Walk with us

I didn’t listen to NPR this afternoon (though I did this morning). I decided it would all be protest news and I would rather continue work in the garage while the sun was shining and the air was rather cool (high of 70F today). Even so there is protest news to share.

The vice nasty guy tweeted:

We believe in law and order in this Country. We condemn violence against property or persons. We will always stand for the right of Americans to peacefully protest and let their voices be heard.

I noticed, as did others, that property was put before people. Cara Zelaya tweeted a thread about the phrase “law and order.”

Let's have a little history lesson about the dog-whistle that is the phrase "law and order." When people in positions of power spout the phrase "law and order" you can be pretty confident that they are white-supremacists.

Nixon used it in his 1968 campaign to reassure white people after the riots after the death of MLK. Reagan used it before then in California. He got it from the 1953 movie of that name in which he starred.

In 1964 Goldwater ran against that year’s Civil Rights Act. He lost badly. Nixon still wanted to appeal to the racists of the south – the Southern Strategy – so used this dog whistle.

And that's pretty much why The South is still considered Republican territory. Because the GOP continues to run candidates in that area of the country that do coded-appeals to folks who are racist!

The next time you hear someone say "law and order" perk your ears up and remember that that phrase has a long history of racism, hatred, and bigotry attached to it. They don't want peace, they want white supremacy.

Activist Tamika Mallory was with social justice advocates at a news conference in Minneapolis. First, she pushed back against the claim that most cops are great, there’s just a few bad apples (the phrase that gets used a lot). Said Mallory:

This is a coordinated activity happening across this nation, and so we are in a state of emergency. Black people are dying in a state of emergency. We can not look at this as an isolated incident.

Then concluded with:

Don’t talk to us about looting. Y’all are the looters. America has looted Black people. America looted the Native Americans when they first came here. So looting is what you do. We learned it from you. … The violence was what we learned from you. So if you want us to do better, than damnit you do better.

This is how you do it. In sharp contrast to police around the country who appear to be contributing to the violence… In Flint, Michigan protesters marched to Police Headquarters. The police had on riot gear. The protesters sat to show they were non-violent. Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson, who is white, took off his helmet, set down his batons, took off his riot gear, and asked “What do you need from the police?”

They answered, “Walk with us.” He did.

No one arrested. No one hurt. No damage. The way it’s supposed to be. Thank you, sir.

The race war they’ve long been itching for

There were more protests in Minneapolis and several other big cities again last night. Walter Einenkel of Daily Kos rounded up comments and tweets. He reminds us that the protest wasn’t just because of the death of George Floyd this week, he gives us a long list of names of black people killed by white people, mostly police.

Einenkel included a thread by tracy to add some context:

black people riot when their anger over being murdered and oppressed reaches a boiling point.

here are some fun reasons why white people have rioted:

their sports team loses

their sports team wins

their sports team's coach leaves to coach somewhere else

they were told they couldn’t party anymore

pumpkins [references a New Hampshire pumpkin festival]

they don’t like straw hats [the 1922 Straw Hat Riot]

because their sports coach left after he covered up child molestation

surfing [at the opening of a surfing store]

cabbage patch kids

black people wanted education [1962 riots over the first black student at University of Mississippi]

& most glaringly of all, because black people were prospering and doing just fine without them. [Tulsa race massacre in 1921]

Einenkel included that protesters caused a notable bit of destruction. The cops that caused the death were from the Third Precinct. Protesters stormed the place (staff fled) and then set it on fire, destroying it. Liz Dwyer tweeted:

This guy on CNN just said there need to be “real consequences” for people burning down the 3rd Precinct. Kinda seems like the people were waiting for “real consequences” for an officer killing a black man but …

Mark Sumner of Kos reported a bit on riots in other cities. He also wrote the Pentagon has ordered soldiers to prepare to deploy to Minneapolis. Sumner ends by writing:

It didn’t start with George Floyd, or with Eric Garner, or with Michael Brown, or even with Rodney King. The protests that followed those events were points in which the community reached a breaking point; in which it was no longer possible to remain silent.

And this time, like every time, there are plenty of white Americans ready to blame the protesters for venting their anger, rather than doing one damn thing about the source. Because this time, like every time, those same Americans count on the Black community to sit down, shut up, and take it — even if that means calling in the military.

In a separate article Sumner collected tweets, some with video, showing that at least some, perhaps most, of the property damage of these riots was not caused by black people, but by white supremacists taking advantage of a situation where black people would be blamed – leading, they hope, to the race war they’ve long been itching for.

Sumner linked to a thread by Joy Reid who wrote:

Remarkable info coming out of this presser: Gov. Tim Walls, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and now MN attorney general Keith Ellison ALL alleging outside forces, domestic and possibly foreign, have post-Tuesday infiltrated the state, and are in organized fashion setting fire to historic businesses in communities of color, and causing mayhem.
...
Mayor Carter said EVERY person arrested last night during the protests was from out of state. The governor said it is at least 80 percent, and that they will begin releasing the names. Dept of Safety Commissioner John Harrington says they are contract-tracing arrestees. He adds that white nationalist groups are posting messages promoting going to Minneapolis to “get our loot on” and cause mayhem.
...
This is now a story not just about grief, anger, protest, George Floyd and Black Lives Matter, it’s about infiltration and deliberate mayhem inflicted on the very communities that are hurting — both because of police brutality, and due to covid—per the mayor 1,000 deaths to date.

Yesterday after writing about the spreading riots and the possibility of the military getting involved I felt fearful and wondered if this would be the nasty guy’s Reichstag fire moment. Sumner was thinking the same thing. He explains the term:

Just a month after Adolph Hitler was sworn into power, an arson attack on the home of the German parliament was swiftly blamed on “communist agitators” and used as an excuse to silence, imprison, or murder those whose political positions fell to the left of Nazism. But many historians believe, based on very good evidence, that the fire was actually set by the Nazis themselves, to provide justification for going after other political parties.

Concluded Sumner:

Is this a Reichstag fire moment? Of course it is. Just like every moment, of every day, watching democratic institutions wither and die under Donald Trump.

The news has been full of the 40 million people who have become unemployed in the last two months (well, that’s how many successfully applied for unemployment). Many people have noted over the years that in chaotic times the rich manage to get richer. As is happening now. Einenkel discusses a CNBC report that from mid March to mid May Bezos is richer by $34.6 billion. Yeah, some people consider $34.6 billion to be a pretty fabulous stash – and for him that’s just two months take. Zuckerberg pocketed $25 billion. And American billionaires together added $434 billion.

Yeah, a few lost money – pocket change really – such as Ralph Lauren’s fortune dropping from $5.7 to $5.6 billion.

Back to that net increase of $434 billion. That money could be used to give everyone in the US – adult and child – a $1200 check and still have $50 billion left over.

Their goal isn’t to simply amass a huge fortune. Their goal is to keep that money out of the hands of the lower classes.



I’ve mentioned Bill of Portland, Maine and his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos. His style is usually snarky. But yesterday he did something different. He took his dog for a walk and while they rambled he took photos of signs of encouragement in windows and elsewhere. Bill, who is gay, included a sign in a rainbow of colors that says:

In this home, we believe…
Love is love
Water is life
Black lives matter,
Climate change is real
No human is illegal
Religious diversity is valuable
All genders are whole, holy & good
Women have agency over their bodies

Chaos favors power

Minneapolis had three nights of protest (some with looting) and bracing a for a fourth. The protests were because a cop put his knee on a black man’s neck, causing the man to die.

Quite early this morning Omar Jimenez, a black-Latino CNN reporter, was arrested by Minnesota state police, while his crew’s camera filmed the arrest. Of course, being filmed didn’t stop the city police from killing the black man. Those who have seen the film say it could only be deliberate. CNN reporter Josh Campbell, who is white and working just a couple blocks away, was treated with respect.

The officer with the deadly knee was fired within a day of the incident. He has now been charged with murder and manslaughter.

The nasty guy jumped into the fray, tweeting that the protesters are “THUGS” (a loaded term). Twitter hid the tweet because the language fed the violence. That (and a couple instances of Twitter flagging his lies) has the nasty guy now raging at big tech and trying to use an executive order to attack them. Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos says the white supremacy the nasty guy is spewing is official White House policy.

