Crisis actors are actors (or role players) portraying a victim during emergency training exercises for first responders. Their purpose is to simulate a real crisis, a dress rehearsal for the real thing where victims will be covered with real blood rather than red stage blood.

American governors, and other politicians, are a new version of crisis actors, proclaiming a crisis and offering draconian solutions and mandates, but when not acting, after removing their costumes and make up, they are contradicting the dictates of their contrived crises.

Ahead of the holidays, as President Trump is digging out from under an avalanche of election fraud and fake news, another crisis is brewing, seemingly to punish Americans for electing Trump not once, but twice, as is likely to be demonstrated in the weeks ahead.

The crisis is the COVID “surge”, leading to lockdowns, closed businesses, travel restrictions, and other manners of punishment heaped upon Americans who simply want to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas with their families. Is this a real or contrived crisis?

When those who keep saying it’s a crisis act like it’s a crisis, then I’ll believe it’s a crisis. Today this applies to politicians, particularly those with a D after their names, saying but not acting the part, at least not publicly.

My local Mayor Michael Hancock of Denver, “Traveled by air to see family for Thanksgiving, following recent public statements he made urging people to avoid gathering with others outside their households.”

Hancock is a mayor of the largest city in Colorado, whose Department of Public Health advises, “Staying home and celebrating with your immediate household, or celebrating with friends and family virtually.” Hancock flying to celebrate with family in Mississippi, who are in a different household, flouts the state’s recommendations.

The mayor could easily have followed Colorado’s Turkey Day diktat, “Video chatting or talking on the phone with friends and family who don’t live with you.” Or this one, “The safest thing to do right now is to stay home.” But he did not. Perhaps Mayor Hancock doesn’t believe COVID is really a crisis.

Colorado Governor Jared Polis is wisely walking the walk, planning on spending Thanksgiving with only his nuclear family, visiting with his mother virtually as she has respiratory disease. His colleague in California is taking the Hancock approach.

As San Francisco shut down all indoor dining, Governor Newsom was unperturbed, not in the least worried about a 250 percent increase in cases of the Wuhan flu in the city of which he was once the mayor. In his view, COVID is no crisis, only a political opportunity for his party to beat on the president and create election rules facilitating electoral cheating. Even the Democrat-defending New York Times took notice,

Flouting his own guidelines and exhortations to Californians to avoid socializing, Governor Newsom and his wife joined a birthday celebration for a friend — and prominent lobbyist — at the luxurious French Laundry restaurant in the Napa Valley. It is hard to say which was more astounding, the hypocrisy or the hubris

Blurry photos from the dinner capture a careless, Gatsby-esque vibe, the governor seated next to top officials for the California Medical Association. At the “board room” where the party appears to have been held, prix fixe meals can start at $450 per person; the political power broker and Newsom mentor Willie Brown wrote that he heard the meal’s wine bill alone “was $12,000.”

His fellow diners, some from the California Medical Association believe the crisis applies to others, not themselves, as they sat cozily next to each other without masks. As George Orwell said, “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others”, the latter group being the country’s ruling class.

YouTube screen grab

Governor Newsom is seemingly unconcerned about the health of his four children, sending them to in-person private school while the public schools that serve his local district remain closed. Crisis? What crisis?

Across the country in New Jersey, Governor Phil Murphy issued an executive order mandating face masks when unable to socially distance, either indoors or outdoors. That’s because Chinese virus cases in New Jersey were at a crisis level, right?

The only crisis was when the governor took his family out for a mask-less dinner and incurred the wrath of those living under his hypocrisy.

Similar scorn was heaped on the governor across the Hudson River, Governor Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo and his mini-me, NY City Mayor de Blasio, recommended that New Yorkers only “celebrate with people in your household” because of the Wuhan virus crisis in New York.

But Cuomo must not have believed it was a crisis as he made other plans. His 89-year-old mother, and two of his three adult daughters, none of whom live with the governor, were going to join him in Albany for a turkey dinner.

The backlash was fast and furious. Cuomo told reporters, “My personal advice is you don’t have family gatherings — even for Thanksgiving” yet he planned on doing the opposite, until he got caught. Crisis for thee but not for me.

It’s not just these governors. Nancy Pelosi had a hair appointment sans mask, a privilege not afforded to her San Francisco constituents, caught on video. Other elected officials prohibited large gatherings yet marched in solidarity with BLM and Antifa protesters, violating mask and distancing mandates. If these gatherings were dangerous, why did mayors and governors participate, jeopardizing the health of them and their families.

When those saying COVID is a crisis act like it’s a big nothing burger, why would Americans watching such hypocrisy take any of this seriously? If it is not a crisis, then don’t say it is. If it is a crisis, then act like it. Put up or shut up and let Americans have a smidgen of joy in their lives after a long and depressing year.

Brian C Joondeph, MD, is a Denver based physician and freelance writer for American Thinker, Rasmussen Reports, and other publications. Follow him on Facebook,  LinkedIn, Twitter, Parler, and QuodVerum.