GREAT BRITAIN UNDER SIEGE

On December 8, Margaret Keenan, a 91 year old British grandmother, became the first person in Britain and the West to receive a vaccine against Covid-19. This was a big deal, and much of the British population celebrated, filled with pride and hope that there was light at the end of a long, unsettling and painful tunnel. Two weeks later jubilation turned to trepidation when epidemiologists discovered that a new and 56-70% more contagious variant of the coronavirus was sweeping the United Kingdom. As if this was not enough, many in the country were becoming increasingly apprehensive about the consequences of Brexit negotiations with the EU, which were in their ultimate phase, but not terribly promising. Brexit being concluded by the end of the year was long anticipated. However, reality was finally sinking in. All in all the U.K. experienced a double whammy. The more immediate crisis, the coronavirus variant, generated anxious responses from all over. Prime Minister Boris Johnson intensified the U.K. lock-down protocols, essentially eliminating most Christmas celebrations. One nation after another imposed flight restrictions on Britain. France barred entry of trucks from the U.K., and even though this edict lasted only a few days, the border closing left more than 1,500 trucks stranded as the Port of Dover and the Euro tunnel were shut to outbound traffic, multiple countries began establishing and requiring systematic testing for the virus for people coming in from Britain. New York governor Andrew Cuomo demanded a halt to flights, and insisted that airlines flying into New York from the U.K. mandate that all passengers produce a negative Covid-19 test before boarding flights. The remainder of the country followed suit as of December 28. The panic response developed late and was probably less than effective. Infectious disease experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, opined that there was a good chance that the variant was already here. In light of the improbability that the variant had remained confined to Britain, the European Commission recommended rather quickly that member states lift their blanket bans on Britain. However, the emotional damage was already done. As this crisis developed, Brexit negotiations reached a last minute push for a U.K.-EU trade agreement with a December 31 deadline looming and progress fleeting. While P.M. Boris Johnson and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen meeting over dinner, and Mr. Johnson suggesting that he would leave without a deal, opinion polls in the U.K. indicated that positions in the country had shifted after its 2016 referendum. Currently 51% of those interviewed indicated they actually wanted the U.K. to remain part of the EU. At stake was not only termination of the free movement of goods across the English Channel for the first time in half a century. The recent memory of hundreds of trucks stuck at the Port of Dover only represented a small example of what could be anticipated during the logistical nightmare expected once the country effectively separated from the EU. Every day 10,000 trucks cross the Channel on ferries moving half of all goods between the U.K. and the continent. Terminating EU membership would mean that drivers and cargo required documentation going forward. New customs officers would need to be hired to test imports of meat and fresh produce, which meant that shipments that once breezed through could be held up for hours or days. It is estimated that for every 2 minutes of delay at the Port of Dover, a 17 mile traffic jam will be created on access roads. Besides, a "no deal" Brexit would mean that the EU could start taxing British imports from the beginning of January on, substantially raising prices. A last minute agreement was reached, which avoided the immediate imposition of tariffs on $900 billion of cross border trade. This is significant because last year the U,K relied on the EU for 50% of imports and 47% of exports, making it the U.K.'s single largest trading partner. However, the outcome is no substitute for the unfettered access to the largest single market in the world. The new agreement still throws more obstacles in the way for traders. The British government estimates that there will be 215 million extra customs declarations a year, nearly 600,000 a day, businesses have to process. And it is anticipated that the cumulative drop in GDP over the next 15 years could be a whopping 4%. Moreover, the prospect of a traffic nightmare at the Port is still expected to become a reality. Political opposition to Brexit is still powerful and is only getting stronger. Leaders in Scotland and Northern Ireland were quick to express their displeasure. Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon issued the statement that "Brexit is happening against Scotland's will - and there is no deal that will make up what Brexit takes away from us." Northern Ireland's Social Democratic Labor Party leader Colum Eastwood chimed in, stating: "The entire Brexit fantasy is a future that people here do not want and did not vote for." The British government may believe that, for now, it is managing to limit the fallout of the recent crises it was forced to address. It ought to get prepared to confront the political backlash it is certain to encounter. The country is under stress. Its population feels besieged and may well be ready to shake off a populist yoke. Brexit, after all, was a populist pipe dream. Ultimately, national cohesion could be at stake. Theo Wierdsma

INCOME INEQUALITY THREATENS SOCIAL STABILITY

One way or another, politicians running for elective office have been pointing out that economic inequality in this country is spiraling out of control, shrinking the middle class and endangering social stability. During the 2016 election, then candidate Donald Trump effectively used this condition by pointing out how globalization had killed industries in our industrial heartland, forged the closure of many businesses, and shifted thousands of jobs into skill sets workers were not prepared for. He promised to revitalize industries like steel and coal, which had traditionally been the livelihood for many now unemployed. Self proclaimed democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, never subtle, hammered on the "super rich" and large corporations suggesting that the country needed to dramatically reform the tax code and essentially redistribute some of the wealth. He and others pointed out that the wealth gap between the richest and the poorer families had more than doubled since 1989. And, during the most recent campaign, now President- Elect Joe Biden also ran on a platform of policy proposals designed to narrow this gap. Economic inequality is somewhat of a complex concept. It involves the distribution of income - the amount of money people are paid, and the distribution of wealth, the amount of wealth people own. On the one hand, the wealth gap, while growing steadily, is typically not considered to be easily actionable through government intervention. The richest one percent takes in about one third of the country's net worth. The catch phrase "the rich are getting richer, the poor get poorer," is not just a platitude. People who already hold wealth have the resources to invest or to leverage the accumulation of wealth, which creates new wealth, leading to what is called "wealth concentration." Income inequality, on the other hand, has become more of a political football. It refers to a significant disparity in the distribution of income between individuals, groups, populations, social classes, or even countries. Among the G-7 countries, composed of the world's largest developed countries, the U.S., the most prosperous country in the bloc, has the highest level of income inequality, and, by far, exhibits the worst poverty rate. Causes of steadily increasing inequality include a number of factors: the growth in technology, continued gender income differentiation, the decline of organized labor and the influence of globalization. Wages are a function of the market price of skills required for a job, which, in turn, is determined by supply and demand. Rapidly changing technologies demand specific skill sets many workers won't possess and which may be difficult to acquire by an aging, relatively uneducated labor force. Salaries for women in the U.S. are still only 77% of that of men. The share of workers represented by labor unions has dropped by half, to just over 10%, during the past four decades, shrinking the power to bargain for higher wages and benefits. Globalization has reduced global inequality between nations, but it has increased inequality within nation-states. Significant income inequality has consequences. A major downside is diminished economic growth. MIT professor David Autor argues that "dynamism," characterized by vigorous activity and progress, gives rise to "dynasticism." Kids of affluent parents, even of mediocre talent, go to the best schools and talented kids from less affluent families don't, which ultimately means our society will be less productive. Besides, people on the lower steps of the economic ladder may become discouraged as they experience diminished economic opportunity and mobility. Severe income and wealth inequality also tends to have a negative effect on the political influence of the disadvantaged. Moreover, regional income producing activities, be they industrial, agricultural or others, may create geographic segregation by income. When asked, 61% of Americans (78% Democrats and 41% of Republicans) believe that there is too much economic inequality in the U.S., but fewer than half call it a top priority Those who say there is too much inequality see merit in a variety of approaches: Ensure workers have the skills they need for today's jobs (65% of Democrats and 56% of Republicans); increase taxes on the wealthiest Americans (69% of Democrats and 36% of Republicans). (PEW Research, Jan. 9, 2020). More than half of those who believe there is too much inequality believe that the government needs to be instrumental in mitigating this condition and has the responsibility to provide all Americans with high quality K-12 education, adequate medical care, health insurance, adequate income at retirement and a decent standard of living. What is the point of living in the most prosperous country in the world when 50 million people are hungry and well over half a million have no roof over their heads. A considerable basket of policy objectives for our politicians to pursue. Kenneth Rogoff, professor of public policy and economics at Harvard University, cautions that: "there is no doubt that income inequality is the biggest threat to social stability around the world, whether it is in the United States, the European periphery, or China." ("In the long run we are all equally dead," The Economist, July 7, 2020.) Theo Wierdsma

