Robert B. Reich's Blog, page 34
June 16, 2020
Who Benefits From Racism?
June 9, 2020
The Deadly Fox News-Trump SyndicateAs the coronavirus crisis...
The Deadly Fox News-Trump Syndicate
As the coronavirus crisis rages on, Fox News is contributing almost as much to the deaths and disease as is Trump’s White House.
Trump spouts a shocking amount of misinformation during his daily press briefings, but it’s Fox News’ equally misleading coverage of the crisis that closes the lethal circuit of lies.
It’s easy to feel outraged and defeated by Fox News. (“I can’t believe they’re saying that! How are they getting away with this?”) But it’s important to understand its formula for misleading Americans, particularly in the crisis we’re in.
The formula goes like this:
First, deny there’s a problem. Lay the groundwork for later conspiracy theories by calling it “a hoax.” Blame political opponents for “using” the issue to make Trump look bad. Mock anyone taking it seriously, and downplay the consequences.
Then, when deaths mount and the coronavirus can no longer be denied, promote the same dangerous miracle cures Trump promotes.
Third, attack the experts. Question what public-health experts recommend, such as social distancing. Question whether the death toll from Covid-19 is even true, and broadcast misleading graphics. Attack the experts themselves, and parade around alternative “experts” to promote an array of conspiracy theories.
Fourth, deflect attention from Trump’s botched response by blaming others. Blame China! As the virus hits black and brown communities especially hard, trot out the white supremacists.
If nothing else works, revise history.
Finally, make reopening the economy about “freedom,” and attack Democratic governors who are trying to keep people safe.
That’s Fox News’s tried-and-true formula, folks: Deny, promote quack remedies, attack the experts, blame others, and change the subject to “freedom.”
It works for Fox. It keeps Fox viewers. It helps protect Trump.
But it is making a deadly calamity even more deadly.
Polls show that a majority of Republicans think it’s perfectly safe to go to establishments like nail salons and dine-in restaurants, and a new study found that Sean Hannity’s viewers were less likely to adhere to social distancing guidelines.
Meanwhile, a conspiracy theory peddled by Tucker Carlson made it all the way to the White House, where it fell on Trump’s receptive ears and led him to yank a multimillion-dollar grant to an organization on the frontlines of coronavirus research.
In theory, the FCC prohibits broadcasting false information about a catastrophe if the broadcaster knows the information is false and will cause substantial “public harm” if aired. But Trump’s FCC won’t do a thing, and Fox News has no broadcast ethics. It has no journalistic integrity.
If this formula of deceit shows us anything, it’s that they know what they’re doing, and they don’t care who they hurt.
So, what can you do?
First, make a ruckus. Speak out. Write letters to your local paper, and local Fox News outlets. That’s precisely what forced Fox to cut ties with Trish Regan, and with 5G Conspiracy peddlers Diamond and Silk.
Second, boycott Fox’s major advertisers. That helped get Bill O’Reilly off the air.
Third: leverage your power. Correct Fox’s lies when you see them. Share this video with Fox News viewers you care about.
You might just save a life.
June 2, 2020
Trump’s Presidency is Over
May 26, 2020
My Advice to the Class of 2020This time of year is normally...
My Advice to the Class of 2020
This time of year is normally filled with joy and celebration, as millions of graduates across the country take their first steps into the “real world”.
Some of you reading this are families of graduates. Some are graduates yourselves. Either way, you may be thinking of all the 2020 graduates who didn’t get a ceremony, celebrated with loved ones over Zoom, and are entering into the most uncertain jobs market since the Great Depression.
I am, too.
So here’s my message to the Class of 2020:
I’m not going to beat around the bush. These are hard times. You’re graduating into the worst economy in 80 years, and we don’t have any idea when or how the economy will recover. Much depends on the course of this tragic pandemic.
On the other hand, I don’t want you to despair. You have your entire lives in front of you. And you have your education, and, hopefully, resilience and fortitude.
The multiple crises we’re facing are also opportunities to remake this nation and the world, hopefully into more just societies.
