theatlantic--2020-10-23--The GOP’s Demographic Doom

The GOP’s Demographic Doom

In 2020 , for the first time , Millennials and Gen Z ( which comprise young adults born in 1981 or later ) will equal Baby Boomers and prior generations ( older adults born in 1964 or earlier ) as a share of all Americans eligible to vote , according to a new study from the nonpartisan States of Change project .
Because older voters typically turn out at higher rates than younger ones , the study forecasts that those earlier generations will still cast more ballots next month , by a margin of 43 percent to 32 percent .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ generations are expected to equal the older ones as a share of actual voters on Election Day .
And by 2028 , Millennials and Gen Z will dwarf the older generations as a share of both eligible and actual voters .
That will be true not only nationally , but in all the crucial battleground states , according to previously unreleased projections provided to me by States of Change .
Given that the younger generations align much more closely with Democratic ideological views on almost all policy questions , this shift underscores the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ played by defining the GOP so narrowly around the priorities and preferences of his core groups : older , nonurban , non-college-educated , and evangelical white people .
If Democrats can not only express the values of younger Americans , but also advance their material interests , they will have a substantial advantage in building electoral majorities through the decade ahead , says Ruy Teixeira , a veteran Democratic election analyst and co-founder of the States of Change project , which is a joint research collaboration between three liberal-leaning groups and the centrist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the rush to confirm Amy Coney Barrett is really about “ The key issue is : What do they do in terms of political economy ?
What do they do in terms of enabling Millennials and Gen Z to make their way in life [ on ] the overall bread-and-butter stuff of housing , health care , economic mobility ?
” he told me .
“ You can lock these people in .
This is literally the future of American politics.
” The hinge group in this approaching confrontation between what I ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gray ” —the diverse Americans born after 1981 and the mostly white ones born before 1964—is Generation X , born in the middle .
States of Change forecasts that Gen X will comprise about one-fourth of voters in the coming years , with its numbers slightly shrinking over time .
It represents a kind of midpoint between the larger generations that bracket it : More racially diverse than the older , but less than the younger , it broke narrowly for Clinton in 2016 ; in current public polling , it appears ready @ @ @ @ @ @ @ larger advantage this year .
Most of the generational discussion in the 2020 election has focused on Biden ’ s potential to run better among seniors than any other Democratic presidential nominee since Al Gore in 2000 .
And that indeed has enormous implications for his ability to claw back votes in Trump states with large older populations , particularly Florida , Arizona , Michigan , Pennsylvania , and Wisconsin .

The coming generational backlash against Donald Trump may represent only the first tremor in a much larger earthquake threatening the GOP through the 2020s.
Trump is eroding the Republican Party’s position with younger voters at precisely the same time as the massively diverse Millennials and Generation Z are poised to become the largest voting bloc in the electorate, as new research released this week shows.
That prospect presents both a near- and long-term danger for the GOP. The immediate problem is that polls nationally and in key swing states show Joe Biden positioned to significantly expand on Hillary Clinton’s margin among younger voters, even as many more of them are signaling they intend to vote than did in 2016.
“There’s a consistent picture coming together that says we’re going to have the highest youth turnout since 2008, and maybe since 1992,” Ben Wessel, the executive director of NextGen America, a group working to mobilize younger voters for Democrats, told me. “And they are rebuking Trump and the Republicans in a way we haven’t seen since the 2008 presidential” race.
If anything, the longer-term trends may be more ominous. The electorate is beginning its most profound generational transition since the early 1980s, when Baby Boomers became the largest voting bloc, dislodging the Greatest Generation of Americans, who came of age during the Depression and World War II.
In 2020, for the first time, Millennials and Gen Z (which comprise young adults born in 1981 or later) will equal Baby Boomers and prior generations (older adults born in 1964 or earlier) as a share of all Americans eligible to vote, according to a new study from the nonpartisan States of Change project. Because older voters typically turn out at higher rates than younger ones, the study forecasts that those earlier generations will still cast more ballots next month, by a margin of 43 percent to 32 percent. But in 2024, the two younger generations are expected to equal the older ones as a share of actual voters on Election Day. And by 2028, Millennials and Gen Z will dwarf the older generations as a share of both eligible and actual voters. That will be true not only nationally, but in all the crucial battleground states, according to previously unreleased projections provided to me by States of Change.
Given that the younger generations align much more closely with Democratic ideological views on almost all policy questions, this shift underscores the stakes in the generational roulette Trump has played by defining the GOP so narrowly around the priorities and preferences of his core groups: older, nonurban, non-college-educated, and evangelical white people. If Democrats can not only express the values of younger Americans, but also advance their material interests, they will have a substantial advantage in building electoral majorities through the decade ahead, says Ruy Teixeira, a veteran Democratic election analyst and co-founder of the States of Change project, which is a joint research collaboration between three liberal-leaning groups and the centrist Bipartisan Policy Center.
Read: What the rush to confirm Amy Coney Barrett is really about
“The key issue is: What do they do in terms of political economy? What do they do in terms of enabling Millennials and Gen Z to make their way in life [on] the overall bread-and-butter stuff of housing, health care, economic mobility?” he told me. “You can lock these people in. This is literally the future of American politics.”
The hinge group in this approaching confrontation between what I’ve called “the brown and the gray”—the diverse Americans born after 1981 and the mostly white ones born before 1964—is Generation X, born in the middle. States of Change forecasts that Gen X will comprise about one-fourth of voters in the coming years, with its numbers slightly shrinking over time. It represents a kind of midpoint between the larger generations that bracket it: More racially diverse than the older, but less than the younger, it broke narrowly for Clinton in 2016; in current public polling, it appears ready to give Biden at least a somewhat larger advantage this year.
Most of the generational discussion in the 2020 election has focused on Biden’s potential to run better among seniors than any other Democratic presidential nominee since Al Gore in 2000. And that indeed has enormous implications for his ability to claw back votes in Trump states with large older populations, particularly Florida, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
But many analysts believe that the Democratic resurgence among preponderantly white seniors is a temporary phenomenon rooted in voters’ comfort with the 77-year-old Biden and their discontent over Trump’s chaotic handling of the coronavirus pandemic. The shift among younger generations could have a much more enduring impact on the country.
Before Millennials entered the electorate in large numbers in the 2004 election, adults younger than 30 had generally tracked voting preferences of the country overall, without providing any particular advantage to Democrats; Ronald Reagan in 1984 and George H. W. Bush in 1988, for instance, won them comfortably, according to exit polls.
But in the years since, the Democratic advantage among younger adults has swelled. In 2004, John Kerry won 54 percent of them. Barack Obama won 66 percent of them, compared with John McCain’s 32 percent in 2008, before topping Mitt Romney in 2012 by a narrower margin: 60 percent to 37 percent.
In 2016, Trump didn’t improve on Romney’s performance—he won only 36 percent of adults younger than 30—but Clinton substantially retreated from Obama’s. She carried only 55 percent of younger adults, with about one in 11 opting for third-party candidates. Clinton posted big advantages among nonwhite younger adults, but Trump narrowly carried white Millennials, boosted by a surge among those without a college degree, the same group whose older members flocked to him most enthusiastically in the election.
Read: The rage unifying Boomers and Gen Z
Biden’s appeal to young people has been lackluster from the start. Among that cohort, Bernie Sanders routed him during the Democratic primary, and polls consistently show that his favorability ratings remain subpar: The annual American Values Survey, released earlier this week by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute, found that Biden’s rating was net negative among young adults ages 18 to 29 and only even among those ages 30 to 49. (The oldest Millennials are now 39.) Democratic strategists express particular concern that both turnout and the party’s margins may slip next month among younger Black and Latino men, some of whom are drawn to Trump and others disillusioned that either party can produce positive change in their lives.
