ANOMIE-- Can Trump's Crippled America Even Survive The Pandemic?

The poem about recklessness by Kaj Munk above ran late last night. Maybe you missed it... so I decided to try again this morning... since I think it's important. The author, Kaj Munk, was a Danish pastor and playwright who was murdered in 1944 for resisting the Nazis when they were occupying his country.

I don't know anyone who's happy about the societal lockdown and the attendant social distancing rules. But if there's even the slightest chance-- and I don't really believe there is-- the the U.S. will come out of this mess without unnecessarily losing a million of our countrymen, we have to somehow foster a national attitude that puts camaraderie on a pedestal and rewards the collective good over the frontier mentality of you're-on-your own and greed is good. Greed isn't good; and it's never been stronger than with the election of Donald Trump and, in this national emergency, the social attitudes that election and the ensuing presidency have fostered are destroying whatever soul America has had. There's a COVID-Civil War going on right now ripping our society apart.





Yesterday the Washington Post published a report by Kim Bellware about enforcing the social distancing rules that could save us if so many people have-- with Trump's encouragement-- been ignoring. A strong majority of Americans support physical distancing and oppose reopening too fast. But the minority opposing it-- basically Republican ideologues and people who don't have the wits to understand what public health requires-- will kill us all.

Bellware's point is the frustration involved with enforcing these rules-- even in Manhattan. "As New York state remains the hardest-hit area of the U.S. coronavirus outbreak," she wrote, "tensions are especially high in New York City, which accounts for roughly half of the more than 321,000 confirmed cases and over 25,000 deaths statewide.

In the ninth week of the shutdown, New York City officials have repeatedly said there’s no template, let alone hard-and-fast rules, for how police should enforce social distancing orders. Reporters and police watchdogs called out what appeared to be the department’s uneven enforcement over the past weekend, during which they say officers handed out masks in parks largely packed with white residents but aggressively enforced social distancing orders in minority communities.

Officer Francisco Garcia was placed on “modified assignment,” pending an investigation into the Saturday arrest in the East Village, according to New York City police.

In the video, the officer identified as Garcia appears to be holding a stun gun as he approaches a man in a crosswalk. The officer can be seen yelling at the man-- later identified as 33-year-old Donni Wright-- before forcing him to the ground, hitting him and kneeling on his neck.

Wright was later hospitalized with severe injuries to his back, ribs and chest, his mother, Donna Wright, told the New York Daily News.

The NYC Police Benevolent Association, the union that represents rank-and-file officers, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the incident involving Garcia.

Just before Wright was arrested, Garcia and other plainclothes officers stopped to investigate a corner where they saw people “walking by, milling about” and not wearing masks, Police Commissioner Dermot F. Shea said Monday. Garcia and several officers in the video were also not wearing masks during the arrest.

Garcia was among 1,000 officers dispatched over the warm weekend to enforce social distancing.

“Why are sunbathers who violate social distancing guidelines treated one way and young men in certain communities another,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) recently tweeted, citing a separate Saturday incident in Brooklyn where New York police are seen on video forcefully arresting three people accused of refusing to follow distancing orders.

Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) called the video of Wright’s arrest “very troubling” and “unacceptable” at a Monday news conference but insisted it is not an accurate reflection of most social distancing enforcement and praised what he said was the NYPD’s increased focus on de-escalation practices.

Shea echoed the mayor and largely defended his officers while acknowledging he was “not happy” with some of what he saw in the video of the Manhattan arrest. “I think we can be better than that,” he said.

The NYPD said police started making arrests on the corner after spotting a bag of marijuana and said Garcia felt threatened because Wright “took a fighting stance against the officer” when ordered to disperse. The department said officers recovered a Taser, $3,000 in cash and the bag of marijuana at the scene.

Wright’s mother said her son approached the scene because he saw police arresting a family friend, with his lawyer calling the violent arrest “unprovoked.” Charges against Wright included assault on a police officer and resisting arrest; they were later deferred by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office pending further investigation.

