vox--2020-02-28--How Democrats’ delegate math actually works

We all know how the Democratic nomination contest works , right ?
Well , we think we do .
People go and vote in primaries or caucuses in their states .
The votes are counted and we see who wins .
And then , those votes get translated ... somehow ... into how many delegates each candidate gets .
Even many hardened political obsessives tend to fast-forward through that last bit : the delegate math .
It ’ s complicated and confusing , so why bother ?
But the delegate math is incredibly important : It determines who wins .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to get the nomination at the Democratic National Convention .
Bernie Sanders has recently argued that it shouldn ’ t be this way — that a plurality winner should just win — but that is not how the current rules work .
So how do you get delegates ?
In the Democratic contest , it ’ s not just about winning states , it ’ s about how much you win by and how much of the vote you get in both states and congressional districts .
There are no winner-take-all states ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
What makes things especially tricky this year is , for the first time in nearly three decades , the Democratic field won ’ t just be a two-candidate contest on Super Tuesday .
Because of that , small changes in the vote count — and particularly in who manages to top the 15 percent threshold necessary to get any delegates — can shape the delegate totals in surprising ways .
For instance , if the leading candidate gets 30 percent of the vote somewhere , they could end up getting around one-third @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the exact same vote share they could also end up with two-thirds of delegates — a dramatic difference , particularly since a majority is necessary to win .
The difference depends entirely on how many other candidates top 15 percent and on how far above it they are .
Voters may not realize that , if they cast their ballot for a candidate who ends up falling below that threshold , they could be super-charging the leading candidate ’ s delegate haul .
So it ’ s very much worth understanding what happens @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And happily , Democrats do at least use the exact same delegate allocation formula everywhere — meaning , once you learn how it works in one state , you ’ ll understand how it works everywhere .
Let ’ s walk through it .
Four steps to get from votes to delegates The best way to explain how this will all work is to walk you through a sample scenario based on the candidates currently in the race .
Though these numbers are made up , remember that what happens in the examples @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Super Tuesday .
Step 1 : Meeting the threshold : Once the votes somewhere ( either in a state or a congressional district ) have come in , the first key crucial number in the delegate math is the 15 percent threshold .
As you probably know , candidates need 15 percent or more of the vote somewhere to be eligible to get any delegates there .
If a candidate is below that , they ’ re out of luck .
But another crucial step here is that the votes for any candidates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the count for the purposes of delegate allocation .
So let ’ s say the votes come in as follows ( using nice clean numbers ) : Four candidates have met the 15 percent threshold : Sanders , Biden , Warren , and Buttigieg .
That means the votes for Klobuchar and the other candidates are excluded .
Step 2 : Determining everyone ’ s delegate percentage : Next , we calculate how much of the remaining vote each candidate who met the threshold got .
The resulting percentage ( up to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ key number for allocating delegates .
Here , Sanders ’ s 30 percent of the vote means he will get about 33 percent of delegates , Biden ’ s 25 percent of the vote means he ’ ll get around 27 percent of delegates , etc .
Step 3 : Estimating the delegates for each candidate : Then , you have to look at how many delegates are actually at stake in this particular place .
Let ’ s say there are 10 delegates at stake here .
Apply the percentages to that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : Step 4 : Rounding : Delegates are actual people and can ’ t be split into fractions .
So we need to end up with whole numbers here .
The way Democrats ensure this is they start with just the whole numbers ( avoiding the decimals for now ) — so Sanders gets 3 , Biden 2 , Warren 2 , and Buttigieg 1 .
That means 8 of the 10 delegates have been awarded and there are 2 left over .
You look at the part of the number after the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Biden ’ s .777 is the highest , so he gets one , and Buttigieg ’ s .666 is second highest , so he gets the other one .
The final delegate tally here , then , is : So though Sanders got the most votes , he ended up tying Biden in delegates due to rounding , because Biden was close enough on his heels and rounding happened to work in his favor .
That ’ s how the delegate allocation formula works .
You can apply it to the vote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with a primary to walk through how the delegates get divvied up .
How this math can produce quirky results with such a crowded field In a two-candidate race like the ones Democrats had in 2008 and 2016 , this isn ’ t all that tricky .
Both candidates almost always top 15 percent and there are just a small number of votes for anyone else .
So their percentage of delegates ends up closely matching their percentage of votes .
But when the vote is split among multiple candidates , things can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 15 percent threshold .
As an example , let ’ s say the vote breakdown is only slightly different from the one above , with Bernie Sanders getting the exact same percentage of overall votes , but the rest of the field shaking out differently : Now , only Sanders and Biden cleared 15 percent .
So votes for the other candidates are cleared away , and the delegate percentages for Sanders and Biden would be : Applying those percentages to 10 delegates means no rounding is necessary — the final delegate tally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on this .
Sanders here ended up with 60 percent of the delegates at stake , but in the earlier example he ended up at 30 percent ( the same as Biden ) after rounding .
And he got the exact same number of votes and percentage of the statewide total in both examples .
It ’ s a dramatic difference — particularly when you keep in mind that you need an outright majority of delegates ( not just a plurality ) to be assured of the nomination .
For any one candidate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they need to win majorities of delegates in a lot of places .
So when it comes to big statewide delegate hauls like those in California and Texas , the difference between the winner getting 30 percent or 60 percent of those delegates is massive .
It could get even more dramatic .
If one candidate is the only person to clear 15 percent , they get all of the delegates at stake .
And in a contest where delegates are allotted proportionally , it ’ s a huge win for any candidate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ percent of them somewhere .
So in a messy race like this , it ’ s not just about who wins .
It ’ s about how much that person wins by and how many other people manage to top 15 percent of the vote .
Most delegates are allotted based on congressional district results There ’ s one other important-but-confusing part of Democrats ’ delegate rules : that delegates are awarded in different batches in each state .
First off , around 65 percent of delegates across the country are actually awarded @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — not states .
The above formula ( from the 15 percent threshold to rounding ) gets applied in every district .
Most states use congressional districts , though Texas uses state senate districts instead .
So if you miss 15 percent statewide but get there in one or more congressional districts , you will pick up delegates in that state ( as Pete Buttigieg did in Nevada ) .
Conversely , if you top 15 percent statewide but miss that threshold in several districts ( because your support is concentrated in one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ll lose out on a bunch of delegates .
Second , there ’ s even some confusion with the statewide delegates , because most states award them in two separate batches .
There are the ordinary “ at-large ” statewide delegates , and then there are the PLEOs , or “ party leaders and elected officials.
” ( These aren ’ t the infamous “ superdelegates ” who can support whomever they want ; pledged PLEO delegates are pledged to back a certain candidate based on the results in the contest .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the delegate allocation formula is applied separately to both the at-large delegate batch and the PLEO delegate batch .
The proportional results will be similar , but due to the rounding step , there can be differences in how the delegates end up in each batch .
As an example , here ’ s how Arkansas ( a Super Tuesday state ) allocates its delegates in six batches .
So you see here that most of Arkansas ’ s delegates are given out according to the congressional district results .
That ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for those small states with just one congressional district , where this is irrelevant ) .
The big picture for the 2020 Democratic contest So yes , that was a lot .
But here ’ s a brief summary cheat sheet to tie it all together : • The basic math : For delegate allocation , all votes for candidates who have not reached 15 percent support are excluded .
Each candidate ’ s percentage of what ’ s left over determines what percentage of delegates they get .
Rounding also comes into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ implications : That 15 percent threshold can make the delegate results swing wildly depending on how many candidates meet it and how much support those candidates get .
If almost all of the vote is cast for candidates meeting the threshold , the results will look proportional .
But if there are lots of votes “ wasted ” on candidates below 15 percent , the candidates who do meet the threshold can reap big delegate gains .
• The many delegate batches : Statewide results are important , but more delegates are actually @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of congressional districts across the country .
The delegate allocation math , the 15 percent threshold , and rounding applies individually to the results in all these districts .
Fun !
• Majorities matter : Whether you get the most delegates isn ’ t all that matters ; whether you ’ re on track for a majority of delegates is also quite important .
If the “ winner ” on Super Tuesday gets half or more of the delegates , they ’ d be in a commanding position .
If they ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will be more tenuous .
Got all that ?
Good .
Now you ’ re ready to make sense of Super Tuesday ’ s results .

We all know how the Democratic nomination contest works, right? Well, we think we do.
People go and vote in primaries or caucuses in their states. The votes are counted and we see who wins. And then those votes get translated ... somehow ... into how many delegates each candidate gets.
Even many hardened political obsessives tend to fast-forward through that last bit: the delegate math. It’s complicated and confusing, so why bother?
But the delegate math is incredibly important: It determines who wins. A candidate needs a majority of delegates to get the nomination at the Democratic National Convention. (Bernie Sanders has recently argued that delegates should just give the nomination to whoever wins a plurality, but the current rules do not require that.)
So how do you get delegates? In the Democratic contest, it’s not just about winning states, it’s about how much you win by and how much of the vote you get in both states and congressional districts. There are no winner-take-all states; instead, all delegates are awarded proportionally.
What makes things especially tricky this year is, for the first time in nearly three decades, the Democratic field won’t just be a two-candidate contest on Super Tuesday, March 3. Because of that, small changes in the vote count — and particularly in who manages to top the 15 percent threshold necessary to get any delegates — can shape the delegate totals in surprising ways.
