COVID Insights in a Divided America

 

In the two years since COVID began its attempt to dominate human activities across the globe, we have witnessed an ever-widening range of how humans and their societies react. This is especially notable in the US where COVID was not just a national healthcare crisis but also became one of the most inane and destructive of phenomena, a divisive political issue. As is almost always the case, the emergence of politics on an issue produces the host of symptoms, side-effects, and ailments that any infectious disease injects into a population.

Now while it is important to recognize that the nation has suffered much during the COVID plague and all evidence to date is that the harms done will continue for some time yet, there are lessons to be learned from the information being acquired and the knowledge that can be gained. This doesn’t diminish the pain, suffering and losses that many people and families have experienced and which the nation and our citizens should compassionately acknowledge. Just as the nation owes a great deal of gratitude to first-responders and healthcare workers, including the ‘essential’ workers who helped keep critical aspects of the economy going. These and many other responses to COVID’s ravages throughout the nation are outstanding examples of how a society and its members can collectively join together and demonstrate what it means to be an America of all its people.

Of course, then there are the politics and the politicians. For reasons passing all understanding, reasoning and sanity, COVID inflamed a fevered political contest over an unending list of issues that have weakened Americans’ resolve to end the plague and further divide people even more than ever. As foolish and counter-productive as these self-inflicted wounds have been, we must hope that despite our politics, political leaders, and political parties that the information, lessons and knowledge that can be gained is not lost, ignored or go unexamined.

To learn the valuable insights which are to be found amid the data and self-identified population sub-groups it is critical to acquire and preserve the data, to assess and analyze the data, and to provide comprehendible summaries and conclusions that the data reveals.

What are some of the insights that we have ample evidence on already? Well, we already know that the following issues have shown some distinctive divides:

·         Wearing a mask

·         Social-distancing

·         Remote learning for schools

·         Lock-downs

·         Vaccines

·         Vaccination mandates

·         Various forms of treatments for COVID

·         Economic relief packages

·         Ethnic, racial and other societal groupings like: age, sex, education, …

The insights that are available on these different topics of course come from different areas of expertise, or on some fronts from areas of non-expertise. Given how constantly many of these issues have been and continue to be covered in the news media and on social-media, there should be very few people who are not aware of the different views that surrounding each issue. What is learned on most of these issues will come from various entities, especially healthcare topic, that will present how aspects of COVID infections and outcomes varied by groups taking one side or another. Preventing and lessening the consequences of COVID has been shown for mask-wearing, social-distancing, vaccines & vaccinations, differential efficacies or inefficacies for given treatments, and on lock-downs or re-openings. This is all useful information and should enable STEM-oriented entities to use these learning to be more prepared and capable in dealing with COVID going forward and for other such epidemic/pandemic events in the future.

But those lessons are not the only things which we can learn; nor are they necessarily the more salient knowledge to be gained from our collective COVID experiences. What about factors/variables which logically should not be expected to show differential impacts and outcomes because of COVID? What about the irrational forces at play in this viral quagmire of infections, hospitalizations, and deaths? Yes, I am referring to politics.

But how would one demonstrate that politics has a meaningful and significant effect on COVID? Yes, we all hear politicians arguing over national policies. We see political leaders at all levels fighting over what they are going to do or not do, will permit or not permit, and claim is being done based upon the “science” and/or the data with or without providing where they got the ‘science’ or what the data is. But who in their right mind to trust politicians? There are even opportunities to see how some variable as mundane and inane as public school-boards’ policies.

How about we take a more STEM-oriented strategy and look at the data in ways that are not often if ever considered. Pick factors/variables which a priori don’t have any rational reason to be relevant to how COVID impact and outcome occur. Since politicians have taken up-front, in your face positions on various public policies doesn’t it make sense to use a political factor to assess the data? I am sure that you have heard someone from a news entity state that “COVID doesn’t care about your political alignment.” I am absolutely confident that that statement is true; but that doesn’t mean that politicians doesn’t have an impact on COVID.

