TODAY – Page 3 – * Failed Pols

The Republicans are having a difficult time with 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s pick of Kamala Harris as his running mate. She’s formidable, and she’s a woman (two characteristics that, together, offend the sensibilities of a few in the GOP), but the issue is that they can’t agree on how best to attack Kamala Harris.

To the party of Trump (and we should note here that there are Republicans who would like to distance themselves from the party of Trump), Harris is all at once a socialist and a sellout to Wall Street. She is a moderate (which, to many Republicans, means she is without principles), at the same time that she is a radical extreme leftist. She is too tough on crime, but she’s too weak on crime. Donald Trump has been less analytical, placing Harris into the category of other intelligent and assertive women like Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton, whom he calls “nasty.”

When Joe Biden first announced Kamala Harris as his running mate, some Trumpers gleefully pointed out the disapproval from the far left because she isn’t progressive enough.

“Bernie Bros get burnt!” Tweeted Brad Parscale, a Trump campaign aide.

Immediately following the announcement of Harris as Joe Biden’s pick, some right-wing pundits were warning about a hostile extreme liberal takeover of the Democratic Party.

“Kamala Harris’ extreme positions … show that the left-wing mob is controlling Biden’s candidacy, just like they would control him as president,” said Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.

That the Republican Party would float the idea of “left-wing mob control” of Biden and Harris is in keeping with the party’s increasing slant to the far right, which fits well with its bent for supporting conspiracy theories.

For other Trumpers, the fact that financial advisory firms such as Signum Global have started telling clients that Biden’s choice of Harris reinforces the notion that the Democratic ticket is more moderate than progressive is a sign that progressives will be disenchanted with the Democratic ticket.

But wait— Other Trumpers are saying that Harris wants to turn the Democratic Party toward socialism (a concept they appear not to understand).

On the Wednesday following the announcement of Kamala Harris on Biden’s ticket, Vice President Mike Pence, in a fundraising email, wrote, “From the very first day of this Administration, President Trump has set our Nation on a path to freedom and opportunity. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris would set America on the path of SOCIALISM and DECLINE.”

Speaking of takeovers, the Republican Party seems to have been taken over by people who don’t know much about history or political science.

Quick to depict Kamala Harris as a radical lefty, they have posited that in Kamala Harris, the far left has infiltrated the Democratic Party. Not only that, but Joe Biden, they hint, is little more than a puppet controlled by the radical left.

David Bossie, Trump’s 2016 deputy campaign manager, thinks both Biden and Harris are malleable. In a recent op-ed piece, Bossie wrote, “Make no mistake about it, if elected, this weak Democratic duo will aid and abet the radical socialists and anarchists at every turn…Americans must reject Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and their dangerous ideology.”

CNN contributor Scott Jennings, a former special assistant to President George W. Bush and a former campaign adviser to Sen. Mitch McConnell, writes, “Her politics— liberal with more than a hint of authoritarianism (think of her attempts to get Donald Trump banned fro Twitter) sprinkled in for good measure— fit well on a national ticket trending hard towards both.” Jennings ignores the fact that his party supports a president who regularly defies the checks and balances of the federal government, wants to hobble the U.S. Postal Service in order to interfere with the presidential election, and fires government officials just for disagreeing with him.

Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson, on the other hand, knows that hate and love are just two sides of the same emotion, so instead, he chose an attempt at indifference by simply trying to diminish Harris. In a monologue on his Fox News show last week, he not only dismissed the correct pronunciation of Kamala Harris’ name, he said this: “So, it seemed inconceivable that given his current state, Joe Biden would choose someone so transparently one-dimensional as Kamala Harris, someone as empty as he is. It would be the first entirely hollow presidential ticket in American history and we thought it could never happen. But it is. They’re doing it anyway.”

Still other members of the Party of Trump have taken to insulting Harris by making a show of being insulted by her. On Fox News host Jeanine Pirro’s show, Lara Trump, Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, who is married to Eric Trump, and who spearheaded the Women for Trump tour, said, “I for one was insulted when months ago Joe Biden came out and he said, ‘Guess what? It’s going to be a woman who’s my running mate.’ Let’s not worry about qualifications, let’s not worry about what they bring to the table. If these people want to stand up for equality, people in this country will never be fully equal in their eyes until they stop pandering for votes and playing identity politics.

“It didn’t even matter who it was going to be,” Lara Trump concluded. “Women were already insulted.”

As if to demonstrate that she wasn’t too passionate about Kamala Harris, she did what appears to have become a standard move by the right to show disregard for Harris: she mispronounced Kamala Harris’ name.

Kamala Harris is neither a radical left-wing extremist, nor a socialist, nor a noncommittal people-pleaser. Nor is she a token. Kamala Harris and Joe Biden’s “dangerous ideology” talks of a future, and their ideal for the American experience in that future, where groups of people are not marginalized; where Americans can earn a living wage, and where they can have access to affordable health care. The party of Trump, on the other hand, hopes for a future that is dangerous to everyone but straight white folks; one that looks like its version of an idealized past, where white heterosexual people are in power and everyone else “keeps their place;” and where no one gets help or health care or food that they may not “deserve.”

Americans are free to disagree with Kamala Harris’ platform, but she is clear on what she stands for. The party of Trump has a platform that is not based on what it stands for, but what it is against.

