The political lessons of the 1918 pandemic
David Faris THE WEEK APRIL 4, 2020

Illustrated | Getty Images, Library of Congress, iStock

Unexpected natural disasters have a way of revealing undiagnosed pathologies in a country's economic, social, and political systems.

For the United States in 2020, the still-unfolding COVID-19 viral calamity has exposed the upside-down nature of work and reward in our society. Millions of low-wage, low-status workers are holding supply (and sanity) chains and critical everyday processes in place while the wealthy escape to their vacation homes and many in the middle class get either a taste of round-the-clock daycare or a reminder that many of their jobs maybe aren't that important in the first place. While other countries have pledged indefinite financial support for all citizens, the U.S. Congress passed a series of woefully inadequate measures seemingly designed to plunge the country into a turbocharged Great Depression.

Worse, President Trump's decision to take counsel from crackpot law professors and his useless son-in-law instead of public health professionals means that many states are only now taking the steps necessary to contain the spread of this awful virus. Despite the brief polling sugar high from a rally-around-the-flag effect, the president and his obeisant red state governors own the response to this crisis. With unemployment headed to levels not seen even in the 1930s, as many as 200,000 Americans condemned to die agonizing deaths in hospital isolation wards and millions trapped in houses away from friends, family, and any source of joy, there will likely be a reckoning in November.

How significant the ruling party's punishment will be depends on a number of factors. Political scientist Alan Abramowitz's "Time For Change" model of post-WWII presidential elections featuring an incumbent shows that two factors — second quarter economic growth, and the president's net approval rating in June — are decisive in the incumbent party's fortunes.

Let's say, for example, that President Trump's approval rating eventually floats back down to the net -7.7 mark where it was on Super Tuesday, what we might now think of as the last normal day any of us will experience for months. Let's also say that second quarter economic growth comes in at -5 percent, which is significantly less dire than what economists now think is likely. What currently looks like a best-case scenario in these variables for Trump would yield something in the range of a 388-150 Electoral College landslide for the Democratic nominee in November, according to Abramowitz.

However, these models simply cannot account for the Black Swan nature of this crisis, or whether President Trump's base will ever acknowledge his administration's role in leaving America defenseless to the ravages of COVID-19. It is certainly possible that he will successfully emit some kind of blame miasma at other targets — Democrats for impeaching him, governors like Andrew Cuomo for not acting quickly enough, Congress for failing to pass a sufficient relief package, the Obama administration for whatever he can — and get away with it. But that strategy seems likely to run into limitations given the likely scale of human and economic suffering that is in store for this country.

To get a better sense of what awaits the GOP in November, we might also look at how natural disasters effect parties-in-power around the world. Here, the data is mixed. Some studies have shown little effect. And sometimes, as with Hurricane Sandy just before the 2012 election, incumbents seem to benefit. A 2011 paper presented at the International Studies Association conference by Constantine Boussalis, Travis Coan, and Parina Patel looked at the effects of natural disasters like hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes on subsequent elections between 1980 and 2007. They found that incumbent parties and leaders are most likely to be punished by voters if a) the state lacks the capacity or wherewithal to respond appropriately and b) enough time — but not too much time! — has passed for voters to assign blame to the incumbents.

The United States, the richest and most powerful country in the world, certainly possesses the wherewithal to respond capably to this disaster. But thus far the federal government has failed comprehensively to prevent the spread of the virus, to provide the needed testing, to distribute the necessary protective equipment for health care workers, and to put the kind of cash in people's pockets needed to avoid large-scale economic displacement. It is hard to identify any feature of this crisis that has been competently managed by these White House ineptocrats.

Is COVID-19 a "natural disaster"? In some ways yes, but the closest analogue to our current situation might actually be located more distantly in our own history: the 1920 presidential election. That year the incumbent, Democrat Woodrow Wilson, ailing and nearing the end of his second term, did not seek re-election. The country was just emerging from the terrible ravages of the 1918-1919 Spanish flu epidemic which had killed between 17 and 100 million people worldwide, including about 675,000 Americans, as well as from the aftermath of World War I. Perhaps worst of all for Democrats, the economy plummeted into a sharp recession beginning in January 1920, with industrial production plummeting by a third and unemployment spiking to nearly 12 percent over the following year. While public opinion polling did not exist 100 years ago, it is hard to imagine anything other than decisive opposition to the Wilson administration and its policies.

The 1920 election therefore features the convergence of all three variables — a sharp economic downturn in the second quarter of the election year plus an unpopular incumbent president who presided over the application of difficult and painful measures to fight off an exogenous shock in the form of a flu pandemic. Really, there is absolutely nothing remotely as similar to this year as the 1920 election.

What happened? Republican Warren Harding, campaigning on a "return to normalcy" (sound familiar?) won more than 60 percent of the vote and a towering majority in the Electoral College. Republicans added massively to narrow majorities in both chambers of Congress. It was a thorough repudiation of nominee James Cox and the Democratic Party. Republicans would go on to preside over the Roaring Twenties, winning the next three presidential elections and maintaining unified control of Congress until 1931.

There's one more structural similarity. Woodrow Wilson was the only Democrat to win the presidency between 1896 and 1932, and one of only two Democrats to win the office between the end of the Civil War and the Great Depression. His original election in 1912, like Donald Trump's in 2016, was a fluke produced in part by third-party spoilers. In 1912, it was former president Theodore Roosevelt, who split the Republican vote all over the country with incumbent Republican President William Taft.

DAMON LINKER
An unavoidable economic cataclysm

Democrats have won the most votes in every presidential election since 1992 with the exception of 2004. Only bizarre and antiquated institutions like the Electoral College prevent us from seeing that we are already likely in the midst of a long period of Democratic dominance of national politics. In that sense, even before COVID-19 crashed the economy and menaced millions, the president was probably facing an uphill battle.

Will President Trump lose by Harding-Cox margins? Of course not, not in today's hyper-polarized political environment. He could still win. But unless he somehow rises to the occasion of this crisis and does real, recognizable good instead of play-acting as the president for half an hour every day at his press conferences, he's in deep trouble.

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Donald Trump is playing with revolutionary fire

Illustrated | iStock 

Ryan Cooper April 3, 2020

The American military is suffering from the novel coronavirus pandemic. At time of writing over 1,600 Department of Defense staff have tested positive, including a major outbreak on the carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, where over 100 sailors out of a crew of over 4,000 have been infected. The lack of proper quarantine facilities onboard prompted the ship's Captain Brett Crozier to plead for help in a letter to his superiors which was later obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle. "Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset — our Sailors," he wrote.

