Who's Afraid...?

 

"Fear" by Jean-Baptist Greuze

Fear, says a John Cale lyric, is a man’s best friend. In certain situations it must be, or it would not have survived evolution’s editing.  Fear protects us from present danger by igniting the instantaneous flight or fight response.  When it wells up more slowly, it responds to unconscious perceptions related to hidden danger, or the near prospect of it: darkness and thrashing sounds, for example.

Fear can give us an adrenalin buzz, which seems to be why some people enjoy scary movies. But more generally, over time, fear is a distinctly unpleasant feeling.  It can be paralyzing, all-encompassing, stressful and painful.  We avoid fear whenever possible. One way of avoiding fear is by denying that there’s something to be afraid of.

 Denial in this sense, like fear, can also be a survival tool.  The most fearful thing in our lives is our death, and yet the possibility of death exists every moment we are alive.  We can most easily escape the paralysis or obsession of fear by ignoring this.  And we do, or we couldn’t function.  In this sense, it is healthy.  Carl Jung told an interviewer that among the old people who were his patients, the healthier ones simply didn’t think much about their impending deaths, and just got on with it.

 But when fear is a response to a threat distant in time and place, but still very real, it becomes more complicated and perhaps perverted.  The fear of a distant enemy can become disproportionate, and abstracted into prejudice against all outsiders, all others. 

Nagasaki 1945

 With the dropping of two atomic bombs in 1945, each which wiped out a city and left lingering effects that slowly killed many more than died from the initial blast and fire, something awful entered civilized life. World War II itself saw the final erosion of the distinction between combatants and civilians in war, and massive airpower threatened sudden death to anyone, anywhere. 

 With thousands of guided missiles armed with thermonuclear warheads by the early 1960s, the world had firmly entered an age of permanent anxiety. Most everyone in the world, and civilization itself, could be destroyed in an hour, any hour of any day.  Life could be normal, and the next second plunged into the horrors imagined as hell.

 Such is the prehistory of the politics of our moment. Though for too many the horrors of war still exist, the interplay of fear and denial in individuals and groups now goes beyond just that situation. It applies as well to other cases of huge threats, including potential threats, which people are or believe themselves to be powerless to stop or prevent.

 What are the responses to danger and the fear it evokes?  To run away from it, if that is possible.  To fight it—that is, to address its effects, learn its causes and devise ways to end or neutralize them.  Or if the threat is not immediately visible or loudly audible, simply to deny there is anything to be afraid of.

 We all feel this impulse.  But today this denial has become a bonding mechanism in our politics.  Afraid of the effects of the climate crisis?  Deny that the climate crisis exists.  Afraid of the effects of Covid-19 and epidemics in general?  Deny that they exist, or are anything to be afraid of.  Facts to the contrary are just lies.

 Deny with another product of fear: anger.  Anger is one way humans channel the adrenalin of fear.  There are arguably other sources or kinds of anger.  But most can be traced back ultimately to fear.  And in many cases, there’s little distance between fear and anger.

 Anger is energizing.  It probably evolved to quickly hype the body’s forces to fight an imminent danger. These days, anger is a major means of political bonding.  As it grows in power, anger leads to a more general and undifferentiated hostility to everyone who doesn’t share it.  It occurs on both the so-called left and right. But it is especially important to those whose binding creed includes denial of the climate crisis, and of Covid.

 We do seem to be witnessing another case of what Eric Hoffer described in his 1951 book The True Believer as a mass movement: a cult grown large. He suggests that people who are disappointed in their lives, and may have real grievances and are the victims of real and widespread injustices, deal with their perceived powerlessness by banding together behind an authoritarian leader who purports to identify their enemies and promises to smite them, and to restore the world they expect and want.  You know, make America great again.

 While radio was the technological innovation that powered authoritarian leaders of the 1930s, social media and the Internet power group bonding behind a leader or symbol.  In order to be accepted by the group and to identify with it, there are articles of faith that must be repeated and even made more extreme.  Real grievances tend to get exaggerated or even falsified. Most importantly, the group also defines itself by the people they aren't--those who are defined as outside it, as part of the group that’s the real problem.  Individuals don’t matter—only group allegiances. Other considerations don't matter--only the attitudes that bind the group. Again, much of this is not restricted to so-called right wing groups.  But it is with these groups that denial as integral is most prominent.  (Similarly, they do use fear as a binding mechanism--often projecting threatening qualities onto the groups they define as enemies. Although not all their fears are without foundation, they tend to be twisted products of their continuously nurtured and never examined collective unconscious.)

Denying the climate crisis, denying the realities of Covid, with anger and hostility, are articles of their faith.  Now there’s a comparatively new wrinkle. The effects of anxiety over nuclear Armageddon, and the unconscious effects of our general daily denial of that danger, dominated the history of post-World War II generations. Now as the culture has largely forgotten the existence of nuclear weapons at the ready, or downgraded their power, elements of the political right are busily denying that Russia constitutes any threat at all.  As if they didn’t still have enough missiles pointed at the US with nuclear and thermonuclear bombs to devastate their lives in a moment. 

 In order for the political right to deny that there’s anything to be afraid of, the authority of those who say there is must be questioned and ultimately denied.  In the case of climate and the case of Covid, the authorities are scientists, their institutions, and the political institutions that support and listen to them. These political and cultural institutions are conveniently the same ones that are seen as enemies in general, and not without reason.  America’s educated elites that benefited from today’s economy have largely ignored the devastation suffered by others as a byproduct of that economy. 

 These institutions and elites make things worse by exploiting this anger and simultaneously by giving in to it.  For a crisis that might end the future of civilization and most forms of life currently on the planet, their response to climate distortion continues to be timid and—because of the economic powers and interests involved—dishonest.  In Covid, even the CDC is now supporting the fiction that this is just another respiratory disease on a par with flu, while evidence mounts of its major effects on the heart and on the brain in a significant number of patients. Denying Covid also denies future pandemics and epidemics, and weakens the institutions that could (or could have) addressed them.  Denial can kill, now and later.

 For some, denial and our temptations to denial are handy tools to ensure profits and not rock the boat that’s working for them.  For all of us, denial is convenient.  Nobody wants to think about this stuff. Some denial may also be necessary for our mental health.  But denial also raises anxiety because we all know what happens, sooner or later, when we act as if danger isn’t out there.  The irony is that our lives would be infused with so much more meaning if we just addressed ourselves as a whole society to the dangers we are right to fear.  

Politics 2021

 I don't write much about politics here anymore.  Why warn of what everyone knows is happening?  Just because the Rabid Right misuses Nazi analogies, doesn't mean they don't apply.  We are Germany in the early 1930s.  Our march to 21st century virtual reality fascism seems inexorable, if not inevitable.  

How many times did political pundits declared the Republican party discredited, disreputable and dead as they crossed one normative line after another?  But Republicans either quit or got with the fascist program, or else were punished and purged.  Now they are all but officially the American White Supremacist Fascist Party, even if many of their officeholders have zero integrity or commitment to democracy or even an ideology, and are only interested in retaining personal political power at any cost and the open taps of certain corporate supporters.

But the clincher is Covid.  Republican officeholders are creating conditions for more people to get sick and die so they can blame it on Biden.  They are sacrificing actual real lives (though mostly old people) for political gain.  Usually politicians don't do this so blatantly.  But is the American public alarmed and outraged?  Nearly 800,000 deaths officially--half a million people over 65-- and certainly many more than are officially counted, apparently aren't enough to matter.  How many lives will it take till we know that too many people have died?  The answer my friend is blowing in the wind.

