Month: July 2020

Sigh:

As she walked up to the podium to speak, one of the moms grabbed a face mask and spit her gum out into it. “It’s garbage,” she shrugged, wadding it up. “It doesn’t work anyway. Not for me and not for my kids.”

A dad who spoke after her said he, too, doesn’t think the masks are effective, and said he’s pulling his kids out of school this fall if the state doesn’t lift its mandate requiring all K-12 students to wear a face covering. Another mother carried her 4-year-old son in her arms, noting there’s no way he would keep one on in his kindergarten class — but she thinks they’re stupid anyway, regardless of age.

Parent after parent followed at the Utah County commission meeting Wednesday afternoon, objecting for more than two hours to having their kids in masks even as counts of the virus continue to climb across the state, where there are more than 30,000 confirmed cases.

They packed into the small boardroom to talk, pulling tape off the seats meant to maintain social distancing and crowding in against the walls. They wore “Trump 2020” hats and carried little American flags, and every time someone said “freedom” or “constitutional rights” the whole room cheered. Almost no one wore a mask; those who did had them pulled under their chins.

“This mandate for the children to wear masks is baloney,” said Cynthia Harding, a Provo resident. “We have the right to make our own choices.”

Gov. Gary Herbert had issued the edict last week for masks to be required in schools after he earlier ordered them to open this fall. The move was largely met with applause from teachers and parents who say they feel it will keep those inside schools safe and slow the spread of the virus. But some are now starting to protest.

On Wednesday, the state saw two separate rallies around education.

It kicked off in Provo and was followed, hours later, by a second in Salt Lake City. In the state’s capital, parents and students called on the Salt Lake City School District to get kids back in the classroom instead of continuing online, even as the area — the only location in the state — remains in the “orange,” or moderate, risk phase for the virus.

“It’s not fair,” one student said. “All of the schools around us get to go back. And we don’t.”

The biggest difference is the families pushing to return in Salt Lake City are willing to send their kids back in masks to make it happen. At the larger and louder rally in the more conservative Utah County, not having to wear them was the point.

About 150 residents there began with a gathering organized by Utah County Commissioner Bill Lee about 30 minutes before the commission meeting. The Republican leader has called for a “compassionate exemption” from the mask requirement for the thousands of students in Alpine, Provo and Nebo School Districts in the county. Parents, he believes, should choose whether their children wear a covering or not.

“I don’t like government mandates,” Lee said to claps and whistles from the crowd.

When he first walked out from the Provo courthouse, he had a light blue face covering on, saying it was required of him. Those outside chanted, “Take the mask off!” And he did.

Demonstrators carried posters that read “Don’t smother the children” and “Let kids be kids. No masks!” A few younger kids sat in strollers, adding to their parents’ cheers. Most clung to the small bits of shade on the sweltering day, but the heat didn’t deter them.

When a few counter-protesters showed up, with one man holding a sign that argued, “Wearing a mask is an act of compassion,” the group yelled and screamed.

“It’s an act of submission,” they said. “Jesus gives us a choice,” they added. “And mandates are against freedom.”

At the other rally, they too wanted their kids back in school but were willing to have them wear masks in order to make it safe.

What in the hell is wrong with people? Is there something in the water? Lead paint? This is sheer lunacy.

This is as messed-up a time as I can remember. That includes the late 1960s. An emotionally stunted, psychologically damaged, wannabe crime lord sits tweeting in the White House while tens of thousands of Americans die from a deadly virus spreading virtually unchecked from California to the New York island.

Much of the rest of the world has wrestled the novel coronavirus to ground. But not here. Because freedom. Freedom worshiped as an idol. Freedom from responsibility to one another.

Omg pic.twitter.com/5fOEzQr0WQ

— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) July 15, 2020

The political right has inculcated in its tribe such anti-government sentiment since the Reagan years that the very government defined by “We the People” is now its enemy. Whenever government is not a wholly owned subsidiary of the right’s preferred race and religion, that is. Now, when national coordination is required to save lives and livelihoods, our collective hands are tied. People who view “We the People” with suspicion tied them.

