thenation--2020-10-30--The Plot Against America

The Plot Against America

A major reason Donald Trump has gotten away with all his lies and crimes as president has been the contextless coverage he receives .
Some excellent investigative reporting aside , the avalanche of Trump ’ s outrages against law , decency , and common sense has had the paradoxical effect of burying the big picture .
One reporter who manages to avoid this syndrome is CNN ’ s Daniel Dale , who , on the presidential lying beat , has somehow kept his cool , his sense of humor , and most crucially , his focus on what really matters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden ’ s dueling town hall meetings , Dale tweeted something that should underlie all election coverage : “ One of the differences between Trump and Biden from a fact check perspective is that Trump regularly says or amplifies claims that are like completely bananas , entirely detached from known reality , while Biden does not.
” This column has room for about a thousand words—nowhere near long enough to list the reasons Trump belongs not in the White House but in a prison psych ward .
There ’ s his incompetence and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the unhinged , anti-Semitic , and possibly terroristic QAnon ; his racism ; his sexism ; his history as an alleged sexual predator and likely rapist ; his horrible foreign policy , especially on Israel/Palestine but , really , everywhere ; his corrupt self-dealing business arrangements ; his attacks on our health care system and the environment , his extremist court picks ; his tax cheating ; his promotion of fascist violence against peaceful protesters ; his policy of child kidnapping ; his paranoia ; his fealty to Vladimir Putin , his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; his cruelty ; his narcissism ; his childishness .
This list isn ’ t close to exhaustive .
( McSweeney ’ s has the best catalog I ’ ve seen so far , enumerating 954 of “ Trump ’ s worst cruelties , collusions , corruptions , and crimes.
” ) Like all decent people , I hope for a Biden landslide , but we must also grapple , sooner rather than later , with the heart of darkness in this country that has inspired tens of millions of fellow citizens to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s most important right now , however , is for Trump and company to be thwarted in their plot to steal the election .
He has clearly been preparing to do this since the moment the last one ended .
In my new book , Lying in State : Why Presidents Lie—and Why Trump Is Worse , I focus on Trump ’ s November 27 , 2016 , tweet in which he said , “ In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide , I won the popular vote if you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ illegally.
” When pressed to provide evidence , Trump answered that “ the very famous golfer Bernhard Langer ” was waiting to vote in Florida on Election Day and was refused but some people “ who did not look as if they should be allowed to vote ” had done so .
In reality , Langer never spoke to Trump and did not say to anyone what Trump charged .
But when a CNN reporter noted that no evidence could be found to support Trump ’ s ludicrous contention , the new leader @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a tweet from someone who appeared to be a 16-year-old fanboy demanding , “ What PROOF do u have DonaldTrump did not suffer from millions of FRAUD votes ?
Journalist ?
Do your job !
” Trump then repeated his nonsensical claim about the allegedly illegal votes in a private meeting with congressional leaders shortly after his inauguration .
Reporters wore out their thesauruses looking for a way to report this ridiculous lie without saying the word “ lie ” : “ Trump Still Pushing Unconfirmed Claims ” ( New York Daily News @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” ( The Wall Street Journal ) , and “ Without Evidence , Trump… ” ( The Washington Post ) .
Many repeated Trump ’ s lie without any qualification—for example , “ Trump Believes Fraud Cost Him Popular Vote ” ( CNN ) and “ Trump Continues to Insist Voter Fraud Robbed Him of Popular Vote ” ( The Hill ) .
Today , however , it is the substance of the lie that matters most .
On some level , Trump had to know how lucky he was to win three @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than 80,000 votes after losing the popular vote by nearly 3 million .
He had to know that he could not depend on this next time , and as an alleged money-laundering , tax-cheating , fraud-executing rapist , he must also have been aware that if he lost reelection , he could end up behind bars .
So stealing the election based on phony claims of voter fraud will be his play .
How Do You Cover an Administration That Has Lost Touch With Reality ?
The ‘ Abomination ’ of a Convention @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remember it ’ s not just that Trump lied about 2016 but rather that the entire notion of widespread voter fraud is itself fraudulent .
And yet a recent report by eight authors associated with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard analyzed 55,000 online media stories , 5 million tweets , and 75,000 posts on public Facebook pages that attracted millions of engagements and found that “ Donald Trump has perfected the art of harnessing mass media to disseminate and at times reinforce his disinformation campaign by using three @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They pinned the blame on the media ’ s relentless “ elite institutional focus ( if the president says it , it ’ s news ) ; headline seeking ( if it bleeds , it leads ) ; and balance , neutrality , or the avoidance of the appearance of taking a side.
” Moreover , the study continued , “ The efforts of the president and the Republican Party are supported by the right-wing media ecosystem , primarily Fox News and talk radio functioning in effect as a party press .
These @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a platform , and marginalize or attack ” those who try to tell the story accurately .
Trump has enlisted much of his cabinet , the judiciary , the Republican Party , and the conservative media in his quest to destroy our democracy .
But if he succeeds , he will also owe a considerable debt of gratitude to the so-called enemies of the people in the “ fake news ” media .
He certainly could not have done it without them .

This article appears in the November 16/23, 2020 issue.
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A major reason Donald Trump has gotten away with all his lies and crimes as president has been the contextless coverage he receives. Some excellent investigative reporting aside, the avalanche of Trump’s outrages against law, decency, and common sense has had the paradoxical effect of burying the big picture. One reporter who manages to avoid this syndrome is CNN’s Daniel Dale, who, on the presidential lying beat, has somehow kept his cool, his sense of humor, and most crucially, his focus on what really matters. After Trump’s and Joe Biden’s dueling town hall meetings, Dale tweeted something that should underlie all election coverage: “One of the differences between Trump and Biden from a fact check perspective is that Trump regularly says or amplifies claims that are like completely bananas, entirely detached from known reality, while Biden does not.”
This column has room for about a thousand words—nowhere near long enough to list the reasons Trump belongs not in the White House but in a prison psych ward. There’s his incompetence and malevolence vis-à-vis the coronavirus; his encouragement of the unhinged, anti-Semitic, and possibly terroristic QAnon; his racism; his sexism; his history as an alleged sexual predator and likely rapist; his horrible foreign policy, especially on Israel/Palestine but, really, everywhere; his corrupt self-dealing business arrangements; his attacks on our health care system and the environment, his extremist court picks; his tax cheating; his promotion of fascist violence against peaceful protesters; his policy of child kidnapping; his paranoia; his fealty to Vladimir Putin, his nepotism; his ignorance; his vulgarity; his cruelty; his narcissism; his childishness. This list isn’t close to exhaustive. (McSweeney’s has the best catalog I’ve seen so far, enumerating 954 of “Trump’s worst cruelties, collusions, corruptions, and crimes.”) Like all decent people, I hope for a Biden landslide, but we must also grapple, sooner rather than later, with the heart of darkness in this country that has inspired tens of millions of fellow citizens to support this evil miscreant.
What’s most important right now, however, is for Trump and company to be thwarted in their plot to steal the election. He has clearly been preparing to do this since the moment the last one ended. In my new book, Lying in State: Why Presidents Lie—and Why Trump Is Worse, I focus on Trump’s November 27, 2016, tweet in which he said, “In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” When pressed to provide evidence, Trump answered that “the very famous golfer Bernhard Langer” was waiting to vote in Florida on Election Day and was refused but some people “who did not look as if they should be allowed to vote” had done so. In reality, Langer never spoke to Trump and did not say to anyone what Trump charged. But when a CNN reporter noted that no evidence could be found to support Trump’s ludicrous contention, the new leader of the free world responded by sharing a tweet from someone who appeared to be a 16-year-old fanboy demanding, “What PROOF do u have DonaldTrump did not suffer from millions of FRAUD votes? Journalist? Do your job!”
Trump then repeated his nonsensical claim about the allegedly illegal votes in a private meeting with congressional leaders shortly after his inauguration. Reporters wore out their thesauruses looking for a way to report this ridiculous lie without saying the word “lie”: “Trump Still Pushing Unconfirmed Claims” (New York Daily News), “Trump Repeats Unsupported Claim” (The Wall Street Journal), and “Without Evidence, Trump…” (The Washington Post). Many repeated Trump’s lie without any qualification—for example, “Trump Believes Fraud Cost Him Popular Vote” (CNN) and “Trump Continues to Insist Voter Fraud Robbed Him of Popular Vote” (The Hill). Today, however, it is the substance of the lie that matters most. On some level, Trump had to know how lucky he was to win three crucial states by a total of fewer than 80,000 votes after losing the popular vote by nearly 3 million. He had to know that he could not depend on this next time, and as an alleged money-laundering, tax-cheating, fraud-executing rapist, he must also have been aware that if he lost reelection, he could end up behind bars. So stealing the election based on phony claims of voter fraud will be his play. More From Eric Alterman Conservative Jews Made a Terrible Bargain With Trump and the Right Over Israel December 21, 2022 Todd Gitlin Told His Truth Everywhere He Went February 8, 2022 Why the Media No Longer Cares About Nicaragua September 28, 2021
Again, remember it’s not just that Trump lied about 2016 but rather that the entire notion of widespread voter fraud is itself fraudulent. And yet a recent report by eight authors associated with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard analyzed 55,000 online media stories, 5 million tweets, and 75,000 posts on public Facebook pages that attracted millions of engagements and found that “Donald Trump has perfected the art of harnessing mass media to disseminate and at times reinforce his disinformation campaign by using three core standard practices of professional journalism.” They pinned the blame on the media’s relentless “elite institutional focus (if the president says it, it’s news); headline seeking (if it bleeds, it leads); and balance, neutrality, or the avoidance of the appearance of taking a side.” Moreover, the study continued, “The efforts of the president and the Republican Party are supported by the right-wing media ecosystem, primarily Fox News and talk radio functioning in effect as a party press. These reinforce the message, provide the president a platform, and marginalize or attack” those who try to tell the story accurately.
Trump has enlisted much of his cabinet, the judiciary, the Republican Party, and the conservative media in his quest to destroy our democracy. But if he succeeds, he will also owe a considerable debt of gratitude to the so-called enemies of the people in the “fake news” media. He certainly could not have done it without them.


