New Study: The Affluent Are in Denial About Their Class Privilege

Race is a continuing problem in America that has no easy solution.  Another growing problem is soar wealth disparity where a small portion of the citizenry owns much more of the nation's wealth than the vast majority of the rest of us combined.  The Republican Party's reverse Robin Hood agenda and efforts to usher in a new Gilded Age with modern day equivalents of the robber barons of old has only served to exacerbate the problem.  Nowadays, one has a far better chance for upward social mobility in Europe than in America and a number of studies have labeled Canada as the new home of the American dream.  What's amazing as the concentration of wealth has intensified and millions of Americans struggle to get by financially is that the wealthy refuse to see their privilege and the advantages it grants to them.  With luck and hard work some will still live the American dream, but many will not no matter their efforts.  A piece in Salon looks at the willful denial of so many of the wealthy.  Here  are excerpts:

Income is correlated with right-wing politics, meaning wealthier people tend to be slightly more conservative. While there is no singular reason for this, both history and observational anecdotes suggest that those with wealth and privilege tend to distort the reason they were so successful, chalking up their success to right-wing ideological canards like "hard work" — rather than admit they were helped by other social factors. (President Trump is a great case study, as he exaggerates the degree to which his father helped him build his empire: during the first 2016 presidential debate, Trump bragged that his father gave him "a very small loan in 1975," which he built "into a company that's worth many, many billions of dollars." That "small loan" was actually $60.7 million.)

Now, a new social psychology study has uncovered the extent to which this tendency appears to be pathological among the moneyed elite. Titled "I ain't no fortunate one: On the motivated denial of class privilege," the new study, which was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, found that those who were posed questions about their class privilege responded by "increasing their claims of personal hardships and hard work, to cover [their] privilege in a veneer of meritocracy." 

Dr. L. Taylor Phillips, a professor of management and organizations at New York University Business School, and co-author Dr. Brian S. Lowery, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University, wrote in their study. "Evidence of class privilege demonstrates that many life outcomes are determined by factors not attributable to individuals' efforts alone, but are caused in part by systemic inequities that privilege some over others."

The authors emphasized that, in the United States, people are conditioned to believe that we live in a meritocracy and to attribute success or failure primarily to one's talent and hard work. When members of the upper-middle or upper class are confronted with evidence that class privilege plays a major role in determining socioeconomic status, their self-regard is challenged. To maintain their sense of self-worth, they will exaggerate their own hardships or focus on the amount of work they do — even though class privilege does not preclude the reality of non-class related hardships and many people work very hard without achieving socioeconomic mobility.

All of the studies found that, when participants who came from class privilege were confronted with that fact, they tended to focus on their personal hardships and work ethic in order to protect their self-regard from facing the reality that much of what they owned was given to them through luck and systems of oppression rather than individual merit.

She said that the individuals studied will specifically claim that they work harder at their jobs and will point to struggles from their lives to make the claim, "'Oh, you say I have this privilege and that's unfair, but actually look at these other things in my life, they kind of counteract or they kind of balance it out. It's all a wash.'"

Dr. Phillips also connected this mindset to a tendency toward classist and racist beliefs. . . . Dr. Phillips explained, summarizing the mentality as arguing that "'I'm here in this position, someone else's in this different position. Rather than because the system is unfair or because I've benefited from something unfair, which would then threaten my self regard, instead it's easier for me to claim that there's actually some sort of difference between us that makes this all fair. . . . It's actually because this group is worse in some way, or this individual person is worse in some way.'"

In the study, Phillips and Lowery emphasize the importance of the meritocracy myth in creating these delusions.

"The ideology of meritocracy is woven deeply into the cultural fabric of American society," the authors write. "The very 'American dream' that attracts and attaches so many to America suggests that if one works hard enough, they can succeed, no matter their class or background. As a result, systemic inequity is a tricky subject for American psyches: while most Americans subscribe to meritocratic ideologies that abhor such inequity, many also benefit from inequities. To resolve this tension, we find that the class privileged specifically claim hardship and effort because these are symbols of merit: they help cover privilege in a cloak of meritocracy."

Until one admits they system is stacked in favor of the wealthy, real solutions will be difficult to achieve.

Amid An Economic Crisis Trump Wants to Lower Unemployment Benefits

Time and time again in the past working class and many middle class Americans have voted against their own economic best interest as they succumb to the GOP's siren songs or racism and Christian extremism. Now, with literally millions of Americans suffering from unemployment, Trump and his GOP sycophants in the U.S. Senate want to reduce unemployment benefits, providing yet another example of why voting Republican is insane for normal, working Americans. Should Trump and the GOP get their wish unemployed workers could see a huge reduction in benefits which might literally leave people going hungry or defaulting on their other bills (such as utilities). It's another example of the callousness of the GOP which, if successful, would force desperate workers back to work with employers who will be in a position to dictate Scrooge like terms. A piece in New York Magazine looks at the disturbing Trump/GOP agenda.  Here are highlights:

Most of the debate over a new coronavirus stimulus measure involves new assistance Democrats think the country needs that Republicans oppose on grounds that such past legislation as the $2.2 trillion Cares Act needs to be fully implemented before Congress takes further action. So it’s one party wanting to act, and another wanting to “pause” (except for the complication that Republicans really, really want a liability shield for corporations).

Trouble is, Republicans are also very interested in taking away an existing stimulus measure that many of them opposed in the first place — the enhanced unemployment insurance designed to keep low-income Americans from a disastrous drop in living standards in anticipation of a big boost in joblessness. There was a lot of fretting in the Senate that the $600-per-week federal add-on to UI benefits in the CARES Act might enable low-wage workers in poorer states to make more money on unemployment than they did in the jobs they had lost. That led to a floor revolt led by Republicans senators Ben Sasse, Lindsey Graham, Tim Scott, and Rick Scott to cap the payments at the level of past wages . . . . It failed to achieve anything like the 60 votes necessary . . . . but subsequently, Republicans troubled by all that extra money corrupting the morals of shiftless unemployment beneficiaries have been calling for “reforming” the measure.

