This unprecedented world-historical event has the potential to lead to significant changes in our society and politics. By mid-April 2020, as we closed out a month of lockdowns with the anticipation of another month or more of the same, the dim shadows of those changes began to take shape. This post will be the first in an ongoing series of monthly checkins, where I try to meet three objectives:
- Stamp the current mood and moment based on polling and a round up of what is driving the news; this can be used to track continuity or change on a monthly basis.
- Try to name the changes that appear to be occurring, or the changes that others (journalists, writers, pundits) suggest are likely to occur
- Pose questions to be revisited each month; this will help establish prior assumptions and give some rigor to the analysis of the changes
Polling Round Up
Pew and Gallop did some much cited polls in mid-April showing strong majorities support the lockdowns:
Gallop Poll: 66% of respondents said they were concerned the lockdowns would be ended too quickly. as do 51% of Republican aligned voters, with 81% for Democrat aligned voters. This shows broad support for the lockdowns, since most Americans do not want them to go away. The question is how quickly this will shift as we enter the second month of national lockdowns. By itself the 30% partisan gap will be an interesting indicator of views of the lockdowns based on whether that gap closes, and which side moves toward the other: Democrats becoming more skeptical of the lockdowns or Republicans less skeptical; it’s possible Republicans will grow more skeptical, thus widening the gap.
Pew Poll: More Americans are worried about contracting COVID-19 than not worried by 14 points. Whether this split shrinks, widens, or remains the same will be an indicator of fear of the virus, and this support for efforts to fight it. The split for worry over financial effects is only 3 points (with a majority of 51% not worried and 48% are worried). How much this split increases and in what direction will be a good indicator of how the economy is affecting people.
As a baseline, according to fivethirtyeight’s polling aggregate, Americans concern over infection increased from 41% in mid-February to 74% in mid-April. Concern over the economy rose from 55% to 87% over the same period.
The country is evenly split on Trump’s response: 48.7% Disapprove vs. 47.6% Approve.
Scope of the Challenge
If the virus simply goes away, or the problems it poses to society become less sever, then the changes I hope to track and document here will not occur, or they will be less consequential. However, if the medical, economic and political crises intensify, so will the changes to society. Right now in mid-April 2020 experts think the the crisis will intensify.
This New York Times piece, based on interviews with 20 medical experts, does a good job illustrating just how hard it will be to get back to normal. Here are a few key details:
- China did not allow Wuhan, Nanjing or other cities to reopen until intensive surveillance found zero new cases for 14 straight days, the virus’s incubation period.
- Reopening requires declining cases for 14 days, the tracing of 90 percent of contacts, an end to health care worker infections, recuperation places for mild cases and many other hard-to-reach goals.
- The C.D.C. has about 600 contact tracers [in mid April] … China hired and trained 9,000 in Wuhan alone. Dr. Frieden recently estimated that the United States will need at least 300,000.
- Most American vaccine plants produce only about 5 million to 10 million doses a year… But if a vaccine is invented, the United States could need 300 million doses — or 600 million if two shots are required. And just as many syringes.
On testing: About 20 percent of those tested so far were positive for the virus, a rate that the researchers say is too high…. The researchers said that expanded testing could reduce the rate to 10 percent, which is the maximum rate recommended by the World Health Organization. In Germany, that number is 7 percent, and in South Korea, it is closer to 3 percent.
CDC Director Redfield is also saying that next winter we could be is worse shape because a resurgence of COVID-19 will correspond with regular flu season: As stay-at-home orders are lifted, officials need to stress the continued importance of social distancing, he said. They also need to massively scale up their ability to identify the infected through testing and find everyone they interact with through contact tracing. Doing so prevents new cases from becoming larger outbreaks.
Political Weirding
Politics is currently in flux in long term and short term ways. The long term flux has to do with the expansion of government to correct inequities laid bare by this crisis.
Dan Balz wrote in long form on this topic: “For the first time, many Americans are looking to government for their very economic survival. In time, that could make them look at government differently. … “I think it could be paradigm shifting,” said Janet L. Yellen, the former Federal Reserve chair, arguing that this crisis could generate greater public support for more spending on health care and safety net programs, which she favors. The coming battle over the size and scope of government has not been fully joined, and its shape remains uncertain. The first engagement will come during this fall’s presidential election.”
Jamelle Bouie is more to the point in this piece: “Should the health and economic crisis extend through the year, there’s a strong chance that Americans will move even further down that road, as businesses shutter, unemployment continues to mount and the federal government is the only entity that can keep the entire economy afloat. But this logic — that ordinary people need security in the face of social and economic volatility — is as true in normal times as it is under crisis. If something like a social democratic state is feasible under these conditions, then it is absolutely possible when growth is high and unemployment is low…. voters might begin to see this essential truth.”
The short term flux is how Trump and his allies will manage this crisis to keep from being tossed out of office this November.
As Jeremy Menchick says in this tweet thread: “Continued protests will distract the electorate. If the election is a fight between Trump vs Governors who refuse to open their economies, Trump doesn’t have to defend his record on COVID-19. He’s an advocate for liberty! [and} will help Trump rebuild his coalition of 2016.”
David Frum puts it more starkly: “What if reopening leads to a surge in deaths that cannot be politically contained? In that case, Trump reverts to his Plan B: a culture war against Democratic governors and blue states.” Or by blaming the Chinese, which GOP operatives are already trying to push, with some resistance from Trump and others in the Administration.
Questions Going Forward
When will the need for massive federal intervention in the crisis become apparent to most Americans, if at all? (Some Senate Republicans are already calling for more of a federal role in testing than the Trump administration has agreed to)
When will economic fears overcome fears of the virus? Will fears of the virus–and thus support for the lockdowns–fade?
Will the anti-lockdown protests grow to Tea Party size and cultural status? (It is pretty clear the astroturf protests are being funded and organized by a narrow set of Trump-aligned interest groups)