He doesn’t like how they’re blowing in the pandemic.
To be specific, he believes a growing distrust of authority is “a canary in the coal mine” for the United States
Mitt Romney, a man who went from getting 72.6% of Utah’s votes for president in 2012 to garnering an approval rating of only 34% among Utah Republicans in a Deseret News/Hinckley Institute poll last February, knows a thing or two about the shifting winds of public opinion.
He doesn’t like how they’re blowing in the pandemic. To be specific, he believes a growing distrust of authority is “a canary in the coal mine” for the United States
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New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, sounded so resolute, so matter of fact in her belief that what she was about to say would sound alarming.
“We have a positive case of COVID-19 in the community,” she said. A positive case, as in “one.” And the “community” was all of New Zealand, even though the one case involved a 58-year-old man in Auckland. And no, this wasn’t early in 2020. This was last Tuesday. Then she followed with this: The entire country would be in lockdown for three days, while the Auckland area would be shut down for a week. “Going hard and early has worked for us before,” she said. The COVID-19 virus doesn’t care if you think governments should not be allowed to force people to wear masks.
It doesn’t care if you don’t believe that cloth masks, together with social distancing and frequent hand washing, can reduce transmission rates, or if you think, despite all evidence, that vaccines are dangerous. “Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign unlike any other we have ever seen.” — President George W. Bush, in a nationwide address to a joint session of Congress nine days after the attacks of 9/11.
One can exit in many different ways. Fleeing is the worst. From this vantage, 20 years later, it can be hard to remember the intensity of feelings nationwide as the United States reeled from attacks that killed thousands of people in New York City, at the Pentagon and in a field in Pennsylvania. You’ve become ruder since COVID-19 invaded your world, haven’t you?
Well, maybe not you. I like to think of my readers as nice people. But I’ll bet you have encountered more rude people. On one simple freeway trip into Utah County last weekend, I encountered several drivers who felt it necessary to tailgate me at high speeds (I was going slightly over the 70mph limit), then dart into another lane at the first opening and accelerate to what must have been 100 mph or more If Utah Sen. Mitt Romney is anything right now, it’s pragmatic, which means he recognizes that sometimes half a glass is better than nothing at all.
In today’s world, where vowing to smash the glass is good for fund-raising and re-election campaigns, it also can be an existential threat to political careers. Which brings us to the infrastructure bill Romney and some fellow Republicans were able to negotiate down from President Biden’s original $3.5 trillion to $1.2 trillion, most of which would be paid for by existing spending. |
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The author
Jay Evensen is the Opinion Editor of the Deseret News. He has more than 40 years experience as a reporter, editor and editorial writer in Oklahoma, New York City, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. He also has been an adjunct journalism professor at Brigham Young and Weber State universities. Archives
September 2024
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