The Insanity and Danger of Trump's Base

I have been lucky enough to be able to work through the ongoing pandemic and keep at least one of our incomes flowing.  In doing so I have taken precautions: wearing a mask when meeting clients, washing my hands constantly, constantly sanitizing the conference room, door handles and the shared copier.  What has surprised me is the number of people - including some clients - who are not taking precautions and in the process endangering not only themselves but others as well.  Yet these people are nothing compared to Donald Trump's vicious base some of who have assaulted and even killed those who have asked them to wear masks or social distance - this morning CNN is reporting a Target worker received a broken arm from one such belligerent individual. It goes without saying that Trump is urging these "good people" and "freedom fighters" to protest restrictions and view those who seek to follow them as enemies of "real Americans."  Meanwhile, far right groups are fanning the myth that the pandemic is a hoax.   One cannot help but wonder how these people became so horrible, easily manipulated, and so utterly contemptuous of the safety of others.  A column in the New York Times looks at this frightening element in America.  Here are excerpts:

I’ve heard of Muslim women in America being taunted for wearing hijabs, I’ve heard of Jewish men being mocked for wearing yarmulkes and now I’ve heard it all: A friend of mine was cursed by a passing stranger the other day for wearing a protective mask.

There is, of course, a rather nasty virus going around, and one way to lessen the chance of its spread, especially from you to someone else, is to cover your nose and mouth. Call it civic responsibility. Call it science.

But science is no match for tribalism in this dysfunctional country. Truth is whatever validates your prejudices, feeds your sense of grievance and fuels your antipathy toward the people you’ve decided are on some other side.

And protective masks, God help us, are tribal totems. With soul-crushing inevitably, these common-sense precautions morphed into controversial declarations of identity.

“Wearing a mask is for smug liberals. Refusing to is for reckless Republicans.” That was the headline on a recent article in Politico by Ryan Lizza and Daniel Lippman that noted that “in a deeply polarized America, almost anything can be politicized.”

On Monday the White House belatedly introduced a policy of mask-wearing in the West Wing — but it exempted President Trump. See what I mean about mask as metaphor? Trump demands protection from everybody around him, but nobody is protected from Trump. Story of America.

My friend was standing on a street corner in the center of a small town in New York. The state has decreed that people wear face coverings if they’re in public settings where they can’t be sure to stay six feet or more away from others. So my friend was following the rules, as were her two companions. All three of them were masked.

And a man driving by shouted a profanity at them.

Just two words. Just two syllables. You can probably guess which.

How did she know their masks were the trigger? She said that nothing else about the three of them could possibly have drawn any particular notice and judgment and that she’d encountered other evidence of objection to lockdowns, social distancing and masks in this relatively rural and relatively conservative area.

One man, she said, has been standing outside the local post office, yelling about government oppression and handing out fliers.

It’s not just her town. “Mask haters causing problems at retail establishments,” read a recent headline in the Illinois political newsletter Capitol Fax, which presented a compendium of reports from merchants around the state, including one in Dekalb who said that a customer wearing what looked like a hunting knife refused to follow Illinois directives and wear a mask. Priorities.

When [Trump] the president visited Phoenix a week ago, some residents who’d turned out to see him harangued journalists in masks, “saying how we’re only wearing masks to instill fear,” . . .

Outside the State Capitol in Sacramento two days later, a woman held a sign that said: “Do you know who Dr. Judy Mikovits is? Then don’t tell me I need a silly mask.”

Mikovits is a discredited scientist whose wild assertions and scaremongering regarding vaccines have made her a hero to conspiracy theorists and a social media and YouTube star. Naturally, masks factor into her repertoire.

And masks are emblems, maybe the best ones, of the Trump administration’s disregard for, and degradation of, experts and expertise. Last month, when Trump announced that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was recommending the use of masks, he went out of his way to make clear that he wouldn’t be wearing one and that no one else was obliged.

Those of us with masks on our faces or masks in our pockets, at the ready, are definitely doing what’s right, but we’re also making our own statements. . . . . I take my own tiny role in vanquishing this pandemic seriously. Rugged individualism ends where dying on this breathtaking scale begins. There’s liberty and then there’s death.

I’ve often heard that this once-in-a-generation crisis will bring us together, making us realize how much we need one another.

But it may well be driving us farther apart. Income inequality hasn’t been writ this large and gruesomely in decades. Red state vs. blue state and rural vs. urban tensions steer politicians’ and the public’s actions and words.

And a potentially lifesaving accommodation is a badge of so much — of too much — more. Masks have unmasked immeasurable distrust in America. Who’s working on the vaccine for that?

