Coronavirus Diary: Reading in a Pandemic

A lot of people have been in "comfort food" reading mode since the pandemic started, and I can't blame them. On the TV front, I've rewatched COMMUNITY already, as well as -- God help me -- COUGAR TOWN. Which is bad. Really bad. And yet.

On the book front, though, it's a different story. I feel like, suddenly, I am running out of reading time and so I am trying to cram in every great book I've ever wanted to read. I don't have patience for the sci-fi pulp I was reading as recently as January. I want books I suspect will enrich me, challenge me, or teach me something. And I panic at the thought of all the reading I want to do that is, as yet -- and might well forever be -- unfinished.

Right now, I am juggling four books -- trying to get a chapter a day or more out of each.

LETTERS FROM A STOIC, by Seneca

MOBY DICK, by Herman Melville

THE REACTIONARY MIND, by Corey Robin

FREDERICK DOUGLASS: PROPHET OF FREEDOM by David Blight.

I've also, in the last few months, read and finished nonfiction books about Kurt Vonnegut's writing philosophy, American history, Fred Phelps' family, homebuilding and, well, THE JORDAN RULES. (My bit of comfort reading, perhaps.) I've also read Toni Morrison's BELOVED. When I finish MOBY DICK, I hope to turn to THE TIN DRUM, by Gunter Grass.

I do wonder from time to time what the purpose of all this is: If it is true that time is running short, what's the point? All the reading I have done will die with me, right? I can only hope that some of what I am absorbing translates into me writing better, more thoughtfully, and with more perspectives and more information in mind. And hopefully, too, it translates into me acting in real life with some greater empathy and wisdom. 

But who really knows? All I know is that I am a reader. Or, at least, I want to be a reader, because the people I want to be like are readers. I guess that will have to be good enough. 

Is Trump burning everything down?

Back in 1991, as the Iraqis were being routed from Kuwait by US and coalition forces, they set fires to a number of oil wells along the way. There was not strategic purpose to that action, as far as I can tell. It was simply a churlish and cruel decision that signaled: "If Saddam can't have this, nobody can."

Which brings me, naturally, to Donald Trump.

Big story in the NYT this morning asks: "Does Trump Want to Save His Economy?" It tries to explain the seemingly inexplicable -- while this president is dithering on getting a new economic package passed for Americans who have lost their jobs and face losing their homes because of the pandemic.

Lobbyists, economists and members of Congress say they are baffled by Mr. Trump’s shifting approach and apparent lack of urgency to nail down another rescue package that he can sign into law.

The president’s strategy to help the economy “is hard to decipher,” said Michael R. Strain, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute who has urged Congress to provide more aid to people, businesses and hard-hit state and local governments. “It seems to me there isn’t a clear strategy to support the economy right now coming from the White House.”

Perhaps -- as this story suggests -- Trump is just engaging in another round of magical thinking, believing that if he speaks a recovery into existence without doing the hard work of actually making a recovery happen. Donald isn't big into hard work, after all.

But what if Trump -- dispirited by polls that show him losing badly to Joe Biden -- has simply decided to burn things down?

There is one rule we can be certain of with this president: He does not do anything for the greater good, only for his own benefit. He is entirely transactional, and only in the most material sense -- he doesn't seem to have a sense of enlightened self-interest. It's why he can't see the harm done by accepting and soliciting assistance from foreign countries, for example. It's why -- as Vanity Fair reported yesterday -- administration officials were happy to let the coronavirus rage as long as it was contained to blue states. 

Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,” said the expert.

So it's not unreasonable, I think, to speculate that Trump has forseen he may soon no longer derive benefits from being president. In that scenario, he might decide -- or instinctively move -- to use his remaining power and platform to set fire to American institutions. He's not the kid who takes the ball and goes home. Worse. He's the kid who takes your ball and chucks it into the river.

If you contemplate the "burn it all down" strategy, it becomes easier to understand why Trump seems uninterested in the economy, or why he continually tries to undermine confidence in elections, or why -- even now -- he does so little to combat the pandemic. He never had much interest in the governing part of being president, anyway, as far as I can tell. 

This might not be a correct take on the president's behavior. But again: He does so little for the good of the country. But I think we start with the idea that his behavior is selfish, and seek explanations from there.

Movie Night: LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

Three thoughts about LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, coming up...

* This is my first viewing, and the first thought I have is that DANCES WITH WOLVES stole the (more or less) true story of T.E. Lawrence, fictionalized it and transported it to the American West. A white guy ventures out to the hinterlands of empire, "goes native," is lauded by the natives as a kind of demigod, but ultimately can't lead them to real freedom. It's a white savior narrative where the saving, ultimately doesn't really happen.

* It's possible I've let THE CELLULOID CLOSET burrow too deeply into my brain, but it seems like this could also be read a story of a closeted young gay artist who lets himself be his real self -- an extraordinary man -- for a time, only to ultimately accept the closet because it is what is expected of him. (There are one or two scenes where the gay themes aren't really subtext -- the interrogation scene above leads to a beating that really isn't subtle in its implications.) Lawrence (spoilers) walks away from his Arab allies at the end of the movie to return to England. The end of the movie feels like a tragedy.