But despite all that, Democrats are optimistic that Biden can rebuild his vote share with younger adults—at least up to Obama’s 60 percent showing in 2012, and maybe even his towering 66 percent in 2008. Public polls—such as recent Marist Institute, Harvard University Institute of Politics, and Pew Research Center national surveys—generally show Biden at about 60 percent. But Wessel said that, given antipathy toward Trump, the higher number is within Biden’s reach. He notes that two-thirds of younger adults supported Democrats in House races during the 2018 midterms. “We see even people who self-identify as young Republicans disagree with Trump on almost every issue,” Wessel told me. “The number of votes that Joe Biden will net from young people more than Hillary Clinton did—it could be five million votes across the country.”
Terrance Woodbury, a Millennial Democratic consultant, recently told me that the attitudes expressed by younger generations on most policy issues mean Democrats should aspire to win three-fourths of their vote. One reason for that ambitious goal: Gen Z, like a youthful cavalry, will start entering the electorate in large numbers this year, and will reinforce the change that Millennials began. These young Americans, born from 1997 to 2012, are even more racially diverse than Millennials. Forty-nine percent of Gen Z are people of color, versus 45 percent of Millennials, according to a recent analysis of census data by the Brookings Institution demographer William Frey, another principal in the States of Change project. By contrast, more than 70 percent of Baby Boomers are white. (The younger, still-unnamed generation of Americans born beginning in 2013 is even more racially diverse—51 percent of them are nonwhite—but they won’t begin entering the electorate until 2031.)
States of Change anticipates that Millennials will actually plateau at about one-fourth of both eligible and actual voters between now and 2036. The biggest change to the electorate will be the explosive growth of Gen Z, which will increase from a projected 8 percent of actual voters this year to 29 percent in 2036. That year, the two generations combined will comprise a clear 55 percent majority of all voters. As soon as 2028, States of Change expects them to outvote the Boomers and even older generations by a double-digit margin.
Strikingly, this transition will be as powerful in the older, mostly white states of the Rust Belt as it will be in the younger, more diverse, and rapidly growing Sun Belt states. According to the previously unpublished States of Change projections, by 2028, the giant younger generations will comprise at least 40 percent of actual voters not only in Colorado, Georgia, Texas, and Arizona, but also in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Ohio, and Iowa.
That’s a worrisome trend for Republicans. In another study by Pew, analysts concluded that “similar to Millennials, Gen Zers are progressive and pro-government, most see the country’s growing racial and ethnic diversity as a good thing, and they’re less likely than older generations to see the United States as superior to other nations.” All of that clangs against the agenda Trump has stamped on the GOP, of open resistance to racial and cultural change.
But while this generational transition presents obvious opportunities for Democrats, it also creates complications. Because Democrats are winning most young people, the disruption will rumble through their party first: States of Change projects that Millennials and Gen Z will provide nearly half of all Democratic votes by as soon as 2028.
Read: I found a Clinton-Trump voter
That could be a formula for tension between younger generations sympathetic to vanguard progressive proposals and politicians and a party leadership that remain much more centrist, and for that matter, much older. “I think it’s inexorable that’s where the voters are moving; it’s up to the party leaders to decide if that’s where the Democratic Party is going to follow,” Wessel told me. “It doesn’t have to be a fight. It can be collective power-building, or it can be intransigence. It’s very clear to me where the Democratic base is going.”
That choice might not be as straightforward as Wessel and other young progressive activists hope. Even as Democrats benefit from the entry into the electorate of more left-leaning young people, the party is simultaneously increasing its vote among college-educated suburbanites, many of them middle-aged or older. Although those voters are also socially liberal—and repelled by Trump—they could provide a counterweight to younger progressives, because they are generally more cautious about expanding government’s role in the economy.
Still, the generational challenge facing Republicans seems much more acute. The American Values Survey showed that big majorities of adults ages 18 to 49 expressed views antithetical to the dominant GOP positions on racial equity, immigration, economic inequality, abortion, building a border wall, and the value of a society that is both racially and religiously diverse.
In all these ways, Trump’s belligerent politics has created an opportunity for Democrats to cement a lasting generational advantage not seen perhaps since Franklin Roosevelt built his sturdy New Deal coalition during the Depression. But the American Values Survey also contains a clear warning: Fully three-fifths of adults younger than 30 and half of those ages 30 to 49 describe their financial situation as precarious. As Teixeira noted to me, identifying with the cultural values of younger Americans will only take Democrats so far if they can’t also advance their economic interests.
If Democrats win the White House in November and can put Millennials and Gen Z on a better financial trajectory, “they will have an incredible opportunity” to solidify a durable majority electoral coalition, Teixeira said. “But if you [mess] it up, you open so many doors for the Republicans to come back and loosen your hold on these generations.”


theatlantic--2020-10-23--Cory Booker on Why the Democrats Haven’t Stopped Barrett

What follows is a transcript of our conversation .
It has been lightly edited for clarity .
Edward-Isaac Dovere : The Democratic senators refused to show up for the Judiciary Committee vote on Amy Coney Barrett ’ s nomination .
The vote happened anyway .
So why should anyone care that you and your colleagues did that ?
Cory Booker : I believe in the ideals of not being complicit in injustice .
I think that noncooperation and boycott are very powerful tools within democracy .
And I think this was a very important moment to have a unified group @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which does have a variety in perspective and even thought .
I think it ’ s very important that we took this stand today—if anything , not to be participatory in a process that really has no legitimacy to it .
Dovere : There ’ s a striking contrast to Democrats complaining about the process—but doing a lot of that complaining while participating in the process , sitting at the hearing .
Why not do something which blew things up even more ?
Booker : In every day of the hearings , I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ examples of why this was not normal .
That was a refrain in my opening statement , in fact .
But I , for one , really believe that it was important for us to elicit things from the nominee that further expose the challenges of having her be on the court .
So I thought it was important that people heard her perspective on race , for example ; how much she has thought about and read about an issue is so central to jurisprudence .
Race has dominated many of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the entire history of our country .
And so to have no one even bring up a question about race , I think would have been a disservice to America , and a failure in many ways to get her on the record on those important issues and others .
Dovere : Do you believe Barrett is qualified to serve on the Supreme Court , if not for the timing of the nomination and confirmation vote , much like when Ruth Bader Ginsburg got 96 votes in her confirmation in the Senate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her qualifications from a process that is so deeply illegitimate .
And I think that what is important in this moment is that no one should qualify for the Supreme Court in the way that she has qualified for it .
We have a president who has outsourced the selection process to right-wing organizations .
We have Senate Republicans who were committing to vote for her before she was even named .
They were surrendering their obligation to advise and consent .
They gave over their consent before it was even named , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there ’ ll be other things that I ’ ve made clear : We ’ re in the midst of an ongoing election .
No president has ever done this before ; that illegitimates the process .
And then we are at a time of great strain in America .
We ’ re in the middle of a pandemic and economic decline that is similar to that of a recession .
Amidst all of this , what I think of her as an individual is not relevant .
What is relevant is the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and how she is qualified for the court in a way that is an offense to the very idea of how someone should ultimately qualify to sit for a lifetime appointment on the highest court in the land .

Booker says he has "given up on the on the odyssey of trying to understand what motivates this president of the United States to say what he says."
The night after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, Democrats gathered on the steps of the Supreme Court, repeating the rallying call “No confirmation until inauguration!” That had zero effect on Senate Republicans, who pledged their support for Donald Trump’s choice even before the president announced it would be Amy Coney Barrett.
New Jersey Senator Cory Booker is among those struggling with what to do. As a senator very much connected to the younger, more activist wing of the Democratic Party, he wanted to push back. As a member of the Judiciary Committee and an institutionalist, his instinct was to take part in the confirmation hearings rather than staging a stunt protest.
