Reich: COVID Is Facing A Resurgence, And So Is Trumpian Politics

I think Reich is wrong about almost everything--but this isn't unreasonable. 

I don't see any way around the conclusion that the contemporary radical progressive left is responsible for the vast majority of the politicization we see in our public disagreements. For one thing, their intellectual vanguard explicitly endorses the politicization of science and inquiry generally. And that clearly trickles down to their epigones and groupies. 

   But there's no doubt that the other guys are doing it, too. It was the left, as usual, that started it, with prominent Dems including the Veep saying that they wouldn't take the "Trump vaccine." Then the sides switched once Biden was in the White House. 

   But also: conservatives have good reason to be concerned about progressive politicization of...well...just about everything. They've politicized climate change, policing, incarceration, Russiagate, transgenderism, history, voting, education...well, the list goes on... Politicization is a bug on the right; on the left, it's a feature. They explicitly accept the Rahm Emanuel dictum: never let a good crisis go to waste. They used COVID to cheat the election in their favor, and now use bogus accusations of racism (their current all-purpose trump card). Note that Reich can't resist bringing up the BLM thesis and CRT in the midst of his rant...

   Progressives might as well be saying: look, we know we politicize everything, weaponizing it against everyone to our right (and that's almost everybody...)...but our motives are pure this time. And you are obligated to be perfectly objective about the matter--you must view it as purely a matter of medical costs and benefits, and see all our arguments, and those of the public face of medicine, has being honest and pure. And you don't get to take into account that we have been wrong and alarmist and hysterical about COVID the whole time. And are using it to advance our socialist and global warming agendas.

   I got the vaccine almost as soon as I could. But you've got to be deeply locked in progressive groupthink to be unable to see why people are skeptical. Hell, I'm skeptical. The stories we get from the MSM are always progressive and only occasionally true. 

   But: there's no doubt that they other side is contributing to the politicization as well. They're right to be skeptical, and probably right to see and argue that there are sound considerations of personal liberty that must be taken into account--and progressive politicization makes those considerations more salient.