5/25/20
The staggering American death toll from the coronavirus, now approaching 100,000, has touched every part of the country, but the losses have been especially acute along its coasts, in its major cities, across the industrial Midwest, and in New York City. The devastation, in other words, has been disproportionately felt in blue America, which helps explain why people on opposing sides of a partisan divide that has intensified in the past two decades are thinking about the virus differently. It is not just that Democrats and Republicans disagree on how to reopen businesses, schools, and the country as a whole. Beyond perception, beyond ideology, there are starkly different realities for red and blue America right now. Democrats are far more likely to live in counties where the virus has ravaged the community, while Republicans are more likely to live in counties that have been relatively unscathed by the illness, though they are paying an economic price. The very real difference in death rates has helped fuel deep disagreement over the dangers of the pandemic and how the country should proceed. Right-wing media, which moved swiftly from downplaying the severity of the crisis to calling it a Democratic plot to bring down the president, has exacerbated the rift.
Why has the virus slammed some parts of the country so much harder than others? Part of the answer is population density. In a country deeply segregated along racial, religious, and economic lines, density also aligns with political divisions: Urban America tilts heavily blue. Amid the pandemic, there are densely populated red counties near major cities with high infection rates — Suffolk County in New York, Jefferson Parrish in Louisiana, and Monmouth County in New Jersey, for example. But those are true outliers. Public opinion polls do show widespread support for stay-at-home orders, but also indicate that Republicans are less likely to see the virus as a significant threat to their health. They dismiss factual reports from the news media as exaggerated and trying to incite panic, because the reports don’t align with their own experience.