A Realistic Look at How a Democrat Would Have Handled Matters

[This post is initially being written on 2020/08/28.  That's for reference, in the unlikely event that someone reads it weeks or months later, when some of the background assumptions might be different.]

We are determined to be critical of how Trump dealt with the various issues that have confronted him: Foreign Policy / Corruption, Global Warming, Racism / Immigration / Tribalism, Economy, the Pandemic.  Of course Democrats have hated how Trump dealt with each of these issues, or even caused them, in the first place.  But what we ought to do, to be fair, is to contrast how he dealt with them, versus how a Democrat president—say Obama, or Hillary Clinton—would have dealt with them.  Many unimaginative Democrats think it would have been smooth as silk, but they aren't being realistic.  We must never forget that there are very angry Alt-Right types out there, hating every single thing a Democrat does or says, as well as very opinionated Democrats out there, who never think twice about criticizing even their own woman or man.  As the Democratic Party has grown—and it certainly has, due to the inability of the GOP to handle the challenges that the country faces—it has broadened, and the ideological genes within the party cannot be expected to give a unified prescription for every problem.

We all know what Trump did, faced with the COVID.  At first, it was denial, and then (responding to criticism of not being realistic) a grudging acceptance that he would have to take unpopular steps to stem the rate of infection, which he immediately passed on to the Governors of the states.  Some of them responded well, causing howls among conservatives (and those who needed to party* most of the time!  You know who you are).  Soon, the economy began to suffer, as was inevitable, and Trump's knee-jerk reaction was to open up the economy.  Again, he palmed off the rules of behavior for lifting the distancing advisory to Governors, some of who gave good advice, other did not.

How would a Democrat president have dealt with the problem?

• S/he would have first given a Press Conference about the disease, and most of what non-specialists know about it, and closed with some positive remarks that, working together, we can handle this thing; but make no mistake, it is likely to be quite a struggle.
• S/he would have called up the epidemic specialists—as least, when it became clear that the epidemic was here to stay a while—and got their best advice.
• I absolutely have no doubt that some of their recommendations would have been overruled.  Ideally, we should have sent everyone home, and said that we would shoot anyone seen on the streets on sight.  Obviously that would not have worked, politically, so the instructions would have to be softened.
• Pretty much like Trump did, a Democrat President would have held a press conference, and allowed the experts (Dr. Tony Fauci, presumably) to speak, and said—after the experts had done their report—that instead of a 24-hour curfew, we're going to allow limited visits to grocery stores for supplies, limited visits to Physicians' offices and Emergency rooms; limited visits to Drugstores, and so on.  The experts would have readily agreed.  Wearing masks would have come up, and one hopes that a Democrat president would have tried his/her best to get the supply of PPEs, or at the very least, masks, quickly available in large quantities.  (How this would be done is hard to see; very likely we would have had to depend on foreign manufacturers, because we have gotten so in the habit of offshoring essential manufacturing.) 
• The Economy would have taken a dive, and heaven knows what the stock market would have done.  Being maniacally friendly towards Trump, Wall Street would have, at least initially, taken quite a dive, and then, in self-defense, brokers and managers would have started buying again, and the indexes would have gone up.
• It is difficult to see how differently a Democrat would have tackled schools and colleges.  Each of us believes that if a Dem were in charge, s/he would have done what we think should have been done; but in practice, the steps or missteps would probably have been exactly the same.
• Trump is leaving local authorities to make up all the guidelines.  A Democrat would probably set out Best Practices guidelines right from the White House.  Of course, the Alt-Right would have howled about how unfair / unwise / ineffective the guidelines are.  The (hypothetical) president would have addressed the complaints, said that a lot of hardship cannot be avoided, and followed up with a lot of happy talk about how we, together, can beat this thing.  But Trump is terrible at giving bad news.  This is the sort of thing he has avoided at all costs, and the result is his leaving all major decisions to Governors, and often to Mayors.  (In some instances, Mayors have had to go against their Governors, who gave wimpy responses.  In other instances, Trump supporting Mayors have given instructions contradicting reasonable Governors.  So sad.)

So, Trump's reluctance to face the criticism of the people leads to a weak response, when a strong response is almost imperative.

In many ways—as many writers have pointed out—Trump is still playing the role that he played in his reality TV show, The Apprentice.  There, he was at pains, whatever he did, to make sure that he didn't lose his TV audience.  Here too, he proceeds as though the country is still his TV audience.  In some ways, it is; he keeps an eye on his audience, to make sure they're watching what he does, and steers their thinking via his Twitter account.  So, all along, it has been aimed at reelecting himself for another four years, and only secondarily, taking care of the Republican political agenda.

