Getting Some Sleep in this Election Season

Ever since I wrote that post on Socialism, I have been worried, thinking that anti-socialism folks would see their worst fears confirmed.  Though I am certainly in favor of Health Care Reform, even if it isn’t Medicare For All—which has to be improved in numerous ways, if it is to be friendly to everyone, take into account any grifters who have hung onto the medical system like leaches, and the numerous administrative folks who tend to tap into the enormous amounts of cash that flow through the medical system.  Some of these will end up working for the Health Service, but a lot of them will have to find some other whale to stick to, e.g. golf courses, or electric charge stations...—rich conservatives, who see the livelihoods of their friends going away, and their investments in Health Insurance disappearing, will begin screaming about Socialized Medicine, assuming that just those words will scare everybody.  Socialized Medicine is pretty much exactly what I want, if I had my druthers, and let me tell you: unless you’re a lot wealthier than I am, you will get better health care for less money than you’ve ever got so far.  It remains to find out whether doctors in Socialized Medicine countries are paid as well as doctors in the US (which would tell us something whichever way that goes).

 

No matter what goes on between now and Election Day, the more Democrats go to the polls and vote, the more likely that a Democrat will win.  And what’s more, the more likely that all those Democrats who are running for Senate Seats will win.  And for Congress.  It’s that simple.

Of course, Trump and his pals are creating a whole virtual world of fake news; declaring the election over as soon as the votes on November 3 are in, at midnight, etc.  There are all sorts of scenarios about how votes in Blue States are counted, etc. etc.  Well, there is nothing we can do between now and then; that sort of attack has to be taken care of after it happens.  Now, Trump and his friends are depending strongly on the Supreme Court ruling in their favor about their election shenanigans.  But telling the Supremes what to do is like herding cats.  Just saying.  Even Kavanaugh cannot be depended upon to salute, and vote Trump’s way.  He’s a Supreme for life, quite a different position than Trump’s.

Of course, in another four years, we will have to vote against another Reality TV star that the GOP will put up.  (Not the GOP Politburo, but the GOP rank and file, led by the Alt-Right, who are, it seems to me, an aggregation of yahoos, who realized that the inner core of the GOP could be smothered by a colorful character like Trump.

We can cross that bridge when we come to it.  It’s going to be a slow 4 years with Biden at the helm (but who knows?  We may not get socialized medicine, but if Biden decides to efficiently repair the highways and bridges, the many government buildings, schools and airports, putting a huge number of people to work, that would satisfy me.  Above all, Andrew Yang’s idea of a Universal Basic Income looks really good, even if it is restricted to people of low income).

My advice is: ignore the news and the TV.  Ignore your junk mail.  Stay focused on voting.  Get a good mask to wear, comfortable clothes, and a folding chair.  And on Election Day, keep your eyes peeled for Trumpy officials trying to turn voters away from the polls.  I think the GOP wants violence, so that they can turn Election Day into a brawl, call out the troops, and declare the election invalid, and impose military rule, or something like that.  Unfortunately, the military, too, isn’t too happy about Trump and his friends.  Heel spurs.  Right.

Arch

Socialism, the New Bogeyman

 The US is full of former Socialists.  Actually, they're Socialists, but not rabidly socialist; the main reason they have (or had) given up on socialism, is because there was such a deep-seated opinion on the part of certain people, that the poor, which meant minorities, and the handicapped, and single mothers, and Native Americans, and addicts—in short, all the people that everyone has had a great time despising and vilifying—do not deserve to be bailed out of their marginal existence.

If you ever asked these people (if you could find out who they are,) why they do not want the most poor and indigent among us to be supported by the government, they would not have been able to give you a good answer.  Some of them—the more reasonable ones—probably think that it would be a load on the government, and would put the country even more in the red (raise the deficit is the common way of describing it) than it already is.  More vindictive ones would say: well, we had to work hard for our own savings; why should these people get handouts, just for staying at home?  The poor, of course, have been accustomed to being downtrodden, and take this abuse without much complaint.

That was the case, until COVID struck.  Now, millions are out of work, struggling to pay their rents, which means their landlords (some of whom lived like kings) are unable to pay their bills, and so on, so unexpectedly, a lot of people are thrown into poverty who were never this poor before.  These people are not accustomed to taking the sort of abuse that people have been accustomed to throwing at them, so that there is now (as never before) a political base for anyone who wants to change the conditions of the very poor.

