#Never Forget

 I didn't post on 9/11, because of family issues, but I touch on the fetishization of 9/11. I don't mean sexual fetish, but the other fetish: an inanimate object worshiped for its supposed magical powers or because it is considered to be inhabited by a spirit.

For many Americans who don't live in the NYC area, 9/11 was actually a magical event. It was when they could feel perfectly good about being American, they could freely hate another group of legitimately evil people, they felt a sense of national unity and purpose that has since evaporated and they got to feel like they were living in a shitty Michael Bay movie. Every September, they get to role out their "Never Forget" posts on social media and furiously rub the fetish, hoping for the magical spirit to emerge and grant them moral clarity. 

Anyway, New York City saw 10 times the death from 9/11 because of Covid-19, and a lot of the "Never Forget" crowd are going to happily trot off to the polls and vote for the guy who let it happen. A virus doesn't give you a villain to hate, unless you're willing to look at the Oval Office. 

Greetings From Most Glorious Re-education Camp Of People's Socialist Republic Of Connecticut

 So, Donald's at it again. He only know how to fuck one chicken, so he's going to keep fucking that chicken all the way through election night and likely afterwards.

"That chicken" is the endless culture wars that have fueled the rise of Fox/OANN/Breitbart's hegemony over the GOP agenda. So many people have expressed outrage that 40% of Americans can support a manifestly unfit blob of Adderall, flopsweat, foundation makeup and hairspray as president. If you think a presidential campaign should be a job interview with the American people, supporting Trump makes zero sense. Unemployment is high, the pandemic is raging, Trump is Putin's little puppet, our respect around the world has collapsed, racial anger rages through our streets, the West is on fire...I mean...yeah, it shouldn't be close.

What the "job interview" model misses is that the 40% who support Trump are not looking for a chief executive to manage the country's affairs; they are looking for a gladiator in the culture wars. They are looking for a war chief to lead a counterattack against all the terrible things liberals are doing to the country.

Trump's assault on Clio, the Muse of History, is part and parcel of his campaign strategy. The culture war is "that chicken." Now, I happen to know just a little bit about American history and the teaching thereof. The article mentions the AP US kerfuffle of a few years back. Conservatives freaked out because the "course framework" didn't mention people like Ben Franklin or James Madison, but mentioned people like Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. DuBois. The problem was that they never understood the framework to begin with and what is was intended to do. You can't not teach Franklin and Madison. You don't need to mention Teddy Roosevelt in the framework, because you simply cannot find a textbook that omits him. Instead, the framework was designed to encourage teachers to look past the "usual suspects."

Since the explosion of pent up anger in the spring, we have looked hard at how we teach US History. A few years ago, we ditched our primary source reader to include more BIPOC voices. Most of the documents are still by white men, because - again - you can't really help it in a survey course. You need to read Federalist 10 and 51. You need to read Lincoln's Second Inaugural. But you also need to read a Cherokee chief describing Indian Removal, and Douglass asking, "What to the slave is the Fourth of July?" 

For the cultural warriors, any criticism of America - which means anything that doesn't build America up to be a perfect, flawless country - is an attack on America. This simplistic, false and manichean worldview represents the extension of "conservative" thinking that is visible in every other realm. "Tax cuts are always good and pay for themselves and tax increases destroy growth." "Abortion is bad, but so is sex education, because sex outside of marriage is bad." Basically, the attempt is to destroy nuance, which is already under assault from the nature of online discourse. 

If you read this essay by the excellent Adam Serwer, it attempts to describe the very real historical argument over the 1619 project. He does an exceptional job of unpacking all sides arguments, those who think the foundational essay was deeply flawed and wrote a letter saying so, those who think it was somewhat flawed and so wouldn't sign the letter and those who think it was spot on. For the record, I disagree with Hannah-Jones' assertion that the Revolution was mostly about preserving slavery. The rest of the essay seemed spot on, though. The argument about the role that slavery played in the Revolution is a good one and historians argue about that stuff all the time. 

The point of Trump and the GOP's culture wars is to destroy the ability to see the world in a nuanced way. Because Trump and the GOP's legislative agenda is fairly toxic and their ability to manage the federal government effectively is non-existent, they need to keep their supporters in a frothy lather over things like teaching kids that slavery was bad and we should acknowledge that slavery was bad. The idea that America can be a great country while simultaneously being a deeply flawed country is a critical insight if you want to improve the country. The reality is that the GOP does NOT want to improve the country. They like massive inequality, undemocratic politics and racial injustice, because it ratifies their claims to support the "real America" of white people without a college degree and - incongruously - hedge fund billionaires.

