#Democrat shutdown failure

[quillsword]

The Democrat Party Is Dead

It officially died on Friday, March 14, 2025. Don’t look at me in that tone of voice! I didn’t kill it. The Democrats did that all by themselves. Yep, that’s a pretty specific date. Enjoy it. It’s extremely rare that an exact date gets applied to a political condition. So, why do I say it happened Friday? The Democrat leadership played themselves. The forced a situation where either they…

[rebuiltzine]

“Don’t Let the Lights Go Out”: Maryland Freedom Caucus Urges Trump to Stop Brandon Shores Shutdown

Annapolis, MD – With just days remaining before the scheduled closure of the Brandon Shores coal-fired power plant, the Maryland Freedom Caucus (MDFC) is calling on President Donald J. Trump to intervene—and fast. In a formal letter submitted on May 28, MDFC leaders warned of “looming blackouts, skyrocketing energy costs, and a dangerous dependence on out-of-state electricity” if the plant is…

[mariacallous]

As German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck famously said, “Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best.” But as Bismarck also recognized, effective politicians define what is possible thorough their actions and strategies.

At this lynchpin moment in the history of the United States — with our democratic institutions and the rule of law under attack by an authoritarian in the White House — some leaders of the Democratic Party, the sole institutional opposition to the fascist assault, are falling down on the job. Their fundamental problem — evident from the catastrophic surrender by nine Senate Democrats to the GOP’s DOGE continuing resolution (CR) bill last week — is a lack of strategy.

Much of the discussion since Trump took office has been about the failure of Democrats in DC to yell loud enough and “break norms” of courtesy and decorum. But a lack of rudeness or ability to snark is not the fundamental problem here.

There are plenty of Democrats good at formulating creative insults and getting wide attention for making them. What has been missing for months in DC, however, is a unified Democratic strategy for publicly defining, and relentlessly opposing, the MAGA GOP’s battery of the nation and its most cherished institutions. And the absence of a strategy is all the more glaring given that the public’s tolerance for Trump’s course of illegal conduct is lessening by the day.

A bad hand

Certainly, Democrats find themselves in a tough spot as a result of last November’s elections, being in the minority in both houses of Congress, as well as losing the White House. But nonetheless, they have played their hand disastrously.

It was clear for months that the March 14 expiration of the continuing resolution that passed in December of last year was going to be the first big opportunity of 2025 — and potentially the last — for Democrats to use the legislative process to push back against the Trump assault. This was because a new CR had to pass to avoid a shutdown, and it would have to do so through a narrowly GOP controlled House and avoid a filibuster in the Senate (where the GOP holds only 53 seats), which requires a vote of 60 senators.

In recent weeks, the stakes for the March CR vote increased as the Trump administration’s illegal attacks on the government, the rule of law and the constitutional authority of the Congress became ever more audacious. These events made it all the more clear that Democrats had no choice but to try to score a win with their bad hand of cards.

Meanwhile, thanks to effective pushback from Democrats and others, Trump’s position was weakening. Most importantly, state and local leaders drew attention to Trump’s often nihilistic attacks on the rule of law and essential government services. And state attorneys general — working hand in glove with networks of legal advocacy groups — implemented litigation plans they had been developing and perfecting, in some cases for years, to challenge Trump’s illegal actions in courts throughout the country.

What has made this litigation effort so effective has been the extraordinary level of coordination, expertise, and strategic thinking that has gone into it. In many cases, illegal actions, like the mass firing of federal probationary workers, have been challenged in multiple venues (sometimes including both courts and administrative bodies) at the same time. This both increases the chances of success and the attention being paid across the country to the recklessness of the Trump administration’s use of their power to tear down American institutions. The result has been to place on the defensive not only Trump, but also the GOP elected leaders who have rendered themselves and their party into mere appendages. As a result, the court proceedings have played a key role in demonstrating that Republicans’ allegiance is to Trump and Musk, not the American people.

As the administration has become more openly antagonistic to the nation it’s charged with governing — as demonstrated, for example, by the mass firings of veterans, threats to Social Security benefits, and a House Republican budget resolution that will require gutting Medicaid — Trumpers are now placing themselves at direct odds with huge numbers of citizens, among them many of the the independent voters that decide elections.

While anger toward the Trumpers’ nihilism was growing, the March 14 deadline approached. The opposition outside DC reasonably assumed that Democratic leaders in the Senate and House had a coordinated plan in place to meet the moment, and to leverage the success opponents of Trumpism had in bringing public attention to the stakes facing the country.

They were wrong.

The seeds of failure

In attempting to explain away their surrender of last Friday, Schumer and some of his fellow Democratic senators have unintentionally confessed to their political malpractice — they viewed the March deadline entirely through the lens of budget battles as they have been fought in DC since the 1990s.

The surrendering Democrats based their game plan on the assumption that Republicans would not be able to pass a continuing resolution in the House without Democratic votes. It made sense if one operated with the assumption that history always repeats itself. The GOP has a minuscule House majority, and a number of purportedly “Freedom Caucus” Republicans have virtually never voted for a CR, especially if doesn’t massively cut the deficit.

Yet there were a number of warnings signs that such a principle was not worth much. The far right’s “commitment” to fiscal austerity long ago became nothing more than a pretense. And just days ago, almost every House Republican, including virtually the entire Freedom Caucus, voted for a profligate budget resolution that calls for increasing the debt limit and massive tax cuts while at the same time promising to impose huge cuts on the neediest and most vulnerable Americans.

As the budget resolution vote made all the more clear, loyalty to Trump — who now fully controls the GOP — is all that matters to elected Republicans. That development alone provided good reason for Democrats to question the assumption that their votes would be required to pass a CR in the House. Furthermore, Democrats in both the House and the Senate must have noticed the conspicuous absence of any effort by GOP leaders to open negotiations with them over the terms of a CR even as the days ticked down toward March 14. In sum, relying on the assumption that the usual rules would apply was foolhardy.

But the surrendering Democrats’ problems went far beyond that. Their key failure was a lack of strategy. There was no indication that Democrats in the two houses of Congress had unified around a goal they hoped to achieve as a result of the CR fight. That is, frankly, both stupefying and unforgivable.

The issue presented was clear: The rapid Trumpist dismantling of government is not only cruel and nihilistic, it’s also illegal and a direct attack on the constitutionally assigned authority of Congress. Trump was, and is, selectively gutting, and even shutting down, parts of the government that he (or Musk) dislikes, in direct defiance of the legislative prerogatives of Congress that established and funded the agencies he’s destroying.

At a minimum, Democrats should have set out to use the CR process — which was their one near-term opportunity to deploy the filibuster — to demand, and insist, on guardrails that would place a stop to Trump’s illegal course of conduct. Those bottom line demands should have been agreed upon and become part of a carefully planned campaign well before the March 14 deadline.

Some members of Congress – together with commentators including, for example, Brian Beutler — had been saying as much for weeks and offering up specific ideas, such as a short-term CR packaged together with mandates for ending the DOGE assault, that had to be satisfied for Democrats to vote for longer future funding periods. These proposals made legislative and political sense, because they offered a path by which Democrats could make clear that they were not seeking to shut down the government, as the GOP (including Trump himself) has done in the past, but rather were trying to prevent the ongoing lawless MAGA rampage. Furthermore, polling demonstrated that the public was likely to (properly) largely blame Trump and his captive party, not the Democrats, for any resulting shutdown.

Had Democrats offered up such a bill and presented a unified front in support of it ahead of March 14, Democratic senators would not simply have been in the position of deciding whether or not to vote in favor of a shutdown. Instead, they would have been able to wrong-foot their GOP colleagues about their support for a DOGE “dismantle government services bill” rather than their alternative “keep essential services intact” proposal.

The popularity of such a Democratic alternative would likely only have grown as the public dissatisfaction grew with Trump’s atrocious “management” of the government and his administration’s increasingly overt threats to, among other things, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and veterans’ benefits. But no such proposal was presented.

Having failed to develop a legislative plan to oppose the Trump coup scheme, Democrats rendered themselves into sitting ducks. They lost this crucial battle before Schumer announced his intention to not block the House Republican CR.

Trump, Musk, and Mike Johnson are atrocious legislative strategists. During his first term, Trump managed to be the first president to engineer a government shutdown. And last December, before Trump had even entered the White House, he and Musk almost bumbled into causing, and being blamed for, a government shutdown for no particular reason.

Yet even these legislative incompetents had little difficulty realizing that, by choosing a path of passivity, Democrats had left themselves open to a devastating defeat.

