Neo-Fascist? Time To Drop The "Neo" When Describing Trump

Out of the bunker and...





Jim Acosta on CNN: "We are descending into something that is not the United States of America tonight; there's just no other way to put it... Donald Trump did not do this by himself tonight. There were other White House officials, military officials, federal employees paid for with our tax dollars. And our tax dollars were used to teargas fellow Americans. That's what happened tonight in the nation's capital and the entire world was watching."

And yeah, this was all done because Trumpanzee-- a notorious coward-- was embarrassed that it leaked out by the media that he was cowering and trembling in the White House bunker on Friday night when protestors in Lafayette Square were hurling curses at him. "They wanted a disruptor," said Anderson Cooper on TV last night. "That's what a disruption is."

Last night the Washington Post had its A-Team on the case: Phil Rucker, Robert Costa, Josh Dawsey and Seung Min Kim, writing about how the authoritarian orange blob "militarized the federal response to protests of racial inequality that have erupted in cities across America late Monday, as authorities fired tear gas at people protesting peacefully near the White House to disperse crowds moments before Trump staged a photo opportunity there. Trump forced a brazen inflammation of the crisis convulsing the country by calling the nationwide demonstrations 'acts of domestic terror,' declaring himself the 'president of law and order' and taking the rare step of mobilizing the military to use force to quell the unrest. In a move denounced by critics as authoritarian, the commander in chief threatened to deploy troops to 'quickly solve the problem' if state and local authorities did not immediately regain control of their streets, which he said had been overtaken by 'professional anarchists' and 'violent mobs.'"

This morning, the Religion News Service reported that ahead of the blasphemous Trumpanzee Bible photo op, police forcibly expelled the priest from St. John's church.

During an interview on CNN, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, condemned the flaming asshole for clearing out peaceful protesters with rubber bullets and tear gas in order to stage his photo op in front of her church: "I am outraged… Everything he has said and done is to inflame violence. I am beyond. We need moral leadership, and he’s done everything to divide us, and has just used one of the most sacred symbols of the Judeo-Christian tradition... I just can’t believe what my eyes have seen tonight."

All the people I communicate with who are reliable-- if moronic-- Trumpist parrots of the far right are convinced nothing is going on but looting. One of the most obtuse Trumpists I've ever met-- other than my brother-in-law-- sent me this message yesterday: "They burned the historic church in DC, St John’s Church. This isn’t about justice, it’s all looting, many of these businesses were already on the verge of bankruptcy. Many don’t have insurance because they couldn’t afford it. What’s sad is even those with insurance have no money left and now have lost their business." he said there's no evidence that the cop who murdered George Floyd is a racist because-- and I swear I'm not making this up-- "His wife was asian, one of the cops was Latino, one was asian, one was black and one was white. I actually belong to a facebook group on police brutality and there are plenty of police killing white people too. I just don’t see the dichotomy of the 1960s civil rights era and now, a black man became president by popular and electoral vote. There really isn't institutionalized racism anymore, in Miami the arrest records show that most of the arrest were out of state people. The same seems to be for every state, this is organized, people are inciting violence and anarchy... I think these riots are about looting and getting free stuff. That seems to be what everyone is doing, looting stores. Small businesses owned by people who have run out of money, out of insurance, and now they have nothing. The crimes committed by these riots far outweigh the police brutality that preceded it. We cannot condone these riots, have you seen the ghetto ass thugs who are doing this? It is scary and violent and they are happy smiling getting free shit from stores. This has nothing to do with the protests of the 60s for civil rights." OK? Now you know exactly what they're saying on White House news outlets like Fox News and on hate talk radio.

But not everyone on the right was happy with Trump's photo op. According to Axios, "Not everyone in the White House was thrilled with the church photo op. One senior aide [likely Miller] was exuberantly telling friends the photograph of him holding a Bible in front of the church that had been attacked by vandals was an 'iconic' moment for the president. But a senior White House official told Axios that when they saw the tear gas clearing the crowd for Trump to walk to the church with his entourage: 'I’ve never been more ashamed. I’m really honestly disgusted. I’m sick to my stomach. And they’re all celebrating it. They’re very very proud of themselves.'"

Paul Ryan's former top aide, Brendan Buck: "We long ago lost sight of normal, but this was a singularly immoral act. The president used force against American citizens, not to protect property, but to soothe his own insecurities. We will all move on to the next outrage, but this was a true abuse of power and should not be forgotten."

Even Tucker Carlson is having some misgivings about the fascist president he reflexively backs, tepidly criticizing Trump's abilities as a leader and Kushner-in-law's worth, asserting on Fox News that "No one has more contempt for the president’s supporters" than Jared, who he accused of breaking from Trump’s platform and talking Trump out of taking decisive actions.

Mark Leibovich for the NY Times yesterday: Trump Vowed to Disrupt Washington. Now He Faces Disruption in the Streets. "One of the recurring themes of the last three and a half years is that President Trump has disrupted Washington, just as his voters demanded. This is true in a certain sense: The Trump White House has been a chaotic drama, a procession of scandals, leaks, investigations, feuding protagonists and trampled norms. But one of the overlooked realities of the reality show is that the day-to-day existence of so-called official Washington has felt anything but disrupted. This gilded capital has actually been a serene and lovely place to live, work and visit, at least for those who can afford it. The trend has only accelerated through what until recently was the booming economy of the Trump presidency."

These last months, though, have been something else entirely. The reality has relegated the TV maestro in the White House to something of a sideshow.

In recent nights, the streets around the White House have been clogged with thousands of protesters, demonstrating against the police killing last week in Minneapolis of George Floyd, an African-American man. The crowds have been multiracial and comprised a free-for-all of purposes. Landmark restaurants, offices and a historic church have been burned and vandalized. By Monday, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser had set a curfew of 7 p.m. and activated the National Guard.

“Donald Trump is just a social media personality to us, the guy who told us to drink bleach,” said Artinese Campbell, 33, an African-American woman who has lived her whole life in Washington and who had come downtown Monday afternoon, just a few blocks from the White House, to visit her bank before it was boarded up and closed early in anticipation of another night of protests. She said she was sympathetic to the cause of the protesters but hoped they remained peaceful and had no plans to stick around to find out.

“I think most of us are numb to presidents who come in and talk about ‘change,’” Ms. Campbell said. “Nothing really changes if you’re black in America.”

