thebulwark--2020-09-09--How Stuck Is Trump?

How Stuck Is Trump?

Traditionally , Labor Day is a time for stock-taking in presidential campaigns—the start of a two-month sprint to Election Day which focuses our collective mind .
But the peculiarities of 2020 pose a defining question : Is the race suspended in an equipoise that can yet break in Donald Trump ’ s favor , or is he dog-paddling in political quicksand of his own making ?
The confluence of variables begins with turnout .
Which candidate can best motivate his base ?
How will the pandemic affect participation ?
How much will Trump ’ s protean efforts at voter suppression @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can Trump overcome an historic depth of voter aversion ?
That last point is critical to Trump ’ s chances .
Not for a single day as president has Trump ever enjoyed a positive approval rating .
Nonetheless , he has the unwavering support of four in ten Americans .
His challenge is to convince enough swing voters who find him personally distasteful that he is , nonetheless , the safest choice .
Conversely , Biden must rally his less-zealous base while persuading enough undecided voters in battleground states to entrust him with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ three presidential debates scheduled for September and October are as potentially defining as they are unpredictable .
Finally , the race will be dominated by two ungovernable forces : a pandemic impervious to politics and , secondarily , our volatile reckoning with race .
For several months now , a sustained political stasis has favored Biden .
After an eventful August which featured two conventions , a resurgence of COVID-19 , and an alarming spate of violent unrest , a compendium of national polls shows Biden ’ s 7-plus percent edge virtually unchanged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lead in all six universally acknowledged swing states—Michigan , Wisconsin , Arizona , Pennsylvania , North Carolina , and Florida—though his margins in the latter two seem somewhat diminished .
Some partisan tightening was widely anticipated .
What seems clear is that Trump has yet to sell his characterization of Biden as a senile catspaw for socialists , rioters , and looters .
Here Trump ’ s biggest liability is his own presidency .
By a margin of 58 to 38 percent , a recent national Quinnipiac poll of likely voters shows that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 2016 .
Gallup shows only 13 percent of Americans are satisfied with the country ’ s direction—the lowest figure seen in that “ right track/wrong track ” poll in nearly a decade .
The FiveThirtyEight polling average shows that Trump ’ s approval rating remains underwater at 43 to 53 percent .
For an incumbent president with two months to go , this is a daunting crevasse .
In response , Trump has blatantly cast himself as the last bulwark of white America against supposedly menacing minorities .
He has indiscriminately conflated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ propagators of violence and vandalism .
He has claimed that Biden will despoil the suburbs with low income housing overseen by Cory Booker .
He has abrogated racial-sensitivity training for federal employees as “ How to be Anti-White 101.
” He has called Black Lives Matter “ a symbol of hate ” while upholding Confederate monuments .
In response , Biden has promised to fight for racial equality while strongly condemning disorder .
But Trump has succeeded in this much—voters perceive his candidacy through the lens of race .
A recent CBS poll @ @ @ @ @ @ @ believe that Trump “ favors ” white people , and that 50 percent believe he “ works against ” black people .
Among the likely voters in that same poll , Trump led Biden among whites by 51 to 43 percent , while trailing among blacks by 9 to 85 percent .
No doubt Trump has the racist vote cornered—not least because he is one .
The question is whether he can win back a critical slice of fearful voters without further repelling others .
There is some anecdotal evidence that Trump is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some suburban and blue-collar voters , and a recent Marquette poll found that , among white registered voters , favorable views of Black Lives Matter protesters fell from 57 percent in June to 47 percent in August .
Clearly , those whose criminality tarnishes peaceful protests are Trump ’ s best friends .
But Trump ’ s overtly racist appeals and his not-so-tacit encouragement of white militia create their own unease .
A Fox News survey of Wisconsin likely voters gave Biden a 47 to 42 percent edge on issues of “ policing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Quinnipiac poll found that , by 50 to 35 percent , likely voters say that having Donald Trump as president makes them feel less safe .
Similarly , a recent national CNN/SSRS poll conducted in late August and early September accorded Biden a 56 to 38 advantage over Trump on handling issues regarding racial inequality , and a margin of 51 to 44 with respect to criminal justice issues .
Despite Trump ’ s race-based focus on “ law and order , ” a new national Harvard/Harris poll of likely voters shows that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ best at curbing urban violence and 57 percent say he would be better at handling civil unrest .
Further , by 61 to 39 percent , respondents saw Biden as better-equipped to bring the country together .
Particularly worrisome for Trump is a CBS/YouGov battleground tracker from last week .
It showed that 49 percent of registered voters believed Biden is trying to “ calm the situation ” regarding recent protests in U.S. cities , compared to 39 percent of voters believing that of Trump .
Conversely , 47 percent of the respondents @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ encourage fighting , ” compared to just 30 percent believed that of Biden .
Finally , other new CBS/YouGov polling shows that Biden ’ s lead in Wisconsin—currently ground zero for racial unrest—remains unchanged .
In sum , Trump ’ s efforts to reframe the campaign around racial anxiety have yet to fundamentally alter the electoral dynamic—in part because he has failed so miserably to control the true epidemic besetting America : not disorderly protests , but COVID-19 .
Our fatalities are fast approaching 200,000 .
America accounts for less than 5 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more than and 20 percent of the confirmed deaths to date .
Observes Catherine Rampell , “ cumulative deaths per capita in the United States are double those of Canada , quintuple those of Germany , 20 times those of Australia , 90 times those of South Korea , and so on.
” Inevitably , Biden has enjoyed a wide and consistent lead over Trump on the ability to handle the coronavirus .
Typical is the Harvard/Harris poll : 57 percent prefer Biden to manage the coronavirus , 58 percent believe that Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 56 percent believe that he failed to stop the virus from spreading early on .
Remarkably , Trump ’ s response continues to be blatantly avoidant—if not outright infantile , as when he mocked Biden for wearing a mask because it “ gives him a feeling of security.
” Frequently , he seems utterly detached from COVID ’ s lethal realities : Paradigmatically , he told Chris Wallace in July , “ I heard we have one of the lowest , maybe the lowest mortality rate anywhere in the world.
” Heard from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Frieden , former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , told the Washington Post : Trump ’ s failure to make this fundamental linkage is sapping his greatest residual strength : his perceived superiority at managing our economy .
Regardless of the reasons , a flagging economy tends to wound an incumbent .
And this economy is not merely flagging ; the coronavirus powered America ’ s most severe economic collapse since the Great Depression .
Of necessity , Trump must sell himself as the best man to lead a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ employment rose by 1.4 million , and unemployment declined from 10.2 percent to 8.4 percent , Trump touted a rebound “ faster and deeper than thought possible.
” But that depends how one views the context .
Six months ago , unemployment was a modest 3.5 percent ; two months later , it had skyrocketed to nearly 15 percent .
So how do Americans read this very recent history , and what is likely to happen between now and Election Day ?
Rampell cites several reasons for concern : A rising percentage of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ closed childcare facilities and schools .
An impending fiscal crisis in states and cities which could trigger severe job losses and catastrophic cuts in schooling and public health .
And , critically , the GOP-driven delay in providing another round of coronavirus relief—the stimulus checks , boosted unemployment benefits , and loans to small businesses that likely helped stave off an outright depression .
Without such further intervention , an incipient recovery could crater altogether .
Further , Trump ’ s failure to manage the coronavirus has led to a projected death toll @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of over 400,000 by year ’ s end .
“ You can ’ t have an economic comeback when almost 1,000 Americans die each day from COVID , ” Biden says .
“ The painful truth is , we just have a president who just doesn ’ t see it.
” No one knows for sure what will happen between now and November 3 .
But the chances of sustained economic pain seem greater than for the broad-based recovery that is Trump ’ s principal remaining hope .
Hence Trump ’ s desperation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a coronavirus vaccine before Election Day .
“ It ’ s called Operation Warp Speed , ” he trumpeted back in May .
“ That means big and it means fast—a massive scientific , industrial , and logistical endeavor unlike anything our country has seen since the Manhattan Project.
” “ We .
.
.
will produce a vaccine before the end of the year , ” he promised the Republican convention , “ or maybe even sooner !
” But his flop sweat is showing , as witness this panicky August 22 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ triggered concerns that Trump is rushing the announcement of a vaccine—or its illusion—to save his presidency .
“ This timeline , ” epidemiologist Saskia Popescu told the Times , “ is deeply worrisome for the politicization of public health and the potential safety ramifications.
” Writes Laurie Garrett , a science journalist with deep expertise in infectious diseases : The top scientist advising Operation Warp Speed calls the authorization of a vaccine by late October “ extremely unlikely.
” But such is the concern with Trump ’ s pronouncements that the CEOs of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a vaccine felt compelled to sign a pledge yesterday , reassuring the public that they will not seek a premature approval of vaccines—and , thereby , endanger public safety while further diminishing public faith in vaccination writ large .
This remarkable development underscores the degree to which Trump ’ s pathology has become ours : America ’ s president is , quite literally , unbelievable .
He lives in a fantasy world , maintained by his enablers , in which his sulfurous hyperbole and perpetual mendacity fuse with a mindless enthusiasm for conspiracy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of crank science to render him at once both dangerous and ludicrous .
Exemplary are his denunciations of Biden as someone who is “ against God , ” “ against guns , ” wants to “ hurt the Bible , ” “ abolish police , ” and “ abolish the suburbs.
” No wonder , then , that a Fox News poll in July found that registered voters think Biden has the mental soundness to be president by 47 to 39 percent , while the answers flipped for Trump : only 43 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mental soundness , while a 51 percent majority said he does not .
Yet , on Labor Day , Trump descended to calling Biden “ a stupid person.
” The bottom line of Trump ’ s rhetorical incontinence is that he has lowered the bar for Biden in debate—and raised it for himself .
Indeed , Trump ’ s incessant self-exposure underscores what may prove his most insuperable liability—he is not merely a narcissistic ignoramus and gaseous carnival barker , but a truly repulsive human being .
That is the import of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ agencies , concerning his contempt for those who have served—and too often died—in America ’ s military .
Out of his own mouth , Trump has made it completely credible that he refused to visit the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris because he feared that rain would disarrange his hair , and that honoring a site “ filled with losers ” was beneath him .
His mockery of John McCain for being captured and tortured is similarly consistent with calling dead Marines “ suckers ” and grousing of McCain “ we ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s funeral.
” His chronic callousness towards others makes it wholly believable that , when standing with John Kelly near his son ’ s grave at Arlington , he said of the dead stretching before him : “ I don ’ t get it .
What was in it for them ?
” Reacting to that report with his trademark grace , Trump disparaged Kelly as an incompetent who , as his chief of staff , “ wasn ’ t even able to function in the last number of months.
” This of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dodged the draft by claiming bone spurs .
Nonetheless , Trump tried to top himself on Labor Day .
Faced with further reporting about his discomfort with wounded veterans , and his disdain for efforts to repatriate prisoners of war , Trump cast our senior military leaders as the callous handmaidens of war profiteers : “ They want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy.
” Mired in endless grievance and self-pity , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he is .
Once again , his opponent provided a basic contrast in humanity .
Reports the New York Times , Biden “ strained to contain his disgust .
.
.
over a report that Mr. Trump had made extraordinarily disrespectful remarks about fallen soldiers.
” “ How would you feel if you had a kid in Afghanistan right now ?
” Biden said .
“ How would you feel if you lost a son , daughter , husband , wife ?
How would you feel , for real ?
” The Times @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remarks as “ disgusting , ” “ sick , ” “ deplorable , ” and “ un-American.
” Not to mention , one might add , unthinkable in any normal person—let alone our president .
That brings us to Trump ’ s ceaseless degradation of our democracy , and the appalling reality we have come to take for granted : that he believes he needs a successful voter-suppression campaign to squeak out an Electoral College victory—and will pursue it to the no-doubt bitter end .
But , even then , he can win @ @ @ @ @ @ @ good fortune—Biden imploding in debate ; a stronger than expected recovery ; fewer coronavirus deaths than anticipated ; the credible promise of a vaccine ; and , most perverse , outbursts of race-based ugliness that trigger a backlash among critical voters .
Only then , to our collective peril , can he hope to overcome his most richly-deserved obstacle—himself .

