Another Night Of Fear And Anger

I watched some of the footage from last night and it looks like many of the same dynamics I wrote about yesterday are still in the forefront.

• There are groups of African American protesters who are largely peaceful - if enraged - and conducted lawful marches.
• There are groups of mostly young white people committing crimes against property.
• There is some looting going on.
• The police are rioting and attacking people all over the place.

Beginning with the police, we know what de-escalation looks like. It looks like Camden and Flint. It is possible to partner with citizens to create a positive law enforcement culture. The evidence is right there. I'll return to the police in a bit.

I want to talk about the people who are escalating things on the protest side, before we get to the cops. Let's look at the 27 year old white woman who threw Molotov cocktails at police. But please, please look at this video, and there are more like it, of BLM organizers trying to stop young white women from vandalizing property. Activists are trying to restrain chaos tourists. When you see violent confrontation with cops, it escalates from one or both sides, and much of escalation from the protest side comes from whites. 

Obviously, they could be agents provocateur who are trying to give police license to riot. But at least in that video above, they look like this armchair revolutionaries and cosplay socialists who are just generally angry and like to stir shit up. The woman who allegedly threw Molotov cocktails at the police has a history of this. 

The whole theory of voting for Jill Stein or sitting out 2016 was the Trump would "heighten the contradictions" and lead to a revolution.  Instead, it led to Speaker Pelosi and presumptive nominee Joe Biden. Sandernistas thought that this was Bernie's moment, and it wasn't. Why? Because African American voters were loyal to Biden. I can't help but notice that a lot of the unrest in NYC was centered in Brooklyn, not the Bronx.

White protesters simply don't understand the risks of interacting with the police like this bring.  African American protesters do. When young white radicals start spray painting buildings - or in one case literally shitting on a police car - they are basically changing the narrative from "peaceful protest in favor of not being killed by the police" to "let's just smash shit up." 

Of course, there is also the spectacle of just smashing stuff up. Here's aYouTube star smashing things up in a mall. He isn't poor.  He isn't black. He just wants to break stuff. Sure, there are people stealing things because the opportunity presents itself, but that isn't the protesters, any more than the remora is a shark.

Now, there is also video of undercover and plain clothes police doing this stuff, too. That - frankly - should tell you what you need to know about the efficacy and wisdom in turning protests over the death of George Floyd into a personal vendetta against Starbucks.

The police, however, are out of control. Not everywhere, but much of the violence you see on TV starts with police escalating things. Certain police departments seem worse.  The NYPD has been especially bad. You've probably seen the police cruiser plowing into a crowd. An old white guy being pushed to ground for no reason in Salt Lake City. Shooting people who are lawfully on their porch. The "light'em up" comment is chilling. The rage and fear in those cops voice; the desperate need to be dominant. 

They have also consciously targeted the media. There simply can't be a coincidence that Trump's rhetoric about the media isn't influencing how members of the press are being specifically targeted.  True, if the police are eager to riot, they don't want the media there covering it, so it helps to drive them off. One reporter has been blinded in one eye. The press have every right to be out on those streets, and the police targeting people who identify as media is straight up authoritarian police state shit.

It remains to be seen how this plays out over the next few days and weeks.  So far, only two people seem to have been killed - one by a drive-by shooting in Detroit. That's amazing and unlikely to continue. The general pattern is that day time protests are largely peaceful, but curfews allow the police to escalate. They've likely been spending the daytime hours fuming under verbal abuse and then the starting gun goes off and so do they.

We are, once again, absent national leadership. Trump will - if anything - endeavor to make this worse. It's not Obama's problem to solve, but I hope he's working with Dubya Bush and Bill Clinton to perhaps exert some sort of leadership here. Biden, too, has said the right things, but actions need to be taken. Obama and Biden should be in Minnesota, working to calm things down there.  Demonstrate leadership, because Trump won't.

Will this make a difference in November? I think Martin Longman is right that it is too soon to tell. In 1968, Humphrey was hurt by the riots of '68, including the police riot in Chicago. However, the King riots in '92 didn't hurt Clinton. It could be that the incumbent party suffers more than Democrats specifically.  However, civil unrest plays into the hands of authoritarians.

So much of this anger has been building for 3 1/2 years of living in Trumpistan. The young, white people are angry about a bunch of stuff, but they are piggybacking onto a movement that doesn't belong to them. White supremacists are using this moment to bring on the race war they've been craving.  The police are using this moment to crack skulls and play army man. One thing history DOES tell us is that in times of political violence it will be black bodies that pay the price first and most. The organizers of these protests know this. 

We are rudderless. Adrift. That allows the worst elements to hijack a moment of real pain for people who care about racial justice, and force things to spiral in directions that should scare anyone.  

Scared and angry people are not good decision makers, and we are all scared and angry.

Not Our Space

I awoke to the current horror show on my Twitter feed as anger spilled out across American cities. There were more than a few clips of people smashing windows and setting fires and clashing violently with police.  A lot of those people were white guys dressed in black. There were also several clips and photos of police dressed as protestors - especially Black Bloc types. Maybe they were simply keeping track of the crowds. Maybe they were elevating things.

The idea that right wing cops or left wing anarchists would piggyback their own agendas onto the protests over police brutality towards African Americans is sadly not at all surprising.

Psychiatrists use the word "elevated" to describe someone in an agitated emotional state. The process of getting elevated is "escalation." Once someone escalates into a heightened emotional state, it's imperative to de-escalate them.  No one who is angry or outraged or fearful or despairing is in a sound mental state to make prudent decisions.  Veteran organizers of nonviolent protests spend a great deal of time making sure their marchers and the situation doesn't escalate. Nonviolence isn't a jacket you try on and go out and march; it's a discipline that has to be trained into you.

For African Americans - or any oppressed group - it is even more important that things not escalate.  The entire point of these protests is the cavalier disregard authorities have for black and brown bodies. We see it in mortality rates, Covid-19 deaths and iPhone footage of people of color being killed. I remember in the film "Bloody Sunday," the organizers of the march in Derry took every pains to make sure confrontation was kept manageable and the situation didn't escalate.  The British Army and the IRA had other plans, and there was a slaughter - not of the British, but of the Irish Catholics.

Leaving aside the probable presence of police provocateurs among the protests, the presence of Cosplay Socialist and Podcast Revolutionaries inserting themselves and their agenda into these protests enrages me. Attacking a Five Guys because you have a beef with capitalism is...that's not the point, OK. Maybe capitalism is intertwined with racism, but right now that conversation needs to be put aside. These protests are not about you and your agenda, it's about a specific form in injustice that really doesn't apply to you. And sometimes "outside agitators" are indeed outside agitators.

White protestors have a license to engage in behavior that would get African Americans killed. Don't believe me? Remember the Michigan State House? Their behavior though will reflect on the protestors who are doing things right in petitioning their government for a redress of grievances.

The 1619 introductory essay made a powerful point: African Americans have precious little reason to believe in the institutions of American democracy, yet they have been the most patient and persistent in engaging with them. They demand their right to vote; they march; they serve in the armed forces. Their faith in institutions that have wronged them is frankly unbelievable. The Rose Brigade of privileged white boys who want to smash things up - in the context of African American engagement - is nauseating.

At this moment, the entire country is elevated. Some of this is because of the virus.  Some of this is because of the fascist squatting in the White House. Some of this is simply the slow attrition of white supremacy on black bodies. I see this video of an African American police officer in Atlanta demonstrating what de-escalation looks like and two things strike me.  First, this is why it's important for African Americans to have a voice in these moments - on both sides of the barricades. But secondly, why must we always put the onus on African Americans to heal the wounds inflicted by white violence?

At the very least, it is not the place of Hipster Revolutionaries to hijack a moment that does not belong to them.

Bad Data; Bad Policy

Politico reports that we have a huge data problem in trying to make public policy around Covid-19. States have been artificially boosting their testing numbers in order to hit benchmarks to re-opening. There is some evidence states like Florida are hiding Covid deaths in flu and pneumonia counts.

There is a cost to having bad inputs when you are trying to create public policy.  That cost is currently human lives.

This Will Likely Get Worse

The scenes from Minneapolis are increasingly devolving into the usual tragic pattern.

