alt Hacker News>> The real problem is that the political capital needed to get people to agree to something like lockdowns or wearing masks was all spent in 2020
> Let's not act like this attitude emerged out of thin air. Trump also had an opportunity to bring Americans together against a common threat, and he (and his lookalikes abroad) decided to turn it into the cultural catastrophe that you're now supposing was inevitable.
I don't agree with your implication, because I don't interpret the original statement the same way. The attitude was present, Trump turned into a cultural catastrophe. What political capital that remained was spent. We have less agreement now among the population as to what is acceptable and what is useful than before the last pandemic. The trenches have been dug, the no-man's land will be filled with mud and bodies.
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In an alternative universe, Trump said something like, "Hey folks, I know wearing masks can be a bit unusual and uncomfortable at times, and we're not totally certain how effective they are, but there's good reason to believe they'll save the lives of some of our fellow Americans... please put them on when you're around other people, we'll re-assess as we get a better understanding of the cost-benefit tradeoff."
In that universe, we're not even toying with the idea that the American public would violently revolt at the idea of some basic mitigations of a respiratory epidemic.
> What political capital that remained was spent.
Arguably the political capital was just incompetently set on fire.
I imagine a Reagan, or a Kennedy, or a Roosevelt in that situation, and for anyone with a good instinct for leadership it just becomes a shooting-fish-in-a-barrel setup for becoming an absolute legend. The populace was dying of thirst for leadership and unity, and they were given huge blocks of salt and turned on each other. The last time a leader was set up for such an easy approval ratings layup it was Bush post 9/11.
It's wild that the 2020 election wasn't a complete 1984-scale rout for the republicans. It should've been if they'd had an ounce of gravitas or the ability to lead.