In this sharp AIER piece, Don Boudreaux explores the connections between our 45th president, the Covid pandemic, and the astounding diminution of liberty in America owing to the efforts at stamping out the disease. I think his analysis is right on target:

Because state governments that imposed only relatively light Covid restrictions were more likely to be red than blue, and because the mainstream narrative from early on cast Trump with the anti-lockdowners, many people with antipathy to Trump apparently concluded that lockdowns and other Covid restrictions are acceptable for the simple reason that these measures are opposed by Trump and his base. The thinking seems to have been this: To be pro-Trump is to be anti-science, therefore, to be anti-Trump is to be pro-science. And to be pro-science specifically is to be pro-Fauci, Birx, CNN, and the New York Times, because these persons and media are anti-Trump. People reached this conclusion without much investigation of the realities of Covid restrictions, or of Trump’s actual role in affecting a response.

Read the whole thing.