• An African American is killed by the police for no reason beyond the fact that he was black.
• There are protests when the officer(s) involved is not arrested for committing a clear crime on camera.
• The protests start peacefully.
• The police meet these protestors with force.
• The protesters respond to force with force. 
• Eventually, there is some looting.

At this point, the coverage usually turns against the protesters and decries the looting of private property and whatever momentum the protesters had is lost amongst the pearl clutching. Riots, as such, are usually self-defeating as a tactic. It allows those who would subvert necessary change to switch the subject. It returns police to their role as protectors of the common good. I remember watching this play out in LA during the King Unrest. Daryl Gates pulled his cops off the streets until people demanded that they return. "Oh, you think cops are bad? How do you like your city burning down?"

But the police in Minneapolis/St.Paul continue to refocus attention on their own misdeeds. Watching them arrest a CNN reporter on camera brings to mind literal authoritarianism, not the rhetorical tool of online commentary. We made a default decision to militarize our police over the past few decades and when you see the film of the riot police arresting Omar Jimenez...that's not "protect and serve." That is as naked an abuse of power - if not as tragic - as what happened to George Floyd.

Social media reported on some white guy smashing windows. He could be a cop trying to discredit the protests. He could be a Black Bloc anarchist trying to push the protests to violence. Whatever it is, he doesn't seem to be part of the protests aimed at the racial injustices in the Minneapolis police department that go back - at the very least - to Philando Castile. St. Paul police say he's not one of theirs, but honestly, do you believe them?  Haven't police proved time and time again that they protect their own first?

What is clear is that once "law and order" breaks down, the rules that hold society together unravel. Once violence becomes the most important force, inevitably people will die. What needs to be made clearer is that "law and order" broke down when Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd and wasn't arrested for it. Smashed windows and burning police stations are what authoritarians want. They want the suburbanites who think the Floyd murder was wrong to start worrying about "the mob." They need that. If we go back to the riots of 1968, there is no doubt that they helped elect Nixon (who won by a fairly close margin).

The question is: Have we changed enough? Have we seen enough African Americans dying for no reason to allow us to break with the police?  I'm honestly skeptical. 

It is undeniably true that heavily armed white protestors are awarded immensely more deference from police than peaceful black protesters, especially if those protests are about police brutality. The reasons why heavily armed white guys can storm a public building and scream at cops is because we tried holding them accountable at Ruby Ridge and Waco. Then Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people in Oklahoma City and the plan became not to confront white men with guns.

White political violence has a long history going back to Britain. There was a certain performative nature in the small rebellions that lords and commons exercised against the power of the king. American protests from 1764-1775 had the same feel as many of the small uprisings that occurred throughout British history.

When African Americans exercise political violence, it is treated fundamentally differently. Again, the historical roots of this are deep. Violent protests against taxes? Legit. Violent protests against being literally enslaved? Not legit. Fear of white violence leads to restraint; fear of black violence leads to escalations of violence. The problem is that minorities are...well...minorities. Whites ARE a majority, and you need to win enough of their votes to try and stop the lynching of African Americans by police. It's unclear what effect political violence exercised by blacks will have on their political calculus, but in the past it hasn't necessarily been helpful. 

There is a theory of latent authoritarianism, which states that fear can trigger a desire for authoritarianism in those who otherwise might not desire it. That was at the heart of Nixon's '68 strategy, though it didn't have a nice theory attached to it at the time.  Hitler used the Reichstag fire to seize power. The more political violence is used by African Americans, in some ways the further from their goals they become. The fact that this is NOT true for white militias is incredibly sad, but no less true for being unjust.

We also know that Trump will do (and has been doing) everything in his power to fan the flames of this and every other conflagration.  Trump needs America to be on the verge of tearing itself apart in order to win re-election. He could be looking at 20% unemployment and 250,000 dead Americans in November and eeking out a win on the backs of dead African American protesters and smoldering cities is really his only feasible plan at this point.

What's more, it seems to me that the only feasible solution to the problems of police and communities of color is an independent investigative arm within the Department of Justice. Local attorneys general have shown no ability to separate themselves from the police departments with whom they work so closely. It would be like asking the NSA to oversee the CIA. However, Trump has also exposed the great weakness within our entire system of laws that requires the DOJ to be a disinterested party. He has turned the upper reaches of the DOJ into his own personal law firm. Does anyone really think a Trump DOJ would prosecute Derek Chauvin, much less the other three cops?

The only way we see progress on this issue is with laws designed to limit police violence, make police accountable to the law and an impartial check that sits outside the clique of normal law enforcement. The only way that happens is if we have a Democratic president and control of both houses of Congress. That only happens (especially the Senate) in a blue wave. 

It's unclear whether the legitimate grievances of the protesters will get drowned out by concern over a looted Target. It is also unclear whether anyone will remember this in five months time when they go to the polls.  "Re-opening America" apparently means a return to lynchings and workplace shootings; that is a return to normal. Trump needs America to burn, however. 

"This will likely get worse," is the official motto of Trumpistan.

UPDATE: John Judis - who I rarely agree with - makes a similar point.

Donald Trump, Psychopath

This is a good read by Trump's biographer. Basically it argues what we know but are afraid to say: The President of the United States is legitimately mentally ill.

TL;DR - Wear Your Damned Mask

There is really only one way to arrest coronavirus, and that is by wearing a mask.

The problem is we live with people whose entire worldview is shaped by what will upset "liberals."

This is a good summary by The Atlantic.

No, Seriously. What Does Electricity Taste Like?

Mitch McConnell is a man with one important idea: that the levers of the Senate makes it possible for either party to stop Congress from doing pretty much anything but pass a budget (and therefore cut taxes). Apparently, he is averse to passing any new spending that will aid states.  States, as we know, struggle under bullshit balanced budget amendments that hamstring them in times of economic crisis.

There is no plausible way for McConnell to frame this as concern for a balanced budget, as he passed the incredibly regressive tax cut that blew a massive hole in the federal budget even before the virus fueled depression. He was likely playing the usual game of Republicans:

1. Cut taxes
2. Run a budget deficit
3. Lose control of the government
4. Leverage elite concern about the deficit he created to prevent new social spending by the Democratic government
5. Use dissatisfaction with the Democrats to win back power

If McConnell was really concerned about deficits, I'm sure Liz Warren has a plan for that.

Instead, if states are forced to the wall, we are looking at 20% unemployment by election day. McConnell will not only lose his job as Majority Leader, but likely as Senator from Kentucky.

It's just mind-boggingly stupid, but because McConnell borrowed one important idea from John C. Calhoun, he's considered some sort of savant.  

He's not.

He's another idiot who wants to stick his tongue in a light socket.

What Does Electricity Taste Like?

There was a joke a few years ago that So and So was so dumb he would stick his tongue into a light socket to see what electricity tasted like. It seems that Trump has moved into light socket territory. We have no therapeutics to reduce the lethality of Covid-19. We have no vaccine, and likely won't for a year or so.

What we have is masks and social distancing, but really, mostly masks.  Masks are at least part of the reason why East Asia has not been crushed by the coronavirus (as mask wearing is fairly common there, post-SARS). Some European countries went to masks early and had good results.

But masks need to be nearly universal to work. Most masks won't so much protect the wearer from the virus (though they will) but they will insure a carrier (asymptomatic or otherwise) will not spread the virus.  The first rule of gun safety is that the gun is always loaded.  The first rule of Covid should be that everyone should be presumed to have the virus.

Trump's decision not to wear a mask is likely rooted in his shallow vanity and his desire to appear tough, when really he is anything but. However, having taken a stand against masks back in March, he now can't retreat.  An essential part of Trump is the absolute 100% refusal to ever admit you were wrong or to backtrack. So, he staked out a stupid decision in March, probably based on vanity. Now, he can't admit it was wrong and won't appear on camera with a mask.

This sends a massive signal to the MAGAts that mask wearing is a stupid liberal plot to steal your freedumbs.  This is at least partly why we see mass gatherings of people who are unmasked. Outside or not, mass gatherings are terrible for the spread of the virus.  The noise makes you shout, and that makes it more likely that droplets with the virus are expelled (shouting is considered one of the reasons why meatpacking plants have been superspreader events).

