With no warning, the message from much of our political and corporate classes changed diametrically. It turned out we were a society after all, that the young and healthy should make sacrifices for the old and ill; that we should wear masks as an act of solidarity with them, if not for ourselves; and that we all should applaud and thank the very people—many of them Black, many of them women, many of them born in poorer countries—whose lives and labor had been most systematically devalued, discounted, and demeaned before the pandemic.

XREF: Relates to the striking reversal in civic rhetoric during early COVID — the sudden embrace of solidarity and sacrifice after decades of individualistic messaging. Echoes similar ironic dynamics in the 2008 financial crisis or wartime discourse.

Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, loc. 768