Some civil rights groups say what city officials characterize as an ever-evolving policy on social distancing enforcement is simply part of a broader, preexisting pattern of unequal policing.

“This certainly isn’t the first time and this isn’t even the first time in this pandemic that we’ve seen evidence of discriminatory policing by the NYPD,” Jennvine Wong, a staff attorney with the Cop Accountability Project at the Legal Aid Society, said in a statement. The organization noted that Garcia was the subject of at least six lawsuits that were settled for more than $182,000.

Because Shea has said there’s no “hard and fast rule” on how or even whether plainclothes officers should aggressively enforce social distancing, Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch in a statement called the entire situation “untenable.”

“The NYPD needs to get cops out of the social distancing enforcement business altogether,” Lynch said.

Really? Are our cops so perverted by our system that they can't enforce society's rules without running amuck? Suppose Donni Wright was one of the camo-garbed protesters carrying assault weapons. How would Francisco Garcia or any of the 1,000 cops assigned to enforcing social distancing regulations have reacted? A few days ago, CNN reported that "Since late March, New York City has authorized NYPD officers and other authorities to hand out fines up to $500 to New Yorkers who fail to disperse from gatherings after being ordered to do so. In Florida, authorities arrested a pastor for continuing to hold large services, charging him with two second-degree misdemeanors: unlawful assembly and violation of public health emergency rules. And in Kentucky, several people have been placed under house arrest with ankle monitors after they refused to stay home despite coming in contact with coronavirus patients.

As public officials across America coalesce around the message that people need to remain at home and stop contact with anyone outside their household in hopes of curbing the spread of the virus, more communities are adopting tactics that empower local authorities to issue fines and impose other penalties on those who refuse. Forty-four states have imposed stay-at-home orders.

But while local and state officials say such measures are necessary to force people into compliance, some civil liberties advocates are concerned the enforcement efforts will go too far, running the risk of disproportionately impacting minority or poor communities and raising the threat of financial penalties at a time when many are out of work. Meanwhile, police themselves appear wary of implementing fines and arrests, given that each new encounter with the public could expose them to the virus while potentially fraying relations with communities already on edge.

"Social distancing is absolutely a critical measure, but our knee-jerk reaction to problems as a society tends to be criminalization, and it's just not the answer, especially here," said Maryanne Kaishian, a senior staff attorney at the Brooklyn Defender Services.

"Marginalized people will be the most impacted, because we know based on years of data that other low-level offenses disproportionately target black and low-income people," she said. Poorer neighborhoods tend to have a heavier police presence to begin with, she pointed out, and for lower-income and immigrant families living in multi-generational households, there may be more of an incentive to congregate outside the home.

Others worry that an escalation in enforcement could lead to even greater exposure to coronavirus for both police and the public. Encounters could bring police into contact with sick people or contaminated sites while resulting in arrests that land people in jail, where outbreaks of coronavirus have occurred around the country.

"In some ways it's ironic that an arrest could be a result [of these policies], because we're working to rapidly decrease jail populations at this time, and arresting people and incarcerating only puts them at increased risk," said Leah Pope, senior research fellow in the policing program at the Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit research and policy organization.

Criminal justice experts, however, say that the measures are both reasonable, given the circumstances, and not all that unusual. Curfews and other measures were put in place in the United States in the name of protecting the public during Hurricane Katrina, Superstorm Sandy and amid protests in Ferguson, Missouri, though nothing on this scale in a century.

"This is really, really important. This is our health and people's lives at stake, and it's not universally understood that socially distancing is a matter of life and death. So I'm not philosophically opposed to it at all," said Jeremy Travis, former president of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York and a former deputy commissioner for legal matters at the NYPD.

"It's not unusual for the police or other enforcement agencies to have the power to enforce health regulations," he added, giving as an example the enforcement of kitchen standards at restaurants. During the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918-- the closest comparison to the current pandemic-- police performed comparable enforcement, making today's efforts "not conceptually all that novel."

As to whether enforcement on the ground might disproportionately impact certain communities, Travis said, "That's not a reason not to do it. That's just a reason to watch the implementation really carefully."

