The Pandemic Has Been Much Worse For The Worst Off So Far, But... Have You Ever Heard Of Trickle Up?

COVID-45 by Nancy Ohanian

This list is each state in order of population:

• California- 39,937,489
• Texas- 29,472,295
• Florida- 21,992,985
• New York- 19,440,469
• Pennsylvania- 12,820,878
• Illinois- 12,659,682
• Ohio- 11,747,694
• Georgia- 10,736,059
• North Carolina- 10,611,862
• Michigan- 10,045,029
• New Jersey- 8,936,574
• Virginia- 8,626,207
• Washington- 7,797,095
• Arizona- 7,378,494
• Massachusetts- 6,976,597
• Tennessee- 6,897,576
• Indiana- 6,745,354
• Missouri- 6,169,270
• Maryland- 6,083,116
• Wisconsin- 5,851,754
• Colorado- 5,845,526
• Minnesota- 5,700,671
• South Carolina- 5,210,095
• Alabama- 4,908,621
• Louisiana- 4,645,184
• Kentucky- 4,499,692
• Oregon- 4,301,089
• Oklahoma- 3,954,821
• Connecticut- 3,563,077
• Utah- 3,282,115
• Iowa- 3,179,849
• Nevada- 3,139,658
• Arkansas- 3,038,999
• Mississippi- 2,989,260
• Kansas- 2,910,357
• New Mexico- 2,096,640
• Nebraska- 1,952,570
• Idaho- 1,826,156
• West Virginia- 1,778,070
• Hawaii- 1,412,687
• New Hampshire- 1,371,246
• Maine- 1,345,790
• Montana- 1,086,759
• Rhode Island- 1,056,161
• Delaware- 982,895
• South Dakota- 903,027
• North Dakota- 761,723
• Alaska- 734,002
• DC- 720,687
• Vermont- 628,061
• Wyoming- 567,025

And this is a list of states listed by number of coronavirus cases per one million population. The number grew in every single state between Wednesday and today. That's not the kind of curve movement anyone wants to see. The number in parenthesis is the actual number of cases as of Thursday.

• New York- 13,690 (268,581)
• New Jesery- 11,258 (99,989)
• Massachusetts- 6,738 (46,023)
• Connecticut- 6,450 (23,100)
• Rhode Island- 5,921 (6,256)
• Louisiana- 5,519 (25,739)
• DC- 4,910 (3,361)
• Michigan- 3,544 (37,053)
• Delaware- 3,484 (3,308)
• Pennsylvania- 2,897 (35,684)
• Illinois- 2,881 (36,934)
• Maryland- 2,621 (15,737)
• South Dakota- 2,263 (1,956)
• Georgia- 2,089 (21,512)
• Colorado- 2,036 (11,262)
• Indiana- 1,964 (13,039)
• Mississippi- 1,724 (5,153)
• Washington- 1,713 (12,494)
• Nevada- 1,440 (4,208)
• Florida- 1,439 (29,648)
• Vermont- 1,320 (825)
• Virginia- 1,307 (10,998)
• Tennessee- 1,307 (8,266)
• Ohio- 1,262 (14,694)
• Iowa- 1,253 (3,924)
• New Hampshire- 1,243 (1,670)
• Alabama- 1,196 (5,816)
• Utah- 1,186 (3,612)
• New Mexico- 1,137 (2,379)
• Nebraska- 1,115 (2,124)
• Idaho- 1,068 (1,802)
• Missouri- 1,038 (6,321)
• California- 996 (39,009)
• South Carolina- 992 (4,917)
• North Dakota- 943 (709)
• Wisconsin- 874 (5,052)
• Kansas- 853 (2,482)
• Arizona- 830 (5,769)
• Arkansas- 824 (2,465)
• Texas- 787 (21,944)
• Kentucky- 784 (3,481)
• Wyoming- 779 (453)
• Oklahoma- 770 (3,017)
• North Carolina- 764 (7,759)
• Maine- 703 (937)
• West Virginia- 536 (981)
• Oregon- 521 (2,127)
• Alaska- 456 (337)
• Montana- 424 (442)
• Hawaii- 419 (596)

