The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg revealed the president said dead American soldiers buried in Europe were “losers” and “suckers.” On the one hand, this might finally eat into Donald Trump’s approval rating of which around 40 percent of the electorate thinks he’s doing a bang-up job, no matter what he does, no matter how he does it. On the other hand, Goldberg’s revelations might sink like a stone, never to be seen again.

The optimist in me believes the former. The realist in me believes the latter, which is due, I think, to a huge chunk of the country desiring to believe Trump’s lies. It is also due, I think, to a smaller chunk not knowing it is being lied to. Even if we fail to communicate what’s surely the truth (“losers” and “suckers” fits Trump’s profile), we must try nevertheless. (The Washington Post and the AP have confirmed details of Goldberg’s story.)

We must try getting beneath and in-between layers of fact to expose a darker truth: a malicious contempt for doing the right thing for its own sake. He isn’t just immoral. He isn’t just amoral. His one commitment is anti-morality. He is hostile to anyone, anywhere, genuinely moved to act morally.

But even this, I suspect, gives Trump too much credit. We keep failing to appreciate just how petty this man is.

In 2018, Trump was scheduled to visit Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris, where 1,800 Marines were buried after helping stop the German advance toward Paris in 1918 in World War I. The site is hallowed ground to the US Marine Corps. Trump cancelled at the last second, citing weather too dangerous for helicopter flight. That wasn’t true, Goldberg wrote in a piece published Thursday night. The real reason, Goldberg said, was because the president “feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day.”

I think Goldberg buried the lede. Midway through his piece, he relates the following anecdote. On Memorial Day 2017, Trump visited Arlington National Cemetery. John Kelly, who was secretary of homeland security at the time, was with him. Kelly’s own son is buried at Arlington. He was killed in 2010 in Afghanistan at age 29. “Trump was meant … to join John Kelly in paying respects at his son’s grave, and to comfort the families of other fallen service members,” Goldberg wrote.

 

But according to sources with knowledge of this visit, Trump, while standing by Robert Kelly’s grave, turned directly to his father and said, ‘I don’t get it. What was in it for them?’ … [Kelly] came to realize that Trump simply does not understand non-transactional life choices.

That’s one way of putting it. A translation: “Why would your son sacrifice his life for his country when he got nothing in return? Only losers and suckers do that.” Imagine saying something like that straight to the face of a father honoring his dead son on Memorial Day. Imagine, if it’s possible to imagine, being that kind of sumbitch.

Goldberg spends time parsing “losers” and “suckers.” Trump “believes that nothing is worth doing without the promise of monetary payback, and that talented people who don’t pursue riches are ‘losers.’” The word “suckers” has a more “capacious definition,” Goldberg writes. It “includes those who lose their lives in service to their country, as well as those who are taken prisoner, or are wounded in battle.” Eighteen hundred Marines killed defending Paris from the Germans in 1918, for example, were suckers.

We should appreciate good people interpreting Trump’s word-salad in good faith. But truth demands less generosity. This president was a serial draft dodger. Everyone knows about the “bone spurs” that kept him from fighting in Vietnam.

To him, failing to get out of doing something you don’t want to do means you’re a loser. Genuinely believing in values like patriotism, duty, and honor means you’re a sucker. All that matters is money and power. Anyone telling you different is trying to scam you. Spending a day at Arlington paying respects to the dead was surely confounding to someone who has never once experienced the ennobling uplift of moral action.

Trying to understand Trump risks giving him too much credit, though. I don’t think Trump cares. I don’t think he cares enough to expend the energy to wonder why people would behave with no expectation of constant praise or instant reward.

My most skeptical take is the hardest to swallow, because it’s so hard to imagine a grown man being so petty, but here it is: Goldberg said the president cancelled his visit to Aisne-Marne American Cemetery because “he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain” and because American war dead are “losers” and “suckers.” That’s two causes, simultaneously. I don’t think that’s right. I think Trump’s first and only concern was his hair. I think he knew his hair would not be a good enough reason to cancel, so he searched for a “good” reason — and decided to malign fallen heroes.

I suspect, to his way of thinking, fallen war heroes are nothing compared to his hair. That’s so petty as to be so inconceivable that no one is seeing the truth in plain sight.

John Stoehr is the editor and publisher of The Editorial Board, a contributing writer for Washington Monthly and the former managing editor of The Washington Spectator. He was a lecturer in political science at Yale where he taught a course on the history of modern campaign reporting. He is a fellow at the Yale Journalism Initiative and at Yale’s Ezra Stiles College.

Copyright ©2020 John Stoehr — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 04 September 2020

Word Count: 888

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I’ve been telling my Wesleyan students to prepare. The weeks between Election Day and Inauguration Day will be the tenderest, scariest period of their lifetimes. When they look back, decades from now, when they are settling as I am into middle age, they will either be relieved knowing things have gotten much better or distressed knowing things have gotten much worse. No one knows what’s going to happen. The only thing we do know with any confidence, as Rosa Brooks said today, is there will be blood. Short of a massive win for the Democrat, we can expect to see violence in the streets.

The president, of course, is the reason. For weeks now, Donald Trump has been laying the rhetorical groundwork for declaring Joe Biden’s victory — should that happen — to be the result of a dark-shadow “deep state” conspiracy to depose him. (It might even be the result of an international attack led by the Chinese.)

Fake votes, fake news, fake majority. Everything’s fake, he will say, unless he says it isn’t. We can be certain of violence, as Brooks said. We can be certain of constitutional crises. We can also be certain, I’d add, that our president is incapable of admitting defeat. This is a man, after all, who spent vast fortunes over a prodigal lifetime shielding a shattered-glass ego.

Let me be more precise. There is potential for violence and anarchy and bloodshed not so much because of the president’s lies, but because so many Americans take his word as true. I could be wrong. I could be giving the Washington press corps more credit than I should. (I could be giving Trump’s followers more credit than I should.)

