5 (Possible) Benefits of the Coronavirus Pandemic
There is an inherent danger in seeking silver linings amid a growing world-wide pandemic, particularly when information seems to shift from day-to-day. Even as this article is written, there is news that the danger to young people is much higher than previously believed and a growing concern about the disparity of fatalities from country to country. Is the virus mutating quickly? There are already two strains. What happens if a third (or more) appears and is more lethal than the last? Although humor is and will continue to be a powerful weapon, a listicle with items such as The Family Toilet Paper Hog is Exposed seems silly at best and ignorantly callous at worst.
However, there are some potential benefits to this pandemic that could reveal themselves in the coming months and years.
America Will Reexamine a $738 Billion Defense Budget
America is an empire and we pay a high price for its maintenance. With a sky filled with military satellites, physical bases spanning the world, ships and submarines roaming every open sea and undoubtedly the most sophisticated cyber presence on the planet, there is no place and no one we cannot touch. As many others have pointed out, the United States defense budget dwarfs those of our allies and enemies. What is the return on this investment? There has not been another 9/11 level attack and I have no doubt that many attempts to create one have been thwarted. I would also acknowledge a general surprise of how few lone wolf or other low-level foreign spawned terror attacks have occurred. Good fortune or an incredible unseen counter-terrorism network? We do not know.
However, we do know that we have carried on two incredibly expensive land wars/hostile occupations for a generation with stalemate results. For all of our spending, China has continued to rise, Russia annexed the territory of another sovereign country, the Saudis and Iran fight a proxy war with horrific results for Yemen, democracy falls into a general retreat across the globe and the world seems as dangerous as any time since the cold war. Simultaneously, the United States slides ever further backward in numerous quality-of-life measurements.
At a time when America is clearly unprepared for a major global health crisis, it will be inevitable for questions to be raised about the wisdom of spending nearly three-quarters of a trillion dollars on military defense. Unfortunately, support of military expenditures has been fused so tightly to patriotism that it has created a self-reinforcing machoistic pattern of politicians proving their love of country by pushing for ever higher spending. God forbid anyone question defense spending and open themselves up to accusations of not supporting the military and thus hating their country.
This cycle can be broken now with a serious discussion of what exactly is “national defense?” Is a strategic medical reserve as important as the strategic oil reserve? Do we need another missile system or a sophisticated and nimble medical system? What if we moved $200 billion from defense to the National Institutes of Health? What would be the tangible positive change for the American people? Anyone previously at risk of being accused and dismissed as a “bleeding heart” for asking why so much is spent on the military when the country cannot develop and distribute a viral test with necessary speed and runs out of basic medical equipment in the first weeks of a crisis will now get a fair hearing. Because it is an eminently fair question.
The Second Amendment Becomes Largely Settled
In the spirit of full disclosure, I have long felt that the intended purpose of the second amendment has been twisted out of any reasonable recognition for a twenty-first century society. Not owning a gun made me feel so evolved and superior that I have no doubt that my elitism oozed out of me anytime the subject of guns came up. So as the coronavirus pandemic has progressed and the multiple Hollywood images of post-apocalyptic America have swum in my head, I have felt naked and vulnerable. No doubt, I am not the only one.
My feelings about 300 million guns floating around America has become irrelevant when I do not have one of them. Yes, I know that this is largely irrational. I also know how I feel about not being able to protect my daughter if this pandemic goes sideways and order starts to break down. After all, the Feds are not off to a good start. When this is over, I am happy to have a debate about how to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people or what constitutes a military vs. a civilian weapon, but not about right to have one. If the anti-gun movement has lost me, it has probably lost enough people to settle the issue once and for all.
People Who Believe in Government Will Get to Run It
At the risk of being overly political or painting with too broad of a brush, one of the major differences between the two political parties is that one, the Democrats, believes in government as an instrument for good and the other, the Republicans, have long defined government as the root of all of our problems. This is easily seen in recent presidential election cycles where Democrats talk ad nauseum about this policy and that program and all the various ways they intend to use the power of the federal government to make people’s lives better. By contrast, Republican debates have often centered around what federal departments to shutter, the regulations they intend to sweep aside and how much they can disengage government from individual lives because freedom.
Unfortunately, when there is an inherent distrust, disregard and open hostility for a system you find yourself in charge of, chances are things will not go smoothly in a crisis. Hurricane Katrina? 9/11 and the blundered Iraq war? The 2008 financial crisis? Now a viral pandemic that was warned about in January and nothing was done until external political pressures drove action. Listing examples invites a swarm of counter examples and the point here is not to create a joust between political parties. Rather, it is to point out that a crisis of this magnitude reveals a strong, well-functioning and well-administered federal government is critical when events eclipse anything a state or municipality can handle. In a globalized twenty-first century that is rapidly transforming American life, the federal government will need to play a strong part in helping its citizens navigate the storms of pandemics, automation, global trade, educational shortfalls, crumbling infrastructure, healthcare and climate change, just to name a few.
Regardless of party, a sneering disdain in, and an incompetence for, government will (hopefully) become a disqualifier for those seeking office.
America Begins Shifting from Investing in Corporations into People
Imagine, if you will, a man who purchases a professional football team. The team had a lot of success in the past but lately had been mediocre and the fan base is restless. At his first press conference, he promises the fans that everything he is going to do as the new owner will be for the benefit of the team. Everyone is excited. Finally, change and a championship soon to follow.
The owner takes on a lot of debt and builds new corporate luxury boxes, incentivizes sponsors to advertise with the team and even sells the name of the stadium to the highest bidder. The value of the team rises in all the business publications and fans are still excited even though the team missed the playoffs again.
