[Pod] Pandemic, the Media, and a Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
In difficult moments leaders show their true colors; its important we remain skeptical of all of them.
Don’t forget you can listen to the podcast on Anchor or Spotify with the link below.
Pandemic Tests Humanity
Before going into the aftermath of this week’s round of voting I think it is appropriate to start by acknowledging the COVID-19 crisis which the WHO has now officially declared a pandemic. What began as an outbreak in one region of China has become a global problem that will need to be solved globally, much like climate change. It is exactly the kind of problem I am interested in talking about on this show, one that requires solidarity and novel strategies to be solved, and one that will test our global networks and cooperation. Because I expect this pandemic is only going to get worse, in the coming weeks I will start the show with a Pandemic Update to check in on our continued response to this viral disease.
At this point, we have seen a number of countries and many states in the US declare states of emergency and some have canceled schools and large public events. In the wake of the outbreak, many sporting leagues like the Premier League, NBA, NHL, MLS, and NCAA have all suspended their seasons/tournaments and other large gatherings/festivals like Coachella have been postponed. The remaining presidential campaigns have had to reassess their strategies and have started to cancel large rallies and have sent their workers home to work remotely. The panic has caused markets to plummet at a faster rate than the rate of decline in the lead up to the recession of 2008; it is truly terrifying to think of the kind of economic collapse we could witness.
Every nation seems to be tackling this challenge on their own, there does not seem to be any signs of efficient global coordination. In some countries, like South Korea, the response has been swift and methodical. In others like Italy, hospitals are under stress, there is a “grave shortage of health resources” and doctors have now had to implement war-time triage procedures to decide how to ration the care. One medical document published by an Italian college gave us a glimpse of the kinds of difficult decisions that we might have to make during this pandemic.
"It may become necessary to establish an age limit for access to intensive care. This is not a value judgments but a way to provide extremely scarce resources to those who have the highest likelihood of survival and could enjoy the largest number of life-years saved."
In America, because of our profit-driven system, we have a patchwork of hospitals, insurance carriers, and pharmaceutical companies, so it is almost impossible to have a response as swift and coordinated as the one in South Korea. Even CNN had to admit that Korea’s universal, single-payer insurance system was more effective at mobilizing containment efforts and had a more straightforward way of getting people tested which is key to “flattening the curve” (i.e. reducing the rate of infection) in a pandemic.
As Jake Tapper mentioned in that segment, nearly one-quarter of Americans don’t have a primary care physician, many are uninsured or underinsured, and even with insurance, care and testing can be very expensive. Imagine how many people are vulnerable to Covid-19 but won’t be able to get care if they get it? This truly is a nightmare scenario in a pandemic. We already see many reports documenting our poor response; as of a few days ago, we have only managed to conduct just over 11,000 tests while South Korea, whose population is less than a fifth than that of the United States, has conducted over 200,000. As Nina Turner said, we are only as strong as the least insured among us and it has never been more important to champion the idea that health care is a human right and that we should do away with this draconian healthcare system we have in America.
If this wasn’t bad enough, we, of course, have a president who frequently ignores scientists and who has already de-funded the CDC and gutted teams devoted to combatting epidemics. He was pompous enough to repeatedly lie about the availability of tests and claim that he’s an expert:
“I like this stuff. You know my uncle, he was a great person, he taught at MIT I think for a record number of years. He was a great super-genius, Dr. Jon Trump. I like this stuff, I really get it … Every one of these doctors said how do you know so much about this? Maybe I have a natural ability, maybe should’ve done that instead of running for president.”
Donald, I highly doubt you know much about infectious disease and how to contain it. We have to give some credit where its due, after telling us a few days ago that the virus would just “go away,” he finally declared a national State of Emergency on Friday the 13th. He abruptly suspended travel from Europe sending travelers into a panic. It also seems like his administration was more concerned with providing assistance to the cruise and travel industries and oil companies that have been hit by the price shock, instead of investing in care. We also know that the financial collapse wiped out nearly all of the gains of the tax cut that Trump got through and now the Federal Reserve is looking to give up to $1.5 trillion dollars in short term loans to banks; and if you believe it, Trump is demanding more … and yet we still can’t get tests? Once again it seems capital is more important than human life.
