Avoiding Elysium in the short to medium run

A number of docs early on MSNBC were saying Americans can't go back to working and socializing and moving about normally until an effective vaccine is available, or at least a battery of effective antivirals or other treatments to significantly reduce the severity of the disease at the rough end of the distribution.

All that sandwiched in with discussions of the absolute need to change how we vote to enable the general election in November to go forward with a maximum of democratic participation and legitimacy.

That is, we are more frankly confronting the possibility that lockdown could be the new normal for a long time to come, so we need to arrange for elections to be held under lockdown.

All that sandwiched in with discussions of the increasing economic and medical distress of the folks at the lower end of the social pyramid, compared to which those one-time infusions of cash from the Republican government appear ludicrous and derisory.

Basic income by any name will be incontestably necessary if we are facing some 10% to 30% unemployment for the foreseeable future.

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But Republicans are still talking about a short lockdown, absolutely unwilling to face the thought that the high levels of chronic unemployment Andrew Yang warned of might be with us already, thanks to a virus we can't fix that won't go away.

The mass unemployment the lockdown creates has added immense power to the public attractiveness of social democracy.

It will be that or Elysium, right here in the USA, and the reality is that our two major parties have conflicting preferences in the face of any such choice.

So maybe realistically we should prepare for a series of devastating false starts powered by Republican resistance, during which the medical system will be so overwhelmed that the Covid-19 death rate will skyrocket.

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