Covid Response at Five Years: The Covid Caste System

By Brownstone Institute, March 6, 2025

In normal times, Americans would hear Daniel Uhlfelder barking from a street corner about end times. “Just keep walking,” they’d tell their kids as they caught glimpses of his signs predicting rapture. People might have different approaches to getting him help – rehab, a social support system, family intervention – but nobody would treat him as a public policy advocate. But 2020’s Ides of March were not normal times, however, so lunacy elevated Uhlfelder to adoring media coverage and a political platform.

Beginning in March 2020, Uhfelder, a Florida attorney, dedicated himself to shaming parents who brought their children to local beaches. He dressed as the Grim Reaper, covered head to toe in a black cloak with a scythe in his hand. Instead of questioning his sanity or explaining that sunlight killed the virus, liberal news outlets celebrated the unhinged lawyer.

“It’s a macabre plea to beachgoers to stay home,” CNN wrote alongside a picture of Uhlfelder standing in front of a beach umbrella covered in his signature costume. He handed out body bags and warned beachgoers that venturing outside would kill them and their loved ones. “You are inviting death and disease to walk amongst you,” he scolded them. Saturday Night Live, Vice News, and the Daily Show covered him, celebrating rather than mocking his efforts. “If we don’t take measures to control things, this virus is going to get really, really out of control,” he warned.

The New Yorker published a glowing profile on the Sunshine State’s Grim Reaper. “I’m not a liberal,” he said. “I’m logical.” He compared his publicity tour to his family’s experience in the Holocaust. “My grandfather escaped Nazi Germany as a teenager. His whole family was incinerated in gas chambers,” he said. “It was always ingrained in my head: ‘You can sit around and bitch and whine, but what are you going to do about it?’’ To honor the memory of the Holocaust, Uhlfelder responded to national fear by scapegoating political opponents and urging the suspension of their liberties.

Uhlfelder held higher aspirations than terrorizing local families. He used his publicity to open the Make My Day PAC, a political action committee supporting pro-lockdown Democrats. Later that year, he launched an unsuccessful campaign for Florida Attorney General, receiving 400,000 votes.

Despite his anti-science hysteria, the media gave Uhlfelder far more favorable coverage than Ron DeSantis could ever hope to receive. The New Yorker published his Holocaust invocation without any blowback. Months later, the press called Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “anti-Semitic” and “offensive” for mentioning Nazi Germany in a speech decrying totalitarianism. By July, CNN welcomed Uhlfelder as a commentator on mask mandates. “Unfortunately, when I started this work in March, I had a bad belief that this was going to get really bad,” he said. “[DeSantis] needs to issue a mask order because masks work.”

But there was a notable carveout to Uhlfelder’s attitude toward public gatherings. On May 26, 2020, he posted photos of his continued efforts to shame his neighbors into sitting alone inside. He even had multiple costumes, incorporating a hazmat suit into his outfit rotation. One week later, he celebrated millions of citizens gathering across the country after the death of George Floyd. He personally attended BLM rallies in Florida and endorsed marches in New York, San Francisco, and Chicago.

A country with 330 million people will always have narcissistic, hypocritical lunatics like Uhfelder; more alarming, however, was how he represented the country’s ruling class in those months.

Equality of law was overturned in favor of a Covid caste system. The lockdowns, the edicts, the house arrests, the arbitrary deprivations of liberty, the capricious assaults on constitutional rights, and the irrational executive orders were all reserved for citizens with the wrong political persuasion. Small businesses shuttered amid “nonessential” decrees while Planned Parenthood remained open. Protests against lockdowns resulted in arrests while governors joined thousands in “anti-racism” marches. Common citizens couldn’t eat in a restaurant or get their hair cut, but the powerful remained immune from the orders of the Covid regime.

