Day 128 Nat'l Emergency: Is the Political Pendulum Swinging?

With just under four months till the election the pendulum has given signs it is ready to swing backward.

After more than four months of jabs and haymakers that have left his administration reeling, Donald Trump appears to have regained some energy. 

Conservative voices are saying woke movements have gone too far. A federal judge has strongly questioned the sexual harassment and abuse settlement against Harvey Weinstein. Conservative columnist Andrew Sullivan is leaving New York Magazine. Bari Weiss is leaving The New York Times because she claims a bullying atmosphere that attacks non liberal stances is tolerated by management. Federal executions have begun anew with Trump threatening more. Trump is further threatening to send in federal forces to cities run by liberal mayors he says cannot control violence. He also is said to be supportive of a Missouri couple who pointed guns at Black Lives Matter protesters. The CDC director is blaming visiting Northerners for the pandemic outbreak in the South. Trump administration lackeys are degrading the expertise of Dr. Anthony Fauci. Though Joe Biden’s lead in Pennsylvania polls is double digits pollsters say a majority believe there is a “secret” number of Trump voters who could keep the Keystone State red.

Trump is betting his base enjoys their White privilege even as fence-sitting voters will be repulsed by excesses of ultra-progressive woke groups. Their combined ballots will keep him in the White House for another four years

Trump is like that Philadelphia icon—Rocky. It is hard to knock him down. To keep him down.

Biden so far has played a version of Muhammed Ali’s rope-a-dope strategy against George Forman, keeping mostly to himself. He is letting Trump tire himself and the public out with outlandish tweets on all manner of national affairs alongside public displays of indifference to the personal, human losses from COVID-19, now totaling more than 138,000 lives from more than 3.48 million confirmed cases. Even now that he is wearing a mask in public the glower beneath it comes through.

The race for the presidency is a like a 15-round championship boxing match, not a three-round amateur bout. Polling can be illusory. Hillary learned that lesson four years ago.

Barring an international emergency or another vacancy on the Supreme Court, the election will be settled by three intertwined events: the status of the pandemic, the state of the economy, and the success, or lack of, school reopenings.

The pendulum might be swinging a little more in Trump’s direction but there is plenty time for it to swing back to Biden’s corner. 

Day 126 Nat'l Emergency: Constitutional Rights, COVID and the Sun, Tammy's Time and Teddy's Grandson Speaks

Our basket full of fruits, vegetables, some dairy products and several grocery items, we were about to enter the self checkout lane when Gilda remembered she needed two cans of coconut milk. We zipped into the international foods aisle and picked up two cans of Goya coconut milk.

The next day Gilda read the CEO of Goya Foods was a big Trump supporter, that Latinos and others were boycotting Goya products because of his advocacy, and that he went on Fox News to decry the boycott as an infringement of his right to free speech (https://mol.im/a/8512787).

We have now joined the boycott.

Is it a restriction of free speech? Hardly. A boycott is itself an expression of free speech. It poses no physical harm. CEO Robert Unanue may continue to spout his love of Trump, but at least now he is aware his market share might suffer. 

Lesson to be learned—it is hardly ever wise to mix politics with business. Support nonpartisan programs yes, but endorse specific candidates at your company’s peril.

Is requiring a mask be worn before entering a store or boarding a plane a violation of one’s constitutional rights? Hardly. Private enterprise may regulate behavior within its territory. Just as retailers, restaurants and other service establishments have the right to deny entry if attire codes for shoes, tops, bottoms, and other clothing items are not followed, and may enforce smoking prohibitions, they also can regulate the wearing of a mask by anyone who desires to patronize their private property. 

That’s the key—it is their private property. They are not violating anyone’s constitutional rights by setting behavior standards (https://www.aarp.org/health/healthy-living/info-2020/retailers-require-face-masks-coronavirus.html).

The troubling aspect of the Goya and mask protesters’ protests is that they are emulating Trump’s claims that his constitutional rights are being restricted when Twitter and other Internet sites remove or tag his communications as untrue or inflame violence. Users of Internet message boards do so with the understanding that they must abide by each site’s protocols. There is no law that requires a company to freely spread Trump’s or anyone’s propaganda. There is no law that restricts companies from restricting messages that violate their standards of performance. 

