thenation--2020-04-24--Trump Wants Sports Back, Safety Be Damned

As controversies about the “ reopening ” of America loom over our lives , nothing seems as intrinsically irrelevant—yet possibly as critically important—as how soon major spectator sports return .
If sports don ’ t trump religion as the opiate of the masses , they have , until recently , been at least the background music of most of our lives .
So here ’ s my bet on one possible side effect of the Covid-19 pandemic to put in your scorebook : If the National Football League plays regular season games this fall , President Trump stands a good @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to business as usual—or , at least , to his twisted version of the same .
That ’ s why he announced at a recent daily coronavirus briefing-cum-rally his eagerness to bring professional sports back quickly .
Though it was Major League Baseball that he mentioned— “ We have to get our sports back .
I ’ m tired of watching baseball games that are 14 years old ” —the sport that truly matters to him is football , the only major mass entertainment ( other than Trumpism ) that endorses tribalism and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in vogue .
Football supports Trump in its promotion of racial division , the crushing of dissent , and the spread of misinformation , inequality , and brutality .
Whether or not the president can survive the loss of the 2020 baseball season—already poisoned by last year ’ s Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal—is up for grabs .
Certainly , the proposed plan to turn stadiums in the Phoenix , Arizona , area into the sports equivalent of a vast movie set for the games of all 30 major league teams ( to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ best .
But football , now the true national pastime , is another matter .
In sports terms , as in so much else in coronaviral America , these are desperately deprived times , even for casual fans .
There will be intense pressure—and not only from the president ’ s base—for that sport ’ s return .
For many people , mostly men , it ’ s the sustaining soap opera that has always carried them into the next week and the one after that , a porn-ish escape hatch from work @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with other men , an eternal connection to a non-demanding hive .
Without professional ( or even college ) sports right now or realistically in the near future , fans feel even more unmoored in lives that , for all of us , are distinctly adrift .
As they become edgier , it ’ s a reasonable bet ( or at least my hope ) that they will also become more open to questioning Trump ’ s mismanagement—or , to put it more bluntly , sacrifice—of their lives .
Recent polls already seem @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gallup Poll showing the steepest approval decline of his presidency .
The president , I suspect , fears just this , though perhaps , in the end , the hole in everyday life where sports once was may only reinforce fans ’ sense ( like the president ’ s ) that the games are too important not to bring back , safety be damned .
Certainly , Trump and other Republican politicians have already been willing enough to forfeit lives to boost their reelection chances .
The values and sensibilities of football are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
That ’ s why former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick ’ s demonstration against racism—performed in a kind of public isolation—elicited such a harsh reaction from the president in the now-distant pre-pandemic era .
That ’ s why the sport ’ s billionaire owners , predominantly Trump donors , shunned Kaepernick ( although some of their teams could have used his skills ) .
They didn ’ t dare to , or care to , give him another platform , not in an era when “ president ” and “ racism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tellingly , in an understandable but still disappointing me-first display , few of Kaepernick ’ s fellow players , most of whom are also African-American , supported him publicly .
After years of being celebrated as America ’ s “ warriors ” and “ role models , ” they came up desperately short when it counted .
Compare them to healthcare workers and other front-line heroes of this pandemic and you ’ ll realize just how far short they fell of even the most modest form of everyday bravery .
Not that , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ football was such an outlier .
As activism goes , baseball , a sport that once produced transcendent progressive heroes like Jackie Robinson , Jim Bouton , and Curt Flood , has been eerily quiet in recent years .
It ’ s a sport that the president has paid relatively little attention to—except for suggesting recently that Pete Rose , banned from baseball for life for betting on the Cincinnati Reds while he was that team ’ s manager , should be allowed into its Hall of Fame .
How Trumpian was that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , strictly forbidden for active players and managers who are obviously privy to inside information .
But , hey , does disregarding inconvenient rules to profit from a privileged position ring any bells these days in Washington ?
Trump has , in fact , been uncharacteristically silent on the recent revelation that during the 2017 season , the World Series winners , the Houston Astros , concealed a video camera in center field to steal the pitching signs of opposing teams .
That ’ s also illegal .
Major League baseball punished the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ manager for a year , imposing a $ 5 million fine on its owners , and taking away its first- and second-round draft picks in 2020 and 2021 .
For some fans and commentators , the Astros ’ punishment was too severe or too mild .
Opposing players , feeling victimized by the scheme , thought specific Astros should have been penalized , too .
Yet such cheating is hardly new .
In 1951 , the “ shot heard round the world , ” a famed home-run that won the National League pennant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them to the World Series , was linked to the stealing of signs from the Brooklyn Dodgers through a hand-held telescope .
Only the technology has improved .
Once baseball ’ s opening day passed without a pitch this April , proof that the plague was winning , the Phoenix Plan was floated .
It would require all major league players and employees to be sequestered in that area and continually tested at a moment when tests might still not be universally available .
But , hey , haven ’ t VIP Jocks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ line ?
( Actually , a massive study of 10,000 Major League Baseball employees , from players to popcorn vendors , being conducted by Stanford University and the Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory to find out how many contracted and may have recovered from the virus has already gotten access to such testing kits at a time when even some front-line workers can ’ t get them ! )
For those who think this country needs baseball now to raise its depressed spirits , you might consider a cautionary historical precedent , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ As the country reeled from the revelation of President Bill Clinton ’ s sexual liaison with a White House intern and with his impeachment just around the corner , a feel-good legend was born .
A white man and a brown man rose in friendly rivalry to break the 37-year-old record of 61 home runs by Roger Maris , who , in turn , had bested Babe Ruth ’ s famed 60 in 1927 .
The good-natured competition between Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals ( who won with 70 homers ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( 66 ) was , at the time , celebrated as a balm that should soothe the country .
And perhaps for many fans it did indeed serve as a comforting distraction in a difficult political moment .
But that summer ’ s golden glow soon faded as both players were reported to have taken steroids to muscle up .
McGwire would admit it years later ; Sosa would not .
( A dark-skinned Dominican , he further complicated his legend by bleaching his skin to whiten himself , as if in anticipation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . )
Their contemporary , Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants , would eventually become the single-season home run leader with 73 , but has never shaken rumors that he , too , used steroids .
Nor did baseball ever fully recover its sense of primacy as the national pastime or its sense of righteousness as one of America ’ s first major institutions to integrate .
In fact , the sport is still overwhelmingly white and skewed toward an older audience , as well as slow and outdated in an era @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , whether or not baseball opens this season in a vast sports self-isolation experiment , the key to President Trump ’ s future lies in his perverse relationship with the National Football League .
That goes back more than 30 years to the moment he tried unsuccessfully ( as with so many other business ventures ) to elbow his way into the sport .
Give him credit , though : ever attuned to the public mood , he did sense the rise of a new national pastime .
One reason for the NFL @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it uses college football as its minor leagues and early showcase for pro players ( though possibly not this fall ) .
For a passionate pro football fan , it ’ s a pleasure to see the stars of tomorrow in the making .
Of course , the famously corrupted higher education sports market is a happy NFL partner and crime may pay after all , as it often does in the Trump league .
In a recent commentary in the Chronicle of Higher Education , Nathan Kalman-Lamb of Duke opines that high-revenue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will become more valuable than ever as an enticement to lure steep tuition from students.
” And here ’ s an innovation that the president would glory in , one that would make post-pandemic football an even greater success : the addition of real-time nationwide legal gambling on games .
Just imagine the sort of Trump-donor dollars that would be stacked up to support such a future industry .
After all , estimations are that illegal gambling on pro and college football is already a $ 93 billion business .
Legal or not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the fan experience ( though in the post-pandemic world there will be a lot less money in so many pockets to gamble with ) .
The dream of easily accessible , high-tech legal gambling has been lurking on the sidelines for years .
All that ’ s necessary to make it come true is for Congress to reverse the 1992 Professional & Amateur Sports Protection Act , the federal law that bans it in most states .
