Is It Too Much To Expect A Presidential Candidate To Be Not Just Better Than The Other Monstrosity But Also To Be Someone With The Makings Of Greatness?

Yesterday, under intense pressure, Señor Trumpanzee did a 180-- going from insisting the pandemic was a "hoax" perpetrated against him so he would lose his reelection bid, to declaring a national emergency because of it.

As Susan Glasser asserted in the New Yorker this week, Trump is unequal-- clearly and undeniably-- to the moment. Part of that is the crew of sycophants and incompetents he has brought in to surround himself. But only partly. It's really all about Trump himself-- and the historic error voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida and Iowa made in 2016. "Crises," wrote Glasser, "clarify. The bigger the crisis, the more the clarity, which is why the incompetence, dishonesty, and sheer callousness of the Trump Presidency have been clearer in recent days than ever before. As the coronavirus, as of Wednesday an official pandemic, spreads, the lives of Americans depend on the decisions made-- or not made, as the case may be-- by a President uniquely ill-suited to command in this type of public-health catastrophe. In that sense, the last few weeks may well have been the most clarifying of Donald Trump’s Presidency.

It’s almost unbelievable from the vantage point of the present moment, when we are in the midst of an officially designated global pandemic and a consequent economic crisis that threatens to plunge the United States and the rest of the planet into a recession, but consider how the President of the United States has spent his time since the coronavirus infection reached America in mid-January. He has:

• Publicly attacked the judge, prosecutors, and jury forewoman in the case of Roger Stone, Trump’s longtime political associate who was convicted of lying to Congress and other offenses.
• Fired his Ambassador to the European Union and a National Security Council adviser on Ukraine, and purged others who figured in the impeachment investigation as he fulminated to aides about “snakes” in his Administration.
• Fired the acting director of National Intelligence, after an intelligence briefing to Congress about Russia’s ongoing efforts to interfere in the 2020 election.
• Nominated as his new director of National Intelligence a highly partisan Republican congressman who was forced to withdraw from the exact same job last summer for inflating his résumé.
• Sued, through his campaign, The Times, CNN, and the Washington Post for publishing opinion articles that he did not like.
• Installed a new, twenty-nine-year-old personnel chief in the White House who had been previously fired and marched off the premises, and gave him a mandate to revamp the vetting process for Administration officials, with a new emphasis on loyalty.

As the novel coronavirus spread from China across Asia and Europe and to the United States, Trump used his Presidential Twitter feed, his four campaign rallies, his trip to India, and various public appearances in February to attack by name dozens of targets, including the Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor; “Crazy Nancy Pelosi” and her “impeachment hoax”; the “failed” and “sanctimonious” Senator Mitt Romney; the “puppet” Senator Joe Manchin; the “lightweight” Senator Doug Jones, a “Do Nothing Stiff”; Jay Powell, his appointee as chairman of the Federal Reserve; John Kelly, his former White House chief of staff, who was in “way over his head”; and Jeff Sessions, his former Attorney General.

...All of this he did while the epidemic spread. At the same time, Trump was claiming that the illness was being contained; that it dies in warmer weather; that it was not coming to the United States; that it was about to disappear; and that it was not very serious. Indeed, had you read only communications from the President about the spreading coronavirus, you would have been subjected to a barrage of lies and misinformation and self-serving bombast, information that even at the time it was being said was clearly and unequivocally untrue.

... We don’t know whether this is Trump’s long-delayed reckoning, the overdue moment of accountability for a man who has escaped such reckonings his entire life. The election is not for many months. The dizzying events of just the last few weeks-- the remarkable upending of the Democratic Presidential race, the hubris and foolishness of the Administration’s initial response to the virus-- may be long forgotten by then.

That does not make this any less of a significant milestone in this most unbelievable of American Presidencies. On Wednesday, the respected government medical expert Anthony Fauci told Congress that the worst is yet to come. “Yes, yes it is,” he said. Trump cannot tweet this virus away or lie it into oblivion. The virus does not care if he gives tax cuts to friendly oil barons or bails out his own hotels with federal dollars, possibilities that have been floated in recent days. Trump may believe that only Republicans matter to his political fortunes, but he has yet to find a doctor who can insulate his base, and his base only, from the ravages of this disease. Nor will he.

Trump has spent years devaluing and diminishing facts, experts, institutions, and science-- the very things upon which we must rely in a crisis-- and his default setting during the coronavirus outbreak has been to deny, delay, deflect, and diminish. His speech on Wednesday night was a disappointment but not a surprise. He told us what we already knew: America is in big trouble.