Talking about "socialists", the people who have been socialists for a long time are used to waiting.  We tell ourselves: we are in no hurry.  Once the One Percent goes too far, the vast majority of the population will put its collective foot down, and the country will head towards a sort of Socialism where the government will control everything, and will probably not do it well.  

Young people who have only recently seen the point of socialism tend to want all of the aspects of socialism right away.  In practice, it makes a lot more sense to do a little at a time, until the public becomes comfortable with the idea, before they proceed further.

America has done fairly well with almost complete private ownership of all resources, (and of course, now businesses are screaming to control public lands and forests) but unfortunately these businesses, over the years, have come up with all sorts of tricks in order not to give value for money for the things they sell to ordinary people.  They buy up the competition (e.g. the phone companies), they do price-fixing; they do bait-and-switch; they fight against minimum wage, and so on.  If the government begins to own some companies, the private businesses cannot indulge in price fixing anymore.  (Small businesses see themselves on the side of Big Business, which is slightly funny, but they have a point.  If there is, for example, a government beer distributor in a town, the private beer distributors can't raise their prices higher than the government distributor.  But you can easily see how a private distributor can offer things the Government distributor would not bother offering, so... you see how that goes.

It makes perfect sense to speculate how this thing will go down, to prevent the GOP and the rabid Alt-Right crowd trying to scare everyone.  The most urgent, and easily enacted legislation will probably be undertaken first, followed by the more disruptive pieces, for which it is more difficult to get consensus.

One of the most annoying and frightening things we see in a Pandemic, or whenever there is a crazy wave of illness sweeping through the continent, is loss of health care.  When you lose your job, you lose your health care.  Many Democrats want to fix this problem once and for all.  (Taking this particular benefit out of the control of employers makes an enormous improvement in the dynamics between workers and employers.)  What if the Federal Government pays all the medical workers some reasonable rate, and requires that all hospitals take anyone who is sick for free?  That would be the best case scenario, but most Americans will hate that.  American citizens do not feel comfortable getting something for nothing.  (Will these workers be paid as well as they're paid now?  Will they all be paid the same, or will workers in New York be paid better than those in Podunk, Pi? Etc, etc.)  Or the government could take over the Insurance Companies, Blue Cross, Aetna, Prudential, etc., workers, managers and all.  Eventually, like all mergers, they will lay off unnecessary workers, which of course these workers will hate.

Another annoying thing is the fluctuating price of gasoline.  The government could take over the gasoline companies, and smooth out the distribution of gasoline.  Everybody expects that, if that is done, that the price of gasoline will go up.  I'm not sure why that is seen as inevitable.

One of the biggest actions that could be taken, as Andrew Yang has been advocating, is to give every person a small stipend, something as small as $500 a week.  In New York City, that will not go as far as it would in Podunk, Pi, but somehow, a way to make it work has to be found.  If this plan, called a Universal Basic Income is put into practice, it will be clear that people who want to continue to live in NYC will only do so if there is something that makes it convenient to live there.  So there will be a gentle pressure for people to move out of NYC, unless there is some advantage in living there, such as being close to some workplace.  Or being close enough to Trump Tower that you could go stand in front of it, and absorb its awesomeness.

Many big cities—and some quite small cities—allow anyone to ride a bus, for almost no money, and sometimes for free.  The more people ride the bus, the fewer of them will be driving to work.  A car carrying a single person to work is an enormous load on the environment.  Outlawing single occupant cars, alone, will improve Global Warming by an incredibly large amount.  Of course, we Americans value our polluting cars highly; almost more than anything else.

Finally, there is an initiative to either forgive outright, or heavily subsidize, college loans.  I am not certain that is fair; some young people take on part-time jobs while in college, which helps pay their fees, and for the rest, take out only very small loans.  Others do not work at all, and take out enormous loans.  If all these loans are paid off, it would appear that those who took out large loans get a larger advantage than those who have already worked their way through college.  However, if the government takes over those loans, they could reduce the rate of interest considerably, which would help all college graduates struggling to pay off their loans.  Banks have passed on revenue from college loans to their stockholders for far too long.

So, as you can see, it is possible for Joe Biden to do as little as he thinks the public can stand to do, and as little as Congress can stand to put into law.  I have never paid more than 25% income tax, and I doubt that any new tax law that Biden and the new Congress will put together will raise my taxes higher.  Many of my readers, those of you who are in the 35% tax bracket and higher, may see their taxes to up, but I'm sure they will pay the extra assessment with rejoicing and song, because who does not want the poor and the indigent to get a break, after all these horrible months?

