The marked disruption that characterized the initial years of COVID-19, while distressing and destructive, also bore with it some radical implications. Jarred out of the course of our everyday lives, it seemed as if we might reexamine our assumptions and perhaps demand that the limited state assistance on offer continue, or even grow? So it had seemed, but those possibilities were soon foreclosed. Instead, the ruling class has touted a “return to normal,” as it hastens to unravel the few scraps of expanded social safety nets that were briefly extended to the people. Such a “normal,” of course, demands that we ignore the amassing long-term sufferers and the hundreds of continuing COVID-related deaths each week.

In keeping with this return to the neoliberal status quo, the expiration of pandemic protections means that, for the first time in three years, all U.S. states may now reevaluate — and terminate […]