Traditionally, Labor Day is a time for stock-taking in presidential campaigns—the start of a two-month sprint to Election Day which focuses our collective mind. But the peculiarities of 2020 pose a defining question: Is the race suspended in an equipoise that can yet break in Donald Trump’s favor, or is he dog-paddling in political quicksand of his own making?
The confluence of variables begins with turnout. Which candidate can best motivate his base? How will the pandemic affect participation? How much will Trump’s protean efforts at voter suppression slant results? And, finally, can Trump overcome an historic depth of voter aversion?
That last point is critical to Trump’s chances. Not for a single day as president has Trump ever enjoyed a positive approval rating. Nonetheless, he has the unwavering support of four in ten Americans. His challenge is to convince enough swing voters who find him personally distasteful that he is, nonetheless, the safest choice.
Conversely, Biden must rally his less-zealous base while persuading enough undecided voters in battleground states to entrust him with presidency. For both men, the three presidential debates scheduled for September and October are as potentially defining as they are unpredictable.
Finally, the race will be dominated by two ungovernable forces: a pandemic impervious to politics and, secondarily, our volatile reckoning with race.
For several months now, a sustained political stasis has favored Biden. After an eventful August which featured two conventions, a resurgence of COVID-19, and an alarming spate of violent unrest, a compendium of national polls shows Biden’s 7-plus percent edge virtually unchanged. More salient, Biden continues to lead in all six universally acknowledged swing states—Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Florida—though his margins in the latter two seem somewhat diminished.
Some partisan tightening was widely anticipated. What seems clear is that Trump has yet to sell his characterization of Biden as a senile catspaw for socialists, rioters, and looters.
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…
Here Trump’s biggest liability is his own presidency. By a margin of 58 to 38 percent, a recent national Quinnipiac poll of likely voters shows that voters think America is worse off than in 2016. Gallup shows only 13 percent of Americans are satisfied with the country’s direction—the lowest figure seen in that “right track/wrong track” poll in nearly a decade. The FiveThirtyEight polling average shows that Trump’s approval rating remains underwater at 43 to 53 percent. For an incumbent president with two months to go, this is a daunting crevasse.
In response, Trump has blatantly cast himself as the last bulwark of white America against supposedly menacing minorities. He has indiscriminately conflated peaceful protesters against systemic racism with the propagators of violence and vandalism. He has claimed that Biden will despoil the suburbs with low income housing overseen by Cory Booker. He has abrogated racial-sensitivity training for federal employees as “How to be Anti-White 101.” He has called Black Lives Matter “a symbol of hate” while upholding Confederate monuments.
In response, Biden has promised to fight for racial equality while strongly condemning disorder. But Trump has succeeded in this much—voters perceive his candidacy through the lens of race. A recent CBS poll found that 66 percent of registered voters believe that Trump “favors” white people, and that 50 percent believe he “works against” black people. Among the likely voters in that same poll, Trump led Biden among whites by 51 to 43 percent, while trailing among blacks by 9 to 85 percent.
No doubt Trump has the racist vote cornered—not least because he is one. The question is whether he can win back a critical slice of fearful voters without further repelling others.
There is some anecdotal evidence that Trump is making marginal headway in arousing fear among some suburban and blue-collar voters, and a recent Marquette poll found that, among white registered voters, favorable views of Black Lives Matter protesters fell from 57 percent in June to 47 percent in August. Clearly, those whose criminality tarnishes peaceful protests are Trump’s best friends.
But Trump’s overtly racist appeals and his not-so-tacit encouragement of white militia create their own unease. A Fox News survey of Wisconsin likely voters gave Biden a 47 to 42 percent edge on issues of “policing and criminal justice.” And the recent Quinnipiac poll found that, by 50 to 35 percent, likely voters say that having Donald Trump as president makes them feel less safe.
Similarly, a recent national CNN/SSRS poll conducted in late August and early September accorded Biden a 56 to 38 advantage over Trump on handling issues regarding racial inequality, and a margin of 51 to 44 with respect to criminal justice issues. Despite Trump’s race-based focus on “law and order,” a new national Harvard/Harris poll of likely voters shows that 58 percent believe that Biden would fare best at curbing urban violence and 57 percent say he would be better at handling civil unrest. Further, by 61 to 39 percent, respondents saw Biden as better-equipped to bring the country together.
Particularly worrisome for Trump is a CBS/YouGov battleground tracker from last week. It showed that 49 percent of registered voters believed Biden is trying to “calm the situation” regarding recent protests in U.S. cities, compared to 39 percent of voters believing that of Trump. Conversely, 47 percent of the respondents said they believed Trump was trying to “encourage fighting,” compared to just 30 percent believed that of Biden.
Finally, other new CBS/YouGov polling shows that Biden’s lead in Wisconsin—currently ground zero for racial unrest—remains unchanged. In sum, Trump’s efforts to reframe the campaign around racial anxiety have yet to fundamentally alter the electoral dynamic—in part because he has failed so miserably to control the true epidemic besetting America: not disorderly protests, but COVID-19.
Our fatalities are fast approaching 200,000. America accounts for less than 5 percent of the world’s population more than and 20 percent of the confirmed deaths to date. Observes Catherine Rampell, “cumulative deaths per capita in the United States are double those of Canada, quintuple those of Germany, 20 times those of Australia, 90 times those of South Korea, and so on.”
Inevitably, Biden has enjoyed a wide and consistent lead over Trump on the ability to handle the coronavirus. Typical is the Harvard/Harris poll: 57 percent prefer Biden to manage the coronavirus, 58 percent believe that Trump has done a bad job, and 56 percent believe that he failed to stop the virus from spreading early on.
Remarkably, Trump’s response continues to be blatantly avoidant—if not outright infantile, as when he mocked Biden for wearing a mask because it “gives him a feeling of security.” Frequently, he seems utterly detached from COVID’s lethal realities: Paradigmatically, he told Chris Wallace in July, “I heard we have one of the lowest, maybe the lowest mortality rate anywhere in the world.”
Heard from whom? one wonders. As Thomas Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the Washington Post:
Right now, we’re flying blind. . . . Public health is not getting in the way of economic recovery and schools reopening. Public health is the means to economic recovery and schools reopening. You don’t have to believe me. Look all over the world. The U.S. is a laggard.
Trump’s failure to make this fundamental linkage is sapping his greatest residual strength: his perceived superiority at managing our economy.
