Coronavirus hits Authoritarian America

I am no longer quarantining for virus safety/health reasons.

I’m quarantining because every time I leave the house I see masks on chins, under noses, tied on wrists like a scrunchie. I just end up agitated and sad. Nicer to sit in my driveway and read a book. Good luck everyone. pic.twitter.com/qOJAU3DFxv

— Phil Nobile Jr. (@PhilNobileJr) June 30, 2020

When the pandemic first hit I was thrown into a defeatist, fatalistic fugue state after reading Mark Sumner's essay about why America is about to get a godawful lesson in why health care should not be for profit that went point by point why anyone who gets sick is screwed. At that moment it seemed like we were all taking the threat of COVID-19 seriously and wanted to do everything we could to limit the spread and protect ourselves. I never got a chance to fully explore the rural, white authoritarian followers and their astroturf "reopen the economy" silliness. It was pretty clear that the gun-toting "protesters" doing corporate America's bidding were just Tea Party 2.0 but displayed equally clearly how dedicated those white authoritarian followers were to becoming plague rats for doughfacedonny. To this day they are resisting wearing masks out of some insane partisan virtue signaling because donny thinks wearing a mask makes you a wimp or something. Or as Josh Marshall and TPM has been putting it, "we" got bored with the epidemic so "we" are just pretending it doesn't matter.

I put that "we" in quotes because, yes there are a lot of people who should know better but aren't taking social distancing, masks, and hand washing seriously anymore but many are just boomers who think they are immortal. "I can't see it, so it doesn't exist." And many of those boomers are republican meatbags who do what they are told by their authoritarian masters, so "screw you city minorities, my privilege saves me from getting sick." And they got away with it, for a few months anyway.

Now, we really need to  disregard any national statistics on where the epidemic is and is heading. This has finally moved on to hit authoritarian America, Red America, where ignorance, racism, and science-bashing is already an epidemic. A great article from May by Adam Serwer in the Atlantic about America's "Racial Contract" helps explain why doughfacedonny and republicans all decided that COVID-19 was not only not a threat to them but not really a problem for authoritarian, Red America.

The Coronavirus Was an Emergency Until Trump Found Out Who Was Dying

Can you guess? Do I even need to elaborate? There is so much information, analysis, and ideas in this article it deserves it's own full treatment but for now I just wanted to pull out one small aspect of it. The racial contract of white personhood (and perceived innocence) versus nonwhite subpersonhood is and should remain hyper relevant to BLM protests for certain, but extending this awful but undeniable contract, our unwritten constitution if you will, to COVID-19 will help explain the rural, white intransigence about the epidemic.   

The coronavirus epidemic has rendered the racial contract visible in multiple ways. Once the disproportionate impact of the epidemic was revealed to the American political and financial elite, many began to regard the rising death toll less as a national emergency than as an inconvenience. Temporary measures meant to prevent the spread of the disease by restricting movement, mandating the wearing of masks, or barring large social gatherings have become the foulest tyranny. The lives of workers at the front lines of the pandemic—such as meatpackers, transportation workers, and grocery clerks—have been deemed so worthless that [republican] legislators want to immunize their employers from liability even as they force them to work under unsafe conditions. In East New York, police assault black residents for violating social-distancing rules; in Lower Manhattan, they dole out masks and smiles to white pedestrians. [emphasis mine]

The point of this next quote supports my original idea of trump as a Doughface from right before the loathsome usurper was inaugurated before anemic crowds. TLDR for this term is that before the Civil War, southern Democrats would conspire against the northern wing of their party by nominating northern men with southern sensibilities, making a party in the North that welcomed immigrants, was religiously tolerant, and supported expanding democracy complicit with the slave power. We can read a lot from this previous shameful practice into today's republican party. 

Trump’s administration, in carrying out an explicitly discriminatory agenda that valorizes cruelty, war crimes, and the entrenchment of white political power, represents a revitalized commitment to the racial contract.

But the pandemic has introduced a new clause to the racial contract. The lives of disproportionately black and brown workers are being sacrificed to fuel the engine of a faltering economy, by a president who disdains them. This is the COVID contract.

Again, the cruelty is the point. White cops don't kill black Americans because they want to exterminate the African-American community, they are reaffirming the racial contract of white supremacy and domination over nonwhites. As long as it was black and brown workers on the line, there was no limit for tolerable losses. Now, however:

 

Mobile-phone location data from people who attended President Trump’s Oklahoma rally show most came from outside Tulsa, hailing from at least 44 counties spread across 12 states.

Covid-19 is on the rise in 33 of them. https://t.co/tLPXjUOioc

— Bloomberg Law (@BLaw) June 30, 2020

 "All three states and Oklahoma are seeing rising case numbers. The virus has spiked in Texas, with record new numbers reported in each of the past three days, prompting Governor Greg Abbott to halt the state’s reopening. On Friday, he ordered all bars to close by noon after the state’s positive-test rate topped 11%. Oklahoma also reported a record number of new infections.

Trump supporters expressed varying levels of concern about the virus. Some donned masks when they went inside and acknowledged some anxiety, while others scoffed."

