The Length of the Shutdowns Will be Determined by Donald Trump, not Science

https://cepr.net/the-length-of-the-shutdowns-will-be-determined-by-donald-trump-not-science/




Many people are thinking about policy through this crisis as though the country will be largely shut down for many months. This is not going to happen. The length of this shutdown will be determined by Donald Trump, not science, and he is not going to allow a shutdown of many months regardless of what the science says.

We know that Trump was hugely resistant to the shutdown all along. Just over a week ago he was boasting about how we would have full church pews on Easter. The idea that this could mean hundreds of thousands of additional infections and tens of thousands of deaths apparently did not enter his head.

Fortunately, some of the public health experts were able to deter his Easter Sunday plans, but it is widely reported that he is anxious to end the shutdown and get back to business as normal. After all, the shutdown is depressing the stock market.

A factor that is likely to push Trump further in this direction is the fact that several European countries are making plans to reopen parts of their economy. Both Austria and Denmark plan to end parts of their shutdown in the next couple of weeks. Undoubtedly Trump will be driven into a rage by the idea that Europe, China, South Korea, and other wealthy countries are back on their feet, while Donald Trump’s America is still in shutdown mode.

Of course, these countries have done a far better job testing and controlling the virus, which makes them better situated to reopen their economies (it may still be too soon for them), but Donald Trump doesn’t care about such details. The governors will actually make the call on reopening their states, but it is hard to imagine many red-state governors resisting the demands from Trump to reopen.

The Democratic governors of states like New York and California may be reluctant to go along, but Trump will have zero qualms about threatening them with denials of medical equipment and other resources if they don’t fall in line. Also, the Republicans deliberately starved the blue states of money in the last rescue package. The cost of remaining shut down will mean not having the money to pay the salaries of the police department, the fire department, or for the medical care of people suffering from the coronavirus.

So, when we ask how long the shutdown will last, don’t look to the rate of spread of the pandemic or what the epidemiologists say, look to Donald Trump’s anger and frustration. We will stay shut down as long as his fragile ego will allow, and not a day longer.




--written by some fucking narcissist asshole

Why Do Economists Have Such a Hard Time Imagining Open Source Biomedical Research?

https://cepr.net/why-do-economists-have-such-a-hard-time-imagining-open-source-biomedical-research/



It seems more than a bit bizarre, but in a discussion of an alternative to patents for financing the development of new drugs and vaccines, publicly-funded open-source research is not mentioned. This is peculiar since so much of the research into treatments and vaccines for the coronavirus is in effect being open-sourced, with researchers posting results as soon as they are available. Advance, open-sourced funding would mean that any new drugs or vaccines that are developed could be sold as cheap generics from the first day they are available.

It is also bizarre that economists have such a hard time envisioning open-source research since all of our research is essentially open-source. Economists are paid by universities and think tanks. Extraordinary work can qualify for a Nobel Prize, which is a big chunk of money, but the vast majority of economists get the bulk of their income from ongoing funding streams, where they are expected to produce research that will be widely available.

Perhaps economists believe that this route has not been effective in supporting good research in economics. This could explain their reluctance to envision open-source research in biomedical innovation and elsewhere.






Dean Baker 

Basic Economics for Economic Columnists: A Depression is a Process, not an Event

https://cepr.net/basic-economics-for-economic-columnists-a-depression-is-a-process-not-an-event/






With the economy going into a shutdown mode for at least month, and possibly quite a bit longer, we’re again hearing the cries from elite economics columnists about a Second Great Depression. These are pernicious, not only because they are wrongheaded, but they can be used to justify bad things, like giving hundreds of billions of dollars to the bankers who wrecked the economy with their recklessness during the housing bubble.

The basic and simple error made by the Second Great Depression gang is that they imagine we can be condemned to a prolonged period of high unemployment and slow growth by a single bad event. Their story is that letting the banks fail caused the first Great Depression and that we would have had round two if we let the market work its magic in 2008-09 on Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and the rest. The uncontrolled bank failures were indeed very bad news for the economy at the start of the Great Depression, and a wave of major bank failures in 2008-09 would undoubtedly have made the initial slump worse in the Great Recession, but neither necessitated a prolonged slump.

What got us out of the Great Depression was the massive spending associated with World War II. There was no economic reason we could not have had this spending in 1931 rather than 1941, except have it focused on building roads, schools, hospitals, and other socially useful projects. We didn’t have massive spending in 1931, or 1932, or even during the New Deal, for political reasons, not economic ones.

