You have to tell the truth and persuade the public. You cannot persuade the public by not telling the truth. That's my beef with Birx. Might save her job, but look at the cost, to her job as spokesperson, to the country.
Trump is a lost cause, sure, her boss, but that is a given
. This piece (
Dying for cute toes? I hate to say it, Georgia, but on this one, we're as dumb as we look, USA Today) is on point about doing it right and what the public will tolerate, and reminds me of a story.
c. 2007-8 I was at a CDC tabletop, there to be a gadfly and criticize (by invitation). It was day 2 or 3 of a simulated flu pandemic, and the CDC head Julie Gerberding was having the morning division meeting in the situation room. She wanted to know if the GA schools had closed.
She called the GA emergency manager to find out but they didn't know yet. GA was a home rule state and the schools were not closed centrally. Gerberding simply wanted to know if her staff could report in on time (everyone gets that now re child care, but not then). The GA EM said we will know by 11.
I said to Dr Gerberding 'wanna know now?' She said how? I said 'call your hairdresser, they know everything happening locally.' (If it were evening, same with bartenders).
I wasn't kidding, I was trying to get her to appreciate social networks. Works the other way, too. Persuade the salons and bars and restaurants and you win the public.
And it can be done. if you tell the truth, if you articulate the reason.
Hard to do when you have to fight the WH, and without CDC, who has been muted.
And here we are.
Americans appear to be losing faith in what President Donald Trump says about the coronavirus pandemic, with almost everyone rejecting Trump's remark that COVID-19 may be treated by injecting infected people with bleach or other disinfectants, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday.
The April 27-28 public opinion poll found that fewer than half of all adults in the U.S. - 47% - said they were "very" or "somewhat" likely to follow recommendations Trump makes about the virus. That is 15 percentage points lower than the number who said they would follow Trump's advice in a survey that ran at the end of March.
And 98% of Americans said they would not try to inject themselves with bleach or other disinfectants if they got the coronavirus, including 98% of Democrats and 98% of Republicans. That is a near-unanimous rejection of an idea that Trump floated at a time of widespread anxiety about the virus….
Overall, Trump's overall popularity has not changed much over the past week. Forty-three percent of Americans said they approve of his overall job performance, and the same number also approve of his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Among registered voters, 44% said they would vote for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, while 40% said they would back Trump if the election were held today.
Margaret Sullivan/WaPo:
Trump has played the media like a puppet. We’re getting better — but history will not judge us kindly.
Traditional journalism is under siege, NBC News chief Andy Lack wrote this week: President Trump continues to “put the bully in bully pulpit,” and the coronavirus crisis has taken a toll.
“But we’re winning,” proclaimed the headline of Lack’s piece published on NBCNews.com, which argues that news organizations, because they are still able to tell citizens the truth of what’s going on in the country, are victorious.
Even if you get past the objectionable notions of “winning” and “losing,” I very much doubt that history will judge mainstream journalism to have done a terrific job covering this president — including in this difficult moment.
On the contrary, the coverage, overall, has been deeply flawed.
Older voters, eh?
Ronald Brownstein/CNN:
Older voters could offer Biden a new path to the White House
The former vice president's surprising
strength among older voters in polls could offer him an unexpected opportunity to broaden the electoral map, even if he struggles to mobilize large numbers of new voters.
People older than 45 composed a larger share of voters than the national average in 2016 in all six states that both sides consider the most likely to pick the next president, especially
Arizona,
Michigan and, above all,
Florida, according to census figures. Improving on the Democratic performance among those seniors offers Biden an alternative route to tipping the six key swing states -- which also include
North Carolina,
Pennsylvania and
Wisconsin -- than by exciting more young people to vote, which could prove a difficult challenge for him.
"If there are significant shifts in support demographically then you don't necessarily need to boost turnout," says Democratic consultant Michael Halle, who directed Hillary Clinton's battleground state strategy in 2016.