The Roosevelt was eventually docked in Guam and evacuated. But Crozier has now been relieved of his command. Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly said Crozier showed "extremely poor judgment" in creating a "firestorm." Translation: He embarrassed President Trump, who has installed toadies like Modly in a number of senior military leadership positions.

As Crozier departed the Roosevelt, the remaining crew sent him off to wild cheers. "One of the greatest captains you ever had … the man for the people," said one sailor. Such a sight ought to freeze the blood of any American politician. Historically, treating the armed forces with gratuitous contempt runs a serious risk of mutinies or revolution. He surely does not know it, but Trump is playing with fire.


In his history of the Russian Revolution, Leon Trotsky wrote that the state's grip on the armed forces was one deciding factor in any potential revolution. "Against a numerous, disciplined, well-armed and ably led military force, unarmed or almost unarmed masses of the people cannot possibly gain a victory." The ground for revolt in 1917 was only laid because disgruntled soldiers disgusted by Tsar Nicholas II's appalling performance in the First World War turned against the regime. That followed an example set in the quasi-revolution of 1905, when the crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin famously mutinied after their captain murdered a sailor for complaining about being fed rancid meat.

It is of course exceedingly difficult to imagine American sailors and soldiers turning against the Trump administration. But extreme crises can sometimes change attitudes very, very quickly. There's a reason why in previous crises, like the standoff over the debt ceiling in 2013, the government always took care to make sure the military paychecks kept flowing. But Trump's titanic narcissism and ignorance make this danger impossible for him to grasp.

On the contrary, Trump has made it abundantly clear that the only qualification that matters for top military personnel is personal loyalty to him. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper fired Undersecretary for Policy John Rood because he was involved with the aid to Ukraine that got Trump impeached. As of early March, over "a third of all Senate-confirmed civilian positions at the Department of Defense are now vacant or filled by temporary officials," Politico reports, in part because "a 29-year-old Trump loyalist ... is now trying to exert more control over the Pentagon’s nominating process." Trump is a man so petty that his administration ordered the USS John McCain hidden behind a tarp during a Trump visit to Japan because the president previously feuded with the ship's namesake, and they did not want to trigger a temper tantrum.

Trump's treatment of Captain Crozier also makes a jarring contrast with what he did for Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL who was turned in by his own fellow troops for allegedly murdering civilians and a captured prisoner in cold blood. Trump interfered in his prosecution and reversed his demotion. The message is clear: Commit war crimes and Fox News will get the president to turn you into a right-wing celebrity grifter, but try to save your troops from a disease pandemic and your career is toast.

Finally, the coronavirus pandemic comes after two decades of ceaseless imperialist warmongering, at a cost of perhaps $6.4 trillion and hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops killed, maimed, or psychologically injured, for no benefit whatsoever. America invaded and occupied Afghanistan in 2001; nearly 20 years later that country is in worse shape than it was when we started. America invaded Iraq on false pretenses and turned it into a dystopian nightmare hell. Fifty-eight percent of veterans say the war in Afghanistan was not worth fighting; 64 percent say the same thing about the war in Iraq.

American soldiers generally come from the middle of the income distribution, with the poorest and especially the richest neighborhoods underrepresented. The military is also considerably more diverse than the general population (except for the Marines, the smallest of the service branches). It is surely unlikely that dipping morale among the troops could suddenly curdle into boiling, insurrectionary rage, but it's not impossible. American soldiers have been pointlessly shoveled into a meat grinder for two decades, and now their officers have to sacrifice themselves to get Trump to protect them from a viral pandemic?

Make no mistake, segments of the military in open conflict with the president would be a terrifying development. Full-blown military revolts often end with some strongman general installing himself as dictator. America is hopefully still a long ways from that, but with Donald Trump as the commander-in-chief, with the lockstep backing of almost the entire Republican Party, and with potentially hundreds of thousands of Americans dying in the pandemic, would you really rule it out?

https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/844-history-of-the-russian-revolution

Tensions Persist Between Trump and Medical Advisers Over the Coronavirus
AT TODAYS DAILY BRIEFING THE DOCTORS WERE UNUSUALLY QUIET ABOUT DR. TRUMPS FAVORITE SNAKE OIL; CHLOROQUINE WHICH DESPITE ALREADY CAUSING ONE DEATH BY HIS PROMOTION SPENT ALL OF SATURDAY PROMOTING 

THIS QUACK MEDICINE NOT ONCE OR TWICE OR EVEN THRICE BUT EVERY OPPORTUNITY HE COULD GET
Peter Baker, Maggie Haberman and James Glanz, The New York Times•April 4, 2020

Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, walks to a TV interview at the White House, Thursday, March, 12, 2020. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)

WASHINGTON —Rarely has the schism between President Donald Trump and his own public health advisers over the coronavirus pandemic been put on display quite so starkly. Even as he announced a new federal recommendation on Friday that Americans wear masks when out in public, he immediately disavowed it: “I am choosing not to do it.” 

The striking dichotomy underscored how often Trump has been at odds with the medical experts seeking to guide his handling of the outbreak as well as some of the governors fighting it on the front lines, despite his move to extend social distancing guidelines through April 30 and his acknowledgment that the death toll could be staggering.

While the health specialists and some governors press for a more aggressive, uniform national approach to the virus, the president has resisted expanding limits on daily life and sought to shift blame to the states for being unprepared to deal with the coronavirus. While they sound the alarm and call for more federal action, Trump has deflected responsibility and left it to others to take a more aggressive stance.

Some of the president’s health advisers in recent days have argued that restrictions on social interaction and economic activity that have shut down much of the nation need to be expanded to all 50 states and that more Americans need to adopt them. Trump, by contrast, has characterized the crisis as generally limited to hot spots like New York, California and Michigan and has expressed no support for a nationwide lockdown. “I would leave it to the governors,” he said on Friday.

As hospitals cope with shortages of medical equipment, the administration on Friday also rewrote the federal government’s stated mission for its stockpile of supplies to make clear that it sees itself as playing a secondary role to the states. Where the federal government once said the stockpile “ensures that the right medicines and supplies get to those who need the most,” the revised version said the federal stockpile’s role was merely to “supplement state and local supplies.”

The tension over the scale of the federal response comes as the president defends his administration’s reaction to the pandemic that has now infected more than 270,000 people in the United States and killed more than 7,000. New polls showed that public support for Trump’s handling of the crisis has begun to slip, a worrisome development for a president seeking reelection in the fall.

