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The Republican plan has become clear
Apr. 21st, 2020 01:07 pmOkay, I was talking about this a couple of days ago in the preamble to my last news post, but developments last night and today have given us the Republican plan in its broad strokes. I'm going to lay it out for you.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Donkeyballs Donald Trump is convinced that the economy is his path to re-election. That's the most important piece of data here. All of this plan is centred on that.
The various astroturf protests - and their extensive promotion and coverage by Fox News - from last weekend served two purposes.
The first was to provide pretext for an immensely unpopular policy of abandoning the most effective methods of COVID-19 suppression to reopen businesses. (Between 56% and 70% of Republicans polled support the measures, last data I had. Everyone else supported them much more strongly.)
That abandonment is starting already. Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee are only the beginning. The stepped-back control efforts will not - we already know, because we and several other countries tried them - be enough to keep the outbreak contained. Our R0 when we were in that stage did go down from the previous 2.4-2.7 down to 1.4, but that's still exponentially upwards, with the same results. Other experiences were similar or worse.
The Republicans know this and do not care. But it will get at least some additional economic activity moving.
Unfortunately, that is only part of the agenda.
The second path is to sabotage Democratic (and non-compliant Republican) attempts to control the pandemic via shutdowns. This is already being partly managed through astroturfed anti-containment protests - we will, I think, see more of these - but will also take other forms.
(Cascadians: Noted chair thief and serial campaign finance law violator Tim Eyman was working ours, doing just a creepy amount of face-touching of both his own and other people's faces.)
One of those forms became clear today, with Bill Barr's threat of legal action against states which do not "open" their economies in a timeline he and the Trump administration find suitable. This is an extension of Trump's declaration that he's the absolute boss and nobody can defy him.
Forcing states to partially abandon containment measures will be partly to force economic activity up, but they also have a secondary purpose of discrediting pandemic control efforts.
I cannot stress this enough: the intent is to discredit pandemic control efforts through sabotage.
Why?
Because after sabotaging such efforts, the GOP will say, "See? It never worked anyway, and the entire shutdown was INTENTIONAL DEMOCRAT SABOTAGE OF THE ECONOMY to DEFEAT DONALD TRUMP."
I do not have to speculate about this, because last night, I saw reports of multiple right-wing radio talk show hosts across different parts of the country rolling out nearly-identical lines to this effect. It's already started.
You're also seeing a resurgence of "the science is/was wrong/we had the wrong science (wrong because we didn't like it)," which will almost certainly become, "and the Democrats knew it and used it as an excuse to SABOTAGE THE ECONOMY because of how much they HATE AMERICA and HATE DONALD TRUMP."
So that's also the motive, and I'm pretty sure the plan. Enough of the pieces have rolled out to make it fairly well visible, so I'm fairly confident. I mean, if you piece all the visible parts together, you get a pretty coherent picture, and it's the one I've just drawn. So while I could be wrong, I really don't think I am.
There are several open questions, most of which are obvious. How well will Democratic states hold up in the face of this? I suspect the Pact will do fairly well. I don't know how the Ten State Group or whatever they're calling themselves these days will manage, particularly since some of them are Republicans. And talking of Republicans, how well will this sit with the large majority of Republicans who are - at least, before the propaganda onslaught - against this kind of action? I think they'll fold in, like they have every time before now, but it's harder when it's killing people you know.
They key question, though, will be how united is the GOP on this as a party? The Trumpists will go all-out. The Never-Trump will continue to Never Trump, gods bless them. The faux Trumpists are the ones who will decide it, and while I don't think they'll push back, they could surprise me. Let's hope so.
The key question will be, how many Republicans are willing to kill a few hundred thousand to a couple million Americans for Donald Trump's re-election?
I don't think it'll take very long to get an answer on that.
Sorry. But, well - there you are.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
- Cut pandemic control efforts to improve economic activity in their own states, ignoring death tolls
- Sabotage pandemic control response elsewhere to discredit them - "they never worked anyway"
- Accuse Democrats of using the "fake pandemic" to sabotage the economy because they Hate America and Trump
- Trigger enough anger, ressentiment, and economic improvement to re-elect Donkeyballs Donald.
Donkeyballs Donald Trump is convinced that the economy is his path to re-election. That's the most important piece of data here. All of this plan is centred on that.
The various astroturf protests - and their extensive promotion and coverage by Fox News - from last weekend served two purposes.
The first was to provide pretext for an immensely unpopular policy of abandoning the most effective methods of COVID-19 suppression to reopen businesses. (Between 56% and 70% of Republicans polled support the measures, last data I had. Everyone else supported them much more strongly.)
That abandonment is starting already. Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee are only the beginning. The stepped-back control efforts will not - we already know, because we and several other countries tried them - be enough to keep the outbreak contained. Our R0 when we were in that stage did go down from the previous 2.4-2.7 down to 1.4, but that's still exponentially upwards, with the same results. Other experiences were similar or worse.
The Republicans know this and do not care. But it will get at least some additional economic activity moving.
Unfortunately, that is only part of the agenda.
The second path is to sabotage Democratic (and non-compliant Republican) attempts to control the pandemic via shutdowns. This is already being partly managed through astroturfed anti-containment protests - we will, I think, see more of these - but will also take other forms.
(Cascadians: Noted chair thief and serial campaign finance law violator Tim Eyman was working ours, doing just a creepy amount of face-touching of both his own and other people's faces.)
One of those forms became clear today, with Bill Barr's threat of legal action against states which do not "open" their economies in a timeline he and the Trump administration find suitable. This is an extension of Trump's declaration that he's the absolute boss and nobody can defy him.
Forcing states to partially abandon containment measures will be partly to force economic activity up, but they also have a secondary purpose of discrediting pandemic control efforts.
I cannot stress this enough: the intent is to discredit pandemic control efforts through sabotage.
Why?
Because after sabotaging such efforts, the GOP will say, "See? It never worked anyway, and the entire shutdown was INTENTIONAL DEMOCRAT SABOTAGE OF THE ECONOMY to DEFEAT DONALD TRUMP."
I do not have to speculate about this, because last night, I saw reports of multiple right-wing radio talk show hosts across different parts of the country rolling out nearly-identical lines to this effect. It's already started.
You're also seeing a resurgence of "the science is/was wrong/we had the wrong science (wrong because we didn't like it)," which will almost certainly become, "and the Democrats knew it and used it as an excuse to SABOTAGE THE ECONOMY because of how much they HATE AMERICA and HATE DONALD TRUMP."
So that's also the motive, and I'm pretty sure the plan. Enough of the pieces have rolled out to make it fairly well visible, so I'm fairly confident. I mean, if you piece all the visible parts together, you get a pretty coherent picture, and it's the one I've just drawn. So while I could be wrong, I really don't think I am.
There are several open questions, most of which are obvious. How well will Democratic states hold up in the face of this? I suspect the Pact will do fairly well. I don't know how the Ten State Group or whatever they're calling themselves these days will manage, particularly since some of them are Republicans. And talking of Republicans, how well will this sit with the large majority of Republicans who are - at least, before the propaganda onslaught - against this kind of action? I think they'll fold in, like they have every time before now, but it's harder when it's killing people you know.
They key question, though, will be how united is the GOP on this as a party? The Trumpists will go all-out. The Never-Trump will continue to Never Trump, gods bless them. The faux Trumpists are the ones who will decide it, and while I don't think they'll push back, they could surprise me. Let's hope so.
The key question will be, how many Republicans are willing to kill a few hundred thousand to a couple million Americans for Donald Trump's re-election?
I don't think it'll take very long to get an answer on that.
Sorry. But, well - there you are.
