Category: Distrust of Government

First They Came For The Communists

The Daily Escape:

Provincetown, MA, March 2025 photo by Marty Cowden

Wrongo hasn’t written since January, and there are two primary reasons. First, his overwhelming feeling of helplessness when the Democrats lost both Houses of Congress along with returning Trump to the White House. Truly, the Dems can’t be forgiven for their meek performance since November.

Second, chemotherapy and radiation can ruin your attention span: It is difficult to read anything long-form, much less write connected sentences. On the other hand, I’m having more good days than bad right now.

But today let’s gear up to talk about the arrest by Trump’s Department of Homeland Security of Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate and green card holder, over his participation in protests at Columbia against Israel’s bombing of Gaza.

On Saturday Khalil was arrested by ICE agents in New York City and swiftly moved to a detention facility in Louisiana while the government attempts to deport him.

The NYT reported: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security…said in a statement on Sunday night that Mr. Khalil had been arrested “in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting antisemitism.”

‘Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization…’

Aligned”? So, Khalil was arrested for wrong-think. Charlie Pierce asks in Esquire:

“So we’re disappearing people now? Nice to know…Are we now allowing the rendition of legal residents to black sites in the United States?”

More from the NYT:

“Secretary of State Marco Rubio shared a link on X to a news article about Mr. Khalil’s arrest and issued a broad promise: ‘We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.’”

We are six weeks into Trump 2.0 and we now have federal agents going door to door to illegally arrest people who have taken political positions the administration dislikes. It’s a long way from demonstrating on a college campus to collaborating with Hamas. So the Constitution and the law is firmly on Mr. Khalil’s side, assuming that he hasn’t already been disappeared beyond the reach of the judicial system.

Until there’s a complete airing of the reasons for Khalil’s detention, Wrongo has no problem believing this to be an attack on protected political speech—and a dress rehearsal for what this administration has planned if widespread protests of its other policies break out.

Update:

“On Monday, a federal judge in Manhattan ordered the government not to remove Mr. Khalil from the United States while the judge reviewed a petition challenging the legality of his detention. Mr. Khalil’s lawyers also filed a motion on Monday asking the judge to compel the federal government to transfer him back to New York.”

From Trump on social media:

“’We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it…If you support terrorism, including the slaughtering of innocent men, women, and children, your presence is contrary to our national and foreign policy interests, and you are not welcome here. We expect every one of America’s Colleges and Universities to comply…’”

Whether you agree with the Gaza protests or not, the action of Trump 2.0 against Khalil appears to be another example of the systematic attack on the First Amendment from all sides that is becoming SOP for the Trump administration.

The Trump administration has made Columbia the first target of its push to punish what the President has deemed elite schools’ failures to protect Jewish students during campus protests.

On Friday, the administration announced that it had canceled $400 million in grants and contracts to Columbia. In a social media post last week, Mr. Trump vowed to punish individual protesters his administration considered “agitators.”

Martin Niemöller’s unforgettable “First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out” applies here. The quote was about Hitler and the Holocaust and was a call to action against apathy.

Trump’s actions so far and threats of more to come need to be taken very seriously. With Trump and the MAGAs and oligarchs in control of the government, free speech is how they choose to define it at any particular moment.

If that isn’t fascism, then Wrongo doesn’t know what else to call it.

Maybe you can come up with a better descriptor. In the meantime, support your favorite free-speech advocacy group.

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Democratic Party Messaging

The Daily Escape:

Pikes Peak, Colorado Springs, CO – December 2024 photo by Monica Breckenridge.

The Democrats are meeting this week to decide on who will lead them into the 2026 midterms and the 2028 general election. Wrongo thinks it’s time for a revolution.

The key question is how do Democrats go back to winning presidential elections? And it may not be the way you think. From Jon V. Last:

“Since Trump’s emergence in 2016 the opposition has responded by acting as if it were still 2015. The Biden administration pursued a vigorous, bipartisan agenda filled with popular legislation designed to promote economic growth across the board. Biden spent money on infrastructure and manufacturing—much of it in red states and rural areas where Democrats had little support.

The Biden administration’s theory was that by governing from the center and focusing on employment and economic growth, Democrats could retain the support of the majority….”

But that theory didn’t work, and Trump won, running on zero ideas about growth, prosperity, or progress. His campaign was posited on the infliction of pain to outsiders. Trump didn’t promise to improve the lives of his voters. He promised to punish the people his voters wanted to hurt. That was the entirety of his electoral proposition, and none of it was subtext. Instead it was bold-face, ALL CAPS text.

Last says it worked because America has changed and the majority of voters are no longer motivated by wanting progress for themselves. Instead they’re motivated primarily by anger that out-groups—the people they do not like—might be succeeding or getting benefits they’re not getting.

If this is true, and at least some evidence suggests it is, how do Democrats persuade voters not to be quite so angry and to vote for them?  From Brian Beutler: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“…winning the next election will require Democrats to persuade some as-yet unpersuaded voters that they’re worth voting for. Whatever policies Democrats think are popular, whatever affects they associate with normalness and affability, if they can’t do the delicate work of changing a mind, they can’t get anywhere.”

More:

“Democrats are about to have as little power as they’ve had at any time in the past two decades for a simple reason: Most Americans weren’t convinced that they’d be better off under Democratic rule. That’s it. And there’s no shortcut back to power that avoids the difficult task of convincing people to change their minds.”

More: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“The Democrats need more and better communicators, and, crucially, it needs the people who don’t understand their potential to influence conventional wisdom and public opinion to get with the times. Most persuasion doesn’t happen person to person, it is mediated. When it does happen person to person, it is most often between people who already know each other, and usually one of those people is regurgitating ideas they picked up….And the ripest targets are no longer classic swing voters who are happy to talk politics with strangers….”