Trump’s decision to take a back seat to the states by leaving it to them to decide whether to shut down public life and insisting they take the lead in addressing shortages amounts to a remarkable deference by a president who typically makes himself the center of the action. It also contrasts with his own self-description as a wartime president leading a great battle against an invisible enemy.

It underscores both pragmatic and political imperatives for Trump, reflecting a traditional federalist approach that eschews imposing a one-size-fits-all national standard on states. But it also shows the president’s desire to blame the governors rather than accept any responsibility for shortages of ventilators, masks and other critical supplies.

The most fundamental point of conflict centers over how broadly the virtual lockdown of many states in the Midwest and on the East and West Coasts should be expanded. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said stay-at-home orders should be extended to the entire nation.

“I don’t understand why that’s not happening,” Fauci said Thursday night on CNN. “The tension between federally mandated versus states’ rights to do what they want is something I don’t want to get into. But if you look at what is going on in this country, I don’t understand why we’re not doing that. We really should be.”

His comments came after a telling interchange between Trump and Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the White House pandemic response coordinator, at the Thursday’s daily briefing. Birx expressed concern that too many Americans were not following the guidelines.

“I can tell by the curve and as it is today, that not every American is following it,” she said. “And so this is really a call to action. We see Spain, we see Italy, we see France, we see Germany, when we see others beginning to bend their curves. We can bend ours, but it means everybody has to take that same responsibility as Americans.”

When she returned to the issue a few minutes later, Trump tried to recalibrate her remarks.

“But, Deborah, aren’t you referring to just a few states?” he said. “Because many of those states are dead flat.”

“Yes, there are states that are dead flat,” she agreed. “But you know, what changes the curve is a new Detroit, a new Chicago, a new New Orleans, a new Colorado. Those change the curves because it all of a sudden spikes with the number of new cases.” In other words, without taking action, “dead flat” states can suddenly become hot spots.

The interplay was a rare instance of Trump doing in real time on camera what officials have repeatedly denied that he does behind the scenes — attempting to water down the impact of what the medical experts were saying.

In a video that leaked online last week, Fauci was seen telling colleagues at the National Institutes of Health that he regularly made suggestions for the president’s prepared remarks before daily briefings but Trump “almost always” ignores them.

Where Fauci and Trump have differed most strongly is on the therapeutic potential of chloroquines to treat people suffering from the coronavirus. Trump has called the drugs, which are approved by the Food and Drug Administration for off-label uses aside from their intended treatment of ailments like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, could be a “game-changer.”

But Fauci has repeatedly sounded a note of skepticism, much to the president’s frustration. “I think we’ve got to be careful that we don’t make that majestic leap to assume that this is a knockout drug,” Fauci said in an interview on “Fox & Friends” on Friday.

Trump has also tried in recent days to blame states for shortages of medical equipment. “They should have had more ventilators,” he said on Friday.

Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and senior adviser, said at Thursday’s briefing that the federal stockpile was not for states to rely on. “The notion of the federal stockpile was it’s supposed to be our stockpile,” Kushner said. “It’s not supposed to be states’ stockpiles that they then use.”

A day later, on Friday, the description on the Health and Human Services website for its Strategic National Stockpile was altered evidently to reflect that viewpoint.

Previously, the website said: “Strategic National Stockpile is the nation’s largest supply of lifesaving pharmaceuticals and medical supplies for use in a public health emergency severe enough to cause local supplies to run out.”

“When state, local, tribal and territorial responders request federal assistance to support their response efforts,” it continued, “the stockpile ensures that the right medicines and supplies get to those who need the most during an emergency.” It went on to say the stockpile “contains enough supplies to respond to multiple large-scale emergencies simultaneously.”

But after the revisions, first noticed by journalist Laura Bassett, the website on Friday said that the role of the stockpile is to “supplement state and local supplies during public health emergencies. Many states have products stockpiled as well.”

“The supplies, medicines and devices for lifesaving care contained in the stockpile,” it added, “can be used as a short-term stopgap buffer when the immediate supply of adequate amounts of these materials may not be immediately available.”

The explosive growth of the virus in many cities over the last two weeks has made clear that the United States has not been following the trajectory of places like Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong that have kept outbreaks relatively contained so far. And the country has not begun to see the number of new cases level off yet, as Italy has.

Several scientists said it was too early to make ironclad statements about whether social distancing was having a powerful effect. In a few cities that acted early, including New York, San Francisco and Seattle, new reported cases have begun to slow, providing some optimism that control measures work.

“The growth rate in New York City is slowing. We do have evidence that measures we put in place two or three weeks ago may be having an effect,” said Jeffrey Shaman, a professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University. Data from Seattle and San Francisco, he said, shows “they’ve slowed it in spots. But whether they’re going to hold onto it is an open question.”

The number of cases and deaths in New York City has continued to rise quickly in recent days. More than 30,000 new cases in the metro area were reported since Monday for a total of more than 100,000 cases overall.

The United States has seen new hot spots in New Orleans, Indianapolis, Chicago, Detroit and other cities that did not significantly reduce how much people traveled until mid- to late-March, leaving open a critical window for exponential growth.

Florida, which took longer than most of the country to issue a stay-at-home order and reduce the distances that people traveled, reported increasing cases this week in the Miami, Tampa, and Jacksonville areas. Experts say the delays in keeping people at home in Florida and much of the Southeast could make those areas more vulnerable to outbreaks in coming weeks.

The low testing rate among the population can also muddle any assessment of the effect of distancing measures so far, said Lauren Ancel Meyers, a professor of biology and statistics at the University of Texas at Austin.

“In many of these other places, where social distancing measures were enacted very recently, it would be very difficult to see it in the data yet,” Meyers said. “Even if it’s effective.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2020 The New York Times Company

'It Was Terrible What He Did': Trump Rips Navy Captain Who Sounded Alarm On His Sick Sailors
Mary Papenfuss,HuffPost•April 4, 2020
President Donald Trump on Saturday lashed the Navy captain who was relieved of duty this week after he pleaded with military authorities in a letter for help for sailors with COVID-19 on his aircraft carrier.

“I thought it was terrible what he did, to write a letter,” an annoyed Trump said at his press briefing, referring to the action by Captain Brett Crozier. “This isn’t a class on literature. This is a captain of a massive ship that’s nuclear-powered. He shouldn’t be talking that way in a letter.”

The president, who also noted that he doesn’t “know much about it,” said that Crozier’s letter “raised alarm bells unnecessarily.”

