Riot Credit, Riot Blame

Some Democrats say "Burn it Down!"

Other Democrats say "It's not us. It's right wing agitators."

Either way, there is plenty of evidence for the Trump campaign to use.

Click: Masked White vandal being confronted

Donald Trump knows which way he wants to sell it. He tweeted:
 "It's ANTIFA and the radical left. Don't lay the blame on others!"

Some Democratic officeholders argue that the rioters aren't local and aren't  Democrats.  Minnesota governor Tim Walz said the riots were white supremacist domestic terrorists imported into Minnesota to discredit Black protest.

Biden-oriented centrists warn that the riots damage the cause of justice. They recognize the moral and political hazard of rioting, looting, and arson.

Videos like this one circulate in social media. The  masked white man is not a protester; he is a vandal, and maybe a political provocateur. Hidden by an umbrella and full face mask he is carrying a hammer to break windows. 

Click:"Don't talk to us about looters. YOU are the looters."

That position is not universal, and within the political left some insist that the violence is the only proper response to deeply imbedded racial injustice. They justify violence as "the language of the unheard." They may represent a small percentage of the Democratic left, but they are a visible and articulate group within it.  Within Facebook, they speak frankly and pass around meme, slogans, and videos. Burn it down, they say.

This Democratic segment is important because they presumably represent some number of Biden skeptics and who will vote Green and tip a close election to the Republican, as happened in 2000 and 2016. It is a powerful threat.

Democratic leaders squirm at scolding from this quarter. If angry Blacks, feminists, Latinix,  homosexuals are accusing you, you must be guilty of racism, misogyny, xenophobia, or homophobia, at least in the eyes of parts of your political coalition. They don't get condemned sharply, so they become part of the Democratic message.

Tamika Mallory, the former Chair of the Women's March said  "I don't give a damn if they burn down Target, because Target should be on the streets with us, calling for the justice that our people deserve. . . . America looted Black people. America looted the Native Americans when they first came here, so learning is what you do. We learned it from you."

     

That gives Trump campaign what he needs:  Look at those crazy socialists and those angry Black rioters and this furious black woman scolding and blaming white people, calling you racist, and justifying violence. I will protect you from them, and Biden will cave to them.

The problem for Biden is that voices like hers claim moral superiority. If you aren't rioting, you must be a collaborator with injustice. If Biden speaks of law, order, and peace, some people will call him racist. If he doesn't, it proves Trumps point. It boxes him in.

Thad Guyer is an attorney who represents whistleblowing employees. Four years ago he warned that Trump was getting support from voters worried about the failure to enforce immigration laws. He predicted Trump's election. Now he is warning that Democrats are handing Trump another law and order issue and failing to denounce extreme voices in their own camp.

Guest Post by Thad Guyer

"Democrats Claim Credit for Burning Cities"

Most terrorist attacks by organizations are promptly followed by the responsible group "claiming credit" in order to focus attention on the grievances that "justify" the mayhem.   The most successful terrorist attacks are those with staying power in the media amplifying the injustice in cause and effect. We are all too familiar with both the violence and this media dynamic.

Democrats are claiming credit for the race riots and cities ablaze. The broadcast and podcast platforms of the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, and especially NPR have been hosting dozens of social justice spokespersons, including rioters themselves, explaining to us the righteous causes of the rioters, arsonists and even looters.  The predominant theme is that the violence and burning streets are necessary to call attention to the police brutality and "systemic racism", and that only with this cataclysmic drama will black people's "voices, pain and anger be heard". Commentators, podcasters and columnists promote a synchronized message that the violence is not just in response to the murder of George Floyd, but a response to race based inequality in economics, health care and education.  Commentators have tied the violence to the well documented disparate Covid-19 death rates among blacks.  "A riot is the language of the unheard", Martin Luther King's powerful words are quoted again and again, out of context, with extended excerpts of the speech being replayed on television, radio and internet.  

Democrats make supportive statements that the riots, violence, arson and looting are understandable. This unabashed "ends justifies the means" logic is text book for terrorist groups worldwide. Bomb the Tel Aviv ice cream ship to bring relief to the suffering Palestinians. Crash planes into the towers and Pentagon to end the attacks on the women and children of Iraq and Afghanistan.  Burn the consulate and kill the ambassador in the name of justice for Libyans civilians killed by U.S. airstrikes. 

