OPINION:
On Thursday, President Trump announced the guidelines for Opening Up America Again, a three-phase process to get states up and running and get Americans back to work after what has been nearly two months of being without pay.
The president has left it up to the governors to look at their own data and determine on their own when it’s time to reduce the restrictions on their citizens. This is a tremendous step in the right direction for the country, while at the same time an incredibly smart strategic move for the Republican Party.
It goes without saying that people want to go back to work. You, reading this right now, might be one of the most harmed by the coronavirus “essential business” and stay-at-home orders. I have no concept of what it must have felt like to have been living paycheck to paycheck or have just turned a corner in savings or gotten yourself out of a longtime debt to ultimately be kneecapped with a mere hour’s notice that you were no longer able to work.
Then, as you watched the news every day, you noticed your state’s coronavirus numbers never reaching the end-of-the-world predicted numbers, some even in the low thousands — your local hospitals were never even close to being overrun to the point that the nurses there were laid off or they even had time to choreograph a dance routine for Instagram — and the National Guard field hospitals that were set up for over a month stayed empty. While you observed that, your state’s governor or city’s mayor (in Washington, D.C.) continued to ramp up the rules against you.
First, you couldn’t go to work. Second, you couldn’t leave your house unless it was for something essential. Third, in some states like Michigan, you couldn’t even visit your neighbor’s house or buy seeds to plant your own food in your backyard. Now as those numbers decrease, the restrictions don’t — and President Trump’s coronavirus task force has given hope, as they have outlined the path to re-open the nation.
For residents in any state with a Democratic governor, but especially Michigan, Illinois and Kentucky — all three with what seem to be truly overreaching restrictions on their residents’ freedom — the odds that they will vote for a Republican is exponentially increased every second that they aren’t moved closer to being allowed to work.
For the first time in all of our lives, American governors have bypassed the Bill of Rights to protect their citizens. A year from now, we will more than likely have court rulings preventing such measures to be taken without a declaration of martial law, but until then, we live in an America where our actual freedoms and liberties were limited.
The problem now for the local governments, especially the Democrat-controlled ones, is that Mr. Trump just said that it’s time to give everyone their freedom back. As more and more states open up and restore life as usual, certain governors won’t want to give up what seems to be tyrannical control over their population. Do you really think Michigan is going back to normal any time soon?
And when Democratic residents of a state like Michigan, who voted for the governor who is now limiting every aspect of their lives aren’t given their freedom back in a timely manner, they will vote against the party in control the very next opportunity that they get. The president and the Republican Party don’t just know this — they’re counting on it. And as we’ve learned from many of the Democrats and the media friends over the past few years, they will fall right into the trap that has been set.
When Mr. Trump said that he was going to reopen the country on his own, the Democratic governors didn’t just stop to say he couldn’t do that (he can’t by the way), they rushed to start their own committees and hold press conferences before his to reopen the country. On Monday, the Northeast governors formed a coalition and threw together a press conference in under three hours — governors on the West Coast did the same thing — they know exactly what’s at stake.
People who are forced to stay at home and not make money have had nothing to do but watch the coronavirus numbers drop for weeks — and now their president, whether they liked him before or not, both sent them money and told the states that it’s time to open back up.
The political clock is winding down for the Democrats in charge, and they smash their own clocks with a sledgehammer every minute that restrictions continue from now on. This was not only a great move to get America working again, but it’s a brilliant political move to turn blue voters red by doing the right thing while already knowing who the bad actors are going to be.
• Tim Young is a political comedian and author of “I Hate Democrats/I Hate Republicans” (Post Hill Press).
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