thenation--2020-10-31--We Can Still Save the US From Becoming a Failed State

These past few months , it ’ s grown ever harder to recognize life in America .
Thanks to Covid-19 , basic day-to-day existence has changed in complicated , often confusing ways .
Just putting food on the table has become a challenge for many .
Getting doctors ’ appointments and medical care can take months .
Many schools are offering on-line only instruction and good luck trying to get a driver ’ s license or a passport renewed in person or setting up an interview for Social Security benefits .
The backlog of appointments is daunting .
Meanwhile , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tap , websites warn you of long lines and advise those with appointments to bring an umbrella , a chair , and something to eat and drink , as the Department of Motor Vehicles in Hudson , New York , instructed me to do over the summer .
According to a September 2020 Yelp report , approximately 164,000 businesses have closed nationwide due to the pandemic , an estimated 60 percent of them for good .
CNBC reports that 7.5 million businesses may still be at risk of closing .
Meanwhile , more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronavirus and , as a winter spike begins , it ’ s estimated that up to 410,000 could be dead by year ’ s end .
Then there are the signs of increasing poverty .
Food banks have seen vast rises in demand , according to Feeding America , a network of 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries and meal programs .
According to a study done by Columbia University ’ s Center on Poverty and Social Policy , between February and September , the monthly poverty rate increased from 15 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from Congress ’ s CARES Act .
That report also concluded that the CARES program , while putting a lid on the rise in the monthly poverty rate for a time , “ was not successful at preventing a rise in deep poverty.
” And now , of course , Congress seems likely to offer nothing else .
The rate of unemployment is down from a high of 14 percent in April , but still twice what it was in January 2020 and seemingly stabilizing at a disturbing 8 percent .
Meanwhile , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ viable .
Thirty-four percent of universities are now online and only 4 percent are conducting fully in-person classes .
The policy of stores limiting purchases in the spring and summer is still a fresh memory .
And what about freedom of movement ?
Dozens of countries , including most of the European Union , Latin America , Japan , Australia , and New Zealand , have barred entry to American tourists and travelers , given this country ’ s devastatingly high rate of infection .
Canada and Mexico just re-upped their bans on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sense , the pandemic has indeed helped build a “ great , great wall ” around America , one that won ’ t let any of us out .
In fact , Americans are not being welcomed , even by one another .
Inside our borders , states are requiring those arriving from other states with high percentages of Covid-19 cases to quarantine themselves for 14 days on arrival ( though enforcing such mandates is difficult indeed ) .
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo ’ s list of places subject to such a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 49 other states .
And as we are reminded on a daily basis in the run-up to Election Day , early voters , especially in heavily minority districts , are being forced to wait long hours in endless lines in states where the pandemic is beginning to spike .
In some places , local officials clearly set up the conditions for this as a deterrent to those they would prefer not to see at the polls .
In Georgia , where a governor was intent on reducing the numbers of polling places to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the waiting time recently was , on average , 11 hours .
Early voting lines in New York City “ stretched for blocks ” in multiple venues .
To top it all off , political and racial violence in the country is climbing , often thanks to uniformed law enforcement officers .
From George Floyd ’ s death to federal officials in unmarked vehicles dragging protesters off the streets of Portland , Ore. , to federal law enforcement officers using rubber bullets and tear gas on a gathering crowd of protesters to clear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ President Trump , such cases have made the headlines .
Meanwhile , officials across the country are ominously preparing to counter violence on Election Day .
In the face of such challenges and deprivations , Americans , for the most part , are learning to adapt to the consequences of the pandemic , while just hoping that someday it will pass , that someday things will return to normal .
As early as March 2020 , a Pew poll had already detected a significant uptick in symptoms of anxiety nationwide .
The percentage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ young people and those experiencing financial difficulties driving the rise .
The American Psychological Association ( APA ) considers the pandemic not just an epidemiological but a “ psychological crisis.
” The website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a paper written by two APA authors suggesting that Covid-19 is already taking “ a tremendous psychological toll ” on the country .
All in all , we find ourselves in a daunting new world , but don ’ t just blame it on the pandemic .
This country was living @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hit .
The truth is that Americans have been in trouble for a surprisingly long time .
The pandemic might have swept away that sense of denial and left us facing a new American reality , as that virus exposed previously ignored vulnerabilities for all to see .
So expect one thing : that the indicators of America ’ s decline will far surpass the problems that can be solved by addressing the pandemic ’ s spread .
When Covid-19 is brought under some control , the larger social system may unfortunately remain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ support , posing new challenges for the country as a whole .
Several observers , witnessing such potentially long-lasting changes to the fabric of American life , have described the United States as resembling a failed state in its reaction to the pandemic .
They point not just to the effects of staggering levels of inequality ( on the rise for decades ) or to a long-term unwillingness to invest in the kind of infrastructure that could keep what ’ s still the wealthiest country on our planet strong , but also to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ life .
Long before the pandemic hit , the Trump administration reflected this downhill slope .
As George Packer recently wrote in the Atlantic , the reaction to the coronavirus crisis here has been more “ like Pakistan or Belarus—like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering.… Every morning in the endless month of March , ” he added , “ Americans woke up to find themselves citizens of a failed state , ” unable to get the equipment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ help they needed to fight the pandemic .
Looking beyond Covid-19 to the Trump administration ’ s irresponsible handling of climate change and nuclear weapons , TomDispatch ’ s Tom Engelhardt has also labeled the country a “ failed state , ” one that now occupies a singular category ( which he called “ Fourth World ” ) among the planet ’ s countries .
There is no codified definition of a failed state , but there is general agreement that such a country has become unable or unwilling to care for its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ risk and stability in multiple sectors of life has become unpredictable .
In 2003 , future UN Ambassador Susan Rice attempted to craft a workable definition of the term in a report for the Brookings Institution , calling on President George W. Bush to address the underlying causes of failed states .
“ Failed states , ” she wrote , “ are countries in which the central government does not exert effective control over , nor is it able to deliver vital services to significant parts of its own territory due to conflict @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” From the Proud Boys to the Wolverine Watchmen , it has become strikingly clear that in this pandemic year , the United States is indeed becoming an increasingly riven , disturbed land and that nothing , including the election of Joe Biden , will simply make that reality disappear without immense effort .
In the 21st century , in fact , the United States has visibly been inching ever closer to failed-state status .
In 2006 , the Fund for Peace , an organization whose mission is global conflict reduction , human @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a yearly Failed States Index ( FSI ) , changing its name in 2014 to the Fragile State Index .
For the last decade , for instance , Yemen has been among the top 10 most fragile states and , for the last two years , number one .
Since 2013 , Finland has been at the other end of the scale , number 178 , the least failed state on the planet .
What ’ s interesting , however , is the path the United States has traveled over that same decade @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Until the Trump years , it consistently stood at number 158 or 159 among the 178 nations on the chart .
In the 2018 report , however , it took a turn for the worse .
In the 2020 report ( based on pre-pandemic numbers ) , it had dropped to 149 , reflecting in particular losses in what FSI calls “ cohesion , ” based on rising nationalist rhetoric among increasingly riven elites and unequal access to resources in a country where economic inequality was already at staggering levels .
Just imagine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will likely report next April .
At present , when it comes to FSI ’ s rankings , the United States is in the third of five groupings of countries , behind the Scandinavian countries , most of the other nations of Europe , and Singapore .
Given today ’ s realities , it is poised to fall even further .
Elections are a crucial factor in separating successful from failing states ; fair elections , that is , ones that people in a country trust .
As Pauline Baker , the director @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out , “ Elections are an essential part of democratization , but they can also be conflict-inducing if they are held too soon , are blatantly manipulated , lack transparency , or are marred by violence.
” All you have to do is think about Donald Trump ’ s endless claims—that this year ’ s election will be “ rigged , ” that mail-in ballots will be a fraud , that he won ’ t necessarily leave office even if the tallies are against him , and so on—to know that a particularly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ results of November 3 .
Add to that burden threats to the election ’ s viability via disinformation from foreign agents and hackers , Republican Party attempts at voter suppression , and threats of violence by so-called poll watchers .
Meanwhile , an embattled Supreme Court has been issuing decisions on matters like “ faithless electors , ” extended voting , and absentee ballots .
The record so far has been mixed at best .
On the one hand , the justices have voted to keep intact the Electoral College rule that requires @ @ @ @ @ @ @ according to whatever the voters have decided .
They also nixed an attempt by the Republican National Committee to enforce a Rhode Island rule that mail-in voters , under pandemic conditions , must have their ballots signed by either two witnesses or a notary public .
And most recently , the Court voted 4-4 to uphold Pennsylvania ’ s decision to extend the absentee ballot deadline .
For the most part , however , its decisions have gone the other way , upholding more restrictive voting policies in eight out of 11 cases @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the court ruled against a decision in Alabama that had eased restrictions on absentee ballot submissions .
That same week , it refused to reinstate an order in Texas allowing all voters to cast mail-in ballots due to the pandemic .
Meanwhile , it seems that Pennsylvania Republicans are again trying to narrow the time frame on absentee ballots , announcing that they have returned to the court for a further decision on the matter in light of Justice Amy Barrett ’ s certain confirmation .
The point is , this election should @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and its outcome .
If trust in the process of voting goes by the wayside , then the image of the United States as a failing , even a failed state will be hard to dispute .
And if there is violence at the polls , or after the vote takes place , then we ’ ll sense an even deeper failure .
While some may view the coming election as a precipitous cliff , with dangers lurking everywhere , I also see it as an opportunity , which is why the tsunami @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of waiting , is an encouraging sign .
Despite the abyss that we face after four years of chaos and cruelty , this country still has a chance to prove that we are not a failing state and to reclaim our trust in our government , our protections , and one another .
Only then will we be able to begin to repair the economic damage , the rank divisiveness , and the unequal allocation of resources that has fueled our disastrous pandemic response and , with it , a further erosion of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to accept the challenge of proving in this election that one of the world ’ s longest-standing democracies can rise to the occasion and vote to uphold the foundation of its system , elections themselves .
Maybe , using this very election , we can harness the civic pride that could lead to a successful restoration of our basic beliefs in constitutional principles and the rule of law .
The chance to vote , no matter how long the lines and the wait , might be just the opportunity we need .

