November Looks Different Now: Ideas for a Post Pandemic World
In an interview with “Fox & Friends” on Monday, Mr. Trump summarily dismissed a Democratic-led push for reforms — such as vote-by-mail, same-day registration and early voting — that were part of the negotiations over the recently enacted covid-19 pandemic relief package. “The things they had in there were crazy. They had things, levels of voting that if you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again,” he said.
The coronavirus pandemic has upended just about every institutional norm in American life, and some thoughts on the big picture of how we will choose our elected officials in the future is the topic for today’s essay. (Some thoughts on local implications are coming soon.)
As I’m writing this piece, word is that the Democratic Party has decided to delay its July nominating convention by one month, to be held on the week immediately preceding the GOP’s affirmation ceremony for the Cult of Trump.
After years of dancing around schemes for voter suppression, Republicans are at the point where they either have to abandon the notion or go all in. It’s an easy choice if your only option is exploiting the rural state bias created by the founders to protect slavery.
The problem with this mindset is that there’s no long-term viability for empowering a voting block that is aging, losing its economic foundation, and being edged out of majority status in many areas by changing demographics.
My best guess is that they’ll stay the course, if for no other reason than the difficulty inherent in undoing the web of false pretenses crafted over past decades. At the core of the Trumpanistas are people whose dedication to creation of a theocracy outweighs any concerns about fair elections. They see the current administration, warts and all, as their best hope.
A resounding defeat at the polls (ala Herbert Hoover) could change this thinking, but based on the surveys I’ve seen, as long as Fox News spews its “truth” the party isn’t going anywhere.
States like California that have embraced strategies designed to increase voter turnout are no longer outliers; social distancing mandates and ever-changing election dates are an open challenge to those who disdain the concept of universal suffrage.
Thirty-three states currently allow voters to vote absentee without giving an excuse, but the rules for applying for ballots and voting by mail vary by each state.
Public pressure for things like easier voter registration and universal access to vote-by-mail is building, driven in large part by the obstacles to voting presented by the coronavirus crisis. Wisconsin has called out the National Guard to staffing polling places in its (ill advised) upcoming primary, drawing attention to the reality that a majority of poll workers are over 60 and considered high risk for infection by COVID-19.
An insufficient amount of money aimed at increasing voter access was included in the $2 trillion economic relief bill passed by congress. Democrats are already working on another chunk of cash for enabling elections in the next round of emergency legislation.
In a less imperfect world, they’d back a stand-alone piece of legislation, one allowing for bipartisan input. Given that Mitch McConnell’s Senate would never let such a bill see the light of day, Democrats’ only way forward on this is to tie it to a larger, more urgent measure.
There are legitimate concerns to be addressed with such legislation, namely infringing on the ability of the States to set up voting processes as they see fit. It’s fairly easy to see a GOP challenge based on this premise allowing the Supreme Court (which won’t even address gerrymandering) to throw out any reforms.
Suffice to say, the way we vote (or don’t) will be different in the future. And that future probably will be determined by how people vote in November, 2020.
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Perhaps no area of the electoral process has been more disrupted thus far than our system of presidential primaries, at least as far as Democrats are concerned. We’ll now (possibly) see the first Tuesday in June, a primary date abandoned by California in its quest for more influence, as the last word.
The assumption made by many, if not most, Democrats that former Vice President Joe Biden would be their best choice for standard bearer in the general election, doesn’t look as solid as it once did.
Many of those voters chose Biden even though their political viewpoints were more progressive, some because getting rid of Trump was a higher priority, some because they couldn’t abide the “us or them” characteristic of those advocating for Senator Bernie Sanders.
From today’s New York Times:
“I can wait for four more years for ‘Medicare for all’ and the Green New Deal — and go with Biden — just to get Trump out of office,” Ms. Abetti said, “because that’s my number one thing.”
Her fears were specifically tied to the belief that Mr. Trump could win by highlighting a good economy against Mr. Sanders’s message of radical change. Now that the spread of the coronavirus has caused sweeping unemployment and a historic drop in stock prices, Ms. Abetti acknowledged that the political landscape had shifted.
The safe path forward economically and politically isn’t viable anymore. Ten million people lost their jobs in the past two weeks; a substantial number of those folks are joining the ranks of the 27.5 million Americans without health insurance. And those numbers are going to get worse in the months leading up to the election.
This isn’t to say that Biden won’t be the nominee. It is to say that, regardless of who the nominee ends up being, they’ll be running on a platform closer to Bernie Sanders' way of thinking than the cautious offerings made in the past primary debates.