Ever since 2000, it has been striking how almost every issue polls to the Democrat's advantage. Raise the minimum wage? Check. Combat pollution and climate change? Yes, please. Increase access to health care? That would be great, thanks. Raise taxes on the rich? About damned time. Yet, Republicans are able to squeeze out narrow wins by appealing to cultural resentments of white people. Those resentments run deeper than their interests. They will vote to deny themselves health insurance if it means a black person doesn't get it, too.

In 2016, Trump famously said, "I love the poorly educated." No doubt. He and the rest of the Republican party want to make that include everyone.

Good Matt

 There are two Matthew Yglesiases.  One is a troll who enjoys throwing bombs (similar to Jon Chait in that regards). The other makes thoughtful arguments with considered evidence. This article is an example of the Good Matt, and it makes a critical argument.

Yglesias lays out the case that America - and in particular the Republican Party - is drifting away from democratic legitimacy. This is undoubtedly true. The GOP has no way to secure the support of the majority of Americans. Bush managed 50.7% as an incumbent during a war, but before that his father's election in 1988 was the last time a Republican got a majority. It is inconceivable that Trump wins a majority in November (though he could still win re-election). Because they can no longer win majorities they rely on natural and man-made gerrymanders in the Senate and House. 

The Senate could be addressed by giving voting rights to DC and Puerto Rico, but it's going to be tough to pull of completely. The House could be fixed by expanding the number of House members to an even 600. That makes for more districts, which makes it harder to pull of vote sinks like inner cities that give 80% of their votes to Democrats, while a Republican gets 54% in the suburbs. This would also help with the lopsided nature of the Electoral College, by giving more votes to more populous areas. It would eliminate the Wyoming/California problem, without having to amend the Constitution.

There are a host of voting rights that Democrats could write into law and presumably will if democracy survives the election, but they will need to play some hardball and introduce real structural change.  As Yglesias notes: Trump did not cause this problem, his presidency reveals how profoundly damaging it has become. The reason we have a Fox and Friends president, is because our undemocratic institutions allowed it to happen.

Quarantine Update

 In case anyone cares...I've moved from living in a tent on our porch to a storage room in the basement that smells like dirt. I also had a Covid test because sleeping in that tent gave me a sore throat, congestion and a headache. That was fun. She couldn't get into my brain so the damned swab was in there forever as she poked around. I had to move into the quarancave because people make a hell of a lot of noise in the middle of the night that I was unaware of until I had to sleep outside.

How Do We Survive Post-Truth America?

 The WaPo did yeoman's work and cataloged Trump's lies from last night. Again, it's difficult to say why Trump lies so much. Is it ignorance? Probably. An indifference to the truth or a hostility towards it? Likely both. The fact is that Trump has made easily refuted lies part of his rhetoric and the 42% simply do not care.

There's a little bit of this in all of us - not caring that we are being lied to when the lie pleases us - but this is something fundamentally different. A few years ago, I can to conclude that policy positions are largely irrelevant to many voters. I think it first occurred to me during the 2000 election, when Gore's ideas were largely popular (in a vacuum) but it scarcely seemed to matter when voters made their choices. Policy white papers don't matter - tribe matters, identity matters. 

I don't know how a representative democracy can survive these trends. The Enlightenment was always overblown in its esteem of reason, but reason was considered the seat of government. Now it's tough to say that anyone who currently supports Trump - aside from a few millionaires and billionaires - are making their electoral decisions based on who would most successfully run the government for the benefit of the greatest number of Americans. 

They are voting their hatred of "liberals" and existing in a biosphere of panicky flopsweat about anarchists, antifa and child traffickers. A few hundred over caffeinated anarchists in Portland and a few thousand cases of trafficking have created a parallel universe drenched in fear and extinguishing reason. 

Update: I certainly think Joe Biden will wipe the floor with Trump during their debates, but it will require a moderator who establishes facts and again, his lies won't matter to his 42%.

Trumperville? Kemperville?

 After 17 days in Georgia, I finally returned to my home. However, because parts of Georgia have abandoned good public health policy, I have to quarantine from my own family. We can interact outside at a distance and inside with masks on. I am presumed Covid positive until time and a test prove otherwise.

