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The two big Covid arcs we saw were an immediate rejection of Covid precautions by the right, followed by a re-alignment of Democrats in 2022 after the Biden administration pushed hard to downplay the impact of Covid and the need for precautions.
Both of these strains of thought should be anathema to the left. Yet we see largely the same attitudes from leftist politicians and organizations:
- “You shouldn’t be guilting your comrades over their refusal to mask”
- “People with disabilities do not automatically die when a coronavirus particle enters their airway”
- “If everyone in a room is asymptomatic and IMMUNIZED, then risk of spread is low. Immunization >> masking”
- “If you guys want to get really sad, check out r/ZeroCovidCommunity. It’s filled with people who are shut ins who lost their family, friends, and jobs because of their fear of catching COVID.”
- “It’s 2025, not 2021. If you’re worried about your health you can wear an N95.”
- “There’s solidarity and then there’s indulging. If you are immunocompromised to the point you require to be in a room where everyone is masked then maybe you need to sit this one out until you are feeling better. You cannot force a majority to the will of a very small minority.”
- “Choosing to wear a mask to protest a genocide to protect your identity is one thing. Forcing everyone to wear a mask to protect one or two individuals that if they are so sick they should be at home [is different.]”
These are all comments from DSA members today, but I’m not cherry-picking. They’re representative of the US left (and the left in other countries) on the whole.
I don’t understand how this became leftist dogma. Covid minimization was clearly driven by the needs of capital, and the left should reflexively reject it. Accepting it means workplace and public space health and safety is gone, a whole host of people are essentially banned from participating in society, vulnerable minorities are no longer protected, and you no longer have the personal right to not be infected with a biohazard. This is all anti-labor and discriminatory.
I’ve seen people try to spin masking as a mark of white privilege and a restriction of the freedoms of non-white people. As if throughout the pandemic, non-white people haven’t been at the highest risk of getting Covid and having long-term health problems as a result.
Outrage over the genocide in Gaza is righteous; but somehow the Covid genocide is irrelevant.
Along with a bunch of other leftist books, I read Newton’s Revolutionary Suicide in the midst of when libs were rolling back precautions. And the stark difference in mindset between what it takes do the things the Black Panthers were doing and the Back to Normal arguments really highlighted this. The absolute surrender in their “endemic” rhetoric contrasted to reading about the struggles of actual revolutionaries was just
And yes, manufacturing consent and all that, but they’re still a bunch of libs and should be reminded of it regularly.
If y’all are looking for actual Leftists I very much recommend getting involved with Disability Justice related groups and Mask Blocs. Even if not explicitly leftist, I’ve found a lot of their work and rhetoric blend into mutual aid and direct action.
It’s a great read, very much recommend.
Edit: Actually, it is a little sad iirc. To counterbalance that I also recommend checking out Women in Cuba: 20 Years Later, which is just incredibly inspiring. It documents some of the programs they enacted in Cuba following the revolution to deal with sexism and get women more involved politically. It’s amazing what they accomplished especially when you consider the US constantly messing with them.