Monthly Archives: July 2020

2020 General Election, Democracy, Donald Trump, Off the Rails

Donald Trump speculates: “Delay the Election until people can properly, securely, and safely vote?”

“He gets new information. He likes to talk that through out loud. And really have that dialogue. And so that’s what dialogue he was having.“ — Dr. Deborah Birx on Donald Trump’s suggestion at a public health briefing that injecting bleach could be a cure for COVID-19.

Yesterday:

▪ Donald Trump boohooed that he had lower approval ratings among Americans than Dr. Anthony Fauci:

He’s working with our administration. And for the most part we’ve done pretty much what he and others — Dr. Birx and others, who are terrific — recommended. And he’s got this high approval rating. So, why don’t I have a high approval rating with respect — and the administration — with respect to the virus?

▪ He downplayed the coronavirus and touted hydroxychloroquine as remedy, though the FDA revoked authorization for use of the drug for COVID-19 treatment “reports of serious heart rhythm problems and other safety issues, including blood and lymph system disorders, kidney injuries, and liver problems and failure.”

▪ And the President retweeted a video (since removed by Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, but not before 14 million viewings) with discredited claims from a Houston doctor/religious minister that she has successfully treated hundreds of coronavirus patients with hydroxychloroquine and that face masks are not necessary to stop the spread of the virus. Stella Immanuel has also claimed that gynecological problems are caused by having sex in ones dreams with demons and witches; that DNA from alien beings is being used in medicine today; and that “reptilions” and other aliens are embedded in our government.

▪ Donald Trump is still a fan: “There was a woman who was spectacular in her statements about it: that she’s had tremendous success with it.”

Just another day in the Trump presidency. So, when he tweets about delaying the election, is Trump simply riffing? Merely talking out loud about something he’s seen online or on cable TV? Is this nothing more than more idle talk from an uninformed, credulous individual?

Neither the Constitution, nor federal law grant this man, even though he sits in the Oval Office, the authority to change the date of the 2020 election. But it is well within his power to signal his view that something isn’t on the up and up. Something about the November 3 election is rotten. The Democrats are trying to cheat.

The President of the United States has sought for many months to delegitimize the 2020 election, much as he did in the run-up to the 2016 election, before winning it — and even afterwards.

Donald Trump has presided over a disastrous 2020. His failures — resulting in an unfolding tragedy that grows greater by the day — are unmistakable. Surveys of public opinion suggest a steeply uphill climb to reelection for the President.

As the prospect of losing has become more likely, Trump has waged a campaign against mail-in voting, insisting that “it doesn’t work out well for Republicans,” and even more dire that it will “lead to the end of our great Republican Party.”

He has continued to strike this theme throughout the year:

He has endorsed the unsubstantiated claim of Bill Barr that foreign governments might corrupt the election by printing and mailing counterfeit ballots

Election officials have discounted the President’s claims (“Trump claims without evidence that mail voting leads to cheating: A guide to facts on absentee ballots.”):

“We are not aware of any evidence supporting the claims made by President Trump,” the National Assn. of Secretaries of State said in a statement. “As always, we are open to learning more about the Administration’s concerns.”

So what’s Trump up to? Well, he’s revving up his base. For another thing, if Republican state legislatures and secretaries of state follow his lead, they will curtail, or refuse to expand, vote by mail options. That serves the venerable Republican strategy of voter suppression. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach are past all-stars in this game.

Even if vote by mail options exist, Trump’s campaign may serve to suppress the Democratic vote. An NBC report (“A Trump trap? He’s the one who could get a boost from mail voting glitches”) explains why:

The real danger is a perfect catastrophe of administrative overload, postal delays and voter error that could lead to millions of absentee ballots not counting. And this year, unlike the past, those ballots are likely to be overwhelmingly Democratic.

Mail-in ballots are much more likely to be rejected than ballots cast in person. If Trump’s base votes in person on election day, those votes are more likely to be counted than Democratic votes cast by mail-in ballots. Some estimates suggest that up to 4-percent of mail ballots were rejected in 2016 with no opportunity to remedy any problems (as one might do at a polling place). Furthermore, studies suggest that younger voters and people of color — predominantly Democratic — are more likely to have their ballots disqualified.

If a higher proportion of Democrats than Republicans vote by mail, Democrats will be disadvantaged because of procedural glitches that are apt to multiply this year as the number of mail-in ballots increase — overwhelming some jurisdictions. Add to this a multi-million dollar GOP donor just appointed as Postmaster General, who is imposing changes on the Postal Service that have created backlogs and late deliveries. As a result, there will likely be delays in sending ballots to voters and in receiving voters’ completed ballots in a timely way that ensures that votes are cast and counted.