So let’s stop the game-playing. We need good policy right now to keep people whole through a shutdown period and then to get people back to work when we reopen. Ideally, we will also be addressing long-neglected needs, like universal health care, child care, and slowing global warming, but this Second Great Depression stuff is just silly.

Dean Baker

John Prine dies from coronavirus at age 73 - Top 10 Songs Of John Prine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXRWUm38EZA

John Prine (October 10, 1946 – April 7, 2020) was an American country folk singer-songwriter. He was active as a composer, recording artist, and live performer since the early 1970s until his death, and was known for an often humorous style of country music that has elements of protest and social commentary. 

Born and raised in Maywood, Illinois, Prine learned to play the guitar at the age of 14. He attended classes at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music.

After serving in West Germany with the U.S. armed forces, Prine moved to Chicago in the late 1960s, where he worked as a mailman, writing and singing songs as a hobby. A member of Chicago's folk revival, he was discovered by Kris Kristofferson, resulting in the production of Prine's self-titled debut album with Atlantic Records in 1971. 

After receiving critical acclaim, Prine focused on his musical career, recording three more albums for Atlantic. He then signed to Asylum Records, where he recorded an additional three albums. In 1984 he co-founded Oh Boy Records, an independent record label with which he would release most of his subsequent albums. After his battle with squamous cell cancer in 1998, Prine's vocals deepened into a gravelly voice.

That's How Every Empire Falls

John Prine

Caught a train from Alexandria
Just a broken man in flight
Running scared with his devils
Saying prayers all through the night
Oh but mercy can't find him
Not in the shadows where he calls
Forsaking all his better angels
That's how every empire falls

The bells ring out on Sunday mornng
Like echoes from another time
All our innocence and yearning
And sense of wonder left behind
Oh gentle hearts remember
What was that story? Is it lost?
For when religion loses vision
That's how every empire falls.

He toasts his wife and all his family
The providence he brought to bear
They raise their glasses in his honor
Although this union they don't share
A man who lives among them
Was still a stranger to them all
For when the heart is never open
That's how every empire falls…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_kHwVqfJtU

Fallout From a Navy Captain’s Heroism: The Possible Emergence of a New Idea of ‘National Security’

https://consortiumnews.com/2020/04/13/covid-19-fallout-from-a-navy-captains-heroism-the-possible-emergence-of-a-new-idea-of-national-security/







The conflict between the Navy high command, a captain and his threatened crew could underscore a new meaning of national security after the pandemic runs its course, says Gareth Porter.

By Gareth Porter
Special to Consortium News

The United States is experiencing an upheaval from the Coronavirus pandemic that is deeper than anything in modern American history, and military and civilian Pentagon elites have responded to it in a way that seems certain to further magnify the broader corrosive impact of the crisis on their enormous power.

It has further widened the existing socio-political seam between those elites and their servicemen and women who have faced a threat to their health not only from the pandemic itself but from the decisions made by military bureaucrats directly affecting their safety.

That is the larger significance of the dramatic recent events involving Captain Brett Crozier, the crew of USS Theodore Roosevelt and the hapless, now-cashiered Navy Secretary Thomas Modly.

Modly had made the most embarrassing public appearance of a senior official in recent history on board the stricken aircraft carrier after having relieved Captain Crozier, who had received an unprecedented standing ovation from his crew as he walked to shore.

Modly not only attacked Crozier, suggesting he was “stupid” to circulate his letter urging immediate action to evacuate sailors from the ship but was condescending to the crew as well. (584 TR Roosevelt crew, including Crozier, have tested positive and on Monday the first died.)

Modly’s rambling and profanity-laced talk to the crew clearly conveyed the official view that they had no business cheering their Captain, who had stood up for their interests, because he had embarrassed the “chain of command.”


The USS Theodore Roosevelt. (Flickr)

Modly thus dramatically illustrated the wide gulf that separates military and civilian Pentagon elites from the lives of U.S. servicemen and women. The interests of the senior military and civilian officials in the Pentagon have always focused primarily on their missions and capabilities, which are the tokens of their power and prestige.

The health of soldiers and sailors has inevitably emerged as a secondary consideration, despite official protestations to the contrary. That much is clear from a review of the press briefing given by Modly and Chief of Naval Operation Admiral Michael Gilday on March 24, after the first three cases of Covid-19 had been identified on the Theodore Roosevelt.

Gilday revealed in the briefing that the Navy was only testing when there was evidence of symptoms and not for all sailors on board the ship.

