Lincoln Mitchell

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This page contains links to recent blogs by Lincoln Mitchell

Tagged with: Coronavirus

Covid Has Divided America Even More

We will never know how many people Americans died because other Americans couldn’t, or wouldn’t, be bothered to care even a little bit about other people, but the number is probably quite substantial. In addition, it is apparent that the people who refused to wear masks and ignored social distancing protocols not only directly contributed to the deaths of Americans but were free riders who took advantage of an America that was safer because of the sacrifices of others.

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What Covid Did and Did Not Change

As the Covid-19 pandemic now enters its second year, it is useful to assess its global impact. As of New Year’s Day, roughly 1.8 million people around the world had died of Covid-19. However, the death toll from Covid-19 only tells a small part of the story because had people around the world not radically changed their behavior, that number would have been much, perhaps exponentially, higher. Thus, theimpact of the Covid-19 on things like economic activity, mental health, years of education lost and the like are major parts of the toll of this pandemic.

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Pandemic Hypocrisy Is Damaging but Deeply American

he American ethos of rules not applying to us has not only helped define our terrible response to the Coronavirus pandemic, but also is key to understanding American foreign policy. America’s relationship to the rest of the world frequently can be summed up by the idea do as I say, not as I do. The US urges countries to conduct democratic elections while we conduct our own elections using antiquated structures that do not value each vote equally. We seek to promote human rights around the world, while asking the world to ignore the bombs we drop, the children we put in cages and the long and horrific history of American racism. We invade foreign countries with chilling regularity while demanding that the rest of the world honor international borders. The ubiquity of this dynamic of America’s relationship to the rest of the world is hard to miss and suggests that while the hypocrisy of Governor Newsom, Mayor Breed and others is stark, it may just be the American way.

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Covid-19 Is Joe Biden’s Problem Now

Although it was Donald Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic, a mishandling that amounts to a crime against humanity, that has put America in such a terrible place regarding the pandemic, on January 20th, Coronavirus will become Biden’s problem.

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What the Debate Told Us About Governance

Thursday night’s debate, mercifully the last in this presidential election, revealed two very different understandings of and approaches to governance. Moreover, it highlighted how Donald Trump’s failure regarding the Coronavirus pandemic was, among other things, an extraordinary failure of governance.

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Donald Trump's Covid Cult

It is probably impossible to tally all of the Covid deaths in the US stemming from Trump rallies, superspreader events at the White House and the millions of cult members who spread the disease by following Trump rather than the health guidelines, but that number is undoubtedly far greater that the 900 who perished on Guyana in November of 1978. For four decades now, Jim Jones has been considered the gold standard for murderous cult leaders who by strength of personality, perverse psychological ploys, violence and threats, was able to lure people into his cult, to Guyana and ultimately into his murderous plans. Tragically, it is now apparent that compared to the current occupant of the White House, Jim Jones was a piker.

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Trump’s Positive Test Does Not Create a Governance Crisis

Trump failed utterly to craft and implement a strategy for addressing the biggest crisis the US has faced in many years. Instead, he lied, distracted, undermined the scientists and doctors, embraced quackery, set Americans against each other and stood by as more than 200,000 Americans succumbed to the pandemic.

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Joe Biden’s Foreign Policy Paradox

The paradox facing Biden is that if he wins, he will preside over a country whose ability to lead internationally, and whose role in the world, has changed dramatically over the last four years. The combination of Trump’s foreign policy, the terrible damage Covid19 has done to the US, the weakening of American democracy over the last four years and the real possibility of instability here, even if Biden becomes president, means that the US will be in no position to simply reassume the mantle of global leadership. Additionally, the American people, worn out by all these problems, have become reluctant to become too involved with the rest of the world.

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If We Are All Warriors Now, Maybe We Should be Treated That Way

In Trump’s increasingly diseased mind, the American people should risk death not to defeat fascism, bring down totalitarian Communism, protect our country from Jihadist terrorism or to build a stronger, freer more democratic America. Rather, Trump is asking the American people to do this so he can get a few more shots of the political adrenaline, in the form of temporarily improved poll numbers or a few more retweets, that he so intensely craves.

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Ignoring Covid-19 Won’t Make It Go Away

This toxic stew of white supremacist protestors calling, often while heavenly armed, for the various states to lift social distancing related restrictions, presidential leadership that is essentially in denial about the pandemic, projections for total deaths that have doubled in the last week or so, and indications that the Coronavirus is now spreading to smaller towns and rural America will be devastating for America. Leaving aside the human co

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We Need to Rebuild Not Reopen the American Economy

The discussion about when to reopen the American economy is, pardon the direct language, prima facie stupid. The notion that the American economy can be reopened with things quickly returning to normal, whatever that is, reflects a uniquely American brand of magical thinking. The American economy cannot return to normal so long as a thousand or more Americans are dying from Covid19 every day, while millions of Americans are wisely fearful of leaving their homes any more than absolutely necessary, thousands of small businesses have closed their doors and millions of Americans are out of work. Pronouncements by deluded governors, rallies by loyal members of the Trump deathcult and incoherent press conferences by the President are not going to change that.

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The Other Big Story in America

The most important thing happening in American politics today is not partisan fighting, the latest polling on Donald Trump or the election, Trump’s daily disinformation show or the minutia of how one state is trying to disenfranchise voters. Rather, it is the bigger picture-that the ruling party is trying desperately trying to consolidate a nondemocratic regime before they lose the election-and they are doing this under the cover of the darkness and fear cast by a genuinely dangerous and frightening pandemic.

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Coronavirus Could Make Voter Suppression Even Easier

Given the recent history of the Republican Party seeking to put barriers in front of young people, African Americans and Latinos seeking to exercise their franchise, the states where the Coronavirus crisis could lead to greater voter suppression having a major effect on the presidential election are those swing states that have Republican governors and state legislatures-Arizona, Florida, Georgia and Ohio, or where there are Democratic governors, but Republican control of the state legislature-Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. If recent actions to make it harder for some groups to vote in states like Ohio, Georgia and Wisconsin are any guideline, it is very possible the laws passed in these states, to adjust to the Coronavirus crisis will have a similar impact.

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Rand Paul and the Stench of Entitlement

Trump and Paul share a core inability to accept scientific reality when it gets in the way of either ideology or partisan interest, as well as an astonishing inability to recognize how this pandemic is already affecting millions of Americans. These two powerful politicians are completely buffeted from the economic uncertainty and lack of access to healthcare that frame the crisis for the rest of us. Thus, it is no surprise that they can blithely issue statements about getting tested because they are “concerned” or say things like “we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem.” Like most Republicans Paul and Trump know and clearly don’t care that the lives and livelihoods that are lost because of their decisions are unlikely to be their own.

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The Cowardice and Avarice of Trump’s Media Enablers

Donald Trump has acted exactly as we could have expected. He has been overmatched by the complexity of the problem, has seen this as a personal attack on him, doled out dangerous advice, ranted and Tweeted rather than offer helpful solutions and has called for shutting the borders long after the virus has become widespread here in the US. Trump’s narcissism, venality, unwillingness to learn anything and abject incompetence have combined into a perfect storm that has contributed to the spread of false information, made it extremely difficult to get tests for the virus and endangered the safety of every American. The presidential administration in general has focused not on solving the problem but on reacting to the president’s outbursts while simultaneously seeking to conceal the extent of his incapacity.

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