There were at least three factors that demarcated the two-tiered system of law that infected the United States in 2020: profession, ideology, and power. First, CISA divided the workforce into “essential” and “nonessential” categories that allowed the world’s most powerful corporations to continue their operations while small businesses and churches were subject to lockdowns. Second, the architects of lockdowns based their enforcement on whether groups held proper political beliefs. Socially political movements like Black Lives Matter earned an exemption from their totalitarianism. Third, governors, bureaucrats, and mayors flouted their own regulations and enjoyed the freedoms that they denied to their fellow citizens.

It was more than hypocrisy; it was despotism. The abolition of the American Creed led to suffering for the most vulnerable and immense riches for the powerful. It was not mere selfishness; it was callous cruelty. Suddenly, American citizens were subject to a political regime that suppressed their longest-standing liberties if they failed to comply with the latest ideological trends. Their children, their businesses, and their freedoms suffered as ostensible public servants advanced political agendas.

The Black Lives Matter Exception

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer was one of the country’s most ardent enforcers of lockdowns. Her citizens lost their basic rights to petition government, travel, and assemble. In April 2020, she called protests against her stay-at-home order “racist and misogynistic.” She threatened that the demonstrations would make it “likelier” that the lockdowns would continue.

But Whitmer’s tune changed when “anti-racism” protestors and rioters arrived in Detroit in June. She greeted them with enthusiasm, marching side-by-side with the group. Whitmer brazenly violated her executive orders, which required “social distancing measures…including remaining at least six feet from people.” She was clear that politics drove her decision to march arm-in-arm with her voting bloc. “Elections matter,” she shouted from a microphone. “We cannot be defeated.”

Like Uhlfelder, Whitmer combined dictatorial arrogance with cognitive dissonance. At the time of her BLM political rally, she threatened political opponents with 90 days in jail if they violated her stay-at-home order. Thousands gathered in Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, and the State Capitol for BLM rallies, but Whitmer refrained from punishing the lawbreakers. As political allies of the administration, they were not subject to the edicts that applied to the broader citizenry.

Illinois took a similar approach. When asked about the ramifications for violating stay-at-home orders, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot told reporters, “We will arrest. That should never happen because people – meaning you – have to comply.” Governor J.B. Pritzker was similarly stern in his house arrest demands. “All public and private gatherings of any number of people occurring outside a single household or living unit are prohibited,” he decreed. For non-favored citizens, it was the most extreme form of totalitarianism: all gatherings at any place with any persons were banned. As was “all travel, including, but not limited to, travel by automobile, motorcycle, scooter, bicycle, train, plane, or public transit.”

Illinois’s lockdown enforcement continued into the summer. In late May, Chicago Police issued warnings that they would arrest and fine anyone who biked on outdoor trails, even if riding alone. When a local group of Republicans planned an outdoor Fourth of July picnic, Pritzker went to court to enforce lockdowns. But none of these standards applied to Black Lives Matter.

“We want people to come and express their passion,” Mayor Lightfoot told reporters weeks after she scolded citizens that they “had to comply.” Thousands of protestors gathered in cities across the state, with looters inflicting over $100 million in damage. Unlike public policy aimed at solo bike rides, there was no concern for viral transmission.

Civil liberties hinged on political persuasion under the governor’s regime. Like Whitmer, Pritzker participated in a march with hundreds of activists in June. In the ensuing months, he banned the Illinois Republican Party from holding rallies in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election. It was clear viewpoint discrimination – the Governor marched alongside a political group he supported and banned events for a party he opposed. Local media was largely silent as the governor suspended political freedom under an irrational public health excuse. Without explaining how his marches differed in safety, he argued that curbing the activities of his opponents was “necessary” to prevent the spread of Covid.

In November 2020, President Biden won the election, and the standards for political demonstrations shifted again. The obese Pritzker marched through Chicago with thousands of supporters. Like Black Lives Matter, the Democratic Party enjoyed an exemption from the lockdown measures. “It’s clear the governor keeps one set of rules for the people in politically advantageous photo ops and another for the rest of Illinois,” Republican Party Chairman Tim Schneider said in response.