The Left fringe of our party, and our militia known as Antifa, have embraced similar violence for similar causes in the name of the oppressed. Our liberal media is our PR department, they are glued to us. Unfortunately for our ever dimming prospects of unseating Trump, an immutable core value of "democracy" is that domestic violence is illegal and illegitimate. A fundamental tenant of "civil disobedience" is that is must remain non-violent. MLK explained that while "riot is the language of the unheard", it must be rejected on principle and practicality. It does not work for mass social justice movements. It does not work for political causes. 

In claiming credit for the burning cities, and embracing the rioters, broadly mislabeled "protestors",  we will all but guarantee the reelection of Donald Trump.

Burn it down, part two.

All new ballgame.  

Democrats should take no comfort in the polls being announced this week. That's history.

The protest riots in cities across America change the focus from Trump's inadequate and self-serving response to the virus, to law and order.

The Trump campaign is ecstatic.

Americans can watch the news with an odd mix of items: The stunning video of the slow death of George Floyd; the virus numbers are climbing; Trump is tweeting and protesting that his tweets are being fact checked; new reports of polls showing Biden well ahead of Trump.  

Or now the big thing: protest riots across America.

Biden had been getting stronger among three key groups of people: seniors, suburban women, and non-college men. It makes sense. The virus targets seniors and Trump is openly signaling that we are reopening the economy for better or worse, and the "worse" means seniors die. Suburban women make sense because Biden projects peace and calm rather than upset, and Trump's style is to stay in the news with daily controversy and picked fights. Non-college men have always liked Biden, the union-oriented, "regular Joe" non Ivy League, non-elitist, family-oriented Catholic who "gets" them.

That meant that Biden was on track to win back the Upper Midwest, plus maybe Arizona and Florida, with all their seniors. That was then.

Urban protest riots giveTrump a new focus for positioning himself as the advocate for law and order, and that issue is of particular importance to the three groups that had moved to Biden.

Suburban women, with good reason, had viewed Trump as a disturber and fight-picker. Biden was "normalcy." A good husband. A peacemaker. Families choose to live in suburbs because they want safety and a little space from their neighbors. Suburbs represent diversity with a buffer, your own neighborhood, your own car. The protest riots remind suburban voters exactly what they did not like about cities and Democrats: they don't keep you safe enough. Now Trump's pugnaciousness flips polarity. Until the protest riots, Trump appeared to be the source of upset; now, amid them, he seems like the kind of person one needs during a riot. That is the Trump message: in times like these, it takes a rough sort of guy like Trump. 

Seniors, with good reason, had seen Trump as being willing to risk their lives. Now, amid news of arson and looting, seniors are reminded of the riots of their young adulthood. Riots killed people and destroyed cities. It set in motion two generations of urban blight, disfunction, and social pathologies. Seniors lived that history. Democrats, with their need to accommodate their black voters, seemed "soft" of black violence, then and again now. Republicans are full throated in defense of "law and order." It has a racial subtext but careful advocates of the GOP message focus on the the violence, not race. Seniors have a practiced mental map for this, Democrats excuse disorder; Republican don't.

Non-college voters, with good reason, had seen Trump as a big talker about the working man, who then favored policies that rewarded the wealthy. The "working person" of 2020 is less likely a man in a factory and more likely a woman working in food processing plant or health care facility, "essential" positions put at risk of catching the virus, or a worker in an office, restaurant, or hair salon, where they were laid off and have struggled to get unemployment claims processed. That discontent is now overshadowed by scenes of protest, arson, and looting. Traditionally this demographic has been least comfortable with diversity and most open to racial stereotyping. Trump is already on this, calling the protesters "thugs," which is the current dog whistle euphemism for violent  "other." Trump "gets" their fear of "thugs."

There is one silver lining possibility for Democrats. If one of the black female potential VP candidates can come forward immediately and condemn/plead with protesters to go home, to make the case that this is counterproductive, it injures the memory of George Floyd, and it is not who we are. Then, if in fact the protests stop promptly, then Biden could choose that person as VP.  He would have the racial peacemaker ticket.

But all the VP candidates have complicated pasts and there is no reason to think the protesters will listen to any politician. This fire needs to burn itself out.

Trump is smiling.

Burn it all down

Arson and looting in Minneapolis. Now do we have your attention?

