thebulwark--2020-09-15--The Not-So-Soft Bigotry of COVID Indifference

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to cut a wide swath through American communities , many have started to ignore it or , worse , rationalize the country ’ s mounting losses as a “ sad but unavoidable ” fact of life .
The “ sadness ” appears to be of a very limited type .
A recent poll found nearly 60 percent of Republicans view the deaths we ’ ve experienced as “ acceptable.
” There may be a relatively simple explanation for this complacency : the pandemic has disproportionately affected populations that are mostly out of sight and mind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in care homes , minorities , farm and food workers , and prisoners .
COVID-19 , for much of America , is something that happens to other people and many of the others are very old , very poor , people of color , or some combination of all these characteristics .
Low-income and minority populations are especially vulnerable to diseases , including COVID , and tend to suffer disproportionately from them .
They also tend toward social invisibility and political weakness , unable to command our interest or public health resources .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ in care facilities have been hit especially hard during this pandemic : more than 68,000 residents and workers have already died , representing more than 40 percent of all deaths as well as nearly a tenth of all U.S. cases .
Early on especially , governors like Andrew Cuomo and Phil Murphy made critical mistakes that exacerbated the tragedy .
More alarming is the sentiment that these deaths are a price worth paying to get the economy reopened since the elderly in nursing homes already face low life expectancies .
Our real concern @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for younger people who have their whole lives ahead of them and are sacrificing their economic futures to lockdowns .
This collapse of the inter-generational compact has been far more effective at killing them off than any death panel dreamed up in Sarah Palin ’ s fevered imagination .
Similarly , ethnic and racial minorities including African Americans , Latinos/Hispanics , and Native Americans have all been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 .
Blacks and Hispanics are nearly five times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 than whites are , and death rates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those of whites .
Survey research shows that one in three African Americans know someone who has died of COVID while fewer than one in 10 whites answered the same .
In the past few months , the four-county , heavily Latino Rio Grande Valley region of Texas has had more than 10 percent of the statewide deaths .
Co-morbidities like obesity and high blood pressure play a role but so does the fact that these populations are disproportionately exposed to disease due to the types of work they do as well as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been hit harder , too , which helps explain why minority parents are about twice as supportive of distance learning than their white counterparts .
Farm and food processing workers—dominated by Latino and other immigrant workers—are another population that has disproportionately been affected by COVID-19 .
This first became apparent when outbreaks at meat processing plants in the Midwest forced closures that slowed the nation ’ s meat supplies and eventually resulted in the plants being declared “ essential ” and reopened under the Defense Production Act .
Governors in Iowa and Nebraska @ @ @ @ @ @ @ having their unemployment cut off if they didn ’ t return to their jobs on the theory , evidently , that they were avoiding work rather than illness by not showing up .
Since March , there have been over 40,000 infections among meat packing employees and 200 deaths .
Heavily agricultural regions like California ’ s Central Valleyand Washington State ’ s Yakima Valley have seen huge COVID spikes .
In response , the U.S. Department of Labor has so far levied just $ 29,000 in fines against two companies , Smithfield @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of $ 65 billion per year .
Last are the millions of Americans behind bars .
Per statistics from the Marshall Project , there have been more than 121,000 COVID-19 cases reported among prisoners and more than a thousand deaths .
To most Americans , deaths among prisoners evoke little sympathy based on the heartless logic that those who have been convicted of crimes deserve everything they get , including the brutality , disease , and possibly death that comes along with their sentences .
The actual value of human beings , regardless @ @ @ @ @ @ @ evident when homes start burning down in wildfires .
The State of California makes heavy use of prisoners for discount fire-fighting and the COVID-driven early releases of these prisoners has deprived the state of manpower during a particularly brutal fire season .
These incarcerated firefighters make next to nothing in wages while running into blaze after blaze only to find they can ’ t join the ranks of paid firefighters after release .
It took until mid-September for Governor Newsom to sign a bill allowing prison firefighters to become professional firefighters and make @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they were doing essentially for free .
Adding to the misery of COVID-vulnerable populations is an unfortunate , and very human , tendency to find reasons to blame disadvantaged groups for their illness .
Earlier this year , Republican governors Kristi Noem of South Dakota and Ron DeSantis of Florida made ill-considered statements about how Latino food and agricultural workers were responsible for the explosive growth in caseloads in their states .
This isn ’ t new .
In her book American Pandemic : The Lost Worlds of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aid workers , “ routinely charged minority populations with being particularly problematic populations , misdirecting culpability for desperate conditions from widespread and systematic racism to its victims.
” White doctors attempting to aid Native Americans blamed high rates of Native death not on the appalling poverty and deprivation they faced but on “ intransigence , ” “ dirtiness , ” and a reliance on traditional healing methods rather than modern medicine .
The “ reds ” were doing it to themselves .
Reviewing the data and history pandemic discrimination , it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ majority of America has concluded that these groups—the poor , the minority , the imprisoned , and the elderly—are the “ acceptable ” losses .
Were the situation reversed and the white , middle aged , and middle/upper classes the primary victims of the pandemic—one of the features of the 1918 influenza—COVID-19 would be a true national emergency and there would be far less complaining about disrupted schools , work , and social life brought about by social distancing requirements and economic shutdowns .
That social reciprocity has broken down to this degree @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to us all .
The message seems to be that Americans have abandoned e pluribus unum ( out of many , one ) for “ everyone—or at least every group—for themselves.
” Pro-lifers have for decades protested American indifference to the deaths of millions of unborn children ( another invisible and voiceless minority ) , and they have been right to do so .
Where are these champions of human life when other weak and vulnerable populations are dying at the rate of a thousand a week or more ?
Make no mistake @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people will remember whether it was their lives and dignity that were “ essential ” or just their labor on behalf of those who had the privilege of working from home .
Coronavirus is not something that can be hand-waved away as “ someone else ’ s problem.
” Whether outbreaks are in major agricultural centers , nursing homes , minority-heavy border regions , prisons , or anywhere else they should concern us all .
Think about that the next time you decide not to socially distance , attend a rally or protest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mask that might spare another person illness or death .
The health and well-being you ’ re endangering might turn out to be your own .