For instance, if the leading candidate gets 30 percent of the vote somewhere, they could end up getting around one-third of delegates at stake. But with the exact same vote share, they could also end up with two-thirds of delegates — a dramatic difference, particularly since a majority is necessary to win.
The difference depends entirely on how many other candidates top 15 percent and on how far above it they are. Voters may not realize that if they cast their ballot for a candidate who ends up falling below that threshold, they could be supercharging the leading candidate’s delegate haul.
So it’s very much worth understanding what happens when votes get converted into delegates. And happily, Democrats do at least use the same delegate allocation formula everywhere — meaning, once you learn how it works in one state, you’ll understand how it works everywhere. Let’s walk through it.
Four steps to get from votes to delegates
The best way to explain how this will all work is to walk you through a sample scenario based on the candidates currently in the race. Though these numbers are made up, remember that the examples below are all completely plausible outcomes on Super Tuesday. (Note: Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar dropped out of the race just before Super Tuesday.)
Step 1 — Meeting the threshold: Once the votes somewhere (either in a state or in a congressional district) have come in, the first crucial number in the delegate math is the 15 percent threshold.
As you probably know, candidates need 15 percent or more of the vote somewhere to be eligible to get any delegates there. If a candidate is below that, they’re out of luck.
But another crucial step here is that the votes for any candidates getting below 15 percent are then excluded from the count for the purposes of delegate allocation.
Delegates are actual people and can’t be split into fractions. So we need to end up with whole numbers here.
The way Democrats ensure this is they start with just the whole numbers (avoiding the decimals for now) — so Sanders gets 3, Biden 2, Warren 2, and Buttigieg 1.
That means eight of the 10 delegates have been awarded, and there are two left over. You look at the part of the number after the decimal point to determine who gets those. Biden’s 0.777 is the highest, so he gets one, and Buttigieg’s 0.666 is second highest, so he gets the other one.
The final delegate tally here, then, is:
Sanders 3
Biden 3
Warren 2
Buttigieg 2
So though Sanders got the most votes, he ended up tying Biden in delegates due to rounding, because Biden was close enough on his heels and rounding happened to work in his favor.
That’s how the delegate allocation formula works. You can apply it to the vote total in any state or congressional district with a primary to walk through how the delegates get divvied up.
How this math can produce quirky results with such a crowded field
In a two-candidate race like the ones Democrats had in 2008 and 2016, this isn’t all that tricky. Both candidates almost always top 15 percent, and there are just a small number of votes for anyone else. So their percentage of delegates ends up closely matching their percentage of votes.
But when the vote is split among multiple candidates, things can get messier because of that crucial 15 percent threshold.
As an example, let’s say the vote breakdown is only slightly different from the one above, with Bernie Sanders getting the exact same percentage of overall votes but the rest of the field shaking out differently:
Applying those percentages to 10 delegates means no rounding is necessary — the final delegate tally would be:
Let’s pause on this. Sanders here ended up with 60 percent of the delegates at stake, but in the earlier example he ended up at 30 percent (the same as Biden) after rounding. And he got the exact same number of votes and percentage of the statewide total in both examples.
It’s a dramatic difference — particularly when you keep in mind that you need an outright majority of delegates (not just a plurality) to be assured of the nomination. For any one candidate to get on track for that, they need to win majorities of delegates in a lot of places. So when it comes to big statewide delegate hauls like those in California and Texas, the difference between the winner getting 30 percent or 60 percent of those delegates is massive.
It could get even more dramatic. If one candidate is the only person to clear 15 percent, they get all of the delegates at stake. And in a contest where delegates are allotted proportionally, it’s a huge win for any candidate to be able to scoop up 100 percent of them somewhere.
So in a messy race like this, it’s not just about who wins. It’s about how much that person wins by and how many other people manage to top 15 percent of the vote.
Most delegates are allotted based on congressional district results
There’s one other important-but-confusing part of Democrats’ delegate rules: that delegates are awarded in different batches in each state.
First off, around 65 percent of delegates across the country are actually awarded according to the results in individual districts — not states. The above formula (from the 15 percent threshold to rounding) gets applied in every district. Most states use congressional districts, though Texas uses state senate districts instead.
So if you miss 15 percent statewide but get there in one or more congressional districts, you will pick up delegates in that state (as Pete Buttigieg did in Nevada). Conversely, if you top 15 percent statewide but miss that threshold in several districts (because your support is concentrated in one or a few districts), you’ll lose out on a bunch of delegates.
Second, there’s even some confusion with the statewide delegates, because most states award them in two separate batches. There are the ordinary “at large” statewide delegates, and then there are the PLEOs, or “party leaders and elected officials.” (These aren’t the infamous “superdelegates” who can support whomever they want; pledged PLEO delegates are pledged to back a certain candidate based on the results in the contest.)
Using the same statewide results, the delegate allocation formula is applied separately to both the at-large delegate batch and the PLEO delegate batch. The proportional results will be similar, but due to the rounding step, there can be differences in how the delegates end up in each batch.
As an example, here’s how Arkansas (a Super Tuesday state) allocates its delegates in six batches.
Statewide at-large: 7 delegates
Statewide PLEOs: 4 delegates
First Congressional District: 4 delegates
Second Congressional District: 6 delegates
Third Congressional District: 5 delegates
Fourth Congressional District: 5 delegates
So you see here that most of Arkansas’s delegates are given out according to the congressional district results. That’s the case in every state (except for those small states with just one congressional district, where this is irrelevant).
The big picture for the 2020 Democratic contest
So, yes, that was a lot. But here’s a brief summary cheat sheet to tie it all together:
The basic math: For delegate allocation, all votes for candidates who have not reached 15 percent support are excluded. Each candidate’s percentage of what’s left over determines what percentage of delegates they get. Rounding also comes into play.
For delegate allocation, all votes for candidates who have not reached 15 percent support are excluded. Each candidate’s percentage of what’s left over determines what percentage of delegates they get. Rounding also comes into play. The math’s implications: That 15 percent threshold can make the delegate results swing wildly depending on how many candidates meet it and how much support those candidates get. If almost all of the vote is cast for candidates meeting the threshold, the results will look proportional. But if there are lots of votes “wasted” on candidates below 15 percent, the candidates who do meet the threshold can reap big delegate gains.
That 15 percent threshold can make the delegate results swing wildly depending on how many candidates meet it and how much support those candidates get. If almost all of the vote is cast for candidates meeting the threshold, the results will look proportional. But if there are lots of votes “wasted” on candidates below 15 percent, the candidates who do meet the threshold can reap big delegate gains. The many delegate batches: Statewide results are important, but more delegates are actually awarded based on the results in hundreds of congressional districts across the country. The delegate allocation math, the 15 percent threshold, and rounding apply individually to the results in all these districts. Fun!
Statewide results are important, but more delegates are actually awarded based on the results in hundreds of congressional districts across the country. The delegate allocation math, the 15 percent threshold, and rounding apply individually to the results in all these districts. Fun! Majorities matter: Whether you get the most delegates isn’t all that matters; whether you’re on track for a majority of delegates is also quite important. If the “winner” on Super Tuesday gets half or more of the delegates, they’d be in a commanding position. If they’re far short of that, their position will be more tenuous.
Got all that? Good. Now you’re ready to make sense of Super Tuesday’s results.


vox--2020-02-28--What Mike Pence’s public health record says about his ability to lead on coronavirus

In 2011 , a Congress member from Indiana helped pass federal legislation to strip funding from Planned Parenthood .
Two years later , the last Planned Parenthood affiliate in Scott County , Indiana , closed its doors because of budget cuts .
It was also the last HIV testing center in the county .
By 2015 , an HIV outbreak was brewing in the state .
At the peak of the outbreak , 20 new cases were being diagnosed per week , with a total of nearly 200 cases eventually reported , according to HuffPost .
But that Congress member @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , didn ’ t want to authorize a needle-exchange program to stop the spread of the virus .
“ I don ’ t believe effective anti-drug policy involves handing out drug paraphernalia , ” he said .
That Indiana governor was , of course , Mike Pence .
Now he ’ s the vice president , and on Wednesday , President Trump put him in charge of fighting coronavirus in the US .
“ He ’ s got a certain talent for this , ” Trump said .
But others say the opposite @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Planned Parenthood meant that “ when the state experienced an HIV outbreak , they were unprepared to respond to it , ” Mary Alice Carter , a senior adviser at Equity Forward , a reproductive-health watchdog group , told Vox .
Pence ’ s role in cutting Planned Parenthood funding showed a “ short-sightedness ” that makes Trump ’ s decision to put him in charge of coronavirus response concerning , Carter said .
( The White House has not responded to a request for comment from Vox on the selection of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Pence and his history are part of a bigger problem in the Trump administration , Carter and others say .
In general , the administration has sought to restrict funding to Planned Parenthood and other groups , reproductive health advocates say , without regard to the public health implications .
The administration ’ s policies have already made it harder for low-income Americans to get screening for conditions like breast and cervical cancer .
And some fear that , especially with Pence in charge , the administration could put politics over science @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ The ongoing concern is whether you let science and medicine lead an effort or whether you let ideology run your policy , ” Carter said .
