Josh Marshall gives a nice rundown of how China is calling us out. He catalogs how China both A) originally downplayed and tried to hide the virus and then B) did mostly everything right. Both are true. What is also true is that we did a terrible job with the lead time we did have and - more importantly - CONTINUE to do a poor job.
Those who continue to throw shade at China are simply trying to distract from the disastrous response that we had and continue to have. It is mind-boggling that we still don't seem to have any sort of national plan for widespread testing. Some countries nailed it from the start, some are getting better. What is amazing is that we have no national plan to deal with this. Instead, we are giving a veto to any yahoo who thinks this is overblown because he isn't personally sick.
One other thing. Aside from Germany, when you look at countries that have handled this well, they are usually fairly remote - like Australia and New Zealand - or they have extensive experience with SARS - like Hong Kong or Singapore - or a combination of both - South Korea and Taiwan. Proximity to China actually HELPED these countries, because they had put plans in place after SARS. They wear masks all the time. Widespread masking and testing is really the only way we get back to "normal," whatever that might mean.
Are we great again yet?
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Wednesday, April 29, 2020
More On Excess Deaths
Josh Marshall was one of the first people to point out this phenomenon of "excess deaths." Simply put, there is an "expected" number of deaths in any given month. Then we have laboratory confirmed Covid-19 tests. Then we have a mysterious number of additional deaths above the average, but not laboratory confirmed as Covid-19. Some of these are definitely directly related to the virus (which we are discovering can kill you in a horrifyingly diverse set of ways), and some are simply the product of either an overwhelmed health care system or people afraid to go to the ER in a timely manner.
Marshall has corralled some of the major stories about this phenomenon, and I think we have enough data points to say this is a very real thing. (We also know other forms of death like car crashes are falling.) If this is true (and it appears it is), then over 120,000 Americans may have lost their lives because of Covid-19. That's more than died in every conflict America has fought in, except the Second World War and the Civil War.
Marshall has corralled some of the major stories about this phenomenon, and I think we have enough data points to say this is a very real thing. (We also know other forms of death like car crashes are falling.) If this is true (and it appears it is), then over 120,000 Americans may have lost their lives because of Covid-19. That's more than died in every conflict America has fought in, except the Second World War and the Civil War.
Working The Refs When There Are No Refs
David Roberts lays out a case that Democrats need to take a page from Mitch McConnell's playbook. McConnell understands that it simply doesn't matter what Chuck Fucking Todd thinks. For too long, Democrats have tried to win the approval of gatekeepers and institutionalists. Roberts is right that those institutions are largely meaningless. Democrats should not care about what the punditry thinks about deficit spending when Democrats gain control of the White House and Senate again. They should not care, at this moment, about "obstructing" Republican efforts to bail out billionaires and large corporations. They should revel in those comparisons.
However, the Democrats are at a bit of a disadvantage in a way that Roberts does not acknowledge. McConnell's tactics work, because he leads a movement actively working to discredit the idea of competent, benevolent governance. McConnell (and really all Republicans) want Americans to distrust the idea that their government can provide important public goods. If Americans suddenly decided that social welfare programs and increased governmental health insurance were GOOD things, then their rationale for being in power is gone.
The problem is that American DO want a minimal level of governmental support, especially in a pandemic and global depression. It's the old joke of "a Democrat is a Republican who just lost his job." There are a lot of people who will blame the GOP for any bad outcomes. In fact, the people most likely to do so are the least political engaged and therefore the least partisan. So, taking a red line approach to the next stimulus bill and defying the GOP to obstruct is the right move to win in November. But they need to be wary of destroying the American people's faith in the ability of the government to do anything good.
However, the Democrats are at a bit of a disadvantage in a way that Roberts does not acknowledge. McConnell's tactics work, because he leads a movement actively working to discredit the idea of competent, benevolent governance. McConnell (and really all Republicans) want Americans to distrust the idea that their government can provide important public goods. If Americans suddenly decided that social welfare programs and increased governmental health insurance were GOOD things, then their rationale for being in power is gone.
The problem is that American DO want a minimal level of governmental support, especially in a pandemic and global depression. It's the old joke of "a Democrat is a Republican who just lost his job." There are a lot of people who will blame the GOP for any bad outcomes. In fact, the people most likely to do so are the least political engaged and therefore the least partisan. So, taking a red line approach to the next stimulus bill and defying the GOP to obstruct is the right move to win in November. But they need to be wary of destroying the American people's faith in the ability of the government to do anything good.
The Weirdest Part Of Trumpistan
Is finding myself nodding along with guys like Joe Walsh.
More broadly, reading this piece, I'm struck that Walsh - who's in many ways a terrible person - has a keener understanding of how American electoral politics works than the dead end Sandernistas do. There is really one choice for America in November: do we or do we not re-elect Donald Trump. If you think the answer to that question is "no" (and God pity you if you don't), then you have one choice, and that's Joe Biden. No one gives a shit if you aren't happy that Biden is the "not Trump" candidate. That's your choice and staying at home or voting for Justin Amash is also a choice, one that will help re-elect Trump.
More broadly, reading this piece, I'm struck that Walsh - who's in many ways a terrible person - has a keener understanding of how American electoral politics works than the dead end Sandernistas do. There is really one choice for America in November: do we or do we not re-elect Donald Trump. If you think the answer to that question is "no" (and God pity you if you don't), then you have one choice, and that's Joe Biden. No one gives a shit if you aren't happy that Biden is the "not Trump" candidate. That's your choice and staying at home or voting for Justin Amash is also a choice, one that will help re-elect Trump.
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
TL:DR: Marx Is Dumb
This is a very dense read, and a lot of it is obscured by Marxist lexicon. The broad point is that the Sandernistas did politics wrong because class is no longer a driving force in politics. This is broadly true among developed economies, but it is most noticeable in the birthplace of representative government: the US and the UK (the article doesn't talk about Corbyn, but his ghost flits around the edges of the essay).
There is a fair amount of talk about culture, without really talking about culture. By focusing on why Marxist class consciousness failed, it completely omits discussion of the civil rights revolution of 1955-1980. This included not only African American civil rights, but LGBT rights, second wave Feminism, Native American rights...the list is almost endless. All of this created a cultural backlash that has done more to define politics than "class" - a concept that has always had a weak grasp on American political imagination.
I'm sure this essay could have been written to describe why Eugene V. Debs never quite broke through.
Marx was a decent historian, looking at how forces within the economy could drive social change. OK, as far as it goes. He was an abject failure in predicting what came next. He has never been right about that.
He's like a doctor that accurately diagnosis you with a viral infection then suggest inject bleach and sticking a UV light up your ass.
There is a fair amount of talk about culture, without really talking about culture. By focusing on why Marxist class consciousness failed, it completely omits discussion of the civil rights revolution of 1955-1980. This included not only African American civil rights, but LGBT rights, second wave Feminism, Native American rights...the list is almost endless. All of this created a cultural backlash that has done more to define politics than "class" - a concept that has always had a weak grasp on American political imagination.
I'm sure this essay could have been written to describe why Eugene V. Debs never quite broke through.
Marx was a decent historian, looking at how forces within the economy could drive social change. OK, as far as it goes. He was an abject failure in predicting what came next. He has never been right about that.
He's like a doctor that accurately diagnosis you with a viral infection then suggest inject bleach and sticking a UV light up your ass.
Is This It?
Interesting data that perhaps what makes Covid-19 so lethal in some places is microclotting of the blood. The decline in lung function appears to be the tiny clots. Why does the virus cause these clots? No idea, but if you're looking for a therapy to bridge the gap until the vaccine is ready, this is perhaps promising.
Monday, April 27, 2020
Will Trump Qiut?
Paul Campos makes a case that Trump might simply walk away from the presidential race if his wholesale routing seems imminent. We are already seeing the GOP sidle away from Trump, as his bat shit press conferences and the exponential death rate become unavoidable.
It doesn't sound like Campos is suggesting that he will actually take the "Nixon Ride" on Marine One, but rather that he will denounce the race as rigged when he's down 15% in the polls in October. This would discourage the Trumpenproletariat from voting and likely trigger right wing militia violence both in the lead up to the election and after it. But it could also lead to a massive Democratic wave because Trump will be signalling to his supporters that it doesn't matter if they vote. Meanwhile, the lesson of 2016 will be seared into the minds of Democratic voters: Take Nothing For Granted.
It doesn't sound like Campos is suggesting that he will actually take the "Nixon Ride" on Marine One, but rather that he will denounce the race as rigged when he's down 15% in the polls in October. This would discourage the Trumpenproletariat from voting and likely trigger right wing militia violence both in the lead up to the election and after it. But it could also lead to a massive Democratic wave because Trump will be signalling to his supporters that it doesn't matter if they vote. Meanwhile, the lesson of 2016 will be seared into the minds of Democratic voters: Take Nothing For Granted.
Body Counts
At some point in the next 24-36 hours, the US's official tally of Covid-19 deaths will surpass the number of American lives lost in Vietnam from 1961-1975. What is striking about that number is that it almost certainly too low. This WaPo story does a job explaining the idea of "excess deaths" that seem to be a feature of Covid-19.
We have a pretty good idea how many people die every year, on average, in each month. We can also measure things like how many people die from illness in the winter, as opposed to car accidents in the summer.
What we are seeing with Covid-19 is a spike in numbers of deaths from various factors that seem to be part of the effects of the virus. Most states only attributed Covid-19 deaths in the presence of a positive test, plus pulmonary issues. As it became apparent that the virus attacked the heart and caused strokes, they added those deaths. The problem is the huge spike in deaths "at home" where there was no test. And we still don't really know how or why this illness is killing people.
So, we have one group of people who have died of Covid-19, but aren't being counted. We have a second group of people who are dying from a lack of medical care, because they are afraid or unwilling to go to the hospital in a timely manner. Those are secondary deaths caused by the pandemic, but aren't directly attributable to the virus.
There is some good news, in that auto accidents and murders are down considerably. Roughly 3000 Americans die every month in car accidents, so that number is decreasing, which is good. But that also means that the excess death number is rising in spite of other forms of death falling.
At this point, it's worth talking about why people might be fudging the numbers. If you're a public health official, you will want to include as many Covid deaths as possible for two reasons. First, you need an accurate count, so you understand just how deadly this illness is or isn't. That's an issue of accuracy. It's not implausible, that there is a second reason, and that is the desire of public health officials to drive home the idea that this is a scary disease in the face of opposition to public health measures. That might lead them to include some dubiously linked deaths, but generally speaking, scientists are interested in accuracy.
