Grothman coughs on other republicans

I'll admit, beating on Glenn Grothman is quite enjoyable. There's so much to despise about the man. He loves to strut about while bitching that single parents are the cause of child abuse and safety-net programs are a bribe to not get married but money is more important for men. Mother Jones called him the man who wants to get rid of the weekend. He also thinks sex education will turn kids gay, Kwanzaa is a fake holiday that should be eliminated, and so on. Grothman is the stuck-up slob everyone rightly picked on in High School because he was such a jerk; and somehow people in Wisconsin keep giving him jobs to take his revenge out on women and working people. He is among the deadliest products out of Wisconsin, right up there with Ed Gein, Jeffrey Dahmer, Scott Walker (who thankfully got punched back so hard during his small step onto the national stage that he now just whines about Democrats on social media no one pays attention to), cheese, beer, and sausages. 

Not sure how far and wide this video has gone yet. Capper wrote up a more detailed description for Crooks and Liars, calling it the Wisconsin Republican State COVID convention. It is just SOP (standard operating procedure) for republican events to 1.) have reckless disregard of social distancing, masks, etc. and 2.) emphatically state that they take no responsibility for the crowd's health and safety. 

This is @RepGrothman *today* at the Wisconsin Republican convention (which was held in-person) pic.twitter.com/MnsVlJryLE

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 12, 2020

But this is just a little over the top isn't it? I mean, did Grothman just get the coughing fits because he was starting a speech? Did he have them when he went into the convention?  Whatever his motivation, this was a premeditated act to get others sick. Who knows? Has he been tested for COVID-19? How far did his disgusting snot droplets reach during that coughing fit? What wasn't captured on video, was he coughing on people all night? The point is that big gatherings of people are potential super-spreader events. The republicans might be alright with throwing caution to the wind, but what about the other people they come into contact with? 

Public health is always a hard issue to deal with for such an individually-minded nation like ours. Grothman has access to probably the best health care in the country, if he gets sick because he refused to wear a mask or follow common sense it is his own fault. But he will be taking up a hospital bed that could have gone to someone who did behave responsibly. And that is how we have to face this war that doughfacedonny have declared in weaponizing the pandemic. I keep waffling between schadenfreude that republicans seem to finally be getting their comeuppance by willfully spreading COVID-19 among themselves and basic human decency of not wanting to see others suffer. I feel sad seeing stories like this one:

🤷🏻‍♀️ pic.twitter.com/Jz8dEsFjdp

— 🆁🅾︎🆂🅴-𝐖𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐚 𝗺𝐚𝐬𝐤! (@MexiDreamr) July 12, 2020

 Seeing the progression of tough guy to his last message, which I looked up on Facebook before seeing this tweet and the obituary, was a meme of something like "when you see me in heaven, don't be surprised you judgmental hacks" I felt awfully sad. It was a guy not too much different than me, though trying to be a tough guy against microscopic pathogens is not really my style. From feeling lousy on the 1st of July, to dying on the 4th that's really something. Damnit, I guess I have a conscience and empathy after all. 

Despite Rick Rose's intransigence on wearing a mask, he did have the courtesy not to take up a hospital bed and linger for months. In public health emergencies like this one triage is going to be important. If Grothman ends up on a ventilator (sure, it is not publicly known yet whether he even has COVID-19 for sure), I can think of a few million people who are more worthy of saving than him.

This disease is not something republicans can use their usual strategies of lie and deny on, there's no shouting down a virus. And finding someone (like fox news) to tell you comforting lies to make you feel better about flaunting science will not save you from COVID-19. Nope this is the really, real world man and plenty of republicans need to pay for their sins against our country. 

Republican Virtue Signaling

Found this letter to the editor in my hometown's newspaper. These declarations of... what exactly? Is this fellow trying to be brave in the face of adversity? In denial? Setting up a straw man and knocking it down is fairly easy even for people with no idea what a logical fallacy is. Or is it simple rebellious spirit to resist authority as the writer sees it? 

As in previous posts, these rural authoritarian followers believe themselves isolated and removed from what "those people" in the cities are doing. Though it doesn't keep them from voting for republicans to punish "those city folks" for whatever they don't like in the moment. This letter was written by someone who has never feared anything before, nor had anyone to smack him down for arrogance. I cannot say whether rural authoritarian followers in Wisconsin are any worse than in other parts of the country but if you go there, this is exactly the kind of attitude you will encounter. His luck may hold out for a while, and maybe that isolation will protect him for COVID-19 altogether. But the virus really doesn't care about your posturing, defiance, arrogance, or virtue signaling. It is hard to have sympathy for someone like this, and I have none left. Every republican who gets sick because they "continue to live as normal" and is chastised by the ordeal will be a benefit to mankind. 

