**JULY 6, 2020**

Kuttner on TAP

**Ten Good Things That Could Come of COVID**

Sometimes, epidemics create massive social and political change;
sometimes not.

The Black Death of the 14th century so decimated the European population
that it created worker shortages and hastened the end of serfdom. But
the great flu pandemic of 1918-1919, which caused about 700,000 U.S.
deaths, changed just about nothing.

COVID seems in the category of pandemic that could change everything.
Herewith, a list of realities demanding change that COVID has thrown
into relief:

**Ten: Health Disparities.** Some 40 million workers will lose their
employer-provided health coverage, just when they need health care most.
We always knew our system was nuts. COVID provides the exclamation
point.

**Nine: Climate.** The air is a lot cleaner, thanks to reduced economic
activity. Imagine what we could do, proactively, without the perversity
of a pandemic-induced depression.

**Eight: Low-Wage Work.** We knew that low-wage work was a travesty.
COVID has put a human face on grossly underpaid "essential workers."
During the pandemic, and afterward, they need substantial raises.

**Seven:** The Crisis of Child Care and Care Workers. God help working
parents when schools open with split shifts alternating between live and
virtual. We need a reliable, comprehensive child care system-decently
paid, too.

**Six: The Value of Public Institutions**

**.** The private sector just can't fix this, much less the profit
motive. It's all about social solidarity.

**Five: How Wall Street Always Wins**

**.** Even in a pandemic, Wall Street profits while others suffer. Maybe
COVID will trigger long-overdue reform.

**Four: For-Profit Drugs and Vaccines.**They were always a costly,
inefficient disgrace. COVID could stimulate putting all this in the
public and nonprofit sector.

**Three: The Sheer Economic Waste of Business as Usual.**Turns out we
don't need all those office towers and malls.

**Two: Structural Racism.**It took a pandemic to finally create a
national, multiracial movement for revolutionary change.

**One:** Wait for it ...

**Donald Trump!**Our president could make up facts on multiple fronts,
but he can't lie his way out of an in-your-face pandemic that finally
demolishes his pretension to leadership.

Now: Will Joe Biden seize the moment? Will we, in the spirit of FDR,
"make him do it?"

~ ROBERT KUTTNER

Follow Robert Kuttner on Twitter

Robert Kuttner's latest book is
The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American Democracy
.

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The Structural Violence of Municipal Hoarding

High-wealth communities segregate and protect their treasure from
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Reaching Out to the White Working Class

Working America-the AFL-CIO's campaign among non-union swing
voters-has long prioritized discussions on voters' doorsteps. This
year, it may have to find new approaches. BY BRITTANY GIBSON

Finding Hope in America's Pandemic Dystopia

'Humankind' author and historian Rutger Bregman discusses hope for a
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ALEXANDER HEFFNER

Unsanitized: How the CARES Act Led to the Pandemic Surge

It's all about the missing state and local aid. This is The COVID-19
Daily Report for July 6, 2020. BY DAVID DAYEN

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