* I try to watch movies with an eye toward the context in which they were made, but honestly, there are some parts of this that don't age real well. Alec Guinness as an Arab, Anthony Quinn as an Arab wearing a fake hook nose -- super-obvious -- and Peter O'Toole delivering a portrayal of a descent into madness that strays into over-acting. It doesn't make the movie unwatchable, at least for me, but these things are hard not to notice.

BONUS THOUGHT: I do love the old epics, where instead of painting thousands of soldiers in CGI on a computer, they actually had to round up thousands of extras and thousands of horses in order to make some of the battle scenes work. I miss the old days. 

About the filibuster

President Obama today called the filibuster a "Jim Crow relic" at John Lewis' funeral, and I am fine with getting rid of it. The legislative branch already has enough veto points, thanks to being divided in two. The filibuster just makes it that much harder for the government to do the things it should do.

However.

Democrats should remember that when the filibuster goes away, it's gone. They might control the Senate after this fall's elections. They might not. But if they do -- and they get rid of the filibuster -- there will come a time when they won't, when their ability to stop hated legislation by Senate Republicans will be all but eliminated. 

I am ... kind of fine with that. Democracy has consequences. Right now, Democrats can mainly see how getting rid of the filibuster will aid their agenda. Someday, it'll be used against them. That's the price. I am willing to pay it. I suspect a lot of people will change their minds.

I am not persuaded by Zaid Jilani's argument about immigration

This piece by Zaid Jilani at Persuasion suggests that both the right and left have a mistaken impression of immigrants, but only makes the case halfway. Let's start with the headline:

Well, surely at a publication named Persuasion, Jilani will back up this assertion with some evidence, right?

Kind of.

Fearmongering about the ways in which immigrants will transform America is a hallmark of the conservative movement in the age of Donald Trump. Ann Coulter, the far-right provocateur, recently warned that “legal immigration is going to destroy this country.” The more moderate Hudson Institute has claimed that the country’s “patriotic assimilation system is broken.” Even Amy Wax, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has argued for a “cultural distance nationalism” which effectively leads to the conclusion that “our country will be better off with more whites and fewer non-whites.”

Makes sense. Now, as for the left?

Despite their righteous defense of immigrants, many leftists share a remarkably similar view: they too assume that most immigrants are antagonistic to American culture. Trying to appeal to a group of immigrants in Tennessee during his abortive run for the presidency, for example, Beto O’Rourke told them that “this country was founded on white supremacy. And every single institution and structure that we have in this country still reflects the legacy of slavery and segregation and Jim Crow.” Like O’Rourke, many left-wing activists simply assume that immigrants will be sympathetic to a worldview that describes America as a “failed social experiment.”

Now: It's unfair perhaps to ask a paragraph to make an expansive case for an idea. But Jilani did a pretty good job with conservatives, selecting four examples of people and institutions that are influential among conservatives.

With the left, though, he found ... one comment from a failed presidential candidate. And that statement doesn't tell immigrants not to be patriotic! It just offers a pretty typical left-of-center argument about the history of this country. The Cornel West quote Jilani offers has nothing to do with immigration, either. 

Basically, Jilani just assumes the left is unpatriotic. He bases this more on his own college-era reading of Noam Chomsky than anything else. Perhaps it depends on your definition of patriotism -- if it includes "turning a blind eye to America's sins," as a lot of conservatives seem to think, maybe he's right. But I suspect this is just false evenhandedness -- both conservatives and liberals are wrong! -- in the name of trying to ... persuade. But that actually makes it unpersuasive.

Capitalists make the case for socialism, a continuing series

NYT reports that American CEOs are taking minimal -- or even non-existent -- paycuts during the pandemic, letting employees suffer layoffs while refusing to do any real sacrifice.

A survey of some 3,000 public companies shows that the cuts — which, so far, have come in the form of salary reductions — were tiny compared with their total pay last year. Total pay includes things like bonuses and stock awards that typically make up the bulk of what corporate bosses take home.

Companies in this group include the Walt Disney Company, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and Marriott International. All of those businesses have laid off or furloughed employees or pressed workers to take pay cuts.

Seems obvious at this point that American capitalism is disordered. Right now the shareholders are making a killing -- as Ryan Cooper points out today, the only way to get Republicans to move on an economic relief bill right now is to root for the stock market to collapse -- and so, apparently, are the CEOs. It's the workers who are taking the hit. If capitalists want to survive, they might think about re-ordering their businesses a bit so that sacrifice is shared. Otherwise, why should workers buy in?

Common Book: Toughness

New York Review of Books:

The politics of crime will far more often favor “tough” over “smart” crime policies. As the Harvard law professor and former deputy attorney general Phil Heyman has remarked, “It takes a little time to explain why one thing’s smart and the other thing isn’t. It doesn’t take any time at all to explain why one thing’s tougher than the next.”