For months, the American people have been longing for a return to normal. But is that going to happen? Is it even possible?
While we all talk about a return to normal, there is evolving two different definitions. Folks like me hope that we go back to the way we were – no masks, crowded ballparks, kids sitting next to each other in classrooms, and lots of handshakes and hugs. And especially the end of the persistent warnings and death toll tallies. That is our definition of normal.
But there are those who foresee – and hope for – a modified normal. As a continuation of an over abundance of caution, they see some of the protective measures as permanent features of our post-Covid life. They see modified social distancing and mask wearing as a way to reduce the spread of almost any other communicable disease – the seasonal flu or the common cold.
Maybe school kids will never be able to sit near each other in class or an auditorium. After all, schools are one of the primary spreaders of head lice.
Methinks that our chance of a return to a normal normal will be thwarted by the big government political left. In other words, the Democrats and the Washington Bureaucrats — who are virtually all left-wing Democrats.
The medical bureaucracy has had the taste of power and access to money due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It is not something they will surrender easily. Atop that medical bureaucracy sits Dr. Andrew Fauci, who – at $400,000+ per year – has the highest salary of any bureaucrat in the country.
The pandemic has enabled the medical component of the big-government crowd to spend trillions of dollars on new projects, government contracts and personnel. Yes, their need for money in their budgets will decline as the crisis passes. But – in Washington – that does not mean that they will acquiesce to a shrinkage back to pre-pandemic levels.
We will be told of the essential need to underwrite – in the form of grants – all sorts of medical protective measures. Schools will need continuing funds of on-campus medical personnel – and funds to expand the physical size of classrooms.
County health department will need billions of dollars of “expanded service.” Hospitals will need money to increase the beds in their IC units.
Democrat operative Rahm Emanuel presciently said that in politics you never let a crisis go to waste. And we can already see how Democrats have used the so-called “Covid Relief” bills to pack that Trojan Horse with trillions of dollars of unrelated pork-barrel spending.
The medical bureaucrats see the Covid crisis as a gift that can keep on giving. They gained a motherlode of power and money from the pandemic. Now the game is to see how little they will be forced to relinquish by the adults in Congress. If history is instructive, it will not be much.
So, there ‘tis.