The Navy Surgeon General Rear Admiral Bruce Gillingham further explained the Navy was doing “surveillance testing,” which he described as “cross section” testing, to “give us an idea”, rather testing all the sailors onboard. When another reporter asked how concerned the Navy was about a new cluster of cases emerging onboard, Gillnghham didn’t address that question and instead answered another question the reporter had posed.

Even more revealing of the Navy’s priorities, however, were the responses to a journalist’s observation that the Navy did not appear to have a coherent position guiding commanders in regard to maintaining social distance onboard. Modly said it was “almost impossible to try to micromanage these types of decisions,” and Gilday added, “We really do trust the judgment of our commanders, and so we’re giving them authority to do what they think they need to do to remain on mission and take care of people.”

USS Nimitz Also Threatened

Commanding officers could hardly have missed the clear implication that they were to “remain on mission” and do the best they could to deal with the risk of a Covid-19 outbreak that would inevitably be significant. By the time of that press briefing, of course, the virus was already spreading rapidly on the Theodore Roosevelt, and within days, it was a severe emergency demanding radical action.

The full story of what happened during those crucial days is still untold, but Captain Crozier obviously met resistance from the “chain of command” to his call for immediate evacuation of a very large number of the 4,000 sailors from the ship, leaving behind about 1,000 to maintain the nuclear reactors and the billions of dollars of weapons onboard.

The same pattern of Navy treatment of the problem is evident in the case of the USS Nimitz, which is still at its base in Bremerton, Washington. It has had two positive diagnoses, including one sailor who had taken sick while on leave. Fifteen more sailors who had been in contact with him had been taken off the ship and quarantined, but those remaining onboard have not been tested for Covid-19, according to the father of a new member who has stayed in close contact with his son. The father reported last week that the screening included asking some, but not all crew members whether they felt ill.

The father told a reporter that he “feels like they’re not taking it seriously.” The Nimitz is preparing for sea trials this month that will last for weeks, and the Navy and the Pentagon are obviously eager to have it proceed without delay. The responses of Vice-Chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff Gen. John Hyten and Deputy Secretary of Defense David L. Norquist, at an April 8 press briefing, revealed unintentionally the way the Pentagon elite prioritizes its institutional interests over the military personnel facing the Covid-19 threat.

More than one journalist asked how the Pentagon was planning to adjust its operational tempo to take account of outbreaks like the one on the Theodore Roosevelt in the coming coming months. But Hyten and Norquist refused to acknowledge any such necessity.

When one journalist asked how the Theodore Roosevelt could participate in combat if 10 percent of its crew were found to be positive for Covid-19, Norquist incredibly suggested the Navy could take it in stride, explaining, “[A] significant percentage for the military are asymptomatic. Others have mild flu-like symptoms, the sort of things that our fleet is normally used to dealing with.”


Crozier on board the Roosevelt. (Flickr)

Reckoning Awaiting

Captain Crozier’s four-page letter, which had elicited the wrath of those Pentagon and Navy bureaucrats, challenged their deeply engrained habit of pursuing those institutional interests to demonstrate the super power of the U.S. military, while giving minimal weight to the costs imposed on ordinary soldiers and sailors.

“We are not at war,” Crozier had observed. “Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset — our Sailors.”

Taking Crozier down looked like a safe bet for opportunists like Modly, Norquist and Hyten, especially since Donald Trump had publicly scolded Crozier for sending the letter. But the political tide had already shifted against them, as Crozier emerged as a national hero for his defense of the interests of sailors against the wishes of the bureaucrats.

And more important, as Americans begin to come to grips with the enormity of the socio-economic catatrasophe caused by a global pandemic for which the United States government was totally unprepared, a reckoning seems inevitable for the political-military institutions represented by these officials.

Retired Army Gen. David Barno, who was head of the combined forces command in Afghanistan 2003-05 and Defense policy analyst Nora Bensahel, have predicted that Americans will not look at “national security” in the same way again. Instead, Barno and Bensahel write that Americans will “conclude that the country has gotten the very idea of security wrong.”

They wrote:


“Americans will look at national security differently than they did before and may no longer be willing – or even able – to give the Department of Defense almost three-quarters of a trillion taxpayer dollars each year to defend against foreign threats.

Americans will look at the biggest single discretionary spending line in the government’s budget and conclude that the country has gotten the very idea of security fundamentally wrong. They will realize that this massive loss of life was inflicted not by a terrorist attack or rampaging enemy armies, but by an unseen and amorphous health threat. And they will recognize that despite spending more than $700 billion each year on the Department of Defense, the Pentagon’s focus on external threats meant that it played only a very small role in protecting the nation against this deadly and life-changing threat, and in responding once it began to spill across the nation.”

A poll taken in February found that 31 percent of those surveyed thought that the United States was spending too much on defense. But that number will likely rise after the pandemic ends as Americans start to ask: How well did all that defense spending protect us? Many are likely to conclude that domestic threats and global health issues imperil their personal security and the American way of life far more than any looming foreign adversary. They may emerge from this crisis with radically different spending priorities (as discussed below) that will pressure the defense budget even further downward.”

The utter failure of the Pentagon bureaucracy to take care of its own soldiers and sailors in the face of the pandemic should combine with this broader shift in political attitudes and priorities to present the biggest threat to the power of the military-industrial-congressional complex in its entire history.

Out of the havoc and ruin of this disaster should emerge the first real opportunity for a popular movement to end the dominance of that complex over American politics, policy and resources once and for all.

To Stop Bernie Sanders, WaPo Willing to Risk Americans’ Lives

https://fair.org/home/to-stop-bernie-sanders-wapo-willing-to-risk-americans-lives/






PETE TUCKER





There’s little the Washington Post won’t do to stop Bernie Sanders, including endanger American lives.

That was made clear with the March 17 Democratic primaries, which were held amid a rapidly worsening pandemic, and with enthusiastic support from the Post. Seeing its chance to thwart Sanders’ second bid for the presidency, the Post risked voters’ health by staying silent about the dangers of in-person voting, even encouraging it.

With Sanders’ opponent for the Democratic nomination, former Vice President Joe Biden, surging, postponing the March 17 elections likely would have hurt Biden’s chances at ending the unpredictable primary race, in which momentum has swung wildly. To “get an insurmountable delegate lead,” the Post reported (3/16/20), “Biden needs primaries held sooner rather than later, and he needs his supporters to feel comfortable voting.”

The Post was eager to help, even if it meant ignoring the paper’s own stark daily warnings about the coronavirus.
Tip of the Iceberg


It’s unlikely that a Washington Post columnist (3/9/20) would have urged states to carry on with a planned primary in the face of Hurricane Katrina.

In the lead up to the March 17 primary elections—in Florida, Illinois and Arizona—coronavirus cases were taking off in the US. As a leading national newspaper, the Post did the responsible thing and put out a daily clarion call. “All the elements now exist for a swiftly unfolding emergency, on a scale that dwarfs [Hurricane] Katrina,” warned Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson (3/9/20).

Tom Bossert, a former adviser to the Department of Homeland Security, wrote in a Post op-ed (3/9/20), “By the time cases are confirmed, significant community transmission has likely already occurred. This is a classic tip-of-the-iceberg phenomenon.”

But with immediate and drastic action, there was still time to “avoid hitting that threshold where sizable regions of the country will suddenly step into hell,” wrote Post columnist Megan McArdle (3/10/20).

The coronavirus’s exponential growth “is math, not prophecy,” explained Harry Stevens (3/14/20) in one of the Post’s most viewed stories of all time. The story included simulations of how viruses move through populations when social distancing is practiced more or less, and Stevens noted:


The spread can be slowed, public health professionals say, if people practice “social distancing” by avoiding public spaces and generally limiting their movement.
Silent as Pandemic Soars

On March 17, voters in Florida, Illinois and Arizona headed to polling places, where social distancing can be difficult if not impossible.

Despite its own stark warnings about the virus, the Washington Post kept quiet about the dangers of voting, even as the skyrocketing number of cases led health professionals and others to call on the states to postpone their primaries.

Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidelines calling on broad swaths of people, including “older person[s],” to stay home. And President Trump recommended avoiding gatherings of 10 people or more.

“There is simply no way to comply with these guidelines and also hold those elections as scheduled,” warned the Intercept’s Ryan Grim (3/17/20), who said on Twitter (3/16/20), “Even small gatherings at this point in the pandemic can exponentially explode the death count.”

Two weeks before the March 17 primaries, the US had only 125 confirmed cases. A week later that number had jumped to 1,018. By the day of the March 17 vote, it stood at 5,904. Two weeks later, on March 31, the US would have over 160,000 confirmed cases and 3,000 deaths from coronavirus.
‘Risking American Lives’

Once Biden secured crucial victories over Sanders on March 17, the Washington Post suddenly became alarmed by the danger of in-person voting amid a pandemic. “Americans should not have to choose between their personal health and that of the country’s democracy,” read a Post editorial (3/18/20) published the day after the vote.

That same day, postponing primaries suddenly became “laudable,” while not doing so would be “risking American lives,” wrote Post columnist Henry Olsen (3/18/20). Only the day before, a Post headline on a Jennifer Rubin column (3/17/20) had called postponement a “terrible precedent.”
Spanish Flu or Abraham Lincoln?


“Campaigns and state parties are encouraging voters to participate in primaries unfolding on Tuesday,” the Washington Post (3/16/20) reported, quoting a local Ohio official telling Biden supporters, “It is safe.”

While there’s little precedent for voting amid a pandemic, a week before the March 17 primaries, Washington Post reporters Isaac Stanley-Becker and Elise Viebeck (3/9/20) pointed to the 1918 midterm election as an analogous situation.

During that election, the Spanish Flu, which killed 50 to 100 million people worldwide, was in full swing. To protect public health, some officials ordered voters to wear masks while voting, and advised against public gatherings to hear results.

But this historical analogy may have posed a problem for the Post, which needed the March 17 elections to proceed to finish off Sanders. If would-be voters conjured up images of masks, epidemics and widespread death, postponing elections would seem rational. That may be why the Post revised the analogy.

The day before the election, Stanley-Becker and Amy Gardner (3/16/20) discarded the Spanish Flu for something positive, even noble. In making the revision, the Post reporters relied not on public health experts, but “political scientists and experts in election law [who] reached back further to find a historical touchstone.” Americans shouldn’t think of an epidemic when voting, but of patriotic duty, the Post reporters wrote:


In 1864, with the nation still rent by the Confederate rebellion, Abraham Lincoln insisted on standing for election, arguing, “If the rebellion could force us to forego or postpone a national election, it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us.”

Right-wing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis—among others, including the Biden campaign—echoed this refrain to justify going ahead with the March 17 primary, saying, “They voted during the Civil War” (CBSMiami, 3/13/20).

But as FAIR (3/28/20) noted, voting during a time of war and amidst a pandemic are different, since you can’t “catch Civil War by going to the polls.”
‘Self-Absorbed Crank’


The Washington Post‘s David Byler (3/17/20) argued that the solution to the problem of how to vote safely was to not bother voting.

With Biden’s primary victories secured, the Washington Post’s newfound concern for voting amid a pandemic pivoted in a surprising direction. Suddenly, it was Sanders who was responsible for putting voters’ health at risk.

“In the midst of this chaos, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) would do public health…a big favor by acknowledging reality and leaving the race now,” so as to “free voters from making an impossible choice between casting their ballots and safeguarding their health,” wrote Post columnist David Byler (3/17/20).

By staying in the race, Sanders “forces Democratic voters in a country in the midst of a health pandemic to trudge to the polls (or forgo voting),” wrote Post columnist Jennifer Rubin (3/19/20).

Elsewhere, Rubin called on Sanders—the “self-absorbed crank” (3/25/20)—to “behave like an adult” and drop out, or prepare to “draw anger for…compelling millions of people to leave their homes” (3/17/20). But, as Katie Halper (FAIR.org, 3/28/20) noted:


Our primaries are not just for candidates running for president, but for thousands of people running for Congress, mayor, governor and countless other local offices. In other words, these primaries are going to occur independently of the presidential race.
To ‘Seize’ Advantage

In addition to jeopardizing the country’s health, the Washington Post accused Sanders of another sinister deed. This “78-year-old man who knows this is his last chance for the White House” is trying to “seize” advantage of the coronavirus crisis. That’s according to the Post’s Henry Olsen (3/26/20), whose column is headlined, “The Coronavirus Is Hurting Millions of People. But There’s One Person Who Could Benefit.”

Olsen was echoing a Post story from four days earlier (3/22/20)—which also featured a picture of Sanders at the top—headlined, “Liberals Seize on Pandemic Response to Revive Campaign Proposals.”

Sanders is the first Jewish candidate with a plausible chance of being president. Portraying him as profiting off of a virus comes uncomfortably close to antisemitic tropes, something the Post has struggled with in its past coverage of Sanders (FAIR.org, 1/28/20). (Several other news outlets also associated Sanders with the coronavirus—Washington Post, 2/28/20; Glenn Greenwald tweet, 2/29/20.)

The principal way that Sanders has sought to “seize” on the pandemic is by highlighting the need for Medicare for All, which would provide healthcare to all US residents, bringing the country in line with all other wealthy nations.

For this, Sanders is subjected to Post attacks, while his rival—who, like the Post, opposes Medicare for All—receives decidedly different treatment. A recent Post headline (3/13/20) read, “Why Joe Biden Is the Antidote to This Virus.”
Irregularities


Washington Post reporting (3/17/20) depicted conditions that would prevent a responsible campaign from urging its supporters to get out and vote—but that didn’t prevent the paper from trumpeting the results as conclusive.

In what may be a first, a major presidential campaign shuttered its regular get-out-the-vote efforts on the eve of an election. Citing CDC guidelines to voters, the Sanders campaign said in a statement, “We are making clear to voters that we believe going to the polls amid the coronavirus outbreak is a personal decision and we respect whichever choice they make.”

The Washington Post misleadingly reported that “both candidates urged voters to take extra precautions” (3/17/20). But the Biden campaign—using similar war-time analogies to the Post—made a full-throated push to get supporters to the polls, telling them it was “safe” (FAIR.org, 3/28/20).

Among those who voted (or tried to), many found polling places that were dangerously overcrowded, understaffed or closed altogether. And some precincts were short on supplies, including hand-sanitizer and wipes (Washington Post, 3/17/20).

Voting irregularities were most apparent in Illinois, where, the day before voting, billionaire Gov. J.B. Pritzker said the elections would be “safe” and endorsed Biden. That same night, Illinois recorded its first death from coronavirus. Three days after the election, Pritzker announced a statewide “stay-at-home” order.
‘Obliterated’

While noting some of the elections’ extraordinary irregularities, the Washington Post emphasized Biden’s wins. “Joe Biden Romps Over Bernie Sanders in Florida, Illinois and Arizona in Tuesday Balloting,” was the headline of the paper’s news report (3/17/20).

In Illinois and Florida, Biden “obliterated” Sanders “by margins rarely seen in a presidential primary (because the loser inevitably gets out before he is humiliated week after week),” cheered Jennifer Rubin (3/17/20), in a column headlined: “It’s Over. Biden Is the Presumptive Nominee.”

Meanwhile, in Arizona, where Biden’s win was narrower, the Post’s Henry Olsen (3/26/20) had an explanation: pandemic fears likely caused “older voters—Biden’s base—to choose not to vote.”

So, according to the Post, it’s Sanders, not Biden who benefitted from the elections being held under the threat of the coronavirus.
Ohio’s ‘Terrible Precedent’


Postponing voting simply because it would expose voters to a deadly virus was a “dangerous precedent,” Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin (3/17/20) argued.

Of the four states scheduled to hold their primaries on March 17, only Ohio postponed, citing the pandemic—the postponement that the Post headline (3/17/20) called a “terrible precedent.”

Post columnist Dan Balz (3/17/20) dismissed life-and-death decisions over whether to hold in-person elections amid the pandemic as mere “squabbles among state and local officials.”

But these “squabbles” have consequences. In Florida, three poll workers subsequently tested positive for coronavirus. And who knows how many voters were infected in dangerously overcrowded polling places in Chicago, where city election officials said they privately urged the governor to postpone the primary (Intercept, 3/18/20).

To date, 16 states have postponed primaries (New York Times, 4/2/20), with Wisconsin being the latest (Washington Post, 4/6/20).
Wisconsin: ‘Voters at Risk’

Despite a statewide stay-at-home order and desperate pleas to postpone Wisconsin’s April 7 primary, it was less than 24 hours before polls opened that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers finally delayed the vote. Sanders, the Democratic Party and voting rights activists had all called on Wisconsin to postpone the election. But Biden hadn’t, even saying the election could be conducted safely (Washington Post, 4/3/20)—a position that was as reckless as it was politically advantageous. (Polls showed Biden with a decisive lead over Sanders in Wisconsin.)

Without calling for postponement, the Post belatedly expressed its growing concern with the situation in Wisconsin (4/5/20), with Jennifer Rubin (4/2/20) acknowledging that, for many, proceeding with the election sounded “crazy.”

In its increasingly strident critiques of the pending “electoral disaster” (4/5/20), the Post was careful not to criticize Biden for prioritizing politics over public health. Instead, the paper pointed the finger at Wisconsin Republicans, who pushed for the April 7 election to proceed without expanded mail-in options. “In seeking political advantage for themselves,” noted the Post’s Stephen Stromberg (4/5/20), the state’s Republicans are placing “voters at risk.”

Indeed they were. In so doing, they were following the lead of Biden and the Washington Post.

UPDATE: Governor Evers’ attempt to postpone the Wisconsin vote was halted by the Wisconsin Supreme Court.