washingtonmonthly--2020-04-30--Did Lincoln Take his Cues From Congress?

The American Civil War lives in our national memory as a great inflection point that reshaped the country .
Indeed , the sense that the Civil War created “ another world ” has dominated much of the writing on its history ever since William Dean Howell published The Rise of Silas Lapham in 1884 .
At the turn of the century , progressive historians like Charles and Mary Beard described the Civil War as a “ second American Revolution.
” More recent progressives , like Eric Foner and David Blight , have emphasized a new legal world—a “ second founding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Thirteenth , Fourteenth , and Fifteenth Amendments transformed the old Constitution ’ s passive restraints on the federal government into activist powers that could advance the cause of equality .
Fergus Bordewich ’ s newly released book , Congress at War : How Republican Reformers Fought the Civil War , Defied Lincoln , Ended Slavery , and Remade America , joins this chorus of assent .
It argues that the Civil War “ laid the foundation for the strong activist central government that came fully into being in the twentieth century , permanently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the federal government , and enshrined protection of civil rights as the responsibility of the federal government.
” That ’ s not necessarily a novel observation , but Bordewich differs from previous historians through his depiction of Congress ’ s role in that transformation .
Past accounts have relegated the 37th and 38th Congresses in creating an “ activist central government ” to little more than the role of a bystander .
America ’ s 16th president , in their view , is essentially the lone hero .
But it was the Republican-dominated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ toward more effective and centralized government , ” while the Great Emancipator struggled to play catch-up , Bordewich insists .
Even Abraham Lincoln ’ s Emancipation Proclamation is really “ a result of the many months of debate in the House and Senate , and the ceaseless personal prodding of the Radicals in Congress.
” The Great Emancipator thus becomes almost the Great Fifth Wheel .
Bordewich certainly has no trouble establishing the unprecedented volume and scope of legislation passed by the Civil War Congresses .
The secession of the Southern states—and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the 37th Congress—left Lincoln ’ s Republicans with unchallengeable majorities in both houses .
They lost no time in using them .
Over the next four years , national finance was completely re-structured through the National Banking Act , and the wartime economy was jump-started by the Legal Tender Act , the issuance of paper “ greenback ” currency , and the first direct taxes on personal incomes through the Internal Revenue Act .
The vast public lands in the western territories , meanwhile , were thrown open to settlement by the Homestead @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Land-Grant College Act .
A long-desired transcontinental railroad emerged from the Pacific Railway Act , and the first government bureau designed “ to oversee the affairs of individual men and women ” —the Freedmens Bureau—was created in 1865 .
In short , Congress in those days got things done .
All of these developments are couched in a rapid-fire narrative that never misses a moment of personality and drama .
There are scenes that could belong in a John Ford western .
At one point , radical Republican Zachariah Chandler was confronted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hotel by Democratic Congressman Daniel Voorhees , who walked over to Chandler ’ s table and slapped him in the face .
A fist-fight ensued , and ended with one of Voorhees ’ friends smashing a milk pitcher over Chandler ’ s head and knocking him cold .
In a separate incident , Pennsylvania Congressman William “ Pig-Iron ” Kelley was accosted at Willard ’ s Hotel and stabbed by an enraged opponent , although only in the hand , because his assailant was too drunk to aim at anything more vital .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the 38th Congress assembled for its first session in December 1863 , the House of Representatives clerk , embittered Democrat Emerson Etheridge , hatched a scheme , in cahoots with the House minority leader Samuel S. “ Sunset ” Cox , to use the House rules to disallow the credentials of newly-arriving Republican members and overturn the GOP majority .
But after a shrewd parliamentary procedure , Massachusetts Republican Henry Dawes was able to stave off the bid .
It was as close to a coup d ’ etatas Washington has ever seen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other such episodes with faultless pacing .
Congress has not seemed so exciting a place since , well , the Civil War .
Yet rumbling underneath Bordewich ’ s rollicking story-telling , there are two major problems with his account .
For most of Abraham Lincoln ’ s political career , he had been a spear-carrier for the Whig Party , which believed adamantly that the president could only use “ certain indirect influences to affect the action of congress.
” That did not mean that “ indirect influences ” had no weight @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republicans were wary of how Lincoln ’ s “ executive magnet had reached some members.
” Lincoln kept up a constant stream of Congressional visitors to the White House , and they , in turn , carried Lincoln ’ s wishes to the floor .
There were safeguards in place in case they didn ’ t .
In fact , a carriage was always kept available to convey Lincoln ’ s staff down Pennsylvania Avenue to make his intentions known .
Ohio ’ s radical Senator Ben Wade resented Lincoln ’ s “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” but recognized its efficacy .
There was one occasion when the Senate tried to interfere directly in Lincoln ’ s executive prerogatives .
In December 1862 , the Senate radicals attempted to force the dismissal of Secretary of State William Seward .
Lincoln adroitly wrong-footed them , and there were no similar challenges thereafter .
By 1863 , Lincoln ’ s then private secretary , John Hay , could marvel at how Lincoln “ sits here and wields like a backwoods Jupiter the bolts of war and the machinery of government with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” According to Hay , Lincoln was “ managing this war , the draft , foreign relations , and planning a reconstruction of the Union , all at once.
” What ’ s more , “ the most important things he decides & there is no cavil.
” Even more disconcerting , the “ second founding ” argument fails to explain how “ centralization ” was the result of the Republicans ’ legislation .
In fact , a look at their record says the opposite .
The Homestead Act was the largest stroke @ @ @ @ @ @ @ history ; the Freedmen ’ s Bureau endured in gradually diminishing size only until 1871 ; the Pacific Railway Act was the most stupendous gift to private corporations before the auto industry bailout in 2008-09 .
And as John Fabian Witt has recently argued , the Reconstruction amendments did more to limit the federal government ’ s enforcement of equality than promote it .
If anything , the Civil War brought the nation back to the “ first founding ” by rejecting the lethal notions of state sovereignty peddled by the pro-slavery South @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , virtually every significant reform in politics and the economy–from municipal government and urban infrastructure ( and especially municipal sewage , the source of most infectious disease epidemics ) , to public education and voting rights for women—occurred at the state level , not the federal .
That does not mean that the Civil War Congresses were ciphers .
Lincoln regarded the radical caucus of his party as “ utterly lawless—the unhandiest devils in the world to deal with.
” Yet Lincoln understood that “ after all their faces are set Zionwards ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chandler are right … We can ’ t get through this terrible war with slavery existing.
” Congress at War is an important step forward in exploring the history of the Civil War Congresses .
Bordewich ’ s use of archival materials certainly advances our understanding of the era .
But the full history of the 37th and 38th Congresses still hasn ’ t been written .
Until it is , we can ’ t fully understand the dimensions of a conflict that nearly destroyed the nation .