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to cut a wide swath through American communities, many have started to ignore it or, worse, rationalize the country’s mounting losses as a “sad but unavoidable” fact of life. The “sadness” appears to be of a very limited type. A recent poll found nearly 60 percent of Republicans view the deaths we’ve experienced as “acceptable.”
There may be a relatively simple explanation for this complacency: the pandemic has disproportionately affected populations that are mostly out of sight and mind for the majority of Americans: elderly in care homes, minorities, farm and food workers, and prisoners. COVID-19, for much of America, is something that happens to other people and many of the others are very old, very poor, people of color, or some combination of all these characteristics. Low-income and minority populations are especially vulnerable to diseases, including COVID, and tend to suffer disproportionately from them. They also tend toward social invisibility and political weakness, unable to command our interest or public health resources.
As has been widely noted, elderly in care facilities have been hit especially hard during this pandemic: more than 68,000 residents and workers have already died, representing more than 40 percent of all deaths as well as nearly a tenth of all U.S. cases. Early on especially, governors like Andrew Cuomo and Phil Murphy made critical mistakes that exacerbated the tragedy. More alarming is the sentiment that these deaths are a price worth paying to get the economy reopened since the elderly in nursing homes already face low life expectancies. Our real concern, the logic goes, should be for younger people who have their whole lives ahead of them and are sacrificing their economic futures to lockdowns. This collapse of the inter-generational compact has been far more effective at killing them off than any death panel dreamed up in Sarah Palin’s fevered imagination.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
Similarly, ethnic and racial minorities including African Americans, Latinos/Hispanics, and Native Americans have all been disproportionately affected by COVID-19. Blacks and Hispanics are nearly five times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 than whites are, and death rates among African Americans are more than double those of whites. Survey research shows that one in three African Americans know someone who has died of COVID while fewer than one in 10 whites answered the same. In the past few months, the four-county, heavily Latino Rio Grande Valley region of Texas has had more than 10 percent of the statewide deaths. Co-morbidities like obesity and high blood pressure play a role but so does the fact that these populations are disproportionately exposed to disease due to the types of work they do as well as cramped housing conditions. Their children have been hit harder, too, which helps explain why minority parents are about twice as supportive of distance learning than their white counterparts.
Farm and food processing workers—dominated by Latino and other immigrant workers—are another population that has disproportionately been affected by COVID-19. This first became apparent when outbreaks at meat processing plants in the Midwest forced closures that slowed the nation’s meat supplies and eventually resulted in the plants being declared “essential” and reopened under the Defense Production Act. Governors in Iowa and Nebraska began threatening these mainly minority workers with having their unemployment cut off if they didn’t return to their jobs on the theory, evidently, that they were avoiding work rather than illness by not showing up. Since March, there have been over 40,000 infections among meat packing employees and 200 deaths. Heavily agricultural regions like California’s Central Valleyand Washington State’s Yakima Valley have seen huge COVID spikes. In response, the U.S. Department of Labor has so far levied just $29,000 in fines against two companies, Smithfield and JBS, who have combined sales of $65 billion per year.
Last are the millions of Americans behind bars. Per statistics from the Marshall Project, there have been more than 121,000 COVID-19 cases reported among prisoners and more than a thousand deaths. To most Americans, deaths among prisoners evoke little sympathy based on the heartless logic that those who have been convicted of crimes deserve everything they get, including the brutality, disease, and possibly death that comes along with their sentences.
The actual value of human beings, regardless of their criminal records, is more evident when homes start burning down in wildfires. The State of California makes heavy use of prisoners for discount fire-fighting and the COVID-driven early releases of these prisoners has deprived the state of manpower during a particularly brutal fire season. These incarcerated firefighters make next to nothing in wages while running into blaze after blaze only to find they can’t join the ranks of paid firefighters after release. It took until mid-September for Governor Newsom to sign a bill allowing prison firefighters to become professional firefighters and make a meaningful career out of the work they were doing essentially for free.
Adding to the misery of COVID-vulnerable populations is an unfortunate, and very human, tendency to find reasons to blame disadvantaged groups for their illness. Earlier this year, Republican governors Kristi Noem of South Dakota and Ron DeSantis of Florida made ill-considered statements about how Latino food and agricultural workers were responsible for the explosive growth in caseloads in their states. This isn’t new. In her book American Pandemic: The Lost Worlds of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic, Nancy Bristow recounts how public health and aid workers, “routinely charged minority populations with being particularly problematic populations, misdirecting culpability for desperate conditions from widespread and systematic racism to its victims.” White doctors attempting to aid Native Americans blamed high rates of Native death not on the appalling poverty and deprivation they faced but on “intransigence,” “dirtiness,” and a reliance on traditional healing methods rather than modern medicine. The “reds” were doing it to themselves.
Reviewing the data and history pandemic discrimination, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that the majority of America has concluded that these groups—the poor, the minority, the imprisoned, and the elderly—are the “acceptable” losses. Were the situation reversed and the white, middle aged, and middle/upper classes the primary victims of the pandemic—one of the features of the 1918 influenza—COVID-19 would be a true national emergency and there would be far less complaining about disrupted schools, work, and social life brought about by social distancing requirements and economic shutdowns. That social reciprocity has broken down to this degree ought to be an embarrassment and shame to us all.
The message seems to be that Americans have abandoned e pluribus unum (out of many, one) for “everyone—or at least every group—for themselves.” Pro-lifers have for decades protested American indifference to the deaths of millions of unborn children (another invisible and voiceless minority), and they have been right to do so. Where are these champions of human life when other weak and vulnerable populations are dying at the rate of a thousand a week or more? Make no mistake: when the pandemic finally recedes, people will remember whether it was their lives and dignity that were “essential” or just their labor on behalf of those who had the privilege of working from home.
Coronavirus is not something that can be hand-waved away as “someone else’s problem.” Whether outbreaks are in major agricultural centers, nursing homes, minority-heavy border regions, prisons, or anywhere else they should concern us all. Think about that the next time you decide not to socially distance, attend a rally or protest, or outright refuse to wear a mask that might spare another person illness or death. The health and well-being you’re endangering might turn out to be your own.


The Dragon Rises

One might think that a devastating war with China or a world in which the United States is subject to the will of the Chinese Communist Party is unimaginable .
But history shows that everything is unimaginable until it happens .
Norman Angell published his best-seller , The Great Illusion , in 1909 , arguing that another great war would never happen because of the new international financial system—and we all know how that turned out .
To prevent either terrible outcome , Americans need to engage the China question seriously and beyond rhetoric and tough talk .
In their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recover national pride diminished during the “ century of humiliation ” between 1839 and 1949 , the Chinese are assisted by their domestic economic system .
Deng Xiaoping ’ s reforms in the 1980s allowed for double-digit growth rates .
Additionally , the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 removed a superpower to China ’ s north , hence removing a check on Chinese military power .
These two factors enabled the Chinese Communist Party to rebuild its military .
This rise had not gone unnoticed .
In his seminal 1993 essay @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s fate in a post-Soviet world remained to be determined .
The Weekly Standarddedicated an entire issue to China in 1997 .
George W. Bush campaigned against the Clinton administration ’ s softness on China in 2000 .
But the attacks of September 11th in 2001 refocused American attention on the Muslim world .
The Chinese Communist Party ( CCP ) , with Deng as its policy ’ s architect , took advantage of this distraction , rising quietly and fast .
In 2002 , China declared the next two decades as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This quiet rise got louder in the 2010s with Xi Jinping ’ s ascension to power , which coincided with a decrease in America ’ s involvement in the Muslim world .
The CCP began undermining the international order , including building artificial islands to expand China ’ s maritime territory and maintaining support for North Korea , despite the latter ’ s nuclear weapons program .
The Chinese military also began to build up from nothing to a serious force : Since 1995 , military spending has grown by a factor of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time a few months ago , a Chinese official dropped “ peaceful ” when talking of reunification with Taiwan , a goal the Chinese Communist Party has promised to accomplish by 2049 , the 100th birthday of the current Chinese state .
China ’ s treatment of Uighur Muslims in its Xinjiang region is a violation of international norms .
Then there is China ’ s manipulation of its currency , theft of intellectual properties , and other economic malpractices .
Finally , Chinese hackers have been conducting offensive cyber operations to mine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to blackmail those in positions of influence in the future .
There is a concern that the application TikTok also poses the same threat by opening a gate on users ’ phones to Chinese third-parties .
The United States needs to develop a military capable of winning a war against China in East Asia in order to provide meaningful deterrence against Chinese aggression and a military that could similarly deter Russia in Europe .
America ’ s military is strong enough to defeat one of them , all resources pulled , but not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have called each other their best friends in the past and are increasing military cooperation .
With deterrence in mind , American strategists can not think of China and Russia separate from each other—a war against one will likely result in a war against both .
Still , the U.S. military ’ s primary role should be defensive to protect already-existing allies , including the extension of nuclear and conventional deterrence to Taiwan and establishing military bases on the island .
There is a non-military offensive role for the United States , too @ @ @ @ @ @ @ power is a useful tool to weaken the CCP ’ s domestic control .
In the past , many believed that technological advancements and the growing flow of information would inevitably lead to liberalization in China .
The opposite has happened .
The United States needs to counter China ’ s attempts to block the free flow of information domestically .
The U.S. should limit the sharing of digital technology with China by U.S. allies and partners and create incentives for Chinese engineers and data scientists to leave China for the United States @ @ @ @ @ @ @ requires an increase of funding for and better managementof the U.S. Agency for Global Media to boost their Chinese-language operations , taking measures to punish China ’ s censorship of information and internet , and increase of funding for the National Endowment for Democracy and its two subsidiaries , the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute .
The U.S. should also consider invoking the Global Magnitsky Act to increase support for Chinese dissidents , especially Uighurs but also Han Chinese .
Another offensive strategy would involve decreasing China ’ s share @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trade with allied nations , especially in trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic trade , conditioned on limiting trade with China .
In Latin America and Africa , China ’ s share of investment and aid has significantly increased over the past decade , allowing China to purchase influence .
This should be countered with U.S. aid and investment in third world countries to combat such influence .
Currently , the USAID ’ s budget is less than 1 percent of the federal budget .
Slowing and stopping China ’ s rise is inconceivable without European @ @ @ @ @ @ @ third-largest importer of Chinese goods .
Additionally , Europe remains a home for great scientific discoveries which could be used for military purposes , and the United States needs Europeans to share such technologies .
As Wess Mitchell and Jakub Grygiel show in their book The Unquiet Frontier , when left to themselves , smaller states don ’ t necessarily or exclusively try to increase their powers .
Sometimes , they try to accommodate a hostile power .
The United States ’ s abandonment of trans-Atlanticism will open the door for China ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ small example of such a problem is Boris Johnson government ’ s agreement with Chinese telecom company Huawei despite U.S. objections .
( The agreement was later scotched . )
The diminished gap between China ’ s and the United States ’ s aid and investment in third world countries has also helped China in international organizations , including the United Nations and subsidiaries such as the World Health Organization , as those countries are now more likely to vote with China and for Chinese commissars .
The United States has responded by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ignoring such institutions , the United States should reinvest in them to once again exert dominance .
The United States needs to take the lead in areas of concern for the entire world .
One such area is climate change , and with better messaging people could be convinced of China ’ s danger to the world .
China is the greatest the world ’ s greatest source of pollution ( 28 percent ) , followed by the United States ( 15 percent ) .
Taking into account that the U.S. economy is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ however , one comes to realize that Chinese emission standards are much lower than those in the United States .
While leading efforts to combat climate change , the United States should avoid entering into agreements that ask the U.S. economy to sacrifice more than China ’ s , while Chinese industries still pollute more than America ’ s .
The world should stop subsidizing China ’ s rise through institutions created to protect and promote liberalism .
The World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund were created to protect the liberal world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s Yuan became a reserve currency for the IMF .
The IMF board has been increasing China ’ s quotas and hence control of the organization .
The case of the World Bank is much worse .
In December , the bank approved of more than $ 1 billion annual loans to China until 2025 .
It is reasonable for such institutions not to give aid to a country with a massive military expenditure , one that is proliferating nuclear weapons and investing in artificial intelligence for military purposes .
American businesses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has turned them into lobbyists for accommodating the CCP .
Just to cite an example , Disney ’ s board was so anti-Soviet that when Nikita Khrushchev visited the United States , despite his great desire , he was not allowed to visit Disneyland .
On the contrary , Disney today accommodates the Chinese market .
Its upcoming feature , Mulan , was made to appeal to Chinese audiences and the movie ’ s star , Liu Yifei , has publicly supported the Hong Kong police against the democracy protestor .
Worse , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ self-censoring its products to stay on the CCP ’ s good side .
This is something that is difficult to fix through public policy , but American officials should call out such businesses .
Finally , Americans need to against start believing in the superiority of our system while appreciating its flaws and trying to fix its shortcomings .
America ’ s open society allows for the infiltration of Chinese soft power organizations , such as the Confucius Society .
America ’ s liberalism also makes it susceptible to disinformation campaigns and election @ @ @ @ @ @ @ States has the better hand .
It has more and better allies than China , a better economy , a larger middle class , a more legitimate regime , a larger military , a greater soft power , and a superior political system .
We should start acting like it .

