Team Reality Vindicated Yet Again

Looks like us at Team Reality have been vindicated yet again:  two years into the pandemic, we still see no correlation between stringency and excess all-cause deaths.  And this was from a famous mainstream British medical journal, The Lancet, of all places.  One can see that not only did Sweden do better than the European average, but they actually did about the same or better than all of their immediate neighbors except Norway (and Norway wasn't even all that much stricter for the majority of the pandemic).  We can see that not only Sweden, but also Belarus, Nicaragua, Tanzania, Brazil, Uruguay, the Faroe Islands, Florida, Utah, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota were generally within error bounds of their much stricter neighbors (and/or the USA or world average), and in some cases actually did better.  Even Arizona was apparently within error bounds of their much stricter neighbor New Mexico.  And furthermore, a simple population age adjustment puts Florida and California at roughly equivalent to each other and the USA national average despite radically different policies, even if it makes Nevada look terrible by the same token.

The very worst country by far was Peru, who had one of the earliest, strictest, and longest lockdowns in the region, if not the world.  And the very worst US state was Mississippi, whose stringency was not very different from the national average overall.

But overall, the net result is that most countries and states simply ended up within error bounds of each other regardless of what they did policy-wise.

Cumulative excess all-cause deaths is the best way to compare states and countries since it shows us the "final bill" with no bias from the wide differences in counting Covid cases and deaths.  It thus captures all the collateral deaths from lockdowns and such, as well as direct and indirect virus deaths.  And it also captures any deaths from the very biggest elephant in the room of all--the experimental "vaccines".

Like the song goes, some will win, some will lose, and some are born to sing the blues.  And the latter category seems to be dominated by the perpetual quasi-lockdown countries and states repeatedly punctuated by on-again, off-again full lockdowns and other mandates and restrictions.  They have remained mired in an "epidemic yo-yo" with the worst of both worlds overall.  Basically, you either do China (excluding Hong Kong), or you do Sweden (or less).  Anything in between basically does far more harm than good on balance.  And China's brutal and totalitarian strategy, one with still no end in sight to this day, is of course utterly incompatible with anywhere even remotely close to being a free country.

Thus, lockdowns, mask mandates, and NPIs really need to be taken off the table forever. Period.

UPDATE:  Of course, all purely utilitarian arguments are ultimately built on quicksand, so that cannot be our only argument against lockdowns and such.  We must note that the real argument is, individual rights are inalienable, and thus NOT up for grabs, regardless.  It is an egregious affront to human dignity to violate such rights.  That, and the Hippocratic Oath of "first, do no harm" (since all of these restrictions and mandates are by definition, harmful to one degree or another) are the only arguments we need.

And for those who are still scared and miss the phony "security blanket" of universal masking, remember that you are still perfectly free to wear one yourself even well after mask mandates are lifted.  Better yet, build up your own "invisible mask" via the following:  Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Vitamin K, Vitamin A, Zinc, Quercetin, Thiamine, Magnesium, NAC, Niacin, Selenium, the amino acid Lysine, Resveratrol, Fisetin, Oregano Oil, Omega-3, and mouthwash and nasal spray such as Xlear, dilute Povidone-Iodine, or Betadine Cold Defence with Carageenan.  And all without the dreaded Foegen Effect or any of the numerous other adverse effects of face masks.

See also here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

And use common sense.  Wash your hands, cover your coughs and sneezes, don't touch your face, and stay home when actually sick.  Ventilate, ventilate, ventilate.  Vulnerable people should avoid crowds as much as possible when case numbers are elevated.  In other words, adopt the "flu strategy" and move on.

A Hot War With Russia Would Be a VERY, VERY Bad Idea

The True Spirit of America Party hereby unequivocally condemns Vladimir Putin's abominable behavior, including (but not limited to) his most recent brutal rape of the Ukraine.  We agree that there is nothing redeeming about what he is currently doing there, period.  No argument from us there.

