America has just wrapped up a relatively normal summer with more relaxed COVID restrictions, fewer mask requirements, the ability to gather with family and friends, and consistently lower infection rates than seen in the winter and early spring. Regardless, the return to school has brought renewed focus on what might lie ahead as we continue to march towards Fall.
With their summers in the Hamptons and Cape and Islands behind them, the media elites have returned with a vengeance, resuming their drum banging with threats of schools once again masking our kids and of new, more sinister virus variants – all without missing a beat.
Despite all of that noise, we must stop to consider the possibility of a silver lining in the clouds of the COVID-19 storm. Might it be possible that the virus had some upside, despite being a horrific blight on our nation with over half a million of our fellow citizens dead, countless small businesses destroyed, and the normalization of social isolation and pervasive fear?
Like steel, our individual and national character and resolve are forged in fire. Might we have learned something about our nation and ourselves as we suffered through this crisis?
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COVID-19 forced millions of us to work remotely over the past year and a half. This gave us unprecedented access to our children’s education. Because our kids were home with us as we worked each day, it was easy to observe the goings-on in their classrooms.
We saw the good and the bad, like the introduction of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and the pervasiveness of the “Woke” movement taught by an overwhelmingly left-leaning teacher workforce. That prompted thousands of us to act, jolted out of the complacency and comfort of our pre-COVID assumptions about our kids’ learning in school. This is a good thing.
Related: The Ostracization of Conservative Youth: The Unbiased Perspective of a Teenage Girl
The COVID virus also gave us unparalleled insight into just how biased and leftist our national media and “Big Tech” companies are, shining a light on the cozy interplay they have with our political institutions. That should snap us to attention and compel us to scrutinize their messaging and peel back the disinformation filters they apply to their version of the “news.”
COVID has revealed the Social Media oligarchy for what they are; intolerant, neo-progressive propagandists intent on silencing dissenting opinion and burning down the Marketplace of Ideas. Take heart in knowing that awareness is half the battle.
It also showed us just how deep the divides are in our great nation. While it didn’t take COVID for us to recognize the extent of the political divisions between the left and right, the hostilities resulting from it drove home just how bad it has become. Videos of fistfights on airplanes and in supermarkets between pro-mask and anti-maskers are on the news daily.
Heated, profanity-laden exchanges between the vaccinated and unvaccinated occur in restaurants and at concerts and bars. In a nation historically proven to coalesce when confronting great evils like September 11th and during repeated global wars or natural disasters, that characteristic is suddenly conspicuously absent. If ever there was a call to unite against a common enemy, it was COVID-19, but that just didn’t happen. This is a valuable bell-weather of just how toxic our tribal alignments have made us.
The Woke agenda tells us repeatedly how we can “identify” with whatever gender, culture, or sexual preference we prefer. It’s high time for everyone in this country to start identifying as “Americans” first and relegate our tribal political associations to a distant second place. COVID doesn’t distinguish between Democrats and Republicans – it kills Americans.
COVID also demonstrated the lengths that politicians will go to secure their power and authority. This has been shown time and again at both the State and Federal levels. Lord Acton’s famous quote “Power corrupts; Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely” couldn’t be more appropriate or timely.
COVID has demonstrated that politicians will go to extremes, breaking promises and compromising personal morals and integrity to secure and grow their power and influence. COVID has mercilessly and unceremoniously exposed that the Bidens, Pelosis, and Schumers of the world will indeed advance their agendas “By Any Means Necessary” – even at the peril of our liberties. Where are the brave politicians and statesmen of John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage in today’s world? They truly don’t make ‘em like they used to.
The most precious silver lining that blazed dazzlingly from the dark clouds of COVID was the disturbing display of just how easily our nation’s citizenry will surrender its freedoms and individual rights to those in authority. Innumerable politicians intoxicated on “Emergency Orders” and amped up on the endorphin rush of seeing their oft misguided mandates executed with the snap of a finger demonstrated how flippantly they will toss aside our Constitution and corresponding God-given individual rights.
“Your business isn’t essential; theirs is.” “You can’t eat in restaurants; I can.” “Your unvaccinated child will have to wear a Sharpie Marker tattoo on their hand if they want to attend their Senior prom.” “You WILL wear a mask” (even though the left’s call to arms about “listening to the science” demonstrates masks’ relative ineffectiveness). And so on and so on.
While a vocal few have bravely stepped forward to question these overstepped boundaries, most go along complacently, blindly adhering and doing what they’re told. This is an existential threat to our Republic, and we have COVID-19 to thank for bringing it bubbling to the surface after lurking stealthily in the depths for generations. Ben Franklin hit the nail on the head. “Those who would give up essential Liberty to purchase a little temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
The pain and suffering wrought by COVID-19 are incalculable. However, it remains a powerful learning moment and one the wise among us will use to unite and improve our nation. Our success with this endeavor will be determined by whether or not we acknowledge and learn from these silver linings or choose instead to accept the status quo and the continued fruitless pursuit of political and social Fool’s Gold.