What then does the data tell us about the latter “cause and effect” relationship? It tells a rather strange story. Take the publicly published data on COVID infections and deaths and hypothesize what you would expect to see if political affiliation has no causal relationship to COVID results. For COVID infections would there be roughly no difference in infection rates? Isn’t the same to be expected in COVID deaths? If these expectations are what you get than politics is unrelated to COVID just as COVID is unrelated to politics.

Let’s use the political alignment of each state’s legislature (which one controls the legislature) as a variable [Note: We could use the political party of each state’s governor as another variable.] Does that Legislative Party make any difference in COVID outcomes?

It does!

Ok, but how much does it matter? Well, with 60% of the states having Republican dominated legislatures what would indicate a difference of note? How about 22 or the worst 23 performing states in terms of infection cases are Republican. Of the 17 best performing states, 15 are Democratic legislatures, with 1 being a split legislature, and 1 being Republican. The random chance of this occurring is astronomically unlikely. If we examine the data once vaccines were available and promoted there is a slight improvement, but the unbalanced pattern persists [Jan. 1, 2021 was used as the start date.]. Of the worst 23 states, 3 are Democrats. Of the best performing 17 states, 4 are Republican and 1 is split. What about COVID deaths, does the legislative party matter there?

It does.

In looking at COVID deaths from the beginning, the worst 23 performing states had 6 were Democratic legislators, and of the best performing 17 states 4 were Republican and 3 were split evenly. Well these results are not as unlikely as the Infections, they are still not very probable. When a vaccine available analysis is examined, the results shift back to the very improbable results. Of the 23 worst performing states, 2 are Democrat legislatures and the rest are all Republican; and for the best 17 performing states, 4 are Republican, 3 are split and 10 are Democrats.

Now these results have to be telling us something relevant; and of course, the question is what? It’s not like there are only Republicans in Republican dominated states or Democrats in Democratic states, so there have to be factors which are more directly ‘causal’. The virus after all, really does not care or act differently because of your political alignment or the politically dominating legislative party. This leaves us with more to learn. Perhaps the secret ingredients reside in some of those divisive issues mentioned earlier.

But there is another insight that would seem obvious. It relates to whom is and who isn’t vaccinated. It is not a question of what the right choice is, but given the statistics on the differential outcomes for each choice, what can one predict? If unvaccinated folk are 5 times more likely to get COVID compared to vaccinated and the unvaccinated are over 10 times more likely to die than the vaccinated are. If you take the relationship of state legislatures and COVID and factor in these differential outcomes then one should expect that more Republican voters will die from COVID than Democratic voters. This seem to be a potential consequence for the Republican party that calls into question the wisdom of motivating their supporters to ‘resist’ vaccinations.

It will be interesting to see if the data continues to disadvantage one political party more than the other.

I suppose that the notion of the “wisdom of the crowd” has its limits.

The Flip-Flop MInd: A Political Enigma

 

I suspect the vast majority of people have witnessed the “flip-flop” mind but have not thought all that much about it. To “flip-flop” is a very popular turn of phrase in politics where it is exclusively used to accuse another politician of ‘changing their position on an issue’. Because flip-flopping is used by politicians and against politicians they oppose or dislike, it is very clearly used to ascribe a negative attribute to the other(s). You’ve surely heard the “First he/she voted for/against the bill and then voted against/for the bill.” They “flip-flopped.” The whole notion of flip-flopping is contaminated with this negative context because of its political misuse. Who could possibly respect a politician who ‘changed their mind’ on anything?

Before you judge that even the idea that “flip-flopping” may not be bad, dishonest, duplicitous, or dishonorable because “politicians” say it is; at least consider some non-political contexts for which “flip-flopping” would be appropriately applicable and viewed as admirable and even necessary to any rational adult. After all, how would you account for most of the advancements in human knowledge?

Let’s start with John Maynard Keynes: “When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir?” [Note: His quote is often modified to: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?”] Now, you don’t hear any economists or other well-informed persons shouting “Flip-flopping” about Keynes; and you may remember that Mitt Romney used Keynes’ quote (the modified version) in defending his ‘change of view’ on an issue. In holding a position, I suspect many people expect that that position is based upon the ‘information’ / ‘facts’ that they know and believe are accurate / true. If someone finds out that the information / facts that they themselves used are not accurate or have changed in some meaningful way, I hope they don’t hold to the original view rather than their own improved understanding but that might be the case in some instances.