One might think that a devastating war with China or a world in which the United States is subject to the will of the Chinese Communist Party is unimaginable. But history shows that everything is unimaginable until it happens. Norman Angell published his best-seller, The Great Illusion, in 1909, arguing that another great war would never happen because of the new international financial system—and we all know how that turned out. To prevent either terrible outcome, Americans need to engage the China question seriously and beyond rhetoric and tough talk.
In their bid to return to regional hegemony and recover national pride diminished during the “century of humiliation” between 1839 and 1949, the Chinese are assisted by their domestic economic system. Deng Xiaoping’s reforms in the 1980s allowed for double-digit growth rates. Additionally, the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 removed a superpower to China’s north, hence removing a check on Chinese military power. These two factors enabled the Chinese Communist Party to rebuild its military. This rise had not gone unnoticed. In his seminal 1993 essay, Aaron Friedberg warned that East Asia’s fate in a post-Soviet world remained to be determined. The Weekly Standard dedicated an entire issue to China in 1997. George W. Bush campaigned against the Clinton administration’s softness on China in 2000. But the attacks of September 11th in 2001 refocused American attention on the Muslim world. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), with Deng as its policy’s architect, took advantage of this distraction, rising quietly and fast. In 2002, China declared the next two decades as a “period of strategic opportunity.”
This quiet rise got louder in the 2010s with Xi Jinping’s ascension to power, which coincided with a decrease in America’s involvement in the Muslim world. The CCP began undermining the international order, including building artificial islands to expand China’s maritime territory and maintaining support for North Korea, despite the latter’s nuclear weapons program. The Chinese military also began to build up from nothing to a serious force: Since 1995, military spending has grown by a factor of 100. Furthermore, for the first time a few months ago, a Chinese official dropped “peaceful” when talking of reunification with Taiwan, a goal the Chinese Communist Party has promised to accomplish by 2049, the 100th birthday of the current Chinese state. China’s treatment of Uighur Muslims in its Xinjiang region is a violation of international norms. Then there is China’s manipulation of its currency, theft of intellectual properties, and other economic malpractices. Finally, Chinese hackers have been conducting offensive cyber operations to mine private information of U.S. citizens, likely to blackmail those in positions of influence in the future. There is a concern that the application TikTok also poses the same threat by opening a gate on users’ phones to Chinese third-parties.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
The United States needs to develop a military capable of winning a war against China in East Asia in order to provide meaningful deterrence against Chinese aggression and a military that could similarly deter Russia in Europe. America’s military is strong enough to defeat one of them, all resources pulled, but not both. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have called each other their best friends in the past and are increasing military cooperation. With deterrence in mind, American strategists cannot think of China and Russia separate from each other—a war against one will likely result in a war against both. Still, the U.S. military’s primary role should be defensive to protect already-existing allies, including the extension of nuclear and conventional deterrence to Taiwan and establishing military bases on the island.
There is a non-military offensive role for the United States, too. The United States’s soft power is a useful tool to weaken the CCP’s domestic control. In the past, many believed that technological advancements and the growing flow of information would inevitably lead to liberalization in China. The opposite has happened. The United States needs to counter China’s attempts to block the free flow of information domestically. The U.S. should limit the sharing of digital technology with China by U.S. allies and partners and create incentives for Chinese engineers and data scientists to leave China for the United States or allied nations. Additionally, this requires an increase of funding for and better management of the U.S. Agency for Global Media to boost their Chinese-language operations, taking measures to punish China’s censorship of information and internet, and increase of funding for the National Endowment for Democracy and its two subsidiaries, the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute. The U.S. should also consider invoking the Global Magnitsky Act to increase support for Chinese dissidents, especially Uighurs but also Han Chinese.
Another offensive strategy would involve decreasing China’s share of the global supply chain by liberalizing trade with allied nations, especially in trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic trade, conditioned on limiting trade with China. In Latin America and Africa, China’s share of investment and aid has significantly increased over the past decade, allowing China to purchase influence. This should be countered with U.S. aid and investment in third world countries to combat such influence. Currently, the USAID’s budget is less than 1 percent of the federal budget.
Slowing and stopping China’s rise is inconceivable without European cooperation, as the EU is the third-largest importer of Chinese goods. Additionally, Europe remains a home for great scientific discoveries which could be used for military purposes, and the United States needs Europeans to share such technologies. As Wess Mitchell and Jakub Grygiel show in their book The Unquiet Frontier, when left to themselves, smaller states don’t necessarily or exclusively try to increase their powers. Sometimes, they try to accommodate a hostile power. The United States’s abandonment of trans-Atlanticism will open the door for China’s entry to the region. One small example of such a problem is Boris Johnson government’s agreement with Chinese telecom company Huawei despite U.S. objections. (The agreement was later scotched.)
The diminished gap between China’s and the United States’s aid and investment in third world countries has also helped China in international organizations, including the United Nations and subsidiaries such as the World Health Organization, as those countries are now more likely to vote with China and for Chinese commissars. The United States has responded by withdrawing from these organizations. Rather than ignoring such institutions, the United States should reinvest in them to once again exert dominance.
The United States needs to take the lead in areas of concern for the entire world. One such area is climate change, and with better messaging people could be convinced of China’s danger to the world. China is the greatest the world’s greatest source of pollution (28 percent), followed by the United States (15 percent). Taking into account that the U.S. economy is significantly larger than China’s, however, one comes to realize that Chinese emission standards are much lower than those in the United States. While leading efforts to combat climate change, the United States should avoid entering into agreements that ask the U.S. economy to sacrifice more than China’s, while Chinese industries still pollute more than America’s.
The world should stop subsidizing China’s rise through institutions created to protect and promote liberalism. The World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund were created to protect the liberal world. In 2016, however, China’s Yuan became a reserve currency for the IMF. The IMF board has been increasing China’s quotas and hence control of the organization. The case of the World Bank is much worse. In December, the bank approved of more than $1 billion annual loans to China until 2025. It is reasonable for such institutions not to give aid to a country with a massive military expenditure, one that is proliferating nuclear weapons and investing in artificial intelligence for military purposes.
American businesses have extensive ties with China, which has turned them into lobbyists for accommodating the CCP. Just to cite an example, Disney’s board was so anti-Soviet that when Nikita Khrushchev visited the United States, despite his great desire, he was not allowed to visit Disneyland. On the contrary, Disney today accommodates the Chinese market. Its upcoming feature, Mulan, was made to appeal to Chinese audiences and the movie’s star, Liu Yifei, has publicly supported the Hong Kong police against the democracy protestor. Worse, a new report shows how Hollywood is self-censoring its products to stay on the CCP’s good side. This is something that is difficult to fix through public policy, but American officials should call out such businesses.
Finally, Americans need to against start believing in the superiority of our system while appreciating its flaws and trying to fix its shortcomings. America’s open society allows for the infiltration of Chinese soft power organizations, such as the Confucius Society. America’s liberalism also makes it susceptible to disinformation campaigns and election meddling.
Against China, the United States has the better hand. It has more and better allies than China, a better economy, a larger middle class, a more legitimate regime, a larger military, a greater soft power, and a superior political system. We should start acting like it.


thebulwark--2020-09-15--Will Trump’s GOP Turn the Election into a Sham?