The Morbid Ideology Behind "Reopen America" Protests

As several posts have noted, the protests to "reopen America" are supposed to give the impression that they are "grassroots" and "spontaneous" actions of patriotic Americans.  Sadly, the mainstream media - especially TV networks - gives them coverage and never looks behind the facade.  In reality, the protests trace to billionaires and money interests (with help from white supremacists) that have funded their organization and manipulated those aggrieved by  the loss of white status/privilege as they are about the economic shutdown.   The goals of the behind the scenes backers?  Actually, there are several, one being to distract from the Trump/Pence regimes utter bungling of the federal government response to the pandemic. Another is to distract attention from the GOP's agenda of A piece in New Republic looks at this malignant ideology behind the protests which in true GOP/right wing form use racism and resentment to play those who have suffered most because of GOP policies.  Here are excerpts:

Photos of the small “reopen America” protests, which have made the rounds on social media over the past week, have revealed a spectacle as cartoonish as it is macabre: a rogue’s gallery of right-wing groups coming together to share in the spirit of defiance and, presumably, tiny droplets of mucusfar right  and saliva. The protests (and their backing by deep-pocketed funders) invited many comparisons to the Tea Party movement of a decade ago. Unlike that movement, these small protests are likely to die out soon. Nevertheless, they have captured something vitally important about how the right is responding to this fraught moment in our recent history.

As jobless claims have soared past an astonishing 26 million with no end in sight, the Covid-19 pandemic may well push the United States into a profound and long-lasting economic crisis. . . . The onset of this immiseration has begun to propel bold ideas and movements from the left to demand a reorganization of the economy and a fundamental shift in political power. But the right is swiftly establishing its own morbid template for how to interpret and respond to both the pandemic and its economic effects.

Republican politicians and right-wing pundits endlessly echo a central claim: “The cure is worse than the disease.” In other words, you can either risk dying from the virus or face certain economic ruin, as if there are no other choices. Their hope is that people already conditioned by an ideology centered on the marketplace, the individual, and the nation will be more likely to believe that their lives and livelihoods are under greater threat from state-ordered economic shutdowns and coercive social measures than they are from the disease. For them, the idea that Covid-19 could ultimately be overcome–even if at great human cost–by working and shopping is more appealing, and even more imaginable, than a new politics of mutuality that might redistribute power and resources in an egalitarian way.  

Recall the Tea Party’s origins during the Great Recession. . . . . Those two animating features of the movement—anti-black racism and opposition to the Affordable Care Act—defined a movement that in essence chose investments in whiteness over the assurance of at least some semblance of health care.

This was followed in the 2016 election by a Republican candidate who surged among voters who had high levels of racial resentment, strong feelings of political powerlessness, and growing economic anxiety (regardless of income level). Donald Trump . . . . demonizing Latinos, immigrants, Muslims, black protesters, and foreign rivals. All of this set the stage for how the right would come to respond to the current pandemic.

The rhetorical oppositions of work to welfare, self-reliance to dependence, individual to state, citizen to foreigner—oppositions animated by race, gender, and class—run deep in American political culture. All are reflected in the politics of the pandemic right now, making for a grim political vision of American freedom.

The dozen or so Republicans in the House of Representatives refusing to wear masks when called to vote on the latest coronavirus relief bill performed precisely that kind of political theater for their constituents. It is meant as a tough-guy taunt, to show their own robustness and the weakness of their opponents. But it also reveals something more pathological. The risky behavior demonstrates vitality precisely because it tempts fate, suggestive of Freud’s death drive, which he described as a force “whose function is to assure that the organism shall follow its own path to death.”

There is now a well-documented relationship between whiteness, status, and morbidity. . . . . over the last few years, there have been long-term increases in “deaths of despair”—overdoses, suicides, alcohol-related fatalities—among middle-aged whites without college degrees. There is much yet to be understood about reasons for this phenomenon, but a sense of the declining status of whiteness appears tightly connected to collective self-harm.

Demands to reopen states provide great cover for the Trump administration, the Republican Party in Congress, red state governors, and the Federal Reserve, who are working to keep current wealth stratifications in place and protect the rich from economic harm—and doing so without much pushback from Democrats. As conditions become more dire, the right will do all it can to enlist the loyalty of middle- and working-class victims of the crisis. Here, the logics of race and nation will become increasingly important.

Many of the demonstrators at the recent protests, repeating Fox News talking points, focused their ire on urban America . . . and beneath it, the racial demonization of black and brown denizens of cities. It is this sentiment that gives cover to Republican resistance to federal spending when couched in language like Mitch McConnell’s opposition to “blue state bailouts.”

