motherjones--2020-10-05--29 Ways Trump and the GOP Are Making It Harder to Vote

President Trump ’ s loud refusals to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the November election have sparked major fears about the continued survival of American democracy .
But much more quietly , Trump and his GOP allies have already taken numerous steps to undermine fair elections in an attempt to stay in power .
The Trump campaign is furiously litigating in nearly every major swing state ( 17 states in total ) to block expanded access to the ballot during a pandemic , while GOP state lawmakers fight to maintain existing restrictions on voting that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in past elections and push new ones .
Together , these efforts could disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters , mostly in Democratic-leaning demographic groups , and tilt the election toward Trump .
Here is a comprehensive list of the ways Trump and his party are making it harder to vote .
Blocking mail-in ballot requests : The Trump campaign has filed numerous lawsuits attempting to block states from sending mail-in ballot request forms to voters .
In Iowa , a judge found in favor of the campaign and voided more than 150,000 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the state ’ s most Democratic counties and a Republican-leaning one , forcing them to request a new ballot in order for it to count .
Blocking universal mail voting : Though states have conducted elections by mailing all registered voters a ballot since the 1990s with few problems , the Trump campaign has sued New Jersey , Nevada , and Montana to block them from doing the same .
Trump has denounced the mailing of “ unsolicited ” ballots to voters on a near-daily basis .
Requiring an excuse to vote by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all voters to obtain mail ballots during the pandemic , six GOP-controlled states are still requiring a reason other than COVID-19 to vote-by-mail .
In Texas , voters under 65 can not cite fear of contracting COVID as a reason to vote by mail ; those that are older can .
Preventing drop boxes : States with a long history of mail voting like Oregon and Colorado , along with relative newcomers like Maryland and New Jersey , allow voters to return their ballots at drop boxes across the state , but the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from being set up in swing states such as Pennsylvania .
In Ohio , the Republican secretary of state issued a directive limiting drop boxes to one per county ( in defiance of a court order ) , ensuring unequal access for voters living in more-populated counties and forcing some to travel up to 90 minutes to drop off their ballot .
In Texas , GOP Gov .
Greg Abbott issued a similar directive just weeks before early voting ordering counties to remove already established additional drop boxes , forcing Harris County , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ larger than Rhode Island , to go from 12 locations to just one .
Throwing out ballots with mismatched signatures : In 2018 , more than 100,000 mail ballots were rejected because of a mismatched or missing signatures on return envelopes ; in Florida , young voters and voters of color were far more likely to have their ballots thrown out for a mismatched signature than elderly and white voters .
Republicans have gone to court in states including Arizona , Ohio , and Pennsylvania to preserve this requirement .
Requiring a witness @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the swing states of Wisconsin and North Carolina , voters must find a witness to sign their mail ballot , which can be difficult at a time of social distancing ; Alabama ’ s GOP secretary of state went to the Supreme Court to keep a law requiring two witnesses or a notarized affidavit for a mail ballot to count .
Throwing out “ naked ballots ” : In Pennsylvania , the Trump campaign recently won a court order requiring the state to throw out ballots that are not enclosed in a special @ @ @ @ @ @ @ warn could disenfranchise more than 100,000 voters in the state .
Prohibiting the collection of ballots : The Trump campaign has sued states including Maine , Nevada , and Pennsylvania , trying to force a on ban third- party voter engagement groups collecting and returning mail ballots .
Sabotaging the Postal Service : This year , Democrats are more likely to cast mail ballots , and the USPS ’ s well-publicized major mail delays have led to widespread concern that votes will be rejected because they arrived too late .
The delays stem @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a major Republican donor who was made Postmaster General earlier this year , and soon reduced overtime , cut post office hours , and forced trucks to leave before they can be filled with mail .
Strict voter ID laws : Over the last decade , roughly a dozen Republican state legislatures passed laws requiring voters to present certain forms of government-issued photo , which contributed to a drop in Democratic turnout in 2016 ; According to a study by Wisconsin academics , the state ’ s voter ID law prevented up to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just two mostly Democratic counties—equivalent to Trump ’ s margin of victory .
Cuts to early voting : In June , a panel of GOP-appointed judges approved cuts to early voting passed by the Republican-controlled Wisconsin legislature , limiting early voting to just two weeks .
Previously , some heavily Democratic cities , like Madison and Milwaukee , allowed a month or more of early voting .
Disenfranchising people with felony convictions : In early September , a federal appeals court upheld a law passed by Florida ’ s GOP-controlled legislature requiring people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all fines , fees , and restitutions before voting , a move that could disenfranchise 775,000 eligible voters in this key battleground state .
Closing polling places : States with a long history of voting discrimination closed more than 1,600 polling places after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013 .
This has led to longer lines at the polls , especially in Black and Brown communities .
In Georgia ’ s June primary , voters in predominantly white neighborhoods waited an average of six minutes to vote , while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ average of 51 minutes .
Recruiting poll watchers : The GOP is seeking to recruit 50,000 poll watchers to intimidate and potentially challenge the eligibility of Democratic voters , after the party was freed from a court order that had banned such activity since the 1980s .
Trump has threatened to illegally send law enforcement to monitor the polls .
Blocking college students from voting : GOP-controlled states such as Texas have closed polling places on college campuses , while allowing voters to cast a ballot with a gun permit but not a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Voter registration plunged after in-person registration drives were suspended across the country due to the pandemic .
Even so , ten states ( nine of them with Republican state legislatures ) still do not allow online registration , and Republicans have sued to prevent it from being offered in states including Maine and Texas .
Purging the voter rolls : In 2018 , the Supreme Court upheld efforts by Ohio ’ s Republican secretary of state to remove voters who had not voted in a few previous elections , essentially turning voting into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” right ; Georgia ’ s Republican secretary of state deactivated more than 120,000 registrations earlier this year for the same reason .
Fighting efforts reduce reliance on dodgy technology : Republican election officials in Georgia are appealing a judge ’ s ruling requiring paper backups of voter registration data , even after the breakdown of electronic poll books caused hours-long waits during the June primary .
Keeping threats to election security under wraps : Trump ’ s director of National Intelligence announced in August that his office would no longer conduct in-person @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , after congressional Democrats said the Trump administration was trying to downplay foreign interference in elections , he partially backed down , agreeing to brief only members of the House and Senate intelligence committees .
Blocking election integrity legislation : For nearly a year , Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans have blocked legislation to protect Americans ’ right to vote and prevent foreign election interference .
They ’ ve also blocked legislation passed by the House to give $ 3.6 billion in election aid to states .
Encouraging people to vote twice : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mail voting , Trump urged his supporters to submit their completed mail ballots and then show up at the polls and test the system by trying to vote again .
State officials from around the country had to remind voters that voting twice in the same election is illegal , as others warned that people following the president ’ s suggestion could create delays that deter legitimate voters .
Lying about voter fraud : The president , with the help of Attorney General Bill Barr , has repeatedly lied about the prevalence of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that has made it easier to infringe on voting rights .
Of course , the facts are different : The conservative Heritage Foundation lists just 143 criminal convictions for mail ballot fraud over the last 20 years , out of roughly 250 million votes cast by mail .
A recent Washington Post analysis of elections in three primarily vote-by-mail states in 2016 and 2018 found 372 possible cases of double voting or voting on behalf of dead people , out of about 14.6 million ballots cast—a rate of roughly 0.0025 percent .
Setting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ While election officials around the country have warned that a clear vote tallies could take days to emerge , the president has signaled that he may declare victory on election night as part of a strategy to delegitimize millions of legal ballots that will be processed after Election Day .
Dismissing Russian intervention : Trump continues to downplay and publicly dismiss his own intelligence officials ’ warnings of ongoing Russian interference in US elections , making it easier for Russia to act as it wishes .
Most recently , he incorrectly admonished FBI @ @ @ @ @ @ @ public that China is the “ far greater ” threat .
A Department of Homeland Security whistleblower also claimed recently that the Trump administration sought to downplay and manipulate intelligence on Russian election interference .
Doing Russia ’ s work : Trump ’ s vocal attacks on the credibility of mail voting and the ability of the US Postal Service to deliver mail ballots have been amplified by the Russian government , Trump ’ s intelligence analysts said in early September .
Even the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee warned that Russian attacks on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said continued public undermining of election administration in the United States was making their work easier .
Targeting Black voters with illegal robocalls : In late August , right-wing provocateurs Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl allegedly targeted voters in urban areas in five states with a robocall informing them that voting by mail would invite increased scrutiny from law enforcement and debt collectors .
Each man was charged with four felonies by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel on October 1 .
Weaponizing “ delays ” : In the key battleground states of Wisconsin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ legislatures have hampered proposals that would help local officials more quickly process unprecedented numbers of mail ballots .
Meanwhile , Trump is pointing to these anticipated delays to spread baseless claims of fraud .
Blocking late-arriving ballots : Even against the backdrop of historic levels of voting by mail and the US Postal Service ’ s well-documented delivery issues , Republicans are waging legal battles in several states to keep ballots that arrive after Election Day from being counted .
Preparing to to nullify the results : Down in the polls , Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ circumvent the results of the vote count , ” according to Barton Gellman ’ s recent reporting in the Atlantic , using litigation and the pretext of problems with mail ballots as a pretext for Republican-led state legislatures to possibly appoint their own electors and nullify the will of the voters .

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President Trump’s loud refusals to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the November election have sparked major fears about the continued survival of American democracy. But much more quietly, Trump and his GOP allies have already taken numerous steps to undermine fair elections in an attempt to stay in power. The Trump campaign is furiously litigating in nearly every major swing state (17 states in total) to block expanded access to the ballot during a pandemic, while GOP state lawmakers fight to maintain existing restrictions on voting that have given their party a major advantage in past elections and push new ones. Together, these efforts could disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters, mostly in Democratic-leaning demographic groups, and tilt the election toward Trump. Here is a comprehensive list of the ways Trump and his party are making it harder to vote.