Whatever the historical analogies of our current rigid political and cultural divisions, the mutual disdain and distrust in any government (or science or anything else) by what seems like a substantial proportion of the population--this polititcization of everything--offers gloomy prospects for effective response to future national challenges, including the foreseeable effects of climate distortion.  And that's regardless of any electoral outcomes.   

The electorate in 2021 seems composed of one-quarter Rabid Right fascists and one-quarter surly and impulsive voters, unable or unwilling to absorb or judge crucial information, whose voting patterns is little more than acting out.  Because of them (and Democrats who didn't vote), Republicans successfully market-tested their fascism in this year's elections.  Who would have believed that fulminating members of a party that says what everybody saw happen on January 6 didn't happen, would actually win the next elections. (We will see if these elections were won on national issues or local issues plus the respective candidates.  Less publicized were some recent local elections that Democrats unexpectedly swept.)

The other half of the electorate broadly agree with one another, but obsess on what fractures them from the others.   They can be coalesced around a candidate like Obama, or to oppose a Trump.  But in 2021 no Obama is apparent. 

 President Joe Biden is fearless and a smart political operator--he knew enough to ask for more than he expected to get, and he still may wind up with several multi-trillion dollar changes for the better.  But the default position of the American media and public is to listen to very little of what a President says.  Even a politician with the skills of an FDR would find it difficult to get through.  Homegrown Hitler did, but being the Troll-in-Chief only gets you attention and a cult of personality --it can't get bring a country together around a vision or a program.  Demagogues have the advantage of evoking the violent dark side; it's harder to guide the light.  

Making a speech while standing in front of a broken bridge or a sparkling solar panel doesn't get you more than a sound bite that comes and goes.  Not since JFK and LBJ has there been a Democrat who could command attention over the noise, at least enough.  Whatever it takes to "communicate" these days, Democrats haven't yet figured it out.  In 2021, it's hard to see where that skill or voice will come from.  It's also not clear who will replace Biden and Nancy Pelosi--the Last American Hero--in effective legislating.

President Biden is less than one-fourth into his term. Things can change (though I wouldn't count on the egregious abortion/choice issue, to do it.)  Whether or not voting rights legislation is possible or can come soon enough to govern the rules for 2022 or 2024 is one of the big questions for the coming year.

But Biden will still be President for both those elections.  In the coming year--and certainly by 24--the White House should be seriously gaming out federal responses to various alarming possibilities, just as if they were the Pentagon preparing for various war scenarios.  For it seems that if the Republicans haven't gerrymandered themselves into power, they will try to negate elections and elect themselves at the state level.  And if that doesn't work, armed insurrection is next on the menu. 

 Before January 6, 2021, that might have seemed like paranoia.  Not now. So what will the federal response be to an insurrection taking over the government of Georgia?  Of Michigan?  Of reversing the outcome of federal elections?  Some folks need to be thinking about this now, and getting reliable resources ready. For the United States has enemies, foreign and domestic--and the most obvious right now are the domestic.

Public Health Needs Help

Governor Newsom triumphed in the California recall.  He counseled other governors to face the Covid crisis head-on.  Good idea.  Humboldt County, as it happens, is in California.  A lot of politicians seem to forget that.  And this county needs help.

There were four Covid deaths announced today.  There was one yesterday.  There were three on Monday.  This county does not have a lot of people, so these are high numbers. Infections and hospitalizations are still high.

Meanwhile, our county Public Health office has cut back on some of its activities, including contact tracing.  Their announced reason is staff cutbacks because of cuts in state funding.  That doesn't sound like facing the crisis.  

This is after billions were allocated by the federal government.   This state had an immense budget surplus. Why is Public Health being starved?  Our local governments seem hard pressed to invent ways to spend this money, but they seem to be spending it on everything but public health.

The state needs to address this. Public Health funding was already shockingly low.  Public Health should be a major budget priority. 

We need the most precise information possible.  That information will be important for future public health crises.  Not paying to have it gathered is foolhardy, not only for today.  

In the midst of this Delta surge, the longest and most lethal of the pandemic, we are still not getting timely and relevant information from Public Health or anyone else on where and how people are getting infected.  There have been media stories on aspects of the pandemic.  But nobody seems to be on this one.

With this persistent danger, we need more information.  The Public Health director recently stated to somebody that the reason he is not more specific on where and how people are being infected is because the virus is everywhere.  That's not very helpful in making decisions. How dangerous is it, in a given locality, to shop for groceries, to wait for take-out in a restaurant?  What about the schools?  The public events? There has to be better information on relative risk and safety, apart from the generic advice on masks and social distancing and of course, vaccination.

We need it to make informed decisions.  All we get is a useless dashboard.

If the Humboldt Public Health officer doesn't have more press conferences, and continues to avoid providing information, he should resign.  Even if our media is too timid to demand them.

As a recent national article observed, headlines have claimed for months that our healthcare system is on the verge of collapse--but that's not really where we are.  It has collapsed.  People are dying in droves from Covid, and they are dying from other health problems because Covid is soaking up the medical attention and resources.

In Humboldt this is a crisis on top of a crisis, for we are dangerously short of doctors and medical capabilities.  People are being sent hundreds of miles at their peril for procedures that should be done here.  Even routine medicine--including dental and all kinds of simple medical specialties, like dermatology--are in woefully short supply or non- existent.  The only effort to address this I've seen mentioned lately is a former public servant, now a paid advocate for Humboldt State University, who wants to get more medical care for the students that HSU plans to import in quantity.

The most remarkable aspect of this Delta phase has been how everybody acts like everything is normal, and the way to deal with it is to ignore it. It seems to take no time at all for two deaths a day to go from shocking to normal.  Now it will be four deaths a day.

  Meanwhile, more Americans have died in this pandemic than in the post-World War I flu pandemic, the worst in our history, though history mostly has ignored it.  This time, we're not waiting for history to ignore it.  The silence of the lambs.

Adjustments (And a Thank You)

 Margaret and I just got our second Covid vaccine shot (Pfzer.)  Our thanks go out to Humboldt County Public Health and to the volunteers who organized and administered the jabs.  Compared to what we're hearing from other parts of the country, it was a painless process, even if it seemed slow at times.  All we did was fill out one form--an "interest" form, as in interested in getting the vaccine--with just basic information, especially age.  The county methodically followed the state guidance, so there was a 75 and over beginning, followed by a 70 and over, etc.  Medicare cleared the need for insurance information.  After we completed the form online, we simply waited.  As soon as enough vaccine was available, we got emails inviting us to a clinic on a specific day.  We then made an appointment on that day.  That was it. We got another invitation for our second shot, which we got three weeks and one day after the first.  No running after rumors of who had the vaccine, constantly refreshing sites for an appointment, etc.  So we are very grateful for the County's efforts.  Public Health here has been great throughout this Covid crisis. 

Now we have a couple of weeks to adjust to the end of what has effectively been a year-long quarantine.  The mental adjustment for me will begin with activity.  My car doesn't start, my phone is obsolete, I've needed a new prescription for glasses this entire year, and a haircut would be nice.  Those items are where the list begins.

I also find myself adjusting slowly to the fact that we have an actual President of the United States.  I've felt resistance to fully accepting it, having been thoroughly traumatized by the past four years.  Washington politics is as fucked up as ever, etc. but Joe Biden is more than I could have expected.  He's putting together a potentially effective government in new ways--new especially since the 1930s.  His first address to the nation on Covid was just about perfect.  The covid Rescue law is a wonder.  So if any reader has noted an absence of commentary here that might suggest a lack of enthusiasm, that's not the case.  I've just having a hard time trusting this is really happening, and may not be reversed in a minute from now.

