Biden Scolds Americans – Bad Strategy

Biden’s misuse of facts, overpromising, and underdelivering only gets worse weekly.

Biden sells analog as digital takes over. More accurately, Biden sells fear of Omicron, accusing Americans who refuse the vaccine of imperiling the nation, terrifying them with loose data, reducing them to Clinton’s famous “deplorables.” Is that leadership? Inspire trust, move the needle? No, it infuriates.

Last week, contradicting leading experts, Biden talked on the severity of Omicron, which readily transfers but appears less severe than past variants. Biden scolded Americans who – for health, personal or religious reasons – do not choose to take the mandated vaccination. Is that how we do things? Is it how we ever have?  

His scolding comes as the Supreme Court looks at his highly questionable OSHA-penalty plan, a leveraging of federal coercion against employers, pushing them to force the vaccination on employees, or the employer faces a federal fine or worse.

The notion of, in effect, criminalizing through the administrative process, turning to coercive power, to press an outcome with which many disagree, some on moral terms, some on constitutional, is without recent precedent. It is also another slap at the Constitution.

All that said, Biden continues to turn up the heat, making employers and employees sweat, instilling fear. Beyond blurring Omicron and Delta data, he presses the case that we must expect a “winter of ..death.” Is that shrill “gotta do it” message going to work? Should we live in fear? See, e.g., White House ripped for doomsday winter message of ‘severe illness and death’ for unvaccinated people.

If good health is desirable, the objective cannot be achieved at the cost of states’ rights, individual rights, and employers’ rights, all textually vested in the Constitution, 1^st through 10^th Amendments. To eviscerate the Constitution and Her guarantees – is to lose the forest for the trees.

So, what is the truth? The truth is Omicron is highly transmissible, as every doctor says, and it also seems to be less virulent, although individuals are different. Two shots for Delta may – or may not – reduce vulnerability to Omicron, effects, or severity. The jury is out, and wide speculation is in.

Biden’s misuse of facts, overpromising, and underdelivering only gets worse weekly. He promised 150 million at-home test kits, 500 million to come. That promise, as most Americans know, is just fairy dust. People have not gotten kits timely, not gotten them period, stood in long lines, kits unavailable.

Even the liberal news outlets admit the promise was empty, operational side bad as the Afghanistan withdrawal, poorly planned, poorly executed, surrounded by fear. Excuses are plentiful but don’t cut it. See, e.g., Biden is dogged by a testing shortage he had vowed to fix;  Drugstores struggle to keep Covid at-home tests in stock as omicron rages across U.S.; EXPLAINER: Where are the COVID-19 tests that Biden promised?; The United States badly bungled coronavirus testing—but things may soon improve.

Those who get kits, including this cautious citizen, learn from the test they are “negative” only to discover they are afflicted with something that surely looks like Omicron, down to the last symptom.

Why? Because questions swirl around viral effects, whether kits pick up Omicron. Apparently, a high percentage of those tested – including those with vaccines – appear to show up negative. What does that mean? Tests may be hard to calibrate, vaccines imperfect. That is life. Do not sell fear or uncertain options on a promise of certainty. Again, even liberal media know the score. See, e.g.,  FDA in update says 2 COVID-19 tests fail to detect the omicron variant; Emerging Data Raise Questions About Antigen Tests and Nasal Swabs.

Net-net, simple truth:  There is a great deal about this virus and the cross-application of vaccines to various strains that we do not know. The original and variants come – like all new viruses – with lots of footnotes, asterisks, and reservations. What do good leaders do? He or she says so and talks the truth. 

Those who sell fear of Omicron on the Delta data, certainty in the face of uncertainty, or vaccine and test kit effectiveness for Omicron – which is spreading widely – on facts stretching truth disserve us.  

Since we are not deplorables, not deserving of federal vilification – especially by a listless, inarticulate, aging public servant – the better way would be to assume Americans are smart, intuitive, relatively logical, and can deal with the truth. We get gray, so don’t school us in black and white.

In the end, President Biden seems not to respect the data his own CDC and clinical assessments around the world are producing. He seems intent on selling vaccines for Omicron, based on fears of Delta and the original, humanly engineered stain. Is that political, desperate, misguided? Very possibly.

Bottom line: I got the two vaccines, am healthy. I also likely got Omicron, recovered, and am fine. Should people look at all the data? Yes. Assess effectiveness based on what we know? Yes. Consider their own conditions, convictions, and conscience? Yes. Consult their own doctor? Yes. But trust, not fear, is the currency of persuasion, the golden ticket, the way to win fights while respecting rights.