Opponents of coronavirus crackdowns have found encouragement in the results of a new Monmouth University poll in which 70 percent of surveyed Americans responded that they tend to agree with the following statement: “It’s time we accept that Covid is here to stay and we just need to get on with our lives.” Supermajority agreement with this statement does seem to be a good sign for freedom. But, considering respondents’ answers to other questions in the poll suggests that a substantial portion of people saying we need to “get on with our lives” are actually supporting doing so in a “new normal” manner that incorporates significant aspects of violations of freedom that government has imposed in the name of countering coronavirus.
The poll results show that 43 percent of surveyed individuals say United States President Joe Biden has “done a good job” in his “dealing with the coronavirus outbreak.” Hmmm. This is the president who has imposed, in the name of countering coronavirus, major restrictions of the exercise of freedom. These restrictions include a national mask mandate for transportation related activities and on government property. Biden also imposed national vaccine mandates upon many Americans — those working for companies with 100 or more employees, for many health care related companies, for the US government, and for contractors or subcontractors of the US government.
But, maybe most the overlap of the people who say we just need to get on with our lives and also say Biden has done a good job dealing with coronavirus can be explained away. Some of these individuals may be ignorant of what Biden has done in regard to the matter and have just given him the benefit of the doubt. Some of them may know the anti-freedom actions Biden has pursued but are happy he has not gone further to, say, send people to coronavirus concentration camps or require people to show vaccine passports to go about their daily activities — other than working at a job. Some of them may just see Biden as their man, the person they committed to last presidential election, and answer reflexively in support of him even when they disagree with him. This seems likely an insufficient explanation for most of the overlap. Still, it at least presents a logical argument.
Here is another answer in the poll that seems to limit the pro-freedom message of the 70 percent of the people saying we just need to get on with our lives. A majority — 52 percent — of surveyed individuals say they support “instituting, or reinstituting, face mask and social distancing guidelines” in their states. Given the use of the term “guidelines” instead of “mandates,” the overlap here with the people saying we just need to get on with our lives could be explained away by saying those individuals are OK with government recommendations but not with government requirements regarding these matters. That could be the case, though surely not for everyone. Too bad there was not a question explicitly regarding mandates that people wear masks and “social distance.”
While there are ways to argue away that the Joe Biden approval response and mask and social distancing guidelines approval response limit the pro-freedom take on the “get on with our lives” answer, there is one response in the survey that seems to conclusively demonstrate that a substantial portion of the people saying they want to get on with their lives are in fact not supporting a return to at least the amount of freedom respected before the imposing of coronavirus crackdowns. That response deals with support for one of the key deprivations of freedom taken by governments in the name of countering coronavirus — mandates that people take experimental coronavirus “vaccine” shots.
This is the poll’s vaccine mandate question:
Do you support or oppose requiring people to show proof of vaccination in order to go to work in an office or setting where they are around other people?
Forty-three percent of surveyed individuals responded that they support such a mandate, with an additional four percent volunteering answers that they don’t know or that it depends. That response decisively undercuts the pro-freedom interpretation of 70 percent of people saying “it’s time we accept that Covid is here to stay and we just need to get on with our lives.”
The new Monmouth University poll was met with some joy among American opponents of coronavirus crackdowns. But, some of the pro-freedom interpretation of the poll’s results appears to be overly optimistic. People looking deeper into the responses to the poll’s questions will find that those responses considered together suggest support among Americans for returning government’s respect for freedom at least to the “old normal” measure is substantially lower than 70 percent.
