Trump is looking at the map of states sorted by which states have the most
deaths; and he likes what he sees.
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Tuesday, May 5, 2020 11:14 AM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Fwd: May 4, 2020
----- Forwarded message ----------
From: Heather Cox Richardson from Letters from an American
<heathercoxrichardson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 05 May 2020 07:25:43 +0000
Subject: May 4, 2020
The big news today is that there has been another leak from the White House,
and this one is colossal. The New York Times obtained a document suggesting
that the administration has misrepresented the numbers of American deaths
expected from this pandemic by pushing an artificially low estimate for close
to a month.
Modeling by the Federal Emergency Management Agency now projects
200,000 new coronavirus cases a day by the end of the month (we currently have
about 25,000 new cases a day), and by June 1, about
3000 deaths every day from Covid-19. Trump revised estimates of the dead upward
to 100,000 yesterday, but the new document suggests even those are optimistic.
The White House pushed back against the leak, saying that the document had not
been vetted or presented to the coronavirus task force.
We also learned today that the new White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows,
must give his express approval for members of the coronavirus task force or
their aides to appear before Congress this month, so it certainly looks as
though we will not be hearing an explanation of the discrepancy between Trump’s
projections and this document anytime soon.
Historians are prophets of the past, not the future, and I am completely
unqualified to assess this released model. But I am indeed qualified to note
the political importance of the fact that the administration appears to have
seriously downplayed its own estimates of the projected death toll from this
pandemic. As Andrew Slavitt, acting administrator for Medicare and Medicaid
under President Barack Obama, explained, Trump’s team told him to expect
100,000 to 250,000 dead, horrific numbers, numbers from which Americans would
recoil. But he revised that number downward based on a model that assumed, for
example, that states without social distancing would not have outbreaks. The
number he offered was around 60,000, a number that convinced his supporters
that Covid-19 was no more serious than a bad flu, and that Democrats were
exaggerating the danger for political gain.
That was enough to start a push to reopen states.
While there is a lot of talk about Trump wanting to reopen the states to repair
the economy, it’s hard to see how that can happen if the pandemic continues
unabated or even gets worse. Others have suggested that the president might
simply live so entirely in the moment he cannot adequately assess cause and
effect. He wants the economy to get better, so he is trying to will that into
reality despite the death toll.
But I wonder—and I’m really only wondering tonight, because it’s already 2:00
and I am too tired to start chasing down the speeches and statistics I would
need to make this as an assertion—if what is really driving this mad push,
funded as we know it is by right-wing political groups, is a frantic
determination to make sure the country does not turn again now, in the midst of
this pandemic, to a government that regulates business and provides a basic
social safety net, a government like the one we created during the Great
Depression.
I mean, if the protesters really wanted to protect workers, wouldn't they be
demanding laws that replaced lost wages? Other developed countries have passed
exactly those sorts of measures, putting their economies into a holding pattern
as the pandemic passes, but the Trump administration has focused largely on
protecting those at the top of the economy. Reopening states will also keep us
from expanding unemployment programs, since they will keep workers from being
able to claim unemployment benefits. They must work or starve, as opponents of
welfare legislation used to put it. And, of course, people are waiting too long
to get medical care for Covid-19, and thus are spreading it, not simply because
we have insufficient tests but also because they have no healthcare insurance
for treatment anyway.
“It’s not a pandemic,” said a speaker at a rally at the Boston State House
today demanding that Republican Governor Charlie Baker reopen the state. “The
reason why they’re doing this… to turn the United States of America into the
United Socialist States of America.”
This is ridiculous of course, but it sounded very like what Republicans said in
the 1930s as they insisted first that there wasn’t a Depression, and then that
if there was a Depression it was the job of the destitute states to fix it
because federal government intervention in the economy was socialism. Indeed it
sounded so much like Republican speeches from the 1930s that it instantly
brought to mind Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s speech when he accepted the
Democratic nomination for president in 1932.
“Out of every crisis, every tribulation, every disaster, mankind rises with
some share of greater knowledge, of higher decency, of purer purpose…. I pledge
you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people. Let us all here
assembled constitute ourselves prophets of a new order of competence and of
courage. This is more than a political campaign; it is a call to arms. Give me
your help, not to win votes alone, but to win in this crusade to restore
America to its own people.”