Continuing to live life as normal

To the editor: When the dreaded coronavirus hit, my first thought was that it was all a bunch of hooey. But now ... now, I've had a change of heart. I've now decided I'm going to follow the science.

Follow the science.

Highly educated people — TV star doctors, wearing masks (and scarves) and having many alphabet letters after their names from prestigious universities

informed us that 2.2 million people were “probably going to die” from covid — 2.2 million deaths. Not 2.2 million tested, not 2.2 million sick, not 2.2 million recovered, but 2.2 million were probably going to die! These medical geniuses are using the latest and greatest computer models to arrive at this magic 2.2 million number. We will never know how many have died due to the manipulation of the data but even padding those statistics didn’t get us anywhere near 2.2 million. Perhaps the Trump administration will get the blame for not hitting the 2.2 million?

So here is my personal, strategic covid plan: When those 2.2 million people die, I'm going to go directly into my bathroom and wash my hands! Until then, I’m going to live my life and avoid doing business with any company that forces me to wear a mask!

And what if I’m one of the 2.2 million? I’ll be with my resurrected lord and savior who decides when, how and where I die. My faith is in Him, not computer regurgitations fed by flawed human beings.

I sincerely hope to see you there!

Nobody wants to say "I told you so" about the never trumpers

What comes after is always the big question when ever a coalition of opposing groups unite against a common enemy. I want to believe that this tweet isn't as supportive of the #nevertrump republican front group called the Lincoln Project as it appears:

man, I don’t care if these guys are paying themselves in caviar and Supreme swag these ads are amazing. First one I’ve watched with sound. Not an ad so much as psychological warfare. pic.twitter.com/11QdLWOdo9

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) July 7, 2020

Right before doughfacedonny won the hearts and minds of soulless meatbags in the republican primaries with open racism and even more open aspirations of dictatorship to "get" the 'libs and brown people, the illustrious members of the Lincoln Project were honing their craft of shitting on Democrats and liberal ideas while whipping up the mob of religious fanatics and racist imbeciles to vote for a corporate-approved republican. They were all set to take over the party leadership after doughfacedonny and his thugs went down in flames to Hillary Clinton with a big, fat "I told you so" finger wagging. Then Lincoln Project members would revel in crushing the mob so they could get back to the real business of appearing respectable while doing... basically everything donny is doing, slashing taxes, giving corporations huge handouts, crushing labor, and waging more ridiculous wars of choice. 

This is exactly what I fear they will go right back to once the common enemy is defeated. 

Is the ad amazing? Sure. Are other ads and posts that members of the Lincoln Project good as well? Probably. When you have a collective century or two of experience building and running attack ads, over a century's worth of marketing and psychological warfare knowledge to draw on, and are well-funded (even from some liberals and liberal sources) then yeah, they ought to be good. Replies to Josh Marshall's tweet are largely fawning praise for how awesome these allies are and how much damage they are doing to doughfacedonny. But one stood out in its cautionary skepticism:

They are the Soviet Union advancing on Berlin.

— Gluon Spring (@gluonspring) July 7, 2020

Gluon was replying to this comment "Yes, but today they are helping to push Trump out, and that's huge.

It's not as if by speaking out against them today we'd prevent them from making ads about Dems in the future."

Now, in February of 2019 when we were still afraid Howard Schultz (and his never trumper campaign manager Steve Schmidt) would go the distance and siphon votes from the Democratic candidate for president, I wrote up a debate between Bob Cesca as host and Driftglass and Bluegal as guests where the former was enthusiastically selling his liberal credentials to cozy up to never trumpers and the latter were politely and civilly raising questions about whether that was a good idea. I have since stopped subscribing to Bob Cesca's show and started contributing to DG & BG's Patreon because it was time to stop being polite to the monster factory many years ago. 

