We begin today’s roundup with The Washington Post and its editorial on the Trump administration’s latest election ploy strategy of deploying federal agents to Democratically-led cities to foster unrest:
THE RIGHT to protest is enshrined in the Constitution; any attempt by government to squelch it forcibly is an affront to our most cherished values. Vandalism and violence of the sort that, for more than a month, have attended the mostly peaceful protests in Portland, Ore., are different: antithetical to public order, a blow to blameless property owners and, as a political matter, a gift to President Trump.
The president is a master of distraction and misdirection; predictably, he has seized on the disorder in Portland to deflect attention from the pandemic and to exploit the country’s deepening tribal divisions, which have served his political purposes so well. In the name of restoring order, he has weaponized law enforcement officers, uniformed as shock troops. Rather than de-escalate, they seem deployed to inflame what was already a volatile series of daily demonstrations.
Michelle Goldberg’s analysis at The New York Times adds more with historical context as well:
There’s no way to know the affiliation of all the agents — they’ve been wearing military fatigues with patches that just say “Police” — but The Times reported that some of them are part of a specialized Border Patrol group “that normally is tasked with investigating drug smuggling organizations.”
The Trump administration has announced that it intends to send a similar force to other cities; on Monday, The Chicago Tribune reported on plans to deploy about 150 federal agents to Chicago. “I don’t need invitations by the state,” Chad Wolf, acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said on Fox News Monday, adding, “We’re going to do that whether they like us there or not.”
Golberg cites Yale historian Timothy Snyder on why we should all be outraged:
“This is a classic way that violence happens in authoritarian regimes, whether it’s Franco’s Spain or whether it’s the Russian Empire,” said Snyder. “The people who are getting used to committing violence on the border are then brought in to commit violence against people in the interior.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren pens her to-do list to deal with the pandemic:
Here’s what the next federal response must include:
Start with funding the robust public health measures we know will work to address this crisis: ramped-up testing, a national contact-tracing program and supply-chain investments to resolve medical supply shortages. Without these measures, we will not be able to adequately reopen safely, more people will die and there will be no economic recovery.
Our schools face enormous challenges, like figuring out whether and how to safely reopen, how to help students who fell further behind because of distance learning — disproportionately students of color. The next legislative package should include at least $500 billion to stabilize state and local governments and at least $175 billion for our public schools to help them reopen safely, avoid teacher layoffs and provide the mental health and other services our children require.
Meanwhile, Catherine Rampell calls out Republicans in Congress for threatening to cut off much-needed unemployment aid:
Unless Congress acts fast, America’s fragile economic recovery is poised to nosedive off a cliff. [...] [T]he main problem now is that there just aren’t many jobs available.
Job vacancy postings are still down about a quarter from precrisis levels. And while it seems possible that, on the margin, some workers might turn down work because they want to keep getting that government cheese, the generosity of benefits do not, on net, appear to be holding back employment growth.
“So far, there is no evidence that the [federal $600 payments] had either job finding or job leaving effects in the May and June data,” according to a detailed analysis of Labor Department data from Ernie Tedeschi, Evercore ISI’s head of fiscal analysis.
More from Ryan Cooper at The Week:
Furthermore, there are much more serious problems with unemployment insurance than generosity. Millions of eligible laid-off people have not been getting their benefits because state unemployment systems are either ancient and decrepit or have been deliberately designed to not pay out benefits. Something very badly needs to be done either to help and/or force states to fix their systems, or simply take over the administration entirely.
On a final note, here is Eugene Robinson’s tribute on how we can all remember Rep. John Lewis:
How, then, should we remember this great man? Not with fuzzy, feel-good encomiums but with a clear-eyed look at his monumental accomplishments and the work still left undone. [...]
Lewis would urge young audiences not to follow the rules but to “get in good trouble” by pushing for fairness and justice. “Get in the way,” he would exhort activists who were pushing, often rudely, for positive change. “Keep getting in the way.”