But there’s more to it than that. Republicans probably can’t suppress enough votes to win in 2020. These tactics, even with an assist from the U.S. Supreme Court, failed in Wisconsin. These cries of fraud and rigged elections serve another purpose, as Richard Hasen has explained:

If most Republicans vote in person and most Democrats vote by mail, Hasen said, that could create a scenario well suited to Trump’s tendency to make unfounded accusations of wrongdoing.  

“As Trump drives more and more of his supporters to vote in person and away from vote-by-mail, it’s quite likely that we’ll see Trump getting many more votes on election night, the votes that are counted on Election Day,” Hasen said in an interview on “The Long Game,” a Yahoo News podcast.

“Then, four or five days later, [if] Biden becomes the winner as the absentee ballots are counted in Philadelphia or Detroit, that’s a recipe, if it’s close, for a really ugly election scenario,” he said.

Election results for Philadelphia’s June 2 primary were not certified for nearly three weeks. The outcome of the June 23 primary in New York’s 6th CD, a victory by challenger Jamaal Bowman over Congressman Eliot Engel, was not clear for more than four weeks. It takes a long time to verify and count ballots received by mail. There will be tens of millions more votes cast in November than have been cast in primaries earlier this year.

The Brooks Brothers riot — in 2000 when Republican operatives from across the country created a mob scene in Miami-Dade County to stop officials from counting votes (after George W. Bush had established a small lead in the state) — is the template for creating chaos in November 2020 in any state where Trump has a slim lead and there are still thousands of ballots to be counted. Only this time the rioters (most of whom were not actually dressed in expensive suits) might be replaced by armed militias in camo. And multiply the rioting across a number of states.

Even if Trump trails in same day voting, if there are tens of thousands of uncounted votes in key states, he could still cry fraud.

Trump’s eruptions about voting by mail all serve as a setup for challenging his defeat in November. Whatever happens on November 3 and after, things have already become ugly.

This scenario is beyond abnormal. But rest assured this will not be Trump’s last off the rails maneuver between now and November 3.

There are 97 days to go.

(Image: from Five Thirty Eight’s average presidential approval July 30.

2020 General Election, Democrats, Republicans

Should Joe Biden and the Democrats welcome help from GOP Never Trumpers to defeat the President?

“It is possible for Biden to beat Trump without attracting many conservative votes. But it is not possible for him to win in a giant landslide without winning moderate conservative votes.” — Quinta Jurecic and Benjamin Wittes in “The Revenge of the Never Trumpers.”

That’s a Yes.

Moreover, a landslide will help deliver the Senate to Democrats — and the more victories in 2020, the more secure the Democratic majority will be after inevitable defeats in less favorable election cycles in the future.

A number of folks on the left side of the political spectrum have criticized the Lincoln Project and John Kasich’s prime time role at the Democratic convention. The most substantive objection is that, somehow, Republican Never Trumpers might gain undue influence over Joe Biden’s agenda, moving him toward a hawkish foreign policy, and away from health care expansion and increases in the corporate tax rate.

I don’t buy it. If a Biden win brings a new Democratic majority to the Senate, it will be the influence of conservative Democratic senators — not Republicans and former-Republicans who joined Democrats in opposing Trump — that shape the breadth and reach of his policy successes in 2021.

Besides — Biden hasn’t won the election. There are 98 days to go until November 3. A lot can happen — and will. Rejecting disaffected conservatives from a broad Biden coalition is foolish.

(Photograph: Voters in line to cast ballots in California’s March 2020 primary.)

Blue State Blues, The Way the World Goes 'Round

In California coronavirus still rules — and other issues affecting the Golden State

▪ This morning’s Los Angeles Times reports on public health officials’ guarded optimism that a surging coronavirus may be poised to recede (“California desperate for signs of a turnaround after stunning coronavirus setbacks”). Hope, as much as reason, appears to ground their views. And though there are numerous positive signs, the coronavirus still has the upper hand.

The impact of coronavirus has fallen most heavily on essential workers, residents in institutional settings (nursing homes, prisons), and people of color.

“The epidemic in the West is particularly among the Latinx community. … They are both in urban, as well as rural, agricultural areas,” said Dr. George Rutherford, an epidemiologist and infectious diseases expert at UC San Francisco. “There’s tremendous amount of transmission in Southern California, in particular in Orange and Los Angeles counties.”

▪ David Corn reported last week that Steven Miller’s maternal grandmother, Ruth Glosser, died recently of respiratory arrest as a result of a COVID-19 infection, which her son David Glosser (brother to Miller’s mother) has blamed on the Trump administration’s failures to address the threat from coronavirus:

David Glosser is a retired neuropsychologist and passionate Trump critic who has publicly decried Miller for his anti-immigrant policies, and he contends that Trump’s initial “lack of a response” to the coronavirus crisis led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans who might have otherwise survived. In an interview, he says, “With the death of my mother, I’m angry and outraged at [Miller] directly and the administration he has devoted his energy to supporting.”