The problem - as always - are the anti-science, anti-intellectual factions of America. Because they are overwhelmingly Trump supporters, they tend to pick up on his prejudice in favor of re-opening the economy and his earlier statements about the virus being a hoax and under control. For them, any added deaths are simply an effort by pointy-headed elitists to make Trump look bad. This means that any effort to bring statistical analysis (instead of only those actually tested who died of pulmonary distress) to capture the true scale of the pandemic will be dismissed as "fake news."
When epidemiologists look back at April 27th (2PM ET), they won't see the official count of 56, 139 deaths. They will see a number much higher. It certainly looks like the "excess deaths" number has passed 100,000. The Trumpenproletariat won't believe them. Evangelicals washed the blood of Jesus will not believe them. But if the pandemic has proven anything, it's that the natural world doesn't give a shit about your a priori beliefs.
We have a pretty good idea how many people die every year, on average, in each month. We can also measure things like how many people die from illness in the winter, as opposed to car accidents in the summer.
What we are seeing with Covid-19 is a spike in numbers of deaths from various factors that seem to be part of the effects of the virus. Most states only attributed Covid-19 deaths in the presence of a positive test, plus pulmonary issues. As it became apparent that the virus attacked the heart and caused strokes, they added those deaths. The problem is the huge spike in deaths "at home" where there was no test. And we still don't really know how or why this illness is killing people.
So, we have one group of people who have died of Covid-19, but aren't being counted. We have a second group of people who are dying from a lack of medical care, because they are afraid or unwilling to go to the hospital in a timely manner. Those are secondary deaths caused by the pandemic, but aren't directly attributable to the virus.
There is some good news, in that auto accidents and murders are down considerably. Roughly 3000 Americans die every month in car accidents, so that number is decreasing, which is good. But that also means that the excess death number is rising in spite of other forms of death falling.
At this point, it's worth talking about why people might be fudging the numbers. If you're a public health official, you will want to include as many Covid deaths as possible for two reasons. First, you need an accurate count, so you understand just how deadly this illness is or isn't. That's an issue of accuracy. It's not implausible, that there is a second reason, and that is the desire of public health officials to drive home the idea that this is a scary disease in the face of opposition to public health measures. That might lead them to include some dubiously linked deaths, but generally speaking, scientists are interested in accuracy.
The problem - as always - are the anti-science, anti-intellectual factions of America. Because they are overwhelmingly Trump supporters, they tend to pick up on his prejudice in favor of re-opening the economy and his earlier statements about the virus being a hoax and under control. For them, any added deaths are simply an effort by pointy-headed elitists to make Trump look bad. This means that any effort to bring statistical analysis (instead of only those actually tested who died of pulmonary distress) to capture the true scale of the pandemic will be dismissed as "fake news."
When epidemiologists look back at April 27th (2PM ET), they won't see the official count of 56, 139 deaths. They will see a number much higher. It certainly looks like the "excess deaths" number has passed 100,000. The Trumpenproletariat won't believe them. Evangelicals washed the blood of Jesus will not believe them. But if the pandemic has proven anything, it's that the natural world doesn't give a shit about your a priori beliefs.
Sunday, April 26, 2020
Thank God For The Post
This is just an excellent column, and such a welcome contrast with how the Times tends to cover things. Some nice passages:
He showered praise on himself and his team, repeatedly touting the “great job” they were doing as he spoke of the “tremendous progress” being made toward a vaccine and how “phenomenally” the nation was faring in terms of mortality.
What he did not do was offer any sympathy for the 2,081 Americans who were reported dead from the coronavirus on that day alone — among nearly 53,000 Americans who have perished since the pandemic began.
What began as daily briefings meant to convey public health information have become de facto political rallies conducted from the West Wing of the White House. Trump offers little in the way of accurate medical information or empathy for coronavirus victims, instead focusing on attacking his enemies and lauding himself and his allies.
....
Over the past three weeks, the tally comes to more than 13 hours of Trump — including two hours spent on attacks and 45 minutes praising himself and his administration, but just 4½ minutes expressing condolences for coronavirus victims. He spent twice as much time promoting an unproven antimalarial drug that was the object of a Food and Drug Administration warning Friday. Trump also said something false or misleading in nearly a quarter of his prepared comments or answers to questions, the analysis shows.
...
The Post analysis of Trump’s daily coronavirus briefings over the past three weeks — from Monday, April 6 to Friday, April 24 — reveals a president using the White House lectern to vent and rage; to dispense dubious and even dangerous medical advice; and to lavish praise upon himself and his government....
Trump has attacked someone in 113 out of 346 questions he has answered — or a third of his responses. He has offered false or misleading information in nearly 25 percent of his remarks. And he has played videos praising himself and his administration’s efforts three times, including one that was widely derided as campaign propaganda produced by White House aides at taxpayer expense.
He showered praise on himself and his team, repeatedly touting the “great job” they were doing as he spoke of the “tremendous progress” being made toward a vaccine and how “phenomenally” the nation was faring in terms of mortality.
What he did not do was offer any sympathy for the 2,081 Americans who were reported dead from the coronavirus on that day alone — among nearly 53,000 Americans who have perished since the pandemic began.
What began as daily briefings meant to convey public health information have become de facto political rallies conducted from the West Wing of the White House. Trump offers little in the way of accurate medical information or empathy for coronavirus victims, instead focusing on attacking his enemies and lauding himself and his allies.
....
Over the past three weeks, the tally comes to more than 13 hours of Trump — including two hours spent on attacks and 45 minutes praising himself and his administration, but just 4½ minutes expressing condolences for coronavirus victims. He spent twice as much time promoting an unproven antimalarial drug that was the object of a Food and Drug Administration warning Friday. Trump also said something false or misleading in nearly a quarter of his prepared comments or answers to questions, the analysis shows.
...
The Post analysis of Trump’s daily coronavirus briefings over the past three weeks — from Monday, April 6 to Friday, April 24 — reveals a president using the White House lectern to vent and rage; to dispense dubious and even dangerous medical advice; and to lavish praise upon himself and his government....
Trump has attacked someone in 113 out of 346 questions he has answered — or a third of his responses. He has offered false or misleading information in nearly 25 percent of his remarks. And he has played videos praising himself and his administration’s efforts three times, including one that was widely derided as campaign propaganda produced by White House aides at taxpayer expense.
OK, so why are we still broadcasting them live?
Also, the lines about his failure to offer condolences is telling. He's a malignant narcissist and unable to see the value in human life beyond his own.
More Americans have died in six weeks of Covid-19 than in three years of the Korean War. At some point today or tomorrow, we will pass Vietnam deaths. And the son of a bitch can't even express grief on behalf of the rest of the nation.
Also, the lines about his failure to offer condolences is telling. He's a malignant narcissist and unable to see the value in human life beyond his own.
More Americans have died in six weeks of Covid-19 than in three years of the Korean War. At some point today or tomorrow, we will pass Vietnam deaths. And the son of a bitch can't even express grief on behalf of the rest of the nation.
Saturday, April 25, 2020
Zombies
Jon Chait has a nice profile of three of the wrongest men in the past 40 years of American policy. The impressive consistency of their being wrong would be impressive, if it weren't for the fact that it is precisely their wrongness that seems to appeal to Trump.
The GOP should cease to exist.
The GOP should cease to exist.
Friday, April 24, 2020
This Seems Like A Big Deal
Isn't this a big deal?
Maybe THIS is what Trump meant when he said sunlight was a great disinfectant.
Maybe THIS is what Trump meant when he said sunlight was a great disinfectant.
Thursday, April 23, 2020
What He Said
While Packer retains a little whiff of bothsidesism, this is a very good summation of where we stand.
The Republican Party Should Not Survive Trump
After Romney lost in 2012, the Republican Party did a "post-mortem" on the campaign. There were two competing theories as to why Romney lost. One was insufficient inroads with non-white voters, the other was "missing" white voters, mostly working class whites who understandably were not impressed with Mr. Hedge Fund.
The authors of the postmortem warned that the GOP really needed to do more "minority outreach" as America's demographics were changing in ways that were potentially cataclysmic for Republican hopes for the presidency. Then Trump comes along and mines those "missing" white voters, all while winning a smaller percentage of the popular vote than Romney did.
Trump's surprise win in 2016 has led more than a few people to assume he's broken the normal rules of politics. That's simply not true. He drew an inside straight by winning Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin with under 48.2% of the vote in all three states. In other words, he still didn't win majorities in the Blue Wall. (FWIW, he didn't win majorities in North Carolina, Nebraska's 2nd district, Florida or Arizona.) Trump's victory has been ascribed to anger with the political status quo, that was directed at Hillary Clinton, who represented a political dynasty. Much less has been made of those voters who went to Gary Johnson and Jill Stein. Ironically, Joe Biden will probably do better with the Johnson voters than the Stein voters.
Anyway, the path for Trump's re-election was always going to be as narrow as his path to getting elected in the first place. What has transpired since his victory is that the GOP has bought into his myth of being a "game changing" politician. He's not. He benefited from some unique circumstances in 2016 and now he's looking at the worst economy since the Great Depression. The last time this happened, it led to almost 40 years of dominance by the Democratic Party.
But it goes beyond Trump's performance in office, it strikes at what an absolute shitshow of a "human being" he is. Has been a disastrous chief executive? Yes. But has he also been a terrible politician? Also, yes.
Just the past few days we have seen two of Trump's worst political impulses on display. First, his pandering to the shambolic remnants of the Tea Party and astroturfed protests shows his inability to see beyond Fox News and OANN. Wide swaths of America including a majority of Republicans think this is nuts. But the mouth breathing base - best typified by the "Karen" screaming at a mask-clad nurse counterprotesting in the streets - is all he sees or cares about.
Secondly, he has absolutely no sense of loyalty to anyone. Look at what he did to Brian Kemp. Kemp is a moron, to be fair. But he followed Hair Furor's edict at that moment in time and started to re-open the economy (mostly to save from spending on UI payments). For whatever reason, Trump throws him under the bus a day later. If you're a Republican politician, why in the name of Tax Cut Jesus would you trust this man? He is a narcissist and a pathological liar. He has absolutely no sense of reciprocal loyalty.
The GOP's decision to look at Trump's 2016 upset victory as some sort of roadmap to electoral success SHOULD be the death knell of their party. They should become a rump minority party of a few of Trump's "poorly educated." They probably won't, but that's a post for another time.
The authors of the postmortem warned that the GOP really needed to do more "minority outreach" as America's demographics were changing in ways that were potentially cataclysmic for Republican hopes for the presidency. Then Trump comes along and mines those "missing" white voters, all while winning a smaller percentage of the popular vote than Romney did.
