Back when the coronavirus pandemic got into full swing, the Media Research Center had meltdowns over people wanting to protect abortion rights — even though it defended a man who advocated letting elderly people die of coronavirus in order to save the economy. Since then, the MRC has been pushing another argument under in the same neighborhood.
For months, the MRC has been whining about people who claim that Trump allies who demand that lockdowns and stay-at-home orders end immediately in order to save the economy are putting people’s lives in danger. It was so obsessed over this, in fact, that it devoted an April 21 post to compiling 16 examples, with Geoffrey Dickens huffing, “Liberal journalists and hosts exhibited little sympathy for protestors wanting to go back to work as they belittled them as zombies and a ‘doomsday cult.’ The President and conservatives that shared their concerns were derided as ‘reckless and “dangerous.'” Nicholas Fondacaro ranted with his usual hateful bile and unprofessional name-calling in a May 12 post:
In arguably his most toxic diatribe to date, CNN host Chris “Fredo” Cuomo ended Tuesday’s Cuomo PrimeTime by lashing out at Fox News in the vilest of ways: Falsely declaring that they were totally fine with 10,000 more Americans dying from the coronavirus.
“But right now, the American family is in a period of dysfunction, we’re estranged and acting strangely. 10,000 more Americans could die by August because so many places are relaxing social distancing? What happened to no man left behind? Now it’s 10,000 is okay,” Cuomo asked, in a “closing argument” he draped under the veil of Mother’s Day.
Joseph Vazquez similarly grumbled in a May 21 post that New York Times columnist and economist Paul Krugman was issuing “disgusting shots at President Donald Trump, Republicans, and ordinary Americans for wanting to reopen the economy: by claiming that “thousands of Americans may be about to die for the Dow,” further complaining that “Krugman encouraged readers to speculate about the potential ‘blowback — especially, by the way, among senior citizens — if an attempt to restart the economy leads to a new wave of infections.'”
MRC official Tim Graham, meanwhile, served up his own take on this in a May 18 post complaining that writer Molly Jong-Fast wrote an item about Fox News host advocating the removal of lockdowns under the headline “Laura Ingraham Wants Your Grandmother to Die.” Graham huffed in response: “This has all the nuance and finesse an article headlined “Molly Jong-Fast Wants You to Commit Suicide From Sheltering in Place.” Or “Molly Jong-Fast Wants You to Be Unemployed for the Rest of Your Life.” When Jong-Fast pointed out that conservatives advocating the ending of lockdowns are going against science, Graham declared: “That’s not right. The conservative media is saying Democrats are claiming to be Science, but what happens when their favorite models and projections do not come true? They haven’t been humble about admitting a hypothestis failed — like science lovers should.”
But Graham and the rest of his science-questioning MRC minions don’t want to question the possibility that the lockdowns saved lives and stopped out-of-control spreading of the virus. One study found that lockdowns slowed the infection rate in the U.S. and saved millions of lives worldwide. And it’s indisputable that opening up business to restart the economy while there’s still a significant risk of coronavirus spread will, indeed, needlessly cost lives if precautions aren’t being taken. And, indeed, that’s what’s happening worldwide.
It’s difficult to enjoy economic freedom if you’re dead from something that could otherwise be avoidable. The MRC doesn’t seem to understand that.