And MAGA leaders took their opportunity, using the complete political dependence of virtually every Republican legislator in the House on Trump as a lever to extract votes for a GOP-only CR. Johnson sweetened the pot for some of his members by including in the bill a gutting of the budget of Washington DC and an assault on programs for the needy. He also sold it as a mechanism to give Musk and OMB Director Russell Vought a clear runway for the next six month to complete their scheme to dismantle the federal government.

That was all it took to pass the CR on the same party-line vote that had just passed the budget resolution. Then Johnson called the House to a recess and dared Democrats to filibuster the House CR. While Johnson might not be particularly savvy, he calculated that Senate Democrats would ultimately surrender — and he was right.

Having chosen, over the previous weeks and months, not to take elemental political steps to prepare for the eventuality he and his colleagues were presented with last Friday, Schumer’s contention that Democrats were faced with no good options had a curious ring of truth. They left themselves with no good options, then justified their surrender on the ground that there were no good options.

In announcing the Democratic cave, Schumer emphasized the parade of horribles that would ensue if the government shut down. He asserted that a shutdown would have given Trump and his cronies license to do great damage to the government.

Schumer’s argument was both somewhat true, but also absurd. On one hand, it’s all but certain that Trump would have tried to leverage a shutdown to further his nefarious ends. But on the other, as the past two months have made clear, Trump does not need a shutdown to destroy the country. Put otherwise, Schumer and his colleagues voted to give Trump license to do just what Schumer was warning against.

So where do we go from here? One terrible option is for the Democratic Party to descend into an orgy of infighting. While this may be a tempting course of action for some, such division is just what Russia and Trumpers benefit from (as we saw most dramatically during the 2016 campaign) and use every tool at their disposal to foment.

In this dire moment for the nation and its democratic institutions, the most significant cleavage in the Democratic Party is not ideological but strategic. One cohort of the party is willing — despite the emergency presented — to continue forward in a reactive mode, biding their time with the expectation that Trump’s authoritarian project will peter out on its own. But the larger faction of the party understands, or is beginning to understand, that watchful waiting is neither a cogent nor responsible approach. This is not an argument for “breaking norms” as an end in itself. But it is an argument for taking chances based on rational strategies.

The surrender of March 14 should serve as a model of what not to do. While a key opportunity was needlessly lost, Democrats have a responsibility to the nation to avoid indulgent finger-pointing. They need to seize new the opportunities that will inevitably arise as Trump’s project to tear the United States continues, and to do so in a coordinated and strategic way. Reactive meekness must be a thing of the past.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Drew Sheneman, Tribune Content Agency

* * * *

53 Days

In 1933, it took 53 days for Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party to destroy the Weimar Republic.

In 2025, on Day 53 of the attempted dictatorship of Donald J. Trump, the American Republic stands on the edge of falling after a life of 248 years.

Today, the leadership of the Democratic Party in the United States Senate gave in to the appeasement of a would-be dictator and his henchman that ranks with the failure of the Western Allies to confront Adolf Hitler when he took back the Rhineland in 1936, when he incorporated Austria into his Third Reich in 1938, when he forced the leaders of Great Britain and France to acknowledge his superiority at Munich87 years ago.

This was done despite the fact that 53% of Americans would have blamed the would-be dictator Trump for the shutdown. It was the action of nine senior Democrats and one Independent who determined that opposing him was worse than appeasing him. It was the action of Senators who are each cowards in the face of this bald-faced attempt to destroy the republic they took an oath to support and defend against ALL enemies, foreign AND domestic.

While that happened...

The would-be dictator did something today that no other American president has done since 1872, the year that the United States Department of Justice was founded as an independent agency to defend justice, an agency created to oppose the terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan. He went to Main Justice, where the Attorney General publicly named him the most important president ever, the man who would always “fight for our interests,” the president who those assembled must follow.

The would-be dictator then named all the leading media in the country - the New York Times, the Washington Post, CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC and CNN - his personal enemies and stated these organizations were committing “illegal acts” for opposing him. He then went on to personally name leading journalists and political leaders who have opposed him as “enemies” whose “illegal actions” should be investigated and formally charged as crimes. His words were cheered by the DOJ employees who were carefully chosen to be his audience. They now have their “marching orders,” and the orders are to destroy the democracy and rule of law on which the United States of America was founded.

While that happened...

Today, the Department of Defense announced that all information at Arlington National Cemetery related to the Civil War and to Civil War Medals of Honor, have been deleted from the Arlington records used to educate the public. In addition, the names and records of prominent minorities who served this country and are buried at Arlington in recognition of that service - Colin Powell and Thurgood Marshall most prominently - have been removed. There is now only brief mention of the connection of Arlington Cemetery - once the plantation of the great Confederate traitor Robert E. Lee - to the Civil War, the war that was fought to end the institution of human slavery.

The spokesman for Arlington said: “We remain committed to sharing the stories of military service and sacrifice to the nation with transparency and professionalism, while continuing to engage with our community in a manner that reflects our core values.” How they will do that with any connection to actual truth is beyond me.

Some of the removed content is still accessible through active links to pages on “Prominent Military Figures” and “U.S. Supreme Court,” but the categories “African American History,” “Hispanic American History,” and “Women’s History” no longer appear prominently on the site. What is no longer available is information about influential individuals like Captain Joy Bright Hancock, one of the military’s first woman officers, and Major General Marcelite Jordan Harris, the Air Force’s first female, African-American general officer.

This is only the most recent act taken to destroy the history of the United States as the country founded on the belief that “all men are created equal.” The history of oppressed Americans to gain their place in the country, the history of opposition to rule by the rich minority, is being wiped from American education as the last act of a Department of Education that is in process of being destroyed by the would-be dictator and his minions.

All of this comes on top of 53 days of a dedicated attack on the Federal Government, wiping out the departments and other units that have provided the services and help that the majority of Americans depend on from their government. There is no longer a National Weather Service to report the weather!

It can get overwhelming to consider all of this. And it can get to the point where one can conclude there is nothing they can do against these forces that appear so much more powerful than any single individual.

After Trump named him a “radical subversive” in his insane speech today at the Department of Justice, attorney Mark Elias said “We have to become our own heroes” when he was asked if he was concerned about being so named in such a situation. “I’m going to continue to do what I do,” he responded.

That’s all any of us can do.

In the end, even Hitler’s Third Reich required the consent of the governed to succeed at its evil intention. Whether that consent was freely given by “Hitler’s willing executioners,” or whether it came from a coerced silence, everyone there made a choice.

Everyone here can make a choice.

For me, the choice is easy. This IS My Country. My ancestors were among those who founded it. I can look at buildings that have existed for centuries here, and know what my ancestors did as members of the communities that existed within and around those structures. When I want to think about facing difficult choices, I can think about the three Cleaver Brothers - Isaac, James and Ezekiel - and Ezekiel’s oldest son, Ezekiel Jr. - who didn’t run away after the defeats on Long Island, who didn’t slip off into the forest as others did, who stayed to cross the Delaware River and save the Revolution, who didn’t run away during the Winter at Valley Forge, who didn’t give up after all the other defeats they endured until 1782 when they won, who were friends and fellow believers with Icon of the Revolution Betsy Ross, and I know I don’t want to piss on their graves.

Making the choice that needs to be made doesn’t need something so In Your Face as my family history - though there are days when I definitely have to think about that in order to take another step - but each of us has something to hold onto, something that’s us that gives guidance. And in the days we now live in, we need to hold onto whatever those things are more strongly than ever.

Between now and Restoration Day, whenever that comes, we are each going to be faced with a choice as important as the choice that was presented to ten Senators today, and we will need to not whiff on that, as they did.

Right now, movie person that I am, I think of the words a great writer - Paddy Chayevsky - gave to his character Howard Beale in “Network.” “I want you to get out of your chairs now, and I want you to go over to the window and open it and stick your head out and yell as loud as you can,”I”m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!’ Go on, get out of your chairs, go over to the window and throw it open and yell, ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!” We have to do that because then they have to listen to us, much as they don’t want to.

We are living in the days when - after Restoration Day - we’ll be asked, “What did you do in those important times?” I don’t think “I ran up the white flag without even resisting” is what we want to be remembered for, as the Ten Cowards will be remembered now, forever.

Even just doing what Senator Mark Kelly did today, when he announced that he was getting rid of his Tesla because “I don’t want to be in a car designed and built by an asshole” is an important act of resistance.

