Covid Was Normal

The COVID-19 pandemic allowed for a concerted campaign to convince people that the situation was anything but normal. For both businesses and government entities, the only thing everyone could seem to agree on was that we were in “unprecedented times.” This belief parroted over and over again was used to promote and support a seizure of control which would have been impossible in any other time. While Covid was certainly dangerous to some, it merely accelerated the health risk factors that already existed, and it was used to justify many overreaches of government power. The claim that the pandemic had created a fundamentally novel economic situation was bolstered by the wide range of governmental requirements put into place to protect against novel risks of another sort. The government-imposed economic situation could only be solved with extreme monetary expansion. Even while the statistics showed a relatively normal risk from Covid, energy was spent convincing us that it was not normal, and that we should pause our entire lives, thus setting precedent for even more government overreach in the future.

Although the economic conditions faced in Covid were unique in some ways, they were not fundamentally different from any of those faced today. There is always more unemployment than the government would prefer, and there is always a potential for a better stock market if the Fed just unleashes some more expansionary monetary policy. Trump’s campaign to control the Fed shows that he is still grubbing after the levers that he so easily grabbed during Covid. The short-term benefit of monetary expansion and high government spending has never been questioned, yet during Covid its long-term effects were effectively forgotten. The propaganda campaign that the situation was fundamentally new made few people in either party question the fiscal and monetary actions of the government. While in most situations, at least one party will be quick to question the expansionary actions of the other, the Covid crisis showed us how powerful a reframing of any situation as a crisis can be. Consumer preferences shifted, and businesses had to face new challenges, neither of which are survivalistic problems. The world is full of these things right now, yet because they are not framed as a crisis there is less associated government overreach. The Covid situation only heightened national economic factors that will always exist, yet it allowed for a unique level of governmental leeching. 

While there were greater risks to the public than today, Covid only marginally increased the fatal and health risks that are always present to the public. Driving cars and overeating have taken a massive share of healthy lives and life itself, yet the government is unable to step in and prevent us through coercion because they’re unable to convince us of the crisis. There are countless examples of dangerous activities we undertake on a daily basis, yet the government‘s inability to scare us lets us continue. The years of Covid were only slightly elevated in the overall risk of death, yet they were extremely unique in the exercise of government control. The greatest crisis of most crises is the associated government overreach. The mask mandates and requirements to stay in one’s house, took away meaningful agency from citizens and gave states the ability to take a test drive of a nanny state. Life is dangerous, and it only gets more dangerous when the government can convince you to fear the world more than it.

Covid presented higher economic hardship and threat to life than other times, yet it could have been overcome without an extra layer of government interference. The media and government campaign to convince us that we need government guidance and coercion simply set a precedent for the future that will make the habits of tyranny even more well-worn whenever the state wishes to embody them again. Covid was fundamentally normal yet the government response was not. The easier it is for the government to trigger a state of crisis, the easier it will be for our freedoms to be taken away. We must constantly be aware of the expansionary incentives of government in both desire for power and desire to inflate. Institutions and rule of law gain their merit from functioning in times of crisis. An order that can only be sustained in a “normal” time is no order at all.