Writing in the Los Angeles Times, author Michael Hiltzik posits that 2021 is the stupidest year in American history. While Mr. Hiltzik acknowledges that stupidest years have always existed in world and American history, he gets the reasons for this stupidity all wrong. His Trump Derangement Syndrome gives him a hysterical blindness about the causes.

From the article, “Column: Farewell to 2021, the stupidest year in American history”:

But America in 2021 can’t plead that it didn’t know. Didn’t know that vaccines representing stupendous scientific achievements were the solution to the COVID-19 pandemic?

Didn’t know that Donald Trump wasn’t joking when he demanded that government officials overturn a fair presidential election? Didn’t know that bitcoin, NFTs, SPACs and meme stocks were destined, even designed, to take unwary investors to the cleaners?

Of course we knew, and know. We don’t seem to care.

I would argue that vaccines aren’t necessarily the solution to the Covid-19 pandemic. Zinc, Vitamins D and C, eating right and getting fresh air and sunshine are as important as the vaccines. I am vaxxed, but not yet boosted, because I tolerate vaccines well and don’t have any underlying conditions that would make the Covid-19 vaccines problematic. A friend of mine named Shannon went into anaphylactic shock within minutes of getting her first shot. I am certainly not going to criticize her for not getting a second shot or booster.

Here is how Mr. Hiltzik sees the Covid response in year two plus:

The pandemic is surely the focus of the most obtuse and ignorant public reactions and state and local policy responses to any crisis in American history. It’s as if the grown-ups have all been beamed up, and we are left in the hands of people like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. (I am paraphrasing a line from the great pandemic movie “Together.”)

In any rational world, the refusal or failure by some 50 million adult Americans to take a vaccine of known efficacy against a deadly disease would be inexplicable. But this is not a rational world, and the situation is even worse.

Vaccine refusal is seen in many benighted corners of the United States not merely as the exercise of personal choice for personal reasons but as a means of showing moral superiority over the vaccinated.

Many of the 50 million unvaccinated Americans are Black or of Latin origin, according to the CDC. Black people are not showing moral superiority. They have good reason to be hesitant since Black people have been historically used for experimentation by our all-knowing, caring government. This is not the own that Hiltzik thought it was. Stupidity!

Maybe, and I am spitballing here, some vaccine hesitancy comes from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris questioning the efficacy of any vaccine developed during the Trump Administration. Thoughts?

Also, Governor Ron DeSantis doesn’t have mask mandates and isn’t trying to destroy the mental health and education of Florida’s school children. Again, not the own Hiltzik thought it was:

Cases in New York State are now higher than they’ve ever been in Florida, despite all of New York’s mask mandates, vaccine passports and media praise

And yes, of course, New York’s collapse is also entirely the fault of Ron DeSantis pic.twitter.com/R28T9pv1t9

— IM (@ianmSC) December 27, 2021

More about DeSantis:

DeSantis has been a leader in this descent into the Inferno. He’s chosen to make Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and America’s most respected authority on the pandemic, a target of partisan calumny. He’s appointed a vaccine doubter as his state’s top public health official.

Anthony Fauci is a villain. He messed up the A.I.D.S. response. He lied about Covid and he tortured and killed Beagles.

British comedian Russell Brand is hardly a right wing whack-a-doodle. Here is discusses the puppy torturing Fauci:

It is a slur and calumny to call Florida’s Surgeon General, Dr. Joseph Ladapo a vaccine doubter. Like me, Ladapo is against vaccine and mask mandates. That doesn’t mean that he is a vaccine doubter, anti-vaccine or vaccine hesitant.

If 2021 is the stupidest year in American history, it has more to do with the stupid people who voted for Joe Biden. It has less to do with Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis or any Republican. Given that Joe Biden is scheduled to be in the Oval Office for three more years and Kamala is stupider than Joe, the next three years could be more stupidest (forgive me, Deer Park High School) than this past year.

Welcome Instapundit Readers!

Featured Image: Toni S. Williams for Victory Girls