In the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when a vaccine hadn’t been discovered and people were dying by the thousands each day and social distancing seemed our best bet, but also, potentially, our great unraveling, I remember searching hard — and finding — signs of unity.

Signs that we had it in us to come together to protect what's vulnerable and precious — our health, our safety, our humanity.

I was writing daily about people who died from the virus. About families left shattered by the virus. About people making incredible, odds-defying recoveries from the virus. I met and was awed by Chris Ward, a father of three who survived the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attack, non-Hodgkin’s follicular lymphoma caused by the toxins that filled the New York City air that day, and a COVID-19 infection that took up residence in his body and wouldn’t leave for months.

I was doing this, like so many of us, while my children were sequestered in their bedrooms doing school online, missing the laughter and rituals and friend drama and serendipity that take place in hallways and cafeterias and team practices. My daughter’s eighth-grade graduation was a car parade.

It was hard to know how it would all shape and wound and define us long term. But I remember taking some solace in how thoughtful and intentional so many people were being in their attempts to weigh the (sometimes competing) factors at hand and then minimize and mitigate the damage to all of them.

I interviewed school administrators, health care workers, small business owners, teachers. I joined Zooms where my kids’ principal patiently explained NASA-level spreadsheets of schedules and scenarios.

When a vaccine was finally approved, I profiled a 14-year-old who devoted his free time to connecting senior citizens to available appointments. Whole groups of vaccine hunters sprang up in communities around the country, helping vulnerable folks access safety and hope.

So many people were trying their best. Truly, valiantly, humanely trying their best. That felt unifying.

And always there were voices warning that it was too much. That masks and lockdowns and capacity restrictions and remote learning and vaccine mandates were overkill. Government overreach. Dr. Anthony Fauci was bombarded with death threats. Anti-lockdown protests filled state capitals. A society that requires vaccine paperwork is a society on a slippery descent into fascism, we were warned. I was warned, repeatedly.

The word “tyranny” was thrown around a lot.

I’m thinking about this a lot lately.

Because now we have armed, masked federal agents going door to door in our communities, pulling people over in our streets, rounding people up in our neighborhoods, demanding their paperwork.

In St. Paul, Minnesota, federal immigration agents bashed open a door and detained U.S. citizen ChonglLy “Scott” Thao at gunpoint without a warrant, as his 4-year-old grandson watched in tears.

Agents handcuffed him and led him outside in subfreezing conditions in his underwear and Crocs, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

“Thao said agents drove him ‘to the middle of nowhere’ and made him get out of the car in the frigid weather so they could photograph him,” the Associated Press reported. “He said he feared they would beat him. He was asked for his ID, which agents earlier prevented him from retrieving."

Eventually, agents realized Thao was a U.S. citizen with no criminal record and brought him home more than an hour later.

“There they made him show his ID,” the AP reported, “and then left without apologizing for detaining him or breaking his door.”

In nearby Brooklyn Park, a suburb of Minneapolis, police chief Mark Bruley told reporters his off-duty police officers are repeatedly being targeted and harassed by federal agents.

“Bruley said one off-duty officer was recently stopped by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who ‘demanded her paperwork,’ despite her being a U.S. citizen,” The Independent reported. “The agents also had their guns drawn during the incident, he said.”

Hundreds of U.S. citizens have been detained and held by immigration agents, according to a ProPublica investigation.

“Americans have been dragged, tackled, beaten, tased and shot by immigration agents,” ProPublica reported. “They’ve had their necks kneeled on. They’ve been held outside in the rain while in their underwear. At least three citizens were pregnant when agents detained them. One of those women had already had the door of her home blown off while Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem watched. About two dozen Americans have said they were held for more than a day without being able to phone lawyers or loved ones.”

And I’m wondering how all of this sits with the folks who viewed vaccine mandates as government overreach. Who accused educators and epidemiologists and public health experts of stripping away our freedom and personal liberties. Who couldn’t abide mask mandates. Who viewed guidance as tyranny.

Because I’m having a hard time reconciling it all. I’m having a hard time understanding why the leaders who cried the loudest about government overreach during a pandemic are now endorsing government-sanctioned violence — against their own people. I’m having a hard time understanding why the voters and the political party propping up these leaders aren’t screaming “tyranny” now.

I guess I’m back to searching hard for signs of unity. For signs that we have it in us to come together and protect what’s vulnerable and precious: our health, our safety, our humanity.

I’m not giving up. But it’s getting harder to find them.

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