Leslie Mac tweeted a call to take a stand against police brutality. She included in her thread a chart of some of the tactics in the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and how those tactics are still being used in 2015 law enforcement. For example, a tactic from the 1850 act “monitored the rigid pass requirements for black traversing the countryside.” It still lives as “disproportionate search of vehicles driven by POC despite all reports showing this to be ineffective.”



The nasty guy administration has announced a new policy – non profit groups, such as the NRA, that make campaign contributions no longer need to disclose who their biggest donors are. This had been a way to keep foreign money out of our elections. The NRA, Americans for Prosperity, and other big conservative funders have been asking for this shield for a long time and are delighted with the announcement. The nasty guy has, of course, snatched up any foreign coin that comes anywhere near his palm.



The coronavirus task force used to stage daily propaganda events to show the nasty guy is doing everything he can to … something. Joan McCarter of Kos reports the task force, headed by the vice nasty guy, now meets once a week. It’s been sidelined by the nasty guy. That health care workers still don’t have enough protection equipment apparently doesn’t interest him anymore. It seems likely “he's just ending the federal government's response so that he can blame the states for the next 100,000 deaths.”



A while back I had written that Moscow Mitch wants limits to corporate liability from workers who get sick on the job from companies (like meat packers) who don’t provide enough protection. Joan McCarter reports nursing home companies, whose facilities are virus hotspots, are also clamoring for liability protection. So far 20 state governments have provided liability (and, alas, they’re not all GOP-led). The industry is spending millions for this protection – millions not being spent on hiring enough staff to properly care for and protect their residents.

And it leaves a high-risk population even more vulnerable. This is at a time where family can’t check up on the care their loved ones are getting (or not). Wrote McCarter:

Nursing homes account for about 40% of deaths in this pandemic in the U.S.—as far as we know. Some states simply don't release the data, and some states just have terrible reporting overall. The idea that they could have complete immunity from being held accountable for those deaths is horrifying.

Katherine Cross tweeted a thread:

You are being set up to blame each other for the spread of COVID-19 to distract you from the deliberate failures of governments and corporations who've contributed far more to the pandemic.

We shouldn’t get distracted by “shaming porn.” Some people are not going to follow the rules. Allow for that. And governments that have controlled the virus have developed policy that accounts for some people not following the rules. However,

In the US and UK, you're looking at governments steadily abdicating all responsibility, building none of the infrastructure required to manage this crisis over the short and medium-terms. That's what's actually going to get us into trouble.

And this will come full circle. If and when another wave comes, these governments will turn around and say it's *your* fault for not following their instructions, not theirs for failing to develop proper policies. Bear that in mind.

In response to Cross, Eric Loewe linked to an article in The Atlantic titled The Coronavirus Was an Emergency Until Trump Found Out Who Was Dying – as in a lot more black people than white people.



Benjamin Franklin tweeted:

You have been the target of an advanced psychological warfare operation meant to convince you that an imminent solution that will take Trump down is right around the corner. The goal is to pacify you into inaction. This has been going on for four years.

Examples include the Mueller Report, that the federal court in the Southern District of New York would act, that Pelosi had it covered with her ten dimensional chess.

Once you accept that the resistance has been filled with plants whose job it is to tell you we're winning everyday (we have not been winning everyday) to minimize any sense of danger or urgency, you can get out of the trap that has been set for you.
…
I think we have to be prepared for real protests after the election that are sustained and open ended, no such protests have taken place.
…
I don't know, a lot of people seem to have a lot of faith in this election. Trump will either cheat to win or reject the election results and if we don't mobilize in response to that on 11/4, he might steal the election and get away with it.

After writing that I went looking through Benjamin Franklin’s Twitter feed. It includes several videos of protests that are happening this evening around the country in sympathy to the protesters in Minneapolis. It also includes several videos of battling cops, described as “out of control.” Alas, they’re not in a thread for me to link to them all.

This might be the excuse the nasty guy is looking for to call in the military.

Franklin included a thread from Garry Kasparov:

Chaos favors power and those with the ability to wield power quickly and ruthlessly. It is why dictators stoke chaos and why democracies prefer stability.

It's a trusted technique. Trump wants to fan the literal and figurative flames because he can promise action, look big and central. Others who think first about complex issues, who consider other views and consequences, look weak, indecisive.

It doesn't matter that Trump's promises are fake or that his proposals are immoral or impossible. It makes the autocrat sound like they have answers, or at least that they recognize the problem.

After all that we need some good news. Michael Ely and James Tayler had been a couple for 43 years. As soon as same-sex marriage was legal they got married. But six months later Taylor died. Social Security refused spousal benefits because they had not been married for at least nine months. That they weren’t allowed to get married before they did wasn’t considered. Last year Ely and Lambda Legal sued Social Security. And a federal judge has now agreed.

Their goal is life, not death

I’m pleased Joe Biden did what the nasty guy has so far refused to do. Biden tweeted a video commemorating the 100,000 Americans who have died from the coronavirus. It is good to have someone in leadership acknowledge losing a loved one is painful and that there have been a huge number of families that are facing that loss. He also noted that such a huge death toll affects the entire nation even if we don’t personally know anyone who has died. Thank you, sir.



Yesterday I marked that 100,000 had died and wrote there are surely many more not in that count. Here is one instance of how we know that count is low. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos reported that the scientist that published the tally of the dead was fired because she wouldn’t alter the numbers as she was told.

There is more evidence something is wrong. Florida has about the same number of COVID-19 cases as Michigan, yet less than half as many deaths. This is strange in a state with more seniors than Michigan. GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis is crowing that his policies (based on refusing to enforce distancing) are the right ones.

Though the COVID deaths remain low Florida newspapers are warning of a spike in pneumonia deaths. A big spike. As in nearly 4,300 in six months compared to the typical 2,900 a year. Sumner computes that about 1,400 of those pneumonia deaths are from COVID. You really think you’re ready to reopen?



Another Thursday, another bad report of the number of new applications for unemployment. For the week ending May 23, there are another 2.1 million, for a total of 40.5 million in ten weeks.



Meteor Blades is one of a few who does a pundit roundup for Kos. In today’s list of what pundits have to say he quotes two of them who say it is wrong for the nasty guy to declare he is a “wartime president” and that we’re at war with the virus.

Blades first quotes Virginia Hefferman of *Wired*. She talked to Scott Knowles of the history department at Drexel Univeristy and an expert in disasters. Knowles wrote (and Hefferman summarizes):

if we're at war, we expect command-and-control rather than the spontaneous volunteerism we've seen with self-isolation and self-quarantine. War rhetoric also suggests that sacrificial casualties ought to be sustained in the name of patriotism. And, finally, it allows for bad or even inhumane decisions excused as a consequence of the “fog of war.”

And directly from Knowles:

We have another set of metaphors at hand. They're tailor-made for our moment: the metaphors of science and medicine. Doctors, nurses, and support staff work with urgency, but their goal is life, not death. Their mandate is not to save the nation but rather to support humanity.

The second quoted article is by Harry Boyte and Trygve Trhontveit of *Yes!* magazine.

Metaphors do not just describe reality; they help create it. For years we have seen the casual employment of “war” language in addressing domestic social challenges: the “War on Poverty,” the “War on Drugs,” the “War on Crime.” In every case, the war metaphor diverted attention and resources from the activation of Americans’ diverse talents and energies to the concentration of power and the search for enemies.

We need a different way to name the type of partnership among self-governing citizens, and between them and their governments, that this crisis—and democracy itself—demands: a “we-the-people” partnership for strong, inclusive communities that must take the form of work.

A quote from Tina Fey

To say I’m an overrated troll, when you have never even seen me guard a bridge, is patently unfair.

Another gay icon has died. This one was Larry Kramer.

Joe Jervis of the blog Joe My God summed up Kramer’s impact:

If you or anybody in your life is living with HIV, they are LIVING with it in no small part because of Larry Kramer.

sfbob of Kos summarized Kramer with the help of Jervis and a New York Times article. Some highlights:

* He received an Oscar nomination for his 1969 movie “Women in Love.”

* His 1978 novel “Faggots” was for a while the best-selling gay-themed novel. For many gay men it was wonderful to know there were others like them. Others felt it portrayed the worst aspects of gay men in New York.

