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Wealth & Poverty Review Counsel of the Woke

Public-health experts have subordinated science to progressive politics. Published in City Journal

America has reached an epistemological breaking point. For the first two months following the coronavirus outbreak, public-health experts insisted that we “follow the science” and implement their recommendations, even if it meant millions of lost jobs and significant restrictions on constitutionally protected activities, such as church attendance and freedom of assembly. Blue-state governors quickly positioned themselves as executors of this neutral scientific knowledge, condemning anti-lockdown protesters as “anti-scientific;” meantime, social media companies banned anti-lockdown groups and censored content from lockdown skeptics.

But when protests erupted in the U.S. after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, many public-health experts reversed course—and subordinated “science” to their activist politics. The same doctors and nurses who once shamed churchgoers released petitions in support of Black Lives Matter and marched with tens of thousands of protesters in the streets. They categorized racism as a public-health threat and rationalized their participation in street demonstrations by deeming Covid-19 transmission the lesser of two evils. In other words, public-health experts rejected science in favor of progressive politics.

Continue Reading at City Journal

Christopher Rufo

Former Director, Center on Wealth & Poverty
Christopher Rufo is former director of the Discovery Institute’s Center on Wealth & Poverty. He has directed four documentaries for PBS, Netflix, and international television, including his latest film, America Lost, that tells the story of three "forgotten American cities.” Christopher is currently a contributing editor of City Journal, where he covers poverty, homelessness, addiction, crime, and other afflictions. Christopher is a magna cum laude graduate of Georgetown University, Claremont Institute Lincoln Fellow, and has appeared on NPR, CNN, ABC, CBS, HLN, and FOX News.