Where Are the Reparations for the Businesses COVID Crushed?

By Michael Ashley

Picture this. It’s March 2020 and you just opened your first business. It’s a restaurant in California. This is no ordinary venture. This is your baby.

For years, you and your husband saved to make this happen. While all your friends bought nice cars or took lavish vacations, you abstained. Instead, you poured all your energy into sourcing ingredients, building a unique menu, scouting a location, and working with lenders to acquire additional financing.

And then Governor Gavin Newsom shuts down California—one week after you open your doors.

You try to protest these lockdown orders. When you do, you are savaged online. Yelp reviewers call you a monster for your “unsafe health practices.” “You’re gonna kill my grandma” reads another post.

To appease the mob, you limit the number of patrons you’ll serve, hoping the police won’t bust in your doors or cut off your power based on Mayor Eric Garcetti’s edict. But the mob keeps coming.

Soon, you are told you are not an “essential business.” Somehow, big box stores are. So are marijuana dispensaries. Even liquor stores.

Meanwhile, bills mount up.

You owe your landlord rent. You owe your vendors. You owe your mortgage lender. You owe the college for your child’s schooling—even though your freshman was just sent home to live with you.

You put up a brave fight. But the restaurant industry already runs on thin margins. Even with the little bit of PPP money you get, it’s not enough to pay everyone you owe and still earn a profit.

You lose your business—your baby—right before Christmas.

All those years of planning, saving, dreaming… gone.

Now, let’s step back to ask a valid question: where are the reparations for all the businesses COVID took down? Correction: COVID didn’t take them down. The tyrannical response from our so-called leaders did.

Now, here we are, some five years later.

Amazingly, Trump is back in power. Many of the most egregious fearmongers, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, have been dethroned, their once lofty reputations forever tainted. Much of the world has moved on.

But what about the businesses who were crushed? Where is their justice? Have we heard a peep from the mainstream media about these victims? You know that answer.

Now, for some startling statistics to make your skin crawl:

Half a million small businesses closed since the pandemic. ~The Times

There are now nearly 40% less small businesses than there were before the pandemic. ~WRAL News

The super rich became 54% richer during COVID-19. ~CBS News

There’s a concept called “The Fog of War.” It’s the uncertainty that ensues when armed conflict arises. Our normal abilities to think through decisions vanishes when hostilities commence. Those who wish to be excused for their terrible actions during COVID-19 often appeal to this mentality.

They may not use this same term; however, their excuse is the same.

They want to be pardoned for not knowing any better. They thought they were doing the right thing—especially when it came to letting the elderly die alone in hospitals or force-masking children, even toddlers.

Whether we should grant such clemency is fodder for another article. For now, we should be asking for similar grace. Only not for the offenders. But, rather, the victims.

The ghastly response to this virus crushed so many of our fellow Americans’ livelihoods. Even that sentence fails to connote the damage. It crushed their lives. Their families. Their legacies.

Returning to war, in the aftermath of World War II, the Nuremberg Trials were held. Accountability ensued. Was every Nazi who perpetrated the horrors of the Holocaust brought to justice? Not by a long shot.

However, it impacted the zeitgeist. It prompted collective healing. More, it showed the public there are real consequences for misdeeds.

I won’t pretend that trial thwarted all future tyrannies. After all, we are talking about COVID-19, a grotesque reminder that barbarism is never far from erupting. However, we would do well to recognize that without real accountability, evil feels emboldened to strike again. And again.

It’s therefore not only just that the next administration pay reparations to those businesses crushed by an out-of-control government. It’s necessary symbolically. Without such an overture, we can expect more such tyranny.

And why not? “Absolutely power corrupts absolutely,” per Lord Acton.

For now, let us see past all those fog of war lies to realize one more thing we were misled about—all businesses are essential.

They therefore deserve respect. And dignity.

---