Regardless of the reasons, a flagging economy tends to wound an incumbent. And this economy is not merely flagging; the coronavirus powered America’s most severe economic collapse since the Great Depression. Of necessity, Trump must sell himself as the best man to lead a recovery. When, in August, employment rose by 1.4 million, and unemployment declined from 10.2 percent to 8.4 percent, Trump touted a rebound “faster and deeper than thought possible.”
But that depends how one views the context. Six months ago, unemployment was a modest 3.5 percent; two months later, it had skyrocketed to nearly 15 percent. So how do Americans read this very recent history, and what is likely to happen between now and Election Day?
Rampell cites several reasons for concern: A rising percentage of permanent layoffs. The dampening effect of closed childcare facilities and schools. An impending fiscal crisis in states and cities which could trigger severe job losses and catastrophic cuts in schooling and public health. And, critically, the GOP-driven delay in providing another round of coronavirus relief—the stimulus checks, boosted unemployment benefits, and loans to small businesses that likely helped stave off an outright depression. Without such further intervention, an incipient recovery could crater altogether.
Further, Trump’s failure to manage the coronavirus has led to a projected death toll, in at least one model, of over 400,000 by year’s end. “You can’t have an economic comeback when almost 1,000 Americans die each day from COVID,” Biden says. “The painful truth is, we just have a president who just doesn’t see it.”
No one knows for sure what will happen between now and November 3. But the chances of sustained economic pain seem greater than for the broad-based recovery that is Trump’s principal remaining hope.
Hence Trump’s desperation to fast-track a political Hail Mary: a coronavirus vaccine before Election Day. “It’s called Operation Warp Speed,” he trumpeted back in May. “That means big and it means fast—a massive scientific, industrial, and logistical endeavor unlike anything our country has seen since the Manhattan Project.”
“We . . . will produce a vaccine before the end of the year,” he promised the Republican convention, “or maybe even sooner!” But his flop sweat is showing, as witness this panicky August 22 tweet:
The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics. Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd. Must focus on speed, and saving lives! @SteveFDA — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 22, 2020
Quite rightly, this has triggered concerns that Trump is rushing the announcement of a vaccine—or its illusion—to save his presidency. “This timeline,” epidemiologist Saskia Popescu told the Times, “is deeply worrisome for the politicization of public health and the potential safety ramifications.” Writes Laurie Garrett, a science journalist with deep expertise in infectious diseases:
Like most experts closely watching these developments, I have no confidence that a safe, effective vaccine will be ready for use by Halloween. Worse, I can no longer recommend that anyone retain faith in any public health pronouncements issued by government agencies.
The top scientist advising Operation Warp Speed calls the authorization of a vaccine by late October “extremely unlikely.” But such is the concern with Trump’s pronouncements that the CEOs of nine major pharmaceutical companies competing to develop a vaccine felt compelled to sign a pledge yesterday, reassuring the public that they will not seek a premature approval of vaccines—and, thereby, endanger public safety while further diminishing public faith in vaccination writ large.
This remarkable development underscores the degree to which Trump’s pathology has become ours: America’s president is, quite literally, unbelievable. He lives in a fantasy world, maintained by his enablers, in which his sulfurous hyperbole and perpetual mendacity fuse with a mindless enthusiasm for conspiracy theorists, white extremists, and purveyors of crank science to render him at once both dangerous and ludicrous.
Exemplary are his denunciations of Biden as someone who is “against God,” “against guns,” wants to “hurt the Bible,” “abolish police,” and “ abolish the suburbs.” No wonder, then, that a Fox News poll in July found that registered voters think Biden has the mental soundness to be president by 47 to 39 percent, while the answers flipped for Trump: only 43 percent of respondents think he has the necessary mental soundness, while a 51 percent majority said he does not.
Yet, on Labor Day, Trump descended to calling Biden “a stupid person.” The bottom line of Trump’s rhetorical incontinence is that he has lowered the bar for Biden in debate—and raised it for himself.
Indeed, Trump’s incessant self-exposure underscores what may prove his most insuperable liability—he is not merely a narcissistic ignoramus and gaseous carnival barker, but a truly repulsive human being. That is the import of the Atlantic reportage, confirmed by other news agencies, concerning his contempt for those who have served—and too often died—in America’s military.
Out of his own mouth, Trump has made it completely credible that he refused to visit the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris because he feared that rain would disarrange his hair, and that honoring a site “filled with losers” was beneath him. His mockery of John McCain for being captured and tortured is similarly consistent with calling dead Marines “suckers” and grousing of McCain “we’re not going to support that loser’s funeral.”
His chronic callousness towards others makes it wholly believable that, when standing with John Kelly near his son’s grave at Arlington, he said of the dead stretching before him: “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” Reacting to that report with his trademark grace, Trump disparaged Kelly as an incompetent who, as his chief of staff, “wasn’t even able to function in the last number of months.” This of a four-star general from a man who dodged the draft by claiming bone spurs.
Nonetheless, Trump tried to top himself on Labor Day. Faced with further reporting about his discomfort with wounded veterans, and his disdain for efforts to repatriate prisoners of war, Trump cast our senior military leaders as the callous handmaidens of war profiteers: “They want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy.” Mired in endless grievance and self-pity, Trump cannot avoid displaying exactly who he is.
Once again, his opponent provided a basic contrast in humanity. Reports the New York Times, Biden “strained to contain his disgust . . . over a report that Mr. Trump had made extraordinarily disrespectful remarks about fallen soldiers.” “How would you feel if you had a kid in Afghanistan right now?” Biden said. “How would you feel if you lost a son, daughter, husband, wife? How would you feel, for real?” The Times adds that Biden described Trump’s remarks as “disgusting,” “sick,” “deplorable,” and “un-American.” Not to mention, one might add, unthinkable in any normal person—let alone our president.
That brings us to Trump’s ceaseless degradation of our democracy, and the appalling reality we have come to take for granted: that he believes he needs a successful voter-suppression campaign to squeak out an Electoral College victory—and will pursue it to the no-doubt bitter end. But, even then, he can win only with a remarkable confluence of undeserved good fortune—Biden imploding in debate; a stronger than expected recovery; fewer coronavirus deaths than anticipated; the credible promise of a vaccine; and, most perverse, outbursts of race-based ugliness that trigger a backlash among critical voters.
Only then, to our collective peril, can he hope to overcome his most richly-deserved obstacle—himself.


