Coronavirus Is Attacking Our Political Weak Spots
From Michigan to Germany, the federal model is coming under strain. The consequences for financial markets could be severe.
Michigan, a battleground state.
Photographer: JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP/Getty Images
The United States of America has been a federalist nation for almost 250 years. Across the Atlantic, the European Union has been developing a federal group of nation states for almost 75 years. Both are finding difficulties that the coronavirus is posing problems for their federal models. Europe’s is younger and much more incomplete, so it is finding the problems much harder.
In the U.S., some of the rows over federalism have been soap operatic. The president’s claim that he had “total” authority over the states when it came to reopening the economy was obviously false and soon withdrawn. The trial balloon by Mitch McConnell, Republican leader in the Senate, that states should be allowed to go bankrupt rather than receive any federal aid, also appears to have gone nowhere. Meanwhile, California’s governor describes his territory as a “nation state,” and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo complains that trying to acquire protective equipment is like bidding on EBay against 49 other states.