That said, it is nonetheless entirely possible to both condemn his misbehavior and still understand that a hot war between the USA and Russia is a VERY, VERY bad idea on balance for all concerned.  Or between any NATO country and Russia, for that matter.  Russia is a still very much a nuclear-armed quasi-superpower to this day, and they are also one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.  A hot war with them can easily turn VERY ugly and nuclear VERY fast, and would not be worth the cost. The same goes for any hot war with China either.  Thus, the TSAP unequivocally opposes any attempt by anyone to foment such a war, for any reason.  Period.

Unfortunately, too many people don't seem to do nuance anymore these days.  And they probably don't even know what the word "nuance" means.

And while it is very politically incorrect to say it out loud, NATO has not exactly been entirely innocent either in recent years.  There is far, far more to this complex and nuanced larger NATO vs Russia issue than meets the eye, and the roots go very, very deep indeed.  And the MSM rarely if ever tells the whole story.  We believe that the many years of warmongering and provocations on both sides is really, really stupid and dangerous, and we urge both sides to resolve this crisis diplomatically as quickly as humanly possible.  And while there are really no GOOD options currently, imposing swift and tough economic sanctions on the Russian oligarchs themselves (including Putin himself, the second richest person in the world) would probably be the least worst thing for the USA, NATO, and the UN to do.

As protest folk singer Phil Ochs once famously sang in "What Are You Fighting For?" in the 1960s:

But the hardest thing I'll ask you, if you would only try

Is take your children by their hands and look into their eyes

And there you'll see the answer, you should have seen before

If you'll win the wars at home, there'll be no fighting anymore.

Such excellent and timeless advice, both then and now.  And as Sting famously and poignantly sang in 1985, "I hope the Russians love their children too".

How To Make Sure This NEVER Happens Again

With the official narrative having completely collapsed and the tyrants now meeting meaningful resistance from We the People, and the Covidians now cynically rushing for the exits via the Great Pivot, one thing should be clear. Going cold turkey yesterday back to 2019 Normal must be the FLOOR, not the ceiling, of what We the People demand going forward.  After all, 2019 Normal was clearly not enough to prevent these past two years of madness from happening in the first place, and we need to make sure this can NEVER, EVER happen again.  

Like, ever.  Seriously. 

Not only do we demand an immediate and permanent end to all pandemic-related mandates and restrictions, leaving no traces behind, period, but we also demand the following going forward as well:

• Individual human rights and civil liberties must be UNCONDITIONAL and inalienable, period.  Regardless of the supposed "facts" on the ground or the "greater good" or any other utilitarian concerns.  Otherwise, they are not really rights at all, but rather privileges and indulgences.
• Especially bodily autonomy and bodily integrity must be as absolute as humanly possible, period.
• Emergency powers of any kind for any reason at any level of government must be severely limited in time, space, and extent going forward, and completely and permanently revoked for any "leaders" who have abused them in the past.  Any emergency powers related to Covid need to be revoked permanently at all levels of government everywhere.
• New constitutional amendments and legislation must be put forth to explicitly spell out and guarantee these changes.
• In other words, the perceived legitimacy of the basis for these mandates and restrictions must be eradicated completely.
• DO NOT EVER again attempt to meet tyranny or insanity in the middle!  You will lose, guaranteed, every single time, period.
• All of the major players in this catastrophe, both government and corporate, need to be forced to resign immediately at a bare minimum, and then must be brought up on charges of Crimes Against Humanity and tried and punished accordingly.  Nuremberg 2.0, in other words.
• And finally, demand full reparations for all vaccine injuries, and for all damages (economic and otherwise) done by government-imposed lockdowns, shutdowns, restrictions, and mandates of any kind.  The Takings Clause in the Constitution already demands as much.

So what are we waiting for?

UPDATE:  See this excellent article by Jeffrey A. Tucker.  The roots of these emergency powers go far deeper than many people realize.  And we must end and fully gut these powers, root and branch, yesterday.  Otherwise, they will grow back.