EDITOR’S NOTE: 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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These past few months, it’s grown ever harder to recognize life in America. Thanks to Covid-19, basic day-to-day existence has changed in complicated, often confusing ways. Just putting food on the table has become a challenge for many. Getting doctors’ appointments and medical care can take months. Many schools are offering on-line only instruction and good luck trying to get a driver’s license or a passport renewed in person or setting up an interview for Social Security benefits. The backlog of appointments is daunting.
Meanwhile, where actual in-person government services are on tap, websites warn you of long lines and advise those with appointments to bring an umbrella, a chair, and something to eat and drink, as the Department of Motor Vehicles in Hudson, New York, instructed me to do over the summer. According to a September 2020 Yelp report, approximately 164,000 businesses have closed nationwide due to the pandemic, an estimated 60 percent of them for good. CNBC reports that 7.5 million businesses may still be at risk of closing. Meanwhile, more than 225,000 Americans have died of the coronavirus and, as a winter spike begins, it’s estimated that up to 410,000 could be dead by year’s end.
Then there are the signs of increasing poverty. Food banks have seen vast rises in demand, according to Feeding America, a network of 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries and meal programs. According to a study done by Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy, between February and September, the monthly poverty rate increased from 15 percent to 16.7 percent, despite cash infusions from Congress’s CARES Act. That report also concluded that the CARES program, while putting a lid on the rise in the monthly poverty rate for a time, “was not successful at preventing a rise in deep poverty.” And now, of course, Congress seems likely to offer nothing else. 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
The rate of unemployment is down from a high of 14 percent in April, but still twice what it was in January 2020 and seemingly stabilizing at a disturbing 8 percent. Meanwhile, schools and universities are struggling to stay viable. Thirty-four percent of universities are now online and only 4 percent are conducting fully in-person classes. The policy of stores limiting purchases in the spring and summer is still a fresh memory.
And what about freedom of movement? Dozens of countries, including most of the European Union, Latin America, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, have barred entry to American tourists and travelers, given this country’s devastatingly high rate of infection. Canada and Mexico just re-upped their bans on US travelers, too. In a sense, the pandemic has indeed helped build a “great, great wall” around America, one that won’t let any of us out.
In fact, Americans are not being welcomed, even by one another. Inside our borders, states are requiring those arriving from other states with high percentages of Covid-19 cases to quarantine themselves for 14 days on arrival (though enforcing such mandates is difficult indeed). New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s list of places subject to such a travel advisory now includes 43 of the 49 other states.
And as we are reminded on a daily basis in the run-up to Election Day, early voters, especially in heavily minority districts, are being forced to wait long hours in endless lines in states where the pandemic is beginning to spike. In some places, local officials clearly set up the conditions for this as a deterrent to those they would prefer not to see at the polls. In Georgia, where a governor was intent on reducing the numbers of polling places to reduce turnout in African American neighborhoods, the waiting time recently was, on average, 11 hours. Early voting lines in New York City “stretched for blocks” in multiple venues. Current Issue View our current issue
To top it all off, political and racial violence in the country is climbing, often thanks to uniformed law enforcement officers. From George Floyd’s death to federal officials in unmarked vehicles dragging protesters off the streets of Portland, Ore., to federal law enforcement officers using rubber bullets and tear gas on a gathering crowd of protesters to clear a path to a local church for President Trump, such cases have made the headlines. Meanwhile, officials across the country are ominously preparing to counter violence on Election Day.
In the face of such challenges and deprivations, Americans, for the most part, are learning to adapt to the consequences of the pandemic, while just hoping that someday it will pass, that someday things will return to normal. As early as March 2020, a Pew poll had already detected a significant uptick in symptoms of anxiety nationwide. The percentage of such individuals had doubled, with young people and those experiencing financial difficulties driving the rise.
The American Psychological Association (APA) considers the pandemic not just an epidemiological but a “psychological crisis.” The website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a paper written by two APA authors suggesting that Covid-19 is already taking “a tremendous psychological toll” on the country.
Failing, American-Style
All in all, we find ourselves in a daunting new world, but don’t just blame it on the pandemic. This country was living in a state of denial before Covid-19 hit. The truth is that Americans have been in trouble for a surprisingly long time. The pandemic might have swept away that sense of denial and left us facing a new American reality, as that virus exposed previously ignored vulnerabilities for all to see.
So expect one thing: that the indicators of America’s decline will far surpass the problems that can be solved by addressing the pandemic’s spread. When Covid-19 is brought under some control, the larger social system may unfortunately remain in tatters, in need of life support, posing new challenges for the country as a whole.
Several observers, witnessing such potentially long-lasting changes to the fabric of American life, have described the United States as resembling a failed state in its reaction to the pandemic. They point not just to the effects of staggering levels of inequality (on the rise for decades) or to a long-term unwillingness to invest in the kind of infrastructure that could keep what’s still the wealthiest country on our planet strong, but also to entrenched poverty and the fracturing of work life. Long before the pandemic hit, the Trump administration reflected this downhill slope.
As George Packer recently wrote in the Atlantic, the reaction to the coronavirus crisis here has been more “like Pakistan or Belarus—like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering.… Every morning in the endless month of March,” he added, “Americans woke up to find themselves citizens of a failed state,” unable to get the equipment, supplies, tests, or medical help they needed to fight the pandemic.
Looking beyond Covid-19 to the Trump administration’s irresponsible handling of climate change and nuclear weapons, TomDispatch’s Tom Engelhardt has also labeled the country a “failed state,” one that now occupies a singular category (which he called “Fourth World”) among the planet’s countries.
There is no codified definition of a failed state, but there is general agreement that such a country has become unable or unwilling to care for its citizens. Safety and sustenance are at risk and stability in multiple sectors of life has become unpredictable. In 2003, future UN Ambassador Susan Rice attempted to craft a workable definition of the term in a report for the Brookings Institution, calling on President George W. Bush to address the underlying causes of failed states. “Failed states,” she wrote, “are countries in which the central government does not exert effective control over, nor is it able to deliver vital services to significant parts of its own territory due to conflict, ineffective governance, or state collapse.”
From the Proud Boys to the Wolverine Watchmen, it has become strikingly clear that in this pandemic year, the United States is indeed becoming an increasingly riven, disturbed land and that nothing, including the election of Joe Biden, will simply make that reality disappear without immense effort.
In the 21st century, in fact, the United States has visibly been inching ever closer to failed-state status. In 2006, the Fund for Peace, an organization whose mission is global conflict reduction, human security, and economic development, launched a yearly Failed States Index (FSI), changing its name in 2014 to the Fragile State Index. For the last decade, for instance, Yemen has been among the top 10 most fragile states and, for the last two years, number one. Since 2013, Finland has been at the other end of the scale, number 178, the least failed state on the planet.
What’s interesting, however, is the path the United States has traveled over that same decade, dropping a noteworthy 10 places. Until the Trump years, it consistently stood at number 158 or 159 among the 178 nations on the chart. In the 2018 report, however, it took a turn for the worse. In the 2020 report (based on pre-pandemic numbers), it had dropped to 149, reflecting in particular losses in what FSI calls “cohesion,” based on rising nationalist rhetoric among increasingly riven elites and unequal access to resources in a country where economic inequality was already at staggering levels.
Just imagine, then, what the 2021 Index will likely report next April. At present, when it comes to FSI’s rankings, the United States is in the third of five groupings of countries, behind the Scandinavian countries, most of the other nations of Europe, and Singapore. Given today’s realities, it is poised to fall even further.
The Election Moment
Elections are a crucial factor in separating successful from failing states; fair elections, that is, ones that people in a country trust. As Pauline Baker, the director of the Fund for Peace, points out, “Elections are an essential part of democratization, but they can also be conflict-inducing if they are held too soon, are blatantly manipulated, lack transparency, or are marred by violence.”
All you have to do is think about Donald Trump’s endless claims—that this year’s election will be “rigged,” that mail-in ballots will be a fraud, that he won’t necessarily leave office even if the tallies are against him, and so on—to know that a particularly heavy burden has been placed on the results of November 3. Add to that burden threats to the election’s viability via disinformation from foreign agents and hackers, Republican Party attempts at voter suppression, and threats of violence by so-called poll watchers.
Meanwhile, an embattled Supreme Court has been issuing decisions on matters like “faithless electors,” extended voting, and absentee ballots. The record so far has been mixed at best. On the one hand, the justices have voted to keep intact the Electoral College rule that requires electors to honor their pledges to vote according to whatever the voters have decided. They also nixed an attempt by the Republican National Committee to enforce a Rhode Island rule that mail-in voters, under pandemic conditions, must have their ballots signed by either two witnesses or a notary public. And most recently, the Court voted 4-4 to uphold Pennsylvania’s decision to extend the absentee ballot deadline.
For the most part, however, its decisions have gone the other way, upholding more restrictive voting policies in eight out of 11 cases. In July, for example, the court ruled against a decision in Alabama that had eased restrictions on absentee ballot submissions. That same week, it refused to reinstate an order in Texas allowing all voters to cast mail-in ballots due to the pandemic. Meanwhile, it seems that Pennsylvania Republicans are again trying to narrow the time frame on absentee ballots, announcing that they have returned to the court for a further decision on the matter in light of Justice Amy Barrett’s certain confirmation.
The point is, this election should matter, both the form it takes and its outcome. If trust in the process of voting goes by the wayside, then the image of the United States as a failing, even a failed state will be hard to dispute. And if there is violence at the polls, or after the vote takes place, then we’ll sense an even deeper failure.
While some may view the coming election as a precipitous cliff, with dangers lurking everywhere, I also see it as an opportunity, which is why the tsunami of early voting, often involving hours of waiting, is an encouraging sign. Despite the abyss that we face after four years of chaos and cruelty, this country still has a chance to prove that we are not a failing state and to reclaim our trust in our government, our protections, and one another. Only then will we be able to begin to repair the economic damage, the rank divisiveness, and the unequal allocation of resources that has fueled our disastrous pandemic response and, with it, a further erosion of trust in government.
Maybe we need to accept the challenge of proving in this election that one of the world’s longest-standing democracies can rise to the occasion and vote to uphold the foundation of its system, elections themselves. Maybe, using this very election, we can harness the civic pride that could lead to a successful restoration of our basic beliefs in constitutional principles and the rule of law. The chance to vote, no matter how long the lines and the wait, might be just the opportunity we need.


