as letters to the editor here, or to him directly via email at [email protected].