Is the United States Headed for a Class War?

Division among Americans regarding COVID-19 will have not only health consequences, writes our contributor. Social upheavals are also a threat.

The White House has radically changed its tone in recent days. The president has shifted from near total indifference — he assured people only a month ago that the number of cases linked to COVID-19 would soon drop to zero — to seriousness; he now compares the situation to a war. For weeks, he publicly contradicted experts in his own administration, and vice versa. The absence of a concerted approach from the earliest days of the crisis reveals division at the highest level of the country.

Even today, the rhetoric of elected officials in Congress varies enormously from one party to the other. After asking the president to declare a state of emergency, leading Democrats are urging Americans to respect social-distancing measures. Republicans, in turn, point to the low mortality rate linked to the virus in arguing that the American economy should not be ruined simply to contain the crisis.

The approaches of elected officials in the lower echelons of government differ just as much, if not more. The mayor of New York City considered a shelter-in-place order, a measure which the Democratic state governor rejected. As recently as last week, Oklahoma’s Republican governor encouraged citizens to go out, proudly broadcasting at a crowded restaurant. To this day, Florida’s Republican governor is resisting calls to close beaches, while images proliferate on social media of people crowded in public spaces statewide, from Disney World to Clearwater, Florida, not to mention Miami Beach, Florida.

The American public is itself deeply divided on the issue. An NPR-PBS News Hour-Marist poll published March 17 revealed that barely one in two Americans, 56%, believe that the coronavirus constitutes a serious threat — a decrease of 10 points from a month prior, when the crisis was gaining momentum. Republican voters are more likely than Democratic voters to doubt the magnitude of the situation. Conversely, they are more likely to believe that the media are exaggerating the risks.

While the mass media conveys images of deserted cities like San Francisco on a daily basis, videos that go instantly viral show young Americans determined not to let fear about the virus get in the way of their plans to party during spring break.

The Double Risk of Long-Term Division

This striking division could have serious long-term repercussions.

The stated reluctance of such a large number of Americans to respect instructions to shelter in place and accept draconian measures makes the spread of the virus difficult to contain. This initial assessment is evident and has already been made by many.

The second consequence, though less widely mentioned, is very serious: if those making the decisions impose extreme, long-term measures of containment on a large mass of wary citizens, the virus will not be the only threat.

This is particularly important to highlight: people will operate in the context of incentives and unequal burdens. Faced with a major economic crisis caused by social-distancing, there will be two tribes: on one side, the segment of the American population most at risk of dying from this virus who are older and richer; on the other, the segment most at risk of suffering more immediate effect who are younger and poorer. And the latter will be asked to sacrifice for the former.

What will happen when people are forced to make this sacrifice and voluntary confinement isn’t enough because too many Americans are unwilling to comply with it as the economic crisis drags on?

The United States is not only our neighbor, our ally and our top trading partner. It is also, despite all its faults and its flaws, the most important symbol of stability in the free world.

Whether or not people immediately grasp this, the consequences at play greatly exceed the ravages caused by this nasty virus.