Steam Heat: If we’ve learned anything from our time under Trump’s shadow it is that The Donald rarely remembers what he said the day before, much less months ago. 

But we remember. We remember how he cavalierly told an anxious public not to worry about the COVID-19 virus, that with the coming spring and summer the coronavirus will melt away in the sun and heat. “It dies very quickly with the sun,” he said on April 23. 

I wonder how that forecast is sitting with the residents of Florida, Texas and Arizona as they swelter under extreme heat and a raging pandemic. 

When will Trump’s supporters finally realize he is no doctor, no scientist, no weather forecaster? When will they accept their lives depend on that realization? I cannot really feel sorry for them. They’ve chosen ignorance and bombast over science and sound medical advice.

Trump is the prototype Yahoo envisaged by Jonathan Swift in “Gulliver’s Travels.” He is a non believer in science. Moreover, when science displays his deficiencies he attacks the scientists as Dr. Anthony Fauci is discovering. 

One of the subplots of the November election will be the public’s appreciation of science. Much like wearing or not wearing a mask has turned into a referendum showing anti-Trump vs. pro-Trump forces, the belief in science and medical advice is pigeonholing the electorate in seemingly uncompromising camps.

The same can be said for those who seek a reevaluation of many of our country’s historic figure statues and those who oppose it.

Tammy Duckworth has catapulted into contention to be Joe Biden’s vice presidential running mate with her recent dustup with Trump and Fox News bloviator Tucker Carlson. They criticized her “openness to ‘a national dialogue’ about our founders’ complex legacies.”

Her combative op-ed in The New York Times included one of the best retorts to Trump’s bullying and Carlson’s questioning of her patriotism (https://nyti.ms/3iL97Cg). 

The junior senator from Illinois, a decorated Iraq war Illinois National Guard veteran, who lost her legs from a rocket propelled grenade in 2004, wrote, “These titanium legs don’t buckle.” 

To which my friend Hymie would add, “and they don’t have bone spurs,” a dig at Trump’s alleged medical excuse for evading the draft during the Vietnam War. Carlson also never served in the military. A year younger than Duckworth, he chose not to enlist for the Gulf War or for subsequent action in Iraq and Afghanistan. Duckworth volunteered.

One of the more eloquent commentaries on the debate over statues of historic figures comes from Mark Roosevelt. A statue of his great grandfather, Theodore Roosevelt, astride a horse while an African and a Native American stand beneath him on either side of the horse, is slated to be moved from the Central Park West entry to the Museum of Natural History in New York City. 

The president of St. John’s College in Santa Fe, N.M., Mark Roosevelt supported the move. His words are worth listening to: https://www.facebook.com/CBSSundayMorning/videos/298818314812875/

Day 115 Nat'l Emergency: Four More Years

How relentlessly depressing it must be to be a political reporter these days. Sure, election coverage is supposed to be exhilarating, but in the Age of Trump it cannot be anything but depressing, at least if you are a thinking woman or man.

It is not policy differences that traumatize. After all, one can disagree on the best course for the economy or foreign relations. Republicans and Democrats have been at odds for generations.

But if one has even half a brain it is cruel and unusual punishment to be a reporter required to listen to continual degradation of science and medical precautions in the wake of a pandemic that already has snuffed out the lives of 125,000 Americans. The sad tally will rise countless thousands more because Republican administrations in Washington, DC, and numerous states refuse to listen to healthcare experts. 

I don’t listen to Trump’s rally speeches, other than snippets national news programs air. I don’t follow his tweets or Facebook rantings. I am convinced from news reports and, regrettably, from the few friends I know who are Trumpsters, that the Trump-converted cannot be enlightened that he is a danger physically and metaphysically to the health and welfare of the United States. 

Responding to a middle-of-the-road friend’s inquiry as to who would be blamed if Joe Biden fails to defeat Trump, I responded, “The basket of deplorables—not the Trump voters but the deplorables who chose not to vote.” 

