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Red and Blue America Aren’t Experiencing the Same Pandemic; The disconnect is already shaping, even distorting, the nation’s response.
The Atlantic ^ | 03/20/2020 | Ronald Brownstein

Posted on 03/20/2020 8:18:09 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

Even a disease as far-reaching as the coronavirus hasn’t entirely crossed the chasm between red and blue America.

In several key respects, the outbreak’s early stages are unfolding very differently in Republican- and Democratic-leaning parts of the country. That disconnect is already shaping, even distorting, the nation’s response to this unprecedented challenge—and it could determine the pandemic’s ultimate political consequences as well.

A flurry of new national polls released this week reveals that while anxiety about the disease is rising on both sides of the partisan divide, Democrats consistently express much more concern about it than Republicans do, and they are much more likely to say they have changed their personal behavior as a result. A similar gap separates people who live in large metropolitan centers, which have become the foundation of the Democratic electoral coalition, from those who live in the small towns and rural areas that are the modern bedrock of the GOP.

Government responses have followed these same tracks. With a few prominent exceptions, especially Ohio, states with Republican governors have been slower, or less likely, than those run by Democrats to impose restrictions on their residents. Until earlier this week, Donald Trump downplayed the disease’s danger and overstated the extent to which the United States had “control” over it, as the conservative publication The Bulwark recently documented.

Conservative media figures including Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity likewise insisted for weeks that the media and Democrats were exaggerating the danger as a means of weakening Trump. Several Republican elected officials encouraged their constituents to visit bars and restaurants precisely when federal public-health officials were urging the opposite.

(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bloggers; bluestates; coronavirus; nevertrump; nevertrumper; nevertrumpers; pandemic; redstates; ronaldbrownstein; theatlantic; theleft
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To: BenLurkin

I don’t see them as countrymen anymore.

They’re an unwelcome occupying enemy at this point.


61 posted on 03/20/2020 10:34:18 PM PDT by NFHale (The Second Amendment - By Any Means Necessary.)
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To: SeekAndFind

enough of the commie red-blue nonsense

UK and others still use red or Leftist election tracking.


62 posted on 03/20/2020 11:09:52 PM PDT by a fool in paradise (Everyone knows Hillary was corrupt, lied, destroyed documents, and influenced witnesses. Rat crime.)
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To: Republican Wildcat

yet thy call urban areas “smart growth” because it maximizes population density/property values.


63 posted on 03/20/2020 11:12:14 PM PDT by a fool in paradise (Everyone knows Hillary was corrupt, lied, destroyed documents, and influenced witnesses. Rat crime.)
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To: cherry

Blue State Flu


64 posted on 03/20/2020 11:29:56 PM PDT by AbolishCSEU (Amount of "child" support paid is inversely proportionate to mother's actual parenting of children)
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To: SeekAndFind

You don’t say.


65 posted on 03/20/2020 11:39:23 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (There's no excuse for Drudge. Go Liberty Daily, Whatfinger, 63red, Gab Trends, and Rantingly.)
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To: Spktyr

One just has an IR and laser to point, with a digital number readout, the other has a video screen that shows full body/surroundins.

I’d prefer the latter, if I were rich.

:)


66 posted on 03/20/2020 11:40:14 PM PDT by Salamander (Living On The Ledge....)
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To: Salamander

Yeah, but per videos from Singapore, they’re using the first type, which is the one you’re talking about.


67 posted on 03/20/2020 11:45:23 PM PDT by Spktyr (Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
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To: Spktyr

I use them to check snake heat pad temps.

Wouldn’t want one pointed at *my* face because of the laser.


68 posted on 03/21/2020 12:08:18 AM PDT by Salamander (Living On The Ledge....)
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To: SeekAndFind

Exactly.


69 posted on 03/21/2020 12:08:44 AM PDT by Eagles6
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To: Gumdrop
As for differences between red and blues states, it is more a difference between metro vs rural areas.

Yes, that is the obvious point which the author of this article is assiduously attempting to obscure.

Regards,

70 posted on 03/21/2020 12:21:49 AM PDT by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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To: Salamander

They are available without lasers for very close work, and there are medical-certified versions.


71 posted on 03/21/2020 1:28:00 AM PDT by Spktyr (Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
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To: SeekAndFind

The only ways my lifestyle has changed is in areas where I have no choice. Other than that, nothing has changed. My take is that the best way to fight the disease and the economic downturn is to live your life as normal.

It’s what Londoners did during the V-1 onslaught during WWII. Only cowards fail to do this.


72 posted on 03/21/2020 1:40:12 AM PDT by cuban leaf (The political war playing out in every country now: Globalists vs Nationalists)
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To: ThunderSleeps

We’re 66. My wife is more concerned about getting the flu than this.


73 posted on 03/21/2020 1:41:36 AM PDT by cuban leaf (The political war playing out in every country now: Globalists vs Nationalists)
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To: ConservativeMind

We do the same. Our restaurants have good people who need our business. My husband is higher risk after his bypass... but we aren’t really the panicky apes. People hiding under tables at the behest of the media will kill far more people by trashing the economy than the virus. I work in a hospital, our staff is amazing.


74 posted on 03/21/2020 2:04:22 AM PDT by momincombatboots (Ephesians 6... who you are really at war with)
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To: lightman; SeekAndFind
"why should upstate NY suffer the same restrictions as the NYC metro area?"

Communism is a, "one size fits all" system of governance.

75 posted on 03/21/2020 2:26:34 AM PDT by outofsalt (If history teaches us anything, it's that history rarely teaches anything.)
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To: SeekAndFind

It’s not red vs blue it’s Godly vs Godless


76 posted on 03/21/2020 2:32:44 AM PDT by Vision (Obama corrupted, sought to weaken and fundamentally change America; he didn't plan on being stopped.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Luckily my daughter escaped NYC and is able to wait out the epidemic with us here in SC. Life is pretty calm here.

Brownstein plays the victim card and implies that Trump is allowing red states to suffer. The left touted the benefits of living in dense urban areas. Proven wrong again, they’re squealing like pigs. The left is mentally ill.


77 posted on 03/21/2020 3:34:51 AM PDT by DeplorablePaul (s)
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To: BrexitBen

And large homeless congregations in those large cities with trash every where, shit in the streets, junkies everywhere, are just a perfect place to stew up disease.


78 posted on 03/21/2020 4:54:44 AM PDT by weezel
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To: mosesdapoet

That would only work as long as most of the people culled were older, straight, white Men. If by chance the majority were people of color, worse yet WoC or members of one of the government approved pervert groups the cries of ….ism would be defining. We should have learned from the early AIDs years. We all knew who it affected, how and why, but everyone had to be treated like it was a plague that could kill anyone.


79 posted on 03/21/2020 4:58:42 AM PDT by redangus
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To: cgbg

“Escape From NY” great movie.


80 posted on 03/21/2020 4:59:48 AM PDT by redangus
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