The American Civil War lives in our national memory as a great inflection point that reshaped the country. Indeed, the sense that the Civil War created “another world” has dominated much of the writing on its history ever since William Dean Howell published The Rise of Silas Lapham in 1884.
Congress at War:
How Republican Reformers Fought the Civil War, Defied Lincoln, Ended Slavery, and Remade America
by Fergus M. Bordewich
Penguin Random House, 480 pp.
At the turn of the century, progressive historians like Charles and Mary Beard described the Civil War as a “second American Revolution.” More recent progressives, like Eric Foner and David Blight, have emphasized a new legal world—a “second founding,” as they say—in which the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments transformed the old Constitution’s passive restraints on the federal government into activist powers that could advance the cause of equality.
Fergus Bordewich’s newly released book, Congress at War: How Republican Reformers Fought the Civil War, Defied Lincoln, Ended Slavery, and Remade America, joins this chorus of assent. It argues that the Civil War “laid the foundation for the strong activist central government that came fully into being in the twentieth century, permanently altered the relationship between the states and the federal government, and enshrined protection of civil rights as the responsibility of the federal government.”
That’s not necessarily a novel observation, but Bordewich differs from previous historians through his depiction of Congress’s role in that transformation. Past accounts have relegated the 37th and 38th Congresses in creating an “activist central government” to little more than the role of a bystander. America’s 16th president, in their view, is essentially the lone hero. But it was the Republican-dominated Congresses that made the “steady march toward more effective and centralized government,” while the Great Emancipator struggled to play catch-up, Bordewich insists.
Even Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation is really “a result of the many months of debate in the House and Senate, and the ceaseless personal prodding of the Radicals in Congress.” The Great Emancipator thus becomes almost the Great Fifth Wheel.
Bordewich certainly has no trouble establishing the unprecedented volume and scope of legislation passed by the Civil War Congresses. The secession of the Southern states—and the withdrawal of their Southern Democratic representatives from the 37th Congress—left Lincoln’s Republicans with unchallengeable majorities in both houses. They lost no time in using them. Over the next four years, national finance was completely re-structured through the National Banking Act, and the wartime economy was jump-started by the Legal Tender Act, the issuance of paper “greenback” currency, and the first direct taxes on personal incomes through the Internal Revenue Act. The vast public lands in the western territories, meanwhile, were thrown open to settlement by the Homestead Act, and their productivity supported through the Land-Grant College Act. A long-desired transcontinental railroad emerged from the Pacific Railway Act, and the first government bureau designed “to oversee the affairs of individual men and women”—the Freedmens Bureau—was created in 1865. In short, Congress in those days got things done.
All of these developments are couched in a rapid-fire narrative that never misses a moment of personality and drama. There are scenes that could belong in a John Ford western. At one point, radical Republican Zachariah Chandler was confronted in the dining room of the National Hotel by Democratic Congressman Daniel Voorhees, who walked over to Chandler’s table and slapped him in the face. A fist-fight ensued, and ended with one of Voorhees’ friends smashing a milk pitcher over Chandler’s head and knocking him cold. In a separate incident, Pennsylvania Congressman William “Pig-Iron” Kelley was accosted at Willard’s Hotel and stabbed by an enraged opponent, although only in the hand, because his assailant was too drunk to aim at anything more vital.
And then there was conspiracy. When the 38th Congress assembled for its first session in December 1863, the House of Representatives clerk, embittered Democrat Emerson Etheridge, hatched a scheme, in cahoots with the House minority leader Samuel S. “Sunset” Cox, to use the House rules to disallow the credentials of newly-arriving Republican members and overturn the GOP majority. But after a shrewd parliamentary procedure, Massachusetts Republican Henry Dawes was able to stave off the bid. It was as close to a coup d’etatas Washington has ever seen, and Bordewich choreographs this and many other such episodes with faultless pacing. Congress has not seemed so exciting a place since, well, the Civil War.
Yet rumbling underneath Bordewich’s rollicking story-telling, there are two major problems with his account. For most of Abraham Lincoln’s political career, he had been a spear-carrier for the Whig Party, which believed adamantly that the president could only use “certain indirect influences to affect the action of congress.” That did not mean that “indirect influences” had no weight. Even the most radical of the Republicans were wary of how Lincoln’s “executive magnet had reached some members.” Lincoln kept up a constant stream of Congressional visitors to the White House, and they, in turn, carried Lincoln’s wishes to the floor. There were safeguards in place in case they didn’t. In fact, a carriage was always kept available to convey Lincoln’s staff down Pennsylvania Avenue to make his intentions known. Ohio’s radical Senator Ben Wade resented Lincoln’s “back-kitchen way of doing this business,” but recognized its efficacy.
There was one occasion when the Senate tried to interfere directly in Lincoln’s executive prerogatives. In December 1862, the Senate radicals attempted to force the dismissal of Secretary of State William Seward. Lincoln adroitly wrong-footed them, and there were no similar challenges thereafter. By 1863, Lincoln’s then private secretary, John Hay, could marvel at how Lincoln “sits here and wields like a backwoods Jupiter the bolts of war and the machinery of government with a hand equally steady and equally firm.” According to Hay, Lincoln was “managing this war, the draft, foreign relations, and planning a reconstruction of the Union, all at once.” What’s more, “the most important things he decides & there is no cavil.”
Even more disconcerting, the “second founding” argument fails to explain how “centralization” was the result of the Republicans’ legislation. In fact, a look at their record says the opposite. The Homestead Act was the largest stroke of privatization of government property in American history; the Freedmen’s Bureau endured in gradually diminishing size only until 1871; the Pacific Railway Act was the most stupendous gift to private corporations before the auto industry bailout in 2008-09. And as John Fabian Witt has recently argued, the Reconstruction amendments did more to limit the federal government’s enforcement of equality than promote it. If anything, the Civil War brought the nation back to the “first founding” by rejecting the lethal notions of state sovereignty peddled by the pro-slavery South. For forty years after the war, virtually every significant reform in politics and the economy–from municipal government and urban infrastructure (and especially municipal sewage, the source of most infectious disease epidemics), to public education and voting rights for women—occurred at the state level, not the federal.
That does not mean that the Civil War Congresses were ciphers. Lincoln regarded the radical caucus of his party as “utterly lawless—the unhandiest devils in the world to deal with.” Yet Lincoln understood that “after all their faces are set Zionwards” and frankly admitted that “Wade and Chandler are right … We can’t get through this terrible war with slavery existing.”
Congress at War is an important step forward in exploring the history of the Civil War Congresses. Bordewich’s use of archival materials certainly advances our understanding of the era. But the full history of the 37th and 38th Congresses still hasn’t been written. Until it is, we can’t fully understand the dimensions of a conflict that nearly destroyed the nation.


washingtonmonthly--2020-05-01--Should We Always Believe Women?

Should We Always Believe Women?

Recent events have reminded me of my favorite scene from the documentary “ Raise Hell : The Life and Times of Molly Ivins.
” Both of those women were taken from us too young .
If Richards were alive today , she would be 87 , and Ivins would be two years younger than Joe Biden .
More than anything I ’ ve ever seen or read about those two women , the story Ivins tells about Ann Richards demonstrates what trail-blazers they were .
Back in the 1970s , before the Anita Hill hearings , Bob Packwood ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the whole Clinton-Lewinsky affair , the election of a man who bragged about “ grabbing p*ssy , ” and the MeToo movement , Ann Richards was refusing to , as Ivins described , “ gaze off into the middle distance , pretending not to be there ” when men reveled in the objectification of women ’ s bodies .
Instead , she gave as good as she got .
Personally , I feel empowered simply listening to that story because I remember those days .
As the old saying goes , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , baby.
” And yet , once again , we find ourselves struggling through yet another accusation of sexual misconduct by a prominent political figure .
Jessica Valenti captured the dilemma very well .
I have already shared my thoughts about Tara Reade ’ s accusations , so I don ’ t need to go there again .
But I do want to talk about whether a mantra to “ believe women ” is advisable .
There was , of course , a time when women were almost never believed when they spoke @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remember that one of the factors that led to Ann Richards being the governor of Texas was that , during the campaign , her opponent compared a sudden rainstorm to a woman being raped , saying “ if it ’ s inevitable , just relax and enjoy it.
” That is the kind of attitude that had to be addressed when women reported sexual assault , which was often followed by everything from denial to allegations that she was to blame .
Nothing about that kind of culture changes unless women not only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so .
That is why “ believe women ” became such an important mantra .
But it comes with a price .
Putting women on a pedestal to suggest that they always tell the truth , the whole truth , and nothing but the truth is a lie that will eventually come back to haunt the feminist movement .
While it is true that patriarchy affords men power that women have been denied , that doesn ’ t mean that women are always innocent victims .
To assume that is to completely rob @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to matters of sexuality means recognizing that , not only is it conceivable that women might lie , but that it is possible for them to be sexual predators too .
One of the major themes of patriarchy is the Madonna/whore complex , which sees women as either “ good , ” chaste , and pure Madonnas or as “ bad , ” promiscuous , and seductive whores .
I fear that the attempt to always believe women is the Madonna flip-side to a long history of casting women who spoke up about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to empower women when we put them on a pedestal and suggest that they are exempt from all of the flaws associated with the human condition , just as we fail to empower them when we cast them as evil whores .
What we must do when women come forward with allegations of sexual abuse is to listen to them and treat them with respect .
That means following up with a rigorous investigation of their claims that doesn ’ t prejudge the outcome .

Recent events have reminded me of my favorite scene from the documentary “Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins.”
Both of those women were taken from us too young. If Richards were alive today, she would be 87, and Ivins would be two years younger than Joe Biden. More than anything I’ve ever seen or read about those two women, the story Ivins tells about Ann Richards demonstrates what trail-blazers they were.
Back in the 1970s, before the Anita Hill hearings, Bob Packwood’s resignation from the Senate for sexual harassment, the whole Clinton-Lewinsky affair, the election of a man who bragged about “grabbing p*ssy,” and the MeToo movement, Ann Richards was refusing to, as Ivins described, “gaze off into the middle distance, pretending not to be there” when men reveled in the objectification of women’s bodies. Instead, she gave as good as she got. Personally, I feel empowered simply listening to that story because I remember those days.
As the old saying goes, “we’ve come a long way, baby.” And yet, once again, we find ourselves struggling through yet another accusation of sexual misconduct by a prominent political figure. Jessica Valenti captured the dilemma very well.
[F]eminists are being put in a near-impossible position: Abandon our mantra to “believe women” and defend a man accused of serious misconduct, or speak out against him and in the process provide ammunition to a conservative movement fundamentally opposed to women’s autonomy.
I have already shared my thoughts about Tara Reade’s accusations, so I don’t need to go there again. But I do want to talk about whether a mantra to “believe women” is advisable.
There was, of course, a time when women were almost never believed when they spoke up about sexual misconduct. You might remember that one of the factors that led to Ann Richards being the governor of Texas was that, during the campaign, her opponent compared a sudden rainstorm to a woman being raped, saying “if it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it.” That is the kind of attitude that had to be addressed when women reported sexual assault, which was often followed by everything from denial to allegations that she was to blame.
Nothing about that kind of culture changes unless women not only speak up—but are believed when they do so. That is why “believe women” became such an important mantra. But it comes with a price.
Putting women on a pedestal to suggest that they always tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is a lie that will eventually come back to haunt the feminist movement. While it is true that patriarchy affords men power that women have been denied, that doesn’t mean that women are always innocent victims. To assume that is to completely rob them of any agency. Applying that to matters of sexuality means recognizing that, not only is it conceivable that women might lie, but that it is possible for them to be sexual predators too.
One of the major themes of patriarchy is the Madonna/whore complex, which sees women as either “good,” chaste, and pure Madonnas or as “bad,” promiscuous, and seductive whores. I fear that the attempt to always believe women is the Madonna flip-side to a long history of casting women who spoke up about sexual abuse as whores. We fail to empower women when we put them on a pedestal and suggest that they are exempt from all of the flaws associated with the human condition, just as we fail to empower them when we cast them as evil whores.
What we must do when women come forward with allegations of sexual abuse is to listen to them and treat them with respect. That means following up with a rigorous investigation of their claims that doesn’t prejudge the outcome.
UPDATE: A lot of people on my Twitter timeline are reminding me why African American feminists haven’t generally bought into the “believe women” mantra: the terror and lynching campaigns waged against African Americans were often sparked by lies white women told about sexual assault.


