JULY 27, 2020
Kuttner on TAP
Can Anarchists Get Organized?
The future of the Republic may depend on it.

Trump, with the aid of Bill Barr, has come up with the diabolically clever ploy of sending his private federal army into cities whose mayors don’t want the help, ostensibly to protect federal property and prevent violence.

Everyone knows this is a sham, intended to provoke more violence and depict Trump as a law-and-order president. But—wouldn’t you know it—the extreme fringe of the far left is playing into Trump’s hands, aided by a few angry poor people smashing downtown windows. Some people dressing up as antifa may even be right-wing provocateurs.

Mayors are caught in this crossfire. Some were the original targets of protests that were mostly peaceful, but with violent fringes. Now, people are in the streets, mad at everybody.

It reminds me of the old Irish bar joke, of a bystander watching a brawl and asking: Is this a private fight, or can anybody get into it?

Asking our far-left comrades to exercise some self-discipline is a fool’s errand. The extreme left loves moments like this. As they used to say, it "heightens the contradictions" of the capitalist system, and brings us closer to the revolution.

Read some fricking history, people. Read about the German communists in the early 1930s who confidently declared, "After Hitler, Us!"

You say you want a revolution? Trump is the revolution. This way lies fascism.

John Lewis’s Last Journey
We need to learn from him, not just revere him. BY RANDALL KENNEDY

The $5.3 Trillion Question Behind America’s COVID-19 Failure
That’s the amount of buybacks U.S. corporations funneled to shareholders during the past decade—rather than invest in technologies for the common good. BY WILLIAM LAZONICK & MATT HOPKINS

How Biden and Trump Explain the American Story
On the campaign trail, it’s American progress versus blood and soil. BY PAUL WALDMAN

Canadian Court Chooses Human Rights Over Controversial U.S. Border Agreement
A judge holds that banning asylum seekers who first entered the U.S. violates Canada’s Charter of Rights. BY MARCIA BROWN

COVID Forces Hospitals to Rethink Emergency Treatment Strategies
Dr. Jeffrey Matthews, Department of Surgery Chair at University of Chicago Medicine, discusses how hospitals have responded to the pandemic. BY ALEXANDER HEFFNER

Unsanitized: Newfound Democratic Leverage on the Relief Bill
Also, baseball on the verge of striking out. This is The COVID-19 Daily Report for July 27, 2020. BY DAVID DAYEN

 
 
 
 
 
 
Copyright (C) 2020 The American Prospect. All rights reserved.