Mrs. Glosser was living in a Los Angeles area assisted living facility. Los Angeles County, with a population exceeding 10 million, has more coronavirus cases than any other county in the country. Long term care facilities (as noted above) have been especially hard hit in the county and the state.

▪ Former California Senator Barbara Boxer has admitted making a mistake when she voted to establish the Department of Homeland Security. While I agree that this was a mistake, I’m not sure what to make of her belated misgivings:

Here’s where I went wrong: I never imagined that a president would use unconfirmed puppets like acting DHS secretary Chad Wolf and his deputy, Ken Cuccinelli, to terrorize our own citizens in our own country. Our goal then had been to protect our own people, not hurt them, not harm them, not hunt them down on the streets of Portland or any other city. There was no protection built into this bill to stop a power-hungry president from misusing a powerful federal police force, hidden in disparate agencies, controlled by one agency head — the thought never even occurred to me.

No one in 2002 could have predicted Donald Trump’s 2016 election. What about the general possibility of presidential malfeasance or misconduct at some point in the future? Apparently that had “never even occurred” to the former senator, who now asserts, “When we write laws, we must think harder about how they might be misused.” Nine of her Senate colleagues thought things through. (The act passed 90-9, with one senator absent.)

I’m not an impartial critic of the decision to shove scores of agencies under an unwieldy DHS umbrella. I was with the senators (all Democrats, though not all liberals) who voted Nay. I even object to the authoritarian name of the agency. And, yes, Senator Boxer, it was a mistake to pass a bill with “no protection built into” it that places limits on presidential authority.

But the nation was still stunned by the 9-11 attacks, George W. Bush was basking in public approval, and it was easier to justify a Yea vote (and not think too hard about how the law might be misused), than a Nay.

But I don’t buy Boxer’s logic. She notes that Trump has “little regard for the letter of the law or executive restraint.” If we grant this, however, and we’ve been paying attention to Trump’s increasingly egregious conduct, and we’ve seen all his enablers, including Bill Barr (whom she doesn’t mention), doing Trump’s bidding — fussing over legislative detail, or even casting a no vote (in my view) doesn’t prevent Trump’s reckless, unconstitutional decision in 2020 to send federal agents in unmarked military uniforms to Portland to incite and assault Americans protesting in the streets.

Legislative protections only work when political actors accept democratic norms, respect Constitutional authority, and embrace the rule of law. We’ve left that station long ago.

▪ Democrats (including me) often decry the mindless partisanship of Republicans. But sometimes partisanship leads Democrats astray. The election of Alex Villanueva as Sheriff of solid blue Los Angeles County is a case in point (as I’ve related in a previous post).

Long story short: he ran as a Democrat for a nonpartisan office in a year (2018) when Democrats were focused on sending a message to Donald Trump. He defeated Sheriff Jim McDonnell, a former Republican (who had re-registered as an independent). Democratic clubs across the county and the county Democratic Party managed not to notice that Villanueva’s primary source of support was from a deputies’ union that opposed Sheriff McDonnell’s campaign to bring accountability to the agency and rid it of bad cops. (Don’t things look different from the perspective of 2020.) Nor were Democratic groups daunted by the absence of experienced leadership from Villanueva on any issues that Democrats ought to care about.

The new Sheriff has been wrangling with the County Board of Supervisors ever since taking office. The LA Times reports on the latest controversy this morning (“Sheriff’s sexist slur and accusations of ‘blood money’ ramp up feud with L.A. County supervisors”). In a dispute with board chair Hilda Solis he invoked La Malinche (“a name used to demean a woman as a traitor or sellout. It refers to a historical figure in Mexican culture who was the interpreter and slave of the Spanish conqueror Hernán Cortés and became a symbol of betrayal for facilitating the conquest of the Aztec empire”).

▪ Finally: Trader Joe’s (founded in Pasadena) made a corporate decision to abandon labeling such as Trader Ming’s, Trader Jose’s, and Trader Giotto’s [or seemed to do so; see Update below] after a 17-year old activist started an online petition that argued, “The Trader Joe’s branding is racist because it exoticizes other cultures — it presents ‘Joe’ as the default ‘normal’ and the other characters falling outside of it.” 

Readers of the LA Times weren’t convinced that TJ’s whimsical marketing was actually racist, as noted by four letters to the editor published earlier this month. Rather, the attitude across the board was, “Are you kidding me?”

On Saturday, Paul Thornton, the letters editor, commented (in introducing additional letters):

“The four letters published July 23 reflected that unanimity, and I thought that such a one-sided presentation of opinions would  provoke at least a few readers who agreed with Trader Joe’s expression of cultural sensitivity to write us. Instead, the letters had the opposite effect….

