Tag: GOP

Red states may be facing a perfect storm of illness and death from COVID-19

AlterNet logoRural, conservative-leaning states have so far been spared widespread outbreaks of COVID-19. But experts say that they’re simply behind the curve of denser, more urban states like New York and Florida. The New York Times reported this week that “many communities that watched the pandemic unfold in faraway places are now experiencing the crisis firsthand. More than two-thirds of rural counties have confirmed at least one case.” Forty-two states now have over 1,000 confirmed cases of the disease, and many red states are among those conducting the fewest tests.

We know red states are vulnerable to rapidly spreading outbreaks in large part because of political polarization. Polls consistently find that Republicans–especially those who watch Fox News regularly–are more likely than Democrats to believe that COVID-19 is similar to the seasonal flu, and that the media and Democrats are hyping the seriousness of the pandemic to harm Donald Trump’s prospects in November. While most of them have so far practiced social distancing and taking other measures to avoid infection despite those beliefs, this week’s spate of fake grassroots protests against various governors’ shelter-in-place orders highlights the problem.

But there’s another reason to believe that red states are likely to be hit hard as the virus spreads: Many of them are leading the country in risk factors for severe illness and death from COVID-19. Continue reading.

The dangerous conservative campaign against expertise

Washington Post logoIt is perhaps inevitable that a problem as large and complex as covid-19 should result in a pandemic of motivated reasoning. It is a human tendency to interpret disasters as confirmation of our existing beliefs. So the coronavirus outbreak proves the need for a border wall. Or it demonstrates the urgency of Medicare-for-all. Or it resulted, in the words of Franklin Graham, from “a world that has turned its back on God.”

Not every argument is strained or spurious. The pandemic has given our health-care system an X-ray, revealing disturbing racial inequities that need to be understood and addressed. But on the whole, we are right to be wary of people who claim great tragedies as the confirmation of pet theories and previous prophesies. The convenience of an argument is often inversely proportional to its credibility.

Motivated reasoning is usually just tiresome. At its worst, it can be dangerous. Sometimes drawing the wrong lesson badly obscures a right and necessary lesson. Sometimes the interpretation of a crisis is so dramatically mistaken, so ludicrous and imprudent, that it can worsen the crisis itself. Continue reading.

Trump Keeps Talking. Some Republicans Don’t Like What They’re Hearing.

New York Times logoAides and allies increasingly believe the president’s daily briefings are hurting him more than helping, and are urging him to let his medical experts take center stage.

WASHINGTON — In his daily briefings on the coronavirus,President Trump has brandished all the familiar tools in his rhetorical arsenal: belittling Democratic governors, demonizing the media, trading in innuendo and bulldozing over the guidance of experts.

It’s the kind of performance the president relishes, but one that has his advisers and Republican allies worried.

As unemployment soars and the death toll skyrockets, and new polls show support for the president’s handling of the crisis sagging, White House allies and Republican lawmakers increasingly believe the briefings are hurting the president more than helping him. Many view the sessions as a kind of original sin from which all of his missteps flow, once he gets through his prepared script and turns to his preferred style of extemporaneous bluster and invective. Continue reading.

Bill Moyers: Republicans admit they lose when elections are fair and free

AlterNet logoBill’s guest in this episode is the journalist David Daley. His best-selling first book, RATF**KED-WHY YOUR VOTE DOESN’T COUNT  showed how Republicans used gerrymandering to lock up control of many state and local government for years, possibly   decades – and remains their  strategy.  In his  most recent book – UNRIGGED –HOW AMERICANS ARE BATTLING BACK TO SAVE DEMOCRACY he travels  America to report on the grassroots activists devoted to voting rights for all citizens.

He and Bill talked by phone on the eve of the Wisconsin primary where the governor of Wisconsin tried to postpone the election to help protect voters from the pandemic only to be blocked by the conservative dominated state supreme court and then by the five Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court.

There’s a link to David’s Rolling Stone report on analysis of the Wisconsin fracas at billmoyers.com.

Why Republicans Are So Afraid of Vote-by-Mail

New York Times logoPublic health officials recommend absentee ballots to keep people safe. But President Trump and his party, without evidence, portray expanded voting measures as ripe for fraud.

President Trump and his Republican allies are launching an aggressive strategy to fight what many of the administration’s own health officials view as one of the most effective ways to make voting safer amid the deadly spread of Covid-19: the expanded use of mail-in ballots.

The scene Tuesday of Wisconsinites in masks and gloves gathering in long lines to vote, after Republicans sued to defeat extended, mail-in ballot deadlines, did not deter the president and top officials in his party. Republican leaders said they were pushing ahead to fight state-level statutes that could expand absentee balloting in Michigan, Minnesota, Arizona and elsewhere. In New Mexico, Republicans are battling an effort to go to a mail-in-only primary, and they vowed on Wednesday to fight a new move to expand postal balloting in Minnesota.