Couple all of this with the problem of where people get their news, and you have Dems digging out of a ditch partially of their own making. What Democrats are missing more than anything is creative thinking about how to reach people who will never answer a telephone call from a number they don’t recognize, never answer the door for a canvasser, and never form lasting political beliefs by watching or reading professional newscasts (because they rarely, if ever do).

This time around, Democrats either need their leaders to adapt, or else they need new leaders.

Jon Last thinks what will win votes in this environment is a lefty demagogue akin to what Bernie Sanders has been selling for years with his “millionaires and billionaires” rants. Sanders’s pitches resonated with younger voters. He got quite a lot of traction in 2016, but Democratic Party primary voters were not ready for him.

Who should the Dems support to lead them into the next round of elections? It should be a group of people in the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. And thank God there is at least some movement among “younger” Democrats on the Hill to challenge the party’s gerontocracy.

Billy Ray is a screenwriter. His Captain Phillips screenplay earned him an Oscar nomination. He thinks the Democrats’ storytelling ought to start with:

“Whoever is going to be our next presidential candidate needs to look to the American people and say, ‘You matter. Not me, not Trump. You matter. You matter to your family, you matter to your community, you matter to your country,’” he adds. “‘You matter to our collective future, and you matter to me. And what I’m going to do for the next four years is just work for working families. I’m going to do the things that made the Democratic Party your party for so long.’”

Working families. Who among the Democrats out there can build on and carry this message home?

Evolve or Die, Dems.

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Implications Of Brian Thompson’s Assassination

The Daily Escape:

Bear Trap Gap, NC – November 2024 photo by Mandy Gallimore

“If you want things to stay as they are, things will have to change”– Il Gattopardo

If you’re on social media, a concerning number of people seem to openly support gunning down a “corporate rich guy” in broad daylight. Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare was murdered in what appears to be a targeted killing. And the comments about it on the internet underscore there is kind of a depravity circulating in too many Americans.

This, after two attempts to assassinate Trump during the campaign. Which stirred up similar, although more muted reaction on social media.

The killer left anti-insurance messages on the shell casings of the bullets that killed Thompson, using the words: “deny,” “defend” and “depose”. Those words are references to the ways insurance companies avoid paying for care.

An excellent summary by Bob Lefsetz:

“And we thought the revolution would arrive as a result of the red/blue divide. When in truth, it’s all about income inequality. Please don’t criticize me for having sympathy for those screwed by the insurance companies. If I were in charge, there’d be no guns at all, or a law akin to that in Australia. But one would posit that the shooter is pissed because the insurance company didn’t pay.

But that’s what insurance companies do, not pay. That’s their business model. Even assuming you can see the doctor of your choice, which is rare.”

Yes, not pay whenever possible is what insurance companies do.

To be clear, this is why advanced societies have tended to create broad publicly funded social safety net programs. It’s not because their bleeding heart politicians love giving away money. It’s because making sure people have humane standards of living keeps them from becoming desperate and doing stuff like this. During the Great Depression, capitalists agreed—grudgingly—to the New Deal because they were afraid otherwise the country would “go Communist”.

We have no clarity on the actual motive behind the killing, but all signs point to it being linked to dissatisfaction with our health insurance system. And we need to remember that Brian Thompson was a human being with a family. So calling his death justified is despicable.

It’s the health insurance payment system and healthcare pricing for goods and services that is despicable.

From STAT:

“The public’s dissatisfaction has never been higher. Recent polling data show the health care system is as unpopular now as it was before the Affordable Care Act went into effect 15 years ago — a time when insurers could decline to cover people if they had any number of pre-existing health conditions and nearly 49 million people lacked insurance. A survey from Gallup released Friday reveals that “Americans’ positive rating of the quality of health care in the U.S. is now at its lowest point” since 2001.”

More:

“Roughly 25 million Americans remain uninsured. Tens of millions of others have health insurance but can’t afford their deductibles, coinsurance, or copays due to the high prices of tests, surgeries, and prescription drugs….These barriers aren’t just a nuisance — they can have real effects on patients’ health.”

The KFF foundation reports that 100 million Americans have medical debt, and its highly doubtful that they can afford to pay it down. Even people with platinum forms of coverage face long waits coordinating the complex and uncoordinated delivery of their health care, as Wrongo knows firsthand.

After getting care, patients are inundated with medical bills they don’t understand — perplexed why their insurer isn’t advocating on their behalf, and fearful that hospitals and other providers will send them to collections or sue them.

It’s all part of a health care system that is projected to spend $5 trillion this year, eating further into workers’ wages. Those who feel most aggrieved often are the sickest. Most people are generally satisfied with their health insurance. However, people who have more health conditions and therefore need to get care more frequently don’t like their coverage nearly as much as healthier people, according to polling from KFF.

So, the more they know you, the more they dislike you. People are feeling a sense of helplessness in trying to address this mammoth commercial insurance industry that’s putting restraints on people’s ability to get care. When you feel that sense of helplessness is when you end up having situations like this. People don’t really know what else to do.

The murder of the CEO and the public’s reaction reveals that:

  • Americans are blindingly angry, and not just with the healthcare system.
  • Due process is no longer trusted. Have enough money and you’re likely to buy your way out of a bad situation. The FTC says Twitter must comply with the consent decree and Elon Musk just doesn’t do it. The government is no match for the rich. Money can insulate you from so much.
  • Vigilante justice has become a solution in some places because of the lack of due process.

We’re entering a period that is very similar to the Gilded Age of the 1880s and the 1930s.

Our social contract is in free fall. And the Trump administration’s proposed cabinet officers will make it worse.

What will happen in a country with 400 million guns and 320 million people? Things may go downhill quickly. Never forget, most change is fomented by individuals. A fruit vendor in Tunisia ignited the Arab Spring.

Is this the start of change in America? One person gunning down an insurance company executive?

