thebulwark--2020-04-16--Trump and Xi Are Both to Blame

Trump and Xi Are Both to Blame

Presenting only one side of an argument “ doesn ’ t mean that your premises are false or irrelevant , ” the philosopher Peter Suber wrote , “ only that they are incomplete.
” By that standard President Trump ’ s defenders—and some of his critics , too—have made only partial attempts to identify culprits for the extent of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States .
Trump ’ s defenders point their fingers at China ’ s dictator , Xi Jinping , whose regime censored information about the virus , including about its transmissibility , thereby immensely worsening the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s critics single him out for downplaying the pathogen ’ s threat to Americans , even as the consensus of public health experts and the horror stories out of Wuhan and then Lombardy made it untenable to do so .
Both groups are right .
Trump ’ s negligence , willful ignorance , and devotion to his public image—recall that he said “ I don ’ t take responsibility at all ” for the U.S. testing shortage—undoubtedly has cost American lives .
So , too , has Xi ’ s drawing of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or “ disappearing ” prominent figures who don ’ t toe it .
The cases against both world leaders are damning—and ultimately not in tension with one another .
Rather , they are complementary parts of a lesson : that blame for the U.S. contagion is owed not necessarily to a man but a method .
That method is “ authoritarianism , ” a term that may strike American ears as unobjectionable for Xi but exaggerated for Trump , since he isn ’ t peremptorily locking up his political enemies or otherwise curtailing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ world has witnessed , both pure autocracy and the relatively diluted rule of a strongman—Trump , who called alarm about the coronavirus a “ hoax , ” who continues to bully governors and reporters , and who claimed on Monday that state and local governments “ can ’ t do anything without the approval of the president ” —result in calamity .
First consider the Chinese government ’ s efforts to hide the truth , which were not confined to the early days of the epidemic .
On March 29 , 60 Minutes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ China now tries to rewrite history and claim it was transparent all along , a final nail in the coffin of their lie .
Just two weeks ago , the head of emergency at Wuhan Central Hospital , Dr. Ai Fen , went public , saying authorities had stopped her and her colleagues from warning the world .
She has now disappeared .
Whereabouts : unknown.
” Even much more prominent Chinese people have been silenced , like Ren Zhiqiang , a famous and outspoken property magnate who was “ disappeared ” for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that he is alive , under detention , and being investigated .
But such overt suppression is not the only effective tactic for concealing reality from the public .
There is also the fog of misinformation , with which President Trump beclouded the nation in January , February , and even March .
“ We have it very well under control , ” Trump said during a speech in Michigan on January 30 .
“ We have very little problem in this country at this moment , five [ confirmed cases ] .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” More than three weeks later , on February 23 , he said that “ we had 12 [ confirmed cases ] , at one point .
And now they ’ ve gotten very much better.
” Three days later , he said that “ we ’ re going very substantially down , not up.
” In fact , America was obviously going very substantially up and has continued to do so in the weeks since—during which time he compared the disease that the coronavirus causes to the flu , lied about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ really get [ s ] ” the science of infectious diseases , and eventually said on March 17 that “ I ’ ve felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.
” The record quite clearly shows that is not true : The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a pandemic on March 11 , just two days after Trump rosily compared the low number of deaths from COVID-19 to the annual average from the seasonal flu .
Such revisionist history is a hallmark of authoritarians , who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wrong when they ’ re wrong and are guaranteed to claim they ’ re correct when they ’ re not .
This inclination jettisons reason and replaces it with deadly fabrication .
Chinese propaganda claiming that its regime is guiltless and has controlled the virus effectively from the get-go will continue to cause preventable losses of life in China and abroad .
A University of Southampton study estimated that China could have reduced cases by two-thirds if it had introduced interventions just a week before it did .
And there is every reason @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spinning the world with its implausibly low tallies of infections and deaths .
Trump , too , has prioritized his public image over public safety .
He said he did not want to allow infected cruise ship passengers to disembark on American shores for the reason that “ I like the numbers [ of cases ] being where they are .
I don ’ t need to have the numbers double because of one ship.
” He has politicized the federal government ’ s assistance to states , getting into public beefs with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ slowly and unevenly distributing desperately needed medical equipment .
His recent response was to demand that these governors instead be more “ appreciative ” of the administration ’ s benevolence .
And he said that he advised the head of his coronavirus task force , Vice President Mike Pence , not to engage with those who don ’ t pay tribute .
“ If they don ’ t treat you right , ” Trump said of his bedside manner , “ I don ’ t call.
” There is no universe in which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the virus .
Today we are seeing what happens when a despotic crime boss rules over the world ’ s most populous country at the same time a shallow , self-obsessed president leads the country with the world ’ s biggest economy .
We can only imagine how China and the United States could have stunted the coronavirus outbreak if the former were a free society with a transparent government and if the latter had a president who was competent and honest and not a narcissist .
The world would have known much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and the United States would have reacted proactively , aggressively , and cohesively .
The infection would have been opposed by the formidable combination of human cooperation and scientific ingenuity .
The manufacturing might of the two countries could have minimized the worldwide shortage of testing kits and protective equipment for health care providers .
In short , the two countries could have gotten in front of the problem instead of in their own way—the result of leadership whose success is measured by how well the needs of the people are met @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the men in charge are stroked .

Presenting only one side of an argument “doesn’t mean that your premises are false or irrelevant,” the philosopher Peter Suber wrote, “only that they are incomplete.” By that standard President Trump’s defenders—and some of his critics, too—have made only partial attempts to identify culprits for the extent of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States. Trump’s defenders point their fingers at China’s dictator, Xi Jinping, whose regime censored information about the virus, including about its transmissibility, thereby immensely worsening the pandemic. Meanwhile, some of Trump’s critics single him out for downplaying the pathogen’s threat to Americans, even as the consensus of public health experts and the horror stories out of Wuhan and then Lombardy made it untenable to do so.
Both groups are right. Trump’s negligence, willful ignorance, and devotion to his public image—recall that he said “I don’t take responsibility at all” for the U.S. testing shortage—undoubtedly has cost American lives. So, too, has Xi’s drawing of the Chinese Communist Party line and censoring or “disappearing” prominent figures who don’t toe it.
The cases against both world leaders are damning—and ultimately not in tension with one another. Rather, they are complementary parts of a lesson: that blame for the U.S. contagion is owed not necessarily to a man but a method. That method is “authoritarianism,” a term that may strike American ears as unobjectionable for Xi but exaggerated for Trump, since he isn’t peremptorily locking up his political enemies or otherwise curtailing Americans’ freedoms. But as the world has witnessed, both pure autocracy and the relatively diluted rule of a strongman—Trump, who called alarm about the coronavirus a “hoax,” who continues to bully governors and reporters, and who claimed on Monday that state and local governments “can’t do anything without the approval of the president”—result in calamity.
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…
First consider the Chinese government’s efforts to hide the truth, which were not confined to the early days of the epidemic. On March 29, 60 Minutes Australia reported the following: “As China now tries to rewrite history and claim it was transparent all along, a final nail in the coffin of their lie. Just two weeks ago, the head of emergency at Wuhan Central Hospital, Dr. Ai Fen, went public, saying authorities had stopped her and her colleagues from warning the world. She has now disappeared. Whereabouts: unknown.” Even much more prominent Chinese people have been silenced, like Ren Zhiqiang, a famous and outspoken property magnate who was “disappeared” for a month, before the regime announced that he is alive, under detention, and being investigated.
But such overt suppression is not the only effective tactic for concealing reality from the public. There is also the fog of misinformation, with which President Trump beclouded the nation in January, February, and even March. “We have it very well under control,” Trump said during a speech in Michigan on January 30. “We have very little problem in this country at this moment, five [confirmed cases]. And those people are all recuperating successfully.” More than three weeks later, on February 23, he said that “we had 12 [confirmed cases], at one point. And now they’ve gotten very much better.” Three days later, he said that “we’re going very substantially down, not up.” In fact, America was obviously going very substantially up and has continued to do so in the weeks since—during which time he compared the disease that the coronavirus causes to the flu, lied about the availability of tests, said that he “really get[s]” the science of infectious diseases, and eventually said on March 17 that “I’ve felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” The record quite clearly shows that is not true: The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a pandemic on March 11, just two days after Trump rosily compared the low number of deaths from COVID-19 to the annual average from the seasonal flu.
Such revisionist history is a hallmark of authoritarians, who are incapable of admitting they’re wrong when they’re wrong and are guaranteed to claim they’re correct when they’re not. This inclination jettisons reason and replaces it with deadly fabrication. Chinese propaganda claiming that its regime is guiltless and has controlled the virus effectively from the get-go will continue to cause preventable losses of life in China and abroad. A University of Southampton study estimated that China could have reduced cases by two-thirds if it had introduced interventions just a week before it did. And there is every reason to believe that the Xi ring is spinning the world with its implausibly low tallies of infections and deaths.
Trump, too, has prioritized his public image over public safety. He said he did not want to allow infected cruise ship passengers to disembark on American shores for the reason that “I like the numbers [of cases] being where they are. I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship.” He has politicized the federal government’s assistance to states, getting into public beefs with Democratic governors who have accused Washington of slowly and unevenly distributing desperately needed medical equipment. His recent response was to demand that these governors instead be more “appreciative” of the administration’s benevolence. And he said that he advised the head of his coronavirus task force, Vice President Mike Pence, not to engage with those who don’t pay tribute. “If they don’t treat you right,” Trump said of his bedside manner, “I don’t call.” There is no universe in which this attitude helps the federal government contain the virus.
Today we are seeing what happens when a despotic crime boss rules over the world’s most populous country at the same time a shallow, self-obsessed president leads the country with the world’s biggest economy.
We can only imagine how China and the United States could have stunted the coronavirus outbreak if the former were a free society with a transparent government and if the latter had a president who was competent and honest and not a narcissist. The world would have known much sooner of the germ’s contagiousness, and the United States would have reacted proactively, aggressively, and cohesively. The infection would have been opposed by the formidable combination of human cooperation and scientific ingenuity. The manufacturing might of the two countries could have minimized the worldwide shortage of testing kits and protective equipment for health care providers. In short, the two countries could have gotten in front of the problem instead of in their own way—the result of leadership whose success is measured by how well the needs of the people are met, not by how soothingly the egos of the men in charge are stroked.