"Too soon to know if this was a 'super-spreader' event" states the accompanying article. But, yeah even a moderate spread from doughfacedonny's 2 minute's hate rally is criminal.

This is not the continuation of the first wave, this is not a second wave of COVID-19, this is the virus jumping from democratic America to authoritarian America. The former was caught off-guard by the arrival of this highly-contagious disease and the majority there has tried to take it seriously. The jump to authoritarian America was expected and more or less inevitable. It will spread like wildfire there because of republican plague rats first, then keep going because of arrogance, ignorance, and blind obedience to doughfacedonny. 

And none of it is your fault. You cannot change the minds of authoritarian followers because they didn't have these ideas in the first place, they cannot defend the ideas implanted in their skulls, but they will stubbornly resist until it is too late because the racial contract says that only "those" people get COVID-19, any outgroup they consider "other". Because these republicans are not our countrymen any longer, they don't count in our unwritten constitution of democratic America. They are simply a burden. I have no sympathy left.  

Russian Bounties you say?

As Jane's Addiction sang it many years ago, Nothing's Shocking anymore. Making this statement, unproven assertion perhaps, you could infer a myriad of meanings to it. Am I referring to police riots or extrajudicial murder by police? Am I referring to the economic collapse? Continued pandemic? The unbelievable fact that doughfacedonny still has support in whole numbers? Any one of those things should be utterly shocking but we have all been slammed so hard with catastrophe after catastrophe that so many Americans are just bewildered and overwhelmed. As citizens of a republic though it is our duty to think about current events and our country, to abdicate this responsibility is to leave the future to the lowest among us. But no, what I am failing to be shocked at is that mob Russia has been caught paying bounties to militants to kill American soldiers. I also cannot muster outrage that doughfacedonny's administration knew about this and did nothing. And finally, I will not be shocked when America's veterans fail to abandon their support for trump and the republican party. 

Clausewitz theorized that war is the continuation of political intercourse and policy with the addition of other means. I recently reviewed an excellent book on the continuity of policy in Russia vis a vis the West that is due to be released tomorrow called Rigged: America, Russia, and One Hundred Years of Covert Electoral Interference that I cannot recommend highly enough. To begin in 1917 with the Russian Revolution really doesn't convey the century's long effort by that country to undermine and challenge the West, though but it still demonstrates the long standing policy of Russia to try and mess with other countries' elections. Rigged is a shocker that can punch through and remind all of us that RUSSIA INTERFERED IN OUR 2016 ELECTION AND PUT DOUGHFACEDONNY WHERE HE IS! I doubt Putin could have imagined a military battle with America that could kill over 120,000 of us, collapse our economy, multiply by several orders of magnitude our national debt, destabilize and polarize Americans to the point of Civil War, and have a puppet who will do his bidding. This is Russia's policy and is being carried out by means other than those of civilized nations. It is akin to a war for them, and we are failing to fight back. 

So, as if to really drive the point home about how far we are at Russia's mercy, the NYTimes and others break the story that Russia was/is paying bounties to Taliban fighters for killing Americans. Though it could prove the hubris that breaks the authoritarian back, at the moment there is simply generalized outrage that doughfacedonny did nothing to answer this bombshell. Lies, lies, and more lies is what we are likely to get from both authoritarians but the Russian embassy thinks throwing insults at American intelligence and media is funny too.

In the absence of reasons to #BlameRussians, @nytimes is there to invent new fake stories.@mschwirtz @EricSchmittNYT @charlie_savage obviously lack information on cooperation between Russia and #US on the Afghan peace process, on Syrian, North Korean, Venezuelan, Iranian agendas pic.twitter.com/tqO7hVRVGv

— Russia in USA 🇷🇺 (@RusEmbUSA) June 27, 2020

The Russian Foreign Ministry has rejected a @nytimes report claiming Moscow offered to pay jihadi militants to attack US soldiers in Afghanistan. It said such 'fake news' merely betrays the low skill levels of US spy agencies (which is quite a burn). https://t.co/xPPbpWEPGu

— Bryan MacDonald (@27khv) June 27, 2020

If you're shocked, you haven't been paying attention. But I forgive you because better to get to the battle in progress than not at all. Any decent, self-respecting veteran would drop donny and the death cult of human suffering he represents like a soiled, maggot-filled diaper. But most of them will not, and I think it right to explore why. The first step in authoritarian follower rationalization is simply denial, donny was too busy with the economy or his magnificent pandemic response to know about some chatter from a long-forgotten war. You know how the deep state has relentlessly pushed the fake news of Russian interference anyway right? Then they will take marching orders, like during the Iraq War, about how every soldier is a volunteer and knew what they were getting into. What's the difference if Russia paid them? Islamists are genetically programmed to be violent and want to kill Americans, so they were gonna do it regardless. Then the aggression will kick in. Something something, you liberals want to kill our troops or leave them out to dry. Why don't you move to a socialist country, you mask-wearing sissy. How they will finally brush it off and make this somehow Hillary Clinton's fault is going to be an amazing performance of authoritarian discipline.