Within the Trump administration, the nationalist tide continues to rise. . . . . Defenders of the current political order will continue to do whatever is necessary to protect wealth and privilege. They understand that to address the enormity of the economic crisis would upend the neoliberal consensus of this second Gilded Age, which has greatly enriched a few while systematically dismantling public goods, disempowering workers, and diminishing democratic rule. Their hope is that enough Americans go along with this resistance, even if it kills them. 

Try as I might, I find it difficult to have any empathy for the participants in these protests, not the least because so many are motivated ultimately by racism.  In addition, they refuse to look at themselves as a major cause of their own plight.  Many rejected education, have embraced ignorance, and have supported right wing politicians - like Trump - who have worked against their financial interests. Because of their own bad decisions in many cases they feel their skin color is their only claim to privilege.

Southern GOP Governors Create a Covid-19 Coalition and Experts Fear a '"Perfect storm"

Georgia Gov. Kemp gambles lives of constituents.

In a televised "town hall" meeting this evening Virginia Governor Ralph Northam responded to various questions and explained why he was in no rush to reopen Virginia's economy and intended to remain mindful of the recommendations of medical experts.  Northam's approach is at sharp odds with that  of a reported coalition of Southern governors who are seemingly more concerned with staying in the good graces of Der Trumpenführer and the white supremacist, Neo-Nazis and anti-vaccine extremist now protesting in various state capitals against social distancing and stay at home orders.  The recommendations of medical experts is being ignored and these GOP politicians are not only gambling with their political careers but also the lives of their states' residents if there is a second wave of Covid-19 - which could be even worse - for failure to continue policies that have been working.  A piece in Politico looks at the situation and what could prove to be a deadly gamble. Here are article highlights:

Republican governors across the Southeast are teaming up to reopen the region’s economy, even as they lack the testing to know how rapidly the coronavirus is spreading.

One health expert called the political decision a “perfect storm” for the virus to reassert itself.

The newly formed coalition includes Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi, a part of the country that has underfunded health systems, as well as high rates of obesity, diabetes and other illnesses that amplify the deadliness of the coronavirus.

And unlike their peers in New York, New Jersey and other Northeastern states that have been working cooperatively since last week to restart their economies, the six in the South have lagged on testing and social distancing measures.

“If you put these states together, there is a perfect storm for a massive epidemic peak later on,” said Jill Roberts of the University of South Florida’s College of Public Health. “The Southeast region is not known for having the best health record. Diabetes and heart disease come to mind. I am very concerned about how our states will do it.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis mentioned the move Tuesday on "Fox & Friends," but there was no formal announcement or much communication from other states involved.

“We have had a meeting with all the Southeastern governors — Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and Tennessee,” DeSantis said. “And we shared a lot of ideas. I think we will be the same page on some stuff.”

As of Tuesday morning, the six states had collectively tested about one-tenth of 1 percent of their total populations. Mississippi, which ranks 15th nationally in testing, had the group’s best testing rate at 1.7 percent of its population. Georgia was the lowest, with a testing rate of less than one one-hundredth of 1 percent, or 42nd in the country, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

Southern governors, most of whom have built political careers on small-government conservatism, are driving, by contrast, to restart their economies and get people back to work, even as infections mount.

Southern governors, including DeSantis, point to their slowing rate of increases of positive tests and falling numbers of hospitalizations.

Dr. Aileen Marty, a pandemic and infectious disease expert at Florida International University, said gains made through social distancing and other precautions are good signs, but not the signal to loosen efforts that Southern governors think they are.

“They are heavily Republican with social conservatives who are all of a like mind,” Marty said. “They are tempting fate by having the virus out and about among us, but if they don’t do it in a controlled way, we will again be back in situations of overwhelmed hospitals and more people dying.”

Georgia drew national attention — and some ridicule — after Republican Gov. Brian Kemp said Monday that he would allow bowling alleys, gyms, nail salons and massage therapists to reopen on Friday, and let theaters show movies starting Monday, even as he admits the number of cases is likely to grow.

Roberts, with the University of South Florida, called the move fraught with peril. “I kind of enjoyed Gov. Kemp’s talk about reopening these places with ‘screening.’ He did not say testing. That capacity does not exist,” Roberts said. “My guess is he meant taking temperatures, which as we know is pointless,” because asymptomatic people can carry and spread the coronavirus.

Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb was equally blunt.
“Gyms, nail salons, bowling alleys, hair salons, tattoo parlors,” he said Tuesday on CNBC. “It feels like they collected a list of the businesses you know that were most risky and decided to open those first.”