Before Democrats and other Trump
haters get too comfortable in that notion, let’s take a good hard look at
reality and its consequences. Let’s start with two concepts that are at the
core of our future survival or failure as a nation: ONE Our divider-in-chief
has deeply driven the wedge between urban and rural priorities such that red
state constituents all-too-frequently hate big cities (which are almost
uniformly blue) and blue states… and vice versa. I fear that there would be
cheering in Mississippi if New York City were wiped off the map and equal joy
in NYC if Mississippi sank forever into the Gulf of Mexico. Think unity is
possible with that much hatred?
TWO The first wave of COVID-19 – the time before
the rolling pattern of reopening efforts in a majority of states – took 67,000
American lives. As May represents the beginning that massive effort to reopen
states, it likewise represents the second wave of COVID-19 infections.
As we have learned from past pandemics, the second wave is almost always vastly
more deadly that the first. Even conservative projections from multiple
academic and government sources set expectations by the end of the summer of
two to five times the death rate to date.
Fact: the overwhelming spread of
COVID-19 is directly linked to human-to-human contact. Where lockdowns have
kept people apart, infection rates have plummeted. Where contact is permitted,
infection rates have soared. Anything that encourages “business as usual” will
spread the virus, a reality even the President acknowledged in his May 3rd
Fox News Virtual Town Hall.
Statistics continue to confirm that
the elderly and the infirm have the lowest survival rates of the seriously
infected. We also know that half of those who have traveled though ICU
ventilator status die, and the majority of those who survive are both severely
traumatized and usually suffer some permanent physical impairment as well.
Those living in sparsely populated rural communities, where distancing is just
part of normal life, don’t seem to care… even as the disease routinely impacts
older people, just like their neighbors, so much worse. They are willing to
sacrifice those elderly folks to get their local economy going, because those
most likely to die are urban based. Losing 250,000 to 500,000 city folk is not
a bad thing when you hate blue so much. The Spanish Flu took 675,000 of us
between 1918 and 1920, more fatalities than we suffered from WWI, WWII, the
Korean and Vietnam Wars, Iraq and Afghanistan… combined. We could get there
again.
That the United States already has vastly
more deaths and infections than any nation on earth (including more
populous China and India) tells you that whatever we are doing and have been
doing just plain isn’t working. That Donald Trump has favored red state governors
and rural populations to push his “liberated” reopening also tells you that
blue state residents are expendable to him. His base does not care about them.
If they have to suffer catastrophic losses to get the red states on track, so
be it! They’ll take the hit in their local communities… as long as the disease
does not start mimicking the death rates in big cities.
Donald Trump will not lose his
base no matter what happens. He’s already picked China to blame for it all,
and his base has totally accepted that deflection. While it is extremely unlikely that China
manufactured and released the virus from a Wuhan laboratory (there is zero direct
evidence to support this theory), they absolutely tried to hide the severity of
their outbreak for as long as they could, regardless of the reason. Trump has
trained his base to substitute blame for holding him responsible.
The US economy is 71% consumer
driven. Wall Street traders love highly volatile markets; rapid and constant
fluctuations are where they make money. Shorting falling shares and going long
on rising shares, but able to implement trades automatically in fraction of a
second based on digital analytics that almost instantly project an immediate up
or down shift. We don’t have those tools. Most of us don’t even have the money
to make a meaningful investment. Traders live for those fluctuations, which
tells you why a soaring stock market is hardly an economic measure that really
impacts 90% of us. It doesn’t. But the President has managed to convinced folks
with no money in the stock market that stock prices are the principal measure
of his economic success. Until recently, unemployment statistics were equally
touted. Now, he’s bet the farm on the market.
Eventually, if the second wave keeps
people from leaving their homes to shop or consume – and a Deutsche Bank study of
US consumers, one of many, tells us only 20% are expecting to resume normal
out-of-home consumption activities over the next three months, 50% in six
months if it seems safe then – the economy will sputter at best. That, combined
with the already-soaring COVID-19 fatality rates, will eventually tank the
market Trump cherishes above all else. With that many more infected persons in
the nation, we either clamp down (and the economy tanks) or we suffer massive
deaths (and the economy tanks). Cities, like it or not, are the engines that
drive our economy the most.
Now look at some of the issues
individuals face in approaching the job market in a sequentially reopening
economy. Who really is ready to visit a theme park, get on an airplane, go out
to dinner and a movie or head on down to the mall? Younger “I can survive this”
people, like those spring breakers who generously brought COVID-19 back to
their parents and grandparents? Maybe, but many of the jobs that existed before
the pandemic have not returned (and may never return). Many of those jobs
depend on restoring consumer demand, which may not happen for years.
