The thing that struck me most about this post when I first read it was that you mean the American election when you talk about the election next year. I prefer to think about elections in which I have a vote, so, barring a surprise decision by Sunak to go to the country in the next three months, “the election next year” for me is the UK one.
That said, you have to be interested in what happens in America and a similarity between the the UK and that country for me is that if I had a vote in both, my overriding motive would be to try to keep an individual and/or party out because no individual or party inspires me enough to vote for positive reasons. It’d be a choice between abstaining and voting Democrat to keep Trump and the Republicans out if I were American - I would be very, very reluctant to vote Biden though as I think the notion of someone running for the highest office in their eighties is asking for trouble (there have been enough signs over the past three years that his age is a problem). I also don’t like the fact that his dog has bitten eleven White House employees at the last count!
As for Covid, the first thing to say is that anything that kills nearly seven million people worldwide is not a con
https://www.worldometers.info/corona...us-death-toll/
You’ll dispute those figures of course, but they’ll do for me.
My question is if it was all a con, what was gained from it? All of the restrictions imposed have been lifted (second thoughts, I daresay one or two may survive, but they’re not high profile enough for me to know about them) , so what was the point in “Convid”? Organ Morgan would have it that all of us who have had vaccines are going to die by 2026, but I’ll treat that with the seriousness it deserves.
As is always the case, it comes down to a decision whether you believe in cock up or conspiracy and, as is the case in the vast majotity of times I consider that question it’s the former that wins, although, when it comes to Covid, the fact that decisions were being made on the hoof with poor knowledge, at the time, of what was involved excuses some of the cock ups.