Arch

Some Principles for the Post George Floyd Age

[First published 2020/9/10]

 As I reported recently, some people are not satisfied with non-violent protests.  (They say that Whites take no notice of them.)

Looting, destroying property.

We were brought up to believe that destroying property was wrong, no matter whose property it was.  But now, the Looting and Pillaging front proposes the principle that some looting is OK.  What are we to think?

I think--and I do not know the answer to every question, though I pretend I do on the Internet--that we've got to consider the property as a resource.  If you destroy a restaurant, you do hurt the proprietor, even if he is a policeman who is as likely to shoot you on sight as to bring you your check.  But more, you hurt the dozens of people working there: cooks, waiters, etc.  Your call.

Wearing a Mask.

People have been studying this issue, and there is absolutely no doubt: (1) places where people wear masks have lower infection rates than places where people do not wear masks.  (2) Places where some people wear masks do better than places where no people wear masks.

Of course, a mask is no protection if a huge number of people are crowded in a room together.  It's worse if the crowding continues for a long time.  In situations like that, it almost doesn't matter whether you wear a mask or not, but I'm not going to go along with that.  Wear a mask, but get out of that room.

Sending your kid to School.

This is a real tough one.  I think it depends on the school.  Some schools hide behind the privacy issue, and refuse to test, and sometimes refuse to tell you whether there have been infections.  Other schools are completely open.

If (1) it's a small school, and/or (2) they try to hold many of the classes outdoors, and/or (3) half the kids are staying home, and following along remotely, and (4) the sessions are short, and (5) the classrooms are aggressively ventilated,

then there's a good chance that Junior will be safe, especially if people in your area hardly ever leave town.  But there are some jokers who want to attend every game, every gathering, every rally, every anniversary, in short every opportunity to collect a virus or two from buddies they haven't seen for a long time.  If there are such jokers in your environment, I say keep your kids at home.  Stupidity is an aggravating factor for disease control.  Braveness has nothing to do with it.

If the safety precautions are being followed, I have to admit that, even if kids are with their teacher for a quarter of the time they would have, before the virus, they could end up learning a lot.  Many teachers I know have been frustrated at being separated from "their" kids!  It's a funny thing.  Some teachers don't mind teaching over the Internet, especially High School teachers, but it's kind of hard on kids who don't have as much access to technology.  Other teachers hate remote teaching with a passion, including most elementary teachers.

Many parents are looking at this from the point of view of child care.  They can't work, with the kids at home.  This is a slightly separate issue, but the present administration (and the State Governments, who are not encouraged to be creative by Headquarters) are not trying to think of novel ways of solving this problem.  For instance, every family has a couple of other families that they trust, with whom they can make a pact saying that none of them are going to indulge in risky behavior.  If that is done, one of the parents can supervise a sort of camp, say at a playground, or a clubhouse, or a church basement, where the kids are allowed to play quietly.  Of course, there are some little people who will go crazy at the sight of their buddies, but . . . what can you do?  This is America, and we have to recognize that some people are going to make things suck!  This is what Elizabeth Warren has been saying: nobody has taken child care seriously.  It is unfair to dump the child-care task on the schools, because schools have people trained for teaching; child-care is only an incidental skill that they learn in order to get the teaching done.  They're quite professional about it, but . . . there you are.

Vote by Mail vs. Vote in Person.

This is a tough call.  I have decided to vote in person, because we live in a small town, and I doubt whether the lines are going to be very long.  I have other reasons for doing it, but that's my choice.

Many people have already voted, especially in states where they have early voting, such as Arizona and California, and I believe, Colorado.  Those people are beyond being confused by the President's asking people to vote twice, which in Pennsylvania means you go to jail.  (We didn't make it a law forbidding a president from requesting the population to perform a felony, because nobody thought a president would do such a thing.  I mean, we don't have a law forbidding presidents to ride motorbikes without a helmet, either.)

I have run out of ideas.

What I notice a lot is that many of my friends are on the brink of panic about the elections, and the antics of the White House, and other sectors of the administration.

You have to realize that Mr. Trump comes from a Reality TV background (though nominally he's suppose to be a cross between a hotelier and a real-estate guy).  He mainly wants to be on TV all the time, therefore he dreams up some drama every day, like the Kardashians.  Ignore it, but make sure you vote.  Just start a new hobby.  In eight weeks, our agony will be over.

Arch

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.