The Partisan Pandemic

There’s nothing like a crisis to bring out in bold relief the differences between left and right. The coronavirus bailout passed by Congress and signed into law just a couple of days ago presented a facade of cooperation between Democrats and Republicans: the bill passed the Senate 96 to 0. But I have been struck by how differently the two parties have approached their responsibilities to Americans and America in this unprecedented medical and economic disaster. There has been nearly blindered media focus on Trump and the lying incompetence with which he has proposed one bad idea after another, while not doing what everyone thinks should be done, then bragging about it. It’s worth looking beyond him to the political struggles across the country to save lives and win votes.

It’s important to see that the coronavirus has affected Democratic states much more heavily than Republican states thus far, because Democrats control urban states where the virus struck earlier and more rapidly. That partially explains the partisan differences in response to the pandemic at the level of state governments. The first states to issue statewide stay-at-home orders were California (March 19), Illinois (March 21), New Jersey (March 21), and New York (March 22), all states with Democratic governments and large urban populations.

The next wave of statewide orders between March 22 and March 29 included 22 states: New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Louisiana, New Mexico, Colorado, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, and Alaska. This group includes 8 states under Democratic control, 10 where the state government is mixed, and 4 Republican states.

The final group over the past couple of days includes 3 Republican states, Arizona, Kansas and Tennessee, two mixed states, North Carolina and Maryland, and one Democratic state, Virginia. Still with no statewide orders are two Democratic states, Maine and Nevada, 2 mixed states, Iowa and Pennsylvania, and 14 Republican states across the South and West. Summarizing, only 2 out of 15 Democratic states do not have statewide orders, 2 out of 14 mixed government states, but 14 out of 21 Republican states.

Within states without statewide orders, there are many counties or cities where local stay-at-home orders have been issued. Again, these tend to follow partisan differences. In heavily Republican Mississippi, the only municipality to issue a stay-at-home order was Oxford, home of the University of Mississippi, whose mayor is a Democrat. The 6 states where no jurisdiction has issued an order, as identified by the NY Times, include 4 of the states which voted most heavily for Trump in 2016.

Some people have gotten news coverage for their seeming indifference to reasonable precautions and other people’s health.  We might call them outliers on the spectrum of responses. Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt faced wide criticism after he tweeted a photo of himself and his family at a crowded restaurant on March 14. The next day he declared a state of emergency for Oklahoma. Pastor Tony Spell in Baton Rouge defied the state’s orders about social distancing to hold massive services twice last week. He told a reporter that he is not concerned about his congregants contracting the virus. “The virus, we believe, is politically motivated.” Devin Nunes, Congressman from California, urged Americans to go out to eat on March 15: “it’s a great time to just go out, go to a local restaurant.” Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie, an opponent of the stimulus bill that was just passed, forced many representatives to travel to Washington to vote for it, earning even Trump’s criticism. Within the media, FOX News is an outlier, because of the lack of concern about the spreading virus broadcast by some, not all, of its stars. Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Trish Regan downplayed the dangers and blamed Trump’s opponents for whipping up unnecessary “hysteria”. That is, until Trump declared a national emergency, and they changed their tune. All of these outliers are Republicans.

Meanwhile, the most politically active Democrat has been New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, whose daily media briefings have displayed constantly updated statistics, careful reasoning, and concern for the victims of the disease. His briefings have been broadcast live by the major news networks, making him a media star. He is exhibit A for what government can do and should do in a crisis.

The background of these widely differing political responses is the gulf between Republican and Democratic voters in their views of the pandemic. A Gallup poll in early March showed that 42% of Republicans were very or somewhat worried about the virus, versus 73% of Democrats. An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll in mid-March showed that 54% of Republicans, but only 20% of Democrats thought the coronavirus threat had been blown out of proportion. The demographic groups with the greatest allegiance to Trump are the same that have taken the least precautions to prevent the spread of the virus: white males without a college education, people from small towns and rural communities.

These partisan differences reflect the circular interaction among mutually reinforcing causes: the early virulence in a few cities and the lack of cases in rural areas; the suspicion among Republicans across the country of the “elites”, the medical professionals who have provided accurate information and warnings for months; and the official Republican messaging, led by Trump, that there was nothing to worry about.

