Confronting the pandemic’s toxic political legacy

Not only is Donald Trump back in the White House, but the far right is poised to occupy the Austrian chancellorship for the first time in the country’s postwar history and Germany is hurtling toward a fraught election this month following the collapse of its “traffic light” coalition government. Is each of these countries unhappy in its own way (to paraphrase Tolstoy) or is there a common denominator to their unhappiness? While many commentators have settled on the idea of widespread “anti-incumbency” bias in recent political outcomes, this does not tell us why voters have turned against incumbents. One explanation, of course, is inflation.

But another, largely underappreciated cause, is the fallout from the pandemic, which left many communities not only with a lingering sense of loss, but also with unresolved conflicts and deep-seated distrust..