...One thing was certain: No one was bemoaning the “shattered norms” perpetrated by the Trump administration or celebrating the “peaceful transfer of power” that may or may not occur in a few months. Television pundits have labeled the upcoming election as “existential” to the importance to the country’s direction. But it also felt beside the point-- like privilege talking-- in the crowds of the last few nights. This chaotic tableau felt so much more urgent, and close to home.

...[T]he national headquarters of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. were set ablaze during protests Sunday night. TV commentators described the conflagration as a strike against one of the fortresses of the American labor movement, a theoretical ally of the protesters in the struggle for a fairer power structure. Next door, flames engulfed St. John’s Episcopal Church, where two decades of presidents have come to worship-- the so-called Church of the Presidents.

Suddenly, though, these monuments to American progress and history felt like quaint abstractions, cherished by official Washington but just another thing to burn down for the Washington disrupters of 2020.

On Monday on a sidewalk across Farragut Square, in front of the boarded up Oval Room restaurant, a protester named Athena Kapsides, a Washington public-school teacher, said that Mr. Trump had in fact inspired a great deal of activism in opposition to his own actions. In that sense, she said, he has been a catalyst for change.

“President Trump himself has tried to present himself as a fighter, but really he only fights for himself,” said Ms. Kapsides, who grew up in the Washington suburbs and wore a T-shirt bearing the likeness of Colin Kaepernick, the former National Football League quarterback who protested police violence against African-Americans by kneeling during pregame renditions of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Many believe that his statement resulted in his blacklisting from the N.F.L., where he has not played since 2017.

“He’s been a force for disruption,” Ms. Kapsides said of Mr. Trump. “But maybe not always the kind of disruption he planned for.”

Isn't It About Time For Some Racial Justice Reform In Our Country?

Later-- after the CNN appearance above-- on Fox News Sunday, Cornel West said "What we’re seeing here is the ways in which the vicious legacy of white supremacy manifests in organized hatred, greed and corruption. We’re witnessing the collapse of the legitimacy of leadership, the political class, the economic class, the professional class, that’s the deeper crisis... The beautiful thing is we’re seeing citizens who are caring and concerned hitting the streets. The problem is we have a system that’s not responding and seems to be unable to respond." And Trump does nothing but make everything worse-- in this case much worse.

Roxane Gay isn't as well known but her NY Times OpEd yesterday was just as salient and just as important. "Eventually," she wrote, "doctors will find a coronavirus vaccine, but black people will continue to wait for a cure for racism... The economy is shattered. Unemployment continues to climb, steeply. There is no coherent federal leadership. The president mocks any attempts at modeling precautionary behaviors that might save American lives. More than 100,000 Americans have died from Covid-19." Actually, that 106,128 deaths in the U.S.

Many of us have been in some form of self-isolation for more than two months. The less fortunate continue to risk their lives because they cannot afford to shelter from the virus. People who were already living on the margins are dealing with financial stresses that the government’s $1,200 “stimulus” payment cannot begin to relieve. A housing crisis is imminent. Many parts of the country are reopening prematurely. Protesters have stormed state capitals, demanding that businesses reopen. The country is starkly dividing between those who believe in science and those who don’t.

...The disparities that normally fracture our culture are becoming even more pronounced as we decide, collectively, what we choose to save-- what deserves to be saved.

And even during a pandemic, racism is as pernicious as ever. Covid-19 is disproportionately affecting the black community, but we can hardly take the time to sit with that horror as we are reminded, every single day, that there is no context in which black lives matter.

Breonna Taylor was killed in her Louisville, Ky., home by police officers looking for a man who did not even live in her building. She was 26 years old. When demonstrations erupted, seven people were shot.

Ahmaud Arbery was jogging in South Georgia when he was chased down by two armed white men who suspected him of robbery and claimed they were trying perform a citizen’s arrest. One shot and killed Mr. Arbery while a third person videotaped the encounter. No charges were filed until the video was leaked and public outrage demanded action. Mr. Arbery was 25 years old.

In Minneapolis, George Floyd was held to the ground by a police officer kneeling on his neck during an arrest. He begged for the officer to stop torturing him. Like Eric Garner, he said he couldn’t breathe. Three other police officers watched and did not intervene. Mr. Floyd was 46 years old.

These black lives mattered. These black people were loved. Their losses to their friends, family, and communities, are incalculable.

Demonstrators in Minneapolis took to the street for several days, to protest the killing of Mr. Floyd. Mr. Trump-- who in 2017 told police officers to be rough on people during arrests, imploring them to “please, don’t be too nice”-- wrote in a tweet, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” The official White House Twitter feed reposted the president’s comments. There is no rock bottom.

Christian Cooper, an avid birder, was in Central Park’s Ramble when he asked a white woman, Amy Cooper, to comply with the law and leash her dog. He began filming, which only enraged Ms. Cooper further. She pulled out her phone and said she was going to call the police to tell them an African-American man was threatening her.

She called the police. She knew what she was doing. She weaponized her whiteness and fragility like so many white women before her. She began to sound more and more hysterical, even though she had to have known she was potentially sentencing a black man to death for expecting her to follow rules she did not think applied to her. It is a stroke of luck that Mr. Cooper did not become another unbearable statistic.

An unfortunate percentage of my cultural criticism over the past 11 or 12 years has focused on the senseless loss of black life. Mike Brown. Trayvon Martin. Sandra Bland. Philando Castile. Tamir Rice. Jordan Davis. Atatiana Jefferson. The Charleston Nine.

These names are the worst kind of refrain, an inescapable burden. These names are hashtags, elegies, battle cries. Still nothing changes. Racism is litigated over and over again when another video depicting another atrocity comes to light. Black people share the truth of their lives, and white people treat those truths as intellectual exercises.

They put energy into being outraged about the name “Karen,” as shorthand for entitled white women rather than doing the difficult, self-reflective work of examining their own prejudices. They speculate about what murdered black people might have done that we don’t know about to beget their fates, as if alleged crimes are punishable by death without a trial by jury. They demand perfection as the price for black existence while harboring no such standards for anyone else.

Some white people act as if there are two sides to racism, as if racists are people we need to reason with. They fret over the destruction of property and want everyone to just get along. They struggle to understand why black people are rioting but offer no alternatives about what a people should do about a lifetime of rage, disempowerment and injustice.

When I warned in 2018 that no one was coming to save us, I wrote that I was tired of comfortable lies. I’m even more exhausted now. Like many black people, I am furious and fed up, but that doesn’t matter at all.

I write similar things about different black lives lost over and over and over. I tell myself I am done with this subject. Then something so horrific happens that I know I must say something, even though I know that the people who truly need to be moved are immovable. They don’t care about black lives. They don’t care about anyone’s lives. They won’t even wear masks to mitigate a virus for which there is no cure.