Then there is Einstein’s: “If the facts don’t fit the theory, change.” [Note: If you want to argue over the exactitude of the quote, I propose discussing it in an arena more focused on that topic.] I prefer Einstein’s: “The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.” Change is not a surprising concept in the scientific community, at least not unless it is someone trying to change your eponymous theory(ies) which just chafes like no get-out. But ‘change’ is what science pursues, it seeks a better and more accurate explanation and understanding of our human knowledge. It isn’t the case that there might not be an instance where one scientific view, theory or even law changes based on some new knowledge and then yet more information is acquired which could cause the infamous “Flip-flop” event. You might remember Einstein included a “cosmological constant” in his theory of general relativity to provide for a “static” universe. Later, he removed it because it was no longer accurate to expect a “static” universe. It turned out there was a need for a force that accounted for the accelerating expansion of the universe. He reintroduced the cosmological constant to conform to emerging new data and noted his biggest blunder may have been his mistake regarding the need for a cosmological constant. Einstein did “flip-flop”, but I don’t think it would demonstrate that he shouldn’t have bur rather the exact opposite. “Flip-flopping” in science may be a sign of the brightest among the brightest. They can deal with learning without being concerned with the self-recognition that they had been in error prior to acquiring new information.

While I would never expect a politician to possess the wisdom to understand the importance of changing one’s view, it can surprisingly happen. As noted above Mitt Romney had learned the lessons that many who came before him had taught. Included in this line of notable figures was Winston Churchill. Churchill’s contribution came via his view: “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” So, while most American politicians seem to tremble and be afraid of called-out for “flip-flopping” there is ample reason to believe that the issue is not the “flip-flop” itself but whether the politician can present an informed, well-reasoned, and convincing explanation of why their change of view isn’t a weakness but a strength. It truly is a shame that politicians for the most part are unable to rise to the level of intellect required to comprehend why their fears are not about the act of “flip-flopping” but are due to their inadequate cognitive abilities.

Separate from notable figures who demonstrate the wisdom of adapting and being capable of changing one’s thinking and positions, there are other bases for realizing the value and importance of “flip-flopping” when circumstances demand. Critical Thinking is exactly such a skill. Critical Thinking is highly regarded as an essential educational objective to be achieve. And a key attribute of ‘critical thinking’ is the capacity to adapt one’s understanding based upon the analysis of facts and ideas.

At this point, I would hope that the notion of “flip-flopping” is not the cut-and-dried notion that it is used as particularly in politics. In fact, in politics it ought to be much more prevalent and deserve some attention. If that attention results in some appreciation, and maybe even change, in the listener then it might be that relevant “flip-flop” event which is called for. I hope in the future to see an outstanding politician demonstrate that they can deliver on having the integrity, intellect, and competency to “Flip-Flop” in an epic manner that resets the entire mind-set of voters.

Now, let’s look at the dark underside of the “flip-flop”. You may not have been expecting this after the preceding exultation about “flip-flopping”. It’s not that I am “flip-flopping” on “flip-flopping”; rather I wanted to create a context around the idea of “flip-flopping”. You already knew that “flip-flopping” was bad. Perhaps now you might, even if grudgingly so, allow for the necessity of looking at the substance upon which the “flip-flop” is occurring. We are now ready for an example.

This example is fortunately from reality, and sadly it is both true and telling at the same time. Oh yes, and the example is found within our economic, societal, and political insanity. What is most salient is that the “flip-flopping” that is occurring here is not seen as “flip-flopping” by the very people who get so bent out of shape when another person is branded with this act.

Let’s start with a question: How is the US Economy doing right now?

The answer of course depends upon whom you ask. It also depends upon what you ‘mean’ by the US Economy. The ‘meaning’ part of this question isn’t all that hard to get financial and economic experts to answer and to do so with some consistency. They will provide a variety of metrics and theories that are used to numerically compare current conditions with previous conditions and then provide an assessment of Is the current state of the economy better or worse than it was relative to a given time period. These experts will also provide their forecasts for where the economy is expected to go from here although there is much less consistency and agreement in their projections.