Also see this excellent article from The Daily Sceptic in the UK.  The points in that article apply here in the USA as well.  All emergency powers must be fully revoked yesterday.   Never Again is NOW.

Its The Final Countdown!

Like the famous 1980s song by the Swedish band Europe goes, "It's the final countdown!"  The fat lady has finally sung, and it's all over but the shouting.

The two year long COVID-19 pandemic is now effectively over for the most part, the virus has become endemic, and the vast majority of people want to go back to 2019 normal.  More and more countries are ending all or practically all restrictions now, starting with Denmark, and now Sweden too (lifting what little restrictions they had before).  Much of Europe is at least starting to loosen restrictions as well.  The Freedom Convoy of truckers in Canada is clearly making an impact there as well, and provincial governments are taking note.  And a good chunk of US states are effectively back to normal.

But still not everywhere yet.  Several states and countries have yet to see the light, and are apparently maintaining or even doubling down on their restrictions.  Though as they become an increasingly lonely club, the pressure will be on them to follow the other states and countries, of course.

A new and excellent meta-analysis of numerous studies on the effects of lockdown and related restrictions on Covid mortality rates was recently released, and the results are not at all flattering to the purveyors of the narrative.  The finding was that these restrictions basically had little to no practical benefit at all (and some of the studies examined even found increases in deaths with greater stringency), and given their well-known and obvious harms in terms of collateral damage, that makes these restrictions worse than useless.  The authors thus concluded that these restrictions "are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument".

And the now-retreating Omicron variant has also completely laid waste to what little had remained of the "vaccine" narrative as well.  The same can also be said of mask mandates, as a cursory glance at the epicurves of places that had such mandates and those that did not would show, just like before Omicron too.

If all of this doesn't constitute the ultimate off-ramp to go cold turkey yesterday from all restrictions permanently and never look back, I really don't know what does.  So what are we waiting for?

UPDATE:   No sooner did the lockdown-debunking meta-analysis come out, than yet another meta-analysis came out that found (surprise!) that face masks were also effectively useless as well.  Again, the lack of evidence of benefit against the virus, combined with the known harms of forcing these things on people, makes these mandates worse than useless on balance.  No wonder so many erstwhile pro-mask politicians are rushing for the exits now!

And both Pfizer and Moderna investors are now rushing for the exits as well.  Turns out, even the manufacturer immunity (from liability) for these "vaccines" is also rather leaky as well.  These companies apparently forgot that FRAUD (if proven) still leaves them wide open to product liability regardless of anything--and the clinical trials that they used to gain authorization for their products are looking more and more fraudulent with each passing day.  No wonder Moderna's CEO abruptly deleted his Twitter account and dumped his stock.  Get your popcorn, this will get very, very interesting.

Cold Turkey Is Still Our Only Way Out

We at the TSAP have said it before, and we will say it again, shouting it from the rooftops.  The ONLY way out of this madness is to go cold turkey from all of these restrictions and mandates.  Period.  And yesterday is not soon enough!

That means, effective immediately:

• No more lockdowns, hard or soft
• No more curfews 
• No more business closures or capacity restrictions (unless voluntarily)
• No more closures of anything 
• No more mask mandates, anywhere
• No bans or restrictions on gatherings or events, public or private
• No restrictions on places of worship
• No more travel restrictions, whether international or domestic 
• All schools fully open, in-person, no antisocial distancing, masks optional
• All colleges fully open, in-person, no antisocial distancing, masks optional
• No more mass testing of anyone without symptoms.  Otherwise, use rapid testing first to verify.  For the PCR test (for confirmation), reduce the cycle threshold to 25-30, or simply jettison the PCR test entirely.
• No more quarantines of anyone without symptoms 
• No vaccine mandates, coercion, discrimination, or Covid "passports" of any kind, anywhere, period

And never again, no matter how bad it gets.  Really.  The TSAP will accept nothing less than 2019 true normal going forward, with NO more compromises.