Eventually, doctors will find a coronavirus vaccine, but black people will continue to wait, despite the futility of hope, for a cure for racism. We will live with the knowledge that a hashtag is not a vaccine for white supremacy. We live with the knowledge that, still, no one is coming to save us. The rest of the world yearns to get back to normal. For black people, normal is the very thing from which we yearn to be free.

I asked some of the top congressional candidates from around the country how they are thinking about the weekend's protests and if they're at odds with their opponents about the racial justice issues.

Lisa Ring is running in the coastal Georgia district and her opponent is a Trumpist Republican, Buddy Carter. Lisa told us that on Sunday she "attended a peaceful protest in Savannah along with hundreds of protesters in my district. Sadly, protesting against racial hatred, brutality and murder has become all too familiar on the coast of Georgia. Just a few weeks ago I was in Brunswick (also in my district) protesting the murder of Ahmad Arbery and the corruption of the Glynn County D.A.s office to arrest the perpetrators who hunted down and killed Ahmad. Rep. Buddy Carter offers the usual platitudes. Yet, he would never join us at a protest or propose any significant change involving racial justice or law enforcement accountability. To do so would anger his support base which remains at the heart of a systemically racist system that refuses to die. We marched this same route in 2016 shouting 'black lives matter' after the deaths of Philando Castile and Eric Garner. We heard the same canned responses from our leaders. If we expect change, we must do more than march, we must take power away from the ineffectual leaders in our country who lack true compassion and provide no solutions to injustice.

The Democratic candidate in Riverside County's 42nd district is progressive Liam O'Mara and he's taking on serial Trump enabler Ken Calvert. "Year after year,"he told us this afternoon, "we see the same stories, about young men and women of color savagely beaten or killed for non-violent crimes. At some point you would think the country might listen to the many sociologists and historians who have been describing the causes for decades. But no, every time it seems to follow a predictable pattern of short-term outrage, then a return to business as usual, with public figures seldom asking the hard questions or proposing viable solutions. And solutions do exist! Instead of terrorizing poor communities with heavily-armed enforcers, we should invest in businesses and civic renewal projects. We need fully to break the school-to-prison pipeline, and that means taking the emphasis off of law enforcement and placing it on things like counselling and adequate resources for success. In addition, we need to create a stronger culture of individual accountability among the police, and get back to the spirit of community policing to restore trust in law enforcement. Our congressmember, Ken Calvert, has made an appeal to God and called for us to move forward in peace. This is a polite way of saying nothing should change, the protesters should go home, and life for middle class white America can return to blissful ignorance of the daily challenges faced by people of colour. We don't need a 28-year incumbent with a history of race-baiting-- we need a new voice to tackle the challenges of our times.

Cathy Kunkel is running in the central district of West Virginia, also against a Trump Republican, Alex Moonie. "In the WV Can't Wait movement," she told us today, "we are fighting for a government for works for all of us. Not just the 97% white population of West Virginia, but all of us. That means taking on a broken criminal justice system where 12% of our prison population is black, an education system that disproportionately funnels black students into a school-to-prison pipeline, and an economic system where the racial wealth gap is growing even wider. These are problems that must be tackled at the federal, state and local level, and we must do so by listening to and lifting up the voices of black leadership - leaders who have been speaking up for decades about the pain and fear in their communities. As Martin Luther King, Jr said, 'a riot is the language of the unheard.'"

Texas progressive Mike Siegel is taking on GOP incumbent Michael McCaul in a gerrymandered Texas district that was created to prevent Travis County (Austin) from being fully represented. Siegel told us that "We are looking at a 400-year history of slavery, Jim Crow and institutional racism, compounded by a national health pandemic, compounded by an economic crisis, compounded by a hateful and divisive presidency. There will be no easy fixes or 'going back to normal.' What is needed is massive, structural change to how we approach public safety, policing, and criminal justice. The Texas 10th has long been a center of struggle for racial justice. This is the home of Prairie View A&M, a leading historically-- black college located on a former slave plantation. This is where Sandra Bland died in police custody after an unconstitutional arrest. This is where Rodney Reed has been on Texas Death Row for decades for a crime that was committed by a white former police officer who was protected by his friends in law enforcement. And this is where Michael McCaul has been a 'representative' for sixteen years in name, never lifting a finger to fight for Black lives in any of you nine TX-10 counties. This week I am joining Ayanna Presley’s call for passage of

The People’s Justice Guarantee, a comprehensive demand for criminal justice reform. We have much to do to create an equitable and just society, and eradicating racism in criminal justice is an essential part of this work."

There's just one progressive challenger in Arizona who has a chance to replace a conservative, Eva Putzova. She told us that her "ex"-Republican Blue Dog opponent is mouthing the same tired platitudes that all conservatives save for a weekend like this. "Tom O'Halleran's response to the latest brutal murder of a black man at the hands of a white police officer was 'we need to improve our understanding of racism.' These are empty words from another politician who has no plan or intention of providing real solutions to systemic racism in our country. A bill to just study the idea of reparations for African-Americans has been in Congress for 5 months and he hasn't co-sponsored it. To save lives, we need bold reform that flips the system on its head. That's why I proudly signed current and former congressional candidates Cori Bush (MO-01) and Anthony Clark’s (IL-07) Pledge to End Police Violence, which includes comprehensive reform to tackle police violence head on. To address the systemic racism embedded in our country, we also need deep criminal justice reform, including the federal legalization of marijuana, and ending cash bail and for-profit prisons. And that's just to start. We can't solve systemic racism in a few bills, but it's the duty of our Congressmembers to move us closer towards justice. Right now, Tom O'Halleran is sitting still."

Monroe County, NY progressive Robin Wilt is taking on a do-nothing career politician of her own party. Racial justice is an important issue for her; though not for him. "According to 24/7 Wall Street, my Congressional District is ranked second-worst in the nation in terms of outcomes for Black Americans," she told me. The only one that ranks worst is the Minneapolis Congressional District in which George Floyd was murdered. What that means in terms of health care, educational, and wealth and income disparities, is that Black Americans in my district are three times as likely to be impoverished, three times as likely to be unemployed, and have a homeownership rate of less than half that of their white counterparts. These disparities are borne of the structural racism and unjust policies of which my opponent, as a three-decades-long state Assemblyman in the region, is one of the architects. As one of my supporters so eloquently said, 'You cannot expect the people who made the system, who have spent their lifetime benefitting from the system, to change it.'