Now it looks like [Trump] the president is joining those in his party who believe the unemployment check is too damn high. According to Seung Min Kim of the Washington Post, “Trump on Tuesday privately expressed opposition to extending a weekly $600 boost in unemployment insurance for laid-off workers affected by the coronavirus pandemic,” per three sources. It’s unclear whether Trump simply wants to cap or lower payments, or let the federal UI enhancement lapse altogether.

Either way, you have to wonder why [Trump] a president with no fixed philosophy of the federal government’s role in the economy would do anything to reduce stimulus efforts since a rapid recovery is generally deemed vital to his reelection.

What makes the UI issue different from other forms of federal stimulus spending, however, is that it’s precisely the sort of thing Trump’s CEO buddies probably care about just as much as free-market ideologues do. High UI benefits, like high minimum wage levels, threaten the fundamental power imbalance that serves as the silver lining for business owners during a deep recession. If they could get away with it, they might promote lower UI benefits —and minimum wages — in an emergency like this to ensure a robust buyer’s market for labor.

Trump’s own motives on this issue might be colored even more by his desire to declare the coronavirus pandemic over, and the economy in full recovery. You don’t need enhanced UI benefits if the economy is racing back towards full employment . . . . . At the earliest possible juncture, he’ll favor a resumption not just of normal life but of normal, pre-recession economic and labor policies.

Unfortunately, wishing the pandemic and its economic effects are over doesn’t make it so, and cutting off enhanced UI could make that happy day more remote, some economists believe: Come July 31, if the emergency UI top-up isn't extended, unemployed workers will effectively get a pay cut of 50-75% overnight.

But if “Mission Accomplished” is where Trump intends to pivot in the weeks ahead, he will have the eager support of Republicans who really do want to return to starving the federal government beast and enjoying all the deregulation the administration has quietly conducted as the hospital beds filled up.

Republicans Have Much to Fear and Rightly So

For reasons I will never understand the Republican Party sold its soul and jumped on the Trump bandwagon with once seemingly principled office holders shamelessly prostitution themselves to Trump - think Lindsey Graham - and, of course, Mitch McConnell ever pushing the GOP's reverse Robin Hood agenda. At this point in time as the pandemic continues and the nation's economy is on the skids, polls suggest that if things continue, November could be a truly horrible, but much deserved, comeuppance for the GOP at many levels.  The harm, if it occurs, will be self-inflicted and would mirror what happened to Virginia Republicans last fall.  Arrogance and a refusal to recognize the will and desires of the majority of citizens can lead to electoral disaster.  A column in the Washington Post looks at current polls that ought to have the GOP terrified.  Here are highlights:

Rarely have polls painted as consistent a portrait of President Trump’s and Republicans’ standing: Terrible. In multiple polls, former vice president Joe Biden has a comfortable lead nationally, and a small but consistent lead in battleground states ranging from Pennsylvania to Michigan to Arizona (!) and North Carolina. Needless to say, if the numbers hold and Biden wins Arizona, this will be a blowout election.

PRRI’s poll of battleground states finds, “Trump’s favorability in battleground states has dropped substantially since March, from 53% to 38%.” Non-college-educated voters, who previously were a key part of his base, are falling away. “Trump’s favorability among non-college graduates in battleground states has dropped 20 percentage points between March and April (59% to 39%), . . . . “Large declines are also evident among those living in battleground states (-15 percentage points), those age 65 and over (-14 percentage points), white Americans without a college degree (-12 percentage points), and white women (-9 percentage points).”

This does not mean Trump is a goner. It does not mean Biden is home free. It does mean there has been a considerable erosion in Trump’s support, making him look more vulnerable than at any time this year. One can cite a host of reasons why . . . . Trump’s constant presence and irrational, incoherent rants make him seem even less capable and sober.

However, Trump is not the only one who looks vulnerable. Republican Senate Republicans’ polls are dreadful. An internal GOP poll from Georgia shows, “Voters are evenly split on Trump, but [Gov. Brian] Kemp’s disapproval rating (52%) outweigh [sic] his approval rating (43%). [Republican Sen. Kelly] Loeffler is deeper underwater after grappling with an uproar over her stock transactions during the pandemic, with an approval of 20% and disapproval of 47%.”  This is Georgia, folks.

Republicans’ undiluted support for Trump, resistance to stay-at-home orders and refusal to come to the aid of their states and cities with adequate financial relief may be taking their toll.

Trump could recover if, for example, there is no second wave of coronavirus cases, the deaths abate quickly, and states are getting back to work by Election Day. If you find that unlikely, you are in good company. . . . . Economists are gradually worsening their outlook for the second and third quarters of 2020. In short, things may look worse a few months from now.

Even more damaging for Trump, he is unlikely to stop being Trump. He cannot give up his daily press fix (despite stories he was going to cut back), and we know he is not suddenly going to become the voice of reason and science. Trump will be Trump. And that’s the problem for him and Republicans.

In a stunning failure of leadership and governance, Republicans have been entirely unable to comfort the country and provide confidence they have a path forward. They may finally have exhausted the voters’ patience.

Is A New Great Depression And A Political Transformation Coming?

The GOP approach to the poor and unemployed.

