The Left’s Imaginary COVID-19 ‘Reckoning’
2nd April 2025
When I first came across Jonathan Chait’s new Atlantic piece, “Why the COVID Reckoning Is So One-Sided,” I assumed the answer would be that Democrats had been the ones relentlessly and tragically wrong about virtually everything during the pandemic. No such luck.
In Chait’s telling, the Left remains uncannily open-minded, always striving for truth, while the dogmatic Right remains hopelessly bogged down in “pathological incuriosity.” Even when conservatives are right, they’re right in the wrong way.
These days, people on the Left, Chait contends, “have engaged in searching self-reflection—on school closings, the lab leak hypothesis, the political aftereffects, and other unanticipated lessons. Conservatives have used the occasion to engage in a round of self-congratulations and taunting of the libs.”
Now, you and I may believe dunking on libs who accused you of committing mass murder for going to church is perfectly normal behavior. Chait, though, is irked by all the “gloating” and “football-spiking.” Especially because a handful of left-wing outlets have published columns (five years late) begrudgingly admitting that lockdowns were a failure.
A few writers on the Left are realiably wrong about everything they discuss: Paul Krugman, Jennifer Rubin, Amanda Marcotte, Greg Sargent, Will Bunch, Philip Bump … and Jonathan Chait. They’re totally right, everyone they disagree with is totally wrong, and that attitude persists even when they change their minds about something. People on the Right should Know Their Place and Mend Their ways, like David French and the Kristol Krew over at The Bulwark.