I think it’s worth asserting, however, that more of them would be more skeptical if more reporters and editors acted morally, and did more to discredit him categorically. When he yells, “VOTER FRAUD,” it should be reported as bullshit, in so many words.

There will be blood, and it will be on the hands of reporters who deny a moral obligation.

The president was in North Carolina Wednesday where he was asked whether he had faith in the state’s voting system, which permits mail-in balloting. He said Republicans should vote by mail as well as in-person, as a means of testing the system’s integrity, according to the New York Times.

It’s totally legit to report he’s recommending fraud while railing against. It’s also legit to come to a conclusion — double voting is a crime; Trump encouraged double voting; ergo, Trump encouraged the commission of a crime. Then ask: Why are you encouraging criminal conduct? Is fraud important to your campaign? Why are you recommending it while also accusing your opponent of doing the same?

I have zero doubt Trump would give bullshit answers, but a) they’d make news; b) reporters love making news; and c) they’d be meaningful, I’m going to presume, to some of the 40 percent of Americans who currently approve of the president’s job performance.

Indeed, many of them would dismiss the outcome as fake news, as the president prefers. But others would understand the moral conclusion implicit in the question. When I ask why you’re encouraging criming, what I’m saying first is you’re encouraging criming. A person encouraging criming should be the last person to credibly accuse others of criming. I think this would have an appreciable effect.

Some Republicans won’t care. Are they reachable? They say they care about social order, respect for authority, and taking care of people who put themselves in harm’s way to serve and protect. This is certainly the angle Trump and others are taking.

In reaction to the rise of Black Lives Matters, which some have called a “terrorist” organization (it’s not, obviously), they say Blue Lives Matter. Well, if Blue Lives Matter, what is the president going to do about the No. 1 cop killer? It’s not gangs, mobs, or “Antifa.” It’s not anything fitting into Trump’s campaign narrative about the dangers posed by “anarchist cities.” The leading cause of death among police is Covid-19.

To my knowledge, Biden was the first to report this Monday during a speech in which, as I said Tuesday, he destroyed Trump’s “law and order” message. The Washington Post confirmed the fact last night. According to the Officer Down Memorial Page and the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, the Post reported, the new coronavirus has killed more cops this year than all other factors combined. More than vehicular accidents, more than gunfire.

So Biden was right. The best way of securing public safety is ending the pandemic. The best way of maintaining law and order is ending the pandemic. So the question reporters must ask: “Mr. President, you’ve said Blue Lives Matter. Covid-19 is the No. 1 cop killer. Your administration has pushed most of the pandemic response to the states. Have you stopped believing Blue Lives Matter?”

Lots of Republicans are lost. Not all of them. Some really believe the president really believes Blue Lives Matter. They don’t understand they will not matter as soon as they are a liability to Trump. They don’t understand he will cut them off, as he has cut everyone off in his prodigal life, the moment they are no longer useful.

Some of these people can be reached. Some of these people, I’d argue, are most likely to mitigate threats of violence. To reach them, however, the press corps must recognize, and accept, its moral obligation.

Alas, I’m not hopeful.

John Stoehr is the editor and publisher of The Editorial Board, a contributing writer for Washington Monthly and the former managing editor of The Washington Spectator. He was a lecturer in political science at Yale where he taught a course on the history of modern campaign reporting. He is a fellow at the Yale Journalism Initiative and at Yale’s Ezra Stiles College.

Copyright ©2020 John Stoehr — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 03 September 2020

Word Count: 917

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After Joe Biden’s speech Monday, during which he destroyed the president’s “law and order” message, Ed O’Keefe reported something that has since stuck with me. The CBS News political correspondent said Donald Trump prefers “law and order” as the dominant theme of the election, and that his team “was quite happy today to see Joe Biden scramble to put together this speech and make this quick trip” to Pittsburgh.

That stuck with me, but honestly, I’m understating. I was shocked. How on earth can the president’s advisors think Biden’s dismantling of his favorite message was just yippy-skippy? The former vice president, as I said Tuesday, said Trump has not only failed to maintain law and order; he’s fomenting anarchy and chaos. And by the way, he said, I’m not president. When I am, though, I’m going to maintain law and order.

I was shocked, because thinking Tuesday was a good day is so very stupid as to be inconceivable coming from highly compensated professional campaign strategists. Then I thought about it some more.

You could say, on the one hand, that the president’s campaign succeeded in pushing Biden into focusing on something other than the triplets of tribulation: pandemic, recession, and white supremacy. Trump is the incumbent. History suggests the electorate blames incumbents in times of trial and tribulation. I suppose getting Biden to talk about something other than the triplets, by this terrible president’s terrible standards, might be the equivalent of yippy-skippy.

On the other hand, that can’t be right. Biden destroyed Trump’s message. A new Morning Consult survey suggests I’m not alone in thinking that. Forty-seven percent trust Biden in matters of public safety. “No one will be safe in Biden’s America,” Trump said, yet only 39 percent believe him. (Thirteen percent had no opinion or didn’t know.)

It seems Biden has most people’s confidence no matter whom they blame for recent “urban unrest.” That’s a terrible place for a “law and order” president to be. My guess is his advisors understand his liabilities quite well — most voters don’t trust him — and are searching for ways to please him. And let’s be frank, Trump would be perfectly happy if Biden’s speech Monday was the equivalent of “Ha! Made you look!”

The president isn’t the only one confusing things that get the television media’s attention with things that get the electorate’s attention. (Sometimes they are the same, but not during a pandemic.) Covid-19 is still slicing its way through the populace. Nearly 190,000 have died since March. That’s about 63 times the number of dead in the US on Sept. 11, 2001. That’s about 47,500 times the number of dead in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012.

I’d guess the biggest thing on your mind right now is getting back to work, getting your kids back to school, getting your adult kids to act responsibly at college, getting your parents the eldercare they need, or maybe a combination of all of these. The point is that national, and therefore personal, crises focus the mind such that there is no room for the political fictions the president is depending on for reelection.

