* the volume of unnecessary death in the elderly cohort breaks the back of old people’s unblinking support for the Tr*mp administration in general and the broader conservative project in particular, at least enough to give Democrats control of the government for the near future.
* the plethora of health-related issues opens the public’s eyes to the fact that no matter how you feel about “socialism” (which in this country basically means “nonwhite people get the same things old white people get”), tying health care to your job is insane and asinine, and we move closer to a broad-based solution, starting with a robust public option that automatically enrolls anyone who is between jobs. If nothing else, we need to make it possible to quit your job without worrying that you might die as a result.
* the conundrum of “either you have to rebate tuition for these online classes, or else if they’re just as good, you have to stop making people go live in Shallow Alto or Cambridge or Pittsburgh or New Haven or wherever” forces a serious rethink of higher education and why you have to accept a hundred thousand dollar bill in order to have the golden ticket for a job, any job, that doesn’t have your name on your shirt.
* the realization that those jobs with the name on the shirt are literally what keeps us alive results in an according increase in compensation and public regard for the kind of hourly labor incorrectly tarred as “unskilled” which preserves our economy and makes it function
* the realization that we got just as much work done at home over Zoom and Slack forces a re-evaluation of whether it’s really necessary to drag people to a giant open-plan kindergarten five days a week, especially when you have to pay Bay Area rents on that human warehouse or drive an hour-plus to get to it, and opens the possibility that maybe just maybe you COULD live in Pacifica or Pescadero and still do your Valley job without a hitch
* people finally realize that actual experts are more to be trusted and relied on than shitbag reality TV assholes