And as long as there is no major outbreak locally, hospitals and nursing homes should also return to normal as well 100%.  It is LONG past time to stop cruelly denying visitors to patients, and stop artificially and arbitrarily delaying and cancelling so-called "elective" procedures and treatments.  And with the proper early treatment and prophylaxis, hospitals will NOT be overwhelmed anymore than during a typical flu season.  As for the staff, aggressive rapid testing should be done regularly regardless of vaccination status (as vaccinated people can still catch and spread the virus), and preference should be given to staff who are naturally immune because they have already had the virus and recovered (and are thus the very least likely to catch and spread the virus).  

That's it.  Yes, really.

Heresy, I know.  But it has been nearly two years now, and for better or worse, the virus is here to stay.  It cannot be eradicated at this point, as that train has left the station long ago.  We really only have two choices now and forever:  1) learn to live with the virus, and be honest about it, or 2) learn to live with the virus, and pretend otherwise. 

It has been observed that it is historically extremely rare for any respiratory viral pandemic to last longer than 18 months.  And they seldom have more than two major waves, three tops.  Yet here we are.  So all of our trying in vain to outsmart the virus, and/or hide from it, only served to drag it out that much longer, more painfully, and with out-of-season waves as well.  And plenty of widespread collateral damage on top of all that as well.  

Fortunately, the relatively mild Omicron variant itself looks like it will effectively function as a live and spreadable natural "vaccine" that will finally achieve REAL herd immunity to all past, present, and (near) future variants, and accelerate the transition to endemicity.  No thanks to the experimental mRNA and DNA/AAV gene therapies misnamed "vaccines", which are far too leaky and narrow to be fit for purpose, have a shoddy safety record at best, and most ironically of all seem to act like a magnet for Omicron.

This only ends when We the People finally stop complying with these mandates, cold turkey.  Or at least when a critical mass of people do so.  

So what are we waiting for?

UPDATE:  Oh, and about those masks again, while they may not be quite as much in the spotlight right now as the "vaccines" are, the zealots are nonetheless quite busy doing damage control and are upping their game in a desperate attempt to salvage as many fragments of the rapidly collapsing narrative as possible, notably including masks.  To that, we defer to the wisdom of Steve Kirsch and Allan Stevo.  See also the factsheet by Just Facts, and this one by Josh Stevenson, and the recent podcast and article by Ian Miller of Unmasked as well.  If, after thoroughly reading and listening to all of what they all have to say, you are still a "true believer" in masks, for anyone but especially for children, you really need to have your head examined!  Most likely, your brain has been seriously starved of oxygen for far too long.

Or maybe the dreaded Foegen Effect finally got the better of you, and you just don't realize it yet.

The TSAP Is NOW On GETTR

After seeing what Twitter has done to Dr. Robert W. Malone, Steve Kirsch, El Gato Malo, Dr. Dmitry Kats, Alex Berenson, and so many others, censoring and kicking them off Twitter and thus driving them to go on GETTR, we decided to go to GETTR as well.  Unlike Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other Big Tech social media platforms, they don't censor their posts at all, as they actually believe in freedom of speech.  Their interface is very similar to Twitter, and is in fact better since they have a much more generous character limit per post.

Follow us here on GETTR.

The TSAP will remain on Twitter for the time being as well, until either 1) we get kicked off, and/or 2) we simply get too sick of their shenanigans to take it anymore.  Be sure to follow us on both platforms to get the very best out of what we have to offer.

JULY UPDATE:  As of July 10, 2022, we have deleted our GETTR account in part due to current events, in part due to an infamous hacking and data breach event on GETTR, and in part because GETTR, to use a technical term, simply SUCKS.  Thus we have chose to say farewell to GETTR, and likely will be doing so to Twitter in the near future as well.