A new poll Ipsos did for USA Today indicates that just 15% of Americans believe the pandemic "poses a high threat to them personally... While a majority report that they plan to wash their hands more frequently (59%), just a quarter say that they plan to stop attending social events, and less than one in five plan to cancel a personal trip (17%). Three in ten Americans report no plans to take preventative measures against the outbreak (30%). Half say they would not travel on a plane right now, compared to 44% who would. That number is even higher among Americans over age 55 (58% would not travel by plane). Americans are evenly split on whether they would take public transportation (45% agree they would, 47% would not). Only one in five are willing to go on a cruise right now (22%). In terms of a government response, a large majority of Americans want to see the COVID-19 test made widely available (87%), and three-quarters want the government to impose mandatory quarantines for people returning from high risk countries (77%) and temporarily stop immigration from high risk countries (76%). There is an even divide on whether all large-scale events, such as sporting events and music festivals, should be canceled (39% yes, 39% no). While a plurality support temporary financial help for airlines and other affected industries (42%), just 22% want all domestic flights grounded. More (39%) are in favor of grounding all international flights."

Republicans don't see COVID-19 as a threat to themselves personally as much as Democrats do:

Nor will Republicans wash their hands or take other precautions as much as Democrats say they will:

63% of Democrats-- but just 48% of Republicans-- say they have already started washing their hands more frequently.

Writing for GQ, Julia Ioffe noted that those Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida and Iowa Republicans I referred to above are getting what they wanted:a president who would blow up the system. Referring to Trump's colossal mishandling of the response to the pandemic, Ioffe reminded her readers that "If you expected anything else, if you expected that on this, 1,146th day of his presidency, Trump would be different-- that he would finally become presidential-- you have been willfully fooling yourself. If, four years ago, you thought, 'oh, what’s the difference between a Hillary Clinton and a Donald Trump;' if you thought that they’re all the same, and that none of it matters anyway because American institutions would just get everyone through on autopilot, this is what you get. You get a president who shuts down the global health security team in the National Security Council so that there’s no one but his son-in-law to advise him when a global pandemic reaches our country’s shores. You get a president who doesn’t care about whether people live or die, he just wants the numbers to look good for him, wants the number of cases down and the numbers on the stock indices up, and the best way to do that is to keep Covid-19 testing and public information at a minimum. You get a president who doesn’t believe in science when it doesn’t suit him and who, as recently as three days ago, declares a virus that had already claimed thousands of lives around the world a 'hoax' and 'fake news'-- or a president that simply focuses, falsely, on how well his administration is responding to the crisis-- because the pandemic might hurt the economy and jeopardize his reelection. You get a president who thinks he can do anything, who off-the-cuff announces a rally in Florida, where the governor has suspended all official travel as medical experts advise people practice “social distancing” by avoiding crowds. You get a president whose response to an invisible virus is to blame foreigners."

Some 63 million Americans voted for a man who wanted to smash the system to smithereens, either because they felt it wasn’t doing enough for them or because breaking glass just feels so primitively satisfying. Or maybe it's because the Republican Party has been peddling a dystopian anarchistic anti-government pipe dream to them for the last four decades. Now, it turns out, a functioning government is a good thing to have when a global pandemic arrives on your shores. It turns out that maybe reforming an imperfect system is wiser than just taking a sledgehammer to it, better to trust people who have dedicated their lives to being public servants than trashing them in favor of a one-man, megalomaniacal savior, better to have a functioning system than dancing on its rubble while crowing about the death of the "deep state"-- or "the political establishment."

To those 63 million Americans, I say this: you wanted to smash the system and you got what you wanted-- in spades. Now we will all have to pay the price.

Trump's state by state approval numbers indicate he is unlikely to win as second term in November-- if he's alive by then, which I think is just as unlikely. Voters in just 21 states approve of the job he's doing. And, with the exception of Texas and Ohio (where he sits at a shaky 50% approval, most of those states have few electoral votes. Here are all 50 states (with their electoral votes), with his approval and disapproval numbers as of last week, but before the disastrous speech:

• Alabama (9)- 59% approve/39% disapprove
• Alaska (3)- 54% approve/44% disapprove
• Arizona (11)- 46% approve/52% disapprove
• Arkansas (6)- 62% approve/35% disapprove
• California (55)- 29% approve/68% disapprove
• Colorado (9)- 41% approve/57% disapprove
• Connecticut (7)- 36% approve/62% disapprove
• Delaware (3)- 39% approve/59% disapprove
• Florida (29)- 47% approve/50% disapprove
• Georgia (16)- 45% approve/52% disapprove
• Hawaii (4)- 28% approve/69% disapprove
• Idaho (4)- 59% approve/38% disapprove
• Illinois (20)- 34% approve/63% disapprove
• Indiana (11)- 53% approve/44% disapprove
• Iowa (6)- 46% approve/52% disapprove
• Kansas (6)- 53% approve/44% disapprove
• Kentucky (8)- 59% approve/37% disapprove
• Louisiana (8)- 52% approve/46% disapprove
• Maine (4)- 40% approve/58% disapprove
• Maryland (10)- 28% approve/69% disapprove
• Massachusetts (11)- 28% approve/69% disapprove
• Michigan (16)- 43% approve/54% disapprove
• Minnesota (10)- 42% approve/56% disapprove
• Mississippi (6)- 54% approve/44% disapprove
• Missouri (10)- 55% approve/42% disapprove
• Montana (3)- 49% approve/49% disapprove
• Nebraska (5)- 52% approve/45% disapprove
• Nevada (6)- 40% approve/56% disapprove
• New Hampshire (4)- 39% approve/58% disapprove
• New Jersey (14)- 36% approve/61% disapprove
• New Mexico (5)- 42% approve/55% disapprove
• New York (29)- 46% approve/64% disapprove
• North Carolina (15)- 45% approve/53% disapprove
• North Dakota (3)- 64% approve/33% disapprove
• Ohio (18)- 50% approve/47% disapprove
• Oklahoma (7)- 60% approve/37% disapprove
• Oregon (7)- 36% approve/62% disapprove
• Pennsylvania (20)- 45% approve/52% disapprove
• Rhode Island (4)- 32% approve/66% disapprove
• South Carolina (9)- 58% approve/54% disapprove
• South Dakota (3)- 52% approve/45% disapprove
• Tennessee (11)- 54% approve/43% disapprove
• Texas (38)- 50% approve/48% disapprove
• Utah (6)- 52% approve/44% disapprove
• Vermont (3)- 26% approve/73% disapprove
• Virginia (13)- 40% approve/58% disapprove
• Washington (12)- 34% approve/63% disapprove
• West Virginia (5)- 62% approve/34% disapprove
• Wisconsin (10)- 47% approve/51% disapprove
• Wyoming (3)- 66% approve/31% disapprove

All that said, I am proud to say that I was in a "Never Biden" movement since the 1970s when I noticed he is a racist, homophobic, cowardly conservative. I had never heard of Bernie at the time. He hadn't even been elected mayor of Burlington when my hatred for Biden to hold. In Politico yesterday, David Siders and Holly Otterbein wondered if Biden will be able to overcome the #NeverBiden movement. My guess is yes and easily, primarily because the #NeverTrump movement is a much more powerful force. A Democratic pollster told them that Biden will have time, Trump and Bernie working to help him if he's the nominee and that "polls show Biden is also viewed more favorably now than Hillary Clinton was in 2016." I know I'm an outlier, but nothing would make me vote for Joe Biden-- easy to say here in blue California, but I wouldn't vote for Biden if I lived in Florida, Michigan or Iowa either. Or let's put it like this, I'd vote for Biden as soon as I'd vote for all of the folks on George Conway's list:

On top of my antipathy for Status Quo Joe as a conservative, I'm going to be in this with Bernie 'til he wins or doesn't. Jake Johnson's TruthDig! post helps explain why Biden is too risky a choice for Democrats to put up against Trump.

“You know, I keep hearing this thing about Joe Biden being ‘a safe candidate.’ Safe for who?” asked environmentalist and author Naomi Klein, who endorsed Sanders for president, said in a video released Monday. “I know he goes to corporate fundraisers and tells people that nothing’s going to change. So he’s clearly telling them that he’s a safe candidate for them. What’s safe for the ultra-rich is incredibly dangerous for everybody else.”



Klein added that Sanders’ support for Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and other transformational policies make the Vermont senator the most electable 2020 Democrat.

“Policies that don’t challenge the status quo right now are incredibly dangerous,” said Klein. “Bernie Sanders is the only candidate whose policies are bold enough to actually keep us safe… Bernie Sanders is not a risky candidate against Donald Trump. He is, in fact, the safest candidate.”

“Joe Biden is not safe. Not safe for the planet. Not safe for our health. Not safe to run against Trump,” Klein tweeted.

Current Affairs editor Nathan Robinson, an outspoken Sanders supporter, wrote Saturday that a Biden nomination could represent a repeat of 2016, which saw the supposedly safe establishment candidate Hillary Clinton lose to reality television star Donald Trump.

Robinson accurately predicted in a February 2016 article that Clinton would lose to Trump in a head-to-head matchup and made the case for Sanders as the more electable candidate.

On Saturday, Robinson echoed that case, pointing to Biden’s past support for Social Security cuts, votes in favor of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and 2003 invasion of, and other elements of his record.

“It is Biden, not Sanders, who would be the risky bet,” Robinson wrote. “A Sanders presidency is nothing to fear, but a Biden nomination certainly is.”

...Jeet Heer, national affairs correspondent for The Nation, argued in a column Monday that nominating Biden is a risk not only because of his potential vulnerabilities in a general election matchup with Trump, but also because of how the former vice president has promised to govern should he win the presidency.

“Given already low interest rates, a stalling global economy, and the need for new infrastructure (both for its own sake and also to prepare for climate change), this is the ideal time for a president who isn’t afraid to argue for big structural changes and to go full Keynesian,” Heer wrote. “But that’s exactly the president that Joe Biden would not be. He’s running to be a business-as-usual president. Given the real problems facing the world, that’s a dangerous risk.”