At one level, China’s results speak for themselves. There have been only minor outbreaks following the initial surge in Wuhan. Unfortunately, America’s second wave – far worse than the initial carnage in the spring of 2020 – also speaks for itself.
Yet, as a recent Pew Research survey indicates, fully 40-50% of the American public still resist the discipline of science-based practices such as mobile contact tracing and engagement with public health officials. Couple that with significant opposition to vaccines and there is reason to believe that core tenets of democratic freedom are being twisted into an excuse to ignore the perils of COVID-19.
Whether or not we want to admit it, the aspirations and values of the so-called originalist interpretation of American democracy are being challenged as never before. The insurrection of January 6 and the pandemic share one critical implication: the potential breakdown of order in a free society. It’s not that China has it right. It’s that we may have it wrong. Unfortunately, today’s hyper-polarization makes it exceedingly difficult to find a middle ground.
Barack Obama cautioned in his final speech as president that, “Our democracy is threatened whenever we take it for granted.” Yet isn’t that exactly what America has been doing? In a decade punctuated by the global financial crisis, the COVID-19 crisis, a racial-justice crisis, an inequality crisis, and now a political crisis, we have only paid lip service to lofty democratic ideals.
Sadly, this complacency has come at a time of growing fragility for the American experiment. Internet-enabled connectivity is dangerously amplifying an increasingly polarized national discourse in an era of mounting social and political instability. The resulting vulnerability was brought into painfully sharp focus on January 6. The stewardship of democracy is at grave risk.
Stephen S. Roach, former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia and the firm's chief economist, is a senior fellow at Yale University's Jackson Institute of Global Affairs and a senior lecturer at Yale's School of Management. He is the author of "Unbalanced: The Codependency of America and China."