This Critical Moment

This is not the moment to lose our nerve.  Everything depends on it.

On Monday there were two potentially catastrophic trends.  The first was the wave of stories, prompted by the White House, that social distancing and stay at home orders should be abandoned.  Republicans in particular are losing their nerve about damage to the economy, which translates in their terms to corporate profits.

They are doing so as the number of cases and deaths start to rise, and infection experts (led by Dr. Fauci) unanimously say that social distancing is crucial to slow down and minimize new infections.

Even now, the patchwork guidelines and orders, begun at different times to different degrees in different cities and states, as well as different countries around the world (and they continue) have made effective response a dicier matter than it should be, not to mention the people who are disregarding social distancing guidelines.  These strictures should be strengthened, not ended, the medical experts say.

The medical consequences most likely would be more sickness and death, and especially the implosion of hospitals and the public health system.  All of these would also have economic consequences, worse than shutting things down for awhile.

Jordan Weissmann writes in Slate:

The more sensible approach to taming this virus and saving our economy would be to orchestrate an actual nationwide lockdown for at least three or four weeks while the government essentially pays everybody’s bills (see: the economic aid bill Congress is working on). During that time, the country could ramp up production of tests and ventilators, and put in place measures necessary to set up an effective regime of testing people suspected of being ill and tracing their contacts, which appears to have worked in both South Korea and Taiwan. We’d face a dramatic economic downturn, yes. But we might also enjoy a relatively quick, V-shaped recovery as life returned to some semblance of normality.

The coronavirus crisis is going to create a severe economic hardship. There’s no escaping that. The question is whether it will be a short-lived disaster that we can begin pulling ourselves out of with the help of a serious public health mobilization, or if it will be a long, lingering horror we muddle through as people die. The fact that Trump is already having doubts about the half-measures he took last week unfortunately suggests he doesn’t have the stomach or foresight to pick the right course, because he’s too worried about the daily fluctuations of the stock market. Instead, he’s steering us toward a long pandemic and a depression all at once."

But as sensible as this is, we know we're unlikely to get a comprehensive national policy from this administration.  In the end, however, we are talking mostly about an additional two weeks or so of closed businesses.  The administration's announced policy is to maintain the federal strictures for two weeks in total and then reevaluate.  Medical experts will be consulted, and they are already talking about an additional two weeks at least.

The crucial element is to identify how and where to restart activity. We have to hope the states themselves will be looking at this.  Otherwise with confusion and conflict we risk chaos and an outbreak of panic.

Also on Monday, in the guise of a comprehensive support for the economy, Senate Republicans authored and forced votes on a bill that basically provides bountiful support for those who make millions a year.  In this immense crisis, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell can't seem to get beyond his default position as a partisan bully, trying to get a Trump-controlled corporate giveaway passed as a crisis measure: a classic shock doctrine tactic.  By forcing two votes at high pressure moments, McConnell tried to bully Democrats into voting for a bad--and decidedly not non-partisan-- bill.  They wouldn't.

Meanwhile a more responsible bill is taking shape in the House under the supervision of the only member of legislative leadership I personally trust, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.  A comparison of provisions (though a partial one) suggests that yes, it contains some Democratic wish-list items that could be eliminated in a bipartisan bill, but in general is a much better and more effective response to this crisis.

The news on Monday night was cautiously better.  The Senate minority leader said that a $2 trillion consensus bill should be finalized on Tuesday morning, that includes at least some of the guarantees and protections for workers and the support for the health system that Democrats can support.  Speaker Pelosi was reportedly in the loop, as was the White House.

We're not going to get the national leadership we need from this administration.  But Trump must at least be forced to back away from his cowardly threat, and his cowering to corporations that don't want appropriately strong measures taken.  We still need time to prevent the worst.