* Then the AIDS epidemic began. Kramer helped found Gay Mens Health Crisis, in which gay men helped take care of gay men because many times no one else would. Kramer also founded ACT-UP to express his outrage through protest and how little the Reagan administration was doing for gay men. Kramer was eventually booted out of both organizations because of his disruptive and combative style. Even so, people recognized his commitment and purpose.

* His best work was the play “The Normal Heart,” among the first to tackle AIDS.

sfbob ends by saying:

I’ve been HIV positive for over 39 years. In truth I owe my life in part to Larry Kramer.

100,000

The news of the last couple days included the story of a police officer in Minneapolis who put his knee on the neck of a black man. The man complained about not being able to breathe, then died. The officer and his partners were fired. Even so, there were protests by black people in the city. A couple tweets on the issue:

Bernice King (the daughter of MLK) included two photos in her tweet, one of the above incident (which is why I recommend not looking). The other of Colin Kaepernick taking a knee during the national anthem at a football game. Tweeted King:

If you’re unbothered or mildly bothered by the 1st knee, but outraged by the 2nd, then, in my father’s words, you’re “more devoted to order than to justice.” And more passionate about an anthem that supposedly symbolizes freedom than you are about a Black man’s freedom to live.

By order she doesn’t mean a smoothly running society. She means societal hierarchy.

Maurice Moe Mitchell, national director for Working Families, tweeted:

We no longer need to engage in hypothetical "what ifs."

White protestors, armed with rifles, aggressively confront the police to defend their right to a speedy haircut.

Nothing.

Unarmed Black protestors congregating at the site of a police murder.

Tear gas and riot police.

Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos reviewed how the nasty guy has been campaigning. He declared war on Michigan and Nevada for their efforts towards vote by mail. He declared war on older voters by saying they were expendable in his efforts to restart the economy. He declared war on wearing masks, turning a public health issue into a culture war. Eleveld concluded:

No campaign manager would ever tell their candidate to go to war with the leaders of critical swing states, key voting blocs, or anyone who’s a public health enthusiast.

Trump isn't campaigning to win, he's campaigning to divide the country against itself in every possible way. It's entirely possible that Trump's entire strategy at this point is to foment enough discord and doubt that he can successfully call the 2020 results into question if they don't go his way. Because frankly, there's no other possible explanation for his behavior other than he's entirely off his rocker. But as long as we’re at it, let's not count that one out either.

We’ve seen many examples of what the nasty guy, the GOP, and their financial backers think of us, because every so often they actually say it. Here’s another one.

White House economic advisor spoke with CNN’s Dana Bash on *State of the Union*. He said, in part, “Our human capital stock is ready to get back to work.”

Yes, there was outrage over that term. I’ll quote only the tweet from Ibram X. Kendi:

This is jarring because my enslaved ancestors were literally human capital stock. No matter what, they were always told to go back to work. This could be 1820.

NPR reported on All Things Considered that the US death toll attributed to COVID-19 has passed 100,000. There are surely many more not in that count. As others have said death has become so meaningless that we hit such a horrific milestone and the loudest voices can only say, “But the economy…”

Remember the dead.

The effect of her red meat

In 2018 the residents of Florida voted to permit felons to vote once they had served their sentence. This, of course, didn’t please the GOP in control of the legislature. They passed a law that says all fines, fees, and court costs must be repaid before voting rights will be restored.

Hunter of Daily Kos reported federal judge Robert Hinkle struck down the law.

Hinkle based much of the ruling on the “staggering inability” of the Florida government to administer their own requirements, noting in blistering language that due to inadequate records it had proved impossible for both the state and outside researchers to even identify the precise amounts most of the plaintiffs and other state felons were supposed to pay before their voting rights were restored; it also could not identify which penalties were assessed for felonies, for misdemeanors, or in absence of a guilty verdict at all.

In summary: Released felon: “How much do I owe?” State: “Um, we can’t figure it out.”

Hinkle also ruled if the state could figure it out it would be an unconstitutional poll tax.



A few days ago I had pondered when conservatives and the GOP started heading down the road that gave us the nasty guy who delights in seeing American citizens die from a virus. David Neiwert doesn’t talk of the starting point, but does discuss an important step along the way.

He was prompted by Meghan McCain, part of the never-Trump wing of the GOP, who said don’t like Trump? Blame Obama. Neiwert reminded her (and us) that the important step I mentioned was her father John choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008. Palin was tied with right extremists and brought the red meat to the campaign. She also made the word-salad famous, a style the nasty guy also tends to use. Though Palin lost others in the GOP noticed the effect her red meat had on voters.



Matthew Sittman of The New Republic discussed RR Reno, editor of First Things, (and quoted in Kos). Reno said that masks are cowardly. “It’s a regime dominate by fear of infection and fear of causing of infection. Both are species of cowardice.”

That is the kind of strange thinking we’re up against. We wear masks not out of cowardice, but out of love. We don’t want the other person to get infected and perhaps die.



In another post Hunter reported that cell phone location data shows that many protesters against stay at home orders drove a long way, sometimes across state lines, to attend those protests. Which is a great way to spread the virus.



Ida Bae Wells of the 1619 project tweeted:

Really unbelievable that as we approach 100,000 deaths *with* social distancing measures and shutdowns, now millions of Americans are deciding that they’re tired of the pandemic so more deaths is a sacrifice they are willing to make. This is American exceptionalism as death cult.

Tevye of the Kos community recently discovered a story from last Thanksgiving and wanted to highlight and praise people were didn’t get enough attention the first time around.

Daniel van Amstel was in the process of being adopted by a gay couple. So when the substitute teacher of his fifth grade class were asked what he was most thankful for it was obvious – getting his forever family of two dads.

The teacher didn’t like that answer and berated Daniel. Three of Daniel’s classmates, Sophie, Demi, and a third girl not named, stepped in as much as they could. Sophie kept trying to engage the teacher to deflect what was being directed at Daniel. Demi and the other girl headed to the principal’s office, in spite of threats from the teacher. The principal acted quickly and school security ushered the teacher out, with a clear statement she would never work in that school or district again.

One could forgive Daniel for remaining silent during his ordeal. He didn’t want to jeopardize his adoption. A big thank you to the girls for a demonstration of advocacy and solidarity.



What to do if you have a baby to be baptized in this time of personal distancing? Priests with water pistols!

Living beings are dead to them in some way

Michigan weather! Suddenly it is hot. I was sweating while working in the garage. High today (at least where I’m at) was 83F after barely getting into the 70s in May up to yesterday. It will be a bit warmer tomorrow and cool down into the 70s by the end of the week. I used my furnace Friday night and may need my AC tomorrow.

I now need to change my schedule for working in the garage. I had been waiting until afternoon so the temps would warm up. I should now switch to morning to work before it gets hot. Though progress is steady I made a list today of all that still needs to be done. As for why this is taking so long – I’m not treating it like a full time job.

I tried a new restaurant for takeout today. I hadn’t been able to visit it with my church friends because it is a breakfast-lunch place and is still packed when we can get there at 11:30. The one time we tried they said it would be a 45 minute wait for a table.

Today there would be no waiting, so I gave it a try. When I started the order process before noon the website said the order would be ready at 12:30. On completion of the order it said the order would be ready by 12:45. I wasn’t so hungry to care about that. However, it meant I could wait a half hour before getting into my car.

Just after 12:20 they called to say the order was ready. I headed out. When I got to the restaurant a server asked for my name, then went inside and got my order. She also brought a clipboard and pen so I could sign the credit card receipt. I thought why do I need to sign? I hadn’t needed to do that with other restaurants. And how many people have touched that clipboard and pen since it was last sanitized?

On the way home I bought the Sunday paper and drove past the ATM (out of cash). By the time I opened the food (a bacon, sausage, ham, cheese scramble) it had been over 40 minutes since they called to say it was ready. I scooped half of it onto a plate and stuck it in the microwave. It was delicious. And I’ll eat the other half tomorrow.



The headline for today’s edition of the New York Times (though it began circulating on Twitter yesterday evening):

U.S. Deaths Near 100,000, an Incalculable Loss.

Remember the dead.



