COVID was and still is bad, but the excuses in the name of and general responses during COVID imo were and still are worse. The top dog whistle was really amplified during these past years during the pandemic:
Such as The Birth Dearth (initially about natalist white births, but the birthrate is low nationwide despite the species growth to 8 billion)- the worry is lack of production to keep up with programmed obsolescence and the myth of the demographic spreading it's values under psychotic 'manifest destiny'. Those in power saw a plague ± abortion and contraceptives together as economy decline because of lockdown and not enough workers, so Roe was first to go. The book the birth dearth that had a list of culture war issues was coincidentaly thousands of dollars once the supreme court Samuel Alito comment was leaked. This plays into environmental excuses of bigotry which might accelerate 2 types of things:
1) Population Bomb, claiming the third world are the cause of creating scarcity equal to mass destruction unless the white births kept up, despite the industrial society causing the most harm and terrra forming: empty houses with nobody in them as wasted space where nature could be or homeless could live. This plays into immigration control. 2) former Seirra club, Redwood protection and some environment retoric such as tragedy of the commons to police demographics eating food. But the opposite extreme is happening as always, the climate changing society knows what it's doing by destroying the planet for profit, riling up eco fascism as the world burns. This also plays into immigration control.
Now it's great to worry about the planet, endangered trees, these things being value worthy, just like population decline on it's face is true, and proper resource allocation from consumers. But these truths and values are immensely weaponized. It being stated isn't the issue: but why, for who and what ends.
So to understand certain discrimination you have to see the state for what it is, a pre planned program. I don't really have political theory talking points but my understanding of state theory comes from demographics. Our system is designed for continuous growth, and their cosmic manifest destiny that is based on programmed obsolescence: this means beauty, the environment, and material possession. This is obvious. But obsolescence and keeping up with it, requires constant babies. And naturally barriers prevent the status ques fertility plan, in this society and across various others. So the barrier could be lots of things that demographers have a list of: Working women, abortion, contraceptive, gay, intersex and trans people who have actually been sterilized from society(what some might associate with trans culture is the Dr Money situation, but it actually proves that dysphoria develops when you know your body isn't correct to how you feel inside: but mind you this isn't trans culture as a medical need, but actually ruining lives for a test by, Money.)
Privilege benefits certain groups obviously, but that doesn't mean privileged types don't suffer from the disparities society creates: black and brown people may be less off, poverty for instance, but this harms white people as well, the medical bills effect white people, the economy collapse effects white people, yada yada. If we assume genocide isn't just dead bodies but a ruining of lives until the social and national pattern is unraveled into ultimate despare: then everyone is being genocided by the state? Simple as that right? Totally out of context everything is the same harm? No. Not the same. Discrimination is felt at different levels and times, different groups are being killed at other magnitudes and certainly for vastly different reasons. We can't generalize unless your dishonest.
The system does not violently target minorites or demographics necessarily anymore, but things are vastly disproportionately placed due to past discrimination, solidified into stereotyped caste systems of assumptions or colorblind bondage, piles of humans in prison. Any victim of a crappy environment commiting a crime is certainly the one doing the act, to deny that would be blind to physics. But it's more deranged not to see why people are angry, poor, depressed, not trusting of others, etc. The excuses for COVID to show America with it's mask off took the faces of many terrible actions over the years, and stress being used for stochastic terror ends by news casters like tucker Carlson:
face 1) eugenic quarantine via title 42 mirroring the 1940's measures at the Mexican border. It's good faith interpretation is for health and sanitizing, but demographers know Americans were iffy about immigration despite being a land of constant change and native removal as colonialism often does. But conservatives will always complain with talks of the "browning of America". Trumps title 42 legacy is now being upheld by Biden, as Abbot and others send migrants to random places out of spite: which is what the democrats are blamed for ironically enough or what they claim "great replacement".
Face 2) Removing Roe and reviving anti abortion laws from the 1800's. This actually harms minorites more, but overall women were forced to have a child no matter what, even skulless children or babies born dead, birthing it to knowingly bury it right after in case the kid became a statistical worker.
