This Week In ... Republicans Acting Badly
The commitment of GOP leaders to putting people's lives in danger, from either COVID or political violence, is getting to be genuinely terrifying.
I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality of American politics. If you received this email - or you are a free subscriber - and you’d like to subscribe: you can sign up here.
A quick housekeeping note: both of my kids are quarantined this week because of a close contact with another student who tested positive for COVID-19. Neither is sick, and both have tested negative, but they both have to do remote learning from home this week, which means no Zoom Cast this Friday. Apologies for that, and I will be back next week!
Someone Might Get Hurt! They Already Are
Isaac Dovere has a troubling piece up at CNN about the abuse and threats to which secretaries of state around the country are being subjected.
"I am a hunter -- and I think you should be hunted," a woman can be heard saying in a voicemail left for Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in September. "You will never be safe in Arizona again."
Or there's the man who spit, "Die you bitch, die! Die you bitch, die!" repeatedly into the phone, in another of several dozen threatening and angry voicemails directed at the Democratic secretary of state and shared exclusively with CNN by her office.
Officials and aides in secretary of state offices in Arizona and other states targeted by former President Donald Trump in his attack on last year's election results told CNN about living in constant terror -- nervously watching the people around them at events, checking in their rearview mirrors for cars following them home and sitting up at night wondering what might happen next.
These threats are a direct result of the lies spread by President Trump and his allies about the outcome of the 2020 election. Trump is instigating this behavior by continuing to claim that the election was stolen and by using delegitimizing and existential language to describe Democrats. For example, in just the past week, he sent out emails claiming that “Our Country is being systematically destroyed before our very eyes” and “The insurrection took place on November 3, Election Day. January 6 was the Protest!”
Republicans who refuse to criticize him or speak out against his provocations are further empowering his supporters. They are feeding the fire. As I’ve noted before, I understand the political rationale for Republican officeholders to support Trump and refuse to condemn him. It’s the best way for them to get reelected. But there is a horrendous moral price, and it’s genuinely frightening that so many Republicans are willing to pay it.
When these types of stories emerge, it’s easy and often routine to say that it’s only a matter of time before someone gets hurt, even though I suspect that most of the people who make these threats are cowardly hiding behind the cloak of anonymity. But the fact is, people are already getting hurt. As Dovere notes, “Staff members in the offices say they're dealing with long-term emotional and psychological trauma after a year of constant threats -- in person and virtually -- to the secretaries and to themselves.”
Psychological trauma, anxiety, and fear of physical violence are significant maladies, even if they don’t receive the same attention as physical violence. They can often be just as debilitating. It’s emblematic of how as a country, we treat mental health as secondary in importance to physical health even though the wounds from depression and anxiety can be just as severe and often more challenging to treat.
Not surprisingly, the upsurge in threats is leading to election staffers leaving in droves, and according to one estimate, “as much as 40% of election and poll workers in the largest jurisdictions in the country have so far said they won't be returning to the job out of their own fears.” Close to a third of election workers feel unsafe, and one in six report receiving threats.
This issue will likely only worsen as we get closer to the 2022 election and Trump reemerges on the campaign trail. Republicans are playing with fire and are disturbingly indifferent to those who are already getting burned.
Killing Them Softly
This is one of the more astounding stories I’ve read in some time:
Florida’s top public health official was asked to leave a state Senator’s office this week after refusing to don a mask in her office.
Sen. Tina Polsky, who was diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer in August, asked state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo and his two legislative aides to leave her office after Ladapo refused to comply with her request to put on a mask.
“I told him I had a serious medical condition,” said Polsky, who will begin radiation therapy treatment for cancer next week.
Polsky said that Ladapo had requested to meet with her in Tallahassee this week; he was making the rounds visiting several Senators who will be asked in the upcoming Session to confirm him.
Polsky said he offered to go outside when she asked him to put the mask on, but she declined …
… Eventually, Polsky said she asked Ladapo to leave her office, which he agreed to do, she said. But the Senator said before going, Ladapo remarked, “Sometimes I try to reason with unreasonable people for fun.”
Here’s the truly remarkable aspect: Ladapo had requested the meeting with Polsky to discuss his pending confirmation vote in the Florida State Senate to be the state’s Surgeon General. What a way to charm a senator than refusing to show the common courtesy of wearing a mask to protect them! This Ladapo guy is a real piece of work. He is nominated to be Florida’s Surgeon General — and here’s the lede from an op-ed he wrote for the Wall Street Journal in September:
The Covid-19 pandemic has spurred a remarkable stream of scientific investigation, but that knowledge isn’t translating into better public policy. One example is a zealous pursuit of public mask wearing, a measure that has had, at best, a modest effect on viral transmission. Or take lockdowns, shown by research to increase deaths overall but nonetheless still considered an acceptable solution. This intellectual disconnect now extends to Covid-19 vaccine mandates. The policy is promoted as essential for stopping the spread of Covid-19, though the evidence suggests it won’t.
Pretty much none of this is true. Masks are probably the best tool we have to spread COVID transmission, other than vaccines, which Ladapo has also questioned the safety of. Here he is last week telling Floridians to use “their intuition and sensibilities” when deciding whether to get vaccinated.
Keep in mind that Lapado is a medical doctor who graduated from Harvard. Then again, so did the man who appointed him to the job, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (his JD is from Harvard Law School). This week DeSantis offered a $5,000 relocation bonus to police officers fired for refusing to get vaccinated. Keep in mind that DeSantis refused to participate in a federal program to give $100 to people who did get vaccinated. Apparently for DeSantis, this is the best way to win over potential Republican primary voters, and if a few people have to die in the process, well, you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.