thenation--2020-10-31--College Football’s Great Defender Has Covid-19

Donald Trump is running for reelection on the claim is that he “ saved college football.
” He did so by recklessly applying presidential pressure to college football conference leaders to forget about Covid-19 and have players take the field .
Granted , these conference chiefs truly did not need that much pressure , eager as they were to claim their seven and even eight-figure salaries to keep the trains running on time .
And after four years of Trumpian decay with little to justify four more years , the thinking was that bringing football back—especially to swing states in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on a toboggan ride to electoral college victory .
College sports continuing this season always seemed like an dubious prospect to people actually concerned about a virus that has claimed so many lives .
Unlike professional basketball where players could be put in a bubble , or professional football where they could easily quarantine , college athletes would have more freedom , and college students – even if not allowed in the stadium , even if not allowed in their damn classes – would congregate to socialize , party , and feign normalcy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the reopening of colleges and college sports has led to a greater spread of the virus .
Yet these stories have largely flown under the sports media radar .
After all , who cares about the students ?
They ’ re just fans who happen to take classes in between games .
Players who have contracted the virus also have been disregarded by a sports media that prefers analyzing game film to calling out this obscene negligence .
Yet this latest story could not be ignored by anyone .
Trevor Lawrence , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the frontrunner for the Heisman Trophy , the face of college football , has now been diagnosed with Covid-19 .
Just 21 years old , Lawrence really wanted to play this season .
And powerful people in college football , the people who work in the shadows of this dirty multi-billion-dollar business and their media stenographers , elevated Lawrence ’ s voice as if he wasn ’ t a 21-year-old kid with an itch for football , and instead an authority like Dr. Fauci in shoulder pads .
They swooned when Lawrence spoke @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In August he tweeted , “ Players are at just as much , if not more risk , if we don ’ t play .
Players will be sent home to their own communities where social distancing is highly unlikely and medical care and expenses will be placed on the families if they were to contract COVID 19 .
Not to mention the players coming from situations that are not good for them/their future and having to go back to that .
Football is a safe haven for so many people .
We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in everyday life than playing football….. ” This argument reeks of paternalism : the idea that players would be safer under the watchful eye of millionaire head coaches who surely have their best interests at heart rather than “ their communities ” – a phrase which conjures images of reckless , adult-free , impoverished hovels .
But Clemson isn ’ t Boystown , and Coach Dabo Swinney isn ’ t Father Flanagan .
And now , even under the selfless protection of his Coach Swinney – salary $ 9.3 million per year before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The people in power who used this 21-year-old over the summer as a stalking horse for their own profit motives should be ashamed .
The people deeming unpaid college athletes as “ essential workers ” even though they don ’ t get paid should share that shame .
As for Trevor Lawrence , he should forget about Clemson , forget about the Heisman trophy , heal up , and get ready to be the number-one pick in the NFL draft .
Instead , he is already getting prepared for Clemson ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dame , telling everyone he is symptom-free .
This isn ’ t Trevor Lawrence ’ s fault .
He ’ s 21 , for goodness ’ sake .
If you are searching for blame , you have to look on the sidelines , look in the offices of university presidents , and look at a system that sees college athletes as expendable commodities .
Even the stars with long blonde hair .

