It has been said that former President Bill Clinton operated his day-to-day decisions based on how they played out in a focus group. Everything was calculated and adjusted to find the properly dialed-in talking point about any issue. It seems that practice continues on among Democrats, this time in relation to Covid rules and restrictions.
Confirmed reports indicate that recent adjustments in Covid mask policies in some blue states, like New Jersey, in particular, may have been driven partly by responses from focus group participants:
A Murphy official confirmed Wednesday that Democrats used political focus groups following the November elections, as first reported in The New York Times, but disputed they drove the timing of Gov. Phil Murphy’s announcement ending school mask mandates on March 7. Murphy’s decision defied Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations that universal masking continue in schools, but other Democratic governors rapidly followed his lead and relaxed different COVID-19-related mandates.
Of course, Murphy denies the reporting that the focus group studies, which he admits took place, were a determining factor in his decision to announce an upcoming end to the state’s school mask mandate.
However, it’s abundantly clear that in recent weeks, Democrats decided somehow they’re getting killed in the polls by Covid restrictions, especially with independents, and decided to start changing course.
So much of the CDC guidance and White House directives have been driven almost entirely and exclusively by politics. It seems entirely plausible and entirely reasonable to think that Democratic strategists are employing focus groups to see just how many Covid mandates they can get away with, and still win re-election:
Republicans accused Murphy of ignoring his own mantra that “data determines dates,” but political analyst Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, say it’s “probably naive for anyone to not consider the political ramifications of a public that is just worn out.”
The data does not, in fact, drive much of anything related to Covid mandates. If it did, the CDC never would’ve suggested making K-12 students wear masks for 8 hours a day. The data says anything short of N-95 masks is useless anyway, so why force cloth masks on children to hamper their development and not actually prevent the spread of a virus?
The CDC decision was crafted to give cover to liberal governors wanting to placate teachers’ unions and angry liberal parents about making sure every kid worse a mask to signal their covid concern, and nothing more.
Murphy in New Jersey wasn’t the only Democratic Governor employing the focus group practice. Next door, in New York. Gov. Kathy Hochul spent plenty of time looking at focus group data before deciding that the science inside her head had changed:
The easing of New York’s pandemic restrictions on businesses comes as Democratic-led states from New Jersey to California have announced similar moves this week, in a loosely coordinated effort that is the result of months of public-health planning, back-channel discussions and political focus groups that began in the weeks after the November election.
Democrats were STUNNED to find that the voters were frustrated and sick of arbitrary Covid restrictions, much of that frustration channeled into giving Republicans a win in Virginia, and a near-win in New Jersey.
Did it take a focus group for Democrats to figure out that people want and need a return to normalcy? Did it take a focus group for Murphy and Hochul to realize they’re imposing undue burdens on their citizens and businesses based on the capricious notion that somehow, someway, they can achieve “zero Covid” if they just keep implementing endless mandates?
Democratic voters were the driving force, of course, these liberal governors don’t give a rip about science and common sense, just politics:
But even Democratic voters, they agreed, were wearying of the toughest restrictions, growing increasingly impatient with mandates and feeling ready to live with the risk that remained. As cases plummeted, the public health dynamics were shifting, too, giving the governors the opportunity to figure out how to arrive at a new sense of normal.
Our public health policy is being dictated by focus groups, not science. Let that sink in. If you think for a second the Biden White House isn’t in on this, think again. All this data gets shared between governors and the Biden administration assuredly and used to craft national talking points from the DNC.
Biden knows the American people are fed up, but he can’t loosen restrictions now because it would look overly political since the “science” hasn’t changed in any meaningful way.
Maybe that’s why Biden’s topping out at 40% approval of his Covid handling. He probably needs to run some more focus groups.
