Portland Press-Herald:
Our View: To President Trump: You should resign now
He lacks the character, maturity and judgment to lead the country in a perilous time
President Trump: We’re sorry that you decided to come to Maine, but since you are here, could you do us a favor? Resign.
You have never been a good president, but today your shortcomings are unleashing historic levels of suffering on the American people.
Your slow response to the coronavirus pandemic has spun a manageable crisis into the worst public health emergency since 1918.
We are also in the middle of the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. There is no national strategy to recover from the shock that is disproportionately affecting people who were already struggling to make it.
More newspapers need to follow the lead here set by Maine.
• protester violence gives way to peaceful protest
• suspension and arrests of police have been made
• tear gas under public discussion and, in some regions, banned
• NFL, Facebook and other bastions of enabled amorality paying attention
Progress of sorts, uneven but welcome.
Lee Drutman/FiveThirtyEight:
If Republicans Are Ever Going To Turn On Trump, This Might Be The Moment
This is one of those rare moments of uncertainty when it’s possible that the wall of Republican support sheltering Trump finally crumbles. It is still unlikely to happen, but as I’ve written before, if it does happen, it will happen suddenly….
Most likely, Senate and House Republicans will eventually find a way to defend Trump’s actions, as they have done before (remember the impeachment trial?). Trump may not be perfect, they may say, but the Democrats are much worse. This is the prevailing rationalization of our zero-sum politics.
But in moments like this, when nobody knows exactly what to say or do, a few unlikely public critiques of Trump could have a surprising cascade effect. And if the president continues to transgress widely-shared democratic values — putting congressional Republicans in an increasingly difficult electoral position — we may yet see a consequential crack in the Republican Party.
Poynter:
An op-ed controversy led to a New York Times revolt. Here’s what happened and why the Times was wrong.
Earlier this week, the Times editorial board ran an op-ed piece from Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton calling for the military to be deployed to cities during protests about the death of George Floyd, racial inequality and police brutality. Cotton’s over-the-top editorial included such phrases as “feckless politicians,” “orgy of violence” and “bands of miscreants.”
But aside from being embarrassingly over-written, the op-ed appeared dangerous. Cotton wrote, “delusional politicians in other cities refuse to do what’s necessary to uphold the rule of law.”
Do what’s necessary? What does that mean?
Readers accused the Times of publishing divisive and potentially harmful rhetoric that was suggesting something akin to martial law. The pushback was just as loud inside the Times as dozens of Times employees tweeted the same thing: “Running this puts Black @NYTimes staff in danger.”
In a letter to leadership, an unspecified number of Times employees wrote, “We believe his message undermines the work we do, in the newsroom and in opinion, and violates our standards for ethical and accurate reporting for the public’s interest. It also jeopardizes our journalists’ ability to work safely and effectively on the streets.”
CJ Chivers/twitter:
The New York Times is about to begin an all-staff meeting w/ the paper's leadership to discuss the Op-Ed by Senator Cotton. I neither expect nor deserve to have front-of-line mic time there, so will speak here.
I say what follows as a longtime
@nytimes employee and foreign correspondent who covered police, military, and intelligence service violence against peaceful citizens in authoritarian states.
I also say it as a former
@usmc infantry officer who commanded a Marine company federalized to deploy into the greater LA area in the 1992 to quell unrest. (My company deployed to Compton.)
With these two sets of experience, I know first-hand the grave risk to citizens, including risks not obvious, related to assigning military units to this kind of duty, and am also aware of how such action could further the militarization of American society already underway.
Amplifying a call from an official of the ruling party for a federal crackdown of aggrieved citizens exercising rights of assembly & speech was wrong on its face, and made more so by a glaring, gratuitous insult included therein.
Jack Jenkins/Religion News Service:
Should Trump worry about white Catholic and mainline Protestant votes?
As the 2020 election season heats up, both parties are likely to begin vying for the votes of a crucial group of white, Christian voters.
And no, it’s not white evangelicals.
While white evangelicals have garnered more attention than other faith groups over the past few decades, pollsters and political activists believe white Catholics and mainline Protestants could have an outsized impact in November 2020.
The reason has to do with their location and persuadability. Unlike white evangelicals, whose support for Republican candidates and Trump has become increasingly ironclad, white mainliners and Catholics tend to change their minds about candidates from election to election. Many also live in Rust Belt swing states that Trump won only by narrow margins in 2016.
WaPo:
Pushback against law-enforcement violence hits 11th day; National Guard ordered to disarm
A national pushback against police violence and law enforcement excess continued Friday, as Minneapolis voted to ban chokeholds, the National Guardsmen in the nation’s capital were ordered to disarm, and protests following the death of George Floyd stretched into an 11th day.
Meantime, a fresh round of outrage swelled around the country over law enforcement officers using excessive force against citizens peacefully exercising their rights.
And in Buffalo, officers pushed back against the pushback. Fifty-seven members of the police department -- the entire emergency response team -- resigned to protest the suspension of two officers shown on video shoving a 75-year-old protester to the ground, causing him to hit his head on the sidewalk and suffer a serious injury, officials said.
Jeremy Konyndyk/twitter:
OK, let's address these "why did we lock down if BLM protests are ok" takes.
There are lots of pundits arguing this means public health advice is all relative to ideological sympathies.
That's not it. It's about balance of risks.
I'll say up front: I think there's a chance these protests will amplify transmission. But I also think there are steps that can be taken (and visibly are being taken, frequently) to mitigate that risk.
We know far more about COVID transmission than three months ago when US social distancing started. Guidance at that time was based on emerging evidence from China and on diseases thought to be similar, e.g. SARS and influenza.
We now have growing evidence on COVID itself.
The evidence tells us a few things (this all predates the protests):
Risk reducers:
- Outdoor/full sun activities
- Masking
- Brief (<10 minutes) or distant contact
- Limiting group size
Risk amplifiers:
- Prolonged close contact
- Large crowds
- Enclosed spaces
- Vocalizing
Amy E. Walter/Cook Political Report:
How Do We Know We Are at a Tipping Point?
What you can also see, however, is the impact that the postgraduate cohort has on the overall lean of the combined white college and postgraduate community. White postgrads had never been all that strongly identified with Republicans and now identify with Democrats by 24 points. However, the more dramatic movement is among white four-year degree holders who, 25 years ago, overwhelmingly affiliated themselves with the GOP and who now lean Democrat by three points. Their inflection point came a bit later than the postgrads — more like 2012 than 2004.
Bottom line: 2016 was not a tipping point; it was a galvanizing one. The real tipping points came at the tail-end of the Bush-era or during the Obama-era. In other words, the election of Donald Trump didn't shift partisanship, but it did deepen it.
Another polling point (see yesterday’s discussion as well): tracking over time is so valuable for insight. Some of the movement we see takes years and years. There’s only 5 months before the election and some of these long term shifts aren’t going to suddenly disappear.
And this:
It isn't that Roger Goodell is doing the right thing (too little too late), it's that he is a creature of the Trump loving owners, and this tells you how profound the protests are and how deeply they are reaching.
CNBC:
George Floyd protests created a surge in voter registrations, groups say
- Voter registrations, volunteer activity and donations for groups linked to Democratic causes are surging in the midst of protests following the death of George Floyd, according to voting advocacy organizations.
- This surge in registrations could end up being one of the factors that helps tip the election between apparent Democratic nominee Joe Biden and President Donald Trump.
- The efforts are by groups including Latino voter registration organizations, Rock the Vote and one co-chaired by former first lady Michelle Obama.