Crozier, formerly of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, sent the letter seeking help for a coronavirus outbreak on his ship in a nonsecure unclassified email. It leaked to the media. More than 100 of 4,000 sailors on the ship had already tested positive for COVID-19 when Cozier sent the plea Monday.

“The letter was a five-page letter from a captain, and the letter was all over the place,” Trump complained. “That’s not appropriate. I don’t think that’s appropriate.”

It was actually a four-page letter, in which an upset Crozier warned that without immediate action, “we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset — our Sailors. The spread of the disease is ongoing and accelerating.” He added: “We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die.”

Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly said Thursday Crozier exercised
poor judgement.

Cozier’s crew applauded and cheered him, and chanted his name Friday when he left his ship, now docked at the U.S. Naval Base in Guam.



Here is Captain Crozier walking away from his ship while sailors chant his name after he was relieved from duty for blowing the whistle on a coronavirus contamination aboard the USS Roosevelt.

He sacrificed himself and it sounds like everyone knows it. pic.twitter.com/hwiu7Z1MVV

— Amee Vanderpool (@girlsreallyrule) April 3, 2020

Three sailors tested positive 15 days after the ship made a port stop in Da Nang, Vietnam, in early March, when there were only 100 reported cases in the country. It was the first known outbreak of COVID-19 on a military vessel at sea.

Trump also slammed the stop in Vietnam.

“I guess the captain stopped in Vietnam and people got off in Vietnam,” Trump said. “Perhaps you don’t do that in the middle of a pandemic or something that looked like it was going to be. History would say you don’t necessarily stop and let your sailors get off.”

During that same time in early March Trump himself was dismissing the threat of COVID-19, insisting March 10 that it will “go away,” and blaming the “fake news media” the previous day for inflaming the situation.

PRIVATE BONE SPURS SAYS
'He shouldn't be talking that way': Trump rips ousted Navy captain

By Juan Perez Jr., Politico•April 4, 2020

A Navy commander’s written alarms about a coronavirus outbreak aboard his aircraft carrier “looked terrible,” President Donald Trump said Saturday, as he praised military leaders who removed the USS Theodore Roosevelt’s top officer from his post.

Pentagon officials ousted Capt. Brett Crozier after he wrote a searing letter to Navy leaders notifying them of a spike in cases of Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, among sailors on his carrier. The San Francisco Chronicle, Crozier's hometown newspaper, published the letter Tuesday. Crozier was fired Thursday, as his former ship idled in Guam.

Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly described Crozier’s firing this week as the "hardest thing that I've ever had to do."

Trump said he fully supported Crozier's removal, though he said, "I didn't make the decision."

"The letter was a five-page letter from a captain, and the letter was all over the place," Trump said. "That's not appropriate."

“I thought it was terrible, what he did, to write a letter. I mean, this isn't a class on literature. This is a captain of a massive ship that's nuclear powered. And he shouldn't be talking that way in a letter,” Trump said.

DURING HIS DAILY BRIEFING SATURDAY APRIL 4, TRUMP SAID THE LETTER WAS WRITTEN BY A DEMOCRATIC OPERATIVE IMPLYING IT WAS NOT ONLY POLITICAL BUT THE CAPTAIN WAS NOT SMART ENOUGH TO WRITE IT

The president also criticized Crozier for making a port call in Da Nang, Vietnam, in the midst of a global outbreak.

"Perhaps you don't do that in the middle of a pandemic," Trump said. "History would say you don't necessarily stop and let your sailors get off."

Defense officials have defended the Roosevelt's port call as reasonable decision to have made back in early February.

"At that time there were only 16 positive cases in Vietnam, and those were well to the north all isolated in Hanoi," Adm. Michael Gilday, the chief of naval operations, said in a March 24 press briefing, calling it "a very risk-informed decision" made by Admiral Philip Davidson, the head of Indo-Pacific Command.

More than 150 Roosevelt crew members have so far tested positive for Covid-19, the Navy said on Saturday. Forty-four percent of the crew has been tested, while more than 1,500 sailors have moved ashore as a smaller crew remains on board to sanitize the ship and keep its essential systems running.

Democrats in the House and Senate are now asking the Pentagon's top watchdog to investigate whether Modly acted improperly. In a letter to acting Pentagon Inspector General Glenn Fine, 17 Senate Democrats, led by Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, requested a probe of both Crozier’s firing and the carrier’s outbreak.

Modly has stopped short of accusing Crozier of leaking the letter, but faulted the captain for sending it over "non-secure, unclassified email" and copying "a broad array of people," instead of relaying his concerns directly to Modly. The letter contained no classified information.

In the letter, Crozier urged "decisive action" to remove the "majority of personnel" from the carrier.

“We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die," Crozier wrote. "If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset — our sailors.”

Crozier's letter "unnecessarily" caused panic among the sailors and their families, and raised doubts about the ship's operational capability — concern that could have "emboldened our adversaries to seek advantage," Modly said.

This week, videos circulated online showing the remaining crew of the Roosevelt cheering Crozier as he walked down the gangplank in Guam.

Connor O'Brien contributed to this report.

Sideshow Don: Trump pursues a non-virus agenda

By Nancy Cook,Politico•April 4, 2020


When President Donald Trump exacted revenge Friday night by ousting the chief watchdog for the intelligence community, it was just one more instance of the president’s addiction to sideshows -- in this case, closing out a personal vendetta in the middle of a global pandemic that has already claimed more than 8,000 American lives.

White House officials and Trump advisers privately cast the firing of Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community’s inspector general, as a move the president has plotted since the Senate acquitted him in February on two articles of impeachment.

But to Democrats and Trump skeptics, Atkinson’s Friday-night defenestration offered another example of the myriad ways this president is re-shaping the federal government during this crisis – both to pursue long-held policy goals and to purge internal critics.

“Almost all of our government systems are under such strain now. We have a heightened danger: first, of fraud and waste in terms of how many millions of dollars are being spent, plus, the potential abuse of power,” said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog group.

“When you have enhanced government authority like restricting people’s travels, you want to make sure people’s civil liberties are not being violated,” she said. “All of these are dangerous positions for inspector generals to take if they are worried about getting fired.”

Trump showed little inclination on Saturday to disguise his motive for firing Atkinson, whom he said did a “terrible job, absolutely terrible.”

“He took a whistle-blower report which turned out to be a fake report. It was fake. It was totally wrong,” Trump said, though subsequent revelations confirmed the accuracy of the whistleblower’s complaint -- which sparked a months-long drive to impeachment -- in exquisite detail.

