Analysis: Covid is making us ungovernable

Opinion | Covid is making us ungovernable Pandemics fuel pre-existing prejudices, deepen social divisions and increase political tensions. NBC News

By Brian Michael Jenkins, senior adviser to the president of RAND

Pandemics kill millions. Their effects, however, extend beyond mass mortality and widespread grief. History shows that pandemics leave long-lasting resentments. They expose and exacerbate existing inequities — the gap between rich and poor widens; minorities and women suffer more. Pandemics fuel pre-existing prejudices, deepen social divisions and increase political tensions

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As the U.S. heads into the midterm elections, the parties should be prepared to face headwinds whichever side takes control of Congress. They should both beware that Covid-19’s biggest political casualty might be governability. 

I expect that politics in the aftermath of the pandemic will increasingly be marked by defiance and intimidation. Political coalitions will be harder to assemble and hold together. National efforts will be feebler. Extreme beliefs will prevail. The post-pandemic world may be filled with people seeking saviors — fertile ground for false prophets and dictators — or with nihilists who have abandoned hope and believe in nothing. National consensus will be even harder to maintain.

To be sure, Covid-19 did not cause all of the problems currently on display. Many of the trends preceded the pandemic. The pandemic afflicted an already deeply divided American society, reflecting decades of increasing polarization. The country’s prejudices, meanwhile, are a dark continuing stream in American history. 

But there’s no doubt the nature of plagues means that Covid has exacerbated these woes. Scapegoating — blaming the outbreak on racial or religious minorities, foreigners or newly arrived immigrants — has been a common feature of epidemics going back at least to the Antonine Plague of 165-180 A.D., when Romans ascribed the outbreak to Christianity.    

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Overall, trust in public institutions, which has been declining in America for some time, further eroded during the pandemic. In part, this reflects the difficulty authorities have in responding to major outbreaks of disease. Furthermore, the measures taken to combat the spread fueled opposing narratives of virility versus weakness, state sovereignty versus federal tyranny, corporeal autonomy versus health mandates. ...