I spoke with Booker on Thursday afternoon, hours after he participated in a boycott of the committee hearing advancing Barrett’s nomination to the Senate floor. He talked about the Democrats’ failure to stop Barrett’s likely confirmation, what should happen with ending the filibuster and potentially expanding the Supreme Court after she is seated, and how, as the election approaches, he’s interpreting the closing argument from Trump, who for some reason keeps claiming that Booker is part of a plot to move Black people into the suburbs.
What follows is a transcript of our conversation. It has been lightly edited for clarity.
Edward-Isaac Dovere: The Democratic senators refused to show up for the Judiciary Committee vote on Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination. The vote happened anyway. So why should anyone care that you and your colleagues did that?
Cory Booker: I believe in the ideals of not being complicit in injustice. I think that noncooperation and boycott are very powerful tools within democracy. And I think this was a very important moment to have a unified group of Democratic senators on the committee, which does have a variety in perspective and even thought. I think it’s very important that we took this stand today—if anything, not to be participatory in a process that really has no legitimacy to it.
Dovere: There’s a striking contrast to Democrats complaining about the process—but doing a lot of that complaining while participating in the process, sitting at the hearing. Why not do something which blew things up even more?
Booker: In every day of the hearings, I tried to drive the point home with examples of why this was not normal. That was a refrain in my opening statement, in fact. But I, for one, really believe that it was important for us to elicit things from the nominee that further expose the challenges of having her be on the court. So I thought it was important that people heard her perspective on race, for example; how much she has thought about and read about an issue is so central to jurisprudence. Race has dominated many of the Supreme Court’s most known decisions for the entire history of our country. And so to have no one even bring up a question about race, I think would have been a disservice to America, and a failure in many ways to get her on the record on those important issues and others.
Dovere: Do you believe Barrett is qualified to serve on the Supreme Court, if not for the timing of the nomination and confirmation vote, much like when Ruth Bader Ginsburg got 96 votes in her confirmation in the Senate?
Booker: I cannot divorce her qualifications from a process that is so deeply illegitimate. And I think that what is important in this moment is that no one should qualify for the Supreme Court in the way that she has qualified for it. We have a president who has outsourced the selection process to right-wing organizations. We have Senate Republicans who were committing to vote for her before she was even named. They were surrendering their obligation to advise and consent. They gave over their consent before it was even named, further delegitimizing the process. And then there’ll be other things that I’ve made clear: We’re in the midst of an ongoing election. No president has ever done this before; that illegitimates the process. And then we are at a time of great strain in America. We’re in the middle of a pandemic and economic decline that is similar to that of a recession. Amidst all of this, what I think of her as an individual is not relevant. What is relevant is the process, and how illegitimate it is, and how she is qualified for the court in a way that is an offense to the very idea of how someone should ultimately qualify to sit for a lifetime appointment on the highest court in the land.
Dovere: You’ve been warning that the Senate will be permanently damaged by this kind of break. We’ve been hearing that kind of warning about a bunch of things for years now. Isn’t the Senate already damaged so much already, and will probably get more damaged?
Booker: I think that the Senate is severely wounded, and the injuries continue to mount. But I don’t think that the body is dead. I don’t think that hope is dead. I think that we can find a way to heal and repair. And I think that that is going to be the call of the Senate after this horrible injury that’s going to happen as a result of the vote we will be taking in a matter of days. And so I can’t give up on this body. I can’t give up on its capacity to rise to the call of the country right now—which is to address the challenges our nation is facing, to come together and do big things, do great things again. And so I’ve not given up. I do not think that the injury and the wounds, as deep as they are, are fatal, or that we still can’t call it a pathway to redemption or a pathway to resurrection.
Read: Cory Booker Runs Out of Time
Dovere: You’ve struggled with the question of getting rid of the filibuster yourself. Can you make the argument to a Democratic voter that if the Democrats win the majority, they shouldn’t get rid of the filibuster?
Booker: I don’t think I can effectively make that argument of why we should preserve the filibuster at this moment in history, days before we see a decision being made that could so hurt voting rights and health care and LGBTQ rights and women’s access to reproductive care and abortion care. What I would rather do is just make a commitment that after this election’s over, should we be in the majority, I will hopefully be a part of leading an effort to find a way to right these wrongs and to balance the scales of justice, so to speak.
Dovere: If Barrett is confirmed and Biden wins, and Democrats take the majority in the Senate, wouldn’t expanding the Supreme Court be a necessary step to preserve whatever policy you pass in the years ahead? Obamacare, for example, was passed in 2010 and already almost struck down by the Supreme Court in 2012.
Booker: There is an obligation that we have to take up a way to right these wrongs. You can’t have one rule for Merrick Garland that you commit to—and then change the rules, break your word for Amy Coney Barrett. And there are deeper issues at stake. This will be the first time in history that we have five Supreme Court justices, all of the conservative belt, who were appointed by presidents that did not win the majority of the vote and who are appointed by Senates where Republicans didn’t represent the majority of voters, either. We have to think of ways in which to right this wrong. I think it’s going to be a very important debate and discussion about what are the ways to restore legitimacy to the judiciary branch.
Dovere: President Trump keeps saying and tweeting that you’re going to be in charge of some program to move Black people into the suburbs. Are you?
Booker: I think it’s best to answer that as just “no.”
Dovere: Do you know what he is talking about?
Booker: I have, for years now, given up on the on the odyssey of trying to understand what motivates this president of the United States to say what he says. I think it’s a fool’s errand to try to understand the motivations for the chaos that comes out of his mouth. I do know that there are dark forces at sway, in the sense that he seems to consistently try to appeal to people’s fear, try to call to the lesser angels of our nature. That he is often demeaning and degrading and dehumanizing other Americans. And so I know that for me, I’d rather much rather focus on the people he hurts, the people that he is trying to manipulate, and be a force of protection—rather than get involved with what I think there’ll be arguments for in the annals of history about what motivates him to lead in such a dark way.
Dovere: Why do you think you’re on his mind so much?
Booker: This last month has been particularly strange, that in tweets and rallies somehow he’s been much more focused on me. Obviously, I’m taking up space in his head. And I hope that’s a sign that I’m being an effective advocate for things that are just right, as he is trying to so often push things that are wrong.
Dovere: Is it racist?
Booker: It could be more that he’s using me in a way to try to scare people, or thinking that somehow the only male African-American Democrat in the Senate is a great foil to try to scare suburbanites, which is rank racism. So I’m not sure what it is. I know he responded to the way I talked about him in the Supreme Court hearings, but I don’t know what it is—whether it is rank racism, or that he feels somehow injured by my advocacy.
Ibram X. Kendi: Is This the Beginning of the End of American Racism?
Dovere: You ran for president hoping for a number of different things than what Biden has proposed. How much should people who want more progressive policy, or a different approach to issues of race, think that any of that would now be part of a Biden administration, if there is one?
Booker: Joe Biden’s pathway to the presidency should give people a lot of confidence that he will grapple with these issues and be a president that makes significant strides in them. Clearly his campaign was deeply shaped by the largest mass protests in our country’s history. Unequivocally. It came soon after he clinched the nomination in a decisive manner with a significant outpouring of African American support. I think you could add to that the decisions he has made so far: He has promoted the first-ever African American female as a vice-presidential nominee of a major party; he has consistently spoken with increasing eloquence about the need for diversity, for inclusion, and the need to address systematic racism.
Dovere: Biden said a few months ago, in a comment that got him in trouble, “you ain’t Black” if you’re supporting Trump. But Trump does have some Black support, even if it’s just a few percentage points. What would you say to the Black people who are voting for Trump?
Booker: The lesson I learned from campaigning for city council was I could knock on 10 doors, and my staff would yell at me because the one person that wasn’t voting for me, I would spend 30 minutes trying to convince them. As opposed to continuing to knock on doors and get people that were maybe not going to go out and vote, to get them out to vote for me. My focus really is not the people who are supporting Donald Trump, regardless of race. My focus is on those Americans who don’t understand the urgency in this election and might not vote in the first place. We need to have a record turnout—for people who care about issues of racial justice, for people who care about issues of civil rights and voting rights, for people who care about economic justice and environmental justice. You can’t complain about it if you haven’t voted. It is the fundamental foundation of our ability to deal with those issues. And so I’m saving my energy, not for Trump supporters who have already made up their mind, but for those people who are inclined to vote for Biden but we’re still not confident are going to vote.


