COVID Crackup
Biden’s silly summit ignores the real peril
PRESIDENT Biden will seek to boost his sagging approval ratings this week with an international virtual summit whooping up democracy. The Treasury Department will publicize the event by slapping financial sanctions on “individuals who are engaged in malign activities that undermine democracy and democratic institutions around the world.”
But lying, power-hungry politicians will probably not be on the target list.
The White House says the summit of more than 100 nations will focus on “Defending against author- itarianism.” But Biden has no problem with the biggest authoritarian abuse of our times — the rise of Cage Keeper Democracies where citizens’ ballots merely designate who will place them under house arrest.
Freedom House’s report “Democracy under Lockdown” says “the condition of democracy and human rights has worsened in 80 countries” since the pandemic’s start. Sweden’s International Institute for Democracy and Electoral
Assistance declared America and other nations imposed COVID
measures “that were disproportionate, illegal, indefinite or unconnected to the nature of the emergency,” warning: “established democracies are increasingly adopting authoritarian tactics.”
Australia has set up detention camps to lock up anyone suspected of contact with COVIDpositive individuals. Austria and Germany imposed nationwide lockdowns that nullified millions of citizens’ freedom of movement. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern ordered her captive citizenry: “Do not congregate, don’t talk to your neighbors.” Britain unleashed some of the most absurd rules, banning sex indoors for couples who live apart. Dozens of nations have used the military to enforce restrictions, heightening the risk of “the normalization of increasingly militarized civil life after the pandemic,” the Swedish think tank reported.
The COVID Iron Fist hit home for New Yorkers Monday when Mayor de Blasio decreed that all private-sector workers must be double-vaxxed and even 5-yearold children must be jabbed if they want to eat at McDonald’s. Blas is claiming the same dictatorial power that numerous federal judges have ruled Biden does not possess. Gov. Andrew Cuomo was equally power-crazed: Remember his order to New York sheriffs to intrude into people’s homes to enforce his mask mandate during Thanksgiving dinners last year.
The shutdowns of businesses, schools, churches and synagogues dismally failed to prevent roughly 150 million Americans from becoming infected with COVID.
Unfortunately, there is no sign Team Biden will disavow this demolition of democracy. The prez continues to urge businesses to pretend his vaccine mandate is still binding, despite a long string of federal-court losses. Last week, fearing rising COVID cases will decimate his approval ratings, Biden revealed new restrictions as part of his “COVID-19 Winter Plan.” When asked if unvaxxed Americans would be banned from domestic flights, Biden COVID Czar Jeff Zients replied, “We will continue to look at all options — everything is on the table.”
Biden policymakers have also considered banning all interstate travel by the unvaxxed. They suffer from “totalitarian envy”: Centers for Disease Control chief Rochelle Walensky gushed praise for the “really strict lockdowns” inflicted by Communist China.
Biden’s democracy summit will also be “Addressing and fighting corruption.” Is this intended to add Monty Python-style comic relief to the event, considering that the invitation list includes many of the world’s most corrupt nations? Will Hunter Biden make a surprise guest appearance to offer tips on how to avoid indictment while massively profiting from insider ties? Will 10 percent of any summit proceeds be siphoned off for “the Big Guy”?
Promising to vanquish worldwide corruption is a favorite throwaway line for US politicians. In 2010, President Barack Obama proclaimed at the United Nations that the US government would be “leading a global effort to combat corruption.” Six years later, pirouetting at an international summit, Secretary of State John Kerry denounced corruption as “a poison that erodes trust, robs citizens of their money and their future and stifles economic growth.”
But pious rhetoric did not deter Team Obama from turbocharging corruption in Afghanistan with reckless US aid, turning it into the most corrupt nation on earth and helping spur massive discontent that led to the Taliban victory.
Don’t expect Biden to pay heed to the rise of despotic democracies. But if ballots cannot leash winning politicians, elections can become coffin nails for freedom.
As long as democracies fail to protect citizens from elected rulers who feel entitled to boundless power, international summits will only inflame the cynicism and bitterness of downtrodden citizens.