Last week at a bill signing ceremony in the White House, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi leaned into President Joe Biden for a hug and a kiss. If you happened to be watching, and if for some reason you were asked to analyze what you just saw, you’d probably say, “I just saw Nancy Pelosi in close contact with Joe Biden.”
But you would be wrong. As RedState’s Nick Arama reported Friday, Biden spokesperson Jen Psaki quickly assured us that that’s not at all what you saw. You did not in fact witness anything of the sort, because it wasn’t “close contact.” Psaki explained:
The CDC’s “definition of it is 15 minutes of contact within a set period of time, within six feet. It did not meet that bar.”
Why is it important that you are being told that reality is false? For one, Pelosi was in whatever kind of contact you want to call it, her mouth inches away from the mouth of the Leader of the Free World (censor me here), and the next day tested positive for COVID. That alone should be concerning.
The more worrisome issue is that since the start of the pandemic, the CDC and other COVID authorities have been gaslighting us, changing the meaning of language, and issuing often absolutely preposterous edicts. Take Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s ridiculous rules back in the day. She signed orders which:
…among other things, banned purchasing paint and seeds from grocery stores, operating a boat with a motor, and traveling between one’s own residences…
Yes, she actually banned Michiganders from purchasing seeds. This happened.
In New York, former Mayor Bill De Blasio decided you could do what you needed to do on the sand, but you Must No Go In The Water. Because COVID swims, or something.
Not to be outdone, in Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti ruled that exercise on the wet sand at the beach was fine, but whatever you, please do not suntan on the DRY sand.
And who can forget the sight of Los Angeles authorities arresting a lone paddleboarder?
Beware LA County paddle boarders you will be arrested for using the Pacific Ocean 😳 (via brothers_marshall IG) pic.twitter.com/x2TmIwPkM6
— Andy Ruther (@AndyRuther) April 3, 2020
During this same, crazy two-year period, we were told by MSNBC that violent, fiery riots were “mostly peaceful.” Yup. Got it.
Don’t even get me started on the Hunter Biden story. Crazily, even as I’m writing this, the Whitmer kidnapping plot doesn’t appear to be what they told us either. That case just fell apart.
Somewhere along the way, Merriam- Webster changed the definition of “vaccinated.” The word “immunity” was changed to “immunity response,” when it became quite clear that the COVID vaccines were not in fact giving people “immunity.”
Do you hear about the “Pandemic of the Unvaccinated” much anymore? No, because a huge number of people getting COVID currently are vaccinated and are, in many cases, double-boosted. Just ask Pelosi, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, GOP Sen. Susan Collins, and many others in Washington who all have recently reported positive cases.
But in the end, who cares if the CDC defines “close contact” as something that sounds like pregnancy is the most likely end result? It’s their definition — leave them alone, right?
It matters because it’s yet another example of something much more insidious: the erosion of people’s trust in so many of our once venerated institutions. Innumerable people now automatically mistrust anything that comes out of the CDC, for instance. That trust was first lost when the formerly ubiquitous Dr. Fauci told us that masks weren’t needed, only to several months later turn around and say essentially, “HA! I was just kidding; I was hoarding them for medical personnel; you do actually need them.Joke’s on you!”
America was built on trust; the trust of the governed that those elected to govern them would have their best interests in mind and would tell the truth. The seemingly almost purposeful abdication of this trust by so many of our institutions — the press, the CDC, universities, social media platforms — has left us in a perilous situation. The examples provided here are just a sliver of what we’ve actually witnessed in such a short period of time.
We may soon need that sense of communal trust, as a nation, as a people. COVID may be going away (please!), but it surely won’t be the last crisis we face. We will someday have to come together again, whether it’s for war, disease, economic challenges, or even something totally unforeseen.
Let’s hope it will still be possible.