thebulwark--2020-04-16--Big Government, Small Government, Pandemic Government

In public discussion of the coronavirus pandemic crisis , a narrative is emerging about virtuous and wanting leadership types and styles among and within countries .
In simple form , the international aspect goes like this : Authoritarian regimes can enforce draconian limitations on their populations , and so have shown themselves able to deflect the infection curve downward with greater ease than democratic regimes .
See China ; see Italy : QED .
Conclusion : When it really counts , authoritarian government is superior to democratic government .
Meanwhile , an orthogonal argument now growing legs in the United @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but rather that in parlous times—increasingly thought to define most times in the post-COVID-19 era—big government is generically superior to small or “ neoliberal ” government .
Certainly , many governments , democratic and otherwise , have been expanding executive authority as the crisis unfolds , and warnings aplenty about the dangers involved have been dutifully issued .
But most people in all roiled countries seem to desire more government in the moment , whatever the longer-term consequences , because they ’ re afraid .
As Yelena Bonner once said , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are weak , because neither the ideological character nor the sheer size of government is ever tantamount to its strength .
Other factors , like the level of social trust in a society , the competence of its governance administration , the quality of leadership , and its deep basket of cultural traits shaped by history are all more important determinants of outcomes .
It should be obvious by now that authoritarian and democratic governments on the international scene can be both competent and not , precisely because they differ in their endowments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the difference between effective and ineffective response strategies .
South Korea and Taiwan are democracies that have done fine jobs ; Italy and the United States are democracies that have not .
Paternalistic and technocratic Singapore has done well , as has politically sui generis but not really democratic Hong Kong ; autocratic Iran and , it will likely soon be clearer , oligopolistic Russia , have not .
The case of China itself , the source of the COVID-19 pandemic as it was for SARS in 2003 , is not yet clear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ got a bad start , then mounted an effective comeback , but now faces a global rebound it may fail to master .
Time will tell .
At the same time , competent government on the domestic scene can be large or small , just as poor government can be large or small .
At the state level , just compare the governors of New York and Georgia and you ’ ll get the point .
Andrew Cuomo knows which end is up ; Brian Kemp claimed on April 1 that he didn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 24 hours ” that asymptomatic people could be infection vectors , something most sentient adults in the known civilized world knew two full months earlier .
And here ’ s what ’ s so scary about that : I believe him .
But it ’ s at the federal level in the United States where things are truly interesting , and generally misunderstood .
Some observers were shocked on March 19 when President Trump suggested that the federal government should not take the lead in dealing with the coronavirus crisis .
But Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the pandemic rests chiefly with state governments was not entirely wrong or even without theoretical and constitutional merit ; it was merely tone deaf and totally out of rhythm with recent realities .
As with , for example , the Trump administration ’ s earlier support for skills-based as opposed to humanitarian criteria for reforming legal immigration policy , it ’ s not the idea that ’ s the problem but the toxic moral and motivational envelope surrounding it .
Trump has a very occasional knack for advancing commendable ideas in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ discredits the idea before it can get an objective hearing .
Yes , arguably , state governments should take the lead in major public-health emergencies .
But Americans have come to expect the federal government to do so because that ’ s been characteristic of recent years .
Indeed , the number and swath of federal emergency powers to deal with domestic safety and security crises has grown sharply in recent decades , before but especially since 9/11 .
It was therefore indeed a shock to most governors when the president seemingly expected @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to deal with COVID-19 , especially since in recent decades many states had reacted to the expansion of the federal role in medical crisis preparedness by investing less at the state level .
Obviously , the president ’ s “ Who me ?
” reaction was a bald-faced attempt at self-exculpation for having earlier consistently underplayed the threat for nakedly political reasons .
He clearly saw the numbers of Americans infected not as a health issue but as a threat to his re-election campaign , so low numbers were good even if they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only was this cloyingly callous , but the fact that Trump didn ’ t bother to make a serious effort to hide his motives was insulting .
But this is how the man thinks , always , in politics now as in business before : Truth is entirely instrumental .
No wonder he gets along so well with KGB-lite adept Vladimir Putin .
What is so frustrating about the emerging “ debate ” has been the ensuing dynamic , which can be expressed in simple syllogistic form : Trump wants the federal government @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people who despise Trump react by saying , no , it should get bigger and do more ; and the result is that the actual issue is obscured by the yawning simplemindedness of its articulation .
We end up “ discussing ” the issue as though we were locked inside an old , annoying advertising campaign for a bad beer .
Our hollow binary political discourse makes it hard to discern that the initial mediocre performance of the federal government in the COVID-19 case arguably owes much to the fact that the federal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is too complicated and bureaucracy-bound to respond quickly and effectively to nearly anything unless skilled leadership knows how to operate the system as it has evolved .
And here we come to the rub : That ’ s exactly the kind of leadership we do not typically have .
We didn ’ t have it in the George W. Bush administration when Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005 ( a long and still incompletely told story ) , and we don ’ t have it now .
The many mistakes of recent weeks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is just what happens when an inexperienced populist sits atop the executive branch : No one close and loyal to him has the slightest idea how to operate the federal government in a crisis—or even knows what authorities are available to do so .
That ’ s how we get someone like Jared Kushner inventing off the cuff a class of federal citizens unconnected to any of the fifty states .
When incompetence gets this bizarre it becomes hard to explain away .
Not that folks don ’ t try , and sometimes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the executive branch has all the authorities it needs to respond effectively in the COVID-19 emergency , and it should have tried to use them instead of demanding instant subsidiarity from mostly unprepared state governors .
But the problem goes beyond the fact that no one in the White House understands those authorities .
The prior and underlying problem is in Donald Trump ’ s head : Unlike Ronald Reagan , who claimed that “ government is not the solution but the problem ” mostly for purposes of getting elected , Trump truly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aide Steve Bannon , he sincerely wants to bring about the “ deconstruction of the administrative state.
” That said , the point remains that Donald Trump ’ s White House is not responsible for all of the screw-ups of recent weeks , merely many of them .
The White House was not responsible , for example , for how the CDC botched the testing issue , which was and remains a big deal as the country struggles forward .
A legacy of neglect with medical infrastructure , as with infrastructure in general @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shadows fall on state and federal government , on executive and legislative branch actors , and on Democrats and Republicans , alike .
Another prior problem that has nothing to do with Donald Trump may be a relatively recent cultural disinclination to plan effectively , notwithstanding the larger or smaller size of government , which has taken a toll on basic governance competence .
We ’ re not going to get anywhere useful playing blame games , however .
We would be wiser to focus not on the size of government but on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The better argument is that competent medical infrastructure needs to reflect a new balance in the federal structure altogether .
Put simply , the United States should privilege selectively larger government but site it predominantly on smaller levels : states , cities , towns , and counties .
Three generic reasons why stand out .
First , the most important levels of social trust left in American society exist at local levels , not the national level .
That trust enables the “ little platoons ” of social life—civic associations , charitable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like—to be activated side-by-side and coordinated with government to respond to pressing public health emergencies .
This doesn ’ t work at national scale .
Local communities are sociological realities ; a “ national community ” is just a metaphor .
And just by the way , that simple truth , on a slightly elevated level , goes far to explain the completely unsurprising , if embarrassing , turning inward of national governments in Europe at the expense of EU solidarity and cooperation .
Second , even as we cling to an over-centralized @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of new technology both enables and imposes upon us a net-centric , distributed-systems world .
Maybe deploying subsidiarity in this public-health crisis can jumpstart a more general movement in the right direction , away from over-centralization .
Third , while local government has its generic weak spots , including in many parts of the country a lingering and still malignant “ Know Nothing ” racism , it is far more resistant to the toxic one-stop-shopping plutocratic lobbying techniques that are corrupting our politics and contributing to widespread alienation and cynicism .
The federal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ play an important role , a role that clearly rules out a headlong “ deconstruction of the administrative state.
” The current state-government bidding wars over protective equipment are crazy and self-destructive , and there is longstanding precedent for the federal government to intervene in such situations .
But it need not and should not dominate and domineer every role .
We ’ re seeing unmistakable evidence for the wisdom of a more decentralized approach play out before our eyes in California , Washington state , Maryland , Ohio , and even New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ Senators have never been so useless , or governors so valuable .
What a status shift.
” Yes ; but the shift is liable to be temporary in the absence of clear understanding , willpower , and much sustained work .
So who will do that work ?
The Democratic party has shown no interest in subsidiarity , and its leadership is no less in thrall to plutocratic temptations than that of any other major party .
The Republican party , meanwhile , no longer exists as a rational or coherent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of sycophants and scruple-free opportunists .
Unless it or something more or less like what it used to be can be summoned to life , and soon , the question answers itself .
That ’ s not good , because an argument for planned and hence rational—as opposed to default and hence scattershot—subsidiarity would constitute a distinct agenda for reform going forward .
If instead we get locked into a moronic bigger-smaller shouting match that has no potential to move us toward a genuine solution , it means that when the next pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even deadlier than COVID-19 , we will have become our own worst enemy .
If we can not expect our major political parties to lead the way , one option would be to empanel—after November 3 , obviously—a blue-ribbon national commission to examine these issues and recommend reforms .
Beyond an acquired cultural allergy to planning , are we truly plagued by excessive bureaucracy and overlawyering ?
By crippling congressional oversight and budgeting rigidities ?
By excessive affluence and risk-aversion , so that the qualities of stoicism and “ grit ” have drained @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
Just poor leaders ?
It may be that part of the inadequacy of the U.S. response at the federal level has arisen from a failure to shield emergency medical responses from politics .
Consider what happens with certain other kinds of crises .
Some aspects of emergency Department of Defense national security contingency responses—concerning , for instance , the continuity and integrity of the government—are shielded from politics by automatically triggering prearranged protocols .
The same goes for the Department of Homeland Security and some “ incidents of national significance , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The U.S. system also insulates decisions of the Federal Reserve from politics , at least to some extent .
It defies logic that it can not , or at any rate does not , better insulate emergency public health responses from politics .
Consider that while Donald Trump is an extreme case , any president facing a pandemic will be confronted with tradeoffs between saving lives and keeping the economy from tanking .
Perhaps some forms of urgent decision should be removed from the purview of presidents and their staffs—in this case @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kushner—so that they can concentrate on a strategic response .
What we can reasonably conclude already is that whatever interagency set-up we have for dealing with pandemic crises doesn ’ t work well , and that some of the deficiencies are largely independent of whoever happens to be president .
A major objective of a commission should be to learn from other national systems that performed better than ours .
The track record of Singapore—where I am a visiting fellow this year—may bear some basic lessons , at least some of which may @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
First , put policy competence ahead of partisan advantage or personal self-regard .
Second , invest in capacity for emergencies instead of pretending they ’ ll never happen ; it saves lots of money in the long run .
Third , respect the people by being candid and honest with them .
And fourth , try not to elect an inexperienced , narcissistic , encyclopedically ignorant buffoon as your leader .
That , especially , seems to make a significant difference .

