Abstract

The US federal government has been widely criticized for its response to the Coronavirus/Covid-19 pandemic. Much of the poor response and outcome has been ascribed to President Trump’s personal failure. Yet more importantly this failure has been 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, has been crippled by an anti-federalist ideology and the institutional inertia it has created. Ordinarily, one would think that the federal government would be empowered by a self-defined “nationalist” or right-wing populist in the White House. But rather than command and coordination across tiers of government, the states have been left to cope as best they can without much of anything in terms of coherent and consistent national/federal leadership. The recent efflorescence of anti-federalist ideology has roots going back to the 1980s. The pandemic has exposed the distortion of the once well-established polyphonic practices of historic US federalism by a now institutionalized dualist vision of federalism that has sadly become the leitmotif of failed US governance in the pandemic.

摘要

美国联邦政府因对冠状病毒/ Covid-19大流行的反应而受到广泛批评。糟糕的回应和结果大多归因于特朗普总统的个人失败。更重要的是，这种失败是美国政府系统的失败。更具体地说，联邦政府在制定包括公共卫生在内的一系列领域的全国政策中的作用因反联邦主义者的意识形态及其所产生的制度惰性而受到损害。通常，人们会以为白宫内一位自定义的“民族主义者”或右翼民粹主义者将赋予联邦政府权力。但是，与其在各级政府之间进行指挥和协调，不如说是 就国家/联邦领导机构的连贯一致而言，各州应尽其所能地尽力而为。最近反联邦主义思想风起云涌，其历史可追溯到1980年代。这种流行病已经暴露了美国制度主义对联邦制度的现已制度化的二元论观点，这种观点已经扭曲了美国历史悠久的联邦制一度确立的复音实践，而这种可悲的变成了美国在流行病治理失败的主旋律。