Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news media and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Paul Krugman: Making the Most of the Coming Biden Boom

The economic outlook is probably brighter than you think.

The next few months are going to be incredibly grim. The pandemic is exploding, but Donald Trump is tweeting while America burns. His officials, unwilling to admit that he lost the election, are refusing even to share coronavirus data with the Biden team.

As a result, many preventable deaths will occur before a vaccine’s widespread distribution. And the economy will take a hit, too; travel is declining, an early indicator of a slowdown in job growth and possibly even a return to job losses as virus fears cause consumers to hunker down again.

But a vaccine is coming. Nobody is sure which of the promising candidates will prevail, or when they’ll be widely available. But it’s a good guess that we’ll get this pandemic under control at some point next year.

And it’s also a good bet that when we do the economy will come roaring back. [..]

Those of us worried about the future were relieved to see Trump defeated (even though it’s possible he’ll have to be removed forcibly from the White House), but bitterly disappointed by the failure of the expected blue wave to materialize down-ballot.

If I’m right, however, the peculiar nature of the coronavirus slump may give Democrats another big political opportunity. There’s a pretty good chance that they’ll be able to run in the 2022 midterms as the party that brought the nation and the economy back from the depths of Covid despond. And they should seize that opportunity, not just for their own sake, but for the sake of the nation and the world.

Wajahat Ali: ‘Reach Out to Trump Supporters,’ They Said. I Tried.

I give up.

Seventy-three million Americans voted for Donald Trump. He doubled down on all his worst vices, and he was rewarded for it with 10 million more votes than he received in 2016.

The majority of people of color rejected his cruelty and vulgarity. But along with others who voted for Joe Biden, we are now being lectured by a chorus of voices including Pete Buttigieg and Ian Bremmer, to “reach out” to Trump voters and “empathize” with their pain.

This is the same advice that was given after Mr. Trump’s 2016 victory, and for nearly four years, I attempted to take it. Believe me, it’s not worth it.

The Quran asks Muslims to respond to disagreements and arguments “in a better way” and to “repel evil with good.” I tried. [..]

We cannot help people who refuse to help themselves. Mr. Trump is an extension of their id, their culture, their values, their greed. He is their defender and savior. He is their blunt instrument. He is their destructive drug of choice.

Don’t waste your time reaching out to Trump voters as I did. Instead, invest your time organizing your community, registering new voters and supporting candidates who reflect progressive values that uplift everyone, not just those who wear MAGA hats, in local and state elections. Work also to protect Americans against lies and conspiracy theories churned out by the right-wing media and political ecosystem. One step would be to continue pressuring social media giants like Twitter and Facebook to deplatform hatemongers, such as Steve Bannon, and censor disinformation. It’s not enough, but it’s a start.

Amanda Marcotte: Trump’s Michigan con: His supporters are so blinded by racism they keep falling for it

Ordinary GOP voters can’t even tell Trump is hustling them — their minds are clouded by bigotry and paranoia

If you want proof that Donald Trump is not an anomaly, but rather a symptom of the racism and anti-democratic yearning that define the modern Republican Party, look no further than what’s going on in Wayne County, Michigan. It’s the county that encompasses the majority-Black city of Detroit as well as many of its majority-white suburbs, and the normally staid process of certifying an election there has gone badly off the rails.

This situation starkly illustrates how Trump’s long-shot coup attempt — which is more a money-grabbing con job at this point — relies heavily on everyday Republicans being too blinded by their own racism and hatred for democracy to really grasp the ways Trump is using them, as he uses everyone. [..]

Their formal excuse for this refusal to was that the vote count apparently included a few minor mistakes and anomalies, of the sort that occur in any election, in the precinct counting reports. This would, at most, affect a few hundred votes in a county where Joe Biden won by 350,000 votes.

The real reasons, of course, were racism and a desire to steal the election for Trump. The two Republicans, Monica Palmer and William Hartmann, were making a last-ditch attempt to keep the votes of Detroit, a city whose population is nearly 80% Black, out of the final Michigan vote count. It was a temper tantrum based on the longstanding, but usually better-concealed Republican belief that there’s something not quite right about letting Black people have the same right to vote as white people.

Eugene Robinson: Trump is trying to disenfranchise Black voters. The GOP isn’t stopping him.

No one should forget this, and no one should forgive it.

President Trump is trying to cling to power by disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of Black voters. His desperate legal maneuvering is straight out of the old racist Jim Crow playbook — and the vast majority of elected Republicans, to their eternal shame, are going along with him — whether actively or passively.