WHEN FACTS NO LONGER MATTER

President Donald Trump will relinquish his office at noon on January 20, 2021. While he is leaving the White House, his legacy will remain with us for some time to come. Among the details most of us will have difficulty forgetting is what appeared to have been a deliberate attempt at obscuring objective truths, rather than sticking to using unbiased observable facts not influenced by his personal feelings or opinions. It began early on, two days after his inauguration, on January 22, 2017, when his counselor Kellyanne Conway, during a "Meet the Press" interview, defended Press Secretary Sean Spicer's false statements about attendance numbers during the president's inaugural. When Chuck Todd pressed her to explain why Spicer would utter a provable falsehood, she stated that the press secretary was simply providing "alternative facts," the first time many of us were exposed to that term. Since then we have been bombarded with alternative "facts," half truths and blatant lies. As of August 27 of this year, the Washington Post's database logged 22,247 claims that could be categorized as misinformation or disinformation. During most of his time in office, observers counted close to 50 plus untruths each day. The White House has denied that objective truth actually exists. Mr. Trump's current lawyer Rudy Giuliani has explained that "truth isn't truth." "There is no way to determine who is lying and who is not" he insists. "Truth is inherently partisan. It is whatever you prefer or believe." It did not take long for the pundits to begin comparing the deliberate misstatements by the Trump administration with what George Orwell referred to in "1984" as "double speak" and "double think," a deliberate attempt to indoctrinate its political base and develop the acceptance of or mental capacity to accept contrary opinions or beliefs at the same time. Typical examples of this Orwellian concept are: "War is peace," "freedom is slavery," and "ignorance is strength." Trump's Orwellian "double speak" began with the lie about the size of his inauguration crowd, continuing with his early assurance that the coronavirus will go away like a miracle, and finally with his election meddling, during which, contrary to objective facts, the president maintains that he actually won "by a lot." Consequently, many in his base believe he did. "The Trump m.o. is not to lie convincingly. It is, in fact, the opposite - to distort the truth so blatantly that going along requires a cultish willingness to suspend disbelief." (Mother Jones, Oct. 9, 2020). Arguments made on behalf of the president are often ridiculous to the point of bordering insanity. Mr. Giuliani, for instance, advanced the belief that systemic election fraught perpetrated by the democrats during this past cycle was so refined that there was no discernible proof. At the same time, millions of believers are falling prey to a mass delusion about a secretive cannibalistic cabal popularized by Q-Anon. Mr. Trump maintains he does not know this group, except that they seem to like him. None of this is exclusive to the United States. Autocrats in numerous countries make use of deliberate misinformation - a.k.a. propaganda - to indoctrinate receptive populations. The idea is to flood their populations with so many alternative explanations that people begin giving up on the facts. It did not take long for political scientists to characterize the phenomenon as "post truth," an object of study for several different fields. "Post truth" became the Oxford dictionary word of the year in 2016. It describes the subject as a condition where objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief. It identifies a growing international trend to where some feel emboldened to bend reality to fit their opinions, rather than the other way around. In substance, this is not a new concept. Historian and sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) drew a distinction between facts and values. He postulated that facts can be determined through the method of a value-free, objective social science, while values are derived through culture and religion, the truth of which can not be known through science. Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) believed that humans created concepts through which they define the good and just, thereby replacing the concept of truth with the concept of values. Today "post truth" refers to a "philosophical and political concept for the disappearance of shared objective standards for truth," and the "circuitous slippage between facts or alt-facts, knowledge, opinion, belief and truth." When objective truth is replaced by a constant flow of disinformation, democracy is in peril. To quote former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who knew the Trump administration intimately, from a May 16, 2018 commencement address at the Virginia Military Institute: "If our leaders seek to conceal the truth or we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then we as American citizens are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom. This is the life of nondemocratic societies, comprised of people who are not free to seek the truth." Theo Wierdsma

ARE WE STUCK WITH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE?

Five times in our history, and twice during the past 20 years, the winner of a presidential election has lost the popular vote. In the election of 2000, George W. Bush managed to barely compile the mandatory 271 electoral votes necessary to win the election after being declared the controversial victor in Florida, winning that state by 537 votes. Al Gore, his opponent, actually won the national popular vote by 543,000. In the 2016 election, current president Donald Trump won in the electoral college by a count of 306 against 232 for Hillary Clinton, even though the latter amassed almost 3 million more votes nationally. Both results generated a popular outcry chastising our electoral college system, questioning why we would not use the popular vote tally to choose our president. In a 2018 survey, 65% of Americans indicated support to change the way we tabulate winners and losers during national presidential elections. Only 32% expressed their preference for our current system. However, when the survey wording included changing the Constitution to accomplish this, the popular vote preference dropped to 55%, significantly less, but still a majority. The questions remain: Why do we have an Electoral College? Why don't we change the system if that appears to be the popular preference? And what are the arguments that support the continuation of our current system? Our Founders feared factions and worried that voters wouldn't make informed decisions. They found themselves in a quandary. They did not want to tell the states how to conduct their elections. Many feared that the states with the largest voting population would essentially end up choosing the president. The Electoral College was a compromise. The compromise adopted at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 allowed the popular election of the president, but on a state by state basis. Each state's citizens would vote for president, with the winner taking all the electoral votes for that state, based on the number of seats that state had in the Senate and the House combined. The tricky part of the equation was how to account for all the slaves when determining a state's total population, since that number would determine the state's number of seats in the House of Representatives. The compromise the convention came up with was to count only three out of every five slaves as people, giving the Southern states a third more seats in Congress. The U.S. Constitution adopted during the Convention included this three-fifth compromise, which was not superseded until passage of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. Section 2 of this Amendment gave former slaves equal protection and voting rights. It specified equality for male slaves. Female slaves and all women were excluded. Today's supporters of the Electoral College argue that we live in a constitutional republic rather than a democracy. They maintain that the process is integral to our federalist, state focused philosophy, and serves as a firewall against fraud. It prevents systematic fraud by diffusing fraudulent voting across multiple states. The suggestion is that a small number of fraudulent votes have no impact on the outcome of a presidential election. They also submit that the College encourages a national campaign, because the power of small states with at least three electoral votes can act as decisive voices in close presidential elections. Moreover they point at the mess the Florida recount created in 2000, and suggest an even greater problem if this were to occur on a national scale. Some white supremacist leaders also spread the believe that with a popular vote white people would have less influence. California, Texas and Florida would elect the president. Minorities would do the electing. Popular vote supporters predictably suggest that our votes would count the same wherever they were cast. Whoever gets the most should win. A national popular vote would eliminate the "battleground state," a key feature of post convention campaigning, leaving most Americans alienated from the decisive phase of presidential elections. Partisans supporting the popular route acknowledge that attempts at amending the Constitution won't likely succeed. Any amendment would require a 2/3 majority in the House and the Senate, and support from 3/4 of the 50 states. To bi-pass this cumbersome process, some states, 15 at current count, initiated an agreement to elect the president by national popular vote - the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact - guaranteeing the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes across 50 states and the District of Columbia. The Compact ensures that every vote, in every state, will matter in every presidential election. However, the agreement won't take effect until its composite membership accounts for 270 electoral votes. Many questions remain concerning legal entanglements that need to be ironed out when this plan reaches fruition. In the mean time we appear to be stuck with what we have. Theo Wierdsma

IS IT TIME TO EXHALE?