washingtonmonthly--2020-05-01--Why Democrats Govern and Republicans Obstruct

Unlike the Republican response to efforts aimed at mitigating the effects of the Great Recession in 2009 , Democrats aren ’ t attempting to obstruct everything Trump and Republicans propose as the country struggles to deal with a pandemic .
That alone should be a stark reminder that both sides don ’ t do it when it comes to gridlock in Washington .
But as Ezra Klein notes , the differences between the two parties are even more stark than that .
While Republicans sat on their hands and simply obstructed , Democrats are actually trying to govern .
Democrats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ though they ’ re in the minority .
They ’ re fighting for the baseline policies that any normal administration , Republican or Democrat , would be begging for right now .
“ From the very beginning , this administration made the decision that there was no legitimate role for the federal government to play in responding to this crisis , ” says Sen. Chris Murphy ( D-CT ) .
“ It wasn ’ t an accident they didn ’ t request any money in the early days .
They really believed , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a problem states and local governments should confront.
” The risk Democrats take is that voters tend to credit a president with any major legislation , especially during an election year .
Given the magnitude of Trump ’ s failures during this crisis , that is less of a concern than it would be otherwise .
But we ’ ve still seen him take credit for relief measures , when it was actually Democrats who did the heavy lifting during negotiations .
There are always those who think that Democrats should employ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ effectively obstruct any progress that could be credited to the opposition .
But that ignores a fundamental difference between the two parties , as Senator Brian Schatz explained .
“ It ’ s like the old saying that Republicans believe the government is incompetent and then get elected and prove it , ” says Schatz .
“ They don ’ t want the federal government to work and we do .
That ’ s what ’ s going on here , and I don ’ t have a quick , facile solution to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ zero-sum game , we ’ ll just accelerate the death spiral that is Grover Norquist and Mitch McConnell and the Koch brothers ’ dream.
” Schatz is exactly right .
If you had any doubts about the fact that Democratic obstruction would play right into the hands of Norquist , McConnell , and the Koch brothers , I would remind you of what Mike Lofgren—former Republican congressional staffer—wrote back in 2011 .
A couple of years ago , a Republican committee staff director told me candidly ( and proudly ) what the method @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job , it would further lower Congress ’ s generic favorability rating among the American people .
By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government , the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner .
That is precisely why a mantra of mine has been that the best way to promote a liberal agenda is to build public trust in good government .
Those differences are especially stark when , for the president and his supporters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” As Representative Pramila Jayapal told Klein about our current crisis , “ There is enormous suffering , and if we do not respond with the boldness and the scale that this crisis demands , then that suffering will continue.
” There are probably times when promoting good government becomes a liability for Democrats who are attempting to negotiate with a party that is , as Lofgren suggested , “ programmatically against government.
” But ignoring the suffering of the American people , especially during a crisis like the one we ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ option .

Unlike the Republican response to efforts aimed at mitigating the effects of the Great Recession in 2009, Democrats aren’t attempting to obstruct everything Trump and Republicans propose as the country struggles to deal with a pandemic. That alone should be a stark reminder that both sides don’t do it when it comes to gridlock in Washington.
But as Ezra Klein notes, the differences between the two parties are even more stark than that. While Republicans sat on their hands and simply obstructed, Democrats are actually trying to govern.
Democrats are acting as the governing party even though they’re in the minority. They’re fighting for the baseline policies that any normal administration, Republican or Democrat, would be begging for right now. “From the very beginning, this administration made the decision that there was no legitimate role for the federal government to play in responding to this crisis,” says Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT). “It wasn’t an accident they didn’t request any money in the early days. They really believed, as they believe today, that this is a problem states and local governments should confront.”
The risk Democrats take is that voters tend to credit a president with any major legislation, especially during an election year. Given the magnitude of Trump’s failures during this crisis, that is less of a concern than it would be otherwise. But we’ve still seen him take credit for relief measures, when it was actually Democrats who did the heavy lifting during negotiations.
There are always those who think that Democrats should employ the same tactics Republicans have used to effectively obstruct any progress that could be credited to the opposition. But that ignores a fundamental difference between the two parties, as Senator Brian Schatz explained.
“It’s like the old saying that Republicans believe the government is incompetent and then get elected and prove it,” says Schatz. “They don’t want the federal government to work and we do. That’s what’s going on here, and I don’t have a quick, facile solution to it. If we engage in a zero-sum game, we’ll just accelerate the death spiral that is Grover Norquist and Mitch McConnell and the Koch brothers’ dream.”
Schatz is exactly right. If you had any doubts about the fact that Democratic obstruction would play right into the hands of Norquist, McConnell, and the Koch brothers, I would remind you of what Mike Lofgren—former Republican congressional staffer—wrote back in 2011.
A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress’s generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.
That is precisely why a mantra of mine has been that the best way to promote a liberal agenda is to build public trust in good government.
Those differences are especially stark when, for the president and his supporters, “the cruelty is the point.” As Representative Pramila Jayapal told Klein about our current crisis, “There is enormous suffering, and if we do not respond with the boldness and the scale that this crisis demands, then that suffering will continue.”
There are probably times when promoting good government becomes a liability for Democrats who are attempting to negotiate with a party that is, as Lofgren suggested, “programmatically against government.” But ignoring the suffering of the American people, especially during a crisis like the one we’re facing now, is simply not an option.


washingtonmonthly--2020-05-01--Trump Is In Bad Shape for November

Trump Is In Bad Shape for November

According to a just-released national poll , an astonishing 51 percent of Americans approve of the job Donald Trump is doing on the Covid-19 pandemic .
But the survey also found the Trump is perceived as doing a worse job than every single governor in the country .
On top of that , the president ’ s modestly positive results are fueled by areas that aren ’ t expected to be competitive in November .
For example , he has 59 percent approval in Wyoming , 57 percent approval in West Virginia , and 55 percent approval in Nebraska .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the story is much different .
The three most critical states for Trump ’ s victory in 2016 are not looking so hot : Pennsylvania ( 40 percent ) , Wisconsin ( 39 percent ) and Michigan ( 36 percent ) .
In the next tier , there is little encouragement for Trump : Florida , North Carolina , and Georgia are all at 47 percent , and Arizona and Iowa are at 45 percent .
These are all better than Texas , however , where he ’ s at 44 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ however , with the most recent Public Policy Polling survey out of Texas , which shows Biden leading Trump there by one point .
Things look difficult both in states Trump is defending and in ones he ’ d like to pick up .
He ’ s at 39 percent approval on the pandemic in New Hampshire , at 41 percent in Nevada and 42 percent in Colorado and Minnesota .
He ’ s even showing some weakness is supposedly safe states .
Both South Dakota and South Carolina give him 45 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Utah , Kansas , Mississippi and Missouri as well .
In addition to Texas , the number that really sticks out is Ohio , where he has 51 percent approval .
It just so happens that the Republican governor there , Mike DeWine , leads all the nation ’ s governors with an 83 percent approval rating of his handling of the virus .
That 32 percent gap is bigger than the distinction in most blue states , and if it might still look like Ohio has become a solidly red state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out showing Biden up there by four points and Trump with net-negative approval numbers .
Only 11 percent of Republican want an immediate reopening of the economy and bipartisan majorities strongly disagree ( 88 percent ) with opening it up prematurely .
They are also leaning more toward experts to get their advice .
For example , 88 percent of the people trust the Centers for Disease Control to do the right thing , compared to just 54 percent who say that about Congress .
Based on presidential polling in prior crises , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inflated , as people generally become less willing to express dissent when the country is in trouble .
Objectively , it ’ s hard to see why anyone would genuinely be satisfied with the job Trump has done on Covid-19 , and that applies to both the past and the present .
Reports that Trump lost his temper with Brad Parscale last week after seeing the internal polling numbers are not surprising .
As he huddled with advisers on Friday evening , President Donald Trump was still fuming over his sliding poll numbers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ facing for suggesting a day earlier that ingesting disinfectant might prove effective against coronavirus .
Within moments , the President was shouting — not at the aides in the room , but into the phone — at his campaign manager Brad Parscale , three people familiar with the matter told CNN .
Shifting the blame away from himself , Trump berated Parscale for a recent spate of damaging poll numbers , even at one point threatening to sue Parscale .
Those internal polling numbers must be atrocious .
The public polls are certainly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mentioned Ohio and Texas , recent surveys have shown Trump trailing in North Carolina , Arizona and Florida , tied in Georgia , and up by only five points in Utah .
Aaron Blake describes the current state of play this way : Even if we allow that Arizona , Georgia and Texas aren ’ t about to go blue just yet and maybe Biden ’ s slight edge in Ohio won ’ t hold up — which seem to be legitimate assumptions — Biden is still winning in states accounting for 323 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump .
All of this is also bolstered by new data from the Public Religion Research Institute , which has been surveying a series of swing states and showed Trump ’ s favorability rating in them dropping from 53 percent in March to 38 percent today .
Again , Trump is strong in areas with few electoral college votes , like Wyoming , West Virginia , and Nebraska , but this is really doing little to boost his chances .
What ’ s it ’ s really doing is boosting his overall approval @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it any more likely that he ’ ll win .