Again, we need everyone who can to wear a mask. Trump is encouraging - actively and passively - his followers not to wear them.

Today, we will pass the 100,000 dead mark. My guess is that we will start to see an increase in hospitalizations and deaths across the states that have largely abandoned efforts to contain the virus. That should become apparent in the next week to ten days.

What makes this so stupid (aside from, you know, the mass death) is that Trump needs a quick recovery from both the virus and the economy to have any chance in November. But he just can't help sticking his tongue in that socket.

Henry Wallace? Seriously?

John Nichols has written a thing about how Henry Wallace suggests a road map for Sandernistas to take over the Democratic Party.  Jon Chait effectively dismantles it here. Wallace had been FDR's Vice President and Secretary of Agriculture, but he was bounced from the ticket in '44, because he was too far left and FDR's health made the Veep selection very important. He then ran as a third party candidate in '48 (along with Strom Thurmond who broke to create the Dixiecrat Party).

There's a line buried in there about how Wallace fell under the spell of thinking his tiny coterie of enthusiasts represented a critical mass of the electorate.  Chait quotes from Thomas Devine's actual history tome:

 “even though Wallace claimed to have the backing of the ‘common man,’ his primary base of support had always been limited to a relatively small group of left-leaning intellectuals, middle-class professionals, and CIO labor leaders.”

That pretty much sums up the Sandernistas. Except "middle class professionals" isn't great, more like "creative class malcontents." I came across this beautiful hit piece about Meagan Day and Walker Bragman.  Bragman was on Twitter snidely belittling Neera Tanden's battle with Covid-19, because he's an arrogant little shit.

These self-styled revolutionaries adopt a pose that they think elevates their moral standing without really understanding what morality is in the first place.  These are the Leftists from the '60s who became Reagan Neocons in the '80s. It's just an article of clothing you put on because it flatters you and it's easy to change.

Henry Wallace was a fool. His "movement" was a joke. That anyone would think otherwise is sad.

Read This

Prove David Atkins is wrong.

Grow The Party

This, by Martin Longman, is exactly right. He mentions Neera Tanden, and perhaps on purpose doesn't note that when she announced she had Covid-19, the usual Bernie trolls came out and basically hoped that she would die of it.  The dead-end Berners are not Sanders himself. They are narcissistic sociopaths. Many of the most vocal are children of wealth who have adopted a form of radical politics that they think looks chic on them. They thought shit-posting was the key to victory.

When I think about the Trumpenproletariat and Rose Twitter, they are basically brats. Grown adults who never grew out of their bratty three year old selves. Cult 45 wants to get their hair dyed and their fredums and they don't care if they kill people to do it. Dead end Sandernistas simply want to win Twitter beefs without really caring about the humans at the other end of the discussion. If they can't win, they will take their Twitter feed and go home.

Life isn't fair, folks. It sucks that this is happening.  We would have graduated our Seniors today, and I got choked up about what they missed.  But shit happens, and it happens whether you care about it or not. The universe doesn't give two shits about your plans or your desires.  Most people grow up and realize this. Those that don't put on camo and strap military grade weapons across their chests or elevate Twitter into a twisted form of performance art.

Predictable

Covid-19 has been remarkably unpredictable and predictable at the same time.  The actual biology of the virus is still largely unknown, though they are making progress on understanding it every day.

The spread of Covid-19 is much more predictable. Early on, I felt it was pretty obvious that it would hit rural America later than urban America, but that it would hit hard when it did.  That looks to be exactly what is happening. The super-spreader clusters are a feature of this illness and the meat packing plants and prisons that constitute a major source of employment in some rural areas are turning out to the petri dishes for the disease. Rural nursing homes are another hot spot, at least for deaths.

The article linked above notes that rural poverty is a huge contributing factor to the spread of Covid-19 in these communities.  Hospitals have shut down as rural populations have declined and doctors have retreated to more prosperous communities. Younger, healthier people move away and in some areas undocumented workers come in to do the jobs that normally are done by the young. And while this isn't a health insurance problem, it is a health care system problem that exposes the vulnerability of the poor, the undocumented, people of color and the aged.

It is also - it must be said - a problem of education levels. It is difficult to look at videos like this and not be shocked. That is a super spreader event. Trump said he "loved the poorly educated." They get their news from him and Fox and they are engaged in levels of self-destructive behavior that isn't exactly new, but it has health ramifications for more of us.

Covid was always going to morph into a series of outbreaks and hot spots.  Even under the best plan, this was the future.  South Korea has been putting out brush fires since they started re-opening, but they have a competently managed system in place.  We do not, so our brush fires will become wildfires.

Meanwhile, Trump played golf yesterday.

It's Up To Us

One of the hallmarks of American society is that in the absence of a strong, active state, Americans historically relied on the loosely defined term "civil society" to solve their ills.  Tocqueville was the first (naturally) to explore America's endless "joining."  If we think about the various groups that typically organize especially around small town life like Rotary Clubs, the Lions, the Shriners and other aspects of life, we usually think about the 1950s and '60s. I suppose these organizations still exist, but the exist on the margins.

As we face a complete absence of national coordination on Covid-19 policy and it increasingly becomes a cause celebre amongst the Populist Right to fly in the face of public health measures, it will be up to Americans as individuals and small groups to mitigate the effects of the pandemic. Masking, social distancing and avoiding large crowds is really all we have left until a vaccine or therapy arrives.

There is decent evidence that Americans ARE taking this responsibility seriously. While we won't get little fezzes, vests and go-carts like the Shriners, masks will become the uniform of the responsible. Admittedly, I'm in a part of the country that was hit very hard, and therefore - even though I live in maybe the most Republican town in the state - compliance has been pretty high.

Shaming people into masking and social distancing won't work, but if there was some way to create positive social capital by acknowledging mask wearing, that might help.

The problem of the next month is clear. If the epidemiologists are right, we are going to see a new wave of outbreaks across the South and midwest. For various reasons, the "Blue" states might see less of a wave at first.  However, the problem with the coronavirus is that two week delayed fuse. For instance, Georgia has rushed to re-open and is not currently seeing a spike in cases. Perhaps that is a lack of testing or even fudging the numbers. Perhaps it because most people in Atlanta were slow to embrace reopening. Or perhaps we simply have to wait a week or two before we see the wave.

It's not simply a two week delay. It's a two week delay before we START to see a mild increase in cases, but then it will start to grow exponentially.  "Super spreader events" seem to be at the heart of the spread of Covid-19. So we will see a few things open, a few souls will venture out. Nothing will happen. The sky won't fall.  So they will start leaving their masks at home, start going out in ways that are dangerous. There will be a birthday party or a church gathering.

All of this will take several weeks. We have good reason to believe that the virus was in the US in February, percolating under the surface.  It only exploded in late March.

Maybe...just maybe...the experts are wrong.  Maybe warm weather will kill this thing.  I doubt it.

Instead, it should be incumbent on us to organize ourselves to provide the guidance and responsibility that our government won't.

We are the only hope we have.

UPDATE: Never mind.  We're doomed.

Libertarianism>Anti-Statism>Racism

This is an interesting interview with a public health professor about whether America is too "libertarian" to properly fight off Covid-19. The missing ingredient in this analysis is the overlap between libertarianism or even classical liberalism, anti-statism and racism.

There is a case to be made for classical liberalism's focus on individual liberty. Liberty IS important, and under normal circumstances should be one of (but not sole) guiding principles of public action. However, libertarianism is a hothouse theory that rarely survives contact with the outside world. States exist because they work. On a practical, day-to-day level, they work.

Anti-statism is a virulent strain of libertarianism that simply rejects the idea of the state. There isn't a role for the state to play. We can see this in the Ammon Bundy group or sovereign citizens and many of the camo wearing lunatics brandishing AK-47s on state capitol grounds across America.

Like libertarianism, anti-statism is a hothouse theory (anarchism is it's obvious end point). This strong belief is not mirrored by the realities of the world at large. In fact, many libertarian/anti-statist groups and individuals are actually surprisingly OK with state action as long as it benefits them or people like them.

