Another societally disruptive pandemic is inevitable, experts have warned us. It may be a century from now or months from now, but it will happen.

And if that happens in the next four years, there’s a good chance that America’s public health and science policy will be in the hands of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.a non-scientist trained to take many debunked internet conspiracy theories as gospel. The latest reporting also suggests that President-elect Donald Trump’s second administration will be well staffed with vaccine skeptics and senior health officials with thin qualifications. Just this week, Trump appointed Stanford as a professor Dr Jay Bhattacharya — who in 2020, before available vaccines, advocated a public health strategy that was essentially “Let everyone get Covid, that‘will be good” — like his choice to lead the National Institutes of Health.

Wide-eyed pro-MAGA optimists may see Trump’s coalition of amateurs as a necessary corrective to “establishment” tyranny. But any objective reading of Trump’s last year in office — with his messy, chaotic and disastrous handling of the Covid pandemic — does not bode well for the prospects for crisis competence in the next Trump administration.

There are plenty of reasons to bemoan the state of public health policy, chief among them being that Americans were never offered an honest, unbiased accounting of how the federal and state governments handled the pandemic. And we won’t get it now. A MAGA-dominated congress will be held instead grand hearings about the supposed “cover-up” of the origins of Covid.

Democrats, for reasons both prudent and cowardly, missed their chance to take leadership on the issue. Yes, there was one Republican-led, bipartisan House subcommitteebut that produced little effect beyond biased bickering and attempts at reconciliation.

What the Democrats could have done is speak to the American people directly, remind voters of how terrible Trump’s pandemic leadership actually was, while presenting themselves as the antidote to MAGA anti-vaxxers and knee-jerk culture warriors by engaging in a public investigation and analysis of covid public health policy. Instead, they have given a second Trump administration a golden opportunity to rewrite history, at the expense of Democrats.

It is true that politically the Democrats had a lot to lose by talking about Covid public health policy. That’s largely because many of the most draconian restrictions on everyday life — which continued long after they needed to — haven’t aged well. They often were supported by presumptions and political pressurenot data driven science. Of course, nefarious actors on the right peddle lies about the Covid vaccines and hyperventilate about “Covid tyranny” helped poison public perceptions. And now, The Democrats are bearing the brunt of the backlash.

Democrats could be forgiven for supporting such orders during the pandemic’s “early fog of war,” when hospitals were overwhelmed and knowledge of the virus’ transmissibility was limited. A preponderance of caution was paramount, with good reason.

But for example long after we knew masking outdoors was basically pointless and young children were at very low risk of serious complications from Covid — school children masked both indoors and outdoors in many democratically governed municipalities. For parents of developing children, this was not a trivial inconvenience. And when Democratic legislators and even public health officials acted as if the restrictions didn’t apply to them, well, that didn’t make the restrictionist case any stronger.

At one point, a sober and honest assessment of the effectiveness of serious Covid initiatives like lockdowns, extended public school closures, and mask and social distancing mandates could have helped future generations more effectively respond to the next global health crisis. But this did not happen in any meaningful sense. And it seems unlikely that anyone will ever take up this mantle now.

It’s understandable that Democrats might not want to give Republicans a line of attack by admitting they made mistakes — or at least that they could have done better. And while nothing would save the Democrats’ electoral chances this year — with a global backlash against incumbents, thanks in large part to global inflation caused by the pandemic — a humble and fair self-analysis may have been a boon to the Democratic brand going forward.

It could also have shown the public that the unprecedented demands placed on them mattered. People had to say goodbye to their loved ones via FaceTime. Countless funerals were never held. Millions of children had their mental health ravaged and social and educational development stunted. Jobs and businesses were lost that can never be recovered. People don’t forgive and forget this kind of pain and trauma – especially if they don’t think it was worth it.

A Democratic-led bill could have served to undermine the accusations of “cover-ups” and “plan epidemics” by the Kennedy contingent in the incoming administration. It could have shown the public that sacrifices made by so many in the name of community safety were appreciated – not just expected of obedience to authority. It could have shown the public that elected representatives work for the people and if given the opportunity, they would always try to do better with hindsight.

Instead, Democrats chose to move on from the pandemic, avoiding any reflection on how their own performance was perceived by the public. Now anti-vaxxers and loyalists to the same president who so tragically mishandled Covid will get their chance to rewrite the history of the pandemic – and they may be the ones responsible for the horrific event that the next “once in a century” pandemic happens in the next four the years.

Democrats were once the party of “I feel your pain.” In the Trump era, they have tried to brand themselves as the party with competent governance. The aftermath of the pandemic would have been a great opportunity to prove it.