Despite Donald Trump ’ s pathological unfitness for office , the central issue of the election has become this : Trump and his party mean to steal the presidency through massive voter suppression .
This would be a fateful , perhaps irreparable , step toward turning our increasingly imperiled democracy into a Westernized version of Viktor Orbán ’ s Hungary—wherein the party in power insulates itself from the parlous effects of letting the wrong people vote .
Republican attacks on democratic elections are hardly new .
What ’ s different is that they ’ ve become so comprehensive and conspicuous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ focused on preventing minorities from voting in person .
But in 2020 its machinations impact white Americans : To thwart voting by mail , Republicans are targeting likely Democratic voters regardless of race .
Both will degrade our presidential election .
The GOP ’ s ongoing suppression of in-person voting by minorities will , in itself , reduce Democratic turnout this year ’ s presidential election .
Even more disturbing is that this race-based vote-rigging is now embedded in our putative democracy .
The GOP ’ s war on free and fair elections @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in part , by the civil rights movement of the 1960 ’ s .
In its wake , Republicans increasingly cast their electoral lot with racially anxious whites and , in consequence , alienated the growing demographic of non-white Americans .
But instead of appealing to minorities , the GOP set out to gut the seminal legislation which enabled them to vote—the Voting Rights Act of 1964 .
As Jay Willis reports for The Appeal , from the early 1980s a principal opponent of the act was now-Chief Justice John Roberts : As @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the high court proved fateful to the Voting Rights Act .
For years , the GOP ’ s chief method of disenrolling minorities inclined to favor Democrats was strict voter ID laws supposedly passed to prevent in-person voter fraud .
This was nakedly pretextual : As the prominent Republican lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg wrote last week the in the Washington Post , Republicans “ must deal with the basic truth that four decades of dedicated investigation have produced only isolated incidents of election fraud.
” The GOP ’ s real purpose was equally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ photo IDs out of the voting booth .
The principal barrier to its efforts was a key requirement of the Voting Rights Act : that states with a history of voter discrimination obtain “ preclearance ” from the Justice Department before changing their voting laws .
Enter Chief Justice Roberts and the five-four majority of Republican appointees which , in 2013 , promulgated Shelby County v. Holder .
Holding preclearance unconstitutional , Roberts wrote that America ’ s racial progress had made prior scrutiny of new voting laws unfair to the states affected @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s invocation of recent history was patently disingenuous : Roberts had worked assiduously to hamstring the Voting Rights Act three decades earlier .
Moreover , the partisan consequences of this ruling was inescapable from the record before the Court : Freed of preclearance , numerous states were poised to enact or begin enforcing strict ID laws that disproportionately impacted minority voters likely to favor Democrats .
In the wake of the Court ’ s decision , fourteen states—eight Southern , all but one governed by Republicans—did just that .
Nor could anyone miss @ @ @ @ @ @ @ non-white voters .
Texas ’ s new voter ID law , a federal judge later found , was enacted “ because of and not merely in spite of [ it ’ s ] detrimental effects on the African-American and Hispanic electorate.
” The North Carolina statute , a federal appellate court determined , targeted black voters with “ almost surgical precision.
” Other Republican ID laws in crucial states , like Georgia and Wisconsin , triggered blatant acts of race-based voter suppression .
Thus empowered , Republicans began shrinking the electorate by other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republicans began closing polling places in Democratic-leaning areas populated by minorities .
Vanita Gupta , head of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights , told the New Yorker : “ We did a report last year that showed systematic polling-place closures—over sixteen hundred polling places closed between 2012 and 2018 in jurisdictions that were previously covered by the Voting Rights Act.
” A particularly rancid example occurred in this year ’ s Wisconsin primary , where a crucial GOP seat on the state supreme court was at stake .
Polling places @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 180 to 5 .
Georgia is especially good at eliminating unwelcome voters .
In recent years , author Ari Berman told NPR , the state has closed 214 polling places and purged about 10 percent of voters from its rolls .
Of the over 530,510 eliminated in 2017 , journalist Greg Palast reported , 340,134 ( over 60 percent ) were purged in error .
In Florida , voters in 2018 overwhelmingly approved a statewide initiative to re-enfranchise 1.4 million former felons .
To undermine the initiative , Republican legislators precluded ex-felons from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a federal court ruled , was the unconstitutional equivalent of imposing a poll tax .
But Republican appellate judges stayed the ruling , and in July the Roberts Court affirmed the stay over Justice Sotomayor ’ s objection that this “ continues a trend of condoning disenfranchisement.
” Completing this reversal of Florida ’ s voters , the appellate judges last week found the Republican legislature ’ s maneuver constitutional , effectively disenfranchising 774,000 Floridians .
This highlights the critical role of Republican judges in subordinating voting rights to the electoral interests @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the bench .
Reports the New York Times : “ Five of the six judges who supported the .
.
.
decision were appointed to the court by President Trump .
Two of those judges were also former Florida Supreme Court justices named to that bench by [ Republican governor Ron ] DeSantis .
( One of the former justices , Judge Barbara Lagoa , was named by Mr. Trump this week as among those he would consider nominating to a potential future seat on the Supreme Court . )
” Inevitably , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ skew the count in swing states where the margin of victory is razor-thin—and in states like Georgia and Texas , where changing demographics would otherwise help Democrats .
Taken alone , in 2020 these discriminatory practices could tilt the Electoral College in Trump ’ s favor .
If so , Republican officials and judges have already turned our presidential elections into a pantomime of democracy .
Mail-in voting has long been allowed in the great majority of states ; indeed , several rely on it exclusively .
Never before 2020 has the GOP @ @ @ @ @ @ @ impact of COVID-19 on how Americans cast ballots has moved Trump and his party to launch a naked assault against voting by mail—aimed at disenfranchising Democrats across every demographic .
Their stratagem is brutally simple : to force those who worry that their mail-in ballot won ’ t count to choose between in-person voting and protecting their health .
According to Pew Research , 65 percent of Americans want to vote before election day .
A record 75 percent are eligible to vote by mail—and 80 million are currently projected to do so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ divide over how to vote .
Perhaps because of Trump ’ s cavalier attitude toward the pandemic , polling shows that voters intending to vote in person on election day favor Trump by 57 to 37 percent .
In contrast , those planning to vote by mail prefer Biden by almost forty points : 67 to 28 percent .
This disparity motivates Republicans to inhibit voting by mail and , even more insidious , to throw out mail-in ballots en masse .
One technique is refusing to automatically send mail-in ballots to all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ errors among voters unfamiliar with the process—such as enforcing “ exact match ” provisions when , for example , a voter signs the ballot using a middle initial when the voting rolls show a full middle name .
Both could change the election .
But the practice most likely to throw the Electoral College to Trump is voiding ballots postmarked on or before election day , but received thereafter .
By law , 34 states follow this arbitrary practice .
They include five of the six universally acknowledged swing states : Arizona , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wisconsin .
The sixth , North Carolina , allows a three-day grace period , so long as the ballot is postmarked on or before election day .
Thus an exponential increase in mail-in voters creates the prospect that millions of Democratic ballots will be disqualified .
In Wisconsin ’ s primary alone , 79,000 ballots postmarked on time were rejected until a judge ordered them counted .
Further , an audit by the Inspector General of the U.S .
Postal Service raises the additional specter that—as happened during the primaries—voters won ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cast them .
Finally , the postal service is warning election boards that it can ’ t guarantee their receipt of timely ballots by election day .
All this erodes public confidence in voting by mail .
But Trump and his party are working to undermine its efficacy—and , thereby , discourage its use .
One particularly draconian method is noisily sabotaging the Postal Service ’ s ability to handle ballots cast by mail .
After refusing to countenance $ 3.5 million in supplemental funding for election resources , Trump said of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have the money to do the universal mail-in voting .
So therefore , they can ’ t do it , I guess.
” Trump ’ s new postmaster general , Louis DeJoy , has slowed the mails by cutting down delivery times , barring overtime for postal workers , and removing sorting machines .
As Mark Joseph Stern points out in Slate , these measures are a template for increasing the volume of late-arrived ballots .
He adds this crucial point : “ The U.S. Supreme Court ’ s five conservative justices made @ @ @ @ @ @ @ states are obligated to count late ballots postmarked by Election Day—even if the ballots were delayed by forces beyond a voter ’ s control.
” Nonetheless , the GOP is taking other avenues to suppress voting by mail .
One means catalogued by FiveThirtyEight is to reduce or eliminate drop boxes through which voters can ensure the timely receipt of absentee ballots : Texas Republicans are trying to prevent election officials in Democratic Harris County from sending vote-by-mail applications to 2.4 million voters .
In suburban Atlanta , Georgia Republicans have blocked a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are stalling proposals to speed up the count by processing ballots before election day .
All this evokes banana republics .
Regardless of how people vote , Trump ’ s party has resolved , the majority of ballots actually counted in battleground states must be cast by Republicans .
Early on , Republicans admitted as much .
Voting by mail , Trump tweeted , would “ LEAD TO THE END OF OUR GREAT REPUBLICAN PARTY.
” Similarly , the Republican speaker of Georgia ’ s House predicted that mailing absentee ballots to registered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republicans and conservatives in Georgia.
” Now , however , Trump , his party , and his corrupt and cynical attorney general are relentlessly recycling the bogus charges of voter fraud Republicans used to undermine in-person voting .
Again , their purpose is clear : to inhibit voting by mail , and lay the ground work for reversing Trump ’ s prospective defeat in the Electoral College through post-election maneuvers .
“ With Universal Mail-In Voting , ” Trump proclaims , “ 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ New York Times editorial board observed , “ states that use vote-by-mail have encountered essentially zero fraud.
” Expanding such voting , William Barr asserts , would be playing “ playing with fire ” —claiming , preposterously , that malign foreign powers would start flooding America with mail-in ballots .
Writing in the New Yorker , Steve Coll limned the damage wrought by Trump and his party : That ’ s democracy ’ s antithesis .
Yet the Roberts Court has made voting even harder—and more dangerous .
This spring , the Court @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had wrongly extended the deadline for absentee voting because of the pandemic , and declined to reinstate a lower court decision allowing all Texas voters vote by mail—again , because of the pandemic .
“ Over the term ’ s final few months , ” writes Willis , the Roberts Court “ continued to rubber-stamp the GOP ’ s voter suppression crusade , refusing to allow a public health emergency to alter their dogmatic belief that it should be more difficult for people—especially nonwhite and lower-income people—to participate in free and fair elections.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ no doubt that Republican voter suppression will materially reduce the volume of votes cast for Biden .
The only question is whether it will cost him the presidency .
3 .
Trump may seek to change the results .
But the likelihood that election night will prove chaotic facilitates the ultimate nightmare : that Trump will challenge the legitimacy of an outcome determined by mail-in ballots that favor Biden—and , thereby , steal the election .
In one scenario , Trump will exploit the so-called “ blue shift.
” This phenomenon surfaced in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mail-in ballots changed the relatively modest Democratic gains apparent on election night into a rout that eventually garnered 41 congressional seats .
Similarly , victories by Republican senatorial and gubernatorial candidates in Florida were jeopardized by ballots counted after election day—leading Trump to demand that the winner be determined based on the partial count available as of election night .
Here Trump was exploiting a widely held illusion .
As elections expert Edward Foley told the Atlantic : “ From a legal perspective , there are no results on Election Night , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The only thing that has ever existed on Election Night are projected results that the media has helpfully provided to its audiences.
” No matter to Trump .
Almost certainly , a record volume of mail-in ballots will significantly delay the final count .
Should the interim tally on November 3 be changed by the ongoing tabulation of mail-in ballots in battleground states , is there any doubt that Trump and his party will try to overturn the results by claiming the Democrats stole the election through massive voter fraud ?
Surely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a single state , like Pennsylvania , could allow them to do so .
I won ’ t reprise here the widely discussed avenues through which Trump could rig the Electoral College—or the ways that Republican House members , state legislatures , election officials or judges could help him .
But they are not the stuff of political fiction .
In 2000 , our machinery for resolving such an impasse proved woefully wanting , and we are now confronted with a rogue president who holds democracy in contempt—and a party that has subverted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the Roberts Court to curb them ?
That puts the burden on the Biden campaign to turn out its vote ; on Biden ’ s lawyers to fight wherever they must ; and , especially , for all voters who value democracy to do all they can .
That means voting early , by whatever method ; rallying friends and family ; and volunteering time and effort to ensure maximum participation .
Here ’ s the measure of America ’ s decline : The only certain means of protecting our democracy is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it will survive whatever Trump and his party contrive .
Absent that , the Republican template for turning presidential elections into shams may become too embedded to reverse .

