"Why are we failing the test? It’s easy to blame Donald Trump, a man-child who would surely gobble down that first marshmallow, then try to steal marshmallows from other kids. But America’s impatience, its unwillingness to do what it takes to deal with a threat that can’t be beaten with threats of violence, runs much deeper than one man.
It doesn’t help that Republicans are ideologically opposed to government safety-net programs, which are what make the economic consequences of social distancing tolerable; as I explain in my recent column, they seem determined to let crucial emergency relief expire far too soon. Nor does it help that even low-cost measures to limit the spread of Covid-19, above all wearing face masks (which mainly protect other people), have been caught up in our culture wars."
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The marshmallow test is a famous psychological experiment that tests children’s willingness to delay gratification. Children are offered a marshmallow, but told that they can have a second marshmallow if they’re willing to wait 15 minutes before eating the first one. Claims that children with the willpower to hold out do much better in life
haven’t held up well, but the experiment is still a useful metaphor for many choices in life, both by individuals and by larger groups.
One way to think about the Covid-19 pandemic is that it poses a kind of marshmallow test for society.
At this point, there have been enough international success stories in dealing with the coronavirus to leave us with a clear sense of what beating the pandemic takes. First, you have to impose strict social distancing long enough to reduce the number of infected people to a small fraction of the population. Then you have to implement a regime of testing, tracing and isolating: quickly identifying any new outbreak, finding everyone exposed and quarantining them until the danger is past.
This strategy is workable. South Korea has done it.
New Zealand has done it.
But you have to be strict and you have to be patient, staying the course until the pandemic is over, not giving in to the temptation to return to normal life while the virus is still widespread. So it is, as I said, a kind of marshmallow test.
And America is failing that test.
New U.S. cases and deaths have
declined since early April, but that’s almost entirely because the greater New York area, after a horrific outbreak, has achieved huge progress. In many parts of the country — including our most populous states, California, Texas, and Florida — the disease is still spreading. Overall, new cases are plateauing and may be starting to rise. Yet state governments are moving to reopen anyway.
This is a very different story from what’s happening in
other advanced countries, even hard-hit nations like Italy and Spain, where new cases have fallen dramatically. It now looks likely that by late summer we’ll be the only major wealthy nation where large numbers of people are still dying from Covid-19.
Why are we failing the test? It’s easy to blame Donald Trump, a man-child who would surely gobble down that first marshmallow, then try to steal marshmallows from other kids. But America’s impatience, its unwillingness to do what it takes to deal with a threat that can’t be beaten with threats of violence, runs much deeper than one man.
It doesn’t help that Republicans are ideologically opposed to government safety-net programs, which are what make the economic consequences of social distancing tolerable; as I explain in
my recent column, they seem determined to let crucial emergency relief expire far too soon. Nor does it help that even low-cost measures to limit the spread of Covid-19, above all wearing face masks (which mainly protect other people), have been caught up in our culture wars.
America in 2020, it seems, is too disunited, with too many people in the grip of ideology and partisanship, to deal effectively with a pandemic. We have the knowledge, we have the resources, but we don’t have the will.
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We cannot. EVER. Forget what they did. We the people need to hold Nuremberg-style Congressional enquiries into those who enabled and facilitated Trump, and we do NOT "move on" from this accounting until they are ALL held to account, and punished to the fullest extent of the law, for what they have done.
For this wanton destruction of democratic norms which endangers our very system of government, at the very least, the republican party should be demoted to third party status in our duopoly of a political system (that's a conversation for another time, btw). Let the democrats become the representatives of centrist conservatism (that's what they are now anyway) and let another party become the mainstream representatives of progressive liberalism.
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: What do you make of General Mattis, who has been very tight-lipped about Donald Trump? He has not criticized barely at all, even in his book, now coming out and calling Donald Trump nothing less than a threat to the constitution. Is it just distance, is it time, or is it a reflex to defend the military. What do you think that is?
GEORGE WILL, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: I think we have to understand that a Marine general, steeped in the code of civilian control, steeped in control of keeping the military, even the ex-military out of politics, had to be provoked long and hard to go against all the instincts learned under a 50-year military career, to intervene in politics. I salute him for doing so, and I honor him for his reluctance to do so. That makes his timely intervention now all the more forceful.
REID: Do you think -- what may be the consequences if Republican voters listen to you and say, you know what, it's time to say no, let's get rid of every single Republican in the Senate that they are capable of voting out? What will happen to the Republican party? Do you foresee a time when Republicans develop amnesia about having been so solicitous of Donald Trump? Or what happens to that party long-term?
WILL: I'm fairly confident that he will be defeated, Mr. Trump will be defeated, in the election. And the next morning, a lot of Republicans will say, Trump? I don't recognize the name. They'll get over this fairly fast. Our parties are very durable. Our two parties have formulated the political competition in this country since the Republicans first ran a presidential ticket in 1856. The Republican party will survive. What the Republican party needs like we parents say when dealing with an intractable child, it needs a time-out, and I think they're going to get one.
In July 2015, George Will said Trump could be a Democratic party mole.
In March 2016, Will said we have "passed peak Trump" and that Sen. Ted Cruz had the best chance to win.
In June 2016, George Will doubted large crowds for "political amateur" Trump at rallies would translate to votes.
In November 2016, George Will, doubting Trump's victory, said Republicans would be better off losing by a landslide, and that a narrow defeat would be "the worst conceivable outcome."
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The Confederate Flag has been a favorite of losers since the 1860s. Source links in image.
