I think you are a bit overstating the situation. No matter what's your opinion on how the pandemic was handled, I think it's safe to say that the measures were

I think you are a bit overstating the situation. No matter what's your opinion on how the pandemic was handled, I think it's safe to say that the measures were unprecedented and caused a massive, massive shock in almost every corner of the economy and society in general. That we are still doing...fine (!!) After entire sections of the world's economy were put on hold, on and off for years while other portions were , as you said , overdriven by necessity is a testament to how resilient the US and the world are. In hindsight, it's tempting to try to frame the recent events as just the logical ans predictable results of a bad system that was slow crumbling anyways... But I just completely disagree that this was just the result of decades of neglect, in no small part because workers were actually doing much better now than they did a decade ago. The pre pandemic times were extremely prosperous all things considered, real wages were actually getting higher, infrastructure was worked on, etc. I wouldn't describe that period as a slow decline, and we were steadily revving down from the "redline" of the early 2000s. Even in my poor home country, that historically has been pretty devoid of opportunities, things were looking really good and people were optimistic. But then the pandemc hit. And there has been an insanely massive contrast between how, say, an office worker was affected by the pandemic versus how a healthcare worker experienced it. Imo, that obviously lead to unprecedented fatigue and not just physically. Both of my parents are nurses, and I remember them being almost completely burnt out while everyone else was almost enjoying the perks of WFH and not having things to do. But once the decision was taken to lockdown/shutdown what were the options? Food still had to be moved, patients had to be treated, etc. But again, imo we are still doing surprisingly well and while sinking into doomerism can be tempting, I'm acrually more optimistic now than ever before. Because beyond the culture war, the punditry, the push to divide and the moments that genuinely scared me (like when when normal people started rabidly turning in- and on- their neighbors)... we still kinda made it through?! And we all kind of made that possible, though some more than the others!