In this spirit, I wanted to share with you a final class I taught a few years back, when I and my students were still all together in a classroom. In watching it, it seemed to me that the lessons still hold, especially in this pandemic and economic crisis — the importance of personal resilience, the inevitability of failure, the challenge of designing your own hoops to jump through, the new careers and forms of work you’ll encounter, the central importance of gaining wisdom about yourself.
I hope these ideas give you the courage to face the future with realism and resourcefulness, and the confidence to dedicate at least some of your life to fortifying the common good.
Dying to Work
May 20, 2020
A Tale of Two PandemicsNo description of the coronavirus is more...
A Tale of Two Pandemics
No description of the coronavirus is more misleading than calling it “the great equalizer.”
The horrific truth is that Native Americans, Latinos, and African-Americans are dying at much higher rates than white people - and we don’t know the half of it because the CDC hasn’t released any racial data about the virus; we don’t know if they’re even collecting it.
But the picture emerging from cities, states, and reservations is that of an atrocity.
In Milwaukee County, black people make up just 26% of the county’s population but account for almost half the county’s cases, and a staggering 81% of its deaths.
Louisiana, Illinois, and Michigan are no different: black people make up less of the overall population, but account for vastly more of both cases and deaths.
In San Francisco, Latinos account for just 15% of the population but make up 31% of the city’s confirmed cases, and account for over 80% of the city’s hospitalized coronavirus patients. And in the country’s epicenter of New York City, the virus is twice as deadly for Latinos as for white people.
Native Americans are also dying in wildly disproportionate numbers. The Navajo Nation, with about 175,000 residents, has more cases of COVID-19 than nine entire states. And more deaths than 13 states.
You’ve heard how governors are fighting over aid? Well, tribal leaders are getting even less.
So why are these communities suffering the worst of this pandemic?
For one, black people and Latinos are more likely to work in “essential” positions that require them to put their health at risk – a study by the New York City comptroller found that 75% of the city’s frontline workers are people of color.
On top of that, black people and Native Americans experience higher levels of preexisting conditions like asthma and diabetes that make contracting the virus more deadly.
Of course they don’t just happen to have these illnesses – this is the system: it’s decades of segregated housing, pollution, lack of access to medical care, and poverty in action.
But the virus isn’t just discriminating by race. It’s also disproportionately affecting the working class and poor of every kind.
In New York City, the five ZIP codes with the highest rates of positive tests for the coronavirus have an average per capita income of *under* $30,000 – while residents in the five zip codes with the lowest rates have an average income of over $100,000.
And that’s just where there’s testing. Remember how early on we heard about celebrities testing positive? If not happiness, at least money can buy a diagnosis. New York just rounded its death toll up by a few thousand people who were never even tested.
Studies show that lower-income people are more likely to have chronic health conditions that make the virus more deadly.
They’re less likely to receive sufficient medical care or might lack access altogether.
And they’re more likely to work in frontline “essential” jobs that put their health at risk.
A study found that only 3% of lower income workers are working from home during the pandemic, compared to almost half of upper middle income workers.
Any rush to “open the economy” is really about forcing working class and poor people back into harm’s way while the rich and affluent can safely work from home.
For as many workers risking their lives for meager paychecks, still more are now unemployed and on the brink of financial obliteration.
Less than half of Americans can afford a $1,000 emergency, and nearly 75% live paycheck to paycheck. Piecemeal unemployment benefits and one-time payments aren’t going to buoy Americans through the next great depression.
We are all weathering the same storm, but we are not all in the same boat.
Systematic inequality in America has produced two very different pandemics:
In one, billionaires are sheltering in place on their yachts in the Caribbean, and wealthy families are safely quarantining in multimillion-dollar mansions.
In the other boats sit people risking their lives for their jobs and people without incomes going hungry, a disproportionate number of whom are people of color, and all of whom deserve better.
This is a tale of two pandemics. There is nothing “equal” about it.
May 18, 2020
The Privileged and Powerful in the Pandemic
May 12, 2020
The Real Reason Trump Wants to Reopen the EconomyDonald Trump is...
The Real Reason Trump Wants to Reopen the Economy
Donald Trump is getting nervous. Internal polls show him losing in November unless the economy comes roaring back.
