Good morning, everyone!
Sarah Churchwell of the Guardian pinpoints what will continue to be a persistent problem with American democracy.
“Minority rule.”
And the 2020 elections have not made that problem of minority rule any better...or less dangerous.
“A society becomes totalitarian,” Orwell warned in his 1946 essay “The Prevention of Literature”, “when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial: that is, when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud.” The flagrancy is part of the point. At present, that flagrantly artificial power in the US depends on a president who refuses to concede, an administration that repudiates the results of an election that was transparently fair (as corroborated by independent international election observers), the Republican leadership complicitly silent or actively encouraging these falsehoods and surrogates who flatly lie about the election outcome. The result is that some 70% of Republican voters currently believe that Biden’s win was “rigged” – although they don’t explain how a Republican Senate was returned in this same “rigged” election. The Republican party, funded by vastly wealthy donors, has turned itself into America’s ruling class, clinging to fraudulent power by refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of its opponents, withholding the consent of the loser that is necessary for democracy to function.
Of course, I have my Orwell handy and I skimmed through the essay and that particular passage...there’s this part shortly after Churchwell’s citation.
But to be corrupted by totalitarianism one does not have to live in a totalitarian country. The mere prevalence of certain ideas can spread a kind of poison that makes one subject after another impossible for literary purposes.
Along with that goes a disinformation system (which Orwell goes into a lot of detail about in “The Prevention of Literature”) which is the subject of the Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan’s column this morning.
President Trump didn’t create the media cesspool that he’ll bequeath to a troubled nation. He just made it exponentially worse — not only with his own constant lies but with his ability to spread the ugliness.
Just days ago, he tweeted out a
debunked conspiracy theory that a company that makes voting machines had deleted millions of Trump votes. And though he — barring true disaster — will leave office in January, the widespread disinformation system that he fostered will live on.
Social media platforms, streaming “news” channels and innumerable websites will spew lies and conspiracy theories, and will keep weakening the foundation of reality that America’s democracy needs in order to function.
So what, if anything, can the reality-based press do to counter it?
Get on with the certification says the Editorial Board of the Detroit Free Press.
The fanciful conspiracy theories have been debunked.
The spurious lawsuits have been thrown out of court, or withdrawn, almost as quickly as they were filed.
The grown-up Republicans in the U.S. Congress — there aren't many, and most are finishing their last terms, but they exist — have beseeched Donald Trump to concede and facilitate an orderly transfer of executive authority.
In summary, the jig is up: The farce set in motion when the loser of this year's presidential election petulantly refused to acknowledge the voters' verdict has run its course, and the patience of Americans compelled to endure that sad spectacle has been exhausted.
All that remains is for public servants of conscience to honor their oaths of office, discharge their duties under the law, and notify the nation that the voters of Michigan have dedicated our state's 16 electoral votes to Joe Biden.
Jim Rutenberg and Kathleen Gray of the New York Times underscore how dangerous The Damn Fool’s gambit is for Republicans as a whole, trust in the elections process, and for Black voters.
But this is also a moment of truth for the Republican Party: The country is on a knife’s edge, with G.O.P. officials from state capitols to Congress choosing between the will of voters and the will of one man. In pushing his false claims to the limits, cowing Republicans into acquiescence or silence, and driving officials like Mr. Shinkle to nervous indecision, Mr. Trump has revealed the fragility of the electoral system — and shaken it.
At this point, the president’s impact is not so much about overturning the election — both parties agree he has no real chance of doing that — but infusing the democratic process with so much mistrust and confusion that it ceases to function as it should.
Under an unending barrage of fraud charges, voters might begin to question the legitimacy of elected officials from the rival party as a matter of course. And the G.O.P. risks being seen as standing for disenfranchisement and the undemocratic position that a high level of voting is somehow detrimental.
Toluse Olorunnipa, Amy B. Wang and Chelsea James of the Washington Post write that what resistance that seems to exist against Trump’s scheme resides largely at local levels of government for the time being.
While some Republican officials in presidential battleground states have given credence to Trump’s baseless fraud claims by launching websites and tip lines aimed at uncovering election irregularities, only a few have appeared willing to endorse an extraordinary move to appoint pro-Trump electors in states Biden won.
A reminder of continued GOP support for Trump’s efforts was apparent Saturday in Michigan, where the state’s Republican chairwoman, Laura Cox, issued a joint statement with Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel calling on the state to delay final certification of the vote and conduct a “full audit and investigation.” This came a day after the state’s top GOP lawmakers met with Trump at the White House but declared afterward that they had “not yet been made aware of any information that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan.”
For the most part, local and state officials have either remained silent or moved forward with the process of certifying election results, potentially closing the door to Trump’s post-election gambit to change the results — first through the courts and then by way of GOP-led statehouses.
So...one of Trump’s suits was thrown out by a federal judge in Pennsylvania, the recount in Wisconsin goes on, a post-certification recount may be underway in Georgia, and Pennsylvania and Michigan certify tomorrow.
Much sound and fury.
Not only do I support The Nation’s Jeet Heer’s call to prosecute Trump once he’s out of office; I also appreciate Mr. Heer’s caution as to what such a prosecution will— and won’t— do.
