Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week
Jeet Heer at The Nation writes—If This Pandemic Is a War, Trump Is a War Criminal:
[...] Of course, wartime metaphors are common in this crisis, used by many leaders, including the presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden. Usually wartime is evoked to stiffen resolve and strengthen a shared sense of purpose. With Trump, we see the darker side of the wartime metaphor, its use to justify the sacrifice of lives for some common mission, whether good or bad.
If Trump is, as he calls himself, “a wartime president,” then his leadership deserves to be judged by the standards we expect from military men. Sacrificial death is justified in war, but only if it serves a purpose.
As a wartime leader, Trump is close to being a Gen. William Westmoreland, an incompetent commander in an unjust war. Of course, defeating the pandemic is itself justified. But what makes Trump’s conduct horrific is that he’s calling on sacrifices for other purposes, including boosting the economy and ensuring his own reelection. [...]
The botched pandemic response resembles America’s failed wars in Vietnam and Iraq not just in ineptitude but also in terms of injustice. As with those wars, there is no real shared sacrifice. Rather, the American elite gets to sit out the struggle, as Trump famously did with his draft deferments in Vietnam. It’s left to working-class Americans, often people of color, to endure the brunt of the pain. [...]
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At Daily Kos on this date in 2009—FL-Sen: Conservative Base Looking To Sink Crist:
Democratic odds of winning the open Senate seat in Florida go up significantly if the Republican nominee is not Gov. Charlie Crist.
Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio is also in the race, and preparing to run to the right of Crist, who is what passes for a moderate in today's Republican Party. And Florida establishment conservatives are already lining up behind Rubio, including one of the state's most prominent politicians, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
Apparently, the "successful" conservative torpedoing of Arlen Specter is serving as a model for would-be Crist-beaters:
"Specter has not changed on social issues for his entire career, and Pennsylvania Republican primary voters were OK with that; but the last straw was the stimulus vote," Navarro said. "I think Charlie has greatly misjudged the incredible damage of his fawning support of the stimulus package."
On
today’s Kagro in the Morning show:
Well, the "war president" has surrendered. Greg Dworkin discusses the historic "conclusion" of the pandemic. Lol/yolo/things matter? Though we're still waiting for Kushner's inability to deliver PPE to matter, at least to anyone but Fox News “stars.”
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