“Not a big Trump fan, that I can tell you,” the president added, during a press briefing otherwise devoted to the administration's struggle to combat the outbreak.

In the weeks since the coronavirus first hit the U.S., Trump has continued to pursue pet projects dating back to his 2016 campaign such as rolling back Obama-era regulations, building the border wall and fighting with the Federal Reserve. A new White House personnel director, 29-year-old Johnny McEntee, has meanwhile been hunting for political appointees who have shown any hint of disloyalty to Trump and ordering them transferred or fired.

This week, as the outbreak approached what the president warned could soon reach a “horrific” crescendo of daily deaths, Trump canned Atkinson and tapped a White House aide from the counsel’s office as the new coronavirus relief inspector general, who will oversee the distribution of $500 billion in economic relief to businesses.

Democrats have questioned the independence of a coronavirus inspector general culled from the ranks of the White House staff, even if the lawyer, Brian Miller, also once served as the inspector general of the General Services Administration for 10 years, starting during President George W. Bush’s administration.

Trump’s administration has also weakened government standards for auto emissions since the coronavirus emerged, rolling back a major policy from the Obama-era intended to fight climate change – while continuing to construct the controversial Keystone pipeline. The building of the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico has proceeded apace in Arizona, even as millions of Americans stay home to prevent the spread of the virus.

Trump also finally got his way with the Federal Reserve, after months of bashing its chairman in public, as the central bank slashed interest rates in recent weeks to keep the economy afloat as businesses across the country shut down and shed millions of jobs.

Presidents have long used crises to their advantage to enact sweeping political changes, dating back to Woodrow Wilson during the 1918 Spanish flu. Wilson used that pandemic to exert greater authority over the economy by leaning on emergency powers and executive orders to control fuel and food distribution.

Trump is no different in his sentiments as he has pushed policies on building the border wall, cutting taxes and acting tough toward China during an unprecedented public health crisis for which there is no immediate vaccine or cure.

In the case of Atkinson, Trump was removing one of the last of the officials he has angrily blamed for the impeachment “hoax,” with others having departed the government or been removed from their positions in the months since his acquittal

To close Trump allies, Atkinson’s ouster was fully justified -- and could even help repair the president’s broken relationship with the intelligence community, which reportedly warned that the coronavirus outbreak in China could have dire consequences for the United States.

The intelligence community “is supposed to be about serving the needs of the commander-in-chief and chief executive,” said Tom Fitton, the right-leaning president of Judicial Watch. “If you can get people in there who have his confidence, then the intelligence reports and briefings will be more readily accepted."


COVID-19: Dismissed U.S. carrier captain gets hero’s ovation after speaking out on virus fears
A clip showed Brett Crozier walking down the gangplank of the Theodore Roosevelt as crew repeatedly chanted 'Captain Crozier!'
Here is Captain Crozier walking away from his ship while sailors chant his name after he was relieved from duty for blowing the whistle on a coronavirus contamination aboard the USS Roosevelt.
He sacrificed himself and it sounds like everyone knows it. pic.twitter.com/hwiu7Z1MVV— Amee Vanderpool (@girlsreallyrule) April 3, 2020

WASHINGTON — Even as he is hailed as a hero by his crew, the fired commander of a coronavirus-stricken U.S. aircraft carrier is being reassigned while investigators consider whether he should face disciplinary action, acting U.S. Navy Secretary Thomas Modly told Reuters on Friday.

Captain Brett Crozier was relieved of his command of the Theodore Roosevelt on Thursday after a scathing letter in which he called on the Navy for stronger action to halt the spread of the virus aboard the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier was leaked to the media.

Modly said in an interview that the letter was shared too widely and leaked before even he could see it.

And that’s how you send out one of the greatest captains you ever had

But the backlash to Modly’s decision to fire Crozier has been intense. In videos posted online, sailors on the Theodore Roosevelt applauded Crozier and hailed him as a hero, out to defend his crew – even at great personal cost to his career.

“And that’s how you send out one of the greatest captains you ever had,” exclaimed one sailor in a video post, amid thunderous applause and cheering for Crozier as he left the carrier and its 5,000 crew members in Guam.

Modly did not suggest that Crozier’s career was over, saying he thought everyone deserved a chance at “redemption.”

“He’ll get reassigned, he’s not thrown out of the Navy,” Modly said.

But Modly said he did not know if Crozier would face disciplinary action, telling Reuters it would be up to a probe that will look into issues surrounding “communications” and the chain of command that led to the incident.

“I’m not going to direct them to do anything (other) than to investigate the facts to the best of their ability. I cannot exercise undue command influence over that investigation,” he said.

Crozier’s firing has become a lightening-rod political issue at a time when the Trump administration is facing intense criticism over its handling of a coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 6,000 people across the country, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

3M says Trump officials have told it to stop sending face masks to Canada

Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden, accused the Trump administration of poor judgment and said Modly “shot the messenger.”

The dismissal, two days after the captain’s letter leaked, demonstrated how the coronavirus has challenged all manner of U.S. institutions, even those accustomed to dangerous and complex missions like the military.

His removal could have a chilling effect on others in the Navy seeking to draw attention to difficulties surrounding coronavirus outbreaks at a time when the Pentagon is withholding some detailed data about infections to avoid undermining the perception of U.S. military readiness for a crisis or conflict.

Reuters first reported last week that the U.S. armed forces would start keeping from the public some data about infections within its ranks.

‘DECISIVE ACTION’

In his four-page letter, Crozier, who took command in November, described a bleak situation aboard the carrier as more of his crew began falling ill.

He called for “decisive action”: removing more than 4,000 sailors from the ship and isolating them, and wrote that unless the Navy acted immediately it would be failing to properly safeguard “our most trusted asset – our sailors.”

The letter put the Pentagon on the defensive and alarmed the families of those on the vessel, whose home port is in San Diego.

President Donald Trump, when asked about the captain during a White House news conference on Thursday, disputed the notion that Crozier appeared to have been disciplined for trying to save the lives of sailors.

“I don’t agree with that at all. Not at all. Not even a little bit,” Trump said.

The outbreak aboard the Theodore Roosevelt is just the latest example of the spread of the COVID-19 respiratory virus within the U.S. military. Navy officials say sailors on a number of ships have tested positive, including an amphibious assault vessel in San Diego.

— Reporting by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart Editing by Paul Simao

After Kushner says 'it's our stockpile,' HHS website changed to echo his comments on federal crisis role

OUR BEING TRUMP INC. 