AUGUST UPDATE:  As of August 22, 2022, we are no longer on Twitter either.  #FarewellToTwitter

How The Democrats Can Hope To Avoid A "Red Wave" in 2022 and 2024

It's now 2022, and the Democrats have literally never been in worse shape as they are right now.  Well, not since 1980 at least.  The midterm elections are just ten months away, and they have succeeded in alienating a good chunk of the electorate in the past two years.  From lockdowns to school and business closures to masks to vaccine mandates and passports to inflation to crime to cancel culture to ironically not being nearly progressive enough where it really matters, they have been associated with and have accumulated a LOT of baggage lately.

Dems, this is your LAST chance to check your baggage at the door.  Like, yesterday:

1. End all virus-related restrictions and mandates immediately, stop mass asymptomatic testing, stop PCR testing completely or cut the cycle threshold to 25-30, and declare victory over the virus.  If the relatively mild Omicron isn't your off ramp, I really don't know what is!
2. End all censorship and immediately authorize and promote any and all early treatments and prophylactics with good evidence of safety and effectiveness, including, but not limited to, that famous one that starts with an "I".  Make it very easy to get OTC, including by mail order.  Send Indian-style "Ziverdo" kits to everyone.  And let's not forget "Vitamin Q" either!
3. Approve Novavax (and/or other more traditional vaccines like Covaxin and Corbevax) for all adults who want it, and simultaneously put an indefinite moratorium on all mRNA and DNA/AAV "vaccines", effective immediately.  And remove the liability shield as well.  And DO NOT FORCE vaccines on anyone this time!
4. Open schools 100%, in-person, full-time, 2019 normal style.  Effective immediately, any schools that remain remote or hybrid should be considered closed for the purposes of funding.
5. Expel Joe Manchin from the party yesterday and pass a genuine progressive agenda without watering it down.  Things like Medicare For All, free college, UBI, paid family leave, the Green New Deal, infrastructure, and stuff like that.

And finally, apologize for what you have done and failed to do.  Stop gaslighting We the People and own up to it NOW.   Even if all of these things are done right now, the damage is pretty much already done at this point, and a "Red Wave" could still be in the cards.  But if these things are not done, it is all but guaranteed to happen.  It will truly be a bloodbath at the polls in 2022, and in 2024 you may even see a President DeSantis.  You have been warned.

It's 2022, And The Official Narrative Is Now Completely Laid Waste

Beginning in November 2021, and accelerating at warp speed in the latter half of December, the official narrative is collapsing faster than formerly healthy young athletes on the field after being injected with the experimental jabs.  From increasingly obvious "vaccine" and NPI failures (and harms) to the milder but more contagious Omicron to new (and rediscovered) treatments to the "experts" contradicting each other out of utter desperation, the narrative has now been completely laid waste.  Few people really believe in it anymore, and the few true believers have lost nearly all clout now.  More and more people are waking up, questioning, and resisting.  And for everyone else, conformity has become little more than ritualism, that is, merely going through the motions.  This is becoming the case all over the world, but particularly true in the USA.

Like rats deserting a sinking ship, the purveyors of the narrative are scrambling and falling over themselves to abandon it, even as they desperately cling to as much as they can hope to attempt to salvage in order to publicly save face for as long as they can.  It's really quite pathetic at this point. 

Keep holding the line, and DO NOT COMPLY.  We simply cannot meet tyranny or insanity in the middle, as we have learned the hard way.  We must demand 2019 normal or bust, period.  The Overton window has been cracked open, and victory for liberty is now finally within reach.  So let's not squander it!

The oligarchs have bitten off far more than they could ever possibly chew.  And now they are choking on it as we speak.  And thanks in part to Omicron, we are now finally (and ironically) reaching the heretofore elusive "herd immunity" that was 1) promised by leaky experimental "vaccines" that failed to deliver, and 2) delayed via lockdowns and NPIs (to the extent they had any effect at all on viral spread) from occurring the natural way.  In other words, Covid is evolving into the new common cold, and the inevitable (and long overdue) transition from pandemic to endemic is now finally under way.

And most importantly, we are now learning the crucial difference between power and force.  And good ideas do NOT require force.  "Power within" and "power with and through" always wins against "power over" (aka force) in the long run, God willing.

