by Thomas NeuburgerI’ve written before about the wide and deep rift that splits all three layers of the Democratic “party”*. Today, that split within these layers — office-holders and leaders; activists and campaign workers; voters and angry non-voters — is widening.A Legacy of BetrayalThe split is greatest in the third layer, among the voters, as the sense of betrayal is greatest there as well.
There were two votes in the Senate last night regarding the $2 trillion bailout package. The bill itself, which was a compromise concoction with some flimsy, temporary relief for ordinary families that progressives wanted and a hideous grab bag of corporate giveaways and bailouts conservatives insisted on-- while holding working people hostage-- passed 96-0 in the wee hours.
According to the latest YouGov poll for The Economist, just 20% of Americans think the pandemic is not a national emergency and 15% are unsure. And 22% say they are either not very concerned or not concerned at all about the pandemic. Forget those people they're probably going to die anyway--or vote for conservatives.One question in the poll was "Do you approve or disapprove of Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak?"
Long-time DWT readers will probably remember David Segal, a super-progressive Rhode Island state legislator who Blue America backed in his 2010 fight for an open congressional seat. Currently he's executive director of Demand Progress.
Yesterday, under intense pressure, Señor Trumpanzee did a 180-- going from insisting the pandemic was a "hoax" perpetrated against him so he would lose his reelection bid, to declaring a national emergency because of it.As Susan Glasser asserted in the New Yorker this week,
Wrong Rice? Close enoughIf an American civilization survives the next decade, perhaps it will infer numerological significance from the fact that each of the tipping points, which is discussed below, probably became inevitable on or around February 20, 2020, which was the 20th day of the 2nd month of the 20th year of the 20-numbered century, i.e., my birthday.I.
Joe and Strom-- they got things doneRemember when Biden-- before he stopped saying anything unscripted-- mentioned that by working with overt racists in the Senate "We got things done?" On the air with Amy Goodman last June, one of America's most revered public intellectuals, Ta-Nehisi Coates, stated flatly that "
I'm no clairvoyant but it didn't take much insight to figure out that if the Democrats nominate Biden, Trump will make the race into one that asks each voter to grapple not with pressing issues-- especially since Biden, like hillary before him, doesn't really for anything other than anti-Trump-- but with who has a more repulsive corrupt family, who lies more and whose dementia is further advanced.
That was quite the Fox New town hall in Scranton-- Biden's brithplace-- Thursday. The very first question was about his incompetence regarding the coronavirus. Trump responded that "we've been given tremendous marks... We've gotten the highest poll numbers of anybody for this kind of a thing." An election between he and Biden would leave voters to decide which codger's dementia is worse. anyway, Trump's answer wasn't just disjointed and manipulative; it was false. The U.S.