Archimedes

*Or at least socialize

Morals From Scratch: Violent and Non-Violent Protest

 [This post will be edited for additional information soon.]

If you live long enough, you find yourself bombarded with how inadequate your moral compass has been.  Your ethics were all wrong.  Sooner or later, someone is going to point out all the errors in all the rules of behavior you had internalized.  It's not that you don't know anymore which way is up, but ... that phrase does come close.

With all the protests taking place today, it seems very difficult to know whom to call out.  I would have thought that destroying private property is always wrong.  But in the wake of the shooting of Mr. Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wi, there were numerous cars that were set on fire.  The protestors were angry.  But these days, it seems that anger is called forward to excuse all sorts of destruction of property, since we can all agree that those who are angry are rightly so.

To look at another kind of problem: people are not quite comfortable with accepting that women, throughout the world, are in fact subservient to men.  It is worse in some societies, but even in the USA, a woman makes only three-quarters what a man makes for the same job.  (Of course, some companies are so delighted when a competent woman applies for an upper-level job, that they offer her an enormous salary.  But that woman is a mere token, though she may not thank you for pointing it out.)  A black woman, according to some estimates, makes only 68 cents for every dollar a man makes.  That comparison may not be quite fair, because they compare a black woman to all men, rather than to black men, because I believe that black men make less than white men.

Many of my readers have been brought up to assume that US men and women of all shades are more deserving than foreigners.  We deserve more pay, more leisure time, better health care, better education, lower taxes, than people in any other country.  This explains why items made in other countries are less expensive, even after the cost of transportation has been taken into account.

The majority of US citizens are Christians of one flavor or another.  We have been brought up to believe that the Bible, and the Preacher, are the guides who will point us in the right direction.  The Bible says, wives: be obedient to your husbands; children: obey your parents; keep the sabbath; do not murder; do not covet.

But often Christians are called to fight in wars.  In a war, many of these precepts must be suspended, because often the one in your gunsight could be a father, or a brother.

Every moral rule of thumb that I had ever made for myself, based on the teachings I received from my religion or my school or my parents seems to have been called into question.  But the one rule that seems to keep popping up into my mind is not even a Christian teaching.  It is to take the side of the underdog.  Might is not right.

In the topsy-turvy world that Donald Trump, and his political allies have created, it is very hard to discern who exactly the underdog is.  Normally, I would assume that it is the side of those who live from paycheck to paycheck; those who do not have healthcare; those who have to choose between sending their kids to school in a dangerous environment, or going in to work themselves.  People who are forced to live in sub-standard housing, in crowded neighborhoods, in neighborhoods close to polluting plants and landfills, on streets constantly exploding with gun violence: I would consider these people the underdogs.

As you're probably aware, Trump supporters consider themselves the underdogs, the weak and the oppressed.  They huddle together in the safety of their Megachurches, afraid of what that hell-hound Biden might do; afraid that Kamala Harris might suddenly visit their homes, and snatch away their guns, and assault weapons, and bazookas.  Somehow, many of them are convinced that healthcare for all will eventually destroy America as we know it.  It is just the first step (they think) in a government takeover of everything.  

Wherever I was going with that, it is quite possible that, in a year or two, there might be runaway inflation.  The millions that the so-called One Percent have in their banks could soon be worth very little.  At that time, those of us of more modest means can, without embarrassment, establish a barter economy, just as they did in the 1930's and 1940's.  And Biden and Kamala Harris will have to supervise our response to this economic collapse, which Trump and his followers will be quick to blame on them.  (As is their wont.)  After a year or two of this, it could easily happen that the poor--and even the rich--will beg and plead for more government supervision of distribution of resources.

However things work out, we must be prepared for widespread protests and riots.  The weak and the ignorant are always willing to lose their temper, and sometimes to pretend to lose their temper.  If alcohol is available, people will drink first, and then pretend to have lost their temper.  People on the losing side of an argument, particularly, will lose their temper.

It is going to be a very interesting time indeed.

[More, added later]

Empathy, Morals, and Religion

 Have you noticed how so many conservatives are uncomfortable with atheists, or downright hostile to them, or anything in-between? What is going on with that? Atheists are clearly not vicious brutes, though some conservatives paint them so, and other conservatives seem to have convinced themselves that we are so. (I am an atheist, though I don’t go around broadcasting it. I take it as a private matter, and nobody’s business but mine.)