As a result of this lethal combination of a fragmented and inefficient system that is focused on money vs care, and clueless leadership, the next few weeks for the United States looks quite grim. Some scientists like Harvard epidemiologist Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding have been covering the outbreak closely and had warned of this kind of escalation from the beginning (I highly recommend his Twitter feed). He told Mehdi Hasan that in America we have missed 3 cycles of viral multiplication and could have infection rates up to 8x higher than what we could or really should have had given we are the richest country the face of the Earth has ever seen. He warns that in the coming weeks we will likely overwhelm our ICU capacity and will probably have scenes more similar to those in Italy as opposed to those in South Korea.
What we are seeing generally is that humans were woefully unprepared for this. I would urge us to rethink how we view public health and I hope we now understand how important global public health infrastructure is; these kinds of pandemics are, as WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus remin ded us, a common enemy to all of us. Are we prepared to transcend nationalism and help each other in our efforts? Are we prepared to handle the effects on the globalized markets and supply chains we created? Are we willing to be involved in our own communities and civic life to have conversations about new systems to prepare us for the next outbreak and vote in leaders who will implement them? Specifically here in America, are we content with how vulnerable our private system leaves us? Are we prepared to pick a candidate who actively seeks to keep it intact even during a pandemic?
Media beats Organizing
On March 10th, six more states had their say in the Democratic primary. After losing momentum and the media narrative on Super Tuesday, the Sanders campaign was focused on Michigan which had the largest number of delegates on offer and could serve to make his case that he could win in key rust-belt states. At this point, we all know what happened and for those of us who are worried about actually addressing climate change, building public health infrastructure to deal with pandemics like the one we are experiencing now, or taking power away from Wall St and the billionaires, the future is looking very bleak.
Bernie got destroyed. I hate to say it folks, but barring some kind of miracle, this thing is all but over. Bernie and his movement failed in the face of scared moderate boomers coming out to back Biden after moderate candidates coalesced the day before Super Tuesday. Bernie lost every county in Michigan and Biden won every state on the night other than North Dakota. Exit polls showed that older voters and suburban voters were dominant once again, particularly in Michigan where 62% of voters were aged 45 and up and 67% of the electorate was suburban; of course they mostly went for Biden. The window for Bernie is basically shut.
The one opportunity for a hail mary is the debate this Sunday where Bernie has one final shot at drawing distinct contrasts between himself and Biden. The party and CNN decided to push a new sit-down town hall debate format, most certainly to give Biden some cover allowing him to sit to avoid fatigue and take the audience questions instead of having a solid two hour back and forth policy debate. Coronavirus stepped in and gave Sanders a slight advantage as CNN eliminated the live audience for the debate. We have already seen this race flip in a matter of days, so though things are quite bleak if Biden does fall apart on the stage without the cover of a crowded stage and moderator interference, the narrative could shift. I think the contrast will be made clear, but Biden will be prepared enough to scrape through the two hours; he has probably the lowest bar of any politician I can remember. His perceived dementia might show but the voters have already seemed to decide he and his brand are more electable than Bernie and his movement.
Despite losing the delegate race on these two Super Tuesdays, Bernie and his movement most certainly won the ideological debate on issues like healthcare, the number one issue for Democratic voters other than beating Trump. In every single state “a government plan for all instead of private insurance” was supported more than it was opposed. So many voters who may be ready to try a new pubic healthcare system in America opted to go with Joe Biden, who staunchly opposes the idea. The case has been made to them that Joe Biden has a better chance of beating Donald Trump. Bernie himself in a press conference in the days following the primary recognized this defeat in the debate on electability:
I cannot tell you how many people our campaign has spoken to who have said “I like what your campagin stands for, I agree with what your campaign stands for, but I’m gonna vote for Joe Biden, because I think Joe is the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump.” We have heard that statement all over this country.
Now, where does the media come in? First and foremost I have to say that I am by no means am blaming the media for Bernie’s current losing position in the race, he and his campaign made some crucial mistakes and they knew from the beginning that the corporate networks would not be fair to their campaign and ideas. But the corporate news networks, particularly MSNBC and CNN (and print outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post) which many older democratic voters tune in to for political analysis, have been relentless in their attacks on Bernie and have treated some of the corporate candidates with kid gloves.
