I live in California, and like so many other Democrat-run cities and states, its leaders went into full-blown authoritarian mode during the COVID pandemic as they tried to control every aspect of our lives. You couldn’t go to the beach, the park, or work. Meanwhile, my kids were shut out of school—private, mind you, but that didn’t matter behind the blue curtain—for a year and a half, leaving lasting effects that our young people are still recovering from.
But it wasn’t that way in Florida. I can personally attest to this because, in summer 2021, we attempted to save our sanity by escaping the hellhole that was Los Angeles to take a road trip through the Sunshine State—and it was like going to a different galaxy. People were doing what they wanted and weren’t obsessing over the unscientific cult of the mask or asking about your vaccine status. Schools were open. We went to shows, beaches, businesses, and wherever the heck else we wanted.
I probably would have been arrested for venturing out to get this photo had I been at home in the Golden State, but in Florida, this was the view right outside the packed restaurant where I was enjoying dinner with my family:
Governor Ron DeSantis was vilified by Democrats and the press for attempting to kill his residents with his policies—and yet the state ended up performing on par with other states that had far stricter (and in many cases, unconstitutional, IMHO) rules. Even the New York Times had to hold its nose when it recently printed this little dose of reality, “Overall, the state’s death rate during the pandemic, adjusted for age, ended up better than the national average.”
But the Times didn’t think that its readers could stand hearing that (good!) news, so not surprisingly, the outlet tried to gaslight us in the very same article, which was headlined, “The Steep Cost of Ron DeSantis’s Vaccine Turnabout.” They begrudgingly admit that DeSantis opened schools and businesses much earlier than almost anybody else, but then the house organ of the DNC goes on to whine that he didn’t bend the knee regarding vaccines:
But on the single factor that those experts say mattered most in fighting Covid — widespread vaccinations — Mr. DeSantis’s approach proved deeply flawed. While the governor personally crusaded for Floridians 65 and older to get shots, he laid off once younger age groups became eligible.
Tapping into suspicion of public health authorities, which the Republican right was fanning, he effectively stopped preaching the virtues of Covid vaccines. Instead, he emphasized his opposition to requiring anyone to get shots, from hospital workers to cruise ship guests.
The obvious problems with this argument? Young people didn’t need the vaccines because the virus was and is barely a threat to them. Meanwhile, despite official agitprop at the time, it turned out that the jabs didn’t even stop COVID transmission and that there were even some concerning negative health outcomes.
The New York Times attempted to blame Florida’s COVID death rate during the Delta wave on Ron DeSantis, so uh…what’s their explanation for why Hawaii had its highest COVID death rate during the same time period with the exact opposite policy response? pic.twitter.com/0ujCl03Vxh
— Ian Miller (@ianmSC) July 26, 2023
The article goes on at length to describe how former Chief Medical Advisor to the President Dr. Anthony Fauci and White House coronavirus task force member Deborah Birx were alarmed that DeSantis was listening to skeptics like Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford University professor and one of the co-authors of the Great Barrington Declaration. The Declaration was one of the first documents to expose that lockdowns and social isolation were ineffective and detrimental, and so, of course, it was widely derided and censored by the left and the very people who were supposed to be leading scientific inquiry as documented by my colleague, Becca Lower.
The entire tone of this Times article is, How dare DeSantis and Bhattacharya question the wisdom of the all-knowing federal government?!
The piece also reads like a Pfizer ad as the authors glowingly describe the vaccines as if they were some sort of magic solution to the pandemic when there is much evidence that their “success” was more propaganda than reality. How many times did we read about officials like President Biden, Fauci, First Lady Jill Biden, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, then-CDC director Rochelle Walensky, and others who described not only multiple bouts with COVID but also their severe rebound cases? Each had received multiple “boosters.” If that’s success—I’d hate to see failure.
In each instance, they would announce their illness and then laughably say things like, “Thank God for the vaccines!”
Say the Line Bert! "I am thankful to have received four doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and I am feeling well while experiencing very mild symptoms." pic.twitter.com/7wI5OhtTPG
— Chris, from the future. (@CHRISTO01082494) August 15, 2022
Former President Donald Trump has also been inexplicably criticizing DeSantis’ COVID policies in recent months but for different reasons than the Left and the mainstream media (which are the same). Trump argues that DeSantis’ initial lockdowns were too harsh, but he didn’t point out that “the Florida governor was acting on recommendations from Trump’s White House when he limited movements in his state.” Even CNN had to tell the truth on that one.
Luckily, the Times isn’t the only newspaper in this country, and the Wall Street Journal editorial board set things straight in a competing op-ed titled “The Real DeSantis Covid Record”:
Trump and the left are distorting Florida’s superior pandemic performance on public health and limiting harm from lockdowns…
Progressives and Mr. Trump also won’t concede that Mr. DeSantis’s Covid strategy proved to be an economic boon. Between April 2020 and July 2022, 622,476 people moved to Florida from other states, including families who wanted children in school. Employment in Florida has grown by 7.4% since January 2020 versus 2.5% in California and a 1.2% decline in New York.
The lockdown damage continues, but progressives can’t admit they were wrong. Nor can Mr. Trump. So they are trying to take down Mr. DeSantis for being right.
Even though DeSantis is trailing badly to Trump in the polls in the race for the GOP nomination, it’s still important to remember how he performed in the real world. While lives were ruined and the mental and educational damage was incalculable in many blue states, Florida hummed along and had a better outcome than lockdown- and mandate-obsessed California. What the heck is there even to argue about?
This is not an endorsement for DeSantis’ presidential campaign—this is instead a reminder that no matter who you’re supporting for the Republican presidential nomination, we all must remember how Ron DeSantis stood strong and laid the blueprint for the next time Leftists try to throw out the Constitution and subvert our civil liberties.
Ron DeSantis to Russell Brand: "We're gonna bring a reckoning to this health bureaucracy and this medical swamp."
One of the reasons so many of us who were on the Covid 'Team Reality' front lines support this guy is THIS ISSUE. Ensuring the insanity of the past three years never… pic.twitter.com/yKRTxkIMpa
— Scott Morefield (@SKMorefield) July 21, 2023
See also—>
Emails Show Biden Admin KNEW Vaccines Didn’t Stop COVID as Early as January 2021
CDC Admits Abject Failure in Its COVID Guidance, Yet No One Is Held Accountable
Team DeSantis Issues ‘Digital Postcard’ Ripping Blue State Governors’ Disastrous COVID Policies