Political punsters opine that it is up to Biden to sufficiently enthuse the electorate to unseat Trump. Yes, Biden needs to sell a vision for America. But it is equally important that everyday Americans come to grips with what Trump has stripped from our nation’s ideals and values. They must want to return to civility, to respect, to a position admired, not pitied or flabbergasted, by the rest of the world.

Trump won in 2016 because anti-Hillary voters in key swing states thought Trump would be a lesser evil than Clinton. Some Never Trumpers and disaffected Bernie Bros sat out the election rather than cast their votes for Hillary. Or they voted for third party candidates. Many more, millions across the country, just didn’t vote because. No real reason. Just because. 

All those voters that didn’t go against Trump now have an inflection point decision to make. They’ve seen what Trump can and cannot do as manager of our country. They must decide if the country can survive or thrive four more years of his (mis)management. 

Recent Supreme Court decisions protecting abortion rights in Louisiana, LGBTQ rights nationwide and Dreamers from deportation provide Trump a red-meat platform to stir up his base and possibly others who want a more conservative court. Having delivered two Supreme Court justices and 198 lower court judges, Trump will argue his work to overhaul the judicial system is not complete. 

Of course, that argument also works as a counterbalance to pump up Democratic opposition.

Unlike four years ago, Trump must run on his record. He likes being the center of attention, but that spotlight comes with liabilities. 

He clearly has an attention span problem. He doesn’t hear what others tell him or what is contained in Internet files he retweets. He doesn’t hear himself. His staff is forever reclassifying what he willingly reveals in public. He plays with his smartphone during meetings of his economic advisors. 

He is what we would call a gifted child, only in his case it refers not to his brain power but to the millions in cash father Fred Sr. gifted him.

As his polling numbers turn south—an otherwise favorite geographic area for Trump (sorry, couldn’t resist the pun)—some are wondering if he will decide he’s had enough abuse and just abandon the reelection effort. 

It will never happen! His ego would not permit him to walk away. He sees his rabid fans as sufficient to secure a second term. If he were to abandon them they would abandon his post-presidential role as a TV talking head. 

He will not be restricted by tradition, as past presidents have been, to standing by without commenting in the extreme about his successor’s actions. He has no compunction about destroying tradition or national heritage.

Trump is a tumulter through and through. That’s why if he loses the election he will keep his public profile high through TV work as a commentator on the ultra-conservative One America News Network with an eye to running again in 2024. 

He will use that as a springboard to launch a new campaign because in his mind he MUST avenge his humiliating defeat in 2020, much the way he decided to run in 2016 to avenge his humiliation at the White House Correspondents dinner in 2011.

Political reporters will have no respite from Trump for at least the next four years, whether he wins or not. And neither will the rest of us. 

Day 100 of Nat'l Emergency: Books Plague Trump

If, as John Bolton writes in his new book, “The Room Where It Happened,” all of Donald Trump’s actions have been taken with a view to how they would affect his re-election, even if they undermined U.S. interests, it means Trump has a malevolent opinion of a majority of the American public. 

Trump would have to believe they are racist, misogynist, bigots who would deny equal rights and protections to anyone outside their tribe, be they Moslems, Latinos, immigrants, Blacks, gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transsexuals, or queers. Women who want equality and Democrats also are not to be tolerated, but dictators in other countries are to be embraced. 

If the facts are as Trump’s former national security advisor writes, it is no wonder the non-reader-in-chief wants to bar(r—pun intended) the book from publication. It also means Trump is either the shrewdest politician of his era or the most incompetent. 

He either has figured out how to win re-election by securing the required 270 Electoral College votes from his malignant base in red states, or he will go down as a president who squandered every opportunity to expand his base into blue states. 

He has foot-in-mouth disease. Even when he tries to explain his actions or tweets he reinforces his meager standing among those who might be willing to grant him the benefit of the doubt, as when he claimed in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests to have done more for Blacks than any other president, including Abraham Lincoln (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/12/trump-criticizes-lincoln-brags-he-has-done-a-lot-to-help-black-americans.html?__source=sharebar|email&par=sharebar), or his rejection of calls to rechristen military bases named for Confederate generals.

Some might say Joe Biden suffers from the same ailment. Theres a difference, however. Former vice president and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Biden misspeaks because his brain cannot keep up with his mouth. So he makes benign miscues, misstating dates or the sequence of events. Troubling, but not egregious.

