Painting the red towns: covid-19 in America

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Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. Ireland is still forming a government. We look into what this week's coalition proposal would mean for the two parties that have traded leadership for nearly a century and for Sinn Fein, the Irish nationalist party that played a spoiler role in February's election. And world class chess players tend to start young and rise fast. But a nine year old Nigerian refugee named Tanatilua Adewumi wants to be the youngest grandmaster of the game ever. At the rate he's going, he will be. First up, though. In America, new coronavirus infections have been remaining relatively steady for the past month, averaging around 22,000 cases per day. But those numbers mask a geographic change in the way the pandemic is hitting the country. In the early days, outbreaks were concentrated in the Northeast and the Midwest, hitting Democratic states especially hard. New York City is a hot zone for the virus right now. Governor ANDREW Cuomo. But now the virus has started to change course. An increasing number of infections are being reported in Republican states like Arizona, Texas and Oklahoma, where President Trump is planning to stage an indoor rally on Saturday. Attendees must sign a waiver before entering the rally, promising that they won't sue.

Trump or the campaign if they contract the coronavirus.

Republicans have tended to be less patient with the lockdowns all along. Pushing for them to end early in April, Mr. Trump encouraged anti lockdown protests around the country.

We can't hide in our homes and not produce for our families and for future generations because of a virus that may kill us.

Mr. Trump has been making the pandemic political from the start.

For a long time. COVID 19 seemed to be a Democratic political disease.

John Parker is our international correspondent.

That is to say, it was concentrated in Democratic states and the President presented it as something sort of characteristically important to Democrats.

Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. You know that, right?

Coronavirus.

He called it a new hoax, and this is their new hoax.

But you know, we just.

And he stood very strongly by Republicans who were urging their states to open up. So I think he was presenting it as a disease which would have affected Democrats much more than Republicans.

And how has the administration's stance changed since then?

I don't think it has changed all that much. Earlier this week, the Vice President wrote an op ed in the Wall Street Journal, basically saying there's no second wave, that that testing was working brilliantly and that case numbers were coming down well nationally. That is, in fact, true. The reason for that is, though, that the case numbers are coming down dramatically in the places, especially in the Northeast, New York and New Jersey, where the disease was by far the worst to begin with. But cases are rising in large parts of the rest of America.

But let's pick apart this partisan divide. There's no doubt that the virus has hit Democratic strongholds more even.

Yes, that's right. So there's a basic rule of American politics which is the denser the population, the more likely it is to be Democratic. It also means that the greater the population density, the more likely you're going to get coronavirus contagion. Reuters calculated that those counties which voted for Hillary Clinton were three times more likely to have cases of COVID than counties that voted for Trump. I mean, the basic pattern is that if you get crowded apartment blocks, large numbers of black and Hispanic voters, and globally connected cities, one, they're likely to be held by Democrats, two, they're likely to have got the disease early.

But it seems that that early picture is now changing.

Yes, the first cases were heavily concentrated in the Northeast, basically around New York. But if you look at the most recent numbers in the middle of June, you find that case numbers are rising in 20 states. 19 of them are either in the south or the west, the three biggest states, Texas, Florida and California, have all reported their highest ever daily totals of new infections. And of these 20 states, 16 of them have either Republican governors or Republican houses or in most cases, both.

And that's not some kind of statistical fluke or the fact that Republican held parts of the country are simply catching up with what the Democratic held parts have already lived through.

Well, in a sense, of course they are doing that. I mean, the virus is spreading, but it's not some weird statistical artifact, I don't think an interesting set of research conducted by a demographer at the Brookings Institution called Bill Fry shows what's going on. He looked at counties which reported large numbers of cases. For the first time. His sort of category tracked the spread of the disease. Now, at the end of March, only a third of his counties had backdrop in 2016. Now it's more than half. And of the like, the new counties which have sort of joined this category of places where the disease has spread to for the first time, Trump won nearly 90%. And at first it was tended to be in inner cities, but as the disease spreads, increasingly it's in outer suburbs and rural counties and in small towns. And instead of being disproportionate number of blacks and Hispanics, you're finding more and more whites getting the disease demographically and in terms of the kind of place people live, the pattern of the disease is changing and red America is becoming infected by the disease in a way that it used not to be.

But still these are our county level averages now, rather than say state ones and so on. But we don't know exactly who it is that's being infected.

I think that's a fair point. An important example of that. We're seeing Republican counties in Iowa reporting new cases. But it could well be that the people actually getting the disease in these counties aren't really Republican voters. So we've all heard about the problems of the meatpacking plants in the Midwest. Well, they tend to be Hispanic and other ethnic minority people who are typically Democratic voters. So it could well be that even though the Republican county is reporting the disease, it's sort of Democrats within that county who are getting it. We don't really know that. That's clearly a sort of a wrinkle in the numbers, but I think it is only a wrinkle. It doesn't change the broad pattern.

And so what do you think the implications are then for the disease kind of inexorably approaching red states and hitting Trump voters?

I think potentially this could be a significant problem for Trump. He's nailed his colours pretty strongly to the mast of opening up. His vice president has said there's no second wave. It seems to me possible, indeed likely, that if case numbers go up, if it looks like there's a second wave, if those people who opened up are shown to have opened up too early, and if increasing numbers of Republicans find that they know people who've got the disease, I can't see how this is good news for Trump for November. November's not that far away. The disease is really the dominant feature of the election and it does look like some of the bets he made that it was a blue state thing, that the disease would peak and then go away, that it was possible to open up. Those bets don't look like they're coming off.

John, thanks for your time.

Thanks very much indeed.

For a lot more analysis like this, subscribe to the Economist. To find the best introductory offer. Wherever you are, just go to economist.com intelligenceoffer In Ireland, three political parties agreed this week on a draft plan for a coalition government. Four months after an election that produced no outright winner, the leaders of Fine.

Gael, Finnafo and the Green Party signed.

Off on a draft program for government in the interim. Leo Varadkar, the Prime minister, or in Ireland, the Taoiseach, has stayed on as a caretaker leader. The three parties still have to ratify the plan. Last week, leader of Finna Fall, Michael Martin said the country urgently needed an effective government to deal with the fallout from COVID 19. We've not even begun the work of.

Recovery to genuinely move to the next stage of the response to the pandemic.

And to plan and implement recovery.

We need a fully functioning government working collectively and implementing an ambitious plan of recovery.

What was striking about February's election was that the party that received the most first choice votes was Sinn Fein. It's a leftist party that campaigned on promises of improving healthcare and housing. But few have forgotten its former connection with the Irish Republican army, the ira, which violently pursued its goal of uniting the Republic of Ireland with Northern Ireland during the years of strife known as the Troubles. What's striking about this proposed coalition is who has joined forces to keep Sinn Fein out of power.

The two parties, which are historically Ireland's biggest Fianna Foal and Fine Gael, both of them basically centre right, they've put aside a century old rivalry for now.

Jack lehart has been writing about Ireland for the Economist and they've teamed up.

With the Green Party to come up with a draft program for government which would lead Ireland out of months of political limbo. Fianna Fowl and Fina Gael have been rivals. They've never governed together in a formal coalition in government. And it's a huge deal, really, because it's primarily aimed at keeping Sinn Fein out of office in Dublin.

And so why did it take so long to come to this agreement?

So Ireland held an election in February that had no clear result. It was a real upset. No party won a majority. And Fianna Fowl and Fina Gale's grip on Irish politics appeared broken. And there was a real historic shift in support towards Sinn Fein, which politically is to the left of both of those parties and which is still seen by many as the political wing of the Irish Republican army or the Iraq. So the election in February was a big rebuke to those two dominant parties, Fianna Fall and Fina Gael, and neither of them really wanted to govern with Sinn Fein. And so that led to months of messy negotiations between the parties in Dublin.