The breakdown of trust in the state among more than a fringe few (John Birchers) expanded when the state decided to treat black people like equal citizens.  Every effort to expand the role of a benevolent state founders on fears of helping "them." That was why the ACA was called Obamacare by its detractors. The point was to associate universal health care with the first African American president.  Short term, it worked to help fuel the Teanderthal movement in 2010.

It will be interesting if we get a best case scenario of a Democratic trifecta in 2021 (with some way of overcoming the filibuster and the Courts). If Joe Biden dramatically expands the benevolent state, the fanatical fringe of the 20% will still oppose it, but would a white man expanding benefits play better that a black man doing it?  Possibly.  FDR was a living god to many Americans, but Harry Truman - who proposed universal health care but also civil rights legislation - was vilified during his time in office.

Americans will trust a government that gives them goodies and takes care of them.  They are suspicious of a government that gives goodies to people who don't look like them.

That'll Work

Oxford Economics predicts Trump loses a landslide election.  Depending on Democratic turnout efforts he could barely win 100 electoral votes. As of this moment, they think Trump not only loses PA, MI, WI and AZ, but IA, MO, OH and NC. If Democrats get their voters to the polls, you can throw in FL, GA and...TX and TN.

If Only We Had A Government As Good As...Rwanda

This New Yorker piece argues that governmental response in Africa has surpassed that of the US, Europe or Latin America. The obvious parallel is with East Asia, which has also done a good job fighting the virus. In both Africa and East Asia, recent experiences with epidemics have prepared their public health systems for the demands of managing this pandemic.

The obvious question for the US is: Is our president learning?  The answer to that can safely be asserted as "no."  Public health systems across the US will also have varying learning curves. Those that learn quickest will have the best short and long term success.

Getting a handle on "super-spreader" environments would be a nice first step.

Penance

Paul Campos highlights a New Yorker piece from a dozen years ago about the decision to place Sarah Palin on the ticket with John McCain.  Many have pointed to Palin as the precursor to Trump: a signally stupid populist who plays...OK... on TV but should be nowhere near the levers of power. Everyone kind of knows that when Tucker Carlson plays the stupid populist on Fox, that's an act.  With Palin and Trump, it's not an act. They are the manifestations of Hofstadter's Anti-intellectualism in American History.

What's fascinating is two names in the story who were most responsible for elevating "Barbie Spice" to national prominence: Bill Kristol and Michael Gerson.  One of the most confounding things about Trumpistan is that I find myself agreeing with Kristol and (to a lesser degree) Gerson on their criticisms of the Party of Trump. Anti-Trump support is key, I believe, in taking Trump down hard. Without it, I think Biden can win back Pennsylvania and Michigan (and likely Wisconsin) and probably add Arizona. But if you can mobilize the anti-Trump soft Republicans in the suburbs, the road opens up to Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and possibly Texas.

There have been some mea culpas from the likes of Max Boot and Rick Wilson and other anti-Trumpers. There has been some short-sighted wailing and gnashing of teeth from Rose Twitter about how this proves that the Democratic Party is really just the GOP with a modest health care plan. What Rose Twitter and the entire Berniesphere never understood was that winning elections in America requires casting the largest net for votes. In 2024, I fully expect Kristol, Gerson and Jennifer Rubin to back Ben Sasse.  Whatever.  I want their votes in 2020 and maybe flip the Senate decisively.

Trumpism must not only lose in November, it must be discredited. Lindsay Graham said in 2016 "If we nominate Trump we will get killed, and we will deserve it." We need to make that statement a reality. We need Graham to lose his seat in a massive wave.

After that, Kristol and Gerson and Wilson and all the other men who thought they could harness the critical mass of anti-intellectualism in America to get them their tax cuts for the rich will do their penance.  Ideally, that will be watching Joe Biden sign major acts of progressive legislation.  That's their just reward.

Please Don't Fall For This

This WaPo piece is.. not great.  It's not great. Basically, a Russian aligned member of the Ukrainian Parliament has released phone calls that Biden made to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. In these tapes, Biden can be heard asking for the firing of a corrupt prosecutor.  This was a publicly stated policy goal of the US and EU at the time.

The Usual Idiots - Giuliani, the Trump Failsons - are trying to turn this into a scandal.  The Post story has this paragraph half way through the article:

The tapes released in Kyiv offered no evidence to back Giuliani’s long-standing accusation that Biden pushed for the prosecutor general’s ouster to help his son. At the time, Hunter Biden was earning between $50,000 and $100,000 a month on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, whose owner, a former government minister, was under investigation in Ukraine. Still, the tapes gave Trump’s allies a chance to recycle that allegation closer to the 2020 election.

This is "her emails" all over again. In 2016, we more or less knew the facts about the email server. She had one, it was investigated, it wasn't a crime. But when the Comey letter was released the week before the election, Clinton was leading by 5-6% in the polls.  That support collapsed to 2-3%, which was her final margin in the popular vote. 

The press was guilty of manifest malpractice, but then again, Trump, Steve Bannon and Russian operative Paul Manafort had a strong media strategy that Bannon called "flooding the zone with shit." By constantly levelling attacks and flooding the media with allegations, it was impossible to tell what was true and what was false. Before a change could properly be investigated, another one was made. The idea was to unleash a farrago of bullshit that the press and your opponent couldn't manage.

This was helped by Trump's long standing embrace of Roy Cohn's smear tactic of accusing your accusers of the thing you are accused of. If you are - say - hanging out with an accused pedophile, accuse your opponent of being a pedophile.  Then, the accurate accusation that you are hanging out with a pedophile becomes a petty tit-for-tat. The true accusation gets lost in the back and forth.

Trump's campaign was actively soliciting help from Russia.  This is a truth revealed in the Mueller report. The obstruction of the investigation made it impossible for Mueller to determine how much help they got directly, but we know they got some. The degree of coordination was difficult to pin down. So, Trump's strategy for dealing with this - and his subsequent impeachment over the Ukraine Affair is to accuse Biden of being corrupt in his dealings with Ukraine.

If the media falls for this shit again, then we are basically doomed as a nation. Not because Biden won't win, he probably still will.  But because you lay bare the playbook for the NEXT Trump. The slicker operator who maybe doesn't outrage the Suburban voters that will likely bounce Trump from office.

The media - and usually it's the Times, not the Post that's guilty of this - HAS to find a way to navigate this "flooding the zone with bullshit" tactic or a free and functioning society can't exist with a faction that is willing to lie in bulk to attain power.

The Dumbest Timeline

OK...so Trump either is or is not taking hydroxychloroquine.  He says he is, but he has zero familiarity with the concept of objective truth, so...who knows? We do know that he has likely been exposed to the virus, but is currently showing no symptoms.

There's zero point in getting into online conspiracy fantasms about whether he has a vaccine or whatever, the real question is why he keeps pimping hydroxychloroquine. The medical community is pretty clear that it's not a decent treatment and comes with significant side effects.

The usual explanations for his obsession with hydroxychloroquine is that he either A) has a boatload of stock in the company that makes or is otherwise benefitting from touting it for financial reasons or B) he's so desperate for a treatment to re-open the economy that he is grasping at any shiny object that holds out that hope.

There IS a possibility that Remdesivir could be a viable treatment, though it still needs more testing. Why wouldn't he plumping that therapy? Maybe he simply can't admit that he's wrong. It would be completely on brand for him to be taking Remdesivir but telling everyone he's taking hydroxychloroquine.  He will look "tough" for the Trumpenproletariat, but he will also be protecting himself from infection.

Or maybe the White House doctor is giving him a baby aspirin and telling him it's hydroxychloroquine.  Who knows?  We live in the dumbest timeline.  Anything is possible and the dumber it is, the more likely it is.

Untangling The Misogyny

Quarantine has left me too much time to spend on Twitter, and so I've spent too much time reading about "Karen." In general, some of the memes are funny, but it becomes apparent after a while that it's a dogpile. Yes, there is a "May I speak to the manager" type of woman, just as there is a "I'm going to lick doorknobs to own the libtards" type of man.