For a few days this month, time stood still while the entire country, and , in some sense , much of the world anxiously held its collective breath waiting for the outcome of our, very consequential, presidential election. At this writing, the outcome is still in limbo. Our election was not just a choice between candidates, sandwiched between a confluence of multiple crises. Our country was asked to render a verdict on our role in the world, hold a referendum on the role of the presidency, the direction of our economy, our strategy to contain an ever escalating pandemic, and our ability to confront systemic racial inequity. The country wondered out loud if democracy would survive. Specifically, because our current president prematurely expressed his intention to challenge the legitimacy of the result if he lost. New York Times' columnist Thomas Friedman made it clear in one of his most recent publications when he questioned "Will 2020's election be the end of our democracy?" He suggested that a free and fair vote and the prospect of a peaceful transfer of power were both becoming contentious. Our president apparently resolved that there were only two outcomes on November 3rd, and electing Joe Biden was not one of them. Well before November 3rd, the rest of the world speculated about post-election international relationships and the future of traditional alliances. Many countries appeared less concerned with our ideological predisposition than they were with transactional considerations they had become used to with our current administration. Israel, Russia, Hungary, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, North Korea and others have profited from their constructive interaction with President Trump, and feared losing cloud if he were to lose the election. The predominant sentiment in the European Union is "hoping for a change." A reelection of Donald Trump would confirm that the U.S. is giving up on its leadership role in the Western alliance. French defense analyst Francois Heisborg suggested that a Biden presidency would be welcomed as "a return to civilization." Meanwhile, in Canada, "the government and the overwhelming majority of Canadians [were] looking for Trump's defeat." (Nelson Wiseman, Political Science professor at the University of Toronto.) Historian Jon Meacham proposes that what we are really doing is searching for, what he calls, "the soul of America," what makes us tick, and what values we are willing to preserve. But we are exhausted. We are suffering from ESD (Election Stress Disorder) after continuous bombardments of election coverage, wedged in between hourly updates on the gruesome math of an uncontrolled pandemic and an intensifying economic disaster. It is tragically evident that the coronavirus will stick around for the indefinite future. Without congressional assistance, our economy will continue to face unrelenting challenges. Many businesses are unable to stay afloat and are closing, affecting ever growing unemployment and consequential hardships. However, the election will be behind us. This will take significant pressure off our psyche. Although for some of us the light at the end of the tunnel may appear extinguished, for others the nightmare is over. If President Trump is reelected, little may change for a while. If the Democrats pull it out, pundits caution that the current administration will still control 78 days between Nov 3 and Jan 20. Much can happen during that interregnum. In the mean time we should all be able to exhale for a while. Theo Wierdsma

ELECTION RESULTS DEMAND CRITICAL SCRUTINY

We are less than two weeks away from election night 2020. Many of us have lived in tense anticipation for this day to arrive. Others just want to get it over with. Regardless of outcome, and regardless of political preference, occupants in many homes, while nervously following results as they filter in from across the country, have champagne waiting in their coolers, ready to be popped open. As results begin to be spewed out by the media, the information can quickly become overwhelming. It behooves us to remain selective and stay focused on what is important. After all, in 2016 Donald Trump ran consistently behind Hillary Clinton in national vote totals. Ultimately, Clinton won the popular contest by just shy of 3 million votes. However, Trump squeezed out 306 electoral votes, winning the election. While national polls project that former Vice-President Biden is savoring a double digit advantage over President Trump, we need to recognize that it might not matter how many votes each candidate receives if they don't come from the right states. In 2016, a hand full of electoral votes coming from what have since been referred to as "battleground states," helped Mr. Trump to surpass the 270 electoral votes required, elevating him into the presidency. The pundits predict that for the president to duplicate that feat, he needs to win most of these states again. Consequently, rather than zooming in on national results to gradually anticipate the outcome of this election, we ought to concentrate on results coming out of Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and a new battleground state, Arizona. With 29 electoral votes, Florida is key to Mr. Trump's re-election. In fact, experts suggest that there is no path for Trump to win the Electoral College without Florida. In 2016 candidate Trump won the state with a plurality of 49.0%, a 1.2% margin over Hillary Clinton. Recent polling suggests that Trump and Biden are tied in this all-important state. Four years ago Mr. Trump unexpectedly won Michigan's 16 electoral votes by a narrow margin of 0.23%, with 47,50% of the total votes over the 47,27% of Ms. Clinton. This year Joe Biden is well ahead in the polls in this state governed by Donald Trump's nemesis Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer. It may take some time before Michigan can release results, since mail-in ballots in this state can't be opened until the day before the election. In 2016 Donald Trump became the first Republican to win Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes since Ronald Reagan did this in 1984. His victory margin was significant, 22.748 votes or 0.8%. However, fortunes could be changing. Right now the state is leaning Democratic. Polls give Biden a 5% edge. We may not find out who wins until after election day, since mail-in ballots can't be counted until November 3rd. Pennsylvania has 20 electoral votes. Trump won the state with 48% of the vote in 2016. Biden currently polls ahead by 5%. Again, mail-in ballots won't be opened until election day. Arizona threatens to be a cliffhanger this election cycle. Mr. Trump won its 11 electoral votes by a comfortable margin of 3.5% during the previous general election. Biden is currently polling at +3%. No Democratic candidate for president has carried Arizona since Bill Clinton in 1996. What is supporting the Democratic cause is a contentious Senate race between Senator Martha McSally (R), who was appointed to fill Senator McCain's seat, and former astronaut Mark Kelly, a Democrat who, among likely voters, is polling a 49-40% advantage. Aside from keeping track of the main event, a few other senatorial contests are also worth following: Susan Collins (R) in Maine, Joni Ernst (R) in Iowa, Cori Gardner (R) in Colorado, and Doug Jones (D) in Alabama. These could still create some excitement to help liven up a nerve-filled evening. Win or lose, my expectation is that we all can find an excuse to open up that bottle of champagne. Theo Wierdsma

TARGETING TO REVERSE ELECTORAL DEFEAT

At the conclusion of the first presidential debate, moderator Chris Wallace asked President Trump if he would pledge to not declare victory until the election has been independently certified. His answer was illuminating: "If I see tens of thousands of ballots being manipulated, I can't go along with it." It is obvious that the president's campaign plans to aggressively challenge election results, especially in battleground states. As the 2020 presidential election is creeping closer, and as President Trump's poll numbers remain steadily well below those of his challenger, rumors about how the president intends to pull victory out of the jaws of defeat are everywhere. For most Americans contemplating disputing the results of a routine quadrennial election, an expression of our democratic traditions, appears unimaginable. For President Trump, losing an election appears equally unacceptable. It helps to comprehend how our system works to understand what is involved. While most of us believe that we vote to elect a president every four years, we actually select our chief executive indirectly. In reality, we vote for a slate of electors which ultimately decides who wins. The election of a president is essentially a two-step process. In each state voters cast ballots. In nearly every state, the candidate who gets the most votes wins the "electoral votes" for that state, which become part of the Electoral College. The president and vice president are ultimately elected by the Electoral College, consisting of 538 electors from the 50 states and Washington D,C.. Electors are nominated by a political party and pledged to vote for the candidate to which the elector is pledged. Most do. Since the election of 1824, when John Quincy Adams defeated Andrew Jackson by garnering more electoral votes through the House of Representatives, most states have appointed their electors winner-take-all, based on the popular vote on election day. Article II, section 1, clause 2 of our Constitution empowers the state legislature to determine the manner by which the state's electors are chosen. The number of electors each state is entitled to equals the combined total number of representatives the state has in the Senate and the House. Mr. Trump understands how the Electoral College can shift the outcome of an election in his favor. In 2016, he lost the popular vote by close to 3 million votes, but, with 270 needed to be victorious, he won the Electoral College by 304 to 227. There are essentially two ways President Trump can attempt to overthrow a win by former Vice President Biden. He can activate lawsuits challenging mail-in ballot results, something his campaign has already prepped the voting public for over the past six months. He can file a series of lawsuits aimed at blocking the counting or disqualifying of mailed-in ballots. In such a case, the Supreme Court will most likely end up deciding the outcome, not the voters. This process would be reminiscent of what happened during the 2000 election in Bush v. Gore, which many considered less an exercise in legal reasoning than in power, given the 5-4 Republican split on the Court. The second, more complicated, method would involve manipulating the electoral count in enough swing states to alter the national outcome. The idea is to target states with Republican legislatures that voted Democratic. Since the Constitution gives each state the power to certify its slate of electors, legislatures might be convinced to change the outcome of the election, override the vote count, and send Trump supporters to the Electoral College. According to one of Mr. Trump's advisors: "The state legislatures [could] say, "All right, we've been given this constitutional power. We don't think the results of our own state are accurate, so here's one slate of electors we think properly reflect the results of our state." Questions like: "How far is he willing to go to win?" and "Will he leave office if he loses?" were once seen as far-fetched hypotheticals pondered by experts and pundits. Now they have become mainstream concerns. Mr. Trump's often repeated exclamation that "the only way we're going to lose this election is if the election is rigged," can no longer be dismissed as pure bluster. Theo Wierdsma