Pence was among the first Republicans to advocate cutting funds to Planned Parenthood Planned Parenthood has long been a target for anti-abortion groups because some of its affiliates offer the procedure , but for years , it has also functioned as a safety-net health care provider for millions of Americans , offering STI testing , cervical cancer screening , and other services at low or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this , the group has received public funding from a number of state and federal sources .
Cutting that funding has been a Republican priority for years .
The Hyde Amendment already bans federal funding for nearly all abortions , but for many years , Planned Parenthood was still able to use federal funds for other health services .
Getting rid of that funding , abortion opponents argued , would indirectly make it harder for the group to perform abortions .
Pence was essentially the architect of this strategy , as Sarah Kliff @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Congress , he proposed bills to cut funding to the group repeatedly beginning in 2007 , and one finally passed the House in 2011 .
“ If Planned Parenthood wants to be involved in providing counseling services and HIV testing , they ought not be in the business of providing abortions , ” Pence told Kliff .
“ As long as they aspire to do that , I ’ ll be after them.
” The 2011 legislation did not make it through the Senate .
But states also joined in the effort , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2005 , Planned Parenthood got $ 3.3 million from the state of Indiana ; in 2014 , it got just $ 1.9 million , according to Indy100 .
Those cuts started before Pence became governor , but they continued under his administration .
Indeed , during his governorship , overall funding for public health in the state decreased , Beth Meyerson , co-director of the Rural Center for AIDS/STD Prevention at the Indiana University School of Public Health , told Vox .
In 2013 , Pence ’ s first year as governor , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ closed , leaving 24,000 people without an HIV testing center .
By 2015 , health officials were seeing HIV infections linked to intravenous drug use in Scott County , Erin Schumaker reported at HuffPost : “ Scott County residents were sharing needles to inject their opioids , and nobody was getting tested.
” Public health experts called for a needle-exchange program to make sure people got clean needles , but Pence refused , Meryl Kornfield reports at the Washington Post .
He said he would veto any bill for such a program .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ HIV outbreak was reported , Pence said he would pray on the issue , according to the New York Times .
Two days later , he issued an executive order for syringes to be distributed in Scott County .
The distribution helped stop the epidemic , according to the Times .
But Pence didn ’ t actually allocate new money for the program , or for fighting the epidemic generally , forcing state officials to cut other health programs , Meyerson said : “ overall , his governorship showed that he did not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infrastructure.
” Then , in 2016 , Pence was elected vice president .
And the effort to cut funding to Planned Parenthood that he had championed for nearly a decade became a priority for the Trump administration .
Last year , the administration issued a rule barring Planned Parenthood and other groups that perform or refer for abortions from getting federal funding through Title X , a program aimed at providing family planning services to low-income Americans .
As a result , nearly 1,000 health centers around the country have lost funding , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get necessary services like cancer screening or HIV tests .
The move was doubly concerning because for many people , Title-X-funded clinics “ are really the first line of defense in public health , ” Carter said .
For many low-income patients , their health-care provider at such a clinic may be the only provider they see all year .
“ You may go in for birth control and come out knowing you need to get a flu shot , ” Carter said , and family planning clinics can also help patients sign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Meanwhile , Planned Parenthood has played a crucial role in previous public health crises , doing outreach around prevention of the Zika virus and offering water filters in Michigan during the Flint water crisis .
The Trump administration ’ s record on public health raises concerns about its handling of coronavirus Today , the Trump administration is tasked with responding to coronavirus , with Pence , one of Planned Parenthood ’ s most long-standing opponents , at the head of that effort .
It ’ s not clear yet how the group will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in fighting coronavirus .
But its leadership has already expressed concern over the selection of Pence to lead the government ’ s response .
“ Pence has long been obsessed with defunding Planned Parenthood , even when Planned Parenthood closures in the state affected one of Indiana ’ s worst public health crises , ” said Jacqueline Ayers , vice president of government relations and public policy at Planned Parenthood Action Fund , in a statement on Thursday .
“ There ’ s no evidence he has learned any lessons since then.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attitude to Planned Parenthood raises questions about how it will respond to coronavirus .
For example , she asked , would it ship a virus testing kit to a Planned Parenthood facility ?
More broadly , the administration and its officials have a record of disregarding medical evidence or the advice of experts , Carter and others say .
Pence , for example , went against the guidance of public health officials when he opposed a needle-exchange program .
( And in 2000 , he claimed in an op-ed that “ smoking does @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the American Academy of Pediatrics and other groups asked the Trump administration not to bar Planned Parenthood and other groups from getting Title X funds , arguing that the move would harm public health , the administration did it anyway .
The issue goes beyond Planned Parenthood .
In 2017 , the Trump administration reinstated and expanded the “ global gag rule , ” which bars health care providers abroad that receive US government aid from providing , referring for , or discussing abortion .
Experts have long said the rule , enacted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump to apply restrictions to a larger share of government funds , would not reduce abortions but would instead jeopardize providers ’ ability to offer cancer screenings , contraception , and prenatal care .
Indeed , a 2019 study found that access to HIV testing and screening for breast and cervical cancers , among other services , had been reduced across several countries as a result of the rule .
Also in 2017 , six members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS resigned in protest , with one writing in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no strategy to address the ongoing H.I.V./AIDS epidemic , seeks zero input from experts to formulate H.I.V .
policy , and — most concerning — pushes legislation that will harm people living with H.I.V .
and halt or reverse important gains made in the fight against this disease.
” Then , in 2019 , the Trump administration cut funding for fetal-tissue research , despite long-standing arguments by scientific and medical experts that such research is crucial for developing vaccines and treatments for diseases .
Research into AIDS and other conditions has already suffered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The failure to listen to experts in the past raises questions about the administration ’ s coronavirus response today , Carter said .
For example , “ are we going to see immigration policies put in place , or travel restrictions put in place , that are scientifically based or based on race or country of origin ?
” Moreover , the research on coronavirus is constantly evolving , and Americans need someone in charge of the response who can sift through it with a focus on data , not ideology , Meyerson @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , clear , transparent , public health evidence-based communicator who will coordinate among agencies and who will manage upward in our current draconian administration , ” she explained .
When it comes to Pence , “ there ’ s no evidence that he will handle that job and do it in the way the American people need .
”

In 2011, a Congress member from Indiana helped pass federal legislation to strip funding from Planned Parenthood.
Two years later, the last Planned Parenthood affiliate in Scott County, Indiana, closed its doors because of budget cuts. It was also the last HIV testing center in the county. By 2015, an HIV outbreak was brewing in the state. At the peak of the outbreak, 20 new cases were being diagnosed per week, with a total of nearly 200 cases eventually reported, according to HuffPost.
But that Congress member, who became Indiana’s governor, didn’t want to authorize a needle-exchange program to stop the spread of the virus.
“I don’t believe effective anti-drug policy involves handing out drug paraphernalia,” he said.
That Indiana governor was, of course, Mike Pence. Now he’s the vice president, and on Wednesday, President Trump put him in charge of fighting coronavirus in the US.
“He’s got a certain talent for this,” Trump said.
But others say the opposite is true. In Indiana, cuts to Planned Parenthood meant that “when the state experienced an HIV outbreak, they were unprepared to respond to it,” Mary Alice Carter, a senior adviser at Equity Forward, a reproductive-health watchdog group, told Vox. Pence’s role in cutting Planned Parenthood funding showed a “short-sightedness” that makes Trump’s decision to put him in charge of coronavirus response concerning, Carter said. (The White House has not responded to a request for comment from Vox on the selection of Pence for the position.)
Moreover, Pence and his history are part of a bigger problem in the Trump administration, Carter and others say. In general, the administration has sought to restrict funding to Planned Parenthood and other groups, reproductive health advocates say, without regard to the public health implications. The administration’s policies have already made it harder for low-income Americans to get screening for conditions like breast and cervical cancer. And some fear that, especially with Pence in charge, the administration could put politics over science when it comes to coronavirus response too.
“The ongoing concern is whether you let science and medicine lead an effort or whether you let ideology run your policy,” Carter said.
Pence was among the first Republicans to advocate cutting funds to Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood has long been a target for anti-abortion groups because some of its affiliates offer the procedure, but for years, it has also functioned as a safety-net health care provider for millions of Americans, offering STI testing, cervical cancer screening, and other services at low or no cost. In order to do this, the group has received public funding from a number of state and federal sources.
Cutting that funding has been a Republican priority for years. The Hyde Amendment already bans federal funding for nearly all abortions, but for many years, Planned Parenthood was still able to use federal funds for other health services. Getting rid of that funding, abortion opponents argued, would indirectly make it harder for the group to perform abortions.
Pence was essentially the architect of this strategy, as Sarah Kliff reported at Vox in 2016. In Congress, he proposed bills to cut funding to the group repeatedly beginning in 2007, and one finally passed the House in 2011.
“If Planned Parenthood wants to be involved in providing counseling services and HIV testing, they ought not be in the business of providing abortions,” Pence told Kliff. “As long as they aspire to do that, I’ll be after them.”
The 2011 legislation did not make it through the Senate. But states also joined in the effort, with Indiana chief among them. In 2005, Planned Parenthood got $3.3 million from the state of Indiana; in 2014, it got just $1.9 million, according to Indy100.