Many red states are rushing to "reopen" after shutdowns for the coronavirus in part to try to jump start their economies but perhaps also to avoid citizens from realizing that failed GOP policies starting at the White House and spreading downward made America so unprepared for the pandemic and left so many Americans vulnerable to a financial disaster as soon as they missed their first paycheck.  The GOP's reverse Robin Hood agenda that has sought to establish a new Gilded Age even as the social safety net was eroded could result in not only a depression but also calls for dramatic change in America's economies/social system that throws too many to the gutter while the wealthy hoard an ever growing portion of the nation's total wealth. The pandemic has also put on display the problem with America's private health insurance system that relies far too heavily on employer based insurance.  With 30 million Americans now unemployed, the ranks of the uninsured have skyrocketed with employees with no ability to extend coverage under COBRA for the simple reason that they have no income.  A column in the New York Times looks at the ongoing financial catastrophe for so many and speculates on what the political repercussions might be.  Here are excerpts:

After more than a month of coronavirus lockdowns, [Andrew] Yang’s prediction [of America's need for a universal basic income] looks quaintly optimistic. “That obviously happened not in four years, it happened in four weeks,” he told me. “And it wasn’t 30 percent, it was virtually 100 percent.”

Many of those stores will come back — some have already — but analysts predict that thousands won’t. Jobs lost to automation during this time — in warehouses and supermarkets, among other places — are especially unlikely to return. Americans, increasingly desperate in lockdown, are going to emerge from this period into a transformed and blighted world.

Yang used to believe that we were five or 10 years away from seeing some version of his signature policy enacted. “Now I believe this is very immediate and could happen this year,” he said. Representative Justin Amash, who’s exploring running for president as a libertarian, is calling for a U.B.I. for the next three months. The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, recently said a guaranteed minimum income is “perhaps” worthy of attention. Last month Pope Francis spoke warmly of the idea.

Several candidates campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination on what Senator Elizabeth Warren called “big structural change,” and lost. Yet in a hideous historical irony, the end of the primaries has coincided with a calamity that necessitates an enormous federal response.

Covid-19 has killed more Americans than died in the Vietnam War and led to unemployment numbers that are likely worse than those during the Great Depression. Implicit in Joe Biden’s campaign was a promise of a return to normalcy. That may have always been illusory, but now it’s been revealed as an impossibility.

As we approach this year’s election, we’re looking at an abyss. The question is what will fill it. Societal disaster can have horrific political consequences: Around the world, despots are using the pandemic as an excuse to grab ever more power. But the need to rebuild the country comes with opportunities.

At this point, even many Republicans acknowledge that the era of small government is over. (“Big-Government Conservatives Mount Takeover of G.O.P.,” said a recent Politico headline.) In such an environment, ambitious progressive ideas that once seemed implausible, at least in the short term, start to become more imaginable.

“I do think there’s an F.D.R. moment,” said Senator Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts and co-author of the Green New Deal resolution, which calls for a huge new public works program to build environmentally sustainable infrastructure. “Like 1933 — which would be 2021 — we can see that it is now time to discuss universal child care, universal sick leave and a guaranteed income for everyone in our society.”

Unsurprisingly, mass unemployment — a particular catastrophe in a system in which most people’s health insurance is tied to their jobs — seems to have made Americans more supportive of New Deal-like policies. Figures from the left-leaning polling firm Data for Progress show that support for a Green New Deal has risen from 48 percent last May to 59 percent this spring. Backing for “Medicare for all” went from 47 percent in November to 53 percent in March, when coronavirus layoffs were just starting.

“People who were doing well at small businesses who have either lost their jobs or faced extraordinary hardship, and suddenly they are now having to confront the difficulties of being uninsured. They’re having to confront the challenges of the private health system.” Khanna sees a much broader awareness “of how uncertain economic life can be,” he said, which creates a bigger coalition for progressive ideas to improve the social safety net.

[Elizabeth] Warren and Khanna recently released a proposal for what they’re calling an “Essential Workers Bill of Rights,” which folds many longtime progressive labor priorities into a plan to address our current emergency. The proposal includes a mandate for free adequate personal protective equipment, hazard pay, universal paid sick leave and paid family leave, a crackdown on employers that misclassify full-time employees as independent contractors, and protections for union organizing.

That last part is important, because Warren believes we’re on the cusp of a new wave of labor mobilization. There have already been strikes, walkouts and other demonstrations across the country by workers forced to expose themselves to potential infection, including bus drivers, Amazon warehouse workers and employees at fast-food restaurants.

If so, it will echo what happened during the Great Depression. “This is what shocked everyone,” Warren said. “All of the economists thought the Great Depression in the 1930s would be the end of unions because so many people were unemployed and there was such a large labor supply, and unionization was going down during the 1920s. But that’s not what happened. In a time of great stress, more workers decided their only chance of survival was to come together and exercise their power through a union.”

Mass unemployment also makes some version of a Green New Deal seem like more of a near-term possibility, at least if Biden wins the presidency. During the primaries, Biden’s environmental proposals were generally more modest than his rivals’, but with the pandemic ravaging the economy he’s called for a trillion-dollar infrastructure program focused on green jobs.

The economy was always more fragile than the top-line numbers suggested; in some surveys a majority of Americans said they were living paycheck to paycheck before the coronavirus hit. But now the economy’s weakness is no longer a matter of debate.

Now, with so many of our assumptions about the way our country works collapsing around us, it’s progressives stepping forward with a set of answers they’ve been refining for years.

“We are going to be faced with a national rebuilding project at a scale that has never existed in our lifetimes,” said Yang. The biggest battle in politics now is over who will control that project, and whom it will prioritize.

If Republicans retain control of the U.S. Senate, it's a safe bet they will prioritize the wealthy as they have for the last quarter century.  If Democrats can win the White House and the Senate while holding the House of Representatives, then there is a chance that America;s broken economic system may see much needed improvements.

Large Restaurant and Hotel Chains Get PPP Loans While Small Business Receive Nothing

There's a reason Democrats sought to have oversight in how the small business Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) would be administered (they failed due to GOP intransigence) - they knew large businesses would swoop in like pigs at a trough and leave actual small business getting nothing.  Sadly, that is precisely what has happened as stories in the Orlando Sentinel and CNN Business are reporting.  Sadly, the GOP agenda of aiding the rich while leaving the poor and small business to wither goes on.  One large chain - likely fearful of a customer backlash - has said it is returning the funds, but most of the hogs at the trough have the attitude of screw the little guys and the mom and pop operations who most desperately need these loans.  Would that a list were published naming these large companies so that average Americans could boycott them for their greed.  First this from the Orlando Sentinel (note how many of these companies spent millions buying back stock last year):

The Pennsylvania investment firm that owns the Ritz-Carlton Coconut Grove in Miami has applied for as many as 48 taxpayer-backed loans under an emergency program meant to help the nation’s smallest businesses hang on to their employees through the coronavirus pandemic.