It is counterproductive. It makes things worse. Yet maybe the riots have a positive purpose.

George Floyd lay prone, handcuffed behind his back.The police officer's knee and weight was on his neck. We could see and hear Floyd say he couldn't move and couldn't breathe. He begged for help. "Please. Please." 

The officer kept the weight on. Floyd died. 

The videotape of George Floyd's slow death at the hands of Minneapolis police are so shocking and apparently indefensible that the public response was instant and universal. Police spokespeople criticized the officers. Even Fox and Trump himself admitted the video looked bad.

It launched civil unrest and the news story changed to that. Now the video on cable news showed angry people burning buildings, breaking windows, throwing rocks, and looting. There were voices of disapproval from government and new commentators. Now Trump was tweeting warnings.

Impression Number One: How self defeating for the cause of justice for Blacks. How counterproductive. Instead of generating a step forward in race relations, the riots generate two steps back. The riots and looting send the message of black menace and criminality. No wonder citizens--and the police--treat blacks with suspicion and roughness. Look at them: violent thieves. What a terrible message.

Impression one is that the riots hurt the cause of justice.

Impression Number Two:  Maybe the riots do good. I realize this is unintuitive to many readers.

This was not the first instance of indefensible police behavior; it just happened to be videotaped. Four officers participated because it did not seem wildly wrong to them, even with witnesses taping them. If this incident had ended up being resolved with some private grieving by the family and friends, with some public apologies by a police chief and city politicians, with perhaps the firing, arrest, and--possibly--a manslaughter plea and a few years in prison in protective isolation for the police,  then it would be understood to be a situation of "bad cops did bad." 

It would be a manageable incident. Perhaps, in the months to come, there might be a memorial plaque at the site of the death, along with opportunities for white and black politicians to express apologies and to feel absolved, promising they would use this tragic incident to improve their systems. It would show George Floyd did not die in vain. 

And nothing much would change.

The net cost to Minneapolis would be approximately zero. A few people would get to present themselves as peacemakers and eager to do better next time, net-net a positive for them. A big civil settlement with the family would cost a fraction of one percent of the city budget. 

The riots change this into a big deal. Now the takeaway is that if Minnesota police screw up like this the cost to the city is in the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, maybe billions. It means whole neighborhoods become blighted for a decade, maybe a generation. It is a huge black eye on the city, county, state. It means police departments get overhauled, that many careers up and down the line are stunted, perhaps ended, pensions cut short. It means chaos inside the department, with internal investigations and records of citizen complaints against every officer getting reviewed all over again, this time without the presumption of innocence by the officer. It is a cluster-fuck, an unmitigated disaster. Avoid this at all costs in the future.

From the point of view of black citizens, that isn't a bug. It is a feature. The riots make this an incident worth avoiding, not just regretting. 

Impression Number Three: This is why a segment of Bernie Sanders supporters will vote Green.  It isn't that they support Trump, because they don't. Although some Sanders supporters assert that they see no difference whatever between Biden and Trump, most in fact consider Trump worse and different. Sanders himself certainly does. No matter.

Some will vote for a Green candidate anyway, even at the price of Trump's re-election, because they are so frustrated with what they consider the failure of the liberal-centrist Democratic Party to address the big problems of income distribution and justice that they want to get their attention by doing the voter equivalent of rioting. They don't want an apology and promises of reform. They want Biden-type Democrats to be frightened, angry, and to pay a price that gets their attention. If it takes the re-election of Trump to do it, so be it. 

Impression Number Four: I enjoy privilege. It is inconceivable to me that I would be treated the way George Floyd was treated. There is exactly one way he could have better communicated that he was no threat to the police than to be lying prone on the street, hands cuffed behind his back, saying he cannot move, cannot breathe, that he was dying, and begging, please, for help. He could have been white, or female. 

Black men are treated differently. I knew that. The phone camera video reminds me. It is easy to forget that. The riots will help Minneapolis remember, too.

Authentic talk

Joe Biden talks like a human being. He is just fine. 

Democrats should relax. Better yet, enjoy Biden's speech for the positive that it is. 

It is proof that he is still authentic: a "regular Joe." It inoculates him from looking like the consummate DC insider.

Trump is mocked by his opponents for his un-presidential extemporaneous speech. Democrats and the media chortle over the typo "confefe."  What a dope!

