Lockdown Joe: Biden Wants Everyone To Live In Their Basement

I&I Editorial

Should Joe Biden survive the election legal challenges ahead, he will roll into the Oval Office fully intent on doing what Democrats do – rob Americans of their liberty. We have every expectation he will try to shut down the country, not because the coronavirus makes it necessary but because the oxygen of the political left is controlling other people’s lives.

The Bongino Report tells us that Biden’s coronavirus adviser is proposing a lengthy national shutdown to mitigate the spread as positive test results climb during the early weeks of the North American flu season.

“Under a Biden presidency (God forbid) we’d return right back to a full lockdown,” writes Matt Palumbo, “and this time they’re not pretending it’ll only last 15 days.”

Apparently Biden is listening to the ravings of Dr. Michael Osterholm, who is suggesting “we” – can he please define “we”? – could “pay for a package right now to cover all of the wages, lost wages for individual workers, for losses to small companies, to medium-sized companies or city, state, county governments,” so the country could “lock down for four to six weeks.”

We’re not reading the Osterholm comments as an endorsement of placing the rest of the country into a California-style lockdown, but rather a complete, almost imprisoning closure in which all but a few are confined to their homes.

This is not a wild leap of speculation. Osterholm co-wrote an August New York Times op-ed in which he insisted that “to be effective,” lockdowns have “to be as comprehensive and strict as possible.” Ezekiel Emanuel, another Biden virus adviser, has demanded we “Shut down now, and start over” though a full surrender to government. And Biden himself has already signaled he wants to establish a national mask mandate, even though there’s ample evidence from the states that it won’t work.

Osterholm, when not plotting to steal Americans’ freedom, directs the Center of Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, and is a member of Biden’s coronavirus “advisory board.” According to a CNBC report, he is taking a hard line because he believes a “nationwide lockdown would drive the number of new cases and hospitalizations down to manageable levels while the world awaits a vaccine.”

Before anyone says, “hey, that makes sense, let’s just hunker down for a while until we’re vaccinated,” remember the cost of the lockdowns we’ve already endured – and in some states, continue to suffer through. Not only did they fail to stop the spread of the coronavirus, they made life worse. “They are surely the most risky experiment ever conducted on the public,” mythbusting journalist John Tierney writes in City Journal.

From the start, researchers have warned that lockdowns could prove far deadlier than the coronavirus. People who lose their jobs or businesses are more prone to fatal drug overdoses and suicide, and evidence already exists that many more will die from cancer, heart disease, pneumonia, and tuberculosis and other diseases because the lockdown prevented their ailments from being diagnosed early and treated properly.

The Great Barrington Declaration, a statement produced last month after a meeting of high-level epidemiologists, economists, and journalists, similarly pointed out that:

Lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health. The results (to name a few) include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health – leading to greater excess mortality in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden. Keeping students out of school is a grave injustice. 

But what about the people who’ve been saved by the lockdowns? Didn’t we hear elected officials say that even the most severe restrictions were worth it if they saved just one life? Well, it turns out that it’s possible that closing down the economy and social interactions actually made the spread of the virus worse.

Not even the World Health Organization, a group that tends to be pessimistic and overly cautious, seems prepared to go as far as a Biden administration might. The United Nations agency has never advocated lockdowns, and its special envoy on COVID-19 has said officials were wrong to employ lockdowns as the “primary control method” to mitigate the virus.

Much of the public is fed up and not in the mood to take another round of orders from “experts” who have not inspired confidence and politicians who have behaved more like petty tyrants than representatives of the people. In late March/early April, 67% of respondents to a Gallup poll said it was very likely they would shelter in place for a month if public health officials recommended they do so. Now only 49% say it’s very likely they would.

So here we are again with yet another reason to hope that the Trump campaign’s challenges are legally and ethically upheld so that Biden won’t be our next president.

— Written by the I&I Editorial Board