Despite Donald Trump’s pathological unfitness for office, the central issue of the election has become this: Trump and his party mean to steal the presidency through massive voter suppression. This would be a fateful, perhaps irreparable, step toward turning our increasingly imperiled democracy into a Westernized version of Viktor Orbán’s Hungary—wherein the party in power insulates itself from the parlous effects of letting the wrong people vote.
Republican attacks on democratic elections are hardly new. What’s different is that they’ve become so comprehensive and conspicuous.
For years the GOP has largely focused on preventing minorities from voting in person. But in 2020 its machinations impact white Americans: To thwart voting by mail, Republicans are targeting likely Democratic voters regardless of race. Both will degrade our presidential election.
1. Republican suppression of minority voting.
The GOP’s ongoing suppression of in-person voting by minorities will, in itself, reduce Democratic turnout this year’s presidential election. Even more disturbing is that this race-based vote-rigging is now embedded in our putative democracy.
The GOP’s war on free and fair elections originated with the changing electorate wrought, in part, by the civil rights movement of the 1960’s. In its wake, Republicans increasingly cast their electoral lot with racially anxious whites and, in consequence, alienated the growing demographic of non-white Americans. But instead of appealing to minorities, the GOP set out to gut the seminal legislation which enabled them to vote—the Voting Rights Act of 1964.
As Jay Willis reports for The Appeal, from the early 1980s a principal opponent of the act was now-Chief Justice John Roberts:
Roberts drafted dozens of memos and op-eds arguing for limitations on the Voting Rights Act while working as a lawyer in the Reagan Department of Justice. A former colleague told Berman that Roberts “seemed like he always had it in” for the act, and described him as a “zealot” who harbored “fundamental suspicions” about its purpose. . . . Roberts became chief justice in 2005 over the objections of, among others, the late U.S. representative and civil rights movement hero John Lewis of Georgia. Testifying at Roberts’s Senate confirmation hearings, Lewis warned that the country could not afford to hand a lifetime appointment to a man with “such a strong desire to reverse the hard-won civil rights gains that so many sacrificed so much to achieve.”
As Lewis anticipated, Roberts’s presence on the high court proved fateful to the Voting Rights Act.
For years, the GOP’s chief method of disenrolling minorities inclined to favor Democrats was strict voter ID laws supposedly passed to prevent in-person voter fraud. This was nakedly pretextual: As the prominent Republican lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg wrote last week the in the Washington Post, Republicans “must deal with the basic truth that four decades of dedicated investigation have produced only isolated incidents of election fraud.”
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
The GOP’s real purpose was equally transparent—to keep non-whites less likely to have photo IDs out of the voting booth. The principal barrier to its efforts was a key requirement of the Voting Rights Act: that states with a history of voter discrimination obtain “preclearance” from the Justice Department before changing their voting laws.
Enter Chief Justice Roberts and the five-four majority of Republican appointees which, in 2013, promulgated Shelby County v. Holder. Holding preclearance unconstitutional, Roberts wrote that America’s racial progress had made prior scrutiny of new voting laws unfair to the states affected. Beyond its faux-naïveté, Roberts’s invocation of recent history was patently disingenuous: Roberts had worked assiduously to hamstring the Voting Rights Act three decades earlier.
Moreover, the partisan consequences of this ruling was inescapable from the record before the Court: Freed of preclearance, numerous states were poised to enact or begin enforcing strict ID laws that disproportionately impacted minority voters likely to favor Democrats. In the wake of the Court’s decision, fourteen states—eight Southern, all but one governed by Republicans—did just that.
Nor could anyone miss that these laws were aimed at disenfranchising non-white voters. Texas’s new voter ID law, a federal judge later found, was enacted “because of and not merely in spite of [it’s] detrimental effects on the African-American and Hispanic electorate.” The North Carolina statute, a federal appellate court determined, targeted black voters with “almost surgical precision.” Other Republican ID laws in crucial states, like Georgia and Wisconsin, triggered blatant acts of race-based voter suppression.
Thus empowered, Republicans began shrinking the electorate by other means. Writes Willis:
Voter roll purges . . . have become something of a sport in Republican-controlled states, which almost seem to be competing to see who can disenfranchise more people fastest. States purged 4 million more voters between 2014 and 2016—the period immediately after the Shelby County ruling went into effect—than they did between 2006 and 2008, according to a report from the Brennan Center for Justice. Overall, the report found that “jurisdictions no longer subject to federal preclearance had purge rates significantly higher than jurisdictions that did not have it in 2013.” Texas, no longer constrained by preclearance requirements, purged around 360,000 more voters in the first election cycle that followed the Shelby County ruling.
Further, Republicans began closing polling places in Democratic-leaning areas populated by minorities. Vanita Gupta, head of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, told the New Yorker: “We did a report last year that showed systematic polling-place closures—over sixteen hundred polling places closed between 2012 and 2018 in jurisdictions that were previously covered by the Voting Rights Act.”
A particularly rancid example occurred in this year’s Wisconsin primary, where a crucial GOP seat on the state supreme court was at stake. Polling places in heavily Democratic Milwaukee were reduced from 180 to 5.
Georgia is especially good at eliminating unwelcome voters. In recent years, author Ari Berman told NPR, the state has closed 214 polling places and purged about 10 percent of voters from its rolls. Of the over 530,510 eliminated in 2017, journalist Greg Palast reported, 340,134 (over 60 percent) were purged in error.
In Florida, voters in 2018 overwhelmingly approved a statewide initiative to re-enfranchise 1.4 million former felons. To undermine the initiative, Republican legislators precluded ex-felons from voting unless they paid all pending fines—which, a federal court ruled, was the unconstitutional equivalent of imposing a poll tax. But Republican appellate judges stayed the ruling, and in July the Roberts Court affirmed the stay over Justice Sotomayor’s objection that this “continues a trend of condoning disenfranchisement.” Completing this reversal of Florida’s voters, the appellate judges last week found the Republican legislature’s maneuver constitutional, effectively disenfranchising 774,000 Floridians.
This highlights the critical role of Republican judges in subordinating voting rights to the electoral interests of the party that placed them on the bench. Reports the New York Times: “Five of the six judges who supported the . . . decision were appointed to the court by President Trump. Two of those judges were also former Florida Supreme Court justices named to that bench by [Republican governor Ron] DeSantis. (One of the former justices, Judge Barbara Lagoa, was named by Mr. Trump this week as among those he would consider nominating to a potential future seat on the Supreme Court.)”
Inevitably, Republican measures to suppress minority in-person voting skew the count in swing states where the margin of victory is razor-thin—and in states like Georgia and Texas, where changing demographics would otherwise help Democrats. Taken alone, in 2020 these discriminatory practices could tilt the Electoral College in Trump’s favor. If so, Republican officials and judges have already turned our presidential elections into a pantomime of democracy.
2. GOP attacks on voting by mail.
Mail-in voting has long been allowed in the great majority of states; indeed, several rely on it exclusively. Never before 2020 has the GOP seriously challenged its use.
But the impact of COVID-19 on how Americans cast ballots has moved Trump and his party to launch a naked assault against voting by mail—aimed at disenfranchising Democrats across every demographic. Their stratagem is brutally simple: to force those who worry that their mail-in ballot won’t count to choose between in-person voting and protecting their health.
According to Pew Research, 65 percent of Americans want to vote before election day. A record 75 percent are eligible to vote by mail—and 80 million are currently projected to do so.
But there is a sharp partisan divide over how to vote. Perhaps because of Trump’s cavalier attitude toward the pandemic, polling shows that voters intending to vote in person on election day favor Trump by 57 to 37 percent. In contrast, those planning to vote by mail prefer Biden by almost forty points: 67 to 28 percent.
