Each side derives satisfaction by keeping the ire directed at the other.

Sure, the prolongation of pandemic life is dreary, but it’s all Joe Rogan’s fault! If only the right stopped spreading disinformation, COVID-19 would be gone and we could get back to normal!

See how the left wants to boss you around? None of these pandemic restrictions is ever going away! They’re the leading edge of a tech-based progressive social-credit system modeled on Chinese authoritarianism!

How do we find our way out of this mess? I wish I knew.

Or maybe it’s more accurate to say the way out is clear, but our willingness to do what would be needed to get back to normal is much less so. Resolving to change course sounds appealing in the abstract. But in the world as it is, the pleasures of division and dispute are real and intense.