Does Anything Matter Anymore?

Susan Glasser: “The rest of the news in Trump’s America, two months before Election Day, is equally gutting: twenty or so U.S. states have rising cases of COVID-19, and, as many schools and universities reopen, the numbers are expected to grow. On many days, more than a thousand Americans die as a result of the pandemic. By comparison, in the worst week of the Vietnam War, just more than five hundred American personnel died… All told, American deaths from COVID-19 are approaching two hundred thousand.”

“Mass unemployment continues, and many companies are bracing for new, more permanent layoffs. Food banks are overwhelmed. Congress, stuck in an impasse between House Democrats and Senate Republicans, has failed to pass a new round of economic relief, and the initial aid package for small businesses and the unemployed has run out. The national debt as a share of the economy has reached its highest level since the Second World War.”

“None of this, apparently, has any electoral consequence. In fact, looking at the polls, you would be hard-pressed to discern that anything of consequence is happening at all.”