theatlantic--2020-10-25--The 11,000 Votes That Haunt Michigan Democrats

Three weeks before Election Day in 2016 , Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan had told Clinton ’ s top campaign aides that he was worried about the turnout in Michigan .
Calm down , they ’ d responded .
They had their polling models , and they were confident that she was in strong shape .
“ What if your model doesn ’ t match the world ?
” Duggan remembers asking them .
The mistake the Clinton campaign made in Michigan , Duggan told me , was relying on too many people from outside the state to get out the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him in charge of Detroit ’ s operations , he said .
( Snubbing Duggan was just one of many mistakes Clinton ’ s campaign made in the state . )
Read : Debbie Dingell is afraid the Trump polls are wrong—again In 2017 , Duggan was handily reelected to a second term as mayor , and in 2018 , the state party and other Democratic campaigns gave him the control he wanted .
Today , he ’ s one of Joe Biden ’ s most loyal and enthusiastic supporters , and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the party ’ s Detroit operations again .
Duggan ’ s top political aide and his son are running the effort , working everything from book-club meetings to family reunions .
For all the Democrats ’ focus on Detroit , the city represents only about 7 percent of the state ’ s population , and for all Gilchrist ’ s efforts with Black men , only one in four voters in Michigan is a person of color .
What Duggan and Gilchrist are doing won ’ t be enough , on its own @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Yet according to public and private polls , Michigan appears to have moved away from Trump more quickly and definitively than any of the other states he won in 2016 .
A significant minority of Michiganders still strongly support him , including the many who have resisted Whitmer ’ s COVID-19 regulations .
It ’ s gotten so extreme in the state that domestic terrorists plotted to kidnap her .
But the change seems to reflect the diversity of the state : Trump ’ s ebbing support in the suburbs and among @ @ @ @ @ @ @ workers , plus the stronger rejection of him by college-educated and nonwhite voters , have all combined to grind down his edge .
If Biden wins Michigan , the story of how it happened won ’ t just be about turnout in Detroit .
The 2018 midterms resulted in a blue tsunami off the Great Lakes : Democrats in Michigan were elected governor , lieutenant governor , senator , attorney general , and secretary of state , and flipped two House seats .
With the exception of Gilchrist , they were all women @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as first-time candidates have had lasting effects .
Amy Chapman , a Democratic strategist and former Obama state-campaign director , calls 2018 “ the awakening in between ” ; she told me that the grassroots energy “ was reflected in the kind of candidate that got elected , and emboldened people to look toward ’ 20 in a new way .
”

Updated at 11:30 a.m. ET on October 28, 2020.
In 2016, Donald Trump won Michigan by the narrowest margin of any state—10,704 votes.
“There are 11,000 more votes in Detroit,” Garlin Gilchrist told himself that night. “There are 11,000 Black men who could vote to change that.”
A few months later, Gilchrist, then just 35, entered the race for Detroit city clerk—the city’s chief elections officer. His pitch: He could help engage more voters, and help make it easier for them to vote. As a young Black man, he felt he could understand why so many other Black men had sat out the presidential election—and why some thought their vote didn’t matter. Black men had shown up twice for Barack Obama, and their life hadn’t changed that much. Hillary Clinton wasn’t even Black.
Gilchrist narrowly lost that city-clerk race, but the next year, he was elected lieutenant governor, after Gretchen Whitmer picked him as her running mate. His political mission has remained the same: getting those 11,000 votes—or more—and locking Michigan back down for his party, which, before Trump, had won the state in every presidential election since 1992. Gilchrist pushed for Democrats’ outreach to Black Michiganders to focus on improving the quality of life in cities, expunging criminal records, and ending racial disparities in the spread and treatment of COVID-19—“policy anchors to the narrative we can build about why Black men should vote for Democrats,” he told me.
Three weeks before Election Day in 2016, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan had told Clinton’s top campaign aides that he was worried about the turnout in Michigan. Calm down, they’d responded. They had their polling models, and they were confident that she was in strong shape.
“What if your model doesn’t match the world?” Duggan remembers asking them.
The mistake the Clinton campaign made in Michigan, Duggan told me, was relying on too many people from outside the state to get out the vote. The party should have put him in charge of Detroit’s operations, he said. (Snubbing Duggan was just one of many mistakes Clinton’s campaign made in the state.)
Read: Debbie Dingell is afraid the Trump polls are wrong—again
In 2017, Duggan was handily reelected to a second term as mayor, and in 2018, the state party and other Democratic campaigns gave him the control he wanted. Today, he’s one of Joe Biden’s most loyal and enthusiastic supporters, and the campaign has put him in charge of the party’s Detroit operations again. Duggan’s top political aide and his son are running the effort, working everything from book-club meetings to family reunions.
For all the Democrats’ focus on Detroit, the city represents only about 7 percent of the state’s population, and for all Gilchrist’s efforts with Black men, only one in four voters in Michigan is a person of color. What Duggan and Gilchrist are doing won’t be enough, on its own, to deliver the state to Biden.
Yet according to public and private polls, Michigan appears to have moved away from Trump more quickly and definitively than any of the other states he won in 2016. A significant minority of Michiganders still strongly support him, including the many who have resisted Whitmer’s COVID-19 regulations. It’s gotten so extreme in the state that domestic terrorists plotted to kidnap her. But the change seems to reflect the diversity of the state: Trump’s ebbing support in the suburbs and among farmers, women, and white blue-collar workers, plus the stronger rejection of him by college-educated and nonwhite voters, have all combined to grind down his edge.
If Biden wins Michigan, the story of how it happened won’t just be about turnout in Detroit. The 2018 midterms resulted in a blue tsunami off the Great Lakes: Democrats in Michigan were elected governor, lieutenant governor, senator, attorney general, and secretary of state, and flipped two House seats. With the exception of Gilchrist, they were all women. Engaging female voters and propelling women as first-time candidates have had lasting effects. Amy Chapman, a Democratic strategist and former Obama state-campaign director, calls 2018 “the awakening in between”; she told me that the grassroots energy “was reflected in the kind of candidate that got elected, and emboldened people to look toward ’20 in a new way.”
Getting Democrats elected took more than bucking up spirits. Whitmer, as the new governor, was a check against any attempts to scale back voting accessibility. Michigan’s secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, has made national headlines for automatically mailing absentee applications ballots to all the state’s voters during the pandemic, rather than limiting those votes, as a Republican secretary of state might have.* Dana Nessel, the attorney general, has similarly used her office to protect voting. Their efforts have been boosted by a 2018 state referendum that facilitated absentee voting long before anyone was thinking about pandemic restrictions. Even in states with full Democratic control, such as New York, rushing to expand absentee rules has proved difficult. Michigan had a two-year head start, though fights have continued over issues, such as extending the postmark deadline for absentee votes. (In the latest twist, a court has ruled that ballots received after Election Day can’t be counted.)
The 2020 campaign began almost as soon as the 2018 campaign ended, funded first by $500,000 from Senator Debbie Stabenow and then matched by another $500,000 from Whitmer. Stabenow’s 2018 campaign had been battered by the significant investment in online outreach and digital ads made by her Republican opponent, John James. As James geared up to run again, this time against the politically weaker and less known Gary Peters, state Democrats studied his investments to avoid getting lapped again in 2020.
