Although the Republican Party backs the position that the nation should reopen as fast as possible despite concerns about causing a worse outbreak of the coronavirus, the economy can’t rebound significantly without the cooperation of large Democratic-leaning metropolitan areas, where there is considerably more concern about abandoning social distancing measures too quickly, according to CNN.
This point is especially prominent in almost all of the swing states likely to determine the winner of the presidential election, as the largest metropolitan areas make up at least two-thirds of the state's employment and economic output, according an analysis by the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program provided exclusively to CNN.
"The concentration of the economy in bigger, denser, more science-oriented places becomes a real ceiling on effective reopening," said Mark Muro, senior fellow and policy director at the Metropolitan Policy Program. "Metropolitan economic elites are well informed about the risk and may simply refuse to participate in what they may view as a precipitous opening."
This means that no matter how many small towns and rural areas, which tend to be Trump strongholds, in these states lift restrictions, the economy will have little chance of regaining critical mass unless Republicans are able to significantly speed up reopenings in the large metropolitan areas controlled by Democrats.
The most glaring example in the analysis is in Pennsylvania, where larger metropolitan areas make up nearly 95% of the state's economic output and 89% of its jobs.
Since the economic dominance of the largest metro areas won't decrease between now and November, this means Trump can't revive the economy without more acceptance from those who are the most concerned about the coronavirus and have been the most badly harmed by its outbreak.
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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