And the pandemic moment may prove perfect for just that , for “ reopening ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trumpian way , allowing fans to sit at home and bet what money they have left on games in progress : Will that field goal attempt split the uprights ?
Will Tom Brady in his new Tampa Bay Buccaneers uniform make that crucial third-down conversion ?
However , to reopen pro football , as the president would wish , to make life seem “ normal ” again , stadiums might have to remain empty ( or partially empty ) .
Imagine , for instance , if San Francisco had actually beaten Kansas City @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the Super Bowl on the first Sunday in February and the expected championship parade had followed a few days later , drawing a million people to that city ’ s streets .
It might have proved an early version of Mardi Gras ( a 2020 coronaviral disaster of a get-together ) .
Of course , social distancing will be inconceivable for football players and the results all too predictable in a world in which Covid-19 is likely to hang around for a long , long time .
From the huddle to tackling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way , a potential disease transmitter .
The only example of social distancing ( besides Kaepernick kneeling alone ) I can even remember might have been the 1958 West Point football team , which fielded a “ lonesome end , ” Bill Carpenter .
On every play , he set himself up near the far sideline in an innovative formation .
He never even joined the huddle and that team went undefeated .
If it proves impossible to stage football games , given social-distancing rules , the inevitable sport of the future is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ under the radar of most of the middle-aged and elderly , especially those without access to children , is a fiercely contested , already commodified , fan-friendly industry with championships , heroes , endorsement contracts , and a ready market for expensive gear .
I ’ m thinking , as you may have guessed , of competitive online video games , or esports .
( Think of it as the revenge of the nerds . )
No matter what Donald Trump does , sooner rather than later they ’ re likely to replace @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s not hard to imagine a future in which individual competitors , regional and national teams , leagues , or even some version of the Olympics , would be watched by millions on streaming platforms on home screens and , once social distancing becomes a historical footnote , on the screens of sports bars as well , if not theaters and arenas .
While combat games like Fortnite and Call of Duty , along with sports knock-offs like Madden and NBA Live , currently dominate esports , the future will undoubtedly include @ @ @ @ @ @ @ architecture , banking , diplomacy , music , and maybe even poetry into online competitions even Nike and Google could sponsor .
Esports already supports ESPN-style commentary .
There might even be room someday for a new reality show about them hosted by a motor-mouthed , pumpkin-headed former one-term president .
Who needs football after all ?
It would , in fact , be the definition of madness to launch a football season in a coronaviral world .
But that doesn ’ t mean Donald Trump won ’ t push for just that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the reopening of sports includes , as my colleague Dave Zirin points out , “ a group of brigands defined by their lack of care in normal times for the safety and well-being of their employees.
” It ’ s Trump ’ s dream team because , to win in November , he needs an America in which the National Football League is back in business big time .
For him it ’ s open arms for the NFL , which could mean open season on the rest of us .

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service. For that reason, this article, and all of our coronavirus coverage, is now free. Please subscribe to support our writers and staff, and stay healthy. This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.
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As controversies about the “reopening” of America loom over our lives, nothing seems as intrinsically irrelevant—yet possibly as critically important—as how soon major spectator sports return.
If sports don’t trump religion as the opiate of the masses, they have, until recently, been at least the background music of most of our lives. So here’s my bet on one possible side effect of the Covid-19 pandemic to put in your scorebook: If the National Football League plays regular season games this fall, President Trump stands a good chance of winning reelection for returning America to business as usual—or, at least, to his twisted version of the same.
That’s why he announced at a recent daily coronavirus briefing cum rally his eagerness to bring professional sports back quickly. Though it was Major League Baseball that he mentioned—“We have to get our sports back. I’m tired of watching baseball games that are 14 years old”—the sport that truly matters to him is football, the only major mass entertainment (other than Trumpism) that endorses tribalism and toxic masculinity so flagrantly and keeps violence in vogue. Football supports Trump in its promotion of racial division, the crushing of dissent, and the spread of misinformation, inequality, and brutality.
Whether or not the president can survive the loss of the 2020 baseball season—already poisoned by last year’s Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal—is up for grabs. Certainly, the proposed plan to turn stadiums in the Phoenix, Arizona, area into the sports equivalent of a vast movie set for the games of all 30 major league teams (to be played without fans) seems far-fetched at best.
But football, now the true national pastime, is another matter.
In sports terms, as in so much else in coronaviral America, these are desperately deprived times, even for casual fans. There will be intense pressure—and not only from the president’s base—for that sport’s return. For many people, mostly men, it’s the sustaining soap opera that has always carried them into the next week and the one after that, a porn-ish escape hatch from work and family, a currency of communication with other men, an eternal connection to a non-demanding hive.
Games for Lives?
Without professional (or even college) sports right now or realistically in the near future, fans feel even more unmoored in lives that, for all of us, are distinctly adrift. As they become edgier, it’s a reasonable bet (or at least my hope) that they will also become more open to questioning Trump’s mismanagement—or, to put it more bluntly, sacrifice—of their lives. Recent polls already seem to reflect this, with the latest Gallup Poll showing the steepest approval decline of his presidency. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Current Issue View our current issue
The president, I suspect, fears just this, though perhaps, in the end, the hole in everyday life where sports once was may only reinforce fans’ sense (like the president’s) that the games are too important not to bring back, safety be damned. Certainly, Trump and other Republican politicians have already been willing enough to forfeit lives to boost their reelection chances.
The values and sensibilities of football are, of course, Trumpist in nature. That’s why former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s demonstration against racism—performed in a kind of public isolation—elicited such a harsh reaction from the president in the now-distant pre-pandemic era. That’s why the sport’s billionaire owners, predominantly Trump donors, shunned Kaepernick (although some of their teams could have used his skills). They didn’t dare to, or care to, give him another platform, not in an era when “president” and “racism” were becoming synonymous.
Even more tellingly, in an understandable but still disappointing me-first display, few of Kaepernick’s fellow players, most of whom are also African-American, supported him publicly. After years of being celebrated as America’s “warriors” and “role models,” they came up desperately short when it counted. Compare them to health care workers and other frontline heroes of this pandemic and you’ll realize just how far short they fell of even the most modest form of everyday bravery.
Not that, when it comes to pro sports, football was such an outlier. As activism goes, baseball, a sport that once produced transcendent progressive heroes like Jackie Robinson, Jim Bouton, and Curt Flood, has been eerily quiet in recent years. It’s a sport that the president has paid relatively little attention to—except for suggesting recently that Pete Rose, banned from baseball for life for betting on the Cincinnati Reds while he was that team’s manager, should be allowed into its Hall of Fame.
How Trumpian was that? Such betting is, of course, strictly forbidden for active players and managers who are obviously privy to inside information. But, hey, does disregarding inconvenient rules to profit from a privileged position ring any bells these days in Washington?
Trump has, in fact, been uncharacteristically silent on the recent revelation that during the 2017 season, the World Series winners, the Houston Astros, concealed a video camera in center field to steal the pitching signs of opposing teams. That’s also illegal. Major League baseball punished the team by suspending its manager and general manager for a year, imposing a $5 million fine on its owners, and taking away its first- and second-round draft picks in 2020 and 2021.
For some fans and commentators, the Astros’ punishment was too severe or too mild. Opposing players, feeling victimized by the scheme, thought specific Astros should have been penalized, too. Yet such cheating is hardly new. In 1951, the “shot heard round the world,” a famed home-run that won the National League pennant for the New York Giants and sent them to the World Series, was linked to the stealing of signs from the Brooklyn Dodgers through a hand-held telescope. Only the technology has improved.
A Changing National Pastime
Once baseball’s opening day passed without a pitch this April, proof that the plague was winning, the Phoenix Plan was floated. It would require all major league players and employees to be sequestered in that area and continually tested at a moment when tests might still not be universally available. But, hey, haven’t VIP Jocks always gone to the head of the line? (Actually, a massive study of 10,000 Major League Baseball employees, from players to popcorn vendors, being conducted by Stanford University and the Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory to find out how many contracted and may have recovered from the virus has already gotten access to such testing kits at a time when even some front-line workers can’t get them!)
