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Bill Rice, Jr.'s avatar

This article won't be popular with most of your readers, but every point you make resonates with me.

We needed more business owners and private citizens to stand up to these mandates. The more prominent the business owner or citizen, the better.

Really, all citizens are not equal. Some have megaphones or followings that might nip injustices in the bud. For example, I always thought Rush Limbaugh had the platform to rail against the futility of starting and continuing "nation-building" wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He could (or might) have made a difference by speaking out and pushing back against W, but he didn't.

Similarly, Trump could have made a difference in this debate even when he was no longer president, but he didn't.

This said, maybe Trump is starting to belatedly see the light. Tucker Carlson is the American pundit/journalist who now has just as much influence as Rush did. It's interesting to me that Carlson has publicly, and repeatedly, admitted he was wrong in supporting these "Interventions." Instead of this hurting his popularity, he's more popular than he ever was.

Anyway, some kind of mea culpa - sincerely expressed - does not guarantee you will become unpopular or even lose support. The same would be true if Trump made some kind of public apology or admitted he was wrong on the lockdowns and non-vaccines ... but I doubt he will. Right now, this is just kind of implied or inferred.

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Arne's avatar

Trump could have taken a middle path of saying little to nothing publicly, but privately helping fund lawsuits, or simply funding billboards and ads that criticized vaccine mandates, etc. Of course, perhaps he did do that, and hasn't disclosed it, but that's not how he seems to be.

All I remember in 2020 in terms of emphatic criticism is a few tweets like "LIBERATE MICHIGAN."

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