THENEWYORKER,M AY4, 2020 11
COMMENT
PANDEMICPOLITICS
I
n late March, it became evident in
the states holding Democratic pri-
maries and other elections in April that,
because of the coronavirus, it could be
irresponsible to have voters cast ballots
in person. Some states announced that
they would postpone their elections,
while Ohio (which had already done
so) joined Alaska and Wyoming in mov-
ing to vote almost entirely by mail. Tony
Evers, the Democratic governor of Wis-
consin, sought to expand the use of
mail-in ballots, but Republicans con-
trolling the state legislature blocked him,
arguing that the plan was unworkable,
might foster fraud, and was, in any event,
unnecessary. “You are incredibly safe to
go out,” the Assembly speaker, Robin
Vos, assured the electorate.
The standoff inspired lawsuits, and,
on April 6th, the day before the vote, the
U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 5–4, not to
allow Wisconsin voters extra time to mail
their ballots. (All the conservative Jus-
tices opposed giving extra time; all the
liberal Justices supported it.) Ruth Bader
Ginsburg wrote, in a dissent, that the
majority’s belief that an election staged
amid a pandemic would not be much
different from an ordinary one “boggles
the mind.” The images from Election
Day are indelible: Vos turned up as a vol-
unteer poll worker, swathed in a protec-
tive gown, mask, and gloves, as citizens
in homemade masks or with no protec-
tion at all lined up for blocks in some
precincts, separated by the requisite two
yards. The election’s implementation was
a fiasco. Milwaukee had planned to op-
erate a hundred and eighty polling places
but opened only five, owing to a dearth
of volunteers, and more than ten thousand
mail-in ballots requested by voters across
the state never reached them, according
to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Last
week, the city’s health commissioner an-
nounced that seven people had appar-
ently contracted the coronavirus while
participating in the vote.
The 2020 election is the first Presi-
dential campaign in U.S. history to be
upended by a deadly virus, and this
comes on top of the burdens created by
the divisive, reckless candidacy of Don-
ald Trump. There are days when Trump
and his backers seem to welcome the
pandemic’s strains on our democratic
institutions. On April 17th, the Presi-
dent surpassed himself in cynical oppor-
tunism and self-contradiction when he
tweeted out support for incipient pro-
tests against stay-at-home orders issued
by Democratic governors—orders that
ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOÃO FAZENDA
THE TALK OF THE TOWN
aligned with the policy of the Trump
Administration and the advice of its
public-health experts. J. B. Pritzker, the
governor of Illinois, said that Trump,
by urging his Twitter following to “LIB-
ERATE” Minnesota, Michigan, and
Virginia, and by persisting with such
incitement, has been “fomenting some
violence.” The right-wing Michigan
Freedom Fund, supported in part by
the family of Betsy DeVos, Trump’s Ed-
ucation Secretary, promoted a protest
in Lansing that attracted several thou-
sand people, including some toting as-
sault-style rifles. Trump’s political aims
seem apparent: with the economy in
free fall, and his approval numbers soft,
he is rousing his loyalists, particularly
in swing states, counting on them—and
a hoped-for economic rebound—to de-
liver a victory come November.
Americans love a good revolt, and the
protests stoked by conservative networks
and incendiary talk-radio hosts, such
as Alex Jones, of Infowars, may appeal
to some peaceable citizens fed up with
confinement or chafing at the encroach-
ments on civil liberties required by the
quasi-quarantines. But, if Trump con-
tinues to run a populist campaign pre-
mised on jump-starting the economy in
defiance of the advice of scientists and
doctors, he will be fighting uphill—seven
out of ten Americans say that it is more
important to stay home to thwart the
coronavirus than it is to return to work.
Last week, Brian Kemp, the Republican
governor of Georgia, took Trump’s cue
and announced a plan to reopen hair sa-
lons, bowling alleys, tattoo parlors, movie
theatres, and restaurants, even though
public-health specialists believe that such
