Today's Edition

May 11, 2021

          I am starting to lose patience with the dominant narrative in the liberal media. In the last week, I have listened to several well-intentioned pundits predict that Republicans will gerrymander their way to flipping the House in 2022. They will then refuse to recognize duly-appointed Electors in 2024 and will substitute alternate slates of Electors loyal to Donald Trump—and presto chango!—245 years of Democracy ends with a whimper. Such catastrophism reminds me of the dark days before the 2018 mid-terms and the 2020 election. Predicting disaster is a cheap trick. If your prediction comes true, you are a genius. If it does not come to pass, no one remembers. In the meantime, the liberal media outlets have filled hours of airtime and sold lots of soap. Predicting disaster without recognizing the low probability that disaster will occur is irresponsible scaremongering.

          There are three problems with the current catastrophic thinking dominating the airwaves. First, it skips over the part where 80 million Democrats make their voices heard at ballot box. Gerrymandering does not automatically equal defeat for Democrats in 2022, nor does a GOP-controlled House automatically spell the end of democracy. Second, catastrophic thinking fails to recognize that disasters are usually the result of long chains of dependent contingencies that all must come true for disaster to occur. That’s unlikely. Finally, the doomsday scenarios assume that after Trump ends 245 years of democracy, Democrats will yawn and return to solving the New York Times crossword puzzle. Ending democracy is serious business and would likely result in a shutdown of the economy and government until the imposter is forced to concede. Republicans understand that fact in their bones (even if they won’t admit it to themselves), which will serve as a bracing reminder of reality if they contemplate following through on their fever dreams.

          Do not misunderstand my point. I believe that Democrats are not taking the Republican threat seriously enough. I have, after all, gone to the trouble of writing 1,156 daily newsletters since Trump’s victory to urge readers to action. If I thought there was no need to continue the effort, I would gladly stop writing.  But I also believe that it is wrong to motivate Democrats by alarming them with predictions of long-term disaster that are remote—because such predictions distract us from the urgent matters that are within our control in the short term.

          Finally, we should not assume that all Republicans believe the lies that they are telling one another. The Arizona Senate audit of the Maricopa County presidential vote is an international embarrassment. Republicans understand that fact, even if they won’t say so out loud. But some in the Arizona Republican Party are finally speaking out. See Business Insider, “'It makes us look like idiots': Arizona state senator disowns widely criticized election recount after seeing it in action.” While Republicans are willing to suspend disbelief, there is a limit to their self-delusion.

          The same is true of Kevin McCarthy’s cowardly action to drive Liz Cheney from her leadership position in the GOP. McCarthy wrote a letter to the GOP caucus in the House that no sane Republican could take seriously. See Kevin McCarthy's Letter to House GOP Conference. In calling for a vote to punish Liz Cheney for refusing to defend the Big Lie, McCarthy said,

          We fiercely defend free speech . . . [E]ach day spent relitigating the past is one day less we have to seize the future. . . . We are a Big Tent party. We represent Americans of all backgrounds . . . . And, unlike the left, we embrace free thought and debate.

          McCarthy delayed the release of his letter so that it could be approved by Trump, who was unreachable on the golf course. (For new readers: That was a joke. Trump refused to read the one-page letter because it was “too long.”) No Republican in the House believed a word of McCarthy’s letter—not even McCarthy. See The Hill, “Top female GOP senator compares Cheney ousting to 'cancel culture'.” (GOP Senator Joni Enrst said, “Cancel culture is cancel culture no matter how you look at it.”) They are fooling no one—but their willingness to debase themselves in service of an obvious lie is dangerous and worrisome.

          Nor is McCarthy fooling the American people. He described his political fratricide of Liz Cheney as a necessary step to prevent the “radical Democrat agenda from destroying our country.” Whatever McCarthy is selling, Americans aren’t buying it. A new poll shows that Biden’s favorability rating is 63%, with approval of his handling of the pandemic at 71%. And, for the first time in four years, a majority of Americans believe the nation is headed in the right direction. See AP - NORC, “Biden continues to hold on to high approval ratings.” Two key numbers in the poll are the 62% of independents who view Biden favorably and the 23% of Republicans who likewise hold a favorable opinion of Biden. And 45% of Republicans have a favorable view of Biden’s handling of the pandemic response. No wonder Kevin McCarthy is panicking.