Trump's insulters have it wrong. It backfires. Everyone makes typos. No one likes being teased for them. Trump's natural speech is, in fact, an implicit counter-attack against elitism, correctness, condescension, and the dishonesty of politician-speak. It is a positive for Trump. Republican voters disagree about policy on race, immigration, taxes, trickle down, deficits, immigration, and mask-wearing. 

They don't disagree on disliking Democratic contempt from what they perceive as PC cultural elites. That is the common denominator safe harbor. Hate Hillary.

Biden's speech--even his supposed gaffes--are a positive for Biden. After all, Biden is undeniably a lifelong DC politician. Nothing would be more predictable for him than to speak with the accomplished fluency of 45 years, saying well practiced, well massaged phrases and sentences that glide smoothly through political minefields. (Hillary Clinton did that. People hated her for it. She seemed phony, like a politician, deep in the swamp.)

Biden is under attack by Trump and GOP allies for his manner of extemporaneous speech. It is a part of the campaign narrative of "Sleepy Joe," the guy too old and addled and demented to be president, as evidenced by his disjointed speech. The mainstream media assists that narrative by looking for "gaffes." (As I wrote this summer, after listening closely to Biden, Kamala Harris and Rhodes Scholar Cory Booker in back to back campaign events, Biden was the one with no slips of the tongue while Harris and Booker both made them. With Harris and Booker, no one in the mainstream media noticed or cared or wrote about them.)

Karl Rove wrote a piece of GOP on-message snark, commenting on Biden's conversation with "Charlamagne Tha God." Joe Biden, he said, "often speaks as if English were his second language."

Ha-ha.

He thought to prove his point to Wall Street Journal readers by quoting Biden at length. "I'd be very worried about those transcripts if I were the Biden campaign," Rove said.

Heads up to readers: transcripts often look oddly ungrammatical, and indeed downright weird. The printed word has expectations of full sentences with subordinate clauses, noun, verb, prepositional phrases, then a full stop period. Then next sentence.  

That is how written speeches that are read sound. Those speeches are boring to watch and hear. They seem formal and phony. They don't sound like natural speech.

Here is what Rove quoted, expecting Wall Street Journal readers to think it laughable.

Biden:

     "What would I say? Remember when I said Biden can’t win? The primaries? I kicked everybody’s ass. Excuse me. I won overwhelming. I told you when I got to South Carolina, I won every single county. I won a larger share of the black vote than anybody has, including Barack. I increased the vote in Virginia overwhelmingly by 70 percent. 

Look, what people don’t know about me is I come from a state has the eighth-largest black population in America—the eighth-largest. I get 96 percent of that vote for the last 40 years. They’re the folks, as they say out my way, brung me to the dance. That’s how I got elected every single time and everybody’s shocked. I get overwhelming support from the black leadership, young and old. Every poll shows me way ahead and it’s not just—I hear this, ‘Oh yeah, old blacks are with Biden, but young aren’t.’ 

Look at the polling data. Polling data, let’s say it’s off by half. Come on, man. Give me a little break here."



Take a moment. 

Possibly a reader of this blog reads that silently and thinks "disjointed" and therefore accepts the Karl Rove-Trump premise, but take a second moment. Pretend you are an actor reading lines aloud, perhaps in a casting audition, with the expressions one would expect if one were playing the role of Biden. Try it. It doesn't sound odd. You can hear the indignation, the passion, the vitality. It sounds natural. As you voice the words as Biden spoke them, he sounds just fine.

Joe, talking like that, is inoculation against the real threat to the branding of Joe Biden as the alternative to Trump. Biden is, in fact, an insider. He is undeniably part of the establishment. That is a positive for Biden, but also a negative, if he can be described as another Hillary Clinton. Trump want to run against Hillary and her presumed pals. Biden confounds that. Trump is president but he still comes across at the guy on the outside getting beat up by the Ivy League snobby, politically correct, mask-wearing, NASCAR-hating DC insiders and fake news elitists.

Joe Biden not look or sound like an elitist.  He sounds like the sort of person those people at, the inarticulate Joe Biden. That is the perfect place for Joe to be.

Gaffe on.

Question Authority

Joe Biden will unify some on the Democratic left, but not all. Some young progressives understand Biden to represent a status quo they simply don't respect. 

They hear the call to go along, and they just won't do it. 

