We have heard repeatedly in recent months that we must prepare for a “new normal.” This is usually issued as a reminder that the “old” normal from before the onslaught of COVID-19 will not return, perhaps not even when we have a vaccine.
And, yes, those who urge us to accept a “new” normal are on target, despite the nervous way they pronounce those words. They are right to be anxious since, even when we have a vaccine, our problems with a diseased population and a diseased economy will remain for some time.
To begin, we know that there will be many strains of COVID to treat, and many different vaccines on the world market to treat them. And anti-vaxxers are planning to avoid all of them.
And then there is our economy, which will take years to recover, even if we do find a way to deal with Chinese competition. China is already producing vastly more motor vehicles that the United States. Do we have the patience, talent, knowledge, and common sense to compete with China in ways other than sending threats and ships to the South China sea?
There is also the considerable damage that has been done to our political system, especially at the federal level, over the past three and a half years. The federal bureaucracy, called by some “the deep state,” and by others just “the government,” (i.e. people that make the federal government work), has been scorned and depleted of talent by the current administration.
Our foreign policy is also in disarray. We have alienated many of our former allies in Europe and embarrassed ourselves by exiting from a nuclear deal with Iran that was working, and from a desperately needed climate change agreement. I will mercifully pass over and leave unmentioned the shameful way our President allowed himself to be manipulated by North Korea.
And we can’t forget our “success” in the COVID-19 battle, managing to have twenty-five percent of the global cases with only have six percent of the world’s population. America First again, indeed.
Yes, the “old” normal is truly gone.
But let us not despair. We can, as Americans, begin the construction of a “really new,” rational and moral, normal. It would not revive all we had before the coronavirus, but instead would honor what is noble in our history: the “right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and the freedom from oppression that we cherish for all Americans, rich, poor, black, white, yellow, red, native-born, or immigrant. It would take seriously what my daughter-in-law calls America’s “birth defect” of racism.
What would this “really new normal” contain?
This “really new normal” requires these four things:
- A government that works – a Congress that passes laws that help people live better, safer, healthier lives; a court system focused on truly rehabilitating people instead of warehousing them in prisons where they learn Lawbreaking 2.0; and an executive who takes seriously his/her duty to protect and defend the country and the Constitution.
- A regulated capitalist economic system designed to promote sufficiency for all Americans, rather than one that offers excessive wealth to the very few and debilitating poverty and lack of upward mobility to millions at the bottom.
- A public health system that serves all through public and private insurance, and places planning /stockpiling resources for medical crises ahead of immediate profits for drug companies. A “just-in-time” delivery system for hospital supplies does not work.
- A new definition of “American” – one that sincerely includes all within our borders. If you are here, contributing to our economy, you are one of us, regardless of your skin color, language, religion, sexual orientation, gender, or country of origin.
To create this “really new” normal, we must restore what has been lost – a sense of community. No group of people can flourish without a conviction that they belong together. This sense of belonging can sometimes come from linguistic, geographic, religious, or other cultural connections. It can also come, though, from a shared belief in a national unity – that the U.S is US, all of us together.
When we believe and practice this shared sense of community, the “really new” normal will be what our nation was supposed to be all along. Let’s build it – together.
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Written by Ken Wolf, guest columnist.