At the moment our weather is reflecting this transitional feeling.  The winter rains have not quite ended, but the flowers are blooming.

Super-Spreader Bowl Sunday

You don't have to be a Kansas City fan to view today's Super Bowl outcome as the worst possible one: the Tampa Bay Bucs became the first team in NFL history to win the Super Bowl in their home stadium.  Consider that the photo above was taken of the partying in the street in Tampa Bay BEFORE the Super Bowl.  Now imagine what it's like tonight.

The Tampa Bay Super Spreader events follow a day in which people all over the country gathered in small spaces, eating, drinking and shouting at the top of their lungs.  Meanwhile, the news featured a new study that claims that the UK variant is already widespread in the US.  While the national numbers of infections and deaths have been going down, the combination of the new variant and yet another heedless holiday endangers all of us with new outbreaks in a couple of weeks.

Here in Humboldt the numbers have not gone down appreciably, and on Friday there were 11 new hospitalizations, representing every age group from the 20s through the 70s.  I can't recall a day of more than 2 new hospitalizations.  This week may tell us if this was just a freakish day, or something worse.

While I understand the psychological pressure everyone is under, and the greater urges for group activities in younger age groups, I can't help viewing these people as my jailers, at best, and threats to my life and the lives of my family.  It's not a super feeling. 

Be The Light

“For there is always light,

 if only we’re brave enough to see it

 If only we’re brave enough to be it.”

-- Amanda Gorman January 20, 2021 

Today:

 The eldest elected President took office. 

The first woman, black woman,woman of south Asian heritage elected Vice-President in American history took office.

The youngest poet in history to read at an Inauguration stole the show.

 The first black U.S. Senator in Georgia history took office.

 The first Jewish U.S. Senator from Georgia took office. 

The first Latino U.S. Senator in California history took office. Together they produced a Democratic majority in the Senate, and Chuck Schumer became the first Majority Leader from New York. 

 The U.S. rejoined the Paris Accords, the global effort to address the global climate crisis.

 The U.S. rejoined the WHO in a global effort to address the global covid crisis.

 Laws to prevent evictions and to delay student loan payments during the covid crisis were extended.

 The Keystone pipeline permits were withdrawn, among other reversals of anti-environment policies and regulations, including a moratorium on fossil fuel leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

 Masks and social distancing on federal property, by federal employees, and on airplanes and other interstate travel are now mandated by federal law.

 DACA was bolstered. 

The “Muslim ban” on travel is ended.

 Construction on The Wall is halted.

 Diversity training is back, anti-discrimination policies in the federal government are strengthened, and the notorious 1776 Commission is disbanded.

 All of the Trump cabinet resigned, and several of the worst sub-cabinet officials were fired, including the guy who turned the Voice of America into a Trump shill factory.  Competent and experienced career public servants were appointed to run the various departments until cabinet officers are confirmed.

 So how was your day?

 

It was a day that may have changed everything, and its events will be discussed for a long time. It was also a day that represented a kind of restoration. There was no violence in Washington, and little trouble around the country. Normality seemed radical, and the old cliches suddenly had real meaning.

It was a day of tears, of laughter, of renewed belief, and disbelief that the last four year actually happened, or that they are over.  People spoke of the effect of this day as lifting a thousand pound weight off their hearts, of allowing them to breathe freely for the first time in four years. It was a day to exhale, and maybe to inhale a new spirit, that is also a traditional and aspirational spirit.  Now it's up to the rest of us.

 Of all the details I heard or read today, the one that most struck me was about a certain change to the Oval Office. There are more portraits, photos and so on of particular American political figures and heroes, but the most prominent is a large portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt. It is on the wall directly opposite the Resolute desk, so that every time President Biden sits there, he will be looking into the eyes of FDR.

 Just one comment on events of the day: the networks that didn’t carry the Virtual Parade Across America in the afternoon (instead opting for the chatter of their talking heads) really missed something. It wasn’t as glossy as the evening program but it was more fun, especially the final “Dance Across America.”

Impeached, Bothered and Bewildered

On Wednesday, exactly a week after the attack on the Capitol and a week before the Inauguration of a new President, the current stain upon the White House named Trump was impeached by a furious U.S. House of Representatives for inciting an insurrection. He is the first President in history to be impeached twice, and as someone also observed, of the grand total of presidential impeachments, he has half.

 The Washington Post finds him “increasingly isolated, sullen and vengeful.” He reportedly made the most Trumpian of all threats against his lawyer Guliani by instructing aides not to pay him.

Only ten Republicans joined all Democrats in voting to impeach.  Still, it was the highest number in history to vote for the impeachment of a President of their own party.  

 Mitch McConnell, also playing his own characteristic political games in probably his last substantive act as Majority Leader, refused to convene the Senate to begin the trial before Trump runs out his term. If the trial is to begin immediately upon the Democrats taking the majority, it will be scheduled for part of the working days, while the Senate gets on with the crucial task of confirming the new Cabinet.

 But with National Guard troops everywhere in the Capitol complex, the House is not done with the immediate response to last week’s attempted coup, including investigating the actions of one or more Republican members the day before, in escorting people around the complex who were among those breaking in and terrorizing Members and congressional staff, on what one military veteran and Democratic Member described as “reconaissance.”

 Preparations to thwart threatened violence this weekend and next week are accelerating. National Guard presence in Washington has already been expanded to 20,000 and may be augmented again to 30,000 troops.  That means, according to a House Member, there are more American troops at the Capitol than in Afghanistan.

  Since it’s just a week until the Inauguration, the Secret Service has now formally taken over leadership. The most concern voiced on Wednesday was for the possibility of bombs and improvised explosive devices.

 Federal alerts have been sent to state capitals as well. But especially since certain Republicans, from Ted Cruz to the crazy QAnon lady in the House, continue to fan the flames, experts don’t think the violence will necessarily end after Inauguration Week. Said one counter-terrorism expert: “People are still looking at this with eyes wide shut. I mean, it is truly stunning. Misinformation and disinformation constitutes nothing less than a major public health crisis. I think this is really the consequence of where we are now after the last four years.”

 Do you have to be as old as me to see this in the light of history? The United States fought the Great War and suffered the flu pandemic. After the tumult of the 1920s there was the Great Depression that shook this nation to its foundations. That was immediately followed by the largest and most destructive global war in history. There were assassinations, turmoil and violence in the 1960s and 1970s over race and Vietnam. But in none of those decades was it necessary for there to be troops guarding inside the U.S. Capitol against a violent invasion. It hasn’t happened since the Civil War. 

 History will perhaps see more clearly how the Covid pandemic is part of this national threat to the government itself.  For more Americans have died (according to official statistics) in this covid crisis than died in combat in World War II. Covid deaths will likely equal the total number of American deaths in that war by this weekend.  And that carnage took some four years to accomplish.  We've seen it in less than one.

 And if you're looking for more Civil War parallels, getting to the number of deaths in that war--which equals or surpasses American deaths in all other wars combined-- is not really out of the question.  (That number is approximately 620,000, though recent scholarship suggests it was more like 750,000.) 

With legal and financial troubles closing in on Trump, his attention is likely to turn to pardons, especially of himself.  Though the constitutionality of a self-pardon is doubtful, he may well see it as what does he have to lose.   A CNN report suggests a batch of pardons could come today, to blow impeachment off the news.  But since Jared and Ivanka--among others-- haven't had a word to say in his defense recently, he may not be in the mood to pardon anyone, except his own impeached, bothered and bewildered self. 

Epiphany in Washington: What's Next?

A week that includes the almost certain Impeachment of a President is not normally described as quiet. But it may turn out to be, in contrast to the coming weekend and next week, including Inauguration Day in Washington.

