Despite the terror, the early weeks of the pandemic contained perhaps more hope than I’ve felt in the subsequent five years. It became more apparent than ever where the weak links in capital’s chain were located. Millions of people realized that their jobs were bullshit. The massive decrease in commuter vehicles proved that there were actually ways we could alter society to combat climate change. Powerful people started talking about universal basic income and universal healthcare.

Then it seems like the 1% got together on Zoom or whatever and put an end to all of that. There was a drumbeat of “it’s patriotic to let grandma die.” (Was Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick the first to say it out loud?) Teachers’ unions became villains for wanting to prevent children and workers from spreading the plague. The people whose jobs couldn’t go remote were given the title “essential workers” but never got sick days. In the months and years that followed, the Democrats nominated their most anti-healthcare candidate, who went on to crush a strike that threatened to give supply chain workers sick days. The CDC took its isolation recommendations from Delta Airlines, and masks became rarer and rarer. And worse, and worse, and worse, and millions of people are dead or disabled and we’re further into fascism and farther from universal healthcare than we were five years ago.

I’m looking for books or longform essays about this switch, because the change happened very quickly - before the George Floyd uprising, even. Today too much of this is lost in the memory hole, but I wonder if studying the days in which the discourse changed can give us clues about where we should direct our organizing efforts.