The Political Became Very Personal
BY MICHAEL SENGER FEBRUARY 6, 2023
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The scars that have been left on all of us by the response to COVID are incomprehensibly varied and deep. For most, there hasn’t been enough time to mentally process the significance of the initial lockdowns, let alone the years-long slog of mandates, terror, propaganda, social stigmatization and censorship that followed. And this psychological trauma affects us in myriad ways that leave us wondering what it is about life that just feels so off versus how it felt in 2019.
For those who were following the real data, the statistics were always horrifying. Trillions of dollars rapidly transferred from the world’s poorest to the richest. Hundreds of millions hungry. Countless years of educational attainment lost. An entire generation of children and adolescents robbed of some of their brightest years. A mental health crisis affecting more than a quarter of the population. Drug overdoses. Hospital abuse. Elder abuse. Domestic abuse. Millions of excess deaths among young people which couldn’t be attributed to the virus.
But underneath these statistics lie billions of individual human stories, each unique in its details and perspectives. These individual stories and anecdotes are only just beginning to surface, and I believe that hearing them is a vital step in processing everything that we’ve experienced over the past three years.
I recently sent out a query on Twitter as to how people had been affected by the response to COVID at an individual level. The conversation that emerged is a luminating and haunting reflection of what each of us experienced over the past three years. Below is a tiny selection of the responses that I found especially powerful.
Specifically, the query was: “Which aspect of the response to COVID affected you most at a personal level?”
Mark Trent: “Watching the last remnants of my belief in democracy get peeled away. Seeing the collusion across the globe roll out in lockstep made me realise just how powerful and comprehensively in control those that orchestrate the darkness are.”
Dr Jonathan Engler: “The realization that nearly everyone I knew would give up literally all their individual rights for the illusion of safety.”
Muriel Blaive, PhD: “How my friends, including many colleague historians who know very well the history of the 20th century, proved ready to believe any propaganda, to refrain from questioning government nonsense, and to publicly shame anyone who did. It’s as if all the studies we led were for naught.”
Myrddin the Weathered: “How easily people were propagandized. Particularly people who I thought carried the ability to properly scrutinize the situation. Frankly, it was downright chilling how easily most people fell in line. No question how the Nazis were able to control their populace.”
Watcher: “Closures. My business was thrown for a loop and the outlets I used to deal with depression like the gym or going for coffee w/friends were closed and it was beyond hard to get through the day with everything going on and no outlet to deal with any of it Talking about it is traumatic.”
Christine Bickley: “Everything. My business that I spent 30 years building hasn’t recovered and is unlikely to. I used to have health insurance and save. Had to cancel the ins and am using my savings to top up income. I’m not the worst off by far. It was criminal.”
Jemma Palmer: “Lockdown = no income, no home, health declined, mental health declined, didn’t see my family or friends for years, changed my life for the worse, not sure I will get to have kids now, I’d like to be who I was before lockdown & for my life to be what it was.”
Sarah Burwick: “The restrictions on travel and rules governing visiting patients in the hospital. I believe my mom would be alive today had I been able to visit her and advocate for her care in person. It haunts me.”
ProfessorYaff1e: “Not being able to visit my dad in hospital as he lay dying until the last couple of days when he was so far gone he didn’t know what was going on.”
Sursum Corda: “Having my mom locked up in an assisted living center & not being able to hug her or talk to her except by phone through a closed window-all while HCWs traipsed in & out unmolested. I was so angry!!!
PJS: “The lies.”
Karinaksr: “Segregation, exclusion.”
Tin hayes: “Tribalism.”
Ally Bryant: “Had to be the crimes against humanity…”
Nick Hudson: “The darkness of it all.”
Remnant MD: “The disintegration of Autonomy. One of the four pillars of medical ethics. Those who partook, have made a mockery of medicine.”
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-political-became-very-personal/