BEN GITTLESON,ABC News•April 3, 2020


It was a telling moment in the rising tensions between the Trump White House and state governors desperate for medical equipment to deal with the exploding coronavirus crisis.

At Thursday's briefing on how the government is responding, Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner scolded states for not building up their own stockpiles, saying that the "the notion of the federal stockpile was it’s supposed to be our stockpile, it’s not supposed to be states’ stockpiles that they then use."

PHOTO: GRAND POOHBAH to the President Jared Kushner

 speaks during the daily briefing on the novel coronavirus,

 COVID-19, in the Brady Briefing Room at the White House

 on April 2, 2020, in Washington. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

Earlier Thursday, President Donald Trump had tweeted, "Some have insatiable appetites & are never satisfied (politics?) Remember, we are a backup for them. The complainers should… have been stocked up and ready long before this crisis hit."

But the national stockpile actually is intended for states' use, which was clearly explained on the government's own website -- until the language was changed, without explanation, hours after Kushner provided his inaccurate description.

Until Friday morning, the website of the Department of Health and Human Services, which maintains the stockpile, read, "When state, local, tribal, and territorial responders request federal assistance to support their response efforts, the stockpile ensures that the right medicines and supplies get to those who need them most during an emergency."
But midday Friday, hours after Kushner directly contradicted the language on the HHS website, the text was changed without explanation. Retroactively matching what Kushner said, the website no longer says states can rely on the stockpile, but now says it exists to “supplement” them.

“The Strategic National Stockpile's role is to supplement state and local supplies during public health emergencies," the website read on Friday afternoon. "Many states have products stockpiled, as well. The supplies, medicines, and devices for life-saving care contained in the stockpile can be used as a short-term stopgap buffer when the immediate supply of adequate amounts of these materials may not be immediately available.”
The Washington Post reported the change, citing a tweet by journalist Laura Bassett.

With a diminished stockpile of medical supplies and governors warning of a Wild West-like bidding process for ventilators, President Trump has refused to take a larger role in helping states hit hard by the novel coronavirus outbreak, instead making states compete for much of the supplies on the open market -- and insisting they are to blame for any shortfalls.

Leaving no one official in charge of the all-encompassing process of assessing need, production, allocation and distribution, Trump has resisted calls from across the country to have the federal government harness its unique ability to take the lead, pushing responsibility onto state governors and arguing they are to blame -- not him -- for equipment shortfalls.

"We're a backup," Trump said Thursday. "We're not an ordering clerk."

A bipartisan chorus of governors, former officials and experts have said the federal government can and must take the lead, though -- saying only it can harness the strength of American manufacturing and make sure materials get to the right states at the right times and at a reasonable rate.

The president on Wednesday acknowledged that the government's emergency supply of medical equipment, the Strategic National Stockpile, was nearly depleted, just as states like New York and Louisiana warn their hospitals may be days or weeks away from running out of ventilators, medical masks, surgical gowns and other essential supplies.

While the Federal Emergency Management Agency has sought to jumpstart the production of critical gear, governors have said its involvement has only made the bidding process for ventilators worse, jacking up the prices as states and the federal government compete for a limited supply.

PHOTO: Boxes of N95 protective masks for use by medical

 field personnel are seen at a New York State emergency

 operations incident command center during the coronavirus 

outbreak in New Rochelle, N.Y., March 17, 2020. 

(Mike Segar/Reuters, FILE)

Sometimes, they say, they have found themselves losing out on contracts to the federal government.

On Thursday, the Navy officer running FEMA's supply chain task force said that he was mainly focused on ensuring the flow of the gear to the commercial market -- rather than mandating it be allocated to states and localities based on need.

In effect, the federal government has left it up to hospitals and state governments to compete for masks, surgical gowns and more, a key complaint of governors across the country.

"I'm not here to disrupt a supply chain," Rear Adm. John Polowczyk told reporters at the White house. "We are bringing product in, they are filling orders for hospitals, nursing homes, like normal. I am putting volume into that system."

PHOTO: Workers unload boxes of medical supplies at

 Mount Sinai Hospital amid the coronavirus pandemic, 

March 31, 2020 in New York. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

FEMA said in a statement earlier this week that it had always assumed the Strategic National Stockpile "alone could not fulfull (sic.) all requirements" and that "the federal government will exhaust all means to identify and attain (sic.) medical and other supplies needed to combat the virus."

The agency said Thursday it was "expediting movement of critical supplies from the global market to medical distributors in various locations across the United States," citing half a dozen flights bringing personal protective equipment across the country so far.

MORE: Disaster in motion: 3.4 million travelers poured into US as coronavirus pandemic erupted

FEMA said "varying quantities" of the gear would go to "medical distributors in areas of greatest need," with the rest "infused into the broader U.S. supply chain." It said priority would be given to hospitals, health care facilities and nursing homes, but did not explain how that would work.

The agency said that as of Thursday, it had delivered or was in the process of shipping 8,100 ventilators, 11.6 million N-95 respirators and a host of other equipment across the country. It did not provide detailed information on exactly where or when it distributed the supplies.

The federal government, though, has so far not prevented domestic manufacturers of critical medical supplies from shipping that gear abroad. FEMA told ABC News this week it had "not actively encouraged or discouraged U.S. companies from exporting overseas."

On Thursday, Trump's top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, said that on Friday, the federal government would issue an order that would "empower Customs and Border Protection, with the help of people like the post office and express mail consignors like UPS, to basically deal with that issue." He did not provide more details.

Meanwhile, Trump had until last week largely resisted using the Korean War-era Defense Production Act, which would allow him to set prices and order companies to sign contracts, previously only threatening its use.

Trump last week said he would use the act to compel General Motors to produce ventilators, and on Thursday he said he would use it to help more manufacturers produce ventilators. He nor the White House have provided exact details on how it would be employed.

Trump also used the act on Thursday to compel the conglomerate 3M, a major producer of N-95 respirator masks, to prioritize orders from FEMA. The company said Friday the federal government had "requested that 3M cease exporting respirators that we currently manufacture in the United States to the Canadian and Latin American markets."

Pushing back, 3M said that doing so could lead to retaliation from other countries -- decreasing the total supply of masks available to the United States -- and noted there were "significant humanitarian implications of ceasing respirator supplies to healthcare workers in Canada and Latin America, where we are a critical supplier of respirators."

The president last week appointed Navarro to lead procurement using the Defense Production Act, but Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday that Navarro was not the right person for the job and that a military general should take the lead.

