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QUOTE OF THE DAY
"I should not have been there." — Gen. Mark Milley, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, apologized for accompanying President Trump during his Lafayette Park photo-op last week, saying it "created a perception of the military involved in domestic
WHAT'S HAPPENING
- Stocks are plunging. Investors might be waking up to the fact that the pandemic's not over and the economic recovery will take a while. (Like, years).
- The Wing CEO Audrey Gelman stepped down. The cofounder of the women's social club, which provides networking and coworking spaces, announced her resignation after former employees criticized the companies culture as toxic for workers of colors and current employees staged a digital walkout.
- VP Pence deleted a tweet showing himself speaking to campaign staff crammed together in a confined room with no distancing or masks. What is it with GOP
coronavirus denial? Scroll down and weigh in on our "Question of the day." - The government reportedly stashed "tens of thousands of rifle and pistol rounds" to be used against protests "in case of emergency." The New York Times reported that the aggressive reponse to the protests by the
National Guard , pushed by Trump's heavy hand, has prompted a review of the "debacle."
BLODGET & PLOTZ
The pandemic isn't over — and in some states it's now getting worse. Everyone is sick of the coronavirus and wants it to be over, but... confirmed infections are now growing again in many states, even adjusting for increased testing, and about 750 Americans are still dying of COVID every day.
The early hotspots of New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts are under control, at least temporarily. But as the excellent and free coronavirus data pages from the New York Times show, confirmed cases are now increasing again in 21 US states, including some big ones: California, Texas, and Florida. A leaked CDC document suggests the US is doing the worst job fighting
Optimists dismiss this concern, suggesting that, among other things, new infections represent a small percentage of the population and are often geographically isolated.
The trouble with this logic is that when people aren't taking precautions, infections spread. As one epidemiologist memorably put it, you can't have a "peeing section" in a swimming pool.
Back in January, after all, there was only one case in the country. Then there were only a few. But now, five months later, we've had more than 2 million cases and over 115,000 Americans are dead.
The irony is… based on what we now know, simple mask-wearing and distancing would likely do the trick. The more we learn about the virus, the more we can target our prevention measures. And the more we can target our prevention measures, the more we can go back to living our normal lives.
We now know that the coronavirus spreads most easily in crowded, confined indoor spaces in which people spend sustained time around infected people who are talking or singing.
Outdoor activities are much less risky. Indoor activities with masks and distancing are less risky. Brief encounters (less than 10 minutes) with infected people are less risky.
Masks help stop "respiratory droplets" that might spread the virus from getting into the air. Simple distancing, meanwhile, helps stop respiratory droplets from reaching others in high enough concentration to make them sick.
As another study concluded this week, "facemask use by the public could significantly reduce the rate of COVID-19 spread, prevent further disease waves and allow less stringent lock-down regimes."
In other words, if we just wore masks in crowded indoor spaces and maintained distancing whenever possible, we could probably control the coronavirus.
Alas… — HB
TAKE OF THE DAY
Defund the Police? We can't afford not to!
Cities and states will likely soon slash law enforcement budgets because they have to, whether or not they want to. As the Atlantic's Peter Beinart and New York Magazine's Ed Kilgore write, pandemic-induced budget crises are ravaging local governments. Absent massive federal intervention, they'll need to slash budgets.
The Floyd protests have made police departments an obvious target. The Defund the Police movement has arrived at a moment when local governments don't have money to maintain police budgets anyway. Big-city mayors across the country have already announced disproportionate cuts to police funding. Expect a lot more of that as the fiscal crisis deepens.
The irony, as Beinart notes, is that it's congressional Democrats who've sought to bail out local governments and Senate Republicans who've blocked rescue funds that could protect police departments. This is why there will almost certainly be another colossal stimulus package before the election. Democrats want to protect local governments. And Republicans want to do everything they can to juice the economy going into the election. But don't be surprised when Republicans try to earmark a lot of that federal aid for police departments, and Democrats oppose it. — DP
QUESTION OF THE DAY
Yesterday, Vice President Pence posted a photo of himself speaking to staffers at the Trump campaign headquarters in Virginia. Shortly thereafter, observers pointed out that the Pence group was 1) violating a Virginia law against such gatherings and 2) that no one in the picture was following the guidelines set forth by Pence's own coronavirus task force on wearing masks and social distancing. The picture was promptly deleted, as Insider's Eliza Relman reports.
But it leads to the question of the day:
Why do so many Republicans resist wearing masks, even in the crowded, confined indoor spaces in which the coronavirus is known to most easily spread?
Is it because of peer-pressure from mask-hating President Trump?