We have seen this before.

Proud Union Army service

On Memorial Day I brought flowers to my great grandfather's gravesite. He had arranged to have the proud achievement of his life placed on his headstone. Not that he founded a farm. Not that he had ten children. He put his Civil War service as a volunteer in a Company of Connecticut Volunteers. 

He had been a Union soldier.

My own generation of young men had a different war. America had taken over from the French the task of propping up a remnant of "French Indo-China," a country we called South Vietnam. We were winning the bodycount competition but losing the war. President Nixon knew the war was hopeless. Walter Cronkite knew it and reported it. The political establishment knew it, but could not acknowledged it because neither political party wanted to look "soft" on communism. So we were fighting to keep face, a fight worth American lives, our lives. 

Chip O'Hare 1972

A great many American youth disagreed. College campuses were hotbeds of protest, both in political activism and in attitude. 

Today's Guest Post is by a college classmate, Chip O'Hare, who describes his own military service. The incidents and underlying attitudes will be familiar to my older readers. It will remind them of the challenge Joe Biden faces in trying to unify the political left. He is running into a generational cast of mind. Young people question authority. They aren't invested in the past. Not now. Not fifty years ago.

Guest Post by Chip O'Hare

I was a moderate while a student at Harvard.  I joined NROTC (non-scholarship) as a freshman since my father was a Naval veteran and I thought it was a good hedge against losing control of the process and being drafted. While at Harvard I was eventually convinced that the Vietnam War was immoral and poorly executed, but I still felt an obligation to country and I had no other options, having received #72 in the first draft lottery.  

I had advised my NROTC officers of my objection to the war, and had a dust up with an Admiral at the annual NROTC Navy Day dinner (long story) which resulted in my being advised to seek a large combatant where I could get lost, serve out my time (3 years) and move on with my life.  I received orders for the aircraft carrier Oriskany (CVA-34) out of Alameda, CA where I would be a communication officer and serve underway as a junior officer of the watch.  I was commissioned as an Ensign on the day before graduation in June of 1971.  Tony Farrell was a close pal and my only NROTC friend. [Regular readers will recall that Tony Farrell went on to become a nationally recognized expert on strategic branding, and had been given a miserable assignment: Trump Steaks.]

Over the summer, I was sent to Communication, Firefighting and Officer of the Deck Schools in San Diego from which I went to the Philippines on Air America in early September.  I’d learned from some Naval Academy guys in those schools that carrier duty was considered the worst duty for an officer’s career as only those with the lowest aptitude were assigned to a carrier.  It made sense for me as the Navy had me pretty well pegged.

I flew on a mail plane to the ship and experienced an “arrested landing” which was like dropping from the sky in a sack of potatoes.  I walked off the plane with a duffle bag over one shoulder and a golf bag over the other.  My reputation as a maverick began, as evidently carrying a golf bag was considered weird. The ship was huge and it took me a week to learn the layout.  In the beginning I had to look out the deck openings to figure out which way was forward or aft.  When I reported to the personnel office I was told that my billet as a communication officer was filled and that I would be assigned as the education and training officer, responsible for scheduling in-service training of enlisted men and officers, as well as teaching high school GED courses and coordinating a college education program while in Westpac.

I quickly learned that a moderate at Harvard was pretty far to the left in the service, especially given my attitude and position about the war.  While I wasn’t alone in these feelings, I was the only officer on board who felt strongly enough to do something about it. In looking back I was young and naive to think that my opinion mattered and that I could rock the boat, but rock the boat I did.

After about three months of listening to nightly bombing reports from our captain over the intercom (1MC), I began to research my options for seeking a transfer.  There were two, with the first being family hardship and the second being designated as a conscientious objector to war. I qualified for neither, since I had no hardship and I was not a CO in the universal definition, but in true “catch 22” fashion, I could apply for the transfer if I applied for CO status, even though I wouldn’t qualify.  This was explained to me when I mistakenly visited the legal Officer on board ship for his advice and he explained that I could apply for a transfer and CO status even though my objection was political and selective to the Vietnam War.  He said that the CO would be denied but I still might get a transfer.  I use the term mistakenly since the legal officer asked the ship’s secretary (the Captains administrative assistant) about how the command might respond to a junior officer who did this.  He was ordered to give them my name under threats to his career (there is no lawyer client privilege in military law) and after he apologized for blowing my cover, I told him to give me up. This sealed the deal and I proceeded to make application for a transfer and a CO, which I submitted on December 18, 1971 while returning from the western pacific to San Francisco.  It landed with the dullest of thuds and I was immediately a pariah among most of my fellow officers. News travelled fast.