3) The birth dearth talks about the elderly dragging society down, the elderly being an anachronism for big families from simpler times to help raise children but now in the modern world there's a battle of balancing out elderly expenses and the working class, and not enough babies means potential later retirement for the work force: there were twisted journalist talks of how COVID would vaguely benefit the economy if it was allowed to cull the elderly! I actually came across this subtle attitude when debating a nurse, she said COVID was not a threat but I pressed her about the elderly and she said alot of old people did die, but it wasn't a big deal? That's disgusting. Even if it's true, then it's merely a cold logic we could never unleash on innocent people, it would only turn into a sick eugenicist dream.
4) The jilted apartheid stage of trans culture from hundreds of years of discrimination and knowledge burned by nazis, especially minorites, those gay or trans individuals being considered transvestites, inverts, predators, decadence decay causing, and gay or trans people in the past being compared to primitive or "lower races" from writers such as Kraft Ebbing or Havelock Ellis. This retoric is returning in the 2020's with euphemisms like groomer and talks of eradicating trans people. As mentioned it's a fertility issue for the state to have straight people procreate, the trans issue might well be lumped in with abortion and contraceptive removal(to back pedal slightly, the current culture war on lgbt is arbitrarily happening during covid era, and that's why at most this version of discrimination was prefabicated during covid as an excuse to do so under stress and stochastic means by Tucker and Podcasters like Tim Pool)
On a vaguely positive note: the bad people I implied exist behind the scenes are few and far between, so there is hope. America may be run by insane clowns, but it's a small number, just like Nazi Germany was less than 40% extremists when they took over. To sort of go over something I didn't delve into, extremism at it's most socially acceptable is the disproportionately leveled playing field we still take advantage of. Examples being: Policing impoverished neighborhoods that happen to be historically angry and possibly violent due to systemic trauma. And personally most disturbing of all, disproportionate abortions and contraceptives to minorites. A hypocritical realization of this controlled fertility came from a man named Dick Gregory in Chicago acknowledged:
"“For years they told us where to sit, where to eat, and where to live. Now they want to dictate our bedroom habits. First the white man tells me to sit in the back of the bus. Now it looks like he wants me to sleep under the bed. Back in the days of slavery, black folks couldn't grow kids fast enough for white folks to harvest. Now that we've got a little taste of power, white folks want us to call a moratorium on having children.”
when we wanted them for Industry we praise them as important objects, but once we no longer needed open minorites doing slave work: we pretend all the kids are their fault, the myth of racial fecundity to scapegoat the old product as obsolete, and the plan to engineer their numbers. But again not targeted eventually, but disproportionate placement to have kids and thus a reason to get rid of them, overall mistakes happen and she has the right. Minorites and white folk in poverty experience this, but only black people got the "negro project" planned Parenthood in history due to potential generational servitude that characterized the behaviors and attitudes of African Americans, infant mortality was a deep problem for them but it was created by colonialism for the most part, and even though it's hypocritical for the west to caste the children as waste to the system after past exploitation: there were many black figures such as web du Bois and Martin Luther king who agreed planned Parenthood would spare suffering of the new generation.
The far right conspiracy about the politicians covid safety guidelines into calling it "great reset" is everything the right advocate for oddly enough but pretend it's a lefty take over: Removal of immigration as usual but an excuse to, Women's bodily Autonomy attacked to engineer the population for the economy, plans to abandon the elderly, gay and trans rights under constant scrutiny, book bans to burning in Tennessee. All this happens while tucker Carlsons legacy Americans make it all about themselves, unable to handle a crisis as they become anti vax, anti mask, and the lockdowns that made sense for safety but the economy could collapse and couldn't care less about anyone. The true reset is the rights conspiracy for everything to be "Woke", which honestly is just a dog whistle for media with nuanced outlooks or minorites in it. Everything our country stood for in brief moments of peace when the cold war ended in the 90's and minor asylum victory student protests from 60's to 80's: Kids were told people come to America for a good life, immigration is implied. Now it's official that America is not the place for that, leaving the huddled masses in the rain. There is a pre fabricated war within the liberal framework where democrats and republicans in power agree with the bottom line of the capital via the population, so demographic manipulation isn't out of the question for these people: Democrats like President Clinton saying "Keep it rare" referring to abortion, Nancy Pelosi in 2017 telling some of the voter base to stop focusing on abortion, Hillary Clinton saying Dems shouldn't make transgender stuff a priority. These people are not on your side. They wont stay harm reductive for very long.