Stephan: Noam Chomsky raises a highly relevant issue that is getting far too little attention. It is as obvious as rain falling that the Republican Party is doing everything it can to use the pandemic to gain political benefit, and further the dismantlement of American democracy.
Noam Chomsky
Note: This excerpt was adapted from Internationalism or Extinction by Noam Chomsky, edited by Charles Derber, Suren Moodliar and Paul Shannon.
As the COVID-19 pandemic turns the global political and economic order on its head, two vastly different futures appear possible. At one end of the spectrum, societies facing the toll of the virus may collapse into authoritarianism. But at the other end of the spectrum, we have the possibility of learning the lessons of this disaster — another colossal market failure enhanced by a neoliberal assault and now Trump’s wrecking ball.
The current crisis offers a powerful argument for universal health care and rethinking deeper problems of our societies. Which outcome will prevail depends on the strength of aroused public opinion, as described in the examples that follow, which are adapted for Truthout from my book Internationalism or Extinction.
If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to start with a brief reminiscence of a period which is eerily similar to today in many unpleasant respects. I’m thinking of 80 years ago. It happened to be the moment of the first article that I […]
Stephan: This is the kind of scum that Trump and Pence have chosen to keep close around them. In any other administration in American history, this disgusting Pharisee would create a scandal that would rock the administration to its foundations. But in the world of criminal Trump, there are so many scandals this hardly registers except on an investigative journalism site like The Intercept.
This report is also telling us by the participation of so many Republicans in Congress, who come to and enjoy these sessions, that Drollinger represents the true face of christofascism. I just wonder if you want to get into a Christian seminary today do you have to have an IQ below 85?
Christofascist minister Ralph Drollinger, leader of White House prayer group
Ralph Drollinger, a minister who leads a weekly Bible study group for President Donald Trump’s cabinet, released a new interpretation of the coronavirus pandemic this week, arguing that the crisis represents an act of God’s judgment.
The coronavirus, Drollinger argues in two blogposts and a rambling Bible study guide published in the past few days, is a form of God’s wrath upon nations, but not one as severe as the floods described in the Old Testament or the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
“Relative to the coronavirus pandemic crisis, this is not God’s abandonment wrath nor His cataclysmic wrath, rather it is sowing and reaping wrath,” wrote Drollinger. “A biblically astute evaluation of the situation strongly suggests that America and other countries of the world are reaping what China has sown due to their leaders’ recklessness and lack of candor and transparency.”
Neither does he miss a chance to condemn those who worship the “religion of environmentalism” and express a “proclivity toward lesbianism and homosexuality.” […]
Stephan: I pay very close attention to the Nordic countries because on the basis of hard data those societies are healthier, happier, more affluent, more democratic, longer-lived, more literate, better educated, and better prepared for climate change than the United States. This report describes one of the social policies they are trying.
Credit: H. Armstrong/Getty/Atlantic
While the White House and lawmakers haggle over the terms of an emergency economic-stabilization package, Denmark has gone big—very, very big—to defeat the unprecedented challenge of the coronavirus.
This week, the Danish government told private companies hit by the effects of the pandemic that it would pay 75 percent of their employees’ salaries to avoid mass layoffs. The plan could require the government to spend as much as 13 percent of the national economy in three months. That is roughly the equivalent of a $2.5 trillion stimulus in the United States spread out over just 13 weeks. Like I said: very, very big.
This response might strike some as a catastrophically ruinous overreaction. Perhaps for Denmark, it will be. But we are at a fragile moment in American history. The U.S. faces the sharpest economic downturn in a century, and statistics that seem impossibly pessimistic one moment look positively optimistic hours later. In weeks—even days—Denmark’s aggressive response could be a blueprint for how […]
Stephan: For years I have been saying and publishing stories showing the difference between Red value governance and Blue value governance, showing that Republicans cannot govern if social wellbeing is the priority. The Republican priority is always to support the interests of the rich, the corporations, and the White community. Nowhere is this being made clearer than in the response to the Coronavirus. Consider Kentucky and Tennessee.
Democratic Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear
Then Democratic candidate Andy Beshear unveiling his health care plan one year ago in Frankfort, Ky.
Last November, voters in Kentucky handed the governorship to Democrat Andy Beshear in a narrow victory of incumbent governor Matt Bevin. Bevin, a Donald Trump favorite, had done his best to undermine Kentucky’s successful deployment of the Affordable Care Act , blamed striking teachers for causing rape, and cancelled background checks for owning a gun. Bevin went out the door with all the class he displayed while in office, pardoning relatives of campaign donors no matter how hideous their crimes. Beshear’s victory was narrow, and for a time Bevin refused to admit defeat and encouraged the Republican-dominated legislature contemplated overturning the election. They did not, and Beshear has since issued executive orders that secured medical care for 95,000 Kentuckians and restored the voting rights of 100,000 former felons.
A year earlier, Tennesseans elected Bill Lee as their 50th […]
Stephan: There are all kinds of interesting, and disturbing, data emerging from this Covid-19 pandemic. When you stress a system its flaws and weaknesses suddenly come into focus. Unfortunately, much of this isn’t getting the coverage it should because the media is focused mostly on the pandemic numbers. So here is a partial list: the Republicans are blocking vote by mail because, of course, they fear fair voting. There are, as I have already reported endless grifts, and finagles; the Republican version of bills are being literally written by corporate lobbyists. Rightwing media is trying to play the virus to the benefit of Trump and the Trumplican congress. This report focuses on that aspect.
Illustration: by The Cut; /Photos: stevanovic igor/Getty
The coronavirus pandemic has been marked by medical uncertainty, rapidly changing information, and partisan rancor, making it a prime target for the spread of disinformation: some of that disinformation is about unproven cures, for both the disease and the disintegrating economy; some is intended to delegitimize the politicians who may or may not be in a position to steer the nation through it (and some of it comes not via the internet but from the president himself; see the man who died after heeding Trump’s assurances that chloroquine was a possible answer to coronavirus). Jiore Craig is a political consultant at a research firm, GQR Insights and Action, who has spent the past four years tracking the spread of disinformation online, much of it originating with, or being propagated by, the far-right political media — sites like Breitbart and Infowars. The Cut spoke to her about the patterns she’s seen and how they’re playing out in the midst of this pandemic.
