It seems like we are watching the (slow) de-legitimization of American liberal democracy unfold. At least from my perspective. For example, the other day, my normally progressive-liberal parents were talking about how they would prefer to live in China at this point. It put me off guard ngl. People are losing faith, even if Biden's win has given many a brief dose of copeium. What do y'all think?
It's so much worse. Chernobyl killed somewhere between a few dozen and a few thousand, so right there we're maybe 1000x worse. Also, in spite of the initial fuckups, the bureaucrats eventually listened to the scientists, developed a plan, mobilized society's collective resources, and solved the problem. They even ultimately learned something from it and took steps to prevent similar problems in the future. In our case, the official debate within government is complete denial vs individual responsibility. There has been no interest in learning from SARS, no interest in learning from the countries that contained covid successfully, no ability to plan or coordinate within the government, and no interest or ability to mobilize any actual resources. Instead we had states bidding against each other at auctions, the federal government literally stealing essential life-saving supplies from states, and fraud and profiteering at every opportunity.
I know you were talking about the political impact, which we probably won't know for some time, but just comparing them directly is fucking bleak.
The US response to climate change in slow motion