Considering the Supreme Court’s rejection of New York state’s restrictions on religious gatherings during the pandemic . . .

. . . and California governor Gavin Newsom’s dinner at The French Laundry, and the mayor of San Francisco dining in the very same restaurant the following night, and the Los Angeles County supervisor dining in a restaurant after voting to ban outdoor dining as well as indoor dining, and the mayor of Denver flying off to see family after telling residents to avoid unnecessary travel, and Nancy Pelosi visiting a hair salon in violation of local restrictions, and the mayor of San Jose breaking his own restrictions by attending a big Thanksgiving dinner with multiple households present, and the mayor of Washington, D.C., attending a Biden victory party in Delaware after barring all nonessential interstate travel, and [insert all subsequent examples of politicians violating their own quarantine restrictions here] . . .

. . . maybe it’s time for governors and mayors to get out of the lockdown-by-decree business and get back into the recommendation business. Americans have been through a terrible ordeal of a year, and they’re not going to just stay home behind closed doors with Christmas and Hanukkah and New Year’s coming up. Clearly, these sweeping restrictions are far too strict, because otherwise elected officials wouldn’t be breaking their own rules all over the place.

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The first vaccinations in the U.S. will start in about two weeks. Until the vaccine is widely available, we’ve got another month or two (or three?) of frequent handwashing, social distancing, avoiding crowds, wearing masks when indoors, and maybe throw in taking some Vitamin D or other vitamins and supplements to keep our immune systems at tip-top shape. Americans aren’t going to stay away from restaurants or religious services entirely, so tell them to space the customers or worshippers out as much as they can and keep hand sanitizer plentiful and ubiquitous. Americans aren’t going to stay away from their elderly relatives entirely, so tell them to get tested before and try to minimize exposure until the gathering. Take the precautions that you can, where you can, when you can. This is not a perfect or risk-free system; perfect and risk-free systems don’t exist. As the Christmas carol goes:

Someday soon we all will be together, if the fates allow,

Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow,

So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

In short, mayors and governors, don’t ask your citizens to make any sacrifice that you’re not willing to make yourself.

Because if another bunch of fat-cat politicians try to decree that no one should get together for Christmas, and that everyone should stay out of restaurants and church and so on, the reaction from much of the public will be a metaphorical middle finger, and that reaction will be entirely deserved. Elected officials didn’t start this pandemic with a ton of trust and respect for their authority, and the worst among them have destroyed what was left in the past few weeks.