Voting by mail:
Blocking mail-in ballot requests: The Trump campaign has filed numerous lawsuits attempting to block states from sending mail-in ballot request forms to voters. In Iowa, a judge found in favor of the campaign and voided more than 150,000 forms sent to voters in two of the state’s most Democratic counties and a Republican-leaning one, forcing them to request a new ballot in order for it to count.
Blocking universal mail voting: Though states have conducted elections by mailing all registered voters a ballot since the 1990s with few problems, the Trump campaign has sued New Jersey, Nevada, and Montana to block them from doing the same. Trump has denounced the mailing of “unsolicited” ballots to voters on a near-daily basis.
Requiring an excuse to vote by mail: While 44 states will allow all voters to obtain mail ballots during the pandemic, six GOP-controlled states are still requiring a reason other than COVID-19 to vote-by-mail. In Texas, voters under 65 cannot cite fear of contracting COVID as a reason to vote by mail; those that are older can.
Preventing drop boxes: States with a long history of mail voting like Oregon and Colorado, along with relative newcomers like Maryland and New Jersey, allow voters to return their ballots at drop boxes across the state, but the Trump campaign has sued to block them from being set up in swing states such as Pennsylvania. In Ohio, the Republican secretary of state issued a directive limiting drop boxes to one per county (in defiance of a court order), ensuring unequal access for voters living in more-populated counties and forcing some to travel up to 90 minutes to drop off their ballot. In Texas, GOP Gov. Greg Abbott issued a similar directive just weeks before early voting ordering counties to remove already established additional drop boxes, forcing Harris County, which has 5 million people and is larger than Rhode Island, to go from 12 locations to just one.
Throwing out ballots with mismatched signatures: In 2018, more than 100,000 mail ballots were rejected because of a mismatched or missing signatures on return envelopes; in Florida, young voters and voters of color were far more likely to have their ballots thrown out for a mismatched signature than elderly and white voters. Republicans have gone to court in states including Arizona, Ohio, and Pennsylvania to preserve this requirement.
Requiring a witness signature: In eight states, including the swing states of Wisconsin and North Carolina, voters must find a witness to sign their mail ballot, which can be difficult at a time of social distancing; Alabama’s GOP secretary of state went to the Supreme Court to keep a law requiring two witnesses or a notarized affidavit for a mail ballot to count.
Throwing out “naked ballots”: In Pennsylvania, the Trump campaign recently won a court order requiring the state to throw out ballots that are not enclosed in a special secrecy envelope, a move election officials warn could disenfranchise more than 100,000 voters in the state.
Prohibiting the collection of ballots: The Trump campaign has sued states including Maine, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, trying to force a on ban third- party voter engagement groups collecting and returning mail ballots.
Sabotaging the Postal Service: This year, Democrats are more likely to cast mail ballots, and the USPS’s well-publicized major mail delays have led to widespread concern that votes will be rejected because they arrived too late. The delays stem from changes made under Louis DeJoy, a major Republican donor who was made Postmaster General earlier this year, and soon reduced overtime, cut post office hours, and forced trucks to leave before they can be filled with mail.
Voting in person:
Strict voter ID laws: Over the last decade, roughly a dozen Republican state legislatures passed laws requiring voters to present certain forms of government-issued photo, which contributed to a drop in Democratic turnout in 2016; According to a study by Wisconsin academics, the state’s voter ID law prevented up to 23,000 voters from casting a ballot in just two mostly Democratic counties—equivalent to Trump’s margin of victory.
Cuts to early voting: In June, a panel of GOP-appointed judges approved cuts to early voting passed by the Republican-controlled Wisconsin legislature, limiting early voting to just two weeks. Previously, some heavily Democratic cities, like Madison and Milwaukee, allowed a month or more of early voting.
Together, these efforts could disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters, mostly in Democratic-leaning demographic groups, and tilt the election toward Trump.
Disenfranchising people with felony convictions: In early September, a federal appeals court upheld a law passed by Florida’s GOP-controlled legislature requiring people with past felony convictions to pay off all fines, fees, and restitutions before voting, a move that could disenfranchise 775,000 eligible voters in this key battleground state.
Closing polling places: States with a long history of voting discrimination closed more than 1,600 polling places after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013. This has led to longer lines at the polls, especially in Black and Brown communities. In Georgia’s June primary, voters in predominantly white neighborhoods waited an average of six minutes to vote, while voters in predominantly Black neighborhoods waited an average of 51 minutes.
Recruiting poll watchers: The GOP is seeking to recruit 50,000 poll watchers to intimidate and potentially challenge the eligibility of Democratic voters, after the party was freed from a court order that had banned such activity since the 1980s. Trump has threatened to illegally send law enforcement to monitor the polls.
Blocking college students from voting: GOP-controlled states such as Texas have closed polling places on college campuses, while allowing voters to cast a ballot with a gun permit but not a student ID.
Registering to vote:
Blocking online registration: Voter registration plunged after in-person registration drives were suspended across the country due to the pandemic. Even so, ten states (nine of them with Republican state legislatures) still do not allow online registration, and Republicans have sued to prevent it from being offered in states including Maine and Texas.
Purging the voter rolls: In 2018, the Supreme Court upheld efforts by Ohio’s Republican secretary of state to remove voters who had not voted in a few previous elections, essentially turning voting into a “use it or lose it” right; Georgia’s Republican secretary of state deactivated more than 120,000 registrations earlier this year for the same reason.
Election security:
Fighting efforts reduce reliance on dodgy technology: Republican election officials in Georgia are appealing a judge’s ruling requiring paper backups of voter registration data, even after the breakdown of electronic poll books caused hours-long waits during the June primary.
Keeping threats to election security under wraps: Trump’s director of National Intelligence announced in August that his office would no longer conduct in-person election security briefings to Congress. Later, after congressional Democrats said the Trump administration was trying to downplay foreign interference in elections, he partially backed down, agreeing to brief only members of the House and Senate intelligence committees.
Blocking election integrity legislation: For nearly a year, Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans have blocked legislation to protect Americans’ right to vote and prevent foreign election interference. They’ve also blocked legislation passed by the House to give $3.6 billion in election aid to states.
Disinformation:
Encouraging people to vote twice: As part of his continued assault on mail voting, Trump urged his supporters to submit their completed mail ballots and then show up at the polls and test the system by trying to vote again. State officials from around the country had to remind voters that voting twice in the same election is illegal, as others warned that people following the president’s suggestion could create delays that deter legitimate voters.
Lying about voter fraud: The president, with the help of Attorney General Bill Barr, has repeatedly lied about the prevalence of widespread voter fraud, creating an atmosphere that has made it easier to infringe on voting rights. Of course, the facts are different: The conservative Heritage Foundation lists just 143 criminal convictions for mail ballot fraud over the last 20 years, out of roughly 250 million votes cast by mail. A recent Washington Post analysis of elections in three primarily vote-by-mail states in 2016 and 2018 found 372 possible cases of double voting or voting on behalf of dead people, out of about 14.6 million ballots cast—a rate of roughly 0.0025 percent.
Setting harmful expectations of a quick result: While election officials around the country have warned that a clear vote tallies could take days to emerge, the president has signaled that he may declare victory on election night as part of a strategy to delegitimize millions of legal ballots that will be processed after Election Day.
Dismissing Russian intervention: Trump continues to downplay and publicly dismiss his own intelligence officials’ warnings of ongoing Russian interference in US elections, making it easier for Russia to act as it wishes. Most recently, he incorrectly admonished FBI Director Chris Wray for not telling the public that China is the “far greater” threat. A Department of Homeland Security whistleblower also claimed recently that the Trump administration sought to downplay and manipulate intelligence on Russian election interference.
Doing Russia’s work: Trump’s vocal attacks on the credibility of mail voting and the ability of the US Postal Service to deliver mail ballots have been amplified by the Russian government, Trump’s intelligence analysts said in early September. Even the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee warned that Russian attacks on the election are “ongoing” and said continued public undermining of election administration in the United States was making their work easier.
Targeting Black voters with illegal robocalls: In late August, right-wing provocateurs Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl allegedly targeted voters in urban areas in five states with a robocall informing them that voting by mail would invite increased scrutiny from law enforcement and debt collectors. Each man was charged with four felonies by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel on October 1.
Vote counting:
Weaponizing “delays”: In the key battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, Republican legislatures have hampered proposals that would help local officials more quickly process unprecedented numbers of mail ballots. Meanwhile, Trump is pointing to these anticipated delays to spread baseless claims of fraud.
Blocking late-arriving ballots: Even against the backdrop of historic levels of voting by mail and the US Postal Service’s well-documented delivery issues, Republicans are waging legal battles in several states to keep ballots that arrive after Election Day from being counted.
Preparing to to nullify the results: Down in the polls, Trump and Republican allies are allegedly preparing to “circumvent the results of the vote count,” according to Barton Gellman’s recent reporting in the Atlantic, using litigation and the pretext of problems with mail ballots as a pretext for Republican-led state legislatures to possibly appoint their own electors and nullify the will of the voters.


motherjones--2020-10-06--Trump Killed COVID Relief. The Decision Will Inflict Financial Hardship on Millions.

Hours after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said that more stimulus is necessary to help the economy recover from the coronavirus and avoid “ unnecessary hardship for households and businesses , ” President Donald Trump made clear that he intended to ignore the advice of the federal government ’ s top economist .
