What Republicans Fear More Than COVID-19

I don't just wear this mask for me.
I wear it for you, too.

Do you wear a mask or a MAGA hat?

Motivated by our fear of mass death, we made big changes and we made them fast. So-called socialist pipe dreams now seem reasonable. We have had a taste of universal healthcare and sick leave, Universal Basic Income, tele-medicine, distance learning and remote work.

So far, the mass deaths from COVID-19 have been mostly limited to a few hot spots in blue states. This is nearly certain to change soon, of course. But it’s no wonder there’s an effort to immediately yank things back to how they were before people begin to realize a better, more equitable world and a cleaner environment are absolutely possible.

The plan so far is pretty transparent: They are appealing to people’s sense of faith and freedom and are instilling distrust in scientists and experts. And it’s working well.

The people who scoff at the notion of requiring a mask are quite happy to don a MAGA hat. Those who are outraged by demonstrations for racial justice and women’s rights are now demonstrating for their right to spread sickness. Many who believe financial problems are no excuse for an abortion turn out to be quite comfortable citing financial reasons for letting the elderly die. 

The goal isn’t for more people to die, of course. The goal is just to keep people from thinking for themselves. Our current system absolutely depends on having a core group of people who do not make fact-based decisions.

How does the majority vote? No Republican president since George H. W. Bush has won the popular vote for his first term, and even he failed to win a second term. After him, we had Democrat Bill Clinton for two terms. Then we had Republican George W. Bush for two terms, but in his first term, he lost the popular vote. Then we had Democrat Barack Obama for two terms, and now we have another Republican president who lost the popular vote. 

Without the Electoral College, the ideas of the GOP are not attractive to enough Americans to win many elections.

You probably know there are two ways to look at the U.S. map of election results.

From one perspective, the map is a sea of red. But look at it in 3D and the story is quite different. Maps that take into consideration actual human voters, not just empty acres of cows or corn, illustrate how densely packed the blue areas are. (For an example, check out this Metrocosm map.)

Here is a highly simplified view of what has happened, based on my observations as someone who grew up in a town of 200 and understands rural culture: Many young people who had the intelligence and drive to pursue a professional career went to college and found it necessary to move to the big city in order to find a job in their field. Other folks chose to stay in their community of origin, where they pursued whatever blue collar career they could find. (The GOP view, of course, is that they send their good kids off to college only to have them brainwashed by the evil liberal professors.)

But what would happen if remote work, which we just demonstrated works pretty well, meant you didn’t have to move to a big city in order to get a professional job? 

Some people love the city lifestyle, with art, museums, trendy restaurants and all the rest. But others have extended family in their community of origin they’d like to live near. And even some city-born folk would like to take advantage of cheap rural housing. You can usually purchase a good-sized house with a yard for much less than you’d pay to rent a studio apartment in the big city. No, you don’t have a cute coffee shop down the street, but the trade-off is you can leave your doors unlocked.

Imagine if a software engineer could leave Seattle and move to Cornville while still making a Seattle salary. We would stop sorting ourselves into city libs and country cons. We’d mix. Maybe we’d hate each other less. Maybe we’d understand each other better. 

But for sure, all those giant expanses of red country would be empurpled. And that could potentially be a game changer. 

We’ve already demonstrated conclusively that when fewer people drive to work, our air immediately becomes cleaner. 

There’s lots of affordable housing available in smaller towns. Rather than building more and more apartments in big, booming cities, we can make it easier for people to live in places where the infrastructure is already in place. 

With more progressive national leadership, we would succeed in changing so many things. We’d pass higher minimum wage laws, because we can no longer claim our grocery store and restaurant workers don’t deserve it. 

We’d have paid sick leave for everyone, because nobody wants to catch a potentially fatal disease from a colleague or service worker who cannot afford to stay home. 

We’d have some kind of universal health care. The shortcomings of our health care system are now visible to the entire world, and we can no longer hold a straight face when we claim our system is the best. 

.

COVID-19 has already killed tens of thousands of Americans. But our current political leaders are even more dangerous. I pray our scientists will save us before the GOP manages to destroy us.