You're way too in the moment. The deaths continue to pile up, and those are permanent, while bytchy feelings about lockdowns will fade over time.
Over 350,000 people have died from coronavirus. That number is gonna hit 500,000. Plus there are going to be literally millions of people with long-term side effects. It's looking more and more likely that I'm personally dealing with "long Covid", and it fukking sucks, and there are many more like me.
I'm a consultant in infectious diseases. 'Long Covid' is anything but a mild illness | Joanna Herman
500,000 dead people is 5-10 million voters who were personally close to them. Then add another few million who had a big scare and another few million who dealt with long Covid. If the Republicans pick someone who really really fukked up their coronavirus response, that's an issue the Democratic nominee is going to hit them with and it's the kind of shyt serious enough that some of those swing voters and independents who were personally affected by the pandemic will change their votes on it.
South Dakota has already had 100,000 cases and 1,500 deaths in a state of just 880,000 people. Their case rate and deaths are both over 50% higher than the national average even though they're a super rural, low-density state and got hit late. They had health care shortages, nurse shortages, it was a shytshow. Running with that is as if the Governor of Louisiana had tried to run on her performance in Katrina.