It needs no special introduction to argue that, after years of repeated lockdowns, restrictions, vaccination pressures that violate both choice and consciences, the ongoing panic from global media and potentiality for lockdowns will undoubtedly land poorly in today’s polarized environment.
It isn’t complicated to understand why. Those three years of lockdowns, restrictions, and vaccination pressures weren’t about abstract data or ideals. For many people, they represented isolation, business closures, loss of jobs and years, and a time where walking out of the house could have gotten you arrested and fined in some cases. It’s easy to talk about end goals when you’re the news anchor, media producer, “expert,” or politician, because you can afford to sit at home and work when much of the population can’t. In extreme cases, you get situations where those infected with the Coronavirus were forcibly quarantined with elderly people (see New York State under Andrew Cuomo’s lockdowns) that resulted in thousands of deaths, or China’s catastrophic “zero-Covid” policies that skyrocketed death rates. Or the simple fact that to “stimulate” the economy, every central bank dialed their printers to eleven, and now we’re living under the consequences of heightened inflation (or costs of living, to use daily language).
And now, everyone is making a fuss about a potential outbreak of the Hantavirus. The WHO has made a declaration of “international concern.” The media is now at it, by highlighting recent cruise ship docking at the Netherlands, and the surge of panic-articles over infections. One can clearly read the subtext: “This is an emergency and we need lockdowns!”
Of course, getting infected with a virus isn’t a funny moment—it’s serious. But the problem isn’t about the seriousness of the virus, but the willingness to choose economically- and socially-destructive options for the sake of “protecting” the “community” or the “vulnerable” when it does the opposite. Nowadays, the internet isn’t just merely an archive of statements, but people can simply, with a prompt into an AI service, directly browse for the specific quotes or statements that otherwise would have been memory-holed. They’ll discover that Anthony Fauci wanted America to copy China’s totalitarian and brutal “zero-Covid” policies, constant backtracking of recommendations on vaccines, masks, and other precautions, and his own involvement in developing the Coronavirus via gain-of-function research with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
It’s precisely that mentality which has sunk the Democrats’ ratings to historic lows. Hardly is there anyone who is willing to accept the narrative that endless migration should continue when it creates visible social dysfunctionality, ethnic lobbying that involves America subsidizing their “home countries,” endless guilt-tripping on minority issues to mask criminality and welfare dependency as purely a result of “racism.” This isn’t a defense of Trump, for there are many problems with his policies, but let’s not ignore the fact that Trump was elected and Kamala was sidelined precisely because people did not want unfettered migration (that conspicuously enlarge Democrat constituencies), heightened crime rates defended as “response to oppression” (it’s not response to oppression when it involves memory-holing a murder of a minor because the perpetrator is black), or the infamous “Stolen goods must remain under $950” meme (a thinly-veiled reference to San Francisco’s Proposition 47, which classified theft of goods under $950 of value as a misdemeanor).
It is also the reason why Trump’s approval ratings are also low. Yes, Trump was re-elected on the basis of immigration concerns, reining in criminality, and reducing inflation (though Trump and the Democrats did play a major role in inflating prices with pandemic-era Quantitative Easing), but he also engaged in unpopular or polarizing moves like the ongoing Iran conflict and the handling of the Epstein files. The polarization and distrust isn’t a purely partisan phenomenon—it is increasingly about the foundation, as trust in institutions is significantly eroded. While Candace Owens has been very controversial as of late, her reemergence as a wide-reaching political commentator is symptomatic of broader public opinion: we’ve screwed up the basics.
It isn’t just merely a generic “Democrat vs. Republican” narrative, but bottled up resentment and skepticism towards the existing foundational presumptions and mythos. From resentment towards the Boomers for their role in the 1960s Counterculture era or their support for Reagan, increasing disillusionment with American exceptionalism, conversion to Catholicism (anyone aware of the historical secular-Protestant persecution/harassment of Catholicism in America will recognize this), increasing skepticism towards Israel, or post-2016 leftist discourse with the 1619 Project. Of course, not all of these are positive developments; the increasingly anti-capitalist sentiment and popularity of political violence from the left are extremely troubling trends that will remain for the foreseeable future.
