The Gathering Storm: Change vs. Conservatism
Today, about 14 weeks after I was first sent home early by my employer, the place where I live begins Phase One of reopening. It is also Juneteenth, and so my employer joined many others in giving its employees the day off…on top of everything we are experiencing summer-like weather after a long cool and rainy spell. The Governor of my state even admits this is not a good time to reopen…so I’m going to be eyeballing the COVID stats extra closely the next couple of weeks, because I’m sure my area will see a spike in cases.
The virus Co-SARS-2 (COVID-19), a purely biological and thus scientific phenomenon, has been politicized as much as any other thing the world has ever known. Because our social systems have been so disrupted by it, and by the ways in which we’ve responded (or failed to respond) to it, the result is a growing conflict between two schools of thought in America and across the globe, although the conflict seems to be more pronounced in America (but I am likely biased). Most adults who’ve been paying attention know this already, so this post is going to look like I’m mansplaining it, but the post is for me more than anyone else, because putting difficult things into words is a kind of therapy for me.
School A, which I’ll call the red school even though not all Republicans belong to it, and in fact many Democrats espouse it, preaches just getting on with our lives and accepting whatever consequences that might bring. From what I’ve seen no one in the red school really disputes the death count or case numbers…the real argument appears to be about what we should do in response. The red school wishes we would all just “wise up”, agree that 2019 America was as perfect a society as any human could ever hope for, go right back to that version of America, and bury our one-eighth million (and counting) dead. “Keep calm and carry on” might be a motto they would like.
School B, which I’ll call the blue school even though Democrats/liberals cannot be counted on to unify around anything ever, emphasizes that 2019 America is the reason why COVID hit our country so badly and the bodies continue to pile up in ever-harder-to-fathom numbers. They argue that 2019 America had/has unacceptable problems in the areas of health care, justice, economics, environment, racial and gender equity, and education among others, and that these problems were so deeply entrenched it took something like COVID to make it possible to address them. Their stance is that while COVID is horrible, and our nation’s collective response to it has been nothing short of atrocious, the fact remains this is a once-in-500-year chance to make meaningful, lasting change happen. Beyond that, they say it is our duty to ourselves and to future generations to change things for the better.
School A will never change School B’s mind, and vice versa. The conflict between conservative and liberal in this country has escalated since the 1990s, ramped up rapidly with Trump’s election, and has come to a head with COVID and the protests sparked by the murders of George Floyd and others. The conflict is already bloody. What will the next six months see? I don’t have a crystal ball but I have a hard time imagining it will calm down anytime soon, regardless of election results, regardless of COVID numbers, and regardless of the interim changes that might take place.
The divide in America is deep and hurtful. It is not necessarily race-based, but School A tends to be dominated by whites. It is not necessarily generational, but Millenials and Gen Z are much more likely to belong to School B. It is not necessarily geographic, but Midwesterners and Southerners are more likely to be in School A than people on either coast. If the divide had to be distilled into one adjective, that word would be political. I think it goes deeper than just partisan politics, but that is the single factor than matches up better than any other. Sadly, our history shows that only prolonged, violent (fatal) conflict brings any kind of resolution to divides like this one. I hope it can be resolved without millions dying/suffering, but at this point I can’t really see how.
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