COVID-19 Divides Us Even Further Apart - Horowitz

COVID-19 Divides Us Even Further Apart - Horowitz

One key to American resilience over the years has been our ability to unify during national crises. During World War II and in the wake of 9/11, for example, Americans put ideology and partisanship aside, drawing on our common values to address the threats we faced together.  We rallied under the leadership of Democratic and Republican presidents alike.

This persistent American strength, unfortunately, has failed to materialize during the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, the impact of the pandemic has been to drive us even further apart. More than 3-in-4 Americans say the “pandemic has divided people in the country as whole,” while less than 1-in-10 Americans say it has “brought people in the US together,” according to a Pew Research Center poll.  This view is shared by both Democrats and Republicans and cuts across other major demographic groups.

Similarly, nearly 1-in-2 Americans say the “pandemic has divided their communities,” while only a little more than 1-in-10 say it has “brought people together,” reports Pew. To be sure, there is more widespread agreement that the pandemic has created division on the national level than it has in one’s own community.  Still, about 4 times as many adults believe that COVID-19 has divided their community than believe it has brought their community together.

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The lingering pandemic has also contributed to a sense of pessimism that pervades the nation, driven by a sense that it may be a while—if ever--until we can get back to life as we knew it.  An Axios/Ipsos national survey finds that nearly 1-out-of-3 of Americans “do not expect to be able to return to their pre-COVID life until more than a year from now.”  Along the same lines, Pew reports that “36% of us say it will be more than two years before things get back to the way they were before the pandemic.”  This includes nearly 1-out-of-5 Americans (19%) “who “say things will never get back to normal in their community.”

The divides over COVID-19 in no way detract from the heroic efforts of doctors, nurses, first responders and front-line workers—efforts that the overwhelming majority of Americans appreciate.  But our tribal responses to the pandemic-- in which we too often view this public health emergency through a partisan and ideological lens-- has hobbled our response, leading to more deaths, hospitalizations and economic costs than had to be the case.

Partisan affiliation, for example, is the single largest factor in vaccination rates, “If Democratic voters made up their own country, it would be one of the world’s most vaccinated, with more than 91 percent of adults having received at least one shot,” wrote David Leonhardt in The New York Times.  “Only about 60 percent of Republican adults have done so.”  As Leonhardt and others point out, this differential in vaccine rates has led to deaths from COVID-19 in counties that voted heavily for Trump far outpacing deaths in counties that voted for Biden.

These are the real-world costs of our polarized, partisan and all-consuming politics in which even a pandemic that threatens all of us serves to amplify our divisions.  The path forward is to remind ourselves that  “we are all in this together.” The values we share are more fundamental, lasting, and important than our policy disagreements, political ideologies or party affiliations.  We must all get back on the path of putting our communities and country first.

Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits, businesses, and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island.