Opinion

DANIEL: It’s Coming. The Big Midterm Bait And Switch From Biden And The Democrats

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Hayden Daniel Deputy & Opinion Editor
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The midterms look pretty grim for Democrats, and they know it.

Inflation and unresolved supply chain issues have hit working Americans hard. CRT and gender craziness have riled up middle-class suburban parents more than any other issue in a decade or longer. Almost every poll shows a decisive Republican advantage in the coming elections.

While the Biden administration and their deluded thralls on Twitter vainly maintain the front that Democrats will hold Congress for another two years, those who operate behind the scenes are fully aware that November is shaping up to be a bloodbath.

They need to do something to turn around those abysmal poll numbers, and fast.

Polls show Dems are still competitive with Republicans on COVID, but most Americans are fed up with mask mandates, lockdowns and vaccine passports — the left’s cure-all for the virus over the last two years.

So, here’s the playbook: Democrats are going to roll back all the COVID restrictions and declare victory over the virus just in time for the midterms — and hopefully in time to save them from a red wave.

Democratic governors, who shuttered businesses and levied massive fines on those who did not comply, are now rolling them back at long last — and are expecting people to be grateful.

Connecticut, Delaware, Oregon and California have announced an end to their indoor mask mandates. Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is ready to follow suit and loosen some of the most restrictive COVID rules in the country.

While the media skewered Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin for his decision to end mask mandates back in January, Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy got a hero’s welcome on COVID-hysterical CNN for making the same decision weeks later. Jake Tapper did grill Murphy on the efficacy of masks — two years too late — and, predictably, Murphy stumbled over his words and quickly changed the subject.

Democratic New York Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney basically declared the pandemic to be over and said it was time for the government to graciously “give people their lives back.”

“Democrats’ plan to fight COVID is working – cases are down & vaccines are widely available. Now, it’s time to give people their lives back. With science as our guide, we’re ready to start getting back to normal,” he said on Twitter.

Suddenly, natural immunity, so often labeled as “misinformation” by the left, is now in vogue. Democratic California Rep. Ted Lieu not only praised Gov. Gavin Newsom’s move to lift the mask mandates, but he also argued that medical experts should take natural immunity into account when considering whether or not to lift restrictions.

Dr. Leana Wen, CNN’s medical analyst, said Monday that masks should be an individual choice rather than a government mandate.

After years admonishing normal Americans to “follow the science,” which invariably led to more restrictions, scientists, including Dr. Wen, have proclaimed that the “science has changed” and its time to open everything back up.

It’s all just very convenient, isn’t it? Once the midterms are on the horizon and it becomes clear that Democrats are in deep trouble, the petty tyrants become would-be liberators overnight.

Democrats ruined people’s businesses, separated people from their families and inaugurated an unprecedented mental health crisis with the lockdowns, and now they’re going to pretend like they’re heroes deserving of reelection for ending the suffering they caused.

The gaslighting on this is going to be unreal. Fully expect Democrats to pretend like they weren’t the ones who implemented lockdowns and mask mandates in the first place and jailed people who wouldn’t comply, even as their most rabid acolytes still scream at people in public and accuse them of killing grandmas.

They’re already doing that with the job numbers. Ron Klain and his ilk constantly praise Biden for “creating” more jobs in his first year than any other president, but anyone with common sense can see right through that line. They’re pretending Biden’s policies created these jobs, when in reality Democrat lockdowns killed those jobs in the first place.

They might even attempt to pull the same stunt they tried with the defund the police movement. After it quickly became apparent that implementing massive spending cuts to police forces significantly contributed to skyrocketing crime rates, all but the most radical leftists dropped the slogan and pretended they never supported it.

Some, including the White House press secretary, made the extraordinary claim that it was the Republicans, not the far-left activists in the streets demanding that liberal mayors abolish police departments altogether, who were really defunding the police.

Remember that? Jen Psaki had the gall to stand there at the podium and lie through her teeth that Republicans were the ones who actually defunded the police because they didn’t support the American Rescue Plan.

Expect the same agitprop when it comes to lockdowns.

Will it work?

The American people have a very short memory, and Democrats are counting on that. The mainstream media will hammer until Election Day that Democrats saved the country from COVID, and that might be enough to mitigate their losses if not preserve their majority.

But that won’t erase inflation, foreign policy disasters, the border crisis or the crime wave sweeping the nation’s cities. The economic turmoil and rampant crime are already more important issues to voters than the virus, and if those stay the same or get worse, ending the lockdowns may not make a difference.

But, in the end, the pandemic will probably go down in American history as a win for Democrats and government intrusion into people’s lives, because, for the time being, Democrats and their leftist allies are the ones writing the history books.

Hayden Daniel is the opinion editor at the Daily Caller.