thebulwark--2020-09-09--American Conservatism, b. 1955, d. 2020?

Is the Republican party salvageable ?
Is it worth trying to save ?
These questions have sparked an interesting discussion , one that raises important issues involving the relationship of principle and prudence , of compromise and accountability , of balancing the past with the future .
But what is the Republican party—or any political party ?
It is , in large measure , a vehicle for certain ideas .
For a couple of generations , the Republican party has been the vehicle for American conservatism .
So saving the Republican party probably only makes sense if American conservatism is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ big question .
And it will have to be confronted after November 3 .
But it can ’ t hurt to at least turn it over in our minds now .
If modern American conservatism can be said to have been born in 1955 , with the founding of National Review , it may be said to have effectively died—committed suicide ?
—in 2020 .
Not in 2016 .
Four years ago , lots of conservatives opposed Donald Trump and viewed his primary and general election victories as a fluke .
Not in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could still have believed that Trump might be hemmed in by “ the guardrails of democracy.
” After all , many of those guardrails were provided by conservative figures and ideas both inside and outside of the Trump administration .
Not even in 2019 , when the Mueller report finally arrived and reasonable conservatives could have talked themselves into believing that it was imprudent to get all worked up about something that hadn ’ t quite delivered a proverbial smoking gun .
But in 2020 the question of how conservatives were to deal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The guardrails clearly had not held .
The stakes were raised from abstract ideas and future threats to reckless mismanagement that cost the lives of 200,000 Americans .
Judgment—real , definitive judgment—was finally demanded of conservatives .
But it turned out—it had already turned out , in the last half of 2019—that most conservatives—whether elected officials or political donors or commentators—had no interest in helping to find a conservative challenger to Trump for the Republican nomination .
It then turned out that—with very few honorable exceptions—there was no support for impeachment of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Constitution .
Worse still , there was not even support for chastisement among Republican members of Congress or the people who make up the conservative movement .
Instead of rebuking Trump , conservatives actively defended him .
And then , when the Democrats selected Joe Biden , the most moderate imaginable nominee , vanishingly few conservatives were willing to desert Trump .
Even if only to sit out the election , let alone support Biden .
So perhaps we need to acknowledge that it has come to this : Real , existing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2020 is an accomplice to , an apologist for , and an enabler of Trump ’ s nativist , populist , unconservative , and illiberal authoritarianism .
This authoritarianism is as far from Burke as from Hayek .
As far from a concern for liberty as for virtue .
As far from American greatness as from American decency .
And “ conservatism ” now rides along with this authoritarianism in a nicely cushioned sidecar .
Maybe we shouldn ’ t be too surprised .
After all , there were always elements in American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of us believed that they had been , over the decades , suppressed or expunged .
But that turns out not to have been the case .
Instead , they were merely dormant , ready to emerge and be exploited by an able demagogue in tune with the times .
And perhaps every political movement has a natural lifespan : Modern American conservatism was born in 1955 , peaked in full flower in the 1980s , and then aged , mostly gracefully , for three decades .
Until it could easily , if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dotage—forced , or induced , to surrender to its younger and stronger , if disreputable , distant relative .
In sum : 2020 was the year in which American conservatism as we have known it for three generations was weighed in the balance , and found wanting .
What next ?
A revived American liberalism that rescues and incorporates what was admirable in American conservatism ?
A new political vehicle—a new institution or set of institutions ?
A New Center or a New Party of Freedom , to step up to the task @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Trump defeat , the old American conservatism—suitably updated , of course—might be reborn ?
That would be a pleasant thought .
But conservatives know that in the real world it is rare for a phoenix to rise from the ashes .
Most of the time , the aftermath of a conflagration is .
.
.
just ashes .

Is the Republican party salvageable? Is it worth trying to save? These questions have sparked an interesting discussion, one that raises important issues involving the relationship of principle and prudence, of compromise and accountability, of balancing the past with the future.
But what is the Republican party—or any political party? It is, in large measure, a vehicle for certain ideas.
For a couple of generations, the Republican party has been the vehicle for American conservatism. So saving the Republican party probably only makes sense if American conservatism is worth saving.
Is it?
That’s a big question. And it will have to be confronted after November 3. But it can’t hurt to at least turn it over in our minds now.
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…
If modern American conservatism can be said to have been born in 1955, with the founding of National Review, it may be said to have effectively died—committed suicide?—in 2020.
Not in 2016. Four years ago, lots of conservatives opposed Donald Trump and viewed his primary and general election victories as a fluke.
Not in 2017 and 2018, when reasonable conservatives could still have believed that Trump might be hemmed in by “the guardrails of democracy.” After all, many of those guardrails were provided by conservative figures and ideas both inside and outside of the Trump administration.
Not even in 2019, when the Mueller report finally arrived and reasonable conservatives could have talked themselves into believing that it was imprudent to get all worked up about something that hadn’t quite delivered a proverbial smoking gun.
But in 2020 the question of how conservatives were to deal with Trump came to a head. The guardrails clearly had not held. The stakes were raised from abstract ideas and future threats to reckless mismanagement that cost the lives of 200,000 Americans. Judgment—real, definitive judgment—was finally demanded of conservatives.
But it turned out—it had already turned out, in the last half of 2019—that most conservatives—whether elected officials or political donors or commentators—had no interest in helping to find a conservative challenger to Trump for the Republican nomination.
It then turned out that—with very few honorable exceptions—there was no support for impeachment of the president for his renewed clear violations of the Constitution. Worse still, there was not even support for chastisement among Republican members of Congress or the people who make up the conservative movement. Instead of rebuking Trump, conservatives actively defended him.
And then, when the Democrats selected Joe Biden, the most moderate imaginable nominee, vanishingly few conservatives were willing to desert Trump. Even if only to sit out the election, let alone support Biden.
So perhaps we need to acknowledge that it has come to this: Real, existing conservatism as it exists in America in 2020 is an accomplice to, an apologist for, and an enabler of Trump’s nativist, populist, unconservative, and illiberal authoritarianism.
This authoritarianism is as far from Burke as from Hayek. As far from a concern for liberty as for virtue. As far from American greatness as from American decency. And “conservatism” now rides along with this authoritarianism in a nicely cushioned sidecar.
Maybe we shouldn’t be too surprised. After all, there were always elements in American conservatism which carried these traits. Many of us believed that they had been, over the decades, suppressed or expunged. But that turns out not to have been the case. Instead, they were merely dormant, ready to emerge and be exploited by an able demagogue in tune with the times.
And perhaps every political movement has a natural lifespan: Modern American conservatism was born in 1955, peaked in full flower in the 1980s, and then aged, mostly gracefully, for three decades. Until it could easily, if suddenly, be pushed aside in its dotage—forced, or induced, to surrender to its younger and stronger, if disreputable, distant relative.
In sum: 2020 was the year in which American conservatism as we have known it for three generations was weighed in the balance, and found wanting.
What next? A revived American liberalism that rescues and incorporates what was admirable in American conservatism? A new political vehicle—a new institution or set of institutions? A New Center or a New Party of Freedom, to step up to the task?
Or perhaps from the ashes of a Trump defeat, the old American conservatism—suitably updated, of course—might be reborn?
That would be a pleasant thought. But conservatives know that in the real world it is rare for a phoenix to rise from the ashes. Most of the time, the aftermath of a conflagration is . . . just ashes.


