Mistrust, fights and blood sport: How COVID-19 trauma is shaping the 2024 election
Much of the country has moved on from the COVID-19 pandemic, but Ruth and Mohammed Nasrullah keep a vigil from their Houston home, posting thousands of pictures and stories of those who have fallen: coaches, tax clerks, teachers, autoworkers and graphic designers.
"We spend our time immersed in death," Ruth said of the couple's COVID-19 Wall of Memories, which went on online when graveyards were widening and fear was spreading in January 2021. The wall holds more than 21,000 photographs and histories of those who died. "It gives us perspective. We've seen an arc of change in COVID response and grief."
The pandemic is fading and Americans want to forget, Mohammed said. But people are still dying and the fallout from the virus is playing into attitudes over the divisive state of the country and its politics.
The coronavirus is seldom mentioned by the campaigns of and Donald Trump, even though its impact on voters and the way the pandemic altered how we live, work, die and mourn has been profound. It accelerated mistrust in government and institutions, of workers, sparked and science, turned school board meetings into political blood sport, hardened the lines between red and blue states and ignited a mental health crisis.
