I'm looking at posts on a hobby forum I also post on and there's some serious furor being caused by the news of the vaccine mandate. Someone referred to Biden as a "Feckless Fuck of a leader" and another person advocated for balkanization for the 20% of the country that doesn't approve of vaccine mandates.
I get that some people have concerns about authoritarianism and expansion of state powers (I mean they kinda don't because if they really did we'd have been done with this government a long time ago) but I'm really, genuinely struggling to understand why this is making so many people irrationally mad. These aren't even open fascists either, it's like liberals and Hank Hill type conservatives. What is it about this sort of governance that so frustrates them? They won't be materially affected in any way, and a lot of them have expressed the desire to be "left alone".
I have to wonder if there is some sort of deeper meaning to "left alone", because throughout a lot of the pandemic it seems that most people have been trying to pretend it's not happening. Is it the fact that the USA is facing a humiliation on it's own soil that it can't shoot at or nuke? I'm really confused by thought process behind this sort of rage.
This is a terrible take invented by people with tunnel vision about their retail job being "the economy". You don't need to leave your house to consume, and it's better if you stay home because you're a more captive audience. Capital in the 2020s is dominated by tech and media. They actually want you in your living room on Netflix and ordering everything from an app. The winners of modern capitalism absolutely love lockdowns.
The sides of Capital that opposed the lockdown were mostly the LOSERS of Capitalism - small businesses, retail, hospitality. All of those industries were fucked before Covid anyway, and a lot of them are full of Chuds which is how the lockdowns became such a partisan issue.
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Commerical real estate are ultimately still L O S E R S, Trump being the prime example of that.
Tech, healthcare, and finance are literally all that matters (check the S&P500 makeup). Giving hogs their toys is irrelevant because putting them in front of a screen is more profitable. All the digital toys are made overseas anyway.
The WFH thing hurts your boss (middle manager), but upper management is seeing an ocean of green with the opportunities to offshore even more work. We literally just had a year+ long test case on how 100% remote works well, and if your job can be 100% remote from the US, it can be 100% remote from the Philippines, India, Ukraine, etc. Even if you pay 1 person to work and 1 person to double check everything, and 1 American to be the "project manager" of 5-10 overseas staff, you still win.
I agree with some of this, it's absolutely possible to consume and make these people profits while sitting at home, and a ton of people have done very well during the pandemic. And yeah, a lot of what we were seeing early on was the smaller petit and national bourgeoisie pushing no lockdowns, covids not a big deal, etc. because they were getting hurt by the response.
But to argue that the haute bourgeoisie loves lockdowns and wants you in your house doesn't jive with reality. I mean, where are they pushing for more and stricter lockdowns? The only support for lockdowns I have ever encountered is on this site or from adjacent sources. The general momentum of the country at this time is get back to normal, and maybe the haute bourgeoisie are not as quick to say rip off your masks and go breathe on each other, but the sentiment is still there. I mean, the only thing stopping them from completely opening up is that a huge portion of the country is unvaccinated and overrunning hospitals and dieing, and they really can't open up, which is why we're stuck in some weird limbo right now.
The haute bourgeoisie have seen supply chains fucked up, their warehouses and shit are in high-COVID areas with workers falling sick in such huge numbers that people who need the hospital for non-COVID things can't find space. The longer covid goes on the more they have to give the workers what measly benefits they have up until this point. The eviction moratorium and unemployment benefits went on much longer than they wanted. I mean, it's a fucking disaster which, while they can still make profits, is not really what they want. They want to treat the vaccine as a silver bullet, get everyone vaccinated, and then usher in some sort of grand reopening. Sure, they can make money with us in our homes, but a situation where the workers aren't making money (and therefore not spending as much), they're forced to give us measly benefits, workers are falling sick and dieing, supply chains are fucked, and the population is getting angrier and angrier, pushed either further left or further right, is not a good one.
But also just look at what's happening. If the haute bourgeoisie saw lockdowns as in their interest, they'd be pushing for them, and they're not. They've been trying to get away from them for like a year.
Do you live in a super red state or something? Almost every haute bourgeoisie was heavily pushing for lockdowns. They absolutely aren't trying to get rid of them. They want you isolated from friends and family and stuck at home as a captive audience.
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Big tech companies keep pushing back office reopening dates, everyone "knows" a lockdown is coming, mask mandates are back, etc.
They let people out of the house like last summer, but we are absolutely going back to a lockdown in October/November when second shots wear off in the elderly and flu season hits before boosters are widespread.
No workers want to go back into the office. I guess that's anecdotal, but I know many people who have quit when their workplaces called them back in. And how does everyone "know" a lockdown is coming? We had no lockdowns last winter, why would we have them this winter when we actually have a good portion vaccinated?
But also, if they want lockdowns and mask mandates so bad, why lift them in the first place? Why not just have a lockdown? What are they waiting for? It's not public opinion, that's already out the door and has been since at least summer 2020. The CDC walked back their "masks are unnecessary" advice when it became clear the situation was getting worse. The places mask mandates have come back are in places where they lifted them and the virus just came sweeping through again. They do want to deal with the virus, but are trying really hard to do it without going to spring 2020-style lockdowns or even stricter. They view the vaccine as the virus' silver bullet, which isn't true and will not work out, as you say second shots will wear off, but that's why they're now forcing vaccinations, they don't want to go back to lockdowns