thebulwark--2020-09-09--The Oscars Diversity Misdirection

The Oscars Diversity Misdirection

After best picture wins in the past four years for Parasite , Green Book , The Shape of Water , and Moonlight , to say nothing of 12 Years a Slave ’ s triumph back in 2014 , the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ( AMPAS ) is finally—finally !
—doing something to ensure that underrepresented groups have a shot at the Oscar for best picture .
Yesterday AMPAS announced new guidelines that would determine whether or not a film would be eligible for best picture at the Academy Awards .
To qualify , a film has to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ four boxes : “ Onscreen Representation , Themes and Narratives , ” “ Creative Leadership and Project Team , ” Industry Access and Opportunities , ” and “ Audience Development.
” Basically , you either need to have onscreen representation of historically marginalized groups—minorities , women , non-cishet individuals , people with disabilities—or make some effort to include them behind the scenes , including via paid internships and other opportunities .
A very smart person I follow on Twitter once sighed during Oscar season that there ’ s no point in getting all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s just an industry trade show and it makes the rules to showcase what it wants to showcase about itself just as any other industry does .
A fancier Clios , in other words .
I ’ ve always tried to keep that in mind while reconciling the various artistic atrocities that take place every year , such as The Shape of Water beating out Dunkirk for best picture .
Objectively judging “ the best movie ” is impossible , behind-the-scenes machinations lead to upsets all the time , and anyone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Honest Oscar Ballot ” series knows that most voters don ’ t even bother watching all the movies they ’ re voting on .
So setting aside the obvious , but pedestrian , complaint here—why can ’ t they just vote for the best movies , the best performances , the best direction , etc .
?
—let ’ s instead ask what the film industry wants this move to do for perceptions of the film industry .
The first thing to consider is that this new hoop to jump through is an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ As Mark Harris , whose book on the Oscar race of movies released in 1967 is a must-read for those interested in understanding how the movie business changed during the 1960s , noted on Twitter , allowing behind-the-scenes efforts to take the place of onscreen representation , is a huge boon for studio filmmakers .
If you ’ re directing a prestige picture for Warner Bros. or Universal , you ’ ll never have to worry about any of this : someone somewhere will make sure you have the proper number of underrepresented @ @ @ @ @ @ @ indie putting together a movie on a shoestring in the hopes that A24 or Neon will pick you up , well , good luck .
More striking , though , is the potential for the Oscars to serve as a means of , shall we say , rainbow-washing efforts to de-diversify other aspects of the entertainment industry in order to appeal to Chinese audiences .
Writing for Axios China , Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian recently highlighted a 2017 study suggesting that there was a noticeable “ light-skin shift ” in movies marketed toward China .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2017 , examined more than 3,000 films from between 2009 and 2015 and found that films made after 2012 demonstrated an 8 % increase in the number of ‘ very light-skinned ’ actors in starring roles , ” she wrote .
“ The light-skin shift only occurred in film genres that the Chinese government typically permits into the Chinese market , such as action movies and big summer blockbusters.
” These are , of course , the genres that result in the films least likely to earn Oscar nominations .
It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the ( notoriously racist ) Chinese market that actually earn big studios money while creating something the big studios can point to so they can say “ No , ackshually we love diversity !
” all while allowing those same big studios a get-out-of-jail-free card with their cash-intensive behind-the-scenes efforts .
But hey : we ’ ll never have to live through another # OscarsSoWhite .
So it ’ s all worth it .

After best picture wins in the past four years for Parasite, Green Book, The Shape of Water, and Moonlight, to say nothing of 12 Years a Slave’s triumph back in 2014, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) is finally—finally!—doing something to ensure that underrepresented groups have a shot at the Oscar for best picture.
Yesterday AMPAS announced new guidelines that would determine whether or not a film would be eligible for best picture at the Academy Awards. To qualify, a film has to check at least two of the following four boxes: “Onscreen Representation, Themes and Narratives,” “Creative Leadership and Project Team,” Industry Access and Opportunities,” and “Audience Development.” Basically, you either need to have onscreen representation of historically marginalized groups—minorities, women, non-cishet individuals, people with disabilities—or make some effort to include them behind the scenes, including via paid internships and other opportunities.
A very smart person I follow on Twitter once sighed during Oscar season that there’s no point in getting all fired up about the Oscars, that it’s just an industry trade show and it makes the rules to showcase what it wants to showcase about itself just as any other industry does. A fancier Clios, in other words. I’ve always tried to keep that in mind while reconciling the various artistic atrocities that take place every year, such as The Shape of Water beating out Dunkirk for best picture. Objectively judging “the best movie” is impossible, behind-the-scenes machinations lead to upsets all the time, and anyone who is familiar with the “Brutally Honest Oscar Ballot” series knows that most voters don’t even bother watching all the movies they’re voting on.
So setting aside the obvious, but pedestrian, complaint here—why can’t they just vote for the best movies, the best performances, the best direction, etc.?—let’s instead ask what the film industry wants this move to do for perceptions of the film industry.
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 first thing to consider is that this new hoop to jump through is an obvious boon for the big studios. As Mark Harris, whose book on the Oscar race of movies released in 1967 is a must-read for those interested in understanding how the movie business changed during the 1960s, noted on Twitter, allowing behind-the-scenes efforts to take the place of onscreen representation, is a huge boon for studio filmmakers. If you’re directing a prestige picture for Warner Bros. or Universal, you’ll never have to worry about any of this: someone somewhere will make sure you have the proper number of underrepresented interns. If you’re an indie putting together a movie on a shoestring in the hopes that A24 or Neon will pick you up, well, good luck.
Day-after thought: The more I look at these new AMPAS rules, the more I think their only effect, as written, is to favor large companies. Studio filmmakers will literally not have to do a thing to meet these standards; the studio can take care of all of it via standards C and D.> — Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) September 9, 2020
That isn't just an unanticipated bad side effect of these new rules; as far as I can tell, it will be the ONLY effect. And a diversity standard that is easy for rich companies to work around but more challenging for shoestring filmmakers is not a step forward. If anything… — Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) September 9, 2020
…it's a side-door win for a traditionalist bloc in AMPAS that believes the Oscars should primarily celebrate big movies, not little indies. It's "You better nail it in terms of content/staff/casting UNLESS you have a studio that can pay for internships." That is not progress. — Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) September 9, 2020
More striking, though, is the potential for the Oscars to serve as a means of, shall we say, rainbow-washing efforts to de-diversify other aspects of the entertainment industry in order to appeal to Chinese audiences. Writing for Axios China, Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian recently highlighted a 2017 study suggesting that there was a noticeable “light-skin shift” in movies marketed toward China.
“The study, published in October 2017, examined more than 3,000 films from between 2009 and 2015 and found that films made after 2012 demonstrated an 8% increase in the number of ‘very light-skinned’ actors in starring roles,” she wrote. “The light-skin shift only occurred in film genres that the Chinese government typically permits into the Chinese market, such as action movies and big summer blockbusters.”
These are, of course, the genres that result in the films least likely to earn Oscar nominations.
(Update: Alyssa Rosenberg at the Washington Post and Kyle Smith at National Review also make a similar point in their pieces on this, though they come at it from different angles: it’s unlikely that the changes will have the effect of actually creating much more onscreen diversity of the sort the most vocal activists are clamoring for. /Update.)
It’s quite the racket: de-diversifying films aimed at the (notoriously racist) Chinese market that actually earn big studios money while creating something the big studios can point to so they can say “No, ackshually we love diversity!” all while allowing those same big studios a get-out-of-jail-free card with their cash-intensive behind-the-scenes efforts.
But hey: we’ll never have to live through another #OscarsSoWhite. So it’s all worth it.


thebulwark--2020-09-10--Bob Woodward and the Nihilism of “LOL Nothing Matters” Republicans