In public discussion of the coronavirus pandemic crisis, a narrative is emerging about virtuous and wanting leadership types and styles among and within countries. In simple form, the international aspect goes like this: Authoritarian regimes can enforce draconian limitations on their populations, and so have shown themselves able to deflect the infection curve downward with greater ease than democratic regimes. See China; see Italy: QED. Conclusion: When it really counts, authoritarian government is superior to democratic government.
Meanwhile, an orthogonal argument now growing legs in the United States is not that authoritarianism bests democracy, but rather that in parlous times—increasingly thought to define most times in the post-COVID-19 era—big government is generically superior to small or “neoliberal” government. Certainly, many governments, democratic and otherwise, have been expanding executive authority as the crisis unfolds, and warnings aplenty about the dangers involved have been dutifully issued. But most people in all roiled countries seem to desire more government in the moment, whatever the longer-term consequences, because they’re afraid. As Yelena Bonner once said, “Fear gives bad advice.”
Both arguments are weak, because neither the ideological character nor the sheer size of government is ever tantamount to its strength. Other factors, like the level of social trust in a society, the competence of its governance administration, the quality of leadership, and its deep basket of cultural traits shaped by history are all more important determinants of outcomes.
It should be obvious by now that authoritarian and democratic governments on the international scene can be both competent and not, precisely because they differ in their endowments of the aforementioned factors that actually make the difference between effective and ineffective response strategies. South Korea and Taiwan are democracies that have done fine jobs; Italy and the United States are democracies that have not. Paternalistic and technocratic Singapore has done well, as has politically sui generis but not really democratic Hong Kong; autocratic Iran and, it will likely soon be clearer, oligopolistic Russia, have not. The case of China itself, the source of the COVID-19 pandemic as it was for SARS in 2003, is not yet clear one way or the other: It got a bad start, then mounted an effective comeback, but now faces a global rebound it may fail to master. Time will tell.
At the same time, competent government on the domestic scene can be large or small, just as poor government can be large or small. At the state level, just compare the governors of New York and Georgia and you’ll get the point. Andrew Cuomo knows which end is up; Brian Kemp claimed on April 1 that he didn’t realize “until the last 24 hours” that asymptomatic people could be infection vectors, something most sentient adults in the known civilized world knew two full months earlier. And here’s what’s so scary about that: I believe him.
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…
But it’s at the federal level in the United States where things are truly interesting, and generally misunderstood.
Some observers were shocked on March 19 when President Trump suggested that the federal government should not take the lead in dealing with the coronavirus crisis. But Trump’s insistence that responsibility for responding to the pandemic rests chiefly with state governments was not entirely wrong or even without theoretical and constitutional merit; it was merely tone deaf and totally out of rhythm with recent realities. As with, for example, the Trump administration’s earlier support for skills-based as opposed to humanitarian criteria for reforming legal immigration policy, it’s not the idea that’s the problem but the toxic moral and motivational envelope surrounding it. Trump has a very occasional knack for advancing commendable ideas in the worst possible way, a way that discredits the idea before it can get an objective hearing.
Yes, arguably, state governments should take the lead in major public-health emergencies. But Americans have come to expect the federal government to do so because that’s been characteristic of recent years. Indeed, the number and swath of federal emergency powers to deal with domestic safety and security crises has grown sharply in recent decades, before but especially since 9/11. It was therefore indeed a shock to most governors when the president seemingly expected the country to turn on a dime to deal with COVID-19, especially since in recent decades many states had reacted to the expansion of the federal role in medical crisis preparedness by investing less at the state level.
Obviously, the president’s “Who me?” reaction was a bald-faced attempt at self-exculpation for having earlier consistently underplayed the threat for nakedly political reasons. He clearly saw the numbers of Americans infected not as a health issue but as a threat to his re-election campaign, so low numbers were good even if they were known to be false. Not only was this cloyingly callous, but the fact that Trump didn’t bother to make a serious effort to hide his motives was insulting. But this is how the man thinks, always, in politics now as in business before: Truth is entirely instrumental. No wonder he gets along so well with KGB-lite adept Vladimir Putin.
What is so frustrating about the emerging “debate” has been the ensuing dynamic, which can be expressed in simple syllogistic form: Trump wants the federal government to get smaller and do less; people who despise Trump react by saying, no, it should get bigger and do more; and the result is that the actual issue is obscured by the yawning simplemindedness of its articulation. We end up “discussing” the issue as though we were locked inside an old, annoying advertising campaign for a bad beer.
Our hollow binary political discourse makes it hard to discern that the initial mediocre performance of the federal government in the COVID-19 case arguably owes much to the fact that the federal role is already too large. It is too complicated and bureaucracy-bound to respond quickly and effectively to nearly anything unless skilled leadership knows how to operate the system as it has evolved. And here we come to the rub: That’s exactly the kind of leadership we do not typically have. We didn’t have it in the George W. Bush administration when Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005 (a long and still incompletely told story), and we don’t have it now.
The many mistakes of recent weeks should not have surprised anyone. This is just what happens when an inexperienced populist sits atop the executive branch: No one close and loyal to him has the slightest idea how to operate the federal government in a crisis—or even knows what authorities are available to do so. That’s how we get someone like Jared Kushner inventing off the cuff a class of federal citizens unconnected to any of the fifty states. When incompetence gets this bizarre it becomes hard to explain away. Not that folks don’t try, and sometimes even succeed.
The fact is that the executive branch has all the authorities it needs to respond effectively in the COVID-19 emergency, and it should have tried to use them instead of demanding instant subsidiarity from mostly unprepared state governors. But the problem goes beyond the fact that no one in the White House understands those authorities. The prior and underlying problem is in Donald Trump’s head: Unlike Ronald Reagan, who claimed that “government is not the solution but the problem” mostly for purposes of getting elected, Trump truly believes it. Like his former close aide Steve Bannon, he sincerely wants to bring about the “deconstruction of the administrative state.”
That said, the point remains that Donald Trump’s White House is not responsible for all of the screw-ups of recent weeks, merely many of them. The White House was not responsible, for example, for how the CDC botched the testing issue, which was and remains a big deal as the country struggles forward. A legacy of neglect with medical infrastructure, as with infrastructure in general, goes back many years and its shadows fall on state and federal government, on executive and legislative branch actors, and on Democrats and Republicans, alike.
Another prior problem that has nothing to do with Donald Trump may be a relatively recent cultural disinclination to plan effectively, notwithstanding the larger or smaller size of government, which has taken a toll on basic governance competence.
We’re not going to get anywhere useful playing blame games, however. We would be wiser to focus not on the size of government but on how its proper location affects its functionality. The better argument is that competent medical infrastructure needs to reflect a new balance in the federal structure altogether. Put simply, the United States should privilege selectively larger government but site it predominantly on smaller levels: states, cities, towns, and counties. Three generic reasons why stand out.
First, the most important levels of social trust left in American society exist at local levels, not the national level. That trust enables the “little platoons” of social life—civic associations, charitable organizations, church groups, and the like—to be activated side-by-side and coordinated with government to respond to pressing public health emergencies. This doesn’t work at national scale. Local communities are sociological realities; a “national community” is just a metaphor. And just by the way, that simple truth, on a slightly elevated level, goes far to explain the completely unsurprising, if embarrassing, turning inward of national governments in Europe at the expense of EU solidarity and cooperation.
Second, even as we cling to an over-centralized industrial age atavism, the strong trend of new technology both enables and imposes upon us a net-centric, distributed-systems world. Maybe deploying subsidiarity in this public-health crisis can jumpstart a more general movement in the right direction, away from over-centralization.
Third, while local government has its generic weak spots, including in many parts of the country a lingering and still malignant “Know Nothing” racism, it is far more resistant to the toxic one-stop-shopping plutocratic lobbying techniques that are corrupting our politics and contributing to widespread alienation and cynicism.
The federal government will of course still need to play an important role, a role that clearly rules out a headlong “deconstruction of the administrative state.” The current state-government bidding wars over protective equipment are crazy and self-destructive, and there is longstanding precedent for the federal government to intervene in such situations.
But it need not and should not dominate and domineer every role. We’re seeing unmistakable evidence for the wisdom of a more decentralized approach play out before our eyes in California, Washington state, Maryland, Ohio, and even New York. As Peggy Noonan put it, “Senators have never been so useless, or governors so valuable. What a status shift.”
Yes; but the shift is liable to be temporary in the absence of clear understanding, willpower, and much sustained work. So who will do that work? The Democratic party has shown no interest in subsidiarity, and its leadership is no less in thrall to plutocratic temptations than that of any other major party. The Republican party, meanwhile, no longer exists as a rational or coherent political actor, having become a cult of sycophants and scruple-free opportunists. Unless it or something more or less like what it used to be can be summoned to life, and soon, the question answers itself.
That’s not good, because an argument for planned and hence rational—as opposed to default and hence scattershot—subsidiarity would constitute a distinct agenda for reform going forward. If instead we get locked into a moronic bigger-smaller shouting match that has no potential to move us toward a genuine solution, it means that when the next pandemic crisis strikes, one that could be even deadlier than COVID-19, we will have become our own worst enemy.
If we cannot expect our major political parties to lead the way, one option would be to empanel—after November 3, obviously—a blue-ribbon national commission to examine these issues and recommend reforms. Beyond an acquired cultural allergy to planning, are we truly plagued by excessive bureaucracy and overlawyering? By crippling congressional oversight and budgeting rigidities? By excessive affluence and risk-aversion, so that the qualities of stoicism and “grit” have drained out of American culture? Partisan gridlock? Just poor leaders?
It may be that part of the inadequacy of the U.S. response at the federal level has arisen from a failure to shield emergency medical responses from politics. Consider what happens with certain other kinds of crises. Some aspects of emergency Department of Defense national security contingency responses—concerning, for instance, the continuity and integrity of the government—are shielded from politics by automatically triggering prearranged protocols. The same goes for the Department of Homeland Security and some “incidents of national significance,” such as major natural and terrorist-caused disasters. The U.S. system also insulates decisions of the Federal Reserve from politics, at least to some extent. It defies logic that it cannot, or at any rate does not, better insulate emergency public health responses from politics.
Consider that while Donald Trump is an extreme case, any president facing a pandemic will be confronted with tradeoffs between saving lives and keeping the economy from tanking. Perhaps some forms of urgent decision should be removed from the purview of presidents and their staffs—in this case from the hands of people like Jared Kushner—so that they can concentrate on a strategic response.
What we can reasonably conclude already is that whatever interagency set-up we have for dealing with pandemic crises doesn’t work well, and that some of the deficiencies are largely independent of whoever happens to be president. A major objective of a commission should be to learn from other national systems that performed better than ours.
The track record of Singapore—where I am a visiting fellow this year—may bear some basic lessons, at least some of which may be applicable to our very different circumstances. First, put policy competence ahead of partisan advantage or personal self-regard. Second, invest in capacity for emergencies instead of pretending they’ll never happen; it saves lots of money in the long run. Third, respect the people by being candid and honest with them. And fourth, try not to elect an inexperienced, narcissistic, encyclopedically ignorant buffoon as your leader. That, especially, seems to make a significant difference.