So how did those negotiations pan out? What is the nature of the agreement now?

Well, this week we had a draft document which finally agreed on what a new government would look like. And it was agree between Fianna Fowl, Fine Gael and the Green Party. So. So the final agreement would see the job of Prime Minister, or Taoiseach, as it's known in Ireland, split between the leaders of Fianna Foal and Fina Gael. The Finna Foal leader, Mihon Martin, would govern until December 2022. And then the current Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar of Fine Gael, would take over until the government sees out its term in 2025, presuming it lasts that long in terms of policy and what's being put forward. The long document that the three parties have agreed on speaks to some of the long standing concerns of Ireland's voters. It talks about the rising cost of living and how to address it. A housing crisis that's really bedeviled a series of governments in Dublin over the last number of years. It sets out a hefty stimulus plan to combat the economic effects of the pandemic. And interestingly, the fingerprints of the Green Party are all over this document, including an interesting pledge to reduce Ireland's greenhouse gas emissions by 7% a year for the next five years and a considerable hike in carbon tax.

And so where does that leave Sinn Fein then? Does this being put into opposition help or hinder them politically?

So I suspect that Sinn Fein will be quite happy with this arrangement, although obviously they won't say that publicly. They have been quite critical of the policies put forward by the other parties this week. Their leader, Mary Lou Macdonald, says it's more of the same and it's not what people voted for in February. But look, this is going to be a very difficult time to be in government with the challenges of the pandemic. In addition to the existing domestic economic issues, the agreement that has been reached between the three parties tries to seal off Sinn Fein's advance to some degree by addressing some issues on a united Ireland, for example. But the root of Sinn Fein's support in Ireland isn't really coming for a strong desire for a united Ireland in the Republic. It's coming from more social and domestic issues, such as the high cost of living, housing costs, the rise of homelessness. And I suspect that those issues are not going to be very easy to solve. And so support for Sinn Fein is likely to hang around, I think, regardless of this new government in Dublin.

But either way, a significant and profound change to Irish politics already it is.

If this deal goes through, it would be the first time that Sinn Fein would would lead the opposition in the Irish Parliament in history. And it's a turning point as well for Fianna Foale and Fina Gael. And their rivalry goes back to a post independence civil war. Obviously now they've been forced together as a result of February's inconclusive election and that desire to keep Sinn Fein out of office. They both lost considerable support in the election and have had to think outside the box in order to get into government, hence this tie up with the Green Party. But the deal is certainly not yet sealed, so rank and file members of each of the three parties must approve the arrangement. At the moment, it looks like Fine Gael members will probably vote for it. There have been some grumblings within Fianna Foal about the arrangement, particularly amongst grassroots members, and the jury is definitely still out on whether the Green Party will actually back the deal. If one or more of the parties don't back it, then it's essentially dead in the water.

And if the plan goes ahead as laid out, it's clear what the goals are domestically. But what about internationally? In particular, the biggest issue that Ireland's been involved with in recent years with Brexit.

Yeah. So the programme for government very much focuses on domestic issues, but there are some interesting hints as to what to expect in terms of foreign policy. And one of the big things in terms of foreign policy for Ireland at the moment is, as you say, Jason, it's Brexit. So Britain is the country's closest neighbour and Ireland is the only country the UK shares, shares a physical border with. So the fallout from Brexit has been a real focus of Leo Varadkar's government and will continue to be so with a new government, the new coalition would see a unit set up in the Taoiseach's office that would work toward what they've termed a consensus on a shared island. Now that sounds very vague and probably intentionally so, but it's also quite significant. A united Ireland has become more of a possibility as a result of Brexit. And while this proposed office in the Taoiseach department is certainly not an explicit step in that direction, it is a clear and interesting sign that Dublin is laying some groundwork for that possibility.

