Why Aren't the Democrats Fighting Back?

 

Trump has repeatedly said there won’t be a peaceful transition of power if he loses. He’s also said he wants to stay in power 3 or more terms. All of these are clearly unconstitutional. They clearly indicate his desire to rule the country as a dictator. And if it were to pass, it would be tantamount to a coup d’etat.

 

Yet no Democrats are calling for impeachment hearings. None are calling for Trump’s immediate removal from office, or Congressional hearings into the coup plot. They’ve even dropped all attempts to delay the SCOTUS nomination until after the election, which essentially hands Trump the most powerful weapon he has for carrying out his coup: Appealing to the Supreme Court to give him the victory, as they did for George W Bush. The only difference is that the Court was already far more right wing before RBG died than it was in 2000. Add one more right-winger, 3 of whom would be Trump appointees, and the odds in his favor go up even more.

 

Pelosi and Schumer, the 2 top Dems, could barely muster feckless pleas for the Republicans to do the “right thing.” Fat chance, and they knew it. The only Dem to make any speech-length argument on Thursday was Bernie Sanders. But the only solution he could come up with was to beg everyone to vote, arguing that a Biden landslide would make it impossible for Trump to deny the vote. He even told us to drop our fight for “an agenda that works for all, and not just a few” until after Biden is elected, in a desperate appeal to win his base over to Biden, while not alienating Biden’s corporate backers.

 

Of course, nothing makes it impossible for Trump to deny the vote. He denies things daily that are far less controversial. And if he is willing to publicly conspire to violate the constitution, why should anyone believe that the scale of his loss would matter to him? He’ll just say it was rigged.

 

The Sanders argument (which is also being made in editorials and by other politicians), is essentially a concession in advance. Biden only needs to win by 1 electoral college vote for it to be a legitimate victory. Not 200, nor even 1000. The Sanders argument implicitly allows Trump to interpret anything less than a landslide as justification to stay in power if he loses.

 

Even Biden has dropped his earlier arguments that Trump was attempting to create a dictatorship, adopting the naïve and conciliatory stance that it’s all just bluster and there’s nothing to it. But if that was true, then why the rush to get a new right-wing supreme court justice seated before the elections?

 

Ultimately, the Democrats would much rather hold their noses and accept another 25-40 years of a right-wing court, and a potential Trump dictatorship, and along with it, all the violence and death he has threatened to unleash against his opponents and protesters, than face the prospect of a working class revolt that spins out of their control. Indeed, that is exactly what Trump’s threats of post-election state repression are intended to do: suppress any resistance by workers, students, immigrants, middle class liberals.

 

This is why Dems focused on Russiagate in their impeachment attempt, instead of the crimes Trump has publicly confessed to (no chance of workers rising up over this issue). This is why the Democratic Party and its billionaire supporters have all embraced the BLM movement, since it corrals mass public outrage into harmless demands for racial justice that pose no threat to capitalism or their wealth. Even better, its philosophical underpinning, Critical Race Theory, is entirely consistent with the identity politics they’ve adopted to replace their traditional base in the labor movement. We don’t need to pay people more or provide them with healthcare or affordable housing. We just need more woman and people of color in the boardrooms and in Congress.

 

Imagine what might happen if the thousands of people who’ve been protesting in the streets for racial justice were to suddenly start demanding the arrest of the CEOs and corporate boards of Amazon, Tyson, GM, Tesla, and Universities, for profiteering off the pandemic that is disproportionately killing Black, Latino and Indigenous people. Or the arrest of Trump for mass murder, for lying to the public about the dangers of Covid (as confirmed in the Woodward tapes), and his herd immunity policy, which has killed 208,600 Americans (again, disproportionately black and brown). Or if they were to change their chant from “Black Lives Matter” to “Workers’ Lives Matter.” What if, instead demanding the cops stop killing black people, they were to demand that the cops stop killing poor people (the overwhelming majority of victims of cop shooting are poor)? Or, instead of handing over trillions of dollars to Wall Street, they demanded trillions to the unemployed, underemployed, and those who don’t earn enough to support their families? “Not Dying for Wall Street!” And how about demanding that trillions more be spent to ramp up testing, contact tracing and PPE for truly essential workers, and free healthcare for all? Or trillions to convert our infrastructure from fossil fuels to renewables, and the creation of a green new deal with good paying, green union jobs for local communities? And what if they demanded that the money to pay for all this came from the trillions we currently spend on subsidies to corporations? And from higher corporate and capital gains taxes? How about increased taxes on stock market transactions and mineral extraction? And slashing the military budget and making peace with Russia, China, Iran, instead of constantly competing with them for hegemony?