Those cuts started before Pence became governor, but they continued under his administration. Indeed, during his governorship, overall funding for public health in the state decreased, Beth Meyerson, a research professor at the University of Arizona’s Southwest Institute for Research on Women and co-director of the Rural Center for AIDS/STD Prevention at the Indiana University School of Public Health, told Vox.
In 2013, Pence’s first year as governor, the only Planned Parenthood in Scott County closed, leaving 24,000 people without an HIV testing center.
By 2015, health officials were seeing HIV infections linked to intravenous drug use in Scott County, Erin Schumaker reported at HuffPost: “Scott County residents were sharing needles to inject their opioids, and nobody was getting tested.”
Public health experts called for a needle-exchange program to make sure people got clean needles, but Pence refused, Meryl Kornfield reports at the Washington Post. He said he would veto any bill for such a program.
Finally, over two months after the HIV outbreak was reported, Pence said he would pray on the issue, according to the New York Times. Two days later, he issued an executive order for syringes to be distributed in Scott County.
The distribution helped stop the epidemic, according to the Times. But Pence didn’t actually allocate new money for the program, or for fighting the epidemic generally, forcing state officials to cut other health programs, Meyerson said: “overall, his governorship showed that he did not commit to an adequately funded public health infrastructure.”
Then, in 2016, Pence was elected vice president. And the effort to cut funding to Planned Parenthood that he had championed for nearly a decade became a priority for the Trump administration.
Last year, the administration issued a rule barring Planned Parenthood and other groups that perform or refer for abortions from getting federal funding through Title X, a program aimed at providing family planning services to low-income Americans. As a result, nearly 1,000 health centers around the country have lost funding, making it harder for many Americans to get necessary services like cancer screening or HIV tests.
The move was doubly concerning because for many people, Title-X-funded clinics “are really the first line of defense in public health,” Carter said. For many low-income patients, their health-care provider at such a clinic may be the only provider they see all year.
“You may go in for birth control and come out knowing you need to get a flu shot,” Carter said, and family planning clinics can also help patients sign up for Medicaid and other services.
Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood has played a crucial role in previous public health crises, doing outreach around prevention of the Zika virus and offering water filters in Michigan during the Flint water crisis.
The Trump administration’s record on public health raises concerns about its handling of coronavirus
Today, the Trump administration is tasked with responding to coronavirus, with Pence, one of Planned Parenthood’s most long-standing opponents, at the head of that effort. It’s not clear yet how the group will be involved, if at all, in fighting coronavirus. But its leadership has already expressed concern over the selection of Pence to lead the government’s response.
“Pence has long been obsessed with defunding Planned Parenthood, even when Planned Parenthood closures in the state affected one of Indiana’s worst public health crises,” said Jacqueline Ayers, vice president of government relations and public policy at Planned Parenthood Action Fund, in a statement on Thursday. “There’s no evidence he has learned any lessons since then.”
Carter also noted the administration’s attitude to Planned Parenthood raises questions about how it will respond to coronavirus. For example, she asked, would it ship a virus testing kit to a Planned Parenthood facility?
More broadly, the administration and its officials have a record of disregarding medical evidence or the advice of experts, Carter and others say. Pence, for example, went against the guidance of public health officials when he opposed a needle-exchange program. (And in 2000, he claimed in an op-ed that “smoking does not kill.”) Later, when the American Academy of Pediatrics and other groups asked the Trump administration not to bar Planned Parenthood and other groups from getting Title X funds, arguing that the move would harm public health, the administration did it anyway.
The issue goes beyond Planned Parenthood. In 2017, the Trump administration reinstated and expanded the “global gag rule,” which bars health care providers abroad that receive US government aid from providing, referring for, or discussing abortion.
Experts have long said the rule, enacted by previous Republican presidents but broadened by Trump to apply restrictions to a larger share of government funds, would not reduce abortions but would instead jeopardize providers’ ability to offer cancer screenings, contraception, and prenatal care. Indeed, a 2019 study found that access to HIV testing and screening for breast and cervical cancers, among other services, had been reduced across several countries as a result of the rule.
Also in 2017, six members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS resigned in protest, with one writing in Newsweek that “the Trump administration has no strategy to address the ongoing H.I.V./AIDS epidemic, seeks zero input from experts to formulate H.I.V. policy, and — most concerning — pushes legislation that will harm people living with H.I.V. and halt or reverse important gains made in the fight against this disease.”
Then, in 2019, the Trump administration cut funding for fetal-tissue research, despite long-standing arguments by scientific and medical experts that such research is crucial for developing vaccines and treatments for diseases. Research into AIDS and other conditions has already suffered as a result, Carter said.
The failure to listen to experts in the past raises questions about the administration’s coronavirus response today, Carter said. For example, “are we going to see immigration policies put in place, or travel restrictions put in place, that are scientifically based or based on race or country of origin?”
Moreover, the research on coronavirus is constantly evolving, and Americans need someone in charge of the response who can sift through it with a focus on data, not ideology, Meyerson said.
“We need a strong, clear, transparent, public health evidence-based communicator who will coordinate among agencies and who will manage upward in our current draconian administration,” she explained. When it comes to Pence, “there’s no evidence that he will handle that job and do it in the way the American people need.”


vox--2020-02-28--The case that America’s in decline

The case that America’s in decline

Is Trump a symptom or a disease ?
And if he ’ s a symptom , what ’ s the underlying sickness ?
Decadence is one possible answer .
This is very close to the argument New York Times columnist Ross Douthat makes in his new book , The Decadent Society .
According to Douthat , the US — and really the entire Western world — is stuck in a kind of cultural doom loop .
In many ways , Douthat says , we ’ ve become victims of our own success and are now locked in a state of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ politics feel exhausted .
Douthat ’ s definition of a “ decadent society ” is that we ’ re trapped in a stale system that keeps spinning in place , reproducing the same arguments and frustrations over and over again .
Trump ’ s election is simultaneously a sign that a lot of people were desperate for something different and a reflection of the shallow and frivolous culture that spawned him .
Douthat is a conservative , and so there ’ s a temptation to treat this book as a reactionary screed , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ condition .
But I think it ’ s much more than that , although at times it does lapse into some familiar tropes .
He puts his fingers on something real , something a lot of people feel on the left and the right , namely a belief that the status quo is broken and needs a reboot .
I spoke to Douthat by phone about the story he wanted to tell in this book , why our dysfunctional politics is a sign of a much deeper problem , if his book is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ liberal capitalism , and if he sees any way out of the decadence he diagnoses .
A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows .
When you call this society decadent , what exactly do you mean ?
Basically , a decadent society manifests forms of economic stagnation , institutional sclerosis , and cultural repetition at a high stage of wealth and technological proficiency and civilizational development .
So it ’ s a society that , by definition , has succeeded in a lot of ways and may actually give the appearance of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be decadent without first being successful .
But I think it ’ s important for getting at the reality that decadence is something that comes on civilizations when they ’ ve reached a certain stage , and it ’ s not clear where they go next .
And I think this is where the US , Western Europe , and increasingly the Pacific rim has been over the last couple of generations .
And how does decadence manifest politically ?
People are very upset , and very anxious , and very concerned , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their arguments are stuck in a stalemate .
And when there are new ideas , they don ’ t seem to have a purchase on the real world .
And so we end up very energetically going in circles , or practicing politics as a form of entertainment that stimulates you immensely , but doesn ’ t particularly change the world .
You talk a lot in the book about how repetitive our cultural and political climate has become .
We keep making the same movies over and over again and we keep @ @ @ @ @ @ @ having the same political arguments over and over again .
Is our cultural decadence the product of political malaise or is our political malaise the product of cultural decadence ?
Well , in the last 10 years or so , we ’ ve seen a lot of ideological discontent with political decadence .
I think you can ’ t understand Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders without seeing that part of it .
People are desperate for an alternative to these sclerotic political systems , and ideologies on the left and right have basically @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But the ground is starting to quake .
There ’ s a strong desire , from thinkers and activists on all sides , to escape decadence .
But the nature of the system and the situation makes it hard .
You elect populists in the United States or Europe , you get this kind of rebellion , but it ’ s a rebellion that leads back into stalemate , and you basically get a more corrupt form of government that reduces people ’ s faith in the system further , but doesn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the populists want to achieve .
And we ’ ll see what happens in the looming Bernie Sanders presidency .
I suspect that the same thing would be true of a socialist president .
That you would have some movement and some policy change , but you would also have a lot of intense frustration .
And I think part of this frustration is that we ’ re sort of play-acting , not in the sense that the people engaged in it aren ’ t sincere , but in the sense that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ change , and the fact that we have this political virtual reality on the internet , where people can perform their identities and rage in ways that don ’ t actually correspond to political organization in the real world .
So a lot of the discontent with decadence ends up getting channeled into virtual politics as opposed to real politics .
I ’ m glad you went there .
If what you ’ re saying is true , those of us who think this is a politically heavy time , a serious and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most of the rage and the activism is too performative to amount to much of anything .
I ’ m not sure I agree with you , but I ’ m also not totally sure you ’ re wrong .
This is probably my most controversial take .
I ’ m arguing against both the sense that Western liberalism or democracy is in the sort of crisis a lot of people think and against the sense of real possibility that some of my friends on the right and left feel about , say @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suggestion is that while all the problems people are worried about , like Donald Trump , are all real problems and worth deploring , I ’ m also saying he ’ s the embodiment of a reality television style of politics that isn ’ t remotely the equivalent of either what fascism represented in the 1930s , or even what various forms of radicalism represented in the 1960s and 1970s .
