So, How Does the Post-Election Stack up to Wargaming It

What do you have to lose?

As Donald Trump's desperate rear-guard action against the election continue, I thought I would compare them with the war gaming that attempted to play out what might happen post-election.

So, what can we say?

First of all, some of the worst fears the organizers gamed out have not come about.  In some cases, their worst fears are no longer possible.  Trump has not mobilized the National Guard or the Department of Justice to seize absentee ballots, and the time to do so is past.  So far the contest has played out in the courts, in the certification process, and in informal pseudo-legislative hearings.  Both sides have (mostly) stayed off the streets, although there is still time for that.  

Still, many of the report's predictions are eerily prescient.  It predicted team Trump might take steps such as:

• Calling for recounts in all states in which victory was not already apparent. [Done]
• Launching coordinated investigations at the state and federal levels into alleged “voting irregularities” in an effort to undermine public confidence in results that did not go Trump’s way and/or alter the results. [Attempted]
• Attempting to halt the counting of mail-in ballots by filing cases in state court or leaning on Republican leaders to stop vote counting or to certify a result early, without waiting for the certified results from the Secretary of State. [Done, though not successful]
• Turning out their well-organized and committed base to take to the streets in Trump’s favor, in part by disseminating disinformation about the danger posed by pro-Biden demonstrators (e.g., by suggesting likely Antifa violence, etc.). [Not done on a significant scale so far, except for one protest in Washington DC]
• Relying on both FOX News and right-wing social media to echo and amplify pro-Trump messages and facilitate the harassment and bullying of election officials, to cause chaos and delay and/or to intimidate officials into taking actions that benefited Team Trump. [Done, but not successfully in terms of changing results].
• Using federal agencies to justify or support Trump campaign tactics. In one of the more aggressive moves undertaken in one of the TIP exercises, Team Trump had Attorney General Bill Barr order the seizure of mail-in ballots to ensure that vote counting would stop.  [Not done].

It also correctly anticipated that most Republican officials, at least in Congress, would go along with this.

The war games played out four scenarios -- ambiguous outcome, Trump win, narrow Biden win and decisive Biden win.  Clearly the first two can be ruled out now.  Biden has won.  The report did not define "clear win" versus "narrow win," although its definition of a narrow win appears to have been by 1% or less of the popular vote and about 278 electoral votes. 

The report predicted that in case of a clear Biden win, the Trump campaign would allege massive fraud and call for federal investigations, with support by Republican officials.  The Trump campaign and Republican officials would call on the media to cast doubt on the outcomes, but would not try to get state legislatures to override the popular vote, or seek to thwart vote counting.  After that attempt failed, the Trump campaign would change the focus to damage control -- through pardons, securing business contracts, installing loyalists in key government positions, and hindering the transition.  Nonetheless, Team Biden moved forward with the transition and began outreach to Republicans with modest success.

In case of a narrow Biden win, the report predicted that Fox News would call the win, but Team Trump would not concede it  Instead it would successfully persuade the Michigan and Pennsylvania legislatures to appoint pro-Trump slates of electors. challenge the legitimacy of the election, launch a Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation, and spread rumors that Biden had a heart attack.  Mitt Romney would persuade three other Republican Senators to announce Biden as the winner. The Biden Campaign would take to the streets and the military would leak that it intended to support the election outcome.  Right wing media would step up the lies and attempts to intimidate Biden electors.  Trump would issue pardons and leave the White House only upon the threat of being evicted by force.

It seems to me that what we have gotten so far is somewhere in between what the report predicted for a clear Biden victory and what the report predicted for a narrow Biden victory.  The Trump campaign has sued to overturn the result, without success, and has sought to stop vote counts and persuade state legislatures to appoint pro-Trump electors all (so far) without success.  William Barr has launched an investigation of electoral fraud and not found it.  Fox has called the election for Biden and is facing mass defections to OANN and Newsmax, which are behaving about the way the report predicted.  The number of Republican Senators recognizing a Biden victory is about what the report expected.  But no rival electors have been appointed (so far) and the contest has stayed off the streets (so far).  The pardons are beginning.