Wrongo doesn’t condone the shooting. At this point we have no motive. But what we do know makes you think about our broken health care system and the overcompensation of the people who run it. They’re getting rich on our illnesses. They take our money and then, don’t pay.

Ain’t that America.

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Harris’s Closing Argument

The Daily Escape:

Wrongo has no idea if Harris’s campaigning on a “Constitution over Party” pitch with Liz Cheney to Niki Haley voters is working, but he doubts it’ll be enough to win the election. Wrongo doesn’t know if Harris would have been better served by engaging with Muslim and Arab voters, assuming that she couldn’t have done both, and chose not to.

As I’ve spoken to friends who support Harris, the big question is when does she take the focus off Trump and begin her “closing argument”? Wrongo thinks she should focus on the “cost of living”. There’s no getting around that it’s high, that it’s higher than it should be, and that it’s a primary concern for most Americans.

In an NBC News poll, three in 10 voters under 30 years old said that inflation and the cost of living is the most important problem currently facing the country, three times more than the share calling “threats to democracy” their most important issue, which was the next highest issue among young voters. Abortion is the third most selected issue at 9%, followed by the Israel-Hamas war and “crime and safety” — both of which were selected by only 8% of young voters.

At the same time, new polling by AARP shows Harris leads Trump with women over the age of 50 by more than any presidential candidate since 2016. The survey shows that 54% favor Harris vs. just 42% for Trump (+12 points). It’s a huge improvement from Biden, who in January, led Trump by three points with women over 50. Harris’s numbers are also better than Clinton’s numbers in 2016, when she polled 48%-40% over Trump: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Overwhelmingly, women over 50 say that the economy and affordability are their biggest issue. Only a third of those surveyed say the economy is working well for them on a personal level, with 62% saying it isn’t. Another 41% of older women have confidence that in one year, they will be financially better off, as opposed to 49% saying they’re not confident of that.

Cost of living is the most important issue to 46% of those surveyed, with immigration in second at 30%…”

AARP believes that women over 50 can potentially sway the election, so Harris should take heed. Showing empathy with Gen Z and older women should be at the top of Harris’s closing argument. Speaking generally about some of her policies and contrasting with Trump’s “all tariffs all the time” tax on Americans should be an easy sell.

In a sense, the campaigns disagree on who the final persuadable voters are:

  • Trump is after low-propensity Republicans who don’t mind his crassness and authoritarian personality.
  • Democrats see small pockets of persuadables grouped by issues across the political spectrum, anchored by the idea that the next president has to ensure that prices come down.

Ultimately, this campaign is likely to come down to whether Trump’s character is too distasteful to GOP-leaning suburban women and to enough Latino and Black voters that they hold their noses and support Harris. Harris is clearly putting a ton of effort into these voting subgroups.

If you want insight into what Harris is delivering every day out on the campaign trail, read this transcription by Marcy Wheeler  of Harris’s session with Maria Shriver. She asked Harris how she copes with the stress. After admitting she wakes up most nights these days, she gave this impromptu speech against despair:

“Let me just speak to what people are feeling. We cannot despair. We cannot despair. You know, the nature of a democracy is such that I think there’s a duality. On the one hand, there’s an incredible strength when our democracy is intact. An incredible strength in what it does to protect the freedoms and rights of its people.

Oh there’s great strength in that.

And, it is very fragile. It is only as strong as our willingness to fight for it. And so that’s the moment we’re in. And I say do not despair because in a democracy, as long as we can keep it, in our democracy, the people — every individual — has the power to make a decision about what this will be.

And so let’s not feel powerless.

Let’s not let the — and I get it, overwhelming nature of this all make us feel powerless. Because then we have been defeated. And that’s not our character as the American people. We are not one to be defeated. We rise to a moment. And we stand on broad shoulders of people who have fought this fight before for our country. And in many ways then, let us look at the challenge that we have been presented and not be overwhelmed by it.

The baton is now in our hands, to fight for, not against, but for this country that we love. That’s what we have the power to do.

So let’s own that? Dare I say be joyful in what we will do in the process of owning that which is knowing that we can and will build community and coalitions and remind people that we’re all in this together.

Let’s not let the overwhelming nature of this strip us of our strength.”

Everyone should read that.

Wrongo thinks that there are legions of enraged women who are not being polled but ARE heading to the polls. That there are legions of young people who see Trump and the GOP for what they are and want none of it.

As someone who supported Harris in 2020 and was extremely disappointed in her at the time, I was pretty worried about how strong a campaigner she would be, and how well organized a campaign she was going to run. So far, so good.

Most Dems are doing more than they ever have to try and help win this.

And yes, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things.

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The Crypto Bro Vote

The Daily Escape:

When Trump pivoted to being pro-crypto, everyone thought it was just another scam to make a few extra shekels in advance of election. From The Atlantic:

“…more than 1 million people tuned in for the launch of World Liberty Financial, a new crypto project promoted by Trump and his family. The former president has been posting about it on social media for several weeks.”

More:

“Trump wasn’t always this pro-crypto. He once referred to bitcoin as a scam….This summer, he appeared at a bitcoin conference and declared that the United States ‘will be the crypto capital of the planet’”

But his embrace may be more calculated than that. You shouldn’t be surprised to learn that crypto companies are bankrolling Republican campaigns this election. The New Yorker has a detailed story about how Silicon Valley’s crypto boys went all in on Sen. Adam Schiff in part by crushing Rep. Katie Porter’s attempt to become the Democratic nominee for the California Senate race:

“…Katie Porter was…futzing around on her computer when she learned that she was the target of a vast techno-political conspiracy….Now she was in a highly competitive race to replace the California senator Dianne Feinstein, who had died a few months earlier. The primary was in three weeks.

A text from a campaign staffer popped up on Porter’s screen. The staffer had just learned that a group named Fairshake was buying airtime in order to mount a last-minute blitz to oppose her candidacy. Indeed, the group was planning to spend roughly ten million dollars.”