Rochester has also had its own issues with police brutality and lack of accountability. Recently, the electorate overwhelmingly passed a referendum establishing a civilian review board that has subpoena power in matters of police discipline. In an ongoing lawsuit, the Police Union has attacked the Police Accountability Board civilian oversight provision on constitutional grounds. My opponent has remained silent on the matter.

The Rochester City School District, which according to the same 24/7 Wall Street article, is comprised of approximately 90% students of color, recently faced a $30-million dollar budgetary shortfall. My opponent, instead of calling for New York to live up to its obligation to fully-fund the district’s foundation aid that is its due, callously called for Donald Trump’s Justice Department to investigate the Rochester City School District’s finances. This is the self-same segregated school system that LA School Report identified as having the most economically segregating school district border in the country.

As I listened to the impassioned testimonials at the Rochester Black Lives Matter protest this past Saturday, out of the corner of my eye, I witnessed my opponent ducking out. I was surprised that he had deigned at all to make an appearance, so when he exited prematurely, in the middle of one Black and Brown person after another expressing the pain and anguish of the inequities that our communities of color endure, I couldn’t help but think that his act of turning his back and ducking out on the speakers, after taking his photo opportunity, was the perfect analogy for how he has treated our communities of color during his tenure as an elected official.

It is time that we had a representative in the 25th Congressional District who not only understands that it’s not okay to turn one’s back on our most vulnerable and disaffected communities, but also that in order for us to make progress as a district, we must do so together; it cannot be achieved at the expense of our most marginalized.

Tom Guild is also taking on a pathetic excuse for a Democrat, but in Oklahoma City. His opponent is Blue Dog Kendra Horn, one of the most anti-progressive members of the House Democratic caucus. "There are so many pernicious and vexing problems begging for systemic change in America," Tom tildes today. "The ruling political class plays games with people’s lives in order to stay in the saddle and continue to not only not solve existing problems but to add new quagmires to the top of the heap. Black and Brown people in our country start their struggle to survive more often than not dealing with the heavy weight of poverty on their backs. We desperately need systemic change. For instance, most people of color in America have either no health care available or woefully inadequate options. We could make systemic change to help nearly everyone by moving to a single payer health care system. It would take the profit incentive out of the equation and greatly diminish the grating weight on the backs of Americans. It would also help Black and Brown Americans the most, because they are the ones suffering the most under the current for profit system.

"Even the Pelosi-led Democrats in the U.S. House are simply kicking the lead weight down the road by propping up the private health care system and maximizing profits for Big Insurance and Big Pharma, and calling that reform. The Senate Republicans are even worse. Black and Brown neighborhoods tend to have poor educational opportunities, which exacerbates the problems faced by our Brothers and Sisters of Color. At the state legislative level, most legislatures have Democrats 'fighting' to provide too little funding for minority schools, while many Republicans want to defund public schools altogether and plow what little public money there is available into 'charter' and private schools, either directly or indirectly.

"So our Black and Brown Brothers and Sisters are stifled by poverty and lack of quality educational opportunities. As they grow up, many minority children learn to fear law enforcement officials and are often treated with disrespect, threats to their lives, and too often actually lose their lives at the hands of police officers who are charged with protecting them. The recent list of Black Men and Women unarmed and submissive to police, who nonetheless end up losing their lives grows like topsy. Not only is the George Floyd case very recent, it is also particularly heinous and egregious. White officers had him subdued and completely under their control, while one of the white officers put his knee and the weight of his body on the neck of Mr. Floyd for nearly nine minutes and for three+ minutes after George Floyd begged for his life by painfully communicating that he could not breathe. Mr. Floyd’s alleged crime was trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill. There are so many words or phrases to describe Mr. Floyd’s horrific experience. Heinous. Brutal. Despicable. Unforgivable. Racist. Inhumane. Heartbreaking. Senseless. The list goes on and on.

"We desperately need systemic change in the criminal justice system. It way too often treats people of color as the dreaded-- other. First, police forces should closely mirror the demographics of the areas they serve. E.g. If 30% of a city’s population is black, 30% of the police department should be black. We need to solve the cruel problem of poverty. We need to provide all of our brothers and sisters with a quality education. We need to treat everyone with respect. We need to prosecute errant law enforcement officials, so that justice is truly blind. We need to love one another. We need to follow the Golden Rule. We need to elect people to represent us who want to make systemic changes and solve intractable problems. We need to defeat or not elect candidates who are on the make and are political social climbers and don’t care about the people they represent. God knows we have a lot to do, a lot of systemic changes to make, and a whole lotta love to dole out by the truckload. He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother or sister or neighbor or co-worker or fellow American or human being. It seems a daunting challenge, but as the old saying goes-- a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Do Black Lives Matter? Hell. YES! Once we wrap our minds, hearts, and souls around that one, we begin the process of systemic and healing change and the opportunity to solve difficult and vexing problems, instead of adding to the list horribles! We should adopt Jackie DeShannon’s Put a Little Love in Your Heart as our second national anthem!"

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Mike Pence was instructed to wear a mask when visiting the Mayo Clinic last week. It's common sense and standard policy. Ah, but not if you're a Repug! You think those things like policies and laws don't apply to you. Especially if you're a member of the monstrosity known as the Trump administration. Masks? We don't don't need no stinkin' masks! What the hell do we care if some vulnerable patient gets coronavirus and dies. That's just God's way of sayin' the victim wasn't good enough to be apart of the master race!

As an incredibly bogus and lame excuse Pence is still claiming that he didn't wear a mask, not out of contempt for others, but because he wanted to look the other people in the room in the eye when he was talking at them. I guess it's true about the leather mask but even that doesn't work. He knows they have flaps over the eyes that can be lifted. By the way, I note that there appears to be only one woman in the photo and she has her back to him. I guess it makes him nervous if a woman is looking at him. He might start sweating.

So, why no mask, Mr. Mike? Is it just because you do whatever your psycho boss does? I bet it is. He won't wear one so you won't. I'm reminded of the infamous water bottle clip below, augmented by Stephen Colbert. Have you developed a liking for fast food hamberders, too? What would you do if Donnie Psycho insisted that you share some hookers with him. Damn, I wish he would. You'd just drop dead on the spot.

