Pandemic? We surrender

We give up. That's the message White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows delivered to America yesterday, as diagnosed cases of COVID-19 reached some of their highest points since the pandemic began. "We're not going to control the pandemic," Meadows admitted to Jake Tapper on CNN. "We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics, and other mitigations." Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden responded, "This wasn't a slip by Meadows; it was a candid acknowledgment of what President Trump's strategy has clearly been from the beginning of this crisis: to wave the white flag of defeat and hope that by ignoring it, the virus would simply go away. It hasn't, and it won't." —The Washington Post

• — The Pence cluster. At least five aides to Vice President Mike Pence tested positive for COVID-19 over the weekend, including Marc Short, Pence's chief of staff and closest aide. A statement from the vice president's office said Pence will maintain his schedule in accordance with the CDC guidelines for "essential personnel." Pence and his wife, Karen, tested negative for the virus yesterday. —Axios
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• — Leaving coronavirus in his wake? Trump's campaign rallies during the past two months may have done more than defy state orders and federal health guidelines. An analysis shows COVID-19 cases grew at a faster rate than before in at least five counties in Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin following rallies held there. Together, those counties saw 1,500 more new cases in the two weeks following Trump's rallies than the two weeks before. —USA Today
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• — HHS left with skeleton crew. At least 27 political appointees have exited the Department of Health and Human Services since the start of the pandemic in February, and dozens more senior leaders are expected to depart swiftly if Trump loses re-election. The departures would leave only a shell staff shepherding the department through winter outbreaks of COVID-19, as well as drug and vaccine authorizations, until Jan. 20. —Politico

Boogaloo, not protesters, attacked police precinct

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota on Friday announced that the FBI has brought charges against a member of the far-right "Boogaloo Bois" group for organizing and participating in an effort to "incite a riot" outside a Minneapolis police precinct on May 28, amid protests against the police killing of George Floyd. 

• — Authorities say Texan Ivan Harrison Hunter traveled to Minneapolis, where police had already started clashing with protesters, and approached the Third Precinct, firing 13 rounds from what appears to be an AK-47 style semiautomatic rifle. In the hours that followed, the police building was overrun by demonstrators and severely damaged by fire. —The Hill
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• — Young men hoping to join a White supremacist group spoke about hosting paramilitary trainings and how to legally bring firearms to those events, according to phone conversations published by the Southern Poverty Law Center on Thursday. The calls involve more than 100 participants linked to "The Base" group, a "small accelerationist Neo-Nazi movement" whose "primary goal is to recruit, radicalize, inspire, [and] train others to commit violence, bringing about a societal collapse." —WHDH
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• — A man was arrested in Kannapolis, N.C., with a van full of guns and explosives with plans to carry out an act of terrorism, including trying to assassinate former Vice President Joe Biden. Law enforcement agents found child pornography on eight different electronic devices belonging to Alexander Hillel Treisman, along with other pictures and posts related to plans for possible terrorist acts. —WBTV

Garrett: A dangerous executive order

"While the White House claims the Executive Order on Creating Schedule F in the Excepted Service would allow government to 'operate more efficiently,' it would also give a second-term Trump leeway to fire civil servants for being disloyal and fill government positions with his cronies, while giving him more sway on policies ranging from vaccine safety to flight inspection standards. As Max Stier, president and chief executive of the non-profit, nonpartisan organization Partnership for Public Service, told 'Stars and Stripes,' 'The order is highly troubling. It appears to be an effort to remove the career merit protections around a core part of the civil service.'" —Laurie Garrett in CNN

Ed. Note: Laurie Garrett is a policy analyst and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance."

MORE: Trump appointee resigns over the president's order removing job protections for many civil servants —The Washington Post

2020 election suggests US is 'fragile democracy'

An incumbent president attacking the rules and fairness of the electoral process, refusing to commit to accepting the results, accusing the opposing candidate or election authorities of cheating, and intimidating voters with threats of violence is something normally seen in struggling democracies and autocratic countries, not the United States. So the 2020 election, which has included all of these, has the international election monitoring community more than a little concerned.

• — Eric Bjornlund, the co-founder and president of Democracy International, has led or managed 40 election observation efforts in 22 countries over more than 30 years. He says the U.S.'s 2020 election most closely resembles that of Bangladesh.
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• — "[Bangladesh] has many of the hallmarks of a democracy, such as multiparty elections and a functioning parliament," Bjornlund says. "But in each of the six national elections since the country's transition away from authoritarianism in 1991, the losing party has accused the winning party of rigging the vote."
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• — Donald Trump's attacks on the process, common in less-than-democratic countries, have triggered substantial international concern because of the U.S.'s power and stature. "They hurt public confidence in the U.S. election process and threaten to undermine the very legitimacy of the United States' democracy," Bjornlund concludes. —Foreign Policy

Diehl: Why protests don't work like they used to

"[A]utocracies have figured out better strategies for blocking 'color revolutions,' as Russian leader Vladimir Putin calls them. Among the innovations he and other dictators have adopted: closing down nongovernment groups; blocking pro-democracy funding from the U.S. and Europe; eliminating independent media, and, when a crisis comes, shutting down the Internet. Strongmen have also benefited from a strategic insight: Faced with popular protests, they need not choose between surrender, like the Communists of Eastern Europe in 1989, and sending in tanks, as China did at Tiananmen Square. It's enough simply to survive and persevere, using just enough repression to avoid a storming of the palace." —Jackson Diehl in The Washington Post

Ed. Note: Jackson Diehl is the deputy editorial page editor at The Washington Post and a columnist focusing on international affairs.