In a series of tweets on Tuesday afternoon , Trump said that he ’ s instructed Republicans to stop negotiations with Democrats over a new COVID relief package until after the election .
“ [ I ] mmediately after I win , we will pass a major @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Small Business , ” he wrote , adding : “ Our Economy is doing very well.
” Much of the aid enacted as part of the CARES Act , the sweeping pandemic relief package passed in March , has since expired or been spent by households—including the $ 600 per week unemployment boost and the $ 1200 stimulus checks .
Meanwhile the unemployment rate is still at 7.9 percent—more than double the pre-pandemic rate—and signals a slowing economic recovery .
Republicans and Democrats have been deadlocked over coronavirus relief for months , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gap in their COVID relief proposals .
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi ( D-Calif. ) and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have led negotiations in recent days , in a final effort to ink a deal that would get aid out to households before the November 3 presidential election .
The pair spoke on Monday but was unable to reach an agreement .
In his tweets on Tuesday , Trump accused Pelosi of seeking the additional funds “ to bailout poorly run , high crime , Democrat States.
” Trump said that he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ McConnell ( R-Ky. ) to focus all of his attention on confirming Trump ’ s latest Supreme Court pick , Amy Coney Barrett , to fill the seat of deceased Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg .
McConnell has vowed to move ahead with the start of confirmation hearings on October 12 , even as he has recessed the full Senate until October 19 .
Sen. Thom Tillis ( R-NC ) and Sen. Mike Lee ( R-Utah ) , both members of the Judiciary Committee that runs the hearings , have been diagnosed with COVID-19 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ committee have tested negative but are self-quarantining .
The latest aid proposal from Democrats , a $ 2.2 trillion package passed by the House last week , would have reinstated the $ 600 unemployment boost through January , sent another round of $ 1200 stimulus checks to households , created more Paycheck Protection Program loans for businesses , and funneled $ 436 billion in aid to state and local governments whose budgets were decimated by coronavirus-related shutdowns this spring .
Mnuchin ’ s latest offer on behalf of the Trump administration , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also sent another round of $ 1200 stimulus checks to families .
It included $ 250 billion in aid to state and local governments and a $ 400 per week unemployment boost .
Trump ’ s decision to cut off these stimulus talks until after the election is likely to bring economic pain and instability to millions of households .
More than 12.5 million Americans are unemployed , with many relying on insufficient state unemployment benefits that are not designed to sustain lengthy periods of unemployment in the midst of an economic crisis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ corporations have announced mass layoffs in the last week , including Disney , which said it would lay off 28,000 workers , and American and United Airlines , which announced job cuts of 19,000 and 12,000 workers , respectively .
Renters are currently protected by a nationwide eviction moratorium , issued by the Centers for Disease Control , which expires on December 31 .
But the moratorium doesn ’ t erase rent owed—it only gives tenants time to recover until current and back rent are due .
Without a stimulus , the likelihood @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rent obligations come January significantly diminishes .
Withholding coronavirus aid also defies the recommendations that many economists have been issuing for months .
Federal aid in the form of money to households , they note , serves a dual function : It helps individual households to get their footing in the midst of economic crisis , and , in so doing , encourages more consumer spending , helping to create jobs and to hasten the economic recovery .

Hours after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said that more stimulus is necessary to help the economy recover from the coronavirus and avoid “unnecessary hardship for households and businesses,” President Donald Trump made clear that he intended to ignore the advice of the federal government’s top economist.
In a series of tweets on Tuesday afternoon, Trump said that he’s instructed Republicans to stop negotiations with Democrats over a new COVID relief package until after the election. “[I]mmediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and Small Business,” he wrote, adding: “Our Economy is doing very well.”
…request, and looking to the future of our Country. I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election when, immediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and Small Business. I have asked… — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 6, 2020
Much of the aid enacted as part of the CARES Act, the sweeping pandemic relief package passed in March, has since expired or been spent by households—including the $600 per week unemployment boost and the $1200 stimulus checks. Meanwhile the unemployment rate is still at 7.9 percent—more than double the pre-pandemic rate—and signals a slowing economic recovery.
Republicans and Democrats have been deadlocked over coronavirus relief for months, unable to close a $600 billion gap in their COVID relief proposals. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have led negotiations in recent days, in a final effort to ink a deal that would get aid out to households before the November 3 presidential election. The pair spoke on Monday but was unable to reach an agreement.
Trump accused Pelosi of seeking the additional funds “to bailout poorly run, high crime, Democrat States.”
In his tweets on Tuesday, Trump accused Pelosi of seeking the additional funds “to bailout poorly run, high crime, Democrat States.” Trump said that he’s instructed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to focus all of his attention on confirming Trump’s latest Supreme Court pick, Amy Coney Barrett, to fill the seat of deceased Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. McConnell has vowed to move ahead with the start of confirmation hearings on October 12, even as he has recessed the full Senate until October 19. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), both members of the Judiciary Committee that runs the hearings, have been diagnosed with COVID-19. Two more Republican senators on the committee have tested negative but are self-quarantining.
The latest aid proposal from Democrats, a $2.2 trillion package passed by the House last week, would have reinstated the $600 unemployment boost through January, sent another round of $1200 stimulus checks to households, created more Paycheck Protection Program loans for businesses, and funneled $436 billion in aid to state and local governments whose budgets were decimated by coronavirus-related shutdowns this spring.
Mnuchin’s latest offer on behalf of the Trump administration, a $1.6 trillion package, would have also sent another round of $1200 stimulus checks to families. It included $250 billion in aid to state and local governments and a $400 per week unemployment boost.
Trump’s decision to cut off these stimulus talks until after the election is likely to bring economic pain and instability to millions of households. More than 12.5 million Americans are unemployed, with many relying on insufficient state unemployment benefits that are not designed to sustain lengthy periods of unemployment in the midst of an economic crisis. What’s more, several corporations have announced mass layoffs in the last week, including Disney, which said it would lay off 28,000 workers, and American and United Airlines, which announced job cuts of 19,000 and 12,000 workers, respectively.
Renters are currently protected by a nationwide eviction moratorium, issued by the Centers for Disease Control, which expires on December 31. But the moratorium doesn’t erase rent owed—it only gives tenants time to recover until current and back rent are due. Without a stimulus, the likelihood that tenants will be able to cover rent obligations come January significantly diminishes.
Withholding coronavirus aid also defies the recommendations that many economists have been issuing for months. Federal aid in the form of money to households, they note, serves a dual function: It helps individual households to get their footing in the midst of economic crisis, and, in so doing, encourages more consumer spending, helping to create jobs and to hasten the economic recovery.


motherjones--2020-10-06--The Secret to Beating Trump Lies With You and Your Friends

In November 2017 , Emily Isaac packed her belongings and flew to Texas .
More specifically , to the 21st Congressional District , gerrymandered to include half of San Antonio , a scoop of Austin , and a large rectangle of Texas hill country , where a Bernie Sanders acolyte named Derrick Crowe was running for Congress .
“ We did all of the right things , ” says Isaac , who had spent six months as a field organizer on Sanders ’ 2016 presidential campaign .
Crowe ’ s team built a massive door-knocking operation “ dwarfing what our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Isaac expected Crowe to win , but he came in third .
“ I left feeling like , ‘ Wow , did any of that move the needle ?
’ ” she says .
“ That ’ s when I realized voters at the door will tell you whatever you want to hear to get you off the doorstep.
” A few months later , Isaac drove 150 miles east to work for another Democratic congressional candidate : Sri Kulkarni of Sugar Land , outside of Houston .
The district has been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but there was promise for Democrats in its growing diversity , including immigrant communities from South and East Asia .
Unfortunately , the voter file provided by the Democratic National Committee lumped them all together as “ Asian , ” an overly broad category for people with different cultures and languages .
So Isaac ’ s team tasked volunteers from those communities to sort the 85,000-row spreadsheet by surname , dividing entries into more than 20 community categories , from Arab Christian to Zoroastrian .
The campaign would ultimately run phone banks in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over the spreadsheet , they added personal notes : “ This family moved ” or “ in college and needs an absentee ballot.
” One star organizer was a student named Chris .
“ We would give him a list of the 18-year-olds zoned to his high school , and he knew like 160 of them.
” But he could also spot who wasn ’ t on the voter list and needed to be registered .
“ It was this lightbulb moment , ” says Isaac .
“ Not only are our volunteers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ preferred language , they personally know so many of them.
” Though Kulkarni narrowly lost , his organizing strategy was a clear success , bringing him within five points of his opponent—the closest margin the district had seen in over a decade .
Kulkarni announced another run in 2020 , but Isaac didn ’ t stick around .
This new way of campaigning was too big to keep in Texas .
While working for Kulkarni , Isaac began to hear a buzzy new term : “ relational organizing.
” At its most basic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ between friends , family , neighbors , and co-workers .
Instead of relying on traditional strategies like door knocking , phone calls , or texts from strangers , it harnesses existing relationships to mobilize voters .
It was , Isaac realized , exactly what she ’ d been doing .
A handful of progressive organizers deployed the tactic in 2016 and 2018 .
Their efforts were tracked with the help of the Analyst Institute , a secretive progressive research firm whose meta-analysis of voter turnout studies found that outreach from friends and family @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voters than a door knock .
Effectiveness made relational organizing attractive , but the coronavirus has made it urgent .
Unlike traditional mobilization tactics , relational organizing is adaptable to social distancing .
Kristee Paschall runs an organizing program for 50 progressive groups across the country through Community Change Action , a nonprofit focused on empowering low-income communities .
In early March , she realized that campaigning had changed overnight—how can you ring doorbells or hold rallies during a pandemic ?
