The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced a new clause to the racial contract in the US, Adam Serwer writes at The Atlantic (5/9). “The lives of disproportionately black and brown workers are being sacrificed to fuel the engine of a faltering economy, by a president who disdains them. This is the COVID contract.”
As the first cases of the coronavirus were diagnosed in the US, in late January and early February, the Trump administration and Fox News were eager to play down the risk it posed. But those early cases, tied to international travel, ensnared many members of the global elite: American celebrities, world leaders and those with close ties to Trump himself. By March 16, the president had reversed course, declaring a national emergency and asking Americans to avoid social gatherings.
The purpose of the restrictions was to flatten the curve of infections, to keep the spread of the virus from overwhelming the nation’s medical infrastructure, and to allow the federal government time to build a system of testing and tracing that could contain the outbreak. Although testing capacity is improving, the president has very publicly resisted investing the necessary resources, because testing would reveal more infections; in his words, “by doing all of this testing, we make ourselves look bad.”
Over the weeks that followed the declaration of an emergency, the pandemic worsened and the death toll mounted. Yet by mid-April, conservative broadcasters were decrying the restrictions, small bands of armed protesters were descending on state capitols, and the president was pressing to lift the constraints.
What caused the change in attitude? In the interim, data about the demographics of COVID-19 victims began to trickle out. On April 7, major outlets began reporting that preliminary data showed that black and Latino Americans were being disproportionately felled by the coronavirus. That afternoon, Rush Limbaugh complained, “If you dare criticize the mobilization to deal with this, you’re going to be immediately tagged as a racist.” That night, the Fox News host Tucker Carlson announced, “It hasn’t been the disaster that we feared.” His colleague Brit Hume mused that “the disease turned out not to be quite as dangerous as we thought.” The nationwide death toll that day was just 13,000 people; it now stands above 70,000, a mere month later.
As Matt Gertz wrote at Media Matters (4/9), some of these premature celebrations may have been an overreaction to the changes in the prominent coronavirus model designed by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, which had recently revised its estimates down to about 60,000 deaths by August. But even as the mounting death toll proved that estimate wildly optimistic, the chorus of right-wing elites demanding that the economy reopen grew louder. By April 16, the day the first anti-lockdown protests began, deaths had more than doubled, to more than 30,000.
That more and more Americans were dying was less important than who was dying.
The disease is now “infecting people who cannot afford to miss work or telecommute—grocery store employees, delivery drivers and construction workers,” the Washington Post reported. Air travel has largely shut down, and many of the new clusters are in nursing homes, jails and prisons, and factories tied to essential industries. Containing the outbreak was no longer a question of social responsibility, but of personal responsibility. From the White House podium, Surgeon General Jerome Adams told “communities of color” that “we need you to step up and help stop the spread.”
Public-health restrictions designed to contain the outbreak were deemed absurd. They seemed, in Carlson’s words, “mindless and authoritarian,” a “weird kind of arbitrary fascism.” To restrict the freedom of white Americans, just because nonwhite Americans are dying, is an egregious violation of the racial contract. The wealthy luminaries of conservative media have sought to couch their opposition to restrictions as advocacy on behalf of workers, but polling shows that those most vulnerable to both the disease and economic catastrophe want the outbreak contained before they return to work.
Although the full picture remains unclear, researchers have found that disproportionately black counties “account for more than half of coronavirus cases and nearly 60% of deaths.” The disproportionate burden that black and Latino Americans are bearing is in part a direct result of their overrepresentation in professions where they risk exposure, and of a racial gap in wealth and income that has left them more vulnerable to being laid off. Black and Latino workers are overrepresented among the essential, the unemployed, and the dead.
However, coronavirus may be catching up with white Americans who may have thought themselves less vulnerable to the virus. Two weeks after roughly 1,500 people — mainly white — gathered at the Wisconsin Capitol in Madison April 24 to protest Gov. Tony Evers’ stay-at-home order, claiming the order violated their freedom, with some attendees carrying signs calling the pandemic a hoax and speakers saying they were not afraid of the coronavirus, the state’s Department of Health Services disclosed that, out of 1,986 cases of COVID-19 confirmed in the state since the weekend of the rally, 72 said they recently attended a “large gathering,” The Progressive reported (5/8). The state agency did not ask if the “large gathering” was the massive anti-quarantine rally.