However, there's a deeper, unexamined level of misogyny at work. Reading this article about Ohio's health director Amy Acton drives home how much hatred there is of women with power. Ohio has done a great deal right in the time of Covid-19. Governor Mike DeWine is a Republican, and therefore the gun-toting yahoos can't really focus their ire on him, so they have shifted to Acton.  Next door in Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer is a Democrat, so they focus on her.  Some of that is simple partisanship. Republicans won't attack DeWine, so they attack Acton.

The problem is that you begin to get into a chicken and egg question. As Republicans become more and more hostile to women - especially impressively credentialed women in leadership roles - more and more college educated suburban women will become fixtures of the Democratic Party's leadership. That will lead to more hostility to women. Partisanship and misogyny will constantly amplify each other.

Motivated partisanship increasingly seems like the most powerful political force in America. The roughly 60% of Americans who are strong partisans increasingly take their cues from partisan messaging. Democrats have the advantage (and disadvantage) of basing a lot of their beliefs from evidence-based analysis: global warming, public health, inequality...etc.  It's been interesting watching Never Trumpers in social media begin to embrace issues like global warming or institutional racism that they routinely ignored or downplayed when they were Republicans.

Now, Republicans are much more hierarchical in their thinking, so they tended to have to toe the line.  It could be that Jennifer Rubin, Tom Nichols, Rick Wilson and Max Boot ALWAYS understood institutional racism and health care inequity, but their partisan loyalties made it impossible to admit that. Again, it's tough to tease out causality. 

When we look back at the 2016 election, I really think Joe Biden (or even Martin O'Malley) could've beaten Trump. Hillary Clinton's original sin was being an intelligent, hardworking, professional woman of a certain age. When she was Secretary of State, she was among the most popular political figures in the country. When she had the temerity to ask to lead the country, she was smeared relentlessly. Even sympathetic voters called her shrill.

The Democratic primary field has degenerated to a few Sanders dead-enders attacking Biden and repeating the Tara Reade smear. But the primary as a whole saw incredibly accomplished and impressive women drop by the wayside. Gillibrand never got out of the gate. While Harris and Warren each had their moment, as they ascended to prominence they were taken down a notch. 

A lot of that feels like a tactical choice, that in itself reveals implicit sexism. I'll admit to feeling a little of that.  I loved Elizabeth Warren's policy platform, but I dreaded a repeat of 2016 where a "woman of a certain age" is systematically destroyed by the election process that is - let's face it - profoundly stupid and shallow. I gave money to Warren, Harris and Booker, but I worried about whether the American people would vote for a woman.

In many ways I remember hearing the same doubts raised about Obama in 2008. African Americans in particular worried that the greater public would never elect a black man. Fears about the Bradley Effect were widespread. In the end, he won comfortably and was re-elected comfortably. I don't know who the female Obama will be; we didn't really see Obama coming either. (If I had to guess, I think Harris has the best media presence and therefore the best shot at it.)

The GOP has one lever: white grievance.  That's it.  That's the sum totality of their electoral strength. Increasingly, that's white male grievance. I should note that there are many women who embrace and amplify this white, male grievance, hence the Karen memes. Every camo-clad, AR-15 toting freedumb fighter has an enraged woman at his side.  If you are a reasonably intelligent, accomplished woman, you're going to feel increasingly that the GOP has no place for you. And as the Democratic Party becomes more and more a party led by women, the attacks on women by the Party of Grievance will only increase.

The GOP has locked itself into a feedback loop that will continue to alienate more and more segments of society. Non-Hispanic whites make up about 61% of the population, but that has been slowly declining over time. Trump is hoping he can rally those WWC votes one more time, but that requires further alienating women, Hispanics and Asians.  In 2016, Trump won 6% of Black votes and 28% of Hispanics. While he won 54% of white votes, he LOST white voters with college degrees 38-55 and won white voters without college degrees 64-28.  He won white women 47-45, but his support among black women was statistically irrelevant. 

In 2018, white women split evenly 48-48 between Democrats and Republicans, this led to an overall gender gap of 59-40 in favor of Democrats. Breaking whites down by age and education the ONLY demographic Democrats won handily was college educated women.  They barely lost among college educated white men and got crushed among non-college educated white men. Overall, college educated voters picked Democrats 53-39, whereas non-college voters split 49-49. Among whites, Democrats won college educated 53-45 and lost the non-college 61-37.

Since Trump can only play to his base, and he knows that his base in a seething mob of angry, heavily armed white men, we will see an increase in anti-woman, anti-minority rhetoric. This, in turn, will drive more and more women and minorities into the Democratic party.

When we say that the GOP is a death cult, we usually are referring to their embrace of widespread gun ownership and now their desire to open the economy prematurely. 

It might also mean that they are a suicide cult.

No Blog Today

Trump's a criminal.

Covid-19 is horrible.

Yada yada yada.

Strengthening Oversight

Trump's relentless onslaught against oversight continues. His primary impulse is score-settling, which is at the root of many of these actions. Like the mafia dons he admires, Trump expects omerta - silence - and loyalty. He can't fathom that the IGs are expected to be loyal to the law, not him. Meanwhile, there is a decent chance the Roberts Court undermines any attempt at Congressional oversight through subpoena powers.

My only worry at the moment about the November election is that Trump and the Republican Party put in place extraordinary voter suppression efforts that render the election a sham. In a fair election, Trump's poor handling of the Covid-19 response and crippling unemployment should sink him.

So, presuming we get a Democratic trifecta, strengthening oversight mechanisms has to be a priority. Nixon Era reforms operated on the presumption that both parties respected the rule of law. Nixon resigned because the 1974 GOP refused to empower a lawless presidency.  With the exception of Mitt Romney and Justin Amash, that is simply not the case today.

Firing IGs can't be done by executive whim. Congressional subpoenas must be respected. It seems odd that we should even be having arguments about that.

Tara Reade Is The Tip Of The Spear

I addressed my reservations about Tara Reade's accusations before.  I thought her original claim that Biden made her uncomfortable was plausible, but her accusation of assault did not seem plausible.  Sexual predation is a character trait, not a one time thing.  There are always more accusations once the dam breaks.  The dam never broke with Biden.

Jon Chait has laid out recent reporting that continues to draw serious questions about Reade and her accusations. No one else has come forward; Reade is not a reliable narrator.

Of course, the actual truth of Reade's allegations are ultimately irrelevant.  Whenever a story about Biden goes on Twitter, the comments are full of assertions that Biden is a rapist.  The 20 some allegations of sexual assault against Trump are irrelevant.  Biden is the rapist is the theme that anti-Biden forces will use through November.  Count on Burisma and "unmasking" and every other ridiculous smear possible to be levelled against Biden.

All things being equal, Biden will win comfortably.  Unemployment will be - AT BEST - around 15% on election day. Covid-19 will be killing people every day in November. Trump is deeply unpopular with the public at large. 

Trump won in 2016 because his opponent was equally unpopular and Russia and James Comey tilted the scale just enough to sketch out a close win in the "Blue Wall" of PA, MI and WI. Trump's only hope is to make Biden as unpopular as Clinton was, but he won't have misogyny working in his favor and "What do you have to lose?" has been definitively answered. 

This is going to be a nasty, nasty election. 

We Are A Banana Republic

Without the great weather.

Court Battles

Just a reminder that during this pandemic, the GOP has successfully taken Wisconsin governor Evers to court to get the emergency order lifted, it's currently taking Michigan governor Whitmer to court for that same purpose and, oh yeah, they are taking the Affordable Care Act to court, too.

The message of "the GOP wants to kill you to prop up the stock market" is a compelling one, and I can see Democrats making large electoral gains this fall barring a remarkable turn of events with Covid-19 and the economy. But the GOP revanchists have a firm hold on the courts, and from that perch the Party of No can still thwart and obstruct needed change.

What Is Education?

This is a frankly dystopian take on the future of higher education. The subject being interviewed is - in fairness to him - not describing his preferred model, but rather what he anticipates the future looking like. As he notes, there is the experiential part of college and the certification part of college.  Kids at Arizona State and Harvard both get some of the experiential part of college, but the Harvard certification part is much, much better.

