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/211/ Unlocking the Lockdown Left ft. @galexybrane (Patreon)

Published:
2021-08-24 07:00:06
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

On lockdowns, education, and the left.

California middle-school teacher and social critic Alex Gutentag (@galexybrane) joins us to talk about the depredations of lockdown in California and the wider world.

How has lockdown affected different segments of society, and how damaging have school closures been on education? Why has the professional middle class been so in favour of widespread restrictions – and how did the left go from backing Medicare 4 All to cheering on lockdowns in the space of a few months?

Readings:

The War on Reality, Alex Gutentag, The Tablet

The Great Covid Class War, Alex Gutentag, The Bellows

Files

Comments

Sensible Captain

So schools in California were apparently very worried about kids missing out on education during the teachers' strike, but not during the Covid lockdown. Says it all, really. Thanks for this interview, Alex's voice is important.

Daniel L

Of course lockdown is indicative of state failure to deal with the pandemic in other ways, but given how much had been hollowed out (eg Australia had less ICU-coverage per person than in the 1970s), how could it possibly have been ramped up to deal with surges in cases? In Sydney we have gone from 0 daily cases to 800 in 8 weeks. Elective surgery was cancelled in public hospitals a few weeks ago, and last week also cancelled in private hospitals as private doctors have been directed to work in the public system (mandated under some kind of Health Act) What's the alternative to lockdown in this scenario where the state literally does not have the capacity to deal with regular medical issues, 8 weeks into a covid outbreak? And with vaccine rates still low. Of course, it's important to question why this is still the case one year into the pandemic, but unlikely that such long-term structural issues would be fixed so quickly (even if there was political will, which there seems not to be).

Daniel L

A number of things that Alex said struck me as very unique to the US eg distrust in vaccines. As a contrast, the poorest suburbs of Sydney now have amongst the highest of vaccine rates in the city, due to the outbreak (unsurprisingly) concentrated there, and prioritisation of vaccines to those areas. Again making the point that it's difficult to compare across countries re covid...

Alexandra Haggis

It's interesting how the fight over schools last year became a proxy war for whether teachers were to be considered part of the professional class. Since teachers as a group are conceived variously as either part of the service economy and should be at work with the "essential workers" or as a more part of the pmc and thus should be in the grubhub stay home crowd.

Sam

Wow I have to say Alex was one of the most articulate, informed and cogent guests you’ve ever had on the podcast. Anyone interested in political communication should take note - this is how it’s done. Her students are incredibly lucky.

Mike Bilbe-Taylor

Excellent episode, I really hope you take this out from behind the paywall soon because it deserves as wide an audience as positive.

NigelBOpinion

I am so glad you did this episode with Alex G, who can probably claim to be have been the most indispensable public intellectual of the pandemic (truly making the case for "less is more"). She put more into some of her tweets than most well-paid columnists did in column after column of alarmist drivel. Great interview by Phil and great discussion by the whole team.

Feedbag

This is easily one of the best podcasts out there. But am I the only one who felt as though this interviewee was a charlatan? How can anyone read these tweets of hers and still take her seriously?

Jennifer Baldwin

Excellent guest on the lockdown left. I have been disgusted throughout that the “left” has absolutely refused to acknowledge from the beginning that we have a ruling class more that capable of ruling and this includes the ability to manufacture crises. The lockdowns were one element in an overt attack on the working class(who obviously just carried on working). This may come as a shock but capitalists aren’t that bothered about our health. They are worried about capitalism failing and so it would be quite handy to install a bio security state to deal with difficult populations. Put the unemployed on UBI as capitalism has given up on growth but make it conditional. Replace what remains of Quality healthcare and education with online rubbish. Replace national currencies with a new digital system. Create a group “the unvaccinated” to blame it all on. The “left” everywhere has enjoyed smearing anyone who goes against the COVID narrative whether they are scientists, doctors or just the proles because it’s easier than engaging with the possibility that they have decided their own class interests might be better protected going along with all this.