Trump's surprise win in 2016 has led more than a few people to assume he's broken the normal rules of politics. That's simply not true. He drew an inside straight by winning Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin with under 48.2% of the vote in all three states. In other words, he still didn't win majorities in the Blue Wall. (FWIW, he didn't win majorities in North Carolina, Nebraska's 2nd district, Florida or Arizona.) Trump's victory has been ascribed to anger with the political status quo, that was directed at Hillary Clinton, who represented a political dynasty. Much less has been made of those voters who went to Gary Johnson and Jill Stein. Ironically, Joe Biden will probably do better with the Johnson voters than the Stein voters.
Anyway, the path for Trump's re-election was always going to be as narrow as his path to getting elected in the first place. What has transpired since his victory is that the GOP has bought into his myth of being a "game changing" politician. He's not. He benefited from some unique circumstances in 2016 and now he's looking at the worst economy since the Great Depression. The last time this happened, it led to almost 40 years of dominance by the Democratic Party.
But it goes beyond Trump's performance in office, it strikes at what an absolute shitshow of a "human being" he is. Has been a disastrous chief executive? Yes. But has he also been a terrible politician? Also, yes.
Just the past few days we have seen two of Trump's worst political impulses on display. First, his pandering to the shambolic remnants of the Tea Party and astroturfed protests shows his inability to see beyond Fox News and OANN. Wide swaths of America including a majority of Republicans think this is nuts. But the mouth breathing base - best typified by the "Karen" screaming at a mask-clad nurse counterprotesting in the streets - is all he sees or cares about.
Secondly, he has absolutely no sense of loyalty to anyone. Look at what he did to Brian Kemp. Kemp is a moron, to be fair. But he followed Hair Furor's edict at that moment in time and started to re-open the economy (mostly to save from spending on UI payments). For whatever reason, Trump throws him under the bus a day later. If you're a Republican politician, why in the name of Tax Cut Jesus would you trust this man? He is a narcissist and a pathological liar. He has absolutely no sense of reciprocal loyalty.
The GOP's decision to look at Trump's 2016 upset victory as some sort of roadmap to electoral success SHOULD be the death knell of their party. They should become a rump minority party of a few of Trump's "poorly educated." They probably won't, but that's a post for another time.
Wednesday, April 22, 2020
So That Happened
Yes, Virginia, there was electoral interference on behalf of Trump. If we compare the investigations into the 2016 election with, say, the Benghazi hearings, we get an interesting divergence. Every Benghazi committee found that while "mistakes were made" they were consistent with the "fog of war." There was not criminal liability. Every time we get another investigation into 2016, we find that, yes, Russia did interfere with our election.
Both outcomes typically lead to Republicans asking for more investigations to try and get a result that they wanted.
Presumably, the point of investigating something is to discover the truth. That's typically not what the GOP wants from investigations. They want a cudgel to use to beat their political opponents. When Democrats investigate things, they presume that this is what Democrats are doing, too.
For instance, we can be sure that there will need to be massive hearings into where the money is going during the Covid-19 crisis. Trump and his cohort have shown consistently that they believe that public money is there for them to loot or misuse. I can think of at least three Cabinet Secretaries who have misappropriated government funds (Perdue, Zinke and Carson), without having to Google it. When House Democrats unleash Kathy Porter on what is almost certain to be massive malfeasance in PPE distribution or aid checks, Republicans will assume that is entirely political. Partly it is, but more importantly, the House needs to make sure that the money they appropriated is being used properly.
They are, in fact, doing their job.
"Every allegation is a confession" in Trumpistan. Every "scandal" during the Obama Administration turned out to be a dud. Solyandra wasn't a thing. The Fast and Furious was just a cock-up. And of course...Benghazi. Trump is overseeing arguably the most corrupt administration in our nation's history. It is likely that there are things going on that we can only begin to guess at. Some of it will be the product of incompetent leadership, some will be direct, venal corruption.
As we untangle the self-dealing - Trump's visits to his own properties are massive enough in their own right - we need to keep in mind that Republican criticisms are entirely in bad faith.
Both outcomes typically lead to Republicans asking for more investigations to try and get a result that they wanted.
Presumably, the point of investigating something is to discover the truth. That's typically not what the GOP wants from investigations. They want a cudgel to use to beat their political opponents. When Democrats investigate things, they presume that this is what Democrats are doing, too.
For instance, we can be sure that there will need to be massive hearings into where the money is going during the Covid-19 crisis. Trump and his cohort have shown consistently that they believe that public money is there for them to loot or misuse. I can think of at least three Cabinet Secretaries who have misappropriated government funds (Perdue, Zinke and Carson), without having to Google it. When House Democrats unleash Kathy Porter on what is almost certain to be massive malfeasance in PPE distribution or aid checks, Republicans will assume that is entirely political. Partly it is, but more importantly, the House needs to make sure that the money they appropriated is being used properly.
They are, in fact, doing their job.
"Every allegation is a confession" in Trumpistan. Every "scandal" during the Obama Administration turned out to be a dud. Solyandra wasn't a thing. The Fast and Furious was just a cock-up. And of course...Benghazi. Trump is overseeing arguably the most corrupt administration in our nation's history. It is likely that there are things going on that we can only begin to guess at. Some of it will be the product of incompetent leadership, some will be direct, venal corruption.
As we untangle the self-dealing - Trump's visits to his own properties are massive enough in their own right - we need to keep in mind that Republican criticisms are entirely in bad faith.
Tuesday, April 21, 2020
Eating The Poor
Georgia governor Brian Kemp has decided that Georgia should lead the way in killing its own citizens in order to get "back to work." While public health officials decry the move as premature, it's worth examining which businesses are allowed to reopen. Let's look at the text:
Kemp, a first-term governor, said he would allow gyms, barber shops, tattoo parlors and bowling alleys, among other businesses, to reopen on Friday, though they would be required to follow social distancing guidelines and screen their employees for signs of fever and respiratory illness.
Why those businesses? If anything, those are TERRIBLE choices to re-open. Tattoo parlors are literally involved with bodily fluids. Gym have people huffing and puffing and are filled with hard surfaces where the virus can survive for hours. Bowling alleys???
George Chidi offers a chillingly plausible interpretation for this order: Georgia has been stripping its social safety net to the frayed ends to keep taxes low and to hurt poor people. That's the clear priority of Republican social policy. Make being poor painful enough so that people will take any job and suffer any number of indignities to keep labor prices low for the convenience of richer people.
Georgia's unemployment funds will run out, and Kemp is trying to force people back to work so that he won't have to pay UI benefits. Even better, as Chidi lays out, if a beauty salon doesn't want to reopen, because the proprietor doesn't want to risk her life or the lives of her customers, then they are "voluntarily" out of work and don't qualify for UI benefits.
All these astroturf protests (again primarily if not exclusively targeting Democratic governors) are not about "freedom." They are about making people in various service industries risk their lives to provide conveniences for the moderately well-off.
As Adam Serwer has so eloquently summed up about Republican policy in Trumpistan: "The cruelty is the point."
Kemp, a first-term governor, said he would allow gyms, barber shops, tattoo parlors and bowling alleys, among other businesses, to reopen on Friday, though they would be required to follow social distancing guidelines and screen their employees for signs of fever and respiratory illness.
Why those businesses? If anything, those are TERRIBLE choices to re-open. Tattoo parlors are literally involved with bodily fluids. Gym have people huffing and puffing and are filled with hard surfaces where the virus can survive for hours. Bowling alleys???
George Chidi offers a chillingly plausible interpretation for this order: Georgia has been stripping its social safety net to the frayed ends to keep taxes low and to hurt poor people. That's the clear priority of Republican social policy. Make being poor painful enough so that people will take any job and suffer any number of indignities to keep labor prices low for the convenience of richer people.
Georgia's unemployment funds will run out, and Kemp is trying to force people back to work so that he won't have to pay UI benefits. Even better, as Chidi lays out, if a beauty salon doesn't want to reopen, because the proprietor doesn't want to risk her life or the lives of her customers, then they are "voluntarily" out of work and don't qualify for UI benefits.
All these astroturf protests (again primarily if not exclusively targeting Democratic governors) are not about "freedom." They are about making people in various service industries risk their lives to provide conveniences for the moderately well-off.
As Adam Serwer has so eloquently summed up about Republican policy in Trumpistan: "The cruelty is the point."
Monday, April 20, 2020
It's 2016, It Will Always Be 2016
Dan Drezner hits on an important truth: Donald Trump is in a terrible position for reelection. We've got enough polling to see that Biden currently enjoys a roughly 6 point lead over Trump. This is significant because Trump is "enjoying" some of the highest job approval ratings of his presidency from the tail end of a rally-around-the-flag effect from the Covid-19 crisis.
As Drezner points out, the news is not going to get better for Team Trump anytime soon. Even if - and this is impossible - we had a cure tomorrow that could be given to everyone on the planet in the next three weeks, the economy will still take a year or two to recover. Trump's botched handling of the pandemic in February will come under more scrutiny, not less, once this is over. The odds that his administration has not engaged is mob style extortion of states is near zero. The odds that someone in his administration has not personally profited off this crisis is near zero. Once the crisis ebbs a little, state governments will be free to actually relate the behavior of the Trumpists. Right now, they have to have a little deference so that they can still get needed medical equipment and PPE.
Trump broke punditry in 2016, when he pulled off the impossible. He not only won fewer votes than Hillary Clinton, he won fewer votes than Mitt Romney did in 2012. He managed to run an inside straight and break the Blue Wall of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Since then, both states have trended away from the GOP. In 2018, Pennsylvania went from a 13-5 GOP House delegation to a 9-9 split. This was because of redistricting, but Democrats won 500,000 more votes than the GOP in PA in 2018 (55%). In Michigan, Democrats won the popular vote by 300,000 votes (52%). In Wisconsin, Democrats won by about 200,000 votes (53%). Let's keep going. Democrats won 50.3% of the vote in Arizona. They won 50.5% in Iowa. They were within striking distance in North Carolina, Georgia and, yes, Texas.
Meanwhile, the President has been impeached, botched a pandemic response and the economy is in the shitter.
In 2016, Trump made a pitch of "What do you have to lose?" We now know the answer to that, and while Cult 45 will continue to make noise, Trump is losing.