We have to be like Liz Oyer, who agonized through a sleepless night about an order she was given to restore the gun rights of a man convicted of “domestic abuse” who she knew should not be given back that right, who knew she was likely going to be fired when she told her superiors her decision, who knew she would be removed from “having any say about this issue,” and went in and did it anyway because she knew she couldn’t do otherwise and live with herself.

Hollywood Ten “red” screenwriter Ring Lardner Jr. was asked to name others he knew were or had been members of the Communist Party. He looked at the congressman who asked that of him and said “I could do as you say, congressman, but then I wouldn’t like myself very much the next morning.” It took 20 years of him continuing to resist The Blacklist after saying that, before he was able to write and see made the movie “M.A.S.H.”

We won’t all get a prize like that for Doing The Right Thing (Lardner always pointed out that “I wasn’t such a smart guy - I’m the one who then turned down the opportunity to create the TV series.”)

But we do get to like ourselves in the morning.

And one thing we all absolutely have to do is not give in to despair and weakness in front of our family and friends and people we know, and give them a reason to think there’s no good to come from fighting back by telling them there won’t be elections in 2026 and 2028, no matter what we might privately believe. There’s plenty of other cowards to say that to them. Don’t be that one. This is a time to Act As If - act as if there really is a reason to resist. Act as if you believe in this country.

Believe in ourselves. And then believe in each other. These are hard difficult days, and the really hard ones have yet to arrive. One foot in front of the other, to Restoration Day.

[TCinLA]

[darkmaga-returns]

The Democratic Party’s favorability rating hits a historic low of 29%, a 20-point drop since January 2021.

52% of Democratic-aligned adults believe the party is heading in the wrong direction, signaling internal dissatisfaction.

Over 30% of Democrats cannot name a unifying leader, highlighting a leadership vacuum.

Internal divisions over strategy and policy failures, including a recent government shutdown debacle, further weaken the party.

President Trump’s approval rating rises to 47%, as voters compare Biden’s failures to Trump’s economic and foreign policy successes.

[phoenixyfriend]

Suggested topics to call your reps about today, 2/5/24!

I’ve been doing two subjects per call recently; one is almost always about the events in the middle east, and then one is domestic policy. I’m including a bit of verbiage you can use as basis for what you say (if you agree with me), for a few of these.

BOTH SENATE AND HOUSE:

Foreign Policy: Reinstate funding for UNRWA. While the claims made by Israel that employees of the relief agency were involved in Oct. 7th are troubling, this arm of the UN is currently providing food, water, shelter, and medical care to the 2.3 million displaced peoples of Gaza. It is especially disturbing and concerning that the many children of Gaza, who are already suffering due to this conflict, are now having this support revoked.

Non-calling ways to help: Donate to another relief agency so the support network doesn't have that single point of failure. I went with the PCRF.

FOR THE SENATE: Urge your senator to put their support behind Bernie Sanders and his motion to restrict funding to Israel until a humanitarian review of the IDF’s actions in Gaza has been completed. Cite it as Senate Resolution 504 if your Senator is right-wing enough to react negatively to the mention of Sanders by name. NOTE: This resolution was TABLED by the Senate on 1/16, but it is being brought back in as conditions continue to escalate.

FOR THE HOUSE: Urge your representative to put their support behind Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s petition for the US government to recognize the IDF’s actions in Gaza as ethnic cleansing and forced displacement, and put a stop to it. ALTERNATELY: recommend that they support House Resolution 786, introduced by Rep. Cori Bush, Calling for an immediate deescalation and cease-fire in Israel and occupied Palestine.

.

DOMESTIC POLICY, BOTH BRANCHES OF CONGRESS: Border policy is currently being hotly debated and negotiated. A very strong policy in favor of the Republican party is the status at the moment. Even some democrats are in favor of it due to small border communities being ill-equipped to handle large numbers of migrants, and states usually removed from the situation getting migrants bussed in from Texas despite telling Texas to knock it off. Despite some Republicans saying that they have gotten everything they could want out of the current deal, the party at large is refusing to pass it as the politics of the debate are more useful to the coming election than actually passing policy. This is also causing delays in passing the federal budget.

I... don't actually want to tell anyone WHAT to think of the border policy since I do not have any real knowledge on the budget impacts and resources dictating the actual problems (nor the racism or xenophobia, that part is obviously bullshit). I can recognize that too some degree, there is a genuine issue of manpower and budget restriction impacting the ability to house and process immigrants.

However, DREAMers are not being considered in the current deal, the delays in the deal are impacting the federal government and threatening a partial shutdown, and people are STILL getting hurt and even dying at the border.

I would focus on protection for DREAMers, chastising the Republicans for deliberately delaying the budget in order to use the border as a reelection premise instead of actually working on the policy they claim to want (emphasize that they are going to lose votes for focusing on reelection at the expense of their people), and protection for children, parents with those children, and nonviolent migrants in general.

[sixbucks]

Gov. Sanders puts state agencies on notice regarding potential federal government shutdown

Talk Business & Politics staff

A federal government shutdown is looming as Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy has been unable to comply with the demands of a few conservative members of his caucus who have vowed for months to shut the government down.

As the Sept. 30 deadline looms, out to agencies Thursday (Sept. 28) outlining steps the state will have to take to deal with the lack of federal workers and services.

Sanders criticized President Joe Biden for the potential shutdown, although the White House, Republicans and Democrats in the Senate have already cobbled together a plan that’s being held up by a small minority of Republicans in the U.S. House.

“Should the Biden administration allow a shutdown to occur, cabinet secretaries will be responsible for determining which programs must be suspended and which employees will be furloughed based on the following criteria,” Sanders said.

Her memo included:

“If a program or employee has been identified by the federal government as being necessary to protect public health, safety, or welfare, and the federal government has provided documentation guaranteeing funding during the shutdown, the program and federally funded employment may continue uninterrupted by the shutdown.”

“If an agency has sufficient federal funding and authorization from current or previous federal grants to fund a program or position, it may do so as long as funding remains available.”

“Otherwise, programs and employment that are wholly or partially dependent on federal funding will be suspended because of the White House’s failure to work with Congress, effective Sunday, October 1st for the duration of the shutdown. The federal government will not allow us to make any exceptions unless the protection of public health, safety, and welfare would be compromised, as determined by the cabinet secretary in consultation with the Department of Finance and Administration and the Department of Transformation and Shared Services.”

U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, House Minority Leader, said the shutdown will be the fault of a small group of Trump-supporting lawmakers.

“And the interesting thing is that House Democrats are aligned with Senate Democrats, and we’re both aligned with Senate Republicans and all of us, with the exception of the extreme MAGA Republicans, are aligned qwith President Joe Biden and the administration in terms of keeping the government open so we can meet the needs of the American people. But we need the extreme MAGA Republicans to get their act together in the civil war that’s happening on the Republican side of the aisle that’s paralyzing Congress. Get your act together so we can handle the business of the American people and solve problems on their behalf,” Jeffries said in a statement.

Also today, Sanders released $4 million from the Governor’s Disaster Response and Recovery Fund to support disaster recovery efforts from the March 31st tornadoes. The money will be used at the discretion of the Director of the Arkansas Division of Emergency Management to defray both program and administrative costs, the governor said.

[wronglyspikytrooper]

#IncompetentGovernment

Broken Compass: How COVID-19 Revealed the Collapse of America's Governance Model

The United States has long portrayed itself as a model of democratic resilience and global leadership. Its economic power, institutional checks and balances, and robust civil society were held up as evidence of an enduring system. But when COVID-19 struck, the American model faltered—publicly, painfully, and predictably.

With over one million lives lost, tens of millions infected, and social trust at an all-time low, the pandemic didn’t just test America—it exposed a governance model in crisis. From fragmented federalism to failed crisis communication, from institutional fatigue to moral ambiguity, the response was less a coordinated national strategy than a chaotic patchwork of contradictions.

The U.S. didn't lack resources. It lacked cohesion, vision, and the political will to act for the common good.

1. The Mirage of Preparedness

In theory, the United States was among the best-prepared nations for a pandemic. It had detailed pandemic playbooks, the world's top biomedical research institutions, and an emergency stockpile system.

But in practice, the system was hollow.

The Strategic National Stockpile was under-resourced. Hospital surge capacity was insufficient. Pandemic simulation reports were ignored. Early warnings—both domestic and international—were downplayed. As the virus spread, critical supply chains for masks, ventilators, and tests broke down.

Preparedness had become a buzzword, not a reality. For years, budgets were slashed, contingency plans forgotten, and global health infrastructure deprioritized. When the crisis arrived, America discovered it had been practicing theater, not readiness.