Maximum Ben

How can three people discuss the stifling effect lockdown had on organising while completely ignoring that the largest organised protests in US history happened during lockdown, 2020 wasn't that long ago but it seemed like you've all forgotten what happened last year. BLM wasn’t mentioned once when discussing organising under lockdown… baffling This whole interview was a mess of misinformation and ridiculous mischaracterisations of extremely recent history. Criticising trust in our "expert class" and "scientific and medical institutions" completely ignores the fact that the medical experts were ignored by policy makers who tried to find a "balance" with capital interests and virtually all lockdowns were later and lighter than was recommended. Medical experts warned about mutations occurring which would lead to potentially vaccine resistant strains. This has already been partially born out with the delta variant and with vaccines still largely unavailable in the global south and transmissions still being so high we’re likely to see worse variants in the future. There was no major narrative about school closure being to protect children, it was always the narrative that school closure prevented mass gatherings of children who would bring covid back to their homes as they were capable of transmission. The success China has had with lockdowns was also completely ignored, as was what happened in Britain, opting instead to talk about Sweden which is famously, an outlier. Alex is a perfect example of why an expert class is valuable. Her “everyone is capable of doing their own research” narrative is always the argument made by charlatans who use cherry picked data, mischaracterisations and in many cases lies to argue an opinion people want an excuse to believe. If I wanted to listen to an unqualified science denialist be platformed with zero fact checking and total credulity I’d listen to Joe Rogan.

Jason Ioannou

Always refreshing to hear reasoned argument from someone with an opposing view to one’s own. I have family members who are teachers and they have echoed everything Alex said about the inequitable effects of remote learning. However, it seemed to me that you and Alex mistakenly conflate the wide scientific and medical consensus around Covid with neo-liberal technocracy. It’s vital to distinguish between them: there is a danger of falling prey to conspiracy theories if we distrust experts simply because their analysis could be used to support the aims of political elites. In any case, Alex uses scientific evidence adroitly, though selectively, in her arguments which begs the question: why should we give credence to a well-informed and intelligent amateur over a professional whose reputation, and possibly career, is on the line? Finally, even if we accept that lockdowns are bad - and I agree wholeheartedly that their repeated use exposed a failure of neo-liberal governance over many decades - the alternatives are arguably no better. E.g. the 'protect the vulnerable' option which Alex favours has exactly the same implications as vaccine passports - marginalised groups could be automatically excluded from normal life. Not to mention the difficulty of selecting the vulnerable in advance when so much is still unknown about Covid-19.

Jennifer Baldwin

Mass testing should stop immediately. It can play a role for a clinician with a sick patient and ruling in/out differential diagnosis. Asymptomatic transmission is not a driver of respiratory viral infection and neither are children. Masks don’t work. Lockdowns harm the poor and the vulnerable and don’t really even protect the young fit zoomers because they’d be better off getting the virus and having broad natural immunity and contributing to herd immunity. As for vaccines they were pushed to make money and provide a case for the passports. I’m hoping these vaccines are mostly ineffective rather than dangerous but there is absolutely no case for the fit, young and healthy to be having them

Jennifer Baldwin

Pcr testing can play a role for a clinician with a sick patient it should be stopped for everyone else

Jennifer Baldwin

The yellow card system here and vars in the US are showing clear signals that these vaccines are dangerous and the medical response should always have been about treatments.

Caleb

I worked on the Bernie campaign. I can confirm what Alex and Phil said about the Berniecrat left transferring its hopes from the candidate to the pandemic as the vehicle for social reorganization. That the pandemic would vindicate the left's position vis-a-vis healthcare and affirm the need to expand the redistributive responsibilities of the state were appeals the campaign made to voters and especially donors during its final 6-8 weeks. During that time, a period of extremely grim NGO-ification, almost all regular political fundraising stopped and proceeds were redirected to mutual aid groups and worker relief funds. So yes, whatever kind of belief staff and supporters placed in the campaign's ability to organize people around its agenda was substituted for the delusional faith that reality could take care of politics for us.

Carson H

Alex's perspective as a teacher of working-class children is valuable, but going by her Twitter, it does seem like she's willing to flirt with some pretty boomer-brained notions when it comes to vaccines. Don't get me wrong: I also oppose the indefinite extension of COVID-related restrictions (masking, distancing, etc.) once there has been a reasonably high uptake of shots in a given place. There are a disturbing number of people (especially among the PMC) who seem to be in favour of such an extension. If you're downplaying the importance of vaccines, though, it's back to choosing between "just isolate all the old and/or sick people forever" and outright denialism.