Covid Policy Tactics Were Borrowed from the Vietnam War

The Vietnam War inflicted great pain: 58,220 Americans—average age, 23— were killed, along with over one million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians. Nightly TV news displayed relentless airborne bombings, exploding artillery, fierce firefights and scrolling names of those killed, along with their hometowns, over a somber, drum-heavy soundtrack. Many survivors sustained physical and mental trauma that afflicted them for life. On the home front, the War created a deep social rift: people either strongly supported the War or vehemently opposed it. The two factions deeply disliked each other and wore tribe-signifying garb.

The Coronavirus response has resembled the Vietnam War.

To begin with, the justifications for starting the War and the Lockdowns were similarly questionable. After provoking North Vietnam at sea and claiming, without basis, that North Vietnam had fired on a small American vessel, LBJ jawboned Congress into passing the Tonkin Resolution, giving him broad authority to wage war without Congressional interference. The Red-Scared majority of 1965 Americans supported ensuing, exponential troop escalations.