2. Federalism Without Coordination

The U.S. federal system was designed to balance state and national powers. But in the context of a fast-moving pandemic, this structure became a governance trap.

With no consistent national mandates, states were left to craft their own responses. Some locked down early and aggressively; others denied the threat. Travel restrictions, business closures, and mask mandates varied county by county, creating confusion and inconsistency.

Florida banned mask mandates while California imposed them. Texas resisted shutdowns even as hospitals overflowed. States hoarded supplies and competed on the open market, undercutting each other instead of collaborating.

In a pandemic, viruses don’t respect state lines. But America’s response did—and the result was fragmentation, inefficiency, and needless loss of life.

3. Communication Failure: A Crisis of Credibility

In any emergency, consistent, truthful communication is essential. But during the pandemic, America's messaging was often contradictory, politically influenced, or simply incoherent.

At the federal level, the Trump administration frequently undermined its own health experts. Statements about the virus "disappearing," bleach injections, or “herd immunity” by infection sowed public confusion. Meanwhile, state and local officials gave conflicting guidance.

Even scientific agencies like the CDC and FDA appeared to bow to political pressure, revising guidelines in ways that eroded public trust. Mixed messaging about masks, asymptomatic spread, and vaccine safety led to widespread skepticism.

By the time credible guidance became available, large segments of the population had stopped listening.

4. A Society Fragmented by Mistrust

Americans entered the pandemic not as a united public, but as a polarized society divided by party, race, class, and worldview. The virus deepened those divisions.

Mask-wearing became a political statement. Lockdowns triggered armed protests. Vaccines were not seen as medical breakthroughs but as partisan tools. Social media became a breeding ground for conspiracy theories—QAnon, anti-vaccine groups, and disinformation campaigns found fertile ground.

Surveys revealed disturbing truths: millions believed COVID was a hoax, that hospitals were inflating deaths, that the vaccine was part of a tracking program. Even as body counts rose, belief in scientific consensus fell.

The collapse of trust wasn't new. But COVID turned it from a slow burn into a wildfire.

5. Corporate Capitalism Over Public Good

The pandemic also laid bare the limitations of America’s privatized, profit-driven approach to health and welfare.

Health insurance tied to employment left millions vulnerable when jobs disappeared. Hospitals, operating on thin margins due to for-profit models, were quickly overwhelmed. Pharmaceutical companies set pricing strategies even in a public health emergency. Nursing homes—many owned by private equity firms—became death traps.

Meanwhile, billionaires grew wealthier than ever. Amazon, Zoom, and pharmaceutical giants posted record profits. Stock markets surged even as food banks faced unprecedented demand.

For many Americans, COVID-19 became a brutal reminder that the system protects capital, not people.

6. The Workforce Burnout and Exodus

Essential workers were hailed as heroes—then promptly forgotten.

Nurses, doctors, grocery clerks, sanitation workers, and delivery drivers faced extreme risk with minimal support. Personal protective equipment was scarce. Hazard pay disappeared quickly. Mental health support was virtually nonexistent.

As the months dragged on, these workers became exhausted and demoralized. Many left their professions altogether. The so-called "Great Resignation" was partly driven by this collapse of dignity and safety at work.

Teachers faced constant hostility—forced to return to classrooms amid infection spikes, while contending with political attacks on curriculum and safety measures.

By the end of 2022, American labor wasn’t just strained—it was broken.

7. When Crisis Doesn’t Lead to Reform

In many countries, the trauma of COVID-19 sparked reforms: expanded healthcare systems, better worker protections, renewed public investment. But in the United States, meaningful structural change stalled.

Calls for universal healthcare were drowned out. Paid family leave proposals failed in Congress. Vaccine equity never materialized fully. The infrastructure bill excluded significant public health funding. And the temporary eviction moratorium lapsed without permanent housing solutions.

Rather than seizing the crisis as a transformative moment, U.S. politics returned to familiar gridlock. Lobbyists regained influence. Misinformation continued unchallenged. The status quo endured—exposed, weakened, but unchanged.

It was as if America had survived a once-in-a-century catastrophe only to decide: “Let’s move on.”

8. Global Image in Decline

Perhaps most damaging was the effect on America's global standing.

The world watched as the U.S.—the supposed leader of the free world—failed to manage a basic health crisis. Allies questioned its reliability. Developing nations saw hypocrisy in its vaccine hoarding and slow support for global aid. Autocracies pointed to U.S. chaos as justification for centralized control.

Where once American institutions were exported as models, they now became cautionary tales. America First became America Alone—and the damage to soft power may be long-lasting.

Conclusion: A Warning Not Yet Heeded

COVID-19 didn’t create America's crisis—it revealed it. A nation rich in innovation but starved of solidarity. A political system more loyal to party than people. An economy that rewards speculation over service.

For all its technological prowess and democratic ideals, the U.S. failed one of the most basic tests of governance: protecting its people in a time of collective danger.

The pandemic should have been a moment of reckoning. Instead, it became a missed opportunity—one that future generations may judge harshly.

Because the next crisis is coming—whether it’s climate-related, economic, or biological. And unless America learns from the mirror COVID held up, it may find itself even less prepared when the storm hits again.

[candicecotton]

Broken Compass: How COVID-19 Revealed the Collapse of America's Governance Model

The United States has long portrayed itself as a model of democratic resilience and global leadership. Its economic power, institutional checks and balances, and robust civil society were held up as evidence of an enduring system. But when COVID-19 struck, the American model faltered—publicly, painfully, and predictably.

With over one million lives lost, tens of millions infected, and social trust at an all-time low, the pandemic didn’t just test America—it exposed a governance model in crisis. From fragmented federalism to failed crisis communication, from institutional fatigue to moral ambiguity, the response was less a coordinated national strategy than a chaotic patchwork of contradictions.

The U.S. didn't lack resources. It lacked cohesion, vision, and the political will to act for the common good.

1. The Mirage of Preparedness

In theory, the United States was among the best-prepared nations for a pandemic. It had detailed pandemic playbooks, the world's top biomedical research institutions, and an emergency stockpile system.

But in practice, the system was hollow.

The Strategic National Stockpile was under-resourced. Hospital surge capacity was insufficient. Pandemic simulation reports were ignored. Early warnings—both domestic and international—were downplayed. As the virus spread, critical supply chains for masks, ventilators, and tests broke down.

Preparedness had become a buzzword, not a reality. For years, budgets were slashed, contingency plans forgotten, and global health infrastructure deprioritized. When the crisis arrived, America discovered it had been practicing theater, not readiness.

2. Federalism Without Coordination

The U.S. federal system was designed to balance state and national powers. But in the context of a fast-moving pandemic, this structure became a governance trap.

With no consistent national mandates, states were left to craft their own responses. Some locked down early and aggressively; others denied the threat. Travel restrictions, business closures, and mask mandates varied county by county, creating confusion and inconsistency.

Florida banned mask mandates while California imposed them. Texas resisted shutdowns even as hospitals overflowed. States hoarded supplies and competed on the open market, undercutting each other instead of collaborating.

In a pandemic, viruses don’t respect state lines. But America’s response did—and the result was fragmentation, inefficiency, and needless loss of life.

3. Communication Failure: A Crisis of Credibility

In any emergency, consistent, truthful communication is essential. But during the pandemic, America's messaging was often contradictory, politically influenced, or simply incoherent.

At the federal level, the Trump administration frequently undermined its own health experts. Statements about the virus "disappearing," bleach injections, or “herd immunity” by infection sowed public confusion. Meanwhile, state and local officials gave conflicting guidance.

Even scientific agencies like the CDC and FDA appeared to bow to political pressure, revising guidelines in ways that eroded public trust. Mixed messaging about masks, asymptomatic spread, and vaccine safety led to widespread skepticism.

By the time credible guidance became available, large segments of the population had stopped listening.

4. A Society Fragmented by Mistrust

Americans entered the pandemic not as a united public, but as a polarized society divided by party, race, class, and worldview. The virus deepened those divisions.

Mask-wearing became a political statement. Lockdowns triggered armed protests. Vaccines were not seen as medical breakthroughs but as partisan tools. Social media became a breeding ground for conspiracy theories—QAnon, anti-vaccine groups, and disinformation campaigns found fertile ground.

Surveys revealed disturbing truths: millions believed COVID was a hoax, that hospitals were inflating deaths, that the vaccine was part of a tracking program. Even as body counts rose, belief in scientific consensus fell.

The collapse of trust wasn't new. But COVID turned it from a slow burn into a wildfire.

