Demonstrates is how violent American poverty truly is

I downloaded Michigan’s coronavirus data this morning. Cases per day continues a downward trend. However, because of the holiday the data was last updated on December 23. I expect the same thing next weekend, so perhaps I’ll wait until well after New Year before downloading again. Then I’ll need to add year designations below the months. Meteor Blades, in his Night Owl column of Daily Kos, quoted Caleb Brennan of The New Republic who wrote about Operation Santa. It’s a program that has been around for more than 100 years in which Post Office employees and charitable organizations try to fulfill requests that desperately poor children made in letters to Santa. The program has been connecting 13,000 children to donors, though that number may have doubled in 2020. Wrote Brennan:

But what these letters demonstrate, far better than any PSA or statistical model, is how violent American poverty truly is. They also provide a counterbalance to the ways childhood poverty is depicted in popular media, where poor kids often serve as a way for a protagonist to demonstrate their generosity, from Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol to the demented poverty porn of the holiday pop hit “Christmas Shoes.”

Mark Sumner of Kos wrote that many people would like to see the nasty guy convicted of tax fraud. It was tax fraud that got Al Capone sent to Alcatraz. Sumner wrote we should think much bigger – mass murder. This particular crime has nothing to do with war, national security, or sanctions against another country. The nasty guy’s actions weren’t to prevent more deaths in the future. There is no aspect of exacting revenge. It has risen beyond staggeringly bad judgment. But this appears to be killing with cold knowledge and with expectation of personal gain. His actions fit both genocide and crimes against humanity. “He deserves a trial and punishment appropriate to scale of those crimes.” Then don’t forget sedition. Will Trumpism continue after Trump? Ian Reifowitz of Kos wrote that the GOP should wrestle with that question. Then Reifowitz traces the idea, though when it started it was called racism. Barry Goldwater in 1964 was the first presidential nominee to run against civil rights. The nasty guy was still in school at the time. Ronald Reagan used race-baiting when he successfully ran for governor of California in 1966. Reifowitz provides many examples of his dog-whistle or outright racist language. That included the phrase “law and order” the nasty guy has been using and stories of “welfare queens.” Then there’s Richard Nixon’s Southern Strategy in 1968 which played on white fears of racial integration. Reagan successfully ran for president in 1980 using the same language. Pappy Bush said he was the “kinder, gentler” Republican, but still ran the despicable “Willie Horton” ad that implied Michael Dukakis would release black prisoners who would kill once they got out. Reifowitz didn’t write about Bush Jr. and only mentions the nasty guy as a continuation. Can we yet make the case that Trumpism, also known as racism, will lead to further GOP losses? Is there someone who might make that case? Perhaps Mitt Romney, who was the only Republican to vote to remove the nasty guy after he was impeached? Alas, racism has been a central part of the GOP message the entire adult life of the nasty guy. It is deep seated. Can the GOP get rid of racism for the health of the nation?