“I don’t know if anyone has biffed anything as bad as the federal government biffed their management of this,” she says. There is a feeling of failure, of being repeatedly victimized by a virus despite our supposed exceptionalism. Forty-nine percent of whites — also a record low — say they are “extremely proud” to be an American; for nonwhite Americans the rate is half that. She views the years since 1968 as a cycle of recessions and widening inequality, debt and disenfranchisement that is only now becoming apparent to broader America — white America, moneyed America — because the pandemic and social media have made it impossible to ignore. “I think some states are going to pass and some states are going to fail,” he says.

Source: Washington Post July 23, 2020 11:04 UTC