5. Corporate Capitalism Over Public Good

The pandemic also laid bare the limitations of America’s privatized, profit-driven approach to health and welfare.

Health insurance tied to employment left millions vulnerable when jobs disappeared. Hospitals, operating on thin margins due to for-profit models, were quickly overwhelmed. Pharmaceutical companies set pricing strategies even in a public health emergency. Nursing homes—many owned by private equity firms—became death traps.

Meanwhile, billionaires grew wealthier than ever. Amazon, Zoom, and pharmaceutical giants posted record profits. Stock markets surged even as food banks faced unprecedented demand.

For many Americans, COVID-19 became a brutal reminder that the system protects capital, not people.

6. The Workforce Burnout and Exodus

Essential workers were hailed as heroes—then promptly forgotten.

Nurses, doctors, grocery clerks, sanitation workers, and delivery drivers faced extreme risk with minimal support. Personal protective equipment was scarce. Hazard pay disappeared quickly. Mental health support was virtually nonexistent.

As the months dragged on, these workers became exhausted and demoralized. Many left their professions altogether. The so-called "Great Resignation" was partly driven by this collapse of dignity and safety at work.

Teachers faced constant hostility—forced to return to classrooms amid infection spikes, while contending with political attacks on curriculum and safety measures.

By the end of 2022, American labor wasn’t just strained—it was broken.

7. When Crisis Doesn’t Lead to Reform

In many countries, the trauma of COVID-19 sparked reforms: expanded healthcare systems, better worker protections, renewed public investment. But in the United States, meaningful structural change stalled.

Calls for universal healthcare were drowned out. Paid family leave proposals failed in Congress. Vaccine equity never materialized fully. The infrastructure bill excluded significant public health funding. And the temporary eviction moratorium lapsed without permanent housing solutions.

Rather than seizing the crisis as a transformative moment, U.S. politics returned to familiar gridlock. Lobbyists regained influence. Misinformation continued unchallenged. The status quo endured—exposed, weakened, but unchanged.

It was as if America had survived a once-in-a-century catastrophe only to decide: “Let’s move on.”

8. Global Image in Decline

Perhaps most damaging was the effect on America's global standing.

The world watched as the U.S.—the supposed leader of the free world—failed to manage a basic health crisis. Allies questioned its reliability. Developing nations saw hypocrisy in its vaccine hoarding and slow support for global aid. Autocracies pointed to U.S. chaos as justification for centralized control.

Where once American institutions were exported as models, they now became cautionary tales. America First became America Alone—and the damage to soft power may be long-lasting.

Conclusion: A Warning Not Yet Heeded

COVID-19 didn’t create America's crisis—it revealed it. A nation rich in innovation but starved of solidarity. A political system more loyal to party than people. An economy that rewards speculation over service.

For all its technological prowess and democratic ideals, the U.S. failed one of the most basic tests of governance: protecting its people in a time of collective danger.

The pandemic should have been a moment of reckoning. Instead, it became a missed opportunity—one that future generations may judge harshly.

Because the next crisis is coming—whether it’s climate-related, economic, or biological. And unless America learns from the mirror COVID held up, it may find itself even less prepared when the storm hits again.

[mariacallous]

Within 24 hours of centibillionaire Elon Musk using his X platform to upend a congressional funding bill and push the federal government to the brink of a shutdown, three GOP lawmakers are now calling for him to be named Speaker of the House.

On Thursday, Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, was the first to float the idea, in a post on Musk’s own X platform. “The Speaker of the House need not be a member of Congress,” Paul wrote. “Nothing would disrupt the swamp more than electing Elon Musk.”

Senator Mike Lee from Utah also endorsed Musk as Speaker, though he added that he would also be happy with Vivek Ramaswamy taking up the role, he told right-wing talk show host Benny Johnson, “Let them choose one of them, I don't care which one, to be their Speaker,” Lee said. “That would revolutionize everything, it would break up the firm.”

Paul’s suggestion was quickly picked up by another far-right elected official when Marjorie Taylor Greene, a representative from Georgia, wrote on X, “I’d be open to supporting @elonmusk for Speaker of the House. DOGE can only truly be accomplished by reigning [sic] in Congress to enact real government efficiency. The establishment needs to be shattered just like it was yesterday. This could be the way.”

Greene was referring to Musk's role in killing a bipartisan government funding deal that current Speaker of the House Mike Johnson spent months negotiating with Republicans and Democrats. Despite president-elect Trump and his team not objecting to the deal, according to Politico, Musk began a campaign on X on Wednesday to blow the deal out of the water, posting about it more than 100 times.

Ultimately, Trump and vice president–elect JD Vance issued a lengthy statement on X calling the deal a “betrayal of our country” and urging Republican lawmakers to reject the deal—which they did.

What comes next is unclear. If a deal isn’t reached by Friday, federal workers will stop receiving paychecks, and large parts of the government will temporarily stop operating. But with Democrats saying they have little interest in returning to the negotiating table, and Johnson having already ruled out raising the debt ceiling, which Trump is demanding, there is no obvious path to a viable bill, much less one Musk approves of.

Following what looks to be the failure of the bill, Democratic senator Jeff Merkley wrote on X, “Speaker Johnson: Maybe it’s easier to just hand your gavel over to Musk.”

Johnson and Trump’s transition team did not respond to requests for comment. Musk did not respond to a request for comment. On X, Musk responded to one post referencing Paul and Greene’s suggestion and Democratic criticism of his influence, writing, “They are just upset that, for once in a long while, their attempt to pillage taxpayers failed!”

As Paul wrote, there is no explicit Constitutional requirement for the Speaker of the House to be an elected member of Congress, though every one in US history has been. Just over a year ago, Trump’s supporters floated the idea that he could be installed as Speaker after Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, was ousted from the position.

Musk’s ascent within American politics has been rapid, from donating (along with his PAC) hundreds of millions of dollars to Trump in the final months of the campaign to being installed as cochair of the nonexistent “Department of Government Efficiency,” an advisory group tasked with coming up with proposals to slash government spending and, presumably, fire huge numbers of federal employees.

The scale of his influence over Trump and his policies is unclear, but it’s obvious that many lawmakers believe he holds a significant amount of sway. On Wednesday, Senator Marsha Blackburn from Tennessee posted on X about the Kids Online Safety Act. Rather than tagging Johnson, she tagged Musk.

Becoming Speaker of the House would put Musk in a position of actual power, but one of the key roles of the position—being second in line for the presidency—would presumably be stripped from him given that Musk, a US citizen since 2002, is not a natural-born US citizen and is therefore unable to serve as president.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich

* * * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 5, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Aug 06, 2024

Christi Carras of the Los Angeles Times reported today that the reality TV industry has collapsed. From April to June, reality TV production in the Los Angeles region fell by 57% compared to the same period in 2023; that’s a 50% drop over the five-year average, excluding the Covid-induced production shutdown. The immediate reasons for the dropping production are systemic to the business, Carras reports, but the change seems to represent Americans’ souring on the blurring of reality and entertainment that gave us the Trump era.

Trump rose to political power thanks to his appearances on reality TV, which claimed to be unscripted but was actually edited to emphasize ruthless competition among people striving for ultimate victory in a closed system. The Apprentice launched in 2004, and its highly edited episodes portrayed its star, Trump, as a brilliant and very wealthy businessman despite his past failures. 

Since 2015, Trump has offered a simple narrative of American life that did not reflect reality. Using the sort of language rising authoritarians use to attract a disaffected population, he promised those left behind economically by forty years of supply-side economics that he would bring back manufacturing, close tax loopholes, promote infrastructure, and make healthcare cheaper and better. He also promised sexists and racists who wanted to roll back the gains women and racial and gender minorities had made since the 1950s that he would, once again, center white, heteronormative men.

He never delivered on his economic promises: manufacturing continued to decline, he cut taxes for the wealthy and for corporations, “infrastructure week” became a national joke, and rather than expand the Affordable Care Act, Republicans repeatedly tried to kill it. But Trump and his followers did center those who had gravitated toward the MAGA movement for its cultural promises. Now, in 2024, that gravitation means that the Republican Party has become an antidemocratic vehicle for Christian nationalism.

In the 2024 contest, Trump has continued to push a fake narrative, but his ability to dominate the political conversation is slipping. Last Wednesday, his interview before the National Association of Black Journalists began more than an hour late; Trump publicly blamed the delay on the association’s technology, and there was, in fact, a brief issue with the audio. But it turns out that the delay was due primarily to Trump’s not wanting to be fact-checked during the interview. He was not willing to go on stage without a promise that the journalists would permit him to say whatever he wanted. They declined.