According to a just-released national poll, an astonishing 51 percent of Americans approve of the job Donald Trump is doing on the Covid-19 pandemic. But the survey also found the Trump is perceived as doing a worse job than every single governor in the country. On top of that, the president’s modestly positive results are fueled by areas that aren’t expected to be competitive in November. For example, he has 59 percent approval in Wyoming, 57 percent approval in West Virginia, and 55 percent approval in Nebraska.
When we go into the swing states, the story is much different. The three most critical states for Trump’s victory in 2016 are not looking so hot: Pennsylvania (40 percent), Wisconsin (39 percent) and Michigan (36 percent).
In the next tier, there is little encouragement for Trump: Florida, North Carolina, and Georgia are all at 47 percent, and Arizona and Iowa are at 45 percent. These are all better than Texas, however, where he’s at 44 percent approval. It’s consistent, however, with the most recent Public Policy Polling survey out of Texas, which shows Biden leading Trump there by one point.
Things look difficult both in states Trump is defending and in ones he’d like to pick up. He’s at 39 percent approval on the pandemic in New Hampshire, at 41 percent in Nevada and 42 percent in Colorado and Minnesota.
He’s even showing some weakness is supposedly safe states. Both South Dakota and South Carolina give him 45 percent approval, and he’s negative in Utah, Kansas, Mississippi and Missouri as well.
In addition to Texas, the number that really sticks out is Ohio, where he has 51 percent approval. It just so happens that the Republican governor there, Mike DeWine, leads all the nation’s governors with an 83 percent approval rating of his handling of the virus. That 32 percent gap is bigger than the distinction in most blue states, and if it might still look like Ohio has become a solidly red state, there’s a Marist poll out showing Biden up there by four points and Trump with net-negative approval numbers.
Only 11 percent of Republican want an immediate reopening of the economy and bipartisan majorities strongly disagree (88 percent) with opening it up prematurely. They are also leaning more toward experts to get their advice. For example, 88 percent of the people trust the Centers for Disease Control to do the right thing, compared to just 54 percent who say that about Congress.
Based on presidential polling in prior crises, Trump’s numbers are almost certainly inflated, as people generally become less willing to express dissent when the country is in trouble. Objectively, it’s hard to see why anyone would genuinely be satisfied with the job Trump has done on Covid-19, and that applies to both the past and the present.
Reports that Trump lost his temper with Brad Parscale last week after seeing the internal polling numbers are not surprising.
As he huddled with advisers on Friday evening, President Donald Trump was still fuming over his sliding poll numbers and the onslaught of criticism he was facing for suggesting a day earlier that ingesting disinfectant might prove effective against coronavirus. Within moments, the President was shouting — not at the aides in the room, but into the phone — at his campaign manager Brad Parscale, three people familiar with the matter told CNN. Shifting the blame away from himself, Trump berated Parscale for a recent spate of damaging poll numbers, even at one point threatening to sue Parscale.
Those internal polling numbers must be atrocious. The public polls are certainly bad. In addition to the already mentioned Ohio and Texas, recent surveys have shown Trump trailing in North Carolina, Arizona and Florida, tied in Georgia, and up by only five points in Utah.
Aaron Blake describes the current state of play this way:
Even if we allow that Arizona, Georgia and Texas aren’t about to go blue just yet and maybe Biden’s slight edge in Ohio won’t hold up — which seem to be legitimate assumptions — Biden is still winning in states accounting for 323 electoral votes, compared with 215 for Trump. All of this is also bolstered by new data from the Public Religion Research Institute, which has been surveying a series of swing states and showed Trump’s favorability rating in them dropping from 53 percent in March to 38 percent today.
Again, Trump is strong in areas with few electoral college votes, like Wyoming, West Virginia, and Nebraska, but this is really doing little to boost his chances. What’s it’s really doing is boosting his overall approval numbers on a national level without making it any more likely that he’ll win.


washingtonmonthly--2020-05-01--Will Young People Vote By Mail In the Upcoming Elections?

As states expand options to vote by mail during the COVID-19 pandemic so citizens don ’ t have to risk their lives or spread the disease to cast ballots , one of the questions that has arisen is whether young people will be disenfranchised .
The concern is that millennials and younger cohorts , bopping back and forth between college and their parents ’ homes , might not receive the notices states are mailing out for them to request absentee ballots—or , even if they do , whether their lack of familiarity with the conventions of old-fashioned mail will be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
If Florida is any indication , those fears are probably unfounded .
Election data I obtained from the Sunshine State on how many young people voted by mail in the March 17 primary , which has never before been reported , is encouraging .
Compared to the 2016 primary , the number of 18-24-year-olds in Florida who voted by mail in 2020 grew by 338 percent .
That compares to an 11 percent increase in vote by mail for all age groups during that period .
To be sure , the growth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 29,251 in 2020 , 6,659 in 2016 .
That compares to 1,395,524 vote by mail ballots cast overall in the state in 2020 , up from 1,258,732 in 2016 .
Still , the rate of increase in young people voting by mail is impressive .
And the numbers would have almost certainly been greater had the state ’ s Republican governor , Ron DeSantis , done what other governors did this spring and postponed the primary to a later date .
“ They voted during the Civil War , ” he said in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ primary .
That left too little time for citizens who wanted to cast ballots but weren ’ t willing to risk their lives in a polling place to sign up to receive a vote-by-mail ballot—even though Florida makes the process relatively easy by offering no-excuse absentee voting One person who was cheated out of her chance to make her voice heard is Chelsea Engle .
The 23-year-old Tampa-area student was excited to vote in the Democratic primary , and was even mobilizing her friends to do likewise .
But when Election Day came @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a polling place because , as a teenager , she had been diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer that has left her immunocompromised .
Had she known more about the option to vote by mail , she told me , and had the election been delayed to give her more time to request a mail ballot , she would have done so .
Far more Democrats than Republicans in Florida voted on March 17 , both in-person and by mail , but that can largely be explained by the fact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ presidential primary contest and Republicans did not .
Most studies of vote by mail show that it doesn ’ t advantage one party more than another .
Indeed , both the Republican and Democratic parties have long been encouraging their voters to sign up for absentee ballots .
Nevertheless , soon after the March 17 Florida primary , Donald Trump began attacking vote by mail as “ corrupt ” —despite the fact that he himself voted by mail in that very primary—and complaining that proposals by congressional Democrats to fund state efforts to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ devastating to the GOP in November .
Since then , Republicans have mounted an all-out political and legal effort to fight expansions of vote by mail .
Evidence that the Republicans might have reason to worry comes from a New York Times analysis of last month ’ s elections in Wisconsin , which found that Democrats voting by mail made the difference in a bitterly-fought state supreme court race .
The Times didn ’ t report voting by age group , but I found quite lopsided turnout results for young people in Florida @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by mail in the state ’ s Democratic primary rose by 505 percent , while the increase was only 178 percent among Republicans in that age group .
But , again , that could be explained by the lack of a competitive Republican presidential primary .
In the end , the fact that young people from both parties voted by mail in greater numbers in Florida this spring should be heartening—and not necessarily surprising .
Multiple studies have shown that vote at home ’ s effects are most pronounced among young , low-propensity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Pantheon Analytics study , commissioned by the Washington Monthly , found that younger voters in Colorado ’ s 2014 vote-at-home election turned out at a rate 12 percentage points higher than was expected under a generally accurate forecast model .
It makes logical sense .
Amber McReynolds , who heads the National Vote at Home Institute , told me that vote at home appeals to young voters because it ’ s much easier than getting to a polling place on Election Day .
“ If they have more time and get their ballot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ easier and more convenient for them to engage and vote , ” she said .
Chelsea Engle ’ s story illustrates that many young voters will choose to vote by mail in the coming elections—including the general election in November—if given the opportunity and made aware of the option .
( As with any electoral reform , effective messaging about the system change is critical . )
Then , if history is any indicator , they are likely to keeping voting from home in the elections to follow .
Election officials across the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have often found that voters get hooked with the system once they try it out .
“ Any voter in any one of these primary states is wondering what their options are , ” said Phil Keisling , the former Oregon secretary of state who pioneered all-mail voting in that state and co-founded the National Vote at Home Institute .
“ And then , very quickly , they are discovering that not only do they have an option , but it ’ s an option that a lot of them are never going @ @ @ @ @ @ @ welcome news .
Young voters have the lowest turnout of any age group in the United States .
In the 2016 general election , only 46 percent of young voters cast ballots .
The problem is even worse in midterms .
In 2014 , for example , less than 20 percent of young people voted .
The 2018 election was better , with 31 percent turnout among young voters , but that ’ s still far too low .
But as Florida ’ s most recent election shows , increased access to vote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trend .
Other electoral reforms , like automatic voter registration and same-day registration are important , but vote by mail has by far the best track record of increasing turnout and turning non-voters into voters .
As vote at home is expanded more and more nationwide , a demographic of voters that too often experiences politics as a spectator sport can start to revitalize American democracy .