For those who think this country needs baseball now to raise its depressed spirits, you might consider a cautionary historical precedent, the Summer of Swat of 1998. As the country reeled from the revelation of President Bill Clinton’s sexual liaison with a White House intern and with his impeachment just around the corner, a feel-good legend was born. A white man and a brown man rose in friendly rivalry to break the 37-year-old record of 61 home runs by Roger Maris, who, in turn, had bested Babe Ruth’s famed 60 in 1927.
The good-natured competition between Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals (who won with 70 homers) and Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs (66) was, at the time, celebrated as a balm that should soothe the country. And perhaps for many fans it did indeed serve as a comforting distraction in a difficult political moment.
But that summer’s golden glow soon faded as both players were reported to have taken steroids to muscle up. McGwire would admit it years later; Sosa would not. (A dark-skinned Dominican, he further complicated his legend by bleaching his skin to whiten himself, as if in anticipation of the Trumpian racial preferences to come.) Their contemporary, Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants, would eventually become the single-season home run leader with 73, but has never shaken rumors that he, too, used steroids.
Nor did baseball ever fully recover its sense of primacy as the national pastime or its sense of righteousness as one of America’s first major institutions to integrate. In fact, the sport is still overwhelmingly white and skewed toward an older audience, as well as slow and outdated in an era of tweeting speed.
Which is why, whether or not baseball opens this season in a vast sports self-isolation experiment, the key to President Trump’s future lies in his perverse relationship with the National Football League. That goes back more than 30 years to the moment he tried unsuccessfully (as with so many other business ventures) to elbow his way into the sport. Give him credit, though: ever attuned to the public mood, he did sense the rise of a new national pastime.
Bet on This
One reason for the NFL’s growing popularity is the way it uses college football as its minor leagues and early showcase for pro players (though possibly not this fall). For a passionate pro football fan, it’s a pleasure to see the stars of tomorrow in the making. Of course, the famously corrupted higher education sports market is a happy NFL partner and crime may pay after all, as it often does in the Trump league. In a recent commentary in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Nathan Kalman-Lamb of Duke opines that high-revenue men’s football and basketball “will become more valuable than ever as an enticement to lure steep tuition from students.”
And here’s an innovation that the president would glory in, one that would make post-pandemic football an even greater success: the addition of real-time nationwide legal gambling on games. Just imagine the sort of Trump-donor dollars that would be stacked up to support such a future industry. After all, estimations are that illegal gambling on pro and college football is already a $93 billion business. Legal or not, it’s an integral part of the fan experience (though in the post-pandemic world there will be a lot less money in so many pockets to gamble with).
The dream of easily accessible, high-tech legal gambling has been lurking on the sidelines for years. All that’s necessary to make it come true is for Congress to reverse the 1992 Professional & Amateur Sports Protection Act, the federal law that bans it in most states. And the pandemic moment may prove perfect for just that, for “reopening” football in a new and even more Trumpian way, allowing fans to sit at home and bet what money they have left on games in progress: Will that field goal attempt split the uprights? Will Tom Brady in his new Tampa Bay Buccaneers uniform make that crucial third-down conversion?
However, to reopen pro football, as the president would wish, to make life seem “normal” again, stadiums might have to remain empty (or partially empty). Imagine, for instance, if San Francisco had actually beaten Kansas City (which it didn’t) in the Super Bowl on the first Sunday in February and the expected championship parade had followed a few days later, drawing a million people to that city’s streets. It might have proved an early version of Mardi Gras (a 2020 coronaviral disaster of a get-together).
Of course, social distancing will be inconceivable for football players and the results all too predictable in a world in which Covid-19 is likely to hang around for a long, long time. From the huddle to tackling, the game is, in every way, a potential disease transmitter. The only example of social distancing (besides Kaepernick kneeling alone) I can even remember might have been the 1958 West Point football team, which fielded a “lonesome end,” Bill Carpenter. On every play, he set himself up near the far sideline in an innovative formation. He never even joined the huddle and that team went undefeated.
If it proves impossible to stage football games, given social-distancing rules, the inevitable sport of the future is already waiting in the wings. Just under the radar of most of the middle-aged and elderly, especially those without access to children, is a fiercely contested, already commodified, fan-friendly industry with championships, heroes, endorsement contracts, and a ready market for expensive gear. I’m thinking, as you may have guessed, of competitive online video games, or esports. (Think of it as the revenge of the nerds.) No matter what Donald Trump does, sooner rather than later they’re likely to replace the old up-close-and-contagious live games.
It’s not hard to imagine a future in which individual competitors, regional and national teams, leagues, or even some version of the Olympics, would be watched by millions on streaming platforms on home screens and, once social distancing becomes a historical footnote, on the screens of sports bars as well, if not theaters and arenas. While combat games like Fortnite and Call of Duty, along with sports knock-offs like Madden and NBA Live, currently dominate esports, the future will undoubtedly include brainier fare that will turn art, architecture, banking, diplomacy, music, and maybe even poetry into online competitions even Nike and Google could sponsor.
Esports already supports ESPN-style commentary. There might even be room someday for a new reality show about them hosted by a motor-mouthed, pumpkin-headed former one-term president.
Who needs football after all? It would, in fact, be the definition of madness to launch a football season in a coronaviral world. But that doesn’t mean Donald Trump won’t push for just that. The advisory board he appointed for the reopening of sports includes, as my colleague Dave Zirin points out, “a group of brigands defined by their lack of care in normal times for the safety and well-being of their employees.”
It’s Trump’s dream team because, to win in November, he needs an America in which the National Football League is back in business big time. For him it’s open arms for the NFL, which could mean open season on the rest of us.


thenation--2020-04-24--Out for the Count? Terri Ann Lowenthal on the Coronavirus Threat to the Census

This month the US Census Bureau announced that it was postponing its field operations until June 1 and extending its deadline to count every American to October 31 .
The pandemic has made it impossible for Census workers to safely knock on the doors of the millions of households who have failed to fill out the Census online ( or by phone ) , live on Indian reservations , or whose homes lie in remote areas with low broadband coverage or inconsistent postal addresses .
“ The timing of the health crisis could not have been worse , ” leading @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ I was already worried that the 2020 Census could be sailing into a perfect storm with headwinds largely out of the Census Bureau ’ s control .
And then the Census got hit by a tsunami.
” When I first met Lowenthal in March of 2018 , I was reporting for The Intercept on the Trump administration ’ s lackluster preparations for the 2020 Census .
Lowenthal , whose mother is a champion sailor , has advised three previous Censuses and continues to consult the Bureau and the Census oversight committees @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that a confluence of factors was already threatening the Census : underfunding , untested digital systems , unpreparedness in the neediest and historically undercounted communities , and apparent attempts by the administration to politicize the count .
Just as I had finished reporting , the Commerce Department announced its intention to include a question about citizenship status on the survey .
The news dropped like a bomb .
It was a harbinger of the chaos , confusion , and fear that would accompany a nationwide count carried out by an administration more intent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the nation ’ s population .
In her cautious way , Lowenthal told me that Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross ’ s justification for including a citizenship question ( that it was necessary to enforce , of all things , minority voting rights ! )
did “ nothing to counter suspicions that he was influenced by partisan factors or political goals unrelated to the Census Bureau ’ s constitutional mission.
” In decades of bipartisan work , Lowenthal has mastered a delicate , plausibly apolitical idiom in which to criticize those attempting to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ involve me saying things like , “ So , he lied , ” and her responding , “ You can say that .
I ’ m not saying that.
” A year later , it became clear that Ross had indeed colluded with Steve Bannon and voter suppression guru Kris Kobach to manufacture a rationale for adding the citizenship question in order to undermine the count in diverse and Democratic regions of the country .
The Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling , preventing the citizenship question from going forward .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is one of the most consequential ways we distribute political and economic power in America .
