The pandemic was a national emergency. Covid was an extremely contagious disease without a lot of existing immunity. The right call was made for the safety of several hundred million Americans. Most other countries made the exact same one.

People only care about the freedoms to do things they themselves enjoy. Nothing new about that. Much like people only care about authoritarian overreach when the opposition is in power. We should always care, because the power taken by one will remain for the next. Eventually if too much power accrues to any branch it will end the separation of powers. It may have already happened, and once it does, there are no parties, only that boot. Authoritarians are all the same party, they exist at the integer wrap of left vs right. It is why you see extremists from both ends swapping parties far more often than those towards the middle.