An Economics Rant
The economic foundations of government on every level are about to be challenged in a big way. Cuts in programs and services at the state and local level are going to impact everybody. How are those on non-federal retirement programs going to react to reductions in their benefits? You can bet it’s going to happen; everything is gonna get hacked, whether they're collecting private, state, or local pensions.
Suddenly, Medicare for All doesn’t look so radical. Suddenly, boosting Social Security isn’t a pipe dream. Etcetera, Etcetera.
How will we pay for it? Not enough people will care about that detail when the wolf is knocking at their door. (The fact is our assumptions about ‘deficit spending’ are based on ideologically based ‘truths.’)
All the trickle down economics in the world aren’t going to pay the rent/mortgage.
Many European countries are all-in on protecting people’s livelihoods, guaranteeing a substantial portion of their wages. They’ve recognized that their economies are going to be unplugged for a while. And when it’s over, there’s a way to pay the cost, even if it’s in installments.
They’ve got a people-first vision, rather than GDP/corporate-first outlook. What does that look like?
In Denmark in 2018, the government collected tax revenue equal to 49 percent of the nation’s annual economic output, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The Danish government will support 90% of wages for displaced hourly workers up to a cap of $3,800 a month. Salaried workers will get 75% covered up to $3,350. Small businesses expecting to lose 40% of revenue can get up to 80% of regular expenses. If the business has been ordered to close (restaurants and hairdressers), the government will cover up to 100% of regular expenses. Larger businesses expecting to lose 30% of revenue can take out loans backed by the government covering up to 70% of that loss.
Compare that to the $1200 one time check (plus expanded unemployment benefits) and the corporate tax breaks loopholes the Trump administration is offering. This isn’t a one-time failing, it’s the way our system works.
In the United States, tax revenues amounted to 24% of annual economic output. That was down from 28% in 2000, before huge tax cuts by the George W. Bush and Trump administrations, with most of the benefits flowing to the wealthiest households.
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You’d think that a tanking economy and easily provable incompetence in governing would present a formidable challenge to the Republican incumbent come November.
While we have no way of knowing how the coming months are going to impact the viewpoints of the American electorate, the old adage holding that “Money walks, and bullshit talks” needs to be considered.
Trump and the Republican National Committee have together raised $607 million for his re-election and were sitting on $225 million in cash at the end of February.
Meanwhile, the cratering economy has Democrats at a distinct disadvantage.
From Fortune Magazine:
Big donors to U.S. presidential campaigns are feeling the economic pinch from the coronavirus pandemic and holding on to their money just when the candidates -- especially Democratic front-runner Joe Biden -- need it most.
With stocks falling, businesses shrinking and unemployment soaring, donors of all sizes are feeling the effects. Billionaires counted on to fuel super PAC spending have seen their net worth plummet by anywhere from 10% to as much as 75%.
Joe Biden’s spiffy YouTube videos (they are really good!) responding to the president’s daily coronavirus infomercials are no match for the flood of misinformation unleashed by the president’s adherents.
Bernie Sanders grassroots donors, who are likely impacted by the massive layoffs are less likely to contribute, regardless of how they feel about the candidate.
So, new methods of campaigning, along with the unspoken hope that the administration will continue to leave Jared Kusner in charge of crisis management, are what is in order.
https://twitter.com/politico/status/1245773298681753600?s=20
We’ll take a look at how campaigns both national and local are coping in the next installment of this series.
Food for serious thought.
https://twitter.com/thenation/status/1245773178674335751?s=20
Why I’m writing these essays.
It’s my opinion, and the view of many others, that things will never be the same again.
Let’s have a conversation about what that could mean from a glass half-full perspective.
I’m not interested in promoting ideas with no connection to reality (sorry, some form of capitalism will continue to exist, at least for a while); I’m looking for the seeds of change embedded or suggested by the needed focus on what is the greater good.
The coronavirus pandemic has had an economic and social impact on the U.S. ranking with the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, either World War, or the Great Depression. A path to what once passed as normalcy, despite what economic and political leaders would wish upon us, does not and should not exist.
Over the coming days (and probably weeks) I’ll be crafting essays building on the observable dismantling of the old normal with suggestions for what could be. The topics I’m researching include: retail, labor power, education, political campaigns, food, healthcare, and leisure.
I’m open to publishing outside essays and/or suggestions (drop me a line!) by readers on these and similar topics, so if the urge strikes, please reach out to me. Just remember, what I’m trying to do here is to posit a pragmatic approach to what could and should be, based on observable events.
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Part One: Ideas and Plans for a Humane Post Pandemic World
Part Two: The End of Retail As We Know It
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Lead image by takomabibelot / Flickr