A failed Census—a term Lowenthal objects to , preferring “ a Census whose data is not widely trusted ” —would harm poor , nonwhite , and immigrant communities .
And it would give aid and comfort to those who hope to preserve white minority rule in the United States .
As both Trump ’ s incompetence and Covid-19 threaten the Census and the nation , I caught up with Lowenthal to discuss the state of play .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s decision to delay some of its operational deadlines being received by Census stakeholders ?
Terri Ann Lowenthal : Let me start by saying , the term “ delay ” is not really accurate .
The bureau itself is not using that word .
Though some in Congress and the media are .
To an average person “ delay ” sounds like , “ Oh , OK.
They ’ re not going to finish it .
We ’ re going to do it another time.
” That ’ s not what ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ being delayed , because the Census has started—and it ’ s still going on .
You can fill out the Census right now online or by phone .
And just recently , households that hadn ’ t yet responded on their own received a paper questionnaire in the mail .
But to answer your question , my sense is that the proposed operational adjustments and requests to revise the reporting deadline is being met somewhat favorably on both sides of the aisle .
I believe that Congress needs to quickly evaluate thoroughly the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the data , as well as the implications for the redistricting process in each state—but I don ’ t have any evidence that there were any partisan motives behind the proposed changes .
Census enumerators can ’ t be out in the field right now .
The rollout of the new plan was mishandled , however , because it was conveyed by the secretary of commerce and staff from the White House , which suggested to some that it was being done without an appropriate operational and scientific basis .
But the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had recommended the changes .
And I have confidence that the bureau believes it is taking the best steps it can to conduct the best Census that it can under very difficult conditions .
SAB : Let ’ s talk about those conditions .
What are all the foreseeable impacts of coronavirus on the 2020 Census , in addition to the altered timeline ?
TAL : I am concerned that historically undercounted communities will be disadvantaged the most by these disruptions .
I think people who have been displaced due to the public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ accurately .
Lower-income households , foreign-born households , we are talking about a lot of people who don ’ t have the luxury of shifting their work home and doing Zoom meetings all day , and then maybe filling out the Census online in the evening .
They are now consumed with putting food on the table and keeping their jobs or at least some income coming into the household and keeping their family safe .
Coronavirus at the Bottom of the Supply Chain How Poetry Can Bear Witness to Crisis and Revolution @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Horse With a Solution We also don ’ t know yet if the Census Bureau will be able to hire enough workers to get the job done well .
We hope so , and for better or worse there may be more folks looking for work by the time the Census Bureau ramps up hiring again .
On the other hand , the Census Bureau always relied significantly on retirees for these temporary jobs .
And it could be that older people will now be more reluctant to go door to door , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the same token , we don ’ t know whether people , those who didn ’ t respond on their own , will be willing to open their doors to a stranger .
None of us know what the new normal is going to look like in August , September , and October .
There are other issues related to the timeline .
Something I ’ ve been saying for a long time is that “ climate change has met the Census.
” Natural disasters are now more frequent and more damaging then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
One of the reasons April 1 has become Census day is seasonality .
They want college kids to be at their colleges ; they won ’ t be .
They want homeless people—in many states , less so the warmer states—to be more likely to be in a shelter or soup kitchen .
And [ they want to count ] migrant farm workers before they start to disperse throughout the farming states , which usually happens in May and so forth .
But also , there ’ s hurricane season .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ season , especially along the Gulf Coast and the southeastern United States .
And so what happens if one or more major storms hit Texas , Louisiana , Mississippi , Alabama , Florida , Georgia , and North Carolina right as enumerators are out in the field ?
That ’ s another serious danger .
Climate and the Census is one of my major themes .
It worried me before Covid-19 .
It worries me even more now .
SAB : Thankfully , there won ’ t be an immigration status question .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ in immigrant communities contributing to an undercount ?
TAL : I am .
Research from outside stakeholder groups , like NALEO Education Fund , conducted close to the start of the 2020 Census , continued to show that many immigrant households still believed there was a citizenship question on the form .
So considerable damage had already been done from the entire controversy .
I believe that immigrant communities likely are still fearful of participating .
SAB : Underfunding of the Census was a big concern of yours when we first spoke in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ funds being allocated for the extended timeline and to make all the necessary changes to the process ?
TAL : My understanding , as of now , is that the adjusted Census plan will cost an additional roughly $ 800 million .
The bureau has already started to develop new ads .
It has to be more sensitive to the new environment we ’ re in , and stakeholders are urging the bureau to expand its entire communications campaign , which likely will now have to go on much longer than originally planned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the Census Bureau has enough money to carry out the Census in the wake of these unprecedented changes and new conditions .
I , however , urge Congress to look very closely at what the Census Bureau is spending its money on .
I think that more money might be needed to expand communications and perhaps to double or even triple the number of enumerators to allow the Census Bureau to complete the door-knocking operation in a shorter period of time .
SAB : If people read this are concerned about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what should they do ?
Is there any hope ?
TAL : It takes a village to ensure a good Census .
Congress must ensure adequate resources and effective oversight of operations .
The Census Bureau must deploy a plan that is flexible in meeting the unprecedented challenge of enumerating during a nationwide health crisis .
State and local officials , who understandably are focused on keeping their constituents and communities safe , must continue to lift up the importance of being counted .
And everyone can help make the Census a success @ @ @ @ @ @ @ helping to spread the word through their social and work networks that it ’ s safe and important to participate .

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service. For that reason, this article, and all of our coronavirus coverage, is now free. Please subscribe to support our writers and staff, and stay healthy.
Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
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This month the US Census Bureau announced that it was postponing its field operations until June 1 and extending its deadline to count every American to October 31. The pandemic has made it impossible for Census workers to safely knock on the doors of the millions of households who have failed to fill out the Census online (or by phone), live on Indian reservations, or whose homes lie in remote areas with low broadband coverage or inconsistent postal addresses.
“The timing of the health crisis could not have been worse,” leading Census expert Terri Ann Lowenthal told me, “I was already worried that the 2020 Census could be sailing into a perfect storm with headwinds largely out of the Census Bureau’s control. And then the Census got hit by a tsunami.”
When I first met Lowenthal in March of 2018, I was reporting for The Intercept on the Trump administration’s lackluster preparations for the 2020 Census. Lowenthal, whose mother is a champion sailor, has advised three previous Censuses and continues to consult the Bureau and the Census oversight committees. At the time, Lowenthal warned that a confluence of factors was already threatening the Census: underfunding, untested digital systems, unpreparedness in the neediest and historically undercounted communities, and apparent attempts by the administration to politicize the count. Just as I had finished reporting, the Commerce Department announced its intention to include a question about citizenship status on the survey.
The news dropped like a bomb. It was a harbinger of the chaos, confusion, and fear that would accompany a nationwide count carried out by an administration more intent on terrorizing immigrants than on accurately enumerating the nation’s population.
In her cautious way, Lowenthal told me that Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross’s justification for including a citizenship question (that it was necessary to enforce, of all things, minority voting rights!) did “nothing to counter suspicions that he was influenced by partisan factors or political goals unrelated to the Census Bureau’s constitutional mission.” In decades of bipartisan work, Lowenthal has mastered a delicate, plausibly apolitical idiom in which to criticize those attempting to sabotage her work. Our conversations often involve me saying things like, “So, he lied,” and her responding, “You can say that. I’m not saying that.”
A year later, it became clear that Ross had indeed colluded with Steve Bannon and voter suppression guru Kris Kobach to manufacture a rationale for adding the citizenship question in order to undermine the count in diverse and Democratic regions of the country. The Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling, preventing the citizenship question from going forward. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
But grave dangers remain. The decennial Census is one of the most consequential ways we distribute political and economic power in America. A failed Census—a term Lowenthal objects to, preferring “a Census whose data is not widely trusted”—would harm poor, nonwhite, and immigrant communities. And it would give aid and comfort to those who hope to preserve white minority rule in the United States. As both Trump’s incompetence and Covid-19 threaten the Census and the nation, I caught up with Lowenthal to discuss the state of play. Current Issue View our current issue
—Sam Adler-Bell
Sam Adler-Bell: How is the administration’s decision to delay some of its operational deadlines being received by Census stakeholders?
