The toll of the human tragedy let in the wake of the coronavirus epidemic cannot be underestimated. Currently, there have been 764,177 confirmed cases of COVID-19, and 40,591 lives lost in the United States—and that number is rising by the hour. What’s more, we’re facing historic levels of unemployment as American states have locked down in order to stem the rate of contagion. Understandably, then, the pandemic has been compared to a war, and President Donald Trump, a wartime leader, has invoked the Defense Production Act.

If we are not very, very cautious it could allow the Democratic Party to push through a flurry of socialist legislation and transform the political consciousness of the United States, perhaps unalterably, in ways that the extreme left yearns for.

And as America’s first responders scramble to make sure its hotspots receive the care and support they need, a new threat has emerged. (As though a global pandemic and economic meltdown were not enough).

See the thing about war is, it accelerates change in society—especially technological, political, and social change. The First World War upended an Edwardian Age that was Euro-centric and focused on Royal families that presumed their reigns would endure forever. It created a brutal Bolshevik regime in Russia that preyed upon wartime scarcity to offer a communist utopia. The Second World War made the United States a superpower and established the global duality of the Cold War that would only be altered by the collapse of the Soviet Union.

And the COVID-19 pandemic?

If we are not very, very cautious it could allow the Democratic Party to push through a flurry of socialist legislation and transform the political consciousness of the United States, perhaps unalterably, in ways that the extreme left yearns for.

DEMOCRATS STAND READY TO EXPLOIT THE CRISIS

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has already embedded the accumulating stimulus packages with policies aimed to advance the Democratic agenda through spending old-fashioned propaganda—suggesting that more “social justice” at the end of the pandemic would provide ample restitution for all the suffering that has preceded it.

The Democrats’ desire to both prolong and exploit this crisis is quite evident—and we should be cautious with how much we let them get away with.

Victor Davis Hanson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham that the left is using this crisis for its own ends.

“We’re right in the middle of people dying. And so people are advocating to manipulate the crisis and more importantly, to enact an agenda that didn’t have 50 percent support or we saw that in Democratic primaries,” Hanson said on “The Ingraham Angle” this month. “This crisis has been weaponized,” he added, noting that leftist Democrats are stealing the opportunity to push “the Green New Deal or Medicare for All, or open borders.”

And they just might succeed—in the name of economic stimulus or national recovery.

The Democrats’ desire to both prolong and exploit this crisis is quite evident—and we should be cautious with how much we let them get away with. Democrats are actively working to extend the state of crisis indefinitely, either by failing to mobilize effectively against the coronavirus outbreak or by using the crisis to enact partisan legislation.

I don’t always celebrate the words or the ideas of Fox News’s senior legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano, but he scored a direct hit this week when he suggested there is something sinister, something profoundly dangerous occurring amid the health crisis. “I was discussing this with our colleague Tucker Carlson last night, and I said then and I repeat now—we are witnessing the slow death of civil liberties in the name of public safety,” Napolitano told Fox News, when asked if governments are taking their efforts to force people to self-isolate and just disappear too far.

During the 1918 Spanish influenza, America went through that crisis with its political structure intact, despite its citizens living through one of the deadliest eras in history. In Europe, the Great War still raged, in Russia, the Bolsheviks had seized power, and the bloodiest civil war in history was brewing. Yet in the United States, there was never a credible threat to the integrity of our democratic institutions and everyday freedoms. A few cranky commies never came close to capturing the presidency or storming the Congress—the epidemic, the war, the revolution be damned.

That is why we must resist those defeatists who are dead set on exploiting this pandemic, who are getting used to its restrictions and limitations, who are alight to the opportunities it brings to advance a permanent state of economic depression, public isolation, widespread scarcity—and the state control that appeals to career politicians.

THE AMERICAN WAY: PRIORITIZE BOTH SAFETY AND LIBERTY

Some countries intentionally create the conditions of lack, need, and immobility that define the current crisis; that’s called communism. And, unfortunately, there are some who hope that could still be a legacy for Americans. But remember that this whole thing started in a country that remains hostile to individual liberty, economic freedom, and democratic government: China, the largest and most threatening example of communist tyranny of the globe.

Left unchecked, we’re already seeing instances of tyrannical government overreach all over the country. In some places, law enforcement are using drones to monitor the actions of citizens. “When a drone hovers over you, that is surveillance, and surveillance is a search,” added Judge Napolitano to Fox & Friends. Drone use without a warrant is a violation of your Constitutional rights. “Do we really want to live in a society where a piece of plastic and metal in the sky is going to start yelling at us because we’re too close to our neighbors?” Napolitano asked.

In Raleigh, N.C., just up the road from the mythical Mayberry, the television home for that venerable piece of Americana, “The Andy Griffith Show.” Police disbanded demonstrators who wanted the country to get back in business. No kidding. And why?

“Protesting is a non-essential activity,” said the police chief.

Protesting is a non-essential activity. — Raleigh Police (@raleighpolice) April 14, 2020

Not according to the Constitution. It’s as essentially American as free speech and freedom of religion, enshrined in our Bill of Rights.

Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ) forgot all about those rights, however, when he issued a ban on religious meetings. He admitted as much when asked why he decided to act like a dictator, he told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, “I wasn’t thinking of the Bill of Rights.”

“I wasn’t thinking of the Bill of Rights.”

That is a profoundly un-American way to respond to COVID-19—we have to find a way to keep Americans safe without compromising our essential freedom, liberty, or identity.

By some accounts, President Donald Trump seemed initially unwilling to confront the COVID-19 outbreak: the measures it demanded violated his joy of speaking to mass crowds and repudiated his belief in American expansion. But his position on the crisis grew, as he switched gears to provide the leadership the nation required to confront a global pandemic.

Nevertheless, he’s not enjoying this emergency—not in the way that Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer apparently is. (She has grasped her feudal power with ecstasy and just banned the sale of “non-essential” garden hoses in the state, even as she immerses herself in the cruel irony of celebrating abortion as “life sustaining”).

And Trump has certainly not relished the incremental dimming of the economy he did so much to revitalize. Nor does he desire to be an economic micro-manager who dictates what you can buy in the local hardware store. He wants this thing to end. He wants to get America back to work. He wants to ensure freedom is not something we remember, but a fact of life and a promise for our descendants.

The president’s plan is to return gradually to work—to reopen in the same fashion as we shut down. As Housing and Urban Development Secretary Dr. Ben Carson put it on Thursday, “It doesn’t mean that we have to wait [to reopen] until every vestige of the virus is gone. You know, common sense would dictate that if we wait until everything is gone our economy will be gone also.” Let’s proceed with caution.

War time decisions are rarely ever easy ones; they affect human lives and livelihoods. By all means, let’s prioritize beating the virus—but let’s not lose ourselves in the process.