Open AccessAmerican “Populism” and the Spatial Contradictions of US Govern-ment in the Time of COVID-19
Author(s) -
John Agnew
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
geopolítica(s)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.19
H-Index - 2
eISSN - 2172-3958
pISSN - 2172-7155
DOI - 10.5209/geop.69018
Subject(s) - populism , federalism , government (linguistics) , federalist , political science , ideology , covid-19 , public administration , nationalism , big government , political economy , politics , sociology , law , medicine , philosophy , linguistics , disease , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty)
President Donald Trump has been the public face of the blundering managerial response of the US federal government to the Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, beyond Trump’s personal failure lies a failure of the US governmental system. More specifically, the role of the federal government in fashioning nationwide policies across a range of areas, including public health, that one think would be empowered by a self-defined “nationalist” or right-wing populist in the White House, has been crippled by an anti-federalist ideology and the institutional inertia it has created. These have roots going back to the 1980s and the distortion of historic US federalism that these have entailed.