Over 400 Studies On Our Side

BREAKING NEWS:  According to Dr. Paul Alexander, here are now over 400 studies that expose the utter failure of all of the COVID-related mandates and compulsory restrictions in the real world, and ZERO studies of even halfway-decent quality that show the opposite with any real confidence.  Once you exclude all of the fatally-flawed and poorest quality studies, and look at enough real-world data points, one can firmly conclude that all of these measures have done far more harm than good on balance.  And they should NEVER, EVER, EVER be repeated.  Like, ever.

Dr. Alexander's article discusses compulsory non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) such as lockdowns, shelter-in-place, school closures, masks and mask mandates, etc. and essentially debunks them all.  Scratch that, he debones, fillets, slices, dices, and juliennes each and every one of these sacred cows, and pretty much lays waste to their remains.  However, his article does not touch on the most recent addition to the mix:  the now ubiquitous "vaccines" and the disgustingly tyrannical mandates and passports of same.  That is where the ever-insightful Steve Kirsch comes in, noting that these jabs literally kill more people than they save, and a fortiori for children to the tune of 117 to 1.  And that data was largely before the boosters became widely used, so that is most likely a lower bound for the adverse effects going forward if we continue on the path we are on.  They are also known to be very "leaky" (i.e. they don't stop transmission), and are thus NOT fit for the purpose of mass vaccination even if they were somehow perfectly safe (which they're not).

Thus, to put it in medical terminology, "the therapeutic window is closed" for all of these mandates and restrictions, period.  We must scrap the whole lot of them, cold turkey, never to repeat them again.  And the same is clearly true for these "vaccines" themselves, with maybe the exception of some extremely vulnerable and high risk individuals who still have yet to receive them for whatever reason.  Plenty of early treatments and prophylactics exist that completely obviate any need for these jabs, we just need to stop denying and censoring them, and start using them.  And yesterday is NOT soon enough!

FINAL THOUGHT:  If anyone still thinks that vaccine mandates or passports are somehow necessary OR sufficient to prevent another lockdown, well, we've got a nice bridge over the Danube River we'd like to sell you.  As they are now learning the hard way in Europe, you cannot bargain with the devil and hope to come out in one piece!  Cold turkey is the only way out of this mess for good, period.  When you try to meet insanity and tyranny in the middle, you will always lose, each and every single time.

UPDATE:  Looks like Sweden, who famously eschewed lockdowns, mask mandates, and vaccine mandates, has ultimately been vindicated after all.  Their cumulative all-cause excess mortality per capita (by far the best indicator of all) was well below the European average, and believe it or not, not very different from their neighbors when you include all of their neighbors.  And Brazil, who had a reputation for being lax, and even Belarus, Nicaragua, and Tanzania, who largely ignored the pandemic, also fared quite similarly to their much stricter neighbors as well in terms of excess deaths.  And here in the USA, we see that Florida's excess death rate was roughly equivalent to California's despite the latter being much, much stricter overall than the former, AND despite the former also having a much older and fatter population as well.  Game. Set. Match.

Another study finds that babies born during the pandemic have stunted development compared to babies born before the pandemic.  Interestingly, no significant difference was seen between babies born to mothers who contracted the virus during pregnancy and those who did not.  Rather, it was the mothers' stress from all of the panic and lockdowns that had a toxic effect on the babies across regardless of the virus itself.  Let that sink in for a moment.  Now add in all the ubiquitous antisocial distancing and masks they experienced during early childhood as well, and it gets even worse still.

As for the Nu Xi Omicron variant, it is looking more and more like an intellectual checkmate for the purveyors of the official narrative.  Both "Team Vaccine" and "Team Zero Covid" are about to eat some serious crow, while the inevitable transition from pandemic to endemic has been greatly accelerated.

And now, the CDC has finally decided to pull the plug on the fraudulent PCR test, effectively December 31, 2021.  Because they know that the gig is up, the narrative has been completely laid waste, and effectively ending PCR testing is literally the only way they can declare "victory" over Covid at this point.

