Is the Media Polling a Fast One?
In the media’s mad dash to keep fear alive, it’s not herd immunity they’re after, it’s herd mentality. In headline after headline, we see surveys about Americans desperate to keep the country locked down. But is it true? Well, as far as Scott Rasmussen is concerned, a poll is only as good as its questions. And the press, many believe, might be asking the wrong ones.
We’ve all seen the statistics. “If you ask people has the government gone too far in locking things down or not far enough? Very few people — something like 23 percent in our poll — think government officials have gone too far. Seventy-one percent say they’ve either not gone far enough or found about the right balance. And that leads to… ‘Oh, nobody wants to end the lockdowns.’ But it’s always good,” Scott said, “to ask questions from a different perspective.”
Unlike the press’s poll or others’, he decided not to frame things in terms of lockdowns or limits. Turns out, that made a huge difference. When people were asked, “Should every business in America — not the chosen few, not the essential ones — should every business be allowed to open if they establish appropriate social distancing protocols? Sixty percent said yes. Only 26 percent said no.” What does that tell us? At its core, our country isn’t worried about reopening. It’s worried about reopening irresponsibly.
“That just throws an entirely different flavor on the discussion,” he insisted. “You know, what people are really looking for [is]… they don’t want to just throw the doors open and pretend that nothing happened. We do have a serious high risk of serious contagion.” They want to know that people are dealing with this responsibly. But, as Rasmussen’s results show, that doesn’t mean they’re opposed to letting people try — which is the narrative the media keeps feeding us.
What makes capitalism work is that it’s entirely voluntary. In a free market system like ours, you can’t force people to go in and buy a loaf of bread. They make their own decision as to whether they feel comfortable enough to go into your establishment. The onus is on businesses to draw in consumers and make them feel safe. That’s what makes our system work. The responsibility doesn’t fall on the government, it falls on the business owner.
And that’s something else Scott’s survey data helped debunk. He dug deeper, taking a special look at the people who said they didn’t think government had gone far enough. When he asked those people, “Should every business be reopened if they adhere to these protocols?” — they were evenly divided! Obviously, it’s all in how you frame the question. If the idea’s put in terms of appropriate behavior and best practices, even the most cautious Americans are willing to consider moving forward.
The bottom line is, only one out of four voters today is opposed to letting all businesses reopen in a responsible manner. That’s just 25 percent. So despite the media’s constant barrage of fear-mongering, the majority of Americans are quite ready to get back to life. Even in urban areas that have been hit hardest, people agree: if we can move on responsibly, great. Otherwise, the longer this goes, the more devastating it becomes.
Originally published here.
The Dog Days of COVID
There were plenty of big guns at Tuesday’s Senate coronavirus hearing, but it might be four-legged Rufus who stole the show. Senator Lamar Alexander’s (R-Tenn.) napping spaniel was just one of the signs that business was anything but usual for the Hill. Like the Supreme Court flush heard ‘round the world, Americans are getting a good look at their leaders as everyday people — with rock band posters, barking dogs, messy desks, and books stacked to the ceiling. But more importantly, they got an honest picture of something else: where the country really is in its COVID-19 fight.
It was a surreal contrast to the wood-paneled committee room where Senator Alexander normally presides. And yet, even from his living room, the HELP chairman managed to get to the bottom of some of the wrenches being thrown into reopening. The senators volleyed questions at Dr. Anthony Fauci of the Coronavirus Task Force, exposing some fault lines between Republicans and leading health experts. The doctor took plenty of fire from conservatives who worry that his alarmism is getting in the way of jumpstarting the economy. Fauci responded, humbly, that he “never made [himself] out to be the 'end all’” or the “only voice in this.”
He’s right. The mainstream media did that as part of its unrelenting mission to keep fear alive. But in the process of trying to keep people safe, Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.) pointed out, we’ve completely neglected the health of something else: the economy. “When we set out to flatten the curve [with closures and lockdowns], we didn’t set out to with the goal of preventing 100 percent of fatalities. That would be unrealistic. It is impossible.” We set out, he went on, to keep hospitals below capacity and save lives. “And I think we’ve done a pretty good job of that,” he said. But it’s time to stop moving the goalposts. “… I respect the need for caution, [but] we are too often presented with a false dichotomy: saving the economy or saving lives.”