Gretchen Whitmer: ‘There’s going to be a horrible cost’
So Democratic organizers were knocking on doors all over the state for more than a year before the coronavirus hit—not just collecting information or puffing up Democrats for being Democrats, but trying to connect with them over national issues, such as health care, as well as community issues. “There’s no real magic here,” Lavora Barnes, who took over as the Michigan Democratic Party’s chair after the midterms, told me. “It’s getting back to that basic premise that voters want to have a conversation.” Because it had collected so much data already, the state party—which currently employs about 300 staffers (including an in-house legal team), four times as many as it did in 2016—knew how to reach voters even after the world shut down. “Now we can pick up the phone and have a conversation with someone who may have met someone on the doors in 2017, 2018, 2019,” Barnes said. “We’ve got you on the phone; we’ve got you on text message; we’ve got you on a virtual phone conversation.”
The events of 2020, Stabenow argues, have only strengthened the 2018 coalition of pastors, labor heads, teachers, civil-rights leaders, and other local forces. “We can thank Donald Trump for that,” she told me. “People are horrified about the pandemic, about the number of lives lost, about how our complete way of life has changed.” The infection rate in Michigan, one of the early coronavirus hot spots, has started to rise again. And although Trump tried to capitalize on racial divisions across the country after George Floyd’s killing, Stabenow said she saw a recoil effect all over her state. “Half the folks walking in Black Lives Matter marches were from the suburbs,” she said. “White suburbs. People have gotten engaged in a different way.”
Biden and his team have stayed engaged, as Trump’s campaign has continued to visit and otherwise actively campaign in the state. Biden has visited several times, and may be back. In the past week alone, the Biden campaign has sent Jill Biden; Kamala Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff; Pete Buttigieg; and the pop star Lizzo all over the state, and Harris and Emhoff were back there today. (Trump and Vice President Mike Pence were also in Michigan this past week.) Democrats’ TV spending has remained high, and issue-specific, such as the campaign ad that started running earlier this month, just in the Traverse City market, highlighting the effect of climate change on fruit farmers. Clinton’s Michigan ads in 2016 mostly focused on calling Trump terrible, without a clear positive message about her or the Democratic Party.
Read: A warning from Michigan
Despite these efforts, Democrats know that much will likely hinge on the Black vote. So in late September, when Harris came to Michigan for her first in-person trip since joining the ticket, she started the day in Flint, another largely Black city that, like Detroit, saw lower turnout in 2016 than it had four years before. Sticking to the campaign’s strategy of speaking directly to local issues, she took a walking tour of Black-owned small businesses with Stabenow and the Flint native and former WNBA player Deanna Nolan, visiting a barbershop, then a bookstore, then a clothing store. At a market a few blocks away, she laughed with farmers as she bought honeycrisp apples, corn, and jalapeños, talking up Biden’s economic-recovery plan to each person she met.
In front of another barbershop that afternoon, in Detroit, Harris laid into the Trump administration for trying to end the Affordable Care Act and health-insurance protections for preexisting conditions. She talked about how “poverty is trauma-inducing,” and called the push for a $15 hourly minimum wage a “floor” that didn’t do anything to build Black equity. “We have an opportunity to declare and demonstrate the power to shape the future,” she said, urging listeners not to be cowed into giving up and not voting. “Let us not let them take our power.”
With less than two weeks to go until Election Day, more than 1.6 million Michiganders have voted, about a third of the expected vote total (which assumes a higher turnout than in 2016). Democrats like those numbers, but they also worry that they don’t actually represent additional supporters—they may just be eating into the votes that in past years came on Election Day.
Even if the Democrats’ Michigan strategy comes together, flipping just this one state won’t get Biden to 270 electoral votes. But the Biden campaign knows that Michigan is central to its chances. “I’m traveling around the country, but I keep coming back to Detroit,” Harris said today at a polling place there. “You know, in 2016, right, we remember what happened? When we got hit by this natural disaster who’s now in the White House, right? In 2016, they won by just on an average two votes per precinct … So let’s make sure that doesn’t happen again, shall we? And that means: Let’s make sure everybody votes.”


theatlantic--2020-10-26--The Difference Between Feeling Safe and Being Safe

On a normal day , the White House is one of the safest buildings in the world .
Secret Service snipers stand guard on the roof , their aim tested monthly to ensure their accuracy up to 1,000 feet .
Their heavily armed colleagues patrol the ground below and staff security checkpoints .
Belgian Malinois guard dogs lie in wait for anyone who manages to jump the property ’ s massive iron fence .
But safety means something different in a pandemic .
Over the past few days , several aides to Vice President Mike Pence , including his chief @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the coronavirus .
The outbreak is the second in the White House in a month , after dozens of people , including President Donald Trump himself , tested positive following the apparent super-spreader event hosted by the administration to celebrate the Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett .
The outbreaks have been both utterly predictable and totally shocking .
The Trump administration has consistently downplayed the severity of the coronavirus , encouraged Americans to resist safety measures , and promised that the pandemic is nearing its end .
But the people orchestrating the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no plausible deniability : The very best experts , information , and precautions were all available to them , even if they refused to pass that help on to others .
People will write books on everything Donald Trump did wrong during the pandemic , with explanations both personal and ideological for his administration ’ s often willful failures .
But for a group of people for whom self-preservation has long been an obvious goal , their willingness to put themselves in optional danger , given all the resources at their disposal , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump ’ s lack of empathy or his advisers ’ policy goals .
It suggests that on top of everything else , the administration fell prey to an error of intuition : Presumably , Trump and his coterie felt safe , despite the mortal danger nipping at their heels for all to see .
Trumpworld ’ s infection fiasco is an especially bizarre case study of one of the pandemic ’ s defining features : how different feeling safe and being safe actually are .
This misperception has played out in millions of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ regular people make good-faith efforts to grapple with the swiftly changing circumstances of American life , absent the resources available to the federal government .
Things that used to be safe , such as visiting grandparents and attending a friend ’ s wedding , are now potentially deadly .
Things that used to be foreboding , such as the sight of many masked strangers in public , are now a source of comfort .
• Why Americans Have Turned to Nesting This new sort of safety is difficult to adapt to , both @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , previously innocuous private social gatherings , such as dinner parties and birthday celebrations , were cited as a primary driver of new infections all over the United States .
In some instances , the people involved perhaps didn ’ t care about the risk or thought the pandemic was fake .
But in others , they likely couldn ’ t imagine why they should be scared of time with loved ones .
Many of these same people were wearing masks to the grocery store , using hand sanitizer , and otherwise doing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them .
Safety is among the most powerful motivators of human behavior , which also makes the drive to feel safe a potent accelerant for confusion , disinformation , and panic .
Staying safe requires an accurate , mutually agreed-upon understanding of reality on which to assess threats and base decisions .
Since the pandemic arrived in the U.S. , however , politicians have sparred over basic safety precautions and aggressive reopenings .
The federal government and many of its allies at the state and local levels have actively undermined efforts to get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contradictions have sown confusion , even among those who disagree politically with the leaders encouraging people to flout masking and social distancing .
When everyone is left to write their own version of Choose Your Own Pandemic Adventure , no one is safe .
To understand how humans think about safety , you have to understand how they think about fear .
To be safe , people need to be free from the threat of physical or mental harm .
But to feel safe , people need to be free from the perception @ @ @ @ @ @ @ understand what the likeliest threats are and that they are capable of avoiding them .
Whether their perception is accurate is often incidental , at best , to the feeling itself .
“ Fear reactions are very primitive , ” Arash Javanbakht , a psychiatry researcher at Wayne State University , told me .
“ We don ’ t react so well or so accurately to conceptual threats.
” People learn what or whom to fear in a few different ways , according to Javanbakht .
The things we have experienced or observed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the kinds of violence frequently depicted on the news , have a significant impact .
So do the warnings of peers and authority figures .
This assemblage of influences—family members , friends , co-workers , religious or cultural leaders—is as much a tribe now as it was when these instincts evolved , and the security and support that it can provide create a profound psychological incentive to remain a member in good standing of one ’ s group .
