At some point, very far in the future – long after President Donald Trump has been replaced in office by Joe Biden – some dispassionate and truly objective journalist will write an essay on the coronavirus political myth; that is to say, the way politicians used the coronavirus pandemic to feather their political nests. Pre-Biden, during the Trump relapse, such brave journalism would have been regarded by approximately 90 percent of the media as reckless and unwise.
This imaginary journalist will regard certain grammatical formulations as treacherous and logical impossibilities. Take, by way of example, any line common in Associated Press reports attributing business slowdowns anywhere in the nation to the coronavirus.
Coronavirus is not a person; therefore, it cannot be the efficient cause of the many shutdowns that, in Connecticut, have made a wasteland of Hartford, the state’s Capital city.
These shutdowns were caused by Democrat Gov. Ned Lamont, operating in accordance with his extraordinary — read: extra-constitutional — powers. His emergency powers, recently extended for another six months, were conferred upon Lamont by members of his party who control, and have controlled for nearly a half century, Connecticut’s General Assembly, which has not assembled at the State Capitol for about a half year. The business of the state for this period of time has been conducted by what this writer elsewhere has called a rump legislature. Lamont has been operating for half a year as plenary governor, as have most governors in the northeast, including St. Andrew Cuomo, the Governor of New York.
When Lamont said restaurants shall be closed, they were closed. When he said restaurants shall be open, provided they service only half their usual clientele, the thing was done. When he reversed his own strictures, gravitating between two-thirds open and half open, or when he rented out his own plenary powers to municipal heath agencies, so that appointed rather than elected politicians serving on boards would be able to shut down or enact crippling fines on restaurants not in compliance with his ever-shifting policy prescriptions, everyone jumped through his hoops. The beaten restaurants could not seek succor from the General Assembly, which remains largely shut down by coronavirus.
Oops, sorry — actually, the General Assembly has been shut down by Democrat leaders in the General Assembly, who are not a virus. A virus can only “shut down” a General Assembly by carrying off to Valhalla a large proportion of legislators which, thank God, has not happened.
While we are on the point of thanking God, a common practice among politicians during Thanksgiving, some of my out-of-state relatives, unapproachable because of gubernatorial travel restrictions, have reminded me that there is no mention of God in Lamont’s gloomy and dour Thanksgiving proclamation.
It would be “an act of supererogation,” one says, for Lamont to mention God in his Thanksgiving proclamation. “Not even God has the power in Connecticut to make a wasteland of the state’s capital city. It is impossible to imagine God shutting down the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, so that music lovers would be deprived of the consolation of J.S. Bach’s Mass in B Minor.”
Lamont’s policies are responsible for such closures. And he, along with Cuomo and other confederate Democrat governors in the Northeast, seems truly to believe that the rest of us worshiping at political altars should be thankful for his contributions to democratic government.
The first Thanksgiving proclamation was offered by President George Washington, who knew very well to Whom the nation should be grateful for its many blessings – hint, not George Washington.
Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor—and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”
The Supreme Court most recently rapped Cuomo on the knuckles for having short-sheeted the inescapably clear religious clause of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The court having risen to its constitutional obligation, Cuomo and others blustered that the court had become far too conservative, the remedy for which was at hand – pack the court.
As a general rule, modern politicians, who think all blessings flow from their hands, lack the requisite humility, manners, courage and good sense to thank God – their competitor — for any of His blessings – even on Thanksgiving.
Donald Pesci lives in Vernon and is the writer of the Red Notes from a Blue State blog.