Governor Cuomo took the gloves off today, and it was really refreshing. It was like getting rid of all the smoke from an airport smoking room (do they still have them?). He said the most profound thing, the simplest thing in the face of any disaster. He reported that the President felt he had done enough, and Cuomo said no. None of us has done enough, not as long as the virus is still here. There isn’t a point where enough is done. It’s all hands on deck until it’s over. You want to quit, but you don’t get to. From the President, to the governors, to the RN holding a now lifeless hand, there is more to do, always more.
Cuomo suggested the premise that he follow the President’s lead. Just tell the people of New York that he’d done enough. He did a lot of good, he was going home. It was a heroic take down. It went on for some time, pulling no punches and it put things in harsh relief.
For Cuomo and most (not all) of the governors this is about how government can be in service to the people. This is exactly the kind of moment that government was made for. It takes a response that is beyond the normal scope of business as usual. By its nature it is extraordinary and requires a like response.
For Trump, this is all happening to him, and his response is to try to find a way to get it off him as quickly as possible. Recklessly striking out in all directions, making absurd declarations that almost instantly blow up in his face, so comically false that most have been silenced by the absurdity of it all. Stunned, the response has been tepid at best. We have someone in the White House that told the President that he had the power to send Congress home so he could appoint some cronies and that he could open and close the states on a whim, who then believed it and tried to act on it. He has finally surrounded himself with people as stupid as he is. A cabal of constitutional ignorance.
That is why what Cuomo did today was heroic. People have been trained by the President to be subservient. He does anything he can to make your life miserable if you cross him, so people don’t. He has a great relationship with the governors because they are walking on eggshells to get the little bit of help they can squeeze out of the administration. If you push back, he comes after you. Fealty seems the better part of valor these days. But Cuomo let it out.
The pushback will likely be ugly.
Yesterday the Administration rolled out a 3 Stage road to recovery. It has checkpoints that a state must pass before it can progress to each stage.
Today, Trump tweeted for the liberation of Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia.
None of them meet the requirements that he put in place yesterday to enter into the first phase.
Today’s episode of Coronapalooza featured Trump encouraging the citizens of Virginia that marched on the Governor’s Mansion with assault rifles (again) to protest gun law reform that was ultimately passed, to reject the states Governor Northam’s authority to shut the state down, and to liberate themselves from the oppressive gun laws that the legislature had just passed. He turned today’s episode into a gun rights rally, and this observer does not think this is coincidental. Much of the former dog-whistle agreements that we have had for decades, coded speech that delivers a message with plausible deniability, have been unraveled. It is barely needed anymore, the ugly is out of the box. There are good people on both sides. Hadn’t you heard?
But armed insurrection is still frowned on in polite company. Encouraging that still needs to be deniable. It has to be. Only the ones looking for it will see it. His fringe is looking for it all the time.
I suggest you start, too.
The President said that the protesters in the three states had been treated very badly, they were very good people and they liked him. They had been treated very badly, and in Virginia your 2nd Amendment rights were being assaulted. Liberate!!!
How would they do that? By organizing and winning at the polls the next time? What is the remedy that he is suggesting? What other remedy is there? Well, these Trump go-getters just might decide to think outside the box. Old solutions may seem new again, especially if they have a champion.
The only hope I see of tamping down the fever that I feel growing and being encouraged is an overwhelming defeat of all of this in November.
Don’t misunderstand. That isn’t a prediction. How would Trump put it? It’s aspirational. That is the only hope of putting the genie back in the bottle. An undeniable slap in the face would make an armed insurrection less likely, the hopes of its success being dashed at the polling station. It would have to extend beyond just the Executive, but be a condemnation of what the Senate has become, an obstructive body at odds with the American people. A total condemnation of Trumpism. If criminal charges followed, well, one can dream.
But if that fantasy does not come to pass, the crazies are gathering. They bought a shitload of ammunition since the virus became a thing. Ammo sales have exploded, no pun intended. Everyone from “The End Is Near” folks to the ones who just are looking for a fight anyway are stocking up for the excitement of anarchy and social dissolution. They’ve been in the woods every weekend waiting for this moment, a good excuse, an inflexion point, a weak spot in the line. They think they see it now. This is the moment of such overreach in their minds that the pushback will be seen as justified, necessary to protect the democratic freedoms that daddies died for.
Poor governors. They were just trying to save a few more lives.
The economy, the economy, the economy! I know. Existential is an overused and less understood term, but this is the existential equation that is being studied right now. When we come out of hiding, there will be victims of that, whenever that is. That isn’t political. It’s a mathematical certainty. So the equation is a delicate balance between human life and societal demands. What is acceptable?
That question requires people of great wisdom applying themselves to a nearly unanswerable question. We have a desperate man clinging to hopes of four more years. It’s a mismatch. He is not up to the moment.
Somehow we have to survive the remainder of his presidency. Congress is the first line of defense. That seems dubious. Much of what has been described as relief funding has been another money grab at the top. If the Congress fails us, then it’s all on the governors and state legislatures. The are burdened by not being able to carry deficits. They actually have to balance their budgets.
So they really need the Fed. But the Fed have done enough. Time to get back to business. See you on the other side.
And good luck.