This disparity motivates Republicans to inhibit voting by mail and, even more insidious, to throw out mail-in ballots en masse. One technique is refusing to automatically send mail-in ballots to all eligible voters. Another is exploiting unintentional errors among voters unfamiliar with the process—such as enforcing “exact match” provisions when, for example, a voter signs the ballot using a middle initial when the voting rolls show a full middle name.
Both could change the election. But the practice most likely to throw the Electoral College to Trump is voiding ballots postmarked on or before election day, but received thereafter.
By law, 34 states follow this arbitrary practice. They include five of the six universally acknowledged swing states: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The sixth, North Carolina, allows a three-day grace period, so long as the ballot is postmarked on or before election day.
Thus an exponential increase in mail-in voters creates the prospect that millions of Democratic ballots will be disqualified. In Wisconsin’s primary alone, 79,000 ballots postmarked on time were rejected until a judge ordered them counted.
Further, an audit by the Inspector General of the U.S. Postal Service raises the additional specter that—as happened during the primaries—voters won’t receive their mail-in ballots in time to cast them. Finally, the postal service is warning election boards that it can’t guarantee their receipt of timely ballots by election day.
All this erodes public confidence in voting by mail. But Trump and his party are working to undermine its efficacy—and, thereby, discourage its use.
One particularly draconian method is noisily sabotaging the Postal Service’s ability to handle ballots cast by mail. After refusing to countenance $3.5 million in supplemental funding for election resources, Trump said of the USPS: “They don’t have the money to do the universal mail-in voting. So therefore, they can’t do it, I guess.” Trump’s new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, has slowed the mails by cutting down delivery times, barring overtime for postal workers, and removing sorting machines.
As Mark Joseph Stern points out in Slate, these measures are a template for increasing the volume of late-arrived ballots. He adds this crucial point: “The U.S. Supreme Court’s five conservative justices made it clear that they do not think states are obligated to count late ballots postmarked by Election Day—even if the ballots were delayed by forces beyond a voter’s control.”
Nonetheless, the GOP is taking other avenues to suppress voting by mail. One means catalogued by FiveThirtyEight is to reduce or eliminate drop boxes through which voters can ensure the timely receipt of absentee ballots:
In Ohio, the Republican secretary of state is blocking any county from having more than one ballot drop-off location. . . . In Iowa, the Republican secretary of state is allowing such boxes only at government-owned buildings (as opposed to, say, outside grocery stores). In Pennsylvania, Republicans are suing to prevent the use of drop boxes.
Texas Republicans are trying to prevent election officials in Democratic Harris County from sending vote-by-mail applications to 2.4 million voters. In suburban Atlanta, Georgia Republicans have blocked a similar proposal. In Michigan, Republicans are stalling proposals to speed up the count by processing ballots before election day.
All this evokes banana republics. Regardless of how people vote, Trump’s party has resolved, the majority of ballots actually counted in battleground states must be cast by Republicans.
Early on, Republicans admitted as much. Voting by mail, Trump tweeted, would “LEAD TO THE END OF OUR GREAT REPUBLICAN PARTY.” Similarly, the Republican speaker of Georgia’s House predicted that mailing absentee ballots to registered voters “will be extremely devastating to Republicans and conservatives in Georgia.”
Now, however, Trump, his party, and his corrupt and cynical attorney general are relentlessly recycling the bogus charges of voter fraud Republicans used to undermine in-person voting. Again, their purpose is clear: to inhibit voting by mail, and lay the ground work for reversing Trump’s prospective defeat in the Electoral College through post-election maneuvers.
“With Universal Mail-In Voting,” Trump proclaims, “2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history.” Never mind that, as the New York Times editorial board observed, “states that use vote-by-mail have encountered essentially zero fraud.” Expanding such voting, William Barr asserts, would be playing “playing with fire”—claiming, preposterously, that malign foreign powers would start flooding America with mail-in ballots.
Writing in the New Yorker, Steve Coll limned the damage wrought by Trump and his party:
Voting this year . . . will be more risky and, for many people, more difficult than in any recent Presidential election. The pandemic is one reason; another is Trump’s vocal, unabashed campaign of voter suppression, in which he has denounced well-established and secure practices, and spread misinformation about the potential for fraud in mail voting and in the use of drop-off boxes. . . . Trump’s demagoguery is clearly aimed at delegitimizing the election and intimidating voters, and it may also be designed to sway Trump-friendly judges who will decide myriad partisan lawsuits over voting practices. All in all, it constitutes the most blatant use of Presidential power to prevent lawful voting since the days of Jim Crow.
True. Worse, Coll writes:
Trump and his allies appear to be succeeding, at least in the realm of perception: the Pew survey found that sixty per cent of Biden supporters expect voting to be difficult this fall, while just thirty-five per cent of Trump supporters do. That gap almost certainly reflects, in part, the long history of obstacles that Democratic voters of color, particularly African-Americans, have faced when trying to exercise their right to vote. But it also suggests that Trump’s tweetstorms and offhand comments are persuading even many white Democrats that they will have a hard time casting their ballots successfully.
That’s democracy’s antithesis. Yet the Roberts Court has made voting even harder—and more dangerous. This spring, the Court ruled that a federal judge in Wisconsin had wrongly extended the deadline for absentee voting because of the pandemic, and declined to reinstate a lower court decision allowing all Texas voters vote by mail—again, because of the pandemic. “Over the term’s final few months,” writes Willis, the Roberts Court “continued to rubber-stamp the GOP’s voter suppression crusade, refusing to allow a public health emergency to alter their dogmatic belief that it should be more difficult for people—especially nonwhite and lower-income people—to participate in free and fair elections.”
In sum, there is simply no doubt that Republican voter suppression will materially reduce the volume of votes cast for Biden. The only question is whether it will cost him the presidency.
3. Trump may seek to change the results.
But the likelihood that election night will prove chaotic facilitates the ultimate nightmare: that Trump will challenge the legitimacy of an outcome determined by mail-in ballots that favor Biden—and, thereby, steal the election.
In one scenario, Trump will exploit the so-called “blue shift.” This phenomenon surfaced in 2018, when the ongoing count of mail-in ballots changed the relatively modest Democratic gains apparent on election night into a rout that eventually garnered 41 congressional seats. Similarly, victories by Republican senatorial and gubernatorial candidates in Florida were jeopardized by ballots counted after election day—leading Trump to demand that the winner be determined based on the partial count available as of election night.
Here Trump was exploiting a widely held illusion. As elections expert Edward Foley told the Atlantic: “From a legal perspective, there are no results on Election Night, and there never have been. . . . The only thing that has ever existed on Election Night are projected results that the media has helpfully provided to its audiences.”
No matter to Trump. Almost certainly, a record volume of mail-in ballots will significantly delay the final count. Should the interim tally on November 3 be changed by the ongoing tabulation of mail-in ballots in battleground states, is there any doubt that Trump and his party will try to overturn the results by claiming the Democrats stole the election through massive voter fraud?
Surely not if changing the electoral votes of a single state, like Pennsylvania, could allow them to do so.
I won’t reprise here the widely discussed avenues through which Trump could rig the Electoral College—or the ways that Republican House members, state legislatures, election officials or judges could help him. But they are not the stuff of political fiction. In 2000, our machinery for resolving such an impasse proved woefully wanting, and we are now confronted with a rogue president who holds democracy in contempt—and a party that has subverted it for years. Is anyone counting on the Roberts Court to curb them?
That puts the burden on the Biden campaign to turn out its vote; on Biden’s lawyers to fight wherever they must; and, especially, for all voters who value democracy to do all they can. That means voting early, by whatever method; rallying friends and family; and volunteering time and effort to ensure maximum participation.
Here’s the measure of America’s decline: The only certain means of protecting our democracy is a margin for Biden so overwhelming that it will survive whatever Trump and his party contrive. Absent that, the Republican template for turning presidential elections into shams may become too embedded to reverse.