And despite concerns about the potential for social distancing policies to run afoul of civil liberties, in practice so far police in many communities appear to have resisted issuing fines, arrests and other punishments, using them only as a last resort, even as in some cases government officials have encouraged them to be more aggressive.

"Certainly voluntary compliance is at the top of the list, because the last thing you want to do is engage in enforcement activities," said Benjamin Tucker, NYPD's first deputy commissioner said Thursday during an online panel hosted by the Council on Criminal Justice. "We have 36,000 officers plus, but we have 8.6 million people, and so there's no way you can enforce your way out of this. You've got to get voluntary compliance."

"When people ask about the enforcement aspect, I tell them that you really shouldn't get to that point," said Democratic Mayor Jane Castor of Tampa, Florida.

In San Francisco, police have issued citations to three individuals since the social distancing guidelines went into effect, but in two of those instances the health order violations came in addition to other offenses, according to officials. In one case, for example, police issued a citation to a man for trespassing as the primary offense, with a violation of the California Health and Safety Code added on top of the initial citation.

Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington DC-based police think tank, said he believes police are trying to avoid antagonizing people.

"Most of the police chiefs I know are doing everything they can not to piss off the community," he said. "People are stressed already. The last thing they want to do is fine people."

"This is not a police role," Wexler added. "This is a public health emergency role. This is a role to help the community. This is the time when the concepts of community policing really have to be operationalized. This is where police can play a huge role in allaying people's fears and educating people."

But some public officials have stressed they believe enforcement has been too meek. Earlier this week, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat who had previously signaled he didn't believe police were adequately enforcing social distancing policies, said he believed the tactics should be "more aggressive," and raised the fine for violating state directives to $1,000.

"There has been a laxness in social distancing, especially during this past weekend, that is just wholly unacceptable," he said at a news conference, as pictures of sunny, crowded parks flashed across his PowerPoint presentation.

Some locations are acting more forcefully. On Monday alone, the police department's COVID-19 task force in Newark, New Jersey, issued 38 summonses for violations of the coronavirus emergency orders.

On April 5, police in Camden, New Jersey, charged a woman with fourth-degree causing or risking widespread injury, fourth-degree contempt, disorderly conduct, and failure to disperse after they broke up a large group of people gathered outside a house, but she refused to leave. "I don't have to go anywhere," she allegedly said, according to officials, and then began to cough, telling officers she had coronavirus.

And that same day, police charged a man in Seaside Park, New Jersey, with violating the emergency orders after they found him hosting 15 to 20 people in the backyard of his house.

One man who received a summons after attending a funeral in Lakewood, New Jersey, said in a brief interview that he believed the state's Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, had overstepped his authority. "This was harassment by the governor," Alexander Ellison said. "I didn't break the law."

He added, "The law is to protect the spread, but they have to be fair. What the governor is doing is not fair."

In New York City, the epicenter of the pandemic, however, police appear to have been tentative about issuing summonses, doling out the 13 they had issued as of last week mainly to people gathered in bars, with none going to anyone in a public space.

In all cases, said NYPD Chief of Patrol Fausto Pichardo, police had given an initial warning to those gathered.

"The reason why people were arrested and people were summonsed is because these are locations where we've had to come back and educate the first time and warn. And people did not heed our advice, so of course we're going to take action," he said.

"Our overarching goal is to get compliance for everyone in the city, regardless of what color they are, so that we don't have to take the enforcement action," Pichardo said. "This is not about the NYPD, this is about every single New Yorker and every single person in this country and frankly the world everyone needs to step up. Everyone needs to police themselves."

November Will Be America's Opportunity To Get Even

Among political operatives Doug Sosnik is a respected name. He was once President Clinton's political director and in his "big think" piece on the state of the 2020 election for Axios Tuesday he came to some sweeping conclusions, like... "in the past 45 days since the outset of COVID-19, Trump’s chances of getting reelected have been severely diminished. His administration’s mishandling of the virus and the economic devastation that followed have completely reshaped the race in ways that could not have been predicted two months ago... Despite the fact that presidents have historically enjoyed a surge in popularity in times of crisis, Trump’s job approval ratings only registered a slight bounce during the onset of the virus before returning to the low to mid 40’s where they have been stuck for most of his presidency. It is likely that his mediocre job ratings will face continued downward pressure over the next six months as the country comes to terms with the devastation that the virus has caused to the health and economic well-being of the country."

