Another society-disrupting pandemic is inevitable, experts have warned us. It could be a century from now or months from now, but it’s going to happen.
And if it happens in the next four years, there’s a good chance that U.S. public health and science policy will be in the hands of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a nonscientist who has made a practice of taking many a debunked internet conspiracy theory as gospel. Recent reporting also indicates that President-elect Donald Trump’s second administration will be well staffed with vaccine skeptics and senior health officials with thin qualifications. Just this week, Trump named Stanford professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya — who in 2020, prior to available vaccines, advocated for a public health strategy that was essentially “Let everyone get Covid, it’ll be fine” — as his choice to lead the National Institutes of Health.
Democrats, for reasons both prudent and cowardly, missed their chance to take leadership on the issue.
Wide-eyed MAGA-friendly optimists might look at Trump’s coalition of amateurs as a necessary corrective to the tyranny of the “establishment.” But any objective reading of Trump’s last year in office — with his bungling, chaotic and disastrous management of the Covid pandemic — does not bode well for the prospects of crisis competency in the next Trump administration.
There are plenty of reasons to lament the state of public health policy, and chief among them is that Americans were never offered an honest, nonpartisan reckoning of how the federal and state governments managed the pandemic. And we’re not going to get it now. A MAGA-dominated Congress will instead hold grandstanding hearings on the supposed “cover-up” of Covid’s origins.
Democrats, for reasons both prudent and cowardly, missed their chance to take leadership on the issue. Yes, there was a Republican-led, bipartisan House subcommittee, but it produced little impact beyond partisan bickering and attempts at score-settling.
What Democrats could have done is speak to the American people directly, reminding voters of how terrible Trump’s pandemic leadership actually was, while presenting themselves as the antidote to MAGA anti-vaxxers and knee-jerk culture warriors by engaging in a public-facing investigation and analysis of Covid public health policy. Instead, they’ve given a second Trump administration a golden opportunity to rewrite history, at Democrats’ expense.
It’s true that politically, Democrats had much to lose by talking about Covid public health policies. That’s in large part because many of the most draconian restrictions on everyday life — that continued long after they needed to — have not aged well. They were often backed by presumptions and political pressure, not data-driven science. Of course, bad-faith actors on the right peddling lies about the Covid vaccines and hyperventilating about “Covid tyranny” helped to poison the public’s perceptions. And now, Democrats are wearing the backlash.
Democrats could be forgiven for supporting such orders during the “early fog of war” days of the pandemic, when hospitals were overrun and knowledge about the virus’ transmissibility was limited. An overriding predilection toward caution was paramount, with good reason.
But, for example, long after we knew outdoor masking was basically pointless and young children were at very low risk for serious complications from Covid — schoolkids were masking both indoors and outdoors in many Democratic-run municipalities. To parents of developing children, this wasn’t a trivial inconvenience. And when Democratic lawmakers and even public health officials acted as if the restrictions didn’t apply to them, well, that didn’t make the restrictionist case any stronger.
At one point, a sober and honest appraisal of the efficacy of severe Covid initiatives like lockdowns, extended public school closures and mandates on masks and social distancing could have helped future generations more effectively respond to the next global health emergency. But this didn’t happen in any meaningful sense. And it seems unlikely that anyone will ever take up this mantle now.
A sober and honest appraisal of the efficacy of severe Covid initiatives could have helped future generations respond to the next global health emergency. It’s understandable that Democrats perhaps didn’t want to give Republicans a line of attack by conceding that they made mistakes — or at the very least that they could have done better. And while no one thing was going to rescue Democrats’ electoral chances this year — with a global backlash against incumbents, thanks in large part to global inflation caused by the pandemic — a humble and fair-minded self-analysis might have been a boon to Democrats’ branding in the future. It could have also demonstrated to the public that the unprecedented demands imposed on them mattered. People had to say goodbye to their loved ones via FaceTime. Countless funerals were never held. Millions of children had their mental health ravaged and social and educational development stunted. Jobs and businesses were lost that can never be regained. People don’t forgive and forget this kind of pain and trauma — especially if they don’t believe it was worth it. A Democratic-led reckoning could have served to undercut charges of “cover-ups” and “plandemics” by the Kennedy contingent of the incoming administration. It could have demonstrated to the public that sacrifices made by so many in the name of community safety were appreciated — not merely expected out of obedience to authority. It could have shown to the public that elected officials work for the people and if given the opportunity would try to always do better with the benefit of hindsight. Instead, Democrats chose to move on from the pandemic, avoiding any reflection about how their own performance was perceived by the public. Now, anti-vaxxers and loyalists of the same president who so tragically mismanaged Covid will have their chance to rewrite the history of the pandemic — and they might be the ones in charge in the horrific event that the next “once in a century” pandemic happens during the next four years. Democrats were once the party of “I feel your pain.” In the Trump era, they’ve tried to brand themselves as the party of competent governance. The aftermath of the pandemic would have been a great opportunity to prove it.
Anthony L. Fisher is a senior editor and writer for MS NOW. 