Recession? For Sure! Depression? Think Of Who's At The Helm

My friend called the other day and asked if I thought the economy would slip into recession. I think my response frightened him. We're already in recession. What we have to worry about now is something no one-- or almost no one-- thought we would ever see again: a depression. Although, if national leadership is a contributing factor, how could anyone not have considered that particular calamity after the first Tuesday of November, 2016! Welcoming Thursday morning at Axos, Dion Rabouin noted that the $2.2 trillion bailout "is not a stimulus bill at all; it is designed to prevent mass homelessness, starvation and a wave of business closures not seen since the height of the Great Depression." I just heard some well-heeled talking head congratulating his class for making sure working families would survive to pay their rent and food and so on... with a $1,200 one-time payment. It wasn't a comedy show.

In a widely quoted piece right after the Senate passed their bailout bill Wednesday night, Heather Long wrote "The good news is the majority of the money is going to laid-off workers, small business owners, hospitals and state and local governments. The bad news is it won’t be enough to stop a recession. And it’s an open question whether the nation can avoid an economic depression, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the 1930s."

So, what's the difference between a recession and a depression? The simple answer is that a recession is shorter-- months-- than a depression-- years. Yes, years. Hard to imagine, right? Did you ever imagine America would elect, more or less, something like Donald Trump president?

4 months ago, before anyone in the U.S.-- outside of government anyway-- knew about the coming pandemic, Kimberly Amadeo asked what makes depression so much worse than a recession? "A recession, she wrote, "is widespread economic decline that lasts for at least six months. A depression is a more severe decline that lasts for several years. For example, a recession lasts for 18 months, while the most recent depression lasted for a decade. There have been 33 recessions since 1854. There's only been one depression since then, the Great Depression of 1929. It was actually a combination of the recession that lasted from August 1929 to March 1933, and the one from May 1937 to June 1938. If you are wondering if we are in a depression or recession, it's probably a recession."

In a recession, gross domestic product contracts for at least two quarters. But that's not all. There are many more economic indicators that signal a recession. That's because GDP growth will usually slow for several quarters before it turns negative. That's in response to sluggish consumer demand.

A depression is an extended recession that has years, not quarters, of economic contraction. It's more severe than a recession. Unemployment reaches 25%, housing prices plummet 30%, and prices fall 10%. The devastation of a depression is so great that the effects of the Great Depression lasted for decades after it ended.

The best way to find out if we are in a recession or a depression is to understand where we are in the business cycle. The recession follows the peak of the business cycle. It's signaled by irrational exuberance and asset bubbles.

A depression on the scale of that in 1929 could not happen exactly the way it did before. Central banks around the world, including the U.S. Federal Reserve, are more aware of the importance of monetary policy in regulating the economy.

...The underlying cause of any recession is a loss of business or consumer confidence. There are 12 events that trigger this panic reaction. These include a stock market crash, deregulation, and high interest rates.

Without confidence in the future, consumers will stop buying and businesses will lay off workers. These situations create a downward economic spiral of unemployment, businesses failures, and bankruptcies.

Since stocks are a piece of ownership in a company, the stock market is basically a vote of confidence in the future of all these companies and, as such, in the U.S. economy itself. A drop of 11% in a quarter indicates a sustained loss of confidence.

If confidence is not restored, the stock market will continue to fall over a sustained period of time. A prolonged downward trend would eventually indicate the start of a bear market. This could hurt the economy more and push it further toward a recession... Bear markets coincide with a recession. These 20% declines in stock market prices can also signal an impending recession. If the shock is bad enough, they can trigger the next one.

She lightly warned-- probably not really grasping it could happen-- that "if the United States were to experience an economic downturn on the scale of the Great Depression, your life would change dramatically."

Yesterday, Neil Irwin, cheering the impending passage of the Trump Bailout, penned a piece for the NY Times, How To Prevent A Coronavirus Depression-- and it wasn't about being down in the dumps from too much social isolation. He began with the assertion that "There is little doubt that economic data in the weeks to come will obliterate all modern records in their awfulness. One Federal Reserve official has said the unemployment rate could hit 30 percent, three times its level at the worst point of the 2008-2009 Great Recession. And he has suggested that G.D.P. could fall at a 50 percent annual rate next quarter, which would be five times worse than the worst single quarter on record. Economic forecasters at major banks differ in degree, not direction, of the disaster facing the American economy. Just how bad those numbers get in the next few months may amaze future historians. But what matters now is whether this turns out to be a severe-but-brief disruption to economic life from which the United States and other major economies can quickly recover, or the beginning of a long, scarring depression. And the economic data we usually rely on are particularly ill-suited to offer useful information on that question. What’s critical now is not whether the May 2020 unemployment rate is 20 percent or 40 percent or 50 percent. It is whether the unemployment rate in May 2021 is back to something more normal-- if people have been able to move on with their lives without damage that will stunt their economic lives for years to come."




A little backdrop before we go back to Irwin. Do you recall, after Trump was elected, a term that came into relatively common currency-- kakistocracy? In case you've forgotten, the basic meaning is "government by the worst people." Months after Trump occupied the White House and the horror of what had happened had sunk in, on 29 June 2017, the Merriam-Webster dictionary website reported that searches for the word had spiked to an all-time high that day. That said, we've now entered the greatest challenge to the incredibly, grotesquely dumbed-down American people in almost a century. Dumbed down? Yeah-- compare, in your mind, Joe Biden, a virtual corpse, to Franklin Roosevelt.

To reach that more optimistic outcome, the U.S. government is trying to build, at great speed, a three-legged stool. All three components need to come together to make it plausible to return to prosperity reasonably quickly once the coronavirus outbreak is safely contained. One or two won’t be enough.

First, the nation needs to ensure that who lose their jobs do not experience personal catastrophe with long-lasting effects. Second, it must ensure that they have jobs to go back to-- that businesses with sound long-term prospects don’t collapse in the interim. Third, the system of borrowing and lending needs to remain functioning to avoid a freeze-up of credit that would make the other two goals impossible.

The remarkable $2 trillion legislation Congress that was on the verge of passing Wednesday, along with a series of extraordinary actions by the Federal Reserve this month, constitute the United States government’s efforts to bolster each of those legs.

Leg 1: Support people who lose their jobs

Not all unemployment is created equal.

Sometimes a person loses a job and after a few weeks finds something new. It can be a wrenching experience, but it is also how a dynamic capitalist economy reinvents itself, funneling labor where it is most productive.

Periods of prolonged mass unemployment, when there are simply no jobs out there, are a different story. They tend to create lasting damage.

When people lose their jobs and remain unemployed for a long period, they are more likely to lose their home to foreclosure, disrupting the rhythms of their lives. They may lose their health care coverage. Their skills and relationships may atrophy in ways that make it harder to go back to work when jobs become plentiful.

