The polls are wrong.

Basketball defense coach:

          "Watch the offensive player's belly-button, especially if he/she is quick and hard to stay with. The offensive player can fake you with a head fake, eye fake, arm or shoulder fake, or a jab-step, but the belly-button will always go only in the direction that he/she is going."

Don't be fooled.

Polls regarding the virus are dangerously misleading. 

People tell the pollsters what they think they are supposed to think. Then they do what they actually want.

Americans have been on a diet and they are tired of it.

Click: Axios-Ipsos Poll

The Axios-Ipsos people are out with a poll that echoes what mainstream media sources have been saying for weeks, that people are concerned about the virus and that they will do the kinds of things health authorities suggest. People say they are concerned about saving lives and they support government efforts to protect our health. 

Axios:  "At the end of our third month of tracking America’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, the Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus Index finds that even while Americans are increasingly engaging with each other outside the home, concerns about a second wave and perceived risks of regular activities mount."

It is news re-assuring to Democrats, who are generally positioned in the public mind as the be-careful because the virus kills Party. Trump, Fox, the GOP, and rural jurisdiction officeholders have taken the lets-move-on, we-can-manage-the-virus position. Democrats think they are with the people on this. The polls look great for Democrats. Trump is polling at the bottom end of his range, another confirmation that Trump is losing on this issue. It all makes sense for Democrats.

It is dead wrong.  Don't be fooled by the head fake. Look at the belly button.

What people tell pollsters  about the virus is akin to what most adults feel about their weight and would tell a pollster if asked:

Is being a healthy weight very important, somewhat important, not important to you?  

"Very important."

How concerned are you about heart disease, diabetes, and other risks to your life from excess weight? 

"Very concerned."

Do you watch what you eat and monitor your intake?  

"Oh, yes, definitely."

Of course, the reality is that people eat what they want and what tastes good. Use the belly button test. Look at Americans' waistlines. Look, too, at how they are behaving in real life regarding social distancing.  People tried the social distance diet and they fell off it and are going back to normal.

Packed crowd at BLM protest

McDonalds has fresh salads available, but that is not what the overwhelming majority of people actually buy. 

Humans are social animals and even prosperous retirees whose incomes have not been hurt by the shutdown and who have comfortable homes to quarantine in are restless. People want to see people. For school children, for people with jobs, for the vast majority of people below retirement age the shutdown is very disruptive, and for many, it is financially catastrophic. People have lives to live. Enough already.

Politicians announce that bars and restaurants will reopen and call it "good news." Of course, it is good news: people can get what they want. Yes, it will mean the virus will start spreading faster again, but its worth it, and maybe only a few will get sick and die, probably somebody else, a price worth paying.

The automobile traffic I see is slightly below the pre-COVID highs, but Americans I observe up close and via media are done with this shutdown. Democrats are protesting on the streets, social distance be damned. Trump says a million people have signed up to attend his Oklahoma rally, social distance be damned. 

Billions sold

This isn't a new normal. It is a reversion to the old normal, the normal normal. We are accustomed to people dying by accidents and illness, especially old and sick people. 

The operating assumption of Americans had briefly switched to people caring for the health of others. That was the aberration and that is what Democrats were selling: the civic virtue love-your-neighbor diet. Now people are reverting to the real American ethic: everyone measuring their own risks and taking care of him or her self. Old people who don't want to risk early death stay away from people.

It is June. Young people are out. You are only young once.

Conservative news is well aware of the Democrats being in a quandary, trying to hold back a tide. They report Democrats' criticism of the Trump Oklahoma rally, and then show photos of Democrats at BLM protests, crowded closely. Hypocrites!  Democrats are preaching the diet but eating the Big Mac right along with Republicans.

Trump could have made the mask a sign of patriotic virtue. Americans would have tolerated it a short while.  How long? We are finishing the experiment and have an answer: about six weeks. We were on a crash diet and it is no fun.

McDonalds is selling a lot of cheeseburgers. They might kill you, but they might not, so it is a risk worth taking.