Mayor Lightfoot joined thousands in celebrating President Biden’s election. “It’s a great day for our country,” she shouted to the crowd. Her political allies filled the streets around her, packed shoulder to shoulder. Five days later, Lightfoot returned to authoritarian impulse. “You must cancel the normal Thanksgiving plans,” she demanded. According to Lightfoot, it was simply too dangerous to interact with “guests that do not live in your immediate household.”

Governor Cuomo implemented a similar two-tier legal system in the Empire State. “How many people have to die before the people ignoring social distancing get that they have a responsibility?” He asked on Twitter in April. “One person sneezes – another person gets intubated…STAY HOME. SAVE LIVES.” Just weeks after he shut down church pastors for hosting drive-in sermons, BLM protestors were immune from law enforcement.

In neighboring New Jersey, Governor Phil Murphy embraced the double standards. Murphy was one of the strictest enforcers of lockdowns beginning in March 2020. That spring, New Jersey police charged citizens for crimes including:

“Congregating without maintaining a distance of 6FT, and without a destination, in violation of the Governor’s order;”

“Failing to obey a governor’s Ex. Order by taking part in non-essential travel & failing to social distance;” and “standing in violation of Governor’s orders.”

When asked about Murphy’s enforcement of Corona-law, an attorney from the ACLU of New Jersey remarked, “It’s a little breathtaking, the scope.”

But when thousands of Black Lives Matter protestors gathered in Newark, there were no similar citations. Murphy was clear: the application of the law depended on whether he found the group’s cause morally sufficient. “I’ll probably get lit up by everyone who owns a nail salon in the state,” he said in June. “But it’s one thing to protest what day nail salons are opening, and it’s another to come out in peaceful protest, overwhelmingly, about somebody who was murdered right before our eyes.”

Later that summer, his police arrested owners of a local gym for operating their business in defiance of his orders and homeowners for hosting a pool party without social distancing. The gym owners hadn’t flipped over cars or torched police vehicles like BLM’s “peaceful” protestors in Trenton, and the pool party didn’t descend into gang violence like the “anti-racism” movement in Atlantic City. Their crime was their ideology.

Unelected ideologues were not immune from the hypocrisy. Former CDC Director Tom Frieden warned in a Washington Post op-ed that violating stay-at-home orders and lockdowns could “overwhelm health-care facilities, killing doctors, nurses, patients, and others.” Protests against shuttering businesses and schools were akin to mass homicide to Frieden, but there was a policy exception for the George Floyd riots. “People can protest peacefully AND work together to stop Covid,” he insisted.

Thirteen hundred public health workers signed an open letter that explained why the “anti-racism” protests should be exempt from the restrictions that other groups faced. “Protests against systemic racism, which foster the disproportionate burden of COVID-19 on Black communities and also perpetuates police violence, must be supported.” Meanwhile, protests against stay-at-home orders “not only oppose public health interventions but are also rooted in white nationalism and run contrary to respect for Black lives,” they explained. They did away with any veneer of medical expertise. They slandered their opponents as neo-Nazis, celebrated their allies, and insisted liberty depended on political beliefs.

“Freedom for me, but not for thee, has no place under our Constitution,” U.S. Circuit Judge James Ho later explained. But that was exactly the double standard that politicians and health officials applied through the summer of 2020. Dr. Peter Hotez, a regular MSNBC contributor and an outspoken supporter of the Covid regime, chastised protests against mandates and lockdowns as “just a fresh coat of paint for the anti-vaccine movement in America, and an exploitative means for them to try to remain relevant.” But when thousands gathered for BLM marches, Hotez defended the protestors as righteous opposition against “structural racism.”

In June 2020, the American Public Health Association declared, “Racism is a public health crisis.” Their members used that slogan to justify their support of BLM gatherings after months of promoting house arrests. The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and the American College of Physicians issued similar proclamations, as did groups at Harvard, Georgetown, and Cornell and local governments in California, Wisconsin, and Maryland.