FEAR FACTOR DOMINATES ELECTORAL STRATEGIES

"The only thing we have to fear is .... fear itself." Franklin Roosevelt's memorable proclamation, uttered during his first inauguration address on March 4, 1933, has been firmly entrenched in our political history. Short of the inauguration speech expected next January, both camps in the developing presidential election campaign seem thoroughly committed to employ the fear factor as well. President Trump aggressively cautions his political base that an electoral loss would unquestionably result in a radical socialist takeover of the country. Democratic candidate, former Vice President Biden, warns that four more years of Trump would lead to obliterating our democratic and constitutional values, thoroughly eliminating our country as we know it. In short, both candidates claim that their opponent would destroy our country's democratic framework. The fear of failure has become the most significant operative concept in either campaign. During the 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump ran as an outsider intent on shaking up the "deep state." His base of support cared little about his policy ideas. It enjoyed the president sticking it to an entrenched Washington elite. Ending up with a more conservative judiciary was a bonus. Almost four years later, the president goes to great lengths to defend his record in office, something unexpectedly made more difficult with the coronavirus pandemic, something the administration has been ill-equipped to come to grips with, and a tanking economy which still features 14 million unemployed, and a country $26 trillion in debt, $4.7 trillion more than the previous year. What was once a promising issue for the president, evaporated almost over night. No wonder that the Trump re-election strategy required significant re-engineering. Volatile, violent demonstrations, emanating from multiple "Black Lives Matter" flash points, provided the administration with what it felt it needed. Taking a page from a successful tactic employed by President Richard Nixon, it adopted the "law and order" mantra, focusing more on order than law. Infusing federal troops into cities experiencing significant unrest not only inflamed the demonstrations, it served to cement Mr. Trump's narrative that he was the defender of the fatherland. He quickly claimed: "I'm the only thing standing between the American Dream and total anarchy and chaos." "Do you want to be ruled by the radical left-wing mob, or do you ant to stand tall as free men and women in the greatest country on earth?" "We're going to have an election that is all about the survival of the nation." On the other hand, aside from heavily criticizing President Trump's handling of the ongoing pandemic, Democrats zoom in on his perceived affinity for autocratic leaders and dismissal of constitutional norms, are spreading fear of an impending Fascist dictatorship. Their playbook comes straight out of 20th century Europe, including: despotism of a single leader, suppression of the courts, (erasion of the independent judiciary), militarization of domestic life, and the merging of most economic life with governmental purposes. All of this obviously depends on a very liberal interpretation of facts on the ground. Mr. Biden now has the advantage of 3 1/2 years of history to work from. Whether either strategy will work is difficult to tell. Mr. Trump's base may not care what policy prescription the president is offering. Many of its members tend to favor style over substance. They like Trump because he fights the Washington elite in the way he does, no holds barred. Democrats essentially coalesce around an anti-Trump strategy, realizing hesitantly that so far their cause outpolls the president's in most states. One of their major fears is that, because of the expected influx of mail-in ballots, routinely declared suspect by the president, Mr. Trump could appear to have seized a decisive victory on election night, thanks to a delay in counting these ballots. Trump may declare himself the victor - crying foul as his lead evaporates as additional votes are counted, and challenge any loss based on the mail-in ballots, claiming the election was rigged. Our fear is that this spectacle could well turn into a serious constitutional crisis. Theo Wierdsma

DEBUNKING THE THREAT OF MARTIAL LAW

President trump's recent mantra defining himself as a "law and order" president, ordering hundreds of federal law enforcement agents into cities suffering from aggressive demonstrations, have renewed fears that he might declare a national emergency or impose martial law, potentially affecting the November 3rd election. Back in July, Mr. Trump already suggested that the November election be delayed "until people can properly and safely vote." And more recently, his head of Homeland Security was quoted responding to criticism of unasked for federal interference in cities like Portland and Chicago, stating: "I don't need invitations by the state mayors or state governors to do our job. We're going to do that whether they like us or not." Mr. Trump's continued slippage in the polls, and his continued attempts at changing the narrative from his mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic to violence in cities demonstrating for "black lives matter" promoting himself aggressively as the antidote and savior of America as we know it, continues to feed the rumors. Although our president is known for breaking constitutional norms and acting outside of constitutional bounds, the short answer to these rumors is decidedly "No!" He absolutely does not have the power to declare martial law, or to change the timing and scope of our presidential election. Martial law, the displacement of civilian authorities by the military, is nowhere to be found in our Constitution, and no act of Congress defines it. The 10th Amendment to our Constitution stipulates that all powers not expressly relegated to the federal government are reserved for the states. This includes police powers. Thus far the administration has paid little attention to these legalities. However, states have already taken them to court, and the magnitude of recent incursions won't compare to what would need to happen on a national scale to potentially threaten the election. President Trump has made a point of hiding behind the Insurrection Act of 1807, which allows him to deploy federal troops against the will of local authorities in certain circumstances. State approval is not required when the president determines that a situation in a state makes it impossible to enforce U.S. laws, or when citizens' rights are threatened. However, the Insurrection Act only covers military assistance in localized situations, not the all encompassing military involvement martial law would allow. Under the latter provisions the president would be able to censor the press, enforce a curfew, detain civilians without charge, and, in Mr. Trump's mind, presumably allow him to affect he scope, content and timing of the upcoming election. Since World War II, we have only declared martial law nine times, five of which intended to counter resistance to federal desegregation decrees in the South. Among these, President Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock to enforce high school integration against the wishes of Arkansas in 1957. And President Kennedy federalized the National Guard to force integration of the University of Alabama in 1962. Scholars are clear: Our president does not have the power to move the date of the election. Article II of the Constitution empowers Congress to choose the timing of the general election. An 1845 federal law fixed it as the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. At the same time, the Constitution specifically stipulates that the new Congress be sworn in on January 3rd, and that the new president begins his or her term on January 20. Alan Dershowitz, a legal scholar and a staunch supporter of our current president, puts it this way: "Were the president to claim that both the violent disruptions and the spread of the coronavirus justified the use of the military or the suspension of certain basic rights, he would be embarking on unchartered waters, and so would the courts." Theo Wierdsma

SAFELY REOPENED SCHOOLS ELSEWHERE COULD BENEFIT U.S. PURSUITS

Recently, being curious about how people in other parts of the world are faring with the Covid-19 pandemic, I contacted my family in Europe. Almost all of them are either parents or grandparents of school-aged kids. Given our contentious discussion about how to educate these young people during the coming year, I wanted to find out how that subject was being approached over there. Whether their children should attend school again in person, or continue remote learning, has been controversial in most European countries as well. Parents expressed similar concerns about safety as our families do over here. An open letter, published and signed by more than 1,500 members of the United Kingdom’s Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health sums it up, when it concluded that continued school closure risks “scarring the life chances of a generation of young people.” Many adults decided that their governments had addressed most of the salient issues and that it was time to bring children back to school. By early June, more than 20 countries had done just that. How did they do this and how did they manage to keep everyone safe? Sweden, Taiwan and Nicaragua never closed their schools. Denmark was the first country in Europe to reopen its schools. During the process the country’s number of new Covid cases remained flat or continued to decline. The Danish school system assigned students to small groups, pods, that would be allowed to congregate during recess. The Danes also found creative ways to give these groups as much space and fresh air as possible, even teaching classes in a graveyard. Belgium, taking a page from the Danish experience, proceeded to have some classes meet in churches. Kids in The Netherlands, Germany and Austria went back to school in April and early May. The Dutch cut class sizes in half. However, they did little to enforce social distancing among students under the age of 12, and they actually just announced that, come September, everyone under the age of 17 can attend using the same rules. Germany reopened its schools by employing a shift system, to allow more space for social distancing. None of these countries experienced spikes of new cases. In the mean time, Norway went back. Finland did the same, not cutting classes, but preventing classes from mixing with one another. Scotland successfully adopted the pod system. Italy and Spain plan the reopen schools in September. Curiously, few of these school systems make a big deal about face coverings. The thought process appears to be that the discomfort of wearing masks might make this requirement counter -productive. In China, South Korea, Japan and Vietnam masks are already widely accepted and worn by many during flu season. Schools require them for almost all students and teachers. Kids don’t take them off. They listen! European kids seem culturally more rebellious. Obviously, opening safely isn’t just about the adjustments schools make, it’s also about how much virus is circulating in the community, which affects the likelihood that students and staff will bring Covid-19 into their classrooms. By May or June most European countries had flattened the curve on Covid-19. A prime example, as of July 8, the 7-day average of new cases in Italy was 198. It’s stringent lockdown regimen early on proved extremely effective. In the U.S. during that same period that number was 52,636. (Italy’s population is roughly 1/5 of that of the U.S.). Germany “only” suffered 9,000 total deaths during the pandemic. Their disciplined pro-active approach had done the job as well. The point is that Europe has been successful in bringing kids back to school safely. No spikes or related infestations. Given our deplorable situation, we have a way to go before we can take advantage of the successful adjustments European schools have adopted. We seem to be operating in an entirely different universe. Even when we compare ourselves to Canada, we need to admit that they did their due diligence. Their 7-day average was “only” 423, and the Canadians complain about that. It’s no wonder that they plan to bring kids back in September, allowing them to socialize in groups of six. For many countries this is the new normal. We just need to begin working harder and smarter. Theo Wierdsma

SUMMER 2020 – EUROPE ANYONE?