People ’ s dependence on group affiliation for safety and support can be so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sometimes overrides more logical assessments of fear and safety , Javanbakht said .
Even in situations where the actions of the tribe ’ s leaders contribute to the group ’ s collective misery , many members will find it difficult to reject that leadership .
Instead , studies have shown , people dig in their heels when confronted with evidence that challenges their beliefs or identity : They redouble their support for trusted authority figures and reject outside criticism , which they ’ ll often paint as proof that the group is under @ @ @ @ @ @ @ softer forms of American tribalism , such as being a fan of the Cleveland Browns .
The team ’ s leadership has been antagonizing its fanbase for decades , but some people can not be mistreated into retracting their emotional and monetary support .
Many Americans have come to understand their political affiliations in much the same way they do their affinity for particular sports teams or movie franchises , but with much darker implications than , say , getting your hopes up about an Atlanta Braves postseason run .
On a basic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in how people scrambled for clarity early in the pandemic .
The methods humans use to understand and pursue safety aren ’ t really built for quick , competent responses to novel threats .
Fear abounds as people realize they don ’ t have a script to follow .
( Buy six cases of bottled water . )
Panic sets in .
( Lysol the groceries . )
They wait for guidance from existing leaders and search for previously overlooked ones .
( Nice to meet you , Dr .
Fauci . )
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
( Wear a mask . )
Read : The coronavirus is never going away .
In a country with a dwindling consensus on the basic experience of reality , though , tribal affiliation can be especially fraught .
Trump and other leaders have conscripted supporters into cultural warfare , recasting safety measures as political attacks from the opposition and tools of social control .
Some people have duly followed , rejecting simple precautions recommended by scientific experts , such as masks and open windows , and promoting some of the more extreme @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a hoax ; it ’ s a bioweapon meant to hurt Trump ’ s reelection chances ; it really is just the flu .
Tribal affiliations have been exploited in American politics for centuries ; influential people stoke fear against those outside their constituencies , such as ethnic and religious minorities , immigrants , and the poor , which intensifies supporters ’ belief that loyalty to the group itself is their best bet for safety .
But Trump , from whom this narrative radiates , has been especially adept at fomenting and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in his brief political career .
People who have built a significant portion of their identity around Trump fandom by attending rallies , joining Facebook groups , and buying merchandise likely have a psychological investment in his version of reality that ’ s too high to consider abandoning ; for some of them , losing those beliefs might feel like a fate worse than the coronavirus .
When the spell is that strong , according to Javanbakht , it generally requires a more immediate measure of danger to break it , such as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Intuitive failures of safety extend beyond Trump and his acolytes .
Ultra-strict adherence to pandemic precautions can itself be a display of tribal identity , especially as scientific understanding of the virus evolves and some safety measures , such as wiping down groceries with sanitizing wipes , can be dispensed with .
No matter where their beliefs fall on the country ’ s political spectrum , people whose identity is more weakly tied to a political group have an advantage when it comes to adapting in response to new information .
A @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anti-mask , and most liberals are not fully sequestered in their homes , Lysol-soaking their mail-in ballots .
While these sets of behaviors share an underlying psychological mechanism , they are not equivalent .
To belong to one tribe , people accept an outsize and sometimes irrational portion of responsibility for their own safety and that of others through self-abnegation and personal fastidiousness .
To belong to the second tribe , people must refuse to care about others at all .
Over time , theoretically , the country ’ s collective understanding of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as the definition of safety is expanded to account for the pandemic , and the group—in this case , Americans as a whole—forms new norms to achieve it .
In most of America , that hasn ’ t necessarily been the case so far , and any progress has been hard-won over sometimes-violent opposition .
But the tribalist fear that causes those big variations often doesn ’ t account for smaller ones among families and social circles , which tend to be politically similar .
Anyone who ’ s been holed up in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and family proceed with indoor weddings or spend their weekends inside bars—or anyone who ’ s invited a buddy to a day at the beach only to be rejected over amorphous safety concerns—knows that something more complicated is going on .
Even among people with similar beliefs , a smooth , uniform pivot to a new understanding of safety requires diligent , competent , well-intentioned leadership .
According to Eric Scott Geller , a psychologist at Virginia Tech who has studied safety for more than 40 years , the best way to get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ precautions is to be explicit and consistent about what they are and why they ’ re important , and then demonstrate examples of people adhering to them repeatedly over time .
As a whole , American leadership continues to do the opposite .
“ I ’ ve been in the business for a long time , and I ’ ve never seen anything quite like this , ” Geller told me .
“ The biggest problem we have right now is mixed messages.
” Left to their own devices , people chart their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they see the world , and how they relate to risk .
According to Geller , many people presented with a barrage of contradictory instructions just grow tired and give up .
Others become hypervigilant , their behavior calcifying against new information that might let them ease up and enjoy life a little more .
Still others simply choose optimism , no matter how dangerously misguided—such as the belief that “ herd immunity ” is near , or the assumption that catching the virus will have no long-term consequences for them .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because it ’ s convenient , and it ’ s not scary , it ’ s not fearful , ” Geller said .
And so the chaos of a country becomes the chaos within its families and communities .
People spar over their assumptions and hastily made decisions based on half-understandings of scientific evidence .
They ’ re forced to conduct their own awkward , fraught behavioral micro-negotiations before visiting relatives , celebrating a birthday , or going out for a beer on a bar ’ s patio .
Americans have no common @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you can ’ t assume that someone you ’ ve trusted for years isn ’ t about to expose you to a deadly disease , or even that you live on the same plane of reality .
People feel bad about enforcing their boundaries , or they simply grow tired of constant vigilance .
Occasionally , they just forget .
In some ways , these tragic errors in intuition are convenient for leaders , both within and outside the government .
Birthday parties and vacations and nights out on the town are easily @ @ @ @ @ @ @ influence , even though other countries have gone much further in giving their citizens tools to keep themselves safe and make good decisions—nationally coordinated testing programs , extensive government aid for businesses , a clear and consistent message about safety .
You can see the same finger-pointing dynamic in how some college presidents set their charges up to fail , and then punished them for becoming infected .
This approach reflects how , in America , blame for large-scale destruction and death is often shunted onto those with the least power to change @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about all the accidents on oil platforms , or drilling rigs , ” Susan Silbey , a sociologist who studies safety at MIT , told me .
“ It 's the same few companies over and over again .
They always blame the workers.
” Even with mixed messages from above , pandemic-era safety would be a little bit clearer to negotiate if talking about your behavior and asking questions about others ’ weren ’ t so excruciatingly awkward .
Ensuring pandemic safety requires interrogating loved ones about whom they ’ ve been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doing , and if they ’ ve been tested recently .
If that sounds familiar , it ’ s because health educators ask people to go over the same topics anytime they have a new sexual partner .
As it turns out , it wasn ’ t just the sex that made those conversations notoriously difficult to have , but the same strategies that public-health experts have developed to talk about sex might be just as useful in these new types of negotiations .
As masks became both more common and more controversial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Logan Levkoff , a sex-and-relationship educator , found herself having the same conversation over and over again with her peers .
The dynamics of pandemic health and sexual health make people anxious and cagey in very similar ways , about very similar types of precautions .
Should you refuse to attend your cousin ’ s wedding unless she moves it outside ?
Should you tell your maskless friend to mask up ?
These situations are “ still fraught with shame and stigma and assumptions about people ’ s politics , ” Levkoff @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we don ’ t want to have someone make assumptions about us , and we don ’ t want them to feel we ’ re making assumptions about them , we just don ’ t say anything at all.
” That avoidance can put people in riskier situations than they ’ d choose for themselves if they felt free to be picky .
Even so , the desire not to anger loved ones in an already anxious and fearful time can be strong .
“ That ’ s where we get tripped up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ We think that in those intimate relationships , it would be a violation of trust to ask.