A Maryland hotel company that did more than $1.5 billion in revenue last year has applied for more than 50 loans — and been approved for about 10 so far.

And Winter Park’s Ruth’s Hospitality Group Inc. — the parent company of Ruth’s Chris Steak House that made $42 million in profits last year and spent $41 million buying back stock and paying dividends to shareholders — revealed Monday that it has received $20 million through two small business loans.

Across the country, hotel and restaurant companies of all sizes are tapping into the “Paycheck Protection Program,” the $350 billion fund that Congress set up specifically for small businesses as part of an overall $2.2 trillion economic rescue plan.

Midsized and large hoteliers and restaurateurs are qualifying for the potentially forgivable loans — more than one, in many cases ― under special rules written into the program at the request of industry lobbyists, who argued that hospitality businesses have been uniquely devastated by coast-to-coast travel bans, shutdowns and shelter-in-place orders.

And now — as congressional leaders negotiate another spending bill that would add $250 billion or more into the PPP program, which officially ran out of money by Thursday morning — hotels and restaurants are pressing lawmakers to loosen the rules around how they are supposed to spend that money.

They have asked to spend less of their PPP loan proceeds on wages for workers and more on other expenses, such as mortgage principal or franchise fees that get paid to larger companies like Marriott International Inc. and McDonald’s Corp. They want to wait longer before they must rehire employees who have already been furloughed or laid off.

Choice Hotels International Inc., the lodging industry giant that has franchised more than 7,000 hotels under brands like Clarion and Comfort Inn, has said it was one of the companies that lobbied lawmakers for that provision.

That exception is how a business such as Dave & Buster’s Entertainment Inc. has been able to apply for a PPP loan. The restaurant and arcade operator — which spent more than $300 million last year on stock buybacks and dividends — said in investor filings that it has applied for $10 million, the maximum amount for any single loan.

Other companies have applied for more than one loan, including Condor Hospitality Trust, which owns 15 hotels, including a Hampton Inn & Suites in Lake Mary.

That points to one of the problems with letting larger companies into a small business lending program when the there is only a finite amount of money to go around, said John Lettieri, the president and CEO of the Economic Innovation Group, a Washington-based think tank. Small businesses could end up getting crowded out of the only lifeline they have.

Small businesses and employees in general mean nothing to Congressional Republicans despite their lip service to the contrary.

CNN Business has additional coverage:

In fewer than two weeks, the funds in the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), a $349 billion stimulus effort heralded as a means to help the nation's small businesses pay their workers and keep their operations running, were exhausted. Proprietors like Richardson, however, didn't even get a taste of the spoils: Her rejection letter came midday Saturday. In recent days, it's been revealed how large chunks of the funds were gobbled up by chain restaurants, hoteliers and publicly traded corporations. "It's a reminder to small businesses that our voices are dampened," Richardson told CNN Business. "What are we doing this for? Why are we in business just to be told we're not good enough because we're not big enough?" As a result of a heavily lobbied exemption, larger food-service operations landed $10 million loans from the PPP. These include Potbelly (PBPB) Sandwich Shop and Shake Shack (SHAK), which has upward of $100 million in cash on hand, as well as Fiesta Restaurant Group Inc (FRGI)., the owner of Taco Cabana. Kura Sushi USA Inc (KRUS)., the largest revolving sushi chain in the US, disclosed a nearly $6 million loan. Operators behind the Ruth's (RUTH)Chris steakhouses and the J. Alexander's (JAX) restaurant chains received loans of $20 million and $15.1 million, respectively.
 Other small business owners, such as Liana Tremmel, fear their situations are growing even more precarious.
 The Chicago-area dentist, applied for a $46,000 PPP loan that would have helped to pay employees and get her Regency Dental Care back to fuller operations when stay-in-place restrictions are scheduled to lift in two weeks.
 When she heard the news that the PPP money had been depleted, Tremmel was crestfallen.

"You do everything by the book; you're trying to live the 'American Dream' and come to this country, work hard and do your part in the economy," said Tremmel, who emigrated from Romania more than 15 years ago to pursue a dental career and eventually purchased her own practice. "But when it's the other way around to help us in this crisis? It's not fair."

One can only hope that a full list of large companies who received these loans meant for small businesses will become available so that consumers can boycott them  and punish them for their obscene greed.

Why the Wealthy Fear Pandemics

There have been numerous stories of the very wealthy retreating from cities to flee to the country estates and - better yet if one owns one on one - remote islands - to escape the COVID-19 pandemic and crowded cities such as New York.  They seek to avoid the masses and potential infection.  But, as a piece by a historian in the New York Times lays out, the wealthy have another reason to fear a pandemic and the upheaval that it can bring: the masses demand a more equal playing field and a bigger piece of the economic pie - something Republican "reverse Robin Hood policies" strive to prevent.  At present, the verdict is out on whether or not the COVID-19 pandemic will cause a demand for economic change in America.  Rapidly rising unemployment (another 6 million workers are likely to file unemployment this week) may work against Republican regimes which have long sought to kick the unemployed to the curb or limit unemployment assistance to levels that do not allow for survival.  One can hope that the majority will say "enough" to the 1% sucking up more and more of the nation's wealth and that progressive changes will come.  Meanwhile, here are article highlights on the world's past experiences:  

In the fall of 1347, rat fleas carrying bubonic plague entered Italy on a few ships from the Black Sea. Over the next four years, a pandemic tore through Europe and the Middle East. Panic spread, as the lymph nodes in victims’ armpits and groins swelled into buboes, black blisters covered their bodies, fevers soared and organs failed. Perhaps a third of Europe’s people perished.