The prevailing narrative has been that Bernie’s ideas are ‘pie in the sky’ and there have been endless segments and op-eds claiming he has no chance of beating Donald Trump. In debate after debate, we had right-wing framing of questions from moderators and relentless attacks on Medicare for All and his ‘socialist’ label. You had Chris Matthews red-baiting on MSNBC, one time likening Bernie and his movement to Nazis, and CNN comparing his movement to the coronavirus. The relentless ‘Bernie-bro’ narrative focusing on cherry-picked tweets instead of actual issues and policy differences. Incessantly calling for his medical records while not asking anything of Joe Biden who is clearly in mental decline.
In These Times, recently released a report documenting the negative coverage Bernie received compared to Biden after their respective primary wins. Overall Bernie’s coverage after Nevada was relatively even but Biden’s coverage was much more positive than it was negative. After his South Carolina victory, Joe Biden was invited on CNN to address his supporters, but no such invitation was extended to Bernie Sanders after his impressive victory in Nevada. After Sanders’ win, one commentator said “the biggest winner was Putin,” completely undermining the millions of volunteers and donors who helped Sanders get to where he was, while Biden’s criticism only got as far as a request that he be more “inspirational.”
Those in mainstream media themselves, along with earlier Presidential candidates, saw and pointed out Biden’s cognitive decline earlier in the race and yet now they have nothing to say about how this would hurt his electability as Trump openly previews the schoolyard bullying he will likely use on the debate stage in the fall. They know the issues with Biden’s record on social security and the Iraq War and they know that Trump campaigned on those issues in the last cycle but will never mention how that can hurt Biden in the rust belt states which are key to victory. They’re walking into a sequel of 2016. But they have time to ask Bernie for his medical records, continually find reasons to call him a communist, and malign him, his supporters, and his vision for the country.
I’m not asking for an endorsement, I’m just asking for some objectivity and fair coverage of the issues.
There was certainly not an even playing field, and I would argue that if there was fair coverage from the beginning, Bernie would have a much better shot at staying competitive, even in this two-person race. I’d go even further and contend that they are aware of the polling that shows the popularity of his ideas and they feared, and continue to fear, that giving him and this movement any positive oxygen would risk a run-away victory.
Again it’s important to ask, what can Bernie and his team need to learn from all of this?
First and foremost I think we need to acknowledge the power of the media narrative. Bernie’s team put up impressive numbers of calls and doors knocked, but Biden is winning many states where he has little ground game; he’s just seen as more electable. One conversation on the phone or at a voters doorstep pales in comparison to the 24/7 propaganda pumped out by the mainstream media.
Bernie also needs to look at himself. He continually refused to attack Biden and calls him his ‘friend’ over and over again. He claims to be combatting the Democratic establishment, but when given the opportunity to impact the narrative on mainstream media, he says that Obama is not part of that establishment, even though it was Obama who made the call that sent the signal for everyone to fall in line and stop him. Playing nice with the people who are undermining your project gets you nowhere and really projects weakness. Ultimately he opted to stay civil and did not learn from Trump’s successful outsider strategy of creating a show they had to cover.
Bernie if you want to win you cannot cede the mainstream media ground and you have to fight with everything on the line.
A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
Amidst the coronavirus hysteria, I think it’s important not to lose sight of the choice we have to make in this primary.
Biden represents a return to the Obama era policies that put us in this precarious position in the first place. He asks us to trust him with beating Trump and improving our lives, but he has already told wealthy donors that with him “nothing would fundamentally change” for them; he has no intention of giving our agenda a chance. He even admitted that he would veto Medicare for All if it passed through congress while he was in office, and he did so during a pandemic. Earlier this week, sources close to the Biden campaign gave Axios a glimpse into the potential Biden cabinet that confirms his commitment to the status quo (the Biden campaign denies this lists accuracy but it is worth reading and we have plenty of reasons to be skeptical of Joe Biden). The potential candidate’s list was a whos-who of former Obama officials and even JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is being considered to run the Treasury, and Mike Bloomberg to be head of the World Bank. A vote for Joe is a vote for plutocrats. He is not someone we can trust and if he ends up presidents, we have to hold his feet to the fire as vociferously as we do with Trump.
This primary is still not over and even if you trust Joe’s intentions, ask yourself if this is the man you want to trust with your healthcare, especially during a pandemic.
Edit: Shoutout to @0rf for this ad that shows exactly why we should be weary of Joe.