          Polls are not elections, and the 2022 election is a long way off. But Biden’s favorability ratings, his handling of the pandemic, and his popular legislative agenda are strong counterfactual arguments to the catastrophism being peddled on many news channels. That said, I worry that Democrats are unfocused and too willing to believe that history is destiny in the midterms. We cannot concede a single race in the midterms—not in the House or the Senate. As Eugene Robinson wrote in WaPo on Monday,

          The scary thing is that this GOP, untethered from reality and the material needs of the country, is within a handful of seats of taking back both the House and the Senate. As exhausting as it is to acknowledge this, the 2020 election was just the first step toward restoring a shared reality. For Democrats, losing next year’s midterm elections is simply not an option.

See Eugene Robison in The Washington Post, The biggest threat to America is the Republican break with reality.

          I agree. Losing the midterms is not an option—it is an outcome over which we can exert a great deal of control. Let’s act like it—and stop worrying about catastrophes that a dedicated group of Americans can avert.

More good news in the pandemic response.

          A key to our return to normalcy is the reopening of schools. On Monday, the FDA granted an emergency use exemption to Pfizer’s Covid vaccine for teenagers aged 12 to 15. See MSN, “FDA okays emergency use of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine for young teens.”

Biden Administration reinstates health care for transgender people.

          The Biden administration ended one of the most shameful and mean-spirited policies of the Trump administration—that of denying equal access to healthcare to transgender people. See NBC News, “Biden administration announces reversal of Trump-era limits on protections for transgender people in health care.” Per NBC, “the change will bar health care providers and other health-related organizations who receive federal funding from discriminating based on someone’s gender identity or sexual orientation.” Transgender people—also known as “people”—once again have equal access to federal healthcare as all other “people.” Given the assault on transgender rights in GOP-controlled state legislatures, the Biden administration’s decision should override state laws wherever healthcare providers receive federal funding (which includes most insurers).

CNN Fact-checking Biden’s speeches.

          The right-wing media complains that the mainstream press has given Joe Biden a “pass” on fact checking inaccurate claims in public statements. Not true. See CNN’s fact checking of several recent statements by Biden. See CNN, “Fact check: Biden makes false claim about former Federal Reserve leaders, revives misleading jobs claim.” Many of the statements appear to represent mix-ups or overly-optimistic estimates of future growth. On several occasions, the White House has acknowledged the exaggerations or misstatements. Good for CNN for keeping Biden honest. It is good to see that a free press is holding every president accountable to the truth. It is also a helpful reminder to Biden’s staff about the need for preparation and precision in public comments by the President.

Concluding Thoughts.

          The Substack platform is roiling the journalism industry. The controversy relates to the platform’s efforts to entice leading journalists to abandon their current homes and take up residence on Substack. The profession has divided into competing camps, which has generated an inordinate amount of “inside baseball” commentary by journalists that is interesting to high-profile journalists and their frenemies. Readers helpfully forward articles about the controversy to me, perhaps in the mistaken belief that the controversy is relevant to me. It is not. I am an amateur newsletter writer who migrated to Substack with the hope that an online presence would make it easier for readers to access the newsletter. For every big-name journalist engaged in the Substack controversy, there are hundreds of newsletter writers like me who are looking for an easy platform to communicate with their readers. But in case you are interested in the controversy, The Atlantic weighed in today: “How Substack Soap Operas Change the Media Business.”

            Speaking the move of the newsletter to Substack, the process was not glitch free, but almost every reader has made the switch to the new platform. Since moving to Substack, the newsletter hit a peak number of views of over 42,000 for one edition. Feel free to share the newsletter with family and friends who you believe would find the newsletter helpful. If you want to correspond with me, just hit “reply” to the newsletter email. Thanks for being part of the newsletter community. We are working our way through challenging times. It is an honor to be on this journey with each of you.

          Talk to you tomorrow!