On the political side, the assessment of the Economy is usually driven more by how one’s aligns with the party in power than any consistency in how data is used to determine a relative measure. If it hasn’t occurred to you yet, that is a form of “flip-flopping” that isn’t noted by politicians who are often among if not leading proponents of the “flipped” view. To help illustrate this phenomenon, let’s use an excessively easy to access economic measure: the Stock Market. There are a number of different systems for measuring the Stock Market reported daily: the Dow (there are several), the S&P (there are several), the NASDAQ (there are several), and other financial views such as the Russell (there are several). Then there is a raft of financial metrics used to assess the economy that are to numerous to list them all. There is the Gross Domestic Product, Return on Investment, Inflation rate, Employment rate, … and the list goes on.

If the level that the Stock Market is at is used to define the ‘success’ or ‘failure’ of the Economy then this readily available data would make it easy to perform the political comparison of whomever is in office. Except that isn’t what happens. What happens is a “flip-flop”. The Stock Market climbs and the party in the majority claims that they, their policies, and the nation are doing well and the Stock Market being at all-time highs proves it. The reasoning seems acceptable. They are in-charge and things are going well. However, when they lose their positions in the majority, there is a strange discontinuity that occurs. The Stock Market data, and the claims that go with it, no longer apply consistently. The Economy is no longer doing great even though the same status persists. The Stock Market has continued to improve its value. The all-time high today is higher than it was when they were the political majority, but now the Economy is in trouble. The Stock Market is no longer a good measure of the Economy. A “Flip-Flop” of the classic type but not called out because it would be a self-referential contradiction. You would be “flip-flopping” on your own claim of success.

The same critique applies to someone who rejected the state of the Economy being good when the Stock Market improved when they were in the minority, and then used and relied upon the improvement in the Stock Market as a sign of their success is just as much a “flip-flopping” partisan.

What can we conclude about “flip-flopping” if it can be either a good thing or a bad thing? We can learn that you must understand the reasons for why someone or some group changed their view or position. We can learn that the reasons must be based upon consistency in the logic that is being applied, and that the data used to support the original position isn’t disregarded because it is inconvenient or would refute the change that you are making.

On the political side, what we can learn is that we need to be more focused upon ‘critical thinking’ than upon a claim of someone “flip-flopping”, or worse “flip-flopping” ourselves because that is the correct partisan thing to do rather than to question if the “facts have changed” and we need to change our view to improve our ability to act intelligently for ourselves and for the nation. 

After both the Republicans and Democrats blinked on the National Debt Ceiling in October, both parties agreed to have another moronic showdown over the Debt Ceiling in early December. Mitch McConnell has set his strategy on the old, tired but tried and true strategy of not supporting any notion of raising the Debt Ceiling by Republicans. This tactic is used almost every time the Debt Ceiling becomes an issue, which it does almost every year because politicians (of both parties) are more than happy to spend whatever they want when in the majority but not when in the minority. Now this would be a sign of integrity and principle if they didn’t increase spending on their watch and supported paying for the debt without objection that had been approved by all Administrations prior to the next budget they are sponsoring. If any party wants to hold or reduce the Debt Ceiling then they must do so when they are the Administration setting the future spending, not complaining about paying for what had been approved being spent in the past. Typically, McConnell’s strategy would be termed “brinksmanship” because the Republicans would be using it to gain some leverage in negotiations in some legislative area. However, the current use of this strategy appears to be more of a pre-midterm election political issue positioning ploy. The Republicans will campaign about the Democrats’ recklessly burdening the taxpayers with more debt. Of course, there will be no admission that that debt included spending approved and authorized by Republicans.

