The polls have been the same since the Democrats ran a black man for president, and won, twice, and then ran a woman, who lost, even if three million more people voted for her rather than that odd angry man with the orange hair. That’s the system. Gore won more votes than Bush. The system isn’t perfect, unless it is. The people who live in cities shouldn’t control things. They’re not Real Americans, as Sarah Palin once put it before she walked that back on the advice of her Republican handlers. Don’t throw away those urban votes! It gets tricky, but the polls never change. Everyone is always mad at those other people. It’s been a long time since Americans agreed on anything – that Hitler was a bad fellow and the Japanese really shouldn’t have bombed Pearl Harbor.
Americans might agree on staying alive, but the cost of staying alive is high, so the nation splits again:
Nearly three-quarters of Americans agree on at least one thing about the coronavirus, according to a new poll: The worst is yet to come.
A Pew Research Center survey finds that the majority of Americans don’t see an end in sight for the pandemic, with 73 percent of those polled saying that when it comes to the problems facing the U.S., the worst still hasn’t happened.
The poll also found that the public is overwhelmingly cautious when it comes to reopening the economy and limiting restrictions on public activity: 66 percent of respondents are concerned that state governments will lift public restrictions too quickly, while 32 percent are worried it won’t happen quickly enough.
So, a quarter of the country thinks that three-quarters of the country is crazy to worry so much about this coronavirus thing – that’s old news – and thus a third of the country wants those “sanctions” lifted right now. But we’ll all die! No we won’t!
Who do you trust about all this? No one agrees on that either:
As the death toll and case numbers continue to rise across the U.S., the survey also found that nearly two-thirds of Americans are critical of President Donald Trump’s handling of the pandemic. Sixty-five percent say he was too slow to take major steps to address the crisis, and 34 percent think his call to action was quick…
A little more than half of Americans, 52 percent, said that Trump’s comments about the outbreak are making the situation appear better than it is, whereas 39 percent said he is presenting this situation as it really is. Eight percent of respondents say he is making the situation appear worse than it actually is.
A clear majority doesn’t trust the odd angry man with the orange hair on any of this – on what he has (not) done and what he has said – so the clear minority here has decided to claim that they are the real majority in this case:
Across the nation, protests against the stay-at-home orders that health experts say are needed to save lives are taking place, with more set for the coming days.
This week, about 100 protesters gathered outside the Ohio statehouse in Columbus to push for Republican Gov. Mike DeWine to reopen the state. In Raleigh, more than 100 demonstrators gathered to protest Democratic North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper’s stay-at-home order, where at least one protester was charged with violating the order. In New York, a few dozen people gathered Thursday outside the state Capitol in Albany to rally for returning to normal. Kentucky, Utah and Wyoming also saw similar protests.
More events are scheduled for Pennsylvania, Virginia, Texas, Oregon, Idaho and Washington.
The largest took place in Michigan on Thursday, where police said 3,000 to 4,000 people showed up at the state Capitol in Lansing to protest Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s extended and expanded stay-at-home order, which was signed into law last week
These people are organized and these events coordinated and carefully staged. This is a national operation and somewhat embarrassing for the president:
Asked about the protests at his press conference Thursday, one in which he unveiled his administration’s guidelines for reopening, President Donald Trump said he believed the demonstrators would listen to him and added there is no daylight between his views and the governors when it comes to reopening.
“I think they’re listening. I think they listen to me,” Trump said of the protestors. “They seem to be protesters that like me and respect this opinion, and my opinion is the same as just about all of the governors. They all want to open. Nobody wants to stay shut but they want to open safely. So do I.”
These protesters may like him. They may adore him. But they don’t seem to respect his glowing opinion of what the governors have done. They seem to be showing him that he’s being a wimp and should man-up and say that all of this stuff with masks and social distancing and isolating “sick” folks – if anyone is really sick at all – is absolute bullshit. They want their old Trump back. This is a political thing:
The protests have had a tea party flavor to them, with demonstrators carrying “Don’t Tread on Me” flags and wearing “Make America Great Again” gear. Some have even waved Confederate flags.
