Donald Trump can't claim that he defeated the coronavirus. He can't claim that he built a gung-ho economy. So what's left to run on? Paul Krugman writes that all he's got left are lurid fantasies:
It’s not just the fact that premature reopening led to a huge second wave of infections and deaths. Equally important, from a political point of view, has been Covid-19’s geographical spread.
Early in the pandemic it was possible to portray Covid-19 as a big-city, blue-state problem; voters in rural areas and red states found it easier to dismiss the threat in part because they were relatively unlikely to know people who had gotten sick. But the second surge of infections and deaths was concentrated in the Sunbelt.
And while the Sunbelt surge appears to be slowly subsiding now that state and local governments have done what Trump didn’t want them to do — close bars, ban large gatherings and require masks — there now appears to be a surge in the Midwest.
And, as for Trump's claim that the economy would come roaring back,
all indications are that the rapid snapback of May and June has leveled off, with unemployment still very high. Friday’s employment report is likely to show an economy still adding jobs, but nothing like the “super V” recovery Trump is still claiming. And there will be only one more labor market report before the election.
Furthermore, the politics of the economy depend less on what official numbers say than on how people are feeling. Consumer confidence remains low. Assessments by businesses surveyed by the Federal Reserve range from unenthusiastic to glum. And there just isn’t enough time for this to change much: Trump isn’t going to be able to ride an economic boom into the election.
So Donald is threatening the nation with invisible anarchists:
There has been some looting, property damage and violence associated with Black Lives Matter demonstrations. But the property damage has been minor compared with urban riots of the past — no, Portland is not “ablaze all the time” — and much of the violence is coming not from the left but from right-wing extremists.
It’s also true that there has been a recent rise in homicides, and nobody is sure why. But murders were very low last year, and even if the rate so far this year continues, New York City will have substantially fewer homicides in 2020 than it did when Rudy Giuliani was mayor.
In short, there isn’t a wave of anarchy and violence other than that unleashed by Trump himself.
However, it might work:
For whatever reason, there’s a long history of disconnect between the realities of crime and public perceptions. As Pew has pointed out, between 1993 and 2018 violent crime in America plunged; murders in New York fell more than 80 percent. Yet over that period Americans consistently told pollsters that crime was rising.
It worked for Richard Nixon fifty years ago. But Nixon was the challenger. Trump is the president. It all depends on how many Americans are as demented -- and vile -- as Trump himself is.
Image: twitter.com
6 comments:
The photo you've posted speaks to something I have noticed in recent months. There's a marked change in Trump's complexion over the past four years. His skin has coarsened. He's turning reptilian. It could be that he underwent some sort of derma-therapy in 2015 or maybe it's the toxins he's accumulated over his stretch in the Oval Office.
His condition is deteriorating. Person, man, woman, camera, TV. I guess that makes me a very stable genius, huh?
The reptilian part of Trump's brain is now in charge, Mound. Back in the '50's, there was a science fiction film called "The Alligator People." Perhaps one of them survived into the 21st century.
I don't think this election will decided by voters. The evidence is in plain view that Republicans won't allow a fair election. There is no 2020 party platform, the party is making no appeal beyond its radicalized base, it has refused to pass continued Covid-19 relief or to prevent evictions, and it is currently in court trying to repeal the ACA, the means by which millions of Americans receive healthcare. That's not a party looking to win a free and fair election.
Instead, the GOP is laying the groundwork to steal an election by claiming voter fraud. It has kneecapped the post office's ability to deliver mail-in ballots because late ballots aren't counted. It constantly claims without evidence that mail-in voting leads to fraud. State GOP committees are sending mail-in ballot applications to out-of-state voters who have never been registered to vote in that state, hoping to dupe inattentive voters into fraudulent ballot requests. Trump encouraged NC voters to vote twice. When AG Bill Barr was asked about the legality of this, he claimed he wasn't familiar with NC law. Apparently, he's also unfamiliar with the federal law that makes both voting twice and encouraging people to vote twice a felony.
No, the coming election will not be decided at the polls. It'll be decided the same way as the 2000 election was, by the GOP majority on the Supreme Court.
Cap
@ The Disaffected Liberal
It is just that as Trump ages his disguise is slipping and his real identity as one of the reptile people is becoming more obvious Reptile People
More seriously, he has been showing serious signs of mental and physical decline for some years and these have accelerated since his election. I wonder if he is existing in a blurred reality but his "staff', to use the term loosely, are propping him up as has been done for many heads of government from Churchill after his stroke to a senile Regan?
Propping up a figurehead means retaining power for a lot of people
That's a distinct possibility, Cap. And, if it happens, it will be the end of the republic.
One thing is certain, jrk. Trump would not be where he is without his enablers.
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