As of this writing, more than 70 readers have sent us letters on the topic, and not a single one has bid good riddance to Trader Giotto or Trader Jose.”

This one (from an LA reader) was typical:

I am Chinese and a fifth-generation American. My father’s name was Ming, and he always got a chuckle out of seeing “Trader Ming” in the grocery store’s Fearless Flyer newsletter.

Kudos to the young woman who saw a problem and took action. However, I would like to respectfully suggest that there are many problems more worthy of her time and energy.

[Update: Trader Joe’s customers view the chain’s “brand variations” much as LA Times‘ readers do:

A few weeks ago, an online petition was launched calling on us to “remove racist packaging from [our] products.” Following were inaccurate reports that the petition prompted us to take action. We want to be clear: we disagree that any of these labels are racist. We do not make decisions based on petitions.

We make decisions based on what customers purchase, as well as the feedback we receive from our customers and Crew Members. If we feel there is need for change, we do not hesitate to take action.

. . .

Recently we have heard from many customers reaffirming that these name variations are largely viewed in exactly the way they were intended­—as an attempt to have fun with our product marketing. We continue our ongoing evaluation, and those products that resonate with our customers and sell well will remain on our shelves.]

(Image: Governor Gavin Newsom speaks in Stockton as seen on KTLA5.)

Democracy, Republicans

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pushes back against dehumanizing rhetoric towards women

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke to the House of Representatives in reply to Congressman Ted Yoho’s self-congratulatory, excuse-making non-apology after ambushing AOC on the steps of the Capitol.

. . . About two days ago I was walking up the steps of the Capitol when Representative Yoho suddenly turned a corner – and he was accompanied by Representative Roger Williams – and accosted me on the steps right here in front of our nation’s Capitol. I was minding my own business, walking up the steps, and Representative Yoho put his finger in my face. He called me disgusting, he called me crazy, he called me out of my mind, and he called me dangerous.

And then he took a few more steps and after I had recognized his – after I had recognized his comments as rude, he walked away and said: I’m rude. You’re calling me rude.

I took a few steps ahead and I walked inside and cast my vote, because my constituents send me here each and every day to fight for them. And to make sure that they are able to keep a roof over their head, that they are able to feed their families, and that they are able to carry their lives with dignity. I walked back out and there were reporters in the front of the Capitol, and in front of reporters Representative Yoho called me, and I quote, a fucking bitch. These are the words that Representative Yoho levied against a congresswoman. A congresswoman that not only represents New York’s 14th Congressional District, but every congresswoman and every woman in this country. Because all of us have had to deal with this in some form, some way, some shape at some point in our lives.

And I want to be clear that Representative Yoho’s comments were not deeply hurtful or piercing to me. Because I have worked a working-class job. I have waited tables in restaurants. I have ridden the subway. I have walked the streets in New York City. And this kind of language is not new.

I have encountered words uttered by Mr. Yoho and men uttering the same words as Mr. Yoho while I was being harassed in restaurants. I have tossed men out of bars that have used language like Mr. Yoho’s. And I have encountered this type of harassment riding the subway in New York City.

This is not new. And that is the problem. Mr. Yoho was not alone. He was walking shoulder to shoulder with Representative Roger Williams. And that’s when we start to see that this issue is not about one incident. It is cultural. It is a culture of … impunity, of accepting of violence and violent language against women – an entire structure of power that supports that.

Because not only have I been spoken to disrespectfully, particularly by members of the Republican Party, and elected officials in the Republican Party – not just here, but the President of the United States last year told me to go home – to another country – with the implication that I don’t even belong in America. The governor of Florida, Governor DeSantis – before I even was sworn in – called me “a whatever that is.”

Dehumanizing language is not new. And what we are seeing is that incidents like these are happening in a pattern. This is a pattern of an attitude towards women and dehumanization of others.

So while I was not deeply hurt or offended by little comments that are made, when I was reflecting on this, I honestly thought that I was just going to pack it up and go home. It’s just another day, right?

But then yesterday Representative Yoho decided to come to the floor of the House of Representatives and make excuses for his behavior. And that I could not let go. I could not allow my nieces, I could not allow the little girls that I go home to, I could not allow victims of verbal abuse and worse to see that – to see that excuse. And to see our Congress accept it as legitimate and accept it as an apology, and to accept silence as a form of acceptance.

I could not allow that to stand, which is why I’m rising today to raise this point of personal privilege.

And I do not need Representative Yoho to apologize to me. Clearly, he does not want to. Clearly, when given the opportunity, he will not. And I will not stay up late at night waiting for an apology from a man who has no remorse over calling women and using abusive language towards women.