Beyond that, there’s little reason to believe that legal punishment would do anything to blunt Trump as a political force. Trump is an anti-system politician, which means that his supporters see any clash between him and legal authorities as proof that he is shaking up the status quo. Democrats have often expressed amazement and exasperation that scandals that would destroy a normal politician have not tarnished Trump’s appeal at all. But as an anti-system politician, he’s not expected to obey the rules of the game. In fact, evidence that he cuts corners is favorably reinterpreted as defiance. Pro-system politicians like Hillary Clinton and Biden are much more likely to be held accountable by voters.
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Legal prosecution will do nothing to fight the popularity of Trump and Trumpism. Indeed, given his anti-system persona, it is likely to bind him closer to his followers. He’ll be seen as a martyr.
Having said that, not prosecuting Trump will also come with a cost. The United States is a nation of elite impunity, as the history of recent decades demonstrates. Nixon had to resign for Watergate, but he also received an expansive pardon from his successor, Gerald Ford, which covered all crimes Nixon might have committed as president, even those yet undiscovered. It’s hard to interpret this pardon as affirming anything other than the idea that an American president can never face legal liability, no matter what.
Overall, I tend to agree with David Walsh’s view in the Boston Review that there will not and should not be a return to “normalcy” with the incoming Biden-Harris Administration.
...what exactly does a return to “normalcy” mean? One answer is rhetorical and symbolic. The constant refrain that “this is not normal” has often been less political analysis than lament for a bygone moral order in political speech and leadership. Returning to normalcy, on this view, means a return to norms of civility and decency and a capacity for compassion. Trump is a malignant narcissist who cares nothing for other people’s pain and is endlessly rewarded for his sociopathy. Biden has suffered repeated traumas in life; his first wife and daughter were killed in a car accident, and his son Beau died tragically from brain cancer. Biden’s deeply personal experience with loss may resonate with a nation wracked with its own traumas.
But there is also a more strictly political interpretation of normalcy. Already we have seen calls for a kind of national reconciliation. In this paradigm, returning to normalcy means returning to an older, supposedly stable way of doing politics. Some of this is just Washington nostalgia for the days when Reagan and Tip O’Neill worked together to hash out legislation, or lawmakers from both sides of the aisle went out for dinner and drinks despite their political differences. This vision of “normal” politics values consensus and comity: returning to normal means that we must build bridges with our political opponents (this always means Democrats must reach out to Republicans, and not the other way around), ratchet down sectarianism, and forge a new national consensus—a world where both parties fundamentally agree on what America should be and the rules of the game and differ merely on minor points of interpretation. Biden himself campaigned on a version of this, predicting in 2019 that Republican leaders would have an “epiphany” once Trump left office and once again work in good faith with their Democratic colleagues.
I’m not at all certain on what that new definition of “normal” should be, though.
Last night, the experimental antibody treatment that was used on Trump when he contracted the coronavirus was granted emergency approval by the FDA but Laurie McGinley and Carolyn Y. Johnson of the Washington Post report that the treatment will be in short supply.
Regeneron’s drug is a cocktail of two monoclonal antibodies, called casirivimab and imdevimab. The FDA said in authorizing the cocktail that it may be effective in treating mild to moderate covid-19 in adults and children 12 or older, and is indicated for those at high risk of developing severe illness. Doctors hope the drugs will keep those patients from being hospitalized.
But as with the Lilly treatment, the Regeneron drug is a biological product that is complicated and time-consuming to make; initially, it will be in short supply. The shortages, coupled with the complexities of administering the intravenous medication, have raised concerns about whether people with the greatest need will be able to get it.
Regeneron executives said on the company’s earnings call in early November that they project having enough doses for 80,000 patients by the end of November, and 300,000 total doses by the end of January.
Dr. Uzma Syed and Dr. Syra Madad write for Just Security about what Americans need to continue (or begin) to do at these heights of national COVID-19 infections and why.
The trouble with this novel coronavirus is that it is highly communicable and transmissible, with the highest viral load production often happening 48 hours before symptoms develop, if they develop at all. Studies have also revealed that approximately 40 percent of people infected are asymptomatic and have the ability to transmit the virus to others. Because of this, it becomes very difficult to convey to people that although they feel fine, they may still be infected and able to transmit the virus.
As more point-of-care tests became available and rapid antigen tests were being used, people experienced an increased false sense of security and shrugged off preventative behaviors like social distancing and wearing a mask. However, the nuances in testing and virus acquisition and transmission are so profound that the medical community has not been able to effectively communicate this message to the general public: COVID19 antigen tests are a point in time, and individuals may be negative due to an undetectable viral load, hence the need for ongoing mask-wearing and physical distancing.
Whether it’s a molecular PCR test or a point-of-care test, such as a rapid antigen test, a single negative test on a particular day does not provide you a reliable answer for a virus with a particularly long incubation period and a wide spectrum of symptoms, or lack thereof. As seen with the White House outbreak when President Donald Trump became infected, despite all of his close contacts testing negative in the days prior, there was in fact contact with an infected person and transmission of the virus. This is partly because rapid antigen tests have lower sensitivity than molecular PCR tests, but can detect coronavirus cases when they are most contagious.