The reframing of never trumpers and the Lincoln Project in particular as the Red Army bearing down on the capitol of the Third Reich in terms of messaging and attack ad power seems apt. But I do stand by my assertion that the number of voters that they can bring amounts to a rounding error. Many credulous liberals providing cover for never trumpers as "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and "'we' will dump them after the election" should really take a small refresher course on the end of WWII. Our ally of convenience, Stalin, kept his army parked where it had stood at the end of hostilities and didn't leave for 45 years. Driftglass keeps making the point that these never trumpers that made the Lincoln Project act like they are entitled to tell the Democratic Party how to run it's campaign, and are taking up seats on TV that should be going to Democrats and liberals who have been fighting the fascist takeover of the United States for longer than the last four years.

If never trumpers were willing to shed (rhetorically) the amount of blood that the Red Army spent in defeating the nazis, there might be some merit in supporting them. (As an aside, the Soviets never stopped screaming for more aid, more help, more materiel, and a second front in their great patriotic war that they even now claimed they won on their own, but that's another story) But thugs like Rick Wilson want to stand on Democratic heads and shit on them if they disobey orders from... thugs like Rick Wilson, as though they get to just jump in and run the place without penitence or making amends.

I posted on Facebook in response to what seemed like a liberal chorus praising Steve Schmidt for essentially calling doughfacedonny a giant poopy head for not doing anything to punish Russia when the bounties for dead American soldiers came to light. 

Sure, all true words. We’ve never had a “faithless” president before, I mean bringing up Nixon, Reagan, Dubya Bush is completely off limits. Which leads into, why is criticism of republicans only valid if a republican is doing it? Why is the guy who worked for team evil until #doughfacedonny started saying the quiet part out loud and jumped at the chance to run a third party spoiler (Howard Schultz)’s campaign sitting in a chair on television when hundreds of liberals who have been right all this time are not? Don’t cheer the never trumpers, they are stealing our spot and will fall right back to calling Democrats traitors and cutting taxes for rich people the millisecond they get back in charge of the gop.

These never trumpers look like Reagan claiming that he won the Cold War without acknowledging the previous 7 presidents and 2 generations of containment policy that it took to stretch the Soviet Union to the breaking point. Only after doughfacedonny is finally peeled out of power there will not even be the pretense of trying democracy out in the new never trump GOP, it's straight to the Putin authoritarianism in that party only the next would be dictator won't be an illiterate cretin. And how dare you peasants question the saviors of the republic, not Joe Biden or the millions of Americans who vote him into office, no the whole lot of those allies of convenience in the Lincoln Project. 

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. 

To no one's surprise, the business press is still awful

I recently titled a post "the pandemic was never going to fix republicans" and the continuing protests at state capitols and elsewhere by wingnuts with guns but not masks has thus far vindicated the idea. But I really thought there was an outside chance that maybe, just maybe, the mainstream media/political and business press would have learned something about the world they have been covering. Yeah, I live to be disappointed. 

Today's entirely predictable shaming of the regular folks by the business press comes from CNN Business:

Americans are slashing their spending, hoarding cash and shrinking their credit card debt as they fear their jobs could disappear during the coronavirus pandemic.

US credit card debt suddenly reversed course in March and fell by the largest percentage in more than 30 years. At the same time, savings rates climbed to levels unseen since Ronald Reagan was in the White House. 

The dramatic shifts in consumer behavior reflect the unprecedented turmoil in the US economy caused by the pandemic. Although caution is a logical response to that uncertainty, hunkering down also poses a risk to the recovery in an economy dominated by consumer spending. A so-called V-shaped recovery can't happen if consumers are sitting on the sidelines.

More than 33 million Americans have filed for initial unemployment claims since mid-March, and economists warn the jobs market won't return to pre-crisis levels for years. [emphasis mine in all quotes]

This gem by Matt Egan is entitled "Americans create new economic threat with their own savings" and I think I should retire from this gig now, because there really is no hope for this society. These shaming stories are a regular feature in the business press; "you working people better get out there and spend until you are blue in the face or the economy will collapse!" I used to take them somewhat seriously, not sure exactly when I realized what bullshit it is to scare people into going into debt just to keep the system that keeps them permanently a paycheck away from homelessness running. 

The business press used to run stories in the long, long ago decrying the evils of federal budget surpluses. Thank God the Supreme Court gave the presidency to the most irresponsible drunk to ever contend for high office (to that point) and saved us from that horror. It's hard to believe that once upon a time there was a president who sacrificed brownie points with the oligarchs (temporarily anyway) to get a small tax increase through and clean up the Reagan/Bush mess. Though I'm pretty sure budget surpluses or even approaching balance in revenue vs. spending is a pipe dream forevermore. 

