THE UNVACCINATED

"99.5% of deaths are among the unvaccinated." US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy on recent coronavirus deaths.

The anti vaccine myth first took hold in the world back in nineteen ninety eight when former British surgeon Andrew Wakefield published a poorly researched study claiming that there was a link between certain vaccinations and autism in the medical paper The Lancet.  Although the article was later retracted by that paper, the damage was done; propped up by celebrities like Jenny McCarthy, lies about one of the greatest scientific advances in the history of the world were spread all over the media.  The one good piece of news is the anti vaccine belief never hit the mainstream in the US, with it mostly staying on the fringes of society.  

Sadly, the same cannot be said about the anti vaccine movement that has arisen during the covid crisis.  Recently, the European Union exceeded America in the percentage of its people being vaccinated, and with recent polls showing a whopping forty seven percent of Republicans saying that they do not plan to get the vaccine, these depressing trends appear to be ready to continue.  The reasons people give for not getting vaccinated range from reasonable sounding (the vaccines are too new) to insane (magnetism!).  It is truly upsetting to consider that while other countries are begging for more vaccinations, many parts of America are running a surplus!

So why are so many Americans turning away from a vaccine that  has been used on  billions of people around the world, even as a more contagious strain of the virus is spreading around the nation? It appears to be a unique brand of American stubbornness, combined with anti intellectualism.  Now while there is some distrust of the vaccine in African American communities (who's basis for distrust of the government regarding health has historical precedent) it is mostly in politically conservative, mostly white communities that the anti vaccine attitudes run the strongest.  Most of this is due to the downplaying of the virus that the Donald Trump administration did almost from the beginning of the pandemic: from him calling the coronavirus a "liberal hoax" to his claims that it will disappear when the weather gets warmer, Trump shrugged off the threat for a long time before finally starting to care when it kept getting worse.  Even then, he seemed to support anti mask protests going on in places like Michigan.  And, taking their cues from the president, the right wing media fell in line with him, shrugging off the virus for far too long  even as cases soared.

To be fair, both Trump and the right wing media have equivocated on this issue: Trump got the vaccine himself, but allowed no photography of the moment and defends people who don't want to get it.  Conservative commentator Sean Hannity spoke out for vaccines, before just seconds later when he condemned universities that have vaccination requirements.  Obviously, coming after months of misleading covid statements coming from both the former president and Fox News, this is all a little too little and a little too late. 

While Joe Biden has admirably tried to encourage people to get the shot, the sad fact of the matter is that the more he talks about it, the more conservatives are digging in, just to defy him. To them risking their own lives and the lives of people around them means less than admitting that they're wrong.   (Anyone who's ever argued with a Trump supporter knows how hard it can be to change someone's mind).  And everything from offering free marijuana to lottery tickets hasn't moved the needle enough. Right now Biden is considering requiring all civilian federal employees to either be vaccinated or regularly tested, and I absolutely think that that is the right thing to do.  And I hope that private businesses and universities join in on vaccine mandates.  Sure, the right wing media will howl, and there will be protests (a similar decision made by the French government was recently protested) I still think it's the right thing to do (the decision in France  also led to a big increase in people getting vaccinated).  We need to show the unvaccinated that life will be much harder for them until they finally give in and just get the same shot that hundreds of millions of other Americans have already gotten.  Putting it simply, some people's desire to "own the libs" is not more important than a return to normalcy. 

TRUMP'S RECKONING?

Back in the nineteen eighties, president Ronald Reagan was often called the "teflon" president, because no matter what happened around him, it never stuck to him.  From the Iran Contra scandal to ignoring the deaths of people with AIDS, Reagan always seemed able to emerge unscathed from problems that might have sunk another president.  His amiable (if absent minded) persona always seemed to win enough of the support of the American public to keep him popular.

A few years ago, people started calling then president  Donald Trump "teflon Don", implying once again that we had a president who never seemed to have to pay for the various terrible and corrupt things going on around him.  That certainly seemed true, as Trump shrugged off sexual assault and rape charges from twenty six women, ignored the emoluments clause of the Constitution, and was impeached by the House of Representatives, all while saying and tweeting utterly offensive ("Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are the co founders of Isis") or downright stupid (the sound from windmills can give you cancer) things that should have ended his political career but didn't.

