Minneapolis has one of the most liberal political establishments of any city in the nation, and indeed its mayor was elected on the promise of police reform; the same goes for Chicago and Atlanta. If these promises have turned out to be dubious, is that the fault of the voters? What alternative did they have? In New York City, where the police have spent days plowing into and pulling guns on peaceful demonstrators, we have a mayor who was elected and re-elected on a promise not just of reform but of radical change. As yet, I am aware of no viable candidate for major office who has called for the police to be defunded or abolished. The candidates who will not only endorse but execute the protestors’ vision for a better world have yet to reveal themselves, and we can forgive anyone who does not wish to get duped in the meantime.
But as the other events of this year have made clear, the hypocrisy of the exhortation to vote is not limited to the issue of police brutality. As protestors gathered by the thousands in American cities this weekend, where they were policed by officers who frequently declined to wear masks, some almost certainly infected others with the novel coronavirus, which as I write this continues to strain the global economy to the point of collapse. Our representatives in Congress, the fruits of our past exercises in democratic selection, have managed to respond to the ongoing pandemic by granting Americans a pittance of material relief that for many of them has already run out. Tens of millions of families across the country are without work, without money, without food. People in such circumstances are apt to make new calculations.
“That’s the problem of leaving any kind of disaster preparedness up to the market and market forces — it will never work,” said Dr. John Hick, who has advised HHS on pandemic preparedness since 2002. “The market is not going to give priority to a relatively no-frills but dependable ventilator that’s not expensive.”