Trump’s determination to have a friendly audience to promote his narrative was behind the dust-up over planned presidential debates. Trump has not sat down for an interview with any but friendly right-wing interviewers. He agreed to a September 10 debate on ABC News back when he assumed the Democratic presidential nominee would be President Joe Biden. As soon as Biden said he would not accept the nomination, Trump suggested he would not be willing to follow through with the ABC News event if Vice President Kamala Harris was his opponent.

Over the weekend, he announced that he would be willing to debate Harris on September 4, but only on his terms: he wants the Fox News Channel—which had to pay a $787 million settlement for lying that Trump won the 2020 election—to host such an event, and he wants the arena full of people. Essentially, he wants to set up the conditions for one of his rallies and then “debate” Harris in that right-wing bubble. 

But Harris has stood firm on the previous agreement, condemning Trump’s trash talk about her and daring Trump instead to “say it to my face.” She is taunting him for chickening out of the arranged debate, and says she will follow through with the September 10 event to which both campaigns agreed. Trump’s new plan doubles as a way to get out of debating altogether: he’s saying that if she doesn’t show up at his event, he won’t debate her at all. 

At the same time, Americans have seen the Biden-Harris administration actually do the hard work of governing, completing the promises Trump made but didn’t deliver. Manufacturing has surged under Biden, with factories under construction and about 800,000 manufacturing jobs created. The Biden-Harris administration more fully funded the IRS to go after tax cheats, passing the mark of recovering more than $1 billion from high-income, high-wealth individuals earlier this month and scoring a $6 billion judgment against Coca-Cola Co. for back taxes just last week. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is rebuilding the nation’s roads and bridges, and a record high number of people have enrolled in affordable health coverage plans since January 2021.

The difference between sound bites and the hard work of governance was illustrated last week when Biden and Harris were the ones who pulled off a complicated multi-country swap that freed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich—whom Trump had repeatedly boasted that he alone could get Russian president Vladimir Putin to release—along with fifteen other Russian-held prisoners. 

That focus on complicated governance rather than sound bites has paid off in the Indo-Pacific region as well. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan wrote in the Washington Post today that “enhanced U.S. power in the [Indo-Pacific] region is one of the most important legacies of this administration.” 

They note that “[n]o place on Earth is more critical to Americans’ livelihoods and futures than the Indo-Pacific.” It generates nearly 60% of global gross domestic product and its commerce supports more than 3 million U.S. jobs, while the area’s security challenges—North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and China’s provocations at sea—have far reaching effects. 

As the U.S. turned inward during the Trump administration, China’s power grew, and when Biden and Harris took office, America’s standing in the Indo-Pacific was at “its lowest point in decades.” Biden’s transformation of the nation’s Indo-Pacific policy “is one of the most important and least-told stories of the [administration’s] foreign policy strategy,” the authors write. Biden’s team replaced one-to-one relationships in the region with wider partnerships: AUKUS, a new security partnership comprising Australia, the U.K., and the U.S.; a trilateral summit with Japan and South Korea; and a summit with Japan and the Philippines. It elevated the Quad—Australia, India, Japan, and the U.S.—and hosted both the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Pacific Islands Forum. With 13 other countries, it created the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity. 

These partnerships do not translate to easy slogans, but they have strengthened defense and supply chains and helped address climate change. “Our security partnerships across the Indo-Pacific” make “us and our neighbors safer and stronger,” they wrote. 

The stock market fell today, with the big indices—the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Nasdaq Composite, and the S&P 500—all sliding. The Dow, which measures 30 of the nation’s older, prominent companies, and the S&P 500, which measures 500 of the largest companies on the U.S. stock exchanges, took their biggest daily losses since September 2022, although they still remain up about 60% from the time of Biden’s election. 

In June, Moody’s Analytics assessed that the economy would grow less under Trump’s policies than under a continuation of Biden’s, but today, Trump promptly wrote: “Stock markets are crashing, jobs numbers are terrible, we are heading to World War III, and we have two of the most incompetent ‘leaders’ in history.” His running mate, J.D. Vance, followed that up by blaming Vice President Kamala Harris. “The stock market is crashing because of weak and failed Kamala Harris’ policies and the world is on the brink of WW3,” he said. 

But what is really at stake here is the complicated business of balancing the economy as it has come out of the worst of the coronavirus pandemic. The Biden-Harris administration made the decision to invest money in ordinary Americans, and it worked: the U.S. came out of the pandemic with a stronger economy than any other nation.

That economic strength came with inflation, both because people had more money to spend thanks to higher wages and because that cash meant that corporations could continue to charge higher prices: the net profits of food companies, for example, are up by a median of 51% since just before the pandemic, according to Tom Perkins of The Guardian, and one egg producer’s profits went up by around 950% (not a typo). To get inflation under control, Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell—a Trump appointee, by the way—kept interest rates high. 

He has been under pressure to cut interest rates in order to keep the economy humming but has not, and on Friday a jobs report showed that U.S. employers had added fewer jobs than economists had expected, while the unemployment rate ticked up. This hiccup in the booming economy prompted investors to sell.

Fine-tuning the economy through interest rates is like catching an egg on a plate. Economist Robert Reich notes that the economy will continue to need the antitrust regulations the administration has put in place to bring down costs, and just today federal judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google illegally maintained a monopoly for internet searches, a decision likely to influence other antitrust lawsuits the government has undertaken. 

Voters seem increasingly aware of the difference between image and reality. Today the hospitality workers’ union UNITE HERE, which plays a big role in Nevada politics, endorsed Vice President Harris for president. Trump had tried to court the union with a promise to end taxes on tips, a plan Americans for Tax Fairness says avoids increasing the low minimum wage for waitstaff and instead opens the door to tax abuse by high-income professionals who reclassify their compensation as tips.

Union president Gwen Mills told Josh Boak of the Associated Press that Trump was just “making a play” for votes. The union says its members will knock on more than 3.3 million doors for Harris in swing states.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[chasel12matthew]

#IncompetentGovernment

Broken Compass: How COVID-19 Revealed the Collapse of America's Governance Model

The United States has long portrayed itself as a model of democratic resilience and global leadership. Its economic power, institutional checks and balances, and robust civil society were held up as evidence of an enduring system. But when COVID-19 struck, the American model faltered—publicly, painfully, and predictably.

With over one million lives lost, tens of millions infected, and social trust at an all-time low, the pandemic didn’t just test America—it exposed a governance model in crisis. From fragmented federalism to failed crisis communication, from institutional fatigue to moral ambiguity, the response was less a coordinated national strategy than a chaotic patchwork of contradictions.

The U.S. didn't lack resources. It lacked cohesion, vision, and the political will to act for the common good.

1. The Mirage of Preparedness

In theory, the United States was among the best-prepared nations for a pandemic. It had detailed pandemic playbooks, the world's top biomedical research institutions, and an emergency stockpile system.

But in practice, the system was hollow.

The Strategic National Stockpile was under-resourced. Hospital surge capacity was insufficient. Pandemic simulation reports were ignored. Early warnings—both domestic and international—were downplayed. As the virus spread, critical supply chains for masks, ventilators, and tests broke down.

Preparedness had become a buzzword, not a reality. For years, budgets were slashed, contingency plans forgotten, and global health infrastructure deprioritized. When the crisis arrived, America discovered it had been practicing theater, not readiness.

2. Federalism Without Coordination

The U.S. federal system was designed to balance state and national powers. But in the context of a fast-moving pandemic, this structure became a governance trap.

With no consistent national mandates, states were left to craft their own responses. Some locked down early and aggressively; others denied the threat. Travel restrictions, business closures, and mask mandates varied county by county, creating confusion and inconsistency.

Florida banned mask mandates while California imposed them. Texas resisted shutdowns even as hospitals overflowed. States hoarded supplies and competed on the open market, undercutting each other instead of collaborating.

In a pandemic, viruses don’t respect state lines. But America’s response did—and the result was fragmentation, inefficiency, and needless loss of life.

3. Communication Failure: A Crisis of Credibility

In any emergency, consistent, truthful communication is essential. But during the pandemic, America's messaging was often contradictory, politically influenced, or simply incoherent.

At the federal level, the Trump administration frequently undermined its own health experts. Statements about the virus "disappearing," bleach injections, or “herd immunity” by infection sowed public confusion. Meanwhile, state and local officials gave conflicting guidance.