As Drezner points out, the news is not going to get better for Team Trump anytime soon. Even if - and this is impossible - we had a cure tomorrow that could be given to everyone on the planet in the next three weeks, the economy will still take a year or two to recover. Trump's botched handling of the pandemic in February will come under more scrutiny, not less, once this is over. The odds that his administration has not engaged is mob style extortion of states is near zero. The odds that someone in his administration has not personally profited off this crisis is near zero. Once the crisis ebbs a little, state governments will be free to actually relate the behavior of the Trumpists. Right now, they have to have a little deference so that they can still get needed medical equipment and PPE.
Trump broke punditry in 2016, when he pulled off the impossible. He not only won fewer votes than Hillary Clinton, he won fewer votes than Mitt Romney did in 2012. He managed to run an inside straight and break the Blue Wall of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Since then, both states have trended away from the GOP. In 2018, Pennsylvania went from a 13-5 GOP House delegation to a 9-9 split. This was because of redistricting, but Democrats won 500,000 more votes than the GOP in PA in 2018 (55%). In Michigan, Democrats won the popular vote by 300,000 votes (52%). In Wisconsin, Democrats won by about 200,000 votes (53%). Let's keep going. Democrats won 50.3% of the vote in Arizona. They won 50.5% in Iowa. They were within striking distance in North Carolina, Georgia and, yes, Texas.
Meanwhile, the President has been impeached, botched a pandemic response and the economy is in the shitter.
In 2016, Trump made a pitch of "What do you have to lose?" We now know the answer to that, and while Cult 45 will continue to make noise, Trump is losing.
Sunday, April 19, 2020
Death Cult
I keep writing about this, because "conservatives" won't let me stop: anti-governmental ideologues are going to get people killed. The modern, reactionary, anti-government movement known as the Republican Party's base has its roots in the John Birch Society and the Confederacy, but it remains stubbornly a part of American politics. It very likely will kill a bunch of Americans.
If you haven't seen it, reactionary astroturf groups of planned protests have targeted state capitols with Democratic governors. No protests (that I've seen) have targeted Republican governors who have done the exact same thing. They are the logical outgrowth of reactionary commentators on TV saying that "the cure can't be worse than the disease," in terms of shuttering the economy to defeat the coronavirus. Republicans know that the worse the economy is in November, the worse their electoral outcomes. They are laying the groundwork now to blame the economy on Democrats. I doubt it will work, but that's the plan. These are the same groups that funded the Tea Party in 2010, and they are clearly trying to recapture that political moment.
Opening the economy is, of course, a terrible idea advanced by profoundly stupid and/or cynical people. If Larry Kudlow is advocating something, you can be reasonably sure it's wrong. As people have said, opening the economy prematurely will only cause it to crater later when we get mass hotspots again. The most efficient countries at fighting this have had to practice a form of modulated closures, responding to real-time evidence of outbreaks.
What's more, the American people are pretty damned supportive of social distancing measure. By a two-to-one margin, Pew Research found that people were more concerned about ending social distancing too soon, rather than having it linger too long.
The problem, however, is twofold. First, the epistemological closure of the Right is fairly airtight by this point. Republicans and Republican leaners get most of their information from outlets like Fox News. Fox News is pushing the message to re-open the economy, so the 66% of Americans who want to be safe will likely erode as they are exposed to more and more QAnon theories about "fascist power grabs" by governors just trying to keep their citizens safe. What is now a fringe band of lunatics will likely grow out of motivated partisan reasoning. If you're a reactionary Republican, you are going to believe what your cohort tells you to believe.
The second problem is more profound. Frankly, I can't help but wish that these fucknuts out there get sick. All these yahoos whining about not being able to get their hair cut and colored or to fertilize their lawns (I'm not making that up), should get sick. I hate that their stupidity is making me wish pain and suffering and even death among my fellow human beings, but if the karmavirus gets them, so be it. If someone gets stinking drunk and drives into a tree, that's sad, but choices have a way of manifesting themselves. The problem is that these yahoos will keep the virus alive and in circulation, so that we can't reduce it's spread.
We've seen what good results look like. Until we get a vaccine, we know what we have to do: test and track. We need to keep the R0 of the disease below 1 - which is to say, we need to try and keep everyone who has the virus from passing it on to more than one person. That is only done through incredibly rigorous testing and tracking of contacts. A competent government would hire the millions of currently unemployed Americans to manage the grunt work of this process. Instead, the reactionary fucknuts are going to make sure that we can't get the R0 below 1. Every tailgate party, every astroturfed protest movement, every evangelical megachurch service will be another hotspot that will keep the virus circulating.
If there was a way for only the tragically stupid to die from this, I say, "Have at it. Yes, most of you will survive, but a horrifically large number of you won't. But whatever, please proceed." It doesn't work that way.
The dumbshits will infect us all, against our will with their stupidity virus.
If you haven't seen it, reactionary astroturf groups of planned protests have targeted state capitols with Democratic governors. No protests (that I've seen) have targeted Republican governors who have done the exact same thing. They are the logical outgrowth of reactionary commentators on TV saying that "the cure can't be worse than the disease," in terms of shuttering the economy to defeat the coronavirus. Republicans know that the worse the economy is in November, the worse their electoral outcomes. They are laying the groundwork now to blame the economy on Democrats. I doubt it will work, but that's the plan. These are the same groups that funded the Tea Party in 2010, and they are clearly trying to recapture that political moment.
Opening the economy is, of course, a terrible idea advanced by profoundly stupid and/or cynical people. If Larry Kudlow is advocating something, you can be reasonably sure it's wrong. As people have said, opening the economy prematurely will only cause it to crater later when we get mass hotspots again. The most efficient countries at fighting this have had to practice a form of modulated closures, responding to real-time evidence of outbreaks.
What's more, the American people are pretty damned supportive of social distancing measure. By a two-to-one margin, Pew Research found that people were more concerned about ending social distancing too soon, rather than having it linger too long.
The problem, however, is twofold. First, the epistemological closure of the Right is fairly airtight by this point. Republicans and Republican leaners get most of their information from outlets like Fox News. Fox News is pushing the message to re-open the economy, so the 66% of Americans who want to be safe will likely erode as they are exposed to more and more QAnon theories about "fascist power grabs" by governors just trying to keep their citizens safe. What is now a fringe band of lunatics will likely grow out of motivated partisan reasoning. If you're a reactionary Republican, you are going to believe what your cohort tells you to believe.
The second problem is more profound. Frankly, I can't help but wish that these fucknuts out there get sick. All these yahoos whining about not being able to get their hair cut and colored or to fertilize their lawns (I'm not making that up), should get sick. I hate that their stupidity is making me wish pain and suffering and even death among my fellow human beings, but if the karmavirus gets them, so be it. If someone gets stinking drunk and drives into a tree, that's sad, but choices have a way of manifesting themselves. The problem is that these yahoos will keep the virus alive and in circulation, so that we can't reduce it's spread.
We've seen what good results look like. Until we get a vaccine, we know what we have to do: test and track. We need to keep the R0 of the disease below 1 - which is to say, we need to try and keep everyone who has the virus from passing it on to more than one person. That is only done through incredibly rigorous testing and tracking of contacts. A competent government would hire the millions of currently unemployed Americans to manage the grunt work of this process. Instead, the reactionary fucknuts are going to make sure that we can't get the R0 below 1. Every tailgate party, every astroturfed protest movement, every evangelical megachurch service will be another hotspot that will keep the virus circulating.
If there was a way for only the tragically stupid to die from this, I say, "Have at it. Yes, most of you will survive, but a horrifically large number of you won't. But whatever, please proceed." It doesn't work that way.
The dumbshits will infect us all, against our will with their stupidity virus.
Saturday, April 18, 2020
Testing And Tracking
Here is a good explainer as to why Germany has been a positive outlier in terms of its Covid-19 cases and deaths. They make an apples to apples comparison with France that shows why France has 165,000 confirmed cases and 18,000 deceased whereas Germany has 138,000 cases and only 4,000 deceased.
Firstly, the more people you have tested, the more cases you find, the lower the percentage of deaths caused by the disease. Germany, South Korea, Taiwan...these countries have a much, much better handle on who has actually been infected. France's number of people actually infected by the coronavirus is almost certainly much higher. A California antibody study suggests as much, and this is consistent with everything we know about this disease.
Secondly, when you know who has the disease, you can do a much better job of tracking them and their contacts. You can then isolate people before they become symptomatic.
All of this is to suggest that if you want to get a handle on this pandemic, you are going to need a truly massive testing and tracking regimen. This will require a sustained and expensive effort by the national government.
Trump doesn't want to do that. Maybe he will cave - again - to his health advisors, but who the fuck knows at this point.
We know what we have to do. We have the evidence in front of us. The odds are 50-50 that we do it.
Firstly, the more people you have tested, the more cases you find, the lower the percentage of deaths caused by the disease. Germany, South Korea, Taiwan...these countries have a much, much better handle on who has actually been infected. France's number of people actually infected by the coronavirus is almost certainly much higher. A California antibody study suggests as much, and this is consistent with everything we know about this disease.
Secondly, when you know who has the disease, you can do a much better job of tracking them and their contacts. You can then isolate people before they become symptomatic.
All of this is to suggest that if you want to get a handle on this pandemic, you are going to need a truly massive testing and tracking regimen. This will require a sustained and expensive effort by the national government.
Trump doesn't want to do that. Maybe he will cave - again - to his health advisors, but who the fuck knows at this point.
We know what we have to do. We have the evidence in front of us. The odds are 50-50 that we do it.
Friday, April 17, 2020
If You Want To Understand Trumpistan...
...read this book.
I'm only 80 pages in The Fifth Risk by Michael "The Big Short" Lewis, but it's an unbelievably prescient look at where we are in 2020 that was published back in 2018. It's essentially about the Trump Transition of 2016-17, but really it exposes the impact that the awful nexus of ideology and stupidity that typifies Trumpist politics is having on our government's ability to do its job.
Covid-19 and the botched response was almost inevitable.
I'm only 80 pages in The Fifth Risk by Michael "The Big Short" Lewis, but it's an unbelievably prescient look at where we are in 2020 that was published back in 2018. It's essentially about the Trump Transition of 2016-17, but really it exposes the impact that the awful nexus of ideology and stupidity that typifies Trumpist politics is having on our government's ability to do its job.
Covid-19 and the botched response was almost inevitable.
Uncle Joe
Martin Longman does a nice job explaining Joe Biden's strengths as a candidate. Biden's a genuinely nice guy, invested in the people he meets. He's a classic "people person." (For the record, I don't currently believe the allegations of sexual assault against him. Way too many red flags. And the Rule of Thumb is: there is always more than one. Biden DOES get into people's personal space, which is weird, but not creepy.)
