Month: March 2020

The certain nomination of Biden will deprive Trump of his favorite narratives: anti-elitist misogyny (Warren); and socialism (Sanders). The virus will make it awkward for him to compare his economy to the hellhole that was America in the Obama years. So what’s left?

Two things. First, as I’ve noted before, he will portray himself as a modern day Lincoln or FDR, fighting heroically against the virus. Inconvenient facts to the contrary will be swept under the rug unless the Democrats preserve and publicize the actual record. Second, he will make the case that the virus is a Chinese creation that was deliberately weaponized against America because of his tough stand on trade. Voting for Trump, as he tells the tale, will be an act of patriotism, and a rejection of the wimpy Obama/Biden stance on China.

Preposterous, you say? Just wait and see. Unfortunately for him, there’s plenty of video of him sucking up to Xi. That will figure prominently in the Biden commercials to come.

If he thinks he’s going to lose, of course he would. Everything in his past and present tells us that he will do literally anything in his power to avoid being seen as a loser. Nothing in the Constitution, nothing in a statute book, and no norm of any kind is sacred to him–only his self-image as the ultimate winner. He would do it in a heartbeat.

The real question is whether America would let him get away with it. Would Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham try to stop him? Would GOP officeholders all over the country take a stand for liberal democracy regardless of their immediate self-interest? What about the armed forces? Has the corruption spread so far that, like the virus, it can’t be stopped?

I regret to say that I don’t know the answer to that question. Fortunately, the man is so delusional about his popularity that defeat would probably come as a shock regardless of what the polls say, so the issue will most likely never arise.

The outcome of the general election won’t be completely dictated by the health and economic impacts of the virus, but they are going to be a huge factor. Trump will attempt to spin himself as a heroic, indispensable virus buster; the Democrats, with the facts on their side, will argue otherwise. Partisans on both sides will be unmoved by rhetoric. It’s going to come down to swing voters and the facts on the ground.

So what can we expect? If it is a V-shaped recession, and it’s morning in America in November, Trump will have the advantage. For that to happen, the virus has to more or less disappear in a few months, and the government has to do a pretty good job of replacing the lost private sector spending and keeping millions of badly stressed businesses intact. If you were a betting man, would you put your money on those things happening? Didn’t think so.

Notwithstanding anything you read in the NYT, Sanders isn’t losing because he refused to attack Biden, or because he made tactical mistakes, or because the establishment somehow screwed him over. He’s losing for one simple reason: a large majority of Democratic voters (as opposed to noisy millennial activists on Twitter) don’t want a “revolution,” particularly in an unfolding crisis. That’s it. Nothing more. Anything else is wasted ink.

Bernie Sanders is frequently accused of having different standards for left- and right-wing authoritarians. Is that true?

Mostly, yes. The implication that Sanders wants to turn America into Cuba or Venezuela is completely false; he has made it abundantly clear that his role model is Denmark, not a banana republic. Bernie doesn’t have an authoritarian bone in his body. That said, there is no doubt that he considers leaders like MBS and Erdogan to be evil by choice, and left-wing Latin American authoritarians like Maduro and the Castro brothers to be the well-meaning victims of unfortunate circumstances–most of them involving unwarranted American hostility. If he were elected president, this attitude would carry forward into his foreign policy. It is a change I don’t care to contemplate; fortunately, the electorate has solved that problem for me.

CLs: Bailouts–ugh! Let the markets take care of themselves! The strong will survive without bailouts, and the weak should go to the wall, anyway. That’s the American way.

CDs: No issues with spending money to protect public health and the well-being of struggling workers.

Reactionaries: Bailouts are fine as long as they primarily benefit white Christian workers. No money for lazy minorities, illegal immigrants, or Wall Street vampire squid.

PBPs: Help! Help! Just don’t expect any gratitude when it’s over. We’re still the masters of the universe, after all. This is just a blip, like 2008.

THE VERDICT: The GOP adopted the CL position for opportunistic reasons after Obama took office. With a few minor exceptions, that won’t be the case as long as Trump is in the White House; they’ll spend whatever they think it takes to keep him there.

MY CORONA

Ooh you little deadly one, deadly one.

We thought you would give us more time, Corona.

Ooh you make my blood run cold, blood run cold.

Now you’ve stepped over the line, Corona.

_____________

You’re never gonna stop, never stop, till we shut you down.

Life won’t be the same, be the same, with you still around.

My, my, my, woo!

M-m-m-m-my Corona!

_________________

Don’t come any closer now, closer now.

You just need to give us a break, Corona.

Your power is a mystery, it gets to me.

Not stopping you in time was a mistake, Corona.

___________

Never gonna stop, never stop, till we shut you down.

Life won’t be the same, be the same, with you still around.

My, my, my, woo!

M-m-m-my Corona!

M-m-m-my Corona!

_______________

Parody of “My Sharona” by The Knack.

Stacey Abrams doesn’t have the necessary job qualifications as of today. While Elizabeth Warren would add impressive debating chops to the ticket, she is too old, and her ideology is too far left. The public has never heard of most of the rest of the potential VP candidates. To me, it comes down to Kamala Harris and Amy Klobuchar.