The plague returned a mere decade later and periodic flare-ups continued for a century and a half, thinning out several generations in a row. Because of this “destructive plague which devastated nations and caused populations to vanish,” the Arab historian Ibn Khaldun wrote, “the entire inhabited world changed.”

The wealthy found some of these changes alarming. In the words of an anonymous English chronicler, “Such a shortage of laborers ensued that the humble turned up their noses at employment, and could scarcely be persuaded to serve the eminent for triple wages.” Influential employers, such as large landowners, lobbied the English crown to pass the Ordinance of Laborers, which informed workers that they were “obliged to accept the employment offered” for the same measly wages as before.

As a result of this shift in the balance between labor and capital, we now know, thanks to painstaking research by economic historians, that real incomes of unskilled workers doubled across much of Europe within a few decades. According to tax records that have survived in the archives of many Italian towns, wealth inequality in most of these places plummeted. In England, workers ate and drank better than they did before the plague and even wore fancy furs that used to be reserved for their betters.

At the same time, higher wages and lower rents squeezed landlords, many of whom failed to hold on to their inherited privilege. Before long, there were fewer lords and knights, endowed with smaller fortunes, than there had been when the plague first struck.

But these outcomes were not a given. . . . . The policy choices that result determine whether inequality rises or falls in response to such calamities. And history teaches us that these choices can change societies in very different ways.

Looking at the historical record across Europe during the late Middle Ages, we see that elites did not readily cede ground, even under extreme pressure after a pandemic. During the Great Rising of England’s peasants in 1381, workers demanded, among other things, the right to freely negotiate labor contracts. Nobles and their armed levies put down the revolt by force, in an attempt to coerce people to defer to the old order. But the last vestiges of feudal obligations soon faded. Workers could hold out for better wages, and landlords and employers broke ranks with each other to compete for scarce labor.

Elsewhere, however, repression carried the day. In late medieval Eastern Europe, from Prussia and Poland to Russia, nobles colluded to impose serfdom on their peasantries to lock down a depleted labor force. This altered the long-term economic outcomes for the entire region: Free labor and thriving cities drove modernization in western Europe, but in the eastern periphery, development fell behind. But more often than not, repression failed. The first known plague pandemic in Europe and the Middle East, which started in 541, provides the earliest example. Anticipating the English Ordinance of Laborers by 800 years, the Byzantine emperor Justinian railed against scarce workers . . . . The doubling or tripling of real incomes reported on papyrus documents from the Byzantine province of Egypt leaves no doubt that his decree fell on deaf ears. None of these stories had a happy ending for the masses. . . . . In most European societies, disparities in income and wealth rose for four centuries all the way up to the eve of World War I. It was only then that a new great wave of catastrophic upheavals undermined the established order, and economic inequality dropped to lows not witnessed since the Black Death, if not the fall of the Roman Empire. In looking for illumination from the past on our current pandemic, we must be wary of superficial analogies. Even in the worst-case scenario, Covid-19 will kill a far smaller share of the world’s population than any of these earlier disasters did, and it will touch the active work force and the next generation even more lightly. Labor won’t become scarce enough to drive up wages, nor will the value of real estate plummet. And our economies no longer rely on farmland and manual labor.

Yet the most important lesson of history endures. The impact of any pandemic goes well beyond lives lost and commerce curtailed. Today, America faces a fundamental choice between defending the status quo and embracing progressive change. The current crisis could prompt redistributive reforms akin to those triggered by the Great Depression and World War II, unless entrenched interests prove too powerful to overcome.

Republicans Rage as Florida Becomes a Nightmare for Trump

Republicans Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis.

For more than two decades, the Republican Party has followed what I call a reverse Robin Hood agenda: take from the poor, working class and middle class and give to the very wealthy and big business. It is one reason America has such a lousy social safety net which was pathetic under good economic conditions and which the Coivd-19 triggered recession - some might argue depression - is proving totally inadequate.  Florida - a must win state in the 202 presidential election - is a case in point as the degraded unemployment system (which was further weakened by then governor Rick Scott to save big business billions of dollars) is on the verge of collapse.  Thousands cannot successfully file claims and those who do will find that the benefits they receive are among the lowest in the nation. A piece in Politico looks at the ongoing disaster that with luck will haunt Republicans in November 2020 and beyond. Many Floridians are going to learn that GOP pandering to their prejudices and/or religious extremism does absolutely nothing for them in a severe economic downturn.  Here are article excerpts: 

The staggering unemployment exploding on President Donald Trump’s watch would worry any incumbent running for reelection, but troubles in Florida are injecting an added dose of fear into a jittery GOP.

Already anxious about Trump’s chances in the nation’s biggest swing state, Republicans now are dealing with thousands of unemployed workers unable to navigate the Florida system to apply for help. And the blowback is directed straight at Trump’s top allies in the state, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Rick Scott.

Privately, Republicans admit that the $77.9 million system that is now failing Florida workers is doing exactly what Scott designed it to do — lower the state’s reported number of jobless claims after the great recession. . . . “It wasn’t about saving money. It was about making it harder for people to get benefits or keep benefits so that the unemployment numbers were low to give the governor something to brag about.”

Republican Party of Florida chairman Joe Gruters was more succinct: “$77 million? Someone should go to jail over that.”

With hundreds of thousands of Floridians out of work, the state’s overwhelmed system is making it nearly impossible for many people to even get in line for benefits.

The new online system was part of a series of changes designed to limit benefits. The ultimate goal — which it delivered on — was to lower unemployment taxes paid by Florida businesses. A 2011 analysis done by the Florida Legislature estimated that the changes pushed by Scott would save businesses more than $2.3 billion between 2011 and 2020.

