For those who managed to cling to consciousness as the first night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago finally drew to a close, the Democrats’ strategy for the 2024 presidential election became clear.

First, they must rebrand Vice President Kamala Harris as a joyous, mother-like figure who “cares” because she’s black, she’s a woman, she had a mother, and she once worked at McDonald’s.

Second, they must rebrand themselves as the party of hope and progress, motivated by a refusal to “go back” to a world where anarcho-terrorists roamed the streets calling for the destruction of the federal government. What must that be like, I wonder?

And in order to achieve these goals, they must be able to pull off the third pillar of this strategy: Democrats must rewrite history. And there is no better example than COVID-19.

During the seemingly endless parade of speakers, there was a theme that came back time after time: Blame former President Donald Trump for COVID-19.

Wisconsin’s lieutenant governor blamed Trump and state Republicans for failing to protect people’s health.

Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (D-MN) stood on the grave of her brother to say Trump was “playing games,” while the Biden-Harris administration “stepped in with quick and decisive action.”

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) stood on the graves of his mother and stepfather and announced that Trump “told us to inject bleach into our bodies.”

For the Democrats to focus on COVID-19 to this extent, including by spreading the lie that Trump instructed people to inject bleach, it’s clear that the pandemic remains a central issue for many of their voters, too big of a milestone to memory-hole into oblivion.

And so Democrats are engaging in the most absurd gaslighting routine in living memory to blame Trump, and Trump alone, for everything that went wrong during the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, they escape as blameless victims of his supposed failure.

Look, Trump didn’t handle the pandemic as he should have. Instead of following the lead of Republicans such as Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), he refused to make balanced decisions that took other factors into account, and he surrendered policy power to politico-scientist frauds such as Dr. Anthony Fauci. Trump even gave Fauci a medal as his presidential term came to an end!

But there’s a huge difference between criticizing Trump for his failures in the context of his successes and the actions of others and doing what the Democrats are doing: painting him as the scapegoat responsible for everything that went wrong then and everything that is wrong now.

Trump didn’t close your children’s schools, force your businesses to close, or pressure you to wear masks or receive a never-ending stream of useless vaccines. 

No, Democrats did that: Democratic governors such as Gavin Newsom of California, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, and J.B. Pritzker of Illinois and Democratic mayors such as Muriel Bowser in Washington, D.C., Lori Lightfoot in Chicago, and Eric Garcetti in Los Angeles.

And it was New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, not Trump, who moved patients infected with COVID-19 into nursing homes, exposing the most vulnerable.

According to Democrats, Trump is to blame for every COVID-19 death under Trump, and Trump is also to blame for every COVID-19 death under President Joe Biden and Harris. How convenient, given that far more people died from COVID-19 under the Biden-Harris administration despite the COVID-19 vaccine it inherited from Trump.

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COVID-19 was a generational policy failure that spanned administrations and party lines, and if we lived in a sane world, this coming election would be a referendum on the most consequential failure of America’s government in modern history.

But if you’re going to let the people who shut down your schools, shut down your businesses, and forced your children to wear masks rewrite their own failures, then you will not only be letting them get away with the crime of the century, but you will be rewarding them for it.

Ian Haworth is a columnist, speaker, and podcast host. You can find him on Substack and follow him on X at @ighaworth.