Lockdown Left Versus Restoration Right – A Nation Divided-er

The American people are dying to go back to work and normalcy… but the left says no, let’s wait, and wait, and wait… as the partisan divide in America has overflowed into the pandemic

As The New York Times recently noted, Robert Griffin, research director of the nonpartisan Democracy Fund Voter Study Group, provided The Times with demographic data from a May 7-13 survey describing voters who oppose lockdown policies. They are decisively Republican (at 55 percent) compared with 27 percent Democratic and 17 percent independent; majority male, at 58 percent; largely white (69 percent compared with 7 percent black and 17 percent Hispanic); and less well educated, 74 percent without college degrees, 24 percent with degrees.

What are some of the forces driving the split between those who prioritize the economy and those whose primary concern is the physical health of the population?

W. Bradford Wilcox, a sociologist at the University of Virginia, emailed in response to my inquiry:

Progressives have grown more likely to embrace a culture of “safetyism” in recent years. This safetyism seeks to protect them and those who are deemed the most vulnerable members of our society from threats to their emotional and physical well-being.

In the case of Covid-19, he continued,

progressives are willing to embrace the maximal measures to protect themselves, the public, and the most vulnerable among us from this threat.

In contrast, according to Wilcox,

many conservatives are most concerned about protecting the American way of life, a way of life they see as integrally bound up with liberty and the free market.

Because many on the political right see the lockdowns as impinging “on their liberty, the free market’s workings, and their financial well-being,” he continued, “many conservatives want the lockdowns ended as quickly as possible.”

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Liberty Nation’s Tim Donner discusses  the state of our divided nation with Political Columnist Joe Schaeffer, Economics Maven Andrew Moran and Legal Affairs Editor Scott Cosenza…

This week’s show is all about resetting the nation, the economy, the presidential race – and let’s not forget no less than 468 congressional races that will shape our political future. We’ll go from where things were before we hit the pause button for two months, to where we stand as we begin rebuilding an economy with over 38 million of our fellow Americans filing for unemployment in the last 9 weeks… through no fault of their own.