A quote of the day:

With my white friends, I’m always half Mexican. They never say I’m half Irish. Never say I’m half white. Like I’m tainted halfway from the standard. It’s like when I was a kid and I thought vanilla ice cream meant no flavor, like it was the base of all of the flavors. But vanilla is a bean. Like chocolate is a bean. Like cinnamon is a root. All roots and beans. All flavors. There is no base. No ice cream without a flavor.
~~Bill Konigsberg, The Music of What Happens (2019)

When discussing current events how close should I get to the original article? Many times I don’t. Here’s an example. Chris Hayes interviewed Rebecca Solnit for the podcast Why Is This Happening? The audio is 52 minutes and there is a transcript.

Spocko, a contributor to the blog Digby’s Hullabaloo, suggested we read the whole thing, then quoted and commented on it (the kind of thing I usually do). Then Spocko added commentary from Why are liberals more afraid of the coronavirus than conservatives? by Ezra Klein on Vox and from the article Why Do Trump’s Supporters Stand by Him, No Matter What? by Bob Altermeyer on the site The Authoritarians from a couple years ago.

Do I want to read all that? Should I?

Taking another step back xaxnar of the Daily Kos community discussed what Spocko wrote. The picture at the top of xaxnar’s is the same NYT front page mentioned above with the nasty guy swinging a golf club superimposed on it.

I have read Spocko and xaxnar. So I’ll go with that. They both quote the other sources. I listed all of the above so you can keep track when I identify who said what.

Solnit started with the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906. She did research into it leading into the 100th anniversary. She found the most destructive force wasn’t the earthquake, but the authorities. For example, when the fire started Genera Funston, a war criminal in the war in the Philippines, assumed ordinary people would behave badly. People with authority assume the only thing keeping ordinary people behaving properly is their own institutional authority, so when that’s not there they envision violence. So the mayor issued shoot-to-kill orders for potential looting, also known as petty theft.

Hayes and Solnit turned to discussing the current push to reopen America. Solnit said:

I feel like, in a way, I never quite recognized before, these are people for whom dead things like money are alive and beloved in a tenderhearted way, and living beings are dead to them in some way.

I mean, who was it who said the other day that we should send America’s kids back to school and that whatever it was like a 3% casualty was an acceptable rate and it’s like, “Dude, you just said you’re willing to let a few million children die.

Excerpts from quotes of the Altermeyer article:

Compared to most people, studies have shown that authoritarian followers get their beliefs and opinions from the authorities in their lives, and hardly at all by making up their own minds. They memorize rather than reason…

Dogmatism comes rather naturally to people who have copied other people’s beliefs rather than figure things out for themselves. When you don’t know why your beliefs are true, you can’t defend them very well when other people or events confront them….

...That is dogmatism, and experiments show that authoritarian followers have two or three times the normal amount of it because they believe many things strongly, but don’t know why. When the evidence and arguments against their beliefs becomes irrefutable, they simply shut down.

...Thus they agree with the statement, “There are no discoveries of facts that could possibly make me change my mind about the things that matter most in life.” That says it all.
...
Followers [of authoritarians] report that they were taught the world is a dangerous place much more strenuously than most people are taught—a fact confirmed by the parents. Some of this is quite predictable, such as fear of attacks by racial minorities. But the fearing parents super-sized their children’s fear of being hit by a car, or kidnapped as well.

Accordingly Donald Trump was well-placed to gain the support of authoritarian followers as he was a large and seemingly fearless, powerful man. All he had to do was say he saw the dangers the followers felt and he would fight to protect them…

...“I am your voice,” he said. He would fight for them with all of his great might. And that was just what threatened people who felt powerless wanted.

I add this is supremacy at work again. Those midway in the hierarchy frequently believe those above them are supposed to be there (those at the top have taught well). And to properly play their part in the hierarchy one doesn’t question those above. They are satisfied with that because of their superiority of those lower in the hierarchy.

From the summary by xaxnar:

Normally, these are the people you’d expect to be totally paranoid about the Covid 19 pandemic — but the man they have chosen to follow and supply them with beliefs is telling them the opposite. You can’t reach them with facts; you can’t convince them with arguments. Their brains shut down rather than accept anything that challenges what they have internalized. They are not mentally equipped to question anything from those they accept as authorities.

Trump tells them what they want to hear — that they’re right — and in return they accept everything that he and those who repeat his messaging tell them unquestioningly. It takes something that feels like a direct betrayal on a personal level they can’t deny for them to even think of questioning the relationship.

Otherwise, they know what they know even if they don’t know why or how, and that’s all they need or want. They don’t do nuance. They rationalize like crazy and get angry if you call them on it.

Summarizing a bit more of what xaxnar wrote: They’ve handed their brains and consciences to the nasty guy. He – and they – can do no wrong.

He won’t wear a mask because it would make him look like a wuss, and that would be fatal to his image as a strong leader. And so it may be fatal to them.

There is also the aspect that, so far, the virus has hit cities and blue states hardest, the places they’ve been taught to hate and now think are getting what they deserve. Since it looks like the virus is doing ethnic cleansing, they are even less likely to support efforts to stop it. But the virus is now spreading in red states. And denial is strong.



A tweet from digby:

I know this is obvious. But it doesn't seem to sink in.

If your concern is the economy, wake up. It won't recover as long as the virus isn't contained and people aren't taking precautions to protect others. Businesses won't survive with just Trump's cult for customers.

And a quote from Todd Holloman that digby tweeted which can be filed as today’s contradiction:

The people who think children wearing bullet-proof backpacks to schools with metal detectors and armed guards, where they are subjected to active-shooter drills is just “the price of freedom” and the people who call having to wear a mask for 10 minutes inside Walmart “tyranny” are the exact same people.

What a hero is worth

Leana Wen of the Washington Post talked about how to gauge risk as things reopen. All 50 states have eased lockdown restrictions at least a little bit. None of them have met the guidelines for when to reopen safely. Wen talks of four kinds of risk.

There is relative risk, measured in proximity, activity, and time. Close proximity to an infected person for a long time is high risk. Birthday parties can be superspreader events. Passing a stranger while outdoors is low risk. If you really must visit friends, do it outdoors, skip the hugs, keep your distance, and even bring your own food.

There is pooled risk. If two families have been rigorously sheltering at home then visiting each other is low risk. That changes when any person from either family resumes work outside the home.

There is cumulative risk. For example, if you must have your hair cut, don’t follow that with a meal in a restaurant.

There is collective risk. The more infected people in a community the more likely you will come in contact with an infected person. This is why mask wearing is important.



Meteor Blades of Daily Kos quoted a bit from Jake Johnson of Common Dreams. A few of the notoriously abusive corporations – such as Amazon and Walmart – have been running ads on TV and YouTube praising their employees as being heroes. Some of the ads even proclaim they are doing everything they can to ensure their health and safety.

Two replies to that: Three days after such an Amazon ad appeared workers at their Staten Island warehouse walked off the job to protest inadequate measures to prevent the spread of the virus. And Bernie Sanders says it is nauseating that these companies don’t pay their workers what a hero is worth.



skralyx of the Kos community takes a look at what the virus is doing to the coal industry. First there are two maps comparing coal burning power plants in the US in 2010 and 2019. The later map shows fewer plants with a lot of them designated as in the process of closing. That was before the virus.

The virus will be the knockout punch for several coal companies who were teetering. Longview Power put out a notice that it filed for bankruptcy, that included this:

The West Virginia power plant blamed the move on low power prices caused by competition from cheap natural gas, a warm winter and the COVID-19 pandemic’s stamp on the economy.

skralyx noted:

A warm winter, huh? Did anyone else get a whiff of irony here in the building?

Murray Energy, the nation’s largest coal miner, also filed for bankruptcy, saying it might be force to liquidate if it can’t shed health care payments for retirees. Yup, retirees on the chopping block first.

There are several quotes saying how hard coal has been hit. And that mines and plants that are shut down because of the virus will not reopen once the virus is gone.

skralyx is aware that when a mine or power plant closes a community will be hit hard. These are communities that had relied on coal for generations. Even so:

But coal is dangerous, deadly, polluting, and awful for the climate, and it’s long past time to move on. Instead of making empty promises to bring back the coal industry and then going golfing, we need to be serious about getting these workers training for rising energy industries like solar and wind. They’re not married to coal; they just want stable jobs.