His prediction that higher ed will go to a hybrid online/offline mix is based on some business practices, but also on the trends in wealth consolidation.  What is NOT being prioritized is the actual education. He mentions large lecture classes as being templates for online learning, but he also notes that Zoom is a terrible way to educate people.  I'm about to have a Zoom session, and I couldn't agree more. The experiential part is not simply the experience of living away from home and doing keg stands and learning about Botswana from the kid across the hall.  It also happens in the physical space of the classroom.

We had Wesleyan president Michael Roth speak to us after we read his book on higher education. He tried to teach a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course).  It worked pretty well for the handful of people who cared about the subject.  Most people dropped out. It simply did not engage or interest them.  As I have told my students, I'm not teaching online.  I'm monitoring independent tutorials in a group.

There are no doubt pedagogical tricks I can learn to try and make Zoom classes work, but everything will be a weak approximation of actual teaching.  Class time is simply a different emotional and intellectual environment and there is no way (that I have seen so far) that can replicate that online.

Yes, certification is part of a college education, but it is arguably the least important part.

They Are Who They Say They Are

There are corrupt politicians in both parties.  But the GOP is really making it standard operating procedure.

A Toddler Playing President

Ezra Klein lays out a compelling case that the IMPOTUS and the administration as a whole have not only abdicated on coordinating a response to the virus, but they have not articulated a plan, a goal or a philosophy.  Trump is not even pretending to do his job, except for showing up on the Teevee each day.

It's not like their no plans available; there are plenty.  We've just decided to implement none of them.

Knew This Was Coming

Republicans (The Pro Life Party!) are rushing to open the economy before we are ready to do so.  We know that there is not enough testing in place and basically no tracking apparatus, even if we had the testing. We are flying blind with a national government that doesn't give a shit.

As some places re-open we have every reason to expect that cases and deaths will increase. There is a non-zero chance that we won't see a huge case, except in other tightly packed urban areas like NYC.  And since those people are mostly Democrats, the GOP is fine with them dying. But the most likely thing we will see is a spike in cases across the red states that are re-opening.

How will the GOP spin this? A supermajority of Americans don't want to rush to re-open the economy before it's safe to do so, and if we see a huge second wave of deaths, the blame will fall on the GOP and the economic recovery won't happen.  What will the GOP do?

Lie about the numbers. We know Trump admires dictators like Putin and Xi, and they are almost certainly lying about their numbers, so why not do that here? It will take sustained attention from the media to force various government entities to be transparent. The GOP death cult has a powerful incentive to undercount the numbers, even if most epidemiologists believe we are dramatically UNDER counting the current Covid-19 death toll.

The problem is that while statistics are somewhat important, narratives are more important.  If 10 people in your small town die, and you know two of them, it's a failed pandemic response. If 100 people in the next state die and you don't know any of them...well, that's sad I guess. It's when the local news starts showing freezer trucks being used to haul away the dead that no amount of spin from DC will make an impact on people.

Trump has always believed he can bullshit his way through unflattering facts.  The virus doesn't give a shit about his bullshit.

UPDATE: Martin Longman posits how the current outbreak in the White House itself would normally be a wake-up call, but with this crew....

This Is True

Biden needs to be talked out of his "Senate Romanticism" if he wants to pass major legislation.  However, he doesn't need to do that before the election.  He can be rhetorically moderate until election day, get to January, and the minute Mitch McConnell kills a bill in the Senate, abolish the filibuster then. 

Successful Sociopaths

Read these two headlines:

• White House Implements Stringent Mask Policy - But Not For Trump.
• Tesla's Elon Musk Reopens Factory, Defying County Orders And Daring Officials To Arrest Him.

Sociopaths struggle to see the humanity or worth in others. Other people are simply agents for their own agenda. Sociopaths can usually learn to fake it well enough to "get along" in wider society, and many can be quite successful. Their struggles to see value in other people gives them a competitive advantage. Look at Trump's willingness to stiff vendors and contractors and to declare bankruptcy whenever he can.  He just never cared about the impact of his actions on others.

It would seem, though, that if you ARE a sociopath, maybe we shouldn't hand massive amounts of political or economic power over to you.  Maybe that leads to a fundamentally flawed society.  If you take the perspective that other people are expendable pawns in your game, you're unlikely to be a good leader, regardless of your bank account's bottom line.

And it might lead to decisions like this one.

It's A Mystery

Among the many mysteries of Covid-19 has been Florida's unique resistance to spread. There are a number of reasons why Florida should have been a nightmare, and so far it hasn't happened.

Will their luck hold?

Oh, Yeah, That

Remember Trump's taxes?  The Supremes are going to decide whether we get to see them. Paul Campos looks at the probable outcome.  I think he's right, and I think it will extend beyond Roberts. The Court has to look at the possibility of a crushing Trump loss and what their deference to executive oversight could mean for future Democratic presidencies.

Putting Mitch McConnell Out Of A Job

The 2020 election is of course a terribly important election for the future of American democracy.  Will we return to a corrupt oligarchy like in the late 19th century? Or will we return to a competently administered national government?

It's also a tremendous experiment in what determines electoral outcomes. In 2016, Trump benefited from two things: partisan loyalty and low favorables for both candidates. I would argue that the latter factor was driven by implicit and explicit sexism, especially towards "women of a certain age."  So, Republicans voted for Trump, because "how bad could it be," and enough independents voted against Hillary Clinton.

Those dynamics are likely very, very different. Joe Biden (despite the sketchy charges leveled by Tara Reade) is a largely likable guy.  In some ways the Covid lockdown benefits him, because he's able to avoid the gaffe-filled events that typify his earlier presidential runs.  He can run ads like this, instead.

There is a typical pundit-driven narrative that elections are won or lost by messaging and campaigning and gaffes and ad buys and candidate appearances and (especially for Democrats) policy proposals.

I think that narrative is bullshit. Campaigns are won or lost based on fundamentals and the candidate's personality. The fundamentals going into the 2020 election are going to be brutal. Unemployment will still be historically high and people will still be dying of this goddamned virus. Trump is incredibly unpopular, but he still - for some reason - had decent marks on the economy.  That will be gone by November.

In this article, Republican strategists fret about the future of their Senate majority.  Tellingly, they are having to straddle a line between distancing themselves from Trump's disastrous handling of the pandemic (and everything else) and alienating the Deplorables. The laughable part to me is that Senators are going to try and run on the various stimulus packages that have worked their way through Congress.  Of course, the stimulus isn't reaching everyone and the GOP could commit hari kari by not passing any more.

People aren't going to vote for Susan Collins or Martha McSally because they voted for a stimulus bill in April. They are likely going to be incredibly pissed and they will hold the GOP responsible as a party. In 1932, Democrats picked up 12 Senate seats and 97 House seats. They even picked up 11 governorships. 

Every election with an incumbent is a referendum on that incumbent, but in presidential years, the party holding the White House is the target. 

Let's flip the Senate.

Saying The Quiet Parts Out Loud

Donny Smallgloves is at it again. He's incensed that California is going to move to mail-in voting in the midst of the pandemic. A few thoughts.

First, Trump was never, ever, ever going to win California. That state is arguably as blue as any in the nation. Voting by mail there is irrelevant to the outcome of the 2016 election. Even a moron like Trump knows this.  This is an attempt to nip the movement in the bud in states where the GOP has any veto power. If North Carolina, Arizona or Florida went to mail in voting, Trump loses those in a landslide.

Which brings me to the second point: the GOP is actively opposed to the most people voting. They want to restrict access to the ballot so that older, whiter, richer voters are preferenced. Any movement to open up voting to more people threatens their minority rule.  To be clear the GOP are a minority party: an aggrieved rump of angry white people. While Trump has always been a wannabe dictator, the GOP is increasingly desperate and reliant on vote suppression.

They just aren't supposed to tweet that all over the place.

Biden And Warren

I was a supporter of Elizabeth Warren, but I don't think I want her to be Veep.  I think it needs to be someone younger.  Warren SHOULD however be at the center of all policy making decisions of both the Biden Campaign and hopefully a Biden Administration.  I've been flogging the idea that Biden needs to pull Schumer into his administration in whatever way works and then elevate Warren to Senate Majority Leader.

The reason why is that America is going to need a MASSIVE rebuilding effort. Whenever we emerge from this, we are going to need to completely reshape America's economic and social systems. It's going to be 1933, and we need to be ready for that.  The only person remotely ready for the policy dimensions of this is Elizabeth Warren.