And the income the newly jobless lose in those circumstances contributes to the freeze-up in the broader economy. Being forced to drastically cut spending can fuel a vicious cycle of lost revenue for businesses and cause other people to lose their jobs.

In short, when people’s incomes collapse in a crisis like this, there’s a great risk that their lives will unravel, with long-term consequences.

“Unemployment is more than just a period when you have lower earnings,” said Katharine Abraham, a University of Maryland economist who has researched long-term unemployment.

Part of the case for generous help for people losing their jobs-- like the funding for a major expansion of unemployment insurance benefits, which is included in the bill moving through Congress-- is that it can halt that vicious cycle.

Ms. Abraham says that it will be particularly desirable to maintain workers’ connections with their employers. This could be accomplished, for instance, by work-sharing arrangements in which hours are cut but employees not laid off, with unemployment benefits filling the income gap. It’s an approach embraced in the new legislation.

“We really want to try to preserve the relationship between firms and their workers,” she said. “Then when things start to pick up, it’s a lot easier for the firm to restart because they don’t have to go out and hire people.”

Leg 2: Make sure businesses don't collapse

Helping people who lose their jobs won’t, by itself, prevent long-term economic damage.

With vast numbers of businesses experiencing a collapse in revenue-- and in many cases a complete suspension of operations-- there is an acute risk of widespread bankruptcies and business closures.

Think of a neighborhood restaurant that is reduced to a handful of takeout and delivery orders while customers are self-isolating. The restaurant can cut back employee hours, reducing payroll cost. But it still owes rent to its landlord; loan payments to its bank; utility costs; property taxes and more.

If the restaurant can get some mix of forbearance from its creditors and favorable loans or grants from the government, it may be poised to open as soon as people can safely eat out again, allowing a rapid return to its normal role in the economy.

If the landlord evicts or the creditors force the company into bankruptcy, it could be months or years before that economic activity returns.

Yes, eventually a new tenant could be found, and the former employees could find new jobs. That’s why bankruptcy works perfectly well in typical business failures. But when all kinds of businesses are failing all at once, it paralyzes the economy.

“Ideally you want all those small and medium-sized businesses that were solvent and doing a great job as of Feb. 1 to still be around and able to do business when folks can get back to work,” said Heather Boushey, president of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.

It’s true even at bigger scale, with large companies like cruise lines and airlines. In a vacuum, it would do no harm to the economy for them to go through a normal bankruptcy process, with shareholders being wiped out and creditors taking over ownership.

The risk is that the entire complex fabric of the American economy will be ripped apart at once-- and that it will take years, rather than months, to weave it back together.

Several elements of the new rescue legislation are aimed at preventing that from happening. There is $75 billion in bailouts targeted at specific industries, and $425 billion devoted to business lending broadly, which the Federal Reserve can match with 10 times as much cash. Essentially, it sets the stage for a truly huge reservoir of funds to try to ensure businesses are ready to resume normal functioning as soon as public health allows.





Leg 3: Allow the financial system to support a recovery

In the last few weeks, the economic crisis has also been a financial crisis. For a rapid recovery to take place, that will need to change.

This isn’t really about the stock market. The plunge in stock prices is a reflection, rather than a cause, of this perilous moment. But what is happening in many credit markets is more worrying.

For several days, the market for Treasury bonds-- the most important asset in global finance-- was dysfunctional, with fewer transactions as buyers and sellers were far apart on price. This resulted in rising borrowing costs for the government, despite efforts by the Fed to push interest rates down.

Problems in the Treasury bond market have diminished since the Fed announced open-ended bond purchases under its quantitative easing program, which could reach into the trillions of dollars. That provides some confidence the government will have easy access to the credit it needs to rescue the economy.

But other sectors aren’t so lucky. Mortgage markets have also been dysfunctional as investors hoard cash, and as some firms that buy up mortgage securities face major financial strains. If that continues, it will be harder for home buyers to get mortgages and could cause problems throughout the housing sector.

Investors have dumped municipal bonds, causing their interest rates to spike. If sustained, that would make it expensive or impossible for state and local governments to borrow money they need to get through a period in which their public services are likely to be stretched to the limit.

Many years ago, the former Fed chair Ben Bernanke and colleagues wrote of a “financial accelerator” in which problems in the economy can, by disrupting the flow of credit, metastasize into much bigger problems. The Fed has recently announced a range of programs, many built on Mr. Bernanke’s crisis-response strategies from 2008, to try to prevent that financial accelerator from taking hold now.

There are two pieces of good news about the three-legged stool.

One is the U.S. government is acting on a remarkable scale, at rare speed, to try to ensure each leg is in place. There will be plenty of time to argue on the exact structure of the programs and what should have been done earlier, but the magnitude of the potential economic disaster has become clear in Washington.

The second is that strengthening each leg makes the entire stool more solid. Helping unemployed workers will help businesses get back to regular functioning sooner, and both will help reduce the freeze-up of credit more broadly, which in turn will help consumers and businesses.

But it is the combined strength of all three that will determine whether this episode is a footnote of economic history or a long, harrowing chapter.

Robert Reich Explains What The Center Is-- And What It Isn't

Bernie's ideas seem very popular. Have you noticed? And that means Third Way, a major player among those who are part of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, is on the attack. Matt Bennett, Third Way’s senior vice president, when talking about senators running for president noted that "We’re open to everybody except for him." That was a year ago. The Republican wing of the party is putting all they've got into poisoning the well for Bernie. They know he means what he says and they know what that means for the status quo they've grown fat on.

"The 'center,'" said Reich in the video above, is not halfway between what most Americans want and what big corporations, Wall Street and the super-wealthy want. The 'center' is what the vast majority of Americans want." Reich could have explicitly included the mass media in with "big corporations, Wall Street and the super-wealthy."

In any case, polling shows that Americans favor the agenda the GOP has been trying to paint as "socialist"

• higher taxes on the super-rich- 76% favor
• a wealth tax on fortunes of over $50 million- over 60% favor
• Medicare-For-All- 70% favor
• lower prescription drug prices- 92% favor
• drug importation from Canada- over 70% favor
• paid maternity leave- over 70% favor
• more affordable child care- 79% favor
• free college tuition- 60% favor
• climate change is man-made and needs addressing- 62% agree
• money has too much influence in politics- 84% agree
• put limits on campaign spending- 77% agree

Yes, Americans, but not Mitch McConnell, not Laura Ingraham and not this country's political and economic elites, which thrive on gaming the system and benefit from the status quo.