 The House of Representatives has the votes to impeach Trump on the article charging him with inciting an insurrection on the Capitol. It is likely to be voted on exactly a week after the attempted coup, on Wednesday. Enough Democrats have already signed on as co-sponsors to pass it, while a small but growing number of Republicans let it be known they will consider voting for it. There may be as many as a dozen.  What happens regarding a Senate trial is still being discussed.

 As law enforcement investigations of the Capitol violence continue, and officials quarrel about who failed to do what, attention is also turning towards the plans of white supremacist and related terrorists groups for violence in Washington and all 50 state capitals this weekend and the following week.

 Homeland Security is beginning security arrangements for the Inauguration as early as January 13, as the FBI warns of online organizing for armed mobs.  Washington's Mayor has requested all permits for demonstrations be withdrawn and most of the federal tourist sights not already closed for Covid, will likely be off-limits through Inauguration Day.

 A Huffpost story provided the most graphic account so far of three planned clusters of events, all involving violence. Members of Congress were briefed and:

 “three members said was by far the most concerning plot would involve insurrectionists forming a perimeter around the Capitol, the White House and the Supreme Court, and then blocking Democrats from entering the Capitol ― perhaps even killing them ― so that Republicans could take control of the government. Democrats were told that the Capitol Police and the National Guard were preparing for potentially tens of thousands of armed protesters coming to Washington and were establishing rules of engagement for warfare. In general, the military and police don’t plan to shoot anyone until one of the rioters fires, but there could be exceptions.” 

Other sources indicated there are specific (if not specified) threats to Speaker Pelosi, Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris, and President-Elect Biden.

 The White House acquiesced to the Mayor of Washington’s request to declare a state of emergency for the city. Some 10,000 to 15,000 National Guard reportedly are being mobilized for a variety of tasks. It is likely that other measures are being taken that are not being publicized, so potential armed insurrectionists won’t be informed.  But additional Air Marshals are being added to flights in and out of Washington.

 Alot of the chatter may turn out to be bullshit but thanks to last Wednesday’s epiphany, authorities aren’t taking chances. Whether there is enough expertise and intelligence left in the Trumpified government to deal with these threats is another question.

 Meanwhile, two Democratic women Representatives, forced to shelter against the Wednesday attack with Republicans who refused masks offered to them, have tested positive. The first was Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey, in her 70s and a recent cancer survivor. She has mild symptoms so far.

 The second is Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington State, who issued this statement: “Too many Republicans have refused to take this pandemic and virus seriously, and in doing so, they endanger everyone around them. Only hours after President Trump incited a deadly assault on our Capitol, our country, and our democracy, many Republicans still refused to take the bare minimum COVID-19 precaution and simply wear a damn mask in a crowded room during a pandemic — creating a superspreader event on top of a domestic terrorist attack."

Epiphany: Second Day

The enormity of what happened at the Capitol on Wednesday became clearer on Thursday, which spread and deepened the epiphany.  Now eyewitness accounts begin to suggest the violence not seen in those absurd images, as the narrative timeline begins to take shape.  Though accounts still conflict, it seems clear that the entire US Congress--and the top three officials in direct line of succession for the presidency--were in danger for hours, while those in the federal government tasked with protecting them dithered and disappeared.

Consequences have begun.  The House and Senate Sergeants-at-Arms were asked to resign and did, and under fire from his own rank and file, the chief of the Capitol Police resigned effective January 16.  Meanwhile the suspicion of collusion with the rioters grew.  More people pointed out the obvious racism that was a factor.  Attention presumably turns to the Defense Department, Homeland Security, FBI and Secret Service.  

Epiphany reveals the enormity of the sedition by Trump and others in his orbit, as well as the legislators whose seditious lies led to the violence--and then continued after it.  The metaphor of the day at the NY Times was the fever (David Brooks) or the spell (Michelle Goldberg) breaking.  So such previously synchophantic outlets as the Wall Street Journal joined the Times,  Washington Post and today's USA Today in calling for Trump's immediate ouster.  (The Journal begged for resignation, the others for the 25th amendment or impeachment.) Speaker of the House Pelosi and Senate minority Leader Schumer both called for the 25th amendment, but failing that, started the wheels in motion for impeachment.

Out of the long list of congressional co-conspirators, Thursday's fire was focused on the two most prominent: Ted Cruz, the Texas Opportunist, and especially Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, whose announced intention to dispute the integrity of the vote jumpstarted the sedition in Congress.  In one day, Hawley had one of his biggest supporters (former Senator Danforth) say that backing him had been the worst mistake of his long life, and one of his biggest funders call on the Senate to censure him for "provoking yesterday's riot."  His state's two largest and most influential newspapers--the Kansas City Star and St. Louis Post-Dispatch, called for his resignation.  "Trumpism must die before it morphs into Hitlerism," the Post-Dispatch wrote.  Plus Hawley lost his major New York publisher and book contract.  The Missouri newspapers echoed conservative columnist George Will who called for the political obliteration of Cruz and Hawley.  Together with Trump, Will wrote: "Each will wear a scarlet S as a seditionist."

Morning Joe's epic rant also called for the immediate arrest of Trump, Guliani and Trump, Jr. for inciting violence at the rally that directly preceded the terrorist invasion.  Meanwhile, another folk metaphor suggested itself--rats leaving a sinking ship--as two cabinet secretaries resigned in protest, and nobody cared.  Several national security officials who had let it be known they were considering quitting, let it be known that their retired counterparts begged them to stay, lest the national security of the United States fall into the hands of the equivalent of AlwaysTrump cabin boys, like the teenage appointees Trump installed elsewhere in the government as loyalty bots.

The list of formerly complicit Republicans jumping off the bandwagon and calling for accountability also grew--Peggy Noonan (calling for Trump's removal), Nikki Haley, John Kelly, Mike Mulveny, even Lindsey Graham.  

Trump awoke long enough to issue a hostage video in which he acknowledged a new administration (he couldn't say whose) would take office on January 20, and he would work for a peaceful transition.  This attempt to short circuit efforts to oust him didn't work as well as it did in confusing and angering his mob of true believers.

Besides ongoing questions about what really happened on Wednesday, two questions about the immediate future surfaced Thursday: first, will Trump try to pardon himself (probably yes), and will that stick (probably no)? The compelling constitutional argument--and current Justice Department guidance--says that he can't, because no one can be a judge in their own case.  A more thorough and practical analysis in the Atlantic is pretty persuasive that if Trump tries to use it to evade giving prosecutors information or to quash an indictment, it will be challenged and ultimately lose in the Supreme Court.  Yes, betrayed again!

The second question is can either the 25th amendment or, more likely now, impeachment be accomplished in time to matter?  That's what will be the topic of the day behind the scenes on Friday, with the core question: will impeachment and conviction at least legally prevent Trump from running again?

Meanwhile, more than 3800 Americans died as a result of the covid crisis on Wednesday, setting yet another new one day record.  And it was broken on Thursday, when officially more than 4,000 died. Vaccine supplies continue to be hung up by the federal government.  Here in Humboldt, our public health officer said that the county has the capacity to vaccinate many more people in a short time if more vaccine made its way here.  Getting through the next two weeks until the new administration takes dramatic action--and however long it takes for that action to result in more vaccine--is the task and the challenge we all face. 

 All of this will put to the test what Rep. Conor Lamb of Allegheny County PA said in his fiery speech on the House floor Wednesday night (in which he called out Republican lies, which so enraged one of the Republican liars that he was escorted off the floor): "We want this government to work more than they want it to fail."

