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MONITOR: Election 2020
Republican Governors Aren’t Taking the Pandemic Seriously
Their reasoning for not issuing shelter-in-place orders flies in the face of logic
Despite the fact that the U.S. has surpassed China in its number of Covid-19 cases, the Trump administration continues to downplay the crisis and dismiss the notion of a nationwide measure to slow the spread. To counteract the federal government’s recklessness, the vast majority of state governors have now issued statewide shelter-in-place or stay-at-home orders, which require residents to remain at home unless they are essential workers or carrying out necessary activities (such as getting food or medicine). On Wednesday, Republican governors in Mississippi, Florida, and Georgia, who had previously abstained from taking this kind of executive action, finally caved. They now join other states in enforcing more aggressive, statewide mandates to flatten the curve.
Since January 2017, Trump’s presidency has highlighted the stark differences between red and blue state politics. Democratically controlled states have the ability to shield themselves from extreme right-wing governance. In the wake of anti-immigration executive orders, for example, they can offer sanctuary. In the face of climate change denialism, they can enact measures to protect the environment. But residents of Republican-controlled states are at the mercy of a state government whose values oftentimes reflect the depravity of the Trump administration. Though none have gone into effect yet, abortion bans became law in several red states last year. Just this week, Idaho’s Republican Gov. Brad Little signed two anti-trans bills into law.
In the context of the coronavirus pandemic, the remaining 12 Republican governors resisting statewide executive orders believe that individuals should be responsible for their own social distancing, not the state. No one has made this more clear than South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem. “The people themselves are primarily responsible for their safety,” she said at a recent press conference. “They are the ones that are entrusted with expansive freedoms. They’re free to exercise their rights to work, to worship, and to play. Or to even stay at home, or to conduct social distancing.”