Take "The Green New Deal."  It's a bumper sticker, not a program. But it could become a program of wide-ranging infrastructure and energy work that could completely reshape America's power usage while putting the millions of angry white, male high school graduates to work. What's more, own the damned thing.  No hiring of private contractors; put them to work for the US government. Make broadband internet a public utility that reaches into poor and rural neighborhoods...and put the federal government's name on it.

We will need to rebuild the economy in a way that puts equity and a competent government response at the forefront.  Now is the moment to undo the Reagan Revolution and return to the Party of FDR.  Warren is the perfect person to write the roadmap.

Ice Water Is For Everyone Who Is Thirsty

Senator John "Not That One" Kennedy (Asshole- LA) has decided to oppose more stimulus money because, and I quote, "People in hell want ice water, too."

It is fashionable among the Severely Online, the Cognoscenti and Rose Twitter to talk about how Biden being "not Trump" isn't enough to win in November. Here's Aaron Blake making a rather stupid point about the current polling, as if the polls might not move over the next six months.  If the GOP decides to take a hard line against bailing out states, localities and the public at large, then...yeah, all Biden has to do is say he would do the opposite. 

For context, Hoover didn't become unpopular until well after 1929.  His attack on the Bonus Army and his overall lack of concern for individual Americans is what sank him. If the GOP really wants to stop putting money into people's hands, we are headed for 25% unemployment.  Easily.

Racing To The Apocaplypse

There are a number of really disturbing trends converging on America in the fourth year of Trumpistan.

First, we have the Trump Administration and Republican governors downplaying the evidence and trying to jump start the economy. They have decided that they are going to get people back to work even if....there is no work to get back to. 

This is motivated by the increasingly grim economic news. The economy is cratering, even if the virus disappeared tomorrow, it's unlikely the economy would come roaring back.  We've treated wage labor like shit for forty years, and 40% of Americans are now living at the margins of solvency. Simply lifting curfews won't solve that.

This goes back to Trump knowing the one thing he does know: sales.  Selling things isn't necessarily about the thing being "good," but about whether you can convince the buyer that it's good.  This is why Trump throws gold on all his shitty real estate. Sales is about "optics" and Trump is obsessed with optics (which is why he won't wear a mask). The reality TV president can only appear to be president, because appearances is all Trump is good at.

The virus and the economy don't give a shit about his optics.

Which leads us to the third trend that really worries the shit out of me. Trump cannot win a free and fair election this fall. His support has never been broad (despite it being deep). The margins of his support are bleeding away. The 2018 midterms demonstrated the erosion in support for the GOP in suburbs. If the economy is in the toilet come November, there is precious little reason to believe he won't face a landslide defeat.

The recent decision by the Department of Justice to drop the (airtight) case against Michael Flynn is the canary in the coal mine. Trump finally managed to get "his Roy Cohn" into the AG chair, and now Bob Barr is consistently and determinedly undermining the impartiality of the Department and the rule of law. As more and more Trumpian figures embrace the rampant corruption of this Administration, the more they will rely on Bob Barr's corrupted Justice Department to protect them. The more that happens, the greater the impetus to subvert a free and fair election.

Think of it this way: Trumpist corruption is everywhere. We are almost certainly seeing it in the awarding of contracts during the Covid-19 crisis, but it's everywhere. Everyone of those actors is currently protected from legal repercussions by the currently politicized DOJ. That's the message the Flynn case sends.  As the potential for a Trump loss in November becomes reality, the greater the incentive to cheat on the election to maintain that shield.

In a mature democracy, losing an election should not be catastrophic. When John Adams gave way to Thomas Jefferson, Americans discovered that - for all the heated campaign rhetoric - Jefferson wasn't going to destroy the systems that Washington and Adams had put into place.  In political science terms, it was a change in government, not a change in regime.  But Trump and the GOP are trying to change the regime from a democracy to a kleptocracy. The November election is the last chance to stop them. They know this. There is no accountability for the corruption if they win, and right now they will have to cheat to win.

And with the DOJ in their pocket, there's no one to stop them.

Anyone Want Some Good News?

Malaria kills 1-3 MILLION people a year.

Those doctors Trump disdains may have found a way to defeat it.

Fuck yeah, Science!  Coming for you Covid-19.

These F-ing People, Part 1,000,000

They don't want to release the CDC re-opening guidelines, because they were "overly prescriptive and broad."  Overly prescriptive...from doctors....

The Republican Party is a death cult.

It Didn't Have To Be This Bad

I don't think the "China is trying to kill us" attack is going to land outside Cult 45. Within the bathysphere of Fox News, it will echo around, but the election will not be won or lost by screeching to the choir.  In the end, I think they will try and sell the idea that the US government did the best it possibly could, and no one could have done any better.  Sure, it's tough, but whaddya gonna do?

The reason this could work better is because Americans are woefully ignorant of anything that happens beyond our borders.  I think it would surprise many if not most Americans to realize that there are skyscrapers and internet on the continent of Africa.  Any appeal to "We did the best we could" would appeal to this ignorance.

Of course, other countries have done better.  Much better.  OK, sure, the Czech Republic or Germany...rich countries.  But Vietnam and Jordan have managed to kick Covid-19's butt without being wealthy countries.  Some of this is simple trust in the government to look out for citizen's best interests.  That simply doesn't exist for two reasons.  Teanderthals have been weaned on anti-statist propaganda, and their "armed protests" in state capitals are the latest expression of that.  It's not a long walk from taking up threatening positions in a government building to blowing up the Murrah building.  The other is that non-Teanderthals don't trust Trump.  Cuomo is...not great.  But the hunger for any moral leadership is so great, that he's become a national leader simply by being human on TV.

The ability to defeat Covid-19 exists.  It absolutely exists.  Other countries have demonstrated how. But it requires a coordinated, competent response from the national government.  Right now, the national government could fuck up a one car parade.

This - all of this - is a direct consequence of Republican anti-governmental rhetoric and practice since 1980.  We have hollowed out the ability of the state to function in any crisis that doesn't involve bombing someone. Now we are discovering what the cost of that is.

UPDATE: Matthew Yglesias has a nice rundown of how our current "plan" is pretty messed up.

Weaker, Sicker, Poorer

A group of former Republican political operatives have launched the Lincoln Project to kick Trump out of office in November.  If you haven't seen their ads...they're pretty effective. The gut punch line in this ad at the link is that under Trump, America is "weaker and sicker and poorer."  While there are plenty of leftist purists who deride efforts to capture disaffected Republicans and Republican leaners, because it will drag the Democratic Party to the center when they are trying to drag it to the left, you have to acknowledge that the GOP has always known its way around an attack ad.

The following is likely to be the state of play in November: America will be in the grips of an economic depression, as GDP is contracting rapidly.  Since Trump doesn't care about people, only his reelection, he is defying his own guidelines to re-open the economy while maintaining a layer of deniability while idiot governors like DeSantis and Kemp take the immediate heat to fulfill his campaign strategy of "reviving the economy."  Most Americans oppose efforts to reopen retail and restaurant businesses. Trump and his advisers live within the closed information ecosystem of Fox News and OANN, so the smattering of sparsely attended protests carried on by Teanderthals and anti-Vaxxer nutjobs carry a disproportionate weight.

Trump is basically going to kill people in order to get the economy going, and the tragic part is that it won't even work. People are not going to go out to restaurants and movie theaters and sports, unless they are part of Cult 45. The "return to work" plans in Georgia, Florida and elsewhere are designed to force people off unemployment insurance, which will have additional depressive effects on the economy as they have no money to spend. So businesses will "reopen" but no one will patronize them and waiters and similar job holder will be forced off UI, because they are refusing to work at a job that might kill them.

That is Trump's "strategy" for getting the economy going.

The other thing to note is that we are just beginning to see the spread of Covid-19 in a lot of places.  While the overall US numbers are steady or declining, most of that is because of the falling cases in NY, NJ and CT. In most other states, cases are actually increasing.  And increasing, in this case, usually means we are seeing a wave cresting rather than receding. States are reopening INTO THE FACE OF THIS CRESTING.

