Category: Trump and Trump-hatred

If we regard the lead-up to the election as a Bachelor’s degree in Trump-hatred, can the post-election activity be thought of as grad school? From “Voting Trump Out is Not Enough,” by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (New Yorker):

Like tens of millions of Americans, I voted to end the miserable reign of Donald J. Trump, but we cannot perpetuate the election-year fiction that the deep and bewildering problems facing millions of people in this country will simply end with the Trump Administration. They are embedded in “the system,” in systemic racism, and the other social inequities that are the focus of continued activism and budding social movements. Viewing the solution to these problems as simply electing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris both underestimates the depth of the problems and trivializes the remedies necessary to undo the damage. That view may also confuse popular support for fundamental change, as evidenced by Trump’s one-term Presidency, with what the Democratic Party is willing or even able to deliver.

The hated dictator’s name appears more than 20 times in this article.

With Trump gone, it is apparently time to listen to the scientists who said that the shutdown would cost more lives than would be saved from Covid-19:

Today, in Philadelphia, where I live, there is not a single aspect of life that the pandemic has not upended, from work and school to housing and health care, pulling poor and working-class African-Americans, in particular, deeper into debt and despair. The uncertainty of the moment, let alone the future, feeds fear, frustration, hopelessness, and dread. In Philadelphia, shootings are on the rise, and the murder rate is growing. … African-Americans make up eighty-five per cent of the city’s shooting victims. Even before the pandemic, drug overdoses in Black Philadelphia were on the rise. In the first three months of shelter-in-place orders, a hundred and forty-seven Black residents died by accidental drug overdose, forty-seven per cent of drug deaths in the city. … Job losses have overwhelmingly affected low-wage, minority workers. Since May, as many as eight million people have been pushed into poverty, with Black families overrepresented among them. … Thousands of people have already been evicted during this crisis, and nearly one out of six renters have fallen behind on their rent. Nearly one in four renters who live with children report that they are not up-to-date with the rent. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s unprecedented moratorium on evictions was too good to be true: the Trump Administration recently signalled to landlords that it would allow them to challenge the eligibility of tenants. This leaves the viability of the C.D.C. moratorium up to the discretion of individual judges, who may or may not honor it. Local organizers and activists have tried to fill the gap created by federal neglect with relentless mutual-aid organizing, but it is hardly sufficient.

Our cities are actually run by good people:

It is not a Trumpian slur to observe that many of the cities where Black suffering takes place are also governed by proud members of the Democratic Party. Instead, it illuminates the depth of the bipartisan failure to address the tangled roots of racism, poverty, and inequality.

But they have been let down by the U.S. economy, which is only about half as large as it needs to be to support the subsidies that low-skill and/or non-working Americans require:

In Philadelphia, which, ignobly, has among the highest proportion of poor residents of any big city in the country, thousands stand on the cusp of eviction. Twenty-two per cent of households in the city are severely cost-burdened, meaning that they are spending half or more of their income on housing costs, which is well above the national average. Before this downturn, sixty-one per cent of households headed by Black women in Philadelphia were spending at least thirty per cent of their income on rent, compared with fifty-three per cent of households headed by white women and forty-four per cent of households headed by white men.

(The author doesn’t mention this, but what will really help these folks is 45 million immigrants to compete with them in the rental market:

(from Migration Policy Institute). Econ 101 tells us that when demand is boosted by 45 million, prices for scarce rentals will inevitably fall.)

Not enough money is being diverted from rural America (i.e., the counties that voted Republican) to the cities (i.e., the counties that voted Democrat):

The likely gridlock in Congress next year will lead to more stagnation in local government, as communities become hamstrung by a lack of federal funding.

(I should do a separate blog post on this. I wonder if the reason that people in low-density parts of the U.S. vote for smaller government is that big government spends nearly all of its money in cities. Hospitals, federal buildings, central post offices, community centers, concert halls, courthouses, etc. all tend to be built in downtown areas. The bigger the government, the larger the transfer from rural counties to urban counties.)