Trump, on the other hand, doubles down on his whoppers. He fabricates “facts” he believes are reality and chastises any who would challenge his version of the truth. He presumes that as president no one has the right to correct his record. 

Much to his displeasure, he has found journalists and elected officials have the temerity to disavow his “truthiness,” even as his millions of zombie-like followers  believe him. They believe only him.

John Bolton is merely the latest insider who has awakened from the Trump trance. His book, if and when it is officially released (copies have been obtained by various media), will add some spicy examples of political power portioned out by Trump pique and incompetence.

It won’t change any minds. No votes will shift from red to blue or blue to red. Based on current conditions, only two intertwined things will matter to voters November 3—the state of the economy and the status of the novel coronavirus pandemic in America. 

First Enabler: I have long suspected Melania Trump is not a captive of politics, a hostage in the White House, a prisoner of conscience who sends out messages with clothing or a hand slap that she is a reluctant participant in her husband’s attack on our democracy.

Rather than calling her the First Lady she should be called the First Enabler. According to a new unauthorized biography, “The Art of Her Deal” by Mary Jordan, a Pulitzer Prize reporter for The Washington Post, Melania pushed her husband to run for president. She has stood by Trump despite repeated credible allegations of his sexual infidelity and misconduct (https://nyti.ms/2ArHgpA).

Gilda long ago nailed the reason Melania delayed moving into the White House. She wanted a renegotiated prenuptial agreement, Gilda postulated. Jordan agrees.

Family Matters: As if the First Family didn’t have enough reason to stoke a book burning on the White House lawn, one of Trump’s nieces has decided to air some of his dirty linen (https://mol.im/a/8429643). 

Mary Trump, daughter of his deceased brother, Fred Trump Jr., is the author of “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” scheduled to be released July 28. Uncle Donald has threatened a suit to block its distribution because she allegedly signed a nondisclosure agreement about their relationship.

It will be titillating reading, no doubt, but mere reinforcement for anti-Trumpers and of no consequence to his groupies. 

Day 98 of Nat'l Emergency: Provocateur-in-Chief Could Turn Into Cable TV Agent-Provocateur

It was a busy week for the provocateur-in-chief even by his grotesque standards. Pick your offended targets:

Blacks and supporters of Black Lives Matter protesting police brutality and systemic discrimination; 

An elderly, injured-by-Buffalo-police protester accused of being a member of Antifa; 

Military leaders who criticized his use of troops to clear constitutionally permitted protest across from the White House so he could have his picture taken in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church; 

Episcopalians and Catholics vexed by his photo op performance holding a Bible;

Anyone who believed military bases named for traitorous Confederate generals should be renamed; 

Professional football and soccer leagues for permitting athletes to express political dissent; 

Nascar for banning Confederate flags;

LGBTQ community for being denied Obama-era health patient protections; 

The media for questioning his many actions; 

Abraham Lincoln for not doing enough; 

And of course Joe Biden and Democrats for everything they do. 

Donald Trump did, however, try to put to rest the fear among his detractors that he would barricade himself in the White House should he lose the election November 3. 

“Certainly, if I don’t win, I don’t win,” Trump declared on Fox News in an interview with Harris Faulkner. “You go on, do other things” (https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/12/trump-says-will-leave-office-peacefully-if-he-loses-315736?cid=apn).

Of course, given his footloose and fancy free track record with the truth the liar-in-chief cannot be trusted on his word. Skepticism is called for. 

Removed from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue by force or tradition January 20, the provocateur-in-chief will not go gently into the night. 

He will turn into an agent-provocateur unrestrained by any protocols of office (as if he ever was) to dispense bilious dissent and conspiracy theories as the featured anchor of a cable television network. 

Probably not Fox. Either one of his own creation or OAN, One America News Network, a far-right pro-Trump cable channel founded by Robert Herring, Sr., owned by Herring Networks, Inc. of San Diego. OAN is well-liked and often cited by Trump for its conspiracy theory stories. OAN is not considered to be reliably truthful. 