As states expand options to vote by mail during the COVID-19 pandemic so citizens don’t have to risk their lives or spread the disease to cast ballots, one of the questions that has arisen is whether young people will be disenfranchised. The concern is that millennials and younger cohorts, bopping back and forth between college and their parents’ homes, might not receive the notices states are mailing out for them to request absentee ballots—or, even if they do, whether their lack of familiarity with the conventions of old-fashioned mail will be a hindrance to their participation in elections.
If Florida is any indication, those fears are probably unfounded. Election data I obtained from the Sunshine State on how many young people voted by mail in the March 17 primary, which has never before been reported, is encouraging. Compared to the 2016 primary, the number of 18-24-year-olds in Florida who voted by mail in 2020 grew by 338 percent. That compares to an 11 percent increase in vote by mail for all age groups during that period.
To be sure, the growth was from a relatively small base: 29,251 in 2020, 6,659 in 2016. That compares to 1,395,524 vote by mail ballots cast overall in the state in 2020, up from 1,258,732 in 2016.
Still, the rate of increase in young people voting by mail is impressive. And the numbers would have almost certainly been greater had the state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, done what other governors did this spring and postponed the primary to a later date. “They voted during the Civil War,” he said in announcing his decision the Friday before the primary. That left too little time for citizens who wanted to cast ballots but weren’t willing to risk their lives in a polling place to sign up to receive a vote-by-mail ballot—even though Florida makes the process relatively easy by offering no-excuse absentee voting
One person who was cheated out of her chance to make her voice heard is Chelsea Engle. The 23-year-old Tampa-area student was excited to vote in the Democratic primary, and was even mobilizing her friends to do likewise. But when Election Day came, she decided not to risk going to a polling place because, as a teenager, she had been diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer that has left her immunocompromised. Had she known more about the option to vote by mail, she told me, and had the election been delayed to give her more time to request a mail ballot, she would have done so.
Far more Democrats than Republicans in Florida voted on March 17, both in-person and by mail, but that can largely be explained by the fact that the Democrats had a very competitive presidential primary contest and Republicans did not. Most studies of vote by mail show that it doesn’t advantage one party more than another. Indeed, both the Republican and Democratic parties have long been encouraging their voters to sign up for absentee ballots.
Nevertheless, soon after the March 17 Florida primary, Donald Trump began attacking vote by mail as “corrupt”—despite the fact that he himself voted by mail in that very primary—and complaining that proposals by congressional Democrats to fund state efforts to expand vote at home options could be devastating to the GOP in November. Since then, Republicans have mounted an all-out political and legal effort to fight expansions of vote by mail.
Evidence that the Republicans might have reason to worry comes from a New York Times analysis of last month’s elections in Wisconsin, which found that Democrats voting by mail made the difference in a bitterly-fought state supreme court race. The Times didn’t report voting by age group, but I found quite lopsided turnout results for young people in Florida. The number of 18-24-year-olds who voted by mail in the state’s Democratic primary rose by 505 percent, while the increase was only 178 percent among Republicans in that age group. But, again, that could be explained by the lack of a competitive Republican presidential primary.
In the end, the fact that young people from both parties voted by mail in greater numbers in Florida this spring should be heartening—and not necessarily surprising. Multiple studies have shown that vote at home’s effects are most pronounced among young, low-propensity voters. For instance, a 2016 Pantheon Analytics study, commissioned by the Washington Monthly, found that younger voters in Colorado’s 2014 vote-at-home election turned out at a rate 12 percentage points higher than was expected under a generally accurate forecast model.
It makes logical sense. Amber McReynolds, who heads the National Vote at Home Institute, told me that vote at home appeals to young voters because it’s much easier than getting to a polling place on Election Day. “If they have more time and get their ballot automatically at home, it makes it easier and more convenient for them to engage and vote,” she said.
Chelsea Engle’s story illustrates that many young voters will choose to vote by mail in the coming elections—including the general election in November—if given the opportunity and made aware of the option. (As with any electoral reform, effective messaging about the system change is critical.) Then, if history is any indicator, they are likely to keeping voting from home in the elections to follow.
Election officials across the country who have implemented vote at home have often found that voters get hooked with the system once they try it out. “Any voter in any one of these primary states is wondering what their options are,” said Phil Keisling, the former Oregon secretary of state who pioneered all-mail voting in that state and co-founded the National Vote at Home Institute. “And then, very quickly, they are discovering that not only do they have an option, but it’s an option that a lot of them are never going to stop using.”
That would be welcome news. Young voters have the lowest turnout of any age group in the United States. In the 2016 general election, only 46 percent of young voters cast ballots. The problem is even worse in midterms. In 2014, for example, less than 20 percent of young people voted. The 2018 election was better, with 31 percent turnout among young voters, but that’s still far too low.
But as Florida’s most recent election shows, increased access to vote at home can start to reverse that trend. Other electoral reforms, like automatic voter registration and same-day registration are important, but vote by mail has by far the best track record of increasing turnout and turning non-voters into voters.
As vote at home is expanded more and more nationwide, a demographic of voters that too often experiences politics as a spectator sport can start to revitalize American democracy.


washingtonmonthly--2020-05-02--How Trump May Already Be Discrediting a COVID-19 Vaccination

