We begin today’s roundup with Paul Krugman’s analysis at The New York Times on a defining principle of the modern conservative movement and how it is on display during this pandemic:
[T]here’s a deeper explanation of the profoundly self-destructive behavior of Trump and his allies: They were all members of America’s cult of selfishness.
You see, the modern U.S. right is committed to the proposition that greed is good, that we’re all better off when individuals engage in the untrammeled pursuit of self-interest. In their vision, unrestricted profit maximization by businesses and unregulated consumer choice is the recipe for a good society. Support for this proposition is, if anything, more emotional than intellectual. I’ve long been struck by the intensity of right-wing anger against relatively trivial regulations, like bans on phosphates in detergent and efficiency standards for light bulbs. It’s the principle of the thing: Many on the right are enraged at any suggestion that their actions should take other people’s welfare into account.
Here’s The Washington Post’s take on how we can get back to some sense of post-pandemic normal, based on experts
What would it take? Both experts recommend a nationwide, concerted federal effort to break virus transmission, going beyond the “flatten the curve” attempts of the spring. This would be hard to do, demanding sacrifice and economic pain, but paying off in a more sustained recovery later on. Dr. Hotez recommends, through federal leadership, setting a national target for containment, such as one new case per million residents a day, although something less strict might also work. To get there, Mr. Slavitt suggests universal mask-wearing; keeping bars, restaurants, churches and transit closed; prohibiting interstate travel and stopping inbound arrivals from abroad. He also suggests setting up hotels for those with symptoms to isolate, free, and implementing a major national lockdown, more severe than in March and April with many more workers staying home.
Eugene Robinson, meanwhile, highlights a very important issue — the Republican’s coordinated campaign of voter suppression:
For more than a decade, the GOP’s consistent strategy has been to identify citizens who tend to vote for Democrats and deny them the right or the opportunity to vote. Republican-controlled state legislators have passed voter-identification laws known to have a disparate impact against African Americans and Latinos. GOP secretaries of state (such as Brian Kemp, now governor of Georgia) have purged voter rolls in ways that disproportionately disenfranchise minorities. Too few polling places are set up in minority neighborhoods, with the result that it takes a substantially greater investment of time and patience for African Americans to vote than for whites.
At The Nation, Ryan Cooper looks at the Trump administration’s action in Portland:
[I]t's also important to note the vast majority of Portland has remained calm and peaceful. The protests have been confined to a few blocks around the federal courthouse. The plain fact is that, contrary to Trump's hysterical lies about "50 days of anarchy," there is no actual mass unrest in the city — and insofar as there has been any unrest at all, CBP paramilitaries are primarily responsible for instigating it, and have committed virtually all of the actual violence. This cannot possibly be an accident. [...] It also seems highly likely that this tactic will backfire politically, at least in terms of mass opinion. A recent poll found that among voters who were leaning Trump, 59 percent said the Black Lives Matter protests were either "somewhat" or "completely" right.
More from Eric Levitz:
Donald Trump is trying to convince swing voters that keeping him in office is the only way to avert lawless disorder in America’s cities. To make this case, he is using the powers of his office to stoke lawless disorder in America’s cities. [...]
If you were a historically unpopular Republican president who wanted to quell civil unrest in an overwhelmingly left-wing city, sending federal agents into the streets of that city without the permission of state or municipal officials — and then having those agents abduct protesters in unmarked vans — would be a very bad way to do it. If you were a historically unpopular Republican president who wanted to promote civil unrest, however, it would be a very sound policy. The number of Americans who feel compelled to engage in nightly protests when they see federal agents patrolling the streets of their city — at the behest of Donald Trump, and in defiance of local leadership — is much larger than the number of Americans who felt compelled to continue protesting police violence two months after George Floyd’s death.
Some of Barr’s most troubling behavior has come in two cases where there is evidence of an obstruction of justice conspiracy involving the president: the Justice Department’s move to ask for a lighter sentence than recommended by career prosecutors for Trump’s political adviser Roger Stone and its decision to seek dismissal of the case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn, notwithstanding Flynn’s guilty plea. [...]
The committee should also question Barr on his changing accounts of his role in the assault on peaceful protesters at Lafayette Square, examining his contacts with Justice and White House officials who said Barr ordered the actions. It is also imperative to address Barr’s role in the recent “surge” of federal law enforcement into Portland, Ore., and other cities.