Day: August 1, 2020

Over the cliff we go, again

benfell

Updates

  1. Originally published, August 1, 2020, 10:26 pm.
  2. August 2, 10:07 am:

    • The politicians failed and people are feeling the consequences.[1] The thing to understand is that it isn’t just the people now immediately affected. It’s everyone who relies on their cash flow: Even the landlords who evict people will need to find tenants to restore their own cash flow. As the economy shrinks because so many people are destitute, even more will be laid off and, having no margin thanks to neoliberalism, themselves become destitute. This is another downward spiral, another destabilizing feedback. And the politicians have done nothing to arrest it; there is no stabilizing feedback in sight.

      The potential consequence here, if destabilizing feedbacks continue to outweigh stabilizing feedbacks, is system change, and while I know how I’d like that to come out,[2] the simple truth is that no one knows how it will. We are in unpredictable terrain.

Recession

There is a new blog post entitled, “The mysterious expectation that elites give a damn.”

Eli Rosenberg, Erica Werner, and Jeff Stein, “30 million unemployed lose extra jobless benefits, as talks between Congress and the White House are at an impasse,” Washington Post, July 31, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/07/31/congress-bailout-unemployment-insurance/

Paul Kane, “Congress deeply unpopular again as gridlock on coronavirus relief has real-life consequences,” Washington Post, August 1, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/congress-deeply-unpopular-again-as-gridlock-on-coronavirus-relief-has-real-life-consequences/2020/07/31/6d2f10c4-d36a-11ea-8c55-61e7fa5e82ab_story.html

Kyle Swenson, “Ten bucks left, no place to go: How the pandemic and a broken unemployment system are upending people’s lives,” Washington Post, August 1, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/coronavirus-unemployment-delays-dc/2020/08/01/50016264-c522-11ea-8ffe-372be8d82298_story.html

Horse race

My inclination is to suspect that if Donald Trump loses in November, it will be because not even the Democrats can manage to lose to the pandemic. But for me, the Lincoln Project bears watching: Can neoconservatives actually swing a vote?[3] Can they, in fact, push Trump so far over the edge—as if he wasn’t so far over the edge already—that he defeats himself?[4]

Maybe, but I still think it’ll be that even the Democrats can’t manage to lose to COVID-19. But god knows, they’re trying.[5]

Roxanne Roberts, “The Lincoln Project’s plan for preserving the union: Drive Trump out of office by driving him nuts,” Washington Post, August 1, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/lincoln-project-george-conway-ads-trump/2020/07/31/e9542a6a-d278-11ea-9038-af089b63ac21_story.html

Richard Wolffe, “Could this anti-Trump Republican group take down the president?” Guardian, August 1, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/01/lincoln-project-donald-trump-republicans-campaign-ads

  1. [1]Paul Kane, “Congress deeply unpopular again as gridlock on coronavirus relief has real-life consequences,” Washington Post, August 1, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/congress-deeply-unpopular-again-as-gridlock-on-coronavirus-relief-has-real-life-consequences/2020/07/31/6d2f10c4-d36a-11ea-8c55-61e7fa5e82ab_story.html; Kyle Swenson, “Ten bucks left, no place to go: How the pandemic and a broken unemployment system are upending people’s lives,” Washington Post, August 1, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/coronavirus-unemployment-delays-dc/2020/08/01/50016264-c522-11ea-8ffe-372be8d82298_story.html↩
  2. [2]David Benfell, “We need to do everything different,” Not Housebroken, July 30, 2020, https://disunitedstates.org/2020/07/30/we-need-to-do-everything-different/↩
  3. [3]Richard Wolffe, “Could this anti-Trump Republican group take down the president?” Guardian, August 1, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/01/lincoln-project-donald-trump-republicans-campaign-ads↩
  4. [4]Roxanne Roberts, “The Lincoln Project’s plan for preserving the union: Drive Trump out of office by driving him nuts,” Washington Post, August 1, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/lincoln-project-george-conway-ads-trump/2020/07/31/e9542a6a-d278-11ea-9038-af089b63ac21_story.html↩
  5. [5]Eli Rosenberg, Erica Werner, and Jeff Stein, “30 million unemployed lose extra jobless benefits, as talks between Congress and the White House are at an impasse,” Washington Post, July 31, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/07/31/congress-bailout-unemployment-insurance/↩