Four months ago, when we locked our respective businesses, supposedly for “just a few weeks,” our family was awash in e-mails questioning how long we ought to keep reservation sixteen of us had secured for a vacation some of us had looked forward to for years. Our destinations were The Netherlands, where I was born and where virtually all of my family lives, and Sweden, the ancestral home of my wife’s family. Since I had turned 75 earlier this year, I felt compelled to arrange for a family get-together. After all, you never know when your time runs out. As it turned out, none of us needed to make the tough decisions. Tourist attractions closed down, airlines cancelled our flights, refunds were processed, and even our hopes for a postponement until later this year were crushed. We all know what happened. The “few weeks” turned into several months. President Trump unceremoniously, without warning or consultation with European leaders, issued a travel ban, first for the Schengen area and subsequently for Britain and Ireland. Some suggested early on that this decision would ultimately result in a reciprocate response from the E.U.. When the European Union reopened to visitors on July 1, after months of coronavirus lockdowns, the U.S. did not make the list of 14 countries allowed tourist entry. The E.U.’s calculus was complicated. It aimed to reduce risky Covid spikes. E.U. nations opened borders to non essential travelers coming from a select list of countries in which the Covid-19 pandemic has been deemed sufficiently under control. The number of new Covid cases per 100,000 population within any running 14 day period needs to be close to or below the E.U.’s June 15 number, which was 16. At the time, the U.S. score was 107. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Trump administration did react to the E.U. decision. U.S. Executive V.P. for Public Affairs and Policy, Tori Emerson Barnes, called the E.U. news “incredibly disappointing and a step in the wrong direction as we seek to rebuild our global economy.” A New York Times opinion piece recognized that much of the world seemed united behind the position that travelers from the U.S. are no longer welcome. “As countries across the world ease coronavirus restrictions but block American travelers, a long-held sense that the U.S. passport was a golden ticket is losing its luster.” As politicians on our side of the Atlantic grumble about retaliation, epidemiological and pure economic data tend to fly in the face of any logic supporting that contention. Europe has much more to lose than we do. In 2018, 15 million visitors spent $144 billion tourist dollars in Europe, second only to visitors from China. Hardly worthy of political calculations. New coronavirus cases between us and the E.U. are also disproportionate. Europe averages 15,000 new cases per day. We are now topping 60,000. The 27 E.U. countries are not the only ones blocking our entry. We are also not welcome in Canada, Switzerland, Iceland, India, South Africa and many other destinations. Our abominable success record controlling the virus’ spread will continue to get in the way. We have to get our act together, not just spout off slogans some of our voters may want to hear. Europe will review its list every two weeks. In the mean time visiting some of our favorite destinations are well out of reach. Theo Wierdsma

GENESIS AND LIFE LINE OF HATE GROUPS IN AMERICA

One of the outstanding cultural characteristics of the past fifty years or so is the proliferation of hate groups. The Southern Poverty Law Center lists literally hundreds of them. For 2018, these include 54 chapters of the Ku Klux Klan, 112 neo Nazi groups, 148 white nationalist organizations, 63 racist skinheads affiliations and a smattering of other wannabees, some of which come and go. According to an annual FBI report, hate crimes against persons (as opposed to property) reached a 16 year high nationally in 2018, with notable increases in attacks against Latinos and transgender people. Hate groups, by definition, are social groups that advocate and practice hatred, hostility, or violence toward members of a race, ethnicity, nation, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation or any other designated sector of society. According to the FBI, a hate group’s primary purpose is to promote animosity, hostility and malice against persons belonging to any of these categories. These groups don’t develop in a vacuum. They tend to crop up during times of social an economic upheaval. Its organizing principles tend to include elements of fear, insecurity and ignorance. Their propaganda leans heavily on the fear that what we have taken for granted historically no longer applies. The rules are changing. The predominance of straight, white, Protestants can no longer be taken for granted. The extend of any transformation and the speed with which cultural changes are taking place usually determines how unsettled people feel. Many won’t see themselves operating in such an unstable social structure with dramatically changing social norms. Strong organizational skills of ideologues, facilitated by extensive social media manipulation can do the rest. As cultures transitioned, hate groups have been around for centuries. French sociologist Emile Durkheim, writing during the late 19th century, a time of revolutionary technological and demographic change, coined the term “anomie,” meaning social instability due to the breakdown of social norms. He grew up right after the nominal end of the Industrial Revolution, a time of rapid change, during which agricultural societies became more industrialized, when the economic center shifted from a cottage industry to mechanization in factories, and the invention of electricity, the transcontinental railroad, the cotton gin, et. al., changed society permanently. Monarchies became democracies and people were entirely disconnected from their past. While these seismic changes did not seem to have generated the kinds of hate groups we are familiar with today, multiple vigilante groups did develop. One of these, the Luddites, became a violent force against the textile industry. Fast forward to all the changes wrought during the 2nd half of the 19th century The end of the Civil War, the end of slavery, which gave rise to substantial economic change, especially in the south, becoming the impetus for the Ku Klux Klan, pushback through Jim Crow laws, World War I, the Russian Revolution, a global depression, World War II and, more recently, the rapidly developing technological revolution, forcing people out of familiar sources of income, demographic shifts changing society’s make up, seemingly at warp speed and the consequent alienation of entire segments of our population, which no longer recognize their place in the new society. While some parts of society struggled to be included, traditional, mostly white men, resisted the change for fear of losing all they had become used to . A situation ripe for the growth of hate groups, fueled by populist politicians. Dr. Randy Blazak, a former professor of sociology at Portland State University, studied the phenomenon from the inside and has continued to monitor the activities of racist skinheads, neo-Nazis and Klansmen, as well as newer far-right groups like the Proud Boys and Patriotic Prayer. While doing research for his master’s and doctoral degrees in sociology at Emery University in Atlanta, he went under cover to study these hate groups and learn what motivated their hatred. (See: Randy Blazak, “Blind Hate, why White Supremacy Persists,” The Sun, March, 2020.) He agrees that what connects all these groups is the core belief that straight white males are under threat, and that their country is being taken away from them. What has changed over time is who they identify as the main threats. In 1988, nobody talked about transgender people. Hardly anyone talked about Muslims and even Latinos were way down the list of enemies. Recruitment changed as well. In the past you needed to be handed a flyer, or know somebody who knew somebody. There was a certain risk to hanging out with skin heads or going to a Klan meeting. You used to have to be physically present to belong to a group, but now you can join on line. It’s like a 24 hour a day rally happening on line. Groups can present a more mainstream message and on message boards call for violence and civil war on a daily basis. Blazak suggests that, with assistance of sophisticated usage of social media, proliferation and intensification of these hate groups will continue for some time to come. When asked about his opinion about our upcoming election, he says: “It’s going to get worse before it gets better. Either Trump gets reelected and we have more of this happening, or he doesn’t get reelected, and a small group of his supporters refuse to accept it and we see a spike in violence.” Theo Wierdsma