It was getting late on a balmy Charleston January night and we were all a few beers deep .
Earlier in the evening we had learned that Jon Huntsman , the candidate we ’ d been working for over the past 9 months was ending his campaign for the presidency , despite being under the false impression that we had a “ ticket to ride ” out of New Hampshire .
As the announcement trickled out into the media , the takes about our failure started to pour in on Twitter dot com .
And so one of my campaign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tweeting them with “ # NobodyCares.
” The rest of us followed suit .
It was a cheeky outlet for our pent up frustration following a long slog of a campaign and a wry commentary on the silliness of the Twitter bubble .
How election junkies obsessed over tweets and trivia—and even entire campaigns—that most regular folks paid no mind to .
In one sense we were onto something that night .
In the years that followed , the Acela bubble became thicker , the disconnect between the chattering class and the normie @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all culminated with .
.
.
well you know what it culminated with .
But there was also a danger in this mindset that at the time I don ’ t think any of us considered , because we were just poking some fun at reporters and weren ’ t nihilistic monsters .
In the Age of Trump , a whole bunch of people on the right have taken the “ nobody cares ” pose and built it into an all-encompassing worldview .
Instead of teasing political elites about how # nobodycares what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Inc. decided that if political elites cared about something then by definition it didn ’ t matter .
At all .
The result was LOL Nothing Matters Republicanism .
A worldview where actions don ’ t have consequences , truth is no different than lies , and the act of offending the sensibilities of the political class is an end unto itself .
This is the mindset that infected the Republican operative class and commentariat at every level , abnegating them of responsibility for anything , at all .
It has perpetuated a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the United States exists in a reality that is divorced from the world they inhabit , because they have already decided that nothing he does matters .
Why ?
Because the political elites care about it .
Nothing is strong enough to shake these people free of their delusion .
And so on a day when it was revealed that the president of the United States was purposefully and criminally negligent in downplaying the severity of a virus that has killed almost 200,000 of our fellow Americans ( so far ) , this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republicans—and ostensibly “ pro-life ” Trump apologists—would have you believe that nobody cares about the words and actions of the country ’ s elected president which resulted in mass death of their fellow citizens .
For these nihilists , the Gospel of Nothing Mattering is so deep-seated that they have made it both an irrefutable political reality and a moral imperative .
It ’ s important to say , out loud , that they are wrong .
They will matter to the outcome of this election .
And they will certainly matter in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s presidency .
The notion that regular people “ don ’ t care ” about what Donald Trump says and does and that nobody , anywhere , changes their opinion on him and that “ the needle never moves ; no one is ever budged ” is , to use a technical data analytics term , horse hockey .
It is rooted in a false 2016 mythology in which Americans decided that LOL Nothing Matters , and overwhelmingly voted in the Great King Donald because they didn ’ t believe the smears @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In reality , Trump lost the popular vote—despite getting a last-minute assist from Jim Comey—and then won the presidency in an Electoral College fluke .
Polling for this cycle shows that Americans are highly engaged and very much do care about their president ’ s words and actions ( wild ! )
and this engagement is driving changes in political behavior for some of them .
Between 6 percent and 10 percent of Trump 2016 voters have switched to Biden while between 4 percent and 5 percent of Clinton voters have switched in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just use that combined percentage—somewhere between 10 percent and 15 percent—we ’ re talking about some 6 million to 9 million voters who are telling pollsters , right now , that they have changed their mind .
That ’ s a lot of people .
Especially when the last election was decided by about 70,000 votes .
And if you don ’ t believe “ the polls ” —you can hear from about 700 of them yourself , right here .
There ’ s more .
While this race has been historically stable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lose altitude among voters over the past six months , mostly due to his response to the George Floyd protests and the pandemic .
Clearly , some people care .
It ’ s just math .
Which brings us back to Bob Woodward .
Given that we have seen in the data that Trump ’ s COVID response has cost him supporters , it ’ s not exactly a stretch to conclude that wall-to-wall news coverage about a recording that reveals that he knew the virus was way worse than he said publicly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ perception of him !
This truth is so obvious it ’ s hard to believe anyone actually doubts it .
Anyone who does doubt it—and I mean really , sincerely , doubts it and isn ’ t just play acting on Twitter because it ’ s part of their brand—has been broken by politics and the internet .
But maybe we ’ ve all been broken by politics and the internet , because we shouldn ’ t even be talking about the political impacts of this .
We should be talking about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the president saying how dangerous this pandemic was at the same time he was lying to the American public and telling them not to worry about it because it was going to disappear “ like a miracle.
” In any normal time , a revelation like this would trigger the president ’ s resignation , not because of the politics , but because of the moral outrage .
Woodward ’ s interviews with President Trump make as plain as day that our president is a congenital liar who is overmatched by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and utterly indifferent to the suffering his failures have caused .
Woodward ’ s interviews with Trump ’ s advisors reveal that the president ’ s own top men found him to be “ dangerous , ” “ unfit , ” compromised by Putin , “ rudderless , ” and possessing an attention span that is a “ minus number.
” Given all that , it ’ s no wonder the president ’ s fans have resorted to nihilism and self-delusion .
What else do they have ?
It should go without saying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ever there was a time when something mattered in our politics , it would be at a moment when the leader of the free world is a dangerous and unfit liar who is adrift amidst a historic crisis .
This is a time for caring .
A time when things matter .
A time when you can measure the real world impact in body bags .
Times like these don ’ t call for ironic distance or smug dismissiveness .
People are experiencing pain in earnest , they are uncertain about the future @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the madman at the helm in earnest .
And in November those who recognize how much people care are likely to triumph .

It was getting late on a balmy Charleston January night and we were all a few beers deep. Earlier in the evening we had learned that Jon Huntsman, the candidate we’d been working for over the past 9 months was ending his campaign for the presidency, despite being under the false impression that we had a “ticket to ride” out of New Hampshire.
As the announcement trickled out into the media, the takes about our failure started to pour in on Twitter dot com. And so one of my campaign besties, Jake Suski, began quote tweeting them with “#NobodyCares.” The rest of us followed suit. It was a cheeky outlet for our pent up frustration following a long slog of a campaign and a wry commentary on the silliness of the Twitter bubble. How election junkies obsessed over tweets and trivia—and even entire campaigns—that most regular folks paid no mind to.
In one sense we were onto something that night. In the years that followed, the Acela bubble became thicker, the disconnect between the chattering class and the normie class continued to grow, and it all culminated with . . . well you know what it culminated with.
But there was also a danger in this mindset that at the time I don’t think any of us considered, because we were just poking some fun at reporters and weren’t nihilistic monsters.
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…
In the Age of Trump, a whole bunch of people on the right have taken the “nobody cares” pose and built it into an all-encompassing worldview. Instead of teasing political elites about how #nobodycares what they think, these lightworkers inside Conservative Inc. decided that if political elites cared about something then by definition it didn’t matter. At all.
The result was LOL Nothing Matters Republicanism. A worldview where actions don’t have consequences, truth is no different than lies, and the act of offending the sensibilities of the political class is an end unto itself.
This is the mindset that infected the Republican operative class and commentariat at every level, abnegating them of responsibility for anything, at all. It has perpetuated a mass delusion in which the president of the United States exists in a reality that is divorced from the world they inhabit, because they have already decided that nothing he does matters. Why? Because the political elites care about it.
Nothing is strong enough to shake these people free of their delusion. And so on a day when it was revealed that the president of the United States was purposefully and criminally negligent in downplaying the severity of a virus that has killed almost 200,000 of our fellow Americans (so far), this is what they came up with:
When you have "editor" in your job title and still don't care. pic.twitter.com/Xwk8bNo28f — Jim Swift (@JimSwiftDC) September 9, 2020
Yes, that’s right.
Republicans—and ostensibly “pro-life” Trump apologists—would have you believe that nobody cares about the words and actions of the country’s elected president which resulted in mass death of their fellow citizens.
For these nihilists, the Gospel of Nothing Mattering is so deep-seated that they have made it both an irrefutable political reality and a moral imperative.
It’s important to say, out loud, that they are wrong.
Bob Woodward’s revelations matter.
They will matter to the outcome of this election. And they will certainly matter in rendering an empirical judgment on Donald Trump’s presidency.
First, the political.
The notion that regular people “don’t care” about what Donald Trump says and does and that nobody, anywhere, changes their opinion on him and that “the needle never moves; no one is ever budged” is, to use a technical data analytics term, horse hockey.
It is rooted in a false 2016 mythology in which Americans decided that LOL Nothing Matters, and overwhelmingly voted in the Great King Donald because they didn’t believe the smears of the Evil Fake News Media.
In reality, Trump lost the popular vote—despite getting a last-minute assist from Jim Comey—and then won the presidency in an Electoral College fluke.
Polling for this cycle shows that Americans are highly engaged and very much do care about their president’s words and actions (wild!) and this engagement is driving changes in political behavior for some of them.
Between 6 percent and 10 percent of Trump 2016 voters have switched to Biden while between 4 percent and 5 percent of Clinton voters have switched in the other direction. So if we just use that combined percentage—somewhere between 10 percent and 15 percent—we’re talking about some 6 million to 9 million voters who are telling pollsters, right now, that they have changed their mind.
That’s a lot of people. Especially when the last election was decided by about 70,000 votes.
And if you don’t believe “the polls”—you can hear from about 700 of them yourself, right here.
There’s more. While this race has been historically stable, we’ve also seen Trump lose altitude among voters over the past six months, mostly due to his response to the George Floyd protests and the pandemic.
Clearly, some people care. It’s just math.
Which brings us back to Bob Woodward.
Given that we have seen in the data that Trump’s COVID response has cost him supporters, it’s not exactly a stretch to conclude that wall-to-wall news coverage about a recording that reveals that he knew the virus was way worse than he said publicly might further impact some people’s perception of him!
This truth is so obvious it’s hard to believe anyone actually doubts it.
Anyone who does doubt it—and I mean really, sincerely, doubts it and isn’t just play acting on Twitter because it’s part of their brand—has been broken by politics and the internet.
But maybe we’ve all been broken by politics and the internet, because we shouldn’t even be talking about the political impacts of this.
We should be talking about the insane fact that there is a recording of the president saying how dangerous this pandemic was at the same time he was lying to the American public and telling them not to worry about it because it was going to disappear “like a miracle.”
In any normal time, a revelation like this would trigger the president’s resignation, not because of the politics, but because of the moral outrage.
Woodward’s interviews with President Trump make as plain as day that our president is a congenital liar who is overmatched by the job, incapable of understanding reality, and utterly indifferent to the suffering his failures have caused.
Woodward’s interviews with Trump’s advisors reveal that the president’s own top men found him to be “dangerous,” “unfit,” compromised by Putin, “rudderless,” and possessing an attention span that is a “minus number.”
Given all that, it’s no wonder the president’s fans have resorted to nihilism and self-delusion.
What else do they have?
It should go without saying but apparently it cannot:
If ever there was a time when something mattered in our politics, it would be at a moment when the leader of the free world is a dangerous and unfit liar who is adrift amidst a historic crisis. This is a time for caring. A time when things matter. A time when you can measure the real world impact in body bags.
Times like these don’t call for ironic distance or smug dismissiveness.
People are experiencing pain in earnest, they are uncertain about the future in earnest, they are worried about the madman at the helm in earnest.
And in November those who recognize how much people care are likely to triumph.


