Red voters and blue voters

 Last update: Sunday 12/6/20

Some political leaders like to note that there are no red states and no blue states. Indeed, we are the united  deeply divided red voters and blue voters, both colors in every state. We voters have to figure out how to talk to one another and listen to one another on our own because most of our political leaders are clueless.

Deep national divisions

The most important measure of the depth of our divisions is, of course, the recent presidential election wherein President-elect Biden won 81 million votes (52%) vs. President Trump's 74 million votes (48%), giving President-elect Biden a 4 percent margin of victory. This election was not a landslide; it was a close race wherein both candidates received more votes than any other candidates in U.S. history. 

Another disturbing measure was reported in a Reuters/Ipsos poll taken after Election Day. The poll found that 73 percent of Americans agreed that Joe Biden was the rightful winner of the 2020 election, but 59 percent of Republicans believed that Biden won by illegal votes or election rigging.

The next few bullets provide selected highlights from the report "National Exit Polls: How Different Groups Voted" that was published by the NY Times on 11/3/20. (Note: The designation 'Dems" for Democrats or "GOP" for Republican merely indicates how a person voted, not their party registration.)

Note: The NY Times report is based on data compiled by The National Election Pool, consisting of the four biggest TV networks (ABS, CBS, CNN, and NBC). This consortium hired Edison Research to conduct exit polls and to project U.S. presidential elections starting in 2004.

• Most White voters voted for Trump (58%)
• Most non-White voters voted for Biden ==> Black (87%),  Hispanic/Latino (65%), Asian (61%), Other (55%)
• Which is more important? 
  Containing the coronavirus now, even if it hurts the economy ==> Dems (79%), GOP( 19%)
  ... or ...
  Rebuilding the economy now, even if it hurts efforts to contain the coronavirus ==> Dems (20%), GOP (78%)
• Wearing face masks in public is a personal choice ==> Dems (24%), GOP (73%)
• Wearing face masks in public is a public health responsibility ==> Dems (64%), GOP (35%)
  
• Climate change is a serious problem ==> Dems Yes (69%), GOP No (84%)

Those climate change numbers deserve a closer look. 

-- If 84% of GOP voters said "No", then 16% said "Yes".

-- 16% of Trump's 74 million votes = 12 million

-- 64% of Biden's 81 million said "Yes" = 52 million

-- Total "Yes" = 12 million + 52 million = 64 million

-- Total votes received by both = 74 + 81 = 155 million

-- Percent "Yes" = 64 / 155 = 41%

If only a 41 percent minority of the voters think climate change is a serious problem, then it will be impossible for President-elect Biden to implement his climate change ambitions ... unless a substantial share of the electorate changes its mind.

Climate change and the COVID pandemic as "wicked" problems

Climate change and the COVID pandemic are problems that are far more difficult to resolve than the problems that usually confront our public and private sector leaders. Climate change and pandemics are canonical examples of problems that have come to be called "wicked". Wikipedia offers the following succinct definition. (Note: the reader is advised to spend a few moments reviewing Wikipedia's entire discussion of "wicked" problems.)

"In planning and policy, a wicked problem is a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. It refers to an idea or problem that cannot be fixed, where there is no single solution to the problem; and "wicked" denotes resistance to resolution, rather than evil."

Unfortunately, all wicked problems are not created equal; some are far more "wicked" than others. I suggest that the COVID pandemic is closer to the minimum level of "wicked"; whereas climate change will be far more difficult to resolve, so much so that climate change might be more accurately described as "satanic". 

As per their responses to the presidential exit polls noted in the previous section of this discussion, most Americans still do not regard climate change as a serious problem. That's the bad news; the good news is that the COVID pandemic is providing our divided society with the opportunity to learn how to resolve a much simpler "wicked" problem. So the collective skills that we develop while resolving the pandemic will leave us more capable of addressing the more difficult challenges posed by climate change ... assuming that it's not too late to do so already.

Four COVID solution strategies

This section briefly sketches three hypothetical COVID strategies that might have been followed; then it discusses the strategy that actually occurred.

1. Do nothing 
   This option never gained much traction, especially after the Imperial College simulation (April 2020) projected that a do nothing strategy might entail more than 2 million U.S. deaths before herd immunity stopped the pandemic.
   
   
2. Extensive mitigation until an effective vaccine is widely accessible (Democrat ideal)
   Recall that the exit poll asked which coronavirus strategy the voters preferred. The strategy preferred by most Democrats involved extensive mitigation:
      "Containing the coronavirus now, even if it hurts the economy ==> Dems (79%), GOP( 19%)"
   
   In other words, most Democrats would accept more unemployment, personal distress, and business failures in order to contain the virus.
   
   
3. Minimal mitigation until an effective vaccine is widely accessible (Republican ideal)
   The strategy preferred by most Republicans involved minimal mitigation:
       "Rebuilding the economy now, even if it hurts efforts to contain the coronavirus ==> Dems (20%), GOP (78%)"
   
   In other words, most Republicans would accept higher hospitalization rates and death rates in order to rebuild the economy.
   
   
4. Lies and blunders 
   So much for hypotheticals. In our real world, mitigation was neither minimal nor extensive in any state, red or blue. The policy mishmash that actually resulted was the direct consequence of President Trump's many lies and the many blunders of the task force and the CDC. (See my detailed discussion on this blog, "Where do we go from here?")
   
   From March to October, the virus spiked and surged in various states; by late November it was surging to record highs in just about every state. As consequence, large segments of the public lost confidence in our public health system.
   
   This loss of confidence was especially prevalent among Trump's most ardent supporters who came to regard lockdowns, masks, and limits on the size of public gatherings as the arbitrary diktats of an Orwellian "deep state" that didn't care about the crushing financial and psychological burdens that its mitigation policies were imposing. (See my discussion on this blog, "Trump supporters who reject masks and other mitigations are not stupid and/or crazy")

What made the U.S. pandemic "wicked"?

Wikipedia's definition of "wicked" quoted in a previous section notes that contradictory requirements can give rise to "wicked" problems, in this case the GOP voters' preference for economy at the expense of COVID control vs. the Democratic voters' preference for COVID control at the expense of the economy. Under normal  conditions these conflicts would lie dormant. For example, in a number of recent years more than 80,000 people in the U.S. have died from seasonal flu, but no Democratic president or other Democratic political leader suggested a nation-wide lockdown.

Unfortunately, the task force blundered by locking down all 50 states in March 2020 when it pleaded with non-essential workers in all 50 states to shelter at home. At the time there were fewer than 20,000 known cases of COVID in the entire country; there were fewer than 1,000 deaths; and the infections were concentrated in a handful of states. 

President Trump and his supporters recoiled in horror as the unemployment rosters soared above 30 million. He demanded that the lockdown end immediately, no matter what the medical doctors and the health experts said, because the cure should not be worse than the disease. Thus the conflict between Democrat vs. GOP preferences was fully activated, whereupon the politicized pandemic became difficult if not impossible to resolve, i.e., it became "wicked".

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Related posts on this blog:

• "We need a different kind of coronavirus task force", Last update: 11/28/20
  
  
• "Congratulations, Dr. Fauci!!! Thank you for your service. Now would you please, please, please fade back into your full time job at NIH."  Last update: 11/19/20
  
  
• "Trump supporters who reject masks and other mitigations are not stupid and/or crazy" Last update: 11/18/20
  
  
• "Where do we go from here?" Last update: 10/30/20