Some people must suffer

John Stoehr, who writes a newsletter about politics (which he says is in plain English), tweeted a thread about the working class. They’re the ones who actually provide the labor to actually get things done in our economy. Since the start of the coronavirus lockdown we’ve started calling them “essential” though they aren’t paid to match.

Some Americans like to brag America has always been a classless society without kings and dukes. The virus is showing there is indeed class in America and that the working class is taking the brunt of this mess, both in the level of infection and death and in losing jobs.

Many try to define the working class according to income or education. But there are working class people who make middle class income. And there are people with college degrees who earn a pittance (adjunct professors come to mind – I was one for a while).

Stoehr defines working class by whether you have power on the job – the power to control where, when, how, and how long you work and the power to work without constant supervision.

Put another way: If you have the power to demand—and command—respect from a boss, you’re not working class.

If you have that power you can make more money. With that more money comes more power. If you don’t have that power it is a “vicious cycle that for many spirals downward, grinding them to dust.”

The conventional wisdom is that suffering is a natural part of life. Some people are going to be left out of an advanced capitalist society. That’s either acceptable (the Republican view) or a problem for liberal policy makers to address (the Democratic view).

But if nothing else, the pandemic has shown how wrong the conventional wisdom is. It’s not that some people might suffer. It’s not that some people might face injustice as a result of broader prosperity.

It’s that some people must suffer, because without their suffering our advance capitalist society would cease functioning.

I’m pleased to see this: Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos reports Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuch Schumer wrote a letter requesting that when America passes 100,000 deaths from COVID-19 (which could happen by Memorial Day on Monday) flags on federal buildings should fly at half staff to honor so many dead. This would be a national expression of grief. It’s something the people desperately need.

Alas, the person they had to send that letter to is the nasty guy. He’s the one who controls what happens in federal buildings (except the Capitol and Supreme Court Bldg). And it is this nasty guy who is either in denial of all those deaths or is actively contributing to them. Eleveld wrote that many GOP senators are well aware that they were nasty guy enablers and played a role in this death count. Will they do what is right?



A.R. Moxon tweeted a thread noting the nasty guy says the exact same things that white nationalists say. He has been pursuing policies to create a white ethnostate, the same policies white supremacists want. Why are people still confused about what the nasty guy is doing?

Not knowing that Donald Trump is a white nationalist requires a willful effort, revealing a deeper desire to not know.
...
Q. What's the difference between someone who says what a white supremacist says, and a white supremacist?

I'll answer with a question.

A. What's the difference between someone who supports a supremacist for their supremacy, and somebody who does so for some other reason?

Commenter Molly NYC replied about the comment of still being confused:

…or so deeply internalizing a WN viewpoint that you don’t notice it in others.

Racists don’t realize they’re racists. IMHO, it’s the most interesting thing about them.

The nasty guy visited Michigan yesterday. In preparation Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel sent him a letter saying he had a legal and moral responsibility to wear a mask. He did, for maybe a minute. Aferward he attacked her. She replied, “He is a petulant child who refuses to follow the rules.” Mary Louise Kelly of NPR’s *All Things Considered* talked to Nessel about the letter and the nasty guy’s actions. During the talk Kelly asked Nessel twice:

Do you risk fanning partisan flames at a moment when this country could really stand to come together?

I very much wanted Nessel to say you’re asking me if I’m fanning the flames? Oh, please! Nessel said it a lot more diplomatically that I would have:

OK. Look; this is an individual who has encouraged people to break the law in a manner that jeopardizes the health of all our state residents. And then when we have armed gunmen storming the Capitol holding swastikas and Confederate flags, he calls them very good people who our governor ought to negotiate with. I'm sorry, but if anyone has started this battle, it is certainly President Trump.

Bill in Portland, Maine writes a weekday Cheers and Jeers article for Kos. On Fridays he’s been starting with some good lines from late night TV hosts. Here are a couple from this week:

President Trump says he's taking an unproven anti-malarial drug [hydroxychloroquine] as an 'additional level of safety.' … Side effects can potentially include agitation, insomnia, confusion, mania, hallucinations, paranoia, as well as lasting psychiatric and neurological symptoms. So either Trump’s lying about taking it, or he’s been taking it for 73 years.
—Seth Meyers

Today for me is day 70 of stay-at-home. I've now been in this house—this is true—longer than it took Columbus to get to the new world. We are in Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria territory now. … This year for Memorial Day we've got a plan. We're packin' up the kids and taking them to the laundry room.
—Jimmy Kimmel

Bill in Portland, Maine reminds us that Harvey Milk, gay rights pioneer, was born 90 years ago today. Alas, he was assassinated at age 48. A couple quotes from the wise man:

It takes no compromising to give people their rights. It takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no survey to remove repressions.

...

It’s about the us’s out there. Not only gays, but the Blacks, the Asians, the disabled, the seniors, the us’s. Without hope, the us’s give up. I know you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. So you, and you, and you…you gotta give em’ hope.

Watch a heavy machine operator make the day for two little kids. And he does it with such precision!

Voting while black

Tom Bonier mentions a New York Times article saying the GOP is seeking 50,000 volunteers to “monitor” polling places. The purpose is, of course, to challenge voters deemed “suspicious.” Bonier wrote, “Code for voting while black.”

Leah McElrath tweeted:

I’ve been expecting this.

Don’t let it surprise you if Trump’s armed right wing militias become part of this effort with either the overt or tacit approval of the GOP.

Greg Dworkin of Daily Kos quotes a bit more from the NYT article, which was written by Paul Waldman. Wrote Waldman:

The efforts are bolstered by a 2018 federal court ruling that for the first time in nearly four decades allows the national Republican Party to mount campaigns against purported voter fraud without court approval. The court ban on Republican Party voter-fraud operations was imposed in 1982, and then modified in 1986 and again in 1990, each time after courts found instances of Republicans intimidating or working to exclude minority voters in the name of preventing fraud. The party was found to have violated it yet again in 2004.

Laura Clawson of Kos has more details.

Aaron Rupar tweeted the nasty saying, “Voting is an honor.” The nasty guy said that in opposition to vote by mail.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat responded:

When do you know authoritarian corruption has advanced to a new stage? When they don’t hide it. Trump’s been frank: if it might lose me the election, it cannot be allowed.

He’s against vote by mail because it removes the face-to-face intimidation and the long lines that might discourage some people from voting.

This is why I don’t have high hopes for the November election and skip over polling data.

In response to Ben-Ghiat Joel Farran tweeted a link to an article on Bustle by Kavitha George on 8 voting rights organizations. If you’ve got time money to spare they could use help or a donation. They are:
* Let America Vote
* Common Cause
* League of Women Voters
* ACLU
* Spread the Vote
* Election Protection
* Asian Americans Advancing Justice
* The Brennan Center



It’s Thursday so another report on new jobless benefit claims is out. In the past week another 2.4 million claims were file. Bringing the nine week total to 38.3 million. Meteor Blades of Kos examines that and related data.

Dean Obeidallah tweeted:

Over the last two months nearly 39 million people have filed for unemployment - that means there are more people unemployed in the U.S. than the ENTIRE population of Canada!

Judd Apatow tweeted:

The @gop is trying to normalize death. It worked for lying, corruption, sexual assault, approving inexperienced judges, racism, theft, crony capitalism, voter suppression, avoiding oversight, extortion, sexism, insider trading and stupidity— why wouldn’t it work for death?

Commenters added a couple more things that have been normalized: kids in cages, gun violence (see Sandy Hook).

They saved their rich friends, so they're good

After talking about white supremacy for the last couple days this tweet from Scott Lynch and some responses is appropriate.

So many people running around claiming they'll do anything for America. Carry guns, live in bunkers, fight in the hills. What they're actually asked to do is wear simple protective measures, keep their distance, show patience and courtesy. And they break like f***ing glass.

John Scalzi replied:

The difference is that in the fantasy they are asked to kill, and in the reality they are asked to be kind.

CL Cadwallader added that it’s all about being able to shoot other people without consequence.

Rens Houben responded:

As a friend of mine points out, it basically says "I am prepared to take a life, but not to save one."

It says pretty much everything about them that they're willing to kill others to preserve their way of life, but not to endure some minor inconvenience to save others' lives.

RevoluSeann added:

My favorite is when they say they won't wear a mask because they won't live in fear... yeah? what are the guns for?