——
Notes:
New numbers and testimony:
http://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwlUEGOwyAMfE25bUQgadMDh73sNyIDTkM3gQhMs_n9Oq2wxtYgezTjgPCR8mG2VEjUgnkM3tzVdWj7QXjT-XbgIZRxyogrhMVQrii2apfggEKK54KSvdZiNu2kJNzB3u2k9VWrQfnhJlvU4CaQ01WcMiNUHzA6NPjCfKSIYjEz0VYu-vuifrj2fW_iQWHF0ri0MqOkktxkf0LHUAuDSzlFeIVcy9cSXvhVN8-OSjPTuohgzi3Z87upXqmmbewT7ROkPGp36eT6UE2pthC431NHZOMgPyEPin8fp903zW5H7muNgY4RI9gF_ScI-iT39kXHhibiXhYkwvwhOZ2Og-h6wUo-8c1oZgSaMbv0l4ObIfuS4j-14YZX
[http://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwlUEGOwyAMfE25bUQgadMDh73sNyIDTkM3gQhMs_n9Oq2wxtYgezTjgPCR8mG2VEjUgnkM3tzVdWj7QXjT-XbgIZRxyogrhMVQrii2apfggEKK54KSvdZiNu2kJNzB3u2k9VWrQfnhJlvU4CaQ01WcMiNUHzA6NPjCfKSIYjEz0VYu-vuifrj2fW_iQWHF0ri0MqOkktxkf0LHUAuDSzlFeIVcy9cSXvhVN8-OSjPTuohgzi3Z87upXqmmbewT7ROkPGp36eT6UE2pthC431NHZOMgPyEPin8fp903zW5H7muNgY4RI9gF_ScI-iT39kXHhibiXhYkwvwhOZ2Og-h6wUo-8c1oZgSaMbv0l4ObIfuS4j-14YZX]
http://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwlkEGOwyAMRU9TdlQEkjZdsJjNXCMi8JuQSSAC05ncfkgrLNn6Frb_s4YwxXToPWZiJSMN3umHvPVN1zOnW9f0tfB5eCZgM37VlArYXsbVW0M-hvODFJ1SbNbdEz0EnmhGK9C0t8fjrhTEvb8rp56GnWsGU5xHsNB4IR0xgK16JtrzRX1d5HcNMuuPD9MefaC8YYtXG7eqB_zmT-JTfBF30ZYNgbiNL--4g6E58z3FBZbgOEXug00wGWethBB8R-LOHHw8-FICeMN8vV8K0dV3l52U1-Y6LhgXI8RR2ksrtklecxkzGftzXsKStiYtJvWydqcTy1uuVIaatxI8HQOCGVe4DzD6EH77p2OHPq2sIEL6iJViq2TfdqxucrHODHo-_SDZ-Je8nU1yOYZ_0A2XHw
[http://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwlkEGOwyAMRU9TdlQEkjZdsJjNXCMi8JuQSSAC05ncfkgrLNn6Frb_s4YwxXToPWZiJSMN3umHvPVN1zOnW9f0tfB5eCZgM37VlArYXsbVW0M-hvODFJ1SbNbdEz0EnmhGK9C0t8fjrhTEvb8rp56GnWsGU5xHsNB4IR0xgK16JtrzRX1d5HcNMuuPD9MefaC8YYtXG7eqB_zmT-JTfBF30ZYNgbiNL--4g6E58z3FBZbgOEXug00wGWethBB8R-LOHHw8-FICeMN8vV8K0dV3l52U1-Y6LhgXI8RR2ksrtklecxkzGftzXsKStiYtJvWydqcTy1uuVIaatxI8HQOCGVe4DzD6EH77p2OHPq2sIEL6iJViq2TfdqxucrHODHo-_SDZ-Je8nU1yOYZ_0A2XHw]
About the warping of the death toll:
Boston:
FDR:
http://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJw1UEFyhCAQfM1y01JEowcOueQbFg4TZaNgwbDG32d0KwVVDN09DN1gCOcQT72HRCInjKOzepBdX7e9sFrZuufCpfE7Im7GrZpiRrHnaXVgyAV_NciqbRqx6A_VKlmroVF1rbqql107NIMZuq6W2CsjrjGjydahB9T4wngGj2LVC9GeHs3nQ37xPo6j3CMmZ1l3lhnSVKLNzNgAeUNPiWtjLWtSYQBwJ-fnghYs_vvImbXwYXP-_ubNWdwCRL5D8UZZAsG_LjVLYGFPcyhq4diSrKqW14dspSzrcnri9DRVdWb1UNU2yzLlKZGBnxLCJqIGE58m9pLZ-Urqhjmokc8te0fniN5MK9p3hvQO_Y6Ezh21xyOtSITxDXKwqpG9agVPsoHf9HpBw0YihN_oYDHRpuD_AHa3nkg
[http://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJw1UEFyhCAQfM1y01JEowcOueQbFg4TZaNgwbDG32d0KwVVDN09DN1gCOcQT72HRCInjKOzepBdX7e9sFrZuufCpfE7Im7GrZpiRrHnaXVgyAV_NciqbRqx6A_VKlmroVF1rbqql107NIMZuq6W2CsjrjGjydahB9T4wngGj2LVC9GeHs3nQ37xPo6j3CMmZ1l3lhnSVKLNzNgAeUNPiWtjLWtSYQBwJ-fnghYs_vvImbXwYXP-_ubNWdwCRL5D8UZZAsG_LjVLYGFPcyhq4diSrKqW14dspSzrcnri9DRVdWb1UNU2yzLlKZGBnxLCJqIGE58m9pLZ-Urqhjmokc8te0fniN5MK9p3hvQO_Y6Ezh21xyOtSITxDXKwqpG9agVPsoHf9HpBw0YihN_oYDHRpuD_AHa3nkg]