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Donald Trump is running for reelection on the claim that he “saved college football.” He did so by recklessly applying presidential pressure to college football conference leaders to forget about Covid-19 and have players take the field. Granted, these conference chiefs truly did not need that much pressure, eager as they were to claim their seven and even eight-figure salaries to keep the trains running on time. And after four years of Trumpian decay with little to justify four more years, the thinking was that bringing football back—especially to swing states in the Big Ten and ACC—would put him on a toboggan ride to electoral college victory.
College sports continuing this season always seemed like an dubious prospect to people actually concerned about a virus that has claimed so many lives. Unlike professional basketball where players could be put in a bubble, or professional football where they could easily quarantine, college athletes would have more freedom, and college students – even if not allowed in the stadium, even if not allowed in their damn classes – would congregate to socialize, party, and feign normalcy in abnormal times. Sure enough, the reopening of colleges and college sports has led to a greater spread of the virus. Yet these stories have largely flown under the sports media radar. After all, who cares about the students? They’re just fans who happen to take classes in between games. Players who have contracted the virus also have been disregarded by a sports media that prefers analyzing game film to calling out this obscene negligence.
Yet this latest story could not be ignored by anyone. Trevor Lawrence, the blonde, long-haired quarterback for Clemson, the frontrunner for the Heisman Trophy, the face of college football, has now been diagnosed with Covid-19. Just 21 years old, Lawrence really wanted to play this season. And powerful people in college football, the people who work in the shadows of this dirty multi-billion-dollar business and their media stenographers, elevated Lawrence’s voice as if he wasn’t a 21-year-old kid with an itch for football, and instead an authority like Dr. Fauci in shoulder pads.
They swooned when Lawrence spoke out for the season to commence. In August he tweeted, “Players are at just as much, if not more risk, if we don’t play. Players will be sent home to their own communities where social distancing is highly unlikely and medical care and expenses will be placed on the families if they were to contract COVID 19. Not to mention the players coming from situations that are not good for them/their future and having to go back to that. Football is a safe haven for so many people. We are more likely to get the virus in everyday life than playing football…..”
This argument reeks of paternalism: the idea that players would be safer under the watchful eye of millionaire head coaches who surely have their best interests at heart rather than “their communities” – a phrase which conjures images of reckless, adult-free, impoverished hovels. But Clemson isn’t Boystown, and Coach Dabo Swinney isn’t Father Flanagan.
And now, even under the selfless protection of his Coach Swinney – salary $9.3 million per year before bonuses – Trevor Lawrence has the Rona. The people in power who used this 21-year-old over the summer as a stalking horse for their own profit motives should be ashamed. The people deeming unpaid college athletes as “essential workers” even though they don’t get paid should share that shame.
As for Trevor Lawrence, he should forget about Clemson, forget about the Heisman trophy, heal up, and get ready to be the number-one pick in the NFL draft. Instead, he is already getting prepared for Clemson’s game a week from Saturday against Notre Dame, telling everyone he is symptom-free. This isn’t Trevor Lawrence’s fault. He’s 21, for goodness’ sake. If you are searching for blame, you have to look on the sidelines, look in the offices of university presidents, and look at a system that sees college athletes as expendable commodities. Even the stars with long blonde hair.