 

While all these are completely reasonable demands, and most are desired by the majority of Americans, they would be interpreted by our leaders, Dems and Repubs, alike, as a threat to their wealth and power, particularly if they were being yelled in the street by mobs. Even more so, if those demands were accompanied by trash fires, vandalism and looting.

 

Our leaders know full well that, as the pandemic persists and likely worsens in the coming months; as more and more people become destitute because of lost jobs, evictions, foreclosures, and death and illness to family bread winners; as people become increasingly desperate to go outside and play, socialize, spend time with friends and family; as climate crises (like deadly fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, ice storms, floods, droughts and food shortages) become more common and more destructive; people will become more desperate, angry and willing to go out into the streets and protest. And their protests could very well become more aggressive and violent than what we’ve seen so far.

 

This is what both parties of Wall Street fear the most. And what a Trump dictatorship promises to quell, through state violence and the violence of his shock troop supporters.

 

But what if Biden is right and it is all just bluster?

 

Trump could still win legitimately. Or, perhaps Biden will win, despite offering his supporters nothing other than “I’m not Trump.” Either way, there are a lot of quite important things, (possibly the most important things), that simply won’t change. Here’s what we can expect in 2021:

·        a continuation of the herd immunity policy and hundreds of thousands more covid deaths

·        no serious investment in public health or plan to provide free or cheap healthcare for all

·        no effective plan to curtail the climate crisis and, consequently, an increasing number of people displaced and killed because of it

·        no significant change to policing, or reduction in the 1,000 people killed by cops each year, nor even a reduction in the disproportionate number of black people killed by the police

·        no reduction in the number of immigrants deported nor an effective path toward citizenship

·        continuing provocations with China and/or Russia, bringing us closer to nuclear war

·        continued bailouts for Wall Street and the country’s largest corporations; peanuts, or nothing, to the poorest and most destitute members of society

·        a wealth gap that continues to grow worse, increasing class tensions and threat of popular uprisings

·        If we are lucky, we’ll get a vaccine that has an 80% effectiveness, but that still can’t end the pandemic.  Here’s why:

o   51% of Americans have said they would either refuse it, no matter what, or they were scared and unlikely to take the vaccine,

o   Without a public health campaign to educate and encourage vaccine use (and there has been none to date), the best we can hope for would be 40-50% of the public gaining immunity, which is not enough for full herd immunity, as too many people would still be vulnerable and could catch and spread the virus

o   (80% effectiveness x 50% vaccination rate = 40% of the public gains immunity)

Race to the Bottom-36% Spike in New Covid Infections

On Saturday, 6/12/20, there were over 140,000 new Covid infections worldwide, the largest single day spike to date, and the U.S. is leading this ghoulish race to the bottom.

A leaked CDC Document shows that the U.S. had a 36.5% spike in new Covid-19 infections between June 6 and June 9, by far the worst spike of any country in the world. The next worst hit countries, India, Russia and Peru, all showed spikes of less than 5%, while Brazil, Spain, Italy and Germany showed declines. 

21 states have reported increased infections, and 9 are seeing increased rates of hospitalizations, including California, the hardest hit state in the country, where new infections have surpassed 2,500 nearly every day since Memorial Day. Yesterday (June 12, 2020), California had 3,627 new cases, according to worldometer. Over the past 2 weeks, there have been nearly 500 new cases in San Mateo County (61.6 new cases per 100,000), more than double the Governor’s benchmark for reopening (e.g., less than 25 per 100,000 over a 2-week period). In San Francisco, there have been 404 new cases over the past 2 weeks (46 per 100,000 residents), which is nearly double the Governor's benchmark. LA, which is the hardest hit county in the state, chalked up nearly 19,000 new cases over the past 2 weeks for a rate of 186.7 per 100,000, nearly 7.5 times the Governor's benchmark. San Diego County had nearly 1900 new cases over the past two weeks, for a rate of 57 per 100,000.