It's Not Over

 

We’re coming to the end of a terrible 2020, with the New Year in sight.  I’ve seen at least one article emphasizing that it won’t always be like this, and we can look forward to a better 2021.

 Perhaps.  But we’re still living in 2020, and we’re going to be for some time after the calendar flips to 2021. In fact, if we are not careful and if we are not lucky, the worst of 2020 will be in the first months of the new year. 

Yes, we’re getting rid of Trump—but not just yet, and he’s currently sowing more destructive chaos.  And yes, the first million Americans have gotten the first jab of the vaccines that may give us the possibility of ending this pandemic, but not anytime soon.  Meanwhile we may still be busily making that happy ending harder.  Partly because we’re not truly facing the import of 2020. 

“This is the deadliest year in U.S. history,” the AP reported.  Preliminary data suggests that by year’s end some 3.2 million Americans will have died in 2020, almost half a million more than in 2019.  In absolute numbers, American deaths have never exceeded 3 million in one year.  

It appears that the difference between last year and this year is almost entirely due to the Covid crisis.  The current official death toll is moving towards 350,000.   The death rate accelerated in December, exceeding 3,000 for several days in a row, and sometimes edging close to 3500.  This represents the “Thanksgiving surge,” or deaths resulting from covid infections traced back to Thanksgiving travel and gatherings.  

So in December the New York Times featured an essay on the meaning of death, and the Washington Post published a story puzzling why Americans aren’t paying more attention or taking more precautions, theorizing that it is harder for people to respond to large numbers than it is to individual deaths.  This theory seems an incomplete and possibly dubious explanation.  At worst, it’s an inexcusable excuse. Not just morally, but in terms of societal survival.

 There was no moral excuse for allowing travel and gatherings at Thanksgiving—for not shutting down the airlines and the trains, and monitoring the highways. And there was less moral excuse for allowing it at Christmas. 

But obviously that didn’t happen, and travel did.  The evidence on how much travel there was (and is) is mixed.  Airlines saw the highest numbers since March, though half or less than last Christmas.  I have to believe that many people took precautions, even if they were in fact insufficient.  But maybe people just gave up, or gave into their fatigue, or don’t care.  Because in my very limited purview, I’ve seen less mask wearing and distancing, not more.

 Whatever aspects of human nature, politics and societal behavior are involved, another surge—the Christmas surge—is now expected.  As a country we are barely making it through the Thanksgiving surge in hospitalizations, and some places it’s worse than that. 

 Another surge on top of this one—beginning in a couple of weeks and rising in intensity and numbers through January into February-- could cause catastrophic failures in hospitals and the medical systems of entire cities or regions.  Shortages of equipment are already showing up again.  I can’t even imagine what it is like to be a front line medical worker, working feverishly in a relentless nightmare, while knowing that people outside are blithely ignoring simple precautions that might slow this thing down instead of accelerate it. 

Meanwhile the political system has failed those who need it the most, leaving them frantic and hopeless, if not actually hungry and homeless.  But the covid crisis may be coming for even more of us, because we are failing each other. 

It’s true that in terms of the smooth running of society, especially for the currently better off, the deaths of a lot of old people don’t much matter, or the deaths of minority and other hourly workers, as long as it’s not more of them that can be easily replaced. But hospitals in crisis can be a crisis for almost everyone, and frayed or broken supply lines eventually take their toll on society as a whole. 

The high number of infections means the next surge will very likely be worse, resulting in larger numbers of hospitalizations and deaths. Add to that the likelihood of new and more infectious strains appearing in the US in the next month or so. That we’ve gotten through even the Christmas frenzy of buying and sending with supply lines intact is no guarantee that the system won’t break under further strain.  And once it breaks, the chaos could spread.  

We’re left to do what we can as individuals and on a personal level with family and friends, even if it’s not much.  Many are doing so, and they are the eventual source of hope.  Others are doing their best, at times their heroic best, to keep societal systems working, amidst fallibility and folly.  Hope rests with them as well.

But personally I’m keeping my metaphorical champagne cold for a couple of months after New Years before it’s safe to celebrate.

Dreaming Up Daily Quote: 12/25/2020

As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake; 

The centre moved, a circle strait succeeds,

 Another still, and still another spreads; 

Friend, parent, neighbor, first it will embrace;

 His country next; and next all human race." 

 Alexander Pope

Happy Holidays, Everyone.

Dreaming Up Daily Quote 12/24/2020

“Chaos of Thought and Passion, all confused:

 Still by himself abused, or disabused; 

Created half to rise, and half to fall;

 Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;

 Sole judge of Truth, in endless Error hurl’d:

 The glory, jest and riddle of the world.”

 Alexander Pope

New York Times Spelling Bee Update

It’s been awhile since I mentioned the New York Times Spelling Bee but that’s not because I abandoned it.  With decidedly mixed feelings but apparent commitment, I’ve done this puzzle every day for more than a year, scoring at Genius level and getting at least one Pangram (a word that uses all seven letters in a particular puzzle, which always has one and sometimes two or three) every time.  By now that’s probably 400 straight Bees.

 During this time the New York Times published a story on its Spelling Bee puzzle.  The Bee was a feature of the paper edition that followed the crossword to the digital edition, with spectacular results.  It’s enormously popular.  I learned what I should have assumed: that there are numerous social media sites in which a given day’s puzzle is discussed, clues given, complaints made.

 The puzzles are created when seven letters are selected, including the one required to be in every word, and all possible words are generated by a computer.  It is the job of the puzzle editor to select the words that the puzzle will accept.  The idea is to include familiar words, including slang, plus a few more esoteric or technical words.  Though the article didn’t admit it, the selection includes a hefty number of words that go unused except in word puzzles, from crosswords to Scrabble. 

 I learned from the article that there is a level higher than Genius, called Queen Bee, which requires getting all of the words for that puzzle (which may be fewer than 20 or more than 60.) This neither bothers nor tempts me because I disdain those questionable Scrabble words, and try to avoid them even when I remember one.  Getting to Genius without them is my game within the game. 

The article’s description of how the puzzles are made leaves a few things out.  As any long-time player knows, there are words that recur in these puzzles that become almost signatures of the Spelling Bee (for instance roto, toro.)  While the adventure is seeing which new words a given puzzle evokes, there is the inevitable process of keying in words from this remembered list of Spelling Bee words.

 It’s also true that if one puzzle rejects a word (with the neutral message “not in word list”), all Spelling Bee puzzles will.  I thought I’d made my peace with my own list of perfectly good words it won’t accept, until a recent puzzle didn’t recognize “immanent.”  That’s disturbing.

 And then there is the matter of the absence of one letter of the alphabet: S.  No puzzle ever has S.  I guessed the obvious rationale would be that many more words could be made simply by adding S at the end.  That in fact may be why, but in the past few months I’ve noted the frequency of puzzles that include e and d among the letters, or i, n, and g. Both combinations create many new words from words already made.

 But because of the four-letter rule (words must have a minimum of four letters), these suffixes often make words that otherwise wouldn’t qualify.  What interests me is how many times it has taken me a long time to see the “ed” or “ing” possibility in a given seven letters. 

 One of the attractions of the games—which is also its greatest drawback—is that I never know how long one is going to take me to reach my Genius goal.  It might take 15 minutes.  But it can also throttle me for three hours, I am loathe to admit.  Usually a big chunk of those hours is finding just a few words, or even just one.  Since this has become a nightly ritual (almost always, right after midnight, when the new puzzle drops on the West Coast), a major change in duration can affect everything afterwards, including bedtimes.