“I’m only surprised they can tear themselves away from Rush Limbaugh long enough to go protest,” Philippe Reines, a former top adviser to 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, told NBC News.
Reines should watch what he says. Almost all of these people are armed to the teeth. A burst form an AR-15 might wipe that sneer from his face, but there is an argument to be made here:
“It made sense to prioritize public health for the past six weeks, but the accompanying economic devastation is bringing urgency to reopening the economy,” said Matt Mackowiak, a Republican strategist. “In states across the country, including Michigan, North Carolina and Kentucky, citizens are rising up to protest executive overreach by local and state officials.”
“Public guidelines are always best when they are made voluntary,” he added. “Government officials have a responsibility to persuade the public to respond to their requests. There is no question that in some cases, we are seeing egregious executive overreach, and I expect protests to expand and increase in the coming days and weeks.”
That’s all these people are saying. Persuade us. Make no rules. Make no laws. Issue no decrees. Persuade us. But that’s not happening:
This week, seven Northeastern governors announced a pact with the goal of creating a plan to reopen the region’s economy. A similar seven-governor pact was announced in the Midwest, while the three Pacific coast states announced such a group, too.
On Thursday, the Midwestern governors announced what factors they will consider when determining when to reopen. They included sustained control in the rate of new infections and hospitalizations, enhanced testing and tracing ability, sufficient capacity in the health care system to handle a resurgence, and guidance for best practices for social distancing in the workplace.
That’s not persuasion. That’s public health planning. Who are they to plan anyone’s life? That’s what angers people, but the Washington Post’s Paul Waldman sees more to this:
The social distancing backlash is here.
Like many such eruptions of anger, it’s partly genuine and partly fed by political actors with their own preexisting agendas – in this case, mostly to rescue President Trump’s imperiled reelection campaign. And it will get ugly.
Of course it will, because all politics are ugly now:
“It wasn’t really about the stay-at-home order at all,” Whitmer said later on MSNBC. “It was essentially a political rally.”
Indeed, the event was organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition. Though many protesters stayed in their cars, many others congregated on the sidewalks, making a point of not wearing masks. But some were wearing MAGA hats and carrying Trump signs, and Confederate flags appeared in the crowd (though I’m sure that was just about Michigan’s … um … heritage?).
But the details don’t matter. This was war:
After the Lansing protest, Fox News swung into action, praising the protest on multiple programs. A representative of the Michigan Conservative Coalition was interviewed on Tucker Carlson’s show Wednesday night, and then came back for another interview on “Fox & Friends” Thursday morning.
The unmistakable message being communicated is that stay-at-home orders are a leftist plot, and conservatives should be rejecting them. It’s all over right-wing media.
Fox News host and occasional Trump adviser Jeanine Pirro praised the Michigan protesters: “God bless them, it’s going to happen all over the country.”
Pirro’s colleague Laura Ingraham tweeted a video of the protest, adding, “Time to get your freedom back.”
Rush Limbaugh accused Whitmer of being a pawn of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.
Twitter troll and acting director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell posted a picture of the Constitution with the caption “signed permission slip to leave your house.”
That’s not what his boss, Donald Trump, was saying, but Grenell was helping Trump return to being himself again and win reelection:
The natural comparison to make with these efforts is the tea party eruption, and there are some points of similarity, including conservative media fanning the flames of anger and the overblown rhetoric about liberty. But the more useful comparison is to Donald Trump’s election itself.
Specifically, the way Trump’s campaign was built on the anger of working-class white voters, especially men. Like the protests against social distancing, it was based in legitimate grievances that were exploited by powerful forces on the right for their own political and economic ends. Those grievances were then channeled into an act – voting for Trump – that was primarily expressive in nature.
So this is the same thing:
Liberals are quick to attribute the white working class’s support for Trump to racism and xenophobia, and there’s no doubt they played an absolutely critical role. But it’s impossible to ignore the fact that when Trump told voters in Rust Belt towns that the “the system” was rigged against them, they had reasons to think he was right.
They’d watched for years as union representation declined, stable manufacturing jobs departed, health coverage grew more costly, and wages stagnated. The recovery after the Great Recession left many people no better off than before. Unemployment was low, but if the only job around is one at Walmart and opioids are ravaging your town, it’s hard to feel like everything is going great.
Trump spoke directly to that dissatisfaction – then layered on top of it a heaping portion of hate directed at immigrants, minorities and liberals. Never mind that “draining the swamp” turned out to be more tax cuts for the wealthy and making it easier for corporations to exploit workers and befoul already-struggling communities.
Many of his voters have chosen to ignore his actual agenda, so intoxicated are they with the idea of giving a giant middle finger to the forces they thought were holding them down.
And that may explain all of this:
The pain people are now feeling is even more acute. Twenty-two million Americans have filed for unemployment, wiping out a decade of job gains in weeks. In Michigan, roughly a quarter of the workforce is now unemployed, an absolutely stunning figure. None of us have seen anything like this in our lifetimes.
If you’re not sick and you don’t know anyone who has died, it’s natural to say, “Why are we doing this? Why can’t we go back to work?” Then along comes a bunch of Fox News hosts and conservative activists who tell you, “You’re absolutely right. You’re being forced to suffer needlessly. Those snooty liberals in their coastal cities who can comfortably work from home are just trying to screw you over.”
Why are we doing this? So millions of people don’t die, so your elderly parents don’t die, so you don’t die – that’s why – not that any of that matters now. Give that giant middle finger to those snooty liberals in their coastal cities – elect Trump again. That’ll fix your life! Or it won’t:
The solution being offered will only make things worse. Voting for Trump didn’t help people who live paycheck to paycheck, and defying stay-at-home orders will only give new life to the coronavirus, prolonging the pandemic and making it harder to recover economically.
But if Republicans can convince people that the only way to understand this crisis is through a partisan lens, they can tamp down difficult questions about Trump’s performance and minimize the political damage he’ll suffer, making it possible for him to win in the fall.
That might work. All the signs at all of these events say “TRUMP 2020” along with all the Confederate flags and folks waving guns. This is about him. A lot of people certainly will die, but this might work, and Kevin Drum adds this:
As always, the danger here is not so much Trump himself. It’s been obvious for a long time that he’s a sociopath who doesn’t care about – or maybe even understand – the consequences of his actions on other people. The danger is that the Republican Party, so far, is cheerfully going along with him. Even in the middle of a global pandemic that’s already killed more than 100,000 people, they are acting as Trump’s loyal spear carriers no matter how reckless or deadly he’s become.
Even after three years of Trump, I guess I didn’t believe that Republicans would truly go so far. But even the prospect of bodies stacked endlessly in mass graves hasn’t brought them to their senses. I guess at this point nothing will.
Perhaps so, and Trump is making sure that no one can blame him for anything:
President Donald Trump unveiled new guidelines on Thursday meant to help states loosen their social distancing restrictions, but in a retreat from his onetime claim of “absolute authority” to restart the economy, he told governors on an afternoon telephone call it was their decision on when and how to reopen.
“You are going to call your own shots,” Trump said, according to a person familiar with the conversation. “I’ve gotten to know almost all of you, most of you I’ve known and some very well. You are all very capable people, I think in all cases, very capable people. And you’re going to be calling your shots.”
And that’s that. Nothing can be traced back to him. No one can criticize his plan to restart the economy. He has no plan. And if anything bad happens now, well, that’s not his fault at all:
It was a turnabout from his Monday claim that “the President of the United States calls the shots” in how to ease restrictions that have kept most Americans indoors and forced closures of schools, restaurants, gyms and other businesses. And it was an indication that even as he tries to ease the country out of its virtual shutdown, Trump will place responsibility elsewhere should cases spike again.
After all, all he did was make some suggestions and point out what the states must do that he won’t do at all:
States should have the “ability to quickly set up safe and efficient screening and testing sites,” the guidelines read, and “quickly and independently supply sufficient Personal Protective Equipment” in hospitals.
That’s their problem, not his, particularly if they screw up. He reserves the right to sneer at them, but that’s not his problem. And the rest is pleasant little suggestions from mommy:
The phased approach encourages all individuals to continue good hygiene practices like washing hands and to “strongly consider” using face coverings in public. And the document encourages employers to enact social distancing, temperature checks, testing and sanitation practices in their workplaces.
The document “encourages” these governors. That’s all. Donald Trumps is not telling anyone to do anything. He was clear about that – “I said nothing.”
He doesn’t need to say a word. He’s with Calvin Coolidge on this. Silent Cal was a wise man. Say nothing. Trump knows that he can never be hurt by anything he doesn’t say. Silence never hurt anyone. Silence can’t hurt anyone. And it drives the press crazy, which he seems to think is pretty damned cool. No one can touch him now.
And that’s fine. The courts will take care of things. David Golove explains how that works:
Although strict social distancing measures have been in effect for only a relatively short time, lawsuits challenging them are springing up around the country. Typical is a case filed by the Blueberry Hill Public Golf Course & Lounge in Pennsylvania, claiming that Gov. Tom Wolf violated the owner’s constitutional rights by issuing an emergency decree shutting down all businesses not qualifying as “life-sustaining.”
That’ll work:
No doubt most governors (and mayors) view these suits as annoying distractions from the urgent need to steer their states through the unprecedented public health crisis confronting them, but nothing more. Unfortunately, they may be underestimating the magnitude of the threat, just as many underestimated the enormity of the threat posed by the virus itself.
The latest development – the Barr Justice Department’s intervention on behalf of a small Mississippi church against a city of Greenville public health order – should make that perfectly clear. How these cases play out will depend in significant part on how ideologically driven judges “interpret” the Constitution and laws in an area where there is little precedent to guide their judgments, and on public sentiment in different parts of the country.
But wait, that’s easy. Let everyone hold massive public church services and then fight this out in the courts:
Trump’s increasingly confrontational mode with the governors already sends an ominous signal that may influence the attitude of judges in the burgeoning litigations. Even before the Mississippi litigation, Attorney General William Barr piled on, expressing doubts about the governors’ use of emergency powers and forcefully stating his concern about the impact on the rights of Americans. In a Fox News interview, Barr said his department will “be keeping a careful eye” on whether states violate Americans’ constitutional rights through public health measures.
Barr’s Fox interview was clearly a shot across the bow and a signal of the Trump administration’s plan to use the courts to bring the governors and mayors to heel.
While the president’s dictatorial claims to “total” power over the states are clearly frivolous, the Justice Department has activated a more realistic strategy for bending the will of the states – litigation. Barr’s determination to bring the power of the federal government to back this kind of litigation is sure to provide ballast to courts inclined to intervene, especially the many judges who recently joined the federal bench as Trump appointees.
Let these judges end all of this stay-at-home and wear-masks-in-public bullshit, but that does present a problem:
Even more concerning, however, is the approach of a federal judge in Kentucky, Judge Justin Walker, whom Trump has nominated to a seat on the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Evidently taking his cue from the president and the attorney-general, Judge Walker unleashed a rhetorical fusillade against a local mayor for allegedly prohibiting drive-in church Easter celebrations.
Although, remarkably, the mayor had not actually issued any such prohibition, the judge, who refused even to permit the mayor to participate in the case, took the opportunity to excoriate him while also delivering a lecture on the constitutional freedom of religion and its application to what was in fact a hypothetical public health measure to curb the coronavirus.
This is getting tiresome. But the whole point of this is to give that giant middle finger to those snooty liberals in their coastal cities and elect Trump again. That’ll fix everything!
No, it won’t. Read the polls. No one can agree on anything. We’re screwed.
Just Above Sunset 