Trump on Thursday morning rejected that he needed to change anything, saying that a "military man," Polowczyk, was already involved.
What to know about coronavirus:

"Somebody please explain to Cryin’ Chuck Schumer that we do have a military man in charge of distributing goods, a very talented Admiral, in fact. New York has gotten far more than any other State, including hospitals & a hospital ship, but no matter what, always complaining," Trump tweeted.

But with Navarro in charge of implementing the Defense Production Act, Polowczyk heading up the supply chain task force and Vice President Mike Pence running a presidential coronavirus task force -- not to mention other heavily involved officials, like Kushner -- responsibility is diffuse across the administration.

No one person has been put in charge of every step, from assessing current capacity and need to overseeing a national production strategy, coordinating with states and hospitals, and ensuring distribution.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, who is running for the Democratic nomination for president, on Tuesday called on Trump to appoint a former general or someone else in the administration "who is used to organizing massive efforts" to lead the charge.

"Consolidating all of this into one person makes sense," Michael Posner, a former assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor in the Obama administration, told ABC News.

"I can't think of any group that is better than the most senior military leaders," said Posner, who now directs the Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University's Stern School of Business. "This is what they do. This is what they've done, and they've done it in real time and in difficult circumstances."

ABC News' Anne Flaherty, Eric Strauss, Megan Hughes and Molly Nagle contributed reporting.

After Kushner says 'it's our stockpile,' HHS website changed to echo his comments on federal crisis role originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

IRS's antiquated technology could delay delivery of $1,200 coronavirus stimulus checks, experts warn
Antiquated technology and staff reductions at the Internal Revenue Service have seriously hampered the agency’s ability to process checks in such a short period

FORTY YEARS OF AUSTERITY
Michael Collins, USA TODAY•April 4, 2020

The coronavirus stimulus deal reaches trillions of dollars after Senate announces deal

WASHINGTON – Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is promising that millions of Americans will receive $1,200 stimulus checks in just two weeks, but some tax experts and congressional officials are warning it may take much longer.

Antiquated technology and staff reductions at the Internal Revenue Service have seriously hampered the agency’s ability to process checks in such a short period and could mean delays in sending the money to anxious Americans who are counting on the cash to get them through hard times caused by the coronavirus pandemic, experts say.

“There are going to be a lot of people for whom this is going to take a while, and I think it’s going to be measured in terms of months, not weeks,” said Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute's Tax Policy Center.

The checks are coming: Mnuchin promises stimulus checks for many in 2 weeks after Democrats warn it could be months

Mnuchin dismissed such concerns at a White House news conference on Thursday, telling reporters the IRS will begin sending the money to many Americans via direct deposit in just two weeks. Checks will be mailed to Americans who haven’t provided their bank account information to the IRS.

“I don’t know where you’re hearing these things,” Mnuchin said of possible delays. “This money does people no good if it shows up in four months, and we will deliver on that promise (of two weeks).”

The checks are part of a $2.2 trillion economic recovery package that President Donald Trump signed into law last week to provide a quick cash infusion to Americans hurt financially by the coronavirus crisis. The recovery package also includes loans, grants and tax breaks for businesses also reeling from the economic fallout caused by the pandemic.

But the Trump administration’s quick timeline for getting the stimulus checks into the hands of Americans is once again calling attention to aging technology and other problems that have shadowed the IRS for years – problems that will pose a serious challenge for the agency as it scrambles to meet the check delivery deadline.

The Treasury Department insists that 50 million to 70 million Americans will get their payments via direct deposit by April 15 and that most of those who are eligible will get their checks within three weeks. Americans whose bank account information is not currently in the government’s system may have to wait longer, Treasury says.

But a memo distributed by House Democrats on Thursday warned some Americans could have to wait up to 20 weeks – or five months – before they receive their checks.

“I don’t want to underestimate what the IRS can do,” said Nina Olson, a former taxpayer advocate at the IRS. “I think it’s under enormous pressure to get those checks out as quickly as possible.”

The IRS will probably be able to get some checks out in three or four weeks, said Olson, who now serves as executive director of the nonprofit Center for Taxpayer Rights. “But I don’t think everybody should expect their check in that time,” she said. “And it will take a period of time to get a bunch of those checks out.”

Adding to the IRS’s pressures are staffing issues – the agency's workforce has shrunken by 20 percent over the past decade – and limitations caused by its aging tax-processing apparatus.

IRS's information technology systems are among the oldest in the federal government. Two of its database systems – one master file that holds the record of all taxpayers and another that contains records of business tax accounts – date back to the 1960s.

Olson and others have warned for years that the IRS doesn’t have the technology it needs to do its job. The agency has tried to patch the problems by layering smaller systems and applications onto its older systems, but that has often created new glitches since not all of the computer programs are able talk to each other.

“The IRS has erected a 50-story office building on top of a creaky, 60-year-old foundation, and it is adding a few more floors every year,” Olson wrote in her taxpayer advocate report to Congress last year. “There are inherent limitations on the functionality of a 60-year-old infrastructure, and at some point, the entire edifice is likely to collapse.”

Change of heart: Treasury backs off requirement that Social Security recipients take extra step to get $1,200 checks

A dramatic example of the system’s limitations happened two years ago, when IRS computers became overwhelmed and crashed as millions of Americans tried to file their returns and make payments on Tax Day. The agency was forced to give taxpayers an additional day to file and pay their taxes.

To help process the stimulus checks, the IRS said it will create a web-based portal so that Americans who haven’t already provided their direct deposit information to the government can do so online. But Gleckman questioned how quickly the agency would be able to get such a portal up and running.

The IRS did not respond to questions about whether it is building the portal or hiring a contractor to do the work. But, “If they are going to try to build it, there is now way they can build this thing in a week,” Gleckman said.

Many taxpayers didn’t see a check for months when the government authorized stimulus rebates during the Great Recession in 2008. Back then, only 60 percent of taxpayers filed their returns electronically. Nearly 90 percent of all taxpayers file their tax returns electronically today, which should make it easier for the IRS to deliver their checks, Gleckman said.

But when it comes to paper checks, the IRS is limited in the number it can process in any given week, said Garrett Watson, an economist at the nonprofit Tax Foundation.

“This is partly due to out-of-date technology," Watson said, "but is also driven by the fact that the IRS doesn’t have a smooth process to quickly send out tens of millions of rebates in only a handful of weeks."

Olson said taxpayers deserve a more detailed explanation of when they can expect the checks.

