The chill on speech during COVID-19 hurt the country
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If you weren't all in with masks and isolation, you were a spreader of a killer virus. I wore masks, but I also bought a propane heater and served Thanksgiving dinner in my backyard. After attending a Christmas Eve gathering, I found out the next day that someone there had tested positive afterward. That news upset some family members who came to my house on Christmas. They trusted the science of complete isolation — a science that is disputed in the new book 'In Covid's Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us,' by Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee.
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With COVID-19, the big chill on speech came from the left. But putting a chill on speech is a bipartisan exercise and not limited to talk about a pandemic. Three decades ago, the late journalist and social commentator Nat Hentoff tracked it in a book titled 'Free Speech for Me — But Not for Thee: How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other.' Today, the censorship continues.
For example, from the left: If you say 'All Lives Matter' instead of 'Black Lives Matter,' you are racist. If you have doubts about the participation of transgender women in sports, you are transphobic. If you question the amount of money sent to Ukraine to aid it in its battle against Russia, you are a Putin puppet. If you think Kamala Harris would have benefitted from a running mate who did not trim the truth like Tim Walz did, you are making a false equivalence with a president who rarely speaks the truth.
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From the right: If you don't think every undocumented immigrant should be immediately deported, you are welcoming rapists and murderers into the county. If you think college students should be able to peacefully protest in favor of a Palestinian state, or, if you express doubt about the extent of Israel's military response after the Oct. 6, 2023 attack on their country — you are antisemitic. If you think it's wrong to blame a plane crash on diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts before an investigation into it is complete, you are a left-wing nut.
When there is no middle ground, there is no civil conversation. And without civil conversation, there is what we have now, an angry country filled with snarling citizens. On one side, there are Democrats who refuse
It takes leadership to stake out rational middle ground and make the case for it to the public. I have no proof, only hope, that voters are hungry for it. While President Trump achieved victory by claiming the extreme right, there is some evidence the pendulum is ready to swing toward the reasonable center. That is illustrated by the shift in public opinion on the issue of transgender women in sports. I would like to think that at some point, public opinion will also shift against those who took down the images of women and non-white service members from Department of Defense websites.
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Meanwhile, as we mark this fifth anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, imagine if Trump had handled the pandemic differently. Imagine if he had not gone to war with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former infectious disease chief, but worked quietly behind the scenes to encourage free and open discussion about the best way to address the pandemic. What if he had not predicted the virus would 'miraculously' disappear or suggested that household disinfectant was the antidote?
On COVID-19, Trump failed the leadership test. But as Scharfenberg wrote, 'The trouble was that too many liberals lumped these absurdities together with legitimate skepticism.' As president, Joe Biden also failed to challenge the prevailing thinking.
Elected officials like Baker did what they could to get it right. If it turned out to be wrong, it was because of an unhealthy campaign to squelch healthy debate. There's a lesson in that — if only we could learn from it.
Joan Vennochi is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at
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