But what I do have issue with is using women, our wives and daughters, as shields and excuses for poor behavior. Mr. Yoho mentioned that he has a wife and two daughters. I am two years younger than Mr. Yoho’s youngest daughter. I am someone’s daughter too. My father, thankfully, is not alive to see how Mr. Yoho treated his daughter. My mother got to see Mr. Yoho’s disrespect on the floor of this house towards me on television. And I am here because I have to show my parents that I am their daughter and that they did not raise me to accept abuse from men.

Now, what I am here to say is that this harm that Mr. Yoho levied, it – tried to levy against me –was not just an incident directed at me. But when you do that to any woman, what Mr. Yoho did was give permission to other men to do that to his daughters.

He – in using that language in front of the press – he gave permission to use that language against his wife, his daughters, women in his community. And I am here to stand up to say that is not acceptable.

I do not care what your views are. It does not matter how much I disagree or how much it incenses me or how much I feel that people are dehumanizing others. I will not do that myself.

I will not allow people to change and create hatred in our hearts. And so what I believe is that having a daughter does not make a man decent. Having a wife does not make a decent man. Treating people with dignity and respect makes a decent man. And when a decent man messes up, as we all are bound to do, he tries his best and does apologize. Not to save face. Not to win a vote. He apologizes genuinely to repair and acknowledge the harm done, so that we can all move on.

Lastly, what I want to express to Mr. Yoho is gratitude. I want to thank him for showing the world that you can be a powerful man and accost women. You can have daughters and accost women without remorse. You can be married and accost women. You can take photos and project an image to the world of being a family man and accost women without remorse and with a sense of impunity.

It happens every day in this country. It happened here on the steps of our nation’s Capitol. It happens when individuals who hold the highest office in this land admit – admit to hurting women and using this language against all of us. . . .

Editorial comment: Republican political discourse, campaign strategy, and talking points for the media (whether a friendly FNC or the mainstream press) have — since at least the Gingrich era — characterized Democrats as enemies. Dehumanizing language comes with the territory.

Add to that the MAGA promise to return to the 1950s, which appeals especially to the Christian right, and women — especially women of color — become fair game for Donald Trump’s faction of America. Even on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. Even with reporters present.

As AOC put it: Just another day, right?

Donald Trump

Politicial science, Occam’s razor, and answering the question: What is it with Donald Trump?

As tempting as it is to talk about President Donald Trump’s instinctive corruption or to analyze his enthusiasm for deploying federal law enforcement against the wishes of mayors and governors or to note his latest defiance of the courts and the Constitution or his recurring falsehoods about the pandemic or even to speculate about why he had warm words for someone accused of assisting a sexual predator, I can’t help it: I’m stuck on his inability to perform some of the more basic aspects of his job. — Jonathan Bernstein (“In Relief-Bill Talks, ‘Donald From Queens’ Isn’t Much Help”)

That — “his inability to perform some of the more basic aspects of his job” — (in my view) expresses the essential Donald Trump.

That, and Occam’s razor, is the reason I am skeptical of the explanatory value of speculation such as this:

Fixating on the Confederacy makes it seem like Trump’s goal isn’t reelection, but post-loss opportunities. 

And:

Until now I had dismissed the “Trump WANTS to lose” hot takes out of hand but beginning to rethinking my position…

And even Bernstein, who cited both the Glassman and the Drezner tweets, and then added: 

I’ve questioned for some time now whether Trump desperately craves re-election, and I think that’s the best framework here. It’s not that Trump doesn’t want to win. It’s that he’s not willing, as normal presidents are, to do whatever it takes. In particular, he doesn’t appear willing to do his job.

While perhaps literally true that Trump “doesn’t appear willing to do his job,” looking at what Trump appears willing to do, elides the primary point: Trump is incapable of doing his job.

He doesn’t have the chops. He’s a lousy negotiator. He doesn’t understand government. He is ignorant of policy. He acts more like a toddler, than a rational political actor. His actions — as president and candidate for reelection — are so often self-defeating it is confounding to make sense of them.

He has a narcissistic personality — and so he isn’t choosing to act badly; he is compelled to do so. He is (as George Conway has demonstrated) incapable of fulfilling the constitutional duties of president. This isn’t a case of wanting.

P.S. This brings to mind a discussion your fearless blogger has waded into in the past: is Trump a weak president? I wrestled with this because (i) of course Trump has many weaknesses as illustrated through the lens of Professor Neustadt (Presidential Power), but (ii) he also has extraordinary, unprecedented control over his political party unlike anything Neustadt had ever encountered. (I ultimately concluded that this historically unique strength was insufficient to move the Neustadt-inspired judgment on Trump from weak to strong.)

