From President Donald Trump through Republican governors and state legislatures, the GOP is coalescing around a position of reopening the economy as quickly as possible despite concerns about seeding a wider spread of the coronavirus. … The daunting equation facing Trump and Republican governors is that no matter how many […] Read more »
The new geography of America, post-coronavirus
For a generation, a procession of pundits, public relations aces and speculators have promoted the notion that our future lay in dense — and politically deep-blue — urban centers, largely on the coasts. … The new America emerging from this crisis clearly will not be dominated by woke, super-dense cities […] Read more »
How Covid-19 Is Spreading Through Rural Communities
During the past month, the spread of the Covid-19 virus has taken a turn across the country with two major impacts, as seen in the American Communities Project: Rural communities are seeing some of the biggest growth in cases, and Hispanic Centers and Native American Lands are seeing their infections […] Read more »
How Trump Turned the Pandemic Into Identity Politics
No one really knows where the arc of history is bending these days, but this weekend we got a good look at where the arc of conservative activism is heading. The death toll in the United States from the coronavirus has now topped 40,000 but, egged on by presidential tweets, […] Read more »
An Unprecedented Divide Between Red and Blue America
The coronavirus pandemic appears destined to widen the political divide between the nation’s big cities and the smaller places beyond them. And that could narrow Donald Trump’s possible pathways to reelection. In almost every state, the outbreak is spreading much more heavily in the largest metropolitan centers than in less […] Read more »
The myth of rural America’s protection from the coronavirus
Louisa County, Iowa, sits across the Mississippi River from Illinois. The county seat is Wapello, population 2,000. There are about 28 people for every square mile of the county, putting it in the 27th percentile of counties nationally for population density. It’s big and open. It’s the sort of place […] Read more »