So what is Trump’s reelection strategy? Ignore the warnings of public health experts and reopen the economy at all costs.
Here’s his lethal 4-part plan:
Step 1: Remove income support, so people have no choice but to return to work.
Trump’s Labor Department has decided that furloughed employees “must accept” an employer’s offer to return to work and therefore forfeit unemployment benefits, regardless of the risk of returning to work before it’s safe.
Forcing people to choose between contracting a potentially deadly virus or losing their livelihood is inhumane. It’s also nonsensical. Our collective health in this pandemic depends on as many workers as possible staying home.
Step 2: Hide the facts.
No one knows how many Americans are infected because the Trump administration continues to drag its heels on testing. As of May 5th, only 7.5 million tests have been completed in a population of over 330 million Americans.
Is this what Jared Kushner meant by a “great success story?”
Florida, one of the last states to issue a shelter-in-place order and one of the first to reopen, has stopped releasing medical examiners’ statistics on numbers of coronavirus victims because the numbers are higher than the state’s official count.
But it’s impossible to fight the virus without adequate data. Anthony Fauci, the administration’s leading infectious disease expert, warns that reopening poses “a really significant risk” without a huge ramp up in testing.
Not surprisingly, the White House has blocked Fauci from testifying before the House.
Trump fired Health and Human Services Inspector General Christi Grimm after she released a report detailing widespread shortages of testing and PPE at hospitals across the country. His handpicked replacement will now handle a whistleblower complaint filed by Dr. Rick Bright, the ousted director of the office involved in developing a coronavirus vaccine.
Dr. Bright’s complaint alleges the administration repeatedly ignored his warnings about critical supply shortages and removed him from his position because he refused to adopt scientifically unproven treatments for the virus.
Step 3: Push a false narrative about “freedom” and “liberation.”
Weeks ago, Trump called on citizens to “LIBERATE” states like Michigan, whose Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, imposed strict stay-at-home rules.
Michigan has the third-highest number of Covid-19 deaths in America, although tenth in population. When Whitmer extended the rules to May 28, gun-toting protesters rushed the state house chanting “Lock her up!”
Rather than condemn their behavior, Trump suggested Whitmer “make a deal” with them.
Meanwhile, Attorney General William Barr has directed the Justice Department to take legal action against any state or local authorities imposing lockdown measures that “could be violating the constitutional rights and civil liberties of individual citizens.”
Making this about “freedom” is absurd.
Freedom does not mean you have the right to endanger the lives of others through your own irresponsibility and ignorance.
Freedom is not forcing people back to work in unsafe environments to boost billionaires’ stock portfolios.
Freedom is meaningless for people who have no choice but to accept a job that puts their life at risk.
Step 4: Shield businesses against lawsuits for spreading the infection.
Trump is pushing to give businesses that reopen a “liability shield” against legal action by workers or customers who get infected by the virus.
He says he’ll use the Defense Production Act to force meat processing plants to remain open, despite high rates of Covid-19 infections and deaths among meatpackers. “That’ll solve any liability problems,” Trump said.
Mitch McConnell insists that the next stimulus bill include legal immunity for corporations that cause workers or consumers to become infected.
“We have a red line on liability,” McConnell says. “It won’t pass the Senate without it.”
But how can the economy safely reopen if companies don’t have an incentive to keep people safe? It can’t, and it wont.
Which leads me to my final point:
Here’s the truth: The biggest obstacle to reopening the economy is the pandemic itself.
Any rush to reopen without adequate testing and tracing – a massive increase from what we’re doing now – will cause even more deaths and a longer economic crisis.
The first responsibility of a president is to keep the public safe. But Donald Trump couldn’t care less.
He’s trying to force the economy to reopen to boost his electoral chances, and he’s selling out Americans’ health to seal the deal. No matter the cost, Donald Trump’s chief concern is and will always be himself.
May 11, 2020
The Deathly Tragedy of American Exceptionalism
May 6, 2020
Trump’s 4-Step Plan for Reopening the Economy Will Be Lethal
Robert B. Reich's Blog
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