Drezner has observed (“It’s starting to fall apart”), “Trump’s iron control over his party has enabled him to be a somewhat stronger president than devotees of Richard E. Neustadt would otherwise expect.”

In my view, Neustadt’s analysis relies on assumptions of rationality that are completely reasonable and, furthermore, those assumptions have accurately characterized every other recent president (from FDR to Obama).

These assumptions don’t apply to Donald Trump. The Neustadt model doesn’t quite fit, because Trump is an anomaly. So, while devotees of Neustadt have struck the theme of a weak presidency since January 2017, and while this way of looking at Trump (as at earlier presidents) has explanatory force (illustrating many of his weaknesses), it misses the key to understanding Trump: his incapacity (psychological, intellectual, moral). He is unfit, incompetent, out of his depth to a degree that Neustadt could not possibly foresee, so the Presidential Power model falls short (or misdirects).

Back to the initial discussion: The simple, elegant explanation of Trump’s failures as president is found in the man’s incapacity to master what he has been called upon to do. We need not add musings about whether Trump wants to be reelected to explain a stance — his defense of the Confederacy — that appears to be a losing strategy for reelection, even though other recent presidents would know better.

(Image of William of Ockham from the Geograph Britain and Ireland Project.)

Democracy, Donald Trump, Off the Rails

Donald Trump, with help from John Yoo, finds “powers that nobody thought the president had”

We’re signing a health care plan within two weeks, a full and complete health care plan that the Supreme Court decision on DACA gave me the right to do. So we’re going to solve — we’re going to sign an immigration plan, a health care plan, and various other plans. And nobody will have done what I’m doing in the next four weeks. The Supreme Court gave the president of the United States powers that nobody thought the president had, by approving, by doing what they did — their decision on DACA. And DACA’s going to be taken care of also. But we’re getting rid of it because we’re going to replace it with something much better. What we got rid of already, which was most of Obamacare, the individual mandate. And that I’ve already won on. And we won also on the Supreme Court. But the decision by the Supreme Court on DACA allows me to do things on immigration, on health care, on other things that we’ve never done before. And you’re going to find it to be a very exciting two weeks. — Donald Trump in an interview with Chris Wallace

When I listened to this interview today, I was baffled by the claim of “powers that nobody thought the president had.” Wallace apparently didn’t know what to make of it either, since he jumped to a question about Mary Trump’s book.

Today, a report by Axios (“Scoop: Trump’s license to skirt the law”) provides the context, an article by John Yoo (the man who defended waterboarding as a national policy, even if it violated federal statutes) in National Review (“How the Supreme Court’s DACA Decision Harms the Constitution, the Presidency, Congress, and the Country”).

The article offers Yoo’s reasoning in the first three sentences:

Suppose President Donald Trump decided to create a nationwide right to carry guns openly. He could declare that he would not enforce federal firearms laws, and that a new “Trump permit” would free any holder of state and local gun-control restrictions.

Even if Trump knew that his scheme lacked legal authority, he could get away with it for the length of his presidency. And, moreover, even if courts declared the permit illegal, his successor would have to keep enforcing the program for another year or two. [Emphasis added.]

Yoo finds justification for this interpretation within the 5-4 opinion written by the Chief Justice (with the 4 liberals concurring). As Yoo puts it (quoting from the text of the opinion):

“Even if it is illegal for DHS to extend work authorization and other benefits to DACA recipients,” Roberts found, DACA “could not be rescinded in full without any consideration whatsoever of a” non-deportation policy other than on the ground of its illegality.

According to Chief Justice Roberts, the Constitution makes it easy for presidents to violate the law, but reversing such violations difficult — especially for their successors.

Yoo criticizes this decision in National Review, because he believes it allows a president to unduly tie the hands of his successors. (I’m not an attorney, so I may be missing something in thinking that Yoo finds torture at the hands of the federal government more acceptable than deferring deportations of immigrants whose parents brought them into the country as children without legal documentation.)

Regardless of Yoo’s objections, the White House sees a green light for expanding presidential power beyond even the creative imagination (prior to Roberts’ DACA decision) of Bill Barr’s justice department.

This is scary stuff for anyone who has had occasion to fear Trump’s authoritarian impulses.

I’ve concluded a couple of posts recently with warnings (regarding a raging COVID-19) that things will get worse. With Trump in a rage about his polling, the economy, and an out of control epidemic he has tried his best to ignore, we can count on this: Things will get worse — much worse — before January 20, 2021.

(Image: King George III via wikipedia.)

Democracy, Off the Rails

Memo to governors: Are you analyzing risks & benefits? or just winging it when you make policy choices?

Michael Hiltzik writes about the lack of progress, months after the country shut down, in battling the coronavirus. He quotes a physician on the faculty of UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health:

We shut down the country for months, and didn’t do anything during that time to build the infrastructure and processes we needed. . . .

