It has become ever more difficult in recent years to write satire because the world is going crazy so fast that satire becomes reality — sometimes poisonous reality — before you can finish writing or even start laughing. Even somewhat far-fetched predictions can no longer be taken lightly.  

This column suggested recently that if the government can do the kinds of things it has been doing to “protect” the public against the Fauci Flu, think what it can do to prevent the “existential” crisis of climate change. 

The Fauci Flu has not yet been referred to as an existential threat. But why not? Simply because no one would believe that? How can you be so sure? 

It is true that for many months many people have been discounting whatever the government has been saying about the Flu, and masks, and the vaccines, and the boosters. Think about, among other disgraces, how then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo lied about the number of people who had died (largely because of his policies) in nursing homes. And now we learn Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan did the same thing. That rising distrust in government is one reason it has become ever more necessary for the government to try to shame people into doing what the government announces is good behavior. 

But not everyone distrusts government. Rasmussen Reports released a poll recently that showed Democrat voters support harsh measures against the unvaccinated. The poll found that 48 percent of voters favor imposing a Fauci Flu vaccine mandate on employees of large corporations, and 48 percent oppose. Okay (sort of), up to that point, but then the results get nasty. 

Fifty-nine percent of Democrat voters “would favor a government policy requiring that citizens remain confined to their homes at all times.”And 48 percent of Democrats think the feds and state governments “should be able to fine or imprison individuals who publicly question the efficacy of the existing COVID-19 vaccines on social media, television, radio, or in online or digital publications.” No First Amendments rights for them! And 45 percent of Democrats would favor “governments requiring citizens to temporarily live in designated facilities or locations if they refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine.” But it gets even worse: 29 percent of Democrat voters would support “temporarily removing parents’ custody of their children if parents refuse to take the COVID-19 vaccine.”

Those polls do not show a country with a common core of beliefs. 

And whatever happened to the freedom gene? Maybe the folks who opposed putting fluoride in the water back in the 1950s were right after all. 

Recently, President Joe Biden went down south and tried to shame everyone who opposes his federal power grab of voting procedures and stoke up even more division in America. He called all the people who oppose his policy “racists” and said they were like Bull Connor (an Alabama white supremacist) and George Wallace. Even a Democrat senator said that was over the top. 

Admittedly, voting is important in a democracy. But as important as survival? And not just our survival, but survival of the human race? 

Where do we go from here — skipping lightly over the “we” part?

Biden’s DOA-in-Congress Build Back Better program contained $555 billion for climate action. In a New York Times piece headlined “Biden ‘Over-Promised and Under-Delivered’ on Climate. Now, Trouble Looms in 2022,” the paper noted that “The planet has already warmed an average of about 1.1 degrees Celsius compared with temperatures before the Industrial Revolution [1760–1820].” Can’t you just see the NYT reporters collapsing in fright? Indeed, why aren’t you frightened by a 1.1-degree temperature rise in 200 years, and what that portends for the future, you selfish SOB?

“If,” says the Times, “temperatures continue to rise past 1.5 degrees Celsius, the likelihood of increasingly deadly wildfires, floods, heat waves and other disasters becomes unavoidable, scientists have warned.” Are these the same scientists who told us to wear masks that we know now are absolutely useless? 

“Countries must immediately and drastically reduce greenhouse gases caused by burning oil, gas and coal if the world is to avert the most catastrophic impacts, experts have said,” reports the Times. Brrrr! What would we do without experts? 

What percentage of the country’s Democrats will be, or already are, willing to lock us up in our houses to freeze to death in order to save the planet from the existential threat of climate change? You may think that’s an academic question, good only for livening up a slow dinner party. The polling results on what Democrats are willing to do, even to children, in response to the Fauci Flu say otherwise. 

Okay, time to wake up now and go home. It’s just a movie, just satire. 

Except it isn’t.  

Daniel Oliver is Chairman of the Board of the Education and Research Institute and a Director of Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy in San Francisco. In addition to serving as Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission under President Reagan, he was Executive Editor and subsequently Chairman of the Board of William F. Buckley Jr.’s National Review.

Email Daniel Oliver at Daniel.Oliver@TheCandidAmerican.com.