He also noted in his intro that "This is the earliest that the Democratic party has united behind a nominee in twenty years," although we'll have to see about that.

The six states that were considered battlegrounds before COVID-19-- Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin-- will continue to define the presidential contest. Early polls of registered voters in these states show Biden performing very well against Trump. All these states have suffered significant health and economic consequences from COVID-19, with several being particularly hit hard compared to other states.

According to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, Michigan, a state Trump carried by less than 11,000 votes in 2016, ranks number seven for positive cases of the virus among all states. Michigan has also suffered economically more than most states in the country. According to the National Tax Foundation 19.8% of workers in Michigan have filed unemployment compensation claims since the outbreak. The virus has also taken a major toll on Pennsylvania residents. The state ranks number six for positive cases of COVID-19 with 16.1% of its workforce filing unemployment compensation claims. Florida is not far behind, ranking eighth in the number of coronavirus cases, with 8.8% of their workers filing for unemployment compensation.

Other battleground states have also suffered significant economic downturns, with unemployment claims as a percentage of the workforce rising to 12.7% in North Carolina and 12% in Wisconsin.

...Trump’s strategy for getting elected in 2016 was built around appealing to his base. He has continued his focus on his base throughout his presidency. He will continue to stick with that approach in his bid to hold on to the White House.

Trump’s campaign strategy is quite simple: Tear down Biden, focus on the six battleground states, energize and turn out his base, and make it as difficult as possible for infrequent, anti-Trump voters to turn out in November.

While conventional wisdom is that larger turnout benefits Democrats, that is not necessarily the case in the swing midwestern states. As the Trump campaign has discovered, there were large number of non-voters in these states who would have supported Trump in 2016 if they had turned out.

In a briefing last December for reporters, Trump’s campaign laid out their "small county" strategy that targets these Trump voters in the three key midwestern states. In Wisconsin, Trump will put a particular focus on the smallest 48 counties that constitute 22% of the statewide vote, and in Pennsylvania they will target the smallest 45 counties, which make up 20% of the statewide vote.

In the same briefing, as part of their base strategy, they said that they are planning to run a targeted campaign to turn out the 8.8 million people who supported Trump in 2016, but who did not vote in the 2018.

Wisconsin has 72 counties and among the least populated 48 include some counties that went for Bernie in the 2016 primary and some that moved away from the GOP in elections since then. Nevermind that Bernie beat Hillary in every single one of them. Instead look at the counties among them where Bernie got more votes than Trump. But first, let's through away the small counties where Hillary beat Trump out right: Ashland by 9 points; Bayfield by 9 points; Douglas by 8 points; Green by 2 points; Iowa by 15 points; Menominee by 57 points (yep, you read that right-- Trump 269 votes (21.0%) and Hillary 1,003 votes (78.4%); and Sauk by a half point. So that's 6 you can scratch. Now on primary day there were 18 counties where Bernie didn't just beat Hillary, but outpolled Trump as well. Something tells me those aren't going to make good targets for Trump to waste his resources on:

• Ashland-- 2,304 to 1,367
• Bayfield-- 2,604 to 1,599
• Columbia-- 6,455 to 4,413
• Crawford-- 1,582 to 1,201
• Door-- 3,417 to 2,948
• Douglas-- 4,510 to 3,676
• Dunn-- 4,272 to 3,074
• Grant-- 4,484 to 3,462
• Green-- 4,359 to 2,825
• Iowa-- 3,198 to 1,609
• Jackson-- 1,845 to 1,804
• Lafayette-- 1,330 to 1,199
• Menominee-- 355 to 78
• Pierce-- 3,199 to 2,822
• Richland-- 1,784 to 1,434
• Sauk-- 7,195 to 4,691
• Trempealeau-- 2,429 to 2,414
• Vernon-- 3,476 to 2,437