If this is your first time witnessing the depravity of right-wing authoritarian followers, well I guess I envy you because there is no low to which they will not sink to defend the indefensible. How could veterans throw their brothers and sisters under the bus like this? Well, the point of military indoctrination is to wear you down, destroy your individuality, and fill you back up with discipline and sycophantic devotion to the chain of command. Some people, like me, bounce back after that initial indoctrination, for the same reasons Dr. Bob Altemeyer lays out for low RWAs. Namely, we've seen those authority figures screw up, we've broken the rules and got away with it once or twice. But I highly recommend you go to the authoritarians site and read the book (it's free). I have always been fascinated by his research on the ability of high RWAs to compartmentalize ideas and turn on an ideological dime when their leaders demand it. 

How do I know high RWA veterans will throw non-RWA veterans under the bus? Because they do it all the time, they did it to me. I wouldn't toe the line and suddenly my service didn't count. I had the nerve to ask a question and Army buddies' removed me from their contacts and blocked me without a second thought. You're either with them or against them, and the worst traitor in high RWA's estimation is the apostate, the one who "should" be in their tribe but isn't. 

And Wear Your Damn Mask

Okay, confession time. I am horrible at this writing thing. The last four years have been this constant fire hose of bad news and it is impossible to keep up. I cannot even just pick one story to write about because by the time I sit down to start clicking keys five other things have popped up. I have periodic reboots where I have been away for a while and then promise myself and any readers that have still stuck in there to write a little something every day. And every time, thus far, I have failed. Mrs. Kraken has often remarked that I don't actually blog, I write comprehensive essays or just long thinkpieces. Sea monster see, Sea monster do, the bloggers I have enjoyed and followed over the years do the same thing. Maybe I need to be more Digby than Driftglass, just throw a story and link up, pull the relevant quotes, provide a few comments and call it a post. Another thing is I just don't seem to have a niche anymore. I started out trying to use my historical training and knowledge to provide context for current events. But most of what is going on is unprecedented, especially in American history. And trying to compare events from Roman or Medieval history to today just falls flat. Besides that, nobody cares.

So today, how about I just try tossing out some ideas that have been on my mind after watching TV news, scrolling through Twitter, and other random sources. I thought I said just about everything that needs to be said about republicans with the post The Pandemic was never going to fix Republicans, but then legitimate protests started. Now, historically, when mass protests begin they usually expand greatly. It was not surprising in the least to first of all see the cops go into insurrection quelling mode, rolling out the tanks and military riot gear. The term for when cops hit first is "police riot" but it was so much more than that. The worst thing to assume is that any group of oppressed people are automatically angels, but the fact that there were white supremacists, MAGA assholes, and random nihilist provocateurs jumping in to commit violence and vandalism for the explicit purpose of tarnishing the righteous anger of demonstrators by doing exactly what republicans always accuse black people of doing. There is no excuse for gang members and criminals caravanning around Chicago and other cities looting stores, though. My point is just that when things get started they tend to grow out of control.

As much as the provocateurs showing up to break things and paint legitimate protests as riots was disconcerting, I am more dismayed that this is probably just a warm up for the elections in November. But then again, after four years of doughfacedonny's minions in government all but broadcasting that white riots aren't going to be punished, this was the best the incels and boogaloos could do. I mean, I was expecting death squads from day one after donny was inaugurated. Certainly not worth cheering about, what has transpired since those 63 million assholes and Jill Stein voters decided to throw American Democracy out the window has been bad enough. But we should be glad the trump brownshirts are such cowards. I guess they are waiting for the Tom Cotton Administration before they really get bloody. 

I can't believe, as a card-carrying graduate of the Joe Strummer finishing school, that I'm going to say this but Leftists need to chill out. One, you have a lot less leverage than you think. Two, good ideas get drowned out when you deliver them wrong. Three, the "holier-than-thou" look is just as ugly on a left-wing authoritarian who wants to burn it all down as on a fundamentalist wingnut. Honestly, there are still roughly 60 million republicans out there who really wanted to declare BLM protests an insurrection and roll in the Army to start gunning people down, a good number of them make jokes about black men getting killed by police, and itch for the day someone who "fits the description" breaks into their home so they can finally murder a black person for themselves. I throw up in my mouth a little every time I see progressives on social media trying to "out-woke" each other. While the ultra-pure woke people are busy policing liberals for microaggressions, unintentional racial insensitivity, and screaming at anyone who disagrees with them to EDUCATE YOURSELF"!" the right is installing fascist judges for life and mainstream political media is both sider-ing "the extremes on both sides" and welcoming bloody Bill Kristol and Rick Wilson onto the show as the sensible moderates balancing whatever MAGA fascist is sitting on the other side. But I guess, this is the way we're going to do it, again.

Another thing I noticed is that the 'bot accounts and Russian twitter trolls are getting better at their jobs. It's going to be harder and harder to pin them down and call them out. The best practice is to be skeptical of everything posted on Twitter unless it is someone you trust. And even then, it shouldn't be a hill to die on.