Memo to Our Idiot President

What do you have to lose?

Memo to our idiot President:

Stop saying that we should stop testing so much for COVID and that our numbers are only so high because we are catching asymptomatic cases.  

For any normal person I would point out that catching and isolating asymptomatic cases stops spread and keeps people from getting sick.  But I get that you don't think ahead that far.  

So let's stick strictly to appearance and ignore anything so irrelevant as reality.  There are at least two reasons why large-scale testing makes you look good.  First of all, the more tests we do, the more non-infected people get tested.  That means that widespread testing lowers our positivity rate and makes you look good.  The second is that catching mild and asymptomatic cases instead of just seriously sick people means a lower mortality rate. Either of those will give you something to brag about.

Think about it.

Latest on COVID in New Mexico

 It is bad.  Very bad.  Worse than ever before.  We have had over 500 cases day after day.  Many days have been up to 800.  October 28 and 29 were each over 1,000.  I used to compare New Mexico numbers with other states, seeing how much better we were doing than most.  No longer.  There are states (most notably, Wisconsin and North and South Dakota) that are doing worse, but on the whole we are doing very badly.

Today the numbers fell to 581 and the positivity rate fell, particularly in some of the hardest-hit area.  But these statistics are noisy.  Today is just one day, and a weekend at that. The drop may reflect weekend delays.

Hospitalization and death rates as a percentage of total cases continue to fall.  Hospitalizations just fell below 10% of the total, and the death rate is 2.19%.  But I am not convinced that either of those numbers are encouraging.  They could just mean that the system is being swamped with new cases and hospitalizations and deaths will catch up later.

Hospitalizations in absolute numbers are at their highest yet.  The spring peak was 223 people hospitalized at once.  Our low was August 26 through September 26, when the number hospitalized remained steady around 88.  The numbers were manageable.  Now we have 354 hospitalized and rising fast.  At what point our healthcare system will become overloaded I do not know, but the numbers are scary and getting scarier.

Also scary -- nowhere is safe.  In the spring, the outbreak was first and foremost in the Navajo counties of San Juan and McKinley in the Northwest with Sandoval County (Pueblos) and Bernalillo County (Albuquerque) also fairly hard hit.  Then for a while the southeast of the state, near Texas, was hardest hit.  Now COVID is everywhere and there is no escaping.  The map shows counties in green, yellow or red depending on the severity of the outbreak.  Once only select portions of the state were red.  But it kept spreading and spreading and now only select portions of the estate are not red.

And, of course, in this we only reflect the rest of the country, and Europe as well.

Mary Trump: Too Much and Never Enough

 So, I promised some book reviews, specifically Daniel Ziblatt's How Democracies Die, Mary Trump's Too Much and Never Enough and Stuart Stevens' It Was All a Lie.. 

I found Stuart Stevens' book the most illuminating and will save it for last.  How Democracies Die makes a good companion piece for It Was All a Lie.  Both, really, are about the role of political parties and party professionals in making democracy function, and the danger when parties are unable to contain dangerous demagogues.  Ziblatt makes the case from the outside, in somewhat abstract terms, as a political scientist, and Stevens makes the case from the inside, with concrete specifics, as a party man.

So I will begin with Mary Trump.  I had read accounts of Mary Trump's book before actually reading it, and it made me think of Svetlana Alllivluyeva, Stalin's daughter. Alliluyeva undertook the hard and painful task of letting go of everyone's natural idealization of their parents and facing her father (posthumously) for what he really was.  In her case, it was doubtless made easier because he drove her mother and half-brother to suicide, and sent her boyfriend to Siberia.  But many people have continued to idealize their fathers, even when hurt by them, especially when they have no one else to turn to.  Alliluyeva was able to face up to what her father was by instead idealizing her mother and making her mother the heroine of her story.

So I what I had read about Mary Trump's book led me to expect something similar.  Mary Trump had the advantage that she was only writing against her uncle and grandfather.  Many reviewers commented that the real villain of the story is not Donald Trump, but his father, Fred Trump. So I expected Mary's father, Fred, Jr., to be the hero of the story.  Fred, Jr. rebelled against his father, made a career as a pilot instead of in the Trump family business, but was ultimately crushed by his grandfather.

Not quite.

First of all, it could not have been too hard for Mary Trump to speak out against her uncle and grandfather.  She was already completely estranged from them after a bitter inheritance dispute after her grandfather cut her and her brother out of his will and Donald, as executor, enforced it to the letter.  The episode, by the way, does not reflect well on either her or her aunts and uncles.  Mary's brother, Fred III comes across the best. He had a son with severe medical problems and needed the money and health insurance for his son.  Mary, by contrast, comes across as a self-justifying money grubber.  But so does everyone else in the story, as is often the case in inheritance disputes.