The core problem is the existence of Republicans:

That conclusion may seem to be supported by the shocking fact that upward of seventy million people voted to reëlect the most corrupt, venal, and brazenly racist President in modern American history. … The insistence on unity between the two parties almost always comes at the expense of those whose needs are greatest. How would a Biden Administration incorporate the views of a Republican Party that has supported a white-supremacist President, voted for Trump’s plutocratic tax cuts, advocated for the separation of families at the border, and facilitated the heist of a Supreme Court seat in hopes of fulfilling the right’s fantasy of ending access to abortion and destroying any hint of government-backed health insurance? We were told that this Presidential race was the most consequential of our lifetimes, that it was a contest between democracy and budding fascism. Why would Biden welcome the foot soldiers of Trump’s authoritarian politics into his coalition?

And the struggle will continue even if Trump disappears in his Boeing 757, beyond the reach of even the most vindictive Democrats:

The need in this country dwarfs the best of what Biden has put on the table for changing our current condition. But the demonstrations of the summer, the ongoing campaigns for mutual aid, and the growing movement against evictions are demonstrable proof that power is not only generated in mainstream politics but can be garnered through collective organizing and acts of solidarity. They also foretell a future in which the country does not return to a long-forgotten normal but is animated by protests, strikes, occupations, and the ongoing struggle for food, medicine, care, housing, justice, and democracy.

One reason that I voted for Bernie Sanders (twice!) was his logical consistency. In my opinion, we shouldn’t run a country that says housing is a “right” and then provide subsidized housing to only one quarter of those who qualify. At the same time, building the 7 million additional low-income housing units that are required (NLIHC) will cost roughly $5 trillion. Not only don’t we have an extra $5 trillion lying around, but every year an additional million or so low-skill immigrants arrive whose correspondingly low income would entitle them to subsidized housing (i.e., even if we got 7 million new units built by the end of 2021, we’d still have a substantial shortfall).

The Democrats actually did have control of the Presidency and Congress in the first two years of the Obama Administration, right? And they couldn’t find enough money in the U.S. economy to achieve their policy goals? If the Democrats’ huge advantage in funding is sufficient to take control of the Senate via the Georgia runoff votes, will they be able to fund their dream programs in 2021 and 2022? Or will they discover that the U.S. economy has grown at a much slower per-capita rate than their dreams?

Related:

• My election prediction: Democrats will be flummoxed
• “The former CEO of Google has applied to become a citizen of Cyprus” (Vox): a guy who demanded more low-skill immigration to the U.S. (“Alphabet chairman Eric Schmidt told employees that Trump’s administration is going to do ‘evil things as they’ve done in the immigration area.'”) may be emigrating to avoid the new wealth taxes that will be required to build housing for all of these low-skill immigrants.

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A likely deplorable…

Remember to vote tomorrow! Unless you’re one of the hundreds of millions of people who live in a state where the outcome was determined several years or decades ago, your vote matters!

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Kellyanne Conway and Melania Trump, both recent victims of COVID-19, managed to recover sufficient lung capacity to speak in Pennsylvania recently. The video is on PBS and a transcript on Rev.

I had never seen a video of Melania Trump before and it was interesting to hear her perspective. Some excerpts:

For the first time in history, the citizens of this country get to hear directly and instantly from their president every single day through social media. I do not always agree with the way he says things but it is important to him that he speaks directly to the people he serves.

The Democrats have chosen to put their own agendas ahead of the American people’s wellbeing. Instead, they attempt to create a divide, a divide on something that should be nonpartisan and non-controversial.

While the President was taking decisive action to keep the American people safe, the Democrats were wasting American taxpayer dollars in a sham impeachment. They cared more about removing our elected president.