In Wisconsin, Trump’s campaign has paid for recounts in just two counties, one of which is Milwaukee County. In Michigan, Trump personally called two Republican officials who now want to decertify the vote in Wayne County, which includes Detroit. In Pennsylvania, Trump’s legal team has challenged vote-counting procedures and made unsupported allegations of fraud in two cities: Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. In Georgia, the Trump team filed a lawsuit targeting absentee ballots in Savannah, and another suit took aim at the state’s ballot-curing process.

The pattern is obvious and appalling: Trump and the Republicans are trying to invalidate votes in cities with large African American populations — cities that happen to have voted overwhelmingly for Joe Biden. In effect, Trump is arguing that Black people have no right to vote him out of office. [..]

Trump is weakening our democracy and setting back racial progress by decades. Republicans are acting as his willing accomplices. The nation should never, ever forget — or forgive.

William J Barber and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove: This election showed how the Republicans’ racist ‘Southern Strategy’ is falling apart

Trump lost because of increased turnout among Black and brown people and their white allies. His appeals to fear and division failed

Like parents of a child who has suffered a sudden and unexpected loss, Senate Republicans have suggested they are willing to give the president time to come to terms with reality, asserting with straight faces that he is “within his rights” to challenge election results that disappoint him. All the while, these same senators have been asking Democratic colleagues to convey their congratulations to the president-elect, their former colleague, who they assume will understand the awkward position they find themselves in.

But Trump is not a child, and we cannot pretend that he is the only one who is not willing to move on. Make America Great Again was always a thinly veiled promise that white supremacy could mount a resistance to movements that challenge systemic racism with the prospect of a genuine, multi-ethnic democracy. Trump’s refusal to accept the election results is not simply about his own psychological needs. It is a performance in keeping with the Southern Strategy that has animated the Republican party for half a century.

Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news media and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Jennifer Rubin: Time to call out the GOP’s new Jim Crow tactics

Millions of Republicans do not support white supremacy, but they delude themselves when they ignore this rotting core of their party.

The Wayne County Board of Canvassers, which oversees elections in Detroit, provoked outrage Tuesday night after its members deadlocked over whether to certify its county’s results for the presidential election. Eventually, Republicans on the board caved to certify the results, asking Michigan’s secretary of state to conduct an audit of the election.

Before the reversal, the Trump campaign’s legal adviser celebrated the potential disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of African American voters [..]

Let’s be brutally honest: We have not seen a coordinated effort of this magnitude and geographic breadth to disenfranchise African American voters since the Jim Crow era. Trump — who has embraced white supremacist symbolism (e.g., the Confederate flag, military bases named for Confederate generals), defended an accused White vigilante murderer, deployed anti-immigrant fearmongering, cheered on Proud Boys and tried to scare White suburbanites with the prospect of racially integrated neighbors — is now leading a campaign that seeks to exclude African American votes. This should remove any doubt that the Trumpist Republican Party, like many right-wing populist parties in Europe, is at its core a racist enterprise.

We are urged not to assume bad motives of our opponents. Any suggestion that we hold accountable the purveyors of lies and racist memes is met with howls of protest. The idea that it would be better for the country and for the center-right to level the Republican Party with a wrecking ball provokes a spasm of rage. But let’s get real.

Karen Tumulty: Lindsey Graham’s claim that he wasn’t interfering in the Georgia vote doesn’t add up

Why in the world was Graham nosing around in the ballot-counting process of a state he doesn’t even represent?

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, when he says that one of President Trump’s most reliable allies pressured him to throw out legitimate votes during a laborious hand recount of ballots in a state that Joe Biden won by a nose? Or Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) who says that he was doing nothing of the sort when the two of them talked last Friday?

“If he feels threatened by that conversation, he’s got a problem,” Graham said. “I actually thought it was a good conversation.”

A good conversation. It is hard to miss the uncomfortable echo of Trump’s claim that he was impeached for a “perfect phone call,” in which he pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in 2019 to dig up dirt on Biden’s son.

But at least in Trump’s case, it was not hard to see why he and Zelensky would have been on the phone. Heads of government speak to each other all the time.

Why in the world was Graham, who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, nosing around in the ballot-counting process of a state he doesn’t even represent?

Amanda Marcotte: The crackpot factor: Why the GOP is worried about turning out the vote after Trump

Future GOP candidates lack Trump’s secret sauce for attracting new voters — his appeal with Crank-Americans

Donald Trump’s attempts to steal the election are fruitless. His legal theater is going nowhere, and it’s becoming apparent that this is more about shaking down credulous supporters for cash than about actually overturning the election results. Michigan pounded another nail in Trump’s coffin Tuesday, when two Republicans who were blocking the vote certification in Wayne County, which includes Detroit, relented in the face of public outrage. It’s all over but the grifting, which will likely continue as long as Trump keeps getting people to give him money for his “legal defense” — money that is being funneled through a PAC and likely straight into Trump’s pocket.