Now, as thousands of people try to get help, the system crashes or denies them access. Nearly 400,000 people have managed to file claims in the last two and half weeks. It’s not known how many have tried and failed.

Most of those who do submit applications won’t qualify for aid, and the benefits that are paid out are among the most meager in the country — a maximum of $275 a week.

“Everyone we talk to in that office when we ask them what happened tells us, ‘the system was designed to fail,’” the adviser said. “That’s not a problem when unemployment is 2.8 percent, but it’s a problem now. And no system we have can handle 25,000 people a day.”

Rep. Charlie Crist, a Democrat who as a Republican governor led Florida through the last downturn, said the state’s current economic catastrophe could doom Trump in the state the president needs if he wants to win reelection.

“If unemployment continues to go up, and if so many people stay unemployed, it’s a nightmare for [Trump] the president in this state,” Crist said. “I should know. When I was governor and I was running for the Senate in the Great Recession — and there was nothing great about it — it was a nightmare.”

An adviser to Marco Rubio’s 2010 Senate campaign didn’t argue.

“We’ve got unemployed, pissed-off people. They can’t get benefits. And when they get them, it’s not going to be enough,” he said. “They’re there for the taking by the Democrats. We killed Charlie with the bad economy in 2010. Democrats are gonna repay the favor.”

Republicans in the Legislature share the blame, said Rep. Jose Javier Rodriguez, a Miami Democrat.

“Rick Scott is the most culpable human being when we look at who’s responsible for the failed system,” Rodriguez said. “But I don’t know of any Republican who resisted these efforts to make Florida the most Scrooge-like state in the nation.”

Millennials Have the Most to Lose If They Don't Vote

I grew up in a politically engaged family - family gatherings often ended up in running political discussions and debates - and, as a result I and my siblings (and my children) have always voted and often become involved in campaigns. Thus, I find it maddening that Millennials - the group that will suffer the most from reverse Robin Hood policies of the GOP and the racist agenda of the Trump/Pence regime - are among those least likely to vote. Yes, America's political system is seriously f*cked up, but not voting only makes the situation worse.  Indeed, if Millennials, blacks and Hispanics would vote in force, the GOP would likely be forced into a permanent minority position.  A piece in New York Magazine makes the case as to why Millennials need to bestir themselves and get out in vote.  Here are article highlights (share the piece with Millennial friends and family members):

The American political system has given young people plenty of cause for deleting its number from our phones, unfriending it on Facebook, and cutting it out of our lives completely in a fit of self-care.

Electoral politics promised us a democracy, then let the Supreme Court pick our president; vowed to protect us from terror, then sent our friends to die for the cause of birthing ISIS; seduced us with sweet nothings about upward mobility and “the knowledge economy,” then buried us in our parents’ basements under a pile of student debt; gave us hope that an audacious young president would make change we could believe in — then bailed out the banks, foreclosed on our families, and delivered us into a nightmare parody of all that he was supposed to save us from. And now this sorry excuse for a republic has the temerity to ask us to study its byzantine voting rules, slip out of a job we can’t afford to lose in the middle of a Tuesday, and wait in line for hours to choose between a feckless donkey and a psychopathic elephant.

But unfollowing electoral politics won’t make it disappear. And our political system will only grow more dangerous without your voice in its ear. So if you’re among the 65 percent of those ages 18 to 29 who plan to sit out the midterms, please consider the following five reasons to go to the polls.

1. Playing hard to get will get you nothing.  ➽ If you don’t like how a company does business, boycotting its products can (sometimes) be an effective means of forcing change, because corporations need your money to survive. But if you don’t like how politicians govern, boycotting elections will change nothing because the government doesn’t need your ballot to stay afloat. When left-wing millennials sit out elections, they don’t force Democrats to pay more attention to their interests; they make it easier for the entire political system to ignore their wishes by ensuring that no one in power will be worried about losing their support.
 2. The size of your voting bloc matters.  ➽ There are few things the GOP isn’t willing to do to please its donor class, but cutting boomers’ beloved benefits is one. AARP members owe this immense clout not to the militancy of their street protests or the wit of their Twitter owns, but to their singular propensity for showing up at the polls. If we followed their example, we’d have the numbers to make student-debt relief, public day-care, and any of our generation’s other policy priorities into a source of bipartisan consensus.

3. Voting for the lesser of two evils is great — that way you get less evil.  ➽ The Democratic Party is a deeply flawed institution, complicit in economic inequality in the U.S. and in unjust wars overseas. But if millennials had voted at the same rate as our parents in 2016, in all probability hundreds of thousands of longtime legal U.S. residents wouldn’t be in danger of losing the right to live here, thousands of child migrants wouldn’t have suffered the trauma of “family separation,” the Supreme Court wouldn’t have approved Republican efforts to disenfranchise nonwhite voters in Ohio and Texas or undermined reproductive rights in California, the Education Department would not be restricting access to federal-student-loan forgiveness while relaxing oversight of predatory for-profit colleges, the EPA would not be comporting itself as a lobbying arm of the fossil-fuel industry, the Treasury would not have forfeited hundreds of billions of dollars to America’s wealthiest taxpayers, and everyone the world over would have been able to continue ignoring the existence of the American president’s Twitter account.

4. You’re (probably) better informed about politics than the average American voter.  ➽ Many young people say they don’t “know enough about the issues” to vote. But we’re still far more in touch with reality than our elders. Millennials are more likely to accept that climate change is man-made, less likely to endorse prejudicial views of racial minorities and Islam, and far more liable to recognize Donald Trump’s unfitness for high office than any other generation of Americans. . . . . if more millennials voted, it would likely increase the salience of renters’ interests in U.S. politics. Similarly, the existing electorate is much less likely to comprehend the broader material challenges younger Americans face: Despite the U.S. doing far less for its young people (in subsidizing education, job training, housing, and child care) than just about any other advanced democracy, a majority of boomers say the government “does enough for young people” (but still needs to do more for older folks).

