The end game is, simply, the end

Conservatism is deadly. Which, according to some of them, is the point.

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos reports Kentucky has a Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear. The GOP dominated legislature has tried but not succeeded in stripping him of power. Tennessee’s governor is GOP Bill Lee. The two states got their first cases of COVID-19 at about the same time. Beshear took action. Lee did nothing for about a week.

Kentucky now has 63 cases and has done lots of tests. Tennessee has passed 300 cases from fewer tests and its growth rate is much faster.

Thank you to Democratic governors!



Dartagnan of the Kos community noted the nasty guy signed an order to invoke the Defense Protection Act, but admitted he hasn’t actually called on manufacturers to follow it. The DPA allows the president to order companies to manufacture certain products that are vital to the country. Right now that would be ventilators and masks.

This prompted Dartagnan to decry conservatism:

The nationalization of a few select corporations could have alleviated untold suffering among a huge swath of the American population, preventing an agonizing death for many of them, but there were people in this administration who believed it was more important to allow those same corporations the freedom to do whatever they want—including doing nothing, if they wished. They believed it was better to let thousands of Americans suffer and die than to repudiate—even for a moment—their “free-market” ideology.

This is the natural endgame of “conservatism,” because it is a philosophy that ultimately reduces the human condition to an afterthought. It is a philosophy that sells itself with fantasies about “personal freedom,” but the freedom being sold is really only the freedom for a few people to accumulate unchecked wealth. In the imaginary world that “conservatism” aspires to, there is no social compact and Americans are not responsible for each other. So for the vast majority of those who must live in American society, and who are not corporate CEOs or in possession of great wealth, ultimately the so-called “freedom” of conservatism amounts to little more than freedom to die. Boiled down to its essence, so-called “conservatism” believes that if someone profits even while another dies, that is simply the law of the jungle: fixed, immutable, and not to be questioned, certainly not by the government.

This is why instead of bold, decisive national action we see a president extolling the so-called power of cash-strapped state governors, while minimizing his own responsibility to do anything.
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The fact that this will happen--is happening-- right before our eyes and still nothing whatsoever is being done is the harshest indictment of “conservatism” that could possibly be imagined. Here we see revealed in all its ignominy a hollow and meaningless philosophy, a flimsy excuse dressed up in noble-sounding principles to justify raw, human greed. It does not adapt to crises because “crisis” implies shared responsibility towards others in the society. Its sole goal is to perpetuate itself, even as it leaves behind a wake of human carnage. And just like this administration, it can never admit when it is wrong.

I add that greed is another aspect of supremacy.



Sarah Kendzior, who studies authoritarians, doesn’t think it is just greed. She was asked if she figured out how the nasty guy and cronies are profiting from the disease. She replied:

Not sure immediate profit (like a virus patent, for example) is the key motive. The end game is, simply, the end. Mass death and economic breakdown make full autocracy easier, lets them steal resources, etc. It also fits agenda of admin religious fanatics like Pompeo, Barr, etc.

As for those saying “history will not be kind” Kendzior tweeted:

They don't care about a traditional sense of history or reputation. Folks need to grasp this point:

The people tweeting "history will not be kind" need to get a grip on the present. The crisis is not about reputations: it's about illegal and nefarious actions. What matters is what people do NOW, or we don't get history, because we don't get a future.

Commenter Hannover Fisk responded:

Respectfully: there is probably no one in the entire nation who cares as much about what people think of him as Donald Trump does.

Kendzior replied;

I understand what you mean, but his solution to that is not to win people over. It's to annihilate people, censor them, kill them, force them to praise him, force everything to revolve around him. There have been autocrats of similar bent. He's uniquely American, but not unique.

Jared Yates Sexton reminds us the fine lines the experts must walk when they line up behind the nasty guy for the daily virus briefing. It is a constant internal battle between trying to get useful information to the country while not contradicting the boss.

Listen. Authoritarians cannot stand experts as they are living proof the authoritarian does not possess all knowledge. They will sabotage experts, undermine them, and endanger everyone just to protect themselves.

I had posted before that the nasty guy can’t cancel the election. It is Congress that sets the date. His term ends at noon on January 20, 2021. Jennifer Cohn, who is an election security advocate, tweeted about an article in Slate:

Maybe Trump wants the situation to get bad enough that Republicans in the GOP-controlled states have “no choice” but to cancel the election and hand their 290 electoral votes to Trump?!

I read the article in Slate, which is by Mark Joseph Stern. Some of what he wrote:

But the Constitution does not require states to assign their electors on the basis of the statewide vote. It does not even require a statewide vote. Rather, it explains that each state “shall appoint” its electors “in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.” In other words, each state legislature gets to decide how electors are appointed—and, by extension, who gets their votes.
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Put simply, it is perfectly constitutional for a state legislature to scrap statewide elections for president and appoint electors itself. It would also be constitutional for a state legislature to disregard the winner of the statewide vote and assign electors to the loser. And because the Constitution grants legislatures the authority to pick electors this way, Congress cannot stop them.

Due in part to partisan gerrymandering, Republicans control the legislatures of 28 states. Collectively, these states have 294 electoral votes. Trump himself could not cancel the entire presidential election. But he could ask these GOP-dominated legislatures to cancel their statewide presidential elections and assign their electors to him. It’s doubtful that we will face this situation in November. But imagine a worst-case scenario: The election is approaching, and the coronavirus remains rampant in our communities. States are unsure whether they have the personnel and resources to hold an election. Congress has failed to mandate no-excuse absentee balloting, and many states have declined to implement it. Or the postal service is so hard hit that it cannot reliably carry ballots to and from voters’ residences. It’s not difficult to envision Trump’s allies in state legislatures assigning their states’ electoral votes to the president, insisting that these dire circumstances justify pulling a constitutional fire alarm.
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That shortcut to reelection would be profoundly anti-democratic. But so is the Electoral College itself, and we are still living with its consequences. Until both Republicans and Democrats agree to amend this Rube Goldberg machine out of the Constitution, it will remain a tool for autocrats to wield when they fear the majority has turned against them.

Michigan has gotten rid of gerrymandering! Yay! Effective … 2022.



And some good news. If we go down we’ll have safe fun while doing so. Marissa Higgins of Kos gathered stories of people who followed social distancing while still supporting each other. Things like singing happy birthday to an elderly relative from the bottom of a stairwell our outside the window. Displaying new children through the window. A bookstore that does curbside service through a person in a dinosaur suit. A neighborhood street dance with everyone the required six feet apart.