We didn’t use that time to build up our testing capacity, we didn’t think about schools in advance … — Dr. David Eisenman

In short we squandered the time, failing to take advantage of the pause in infections, and in many respects we are back to where we were in April — with shortages of PPE and inadequate testing and tracing — but the number of infections, the rate of infections, and the death toll have all risen, and the fall school term is only weeks away.

In an ideal world, there would be a national strategy in place, but because of an absence of leadership in the White House, responsibility for defeating the coronavirus has fallen to 50 state governors (plus leaders in D.C., Puerto Rico …).

At this stage, leadership at the state level has not served the country well. Watching the various states embrace (and reject) a hodgepodge of policies, and watching individual governors pivot first this way, then that, has hardly inspired confidence. In fact, policies have often been confounding and, if a coherent rationale for specific decisions exists, it has not always been visible.

Emily Oster, an economics professor at Brown University’s Watson Institute, suggests (“Risks & Benefits Matrix”) that governors could clarify their decisions — and I’ll add, make better decisions — if they compared (and revealed to us) risks and benefits of various activities to be permitted or restricted by their policy choices.

There is room for disagreement about social value, so it’s possible to decide that, say, opening bars and sporting events is more important than opening schools. But, let’s hear that choice articulated, so we know that at least the governor has thought things through and is willing to cop to his/her preferences.

Professor Oster offers this graph of her personal policy preferences. Parks (in the upper left quadrant) provide high benefit at low risk. In contrast, gyms and bars find their places in the lower right quadrant (high risk and, on her evaluation, low reward) activities. Opening schools is risky, but may be regarded as providing large rewards (top, right).

Graph from “Risks & Benefits” by Emily Oster.

In practice, of course, many governors appear to have valued bars and gyms more highly than K-12 schools. Other policy anomalies abound across the country.

I’m with Oster (and just as angry): “In my wildest dreams, I’d like to see each of our Governors give a press conference with a picture like this behind them which reflects their policies. It’s not that these policies aren’t defensible, but I would like to see people say: bars have a sufficiently high benefit that I’m prioritizing that over in-person schooling.“

(Emily Oster provides the link to “COVID-19 Be Informed” image from the Texas Medical Association.)

Democracy

New York Times’ editorial — “Reopening Schools… It Must Be Done” — offers a misguided imperative

July 14: revised for clarity and to acknowledge recent developments:

The editorial (“Reopening Schools Will Be a Huge Undertaking. It Must Be Done”) begins:

American children need public schools to reopen in the fall. Reading, writing and arithmetic are not even the half of it. Kids need to learn to compete and to cooperate. They need food and friendships; books and basketball courts; time away from family and a safe place to spend it.

Parents need public schools, too. They need help raising their children, and they need to work.

I agree that schools are essential. Our society and several generations of students will be irreparably harmed if our schools remain closed. So, how do we reopen safely?

Here is what it’s going to take: more money and more space.

The return to school, as with other aspects of pre-pandemic normalcy, rests on the nation’s ability to control the spread of the coronavirus. In communities where the virus is spreading rapidly, school is likely to remain virtual. The rise in case counts across much of the country is jeopardizing even the best-laid plans for classroom education.

We need money — and lots of it: “To maximize in-person instruction, the federal government must open its checkbook.” The editorial advises that districts need “hundreds of billions of dollars” to reopen safely. And, “even in places where the virus is under control, schools lack the means to safely provide full-time instruction.”

I contend that, while an out of control coronavirus spreads across the country in two-thirds of our states, our primary focus should be on communities, not schools. That’s how to keep us safe.

A feature in the Atlantic (“These 8 Basic Steps Will Let Us Reopen Schools”) written by three past federal officials in education and health policy (Thomas R. Frieden, Arne Duncan, and Margaret Spellings) anticipates my objection. Before introducing their eight steps, the authors acknowledge:

The single most important thing we can do to keep our schools safe has nothing to do with what happens in schools. It’s how well communities control the coronavirus throughout the community. Such control of COVID-19 requires adhering to the three W’s—wear a mask, wash your hands, watch your distance—and boxing in the virus with strategic testing, effective isolation, complete contact tracing, and supportive quarantine—providing services and, if necessary, alternative temporary housing so patients and contacts don’t spread disease to others. [Emphasis added.]

Boxing in the virus is job number one. We need to get this done before we bring students back to campuses.

Embedded in step number eight in the Atlantic piece — “prepare for cases” — is this: “All contacts of new cases must be traced and quarantined.”

That’s a task for the broader community, not just schools. From my vantage point in Los Angeles, we are still failing at testing, tracing, and quarantining. We’re not even close to getting this right. (New York State may be another story.) The Los Angeles Unified School District agrees with this judgment (“L.A. Unified will not reopen campuses for start of school year amid coronavirus spike”). But there is great resistance to making the call to keep campuses closed.

