Chaffetz & Saphier: Widespread COVID panic – here's how the left misused science to gain political power

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COVID one year later: How the political class leveraged a crisis

Fox News medical contributor Dr. Nicole Saphier and Fox News contributor Jason Chaffetz discuss op-ed that claims 'the left misused science to gain political power.'

Once upon a time, national crises served as a call to unity – a time to come together in service and sympathy. Yet, in 2020, America's political class mastered the art of leveraging a crisis to amplify divisions and justify power grabs. It worked.

An overwhelming wave of hypocrisy and hysteria from rampant politicization of the COVID-19 pandemic has characterized so much of the American response.

Controversy and skepticism have surrounded many facets of the disaster from the origin of the virus and concealment of information by China to school closures, wearing facemasks, treatments, vaccines and more.

GOV. KRISTI NOEM: COVID AND SOUTH DAKOTA ONE YEAR LATER -- WHAT GUIDED OUR APPROACH FROM DAY ONE

Partisan foes pushed forth their political agendas to gain power by inappropriately claiming science as their motivation. This has hopelessly muddied the water and divided the country.

Today power has shifted to those who favor bigger government, higher taxes, fewer liberties and stratospheric government spending. Using the urgency of a global pandemic and tragedy of the Breonna Taylor and George Floyd incidents, the political left convinced more Americans to embrace an agenda that will cause irreparable damage to our economy, our stability and our way of life.

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After spending the first part of 2020 supporting restrictions on fundamental freedoms ranging from public protesting to religious worship to gun ownership and even health care, they abruptly and temporarily changed course to accommodate the crisis of social justice movements.

Suddenly "follow the science" seemed less straightforward, as mass gatherings of BLM protests were encouraged. The threat to public health was momentarily forgotten while science was changed to dogma, doing an about face on the danger of public gatherings. This sudden shift sent an unintended message that led many to question the premise of the lockdowns altogether. 

Limitations were placed on anti-lockdown protests, sports events and even playgrounds, all the while social movement protests were not only allowed but encouraged by many. Religious worship was heavily restricted, yet bars, restaurants and gyms were given more leniency.   

Prescription rights were stripped from physicians while authoritative measures were enforced canceling medical care for non-COVID patients. Politicization of potential treatments, vaccines and viral case counts fueled conspiracy theories to be widely circulated. The immediate censorship by Big Tech of such theories without open, transparent debate only powered the skeptical more.

While any discussions regarding potential conspiracy theories were silenced, the actual destruction of historic statues and government buildings was tolerated.

The goalposts moved. 

While many journalists were broadcasting the importance of following science to "flatten the curve" and criticizing governors who chose less restrictive paths, they fell all over themselves with praise for Govs. Andrew Cuomo and Phil Murphy, who sanctioned ill-equipped nursing homes to take COVID-positive patients, leading to an enormous death spike for their states.

Welcome to disaster liberalism – a means by which politicians use the threat of an impending crisis to justify enacting unpopular or unconstitutional policies. 

People were told to "stay home" and do their part to protect the vulnerable. However, even when cases decreased and the science proved otherwise, politicians made anti-science decisions regarding reopening plans, all of which fuel distrust and civil unrest.  Months after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put forth recommendations for children to get back to in-person schooling, many schools across the nation remained closed.

When anti-science measures are continuously implemented, the long-term consequences of the actions can have longer-lasting effects than the pathogen itself. The pandemic resulted in a failure of government, much of which is inescapable in a unique disaster scenario such as COVID-19. However, the rampant politicization of science and manipulation of issues have hopelessly muddied the water, divided the country, and the reflexive anti-Trumpism made it all worse.

Welcome to disaster liberalism – a means by which politicians use the threat of an impending crisis to justify enacting unpopular or unconstitutional policies. The crisis allows them to do so on an accelerated timeline that bypasses traditional checks and balances.

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Whether the emergency is legitimate, fabricated or exaggerated, the solution is always the same: more government, less individual freedom, higher spending, higher taxes.  Every crisis becomes a vehicle to enact an agenda that could not otherwise gain support in a democratic republic. 

These incidents are characterized by selective outrage, calls for censorship, appeals to experts, and demands for more government. We spent most of last year working on our upcoming books, "Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste: The Truth about Disaster Liberalism" and "Panic Attack: The Politicization of Science in the Fight Against COVID-19."  During most of that time, we didn't know how 2020 would end or what early 2021 would look like. We had hoped Americans would soundly reject partisan agendas and move forward solely based on facts and reliable data.

Many did not.

Despite the fact we now have three vaccines demonstrating 100% ability of keeping Americans out of the hospital and saving their lives, many states are still slow to adopt measures acknowledging the rising community protection. We are still not out of the woods and we will be dancing with COVID-19 for a while to come, but partisan bias should have no place in our future actions.

Buckle up. More crises are on the way. If calamities are a recipe for empowering the government, we'll see politicians attempt to turn every molehill into a mountain and to leverage every mountain for maximum political gain.

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As Mark Twain says, "Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government when it deserves it."

Follow the science.

Flatten the curve.

We did our part. Now, our governments, state and federal, have a steep climb to gain our trust.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM JASON CHAFFETZ

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM DR. NICOLE SAPHIER

Nicole Saphier M.D. is a Fox News contributor and physician at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She is the best-selling author of "Make America Health Again" with the new book, "Panic Attack" available for pre-order now.