thebulwark--2020-09-10--Worker-Focused Pandemic Relief Was a Success

Three months ago , I made the point that we needed a sense of proportion relating to worker-focused relief programs like Pandemic Unemployment Assistance ( PUA ) .
Since the amount of money spent on PUA ( around $ 250 billion ) was small compared to appropriations for the Paycheck Protection Program and the various monetary stimulus actions taken by the Federal Reserve ( around $ 4 trillion ) , it made little sense to worry excessively about the cost of PUA or concerns about fraud and potential disincentives to work .
Recent data have done little to make me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Times reported in August on some of the scams surrounding PPP funding .
Instances of abuse included people buying Lamborghinis ( one in Miami and one in Houston ) , diamond-encrusted Rolexes , and the diversion of money to pay back child-support payments .
Thus far , the documented scams have cost taxpayers around $ 60 million—which is surely only a piddling amount compared to we ’ ll learn later about how the business and finance sectors have profited from the Fed printing presses .
Per that New York Times report , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , has received more than forty thousand calls about coronavirus-era scams compared to fewer than one thousand last year .
Before this is over , we ’ ll be up to our necks in Lamborghinis paid for by money intended for wage subsidies and prevention of a financial collapse .
This will not fare well in comparison to the kinds of stories—about families evicted from their own homes and food banks running out of supplies—that may result from the abrupt ending of PUA .
Despite documented risks and abuses , there have not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( which expired in August ) or concerns about the moral hazard created by Fed backstopping .
No chairman has even been appointed to lead the congressional commission overseeing the CARES Act spending which includes the Federal Reserve stimulus and liquidity programs .
What accounts for this uneven state of affairs ?
There ’ s a broad understanding when programs are deployed in an emergency that waste , fraud , and abuse are unavoidable , and that these losses are part of the price tag for moving quickly to prevent stave off an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ means that bad actors will find ways of siphoning money they do not deserve and should not have .
The alternative is even deeper economic damage caused by delay or overly restrictive rules .
The same tolerance needs to be extended to PUA .
Undoubtedly there are many instances of abuse and even coordinated fraudulent schemes to tap these benefits illegally .
Federal and state governments should be aggressively investigating and prosecuting these cases .
But to focus on PUA when the much larger potential for abuse is elsewhere is very much straining @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It ’ s almost as if we ’ re suffering a hangover from the welfare-reform wars of the 1990s that views any abuse of programs serving low-income and working Americans with a gimlet eye while casting a tolerant and beneficent gaze upon programs accessed by business owners and financiers .
That ’ s a fundamental unfairness that will linger in the public mind long after the crisis is over in much the same way the failure to prosecute bad actors on Wall Street following the 2008 crisis lingers today .
Let ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was something of a slapdash , patched-together program but it worked .
It achieved its primary goals of keeping people at home and slowing the spread of the disease while preventing a collapse in consumer demand .
This demand-side stimulus , in combination with the business supports , arguably halted the slide and prevented a much worse collapse .
In short , as emergency measures , PUA , PPP , and the Fed actions all look like a success both on humanitarian grounds and as support to the economy , a remarkable achievement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of what is tried usually ends in disappointment at best and abject failure at worst .
And all three parts of the federal intervention were critical to that success .
As I noted earlier this year , there will be a time for settling accounts and prosecuting those who have abused public programs meant to reduce the impact of COVID-19 , and we should do so vigorously .
Indeed , progress is already being made on this front .
A recent joint investigation by the U.S. attorney ’ s office in the Western @ @ @ @ @ @ @ general have announced charges related to illegal receipt of PUA benefits .
This is unlikely to be the last case of its kind .
But , the wholesale elimination of the program for struggling workers and families while the Federal Reserve opens the spigot further for business and finance ( dollar-printing , coincidentally , that has supported a massive run-up in the equities market and sent house prices booming ) begins to look like a “ preferential option for the rich ” and punitive action against the average Joe and Jane .
Combining @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bitterness about a free-market system that looks less free than advertised and rigged in favor of the wealthy .
If the economy fails to rebound quickly later this year , an economic structure that is already assailed from the left and the right will face even more intense scrutiny .

Three months ago, I made the point that we needed a sense of proportion relating to worker-focused relief programs like Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA). Since the amount of money spent on PUA (around $250 billion) was small compared to appropriations for the Paycheck Protection Program and the various monetary stimulus actions taken by the Federal Reserve (around $4 trillion), it made little sense to worry excessively about the cost of PUA or concerns about fraud and potential disincentives to work. Recent data have done little to make me reconsider my views.
The New York Times reported in August on some of the scams surrounding PPP funding. Instances of abuse included people buying Lamborghinis (one in Miami and one in Houston), diamond-encrusted Rolexes, and the diversion of money to pay back child-support payments. Thus far, the documented scams have cost taxpayers around $60 million—which is surely only a piddling amount compared to we’ll learn later about how the business and finance sectors have profited from the Fed printing presses. Per that New York Times report, the Small Business Administration, which oversees PPP, has received more than forty thousand calls about coronavirus-era scams compared to fewer than one thousand last year. Before this is over, we’ll be up to our necks in Lamborghinis paid for by money intended for wage subsidies and prevention of a financial collapse. This will not fare well in comparison to the kinds of stories—about families evicted from their own homes and food banks running out of supplies—that may result from the abrupt ending of PUA.
Despite documented risks and abuses, there have not been calls for widespread audits of PPP (which expired in August) or concerns about the moral hazard created by Fed backstopping. No chairman has even been appointed to lead the congressional commission overseeing the CARES Act spending which includes the Federal Reserve stimulus and liquidity programs. What accounts for this uneven state of affairs?
There’s a broad understanding when programs are deployed in an emergency that waste, fraud, and abuse are unavoidable, and that these losses are part of the price tag for moving quickly to prevent stave off an economic collapse. A broken human nature means that bad actors will find ways of siphoning money they do not deserve and should not have. The alternative is even deeper economic damage caused by delay or overly restrictive rules.
The same tolerance needs to be extended to PUA. Undoubtedly there are many instances of abuse and even coordinated fraudulent schemes to tap these benefits illegally. Federal and state governments should be aggressively investigating and prosecuting these cases. But to focus on PUA when the much larger potential for abuse is elsewhere is very much straining out the gnat while swallowing the camel. It’s almost as if we’re suffering a hangover from the welfare-reform wars of the 1990s that views any abuse of programs serving low-income and working Americans with a gimlet eye while casting a tolerant and beneficent gaze upon programs accessed by business owners and financiers. That’s a fundamental unfairness that will linger in the public mind long after the crisis is over in much the same way the failure to prosecute bad actors on Wall Street following the 2008 crisis lingers today.
Let’s be clear about PUA: It was something of a slapdash, patched-together program but it worked. It achieved its primary goals of keeping people at home and slowing the spread of the disease while preventing a collapse in consumer demand. This demand-side stimulus, in combination with the business supports, arguably halted the slide and prevented a much worse collapse. In short, as emergency measures, PUA, PPP, and the Fed actions all look like a success both on humanitarian grounds and as support to the economy, a remarkable achievement in a federal government where so much of what is tried usually ends in disappointment at best and abject failure at worst. And all three parts of the federal intervention were critical to that success.
As I noted earlier this year, there will be a time for settling accounts and prosecuting those who have abused public programs meant to reduce the impact of COVID-19, and we should do so vigorously. Indeed, progress is already being made on this front. A recent joint investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in the Western District of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania attorney general have announced charges related to illegal receipt of PUA benefits. This is unlikely to be the last case of its kind.
But, the wholesale elimination of the program for struggling workers and families while the Federal Reserve opens the spigot further for business and finance (dollar-printing, coincidentally, that has supported a massive run-up in the equities market and sent house prices booming) begins to look like a “preferential option for the rich” and punitive action against the average Joe and Jane. Combining these moves means we risk sowing increased bitterness about a free-market system that looks less free than advertised and rigged in favor of the wealthy. If the economy fails to rebound quickly later this year, an economic structure that is already assailed from the left and the right will face even more intense scrutiny.


