Around this time six years ago, COVID-19 came to the 21st century. It barged into our world, bringing death to millions. Society, and we, were changed by it—perhaps as radically as the Black Death changed those who lived in 14th-century Europe.
Populations around the world experienced moments of panic, intense fear, and profound loneliness. There was also a sense of connectedness because our suffering was universal. But that was short-lived. Neoliberalism only works if we are consumers rather than human beings on a short ride across existence.
Initially, governments attempted to combat the anxiety of their citizens by messaging that the fight to end the pandemic was a battle for everyone’s right to survive it. Then the wartime spirit of being in it all together stopped. Society’s most affluent grew worried and outraged at the prospect of having to chip in, let alone pay the tab, to keep citizens safe during the pandemic.
Without adequate financial assistance from the state, the ability of citizens to distinguish fact from fiction weakened as lockdowns, restrictions on human contact, economic worries, stress, and constant uncertainty took their toll on collective compassion.
As the pandemic persisted, denialism, abandonment of reason, and the embrace of superstition to ward off death became common coping mechanisms. It happened because social media was manipulated by right-wing political forces whose allegiance was to the oligarchs of the economy.
It was more comforting to believe what was happening was not real. And if COVID wasn’t real or lethal, neither were measles, rubella, whooping cough, smallpox, polio, and tuberculosis. Conservatives consider denial to be better than science in defeating disease or preventing humanity’s extinction from the climate emergency.
Once doubt was created as to whether the plague was lethal or even existed, the economy could return to normal operations as if it were the day before the pandemic’s arrival rather than the day after. People were compelled by their peers, news media, social media, and economic pressure to resume their “normal” lives of shopping, socialising, and working without adequate protection against COVID.
The COVID pandemic divided humanity’s past and its present, like the Berlin Wall once separated East and West Germany. In 2026, with strained eyes, we look out across a border of time that may as well be fortified with minefields, watchtowers, and barbed wire because it is impenetrable to cross.
The time before COVID wasn’t even close to being equal or progressive. Yet it felt safe because we were still able to delude ourselves into believing the system could be reformed. I know I did.
Today, we can’t. The welfare state and post–Second World War rule-of-law consensus, social incrementalism, and living wages for the average worker no longer exist. Our countries openly participate in the genocide in Gaza and look the other way while America lays siege to Cuba as if it were World War II Leningrad.
Democracy refuses to respond to these existential crises despite opinion polls showing the majority against the Gaza genocide and the Cuban blockade. But democracy isn’t working as it should or how it was intended. It became overwhelmed and corrupted by the wealthiest in society. Now it functions like a corporation, where ordinary people hold the weakest voting bloc and top income earners have the greatest say in how their countries are governed.
The times are different, but the exploitation of ordinary people by the entitled carries many of the same tasting notes throughout history. 2026 feels like an on-the-cusp moment, like France in 1788 or Russia in 1916. Something is about to erupt across our timeline.
We may feel as though we are standing in a void, unsure of where to go next, but we are moving through history’s strong current. It is leading us, as it led our ancestors, toward a moment when revolution becomes our only choice to save humanity.
Thank you for reading and for supporting Harry’s Last Stand. I use this Substack to preserve and promote the legacy of my father, Harry Leslie Smith, who spent the final decade of his life warning that we must not allow his past to become our future. Sadly, we have already crossed that territory. But resistance comes from remembering our working class history and using it to overcome today’s fascism.
If you’re able, please consider a paid subscription — £3.50 a month or £30 a year (converted to your currency). I’ve reduced the annual price by 20% to make it more accessible, also I have some prescriptions to pay for this month.
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On brighter news: The Green & Pleasant Land is now complete in beta form and with publishers. It will be published this year, and everyone who helped make it possible will be acknowledged in the book.
My father’s story — and that of his working-class generation — must be remembered if we are to resist today’s fascists. If you’d like a beta e-copy, just let me know.
Take care,
John
Standing by.
I really hope we are on cusp of something special.