Biden's essential normalness is his great calling card against Trump's abnormality. Biden will need to demonstrate that he can remain disciplined in his impromptu moments. Those have been tricky for him in the past. If he can just stay on script, hit his marks and be "good old Joe," he has a chance to rack up a sizable victory. I'm talking winning states like Arizona, Georgia and Texas.
The real trick will be his coattails and his ability to advance a "progressive" agenda (whatever the hell that means at any given moment). If he wins, he will inherit a smoldering wreck of an economy and the need to reinvent the federal bureaucracy and judiciary. He will need to re-invigorate America's standing in the world. To do that, he will need a team with vision and energy, because those really aren't his strong suits.
We elect a party, however, and Biden is showing a decent grasp of how to unify his.
Biden's essential normalness is his great calling card against Trump's abnormality. Biden will need to demonstrate that he can remain disciplined in his impromptu moments. Those have been tricky for him in the past. If he can just stay on script, hit his marks and be "good old Joe," he has a chance to rack up a sizable victory. I'm talking winning states like Arizona, Georgia and Texas.
The real trick will be his coattails and his ability to advance a "progressive" agenda (whatever the hell that means at any given moment). If he wins, he will inherit a smoldering wreck of an economy and the need to reinvent the federal bureaucracy and judiciary. He will need to re-invigorate America's standing in the world. To do that, he will need a team with vision and energy, because those really aren't his strong suits.
We elect a party, however, and Biden is showing a decent grasp of how to unify his.
Thursday, April 16, 2020
Chilling
Here are two stories worth your time.
First, we have an analysis of how we are most likely dramatically undercounting those who have died both of Covid-19 and "excess deaths" caused by an overburdened health care system.
The second is an examination of just how daunting a safe re-opening of the country will be.
Combined, we can see that Covid-19 is way more dangerous than flu and having impacts beyond what we are seeing in the already very high body counts. What it will take to get back to "normal" is a mobilization of national will and resources that are clearly beyond the current administration's interest or capability.
First, we have an analysis of how we are most likely dramatically undercounting those who have died both of Covid-19 and "excess deaths" caused by an overburdened health care system.
The second is an examination of just how daunting a safe re-opening of the country will be.
Combined, we can see that Covid-19 is way more dangerous than flu and having impacts beyond what we are seeing in the already very high body counts. What it will take to get back to "normal" is a mobilization of national will and resources that are clearly beyond the current administration's interest or capability.
Flopsweat Of Paranoia
The WaPo runs down three "conspiracy theories" about the virus that have circulated primarily in conservative media. The first theory - that some of my students threw at me back in late January and early February - is that Covid-19 was produced in a military lab and released on purpose. Missing from this is any explanation of why the Chinese military would want to destroy their own economy.
The second theory is perhaps more plausible, that it escaped from a lab by accident. This could have happened, but there's simply no evidence for it. The final statement is true, that China hid information about the virus early on. The latter two will likely be Trump's attempt to deflect criticism of the extraordinary death toll in the United States. There very well may have been a lab in Wuhan studying what we now call Covid-19. There's no evidence of it, but we need to study those viruses, for reasons that should be pretty damned apparent now. Of course, if they were studying the virus and it escaped, they would - you know - have a bunch of information about the virus because they were studying it.
China trying to hide what happened is a phenomenon we are seeing from all sorts of authoritarian regimes. Putin was trying to bluff his way through it, Iran's death toll is almost certainly a lie. These countries and others are used to lying to their people, and have the apparatus to do so. Trump has Fox and OANN and the sycophancy of one of the two major political parties. That's not nothing. But he can't control the NY state health department. He can't silence doctors the way China silenced the whistleblowing doctor from Wuhan.
The economy continues to crater. The virus might be levelling off, but that only tempts people to reopen the economy too soon, which could have disastrous results. Trump and the GOP will have to train fire against someone else to hide their own culpability, and China will be the likely target. Some of it will be accurate and a small bit will be deserved. But ultimately the virus came here from Europe. And there's no escaping facts at this time.
The second theory is perhaps more plausible, that it escaped from a lab by accident. This could have happened, but there's simply no evidence for it. The final statement is true, that China hid information about the virus early on. The latter two will likely be Trump's attempt to deflect criticism of the extraordinary death toll in the United States. There very well may have been a lab in Wuhan studying what we now call Covid-19. There's no evidence of it, but we need to study those viruses, for reasons that should be pretty damned apparent now. Of course, if they were studying the virus and it escaped, they would - you know - have a bunch of information about the virus because they were studying it.
China trying to hide what happened is a phenomenon we are seeing from all sorts of authoritarian regimes. Putin was trying to bluff his way through it, Iran's death toll is almost certainly a lie. These countries and others are used to lying to their people, and have the apparatus to do so. Trump has Fox and OANN and the sycophancy of one of the two major political parties. That's not nothing. But he can't control the NY state health department. He can't silence doctors the way China silenced the whistleblowing doctor from Wuhan.
The economy continues to crater. The virus might be levelling off, but that only tempts people to reopen the economy too soon, which could have disastrous results. Trump and the GOP will have to train fire against someone else to hide their own culpability, and China will be the likely target. Some of it will be accurate and a small bit will be deserved. But ultimately the virus came here from Europe. And there's no escaping facts at this time.
Wednesday, April 15, 2020
Deaths Of Despair
This is a blunt and brutal look at the hidden epidemic of death among white Americans without a four year degree (WWC). They analyze the deaths among the WWC from suicide, drug overdoses and alcohol-related liver disease. It's sobering, and it explains some of the nihilism that we see from that cohort, and why some of them lash out by supporting someone who doesn't care for them, but at least hates in the same direction they hate. For WWC people, the America of the college educated is simply not the same country many of them live in.
(I should take a moment, that this is not the same as the Brooklyn based podcaster who flames people on Twitter for saying that a vote for Joe Biden is a vote to kill Americans. They aren't WWC, as most of them are four-year college graduates. They are roughly right in what is wrong with America, though perhaps they see it in unrealistic terms. Certainly their prescription for fixing America is badly flawed, in terms of creating a coalition for change.)
Anyway, one of the things public health officials are struggling with with Covid-19 is how to count "added deaths." We have deaths from Covid-19 that happen in the home without a diagnosis. We also have people who have other health emergencies like heart attacks who die from the lack of care from an overwhelmed healthcare system.
Now, we need to think about the added deaths of despair. There is a tendency to look at this entirely through the lens of economics. Certainly the authors look at wage stagnation and health care issues, and the interviewer (it is Vox, after all) wants to keep pushing it back towards economics. And certainly economics is a huge part of it.
But the erosion of social connectivity feels like it's an essential part of what's driving the deaths of despair. It's not simply stagnant wages and economic insecurity. Those things occur everywhere. Perhaps it is the problem of being poor in a rich country, but that has been true of communities of color forever. It strikes me that we absolutely must address economic inequality, but that doing so is unlikely to fully solve the problem.
(I should take a moment, that this is not the same as the Brooklyn based podcaster who flames people on Twitter for saying that a vote for Joe Biden is a vote to kill Americans. They aren't WWC, as most of them are four-year college graduates. They are roughly right in what is wrong with America, though perhaps they see it in unrealistic terms. Certainly their prescription for fixing America is badly flawed, in terms of creating a coalition for change.)
Anyway, one of the things public health officials are struggling with with Covid-19 is how to count "added deaths." We have deaths from Covid-19 that happen in the home without a diagnosis. We also have people who have other health emergencies like heart attacks who die from the lack of care from an overwhelmed healthcare system.
Now, we need to think about the added deaths of despair. There is a tendency to look at this entirely through the lens of economics. Certainly the authors look at wage stagnation and health care issues, and the interviewer (it is Vox, after all) wants to keep pushing it back towards economics. And certainly economics is a huge part of it.
But the erosion of social connectivity feels like it's an essential part of what's driving the deaths of despair. It's not simply stagnant wages and economic insecurity. Those things occur everywhere. Perhaps it is the problem of being poor in a rich country, but that has been true of communities of color forever. It strikes me that we absolutely must address economic inequality, but that doing so is unlikely to fully solve the problem.
Tuesday, April 14, 2020
The Narcissist In Chief Is Decompensating
Yesterday's shitshow of a presidential briefing was...quite something. I don't watch them, but rather I wait for the clips to percolate out through Twitter and other formats. The obvious question is how much of the profound wrongness of Trump's ideas and behavior are settling into the minds of Americans who are not otherwise in Cult 45.
The unacknowledged fact that too many of our pundits, media figures and politicians refuse to speak is that Trump is OBVIOUSLY a malignant narcissist. Goldwater Rule...whatever, you only need to look at the DSM-V definition, and it's like it was written specifically for Trump. The problem is that narcissists create fictional narratives about themselves that feed into their self-image.
As this rather brilliant interview explains, we have lived all of our lives through a "mediated" existence. We have the freedom to do what we want, watch what we want when we want, eat the food we want...that wasn't true for much of human history. The virus has snapped us back to the reality that we aren't able to control everything.
The virus doesn't care. This is true for all of us, but it lands with crushing force on a narcissist, who relies on the narrative that he's great and everyone (who matters) loves him. If you don't love Trump, you're fake news or nasty or not a real Murican. As the economy continues to crater and people continue to die, Trump will become more and more unhinged. The virus doesn't care about his approval rating with self-identifying Republicans. Certainly the results from Wisconsin should scare Republicans.
Decompensating narcissists can be extraordinarily destructive, especially when wedded to the powers of the presidency and the completely slavish loyalty of an entire political party.
Cool. We need that right now.
The unacknowledged fact that too many of our pundits, media figures and politicians refuse to speak is that Trump is OBVIOUSLY a malignant narcissist. Goldwater Rule...whatever, you only need to look at the DSM-V definition, and it's like it was written specifically for Trump. The problem is that narcissists create fictional narratives about themselves that feed into their self-image.
As this rather brilliant interview explains, we have lived all of our lives through a "mediated" existence. We have the freedom to do what we want, watch what we want when we want, eat the food we want...that wasn't true for much of human history. The virus has snapped us back to the reality that we aren't able to control everything.
The virus doesn't care. This is true for all of us, but it lands with crushing force on a narcissist, who relies on the narrative that he's great and everyone (who matters) loves him. If you don't love Trump, you're fake news or nasty or not a real Murican. As the economy continues to crater and people continue to die, Trump will become more and more unhinged. The virus doesn't care about his approval rating with self-identifying Republicans. Certainly the results from Wisconsin should scare Republicans.
Decompensating narcissists can be extraordinarily destructive, especially when wedded to the powers of the presidency and the completely slavish loyalty of an entire political party.
