The Cruise Ship Industry Learns a Valuable Lesson After Bowing to Joe Biden

Bonchie reporting for RedState

The cruise ship industry has been hit hard during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, much of their pain and suffering has been self-inflicted, driven by their mindless following of pointless federal dictates. That has most noticeably manifested itself in the implementation of so-called “vaccine passports.”

Of course, vaccine passports do not actually accomplish anything. New York City not only has a vaccine passport system, but they also have a vaccine mandate. Still, they lead the nation in new coronavirus cases as of this writing. But the fact that everyone spreads COVID — and that vaccine passports made no sense — is not new information.

And when Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida stood up to fight against such measures, the cruise ship companies not only spit in his face, they actively opposed him in court. Instead of following the data, Royal Caribbean, Carnival, and others bent the knee to Joe Biden, even when they weren’t legally required to.

Well, they are about to get a hard lesson in why that was a big mistake. The CDC is now recommending against any boarding of cruise ships, while Omicron is spreading everywhere.

These cruise ship companies are stuck now. They spent the last two years insisting that the CDC knew best, bowing before federal government authorities. Instead of working with governors like DeSantis, who were trying to keep their businesses afloat, they rushed to take the side of the White House. And now, the White House and its executive agencies are abandoning them.

Perhaps I’m just too into schadenfreude, but you love to see it.

Had these cruise ship companies initially sided with Florida and Texas, noting that the CDC wasn’t following the data or managing risk properly, they could now be in the position to heap scorn on this latest, nonsensical dictate. But here they are, stuck under the thumb of the federal bureaucracy, and they chose to put themselves in that position. If they go against the CDC now, they will be attacked as opportunists.

I guess the question is, will these companies actually change their behavior in light of this? I wouldn’t count on it. Large corporations are nothing if they aren’t cowardly. They’ll take this on the chin and shovel more money into Democrat coffers when the time comes, always thinking they can buy enough favor to not be destroyed in the end. But the price will be far higher than had they just taken a stand.

Republicans were there, ready to support them, and they backed the wrong horse. So yeah, good luck to them and their bottom line now.