The poet Robert Frost once defined a liberal as a man too broad-minded to take his own side in an argument. Well, it is now time for liberals to ditch that habitual tolerance and get ready for a fight.
The post-coronavirus world is unlikely to be a hospitable environment for liberalism. Traditional liberal concerns — protecting privacy, limiting the power of the state and guarding the rights of individuals — threaten to be brushed aside as unnecessary luxuries, as nations struggle to restore economic and physical health.
The pandemic has already forced people to tolerate massive infringements on basic liberties, such as the right to work and to associate freely. Fully re-establishing those rights may take years. Meanwhile, new forms of surveillance allow governments to track and control the movements of their citizens. Measures introduced in the name of disease control may prove too “useful” to be withdrawn after the pandemic. The economic disaster caused by Covid-19 has also caused a huge expansion of the state that will not be quickly reversed.