David Frum was one of the participants and sheds more light on what to anticipate for the weeks ahead.  Electors are certified on December 8.  They vote on December 14.  Congress certifies the result on January 6.  The inauguration takes place January 20.  Frum reports that the participants saw December 8 as the cutoff date:  "Generally, once we got past the December 8 date, the Trump team’s options for keeping power dwindled to zero. What was left then was scorched-earth self-enrichment, self-protection, and spite."  This was based on the assumption that neither Congress nor Mike Pence (as presiding officer) would decline to certify the electoral vote.  

This may prove optimistic. Judges, conservative ones included, have held firm in denying Trump challenges.  State election officials, including (most) Republicans, have upheld the vote.  State legislatures have only had to duck for cover and avoid taking a stand.  Most Congressional Republicans have been doing that too.  But when the Electoral College vote is presented, Congressional Republicans will have no choice but to stand up and be counted.  Team Trump's last ditch pan is for Republicans in Congress to refuse to certify the results.  And, in fairness to Congressional Republicans, if they refuse to certify the results, they will not be doing anything Congressional Democrats have not done before.

My guess -- probably most Congressional Republicans will vote not to certify, abstain, or skip the vote.  But enough will join the Democrats to certify Joe Biden as the next President.

One Possible Exception

 Actually, there is one qualification to my last post.  There may be one limit to how much crazy Republicans can get away with.

The whole "woke" or politically correct culture has been criticized, no only for its radicalism, but for being radical in a very superficial way.  Wokeness is first and foremost a set of rules on what is acceptable to say.  It can be incredibly exacting and annoying, but in the end it avoids going into any real depth.  Consider the response to the whole Black Lives Matter outburst this summer.  It led to taking down Confederate flags, renaming bases named for Confederate generals, newspapers insisting on spelling Black with a capital "B" and debates on whether it was acceptable to say master bedroom.  These are all cheap gestures that avoid the genuine hard work of police reform, much less inflammatory matters like housing access.  They cost little and achieve little.

Much the same can be said for Q Anon and other conspiracy theories.  So you say Democrats are running a massive child trafficking ring, that Democrats drink the blood of babies, and that the election was stolen from Donald Trump by massive voter fraud.  But let's face it.  These nutty conspiracy theories are also a very superficial form of radicalism.  They don't commit you to a specific program.

In many ways, Paul Ryan is more radical than Q Anon.  After all, Paul Ryan wanted to actually do something.  He wanted to turn Social Security into a 401-k and Medicare into an Obamacare style voucher program.  He failed because doing so was extremely unpopular.

And, although I cannot find the link, a defeated moderate Democrat pointed out for all their nuttery, Republicans seem to be good at avoiding bringing up actual substantive policies many of them favor that are broadly unpopular with the general public.  After all, Paul Ryan's proposals went exactly nowhere under the Trump Administration.  And the attempt to roll back Obamacare hurt Republicans.  And she pointed out that a lot of Republican leaders probably want to do other things, remove restraints on the sale of fully automatic machine guns, or limit access to contraception, that are also highly unpopular.  And, after all, you can call Democrats blood-drinking pedophiles and oppose any changes to Social Security or Medicare.

So that may be the one thing Republicans can't get away with -- something with clear, undeniable real world consequences that are unpopular.  And, predictable as the winter solstice, once Joe Biden is sworn in as President, Republicans will be calling for spending cuts.  They have vowed to reject any further COVID relief and are even talking about "entitlement reform," i.e., cuts.  These positions are broadly unpopular.  That is no doubt why Republicans refrained from doing any of them when they held power.

If Democrats are to have any chance of winning again, the only way to do it is to call Republicans out in it.

Reflections on the Election

 After every election, we hear media speculation that whichever party lost is doomed forever.  Invariably, the losing party makes a comeback and partisan politics continue -- as is normal for democracy.

But this time feels different.  This time really feels like the Democrats are doomed.

Yes, granted, we beat Donald Trump.  That has to count for something.  But usually a winning candidate for President has coattails, i.e., sweeps in down ballot candidates.  This time Republicans won everything but the Presidency.  And they won it in a way that truly makes me wonder if the Democrats can ever come back.

For as long as I can remember, every time the Democrats lost an election, it was taken as a sign that they had moved to far to the left and needed to move to the center.  And every time the Republicans lost an election, it was taken as a sign that they had moved too far to the center and needed to move right.  And now Republicans have elected a Q Anon believer.