Someone needs to tell half the pundit corps what’s going on, because it is so captive of the television media’s focus, and therefore the Trump campaign’s focus, that it keeps thinking in terms that were totally fresh in 1968. Half the pundit corps comprises baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) who still think of a 52-year-old contest between Democrat Hubert Humphrey and Republican Richard Nixon as the benchmark by which all elections are measured. And since 1968’s “urban unrest” was the backdrop for Humphrey’s undoing, 2020’s “urban unrest” must be the backdrop for Biden’s.

Punditry on the lookout for the emergence of a white backlash wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t so stubbornly quadrennial. No matter how many times pundits get it wrong, they keep at it, as if it’s only a matter of time before the times prove them right. The result is an electorate hugely misinformed, an outcome benefiting Donald Trump.

As a result of pundits seeing politics through the lens of 1968, James Fallows’ essay, “Why Americans Hate the Media,” remains as fresh as it was the day it was published 24 years ago. Such pointless predictions, he wrote in The Atlantic, build

the impression that journalism is about what’s entertaining—guessing what might or might not happen next month — rather than what’s useful, such as extracting lessons of success and failure from events that have already occurred. Competing predictions add almost nothing to our ability to solve public problems or to make sensible choices among complex alternatives. Yet such useless distractions have become a specialty of the political press. They are easy to produce, they allow reporters to act as if they possessed special inside knowledge, and there are no consequences for being wrong (my emphases).

Biden has moved on. Today, he’s back to talking about health care and the likelihood of an economic depression. That’s what most Americans are thinking about, even if they love them some Trump.

Will half the pundit corps give its attention the calamity facing us? Or will it continue doing what it’s always done? You know the answer.

John Stoehr is the editor and publisher of The Editorial Board, a contributing writer for Washington Monthly and the former managing editor of The Washington Spectator. He was a lecturer in political science at Yale where he taught a course on the history of modern campaign reporting. He is a fellow at the Yale Journalism Initiative and at Yale’s Ezra Stiles College.

Copyright ©2020 John Stoehr — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 02 September 2020

Word Count: 872

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In normal times, Joe Biden’s speech Monday would have punctuated the end of the debate. We don’t live in normal times, however, so the “debate” goes on and on, long after facts are established, long after points are conclusively made.

Such is the effect of a president holding himself above everything, especially the authority of the truth. Such is the effect of a Washington press corps unable or unwilling to act morally.

Biden’s Pittsburgh address wasn’t an ordinary stump speech. It was a direct attack on the president’s latest reelection gambit — tying the Democratic nominee to flare-ups of riots, looting and violence occurring in some cities. Or as Amanda Carpenter wrote recently in The Bulwark, it’s “scaring the ever-living crap out of the Republican base.”

I won’t go into every detail of the speech, which you can read or watch, but I will say it destroyed Trump’s “law and order” message. Biden was unequivocal in his condemnation of violence in all forms while making clear Americans have a right to protest legitimately the injustice of white cops shooting Black people and never being held accountable.

Biden went on, though. He said the president himself doesn’t want law. He doesn’t want order. He’s encouraging lawlessness, cheering on vigilantes, and hyper-activating chaos. And by the way, Biden said, I’m not the president. Trump is. All of this is on his watch.

Then came what I thought was the coup de grace. Biden said:

When I think of the presidency, I don’t think about myself. It isn’t about my brand. It’s about you, the American people. We can do better and we have to do better. I promise you this. We will do better. The road back begins now in this campaign. You know me, you know my heart, you know my story, my family story. Ask yourself, do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters? Really?

I want a safe America, safe from COVID, safe from crime and looting, safe from racially motivated violence, safe from bad cops. Let me be crystal clear, safe from four more years of Donald Trump.

I look at this violence and I see lives and communities and the dreams of small businesses being destroyed and the opportunity for real progress on issues of race and police reform and justice being put to the test.

Donald Trump looks at this violence and he sees a political lifeline. Having failed to protect this nation from the virus that has killed more than 180,000 Americans so far, Trump posts an all caps tweet, screaming, “Law and order,” to save his campaign.

With that “Ask yourself” bit, Biden demonstrated why pragmatic Black Democrats wanted him to be the party’s next standard-bearer. He was using his long record of supporting cops. He was using his status as elder statesman. He was using these and his immense white privilege to shield himself, his campaign and his supporters against the president’s offal-flinging, and it seems to be working so far. Few can look at Biden’s bald pate, noble squint, and high-beam smile, and think he’s Antifa’s patsy.

This president, long ago, forfeited any moral leadership in this country. He can’t stop the violence because for years he’s fomented it. He may believe mouthing the words law and order makes him strong. But his failure to call on his own supporters to stop acting as an armed militia in this country shows how weak he is. Does anyone believe there’ll be less violence in America if Donald Trump is reelected?

As I said, this should have been the end. It wasn’t. The president went on Fox last night to deliver pretty much the same message, totally ignoring Biden’s destruction of that message, which is what you can do when you have zero fidelity to the truth.

Making matters worse is the apparent befuddlement of reporters. They don’t know what to make of Trump’s double standard. He says Biden should condemn violence but he won’t do the same when it involves a supporter. This is worse than hypocrisy, but the press corps does not see the danger. This is saying violence by my enemies is bad but violence by my allies is good.

The law restrains them, but it does not restrain me. On Monday, when Trump defended Kyle Rittenhouse, the Kenosha shooter, what he was really saying, as he has said many times before, is the law does not apply to him.

What we’re seeing is a repeat of the same rhetorical strategy that made “birtherism” powerful. After Trump lies, he’s proven wrong. After doubling down, he garners more attention for having doubled down, thus amplifying the lie. When challenged again, he triples down, supercharging a vicious cycle. There is no end to it without action by the press.

The press, however, never wants to. It’s too direct. It’s too courageous. Yet it’s simple. To get the president to stop lying so much, ask why he’s lying so much. On rare occasion when reporters asked that, it was then, and only then, that Trump shut up.

