The geography of the U.S. response to the Covid-19 pandemic follows, like so many other things in American life, the fissures of identified in American Nations to a startling degree. I wrote about this briefly back in early April for Washington Monthly, when there was a notable divergence in the public policy response. With the Trump administration abdicating leadership, we're now seeing the case trends following these regional contours.
With the help of my Press Herald colleague Chad Gilley and the New York Times's county-level case data, we crunched and graphed the numbers and presented the results in this article in this week's Maine Sunday Telegram. There are detailed data tables for each of the eleven "nations" in the sidebar if you click through. It follows the individual liberty vs common good divide I discussed in American Character.
If you're not familiar with American Nations, here's the publisher's book description, a New York Times OpEd on how it trumps the rural/urban divide in US politics; a Washington Monthly piece on how it doomed the Tea Party, another piece on his it drives differences in violence and gun policy, and an analysis of the 2016 presidential election.
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Dear Mr. Woodward, what nation do you believe Athens county Ohio is part of? You have placed it with in the Appalachian nation, but there are some issues with this in my opinion, for one it consistently votes blue amongst a see of red,(see both 2008 and 2016 as an example) it’s county seat is a university town (holding Ohio university which was chartered in 1787 by the Congress of the Confederation and subsequently approved for the territory in 1802 and state in 1804, opening for students in 1809.) subsequently it is fairly diverse due to international programs and university staff coming from all around the United States. I do realize it fairly small but the county is connected to the midlands, so is it midlands? Is it a border city or county? Or is it a yankee enclave? I would like to know your opinion as we here in Athens are reading your book for AP History. Thank you and have a nice day.
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