Review: Charting the Rise of Anti-Lockdown Activism

As America suffered from COVID-19—the disease and the policy response—what The Nation‘s Sasha Abramsky characterizes as a far-right movement of “demagogues and political hustlers, snake-oil salesmen and apostles of violent confrontation” made inroads across the country. In his well-reported but blinkered Chaos Comes Calling, Abramsky relays his view of how that played out in Shasta County, California, and Sequim, Washington.

Abramsky conveys the anguish of officials and activists involved in fights about lockdown politics. He is highly unsympathetic to the anti-lockdowners, which makes the book of likely limited appeal to audiences other than Democrats confused about why they saw so many videos of people yelling at school board meetings. Yes, many right-wing activists believed unfounded things about, say, antifa. But many jobs, businesses, schools, church communities, and family relationships really were damaged by government power grabs whose public health efficacy was at least arguable.

“The pandemic brought out the worst in society,” one of Abramsky’s antilockdown interviewees said, adding that this was because “government has added…more and more control.” Another of the book’s right-wing targets points out “COVID’s what kicked off the entire movement. Nobody was very political or interested till the shutdown came.” At the very least, Chaos Comes Calling provides insight into how the right became a home to anti-authority moods that were once the left’s province.

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