More:

“Porter…had raised thirty million dollars to bankroll her entire campaign, and that had taken years. The idea that some unknown group would swoop in and spend a fortune attacking her…seemed ludicrous: “I was, like, ‘What the heck is Fairshake?’ ”

Fairshake is a super PAC funded primarily by three tech firms involved in the cryptocurrency industry. The pro-crypto PAC has raised more than $200 million for 2024’s election cycles, per OpenSecrets, with tens of millions of dollars flooding in from crypto giants Coinbase and Ripple, as well as the Menlo Park CA venture firm Andreessen Horowitz.

Fairshake’s thinking was: If Porter lost and other politicians saw how much money the industry had available to spend on elections, they’d be more likely to become pro-crypto. The stakes, for the big donors, are existential — regulatory acceptance would boost the value of their companies’ assets and the use of their services.

The PAC dumped about $10 million into the race, a third of the $30 million Porter had for her campaign. She hadn’t ever heard of the group, but its attack ads called her “a fake,” a “liar” and a “bully.”  Fairshake selected Porter from a list of high-profile options, hoping to make an example. She lost and will be out of Congress when it convenes in January.

An unnamed political operative told the New Yorker:

“Porter was a perfect choice because she let crypto declare, ‘If you are even slightly critical of us, we won’t just kill you…we’ll end your career.’ From a political perspective, it was a masterpiece.”

Fairshake’s scare campaign appears to have worked. The House of Representatives passed a pro-crypto bill, with bipartisan support, in May. Candidates with Fairshake’s support won their primaries in 85% of the cases.

This has made its way into the presidential campaign: Trump backs crypto and Harris has signaled her support for it as well.

Trump may be on to something, since this could be a bigger factor in the election than we realize. The New Yorker quotes Coinbase as saying that fifty-two million Americans own cryptocurrencies. Those polls indicated that 60% of crypto owners were millennials or Gen Z-ers, and 41% were people of color, key demographics for each Party.

Coinbase also launched an advocacy organization, Stand with Crypto, which is advertised to Coinbase’s millions of US customers every time they log in, and which urges cryptocurrency owners to contact their lawmakers.

Sherrod Brown (D-OH) is running for reelection, where Fairshake has directed forty million dollars to ads in support of his opponent.

In total, Fairshake and affiliated PACs have already spent more than a hundred million dollars on political races in 2024, including $43 million on Senate races in Ohio and West Virginia, and $7 million on four congressional races in North Carolina, Colorado, Alaska, and Iowa.

The big question is whether the bro vote is overhyped? Will these crypto bros turn out to vote?

Trump’s best chance at success in November requires minimizing his losses among women and suburbanites while building a coalition that includes a historic number of male and working-class voters in his corner. As a result, we’re seeing both campaigns and their allies attempt to reach men in unprecedented and unconventional ways online. (A reminder: Young men historically vote at lower rates than young women.)

For Trump, it seems this targeted outreach to the tech bros segment of the electorate is essential. If he can’t win record numbers of men, it’s unlikely he can win the White House.

For the Harris campaign, the male-focused outreach efforts are happening in addition to major campaigns and organizing programs designed to reach more dependable parts of their coalition who turn out more dependably.

In a way, this is proof that American governance and legislation have become so perverted by money that it is nearly impossible for people other than billionaires to further their agendas. It’s particularly dangerous given that the US economy has bestowed lavish riches on a tiny group of disaffected, unaccountable technologists.

Today’s startup founders and venture capitalists are, like the nouveaux riches of previous eras, using their wealth for selfish aims. In doing so, they have revealed themselves to be as ruthless as the robber barons and industrial tyrants of a century ago—not coincidentally, the last time that income inequality was as extreme as it is today.

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Beat Him With Ballots, Not Bullets

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Jordan pond trail, Acadia NP – July 2024 photo by Joe Lacroix

President Biden addressed the nation on Sunday. He said he’s ordering an independent review of the assassination attempt on Trump at his political rally in PA on Saturday night. And he denounced the attack as contrary to everything we stand for as a nation.

After the shooting Biden called Trump and asked him if he was okay. Biden also suspended his campaign temporarily, including posting on social media. Over two presidential campaigns, Trump has done nothing but insult Biden and make fun of him, but Biden called him and asked him if he was okay. That’s the definition of a leader.

If you follow the news closely, you’ve seen every major Democratic leader in the country resolutely condemning this political violence. Yet quite a few Republican members of Congress wasted no time in politicizing the attack on Trump by blaming Biden. Those Republicans, of course, will be given a pass, as always.

And the story will continue to dominate the news for several weeks: What was the shooter’s motive? His politics? (if any). There will rightly be serious questions about the Secret Service’s actions (and inaction). Many will strive to blame the inflammatory Trump rhetoric as a contributor to the attempted act.

Will it boost Trump’s chances? That’s difficult to say, but it has certainly inflamed his base. Teddy Roosevelt was shot and then lost. Gerald Ford was shot at twice and lost. Reagan’s approval rating quickly returned to where it was before Hinckley tried to kill him. History isn’t exactly a blueprint for electoral success.

OTOH, Trump’s now equal parts hero and victim to the Republican base. They will remember and repeat the line from his stump speech:

“In the end, they’re not coming after me. They’re coming after you — and I’m just standing in their way.”

The conjunction of Trump shot and bleeding, along with getting to his feet with blood running down his face, and raising his fist while yelling “fight, fight, fight” will make him an action hero for Republicans. It’s already the cover of Time magazine:

And as you should have expected, within 24 hours after the shooting, a messianic narrative was emerging around Trump. On Friday, it was impossible to imagine Trump as a sympathetic figure, but now? It’s become possible. Think about the MAGA narrative:

  • The Deep State Secret Service (run by Biden) didn’t protect our guy. The government failed them once again. It had to be planned!
  • Trump is instantly the manliest man among all men. Defiant, strong. He’s even more MAGA than EVER!
  • The Dems planned this because they couldn’t get him in the criminal or civil court system. So this is how they tried to rid us of him.
  • If the Dems attack Trump, they are attacking a man who was almost assassinated. How could you attack such a warm and loving man of God? (barf).