And now, after seventy five years of always getting what he wants, Trump may finally face some level of retribution:  on July first, the Manhattan district attorney’s office announced charges against the Trump Organization and its chief financial executive, Allen H. Weisselberg.  This could possibly lead to charges being leveled against Trump himself.  Like a mob boss, Trump has always demanded complete loyalty from those around him, and lives in fear of someone turning on him, which Weisselberg may do. That said, given all the various accusations made about Trump and his organization over the years, these do not seem to be particularly strong accusations;  they allege that over the past fifteen years the Trump organization  gifted Weisselberg things like a free apartment, a car, or school tuition, adding up to millions of dollars, without declaring any of these things on his taxes.  The good news is that this may be just the beginning of the investigation, with more serious charges in the offing, depending on whether Weisselberg flips on Trump in order to reduce his own sentence or not.

So, will Weisselberg flip?  That's a big question: on the one hand, his former daughter in law Jennifer Weisselberg recently told the New Yorker that, concerning Allen Weisselberg, "His whole worth is 'Does Donald like me today?' It's his whole life, his core being. He's obsessed. He has more feelings and adoration for Donald than for his wife."  On the other hand, she also remembers Trump coming to visit Alan Weisselberg's home and blurting out "This is where my C.F.O. lives? It's embarrassing!", he then showed off naked pictures of women he had claimed to have slept with and hit on Jennifer Weisselberg.  The fact that all of this was done while the family was mourning the death of a loved one makes it all the more repulsive (and par for the course for Trump).  Could such boorish behavior come back to bite Trump now that his former C. F. O. is in the legal crosshairs?  Let's hope it does.

One crazy thing is Trump and his son Donald Jr. have both publicly admitted to the crimes by shrugging them off, implying that somehow they were just being nice to Weisselberg, not seeming to realize that millions of dollars in gifts are still taxable no matter how well meaning their intention.  One thing is sadly true, these charges will not change the unshakeable faith of the core Republican voters who have stood by Trump ever since he first announced his candidacy and who want him to run again in twenty twenty four.  Heck, he may be the first American politician to run for the presidency while in jail.  All bets are off with this guy.

ALMOST SACRED

 

Yesterday, the Republicans in the Senate shot down both versions of the voting rights bills that the Democrats were trying to pass to counter the literally hundreds of voter suppression laws that Republican state governments have passed recently.  Although the death of the bills were always inevitable (no one expected Republicans not to filibuster bills that would stop them from having an electoral advantage), it's still heartbreaking to see how one political party has no problem in trying to prevent people, especially people of color, from exercising their right to vote.  

The late John Lewis, a congressmen and early civil rights protester, one described the right to vote in America as "almost sacred".  He was right.  Sadly, extending that right to African Americans has been a serious problem since the end of slavery.  It's hard to believe, but in the post war civil reconstruction era, thousands of former slaves were elected to public offices.  Sadly, this ended when federal troops enforcing civil rights laws were withdraw from the South and the Jim Crow era of segregation and lack of voting rights began in the South.  It wouldn't  end until Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Voting Act into law in nineteen sixty five.   After signing the bill, according to Johnson aide Bill Moyers, Johnson sadly admitted that "I think we just delivered the South to the Republican party for a long time to come."

It is amazing to think that, decades later, Johnson's words still ring true.  Oh sure, courting libertarians and fundamentalist Christians has been a big part of the Republican party's appeal in the decades since that bill was signed, at the end of the day, their  plan of using racially coded words ("war on crime", "war on drugs") in political speeches,  a plan developed during the ninety sixty eight Nixon presidential campaign (and named "The Southern Strategy"), has been a part of every Republican presidential campaign since.  (Although to be fair, Mitt Romney's and John McCain's campaigns mostly avoided it).  

Donald Trump, of course, just threw out the coding and openly made racist remarks in his twenty sixteen campaign.  Even worse, since his public refusal to accept his loss in twenty twenty has lead a majority of Republican voters to believe that that election was stolen, Republican state legislators have passed laws making it harder to vote by claiming that their constituents were concerned about "voter fraud".  Of course they don't mention the fact that the only reasons  they have those concerns is because of Trump's lies.  And these laws are targeted at making it harder for African American voters to vote, by shutting down polling places and limiting early voting.  A twenty twenty article in The Washington Post pointed out that African American voters already are seventy four percent more likely to have to wait half and hour or more to vote than white voters.  Somehow this obvious  impediment to voting isn't enough for the Republicans.