Hopes are rapidly rising for a COVID-19 vaccine .
The World Health Organization recently announced that as many as 102 potential candidates are currently under development—eight of them already in clinical trials .
President Donald Trump has called for his own ambitious vaccine research program , dubbed “ Operation Warp Speed , ” with the goal of finding a cure by year-end .
If all goes well , a vaccine could be available en masse by January , according to Dr. Anthony Fauci , the nation ’ s top epidemiologist and a key member of the White House coronavirus task @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
As United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said this week , only a vaccine can return the world to “ normalcy , ” while all other measures , such as universal testing , will only mitigate the spread of the infectious disease .
But if and when a vaccine is available , will Americans actually give it their trust ?
Under any circumstances , there would be some skepticism .
Even reasonable citizens might show some caution in embracing new and relatively unproven therapies .
This skepticism , however , could take on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The president ’ s near-constant stream of lies , misinformation , obfuscations , and half-truths has systematically destroyed Americans ’ last reserves of trust in government .
A logical consequence of this behavior is that many Americans will end up wary of a cure produced by the administration , even with rock-solid proof of its efficacy .
This could be catastrophic .
Public reluctance to accept a vaccine will mean continued suffering , despite a treatment in hand , and an even slower road back toregular life .
As much as Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would be gratefully embraced by all Americans—no doubt a catalyst for his urgency in pursuing one—Trump himself has made that outcome less likely .
Even in the best of situations , persuading Americans to get their shots isn ’ t easy .
Fewer than half of Americans get their flu shots every year , according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .
During the H1N1 pandemic of 2009-2010 , only 27 percent of Americans were ever vaccinated , despite relatively high-profile public health campaigns and the availability of free vaccinations to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ result , H1N1 continues to sicken and kill Americans every year—albeit at rates far , far below that of COVID-19 .
Scholarly analyses of the public ’ s response to the H1N1 vaccine find a correlation—even if it ’ s a relatively small one—between general levels of public trust in government and vaccination rates .
Much more significant in influencing vaccination ratesis the quality and consistency of official communications from government officials .
More than anything , that ’ s what enables citizens to accept official advice and trust in a treatment ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are trusted when the public perceives that they are knowledgeable and expert , they are open and honest , and concerned and caring , ” as one study found .
All of these are standards that the president and his administration have repeatedly failed to clear .
Trump himself has been a font of misinformation and conflicting advice .
He boosted the anti-malaria drug chloroquine ( now shown to be both ineffective and deadly ) and made utterly unsupported claims that the virus will “ go away ” with the summer heat .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ with disinfectants could be a treatment for COVID-19 , a proposal met with horror from public health experts—and a stern warning from the makers of Lysol .
The president has also failed to be “ open and honest.
” He has undermined the credibility of public health officials and governors in whom Americans put more faith .
More than once , his false statements have forced his top public health officials to issue “ clarifications ” that contradict his own baseless claims .
At the same time , Trump has encouraged resistance against @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , such as through his pointed refusal to wear a face mask in defiance of CDC guidance .
Trump has also failed to convey any sense of empathy for the people hardest-hitby the ravages of the virus ’ s outbreak .
According to an analysis by the Washington Post , Trump has spent just four and a half minutes expressing condolences for the pandemic ’ s victims while spending 45 minutes praising himself over more than 13 hours of airtime during a three-week period .
Even “ Operation Warp Speed , ” Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ smacks of political expediency more than a genuine concern to save lives .
According to the New York Times , Trump has repeatedly urged a faster timetable , despite consistent warnings from public health experts of the risks of rushing through the process .
These fears are certainly justified , given the administration ’ s record of missteps in its pandemic response .
For instance , flawed coronavirus test kits ordered by the CDC set back the nation ’ s testing capacity by weeks in the early onset of the crisis .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ test kits has now led to a flood of inaccurate or outright fraudulent tests on the market .
It ’ s no surprise , then , that Americans feel awash in misinformation and conflicting guidance .
A new survey from the Pew Research Center finds that about half of respondents say they find it difficult to sort fact from fiction in their daily news consumption .
Nearly two-thirds of Americans say they ’ ve seen some news “ that seemed completely made up.
” This confusion makes the public a ripe target for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Press recently reported are already in high gear .
“ I don ’ t want the government forcing it on my community or my family , ” activist Rita Palma told the AP .
In addition to sowing doubts about the effectiveness of a potential vaccine , these groups are organizing resistance against the possibility of mandating its usage , a headache that governments will be forced to confront .
The consequence of all of these failures is a public that is rightfully suspicious of the Trump administration ’ s motives and competence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cure .
Recent polls find that only 23 percent say they trust Trump ’ s information “ a great deal.
” Fewer than half would follow his recommendations .
Even most Republicans now say they don ’ t put much stock in Trump ’ s pronouncements .
All told , these circumstances are hardly a recipe for a successful vaccination campaign , even if government scientists were to beat the odds and meet the administration ’ s ambitious year-end deadline .
In the meantime , the damage Trump has done to public trust @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Public officials still need Americans to maintain the discipline of social distancing , reject deadly misinformation , and comply with guidance on wearing masks , especially as “ quarantine fatigue ” sets in and hardens .
They will need people to get themselves tested regularly and adhere to quarantines if contact tracing shows they ’ ve been exposed to someone infected .
But as images of crowded beaches and mask-less protesters show , rebellion is already brewing and may only get worse .
Granted , public trust in government has long been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ appalling pandemic response could be the ultimate deathblow .
As much as Trump wants to reap the political rewards of unleashing a cure this election year , he is sabotaging his prospects by destroying the public trust needed to bring the pandemic under control .
What he ’ ll leave behind instead is one more disaster for his eventual successor to repair .

Hopes are rapidly rising for a COVID-19 vaccine. The World Health Organization recently announced that as many as 102 potential candidates are currently under development—eight of them already in clinical trials. President Donald Trump has called for his own ambitious vaccine research program, dubbed “Operation Warp Speed,” with the goal of finding a cure by year-end. If all goes well, a vaccine could be available en masse by January, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top epidemiologist and a key member of the White House coronavirus task force.
These developments are good news. As United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said this week, only a vaccine can return the world to “normalcy,” while all other measures, such as universal testing, will only mitigate the spread of the infectious disease.
But if and when a vaccine is available, will Americans actually give it their trust?
Under any circumstances, there would be some skepticism. Even reasonable citizens might show some caution in embracing new and relatively unproven therapies. This skepticism, however, could take on epic proportions under Trump’s leadership. The president’s near-constant stream of lies, misinformation, obfuscations, and half-truths has systematically destroyed Americans’ last reserves of trust in government. A logical consequence of this behavior is that many Americans will end up wary of a cure produced by the administration, even with rock-solid proof of its efficacy.
This could be catastrophic. Public reluctance to accept a vaccine will mean continued suffering, despite a treatment in hand, and an even slower road back toregular life. As much as Trump would like to believe that a vaccine would be gratefully embraced by all Americans—no doubt a catalyst for his urgency in pursuing one—Trump himself has made that outcome less likely.
Even in the best of situations, persuading Americans to get their shots isn’t easy. Fewer than half of Americans get their flu shots every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During the H1N1 pandemic of 2009-2010, only 27 percent of Americans were ever vaccinated, despite relatively high-profile public health campaigns and the availability of free vaccinations to anyone who wanted one. As a result, H1N1 continues to sicken and kill Americans every year—albeit at rates far, far below that of COVID-19.
Scholarly analyses of the public’s response to the H1N1 vaccine find a correlation—even if it’s a relatively small one—between general levels of public trust in government and vaccination rates. Much more significant in influencing vaccination ratesis the quality and consistency of official communications from government officials. More than anything, that’s what enables citizens to accept official advice and trust in a treatment’s safety. “Individuals and institutions are trusted when the public perceives that they are knowledgeable and expert, they are open and honest, and concerned and caring,” as one study found. All of these are standards that the president and his administration have repeatedly failed to clear.
Trump himself has been a font of misinformation and conflicting advice. He boosted the anti-malaria drug chloroquine (now shown to be both ineffective and deadly) and made utterly unsupported claims that the virus will “go away” with the summer heat. Then, he suggested that injecting oneself with disinfectants could be a treatment for COVID-19, a proposal met with horror from public health experts—and a stern warning from the makers of Lysol.
The president has also failed to be “open and honest.” He has undermined the credibility of public health officials and governors in whom Americans put more faith. More than once, his false statements have forced his top public health officials to issue “clarifications” that contradict his own baseless claims. At the same time, Trump has encouraged resistance against the restrictions imposed by his own administration, such as through his pointed refusal to wear a face mask in defiance of CDC guidance.
Trump has also failed to convey any sense of empathy for the people hardest-hitby the ravages of the virus’s outbreak. According to an analysis by the Washington Post, Trump has spent just four and a half minutes expressing condolences for the pandemic’s victims while spending 45 minutes praising himself over more than 13 hours of airtime during a three-week period.
Even “Operation Warp Speed,” Trump’s push for a vaccine, smacks of political expediency more than a genuine concern to save lives. According to the New York Times, Trump has repeatedly urged a faster timetable, despite consistent warnings from public health experts of the risks of rushing through the process.
These fears are certainly justified, given the administration’s record of missteps in its pandemic response. For instance, flawed coronavirus test kits ordered by the CDC set back the nation’s testing capacity by weeks in the early onset of the crisis. The FDA’s rush to approve antibody test kits has now led to a flood of inaccurate or outright fraudulent tests on the market.
It’s no surprise, then, that Americans feel awash in misinformation and conflicting guidance. A new survey from the Pew Research Center finds that about half of respondents say they find it difficult to sort fact from fiction in their daily news consumption. Nearly two-thirds of Americans say they’ve seen some news “that seemed completely made up.”
This confusion makes the public a ripe target for anti-vaccine misinformation campaigns, which the Associated Press recently reported are already in high gear. “I don’t want the government forcing it on my community or my family,” activist Rita Palma told the AP. In addition to sowing doubts about the effectiveness of a potential vaccine, these groups are organizing resistance against the possibility of mandating its usage, a headache that governments will be forced to confront.
The consequence of all of these failures is a public that is rightfully suspicious of the Trump administration’s motives and competence as it joins the race for a cure. Recent polls find that only 23 percent say they trust Trump’s information “a great deal.” Fewer than half would follow his recommendations. Even most Republicans now say they don’t put much stock in Trump’s pronouncements. All told, these circumstances are hardly a recipe for a successful vaccination campaign, even if government scientists were to beat the odds and meet the administration’s ambitious year-end deadline.
In the meantime, the damage Trump has done to public trust has weakened efforts to mitigate the virus. Public officials still need Americans to maintain the discipline of social distancing, reject deadly misinformation, and comply with guidance on wearing masks, especially as “quarantine fatigue” sets in and hardens. They will need people to get themselves tested regularly and adhere to quarantines if contact tracing shows they’ve been exposed to someone infected. But as images of crowded beaches and mask-less protesters show, rebellion is already brewing and may only get worse.
Granted, public trust in government has long been in decline. But Trump’s appalling pandemic response could be the ultimate deathblow. As much as Trump wants to reap the political rewards of unleashing a cure this election year, he is sabotaging his prospects by destroying the public trust needed to bring the pandemic under control. What he’ll leave behind instead is one more disaster for his eventual successor to repair.


washingtonmonthly--2020-05-02--Trump May Already Be Discrediting a COVID-19 Vaccination


washingtonmonthly--2020-05-04--What Will Student Voting Look Like in 2020?