Yet the Republican establishment is still tiptoeing around Trump, coddling his fragile ego by refusing to admit he lost the election. Some are going a step further, such as South Carolina’s Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has been exerting pressure on state officials to toss out legally-cast ballots. Why are all these Republicans so afraid of Trump, who will no longer be president in 63 days? [..]

Trump is a turnout machine for Republicans, who have been desperately casting around for years now for a way to save their party despite demographic changes that make the Democrats more popular among voters. The question of whether there will be Trumpism after Trump now dogs both Republicans who want to replicate their electoral successes under the reality TV president and Democrats who dearly hope this whole disaster was an anomaly.

Rebecca Chowdhury: Joe Biden Owes His Victory to the Left, No Matter What the Democratic Party Says

Organizers, not consultants, delivered key states like Pennsylvania, Arizona and Georgia. Democrats ignore this reality at their peril.

In the after­math of the 2020 elec­tions, Demo­c­ra­t­ic offi­cials have sparred over who’s respon­si­ble for the party’s unex­pect­ed loss­es in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Mod­er­ates (or ​“cor­po­rate Democ­rats” as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I‑Vt.) has dubbed them) claim that calls to defund the police, end frack­ing and ensure Medicare for All spooked mod­er­ate vot­ers and helped tip oth­er­wise com­pet­i­tive con­gres­sion­al races. Mean­while pro­gres­sives point to their more con­ser­v­a­tive coun­ter­parts’ refusal to embrace pop­u­lar poli­cies that increase vot­er turnout and sub­stan­tive­lyaddress insti­tu­tion­al racism or invest in strate­gies like dig­i­tal adver­tis­ing and orga­niz­ing.

Over the past week, In These Times spoke to nine orga­ni­za­tions from Ari­zona to Geor­gia to Penn­syl­va­nia, each of which played a major role in turn­ing key coun­ties and states blue. Togeth­er, these groups showed how Black and brown com­mu­ni­ties increas­ing­ly ignored by the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty in favor of white sub­ur­ban­ites can defeat Trump­ism by swing­ing entire states. Although the pres­i­dent man­aged to increase his vote share with peo­ple of col­or, these orga­ni­za­tions’ achieve­ments rein­force the impor­tance of mobi­liz­ing low-income vot­ers with cam­paigns that address their mate­r­i­al conditions.

Ursula Wolfe-Rocca: The United States Is Not a Democracy. Stop Telling Students That It Is.

When our students only learn about this exceptionally strange system from their corporate-produced history and government textbooks, they have no clue why this is how we choose our president.

When U.S. voters cast their votes in the 2020 November election, an unchecked pandemic raged through the nation, uprisings against racism and police violence stretched into their eighth month, and new climate change-intensified storms formed in the Atlantic. The reactionary and undemocratic system by which we select our president was an insult to the urgency of the moment. Although the most recent tallies show more than 5 million more people voted for Joe Biden than for Donald Trump, thanks to the Electoral College, it took several days to learn who won. To the relief of many, it appears that this time — unlike 2000 or 2016 — the candidate who got the most votes nationwide also won the election.

When our students only learn about this exceptionally strange system from their corporate-produced history and government textbooks, they have no clue why this is how we choose our president. More importantly, they develop a stunted sense of their own power — and little reason to believe they might have the potential to create something better. [..]

On November 2, 2020, one day before the general election that would deny him a second term, Donald J. Trump issued an executive order establishing the 1776 Commission. The commission’s mandate? A “restoration of American education” to emphasize the “clear historical record of an exceptional Nation dedicated to the ideas and ideals of its founding.” President Trump has been defeated, but this commitment to institutionalize the teaching of American exceptionalism has not. We educators must fight for a curriculum that teaches our students facts not fables. The United States has never been a democracy, defined by freedom and equality for all. But nor has there ever been a time when people did not struggle toward a democratic future, dreaming of freedom, risking life and limb to make those dreams manifest, and creating a more just society along the way. Let’s teach civics and history that affirms for our students there is nothing sacrosanct in the political and economic status quo, that freedom fighters, past and present, are founders too, and we all have a right to be framers — to redesign this structurally unsound house to better shelter our lives, safety, comfort, and full humanity.