But this is really some fascinating projection. Americans have been running faster and faster on their treadmills to stay afloat financially for decades, a pandemic hits, tens of millions are tossed out of their jobs through no fault of their own, everyone is scared, no one knows exactly how hard doughfacedonny will try to screw them so of course anyone who can cut spending and improve their positions is going to try and do so. But here's CNN Business to wag their fingers at us. Egan even qualified his awfulness by writing:

The unemployment rate soared to 14.7% in April — the most severe unemployment crisis since the Great Depression — and Americans are bracing for more challenging times ahead. 

The perceived probability of losing one's job over the next 12 months soared to nearly 21% in April, according to a New York Federal Reserve survey released Monday. It was the second straight month of a record high for this metric in the survey, which the NY Fed launched in 2013. 

Workers are also worried about how they'll land another job if they lose theirs. The perceived probability of finding a job in the next three months tumbled 6.1 percentage points to 47% in April, the largest monthly decline ever recorded. 

The survey described "considerable deteriorations" in household expectations, including record lows for expected earnings, income and spending growth. 

"We know that Covid has not gone away," said Danielle DiMartino Booth, CEO and chief strategist at Quill Intelligence. "That is going to keep in place an element of uncertainty and fear and hold back consumers' ability or desire to spend."

Who exactly is this story aimed at? Everyone I've seen react to this shaming is outraged. Giant corporations that were raking in unprecedented profits and paying next to nothing in taxes in January couldn't lay people off fast enough and now cry poverty to swipe as big a slice of bailout money as they can. Meanwhile, some of us got $1,200 and a Blue Angels flyover. No shit people are scared for their lives! Now let's compare two subheadings in the story.

Credit card debt collapses

And...

 Savings rate spiked to Reagan-era levels

Aren't reporters usually wagging their fingers at people for not having savings? Aren't they also usually complaining that Americans have too much credit card debt? In the fine print Egan admits that the "collapse" he irresponsibly splashed on the page is due in large part to banks canceling credit lines people had because they lost their jobs. Why did we abandon using stocks on people who are a public menace again? I think my favorite line is here:

Visa has warned that payments volume in the "hardest-hit" categories of travel, fuel, restaurants and entertainment plunged by more than 50% in April. Travel spending collapsed by about 80% last month.

Gee, I wonder why that happened? Oh right, there's a highly contagious virus loose in the country with no cure and the national government is too hobbled and incompetent to give a damn about regular people. But feel sorry for oil companies, chain restaurants, the torture factories called airlines, billionaire sportsball owners, and a Hollywood that hasn't had an original idea in a decade. Boo-fucking-hoo! 

The shifts in consumer behavior are another reminder of the pain on Main Street that often gets lost given the near-euphoria on Wall Street. The US stock market has raced back to life since late March as investors have celebrated the response from the federal government and signs of hope on the health front.

Remember when the stock market took a hit and it looked like investors would actually have to suffer some losses? That lasted about 3 days I think before the Federal Reserve acted with lightning speed to dump $1.5 trillion into it, and #MoscowMitch and #doughfacedonny sprang into action to propose a $500 billion slush fund for corporations. I saw a tweet recently that said something to the effect that the stock market is just a measure of rich peoples' feelings. I don't think there is any other way to look at it now, Noam Chomsky once quoted a government economist in a South American military dictatorship as saying "the economy is doing fine, it's just that the people aren't." People are scared, food pantries are bare, nobody can be sure they'll have a job tomorrow but hey, Wall Street investors are euphoric. 

The most frustrating thing is, no matter how many blog posts get written about how awful the entire business press is, no matter how uniformly negative the responses are on Twitter, or even if regular people continue to lose jobs, homes, and go hungry; Matt Egan will wake up tomorrow still employed.

Because there is no change when there are no consequences for behavior. The teabaggers protesting at state capitols today because they can't get a haircut or go to Applebee's, got away with pretending to be independents who never heard of George W. Bush a decade ago. They get away with threatening elected officials and violating rules because they are insulated from COVID-19 by dint of living in the wilderness. If there was any competition in the elite press club for news, most of these writers would have been kicked out a long time ago. It's amazing, the owners and managers of the political and business press must also be totally insulated from the real world if they just keep doing this crap over and over. If Matt Egan ever did grow a conscience he'd probably be out on his ear in a news cycle or two.

A nearly unprecedented time of pandemic with an unprecedented level of fascism from a major political party, and an actual traitor in the White House and CNN Business still finds time to shame working people for doing what in other times mainstream media implores them to do.