Quarantine Sucks and Covid 19: Political Edition
I’m self-quarantining. It sucks.
So, I’ve decided to stop moping about and get back to writing. I’m less motivated by a renewed interest in the craft and more by a desire to do something other than play Minecraft. On Sunday, I got back from Vermont after developing a minor cold on Saturday. My parents were not messing around – they promptly sent me to the basement sans hug. It’s now Tuesday and I’ve been informed that I should expect to remain here for at least fourteen days in total. Fair enough; I don’t want to mess around with Covid-19 anymore than anyone else does. But quarantine, or more specifically the social isolation that it comes with, is boring. So here I am.
My current plan is to try and write most days that I’m down here. I’ve found that increases in the quantitative-ness of my academic course load have correlated with a decline in my writing ability. So hopefully I can address that through this exercise. Additionally, the novelty of this entire situation has put me on edge. Not really in the nervous way, but in the “holy sh*t this is exciting” way. I’ve been reading a ton of articles about the Coronavirus, and more specifically about its implications from a health/economic/societal/financial standpoint so I should have plenty of ideas percolating in my head. I figure that by having a written record of my thought process and analysis, I can later self-criticize and hone my thinking for future crises.
So how am I planning to organize these new posts?
My primary goal is to keep writing so that I can keep myself mentally fit while cooped up in the basement. But I know myself, and if I only post when I have something “profound” I’m going to end up not posting at all. So, my plan is to model my structure after Matt Levine’s “Money Stuff.” Essentially, I’ll post most days. Posts will be titled according to whatever I think is the most pertinent matter of the day but they’ll contain a variety of themes. Themes will be arranged by in-article headers, essentially the same as I am doing in this here post. There’s a chance that I will redesign my website to make it simpler – currently I dislike the blogger platform as it tends to look kinda rough and it’s not accepting my attempts to update my profile picture. I’ll end each post with (1) a list of articles I read that day and (2) thought were particularly interesting. The goal here is that I’ll be able to simultaneously read my posts and the articles that influenced my thinking in that day. Is future me actually going to do that? Probably not, but at least I’ll have the opportunity to do so. There’s gotta be a joke about option value somewhere in there.
Let’s begin.
Covid-19: The ideal political faceoff?
According to some, modern political groups split less along traditional fault lines of “Left” and “Right” and more so along “Globalist” and “Nationalist/Populist.” According to those on the “Nationalist/Populist” side of the argument (I’m lumping Trump with this group), a state’s main job is to advance its own self-interest. It should primarily do this through managed trade instead of free trade, should severely restrict immigration, and should generally be skeptical of pan-national organizations like the UN/EU/WHO/WTO/etc. There’s typically also a distrust of elites/expert opinion on the grounds that these people have conflict of interest issues leading them to advocate policies likely to benefit themselves. Stagnant US median income levels despite meteoric rises in top percentile incomes are typically used as evidence for the deleterious effects of leaving “elites” in charge.
Arguments for nationalistic/populistic policies typically rests on economic or national sovereignty grounds. On the economic front, one might argue that unfettered immigration and trade from poorer nations depresses native labor wages, and is therefore undesirable. Those who come at the issue from a national sovereignty perspective might question whether global groups can ever really have their best interests at heart. This reasoning is prevalent in Trump’s desire to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, Brexit, and potentially Poland’s Law & Justice (PiS) Party’s current fight over judicial sovereignty with the EU in light of allegations of impropriety and lack of judicial independence.
On the other hand, “Globalists” argue for free trade, increased international cooperation, and free movement of people and capital. The argument here typically revolves around two key points. (1) Reductions in international barriers increase the size of the economic pie, therefore everyone is better off. Essentially, a rising tide lifts all boats. (2) The issues the world faces nowadays are global (pandemics, global warming, low global growth, etc.) and the best way to address global problems is through international cooperation.
So, it would seem that Covid-19 might present the perfect natural experiment for the globalist vs. nationalist/populist fight. Those with an international leaning can test the capacity of international groups like the WHO, World Bank, and IMF in their ability to respond to a crisis. And nationalist/populists could potentially show that a strong executive and tight immigration controls lead to reduced mortality in crisis situations. Keep checking in with Italy and the USA to see how this plays out.
Trump might’ve messed this up for himself
Continuing on from the last section, one might assume that Trump could pretty easily use the Covid-19 pandemic as an argument for his particular strain of political ideology. In a counterfactual world, where he capitalized on the travel bans by investing heavily in testing, he might’ve gotten ahead of this whole thing. Think of an outcome similar to what we’ve seen so far in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Then, he could argue in his re-election campaign that “look, the globalists ended up devastating their economy/society because they had less border control (e.g. Schengen zone in the EU) and they had less flexibility due to a less powerful executive. My response worked, therefore elect me.” To some extent, this does appear to be the argument he is actually trying to use.
Unfortunately, it appears as though for one reason or another the first round of CDC test kits were defective. Instead of focusing on the problem, Trump pretended that all was fine in order to boost the economy. In reality, all was not fine as we are very quickly finding out. This has led Trump to backtrack; only now is he half-heartedly retweeting CDC advice. This makes him look weak. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out in the presumptive Biden vs. Trump race this November.
Reading of Note
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