As to Biden’s candidacy? The assassination attempt will put any talk of replacing Biden aside for now. But if Trump makes inroads in the polls as a result of this, the talk of a replacement will begin again.

Wrongo has zero sympathy for Trump, not now, or before the shooting. You want 18 year-olds to have automatic weapons? You want to cheer on guys like Putin? You laugh at Paul Pelosi getting seriously injured? You want to minimize the plot against Gretchen Whitmer? You say Ashley Babbit was a martyr? You want to pardon all of the 1/6 criminals?

Trump is reaping what he has sown. We live in a very angry and dangerous gun climate created by Trump and the Republican Party. The reality is that Trump got a minor injury in an assassination attempt, and then proceeded to ham it up in response, demonstrating his sure feel for the cameras.

That doesn’t change the fact that Trump is STILL a repugnant con-man, criminal, pathological liar, serial sexual abuser who should be kept away from the White House.

Wake up America! Did the job get harder? Quite possibly. But the job is still to defeat Trump in November, but by VOTES, not bullets.

Sorry, there’s nothing to sing about on this Monday.

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Florida Lets Measles Run Free

The Daily Escape:

Highland Lighthouse, North Truro, Cape Cod, MA – February 2024 photo by Barbra A. Bentley

Let’s take a break this Saturday from a) Russia’s infiltration of the Republican Party and b) the growing realization that unless House Speaker Mike Johnson Johnsonless whips his members into shape before March 1st, we’ll have a government shutdown. Instead let’s focus today on Measles.

You are a witness the continued collapse in US public health standards since Florida’s Surgeon General has said its ok for unvaccinated kids to attend public school even though there are measles outbreaks. From KFF News:

“With a brief memo, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo has subverted a public health standard that’s long kept measles outbreaks under control. On Feb. 20, as measles spread through Manatee Bay Elementary in South Florida, Ladapo sent parents a letter granting them permission to send unvaccinated children to school amid the outbreak.”

More:

“The Department of Health ‘is deferring to parents or guardians to make decisions about school attendance,’ wrote Ladapo, who was appointed to head the agency by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose name is listed above Ladapo’s in the letterhead.”

With his brief memo, Ladapo has subverted a public health standard that’s long kept measles outbreaks under control. This is where you wind up after decades of indoctrination of libertarianism and neoliberalism, where “freedom” becomes anarchy, a rejection of the ability of the state to impose restrictions, even in the name of public safety.

Everyone in America knows that measles is highly contagious, that it kills, and can do lasting damage. More from KFF:

“Most people who aren’t protected by a vaccine will get measles if they’re exposed to the virus. This vulnerable group includes children whose parents don’t get them vaccinated, infants too young for the vaccine, those who can’t be vaccinated for medical reasons…”

The CDC advises that unvaccinated students stay home from school for three weeks after exposure. About 1 in 5 people with measles end up hospitalized, 1 in 10 develop ear infections that can lead to permanent hearing loss, and about 1 in 1,000 die from respiratory and neurological complications. They reported that in 2023, childhood immunization rates had hit a 10-year low.

Worse, only about a quarter of Florida’s counties had reached the 95% threshold at which communities are considered protected against measles outbreaks, according to data posted by the Florida Department of Health in 2022.

Rebekah Jones, a data scientist who was removed from her post at Florida’s health department in 2020, over a rift regarding Coronavirus data, said:

“I think this is the predictable outcome of turning fringe, anti-vaccine rhetoric into a defining trait of the Florida government,”

A strategy of letting measles spread (which can wipe out your body’s immunity memory) while Covid is still pin-balling its way around the country? Sounds legit.

The way that things are going with public health in the US, it’s only a matter of time until the health departments of other western countries start issuing travel health notices for their citizens wanting to visit the US, advising them of the diseases that are being left to run free, particularly in Florida.

From The Nation:

“In 2022, Georgetown University political scientist Donald Moynihan wrote a piece on how to undermine the administrative state….No country becomes a world power without a capable public service.”

Perhaps the corollary, as stated by The Nation’s Gregg Gonsalves is this:

“No country becomes healthy without a capable public health system.”

That describes America today. More from The Nation:

“We did terribly on Covid…part of the reason was that our fundamentals were weak, but our politics are also set up to undermine public health….This has implications well beyond…the pandemic. It’s about how we expect to survive and thrive in America….This is a disaster in slow motion, and we’re watching it unfold as bystanders.”

There you have it: another thing to lose sleep over, and the election is still 7+ months away. Will there be enough infant deaths to generate sufficient outrage to roll this decision back?

Highly doubtful.

Wrongo is leaving you with that thought and is segueing into our Saturday Soother, where we take a break from doom scrolling and spend a few stolen moments alone with our thoughts. Here on the Fields of Wrong, there is still snow on the ground. So while we hope that spring is just around the corner, there’s little evidence to support it.

To help you relax, grab a seat by a south-facing window and watch and listen to Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings”, played here by the Vienna Philharmonic, and conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. Dudamel is scheduled to become music director of the New York Philharmonic in 2026. This performance was a part of the annual free Vienna Summer Night Concert in 2019.

This is the fourth time Wrongo has featured this composition, although you are seeing this particular version for the first time.

Barber finished the Adagio in 1936. In January 1938, Barber sent an orchestrated version of the Adagio for Strings to Arturo Toscanini. The conductor returned the score without comment, which annoyed Barber. Toscanini later sent word that he was planning to perform the piece and had returned it simply because he had already memorized it!