There ’ s a hollowness to all of this that makes it a cartoonish imitation of something like fascism but not nearly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It ’ s a weird , internet-enabled simulacrum of fascism that I think is much more reflective of our decadent age .
That doesn ’ t mean Trump or any of these other populists can ’ t commit crimes or do horrible things , but it suggests that the drama of today is more of an echo of past Western convulsions than it is a hinge moment in history .
That ’ s where I think you ’ re wrong and overlook how easily fascism , even in the early 20th century @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that no one took seriously until it was too late .
There ’ s a frivolity to Trump that undercuts his dangerousness , but his ascendance is a sign of how close we are to tipping over into something truly dark .
I would say there ’ s definitely the potential for a rupture .
My assumption is that there could be a moment when our decadent society enters into a crisis from which a genuine transformation is likely to emerge , but we are probably several generations away from that .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ back and say , “ Ah , this was foreshadowed in the derangements of the Trump era.
” But I don ’ t think it ’ s going to be the immediate cash-out of our own convulsions now .
I ’ m not sure we could engineer a more perfect distillation of decadence than Trump , but there ’ s always the question of whether Trump is the symptom or the disease .
Is the rise of Trumpist populism and illiberalism more generally a reaction against decadence or its logical fulfillment ?
Why @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s interesting about Trump is that he rose in part as a critic of precisely the things I ’ m calling decadent .
He swept into a sclerotic Republican Party in which even its younger politicians are mouthing the same platitudes that were fresh and new 40 years ago .
And he ’ s an agent of disruption , and he is a critic of the kind of management of American power that defined politics over the last several decades .
It was all empty , of course , but the message was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the staleness and inertia I ’ m talking about .
In some ways , Trump is a less decadent figure than a Mitt Romney or a Barack Obama or a Bloomberg or Biden because all of those people are more invested in this idea that we have a pretty good status quo and we should basically try and make it sustainable .
At the same time , as you said , Trump embodies all of the decadent features of our time , but his presidency is just performing a drama that doesn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ real world .
There hasn ’ t been any dramatic legislative achievements .
There ’ s a lot of executive power grabs , but nothing as sweeping as his critics feared .
It ’ s a lot of sound and fury for cable news but most of it amounts to Trump trying to evade accountability for the corrupt things he does .
He ’ s not trying to build a new order or regime , he ’ s just trying to skate through his presidency without getting impeached and have his family get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ really do think you ’ re understating the threat here , especially the erosion of the rule of law and the basic norms that make the whole game of liberal democracy possible .
I don ’ t think there ’ s a “ potential for rupture , ” I think the rupture has already occurred — we just have no idea what ’ s on the other side .
But to your point , I do wonder whether a transformative mass movement is even possible anymore .
I keep going back to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rumblings and the Occupy Movement and all that , but , in the end , what we got was elite consolidation and a swift return to normal business .
If that crisis couldn ’ t spark a near-revolution , then I ’ m not sure what can .
Maybe it ’ s just too easy to do nothing when so much of life is mediated by screens and digital diversions .
What do you think ?
It ’ s very striking that you don ’ t have that in the United States today @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the temperature and tone of political discussion on the internet , and the extent to which people are protesting on college campuses , or taking to the streets in big cities .
And not that it ’ s entirely absent .
Obviously , you had the Women ’ s March , and you ’ ve had mass movements under Trump , but the gap between the stakes as they ’ re expressed in online debate , and the stakes as they ’ re expressed in the real world seems incredibly stark .
Though @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way , your book reads like an indictment of liberal capitalism and the culture it invariably breeds .
The consumerism , the hyper-individualism , the greed , the lack of some common project or goal — doesn ’ t all of that lead to something like decadence ?
I think there are tendencies within both liberalism and capitalism that lead to decadence .
I ’ m skeptical of arguments that their expression is inevitable , though .
I don ’ t think you can necessarily go back and just say , “ Look @ @ @ @ @ @ @ American founding is a kind of hyper-individualism that was eventually going to lead to atomization and sterility.
” I think it ’ s more that under particular conditions , liberalism gets expressed as atomization and sterility , and those particular conditions right now are a world civilization that has run out of places to explore and has directed its surplus energies into triviality and excess .
And I keep coming back to space , and it ’ s sort of a geeky science fiction place to go , but I think there ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we had discovered that Mars was an unpopulated twin of planet Earth , the drama of the last 50 years would ’ ve been completely different .
And we might be engaged in some horrific nuclear war on Mars , it might not have turned out well , but we wouldn ’ t be talking about atomization and sterility , and how liberalism inevitably leads to both , because that piece of the liberal genome wouldn ’ t have been so easily expressed as it ’ s been under conditions where the frontier @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stuck with one another here .
You start and end the book with that point about space and how our frontiers have closed off , and I think it reflects a deep pessimism that you never quite own .
You talk about the possibility of , say , a religious revival , but that whole section feels half-hearted , like you don ’ t even believe it .
And you clearly don ’ t buy all the techno-utopian fantasies being spun up in Silicon Valley .
But if some great force or event @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , what do you think it will be ?
It ’ s pretty clear from the way the book ends that I think it ’ s most likely to be some intersection of religious revival , and by that I don ’ t necessarily mean a Christian revival but instead some kind of religious transformation , and something that makes the distances involved in space travel less daunting and extends human possibilities beyond the earth .
And given that combination , I can see why you would read that as pessimism with a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drive seems impossible to build and while a religious revival isn ’ t impossible , it ’ s certainly not within the trajectory of the West right now .
So in that sense , I guess I am pessimistic in the sense that I think current trends suggest we have a lot of decadence ahead of us .
But I don ’ t want to concede completely to your reading because I guess I still have a fundamental optimism about the human story .
We ’ ve become a world-spanning species , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seems too vast to explore , and we ’ re sort of stuck here .
I don ’ t really believe that that ’ s how the human story ends .
Decadence can last a really long time , but I don ’ t think it will end with us collapsing back into the stone age and wiping ourselves out .
There ’ s another chapter ahead of us .
We just don ’ t know what it looks like yet .

Is Trump a symptom or a disease? And if he’s a symptom, what’s the underlying sickness?
Decadence is one possible answer.
This is very close to the argument New York Times columnist Ross Douthat makes in his new book, The Decadent Society. According to Douthat, the US — and really the entire Western world — is stuck in a kind of cultural doom loop. In many ways, Douthat says, we’ve become victims of our own success and are now locked in a state of malaise, in which our culture and politics feel exhausted.
Douthat’s definition of a “decadent society” is that we’re trapped in a stale system that keeps spinning in place, reproducing the same arguments and frustrations over and over again. Trump’s election is simultaneously a sign that a lot of people were desperate for something different and a reflection of the shallow and frivolous culture that spawned him.
Douthat is a conservative, and so there’s a temptation to treat this book as a reactionary screed, or an angry protest against the modern condition. But I think it’s much more than that, although at times it does lapse into some familiar tropes. He puts his fingers on something real, something a lot of people feel on the left and the right, namely a belief that the status quo is broken and needs a reboot.
I spoke to Douthat by phone about the story he wanted to tell in this book, why our dysfunctional politics is a sign of a much deeper problem, if his book is — deep down — an indictment of liberal capitalism, and if he sees any way out of the decadence he diagnoses.
A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.
Sean Illing
When you call this society decadent, what exactly do you mean?
Ross Douthat
Basically, a decadent society manifests forms of economic stagnation, institutional sclerosis, and cultural repetition at a high stage of wealth and technological proficiency and civilizational development. So it’s a society that, by definition, has succeeded in a lot of ways and may actually give the appearance of great energy.
You can’t be decadent without first being successful. But I think it’s important for getting at the reality that decadence is something that comes on civilizations when they’ve reached a certain stage, and it’s not clear where they go next. And I think this is where the US, Western Europe, and increasingly the Pacific rim has been over the last couple of generations.
Sean Illing
And how does decadence manifest politically?
Ross Douthat
People are very upset, and very anxious, and very concerned, and have very intense opinions, but their arguments are stuck in a stalemate. And when there are new ideas, they don’t seem to have a purchase on the real world. And so we end up very energetically going in circles, or practicing politics as a form of entertainment that stimulates you immensely, but doesn’t particularly change the world.
Sean Illing
You talk a lot in the book about how repetitive our cultural and political climate has become. We keep making the same movies over and over again and we keep, at least until very recently, having the same political arguments over and over again.
Is our cultural decadence the product of political malaise or is our political malaise the product of cultural decadence?
Ross Douthat
Well, in the last 10 years or so, we’ve seen a lot of ideological discontent with political decadence. I think you can’t understand Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders without seeing that part of it. People are desperate for an alternative to these sclerotic political systems, and ideologies on the left and right have basically been frozen in place since the 1970s.
But the ground is starting to quake. There’s a strong desire, from thinkers and activists on all sides, to escape decadence. But the nature of the system and the situation makes it hard. You elect populists in the United States or Europe, you get this kind of rebellion, but it’s a rebellion that leads back into stalemate, and you basically get a more corrupt form of government that reduces people’s faith in the system further, but doesn’t actually achieve the things that the populists want to achieve.