As a result, I am staying in a tent on our upstairs porch. 

I'd like to thank everyone who thinks Covid is a hoax for making this possible.

Death, Incorporated

 I've spent the last few weeks helping my mom die of Stage 4 pancreatic cancer and then trying to help my sister navigate the estate issues and all the paperwork. Dying is, of course, a tremendously fraught and emotional event for everyone involved. I watched my mom struggle with the pain the cancer caused her, I watched her take her last, gasping breath. Every night for a week, I would say goodnight to her semi-conscious mind and tell her I understood that she needed to move on and we would be OK and wonder if I would ever see her again.

As I said, it take a toll.

After death, though, the hard work never stops. Even a simply cremation is expensive. I was shocked at the expense of running an obituary. My family is incredibly lucky to be a very solid financial position, but we have a series of trusts and partnerships related to real estate that are a bear to deal with. It takes weeks to officially die and months to sort out everything around it.  My dad died in 2017 and his estate is still "open." Packing up my mom's stuff, giving some to Goodwill and knowing I will never see that jacket on her again.  It adds up.

Hospice nurses are amazing people. To do what they do, day in and day out, is an act of emotional endurance I can't fathom. Mom's nurse happened to be there for the end and her kindness and thoughtfulness was simply breathtaking. Hospice has made the process of dying so much better for the person dying. No more sterile hospital rooms, hooked up to machines laboring against the inevitable.

It strikes me that we probably need something for the survivors in the days and weeks after death. Not just counseling, though hospice does help with that. Even something as simple as an app or webpage that can help resolve all the little details with bank accounts and credit cards; cellphone accounts and cable subscriptions. I'd hate to call it a "killer app" but there you go.

Mom repeatedly said, "This damned virus is screwing up my cancer," which was true. She was able to have a decent May and June with her family and a decent July with her friends, but it was hard. Now, I have to go quarantine from my family for two weeks. All I want right now is the embrace of my wife and sons. All I have is this damned virus.

Been Away

 I've been away from here dealing with awful shit.

Anyway, I guess nothing happened in politics.

An Ongoing Criminal Conspiracy

 The Trump Administration continues to be a cesspool of corruption and lawbreaking. Now we have evidence that the guy who's responsible for your mail being late has been violating campaign finance law. Before we degenerate in "bothsides," yes, the Bill Clinton has some sketchy things going on in 1996. Gore's great crime was making a phone call on White House grounds with a DNC calling card, as opposed to going down the street. That was a scandal! Now we have massive violations of the Hatch Act and of course DeJoy's contempt for the laws of America.

As always with Trumpistan, every allegation is a confession but in this case, Trump's rhetoric of "draining the swamp" and "I alone can fix it" is kind of the opposite. Here, he's routinely enabling the worst, most corrupt, least competent hangers on - from DeJoy to DeVos to Navarro to Kudlow to...Jesus it just keeps going.

It is painfully obvious that Trump is not alone in this. The entire GOP should be held accountable. They had an opportunity in January to end this Reign of Error and prop up Mike Pence to likely lose in November, as opposed to letting the Trumps and their myrmidons to loot the nation and likely lose in November.

Mitt Romney can stay, but every single Republican Senator is a co-conspirator in an ongoing crime.

Un/Stable

 What is remarkable about this election is how unstable the populace is and how stable the electorate is. Take a look at this. Aside from a little Covid-19 bump for Trump (much smaller than other heads of government), his re-elect number has been amazingly stable at between 41-43%. He's the incumbent; he's known; people have largely made their mind about him. The common refrain from Blue America is "How the hell can 4 out of 10 Americans support this putz?" But the reality is that incumbents usually win election, and his numbers have been very stable and very bad. These re-elect numbers are largely the same as his job approval numbers. RCP uses some trash polls, but you can still see the stability. Even with trash polls like Rasmussen and Trafalgar, Trump's job approval is really shitty.

At the same time, the country is incredibly unstable. As Trump fans the hatreds of his base, protests are becoming increasingly shot through with violence. Trump is wagering that if he gets the base to violently interact with mostly Black and radical remnants of the mass protests of June, then he will eek out a win by appealing to law and order. However, there is very little chance of that working. 

