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There is a strange disconnect in our world. Economically, we are integrated like never before, but at the same time, we have weak-to-no international institutions managing the social, environmental, and health consequences of this extensive economic integration. We operate instead as if our national borders are real things, as if the flows of goods and money can be separated from all other levels of life. The panic of the coronavirus has, of course, revealed that this kind of thinking has little value in reality. No amount of travel bans directed at this or that border can block the global spread of this disease. The fact that many are facing for the first time is that even if the coronavirus is not very deadly, we do not live in a world that is at all prepared for pandemics that are. And in the age of global climate change, we can expect an increase in novel pathogens that will blow past borders and follow the many flows of goods and money.

But what is even more maddening is, at a national level, how the US—an overdeveloped country when it comes financial institutions—has an underdeveloped healthcare system. We are one of the few high-income societies with a national government that does not provide guaranteed paid sick leave. What this means is that many working-class people must work when sick. If they don't do so, they risk falling into a poverty from which no recovery is possible. The really real fear of ending up on the streets, then, provides an excellent cultural vector for pathogens. The truly stunning thing is that most US citizens do not know that this state of things is unusual, which is why the GOP can, in the midst of a global pandemic, still push and push to deprive millions of US citizens of insurance.

What I want to explain in this post is why, at the deepest level, a large number of Americans continue to vote for a party that promotes policies that make life miserable for millions and compromises the health of the public.

From Vice:

Today [March 2, 2020] the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case about whether the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, can remain the law of the land even without its tax penalty for not having health insurance. The Justices won't hear the case until the Court starts a new term in October, meaning their ruling won't come until well after the presidential election, but in agreeing to hear the case rather than dismissing the suit outright, the Court is setting up the possibility that millions of people would lose their health insurance as the coronavirus spreads around the globe.

One would think that the last thing the US needs is to toss millions upon millions of its citizens out of a program that provides some health insurance. Those people do not end up at the bottom of a well that can then be covered and forgotten. They will keep on working. They will serve your food, drive your Uber, clean your Airbnb room. They will always be somewhere near you. This fact is plainly obvious and yet, depriving them of health insurance, of the ability to properly protect their well-being, is not at all an unreasonable outcome in our political system. But how is it that so many Americans believe that the well-being of workers is of no consequence to their lives, which operate on the same biological materials as all other humans and animals? It seems it would take only a small amount of reflection to see that being exposed to lots of humans without health coverage makes nonsense of your own health coverage. The value of health insurance can only increase with increases in the number of citizens who are insured.

At this point, we must turn to the cultural essence of the car. What this machine promises is an isolation from other people. You can be alone in traffic or during a public health crisis like coronavirus. But if you take a bus, you will be no longer be/feel safe. You will be exposed to others who do not have health coverage. When you see a Metro bus driver, such as I did today on the number 8 bus, wearing a virus mask, this impression is only reinforced. But what we never consider is that the car is the solution to a problem that's not axiomatic, but is created or cultural. Deprive people of healthcare, force them to take public transportation while sick, and, yes, the most available solution appears to be buying a car. But this solution is false because all other aspects of your life, like the global economy, are integrated. The sick uninsured person does not vanish from your life, now that you are in your car.

If you understand the car, its imaginary (freedom from others), then you will understand, in part, why the GOP can, without fear of losing voters, outright attack policies and programs that connect ordinary people to public resources. The car says to the citizen: You can solve this crisis on your own.