Last week, Gov. Andy Beshear said he wasn’t playing politics with the COVID-19 epidemic and was trying to save lives.

We agree that Beshear is trying to save lives and have said that several times on this opinion page, but we’re not buying for one second Beshear’s claim that he isn’t playing politics with this pandemic.

Make no mistake, folks, Beshear is a partisan’s partisan. His political persuasions and associations with the national Democratic Party are well known, which is why we believe for a fact that he is indeed playing politics with this pandemic.

It’s no coincidence that every governor to the south of us has reopened restaurants and bars more quickly and at higher capacity.

These Republican governors actually get it and understand that people’s livelihoods, especially the small mom-and-pop restaurants and bars, depend on continued revenue to stay afloat and that politics shouldn’t be played with their lives.

We wish Beshear realized this as they do. Many people in our state have gotten so frustrated with Beshear playing politics with their lives that they’ve started referring to him as King Andy.

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., summed up Beshear’s handling of the COVID-19 epidemic perfectly when he said Kentucky’s governor was drunk on power and that people in the state are living under the dictatorship of Beshear.

Beshear is our governor, and he has the right to issue executive orders when he sees fit just as the other 49 governors do, but when is enough going to be enough?

How many more businesses will be closed and their employees looking for work because this governor played politics with people’s lives and livelihoods?

That remains to be seen, but what has become abundantly clear is that the people of this state have had enough of Beshear’s antics and orders.

We can’t figure out what Beshear’s end game is. We know he is loving his newfound power and control and could be possibly be gearing up, if rumors are correct, to run against Paul in 2022.

President Donald Trump will win Kentucky this November in a landslide, and we are confident U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., will easily defeat Democratic challenger Amy McGrath in his reelection bid, so we don’t so see why Beshear would be helping Joe Biden or McGrath by playing politics with this pandemic.

Beshear has every right as governor to issue orders regarding COVID-19, but since May when he started easing restrictions very slowly we believe that many of this state’s citizens are beyond sick and tired of his orders and are tired of him playing politics with their lives and their livelihoods.