Terri Ann Lowenthal: Let me start by saying, the term “delay” is not really accurate. The bureau itself is not using that word. Though some in Congress and the media are. To an average person “delay” sounds like, “Oh, OK. They’re not going to finish it. We’re going to do it another time.” That’s not what’s happening. The Census is not being delayed, because the Census has started—and it’s still going on. You can fill out the Census right now online or by phone. And just recently, households that hadn’t yet responded on their own received a paper questionnaire in the mail.
But to answer your question, my sense is that the proposed operational adjustments and requests to revise the reporting deadline is being met somewhat favorably on both sides of the aisle. I believe that Congress needs to quickly evaluate thoroughly the implications—the effects on the quality and accuracy of the data, as well as the implications for the redistricting process in each state—but I don’t have any evidence that there were any partisan motives behind the proposed changes. Census enumerators can’t be out in the field right now.
The rollout of the new plan was mishandled, however, because it was conveyed by the secretary of commerce and staff from the White House, which suggested to some that it was being done without an appropriate operational and scientific basis. But the Census Bureau subsequently made clear that it had recommended the changes. And I have confidence that the bureau believes it is taking the best steps it can to conduct the best Census that it can under very difficult conditions.
SAB: Let’s talk about those conditions. What are all the foreseeable impacts of coronavirus on the 2020 Census, in addition to the altered timeline?
TAL: I am concerned that historically undercounted communities will be disadvantaged the most by these disruptions. I think people who have been displaced due to the public health crisis will be harder to count accurately. Lower-income households, foreign-born households, we are talking about a lot of people who don’t have the luxury of shifting their work home and doing Zoom meetings all day, and then maybe filling out the Census online in the evening. They are now consumed with putting food on the table and keeping their jobs or at least some income coming into the household and keeping their family safe. The Q&A Coronavirus at the Bottom of the Supply Chain James North How Poetry Can Bear Witness to Crisis and Revolution John Washington Science Will Not Come on a White Horse With a Solution Nawal Arjini
We also don’t know yet if the Census Bureau will be able to hire enough workers to get the job done well. We hope so, and for better or worse there may be more folks looking for work by the time the Census Bureau ramps up hiring again. On the other hand, the Census Bureau always relied significantly on retirees for these temporary jobs. And it could be that older people will now be more reluctant to go door to door, speaking to people in person. By the same token, we don’t know whether people, those who didn’t respond on their own, will be willing to open their doors to a stranger. None of us know what the new normal is going to look like in August, September, and October.
There are other issues related to the timeline. Something I’ve been saying for a long time is that “climate change has met the Census.” Natural disasters are now more frequent and more damaging then we’d seen in the past. One of the reasons April 1 has become Census day is seasonality. They want college kids to be at their colleges; they won’t be. They want homeless people—in many states, less so the warmer states—to be more likely to be in a shelter or soup kitchen. And [they want to count] migrant farm workers before they start to disperse throughout the farming states, which usually happens in May and so forth.
But also, there’s hurricane season. The National Hurricane Center just projected an active season, especially along the Gulf Coast and the southeastern United States. And so what happens if one or more major storms hit Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina right as enumerators are out in the field? That’s another serious danger. Climate and the Census is one of my major themes. It worried me before Covid-19. It worries me even more now.
SAB: Thankfully, there won’t be an immigration status question. But are you still worried about fear in immigrant communities contributing to an undercount?
TAL: I am. Research from outside stakeholder groups, like NALEO Education Fund, conducted close to the start of the 2020 Census, continued to show that many immigrant households still believed there was a citizenship question on the form. So considerable damage had already been done from the entire controversy. I believe that immigrant communities likely are still fearful of participating.
SAB: Underfunding of the Census was a big concern of yours when we first spoke in 2018. Are you worried about sufficient funds being allocated for the extended timeline and to make all the necessary changes to the process?
TAL: My understanding, as of now, is that the adjusted Census plan will cost an additional roughly $800 million. The bureau has already started to develop new ads. It has to be more sensitive to the new environment we’re in, and stakeholders are urging the bureau to expand its entire communications campaign, which likely will now have to go on much longer than originally planned.
The administration’s position is that the Census Bureau has enough money to carry out the Census in the wake of these unprecedented changes and new conditions. I, however, urge Congress to look very closely at what the Census Bureau is spending its money on. I think that more money might be needed to expand communications and perhaps to double or even triple the number of enumerators to allow the Census Bureau to complete the door-knocking operation in a shorter period of time.
SAB: If people read this are concerned about the challenges you’ve described here, what should they do? Is there any hope?
TAL: It takes a village to ensure a good Census. Congress must ensure adequate resources and effective oversight of operations. The Census Bureau must deploy a plan that is flexible in meeting the unprecedented challenge of enumerating during a nationwide health crisis. State and local officials, who understandably are focused on keeping their constituents and communities safe, must continue to lift up the importance of being counted. And everyone can help make the Census a success not only by responding, but by helping to spread the word through their social and work networks that it’s safe and important to participate.


thenation--2020-04-24--The Burden of Dangerous Work Must Be Shared By All

On Wednesday night , Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman gave an astonishing interview on CNN where she advocated an immediate end to the lockdown and the reopening of her city as a gambling mecca .
“ I ’ d love everything open because I think we ’ ve had viruses for years that have been here , ” Goodman told Anderson Cooper .
“ We ’ ve never closed down the United States .
We ’ ve never closed down Nevada .
We ’ ve never closed down Las Vegas because that ’ s our job.
” Goodman said she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ owners , whom she described as “ very sensitive people.
” Cooper pressed the point by asking “ If casinos re-open , are you going to be inside those casinos every single night putting your life on the line ?
” Goodman tried to dodge the question and then responded , “ First of all , I have a family.
” Fortunately , Goodman doesn ’ t actually have the power to end the lockdown in her city .
But her comments typify a very loud and reckless faction of the political class @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to efforts to contain the Covid-19 pandemic .
As Cooper accurately noted , Goodman ’ s remarks are all the more remarkable because there is no indication that she ’ s put into place any of the infrastructure of testing and contact tracing that would make ending the lockdown safe .
Thanks to Covid-19 , Neoliberal Globalization Is Unraveling Nor is Goodman alone in her foolhardy advocacy .
On Thursday night , conservative pundit David Frum noted that the Trump administration was laggard in all the policy steps needed for a safe reopening @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the strategy of Trump and the Republicans going forward would be to ram through a reopening even without the safeguard of a proper testing and tracing regime .
“ What the Trump administration plainly yearns to do—and ditto FL , GA , TN , and other GOP governors—is to reopen , let the disease rip , take casualties , hope for rapid onset of sufficient immunity , ” Frum argued .
“ Trump and his governors are working to ensure there won ’ t be any other choice.
” He went on to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get lucky .
Maybe the virus will mutate into harmlessness .
Maybe a vaccine will be devised .
But we can ’ t stay locked down forever , and there isn ’ t going to be testing and tracing anytime soon .
Meanwhile , those with clout in the GOP are pushing for ‘ take the punch.
’ ” Trump ’ s continued touting of miracle cures is part of this strategy .
Although his previous wonder drug hydroxychloroquine hasn ’ t panned out , Trump continues to advocate for bizarre panaceas .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ speculated that cures could include irradiating patients with an ultraviolet light or possibly injecting them with disinfectants .
If Trump and the GOP push for a premature end to the lockdown , one that will only lead to a new surge in illness and death , then it ’ s worth asking them the same question that Anderson Cooper posed to Carolyn Goodman : Are they willing to spend their days in the workplaces where Covid-19 is likely to spread fastest ?
The Darwinian callousness of the “ take the punch ” approach @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of American society .