Joan McCarter of Daily Kos reports the nasty guy had a buffet lunch (!) with GOP senators yesterday. They didn’t talk about any more relief, the state and local government budget crisis, or even better virus testing.

While a $3 trillion bill that would take care of much of that has been passed by the House and is sitting on Sen. Mitch McConnell's desk, there is a profound sense that Republicans don't give a damn anymore. They saved their rich friends, so they're good.

What they probably did talk about is how to get reelected and how to use Obamagate to make it happen.



Remember the Great Recession? It started about a dozen years ago. Remember what caused it? Yeah, a complicated scheme where mortgages were given to people who couldn’t afford them, then were packaged with phony numbers and offered as investments. When those people couldn’t pay the whole system collapsed.

Hunter for Daily Kos discusses an investigation done by ProPublica. It seems the big banks that caused the crash are doing the same thing again, though this time with commercial mortgages. Yes, also doctored books. The trigger this time will be the virus and its rush to work from home and companies no longer need so much office space. Hunter wrote:

There's a near-100% chance that this Republican president will end his term of office in the same way the last Republican president did: handing off, to his Democratic replacement, a world "investment" economy that has been systemically looted and now stands in ruin, needing massive government intervention so as to attempt to protect every other economic sector from that potential collapse.

Catherine Rampell, opinion columnist of the Washington Post, tweeted a summary of her piece on economic stabilizers:

Fiscal aid should be triggered by economic conditions, not the whims of whichever politician is most willing to shoot the hostages.

Remember when GOP cared about policy uncertainty? Linking UI, SNAP, FMAP to economic conditions rather than fickle political showdowns also gives states more certainty they need to budget, & workers confidence they can continue putting food on the table.

Sarah Binder, a political scientist at GWU adds some explanation and a look at the politics. Here’s my summary of her thread.

An example of a stabilizer is a high unemployment rate automatically triggering enhanced unemployment insurance with larger direct payments and increased food assistance. There are four political barriers to this plan.

1. Because of the need to get reelected Congresspeople would rather get the credit for benefits delivered now rather than ensure better benefits in the future.

2. A fiscal hawk won’t want to vote to make it harder to reduce spending in the future. It is easier to block (through veto or inaction) new benefits than to turn off a stabilizer later through a specific vote.

3. Those that most benefit from stabilizers tend to vote for Democrats, so little benefit for the GOP.

4. Even within Democrats advocates of stabilizers tend to be moderates.

Even so, some programs already have stabilizers, such as Social Security benefits (which benefit everyone). And some programs desperately need them, such as minimum wage (which are for the working class).



I’m glad they’re doing this: Museums, including the Smithsonian system, are asking people to donate pandemic artifacts – after they’re done using them. What sort of things? Homemade masks, of course, though also anything that gives insight into life in a pandemic is like. Personal stories, including diaries, photos, and videos, are also welcome.




A couple of fun videos:

A dancer (working for tips at a stoplight).

A cat as goaltender.

All you have to do to join is look the other way

Yesterday I wrote about how racism compares to narcissism and that the base considers the nasty guy the personification of white supremacy. Today I look at another aspect of the nasty guy, the GOP, and white supremacists through a thread tweeted by A.R. Moxon.

Moxon begins with a the nasty guy saying 86,000 dead is a small percentage, that most people aren’t infected and most who are infected don’t die.

I clicked on my computer’s calculator and see that 86,000 is 0.03% of the population of this country. And, yeah, looking at it in terms of percent, this is indeed a small number. Even a million deaths would be 0.3%, which is still a small percent.

Most people rightly don’t look at it as a percentage. When one talks of a million deaths we think of a million as a very big number. We consider the million grieving families who lost someone they love.

Moxon wrote that the way this is framed shows the nasty guy is unconcerned with human life.

A leader capable of it is capable of killing millions.

A population obeying such a leader makes such death inevitable. That's what we're fighting.

Not only is the nasty guy downplaying the number of dead, he is also downplaying the grieving of it. No amount of loss is unacceptable, except for his own life.

This is a genocide mindset.

It is a mindset shared by GOP senators and by most of the party.

The great promise of his campaign is he would share the same disregard for *those people* as his base. That’s what I covered yesterday. That base hasn’t yet figured out he has the same disregard for them.

He is now asking for us to join him in his vast unconcern for the lives of other people. All you have to do to join is look the other way. Moxon included a quote from Elie Weisel:

We must always take sides.
Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.
Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

After reading Moxon’s thread a question came into my head: Why do despots kill? Why is the nasty guy – and Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot and all those other mass murderers – so unconcerned with life that they kill so readily?

One type of person a despot kills is the opposition. One can readily understand wanting to get rid of those who might be instrumental in removing a despot from power. But still, death seems extreme (and it is). There are other ways of neutralizing an opponent. Of course, despots usually do those first. Along with opposition are those who know secrets that if revealed would cause great difficulty for the despot (a recent example of this is the “suicide” of Jeffrey Epstein).

The next type of people a despot kills are those he targeted with hate. A despot frequently (always?) gets into power by targeting some group. He accuses them as being the reason the country is not doing well. He gets his followers riled up. Hitler did it with the Jews and others deemed “unfit.” The nasty guy is doing it with Muslims and immigrants.

This is supremacy. I’m better than you and to prove it I’m going to make your life miserable so that mine looks wonderful in comparison. I’m going to do it because I can. I understand that the more supremacist a person becomes the more oppressive he becomes and the more such oppression ends (and must end) in the death of those in the targeted group.

As I’m writing this I’m listening to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra streaming service and their performance from December 2017 of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10. Long after the premier the composer said that the second movement is a musical depiction of Joseph Stalin. The music is threatening and violent. Yes, it was written after Stalin died. I paused the stream when buffering problems interrupted the music a few too many times.

Neither of the above categories explains what is going on in America now. The nasty guy is killing (allowing the virus to kill) indiscriminately. The virus doesn’t care whether the victim is part of our despot’s base or opposition. I know he is working to deny masks and ventilators to blue states, which leads to deaths, but red state governors are trying to open their states too soon, also leading to deaths. So why is there a genocide mindset that seems to glory in death, no matter who it kills?

Again, I think it is supremacy taken to the extreme. A despot wants to control everyone. And the ultimate control is being able to kill. No matter who dies.

In listening to the third movement of this symphony I recognize the composer’s signature motive. He used it in several works. In the German spelling the first three letters of his last name are “Sch.” Add the first initial and in the German way of specifying notes this come out to D, E-flat (es), C, B (H). Perhaps the composer is saying the response to a despot you must assert yourself.

Shostakovich is a fascinating figure in modern music. He walked a very fine line between writing music that reflected the world around him and avoiding condemnation of the Soviet censors. Many people feel his music both celebrates and subverts Soviet life. I highly recommend his music, though the repetitions of the 7th Symphony can be a bit much and the end of the 8th can be depressing. Perhaps start with the 5th Symphony. His most well known pieces are the symphonies and the string quartets.

What if we restructure and supremacy goes away?

Ethan Grey has this in his Twitter description: “White supremacy is why Donald Trump is president.” He tweeted a long (101 tweets) thread about white supremacy and why supremacists won’t abandon the nasty guy. He gives other white people an understanding of the psychology of racism. Here’s my summary.

Many people care more about how they do in relation to others than how they do in absolute terms. People judge their social status not as individuals, but as how their group compares to other groups. Racism comes from an awareness of belonging to the dominant group. Grey links to a paper written in 1958.

Here are traits of racism: (1) a feeling of superiority, (2) a claim that the subordinate race is different, alien, and beyond understanding, (3) a claim to privilege from which the lower races must be excluded, (4) a fear the subordinate race wants to upend the dominant race’s position.

It’s not a reaction to negative life experiences. People of color are more likely to have negative life experiences, yet “there’s no hateful equivalent to white supremacy among them.”

Supremacy is a status marker that doesn’t change with economic circumstances (such as the current economic collapse). The status needs no effort and it’s obvious. One gets the status of white regardless of achievement. White people can see themselves as elite.

White people may not see the masters in their own race as oppressors. Rather they’re worthy of emulation. White people can wield power over people of color as their own elites wield power over everyone. That has appeal to white people no matter their actual status. Racial status is more important than economic status.

