Lockdowns made us rude, MAGA vs. the realists and other commentary

“If the world seems to you a little nastier and more confrontational than it was just a few years ago,” notes Reason’s J.D.Tuccille, “you’re not alone.

Many Americans say the world is a ruder place than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic” and the “public health” overreaction closed “businesses and schools” and “isolated large numbers of people.” “This isn’t unprecedented.It’s a pattern that’s been seen over and over again in the wake of public-health emergencies” and “authoritarian restrictions.” Why? Isolation “means the social lubrication of manners and experience with polite human interaction takes a serious ding.” “It appears that in the course of screwing with our lives and our livelihoods,” the “powers-that-be also managed to disrupt our relations with our neighbors.”“Making an official who has consistently publicized his opposition to the president’s own policies responsible for the president’s intake of intelligence is a mistake best caught early,” argues Tablet’s Lee Smith of Daniel Dale, a nominee for a “top post in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.” Dale has slammed Trump on Iran, China and everything else and was let go from the job before he started.

But there’s no split in Trumpworld between “a ‘realist’ or isolationist contingent, and a more traditionally forward-leaning Reaganite faction.” This is about “an external faction” — funded by Trump opponents like Charles Koch and George Soros — “trying to attach itself to MAGA in order to strangle Trump’s America First foreign policy.” Subscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter! Please provide a valid email address.By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Never miss a story.President Trump’s tariffs are “sowing ill will” and making him seem like “a mad king” from whom “control ought...