I suppose an easy analogy (in the US, but other countries have right wingers copying the US. Brazil is an easy example) is how right wingers set up the dominos for literal decades for the fall of legal abortion (overturning of Roe v Wade).

In that case Trump being elected and/or RGB (supreme court justice) not resigning in a timely manner under Obama weren’t the reason for the overturning of abortion as a right. It was just the last piece in the tower to be knocked out causing the whole thing to collapse.

I don’t disagree that covid absolutely melted brains. But it’s not JUST covid in a bubble. Covid mania (and, yes, lingering disabilities or after effects from the disease itself) was just adding accelerant to a fire that right wingers have been building for, I don’t even know. At least 60 years (guess which ruling they really hated? Yes, that’s right, Brown v Board of Ed that forced the end of segregation. So racists said “welp, I’ll pull my kids out and teach them at home!”) but the anti-public school freaks have been around since the beginning of US public schooling.