Supremacy – that white people deserve dominant status because they are white – is irrational. So supremacists won’t be acting rationally.

This isn’t about fear, hatred, or anger. It’s more like narcissism, an obsession with social status. “I deserve high status because I am me,” is similar to, “We deserve high status because we are white.”

Grey discusses several similarities between a narcissist and a racist. Maintaining the (personal/racial) hierarchy is the point. There is no empathy for those seen as subordinate. Both believe they are exceptions to the rules. Both lie to maintain their higher status. Both oppress to confirm their dominant status. They see an ideal social order. When there is a challenge to status both react with abuse. It is a mistake to think either has limits.

To both delusion is essential and cruelty is the point. Cruelty confirms the power one has over other people. They will gaslight, so that the target will feel diminished, hurt, erased, confused, and to question perception of reality, to feel the rupture of reality as the perpetrator does, so that the target won’t want to challenge the power. Both are cruel because the central assertion of both is sufficient justification. Cruelty masks their insecurity.

There is a difference between narcissism and racism. Narcissism is a disorder. Racism is a choice. There are other ways to frame a sense of collective identity.

Well meaning white people want to think a threat to a racist’s rational self-interest will cause a person to turn against Trump. But racism isn’t rational. Racists have in the nasty guy exactly what they want. They want his unfitness, his disdain for science and curiosity, his corruptness, his criminal impunity. He’s a narcissist? It’s like seeing the face of white supremacy itself! As for the pandemic…

How does a narcissist handle criticism of his or her handling of a crisis? They act like everything is fine. The ridicule your concern. They downplay the extent of the crisis. Should evidence of a crisis prove impossible to conceal, the tactics shift to blaming other people. If you make a rational suggestion about what he or she could do better, they aren't receptive to it. The narcissist perceives your rational suggestion as an attempt to indict his or her abilities, and is fixated on possible loss of status that may result from that indictment.

Sound familiar?

All the talk by Democrats on restructuring society to combat this and future pandemics is seen as a threat. What if society is restructured so that white supremacy goes away?

That’s why they’re protesting. That’s why they want to reopen everything. That’s why they’re downplaying the death toll and the virus itself. They see every stepping stone to restructuring society as a slippery slope.

His most fervent supporters simply see our criticisms of Trump’s response to coronavirus as a pretext for dismantling white supremacy. In more direct terms, they can only see our criticisms of Trump’s response to coronavirus as JUST a pretext for getting rid of him.

If you resist all attempts to restructure society, then you ensure white supremacy itself won’t be restructured. That sounds extremely fucked up, right? It is! But you try telling me with a straight face that isn't modern American conservatism in a nutshell.

So let us name the essential function Donald Trump serves for his base: to symbolically cancel out Barack Obama’s presidency for white people who processed having a Black President as something akin to a trauma and as an assault on their collective sense of identity.
…
So despite the reality that he's presiding over a disastrous response to a viral pandemic, in the eyes of his base, Trump's presidency is still a symbol of the reassertion of white supremacy on which his base can project themselves. And that's why they won't leave him.

Wasted Youth has this in their description, “two paths diverged in the road and America took the psychopath” and responded to Grey:

This explains people voting against their best interest. It Is as if they are saying “ i dont care how bad they screw me as long as someone beneath me is getting it worse”. Or “if i vote dem the people beneath me will have what i have so forget that”

To which Grey replied: “You get it.”

Stephen Sather tweeted a question:

Interesting. Why do white supremacists hate whites who don't espouse white supremacy? Is it a feeling of betrayal?

Grey replied:

It really is that simple. Their hatred for people like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden is animated by the perception of them as race traitors. That they both showed deference to a Black President and were willing to accept subordinate roles relative to him defines their hatred.

Judy Stahl asked:

What is it going to take for these people to grasp that they are no better and no worse than any other human being?

Grey replied:

Consistent application of political force. My sense of how Democrats should engage in politicking is grounded in an awareness of how one must confront a narcissist. You do not presume they can change, you do not appease, and you respond with a full awareness of who they are.

In response to data that show that low-income communities of color have a death rate more than ten times greater than wealthier areas, Grey tweeted:

This is why Trump's base not only doesn't care, but wants to accelerate a return to "our way of life." If we take coronavirus seriously enough that we acknowledge racial inequities in health care, that's a slippery slope to taking white supremacy seriously. That's what they fear.

And he tweeted (explaining what could be called a dogwhistle)

You should absolutely be viewing Trump's rhetoric regarding how "The cure cannot be worse than the disease" through the lens of race, by the way. That is to assure his base he understands: if the societal cure entails upending white supremacy, that is worse than the disease.

I’ll add a little bit. The Democratic House passed another relief bill. It contains a lot of what Dems feel will make the society more equal – exactly what supremacists, the nasty guy, and the GOP want to make sure doesn’t happen.

For the love of books

I didn’t post last night because I streamed the documentary The Booksellers. Most of those featured sell antique books, but not all of them.

While cleaning out my dad’s house I found boxes of old books. Some of them were his mother’s school books. Many were older. I doubted they were valuable – my parents and their ancestors were not rich people who bought expensive things that couldn't be used. I didn’t have space for them and my siblings and descendants asked for only a few of the books. So I went to a book fair and found a dealer interested in looking at the collection. I received less than $200 for them all. So that’s been my exposure to book dealers.

The movie starts with the big annual book fair in New York. Several of the sellers talk about what they do. They’re all in it for the love of books. Some are in the business to collect, some to make sure old books get into the hands of people who could keep them. Some of them love the hunt for particular books (though the internet makes the hunt way too easy).

Some collect works of a particular author and also search for the author’s papers to get a more complete view of the person. One woman collects books by and about American women. These collections will likely go to a university. Another woman is collecting artifacts related to hip-hop, the popular modern music – it’s been around long enough there is a history?

Some collectors have white hair and wonder what will happen to their profession when they’re gone. A 500 year history of printed books is a good run, perhaps time for something new. Some are quite young and see positive things in the world of books that will keep on going. One of those things is observing many subway riders reading books are in their 20s. Those reading electronic readers tend to be in their 40s. One woman noted that when she started the business was about 85% male. There was a lot of talk of getting more women into the business. And now, years later, it is … 85% male.

Some collectors fear that when they die their collection will go to auction. Some prevent that by donating to a museum or university. Some are glad that an auction will get the books into loving hands again. A book auction doesn’t get the high prices of an art auction because most books are not one of a kind.

New York used to have over 300 bookstores (if I remember the number right). Perhaps 40 of them were on Fourth Ave. Now there is only one on Fourth Ave. They’re there because they own the building. They get several offers a week from agents wanting to buy the building. They aren’t selling. In the city now there are about 70 bookstores.

People tend not to throw books away. We feel they are too important for the trash. They contain too much humanity. Which is why book burnings are such important symbolism. Burning books is a big attempt at erasure of a culture.

I found out about this documentary because I get the Detroit Institute of Arts / Detroit Film Theater newsletter. Because the DFT is closed they’ve worked out how to stream the movies they would have shown. I paid the distributor to watch it. Half of the fee went to the DFT.

Security theater

I had written a while back saying students in Detroit sued that they have a right to a basic education and Detroit schools were in such bad shape in both buildings and instruction that they failed to provide that right. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has settled the suit. Allison Donahue of Michigan Advance reports:

As part of the settlement, Whitmer agreed to propose legislation that would give DPSCD [Detroit Schools] with at least $94.4 million for literacy programs, provide $280,000 to the seven student-plaintiffs to access “high-quality” literacy program or otherwise further their education and provide $2.7 million to DPSCD to fund literacy-related efforts.

However, that legislation has to pass the GOP-led Legislature. Complicating matters further, Michigan is preparing for an expected budget shortfall of up to $7 billion across two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

With the Michigan legislature firmly in GOP control I don’t think the Detroit Schools will get the money they need to improve.



Bree Newsome Bass tweeted three threads to share with you. First:

Y’all keep accusing of us of telling folks not to vote when we’re simply asking what is the plan for dealing w/ Republicans plowing over democratic norms regardless of how we vote. Y’all refuse to unpack the instances where we voted & our vote was nullified & how to address that.

