OPINION
Premium

China Loves Their Useful American Idiots

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.

As the country grapples with how to deal with a new and unknown pandemic, Democrats and the "news" media have hit a new low by voluntarily becoming mouthpieces for the Chinese Communist Party.

When the Wuhan coronavirus became public, worldwide knowledge in December, the Chinese Communist Party immediately lied about it, shut out the World Health Organization, the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and punished anyone who dared to warn about its spread.

Videos of Chinese agents welding apartment buildings shut in China started to surface. Victims of the virus were dragged out of their homes and sent to unknown locations, likely to die.

The doctor who sounded the alarm about the disease was arrested and eventually died from the virus. The Chinese Communist Party expelled a number of American Wall Street Journal reporters for a commentary piece that appeared in the same newspaper called, "China Is the Real Sick Man of Asia."

Making matters worse, China delayed the potential for a vaccine by refusing to give up the Wuhan virus' sequence.

Because of China's lying and censorship, the disease quickly spread to the rest of the world.

"We want to applaud the brave reporters who are covering the spread of coronavirus from Wuhan itself. Expelling our journalists exposes once again the [Chinese] government's issue that led to SARS and now the coronavirus, namely censorship. It can have deadly consequences," Pompeo told reporters last month. "Had China permitted its own and foreign journalists and medical personnel to speak and investigate freely, Chinese officials and other nations would have been far better prepared to address the challenge."

Now, a massive economic disruption is underway and President Trump is set to declare a national emergency. 

The NBA and MLB have suspended their seasons. March Madness, major conferences around the country, the Boston Marathon, broadway shows and more have been completely canceled.

Adding insult to injury, the Chinese Communist Party propaganda machine is now out in full force and officials are threatening to kill Americans by withholding vital medicines, 90 percent of which are produced in China. The Chinese foreign minister has been falsely stating on social media that the Wuhan coronavirus actually started in the United States. This is a lie.

And yet, Democrats and their allies in the media aren't focused on holding China accountable for any of this behavior. Instead, they're policing language, calling people racists or xenophobic and giving the regime a free pass.

"Just astoundingly gross to call it the Wuhan Virus," MSNBC host Chris Hayes tweeted.

"FYI: Calling #COVID19 the 'Wuhan Virus' is racist," Hayes' MSNBC colleague David Gura declared.

This, of course, is complete and utter nonsense. Until it wasn't a convenient talking point to be used against President Trump, the very media accusing Americans of racism for daring to correctly and factually identify where the virus came from used the language themselves.

"Authorities in Beijing have canceled all large-scale Chinese New Year celebrations in an effort to contain the growing spread of Wuhan coronavirus," CNN's Jim Acosta, who is now calling this language xenophobic, tweeted on January 23.

China did this, and they should be held responsible, not given cover by useful idiots in America.