High on the list of those we should be concerned about are college students .
Young Americans are already the demographic least likely to cast ballots .
A pandemic creates new obstacles .
Millions of students , for example , move away from home to attend college .
But as campuses shut down en masse , they had to return home , and it ’ s unclear when they can go back to school .
The result is residency complications for many potential first-time voters , just months before an election .
While there are actions that elected officials can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it easier for college students to vote , such as letting everyone vote by mail , the lion ’ s share of the burden falls on the colleges themselves .
In the best of times , most college administrators don ’ t give much thought to how to increase student voter participation on their campuses , or even think of it as their part of their jobs .
And with plunging revenues and enrollments in chaos , now is now is not the best of times .
But the truth is that if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and quickly , millions of students will be effectively disenfranchised .
At the Monthly , we have long believed that colleges are uniquely positioned to help imbue each new generation with a sense of civic responsibility and engagement .
And because voting is habitual—if you vote in one election , you are more likely to vote in the next one , and then the one after that—colleges can create lifelong civic participants if they make the process of registering and casting ballots easier and more understandable for their students .
To push colleges @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that are , the Washington Monthly three years ago began adding student voting metrics to its annual college rankings and publishing an “ honor roll ” of schools that scored perfectly on those measure .
The pandemic makes that exercise even more important .
So today , we are excited to announce our fourth student voting honor roll , recognizing the schools across America that do the best job of getting students to both register and cast ballots .
To do this , we ’ re relying on a combination of new and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ again using the first-of-its-kind metric we built in 2018 to evaluate how well schools do at increasing voter participation .
We measure which schools take part ( and to what degree ) in the National Study of Learning , Voting , and Engagement ( NSLVE ) at Tufts University , which calculates registration numbers and turnout rates for participating campuses , and in the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge , which helps schools craft plans to bolster civic engagement Colleges that meet all of the five following criteria make the honor roll .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , 2020 : • Submitted an ALL IN action plan in 2018 .
• Submit an ALL IN action plan in 2020 ( due to ALL IN by May 31 , 2020 ) .
• Be currently enrolled in NSLVE .
• Made their 2016 NSLVE data publicly available through ALL IN ’ s online database .
• Made their 2018 NSLVE data publicly available through ALL IN ’ s online database .
These criteria are consistent with our last honor roll .
That means if past honor roll colleges have kept current @ @ @ @ @ @ @ participation , they will make this year ’ s list as well .
We will release the honor roll in our 2020 college guide , out this September .
As was the case in 2019 , any school ( not just honor roll recipients ) will receive a point in our general college rankings for each of the above criteria they fulfill .
Colleges will receive an additional “ sixth ” point if they make their 2018 NSLVE report public , and it shows a registration rate above 85 percent .
But this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new to the honor roll .
Rather than listing schools alphabetically , we will be ranking schools by their registration rates .
The school with the highest registration rate , according to their 2018 NSLVE report , will appear at the top of the list .
Schools with a registration rate above 85 percent will receive special recognition , and schools with a registration rate above 95 percent will receive a special distinction .
( Many colleges have students who can ’ t register to vote , including international students ; NSLVE excludes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rates . )
Colleges can ’ t , of course , change their 2018 registration rate .
But they can change their 2020 registration rate .
And we will be releasing a mid-year update of our honor roll in February 2021 .
It will include the same criteria , plus 2020 NSLVE data .
It means that colleges can climb up the honor roll in six months .
We know that it is hard for schools to focus on raising registration and turnout given the myriad closures and stay-at-home orders .
Increasing turnout @ @ @ @ @ @ @ places with restrictive voting requirements .
It ’ s possible to reach high registration rates in unfriendly states—the University of Texas at Austin cleared 80 percent—but it requires enormous organizing efforts .
Closing campuses makes it even more challenging .
Thankfully , there are multiple institutions working to assist colleges in increasing turnout .
The Ask Every Student program pairs groups of colleges together and helps them craft registration plans that will , per its name , reach every student on campus .
The forthcoming President ’ s Conference will bring college leaders @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voting .
And ALL IN itself works with individual campuses to foster civic engagement .
All of these initiatives are considering COVID-19 as they help schools plan .
And it ’ s important that schools do plan .
Moments of extreme crisis open up profound political opportunities .
The 2020 election will be exceptional not just in the circumstances under which it takes place , but in the outcomes it will generate .
The victor will have to contend with the ongoing pandemic and its fallout , and will have great say in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its wake .
America ’ s college students will have to live with those changes for longer than almost any other demographic .
It is imperative that their schools find ways to help them vote .

Unless something extraordinary happens to bring the coronavirus under control by the first Tuesday in November, the United States will face the most challenging presidential election since 1864, when it went to the polls in the midst of the Civil War. All over the country, policymakers are struggling to figure out the logistics of how citizens can best vote without putting their lives at risk or spreading the contagion. (A mail-in ballot for everyone? Bottles of Purell by the voting machines?) Aside from the health risks, the greatest concern is (or should be) participation: citizens who are too scared to cast ballots, or confused about the procedures for doing so, are citizens whose voices won’t count.
High on the list of those we should be concerned about are college students. Young Americans are already the demographic least likely to cast ballots. A pandemic creates new obstacles. Millions of students, for example, move away from home to attend college. But as campuses shut down en masse, they had to return home, and it’s unclear when they can go back to school. The result is residency complications for many potential first-time voters, just months before an election.
While there are actions that elected officials can take between now and November to make it easier for college students to vote, such as letting everyone vote by mail, the lion’s share of the burden falls on the colleges themselves. In the best of times, most college administrators don’t give much thought to how to increase student voter participation on their campuses, or even think of it as their part of their jobs. And with plunging revenues and enrollments in chaos, now is now is not the best of times. But the truth is that if college leaders don’t act, and quickly, millions of students will be effectively disenfranchised.
At the Monthly, we have long believed that colleges are uniquely positioned to help imbue each new generation with a sense of civic responsibility and engagement. And because voting is habitual—if you vote in one election, you are more likely to vote in the next one, and then the one after that—colleges can create lifelong civic participants if they make the process of registering and casting ballots easier and more understandable for their students.
To push colleges to be more proactive and recognize those that are, the Washington Monthly three years ago began adding student voting metrics to its annual college rankings and publishing an “honor roll” of schools that scored perfectly on those measures. The pandemic makes that exercise even more important. So today, we are excited to announce our upcoming fourth student voting honor roll, recognizing the schools across America that do the best job of getting students to both register and cast ballots.
To do this, we’re relying on a combination of new and old techniques. We are beginning by again using the first-of-its-kind metric we built in 2018 to evaluate how well schools do at increasing voter participation. We measure which schools take part (and to what degree) in the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE) at Tufts University, which calculates registration numbers and turnout rates for participating campuses, and in the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge, which helps schools craft plans to bolster civic engagement
Colleges that meet all of the five following criteria make the honor roll. They must do so by June 1, 2020:
Submitted an ALL IN action plan in 2018.
Submit an ALL IN action plan in 2020 (due to ALL IN by May 31, 2020).
Be currently enrolled in NSLVE.
Made their 2016 NSLVE data publicly available through ALL IN’s online database.
Made their 2018 NSLVE data publicly available through ALL IN’s online database.
These criteria are consistent with our last honor roll. That means if past honor roll colleges have kept current with both ALL IN participation and NSLVE participation, they will make this year’s list as well. We will release the honor roll in our 2020 college guide, out this September. As was the case in 2019, any school (not just honor roll recipients) will receive a point in our general college rankings for each of the above criteria they fulfill. Colleges will receive an additional “sixth” point if they make their 2018 NSLVE report public, and it shows a registration rate above 85 percent.
But this year, we are also adding something new to the honor roll. Rather than listing schools alphabetically, we will be ranking schools by their registration rates. The school with the highest registration rate, according to their 2018 NSLVE report, will appear at the top of the list. Schools with a registration rate above 85 percent will receive special recognition, and schools with a registration rate above 95 percent will receive a special distinction. (Many colleges have students who can’t register to vote, including international students; NSLVE excludes such students in its tabulation of registration rates.)
Colleges can’t, of course, change their 2018 registration rate. But they can change their 2020 registration rate. And we will continue to track schools’ registration progress.
We know that it is hard for schools to focus on raising registration and turnout given the myriad closures and stay-at-home orders. Increasing turnout is already hard work, especially in places with restrictive voting requirements. It’s possible to reach high registration rates in unfriendly states—the University of Texas at Austin cleared 80 percent—but it requires enormous organizing efforts. Closing campuses makes it even more challenging.
Thankfully, there are multiple institutions working to assist colleges in increasing turnout. The Ask Every Student program pairs groups of colleges together and helps them craft registration plans that will, per its name, reach every student on campus. The forthcoming President’s Conference will bring college leaders together to brainstorm ways to bolster student voting. And ALL IN itself works with individual campuses to foster civic engagement. All of these initiatives are considering COVID-19 as they help schools plan.
And it’s important that schools do plan. Moments of extreme crisis open up profound political opportunities. The 2020 election will be exceptional not just in the circumstances under which it takes place, but in the outcomes it will generate. The victor will have to contend with the ongoing pandemic and its fallout, and will have great say in how the United States should change in its wake. America’s college students will have to live with those changes for longer than almost any other demographic. It is imperative that their schools find ways to help them vote.