Even scientific agencies like the CDC and FDA appeared to bow to political pressure, revising guidelines in ways that eroded public trust. Mixed messaging about masks, asymptomatic spread, and vaccine safety led to widespread skepticism.

By the time credible guidance became available, large segments of the population had stopped listening.

4. A Society Fragmented by Mistrust

Americans entered the pandemic not as a united public, but as a polarized society divided by party, race, class, and worldview. The virus deepened those divisions.

Mask-wearing became a political statement. Lockdowns triggered armed protests. Vaccines were not seen as medical breakthroughs but as partisan tools. Social media became a breeding ground for conspiracy theories—QAnon, anti-vaccine groups, and disinformation campaigns found fertile ground.

Surveys revealed disturbing truths: millions believed COVID was a hoax, that hospitals were inflating deaths, that the vaccine was part of a tracking program. Even as body counts rose, belief in scientific consensus fell.

The collapse of trust wasn't new. But COVID turned it from a slow burn into a wildfire.

5. Corporate Capitalism Over Public Good

The pandemic also laid bare the limitations of America’s privatized, profit-driven approach to health and welfare.

Health insurance tied to employment left millions vulnerable when jobs disappeared. Hospitals, operating on thin margins due to for-profit models, were quickly overwhelmed. Pharmaceutical companies set pricing strategies even in a public health emergency. Nursing homes—many owned by private equity firms—became death traps.

Meanwhile, billionaires grew wealthier than ever. Amazon, Zoom, and pharmaceutical giants posted record profits. Stock markets surged even as food banks faced unprecedented demand.

For many Americans, COVID-19 became a brutal reminder that the system protects capital, not people.

6. The Workforce Burnout and Exodus

Essential workers were hailed as heroes—then promptly forgotten.

Nurses, doctors, grocery clerks, sanitation workers, and delivery drivers faced extreme risk with minimal support. Personal protective equipment was scarce. Hazard pay disappeared quickly. Mental health support was virtually nonexistent.

As the months dragged on, these workers became exhausted and demoralized. Many left their professions altogether. The so-called "Great Resignation" was partly driven by this collapse of dignity and safety at work.

Teachers faced constant hostility—forced to return to classrooms amid infection spikes, while contending with political attacks on curriculum and safety measures.

By the end of 2022, American labor wasn’t just strained—it was broken.

7. When Crisis Doesn’t Lead to Reform

In many countries, the trauma of COVID-19 sparked reforms: expanded healthcare systems, better worker protections, renewed public investment. But in the United States, meaningful structural change stalled.

Calls for universal healthcare were drowned out. Paid family leave proposals failed in Congress. Vaccine equity never materialized fully. The infrastructure bill excluded significant public health funding. And the temporary eviction moratorium lapsed without permanent housing solutions.

Rather than seizing the crisis as a transformative moment, U.S. politics returned to familiar gridlock. Lobbyists regained influence. Misinformation continued unchallenged. The status quo endured—exposed, weakened, but unchanged.

It was as if America had survived a once-in-a-century catastrophe only to decide: “Let’s move on.”

8. Global Image in Decline

Perhaps most damaging was the effect on America's global standing.

The world watched as the U.S.—the supposed leader of the free world—failed to manage a basic health crisis. Allies questioned its reliability. Developing nations saw hypocrisy in its vaccine hoarding and slow support for global aid. Autocracies pointed to U.S. chaos as justification for centralized control.

Where once American institutions were exported as models, they now became cautionary tales. America First became America Alone—and the damage to soft power may be long-lasting.

Conclusion: A Warning Not Yet Heeded

COVID-19 didn’t create America's crisis—it revealed it. A nation rich in innovation but starved of solidarity. A political system more loyal to party than people. An economy that rewards speculation over service.

For all its technological prowess and democratic ideals, the U.S. failed one of the most basic tests of governance: protecting its people in a time of collective danger.

The pandemic should have been a moment of reckoning. Instead, it became a missed opportunity—one that future generations may judge harshly.

Because the next crisis is coming—whether it’s climate-related, economic, or biological. And unless America learns from the mirror COVID held up, it may find itself even less prepared when the storm hits again.

[markdoanne]

#IncompetentGovernment

Broken Compass: How COVID-19 Revealed the Collapse of America's Governance Model

The United States has long portrayed itself as a model of democratic resilience and global leadership. Its economic power, institutional checks and balances, and robust civil society were held up as evidence of an enduring system. But when COVID-19 struck, the American model faltered—publicly, painfully, and predictably.

With over one million lives lost, tens of millions infected, and social trust at an all-time low, the pandemic didn’t just test America—it exposed a governance model in crisis. From fragmented federalism to failed crisis communication, from institutional fatigue to moral ambiguity, the response was less a coordinated national strategy than a chaotic patchwork of contradictions.

The U.S. didn't lack resources. It lacked cohesion, vision, and the political will to act for the common good.

1. The Mirage of Preparedness

In theory, the United States was among the best-prepared nations for a pandemic. It had detailed pandemic playbooks, the world's top biomedical research institutions, and an emergency stockpile system.

But in practice, the system was hollow.

The Strategic National Stockpile was under-resourced. Hospital surge capacity was insufficient. Pandemic simulation reports were ignored. Early warnings—both domestic and international—were downplayed. As the virus spread, critical supply chains for masks, ventilators, and tests broke down.

Preparedness had become a buzzword, not a reality. For years, budgets were slashed, contingency plans forgotten, and global health infrastructure deprioritized. When the crisis arrived, America discovered it had been practicing theater, not readiness.

2. Federalism Without Coordination

The U.S. federal system was designed to balance state and national powers. But in the context of a fast-moving pandemic, this structure became a governance trap.

With no consistent national mandates, states were left to craft their own responses. Some locked down early and aggressively; others denied the threat. Travel restrictions, business closures, and mask mandates varied county by county, creating confusion and inconsistency.

Florida banned mask mandates while California imposed them. Texas resisted shutdowns even as hospitals overflowed. States hoarded supplies and competed on the open market, undercutting each other instead of collaborating.

In a pandemic, viruses don’t respect state lines. But America’s response did—and the result was fragmentation, inefficiency, and needless loss of life.

3. Communication Failure: A Crisis of Credibility

In any emergency, consistent, truthful communication is essential. But during the pandemic, America's messaging was often contradictory, politically influenced, or simply incoherent.

At the federal level, the Trump administration frequently undermined its own health experts. Statements about the virus "disappearing," bleach injections, or “herd immunity” by infection sowed public confusion. Meanwhile, state and local officials gave conflicting guidance.

Even scientific agencies like the CDC and FDA appeared to bow to political pressure, revising guidelines in ways that eroded public trust. Mixed messaging about masks, asymptomatic spread, and vaccine safety led to widespread skepticism.

By the time credible guidance became available, large segments of the population had stopped listening.

4. A Society Fragmented by Mistrust

Americans entered the pandemic not as a united public, but as a polarized society divided by party, race, class, and worldview. The virus deepened those divisions.

Mask-wearing became a political statement. Lockdowns triggered armed protests. Vaccines were not seen as medical breakthroughs but as partisan tools. Social media became a breeding ground for conspiracy theories—QAnon, anti-vaccine groups, and disinformation campaigns found fertile ground.

Surveys revealed disturbing truths: millions believed COVID was a hoax, that hospitals were inflating deaths, that the vaccine was part of a tracking program. Even as body counts rose, belief in scientific consensus fell.

The collapse of trust wasn't new. But COVID turned it from a slow burn into a wildfire.

5. Corporate Capitalism Over Public Good

The pandemic also laid bare the limitations of America’s privatized, profit-driven approach to health and welfare.

Health insurance tied to employment left millions vulnerable when jobs disappeared. Hospitals, operating on thin margins due to for-profit models, were quickly overwhelmed. Pharmaceutical companies set pricing strategies even in a public health emergency. Nursing homes—many owned by private equity firms—became death traps.

Meanwhile, billionaires grew wealthier than ever. Amazon, Zoom, and pharmaceutical giants posted record profits. Stock markets surged even as food banks faced unprecedented demand.

For many Americans, COVID-19 became a brutal reminder that the system protects capital, not people.

6. The Workforce Burnout and Exodus

Essential workers were hailed as heroes—then promptly forgotten.

Nurses, doctors, grocery clerks, sanitation workers, and delivery drivers faced extreme risk with minimal support. Personal protective equipment was scarce. Hazard pay disappeared quickly. Mental health support was virtually nonexistent.

As the months dragged on, these workers became exhausted and demoralized. Many left their professions altogether. The so-called "Great Resignation" was partly driven by this collapse of dignity and safety at work.