thenation--2020-11-02--We’ve Been on Trump’s Road for a Long Time

It was summer almost half a century ago when I got into that Volkswagen van and began my trip across country with Peter , a photographer friend .
I was officially doing so as a reporter for a small San Francisco news service , having been sent out to tap the mood of the nation in a politically fraught moment .
The Vietnam War , with all its domestic protests and disturbances , was just ending .
North Vietnamese troops would soon enough enter Saigon , the South Vietnamese capital ; the president of the United States , Richard Nixon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scandal called “ Watergate.
” And here was the odd thing .
I felt trapped , too .
In some way , I felt lost .
As I put it then ( and this should have a familiar ring to it , even if , in 1973 , I was only referring to the TV version of the news ) , “ That screen haunted my life .
Somehow I wanted to shatter it and discover new , more human reference points , a true center of gravity.
” I had the urge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mine and do the all-American thing , the Jack Kerouac thing : go “ on the road.
” So Peter and I set out on that famed American road , traveling from campgrounds to fast-food restaurants , carnival midways to Old Faithful , only to find ourselves trapped in what I called “ the increasing corporate control not just of people on the job , but on their vacations , in their leisure hours.
” I found myself interviewing , and him photographing , what I came to think of as a “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and working-class Americans , confused and angry , “ pushed aside , ” as I wrote then , by “ forces they feel are beyond their control.
” We were , it turned out , on someone else ’ s road entirely .
In Milwaukee , we would be joined by Nancy , who later became my wife , and then would spend weeks following those all-too-unromantic highways ( without a Jack Kerouac in sight ) , interviewing anyone who would talk to us .
In the end , that attempt of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ life , to figure out “ where ( or whether ) I fit into American society , ” became my first book , Beyond Our Control : America in the Mid Seventies .
In retrospect , that book about our strange journey into a country being reorganized for eternal consumption and the wellbeing of giant corporations became my own—as I would then call it— “ dream-document excavated from our recent past.
” And yes , even so long ago , it was already a troubled moment in a troubled land .
I must @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t looked at Beyond Our Control in years , not until a friend recently found a copy , read it , and e-mailed , quoting my own ancient text back to me to point out how eerily relevant it still was , how—in a sense—Trumpian parts of that 1973 America already were .
He highlighted , in particular , an interview near the end of that book with “ Frank Nelson ” —I changed all the names , so who knows now what his real one was—about which more in a moment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had forgotten all those Frank Nelsons and perhaps as well the Tom Engelhardt who interviewed them so long ago .
So , curious about that long-lost self of mine and the world I then inhabited , I picked up that old book and reread it in order to meet the young Tom Engelhardt on the road in another American universe .
And how strange that journey back into my own—and our—past proved to be .
The Right Wind Sweeping In Off the Plain So , if you have the patience for a little @ @ @ @ @ @ @ July 1973 and let me tell you about Frank Nelson , whom I met at a trailhead in Yellowstone National Park with his wife and three children .
He was “ a responsible , likeable family man ” with—regardless of how hard I pressed him— “ no vision of a better future.
” A plumber and union shop steward from Cleveland , as well as the chairman of the union bargaining committee in his factory , he proudly told me , “ I have really dedicated myself to the labor movement all my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Yet he was already talking back then about the growing “ conservative approach ” of the trade union movement and the possibility that it would be destroyed , he believed , by “ the race issue.
” He was clearly both anti-Semitic and racist .
( “ Being white , I would prefer the continued supremacy of the white race instead of this homogenization that ’ s coming.
” ) And while discussing what he felt was a growing American crisis with me , he also told me that “ your liberals believe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ —which he clearly believed himself to be— “ believe in America first , American domination.
” And remember , this was July 1973 , not July 2019 .
It was Richard Nixon ’ s America , not Donald Trump ’ s .
Frank and his wife , Helen , were open , chatty , and so pleased with the interview experience that she gave me their address and asked me to send them a copy of anything I wrote .
In other words , he said nothing he felt was out of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on leaving him , was : “ For me , this interview seemed like the crescendo towards which the bits and pieces of our trip have been building.
” As I had discovered in those weeks of interviewing , Nelson , like so many others on that vacation loop , was filled to the brim with half-spoken and unspoken fears about a future in which , as I put it then , “ the [ corporate ] pushers will survive , maybe even profit .
It ’ s these people we ’ ve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ middle people who have barely eked out a toehold in the system , who will be cut off at the knees .
And , being hooked [ on that system ] , they don ’ t know what to do.
” Then , thinking about Nelson ( and others like him we had met ) , I added , In those pages , I had already brought up Weimar-era Germany—the moment , that is , before Hitler rose to power—and then I added : Welcome to a More Extreme World In the age @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and the Wolverine Watchmen , much of this should feel strangely familiar .
If , however , my reporting was in any way prophetic , I have to admit that I didn ’ t realize it all these years—not until my friend wrote me .
Still , it should be obvious , in retrospect , that , bizarre as the present moment may seem , it didn ’ t come out of the blue , not faintly .
How could it have ?
For that matter , Donald Trump didn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
As a start , just a couple of months after I got back to San Francisco from that cross-country jaunt of ours , he made his first appearance on the front page of The New York Times .
He was 27 , two years younger than me , and already the president of trhe Trump Management Corporation .
The headline , shades of the future Donald and the white nationalism that ’ s accompanied him , was : “ Major Landlord Accused of Antiblack Bias in City.
” The Justice Department was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and him with refusing “ to rent or negotiate rentals ‘ because of race and color ’ ” in the buildings they then owned and managed .
And his first words quoted in that paper about those charges were , appropriately enough : “ They are absolutely ridiculous.… We never have discriminated and we never would.
” Of course not !
And what hasn ’ t been increasingly , ridiculously Trumpian about our all-American world ever since ?
When you think about it , with that moment in 1973 in mind , Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ combination of Richard Nixon ( a man with his own revealing tapes , just like The Donald ) and George Wallace .
The racist governor of Alabama and a third-party candidate the year Nixon slipped by Democrat Hubert Humphrey to first win the White House , Wallace was a man best known for the formulation “ segregation now , segregation tomorrow , segregation forever.
” Nixon took the presidency in 1968 and again in 1972 with his own form of racism , the “ Southern strategy , ” first pioneered by Republican presidential @ @ @ @ @ @ @ then called , far more redolently , “ Operation Dixie ” ) .
In a racially coded and distinctly nationalist fashion , Nixon brought Southern whites in the formerly Democratic bastions of the South definitively into the Republican fold .
By 1980 , Ronald Reagan wouldn ’ t think twice about launching his own presidential election campaign with a “ states ’ rights ” speech ( then still a code phrase for segregation ) near Philadelphia , Miss.
, just miles from the earthen dam where three murdered civil rights workers had been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the intervening years , the Republican Party , too , has gone south ( so to speak ) big time and into a form of illiberality that was , even in the Nixon era , striking enough .
By 2016 , of course , that Southern strategy had become something more like a national strategy in the ( pussy-grabbing ) hands of Donald Trump .
Meanwhile , the corporatization—I might , then , have thought of it as the fast-foodization—of the country that Peter , Nancy , and I were traveling across was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time , a new kind of all-American inequality was , in those years , just beginning to make itself felt .
Today , with the first billionaire in the White House and other billionaires , even in the midst of a pandemic , continuing to make an absolute mint while so many Americans suffer , the inequality that left Frank Nelson and his peers so desperately uneasy has never stopped rising to truly staggering levels .
Believe me , even if Donald Trump has to leave the Oval Office on January 20 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in his America .
And 47 years after my long , strange trip , I think I can guarantee you one thing : If it weren ’ t for the pandemic that has this country in its grasp and has swept so many of us off any path whatsoever , some young reporter , stir-crazy and unhappy , would still be able to head out onto a 21st century “ road ” and find updated versions of Frank Nelson galore ( a surprising number of whom might be well-armed and angry ) .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ no question that , so long after Peter , Nancy , and I traveled that not-so-open road , our lives and this country are way beyond our control .
Writing about the people I had interviewed then ( about whom—with the single inspirational exception of a museum director I met in Twin Falls , Idaho—I knew nothing more ) , I said : “ I don ’ t doubt that they , like me , are still heading reluctantly toward a future that will make the summer of 1973 seem truly unreal and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ever have really been that way ?
” In Covid-19 America , with the West Coast still burning , Colorado in historic flames , a record 11 storms hitting the Gulf Coast and elsewhere this hurricane season , and heat of every sort rising everywhere , don ’ t for a second believe that the phrase “ beyond our control ” couldn ’ t gain new meaning in the decades to come .
Welcome to a more extreme version of the world Frank Nelson and I already inhabited in 1973 .