Don't forget to check out this deep dive by the ever-insightful Julius Ruechel too.

WTF Happened To The Left ?

That is the trillion-dollar question we should all have been asking all along.  From the moderate liberal left to the progressive left to the socialist far left, we saw far too many were either silent or went along with the neoliberal pseudo-left in pushing these illiberal, authoritarian, totalitarian, dystopian, and technocratic restrictions--lockdowns, shutdowns, school closures, mass quarantines, mask mandates, travel restrictions, gathering restrictions, and now even vaccine mandates and "passports".  That was one of the most shocking observations in history. 

There is literally nothing progressive or "woke" about these draconian measures that arbitrarily revoke individual human rights and civil liberties, destroy economies, destroy family and community cohesion, disproportionately harm the poor and people of color, disproportionately harm women and children, and quite frankly don't even work to stop the virus in the long run.  Up until March 2020, it was largely a consensus even in the medical community that doing these worse-than-useless things would do far more harm than good on balance, thus blatantly violating the Hippocratic oath of "first do no harm", and the left generally felt the same way.  So what changed?

From the ACLU to Vox to Noam Chomsky to the UN to the WSWS to Jacobin to Ms. Magazine to the AMA to the AAP to the AARP to nearly every left-wing or left-leaning political party in the world (outside of Sweden, Belarus, and Nicaragua), some of the last people one would expect to carry water for such a horrible agenda of the oligarchy and Big Pharma ended up doing exactly that.  Was it simply fear?  Was it generous payola from the oligarchy and Big Pharma?  Was it manipulation and coercion from them?  Was it blindly taking orders from Beijing, like the WHO is known to do?  Was it activation of some latent (or not-so-latent) authoritarian tendencies estimated to be present in 20% of the general population?  Was it what started as a merely silly "Orange Man Bad" political take that simply metastasized throughout the entire body politic?  Or perhaps a deep-seated desire to destroy capitalism (and/or industrial civilization) once and for all at any cost, regardless of the collateral damage?  

Most likely, it was all of the above.  Either way, the vast majority of the Left has SOLD OUT.  

The Democratic Party is beyond repair now.  News Flash:  The ubiquitous hashtag #DemExit is trending, and going viral.  Somebody needs to answer the Clue Phone, and fast!  Otherwise, 2022 and 2024 will thus be a bloodbath at the polls for the Dems.

Meanwhile, the ever-insightful British organization Left Lockdown Sceptics has consistently been a prinicipled beacon of sanity and reason on the genuine Left, no matter how far off the rails and utterly unhinged the rest of the self-proclaimed "Left" (whether (neo)liberal, progressive, or radical) have become lately.  They have truly stood the test of time, and their integrity will not be forgotten.

The time for the increasingly compromised and increasingly phony "Left" to genuinely repent cold turkey and make amends is yesterday.  Scratch that, the best time was 21 months ago.  The second best time is RIGHT NOW!  What are they waiting for?

UPDATE:  We would be remiss if we did not also note how egregiously ableist (in addition to being racist, sexist, ageist, adultist, eltist, and classist) these draconian measures have been, and still are in the places that continue to impose them.  People with disabilities and chronic illnesses have clearly gotten the brief end of the stick in countless ways, from worsening isolation to denial of services to interference with communication to denial of freedom of movement and more.  And it created a truly massive and persistent mental health crisis on top of it all.  All while the zealots who promote these measures have cynically and disgustingly used such vulnerable members of society as a fig leaf for these measures, with all of their empty rhetoric about "protecting the vulnerable", a promise that has been utterly broken time and again.  Thus, the overall intersectionally oppressive system known as the kyriarchy has clearly only gained strength all the more since from the very same "woke" pseudo-left who hypocritically claims to be dismantling it.

Also, it seems that organized labor (which has historically been quite left-leaning) has sold out as well, or at least some unions in the USA and UK, alas.  Particularly the teachers' unions, from the start.