Ya I've seen the COVID narrative change too. In my local city, the popularity of the lady running our PR campaign has been off the charts since the get go, and rightfully so, she is calm, cool, evidence based, no fear mongering whatsoever. All business + compassion/calmness, and the perfect personality for it. But then the last announcement we had, we had an absolutely massive spike in cases (larger than anything in the first phase), well deserving of increased prevention measures in response (at least from a consistency perspective). Except this time, the specific recommendations were...let's say "weird" - like, completely nonsensical. Zero alterations at all to bar or restaurant policies, no increase in mask requirements in stores, only recommendations for minimization of gathering in personal homes. I cruised on over to my local city subreddit, where one would usually find overly enthusiastic cheerleading for the fine job she was doing...but this time, I can only describe it as...like, total confusion, helplessness, a perception of cognitive dissonance on behalf of these decisions. I assume this will be noticed and adjusted for, but it was something to see.

BLM (or at least media coverage of it) died right before the presidential debates got underway, in magical coordination across all media. I don't expect to hear much about the topic again either, depending on the quality of the Republican ticket in the next election of course. Malcolm X explained how that works to us all in the past. That's another weird quirk of this whole production, why were none of the historic speeches of serious black intellectuals entered into the public discourse? I guess not a single person thought of it.

I hope you are enjoying your silent downvotes as much as I am enjoying mine. What a time to be alive! :)