Joe Biden attacked President Trump’s decision to put the American people first and closing travel from China. He called it xenophobic hysteria. Now he suggest that he could have done a better job. The American people can look at Joe Biden’s 36 years in Congress and eight years in the Vice Presidency and determine whether they think he will finally be able to get something done for the American people.

Before my husband decided to run for President, the media loved him because they saw the man that I see every day. Someone tough, successful, and fair. … A man who sees potential in everyone he meets, no matter their gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation. … But when he decided to run for the President as a Republican, the media created a different picture of my husband, one I don’t recognize, and treated all his supporters with equal disdain. The media has chosen to focus on stories of idle gossip and palace intrigue by editorializing real events and policies with their own bias and agendas.

Apparently Melania has been paying close attention to events in Washington and beyond. She espouses a traditional (for American politicians) message of prosperity and security:

This election isn’t just about the next year. It’s about the next four years and beyond. It’s about continuing to set this country on a course of real prosperity and success. We can’t and we shouldn’t go backwards. Donald Trump is the man who will lead us and empower us to make that greater future together. Donald Trump will expand and grow the economy and keep us safe.

Joe Biden’s policy and socialist agenda will only serve to destroy America and all that has been built in the past four years. We must keep Donald in the White House so he can finish what he started and our country can continue to flourish.

And she’s kind of humble:

Thank you for taking time out of your day to be here with me.

Readers: Could Melania win a Senate race in her new home of Florida, for example? Rick Scott is 67, which is 20 years younger than Dianne Feinstein. On the other hand, maybe Scott would rather do something else in what would traditionally be considered his Golden Years.

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I didn’t watch the debate (my vote is irrelevant here in Maskachusetts), but now it is time to look at the transcript…

Trump and Biden on COVID-19:

[1:03] Trump: So, as you know, more 2.2 million people, modeled out, were expected to die. We closed up the greatest economy in the world in order to fight this horrible disease that came from China. It’s a worldwide pandemic. It’s all over the world. You see the spikes in Europe and many other places right now. If you notice, the mortality rate is down, 85%. The excess mortality rate is way down, and much lower than almost any other country. And we’re fighting it and we’re fighting it hard. There is a spike. There was a spike in Florida, and it’s now gone. There was a very big spike in Texas, it’s now gone…

In other words, humans are in charge of the virus.

[3:12] Biden: 220,000 Americans dead. If you hear nothing else I say tonight, hear this. Anyone who’s responsible for not taking control — in fact, not saying, I take no responsibility, initially — anyone who is responsible for that many deaths should not remain as President of the United States of America. We’re in a situation where there are thousands of deaths a day, a thousand deaths a day. And there are over 70,000 new cases per day. Compared to what’s going on in Europe, as the New England Medical Journal said, they’re starting from a very low rate. We’re starting from a very high rate. The expectation is we’ll have another 200,000 Americans dead by the time, between now and the end of the year. If we just wore these masks — the President’s own advisors told them — we could save 100,000 lives.

Humans are in charge and it is as simple as wearing masks (why are the fully-masked-for-months Europeans now suffering from exponential infection?). If true and if obvious, why does it matter what a U.S. President says and does? State governors and mayors can and did order masks (typically starting in April and May; see also Dr. Fauci on masks).

The moderator then asks about a vaccine and when it will show up. Is this a fair question for politicians with zero training in biology or medicine? They’re supposed to have special insight into when a drug or vaccine gets approval and whether the drug or vaccine is effective? Trump eventually gets around to something that a politician could potentially influence, i.e., distribution:

I think my timeline is going to be more accurate. I don’t know that they’re counting on the military the way I do, but we have our generals lined up, one in particular, that’s the head of logistics. And this is a very easy distribution for him. He’s ready to go as soon as we have the vaccine, and we expect to have 100 million vials as soon as we have the vaccine, he’s ready to go.