There is a lot of debate and blame about why the team is so down. Forty years pass and the team has yet to make it to the playoffs. However, everything is branded, and the team is one of the most valuable in the league. With a new logo and slogan promising a return to their old winning ways, a lot of people are excited, but unfortunately, it is another 4–12 season.
And so it is with America, where the brand has been hyped, the marketing honed and the corporate sponsors have been lavishly catered to for 40 years while the team on the field, its citizens, continued to atrophy. After the 2008 corporate bailouts, which revealed the extent to which capital (business) is supported at the expense of labor (people), a deep anger was sown into the soil of the nation.
Today, even the most tone-deaf politician can likely hear the rumble of people demanding that help come to individuals first. Evidence of this strengthened mindset was revealed when the Republican’s more-than-dead-tired mantra of Tax Cut! was played, this time as a payroll tax reduction, and was quickly killed when someone pointed out that millions would be laid off and not be on a payroll. With tax cuts as their only intellectual and ideological tool in their toolbox, Republicans were left to float bailouts of the hotel, airline and cruise industries. Those trial balloons barely left the ground before it became clear that a direct injection of capital at the individual level was going to be needed in a country moving from technical full-employment to 25% unemployment in 6-weeks.
As the full extent of the economic wreckage from coronavirus becomes clear, it will be impossible to disconnect it from a broader discussion (which had already begun) about economic inequality, healthcare access, college costs, universal basic income and other programs which will actually improve the team — the American people.
The owner’s philosophy, which has dominated American political policy over the last 40 years, that by investing in the stadium and slogans and merchandise and marketing and skyboxes, success will somehow magically trickle-down to the players and create a Super Bowl winning team has proven itself farcical. There is no going back. Coronavirus will (hopefully) show us that Greatness begin and ends with the health, happiness and opportunity of and for its people.
The Republican Conspiracy Bubble Shrinks (But Does Not Pop)
Somewhere along the way, a lot of very smart people said some very smart things. And some very smart people were elected to office and they also said some very smart things. As all these folks were saying all these smart things, a great swath of the country saw their jobs leave, their towns crumble, their kids move away to the city, then opioids and other drugs began to arrive. The men, long conditioned by American society to be the bread winner and protector of the tribe, saw their options dwindle and their pride replaced by despondency. They began to die early in numbers large enough to affect the general life expectancy statistics. Yet, the stock market rose, Tesla cars began driving in the big cities and property values on the coasts skyrocketed at the same time as their kids moved back home because money for college had dried up. But people believed in the American Way which told them that they just needed to work harder because that would be rewarded. So, they grabbed for $12 dollar an hour jobs and then a second one just to make the house payment.
Over time, people realized their lives were not getting any better and that they were not going to get better and they were pissed. Pissed at all the smart people who had let them down and made them feel badly every time they turned on the television. Eventually, the “intelligent” people with their “science” became the enemy both on an emotional and practical level. What they had to say rarely meant a damn thing to their everyday lives. People no longer trusted American institutions or the information they provided. Into this vacuum roared conspiracy. As articulated by Dr. Joe Pierre, “Conspiracy theories…start with disbelief in conventional wisdom in favor of a kind of secret, malevolent, “real story” that’s being hidden from the public through some cover-up. There’s good evidence that this disbelief is rooted in mistrust.”[1]
Although certainly not confined wholly to the Republican party, years of expert electoral ratfu**ing and dark whisperings (example: see McCain, Sen. John, South Carolina primary, 2000) created fertile ground for the realignment of the disaffected into its ranks. As this accelerated in the 1990s and early 2000s, many found ways to make a lot of money and acquire a lot of votes by leveraging this group. In doing so, an alternative universe was fed and watered on a nearly daily basis by an ecosystem primed to benefit.
Ultimately, this led to the election of a president who was both a product of and primary contributor to this dark mirror reality. Trump, from the beginning, declared that the system was a big con being perpetuated on the everyman and once in office immediately showed his disdain for every system from the intelligence services to the federal reserve to congress itself. It is no wonder that when the first reports of a possible coronavirus pandemic began to come to him in early January, he saw it as just another “hoax” of a system that was always working against him. His followers took his lead, most evidenced by Fox News set to constant blast mode that coronavirus (or Chinese Virus and they like to dub it) was a hoax to hurt the President.
When the reality of the situation began to overrun the right-wing fantasy bubble it was akin to whiplash to see how quickly the Fox personalities not only changed their tune but began to rewrite history in real time. But the damage had been done and critical weeks frittered away by a rage machine incapable of seeing a real threat, one particularly dangerous to its older demographic.
Even now, the President and the Republican conspiracy engine have turned their sights toward a narrative where China is somehow to blame instead of focusing on and solving the problems at hand. However, there is no doubt that Republican conspiracy machine has been flat out busted by an event they could not spin away.
While there is too much money and too much anger and hopelessness for the Republican conspiracy bubble to pop all together, this is the first undeniable and indefensible exposure of a propaganda machine that has co-opted millions of Americans. With luck, its power has been lessened and will continue to weaken in the years to come.
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Hopefully, the old adage “crisis creates opportunity” will apply to the Covid-19 pandemic. This nonliving, unconscious, replicating machine known as a virus has brought the planet’s systems and economies screeching to a crawl in a matter of weeks. The fact that we knew this was coming someday and seems to have a fatality rate of “only” around 1% (we hope) yet has nearly paralyzed us is a deep condemnation of how America operates in the 21st century. This moment has the opportunity to shatter our self-defeating patterns and allow the United States to, finally, begin its next century.
[1] Joe Pierre, MD, Psychology Today https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psych-unseen/202001/understanding-the-psychology-conspiracy-theories-part-1