Get Vaccinated … If You Don’t Mind
Speaking of vaccine mandates, this week, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey became the latest Republican governor to push back on the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate:
Alabama Republican Gov. Kay Ivey ordered state agencies to resist the Biden administration's coronavirus vaccine mandates on Monday, pledging to fight the White House in court.
In her executive order, she says state officials should not penalize any business or individual for ignoring federal vaccine mandates. It also says that even when compelled to enforce federal laws, state officials should "take all practical steps to notify the affected" that Alabama opposes all vaccine mandates. Her attorney general is preparing a lawsuit to stop the mandates, she said.
Considering the politics of vaccine mandates that Ivey is putting up this fight is not surprising. What is surprising is that Ivey exploded in frustration last July at the slow pace of vaccinations in her state.
When asked what it's going to take to get people vaccinated in the state, Ivey fired back in frustration over the state's vaccination rate, which is now the lowest in the nation.
"I don't know. You tell me," Ivey said. "Folks supposed to have common sense. But it’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks. It’s the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down."
Since that outburst, things haven’t gotten much better in Alabama. Only 44.4 of the state’s residents are vaccinated, which is the fourth-lowest rate in the country. The death rate in Alabama is 314 per 100,000 people — the second-highest rate in the country. One might think that Ivey would welcome vaccine mandates because it would ensure that fewer of her constituents would die. But when faced with the chance to score political points against Democrats and play to people’s resentments and fears toward government, who can expect Ivey to pass up such an opportunity?
Education Is The Latest Partisan Battlefield
Meanwhile, in Texas …
Rep. Matt Krause launched an investigation into school library books and curriculum just months after Texas lawmakers sought to ban the presence of critical race theory from public campuses.
Acting as the Chairman of the Texas House Committee on General Investigating, Krause wrote to Lily Laux, deputy commissioner of school programs for the Texas Education Agency, and unnamed superintendents on Monday with news of the investigation.
Attached to Krause’s letter was a 16-page list of books published from 1969 to 2021 that included “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates and “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander. Other books on the list deal with issues of race, gender identity and sexuality.
The Fort Worth Republican asked school leaders to identify where copies of the listed books were located in school libraries and classrooms and the amount of money districts had spent on them.
He also asked districts to identify any other books or content that address human sexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, or any material that “might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress” because of their race or sex.
Attacks on what children learn in schools are certainly not new, but it’s increasingly taking a front and center role in GOP appeals (so much for Republicans mocking liberal demands for “safe spaces.”) In the Virginia Governor’s race, it became the centerpiece of Glenn Youngkin’s campaign after Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe said in a debate that “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” Putting aside the fact that McAuliffe is almost certainly correct about this, Republicans clearly view school curriculums as yet another culture war wedge issue — and a way to portray Democrats as the handmaidens of intrusive big government. This is simply an anti-government appeal by different means. Indeed, professional troller and occasional Ohio Senate Republican candidate Josh Mandel picked up the mantle on attacking public schools and took it in a completely unsurprising direction.
I have some questions about how such a plan would play among Ohio voters, but that’s a conversation for another day. What I can with a bit more certainty is that if Youngkin wins in Virginia, Republicans will likely seek to nationalize his anti-school message as a way to win back suburban voters. At the very least, we will likely continue to see anti-critical race theory arguments and investigations of books assigned in public schools play a prominent role in red-state elections. After all, it’s a sure-fire political winner with Republican voters.
Billionaire Tax … Mmm, Delicious
A billionaire tax is one of the sexiest political slogans I’ve ever heard. Who doesn’t want to see the nation’s wealthiest citizens pay more of their fair share in taxes? Apparently, Joe Manchin doesn’t because it looks like he’s going to prevent the provision from being included in the Democrat’s budget package. I’ve given up understanding what Joe Manchin is trying to accomplish but forcing Republicans to defend higher taxes on people who have billions of dollars is the political gift that keeps on giving. It’s another surefire political winner that will end up on the cutting room floor of congressional negotiations.
Musical Interlude
Hat tip to reader Rob Cohen (no relation) for responding to my post yesterday about REM’s version of “Superman” by passing along the original from the Clique. It’s not quite as good, but still pretty great!
For fear of being typecast as an unswerving devotee of Dad rock, I wanted to pass along this excellent cut from Olivia Rodrigo, who my kids love. This song is top-notch!
Also, I really like another of my kids’ favorite tunes - Christina Perri singing “A Thousand Years.”
Because I can’t help myself, here’s Charles Bradley covering the Grateful Dead’s “Cumberland Blues.” The best covers take songs in a completely unexpected direction, and this version certainly qualifies, giving a countrified shuffle a deep blues treatment.
Regarding the quote
> He also asked districts to identify any other books or content that address human sexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, or any material that “might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress” because of their race or sex.
I can imagine some female and lgbtq students bringing books promoting male authority and heteronormative behavior to be included, and some native americans bringing books about white settler expansion and domination, and some blacks about books that in anyway promote eurocentric culture or mention the contributions of slaves without adequate credit and admonishment of its deleterious effects. I'm so tempted.
The most absurd thing about these absurd times is that Republicans can band together in supporting blatant lies, while Democrats can't unite behind helping a huge majority of the citizens of the world. It is to laugh...if it didn't hurt so much.