The state agency did ask after the April 7 election to determine if people had gone to the polls, and as of May 8 72 people who were tested positive for COVID-19 had also reported voting at the polls. But because many of them had other exposures, health officials have not been able to conclusively determine where they caught the virus.
TRUMP TEAM IGNORED EARLY OFFER TO RAMP UP PRODUCTION OF MEDICAL MASKS. In the latest evidence of the Trump team’s incompetence in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, the Washington Post reported (5/9) the owner of Fort-Worth-based medical supply company Prestige Ameritech contacted the US Department of Health and Human Services in January to let it know international orders were pouring in from as far away as Hong Kong for N95 masks and the company could ramp up production by 1.7 million masks per week, if needed. He viewed the shrinking domestic production of medical masks as a national security issue, and he wanted to give the federal government first dibs.
“Not only did the administration not see fit to help the company do that, despite numerous government experts sounding dire warnings that masks were in short supply and were going to be urgently needed—even now, it still hasn’t,” Hunter wrote at Daily Kos (5/11). “And it all smells more than a little fishy, to be honest. There’s no question that we still need many more masks, and Trump has gone so far as to invoke the Defense Production Act to order companies to manufacture them. But not this company.”
“We still have four like-new N95 manufacturing lines,” Michael Bowen wrote (1/22) in an email to top administrators in the Department of Health and Human Services. “Reactivating these machines would be very difficult and very expensive but could be achieved in a dire situation.”
But communications over several days with senior agency officials — including Robert Kadlec, the assistant secretary for preparedness and emergency response — left Bowen with the clear impression that there was little immediate interest in his offer.
“We are the last major domestic mask company,” Bowen wrote (1/23). “My phones are ringing now, so I don’t ‘need’ government business. I’m just letting you know that I can help you preserve our infrastructure if things ever get really bad. I’m a patriot first, businessman second.”
In the end, the government did not take Bowen up on his offer. Even today, production lines that could be making more than 7 million masks a month sit dormant.
Bowen’s overture was described in a whistleblower complaint filed by Rick Bright, former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. Bright alleges he was retaliated against by Kadlec and other officials — including being reassigned to a lesser post — because he tried to “prioritize science and safety over political expediency.” HHS has disputed his allegations.
“Cut to the present, and the company still hasn’t restarted those dormant machines, even as other companies with little or no experience in making the same masks land expensive contracts with a now-desperate government,” Hunter wrote. “Reading between the lines yet again, it appears that Bowen’s eventual impatience with the administration’s uberbunglers pissed someone in the Trump administration off: If you’re not polishing every Team Trump shoe you are not going to be seen as an administration ally, worldwide deadly pandemic or no worldwide deadly pandemic, and now that the company has given Trump bad publicity it’s likely to rise rapidly up Trump’s hundred-page enemies list.”
Meanwhile, health care providers and other first responders still don’t have an adequate supply of N95 face masks.
CORPORATIONS GOT THEIR BAILOUTS, SO REPUBLICANS REDISCOVER THE DEFICIT. The House has a bill for the fourth tranche of coronavirus stimulus directed toward people: “Direct payments, unemployment insurance, rental and mortgage help and student loan assistance are essential,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote in a letter to her conference (5/10).
But Republicans, who accomplished bailouts for corporations in the first three rounds, are now screaming “deficit” and “cut Social Security,” Joan McCarter noted at Daily Kos (5/11). “We’ve got to figure out now how we’re going to pay for it,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) told Bloomberg’s Steven Dennis. Otherwise, “we’re going to ruin this economy.” Millions of newly homeless, starving people is apparently not bad for the economy, but helping them is—if you’re a Republican. Like Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who tweeted the House is “is not officially coming back yet. They are waiting for the release of a new coronavirus bill, which will cost trillions of dollars. Neither this bill nor anything resembling it will ever become law—it’s a Democratic wish list filled up with all the party’s favored policies.”
