Last week’s Republican convention had many highlights: moving testimony from Alice Johnson about criminal justice reform, the emergence of rising star Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, and Madison Cawthorn, paralyzed from the waist down as a result of a car accident, standing up out of his wheelchair.
But largely absent from the convention was an acknowledgment of the historic crisis that continues to grip the nation: COVID-19. Indeed, in contrast to the somewhat awkward, largely empty, socially distanced event hall in which Joe Biden and Kamala Harris delivered their remarks the week before, Republicans went dramatically the other way, packing the South Lawn with a full and largely maskless crowd.
The message sent was clear: The pandemic is nothing to fear, we should resume living the way we used to.
Yet the pandemic is not over. Six million Americans have tested positive for COVID-19, and over 180,000 have died since the crisis began this spring. The unemployment rate remains in double digits. Even as the “curve” has been flattened after a troubling spike in cases this summer, hundreds still die each day. Even as more people still begin testing out a return to nights out at restaurants and movie theaters, two-thirds of the country remain concerned about catching the virus.
Even though messaging downplaying the virus more often comes from the Right, the virus is not over for Republicans either. Most Republicans are still making adjustments in their lives due to the virus, like the three-quarters of Republicans who report wearing masks when they go out in public.
When a recent Fox News poll asked voters if they would prefer the government “leave me alone” or “lend me a hand,” by a 21-point margin more people say “lend me a hand” — a reversal of every other time Fox’s polling has asked voters that question. Even those who normally are averse to big government are feeling the strain of the moment and are looking to leaders for help.
It makes sense that each party would want to focus on the issues where they feel they have the upper hand and the greatest ability to unite their base with potential persuadable voters. Take immigration; Democrats will focus on “Dreamers” and the heartbreaking stories of child separation at the border, while Republicans will focus on border security and celebrating those who migrated legally.
COVID-19, by contrast, is simply not a winning issue for Republicans right now — even among Republican voters, President Trump’s job approval on his handling of the coronavirus trails his overall job approval. And while polling tends to show Trump and Biden more closely matched on who is trusted more to handle the economic recovery, Biden regularly far outpaces Trump, often by double-digit margins, on who is best to handle the government’s response to COVID-19.
But by not using the big stage of their convention to lay out a COVID-19 response agenda beyond “we might have a vaccine soon,” the vast majority of voters who are asking their government to lend them a hand may feel like Republicans do not have much of a plan to give them one. And while you can’t just message your way out of a pandemic, avoiding the number one issue isn’t a great alternative.
This fall, we pray there won’t be a true second wave, but the prospect remains as the summer weather that enables outdoor socializing fades and we all get pushed back indoors in closer quarters. Already, college campus re-openings across the country are being aborted as positive test results pile up. Parents of younger children are sending their kids back to school, largely in a virtual setting, and by November the strain of juggling Zoom-school parenting with everything else may push these parents to the brink.
Simply shouting that all is well doesn’t work when people’s lived experience tells them differently.
As voters, including Republicans, grow more and more likely to know someone who has lost a job or a loved one to the virus, a message that this is all just a bit overblown simply won’t fly. And while there was certainly a case to be made that the president’s daily COVID-19 briefings wore out their welcome by the end, there is value for people to hear regularly what their government is doing to adapt and to press forward on containing and eliminating this threat.
If Trump wants to win reelection in November, he absolutely must address the continuing challenge of the virus and lay out what we are doing to fight it besides praying for a vaccine. Avoiding or ignoring the issue that has completely upended our daily lives is untenable.
