Even in a pandemic there are weavers and rippers.
The rippers, from Donald Trump on down, see everything through the prism of politics and still emphasize division.
For the rippers on left and right, politics is a war that gives life meaning.
Fortunately, the rippers are not winning.
America is pretty united right now.
In an ABC News/Ipsos poll last week, 98 percent of Democrats and 82 percent of Republicans supported social-distancing rules.
According to a Yahoo News/YouGov survey, nearly 90 percent of Americans think a second wave of the virus would be at least somewhat likely if we ended the lockdowns today.
A Pew survey found 89 percent of Republicans and 89 percent of Democrats support the bipartisan federal aid packages.
Seventy-seven percent of American adults think more aid will be necessary.
According to a USA Today/Ipsos poll, most of the policies on offer enjoyed tremendous bipartisan support: increasing testing (nearly 90 percent), temporarily halting immigration (79 percent) and continuing the lockdown until the end of April (69 percent).
A KFF poll shows that people who have lost their jobs are just as supportive of the lockdowns as people who haven’t.
The polarization industry is loath to admit this, but, once you set aside the Trump circus, we are now more united than at any time since 9/11.
This has required constant volleys of dehumanization.
This dehumanization has always been a bit of a mirage.
A new study from the group Beyond Conflict shows that Republicans and Democrats substantially exaggerate how much the other side dislikes and disagrees with them.
The pandemic has been a massive humanizing force — allowing us to see each other on a level much deeper than politics — see the fragility, the fear and the courage.
It is just regular Americans talking into their cellphones and showing what they are going through.
We’re also being united by those who are sacrificing for the common good: the nurse who came from North Carolina to serve New York even though she has an 8-month-old baby at home;
the E.M.T.s who are living through death after death; the workers who lived in their factory for 28 days to make masks.
In normal times, the rippers hog the media spotlight.
But now you see regular Americans, hurt in their deepest places and being their best selves.
You’ll see people hungering for The Great Reset — the idea that we have to identify 10 unifying ideas (like national service) and focus energy around them.
Americans have responded to this with more generosity and solidarity than we had any right to expect.
There are people launching projects to feed the hungry, comfort the grieving, perform little acts of fun with the young.
You talk with these people and you think: Wow, you’re a hidden treasure.