The COVID-19 pandemic has killed nearly 140,000 Americans and sickened 3.5 million, including the Republican governor of Oklahoma, home to Woody Guthrie. Rather than ensuring enough federal money is available to keep struggling citizens afloat as the virus turns a new generation’s dreams to dust, rather than seeing that enough tests are available to control the spread, the paranoiac in the White House is pursuing tests of another sort:

The White House’s presidential personnel office is conducting one-on-one interviews with health officials and hundreds of other political appointees across federal agencies, an exercise some of the subjects have called “loyalty tests” to root out threats of leaks and other potentially subversive acts just months before the presidential election, according to interviews with 15 current and former senior administration officials.

It’s “an exercise in ferreting out people who are perceived as not Trump enough,” someone briefed on the meeting tells Politico.

Last night, I stumbled across some folk music that brought to mind a different America, one almost faded into history. In the 1950s, folk music was seen as subversive enough to draw the attention of a House Un-American Activities Committee intent on ferreting out people of that time not deemed Trump enough.

By the time I was old enough to listen, folk music’s subversive associations had been sanitized out enough for folk groups such as The Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul and Mary, The Limeliters, and The New Christy Minstrels to appear on TV variety shows. Not even my Bircher-curious father seemed to know what lay beneath some of those songs. The edgier lyrics got dropped on TV and left out of songbooks issued to school children.

This Land Is Your Land
Words and Music by Woody Guthrie

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York island,
From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters;
This land was made for you and me.

As I was walking that ribbon of highway
I saw above me that endless skyway;
I saw below me that golden valley;
This land was made for you and me.

I’ve roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts;
And all around me a voice was sounding;
This land was made for you and me.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling,
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling,
As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting:
This land was made for you and me.

As I went walking I saw a sign there,
And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.”
But on the other side it didn’t say nothing.
That side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.

I don’t think I heard the “No Trespassing” or later verses until I reached college. Pete Seeger often acknowledged the country’s colonialist past by adding another verse composed by activist Carolyn “Cappy” Israel:

This land is your land, but it once was my land
Before we sold you Manhattan Island
You pushed my nation to the reservation,
This land was stole by you from me.

The U.S. Supreme Court is just now acknowledging whose land much of Oklahoma’s is. U.S. poet laureate Joy Harjo was at home in Muscogee Creek Nation territory when her husband burst in with the news:

I froze, caught on an inhale, in disbelief and shock. How could any Native tribal nation win any decision with this conservative Supreme Court? And at a time in American history like this when justice seemed so imperiled? My husband and I teared up.

[…]

The elders, the Old Ones, always believed that in the end, there would be justice for those who cared for and who had not forgotten the original teachings, rooted in a relationship with the land. I could still hear their voices as we sat out on the porch later that evening when it cooled down. Justice is sometimes seven generations away, or even more. And it is inevitable.

This land is still our land. All of ours. Even those who believe themselves gifted by their god with the right to dominate the rest of us and fearful of sharing it.

This Springsteen version of “Low Bridge, Everybody Down” began this reverie, woven as folk music is into American history. It’s stunning.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.
Note: The pandemic will upend standard field tactics in 2020. If enough promising “improvisations” come my way, perhaps I can issue a COVID-19 supplement.

Paul Waldman discusses the “enthusiasm gap” that the Republicans are all out there touting as the key to their success in November.

Its not all that:

Biden is familiar from his many years as a senator and vice president, which makes it harder to change how people think of him. Uncle Joe may be a little overbearing at times and say things he shouldn’t, but everyone knows he means well. You may find him occasionally exasperating, but you don’t hate him.AD

And unlike Clinton, he isn’t a woman, so he doesn’t bring out the same kind of venomous misogyny she did. Nor has he been the target of decades of attacks from the right, the way she was.