EDITOR’S NOTE: 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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It was summer almost half a century ago when I got into that Volkswagen van and began my trip across country with Peter, a photographer friend. I was officially doing so as a reporter for a small San Francisco news service, having been sent out to tap the mood of the nation in a politically fraught moment. The Vietnam War, with all its domestic protests and disturbances, was just ending. North Vietnamese troops would soon enough enter Saigon, the South Vietnamese capital; the president of the United States, Richard Nixon, was then trapped in an escalating scandal called “Watergate.”
And here was the odd thing. I felt trapped, too. In some way, I felt lost. As I put it then (and this should have a familiar ring to it, even if, in 1973, I was only referring to the TV version of the news), “That screen haunted my life. Somehow I wanted to shatter it and discover new, more human reference points, a true center of gravity.” I had the urge to break out of that world of mine and do the all-American thing, the Jack Kerouac thing: go “on the road.”
So Peter and I set out on that famed American road, traveling from campgrounds to fast-food restaurants, carnival midways to Old Faithful, only to find ourselves trapped in what I called “the increasing corporate control not just of people on the job, but on their vacations, in their leisure hours.” I found myself interviewing, and him photographing, what I came to think of as a “population of disoriented nomads”—mostly lower-middle-class and working-class Americans, confused and angry, “pushed aside,” as I wrote then, by “forces they feel are beyond their control.” We were, it turned out, on someone else’s road entirely.
In Milwaukee, we would be joined by Nancy, who later became my wife, and then would spend weeks following those all-too-unromantic highways (without a Jack Kerouac in sight), interviewing anyone who would talk to us. In the end, that attempt of a 29-year-old to break free from his own life, to figure out “where (or whether) I fit into American society,” became my first book, Beyond Our Control: America in the Mid Seventies. In retrospect, that book about our strange journey into a country being reorganized for eternal consumption and the wellbeing of giant corporations became my own—as I would then call it—“dream-document excavated from our recent past.”
And yes, even so long ago, it was already a troubled moment in a troubled land. I must admit, though, that I hadn’t looked at Beyond Our Control in years, not until a friend recently found a copy, read it, and e-mailed, quoting my own ancient text back to me to point out how eerily relevant it still was, how—in a sense—Trumpian parts of that 1973 America already were.
He highlighted, in particular, an interview near the end of that book with “Frank Nelson”—I changed all the names, so who knows now what his real one was—about which more in a moment. That missive startled me. I had forgotten all those Frank Nelsons and perhaps as well the Tom Engelhardt who interviewed them so long ago. 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
So, curious about that long-lost self of mine and the world I then inhabited, I picked up that old book and reread it in order to meet the young Tom Engelhardt on the road in another American universe. And how strange that journey back into my own—and our—past proved to be. Current Issue View our current issue
The Right Wind Sweeping In Off the Plain
So, if you have the patience for a little time travel, return with me to July 1973 and let me tell you about Frank Nelson, whom I met at a trailhead in Yellowstone National Park with his wife and three children. He was “a responsible, likeable family man” with—regardless of how hard I pressed him—“no vision of a better future.” A plumber and union shop steward from Cleveland, as well as the chairman of the union bargaining committee in his factory, he proudly told me, “I have really dedicated myself to the labor movement all my life and I believe in it.”
Yet he was already talking back then about the growing “conservative approach” of the trade union movement and the possibility that it would be destroyed, he believed, by “the race issue.” He was clearly both anti-Semitic and racist. (“Being white, I would prefer the continued supremacy of the white race instead of this homogenization that’s coming.”) And while discussing what he felt was a growing American crisis with me, he also told me that “your liberals believe in one world government…and your conservatives”—which he clearly believed himself to be—“believe in America first, American domination.”
And remember, this was July 1973, not July 2019. It was Richard Nixon’s America, not Donald Trump’s.
Frank and his wife, Helen, were open, chatty, and so pleased with the interview experience that she gave me their address and asked me to send them a copy of anything I wrote. In other words, he said nothing he felt was out of the range of propriety. My reaction, on leaving him, was: “For me, this interview seemed like the crescendo towards which the bits and pieces of our trip have been building.”
As I had discovered in those weeks of interviewing, Nelson, like so many others on that vacation loop, was filled to the brim with half-spoken and unspoken fears about a future in which, as I put it then, “the [corporate] pushers will survive, maybe even profit. It’s these people we’ve talked with, the vast mass of middle people who have barely eked out a toehold in the system, who will be cut off at the knees. And, being hooked [on that system], they don’t know what to do.”
Then, thinking about Nelson (and others like him we had met), I added,
The next step for Frank Nelson, however, may be out of this passivity and into the streets.… The motivation, the frustration, the anger is there. Even a new ideology, the ideology of race and nationalism is emerging. All that’s missing is the right wind sweeping in off the plain, a combination of forces at the top of the society willing to mobilize Frank Nelson.… Sinking people don’t usually have a trenchant analysis of reality. All they require is the promise that their hard-won sense of status will not go down the drain; and an explanation, any explanation, on which to hang their hopes. American society leaves people so confused and reality so disjointed that almost any formula which pretends to put the pieces together and appeals to what people think of as their self-interest may prove acceptable.
In those pages, I had already brought up Weimar-era Germany—the moment, that is, before Hitler rose to power—and then I added:
In Germany in the thirties, the formula that worked was anti-Semitism, anti-communism, and a rabid nationalism combined with full employment and a return to domestic stability. If Frank Nelson’s any criterion, the formula may not be that much different here.… Nationalism could well be the banner under which the struggle and the inevitable sacrifices will come, and race the bogeyman just as Jews were in Germany. The identifiable (Black) poor are the symbol for Frank Nelson of what he has to lose, what could be ripped out of his hands. And he’ll defend himself against that even if he has to ally himself with “the Jews and rich Gentiles” to do it. Frank Nelson and millions of other Americans are set up for the picking, if a group at the top sees profit in the crop.
Welcome to a More Extreme World
In the age of Donald Trump, the Proud Boys, and the Wolverine Watchmen, much of this should feel strangely familiar. If, however, my reporting was in any way prophetic, I have to admit that I didn’t realize it all these years—not until my friend wrote me. Still, it should be obvious, in retrospect, that, bizarre as the present moment may seem, it didn’t come out of the blue, not faintly. How could it have?
For that matter, Donald Trump didn’t exactly arrive out of the blue either. As a start, just a couple of months after I got back to San Francisco from that cross-country jaunt of ours, he made his first appearance on the front page of The New York Times. He was 27, two years younger than me, and already the president of trhe Trump Management Corporation. The headline, shades of the future Donald and the white nationalism that’s accompanied him, was: “Major Landlord Accused of Antiblack Bias in City.” The Justice Department was then charging his father, Fred, and him with refusing “to rent or negotiate rentals ‘because of race and color’” in the buildings they then owned and managed. And his first words quoted in that paper about those charges were, appropriately enough: “They are absolutely ridiculous.… We never have discriminated and we never would.” Of course not! And what hasn’t been increasingly, ridiculously Trumpian about our all-American world ever since?
When you think about it, with that moment in 1973 in mind, Trump himself might be reimagined as some extreme combination of Richard Nixon (a man with his own revealing tapes, just like The Donald) and George Wallace. The racist governor of Alabama and a third-party candidate the year Nixon slipped by Democrat Hubert Humphrey to first win the White House, Wallace was a man best known for the formulation “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”
Nixon took the presidency in 1968 and again in 1972 with his own form of racism, the “Southern strategy,” first pioneered by Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater in 1964 (and then called, far more redolently, “Operation Dixie”). In a racially coded and distinctly nationalist fashion, Nixon brought Southern whites in the formerly Democratic bastions of the South definitively into the Republican fold. By 1980, Ronald Reagan wouldn’t think twice about launching his own presidential election campaign with a “states’ rights” speech (then still a code phrase for segregation) near Philadelphia, Miss., just miles from the earthen dam where three murdered civil rights workers had been found buried in 1964. And in the intervening years, the Republican Party, too, has gone south (so to speak) big time and into a form of illiberality that was, even in the Nixon era, striking enough.
By 2016, of course, that Southern strategy had become something more like a national strategy in the (pussy-grabbing) hands of Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, the corporatization—I might, then, have thought of it as the fast-foodization—of the country that Peter, Nancy, and I were traveling across was already well underway. At the same time, a new kind of all-American inequality was, in those years, just beginning to make itself felt. Today, with the first billionaire in the White House and other billionaires, even in the midst of a pandemic, continuing to make an absolute mint while so many Americans suffer, the inequality that left Frank Nelson and his peers so desperately uneasy has never stopped rising to truly staggering levels.
Believe me, even if Donald Trump has to leave the Oval Office on January 20, 2021, we’ll still be in his America. And 47 years after my long, strange trip, I think I can guarantee you one thing: If it weren’t for the pandemic that has this country in its grasp and has swept so many of us off any path whatsoever, some young reporter, stir-crazy and unhappy, would still be able to head out onto a 21st century “road” and find updated versions of Frank Nelson galore (a surprising number of whom might be well-armed and angry).
Welcome to America! There’s no question that, so long after Peter, Nancy, and I traveled that not-so-open road, our lives and this country are way beyond our control.
Writing about the people I had interviewed then (about whom—with the single inspirational exception of a museum director I met in Twin Falls, Idaho—I knew nothing more), I said: “I don’t doubt that they, like me, are still heading reluctantly toward a future that will make the summer of 1973 seem truly unreal and leave us all wondering: Could life ever have really been that way?”
In Covid-19 America, with the West Coast still burning, Colorado in historic flames, a record 11 storms hitting the Gulf Coast and elsewhere this hurricane season, and heat of every sort rising everywhere, don’t for a second believe that the phrase “beyond our control” couldn’t gain new meaning in the decades to come.
Welcome to a more extreme version of the world Frank Nelson and I already inhabited in 1973.


thenation--2020-11-02--The Time Is Now: Dump Trump!

The Time Is Now: Dump Trump!