And we’ll see what happens in the looming Bernie Sanders presidency. I suspect that the same thing would be true of a socialist president. That you would have some movement and some policy change, but you would also have a lot of intense frustration.
And I think part of this frustration is that we’re sort of play-acting, not in the sense that the people engaged in it aren’t sincere, but in the sense that the combination of the difficulties of actually achieving change, and the fact that we have this political virtual reality on the internet, where people can perform their identities and rage in ways that don’t actually correspond to political organization in the real world.
So a lot of the discontent with decadence ends up getting channeled into virtual politics as opposed to real politics.
Sean Illing
I’m glad you went there. If what you’re saying is true, those of us who think this is a politically heavy time, a serious and consequential time, are wrong, because most of the rage and the activism is too performative to amount to much of anything. I’m not sure I agree with you, but I’m also not totally sure you’re wrong.
Ross Douthat
This is probably my most controversial take. I’m arguing against both the sense that Western liberalism or democracy is in the sort of crisis a lot of people think and against the sense of real possibility that some of my friends on the right and left feel about, say, someone like Bernie Sanders.
My suggestion is that while all the problems people are worried about, like Donald Trump, are all real problems and worth deploring, I’m also saying he’s the embodiment of a reality television style of politics that isn’t remotely the equivalent of either what fascism represented in the 1930s, or even what various forms of radicalism represented in the 1960s and 1970s.
There’s a hollowness to all of this that makes it a cartoonish imitation of something like fascism but not nearly as dangerous as actual 20th century fascism. It’s a weird, internet-enabled simulacrum of fascism that I think is much more reflective of our decadent age. That doesn’t mean Trump or any of these other populists can’t commit crimes or do horrible things, but it suggests that the drama of today is more of an echo of past Western convulsions than it is a hinge moment in history.
Sean Illing
That’s where I think you’re wrong and overlook how easily fascism, even in the early 20th century, began as a mass cultural phenomenon that no one took seriously until it was too late. There’s a frivolity to Trump that undercuts his dangerousness, but his ascendance is a sign of how close we are to tipping over into something truly dark.
Ross Douthat
I would say there’s definitely the potential for a rupture. My assumption is that there could be a moment when our decadent society enters into a crisis from which a genuine transformation is likely to emerge, but we are probably several generations away from that. And if that happens, we will look back and say, “Ah, this was foreshadowed in the derangements of the Trump era.” But I don’t think it’s going to be the immediate cash-out of our own convulsions now.
Sean Illing
I’m not sure we could engineer a more perfect distillation of decadence than Trump, but there’s always the question of whether Trump is the symptom or the disease. Is the rise of Trumpist populism and illiberalism more generally a reaction against decadence or its logical fulfillment?
Ross Douthat
Why not both? Part of what’s interesting about Trump is that he rose in part as a critic of precisely the things I’m calling decadent. He swept into a sclerotic Republican Party in which even its younger politicians are mouthing the same platitudes that were fresh and new 40 years ago. And he’s an agent of disruption, and he is a critic of the kind of management of American power that defined politics over the last several decades.
It was all empty, of course, but the message was very much a reaction against all of the staleness and inertia I’m talking about. In some ways, Trump is a less decadent figure than a Mitt Romney or a Barack Obama or a Bloomberg or Biden because all of those people are more invested in this idea that we have a pretty good status quo and we should basically try and make it sustainable.
At the same time, as you said, Trump embodies all of the decadent features of our time, but his presidency is just performing a drama that doesn’t necessarily have strong correlates in the real world. There hasn’t been any dramatic legislative achievements. There’s a lot of executive power grabs, but nothing as sweeping as his critics feared. It’s a lot of sound and fury for cable news but most of it amounts to Trump trying to evade accountability for the corrupt things he does.
He’s not trying to build a new order or regime, he’s just trying to skate through his presidency without getting impeached and have his family get rich on the other side.
Sean Illing
I really do think you’re understating the threat here, especially the erosion of the rule of law and the basic norms that make the whole game of liberal democracy possible. I don’t think there’s a “potential for rupture,” I think the rupture has already occurred — we just have no idea what’s on the other side.
But to your point, I do wonder whether a transformative mass movement is even possible anymore. I keep going back to the Great Recession of 2008. There were rumblings and the Occupy Movement and all that, but, in the end, what we got was elite consolidation and a swift return to normal business. If that crisis couldn’t spark a near-revolution, then I’m not sure what can. Maybe it’s just too easy to do nothing when so much of life is mediated by screens and digital diversions.
What do you think?
Ross Douthat
It’s very striking that you don’t have that in the United States today. There is a clear gap between the temperature and tone of political discussion on the internet, and the extent to which people are protesting on college campuses, or taking to the streets in big cities. And not that it’s entirely absent.
Obviously, you had the Women’s March, and you’ve had mass movements under Trump, but the gap between the stakes as they’re expressed in online debate, and the stakes as they’re expressed in the real world seems incredibly stark.
Sean Illing
Though you’d never put it this way, your book reads like an indictment of liberal capitalism and the culture it invariably breeds. The consumerism, the hyper-individualism, the greed, the lack of some common project or goal — doesn’t all of that lead to something like decadence?
Ross Douthat
I think there are tendencies within both liberalism and capitalism that lead to decadence. I’m skeptical of arguments that their expression is inevitable, though. I don’t think you can necessarily go back and just say, “Look, latent in John Locke or the American founding is a kind of hyper-individualism that was eventually going to lead to atomization and sterility.”
I think it’s more that under particular conditions, liberalism gets expressed as atomization and sterility, and those particular conditions right now are a world civilization that has run out of places to explore and has directed its surplus energies into triviality and excess.
And I keep coming back to space, and it’s sort of a geeky science fiction place to go, but I think there’s a real truth there that if we had discovered that Mars was an unpopulated twin of planet Earth, the drama of the last 50 years would’ve been completely different. And we might be engaged in some horrific nuclear war on Mars, it might not have turned out well, but we wouldn’t be talking about atomization and sterility, and how liberalism inevitably leads to both, because that piece of the liberal genome wouldn’t have been so easily expressed as it’s been under conditions where the frontier is closed, and we’re stuck with one another here.
Sean Illing
You start and end the book with that point about space and how our frontiers have closed off, and I think it reflects a deep pessimism that you never quite own. You talk about the possibility of, say, a religious revival, but that whole section feels half-hearted, like you don’t even believe it. And you clearly don’t buy all the techno-utopian fantasies being spun up in Silicon Valley.
But if some great force or event does shake us out of our stupor, what do you think it will be?
Ross Douthat
It’s pretty clear from the way the book ends that I think it’s most likely to be some intersection of religious revival, and by that I don’t necessarily mean a Christian revival but instead some kind of religious transformation, and something that makes the distances involved in space travel less daunting and extends human possibilities beyond the earth.
And given that combination, I can see why you would read that as pessimism with a halfhearted nod to optimism. A warp drive seems impossible to build and while a religious revival isn’t impossible, it’s certainly not within the trajectory of the West right now.
So in that sense, I guess I am pessimistic in the sense that I think current trends suggest we have a lot of decadence ahead of us. But I don’t want to concede completely to your reading because I guess I still have a fundamental optimism about the human story.
We’ve become a world-spanning species, and we’ve discovered that the universe seems too vast to explore, and we’re sort of stuck here. I don’t really believe that that’s how the human story ends. Decadence can last a really long time, but I don’t think it will end with us collapsing back into the stone age and wiping ourselves out.
There’s another chapter ahead of us. We just don’t know what it looks like yet.


vox--2020-02-28--Will coronavirus cause a global recession? We still don’t know.

Last week , Apple had some news : There is going to be an iPhone supply shortage .
The outbreak of the novel coronavirus in China has both disrupted manufacturing and depressed demand for iPhones in that country .
Apple said its factories are ramping up , but slowly , and Apple stores and many partner stores had to close .
“ As a result , we do not expect to meet the revenue guidance we provided for the March , ” the statement read .
This is doing business in the time of the coronavirus .
The spread of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ known , is unsettling supply chains , sapping sales of some products , throwing travel into chaos , freaking out the stock markets , and intensifying fears of a global recession .
Apple , in its statement , called the disruption temporary .
And that is the hope : that any hurt to companies and manufacturers and economies is a short-lived , passing pain .
But there ’ s still so much we don ’ t know about the coronavirus , which makes the potential economic fallout extremely uncertain , for both China @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It is also difficult to completely isolate one factor — in this case , a virus outbreak — from everything else happening in the world that can rattle the markets or strain economies .
So how deep , lasting , or widespread any economic strain will be is hard to predict .
China makes up a much larger share of the world economy than it did in 2003 , when SARS , another illness caused by a type of coronavirus , broke out .
Today , companies like Apple and Nike and other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ already admitting they ’ re feeling the negative effects of the virus .
So too are industries tied to travel and tourism .
Airlines , cruise lines , hotels ; they all take a hit during outbreaks due to travel bans and warnings , and general fears — real or hyped — about contagion .
And even if the novel coronavirus doesn ’ t cause a global recession , it could still bring significant long-term changes to the global economy by convincing companies of the need to diversify their supply chains to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s a potential threat to the global economy as it goes on longer , ” Rohan Williamson , a professor of finance at Georgetown University ’ s McDonough School of Business , told me .