thebulwark--2020-09-15--The Anti-Flight 93 Election

The Anti-Flight 93 Election

I ’ ve recently noticed a miniature wave of former Never Trumpers ( or at least those who claim they were Never Trump ) recanting and saying they have to vote for Donald Trump now because the left is such a catastrophic threat , either because of the riots or because of “ cancel culture ” or for some combination of these reasons .
Sure , they will acknowledge , Trump has many character flaws and encourages the worst strains of the right .
But we face an emergency in which we need Trump , with all his faults , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against an apocalyptic threat that would put a final end to the American system .
All this in response to the prospect of that horrible bogeyman … Joe Biden ?
This is , I have to admit , the best argument out there for voting for Trump , so we should expect to hear a lot more of it as November approaches .
Yet precisely because it is the best argument , I find it unconvincing .
Why ?
Because the more they convince me that the far left is a horribly dangerous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Party and threatens to destroy the republic—and I really don ’ t need any convincing on this—the more they remind me that if I ever want to stand up to what ’ s wrong in the Republican Party , I had better do it now , when the alternative is the relatively inoffensive Joe Biden .
Let ’ s start with a reminder of why it is necessary to stand up against Trump .
One of the arguments made by those who are trying to lure back Never Trumpers is that we should @ @ @ @ @ @ @ character and focus on his policies .
But it ’ s hard to find too much comfort there .
Quick question : What is the latest projection for the 2020 deficit ?
Answer : $ 2.8 trillion .
With a “ T. ” You could claim that this was caused by the pandemic , but the deficit has gone up sharply every year of Trump ’ s presidency and was already nearly a trillion dollars in 2019 , before there was any emergency to justify it .
Or we could turn to foreign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan by way of empowering the Taliban and sending its imprisoned fighters back into the field .
It ’ s the worst kind of result I would have expected from a third Obama term .
Yes , you can make a policy case for Trump , but it depends heavily on people focusing on the issues Trump wants to talk about—he banned racist “ anti-racism ” training for federal workers !
—while getting them to forget about many of the issues , like federal spending and a hawkish @ @ @ @ @ @ @ care very deeply about five years ago .
But the real problem with Trump is neither about style nor about policy .
It is the disastrous ideological impact he is having on conservatism and the Republican Party .
There is a reason a whole swathe of the right no longer cares about many of the issues they considered central to their worldview in 2015 .
Trump ’ s rise to power unleashed and emboldened a “ nationalist , ” collectivist , Big Government wing of the right .
Ten years after the rise @ @ @ @ @ @ @ among other things , a rapprochement between the conservative and libertarian wings of the right— ” libertarian ” has become a dirty word among conservatives , and they don ’ t mean it as a narrow critique of the libertarian movement or the Libertarian Party .
By “ libertarianism , ” they mean the advocacy of freedom , including free markets .
I don ’ t like Biden , and I really don ’ t like the fact that once again , these are our only stupid choices .
But a Trump win @ @ @ @ @ @ @ environment for advocates of liberty .
If it is necessary for advocates of liberty to stand up to this illiberal strain of conservatism that has been unleashed by Trumpism , that confrontation will only get harder—much , much harder—if we wait another four years .
What happens if we make a deal with the Trumpian devil to fight back against the illiberalism of the far left , and wait another four years to confront illiberalism on the right ?
If Trump loses re-election , there is an opportunity for some soul-searching on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who opposed him to say , “ We told you so.
” I ’ m not holding out very high hopes for how this will work out , but it will happen to some degree .
If Trump wins re-election , by contrast , that would confirm the dominance of Trumpism among conservatives and complete the wholesale ejection of his critics from the right .
The Republican Party will become even more fully his party than it is now .
Meanwhile , what happens to the Democratic Party if Biden loses ?
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bros ” who would get to say , “ We told you so , ” and that would increase the chances of the radical left winning the 2024 nomination for their candidate .
Bernie will be way too old by then—but Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will be eligible to run .
So wait four more years , and what do we get ?
A much more entrenched illiberal Trumpism in the Republican Party , and the likely prospect of a far more radically leftist candidate from the Democratic Party .
In trying to head off @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a much greater catastrophe .
The best argument for Trump is a rehash of the Flight 93 argument : This is an existential threat , and we must charge the cockpit or die .
This wasn ’ t terribly convincing the first time around , but imagine how much less convincing this is in reference to a candidate who ran as the most moderate option offered to his party and was selected for that reason .
Joe Biden is , and always has been , a foolish man , and he is no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is the Man in the Middle .
His whole career has been about him figuring out what the middle ground is for a “ moderate Democrat ” and staking that out .
So are you concerned about the riots and looting ?
Good .
Joe Biden has condemned them and called for rioters to be prosecuted .
Are you concerned about “ cancel culture ” ?
So are a bunch of center-left types who mostly support Biden .
So it is particularly implausible to describe a victory for Biden in this election as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that respect , this is the opposite of a Flight 93 election , one in which the expected costs of a Republican defeat are the least alarming .
If you can be spooked into believing that the final American apocalypse comes in the form of Joe Biden , then let ’ s face it : you are simply never going to vote for the guy who doesn ’ t have an “ R ” by his name , no matter what the circumstances .
But these arguments are largely academic .
It doesn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Virginia , because Trump isn ’ t going to win here , and the same is true for a lot of the people reading this .
I don ’ t know if there has ever been an election choice between two such known quantities , so the overwhelming likelihood is that the American people have already made their choice , and the evidence indicates that they are going to get rid of Trump .
If you think any Democrat being elected to the presidency is a catastrophe , then don ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ m not causing that outcome .
Direct your anger at Trump for flubbing the very basics of politics and utterly failing to do anything to expand his “ base ” from the last election .
Like I said , Joe Biden is not a good choice in this election and I don ’ t expect him to be good for the cause of liberty .
So where does that leave us ?
If the short-term battle between Republicans and Democrats is already decided , then the long-term ideological battle for freedom is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we ’ re fooling ourselves if we don ’ t recognize that this is a battle against both leftism and right-wing nationalism .
There ’ s no reason to think that going all-in for Trump as he goes down to defeat is going to help in that battle .