Democrats used to see grounds for hope.  The rising Hispanic/Latino tide would favor Democrats.  Republicans' offensive nativism would keep them from winning the Hispanic/Latino vote.  Well, it turns out that blatant, bigoted nativism attracts Latino votes.  Even the Black vote is becoming less solidly Democratic -- and moving in favor of a blatant racist.

We used to believe that Democratic voters just weren't turning out enough, or that non-voters favored Democrats.  Well, turnout levels set records in this election -- and it favored Republicans.

We used to believe that we could win broadly across the board if we just mobilized enough.  Well, we mobilized like never before and have nothing to show for it.

We used to believe that incumbents won in good times and lost in bad times.  Well, 2020 has been the worst year in memory -- and it favored the incumbent party.

We used to believe that sooner or later denying reality would catch up with Republicans and reality came back to haunt them.  Well, here we are in the midst of a deadly pandemic, and Republicans have found that ignoring this reality is a winning message.

We used to think that if Republicans got too nutty, they might be able to win primaries, but it would hurt them in the general election.  Well, it appears that nutty Republicans do better in the general as well as the primary election.

We used to believe polls.  Well, it appears that polls are massively off -- Republicans always do better than polls suggest.

But above all, what dismays me is that the big, winning message for Republicans in down-ballot elections (that they are making in Georgia now) is that if Joe Biden is President, we need Republican control of Congress to hold those crazy radical socialist Democrats in check.  Yes, it would appear after everything else that Democrats are still viewed as the crazy ones. We hoped for the longest time that Democrats could avoid the apologetic cringe for being liberal and stand up and say it proudly.  Well, now it turns out that Democrats' only chance of winning is the apologetic cringe and the promise to do nothing.  Republicans, meanwhile, have a seemingly boundless appetite for crazy and pay no penalty for it.   

It would appear that if Democrats propose adding a public option to Obamacare they will be seen as ushering in a Communist tyranny.  Republicans can claim that their opponents are running a massive pedophilia ring and drinking the blood of babies and any attempt to portray that as radical will be seen as elitist snobbery and losing touch with Real Americans in the Heartland.

And there really doesn't seem to be any way for Democrats to hurt Republicans by painting them as crazy because Republicans' appetite for crazy is boundless and so many people share it.  Is there any degree of crazy that can hurt Republicans?  And the answer seems to be clear.  The only degree of crazy that can hurt Republicans is not enough.

Daniel Ziblatt: How Democracies Die, and the Importance of Political Parties

 

So, I promised a review of Daniel Ziblatt (not Zimblatt as I previously called him) and his book How Democracies Die, which will complement Stuart Stevens' It Was All a Lie. 

I have previously reviewed Ziblatt's book Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy.  The two books stand in interesting contrast.  Conservative Parties is written for professional historians; How Democracies Die is written for the lay public.  Conservative Parties describes the preconditions to make democratic transformation possible; How Democracies Die is about what can go wrong after the transformation.  Conservative Parties sees the primary threat to democracy as on the right; How Democracies Die acknowledges that it can come from the left as well.  Both books see political parties as key to a functioning democracy, and particularly parties' role as gatekeepers, barring demagogues from power and restraining dangerous elements.  

How Democracies Die is aimed specifically toward Donald Trump, and generally toward how demagogues can undermine democracy from within.  Ziblatt presents two basis theses.  First, that political parties are key to preserving democracies, and second, that democracies depend, not just on laws, but on norms.

Political parties

Political parties, Ziblatt argues, serve as "gatekeepers" to democracy, barring potential authoritarian leaders.  Authoritarians rarely become strong enough to subvert democracy without the cooperation of establishment parties.  Inter-war Germany and Italy are particularly notorious examples.  But Ziblatt also describes in some detail how Hugo Chavez came to power in Venezuela, despite having previously attempted a coup, by making an alliance with a mainstream party leader.  When an dangerous, anti-democratic party arises, Ziblatt argues, mainstream parties can block it by forming alliances across ideological lines, i.e., an alliance between the center-right and center-left to block the extremes.  He offers as examples inter-war Belgium and Finland, and present-day Austria.  All these countries were parliamentary democracies, working by coalition.  In all of them, the center-right made an alliance with the center-left to keep the hard right out of power.  

