The latest contrived issue to bedevil the left is President Trump’s statement to Bob Woodward in March that he was downplaying the virus to avert panic. Leftists have interpreted this attempt to avert panic as a “lie,” even though they have never shown any ability to discern truth from lies in the past. So this week, the leftists are betting their chips on the Woodward book.

Missing from this discussion is any description of the events of March 2020. We all had good reason to want to stop the panic at that time. As news of the virus began to dominate public discussion, the left did its best to create panic and oppose solutions each step of the way.

Beginning in March, consumers hoarded many grocery items that had nothing to do with the virus. Toilet paper, soup, pasta, bread, and even meat products often disappeared from the shelves. One could visit supermarkets for weeks without finding toilet paper, while the other items disappeared more sporadically. There was no good reason for these items to disappear, as the virus had nothing to do with them and hoarding them would not prevent infection. Yet they disappeared anyway. Social media was filled with images of empty supermarket shelves all over the country.

We were told that the virus somehow threatened the food supply. But despite the dire warnings, staple items gradually began to remain on the shelves long enough for most of us actually to see and buy them.

On television, we were treated daily to images of hospitals that reporters described as “war zones.” We would learn that at least one network passed off film showing foreign hospitals to represent chaos at American hospitals. Additional temporary hospitals were rushed into service. We would not learn until later from eyewitness accounts that most hospitals were nearly empty. The temporary hospitals would soon be disassembled and removed without ever having seen a patient.

We were told that ventilators were in short supply and were desperately needed to prevent catastrophe. We then discovered that the state of New York was storing many ventilators in a warehouse -- much the same way that Puerto Rico had hoarded relief supplies after a hurricane while decrying the lack of supplies.

We were told that a mask shortage was cause for alarm until Trump supporter Mike Lindell agreed to donate many, many masks. The left then made Lindell the villain of the week.

President Trump mentioned hydroxychloroquine as a possible solution. The media immediately informed us that a drug that had been safely used for over six decades was deadly. The media also twisted Trump’s hopeful speculations about treatment into an instruction for people to drink Clorox. Doctors that use and endorse hydroxychloroquine have been censored and removed from social media. We are not supposed to “believe the science” if it interferes with the panic.

Shutdowns in many states forced millions out of work in mid-March. When the shutdowns began to lift a couple of months later, leftist mobs flew into action. They began rioting across the country, killing policemen, burning businesses, dragging drivers out of their cars and declaring autonomy in portions of Democrat cities. The left was not going to let the country enjoy even a partial return to normalcy without a new crisis to fear. At the DNC convention, the Democrats became more specific in telling us that the chaos will continue until we elect Joe Biden.

Most recently, we have learned that the bureaucracy – namely the CDC – has included among the COVID death count all cases where the victim suffered from multiple additional – even primary -- causes. The true death count may be lower than 10,000. Leftist (mainstream) media sources ignore this revelation and continue to assert that almost 200,000 have died from COVID – especially as they double down on Woodward’s book, searching for a pretext to blame Trump. The left thus equates rejecting their candidate with actual death.

Worse than death, the Democrat commercials repeat the usual election-year accusation that Trump has proposed to end Social Security by 2023.

There is a pattern here. Panic is a weapon. It is the weapon of choice for the left. They have used it for many decades. Ronald Reagan was going to launch a nuclear war that would destroy the planet. Reagan and all other GOP presidents were going to end Social Security. Bob Dole was going to end Medicare. Mitt Romney was going to bring back slavery. Only a few elections ago, the Democrats were content to induce one panic at a time. But this election, we know that Trump must be something special because the Democrats want us to panic from every possible situation all at the same time.

Democrats seek control and power. They seek power beyond the usual perks of office typical for our times. They seek control over individual lives in ways that history has condemned at other times and in other places.

But a country with a tradition of liberty does not surrender that liberty easily. Free people must be made to panic before they grant unlimited power to the government. One must convince them that a plague is about to kill them or that the government income that they depend on will soon go away.

They must be told that “climate change” will soon destroy the earth unless the Democrats are elected to stop the rise of the oceans. If the people remain skeptical, arsonists must set fires in multiple locations while leftist networks fill our screens with the flaming images, and leftist politicians declare that the “debate is over.” It is much easier to convince your victims to stop debating when their homes are about to burn down.

Big government makes its largest advances during a crisis. The New Deal, Obamacare, and the Great Society were all enacted immediately following elections that resulted from market panics or a president’s assassination. The panics stop, but the power remains. There are wartime controls that have never been rescinded more than 75 years after World War II. It is no coincidence that California chose 2020 to weaken severely the laws against pedophilia. If the Green New Deal, illegal alien amnesty, and “defund the police” become law nationwide after this election, those changes will be the result of panic and chaos that the left now creates and exacerbates.

The American people are under siege. We are placed under siege every election cycle, but this year the blockade is more concrete. Our health, our food, our hygiene, our basic comfort, our homes, our jobs and more are under attack. The left has tried to starve us into surrender. But only if we panic will it work. The ultimate power rests with the victims. If we refuse to panic while ignoring leftist lies, we can retain and recover a semblance of freedom. Donald Trump deserves praise for having fought that panic and remaining steadfast as the left began to capitalize on the virus.