OK, back to Sosnik. (It wasn't his theory I just shot down; it was the Trump campaign's.) Sosnik wrote that "Trump is the first President in history who has made no effort to be a leader for all of America. Rather than trying to bring the country together, he sought to further inflame our existing divisions. Trump has based his entire presidency on appealing to his base, focusing on the strength of the economy--which has now collapsed largely due to the failure of his administration to adequately prepare for the pandemic. Trump’s presidency has been exhausting for the American public. The COVID-19 outbreak will likely lead to an even greater yearning for a sense of normalcy in our country. Trump’s divisive style has led many to conclude that what the country really needs right now is a competent, calm leader who will bring the country together during what will no doubt be a long road to recovery. The stronger the desire to remove Trump from the White House, the lower the bar that Biden will need to clear to be elected President. It is increasingly looking like the country will vote for change by electing Joe Biden, a 77-year old who served 36 years in the U.S. Senate and eight years as Vice President, over Donald Trump, the candidate of the chaotic status quo."




Sosnik then gave a brief analysis of what he sees coming for the Trump enablers in the House and Senate. "Democrats," he wrote, "smell blood and appear to have the momentum in congressional races this year. In the most recent March Federal Election Committee filings, Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate outraised their Republican opponents in races across the country.

It is difficult to overstate the political damage suffered by the Republican Party since Trump became President. In the past three years Republicans have lost 42 House seats (and control of the U.S. House of Representatives), 10 governorships, and well over 450 state legislative seats across the country. Democrats have also taken full control of government in 10 states.

Since Trump was last on the ballot, the realignment of the parties has made it very difficult for Republicans to do well in swing and suburban areas.

There is an increasing fear among congressional Republicans that Trump will take down the party this November. While it was never likely that Republicans would take back the House, their chances of hanging on to the Senate will be directly tied to Trump’s fate.

Six months before the election, a lot could happen to change the trajectory of the campaigns in the current volatile political environment. Nevertheless, it looks like it could be a very long year for Republicans running on the Trump ticket.

U.S. Senate

Despite the fact that Republicans have nearly double the seats at risk, 23 to Democrats’ 12 seat, Republicans have been favored to hold on to the Senate this November. Declines in Trump’s approval, combined with Democrat’s strong candidate recruitment and fundraising, have significantly increased Democrats’ chances of taking back the Senate this fall.

If Biden is elected President, Democrats will need to pick up a net of three seats to regain control of the Senate. With Alabama’s Democrat incumbent Doug Jones likely to lose, Democrats will need to win four seats currently held by Republicans. The most recent Cook Political Report rates eight Republican seats as either “toss ups” or “leaning Republican,” with just one Democratic seat leaning Democratic. It ranks the Jones seat as a likely GOP pick up.

There are four Republican seats (Arizona, Colorado, Maine, and North Carolina) that are considered most at risk for Republicans. In all four states, Democratic candidates are leading in the polls. The Democratic challengers also raised more money than their Republican opponents in the first quarter of this year.

In increasingly Democratic Colorado, a state that Secretary Clinton carried by nearly 5% in 2016, former Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper has consistently led incumbent Senator Cory Gardner in polling. [So has the progressive in the primary race, Andrew Romanoff.] The nonpartisan [and laughably worthless] Sabato Crystal Ball has moved this seat to lean Democratic.

Arizona has been trending Democratic since Clinton lost the state by less than 90,000 votes in 2016. In 2018, Democrats picked up a Senate seat, as well as the office of the Secretary of State. By also picking up a Congressional seat, they now control a majority of House members in the state. Mark Kelly, the Democratic nominee for the Senate currently has a nine-point (51% to 42%) lead over appointed Republican incumbent Martha McSally in an April OH Predictive Insights poll. Kelly also has raised more than $31,000,000, with a $9,500,000 cash advantage over his Republican opponent.