Second:

It’s not an either/or choice b/w voting & other forms of political engagement. That’s a false binary. Y’all notice conservatives don’t ever tell their base not to protest b/c all they need to do is vote? Have you seen GOP telling re-open folks to stop complaining & just vote?

No, because it’s understood that white people are entitled to engage in every form of political engagement in USA including carrying guns into the statehouses. But if we make any political demands beyond voting as we’re told, it’s an immediate problem.

Third:

USA has wealth & resources to issue a national stay-at-home order & to provide for the needs of the population during that time as we conduct mass testing, tracing & isolation. *The USA chooses not to do this* & to instead focus on making another massive wealth transfer to the 1%.

Folks’ willingness to accept & normalize this is a direct reflection of the extent to which they are indoctrinated into white supremacist capitalism.

VoiceofReason replied to that last one:

After inquiring about a friend’s parents and family in her home country, where they are isolating, remarked “here, people love money more than their life and that’s sad.” What she said has been stuck in my head since.

I would phrase it slightly differently: here, people love their social position more than their life.



The Inspector General is to make sure a department of the federal government is following the law and ethical rules. Each department has one. Or had. The nasty guy is being quite thorough in firing them. The latest is Steve Linick of the Department of State. He was fired because he opened an investigation into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. This is a clear act of retaliation and cover up.

Leah McElrath retweeted comments about the firing from House Foreign Affairs Committee member Eliot Engel and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She also referenced the *Daily Caller*, which appears to be evidence that a smear campaign against Linick was prepared before the firing. Wrote Leah: “Makes one wonder what they have on Pompeo…” McElrath also links to a report of 500 pages of emails between the Department formerly known as Justice and the right wing rage machine, such as Fox News.

For more on the firing, see a report by Meteor Blades in Daily Kos. In a letter to Pelosi the nasty guy expressed his lack of confidence in the IG. Meaning: he lacked confidence the IG would do his bidding.



As for “Obamagate” … David Plouffe, Obama’s senior advisor, tweeted:

Our current President is calling for his predecessor and his current challenger to be jailed. In America. The story - the only story - out of his sideshow bullshit is this. The entire enterprise is on the line. It’s not clever political tactics - it’s unprecedented and sick.

Adrian Oaks tweeted a quote from Adam Schiff:

You may be asking, how much damage can he really do in the next several months until the election... A lot. A lot of damage.

McElrath also tweeted:

One of the reasons to pay attention to some Never Trumpers isn’t because we are all suddenly ideologically aligned in terms of policy, but because they often have a better understanding of the ruthlessness of the GOP mindset.

She then retweeted conservative Bill Kristol:

To the degree there's a design behind "Obamagate" it's this: To reinforce the claim that Russian interference in 2016 was a hoax. So when there are reports of Russia interfering this fall Trump can dismiss them as a hoax. So Russia can successfully interfere in the 2020 election.

One more from McElrath, responding to a report the TSA will soon start taking temperatures:

Temperature taking is security theater, right up there with taking off our shoes. This virus can spread asymptomatically, and those who are symptomatic aren’t necessarily feverish. Actions like this are designed to make people feel protected without actually protecting them.

Replies suggest other reasons why this is a bad idea. A person with COVID may not have a fever. A woman with hot flashes can show a higher temp. So can just being out in the sun.



Novelist Robyn Wyrick tweeted a thread. It is long past time to stop hoping the nasty guy’s actions come from incompetence. The chaos is intentional. The nasty guy believes in science – he and those around him are tested regularly.

He could stop this. He could still order masks, & other PPE to be produced. He could still order social distancing, contact tracing, & the 1+Million tests / day that are needed to allow Americans to get back to business without spreading the disease & killing 100,000 more.

And we know - without hesitation, we know - if he thought stopping Covid-19 would help him, he would.

Does anyone doubt that if he saw it in his personal, self-interest to prevent more dead Americans, he would do everything in his power?

But No.

#DeadAmericans is the goal.

I can't stress this enough: people bend over backwards to imagine that he could not be so evil.

He can't WANT a million dead Americans.
He can't want the federal government in disarray, the states competing against each other for supplies.
He can't want mayhem.

But he does.
...
It's hard to imagine that this is intentional, but it is.

Trump is a traitor. We have 90,000+- dead.

America is at war. And we are losing.

That's the context.

Some of us have wondered what it would look like if America fell. It would look like this.

The only question is: what are we going to do about it?

We know what Trump and Putin's side is doing: dividing us further. Arming his followers to the teeth, and on hair trigger.

We need non-violent, but even more vocal activism.

Most of the replies to this thread claim Wyrick is wrong. I agree with him and with those who study authoritarian regimes and say the nasty guy is building one.



Howard Stern, sometimes described as a radio shock jock, had a bit to say to nasty guy supporters, the ones who had flocked to his rallies:

The oddity in all of this is the people Trump despises most, love him the most. The people who are voting for Trump for the most part … he wouldn’t even let them in a f---ing hotel. He’d be disgusted by them. Go to Mar-a-Lago, see if there’s any people who look like you. I’m talking to you in the audience. … I don’t hate Donald. I hate you for voting for him, for not having intelligence.”

Judgment Day … fizzled

A couple days ago the gun happy crowd was preparing for another protest at the Michigan Capitol. There have already been a couple protests against the stay-at-home order. The last one included armed men getting into the building and sitting in the gallery with their guns while the legislature tried to conduct business. Yes, intimidation.

That prompted Whitmer to ask the Capitol Commission to ban guns in the building. Attorney General Dana Nessel said she would back the commission in court if they banned guns. The commission (which has a GOP majority) wailed what if we get sued? And voted to “study” the issue. Lawmakers asked if the dress code now required bullitproof vests.

Leading up to this one there were a lot of violent messages posted on social media, including calling for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to be fitted with a noose. The AG and police were also threatened.

Yesterday’s protest, described as “Judgment Day,” … fizzled. There were maybe 200 people standing in the rain and a few more in cars honking horns. The Capitol building was closed because at the end of Wednesday’s session lawmakers announced they were adjourning until next Tuesday.



Contradiction #1: Angry Staffer, who is not a current WH staffer, tweeted:

The White House is flipping the f*** out about how close coronavirus is getting to Trump and Pence — and tightening restrictions — while telling you to go back to work and send your kids back to school.

Contradiction #2: Jeremy Duncan tweeted:

Can someone explain to me why the same people who don't need to wear a mask because God will look after them also need an AR-15 because God won't?

It’s almost like God is a pretense we use to justify what we want to do

Contradiction #3: Jacki Schechner tweeted:

It’s safe enough to reopen states but too dangerous to keep Paul Manafort in prison?

The Wisconsin Supreme Court – working from home – struck down the stay at home order from Dem Gov. Tony Evers. It seems the court ignored the governor’s order and struck down the corresponding order from the Secretary of the Department of Health Services, saying it exceeded statutory authority. Yeah, the suit was brought by GOP lawmakers. A recent poll shows most residents support the stay at home order, more than half trust the governor, and only a third trust the GOP controlled legislature. Expect a spike in cases in about two weeks. Between this and voting the GOP in Wisconsin wants to kill its citizens.



New claims for jobless benefits for last week was just under 3 million, bringing the eight week total to 36.5 million.



Back in 2018 when Michigan passed its amendment for a citizens redistricting commission, Missouri voters also passed an amendment to lessen gerrymandering. In both states the win was above 60%. And in both states the GOP is trying to undo them. I get updates from the Michigan effort, the case is now in the Circuit Court of Appeals and will likely head to the Supreme Court.

The GOP led Missouri Senate passed a bill to modify the criteria to be used in the redistricting process and eliminate the nonpartisan head of the process. If it passes the House (likely) it will go before voters in November.

When it passed in 2018 the redistricting amendment was part of a broader clean government package. This new amendment to the amendment will strengthen some of the other proposals and hope voters won’t notice that it guts the gerrymandering prevention.



Sarah Kendzior tweeted:

The constitution is only as good as the people willing to uphold it, and the people tasked with upholding it are not good at all. People should be forming back-up plans for if they indefinitely postpone, cancel, or rig the election. NEVER assume law magically works on its own.

The US House passed two bills today. One to allow proxy voting so fewer people had to come to Washington for votes. Another to spend $3 trillion on economic relief. This second one likely faces strong opposition in the Senate.