 And yes, it has occurred to me that doing the puzzle every day is more than a habit and suggests addiction, and that continuing it until I reach those levels suggests compulsion as well as a game.  I’ve thought about quitting, especially after I reached a year straight. 

 And maybe I will, or maybe I’ll slack off now and then. But the basic pleasure of it recurs, which is the fun of making words. (The puzzle mostly doesn’t take proper names, but I like to make them anyway.)  Words come to me that I haven’t heard or read in years, including a fair percentage that I couldn’t define.   I could use most of them in a sentence, even if I didn’t know what I’d just said.  (The truth is that in my writing, even when I use the precise right word I can’t necessarily define it.  It means exactly what it means, right down to the sound.)

 I also learn from the frustrations of the Bee.  Over the course of this year I’ve gotten deja vu more than once, so I assume I’ve done the same basic puzzle multiple times.  But I’ve also noticed that a word I got on one puzzle eludes me when it is possible on another.  There are always ways to do better.

 Now I want to work on the compulsion to finish in one sitting, when I know (as others also know) that returning to the puzzle after leaving it for awhile often results in seeing words that had eluded me. But the discipline to put it down is something I need to work on.

 I am also sure doing the Bee relates to my writing, and even this blog.  When I write and publish something here, I mostly have no idea of who reads it or what effect it has.  The Spelling Bee has less possibility but more certainty.  In my ongoing writing projects, or even discrete pieces, there is always the question of when is it really finished (and why.)  The Spelling Bee has a minimum definition of finished—and a 24 hour life.

 I also wonder whether I would have been so faithful for this long if there wasn’t a pandemic outside keeping me in, or if trying to absorb the ongoing shock and bewilderment of the news didn’t suggest a daily respite in a closed world of letters, and words yet to be formed.  But here I am, and here I will be for months to come.  Maybe this helps my writing projects or maybe it hurts them by distracting me. But I know my main job right now is to not get sick.  If this helps, why not?

This Week in American History

More Americans were killed by the Covid crisis on December 7, 2020--earlier this week-- than were killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, that led to America declaring war on Japan and entering World War II, committing billions of dollars and the full attention of American society on the goal of winning that war fought across two immense oceans.

  Some 405,000 Americans were killed in the four years of that war, the largest death toll of any American war before or since, except the Civil War.  America is currently on track to see more than 405,000 Covid deaths in less than one year, by the end of 2020.  We're at some 286,000 now, the equivalent in American deaths of 5 Vietnams.

More Americans were killed by the Covid crisis on December 9, 2020--namely, yesterday-- than were killed in terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, which led to the expenditure of many billions of dollars in conflicts that are still not over.  Both events thoroughly transformed American society.

Congress has currently allocated zero new dollars to addressing the Covid crisis or its economic and human effects.  The President of the United States is AWOL.  So are Republicans in Congress, and many Republican officeholders in the states.

This is America as 2020 ends.

Defining the Precipice

 Let us recognize the historical moment, for what it is and what it may become. For what it is, because we are befogged by denial that is natural self-protection, helpful if we successfully whistle past the dark, but it can also make us more vulnerable and less capable. For what it may become, because if the worst happens there will be voices loudly crying out, who could have foreseen this? 

 First: We are in the teeth of an extraordinary infectious disease pandemic, ignored and brutally denied by the Executive branch and effectively--and just as brutally-- ignored by Congress. This pandemic is accompanied by a growing economic crisis, with millions unemployed, losing unemployment insurance lifelines, facing evictions, hunger and collapse.

 At the same time we are on the edge of an extraordinary political and perhaps societal crisis of potentially disturbing proportion. While the current Administration blunders around the margins of the Covid crisis, it is consumed by what is variously described as an attempted coup or official insurrection, trying to scuttle election results and retain the dictator apprentice by any means.

 This is a seriously dangerous combination. The Covid infections, hospitalizations and deaths are just going to get higher for at least the next six weeks. Collapse of the health care system in some places is threatening or underway, and that is almost certainly going to spread. When hospitals are overwhelmed and deaths are doubling in a month’s time, other aspects of society are also threatened, beginning with grocery stores and the food chain. Covid alone—and the failure to confront it as an urgent national crisis—could seriously compromise American society as we know it. But instead of addressing this utterly obvious prospect, the current Chief Executive is denying it in favor of causing a political crisis which looks increasingly like it will threaten the social order for some considerable time to come, all on its own.

 But especially in combination with the Covid crisis in its upcoming darkest days, this political crisis could lead to serious societal breakdowns in the near future. So far the strength of democratic traditions and institutions, and in particular the election officials and the jurists who are doing their jobs (many in both categories are Republicans), are holding things together.  Others with power are responsibly supporting order by their restraint.

 Absent a sudden shocking decision from the US Supreme Court, it appears that the 2020 election results will hold. So apart from a long-term political struggle with potentially devastating effects, the near future threat then becomes the eruption of violence. 

 That it hasn’t happened yet seems to indicate that the residual stability in our society is holding. But the ground for violence is certainly being overtly prepared. That the Michigan Secretary of State, who oversees elections, should face 16 or so armed men outside her home cursing and threatening her in the presence of her four year old son as they decorate the house for Christmas is but the latest incident.

 Behind these threats is the contention made by Republican leaders on every level, as well as the vast majority of Republican voters, completely without credible proof, that the 2020 election results are illegitimate. This has led Heather Cox Richardson to cite the election of 1888 as an historical precedent, when Republicans subverted that election, and in 1892, when they subverted the American economy in order to defeat the Democratic President. It was a series of crises that caused devastating pain, just so that wealthy Republican backers could keep and expand their power.

 But others see an earlier precedent for not only an undemocratic and anti-Constitutional political crisis, but a societal one as well. Rep. James Clyburn calls it insurrection, and so does William Saletan in his Slate piece, “Republicans are the party of Civil War”: 

" The insurrection has been boiling at pro-Trump rallies in the past few weeks. In Georgia, amid chants of “victory or death,” speakers have vowed to “remove” a new Democratic administration, arguing that it “doesn’t have the military on their side.” At a rally led by Donald Trump Jr., a speaker warned, “We’re getting ready to start shooting.” Last weekend in Michigan, a crowd cheered as a member of the Proud Boys declared, “We don’t want a civil war, but we’re already in one. And we’re in it to win it.” In Florida, rally leaders called the election result a “war on our homeland” and pledged, “We will not allow them to fire a man for doing his job perfect.”

 In Arizona, a speaker demanded the imprisonment of President-elect Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton. “We have to protect [Trump] at any cost,” he said. Another speaker denounced House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, calling for “rebellion” and adding, “I’d love to see half of these people hung by the neck.” The crowd shouted its approval."

 Fueling this mob violence fervor are Trump’s fascistic tactics in a multiple of impeachable offences were he not voted out in a month, from firing or threatening to fire members of his own administration who don’t support his blatant coup attempt, and demanding “the names” of the pitiful two dozen Republican lawmakers the Washington Post found would admit he lost the election, to directly pressuring governors and other officials in battleground states to reverse their state’s voting results, a criminal act.

 The next step is actual violence, and whether it sparks widespread violence. It is not inevitable but the table is set for it. Then in the teeth of pandemic we are in brand new territory, at least since the Civil War. What would be the state and federal response? If a Trump “enemy” is murdered, will he pardon the murderers?

 More Saletan: "Some zealots are already taking action. They’ve targeted election supervisors in several states, issuing death threats against officials in Vermont, calling for violence against the family of Arizona’s secretary of state, and orchestrating a hunt for a voting machine contractor who is now in hiding. On Monday, Gabriel Sterling, the Republican manager of Georgia’s elections, reported a death threat against an election worker, harassment of the worker’s family, and sexual threats against Raffensperger’s wife. “Stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence,” Sterling pleaded, addressing Trump at a televised briefing. “Someone’s going to get shot. Someone’s going to get killed.”