Cool. We need that right now.
Monday, April 13, 2020
Saving The Economy
Trump and Republicans say it is their main priority, but I doubt their philosophy or competency will lead them in a direction that will do that. We have a pretty good idea WHAT to do, we just won't do i with Republicans at the helm.
Sunday, April 12, 2020
Jesus, These People
The Trumpists want to get rid of the Post Office now. Anyone want to bet they are buying shares of FedEx and UPS? For decades - really started with a campaign to draft Henry Ford in the 1920s - a certain segment of Americans have barracked for having a businessman as president. That the government should be run "like a business."
While the pandemic proves just how wrong that thinking is, Republicans will double down on it, because that's all they know. A government's job - at least since the 1930s - is to provide a foundation that supports the country as a whole. Hospitals can't justify having too many rooms or ventilators, so the government's job is to back up the system with redundancies. Trump was musing about how it didn't make any sense that hospitals that only have a half dozen ventilators suddenly needed hundreds.
That's because Trump - and really almost the entirety of the modern GOP - doesn't understand why we have a government. Trump IS running the US government like a business, and like one of his businesses, he will just bankrupt it, fire everyone and walk away.
The Post Office is a public good. It exists for everyone, but especially the poorer segments of society. The Republicans have been trying to kill it with unreasonable pension rules for decades. Democrats - like Elizabeth Warren - want to revitalize it by turning it into a financial institution that could replace predatory pay-day loan sharks.
There are a million differences between the Republicans and Democrats for all those coddled fucking anti-Biden idiots. You want another one? There it is.
While the pandemic proves just how wrong that thinking is, Republicans will double down on it, because that's all they know. A government's job - at least since the 1930s - is to provide a foundation that supports the country as a whole. Hospitals can't justify having too many rooms or ventilators, so the government's job is to back up the system with redundancies. Trump was musing about how it didn't make any sense that hospitals that only have a half dozen ventilators suddenly needed hundreds.
That's because Trump - and really almost the entirety of the modern GOP - doesn't understand why we have a government. Trump IS running the US government like a business, and like one of his businesses, he will just bankrupt it, fire everyone and walk away.
The Post Office is a public good. It exists for everyone, but especially the poorer segments of society. The Republicans have been trying to kill it with unreasonable pension rules for decades. Democrats - like Elizabeth Warren - want to revitalize it by turning it into a financial institution that could replace predatory pay-day loan sharks.
There are a million differences between the Republicans and Democrats for all those coddled fucking anti-Biden idiots. You want another one? There it is.
Saturday, April 11, 2020
China
The United States currently has the most cases of Covid-19 and the most deaths according to the source I've been using. Skeptics will point out two things. One, we don't really have an accurate count of who is being killed by this virus. There are both the additional deaths caused by the overloading of the health care systems around the world and the fact that people have likely died of the virus without authorities knowing that it was the virus. The second objection is that China's numbers are almost certainly false.
China screwed up the initial response to Covid-19, though to be fair, they were the first that HAD to deal with it. Since then, most of the sniping between Washington and Beijing has been a continuation of the friction that has existed since Trump's election.
China will also be the laboratory for what happens when we re-open after lockdown. As a result, we need to make sure that the information coming out of China is accurate. I don't have any great ideas about that, but it needs to happen.
Finally, we have good news on a potential vaccine. Usually, it takes over a year to bring a vaccine to bear, but these are not usual times, and I imagine that we will see the vaccine fast-tracked to market. Also, it looks like doctors are coming up with better treatments, like Remdesivir, and various therapies like pronating patients to keep them from being intubated.
As that happens and we hopefully put this plague down, we need to start thinking about the next one, before the usual collective amnesia sets in. Again, that will focus on China. As the article at the link suggests, the "wet markets" are part of the problem, but that term is used a bit too indiscriminately. How can China maintain these markets - which are a vital part of keeping their population fed - and enforce hygiene standards that will stop a future outbreak?
This is a global problem that will require helping China find the resources to solve it. Trump's nativism and his natural impulse to pull up the drawbridge and man the walls simply won't work. Like climate change, pandemic preparedness requires everything Trump doesn't have:
- A respect for experts.
- Multilateral agreements and cooperation with other countries.
- A functioning government.
China screwed up the initial response to Covid-19, though to be fair, they were the first that HAD to deal with it. Since then, most of the sniping between Washington and Beijing has been a continuation of the friction that has existed since Trump's election.
China will also be the laboratory for what happens when we re-open after lockdown. As a result, we need to make sure that the information coming out of China is accurate. I don't have any great ideas about that, but it needs to happen.
Finally, we have good news on a potential vaccine. Usually, it takes over a year to bring a vaccine to bear, but these are not usual times, and I imagine that we will see the vaccine fast-tracked to market. Also, it looks like doctors are coming up with better treatments, like Remdesivir, and various therapies like pronating patients to keep them from being intubated.
As that happens and we hopefully put this plague down, we need to start thinking about the next one, before the usual collective amnesia sets in. Again, that will focus on China. As the article at the link suggests, the "wet markets" are part of the problem, but that term is used a bit too indiscriminately. How can China maintain these markets - which are a vital part of keeping their population fed - and enforce hygiene standards that will stop a future outbreak?
This is a global problem that will require helping China find the resources to solve it. Trump's nativism and his natural impulse to pull up the drawbridge and man the walls simply won't work. Like climate change, pandemic preparedness requires everything Trump doesn't have:
- A respect for experts.
- Multilateral agreements and cooperation with other countries.
- A functioning government.
Friday, April 10, 2020
The Rules Of Trumpistan
There are a few axiomatic rules that you can count on here in Trumpistan:
- Every accusation is a confession.
- If you're trying to determine if something was done out of stupidity or evil intent, flip a coin.
- Never trust a word he says.
- The worst and most stupid explanation usually turns out to be the correct one.
That last one is particularly of interest to me, because of a story that Josh Marshall has been trying to track down at TPM. The basic fact appears to be that PPE, ventilators and other medical equipment that is being ordered by states and hospitals is getting confiscated when it arrives in the country. The assumption is that FEMA was seizing it, and - perhaps, see rule #2 - sending it to the hardest hit areas.
Except the hardest hit areas, are urban centers and Trump doesn't care about cities. Not enough Trump voters there. And those areas continue to assert that they aren't getting the supplies they need.
The are basically three questions.
1) Just how much of these supplies have been confiscated?
2) By whom?
3) And why?
Now let's return to Rule 4 of Trumpistan: The worst and most stupid explanation usually turns out to be the correct one.
Under normal circumstances, one would assume that FEMA or some other entity like HHS was seizing these supplies and sending them where they are most needed, like NY/NJ, Louisiana and Michigan. However, all three of those states (and California and Washington where the seizures were first reported) have Democratic governors. And even Florida has a shipment of thermometers seized.
Since it's Trumpistan, there is no telling who seized these supplies and for what purpose.
It's worth recalling Jared Kushner's statement that the federal emergency stockpile was "theirs" and not the states. We have a situation where states were told to fend for themselves, then the Feds come in and seize their supplies anyway.
It's impossible not to entertain the possibility that Trump and/or Kushner is using their ability to seize medical supplies for their personal or political advantage. Trump is systematically firing Inspector Generals who might discover if this is being done for corrupt purposes.
And why wouldn't it be? Trump sought to bend the Justice and State Departments to his re-election needs. He was impeached for that, but his acquittal was basically a green light to keep doing crimes to stay in office.
Obviously, until we know the answers to the first two questions, we can't know that there is any corruption going on. We do know that corruption is the currency of Trumpistan. "Is it irresponsible to speculate? It's irresponsible not to."
- Every accusation is a confession.
- If you're trying to determine if something was done out of stupidity or evil intent, flip a coin.
- Never trust a word he says.
- The worst and most stupid explanation usually turns out to be the correct one.
That last one is particularly of interest to me, because of a story that Josh Marshall has been trying to track down at TPM. The basic fact appears to be that PPE, ventilators and other medical equipment that is being ordered by states and hospitals is getting confiscated when it arrives in the country. The assumption is that FEMA was seizing it, and - perhaps, see rule #2 - sending it to the hardest hit areas.
Except the hardest hit areas, are urban centers and Trump doesn't care about cities. Not enough Trump voters there. And those areas continue to assert that they aren't getting the supplies they need.
The are basically three questions.
1) Just how much of these supplies have been confiscated?
2) By whom?
3) And why?
Now let's return to Rule 4 of Trumpistan: The worst and most stupid explanation usually turns out to be the correct one.
Under normal circumstances, one would assume that FEMA or some other entity like HHS was seizing these supplies and sending them where they are most needed, like NY/NJ, Louisiana and Michigan. However, all three of those states (and California and Washington where the seizures were first reported) have Democratic governors. And even Florida has a shipment of thermometers seized.
Since it's Trumpistan, there is no telling who seized these supplies and for what purpose.
It's worth recalling Jared Kushner's statement that the federal emergency stockpile was "theirs" and not the states. We have a situation where states were told to fend for themselves, then the Feds come in and seize their supplies anyway.
It's impossible not to entertain the possibility that Trump and/or Kushner is using their ability to seize medical supplies for their personal or political advantage. Trump is systematically firing Inspector Generals who might discover if this is being done for corrupt purposes.
And why wouldn't it be? Trump sought to bend the Justice and State Departments to his re-election needs. He was impeached for that, but his acquittal was basically a green light to keep doing crimes to stay in office.
Obviously, until we know the answers to the first two questions, we can't know that there is any corruption going on. We do know that corruption is the currency of Trumpistan. "Is it irresponsible to speculate? It's irresponsible not to."
Thursday, April 9, 2020
The Hollow State
It's going to be a Depression level economic event. While certain actors like the Federal Reserve have taken positive steps and the government is no longer shackled to 19th century ideas like Hoover was, the fact is it's going to get grim for a lot of people.
The last large assistance package from the federal government was considered a down-payment. The direct cash payments were...OK. The real aid was in the form of unemployment insurance. That is the automatic stabilizer built in after the last Great Depression. But the job losses have been so sudden and so profound, the whole system has broken down.
You combine this with two trends: a reduction in the size and competency of state and federal governments and the philosophically sclerotic position of the Republican Party. The contempt for both the poor and a functioning safety net was politically manageable when unemployment was around 3%; it is simply unsustainable at 20%.
The campaign slogan for Democrats every election should be "Elect a Republican; get a recession."
