Stephan: At no time since the Civil War has the United States been as split into two camps as it is today. What is scary about the Trumpers is that they literally operate only on emotions, fear, hate, resentment, racism, and seem impervious to facts. The politicization of mask-wearing being one of the most prominent examples of this dichotomy. I don't think there is going to be much conversion of Trumpers, which is why it is so important that everyone else vote Democratic. This is a campaign not of conversion, but of overwhelm.
The Grim Reaper chats with Florida Man on the beach. Credit: Twitter/@RambleRaconteur
Normally, I wouldn’t be at all concerned about a professional tabloid weirdo like Kanye West running for president. Today, however, I’m actually quite concerned, and not because I think Kanye is likely to win or even fumble his way onto enough ballots to make a dent. He won’t. For now.
The problem with Kanye or other political hobbyists running for president is that it further erodes the already threadbare integrity of our presidential politics, making it increasingly acceptable for other famous-for-being-famous nincompoops to run, and perhaps win. The last four years have illustrated how profoundly dangerous that can be.
These days, the ground is especially fertile for dilettantes and tourists to run for national office. Even on the Democratic side, sparingly. There are myriad reasons for it, but chief among them is that we appear to be experiencing an American nervous breakdown — a societal form of psychological imbalance that’s abundantly evident and worsening by the day.
It became blindingly noticeable in 2016, but during the course of this year in […]
Stephan: I think it is very important that Democrats not get over-confident because of the poll results; it ain't over until it is over. The Republicans, through voter suppression and other schemes, coupled with lazy over-confident Democrats who don't vote may end up giving us a catastrophic outome. Four more years of Trump and America as we have known it will be gone. This essay makes points I hope every Democrat will take to heart.
Biden in Texas
The message to the DNC and all progressives: Stop scaring Middle America
Within days before the 2016 election there were assertions that Hillary Clinton might sweep the board, or at least win in a significant landslide. There were several key factors that led to defeat. The largest, by far, was the number of voters (many of them Democrats who had supported Obama) who failed to go to cast ballots.
There is no rational reason why Trump’s approval rating now should be as high as 38 percent, yet it is. Some pollsters claim the problem in predicting the outcome of the 2016 election was pooling the data on a national level. That they claim failed to take into account the state by state contests. Thus, while Clinton won the popular vote by a significant margin, she lost the electoral college.
But this is not about history, it is about current events and how hard many progressives are working to get Trump re-elected. Obviously, that is not their intent, but certainly consistent […]
Stephan: In most of the rest of the developed world there is only one pandemic going on, and in most of those countries, with the notable exception of Russia, Brazil, and India, it seems to be almost over. In the United States things are very different. It is my view that in America we have two pandemics going on concurrently. One is the Covid-19 pandemic. The other is the Trumper stupidity pandemic. They may be able to cure Covid-19, but death seems to be the only cure for stupidity.
Misinformation and conspiracy theories about COVID-19 continue to flourish in the wake of the pandemic.
A recent online survey of about 2,500 people found that 25 percent either showed a consistent pattern or “very high levels” of endorsing “conspiracy thinking” about the novel coronavirus.
Medical experts urge people to listen to medically credible individuals who speak from knowledge and experience instead of following ideas and untested therapies from social media and even the White House.
Knowledgeable professionals suggest simple interventions to keep yourself and others safe from COVID-19: Wear a mask. Wash your hands. Seek medical care if you feel ill, and follow the guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Anti-mask Trumper Credit: New York Magazine
All data and statistics are based on publicly available data at the time of publication. Some information may be out of date. Visit our coronavirus hub and follow our live updates page for the most recent information on the COVID-19 outbreak.
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Stephan: You can't travel to Europe. It looks like you may not be able to travel to Mexico, and other nations are considering similar restrictions. America is becoming a pariah nation because of its cruelty, incompetence, and stupidity. Yeah, we're number one all right. But not for what Trump seems to think.
American traveler turned away from entering Europe Credit: AOL.com
As coronavirus cases surge in the U.S. South and West, health experts in countries with falling case numbers are watching with a growing sense of alarm and disbelief, with many wondering why virus-stricken U.S. states continue to reopen and why the advice of scientists is often ignored.
“It really does feel like the U.S. has given up,” said Siouxsie Wiles, an infectious-diseases specialist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand — a country that has confirmed only three new cases over the past three weeks and where citizens have now largely returned to their pre-coronavirus routines.
“I can’t imagine what it must be like having to go to work knowing it’s unsafe,” Wiles said of the U.S.-wide economic reopening. “It’s hard to see how this ends. There are just going to be more and more people infected, and more and more deaths. It’s heartbreaking.”
Stephan: Under cover of the pandemic, the Trumpian orcs are working their agendas. Consider this report on Betsy DeVos, who wants to privatize public education This at a time when American students already score abysmally compared to students from other developed nations, and one horror story after another has emerged on what happens when you privatize what was formerly public education.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos testifies before the House in Washington on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020. Credit: Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call, Inc./Getty
With the Trump administration planning to demand that Congress devote a large chunk of the state and local education funding in the next Covid-19 relief package to a new grant program for private and religious schools, the 1.7 million-member American Federation of Teachers on Thursday accused Education Secretary Betsy DeVos of attempting to exploit the pandemic to advance her privatization agenda.
“It is telling that, after spending more than three years doing nothing to help the public schools that 90 percent of children attend, Betsy DeVos races to divert resources into private hands 48 hours after the Supreme Court’s decision in Espinoza,” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a statement, referring to the high court’s ruling Tuesday that religious schools cannot be excluded from taxpayer aid programs.
“Secretary DeVos and President Trump are using this pandemic as an excuse to push an ideological privatization agenda that would divert much-needed funds away from our public schools.” —Sen. Patty Murray
