March, 2020 archive

Via Job’s Anger.

At The Philadelphia Inquirer, Will Bunch notes there is a significant difference between the percentage of Democrats vs. the percentage of Republicans who are taking the coronavirus seriously pointing out, for example, that “Democrats are twice more likely (61 percent) than Republicans (30 percent) to say they plan to stop attending large gatherings . . . .”

He suggests that it’s all about the Fox News/AM talk radio bubble and what he refers to as “the Republican war on science.” Here’s an excerpt; follow the link for the rest:

In the most publicized incident, Fox Business prime-time host Trish Regan went even too far for her conservative bosses in a monologue that accused Democrats of using the coronavirus crisis “to destroy and demonize this president,” against a logo that read, “Coronavirus Impeachment Scam.” (She was later put on hiatus.)

Regan may have been an extreme case, but she was also emblematic of a feedback loop between Trump and conservative media in seeking to downplay the public health threat.

David Atkins reminds us that one of the articles of faith of the American conservative movement is that government should be run like a business. It is, natch, fallacious from the git-go, as government is not a business producing product for profit; it is–or should be–a service for the protection, benefit, and well-being of the polity.

Atkins suggests that Donald Trump’s you-can-hardly-call-it handling of the COVID-19 pandemic is a textbook example of what happens when you “run the government like a business” (and, even worse, like a Trump business). Here’s a bit:

At every step of the way, Trump and the conservative media have treated the coronavirus as a PR problem, a political problem, and a business problem. They have tried to downplay the severity of the disease, tell people to continue life like everything is normal, continue flying and going on cruise lines, and boost the markets however possible. Friday’s bizarre press conference was little more than an infomercial for some of the top health-related businesses in the Dow Jones average, with a parade of CEOs talking about their commitment to doing vague somethings about the pandemic right before the closing bell. It worked, at least for now: the Dow surged as a result of the upbeat corporate presentation. For weeks now the administration has slow-played testing under the theory that lower reported numbers would somehow look better and magically change the actual reality on the ground until the problem went away.

Like so much of modern American business culture, the ethic here is short-sighted and self-serving at best, and cruel, callous, and malevolent at worst.

Do read the rest.

David talks with Tufts Professor Eitan Hersh about how treating politics as a spectator sport is detrimental to the polity.