It might worth considering whether the situation is appropriately characterized as a “brinksmanship” situation or whether it is more of a “Mexican standoff” where there is no strategy by which anyone can win. This must not be the perspective of McConnell or the Republicans since they believe that they can win with their strategy or else they are hoping that no one, especially the Democrats, can find a strategy that will defeat theirs. I don’t believe that it would be correct to think of this as a Mexican standoff, since I am sure that there is a strategy which defeats McConnell’s and the Republicans. I just don’t think that the Democrats are likely to be able to solve the problem and recognize the solution to countering McConnell’s strategy. Thus, I will continue with the “brinksmanship” characterization of the Debt Ceiling issue.

Now the Democrats are following their side of the “brinksmanship” strategy. They are seeking some path to pass the legislative authorization to increase the Debt Ceiling limit. So, they are looking to negotiate with this politician or that politician (both Democrat & Republican) to get sufficient votes to pass the authorization. They are looking for procedural approaches to get it passed. The Democrats are even looking at financial tricks that trump (I couldn’t resist) McConnell’s ploy. But it doesn’t seem likely that the Democrats will see a way to deny the Republicans the campaign issue that they are seeking.

What is needed is to not just know that this is a critical national issue or crisis but to understand the problem that McConnell has created. To properly understand the problem does mean that you have to know what it means to not increase the Debt Ceiling. Failing to raise the Debt Ceiling will have profound consequences which is why the “brinksmanship” terminology is very appropriate for this issue. Just to avoid the dire impacts of defaulting on debt payments, the Administration in-charge will use every accounting, management, and fiscal control at their disposal. Should they fail, every American will feel the impacts and the nation may suffer consequences for years if not decades.

The whole point of presenting the status of the current Debt Ceiling “brinksmanship” struggle was to provide the context for making it easy to understand what a successful counterstrategy would be for the Democrats.

McConnell’s strategy is based on the premise that he can’t lose whether the Debt Ceiling is raised by the Democrats or not. He and the Republicans will be able to use either outcome to his and the Republican party’s advantage. This was and is his error. It is the quintessential mistake in his analysis. He presumed that he had a win-win game position. What he hasn’t considered is that a better strategist might be able to look at the larger problem-space and see the problem more astutely and by exploring both the problem-space and the solution-space more thoroughly see and find a superior and winning strategy.

A key assumption that McConnell has made is that the Democrats must pass raising the Debt Ceiling and suffer having it used as a midterm and 2024 election issue, or they become responsible for the consequences to the economy, the public, and the nation that failing to do so will have. However, what if President Biden and the Congressional Democratic leadership put the decision and responsibility for the Debt Ceiling issue on McConnel and the Republicans? How does McConnell’s strategy retain his “win-win” assessment? It doesn’t. By simply recasting the decision to be one that the nation is looking to the Republicans for leading on, the Democrats at least re-establish the issue into the “brinksmanship” class of strategies. But with a little bit more problem-solving effort, the Democrats can make the Debt Ceiling issue a “win-win-win” for themselves. With some really smart leadership, the Democrats could potentially extend this strategy into a “win-win-…-win” strategy. This may be a bit much to expect of the Democrats, as neither political party has demonstrated much in the way of ‘smart’ leadership let alone ‘really smart’ leadership.

How would the Democrats recast the decision to this effect? Well, the Democrats through President Biden just have to literally come out and say: “The nation is facing an existential decision for the welfare of the nation’s citizens, its economy, and its leadership role in the world. Because this is a bipartisan issue and is a principled duty for the peoples’ elected Congressional representatives, the Republican leadership and its members of Congress are being asked to make the decision on raising the Debt Ceiling or not. Because this decision will have such broad and far-ranging consequences for the nation and our people, I will help the Republicans in their efforts. I will guarantee one Democrat vote for each Republican vote that they may need to authorize raising the limit, or if they need more Democratic support to accomplish that goal then I will get two Democratic votes to support each one of theirs. If the Republicans decide that the Debt Ceiling should not be raised and will not or cannot deliver adequate votes for passing this legislation, then the Debt Ceiling limit will not be raised based on the judgement and leadership of the Republican members of Congress.”

It should be easy to see why this strategy is an effective counter to McConnell’s. This doesn’t mean that there are no other strategies that might be equally effective or even superior, but it does demonstrate that politicians are not necessarily good strategist unless they are only confronting the quality of strategies that is to be expected of from other politicians.