In the early days of the COVID pandemic, there was a brief but widespread outburst of solidarity; of people protecting each other, supporting each other through difficult times. In many cases across demographic boundaries. For a brief time, people could experience what widespread solidarity might look like, what it might be able to achieve.
And then suddenly, as if by magic, a disinformation campaign spawned - about masks, vaccines, the severity of the disease, and so on. A disinformation campaign that many (capitalist) governments gleefully participated in, all in name of 'the economy'. A campaign that quickly became explosive and drew lines in the sand, often with violent consequences.
And it seems like by now, almost everyone - including most leftists! - have completely forgotten that this period of solidarity ever existed. It doesn't show up in retrospectives, it doesn't show up in discourse. And everyone now talks about COVID purely in terms of "us versus them". As if there have always been 'teams', always been 'sides'.
I think about this a lot.