Her small team set up Zoom trainings on relational organizing , unsure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , nearly 300 organizers showed up .
This summer , as the Black Lives Matter movement transformed the political landscape through community mobilization and difficult conversations , these organizers saw proof of concept .
With the pandemic having forced hundreds of voter mobilization groups to embrace relational organizing , the November election will provide a clear test of its potential .
The tactic will be “ exponentially bigger and more important ” this year than ever before , says Paschall .
“ It ’ s going to be a major part of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Carter , managing director of Resilient Democracy , a civic engagement initiative .
In key swing states like Wisconsin , Pennsylvania , and Michigan , where dips in participation , particularly among Black voters , hurt Hillary Clinton four years ago , community groups run by and for people of color have turned to relational organizing .
One of them is Voces de la Frontera Action , which set out to engage 23,000 Latinos and other voters in Wisconsin who were unlikely to vote in 2020—Trump ’ s margin of victory there four @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the way there .
The political arm of the civil rights group Color of Change is using relational organizing .
“ For me , relational totally makes sense and is in line with generations and generations of organizing work , ” says Arisha Hatch , the group ’ s vice president and chief of campaigns .
Community-based groups already steeped in organizing have been quicker to use the strategy than candidates have .
Political campaigns are often cautious , risk averse , and shaped by what ’ s worked before .
With high @ @ @ @ @ @ @ constrained .
So while Democratic candidates have taken note of relational organizing , few , including Joe Biden , have fully embraced it .
To the dismay of organizers who believe the resources of a presidential campaign could be harnessed to engage Americans on a transformative scale , his campaign ’ s strategies skew toward the conventional .
“ We ’ re in the fight right now for the soul of our democracy , ” says Paschall , “ and more digital ads and more television isn ’ t the answer.
” The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that their approach is nothing new .
Word-of-mouth and community-based activism were the backbone of the civil rights , women ’ s rights , farmworkers ’ , and labor movements .
Political parties once had their own local networking machines , for better or worse , facilitated by free holiday turkeys , reliable snowplowing , and government jobs for somebody ’ s nephew .
But in the second half of the 20th century , just as more Americans gained access to the ballot box , campaigns turned to consumer-based approaches like television advertising @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way politicians reached voters .
As Madison Avenue and opinion pollsters continued to remake politics as a business , the people-based movements of the 1960s—civil rights , feminism , environmentalism—fractured into specific issue-based advocacy organizations in the 1970s , according to Johns Hopkins political scientist Hahrie Han .
Direct-mail campaign tactics drew on marketing innovations , and armchair activists were encouraged to cut checks—not take to the streets .
Today , in the era of big data , microtargeted Facebook ads , and Instagram influencers , voters are widely seen as something to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In 2018 , Han and her colleague Paul Speer noted that campaigns had begun to use the abbreviation RP to refer to “ ‘ real people ’ —as in ‘ We have to find some RPs to stand behind the candidate , ’ ” exemplifying “ how professionalization of politics has turned ordinary people into pawns.
” “ If people start to feel like they don ’ t really have a voice in democracy and they ’ re basically an interchangeable cog , then they disengage from it , ” Han warns @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for democracy overall.
” It ’ s ultimately self-defeating for campaign consultants , too .
As voters drift away , putting together a winning electoral coalition becomes more elusive .
Barack Obama ’ s 2008 campaign came as an exception to the trend , as he established an organizing juggernaut that mobilized 2.2 million volunteers and tapped into their relationships .
Even though the term wasn ’ t used then , “ the foundation of the first Obama campaign was relational organizing , ” says Joy Cushman , who , as a deputy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ South Carolina that trained supporters to build lists of people they knew and invite them to their homes to discuss the upcoming Democratic primary , which Obama resoundingly won .
“ Historically , there have just been very separate cultures between our political culture and our movement-building organizing culture , ” she says .
“ The Obama campaign was a unique moment when those two came together.
” That November , the highest percent of eligible voters turned out since 1968 , powering his historic victory .
Since Obama ’ s win coincided @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the benefits of data and online microtargeting were overhyped .
In 2012 , journalists focused on the “ data crunchers , ” “ tech gurus , ” and “ digital wizards ” who contributed to his reelection , reinforcing the narrative that tech wins elections and increasing their sway within the party .
After that contest , the Republican National Committee invested in tech but also in field organizing .
That legwork served Trump well , and “ really should get more of the credit for that victory , ” a former data @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Caldwell , told Mother Jones earlier this year .
“ The best way to know how people are going to vote or how they feel about something is to ask .
That ’ s what the RNC field team was doing really , really effectively in 2016.
” Despite the GOP ’ s grassroots work , Trump ’ s surprise victory was largely credited to his campaign ’ s virality on Facebook , and its digital director , Brad Parscale .
The news media bought into the hype about Cambridge Analytica , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ modeling of Facebook data .
Both the Republican and Democratic parties embraced the idea that data and targeted digital operations were the key to victory in 2020 .
By 2019 , activists like Cushman were warning that the party had misread the lessons of the past few election cycles , emphasizing data over organizing .
The impact of field organizing got lost , an oversight that continues to impede the spread of relational tactics .
“ This is a significant choice point for us as a movement , ” says Cushman , who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people first .
“ It ’ s not that data doesn ’ t matter or that technology doesn ’ t matter .
It does , ” she says .
“ But is it in service to building a broad , excited , and motivated base of people ?
I think many elites on the left see the election as a technocratic exercise in maximizing cost per vote .
And it ’ s killing us.
” Han is the co-author of Groundbreakers , a nuts-and-bolts account of how Obama leveraged social networks in 2008 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ successful relational strategies is that they create a sense of loyalty that doesn ’ t just increase voter turnout in a single election , but changes and strengthens communities beyond Election Day .
To illustrate this , she cites social scientist Albert O. Hirschman ’ s Exit , Voice , and Loyalty , an influential 1970 treatise on consumer choice and politics .
His idea is straightforward—if you don ’ t like a product , you have two options : Voice your concern and hope to prompt change , or exit and do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I don ’ t like Froot Loops anymore , I stop buying Froot Loops and I start buying Cheerios , ” Han says .
“ Whenever I don ’ t like a product , then the strategy is just to exit.
” The marketization of politics has made exit a tempting choice in elections , too .
But in civic life , exit is the wrong choice .
“ If I don ’ t like what an organization is doing or I don ’ t like a candidate , the strategy should not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” Han says .
“ The extent to which I have loyalty to the community or to the organization is going to determine the extent to which I ’ m willing to engage in the processes of exercising voice.
” That ’ s why Han and others believe relational organizing holds the most promise for people of color and other communities that historically lack political power .
The possibility is being demonstrated right now , as polls show that a majority of Americans are awakening to racism in policing .
That could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a textbook example of relational organizing .
The movement gained prominence amid the 2014 protests in Ferguson , Missouri , spawning grassroots chapters across the country and preparing communities for continued activism .
In a 2016 interview with the New Yorker , founding BLM co-organizer Patrisse Cullors endorsed a leaderless structure with the goal of “ the masses understanding that we can catalyze a movement in our own community.
” Even before George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis , the city had a robust Black Lives Matter presence , community organizing networks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ As protests and viral videos of police brutality spread , more Americans were pulled into the movement through conversations about race with friends and family .
Protests were captured on social media , building peer pressure to get involved even as the pandemic kept people apart .
As many as 26 million people marched or protested in a matter of weeks after Floyd ’ s death , a mobilization unequaled in recent history .
“ The uprisings are evidence of how powerful relational organizing is when it ’ s completely unhindered and completely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ question is “ how we go from this moment in June to a broader movement that ’ s actually able to make measurable change on questions of racial inequality , ” Han says .
To her , the answer lies in “ the extent to which they ’ re able to create a set of relationships that generate the kind of constituencies that stand with each other over time.
” In its strongest form , relational organizing redistributes power from the people who run campaigns to the voters they are trying to win @ @ @ @ @ @ @ groups have moved more quickly to adopt the tactic , while some top-down political campaigns may wince at distributing political power to the grassroots .
But Democrats are particularly harmed by poorer communities of color dropping out of political life , and in turn those communities are harmed when they are unable to hold elected officials accountable .
These same voters are also key to Democrats ’ ability to win swing states , where small margins could decide the presidency .
“ Getting especially new voters , voters of color , infrequent voters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way that people are seeing it as extremely relevant for 2020 , ” says Carter of Resilient Democracy .
Relational organizing is uniquely suited to the coronavirus era , and not just because traditional options aren ’ t available to campaigns .
As trust in government and institutions has shrunk and Americans have sorted into news silos , relational organizing relays information through trusted messengers rather than strangers .
With misinformation and deliberate voter suppression already rife , the pandemic will create the most chaotic election in modern history with millions learning to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a trust deficit before COVID , ” says Carter .
“ Now , it ’ s hard to imagine people not being even more particular about where they get information , who you talk to .
The need to have trusted messengers couldn ’ t be more immediate.
” “ The challenge has been to get people to be willing to talk to people that they know , as opposed to calling through lists , ” says Ben Wikler , chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin .
“ But the coronavirus has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do .
With COVID , it feels like doing your friends a favor to help them figure out how to vote safely as opposed to feeling like you ’ re nagging.
” In April , as Wisconsin Democrats faced a primary and a state Supreme Court election , many expected the virus to act as a vote suppressant—especially since conservative officials blocked measures to make voting easier .
To fight back , Wikler says , Democrats “ ramped up classic relational organizing programs , ” recruiting people to reach out to fellow parents @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work continued , absentee ballot requests rose .
“ The results , ” he says , “ were dramatic .
People who we interacted with were massively more likely to cast absentee ballots .
