The Covid Political Backlash Disappeared

Lakshya Jain: “This was supposed to be a column about the lingering harm from the Democratic Party’s response to Covid-19.”

“It has become a familiar narrative: The Democratic Party did incalculable damage to its image, breaking the trust of voters at large and boosting the appeal of the Republican Party, which leveraged anti-establishment sentiment to surge back to power. From extended school closures to selective stay-at-home messaging that protected the left’s right to protest but scorned apolitical decisions to vacation, Democrats’ Covid policy was a political failure that alienated voters. Right?”

“It’s a convenient theory, and it’s one I subscribed to for many years… The only problem is that our poll provided absolutely nothing to back this up. If anything, it suggested the opposite: Five years on from Covid, as partisan tensions have cooled, the public’s view of the issue remains extremely nuanced and complicated — just like the pandemic itself. But there’s little to suggest that Democrats are suffering from any long-term, lingering fallout.”