Goodman and the owners of the Las Vegas casinos , Trump and his Mar-A-Lago cronies , the plutocrats funding protests against the lockdown , Rupert Murdoch and the Fox News pundits : All of them inhabit a bubble of wealth that protects them from the consequences of the pandemic .
They can happily contemplate a system where they will continue to work from home and benefit from an economy in which the risks of Covid-19 are overwhelmingly borne by the working class .
In his 1983 book Spheres of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the case for a more equal society where the burden of doing dirty and dangerous work is shared : In a society of equals , who will do the dirty work ?
And the necessary answer is that , at least in some partial and symbolic sense , we all should do it .
Then we will have an end to dukes , if not yet to dustmen .
This is what Gandhi was getting at when he required his followers—himself , too—to clean the latrines of their ashram .
Here was a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ untouchability , but it also made a practical point : People should clean dirt .
Otherwise , the men and women who do it not only for themselves but for everyone else , too , will never be equal members of the political community .
As an example of what he had in mind , Walzer suggests , “ the cleaning of city streets , say , or of national parks should be the ( part-time ) work of the citizens.
” Aside from Gandhi , Walzer cited other advocates of equality such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ promoting the virtues of communal grunt work .
He could also have mentioned the science fiction novelist Ursula K. Le Guin , whose novel The Dispossessed features a society where everyone had to devote one day a week to “ kleggich ” ( drudgery ) .
Students Across the Country Are Going on Strike Coronavirus at the Bottom of the Supply Chain More in this series These ideas are guided by the ethical imperatives of egalitarianism , but could also have a practical benefit .
As Walzer notes , “ There would probably @ @ @ @ @ @ @ everyone knew in advance of making it that he couldn ’ t leave the cleaning to someone else.
” The chief value of this type of utopian speculation is that it makes more apparent the deficiency of the real world .
In the case of Covid-19 , advocating a Walzer-style sharing of dirty work makes visible the brutal class reality that undergirds current policy .
Imagine a world where Carolyn Goodman had to spend her evenings cleaning up a casino , where Georgia Governor Brian Kemp had to do part-time labor in an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to work one day a week as a hospital orderly .
In such a world , we wouldn ’ t have a rush to reopen the economy .
Instead , we ’ d have a massive investment in the health care system , including in testing and tracing infrastructure .
We have to demand a wider sharing of the burdens of the pandemic .
The ruling elite have to be forced to choose : Either they can start spending on the scale the problem needs , or they ’ ll be conscripted into @ @ @ @ @ @

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service. For that reason, this article, and all of our coronavirus coverage, is now free. Please subscribe to support our writers and staff, and stay healthy.
Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
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On Wednesday night, Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman gave an astonishing interview on CNN where she advocated an immediate end to the lockdown and the reopening of her city as a gambling mecca.
“I’d love everything open because I think we’ve had viruses for years that have been here,” Goodman told Anderson Cooper. “We’ve never closed down the United States. We’ve never closed down Nevada. We’ve never closed down Las Vegas because that’s our job.” Goodman said she was motivated by her talks with casino owners, whom she described as “very sensitive people.”
Cooper pressed the point by asking “If casinos re-open, are you going to be inside those casinos every single night putting your life on the line?” Goodman tried to dodge the question and then responded, “First of all, I have a family.”
Fortunately, Goodman doesn’t actually have the power to end the lockdown in her city. But her comments typify a very loud and reckless faction of the political class that is pushing for a premature end to efforts to contain the Covid-19 pandemic. As Cooper accurately noted, Goodman’s remarks are all the more remarkable because there is no indication that she’s put into place any of the infrastructure of testing and contact tracing that would make ending the lockdown safe. More From Jeet Heer The Indigenous Roots of Robbie Robertson’s Rock and Roll Revolution August 14, 2023 Why Does This Racist Keep Getting Silicon Valley Money? August 11, 2023 When Phallocrats Go Limp August 4, 2023
Nor is Goodman alone in her foolhardy advocacy. On Thursday night, conservative pundit David Frum noted that the Trump administration was laggard in all the policy steps needed for a safe reopening of the economy. Frum argued that the strategy of Trump and the Republicans going forward would be to ram through a reopening even without the safeguard of a proper testing and tracing regime.
“What the Trump administration plainly yearns to do—and ditto FL, GA, TN, and other GOP governors—is to reopen, let the disease rip, take casualties, hope for rapid onset of sufficient immunity,” Frum argued. “Trump and his governors are working to ensure there won’t be any other choice.” He went on to note, “Maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe the virus will mutate into harmlessness. Maybe a vaccine will be devised. But we can’t stay locked down forever, and there isn’t going to be testing and tracing anytime soon. Meanwhile, those with clout in the GOP are pushing for ‘take the punch.’”
Trump’s continued touting of miracle cures is part of this strategy. Although his previous wonder drug hydroxychloroquine hasn’t panned out, Trump continues to advocate for bizarre panaceas. During a Thursday press briefing, Trump speculated that cures could include irradiating patients with an ultraviolet light or possibly injecting them with disinfectants. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Current Issue View our current issue
If Trump and the GOP push for a premature end to the lockdown, one that will only lead to a new surge in illness and death, then it’s worth asking them the same question that Anderson Cooper posed to Carolyn Goodman: Are they willing to spend their days in the workplaces where Covid-19 is likely to spread fastest?
The Darwinian callousness of the “take the punch” approach is a product of the extreme inequality of American society. Goodman and the owners of the Las Vegas casinos, Trump and his Mar-A-Lago cronies, the plutocrats funding protests against the lockdown, Rupert Murdoch and the Fox News pundits: All of them inhabit a bubble of wealth that protects them from the consequences of the pandemic. They can happily contemplate a system where they will continue to work from home and benefit from an economy in which the risks of Covid-19 are overwhelmingly borne by the working class.
In his 1983 book Spheres of Justice, political theorist Michael Walzer made the case for a more equal society where the burden of doing dirty and dangerous work is shared:
In a society of equals, who will do the dirty work? And the necessary answer is that, at least in some partial and symbolic sense, we all should do it. Then we will have an end to dukes, if not yet to dustmen. This is what Gandhi was getting at when he required his followers—himself, too—to clean the latrines of their ashram. Here was a symbolic way of purging Hindu society of untouchability, but it also made a practical point: People should clean dirt. Otherwise, the men and women who do it not only for themselves but for everyone else, too, will never be equal members of the political community.
As an example of what he had in mind, Walzer suggests, “the cleaning of city streets, say, or of national parks should be the (part-time) work of the citizens.”
Aside from Gandhi, Walzer cited other advocates of equality such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Walt Whitman as promoting the virtues of communal grunt work. He could also have mentioned the science fiction novelist Ursula K. Le Guin, whose novel The Dispossessed features a society where everyone had to devote one day a week to “kleggich” (drudgery). Working Conditions NIH Fellows Win Recognition as Workers With the Right to Join a Union Peter Lucas The New Law to Protect Pregnant Workers Is Already Changing Lives Bryce Covert Why Does This Racist Keep Getting Silicon Valley Money? Jeet Heer
These ideas are guided by the ethical imperatives of egalitarianism, but could also have a practical benefit. As Walzer notes, “There would probably be less dirt to clean up if everyone knew in advance of making it that he couldn’t leave the cleaning to someone else.”
The chief value of this type of utopian speculation is that it makes more apparent the deficiency of the real world. In the case of Covid-19, advocating a Walzer-style sharing of dirty work makes visible the brutal class reality that undergirds current policy.
Imagine a world where Carolyn Goodman had to spend her evenings cleaning up a casino, where Georgia Governor Brian Kemp had to do part-time labor in an Amazon warehouse, where Donald Trump had to work one day a week as a hospital orderly. In such a world, we wouldn’t have a rush to reopen the economy. Instead, we’d have a massive investment in the health care system, including in testing and tracing infrastructure.
We have to demand a wider sharing of the burdens of the pandemic. The ruling elite have to be forced to choose: Either they can start spending on the scale the problem needs, or they’ll be conscripted into the army of essential laborers.