JUNETEENTH AND MAGA – A VOLATILE MIX

President Trump’s reelection campaign scheduled his first campaign rally after Covid-19 imposed lockdowns to take place in Tulsa Oklahoma, on Friday, June 19. Date and location were immediately attacked as, at best, a poor choice, or, at worst, a defiantly symbolic signal to Mr. Trump’s shrinking base. Even though the resulting outcry prompted him to change the date by one day, the damage was done. June 19, or Juneteenth, AKA Emancipation Day or Freedom Day, happens to be one of the most significant, longest running holidays for the African American community. Tulsa was the site of the single worst incident of racial violence in American history, resulting in a massacre, now 99 years ago. According to Republicans close to the president, the campaign was aware of the significance of the date when it announced the site. It decided to go ahead anyway, even before the contract with the event venue was finalized. Site and date selection were suspect from the very beginning. Oklahoma is not one of the states the president’s campaign needs to worry about. In 2016, he won the state by 36.39%. The choice may well have been strategically deliberate. It has widely been perceived as a nod to white supremacists, and a slap in the face of the African American community. To quote California Senator Kamala Harris: “This isn’t just a wink to white supremacist – he’s throwing them a welcome home party.” On June 19, 1865, the Emancipation Proclamation, originally issued January 1, 1863, was read to enslaved African Americans in Texas by Union Army General Gordon Granger. Once Union forces took control of Texas, a state still holding 250,000 slaves, the proclamation could finally be enforced. The event was billed as the emancipation of the last remaining African Americans in the Confederacy. Contrary to a widely held believe, President Lincoln’s proclamation had not freed all the slaves. It read: “All persons held as slaves within the rebellious states are and henceforth will be free.” He only covered ten states. The date of the Texas ceremony is filled with racial symbolism and is often considered the second American Independence Day. Given Mr. Trump’s contentious relationship with African Americans, selection of the date itself was perceived as an affront. The site selection of the planned campaign event quickly became highly controversial as well. Beginning on May 31, 1921, mobs of white residents ransacked Tulsa’s Greenwood district, also known as “Black Wall Street.” The attacks came on the ground and from private aircraft. A massacre ensued, which killed an estimated 300 residents, left 10,000 black residents homeless, inflicted $32.5 million (at today’s dollars) in property damage and destroyed more than 35 square blocs. Instigating this race riot was the arrest of a 19 year old black shoe shiner, Dick Rowland, accused of assaulting a 17 year old white elevator operator, Sarah Page. The Tulsa Tribune broke the story with the headline: “Nab Negro for attacking Girl in an Elevator.” A secondary headline: “To Lynch Negro Tonight,” set things in motion. Angry whites congregated outside the courthouse where Rowland was being held. Alarmed by rumors that a lynching had actually taken place, a contingent of blacks went to the courthouse as well, some armed with rifles. Shots were fired and twelve people were killed – ten white and two black. As news of the deaths spread, mob violence exploded. Sarah Page never pressed charges. Dick Rowland, who apparently tripped getting into the elevator, was released and left town. It is difficult not to see this site and date selection as intentional. Campaigns tend to do research and schedule events for a reason, not by happenstance. It has been suggested that the president intends to make a speech about race. Given the emotional baggage attached to this selection, the choice is poor one, especially if the president decides to make a speech reacting to the ongoing protests and unrest following the murder of George Floyd – at a campaign rally of all places. Multiple historians and commentators have complained out loud. CeLillianne Green, an activist, writer, and public speaker, commented: “It’s almost blasphemous to the people of Tulsa and insulting to the notion of freedom for our people, which is what Juneteenth symbolizes. Theo Wierdsma

CORONAVIRUS PROPELS BATTLE OVER CIVIL LIBERTIES

For weeks on end, the bulk of our media coverage concentrated on our government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the courageous job performance of our first responders, the horrendous toll suffered by those catching the virus and family members attempting to cope with awful outcomes. At the same time we progressively complied with stay-at-home directives and social distancing mandates when interfacing with “essential” businesses. Six weeks into that new routine, the discussion appears to be changing. By mid-April analysts and critical observers, deviating from a horrifying monotone, began raising legitimate concerns about government overreach, restrictions on civil liberties and significant economic stress with no end in sight. Activists, mostly on the far-right, started to pounce on social isolation policies, general frustration with dictates limiting their freedom of movement and their inability to pursue activities needed to earn a living, demanding that America be re-opened. In the process they routinely injected ‘rights’ irrelevant to the topic at hand. The most prominent example of the latter phenomenon was amplified by highly visual reporting of a rowdy protest on the steps of the Michigan Capitol. It featured an angry mob, displaying American and Confederate flags, swastikas and nooses, armed with assault weapons. Although participation appeared relatively minimal, these demonstrations were emulated in a number of states. An often overheard battle cry of these self-styled crusaders was that they were young, healthy and not afraid. “Give me liberty or give me death.” This Patrick Henry quote, obviously out of context, but reactively appropriate, might be inferred from many of their public statements. Government response relied heavily on the scientific evidence produced by its experts. Controlling the virus necessitated social isolation, social distancing and wearing protective masks. Michigan’s governor Gretchen Whitmer, at whom much of the anger was directed, explained why she continued to issue quarantine directives: “The fact of the matter is: It’s better to be six feet apart right now than six feet under and that is the whole point of this. We’ve got to save lives. Every life matters.” In mid-April, when many of the protests took off, our national death rate from Covid-19 was around 30,000. By early May this number had already ballooned to 68,000. A Pew research poll found that 66% of respondents was still more afraid of social isolation and distancing measures being lifted to soon. Only 12% felt that measures were going too far. In the mean time, some concerns about government overreach appeared legitimate. Rulers everywhere realized that this was the perfect time to solidify their power, safe in the knowledge that the rest of the world would barely notice. No fewer than 84 countries enacted emergency laws vesting extra powers in the executive. (“A Pandemic of Power Grabs,” The Economist, Apr. 25, 2020). In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban used the pandemic to abandon the last vestiges of democracy in his country – and to dare the EU to do anything about it. The Philippines threatened imprisonment for journalists who report what the government deems to be “false information.” Thailand authorized prison terms of up to five years for reporting what the government deems is “untrue and may cause public fear.” Iran, Jordan, Oman, Yemen and the United Arab Republic banned the distribution of all print newspapers on the grounds that delivering them could spread the virus. And in our own country, the firing of Navy Captain Brett Crozier for the crime of raising alarm bells over the spreading viral risks to the sailors under his command on the USS Theodore Roosevelt is among the most vivid examples of a metastasizing trend of silencing and punishing speech, ostensibly to protect public health and order. By April 24, 840 sailors had tested positive for the virus. One died. The legal arguments dissecting domestic regulations are somewhat compelling. Dr. Joseph Ladapo, associate professor at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, poses a simple scenario discussing NY Governor Cuomo’s executive order that all New Yorkers wear masks in public. Cuomo’s argument, “you don’t have a right to infect me,” is an argument professor Ladapo beieves is not a weak argument. However, his counter position is also strong: Whose burden is it to show that a person is contagious in the first place? And if people aren’t contagious, on what grounds can the government force them to wear masks? Michael McDaniel, professor of constitutional law at Western Michigan University Cooley Law School is adamant these regulations are constitutional. When governments have declared state emergencies, they are acting within their rights. Their decisions are at their discretion. While these arguments preoccupy an increasing number of analysts, most of us continue to react to scientific expertise admonishing us from national platforms, surrounded by politicians. Some, however, continue to suggest that they understand that the virus is legit, that we have to be careful and smart, but that there is a limit. According to one: “I don’t trust the data and think you can put us back to work in a healthy way.” Some experts spanning law, public health and privacy policy seem to agree that there is no conflict between preserving civil liberties and containing a health crisis, that, in fact, this is a false choice. They suggest that there are technologies and tools available that will allow us to do both. Many protesters express sincere concerns, feeling frustrated and trapped in a situation with a difficult to envision light at the end of a tunnel. In March, the Disaster Distress Helpline registered a 338% increase in call volume compared with February. The American Medical Association projected concerns about the potential for significantly increased suicide rates due to factors related to the Covid-19 pandemic. If the protests, such as the one in Michigan, had not been coopted by white supremacists, Second Amendment vigilantes or opponents of mandatory vaccinations, support may have been more genuine and deemed more legitimate. As Governor Whitmer observed about these: “Some of the outrageousness of what happened at the Capitol depicted some of the worst racism and awful parts of our history in this country.” Angry white people with assault weapons are unlikely leaders of a national movement to reclaim our civil liberties. Theo Wierdsma

POLITICAL HISTORY SURVIVES HE PASSAGE OF TIME

 

 

One of the benefits of being quarantined is that we no longer have a choice between going to work, relax in a theater, or finding excuses for why we don’t clean our closets and other concealed spaces that begged to be organized for years. We can’t do the first two and we find ourselves stuck engaging in the latter. During that process, I came across a December 1890 edition of “The Cosmopolitan,” a periodical which, at the time, was still being published as a literary magazine. Being curious, I perused its content. Two articles stood out. Both offered a window into the political and social issues of the time. Both were written by accomplished American authors, Morat Halstead and Edward Everett Hale.

 

Halstead composed a “Review of Current Events.” 1890 was the second year of the administration of Republican Benjamin Harrison, our 23^rd president, who had won the 1888 election with an electoral majority, but losing the popular vote by more than 100,000 votes to the Democrat Grover Cleveland, our 22^nd president. While observing the similarity with our 2016 election outcome, and struggling to read his essay written in the style of prose of that time, I became aware of some other resemblances to our current political experience.

