And now for something new...did the Pandemic change your political ideology?

[beeatnik]

Infinite lockdown..I'm almost a Libertarian now. I keed...kind of.

Lockdowns, flip flops, lab-leak hypothesis, groupthink, all that. Has the (sur)reality of the last year and a half shifted your worldview (or have you doubled down)?

Interesting times.

[Scott G.]

I remain an Orthodox Pogoite.

[beeatnik]

Wish I lived in Tejas. I'd be more reflexively loyal to my progressive ideals and in lockstep against those anti-science, heartless R's.

[monadnocky]

Not so much. I remain a fervent anarcho-syndacalist.

[ElvisMerckx]

Hard to say, but I feel more politically homeless than ever before.

[Too Tall]

Cautiously optimistic. It's kinda like batting against a rookie pitcher. You are determined to hit the damn ball and the damn ball is determined to hit you but nobody is going to blink first.

Feel me dawg?

[j44ke]

Nope.

[beeatnik]

Nope.

Here's my take. New York would have gone down as it did regardless of (federal) political leadership (messaging). But LA went down as it did precisely because of (state and local) political leadership (messaging). And there were exponentially more preventable deaths in LA. My soapbox.

[j44ke]

Here's my take. New York would have gone down as it did regardless of (federal) political leadership (messaging). But LA went down as it did precisely because of (state and local) political leadership (messaging). And there were exponentially more preventable deaths in LA. My soapbox.

I have no idea what you are talking about. All I said was the pandemic has not changed my political ideology.

[beeatnik]

One word responses make me speculate. Figured since you live in NYC you had an alternate perspective.

[j44ke]

One word responses make me speculate. Figured since you live in NYC you had an alternate perspective.

An alternate perspective to what?

[beeatnik]

An alternate perspective to what?

To the questioning of the prevailing mainstream narrative.

[j44ke]

To the questioning of the prevailing mainstream narrative.

I have no idea what that mainstream narrative would be.

[beeatnik]

I have no idea what that mainstream narrative would be.

Lockdowns, universal masking, school closures all made a measurable difference and they would have stopped the Pandemic completely (look at New Zealand and Taiwan!) but evil Republicans and hateful MAGA yokels were obstructionists with blood on their hands. However, that's not how it played out in most of CA.

I just started following some prominent folks on Twitter so this is just my initial reading of the pulse of the "progressive mainstream."

[j44ke]

Twitter is definitely an authoritative source of information. I'd definitely believe everything that is written there is absolutely correct and accurately representative of reality.

[beeatnik]

If anything, I finally understand why Trump used Twitter.

[BBB]

The pandemic is still well and truly going, so maybe the question is premature.

Rather than talk about ideology, it is interesting to see how the pandemic impacted on our way of life. We, at least western nations, have an economic system that is based on consumption. A meal out, buying a new shirt, buying something for the sake of buying something. The pandemic put the handbrake on that, at least to a certain degree. We could still buy the shirt, but on-line, and a meal out became a meal in, but on the whole a number of businesses suffered. The pandemic could have focused our thoughts on how our economies are structured and what is important to us, but governments and people just wanted to get back to normal as quickly as possible. Where there was a social element (the meal out) I understand that entirely, but consumption for consumption's sake seems a very hollow way to determine economic well-being. Surely there's more to our life and economic system? Apparently not.

As for ideology, I would argue that not a lot has changed. Populist buffoon governments handled the pandemic poorly (the US, the UK and Brazil for example), but it didn't really change people's ideology (or voting patterns). Almost as many people voted for the populist no clue buffoon in the US as they did for the other guy. On the other hand, it will be interesting to see how the world's largest democracy handles their decent into Covid madness.

[bigbill]

It's made me more cynical about the political process, so I guess my ideology is now Southwest Cynical.

[Mabouya]

No, it did not.

[davids]

Nope.

Although I try not be ideological in the first place, and drive my political views more on my moral compass than political theories.