It’s almost impossible to overstate just how much Republicans hated Clinton — and how important that was in 2016.

Let’s take just one measure. For decades, the highly respected American National Election Studies has been asking voters to rate candidates on a “feeling thermometer.” In 2000, Republicans gave Al Gore an average thermometer rating of 41 out of 100. In 2008, they gave Obama an average rating of 37. Their average rating for Clinton in 2016 was 17.

That’s partly a result of polarization and negative partisanship (ratings for the other party’s candidate have been steadily declining for the past two decades), but it has a lot to do with Clinton herself. Trump’s victory in 2016 — losing by 3 million votes but squeaking out a win in the electoral college — was only possible because so many Republicans hated Clinton so much that they were able to put aside their reservations about Trump…

[T]oday, no Republican tries to make the same kind of case, despite the fact that Biden is running on a far more progressive platform than Clinton did. Republicans just can’t seem to work themselves up into the same frenzy of terror and loathing.

Which shows how much of what they felt in 2016 was personal, not about what Clinton would do in office. Not only that, with the Trump presidency being such a disaster, no Republican can tell themselves, as they did then, “Sure, he’s a bigot and a buffoon. But maybe it will be fine.”

Oh heck. And here I thought it was all about their economic anxiety…

Here’s why this is important:

And you know who is motivated by hate right now? Democrats. As political scientist Michael Tesler notes, in some polls, the proportion of Trump voters who have highly unfavorable opinions of Biden trails the proportion of Biden voters with highly unfavorable opinions of Trump by nearly 30 points.

The Trump campaign likes to talk about the “enthusiasm gap,” by which it means that Trump has more intense supporters than Biden. But this is the enthusiasm gap that matters. A voter who finds Biden simply tolerable but would crawl through fire to vote against Trump is worth just as much as a MAGA-clad devotee of the president.

Republicans may have hated Hillary Clinton with a passion but they haven’t seen anything until they’ve seen the monumental loathing for their Dear Leader. And he’s earned every single bit of it.

None of this should surprise anyone. There is something deeply, deeply wrong with all of them.

And there’s something equally malignantly dysfunctional about an American culture that would put someone like this in charge of the country.

Let’s hope enough of us have sobered up enough to recognise that.

We might get lucky:

As coronavirus cases surge and states rollback re-openings, former Vice President Joe Biden opens up his biggest lead this year over President Donald Trump in the race for the White House. Registered voters back Biden over Trump 52 – 37 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today. This compares to a June 18th national poll when Biden led Trump 49 – 41 percent. Since March, Biden’s lead had ranged from 8 to 11 percentage points.

He’s cratering. And it’s clearly because people are finally seeing what it looks like when a circus clown president has to handle a real crisis:

Independents are a key factor behind Biden’s widening lead as they now back him 51 – 34 percent, while in June, independents were split with 43 percent for Biden and 40 percent for Trump. There is also some movement among Republicans as they back Trump 84 – 9 percent, compared to 92 – 7 percent in June. Democrats go to Biden 91 – 5 percent, little changed from 93 – 4 percent in June.

“Yes, there’s still 16 weeks until Election Day, but this is a very unpleasant real time look at what the future could be for President Trump. There is no upside, no silver lining, no encouraging trend hidden somewhere in this survey for the president,” said Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy.

BIDEN VS. TRUMP: THE ISSUES

Voters now give Biden a slight lead over Trump in a direct match up when it comes to handling the economy. Voters say 50 – 45 percent that Biden would do a better job handling the economy, a reversal from June when Trump held a slight lead 51 – 46 percent.

Asked about other key issues:

* On handling a crisis, Biden leads 57 – 38 percent;

* On handling health care, Biden leads 58 – 35 percent;

* On the coronavirus response, Biden leads 59 – 35 percent;

* On addressing racial inequality, Biden leads 62 – 30 percent.

BIDEN VS. TRUMP: PERSONAL TRAITS

When asked about whether the candidates are honest, have good leadership skills and whether they care about average Americans, President Trump receives some of his worst scores ever.

Honesty:

Trump: 31 percent say “yes;” 66 percent say “no;”

Biden: 46 percent say “yes;” 42 percent say “no.”

Good Leadership Skills:

Trump: 35 percent say “yes;” 63 percent say “no;”

Biden: 49 percent say “yes;” 42 percent say “no.”

Cares About Average Americans:

Trump: 37 percent say “yes;” 61 percent say “no;”

Biden: 59 percent say “yes;” 33 percent say “no.”

TRUMP JOB APPROVAL

Voters give President Trump a negative 36 – 60 percent job approval rating, a 6 point drop in his job approval compared to last month. In that June 18th poll, Trump had a negative 42 – 55 percent job approval rating. Trump’s net job approval is his worst since August of 2017.

TRUMP’S HANDLING OF THE ECONOMY

President Trump’s approval rating on the economy is underwater as voters approve 44 – 53 percent, compared to his 52 – 45 percent approval rating on the economy in June. Today’s numbers are his worst net score on the economy since August of 2017.

TRUMP’S HANDLING OF OTHER ISSUES

On handling the military, voters give the president a negative 41 – 51 percent approval.

On handling foreign policy, voters give the president a negative 37 – 59 percent approval.

On handling health care, voters give the president a negative 35 – 59 percent approval.

On handling race relations, voters give the president a negative 31 – 65 percent approval.

CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE

Voters give the president a negative 35 – 62 percent approval rating for his handling of the coronavirus response, his lowest mark since the question was first asked in March.

A clear majority of voters, 62 – 31 percent, say they think President Trump is hurting rather than helping efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

“Trump’s strongest card, the economy, shredded by a killer virus, may have left the president with no go- to issue or trait to stave off defeat… not leadership, not empathy, not foreign policy, and certainly not his handling of COVID-19,” said Malloy.

And get a load of this — a big problem:

CORONAVIRUS INFECTIONS

For the first time, a majority, 53 – 46 percent, have either been or personally know someone who has been infected by the coronavirus.

TRUSTING INFORMATION ABOUT CORONAVIRUS: TRUMP, FAUCI, CDC

Two-thirds, 67 – 30 percent, say they do not trust the information President Trump is providing about the coronavirus.

Conversely, nearly two-thirds, 65 – 26 percent, say they trust the information Dr. Anthony Fauci is providing about the coronavirus.

Roughly 6 in 10, 61 to 33 percent, say they trust the information the CDC is providing about the coronavirus.

“He may be out of the loop and in disfavor with the White House, but it’s clear from the numbers, voters would like Dr. Fauci back on call,” Malloy added.

RE-OPENING OF SCHOOLS

Voters say more than 2 to 1, 61 – 29 percent, that they disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling the re-opening of schools.

They also say 2 to 1, 62 – 31 percent, that they think it will be unsafe to send students to elementary, middle, or high school in the fall.

A slightly smaller number, 59 – 34 percent, say they think it will be unsafe to send students to college in the fall.

WEARING OF MASKS

Slightly more than 7 in 10 Americans, 71 – 26 percent, think everyone should be required to wear face masks in public.

They also say, 73 – 21 percent, that President Trump should wear a face mask when he is out in public.

A slightly higher number, 80 – 17 percent, believe masks or face coverings are effective in slowing the spread of the coronavirus.

RUSSIA & REPORTS OF BOUNTIES FOR KILLING U.S. SOLDIERS IN AFGHANISTAN

Seventy-seven percent of voters say they are either “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” about reports that Russia paid bounties for the killing of American soldiers in Afghanistan. Twenty percent say they are “not so concerned” or “not concerned at all.”

Fifty-nine percent say they think President Trump is not telling the truth regarding what he knew about reports of Russian payments to kill American troops. Twenty-nine percent say they think he is telling the truth.

Voters say 62 – 25 percent that they are not satisfied with President Trump’s response to the reports of Russian payments to kill American troops.

CONFEDERATE SYMBOLS

Voters say 54 – 40 percent they support removing Confederate statues from public spaces around the country.

Voters support 51 – 42 percent renaming military bases named after Confederate generals.

A majority, 56 percent, see the Confederate flag more as a symbol of racism. Thirty-five percent see it more as a symbol of Southern pride.

Trump is on the wrong side of everything.

Maybe that means we don’t actually want malignant dysfunction in the White House.

Imagine that.

Update:

More data from CNBC/NBC poll

Here’s how Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, and the Republican Trump matched up in individual states: 

• Arizona: Biden 51%, Trump 45% 
• Florida: Biden 50%, Trump 43% 
• Michigan: Biden 48%, Trump 42% 
• North Carolina: Biden 47%, Trump 46% 
• Pennsylvania: Biden 50%, Trump 42% 
• Wisconsin: Biden 48%, Trump 42% 

If it’s Goya, it has to be good.
Si es Goya, tiene que ser bueno. pic.twitter.com/9tjVrfmo9z

— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) July 15, 2020

This woman is a member of the administration. It is illegal for her to advertise a product. Not that she cares.

But honestly, she and her husband destroy everything they touch so if I were Goya foods I’d be a little bit wary of this endorsement. It’s certainly unlikely that the base will rush out a pick up a bunch of cans of food associated with Hispanic food. They don’t like Hispanic anything.

And I sincerely doubt that Ivanka has any pull with Latinos. Or anyone, really.

Update:

Fergawdsakes

I think I get it now. The Trump crime family is now earnestly setting themselves up for post-presidency branding opportunities.

Trump beans anyone? yum.

This new poll from Monmouth about Pennsylvania is heartening:

Joe Biden holds a 13 point lead over Donald Trump among all registered voters in Pennsylvania according to the Monmouth (“Mon-muth”) University Poll.  Among likely voters, the Democrat has an edge of 7 to 10 points depending on the expected turnout level. Biden is also ahead in key swing counties, which include the region of his birthplace. Despite the challenger’s poll lead, voters are evenly divided on who they think will win the Keystone State’s electoral votes this year as a majority believe that their communities hold a number of “secret Trump voters.” Other poll findings include a close margin on the generic congressional ballot and better reviews for the commonwealth’s governor than for the president on handling the pandemic.

Among all registered voters in Pennsylvania, Biden is supported by 53% and Trump by 40%, with 3% saying they will vote for another candidate and 4% who are undecided. Biden is in a relatively stronger position among his fellow Democrats (93% to 1%) than Trump is among Republican voters (84% to 12%). Biden also enjoys a wide margin among independent voters (54% to 33%).

Biden has the advantage among voters under 50 years old (60% to 29%) as well as voters age 65 and older (52% to 42%). Trump has an edge among voters between 50 and 64 years old (56% to 43%). White voters without a college degree also prefer the incumbent (55% to 39%) while the challenger leads among white college graduates (61% to 34%) and voters who are Black, Hispanic, Asian or from other racial groups (76% to 16%).

Biden is doing especially well in ten counties where the vote margins were closest in the 2016 presidential election. The Democrat currently holds a 54% to 35% lead among registered voters in these swing counties*, which are concentrated in a swath that runs from the Philadelphia suburbs into the northeast region where the candidate grew up. The poll also finds that Biden racks up a huge margin in four large counties that went solidly for Hillary Clinton in 2016 (68% to 26%), while Trump leads in the remaining counties that he won handily four years ago (55% to 40%).

“Even taking into account any polling error from four years ago, Biden is clearly doing well in swing areas. The Democrat has roots in this region which may be helping him, but there seems to be an overall erosion of support for Trump compared to 2016,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute.

I understand why people have paranoid reactions about a “hidden Trump vote.” Trump has a full-blown cult behind him and they seem more powerful than they are. Also, Republicans cheat.

But it’s probably not real. Trump voters are loud and proud and no Trump hates Biden the way they hated Clinton.

Trump doesn’t have magical powers. He’s just a lucky guy who managed to fool a lot of people.

“Starting Monday, July 20th we will require all shoppers to wear a face covering.”

-Dacona Smith, Chief Operating Officer, Walmart U.S., and Lance de la Rosa, Chief Operating Officer, Sam’s Club (July 15th, Walmart press release)

THIS IS GREAT NEWS! This is HUGE!

I could go on about how this should have happened MONTHS ago. I could speculate how their customers will react. But what I will do instead is use Walmart’s action as leverage to GET MANDATED MASK REQUIREMENTS IN ALL OTHER RETAIL STORES IN THE COUNTRY.

Today’s action to stop COVID-19 is to contact all retail stores and ask them:

“When will you be issuing a nationwide mask policy like Walmart?”

If they say they are not, ask why.  Here’s the piece I wrote two months ago on how to get retailers to pass mask requirements even if the state they are in doesn’t require them. I have a lot of good advice, but this Walmart announcement is going to help convince the other national retailers the most.

Tweet, email, post on Facebook and call headquarters. Corporate retail America now has a model from the nation’s largest retailer they can follow.  Their press  release on the mask policy explains why they did it and how they are dealing with customers.

I can guarantee that Walmart’s policy is going to be a huge help to other retailers to implement mandated mask policies. But they need pressure from customers asking for them to do it.

Want To Reopen Retail? Everyone Must Wear Masks

Peter Navarro, Trump’s economic adviser, had some thoughts:

Dr. Anthony Fauci has a good bedside manner with the public, but he has been wrong about everything I have interacted with him on.

In late January, when I was making the case on behalf of the president to take down the flights from China, Fauci fought against the president’s courageous decision — which might well have saved hundreds of thousands of American lives.

When I warned in late January in a memo of a possibly deadly pandemic, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was telling the news media not to worry.

When I was working feverishly on behalf of the president in February to help engineer the fastest industrial mobilization of the health care sector in our history, Fauci was still telling the public the China virus was low risk.

When we were building new mask capacity in record time, Fauci was flip-flopping on the use of masks.

And when Fauci was telling the White House Coronavirus Task Force that there was only anecdotal evidence in support of hydroxychloroquine to fight the virus, I confronted him with scientific studies providing evidence of safety and efficacy. A recent Detroit hospital study showed a 50% reduction in the mortality rate when the medicine is used in early treatment.

Now Fauci says a falling mortality rate doesn’t matter when it is the single most important statistic to help guide the pace of our economic reopening. The lower the mortality rate, the faster and more we can open.

So when you ask me whether I listen to Dr. Fauci’s advice, my answer is: only with skepticism and caution.

Peter Navarro, an assistant to the president, is the director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy. (Parts of this statement were shared with other news organizations. The Food and Drug Administration has revoked its approval for treating COVID-19 with hydroxychloroquine.)

A senior White House official tells me: “Navarro went rogue, and put out his personal opinion without any approvals. The White House does not stand by these unauthorized opinions and Mr. Navarro owes Dr. Fauci an apology.” https://t.co/mMhFULIiHG

— Katherine Faulders (@KFaulders) July 15, 2020

Reporter this morning: Are you ok with the oped Peter Navarro wrote?

Trump: I get along very well with Dr. Fauci.

When asked again, Trump repeated it.

I think it’s pretty clear that Navarro didn’t go rogue. He did exactly what Dear Leader wanted him to do.

By the way:

Whatever it takes, no matter how boring, distasteful, or tedious:

Deep canvassing is when volunteers and organizers engage in extended, empathetic conversations, with the goal of combating prejudice and shifting beliefs. (The typical door-to-door canvasser, by contrast, gives a brief spiel, asks how you’re voting, and moves on.) A growing body of academic research finds that deep canvassing done in person and by phone can have a real, measurable effect on changing hearts and minds. And in a time when so many of our conversations feel shitty and shallow despite the embarrassment of platforms on which we can have those conversations, deep canvassing offers a promising alternative, a way to find common ground and make human connections in a time of political polarization and tribalism.

Even in a pandemic…

[Researchers] Broockman and Kalla ran experiments using the traditional tools of politics — short phone calls, brief door-to-door canvassing, and TV ads — and found that they typically had almost no lasting effect on changing the mind of a typical voter.

But the experiments that Broockman, who now teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, and Kalla, who teaches at Yale, ran involving deep canvassing told a different story. They’ve now conducted half a dozen major studies and, each time, as the data come in, they find measurable effects on prejudice and certain public policies that last much longer than the TV ads and short-form canvassing. One of the key ingredients, they say, is stories — about a marginalized group of people, about a time you were treated differently, but really any personal story. Another was showing respect to the person on the other end of the conversation, no matter how much you disliked or disagreed with them. “We just kept finding in study after study these results,” Broockman says. “Every time we do this, we seem to find this again and again and again.”

That conclusion applies to phone canvassing. In a paper published in January, they found that deep canvassing done by phone also succeeded at reducing prejudice — specifically, in this particular study, transphobia. Although the measurable effects on reducing prejudice were slightly less pronounced than those seen in studies that used in-person canvasses. Those effects persisted for at least a month after the initial deep-canvassing conversation. “The conversations over the phone lasted just as long, in terms of efficacy, as a conversation in person,” Kalla says.

Heartened by the encouraging results of Broockman and Kalla’s research, George Goehl, the director of People’s Action, the populist grassroots group, told me that he and his colleagues had envisioned a massive ramping-up of deep-canvassing work in the 2020 election year.

Far be it from me to argue with valid empirical research. If it works, it works. But it sure sounds like a lot of effort for very little payoff.

As a liberal and progressive, I know I should be all for engagement, debate, and persuasion. But I’ve engaged KKK members one-on-one. I’ve engaged homophobes and Islamophobes. I’ve found them to be utterly dishonest debating opponents who lie, mislead and misquote. And, just when you think you have persuaded them, you find out they’ve been playing you for a sucker. They are perfectly capable of lying to a researcher that their views have changed.

But sure, there’s nothing wrong with being nice if it works. But if something else is demonstrated to be even more effective at defeating Trumpism — say, rallying the Democratic and liberal majority in this country with great proposals and great rhetoric — let’s not waste our time engaging the MAGA gang merely because it makes us feel good to do it.

President Trump is having a rally problem. This past weekend he was forced to cancel a highly-touted rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, supposedly because of “bad weather.” They don’t normally cancel Trump rallies even when people are waiting outside in below-freezing weather, so this was surprising. In fact, the weather was warm and sunny on the New England coast that day, so it’s pretty obvious that campaign officials were afraid they’d see a repeat of the Tulsa debacle.

But Trump simply cannot go very long without his rallies. They are like a drug for him. Remember, he held “victory rallies” even during the presidential transition, when any other president-elect without political experience might have been hunkered down to learn a little something about the job. The long period of no rallies during the first months of the pandemic made him so restless and nervous that he took over the task force briefings and sparred with the press just to get some airtime. He needs rallies like he needs Diet Coke and L’Oréal Light Reddish Blond hair color.

I’m sure he was upset that the media broadcast Joe Biden’s speech on climate and energy on Tuesday morning so the White House scheduled a Rose Garden “press conference,” which was actually an excuse for him to deliver one of his sprawling campaign speeches. It turns out that as much as Trump may love the look of a rally venue filled with screaming fans, what he really loves is the sound of his own voice.