 That night, on Twitter, Trump posted a video of Sterling’s plea. He dismissed it. He accused Raffensperger and Kemp of knowing about, and refusing to uncover, “massive voter fraud.” The next day, in a speech recorded at the White House, he denounced both men again. And at Wednesday’s rally in Georgia, Wood and Powell, accompanied by Flynn, joined the attack. Wood accused Sterling of conspiring with China to manipulate the election. He demanded that Kemp and Raffensperger be thrown in jail. “We’re going to slay Goliath, the communists, the liberals,” he vowed. “Joe Biden will never set foot in the Oval Office.”

 So far it’s limited to incendiary talk, and not a lot of people.  But the matches—and the guns—are real.

The Dreaming Up Daily Quote: 12/03/20

"We do have a choice to make, each one of us: Do we want to be part of the solution to this horrifying surge, or do we want to be the problem? Because where you fall in this effort now has a life-or-death consequence, possibly for people you know and love, but certainly for people across the county who are loved by others.”

Barbara Ferrer

Los Angeles County Public Health Director

Transition

Jeremy Stahl’s headline in Monday’s Slate said it best: It Was a Good Day for Democracy. Pennsylvania judges not only threw the latest Trump case out of court but told them not to bother coming back. Then the minor functionary Republican holdout in Michigan was satisfied with his fifteen minutes and joined two Democrats to certify Michigan’s election. (One of the Rs wondered if they could just adjourn without deciding and learned this wasn’t an option.  Someone has to win, someone has to lose, not everybody gets a trophy, they were told.) 

Update: On Friday and Saturday, Trumpists lost two more baseless cases in PA, one in federal appeals court, the other in PA Supreme Court.  The PA Supreme Court decision was "with prejudice," which means the Trump strategy of getting it to the US Supreme Court probably won't work. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign paid (or promised to pay) Wisconsin $3 million for a partial recount, which result in a net gain of 132 votes--for Biden.

 Then the chief Trump operative of the GSA finally “ascertained” that Joe Biden had won the presidential election, officially beginning the transition. Apart from the certainty of state certifications, a rolling catastrophe of lost court cases, and a rising tide of demands to get on with it, she might have noticed that Biden currently leads by more than 6 million votes, a total of more than 80 million, even before New York state has fully reported. The current percentage is 51% to 47%, and will likely grow. His electoral vote lead hasn’t changed, remaining exactly the number Trump got in 2016. 

 Biden now gets funds and access to vital national security and covid crisis information, and the country and the world knows we indeed have a President-Elect. He’d been selecting and naming Cabinet and other high officials anyway—now he gets to do it using a website with .gov behind it. As for these first moves--mostly Obama-Biden veterans moving up a notch-- the professionals in the relevant departments are overjoyed at his choices, because they will be taken seriously again, as will actually governing. Apart from Barack, John Kerry is the perfect appointment for a Cabinet-level officer on the climate crisis. This as well as other appointments made or reported are playing well internationally also.

 To say the writing was on the wall doesn’t mean much when it’s Trump, who can’t read very well. But the wall was crumbling and starting to tumble down: when Republican Senators actually tell you it’s time to start the Transition, the situation is politically done.  Trump will commit more outrages to keep his picture in the paper for as long as he can, and there will probably be a few more bumps in the process, but maybe we can begin our mental and emotional transitions, too. 

 It’s a victory for democracy also because this caps an election that thousands of public servants worked hard to bring off better than anyone had the right to expect in the year of Covid and Trump, our twin plagues. Too bad there’s vaccines for only one of them, but getting the other out of the White House is worth celebrating, again. With several more opportunities ahead.

Now we just have to get through these horrific weeks of both plagues, especially Covid, as the economy falls apart and the suffering spreads.  This administration is making sure their evil lives after them as they subvert the economy, further confuse covid crisis response and prevent government from helping by starving the states and zoning out on the federal level.   It's like watching a badly written tragedy of the real.

Winter Has Come

Winter is here: the coronavirus winter.  The much predicted and feared major surge is well underway, just about everywhere.  That includes here in Humboldt County, which has recorded more new cases in the first two weeks of this month than all of last month.  We have more than triple the number of active cases than we did just weeks ago.  Like most of CA counties, our restrictions have become more stringent again.  Elsewhere the impact is much worse, and because virus begets virus it will get worse still, as winter deepens across the country.

But the contours of the covid crisis may well have changed in recent days, with promising announcements of very effective vaccines, which may immunize for up to a few years.  The vaccines have not finished final trials nor been approved, and even if all goes well it will be months yet before any vaccine becomes widely available.  At best, expectations are that front line health workers could be getting their first immunization shots before the end of 2020 (both vaccines require two shots, about 3 weeks apart.)  But the rest of us likely won't get them until spring, perhaps March or April.

Tbere's additional good news Tuesday in the approval of an at-home covid test.  But I wouldn't count on that being available before the Biden administration, since the current government seems incapable of organized effort.

Here on the isolated North Coast, most of our covid infections come from people traveling into or out of Humboldt, attending large gatherings indoors there or here, and usually both.  Some of them infect others before they know they are infected.  In this we are a somewhat simpler microcosm.  There is so much virus around now in many places that simply gathering is enough to start a superspreader event.  As the covid crisis spirals out of control, more casual contact may be enough for infection.

How bad the winter becomes, and the level of devastation by spring, will partly depend on how many people behave, especially in the upcoming holidays.  The way this country faced the covid crisis in its first months was so hopeful, but that's long past now.  We'll see how many people can forgo Thanksgiving gatherings.  Much will depend on that.  

The news this winter--however it is subsumed by gaudier goings-on--will be of health care workers in crisis, hospitals in crisis, and many more covid dead.  I don't think anybody needs this blog to keep informed on these matters, though I will check in from time to time on the current state of things.  But it's safe to say it is a time of mourning.  There isn't much more that I can do.  I am in the high risk senior group.  Except for one visit to my doctor's office, I have not set foot in a building other than my home since March.  I expect to be here until next March.  So Thanksgiving will not be much of a question for me.

Others, especially seniors, will also be staying home.  It will be as if we are snowed in for the winter, more or less.  We will--and I will--be thinking of other things, doing other things, looking to engage with other things, such as the work of our age, which includes reintegrating the past, especially now that the urgency of the election is over and the results will play out (so far, much as I expected), outside our doors. 

So as I move on to other things here, I must first affirm that I am not otherwise ignoring the unfolding and largely tragic events around me, especially this deadly phase of the covid crisis.  It is going to be the worst so far, though perhaps also the worst period of the covid crisis altogether when it is finally over.   I will bear witness, even if I don't have much to say about it, just as there is little I can do about it except to stay out of its way, and avoid adding to the suffering. 

Our winter rains have begun, a hopeful if uncertain sign.  They complicate our lives--chiefly now our dog walks--but they nourish the spring.  The flowers, W.S. Merwin writes, are "forms of water"---

see how they wake without a question

even though the whole world is burning.

 

Determination Day

This year Election Day is a different beast. Rather than being the one day nearly everyone votes, it will instead be the last day that anyone votes. And above all, it will be the first day the votes are counted.

So if you have not voted, it's time to join in making history.  Vote.  Before it's too late.

