The COVID-19 Health Scare and Its Impact on the US Politics and Society

Abstract

The United States of America, the strongest and wealthiest country of the post-Cold War world, was severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The current crisis has exposed significant flaws in the country’s national healthcare system and provoked a serious socio-economic and, increasingly, political crisis. The 2020 presidential electoral campaign, the recent riots, and the extreme political polarization of the Trump years further complicated the situation, politicizing the discussions regarding the ways and means of dealing with the pandemic and complicating the search for any political consensus. The healthcare crisis has enhanced the anti-globalist, autarchic tendencies in US foreign policy and its increasingly anti-Chinese orientation that emerged during Donald Trump’s White House tenure. Even under these circumstances, the American elites were initially able to negotiate a number of important stabilization measures designed to deal with the medical and socio-economic aspects of the current crisis. Nevertheless, their willingness and ability to continue such a collaboration keep being tested by the expanding political tensions. The way the current crisis resolves will have a direct bearing on the overall US socio-economic and political stability.