Missing the point on pandemic mitigation
All policy has tradeoffs. The fact that someone disagrees with you does not make him evil.
A number of people who were "hawks" on COVID-19 pandemic mitigation policy are still showing that they missed the point about opposition to quarantine orders and mask mandates used to limit the spread of the virus. They want to cast all criticism as "selfishness," which enables them to ignore the content of reasonable criticisms.
They still praise quarantine orders as "staying home to protect others," but that is really missing the point. While a two-week quarantine may have been reasonable in dealing with a brand new virus, it was not reasonable for it to go on for months. In California, restrictions lasted for a year and the governor did not lift the state of emergency until 2023.
One podcaster at The Bulwark attempted to argue Republicans were the "cool uncle" allowing young adults to smoke marijuana, while Democrats were acting like a responsible mom and dad. But this was not about going to parties, it was about being able to earn a living - something that was severely restricted by quarantine orders. Many people warned that deaths of despair - alcoholism, drug addiction and suicide - would increase during lockdown, and we were proven right.
There were a few people who argued that it does not matter that elderly people were vulnerable to COVID-19 and it should not restrict young people's economic liberty, but that is a cartoonish misrepresentation of all quarantine skeptics. Many people were able to work from home during quarantine, but many others did not have that luxury. Many jobs simply cannot be done from a home office and video conferencing. Ignoring that only increases resentment against the elite and the "experts." It was always possible to allow economic activity (because people do need to feed their families) while protecting older people and giving them extra accommodations. It was never a zero-sum game.
We should not forget the cult mentality that pervaded some of the most aggressive supporters of COVID-19 pandemic mitigation measures. People who supported mask mandates and supported reasonable quarantine orders were nonetheless damned as murderers for not supporting those policies "enough." And because much of this was from the Left, it drove many young people to supporting Donald Trump, especially in 2024 after years of extremism and a complete lack of any tolerance for opposing viewpoints over the previous four years.
The worst political effect of the COVID-19 pandemic was and remains the total lack of willingness to assume good will on the part of people who hold different positions on pandemic mitigation policy. At a time when we should have been unified against a deadly virus, we were talking past each other and damning anyone who disagrees. We need to do better.