Second, it is clear that Fred Trump, Jr. was a complete failure as a father.  He was accepted as a pilot on his first try, but his career lasted only a few months before he was forced to leave due to alcoholism.  The rest of his life, Fred, Jr. either worked for his father's business or lived as a poor relation off family money, in dingy, run-down apartments on his father's properties or when his health no longer allowed him to live alone), in his parents' 23 room house.

When Mary was two and a half years old, her father pointed a gun at her mother and laughed.  (Mary walked in and saw it). Despite his wife's fear of snakes, he kept a python in the den, forcing her to go by it every time she had to do laundry or go to her son's room or leave the house.  Unsurprisingly, they divorced.  From then on, her father was a rather distant presence in Mary's life, a worthless drunkard living in run-down apartments with his pet snakes and, later, in and out of hospitals, mostly for alcoholism-related illnesses. For a time he moved to Florida, presumably to escape his autocratic father (owner of all the apartments he rented).  But his health failed and in the end he had to move back in with his parents.  At 16, Mary decided she wanted to go to boarding school.  Her father persuaded her grandfather to allow the family trust to pay the expenses, but he did not see her off.  She only learned that he had been too sick to see her off after she started boarding school and got the call that he was dead. He was 42 years old.

So I have to suspect that Mary Trump's book is largely her way of working through her own issues with her father.  Over time, she came to realize that her father's spirit was crushed by his father.  Fred, Jr. liked boats and planes and pets and practical jokes.  His father dismissed these as "stupid" -- all that mattered was business.  Fred, Jr. lacked interest in business and regularly got things wrong.  His father ridiculed him for it, and then got angrier when his son apologized.  What he wanted was "toughness," and his way of achieving it was put-down's and ridicule.  Fred, Sr. behaved in an intimidating manner and then was angry at his son for being intimidated.  Fred, Jr. joined Air Force ROTC in college and found strong but consistent discipline.  He got a pilot's license, developed a hobby boating and fishing, married a woman his parents considered beneath him, and qualified as a commercial pilot.  Mary takes all of this as signs of her father's strength and rebellion.  But ultimately he was not able to cut off contact with his father, and his father broke his spirit. All this is told in a remote, third-person way because it happened before Mary was born.  She met only the broken man.  

And now you know why Donald Trump was reluctant to name his oldest son Donald, Jr.

Once Fred, Sr's oldest son failed him, he pinned his hopes on his second son, Donald.  Donald learned from his brother's mistakes that the most important thing was to create at least the impression of success as his father defined it.  Mary grew up under strained circumstances, raised by a divorced mother living off the alimony and child support provided by the trust, knowing she had a rich uncle always flashing around extravagant signs of wealth and success that pleased his father.  In fact, Donald was a lousy businessman who knew a lot more about creating the appearance of wealth than creating actual wealth.  But, in the end, his father had psychologically invested so much in his second son that he couldn't bear to see him fail and puncture the image that he had created.  So Donald's father kept bailing him out, no matter how badly his business ventures failed.  And we can see from there the genesis of the Trump we know today -- a man convinced that appearance can take the place of reality, that if he can create the right illusion, it won't matter how disastrously he fails in fact.

Probably the most revealing passage in Mary's book describes how she was hired to ghost write Donald's book The Art of the Comeback after he had gone bankrupt and been put on an allowance by the banks -- of $450,000 per month.*  Donald declined to provide a computer and printer, saying that was the publisher's job. The editor has no idea she had been hired.  Mary trailed her uncle, but was unable to figure out what he actually did. When she spent time in his office, the main thing she saw him do was talk on the phone.  The conversations were not about business; they were about gossip, golf, women, or asking for favors.  Not necessarily inappropriate -- networking is an important part of the real estate business, after all -- but he never seemed to actually put together any development projects. He also read through newspaper clippings about himself.  Finally, Donald had his secretary type up some pages for the book.  They consisted of denunciations of women who refused to date him and how unattractive they were.  (Unanswered -- if they were so unattractive, why did he want to date them?).  Eventually the publishing company told her they wanted someone with more experience.  Naturally, she was never paid.  Again, this seemed emblematic of Trump's style as President.

And, of course, there was the big revelation in the book.  Some time ago, the New York Times published a long and long-forgotten article showing that throughout his father's lifetime (Fred, Sr. died in 1999), Donald Trump was a complete failure as a businessman, continually propped up and bailed out by his father.  The paper did not reveal its source.  Its source turned out to be Mary Trump, who retrieved the information from her lawyers about the inheritance lawsuit.  That was why their information ended when Donald's father died.  

In short, lots of juicy family gossip.  Some insight into how Donald Trump got to be how he is today.  And revelations about his failures in business.  No information about Donald Trump as a larger phenomenon, but that is not what a family history could be expected to so.