I’ve recently noticed a miniature wave of former Never Trumpers (or at least those who claim they were Never Trump) recanting and saying they have to vote for Donald Trump now because the left is such a catastrophic threat, either because of the riots or because of “cancel culture” or for some combination of these reasons.
Sure, they will acknowledge, Trump has many character flaws and encourages the worst strains of the right. But we face an emergency in which we need Trump, with all his faults, as a short-term stopgap to protect us against an apocalyptic threat that would put a final end to the American system.
All this in response to the prospect of that horrible bogeyman … Joe Biden?
This is, I have to admit, the best argument out there for voting for Trump, so we should expect to hear a lot more of it as November approaches. Yet precisely because it is the best argument, I find it unconvincing. Why? Because the more they convince me that the far left is a horribly dangerous threat that is taking over the Democratic Party and threatens to destroy the republic—and I really don’t need any convincing on this—the more they remind me that if I ever want to stand up to what’s wrong in the Republican Party, I had better do it now, when the alternative is the relatively inoffensive Joe Biden.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
Let’s start with a reminder of why it is necessary to stand up against Trump.
One of the arguments made by those who are trying to lure back Never Trumpers is that we should look past Trump’s repellent personal character and focus on his policies. But it’s hard to find too much comfort there. Quick question: What is the latest projection for the 2020 deficit? Answer: $2.8 trillion. With a “T.” You could claim that this was caused by the pandemic, but the deficit has gone up sharply every year of Trump’s presidency and was already nearly a trillion dollars in 2019, before there was any emergency to justify it. Or we could turn to foreign policy, where Trump has been agitating for a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan by way of empowering the Taliban and sending its imprisoned fighters back into the field. It’s the worst kind of result I would have expected from a third Obama term.
Yes, you can make a policy case for Trump, but it depends heavily on people focusing on the issues Trump wants to talk about—he banned racist “anti-racism” training for federal workers!—while getting them to forget about many of the issues, like federal spending and a hawkish foreign policy, that they claimed to care very deeply about five years ago.
But the real problem with Trump is neither about style nor about policy. It is the disastrous ideological impact he is having on conservatism and the Republican Party. There is a reason a whole swathe of the right no longer cares about many of the issues they considered central to their worldview in 2015. Trump’s rise to power unleashed and emboldened a “nationalist,” collectivist, Big Government wing of the right. Ten years after the rise of the Tea Party movement—which was, among other things, a rapprochement between the conservative and libertarian wings of the right—”libertarian” has become a dirty word among conservatives, and they don’t mean it as a narrow critique of the libertarian movement or the Libertarian Party. By “libertarianism,” they mean the advocacy of freedom, including free markets.
I don’t like Biden, and I really don’t like the fact that once again, these are our only stupid choices. But a Trump win will create an even more hostile ideological environment for advocates of liberty.
If it is necessary for advocates of liberty to stand up to this illiberal strain of conservatism that has been unleashed by Trumpism, that confrontation will only get harder—much, much harder—if we wait another four years.
What happens if we make a deal with the Trumpian devil to fight back against the illiberalism of the far left, and wait another four years to confront illiberalism on the right?
If Trump loses re-election, there is an opportunity for some soul-searching on the right, and for those of us who opposed him to say, “We told you so.” I’m not holding out very high hopes for how this will work out, but it will happen to some degree. If Trump wins re-election, by contrast, that would confirm the dominance of Trumpism among conservatives and complete the wholesale ejection of his critics from the right. The Republican Party will become even more fully his party than it is now.
Meanwhile, what happens to the Democratic Party if Biden loses? It would be the radicals and “Bernie bros” who would get to say, “We told you so,” and that would increase the chances of the radical left winning the 2024 nomination for their candidate. Bernie will be way too old by then—but Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will be eligible to run.
So wait four more years, and what do we get? A much more entrenched illiberal Trumpism in the Republican Party, and the likely prospect of a far more radically leftist candidate from the Democratic Party.
In trying to head off one supposed catastrophe, we would cause a much greater catastrophe.
The best argument for Trump is a rehash of the Flight 93 argument: This is an existential threat, and we must charge the cockpit or die. This wasn’t terribly convincing the first time around, but imagine how much less convincing this is in reference to a candidate who ran as the most moderate option offered to his party and was selected for that reason.
Joe Biden is, and always has been, a foolish man, and he is no particular friend of liberty. But he is the Man in the Middle. His whole career has been about him figuring out what the middle ground is for a “moderate Democrat” and staking that out. So are you concerned about the riots and looting? Good. Joe Biden has condemned them and called for rioters to be prosecuted. Are you concerned about “cancel culture”? So are a bunch of center-left types who mostly support Biden.
So it is particularly implausible to describe a victory for Biden in this election as the final end of liberty. In that respect, this is the opposite of a Flight 93 election, one in which the expected costs of a Republican defeat are the least alarming.
If you can be spooked into believing that the final American apocalypse comes in the form of Joe Biden, then let’s face it: you are simply never going to vote for the guy who doesn’t have an “R” by his name, no matter what the circumstances.
But these arguments are largely academic. It doesn’t really matter how I vote in Virginia, because Trump isn’t going to win here, and the same is true for a lot of the people reading this. I don’t know if there has ever been an election choice between two such known quantities, so the overwhelming likelihood is that the American people have already made their choice, and the evidence indicates that they are going to get rid of Trump.
If you think any Democrat being elected to the presidency is a catastrophe, then don’t vent your anger at me. I’m not causing that outcome. Direct your anger at Trump for flubbing the very basics of politics and utterly failing to do anything to expand his “base” from the last election.
Like I said, Joe Biden is not a good choice in this election and I don’t expect him to be good for the cause of liberty. So where does that leave us?
If the short-term battle between Republicans and Democrats is already decided, then the long-term ideological battle for freedom is the only one we’ve got—and we’re fooling ourselves if we don’t recognize that this is a battle against both leftism and right-wing nationalism. There’s no reason to think that going all-in for Trump as he goes down to defeat is going to help in that battle.


Welcome to Bulwark+

At The Bulwark , we have three rules : It turns out that the audience for this candor was much larger than we imagined it would be .
And this success has given us the opportunity to grow even more .
So we ’ re asking you to join us .
Up until this point , everything at The Bulwark has been totally free .
No paywalls .
No ads .
We ’ ve been supported by thousands of donors .
And we are grateful for every one of them .
Now we ’ re ready to take the next @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re launching Bulwark+ .
This website , right here , will remain totally free .
Open to everyone .
No ads .
And starting today , we ’ ve partnered with Substack to host our newsletters and podcasts .
Of those , Charlie Sykes ’ s flagship Bulwark Podcast will remain open for everyone .
So will Mona Charen ’ s wonderful weekly roundtable show , Beg to Differ .
And so will Jim Swift ’ s wildly popular daily newsletter , Overtime .
We ’ ve always tried to do special @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
So for people who contribute to The Bulwark from here on out , we ’ re going to offer you access to Bulwark+ .
With Bulwark+ , members will get Charlie ’ s and JVL ’ s daily newsletters .
And they ’ ll also get access to two podcasts—The Secret Podcast and The Next Level—that will be only for members .
You can join us , right now , by clicking here : Here ’ s the thing : The last four years have sucked .
And a lot of times @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to live in the worst possible timeline .
But it doesn ’ t have to be that way .
Together , we can build something better .
We know you get it and we hope you ’ ll support it .
If you can ’ t for whatever reason , we get that too .
And that ’ s why we ’ re working to keep most of our work free .
If you ’ re able and willing , Bulwark+ will be a way to support what we ’ re doing here @ @ @ @ @ @ @ once said , there is no fate but what we make for ourselves .
So welcome to Bulwark+ .
Come .
Join us .
We ’ ve got a country to save .

At The Bulwark, we have three rules:
No partisanship.
No tribalism.
We tell you what we really think.
That’s it. That’s the secret sauce.
It turns out that the audience for this candor was much larger than we imagined it would be. And this success has given us the opportunity to grow even more.
So we’re asking you to join us.
Up until this point, everything at The Bulwark has been totally free. No paywalls. No ads. We’ve been supported by thousands of donors. And we are grateful for every one of them.
Now we’re ready to take the next step. To do that, we’re launching Bulwark+.
Here’s what’s going to happen:
This website, right here, will remain totally free. Open to everyone. No ads.
And starting today, we’ve partnered with Substack to host our newsletters and podcasts. Of those, Charlie Sykes’s flagship Bulwark Podcast will remain open for everyone. So will Mona Charen’s wonderful weekly roundtable show, Beg to Differ. And so will Jim Swift’s wildly popular daily newsletter, Overtime.
We’ve always tried to do special things for the people who support us. So for people who contribute to The Bulwark from here on out, we’re going to offer you access to Bulwark+.
With Bulwark+, members will get Charlie’s and JVL’s daily newsletters. And they’ll also get access to two podcasts—The Secret Podcast and The Next Level—that will be only for members.
You can join us, right now, by clicking here:
Here’s the thing: The last four years have sucked. And a lot of times it feels like we’re fated to live in the worst possible timeline.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Together, we can build something better. We know you get it and we hope you’ll support it. If you can’t for whatever reason, we get that too. And that’s why we’re working to keep most of our work free.
If you’re able and willing, Bulwark+ will be a way to support what we’re doing here, together.
As a wise woman once said, there is no fate but what we make for ourselves.
So welcome to Bulwark+.
Come. Join us. We’ve got a country to save.