” She said that the politicization of public-health measures has likely exacerbated this dynamic .
Conversations about safety can quickly devolve into arguments about political differences ; less than two weeks out from the election , many people are probably happy to avoid poking that bear if they can avoid it .
These conversations can even be hard among political peers , which in theory seems silly .
We ’ re in a pandemic , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just reasonable ?
“ We have this belief that our health is a measure of our character , ” Levkoff explained .
In America , being disease- and disability-free is often assumed to be an indicator of a person ’ s moral righteousness and good priorities .
To you , asking a friend if she ’ s been to a house party recently might feel like checking a box on a to-do list .
For her , it might feel like being told she ’ s some kind of degenerate .
These dynamics @ @ @ @ @ @ @ interactions , too .
After the University of Notre Dame ’ s president , John I. Jenkins , became one of the many people who tested positive for the coronavirus after attending the apparent White House super-spreader event celebrating Barrett , an unnamed member of the Notre Dame delegation told The New York Times that the group ’ s decision to go maskless was politeness , not politics—an attempt to blend in and adhere to the conventions set by the event ’ s powerful hosts .
There are many ways in which people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in American social culture .
Those niceties can set people up to spread a deadly disease in an environment where the circumstances of safety have changed swiftly and confusingly .
Looking for ways to have these conversations—or even just thinking about their implications at all—is half the battle .
Broaching an uncomfortable issue or figuring out a new way to understand our friends and loved ones is awkward , but it ’ s certainly doable .
Tread lightly .
Reassure friends and family that you ’ re just trying to help everyone have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ behavior .
Starting these conversations is often the hardest part , especially among people whose goals are the same , even if their methods differ .
They ’ ve already made the most difficult concession : banishing the idea that the way we understood one another seven months ago is enough to get us through the months ahead .
“ We think we share the same values and norms , ” Sibley , the sociologist , told me .
“ We think we know each other .
”

On a normal day, the White House is one of the safest buildings in the world. Secret Service snipers stand guard on the roof, their aim tested monthly to ensure their accuracy up to 1,000 feet. Their heavily armed colleagues patrol the ground below and staff security checkpoints. Belgian Malinois guard dogs lie in wait for anyone who manages to jump the property’s massive iron fence.
But safety means something different in a pandemic. Over the past few days, several aides to Vice President Mike Pence, including his chief of staff, have tested positive for the coronavirus. The outbreak is the second in the White House in a month, after dozens of people, including President Donald Trump himself, tested positive following the apparent super-spreader event hosted by the administration to celebrate the Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.
The outbreaks have been both utterly predictable and totally shocking. The Trump administration has consistently downplayed the severity of the coronavirus, encouraged Americans to resist safety measures, and promised that the pandemic is nearing its end. But the people orchestrating the country’s disastrous coronavirus response had no plausible deniability: The very best experts, information, and precautions were all available to them, even if they refused to pass that help on to others.
People will write books on everything Donald Trump did wrong during the pandemic, with explanations both personal and ideological for his administration’s often willful failures. But for a group of people for whom self-preservation has long been an obvious goal, their willingness to put themselves in optional danger, given all the resources at their disposal, can’t be completely explained by Trump’s lack of empathy or his advisers’ policy goals. It suggests that on top of everything else, the administration fell prey to an error of intuition: Presumably, Trump and his coterie felt safe, despite the mortal danger nipping at their heels for all to see.
Trumpworld’s infection fiasco is an especially bizarre case study of one of the pandemic’s defining features: how different feeling safe and being safe actually are. This misperception has played out in millions of homes and workplaces across the country as regular people make good-faith efforts to grapple with the swiftly changing circumstances of American life, absent the resources available to the federal government. Things that used to be safe, such as visiting grandparents and attending a friend’s wedding, are now potentially deadly. Things that used to be foreboding, such as the sight of many masked strangers in public, are now a source of comfort.
This new sort of safety is difficult to adapt to, both practically and emotionally. Over the summer, previously innocuous private social gatherings, such as dinner parties and birthday celebrations, were cited as a primary driver of new infections all over the United States. In some instances, the people involved perhaps didn’t care about the risk or thought the pandemic was fake. But in others, they likely couldn’t imagine why they should be scared of time with loved ones. Many of these same people were wearing masks to the grocery store, using hand sanitizer, and otherwise doing what they understood to be asked of them.
Safety is among the most powerful motivators of human behavior, which also makes the drive to feel safe a potent accelerant for confusion, disinformation, and panic. Staying safe requires an accurate, mutually agreed-upon understanding of reality on which to assess threats and base decisions. Since the pandemic arrived in the U.S., however, politicians have sparred over basic safety precautions and aggressive reopenings. The federal government and many of its allies at the state and local levels have actively undermined efforts to get people on the same page. These contradictions have sown confusion, even among those who disagree politically with the leaders encouraging people to flout masking and social distancing. When everyone is left to write their own version of Choose Your Own Pandemic Adventure, no one is safe.
(Antoine d' Agata / Magnum)
To understand how humans think about safety, you have to understand how they think about fear. To be safe, people need to be free from the threat of physical or mental harm. But to feel safe, people need to be free from the perception of potential harm, confident that they understand what the likeliest threats are and that they are capable of avoiding them. Whether their perception is accurate is often incidental, at best, to the feeling itself. “Fear reactions are very primitive,” Arash Javanbakht, a psychiatry researcher at Wayne State University, told me. “We don’t react so well or so accurately to conceptual threats.”
People learn what or whom to fear in a few different ways, according to Javanbakht. The things we have experienced or observed ourselves, such as car accidents or the kinds of violence frequently depicted on the news, have a significant impact. So do the warnings of peers and authority figures. This assemblage of influences—family members, friends, co-workers, religious or cultural leaders—is as much a tribe now as it was when these instincts evolved, and the security and support that it can provide create a profound psychological incentive to remain a member in good standing of one’s group.
People’s dependence on group affiliation for safety and support can be so strong, in fact, that it sometimes overrides more logical assessments of fear and safety, Javanbakht said. Even in situations where the actions of the tribe’s leaders contribute to the group’s collective misery, many members will find it difficult to reject that leadership. Instead, studies have shown, people dig in their heels when confronted with evidence that challenges their beliefs or identity: They redouble their support for trusted authority figures and reject outside criticism, which they’ll often paint as proof that the group is under threat. Javanbakht compared this dynamic to softer forms of American tribalism, such as being a fan of the Cleveland Browns. The team’s leadership has been antagonizing its fanbase for decades, but some people cannot be mistreated into retracting their emotional and monetary support.
Many Americans have come to understand their political affiliations in much the same way they do their affinity for particular sports teams or movie franchises, but with much darker implications than, say, getting your hopes up about an Atlanta Braves postseason run. On a basic level, you could see tribalist fear in how people scrambled for clarity early in the pandemic. The methods humans use to understand and pursue safety aren’t really built for quick, competent responses to novel threats. Fear abounds as people realize they don’t have a script to follow. (Buy six cases of bottled water.) Panic sets in. (Lysol the groceries.) They wait for guidance from existing leaders and search for previously overlooked ones. (Nice to meet you, Dr. Fauci.) They monitor the behavior of their peers. (Wear a mask.)
Read: The coronavirus is never going away.
In a country with a dwindling consensus on the basic experience of reality, though, tribal affiliation can be especially fraught. Trump and other leaders have conscripted supporters into cultural warfare, recasting safety measures as political attacks from the opposition and tools of social control. Some people have duly followed, rejecting simple precautions recommended by scientific experts, such as masks and open windows, and promoting some of the more extreme reactions to the pandemic: The virus is a hoax; it’s a bioweapon meant to hurt Trump’s reelection chances; it really is just the flu.