Our Masks, Ourselves

The botched initial guidance from the CDC and the surgeon general has finally come around to what now seems like common sense : everybody should be wearing masks .
Now that everyone , besides the president , is on the same page there is a rush to find and make masks en masse .
New York governor Andrew Cuomo implored those with the ability to sew to make masks , and has gone so far as to issue an executive order that essential businesses still open must supply their employees with masks as well as an order that everyone must @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fashion houses are being praised for turning their factories over to help meet the need .
Sustainable-fashion poster-child Reformation has partnered with the city of Los Angeles to keep up with L.A. ’ s demand .
When the CDC recommendation changed , Reformation received almost 175,000 orders for masks and now has a waitlist—and has published its manufacturing specs .
Next week , RowingBlazers , a New York apparel retailer that is also focused on sustainability , and is in the center of the American epidemic , will be releasing its own non-medical-grade @ @ @ @ @ @ @ city ’ s food banks .
“ This seemed like a no-brainer , ” Jack Carlson , RowingBlazers ’ s founder told me over Instagram .
“ It ’ s taken a while to be able to get our workshop set up to do this in a way where we know everyone is safe and following best practice , but now we ’ re ready to go.
” He says the masks will be made in New York and also available for purchase online—a portion of the proceeds will be donated as well @ @ @ @ @ @ @ established clothing retailers who are answering the growing demand .
Seamstresses across the country have taken up the cause .
And as masks sell out at Walmart and on Amazon , there is still one place online you can find them : Etsy .
There were over 2 million searches for face masks on Etsy the weekend of April 4-6 alone .
“ Our sellers are able to produce hundreds of thousands of masks per day , ” Etsy CEO Josh Silverman told CNBC , noting that there are now roughly 20,000 storefronts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The e-commerce site has proactively posted guidelines for sellers as well as a warning banner for customers stating that items sold on Etsy are not medical-grade and linking to a full page of guidance on COVID-19 safety .
Etsy ’ s reputation is associated with DIY for housewives and hobbyists , as though it is somehow artistically and commercially inferior—driven in part by the sexist notion that women ’ s fiber arts are merely crafts while the fine arts are the domain of men .
In reality , Etsy is a dynamic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ According to Etsy ’ s 2016 diversity report , almost 9 out of 10 sellers on the site are women .
Today , those predominantly female creators are turning their skills and creativity toward making an astonishing array of masks for the greater good .
In Louisiana , where there have already been more than 1,100 COVID-19 deaths , Etsy seamstress LaMonica Detiege-Hagans lives on the West Bank of the Mississippi in Marrero , just outside New Orleans .
She was a nursing assistant before a career change and , seeing the need @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her license but found that her certification had expired in January .
“ I couldn ’ t help that way , so I decided to help some other way , ” she told me in a phone interview .
She has been sewing since 1999 and has even won awards for her work .
Detiege-Hagans has for years had an Etsy storefront selling homemade baby products , and when the virus hit she started selling masks .
“ I also donate masks to local hospitals , nursing homes , and staff.
” For @ @ @ @ @ @ @ protecting people and giving people a personal touch of style—with custom patterns ranging from pink kente to black and gold fleur de lis .
There is a long history of artists using masks to evolve : Picasso ’ s appropriation of African masks was a catalyst for Cubism , which helped break Western art away from realism and paved the way for futurism and abstract expressionism .
It can not be overstated how monumental this shift was in art history .
So , too , may be the shift in Western and American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don masks .
And that shift will be facilitated by the labor of women .
With masks come the forfeiture of individual identity for the safety of the wider community .
In parts of Asia , wearing surgical masks has been accepted in daily life since at least the 2003 SARS outbreak .
“ Mask-wearing tends to be widespread in countries that view disease outbreaks with the gravity that comes from firsthand experience with the horror of an epidemic , ” writes Uri Friedman in the Atlantic .
The stigma of wearing a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ often associated with that stigma , may , Friedman suggests , start to dissipate because of the coronavirus pandemic .
The unavailability of medical-grade masks , while partly a symptom of government incompetence , also shows that people are taking the need to protect themselves and others seriously .
But what will happen when things start to calm down and people will assume we are through the worst and can go back to business as normal ?
If the CDC ’ s discrepancies about when we should have started wearing masks are any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stop may well be uncertain and unclear .
The best we can do in the indefinite meantime is to adopt mask culture .
So how do you move a culture entrenched in the worship of the individual to take a long-term altruistic collective action ?
This is the genius of the Etsy marketplace and radical customization .
Kelsey from Pennsylvania , whose husband lost his job due to the coronavirus shutdowns , had just set up her Etsy store a few months ago , not knowing what was coming .
“ We were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they ’ re going to make us all wear masks , ” she told me .
“ And I know I personally hate the idea of wearing an ugly surgical mask and they were in such short supply , so I decided to make a few.
” There have been more sales than she expected , and her family has been able to make up for some of its lost income .
After initially running out of fabric because of the high demand , over the past few weeks , Kelsey has been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to her shop , including galaxy prints , marbled tie-dye , and lots of floral styles .
“ If we were all more considerate and everyone wore masks we could help stop [ the pandemic ] , ” Kelsey said .
“ I was hoping if I put pretty ones out there that it would encourage people and make it normal.
” Even prior to the surge in the need for medical-grade masks , there were a number of communities where masks were already prevalent .
Etsy storefronts for ravers and Burners—Burning Man @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that pride the expression of individuality in tandem with protection from desert dust .
The offerings range from masks featuring LEDs to others made of holographic fabric .
They show how masks , even with a functional purpose , can still be a way to declare identity and personality .
You can even get a medieval plague doctor mask if you so desire .
In New York , Alice Ritter started her Etsy after making jackets for her daughter to wear while DJing .
But since the coronavirus has taken hold of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and resources to making masks .
“ I came up with the idea of # HELPFROMHOME , buy one fashion mask and I ’ ll donate 15 to hospitals , ” she said .
“ The one thing that just started running through my mind is , how will this impact the future of how we put ourselves together ( does my mask match my outfit—do I look stupid and boring , or how hot do I look in rainbow sequins ? )
.
” Angela Frost in Ventura , California had been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years selling hand-dyed silks and ribbons on Etsy .
The site “ put out an email saying if you can make masks we ’ re going to have a huge demand , ” she told me .
“ Whenever you ’ re in a creative environment and you want to make something that ’ s different .
You try to make what is mandatory something that allows people to have creative expression and not just to be lost in a sea of generic blue surgical masks.
” She expressed a sense of urgency @ @ @ @ @ @ @ orders .
“ The desperateness I hear in people ’ s voices to get these , I didn ’ t realize people were having a hard time finding them .
I feel a real sense of responsibility to get these to people.
” Another impediment for American culture when confronting the shift to a mask culture is racism .
Given the history and significance of Les Demoiselles d ’ Avignon—the Picasso painting that famously deformed women ’ s faces into geometric shapes modeled after African masks—it is especially ironic and tragic that some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ incorporating the mask tradition into modern-day fashion .
The hostility encountered by black men in America is singular , and the need to wear masks because of COVID-19 puts them in a double-bind : The disease is killing African Americans at higher rates than the general population , but wearing a mask puts black men at risk of greater social scrutiny , or drawing uncalled-for police attention , which often means police antagonism .
The fear resulting from the dismal state of American police ’ s relationship with African Americans is well documented @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” writes Aaron Thomas in the Boston Globe , “ the fear of being mistaken for an armed robber or assailant is greater than the fear of contracting COVID-19.
” It remains to be seen whether a new paradigm in which masks are widespread and culturally accepted will be one in which that fear diminishes .
Still , the “ artisanal troops ” of Etsy are embracing an illegitimi non carborundum— ‘ don ’ t let the bastards grind you down ’ —attitude in their efforts to supply masks with artistic patterns @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and still assert an independent identity—or simply use the mask as a fashion statement .
“ All of us are like threads in the fabric , it takes all of us to weave together the story , ” says Rickeysha Godfrey , a Howard Law grad who now lives in Florida .
She opened an Etsy store after the birth of her daughter .
At the start of the outbreak , she initially was only planning to make masks to protect her family , many of whom are battling cancer and immunocompromised .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ her store has been inundated with demand—Godfrey and I spoke after she had been up all night sewing masks to send to people in need .
“ I tried to find unique fabrics and textiles , I like to make people feel special , ” she said .
“ When people have something handmade , one to one , I think that it really does make a difference.
” And as a black woman , she ’ s knows how discrimination works against people of color in masks especially .
“ [ Americans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and we ’ re not naturally accepting of people who are other , ” Godfrey said .
“ Now with the masks , that is going to be magnified .
It ’ s removing a key way we judge people , not being able to see the way they smile.
” She ’ s most worried for her brothers and has made masks for them that she hopes will protect them from both unwarranted prejudice and the virus .
“ We ’ re very conscious of how we present in public , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ brothers .
I tried to make masks for them with a lighthearted design and brighter colors to throw off perceived intimidation.
” Still , she sees the coronavirus crisis as an opportunity to lift each other up—and custom masks as a way to do that .
“ As a black creator , I ’ m encouraging people to share their natural creative gifts , ” she said .
“ When I ’ m thinking about making something , I lead with that .
I lead with what is going to be my contribution @ @ @ @ @ @ @ different .
Because everybody is making masks now.
” It ’ s that spirit of innovation and generative grace that will help push American culture forward and through the coronavirus crisis .
“ How can I add a little razzle-dazzle of blackness to this regular thing , now it ’ s a celebration of my culture.
” There is still so much we don ’ t know about the coronavirus and what its lasting effects will look like .
But at the bare minimum , we know that masks are part of establishing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we don ’ t have to sacrifice our individuality to do so .
“ Artistic expression is the main reason for creating the products we place in our shop , ” Jay of Day One Luxury in New York City told me over email .
“ Our masks are for all people no matter what color or lifestyle.
” His shop ’ s best-selling masks feature blue and red bandana-styled options .
He also views making custom masks to be uplifting .
“ At this time we feel isolated , ” he said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can be another way to express yourself and feel free .
”