The last large assistance package from the federal government was considered a down-payment. The direct cash payments were...OK. The real aid was in the form of unemployment insurance. That is the automatic stabilizer built in after the last Great Depression. But the job losses have been so sudden and so profound, the whole system has broken down.
You combine this with two trends: a reduction in the size and competency of state and federal governments and the philosophically sclerotic position of the Republican Party. The contempt for both the poor and a functioning safety net was politically manageable when unemployment was around 3%; it is simply unsustainable at 20%.
The campaign slogan for Democrats every election should be "Elect a Republican; get a recession."
Wednesday, April 8, 2020
Yesterday Was Hard
Yesterday, I learned of the death of a friend from Covid-19, followed by the death of John Prine.
Jerry Reveron was hired to be the food service director of our school after we made a multi-million dollar investment into a new, state-of-the-art dining facility. He was a lauded chef and created a food culture in a boarding school - which if you went to boarding school back when I did would have been considered an impossibility. He lived excellence. There's no other way to describe him. He could apparently be a hard man to work for, if you weren't also committed to excellence.
One of the best nights of the year was when we would be invited to dine with the trustees. Jerry would put on a feast that still gets my mouth watering thinking about. He interacted with students and teachers and guests. He talked food with anyone. He taught cooking classes for faculty and students alike. I never knew him as being anything by delightful.
I never obviously knew John Prine. I think people have a John Prine moment, if they're lucky. Aside from Angel from Montgomery, his songs aren't the type to climb Billboard charts. Prine comes from a recommendation from a friend. I can't recall if it was my friend Karen or my sister who first gave me a tape with Prine's songs on it.
His voice was wry and warm, funny and sad. As I said to a friend on Facebook, John Prine was a good musician, a great storyteller and a transcendent humanist. His obvious joy and humor especially in the face of life's absurdities made him a touchstone for people who heard his music. As I said to my sister, John Prine was the guy you hoped would sit next to you at the bar. He'd be funny, he'd be kind, he'd listen, he'd spin a yarn.
The outpouring of grief for Prine was real. He was, for me, a guy I knew for a while a long time ago, whose voice helped me when things were mostly shitty. Re-listening to his music in the wake of his death, I'm even more awestruck with the wisdom in his words that I couldn't see in my 20s.
Two good people that I knew died of this fucking disease yesterday. Multitudes more good people that I didn't know died of this fucking disease yesterday. And it's going to get worse over the next three weeks. New York might be beginning to get better, but the rest of the country is in for a hell of a time. More good people are going to die of this. More good people are going to die of otherwise preventable events because the hospitals are overloaded.
Yesterday was hard. Tomorrow isn't likely to bring respite.
Jerry Reveron was hired to be the food service director of our school after we made a multi-million dollar investment into a new, state-of-the-art dining facility. He was a lauded chef and created a food culture in a boarding school - which if you went to boarding school back when I did would have been considered an impossibility. He lived excellence. There's no other way to describe him. He could apparently be a hard man to work for, if you weren't also committed to excellence.
One of the best nights of the year was when we would be invited to dine with the trustees. Jerry would put on a feast that still gets my mouth watering thinking about. He interacted with students and teachers and guests. He talked food with anyone. He taught cooking classes for faculty and students alike. I never knew him as being anything by delightful.
I never obviously knew John Prine. I think people have a John Prine moment, if they're lucky. Aside from Angel from Montgomery, his songs aren't the type to climb Billboard charts. Prine comes from a recommendation from a friend. I can't recall if it was my friend Karen or my sister who first gave me a tape with Prine's songs on it.
His voice was wry and warm, funny and sad. As I said to a friend on Facebook, John Prine was a good musician, a great storyteller and a transcendent humanist. His obvious joy and humor especially in the face of life's absurdities made him a touchstone for people who heard his music. As I said to my sister, John Prine was the guy you hoped would sit next to you at the bar. He'd be funny, he'd be kind, he'd listen, he'd spin a yarn.
The outpouring of grief for Prine was real. He was, for me, a guy I knew for a while a long time ago, whose voice helped me when things were mostly shitty. Re-listening to his music in the wake of his death, I'm even more awestruck with the wisdom in his words that I couldn't see in my 20s.
Two good people that I knew died of this fucking disease yesterday. Multitudes more good people that I didn't know died of this fucking disease yesterday. And it's going to get worse over the next three weeks. New York might be beginning to get better, but the rest of the country is in for a hell of a time. More good people are going to die of this. More good people are going to die of otherwise preventable events because the hospitals are overloaded.
Yesterday was hard. Tomorrow isn't likely to bring respite.
Tuesday, April 7, 2020
Using The Levers
Jon Chait is exactly right. As of this moment, the Republican Party is not desperate for additional economic stimulus, but in very short order they will be. ANY additional "must pass" legislation must come with a vigorous and enforceable system for remoting voting in November.
Republicans are increasingly hostile to the idea of democracy. There is simply no other way to put it. They have relied ever more increasingly on vote suppression and voter purges. What we are seeing right now is the terrible impact the virus is having on urban, poor communities of color. As far as the GOP is concerned...that's fine. They literally don't give a shit that New York is suffering. But it WILL come to their states. Florida and Georgia are discovering that now, and Texas figures to be close behind. You have to think that these megachurches will become little Ground Zeroes for spread.
When that happens, Democrats have to fight every impulse that some of them have to "meet in the middle." They need more people like Warren and Harris and others who are already realizing the balance of power is shifting back to the party with a plan. Focusing on securing a free and fair election in November is critically important. As we are seeing right now, having an incompetent reality TV star as president is a really dangerous idea.
Trump will lose a free and fair election, so he is invested in preventing one from happening. Democrats need to make that their top priority, even more than stimulating the economy.
Republicans are increasingly hostile to the idea of democracy. There is simply no other way to put it. They have relied ever more increasingly on vote suppression and voter purges. What we are seeing right now is the terrible impact the virus is having on urban, poor communities of color. As far as the GOP is concerned...that's fine. They literally don't give a shit that New York is suffering. But it WILL come to their states. Florida and Georgia are discovering that now, and Texas figures to be close behind. You have to think that these megachurches will become little Ground Zeroes for spread.
When that happens, Democrats have to fight every impulse that some of them have to "meet in the middle." They need more people like Warren and Harris and others who are already realizing the balance of power is shifting back to the party with a plan. Focusing on securing a free and fair election in November is critically important. As we are seeing right now, having an incompetent reality TV star as president is a really dangerous idea.
Trump will lose a free and fair election, so he is invested in preventing one from happening. Democrats need to make that their top priority, even more than stimulating the economy.
Monday, April 6, 2020
Germany
This graph is helpful for explaining why Germany's numbers look so good. Because they are testing just about everyone, they know everyone who is infected. Since many people have only mild or no symptoms, that gives a representative sample. That's one reason why Germany's mortality rate is so low. The deaths are out of a much larger number of infected.
However, the overall numbers are lower, too, because they have a much better idea who is infected, so that those people can isolate and not spread the illness.
Germany, Taiwan and South Korea have shown what every other country should have done. They aren't dictatorships locking down whole cities. They are just competent governments who made good choices in a timely manner.
However, the overall numbers are lower, too, because they have a much better idea who is infected, so that those people can isolate and not spread the illness.
Germany, Taiwan and South Korea have shown what every other country should have done. They aren't dictatorships locking down whole cities. They are just competent governments who made good choices in a timely manner.
Sunday, April 5, 2020
Foxes, Hedgehogs and Roadkill
The WaPo takes on the same issue I did the other day: the dearth of competence in the federal government. For good and bad reasons they take a certain "pox on both your houses" approach. It is difficult to plan for everything, and there are certainly examples of Democratic administrations being caught flat-footed. The article notes that the Clinton Administration really wasn't awake to the threat of Sunni Islamic terrorism (although I think that changed a lot after the USS Cole). In order to get the article sourced properly, they talked to a bunch of Bush 43 guys and needed that balance, I guess.
The problem is that this leaves unaddressed the metaphorical elephant in the room, namely the GOP's steady descent into a party that actively loathes experts and government. To the degree that government should exist, it should be to benefit the markets. This has taken its logical apotheosis in Trumpistan, as the Trump administration sees the proper role of government as benefitting Trump personally.
There is the famous metaphor of Foxes and Hedgehogs from Isaiah Berlin. Foxes know a little bit about a lot of things and this leaves them uncertain of what they really know. Hedgehogs know one big thing and use that lens for everything. Ideologues are - by definition - hedgehogs.
To use an example from the Left, Sanders' supporters are all over Twitter yammering on about universal, single payer health care in the age of Covid-19. This has been their focus since 2016. Unfortunately, universal health care exists in China, Italy and Spain and hasn't made a damned bit of difference in stopping the pandemic. What HAS worked are things that South Korea, Taiwan and Germany have done to track, isolate and mitigate. That's a public health competency, not about access or payment of coverage. But if you are a Sanders Hedgehog, you can't really see beyond "if you don't support Bernie, you want people to die of Covid-19."
The problem is that the GOP has become a party of Hedgehogs devoted to the idea that government exists to help markets and nothing more. It's not even libertarian. It's closer to a mercantilist/kleptocratic philosophy. I suppose we have to find room for the other species of hedgehog in the GOP: the evangelicals. The GOP's blinkered ideology has led to famous Trumpisms like "Who knew health care was so complicated?" Or it can be seen in Brian Kemp being surprised that asymptomatic people can shed the virus.
I recently ordered Michael Lewis' The Fifth Risk about how Trump has destroyed the bureaucratic competency of the federal government. It was obviously written before all this happened, but it's been a long-running goal of the GOP to - in Grover Norquist's words - shrink government to the size where you can drown it in a bathtub. Not only has Trump's active assault on what he falsely calls the "Deep State" led to mass resignations, he has staffed his maladministration with varying levels of incompetent "acting" officials. There is no one charge, so suddenly Jared Kushner is in charge.
In fact, the GOP has become so enamored of their one idea and the absolute falseness of anything that does not comply with it, that they have become something other than a hedgehog. If anything, they have become roadkill. They are the possum who freezes in the headlights of an oncoming car.
The problem is that this leaves unaddressed the metaphorical elephant in the room, namely the GOP's steady descent into a party that actively loathes experts and government. To the degree that government should exist, it should be to benefit the markets. This has taken its logical apotheosis in Trumpistan, as the Trump administration sees the proper role of government as benefitting Trump personally.
There is the famous metaphor of Foxes and Hedgehogs from Isaiah Berlin. Foxes know a little bit about a lot of things and this leaves them uncertain of what they really know. Hedgehogs know one big thing and use that lens for everything. Ideologues are - by definition - hedgehogs.
