Different Approaches

Republican politicians can be exasperating. Too many are  crude, illiberal on social matters, unserious about liberty, pragmatic in the bad sense of that term, unscientific in outlook, poor at making their case, and generally lacking cohesive, thought out principles. Some  people favoring liberty and individual rights still  support Republicans in elections against Democrats as the lesser evil.  Others say the two parties are more or less equivalently bad and reject both.  Since state and local governments are being left  to make many of the decisions about handling the present epidemic, people have a chance to look at the behavior of politicians from both parties and see if it indicates any meaningful overall differences between the parties.

Republican officials usually have ordered shut downs reluctantly, enforced them fairly politely, relied as much as possible on people going along voluntarily, and begun – usually eagerly – to start getting things back to normal as soon as conditions allowed. From their behavior it seems that they have not liked the things they have done and will be glad to stop doing them.

On the other hand many Democratic officials give the impression of really enjoying having and using this new power over other people. The pettiness, malice, arbitrariness, dogmatic vigor, and simple mean relish with which they have made and enforced  their dictates surely make it seem that  they are having a good time. They certainly are reluctant to let  go. Some even speak seemingly longingly of a “new normal” in which they will keep the new powers indefinitely.  Some of that reluctance to open things up may be a political ploy to hurt Trump in the next election, but that does not explain all of it. (Trump probably  is not going to carry New York in November regardless of how long Cuomo and Wilhelm  keep the state and city shut down.)

Many of us who are fond of neither party believe Democrats on average are more likely than Republicans to want to control more of other people’s lives by force,  and therefore are a worse  threat.  The Dems recently have given that hypothesis a whole lot of support.