“When the Senate was penning the CARES Act with its $500 billion corporate bailout and the $300+ billion “small business” loan program, no Republican was asking ‘how do we pay for it.’ That those measures did little to actually boost the economy or stop 33.5 million people from being unemployed simply doesn’t matter. That the economic and health crisis is getting worse by the day doesn’t matter. Republicans see no problem in waiting weeks and weeks before doing anything more. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he wants to hit the ‘pause button’ on spending anything more to see how the money already spent plays out. All while the infection rate and the unemployment rate are in a race to see which can rise highest the fastest,” McCarter wrote.
Democrats have Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on their side. “This is not the time to act on those [debt] concerns,” he said. In Pelosi’s letter, she said Powell “has told us to ‘Think Big’ because interest rates are so low. We must ‘Think Big’ For The People now, because if we don’t, it will cost more later. Not acting is the most expensive course.”
Charles Pierce also noted at Esquire.com (5/11) that Trump has dug in on a payroll tax cut, which would drain money from the Social Security system, “and now we’re hearing a proposal to let people draw down their own future Social Security payments now. Both SS and Medicare will be stressed if the oncoming pandemic-fueled recession is as bad as it is predicted to be, but it would be wrong to interpret anything coming from the administration*—or from the Republican Senate—as anything but a few more miles in the long march against these programs.”
‘IT IS SCARY TO GO TO WORK,’ AS COVID SPREADS IN WHITE HOUSE. Donald Trump wants all Americans to get back to work, but he can’t keep the White House free of the coronavirus, even with comprehensive testing of the staff. Trump’s personal valet has tested positive for COVID-19. So has Mike Pence’s press secretary, Katie Miller, who has not only been maskless at recent White House meetings, but is married to top Trump adviser Stephen Miller, Laura Clawson noted at Daily Kos (5/11). “It is scary to go to work,” economic adviser Kevin Hassett said on CBS Sunday (5/10), adding an admission sure to be perceived as disloyal: “I think that I’d be a lot safer if I was sitting at home than I would be going to the West Wing.”
The appearance of coronavirus in the White House comes despite stringent measures to protect Trump and Pence, including daily testing for top aides and testing for outside visitors before they enter meetings with Trump. In other words, the White House is doing exactly what Trump has been saying the rest of the country doesn’t need to do to be safe—and it’s still not enough. Trump will have an opportunity to change his tune on testing in public remarks scheduled for Monday afternoon, but so far his stance has been that “by doing all of this testing, we make ourselves look bad.”
Pence “has tested negative every single day and plans to be at the White House tomorrow,” a spokesman said Sunday, despite Trump’s keen observation last week that Miller “tested very good for a long period of time and then all of a sudden today she tested positive.” Funny how that can work. By contrast, Centers for Disease Control director Dr. Robert Redfield, Food and Drug Administration head Dr. Stephen Hahn and infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci are self-quarantining, and testified by videoconference in a Senate committe hearing (5/12).
Trump hasn’t abandoned his push to have states reopen businesses, but meanwhile the New York Times reports that the White House increased its call for its own staff to work remotely, “telling several lower-level aides in the press office, who had been coming into the White House, to work from home regardless of how they were feeling.”
REPUBLICANS GROW NERVOUS ABOUT LOSING SENATE AMID WORRIES OVER TRUMP’S HANDLING OF PANDEMIC. In recent weeks, GOP senators have been forced into a difficult political dance as polling shifts in favor of Democrats: Tout their own response to the coronavirus outbreak without overtly distancing themselves from a president whose management of the crisis is under intense scrutiny but who still holds significant sway with Republican voters, the Washington Post reported (5/10).
“It is a bleak picture right now all across the map, to be honest with you,” said one Republican strategist closely involved in Senate races who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss concerns within the party. “This whole conversation is a referendum on Trump, and that is a bad place for Republicans to be. But it’s also not a forever place.”
Democrats need to flip four Republican seats to gain control of the Senate, and eight Republican senators are considered vulnerable, including Cory Gardner (CO) in a race rated by Daily Kos as “lean Democratic”; Martha McSally (AZ), Susan Collins (ME) and Thom Tillis (NC) in races rated “tossup” and David Perdue (GA), Kelly Loeffler (GA), Jodi Ernst (IA) and Steve Daines (MT), rated “lean Republican.” Vulnerable Democratic senators include Doug Jones (AL), rated “likely Republican” and Gary Peters (MI) rated “likely Democratic.”