Jack, thanks very much for your time.

Thank you, Jason.

Magnus Carlsen Fabiano Caruana Garry Kasparov Hikaru Nakamura if you're a fan of chess, these are your rock stars, the grandmasters of the game. From young ages, these players have studied intensely memorizing opening move patterns and end game sequences to outsmart just about any opponent. Now though, they better watch their backs. 9 year old Tanitalua Adewumi or Tani is coming for their crowns.

I want to be the youngest grandmaster.

Tani came to my attention as this amazing challenge who at age 8 won the New York State championship in his age group.

Sandra Solsted is a senior data journalist at the Economist.

There were many things remarkable about Tani. One was that he had only played chess for a year and the second was that he really didn't have the kind of typical elite background that many chess prodigies have.

So what is his background then?

So his family was living in Northern Nigeria and being Christians, they eventually faced intimidation by Boko Haram. His father saw this as a threat to their safety and so in 2017 they fled the country and went to the United States. Once they got there, with some help from a local church where there was a Nigerian pastor, they eventually found shelter in a Manhattan homeless shelter.

And how is it that Tani got into chess?

So there was a part time chess teacher at his local public school who was going around to classes teaching people chess and he really took to it and he wanted to join the chess club at the school. The problem of course was that the chess club had a $300 fee and he couldn't afford to pay. Now luckily, the coaches of the club either recognizing his potential or just seeing that he was a kid who wanted to play Chess, they waived the fee and let him participate in the club. Then what they quickly realized thereafter was that he had a lot of potential.

And so how does he currently rank now?

So all chess players are rated according to this numerical system, where a higher score means that you're better. For instance, I'm very poor at chess, so I'm about 900, whereas a grandmaster, someone who's an expert, can be about 2500. Now, after winning the chess tournament a year ago, Tanya was rated 1587. He was 20th among 8 year olds in America. What I think is truly remarkable is what has happened since. So after all this media attention and winning this championship, he has just continued playing chess and progressed at an astonishing pace. Now he's over 2000 and number three, his age, and he's improved twice as fast as the two people above him among the nine year olds.

So presumably this meteoric rise is really making waves, at least inside the chess community.

So I think he's starting to become known. Of course, his story is remarkable for all sorts of reasons, but I think after winning this tournament, just continuing on to rise the way he does, he's bound to get attention, much like chess has generally in these past few months. So of course, due to lockdowns, people are inside. And chess, which is easy to play online, has become more and more popular. Certain chess sites have seen a doubling in the amount of traffic they get. And on Twitch, which is a video streaming platform where people normally, you know, play video games or watch people play video games, chess has become a hit. And so you have all these mostly young people tuning in to watch players like Hikaru Nakamura, who is one of the best in the world, maybe the best in the world, in rapid time format play against other grandmasters online.

Check me.

And he actually challenged Tani to a game of Puzzle Rush last week, which is a rapid chess based online puzzle game.

Okay, so I sent the challenge again. Let's see if he accepts. Okay, here we go. Let's go. Let's go. He's actually higher rated at puzzles than me, so this is gonna be fun. Okay, let's go.

He won one out of four games. Hikaru Nakamura was comparing his rise to grandmaster with Tani's. And it seems like he has no doubt that Tani will rise to great heights in chess.

Definitely gonna make master, I think in the next couple of years. Next year or two. Probably the only question is when he does it and wish him nothing but the best. Amazing for nine years old.

So in the meantime, then you'll be watching Tani's Rise and perhaps even trying to get a little better yourself.

I certainly will. It is humbling to watch someone that young be that good. And even being a very poor player myself, it does inspire me to try a bit harder.

I think it's a little too late for me.

Well, it's never, never too late to start.

Sandro, thank you very much for joining us.

It was a pleasure to be here.

Jason.

That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. If you like us, give us a rating on Apple Podcasts and see you back here tomorrow.