Everyone is a libertarian at the end of a pandemic. By Grace Curley.

Covid has revealed much about our political class.

The past 12 months have showcased non-stop hypocrisy from our federal and local officials. Most Americans, despite the mental exhaustion, are tuning in to this freak show daily.

Our betters originally told us sheep that we had to lock down the country for two weeks in order to ‘stop the spread’. So we did just that. Fast-forward a year and after shutdowns, masks, contact-tracing, remote-working and Zoom-learning — we are all still waiting for the Powers That Be to loosen the reins. Instead they are extending deadlines and moving goalposts. The longer they wait to let up, the bigger the coming anti-government backlash will be. …

After 12 months of pseudo-authoritarian control, we learn that the government thinks we should start carrying around vaccine passports. Why on earth would any sane person be on board with that idea? Have the Dr Faucis and Cuomos in our government not been drunk enough on power over the last year? They need to track us at Target now?

The government has an obsession with overcorrecting bad situations to make them infinitely worse. There are plenty of disasters in 2021 for our highly-paid ‘experts’ to dream up that do not involve my vaccination status or my plans for the Fourth of July.

The old saw is that a ‘conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged by reality.’

Maybe this year we’ll start describing a libertarian as an American who’s been paying attention.

Wars and pandemics always see a big upswing in collective action and sentiment, and covid was no exception.

Now that covid danger is trailing off, we will see the opposite, a big swing back to libertarianism. We may need it, to defeat the vaccine passports and all the nasty add-ons some political types want.