Supply chains can deal with disruptions for a few weeks , relying on supplies they have saved in house .
But if it continues past that , he said , “ it becomes a little more troubling.
” The stock market sure is nervous .
Here ’ s why .
The Dow Jones plunged by 1,100 points @ @ @ @ @ @ @ point drops in history .
As of February 27 , China has more than 82,000 confirmed cases .
The virus has now spread to other parts of Asia , Europe , South America , and the United States .
More than 2,000 people have died , most in mainland China , the epicenter of the outbreak .
The fear that coronavirus will continue to spread and impact the global economy looks to be the main reason for the economic jitters .
The coronavirus could prove to be deadlier than it currently is ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but that could change .
It could also prove to be the opposite , if more people are found to have mild cases .
The coronavirus could become a pandemic ; it could also taper off .
Government intervention could dull the effects in populations ; a bungled response could do the opposite .
The stock market isn ’ t the economy , but it ’ s a signal that investors are worried about the economic outlook for the coming year because of the virus .
Basically , they ’ re predicting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and cause more disruptions , depress demand , and maybe cause a global slowdown .
Right now , investors don ’ t know this is going to happen — no one does — but they ’ re preparing as if it will .
They ’ re reacting to fears now , but if good news starts breaking , it could swing in the other direction .
Williamson said the stock market volatility is driven by this uncertainty .
“ As an investor you ’ re trying to say , here ’ s this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be the reaction with the worst case , if things get really bad ?
” he said .
“ So your response is going to be prices drop , because you ’ re going to say , ‘ I don ’ t want want to be the one holding the security if things go really bad [ in ] a few months .
So I will sell it right now.
” Investors are preparing for the worst , and some companies and analysts have changed their forecasts for earnings this year .
For @ @ @ @ @ @ @ growth estimates to zero for US companies .
“ US companies will generate no earnings growth in 2020 , ” Goldman Sachs ’ chief US equity strategist , David Kostin , said in a note to clients Thursday .
“ We have updated our earnings model to incorporate the likelihood that the virus becomes widespread.
” Businesses are already taking a hit , but how bad it gets will depend on how long this lasts Apple is one of those companies that have revised down their projections for this quarter .
Nike , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ grim quarter .
Companies like Nike and Apple also get a bit of a double whammy .
“ These are two companies that manufacture a significant amount of their products in China , but they also sell a significant amount of products to China , ” Randy Frederick , vice president of trading and derivatives at Charles Schwab , told me .
Factories in China were already operating with smaller staffs or delays because of the Lunar New Year .
Then came the coronavirus emergency , which saw many factories shuttered .
Even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the country try to restart production , travel restrictions made it difficult for people to get to work .
And because everything is happening so slowly , it is going to take time for these manufacturers to scale back up .
“ Even if you came back to the factory , you have to spend 14 days in quarantine .
We have some longtime workers that haven ’ t even returned , ” a worker in a Chinese factory told NPR earlier this month .
Then there is the retail side .
Government-mandated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kept people off the streets — and therefore out of shops , restaurants , hair salons , theaters , and so on .
Many simply closed .
Apple closed its stores and corporate headquarters and though has now reopened about half its stores again .
Starbucks shut down 2,000 stores in China , about half of its total locations , though it too has started to resume operations .
Pretty much all businesses that rely on China as part of their supply chains or have big retail presences within the country face similar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which depend heavily on Chinese buyers , are taking a hit .
A report this week from the investment management firm Bernstein found that the coronavirus could end up costing the luxury market as much as $ 43 billion in sales in 2020 , Business Insider reports .
And while big-name brands get the attention , smaller manufacturers might be even less resilient to the shock .
For instance , sellers on Amazon , who often rely on cheap Chinese products , are getting pummeled , with dwindling stock to sell .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Amazon platform has seen such a massive amount of inventory problems as we are about to see , ” Patrick Maioho , who sells kitchen products on Amazon and advises on manufacturing in China , told the Wall Street Journal this week .
Then there are the airlines , which some experts say could lose as much as $ 100 billion , and all the other businesses that rely on tourism : hotels , casinos , cruises , tour companies , and more .
Chinese tourists are some of the world ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quarantines , and closed borders are making tourism increasingly difficult , to say nothing of visitors to China .
All this means that many industries will likely have a bad start to 2020 .
But although it may not be a satisfying answer , how bad it will be depends on how long — and how far — the coronavirus continues to spread .
Right now , much of the economic pain is centered in China , and on companies that rely on China for parts or products .
But as the virus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the number of cases balloon , that pain will be spread around .
“ I think we should expect that every country will see cases , and the duration of infection could go on for months — I don ’ t think we have an end period , necessarily , ” Jennifer Nuzzo , an infectious disease expert and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security , told me .
So is this going to cause a global recession ?
Everyone wants to know if the new coronavirus will cause @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is that it definitely could .
Here , again , though , whether it will — and if it does happen , how bad it might be — depends on when the coronavirus emergency is resolved .
A recession is generally defined as two back-to-back quarters of negative economic growth , usually measured by gross domestic product ( GDP ) — that is , the total value of final goods and services produced within a certain period ( in this case , usually a quarter of a year ) .
Experts I spoke @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will probably suffer pretty badly this first quarter , and since it makes up about 17 percent of the global economy , that ’ s not great news .
China ’ s estimated GDP growth for the first quarter of 2020 was about 6 percent .
“ The vast majority of all economists and others looking at China —and what we know about the virus so far — are expecting , best-case scenario for Q1 in China , zero .
Many are expecting negative GDP in Q1 , so that right there is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ extent China ’ s that big , ” Frederick said .
What happens in China will have ripple effects outward to the rest of the world .
The Eurozone countries are definitely bracing , as its GDP only grew 0.1 percent at the end of last year , so any shock could likely push it toward negative growth .
The US does have one of the world ’ s strongest economies right now , so it ’ s a bit more protected .
The US ’ s GDP grew 2.1 percent in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ experts say it might do a bit worse at the start of 2020 than it did last quarter , but is unlikely to see negative growth , at least for now .
Of course , the big question is how long does this coronavirus outbreak go on ?
If the coronavirus isn ’ t contained and these trends continue , the likelihood of a global recession increases .
It ’ s also important to remember that the coronavirus is just one factor , which might exacerbate other strains on the global economy , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gets more and more severe and infects more and more people , the impacts become greater and greater , and the countries that are teetering on recession already anyway will be right there , ” Williamson said .
Experts I spoke to cautioned that if governments respond appropriately and this outbreak is blunted , the worst-case scenario will probably be avoided .
That doesn ’ t mean it will be averted equally around the world , or even in all industries or labor forces , of course .
But when it comes to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now is “ don ’ t panic.
” And if the world gets the best-case scenario , and this outbreak is resolved within the coming weeks , a bounce-back might mitigate some of worst effects from the start of this year .
This is good news for companies like Apple that make durable goods , but could be bad news for services like restaurants or casinos or hotels , which will have a harder time making up the lost revenue , Frederick , the VP of trading and derivatives at Charles Schwab , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you wanted to , say , buy an iPhone or a washing machine or a car but weren ’ t able to because of a supply shortage , or a store closing , you might be okay waiting to buy that product later once it ’ s available again — provided that the economic shock is temporary enough that you still have a job and money to spend .
But if you normally go to a coffee shop every day or if you hit the casino every weekend , and now you can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ once things get back to normal , you ’ re not all of a sudden going to make multiple trips or visits to make up for that .
Even if the coronavirus doesn ’ t cause a recession , it could transform the global economy in subtler ways The coronavirus outbreak has definitely exposed vulnerabilities for companies , especially those that rely heavily on China for their supply chains and products .
This may force companies to cut some of their dependence on China , something that already started to happen because of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ That almost certainly doesn ’ t mean abandoning China altogether , but rather distributing or diversifying supply chains to better protect against major crises that dramatically impact one country or one region more than others .
That also does not necessarily mean more manufacturing will come back to the United States , as Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross recently claimed , but it means companies will likely be looking elsewhere .
And even for companies that aren ’ t really dependent on China , it ’ s still a good reminder that no one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or crisis might happen .
But one thing is certain : There will be another one at some point .
Which means preparing for that now is a good idea .

Editor’s note, April 21: There have been significant developments in the coronavirus pandemic since this story was last updated. For our most up-to-date coverage, visit our coronavirus hub.
Well, that was bad. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 2,000 points during the month of March, over growing fears about the novel coronavirus outbreak and oil prices. Markets in Europe and Asia also tumbled, in one of the worst weeks for stocks since the 2008 financial crisis.
This is just the latest grim economic news. The spread of Covid-19, as the disease is formally known, is unsettling supply chains, sapping sales of some products, throwing travel into chaos, freaking out the stock markets, and intensifying fears of a global recession.
Related A simple guide to the vaccines and drugs that could fight coronavirus
There’s still so much we don’t know about the coronavirus, which makes the potential economic fallout extremely uncertain, for both China and the rest of the world. It is also difficult to completely isolate one factor — in this case, a virus outbreak — from everything else happening in the world that can rattle the markets or strain economies.
So how deep, lasting, or widespread any economic fallout will be is hard to predict. But it’s clear from how wildly markets are reacting, and from the responses of governments — the Federal Reserve cut interest rates just on March 3 — that the world is bracing for a potential coronavirus-linked downturn. (Vox’s Matt Yglesias explains here what governments can do about it.)