Self-professed experts in virology turned out to be ideological fanatics, shameless in their pursuit of power. The “American Creed” – the Jeffersonian principle that all men are created equal and must be treated equally before the law – was overturned in favor of blunt-force partisan politics. For over two centuries, the Constitution strove to be agnostic to the content of one’s character or ideas. When Justice Scalia described the First Amendment as “an equal protection clause for ideas,” he meant that its guarantees were not subject to political favoritism. But petty tyrants overturned that tradition, implementing a two-tiered system of justice that rewarded allies of the regime and punished its opponents.

Sanctimonious Sadism

Repeatedly, politicians were caught violating their Covid orders. Edicts concerning masking, travel, and work applied to the general citizenry, not elected officials.

This wasn’t harmless hypocrisy. They weren’t caught having a beer at the Mothers Against Drunk Driving fundraiser or jaywalking in the town square. It wasn’t Ted Cruz going to Mexico during a snowstorm or even Marion Barry smoking crack. It was despotism. Children were kept out of the classroom. Their IQs plummeted, and their language skills may never recover from the effects of masking. Globally, lockdowns and Covid supply chain disruptions killed 10,000 children per month from hunger.

Businesses shut down permanently. Their owners lost their livelihood and lifetimes of work, often leading to substance abuse and mental anguish. Nearly everyone was forced to skip routine health appointments. Ten million Americans missed cancer screenings in the first fourteen months of the pandemic, and 46% of chemotherapy patients missed treatments. Churches were prohibited from opening. Their congregations were left with nowhere to turn for guidance in a spiritual crisis. Millions of people were left to die alone as stay-at-home orders prevented loved ones from visiting. Their final days were spent in solitude with no chance to say goodbye. Those responsible for this suffering insisted it was to promote health.

Supposed public servants exempted themselves from the hell that they imposed. They were unremorseful and offered insultingly stupid excuses. It was an exercise in humiliation, a public display of dominance and submission. While millions suffered, they enjoyed the freedoms that they stole from the citizenry.

In November 2020, Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin continued her advocacy for lockdowns and business closures. “Don’t host or go to gatherings with people outside your household,” she scolded citizens before Thanksgiving.” Three weeks earlier, however, she used government money to fly from Wisconsin to New York City to visit her lover for a long weekend.

The day she left for her vacation, she tweeted: “We have a raging #COVID19 outbreak in Wisconsin and across the country. This pandemic is getting worse and we need to start working together to contain it so we can get our economy on the right track and move forward.” Not only was Baldwin ignoring the tyranny that she supported, she used taxpayer money to fund her duplicity.

In California, Governor Newsom exemplified the nationwide trend of sanctimony and hypocrisy. Politico explained: “Newsom has regularly implored Californians to remain vigilant by wearing masks, avoiding mixing with other households and practicing social distancing, repeating a mantra that individual behavior can make a difference.”

Newsom’s office chided Californians in October: “Going out to eat with members of your household this weekend? Don’t forget to keep your mask on in between bites.” The following month, he issued warnings against traveling for Thanksgiving or meeting with other households.

“Wear your mask. Physically distance. Do not let your guard down,” Newsom tweeted on November 12. Later that week, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the Governor had attended a birthday dinner at Napa Valley’s French Laundry, one of the most expensive restaurants in the world, for a state lobbyist. When the news broke, the host released a statement insisting, “This was a small, intimate 12-person dinner held outdoors with family and a few close friends.”

But that was a lie. Los Angeles’s local Fox team obtained photos of the dinner. There were no masks, no social distancing, and they were inside. They hadn’t even remembered to put on their mask in between bites. They had let their guard down. While the rest of the state lived under continued lockdowns, Newsom’s children attended private school in person, and he enjoyed dinner with the company of like-minded plutocrats. The CEO of the California Medical Association and health lobbyists joined Newsom at the party. This wasn’t old-fashioned hypocrisy like a “family values” candidate with a sleazy affair; Newsom had taken dictatorial control of his state and refused to abide by the edicts that he imposed.

