Here's the only data you need to know. Large numbers of people in every locality, from every walk of life, and from every political perspective are violating the lockdown orders. It's everywhere from the MAGA Texans to progressive NY beachgoers. So the state is losing control, but the state must maintain the illusion of control. If 10 people break the lockdown you arrest them. If 10k people break the lockdown, it's no longer a lockdown. So the state is just catching up to the reality on the streets, trying to pretend they are still in charge of the decision. And the state will twist themselves and the truth into a funny looking pretzel to do it.
No, the states are trying to open back up because they are not getting any help from the White House. Trump has been actively encouraging the protests and McConnell has shot down any financial support for the states. Unlike the federal government, the states can't print money, so what is the point of racking up huge deficits while the white house actively undermines your quarantine efforts? After all, Trump is going to be at the top of the ticket in November, so if you are a governor, why would you continue to enforce the politically difficult but necessary quarantine policies if Trump is going to be the one to get the credit if it succeeds. Might as well save the state finances and risk opening back up early. And if/when a second wave happens, Trumps political fortunes will likely be toast.
Do you think right wing media would be agitating for re-opening if Trump wasn't also doing the same?
I live in a beach town in CA. We have had only minor issues enforcing the distancing rules. Despite what you may have read in the media, the vast majority of the population supports the measures and are complying with the orders. But the few issues that we have had got a ton of news coverage. So there is a bit of a selection bias there.
In your estimation, what percentage of the 3k young people at this block party take their queues from Trump or Fox News? I have a hard time imagining even a single one of them has watched any news in the last week, much less right wing news.
I am as liberal as they get, and even I get bombarded with right wing memes and news via various social media. But yeah, I don't think the block parties are happening because of Trump. That stuff is going to happen because young people are just being young. But I also don't think young people partying poses any real threat to the states ability to 'control'.
But the handful of sparsely attended, astro-turfed lockdown protests, which were spun in the news as a ground swell of anti-lockdown support, were absolutely influenced (if not actively coordinated) by the right wing media and Trump.
And for the record, your original claim was that states are loosing control, so that is forcing them to open back up. And my claim, was that that is incorrect, they are making a political calculation. The governors are getting squeezed from the right by Trump-ism, and they are getting squeezed from within by their rapidly expanding budget deficits. And at this point, a second wave is unavoidable due to the poor responses around the globe and within the US, so the benefits of successfully eliminating the virus in any particular state have been greatly diminished. But at any point, if a state deemed it necessary, they could marshal the resources to enforce stay-at-home orders. There is no populist uprising threatening their illusion of control, as you seem to believe.
This is not a partisan phenomenon. The few hundred people agitating at rallies are irrelevant. People are going about their business, violating the law and guidelines all over the place. No one is going to arrest all those people in the Ozarks. The states are in a position where they can either try to arrest the thousands upon thousands of people like the ones in that video, or they can scramble to try to make the law reflect reality on the streets. They are choosing the latter.
Some of these states were bordering on insolvency before Covid ever began. There has been a state pension crisis brewing for years in states like Illinois. Meanwhile, you can't just print your way out of 36 million unemployed (and counting). Early estimates are that GDP will shrink by 43% in Q2 2020. Society will literally break down of this kind of economic situation continues for much longer. Economic suicide is not an option.