And if that weren't bad enough, conservatives on the Supreme Court have also helped out the Republican cause: in the contested two thousand election they stepped in and handed the White House to George W Bush.  In two thousand and nine, after Barack Obama set records for small donations from supporters, they decided that money equaled speech in the Citizen's United decision, opening the floodgates for the rich to donate to campaigns, a clear advantage for Republicans.  And  then, after Barack Obama won reecletion in twenty twelve, one year later the court gutted the Civil Rights Voting Act which had forced Southern states to get federal approval for any changes in voting laws.  This, of course, lead to the flood of voter suppression laws being passed right now. 

It really is a sign of just how gutless the Republican Party is that they killed the voting rights bills without even allowing them to be debated; they knew full well that one Democratic Senator after another would give examples of how the voting suppression laws were openly targeted at African American voters, and that their counter arguments were weak.  When it comes to the modern Southern Strategy, most Republicans like to just pretend that it doesn't exist even as they pass laws proving that it does.

GOOD NEWS IS NO NEWS

    

 There is a truism that says that much of the way that the media covers politics is not unlike how it covers sports; there are winners and losers, and polls showing who's up and who's down, with analysts often asking which political side scored a victory with each new development.  It's understandable that the media would use this quickly digestible style of coverage, but it leaves out all sense of nuance.  Obviously, there has never been a sports team where certain members of one team decide to play for the other side "for the good of the country."

    But bipartisanship is dead, right?  If you listen to the media, it sure is; the country is deeply divided, both sides are dug in, Biden will get no Republican help for his agenda, etc.  And yet, a recent bill to make it easier to investigate and prosecute hate crimes against Asians sailed through congress, passing with ninety four votes in the Senate and three hundred and sixty four votes in the House.  Ok, you might say that voting for a bill against the terrible spate of crimes being carried out against Asian Americans is a no brainer.  No sane person could possibly be opposed to such a thing.  But another recent bill was also passed with overwhelming (sixty eight votes) support in the Senate, and it's the kind of big spending bill that you would think the Republican party would never go for, but they were willing to cross the aisle for this one.  Designed as a counterbalance to China's growing influence in scientific research, it would spend nearly a quarter-trillion dollars over the next five years on research into things like superconductors.  While the bill has yet to pass the house, given its popularity (heck, even Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell voted for it!) and Joe Biden's willingness to sign it, its passage is assured.

    So a bipartisan bill designed to help the country in the future will soon be passed.  This would seem to be a good news story, which may explain why there has so little media coverage of it.  Our competition driven media, so obsessed with winners and losers, barely seemed to have time for something that drew the two parties together.  No they'd rather talk about how gridlocked congress is, and how much Senator Joe Manchin's refusal to end the filibuster is killing Biden's agenda.

    Look, I complain about the filibuster and our divided nation as much as anybody, but as these two bill show, bipartisanship for the good of the country is not always an impossible dream.  Hopefully, there will be more of it in the future. 

WHY QANON?

“I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate.”-Donald Trump on QAnon

It's official.  QAnon is popular enough to almost become mainstream.  That's according to a recent poll released by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Interfaith Youth Core which found that fifteen percent of Americans (and twenty five percent of Republicans) now claim to believe in QAnon.  Which means that there are tens of millions of Americans who believe in  the baseless claims of an unknown online poster who says that there is a global ring of Satanic, cannibalistic pedophiles  (that includes pretty much every Democratic leader) that will be exposed any day now by Donald Trump.  There was a hope that this crazy theory would end with Trump leaving the White House, but, as with most cults, the true believers have just doubled down.  Sadly, once people join a cult, shaking their faith is very difficult; just look at the Jehovah's Witnesses, who have been steadily pushing back the date of the end of the world for decades now.

The story of QAnon beliefs gets even more scary when you look at the number of Republicans who don't call themselves believers but who refuse to dismiss it (the QAnon curious?).  Adding them pushes the number of QAnon friendly Republicans to over fifty percent of the party.  And it gets worse, QAnon friendly candidates are already lining up to run for office all around the country, while infamous QAnon believer Marjorie Taylor Greene already is in the House of Representatives and is a major fund raiser for the Republican party.  Yes, it appears that QAnon, just like the idea that Trump won the twenty twenty election, is now a common, accepted belief in the Republican party. And the QAnon faithful appear to be willing to even break the law for their beliefs, as the high number of QAnon signs and shirts at the January sixth riot showed.

