And the Winner is…..the VIRUS.
November 7, 2020 14 Comments
Biden’s victory speech could be called “give reconciliation a chance”. He will not prosecute Trump but forgive him his transgressions. Pity. Given that the Republicans have acted more like a criminal organization than a political party, beginning by inserting a crony in place to sabotage the US Postal Services in order to disrupt the postal vote beyond deadlines, to the lethal rallies, to implying the postal vote was rigged, to egging on supporters to disrupt the vote, to claiming Trump won the vote on the night. The Republicans may claim the Democrats rigged the vote but in fact it is the Republican Party, God’s own, that ensures that universal suffrage has yet to be achieved in the USA.
THEPLANNINGMOTIVE.COM 
“It is unfortunate that Biden did not win by a larger and incontestable margin, for had he, many more US lives would have been spared because political effort and attention would not have been diverted away from the virus by the aftermath of the elections.”
Nonsense. The size of Biden’s victory has nothing to do with the opposition of the state governments, and the resistance to proper public health procedures by the Republican rank and file.
Regardless of the vote count, Biden can’t do anything prior to Jan 20. Trump doesn’t care. His lackeys in at the Department of Health and Human Service don’t care. Republican governors don’t care. Democratic governors are so incompetent they can’t even organize a trace and track system and they are so full of themselves, they won’t even turn the task over to public health experts.
Hi Anti,
I know your are angry and deeply concerned about the lack of a medical emergency in the USA culminating in a lack of protection of the vulnerable. And while you are correct with your assembly of the facts above, you miss the bigger political picture. As Michael Roberts pointed out in his recent posting on the election, Covid was the biggest issue in the election at 41%. Therefore this election in part was a plebiscite on Trump’s handling of the pandemic. Unfortunately Trump passed this challenge given the size of his vote. Had he lost considerable support over this issue, it would have weakened his hand in the transition regarding the actions taken against the virus. However, his large vote has emboldened him not to engage with Biden, but to resist Biden. He is even talking of holding rallies in support of his legal actions. With this virus even a week can make a significant difference. Given that the legal actions will span a few weeks leading to inaction on the virus, the spread will be exponential. I believe the momentum gained by the virus up to and post Thanksgiving day is unstoppable. Even a nationwide lockdown will take months to bring the R rate below 1. I therefore stand by my statement, a decisive defeat for Trump would have altered the medical approach to the virus.
Reluctant to hog the comments, but your article has numerous errors of interpretation….and fact.
1. First on the peak rates of infection in the US: You are taking the rolling 7 day average of infections for the 7 days and confusing that with daily rates. You say “It is to be noted that by the 20th November on present trends, the peak daily infection rate will exceed 200,000….”
No, that’s not correct. Given certain trends the WEEKLY infection rate will exceed 200,000. For the last 7 days in the US the average infection rate has been 31.5 per 100,000. Given an estimated population that works out to 103,950 infections for the week, which coincides pretty much with the average daily infections for the week multiplied by 7.
2. You say: “The allegations swirling around the behaviour of the Biden’s family dealings in the Ukraine firmed up.” I’m no fan of Biden, but this is just nonsense. The Senate subcommittee convened with so much noise to investigate Biden and the Bidens in the Ukraine found exactly zero evidence of any criminal activity; and no indication that Biden used his position as VP to influence businesses regarding his personal or family income. The allegations that came out in the Giuliani press in October, and which were rightly ignored by the established press (except for Fox News) were made without evidence, and Tucker Carlson had explain that the “dog ate my homework” when pressed for the whereabouts of the supposed documents he had received proving Biden’s machinations. There’s every reason to attack Biden, for the politics and the class he represents. Repeating the phony line of Fox News is not such a reason.
3.”There are two versions of fake news.” Well, there are more than two, but the one that is making all the noise is the one that circulates falsified videos, deliberately makes-up quotes, is overtly anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic, white supremacist, and is funded by a whole host of actors from the Republican Party itself, to various “conspiracy theory” groups etc etc. The New York Times may be a mouthpiece for capitalism and a certain sector of the bourgeoisie, but it’s not circulating phony videos, doesn’t claim the parents of children slain in school shootings are paid actors, isn’t advocating direct action by armed militia groups, or functioning on behalf of the National Rifle Association. There’s a difference, a big difference. Again you try to use the Biden/Ukraine baloney as an example, without referring to a single bit of confirmed information uncovered by any of the sources claiming corruption.
4. “Pelosi’s overreach”? A result of her unwillingness to compromise? Maybe you haven’t been keeping up on current events. Have you not heard of Mitch McConnell, the self-proclaimed “Grim Reaper” of any and all programs initiated by the Democrats? McConnell’s “offering” was $500 billion (Pelosi’s measure was initially about 2.4 trillion, but in a non-compromising manner, she lowered that estimated cost to $1.8 trillion). Mnuchin (Sec of Treasury) agreed to that, but McConnell refused to even consider it. Pelosi’s measure calls for resumption of the $600/week /unemployment stipend, while Mnuchin’s calls for $400. McConnell opposes both. Pelosi’s measure calls for the creation and funding of a virus testing/contact tracing system on a national level. You think Trump’s going to allow that? Pelosi’s measure includes a monthly payment to families with low incomes and young children. The Republican plan does not expand either the earned income or the child tax credit. Care to compromise on that? Pelosi’s plan includes almost $500 billion in direct aid to states facing extreme budget deficits due to budget shortfalls and expanding expenses due to pandemic. Republicans call this the “blue state bailout” and McConnell himself recommends states declare bankruptcy. Now you can argue that the states should declare bankruptcy, but it makes no sense to accuse Pelosi of “overreach” for trying to keep the administrative arms of capitalism intact and above water. Pelosi’s bill includes $57 billion in expanded childcare benefits for working women with children. The absence of universal, affordable childcare has driven numerous women from the labor force. The Republican bill incudes NO defined amount for expanding childcare benefits. Instead what the Republicans want is liability protection for business against law suits for damages filed by employees who become infected with the virus because their place of work was not adequately “hardened” against the virus. Pelosi has flatly rejected such a corporate benefit, citing in part, the failure of OSHA to issue and enforce regulations in the workplace to protect employees. Now I can envision Pelosi “compromising” on all of these measures, as Democrats always cave and go for what’s “possible” but really, claiming the result of a 2nd relief package is down to Pelosi’s overreach is more nonsense.
5. The deficit. In short, so what? Unsustainable? Really. It will be funded through rolling over US Treasury instruments which are still the safe harbor for the bourgeoisie around the globe. Deficits, debt don’t matter. Finance doesn’t matter. REfinance is everything. Debt service for the US is still at or near long-term lows.
6. “Of two things we can be sure, at some point immunity will be reached.” Uh..no. Immunity has never been reached for a viral infection without a vaccine, and 30-40 percent of the population in this country have already indicated they will not allow themselves to be vaccinated.
7. “2008 Never Again, This Time the Rich Must Pay”? Really? That’s our fighting slogan. Exactly how does that distinguish “uncompromising” unoverreaching rrrrevolutionary politics from Bernie Sanders, or Warren Buffett?
I will take this point by point.
1. You could look at it both ways. Your methodology may be better but the results between us differ only between 3 and 5 days with yours lagging. The difference is not material.
2 & 3. I have looked at the weight of evidence. No doubt you have seen the video where Joe Biden brags about disposing of an obstructive criminal prosecutor when he was Vice President and the administration’s point-man in the Ukraine with control over state aid. You must be aware that Hunter Biden, with no knowledge of the energy industry and who NEVER visited the Ukraine, was appointed with a substantial salary as director to Burisma an energy company under investigation. That in itself is grounds for suspicion and they have been swirling around for years. I for one pay particular attention to the right wing press not as an innocent, but in order to get a more balanced view of the world. One thing I know, the mainstream press in the USA has no interest in investigative reporting any more, and if you want to throw the word phony around, I suggest you include the main stream press as well.
4. Again I am aware of the various elements of the bill, all of which are worthy. I find your descriptions compelling but it misses the mark. Her all or nothing approach played into the hands of the Republicans. Had she changed tack, broken up the elements into separate bills, this would have worked in favour of the Democrats. Particularly if the first bill was to get emergency aid to the workers and poor, the $600 per week element you describe. Then aid to the states and so on. Had she done this then she would have exposed the meanness of the Republicans. However, I am of the opinion that she chose the conglomerate path knowing full well it would fail to pass believing this would provide a stick to beat the Republicans in the campaign. She miscalculated.
5. Yes the deficit is unsustainable. By mid 2021 there will have been about $25 trillion of new debt issuance to cover global COVID costs. In my estimation that cannot leave interest rates untouched. Time will tell. Let us make a note to take up this issue later on. However, already, the 10 year Note, which has been trending up for a few months, is heading for 1%.
6. That is not a correct statement. Herd immunity was continuously achieved during repeated flu seasons before large scale vaccines were introduced in the 1950s and as far as I know there has been no resumption of the virus that caused the episodes of Spanish Flu. In fact, Sweden did away with routine vaccinations until the late 1990s when pockets of poverty began emerging creating reservoirs for infection. But were you are right is that vaccines speed up herd immunity and prevent excessive deaths. My main concern has never been this issue. It has been the vulnerability of society to the virus because of inequality, poor nutrition and the maintenance of chronic illnesses by Big Pharma. In short, the USA has become a viral paradise.
7. You and I are long in the tooth. I have seen too many grandiose plans in my long life based on an underestimation of the balance of finance and forces on the ground. In the aftermath of the pandemic which will throw us back decades, it is not a question of storming up the mountain, but of not being pushed back over the river in the valley. Who pays for the pandemic will become the key issue that will have to be fought over, not windmills and batteries. I stand by the slogan.
So lets keep arguing these positions which has the positive effect of sharpening the debate.
1. We’ll see.
2. You’ve looked at the weight of the evidence? So you’ve read the report issued by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, chaired by Ron Johnson, the Trump senator from Wisconsin which found no impropriety in the actions of then vp Biden in the Ukraine? And you’ve read the report from the Democrat minority on that committee highlighting the testimony from the former ambassadors, asst secretaries of state, etc etc that Hunter Biden’s relationship to Burisma had no impact on US policy in the Ukraine? I think not, since you only refer to fake news baloney that shows Biden issuing his ultimatum–which ultimatum was also the stated policy of the EU and IMP– to get rid of Sholkin, a corrupt prosecutor. As for the mainstream press “has no interest in investigative reporting anymore,” that’s not true, and it’s irrelevant. No evidence has been produced that indicates the charges made by the Trumpoids are valid. Significant investigations, by government committees chaired by those making the charges, have not been able to produce any evidence. You’re not just reading the right wing news, you’re reading it uncritically. I pointed out the difference between the right wing press and the established corporate media. The difference is obvious. The right wing press simply makes things up to suit its ideology, the latest example being so-called vote fraud, and “stealing the election.”
4. I think it’s hilarious that in your attempt to defend your indefensible position re the proposed 2nd round of virus relief, you’re giving advice to Nancy Pelosi on what she should have done to make the Republicans look “mean.” You don’t at all deal with the fact that there’s a bicameral legislative process here; that the senate majority leader broke off negotiations despite Mnuchin’s desires, and Trumps reversal of position; you don’t deal with the fact that since the 2018 election the Democrat controlled House has passed and sent to the Senate over 220 pieces of legislation that McConnell has prevented from even begin considered in committee, much less debated on the floor. Your “advice” assumes that had the issues been presented in smaller packages, they would have slipped unnoticed by the “Grim Reaper,” an unwarranted assumption to say the least given McConnell’s actions over the period of time he has been majority leader. Or perhaps you think McConnell would have come under pressure from other Republicans to make a deal, if the deal was in bits and pieces? Again, there’s no evidence that any single Republican is willing to break ranks with McConnell on issues of government spending.
5. Yes, we’ll see. Nevertheless the critical failures, obstacles, impairments to capital accumulation are in the relations of capital itself, not in government actions. The massive accumulation of debt did not cause the contraction of 2008 to 20whatever. Declining earnings did. Overproduction did.
6. There is no evidence that herd immunity was achieved much less significant during the Spanish influenza. Estimates are that only 1/3 of the world’s population was infected during the three waves of the infuenza, far below the level necessary to achieve herd immunity. I suggest you check out the US CDC’s website (yeah, they are still good for some things) on the Spanish influenza.
7. You can stand by your slogan; the point being there’s nothing in that slogan that is substantively different than the slogans of the “Occupiers” of 2011– about making the rich pay, and the 1% etc etc etc. If Marxist critique is good for anything, it should be good for making that distinction. If it doesn’t, then it really isn’t worth the trouble.
You approach these issues academically not politically. Too many trees and not enough wood. You say that Biden’s appointment did not affect US foreign policy. Tut tut. You have it the wrong way round, it was US foreign policy, that is the overthrow of the government of a sovereign state that got Biden his job. And electors know that. This is the point I was making. Agitation. It is all about the swamp, which Trump was able to play on. And no I will not be reading the Congressional reports because to be quite frank, when there is bipartisanship over foreign policy, in this case the key targeting of Russia, asking Congress to investigate US politicians and policy, is like asking a priest to audit the bible. The only digging I will do is to see if Pelosi was advised against going for the whole package by her own members of the House. A preliminary investigation shows that there was substantial disquiet within the ranks of Democrats in the Lower House to the Bill, some went as far as to call for a streamlined “skinny” version of the bill. Additionally Democratic candidates to the House elections were warning that the delay in the Bill, or more importantly, getting financial aid out, was hurting their prospects on the ground. So it seems I was not alone on this point.
You also approach the issue of capital accumulation very abstractly. A recession is normally precipitated by the scissors effect of falling profitability and rising interest rates as the credit cycle becomes stressed. Central Bank intervention post 2008 has broken one of the blades of that scissor, ie they have paralysed interest rates. The question is, can they continue to do so under conditions where COVID is skewing the Demand and Supply of loanable funds. I note today that the 10 year rate was trending above 0.9%.
Finally, on the media, I find your support for the mainstream quite difficult to understand. This was the media that claimed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction even after he destroyed them, that Syria was using chemical weapons even after he had destroyed them, that China was deploying Islands off their coast to attack the USA. When it comes to US foreign policy in particular, the media is simply a megaphone for the state department.
Lets end it at this. We are not going to agree.
1. The issue was, as specified by the Trump supporters, that Biden got rid of Sholkin in order to protect Hunter Biden’s position at Burisma. That is what you claimed was “firmed up.” That is what you referred to when you referred to the video of Biden bragging that he gave the Ukrainians an ultimatum. Subsequent “accusations” are totally unsubstantiated, and rely on a supposed computer left by Hunter Biden at a repair shop run by a blind person who is a known Trump supporter. You want to swallow that Kool-Aid, go right ahead. But don’t get all righteous with me for pointing to the government investigation, under the direction of the Trumpists that was unable to establish a single piece of evidence to support any of the accusations. And don’t get all righteous with me for pointing out the difference between the mainstream media that supports the government, including the government lies, and the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones and the other conspiracy hacks who make up events that never happened (Bowling Green massacre, anyone?); circulate doctored videos; etc in order to target African-Americans, Jews, scientists, doctors, anyone who doesn’t fit their ideology. If you can’t distinguish between the quality and content and INTERESTS of the Washington Post, or the New York Times as opposed to QAnon, then that says a ton about you, but very little about the bourgeois media. We know the interpretations provided by the NYT and the WP are going to support the “established” reign of the bourgeoisie. It is simply not the case that the NYT and WP are going to falsify data, create totally fictitious events in order to support the conspiracy theory of history.
2. Whether or not there was “disquiet” in the Democratic ranks is not the issue. The issue is if McConnell would have allowed anything through the gate into the Senate, no matter how modest, how compromised, how meager it was. The available evidence, based on the fact that 220 House passed bills have not even be brought to discussion in committee tends to say your “lets compromise approach is, frankly, like trying to piss up a rope.
3. Interest rates had little to do with the 2008 collapse, in that mortgage rates decline in both 2007 and 2008 from 2006, and that the Fed lowered interest rates from 5.25% in 07 to 2% in April 08. Major industrial concerns were basically unimpacted by both the increase in interest rates to 2006 and the decline in 2008, as they were fundamentally cash rich. We can argue about this forever. I would simply advise you to look closely at earnings in the petroleum industry and the collapse thereof for a concrete example.
4. Fine with me, this is the last I’ll post on this. Good luck achieving herd immunitiy.
Let us not get ahead of ourselves. The only issues I have addressed in the Ukrainian affair is entitlement and the interference in the internal affairs of a foreign country by the Obama administration aka getting a prosecutor fired, right or wrong. I am sure you follow PEW research. So I will be doing a bit of referencing. Trump’s main attraction was that he claimed to be standing up to the political establishment. This was his trump card in 2016, the outsider who was going to look after the underside of society. This being so it was always going to be the case that Trump would present Biden as personifying that long line of establishment politicians that had failed the electorate, especially lower educated and paid, white workers who bore the brunt of 2008. Ukraine was the preferred stick to beat Trump with. When I said firmed up, I did not mean evidentially, I meant more of the mud stuck. In other words I am looking for reasons why support for Trump remained so solid. You and I can bat this back and forth but I am sure the post-mortems over the course of November will confirm this.
More important than evidence is the sheer scale of distrust by Trump supporters for the official media. Over 80% are skeptics. https://www.journalism.org/2020/01/24/u-s-media-polarization-and-the-2020-election-a-nation-divided/pj_2020-01-24_media-polarization_0-01/ The real question is why has that happened. Most Trump supporters are not you, they are not interested in the forensic interpretation of facts and processes, but when they are struggling to put food on the table, it pains them to see a VP’s son getting an underserved but lucrative job. This helps explain why 93% of Trump supporters were negative on Biden. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/10/09/voters-feelings-about-the-election-and-possible-outcomes/
It will also be a mistake to assume that Biden’s voter support was solid. It was less solid than support for Trump amongst his supporters. 63% of those intending to vote for Biden did so primarily out of opposition to Trump. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/10/09/amid-campaign-turmoil-biden-holds-wide-leads-on-coronavirus-unifying-the-country/
PEW also discovered was that support for a second support package amongst Republicans differed between earning groups. Whereas in general republican voters opposed a large stimulus package, this was not true for workers under $50,000 who in the majority were closer in view to that of Democratic voters. Once again we will have to wait for the post-mortem on whether the failure to pass any support bill hurt the Democrats more than the Republicans. I think it did. I think Pelosi was outplayed by Trump. His $1.8 trillion proposal predictably rebuffed by the Democrats allowed him to present himself as the champion of these workers as well as the piecemeal support he was able to offer earlier. While it is true that the Democrats clawed back some of the lost white working class vote, for me the key issue was why was it so small, and I believe it was because of Democratic tactics regarding the delayed support package. As Pelosi said to Jim Cramer in an overconfident CNBC interview: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/08/us/politics/nancy-pelosi-coronavirus-relief.html “We’re not doing short-term action, because if we do short-term action, they’re not going to do anything else,”. A tactical error. I rest my case.
Thought you wanted to end this. Guess not
1. To your first point: Bollocks, complete utter bollocks. That’s not what you said. That’s not what you intimated. You stated that the “allegations….around the Biden family…..in the Ukraine have firmed up.” The “allegation” against the Biden family were 1) that Biden manipulated US policy for his personal advantage. 2) that Hunter Biden basically extorted payments on behalf of his father. There was no allegation made regarding the US policy regarding the “revolution” in the Ukraine– a “revolution” which those making the allegations against Biden supported and endorsed to a man. You want to move the goal posts now and “change” what you meant so that it has nothing to do with the actual allegations against Biden, so that it’s an indictment of US policy? That’s fine, but that’s not what you said.
2. As for Pelosi’s “overreach” hurt the Democrats in Congress? Fun fact: the Democrats who lost their seats in “normally” Democratic districts, all OPPOSED Medicare for All. The Democrats who won seats in “normally” Republican districts, all SUPPORTED Medicare for All. It seems to me that maybe not endorsing Medicare for All as a party hurt the Democrats more than any so-called overreach.
3. “Trump supporters …. are not interested in the forensic interpretation of facts and processes, but when they are struggling to put food on the table, it pains them to see a VP’s son getting an underserved but lucrative job. ” Oh they are definitely not interested in facts, but by and large Trump supporters as far as can be determined are not, in the main, those struggling to put food on the table. So far investigation shows that those voters with household incomes BELOW the US median preferred Biden. Those with incomes greater than $100,000 per year supported Trump. Here’s another 93% to go along with yours. Among the group with the greater incidences of poverty, and child poverty, those literally trying to put food on the table, like say African-Americans, Biden received 93% of the vote.
4. Never said anything about how firm Biden’s support was or wasn’t. I know I didn’t support Biden.
5. 93% of Trumps supporters were negative on Biden? No kidding, Sherlock, didn’t take you long to tumble to that. And you think that was because Hunter Biden parlayed his family connections into big bucks? Sure thing, that must explain why 93% of Trump supporters were absolutely outraged that Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump made so much money in 2019. That must explain why they are so mad that Jared and Ivanka made $138 million in 2019 while supposedly serving as presidential advisors. 93 percent of Trump supporters are negative on Biden? Who would have thunk that? Tell you something else: 99.9 percent of Trump supporters absolutely detest, and fear, Kamala Harris. Is that because she used her family connections to get her kids big money?
6. My final words on this: When it comes to the US, you simply don’t know what you’re talking about and you make that ignorance even more apparent with every response.
Please moderate your language. I have not retracted anything nor moved the goal posts. I have stated repeatedly that Biden left himself vulnerable because of his behaviour in the Ukraine. Why else would Trump have exploited it.
With regard to your comments it appears that the Brooking Institute proves you to be the ignorant one. In a CNBC report referenced here “President Donald Trump carried 2,497 counties across the country that together generate 29% of the American economy, according to a new study by the Brookings Institution.” “President-elect Joe Biden won 477 counties that together generate 70% of U.S. GDP.” “Republicans represent a far greater number of smaller counties with less-educated, more-homogenous workforces that, on average, tend to rely on manufacturing, agriculture and mining.” It should be added that these are more rural constituencies with smaller towns etc. So there we have it. Precisely the workers who most depended on furlough payments or supplementary payments. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/10/election-2020-democrats-republicans-economy.html
Please Sartesian lets leave it at this otherwise it will spoil our working relationship and also patience, let us see what the post mortem’s reveal. One of us will be right, the other wrong.
Here is a tracking poll released by Politico taken just before the election https://assets.morningconsult.com/wp-uploads/2020/10/28063320/2010142_crosstabs_POLITICO_RVs_v1.pdf
Table POL17a (page 330) found 41% of registered voters blamed the Democrats in Congress and only 25% blamed the Republicans for the stimulis gridlock in Congress. Even when you add in Trump it is neck and neck. So it appears the weight of evidence does bear out my propositions.
“Republicans represent a far greater number of smaller counties. It should be added that these are more rural constituencies with smaller towns etc. So there we have it. Precisely the workers who most depended on furlough payments or supplementary payments”
GDP, as you well know, tells us nothing about the distribution of income in the areas under discussion. And it’s the distribution of income that might tell us who’s struggling to put food on the table.
Rural areas have, since Nixon trended more heavily conservative than urban areas, despite the fact that poverty rates in rural areas have been higher than rates in urban areas for decades. The conservatism of the US small town, rural community is no myth, and has grown despite the devastation of those areas under the Reagan-Bush1 administrations. In rural communities, percentage of people identifying as Christian evangelists far exceeds the percentage in urban areas; their incomes also exceed the household average for rural areas, they are overwhelmingly white, and they dominate the political landscape. That might account for the vote for Trump. They voted, not the economy, but their property.
That a county contributes less to GDP than a different county tells us almost nothing about the class divisions within that county. That’s one
Biden, in those rural areas, still captured more of the vote of people making less than $50,000 a year than Trump.
And that’s as moderately as I can put it.
So this is important, we should collaborate. Median incomes in Red states has fallen from $55,000 in 2008 to $53,000 now while in Blue states, despite having been lower in 2008 at $54,000 it has now risen to $61,000. I am sure you have the data for voting patterns in red states, but in this context, the behaviour of those earning below $50,000 is vital. Do you have references? The reference for median incomes is again Brookings https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2019/09/10/america-has-two-economies-and-theyre-diverging-fast/
From the Director of MIT’s Election Data Lab:
“He said Trump also lost some appeal among low-income voters, who were more attracted to Biden, but the president gained among voters with family incomes over $100,000 a year.
“That right now appears to be the biggest demographic shift I’m seeing. And you can tie that to [Trump’s] tax cuts [for the wealthy] and lower regulations.”” (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/05/us-election-demographics-race-gender-age-biden-trump)
1. Part of your problem is that you conflate things (as an example, you conflated the 2019/2020 charges made against Biden re Ukraine, completely partisan and without evidence, with the reprehensible bi-partisan policy of the US re Ukraine since 2014). One of these has precipitated the accusations against Biden, but the other, the policy in Ukraine has not, since those making the charges completely endorsed that policy. You provide no evidence for your claim that the accusations have “firmed up,” but rely instead on your conflation.
2. Similarly you conflate the allegiance of the established media with the ideological motivated deliberate lies of the alt-right media, which lies are designed to establish targets to focus the petty bourgeois panic and hatred. The issue for these “outlets” is not investigation, is not finding solutions to problems, or even identifying the problems, but rather to focus on TARGETS. That’s the difference. There is a difference between the established bourgeois press, and the ideological press that seeks to diffuse conspiracy theories, and motivate the anti-semitism, white supremacy, anti-labor union mentality that is so ingrained, particularly in rural areas, in the United States. You fail to make the distinction and conflate the two. Perhaps an analogy might help. Thurgood Marshall was just as is committed to the preservation of the US political, and economic system as Clarence Thomas. But if you conflate the two, your mistaking the very real changes taking place in the political system marked by the replacement of Marshall with Thomas, not to mention the replacement of RBG by the Barrett.
3. You conflate the relative lower general income, and lower gross output of rural areas with an imagined greater proletarian make up. Nothing could be further from the truth. Manufacturing has a greater RELATIVE importance in the rural areas, precisely because of the lack of general development. As is the general trend, manufacturing employment has declined in those areas, as it has in urban areas. However, the trend in urban areas, and throughout capitalism as a whole is the tremendous increase in SERVICE sector workers, which is exactly where the rural areas lag severely due to the declining population, the declining tax base, the closing of hospitals, schools, and the concentration of wealth in larger and larger agricultural units. Nothing you provide, or in the Brookings report indicates that those supporting Trump are– 1) workers 2) living hand to mouth, “too busy putting food on the table.”
Incidence of poverty in rural areas is generally higher than in metro areas. For example poverty rates for African-Americans in metro areas are measured at about 25%, and 35% in rural. Nothing indicates that greater number of those poor voted for Trump. On the contrary, all indications are that Trump lost support among those with lower incomes. One thing I will state about those extremely poor in rural states– they tend not to vote period. See https://capitalandmain.com/mapping-electoral-power-of-low-income-voters-0814.
4. I do not consider farmers, big or small, tenant or property owning to be workers. I do not consider shopkeepers, storeowners, in business or bankrukpt to be workers. The exit polling so far shows that Biden captured a greater portion of the low-income voters vote than Trump among all demographics across all geographies. Identifying the GDP differential of counties cannot be conflated with class. I’ll dig up as much as I can on the breakdown of the rural vote by income groups and post it up later.