It was performed for the first time by Toscanini in November, 1938. Here, it is conducted by Gustavo Dudamel in 2019, like Toscanini did, without a score:

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Libraries Face Political Pressure

The Daily Escape:

Mt. Mansfield, Stowe, VT – February 2024 photo by Micheline Lemay

“If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.”  – Frank Zappa

Rebecca Gordon has an article at Salon about the growing attacks on public libraries by America’s Right:

“You might think that an apparently harmless public good like a library would have no enemies. But in the age of Trump…there turn out to be many. Some are “astroturf” outfits like the not-even-a-little-bit-ironically named Moms for Liberty. M4L, as they abbreviate their name, was founded in 2021 in Florida, originally to challenge Covid-era mask mandates in public schools. They’ve since expanded their definition of “liberty” to include pursuing the creation of public school libraries that are free of any mention of the existence of LGBTQ people, gender variations, sex, or racism.”

M4L supported Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s 2022 and 2023 “Don’t Say Gay” laws, which outlaw any discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in public schools, while making it extremely easy for parents or other citizens to demand the removal of books they find objectionable from school libraries.

Copycat laws have since been passed in multiple states, including Tennessee where a school district banned MAUS, the bestselling Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, from its curriculum, thanks to eight (now-forbidden) words and a drawing of a naked mouse.

One Florida school district went further. According to CBS News, it also banned:

“Merriam-Webster’s Elementary Dictionary…‘The Bible Book,’ ‘The World Book Encyclopedia of People and Places,’ ‘Guinness Book of World Records, 2000,’ ‘Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus for Students,’ and ‘The American Heritage Children’s Dictionary.’”

You never know what is lurking in a dictionary that might turn your kid gay.

Contemporary book-banning efforts now extend beyond school libraries, where reasonable people might differ about which books should be available to children, to public libraries, where book banners are seeking to keep adults from reading whatever they choose.

EveryLibrary, an anti-censorship organization, keeps a running total of legislation that is concerning in state legislatures that relates to controlling libraries and their librarians. Their current list of such bills, highlights 93 pieces of legislation moving through legislatures in 24 states.

More from Gordon:

“In 2024, they are focusing on…issues, including bills that would criminalize libraries, education, and museums (and/or the employees therein) by removing long-standing defense from prosecution exemptions under obscenity laws….In addition…they are focusing on potential legislation that could restrict the freedom of libraries to develop their collections as they wish, as well as bills that would defund or close public libraries altogether.”

Legislation pending in Oklahoma, the “Opposition to Marxism and Defense of Oklahoma Children Act of 2024”, isn’t concerned with removing books from Oklahoma’s libraries. It focuses on the American Library Association (ALA), which promotes and supports librarians. One of the ALA’s most important activities is the accreditation of library schools, where future librarians learn their craft.

Oklahoma’s “Opposition to Marxism Act” would outlaw cooperation with the ALA, including an existing requirement that public librarians have degrees from ALA-accredited library schools. This form of “opposing Marxism” means taking down a professional organization for librarians along with its Oklahoma affiliate. Gordon thinks this is because of the ALA’s support for “Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion,” (DEI) which MAGA’s are sure is code for Marxism.

Some history: Free public libraries first appeared in this country in the early 1800s. It’s generally agreed that the first dedicated, municipally funded public library in the world opened in 1833 in Peterborough, New Hampshire. A century earlier, Benjamin Franklin had founded the Philadelphia Library Company, a private, subscription-based outfit, funded by members who paid annual dues.

Public libraries as we know them might never have existed if it weren’t for Andrew Carnegie, the obscenely rich robber baron. He funded the building of more than 2,500 libraries worldwide, including some 1,700 in the US built between 1886 and 1929.

According to the ALA, there are 33,855 public libraries in the US along with 82,300 public school libraries

Back to today, Pen America, an organization that works to ensure that people have the freedom to create literature, to convey information and ideas, to express their views, and to access those views, keeps a running total of book bans in public schools. We do not have similar totals for bans in public libraries.

Between July and December 2022, instances of individual book bans occurred in 66 school districts in 21 states. PEN America recorded 13 districts in Florida banning books, followed by 12 districts in Missouri, 7 districts in Texas, and 5 districts in both South Carolina and Michigan. Texas districts had the most instances of book bans with 438 bans, followed by 357 bans in Florida, 315 bans in Missouri, and over 100 bans in both Utah and South Carolina:

So far this school year, instances of book bans were concentrated in a few states – Texas, Florida, Missouri, Utah, and South Carolina. Frisco Independent School District in Texas, Wentzville School District in Missouri, and Escambia County Public Schools in Florida together banned over 600 books, whereas nationwide, most districts (76%) banned fewer books, between 1 and 19.

A public library should be shelving books that “someone might want to read” whereas a public school library should be shelving those that “we think it would be good for students in this age group to read”.

Since the latter is an actively encouraging role, parents should have more leeway to veto certain selections. Obviously that can easily get out of hand, and vetoes could result in tit for tat countermeasures. For a general public library, the ability of one person or group to veto what all others can read should be much more restricted. The solution we had long ago, in the dark days of Wrongo’s youth, was for material that some people did not deem age-appropriate to be checked out only with parental approval. Perhaps that option is no longer thought to be viable.

The internet age has made libraries vulnerable. People can check out digital books electronically, making the library look for alternative uses of its space. Over time, the library shelves may give way to digital archives of their material, causing another concern for how to use the library space efficiently.

But libraries should remain a neutral source of information for the community. And they should retain their–now quite wide ranging–public service function for as long as they can.

The answer to a bad idea should never be censorship. The answer is to counter it with good, or at least better ideas. Libraries and their communities should respect their patrons’ intelligence, provide them with access to information, and let them think things through for themselves.

Wrongo would rather know about the evil ideas that roam free in the world rather than have that evil proliferating in the dark. As an example, Mein Kampf is widely available, and that’s as it should be.

Otherwise, we may go back to the Dark Ages where most were illiterate and only the elite could read and write.

