Political Covid and the last gasp (no pun intended) of the rules-based order
A speculation
This is a very short speculation. It doesn't replace the usual discursive fodder, which is brewing for the end of the week.
One of many curious things about Covid-19 was how instantly political it was. Silly me. There we were facing an infectious novel coronavirus (a term most of us had never even heard of until early 2020) and there I was thinking 'we'll work out what it does and then everything will collapse or be bad for a while and then be ok'.
I thought it was a medical science issue, with policy considerations that would revolve mostly around money.
But it was almost instantly not that at all. It became a badge from the get-go. A symbol of who you were. Which was either a scaredy-cat submissive to authority or a rumbustious, defiant freedom lover.
And here's the thought that popped into my head during a walk this afternoon.
I was pondering why it is that the political centrists have become so enthusiastic about Covid containment measures that the term 'Covid co-dependent' has been coined for them, by certain types.
Bear with me, here. This isn't an argument about the efficacy or even the desirability of Covid containment measures. I still have no idea whether they are worthwhile or not. No fixed view either way on masks, lockdowns, vaccination versus natural immunity, the whole shebang. I just go along with it all and hope that what I go along with works for me and the people I come into contact with.
So my thought was this.
First we had Brexit, then Trump, then Boris Johnson. These were godawful shocks to a certain breed of person (myself included, at least while I still felt like I had some ideological skin in the game, rather than a more dispassionate curiosity).
These three things were renunciations of a different thing I'd never heard about until 2016, which got referred to as 'the rules-based order'.
You don't get more rules-based than trying to live through this pandemic.
So, my wondering is, perhaps Covid is playing out culturally and politically the way we're seeing because it's seen (perhaps unconsciously) by both sides as the final reckoning for this battle between the forces of 'fuck it' and the 'rules-based order'.
I would stake my home on a wager that 99.9 recurring per cent of those who remain beguiled by the sophistication of Barack Obama or yearn for a new Tony Blair have had all their jabs and religiously mask up at every salient moment.
Curiously, though, I think the containment sceptics are possibly a much broader church, based on what I read. So this notion pertains mostly to the rules-based order fans of the political centre ground. The 'sensibles', as I'm certain they view themselves. They are circling the wagons around the remnants of a fondly-remembered rules-based order.
Again, I'm not interested in getting into whether or not one side is right and the other isn't.
It's just that. A dynamic that might account for how the Covid battle lines appear to be drawn.
Picture credit: Alexas_Fotos
An interesting post, that throws up many thoughts and questions for me. Yes I definitely agree that there is a dynamic going on. I find myself going back to my long held Lib Dem views ( as an activist I take a keen interest). I find myself going along with the rules because I want to stay safe and I would not wish to put my community at risk, if I had Covid and the symptoms have not yet manifested.
However people being people will do what they think best. It is interesting how with omicron spreading through London and the suburbs like a wild fire, that many of those who chose not to get vaccinated previously are coming forward for their first jab. Why have they changed their minds now? I don't know, but their is certainly a sense of panic this time round, even though their isn't the scientific evidence (yet) to say that it is worse than previous variants. Residents of London don't seem to be going out unless they really have to and many have placed themselves in a kind of self imposed lockdown without the government imposing greater sanctions. This is a very curious dynamic I think!!