 

The article opens with an assault on what we would refer to today as “hate speech” and “fake news.” The “unrestraint criticism that is given vast circulation relating to public matters, the unsparing fault-finding and the incessant assaults to which our men of affairs are subjected and … the vigor of the aggressive writings … cause an impression of the extent of misgovernment that is misleading.” He went on to complain about press coverage, and concludes that: “We should have a care not to allow the character of the country to suffer in our understanding because it is subjected to such an extraordinary sweep of unfriendly commentary.”

 

A hallmark of Benjamin Harrison’s administration discussed and dissected in this essay as well was the passing of the McKinley Tariff Act of 1890. This legislation was framed by Representative William McKinley, who became president in 1897, and was known as the “Napoleon of Protection.” Reminiscent of President Trump’s approach to tariffs, the Act increased average duties to almost 50% and gave the president latitude to manipulate the tariff structure if other countries treated “U.S. exports in a reciprocally unequal and unreasonable fashion.”

 

Halstead suggested that even though it was far from decided if Harrison would b the party’s candidate for a second term, the president’s involvement in passing the tariff act should make him more acceptable as a strong character, and that the “ready and rude proclamations of personal dislike and disparagement of his individual consequence were unjustifiable.” He concluded that: “If the country prospers under the McKinley tariff … the president will get a large share of the credit for it.” None of this seems too far removed from our current experience and expectation.

 

The big moral issue of the time was prohibition. While Halstead touches on it, Hale makes it the entire focus of his contribution under the heading: “Social Problems.” He suggests that “everyone except a hard-shell politician would say it is the most important as it is the most difficult subject we have in hand.” He laments that, in contemporary temperance meetings,  the “physiological, ethical, social and religious discussion about personal purity, prevalent during the temperance movement of the 1830s an 1830s had been replaced by an “animated attack on the people who make and sell liquor.”

 

Both authors display a strong xenophobic disposition when contrasting American and European alcohol usage. Hale uses the example of “the poor Irishman who arrives here, in a land where, if whiskey is not cheap, money is, finds that he cannot keep up his old drinking habits. If he does, nobody will employ him.” Halstead contested that the perception that Europeans “having beer and wine to drink freely, and taught from childhood to do it without misgiving … were somehow temperate.” He asserted: It is not true. In all the great cities of Europe there is a frightful indulgence in liquors. The leading idea of the European drunkard is not individual ostentation but indulgence in the boozy luxury of utter stupidity. Intemperance is the wasting scourge of Europe …” Although temperance and prohibition don’t register in our current political climate, xenophobia certainly does. However, the language we use today is generally more temperate.

 

Just like 2020, 1890 was a census year. While we argued over language some of us wanted included in our current census, those administering the 1890 census were much less concerned. Many of the questions asked were very blunt: “Is the person able to read, write, speak English? Is the individual naturalized, or has he or she taken out naturalization papers? Is he a prisoner, convict, a homeless child, or a pauper?” And, notably: “Is the person defective of mind, sight, hearing, or speech” Is the person crippled, maimed or deformed? If yes, what was the name of his defect?” It is clear that the politically correct use of language was not terribly important to the folks in 1890.

 

During the presidential election of November, 1892, in a rematch of the closely contested 1888 election, Democrat Grover Cleveland defeated Benjamin Harrison, This was most like a result of the growing unpopularity of the high tariff and high federal spending, which had reached one billion dollars for the first time. Cleveland won both the popular and electoral vote that year. During his first year in office, he was confronted by the “panic of 1893,” a severe national depression that lasted until 1897, affecting all aspects of the economy.

 

In 1919 Congress ratified the 18^th Amendment to our Constitution, prohibiting the manufacture, transportation and sale of intoxicating liquors. In 1933 the 21^st Amendment was ratified, repealing prohibition.

 

Theo Wierdsma

 

 

 

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

PANDEMICS GENERATE CONSPIRACY THEORIES

 

 

 

A few weeks ago, I became aware that someone I have known for almost forty years drank the Kool-Aid  and unexpectedly entered an alternate reality, subscribing to conspiracy theories I had thus far relegated to the mindset of a lunatic fringe. This awakening prompted me to take a closer look at how these off the wall doctrines relate to how people are reacting to our government’s attempt to manage the current virus outbreak.

 

According to Michael Butter, a professor of American literary and cultural history, who teaches at the University of Tubingen, the outbreak of pandemics has always been accompanied by the dissemination of rumors and conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories tend to claim that some covert but influential group – typically political in motivation and oppressive in intent – is responsible for unexplained events. This group is allegedly plotting to control and destroy an institution or the entire world. These theories have become increasingly common place in mass media, and emerged as a cultural phenomenon during the late 20^th and early 21^st century.

 

A fairly recent, important, entrant into the conspiracy world is QAnon, a far-right conspiracy theory detailing a supposed secret plot by a so-called deep state against President Donald Trump and his supporters. QAnon came onto the scene in October of 2017, in an anonymous post published by someone using the name Q, claiming to have access to classified information involving the Trump administration and its opponents in the U.S.. One of its prominent theories projects that the president operates at the center of a fight against a pedophile ring run by Democrats. They believe that world governments are being controlled by a shadowy cabal of pedophiles, who will eventually be brought to justice by Donald Trump.

 

Relative to Covid-19, its disciples posit the so-called “mole children” theory, which holds that the virus is a ploy to arrest members of the satanic ‘deep state’ – Tom Hanks, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton et. al. – and to release these hostages (sex-slave children) from underneath Central Park. (Joseph Uscinski and Adam Enders, “The Coronavirus Conspiracy Boom,” Th Atlantic, Apr 30, 2020.}

 

While QAnon followers may be some of the most vocal, eccentric and prominent at President Trump’s rallies, they only represent the tip of the iceberg among a plethora of coronavirus conspiracy theories. Professor Uscinski suggests that these theories come in two varieties: Those that doubt the virus’s severity and those that suggest it might be a bio-weapon.

 

Conservative-media personalities continue to cast doubt on the reality of the pandemic, even as the death toll keeps rising. Rush Limbaugh has suggested that our public health officials are deep state operatives and might not even be health experts. Some other commentators have pushed the theory that our hospitals aren’t actually treating any Covid-19 patients. And some, more closely aligned with QAnon, claim that the virus was intentionally disseminated by foreign powers like Russia or China, or by George Soros or Bill Gates, in a nefarious plot to control the world with vaccines.

 

Our current pandemic is by no means the only one generating conspiracy theories. The Black Death, which ravaged Eurasia and Northern Africa between 1345 to 1352 and killed 75-200 million, reducing the world’s population by 30%, was blamed on the Jews. European conspirators pushed the theory that Jews caused the outbreak by poisoning wells in a bid to kill all Christians and control the world. Jewish people were accused of being behind the plague and found themselves subjected to deadly progroms and forcefully displaced.

 

The so-called Spanish Flu pandemic, which ran roughly from March 1918 to April 1919 and killed 21 million people world-wide, including 600,000 Americans, germinated its own set of conspiracy theories. While this flu probably started in the U.S., not in Spain, among military troops that fanned out across Europe during World War I and spread the disease. Conspiracies tended to claim that Germany had produced “a terrible new weapon of war,” releasing the germs off a German ship in Boston Harbor and, alternatively, by German infiltrators carrying vials filled with germs brought to shore and released in theatres and other crowded places. (Ofer Aderet, Haaretz, March 26, 2020.} Another prominent theory was that the German pharmaceutical firm Bayer had inserted the germs into aspirins. The mantra became: “Take an aspirin for a headache and the germs will creep through your body. Then your fate is sealed.”

 

An interesting side-note to the spread of this pandemic is that Donald Trump’s grandfather, Frederick Trump (born Friedrich), became one of the first casualties of this virus. While out walking with Trump’s father, Fred, on May 29, 1918, Frederick suddenly fell ill. He died the next day at the age of 49.

 

Much of this is interesting for curiosity’s sake. However, when, as is estimated, that one in three Americans subscribe to some elements of current conspiracy theories, consequences are real. Blaming the coronavirus emergence on the wrong source, or doubting its seriousness, could be life threatening on a massive scale. If that many Americans believe that the effects of Covid-19 have been exaggerated and choose to forego crucial health practices, the disease could spread faster and farther then otherwise and could cost many thousands of lives. And if a significant percentage of the public questions the value and safety of vaccines and refuses to be inoculated whenever a Covid-19 vaccine is successfully produced, the health of all of us will continue to be at stake.