A deposed Trump will seek to keep the divisions in our country red hot, thwarting any chance Biden might have to forge harmony among the citizenry and our traditional international allies. Trump will act not as a dedicated, doctrinaire Conservative Republican but rather as a vindictive egotist seeking revenge for his ultimate humiliation. 

A chair in front of a cable TV camera would stoke his goal of recapturing the seat behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. As a one term president the 74-year-old would be eligible to run again in 2024. Biden has shown a candidate who would be 78 years old when taking the presidential oath is not disqualified by voters.  

Neither would a conviction for tax fraud or any other felony bar Trump from holding federal office again. Even if in prison he could run. Aside from his cable gig Trump could also try for the U.S. Senate from his new state of residence, Florida. 

Sadly, the cult of Trump will linger as long as The Donald and his three henchmen eldest children stay in the public eye. Trump has sucked the soul out of the GOP. 

Short of a cataclysmic election debacle the Republican Party has cast its foreseeable future with a modern day Dracula and his offspring, both biological and ideological. 

Day 67 of Nat'l Emergency: Joe Misspeaks, Trump Stumbles Toward a New China Relationship

What should we make of Uncle Joe’s latest humdinger (latest being very transient and perhaps overtaken by a new faux pas by the time this gets posted).

Sure, the 77-year-old presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee last week mixed up statistics about the devastation of the coronavirus. Joe Biden said 85,000 people were out of work and millions had died. 

Poor Joe, his mouth and mind do not always work in sync. But who among us has not conflated statistics when making public, even personal, observations. 

Of course, we hold our politicians, especially those who seek the presidency, to a higher standard, at least if those pols are Democrats. 

Republicans, on the other hand, have long abandoned any fealty to facts if the spigot of wisdom is Donald Trump. They only care for truth if a Democrat speaks, much the same way they railed against budget deficits by Democrats with nary a word of dissent when Republican presidents catapulted the national debt to the stratosphere.

Though Biden’s misspeaks provide fodder for ridicule from the insulter-in-chief, they have also generated an undercurrent of belief that Democrats should dump him in favor of a younger, more verbally adept candidate who would be able to stand up to Trump during debates. 

My response is Democrats should not panic. While not a perfect candidate, Biden, by all thoughtful accounts, is the lesser of what many call evils. Would the public rather have a candidate who misaligns statistics about the number who are dead with the number who have lost jobs, or would it prefer an incumbent who tells people to swig some Clorox, or who disdains the advice of scientists not only on COVID-19 but on climate change and relaxes EPA rules that further endanger our citizens and planet? 

The election is more than five months away. Only political junkies are tuned in to every word Biden utters. As for Trump, we are forced to hear or read about his latest delusional ravings because the media focuses on them as he is president. Several studies have shown that the more he rants and raves, the more votes from Independents and Never Trump Republicans he is sending Biden’s way.

Consider Trump’s latest barrage against what he calls Obamagate. He wants the former president investigated and charged for what he says was a conspiracy to topple his presidency. A heinous crime, if true. But Justin A. Horwitz, in a Facebook post, posed an interesting question: “If the president has absolute immunity like Trump says, how can Obama be guilty of ‘crimes’ committed as president?”

As the Shakespearean saying goes, “Hoisted by one’s own petard!” (D’ya think Trump ever read “Hamlet?”)

Deuces Wild: There are two wild cards when it comes to the election. First, the status of COVID-19 infections and its impact on the economy. Second, our relationship with China.

Trump realizes he will be held responsible if business does not return to a semblance of normalcy with lots of people returning safely to work. He’s pushing for a quick return so five months from now voters will not hold him accountable for the loss of at least 100,000 lives because of his inaction in February and March to prepare the country for the pandemic.

China is a more vexing issue. The Donald thought he could sweet talk Xi Jinping into economic concessions. But the novel coronavirus outbreak shattered their bonhomie. Trump now is playing a blame, and race, game against the Chinese. 

A winning strategy might be to base his reelection on changing our relationship with China. China, not North Korea or Iran, is more of an existential threat to our way of life than any other country, even Russia, given our reliance on China for much of our consumer and healthcare products and even strategic technical and military equipment. 

