Political impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

 The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted politics, both international and domestic, by affecting the governing & political systems of multiple countries, causing suspensions of legislative activities, isolation or deaths of multiple politicians and reschedulings of elections due to fears of spreading the virus.  The pandemic has triggered broader debates about political issues such as the relative advantages of democracy and autocracy, how states respond to crises, politicization of beliefs about the virus, and the adequacy of existing frameworks of international cooperation. Additionally, the pandemic has, in some cases, posed several challenges to democracy, leading to it being fatally undermined and damaged.

Early in February, there was widespread and robust concern around the globe that an excessive reaction to the COVID-19 threat, whose impact was unclear, would lead to a severe slowdown of the global economy.  President Trump presumably shared this concern to the point of being accused of having ignored the epidemic.  Now, COVID-19 has wiped out every other news story.  The internal politics of the United States, trade between the United States and China, tensions between Iran and the United States, Brexit, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, not to mention North Korean nuclear proliferation - all have disappeared from the screens.

When it comes to government, COVID-19 is not what has most blurred the lines that separated free market and minimalist government advocates from supporters of big government.  The Trump presidency does not lend itself to this traditional dichotomy.  Trump is fiercely anti-socialist in his rhetoric of him.  Still, his policies are about the government steering business to nationalist objectives and defending labor and its rights to jobs, while also pushing government planning and investment in large infrastructure projects.  The vision of “making America great again” has required massive government intervention in the economy and increases in the federal budget deficit.  This incoherence is so prominent that it has pushed some observers to describe the Trump administration's policy as "big-government anti-socialism."