The COVID-19 pandemic is the most severe crisis many Western societies have faced since the 2nd World War. In the very early days of the pandemic, I became director of a large-scale social science project to understand how the pandemic influenced Western democracies, which simultaneously gained a prominent role in the Danish government and media response. In this talk, I will weave together published and forthcoming articles examining how the pandemic fueled radicalization, condemnation and polarization across Western countries and beyond – and how we may avoid similar outcomes from the next crises facing us related to, for example, increasing international and climate-related tensions.