Thread by @MsMelChen

Suddenly a new consensus seems to be emerging among mainstream Dems and media - better late than never.

Mayors want to keep schools open. CNN and NYT finally acknowledge the developmental costs we've imposed on children with our covid containment policies.

It's amazing to

witness how a narrative becomes accepted in real-time. This is a failure of what has become of our sense-making apparatus. I know people who have been banging this drum a year ago, but they were the "wrong" people, with the "wrong views."

Remember, it took a year before the lab

leak hypothesis could be spoken about in polite company. The trigger? Jon Stewart (and to some extent, the Vanity Fair piece).

But imagine if it was okay to talk about it earlier. Imagine if it was okay to have a debate about how we're penalizing our own children earlier.

Perhaps we could have avoided some of this?

I encounter this phenomenon a lot. Sometimes there's a story about a terrible manifestation of CRT in a random school only picked up by Fox or Breitbart. I want to share it, but I know if I do it will be dismissed readily because of

masthead. Four weeks later with enough outrage, a mainstream publication picks up the story. Still, the framing would be along the lines of "conservatives are mad that...X happened."

This is a signal to the base of *HOW TO FEEL about the story* - which is to say, don't get

mad because the conservatives are mad about it. It's a conservative talking point. Just like the lab leak. Just like wanting to keep schools open.

And so... nothing happens. We don't have the necessary conversation we need to have, and we don't have the chance to revise

what we're doing as a society.

I don't see how *this* isn't a grave threat to democracy.