The understated dynamic of 2016 was that BOTH candidates were historically unpopular. Biden has been derided as the Most Generic White Guy, but that turns out to appear to be a huge advantage. Turnout was actually high though as people came out to vote AGAINST Clinton or Trump (along with those eager to see the first female president). According to these metrics, only the wartime elections of 2004 and 2008 had as high a voter participation as 2016, unless you want to go back to 1968. So where are "new" Trump voters coming from?  As the article states, electoral strategies that depend on turnout usually fail.  Ask Bernie Sanders how that worked out. 

Usually, anything you do to inflame your base inflames the other base. The more Trumpier Trump gets, the more he appeals to his supporters worst instincts, the more he forces fence sitters into Biden's lap. Notably, in 2016, Republicans won a slim plurality of votes for the House of Representatives. In 2018, Democrats won the House popular vote by 9 points. Guess what Biden's lead is right now.

At this point in time, Trump is losing. Badly. Texas and Georgia are toss-ups. Wisconsin - which was supposed to flip back to Trump with the unrest in Kenosha - is trending towards Biden. Recent polling from Arizona - the home of Barry Goldwater - shows about a ten point lead for Biden. Pennsylvania seems to be the most important state right now for both camps. 

As the current underdog, Trump has to change the dynamics of the race, but there's precious little he can do. Historically, debates have been the last chance to change the trajectory of a campaign, but Trump's approval/re-elect number is so stubbornly persistent that it's unlikely he can get any change out of that. Trump has been trying to paint Biden as a senile old fool living in his basement, and Biden's stutter has been at the heart of that effort. If Biden comes out and puts in a completely average debate performance, the election is over. Trump has created such low expectations of Biden that he's gifting him his only chance to get back in the race.

Yeah, yeah, vote like we're losing. Sure. But sometimes it helps to get people to the polls if they know they are going to win and similarly if the numbers move further from Trump in the wake of the Atlantic story about his disparaging remarks about the military, it could depress Republican turnout. That's how you keep Doug Jones in the Senate and kick Graham, McConnell and Cornyn out.

Right now, we're winning. Time to run up the score.

Where Are We?

 This thread is interesting in terms of where we are with Covid. When you look at the county rates of positive tests it looks exactly like I thought it would back in May. Large swaths of rural America are getting hit. The 19th century "Greater New England" that stretched along the Erie Canal into the Great Lakes is looking better. A lot of that is simply better governance in those states, some of which is a byproduct of getting crushed back in the spring. But it's pretty clear we suffer from two handicaps when dealing with Covid:

1) There is no national strategy
and
2) Morons walk amongst us

The good news is that steroids are proving very effective in treating either the cytokine or bradykinin storms that are causing many of the health problems. Additionally, we should have a vaccine sooner rather than later, unless Trump fucks that up, too. 

From March to July, we had 215,000 additional deaths in the US. Some were Covid, some were health conditions complicated by Covid, but that's more Americans that died from combat wounds in the Civil War (disease was the big killed back then), and we haven't added August to the list. We still have people insisting that Covid's not that big a deal, but I guarantee you they will be falling all over themselves with "Never Forget" on 9/11.

Anyway, the partial shut down of the country in spring was designed to give us time to work on how to contain this disease. Good news!  We now have much better treatments, a vaccine seems months away and we know how to mitigate the disease: everyone wears masks and washes their hands. Bad news! See the two points above. Without Trump and his administration making some sort of national mask mandate an essential part of their messaging, we will continue to have his cultists refuse to wear mask. And it's critical that EVERYONE mask, because it's most important for the asymptomatic infected to be masked. 

I'm down in Georgia helping my mom transition from this life, and I was worried, frankly about coming to a "hotspot" state. But masking seems really good here. People are masking out of doors, which to me signals a real commitment to masking. If you're masking on the sidewalk, you're masking in the store. But when I look at Georgia's test positivity rate, it's pretty clearly the exurbs that are getting hit hardest.  In the thread linked above, Friedan thinks simply masking from the beginning could have cut the death rate in half, easily. That's bad, but you know, half as bad.

We start school in about ten days. It's a bit anxiety producing, but there are real policies we can do to make it safer. If everyone did this, we'd be in such a better place. This is a failure of leadership not medicine.

