I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality of American politics. If you received this email - or you are a free subscriber - and you’d like to subscribe: you can sign up here.
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Just a quick reminder that I’ll be Zoomcasting today at 12:30. Please join me then and leave any questions or issues you want to discuss in the comment section below. I’ve got a piece coming out in MSNBC soon on why I’m not terribly concerned about the chances of Trump stealing the 2024 election … and why I think it’s a bit of a distraction from the far bigger threats to American democracy. So I’ll definitely be talking about that issue, among others. Here is the Zoom link and below is a bit more fodder for our converation.
The COVID Malaise
As regular readers of the newsletter are undoubtedly aware, I’ve become almost annoyingly cheery about my post-vaccine life … but this week was a test. First, one of my oldest daughter’s classmates tested positive for COVID, which means that she is quarantining and doing remote learning from home this week (when my youngest found out that her sister gets to stay home from school and she still had to go it sparked the mother of all tantrums). Had this diagnosis come just five days later, it would have been two weeks since her second vaccination shot, which would have meant no quarantine. Ugh!
Second, yesterday afternoon I briefly had a sore throat, which led to the 21-month old dilemma we’ve probably all felt at one time or another — “is it a cold or is it COVID?” So that meant I had to waste an hour with my kids getting a “rapid” COVID test, which not surprisingly turned out to be negative. Double Ugh!
Now in the larger scheme of things, this is small potatoes, and I refuse to let it puncture my sunny optimism, but still, it wears on you … which is why David Leonhardt’s piece today on COVID malaise resonated with me:
In recent weeks, economists and pundits have been asking why Americans feel grouchy about the economy when many indicators — like G.D.P. growth, stock prices and the unemployment rate — look strong.
But I think the answer to this supposed paradox is that it’s not really a paradox: Americans think the economy is in rough shape because the economy is in rough shape.
Sure, some major statistics look good, and they reflect true economic strengths, including the state of families’ finances. But the economy is more than a household balance sheet; it is the combined experience of working, shopping and interacting in society. Americans evidently understand the distinction: In an Associated Press poll, 64 percent describe their personal finances as good — and only 35 percent describe the national economy as good.
There are plenty of reasons. Many services don’t function as well as they used to, largely because of supply-chain problems and labor shortages. Rising prices are cutting into paychecks, especially for working-class households. People spend less time socializing. The unending nature of the pandemic — the masks, Covid tests, Zoom meetings and anxiety-producing runny noses — is wearying.
Life since March 2020 has often felt like one step forward and six steps back. Every time we get closer to the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, something seems to drag us back in. Personally, part of my frustration about the continued mask mandates and abundance of caution precautions makes it all the more difficult for us to move to a post-pandemic world. The fact is, we need to accept some level of risk when it comes to COVID, such as we accept risk in every other aspect of our lives. As Leonhardt points out, “society would cease to function if it tried to minimize every medical risk. Schools and offices don’t close each winter because of the flu. Families travel in cars even though crashes harm vastly more children than Covid does. People jog, play sports and ride bicycles even though thousands end up in emergency rooms.”
Yet, with COVID, our risk tolerance is entirely different. This, of course, is not surprising. The virus has killed close to 800,000 Americans. Many more have gotten sick. We’ve all heard or read the horror stories of healthy, vital people being felled by this terrifying virus. We’ve spent 21 months being told about the dangers of COVID, and it’s very difficult to simply turn that off. I’m relatively sanguine about the risks of getting COVID — and I know that if I do test positive, I’m unlikely to get dangerously ill. But as I went to get my rapid test yesterday, all kinds of doomsday scenarios played out in my head. I can assure you that the same type of brief fears never materialize when I think I might have the flu.
It’s important to remember that we’ve all experienced an extreme trauma over the past nearly two years. Our lives have been fundamentally upended and the specter of death, for us and our loved ones, has consistently hung over our heads. You don’t just rub some dirt on it and get back in the game. Moving past the pandemic is so complicated because its impact on our psyches has been so profound. Moreover, the process of getting back to the way things were is different for each of us. This is one lesson I’ve learned from many of you: that we all need to move beyond pandemic life at our own speed.
And until we each figure out how to do that, and tolerate the risks of COVID, it’s going to be a slow path to getting back to normal.
What’s Going On
ICYMI: I wrote this week about how things got so tense between Russia and Ukraine and what the United States can do to lower the chances of war. It begins with recognizing that threatening and cajoling Russia isn’t going to work. Concessions and hard choices will need to be on all sides. Ukraine, Russia, and the United States will likely need to muddle through rather than strike some grand bargain.
Nancy Gertner and Laurence H. Tribe call for an expansion of the Supreme Court.
This might be the most brutal restaurant review you’ll ever read.
See ya at 12:30!
Musical Interlude