Politics may be driver of voters’ virus precautions
Experts worry that party affiliation will be ultimate decider
WASHINGTON — Laura Herd says she sleeps better because her state’s governor, Michigan Democrat Gretchen Whitmer, imposed one of the nation’s strictest stay-at-home orders to combat the coronavirus pandemic. President Donald Trump’s actions are another story.
“His goal is to get the economy back up so he stands a chance in November,” said Herd, 36, of Traverse City, Michigan, who works for an environmental news service. “But he’s not willing to listen to the experts about what that really means.”
Herd’s skepticism about Trump’s desire to push the country back toward normal isn’t uncommon, especially among her fellow Democrats and many independents. That’s prompting concern by public health professionals that voters will use partisan lenses to decide which policymakers they heed as communities consider easing restrictions that have smothered normal life — a potentially dangerous dynamic.
“You’ll get more people sick and run the risk of more people dying, because you’ll have such confusion because people won’t know what to do,” said Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, which represents professionals and organizations in the field. “They’ll selectively pick the advice that aligns with their ideology.”
Trump has wanted states to relax restrictions by May 1 and has inaccurately claimed “total” authority to decree how that happens. Many governors, mostly Democrats, have long made clear they’ll ease restrictions at their own pace.
Trump had seemed to retreat Thursday, when the White House issued vague guidelines for gradually returning to normal activities that left final decisions to the states.
“From a public health point of view, you want a unified position from government regarding what’s the best way to protect people,” said Robert Blendon, a health policy professor at Harvard University’s
School of Public Health.
AP interviews around the country found voters navigating the pandemic on their own and dubious about advice from the other party’s leaders. Many expressed confidence in top public health officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx, fixtures at Trump’s press briefings.
Fauci is the government’s top infectious disease expert and Birx is the White House coronavirus task force coordinator.
Ted Hill of Asheville, North Carolina, a Republican and retired accountant, praised Trump and said local officials’ restrictions have gone too far.
“Good Lord, if you go into a supermarket without a mask, they look at you like you have two heads,” he said. Hill said Trump “surrounds himself with good people” and gets good results.
Niki Waldron of Vallejo, California, said she’s glad Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom imposed an early stay-at-home order. But she worries about friends and family living in Trumpfriendly areas and thinks advisers like Fauci and Birx must guard against angering
Trump.
“I don’t feel like the rest of our federal government is necessarily basing their judgments on sound science,” Waldron said.
David Barr, 53, who said he usually votes Republican, said Whitmer’s restrictions were hurting businesses like golf courses that he said could operate safely.
“We don’t need a month to start reopening the economy,“said Barr, who works for a group of radio stations in northern Michigan. He said Whitmer’s “credibility is questionable.”
A fresh push by Trump to loosen restrictions would be especially potent in GOPleaning
states, where “there’ll be a lot of pressure on those states’ politicians to lighten up,” said Joseph Antos, a health policy expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
“If there’s a big fight with the governors versus Trump, it would be really bad for public health,” said Drew Altman, president of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. “The public won’t know what to believe.”
Fact-checkers have documented thousands of falsehoods by Trump since he became president. Since the pandemic began, polls have underscored how poorly he’s trusted to handle the disease and how views of his competency are divided along party lines.
In a late March survey by The Associated PressNORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 44% overall approved of Trump’s handling of the outbreak. Those high marks came from around 8-in-10 Republicans, but less than 2-in-10 Democrats and about 4in-10 independents.
Federal public health authorities like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state and local officials are more trusted than Trump for handling the outbreak, polls show.