Republicans Struggle To React To Kamala Harris As VP Pick | TODAY
[2020-08-13]

Republicans Can’t Agree On How To Attack Kamala As Biden/Harris Make 1st Appearance | Roland S. Martin. [2020-08-13]

In his most recent effort to pretend that the coronavirus is a thing of the past, Donald Trump is attempting to strong-arm schools into fully reopening this fall, despite a COVID-19 pandemic that shows no signs of abating. If K-12 schools don’t bring back students for on-site classes, Trump has threatened to withhold school funding. He has also criticized the CDC’s guidelines for re-opening schools, saying that they should be made less stringent.

Ignoring the fact that that Germany, Denmark, and Norway have succeeded in containing the spread of COVID-19, Trump tweeted, “In Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and many other countries, SCHOOLS ARE OPEN WITH NO PROBLEMS. The Dems think it would be bad for them politically if U.S. schools open before the November Election, but is important for the children & families. May cut off funding if not open!”

Trump is tired of the COVID-19 virus. He’s tired of the impact it’s having on his approval ratings. He’s tired of being asked difficult questions. He’s tired of the inconvenience of it all. What’s more, he demonstrates an inability to reason out cause and effect. Reopening schools in the middle of a pandemic, he apparently believes, will convince Americans that the virus is behind them, demonstrate his great leadership in conquering the virus, and consequently improve his polling numbers.

“I disagree with @CDCgov on their very tough & expensive guidelines for opening schools,” Trump also tweeted. “While they want them open, they are asking schools to do very impractical things. I will be meeting with them!!!”

Appearing to support President Trump’s criticism of CDC guidelines for schools, Vice President Mike Pence told journalists at a Coronavirus Task Force briefing on Wednesday, “The president said today we just don’t want the guidance to be too tough. And that’s the reason next week the CDC is going to be issuing a new set of tools.”

Using logic that sounded strangely akin to “We’re seeing more cases because we’re doing more testing,” Pence also said, “We don’t want the guidance from CDC to be a reason why schools don’t open.”

(In other words, “Science, schmience.”)

In a similarly confusing moment, CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said that the existing CDC guidelines aren’t meant to be prescriptive, that it was not the CDC’s intent to “provide a rationale to keep schools closed.”

So, while the CDC’s health and safety recommendations are optional for schools, Trump wants to make students return to school in person, no matter what, even if it puts them, their families, and school staff at risk. In Trump’s alternate reality, this will put the coronavirus in its place, and his ratings will soar.

Many schools fear reopening because they don’t have the resources to make the changes necessary for assuring health and safety for their students and staff. It’s ironic, then, that instead of authorizing funds to help these schools, Trump is threatening to reduce their funding. Pence, in fact, suggested that future COVID-19 relief bills might be tied to whether schools reopen.

It’s challenging for many families when kids can’t be physically at school. Opening schools unsafely, however, could result in much worse hardship. The country has been grappling with the quandary of how to get students the education and services they need, how to help working parents who have to miss work when their children are home, and how to keep everyone safe and healthy.

The solution is not to order everyone back to school as if that would make COVID-19 and all of its resulting economic, educational, and social issues just go away. With no plan in place, and no funding or resources allocated to address these problems or to ensure that schools are equipped for health and safety, families with school-age children have been placed in a bind.

Some governors are pushing back, saying the president has no authority over when schools reopen. (The president also can’t decide on his own to withhold funding from schools.)

“School reopenings are a state decision, period,” said New York governor Andrew Cuomo. “That is the law, and that is the way we are going to proceed. It’s not up to the president of the United States.”

And on Thursday, despite the criticism and implied pressure from Donald Trump, and contrary to Mike Pence’s hints that the CDC would be bending to Trump’s pressure, CDC Director Redfield said that the CDC would not be changing its guidelines, but would only be adding more information for schools on how to use the guidelines.

“Our guidelines are our guidelines, but we are going to provide additional reference documents to aid basically communities in trying to open K-through-12s,” Redfield said. “It’s not a revision of the guidelines; it’s just to provide additional information to help schools be able to use the guidance we put forward.”

Remember, though…they’re “just guidelines.” Presumably, though, schools will do what they can, even if it’s limited.

Trump’s claim that “young people do extraordinarily well” is not always true, since some children have underlying conditions. And all children are capable of transmitting the virus without symptoms.

Additionally, the reality is that children will be children— they’ll have runny noses, they’ll lose their masks, they’ll forget to wash their hands. And what about the kids who have had the “it’s a hoax” mentality instilled in them by MAGA parents? How fastidious will they be with the health and safety guidelines?

We must keep in mind that even if a return to schools is mandatory, the CDC has just made it clear that it is not mandatory for schools to follow the guidelines for keeping students and faculty healthy while they’re at school.

Donald Trump needs for schools to fully reopen— not for the wellbeing of our children, but for his campaign. During the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S., he has demonstrated over and over again that the health and safety of Americans are of little consequence to him. This latest stunt should erase all doubt that this is true.

Trump Pressures Schools To Reopen Despite Coronavirus Surge | TODAY
[2020-07-08]

Trump calls for reopening of US schools amid COVID-19 pandemic |
Al Jazeera English [2020-07-08]

Category: TODAY

Editorial: Republicans Can’t Agree on How Best to Malign Kamala Harris

Editorial: Trump Wants Schools Open, CDC Guidelines Optional