The White House Black Hole

 Early Saturday, former Gov. Chris Christie announced he had tested positive.  Christie had been part of Trump's debate prep.  Another US Senator tested positive, and the significance of this was that he was not at the SC nominee event but met with an infected colleague later.  

Then Saturday night word came (from Bloomberg News and NYT Maggie Haberman) that Nick Luna, Trump's White House "body man" tested positive.  This is significant because it is highly likely that he was infected by Trump.  Not every infected person infects others. 

 Luna is also married to a senior advisor to Jared Kushner.  Which brings up another point--the ripple effect on the families of infected Trump insiders.  Or even family members who were present at events, such as the children of the SC nominee, present at the White House last weekend.  Since the public has learned of many of the reported positives only after the information leaked, we really don't know if family members have been infected. 

Meanwhile, official information on Trump's condition remains vague.  Saturday morning included the strange spectre of Trump's doctor providing a sunny assessment, and the WH chief of staff immediately afterwards cautioning reporters that Trump's condition was worse than reported on Friday--a situation, if expected to occur at all, would be expected to be reversed, with the doctor being frank and the political staffer offering a more optimistic view.

Gabriel Sherman at Vanity Fair reported that sources told him Trump's condition was alarming on Friday, when his temperature spiked and his oxygen levels dropped.  Two sources said Trump had heart palpitations during the night.  Saturday Trump appeared well enough to make a short video from his hospital office but acknowledged that doctors warned his condition could change, over the next few days and even weeks.

The White House itself has been a black hole of information, even to White House staffers and in particular to the non political White House staff, the people who keep the place running, often for multiple administrations.

This May Be Just the Beginning

As the positives mounted up among high ranking Republicans, it looks as if most if not all of them were present at the introduction of the SC nominee last weekend.  Several who have symptoms started noticing them on Friday--almost a week later.  But the week that followed was full of activity among these Trump insiders (including Trump), involving many more insiders and also members of the public as well as big donors: the debate on Tuesday (where the Trump family in particular was present), Trump's private meeting and his public speech on Wednesday in Minnesota (when some observers felt he started showing signs of fatigue and congestion; notably, some saw fatigue even on Tuesday), and (after Trump and his aides knew of Hope Hicks illness) a fundraiser on Thursday.  So there were many more opportunities for people to be infected, that have not tested positive yet, but may test positive in days to come .

As for those who have been infected, the course of the illness also could be long.  Especially in older patients, it may take a week or ten days of moderate symptoms before a sudden turn for the worse.

Because each case is so individual in symptoms and time, the uncertainties multiply as the positives increase.  That the head of the RNC and the head of the Trump campaign tested positive as well as White House aides begin ripples of consequences and uncertainties.  And indeed, at least two Senators tested positive, and they have met with others since last weekend when they likely were infected.  

So for all the talk of people recovering in five days, and for those who have tested negative but who might have been exposed during the week, the story may be just beginning.

Who Was the Superspreader?

 This all started with the report that presidential confidant Hope Hicks had symptoms and tested positive for Covid 19.  The news that Donald and Melania Trump tested positive late Thursday obviously dominated attention.  But the one report I've seen on Hicks said that she is quite sick, with fever and--the telltale Covid sign--loss of smell.  She is also reportedly pissed off at the lax attitudes and practices at the White House, and especially pissed off that the impression has been given--by Trump himself--that she is the source of the Trumps' infection.  In terms of behavior, she is probably the least likely member of the inner circle.

Now that we have some sort of timeline, and a number of other positives, it seems that she probably wasn't the source, and not the superspreader, if there was one.  The common denominator known so far was Trump himself.  He was present at events attended by all the positives so far.  This doesn't mean he was the superspreader, but he can't yet be ruled out as such.

While other Trump family members and others in the inner circle tested negative today, the timeline suggests that infections may be present that haven't shown up yet.  For those exposed to Trump at Tuesday's debate, for example, an infection might not show up until Sunday, on average.  

Otherwise, on Friday evening, each report makes Trump's condition more symptomatic and more serious.  Since no one can trust official pronouncements from this White House, people who claim to know are given more credibility.  An unfortunate situation to say the least.

Presidential Covid Crisis: First Thoughts

 I'm writing this a few hours after the news broke that Donald and Melania Trump have both tested positive for Covid 19 but the White House doctor stated they are both feeling well so far.  They were tested because Hope Hicks, a close aide, tested positive after exhibiting symptoms.  Since it is around 5am in the eastern US, further news is yet to come.  So in this lacuna, I'm having these thoughts...

1.  If both Trumps tested positive, it seems likely that one of them infected the other.  Which means that one of them has likely been infectious for perhaps days.  Donald Trump in particular may have infected a number of people, including Joe Biden.  Shouting at somebody for an hour and a half even from six feet away theoretically could do it.  