I asked some of the Blue America candidates and some of the candidates we're still vetting about the issues they're running on and about how they're using those issues to fight back against the Republicans who label them "socialism."

Mike Siegel is a progressive Democrat running in a gerrymandered red Texas district that he nearly won in 2018. This time he has sky high name recognition and his chances to beat the reactionary GOP Trump enabler are much better.

"The National Republican Congressional Committee," he told me this morning, "just ran an ad targeting me as 'socialist' based on my support for the most basic aspects of a social safety net-- exactly what Reich identifies as the political center. In 2018, I ran for Congress in what was called a 'deep red' district-- the Texas 10th was considered R+19-- and I ran on a platform including Medicare for All. By the end of the race, the incumbent McCaul, who thinks Obamacare is socialist, only had a 4% advantage. We can run and win on these issues. Healthcare, better schools, progressive taxation, infrastructure spending and jobs programs. We have to lean into our commitment to using government for the greater good, because that is what a democracy is supposed to be."

Kathy Ellis, has an even redder district in southeast Missouri-- the reddest district in the state, huge, rural, very poor, abandoned by the national Democratic Party-- and she is also trying to reach out to her neighbors with a populist-progressive campaign. "For too long," she said, "the political system has not worked for average, working-class people-- people like you and me. It's been built to represent the needs of the super wealthy and super powerful. It's time that we change that and begin the work of building a country that works for us all, not just the wealthy few. For this reason, I support issues that prioritize the needs of everyday, working people. These include healthcare for all, campaign finance reform, universal childcare and pre-k, debt-free college, and increased environmental protections."

Marie Newman is running for a very different kind of seat, one in a nice blue Chicagoland district, but with a Republican-lite Blue Dog as an incumbent. She will make a very different kind of representative than he is: "When 65-80% of Americans are supportive of policies such as raising taxes on the ultra rich, providing universal childcare and paid leave, but conservatives call it ‘fringe’, I guess the new meaning of fringe = most Americans."

Kina Collins is the progressive Democrat running for the Chicago seat occupied by Danny Davis. "As a former organizer for Physicians for a National Health Program," she told me this morning, "seeing everyday people suffering from preventable illnesses and not being able to afford health insurance showed me how urgently we need single-payer Medicare for All in our country. We cannot wait. The majority of Americans support health care reform, we need to take bold action on this issue."

Shaniyat Chowdhury is also running in a blue district represented by a corrupt conservative Democrat, this one in southeast Queens. His perspective is that "We're starting to see the seeds of change make a difference when every working class and poor American participates on a massive scale. Without a doubt, vast majority of Americans believe our current representatives are influenced by big money, condoning their luxurious lifestyles. These actions have caused the most vulnerable Americans to not have access to healthcare, education, jobs, and a productive solution to climate change. Once we collectively drain the swamp of corrupt and bought politicians, we will open the doors for solutions such as Medicare for All, Free College Tuition, Federal Job’s Guarantee, and a Green New Deal. It’s not 'time for a change.' We’ve just been long overdue for everyday Americans to stand up with morals, ethics, and courage to take big money out of politics."

Kara Eastman is in a 50/50 swing district-- Omaha, Nebraska and the surrounding suburbs. NE-02 voted for Obama, Romney and, narrowly Trump. Kara came close to winning in 2018 and-- like Mike Siegel-- can probably go all the way in 2020. She told me that "It’s clear that people I talk to from across the political spectrum understand money’s corrosive influence on our government at all levels. My relatives who are more affluent, who lean right, as well as my supporters actually agree we have to fix the political system we have inherited. That’s why my decision to refuse all corporate PAC money is broadly supported by constituents in Nebraska but not necessarily by our two political parties."

Audrey Denney is another progressive Democrat trying to win a tough red district. She did incredibly well in 2018 and intends on going all the way in 2020. "It is far past time," she told me today, "that we had elected leaders who were responsible and accountable to the people they served-- instead of corporations and special interests. Campaigns in 2020 should about things that matter to people-- things that make people’s lives a little bit better. Making sure Americans don’t go bankrupt when they have a health emergency. Making sure new parents can rest and recover and care for their infants before they go back to work. Making sure young people can get a degree without trying to climb out of debt for the rest of their lives. Making sure all Americans can find dignified jobs that let them provide for their families. Making sure we are doing all we can to address the existential threat of climate change. These aren’t radical ideas. These are common sense American values."

AOC Is Not Asking Permission To Be The Best Member Of Congress-- She's Just Being Herself

Early in the campaign Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called me on the phone to ask for a Blue America endorsement. We'd been looking for someone to take on Joe Crowley for a decade, so I knew Digby and Amato would agree that backing her was a good idea, even if her chance to actually win was practically non-existent against Queens Democratic Party Machine boss and "the next Speaker of the House." I told her we'd endorse her and help her raise money for the campaign but that she needed to work on name recognition and then take on Crowley again in 2020. She laughed at me and told me she ws going to win in 2018. I asked her how she thought she could accomplish that. She told me. She convinced me. I was awe-struck. We didn't just endorse her. We spent PAC money, independently-- so she doesn't even know-- on her campaign as well. I couldn't be happier with our "investment." Even beyond ridding Congress of the stench of the corrupt slime bag that was Joe Crowley-- a pillar of a crumbling repulsive establishment-- AOC has already accomplished more since being elected than most members do in their whole tenure. Not everyone understands that-- and among those who do, many do not like it, not one bit.

Ed Rollins, a broken down old GOP hack who now chairs Trump's corrupt Great America PAC, refused to say her name on a right wing talk show referring to her instead as "that little girl."

A far right Republican Party blog, Gateway Pundit, ran a typically silly and hysteric post about her filled with misinformation, trying to make it sound like she's some kind of trust-fund baby because

a- her family moved to Westchester County
b- she graduated from Yorktown High with honors
c- her nickname name for part of the time she was in college was Sandy
and...
d- "A video was discovered this week where Sandy Ocasio-Cortez is seen dancing"

This isn't parody, This isn't DWT making fun of a deluded, brainless right-winger. Those were his words and, yes, he bolded them and enlarged them so they would stand out because... well, we all know about what dancing means. Right? I'm so happy I get to embed it again. It's so great!