Newsom’s habit of lying and disregarding Covid law was widespread in California. San Francisco banned hair salons from operating beginning in March 2020. Those rules didn’t apply to Nancy Pelosi, who had her assistant message a stylist that she needed an appointment. Disregarding local law, the Speaker of the House opened a shuttered hair salon for a blow-out. She neglected to wear a mask despite her repeated orders for other Americans to obey government demands.

After months of serving a regime that banned business owners from earning a living, Pelosi insisted on special treatment. “It was a slap in the face that she went in,” the salon owner said. “She feels that she can just go and get her stuff done while no one else can go in, and I can’t work.”

Like Newsom, Pelosi’s office instinctively lied when confronted with her hypocrisy. “The Speaker always wears a mask and complies with local COVID requirements,” her spokesman told Fox News, despite photographic evidence to the contrary.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot was more forthcoming about her decision to get her hair cut despite banning salons via her stay-at-home order. She told the press that her appearance was just more important than others. “I’m the public face of this city,” she explained. “I’m on national media and I’m out in the public eye.”

In February 2022, Los Angeles still maintained a mask mandate under the orders of Mayor Eric Garcetti. “You MUST wear a mask,” the Los Angeles County website guidance explained. Students of all ages were required to wear masks in school, but the rules did not apply to Mayor Garcetti. On February 13, 2022, Los Angeles hosted the Super Bowl. Fans received a complimentary KN95 mask upon entry, and the city required them to show proof of vaccination. Garcetti sat above the crowd in a private box with Governor Newsom, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, and celebrities including Rob Lowe and Magic Johnson.

Johnson posted photos from the evening, and none of the politicians wore the masks that they mandated. Newsom smiled in a Twitter post, barefaced with his back to the group’s private bar and dining. Garcetti posed with Johnson and Breed, celebrating maskless as the hometown LA Rams won the Super Bowl.

When confronted with their violation of the laws they imposed, the autocrats lied. “I wore my mask the entire game,” insisted Garcetti. “When people ask for a photograph, I hold my breath.” As children were forced to suffer under his regime for a virus that didn’t harm them, Garcetti instinctively fibbed. It was more than poor leadership. He celebrated that the rules didn’t apply to him, and he had such little respect for his citizens that he expected them to accept that he had mastered virology by superhuman control of his respiratory system.

Newsom offered a similar excuse. “I was very judicious yesterday…In my left hand is the mask, and I took a photo,” he said. “The rest of the time I wore it, as we all should.”

Flaunting capricious edicts was not reserved for California politicians. Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney banned all indoor dining in Philadelphia in the summer of 2020 and required residents to wear face masks and socially distance. “Let’s not push the envelope,” he told reporters on August 20, 2022. “I beg you to follow the rules.” Kenney was clear that he would not tolerate any insubordination. “We will be quick to close restaurants,” he warned.

The following week, Kenney went to Maryland to enjoy a maskless indoor dinner without social distancing. Not pushing the envelope was reserved for the proles, not his family vacationing on the Chesapeake Bay. When photographs of the dinner surfaced online, one Philadelphia restaurateur responded, “I guess all your press briefings and your narrative of unsafe indoor dining don’t apply to you. Thank you for clearing it all up for us tonight.” While chefs and waiters lost their jobs for obeying his fiat, Kenney used his resources to avoid the ramifications of his regime.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer jailed restaurant owners for violating her executive orders. Marlena Pavlos-Hackney, a pizzeria owner, spent 4 nights in jail and paid a $15,000 fine in February 2021 for violating the state’s Covid restrictions. Three months later, photos emerged of Whitmer with dozens of friends at an East Lansing restaurant. Her executive order required social distancing and limited crowd gatherings to 6 people, but it only applied to common citizens like Pavlos-Hackney who needed to earn a living. Whitmer and her like-minded friends were exempt. “Because we were all vaccinated, we didn’t stop to think about it,” she told the press.

