Will a Coronavirus Vaccine Heal the Nation?

Presently, your humble scrivener is situated in Atlanta, Georgia, the destination of a long road trip from Cleveland, Ohio.  Tucked safely inside our car, we were insulated from the novel coronavirus as well as the storm surge of seething of the nation.  As of yet, there is no vaccine or truly effective therapeutic agent available for either of these afflictions.  My sense is that the virus will be sooner and more easily vanquished than will be the malignant divisions that are threatening our society.  

Am I being serious here?  Do I actually argue that a scourge from an invisible warrior that has wounded millions will be more easily defeated than our vile and vindictive politics?  Is reaching across the aisle or across the street or across the table such in insurmountable task?

Here’s why the virus, as wily and destructive as it is, will at some point be the first to be defeated. Our politics, in contrast, will be more like arthritis and diabetes, long term and progressive diseases that have evaded cures. 

Consider these distinctions.

• We literally have decoded the DNA of the novel coronavirus.  We know the actual guts of the enemy.  The wiring of our political antagonism and strife, however, is an amorphous cloud that defies concrete understanding.  It has no tangible structure.
• When we scream against the virus, it remains silent and permits us to vent.  When we yell at our neighbor, he yells back as we yell past each other.
• As our experts combat the virus, they follow sound scientific principles and rely upon the successes and failures with prior pandemics and health crises.  There is playbook to follow.   Our fraught political divide is largely fueled on emotion, alternative facts and anger.  It is a zero-sum game.  There is no off-the-shelf playbook for this.  How do you dismantle an emotion?
• Folks who are sick or scared that they may become the next coronavirus victim want to be healed and to stay well.  Self-preservation is a powerful motivator.  They want to pursue a pathway that will bypass pain and promote healing. A political force, in contrast, that spends its time and resources demonizing its enemies, doesn’t aim to avoid conflict but to foment it.  It stokes the fire.

As our road trip proceeded through Kentucky, Tennessee and rural Georgia, the political signage reflected the red character of these regions.  We ended up in a progressive Atlanta neighborhood where many houses display Black Lives Matter and various whimsical anti-Trump signs. 

I am confident that safe and effective vaccines against the novel coronavirus will emerge. Ultimately, they will be gamechangers.  But the Culture War epidemic will rage on.  Clearly, we have no natural immunity to protect us and the disease is beyond the realm of science.  Progress, should it develop, will have to happen one good person at a time.