“I worry the IRS is not going to be allowed to say that because the administration wants people to have some hope that the check is in the mail, even if it isn't," she said.

What impact will coronavirus have on climate change?

Climate change still a threat, even as carbon emissions fall due to coronavirus pandemic

March data from San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography appears to show the rate of rise of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere has slowed.

Mike Bebernes Editor,Yahoo News 360•April 1, 2020
“The 360” shows you diverse perspectives on the day’s top stories and debates.

What’s happening

In nations around the world, everyday life has come to a grinding halt as part of efforts to stem the spread of the coronavirus. City streets sit empty. Factories are shuttered. Planes sit idly on runways. Traffic on major freeways has disappeared.

An unintended side effect of the lockdowns to curb coronavirus has been a significant decrease in emissions. Air pollutants from Chinese factories dropped dramatically when manufacturing in parts of the country shut down. Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions could drop by as much as 24 percent this year, one analyst found. The notoriously smoggy skies over Los Angeles have been clear for weeks.

The global shutdown caused by the virus has inadvertently become the “largest scale experiment ever” in the reduction of greenhouse gases, said an expert with the European Space Agency.

Why there’s debate

Not even the most zealous environmentalist would downplay the enormous health impacts of the coronavirus, but some see opportunity within the crisis to make major progress in preventing drastic outcomes from climate change. The dramatic changes in daily life that people have taken in recent weeks show that the world is capable of making adjustments needed to limit climate change, some argue. It’s possible that many people will continue parts of the energy-friendly lifestyle they’ve become used to during social distancing, such as teleworking or limiting food waste.

Some green energy advocates see an opportunity to create a more sustainable global economy after the pandemic has ended. Governments will likely need to spend enormous amounts of money to recover from the downturn caused by the virus. Focusing that spending on renewable energy infrastructure could help reduce reliance on fossil fuels and provide high-quality jobs for millions of workers who are unemployed, some argue.

Others say that the crisis could be a major impediment to meaningful action on climate change. Emissions levels aren’t expected to stay low once the outbreak subsides — and they may even increase afterward, especially if oil prices stay low. It’s possible that governments will abandon environmental concerns as they put all their efforts into staving off the pandemic and reviving the economy. Leaders in China and Europe are reportedly reconsidering carbon reduction initiatives in response to the virus. On Tuesday, the Trump administration followed through on a previously planned move to rollback auto emission standards.

Some experts fear an extended economic downturn could cause funding for green energy projects and scientific research to evaporate.

Perspectives

Optimists

The virus has shown we’re capable of the bold changes needed to stop climate change

“A bold, world-wide climate policy would not be like the coronavirus response in the details or objectives, but the scale is about right. … If we can completely overhaul whole countries in a matter of days to fight off a pandemic, we could do the same thing to forestall disastrous climate change.” — Ryan Cooper, The Week

Economic recovery creates opportunity for a Green New Deal

“With politicians newly willing to spend, [economic recovery] could build a carbon-neutral, significantly stronger and fairer society — and put millions to work doing it.” — Kate Aronoff, New Republic

The crisis shows the flaws in our current economic system

“One may argue that the pandemic is part of climate change and therefore, our response to it should not be limited to containing the spread of the virus. What we thought was ‘normal’ before the pandemic was already a crisis and so returning to it cannot be an option.” — Vijay Kolinjivadi, Al Jazeera

The virus is a teachable moment for the threat of climate change

“If there’s any silver lining in this mess, it’s that the coronavirus pandemic is teaching us a valuable lesson about the perils of ignoring destructive processes — and perhaps even larger, longer-term disasters — that increase exponentially. Even if growth looks mild in the moment … it will soon enough be severe. In other words, delay is the enemy.” — Howard Kunreuther and Paul Slovic, Politico

Workers may choose to continue working from home after the pandemic ends

“We’re all learning how remote meetings, panels and other events work. To the extent that companies stick with these habits once we’re all able to work and travel like normal again, these changes could have a more lasting impact on our energy use, particularly in transportation.” — Amy Harder, Axios

Coronavirus has shown how fragile our society is and how capable we are of solving big problems

“The pandemic has awakened us from our slumber. It is letting us see the real consequences of denial. That may be its most important lesson — allowing us the insight, strength and compassion to build a resilient and robust future.” — Adam Frank for NBC News

Skeptics

The money needed to fund green energy projects may dry up

“A global recession as a result of coronavirus shutdowns could also slow or stall the shift to clean energy. If capital markets lock up, it will become difficult for companies to secure financing for planned solar, wind and electric grid projects, and it could tank proposals for new projects.” — Meehan Crist, New York Times
Lawmakers’ late response to coronavirus is a bad sign for climate change

“Perhaps this pandemic will teach lawmakers about the perils of waiting to act until it is too late. Or maybe it will simply give them a glimpse into a future where everyone and everything is endangered by a threat we will not take seriously until it is already killing us.” — Mark Joseph Stern, Slate

Stimulus money may go to heavy-polluting industries“It’s possible that a lot of that money could easily be poured into high-carbon industries, which will mean that we could actually end up compounding the climate crisis through how we address the COVID-19 outbreak.” — Clean energy advocate Mohamed Adow to Reuters
Stopping climate change requires action, not inaction

“The truth is that fixing global warming will not be easy, but it will not look like this. It will look like cleaner technologies, different sources of power — wind, not coal — cleaner, denser, more-walkable cities. It will look like plant-based diets, more trees, electric planes, and so on. It looks like carbon taxes and regulating (and prosecuting) of still-powerful fossil fuel interests. It looks like action, not inaction; taking to the streets, not staying home.” — John Sutter, CNN

The environment will take a back seat to economic concerns

“If the global economy crashes, emissions will drop short term as we produce fewer goods, but climate action will slow. Employment trumps environment in politics. If companies are hurting, they may delay or even cancel climate-friendly policies that require investments up front.” — Earth system scientist Rob Jackson to CNBC
Lower emissions are only temporary

“If other global crises, like financial bubbles, are any indication, this is but a temporary dip in emissions. In fact, to make up for lost money, nations like China will roar back with capitalistic mania. Modern economies halt for no disease — at least not in the long term.” — Matt Simon, Wired

The public was moved by the imminent threat of the virus. Climate change is too gradual.

“Our brains simply are not wired to engage with a danger that is not acutely present. We are activated by threats that could come for us tomorrow or next week, like this virus, much more than we are moved by an inestimably greater danger that moves toward us, inexorably, but at a slower pace.” — Thom Krystofiak, Des Moines Register