Why this prediction is judged wrong

Claim (normalized): From September 2020 onward, the U.S. would not re‑enter broad, government‑mandated COVID "second lockdowns" comparable to spring 2020; red states in particular would not implement renewed comprehensive lockdowns, and nationally the country would not "go back into lockdowns."

1. Blue‑state “second lockdowns” clearly did occur

After the podcast date (19 Sep 2020), several large states re‑imposed stay‑at‑home or very close to stay‑at‑home orders affecting tens of millions of people:

• California: On December 3, 2020, Governor Newsom announced a Regional Stay Home Order. When a region’s ICU capacity dropped below 15%, all individuals in that region were ordered to stay home except for permitted work and essential errands; private gatherings were prohibited; most sectors were closed except critical infrastructure and limited‑capacity retail. This applied to regions including Southern California and the Bay Area and covered the majority of the state’s population for weeks.(riversideca.gov)
• Oregon: On November 13, 2020, Governor Kate Brown put the entire state under a two‑week “freeze” with strict limits on social gatherings and a shutdown of on‑site service for many businesses; contemporaneous coverage explicitly referred to this as a “second lockdown.”(capitalpress.com)
• Washington state: On November 15, 2020, Governor Inslee imposed new statewide restrictions that banned most indoor social gatherings with people outside the household, prohibited indoor restaurant dining, and closed indoor operations for gyms, movie theaters, and other venues. These were significant, renewed lockdown‑style measures in response to the winter surge.(en.wikipedia.org)

These were broad, government‑mandated restrictions, described officially as Stay Home / Stay‑at‑Home Orders, and in scope and severity they were clearly comparable to the initial spring lockdowns in those states, even if not identical in every detail.

Given that the prediction was phrased as "There’s not going to be a second lockdown... we’re not going to go back into lockdowns," this national‑level assertion is falsified by what happened in multiple large U.S. states.

2. Red states mostly avoided renewed full stay‑at‑home orders, but that doesn’t rescue the overall claim

It is true that many Republican‑led states did not re‑impose statewide stay‑at‑home orders after reopening from the first wave:

• States like South Dakota never adopted a statewide stay‑at‑home order at all and continued to resist lockdowns.(en.wikipedia.org)
• Texas and Mississippi had stay‑at‑home orders only in spring 2020; later surges were managed with partial restrictions (e.g., capacity limits, mask mandates) rather than a second full lockdown.(en.wikipedia.org)

So the narrower sub‑claim that "certainly any of the red states aren’t going to do it" was largely borne out in practice. However, the normalized prediction and the original quote go further, asserting that the U.S. as a whole would not go back into lockdowns.

Because multiple populous states did in fact implement second stay‑home/lockdown orders, the overall prediction—framed as “there’s not going to be a second lockdown” and “we’re not going to go back into lockdowns” in the United States—is incorrect, even though the red‑vs‑blue nuance was partly accurate.