thenation--2020-04-24--SCOTUS Just Found a Way to Inflict More Terror on Immigrants

There ’ s an element of fear in living as a person of color in this country .
That fear is that white people can lay hands on you , can come for you , can take you , whenever they want .
They can take you out of a job ; they can take you from your family ; they can find a reason to justify erasing you .
This fear is not an accident .
It ’ s not in my head .
It ’ s not a victimization card I pull out to shut up the white @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been taught and cultivated by a legal and social system designed to propagate the continued political , social , and economic supremacy of white people in this county .
Instilling fear is a tactical choice by this society .
We ’ ve all seen those tactics put on display : the raids and the deportations , the walls and the cages , the ripping apart of families and the separations of children from parents .
These tactics are familiar to anybody with a working understanding of how apartheid was enforced in South Africa @ @ @ @ @ @ @ America .
These are the tactics of terrorism : the physical , well-publicized violence against some to carry out psychological violence and trauma against all .
On Thursday , the Supreme Court affirmed the validity of these terror tactics yet again when it ruled against an immigrant named Andre Barton in a 5-4 ruling that broke along the standard ideological lines .
The case is a purposeful reminder that white people can reach into your life and destroy it , if they feel like it .
There is increasing national awareness that “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of terrorizing black and brown lives .
But we don ’ t often talk about judge-sponsored state terrorism , even though judges are a critical part of the law enforcement apparatus of the state .
That ’ s in part because the media is bad at appreciating the human cost of rulings dressed up in legalese , and in part because Donald Trump and his minions are such obvious goblins that it ’ s hard to take your eyes off them .
But yesterday ’ s Supreme Court decision was so legally and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ away .
It ’ s not a hot-button immigration controversy ; it ’ s not a wedge issue in the ongoing culture war .
It ’ s just a tragedy .
It ’ s an act of terrorism against one man , carried out to make every immigrant feel a little less safe .
Andre Barton is a Jamaican-born man in his mid-40s , and he ’ s been living in the United States since he was around 10 years old .
He and his mother came here legally .
Barton is a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He is a father to four children and owns a small business .
Barton is an American immigrant success story by most definitions of that concept .
But it didn ’ t always look like he was going to be .
In 1996 , when he was a teenager , Barton was convicted of aggravated assault and possession of a firearm .
Apparently , his friend shot a gun into Barton ’ s ex-girlfriend ’ s house ; Barton claimed he didn ’ t know the friend was armed .
Later , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Barton developed a substance abuse problem .
He was convicted on two drug possession charges .
After that , Barton found his way , graduated from college , and went on to live his life .
He was never in trouble with the law again .
Until the Trump administration got its hands on him .
In 2016 , 10 years after his last arrest , the government started deportation hearings against Barton based on the old possession convictions .
Trump didn ’ t invent this government power ( proceedings likely started under @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) , but his administration has exploited it .
The power to deport people over a broad list of crimes and offenses committed years or decades prior has been a thing in this country since the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act .
It ’ s a power Bill Clinton , and every administration since , has used whenever they need to look “ tough ” on immigrants .
It ’ s a trash law , and it would be nice if one day there was a liberal political party that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ instead tried to fix it .
When I talk about terrorism , this is what I mean .
Andre Barton was out there living his life ; he ’ s got a family , he ’ s got friends , he ’ s an employer in his community .
And the government reached out through space and time and snatched it away .
It ’ s not like he had gotten away with his crimes ; he was convicted for them .
Whatever debt he owed to society , he paid that price @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Barton ( and thousands similarly situated ) can just be kicked out of the country , legally discarded , on the whim of the administration in power .
It ’ s terrifying—and meant to be so .
As I said , every recent administration has used this power to hunt and deport legal immigrants , but the Trump administration can be distinguished for the cruel and borderline absurdist lengths it goes to in order to strike fear in the hearts and minds of immigrants of color .
Barton and his legal team agreed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ offenses.
” They did not fight the notion that he could be deported .
But they did fight the notion that he should be deported , by turning to a safety valve for people in Barton ’ s situation .
According to the Immigration and Nationality Act , if Barton can convince an immigration judge that , notwithstanding the removable offense , he had been a basically decent person with strong and long-standing ties to the community , that judge could cancel his deportation .
Barton , who , again , owned a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for a decade , and hadn ’ t been back to Jamaica for 25 years , was a good candidate for such a cancellation .
So the Trump administration got creative ( so creative that a group of former immigration judges filed a brief opposing the government ’ s position ) .
It dug all the way back to his 1996 conviction for aggravated assault .
Now , both sides agreed that aggravated assault is not grounds for deportation ( the fact that this country basically treats violence against women as a lesser @ @ @ @ @ @ @ topic for another time ) .
But aggravated assault is grounds to deny entry into the country in the first place .
It makes sense that we have a lower threshold for crimes that can keep a person from coming into the country than we do for crimes that would kick a person out of the country .
Not being allowed to go somewhere is a different thing entirely from being kicked out of your home .
Enter the Supreme Court .
The legal issue is dry enough to suck the blood out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Essentially , in order to be eligible for one of these deportation “ cancellations , ” you have to meet a number of requirements .
One of those requirements is that you didn ’ t commit certain crimes during your first seven years of legal residence .
Barton ’ s drug conviction happened after he had already been here for seven years , so his drug conviction is not something that could have prevented him from getting a deportation cancellation .
The Supreme Court Just Made It Easier to Get Away With @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ban ’ Is an Evil Attempt at Distraction But , according to the court , his aggravated assault conviction occurred ( wait for it ) six and a half years after Barton first gained legal residence .
That ’ s why the Trump administration had to bring it up .
Even though Barton can ’ t be deported because of the aggravated assault , the administration decided to argue that aggravated assault can stop him from getting an exception to the crime he can be deported over .
From there , the legal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ requirements for an exception should be understood as “ no crimes which would deny you entry ” or “ no crimes which could get you deported.
” The conservative majority argued that any old crime , even one for which Barton could not have been deported at the time he committed it , was enough to bar him from getting an exception .
The liberal dissent argued that it ’ s illogical madness to stop Barton ’ s clock on seven years of good behavior for a crime that can ’ t be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t lose the human for the technical jargon .
In essence , the conservatives decided that they could deport a man in his 40s based on a crime he committed in his late teens , even though they could not have deported him in his late teens when he committed that crime .
And the only reason deportation was even on the table was because he ’ s got a 10-year-old drug conviction , which is never the kind of thing Chadwald Karenström ever gets deported back to Sweden for .
This is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you can put up on your campaign website , unless your name is Steve King or David Duke .
This is the kind of twisted disregard for justice that can only be nationally administered by a law enforcement official who knows he never has to face the voters and can never be fired .
This kind of miscarriage almost has to come from a judge .
The particular judge who wrote the conservative opinion administering this wanton cruelty was Justice Brett Kavanaugh .
That ’ s the man who had a crying rage-fit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be denied a job based on allegations from his teenage years .
That ’ s the man conservatives rallied behind while saying it was unfair to resurrect his high school yearbook and tales of drunken parties when assessing his fitness for a lifetime position of prestige and power .
Alleged attempted rapist Brett Kavanaugh is the one who decided that Andre Barton should be banished from America forever because he did a bad thing when he was a teenager .
It ’ s not flying a plane into a building or putting a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no mistake : This is terrorism in the service of white supremacy .
Kavanaugh is a white man in a position of unassailable power letting a black man know that he can always reach out and take his life away .
Or my life .
Or my immigrant wife ’ s life .
Or the life of anybody who doesn ’ t enjoy the entitlement of a white American male who acts like he owns the place .
If Barton v. Barr doesn ’ t clue you into the whites-only project that undergirds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ until the Kavanaugh crowd gets a whack at the DACA case .
Maybe the most terrifying thing about the Barton case is that it ’ s a mere appetizer for what conservative justices are really cooking up for American immigrants .