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Democrats Need New Messaging

The Daily Escape:

Cholla Cactus at sunrise, Joshua Tree NP – November 2023 photo by Michelle Strong

Yesterday’s column described how confusing current polling data is with less than a year to go before the 2024 presidential election. We can easily overdose on polls, but in general, they seem to be pointing toward a very difficult re-election for Biden.

At the risk of contributing to the OD, here’s another example of terrible poll for Biden. It comes from Democratic stalwarts Democracy Corps, run by James Carville and Stanley Greenberg:

“President Biden trails Donald Trump by 5 points in the battleground states and loses at least another point when we include the independent candidates who get 17% of the vote. Biden is trying to win these states where three quarters believe the country is on the wrong track and 48% say, “I will never vote for Biden.”

What to make of all this? Wrongo thinks it’s time to take a different approach to the Democrat’s messaging. Let’s start with a quick look at the NYT’s David Leonhardt’s new book, “Ours Was the Shining Future”. Leonhardt’s most striking contention is based on a study of census and income tax data by the Harvard economist Raj Chetty: Where once the great majority of Americans could hope to earn more than their parents, now only half are likely to. From The Atlantic:

“Of Americans born in 1940, 92% went on to earn more than their parents; among those born in 1980, just 50% did. Over the course of a few decades, the chances of achieving the American dream went from a near-guarantee to a coin flip.”

As we said yesterday, the American Dream is fading. Leonhardt says that the Democrats have largely abandoned fighting for basic economic improvements for the working class. Some of the defining progressive triumphs of the 20th century, from labor victories by unions and Social Security under FDR to the Great Society programs of LBJ, were milestones in securing a voting majority. More from The Atlantic:

“Ronald Reagan took office promising to restore growth by paring back government, slashing taxes on the rich and corporations…gutting business regulations and antitrust enforcement. The idea…was that a rising tide would lift all boats. Instead, inequality soared while living standards stagnated and life expectancy fell behind…peer countries.”

Today, a child born in Norway or the UK has a far better chance of out-earning their parents than one born in the US. More context from The Atlantic: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“From the 1930s until the late ’60s, Democrats dominated national politics. They used their power to pass…progressive legislation that transformed the American economy. But their coalition, which included southern Dixiecrats as well as northern liberals, fractured after…Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Richard Nixon’s “southern strategy” exploited that rift and changed the electoral map. Since then, no Democratic presidential candidate has won a majority of the white vote.”

The Atlantic makes another great point: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“The civil-rights revolution also changed white Americans’ economic attitudes. In 1956, 65% of white people said they believed the government ought to guarantee a job to anyone who wanted one and to provide a minimum standard of living. By 1964, that number had sunk to 35%.”

America’s mid-century economy could have created growth and equality, but racial suppression and racial progress led to where we remain today.

Leonhardt argues that what Thomas Piketty called the “Brahmin left” must stop demonizing working-class people who do not share its views on cultural issues such as abortion, immigration, affirmative action and patriotism. From Leonhardt:

“A less self-righteous and more tolerant left could build what successfully increased access to the American Dream in the past: a broad grass-roots movement focused on core economic issues such as strengthening unions, improving wages and working conditions, raising corporate taxes, and decreasing corporate concentration.”

Can the Dems adapt both their priorities and messaging to meet people where they are today?

The priorities must change first. What would it take to establish the right priorities for the future? Stripping away the wedge issues that confuse and divide us, America’s priorities should be Health, Education, Retirement and Environment (“HERE”). It’s an acronym that sells itself: “Vote Here”.

(hat tip to friend of the blog, Rene S. for the HERE concept.)

Wrongo hears from young family members and others that all of the HERE elements are causing very real concerns. Affordable health care coverage still falls short. Regarding education, college costs barely seem to be worth shouldering the huge debt burdens that come with it.

Most young people think that they have no real way to save for retirement early in their careers when there’s the most bang for the buck. They also feel that Social Security won’t be there for them. From the NYT:

“In a Nationwide Retirement Institute survey, 45% of adults younger than 27 said they didn’t believe they would receive any money from the program.”

Today, only about 10% of Americans working in the private sector participate in a defined-benefit pension plan, while roughly 50% contribute to 401(k)-type, defined-contribution plans.

Finally, people today feel that their elders have created an existential environmental threat that will be tossed into their laps. A problem for which there may not be a solution.

As Leonhardt argues, these HERE problems should have always been priorities for Democrats. But for decades, the Party hasn’t been willing to pay today’s political price for a long term gain in voter loyalty. That is, until Biden started working on them in 2020.

But every media outlet continues to harp on inflation and the national debt. Much of what would be helpful in creating a HERE focus as a priority for Democrats depends at least somewhat on government spending. No one can argue that our national debt is high. It is arguable whether it can safely go higher or if it must be reigned in at current levels.

To help you think about that, we collected $4.5 trillion in taxes in 2022, down half a $trillion vs. what we collected in 2021. Estimates are that the Trump tax cuts cost about $350 billion in lost revenue/year.

Looking at tax collections as a percentage of GDP, it’s less than 17% in the US, well below our historical average of 19.5%. There are arguments to keep taxes low, but if you compare the US percentage to other nations, Germany has a ratio of 24%, while the UK’s is 27% and Australia’s is 30%.

If we raised our tax revenue to 24% of GDP, which is where Germany is now, we would eliminate the US deficit.

There’s a great deal of tension in the electorate between perception and reality. And it’s not caused by partisanship: Democrats and independents are also exhibiting a disconnect, too.

Democrats have to return to being the party of FDR and LBJ. They need to adopt the HERE priorities and build programs around them.

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What Is It With These Freaking Polls?

