The pandemic has broken down along partisan lines. In the post vaccine world, COVID is disproportionately harming Republican areas with the death rate in red states three times that of blue states. Two years of resisting any sort of mitigation efforts while casting doubt about the danger of the disease has taken a toll. The conservative media led its audience to be skeptical of the vaccines and Republican leaders like Florida Governor Ron DiSantis gave credence to the misinformation and disinformation being spread by the outlets. 

Yesterday, the North Carolina House swore in a new member from Gaston County. Donnie Loftis replaced Dana Bumgardner who passed away recently. Loftis is a former county commissioner who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6. Democrats walked out of the chamber when he was sworn in. Loftis is part of the disloyal opposition, people willing to overthrow the government instead of accept the outcome of an election. 

I’m really over the redistricting stuff. I don’t want to see any more proposed maps. I don’t want any more speculation. I don’t want any more polls showing what people want or don’t want. I don’t want any more public hearings. I just want to see the maps. 

There’s a debate raging on social media this weekend about the direction of the Democratic Party. It started with an article written by Ezra Klein about a young data analyst name David Shor. Shor has been arguing that Democrats are heading for a long-term disaster if they don’t refocus their message onto more bread-and-butter issues and talk less about social justice issues. The activist wing of the party disagrees vehemently, but I think Shor is largely right. 

A few weeks ago, a conservative writer at Breitbart, John Nolte, wrote that the liberals are trying to kill conservatives by pushing COVID vaccines. He reasons that liberals know that conservatives will reject anything liberals support, so by encouraging vaccinations, liberals are keeping conservatives from getting vaccinated and thereby killing them COVID. It’s hilarious reasoning because the writer admits two things: conservatives are united less around principles and more around opposition to liberals and, two, conservatives really are stupid enough to own the libs by dying. 

CBS Sunday Morning’s segment on Mount Airy has caused quite a stir among the political class. I wrote about it last week. John Hood, former President of the John Locke Foundation, wrote about it this week. So did Sara Paqueño, an opinion writer for McClatchy who grew up in Mount Airy.

CBS This Morning ran a segment on Mount Airy, Andy Griffith’s home town and the basis for the fictional Mayberry of the Andy Griffith Show. Ted Koppel explores why Mount Airy has become a booming tourist destination for people searching for Mayberry. The show, he points out, was an escape from the harsh reality of the 1960s and bore little resemblance to American society for many Americans.

Republicans arguing against coronavirus mitigation efforts have been consistently dishonest, ignorant, or both. For instance, one columnist from National Review posted a chart showing the rate of deaths from COVID by state, starting from January 2020. The top ten were a mix of Democratic- and Republican-run states. The writer, Charles C. W. Cooke, tweeted that public policy made no difference in the spread. (As I searched for his tweet, I found that he deleted it, but at the time, it had been retweeted hundreds of times.)

Well, it’s over. Joe Biden announced the end of the Afghanistan adventure yesterday. It will quickly start fading from Americans’ memories. As one person said on Twitter, Americans barely paid attention when we were there. They will certainly not pay attention when we are gone. 

Where the hell are the Democrats? They’ve just had one of the most successful rollouts of any presidency in modern history and instead of celebrating, they’re silent.