The botched initial guidance from the CDC and the surgeon general has finally come around to what now seems like common sense: everybody should be wearing masks. Now that everyone, besides the president, is on the same page there is a rush to find and make masks en masse. New York governor Andrew Cuomo implored those with the ability to sew to make masks, and has gone so far as to issue an executive order that essential businesses still open must supply their employees with masks as well as an order that everyone must wear a covering in public.
High fashion houses are being praised for turning their factories over to help meet the need. Sustainable-fashion poster-child Reformation has partnered with the city of Los Angeles to keep up with L.A.’s demand. When the CDC recommendation changed, Reformation received almost 175,000 orders for masks and now has a waitlist—and has published its manufacturing specs. Next week, RowingBlazers, a New York apparel retailer that is also focused on sustainability, and is in the center of the American epidemic, will be releasing its own non-medical-grade masks to donate to workers at the city’s food banks.
“This seemed like a no-brainer,” Jack Carlson, RowingBlazers’s founder told me over Instagram. “It’s taken a while to be able to get our workshop set up to do this in a way where we know everyone is safe and following best practice, but now we’re ready to go.” He says the masks will be made in New York and also available for purchase online—a portion of the proceeds will be donated as well.
But it’s not just established clothing retailers who are answering the growing demand. Seamstresses across the country have taken up the cause. And as masks sell out at Walmart and on Amazon, there is still one place online you can find them: Etsy. There were over 2 million searches for face masks on Etsy the weekend of April 4-6 alone. “Our sellers are able to produce hundreds of thousands of masks per day,” Etsy CEO Josh Silverman told CNBC, noting that there are now roughly 20,000 storefronts on the site making and selling masks. The e-commerce site has proactively posted guidelines for sellers as well as a warning banner for customers stating that items sold on Etsy are not medical-grade and linking to a full page of guidance on COVID-19 safety.
Etsy’s reputation is associated with DIY for housewives and hobbyists, as though it is somehow artistically and commercially inferior—driven in part by the sexist notion that women’s fiber arts are merely crafts while the fine arts are the domain of men. In reality, Etsy is a dynamic platform for a multitude of artisans. According to Etsy’s 2016 diversity report, almost 9 out of 10 sellers on the site are women. Today, those predominantly female creators are turning their skills and creativity toward making an astonishing array of masks for the greater good.
In Louisiana, where there have already been more than 1,100 COVID-19 deaths, Etsy seamstress LaMonica Detiege-Hagans lives on the West Bank of the Mississippi in Marrero, just outside New Orleans. She was a nursing assistant before a career change and, seeing the need in Louisiana, she went to renew her license but found that her certification had expired in January. “I couldn’t help that way, so I decided to help some other way,” she told me in a phone interview. She has been sewing since 1999 and has even won awards for her work. Detiege-Hagans has for years had an Etsy storefront selling homemade baby products, and when the virus hit she started selling masks. “I also donate masks to local hospitals, nursing homes, and staff.” For her, making masks is about both protecting people and giving people a personal touch of style—with custom patterns ranging from pink kente to black and gold fleur de lis.
There is a long history of artists using masks to evolve: Picasso’s appropriation of African masks was a catalyst for Cubism, which helped break Western art away from realism and paved the way for futurism and abstract expressionism. It cannot be overstated how monumental this shift was in art history. So, too, may be the shift in Western and American culture as we face the imperative to don masks. And that shift will be facilitated by the labor of women.
With masks come the forfeiture of individual identity for the safety of the wider community. In parts of Asia, wearing surgical masks has been accepted in daily life since at least the 2003 SARS outbreak. “Mask-wearing tends to be widespread in countries that view disease outbreaks with the gravity that comes from firsthand experience with the horror of an epidemic,” writes Uri Friedman in the Atlantic. The stigma of wearing a mask in America, and the xenophobia often associated with that stigma, may, Friedman suggests, start to dissipate because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The unavailability of medical-grade masks, while partly a symptom of government incompetence, also shows that people are taking the need to protect themselves and others seriously. But what will happen when things start to calm down and people will assume we are through the worst and can go back to business as normal? If the CDC’s discrepancies about when we should have started wearing masks are any indication, the guidance on when to stop may well be uncertain and unclear. The best we can do in the indefinite meantime is to adopt mask culture.
So how do you move a culture entrenched in the worship of the individual to take a long-term altruistic collective action? This is the genius of the Etsy marketplace and radical customization.
Kelsey from Pennsylvania, whose husband lost his job due to the coronavirus shutdowns, had just set up her Etsy store a few months ago, not knowing what was coming. “We were following the news and I thought, they’re going to make us all wear masks,” she told me. “And I know I personally hate the idea of wearing an ugly surgical mask and they were in such short supply, so I decided to make a few.” There have been more sales than she expected, and her family has been able to make up for some of its lost income. After initially running out of fabric because of the high demand, over the past few weeks, Kelsey has been able to add new patterns and designs to her shop, including galaxy prints, marbled tie-dye, and lots of floral styles.
“If we were all more considerate and everyone wore masks we could help stop [the pandemic],” Kelsey said. “I was hoping if I put pretty ones out there that it would encourage people and make it normal.”
Even prior to the surge in the need for medical-grade masks, there were a number of communities where masks were already prevalent. Etsy storefronts for ravers and Burners—Burning Man enthusiasts—have long been producing masks for festivals that pride the expression of individuality in tandem with protection from desert dust. The offerings range from masks featuring LEDs to others made of holographic fabric. They show how masks, even with a functional purpose, can still be a way to declare identity and personality. You can even get a medieval plague doctor mask if you so desire.
In New York, Alice Ritter started her Etsy after making jackets for her daughter to wear while DJing. But since the coronavirus has taken hold of the city, she has shifted her attention and resources to making masks. “I came up with the idea of #HELPFROMHOME, buy one fashion mask and I’ll donate 15 to hospitals,” she said. “The one thing that just started running through my mind is, how will this impact the future of how we put ourselves together (does my mask match my outfit—do I look stupid and boring, or how hot do I look in rainbow sequins?).”
Angela Frost in Ventura, California had been in the apparel and garment-dyeing industry for years selling hand-dyed silks and ribbons on Etsy. The site “put out an email saying if you can make masks we’re going to have a huge demand,” she told me. “Whenever you’re in a creative environment and you want to make something that’s different. You try to make what is mandatory something that allows people to have creative expression and not just to be lost in a sea of generic blue surgical masks.” She expressed a sense of urgency after recounting her recent experience in fulfilling orders. “The desperateness I hear in people’s voices to get these, I didn’t realize people were having a hard time finding them. I feel a real sense of responsibility to get these to people.”
Another impediment for American culture when confronting the shift to a mask culture is racism. Given the history and significance of Les Demoiselles d’Avignon—the Picasso painting that famously deformed women’s faces into geometric shapes modeled after African masks—it is especially ironic and tragic that some people of color worry about reclaiming and incorporating the mask tradition into modern-day fashion. The hostility encountered by black men in America is singular, and the need to wear masks because of COVID-19 puts them in a double-bind: The disease is killing African Americans at higher rates than the general population, but wearing a mask puts black men at risk of greater social scrutiny, or drawing uncalled-for police attention, which often means police antagonism.
The fear resulting from the dismal state of American police’s relationship with African Americans is well documented and widely reported. “For me,” writes Aaron Thomas in the Boston Globe, “the fear of being mistaken for an armed robber or assailant is greater than the fear of contracting COVID-19.” It remains to be seen whether a new paradigm in which masks are widespread and culturally accepted will be one in which that fear diminishes.
Still, the “artisanal troops” of Etsy are embracing an illegitimi non carborundum—‘don’t let the bastards grind you down’—attitude in their efforts to supply masks with artistic patterns that allow the wearer to feel safe and still assert an independent identity—or simply use the mask as a fashion statement.
“All of us are like threads in the fabric, it takes all of us to weave together the story,” says Rickeysha Godfrey, a Howard Law grad who now lives in Florida. She opened an Etsy store after the birth of her daughter. At the start of the outbreak, she initially was only planning to make masks to protect her family, many of whom are battling cancer and immunocompromised. But, through word of mouth, her store has been inundated with demand—Godfrey and I spoke after she had been up all night sewing masks to send to people in need. “I tried to find unique fabrics and textiles, I like to make people feel special,” she said. “When people have something handmade, one to one, I think that it really does make a difference.”
And as a black woman, she’s knows how discrimination works against people of color in masks especially. “[Americans] are naturally suspicious of people, and we’re not naturally accepting of people who are other,” Godfrey said. “Now with the masks, that is going to be magnified. It’s removing a key way we judge people, not being able to see the way they smile.” She’s most worried for her brothers and has made masks for them that she hopes will protect them from both unwarranted prejudice and the virus. “We’re very conscious of how we present in public, and I’m always worried for my brothers. I tried to make masks for them with a lighthearted design and brighter colors to throw off perceived intimidation.”
Still, she sees the coronavirus crisis as an opportunity to lift each other up—and custom masks as a way to do that. “As a black creator, I’m encouraging people to share their natural creative gifts,” she said. “When I’m thinking about making something, I lead with that. I lead with what is going to be my contribution and how can I make my stuff different. Because everybody is making masks now.” It’s that spirit of innovation and generative grace that will help push American culture forward and through the coronavirus crisis. “How can I add a little razzle-dazzle of blackness to this regular thing, now it’s a celebration of my culture.”
There is still so much we don’t know about the coronavirus and what its lasting effects will look like. But at the bare minimum, we know that masks are part of establishing a defense against the unknown and that we don’t have to sacrifice our individuality to do so.
“Artistic expression is the main reason for creating the products we place in our shop,” Jay of Day One Luxury in New York City told me over email. “Our masks are for all people no matter what color or lifestyle.” His shop’s best-selling masks feature blue and red bandana-styled options. He also views making custom masks to be uplifting. “At this time we feel isolated,” he said, “so wearing a custom mask can be another way to express yourself and feel free.”