The new political effort is clearly aimed at helping the president’s re-election prospects, as well as bolstering Republicans running further down the ballot. While his advisers tend to see the issue in more nuanced terms, Mr. Trump obviously views the issue in a stark, partisan way: He has complained that under Democratic plans for national expansion of early voting and voting by mail, “you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.” Continue reading.

Here’s the poll that proves Republicans are dangerous for your health

AlterNet logoThe latest Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll highlights how disruptive the COVID-19 crisis has been to people’s daily lives, and how unhappy the populace is becoming with Donald Trump’s response to it. Writing at Axios, Drew Altman, president and CEO of KFF, highlights the disconnect the American public is experiencing: 60% say that the federal government should be primarily responsible for the response to the crisis, but 52% say it’s their state government that’s leading the response.

The poll also shows the incredible partisan divide created by everything Trump touches. While Trump has publicly stated, again and again, that the states are on their own, they are responsible, and that he’ll just provide back up (when the governors kiss his ass), 53% of Republicans say that Trump is leading the response. A shocking 89% of Republicans say that they trust Trump to provide reliable information on the coronavirus, essentially the same percentage (90%) as trust the CDC. They’re utterly delusional. But they’re also dangerous.

If you want to really hate Republicans, look at their actions: “Democrats are still more likely than Republicans to report sheltering in place (90% vs. 74%) and stocking up on food, supplies, or medications (72% vs. 50%).” If you’re not stocking up on food and supplies and going out to get them, you’re not doing a very good job of sheltering in place. “But at least nine in ten Democrats (95%), independents (91%) and Republicans (91%) now report engaging in some form of social distancing.” Is that like how conservative evangelical churches are practicing “social distancing”? Continue reading.

Right-Wing Media Again Push To Open Economy Despite Death Toll

Between Thursday afternoon and Friday morning, there has been an increased wave of right-wing media figures calling for an end to the economic lockdown in place to combat the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. As they’ve begun to explain rather openly, the cost for jobs and businesses is just too much for what they deem is a low death figure being reported.

Left out of all these discussions is a key detail: The reason that COVID-19 death predictions have been revised down from over 2 million to a (still horrific) figure of up to 240,000 is precisely because of the social distancing and stay-at-home orders. If that regimen were to simply be lifted, then the projected deaths would rise again — especially if the health care system were to become overwhelmed.

But as they miss this point, many of these right-wing media figures seem to think even this reduced level of deaths has come with too high an economic cost. Continue reading.

How Tea Party Budget Mania Left America Vulnerable To Pandemic

Dire shortages of vital medical equipment in the Strategic National Stockpile that are now hampering the coronavirus response trace back to the budget wars of the Obama years, when congressional Republicans elected on the Tea Party wave forced the White House to accept sweeping cuts to federal spending.

Among the victims of those partisan fights was the effort to keep adequate supplies of masks, ventilators, pharmaceuticals and other medical equipment on hand to respond to a public health crisis. Lawmakers in both parties raised the specter of shortchanging future disaster response even as they voted to approve the cuts.

“There are always more needs for financial support from our hardworking taxpayers than we have the ability to pay,” said Denny Rehberg, a retired Republican congressman from Montana who chaired the appropriations subcommittee responsible for overseeing the stockpile in 2011. Rehberg said it would have been impossible to predict a public health crisis requiring a more robust stockpile, just as it would have been to predict the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Continue reading.

Don’t Believe Fox News! COVID-19 Is Far More Dangerous Than Flu

This past Friday, President Donald Trump expressed surprise upon learning that people die from seasonal flu. (In fact, it killed his grandfather.) Fox News figures have similarly downplayed the dangers of coronavirus by comparing it to the deaths that occur from the flu.

The problem with that comparison is coronavirus is much more deadly to those infected than the seasonal flu, and they will spread it to more people because the new disease is also more contagious.

There is also an extra layer of uncertainty, as mortality estimates still vary because of uncertainties about the number of people tested for COVID-19 and the population who might have had mild cases but were never tested. Continue reading.

How the Trump Campaign Took Over the G.O.P.

New York Times logoThe president’s campaign manager and his allies commandeered Republican voter data and fund-raising engines, consolidating power —  and profiting – in ways never before possible.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s campaign manager and a circle of allies have seized control of the Republican Party’s voter data and fund-raising apparatus, using a network of private businesses whose operations and ownership are cloaked in secrecy, largely exempt from federal disclosure.

Working under the aegis of Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, with the cooperation of Trump appointees at the Republican National Committee, the operatives have consolidated power — and made money — in a way not possible in an earlier, more transparent analog era. Since 2017, businesses associated with the group have billed roughly $75 million to the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee and a range of other Republican clients.

The takeover of the Republican Party’s under-the-hood political machinery parallels the president’s domination of a party that once shunned him, reflected in his speedy impeachment trial and summary acquittal. Elected Republicans have learned the political peril of insufficient fealty. Now, by commanding the party’s repository of voter data and creating a powerful pipeline for small donations, the Trump campaign and key party officials have made it increasingly difficult for Republicans to mount modern, digital campaigns without the president’s support. Continue reading.