Putting children in cages .
Making it deliberate US policy to separate thousands of parents from their kids , hundreds of them never to be reunited .
Threatening , at various times , to use nuclear weapons , or “ fire and fury , ” to annihilate North Korea and Iran .
Conducting this game of nuclear chicken via tweet .
Pulling the United States out of the Paris climate accord and putting a wrecking ball to any and every regulation intended to tackle global warming .
Muzzling EPA scientists and ordering government agencies to distort key scientific data .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ following vast , climate-change-related wildfires .
Throwing rolls of paper towels to desperate Puerto Ricans after a hurricane wrecked their island , and then trying to withhold disaster relief funds because he was in a political spat with officials there .
Reveling in other people ’ s humiliation .
Cozying up to the killers of Jamal Khashoggi .
Mocking a disabled journalist .
Repeatedly praising the police shooting , by rubber bullets , of another journalist .
Calling out federal forces to attack racial justice demonstrators .
Unleashing chemical agents against protesters just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could have a photo-op .
Applauding a vigilante killer .
Labeling major American cities “ anarchist jurisdictions ” and denying vital federal dollars to their health systems .
Refusing to back economic support for cities , for public transit systems , for schools , and risking the country ’ s economic well-being and the educational future of millions of children .
Pushing to slash food stamps for the hungry .
Continually attacking the Affordable Care Act and rolling back health care access for millions of Americans .
Nominating judges who will eviscerate women @ @ @ @ @ @ @ regulations , and voting rights .
How to Rebut Trump ’ s Tsunami of Lies Claiming to be a billionaire but paying almost no federal income taxes .
Milking his time in power to secure huge financial perks for his businesses .
Refusing to abide by lawfully issued congressional subpoenas .
Pushing the dictatorial idea that a president is literally outside the rule of law .
Talking about young soldiers whose lives were lost as “ losers and suckers.
” Barring immigrants from several Muslim-majority countries .
Locking down the border and forcing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dangerous , disease-ridden refugee camps in Mexico .
Barring all but a few thousand refugees per year .
Traveling to Minneapolis and other cities that welcome refugees to direct racist diatribes at these new arrivals .
Praising the tiki-torch-carrying racists and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville .
Retweeting white nationalist tweets .
Tweeting calls for armed militias to “ liberate ” states from public health orders .
Repeatedly attacking a governor after militiamen hatched a plot to kidnap her and “ try ” her for treason .
Retweeting QAnon conspiracies .
Ordering the Department of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trouble with the law .
Repeatedly urging said DoJ to investigate and imprison his political opponents .
Accusing those political opponents , civil servants , and private citizens who end up on his bad side of “ treason , ” or of being “ scum ” or “ enemies of the people.
” Cutting pandemic preparedness funding .
Mocking public health measures such as the wearing of masks that experts say would save tens of thousands of lives .
Ridiculing doctors and infectious disease specialists .
Suggesting Americans inject themselves with bleach and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Holding fanatical maskless rallies in coronavirus hot spots .
Blaming “ blue states ” for high coronavirus death rates .
Pitting states and hospital systems against one another in the scramble for vital medical supplies .
Walking out of the World Health Organization during a once-in-a-century pandemic .
Refusing to commit the United States to cooperative efforts with other countries to develop and distribute Covid-19 vaccines .
Mocking political allies from the world ’ s great democracies .
Praising dictators and strongmen .
Calling poor , nonwhite countries “ shitholes.
” Siding with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ undermine the European Union .
Hiring a who ’ s who of far-right activists to staff US government agencies .
Using Russian disinformation in 2016 and 2020 .
Blackmailing the Ukrainian government to dig up dirt on his political opponent .
Attacking his own institutions of government for concluding that Russia was sabotaging US political processes .
Asking his Homeland Security team why he couldn ’ t order undocumented immigrants to be shot in the legs to slow them down when they tried to enter the United States .
Wondering why he couldn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ alligators to deter immigrants , and why he couldn ’ t build spikes atop his great border wall—which the Mexicans never ended up paying for—to impale those attempting to climb it .
Raiding billions of dollars from the public purse to fund that wall , despite the refusal of Congress to sign off on the spending .
Seeking to deport half a million people with Temporary Protected Status , despite the fact that this would result in roughly a quarter of a million US-citizen children losing their parents .
Cutting immigrants off from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ benefits by changing the “ public charge ” rules .
Sabotaging the Census count .
Refusing to accept the notion of a peaceful transfer of power .
Attempting to defund the US Postal Service to delay the delivery of mail-in ballots .
Plotting to declare “ victory ” before most votes have been counted .
Telling fascist street fighters to “ stand back and stand by.
” Hiring an army of attorneys instructed to challenge ballot counts anywhere the vote appears close enough to be tweakable by court rulings .
Doing everything he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the American people .
There is no margin for error here .
There is no room for anything but a thumping , indisputable , massive Biden victory .

Putting children in cages. Making it deliberate US policy to separate thousands of parents from their kids, hundreds of them never to be reunited. Threatening, at various times, to use nuclear weapons, or “fire and fury,” to annihilate North Korea and Iran. Conducting this game of nuclear chicken via tweet. Pulling the United States out of the Paris climate accord and putting a wrecking ball to any and every regulation intended to tackle global warming. Muzzling EPA scientists and ordering government agencies to distort key scientific data. Threatening to withhold FEMA funds from California following vast, climate-change-related wildfires. Throwing rolls of paper towels to desperate Puerto Ricans after a hurricane wrecked their island, and then trying to withhold disaster relief funds because he was in a political spat with officials there. Reveling in other people’s humiliation. Cozying up to the killers of Jamal Khashoggi. Mocking a disabled journalist. Repeatedly praising the police shooting, by rubber bullets, of another journalist. Calling out federal forces to attack racial justice demonstrators. Unleashing chemical agents against protesters just to clear a path so that he could have a photo-op. Applauding a vigilante killer. Labeling major American cities “anarchist jurisdictions” and denying vital federal dollars to their health systems. Refusing to back economic support for cities, for public transit systems, for schools, and risking the country’s economic well-being and the educational future of millions of children. Pushing to slash food stamps for the hungry. Continually attacking the Affordable Care Act and rolling back health care access for millions of Americans. Nominating judges who will eviscerate women’s rights, environmental and workplace regulations, and voting rights. More Signal:Noise How to Rebut Trump’s Tsunami of Lies Sasha Abramsky Trump Attempts One More Preelection Power Grab Sasha Abramsky
Claiming to be a billionaire but paying almost no federal income taxes. Milking his time in power to secure huge financial perks for his businesses. Refusing to abide by lawfully issued congressional subpoenas. Pushing the dictatorial idea that a president is literally outside the rule of law. Talking about young soldiers whose lives were lost as “losers and suckers.” Barring immigrants from several Muslim-majority countries. Locking down the border and forcing asylum seekers to wait in fetid, dangerous, disease-ridden refugee camps in Mexico. Barring all but a few thousand refugees per year. Traveling to Minneapolis and other cities that welcome refugees to direct racist diatribes at these new arrivals. Praising the tiki-torch-carrying racists and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville. Retweeting white nationalist tweets. Tweeting calls for armed militias to “liberate” states from public health orders. Repeatedly attacking a governor after militiamen hatched a plot to kidnap her and “try” her for treason. Retweeting QAnon conspiracies. Ordering the Department of Justice to intervene to help friends in trouble with the law. Repeatedly urging said DoJ to investigate and imprison his political opponents. Accusing those political opponents, civil servants, and private citizens who end up on his bad side of “treason,” or of being “scum” or “enemies of the people.” Cutting pandemic preparedness funding. Mocking public health measures such as the wearing of masks that experts say would save tens of thousands of lives. Ridiculing doctors and infectious disease specialists. Suggesting Americans inject themselves with bleach and with light rays to counter Covid-19. Holding fanatical maskless rallies in coronavirus hot spots. Blaming “blue states” for high coronavirus death rates. Pitting states and hospital systems against one another in the scramble for vital medical supplies. Walking out of the World Health Organization during a once-in-a-century pandemic. Refusing to commit the United States to cooperative efforts with other countries to develop and distribute Covid-19 vaccines. Mocking political allies from the world’s great democracies. Praising dictators and strongmen. Calling poor, nonwhite countries “shitholes.”
Siding with European fascist parties in an effort to undermine the European Union. Hiring a who’s who of far-right activists to staff US government agencies. Using Russian disinformation in 2016 and 2020. Blackmailing the Ukrainian government to dig up dirt on his political opponent. Attacking his own institutions of government for concluding that Russia was sabotaging US political processes. Asking his Homeland Security team why he couldn’t order undocumented immigrants to be shot in the legs to slow them down when they tried to enter the United States. Wondering why he couldn’t build a moat filled with alligators to deter immigrants, and why he couldn’t build spikes atop his great border wall—which the Mexicans never ended up paying for—to impale those attempting to climb it. Raiding billions of dollars from the public purse to fund that wall, despite the refusal of Congress to sign off on the spending. Seeking to deport half a million people with Temporary Protected Status, despite the fact that this would result in roughly a quarter of a million US-citizen children losing their parents. Cutting immigrants off from basic health, food, and housing benefits by changing the “public charge” rules. Sabotaging the Census count. Refusing to accept the notion of a peaceful transfer of power. Attempting to defund the US Postal Service to delay the delivery of mail-in ballots. Plotting to declare “victory” before most votes have been counted. Telling fascist street fighters to “stand back and stand by.” Hiring an army of attorneys instructed to challenge ballot counts anywhere the vote appears close enough to be tweakable by court rulings. Doing everything he can to disempower and disrespect us, the American people.
There is no margin for error here. There is no room for anything but a thumping, indisputable, massive Biden victory.
VOTE.