2020’s “Big Lie” as a dress rehearsal for 2024

Perhaps one of the most important columns of the year:

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/voter-suppression-is-bad-but-this-tactic-is-even- worse/2021/05/16/97031c6a-b4f1-11eb-ab43-bebddc5a0f65_story.html

 

Recall Trump’s post-election campaign last fall. Having lost decisively, he thought he could pressure local and state officials to nullify the results.

…

He failed because enough local officials had more integrity and courage than a majority of the Republican caucus in the U.S. House has mustered. The leaders of the Pennsylvania legislature said they didn’t have the authority to do what Trump was demanding. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger simply refused to go along. One of two Republicans on the Michigan board caved to the pressure, but the other, Aaron Van Langevelde, listened to his conscience, and his vote alongside the board’s two Democrats was enough to turn aside Trump’s attempted theft.

 

All of this was inspiring to many of us. To the anti-democracy forces ascendant in the Republican Party, it provided a challenge and a road map.

…

As they target the people and positions that stood in their way last time, they also are attempting to change the rules, so a pro-Trump legislature could more easily override the will of the people — and the objections of any honest secretary of state who stood in the way.

 

“In 2021, state legislatures across the country — through at least 148 bills filed in 36 states — are moving to muscle their way into election administration, as they attempt to dislodge or unsettle the executive branch and/or local election officials who, traditionally, have run our voting systems.”

 

That is the conclusion of a recent report, “A Democracy Crisis in the Making,” by two nonpartisan organizations, States United Democracy Center and Protect Democracy, and a nonprofit law firm in Wisconsin, Law Forward.

 

“Had these bills been in place in 2020,” the report found, “they would have significantly added to the turmoil that surrounded the election, and they would have raised the alarming prospect that the outcome of the presidential election could have been decided contrary to how the people voted.”

…

This is why it matters so much that Trump continues to lie about 2020, and that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and most of his party have abjectly surrendered to the lie. It’s not just about history. The lie is being used to give cover for actions that in 2024 could turn the big lie into the big steal.

Lyric Of The Day #25 (May 24, 2021)

They say that patriotism is the last refuge

To which a scoundrel clings

Steal a little and they throw you in jail

Steal a lot and they make you king

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpRKstHl7Y0

 

In honor of Bob Dylan’s 80^th.

CDC’s mask guidance spurs confusion and criticism, as well as celebration

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/05/14/cdc-mask-update-decision-confusion/

 

Key quotes:

 

More than a dozen physicians interviewed Friday expressed concern that the decision was premature, coming only days after regulators cleared a vaccine for 12-to-15-year-olds and while so many are still unprotected. They feared the guidelines could undercut two of the simplest and most effective tools — masks and physical distancing — for stopping the spread of a virus still infecting about 35,000 people in the United States every day.

 

 

“The guidance shifts all the burden onto individuals to be ‘on their honor’ and choose the appropriate actions when deciding whether to wear a mask,” said Lisa Maragakis, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “There is no way to know who is vaccinated and who is not in most scenarios. The likely result is that almost no one will wear a mask.”

 

The risk for people who have not yet been vaccinated, including millions of adolescents and children, “is going to dramatically increase as the rest of the population abruptly drops masking,” Maragakis added.

 

 

[S]ome of the lowest immunization rates in the country are in communities without mask mandates, calling into question the effectiveness of the change in federal guidance as an incentive for the unvaccinated.

 

 

On Twitter and other social media, teachers, parents of children under 12, people with immune-system problems and other vulnerable groups expressed frustration that the guidance might leave them with less — not more — freedom. That’s because the CDC’s announcement did not suggest any way to distinguish the vaccinated from the unvaccinated.

 

“I feel like everyone just forgot about all the unvaccinated little kids and their parents,” one parent tweeted.

 

Another quipped: “CDC Guideline: Don’t have a kid under 12.”

 

 

“The CDC, which is supposed to be our steady force based upon science, is lurching from extreme overcaution to abandoning all caution,” said Lawrence O. Gostin, a health law professor at Georgetown University Law Center. “And this all happened in a matter of weeks when the science really hasn’t changed.”

 

Gostin also cast doubt on the notion that the move would spur more people to get vaccinated.

 

“There’s zero behavioral evidence that a move like this would encourage people to be vaccinated,” he said. “It’s much more likely to encourage people to take their mask off.”