For all the screaming about how out-of-touch elites who still have jobs are wrecking the lives of poorer people, the actual working class people I know are not eager to get out there and crowd public places. https://twitter.com/GabrielRossman/status/1250424545405616129

As far as I can tell the actual divide is not between the working class and the out-of-touch professionals, but between the salaried professionals and the small business owners.

Those small business owners are indeed suffering, and the government response has been disgracefully inadequate. But I think that they are fixating on the government shutdown rules because that seems like something that can be changed relatively easily.

In actual fact, the problem is that unless your customer base is a) under the age of 30 and b) not living with anyone over 30, their demand for any activity involving hanging out near other people in a public space just vanished. The government can't fix that by "reopening"

People need hope, and an irrational hope is better than despair. But it is an irrational hope, and we shouldn't let it drive policy.

Instead, we should be trying to do better by small business owners.

The uncharitable way to put this is that desperate small business owners want the government to falsely assure their customers, who have voluntarily sheltered in place, that it is safe to patronize their establishments. For obvious reasons, the government should not lie to people