Horrible, right? Want a silver lining? Trump's crisis mismanagement is alienating seniors, the nation's most dependable voters-- and voters that supported Trump in 2016 and oppose him in polls now. Josh Kraushaar wrote that "by turning the coronavirus crisis into a partisan issue so quickly, Trump ensures that he’s on the losing side of the debate. Just look at the numbers. Even as small protests against stay-at-home orders have percolated in several states, public polling shows minimal opposition to statewide restrictions. A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll found that just 22 percent of Americans supported the protests, with only 36 percent of Republicans in agreement. Far from agreeing with the president’s Twitter demands to 'liberate' states with stay-at-home orders, they agree with his administration’s more cautious guidance.

Going against the tide of public opinion carries serious political consequences. This column has pointed out the downward trajectory of Trump’s approval ratings as he struggles to demonstrate competence in this crisis while failing to offer clarity about the path forward. But he risks doing greater damage by going against the interests of his own voters.

For a preview on how things could get worse for the president, look at the evolving political views of seniors, one of Trump’s most supportive constituencies in the previous election. They are also the most concerned about the coronavirus, given they have a much greater risk of dying if they become infected.

The latest Morning Consult poll found that 65-and-older voters prioritized defeating the coronavirus over healing the economy by nearly a 6-to-1 ratio. And over the past month, they’ve become the group most disenchanted with Trump’s handling of the crisis. In mid-March, seniors were more supportive of Trump than any other age group (plus-19 net approval). Now, their net approval of the president has dropped 20 points and is lower than any age group outside of the youngest Americans.

Those findings were matched by a new NBC/WSJ poll, which tested the presidential matchup between Trump and Joe Biden. Among seniors 65 and older, Biden led Trump by 9 points, 52 to 43 percent. That’s a dramatic 16-point swing from Hillary Clinton’s showing in the 2016 election; she lost seniors by 7 points to Trump (52-45 percent).

Seniors are among the most engaged voters in the country (71 percent went to the polls in 2016), and were critical to Trump’s victory. They’ve remained supportive of him for much of his presidency. And they’re counting on the president to protect them at a particularly precarious moment. If Trump’s desire to quickly reopen the economy ends up backfiring, they’ll be the first to abandon him and deal his reelection prospects a crippling blow.

Poll after poll keeps finding that a majority of American voters say that Trump is the least trusted to make decisions about reopening the economy. Across every state in the new Change Research survey of battlegrounds, state and local governments are more trusted to make those decisions-- and with the exception of Ron DeSantis-- governors, including the Democratic governors whom Trump has been criticizing, earn better marks than Trump for their handling of coronavirus.

Not many people alive today experienced the Great Depression but older Americans certainly heard all about-- in horrific terms-- from their parents. Nobel Prize economist Joseph Stiglitz told The Guardian that Trump's incompetence is pushing us right into a second Great Depression. "The numbers turning to food banks," said Stiglitz, "are just enormous and beyond the capacity of them to supply. It is like a third world country. The public social safety net is not working... We have a safety net that is inadequate. The inequality in the U.S. is so large. This disease has targeted those with the poorest health. In the advanced world, the U.S. is one of the countries with the poorest health overall and the greatest health inequality... If you leave it to Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell, we will have a Great Depression. If we had the right policy structure in place we could avoid it easily."

Stiglitz said Republicans had opposed proposals to give those affected by coronavirus 10 days’ sick leave, meaning many employees were going to work even while infected. “The Republicans said no because they said it would set a bad precedent. It is literally unbelievable.”

...Stiglitz said that as a result of Trump’s mismanagement, the White House office responsible for pandemics had been closed, funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had been cut, and the US had gone into the crisis without enough testing kits, masks and protective gear. Encouraged by Trump, some parts of the US were determined to reopen in a way that would facilitate the transmission of the disease and lead to a fresh outbreak, he added.

“In those circumstances it won’t be the government enforcing the lockdown, it will be fear. The concern is that people are not going to be spending on anything other than food and that’s the definition of a Great Depression.

“We were unprepared but, even given the degree of unpreparedness, Trump’s decision to make this about politics rather than about science has meant we have responded far more poorly.”