What about vp Pence?  Will he be on the contact tracing list?  Negative tests right now don't mean anyone is out of danger--they may be vulnerable for 10 days to 2 weeks.  And what about members of Congress? Their contact has been limited, but they are politicians after all.  This could be a long list.

2.  Tired of waiting for the White House to come to an agreement, Nancy Pelosi and the House passed a $2.2 trillion covid crisis relief bill.  Now the contrast of the White House and the first family receiving highest quality medical monitoring and care at taxpayer expense while millions suffer from lack of health care, from unemployment including new rounds of layoffs, decreased benefits from the federal government and financially devastated states, becomes pretty stark.  Suddenly there might be an agreement.

3. This is the kind of moment that usually brings the country together.  But the ill will created by this White House, and particularly its lying and stonewalling which casts vital information now into doubt, may create a very different dynamic.  This happens on the same day as revelations that cast even Melania Trump is a very poor light.  

4. As for the campaign, when Richard Nixon injured himself in 1960 and couldn't campaign for several days, John Kennedy voluntarily took himself off the campaign trail for that time.  This is a much more complicated case.  For one thing, Joe Biden may well go into quarantine if his doctors feel he might have been exposed to the virus from Trump or others at the debate.  It seems very unlikely that the presidential debates, already in question, will go ahead.  But will Biden do his scheduled tv town hall?  What about the v.p. debates?

5. Longer term, there may be a sympathy vote for Trump in new polls, or if he remains without symptoms and apparently recovers, he may use this experience to bolster his contention that the virus is overrated.  First media reaction was to suggest that this will devastate an already losing campaign.  It might get more complicated.

All of this is preliminary to the drama that will play out for the next two weeks: the Symptoms Watch, the eyes on the helicopter that might be headed for Walter Reed.  And if Trump gets sick--and as everyone is repeating, he's at high risk for bad outcomes because of age and overweight--then people will start getting nervous about this White House consisting of extremist hacks and amateurs with no regard for the country and its institutions but only for partisan politics and ideology, being in charge of the presidency and any necessary changes.  

One More Month

 Immediate political evaluations of the first Trump v. Biden debate are overwhelmingly that Trump lost, if only because he didn’t win. He is behind by a lot. National polls still provide Biden a 7 to 10 point lead, and (according to USA Today’s averages) his lead increased over the past week, not only nationally but in all states in play except Texas and Georgia, and some polls suggest Biden is ahead in them as well. Notably Biden increased his lead substantially in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. So Trump needed a win to change the dynamics.

 David Siders begins his Politico piece on the debate with the entire story in a nutshell:

 The mayhem Donald Trump subjected Americans to on Tuesday might have helped him if Joe Biden had disintegrated. Biden didn’t.

Josh Marshall put it this way:

" I think it was somewhere between bad and disastrous for President Trump... I saw nothing tonight that seems at all likely to improve things for President Trump. Nothing. Biden did fine. Not great. But fine. I’d say he had a B performance with some B+ or even A- minus moments. But for him that’s fine. He’s ahead. He’s not running as best debater. He’s not running as most dynamic figure. He’s not competing for most unstable affect. He’s running as the guy who will end the nightmare."

There were moments that will be repeated but the overall impression for most was that Trump’s constant interruptions of both Biden and the moderator violated all the agreed upon rules as well as the rules of civil political debate for the US presidency, and blew up the debate and perhaps the presidential debate format. This earned universal condemnation, even from Fox News. (Their panel may have sung a different tune had not the abused moderator been their own Chris Wallace.)

 Another Wallace—Nicole at MSNBC—in fact very powerfully characterized Trump’s tactics as abuse, in its contemporary sense. She also suggested that Trump’s approach was not spontaneous, it was planned and in some sense rehearsed by the campaign. But why? she asked.

 Rachel Maddow voiced the answer that others suggested more obliquely. Speaking of Trump she said: “He’s not running against his opponent. He’s running against the election.”

 And what does that mean? 

 After my most recent news fast, I awoke to hear Lindsay Graham asserting that of course Republicans would honor the process of the election. If the Supreme Court says the winner is Biden, they will accept that, he said.

 And I said: the Supreme Court? What happened to the election, which is traditionally decided by totaling up the votes?

 That (and a column whose author I no longer recall that asserted that Trump no longer cares about winning, he’s setting up to stay in power by other means) alerted me to the fact that this insane strategy is not Homegrown Hitler’s alone but the national Republican party’s.

 There are various scenarios for a Trump retention, regardless of the votes. Except for Trump simply refusing to leave—not a winning strategy, unless the Secret Service and the rest of the federal government violate the Constitution—the scenarios for accomplishing this are complicated and require every court case, every decision by every state legislature involved, etc. to go the same Homegrown Hitler way.

 And that’s even before factoring in something that seems to get forgotten in these discussions: there is more than one election on election day, more than one office, and except for the presidency—which includes the intervening electoral college stuff-- they are decided directly by a plurality of votes. Notably every member of the House of Representatives is up for election, and a third of the Senate. Votes have to be counted for those offices as well, which complicates the politics of challenging results. Republicans as well as Democrats don’t take office until their votes are counted, which provides motivation for counting them.

 Moreover, the new Congress takes office on January 3, almost three weeks before the President’s term of office is officially done. The dynamics of forcing a presidential election to be thrown to the House may be greatly affected if, as is likely, there are more Democrats in Congress.

 So what about the Supreme Court? So far this year, challenges asserting fraud in mail-in votes have been notably unsuccessful in courts. The Supreme Court would have to reverse every lower court decision. The suggested strategy is to get votes thrown out—or the election entirely negated—in a few key states. Each case has to be decided on its own merits, and the Rs may have to win them all.

 There may be a test case in the Supreme Court before the election. Republicans are challenging a Pennsylvania decision to extend the time that mailed votes may be received in order to be counted. If the Court doesn’t take this case, or if it decides against the challenge, the whole house of cards could fall right then and there.

 But while understanding the nefarious intentions here, which amount to an attempted coup, and while being prepared to counter such activities, they are all unlikely at this point.

Even if the polls are wrong, not by the margin of error, but by 50%, Joe Biden would still win the presidency in a landslide. 

 The determination of early voters to get their votes counted suggest that more Democrats may vote in-person than had planned to. In any case, people voting against Trump are very determined, and will do whatever is necessary. They want the nightmare to be over. 

 As for election day, there are some interesting dynamics in Pennsylvania (which has started early voting), and the polls in Florida and North Carolina are close, so it still a big unknown whether the outcome of the presidential election will be known by election night, but it is more likely now that it will be pretty evident, at least to analysts and perhaps to everyone.

 Court cases in a few states may well not make enough of a difference. The margins may well be too great in others. The presidential election will not be close, and while the 49 state victory is a thing of the past, this could be an historic landslide by other measures. A Democratic majority in the Senate is also likely. 

 This may yet require some heroics, especially by voters who refuse to be intimidated, bamboozled or dismissed. There are ample opportunities for Republican officeholders—like certain US Senators facing votes to rush through a SC nomination—to wake up from their fatal trance and do the right thing. The stakes are basic and extreme— the future of the US and the future of the Earth.

Poetry Monday: Among School Children

I 

 I walk through the long schoolroom questioning; 

A kind old nun in a white hood replies;

 The children learn to cipher and to sing,

 To study reading-books and history, 

To cut and sew, to be neat in everything

 In the best modern way--the children's eyes

 In momentary wonder stare upon

 A sixty-year-old smiling public man.

 V 

What youthful mother, a shape upon her lap

 Honey of generation had betrayed,

 And that must sleep, shriek, struggle to escape

 As recollection or the drug decide, 

Would her son, did she but see that shape

 With sixty or more winters on its head,

 A compensation for the pang of his birth,

 Or the uncertainty of his setting forth?

 VII

 Both nuns and mothers worship images,

 But those the candles light are not as those

 That animate a mother's reveries,

 But keep a marble or a bronze repose.

 And yet they too break hearts--O Presences 

That passion, piety or affection knows,

 And that all heavenly glory symbolize--

 O self-born mocker of man's enterprise;

 VIII 

Labour is blossoming or dancing where

 The body is not bruised to pleasure soul,

 Nor beauty born out of its own despair,

 Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil,

 O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer, 

Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?

 O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,

 How can we know the dancer from the dance? 

 --William Butler Yeats Four stanzas from "Among School Children" (1927)

The photo above, taken recently, is of a building on S. Hamilton Ave. in Greensburg, PA that was the Sacred Heart School from 1922 to the early 1960s.  This was my first school as a first grader in 1952.  It was the first building outside my home and my grandmother's house where I'd ever spent an entire day.  I was there nearly every weekday of the school year through the fifth grade, until June 1957.  I remember details of this building as it was then, inside and out, very clearly. 

 Instead of the three windows seen in this photos, there were walls of tall windows from near the edges of the building to that arched central area on both sides of it. In height they reached from slightly above desk level to nearly the ceiling.  There were four long classrooms: two facing the street, two the back.  Another makeshift classroom was eventually assembled in the basement.  Until I started school, the basement had previously been Sacred Heart Church.  It is where I attended my first Mass, and made up little stories for myself, to explain what the Latin singing meant.  

In my time there was a kind old nun or two among the nuns our teachers.  Old to us anyway.  But there was also violence, the rule of the ruler across the outstretched hand and more, the body "bruised to pleasure soul."

Sacred Heart School was abandoned when the newly constituted St. Paul's parish finished building a modern new school just outside of Greensburg in the baby booming 60s.  That school in turn has been abandoned, as Catholic schools in the area contracted to one building complex on Main Street in Greensburg, at least part of which is quite old.  The old Sacred Heart building on Hamilton has had many tenants and uses since it ceased being a school.  For awhile the basement was a dance studio for young girls.