Maine Republican incumbent Susan Collins is increasingly vulnerable in a state carried by Clinton in 2016. Collins’ support for Trump and for Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court has significantly cut into her support among Democratic and Independent voters. In a March Bangor News poll, only 37% approved of the job that Collins is doing as Senator, with 52% disapproving of her performance in office.

Democrats’ chances of beating North Carolina Republican incumbent Tom Tillis have improved significantly, with Cal Cunningham securing the Democratic nomination. In a state that Trump carried by less than 200,000 votes in 2016, Democrats made significant gains in the 2018 midterm elections. North Carolina has a high percentage of non-white and educated suburban voters, making it particularly ripe for Democrats with Trump on the ballot this fall. A recent April PPP poll has Cunningham leading Tillis by 47% to 40%.

There are several other races where Democrats have an opportunity to pick up seats. In Montana, popular Democratic Governor Steve Bullock recently entered the race against Republican incumbent Steve Daines.

In Kansas, Republicans are embroiled in an August primary featuring former right-wing Governor Kris Kobach against Congressman Roger Marshall. The winner of the August primary will face State Senator Barbara Bollier, who has $2,400,000 in the bank as of March 31st.

Democrats also view the Georgia special election this November as an opportunity to pick up a seat. In fact, Republican Senator from Georgia, David Perdue, said this week on a fundraising call that the “State of Georgia is in play. The Democrats have made it that way.”

If Trump continues to slide in the polls, even Senate Majority Leader McConnell could be in trouble. He has never been particularly popular in his home state, and the most recent public polling has his approval rating at a dismal 37%. His Democratic opponent outraised him the last public filing.

Republicans’ best chance of taking a Democratic seat is in Michigan, where the Democratic incumbent Gary Peters faces Republican John James. An April Fox poll has Peters ahead of James by 46% to 36%.

U.S. House of Representatives

Republicans need to pick up a net of 18 seats to take back the House. There are a number of factors that make it increasingly likely that Democrats will maintain control this November.

Since Trump took office, over 100 Republican members of the House have retired or announced that they are not running for reelection - including 27 this cycle. Compounding these problems for Republicans has been their poor candidate recruitment this cycle, particularly in Michigan, New York, Minnesota, Illinois, and California.

Additionally, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the House Majority PAC, and Democratic House candidates all enjoy a significant financial advantage over their Republican counterparts.

The DCCC and its outside super PAC enjoy more than a $40 million cash on hand advantage over the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee and it outside PAC. Democratic candidates have an even bigger financial advantage. According to Politico, all 42 members targeted by the DCCC’s incumbent protection program have over $1 million cash on hand at the end of March, with all but two having at least twice as much cash on hand as their opponent. With the exception of Congressman Colin Peterson (D-MN), 29 out of the 30 current Democratic members of Congress in districts won by Trump in 2016 have outraised their opponents.

A number of Democratic House pickups in 2018 were in suburban areas that will likely continue to support Democratic candidates this November. In addition, many swing districts are in the blue states of California, Illinois, and New York, which will likely have huge turnouts in a presidential year, making it even more difficult for the GOP to pick up enough seats to take back the House.

Even the Cook Report realizes the House Republicans are in big trouble-- and it's only May! Normally they're completely clueless about electoral trends until mid-September/early October. "The COVID-19 pandemic," the concluded this morning, "has all but frozen House recruitment and fundraising, shielding Democratic incumbents with big financial head starts. Now, Republicans’ path to picking up the 18 seats needed to win back the majority now looks slim to non-existent." But asserting that the Democrats will keep control the House is wimpy, if not downright pathetic. The Democrats won't just keep control of the House, they will expand their margin-- and despite an incompetent and utterly worthless DCCC chair. Even the weakest of waves will see the Democrats net a dozen seats in the House. I think they can do better. Help make it so by clicking on the Blue America 2020 thermometer above and contributing what you can. Maybe you can find some inspiration from Kaj Munk, a Danish pastor murdered by the Gestapo for resisting the Nazis. Please read this poem he wrote about recklessness... and apply it to yourself-- beyond any electoral cycle: