Federal officers in Portland, Oregon.
The White House insists schools must reopen this fall. Even as coronavirus cases spike across the country. Even as evidence appears that any immunity one gains from having survived the virus once is fleeting.
A retired COVID-19 military writes at Daily Beast that with hurricane season upon us, Texas could be in deep trouble. A COVICANE, a hurricane in the middle of a coronavirus pandemic, could stretch first-responders and National Guard “to the breaking point,” requiring active duty forces to pitch in. “The Army only keeps a few active units on standby for what is known as the Defense Support to Civil Authorities mission,” Kris Alexander writes. “In a pinch, untrained active-duty forces could fill the gap and do their best. But the real problems would come after their exposure to the virus in the disaster zone.”
Denial of the precariousness of the moment combined with the cultish fealty commanded by the acting president could make a perfect storm of the next hurricane to make landfall.
Serb nationalists already deny that mass killings of Muslims occurred in Srebrenica during the Bosnian war of the mid-1990s, writes David Rohde at The New Yorker. Even after a U.N. war-crimes tribunal “exhaustively documented the killings, exhuming mass graves, establishing the Bosnian Serb military chain of command during the executions, and ruling, in 2004, that they constitute genocide.”
Conspiracy theories have grown to explain away and deny the atrocities. The dead are really alive and living in Germany. Reports of eight thousand dead is a “farce,” a “circus,” and “make believe.” With so many Americans dead from the coronavirus and wearing masks to stem the spread a national “controversy,” Rohde wonders if denialism is in our future:
Like most Americans, I had hoped that, at this point in our history, the successful use of disinformation, conspiracy theories, and denialism for significant political gain was no longer viable. I assumed, arrogantly, that our nation’s democratic institutions, as well as its free press, would reject, expose, and discredit false claims. Instead, in recent years, a willingness to distort basic facts, the rise of partisan media outlets, and the explosion of false information online has made denialism politically profitable in the U.S. As a pandemic, protests for racial justice, and a Presidential race unfold across the country, an extraordinary level of confusion and division has beset the country. Basic tenets of American governance, from trusting nonpartisan experts to election results, are under assault. Part of the problem is President Trump’s embrace of such tactics, but it is foolish to ignore the distrust, institutional decay, and alienation that contribute to his appeal.
If such a calamity as Bosnia’s befell the United States, Rohde thought, surely its leaders and institutions would meet the challenge. They have not.
It is the United States where the virus is spreading unchecked, owing, in part, to the nation’s lack of leadership and consensus. It is this country that is experiencing calamity. The diplomat I spoke to, who is from a Western country, said that the same sentiment had occurred to him, as he watched the pandemic and the debate over face masks divide the U.S. “I very much agree,” he said. “I’ve been thinking the exact same thing.” Fear can still be used in any nation for political gain. Denialism is a universal comfort—and a threat—to us all.
At Daily Kos, Walter Einenkel reminds readers how in 2015, right-wing conspiracists spread rumors that Jade Helm, an annual military exercise held in Texas, was cover for Barack Obama bringing martial law to the Lone Star State as prelude to him remaining in office beyond eight years:
The Jade Helm 15 training exercise came and went with not a single example of federal military overreach into poor old Texas. The Republican governor of the state “ordered members of the Texas Military to monitor federal troops in an upcoming two-month training exercise planned for the Lone Star State.” The conspiracy theorists and elected officials who promoted the true paranoia just moved on to the next bogus conspiracy involving the country’s first Black president. And now, in Portland, Oregon USA, the federal government—despite the increasingly alarmed demands from state officials to stand down—under orders from Trump and Barr “people in camouflage were driving around the area in unmarked minivans grabbing people off the street.”
These and other actions by the Trump administration will require a full airing, if not prosecution. Writing for The Independent, Andrew Feinberg queried the Joe Biden campaign about sanctioning a “Trump Crimes Commission” to investigate misuse of government resources for personal gain, “the abuse and mistreatment of persons — including minors — in immigration detention [and] obstruction of justice and making false statements to Congress”:
Remarkably, not a single Biden campaign official or adviser contacted by your intrepid correspondent would respond to questions about whether a Biden administration would undertake any effort to look back at the Trump years — either to merely document for posterity any violations of law, or to identify and prosecute administration officials and other government employees who committed illegal acts.
And while Biden’s forward-looking agenda of reforms has generally been well-received in Democratic circles, the lack of a similar plan to look back on the previous four years has set off alarm bells among those some Biden backers who are still smarting over Obama’s “let bygones be bygones” approach to Bush-era abuses.
Such a commission, former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner believes, “would be a mashup of sorts which combines aspects of the de-Nazification process, and of South Africa’s post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission.” Waving away criminality again will be an error more profound for having lived through the Trumpish result of waving it away the first time. Fool me once, etc.
In this post-truth world, however, even comprehensive documentation — incoming Democrats must guard against wholesale destruction of Trump documents — will not stem the growth of Bosnian-like denial among a population ingesting conspiracy theories as part of its daily news diet. The body counts, the refrigerated trailer-morgues, etc. likely will be waved away by supposed “temperamentally conservative and fundamentally decent” Americans who denied the evidence of their own eyes, ears, noses, and throats in supporting failed leaders who promised greatness while delivering death and dishonor.
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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.