 

 

 

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PANDEMICS GENERATE CONSPIRACY THEORIES

A few weeks ago, I became aware that someone I have known for almost forty years drank the Kool-Aid and unexpectedly entered an alternate reality, subscribing to conspiracy theories I had thus far relegated to the mindset of a lunatic fringe. This awakening prompted me to take a closer look at how these off the wall doctrines relate to how people are reacting to our government’s attempt to manage the current virus outbreak. According to Michael Butter, a professor of American literary and cultural history, who teaches at the University of Tubingen, the outbreak of pandemics has always been accompanied by the dissemination of rumors and conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories tend to claim that some covert but influential group – typically political in motivation and oppressive in intent – is responsible for unexplained events. This group is allegedly plotting to control and destroy an institution or the entire world. These theories have become increasingly common place in mass media, and emerged as a cultural phenomenon during the late 20th and early 21st century. A fairly recent, important, entrant into the conspiracy world is QAnon, a far-right conspiracy theory detailing a supposed secret plot by a so-called deep state against President Donald Trump and his supporters. QAnon came onto the scene in October of 2017, in an anonymous post published by someone using the name Q, claiming to have access to classified information involving the Trump administration and its opponents in the U.S.. One of its prominent theories projects that the president operates at the center of a fight against a pedophile ring run by Democrats. They believe that world governments are being controlled by a shadowy cabal of pedophiles, who will eventually be brought to justice by Donald Trump. Relative to Covid-19, its disciples posit the so-called “mole children” theory, which holds that the virus is a ploy to arrest members of the satanic ‘deep state’ – Tom Hanks, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton et. al. – and to release these hostages (sex-slave children) from underneath Central Park. (Joseph Uscinski and Adam Enders, “The Coronavirus Conspiracy Boom,” Th Atlantic, Apr 30, 2020.} While QAnon followers may be some of the most vocal, eccentric and prominent at President Trump’s rallies, they only represent the tip of the iceberg among a plethora of coronavirus conspiracy theories. Professor Uscinski suggests that these theories come in two varieties: Those that doubt the virus’s severity and those that suggest it might be a bio-weapon. Conservative-media personalities continue to cast doubt on the reality of the pandemic, even as the death toll keeps rising. Rush Limbaugh has suggested that our public health officials are deep state operatives and might not even be health experts. Some other commentators have pushed the theory that our hospitals aren’t actually treating any Covid-19 patients. And some, more closely aligned with QAnon, claim that the virus was intentionally disseminated by foreign powers like Russia or China, or by George Soros or Bill Gates, in a nefarious plot to control the world with vaccines. Our current pandemic is by no means the only one generating conspiracy theories. The Black Death, which ravaged Eurasia and Northern Africa between 1345 to 1352 and killed 75-200 million, reducing the world’s population by 30%, was blamed on the Jews. European conspirators pushed the theory that Jews caused the outbreak by poisoning wells in a bid to kill all Christians and control the world. Jewish people were accused of being behind the plague and found themselves subjected to deadly progroms and forcefully displaced. The so-called Spanish Flu pandemic, which ran roughly from March 1918 to April 1919 and killed 21 million people world-wide, including 600,000 Americans, germinated its own set of conspiracy theories. While this flu probably started in the U.S., not in Spain, among military troops that fanned out across Europe during World War I and spread the disease. Conspiracies tended to claim that Germany had produced “a terrible new weapon of war,” releasing the germs off a German ship in Boston Harbor and, alternatively, by German infiltrators carrying vials filled with germs brought to shore and released in theatres and other crowded places. (Ofer Aderet, Haaretz, March 26, 2020.} Another prominent theory was that the German pharmaceutical firm Bayer had inserted the germs into aspirins. The mantra became: “Take an aspirin for a headache and the germs will creep through your body. Then your fate is sealed.” An interesting side-note to the spread of this pandemic is that Donald Trump’s grandfather, Frederick Trump (born Friedrich), became one of the first casualties of this virus. While out walking with Trump’s father, Fred, on May 29, 2018, Frederick suddenly fell ill. He died the next day at the age of 49. Much of this is interesting for curiosity’s sake. However, when, as is estimated, that one in three Americans subscribe to some elements of current conspiracy theories, consequences are real. Blaming the coronavirus emergence on the wrong source, or doubting its seriousness, could be life threatening on a massive scale. If that many Americans believe that the effects of Covid-19 have been exaggerated and choose to forego crucial health practices, the disease could spread faster and farther then otherwise and could cost many thousands of lives. And if a significant percentage of the public questions the value and safety of vaccines and refuses to be inoculated whenever a Covid-19 vaccine is successfully produced, the health of all of us will continue to be at stake. Theo Wierdsma

POLITICS AGGRAVATED PANDEMIC

On March 17 Donald Trump again attempted to rewrite history when he announced that "this is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic." No wonder our bumbling leader is losing whatever credibility he still had leading up to our all encompassing health crisis. Witness his pronouncements during the weeks before he made this hollow sounding statement.

January:
* "Totally under control. It's one person coming in from China. It's going to be just fine."
* " It will all work out well.
* " We have it very well under control." "We have very little problem in this country at this moment - five, and those people are all recuperating successfully."

February:
* "Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets  little bit warmer, it miraculously goes away."
* "I think the numbers are going to get progressively better as we go along."
* "Situation is very much under control."
* "CNN and MSNBC are panicking the markets."
* "The Democrat policy of open borders has brought the virus into the country."
* "We're going down, not up. We're very substantially down, not up."
* "It's going to disappear."
* He accused Democrats and the media of engaging in a political hoax, and praised his administration's actions as the most aggressive taken by any country.
* We're talking about a much smaller 'range' of deaths than from the flu. It's very mild."
* When asked if he was concerned that the virus was spreading closer to Washington D.C., sitting next to President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil: "No, I'm not concerned at all. No, I'm not. No, we've done a great job." At least four people attending later tested positive.
And, as recently as March 16 he claimed the outbreak would "wash" away this Summer.

Throughout, President Trump and Secretary of Health and Human Resources Alex Azar maintained, falsely, that we had no test kit shortage, that anybody who wanted a test could get a test. In February, the World Health Organization distributed 1.5 million working tests to nearly 120 countries. We declined to acquire and use these tests, instead opting to develop our own. Our tests failed. Nobody in the chain of command has been willing to identify the individual responsible for this, ultimately calamitous, decision. By mid-March the U.S. had tested 25,000 people, 100 per one million of population; Italy tested 134,000, 2,200 per million; and South Korea tested 274,000, 5,300 per million of its population. We were flying blind. Lack of testing obscured the scope of the problem confronting us.

In the mean time, lacking a coordinated sense of urgency, Mr. Trump's propaganda machine produced daily photo-ops on national T.V. on a dais featuring a rambling performance by our president surrounded by a gaggle of parroting support staff mandated to say something nice about their boss. Mr. Trump continues to display the traits that, especially given the circumstances, are rapidly eroding whatever credibility he still has: the propensity to blame others, the lack of empathy, penchant for rewriting history, disregard for expertise, distortion of facts and rage when confronted with scrutiny or criticism, constantly trying to spin a situation that is not spinnable. The only sane and rational person in his entourage is Dr. Anthony Fauci, an immunologist, who has the difficult task of converting scientific facts into political parlance acceptable to Trump. No easy task when fact is routinely replaced by hunches. In the mean time, people are dying.

On March 8, White House social media director Dan Scavino tweeted: "My next piece is called 'nothing can stop what's coming'" over an image of Trump, eyes closed and a satisfied look on his face, playing the violin. This image caused critics to compare his handling of the coronavirus  crisis to the story of emperor Nero fiddling while Rome was burning - insinuating that Donald Trump was playing golf while the crisis raged on and people were dying. Mr. Trump retweeted the post saying: "Who knows what this means, but it sounds good to me." Neither the president nor Dan Scavino apparently knew about Nero.

Late January, the Wall Street Journal urgently suggested that there was still a possibility "to prevent a grim outcome. Act now to prevent an American epidemic." Experts project that as many as 214 million Americans could become infected, and up to 1.7 million could die. At every point in this developing tragedy specialists have emphasized that the country could reduce these numbers by taking action, and until very recently our president has ignored their advise, insisting: "It's going to be just fine."