How COVID-19 will influence our politics
Today is the unofficial start to summer, but it’s also a time to honor military personnel who died in service to our country. And this year, as we remember them on Memorial Day, the COVID-19 death toll also continues to climb close to the 100,000 mark.
This somber combination got me thinking more broadly about past generations of Americans and the struggles they faced.
Let’s suppose you were born in 1911, as were two of my grandparents. You survived the Great Influenza, the Great Depression, and World War II—all by the time you hit your early 30s.
Think this might influence your political worldview for… oh, I don’t know, THE REST OF YOUR LIFE?
This realization has only hit me, recently, as I contemplate how COVID-19 might influence our politics, going forward.
Some of my grandparents’ traditions and hang-ups were, no doubt, the result of a lack of education. But many of the things they believed were the very logical conclusions almost anyone might arrive at, had they lived through a pandemic, a Great Depression, and two world wars.
You might be more fearful of disease. This might lead you to be very skeptical of foreigners. You might be worried that a new depression is around every corner. These experiences might lead to both positive and negative externalities. But one thing’s for sure: they would definitively inform your lifestyle, customs, and politics.
Growing up, I was always curious about why their generation paid so much attention to the grooming habits of “dirty, long-haired hippies.” This always struck me as weird and overcritical. Didn’t they worship a dude with long hair and sandals? Now, in post COVID-19 world, I think I better understand their emphasis on cleanliness.
Of course, not everyone who came out of that experience embraced a cautious, conservative lifestyle. Experience informs our worldview, but it turns out that some of this is hardwired. A pretty famous Cornell University study suggests conservatives are more sensitive to images they perceive to be gross or disgusting than are progressives.
In a recent column for Vox, Ezra Klein contrasted the two political camps:
“Some people are innately more suspicious of change, of outsiders, of novelty. That base orientation will nudge them toward living in the town where they grew up, eating the foods they know and love, worshipping in the church their parents attended. It will also nudge them toward political conservatism.
The reverse is true, too. Some people are naturally more oriented toward newness, toward diversity, toward disruption. That base orientation will push them to live in big cities, try exotic foods, travel widely, appreciate weird art, sample different spiritualities. It will also nudge them toward political liberalism.”
This view strikes me as plausible, which is why our current political debate is so disconcerting.
If you want to be reminded of how powerful a drug partisanship is, consider that it is, ostensibly, conservatives who think fears about COVID-19 are overblown.
On the basis of these descriptions, today’s conservatives and progressives appear to have pulled a Freaky Friday and reversed their roles. Conservatives should be the ones panicking about COVID-19, while progressives should be placating the masses and saying that the concern is overblown.
Donald Trump has a logical incentive to endorse the “nothing to see here” narrative. He wants to reopen businesses and save his re-election chances. What is more, his constituency resents being told what to do by government—even though people worried about facial recognition software should be more than happy to wear a mask!
In the current political context, it makes sense for conservatives to, at least publicly, downplay coronavirus concerns. However, doing so defies what we know about the different psychologies of conservatives and progressives.
Here’s my guess: Once the short-term political considerations are over, both sides will return to their natural state. These tendencies are too hardwired for us to permanently cast them off. Conservative populists are already using fear of disease to stoke animosity toward China (in some cases, this may be warranted, as long as the focus is on the Chinese Communist Party and not on Asian Americans). They are channeling this instinct in a direction that does not conflict with Trump’s narrative.
There likely will be many other changes that come from this experience. Some of these changes may be healthy. Others, we may look back on with regret. But there will be changes.
Regardless, one thing is probably for sure: Our grandkids will think we’re crazy.
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