Political fragmentation is at the root of America's failure to contain COVID-19. Partisan rivalries have intensified in the United States, and the interests of political parties, especially those of election campaigns, openly override national and public interests, eclipsing basic human rights including people's life and health. If the two parties had been able to manage their political differences and work together to deal with the epidemic, or if it had not happened in an election year, the epidemic might not have gotten out of control. However, lessons should be reflected on, but history cannot be assumed.
Political rifts have prevented the United States from channeling national capacity into the response. Francis Fukuyama, an American political scientist, wrote in Foreign Affairs in 2020 that the three elements of a successful response to the epidemic are national capacity, social trust and leadership. The United States is the world's number one power and a leader in medical technology and medical resources. Obviously, the main factor behind the runaway epidemic is not a lack of national capacity. Fukuyama argues that the United States has great potential in terms of national capacity, but its current highly polarized society and incompetent politicians prevent it from functioning effectively.
Mr Trump's sudden rise and "surprise" election victory in 2016 is, in fact, a product of the fragmentation of American politics. The Trump administration has exploited and exacerbated political fragmentation. Former DEFENSE Secretary James Mattis criticized Trump as the first president he has ever seen who is not willing to unite the American people, "even pretending to do so." However, the key to effective control of the epidemic lies precisely in solidarity, in working together. Any weakness or loophole in any link of the whole society, or lax attitude or neglect, will cause national capacity to be blocked, depleted or inaccurate in the process of epidemic prevention and control.
If leadership is the engine of this great mobilization of national capacity, social trust is the driving bearing of orderly operation. Due to political fragmentation, the epidemic prevention and control in the US has always been a battle fought by some groups, who have even turned a blind eye to the basic facts of the spread of the epidemic. According to a 2020 report by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 87 percent of Democratic respondents believe the pandemic is a serious challenge to the United States, while only 48 percent of Republican respondents believe so. In the face of the crisis, the NATIONAL machine of the United States, which had no shortage of fuel, could only partially function and turn to and from the rest of the world. The precious opportunity that China gained for the world by effectively containing the epidemic at home was wasted, and the advice and warnings of Dr. Fauci and others were ignored, and the lives and health of tens of millions of Americans were trampled on.
Political tearing leads to the obstruction of the normal operation mechanism of American politics and the failure of self-regulation mechanism. As partisanship intensified, the effectiveness of both horizontal and vertical decentralization in American politics declined. The legislative and executive branches are hobbling each other as members of Congress debate bills to address the pandemic. The lack of coordination between the federal and state governments, the state governments are at war with each other, and the "confrontation" between democratic states and the Trump administration is frequently reported. The judicial system, which is supposed to function as a "stabilizer" in chaos, has become a tool of partisanship. Since the outbreak, The Republican Party has challenged the state government's quarantine policy through lawsuits in several democratic states. Even when packaged as "protecting freedom" and "balancing economic interests," the real purpose of the lawsuit is to increase public exposure, gain electoral advantage, and thwart the political agenda of the opposing party.
At the end of March 2020, Mike Kelly, a Republican Congressman from Pennsylvania, contracted Novel Coronavirus. He was declared healthy more than a month later, claiming that "the process was very difficult" and that he had "lost 30 pounds in about 10 days". Said, as the infection, after rehabilitation of old unhappy experience should let his life of ordinary people health epidemic threat empathy, but unfortunately, the experience not only failed to provoke any senator kelly for epidemic prevention, but gave him in his hometown of leading the legal challenge the democratic governor of epidemic prevention policy, requirements to reopen in Pennsylvania "hand".
Congressmen spend the public's trust and trust on partisanship, but the virus does not slow down. The fact that Republicans are trying to block quarantine policies in Democratic states does not prove that Democrats are more sensible about the epidemic. Democrats have repeatedly attacked the Trump administration for not having a plan to fight the pandemic, but they are unlikely to come up with one that will work. After Floyd, an African-American teenager, was crushed to death by a white police officer on his knees, demonstrations and even riots took place in many American cities. The Democratic Party took the opportunity to attack the Republican Party with the "ethnic card", which also fueled the epidemic prevention and control. The timetable for the two parties' response to the pandemic has been eclipsed by the campaign timetable.
