America in Crisis: A Closer Look at a Deeply Polarized Nation
Mapping how income inequality, partisanship, health disparities, the recession, racism, and climate change are affecting the country.
It’s 2020, and everything is broken. The novel coronavirus is ravaging the globe—especially the U.S., where more than 180,000 lives have already been lost. The U.S. economy has cratered, and unemployment has soared. The killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, by a Minneapolis police officer in May set off the largest wave of American protests since the 1960s. Clashes between protesters and right-wing groups have since led to deaths in Kenosha, Wis., and Portland, Ore.
The U.S. government bungled its handling of the pandemic from the start, with President Trump alternately saying it was under control and deflecting blame onto states. Testing rolled out haltingly; states scrambled for ventilators and protective equipment; and the president declined to wear a mask while promoting dubious science. Now, with only 4% of the world’s population, the U.S. accounts for about a quarter of confirmed Covid‑19 cases and deaths. Barring a miracle, millions of voters will be going to the polls in November with a deadly virus still on the loose. Voting by mail seems like a safer option. But Trump is undermining it with the baseless claim that mail-in ballots will lead to “massive fraud” and a “rigged” result.
Welcome to the election from hell, which also may be the most critical one in our lifetime (an election cliché, but in this instance it might really be true). The choices are stark: a mercurial incumbent with an authoritarian bent and a loyal base, or an establishment challenger who inspires less passion. Law and order, or a fraught reckoning with historic wrongs. An America that stands apart, or one that intervenes and forms alliances abroad. Rolling back regulations, or taking action on climate change. That’s not even counting the candidates’ major differences on staple issues such as health care and immigration.
Given the times we’re in, it’s impossible to say that this election is about one extraordinary phenomenon more than another: the most polarizing president in modern U.S. history, a once-in-decades public-health crisis, a recession unlike any economists have seen. Bloomberg Businessweek has distilled this political moment into the 2020 Election Issue. We start with a wide-angle look at the nation’s crises, then gradually zoom in—first on American places, then on voters, then on the casting and counting of ballots.
At the heart of this guide is the U.S. voter. We’ve asked a sampling of them key questions: What matters to you and your loved ones? How can a broken country heal? Their answers are eloquent, moving, and bracing. —A.K.
Income Inequality and Political Partisanship Have Been Rising
Disparities in Americans’ Health Will Be Exacerbated by the Covid-19 Recession
Racism Persists, While Climate Change Threatens Some of Us More Than Others
