With his campaign now being propped up by two former producers of The Apprentice, former reality-TV star Donald Trump intends to spend the 10:00 p.m. Eastern time slot on each night of the RNC convention this week bragging about his accomplishments as president.
It’s not clear that he’ll have much, if anything, to talk about. The COVID-19 pandemic that he first ignored, then belittled, then tried to wish away, finally telling Americans to “get used to it,” continues its relentless assault, inflicting death and sickness on hundreds of thousands, with no end in sight. For those Americans fortunate enough to have escaped the virus thus far, an unprecedented economic crisis is bearing down on millions of them, one which Trump and his Republican enablers could have easily prevented, but instead chose to ignore.
In anticipation of this economic calamity, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives in May had passed the HEROES Act. Among its critical provisions (such as funding cash-strapped states suddenly unable to provide essential services due to the pandemic), that legislation would have continued to put additional money into the pockets of those Americans now forced into the ranks of the unemployed.
But none of that relief is being provided. The Republican-controlled Senate under the leadership of Mitch McConnell refused to pass the HEROES legislation, and as a result staggering numbers of Americans throughout this country must now face hunger, foreclosures, and evictions since they have no money to pay for food, rent or mortgages.
Joe Pinsker, writing for The Atlantic, describes the dire economic situation millions of Americans are facing, even as Donald Trump and the Republican Party prepare to celebrate Trump’s “accomplishments.” Citing research by Beth Mattingly of the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston, Pinsker notes that “the share of households reporting that they couldn’t afford food during the pandemic has been more than one in six, and roughly a tenth of adults have said they haven’t been able to pay rent or their mortgage on time.” Now, with the expiration of additional unemployment benefits, the crisis is about to worsen, with millions of Americans facing “family-level catastrophes.”
“Absent federal policy, we’re going to see more housing instability as well as food insecurity, probably some utility shutoffs,” Mattingly said. “I’m frankly terrified.”
Pinsker quotes Lawrence Katz, an Economist at Harvard, who, like Mattingly, puts the crisis in terms as blunt as possible.
“We need huge amounts of federal spending, as we did initially, in March and April, to continue until we get the virus under control, and then we can have [an economic] recovery,” he told me. “There’s no possibility of a robust recovery until the virus is under control.”
But no surge in federal spending is going to occur, and no further relief to ordinary Americans is going to be forthcoming prior to November 3rd. So again, what is there for Donald Trump to talk about?
When the initial relief legislation, the CARES Act, was passed in March, the implicit understanding was that the federal government would implement a concerted effort to get the virus under control, much in the same way most countries in Europe have succeeded in doing. Otherwise the only benefit to providing the unemployed with an additional $600 per week, as prescribed by that legislation, would be allowing Americans temporary relief. If their jobs did not return, and if the economy did not turn around by the time those benefits expired, then there would be no alternative but to reinstate them.
But there was no sustained effort by the Trump administration to contain the virus, and no testing or tracing regime was ever implemented. Instead, Americans were simply harangued over the spring and summer with edicts to reopen businesses despite the fact that the danger from the COVID-19 virus had not abated in the slightest. How states were supposed to do this was never spelled out. But these exhortations, instigated by Donald Trump, were dutifully followed by Republican governors and state legislators all over the country, while states with Democratic governors proceeded more cautiously. The effects of this complete vacuum of federal policy were as disastrous as they were predictable. States that prematurely reopened soon saw their infection rates skyrocket and most were forced, within a matter of weeks, to roll back those reopenings.
Even worse, Trump soon turned his malevolent gaze to the nation’s schools, threatening them with funding cuts if they did not fully reopen. From the start it was obvious that what was motivating Trump was not any containment or reversal in the virus’s trajectory-- and certainly no interest in the safety of American children--but Trump’s own diminishing electoral prospects as the country continued to founder economically. Those schools and universities that foolishly followed Trump’s lead in attempting to reopen have, for the most part, reverted to remote learning for safety reasons, as outbreaks in those schools began to spike almost immediately.
With ten weeks left until the November 3rd election, and with no federal assistance on the horizon, millions of Americans are now facing economic catastrophe as a result of the malign, deliberate neglect of the Republican Party and Donald Trump. The severest impact will be to those households with children, with the crisis—as always--disproportionately harming Black and Latinx families.
While direct blame for this looming disaster lies with the arrogance and obstinance of the Republican-controlled Senate, the fact is that had Trump applied any pressure whatsoever, the GOP Senate would have moved in lockstep to his demands. Instead, Trump opted for the same flim-flam tactics that have served him so well during his “business” career: he announced, with great fanfare, a series of so-called Executive Orders that purportedly would provide the economic assistance that Americans so desperately needed.
However, Trump’s Executive edicts were hollow, because they did not have the force of law. Even if they had, the logistics of providing any extra funds to Americans depended on the capabilities of each individual state to process and disburse them, which many states do not have the resources to do. And, as reported by the New York Times, the amounts proposed by Trump were woefully insufficient to make any difference, particularly for the poorest Americans:
The plan is full of caveats. First: It actually translates to an additional $300, not $400, for recipients because the federal government would pay for only 75 percent. States would have to kick in the other 25 percent, or $100 per recipient, per week.
States can use the benefits they’re already paying to meet that criterion, a White House official said. But some people currently get less than $100 a week from their states, and they would be left out entirely unless their state agreed to increase their payments. That means the hardest-hit recipients, with the least financial support, “wouldn’t get anything at all from this,” Mr. Stettner said.
Since the president has no power to appropriate funds (that power is reserved to Congress under the Constitution), Trump claimed he would obtain money for his proposal by draining FEMA funds. But, as the Times article points out, even this gross misdirection of federal funds intended to provide hurricane and disaster relief to states would run out in a matter of weeks.
Finally, Trump proposed cutting the payroll tax for a limited time period, which would provide nothing for workers who are unemployed, and would simply result in a temporary “loan” which would have to be paid back by those workers who saw any benefit from it, all while reducing funds for Social Security.
In short, this was never a plan designed to actually work. It was designed, through some embarrassingly obvious sleight-of-hand, to make it appear that Trump was actually doing something for an economically-ravaged American population. In reality he was doing nothing.
As the Republican Party is now beholden to Trump, the disastrous consequences of his policy decisions this year are matters that cannot even be alluded to, let alone directly confronted. So the economic distress being experienced by these Americans is unlikely to be a focus at the Republican convention this week, assuming it is even mentioned at all. Rather, the focus, based on the anticipated lineup of speakers, will be on dividing Americans along lines of race, demonizing immigrants and protesters, and accusing Democrats and Joe Biden of “socialism,” while warning of complete economic and social collapse should American voters choose to replace Trump.
The problem for the Republican Party is that the economic collapse is already here and upon us. The brutal disconnect-- between what real Americans are actually facing and the fantasy that Trump and the Republicans will try to spin -- will be the most telling feature of the Republican convention, no matter what Trump chooses to talk about.