Texas is requiring all schools in the state to have on-campus instruction. Other states will likely follow unless the infection rates and deaths rise to a level that makes this unsustainable. In other words, the decision about on-campus (vs. remote) learning may be made by outsiders, not leaders nearest students, teachers, and families. The Trump administration is pushing schools to reopen to get students out of the house, so parents can go back to work. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is pushing for reopening without an inkling of how to keep students safe.

School districts may also put aside principles of public health in a rush to reopen. By a 4-1 vote, the Orange County Board of Education endorsed the conclusion that neither masks, nor social distancing were necessary on reopened school campuses.

The white paper the board released in support of this stance asserted: “Requiring children to wear masks during school is not only difficult – if not impossible to implement – but not based on science. It may even be harmful and is therefore not recommended.”

The final sentence is absolutely not based on science, though it may be a rightwing talking point. We have much to learn about coronavirus, but we know enough – based on public health authorities, rather than political figures – to regard the unequivocal rejection of masks and social distancing with skepticism.

If, with rising infection rates in the community, schools reopen, the number of cases and resulting deaths will continue to rise. Just as communities differ, not all school districts are created equal. The NYT’s editorial board advises us that there are 13,000 schools districts in this country. To accept their demand that we reopen schools would have highly inequitable consequences from place to place. The impact on poor and minority communities, which are already experiencing disproportionate harm from coronavirus, is likely to be especially severe.

I have other qualms with the NYT editorial. Advocacy for public spending to secure “among other things, the installation of physical barriers in common areas, increased cleaning and daily health checks” and to find “twice as much room” for classrooms to ensure physical distancing, makes sense if community spread is not out of control. (This may be true in New York, though if it’s not true in two-thirds of the country, states in the Northeast — including New York — continue to be vulnerable.)

As a country, spending “hundreds of billions of dollars” for plexiglass barriers and assembling classrooms in gymnasiums may not be the best use of federal dollars. Shouldn’t we focus first and foremost on putting a national plan in place to defeat the coronavirus across the country (even if New Yorkers believe they’re safe enough right now), and on securing funding to that end, before trying to reopen schools, most of which are in or much too near to hotspots to be safe?

Trying to manage around a raging epidemic is highly risky (and extraordinarily expensive), though I grant that we have no choice. (Perhaps changing ‘misguided’ to ‘parochial’ in my headline would have better represented my visceral, and perhaps parochial, objection to the Times’ editorial.)

In my view, doing our utmost to snuff out the epidemic is a higher calling than reopening schools. It affects the whole country (even places where the virus has receded for a time), not just a relatively few fortunate school districts.

It’s tempting – with Trump in the White House – to give up on defeating the coronavirus. But until we succeed, we have no prospect for putting an end to rampant, senseless illness, suffering, and death.

It must be done, or we have failed as a nation.

(Image, which accompanied NYT editorial, by Nicholas Konrad.)

Donald Trump, Off the Rails

No surprise, and mostly GOP silence, as Donald Trump commutes Roger Stone’s prison sentence

Mitt Romney is the GOP exception, of course, as he has been in the past.

In a normal time (at least pre-Newt Gingrich), with a pair of normal political parties (back in the day when the GOP was committed to governing), and a normal president (anyone from FDR through Obama), Senator Romney’s statement would not make him an extreme outlier.

Those were the days.

Donald Trump, Off the Rails

Donald Trump is impatient for schools to open — but he doesn’t give a fig about children and Families

“In Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden … SCHOOLS ARE OPEN WITH NO PROBLEMS.”

Compare the number of new cases of coronavirus in the following countries. The totals for the first four countries are from Johns Hopkins’ Coronavirus Resource Center for July 8 (yesterday); the total for the U.S. for July 9 (today, just posted) is from the New York Times.

  • Germany – 356
  • Denmark – 12
  • Norway – 11
  • Sweden – 514
  • United States – 59,460

The CDC (along with Drs. Fauci and Birx, et al.) may recognize a difference in the rates of infection in the countries Trump says have opened schools with NO PROBLEMS and the country that he leads — or rather, has failed to lead.

Does anyone think — even in the red states and regions — that Donald Trump is concerned with the health and well-being of the nation’s children, or the teachers who lead our classrooms, or the families that the children go home to each evening?

Until the U.S. has gotten the upper hand on the coronavirus, it makes no sense to rush to reopen. And, sadly, tragically, this may not begin to happen until Donald Trump has left the White House.

Things are still getting worse. On his watch.

(Image: one room schoolhouse in Lincoln’s New Salem. [“Great president. Most people don’t even know he was a Republican.”])