Tribal affiliations have been exploited in American politics for centuries; influential people stoke fear against those outside their constituencies, such as ethnic and religious minorities, immigrants, and the poor, which intensifies supporters’ belief that loyalty to the group itself is their best bet for safety. But Trump, from whom this narrative radiates, has been especially adept at fomenting and wielding fear as a source of power in his brief political career. People who have built a significant portion of their identity around Trump fandom by attending rallies, joining Facebook groups, and buying merchandise likely have a psychological investment in his version of reality that’s too high to consider abandoning; for some of them, losing those beliefs might feel like a fate worse than the coronavirus. When the spell is that strong, according to Javanbakht, it generally requires a more immediate measure of danger to break it, such as the COVID-19 death of a loved one.
Intuitive failures of safety extend beyond Trump and his acolytes. Ultra-strict adherence to pandemic precautions can itself be a display of tribal identity, especially as scientific understanding of the virus evolves and some safety measures, such as wiping down groceries with sanitizing wipes, can be dispensed with. No matter where their beliefs fall on the country’s political spectrum, people whose identity is more weakly tied to a political group have an advantage when it comes to adapting in response to new information. A relatively small proportion of conservatives are virulently anti-mask, and most liberals are not fully sequestered in their homes, Lysol-soaking their mail-in ballots.
While these sets of behaviors share an underlying psychological mechanism, they are not equivalent. To belong to one tribe, people accept an outsize and sometimes irrational portion of responsibility for their own safety and that of others through self-abnegation and personal fastidiousness. To belong to the second tribe, people must refuse to care about others at all.
(Al Bello / Getty)
Over time, theoretically, the country’s collective understanding of safety should both improve and normalize, as the definition of safety is expanded to account for the pandemic, and the group—in this case, Americans as a whole—forms new norms to achieve it. In most of America, that hasn’t necessarily been the case so far, and any progress has been hard-won over sometimes-violent opposition. But the tribalist fear that causes those big variations often doesn’t account for smaller ones among families and social circles, which tend to be politically similar. Anyone who’s been holed up in their home for months, watching friends and family proceed with indoor weddings or spend their weekends inside bars—or anyone who’s invited a buddy to a day at the beach only to be rejected over amorphous safety concerns—knows that something more complicated is going on.
Even among people with similar beliefs, a smooth, uniform pivot to a new understanding of safety requires diligent, competent, well-intentioned leadership. According to Eric Scott Geller, a psychologist at Virginia Tech who has studied safety for more than 40 years, the best way to get lots of people to adopt new safety precautions is to be explicit and consistent about what they are and why they’re important, and then demonstrate examples of people adhering to them repeatedly over time. As a whole, American leadership continues to do the opposite. “I’ve been in the business for a long time, and I’ve never seen anything quite like this,” Geller told me. “The biggest problem we have right now is mixed messages.”
Read: America is trapped in a pandemic spiral.
Left to their own devices, people chart their paths based on their personality, how they see the world, and how they relate to risk. According to Geller, many people presented with a barrage of contradictory instructions just grow tired and give up. Others become hypervigilant, their behavior calcifying against new information that might let them ease up and enjoy life a little more. Still others simply choose optimism, no matter how dangerously misguided—such as the belief that “herd immunity” is near, or the assumption that catching the virus will have no long-term consequences for them. “People will gravitate to the positive message because it’s convenient, and it’s not scary, it’s not fearful,” Geller said.
And so the chaos of a country becomes the chaos within its families and communities. People spar over their assumptions and hastily made decisions based on half-understandings of scientific evidence. They’re forced to conduct their own awkward, fraught behavioral micro-negotiations before visiting relatives, celebrating a birthday, or going out for a beer on a bar’s patio. Americans have no common conception of the pandemic, which means you can’t assume that someone you’ve trusted for years isn’t about to expose you to a deadly disease, or even that you live on the same plane of reality. People feel bad about enforcing their boundaries, or they simply grow tired of constant vigilance. Occasionally, they just forget.
In some ways, these tragic errors in intuition are convenient for leaders, both within and outside the government. Birthday parties and vacations and nights out on the town are easily framed as personal choices free from government influence, even though other countries have gone much further in giving their citizens tools to keep themselves safe and make good decisions—nationally coordinated testing programs, extensive government aid for businesses, a clear and consistent message about safety. You can see the same finger-pointing dynamic in how some college presidents set their charges up to fail, and then punished them for becoming infected. This approach reflects how, in America, blame for large-scale destruction and death is often shunted onto those with the least power to change policy or protect themselves. “Think about all the accidents on oil platforms, or drilling rigs,” Susan Silbey, a sociologist who studies safety at MIT, told me. “It’s the same few companies over and over again. They always blame the workers.”
(Matt Black / Magnum)
Even with mixed messages from above, pandemic-era safety would be a little bit clearer to negotiate if talking about your behavior and asking questions about others’ weren’t so excruciatingly awkward. Ensuring pandemic safety requires interrogating loved ones about whom they’ve been with and what they’ve been doing, and if they’ve been tested recently. If that sounds familiar, it’s because health educators ask people to go over the same topics anytime they have a new sexual partner. As it turns out, it wasn’t just the sex that made those conversations notoriously difficult to have, but the same strategies that public-health experts have developed to talk about sex might be just as useful in these new types of negotiations.
As masks became both more common and more controversial in the United States during the spring, Logan Levkoff, a sex-and-relationship educator, found herself having the same conversation over and over again with her peers. The dynamics of pandemic health and sexual health make people anxious and cagey in very similar ways, about very similar types of precautions. Should you refuse to attend your cousin’s wedding unless she moves it outside? Should you tell your maskless friend to mask up? These situations are “still fraught with shame and stigma and assumptions about people’s politics,” Levkoff told me. “Often, if we don’t want to have someone make assumptions about us, and we don’t want them to feel we’re making assumptions about them, we just don’t say anything at all.”
That avoidance can put people in riskier situations than they’d choose for themselves if they felt free to be picky. Even so, the desire not to anger loved ones in an already anxious and fearful time can be strong. “That’s where we get tripped up a bit,” Levkoff said. “We think that in those intimate relationships, it would be a violation of trust to ask.” She said that the politicization of public-health measures has likely exacerbated this dynamic. Conversations about safety can quickly devolve into arguments about political differences; less than two weeks out from the election, many people are probably happy to avoid poking that bear if they can.
These conversations can even be hard among political peers, which in theory seems silly. We’re in a pandemic, after all. Isn’t transparency just reasonable? “We have this belief that our health is a measure of our character,” Levkoff explained. In America, being disease- and disability-free is often assumed to be an indicator of a person’s moral righteousness and good priorities. To you, asking a friend if she’s been to a house party recently might feel like checking a box on a to-do list. For her, it might feel like being told she’s some kind of degenerate.
Read: How “Karen” became a coronavirus villain
These dynamics rear their ugly head in less intimate interactions, too. After the University of Notre Dame’s president, John I. Jenkins, became one of the many people who tested positive for the coronavirus after attending the apparent White House super-spreader event celebrating Barrett, an unnamed member of the Notre Dame delegation told The New York Times that the group’s decision to go maskless was politeness, not politics—an attempt to blend in and adhere to the conventions set by the event’s powerful hosts. There are many ways in which people are expected not to rock the boat in American social culture. Those niceties can set people up to spread a deadly disease in an environment where the circumstances of safety have changed swiftly and confusingly.
Looking for ways to have these conversations—or even just thinking about their implications at all—is half the battle. Broaching an uncomfortable issue or figuring out a new way to understand our friends and loved ones is awkward, but it’s certainly doable. Tread lightly. Reassure friends and family that you’re just trying to help everyone have fun. Volunteer information about your own behavior. Starting these conversations is often the hardest part, especially among people whose goals are the same, even if their methods differ. They’ve already made the most difficult concession: banishing the idea that the way we understood one another seven months ago is enough to get us through the months ahead.
“We think we share the same values and norms,” Sibley, the sociologist, told me. “We think we know each other.”