Upon arrival in CA on December 22, I was called to the Captain's office for a meeting with Captain Haack and the ship’s Secretary.  The Captain was unhappy, reminded me of my oath to serve and dressed me up and down for several minutes.  When he was finished, he told me to go home (I’d been granted 7 days of leave) speak to my parents and advisors, and to return with my final decision to seek the transfer.  He told me that if I persisted I would receive a general discharge “for the good of the service”, which while not dishonorable, was not honorable either.  I correctly surmised that it would affect my grad school and career aspirations and was definitely not in my best interest.

While on leave I met with my parents and an uncle who happened to be a Catholic priest and draft counselor.  My parents were frantic.  My uncle advised that I should withdraw my applications as I had gone on record as being against the war and had taken a clear position. So why let the Navy punish my actions?  

I returned to my ship and withdrew my application for transfer and for CO status.  I met with the Captain, told him I would do my duty to the best of my ability and that I had no intention of leading any sort of anti-war movement (many ships had serious similar issues). The Captain seemed relieved, thanked me and I never spoke to him again.  I returned to my job as the education and training officer, taught high school GED and prepared a Program for College Education (PACE) program.  While still a pariah, I was a very small cog in the Navy’s wheel and I got on with my career.  We prepped the ship for a return to Westpac and I was resigned to spending my full three years as a junior officer on the Oriskany.  We were to set sail for Vietnam waters on June 10, 1972.

On June 9th I was summoned to the personnel office over the 1MC, rare for a junior officer. As I walked through the hatch the personnel officer ( a mustang officer named Flanagan whom I’d grown to like) threw a Manila envelope at me and it bounced on the floor.  “There you go, asshole,” he said. “What do you mean,” I replied.  “It’s an early out, the first one our ship has had in over a year, and it’s yours”.  I was stunned.  I was discharged from the ship in Hawaii five days later.

As it turned out, when the Vietnam War was winding down, each ship was asked to provide a list of their officers “in order of their expendability”.  I had gone from #87 on December 17 to #1 on December 18, the day I submitted my transfer/CO application.  I received an honorable discharge at the end of July 1972, having served as an officer for 14 months.

As I look back on this episode, I’m proud of the fact that at the age of 22, far from home and certainly not on familiar ground, it took courage to do this, something that has been asked of me rarely in subsequent chapters of my life.  I served my country and was fortunate to have done it on my own terms.  It wasn’t a pleasant experience, but my memories of it are vivid, and it was a major factor in my development.  When Harvard Business School asked me for an essay on an example of my character, this is what I wrote about.

On board ship, 

Jimmy Carter in a sweater

     "We must face the facts that the energy shortage is permanent. There is no way we can solve it quickly. But if we all cooperate, and make modest sacrifices, if we learn to live thriftily and remember the importance of helping our neighbors, then we can find ways to adjust, and to make our society more efficient and our own lives more enjoyable and productive."

       Jimmy Carter, February 2, 1977 

Americans hated the speech, and hated him for giving it. They didn't want to hear it. 

Like it or not, most Americans don’t want to be told to conserve. Or to cooperate, if it means adjusting to thrift.  

Americans want freedom most of all. Bigger, faster, better every year. 

I wear a mask in public. When I am at Home Depot or my local supermarket I wear the N95 mask because I am trying to protect myself and others. It is a sign of consideration. Love your neighbor.

Joe Biden was photographed on Memorial Day wearing a mask, while Donald Trump is photographed mask-less. Trump was at Arlington Cemetery. Biden was at a veterans cemetery in Delaware. They were doing political communication. Trump is communicating fearless, back to normal, and not putting up with weenie, politically correct, virtue signaling by Democrats. Biden is modeling good behavior. 

People brought up in the Christian tradition might think that Biden wins this matchup. Biden is doing the love-your-neighbor Golden Rule activity. He is less likely to spread the disease. It also reflects the moral value of obedience to legitimate authority, since government and medical experts urge the practice. Presumably it reflects smart politics, too, because if more people acted similarly there would be lower chance of a second wave and the economy could open up faster.