We created a playbook that we ’ re going to now run against President Trump to turn Wisconsin blue in the fall.
” As a college student , Greta Carnes took her first campaign job as a field organizer in Iowa for Obama ’ s reelection campaign .
After graduating , she returned to electoral work , eventually taking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ operation in 2017 .
Her job was “ to sit in HQ and pull huge lists of people and get our volunteers to text them , ” she says .
“ The more I did it , the more I just found that this is such a transactional way to approach people.
” She wanted to find a better approach , so she took a job at an emerging Democratic digital mecca , a hot new firm called Acronym .
“ Silicon Valley ’ s response to Hillary losing was , ‘ We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ says .
With a proliferation in apps for campaigns , Carnes and a small Acronym team began testing them , including several designed to facilitate relational organizing .
One of the best was created by Wisconsin ’ s Organizing Empowerment Project , a nonprofit run by Mike Pfohl , who became a mentor to Carnes .
Pfohl recalls her saying in 2018 that “ relational is how you win the Iowa caucuses.
” When the 2020 campaign ramped up , Carnes seized a chance to test her theory .
In April 2019 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bend , Indiana , to become Pete Buttigieg ’ s national organizing director .
In Iowa , Carnes and Buttigieg staffers recruited people to reach out to their networks , expanding the campaign ’ s volunteer and supporter base through relationships .
Despite Carnes ’ experience with apps , the campaign decided that using one would hold them back , instead tracking progress largely on paper .
“ With an app , you ’ re really just limiting who ’ s doing the work to people who feel comfortable with apps or people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she says .
On caucus night , the results were delayed by a glitchy new vote-reporting app that , ironically , had been funded by Acronym .
But when counting was over , Buttigieg had won by a razor-thin margin .
While Carnes says she ’ d use an app if she were running a national campaign , Buttigieg ’ s largely offline effort proved to her that the key to relational organizing is not the tech , but conversations .
Pfohl , whose app impressed her , agrees : “ I like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ field , 20 percent technology…Nothing replaces the actual human interactions.
” Letting the tech do the work—say , by using a scripted text prompt instead of a message written by a friend—inevitably has a different effect .
Suddenly the target voter is back to being a consumer rather than a partner .
“ Part of the reason why this stuff is effective is because it ’ s authentic , ” says Carter .
“ If you take away that authenticity from it , and you make people feel like cogs in the machine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ going to be as strong .
The recipients of the message are going to know it ’ s not real.
” Another problem with overreliance on technology to drive votes is that it is based on lists of registered voters , which are often full of bad data and omit people who can be turned out to vote for the first time .
In 2018 , Paschall and Community Change Action ran a relational voter registration drive where volunteers in Florida , Michigan , and Nevada mapped their communities .
More than 60 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the volunteers couldn ’ t be found in the voter files .
After the election , that number had flipped ; 64 percent of people contacted were now registered to vote .
The experience demonstrated to Paschall that “ the information in the voter file is just frankly terrible for voters of color , and for young voters , or voters who have to move on a regular basis .
It ’ s just not a reliable source.
” As of September , Paschall says 45 percent of the people reached through her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unregistered , infrequent voters or have never voted .
Those kinds of gaps are apparent to at least some of the people who compile and deploy such data .
One of them is Democratic data analyst David Shor .
He believes that while voter-targeting models still have a role , relational organizing may be so effective at finding voters that data targeting just gets in the way .
“ Something that really hampered Democrats in the last five years or so is that we ’ ve been really obsessed with having this list @ @ @ @ @ @ @ says .
“ You honestly know more about your friends than the Democratic Party does.
” In January 2019 , Emily Isaac met with Claire Sandberg , a fellow organizer , for lunch at a Korean restaurant in Washington , DC .
Isaac told her about the new kind of campaign she had just run in South Texas .
Sandberg was impressed .
“ She was like , ‘ We have to do this on the Bernie campaign , ’ ” Isaac recalls .
When Sandberg became Sanders ’ national organizing director not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lead a relational organizing effort .
“ All of our field organizers , who I would train on relational organizing , I would tell them about Sri ’ s campaign and how we did things , ” Isaac says .
“ Hundreds of organizers have been trained on this Sri Kulkarni model.
” At first , Isaac got signals that relational organizing was not a priority for the campaign ’ s top brass .
“ Everything was compared to 2016 , ” she says .
“ We didn ’ t do relational organizing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that senior leadership were interested in were the traditional contact types of door knocks and phone calls .
In the beginning , it didn ’ t seem like relational was scaling fast enough , and I think there was just a distrust that it was a good investment.
” But the campaign did build its own relational app , called Bern , which allowed supporters to send their contacts messages and reminders about how to vote .
App users could also rate their contacts ’ feelings about Sanders on a scale of 1 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ untapped and enthusiastic supporters .
The campaign ’ s analysis of early voters in Super Tuesday states found that those who received a text through the app were 3.2 percent more likely to vote , a number that may sound small , but represents a substantial gain in the cutthroat world of voter turnout .
Sanders ’ decision to stay in the race until April gave operatives a taste of the technique ’ s potential to replace traditional field work .
“ Once COVID hit , the campaign was super , super happy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and that we had decided at the outset of the campaign to invest in relational digital organizing , ” says Isaac .
“ Otherwise we would have been totally crippled.
” The app had its limitations , including that it was overwhelmingly used by young people .
But by the end of the campaign , 300,000 users had sent 300,000 texts through the app and had identified 1.5 million supporters .
According to former campaign staff , an internal analysis found that Bern ’ s relational component correctly identified Sanders supporters 93 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than door knocking , phone banking , or text messaging .
Voters might lie to a stranger standing on their porch , but they told the truth to people they knew .
In 2020 , the Biden campaign ’ s massive war chest makes it the biggest potential funder of relational outreach .
The campaign launched its first relational app in December , and another in June with the help of a developer behind the Bern app .
At the end of August , the campaign would only say that “ more than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ supporters in the app , which includes ways to reach out to friends and family .
But as the Sanders campaign ’ s experience shows , app outreach is limited to supporters willing to use one .
The Biden campaign had , until recently , largely left to independent organizers the deeper work of training volunteers to engage their own circles .
Two years ago in Texas , Isaac watched with amazement as 250 volunteers identified 12,500 new supporters in the span of a month .
That November , those new supporters were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ registered voters .
While apps get deleted , investing in a program like Kulkarni ’ s nationwide is an investment in people—not just as voters in November , but as empowered citizens ready to meet near- and long-term challenges .
“ What happens if Trump loses but doesn ’ t want to leave office ?
” Paschall wonders .
“ What happens when we actually want to pass big , visionary , bold agendas ?
We ’ re going to need this base of people .
”

In November 2017, Emily Isaac packed her belongings and flew to Texas. More specifically, to the 21st Congressional District, gerrymandered to include half of San Antonio, a scoop of Austin, and a large rectangle of Texas hill country, where a Bernie Sanders acolyte named Derrick Crowe was running for Congress. “We did all of the right things,” says Isaac, who had spent six months as a field organizer on Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign. Crowe’s team built a massive door-knocking operation “dwarfing what our opponents were doing in terms of volunteers.” Isaac expected Crowe to win, but he came in third. “I left feeling like, ‘Wow, did any of that move the needle?’” she says. “That’s when I realized voters at the door will tell you whatever you want to hear to get you off the doorstep.”
A few months later, Isaac drove 150 miles east to work for another Democratic congressional candidate: Sri Kulkarni of Sugar Land, outside of Houston. The district has been a Republican stronghold since the 1980s, but there was promise for Democrats in its growing diversity, including immigrant communities from South and East Asia. Unfortunately, the voter file provided by the Democratic National Committee lumped them all together as “Asian,” an overly broad category for people with different cultures and languages. So Isaac’s team tasked volunteers from those communities to sort the 85,000-row spreadsheet by surname, dividing entries into more than 20 community categories, from Arab Christian to Zoroastrian. The campaign would ultimately run phone banks in 15 languages.
As the volunteers pored over the spreadsheet, they added personal notes: “This family moved” or “in college and needs an absentee ballot.” One star organizer was a student named Chris. “We would give him a list of the 18-year-olds zoned to his high school, and he knew like 160 of them.” But he could also spot who wasn’t on the voter list and needed to be registered. “It was this lightbulb moment,” says Isaac. “Not only are our volunteers able to reach these folks in their preferred language, they personally know so many of them.”
At its most basic, relational organizing simply facilitates conversations between friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers.
Though Kulkarni narrowly lost, his organizing strategy was a clear success, bringing him within five points of his opponent—the closest margin the district had seen in over a decade. Kulkarni announced another run in 2020, but Isaac didn’t stick around. This new way of campaigning was too big to keep in Texas.
While working for Kulkarni, Isaac began to hear a buzzy new term: “relational organizing.” At its most basic, relational organizing is simply facilitating conversations between friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers. Instead of relying on traditional strategies like door knocking, phone calls, or texts from strangers, it harnesses existing relationships to mobilize voters. It was, Isaac realized, exactly what she’d been doing.
A handful of progressive organizers deployed the tactic in 2016 and 2018. Their efforts were tracked with the help of the Analyst Institute, a secretive progressive research firm whose meta-analysis of voter turnout studies found that outreach from friends and family was three times more effective at mobilizing voters than a door knock.
Effectiveness made relational organizing attractive, but the coronavirus has made it urgent. Unlike traditional mobilization tactics, relational organizing is adaptable to social distancing. Kristee Paschall runs an organizing program for 50 progressive groups across the country through Community Change Action, a nonprofit focused on empowering low-income communities. In early March, she realized that campaigning had changed overnight—how can you ring doorbells or hold rallies during a pandemic? Her small team set up Zoom trainings on relational organizing, unsure if anyone would come. Within weeks, nearly 300 organizers showed up. This summer, as the Black Lives Matter movement transformed the political landscape through community mobilization and difficult conversations, these organizers saw proof of concept.
