To some extent, this year's selection was inevitable in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Traditionally states, not the federal government (except for its own facilities/personnel), are accountable for public heath security. This is a particularly nasty virus whose spread seems to be driven in part by unknowing asymptomatic COVID-infected individuals, and public policy is particularly focused on flattening the curve, i.e., available hospital capacity to handle expanded need of chronic cases requiring ICU's and other scarce resources (including qualified healthcare personnel); overstripping capacity could result in an exponential escalation of fatalities, etc.
I'm not going to debate COVID-19 policy in detail here; I've made it clear that widespread testing has been and continues to be our best weapon to contain the virus, at least to the point widespread vaccinations are available. I continue to believe the government, including the Trump Administration, botched a key critical rollout of testing and blew an opportunity to engage the private sector in the early stages of the American experience in the pandemic. I do think vaccinations, when available, will be key to achieving herd immunity; note that I realize some individuals cannot tolerate vaccines for personal health reasons, but freeriding individuals can compromise herd immunity, such as we've recently seen with the recent reemergence of measures. There are some libertarians in the anti-vaxxer camp, but I and others (like Walter Block) see the failure to halt the spread as a violation of the non-aggression principle.
So why do I object to Draconian public policies of shutdowns and other mandates, including face masks? Let's take face masks, for instance. Where face masks are particularly effective is in dealing with bidirectional virus-laden respiratory droplets, e.g., virus shedding through sneezing, coughing, or other respiratory events like singing, yelling, etc. But the conventional masks most people wear provide at best negligible protection against airborne microns. To be honest, I haven't encountered any obvious people with telltale respiratory symptoms, although I don't claim my experience is typical. Now, granted, the 3-4% confirmed cases of COVID-19 infection may just be the tip of the iceberg of many other people who have been asymptomatic, but mandates are being imposed on the vast majority of the noninfected population. You can argue that people should wear masks for their own good, that they could end up taking a scarce hospital bed if they have a bad infection experience, but I don't want to encourage the slippery slope of paternalism, e.g., getting cited for walking outside for not wearing a sweater in cool weather. Not to mention you really can't micromanage a lot of things, like masks being worn ineffectively, being laundered or disposed, good hygiene in handling mask, touching respiratory passages (mouth, nose, etc.) Arresting healthy people for not participating in this Kabuki dance? Give me a break. This has nothing to do with health security
The bigger issue I have is with false expectations. I have no doubt many if not most people who get this disease don't know how it happened, many engaging in the now politically correct regimen of mask wearing, social distancing, and personal hygiene.
Although mandatory mask-wearing is symbolic, dubiously constitutional (under state or US) and annoying, public policy goes beyond that. On the federal level, obviously the FDA/CDC is involved in vaccines, testing, etc., the feds maintain an emergency stockpile, and there are various individual relief (unemployment insurance, food stamps, etc.) and state funding issues, etc. Trump has invoked the Defense Production Act, has sent out federal security forces in certain cities, etc. (I'm not agreeing these are constitutional.) Biden has suggested a dubiously constitutional face mask mandate; my guess is he'll resort to the usual tactic of tying strings to federal funding to the states.
To be honest, Democrat governors, including the ones mentioned above, are not alone in issuing face masks and various heavy-handed restrictions involving churches, "non-essential" businesses and events, etc. For example, I've tweeted and blogged criticisms of Gov. Hogan (R-MD) on relevant policies.
So why these three in particular? These 3 have been governors in some of the biggest national hotspots and have championed some of the most comprehensive restrictive legally or constitutionally dubious economic and social policies in the country. I've been particularly contemptuous of Emmy-winning "Nursing Home Killer" Cuomo, whose catastrophic decision to house recovering COVID-19 patients in institutions with a health-vulnerable risk group had fatal consequences. More recently, I've blogged about a recent SCOTUS decision, which set aside certain discriminatory Cuomo policies, effectively capping red (10 people) and orange (25) zone participants to services in venues, without consideration to church capacity (say, over 1000 seats), while allowing certain "essential" businesses to operate without restrictions or more reasonable proportionate caps, say 25% capacity. There are no data I'm aware of to justify policy differences, e.g., that (unknowingly) infected people disproportionately attend church services (with masking and social distancing compliance intact) vs. shop at area "essential" businesses.
We have gotten to the point that homeowners can't even invite area children to birthday parties without the fear of meddling neighbors snitching on them. I'm not dismissive of the fact that millions of people have been infected with the virus and a nontrivial number of people have died or faced serious health issues, and the real number of victims may be much higher, but the last time I checked less than 1 in 20 Americans have been diagnosed in 3 waves. The other 19 are treated as suspect infected. A disproportionate number of people are unemployed out of circumstances beyond their control; quality of life has been compromised to the point that vacations or holiday reunions don't happen, people don't attend funerals and it can be hard to get a haircut or a dine-in restaurant, never mind attend a sports or other event. More recently, there were bar closures on Thanksgiving Eve and/or curfews. I have a relative in a Texas assisted living facility, and she has a cap of 2 visiting relatives, each which must undergo COVID-19 testing.
A lot of people can understand that life is hard and we need to be careful, at least to the point we achieve herd immunity. But we liberty-loving people argue over the nature and extent of restrictions. Public policy should be more scalpel and less buzz saw, simpler and well-known to be consistent with the rule of law.
Gov. Whitmer has been openly in-your-face in terms of stretching her statutory authority during the crisis, even to the point of defying courts and the state legislature; in fact, some Republicans have filed impeachment motions (which don't have the support of the House speaker). Nationally she is conspicuous to the point that Trump refers to her as the "woman from Michigan". She has gotten blowback for her illegal power grabs in the form of a foiled kidnapping plot. (We libertarians reject violations of the non-aggression principle.)
Gov. Newsom has imposed some of the most restrictive stay-at-home orders, curfews and shutdowns in the nation, at last count over 80% of the counties in the nation's most populous states. Like Cuomo, he has engaged in restrictive policies including aimed specifically at churches, banning indoor services in higher-hospitalization areas, which has earned a post-NY decision rebuke from SCOTUS. It's such an arcane, nuanced, convoluted, rapidly changing scheme that residents are confused as to which rules apply and affect their daily activities. This basically violates the rule of law as described above. Arrests and charges become arbitrary under these schemes.
For partisan readers upset this award targets Dems, don't worry; I introduced a Bad Elephant of the Year award a few years back (I couldn't think of a snappy, obvious pejorative like 'Jackass'), and I will be publishing that post likely over the coming week (I'm sure that readers of my blog and Twitter won't be surprised). I have also decided on my "Man of the Year" (no, it won't be a kid, re: Time); I maintain that title mostly in defiance of political correctness.
