Mayors of blue cities stuck in red states across the country aren't just fighting the firehose of coronavirus disinformation flowing from Donald Trump's mouth to keep their citizens safe. In many cases, they are also battling policies set forth by the governors of their own states.
In states like Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, and Missouri, big-city Democratic mayors have practically been begging their governors to enact statewide social distancing policies, according to CNN. "We need a statewide 'safer at home' order," says Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, who is effectively the county supervisor in Dallas, Texas. But Gov. Greg Abbott's refusal to issue that order is making it more likely the state will experience an overwhelming surge of sick patients, accompanied by a statewide shortage of hospital beds. In fact, far from issuing a statewide order, Abbott—who has often aggressively challenged the laws and policies of liberal-leaning cities in his state—has stressed the need for local autonomy in responding to the epidemic.
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Robyn Tannehill, the mayor of Oxford, Mississippi, where the University of Mississippi is located, gave CNN a very similar account of her city’s efforts to implement social distancing measures. "We are a regional health care and shopping destination," Tannehill said, so "we have people coming through from surrounding counties that are not [imposing] a stay at home order." That means many outsiders passing through Oxford actually have greater exposure to the coronavirus and are more likely to pass it on as they shuttle through the city running errands.
Meanwhile Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves spent last week painting life-saving social distancing measures as an overzealous government intrusion on individual liberty. "In times such as these, you always have experts who believe they know best for everybody," Reeves said. "You have some folks who think that government ought to take over everything in times of crisis — that they, as government officials, know better than individual citizens."
The same thing is true in Missouri, even as coronavirus cases have started to spike in cities like Kansas City and St. Louis. GOP Gov. Mike Parson has banned gatherings of more than 10 people statewide but has declined to issue the stay-at-home order that St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson and other Democratic officials have pushed for.
In recent days, cities like St. Louis, Miami, Birmingham, Nashville, Atlanta, Jackson (Mississippi), Houston, Dallas, Austin, Phoenix, and Tucson have all issued stay-at-home directives to their citizens. But most of them have done so in defiance of the statewide messaging from GOP leadership. Arizona's Republican Gov. Doug Ducey did take some steps Monday to encourage social distancing. Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee sent out a voluntary stay-at-home advisory. And Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis carved up his state, ordering only the four most populous counties in South Florida to stay at home.
But overall, most red state residents are getting a patchwork of conflicting directives and information that is greatly hampering Democratic mayors’ ability to protect their constituents from the growing public health crisis the nation is facing. In the meantime, the internal conflict in conservative states is also exacerbating the growing fault lines between Democratic leaders of larger urban areas that happen to be situated in red states and the Republican officials that sit atop the leadership of those states.