Senator Scott is absolutely right. The media keeps telling us to listen to the medical experts — and while we respect them, that’s just one side of the coin. There are a lot of other considerations, Senator Mike Braun (R-Ind.) agreed, that have to be factored into the decision-making. “It would be so easy to continue that highly bureaucratic one-size-fits-all [approach],” he admitted on “Washington Watch.” But it “would guarantee that we’re going to take the economic patient and… near kill it in the process — and that doesn’t need to happen.”
It’s a “tricky virus,” Braun insisted, but President Trump has hit it head-on. And the reason he’s been so successful, the Indiana senator points out, is because he “knows how entrepreneurs work.” He knows the way to get quicker results is relying on the private sector and power of the free market. “Imagine [if] you had a president that was just going to be hand-in-hand with the FDA and CDC. We’d still be talking about getting out of the gate!”
But, of course, Braun said, “the fact that he takes a different style and approach to things” means he gets more heat. Even though, he pointed out, that same approach is what has helped us overcome significant obstacles. “You don’t hear anything about [personal protective equipment shortages anymore]. You don’t hear anything about ventilators. You don’t hear anything about being under supplied with critical care beds. Those were the first three. We took care of them pretty quickly.” And yet, “in this highly charged, heated environment, you [hear] none of the benefits of [his decisions]. You only get the negatives. And course that’s been the name of the game since he got elected back in ‘16.”
Now, the attention’s turned to testing — which, as everyone in Tuesday’s hearing agreed, is one of the biggest keys to moving forward. But even there, what the administration has accomplished is impressive. Despite a government that’s resistant to change and slow to move, the numbers would suggest that it was President Trump’s leadership that broke through and leveraged the private sector to accelerate this research and develop these innovative diagnostic tests. And with the $11 billion dollars flowing to the states to help that effort, he’s creating a competitive environment to see who can do it best. “It’s through the laboratory of diverse states,” Senator Braun pointed out, that we’ll find a way forward. And ultimately, that sort of free market concept has worked quite well for America. Then, looking at the testimony from Tuesday’s committee, it looks like the U.S. will be able to produce and distribute at least 40-50 million tests a month. That’s incredibly significant.
Our real risk now isn’t what’s been done — it’s what we’re going to do moving forward. If we aren’t careful, Senator Braun warns, “bankruptcies will be the next tragedy that occur. We’re seeing a few of them already if we don’t get off this idea that we need a [$3 trillion dollar] Phase Four [bill]. To me, that was the biggest pile of baloney I’ve ever seen coming out of [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi in the House. We’ll have this thing linger for a long time… like '08 and '09.” Obviously, that’s what Democrats are hoping for so they can make political hay. But, as Mike said, “If we’re smart on our restart going forward, take a little mitigated risk, do it state by state, county by county, and get the Feds [and their money] out of the way,” we’ll give recovery a fighting chance. And right now, that’s all most are asking for.
Originally published here.
The Ill. Effects of an Overreaching Governor
Illinois isn’t communist Romania — but according to one pastor, it’s getting harder to tell the difference. Chicago’s Cristian Ionescu grew up watching dictators close churches, jail pastors, and marginalize men and women of faith. He just never dreamed that decades later in America, he’d be close to the same kind of oppression.
Like a lot of congregations, his Elim Romanian Pentecostal Church in Illinois has been stunned by Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s reluctance to even consider reopening houses of worship. Staring down a church lockdown that could extend well into the summer, he decided he’d had enough.
Along with Logos Baptist Ministries, the church is suing the governor to stop his stifling executive order from taking effect. As far as they’re concerned, if businesses can open following CDC guidelines, so can churches. In an interview with World magazine, Ionescu insisted they’ll do temperature checks at the door, provide masks and hand sanitizer, adhere to social distancing guidelines, and cut their attendance to 15 percent capacity. But the state hasn’t budged.
It all reminds him of a tortured childhood in central Europe where persecution was the norm. “When I hear about shutting churches down without consent, without communication, without dialogue … it sounds like the same playbook the Communists used,” he said.
At least now, Steve West writes, he has one remedy the young Cristian didn’t: the courts. Let’s hope they, along with the Trump Justice Department, finally give his church the constitutional relief he deserves.
For more on the measures your congregation can take, check out FRC’s special publication, “Guidelines for Re-opening Your Church.”
Originally published here.
This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.