It is clear that the surges of new infections have been caused primarily by the reopening of businesses and the lifting of Shelter-In-Place (SIP) restrictions. Scientists also believe that Memorial Day outings contributed to the spikes and that the anti-police brutality protests likely did, as well.

Loud yelling (as occurred at the protests) is known to increase the spread of droplets and likely undermined the moderate protections afforded by masks. This fact is particularly relevant to schools, where speaking in a “teacher voice” would also increase airborne droplets, and where students, who sometimes get frustrated or angry, may yell at each other or staff.

According to Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, continuing to open things up will cause an additional 100,000 deaths by September (and that’s before flu season has even begun, when the compounding effects of the two diseases will likely cause the daily death toll to go out the roof).

Now is NOT the time to reopen schools. Keeping students and teachers home is one of the best documented ways to slow the pandemic AND save lives (for evidence of this, read here, and here, and here). Furthermore, if we care about racial justice and equity, then we must keep the schools closed. African Americans, Latinos and Pacific Islanders are the groups most affected by illness, complications and death from Covid-19. Reopening the schools to in-person learning will put these members of our community at particular risk. However, let’s not forget that one-third of all teachers are at elevated risk, regardless of ethnicity, due to age and underlying health conditions.

When to Be Skeptical of the Experts

As the “reopen” movement forges blindly ahead, we are seeing more and more health experts coming out of the woodwork to support the drive back to work and school. Contrary to their own recent arguments in support of social distancing and sheltering-in-place (SIP), many are now claiming it is safe, though nothing has changed to make it so. Their messaging is irrational, inconsistent and risks undermining people’s trust in science at a time when evidence-based decision making is most critical, and at a time when people have already lost trust in so many other social institutions.

I am not talking about the quacks and snake oil peddlers whom I discussed in my piece, Careful Which Health Experts You Follow. Here I’m talking about well-respected experts in the fields of epidemiology, infectious disease and pandemics, like Dr. Thomas Frieden, former head of the CDC, one of the most trusted scientific institutions in the U.S., and Dr. Scott Morrow, Health Officer for the County of San Mateo, California, (the epicenter of the region’s biotechnology industry).

Rule #1: Be Skeptical of Science in the Service of Capital

Dr. Morrow, who is a physician with degrees in Public Health and Business, is reopening San Mateo County with the express purpose of “increasing the immunity of the population” [and to] “minimize economic damage." This move is in complete disregard for the lack of scientific evidence to support the efficacy of a Herd Immunity policy and, worse, in complete disregard for the lives of all the higher-risk people who will die as a result. But it is clearly in service of capital, as his stated goal is to diminish the economic damage caused by the SIP.

Scientists do NOT know whether individuals who’ve been infected with Covid-19 gain a robust or lasting immunity, drawing into question whether herd immunity is even possible. According to the CDC, “it remains uncertain whether individuals with antibodies (neutralizing or total) are protected against reinfection with SARS-CoV-2, and if so, what concentration of antibodies is needed to confer protection.” If our immune response to Covid-19 is similar to seasonal coronaviruses, the prognosis is not good, since there is evidence of people being reinfected by seasonal coronaviruses in as little as 80 days.

Even if herd immunity was possible, it might not be achievable through deliberate social mixing. Most experts believe we would need 70-80% of a population to have been infected. Nowhere on the planet have we come close. Even in New York City, the hardest hit region to date, less than 20% of the population has been infected, suggesting that the city could suffer more severe outbreaks in the coming months. London is estimated to have a 17.5% infection rate and Madrid has a 11.3% rate. But we do know that encouraging direct social interactions (e.g., work and school) will cause a surge of infections and deaths, which is highly unethical and contrary to the concept of “do no harm.” In New York City, there have been 16,877 deaths to date from Covid-19, and this is with an outbreak so severe that the healthcare system was on the verge of collapse, with people dying because of a lack of ventilators and ICU beds.