It can be difficult to understand at a distance, but Ziblatt attempts to explain just how hard such alliances are to make.  "Picture Senator Edward Kennedy and other liberal Democrats campaigning for Ronald Reagan, or the British Labour Party and their trade union allies endorsing Margaret Thatcher."

And he is right.  Given the uniquely binary nature of US politics, the equivalent of forming a coalition with the opposing party is to purposefully lose to it.  That does seem hard.  And yet, I have seen it happen in my lifetime, not at the presidential level, but in Louisiana.  

In fact, although I did not know it, it happened twice in Louisiana in two years, when David Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan became the de facto Republican nominee.  Louisiana has a non-partisan primary in which all candidates compete.  If no one wins a majority, there is a run-off between the top two vote getters.  In the 1990 election for Senate, the incumbent was a Democrat.  Duke ran way ahead of the Republican challenger.  The Republicans ended up withdrawing their candidate and throwing their weight behind the Democrat.  It was not any easy thing for Louisiana Republicans to do, but they could take comfort in the knowledge that (1) the Democratic incumbent was a conservative, oil-friendly Louisiana Democrat who has represented the state before without disaster and (2) that he was, in any event, just one of 100 senators.

Rather different was the 1991 election for Governor.  In that case, the Republican incumbent came in third in the primary, and a runoff took place between Duke and the Democratic candidate.  And this candidate was not an ordinary, respectable Democrat.  This was Edwin Edwards, the second least-acceptable candidate in Louisiana.  Edwards' method of governing was to buy popularity by spreading around Louisiana's oil money, ensuring that everyone got a piece, and keeping a sizable portion for himself.  Edwards had served two terms as governor and been indicted (though not convicted) both times.  He was known to go to Las Vegas with briefcases of money.  When I describe him to friends, they think I am talking about Huey Long.  And he famously commented that he could only lose if it got caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy, a sort of precursor to Trump saying he wouldn't lose votes if he shot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue.  Nonetheless, given the choice between such a man and David Duke, the Louisiana Republican establishment very reluctantly threw its support behind Edwards.  They handed out T-shirts and bumper stickers saying "Vote for the lizard, not the wizard" and "Vote for the crook.  It's important."  Edwards handily won, and Duke's career in mainstream politics was at an end.

Another obvious  example today are the "Never Trump" Republicans throwing their support behind Biden.  More on that later.

Ziblatt is fairly clear that democracy can succeed only if there are brakes on it to prevent it from either descending into mob rule or tearing itself apart by factionalism.  He sees political parties as the primary form of brakes, or "gatekeepers," as he calls them.

But that raises an awkward questions.  Ziblatt warns that we should beware of the populist outsider, denouncing party elites as corrupt and claiming to speak  for the people.  He has a certain tendency to assume that outsider = authoritarian.  

But democracies really can become corrupt and sclerotic, and democratic rulers really can be captured by special interests.  So what happens is a democracy really does begin to stagnate, and to descend into corruption, sclerosis, and capture by special interests. Are we to condemn all political outsiders and all people criticizing the system?  To say that outsiders are to be barred as authoritarians waiting to happen and that criticism is just demagoguery is itself subversive of democracy -- it allows democracy to degenerate into a cozy little oligarchy.

There are two answers to this.  One is that there are dangers in putting power into the hands of an outsider.  An outsider is unlikely to understand the rules of the game, the intricacies of democratic politics, or the complexity of the problems the country is facing.  An outsider may end up wrecking, rather than reforming, the system.  A reform-minded insider is often a better bet.  The candidate running on the promise to cut through the red tape and get things done is often promising to set aside the tiresome constraints of democracy and the rule of law.  (Ziblatt give Peru's Alberto Fujimori as such an example.  He did not run with the express intent of being an authoritarian, but his desire not to be bound by the democratic rules of the game led to his becoming an authoritarian.