The inevitable question is why would so many people believe something so insane?  Even the most out there cults usually have a charismatic leader at the top, but  with QAnon nobody even knows who the person who first started this craziness is. But it has benefited from timing.  While there have always been people willing to believe in outlandish things, from bigfoot to psychics, the rise of QAnon seems to me to be linked to the global pandemic.  Oh sure, it existed before covid, but it really seems to have taken off in the past year as the pandemic has raged.  This seems to make sense; putting it simply, people staying at home  have more time to fall into the QAnon rabbit hole, to spend hours absorbing one Youtube video or social media posting after another, which has sadly helped it to flourish.  It seems like common sense that people getting out and doing things would have less time to start following a cult that is almost entirely online.  Add to that the fact that the whole world has felt on edge since the pandemic started, plus the usual conservative conspiratorial mindset combined with our deeply polarized country and you have all the makings of  a successful modern cult.

So what can the Americans who choose to live in the real world do?  On a personal level, people can try to talk to friends and family members wrapped up in the movement in an understanding, non judgemental way that will hopefully pull them back to reality. But on a national level?  Not a heck of a lot; elected Republican officials seem to accepting QAnon believers in their party while not openly saying that they agree with them (which is the same weak kneed trick they pulled with the birthers).   And of course Trump himself has issued statements like the one above that continues his pathetic streak of failing to condemn anyone who praises him, be it David Duke, The Proud Boys or QAnon.  The best case scenario for the future is that I'm right about the pandemic having an effect, and that as more Americans go back to their normal lives, many of QAnon's believers will stop following it.  Otherwise, we may continue to have a major political party made up of people who think the worst possible thing about the other side (Satanic cannibals!), which is no way to run a democracy.

REWRITING HISTORY

 

The assault on our nation's capital on January sixth of last year was one of the most disgraceful moments in our nation's history.  Never before had violent American insurrectionists openly attacked a national government body with the intention of overturning a democratic election.  Several people died in the attack, and at least eighty one members of the Capitol force and sixty five members of the Metropolitan Police Department were injured. This is how it should be remembered from not only a historical perspective, but also a preventative one; we must never let such a shameful event happen again.

While at times the riot itself seemed like the case of the dog that caught the car, with rioters a bit stunned at how easily they got into the building, then finding all the members of congress gone, decided to mill about aimlessly, engaging in childish acts of theft and vandalism.  Still, it could have been so much worse; if any of those members of congress had not been evacuated in time, they could easily have been overrun and harmed or killed.  And while it may sound like a movie plot, what if those rioters had taken members of congress hostage?  And what if they demanded that they would only release those hostages if Donald Trump were declared the winner of the election?  And what if then president Trump had openly said that they were right?  It's a terrifying thought.

You would think that calling that riot an utter disgrace would be common sense, and maybe it was in the immediate aftermath.  But now that time has passed, the Republican party, still following orders from its deposed leader, has mostly decided to oppose having a congressional committee study how, why and what happened on January sixth.  A bill to create such a committee just passed the House of Representatives,  but only thirty five Republicans voted for it and over a hundred voted against it.  During the debate, some Republican house members made outrageous statements that downplayed the danger of the riot, like when representative Andrew Clyde said that it looked like a "normal tourist visit." (Even more outrageous, pictures have emerged from that day showing Clyde helping to barricade a door to keep out those "normal tourists"!)  After the bill passed the house, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell formally came  out against it.  Yes, the same man who said on the floor of the senate on February thirteenth that "January 6th was a disgrace. American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism to try to stop a specific piece of democratic business they did not like. Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They stormed the Senate floor. They tried to hunt down the Speaker of the House. They built a gallows and chanted about murdering the vice president."  also adding that "There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day."  But that was then and this is now.  An April fifth poll of American voters found that over half of registered Republicans do not accept the verified fact that conservative protesters, supporters of former President Trump, attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, with many of them believing that the riot was started by left wing protesters (like that all purpose boogeyman Antifa) in an attempt to make Trump supporters look bad, even though the FBI has said that there is no truth to this rumor at all.  Since McConnell takes his orders from the still popular in his party Trump, he too had decided that the riot is something to forget about.

It has become fashionable for media pundits to say that we know live in a post truth society, and it's hard to dispute that when tens of millions of Americans believe something to be true because they want it to be true without any basis in fact.  Although it's easy to blame Trump and his thousands of lies, his ascendancy was really built on decades of the same kind of  lies spewed by right media figures like Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.  Sadly, there really isn't anything that can be done about this situation, as anyone who has ever argued with a Trump supporting friend or family member can attest, changing someone's firmly held belief is very hard.  Really, all we can do is accept that some people are hopelessly caught up in the right wing media bubble, and hope that there aren't enough of them to put  Trump (or someone like him), in the White House.