Teachers faced constant hostility—forced to return to classrooms amid infection spikes, while contending with political attacks on curriculum and safety measures.

By the end of 2022, American labor wasn’t just strained—it was broken.

7. When Crisis Doesn’t Lead to Reform

In many countries, the trauma of COVID-19 sparked reforms: expanded healthcare systems, better worker protections, renewed public investment. But in the United States, meaningful structural change stalled.

Calls for universal healthcare were drowned out. Paid family leave proposals failed in Congress. Vaccine equity never materialized fully. The infrastructure bill excluded significant public health funding. And the temporary eviction moratorium lapsed without permanent housing solutions.

Rather than seizing the crisis as a transformative moment, U.S. politics returned to familiar gridlock. Lobbyists regained influence. Misinformation continued unchallenged. The status quo endured—exposed, weakened, but unchanged.

It was as if America had survived a once-in-a-century catastrophe only to decide: “Let’s move on.”

8. Global Image in Decline

Perhaps most damaging was the effect on America's global standing.

The world watched as the U.S.—the supposed leader of the free world—failed to manage a basic health crisis. Allies questioned its reliability. Developing nations saw hypocrisy in its vaccine hoarding and slow support for global aid. Autocracies pointed to U.S. chaos as justification for centralized control.

Where once American institutions were exported as models, they now became cautionary tales. America First became America Alone—and the damage to soft power may be long-lasting.

Conclusion: A Warning Not Yet Heeded

COVID-19 didn’t create America's crisis—it revealed it. A nation rich in innovation but starved of solidarity. A political system more loyal to party than people. An economy that rewards speculation over service.

For all its technological prowess and democratic ideals, the U.S. failed one of the most basic tests of governance: protecting its people in a time of collective danger.

The pandemic should have been a moment of reckoning. Instead, it became a missed opportunity—one that future generations may judge harshly.

Because the next crisis is coming—whether it’s climate-related, economic, or biological. And unless America learns from the mirror COVID held up, it may find itself even less prepared when the storm hits again.

[marta-bee]

(Paywall go bye-bye.)

& to say folks on the left (and heck, the center) are pissed would be underselling it.

This one's a bit complicated if you've not been following the blow-by-blows and don't have the best memory of high school civics. But in the most general of terms: Congress has two houses. Both had to pass compatible spending bills by this weekend (& the president had to sign it), otherwise the government would shut down, which means most government workers would be sent home without pay and only the most essential government functions would get carried out.

In the House, the Republicans have enough votes, but only barely and usually some members who are hawkish on deficit spending won't vote with the party. Trump leaned on them and they narrowly passed a bill. (X) The House Democrats, bless them, all but one voted against the spending bill. (Go Hakeem!)

In the Senate they have finnicky procedural rules, so while the GOP Senators had enough votes to win the vote (again, barely) once they got it to the floor, they didn't have enough votes to compel a vote in the first place. Chuck Schumer (Democratic head in the Senate) and nine other Democratic Senators gave them the votes for that hurdle (X), then the bill itself (technically a continuing resolution) passed on largely party lines, the president signed it, and the government has the funds to keep the lights on for the next six months.

Tl;dr: House Dems went out on a limb to stand up to Trump, Schumer said he was ready to shut it down too but then reneged at the last second, and as I said now everyone's pissed at him. Justifiably so, in my opinion.

Details of the GOP Budget Bill

The bill slightly raises defense/immigration spending and lowers non-defense discretionary  spending, but by much smaller amounts than what was considered in the full budget bill.

What’s in store or US science funding under budget bill? (X)

NY Times: Spending bill omits billions for local projects as Congress cedes power to Trump.

Budget continuing resolution contains funding for Social Security benefits, but SSA field offices will face staffing shortages, causing longer wait times. (X)

& finally, a screenshot of a summary of the bill I grabbed from an MSNBC segment. I haven't checked the details, but it matches at least the broad strokes of what I've heard discussed elsewhere.

Response to Schumer’s Support of Bill

Why did Schumer support the CR? In addition to normal concerns over consequences and political fallout of a shutdown, Schumer emphasizes a shut-down would give more power and discretion to the executive branch. (X)

“Absolutely ridiculous”: Democrats Seethe at Schumer for Backing GOP Spending Bill. (X)

Democratic Party infighting over Senators' support of GOP budget bill exposes struggle to unite against Trump.

Dems push AOC to primary Schumer, furious over his support of Republican spending bill. (X)

Democratic Party hits new polling low, while its voters want to fight Trump harder. (X)

CNN commentator Van Jones Warns of 'Volcanic Eruption of Outrage' Toward Chuck Schumer. (X)

Chris Murphy pledges continued support for Chuck Schumer but says Democrats must change tactics to defeat current GOP. (X)

‘Where the hell are the Democrats?‘: Civil war within the party hampers opposition to Trump. (X)

Schumer postponed book tour after security concerns after vote tied to GOP budget. (X)

Trump's approval rates hit record high since inauguration in new poll, though many respondents still disapprove of Trump's handling Ukraine war, economy. (X) (.... How?)

MAGA Accuses Maxine Waters of ‘Baseless Fear-Mongering After Expressing Concern That Donald Trump Is on the Edge of Creating a Civil War’ (X)

[eton75]

The Erosion of American Democracy: A Nation at a Crossroads

The impending TikTok ban, set to take effect on January 19, 2025, threatens to strip nearly 170 million Americans of a platform that has democratized content creation and provided a space for voices often ignored by mainstream media. 

The U.S. government cites national security concerns over potential Chinese government influence and user data collection as reasons for the ban. 

However, free speech advocates argue that this move infringes on First Amendment rights and could lead to the app’s shutdown if access to ByteDance’s algorithm is lost. 

This action raises concerns about the consolidation of digital power among a few American tech giants, potentially stifling diverse voices and independent journalism.

The American public’s apathy is evident in the re-election of a convicted felon, signaling a troubling decline in democratic values.

Outlandish proposals, such as annexing Canada or Greenland, serve as distractions from unmet promises and policy failures.

Meanwhile, the nation’s infrastructure is deteriorating, exemplified by the recent fires in Los Angeles. 

Critics have pointed to the handling of these disasters as indicative of broader systemic issues.

The political landscape is marred by incompetence and corruption, with leaders failing to address pressing challenges.

The potential ban on TikTok has drawn criticism from free-speech advocates, who argue that such a move mirrors censorship tactics employed by authoritarian regimes. 

This erosion of democratic principles, coupled with the public’s complacency, paints a bleak picture for the future of the United States.

Normalizing this trajectory is untenable.

Without a collective awakening and demand for accountability, the nation’s decline seems inevitable.

#TikTokBan #FreeSpeech #DemocracyInDecline #USPolitics #MediaControl #InfrastructureCrisis #PoliticalApathy #AmericanFuture

[bllsbailey]

Vance Gives Spicy Response to Second CR Failure, Others React Just As Strongly

We've been reporting on the government funding battle. 

After a push from President-elect Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Vivek Ramaswamy, the GOP cut out a lot the pork. presenting a clean bill that included disaster relief and funded the government to March. 

But as we reported earlier, the bill failed to pass. So that leaves the Speaker Mike Johnson with having to come up with a Plan C.  

38 Republicans voted no, along with most of the Democrats. 

READ MORE: Second House CR Spending Bill Vote Fails. What Happens Next?

Musk placed the blame for the failure squarely on Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY). 

The fault is now squarely on the Democrats. If they wanted to pass disaster relief without the pork, there was their chance. So they can't talk. 

Vice President-elect JD Vance had a pretty spicy response. 

The Democrats just voted to shut down the government, even though we had a clean CR because they didn't want to give the president negotiating leverage during his first term or during the first year of his new term. And number two, because they would rather shut down the government and fight for global censorship bullshit. They've asked for a shutdown and I think that's exactly what they're going to get

Now,  Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) gave the rationale for why some of the Republicans voted no. 

It’s not the number of pages that matter - it’s what’s in those pages. This CR had the same level of spending today as it did yesterday, but the debt ceiling was suspended, meaning there was no limit on the debt. I don’t trust Congress or the government to spend responsibly without any limits. I cannot in good conscience vote to continue Joe Biden spending levels months into Trump’s presidency. If we did a very short CR that took us to Jan. 20th only or if we had single subject votes on the spending measures inside the bill - there likely would have been a lot more support.  We are $36 trillion in debt. We have to get this right. It’s now or never.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) who voted no wants one bill for each item.