Win, win for Biden. Right?   

No.

"Love your neighbor" is a Christian aspiration, but the prevailing moral value in America is self reliance, ambition, and optimism. Biden is a downer. Trump is signaling optimism. 

I recall Jimmy Carter back in 1977, making the point that if we cooperated and took small actions on behalf of others, America would get through the crisis. It sealed it for lots of people. Carter was good, sure, but also weak. The public didn’t see him as conscientious. They saw him accepting less, just like driving 55. (It did not help that he gave the speech in a beige sweater and a green shirt. He looked like Mr. Rogers, a nice guy neighbor who would lend you a wrench, but not a Commander in Chief.)

This overall look and message prepared the stage for Ronald Reagan with a decisive message of optimism and American greatness.

Joe Biden also communicates he is willing to suffer an inconvenience. He needs to do this because, for better or worse, it is the Democratic message. Cooperate, or as Hillary Clinton put it, "Stronger together." Fortunately,  Biden is dressed like a Commander in Chief, in a crisp dark suit, and he stands erect. That helps, but it is not enough. 

Americans, briefly, explored the novelty of mask wearing, but on the margins they are showing with their behavior that they are sick of it. The stock market has been looking past the virus for two months now. Investors think this virus problem is over. 

People are getting out and about. The virus numbers may spike, but they don't care. A rivulet has turned into a flood. Americans are acting like Americans. 

This weekend in Missouri

The two most quoted passages from The Great Gatsby, a book assigned to most high school students as a classic in American literature are these. They aren't reflections of Christian values. These are describing Americans:

     "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy--they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money and their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."

and, the final words of the novel:

     "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther--and one fine morning. And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

Trump is communicating it is morning in America, almost, but just ahead, and America will be great again. It is the message people want to hear.

No Superhero to save us

It is We the People being tested.

Rick Milward

Guest Post writer Rick Millward woke up sick. He thought he caught the Virus after venturing out to the local Home Depot. It brought home to him the reality that you catch the virus from other people, his fellow Americans, a great many of whom think the virus is a hoax and all the mask wearing and social distancing is a waste. After all, nobody you know gets it, it's already somebody else. Until it isn't,

Rick Millward is a musician, who retired to southern Oregon after careers both in Silicon Valley and Nashville.

Guest Post by Rick Millward

The parking lot at Home Depot was packed. It was Tuesday morning, a time I had picked hoping for a lull in shoppers, but the store was as busy as it ever is. I put on my mask. An man employed at the door counted shoppers as they entered and left. There are plexiglass screens at the counters. 

About 25% of the patrons were wearing masks, employees were not; and people were decidedly not practicing distancing. My visit became a “stop and go” exercise as I dodged other customers. A couple of times I had to detour to avoid someone. I was in and out in 15 minutes, did my hand sanitizer routine and headed home. 

Saturday morning I woke up at 4 AM with a sharp pain in my chest. It hurt to breathe. I immediately panicked. I spent the day with the thought that I had made a huge mistake in going to the store.

It wasn’t. After a few hours the pain subsided. With the relief of knowing I was OK came the realization that for one and a half million Americans the fear was real, and for nearly a hundred thousand it meant the end of their lives. It could have been me. The disease isn't statistics. My reaction was fear and uncertainty over how to respond to that reality.

One assesses risk by evaluating the environment and the collective experience. Here in the Great Casino of Life we calculate the odds roll the dice every day.That data set combines with our instincts and intuition. With incomplete information we have to decide whom to trust. 

Too many of us are reacting as if they are in a Hollywood production, where the Superhero saves the World in the last reel, or the calvary comes over the hill in the nick of time. Now we see the problem. There is no Superhero. No Calvary. Our civilization is being tested for its ability to adapt to this crisis and the only institution that we have that can possibly help is not religion, not Hollywood, but the We the People. For better or worse it is our government that is supposed to unite us, and we are facing a 21st Century challenge with an administration that cowered as the epidemic spread to our shores, and did not act until it was unavoidable.

It isn't just Trump. It is We the People, or at least enough of us to control the levers of government. He is a symptom of Regressive politics whose main ideal is "every man for himself", which is catastrophic in a public health emergency of a communicable disease.   This administration preferred to do nothing--and led a Party of people willing to agree--and has only reacted as a political calculation with one consistent feature; avoiding responsibility that would make them accountable at the next election.