Maryland GOP Gov. Larry Hogan's message machine counters Trump with daily media offensive
Some Republican insiders see ulterior motives. Hogan has often questioned Trump’s agenda, rhetoric, and conduct, and in 2019, he was the leading choice of Never Trump Republicans as they sought a GOP challenger to the president. Other Republicans say the governor’s actions are less political and only appear so because, however typical they are for crisis leadership, they stand in stark relief to Trump’s grandiose approach.
“He’s trying to fill a void left by Trump,” said Terry Sullivan, a veteran Republican strategist. “He’s serving as a calm, sensible leader who’s providing real information the public needs to hear.”
The White House rejects this assessment of Trump’s leadership.
Politico:
Trump's poor poll numbers trigger GOP alarms over November
Pump up Trump or go after Biden? Top Republicans are advocating different strategies for a struggling president to win reelection.
There are indications that Trump’s response to the crisis is taking a toll. His campaign’s internal polling shows that the president’s initial bump in managing the virus has dissipated, according to a person familiar with the results. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released over the weekend revealed that voters thought Biden would do a better job than Trump in managing the virus by a 9-point margin, and new surveys show Trump trailing Biden in Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Alarm about Trump’s standing is trickling to down-ballot races. A Fox News poll released earlier this week showed the GOP candidate trailing 10 percentage points in the Michigan Senate race, a contest the party has been targeting aggressively.
Rachel Bitecofer/ Niskanen Center:
Negative Partisanship and the 2020 Congressional Elections
The image of a disaffected Republican Party, embarrassed by their “chaos” president, so far runs into an irrefutable data-reality that Republican voter turnout, even in the 40 suburban districts Democrats flipped, was robust — and it did not break in favor of Democrats in rates any higher than normal for the polarized era. Instead, the blue wave that washed through America’s suburbs in 2018 was powered by a massive turnout of Democrats and independents, who showed up in droves to toss Republican House incumbents out of office and send a message to Donald Trump.
As the GOP struggles to defend itself from a second cycle powered by Trump backlash, I expect it may resist any efforts to expand voting access even in states where it has the power to do so. That said, although the top-line turnout number is important, at the end of the day (and as Wisconsin shows) suppression can only take you so far in the face of a riled-up opposition. Far more important than the overall turnout is who is voting. As my colleague, Niskanen Center President Jerry Taylor, eloquently put it after the negative partisanship model delivered him a successful election prediction: Right now, Wisconsin voters “would drink bleach for hours in those lines to kill the GOP,” an oddly prophetic claim given that the president suggested bleach as a potential cure for coronavirus at his press conference on April 23.
NY Times:
How a Digital Ad Strategy That Helped Trump Is Being Used Against Him
A former Facebook employee is using a tool he employed to help President Trump win to conduct tests for a progressive group, Acronym, dedicated to ousting Mr. Trump from office.
Nearly all messaging about impeachment was received poorly, and low-information and swing voters tended to side with the president. Pacronym quickly dialed back some of its impeachment advertising.
The most consequential test, however, was over the killing of Mr. Suleimani. Though responses mostly hewed to partisan lines, the team saw significant movement among Trump-leaning voters away from the president when presented with critical commentary from a conservative messenger. It is a tactic known as “boosted news,” or the practice of paying to place news articles in the newsfeed of users.
For those of you who complain when I post conservative outlet pieces, read the above carefully. Turns out good practice (reading widely) is good politics.
Nature:
Pseudoscience and COVID-19 — we’ve had enough already
The scientific community must take up cudgels in the battle against bunk.
Cow urine, bleach and cocaine have all been recommended as COVID-19 cures — all guff. The pandemic has been cast as a leaked bioweapon, a byproduct of 5G wireless technology and a political hoax — all poppycock. And countless wellness gurus and alternative-medicine practitioners have pushed unproven potions, pills and practices as ways to ‘boost’ the immune system.
Thankfully, this explosion of misinformation — or, as the World Health Organization has called it, the “infodemic” — has triggered an army of fact-checkers and debunkers. Regulators have taken aggressive steps to hold marketers of unproven therapies to account. Funders are supporting researchers (myself included) to explore how best to counter the spread of COVID-19 claptrap.
On the Tara Reade accusation:
Another Senate model: