Tag Archives: COVID-19

Blue State Blues

Trouble in Paradise: California struggles to defeat the coronavirus and change police culture

Defeating the coronavirus

Seven counties in the San Francisco Bay Area issued “sweeping shelter-in-place” orders on March 16. Reaction was predictable: “Public health experts praised the region’s action, while residents, business owners and workers were divided. Some welcomed the restrictions as necessary for the common good, while others feared they could threaten jobs and livelihoods, doing more harm than the virus itself.”

Governor Gavin Newsom followed with a statewide order three days later. These orders, sound steps to ensure public health, cast California’s political leadership in a good light and protected Californians before the virus had gotten out of control.

No longer. In spite of Governor Newsom’s vow, “Protests won’t drive our decision making. Political pressure will not drive our decision making. The science, the data public health will drive our decision making,” he was under intense pressure to reopen (a dynamic in red and blue states alike). People’s livelihoods were at stake. Not to mention government revenues to fund public programs and services.

To to get businesses up and running again and employees back at work, Governor Newsom shifted the criteria for reopening safely and permitted local governments to rush to reopen. By May 26, public health officials were pushing back against Newsom’s increasingly aggressive reopening timeline.

Three and a half months after California began to shut down, and then began to reopen, the Golden State is among numerous states that have experienced an out of control coronavirus. While the rate of infection (15 per 100,000) is not as high as in eight other states — Arizona (43); Florida (34): South Carolina (28); Nevada (22);  Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas  (20 each); and Georgia (19) — California is the nation’s most populous state. The number of people affected, with 237,068 cases and 6,152 total deaths, eclipses the impact felt in smaller states.

In blue states (which promised that data, not political pressure would drive decision making) as well as red (where following Donald Trump’s lead has been the dominant impulse), the United States has become an international outlier. This nation — an international leader in medical innovation — has bungled the response to the pandemic so thoroughly that it is now among the countries whose residents are banned from entering Europe.

Chart from vox.com

Of course the United States’ primary policy failures have been at the national level. While this crisis cried out for national leadership, Trump has steadfastly refused to take on the challenge. That left 50 state governors (plus leaders in D.C., Puerto Rico, and Guam) on their own. If that patchwork of policy responses – and the inevitable counterproductive competition among states for PPE and other resources to fight the pandemic – were not challenging enough, Trump told his base that reports of the pandemic were overblown, “fake news” generated by the mainstream media; he rejected wearing facial coverings as signals of disapproval of him; and criticized governors who imposed social distancing restrictions. Thus, simple, sensible measures to defeat the virus have been met with resistance every step of the way – in blue states and red states alike.

Republican men, who are particularly in thrall of Trump, are most likely to spurn sound guidance (when the President spurns it), but other folks (and not just Trump fans) have been misled by the mixed messages communicated by the President of the United States, his administration, his campaign, and a host of media enablers (led by Fox News Channel).

For a few weeks it appeared that states, individually and in concert, were on track to defeat this virus. The absence of national leadership and a unifying message, the refusal to marshal resources and coordinate a response across the country, and Trump’s deliberate undermining of governors determined to protect public health have defeated us. This calamity has starkly revealed Donald Trump’s unfitness for the office he holds. He is incapable of performing his job and declines to try.

While other countries have found a great measure of success, the United States will be wrestling with coronavirus for the rest of Trump’s first term – and well beyond.

Changing police culture

For many weeks across the country we’ve seen protests seeking to end pervasive discrimination based on race, with a special focus on law enforcement practices and policies that put Black men, especially, and Black women in harm’s way. Especially since 911, many police forces have leaned toward militarization, which clashes with more collaborative models of community policing.

Obviously, this problem isn’t confined to red states. The Los Angeles Police Department has a history of both militaristic and racially biased law enforcement. In 1965 (Watts) and again in 1992 (Rodney King), Black neighborhoods, sparked by anger over policing in the city, erupted in violence. While neighborhoods didn’t burn after the O.J. Simpson acquittal (1995), Black reaction to the verdict was undoubtedly influenced by LAPD Officer Mark Fuhrman’s taped interviews featuring racial slurs, tales of police brutality, and boasts of planting evidence.

LAPD circa 2020 is more than a generation removed from Daryl Gates’ department. We have seen significant changes since then. But there are still police shootings of unarmed suspects, including mentally ill individuals, and during street protests following George Floyd’s murder, there were numerous instances of police conduct that resembled the meting out of ‘street justice’ or torrents of uncontrolled anger, rather than disciplined law enforcement.

Image from the Telegraph on YouTube.

In full-page ads, which ran in the Los Angeles Times, the San Jose Mercury News, and the Washington Post, the San Jose Police Officers Association, the San Francisco Police Officer Association, and the Los Angeles Police Protective League calling for police reforms: “No words can convey our collective disgust and sorrow for the murder of George Floyd,” said the statement, continuing, “We have an obligation as a profession and as human beings to express our sorrow by taking action.”

The statement acknowledged the existence of racist police officers but pledged, “Police unions must root out racism wherever it rears its ugly head and root out any racist individual from our profession.”

On the same day the ad ran, the union had an entirely different message (“Facing criticism, police union unleashes its ‘pit bull,'”) for its 9,900 members:

“The CHIEF! Never sell out and back the troops!” said a Facebook post by Los Angeles Police Protective League board member Jamie McBride. The message accompanied a video of Daryl F. Gates, a former LAPD chief who ran a department plagued by excessive force and brutal relations with communities of color.

That kind of defiant pose has become a trademark for McBride over a 30-year career in the Los Angeles Police Department and six years on the board of the powerful union, which uses campaign donations to influence city elections. The Police Protective League puts McBride in front of the news media to signal that rank-and-file officers have had enough of the city’s left-leaning political leadership.

The veteran detective exudes the swagger and tribal brio of the old-school LAPD. He was a street cop with a disproportionate number of on-duty shootings and an investigator who fought management discipline (including his own) and won, and he remains a sometime actor who plays street thugs and tough cops in movies and on television.

His frequent and public Facebook posts yearn for a bygone era when the LAPD wasn’t under attack by what old-timers view as a cadre of timid chiefs, desk-bound geeks and opportunistic politicians.

A 2018 post on McBride’s Facebook page, touting the “good ol days,” features an armored vehicle, gunfire, tasers, body slams, car crashes, rivers of blood, and corpses – all to the tune of the Rolling Stones’ ‘Gimme Shelter.’ At least not all the lawbreakers are Black or Latino.

“What you see in this video is a joy in search-and-destroy policing. … It’s not about protection. It’s not about safety. It’s warrior enforcement,” said Connie Rice, a civil rights lawyer who has worked with the department on reform measures.

Of officers like McBride, Rice added: “That’s the kind of policing they enjoy. That’s what they live for. … What the protesters are saying is: ‘Time’s up for that. It’s over.’ The consent of the governed for that kind of policing is done.”

McBride said that the video shows an earlier era of policing but that he acknowledges a need for change. “We as a department have instituted hundreds of reforms, yet there is more we can do,” he said.

The phrase, “hundreds of reforms,” is a tell, suggesting that it’s time to consider something more fundamental than a checklist of ‘reforms’ to eliminate us-against-them policing. Although Los Angeles is hardly ready to defund the police, the City Council just voted to cut $150 million from the police budget.

Supporters of Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles, who have proposed cuts of 90 to 100% of police funding, derided the action:

“That is literally pocket change,” said Rebecca Kessler, a resident of Van Nuys who called in to the council this week. “It’s a slap in the face. You need to defund the police, take way more money, put way more money into these programs.”

LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa reached his goal of increasing the size of LAPD to 10,000 officers in 2013. That’s not that many cops for the sprawling city of Los Angeles. At the time, I regarded this as sound policy. With today’s budget cut, the force will eventually fall to 9,757.

When the troubled city of Camden, New Jersey disbanded its police department in 2013, and reconstituted it as a county agency, it saved money (by withdrawing from a union contract) and the force grew from 250 to 400. That’s a model I might have endorsed a month ago – staffing up and retraining.

But the route Los Angeles seems headed for – pioneered by Eugene, Oregon in 1989! – may be more promising. When residents call 911, the dispatcher has a choice: send police (if an armed response is needed); otherwise, send a team consisting of a medic and a crisis worker – from the nonprofit, Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets (CAHOOTS).

Last year CAHOOTS handled 20% of 911 calls in Eugene and the neighboring city of Springfield. Denver and Olympia, Washington have embraced a similar model.

In Los Angeles many 911 calls involve mental health crises, substance abuse, homeless individuals — often nonviolent situations. There is no compelling reason for armed police officers to respond to these calls. Further, the police are receptive to an approach that designates another responder.

Los Angeles police union officials have welcomed the idea of spreading around calls for service to other agencies more equipped to handle mental health-related calls. In 2019, LAPD statistics show, officers responded to 1.9 million calls for service, with 20,758 of those related to mental-health issues, a 2 percent increase from the previous year.

“We have gone from asking the police to be part of the solution, to being the only solution for problems they should not be called on to solve in the first place,” wrote the authors of the Los Angeles City Council that directed city staffers to look to Eugene for answers.

(Image: KCAL.)

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

The Trump Roadshow pretends there is no raging pandemic and no rising death toll

Donald Trump is on the move. Tulsa. Phoenix. And coming soon to Mount Rushmore, where he will celebrate the 4th.

Meanwhile, the number of new coronavirus infections reported across the U.S. yesterday — 38,115 — was a record high since the start of the pandemic. The number of infections in this country totals more than 2.3 million and the death toll exceeds 119,000. I recommend the interactive feature in this morning’s New York Times, which illustrates in vivid animation the relentless spread of this virus.

“Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count,” June 25, 2020 New York Times.

In March, the President, failing to apprehend the reference to Nero fiddling while Rome burned, retweeted a cartoon image of himself playing the violin.

Ignoring the pandemic; willfully refusing to do anything to tame it (except for persistent wishing); pretending that if we just all go back to work and out to shop, all will be well — this is hardly a promising reelection strategy. But that seems to be Trump’s game plan. And, by all accounts, that — winning reelection, not defeating the coronavirus — is Trump’s fixation.

That’s a remarkable testament to Trump’s intellectual incapacity, moral depravity, and unfitness for the office he holds.

More significant than a stupid, self-defeating strategy is that people continue to die. Tens of thousands who didn’t have to die. This is a national tragedy as a result of a monumental failure of leadership. We can see this clearly in the contrast between the U.S. and the European Union. The EU has begun to tame this virus; we haven’t. It’s getting worse here.

Meet the Press, June 21, 2020.

Trump is incapable — relying on his gut and his small, threadbare bag of tricks — of defeating the coronavirus. So, having failed to wish it away, he ignores it.

Here’s what’s even more significant: The contemporary Republican Party is complicit in this ongoing catastrophe. Republican leaders have made a deal in getting behind Trump, and standing behind him come what may.

The failures of Trump’s tenure in the White House are clearly visible. The consequences can’t be hidden or wished away. And among the national Republican leadership, there are plenty of men and women who see well enough what is going on.

And they’re going along with this. They stick with Trump no matter what the consequences. No matter how many hundreds of thousands of Americans get infected needlessly, and no matter how many tens of thousands of Americans die as a result of Trump’s failures — they stick with him. They have freely entered into a pact that they are unwilling to break.

They made a cold, hard calculation to follow Trump because it kept them in power, gave them tax cuts, shredded regulations, and allowed them to stack the federal courts with right-wing ideologues. And the fact that their bargain has brought pain and suffering and death in numbers that are stomach turning — that, in their minds, doesn’t outweigh the political benefits of the deal.

There is so much that is indecent about this President. There’s so much to be distressed and angry about. Day after day, the cases of coronavirus increase and the death toll mounts. It’s disheartening and infuriating and disturbing to watch senators, members of Congress and the cabinet, advisors in the White House — the whole lot of defenders and apologists for Trump — accept the sickness, the pain and suffering, and the deaths of Americans because, in their minds, what they’ve gained outweighs the devastation that their political bargain has brought to the rest of the country.

(Image: Mount Rushmore in the fog, National Park Service.)

Democrats, Donald Trump, Republicans

Why is the United States, with 4% of the world’s population, #1 — at 25% –in COVID-19 cases?

Chuck Todd interviews Dr. Michael Osterholm, Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.

Todd: President Trump’s Tulsa rally came one day after the United States recorded the most new cases of COVID-19 since May 3. And at a point when, according to Johns Hopkins University, the U.S. is doing a far worse job of controlling the pandemic than the European Union is doing – basically similar size, if you will. Look at that graph. . . .

Dr. Osterholm, welcome back…. How do you explain that the United States have 25% of the globe’s cases and we’re sadly number one with the rocket ship? …

Osterholm: … At this point we don’t really have a national plan that really puts together what we’re trying to do. We have 50 different states, the District of Columbia, the territories – all kind of with their own plan. And you’ve seen in the past week how disjointed that is.

What are we trying to do? We’re at 70-percent of the number of cases today that we were at the very height of the pandemic cases in early April. And yet I don’t see any kind of a – This is where we need to go and this is what we need to do to get there kind of effort. And that’s one of our challenges.

Todd: Is this a failure of testing and tracing – is that where this failure is? Or is this just across the board?

Osterholm: Well, we have to understand, as I’ve said to you on multiple occasions, We’re not driving this Tiger, we’re riding it. And while other areas have done much better around the world in stopping it after a difficult period of time with it, we haven’t done that.

And part of that is the fact that we have not really, I think, gotten the message across to the public yet that this is a very serious issue; that we can’t shut down our economy, but we just can’t suddenly say, We’re done with it.

This virus is operating on its own time, under its own rules, not anything we impose on it. And we’re now trying to act like somehow we can policy-wise impose our will on this virus. And that’s what’s happened.

Other countries have been much more aware of the fact that the virus is going to do what it’s going to do. And so you have to basically stay locked down. You have to limit transmission in areas that we’re not doing. And that’s why I think you’re seeing right now is increases in a number of states, because everybody’s back to a pre-pandemic mindset.

Dr. Osterholm: “… we have not really, I think, gotten the message across to the public yet that this is a very serious issue.”

The Messenger in Chief, of course, is Donald Trump. And that is not the message that he is communicating. So, it is Republicans, who look to him as their leader, who are least likely to have gotten the message.

Consider one aspect of the public health message that the public hasn’t gotten — wearing masks to prevent the spread of the virus and protect other people. A Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that

Democrats are almost twice as likely as Republicans (70% v. 37%) to say they wear a mask “every time” they leave their house and while most people (72%) think President Trump should wear a mask when meeting with other people, only about half of Republicans (48%) agree. The partisan difference in opinion and behavior regarding masks is largely driven by Republican men. About half of Republican men report wearing a protective mask at least most of the time when leaving their house to go someplace where they may come into contact with others (49%) and smaller shares say President Trump should wear a mask when meeting with other people (43%).

Trump’s policy on the coronavirus is denial. And numbers make the President look bad. In Tulsa, the President said, “When you do testing to that extent you’re going to find more people, you’re going to find cases. So I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please.’ They test and they test. We got tests for people who don’t know what’s going on.”

White House officials insisted that Trump was only kidding. But when asked on Tuesday about his comments, Trump replied, “I don’t kid.”

And there is evidence to back up Trump’s serious intent: “The Trump administration is planning to end federal support for some coronavirus testing sites across the nation at the end of the month — including seven in Texas, where confirmed cases of COVID are spiking.”

As a campaign strategy denial doesn’t look very promising, but that, clearly, is the strategy the Trump campaign is running with now. Trump said in February, “It’s going to disappear.” Trump told Sean Hannity last week, “It’s going to fade away.”

Trump’s most fervent followers, especially Republican men, are ready, willing, and able to accept the President’s wishful thinking.

The policy of wishful thinking is the reason the United States is Number 1 in the world in coronavirus infections and deaths. It is the reason that the coronavirus is not going to disappear. The virus will “operate on its own time, under its own rules.” And Donald Trump refuses to do anything to stop it.

Donald Trump

Making the case for the view of political scientists that Donald Trump is a weak president

Is Donald Trump a weak president? A number of political scientists and commentators have answered this question affirmatively. A strong case can be made for this view. I was in the affirmative camp in February 2019. By December 2019, I had begun to harbor doubts. In this post, I survey why Trump is regarded as a weak president. In a subsequent post, I will look at the strong grounds we have for challenging this view.

Presidential Power

Generations of political scientists have looked to Richard Neustadt’s analysis in Presidential Power, which suggests that our constitutional system, featuring separated powers, institutional constraints, and competition among political actors, limits what a president can accomplish through the sole exercise of formal powers (though these are substantial). Thus the president must elicit the cooperation of others to get things done. A president’s effectiveness is found in his power to persuade.

We might better think of ‘persuasion’ as negotiation, because Neustadt envisages “hard bargaining” and a give and take between the president and other political actors.

The essence of a President’s persuasive task, with congressmen and everybody else, is to induce them to believe that what he wants of them is what their own appraisal of their own responsibilities requires them to do in their interest, not his. Because men may differ in their views on public policy, because differences in outlook stem from differences in duty—duty to one’s office, one’s constituents, oneself—that task is bound to be more like collective bargaining than like a reasoned argument among philosopher kings.

Jonathan Bernstein, who argued before Trump’s inauguration that “We may be at the beginning of a historically weak presidency,” observes (in “The 1960 Book That Explains Why Trump Is a Failure“) that in Neustadt’s view:

“persuasion” doesn’t necessarily mean changing anyone’s mind. It may just mean convincing someone in a position of power to do nothing rather than something.

Bernstein also notes that

skilled presidents … rely on more than just threats. They work hard to build strong relationships, and know when to dangle carrots to loosely affiliated supporters, too.

A savvy and effective president makes good use of the tools at his command, which may include: a reservoir of knowledge and the know-how to command the levers of power; an understanding of the political interests and needs of, for instance, the senators and members of Congress with whom a president must deal; a reputation as someone who can articulate what he wants, whose word can be trusted, and is prepared to do what he says he will do; and a favorable standing with the American public.

Donald Trump lacks virtually every asset on the list. It is safe to say that Neustadt’s image of a strong president looked nothing like our current president. Several distinct critiques of Trump’s shortcomings illustrate why this is so. Let’s begin with Daniel Drezner’s “Immature Leadership: Donald Trump and the American Presidency.”

Trump as Toddler

Drezner notes Trump’s meager legislative accomplishments, feckless executive orders, and the absence of trade or arms control agreements, among other failures. Drezner attributes this record to specific psychological traits of the President. Drezner has observed that friend and foe alike (and even Trump himself) have depicted Trump in language applicable to “a rambunctious two-year old.”

Even a cursory examination of the Trump literature reveals a peculiarity unique to this president: almost all his biographers, even his acolytes, describe him in terms one would use for a toddler. He offers the greatest example of pervasive developmental delay in American political history.

Between April 25, 2017 – when Drezner posted a tweet noting that Trump’s staff talked about him like a toddler – and April 27, 2020 – three years later, Drezner had writen a book, The Toddler in Chief: What Donald Trump Teaches Us about the Modern Presidency, and posted 1,358 tweets citing references to Trump as toddler. “It is safe to say that Donald Trump has not grown into the presidency. At this point, the thread itself possesses more maturity than the commander in chief.”

Drezner identifies Trump’s quick temper, short attention span, and poor impulse control as primary traits that have greatly impaired Trump’s effectiveness as president. Making the case for Trump’s deficiencies, based on the review in “Immature Leadership,” is child’s play. Drezner concludes: “If Neustadt is correct in his view that the chief power of the presidency is the ability to persuade, then Donald Trump has been a weak, ineffectual president.”

Trump as Failed Deal Maker

We can make an equally strong case with a different approach. Consider a calling card of Donald Trump years before he ran for president. As the nominal author of Trump: The Art of the Deal (actually ghostwritten by a writer “who put lipstick on a pig“) and in his starring role as the chief executive on NBC’s “The Apprentice,” Trump convinced much of the country that he was a skillful deal maker. The evidence of the past 3+ years reveals the opposite. His shortcomings as a negotiator have become well known during his presidency. Seven months into his term, Calculated Risk, an economics blog, distinguished two kinds of negotiation – distributive (win-lose) and integrative (win-win) – to explain Trump’s failures as a negotiator.

Trump’s approach is win-lose. Distributive deals are zero-sum. Bluster, bluffing, empty threats, even lies might carry the day with the sale of real estate, especially if one has no intention of ever making another deal with the buyer. Take the money and don’t look back.

A successful president, on the other hand, must rely on integrative negotiating skills, which Trump lacks.

The approach to an integrative negotiation includes building trust, understanding the other party’s concerns, and knowing the details of the agreement – with the goal to reach a mutually beneficial agreement.

Trump can’t be trusted, since he is both irresolute (saying one thing one day, and another thing the next) and has a reputation as a cheat (well-earned before he ran for president). He’s certainly not working hard “to build strong relationships.” He fails to master substantive matters, including policy choices, proposed legislation, and international conflicts. This deficit – and his lack of empathy or even a modicum of curiosity – blind him to the concerns and even the incentives of whoever is on the other side of the negotiating table.

More than once Trump’s threats to Democrats made no sense because he was warning of consequences that his own party had more reason to fear than did Democrats. His misreading of Kim Jong Un has been grotesque.

Trump’s reliance on gut instinct and on fantasies regarding personal relationships (and even ‘love letters’), and his aversion to strategic planning, have yielded few agreements after 40 months in office. His inability to persuade negotiators on the other side demonstrates glaring weakness.

Trump as Narcissist

Trump’s self-love and hunger for the adoration of others, which crowd out virtually everything else in his personal space, is in evidence every day.

Trump, as Ashley Parker put it last month, clings to a “me-me-me ethos.” In the face of a rising death toll, millions of unemployment claims, and long lines at food banks, Trump made the coronavirus briefings all about himself – “his self image, his media coverage, his supplicants and his opponents, both real and imagined.”

George Conway – employing DSM criteria for narcissism – has taken time and care to document Trump’s compulsive focus on himself and his profound lack of empathy for others (“Unfit for Office”). It is critical to note that Conway (an attorney, not a psychiatrist) is focused on Trump’s publicly observable behavior and how that renders Trump incapable of fulfilling the fiduciary responsibilities of the office of president. He has no interest in rendering a medical/psychiatric diagnosis.

There is no contradiction, in fact, in both calling Trump “a world-class narcissist” and declining to label him as mentally ill. It doesn’t take a degree in medicine or psychology to see in plain sight Trump’s extraordinary vanity and callousness. Conway argues convincingly that, “Trump’s ingrained and extreme behavioral characteristics make it impossible for him to carry out the duties of the presidency in the way the Constitution requires.”

For our purposes, we can conclude that his distinctive psychological makeup robs Trump of managerial competence and the capacity to persuade.

Trump as COVID-19 Bystander

Finally, the COVID-19 debacle, and Trump’s flight from accountability, is documented daily by the news media. Last month David Hopkins cataloged Trump’s blunders in response to the pandemic (“The Weakest Modern Presidency Faces a Pandemic From the Couch”), including failing to engage meaningfully with the issue. “According to recent reporting, Trump is unengaged with the substance of his administration’s COVID mitigation efforts: his discursive appearances at task force meetings reveal a limited understanding of relevant subjects when he attends at all, and he spends much of the workday watching cable television.”

Hopkins summarizes:

All of these traits were visible before COVID came along. But now the demands on this presidency have grown stronger while the president looks less and less comfortable in the job, unable even to mimic the seriousness of purpose that other elected officials have marshaled in the moment. [Emphasis added.]

Trump as toddler, failed deal maker, narcissist, and passive bystander: all point to the same conclusion. Trump lacks basic managerial skills, an affinity for negotiation, and an informed understanding of government. His deeply rooted self-absorption renders him incapable of acting as an effective executive. He is deficient in both credibility and the power to persuade anyone not predisposed to defer to him.

On the other hand

As strong as the case is for the conclusion, ‘Trump is a weak president,’ it leaves something out: Trump’s singular, imposing dominance over the Republican Party, which is without precedent among other presidents stretching back to FDR (Neustadt’s starting point). While Trump displays many conspicuous weaknesses as president, his command over the GOP undermines the conclusion.

Mark Shields alluded to this dominance in December, noting (in my words, not his) that LBJ was a weakling compared to Trump regarding the fear that each man generated among the party faithful. The fearsome LBJ could only dream of dominating the Democratic Party as Trump dominates the GOP.

I will argue in a subsequent post that Trump’s domination of the GOP is not an empty illusion (contrary to advocates of the view that Trump is a weak president); that as ham-handed, uninformed, and constrained by compulsive self-absorption as Trump is, he has become more powerful over the past three years; and that these (and other) considerations undercut the conclusion.  

(Image: small man creates a commotion, flailing and whining about how unfairly others treat him, and grasps for a simplistic solution.)

Donald Trump, Off the Rails

One constant in Trump’s erratic vacillation: A furious flight from accountability

Accountability is anathema to Donald Trump. Between now and November 3, he will frantically flee from even a modicum of responsibility for the tens of thousands of deaths from coronavirus that will continue to take place on his watch. Fox News Channel, with the rest of the conservative media universe, the White House, the Trump campaign, and every Republican official in Washington will pull out all the stops to prevent Trump from being called into account for the ongoing disaster he is presiding over.

The President’s dithering, fabrications, and missteps have aggravated the public health calamity:

The Trump administration received its first formal notification of the outbreak of the coronavirus in China on Jan. 3. Within days, U.S. spy agencies were signaling the seriousness of the threat to Trump by including a warning about the coronavirus — the first of many — in the President’s Daily Brief.

And yet, it took 70 days from that initial notification for Trump to treat the coronavirus not as a distant threat or harmless flu strain well under control, but as a lethal force that had outflanked America’s defenses and was poised to kill tens of thousands of citizens. That more-than-two-month stretch now stands as critical time that was squandered. the coronavirus

Trump’s baseless assertions in those weeks, including his claim that it would all just “miraculously” go away, sowed significant public confusion and contradicted the urgent messages of public health experts.

As the pandemic spread around the globe and deep into our country, Donald Trump denied and diminished the grave threat to Americans. Jeremy Peters reports on how conservative media amplified, and sometimes inspired, Trump’s tall tales. This is part of Job #1 – venerating Donald Trump and impugning his critics – for Fox News Channel, conservative talk radio, et al. (Accurate information isn’t a priority.)

Peters describes a four step process: blame China (while sometimes adding conspiracy theories to the tales told); play down the risks (just as Donald Trump did for weeks and weeks, until his turn on March 16—though he still shifts back to denial); share ‘survivor’ stories (coronavirus is really no worse than a “bad cold”); and then, when the infection rate and the body count make denial impossible to sustain, pivot and blame the left: the President is a victim of his political enemies.

The pervasiveness of the denial among many of Mr. Trump’s followers from early in the outbreak, and their sharp pivot to finding fault with an old foe once the crisis deepened, is a pattern that one expert in the spread of misinformation said resembled a textbook propaganda campaign.

As the rightwing echo chamber swerves from one fable to the next, yesterday’s account is forgotten. (We’ve always been at war with Eurasia.) Consistency and coherence, truth and facts, don’t matter. But the shifting narratives have this in common: they stoke a fundamental partisan divide. It’s us vs. them. Trump and his conservative base vs. Democrats/liberals/the left, that is to say, the enemies of America.

Peters references Rush Limbaugh’s denunciation of the Four Corners of Deceit (government, academia, science, and the media), which – as it happens – are sources of information independent of the right’s narrative of the day (whatever that happens to be). Limbaugh, with a bigger audience than FNC, deserves a gold star (to go along with his Presidential Medal of Freedom) for yeoman service to the misinformation campaign on behalf of Donald Trump.

Limbaugh, February 24: “Folks, this coronavirus thing, I want to try to put this in perspective for you. It looks like the coronavirus is being weaponized as yet another element to bring down Donald Trump. Now, I want to tell you the truth about the coronavirus. You think I’m wrong about this? You think I’m missing it by saying that’s — Yeah, I’m dead right on this. The coronavirus is the common cold, folks.”

And March 27: “We didn’t elect a president to defer to a bunch of health experts that we don’t know. And how do we know they’re even health experts? Well, they wear white lab coats, and they’ve been in the job for a while, and they’re at the CDC and they’re at the NIH, and they’re up, well — yeah, they’ve been there, and they are there. But has there been any job assessment for them? They’re just assumed to be the best because they’re in government. But, these are all kinds of things that I’ve been questioning.”

The duplicity, the conspiracy theories, the eagerness to play the victim: the charade is over the top because the failure is catastrophic. Donald Trump, who doesn’t focus much beyond the next news cycle, has abdicated a leadership role in this crisis (though he relishes his time on center stage at the daily coronavirus briefings). I noted last month that the United States had no national strategy for combating the coronavirus. It still doesn’t, because President Trump insists that the nation’s governors are responsible for protecting the public, while the federal government will play only a “backup” role.

“Massive amounts of medical supplies, even hospitals and medical centers, are being delivered directly to states and hospitals by the Federal Government. Some have insatiable appetites & are never satisfied (politics?). Remember, we are a backup for them….”

The coronavirus is a national threat, which doesn’t recognize state boundaries. Containment – to be effective – can’t be a patchwork. It makes little sense to fob off responsibility to 50 state governors, who are placed in a position of outbidding each other, and FEMA, for test kits, personal protective equipment, ventilators, and other scarce equipment, as the infection spreads throughout the country. The President of the United States, who possesses authority and commands resources beyond the reach of any governor, could – if he chose – take charge. But he doesn’t.

“Remember, we are a backup for them.”

Doctors, scientists, public health experts, including senior officials in past administrations of both parties, agree that the Trump administration’s disavowal of responsibility will cost thousands of American lives. The failures are ongoing, increasing the death toll (“Trump administration’s lack of a unified coronavirus strategy will cost lives, say a dozen experts”):

The Trump administration has declined to nationalize the medical logistics system and hasn’t executed a national testing strategy. Although the president likely lacks the legal authority to impose a national stay-at-home order, he has declined to urge each governor to do so. Seven states haven’t imposed one, including Texas.

The results are clear: Governors and doctors report critical shortages of gear, it remains very difficult to get tested for the virus, and some Americans still aren’t heeding guidance to keep away from others.

That NBC report references an editorial this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, “Ten Weeks to Crush the Curve,” proposing a strategy for eradicating the coronavirus in a “forceful, focused campaign.” Donald Trump has declared himself a “wartime president” battling an “invisible enemy.” NEJM insists, “It’s a war we should fight to win.” The first step, the step that only a president can take: “Establish unified command.”

This country has never had a Commander in Chief in wartime who deferred to states and localities for leadership. Our erratic, irresolute president can’t settle on a strategy for more than a few hours. This makes little sense, though it is a means to distance Trump from the consequences of COVID-19. It facilitates a dodge of responsibility.

More troubling, Trump’s three years of misrule have undermined the administration’s capacity for effective action. He has hollowed out the executive branch, traded competence for sycophancy, and enfeebled the federal government.

Susan Glasser tells the story in the New Yorker:

“When you are done being angry about all the crazy, nasty, inconsistent, and untrue things that Donald Trump says each day about the coronavirus and other matters, remember that the flood of words is cover for an Administration that in some ways barely exists relative to its predecessors, especially when it comes to crucial areas of domestic, economic, and international security—or even straightforward crisis management. Turnover at the upper levels of Trump’s White House stands at eighty-three per cent, according to a Brookings Institution tracker. In his Cabinet, Trump has had far more turnover than Presidents Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, and both George Bushes. The capacity of the federal government to respond to this catastrophe—even if Trump had been so inclined—has never been weaker. The virus was not of Trump’s making, but his government’s incoherent, disorganized response to it was utterly predictable.” [My emphasis.]

It is not just the White House that has lost capacity. Vacancies in the Treasury Department have already begun to impair administration economic policy. And, as Jonathan Bernstein suggests, Trump’s economic policies are already shaky:

Trump … likes the idea of big, unprecedented action, which is a perfect match for the current situation. But in three-plus years, he still doesn’t appear have any idea how the government works, what he’s supposed to do to make things happen, or anything about the economy outside of how it affects him personally.

Donald Trump’s shortcomings have been evident for all to see throughout the past three-plus years. National Republicans, making a cynical trade-off, have given him a pass. With the arrival of COVID-19, the country is paying dearly for Republicans’ political calculations.

Now, still all-in with Trump, the party will scramble furiously to avoid a reckoning.

(Image: On April 1, Trump brought out the generals.)

Donald Trump, Off the Rails

In the midst of a deadly pandemic, President Donald Trump is boasting about his TV ratings

…On Monday, nearly 12.2 million people watched Mr. Trump’s briefing on CNN, Fox News and MSNBC, according to Nielsen — ‘Monday Night Football’ numbers. Millions more are watching on ABC, CBS, NBC and online streaming sites, and the audience is expanding. On Monday, Fox News…

…alone attracted 6.2 million viewers for the president’s briefing — an astounding number for a 6 p.m. cable broadcast, more akin to the viewership for a popular prime-time sitcom…

…The CBS News poll said 13 percent of Republicans trusted the news media for information about the virus.” Michael M. Grynbaum @NYTimes  

Image, from animation by Worldwide Engineering, illustrating the daily increase in coronavirus cases by country from January 23 through March 28, 2020, as the United States became the globe’s leading nation for the infection:

Donald Trump, Off the Rails, Republicans, Tribalism

Republicans in Congress, FNC, and GOP voters stand pat as Trump’s ongoing failures increase the death toll

Yesterday, the United States of American became the world’s leader in known cases of coronavirus (even though testing continues to lag). As of Sunday morning, the number of deaths in the U.S. has doubled since Thursday.

The world’s greatest democracy still has no national strategy for combating the coronavirus outbreak. The reason for this failure is obvious for all to see: the President of the United States is incapable of competent leadership. The breakdown, which began in January (when “faced with the coronavirus, Mr. Trump chose not to have the White House lead the planning until nearly two months after it began“), is ongoing.

At his daily briefings he misinforms the public (putting Americans who believe him at risk), offers self-congratulations and points fingers at others; he vacillates and changes his mind from one day to the next (based on criticism he sees on cable TV).

Every status report and decision is from his perspective chiefly about him, not about the state of the nation, the well being of Americans, or pulling out all the stops to blunt the pandemic.

‘The federal government’s done a helluvua job. . . .

… I think we’ve done a great job for the state of Washington.  And I think the governor’s a failed presidential candidate, as you know — he — he leveled out at zero in the polls.  He’s constantly chirping and — I guess ‘complaining’ would be a nice way of saying it.  We’re building hospitals.  We’ve done a great job for the state of Washington.

Michigan, all she does is — she has no idea what’s going on.  And all she does is say, “Oh, it’s the federal government’s fault.”  And we’ve taken such great care of Michigan. . . .

We have done a job the likes of which nobody’s seen. . . .

I think they should be appreciative because you know what?  When they’re not appreciative to me, they’re not appreciative to the Army Corps.  They’re not appreciative to FEMA.  It’s not right.  These people are incredible.  They’re working 24 hours a day.  Mike Pence — I mean, Mike Pence, I don’t think he sleeps anymore.  These — these are people that should be appreciated.

He calls all the governors.  I tell him — I mean, I’m a different type of person — I say, “Mike, don’t call the governor of Washington.  You’re wasting your time with him.  Don’t call the woman in Michigan.”  All — it doesn’t make any difference what happens — . . .

You know what I say?  If they don’t treat you right, I don’t call.  He’s a different type of person.  He’ll call quietly anyway.  Okay?’

The country is paying an extraordinarily high cost for the President’s misrule:

https://twitter.com/Politidope/status/1244252490738143233

George Conway has Trump exactly right (as I have agreed): Trump is psychologically incapable of fulfilling the framers’ vision of the presidency.

But half the country — and based on public evidence, half of George Conway’s household — refuses to engage in a frank national discussion.

I am confident that Senate Republicans — most of them, probably, but certainly enough of them when added to all Democrats could have reached a 2/3 vote for impeachment — are well aware of the President’s incapacity. They refuse as a matter of practical partisan politics to acknowledge this or they downplay, no matter what disasters ensue, the magnitude of the harm to our country. So, who are we going to engage in this conversation?

The party’s base, egged on by Fox News Channel, overwhelmingly approves of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak.

If Trump were politically more skillful and not psychologically debilitated, this could have become a defining success of his presidency. He could have brought the country together à la George W. Bush following 9-11. He would have had to recognize the significance of the problem, rely on the expertise available to a president, and put the federal government to work coordinating a national response. Instead of denying or diminishing the threat, he would have had to speak truthfully about it — and reassured the public with a strategic plan to meet the challenge. (We can imagine, without a stretch, both of his immediate predecessors in the White House, one Republican and one Democrat, acting in this way.)

Had Trump been willing and capable of doing the right thing, he could have nurtured a larger governing majority than the Republican base. Trump’s self-interest and the national interest would have overlapped completely.

This was not to be. Trump cannot overcome his incapacities.

The devastation wrought by COVID-19 will be much greater as a result of Trump’s failures. Unless nature takes a fortuitous turn, Red states and Red regions will not be spared. Will his base stick with him come what may, adding “yet another grievance to their indictment of the liberal establishment” rather than hold Trump responsible? So far, those voters have not wavered.

(Map from New York Times.)

Democrats, Republicans, Tribalism

Americans view Trump and COVID-19 through starkly different lenses: one Red, one Blue

The dire lack of test kits (in spite of repeated denials and broken promises by the Trump administration) continues to hamper public health efforts to contain the coronavirus. When asked (on March 13) whether he accepted responsibility for the shortage, Trump replied:

“No, I don’t take responsibility at all.”

Instead he blamed the Obama administration for an unspecificed “decision” that tied his hands (more than three years after he took office). Policy experts were baffled by the claim. (“To our knowledge, there were some discussions about laboratory developed test rules but nothing was ever put into place. So we are not aware of anything that changed how LDTs are regulated.”)

There is also a dire shortage of personal protective equipment, PPE — such as face shields, masks, head covers, and respirators — for doctors, nurses, and other medical staff. In light of this shortfall, medical personnel are even being instructed to reuse (generally single-use) N-95 masks.

When asked about the lack of safety equipment, Trump shrugged off responsibility and pointed to the nation’s governors:

“Governors are supposed to be doing a lot of this work. . . . The federal government is not supposed to be out there buying vast amounts of items, and then shipping. We’re not a shipping clerk.”

This is not leadership. But for nearly half the country, it’s close enough to satisfy.

Ronald Brownstein (“Red and Blue America Aren’t Experiencing the Same Pandemic”) notes that the spread of the coronavirus is playing out much differently in Red and Blue areas of the country: “That disconnect is already shaping, even distorting, the nation’s response to this unprecedented challenge—and it could determine the pandemic’s ultimate political consequences as well.”

National surveys reveal that Democrats express greater concern about the virus than Republicans, and attest to making more changes in their personal behavior in response. Democratic governors for the most part are acting aggressively to slow the spread of the virus; fewer Republicans (Ohio Governor Mike DeWine is an exception) are doing so.

Furthermore, the ideological disparity is matched by a geographical division. New York, Washington, and California — in virtue of the disease’s impact in their metro areas — have by far the most cases, though other states (especially those with large cities) are catching up. In Red states with large metro areas — Texas, Arizona, Georgia, and Tennessee, for instance — Democratic mayors and city councils are imposing social distancing restrictions.

Brownstein quotes Geoffrey Kabaservice, author of Rule and Ruin (a history of the modern Republican Party), regarding the urban-rural divide:

“There’s a long history of conservatives demonizing the cities as sources of disease to threaten the ‘pure heartland.’ That’s an old theme. . . . So that could be how it goes down.”

Kabaservice also alludes to the Republican suspicion of elites who comprise the scientific establishment and academia, professionals within government agencies, and of course the media (apart from Fox News Channel and other outfits within the conservative media universe).

We are seeing that on each side of the divide, folks are falling in line with the preconceptions of their tribe. Democrats look to scientific and medical authorities, acknowledge the reality of the pandemic, and accept journalists’ reports on Trump’s dissembling and his administration’s evident failures. Republicans are more likely to accept Trump’s messaging that diminishes the threat, to trust his efforts to protect public health, to endorse his rejection of expert opinion inside and outside of government, and to share his finger pointing at China, other countries, Democrats, and journalists whose reporting casts doubt on the President’s rosy view.

This exchange is all too typical, and will be viewed from starkly different lenses by Democrats and Republicans:

Peter Alexander (asking what he regarded as a softball question): “What do you say to Americans who are watching you right now who are scared?”

Trump responds: “I say that you’re a terrible reporter. That’s what I say.”

I think it’s a very nasty question. And I think it’s a very bad signal that you’re putting out to the American people.

The American people are looking for answers and they are looking for hope. And you’re doing sensationalism — and the same with NBC and Concast. I don’t call it Comcast, I call it Concast … for whom you work.

Let me just say something: That’s really bad reporting. And you ought to get back to reporting, instead of sensationalism.

Let’s see if it works. It might. And it might not. I happen to feel good about it. But, who knows? I’ve been right a lot! Let’s see what happens.

Donald Trump has never sought to appeal to all Americans. He consistently appeals to his base, while disparaging the other half of the country. (My first post in this blog referenced this dichotomy.)

And I believe Trump is in sync with his base. The grassroots Republicans who embrace the President come what may, don’t want to hear any message that detracts from the party line. They want to hear Trump’s rosy scenario.

And Trump could be right. Within a few months, we may look back at COVID-19 as something that didn’t have the dire, long-term consequences media reports have led us to expect. It may, like a miracle, just disappear one day, perhaps mere weeks from now.

Trump’s supporters are sticking with him, hoping for — even expecting — the best. He can weave, and dodge, and change his story as often as he likes. He can point his fingers at everyone but himself. He can make fanciful claims, deny observable facts, and contradict scientists and medical authorities. But his base embraces his authority and outlook. (“He doesn’t lie. I know y’all say he does. He doesn’t. He doesn’t.“)

And what if things don’t turn out for the best? Will their support waver? Will they stray from the party when it comes time to vote in November?

Don’t count on it (even though some may jump off the Trump train). More likely: the hardcore base, the true believers in Trump’s camp — the overwhelming majority of Republicans who voted for Trump in 2016 — will readily blame the Chinese, the Europeans, the Mexicans. They will point the finger at Democrats, liberals, elites — the folks who, in their judgment, look down on them. They will fault urban dwellers, minorities, and non-white immigrants who, in their view, don’t qualify as real Americans.

If things turn out badly, if COVID-19 hits their communities as hard as it is beginning to hit the Blue regions of the country, they are likely to add yet another grievance to their indictment of the liberal establishment, not to hold Trump responsible.

Whether Trump is right or wrong, whether his bet — playing exclusively to the Republican base — will pay off in November, this is the wager that Trump is staking his Presidency on.

It’s a wager he has placed before. He won the prize in 2016.

We have Blue America on one side, Red America on the other. The outcome in November will hinge on turnout. And perhaps, if things are close enough, on that mushy middle, that sliver of folks who mostly don’t pay enough attention to have a side.

An ABC/Ipsos poll reveals that a healthy majority of Americans approve of the way Trump is handling the response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19). Right now the mushy middle seems to be leaning toward Trump.

November 3 is a long way off. We don’t know how bad things will get or how long recovery will take. At this stage, though, the 2020 election appears to represent a daunting challenge for Joe Biden and the Democratic Party.

Donald Trump, Off the Rails, Republicans, Tribalism

Donald Trump & his Republican Party have failed to protect the country

The Executive Branch of the government of the United States is uniquely empowered to plan, implement, and coordinate measures to ensure the nation’s public health. The Trump administration has failed miserably to do so.

I agree with Senator Tom Cotton (circa February 28), “The single most consequential and valuable thing done to stop this virus from already spreading throughout the United States was when President Trump decided to shut down travel to China last month.”

Unfortunately, that action— taken January 31 — was hardly sufficient to keep the virus from spreading throughout the country. It would be bad enough if all Trump did in the intervening weeks (until his abrupt shift on March 16) was sit on his hands. Instead, for weeks in his every public utterance, he lied about the state of affairs in the country and diminished the increasing threat.

“We have it totally under control. One person from China and it’s going to be just fine.” (January 22) “We pretty much shut it down — coming in from China.” (February 2)

“You know, in April supposedly it dies with the hotter weather.” (February 10) “When it gets warm, historically, it’s been able to kill the virus.” (February 14)

“People are getting better. They’re all getting better.” (February 25)

“And the 15 — within a couple of days, it’s going to be down close to zero.” (February 26) “It’s going to disappear one day. It’s like a miracle: it will disappear.” (February 27) “And you’ll be fine.” (February 28)

“They’re going to have vaccines, I think, relatively soon.” (March 2) “Not only the vaccines, but also the therapies. Therapies are sort of another word for cure.” (March 3)

“We’re talking about very small numbers in the United States.” (March 4) “Our numbers are lower than just about anybody’s.” (March 6)

“It’s really working out. And lotta good things are gonna happen.” (March 10)

“And we are responding with great speed and professionalism.” (March 11)

“It’s gonna go away.” (March 12)

“No, I don’t take responsibility at all.” (March 13)

“They’ll all be great. We’re going to be so good.” (March 15)

“This came up — it came up so suddenly.” (March 16)

And Fox News Channel, the loudest, most influential voice of the Republican Party (next to Trump himself), reinforced the President’s message every step of the way:

News reports of the coronavirus, in the view of Fox News’ personalities week after week, was a hoax manufactured by Democrats to attack the President, an illness no more worrisome than the flu, an overblown brouhaha of scant significance. Dismiss, distract, diminish, disparage. Unfortunately, there is much evidence that the President of the United States often takes his cues from his favorite TV network.

This charade has been incredibly effective at convincing the Republican base. The rest of us, not so much. A recent Axios/Survey Monkey poll, which asked whom Americans trusted to protect them from the coronavirus, found high confidence in prominent health agencies:

Centers for Disease Control — 75%; National Institutes for Health — 68%; their state’s health department — 68%; their local office of emergency management — 67%; and the World Health Organization — 60%.

Trust in President Trump registered at 84% among Republicans, but only 20% among independents, 9% among Democrats, and 42% overall.

The President changed his tune (and his tone) on March 16, as he acknowledged for the first time the severity of the health crisis and issued strict new guidelines for Americans to avoid infection, though when asked, “Was there a change in tone?”, he dissembled:

“I didn’t feel different. I’ve always known that this is a real — this is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic. All you had to do is look at other countries. I think it’s not in 120 countries all over the world. No, I’ve always viewed it as very serious. It was no different yesterday than days before.”

Much too late, facing an imminent disaster, the White House has advanced beyond denials and wishful thinking.

This awakening might have happened more quickly if Congressional Republicans had pushed back against the nonsense coming from their leader. Instead, they spread nonsense of their own (Devin Nunes); or whispered their concerns to VIPs, while reassuring the public and selling stocks ahead of the market disaster (Richard Burr); and then, when the consequences started raining down, tried to slink away to let others clean up the mess (Mitch McConnell). They unleashed the President when they (with the lone exception of Mitt Romney) acquitted him in the Senate — still focused on the next election cycle.

No one in the Republican Party wants to buck the President. They’ve allowed partisanship, tax cuts for their richest donors, and federal court appointments to trump the security of the nation. For more than three years, that reckless bet has paid off handsomely.

As we head toward November 2020, it may pay off once again. But the steep cost to the nation — to our health and economic well-being — of Trump’s misrule is harder to hide now, no matter what diversions the President, Congressional Republicans, and Fox News Channel cook up.

(Image from Los Angeles Times website on March 18, 2020.)