'There is a certain kind of strength in refusing to concede error'

A person walks by tributes in art made by 20 community groups to those impacted by Covid-19, done in collaboration between Naming the Lost Memorials, City Lore and Green-Wood Cemetery, at Green-Wood Cemetery on May 08, 2023 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City

'The COVID experience has been transformed into a positive talking point for Republicans'

(Image credit: Spencer Platt / Getty Images)

published 25 March 2025

'Conservatives have elevated the figures on the right who held the wrongest and nuttiest positions'

Jonathan Chait at The Atlantic

"The recent fifth anniversary of the onset of the coronavirus pandemic put the difference between the contemporary right and left on stark display," says Jonathan Chait. While "liberals have engaged in searching self-reflection" on "school closings, the lab-leak hypothesis [and] the political aftereffects," the "Covid experience has been transformed into a positive talking point for Republicans, a development nobody expected back when Americans were dying by the thousands and Trump was brainstorming weird medical ideas live from the White House."

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Anya Jaremko-Greenwold has worked as a story editor at The Week since 2024. She previously worked at FLOOD Magazine, Woman's World, First for Women, DGO Magazine and BOMB Magazine. Anya's culture writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Jezebel, Vice and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among others.