To use an example from the Left, Sanders' supporters are all over Twitter yammering on about universal, single payer health care in the age of Covid-19. This has been their focus since 2016. Unfortunately, universal health care exists in China, Italy and Spain and hasn't made a damned bit of difference in stopping the pandemic. What HAS worked are things that South Korea, Taiwan and Germany have done to track, isolate and mitigate. That's a public health competency, not about access or payment of coverage. But if you are a Sanders Hedgehog, you can't really see beyond "if you don't support Bernie, you want people to die of Covid-19."
The problem is that the GOP has become a party of Hedgehogs devoted to the idea that government exists to help markets and nothing more. It's not even libertarian. It's closer to a mercantilist/kleptocratic philosophy. I suppose we have to find room for the other species of hedgehog in the GOP: the evangelicals. The GOP's blinkered ideology has led to famous Trumpisms like "Who knew health care was so complicated?" Or it can be seen in Brian Kemp being surprised that asymptomatic people can shed the virus.
I recently ordered Michael Lewis' The Fifth Risk about how Trump has destroyed the bureaucratic competency of the federal government. It was obviously written before all this happened, but it's been a long-running goal of the GOP to - in Grover Norquist's words - shrink government to the size where you can drown it in a bathtub. Not only has Trump's active assault on what he falsely calls the "Deep State" led to mass resignations, he has staffed his maladministration with varying levels of incompetent "acting" officials. There is no one charge, so suddenly Jared Kushner is in charge.
In fact, the GOP has become so enamored of their one idea and the absolute falseness of anything that does not comply with it, that they have become something other than a hedgehog. If anything, they have become roadkill. They are the possum who freezes in the headlights of an oncoming car.
Saturday, April 4, 2020
Obama And Trump
There is no secret that Trump sees his entire purpose as overturning and undermining Obama at every step. It's therefore not surprising to see his media management style is also directly opposed to Obama. The Obama Administration famously did not care about the 24 hour news cycle. To them, "winning the day" was pointless; winning the argument was everything.
Trump, of course, is about "winning the day," with predictably disastrous results.
Trump, of course, is about "winning the day," with predictably disastrous results.
In Defense Of Competence
Journalism is the rough draft of history. This is the first attempt I've seen that takes a stab at the dysfunction and errors that have created this crisis.
Trump is exactly who he was when the Republican Party foisted him upon this country. Fundamentally narcissistic, deeply stupid, absolutely incompetent. This is a man who bankrupted companies that provided Americans with football, steaks and gambling. He is presiding over a party that is already deeply suspicious of the idea of public goods and competent governance, and then empowered the farthest reaches of that ideology within his maladministration.
Trump is the problem, sure, but the GOP is equally culpable in all this.
This is a helluva line for a straight news piece:
Of course, members of Cult 45 will dismiss this as fake news, but reality is out there, waiting.
Trump is exactly who he was when the Republican Party foisted him upon this country. Fundamentally narcissistic, deeply stupid, absolutely incompetent. This is a man who bankrupted companies that provided Americans with football, steaks and gambling. He is presiding over a party that is already deeply suspicious of the idea of public goods and competent governance, and then empowered the farthest reaches of that ideology within his maladministration.
Trump is the problem, sure, but the GOP is equally culpable in all this.
This is a helluva line for a straight news piece:
In reality, many of the failures to stem the coronavirus outbreak in the United States were either a result of, or exacerbated by, his leadership.
For weeks, he had barely uttered a word about the crisis that didn’t downplay its severity or propagate demonstrably false information. He dismissed the warnings of intelligence officials and top public health officials in his administration.
At times, he voiced far more authentic concern about the trajectory of the stock market than the spread of the virus in the United States, railing at the chairman of the Federal Reserve and others with an intensity that he never seemed to exhibit about the possible human toll of the outbreak.
Of course, members of Cult 45 will dismiss this as fake news, but reality is out there, waiting.
Friday, April 3, 2020
When America Was Good
I read this story this morning, and when I got to the end, I got choked up. It's about Pararescue Jumpers and a mission to save burned members of a freighter in the middle of the Atlantic. After saving their lives, they were made heroes in Slovenia.
On the Left in particular, there is a tendency to see America's actions abroad through their worst light. Certainly there are plenty of episodes in America's relations in the world that are bad. For every Korea, there's a Vietnam. For every campaign against ISIS, there's an Operation Iraqi Freedom. Yet there is at least an idea that American military might exists to serve a global good. This is perhaps especially true of the US Navy, whose mission it is to keep open shipping lanes around the world. When you get in trouble off the Horn of Africa or in the South China Sea, it will likely be the US Navy that comes to your aid.
Which is why this story is so appalling. We ask American serviceman and women to risk their lives for the national interest and for humanity at large, and at this critical moment, political actors in Washington are shitting on them. And don't think the sailors didn't notice. Their send-off for Capt Crozier should send chills down the spines of the very same political actors who seem to think they can spin their way out of the botching handling of the pandemic.
I watched this interview with Lt Gen Russel Honore, the man who took over the botched response to Hurricane Katrina, and his outrage over how this situation is being handled is incandescent.
I would guess we are about three weeks away from this thing sweeping through the rural and exurban South like Death's Scythe. There was a time we would be helping the world. Now we can't even help ourselves.
On the Left in particular, there is a tendency to see America's actions abroad through their worst light. Certainly there are plenty of episodes in America's relations in the world that are bad. For every Korea, there's a Vietnam. For every campaign against ISIS, there's an Operation Iraqi Freedom. Yet there is at least an idea that American military might exists to serve a global good. This is perhaps especially true of the US Navy, whose mission it is to keep open shipping lanes around the world. When you get in trouble off the Horn of Africa or in the South China Sea, it will likely be the US Navy that comes to your aid.
Which is why this story is so appalling. We ask American serviceman and women to risk their lives for the national interest and for humanity at large, and at this critical moment, political actors in Washington are shitting on them. And don't think the sailors didn't notice. Their send-off for Capt Crozier should send chills down the spines of the very same political actors who seem to think they can spin their way out of the botching handling of the pandemic.
I watched this interview with Lt Gen Russel Honore, the man who took over the botched response to Hurricane Katrina, and his outrage over how this situation is being handled is incandescent.
I would guess we are about three weeks away from this thing sweeping through the rural and exurban South like Death's Scythe. There was a time we would be helping the world. Now we can't even help ourselves.
Thursday, April 2, 2020
Hidden Deaths
The death toll for Covid-19 currently stands at 5113 in the US and 48,407 for the world.
This number is almost certainly a lowball estimate. Josh Marshall's crew at TPM has been examining what he calls the "hidden mortality." The idea is that we have deaths happening that are A) not being attributed to Covid-19 and B) people are dying from OTHER causes that could've been prevented if there hadn't been a pandemic. In time, we will likely be able to look at statistical modeling to determine roughly how many added deaths we have had, but as we have seen with Fox and other conservative media outlets, expert data is routinely ignored.
Let's say we have a "good" outcome of 100,000 deaths from Covid-19. According to what we have seen in Italy and Spain, we can't anticipate that there would be almost another 100,000 hidden deaths from hospital overload. This doesn't account for long term hidden mortality from issues like missing cancer or dialysis treatments, delayed diagnoses of serious illness, and frankly the mental health complications that we are going to see from this.
Some idiot on Twitter was pointing out that most of the deaths in the NYC area were accompanied by other health conditions like asthma, diabetes, cancer or heart and lung disease. His "point" was that Covid-19 wasn't really killing these people, but that their underlying health conditions were. This is precisely the wrong way to think about the health impact of this illness. We are going to be seeing a marked increase in the loss of human life that goes beyond the horror stories we are currently seeing in Queens.
This number is almost certainly a lowball estimate. Josh Marshall's crew at TPM has been examining what he calls the "hidden mortality." The idea is that we have deaths happening that are A) not being attributed to Covid-19 and B) people are dying from OTHER causes that could've been prevented if there hadn't been a pandemic. In time, we will likely be able to look at statistical modeling to determine roughly how many added deaths we have had, but as we have seen with Fox and other conservative media outlets, expert data is routinely ignored.
Let's say we have a "good" outcome of 100,000 deaths from Covid-19. According to what we have seen in Italy and Spain, we can't anticipate that there would be almost another 100,000 hidden deaths from hospital overload. This doesn't account for long term hidden mortality from issues like missing cancer or dialysis treatments, delayed diagnoses of serious illness, and frankly the mental health complications that we are going to see from this.
Some idiot on Twitter was pointing out that most of the deaths in the NYC area were accompanied by other health conditions like asthma, diabetes, cancer or heart and lung disease. His "point" was that Covid-19 wasn't really killing these people, but that their underlying health conditions were. This is precisely the wrong way to think about the health impact of this illness. We are going to be seeing a marked increase in the loss of human life that goes beyond the horror stories we are currently seeing in Queens.
Wednesday, April 1, 2020
The Other Important Test
Much has rightly been made about America's lack of testing capacity for Covid-19. What is happening in Iceland is really important. Because Iceland is small, remote and self-contained, they have been able to test quite a lot of people, including the asymptomatic. They tested around 9000 people. Roughly 90 of those came back positive. But roughly 45 of those were completely asymptomatic. In other words, half of the confirmed cases registered as barely more than a light cough.
This has huge implications (if it's not somehow unique to Iceland's population). Britain's ill-fated plan of herd immunity through controlled infection might not have been a complete fustercluck. We still don't know how immune someone who's had the virus remains over time.
The other interesting finding from Iceland. This is critical:
This has huge implications (if it's not somehow unique to Iceland's population). Britain's ill-fated plan of herd immunity through controlled infection might not have been a complete fustercluck. We still don't know how immune someone who's had the virus remains over time.
The other interesting finding from Iceland. This is critical:
The work has also helped researchers to visualize the spread of the virus. "We can determine the geographic origin of the virus in every single [virus] in Iceland," he said, adding there are specific, minor mutations for the virus that came from Italy, Austria and the UK. "There was one that is specific to the west coast of the United States," he added.
Stefánsson wonders whether mutations in the virus are "responsible, in some way, for how differently people respond to it -- some just develop a mild cold, while some people need a respirator," or whether a person's genetics dictates their condition.
"Or is it a combination of these two?" he asks.
There is so much we don't know about the virus, including the degree of mutation. Most vexing of all is trying to figure out why some people get terrible versions of it and others just sail through it. That critical question is at the end: is it the genetics of the virus or the genetics of the patient or some combination of both? Until we know that, we have no way of gauging when to start relaxing these rather extraordinary restrictions.
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