Less easy to explain is why the recent sharp reversal in Trump’s message has not led to skepticism among his supporters. After suggesting that everything would be over by Easter, Trump on Sunday said that 2.2 million people might die unless preventative measures are taken. “And so if we can hold that down, as we’re saying, to 100,000, that’s a horrible number, maybe even less, but to 100,000, so we have between 100 and 200,000, we all, together, have done a very good job.” In China, there have been less than 3500 deaths. Worldwide the death toll just passed 40,000. Thus his new message is that if 200,000 Americans die, he, Trump, has “done a very good job”.

And Republicans will believe that.

Steve Hochstadt

Jacksonville IL

March 31, 2020

Hand-Wringing about Bernie

Now that the Democratic primary campaign is all but decided in favor of Joe Biden, the wailing of Bernie Sanders’ supporters that the whole process was fixed is hard to ignore. I don’t believe a word of it.

I have supported Bernie since I lived in Maine and he was running for Vermont’s seat in the House in the 1990s. I supported him against Hillary Clinton and I supported him again this time, even buying his book, which is very similar to one of his stump speeches. I was unexpectedly hopeful when he won Nevada, and looked like the front-runner for the nomination, a Jewish man who called himself a democratic socialist and advocated fundamental changes in our politics and economy. I didn’t think he could accomplish all that, even if he won the nomination and the Presidency, but he was pushing our national politics ever closer to my own vision of a just society.

Then came South Carolina and then Super Tuesday and the next Tuesday, and it was all over. Joe Biden won nearly everything convincingly. All the other candidates dropped out. It was not surprising that most then endorsed Biden. Elizabeth Warren, the other candidate in the “progressive lane”, did not endorse anyone, perhaps a reflection of her spat with Bernie over whether he said last year that a woman couldn’t win, which in fact turned out to be true.

Bernie himself has not yet admitted the obvious. His campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, sent me a message last week about the poor electoral results, which began, “And while our campaign has won the battle of ideas, we are losing the battle over electability to Joe Biden.” Bernie won the battle of ideas in my head, but not in the heads of a majority of voters. I don’t think that the big majorities who voted for Biden picked him because they thought he was more likely to beat Trump, but because they liked the idea of him being President more than they wanted Bernie.

The evidence about the “war of ideas” is not easy to interpret. Some of Bernie’s ideas that were decried as too radical by his more moderate competitors were surprisingly popular with Democratic voters. The exit polls on Super Tuesday by NBC News showed that majorities of Democratic primary voters in Texas (57%) and California (53%), and pluralities in North Carolina (48%) and Tennessee (47%) expressed a favorable opinion about “socialism”. Majorities of Democratic voters in 4 southern states supported Medicare for All: Mississippi (62%), Tennessee (53%), Virginia (52%), and Alabama (51%). Half of Missouri Democrats said that the economic system “needs a complete overhaul”.

That support for progressive positions did not turn into support for Bernie himself, the personification of those policies. We need much more information about what went on in voters’ minds to understand that. But the claims of Bernie supporters that the intervention of high-level Democratic operatives, such as the Democratic National Committee, working hand-in-hand with the big media networks, made sure that the less dangerous Biden won don’t convince me. There is no evidence for such a conspiracy.

Common Dreams argued before Super Tuesday that Michael Bloomberg, representing the whole crooked Democratic “establishment”, was going to buy the nomination, except he couldn’t. Change.org circulated an online petition calling on people to demand “DNC: Stop rigging the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination and convention”.

I don’t think that most primary voters were influenced by possible DNC machinations, and the outcries about fixing the convention with moderate superdelegates is irrelevant. Bernie just lost to Joe in our very democratic primary process. He could not have expected his moderate competitors to endorse anyone but Biden. The voters have spoken.

I don’t know if Bernie would have done better against Trump in November. All the head-to-head polls that tried to predict the ultimate outcome are out the window, now that the coronavirus crisis changes everything.