But to change that relationship Trump must educate the American public and convince it that it is in their best interests to pay a little more for all the products that China produces cheaply for us. In addition,  U.S. companies must abandon their manufacturing plants in China and build them either in America or in countries that are not as competitive with us for world domination. They might also have to forego the Chinese consumer market which would sharply slow their growth rates. That wouldn’t sit well with too many farmers who export soy beans, hogs and other foodstuffs to China. 

If Trump had developed a rapport with more than just the hotheads who follow him blindly this strategy might work, but I doubt he could pull it off. Besides, he’d first have to convince Ivanka to give up her China trade.

Day 59 of Nat'l Emergency: Other Voices

Time for some voices other than mine, so here are a handful of quotes from news stories of the last 10 days.

Essential Business?: “I’m willing to go to jail for this,” Harrington said on reopening. “If they (police) come into my club, they’ll have to drag me out in handcuffs.”

That’s Shane Harrington, owner of Club Omaha (Omaha, Neb.), talking about his decision to reopen his adult entertainment venue on Thursday, May 14. Harrington is okay with COVID-19 precautions—his nude dancers will wear face masks and gloves (https://www.omaha.com/news/local/nudity-and-face-masks-club-omaha-plans-to-reopen-next-week/article_0a9f77a7-0197-5f1f-96c3-3288b19fb25f.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=email&utm_campaign=user-share).

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3: Apparently, and to no one’s real surprise, Donald Trump cannot keep a secret. He spilled the beans on which aide to Vice President Mike Pence tested positive for the coronavirus. Here’s how The New York Times reported his loose-lips-sink-ships moment:

“White House officials initially asked reporters not to identify Ms. Miller as the aide who tested positive, but Mr. Trump blew the secret when he identified her publicly during his meeting with the congressional Republicans as ‘Katie’ and ‘the press person’ for Mr. Pence.

“‘She tested very good for a long period of time. And then all of a sudden today, she tested positive,’ Mr. Trump said. ‘She hasn’t come into contact with me. She spends some time with the vice president.’” (https://nyti.ms/3duLryu)

Are You Hungry?: Lots of people are because with no jobs bringing in a paycheck they lack sufficient cash to buy food, even as farms and dairies are killing off livestock, plowing under fields of grain and produce and poring milk down the drain because restaurants, hotels and schools are COVID-19 closed and not purchasing their production. 

“If the government were really interested in making sure that hungry people got fed and farmers were supported, they would figure out a way to do it,” Marion Nestle told The Times. Nestle is aptly named. She is a food studies professor at New York University. 

Did He Do It?: Tara Reade’s allegation that then senator Joe Biden sexually assaulted her some 30 years ago has left many wondering. Did he? Is she believable? Even if true, does it disqualify him from running for president given Donald Trump’s history of behavior toward women? 

Here’s one opinion expressed by Susan S. Sigalow in a letter to the editor of The Times: “As a female clinical psychologist with 40 years of experience, I can tell you that while it’s true that women who accuse men of sexual harassment should be given the benefit of the doubt, these women don’t always tell the truth. I never knew of a man who committed a sexual assault only once. It would be a pattern of behavior, repeated over time. 

“Joe Biden has a long history of public service. If he had been committing these kinds of behaviors there would be a trail of complaints, as there is around President Trump. There really are some men who tell the truth and do not commit crimes against women, and they also deserve the benefit of the doubt.”

What Price for a Human Life?: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says it is “priceless.”

“There’s a conversation that is going on about reopening that we are not necessarily explicit about, but which is very important,” he said. “There’s a question that is being debated right under the surface and the decisions we make on reopening are really profound decisions.

“The fundamental question which we’re not articulating is how much is a human life worth? How much do we think a human life is worth?”

Cuomo said that “the faster we reopen, the lower the economic cost; but the higher the human cost because the more lives lost. That, my friends, is the decision we are really making. What is that balance? What is that trade-off? Because it is very real.”

Day 29 of Nat’l Emergency: Daily Trump Show Is Best PR for Biden

Did you watch Thursday night’s “Jeopardy”? Specifically, did you marvel at Beni Keown’s orange-fro? Now that was some head of hair atop the Northwestern University freshman. It has even garnered its own Twitter feed.

