Articles: Politics

During the past couple of weeks, Americans have seen unprecedented authoritarian behavior on the part of many governors and local government leaders, and the chilling possibility that the Obama White House intentionally weaponized the National Security Agency, FBI, CIA, IRS and other federal agencies to attack domestic political opponents. At the same time, the government and the tech community have made huge strides in expanding the surveillance state, often termed fascism. The concepts of democracy, personal privacy and property rights are rapidly becoming quaint concepts from a bygone era.

The coronavirus has led to the greatest economic catastrophe in our lifetimes. Record losses in the market, record bankruptcies, record unemployment and, soon, record insolvency of local governments. This social and economic firestorm will lead to massive shifts in political alignment. The question is, which way will politics shift this year and over the next several years?

Another sudden and unexpected factor will transform this year’s elections. Many states, cities and counties are about to, suddenly, run out of money. Wages won’t be paid. Services won’t be delivered. Institutions will shut down abruptly. Many state colleges may fold. And yet most state and local political and administrative leaders just sit and watch. Voters will not be pleased.

America will never be the same. The coronavirus pandemic has had an economic and social impact on America that ranks with the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, either World War, or the Great Depression. America never has been hit so hard and lost so much, so quickly. It has put millions out of work, has cut several trillion dollars out of the market, and endangered the survival of hundreds of thousands of American companies. In a very short period of time, it has been devastating and transformational.

The economic and social impact of COVID-19 has been the fastest and largest single shift in our lifetimes. Many will lose jobs, incomes, homes, savings and retirement incomes, overnight. America may go from the lowest unemployment rate in our lifetime to the highest, within weeks.

Which leads to the most important question: What will America itself be like in a few months as it recovers from the virus? Americans should prepare for a “Post-Pandemic Age.”

The COVID-19 crisis is attacking and killing people with the weakest immune systems. The same will be true for the impact of the pandemic on the Bay Area’s counties and cities. It will kill those with the weakest fiscal immune systems.

COVID-19 is the latest “pop-quiz” that the cosmos springs on us periodically and unexpectedly. This quiz was designed to test the so-called “clash of civilizations” that so many historians have opined about for the past 100 years, speculating on how well the “American experiment” would do in comparison to fearsome rivals such as global communism and socialism, Islamic fundamentalism and, most recently, China.

So far, the chaotic, contentious, unpredictable and, at times, outright nasty American open society, instant communication, 300-plus million opinions, free market model has done very well.

Regardless of the source of the coronavirus, it is now a roadmap for future bioterrorism. The damage has been quick and enormous — much greater than 9/11 — and worldwide. The responses have been predictable and ineffective. And the cost of a potential weapon such as this is close to zero. It represents the perfect asymmetric warfare strategy, and there should be little doubt these lessons are being studied carefully by military planners in North Korea, Tehran, Moscow, Beijing and desert caves throughout the Middle East.

A potentially brilliant foreign policy strategy unfolded last week during President Trump’s trip to India. Hardly anyone in America knows that, or has been talking about it, because it’s hard to find a journalist who filed an interesting or insightful story from New Delhi.

Trump’s visit to India reflected a complex approach for strengthening America’s hand in South Asia and triangulating Russia, China and India in Central Asia.

Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have trapped the Democratic Party. The Titanic is sinking and smart politicians should save themselves before it’s too late. The lifeboat is a third party.

In “Peter and the Wolf,” Prokofiev’s Russian “symphonic fairy tale for children,” Peter, “a young Soviet pioneer,” tries to protect a little duck from a prowling wolf. In the end, the naive duck gets eaten by the wolf, and Peter captures the wolf and takes him to the People’s Zoo.

In the tragic opera that is the Democratic presidential primary season, reality following the New Hampshire primary reflects fiction as young Peter is hot on the wolf’s tail, hoping to catch him, stuff him and put him in the Democrats’ political museum.