thebulwark--2020-09-10--Trump’s Desperate DOJ Dodge on Defamation

On Tuesday , in a bizarre and troubling move , the Department of Justice intervened to serve as Donald Trump ’ s personal law firm in a lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll against Trump in New York state court .
Carroll , you ’ ll recall , is the longtime Elle columnist who claimed last summer that Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room 25 years ago .
Trump denied the allegation and publicly stated that Carroll made it up—that she was “ totally lying.
” Carroll responded by suing Trump in November 2019 for defamation .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ process known as removal , yanked the case from New York state court and put it in federal court .
DOJ ’ s maneuver is the latest in a string of actions by Attorney General Bill Barr that look more like the work of a personal defense attorney than that of a public servant who pledged to represent the interests of the United States and the American people .
Barr ’ s decision—apparently taken at the request of the White House—puts the institution of DOJ in a painfully tough spot .
Under the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ case , DOJ is likely going to have to justify its decision to use taxpayer dollars on Trump ’ s personal behalf in connection with a sex-mired set of facts .
It will be a hard sell in any court .
Defamation is a state-law cause of action for damaging the good reputation of someone .
A defense to defamation is truth .
So if Carroll ’ s case goes forward , Trump might find himself having to prove that she did in fact manufacture the story because he did not , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not he is telling the truth is beside the point .
The problem for Trump is the discovery process—the depositions and document-gathering in which Trump will have to get into the ugly details of his past , which , according to dozens of women , involves a fair amount of sexual misconduct .
Carroll brought her suit against Trump in his “ individual capacity.
” This phrase is critical .
Governments generally can not be sued unless they waive what ’ s called sovereign immunity .
The notion of sovereign immunity dates back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ premise that the king could do no wrong .
Under U.S. law , Congress waived sovereign immunity for certain civil lawsuits against the federal government in a statute called the Federal Tort Claims Act .
But in a later statute called the Westfall Act , Congress protected federal employees from being sued for certain claims if they were acting on the job .
As a result , defamation suits can not be brought against the federal government or federal officials if they made the allegedly defamatory statement as part of their work for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also lets DOJ step into the shoes of an individual federal defendant—here , Donald Trump—and substitute the United States .
Once that happens , the defendant is no longer Trump-the-individual .
The defendant becomes the United States , which can not be sued for defamation under federal law .
DOJ ’ s intervention in Carroll ’ s suit is thus an attempt to get her case thrown out entirely by claiming that Trump is totally immune from the lawsuit—even though a private person who did the very same thing that Trump is accused @ @ @ @ @ @ @ DOJ has a problem .
In order to step into Trump ’ s shoes , it had to file a piece of paper certifying that , when Trump called Carroll a liar , he was “ acting within the scope of his office or employment at the time of the incident out of which the claim arose.
” Although most federal employees would prefer to have the government pick up the tab for lawsuits filed against them , DOJ only jumps into suits at its discretion .
It is optional .
Under the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ involves a two-step test .
First , the conduct must have occurred in the scope of the employee ’ s work .
Second—and this is critical— “ the Attorney General or his designee [ must ] determine [ ] that providing representation would otherwise be in the interest of the United States.
” Meanwhile , the U.S. Supreme Court has held that DOJ ’ s certification can be challenged before a judge .
Presumably , Carroll ’ s lawyers will ask for discovery into why DOJ determined that Trump was acting as president @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no factual basis for her rape allegations .
Under New York law , one of the elements for determining whether an employee is acting in his official capacity is whether Trump ’ s act of publicly denying the rape and claiming he never met Carroll was in furtherance of the interests of his employer , the United States , and whether that act was done as part of his duties as president .
In sum , the federal judge assigned to this case will likely hear argument from the DOJ that defending Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rape while he was a private citizen somehow serves the interests of the United States of America .
This legal immunity ploy by Trump is all too familiar .
The Supreme Court in Trump v. Vance just rejected a similar argument by Trump ’ s lawyers that his family , his banks , and his accountants are totally immune from a grand jury subpoena because of his position as president .
The Supreme Court was hung up on the notion that nobody is utterly above the law—even Trump .
Too bad the Department @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .

On Tuesday, in a bizarre and troubling move, the Department of Justice intervened to serve as Donald Trump’s personal law firm in a lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll against Trump in New York state court.
Carroll, you’ll recall, is the longtime Elle columnist who claimed last summer that Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room 25 years ago. Trump denied the allegation and publicly stated that Carroll made it up—that she was “totally lying.” Carroll responded by suing Trump in November 2019 for defamation. Now the DOJ has, via a process known as removal, yanked the case from New York state court and put it in federal court.
DOJ’s maneuver is the latest in a string of actions by Attorney General Bill Barr that look more like the work of a personal defense attorney than that of a public servant who pledged to represent the interests of the United States and the American people.
Barr’s decision—apparently taken at the request of the White House—puts the institution of DOJ in a painfully tough spot. Under the law governing the next steps in the case, DOJ is likely going to have to justify its decision to use taxpayer dollars on Trump’s personal behalf in connection with a sex-mired set of facts. It will be a hard sell in any court.
Defamation is a state-law cause of action for damaging the good reputation of someone. A defense to defamation is truth. So if Carroll’s case goes forward, Trump might find himself having to prove that she did in fact manufacture the story because he did not, in fact, rape her. Whether or not he is telling the truth is beside the point. The problem for Trump is the discovery process—the depositions and document-gathering in which Trump will have to get into the ugly details of his past, which, according to dozens of women, involves a fair amount of sexual misconduct.
Carroll brought her suit against Trump in his “individual capacity.” This phrase is critical. Governments generally cannot be sued unless they waive what’s called sovereign immunity. The notion of sovereign immunity dates back to the British monarchy and the fundamental premise that the king could do no wrong. Under U.S. law, Congress waived sovereign immunity for certain civil lawsuits against the federal government in a statute called the Federal Tort Claims Act. But in a later statute called the Westfall Act, Congress protected federal employees from being sued for certain claims if they were acting on the job. As a result, defamation suits cannot be brought against the federal government or federal officials if they made the allegedly defamatory statement as part of their work for the federal government.
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 Westfall Act also lets DOJ step into the shoes of an individual federal defendant—here, Donald Trump—and substitute the United States. Once that happens, the defendant is no longer Trump-the-individual. The defendant becomes the United States, which cannot be sued for defamation under federal law. DOJ’s intervention in Carroll’s suit is thus an attempt to get her case thrown out entirely by claiming that Trump is totally immune from the lawsuit—even though a private person who did the very same thing that Trump is accused of would not be immune.
But DOJ has a problem. In order to step into Trump’s shoes, it had to file a piece of paper certifying that, when Trump called Carroll a liar, he was “acting within the scope of his office or employment at the time of the incident out of which the claim arose.” Although most federal employees would prefer to have the government pick up the tab for lawsuits filed against them, DOJ only jumps into suits at its discretion. It is optional.
Under the governing regulations, deciding whether to intervene involves a two-step test. First, the conduct must have occurred in the scope of the employee’s work. Second—and this is critical—“the Attorney General or his designee [must] determine[] that providing representation would otherwise be in the interest of the United States.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that DOJ’s certification can be challenged before a judge. Presumably, Carroll’s lawyers will ask for discovery into why DOJ determined that Trump was acting as president when he claimed repeatedly that there is no factual basis for her rape allegations. Under New York law, one of the elements for determining whether an employee is acting in his official capacity is whether Trump’s act of publicly denying the rape and claiming he never met Carroll was in furtherance of the interests of his employer, the United States, and whether that act was done as part of his duties as president.
In sum, the federal judge assigned to this case will likely hear argument from the DOJ that defending Trump in a defamation suit involving an alleged rape while he was a private citizen somehow serves the interests of the United States of America.
This legal immunity ploy by Trump is all too familiar. The Supreme Court in Trump v. Vance just rejected a similar argument by Trump’s lawyers that his family, his banks, and his accountants are totally immune from a grand jury subpoena because of his position as president. The Supreme Court was hung up on the notion that nobody is utterly above the law—even Trump.
Too bad the Department of Justice no longer appears to care.