Both of them are qualified to be president. It is clear that there are no meaningful ideological differences between Biden and Klobuchar, while Harris’ views are relatively obscure, which is almost the same thing. Klobuchar arguably would be of more assistance in winning the swing states; Harris would do more to fire up the base, and would pay a debt to the African-American community.

To me, it comes down to two things. First, picking Klobuchar would put her Senate seat at risk; no Republican is going to win Harris’ seat. Second, while the Harris campaign fizzled first, she is actually the more dynamic campaigner; you just have to define the platform for her. She couldn’t figure that out on her own, but it would be done for her as the junior member of the ticket.

I could certainly live with either one, but, in the end, I think balancing the ticket in this context means providing a more exciting counterpoint to Biden’s generic brand, and that means Harris.

Mitch McConnell says Republicans and Democrats should and will come together in the face of a national crisis. Fine sentiments, to be sure, but it would appear that they only apply when a Republican is in the White House and an election looms. In 2009-2010, he took the position that the job of an opposition party was to oppose and regain power, not to help the American people, and the rest is history.

That aside, federal bailouts are inevitable, as they were in 2009, so what should they look like? Here are some general principles:

1. Aid to workers who have lost their jobs as the result of what amounts to a government-mandated recession for public health reasons should be generous and unconditional.
2. Aid to small businesses should focus on keeping them intact, and on keeping workers on the payroll. The assistance should come in the form of very low interest, long term loans tied to continued employment.
3. Aid to larger businesses which amount to public utilities (the airlines and banks, for example) should be in the form of loans and come with lots of strings attached.
4. Large businesses to which there is no compelling public interest attached (e.g., theme parks; cruise lines) should be pretty much on their own. They can use Chapter 11 as necessary.

Here are three keystones of Trumpism:

1. Always send mixed messages to the public. Unpredictability maximizes your freedom to make decisions and keeps your opponents on their heels.

2. Experts are just part of the deep state, and an obstacle between you and your followers. They can’t be trusted; most of the time, history shows they’re wrong, anyway. Put your faith in your ample gut, not science.

3. Bipartisanship is for weenies. Never stop attacking your opponents.

How is this working in a pandemic? Not too well, to date. Collective action, clear direction from the government, and reliance on good science are what is required to mitigate the impacts of the virus. They are the negation of Trumpism.

From Fox News:

The Russian military has succeeded in crushing a massive Ukrainian invasion, according to President Vladimir Putin. The Ukrainians are in full retreat. The Russian army has crossed the border and expects to take Kiev within the hour.

President Trump rejoiced at the news. “There are lots of bad hombres in Ukraine,” he said. “First they tried to intervene in the 2016 election to support Hillary Clinton, and now this. Of course Putin destroyed them. He’s almost as awesome as I am.”

Trump is planning to make his first trip to Kiev to celebrate Ukraine liberation day with Putin once the Russians have taken the city. No members of the deep state will accompany him.

An economic meltdown during the presidency of our Very Stable Genius? Yeah, when Tom Brady leaves New England to play for the Bucs!

Oh, right . . .

Republicans despise the unemployed. They view them as lazy slackers who want nothing more than to lounge in the hammock of dependency at the expense of hard working people like you and me. That is why legislatures run by the GOP always do everything they can to make the lives of the unemployed as miserable as possible, even if it doesn’t save the public any money.

So what will happen with the huge wave of unemployed people that we’re going to see in the next few weeks? Are they going to be subjected to drug tests and ridiculously onerous job application requirements, even though it is patently obvious that their plight is not their fault?

Watching the backlash on that one–in an election year, no less– should be fun.

As noted many times here and elsewhere, Trump’s role in preparing for and fighting the virus has been, in a word, inglorious. He minimized the threat in a vain hope to maintain confidence in the markets; when the crash came anyway in spite of his gaslighting and sales talk, he was nowhere to be found. The Fed and state and local officials have taken the lead in the battle, not him.

That’s about to change, if you believe Fox News. Trump and his friends have already completely flipped the switch on the narrative. Instead of calling it a small and easily manageable problem, the virus will be now viewed as an existential threat, and Trump will be portrayed as the tireless leader of the crusade against it. He will also take full credit for the Trump Bucks that will inevitably be showered on the electorate, even though it won’t happen without the cooperation of House Democrats who, unlike Senate Republicans, care more about their country than their political future.

If there is one thing Trump thinks he knows, it’s that he can always lie himself out of a tight spot. It’s up to us to make sure he doesn’t get away with it this time by preserving, remembering, and publicizing the real record on the virus.

It went as I predicted. If Sanders were a conventional politician, he would see that he has no path to the nomination, and drop out. Unfortunately, he is the leader of a movement of sorts, so quitting isn’t that simple.

Unlike too many of his followers, Sanders agrees that defeating Trump has to be an overriding objective. The only way to keep the movement going without damaging Biden’s chances of winning in November is to change the focus of the campaign; in other words, he needs to stop disparaging Biden, and limit himself to positive talk about his agenda and uniting the nation to oust the man on golf cart.