thebulwark--2020-04-15--How the IMF Can Help Cushion the Coronavirus Depression… Or Make It Worse

Armed with more than $ 1 trillion in loanable resources , the International Monetary Fund is about to embark on its largest lending spree in its 76-year history .
If it is to do more good than harm to the global economy , it must learn from its past mistakes with earlier large IMF lending programs .
Up till now , the two largest IMF lending programs have been those to Greece in 2010 and to Argentina in 2018 .
Despite the unusually large access that the IMF afforded those two countries to its resources , the IMF programs failed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ engaging on a new round of large-scale lending , the IMF should draw the right lessons from those two misguided programs .
Under the IMF ’ s tutelage , the Greek economy experienced a 25 percent decline in output – a depression worse than that experienced by the United States during the Great Depression .
Meanwhile , rather than falling , its public-debt-to-GDP ratio rose from 120 percent to 180 percent .
For its part , over the past two years under an IMF program of more than $ 50 billion , Argentina @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deep economic recession , inflation in excess of 50 percent , and a free falling exchange rate .
The key mistake made in Greece was to confuse a solvency problem with a liquidity problem .
In particular , the IMF failed to grasp that , burdened with an unusually high public debt level and stuck within a Euro straitjacket , there was no way for Greece to grow its way out of its debt problem .
This induced the IMF to dismiss any notion of Greek debt restructuring and to promote an excessive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fixed rate regime , that was bound to plunge the Greek economy into a deep recession .
The two key mistakes the IMF made in Argentina were acceding to the premature removal of exchange controls before stabilizing the economy , and then agreeing to too gradual a pace of budget adjustment .
Initially , in the context of ample global liquidity , the IMF got away with those mistakes .
However , as should have been expected in a country with Argentina ’ s troubled economic history of debt default and capital flight @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tightened , Argentina was plunged into a balance of payments crisis from which it is yet to recover .
Drawing the right lessons from its past mistakes would seem to be particularly pertinent now at a time that the IMF is likely to be called upon to play a key role in combating COVID-19 ’ s economic fallout .
In the wake of the coronavirus epidemic , Italy is likely to be among the IMF ’ s largest potential borrowers , and one for which the Greek lessons about solvency might be highly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Europe ’ s coronavirus epidemic , Italy ’ s economy is expected to decline by at least 10 percent in 2020 , which will likely drive its public-debt-to-GDP ratio up from 135 percent to over 160 percent .
Like Greece before it , being stuck in a Euro straitjacket Italy will find it very difficult to grow its way out of its debt problem .
Hopefully , in dealing with Italy , the IMF will have learnt from its Greek experience not to require excessive budget adjustment from Rome , and not to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by simply piling more debt on that country .
Among the emerging market countries that will be the IMF ’ s largest potential borrowers will be Brazil , South Africa , and Turkey .
All of those countries have compromised public finances and have seen their currencies depreciate by more than 20 percent since the start of the year .
Hopefully , the IMF ’ s dismal Argentine experience will have cured it of the notion that simply throwing money at these countries without insisting on appropriate economic adjustment will not serve them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ saddle them with more debt without improving their long-term growth prospects .
As the global economy stares into the abyss of a deep of recession , IMF loan recipients are going to discover that their economies need structural reforms to survive the crisis and come out stronger on the other side .
As it doles out more money than any time in its history , the IMF should help debtor nations follow the path to faster growth with less debt .
Although the United States is certainly not an emerging market economy , @ @ @ @ @ @ @