Is it because Republicans tend to reject opinions put forth by scientists and other experts and still don't take the coronavirus seriously?
Is it because Republicans "don't like the government telling us what to do," even when the government's advice makes sense?
Is it because the same psychological traits that make people receptive to a GOP worldview also make them inclined to refuse to wear masks?
All of the above? Something else? Please email us and let us know what you think. — HB
OTHER NEWS
Want to make John Bolton's book disappear? Let him publish it as is.
The White House is warning John Bolton that the manuscript of his book The Room Where It Happened reveals state secrets and can't be published as is. The former National Security Advisor insists the manuscript is safe and vows to barrel ahead with his June 19 publication date.
What a showdown, right?
Or maybe not. Simon & Schuster printed the book already and sent it to warehouses. Reporters certainly already have advance copies of it. Whatever "secrets" Bolton is revealing — and they're probably just scathing anecdotes about the president's ignorance and his administration's incompetence — they will be circulated in the media. Even if a judge ordered Simon & Schuster to pulp the books — and the chance of that happening is essentially zilch — all the juice and dirt would still be spread widely. Probably even more widely, since the controversy would generate extra media coverage for Bolton.
Bolton, in other words, is longing to be suppressed, longing for Trump to attack him.
If Trump really wants to quash Bolton's book, he should call off his lawyers and just ignore it. How many people actually want to read a 592-page account of Trump's erratic foreign policy? — DP
What David Duke's rise can teach us about Trump's America
If you want to understand how white nationalism and the Republican party ended up intertwined, listen to this extraordinary new podcast series from Slate telling the story of the rise of David Duke, the KKK Grand Wizard and Nazi-sympathizer who nearly was elected US Senator and Louisiana governor in the early 1990s. —DP
BUSINESS & ECONOMY
The stock market is, finally, plunging. By mid-day, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 5%, over 1,300 points, and the S&P 500 and NASDAQ were getting hammered, too. Why? One theory is that investors are finally waking up to the fact that the pandemic isn't over (see above). Fed Chairman Jerome Powell also may have helped crack the spell when he pointed out that the economy is still troubled and lost jobs may take many years to return. Then there's the fact that many (most?) experts have long viewed the market's recent ballistic rise as nuts, which it may well turn out to have been.
Speaking of the economy, here are some cool charts from J.P. Morgan on the consumer spending recovery… Overall, consumer spending—as measured here by the year-over-year change in credit and debit card payments—has recovered from down about 40% at the end of March to now down about 18%. But the rate of recovery seems to be flattening.
Here's spending by type of store. Supermarkets and discount stores are still doing well. Healthcare and pharmacies are approaching normal levels. Restaurants are still getting hammered.
Travel is still getting demolished:
Spending patterns are similar in most states, regardless of lockdown policies and political leanings:
And… for those who still believe the economic impact of the coronavirus was the result of "government lockdowns" instead of people's fear of getting sick, note the (minimal) difference between states that are still locked down, states that reopened early, and states that never locked down at all:
— HB
LIFE
The Red Sox finally acknowledge Fenway Park's racism.
For too long, major sports have accepted the hideous behavior of some fans, brushing fan racism off as merely excessive enthusiasm. So it's encouraging that the George Floyd movement may finally quash overt racism at spectator sports.
It's an open secret, for example, that Black baseball fans and players feel unwelcome at Boston's Fenway Park: Last night, responding to complaints by the former player Torii Hunter, the Red Sox acknowledged that Fenway racism "is real" and promised to fight it.
Black fans also avoid NASCAR, which currently has only one Black driver, in part because spectators openly display Confederate flags. NASCAR banned Confederate flags yesterday. NFL and NBA players will be kneeling for Black Lives Matter when their games resume, and they'll finally be supported by their leagues and owners.
This is a good start!
But there's a ton more to do: Racist fans mar European soccer matches by insulting Black players and hurling bananas at them. Soccer needs a zero tolerance policy that ends and forfeits games when fans misbehave. In this country, sports with overwhelmingly white fan bases such as hockey and golf need to make more sincere efforts to welcome Black fans and nurture Black competitors. — DP
THE BIG 3*
Trump will host his first post-Covid rally in Tulsa on June 19. That's Juneteenth, and at the site of the worst race massacre in American history. It is also likely to feature no social distancing, and no required masking.
The 30 best cities to live in after the pandemic. Insider used 9 different metrics--including the percentage of jobs that could be done from home--to make the list. Lots of alluring cities in the Midwest and Great Plains.
How this couple lives in a 210-sq-ft house on wheels. With their baby. And two dogs.
*The most popular stories on Insider today.