Trailing in the polls and with Republicans in disarray over the unemployment insurance extensions and the contracting economy, Donald Trump tweeted about delaying the elections. And it was totally on brand: a thing someone never should do, he did.
The reaction was swift and near-universal.
That they are.
Daily Beast:
‘He’s Terrified of Losing’—Trump Goes Into Hyperdrive to Delegitimize The Election
As much of the political world went into an uproar over Donald Trump floating the idea of delaying the November election, inside the president’s orbit, his Thursday morning tweet suggesting just that was seen as something far narrower and more strategically focused.
The president isn’t really trying to delay the vote. He is trying to preemptively delegitimize the likely results.
Politico:
U.S. suffered worst quarterly contraction on record as virus ravages economy
When the economy was tumbling in the second quarter, Trump pumped up the third quarter. Now the high hopes are slowly deflating.
The U.S. economy crashed in historic fashion this year — shrinking at a nearly 33 percent annualized pace in the second quarter — as the coronavirus pandemic ravaged businesses and sent joblessness soaring. The question now for President Donald Trump, trailing in the polls and facing a daunting reelection effort, is just how much conditions can snap back in the months leading up to Election Day.
At least for the moment, the spike in Covid-19 cases, the potential for fresh trouble this fall and a bitter fight over how to pump more federal money into the ailing economy suggest the sharp bounce-back Trump is counting on may not show up in a way he envisions.
Bloomberg:
Does $600 a Week Make People Shirk? Evidence Is No
Yale study challenges Republican theory that expanded jobless benefits discourage people from working.
It’s a bit surprising that extra benefits don’t seem to raise unemployment, considering that many workers get a higher income from unemployment insurance than they got from working. One reason could be that workers who quit rather than being laid off aren’t eligible for unemployment insurance. They’re also required to keep looking for work, and they can lose their benefits if they refuse a “suitable” offer. On top of that, workers presumably realize that an employer’s paycheck is a better long-term bet than a check from the government that’s designed to be temporary.
Henry Olsen/WaPo:
Sorry, Republicans. The polls really are that bad.
Many Republicans are responding with disbelief to polls showing President Trump well behind former vice president Joe Biden nationally and in all the swing states. Some say the polls are undercounting Republicans, while others cite 2016 as evidence that the polls are just wrong. Sadly, neither explanation holds water.
The evidence that polls undercount Republicans is slim at best. Five of the seven matchup polls between Trump and Biden in the RealClearPolitics average as of Tuesday morning have cross-tabulations that show the share of Republicans in their samples. Those shares range from a low of 24 percent to a high of 36 percent, with an average of 31 percent. That’s not far below the 33 percent GOP share in the 2016 presidential election exit polls, and the difference between the two cannot explain Trump’s massive deficit.
See also Nate Cohn/NY Times:
Are the Polls Missing Republican Voters?
Registered Republicans were actually more likely than registered Democrats to respond to the Times/Siena survey.
If polls using partisan characteristics from voter registration files showed a fundamentally different race, this could be a sign that the other polls were biased on partisanship. But the recent surveys that are weighted by party registration or primary vote history offer nearly the same picture as polls that are not. Arguably, they offer a picture even worse for Republicans.
Dave Grohl/Atlantic:
In Defense of Our Teachers
When it comes to the daunting question of reopening schools, America’s educators deserve a plan, not a trap.
It takes a certain kind of person to devote their life to this difficult and often-thankless job. I know because I was raised in a community of them. I have mowed their lawns, painted their apartments, even babysat their children, and I’m convinced that they are as essential as any other essential workers. Some even raise rock stars! Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, Adam Levine, Josh Groban, and Haim are all children of school workers (with hopefully more academically rewarding results than mine). Over the years, I have come to notice that teachers share a special bond, because there aren’t too many people who truly understand their unique challenges—challenges that go far beyond just pen and paper. Today, those challenges could mean life or death for some.
AP:
Misinformation on coronavirus is proving highly contagious
As the world races to find a vaccine and a treatment for COVID-19, there is seemingly no antidote in sight for the burgeoning outbreak of coronavirus conspiracy theories, hoaxes, anti-mask myths and sham cures.
The phenomenon, unfolding largely on social media, escalated this week when President Donald Trump retweeted a false video about an anti-malaria drug being a cure for the virus and it was revealed that Russian intelligence is spreading disinformation about the crisis through English-language websites.
Experts worry the torrent of bad information is dangerously undermining efforts to slow the virus, whose death toll in the U.S. hit 150,000 Wednesday, by far the highest in the world, according to the tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. Over a half-million people have died in the rest of the world.
Katherine Eban/Vanity Fair:
How Jared Kushner’s Secret Testing Plan “Went Poof Into Thin Air”
This spring, a team working under the president's son-in-law produced a plan for an aggressive, coordinated national COVID-19 response that could have brought the pandemic under control. So why did the White House spike it in favor of a shambolic 50-state response
Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,” said the expert.
That logic may have swayed Kushner. “It was very clear that Jared was ultimately the decision maker as to what [plan] was going to come out,” the expert said.
