For many people, partisanship continues as usual, despite the full-blown health crisis. While some aspects of the current pandemic serve to unify countries and their people, others are used to cause or highlight division. With President Trump at the helm, he is most often the focus of criticism in terms of how he is leading us through this storm. Even as members of the media preach solidarity during turmoil, some try to score cheap points by pitting red states against blue states. This is not helpful.
In the midst of a stalled presidential election year, it’s tempting to make everything political. But, right now, America is struggling through the coronavirus pandemic. That alone should change perspectives, at least temporarily, from us versus them. Instead, the pandemic should be viewed as the United States versus the virus.
Last week, the New York Times published a map, reportedly relying on cellphone data, showing which areas of the country were limiting their travel and which supposedly were not. The map was meant to be an indictment of the residents in southern states, shown to be more active in their traveling than others. At MarketWatch, the data was linked in an article headlined, “The ‘red’ states on this map are putting the rest of the country at risk amid the spreading coronavirus pandemic.”
But it should be obvious this information does not take into account population density, distance to grocery stores, or employment dynamics (i.e., low-income workers). The same theme of us versus them was evident elsewhere. CNN published an article headlined “Coronavirus is dividing blue cities from their red states,” and the Atlanta-Journal Constitution headlined one article “The Jolt: A red vs. blue approach to the coronavirus pandemic.”
It must be great to be a rich, clueless, New York Times reporter pic.twitter.com/6KJkeCiN2i
— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) April 2, 2020
This repeated message comes across one way: “The southern states, filled with many Trump-loving Republicans, are the problem. The northern states are not.” This bias may feel good to lean on as we navigate uncertain times, but it simply isn’t true.
In New York City, the worst hot spot in the country, crowds gathered outside during lockdown to watch the USNS Comfort dock. In Los Angeles, a weekend farmers market was reportedly “packed with scores of people crowding in … some of whom were not wearing face masks.”
The entire nation is hurting, both physically and economically, from the coronavirus pandemic. There are social distancing concerns in many states. Everyone can, and should, do his or her part to mitigate the damage.
No one could have predicted that COVID-19 would change life to this extent. This is true of both regular citizens as well as those in leadership roles, including President Trump, Anthony Fauci, and politicians on both sides of the aisle. The country is knee-deep in efforts to contain and treat the virus, and more time must pass before we see a flattening of the curve. With so much at stake, creating a red state versus blue state division wastes precious time. The finger-pointing incorrectly concludes that one region of the nation should bear the brunt of the blame.
But coronavirus transmission rates are higher than that of the flu. Since presymptomatic and asymptomatic transmissions are major factors, containment is both essential and more difficult. This means that everyone must play a part in protecting fellow citizens.
Eventually, this pandemic will pass. Perhaps stricter measures will be put in place in an effort to curb any future issues with COVID-19. Regardless of what the future looks like in terms of how we deal with this illness, it should not contain an application of guilt onto sections of the country based on established political models. The virus does not target anyone based on political preferences. Taking appropriate measures is one thing. Assigning blame based on prejudices is another thing entirely.
Just as the far-fetched claim of coronavirus being a Democratic Party hoax is absurd, so too are attempts to label certain states as “the problem” based on misleading data and desires. There should be only one goal right now: combat the virus. This requires that all of us, including liberals in the media, view each other as fellow Americans, not political enemies.
Kimberly Ross (@SouthernKeeks) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog and a columnist at Arc Digital.