He started out a little bit low energy, but even without the ecstatic cult members shrieking “Lock her up!” and “Build that wall!” he managed to work himself up to deliver one of his patented incoherent rally performances as if the audience in front of him weren’t a bunch of masked-up, socially distanced reporters, who were undoubtedly confused as to why they had been summoned to the Rose Garden to act as props for Trump’s stump speech.

This is not normal. Even Fox News’ Bret Baier was compelled to point out, after it was over, “To be fair, if President Obama had given a speech like this in the White House, Republicans on Capitol Hill would have been up in arms.” Indeed, if Obama had done anything like that, Republican heads would have swiveled on their shoulders and their mouths would have erupted with green bile like Linda Blair in “The Exorcist.” After all, they had a full-blown hissy fit when Obama wore a tan suit to the White House briefing room one day.

The “Rose Garden strategy,” as it’s called when presidents opt not to campaign, is supposed to show the president so hard at work doing the people’s business that he can’t take the time to engage in silly political events. It is often employed when a president is running for re-election in the middle of a crisis, for obvious reasons. They generally don’t want the voters to think they are ignoring their duties when something serious is happening. (The obvious example was Jimmy Carter, faced with the Iran hostage crisis during the1980 campaign against Ronald Reagan. It didn’t help him.)

Sure, the Rose Garden strategy is also political, and designed to create or burnish an image, Regardless, it’s long been customary for the president to save the fiery campaign speeches for the road. They are supposed to present some dignity and decorum in the Rose Garden. Trump doesn’t know the meaning of those words and he is not trying to convince anyone that he’s hard at work on anything but TV-watching, tweeting and pouting.

This wasn’t the first Rose Garden appearance in which he’s turned the place into a political sideshow. Back when the White House first began hosting daily coronavirus task force briefings with the president in attendance, they were often unruly and overtly political. But they were at least real press briefings with serious questions from the media. Tuesday’s press conference was a bait and switch. After rambling for nearly an hour, the president took just three questions one of which had obviously been planted with OAN, his favorite propaganda outfit.

What did he actually say? That can be summed up in a few sentences. He ragged on China for a bit, just to justify having the “press conference” in the first place. Then he spent most of his time reading woodenly from a list of prepared attack lines against Joe Biden, which included inane comments like “Joe Biden’s entire career has been a gift to the Chinese Communist Party” and accusing Biden of saying that “the idea that China is our competition is really bizarre,” to which Trump ad-libbed, “He’s really bizarre.” That was before he claimed that Biden’s energy plan would result in windows being banned. No one can say what that was about.

And yes, Trump spent what felt like hours reciting the usual litany of his supposedly unprecedented achievements, which included this odd comment:

We have great agreements where when Biden and Obama used to bring killers out, they would say, “Don’t bring them back to our country, we don’t want them.” Well, we have to, we don’t want them. They wouldn’t take them. Now with us, they take them. Someday, I’ll tell you why. Someday, I’ll tell you why.

I don’t think I want to know.

As for the issue that’s at the forefront of every American’s mind right now, Trump only offered the usual innumeracy, ignorance and lies:

If we didn’t do testing — instead of testing over 40 million people, if we did half the testing, we would have half the cases. If we did another — you cut that in half, we would have, yet again, half of that.

Evidently nobody can teach him why that is so mind-bogglingly ridiculous and wrong, so he just keeps saying it.

Most galling of all, he took credit for saving millions of lives, dishonestly asserting again that the U.S. has the lowest mortality rate in the world. (It does not.) To him the loss of more than 136,000 Americans, with thousands more seriously ill, and families everywhere grieving, is nothing compared to the great pride we should have in our president for allegedly saving us from something worse.

Remember when Trump used to say we’d get tired of all the winning and we’d beg him to stop because we couldn’t take it and he’d insist that we had to keep winning whether we liked it or not? This, apparently, is what he was talking about.

My Salon column reprinted with permission.