The other is that outsiders are not necessarily authoritarians, and that insiders can be authoritarians as well.  What we should look out for in any politicians are signs of authoritarian behavior.  Ziblatt gives four such signs:

1. Rejection of, or weak commitment to, democratic rules of the game, such as
1. Rejection of the constitution or willingness to violate it
2. Willingness to take anti-democratic measures, such as canceling elections, suspending the Constitution, banning certain organizations, or restricting basic civil or political rights
3. Endorsing extra-legal measures, such as military coup, violent insurrection, or mass protests aimed at ousting the government
4. Seeking to undermine the legitimacy of elections
2. Denial of the legitimacy of political opponents, such as:
1. Calling their opponents subversive
2. Calling their opponents an existential threat
3. Baselessly calling their opponents criminals who should be barred from the political arena
4. Baselessly calling their opponents foreign agents
3. Toleration or encouragement of violence such as:
1. Association with armed gangs or paramilitaries
2. Encouraging mob violence
3. Refusal to condemn violence committed by their side
4. Praising political violence in the past or in other countries
4. Readiness to curtail civil liberties of opponents, including the media such as:
1. Expanding libel laws, laws restricting protest, or laws restraining opposing organizations
2. Threats to take legal action against opponents or critics
3. Praising such measures in the past or in other countries.

Ziblatt (writing in 2018) sees Trump has having done many (not all) of these things:

• Seeking to undermine the legitimacy of elections
• Baselessly describing opponents as criminals who should be disqualified from participation
• Refusing to condemn violence by supporters
• Praising political violence in other countries
• Supporting laws restricting civil liberties, such as expanding libel law or laws restricting protests, criticism of government, or laws restraining opposing organizations
• Threats to take legal action against opponents or critics
• Praise for such actions in other countries

Note that, although some of the red flags Ziblatt warns against are actual illegality, many are not.  Some are perfectly legal, but violate established norms.  The difficult question of institutional norms will be addressed in my next post.

Further Thoughts on What Disloyal Opposition Means

 I have posted on several occasions on what it means for opposition to be disloyal.  

Underlying my posts was a column by New Zealand's Paul Buchanan on when opposition becomes disloyal.  He distinguishes between loyal and disloyal opposition as follows:

Loyal opposition may be principled or unprincipled. Principled loyal opposition is based on sincerely held beliefs that are maintained regardless of the immediate political context, for example, opposition to abortion or access to automatic weapons on demand. It also includes a commitment to the rules of the political game, which in democracies means adherence to transparency, honest voice, majority representation and acceptance of electoral outcomes in exchange for a chance to regularly compete for political office within formally defined timeframes and under universally competitive rules and conditions.

Unprincipled but loyal opposition if based upon temporal opportunism tied to the immediate context, which seeks to gain political advantage without regard to the sincerity of the actor’s belief in a given policy position. Yet, as with principled loyal oppositions, unprincipled loyal oppositions play within the rules of the democratic game as given, including unwritten norms of comportment and civility with regards to what is permissible and impermissible as proper political discourse. Whatever its character, loyal opposition sees the government as an adversary, not an enemy. No matter how they play, politics is a competitive high stakes game, not a war.

Disloyal oppositions are, by definition, unprincipled. Not because they lack conviction in their beliefs (some do), but because of their disrespect for the rules of the democratic game. Their view of political rules and procedures is purely instrumental: if they suit the pursuit of ideological or policy objectives they can be used. If not, they can be circumvented. The goal is to bring down the government of the day regardless of cost or consequence. Hence disloyal oppositions hold little regard for established rules and institutional norms even if it suited them when in government or as a historical precedent. The strategy is to say anything, stop at nothing, lie, cheat and if possible steal in order to undermine the government in the eyes of the public and thereby weaken its ability to pursue a policy agenda and carry out its constitutional obligations. For disloyal oppositions, politics is war and the ends justify the means.

 (Emphasis added).  He goes on to discuss as a classic disloyal opposition conservative opposition to Salvador Allende in Chile, up to and including funding paramilitaries and seeking a coup.  

I raised the question at the time -- does opposition have to resort to violence or at least illegality to be considered "disloyal."  It seemed and important question because at the time (the Obamacare debate), Republicans were playing hardball but not doing anything illegal, or advocating illegal actions.  I called them hardball but loyal.