MORE: Workers and students in Belarus launch anti-Lukashenko strike —The Guardian

Sudan strikes deal with Israel

In a U.S.-brokered deal, Israel has agreed to normalize ties with Sudan, which joins the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and other Arab nations in a broader diplomatic realignment in the Middle East. The deal helps Sudan emerge from international isolation after the U.S. sanctioned it in the 1990s for harboring al Qaeda's then-leader, Osama bin Laden, and aiding terrorist groups.

• — The background. The development follows an agreement between Sudan and the U.S. in which Washington agreed to remove Sudan from a list of countries it considers state sponsors of terrorism. That designation had blocked the country from getting aid from international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund to mend its collapsing economy. —The Wall Street Journal
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• — The public announcement. President Trump shared the news with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone on Friday in the presence of reporters in the Oval Office. The call was notable for Netanyahu's apparent effort to put some distance between himself and the president, given the two leaders' close geopolitical alliance in recent years.
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• — Bibi deflates Trump's hopes. Addressing Netanyahu, who was on speaker phone, Trump asked, "Do you think Sleepy Joe could have made this deal, Bibi? Sleepy Joe? I think—do you think he would have made this deal somehow? I don't think so." Netanyahu hesitated before offering a halting answer: "Well, Mr. President, one thing I can tell you is we appreciate the help for peace from anyone in America." —Politico

Mounk: Illiberalism isn't confined to one side, but...

"Concerns about illiberal tendencies on the left are not made up out of thin air. Many Democratic politicians have not been as full-throated in their opposition to left-wing political violence as they should be. Parts of the left now seek far-reaching censorship in social media, advocate for employees to be fired for expressing conservative opinions, and are openly hostile to free speech. ... But the fact is that Trump presents a much greater danger to key constitutional values, and does more than anyone else to lend apparent credibility to extreme forms of protest as well as an unremittingly negative appraisal of America. Voting for Trump to stem the rising tide of illiberalism is about as pure an example of cutting off your nose to spite your face as political life can afford." —Yascha Mounk in The Atlantic

Ed. Note: Yascha Mounk is an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, and a board member at Stand Up Republic. He is the author of "The People vs. Democracy."

MORE: Jews for Trump car parade stirs protests, fights in New York —Associated Press

Animal farm, reimagined

An animal farm in Austin, Tx., has been connecting formerly abused animals with children with special needs, forming loving, enriching bonds between human and animal. It all started when one of the farm's owners, Jamie Wallace-Griner, brought home a service dog named Angel as a support for her autistic son, Jackson. 

• — She saw the positive effect Angel had on her son almost immediately. "When Angel joined our family," she writes, "it became insanely clear how the love of an animal can be literally miraculous! Angel gave my son confidence and strength beyond anything I was capable of doing as his mother. She provided protection from his fears, understanding of his thoughts, and power over his disabilities."
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• — So the Safe in Austin Rescue Ranch has worked to replicate that experience for other kids. Among them is nine-year-old Gracelyn Woods, who moved to Austin in June with her family. She was grappling with the transition of the move, and the pandemic did not make things easier for her.
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• — "The ranch has helped our little one embrace the change," says Gracelyn's mom, Jess Wood. "We kept coming back and our daughter started to come out of her shell. Life returned to her." —Shared.com

Over the weeks leading up to the election, Donald Trump will steal millions of hours from average Americans.

Hours that could have been spent tossing footballs, raking leaves, carving pumpkins, stacking firewood, fixing screens...the marvelous minutiae of autumn in America...will now be expended waiting on long lines to cast early votes that hopefully will be counted. 

And the fault, as with so much else that is wrong in America, lies with Donald Trump. 

Yes, a pandemic could have occurred under any president, of either party. But only this occupant of the White House would threaten to not accept the results of the election, perhaps barricading himself in the executive mansion like a South American dictator who wants his generalissimos to disperse the peasants by any means necessary. 

And so millions of Americans, not only Democrats, but also independents or moderates who would not lose much sleep if a President Mitt Romney, or John Kasich, or Jeb Bush were re-elected, will endure heat and cold and rain and wind and snow to overwhelmingly defeat this person who has demeaned, disgraced, and debased our country every day for almost four years.

Americans will get our country back. But we will never get those stolen hours back. —Jim V., New York

The views expressed in "What's Your Take?" are submitted by readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff or the Stand Up Republic Foundation.