We’re Forgetting the Pandemic. And That’s a Problem.

The COVID-19 pandemic is fading. Not just the policies. Not just the numbers. The whole thing —shutdowns, mandates, overreach, and revelations —is slipping out of our collective memory.

I don’t mean it’s being erased, not yet. Sure, some people would love to see it scrubbed from the record entirely. But even without that effort, it’s happening anyway. The weight of it is evaporating. People aren’t talking about it. They’re not reflecting on it. They’re just moving on.

And I think that’s dangerous.

But I also think it’s inevitable.

People crave stasis. We’re creatures of habit, and when a crisis breaks the rhythm, we don’t process it; we survive it. And once it passes, we snap back into whatever pattern we can rebuild, even if it’s not quite the same. If we can’t get the old normal back, we settle for a bootleg version of it.

This isn’t unique to our time. It’s human nature.

Like everyone my age, I remember where I was when the towers fell. I was sitting in a survey class at NKU. The first plane had already hit, and then we turned on the TV. We watched the second plane live. Then the Pentagon. Then the field in Pennsylvania.

It was horrifying. Then it was infuriating.

My little brother joined the military the next week. And he wasn’t the only one. Flags flew everywhere. Patriotism surged, whatever form of it we had left. But within a year, it started fading. Outside of New York and D.C., most people moved on. Life picked up where it left off, more or less.

I’ll never forget 9/11. But my kids? It’s abstract to them. Like Vietnam was to me.

COVID didn’t hit one city or last one day. It was global. It was every day. For years.

At the time, I thought it would change everything. And in some ways, it did.

But not like I expected.

Even massive disruptions get normalized. For example: I work in transformers. Before COVID, lead times were 6–14 weeks on single-phase padmounts. After the shutdowns? Lead times surged to nearly two years. It felt permanent. I gave presentations on how the supply chain would never be the same. But last year, I saw a BOGO ad on pad-mounts, from shortage to surplus.

Because we had to fix it. And so we did.

Sure, some scars remain. But for how long that chaos lasted, the return to “normal” has been shockingly swift. Even NYC is in full recovery mode.

A year ago, I started to believe Trump could win again. Before that, I was pessimistic. The last election felt rigged or, at the very least, heavily manipulated. But then the tide turned. Endorsements piled up—Musk, Rogan, Hinchcliffe. Then the assassination attempt. Trump stood up, bloodied, and yelled “Fight, fight, fight.” That moment lit a fire.

I thought he’d pick another neocon. But he didn’t, he picked JD Vance, who was strong in every interview. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris was... well, Kamala Harris.

That campaign sucked the oxygen out of the room. The pandemic-era vibes, the online crusades, the angst… all of it got redirected.

Even Christian Nationalism lost steam. Not because its arguments were resolved. But because the emotional energy behind it started to dry up. The Biden-Harris administration made for a clear enemy. With them gone, the wind’s died down. Purity spirals burn hot, then sputter. People get tired. Mortgages and meal plans have a way of pulling you back to earth.

And that’s what I see happening now. Not a craving for normal, exactly… but a craving for margin. For space. For peace. And for most folks, that means leaving the past behind.

I’ve seen it firsthand. People who made big moves in 2020, geographically or ecclesiastically, are trickling back to their old churches. Some elders repented. Most didn’t. But people still came back.

Why? Because they’re tired. Tired of instability. Tired of bouncing around. Tired of being angry.

Same thing goes for theology. That post-2020 surge of edgy takes has slowed. It’s not over. But it’s no longer a sprint, it’s a crawl. And I think part of the reason is that people saw where some of their online heroes were heading, and they didn’t want to follow.

Turns out a lot of the loudest voices weren’t stable men. They were fire starters. Not builders.

Pastors who locked the doors and shamed the sheep? They’re suddenly “measured skeptics.” Politicians who backed every unconstitutional mandate? Now they’re “reluctant pragmatists.” And the men who stood firm? Marginalized, or worse, imitated by the same people who mocked them.

And most folks? They’ll play along. That’s what people do.

You’ll hear: “I’ll never forget.” “I won’t let them rewrite history.” “I’ll keep banging this drum.”

Okay. But here’s the caution.

You’ve met the old guy who only talks about Vietnam. He’s not wrong, but he’s stuck. You don’t want to be that guy. Because people tune out. They move on. Not always out of cowardice or compromise. Sometimes just out of exhaustion.

And when you keep shouting about the past, they stop hearing you. They start to think you’re living there.

What should we do?

Should we stop talking about it? No.

Should we let people lie about what happened? Also no.

But we do need to read the room. We need to move from just recounting the past to building from it.

We need to ask: What did God teach us?

Because He was teaching.

It’s obvious now:

• We don’t have a solid doctrine of the civil magistrate.

• We don’t have a robust theology of men, women, fruitfulness, or the household.

• Our churches are not anti-fragile.

• Our pipelines for pastors are compromised.

• We need courageous elders.

We will face another crisis. Maybe soon. And if we’re too busy relitigating the last one, we’ll miss it. We’ll fail to prepare.

The real scandal of 2020–2022 wasn’t masks or lockdowns. It was the cowardice of Christian leaders. Men folded under pressure. They ran their churches like soft tyrants, like managerial fiefdoms with just enough spiritual veneer to keep the flock docile.

Members were stunned. These were the men they trusted. And when they pushed back, they got labeled as rebellious, divisive, or dangerous.

So they left.

They didn’t leave the church. They just left the cowards. They found pastors who kept the doors open, preached the whole counsel of God, and refused to call Caesar lord.

It was, in some ways, a great awakening.

When people saw the corruption—church, state, medicine, media—they started asking bigger questions. They started to reconsider everything. Postmillennialism surged. So did interest in biblical patriarchy, household economics, and the doctrine of the lesser magistrate.

A lot of that was good. But it came with risk.

When everything is suspect, you’re vulnerable. When trust collapses, people fall into rabbit holes. Not all conspiracy theories are false. But we’re swimming in madness. Flat earth. Fake birds. Manufactured moon landings.

Because when you’ve been lied to about the big stuff, you start questioning everything.

And that’s where institutions matter.

Some of us thought the pandemic would kill off the squishy middle. We expected certain organizations to crumble.

They didn’t.

Take The Gospel Coalition. Still here. Still hosting events. Many of them are huge. Why?

Because institutions, when built well, can take a beating. They don’t fall overnight. They decline slowly. Decay is patient.

That’s why the answer isn’t just “build a homestead and ride it out.” That’s not strength. That’s surrender.

We need institutions worth trusting. That doesn’t always mean staying put. Sometimes it means fighting from within. Sometimes it means starting from scratch.

But what it never means is retreat.

The biggest thing I took from all of this?

Conservatives are too passive. Too trusting. Too quick to walk away from the fight.

The world is built by people who stay in the room. Who sit through the meetings. Who learn how institutions work, then build them better.

If we keep mocking that, or avoiding it, or pretending we don’t need it—then we’ll keep losing. And we’ll deserve to.

Because our enemies aren’t quitting.

And neither should we.