For my part, it is now 13 weeks since my last haircut. My record is 15 weeks which I am sure to beat given the shelter-in-place command from Governor Cuomo. In case you’re wondering, no way will I allow Gilda to trim my locks. Last time I let an unlicensed female play with my hair I was about three years old. My five-year-old sister promised she wouldn’t hurt me but ever since then, I swear, my once straight hair has been curly. 

The Weather Channel app cautioned Friday’s forecast included gale warnings. It wasn’t kidding. There were whitecaps on the water of our birdbath on the patio.

Speaking of the great outdoors, Gilda says her flowers and vegetables will be among the most educated anywhere. Seems her planting preparations include placing copies of The New York Times in the covered beddings to ward off weeds by blocking sunlight from reaching them. When the newspaper breaks down it becomes good compost. 

I don’t know about you but I am fighting anxiety and depression by largely ignoring the detailed reporting on the new coronavirus. Call it avoidance therapy. If I don’t obsess over every last detail of our collective predicament it won’t go away, I know that, but at least I will not be imprisoned by it. Gilda, on the other hand, reads far more about the pandemic. Perhaps it’s because of her medical background as a nurse practitioner and her decades-ago experience as research coordinator of infectious diseases at New York Medical College.

We are lucky to have each other for company. I cannot fathom how single people are able to stay sane inside their residences. Gilda and I can detach for hours at a time, she in the garden or in searching the Internet for recipes or by sewing; I by writing blogs. But most of the time we have the reassurance of partnership.

We take daily walks, usually at least three miles. Six rotations of our housing development equals three miles. Or we drive to different neighborhoods. Last weekend we walked around Manor Park in Larchmont, a picturesque promontory along Long Island Sound surrounded by breathtaking turn of the 20th century mansions. We couldn’t believe that in 42 years of living in Westchester we had never previously discovered Manor  Park. 

From such simple discoveries sanity sustains itself.

We restrict our viewing to the evening news (NBC or CBS) and “Antiques Roadshow” during dinner. “Jeopardy” and either a movie or an episode of a drama like “Better Call Saul” or “My Brilliant Friend” in our refurnished den, made all the more cozy by our propane gas-powered freestanding stove still fired up on chilly evenings, complete the day. 

We rarely watch television or a movie during the daytime, though we might make an exception today. It’s too depressing to see “The Plot Against America” before we go to bed. 

The HBO adaption of Philip Roth’s book is a portrayal of what might have transpired in America had Nazi-loving, America First-cheering Charles Lindbergh defeated Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election. For those who shiver at the prospect of an autocratic presidency that exults in racial superiority and the diminution of rights thought to be enshrined in- and protected by the Constitution, the series is traumatizing for its relevance to the politics of today.

Under the cover of emergency powers declared to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, Donald Trump and his gang are tightening their grip on the nation. While most of the public is consumed consuming news on the virus, environmental protections are being shelved, asylum seekers are being deported without hearings, government watchdogs are being canned. The ability to vote is being suppressed.

Daily Trump media briefings have drawn criticism for their obvious politicization of the crisis and the seeming indifference Trump has to facts, medical advice and his administration’s culpability in failing to respond early and effectively. The central complaint is bewilderment that the media is providing a platform for his prevarications and mendacity. 

I take a contrary view. Trump on the stump is one of the best agents of change available to Democrats, Independents and thoughtful Republicans who want to see a change of leadership. By denying responsibility, by denigrating anyone who criticizes federal actions, by withholding supplies from states whose governors have spoken out, by showing his almost complete ignorance of the subject, by displaying almost zero compassion for those affected by the illness or unemployment, by caring only about big business and his television ratings, by pushing for an unproven treatment using a drug he is reported to have a financial interest in, Trump reinforces the reasons he needs to be replaced. 

“Democracy dies in darkness,” is the official slogan of The Washington Post. Trump is doing us a favor exposing himself every day. Rather than being lulled into a sense of security by Drs. Fauci and Birx explaining the evolution of the crisis and its treatment, Trump reminds us how nasty, how self-centered, how vindictive he is. 