During debt ceiling negotiations, I decided that the Republicans were being disloyal.  They were threatening serious harm to the country in order to force over an agenda that they lacked the votes to pass through the normal legislative process.  I acknowledged that it is normal when one party holds the Presidency and the Senate and the other holds the House (which was the case at the time), it is perfectly acceptable for a loyal opposition to drive a hard bargain.  It is even acceptable if one party holds the presidency and the other has a veto-proof majority in both houses for the opposition party to pass whatever it wants over the President's veto.  But to hold the country hostage to force legislation that the opposition party lacks the votes to pass as normal legislation is to refuse to accept "electoral outcomes" and "formally defined timeframes."*

But I am beginning to see another component to loyalty (in opposition or ruling party).  It is not enough to respect electoral outcomes.  A party must refrain from purposefully harming its fellow citizens to score political points.  Obviously parties often disagree on what is in the public interest.  Also, it is obviously sometimes necessary to ask the public to make sacrifices now for the sake of the future.  (Think Winston Churchill promising only tears and toil, sweat and blood).  But it would be disloyal, say, for the opposition party to block disaster relief to an state to punish it for voting for the sitting president.  And it is disloyalty for the opposition party to take actions intended to harm the country in order to make the ruling party look bad.  Here I will quote Norman Ornstein:

When a law is enacted, representatives who opposed it have some choices (which are not mutually exclusive). They can try to repeal it, which is perfectly acceptable . . . . They can try to amend it to make it work better -- not just perfectly acceptable but desirable, if the goal is to improve a cumbersome law to work better for the betterment of the society and its people. They can strive to make sure that the law does the most for Americans it is intended to serve, including their own constituents, while doing the least damage to the society and the economy. Or they can step aside and leave the burden of implementation to those who supported the law and got it enacted in the first place.

But to do everything possible to undercut and destroy its implementation -- which in this case means finding ways to deny coverage to many who lack any health insurance; to keep millions who might be able to get better and cheaper coverage in the dark about their new options; to create disruption for the health providers who are trying to implement the law, including insurers, hospitals, and physicians; to threaten the even greater disruption via a government shutdown or breach of the debt limit in order to blackmail the president into abandoning the law; and to hope to benefit politically from all the resulting turmoil -- is simply unacceptable, even contemptible. 

Ornstein was writing in the context of Obamacare.  Republicans were doing their utmost to sabotage the law and prevent anyone from benefitting. They would go on to refuse to cooperate in any attempt to smooth out the glitches and problems that invariably result from any major change in policy and, in fact, sought to magnify those glitches to undermine the law.  It is easy to imaging under a Biden Administration a Republican-led Senate blocking any relief for Covid-related disruptions to the economy.**  Or even blocking legislation to distribute vaccine and other measure to end the pandemic. 

None of this would be illegal.  But it is disloyalty.  And worse, as we have seen for some time, our system creates an incentive for the opposition party in Congress to do all it can to hurt the country so that the President's party will be blamed.

__________________________________________

*And, it should go without saying, Donald Trump making clear that if he loses he will sue to overturn the outcome and Republicans hastily affirming a Supreme Court Justice to rule his way is also a refusal to accept "electoral outcomes."   The extraordinary attempts Republicans are making to block electoral avenues favored by Democrats is a refusal to accept "universally competitive rules and conditions."

**Even if we assume no economic restrictions to block the disease, eventually allowing out-of-control exponential growth will cause economic disruptions of its own.

If Donald Trump's Train Broke Down

 In 1984 there was a joke told by people who didn't like Ronald Reagan.

Ronald Reagan Walter Mondale, Gary Hart, and Jesse Jackson were on a train headed to the debate when it broke down.

Jackson said, "It's a white man's plot to keep a brother from having a chance to be President."

Mondale said, "This is the last time I take a train made with non-union labor."

Hart said, "Trains are outdated.  We need new ideas in transportation."

And Reagan said, "Can't we just close the curtains and pretend we're still going?"

I am told that there was a similar joke in the Soviet Union.  Stalin, Krushchev and Brezhnev* were on a train when it broke down.  Stalin demanded that they shoot the conductor and send the crew to Siberia.  Krushchev thought that excessive, and believed that firing the conductor and denying the crew their bonuses would be sufficient.  And Brezhnev said -- well, you know the punchline.  It is a fair description of how Brezhnev ran things.

I am now fully convinced that if Donald Trump were on the train he would not say, "Can't we just close the curtains and pretend we're still going."  He would close the curtains and announce that we were still going.  You won't believe how fast we're going!  In fact, we are going going like you've never seen before!  For all I know, he might eventually open the door and announce we were at our destination.

And his followers would probably believe him.

*This is not a complete anachronism.  Krushchev was an important official under Stalin, eventually rising to the Politburo, while Brezhnev was a minor functionary.

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.