With the pandemic having forced hundreds of voter mobilization groups to embrace relational organizing, the November election will provide a clear test of its potential. The tactic will be “exponentially bigger and more important” this year than ever before, says Paschall. “It’s going to be a major part of the 2020 playbook,” agrees Nick Chedli Carter, managing director of Resilient Democracy, a civic engagement initiative. In key swing states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, where dips in participation, particularly among Black voters, hurt Hillary Clinton four years ago, community groups run by and for people of color have turned to relational organizing. One of them is Voces de la Frontera Action, which set out to engage 23,000 Latinos and other voters in Wisconsin who were unlikely to vote in 2020—Trump’s margin of victory there four years ago—and by September was already two-thirds the way there. The political arm of the civil rights group Color of Change is using relational organizing. “For me, relational totally makes sense and is in line with generations and generations of organizing work,” says Arisha Hatch, the group’s vice president and chief of campaigns.
Community-based groups already steeped in organizing have been quicker to use the strategy than candidates have. Political campaigns are often cautious, risk averse, and shaped by what’s worked before. With high stakes and limited resources, innovation is constrained. So while Democratic candidates have taken note of relational organizing, few, including Joe Biden, have fully embraced it. To the dismay of organizers who believe the resources of a presidential campaign could be harnessed to engage Americans on a transformative scale, his campaign’s strategies skew toward the conventional. “We’re in the fight right now for the soul of our democracy,” says Paschall, “and more digital ads and more television isn’t the answer.”
The first thing relational organizing evangelists say is that their approach is nothing new. Word-of-mouth and community-based activism were the backbone of the civil rights, women’s rights, farmworkers’, and labor movements. Political parties once had their own local networking machines, for better or worse, facilitated by free holiday turkeys, reliable snowplowing, and government jobs for somebody’s nephew. But in the second half of the 20th century, just as more Americans gained access to the ballot box, campaigns turned to consumer-based approaches like television advertising, and mass marketing became the primary way politicians reached voters.
“We’re in the fight right now for the soul of our democracy.”
As Madison Avenue and opinion pollsters continued to remake politics as a business, the people-based movements of the 1960s—civil rights, feminism, environmentalism—fractured into specific issue-based advocacy organizations in the 1970s, according to Johns Hopkins political scientist Hahrie Han. Direct-mail campaign tactics drew on marketing innovations, and armchair activists were encouraged to cut checks—not take to the streets.
Today, in the era of big data, microtargeted Facebook ads, and Instagram influencers, voters are widely seen as something to be activated, not people with agency. In 2018, Han and her colleague Paul Speer noted that campaigns had begun to use the abbreviation RP to refer to “‘real people’—as in ‘We have to find some RPs to stand behind the candidate,’” exemplifying “how professionalization of politics has turned ordinary people into pawns.”
“If people start to feel like they don’t really have a voice in democracy and they’re basically an interchangeable cog, then they disengage from it,” Han warns. “And that’s bad for democracy overall.” It’s ultimately self-defeating for campaign consultants, too. As voters drift away, putting together a winning electoral coalition becomes more elusive.
Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign came as an exception to the trend, as he established an organizing juggernaut that mobilized 2.2 million volunteers and tapped into their relationships. Even though the term wasn’t used then, “the foundation of the first Obama campaign was relational organizing,” says Joy Cushman, who, as a deputy field director, oversaw a team in South Carolina that trained supporters to build lists of people they knew and invite them to their homes to discuss the upcoming Democratic primary, which Obama resoundingly won. “Historically, there have just been very separate cultures between our political culture and our movement-building organizing culture,” she says. “The Obama campaign was a unique moment when those two came together.” That November, the highest percent of eligible voters turned out since 1968, powering his historic victory.
Since Obama’s win coincided with the rise of social media, the benefits of data and online microtargeting were overhyped. In 2012, journalists focused on the “data crunchers,” “tech gurus,” and “digital wizards” who contributed to his reelection, reinforcing the narrative that tech wins elections and increasing their sway within the party. After that contest, the Republican National Committee invested in tech but also in field organizing. That legwork served Trump well, and “really should get more of the credit for that victory,” a former data analyst contracted with the RNC, Lucy Caldwell, told Mother Jones earlier this year. “The best way to know how people are going to vote or how they feel about something is to ask. That’s what the RNC field team was doing really, really effectively in 2016.”
Despite the GOP’s grassroots work, Trump’s surprise victory was largely credited to his campaign’s virality on Facebook, and its digital director, Brad Parscale. The news media bought into the hype about Cambridge Analytica, a snake-oil operation that had promised Trump physiographic modeling of Facebook data. Both the Republican and Democratic parties embraced the idea that data and targeted digital operations were the key to victory in 2020. By 2019, activists like Cushman were warning that the party had misread the lessons of the past few election cycles, emphasizing data over organizing.
“The best way to know how people are going to vote or how they feel about something is to ask.”
The impact of field organizing got lost, an oversight that continues to impede the spread of relational tactics. “This is a significant choice point for us as a movement,” says Cushman, who describes that choice as tech first versus people first. “It’s not that data doesn’t matter or that technology doesn’t matter. It does,” she says. “But is it in service to building a broad, excited, and motivated base of people? I think many elites on the left see the election as a technocratic exercise in maximizing cost per vote. And it’s killing us.”
Han is the co-author of Groundbreakers, a nuts-and-bolts account of how Obama leveraged social networks in 2008. For her, a key of successful relational strategies is that they create a sense of loyalty that doesn’t just increase voter turnout in a single election, but changes and strengthens communities beyond Election Day.
To illustrate this, she cites social scientist Albert O. Hirschman’s Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, an influential 1970 treatise on consumer choice and politics. His idea is straightforward—if you don’t like a product, you have two options: Voice your concern and hope to prompt change, or exit and do without. “If I decide that I don’t like Froot Loops anymore, I stop buying Froot Loops and I start buying Cheerios,” Han says. “Whenever I don’t like a product, then the strategy is just to exit.” The marketization of politics has made exit a tempting choice in elections, too. But in civic life, exit is the wrong choice. “If I don’t like what an organization is doing or I don’t like a candidate, the strategy should not be exit, it should be voice,” Han says. “The extent to which I have loyalty to the community or to the organization is going to determine the extent to which I’m willing to engage in the processes of exercising voice.”
That’s why Han and others believe relational organizing holds the most promise for people of color and other communities that historically lack political power. The possibility is being demonstrated right now, as polls show that a majority of Americans are awakening to racism in policing. That could not have happened without Black Lives Matter, a textbook example of relational organizing.
The movement gained prominence amid the 2014 protests in Ferguson, Missouri, spawning grassroots chapters across the country and preparing communities for continued activism. In a 2016 interview with the New Yorker, founding BLM co-organizer Patrisse Cullors endorsed a leaderless structure with the goal of “the masses understanding that we can catalyze a movement in our own community.” Even before George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, the city had a robust Black Lives Matter presence, community organizing networks, and faith-based relational organizing programs. As protests and viral videos of police brutality spread, more Americans were pulled into the movement through conversations about race with friends and family. Protests were captured on social media, building peer pressure to get involved even as the pandemic kept people apart. As many as 26 million people marched or protested in a matter of weeks after Floyd’s death, a mobilization unequaled in recent history. “The uprisings are evidence of how powerful relational organizing is when it’s completely unhindered and completely unleashed,” says Cushman.
“The uprisings are evidence of how powerful relational organizing is.”
The question is “how we go from this moment in June to a broader movement that’s actually able to make measurable change on questions of racial inequality,” Han says. To her, the answer lies in “the extent to which they’re able to create a set of relationships that generate the kind of constituencies that stand with each other over time.”
In its strongest form, relational organizing redistributes power from the people who run campaigns to the voters they are trying to win over. This helps explain why community groups have moved more quickly to adopt the tactic, while some top-down political campaigns may wince at distributing political power to the grassroots. But Democrats are particularly harmed by poorer communities of color dropping out of political life, and in turn those communities are harmed when they are unable to hold elected officials accountable. These same voters are also key to Democrats’ ability to win swing states, where small margins could decide the presidency. “Getting especially new voters, voters of color, infrequent voters to vote…that’s the most immediate way that people are seeing it as extremely relevant for 2020,” says Carter of Resilient Democracy.
Relational organizing is uniquely suited to the coronavirus era, and not just because traditional options aren’t available to campaigns. As trust in government and institutions has shrunk and Americans have sorted into news silos, relational organizing relays information through trusted messengers rather than strangers. With misinformation and deliberate voter suppression already rife, the pandemic will create the most chaotic election in modern history with millions learning to cast mail-in ballots. “You had a trust deficit before COVID,” says Carter. “Now, it’s hard to imagine people not being even more particular about where they get information, who you talk to. The need to have trusted messengers couldn’t be more immediate.”
“The challenge has been to get people to be willing to talk to people that they know, as opposed to calling through lists,” says Ben Wikler, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. “But the coronavirus has profoundly changed what people are willing to do. With COVID, it feels like doing your friends a favor to help them figure out how to vote safely as opposed to feeling like you’re nagging.” In April, as Wisconsin Democrats faced a primary and a state Supreme Court election, many expected the virus to act as a vote suppressant—especially since conservative officials blocked measures to make voting easier. To fight back, Wikler says, Democrats “ramped up classic relational organizing programs,” recruiting people to reach out to fellow parents or church members. As the relational work continued, absentee ballot requests rose. “The results,” he says, “were dramatic. People who we interacted with were massively more likely to cast absentee ballots. We created a playbook that we’re going to now run against President Trump to turn Wisconsin blue in the fall.”