John Power of the South China Morning Post has some informed speculation on why Asia is doing better with COVID-19 mitigation efforts than the United states or Europe.
Although many Western countries belatedly adopted measures embraced in Asia, such as mask-wearing and mass testing, authorities have been slow or reluctant to embrace other strategies such as invasive technological solutions that have bolstered contact tracing and quarantine efforts in South Korea and Taiwan.
After vowing to avoid a repeat of shutdowns that paralysed economies earlier in the year, leaders in countries such as France and England have in recent weeks imposed strict lockdowns amid soaring case counts that have dwarfed peaks seen in March and April. In the US, where daily cases haven’t dropped below 10,000 since March, some states are pausing or reversing the reopening of their economies, while others are staying the course despite rising infections.
Peter Collignon, an infectious disease expert at Australian National University Medical School, said many Western nations had failed to use the time bought by earlier lockdowns to implement more sustainable measures for the medium and long term.
Although Pfizer and BioNTech’s recent announcement of interim findings that its vaccine is 90 per cent effective has raised hopes the end of the pandemic could be in sight, experts do not expect widespread immunisation among the general public until the latter part of next year.
Leah Wright Rigueur writes for The Atlantic on what the numbers of GOP voting black men in 2020 means.
The number of Black men supporting the GOP in 2020 may be disorienting for some, especially because Trump has been outspoken in his disdain for a number of issues of concern to this bloc—particularly the Movement for Black Lives. But men have been the drivers of Black support for the GOP for nearly a century, as my research on Black Republicans has shown. And although some Black women have embraced Republican politics, they are still the demographic group least likely to support Republican candidates.
The election and reelection of President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 are the only points in recent history where we’ve seen Black men’s support for the GOP bottom out. In 2008, for instance, 95 percent of Black male voters cast ballots for the nation’s first Black president, according to exit polls. But as the glow of the initial Obama years faded, some Black men drifted back into the Republican Party, while others joined anew.
According to exit polls, the drop off in Democratic voting for black men was actually steepest from 2008 to 2012 (6 points, IIRC). There’s other statistics, exit poll data, and voting data that show that 2008 and, to a lesser extent, 2012, were the exceptions and not the rule with regard to elections in varied ways (e.g., WI and MI which, other than the Obama years, are pretty much battleground states).
Ruth Wodak of EuroNews on what European leaders may be learning from observing President-Elect Joe Biden’s handling of far-right populism.
The need for an aggressive, unclean performance was evident in the Trump campaign’s refusal to engage in a virtual debate where their candidate would have to wait his turn to speak, rather than attempt to dominate, attack, and discombobulate his opponent.
Are there lessons here for the wider world in how we engage with far-right populist movements? Quite possibly. In the UK, Sir Keir Starmer has won praise and criticism in equal measure for his often dispassionate engagement with prime minister Boris Johnson. Critics see his approach as tepid. Supporters believe his calm approach is a deliberate contrast to Johnson’s bombast. While Johnson’s now-former senior advisor Dominic Cummings liked to think of himself as the enemy of the stuffy and slow-moving civil service, Starmer talks up his credentials as a former head of the Crown Prosecution Service, well experienced in subtle, rational and persuasive argumentation, and by proxy a defender of institutions, of checks and balances.
In the European Union, the problem exists at a national and supranational level. Emmanuel Macron, for instance, managed to portray himself both as a disruptor and as a defender of the institutions of the Republic when facing off against the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in 2017. But, increasing tensions over terrorism may again create an opportunity for the far-right in the coming months and years. However, Macron, German chancellor Angela Merkel, Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz, and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen have recently taken over the security agenda and fight against terrorism, thus robbing the far-right of their precious law and order rhetoric.
On a final note this morning, I see reporting and analysis that all is not well with French President Emmanuel Macron.
There’s this long-winded report at AlJazeera and the briefer synopsis from GZero Media.
Gabrielle Debinski/GZero
Part of Macron's problem is that his strengths have become weaknesses. Macron — a stalwart of France's financial elite who had never stood for elected office before winning the top job in 2017 — came to power by exploiting disillusionment with France's traditionally dominant center-left and center-right parties. As anti-establishment furore gripped France, Macron took advantage of the vacuum in French politics by filling that abandoned center.
The trouble for Macron is that he has never successfully created, nor endeared himself to a reliable voting base whose support he can rely on.
In part that's because Macron has played the role of ideological chameleon — he's been described as "president of the rich" because of his pro-business agenda, while also trying to play ball with France's powerful unions. Yet, he's failed to fully captivate either the center right or the center left. This has caused a hemorrhaging of support within his own party, leading to mass defections this year, which caused LREM to lose its parliamentary majority.
The rest of the rough road. Macron faces reelection in two years. He is currently neck-and-neck in the polls with Le Pen, his likely opponent. The fact that Le Pen is deeply polarizing helps Macron in an electoral system that often leads to runoffs (the divisive Le Pen would be very unlikely to crack 50 percent in a head to head with anyone).
Everyone have a good morning!