Can Coronavirus Teach Americans to Sacrifice Again?
By: Historical Insights
Tags: Politics, Health, Taxes, History

Franklin Roosevelt addresses the nation during World War II (public domain)

In the age of COVID-19, public health officials are asking us to do something that Americans really aren’t used to doing — sacrifice for the collective good. This used to be a pretty frequent request from our government.

In the First World War, people were pressured to buy war bonds and plant Victory Gardens. In the Great Depression, top marginal tax rates went from 25% to 79%, as wealthy Americans were asked to fund the social safety net for the most needy. During World War II, auto and appliance factories rapidly switched to production of war materials. People went from house to house collecting stray scraps of foil and rubber. In 1942, Franklin Roosevelt said,

All of us are used to spending money for things that we want, things, however, which are not absolutely essential. We will all have to forgo that kind of spending. Because we must put every dime and every dollar we can possibly spare out of our earnings into war bonds and stamps. Because the demands of the war effort require the rationing of goods of which there is not enough to go around. Because the stopping of purchases of nonessentials will release thousands of workers who are needed in the war effort. As I told the Congress yesterday, “sacrifice” is not exactly the proper word with which to describe this program of self-denial. When, at the end of this great struggle, we shall have saved our free way of life, we shall have made no “sacrifice.” The price for civilization must be paid in hard work and sorrow and blood. The price is not too high.

It’s hard to imagine such a speech coming from the White House today. Even during the Vietnam War, the draft ensured that every family stood a relatively equal chance (rich kids’ bone spurs aside) of having a member participate in the war.

In recent decades, however, the message from our government has been that we can have our cake and eat it too. We’ve been encouraged to become more individualistic and trained to look out for only ourselves — this, somehow, was the most American thing to do.

The American response to 9/11 is a perfect example of this. After the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Americans were terrified that worse was to come; we were told to expect frequent and spectacular terror attacks. We were also told that it was necessary to go to war with not just Afghanistan but Iraq.

The responses to 9/11 were incredibly expensive. New federal bureaucracies were created, soldiers were (and still are) deployed overseas, and the American defense budget has skyrocketed. The total cost of all of this is estimated to be $6.4 trillion.

George W. Bush touts his 2003 tax cuts (public domain)

But we were never asked to bear these costs. George W. Bush told us that our best bet was to go shopping. “Get down to Disney World in Florida,” he said.

Keep ordinary life going; exercise your freedom — that’s what Al Qaeda hates the most. Having cut taxes already in May, 2001, Bush encouraged Congress to cut taxes again in 2003 so that the costs of the wars and the anti-terrorist bureaucracy would not be felt by most Americans.

Of course, the wealthiest Americans benefited the most from these tax cuts. The message from the government was clear — no sacrifice is necessary; in fact, the best thing you can do is to focus narrowly on your own needs.

Many Americans have gone on to convince themselves that “not letting the terrorists win” was synonymous with “live your life selfishly.” This attitude, baked in for two decades, has run up against the Coronavirus pandemic in unfortunate ways.

Kevin Stitt, the Republican Governor of Oklahoma, made a point of vowing that he would go out to dinner with his family whenever he pleased, social distancing and CDC recommendations be damned. His spokesperson said (on March 16, pretty deep into the crisis), “The governor will continue to take his family out to dinner and to the grocery store without living in fear and encourages Oklahomans to do the same.”

Stitt has since changed his tune, encouraging Oklahomans to practice social distancing.

He’s not alone; Katie Williams, a Nevada state politician and rising conservative star, defended (celebrated, really) her eating out by tweeting, “It was delicious, and I took my sweet time eating my meal. Because this is America. And I’ll do what I want.” This attitude has, thankfully, died down as people have realized the seriousness of the situation, but one wonders whether enough of us can change our attitudes for long enough to make a difference.

The problem, of course, is that the virus does not care whether Americans perform a version of petulant, individualistic defiance. It doesn’t care how much we cherish our rugged individualism. The virus will either be contained or it won’t, and it seems clear that containing the infection will require — for the first time in a long time in this country — some real personal sacrifice for the public good.

Young, healthy people who are not at risk will need to suffer some inconvenience in order to help older or more vulnerable people survive. In many cases, the inconvenience is quite mild; we will have to stay home and watch TV — not quite the same as getting drafted into the military.

But for a number of Americans, there will be real economic sacrifice as entire sectors of the economy dry up, at least in the short run. Can twenty-first century Americans learn to sacrifice again for the public good? The fate of countless people depends on it.