Armed with more than $1 trillion in loanable resources, the International Monetary Fund is about to embark on its largest lending spree in its 76-year history. If it is to do more good than harm to the global economy, it must learn from its past mistakes with earlier large IMF lending programs.
Up till now, the two largest IMF lending programs have been those to Greece in 2010 and to Argentina in 2018. Despite the unusually large access that the IMF afforded those two countries to its resources, the IMF programs failed to achieve their desired results. Before engaging on a new round of large-scale lending, the IMF should draw the right lessons from those two misguided programs.
Under the IMF’s tutelage, the Greek economy experienced a 25 percent decline in output – a depression worse than that experienced by the United States during the Great Depression. Meanwhile, rather than falling, its public-debt-to-GDP ratio rose from 120 percent to 180 percent.
For its part, over the past two years under an IMF program of more than $50 billion, Argentina has experienced the unenviable combination of a deep economic recession, inflation in excess of 50 percent, and a free falling exchange rate.
The key mistake made in Greece was to confuse a solvency problem with a liquidity problem. In particular, the IMF failed to grasp that, burdened with an unusually high public debt level and stuck within a Euro straitjacket, there was no way for Greece to grow its way out of its debt problem. This induced the IMF to dismiss any notion of Greek debt restructuring and to promote an excessive degree of budget tightening. In a fixed rate regime, that was bound to plunge the Greek economy into a deep recession.
The two key mistakes the IMF made in Argentina were acceding to the premature removal of exchange controls before stabilizing the economy, and then agreeing to too gradual a pace of budget adjustment. Initially, in the context of ample global liquidity, the IMF got away with those mistakes. However, as should have been expected in a country with Argentina’s troubled economic history of debt default and capital flight, as soon as global liquidity conditions tightened, Argentina was plunged into a balance of payments crisis from which it is yet to recover.
Drawing the right lessons from its past mistakes would seem to be particularly pertinent now at a time that the IMF is likely to be called upon to play a key role in combating COVID-19’s economic fallout.
In the wake of the coronavirus epidemic, Italy is likely to be among the IMF’s largest potential borrowers, and one for which the Greek lessons about solvency might be highly relevant. Being at the center of Europe’s coronavirus epidemic, Italy’s economy is expected to decline by at least 10 percent in 2020, which will likely drive its public-debt-to-GDP ratio up from 135 percent to over 160 percent. Like Greece before it, being stuck in a Euro straitjacket Italy will find it very difficult to grow its way out of its debt problem.
Hopefully, in dealing with Italy, the IMF will have learnt from its Greek experience not to require excessive budget adjustment from Rome, and not to deal with Italy’s debt problem by simply piling more debt on that country.
Among the emerging market countries that will be the IMF’s largest potential borrowers will be Brazil, South Africa, and Turkey. All of those countries have compromised public finances and have seen their currencies depreciate by more than 20 percent since the start of the year. Hopefully, the IMF’s dismal Argentine experience will have cured it of the notion that simply throwing money at these countries without insisting on appropriate economic adjustment will not serve them well. Rather, it will simply saddle them with more debt without improving their long-term growth prospects.
As the global economy stares into the abyss of a deep of recession, IMF loan recipients are going to discover that their economies need structural reforms to survive the crisis and come out stronger on the other side. As it doles out more money than any time in its history, the IMF should help debtor nations follow the path to faster growth with less debt.
Although the United States is certainly not an emerging market economy, it could learn the same lesson.


thebulwark--2020-04-15--Justin Amash Should Not Run for President (In 2020)

We love Justin Amash .
We ’ re what the kids would call Amash stans .
We love him because he ’ s actually read both the Constitution and the Mueller Report .
( And was capable of patiently explaining both , to his constituents , face-to-face . )
We love him because he ’ s the only member of the Freedom Caucus who didn ’ t abandon everything he believed to pledge fealty to Donald Trump .
We love him because as the Republican party descended into debt-fueled lunacy , abandoned free trade , sneered at the rule of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he put on a tight polo shirt and said , “ I ’ m out.
” We love him because there are many elected Republicans who we thought were going to take the stance he did—in fact a few actually told us as much , over the last three years .
But he was the only one with the courage to actually do it .
We love him for his willingness to talk openly about Donald Trump ’ s racism .
We love him because we could set-up a tweetbot that QT ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ STRAIGHT INTO MY VEINS.
” And even though neither of us ever thought of ourselves as part of his wing of the GOP before Trump came along , the clarifying nature of this era has shown that when it comes to what matters most , we were actually living in the same neighborhood the whole time .
It is both despite all that , and because of it , that we don ’ t think he should run for president as a third-party candidate in 2020 .
To be clear : This isn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one hand , we want to be for him—to have the joy and satisfaction of getting behind the constitutional superhero of our dreams .
But on the other hand , there is a downside risk to his running and the price of a second Trump term is too great for anyone to be playing dice with it .
Trump is not just a Bad Orange Man or guy with suboptimal policy preferences .
He is a threat to pluralism , the Constitution , American ’ s health and safety , and the rule @ @ @ @ @ @ @ threat to the very heart of our liberal democracy .
We know all of this deep in our bones .
And we know Justin Amash knows it , too .
It ’ s the reason his moral clarity has been so refreshing the past three years .
So the real question about his possible candidacy is a political one : Could we be certain that a third-party campaign from a Constitutional conservative would not help Trump get reelected ?
The answer , unfortunately , is no .
In a world where a buffoonish @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the back of a Twitter feed run by his golf caddy , it ’ s easy to fall back to the Roman proverb that “ in these matters the only certainty is that nothing is certain.
” But while the results from 2016 were shocking and unexpected , the lessons of the election are pretty clear .
One of those lessons is that Donald Trump benefited greatly because voters who didn ’ t like him voted for someone other than Hillary Clinton .
The third party and write-in vote share skyrocketed nationwide and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Take a look at the increase in vote total among center-right , third party candidates ( Gary Johnson / Evan McMullin / Constitution Party ) plus write-ins in the three key upper Midwest states in 2016 over 2012 : That ’ s the whole ballgame right there .
That ’ s why President Total Authority was the one standing in the Oval Office waving his hands and sniffing about how the coronavirus would disappear “ like a miracle ” instead of a grown-up who would have made the necessary , basic preparations for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about the voters who switched from Obama to Trump—and turnout decline in urban areas—Hillary Clinton could have won the White House simply by getting a minority share of the voters who hadn ’ t historically voted third party , but in 2016 decided to throw their hands up .
This is not to impugn the motives of the voters who did that or the candidates who ran third party in 2016 .
They all did so in good faith .
Both candidates were shitty .
And most people didn ’ t think Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ later , we know better .
And given that data , why would America risk a replay ?
The evidence we do have suggests that an Amash run would be a Trump-helping redux of 2016 .
A poll conducted in late May 2019 of 600 likely Michigan voters tested Amash in a hypothetical three-way White House race against Trump and Joe Biden .
According to the poll , Biden beat Trump by 12 percentage points head-to-head , but when Amash was added to the field , his lead dropped to 6 percentage points @ @ @ @ @ @ @ poll for the Glengariff Group , said this to the Detroit News back when the poll was released : This is a consistent finding across polls that include third party candidates .
In the end , they tend to give those people who weren ’ t going to vote for Trump anyway an excuse to vote for someone else , while not pulling many voters from the Trump column .
We are in uncertain times .
It is impossible to know what November holds or exactly how a campaign with a strong libertarian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But while it may be true that nothing is quite certain in elections , or economics , or life , there is one thing that is certain about the current federal government : The president is unfit and dangerous .
He has “ abused and violated the public trust.
” Anyone who shares that assessment of President Trump should focus on maximizing the possibility of his removal .
Such a calculus should preclude a third party run in 2020 .

We love Justin Amash. We’re what the kids would call Amash stans.
We love him because he’s actually read both the Constitution and the Mueller Report. (And was capable of patiently explaining both, to his constituents, face-to-face.)
We love him because he’s the only member of the Freedom Caucus who didn’t abandon everything he believed to pledge fealty to Donald Trump.
We love him because as the Republican party descended into debt-fueled lunacy, abandoned free trade, sneered at the rule of law, and shrugged at corruption, he put on a tight polo shirt and said, “I’m out.”
We love him because there are many elected Republicans who we thought were going to take the stance he did—in fact a few actually told us as much, over the last three years. But he was the only one with the courage to actually do it.
We love him for his willingness to talk openly about Donald Trump’s racism.
We love him because we could set-up a tweetbot that QT’s everything he sends out with “STRAIGHT INTO MY VEINS.”
And even though neither of us ever thought of ourselves as part of his wing of the GOP before Trump came along, the clarifying nature of this era has shown that when it comes to what matters most, we were actually living in the same neighborhood the whole time.
It is both despite all that, and because of it, that we don’t think he should run for president as a third-party candidate in 2020.
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…
To be clear: This isn’t an easy call. On one hand, we want to be for him—to have the joy and satisfaction of getting behind the constitutional superhero of our dreams.
But on the other hand, there is a downside risk to his running and the price of a second Trump term is too great for anyone to be playing dice with it.
Trump is not just a Bad Orange Man or guy with suboptimal policy preferences. He is a threat to pluralism, the Constitution, American’s health and safety, and the rule of law. He’s a threat to the very heart of our liberal democracy.
We know all of this deep in our bones. And we know Justin Amash knows it, too. It’s the reason his moral clarity has been so refreshing the past three years.
So the real question about his possible candidacy is a political one:
Could we be certain that a third-party campaign from a Constitutional conservative would not help Trump get reelected?
The answer, unfortunately, is no.
In a world where a buffoonish reality TV show host became president on the back of a Twitter feed run by his golf caddy, it’s easy to fall back to the Roman proverb that “in these matters the only certainty is that nothing is certain.”
But while the results from 2016 were shocking and unexpected, the lessons of the election are pretty clear.
One of those lessons is that Donald Trump benefited greatly because voters who didn’t like him voted for someone other than Hillary Clinton. The third party and write-in vote share skyrocketed nationwide and was the difference-maker in key states.
Take a look at the increase in vote total among center-right, third party candidates (Gary Johnson / Evan McMullin / Constitution Party) plus write-ins in the three key upper Midwest states in 2016 over 2012:
Pennsylvania: 135,170 more votes; Trump won by 44,292 votes
Wisconsin: 123,447 more votes; Trump won by 22,748
Michigan: 165,214 more votes; Trump won by 10,704
That’s the whole ballgame right there. That’s why President Total Authority was the one standing in the Oval Office waving his hands and sniffing about how the coronavirus would disappear “like a miracle” instead of a grown-up who would have made the necessary, basic preparations for the epidemic.
For all the discussion about the voters who switched from Obama to Trump—and turnout decline in urban areas—Hillary Clinton could have won the White House simply by getting a minority share of the voters who hadn’t historically voted third party, but in 2016 decided to throw their hands up.
This is not to impugn the motives of the voters who did that or the candidates who ran third party in 2016. They all did so in good faith. Both candidates were shitty. And most people didn’t think Trump really had a chance.
Four years later, we know better. And given that data, why would America risk a replay?
The evidence we do have suggests that an Amash run would be a Trump-helping redux of 2016. A poll conducted in late May 2019 of 600 likely Michigan voters tested Amash in a hypothetical three-way White House race against Trump and Joe Biden.
According to the poll, Biden beat Trump by 12 percentage points head-to-head, but when Amash was added to the field, his lead dropped to 6 percentage points.
Richard Czuba, who conducted the poll for the Glengariff Group, said this to the Detroit News back when the poll was released:
He will not take away Republican votes from Trump. What he will do is give independent voters who don’t want to support President Trump an outlet to not vote for the Democrat. And if you look at who or what would be moving toward Amash, it is particularly independent men.
This is a consistent finding across polls that include third party candidates. In the end, they tend to give those people who weren’t going to vote for Trump anyway an excuse to vote for someone else, while not pulling many voters from the Trump column.
We are in uncertain times. It is impossible to know what November holds or exactly how a campaign with a strong libertarian nominee like Amash would play out.
But while it may be true that nothing is quite certain in elections, or economics, or life, there is one thing that is certain about the current federal government:
The president is unfit and dangerous. He has “abused and violated the public trust.”
Anyone who shares that assessment of President Trump should focus on maximizing the possibility of his removal.
Such a calculus should preclude a third party run in 2020.
Amash 2024?
Sign. Us. Up.