Whitmer offered no remorse for implementing a two-tiered police state. “If I have to face penalties which I went through…I think she should face the same penalties,” Pavlos-Hackney told Fox News. “We the people, we are all equal.”

Whitmer later joined other Democratic governors in ignoring their Corona-law to attend President Biden’s inauguration. At the time, Whitmer criminalized all outdoor public gatherings with “more than 25 people,” regardless of masking and social distancing protocols. That same order had been used to issue thousands of dollars in fines to store owners and bars. This did not stop Whitmer from attending the inauguration with thousands of fellow Democrats and posting photos from the event. Democratic governors from Pennsylvania and New Jersey also attended the event despite their restrictions limiting gatherings and traveling.

Other officials did not have to break the law to demonstrate their disregard for their despotism. In Virginia, Alexandria City Public Schools superintendent Gregory Hutchings oversaw a $300 million budget and 15,000 students. Under his leadership, Alexandria City Public Schools did not fully reopen until August 2021.

Hutchings bemoaned the “dual pandemic of Covid-19 and systemic racism” that he and his colleagues endured. “WE ARE ON AN ANTI-RACIST JOURNEY,” he declared on his school-sponsored podcast, celebrating his opportunity to rename schools. On their first day of Zoom learning for the 2020 school year, Hutchings told students, “we must acknowledge our racial inequities.”

But Hutchings failed to live up to his egalitarian diatribes. While he kept 15,000 students out of the classroom that fall, he transferred his daughter to a private school that conducted in-person learning. When the press confronted him over this decision, he insisted that the choice was “very personal” and “not taken lightly.”

Governor Newsom also sent his children to private school for in-person learning while almost all California public schools remained shuttered. When asked to explain himself, he deferred to local districts and the teachers’ unions.

Schools in the Bay Area remained closed through Spring 2021 at the behest of Matt Meyer, president of the Berkeley Federation of Teachers. Meyer insisted that returning to the classroom was too “unsafe.” It was later revealed that he sent his daughter to private school for in-person learning. When his hypocrisy was exposed, Meyer offered no remorse; instead, he lashed out at reporters, calling the story a violation of his daughter’s privacy and “very inappropriate.”

The people responsible for serving American children acted with brazen hypocrisy and self-interest. Teachers cancelled Zoom classes to attend destination weddings after claiming their fear of Covid prevented them from teaching in the classroom. Randi Weingarten and teachers’ unions lobbied the CDC to keep schools closed. Stacey Abrams and other candidates smiled for campaign photos at schools while forcing students to remain masked.

They did this while children suffered. The average American student fell six months behind in math due to school closures. Poorer students lost two-and-a-half years of learning. The decreased math scores were the largest drop in recorded history. Unsurprisingly, school closures led to adverse mental health symptoms, including distress, anxiety, and huge surges in unhealthy physical activities, including higher screen time and lower rates of exercise.

The End of the American Creed

Jefferson’s American Creed survived the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement. Leaders like Lincoln and MLK embraced it for their causes – holding that they sought to “cash a check” on the nation’s foundational promise.

That tradition ended in 2020. Supposedly serious people acted as insane as a man dressed in a grim reaper costume at the Florida beach. They wielded their power capriciously, weaponizing the legal system against political opponents. They lived in luxury while denying basic freedoms to their citizens. Their grandiose moralizing became a thin façade for their overwhelming incompetence. Their decadence could not be disturbed by the plight of their citizens.

When their lies became public, they demonstrated unrepentant arrogance. They considered themselves beyond reproach. Their media, their police departments, their “public health experts,” and their corporate donors were unwavering. They cared about power, not democratic accountability or constitutional norms. In doing so, the Covid response unwound the social fabric and destroyed the foundational principles of the American legal system.

The American people can never allow themselves to be treated in this manner again. Therefore, those who did this to us must be brought to justice or it WILL happen again!

The Liberator