As a college student, Greta Carnes took her first campaign job as a field organizer in Iowa for Obama’s reelection campaign. After graduating, she returned to electoral work, eventually taking a position running Virginia Democrats’ texting operation in 2017. Her job was “to sit in HQ and pull huge lists of people and get our volunteers to text them,” she says. “The more I did it, the more I just found that this is such a transactional way to approach people.” She wanted to find a better approach, so she took a job at an emerging Democratic digital mecca, a hot new firm called Acronym.
“The coronavirus has profoundly changed what people are willing to do.”
“Silicon Valley’s response to Hillary losing was, ‘We need better tech,’” Carnes says. With a proliferation in apps for campaigns, Carnes and a small Acronym team began testing them, including several designed to facilitate relational organizing. One of the best was created by Wisconsin’s Organizing Empowerment Project, a nonprofit run by Mike Pfohl, who became a mentor to Carnes. Pfohl recalls her saying in 2018 that “relational is how you win the Iowa caucuses.”
When the 2020 campaign ramped up, Carnes seized a chance to test her theory. In April 2019, she left Acronym and moved to South Bend, Indiana, to become Pete Buttigieg’s national organizing director. In Iowa, Carnes and Buttigieg staffers recruited people to reach out to their networks, expanding the campaign’s volunteer and supporter base through relationships. Despite Carnes’ experience with apps, the campaign decided that using one would hold them back, instead tracking progress largely on paper. “With an app, you’re really just limiting who’s doing the work to people who feel comfortable with apps or people who have experience with smartphones,” she says. On caucus night, the results were delayed by a glitchy new vote-reporting app that, ironically, had been funded by Acronym. But when counting was over, Buttigieg had won by a razor-thin margin.
While Carnes says she’d use an app if she were running a national campaign, Buttigieg’s largely offline effort proved to her that the key to relational organizing is not the tech, but conversations. Pfohl, whose app impressed her, agrees: “I like to say relational organizing is 80 percent field, 20 percent technology…Nothing replaces the actual human interactions.” Letting the tech do the work—say, by using a scripted text prompt instead of a message written by a friend—inevitably has a different effect. Suddenly the target voter is back to being a consumer rather than a partner. “Part of the reason why this stuff is effective is because it’s authentic,” says Carter. “If you take away that authenticity from it, and you make people feel like cogs in the machine, then their enthusiasm isn’t going to be as strong. The recipients of the message are going to know it’s not real.”
Another problem with overreliance on technology to drive votes is that it is based on lists of registered voters, which are often full of bad data and omit people who can be turned out to vote for the first time. In 2018, Paschall and Community Change Action ran a relational voter registration drive where volunteers in Florida, Michigan, and Nevada mapped their communities. More than 60 percent of the targeted people identified by the volunteers couldn’t be found in the voter files. After the election, that number had flipped; 64 percent of people contacted were now registered to vote. The experience demonstrated to Paschall that “the information in the voter file is just frankly terrible for voters of color, and for young voters, or voters who have to move on a regular basis. It’s just not a reliable source.”
As of September, Paschall says 45 percent of the people reached through her groups’ 2020 relational program are either unregistered, infrequent voters or have never voted. Those kinds of gaps are apparent to at least some of the people who compile and deploy such data. One of them is Democratic data analyst David Shor. He believes that while voter-targeting models still have a role, relational organizing may be so effective at finding voters that data targeting just gets in the way. “Something that really hampered Democrats in the last five years or so is that we’ve been really obsessed with having this list of our own data,” Shor says. “You honestly know more about your friends than the Democratic Party does.”
In January 2019, Emily Isaac met with Claire Sandberg, a fellow organizer, for lunch at a Korean restaurant in Washington, DC. Isaac told her about the new kind of campaign she had just run in South Texas. Sandberg was impressed. “She was like, ‘We have to do this on the Bernie campaign,’” Isaac recalls. When Sandberg became Sanders’ national organizing director not long afterward, she hired Isaac to lead a relational organizing effort. “All of our field organizers, who I would train on relational organizing, I would tell them about Sri’s campaign and how we did things,” Isaac says. “Hundreds of organizers have been trained on this Sri Kulkarni model.”
“Hundreds of organizers have been trained on this Sri Kulkarni model.”
At first, Isaac got signals that relational organizing was not a priority for the campaign’s top brass. “Everything was compared to 2016,” she says. “We didn’t do relational organizing in 2016. And the main metrics that senior leadership were interested in were the traditional contact types of door knocks and phone calls. In the beginning, it didn’t seem like relational was scaling fast enough, and I think there was just a distrust that it was a good investment.”
But the campaign did build its own relational app, called Bern, which allowed supporters to send their contacts messages and reminders about how to vote. App users could also rate their contacts’ feelings about Sanders on a scale of 1 to 5, helping the campaign identify untapped and enthusiastic supporters. The campaign’s analysis of early voters in Super Tuesday states found that those who received a text through the app were 3.2 percent more likely to vote, a number that may sound small, but represents a substantial gain in the cutthroat world of voter turnout. Sanders’ decision to stay in the race until April gave operatives a taste of the technique’s potential to replace traditional field work. “Once COVID hit, the campaign was super, super happy that we invested in the Bern app and that we had decided at the outset of the campaign to invest in relational digital organizing,” says Isaac. “Otherwise we would have been totally crippled.”
The app had its limitations, including that it was overwhelmingly used by young people. But by the end of the campaign, 300,000 users had sent 300,000 texts through the app and had identified 1.5 million supporters. According to former campaign staff, an internal analysis found that Bern’s relational component correctly identified Sanders supporters 93 percent of the time, far more accurate than door knocking, phone banking, or text messaging. Voters might lie to a stranger standing on their porch, but they told the truth to people they knew.
In 2020, the Biden campaign’s massive war chest makes it the biggest potential funder of relational outreach. The campaign launched its first relational app in December, and another in June with the help of a developer behind the Bern app. At the end of August, the campaign would only say that “more than” 100,000 actions had been taken by supporters in the app, which includes ways to reach out to friends and family. But as the Sanders campaign’s experience shows, app outreach is limited to supporters willing to use one. The Biden campaign had, until recently, largely left to independent organizers the deeper work of training volunteers to engage their own circles. Two years ago in Texas, Isaac watched with amazement as 250 volunteers identified 12,500 new supporters in the span of a month. That November, those new supporters were 5 percent more likely to vote than registered voters. While apps get deleted, investing in a program like Kulkarni’s nationwide is an investment in people—not just as voters in November, but as empowered citizens ready to meet near- and long-term challenges.
“What happens if Trump loses but doesn’t want to leave office?” Paschall wonders. “What happens when we actually want to pass big, visionary, bold agendas? We’re going to need this base of people.”


motherjones--2020-10-06--Wherever Republicans Gather These Days, COVID Follows. Could the VP Debate Be the Same?

After months spent traveling to packed rallies , refusing to wear masks in public , and throwing parties while the rest of the country was coping with the spread of the coronavirus , Donald Trump and the GOP are dealing personally with an outbreak that almost anybody could ’ ve seen coming .
Trump tested positive and has been hospitalized with the virus , and many of those closest to him , including first lady Melania , campaign manager Bill Stepien , press secretary Kayleigh McEnany , former adviser Kellyanne Conway , and close aide Hope Hicks , have all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ though the aggressive flouting of public health guidelines is precisely what led to this coronavirus cluster at the highest levels of government , Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris ( D-Calif. ) are set to debate on Wednesday evening in Salt Lake City at the University of Utah .
After Trump tested positive , one would have thought that both sides would make an effort to make the venue safer .
Not so .
Finally , after some haggling about how far apart the two candidates would stand—with the Democrats arguing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ place the podiums 12 feet apart and set plexiglass between the candidates .
Pence ’ s staff mocked Sen. Harris for wanting to keep her distance .
But is having an in-person debate with someone who has been physically so close to Trump a good idea ?
The design of the West Wing makes it nearly impossible to socially distance .
There have been reports that staff members have been berated for wearing masks , and Pence attended the Rose Garden event for Judge Amy Coney Barrett that appears to be the epicenter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ last two weeks , Trump and the Republican Party have shown the public that any of their events can be a superspreader ; California Pastor Greg Laurie got sick after attending a Prayer March on the National Mall with Pence and a party in the Rose Garden later that day .
It ’ s not just Harris and Pence who would be at risk .
What about moderator Susan Page from USA Today , the people in the audience , those who manage facilities at the University of Utah , and the staffers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ debate ?
And let ’ s face it , the vice presidential debate has been generally pro forma and not as highly anticipated as the presidential debate .
( Although given the respective ages of the candidates , this one may not feel so irrelevant . )
But whatever the broader historical context , this will be the first time that attending it could kill you .
Consider what we know about the events that COVID-positive Republicans have appeared at recently .
On September 26 , the White House hosted a partly indoor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s Supreme Court nominee to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg .
At the event , large crowds of unmasked people mingled , hugged , and shook hands .
Many of the attendees are now sick with the coronavirus , including former Gov .
Chris Christie and Sens .
Mike Lee ( R-Utah ) and Thom Tillis ( R-NC ) , not to mention John Jenkins , the president of Notre Dame University .
Three days later , Trump flew to Cleveland for the first debate with Joe Biden .
Not only did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his family members and campaign staff took off their masks as soon as they sat down—despite the presidential debate commission requiring and the Cleveland Clinic physicians urging that they be worn .
Late last week , the city of Cleveland announced that 11 cases of COVID could be traced back to out-of-state staffers setting up and planning the debate .
