COVID politics was easy for Democrats when Donald Trump was president. Every single death was his fault.
In July of 2020, MSNBC host Chris Hayes said, “Right now, right this moment, there are Americans who are alive and who are healthy who will be dead by the fall. And there are Americans who already died who did not have to. All because of the failures of our government and, more specifically, the president of the United States.”
Blaming Trump for every COVID death was always ridiculous. U.S. COVID deaths are right in line with other countries such as Belgium, the United Kingdom, and Italy. To pretend Trump could have done anything to ensure no one died from COVID is pure fantasy.
But now that Joe Biden is president, the politics of COVID is a little more difficult for Democrats. Hayes hasn’t blamed Biden for a single COVID death.
Democrats are still desperate to show they are the party to be trusted on COVID, which is why Biden has made such an effort to politicize mask and vaccine mandates. Democrats are desperate to show they are doing something to bring the pandemic under control.
The problem is, to maintain COVID politics as a salient issue, Democrats are stuck fearmongering about the dangers of COVID. They can’t let themselves admit the disease isn’t as deadly as it once was.
As the New York Times reports, this has worn out Democratic voters.
“People are fatigued and confused, and they want to get back to their normal lives, whatever that might be,” New Jersey Democratic state Sen. Loretta Weinberg told the paper. “They want their schools open, and they want their healthcare protected, and they want to have an option of working and operating businesses.”
“To the extent that things aren’t normal, they need us as leaders and as civil servants to acknowledge that and tell them how we’re going to make it better,” Rep. Donald McEachin added.
Washington Post columnist Helaine Olen sounded a similar theme.
“The Democrats are facing a real dilemma when it comes to Covid,” she tweeted. “Post vaccines, most people want to resume a more or less normal life. But a not insignificant minority remain fairly scared. That latter group is disproportionately Democratic. This won’t be easy to navigate.”
Hopefully, for everyone, the delta variant fades and COVID politics becomes a thing of the past. If the pandemic continues to linger, it will cost Biden every bit as much as it cost Trump.