The Daily Escape:

Yellow Ocotillo in bloom, Anza-Borrego SP, CA – November 2023 photo by Paulette Donnellon

Today is Election Day in the US. If you are eligible to vote, you should get to your local polling place and do your duty as an American. Wrongo and Ms. Right live in Litchfield County, CT. The county skews right, having voted for the Republican in the last three presidential elections while going for Obama in 2008, but not in 2012. Litchfield was the only Connecticut county to vote for Mitt Romney in 2012.

Tomorrow, we’re electing a mayor, town council, school board, zoning board and several other offices. Like in most off-year elections, turnout in our town is expected to be much smaller than in presidential years. Wrongo always wonders why turnout is low, when the stakes for what happens in your town are so high, regardless of whenever it’s an off-year election. Wrongo and Ms. Right plan to split our tickets.

By Wednesday morning, we’ll know which state elections across the country look like they are a bellwether for the 2024 election which is just under a year away. Will Virginia’s Republicans take full control of the state legislature and clear a path for Gov. Youngkin to enact his far-right proposals on abortion and education?

In Ohio, voters will decide whether to approve Issue 1 and Issue 2. Issue 1 would enshrine the right to an abortion and other reproductive health care in the state constitution. Issue 2 would legalize marijuana for adults over 21.

2023 has been a very good year for Democrats, and we need to close strong. So, by Wednesday, we’ll know more than we do today.

Despite that, this week, the NYT is out with a poll predicting a future they can’t possibly know. Their poll shows Trump leading Biden in five critical swing states:

“President Biden is trailing Donald J. Trump in five of the six most important battleground states one year before the 2024 election, suffering from enormous doubts about his age and deep dissatisfaction over his handling of the economy and a host of other issues….Across the six battlegrounds — all of which Mr. Biden carried in 2020 — the president trails by an average of 48 to 44 percent.”

According to Simon Rosenberg, Republican presidential candidates have only topped 48% and won the popular vote once since 1988 (Bush 2004 re-election). Trump received 46.1% and 46.8% of the vote in his two elections. Polls finding Trump in the high 40s or with large leads over Biden place him in territory he has never achieved with voters.

If Wrongo hasn’t convinced you, remember that the NYT poll was of 3,662 registered voters. It was conducted by telephone using live operators from Oct. 22-Nov. 3. Picture it: People answering a phone call from an unknown caller. Do you know anyone under 50 who answers a call from numbers they don’t recognize? Apparently, the NYT has admitted that they overweighted Republicans and later attempted to “smooth” the results statistically.

After all the smoothing, the margin of sampling error for each state is from 4.4 to 4.8 percentage points. In other words, the overall results that show Trump waxing Biden are within the margin of error.

Voters also told the NYT:

  • 56% have a somewhat unfavorable or somewhat unfavorable view of Trump.
  • Asked who would be better for “democracy,” voters give Biden a 48%-45% edge.
  • 51% say that following the 2020 election, Trump “threatened democracy.”
  • 54% believe Trump has committed “serious federal crimes.”
  • 52% say they do not think he will be convicted of any crimes.
    • Yet if he is convicted and sentenced to prison, then suddenly Biden goes to 49%, vs. Trump at 39%.
  • Asked if it would be “bad for the country” if Biden or Trump won:
    • Biden would be bad for the country: 44%
    • Trump would be bad for the country: 46%
  • Again: The net voting preference in this poll is Trump 48%, Biden 44%. With a 4.45-4.8% margin of error.

Does this picture fit together with the NYT’s overall results?

It’s useful to remember that Congressional polling is encouraging for Democrats. The current Economist/YouGov tracker has Congressional favorables/unfavorables for Congressional Democrats at 44%/51% (-7%) while Congressional Republicans are at 35%/59% (-25%).

And a new poll from Navigator Research shows that in battleground House districts, it found terrible numbers for Congressional Republicans:

If this data holds: 1) Democrats will be the clear favorites to win the House and 2) The declining GOP Congressional brand could drag Trump down along with the overall GOP brand in the Presidential battleground states. And this poll was taken before voters learned how extreme the Republican’s new Speaker is!

Dan Pfeiffer has a nice article; “How to Respond to the Very Bad NYT Poll.” If you are worried about the poll, Pfeiffer adds detail:

“Perhaps the simplest explanation of Biden’s political challenges is that he has done a lot of good, popular things, and almost no one knows about them. Navigator tested a series of messages about Biden’s various accomplishments, including allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower drug costs, the bipartisan law to rebuild roads and bridges, and efforts to create more manufacturing jobs in the US

Guess what? All of this stuff is super popular.”

More:

“Medicare negotiating drug prices is supported by 77% of Americans, including 64% of Republicans. The bipartisan infrastructure law has the support of 73% of Americans and a majority of Republicans. Every accomplishment tested in this poll had majority support. It’s hard to overstate how impressive that is in a deeply divided, highly polarized country at a time when the President’s approval ratings are in the low 40s.”

According to the NYT poll, a majority of Americans heard little or nothing about these accomplishments, so there’s a yawning knowledge gap. But the poll also shows that when people are told about what Biden has done, his approval rating goes up.

The NYT poll reminds us that everyday people like you and me can have an outsized impact if they focus on letting friends and family know about Biden’s accomplishments. That is so much more valuable than worrying about polls a year in advance.

It’s time for a rare Tuesday Wake Up Call. Wake up America! We will be dealing with polls that skew reality, and with negative press from now to next November. To help you wake up, listen to Rachel Platten perform her big hit, “Fight Song”, live on New Years Eve in 2016:

This is to help heal you from the bad polling news. Now, get up off the floor and do what you have to do.

Sample Lyric:

And all those things I didn’t say
Were wrecking balls inside my brain
I will scream them loud tonight
Can you hear my voice this time?

[Chorus]
This is my fight song
Take back my life song
Prove I’m alright song
My power’s turned on
Starting right now, I’ll be strong
I’ll play my fight song (Hey)
And I don’t really care if nobody else believes
‘Cause I’ve still got a lot of fight left in me

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