I’ve started wondering about the question of the confidence in, and even the tolerance of, various levels of governance by the people. All government, after all, relies on unspoken intimidation to some extent to stay in power. That being so, determined resistance from 5-10% of the population is usually enough to frustrate government, and can in fact actually bring it down. And here, we might be talking not about a change from Party A to Party B, but a change in the entire political system, with consequences impossible to foresee. This doesn’t have to be (and probably won’t be) violent or even armed resistance, but rather a sullen, passive, mass refusal to cooperate. It’s a question of numbers. If you break the law, you have a problem. If a million people break the law, the government has a problem.
Does this sound alarmist? Well, try for a moment to envision a scenario – one of many possible ones – in 4 months’ time. The virus is still with us, and new strains appear every month, many from abroad brought by travellers. The first signs of long Covid illnesses are now evident. The hospitals are always full, the health services are perpetually over-extended. There are bitter debates about which vaccines, if any, are still effective and how many doses are needed. There are equally bitter debates about the usefulness of prophylactics and treatments.
The government consensus on these issues, such as it is, changes all the time, and differs from county to county. Supply chains continue to be badly affected. Lockdowns are now a regular feature of life. There are multiple, often contradictory, rules about how you can travel and with what medical documents or certificates. Schools and universities remain mostly closed but try to open for a few weeks or a month when they can. Restaurants, theatres and concert halls in many states are progressively closing down. Sports events are only played before empty stadiums. And the key part of this is that the restrictions will already have been in place for a year, with no sign that they will ever be lifted. This is what “living with Covid” means, insofar as it means anything at all. It could be worse than that of course.
What about the political consequences? Three things stand out, I think. First, most of the population of the United States has never known large-scale insecurity, political upheaval, the risk of hunger or, of course, long-lasting pandemics. We have grown up in a narcissistic culture where What I Want is what counts, and politicians who wish to prosper have to accept that.
Second, few political systems are actually geared to dealing with complex, multi-faceted problems. We can see this already with Covid, and it’s going to get worse. The politics of spin and slogan have been around for so long now, that the ability of most governments to deal with, or even properly appreciate, complex problems, has largely disappeared.
Third, it’s almost impossible to pass complex political messages, even when times are calm. In the age of Twitter, it’s impossible. It’s this, rather than mendacity or conspiracy, which explains the constant flailing of government after a single message, and the fact that these messages change frequently.
With Covid I don’t think it’s possible to pass simple messages, and I suspect it will be more and more difficult as time goes on. In the end, the government has already shown that it is overwhelmed by the complexity of the problem, and by its inability to settle on any coherent policy, much less explain it.
Things are about to get very sticky.
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