Memo to Democrats: If there’s another covid surge, you’ll get the blame

In recent weeks, mask mandates across the country have been dropped as covid case rates and hospitalizations have fallen with the waning of the omicron wave. Everyone hopes that even if the virus never completely disappears, it could become merely endemic and not the dominant reality of everyday life that it has been for two years.

Yet there are signs a new wave could be on its way, now that one is already hitting Europe. Should that happen, Democrats ought to know that they’ll get the blame.

Right now, Democrats don’t appear all that tuned in to this possibility. They seem to think agreeing to relax covid-19 measures everywhere, as Republicans have demanded, has put them on the right side of an issue where they were losing the public.

Even if that’s true (and it’s debatable), if covid comes back, Republicans will spin right around and blame them for it, without being constrained in the slightest by the absurdity of the turnaround.