A CONTINUING INFLUENCE

In America, ex presidents tend to fade away quickly.  Oh sure, they'll write a book and show up at conventions, but for the most part they are seen as yesterday's news.  This is especially true of one term presidents, who are forever seen as losers with little importance in their parties. Once again, Donald Trump has shattered norms, as he continues to influence the Republican party, holding court in his Mar a lago resort while savoring his role as kingmaker and considering another run at the presidency in twenty twenty four.

A few months ago, this all seemed unlikely.  After the violence that occurred at the Capitol on January sixth, it looked like the same Republican party that had shrugged off everything Trump had said and done (from birtherism to multiple sexual assault charges) was finally ready to put him in the rearview mirror.  Even though he was not directly impeached and removed from office, the vote was the most bipartisan impeachment vote ever, and several of his allies, like Senator Lindsey Graham, denounced him on the floor of congress.  It seemed to make sense; Trump was the most unpopular president in modern history, and his leadership of the party had resulted in them losing both houses of congress and the presidency.  Hardly an impressive record.  Add to that the fact that he was banned from Facebook and Twitter because of his comments leading up the riot, and you have a party in need to move on from a one term loser.

But sadly, things have changed.  Trump may now be without his much beloved twitter handle, but he can still give interviews and speeches or release statements that read like a longer version of his tweets (that is, rambling, dishonest and full of childish bragging).  And of course he has never taken any responsibility for the Capitol riot and continues to spout the lies about the twenty twenty election that inspired it, while his minions in the right wing media go along with him and even try to downplay the seriousness of the riot.   The result of Trump's continuing demand for attention is that Republican voters have stayed with him, as polls show that over seventy percent of them think that the election was stolen by Joe Biden.  This has put the Republican politicians in an awkward spot of their own making.  With so many of their voters believing Trump's election lies, most of them refuse to say for sure that Joe Biden won, and they are using this doubt by their voters to pass laws that they claim are to stop voter fraud, but that are really aimed at making it harder for non white voters to vote.  Republican politicians also have to support Trump's latest obsession; a recount in the state of Arizona that is being lead by a pro Trump company (with the reassuring name of Cyber Ninjas) that Trump claims will find "thousands and thousands of votes".  Even if this absurd process being carried out by a highly partisan organization were to somehow overturn the vote count in the state of Arizona, there's no way that the election of twenty twenty could possibly be overturned at this point.  But Trump doesn't care, he's just a delusional schoolyard bully who always thinks he'll never lose unless the other side cheats.

As the Republican party continues to be the cult of Trump, any dissention from their chosen messiah has become heresy.  Just a few days ago Senator Mitt Romney was booed by members of his own party, who almost voted to censure him.  This from a party that wanted to make him president in twenty twelve! Right now, House member Liz Cheney is being stripped of her power by her fellow party members in the House for the crime of voting to impeach Trump and refusing to believe the lie that he won.  It's a sad indicator that Cheney, the same woman who has defended her father's disastrous decision to invade Iraq when he was Vice President, and who came out against gay marriage in her first election run back in twenty fourteen (essentially stabbing her lesbian sister in the back), is now seen as one of the few standard bearers of truth in the Republican party, but here we are.

Where we this end?  There's really no telling if the Republican party can ever go back to the land of reality now that their voters have openly embraced Trump's lies.  The only bright spot is that Trump continues to be popular in the Republican party partly because many people are leaving it.  But the Republicans have gotten so good at gaming the system to their advantage, from the electoral college to gerrymandering, that they don't even need a majority to win anymore to retain power.  So the country is stuck with having one of its major political party parties being held hostage by Trump fanatics and Qanon supporters.

What does all this mean for Trump himself?  I think it's entirely possible that he will run again in twenty twenty four.  And while it's easy to think that there's no way that such an unpopular president could possibly win again,  he has so thoroughly trashed our political system that it isn't impossible.  I'll never forget how, back in twenty fifteen when Trump was just starting to run, he insulted  the war record of Senator John McCain ("He's not a war hero").  At that time I thought his political career was finished; imagine if any other politician, especially one who had never served in the military, had said the same thing about McCain.  Obviously, I was wrong.  So with Trump, all bets are off.  If he could win after running a chaotic twenty sixteen campaign that saw members of his own party asking him to drop out after the release of the infamous Access Hollywood tape, then it's possible he could win again.  Although the thought horrifies me, Trump regaining the White House is twenty twenty four is possible.