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*Just by way of comparison, keep in mind that Rudy Giuliani's ex-wife complained about his extravagance in burning through $900,000 in a year.  

The Real Answer on Court Packing

 So, what is the right answer for the Biden/Harris campaign when asked about court packing?  

Joe Biden's answer is probably politically the best -- to say the only court packing he knows about is being done by the Republicans, and introduce a bill of particulars.

But the real answer is not one that can be said officially.  And that is that sometimes the threat to pack the court can be an effective alternative to actually packing the court.  

FDR's threat to pack the court is an obvious precedent.  He didn't do it.  But the threat was enough to intimidate at least one justice into switching his vote and allowing the New Deal to stand -- the switch in time saved nine.  Besides, the justices blocking the New Deal were old and Roosevelt held office for twelve years. That allowed him to "pack" the court with new appointments without actually having to expand it.*

Consider, then, some of the alarming prospects of a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court.  The one most often discussed is that they might repeal Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision declaring abortion a constitutional right.  I personally believe that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided, and many states have placed so many restrictions on abortion as to effectively be a ban.  Nonetheless, a repeal of Roe would create a political hot potato that a whole lot of politicians would prefer not to deal with.

Or they might repeal Obergefell v. Hodges, the case that found gay marriage to be a constitutional right.  I personally believe that decision was also wrongly decided, and that advocates of gay marriage should have trusted in the slower but more legitimate process of the political system.  Nonetheless, a repeal would throw a great number of marriages into jeopardy and doubtless generate political outrage.

But that would be nothing compared to the outrage if the Supreme Court were to strike down Obamacare and overnight strip 20 million people of their health insurance and end protections for pre-existing conditions.

Other, less dramatic but reversals might be Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, which held that the Supreme Court would defer to a regulatory agency's interpretation of the statute it was enforcing, so long as its interpretation was reasonable.  Others fear the Supreme Court might declare regulatory agencies unconstitutional altogether, or end the private right of enforcement of federal regulations.  Such rulings would be more arcane, but the consequences would be absolutely real.

But here is the thing.  The Supreme Court pretends to be immune to political pressure.  It isn't.  Currently, any proposal to add two justices to the Supreme Court would be highly controversial and meet with considerable outrage. It is by no means clear that elite opinion would countenance such a move.  (Public opinion might find the whole thing two arcane to care).

But f the Supreme Court were to declare numerous marriages invalid, or to strike down some generally accepted federal regulation, or prevent enforcement of environmental laws, let alone strip 20 million people of their health insurance, public outrage of the decision would complete drown out any outrage over court packing, and the expansion should be easy to pass.

Presumably the Supreme Court will take that into account in deciding cases.

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*An older precedent is Thomas Jefferson.  The Federalist Congress during the lame duck session had just vastly expanded the federal judiciary, and the lame duck John Adams appointed a lot of Federalist judges.  Jefferson tried to have one of them impeached for making highly partisan decisions upholding the Alien and Sedition Acts.  The impeachment was not successful, but it did sufficiently intimidate the Supreme Court that it allowed Jefferson's party to repeal the expansion of the judiciary.

COVID New Mexico Update

 Meanwhile, here in New Mexico things are looking very bad.  COVID cases up, reaching over 400 per day, which is higher than ever before. Our statewide positivity rate now exceeds five percent, which has never been the case before.  In the past, large outbreaks were usually traceable to prisons and jails.  Now, they are affecting the general population.  And the main source of spread appears to be people who can't stand the isolation anymore and are resuming visits with family and friends.  This is not something that government can stop, short of truly extreme measures that I think all of us will reject.

The big spreader areas are the southern and eastern parts of the state, spreading into central areas. Southern and eastern parts of the state have positivity rates in the double digits -- comparable to what we saw during the serious outbreak in the Navajo northwest at the beginning of the outbreak. Albuquerque has positive rates of five percent or more.  Las Cruces has positive rates in the high single digits.  

Death rates are falling, to 2.77% at last count.  However, this is probably not an encouraging sign.  It means that the system is being overwhelmed with new cases.  Hospitalization rates as a percentage of total cases has fallen, now below 12%.  But the absolute numbers of people hospitalized are rising -- up to 120 now, after falling to between 60 and 80, but still far below our peak of 223.

Interestingly, the percentage of infected people who have recovered continues to rise, even in (most of) the most severely affected counties.  Our number of active infections is unsurprisingly rising.  (It actually fell somewhat in early September).

Our governor warns that we are on the verge of out-of-control, exponential spread, even as political resistence makes any sort of restrictive measures to stop spread impossible.  

Brace for some bad times.