Why are these people so anxious that we should all join them, and be Christians?  At first, I thought they were following orders: “Go ye, to all the corners of the Earth, and ...”  They were words that the writers of the gospels put into the lips of Jesus himself.

But now, I think there is a different reason.  It is fear.  They feel that if all the world were Christian, there would be safety for each of them.  If there were any atheists around, they would be a source of danger.  Mind you: I do not assert this as my thought. I just think that this is probably a thought that goes through the minds of some Christians.

Many families spend a lot of time, inculcating the quality of empathy in their kids. The ability to identify with someone who is suffering, is a fundamental part of being a member of a good society. We must not teach our children to only come to the aid of friends and relatives. Until we consider everyone as equal recipients of our empathy, we cannot feel that we have a good society.

In the abstract, everyone would subscribe to this principle.

But when we see our children following through on their empathy, some of us are taken aback: because, sometimes we see them empathizing with those who seem, to us, as undeserving to be empathized with.  This is the framework of the parable of the Good Samaritan in the Bible.

“I want to go help that family!”

“Are you crazy?  They’re . . . It’s not going to be like our home, you know.  Their standards of hygiene . . .”

Sometimes, I suspect, some parents would like to set limits on just how empathetic their children are going to be.  They probably feel that their empathy training has succeeded too well.

This is where racism starts.  You can see that some people need help, but maybe not immediate, personal help.  And their problems have been brought upon by themselves.  They have nobody to blame but themselves, and their parents.

So some conservatives would dearly love to encourage some sort of limited empathy in their kids, and they flood to churches where the natural desire of people to help each other is channeled more narrowly; a more focused kind of generosity.  Help the pastor, and the church, and all things will be added unto you.

But even among the more enlightened of our people, there are some who are affronted when we think of helping people outside the USA.  Doctors Without Borders.  Amnesty International.  That habit of focusing generosity more narrowly raises its ugly head, and we think carefully, and hold back our resources.  It is only the most generous among us who think of everyone everywhere as coming within our circle of concern.

I have spoken with Republicans, and I have heard the opinion that they cannot help everyone; they cannot do everything, and it is that that they fight for.  To restrain the tendency for Democrats to ‘hand out money like candy at Halloween.’  But they have no difficulty handing out money to big businesses.

Finding a sort of empathy that is not twisted into racism is the primary challenge for atheist parents, as well as to teach our children how to empathize, and to fight the tendency to have others focus our empathy too narrowly.

Arch

An Unconventional Convention

My wife and I were talking, and she was expressing severe doubts about how interesting it would be to watch the 2020 Democratic Convention on TV, like we usually watch political conventions.  After all, practically every candidate withdrew, leaving only Joe Biden.  The Convention would do little beyond endorsing Joe.

But we were very pleasantly surprised, and the Convention was a true shot in the arm.

Most of the speakers focused on indicting the President on failing to do his job.  Being President, said one of the speakers, is no walk in the park.  President Trump, they concluded, is in over his head.

Michelle Obama brought up a point that I have been struggling to articulate.  All of us, she said, (with a few notable exceptions,) have been brought up to be sensitive to the pain of others.  But President Trump and his team seem to be the exceptions.

More than 150,000 lives have been lost to the Virus.  In a typical winter, more than that many lives are sometimes lost to the conventional Flu virus.  Trump takes this to support his position that he could not have done anything to prevent the Virus from taking its toll.  To this date, he has not show remorse at the tremendous loss of life from this Pandemic.  He has been slow to confront the problem head-on, for fear of antagonizing his supporters among Governors and Mayors.  Many of the cities and states whose leaders have been Trump supporters are now having out of control Virus infection rates.

This concern for the welfare of others is something parents try to inculcate in their children from infancy.  Teachers do the same, and so do the clergy.  Our complex modern life is impossible without cooperation.  And the basis of cooperation is not enlightened self-interest.  It is the instinct of empathy.

"How can we teach our children empathy, when they see what goes on in the White House?"  Children naturally conclude that it is all a lie.  They don't realize that all empathy was beaten out of Trump by his father, according to the book by Mary Trump.

In the future, we are going to have to reckon with four years' worth of children whose lessons in empathy have been confused by these four years of Trump.  We cannot, Michelle Obama says, afford four more years of Trump for that reason alone.

To be a successful slum landlord, Trump's father has emphasized, one has to be inured to the complaints of one's whining tenants.  Trump's older brother had too much empathy, but Donald was praised--and rewarded--for putting the family interests first.  This is very plausible.

Here is a summary of the events of this first night.