The GOP is trying to kill you to save their stock portfolios.

Weaker, sicker and poorer, indeed.

The Post Populist World

Interesting take here about what Democrats (and the broader liberal order) should do post-Trump. This presumes twin Democratic victories in the race for the White House and control of the Senate. If things get worse - and sure as shit looks like things will get worse - then Trump could preside over a massive electoral college wipe out. Right now I'd estimate 52 Senate seats is doable, but that map could expand to include two races in Georgia, Doug Jones holding on in Alabama and potential upsets in Kentucky (please God) and Kansas. There's even a plausible but unlikely road to 58 Senators.  If you add DC and Puerto Rico Senate seats, that gets you to 62, which you can make the new threshold for the filibuster if you feel you need to keep it for some reason.  Frankly, they should scrap it.

Anyway, let's assume Biden is President, Pelosi is Speaker and Democrats have 53 Senate seats and no filibuster. What's the agenda?

First should be a far reaching set of electoral reforms.

• Mandated transparency on tax returns and business dealings.
• Campaign finance laws (let the Court wait)
• Anti-gerrymandering laws
• Electoral access, including early voting, vote-by-mail and a national holiday

Next should be some "wish list" reforms

• Immigration reform that prioritizes people here already including DREAMers
• A guest worker program and improved visa process
• Increased rights for labor unions
• Increased minimum wage

Finally, bigger structural changes that are locked into a 10 year timeline

• A dramatic expansion of Medicaid and Medicare (again let the Courts wait)
• A form of the Green New Deal that address climate change and unemployment
• Reform of the Courts, including - perhaps - a new Circuit court with existing judges moved around to dilute right wing ideologues on the Court
• Substantive and massive tax increases on the wealthy and on wealth.

There are probably a bunch of other things, including a massive reinvestment in the federal workforce, reinforcing foreign alliances with other democracies, curbing financial globalization...the list is long. But a guiding principle should be addressing the structural inequality and xenophobia that created Trump.

What Do You Have To Lose?

If journalism is the rough draft of history, this is a hell of a rough draft. What distinguishes the Post from the Times is their editorial decision to call out the bullshit in close proximity to its being flung.  Take these sentences:

Injecting or ingesting disinfectants is dangerous and can be deadly. Trump would later claim he was being sarcastic, but there was no trace of sarcasm in the president’s comments.

That is how you do it in Trumpistan. There was a quote from Jared in there about how "History will laud Trump's response."  I feel pretty confident giving that a big nope. History will be incredibly damning of how - at a moment of extraordinary crisis in the life of this country - the President refused to do his job.  That's the overwhelming thread in the Post's narrative.

In a time of a global pandemic, Trump refused to do his goddamned job.  He refused to coordinate supplies; he refused to mobilize the national government's tools to manufacture supplies; he refused to offer a moral voice to those who were suffering.  I was hopeful that George W. Bush would be the worst president in my lifetime. His foreign policy debacles, strip mining the government of expertise and voodoo economics were a combined catastrophe.  Yet, even Dubya knows what the job of a president is and released this video. As bad as Bush was - and he was awful - he was not the absolute raging dumpster fire of a human being that Donald Trump is.

The other overarching thread through the Post's piece is that Trump cares about one thing only: the economy.  He cares about the economy, because he knows that a terrible economy will sink his re-election chances.  Trump does not give a shit about small business owners - he's routinely stiffed them throughout his business career. All he cares about is himself and a depression means he won't get to play president on TV anymore.

The fact that Trump is being advised by some of the wrongest people in history (Larry Kudlow, Arthur Laffer, Stephen Moore) makes all of this even more tragically infuriating.  Trump is desperate to re-open the economy, but three things are true:

1. People are not going to risk their lives to go to Applebees. 
2. The pro-Trump, armed protestors at state capitals represent a tiny percentage of the American population, but a significant part of Trump's Fox/OANN base.
3. Premature opening will lead to more cases, which will create a second wave and destroy any economic recovery.

However, as more and more people are seen on TV violating good public health advice, that will encourage the poorly informed to assume things are great.  The collapse of social distancing will happen as soon as a critical mass of people decide it should stop, because of what they see on the TV. So, please, stop sharing on social media the pictures of large crowds of idiots congregating in large numbers.  That is absolutely not helpful. There is little actual evidence that we have this under control.

Trump's successful pitch to 46% of American voters in 2016 was "What do you have to lose?" Why not give a "successful" businessman a chance to run this country and make "great deals" and "win."  Well, we've got our answer to that question.  We have a great deal to lose.

Trump's Covid-19 policy has basically become "your money or your life."

Seriously?

Well, 2020 just got weirder.  Apparently now we have murder hornets.

Tara Reade

I haven't commented on the allegations that Joe Biden sexually assaulted Tara Reade back in the early '90s, but since Biden has, I will.

I think two things can be true. Joe Biden was not always respectful of personal space; Joe Biden is not a sexual predator.

Biden has admitted to and apologized for his tendency to hug people and touch them on the shoulders, when perhaps they really weren't interested in that. Reade's original allegation felt like it might have been in that category.  Maybe Biden made contact with her that was short of groping, but still made her feel uncomfortable. Maybe it dealt with - again her earlier allegation - that she was asked to do work (serving drinks) that felt beneath her pay grade. I'm prepared to believe that, and still feel that Joe Biden is an immensely preferable chief executive to Donald Trump.

That charge, in fact, (Joe Biden was a little too touchy feely) likely didn't land when she made it a year ago, precisely because Biden has acknowledged and apologized for that behavior.  He still does weirdly intrusive stuff like sniffing babies heads, but he "gets it" that he shouldn't be hugging and touching the shoulders of people who might not want it.

When the charge of Biden Being Biden didn't register, a few months later, she came up with the allegation of sexual assault. And that's where we are now.  Biden's first live response to the allegations was measured and appropriate from someone who has a long record of working on women's issues.

While people have rightly compared Biden's behavior with Trump's, perhaps the more illustrative example is Al Franken.  Like Biden, Franken has a long record of supporting women's issues. Unlike Biden, Franken was accused to groping women.  Biden's intrusions into physical space is not limited by gender.  Secondly, and by far the most important point, no other women have come forward.

As Biden said in his statement, we need to believe women when they come forward, but we also need to subject the allegations to fair scrutiny. When the allegations against Franken came out, the first allegation was sketchy, precisely because the source was a conservative media personality, similar to how Reade has connections to the Sanders' campaign and a weird fascination with Putin. However, with Franken, more and more allegations tumbled out. Whether it's Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby or Donald Trump, sexual predation is not a one-time impulse; it's a defining personality trait, especially in powerful men who are often shielded from accountability. 

Joe Biden was powerful man such as those men. It is certainly likely that if he had engaged in pushing a female staffer up against the wall and shoving his hand inside her, that this was a behavior that we would see repeated.  Again, look at his behavior of touching people and crowding their physical space.  That's a behavior. He's trying to change it, but that is a real behavior ingrained over decades.

While it is certainly possible that Tara Reade is the only person upon whom he forced himself, it's unlikely. Combine that with the myriad inconsistencies and changes in her story, then add in her motives to smear Biden...it doesn't add up. Biden has made a judicious statement and been transparent to the degree that he needs to be.  (Karen Tumulty is wrong that Biden should open all of his Senate papers to opp researchers.  That's just stunningly naive, even for a pundit.)

Absent another accuser, Reade's allegations feel like an exaggeration of an uncomfortable moment or perhaps a conflict over work duties that has become a political cudgel without substantiation. 

Why Impeachment Mattered

Catherine Rampell makes the connection between what Trump did with Zelenskyy and what he is now doing to governors and the Postal Service. Trump is not a "transactional politician;" he's a shakedown artist. He's the guy you knew in college who memorized the dialogue to The Godfather, Scarface and Goodfellas. He wants to be seen as the flashy mobsters who roll into a nightclub and everyone snaps to attention. This is a guy who thinks Roy Cohn is a good lawyer.

I'm sure Susan Collins thinks this time, Trump will really, truly change.  Or maybe Sara Gideon can reminds people that Collins thinks Trump's behavior was OK.