For Joe:

[6:12] Welker: Vice President Biden, your reaction? Just 40% of Americans say they would definitely agree to take a coronavirus vaccine if it was approved by the government. What steps would you take to give Americans confidence in a vaccine if it were approved?

[6:25] Biden: Make sure it’s totally transparent. Have the scientific world see, know, look at it, go through all the processes. And by the way, this is the same fellow who told you this is going to end by Easter last time. This the same fellow who told you that, don’t worry, we’re going to end this by the summer. We’re about to go into a dark winter, a dark winter, and he has no clear plan and there’s no prospect that there’s going to be a vaccine available for the majority of the American people before the middle of next year.

Why would a U.S. president need to be involved in “transparency” regarding vaccine trials. Isn’t it likely that most of the vaccines will be developed outside of the U.S. and the results published outside of the U.S.? We don’t have a monopoly on pharma research.

An argument about who wanted to shut down China earlier ensues. Trump then makes my Your lockdown may vary point!

We can’t lock ourselves up in a basement like Joe does. He has the ability to lock himself up. I don’t know, he’s obviously made a lot of money, someplace, but he has this thing about living in a basement. People can’t do that. By the way, I, as the president, couldn’t do that. I’d love to put myself in the basement or in a beautiful room in the White House and go away for a year and a half until it disappears. I can’t do that.

(See Town and Country for photos of Joe Biden’s mansions, the first of which was a 10,000 square foot former DuPont mansion purchased in 1974 “as a young senator”.)

Biden succumbs to gender binarism:

That man or wife going to bed tonight and reaching over to try to touch their, out of habit, where their wife or husband was, is gone.

What about spouses with the 48 other gender IDs who die from the Trump-caused Covid-19?

How about young slender healthy American Progressives voting themselves into another year or two of lockdown in order to protect old fat unhealthy Republicans?

[12:33] Welker: OK, let’s talk about your different strategies toward dealing with this. Mr. Vice President, you suggested you would support new shutdowns if scientists recommended it. What do you say to Americans who are fearful that the cost of shutdowns, the impact on the economy, the higher rates of hunger depression, domestic and substance abuse, outweighs the risk of exposure to the virus?

[12:51] Biden: What I would say is I’m going to shut down the virus, not the country. It’s his ineptitude that caused the country to have to shut down in large part — why businesses have gone under, why schools are closed, why so many people have lost their living and why they’re concerned. Those other concerns are real. That’s why he should have been — instead of in a sand trap at his golf course — he should have been negotiating with Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democrats and Republicans about what to do about the acts they were passing for billions of dollars to make sure people had the capacity.

[13:21] Welker: You haven’t ruled out more shutdowns

[13:24] Biden: Oh no, I’m not shutting down the nation but there are, look, they need standards. The standard is, if you have a reproduction rate in a community that’s above a certain level, everybody says, slow up. More social distancing. Do not open bars and do not open gymnasiums. Do not open until you get this under control, under more control. But when you do open, give the people the capacity to be able to open and have the capacity to do it safely. For example schools — schools, they need a lot of money to open. They need to deal with ventilation systems, they need to deal with smaller classes, more teacher, more pods, and he’s refused to support that money, or at least up to now

Is Biden disavowing his previous promise to listen to the Science Karens and shut down whenever they say to do so? (CNN, August 22, 2020) Also, if the schools needed better ventilation systems (like my idea!) and they are under state and local government control, why weren’t they already installed over the summer?

Maskachusetts is featured! We had a powerful shutdown in mid-March, masked city residents starting in April, and a statewide mask law with high compliance starting in early May. We’ve been at least as successful as the early-shut early-masked Peruvians!

[14:46] Welker: Let me follow up, President Trump. You’ve demanded schools open in person and insisted they can do it safely. But just yesterday, Boston became the latest city to move its public school system entirely online after a coronavirus spike. What is your message to parents who worry that sending their children to school will endanger not only their kids, but also their teachers and families?