thebulwark--2020-04-18--A China Strategy Blueprint

A China Strategy Blueprint

China should pay a price for its role in the global spread of the coronavirus pandemic .
Of course , the price it will pay will depend on who wins the presidential race in November .
Donald Trump ’ s chaotic administration of the executive branch , his inexperienced national security team , and his demagogic preference for stoking the passions of the people instead of appealing to their reason make it hard to believe that he could formulate and implement any wise strategy toward China .
If Joe Biden wins , however , there is hope .
First , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trans-Pacific Partnership ( TPP ) was designed to do exactly that , but the Trump administration withdrew the United States from the TPP in January 2017 .
Under the next president , the United States should rejoin the TPP ( or the successor treaty that was created after the U.S. withdrawal ) and pursue Senate ratification .
Similarly , the United States should resume negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership .
The United States and the European Union ended the negotiations in a stalemate in 2019 .
But this agreement is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ influence in Europe .
Next , something that has historically been helpful in bringing the United States and its allies close together is shared projects , like the International Space Station or various military-technology endeavors .
Shared projects strengthen ties , foster interreliance , and create distance between the participants and their enemies .
One ideal shared project is 5G network technology .
The next administration should persuade allies , including the United Kingdom , not to sign 5G contracts with Huawei .
The tools of persuasion could include government subsidies—which , of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ market but are sometimes necessary for national security .
The argument that “ it is bad for your own security in the long term ” has so far not worked well in deterring some allies from signing up with Huawei .
The best way to prevent them from joining the Chinese network is by providing at least as good an alternative ourselves and , even better , giving them a stock in it .
( There are other technological projects , like artificial intelligence research , that might also be the focus of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The United States needs also to reinvest in international organizations and foreign aid .
In the present crisis , the United States and Europe have watched , appalled , as the World Health Organization ( WHO ) has carried water for China .
But the truth is that the United States has been decreasing its contributions to the WHO and other international organizations , while China has been increasing its contributions .
And the United States also needs more competent representation in the WHO and other organizations—diplomats who can get America-friendly figures confirmed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ United Nations , something the current administration has been failing at .
Speaking of its diplomats , the United States needs to make sure it has real ambassadors installed in Europe and Asia , and not just chargés d ’ affaires , as in several critical countries ( e.g.
, Japan , Ukraine , Pakistan , and Qatar ) .
This will be an important part of restoring alliances .
And a greater balance of our ambassadors , especially to key countries and international organizations , should be career diplomats instead of wealthy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ right now , as the U.S. ambassadors to the United Kingdom , France , Italy , and many other countries have no prior diplomatic experience .
Next , the United States should do what it can to blunt China ’ s buying of friends in Africa and Latin America .
Many of those countries ’ leaders do not like the increasing Chinese influence , but they talk about how they have to take the yuan because there is no dollar .
The United States should increase economic aid to developing countries in Africa @ @ @ @ @ @ @ must also do more to prepare for—and be seen preparing for—a potential military conflict with China .
The Marine Corps is taking major steps in this direction , and the other services should , too .
In its 2018 report , the bipartisan commission on National Defense Strategy found that the U.S. military is under-resourced to contain a war against China ( or Russia ) in their own neighborhoods .
This might sound ridiculous , given the military spending gaps between the United States and its competitors .
But around 40 percent of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and benefits , even though our services are still struggling to meet their recruitment goals .
A major reassessment of military budget appropriations that reflects the future and mechanization of warfare is long overdue .
Finally , the United States must resume its past criticism of China ’ s human rights violations—something the Trump administration has largely downplayed—and support dissidents inside and outside China .
The U.S. Agency for Global Media should also increase its engagement of Chinese citizens ; this will help delegitimize the Chinese Communist Party at home and put it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronavirus pandemic has reminded the world about the threat that China poses to peace .
To borrow a phrase , we should not let this crisis go to waste .

China should pay a price for its role in the global spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Of course, the price it will pay will depend on who wins the presidential race in November. Donald Trump’s chaotic administration of the executive branch, his inexperienced national security team, and his demagogic preference for stoking the passions of the people instead of appealing to their reason make it hard to believe that he could formulate and implement any wise strategy toward China. If Joe Biden wins, however, there is hope.
First, China should face economic pressure. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was designed to do exactly that, but the Trump administration withdrew the United States from the TPP in January 2017. Under the next president, the United States should rejoin the TPP (or the successor treaty that was created after the U.S. withdrawal) and pursue Senate ratification.
Similarly, the United States should resume negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. The United States and the European Union ended the negotiations in a stalemate in 2019. But this agreement is key to diminishing China’s economic influence in Europe.
Next, something that has historically been helpful in bringing the United States and its allies close together is shared projects, like the International Space Station or various military-technology endeavors. Shared projects strengthen ties, foster interreliance, and create distance between the participants and their enemies. One ideal shared project is 5G network technology. The next administration should persuade allies, including the United Kingdom, not to sign 5G contracts with Huawei. The tools of persuasion could include government subsidies—which, of course, are not good for the market but are sometimes necessary for national security. The argument that “it is bad for your own security in the long term” has so far not worked well in deterring some allies from signing up with Huawei. The best way to prevent them from joining the Chinese network is by providing at least as good an alternative ourselves and, even better, giving them a stock in it. (There are other technological projects, like artificial intelligence research, that might also be the focus of ambitious new international cooperative projects.)
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 also to reinvest in international organizations and foreign aid. In the present crisis, the United States and Europe have watched, appalled, as the World Health Organization (WHO) has carried water for China. But the truth is that the United States has been decreasing its contributions to the WHO and other international organizations, while China has been increasing its contributions. And the United States also needs more competent representation in the WHO and other organizations—diplomats who can get America-friendly figures confirmed at the various subsidiary organizations of the United Nations, something the current administration has been failing at.
Speaking of its diplomats, the United States needs to make sure it has real ambassadors installed in Europe and Asia, and not just chargés d’affaires, as in several critical countries (e.g., Japan, Ukraine, Pakistan, and Qatar). This will be an important part of restoring alliances. And a greater balance of our ambassadors, especially to key countries and international organizations, should be career diplomats instead of wealthy political cronies. This is not true right now, as the U.S. ambassadors to the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and many other countries have no prior diplomatic experience.
Next, the United States should do what it can to blunt China’s buying of friends in Africa and Latin America. Many of those countries’ leaders do not like the increasing Chinese influence, but they talk about how they have to take the yuan because there is no dollar. The United States should increase economic aid to developing countries in Africa and the Americas.
The United States must also do more to prepare for—and be seen preparing for—a potential military conflict with China. The Marine Corps is taking major steps in this direction, and the other services should, too. In its 2018 report, the bipartisan commission on National Defense Strategy found that the U.S. military is under-resourced to contain a war against China (or Russia) in their own neighborhoods. This might sound ridiculous, given the military spending gaps between the United States and its competitors. But around 40 percent of the U.S. military spending goes into wages and benefits, even though our services are still struggling to meet their recruitment goals. A major reassessment of military budget appropriations that reflects the future and mechanization of warfare is long overdue.
Finally, the United States must resume its past criticism of China’s human rights violations—something the Trump administration has largely downplayed—and support dissidents inside and outside China. The U.S. Agency for Global Media should also increase its engagement of Chinese citizens; this will help delegitimize the Chinese Communist Party at home and put it on a diplomatic defensive abroad.
The coronavirus pandemic has reminded the world about the threat that China poses to peace. To borrow a phrase, we should not let this crisis go to waste.