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There’s an element of fear in living as a person of color in this country. That fear is that white people can lay hands on you, can come for you, can take you, whenever they want. They can take you out of a job; they can take you from your family; they can find a reason to justify erasing you.
This fear is not an accident. It’s not in my head. It’s not a victimization card I pull out to shut up the white folks at parties. This fear has been taught and cultivated by a legal and social system designed to propagate the continued political, social, and economic supremacy of white people in this county.
Instilling fear is a tactical choice by this society. We’ve all seen those tactics put on display: the raids and the deportations, the walls and the cages, the ripping apart of families and the separations of children from parents. These tactics are familiar to anybody with a working understanding of how apartheid was enforced in South Africa or how slavery was enforced here in America. These are the tactics of terrorism: the physical, well-publicized violence against some to carry out psychological violence and trauma against all.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court affirmed the validity of these terror tactics yet again when it ruled against an immigrant named Andre Barton in a 5-4 ruling that broke along the standard ideological lines. The case is a purposeful reminder that white people can reach into your life and destroy it, if they feel like it.
There is increasing national awareness that “law enforcement” is at the vanguard of terrorizing black and brown lives. But we don’t often talk about judge-sponsored state terrorism, even though judges are a critical part of the law enforcement apparatus of the state. That’s in part because the media is bad at appreciating the human cost of rulings dressed up in legalese, and in part because Donald Trump and his minions are such obvious goblins that it’s hard to take your eyes off them.
But yesterday’s Supreme Court decision was so legally and morally violative that we must not look away. It’s not a hot-button immigration controversy; it’s not a wedge issue in the ongoing culture war. It’s just a tragedy. It’s an act of terrorism against one man, carried out to make every immigrant feel a little less safe.
Andre Barton is a Jamaican-born man in his mid-40s, and he’s been living in the United States since he was around 10 years old. He and his mother came here legally. Barton is a legal permanent resident—a green card holder. He is a father to four children and owns a small business. Barton is an American immigrant success story by most definitions of that concept. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Current Issue View our current issue
But it didn’t always look like he was going to be. In 1996, when he was a teenager, Barton was convicted of aggravated assault and possession of a firearm. Apparently, his friend shot a gun into Barton’s ex-girlfriend’s house; Barton claimed he didn’t know the friend was armed. Later, in the aughts, it would appear that Barton developed a substance abuse problem. He was convicted on two drug possession charges.
After that, Barton found his way, graduated from college, and went on to live his life. He was never in trouble with the law again.
Until the Trump administration got its hands on him. In 2016, 10 years after his last arrest, the government started deportation hearings against Barton based on the old possession convictions. Trump didn’t invent this government power (proceedings likely started under Loretta Lynch’s Department of Justice), but his administration has exploited it. The power to deport people over a broad list of crimes and offenses committed years or decades prior has been a thing in this country since the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. It’s a power Bill Clinton, and every administration since, has used whenever they need to look “tough” on immigrants. It’s a trash law, and it would be nice if one day there was a liberal political party that stopped triangulating so hard for xenophobes and instead tried to fix it.
When I talk about terrorism, this is what I mean. Andre Barton was out there living his life; he’s got a family, he’s got friends, he’s an employer in his community. And the government reached out through space and time and snatched it away. It’s not like he had gotten away with his crimes; he was convicted for them. Whatever debt he owed to society, he paid that price over a decade ago. And yet Barton (and thousands similarly situated) can just be kicked out of the country, legally discarded, on the whim of the administration in power. It’s terrifying—and meant to be so.
As I said, every recent administration has used this power to hunt and deport legal immigrants, but the Trump administration can be distinguished for the cruel and borderline absurdist lengths it goes to in order to strike fear in the hearts and minds of immigrants of color. Barton and his legal team agreed that his possession charges were “removable offenses.” They did not fight the notion that he could be deported. But they did fight the notion that he should be deported, by turning to a safety valve for people in Barton’s situation. According to the Immigration and Nationality Act, if Barton can convince an immigration judge that, notwithstanding the removable offense, he had been a basically decent person with strong and long-standing ties to the community, that judge could cancel his deportation.
Barton, who, again, owned a business, hadn’t been arrested for a decade, and hadn’t been back to Jamaica for 25 years, was a good candidate for such a cancellation.
So the Trump administration got creative (so creative that a group of former immigration judges filed a brief opposing the government’s position). It dug all the way back to his 1996 conviction for aggravated assault. Now, both sides agreed that aggravated assault is not grounds for deportation (the fact that this country basically treats violence against women as a lesser offense than drug possession is an infuriating topic for another time). But aggravated assault is grounds to deny entry into the country in the first place. It makes sense that we have a lower threshold for crimes that can keep a person from coming into the country than we do for crimes that would kick a person out of the country. Not being allowed to go somewhere is a different thing entirely from being kicked out of your home.
Enter the Supreme Court. The legal issue is dry enough to suck the blood out of your veins from 10 feet away. Essentially, in order to be eligible for one of these deportation “cancellations,” you have to meet a number of requirements. One of those requirements is that you didn’t commit certain crimes during your first seven years of legal residence. Barton’s drug conviction happened after he had already been here for seven years, so his drug conviction is not something that could have prevented him from getting a deportation cancellation. More from Mystal These People Aren’t Freedom Fighters—They’re Virus-Spreading Sociopaths Elie Mystal The Supreme Court Just Made It Easier to Get Away With Discrimination Elie Mystal Trump’s New Immigration ‘Ban’ Is an Evil Attempt at Distraction Elie Mystal
But, according to the court, his aggravated assault conviction occurred (wait for it) six and a half years after Barton first gained legal residence. That’s why the Trump administration had to bring it up. Even though Barton can’t be deported because of the aggravated assault, the administration decided to argue that aggravated assault can stop him from getting an exception to the crime he can be deported over.
From there, the legal battle was over whether the list of requirements for an exception should be understood as “no crimes which would deny you entry” or “no crimes which could get you deported.” The conservative majority argued that any old crime, even one for which Barton could not have been deported at the time he committed it, was enough to bar him from getting an exception. The liberal dissent argued that it’s illogical madness to stop Barton’s clock on seven years of good behavior for a crime that can’t be used to deport him.
Don’t lose the human for the technical jargon. In essence, the conservatives decided that they could deport a man in his 40s based on a crime he committed in his late teens, even though they could not have deported him in his late teens when he committed that crime. And the only reason deportation was even on the table was because he’s got a 10-year-old drug conviction, which is never the kind of thing Chadwald Karenström ever gets deported back to Sweden for.
This is not the kind of “policy” you can put up on your campaign website, unless your name is Steve King or David Duke. This is the kind of twisted disregard for justice that can only be nationally administered by a law enforcement official who knows he never has to face the voters and can never be fired. This kind of miscarriage almost has to come from a judge.
The particular judge who wrote the conservative opinion administering this wanton cruelty was Justice Brett Kavanaugh. That’s the man who had a crying rage-fit at the notion that he’d be denied a job based on allegations from his teenage years. That’s the man conservatives rallied behind while saying it was unfair to resurrect his high school yearbook and tales of drunken parties when assessing his fitness for a lifetime position of prestige and power. Alleged attempted rapist Brett Kavanaugh is the one who decided that Andre Barton should be banished from America forever because he did a bad thing when he was a teenager.
It’s not flying a plane into a building or putting a bomb on a bus, but make no mistake: This is terrorism in the service of white supremacy. Kavanaugh is a white man in a position of unassailable power letting a black man know that he can always reach out and take his life away. Or my life. Or my immigrant wife’s life. Or the life of anybody who doesn’t enjoy the entitlement of a white American male who acts like he owns the place.
If Barton v. Barr doesn’t clue you into the whites-only project that undergirds conservative views on immigration, just wait until the Kavanaugh crowd gets a whack at the DACA case. Maybe the most terrifying thing about the Barton case is that it’s a mere appetizer for what conservative justices are really cooking up for American immigrants.