[15:04] Trump: I want to open the schools. The transmittal rate to the teachers is very small, but I want to open the schools. We have to open our country. We’re not going to have a country. You can’t do this, we can’t keep this country closed. It is a massive country with a massive economy. People are losing their jobs, they’re committing suicide. There’s depression, alcohol, drugs at a level that nobody’s ever seen before. There’s abuse, tremendous abuse. We have to open our country.

Trump is totally out of step with his cower-in-place fellow citizens! He hits many of the same points as “The COVID-19 shutdown will cost Americans millions of years of life” (The Hill) without recognizing that Americans now care only about COVID-19 deaths, not deaths or loss of life-years from any other cause. Biden is more aligned with the American people that I recognize:

[15:51] Biden: Simply not true. We’re gonna be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. We ought to be able to safely open, but we need resources to open. You need to be able to, for example, if you’re gonna open a business, have social distancing within the business. You need to have, if you have a restaurant, you need to have plexiglass dividers so people cannot infect one another. You need to be in a position where you can take testing rapidly and know whether a person is, in fact, infected. You need to be able to trace. You need to be able to provide all the resources that are needed to do this and that is not inconsistent with saying that we’re going to make sure that we open safely. And by the way, all you teachers out there — not that many of you are going to die, so don’t worry about it.

In other words, trillions of dollars have been spent so far, but if Americans spend another few $trillion on Plexiglas, we will show coronavirus who is boss. Biden is also in sync with American priorities. Marijuana and liquor stores are essential and can never be closed. Schools should be the last institutions to reopen. (Contrast to Ireland; in the most severe lockdown so far, everything is closed except for schools, universities, and adult education.)

For a guy who owns hundreds of $millions of NYC real estate, Trump is not going to be selected by the Chamber of Commerce to promote the city:

[16:39] Trump: I will say this, if you go and look at what’s happened to New York, it’s a ghost town. It’s a ghost town. And when you talk about plexiglas — these are restaurants that are dying. These are businesses with no money. Putting the plexiglas is unbelievably expensive, and it’s not the answer. I mean, you’re going to sit there in a cubicle wrapped around with plastic? These are businesses that are dying, Joe, you can’t do that to people, which again, take a look at New York and what’s happened to my wonderful city. For so many years, I loved it. It was vibrant. It’s dying. Everyone’s leaving New York.

Joe Biden doesn’t see color:

[17:34] Biden: Take a look what New York has done in terms of turning the curve down, in terms of the number of people dying. And I don’t look at this in terms of what he does, blue states and red states. They’re all the United States. And look at the states that are having such a spike in the coronavirus. They’re the red states.

In other words, Biden beats up the red states (not that he looks at states in terms of “red” and “blue”) for doing exactly what the

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A friend’s Facebook post:

Nate Silver’s project 538 gives odds for Trump vs. Biden as 17 vs 82 … I am not a glorified data scientist with a bunch of other data scientists developing predictive models for me, but I dare to make a risky prediction contradicting Nate Silver’s. My “data model” is pretty simple, it is based on very subjective observations that I know/observed quite a few people who didn’t vote for Trump in 2016, or even voted for Clinton, and who are planning to vote for Trump now. And I am yet to encounter one, just ONE case when someone who voted for Trump in 2016 is going to vote for Biden. It looks like a very one-directional flow of votes.
Of course, it is very subjective and prone to some selective bias – thus I am curious if someone-somewhere knows ANYBODY who voted for Trump in 2016 and is going to vote for Biden now.

As there is nobody here in Maskachusetts who will admit to having voted for Trump, I want to bounce this question to the readers in other states, preferably swing states. (Nobody’s vote matters here, since the candidates are either running literally unopposed (no other choice) or practically unopposed (outcome already known).)

Has anyone met a person who said “I voted for Trump in 2016, but now I prefer the prospect of President Biden/Harris”?

Maybe the real answer is that nobody changes party affiliation and the only reason elections have different outcomes is turnout?

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