Why COVID Risk Can't Be a Matter of Individual Choice

 

While Republicans/libertarians/economic royalists may not agree on how much of a danger COVID is, or even whether it exists at all, they all agree on what should be done about it.  Coercive government mandates shutting down economic activity are intolerable.  Instead, each individual should be allowed to freely choose how much risk they are willing to take. Certainly the elderly, people with medical conditions, and people with an elderly person or person with medical problems in their household should exercise maximum care, but everyone else should be free to decide how much risk they find individually acceptable. The usual challenge to libertarians -- what about children who are too young to understand -- can be dismissed by saying that the risk to children is minimal and there is at least some evidence children do not pass the disease on to adults.

So, why shouldn't each individual be free to decide how much risk to take?

The trouble with leaving risk tolerance to individual preference is that it works only if one person's risk does not endanger (unconsenting) others.  

An example might be evacuation before a hurricane.  Clearly society should evacuate people in hospital and nursing homes who are incapacitated from leaving by themselves, and incarcerated persons who have been forcibly prevented from leaving.  And it should furnish transportation to people too poor to afford their own.  But what about people perfectly capable of moving out, and capable of understanding the danger, who simply decide not to?  The main risk such people pose is to first responders, who are endangered by their stupidity.  What if we make clear that anyone refusing to heed a hurricane evacuation does so at their own risk and will not be rescued?  That is going to depend on whether you believe that society and government may -- and should -- protect people who don't want to be protected from their own actions.  Certainly a person who wants to stay and ride out the hurricane endangers no one else.  The hurricane will strike with equal force regardless of how many people are its path.  If anything, people who evacuate benefit if large numbers of people choose to stay because there is less traffic congestion.

Contagious disease is different. The risk that high risk-accepting people are willing to take can raise the danger for people who are less risk tolerant.  Some hurricane analogies are obvious.  We might allow a thrill-seeker to stay behind and ride out the hurricane, but we would not allow  him* to hide the car keys and prevent his wife and children to leave. Similarly, a single risk-taking member of a household may infect other household members who are more risk-averse.

And I will grant that a few isolated risk-taking individual pose little danger to the larger society outside their households.  But if a large enough minority of the population insists on going back to restaurants, bars, gyms, parties, etc. as if nothing had happened, the risk of out-of-control exponential spread that endangers everyone is absolutely real.  

Nor is it enough to say that anyone who is concerned can avoid exponential spread by staying home.  There are plenty of healthcare workers, first responders, and "essential" workers like grocery store clerks who don't have that choice, at least not without facing economic ruin.  (And, significantly, economic royalists want to ensure that anyone quitting such a job out of risk aversion will, indeed, face economic ruin).

And what about people with intermediate risk tolerance, people are risk-averse enough to stay out of restaurants, bars, and gyms, but still shop in person instead of having curbside delivery, or go mall-walking when the weather does not allow outdoors exercise?  In cases of out-of-control exponential spread, these activities become immensely more dangerous.  And in order to  maintain the same risk level, people may have to curtail these activities and become more and more isolated.  

In other words, people insisting on the freedom to engage in high-risk activities are curtailing the freedom of the more risk-averse.

A common Republican/libertarian/economic royalist objection to COVID restrictions is that it works great economic hardship, especially on small businesses.  This is true and while some stopgap measures -- ordering takeout and deliver from restaurants, curbside delivery for stores, temporary government assistance to get through -- may offer short term relief, continuing to shut down absolutely can cause severe, permanent economic damage.  

But so can out-of-control, exponential spread of the virus. Epidemiologists originally warned that if there was no social distancing, as many as 2.2 million Americans could die of COVID.  Realistically, this is not going to happen for two reasons. One reason is that we have gotten better at treating this disease and lowered the mortality rate.  But the other is that if spread become bad enough, people will take action to social distance, with resultant economic damage.  Business will shut down, not because government orders it, but because so many employees are falling sick. Word will get out about the dangers of high-risk venues like restaurants, bars, and gyms, and people will stay away of their own volition.  And businesses will fail.  And the economy will suffer.

I suppose Republicans/libertarians/economic royalists may regard that as acceptable, so long as it is the result of the free market, i.e., individual free choice, and not of coercive government mandates.  The rest of us -- and I think I speak for a much larger share of the population  here -- would conclude that if economic ruin is inevitable, we would prefer to have it accompanied by as little sickness and death as possible.

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*Let's face it.  Most people who behave like this are male.

Mission Accomplished

I Alone Can Fix It

So, Donald Trump has had his "Mission Accomplished" moment.  He has glorious helicopter footage of his triumphal return after his heroic victory over a virus that is no more serious than common flu, that he overcame with his superhuman willpower and extraordinary physique.  Also he caught it on purpose to show that it is nothing to fear and there is no need to take any precautions to precautions, and he was saved by a miracle cure that he is making available -- for free -- to anyone who wants it.

I think Donald Trump needs some work on his story line.