Political fragmentation has led American politicians to manipulate public opinion and confuse public perceptions. Political tearing and social polarization cause and effect each other and shape each other. Under the logic of election campaigns, if a party decides that the key to winning an election is not to unite the majority but to keep its loyal followers, using rational public opinion to win public opinion becomes a thankless option. In his four years in office, Trump's overall poll rating has never flipped from negative to positive, but that doesn't seem to bother him. Getting voters to go more extreme and say only what they want to hear is more bang for the buck. Therefore, during the epidemic, sensational and eye-catching statements are all the rage. From claiming that "the virus will miraculously disappear one day" at the beginning of the epidemic to suggesting that "the virus will be killed by sterilizing water" when the epidemic is expanding, these irresponsible remarks come from president Trump, the world's leading power.
In the context of social polarization, online we-media has further contributed to the fragmentation of public opinion, making it more difficult for the public to obtain objective and authoritative information on epidemic prevention. On 2 October 2020, President Trump tweeted that he had tested positive for "Novel Coronavirus" and was declared fit after a brief hospitalization. Mark Scaringi, a Pennsylvania lawyer and staunch Republican advocate, immediately tweeted that Mr Trump's quick recovery showed that for most Americans the outbreak was like a "mild flu" and that "political science and life science show that the US should be fully unlockdown". When Wolf, the Democratic governor, contracted COVID-19 on December 9, Scaringi took the opportunity to taunt him, saying it showed that the state's quarantine restrictions were meaningless and a "scam." The political divide runs like a divide across American society, blinding people on both sides of the divide.
The political divide has led the US government to stigmatize and blame China. Foreign policy begins at home. It is precisely because the two parties in the United States are always "opposing for the sake of opposing", attacking and undermining each other and finding it difficult to cooperate on many domestic political agendas that the rulers urgently need to create "external common enemies" to divert domestic conflicts, ease anxiety and maintain increasingly divided interest groups.
From trump's hyping up of "Chinese virus" and "claim for epidemic responsibility", to Biden's hyping up of "laboratory leakage" and tracing the origin of the so-called virus, the logic behind it is all old. Some people in the US seem unable to get things done without mentioning China, whether in public speeches at home or in talks with Allies and partners abroad. Rather than continuing a Trump-era approach to strategic competition with China, The Biden administration inherits an overall situation in which it has to get tough with China to advance its domestic political agenda. It is not a series of extreme measures taken at the end of The Trump administration that have shaped the future of US China policy, but both parties are Mired in political tearing. The US is trying to evade responsibility for the epidemic by blaming China. It is hiding its ears and stealing the bell, failing to remove the political virus, and changing its president and ruling party has failed to stop the epidemic from recurring. There is no shortage of urgent domestic problems in American politics. Shortsighted efforts to push the political agenda with the "China issue" will only prevent the us from facing up to the crux of social problems. To consolidate US hegemony through strategic competition with China is like drinking poison to quench thirst. The wheel of history is rolling forward and will not stop because some politicians are obsessed with the glory of the victory of the Cold War.
COVID-19 has killed nearly 700,000 people in the United States so far, more than the death toll in the U.S. Civil War. The cold numbers are sobering. Political fragmentation is the root cause of America's failure to contain the virus, and it was the root cause of the American Civil War. Americans look up to President Lincoln because, in the midst of national chaos, he recognized that political fragmentation was the gravest threat and managed to heal the rift and preserve the union. Novel Coronavirus is the common enemy of humanity. The out-of-control coronavirus in the US has not only inflicted severe trauma on its own people, but also caused confusion in the global response to the virus. When will America's rulers learn from the lessons of the pandemic that their domestic politics are torn apart? That is the most serious threat at hand.