5. If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal — and they are. ➽ In 2008, young voters helped deliver North Carolina to Barack Obama. Shortly thereafter, Republicans in the Tar Heel State’s government revised voter-ID law to exclude student-ID cards. Eight other states have adopted similar restrictions. Just this year, New Hampshire passed a law that effectively imposes a poll tax on college students who wish to vote in the state, Florida’s Republican governor (and Senate candidate) Rick Scott tried to block early voting on university campuses, and state legislators in North Dakota have disenfranchised just about everyone who lives on a Native American reservation. Millennials may doubt their ability to effect change at the ballot box, but the powers that be sure don’t.

Please!  Encourage all of your Millennials friends and family members to go to the polls and vote DEMOCRAT. 

Democratic Voters are Angry and Energized

Trump, Ryan and McConnell: the triumvirate of evil.

While Congressional Republicans - actually, Republicans at most levels, including Republican Women's clubs - shamelessly prostitute themselves to Donald Trump and throw away any shred of credibility of supporting "Christian values," across the country, Democrat voters are angry and energized. What is fueling the energy?  As a piece in CNN points out, the number one sea anchor on Republicans is Donald Trump, the cult leader to whom the very same Republicans are selling their souls. And, as the CNN piece notes, none of the damage to the GOP flows from the Mueller investigation.   And if Trump's own foul personal behavior were not bad enough, his policies are alienating more and more citizens outside of hardened racist, religious extremist, and vulture capitalist circles.  A column in the Washington Post by a former Republican looks at the phenomenon.  For locals, UVA's Larry Sabato now has Virginia's 2nd Congressional district as a "toss up." - with luck we may be rid of Scott Taylor.  Here are highlights:

Republicans’ prospects for holding on to the House majority, already dim, have gotten bleaker of late. Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball notes: “We’re making 17 House ratings changes this week, all in favor of the Democrats.  … One of those comes in OH-12, where the last nationally-watched special House election is taking place in a couple of weeks.”

Large turnout in 2017 and 2018 special elections generated more enthusiasm, which in turned opened the campaign donation spigots. The availability of money and sunny prospects for Democrats encouraged solid Democratic candidates to run — and Republican incumbents to retire.

There are more specific factors as well: the failure of tax cuts to result in higher wages; economic pain inflicted by President Trump’s trade wars; the #MeToo movement (which gets energy with each Republican’s misogynistic insult); rising health-care costs (which in part can be attributed to Republicans’ assault on the Affordable Care Act); Republicans’ continued indulgence of Trump’s erratic, dishonest and unhinged conduct, coupled with a sense that Trump needs to be checked, not enabled; and the disgust felt by college-educated voters, women and millennials over Republicans’ assault on human decency (e.g. family separations, “dreamers”).

In 2018, voters will either want Congress to support Trump’s turn-the-card-table-over style of governing, or they want to see Congress as a check on Trump.” She [ Cook Political Report’s Amy Walter] finds, “Right now, polls suggest more voters want Congress to provide a check on Trump.” [V]oter intensity may be the most critical factor for Democrats. With each new perceived outrage (e.g., Trump’s betrayal in Helsinki, insults directed at Democratic women, the prospect of reversing Roe v. Wade, new lies about the Russia investigation), members of the Democratic base are reminded how desperately they want to end their Trumpian nightmare. If they cannot get rid of him in 2018, they can at least rid themselves of many of his enablers and apologists. For Republicans, the outrage machine seems to have played out. Each “Fake News” or “Russia hoax” tweet has less impact than the previous one; the inability to come up with new hot-button issues leads Trump to go back to tired retreads. (NFL players not kneeling!).

To put it in TV terms that Trump would surely appreciate, his presidency has lost its novelty; getting his fans to tune in becomes a chore — and everyone else would be delighted if the show got canceled.

House GOP Seeks to Cut Medicare, Social Security to Balance Budget After Massive Tax Cuts for Wealthy

While much of the American public is focused on the horrors and deliberate cruelty taking place on America's southwest border, House Republicans are conspiring to unleash cruelty on those who rely on Medicare and Social Security to survive.  The pretense for harming countless lives?  The need to cut the federal budget deficit which is hemorrhaging red ink in the wake of the $1.5 trillion (yes, trillion with a "T") tax cuts for the very wealthy and large, rapacious corporations.  It has been Paul Ryan's sick and morally bankrupt dream to destroy the social safety net for years, and now the massive give away voted in by Republicans is being grotesquely used to harm the poor and the elderly.  While Catholic bishops are condemning the Trump/Pence family separation policy, they might also want to bar Ryan from the sacraments given his utter disregard for the poor, the hungry and the sick. Trump cruel border policy did not arise out of thin air.  The GOP has been pushing a cruel agenda for many years.   A piece in the Washington Post looks ate the GOP's manufactured crisis and those whom they seek to harm.  Here are excerpts:

House Republicans released a proposal Tuesday that would balance the budget in nine years — but only by making large cuts to entitlement programs, including Medicare and Social Security, . . . .

The House Budget Committee is aiming to pass the blueprint this week, but that may be as far as it goes this midterm election year. It is not clear that GOP leaders will put the document on the House floor for a vote, and even if it were to pass the House, the budget would have little impact on actual spending levels.

Nonetheless the budget serves as an expression of Republicans’ priorities at a time of rapidly rising deficits and debt. Although the nation’s growing indebtedness has been exacerbated by the GOP’s own policy decisions — including the new tax law, which most analyses say will add at least $1 trillion to the debt — Republicans on the Budget Committee said they felt a responsibility to put the nation on a sounder fiscal trajectory.

Democrats have little interest in addressing it except as part of a larger deal including tax increases — the sort of “Grand Bargain” that eluded President Barack Obama.