On October 1 , despite Hope Hicks , who ’ d accompanied him to Cleveland , testing positive—a fact that was only disclosed because of the work of reporters from Bloomberg—Trump went to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fundraiser that included a buffet .
In the early hours of Friday morning , Trump announced that he and his wife had tested positive for the virus .
He was taken to the hospital later that day .
( Unsurprisingly , the timing of his diagnosis was unclear because of the stunning lack of transparency from the White House . )
Despite this series of unfortunate events , the vice presidential debate is still on .
And Pence reassures anyone who will listen that he is being tested regularly , the tests are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ everyone around him are safe .
The aggressive focus on testing provides a terrifying and revealing insight : Trump and his sycophants have no idea how infectious diseases spread .
Didn ’ t he continue to test negative until one day when he simply didn ’ t ?
If testing yourself every day could prevent you from getting and transmitting the virus , the president probably wouldn ’ t have had to be hospitalized .
The rapid tests that the administration favors to screen everyone , from attendees at a Rose Garden ceremony @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have a high false-negative rate .
It just doesn ’ t matter how many times Pence tests negative , because it ’ s clear that no amount of positive tests will get Trump or those around him to change their behavior .
On Sunday evening , in a move that baffled scientists , doctors , and infectious disease specialists , the president took a joyride just outside of the Walter Reed Medical Center to wave at supporters despite the fact that he was sick and presumably still symptomatic .
Why would an infectious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like his Secret Service detail , just to do a half-hearted wave at supporters gathered outside the hospital ?
It makes perfect sense once you understand that the White House and the Trump campaign ’ s infection protocol is inadequate to the point of being nonexistent .
Not only are Republicans trying to use testing as a prevention strategy , but there appears to be absolutely no effort for robust contact tracing .
Tracing the sick allows public health officials to notify potentially exposed people that they need to quarantine while waiting for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and other Republicans have tried to continue to operate as if everything were normal , and use previously negative tests as their rationale for ignoring public health guidelines .
There ’ s no reason to believe that the Trump campaign or the White House will suddenly adapt protocols that will make the vice presidential debate safer than any other events Republicans have attended .
Trump downplayed the virus , contradicted his own public health officials , and relentlessly mocked those wearing masks , including Biden .
Plus , Trump is seeking early release @ @ @ @ @ @ @ defeated the virus .
Meanwhile , tens of thousands of people in the United States continue to get infected every day .
210,000 people have died across the country and a major outbreak caused by the president and other Republicans ’ wildly reckless behavior is unfolding every day .
Trump continues to urge the public not to be afraid of COVID .
Ignore this advice , as my colleague Tim Murphy writes : Nobody would fault you for thinking that Trump and the Republicans are existing in two realities .
One , defined @ @ @ @ @ @ @ urged the public to resume normal life while essentially trying to wish the virus away .
In the other , defined by basic common sense , these same people , now infected , took the pandemic seriously and received the kind of health care ordinary Americans only dream of .
But Trump ’ s casual attitude about being hospitalized reveals something more sinister : Trump , Pence , and their cronies think they ’ re invincible , that the rules never apply to them .
That ’ s the dangerous mindset embodied by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ away from Sen. Harris on the debate stage on Wednesday night .

After months spent traveling to packed rallies, refusing to wear masks in public, and throwing parties while the rest of the country was coping with the spread of the coronavirus, Donald Trump and the GOP are dealing personally with an outbreak that almost anybody could’ve seen coming. Trump tested positive and has been hospitalized with the virus, and many of those closest to him, including first lady Melania, campaign manager Bill Stepien, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, former adviser Kellyanne Conway, and close aide Hope Hicks, have all tested positive.
And yet, even though the aggressive flouting of public health guidelines is precisely what led to this coronavirus cluster at the highest levels of government, Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) are set to debate on Wednesday evening in Salt Lake City at the University of Utah.
After Trump tested positive, one would have thought that both sides would make an effort to make the venue safer. Not so. Finally, after some haggling about how far apart the two candidates would stand—with the Democrats arguing for more safety—the debate commission agreed to place the podiums 12 feet apart and set plexiglass between the candidates. Pence’s staff mocked Sen. Harris for wanting to keep her distance.
"The two camps were split over whether to erect a plexiglass barrier… Harris' campaign supported it, Pence's opposed it. 'If Sen. Harris wants to use a fortress around herself, have at it,' said Katie Miller, a Pence spokeswoman."https://t.co/GG8U0H4ucZ — Zack Stanton (@zackstanton) October 5, 2020
But is having an in-person debate with someone who has been physically so close to Trump a good idea? The design of the West Wing makes it nearly impossible to socially distance. There have been reports that staff members have been berated for wearing masks, and Pence attended the Rose Garden event for Judge Amy Coney Barrett that appears to be the epicenter of the subsequent outbreak. In the last two weeks, Trump and the Republican Party have shown the public that any of their events can be a superspreader; California Pastor Greg Laurie got sick after attending a Prayer March on the National Mall with Pence and a party in the Rose Garden later that day.
It’s not just Harris and Pence who would be at risk. What about moderator Susan Page from USA Today, the people in the audience, those who manage facilities at the University of Utah, and the staffers who will presumably be working during the debate? And let’s face it, the vice presidential debate has been generally pro forma and not as highly anticipated as the presidential debate. (Although given the respective ages of the candidates, this one may not feel so irrelevant.) But whatever the broader historical context, this will be the first time that attending it could kill you.
Consider what we know about the events that COVID-positive Republicans have appeared at recently. On September 26, the White House hosted a partly indoor soiree for Judge Barrett, the president’s Supreme Court nominee to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. At the event, large crowds of unmasked people mingled, hugged, and shook hands. Many of the attendees are now sick with the coronavirus, including former Gov. Chris Christie and Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Thom Tillis (R-NC), not to mention John Jenkins, the president of Notre Dame University.
Three days later, Trump flew to Cleveland for the first debate with Joe Biden. Not only did Trump perform disastrously, but many of his family members and campaign staff took off their masks as soon as they sat down—despite the presidential debate commission requiring and the Cleveland Clinic physicians urging that they be worn. Late last week, the city of Cleveland announced that 11 cases of COVID could be traced back to out-of-state staffers setting up and planning the debate. On October 1, despite Hope Hicks, who’d accompanied him to Cleveland, testing positive—a fact that was only disclosed because of the work of reporters from Bloomberg—Trump went to Bedminster, New Jersey, for a fundraiser that included a buffet. In the early hours of Friday morning, Trump announced that he and his wife had tested positive for the virus. He was taken to the hospital later that day. (Unsurprisingly, the timing of his diagnosis was unclear because of the stunning lack of transparency from the White House.)
Despite this series of unfortunate events, the vice presidential debate is still on. And Pence reassures anyone who will listen that he is being tested regularly, the tests are all negative, and that he and everyone around him are safe.
The aggressive focus on testing provides a terrifying and revealing insight: Trump and his sycophants have no idea how infectious diseases spread. Didn’t he continue to test negative until one day when he simply didn’t? If testing yourself every day could prevent you from getting and transmitting the virus, the president probably wouldn’t have had to be hospitalized.
The rapid tests that the administration favors to screen everyone, from attendees at a Rose Garden ceremony to passengers on Air Force One, have a high false-negative rate. It just doesn’t matter how many times Pence tests negative, because it’s clear that no amount of positive tests will get Trump or those around him to change their behavior. On Sunday evening, in a move that baffled scientists, doctors, and infectious disease specialists, the president took a joyride just outside of the Walter Reed Medical Center to wave at supporters despite the fact that he was sick and presumably still symptomatic. Why would an infectious person put additional people at risk, like his Secret Service detail, just to do a half-hearted wave at supporters gathered outside the hospital? It makes perfect sense once you understand that the White House and the Trump campaign’s infection protocol is inadequate to the point of being nonexistent.
Not only are Republicans trying to use testing as a prevention strategy, but there appears to be absolutely no effort for robust contact tracing. Tracing the sick allows public health officials to notify potentially exposed people that they need to quarantine while waiting for test results. Instead, Trump officials and other Republicans have tried to continue to operate as if everything were normal, and use previously negative tests as their rationale for ignoring public health guidelines.
Until they can’t.
There’s no reason to believe that the Trump campaign or the White House will suddenly adapt protocols that will make the vice presidential debate safer than any other events Republicans have attended. Trump downplayed the virus, contradicted his own public health officials, and relentlessly mocked those wearing masks, including Biden. Plus, Trump is seeking early release from Walter Reed as if he personally defeated the virus.
I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M. Feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2020
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people in the United States continue to get infected every day. 210,000 people have died across the country and a major outbreak caused by the president and other Republicans’ wildly reckless behavior is unfolding every day. Trump continues to urge the public not to be afraid of COVID. Ignore this advice, as my colleague Tim Murphy writes:
Be afraid of COVID. Be afraid of getting it, be afraid of giving it to others, be terribly afraid of people you care about contracting it. Be afraid of what a pandemic—even if it doesn’t seem to affect you personally—means for your neighbors. (It’s good to care about other people, despite what the callous behavior of the Trump White House over the last week would suggest.)
Nobody would fault you for thinking that Trump and the Republicans are existing in two realities. One, defined by malice and blind political ambition, urged the public to resume normal life while essentially trying to wish the virus away. In the other, defined by basic common sense, these same people, now infected, took the pandemic seriously and received the kind of health care ordinary Americans only dream of. But Trump’s casual attitude about being hospitalized reveals something more sinister: Trump, Pence, and their cronies think they’re invincible, that the rules never apply to them. That’s the dangerous mindset embodied by the unmasked man a mere 12 feet away from Sen. Harris on the debate stage on Wednesday night.