China makes up a much larger share of the world economy than it did in 2003, when SARS, another illness caused by a type of coronavirus, broke out. Now, companies like Apple and Nike and other manufacturers and companies around the world are already admitting they’re feeling the negative effects of the virus.
So too are industries tied to travel and tourism. Airlines, cruise lines, and hotels all take a hit during outbreaks due to travel bans and warnings, and general fears — real or hyped — about contagion.
“It’s a potential threat to the global economy as it goes on longer,” Rohan Williamson, a professor of finance at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, told me in February. Supply chains can deal with disruptions for a few weeks, relying on supplies they have saved in house.
But if it continues past that, he said, “It becomes a little more troubling.”
The stock market sure is nervous. Here’s why.
As of March 12, more than 125,000 cases of the coronavirus have been diagnosed worldwide. The virus has now spread to other parts of Asia, Europe, South America, and the United States. Over 4,500 people have died, most in mainland China, the original epicenter of the outbreak.
The fear that the coronavirus will continue to spread and impact the global economy looks to be the main reason for the economic jitters.
The coronavirus could prove to be deadlier than it currently is; in early March, the WHO estimated the fatality rate to be around 3.4 percent, but that could change. It could also prove to be the opposite, if more people are found to have mild cases. The coronavirus is now officially a pandemic, but it could also taper off in the near future. Government intervention could dull the effects in populations; a bungled response could do the opposite.
The stock market isn’t the economy, but it’s a signal that investors are worried about the economic outlook for the coming year because of the virus. Basically, they’re predicting that the coronavirus will continue to spread and cause more disruptions, depress demand, and maybe cause a global slowdown.
This is especially true in industries that cater to travel and tourism, which are being hammered by the outbreak. This has been made worse by cancellations of major events — think the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, usually a boon to the local economy — and fears that will be replicated in the US and around the world.
The fight between Saudi Arabia and Russia over oil production that sparked a dip in oil prices has compounded fears of a broader slowdown.
Right now, investors don’t know for sure that a global slowdown is going to happen — no one does — but they’re preparing as if it will. They’re reacting to fears now, but if good news starts breaking, it could swing in the other direction.
Williamson said the stock market volatility is driven by this uncertainty. “As an investor you’re trying to say, here’s this virus. What’s going to be the reaction with the worst case, if things get really bad?” he said. “So your response is going to be ‘prices drop,’ because you’re going to say, ‘I don’t want to be the one holding the security if things go really bad [in] a few months. So I will sell it right now.”
Investors are preparing for the worst, and some companies and analysts have changed their forecasts for earnings this year. For example, Goldman Sachs revised its earnings growth estimates to zero for US companies.
“US companies will generate no earnings growth in 2020,” Goldman Sachs’s chief US equity strategist, David Kostin, said in a note to clients in February. “We have updated our earnings model to incorporate the likelihood that the virus becomes widespread.”
Businesses are already taking a hit, but how bad it gets will depend on how long this lasts
Apple is one of the companies that have revised down their projections for this quarter. Nike, too, is expected to have a grim quarter.
Companies like Nike and Apple also get a bit of a double whammy. “These are two companies that manufacture a significant amount of their products in China, but they also sell a significant amount of products to China,” Randy Frederick, vice president of trading and derivatives at Charles Schwab, told me.
Factories in China were already operating with smaller staffs or delays because of the Lunar New Year. Then came the coronavirus emergency, which saw many factories shuttered. Even as some factories in unaffected areas of the country try to restart production, travel restrictions made it difficult for people to get to work. And because everything is happening so slowly, it is going to take time for these manufacturers to scale back up.
“Even if you came back to the factory, you have to spend 14 days in quarantine. We have some longtime workers that haven’t even returned,” a worker in a Chinese factory told NPR earlier this month.
Then there is the retail side. China instituted government-mandated lockdowns in several cities, which kept people off the streets — and therefore out of shops, restaurants, hair salons, theaters, and so on.
Many simply closed. Apple closed its stores and corporate headquarters and though has now reopened about half its stores again by the end of February. Starbucks shut down 2,000 stores in China, about half of its total locations, though it too had started to resume operations by the end of February.
Pretty much all businesses that rely on China as part of their supply chains or have big retail presences within the country face similar challenges.
Luxury fashion brands in particular, which depend heavily on Chinese buyers, are taking a hit. A report from the investment management firm Bernstein found that the coronavirus could end up costing the luxury market as much as $43 billion in sales in 2020, Business Insider reports.
And while big-name brands get the attention, smaller manufacturers might be even less resilient to the shock. For instance, sellers on Amazon, who often rely on cheap Chinese products, are getting pummeled, with dwindling stock to sell.
“I don’t think the Amazon platform has seen such a massive amount of inventory problems as we are about to see,” Patrick Maioho, who sells kitchen products on Amazon and advises on manufacturing in China, told the Wall Street Journal in February.
Then there are the airlines, which some experts say could lose as much as $100 billion, and all the other businesses that rely on tourism: hotels, casinos, cruises, tour companies, and more. Chinese tourists are some of the world’s biggest spenders, and travel restrictions, quarantines, and closed borders are making tourism increasingly difficult, to say nothing of visitors to China.
And as the virus spreads, this problem is being replicated elsewhere: Italy, for example, placed a travel ban across its country on March 4, barring all travel that isn’t essential for work or emergencies. Its tourism industry is expected to be hit, hard.
All this means that many industries will likely have a bad start to 2020. But although it may not be a satisfying answer, how bad it will be depends on how long — and how far — the coronavirus continues to spread.
Right now, much of the economic pain is centered in China, and on companies that rely on China for parts or products. But a And as cases in Europe and the United States tick up, that pain will be spread around.
“I think we should expect that every country will see cases, and the duration of infection could go on for months — I don’t think we have an end period, necessarily,” Jennifer Nuzzo, an infectious disease expert and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told me in February.
So is this going to cause a global recession?
Everyone wants to know if the new coronavirus will cause a global recession. The short answer is that it definitely could. Here again, though, whether it will — and if it does happen, how bad it might be — depends on when the coronavirus emergency is resolved.
A recession is generally defined as two back-to-back quarters of negative economic growth, usually measured by gross domestic product (GDP) — that is, the total value of final goods and services produced within a certain period (in this case, usually a quarter of a year).
Experts I spoke to said that China’s GDP will probably suffer pretty badly this first quarter, and since it makes up about 17 percent of the global economy, that’s not great news. China’s estimated GDP growth for the first quarter of 2020 was about 6 percent.
“The vast majority of all economists and others looking at China — and what we know about the virus so far — are expecting, best-case scenario for Q1 in China, zero. Many are expecting negative GDP in Q1, so that right there is going to hurt global GDP to the extent China’s that big,” Frederick said.
What happens in China will have ripple effects on the rest of the world. The eurozone countries are definitely bracing, as the eurozone’s GDP only grew 0.1 percent at the end of last year, so any shock could likely push it toward negative growth.
The US does have one of the world’s strongest economies right now, so it’s a bit more protected. The US’s GDP grew 2.1 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, and experts say it might do a bit worse at the start of 2020 than it did last quarter, but is unlikely to see negative growth, at least for now.
Of course, the big question is how long does this coronavirus outbreak go on? If the coronavirus isn’t contained and these trends continue, the likelihood of a global recession increases. It’s also important to remember that the coronavirus is just one factor, which might exacerbate other strains on the global economy, like trade wars.
“As it gets more and more severe and infects more and more people, the impacts become greater and greater, and the countries that are teetering on recession already anyway will be right there,” Williamson said.
Experts I spoke to cautioned that if governments respond appropriately and this outbreak is blunted, the worst-case scenario will probably be avoided. That doesn’t mean it will be averted equally around the world, or even in all industries or labor forces, of course. But when it comes to the global economy, the theme for now is “don’t panic.”
This is better news for companies like Apple that make durable goods, but could be bad news for services like restaurants or cruises or hotels, which will have a harder time making up the lost revenue, Frederick, the vice president of trading and derivatives at Charles Schwab, told me.
He explained that if you wanted to, say, buy an iPhone or a washing machine or a car but weren’t able to because of a supply shortage, or a store closing, you might be okay waiting to buy that product later once it’s available again — provided that the economic shock is temporary enough that you still have a job and money to spend.
But if you normally go to a coffee shop every day or if you hit the casino every weekend, and now you can’t because of the coronavirus, once things get back to normal, you’re not all of a sudden going to make multiple trips or visits to make up for that.
Even if the coronavirus doesn’t cause a recession, it could transform the global economy in subtler ways
The coronavirus outbreak has definitely exposed vulnerabilities for companies, especially those that rely heavily on China for their supply chains and products. This may force companies to cut some of their dependence on China, something that already started to happen because of President Donald Trump’s trade war.
That almost certainly doesn’t mean abandoning China altogether, but rather distributing or diversifying supply chains to better protect against major crises that dramatically impact one country or one region more than others.
That also does not necessarily mean more manufacturing will come back to the United States, as Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross recently claimed, but it means companies will likely be looking elsewhere.
And even for companies that aren’t really dependent on China, it’s still a good reminder that no one knows when or where the next pandemic or crisis might happen. But one thing is certain: There will be another one at some point. So preparing now is a good idea.