And the video credits her as Sandy Ocasio-Cortez. OMG! What a scam! What a scam! When these GOP geniuses started publishing the video on social media, Ocasio had 1.62 million twitter followers. That's been growing everyday since. It's now 2.16 million, higher than Nancy Pelosi's 1.88 million followers, more than Kevin McCarthy's 46,700 followers even combined with @GOPLeader's 210,000 followers. In fact, Miss Ocasio-Cortez now has more twitter followers than any other member of the House. You know why that's important, right? You see how she can bring up ideas that cause everyone from Fox and Fiends to Rachel to start talking about them and put them into the zeitgeist.

Is she too radical? Don't take me laugh. As CNN reported she's "a talented, charismatic young politician who has struck the political world with a force and impact rarely seen among even those who have been at it for a much longer time." And the knives are out for her. That same CNN report: "Fudging the facts in pursuit of 'being morally right'-- as Ocasio-Cortez puts it-- assumes that moral righteousness is an agreed-upon thing. As Trump's decision to institute a travel ban or build a wall around the country show, it's not. Ocasio-Cortez is new to all of this, yes. But the high profile she already enjoys caries with it some responsibility. Namely, to get the facts right. And when you get them wrong, to correct it as quickly as possible rather than trying to justify the error."



Whoopi Goldberg, co-host of The View, "scolded" AOC yesterday on the show. "It is very, very difficult" for her to admire Alexandria when she makes "accusations where you say, you know, the Democrats have done nothing, the establishment of the Democrats have done nothing. And I just want to throw this out to you. John Lewis (D-GA) wasn’t sitting still. [Sen.] Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) wasn’t sitting still... So, you just got in there and I know you got lots of good ideas, but I would encourage you to sit still for a minute and learn the job… You don’t have to be born into it. You don’t have to know it when you step out, but before you start pooping on people and what they’ve done, you got to do something too."

Yeah, Alex From The Bronx, sit still and be a good little girl and in 150 years you may be just like Dianna Feinstein!

Mark Cuban's not as thick-- and is more sympathetic to where OC is coming from than poor old Whoopi. But he had some advice for her too after watching 60 Minutes. He wants her to continue being a radical (whew) but wants her to drop the "partisan language [because] we are all intros together."

Be a radical, Be different. Be a change leader Innovate. It’s your generation’s turn to govern. Go for it. But please leave our bad habit of using partisan language 'Us vs Them', 'Rep vs Dem', 'Libs vs Cons' behind... We are all in this together. Change the Game to Change the World.

Maybe he was stoned, unhappy about this:

He still may run-- probably as a Republican (since he is one)-- against Trump in 2020. His perspective: "now would be a great time for the new generation of politicians, across the board, to take a new approach [because] the partisan approach doesn’t work."

So the Whoopster is pissed because she's not cuddling up to old Democrats and Cuban is freaked because, she's not being nice to Republicans. OK. Andrew Kragie dissected her 60 Minutes appearance too. He has questions and is worried about her inconsistencies to his own vision and expectations: "Ever since Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won an insurgent primary campaign in June against a well-established party elder, it hasn’t been clear whether she plans to push or pull the Democratic Party to the left. Will the former Bernie Sanders volunteer and self-identified democratic socialist try to push House leadership on policy while remaining well outside the party’s power structure? Or will the youngest woman ever elected to Congress opt to work inside the system, build alliances, and seek institutional power to pull the party toward her position?"

At first, it seemed she would pursue the first route, endorsing a progressive group’s campaign to challenge incumbent Democrats, joining climate activists in a sit-in outside Nancy Pelosi’s office, and refusing to support Pelosi’s return as speaker of the House until late November.

But in a 60 Minutes interview that aired Sunday night, the new congresswoman downplayed her rebellious reputation. Yes, she wants Democrats to be more progressive, but it seems she plans to work within the party rather than launch public attacks from the left.

“We acknowledge that we are part of-- and I am part of-- a larger party,” she told the interviewer Anderson Cooper. “So a lot of that is going to do and deal with building relationships across the party, making sure that we are building consensus around these issues.

“There’s a lot of folks that I think sometimes want to brand me as a flamethrower,” she said. “I think the truth of what I am is I’m a consensus builder.” Breaking into a wide grin, she added, “And I like to think that I’m persuasive.”

Cooper asked her about centrist Democrats who worry that she and other progressives will push the party too far. “While I understand that concern, I think that I’m a much more reasonable person than people tend to make me out to be,” she said.

The 60 Minutes spot was Ocasio-Cortez’s first high-profile interview since taking the oath of office late last week and was likely her longest serious sit-down to date. It’s unusual for a freshman representative to land such a prominent interview, but since her improbable primary win over the summer, she’s been the subject of countless stories in both the mainstream and the right-wing press, fed in part by her unusually transparent approach to public relations. The frenzy has created a feedback loop, with Ocasio-Cortez winning media attention because of all the media attention she’s already received. Still, the 60 Minutes interview did provide some substantive details about how Ocasio-Cortez plans to work in Congress.

Ocasio-Cortez positioned herself as a principled insider rather than a purist outsider. She articulated goals that fall within the mainstream of the post-2016 Democratic Party: “I want to be able to tell my grandchildren that we established a single-payer [health-care] system, tuition-free universities, and that we saved our climate for their future, because we decided to be courageous in the moment and make it happen.”

Yet she also continued to promote progressive policies outside the Democratic comfort zone. For example, she affirmed her goal of reducing U.S. carbon emissions to zero by 2030. When Cooper asked how that unlikely scenario might be possible, she talked briefly and vaguely about “trying to push our technological capacities to the furthest extent possible.” To fund the “Green New Deal” she and other progressives demand, she suggested returning marginal tax rates for the highest earners to levels not seen since the 1970s. Such rates would mean a massive tax hike on what she called the “tippy tops” of personal income.

“What you are talking about, just big picture, is a radical agenda compared to the way politics is done right now,” Cooper said. Ocasio-Cortez didn’t run away from the label. “Well, I think that it only has ever been radicals that have changed this country,” she said, citing Abraham Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation and Franklin D. Roosevelt creating Social Security.

“Do you call yourself a radical?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she replied. “You know, if that’s what radical means, call me a radical.”

...With the biggest megaphone of all the House progressives, Ocasio-Cortez can help chart the course for the Bernie wing of the party in the House. It will have to decide whether it wants to be a thorn in Speaker Pelosi’s side, like the GOP’s hard-line Freedom Caucus under John Boehner and Paul Ryan, or play nice in public in the hope of influencing leadership behind closed doors. The new congresswoman’s interview suggests she’s got a plan, at least for herself: She’d rather become an influential insider than stay an outside agitator.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez by Nancy Ohanian