And if your governor has issued a go
back to work order, and you are deeply wary (you are perhaps among the older or
more vulnerable in the population) and choose not to risk it, you will lose
your job. Legally, you no longer have an excuse that your employer has to
honor… even if going back to work is a life or death decision for you. Remember
how many in red states have suggested that older folks simply accept that they
are expendable to save the economic world for their children and grandchildren.
Sorry I am reusing the above graphic, but that it even exists told me that
because of my age, I should just accept that I just might not have any further
value as a human being. Time to go.
And yes, the risks in small
communities are less than in crowded cities. Fewer people to come in contact
with. Fewer outsiders visiting. There are a whole lot fewer office towers with
elevators, fewer metropolitan transportation systems, and fewer mass-even
public gathering places in rural America. So red voters… well… they just might not care if a city dweller
works or doesn’t work. Not their problem. Them vs us.
Lacking any measurable empathy, knowing his
base does not care, Donald Trump also appears to be totally abandoning the hundreds
of thousands of additional potential CV-19 fatalities (and millions of newly
infected people) by simply ignoring the pandemic and focusing exclusively on
the economy. Note he slightly reversed himself the next day (see below). Trump
clearly doesn’t want Dr. Anthony Fauci contradicting his distorted presentation
of the “facts.” He needs the economic numbers to look good by November. Blue voters dying? What’s the problem with
that again? “President Trump is looking to wind down the White House
coronavirus task force in the coming weeks even as the number of confirmed
cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. continues to rise, the New York Times reported.
“Vice President Mike Pence, who Trump
appointed to lead the task force, confirmed that such a plan was in the works
on Tuesday [5/5]. ‘I think we’re having conversations about that and about what
the proper time is for the task force to complete its work and for the ongoing
efforts to take place on an agency-by-agency level. And we’ve already
begun to talk about a transition plan with FEMA,’ Pence told reporters… ‘But
it’s — it really is all a reflection of the tremendous progress we’ve made as a
country.’” Yahoo News, May 5th. That “progress” a rising infection
and mortality rate which will further make the United States the global CV-19
death champion by even a wider margin. There were screams from all quarters at
that set of statements.
“One day
after saying that the COVID-19 task force would be winding down, President
Donald Trump said Wednesday [5/6] that it would continue indefinitely, but
focus more on rebooting the economy.” Associated Press, May 6th.
Sorry Pres, we got you the first time. You let us know that the disease part of
this crisis is simply not your priority. You can blame failure on governors
anyway. Old and sick people, maybe a few
younger ones die. So, what. In his mind and the minds of his base, they are
likely to be urban voters who don’t support him anyway. But there’s a catch!
Donald Trump is likely to face
terrible news just before the November election. News he will not be able to
explain away, except to his base. His pledge of a viable vaccine a within two months
after the election is probably not going to get folks to believe he has
the solution that will fix everything given his sinking credibility with all
but the most blinded diehard Republicans. The stock market, the unemployment
rate and the massive accumulation of COVID-19 deaths will not look good to
anyone looking for a reason why they should reelect Trump, numbers that will
continue totally to contradict his promises and predictions.
So, let’s assume Biden wins the
November election and inherits a nation with red and blue at each other’s
throats? An economy in shambles. Budget deficits at humongous levels. US
trading power and global political influence at its lowest level in a century.
And the vaccine isn’t quite ready yet. How many strains of CV-19 are there anyway?
People are still dying. Trump’s base, which happens to be well-armed, will
pretty much oppose anything Biden wants to do… even to unite people… simply
because he (blue man) wants to do it. The way the GOP in Congress
opposed everything Obama wanted to do simply because he wanted to do it. If the
GOP has a majority (or even blocking power) in either House, gridlock meets
stalemate.
If the Dems have enough post-election
congressional control to push legislation through, there will be red
constituent resistance – some may be pretty aggressive – and a push to get
matters decided by the newly configured Trump litany of conservative federal
judges, particularly the Supreme Court. Or simply open defiance. That hatred,
that total disdain between so many red and blue constituents, won’t just disappear,
even with a new vaccine.
Deeply in debt, hating each other’s
guts with vastly divergent and more polarized views of how to run a country,
and truly lacking that hopefulness that had previously defined the greatness of
the “we can do anything we set our minds and bodies to” United States… how
exactly do we reconfigure and continue as a single functioning nation? Oh, and
just remember, that roughly 30% of the population of the United States will
elect 70% of the US Senate… and ask yourself if our system of government can
actually work in a modern era. Especially now.
I’m
Peter Dekom, and until we care enough to try and accommodate and care about all
of us together again – compromise and build again – the United States of
America is in its final years of viable existence.
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