Nothing Matters

How many times have we seen Trump saying something that would end the career of any other politician? How many awful things has he said about human beings because he can't see certain people are legitimately human? You would think that his latest vomitous expression of bilious narcissism - saying that US military is staffed by "losers" and "suckers" - would be the end of him. Trump - significantly - does not enjoy plurality support among active duty service members; Biden is beating him. My guess is that if we see more confirmation of this reporting, combined with the bounty story, we could see Trump's number dip below 40%. 

But maybe not. 

I'm skeptical that anything can pierce the willful disregard for the majority of Americans that grips Trump supporters. Of course, if Trump gets 38% of the vote, that's worse than Hoover did.

Still, I'll believe it when I see it.

Staring You In The Face

 Here is an article explaining why we can't predict the result of the fall election with any certainty. Some of this is true of any election. Much more of it is true because of the unprecedented way that Trump won in 2016. Pundits are shell-shocked.

There is perhaps an argument that the pandemic hurts Trump in terms of his handling of it, but gives him a pass on a terrible economy. There is reluctance to say who the protests hurt more: Trump as an authoritarian goon or Biden as a tool of the Radical Left. Who knows how remote voting will work? All of this is true, but there are some salient facts at play.

Let's look at this chart of first term approval ratings of previous presidents (in red and Trump in grey). In order we have Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama.

What explodes off the page for me is the consistency of Trump's numbers. The idea that those numbers are going to change anytime soon is laughable. 

Fun Tool

 This interactive page allows you to monkey around with 2016 voting groups and see what gets either candidate to 270 EV. One problem I noted was that no matter how I fooled around with it, I couldn't turn Arizona blue until I completely erased Republican net support among 65+. This, despite Biden being anywhere from +10 to -3 in the polls. That's a pretty wide range, but it certainly suggests that Arizona is a swing state. My guess is that because the model only allows you to track certain demographics at one time, you won't be able to account for improvement among whites with college degrees AND increased black turnout AND increased support for Dems among people over 65.

Still, it's fun.

Playing Chicken

One thing Democrats and Republicans can apparently agree on is that they shouldn't look at the polls. The most recent reputable polls have the following margins: USC/Dornsife (Biden +10); Morning Consult (Biden +8.5); Leger (Biden +7) and then the "holy shit" polls: Emerson (Biden +3), Atlas Intel (Biden +3).

Which polling sample is right? The Atlas Intel poll has Trump's support among Black voters at 28%.  That...uhhh...seems off. But Emerson is a well regarded pollster, and they also have Trump drawing close to 20% among Blacks. Morning Consult did a lot of state polling and found Biden leading in Florida (+2), Pennsylvania (+4), North Carolina (+2), Minnesota (+7), Wisconsin (+9), Michigan (+10), Georgia (+3) and Arizona (+10). I'd like to Pennsylvania higher, but those are strong polls. If he only holds on to PA, WI, MI, MN, and AZ, that's 289 EV. Add in ME2 and we are at 290. But if you add in FL, GA and NC, you vault to 350.

In other words, unless Trump really is winning 20% of Black voters, Biden is winning. 

Which brings me to the next two months. There are two important pending actions for Congress this fall. The first is our apparent inability to figure out how to keep the government open.  Yes, it's time for Government Shutdown In The Middle Of A Pandemic! The second is another stimulus plan. The GOP hardliners are opposed to both. 

Ideally, we would get a CR to keep the federal government open and a stimulus bill that will help state and municipal governments (who are hamstrung by balanced budget amendments) to keep providing funding for local services. The towering irony is that if the GOP can't agree to a stimulus bills THEY WILL BE DEFUNDING THE POLICE. 

If you're Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer here is your calculus - which has remained roughly the same since May. First, negotiate, but only on your terms. If the GOP won't meet your demands, fine. A wave of layoffs and misery will hit the country in October. Second, realize that even a half measure will help, capitulate to the GOP in order to forestall real misery and deaths of despair that will come from no CR and no stimulus.

Do you do what's best for your party or what's best for your country.  We know the GOP would pick party over country. And it can often help them win elections. Given the existential threat Trump poses to American democracy, I would be inclined to draw bright red lines and let McConnell and Mark Meadows walk away. Let the government shut down. Let the states furlough teachers and cops. Let the markets tank. Better to do that than agree to a shit bill that could hand Trump another four years and still cause all sorts of problems in the short term, much less the long.

I have faith in Nancy Pelosi but only to a point. She will protect her caucus. She will protect her party. Hopefully that will protect us all.