Heartland Politics with Robin Johnson

First Comprehensive Assessment Finds American Institutions Failed During Covid Pandemic

By Robin Johnson

Published August 21, 2025 at 11:07 PM CDT

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Stephen Macedo, co-author with Frances Lee of In Covid's Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us, discusses the failure to heed pre-Covid plans for managing a pandemic, how voices of dissent were treated, lack of cost and benefit considerations, impact of policies by class difference, school closures, the origins of Covid, and impact on our democracy. An important book written by authors without a political agenda.

Heartland Politics with Robin Johnson

Robin Johnson

Robin A. Johnson is a governmental relations, public policy and political consultant. He is an expert on government reform issues and has consulted with numerous local governments on consolidation/merger, public-private partnerships and full-cost accounting of public services. Robin has also helped candidates win elections for the U.S. Senate, U.S. Congress, state legislature, judiciary and local government. Robin served as a consultant to the Office of Statewide Performance Review in the Illinois Governor’s Office and is former director of the Illinois Center for Competitive Government, a partnership between the Illinois Comptroller’s Office and the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs at Western Illinois University. Prior to that, he was Director of the Local Government Affairs Division of the Illinois Comptroller’s Office. Robin served on the Board of Directors of the National Council for Public-Private Partnerships (NCPPP) in 1999-2000.

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