washingtonmonthly--2020-05-04--We Need a New Lie-O-Meter to Measure Trump’s Falsehoods

Almost three and a half years into Trump ’ s presidency , it has become almost blasé to talk about his ubiquitous lies .
According to the fact-checkers at the Washington Post , as of April 3rd , he has told 18,000 in 1,170 days , for an average of more than 15 per day .
What is even more disturbing : He ’ s getting worse .
It isn ’ t hard to see how the president gets to more than 15 lies per day when you look at this clip from the Oval Office last week .
1 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cupboards ( referring to the Strategic National Stockpile ) .
The last administration left us nothing.
” Fact check : Most of the materials in the stockpile are stored in large warehouses around the country , and where those warehouses are located , and exactly what ’ s in them , is not publicly disclosed .
But NPR science correspondent Nell Greenfieldboyce was allowed to visit one facility in June 2016 — only months before Trump was inaugurated in January 2017 .
In her article about the warehouse she toured , she described @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bare .
“ A big American flag hangs from the ceiling , and shelves packed with stuff stand so tall that looking up makes me dizzy , ” Greenfieldboyce wrote .
2 .
“ We started off with bad , broken tests and obsolete tests…We had broken tests , we had obsolete tests , we had tests that didn ’ t take care of people.
” Fact check : 3 .
“ H1N1 , the swine flu , the Obama administration was a disaster.
” Fact check : From April 2009 to April @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from H1N1 .
In three months , over 67,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 .
4 .
“ They did polling on how did they do ( ie , the Obama administration on H1N1 ) and their polls were so negative , so bad .
They did a very poor job .
Fact Check : 5 .
“ They did a poor job on ammunition .
When I got here we had no ammunition.
” Fact check : After targeting Islamic State operatives with tens of thousands of smart bombs and guided missiles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ publicly that stockpiles were growing thin…Trump never limits his comments to PGMs [ precision guided missiles ] and instead gives the impression that all ammunition was running out… Moreover , Trump ’ s claim has morphed from “ very little ” ammunition to “ no ammunition.
” No military official has claimed that munitions , whether PGMs or for any other kind of weapon , were depleted .
Finally , we note that Carter ’ s comments from 2016 indicate that U.S. officials were working on rebuilding PGM stockpiles before Trump took office @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so many times that the Washington Post fact-checkers now include it in their list of “ Bottomless Pinocchios , ” or lies Trump has told more than 20 times .
The other four are likely to get there soon since he repeats them regularly .
If you had any trouble getting through all of that fact-checking , it is because the whole process gets boring after a while .
So the country has been divided into those who believe the lies and those who respond by saying “ Yeah , Trump lies .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ know.
” Occasionally , we hear something along the lines of “ All politicians lie.
” I would maintain that Trump ’ s lies are different .
They are not only ubiquitous , but they are also outlandishly false .
Their motive is always to prop up the president ’ s ego by attacking others and shifting blame .
Finally , they point to someone who is growing increasingly disconnected from reality .
To become blasé about all of that is to cease to be shocked by the fact that the President of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ office , leading to a normalization of what ’ s happening .
Over the weekend , George W. Bush released a video that seems to be part of a broader effort to rehabilitate his image .
Even some liberals found it to be a breath of fresh air , given our current circumstances .
All I could think of in reaction was that it came from a president whose administration lied us into a war in the Middle East—sacrificing the lives of thousands .
Personally , I ’ m not interested in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ list of betrayals on everything from the Iraq War to the use of torture and his utter failure in response to Katrina should never be forgotten .
And yet somehow , folks are willing to give him a pass in comparison to the current occupant of the Oval Office .
Giving Bush a pass leaves the door wide open to do the same thing with Trump in the future .
We can never let that happen .

Almost three and a half years into Trump’s presidency, it has become almost blasé to talk about his ubiquitous lies. According to the fact-checkers at the Washington Post, as of April 3rd, he has told 18,000 in 1,170 days, for an average of more than 15 per day. What is even more disturbing: He’s getting worse.
It isn’t hard to see how the president gets to more than 15 lies per day when you look at this clip from the Oval Office last week.
Let’s count them.
1. “We started off with empty cupboards (referring to the Strategic National Stockpile). The last administration left us nothing.” Fact check:
Most of the materials in the stockpile are stored in large warehouses around the country, and where those warehouses are located, and exactly what’s in them, is not publicly disclosed. But NPR science correspondent Nell Greenfieldboyce was allowed to visit one facility in June 2016 — only months before Trump was inaugurated in January 2017. In her article about the warehouse she toured, she described the shelves as being the opposite of bare. “A big American flag hangs from the ceiling, and shelves packed with stuff stand so tall that looking up makes me dizzy,” Greenfieldboyce wrote.
2. “We started off with bad, broken tests and obsolete tests…We had broken tests, we had obsolete tests, we had tests that didn’t take care of people.” Fact check:
The novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19 didn’t even exist until late 2019, and didn’t arrive in the US until January. So barring some sort of time travel, it was not possible for Obama to develop a test for a virus that didn’t exist until nearly three years after he left office.
3. “H1N1, the swine flu, the Obama administration was a disaster.” Fact check:
From April 2009 to April 2010, 12, 469 Americans died from H1N1. In three months, over 67,000 Americans have died from COVID-19.
4. “They did polling on how did they do (ie, the Obama administration on H1N1) and their polls were so negative, so bad. They did a very poor job. Fact Check:
The averages of two polls in 2009 showed that 67% of respondents were very confident or somewhat confident in the federal government’s ability to handle the H1N1 outbreak.
5. “They did a poor job on ammunition. When I got here we had no ammunition.” Fact check:
After targeting Islamic State operatives with tens of thousands of smart bombs and guided missiles, U.S. military officials began to say publicly that stockpiles were growing thin…Trump never limits his comments to PGMs [precision guided missiles] and instead gives the impression that all ammunition was running out… Moreover, Trump’s claim has morphed from “very little” ammunition to “no ammunition.” No military official has claimed that munitions, whether PGMs or for any other kind of weapon, were depleted. Finally, we note that Carter’s comments from 2016 indicate that U.S. officials were working on rebuilding PGM stockpiles before Trump took office.
That last one has been repeated so many times that the Washington Post fact-checkers now include it in their list of “Bottomless Pinocchios,” or lies Trump has told more than 20 times. The other four are likely to get there soon since he repeats them regularly.
If you had any trouble getting through all of that fact-checking, it is because the whole process gets boring after a while. So the country has been divided into those who believe the lies and those who respond by saying “Yeah, Trump lies. Tell me something I don’t know.” Occasionally, we hear something along the lines of “All politicians lie.”
I would maintain that Trump’s lies are different. They are not only ubiquitous, but they are also outlandishly false. Their motive is always to prop up the president’s ego by attacking others and shifting blame. Finally, they point to someone who is growing increasingly disconnected from reality. To become blasé about all of that is to cease to be shocked by the fact that the President of the United States is mentally unfit for office, leading to a normalization of what’s happening.
Over the weekend, George W. Bush released a video that seems to be part of a broader effort to rehabilitate his image. Even some liberals found it to be a breath of fresh air, given our current circumstances. All I could think of in reaction was that it came from a president whose administration lied us into a war in the Middle East—sacrificing the lives of thousands.
Personally, I’m not interested in the rehabilitation of George W. Bush. His list of betrayals on everything from the Iraq War to the use of torture and his utter failure in response to Katrina should never be forgotten. And yet somehow, folks are willing to give him a pass in comparison to the current occupant of the Oval Office. Giving Bush a pass leaves the door wide open to do the same thing with Trump in the future. We can never let that happen.