It gets worse. It's working politically. The virus response has become a political litmus test, like abortion or climate change, with Regressives on the "side" of downplaying the risk. This behavior fits neatly into the derisive "snowflake" name calling that has become the refuge for the self described patriots who have become the constituency of the Republican party. Those who flaunt social distancing and forgo masks consider themselves political protestors, a minority whose behavior may keep the rest of us in quarantine for the foreseeable future.

There’s some hope. Although the Regressive minority considers expendable the very people we realize are indeed, "essential," the rest of us can work to protect their lives with work rules and protective gear, plus assure them, now and in the future, a living wage. The “test, isolate, trace” strategy makes sense to me, and it gets some piecemeal support from both red and blue Americans. It's a start. 

Anyway, I'm going to hold off going to Home Depot again for the time being. The lawn may suffer, but it's a small price to pay for some relative peace of mind.

The masks come off

Click: No mask for me

Body Language.

Polls say Americans are still concerned about the virus. 

I don't believe the polls. People are restless and tired of the shutdown. 

They are going back to "normal" and taking their chances.

Fivethirtyeight.com reports that for six weeks Americans have shared the same view on the virus, with 70% concerned about it, 30% not very concerned.

I don't doubt it is what they tell pollsters, but it isn't how they behave. In stores that don't actively enforce distancing rules, most shoppers go mask-less now. That isn't just stores selling farm and ranch gear where maskless faces have always been the rule.  It is grocery stores with older, upscale customers. 

The streets are busy again. My wife got her hair done.

 

CLICK: .fivethirtyeight.com/

Americans have lost patience, and are behaving like they don't think they will get the virus, and if they do they won't get too sick. The freeway accident. We understand the syndrome.

This is an accident on the freeway. We are driving in snowy conditions. Still, we have to get to work or get home. The freeway is the only practical way to travel, so we drive on it. What else???

Snow causes temporary closure of freeway

Going along we notice freeway traffic slows for congestion at an accident scene, and as we creep by we see tire tracks that show a car spun out, rolled over, and hit a light pole, the car totaled, the passenger area crushed. Ugly. Two ambulances are on the scene. For the next mile or two traffic slows to safer speeds, but then one starts getting passed by 4-wheel-drive pickup trucks, then regular cars, then more cars, and soon everyone is driving back at freeway speeds, or nearly so, despite the snow. Even nervous drivers, still shaken by the accident, are forced to speed up somewhat stay with the flow of traffic.

That is what's happening.

Americans are getting conflicting messages. Some official reports say that it is "a dusting of light snow," i.e. that the virus is real, and just a worse version of typical wintry weather. You don't close the freeways for three months for that. Other reports are saying "Breaking News! Mayhem of the freeways."  

President Trump is saying a version of both, reading aloud statistics and reports and having third party experts saying the virus is dangerous, the worst ever. We know he doesn't mean it. It is "teleprompter Trump" the Trump personae who occasionally says--reading deadpan-- what his job requires him to say. The real Trump is when he talks extemporaneously in his natural language, and fights with reporters and refuses to wear a mask. His actual message is that the virus is just typical winter weather, the freeways should be open, drive carefully if you really want to, but drive.

What message do people actually get and put into practice? The message with their own eyes, that hardly anybody gets the virus and dies. 

Most people do not live in or near New York City. People understand New York to be a special case, a contrast to themselves. Most people see the virus as something that happens to other people far away, people with a special case of working in certain factories, or people with pre-existing problems they themselves do not have. After a short period of uncertainty, people have settled into considering it a statistical risk, like any time they get into a car. Sure, some people need to be especially careful and should protect themselves, but otherwise, open up the freeways, go with the flow of traffic, and get back to normal.

Democrats and mainstream media have been telling a story of mayhem on the freeways. It isn't what most Americans see, and even if they do see it, it isn't how Americans want to live. This could be good news for Trump, but not necessarily. 

Democrats don't need to say they were wrong. No need to look sad about success. They could declare victory. But the victory may be temporary. In my community, with masks off, the virus number suddenly spiked, from essentially no new cases for several weeks, to twelve. Democrats need to avoid being the killjoy party. Of course, Republicans need to avoid being the lots of people die party.