What do a Pennsylvania gym owner, a Michigan pastor, and a Wisconsin lawyer have in common? In this instance: All three fought against the excesses of government responses to Covid-19. Today marks the end of the Covid-19 public-health emergency, and it seems like a good time to highlight their stories, which I do in a piece today for the Spectator World.
In Pennsylvania, there was Danny Cronauer, owner of 10X Fitness, who bristled at the idea that his was not an “essential” business and reopened in defiance of lockdowns. In Michigan, there was Chuck Vitzhum, a pastor who joined a lawsuit with others in his profession to secure their right to hold church services. And in Wisconsin, there was Rick Esenberg, founder, president, and general counsel of the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, which fought with the governor to keep his emergency powers within the confines of the rule of law. You can find the rest of their stories in my piece.
You’ll also find brief accounts in there of the perfidy of some of the national-level actors (Fauci, Weingarten) who drove some of the most ridiculous lockdown policies yet are now trying to rewrite their records, partly on the basis that pandemic-response decisions were made at the local level, which understates how they influenced those local decisions. You’ll also find vignettes of some local villains: Pennsylvania secretary of health Rachel (formerly Richard) Levine, who forced nursing homes in the state to readmit Covid patients but withdrew his own mother from one at the same time; and governors Gretchen Whitmer (D., Mich.) and Tony Evers (D., Wis.), who aggrandized their own power extensively during the pandemic through abuse of unilateral executive authority.
As we leave Covid behind, let’s not forget the villains — and let’s especially not forget the heroes.