The House Republican budget, titled “A Brighter American Future,” would remake Medicare by giving seniors the option of enrolling in private plans that compete with traditional Medicare, a system of competition designed to keep costs down but dismissed by critics as an effort to privatize the program. Along with other changes, the budget proposes to squeeze $537 billion out of Medicare over the next decade.

The budget would transform Medicaid, the federal-state health-care program for the poor, by limiting per capita payments or allowing states to turn it into a block-grant program — the same approach House Republicans took in their legislation that passed last year to repeal the Affordable Care Act (the repeal effort died in the Senate, but the GOP budget assumes that the repeal takes place).  It also proposes adding work requirements for certain adults enrolled in Medicaid. Changes to Medicaid and other health programs would account for $1.5 trillion in savings.

Social Security comes in for more modest cuts of $4 billion over the decade, which the budget projects could be reached by eliminating concurrent receipt of unemployment benefits and Social Security disability insurance. . . . And the budget proposes $230 billion in cuts from education and training programs, including consolidating student loan programs and reducing Pell Grant awards.

The budget also relies on rosy economic-growth projections . . .

Democrats were quick to criticize the GOP proposal while contending that Republicans were opening themselves up to election-year attacks by releasing it at all.

“The 2019 Republican budget scraps any sense of responsibility to the American people and any obligation to being honest,” said Rep. John Yarmuth (Ky.), the top Democrat on the Budget Committee. “Its repeal of the Affordable Care Act and extreme cuts to health care, retirement security, anti-poverty programs, education, infrastructure, and other critical investments are real and will inflict serious harm on American families.”

The farce is that the GOP pretends to be the party of "family values" and "Christian values" yet other than slavishly prostituting itself to hate-filled anti-abortion, anti-gay Christofascists, NOTHING in the GOP agenda is family friendly or remotely in keeping with the Gospel's social message.   

Trump’s War On Pre-Existing Condition Protections

As noted in the prior post concerning suicide, Trump and the GOP, but Trump in particular, is waging a war to kill the pre-existing condition provisions of the Affordable Health Care Act.  If successful, this will mean many Americans will lose coverage completely or face skyrocketing premiums.  Oh, and did I mention that almost anything can be deemed a pre-existing condition by insurance carriers who only want to accept premium payments but never have to pay out to their insureds?  With fewer and fewer Americans receiving health insurance through their jobs, this is a big deal and will cause significant harm to many already beleaguered individuals and families - especially among the GOP base.  Belatedly, some in the GOP are waking up to the danger of their handiwork in the lead up to November 218.  A piece in Talking Points Memo looks at the issue.  Here are excerpts:

Republicans were already worried that the nation’s health care woes could sink them in 2018. Now they feel like the Trump administration just tossed them an anvil.

The Department of Justice’s announcement Thursday night that it will take aim at Obamacare’s most popular provisions — a ban on insurance companies discriminating against people based on pre-existing conditions, and limits on how much insurers can hike premiums for older Americans — will be ammunition Democrats can use this November.

The long-shot lawsuit from 20 conservative states, now endorsed by the DOJ, argues that because Republicans repealed the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate penalty as part of their tax overhaul, the mandate itself can no longer be considered a tax — the basis on which the Supreme Court upheld it in 2012. And, the DOJ added, since the ACA’s rules on pre-existing conditions are “closely intertwined” with the mandate, they too must be struck down.

Republicans had begun growing hopeful that good economic news and some improving poll numbers might save them in the midterms. But they now fear that Trump has handed voters proof positive that his party doesn’t care about those with preexisting conditions.

“This is definitely the most popular aspect of the Obamacare legislation, and it clearly creates an opening for Democrats going into the final months of the election year,” GOP strategist Ken Spain, a former communications director at the National Republican Congressional Committee, told TPM.

Poll after poll has found that protecting people with pre-existing conditions is the most emotionally potent health care argument for voters. A survey conducted by the Democratic firm Hart Research Associates for Protect Our Care this past January and shared with TPM on Friday found that the issue was one of the most effective in the healthcare debate: 63 percent of voters had “very major concerns” and another 20 percent had “somewhat major concerns” with the GOP’s efforts to repeal pre-existing condition protections. Among independents, that number rose to 73 percent with “very major concerns.”

Now, thanks to the Trump administration, the issue is poised to come back into the headlines at the worst possible time for Republicans. Most insurers inform their customers about their new insurance rates in October, just weeks before voters go to the polls. Insurance rates were already set to rise next year, in large part because of Republicans’ repeal of the individual mandate, and insurers say Trump’s latest move could push premiums higher still.

“Removing those provisions will result in renewed uncertainty in the individual market, create a patchwork of requirements in the states, cause rates to go even higher for older Americans and sicker patients, and make it challenging to introduce products and rates for 2019,”America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), health insurers’ major lobbying group, warned in a Friday statement.

Now, a year later, after receiving significant political blowback for these repeal attempts, GOP lawmakers are once again in the hot seat as the Trump administration tries to use the courts to get rid of the ACA protections they were unable to abolish through Congress.

“If I were a House Republican I would have woken up to my morning newspaper and thrown it against the wall. He just made clear the thing they’ve done their best to hide from,” said Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson.

As Republicans squirm, Democrats are pouncing on the administration’s attempt to have the ACA’s most popular protections ruled unconstitutional. By Friday morning, candidates in competitive House and Senate races were blasting out statements on the legal filing and attacking their GOP opponents for siding with President Trump on health care policy.

With their eyes on retaking at least one, if not both chambers of Congress this fall, national Democratic groups are confident that the issue will be a major political liability for the GOP.  

“No issue is more personal than health care, and this is a perfect storm of two of the most personal aspects of health care coming together: skyrocketing premiums and the loss of protections for people with pre-existing conditions,” Tyler Law, the national press secretary for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), told TPM.

“Whoever tends to be disruptive on healthcare tends to get punished,” former Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), a former NRCC chairman, told TPM. “When Republicans come in and try to undo Obamacare, they’re being disruptive.”