Millions have voted already--perhaps 100 million before the polls even open on Tuesday. Most election experts believe that more than half the votes will have been cast by then. Early voting, both by mail (or drop box) and in person, has been phenomenal. In huge Texas, the early vote is as large as the total vote in 2016. That is likely to be true for a dozen states by Monday. The early vote in tiny Hawaii not only exceeds the total vote in 2016—it is higher than the total vote in any election in the state’s history, including 2008 and 2012 with native son Barack Obama on the presidential ballot.

 But Election Day itself is not therefore just an afterthought. Nor is it the day that only Republicans vote. There are plenty of Democrats and Independents, especially from core constituencies in key places, that have yet to mark their ballots. 

 

And if turnout is anywhere near proportional to early voting totals, we will see higher numbers of voters and a higher percentage of eligible Americans voting than anyone alive has ever seen.

 Nor will Election Day necessarily be the end of the process. In the ordinary course of how particular states count ballots and for how long, votes will be recorded for days and in some states weeks, by law. Unfortunately, the fears and omens gathering around Election Day may also persist: the relentless vote suppression efforts, the threat of armed militias and foreign cyber attacks on the system. Several reports suggest that Trump will continue misusing instruments of government to disrupt election results and the orderly transfer of power, and may refuse to concede any loss while claiming false victories. 

 But let’s stick with Election Day and Election Night, and what we can expect. While that subject will be debated every moment until then, there are a few things to be said, and to watch for.

 On Election Day, the most important factor to watch for is turnout, both generally and in specific places. Some may be tempted to see large turnout as favoring Republicans, because so many Democrats have voted. But that’s not necessarily so. In fact, Democrats will need large turnout in places like Miami Dade in Florida and in Philadelphia, and more categorically among Black and Latino voters. But the general rule this year is very likely to be: the higher the turnout, the better it is for Biden-Harris and almost all Democratic candidates.  The same determination that brought voters out in hostile conditions to vote early must happen again on Determination Day.

 Or put it this way: the only way Biden loses is if turnout is middling low, either generally or in a freakishly selected few places. (If it is very low, then Biden may have already banked enough votes to win.)

 Then comes Election Night and how the votes are counted and reported. Much has been made of the “red mirage,” the counting of Election Day votes skewed Republican, before the mail-in votes that are largely Democratic. Apart from causing viewer stress, this was theorized as providing Trump an excuse to claim victory because the red mirage will make him look like the winner on Election Night, before Democratic mail-in votes slowly overtake this lead in the ensuing days and perhaps weeks.

 But the reality is likely to be more complicated. The order of when votes from the three streams of in-person early, in-person on the day, and mail-in votes are reported, varies from state to state, and sometime county to county within states. And nobody really knows how that will go.  The New York Times and FiveThirtyEight have published state by state guides to how they will report, and the guides do not always agree.  And then there's the vagaries of the day—for instance, if turnout is overwhelming.

 But the assumption that every state counts Election Day votes first is certainly wrong. According to the New York Times,  only Virginia reports just Election Day votes first. Many states do a mixture, or counties within states have different policies. Early on there may even be a blue mirage in Nebraska, Missouri and maybe Montana because they count mail-in votes first.

 In some states, when the red mirage appears it will likely turn blue by the end of the night. But in other states—notably Pennsylvania and Michigan—it could persist until the last arriving mail-in votes are counted, days later. However, even this is unlikely. 

 The big question is whether a red mirage will persist into Wednesday in enough states to provide the illusion that Trump has won the required 270 electoral votes for victory. And the answer is probably not, at least according to a couple of analysts at Politico. 

 

The pattern that is likely to occur in more key states is the blue/red/blue sequence. These are states that count early votes first, then Election Day votes, and then the last mail-in votes. The states where this is more likely to happen include Florida, North Carolina, Maryland, New Mexico, Ohio and Texas, and maybe Wisconsin. (This cycle doesn’t necessarily mean red will go ahead of blue in the middle but just increase faster.) 

 The potential good news is that this blue/red/blue cycle will probably be completed fairly early on Election Night in Florida, North Carolina, Arizona and Ohio. If Biden wins any one of them, he is likely to win the election: especially Florida or Ohio. This is the conventional wisdom now, and it is how the news networks will report it. 

In most polls so far Biden has a small lead in all of them except Ohio, and some polls give him a tiny lead there, too. Again, he doesn’t have to win them all. He wins one or two, and it’s all over but the counting elsewhere.

 But Trump needs to win all of the above states, plus another state where Biden has a small polling lead that may have pretty complete returns Tuesday night: Georgia. And then there’s Texas, which may also have definitive results. 

 Even if Trump wins all of these states, Biden can still win the presidency with the tier of upper midwestern states where his polling lead is higher. But he’ll need Pennsylvania, which in the hive mind of political analysts is turning out to be this year’s Florida or Ohio.

 If Biden must rely on these states, the process will drag on longer. But a lot of analysts believe the winner will be clear on Election Night. Some expect to know by 11 pm Eastern. The numbers crunchers at FiveThirtyEight say there’s a 60% chance we’ll be sure by midnight Pacific. They all say that if we do, the winner will be President Biden.

 So however the count goes, here’s one thing to remember, if you go to bed late Tuesday or early Wednesday morning: in any state that by that time Biden is ahead, no matter how slightly, he will very likely win it. So much for the weeds of Tuesday. 

 The bigger picture? What if the polls are wrong? The polls are always wrong, to some extent. In 2016 they (fatally, as it turned out) underestimated the Trump vote in certain states. In 2012 they underestimated votes for President Obama, and Mitt Romney had to cancel his fireworks. According to the New York Times four days from Election Day, if state polls are as wrong as 2016, Biden still ends up with 335 electoral votes.

 Apart from general Trump revulsion, for me the key differences are that Democrats were not really united in 2016, and were (stupidly) not all motivated to vote. The leftists who voted third party were even dumber. This year Democrats (and the bulk of Independents) are united and highly motivated to vote (that is, angry and scared to death), and third party support is miniscule. 

 So here’s the big possibility: the unique and highly motivated coalition to defeat Trump and Republicans and elect Biden and Democrats will produce an overwhelming tide, leading to large margins in many contested states, and victories in states Democrats haven’t won in years or decades. The red mirage will be barely a blip if it appears at all. We may see so many Biden victories that Pennsylvania could keep counting until March and it wouldn’t matter. 

 However, if it is closer than that, various fears will be engaged. For instance, the fear that the election will be, or at least seem, so close that it will take weeks to resolve, with accompanying turmoil and court cases. But looking at the numbers, FiveThirtyEight estimates that there is no more than a 4% chance of this happening. At worst, days.

 Will voters believe a Trump claim of victory on Election Night results alone? Pew found that half the voters surveyed believe that the winner won’t be known by then. They may not be happy about it, but they are willing to wait for votes to be counted.  And all that's needed to win is 270 in the end, assuming we keep our nerve.

 This is not to say there might not be challenging days and weeks ahead. In fact there will be, no matter what happens on Election Day. With the Trump administration still in charge, and 100,000 new Covid cases a day, this is going to be the greatest test the American system has faced, at least since World War II and probably since the Civil War. And just as surviving the covid crisis depends on the doctors and nurses and other healthcare workers most of the media never sees, surviving Trump will depend on career public servants and state officials whose names we may never know.

 As for Tuesday night into Wednesday, it’s tempting to say, fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. And it may be. Days before November 3, Florida and PA continue to be complicated and hard to read, with lots of dirty dealings going on. But the effect of all of that disruption is relative. A really big turnout resulting in a really big wave suddenly overwhelms all those disreputable efforts. By late in the evening (and possibly earlier), I think it will be pretty clear that Trump is being decisively rejected. After that, enjoy watching the progress of how badly.

  That is, if you've been part of that determination.