Rule #2: Be Skeptical of Scientists Who are “Woke”

As the protests over police violence continue, numerous health experts have come forward saying things like social justice matters more than social distancing and that it’s okay to for large groups to gather, if they’re fighting for a good cause. For example, Dr. Thomas Frieden (former head of the CDC) said the threat to Covid control from protesting outside is tiny compared to the threat to Covid control created when governments act in ways that lose community trust. And Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins, said that in this moment the public health risks of not protesting to demand an end to systemic racism greatly exceed the harms of the virus.

However, if being in crowds was dangerous for gun-toting Republicans at the Michigan statehouse, how can it suddenly be safe for progressives to mass protest against police violence now? The risks of mass gatherings do not physically change based on the motivation of the participants. If anything, the anti-police brutality protests might be more dangerous than other mass gatherings, since the use of tear gas by the police could exacerbate the spread of droplets containing Covid-19, while also damaging people’s respiratory systems and making them more vulnerable to infection. Furthermore, while Frieden thinks the benefits of the protests outweigh the risks, the current CDC chief thinks the protests will spur new outbreaks and that all protesters should get tested.

The argument that social justice matters more than social distancing is not a binary choice, nor necessarily true. You can fight for social justice in dozens of ways that are consistent with social distancing. But if we don’t continue to socially distance, there will be a surge of new infections and deaths which, based on recent trends, will disproportionately affect poor people and people of color, thus worsening social injustice. Plus, social distancing provides immediate protection against a deadly disease, including immediate benefits for people of color, whereas social protesting does not necessarily result in any social change or improved health outcomes, let alone immediate ones. 

Contrary to Nuzzo’s claim, the health consequences of not protesting cannot be worse than the health consequences of the virus. If the health of people of color was compromised by racism before the pandemic, it continues to be so now, but with the additional risk of illness or death from Covid-19. Unless the protests somehow caused an immediate reduction in the illness and death caused by racism, which they can’t, we are likely to see an increase in mortality for poor people and people of color precisely because the large gatherings could increase the infection rate of Covid-19. Interestingly, Black Lives Matters, Seattle, has explicitly cautioned against attending mass protests for this reason.

Yet, even if we take a more long-term view and presume that the protests will result in significant changes in policing and race relations, how much will that improve the health and longevity of African Americans? Consider that the cops kill around 225 African Americans a year, but Covid has already killed around 25,000 African Americans in just three months (roughly 23% of Covid deaths in the U.S. are among African Americans). Thomas Frieden suggests that the protests will somehow help in Covid control (presumably by reducing the racism that causes a disproportionate number of African American Covid deaths), but it’s hard to see how. The high rate of black covid deaths are happening primarily in poor communities and may be due as much to poverty as systemic racism. The same is true of police murders, which occur overwhelmingly in poor communities. Indeed, roughly the same percentage of African Americans die at the hands of cops as live in the poorest communities in America.

It is understandable that doctors and scientists, like most of the rest of the country, are outraged by the daily police murders in this country; the persistence of institutional and overt racism; the government’s complete disregard for our health, safety and social wellbeing in the face of the pandemic; the mass economic suffering; the anxiety and fear about the future; and should want to express that outrage in the streets. However, they’ve known for some time that racism, poverty, and other social inequities have serious negative impacts on life expectancy, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, not just from the obvious reasons (e.g., less access to good healthcare, healthy diets, clean environments), but from the long-term destructive effects of cortisol, which is overproduced in people who are subjected to chronic stress. (For an excellent explanation of the biology of stress and the effects of cortisol, watch the PBS Documentary: Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick).

If this is what Frieden and Nuzzo are talking about, why weren’t they leading or calling for social protests for each of the 1,004 people fatally shot by the police in 2019, or the hundreds killed by police in 2020, prior to George Lloyd? Why haven’t they been leading or calling for protests for the 275 people a day who die from their work-related injuries? Or the 120,000 people who die each year from workplace stress? Or the 90,000-360,000 who die yearly from air pollution?

None or this is to say people shouldn't protest. There are plenty of excellent reasons to do it, including the hope it will inspire positive changes, but the scientists should be honest and let people know that doing so increases their risk of contracting coronavirus, and the risk of intensifying community spread. It is great that they are starting to identify racism as a cause of the disproportionately poorer health outcomes in African Americans, instead of the tired and scientifically unsubstantiated notion that it is genetics. But it's time for them to do the same with class.