Joe Biden has no means of securing equal air time to cement his claim to the presidency. His vision will not come into focus until closer to the election. Meanwhile, though Trump’s core supporters have not wavered, the “wartime” president has not been able to sustain new backers as his ineptitude becomes apparent. How fortunate that he is not getting a wartime bump but rather is being shown to be a wartime chump.

Day 4 of National Emergency: Susie Buffett Exposed, Goldman Sachs Takeaways, Energy Savings, and a Female VP

Over breakfast Gilda, who reads the Omaha World-Herald on line to keep abreast of what’s happening where Ellie, Donny and their family live, informed me that Susie Buffett, daughter of Warren Buffett, has been exposed to the coronavirus (https://www.omaha.com/livewellnebraska/health/warren-buffett-s-daughter-susie-exposed-to-coronavirus/article_0008f06b-07f2-5c6c-9571-9cb42b9b7579.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=email&utm_campaign=user-share).

To which I responded, “The virus has no knowledge of your Dun & Bradstreet profile.” (For those not familiar with D&B, it is a longstanding financial rating service of companies.) 

Donny’s brother Rob sent along notes he took from a Goldman Sachs conference call with some 1,500 companies over the weekend. Among the major takeaways:

• 50% of Americans will contract the virus (150 million people) as it is very communicable. This is on a par with the common cold (Rhinovirus) of which there are about 200 strains. The majority of Americans will get a common cold 2-4 times per year.
• Of those impacted by COVID-19, 80% will be early-stage, 15% mid-stage and 5% critical-stage. Early-stage symptoms are like the common cold and mid-stage symptoms are like the flu; treatment is stay at home for two weeks and rest. 5% will be critical and highly weighted towards the elderly. 
• In the U.S. about 3 million die every year, mostly due to old age and disease. Coronavirus might accelerate those deaths because of respiratory issues and may put undue stress on the healthcare system.
• Though COVID-19 will impact the economy and stock prices, experts predict they will bounce back later this year or in 2021.

Time Out for the Census: With time on your hands it’s a good moment to fill out your family’s census form on line. Gilda did ours earlier today. Go to my2020census.gov.

Energy Savings: Gilda keeps records of our electric energy usage. Here’s what she analyzed today on how we’ve fared since we made several energy enhancements:

In 2013 ConEd billed us for 14,563 kilowatts.

After changing most of our lightbulbs to LEDs the next year, our usage dropped to 12,337 in 2014.

In 2015 we installed solar panels. ConEd-provided kilowatts fell to 5,961. 

In 2018 they fell again to 4,447 after we installed Nest thermostats with an away-from-home factor. 

Even after Gilda retired in January 2019 and was home for more hours, usage dropped for last year to 3,494 kilowatts. 

Grumpy Old Men: There were no knockout blows delivered Sunday night between the last two Democrats—both septuagenarian men—sparring for their party’s presidential nomination. Their debate in a CNN studio in Washington without a live audience resembled trench warfare, lots of skirmishes with shifting positions but no outright victor, unless you applaud Joe Biden, and to a lesser extent the older by a year Bernie Sanders, for standing up for more than two hours without making any gaff that could boomerang back into their faces. 

The big news of the night was Biden’s unequivocal statement that he would pick a woman as a vice presidential running mate. Sanders said he would likely do so as long as she supported his revolutionary agenda. Both said women and minorities would comprise the majority of their cabinet officers. 

They also agreed climate change is an existential threat to America and the world—second only to Donald Trump serving four more years as president—but they differed in their approaches to abating global warming.

Speculation on Biden’s choice for vice president included names most anyone interested in politics would recognize—Warren, Klobuchar, Harris, Abrams and Cortez-Masto, to name a few. Realistically, only the last three would add sizzle to the ticket among Black and Latino voters so necessary for a Biden triumph. Klobuchar would help secure Rust Belt states, the ones Hillary Clinton failed to sew up in 2016. Biden has warmed to some of Warren’s progressive policies, but the public didn’t as evidenced by her failure to win any primary including that of her native state of Massachusetts.

All in all, Biden succeeded in shifting the political discussion and speculation from who will win the presidential nomination to which woman could be a heartbeat away from the next presidency.