Back in July of 2020, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that he was banning all large gatherings in New York City except for Black Lives Matter protests. The month before, NPR featured a letter signed by dozens of health and public disease experts explaining that “white supremacy is a lethal public health issue” that needed to be dealt with as well as the coronavirus. Glenn Greenwald points to that nonsensical twist in lockdown history as the moment that “single-handedly destroyed trust in public health officials.”
This was a pivotal moment in the pandemic's history:
For 4 months, the message was clear and unrelenting: everyone must stay home. Those who leave – even to go to a deserted beach – are reckless sociopaths.
It flipped overnight to endorse a mass protest movement liberals liked: https://t.co/SJUIz0dbOw
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 28, 2021
That episode single-handedly destroyed trust in public health officials, proving they'd politicize their expertise when convenient.
Corporate media celebrated a douchebag-lawyer shaming families at deserted beaches, then — overnight! — cheered densely packed street protests. pic.twitter.com/DvOzIr5JX8
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 28, 2021
That lawyer got more press out of a cheap Grim Reaper costume than one can imagine. Yes, being outdoors at the beach in Florida was going to kill you. He even started a fund to buy body bags to hand out.
In June, I was drafting an article on this flagrantly politicized reversal of COVID messaging. When @theintercept editors learned this, they commissioned an article — for the same day — to argue racism, not COVID, was the greatest health crisis, so everyone *should* go protest. pic.twitter.com/22RjUrlVK2
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 28, 2021
As usual, elite institutions — media, government, public health authorities — love to whine about the refusal of the public to trust their pronouncements, complaining people turn to other less credentialed and worthy sources.
But they *never* ask what they did to cause this.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 28, 2021
Then people tried to argue that the Black Lives Matter protests weren’t superspreader events, but the Capitol riot was. The Washington Post decided that Lollapalooza wasn’t a superspreader event, but the Sturgis motorcycle rally was.
So true. From that point on, we couldn't trust anything we were being told
— Emm Gifts (@EmmGifts) December 28, 2021
Strangely coincided with the election.
— Huh? (@tefairbrother) December 28, 2021
Correct and this is where they lost me.
— TVandy (@TVandy7) December 28, 2021
This was the moment for me, the one that broke through the cognitive dissonance. It was like I finally acknowledged the persistent tapping in the back of my mind. Oh, none of this makes sense. We're being lied to.
— Lola Wants (@LolaBun30282601) December 28, 2021
Loved ones were dying alone, no one could attend their funerals. Grandchildren couldn't visit grandparents, couldn't attend church services. When I protested business closures I was told I could be arrested but the final straw was seeing the sanctioned protests
— Theresa Maurer 🇺🇲 (@TheresaMaurer2) December 28, 2021
Yup, this is when I knew…
— Deborah Lurie (@deborahlurie) December 28, 2021
This was precisely when I moved on with my life.
— Ian Sparbeck (@isparbs78) December 28, 2021
It was THE pivotal moment. That's when you knew it was about politics and control, and hadn't been about the pandemic itself for well over a month
They lost me, and many, for good at that point
— Jeff Sparbeck (@JeffSparbeck) December 28, 2021
the exact moment my trust in our public heath experts began to erode was in June 2020 when they said “racism is a public health issue and therefore it’s okay to gather in public in the middle of a pandemic” https://t.co/hlg7pUfOz4
— Siraj Hashmi (@SirajAHashmi) December 28, 2021
That was the moment when I stopped trusting the “experts.”
— Evan Summa (@wistfulrunner) December 28, 2021
This is the moment this all became a joke for me.
— Chris (@Chris0wens1) December 28, 2021
This was it for me. It was clear it was political from the beginning but this made it undeniable.
— Shafer (@SHAFER817) December 28, 2021
I got into huge arguments and actually lost friends who argued that the protests were fine but no other gatherings were.
— Eli Deen (@sisneruza) December 28, 2021
This was the messaging that changed my worldview on everything.
— Mark (@MarkTopol) December 28, 2021
Look no further than the open border today to see the hypocrisy.
— RKS. (@SummRich) December 28, 2021
Racism has since been declared a public health emergency by both Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (so she could divert $10 million in federal COVID funds to the issue) and the New York Board of Health.
Related:
‘It is literally killing us’: Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot declares racism a ‘public health emergency’ https://t.co/ImNTZOdkXT
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) June 18, 2021
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