COVID hysteria is back in full swing, and it’s as hectic and incoherent as ever. The Delta variant is at the top of the news as case totals are blasted out with no context. Meanwhile, the CDC has completely finished off what little credibility they may have had remaining. All the while, the data shows that there’s no major crisis justifying all the smoldering hair of our intellectual betters. In short, it’s been quite the week.

In the midst of all that, some questions have become paramount. How could the government possibly screw up messaging as badly as it has? Why are news networks pushing narratives that actually undermine the promotion of the vaccine?

Take this nonsense from CNN, which is repeating an unsourced claim by CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, as an example.

Vaccination alone won't stop the rise of variants and in fact could push the evolution of strains that evade their protection, researchers warned.

They said people need to wear masks and take other preventative steps until almost everyone is vaccinated. https://t.co/MlUJWlkffg

— CNN (@CNN) July 30, 2021

I can’t think of a worse message regarding the vaccines than to tell people that it may not be effective for much longer. Couple that with the push to make masks preeminent, something completely in conflict with the data we have on mask efficacy, and you have a recipe for some of the worst, most ineffective government messaging in modern history.

In more normal times, one might be asking themselves how the CDC and the media keep making all these mistakes? It should be fairly obvious that simply being honest about who is most at risk (age and comorbidities) and then targeting those populations for vaccination is the smart move instead of carpet bombing people with fear and hysterics that only breed distrust.

But we don’t live in normal times. Rather, the panic is the point, and when you start things with that point of view, it all begins to make a lot more sense.

You see, Democrats and their media allies recognize that the 2022 electoral landscape is looking apocalyptic for them. Not only are they facing strong historical headwinds with it being a first mid-term for a new president, but they are losing on the issues as well. A majority of Americans blame Joe Biden and the Democrats for the inflationary cycle we are in. They blame them for the lagging economy, which grew almost 2% less than expected despite what should have been an exploding, organic recovery. They certainly blame them for the border crisis and the failures in our foreign policy.

Add in the Republican advantage on redistricting, and the House may flip without much any major shift in the electorate, though, there looks to be that forming as well.

What that means is that Democrats have two cards left to play. The first one is milking the unrest on January 6th. As we saw during the first hearing on the matter, Nancy Pelosi’s select committee is absolutely pointless, having no practical goal whatsoever. Rather it exists to trot out partisans, including politically active Capitol Police officers, in order to produce TV ads for 2022. If they can stretch the dog and pony show out until the fall of 2022, they will absolutely do it and that is no doubt the plan.

Past that, the only other card left to play is COVID. Now, you might think that continuing to push lockdowns and mask mandates while undercutting the vaccine would hurt Democrats in the long run, but they are running a different play that most onlookers don’t seem to grasp, including a lot of commentators on the right. The panic they are stoking isn’t meant to earn them new voters. Instead, it’s meant to justify a continuation of emergency orders in a variety of states, many of which include key swing districts that will be decided in 2022.

If the COVID crisis simply doesn’t end, then neither do all the changes to the voting system that allowed mass mail-in voting, drive-thru precincts, and ballot harvesting in 2020 under the guise of an existential emergency. Judges will once again override state laws and the DOJ will use COVID to argue that election integrity laws that return things to normal amount to disenfranchisement. Further, Democrats are acutely aware that Republicans typically vote in person. What better way to suppress that vote than to create enough panic that in-person voting is limited in my key areas?

The continued incoherence from the left on COVID, the vaccines, masks, and a variety of other surrounding issues is not an accident. Rather, it’s a desperate ploy to keep a crisis alive that they believe they can benefit politically from. With Delta variant cases rising, deaths will likely see a slight jump over the next few weeks. That’s when the call for new lockdowns will begin, and when the Delta variant subsides, the next variant that pops up will be used in the same way. Democrats know COVID is never going completely away and they plan to make hay out of that reality.

Once you recognize the game being played, it’s much easier to anticipate the next move, and Democrats are not hiding the ball at this point. The panic is the point, and Republicans need to stop assuming all of these machinations are happening out of ignorance and not malice. Understand what you are up against and respond accordingly. Do that, and they may yet get their red wave in 2022.