Likely Democratic nominee Joe Biden is leading Trump by 9 points — 50% to 41% — in six of the Senate battleground states: Colorado, Maine, Arizona, North Carolina, Iowa and Montana, a poll by Hart Research Associates for Democracy for All found. In those same states in 2016, Trump beat Clinton 48% to 45%, which suggests a 12-point shift toward the Dems.
The Hart Research poll also found 74% of voters in those six swing states, including 56% of those who plan to vote Republican senator, want their senators to vote to make sure every eligible voter has the right to vote by mail, as well as early voting.
BIDEN’S LEAD IS STEADIEST ON RECORD. A Monmouth University poll released May 6 finds former Vice President Joe Biden leads President Donald Trump 50% to 41%. When Rep. Justin Amash is included as the Libertarian Party candidate, it’s Biden 47%, Trump 40% and Amash 5%.
The poll is largely in line with the average poll since April that puts Biden 6 points ahead of Trump nationally, Harry Enten noted at CNN (5/10).
Biden’s lead is about as steady as it can possibly be, Enten noted. Not only is he up 6 points over the last month or so, but the average of polls since the beginning of the year has him ahead by 6 points. Moreover, all the polls taken since the beginning of 2019 have him up 6 points.
“The steadiness in the polls is record breaking. Biden’s advantage is the steadiest in a race with an incumbent running since at least 1944. That could mean it’ll be harder to change the trajectory of the race going forward, though this remains more than close enough that either candidate could easily win,” Enten wrote.
TRUMP IS BEATING BIDEN ONLINE. SO WHAT? A New York Times headline declared in April, “Biden Is Losing The Internet,” Bill Scher noted at Politico (5/11)
Maybe he is. So what?
Biden won the presidential primary with an analog campaign while being outmatched online by his rivals’ much more sophisticated efforts. That should not be dismissed as a fluke event.
The path Biden blazed to the nomination — culminating in his Super Tuesday blowout — provided a real-time political science experiment, testing whether grassroots online organizing, paid media or free media is most important for a successful campaign. Sanders was the organizing champ, having built a massive digital operation that cultivated nearly 12 million Twitter followers, almost 2 million small donors and a grassroots army that knocked on 2 million doors. Bloomberg literally owned paid media, drowning out all competitors with more than a half-billion spent on TV, radio and digital ads. (This included paying online influencers to produce ironic memes.)
Then there was Biden. His campaign was nearly broke. His field offices were often desolate, sometimes nonexistent. But between his Saturday night victory in South Carolina and the morning of Super Tuesday, his free media was pure gold. He didn’t just win South Carolina and secure key endorsements from three former rivals; he amplified his core messages to deafening levels in mainstream media. Data had long showed Democratic voters wanted a candidate who could win and could govern in a pragmatic, bipartisan way. That was Biden’s longtime pitch, and the final days of the competitive primary showcased top Democrats embracing it.
ANXIOUS ABOUT VIRUS, SENIORS GROW MORE WARY OF TRUMP. The coronavirus crisis and the administration’s halting response to it have cost President Trump support from one of his most crucial constituencies: America’s seniors, the New York Times reported (5/9).
For years, Republicans and Trump have relied on older Americans, the country’s largest voting bloc, to offset a huge advantage Democrats enjoy with younger voters. In critical states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida, all of which have large older populations, Trump’s advantage with older voters has been essential to his political success; in 2016, he won voters over the age of 65 by seven percentage points, according to national exit poll data.
But seniors are also the most vulnerable to the global pandemic, and the campaign’s internal polls show Trump’s support among voters over the age of 65 softening to a concerning degree, as he pushes to reopen the country’s economy at the expense of stopping a virus that puts them at the greatest risk.
A recent Morning Consult poll found Trump’s approval rating on the handling of the coronavirus was lower with seniors than with any other group other than young voters. And Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic nominee, in recent polls held a 10-point advantage over Trump among voters who are 65 and older. A poll commissioned by the campaign showed a similar double-digit gap.
From The Progressive Populist, June 1, 2020
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