Amanda Carpenter said Trump’s fear-mongering is chasing voters into Biden’s arms. Given what we know about him, and what we know about the press corps’ inability and unwillingness to act morally, I fear that’s too optimistic.

Biden destroyed the president’s “law and order” message. It cannot survive — unless reporters help it.

John Stoehr is the editor and publisher of The Editorial Board, a contributing writer for Washington Monthly and the former managing editor of The Washington Spectator. He was a lecturer in political science at Yale where he taught a course on the history of modern campaign reporting. He is a fellow at the Yale Journalism Initiative and at Yale’s Ezra Stiles College.

Copyright ©2020 John Stoehr — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 01 September 2020

Word Count: 898

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Portland experienced more violence Saturday. A convoy of about 600 pickup trucks “packed with Trump supporters,” according to the AP, snaked its way through a city that has seen nearly 100 consecutive nights of protest, mostly peaceful, since George Floyd was murdered. The convoy was met by counterprotesters. Some kind of skirmish occurred. A white man was shot in the chest and died. The police are investigating.

No one knows what happened. It’s not clear whether the shooting death was the result of groups clashing or if it merely coincided with the fracas. We do know the victim was a member of Patriot Prayer, a right-wing militia group based in Washington state. He was identified as Jay Bishop but also as Aaron “Jay” Danielson. What we do know is city officials asked local residents to deescalate tensions and they pretty much did.

Again, no one knows the facts yet. Everyone should therefore be skeptical of those saying they know them. That includes the president and his right-wing allies. As they did after the Charlottesville massacre, when a white supremacist plowed his car into a throng, killing a woman, they are blaming it on “Antifa” or anything sounding like it that can be pinned to Joe Biden. Trump’s allies (and some of his critics) have demanded Biden condemn the street violence. The rest of the press corps has joined the effort.

Here’s the thing. The Democratic nominee has already condemned it. “The deadly violence we saw overnight in Portland is unacceptable,” he said Sunday in a statement. “I condemn this violence unequivocally. I condemn violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right. And I challenge Donald Trump to do the same.”

Here’s the other thing. The president and his allies won’t stop calling on Biden to speak out. Sure, he condemned violence, but what about Antifa! Say it Joe! AN-TEE-FA! If he doesn’t say it, that’s proof he supports it, which is proof of … something.

The point of this exercise isn’t finding evidence of anything. It isn’t pressuring prominent public figures to speak directly to outbreaks of disorder. It’s to keep Biden and the Democrats on the defensive while also fueling more chaos, anarchy and lawlessness.

One more thing. Even after we know what happened, especially if it has nothing to do with Antifa, which isn’t a real thing, by the way — even after we know who did what to whom, how and why, the facts will change neither the president’s nor his allies’ behavior.

They will pretend the shooter is still Antifa. If they don’t, they’ll just move on to something else to pin on Trump’s enemies, whatever fits into the narrative of a strong president-protector saving “the country” from Democrat-run cities. They will do this, because nothing matters but power — not even calls for “law and order.”

So far, the press corps appears to understand the president himself is inciting the violence. Unfortunately, it doesn’t understand calls for “law and order” do not mean what they ordinarily mean. When you cheer on vigilantes, as Trump does, you’re cheering on lawlessness. When you cheer on lawlessness, as Trump does, you’re cheering on disorder.

The only way to make sense of “law and order” is to see it through a white supremacist lens. Law for you, not for me. My order, not yours. The late political scientist Frank Wilhoit defined “conservatism” accordingly: It “consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”

The press corps can be credited for seeing presidential rhetoric as universally applied. What’s good for one group of Americans is good for all. But that’s not how this president’s rhetoric has ever worked. Luckily, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows made things clear. “You want to talk about Donald Trump’s America?” he told Chuck Todd Sunday on “Meet the Press.” “Most of Donald Trump’s America is peaceful. It is a Democrat-led city in Portland that we’re talking about this morning.”

I can’t think of a clearer explanation of native American fascism: there is a confederate nation-within-a-nation in the US wholly imagined by “real Americans” as being chosen by God to rule over those whom God has chosen to be ruled. Explicitly, “Donald Trump’s America” is “peaceful,” because of what it is: traditional, lawful, church-going and white.

Cities like Portland are violent, however, because of what they are: places where people from different races, religions and sexualities live, work, play and even have sex with each other, a perversion of God’s law. Cities embody “unlawful” violence. By encouraging vigilantes, the president was merely reaffirming “lawful” violence.

That’s how Trump and his allies think of America. However, most people most of the time, even if they have grave doubts about certain quarters of the country, still think of the United States as one country — not two, separate and unequal. Because of that, most people most of the time aren’t going to think, “Gee, why doesn’t the candidate for president, who has no power, do something about all this violence?”

They are going to think, “Why doesn’t the president, who is inciting violence, stop inciting violence?”

John Stoehr is the editor and publisher of The Editorial Board, a contributing writer for Washington Monthly and the former managing editor of The Washington Spectator. He was a lecturer in political science at Yale where he taught a course on the history of modern campaign reporting. He is a fellow at the Yale Journalism Initiative and at Yale’s Ezra Stiles College.

Copyright ©2020 John Stoehr — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 31 August 2020

Word Count: 872

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With Covid-19 and Black Lives Matter foremost on everyone’s mind, it is unlikely that Social Security will play a prominent role in the 2020 election. Joe Biden and the Democrats should try to ensure it does. Focusing on Social Security works to their advantage.

One reason Donald Trump won the 2016 election was that he received a sizable majority of votes cast by those 65 and older. Currently, Biden is running ahead among this demographic. A surefire way to maintain this support would be to present a plan to improve Social Security. Another approach would be to emphasize that Democrats built the program and Republicans have repeatedly sought to dismantle it, despite its status as the most successful and popular government program in U.S. history.

Social Security turns 85 this month. Developed during the Great Depression, born during a period of dire economic circumstances, including double-digit unemployment, it was a feature of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Initially it was just a retirement program, providing income to those 65 and over without jobs. Roosevelt wanted each generation to save for its own retirement rather than taxing each generation to pay for the retirement of its parents and grandparents. He thought this would generate greater political support.

Social Security payroll taxes (so called because they apply only to wages or firm payrolls) were collected starting in 1937, and benefits were scheduled to begin in 1942. However, a problem surfaced — the tax contributed to a reduction in consumer spending. Unemployment spiked from 14 percent in May 1937 to 19 percent in June 1938. In response, retirement benefits began in 1940 and the system became pay-as-you-go — taxes collected now pay for current benefits.

Over the years, Social Security has grown. Benefits for spouses and children of deceased workers were added in 1939. Disability insurance was added in 1956, so that those unable to work would receive some income. Health insurance for the elderly (Medicare) was added in 1965.

In addition, benefits were increased regularly during the 1960s and early 1970s. Payroll taxes rose to fund these improvements. In 1973, Social Security recipients began receiving automatic cost-of-living adjustments, or COLAs. Each January, benefits rise with inflation recorded over the previous year, assuring retirees a minimum standard of living. As Social Security benefits increased, the poverty rate of Americans 65 and older dropped sharply — from 35.5 percent in 1959 (far higher than the national average) to 9.7 percent in 2018 (well below the national average).

Still, Republicans have always perpetuated the myth that Social Security was on the precipice of bankruptcy, an eventuality that would lead to dramatic cuts in benefits for retirees. And their solution has always been the same — cut Social Security benefits. Surprisingly, no Democrat has pointed out that the Republican cure is exactly the same as their phony problem.

Since Ronald Reagan, virtually every Republican president has sought to gut Social Security. In most cases, benefit cuts have been covert in order to avoid any political backlash.

Soon after taking office, President Reagan formed a commission to make Social Security solvent when the baby boomers retired. This led to the 1983 Social Security Amendments that permanently increased Social Security taxes and gradually increased the retirement age to 67. The latter change, when fully implemented in 2027, represents a 16 percent cut in benefits for an individual collecting Social Security at 65.

During his second term as president, George W. Bush proposed that two percentage points of the Social Security payroll tax go into private accounts controlled by individuals (creating a version of 401k accounts). But with less money coming into Social Security, benefits would have had to be cut significantly. Facing enormous opposition, this plan went nowhere.

Running for president in 2016, Donald Trump promised that, if elected, he would never touch Social Security. Yet he has suggested benefit cuts to the program every year that he has been president. His 2021 budget proposes cutting disability insurance benefits, which is part of Social Security. And during the Covid-19 pandemic, he floated the idea of allowing people to receive lump sum payments now instead of future Social Security benefits. Deemed the “Eagle Plan,” it is effectively a payday loan from the government — a small sum of money now that you pay for dearly in the future. Fortunately, the Eagle Plan did not fly.

Finally, President Trump has held seniors hostage, refusing to support any coronavirus relief for them unless Congress cut the Social Security payroll tax. The tax cut would aid those currently employed but not retirees or the unemployed, who need money now for food and rent and to pay medical bills. It will also have an odious consequence — Social Security will appear to be a failed program, inching closer to insolvency.

This brings us to the 2020 election.

Republicans frequently suggest raising the age for collecting full benefits from 67 to 70. In practice, this means a 25 percent cut in benefits, or $375 less each month for an average Social Security recipient. Another Republican plan seeks to reduce or eliminate COLAs, thereby reducing the value of Social Security benefits each year. With 2 percent annual inflation, someone retiring at age 67 would see the buying power of their benefits fall around 25 percent by the time they reached 80, and 40 percent at age 90.

In contrast, Joe Biden has promised that, if elected, he would improve the finances of Social Security by taxing wages above $400,000. He should do more. The past four decades have been difficult times for average Americans. Household incomes have stagnated. People have gone deeper into debt to pay their bills; many have little savings and see no possibility of a secure retirement. Under such circumstances, Social Security needs augmentation.

Increasing the retirement age from 65 to 67 cut benefits by more than $200 each month. Several economists have proposed increasing monthly Social Security benefits by $200, returning them to their 1980 level. This would not be hard to finance, despite the longer-term financial difficulties now facing the Social Security program.

Pre-Covid-19, actuaries estimated that Social Security would run out of money by 2035. Forecasts suggested that the program would then be able to pay only 75 to 80 percent of promised benefits. The coronavirus surely will make things worse, as lost jobs and income reduce payroll tax revenues.

One reason for the problems facing Social Security is the retirement of the baby boomers. A larger reason is the sharp rise in inequality over the past several decades. With a greater fraction of total wages going to the rich, the income cap on Social Security taxes ($137,700 in 2020) reduces Social Security tax revenues. In addition, because wages fell from 64 percent to 58 percent of total income in the United States, while profits rose, the Social Security payroll tax yielded less revenue.

No economic principle requires that all retirement benefits be paid with payroll taxes. This is an institutional decision. Different nations fund their retirement programs differently. The United States can do so as well. Money can come from other taxes or from borrowing. A small tax on estates worth over a few million dollars, with the funds earmarked for Social Security, would help recover losses from rising inequality during the past several decades. Another possibility is to tax forms of income other than wages. And if it is acceptable for the federal government to borrow when Republicans cut taxes for the wealthy, it should be acceptable when providing retirement benefits to every American.

People understand that a Democratic Congress and President Biden would strengthen rather than dismantle Social Security. This is why Biden polls well with older Americans. As the election season approaches, Biden should channel his inner FDR, talk about expanding Social Security, and emphasize his sharp differences with Donald Trump on this issue.

Steven Pressman is professor of economics at Colorado State University, author of Fifty Major Economists, 3rd edition (Routledge, 2013), and president of the Association for Social Economics.

Copyright ©2020 The Washington Spectator — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 31 August 2020

Word Count: 1,304

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Daniel Dale is a reporter for CNN. His beat is unique, but it shouldn’t be. Every reporter and editor following the president’s reelection campaign should do what Dale does: report Donald Trump’s lies as lies, not as part of some opaque political strategy or part of another story of interest to the public.

This is different categorically from fact checking. Anyone can do that. Dale, however, makes the lies the story. Moreover, he permits his methodical reporting to culminate into a moral conclusion, one vital to the healthy functioning of a free and open republic. “Trump is a serial liar,” Dale said.

Before I go on, I should say Dan Dale is special. Not just anyone can give frequent, news-making, magisterial and awe-inspiring performances on live television without notes or visual cues, as Dale did last night after Trump’s acceptance speech, knocking down one falsehood after another, informing Anderson Cooper’s viewership of the whole truth, all from his prodigious memory alone.

But reporters need not be virtuosos to understand that their job — their American duty — is informing the citizenry. What’s more important than telling your fellow citizens that our president can’t be trusted?

There is something more important, actually, and it makes the press burden all the heavier. While every other word coming out of this president’s mouth is a lie, about 40 percent of the country, the same percentage approving unwaveringly of Trump, despite everything, isn’t just being duped. They desire being lied to.

They fear the responsibility of freedom while at the same time take immense pleasure in surrendering themselves to the authoritarian hivemind. And based on this dense thicket of desire, they decide to believe the president’s lies.

After all, believing lies — however harmful, poisonous, or even treasonous — is easier, and therefore better, than accepting and reckoning with the whole truth. More vexing, it’s a choice. Believing Trump’s lies is, therefore, rational.

This might sound surprising, but it shouldn’t. White Americans choose to believe the biggest lie of them all when they deny the existence of racism in our society and in ourselves. This lie is so omnipresent as to be blindingly invisible — unless you’re not white. In that case, you, my friend, see the truth plainly, and don’t need me explaining it. (You also don’t need me to say that you don’t need me explaining it, but I trust you appreciate the gesture.)

Every white person understands how our society treats Black people. That’s why few white people would opt for walking a mile in a Black person’s shoes (even if he’s rich, as Chris Rock once said; “That’s how good it is to be white!”) While some white people fight racism, most don’t. Why should we? The system works for us, even if we struggle as individuals. Inaction by white people is action in tacit form, which is a choice made in keeping with our self-interests. The lie is rational.

Racism does not need proving as a precondition to reporting, because it’s always already a precondition to our society. Journalists are therefore justified in thinking anyone denying racism is acting rationally in their self-interest. Journalists are therefore justified in thinking anyone denying racism is acting in bad faith. Such people, as University of Connecticut philosopher Lewis Gordon put it, are trying to “escape personal anguish” by deciding to ignore evidence counter to “cherished beliefs.”

If you’re escaping something, the reporter’s job is easy. Why is truth painful? What is there to lose? Are you prepared to be held responsible for your choices? Daniel Dale’s beat is holding Trump accountable for his lies. But the press corps is justified in doing the same for 40 percent of Americans choosing to believe them.

I’ve said the reason a handful Black people vouched for Trump at the Republican National Convention wasn’t to expand his appeal among Black voters, but to make white voters, especially Trump’s supporters, feel good about supporting a racist, and feel all right about the sadist outcomes of systemic racism. Indeed, you could say the entire point of this week’s convention was advancing, deepening and expanding the biggest lie of them all — that white Americans aren’t racists, that white Americans deserve their power and privilege, that Black Americans deserve their fate.

When journalists cover lies as part of another story, instead of the story itself, they not only spread the lie but, in the case of systemic racism, fuel America’s self-destruction. The point of a free press is enabling a free people. Instead, it’s enabling our captivity.

John Stoehr is the editor and publisher of The Editorial Board, a contributing writer for Washington Monthly and the former managing editor of The Washington Spectator. He was a lecturer in political science at Yale where he taught a course on the history of modern campaign reporting. He is a fellow at the Yale Journalism Initiative and at Yale’s Ezra Stiles College.

Copyright ©2020 John Stoehr — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 28 August 2020

Word Count: 752

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I said yesterday, cities are key to understanding the authoritarian imagination. They are where races, religions and creeds intermingle. They are where ideas, businesses and individuals compete, leading to degrees of prosperity. To the authoritarian, the first is a perversion of God’s order. The second is an impossibility.

Intermingling cannot lead to the Good Life. It can only lead to crime, disease, and violence. When one of these things actually happens, it isn’t due to failed policies, corrupt leadership, or social ills with no solution. It’s due to what cities are. The answer isn’t getting rid of certain flawed systems, as liberals would argue. It’s getting rid of certain people.

Not all violence is the same, however. State violence against certain people deserving state violence is OK, even if the act of violence is morally and legally questionable. It’s not yet known why a white police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, shot Jacob Blake. But to the authoritarian, the reason is obvious. He’s Black. He deserved being shot, even shot seven times — in the back — because he’s Black. (His family reported this week Blake is now paralyzed from the waist down and may never walk again.)

Authoritarians know his being Black is not good enough for respectable people. So they seek out “reasons.” Police eventually found a knife on the floor of Blake’s car. Megyn Kelly, the former Fox anchor, tweeted: “Jacob Blake was armed with a KNIFE when cops shot him says Wisconsin AG.” Kelly’s tweet perfectly captures the authoritarian penchant for rationalizing violence she never thought needed rationalizing in the first place.

Kelly is a private citizen free to express trash opinions to her heart’s content. Problems arise when authoritarians are at work inside and outside law enforcement to prop up unsustainable social and political orders. Kenosha has since Sunday seen legitimate protests demanding accountability and change mixed with illegitimate rioting and vandalism (participants do not appear always to be distinct from each other). This has led to the use of legitimate and illegitimate law enforcement.

Kyle Rittenhouse, the white militiaman who shot three people Wednesday, killing two, was embraced by Kenosha police. Before the shooting, they thanked him for patrolling the streets, even gave him water. Video posted by the New York Times shows him trying to turn himself afterward, but cops in armed vehicles, evidently recognizing him as safely one of their own, drive on by. (Rittenhouse is now in police custody, facing first-degree homicide charges.)

The Rittenhouse-Kenosha connection probably stems from a years’ long effort on the part of white supremacists to infiltrate state and local cop shops. A 2006 FBI report “detailed the threat of white nationalists and skinheads infiltrating police in order to disrupt investigations against fellow members and recruit other supremacists,” according to a 2016 PBS report. The report:

 

identified white supremacists in law enforcement as a concern, because of their access to both ‘restricted areas vulnerable to sabotage’ and elected officials or people who could be seen as ‘potential targets for violence.’ The memo also warned of ‘ghost skins,’ hate group members who don’t overtly display their beliefs in order to ‘blend into society and covertly advance white supremacist causes.’

The difference now is authoritarians are no longer in the shadows. Instead of deescalating social unrest, chaos and lawlessness, they are escalating it in the open, as the Rittenhouse shooting demonstrates. Moreover, and more dangerous, is the police-vigilante nexus is taking on national contours the closer we get to the election.

Donald Trump sends frequent messages to allies inside and outside law enforcement, inciting legal and illegal violence to protect “real Americans” whose “traditions” are imperiled by the corruption, filth and disease in cities. Dangerous, too, is the deployment of Trump’s own paramilitary, agents of the Department of Homeland Security apparently more loyal to him than America.

Trump has vowed to send them to cities in swing states to defend against “voter fraud.” In effect, he’s announcing an intent to commit a crime, but local police, being mostly aligned with his authoritarianism, are unlikely to act without pressure from local leaders and citizens to equitably enforce the law.

Thomas Edsall was right today when he said the second of two planks on the Republican Party’s platform packs a bigger punch: “the preservation of the status quo by stemming the erosion of the privileged status of white Christian America.” But neither Edsall nor other respectable pundits seem willing to say what needs saying: that violence is the end as well as the means of preserving the white status quo.

It doesn’t matter if Jacob Blake broke a law deserving a violent reaction from a white police officer. It doesn’t matter if Blake’s conduct was illegal. He himself is “illegal,” according to authoritarian logic. Being Black is “illegal.” He deserved what he got, and all the complaining from liberals is just betrayal of what “real Americans” stand for, another reason why they cannot be allowed to win control of this country, and every effort they make to win justifies all acts of violence required to prevent it.

John Stoehr is the editor and publisher of The Editorial Board, a contributing writer for Washington Monthly and the former managing editor of The Washington Spectator. He was a lecturer in political science at Yale where he taught a course on the history of modern campaign reporting. He is a fellow at the Yale Journalism Initiative and at Yale’s Ezra Stiles College.

Copyright ©2020 John Stoehr — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 27 August 2020

Word Count: 843

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I logged on today to news of a young white militiaman who shot three people with a long gun last night in Kenosha, Wisconsin, killing two. The suspect, still at large, evidently clashed with protesters demonstrating against police violence.

On Sunday, a white cop shot an unarmed Black man in the back seven times. The city, halfway between Milwaukee and Chicago, has since seen riots and fires set to property. Jacob Blake is paralyzed from the waist down, his family said.

His sister, Letetra Widman, gave powerful remarks Tuesday: “When you say the name ‘Jacob Blake,’ make sure you say ‘father.’ Make sure you say ‘cousin.’ Make sure you say ‘son.’ Make sure you say ‘uncle.’ But most importantly, make sure you say ‘human.’ Let it marinate in your mouth, in your minds. A human life. … I don’t want your pity. I want change.”

I’ll have more to say about this another time. For now, I want to say whatever happens in Kenosha, whether the shooters soon see justice or whether peace and stability soon return, isn’t important to the president. What’s important is televised images of violence, chaos and fire in American cities. Donald Trump hopes these images will frighten just enough white people in just the right states into voting for him as their champion.

Cities play a key role in authoritarian politics. They are dens of disorder, crime and disease not because of failed policy or corrupt leadership, but because of what they are: sites in which different people from different walks of life live, work and play together in relative harmony. To the fascist mind, this is impossible. “Race”-mingling causes violence. Kenosha is proof. The solution is a president-protector.

There seems to be confusion amid this week’s coverage of the (virtual) Republican National Convention. On the one hand, the president and the GOP appealed to “minority voters” and women. Hence appearances by Tim Scott, one of two Black Republicans in the US Congress, Herschel Walker, the Black pro-football great, Nikki Haley, the Indian-American former governor of South Carolina and former US ambassador to the United Nations, and Melania Trump.

On the other hand, Trump and the GOP are terrorizing white Americans, issuing dire warnings that if they don’t vote for Trump, the world as they know it will be turned upside down. The Lord God will be condemned. Wives and children will rule over fathers. Black and brown people, soon to be a minority-majority, will use their new power to seek vengeance.

How can the Republicans court minorities and women while using them to scare white people?

The answer again can be found in authoritarian politics. As I wrote Tuesday, Tim Scott wasn’t appealing to voters of color. Moreover, Melania Trump and Tiffany Trump, the president’s lesser-known daughter, were not appealing to women. They were communicating to white voters who might be uncomfortable voting for a man who openly embraces fascists of the sort who killed two people in Kenosha that it’s OK to vote for Trump, even if you suspect he’s a fascist, because here we are, vouching for a fascist.

Indeed, they signaled, voting for Trump is the right thing to do, because if the radical left Democrat agenda is given a chance to run this country, you’re going to see more Kenoshas. Do you think Joe Biden is going to protect you from violent hordes of rioters and looters? The only man capable of that is Donald Trump. (No one said these exact words, of course, but this was the subliminal message of the words they used.)

All of this is bad enough, but making Trump’s reelection and the deterioration of the republic more likely is normal people not seeing, or refusing to see, what’s actually going on. The president does not want to establish law and order. He wants to escalate lawlessness by seeing vigilantes take the law into their own hands. He does not want to get rid of certain social problems. He wants to get rid of certain people from our society. He does not want to establish order. He wants to crush dissent.

And yet Matt Lewis, the Daily Beast’s respected conservative commentator (a so-called “Never-Trumper”), said during Monday’s convention proceedings: “If you’re from a liberal Democratic background, or have always lived in a cosmopolitan area, you may have no idea how potentially effective this message will be to a lot of conservative folks.”

Instead of explaining propaganda’s deleterious effects, respectable people might choose explaining the truth. Cities are full of people, not just Democrats, liberals and “cosmopolitans.” (Lewis himself lives in New York City!) Cities include people like me. We grew up among “conservative folks.” We understand intimately that many of them cannot tolerate disagreement. For that reason, they sublimate, and demand that others sublimate, their liberty to the authoritarian will of the “conservative” collective.

We are, in other words, people who fled to cities to get away from “conservative folks” in search of ourselves and our freedoms. Over time, I landed in New Haven, my current home, a city that to some “conservative folks” is supposed to be impossible. It is a minority-majority city with problems, to be sure, but otherwise gets on pretty well.

Yes, “conservative folks” believe Trump, but their views are demonstrably wrong.

John Stoehr is the editor and publisher of The Editorial Board, a contributing writer for Washington Monthly and the former managing editor of The Washington Spectator. He was a lecturer in political science at Yale where he taught a course on the history of modern campaign reporting. He is a fellow at the Yale Journalism Initiative and at Yale’s Ezra Stiles College.

Copyright ©2020 John Stoehr — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 26 August 2020

Word Count: 880

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Tim Scott is one of two Republicans in the US Congress who is Black. The senator from South Carolina spoke Monday at the (virtual) Republican National Convention. His address was billed as an appeal to minority voters.

It was also seen as a glimpse of the GOP’s future. He “presented an autobiographical account of his own life — ‘from cotton to Congress,’ as he termed it — befitting a person potentially looking toward the wide-open Republican presidential race in 2024,” Buzzfeed’s Kadia Goba reported.

Jay Cost, of the American Enterprise Institute, tweeted, “Why not Tim Scott in 2024?”

To the first, no. To the second, no. Sure, people said Scott was appealing to “minority voters” (read: Black), but Donald Trump’s approval among Black Americans is so small as to be statistically zero.

Sure, Scott might look like a potential Republican nominee in four years. But that’s before remembering the Republican Party for the last decade has been committed to erasing the history and memory of the first Black president. Put all of this together and it’s hard to understand why grown-ups believe political fictions.

Here’s who Scott was really appealing to: white voters discomfited by the prospect of voting for a president who stands openly with white supremacists, and who betrayed the country in myriads ways while robbing taxpayers blind. Scott’s objective was sending a message to these reluctant white Republicans.

Accusations of racism against the president can’t be all that bad. Look, I’m a Black man. I’m a Black Republican. I’m vouching for him. I know you want to support him. It’s OK. Go ahead. And, you know, it’s the right thing to do. We need a president to protect us from destruction. They say he’s a fascist. That’s nothing compared to the radical Democrat agenda. (As Charlie Kirk said: “I am here tonight to tell you — to warn you — that this election is a decision between preserving America as we know it and eliminating everything that we love.”)

Scott’s appearance is being reported and applauded this morning as if it were a glimmer of hope for a party gone to hell. It’s not. It’s more of the same, a poisonous snow job. It’s pretending to be something the Republican Party is not for the purpose of disguising its built-in advantages (e.g., the Senate). There’s no practical need for a party dedicated to whitewashing Barack Obama to search for its antiracist soul.

Our system favors the GOP structurally. The party can dismiss “demographic change” in virtual perpetuity. It can continue denying the moral and political legitimacy of a democratic majority. Given Trump’s larding of the federal judiciary, white animus will be enshrined in court precedent long after America has become a minority-majority. (If the Democrats gain control of government, they could change some of the above.)

This reality is apparent to anyone paying close attention, which is to say: I’m looking at you, beloved reporters. If the press corps is not talking about the above reality in plain English, it enables the GOP’s injurious bad faith, and so doing, strengthens the authoritarianism crawling over our democracy.

Lewis Gordon’s definition of bad faith is worth quoting again in this context. “It is a denial of human reality, … an assertion of being the only point of view on the world, an assertion of being the world, an effort to deny having a point of view, a flight from displeasing truths to pleasing falsehoods, … an act of believing what one does not believe, a form of spirit of seriousness, sincerity, an effort to disarm evidence, … a flight from and war against social reality” (my italics).

Consider a defining feature of Trump’s 2016 campaign, a feature he’s trying to replicate this year but to no avail — “lock her up!” Some said we don’t call for jailing opponents in America. Trump’s allies, however, said no, no. This isn’t fascism you’re seeing. All they want is accountability.

Hillary Clinton, during her time as US secretary of state, was responsible for the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi. Justice never came for her under Barack Obama. With Donald Trump as the president, however, justice will be served. And the campaign press corps dutifully wrote all this down.

You’ll notice that Hillary Clinton is not in prison. “Justice” never came for her.

You’ll notice, too, that Trump’s supporters, most of them, are far from outraged by the more than 180,000 Americans dead so far from the novel coronavirus pandemic. (That’s 60 times the number of dead in the US on Sept. 11, 2001; that’s 45,000 times the number of dead in Libya on Sept. 11-12, 2012.) Nor are they reconsidering their support amid a major recession-depression.

Clinton could never be forgiven for a situation out of her control. Obama’s economy could never be good enough. Trump, however, can always be forgiven for a situation over which he has a presidential degree of control. A million jobless claims a week, furthermore, aren’t his fault.

Accountability was never the point of “lock her up!” Neither was Tim Scott’s “appeal to minorities.” The more grown-ups pretend to believe in political fictions, the farther we go down the road to serfdom.

John Stoehr is the editor and publisher of The Editorial Board, a contributing writer for Washington Monthly and the former managing editor of The Washington Spectator. He was a lecturer in political science at Yale where he taught a course on the history of modern campaign reporting. He is a fellow at the Yale Journalism Initiative and at Yale’s Ezra Stiles College.

Copyright ©2020 John Stoehr — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 25 August 2020

Word Count: 861

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