The Sanders campaign says it will continue into the New York primary a month from now. I think Bernie should ease out of the race, now that it’s hard to have a race and the decision is already clear. I do appreciate that his campaign messaging has now shifted to urging his supporters to donate to a variety of organizations which are helping people affected by the pandemic. His campaign manager Shakir said Bernie would “continue his fight to ensure we are protecting working people, low-income people, and the most vulnerable communities, not just giant corporations and Wall Street in any response to the virus.” His campaign website offers a detailed response to the crisis. This message lists many such organizations which could use help. I hope he does that, because we need strong voices pushing our politics toward more economic and biological justice.

Bernie Sanders was always a longshot. He has shoved the national political discussion leftward and will continue to do that, but his presidential possibilities, if they ever existed, are gone. It’s time for progressives, even democratic socialists like me, to go all in for Biden. He’s not our dream, but he’s not a Trump nightmare.

Steve Hochstadt

Jacksonville IL

March 24, 2020

Life in Lockdown

Here in Jacksonville, we do not yet have any confirmed cases of coronavirus, but we are preparing for that certainty in the very near future. Part of that preparation means coming to an understanding of what life will be like until the virus no longer threatens us. Life in lockdown means an unprecedented shrinking of our normal activities.

We will probably not have a national lockdown. China, Italy and Spain have already declared that people should not leave their homes, except for absolutely necessary trips to buy food or medicine or visit sick relatives. But local lockdowns are spreading as quickly as the virus itself. Seven counties around San Francisco imposed “shelter-in-place”, banning all nonessential travel. California Governor Gavin Newsom suggested this might be extended to the whole state. New Jersey imposed a statewide evening curfew, and New York and Connecticut also “strongly discouraged” non-essential travel between 8 PM and 5 AM. Several New Jersey cities were in lockdown as of Monday. Whatever new rules come into play, we are contemplating a voluntary lockdown of our lives, and trying to figure out what that will mean.

No going to the movies, no meals out, no concerts or plays, no parties. Dinners with friends are probably out. Sports events are all cancelled anyway, and going to the gym is a bad idea. Classes are being cancelled across the country, from preschool to university. Work from home is being mandated by every company that can manage it. Shopping should only be for necessities, many of which are gone from the stores anyway.

What can we do? Phone friends and relatives and talk for hours about what we are not doing. Watch TV, but that will also be much more limited than before. Professional sports are gone. Shows that provide needed laughs, like Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show”, have no audiences. I expect that many normal TV shows will not be made. Movie sets will be abandoned, which means that months from now there may be no new movies.

Travel will nearly disappear, meaning hotels, airlines, taxis, train services, restaurants and every business which caters to travelers will take a hit for months. Some won’t survive. I question every impulse I have to drive somewhere local. How close will I need to get to people? Will I have to exchange things, like money? Are their door handles wiped down?

Movie ticket sales fell by nearly half this past weekend over last, meaning the worst weekend since data began to be collected in the 1980s.

Perhaps the greatest inconvenience, in my view, is the unpredictability of the end of lockdown. Shutting down our normal lives and remaining at home for a week or two is very different than for 3 months. Already a number of responsible people and institutions have signaled that we should be thinking in terms of months. Carnival's Princess Cruises are stopping for two months. The Louisiana presidential primary has been delayed for 2 months. On Monday, the NY Times quoted some experts who predicted that the crisis will not begin to abate for another 2 months, and that already seems outdated. Trump said on Monday that the outbreak might not be controlled until July or August. There apparently is a good chance that the virus might abate during the summer and then return in the fall.

By the time that normal life returns, whenever that is, it won’t be normal. Many businesses will close because they couldn’t survive weeks or months without revenue, especially small businesses, like stand-alone restaurants, coffee shops, boutiques. Home repairs will be postponed, depriving plumbers, electricians, appliance repairers of income.

I’m not complaining. We are retired. We have no responsibilities to other people that could put us in a dangerous place. Our pensions and Social Security payments arrive in our bank account.

But we can’t offer much help to our children, who are staying home with their children. We won’t be distributing money through the economy, providing incomes for others. We are enjoined to keep ourselves safe, which means to isolate ourselves from everyone else. The more self-sufficient we are, the better. The interconnected world, the global community, is disintegrating. Every country, every town, every family for themselves.

What kind of world will we come back to, when we unlock our lives?

Steve Hochstadt

Jacksonville IL

March 19, 2020