However, the right is also becoming increasingly stronger and many of the emerging figures, such as Nick Shirley and Tyler Oliveira, do not possess overly-controversial reputations (such as Nick Fuentes) that individuals may have had and can appeal to a broader audience. Furthermore, the right itself is also increasingly diverging away from the Republicans and operate more independently of traditional Republican institutions rather than co-optation by the occasionally anti-Trump neoconservative movement. In some cases, they’re impacting mainstream conservative discourse on issues like government-immigration fraud, socialism, and otherwise important topics that are systematically discouraged from discussion.
However, libertarians should be careful with developments, as every political development has its own good and bad aspects. It is a welcome development that anyone proposing more lockdowns are shooting themselves in the foot. Nevertheless, for the last 100 years of human history (and the historiography we’ve been taught) has always placed the nation-state at the center of civilization, and now we’re having to deal with competing visions of the international-state centered around the UN from the left and center-right after 1945. People are clearly tired of the current status quo, but the main problem that always existed is this: How do we translate dense Austrian School theories into daily, usable, and seeable ideas and works?
I think it’s rather easy. Unlike many of the ideological developments of the past 200 years, the Austrian School is perhaps the only one that still respects individual agency and can demonstrate that, once individual agency is eroded, he and millions of others like him cannot live, trade, and interact peacefully when the state(s) hamper their decisions.
But it also comes with a caution. Mises himself recognized something that would’ve gotten him cancelled and vilified: he realized that democracy and, by extension, individuals can support destructive ideologies, because they think they’re inherently justified to do so, whether as “the people,” “the oppressed/minorities,” or for whatever reason. Political assassination attempts, failed or not, are normalized, as with the attempt on Trump in 2024 and Charlie Kirk’s assassination in 2025, and previous attempts such as the Steve Scalise shooting and the ambush on Sen. Rand Paul. The destruction of voluntary association, commerce, and individual liberty isn’t done by a mystical decree but support from large segments of the public. What we lack in today’s world isn’t just an internalization of what it means to have a free market and society, but the very cultural substrates necessary for a market to even materialize: self-restraint, self-accountability, and respect for individual agency.
This is the difficult part. In a world consumed by endless grievance politics, the oppression Olympics, and entitlements, it is natural that people support looting, riots, and wealth extraction. Wealth is merely a given in a society of “we’re all in this together,” rather than a result of individual works, voluntary cooperation, and exchange based off of self-interest, in the minds of those who operate on grievance politics and the “warmth of collectivism.” Even though Mamdani’s state-run grocery stores costing ten times more than the average supermarket, many still internalize the idea that it’s better to have the government-run society top down, while ignoring that subsidizing failed businesses and ventures, attempting to force social cohesion via endless “anti-racism” campaigns, and endless guilt-tripping will only produce a highly-atomized society.
A low-trust society is the worst outcome, because if you can’t trust anybody, then why should you engage in open commerce, befriend people, or save money? If theft is normalized, then of course stores will increase prices on goods to fund security measures or lock boxes. If the local coffee shop has to deal with a violent neighborhood, it might either close or fund protective measures like bulletproof glass.
After all, the market isn’t a magical phenomenon, as it is composed of billions of exchanges between individuals who see benefits in cooperating with each other. You work for someone, often not because of a “common goal” in that romantic sense or an alignment of interests, but because the other party has something that you want and vice versa, and certainly more so regarding purchases or sales. If there’s a risk, then the premium emerges in the form of caution money, non-service, or increased prices.
Nonetheless, there’s one good thing about the right: a lot of them are willing to answer the cultural and moral problems of society, and many do genuinely try to uphold a sense of individual accountability, an objective moral standard, and self-restraint that are being lost. Libertarians and conservatives will disagree, which is natural, but the question ultimately rests on the proportionality (at least concerning society and ethics), which I think brings out more commonality between both sides than divergence. Of course, there’s also far deeper differences, but the left is simply destructive. We might have avoided a potential lockdown, but that’s far from over.
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