Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news media and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Charles M. Blow: Yes, Even George Washington

Slavery was a cruel institution that can’t be excused by its era.

On the issue of American slavery, I am an absolutist: enslavers were amoral monsters.

The very idea that one group of people believed that they had the right to own another human being is abhorrent and depraved. The fact that their control was enforced by violence was barbaric.

People often try to explain this away by saying that the people who enslaved Africans in this country were simply men and women of their age, abiding by the mores of the time.

But, that explanation falters. There were also men and women of the time who found slavery morally reprehensible. The enslavers ignored all this and used anti-black dehumanization to justify the holding of slaves and the profiting from slave labor.

People say that some slave owners were kinder than others.

That explanation too is problematic. The withholding of another person’s freedom is itself violent. And the enslaved people who were shipped to America via the Middle Passage had already endured unspeakably horrific treatment. [..]

I say that we need to reconsider public monuments in public spaces. No person’s honorifics can erase the horror he or she has inflicted on others.

Slave owners should not be honored with monuments in public spaces. We have museums for that, which also provide better context. This is not an erasure of history, but rather a better appreciation of the horrible truth of it.

Richard L. Hasen: Bring On the 28th Amendment

Efforts by Trump and his allies to suppress the vote are only part of the problem.

What if we made voting an agent of equality, not inequality? And how can we get there?

If you are a college student or a working recent high school graduate, poor, Latino, or someone who moves more frequently, you are less likely to vote. Seniors are much more likely to vote than young people, in some elections at twice their rate. Those with college degrees vote in higher numbers than the less educated. Minority voters are more likely to wait longer in line to vote in person, sometimes for hours, and they, young people, and first-time voters are more likely to have an absentee ballot rejected for nonconformity with technical rules. Poor voters are less likely to have the time off work to vote at all, much less wait in a long line to vote. Voters in big cities, who tend to be younger, poorer and browner, have coped with more serious election problems than others in voting in person and by mail during our coronavirus-laden primary season, like the voters in Milwaukee voters who saw 175 out of 180 polling places closed during the April 7 Wisconsin primaries.

In a democratic system, we expect our elected officials to be responsive to the views and interests of the voters. If the universe of voters — and, of course, campaign donors — is skewed toward older, wealthier, better educated whiter voters, political decisions will be as well. We need equality in voting rights and turnout to assure responsive representation and social policy that reflects everyone’s needs, not just those most likely to turn out with their votes and dollars.

Let’s start with the causes of the problem. The Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare three pathologies with how we protect voting rights in the United States, and why the skew in voter turnout remains persistent.

Jennifer Senior: Trump’s Napalm Politics? They Began With Newt

Gingrich wrote the playbook for it all. The nastiness, the contempt for norms, the transformation of political opponents into enemies.

Approximately one billion news cycles ago — which is to say, on June 9 — a businesswoman named Marjorie Taylor Greene finished first in the Republican primary in Georgia’s deeply conservative 14th Congressional District, northwest of Atlanta, which means that after a runoff she’s all but assured a seat in the House of Representatives next year.

Unfortunately, she is a cheerful bigot and conspiracy-theory fluffernutter. She subscribes to QAnon, the far-right fever dream that says Donald Trump is under siege from a cabal of deep-state saboteurs, some of whom run a pedophile ring; she says African-Americans are being held back primarily by “gangs.” (She’s left behind a contrail of unsavory videos through cyberspace, if you’d care to Google.)

The House Republican leadership is trying to distance itself from this woman, as if she belongs to some other party from a faraway galaxy. She doesn’t. Her politics are Trumpism distilled. And Trumpism itself isn’t a style and philosophy that began in 2016, with Trump’s election, or even in 2010, with the Tea Party. It began 40-odd years ago, in Greene’s own state, with the election of a different politician just two districts over.

I’m talking about Newt. You really could argue that today’s napalm politics began with Newt.

The normalization of personal destruction. The contempt for custom. The media-baiting, the annihilation of bipartisan comity, the delegitimizing of institutions.

Russell Moore: Changing the state flag is not about forgetting Mississippi’s past. It’s about acknowledging it.

Until now, the only flag of my home state that I would display are scraps, barely holding together, lying on the shelf next to me right now. This remnant of the Mississippi flag was a gift from a man who served in the National Guard patrolling my hometown of Biloxi in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. He found the shredded flag clinging to the ground next to the lighthouse, and gave me what was left of it. In time, it fell apart, and all I kept were the parts that held together — stripes of red, white and blue.

For me, this tattered flag was a reminder of the fragility and resilience of my home state and its people, of the ties that hold it together and the winds that have torn it apart. But I love this particular symbol not just for what’s there — bits of red and blue and white holding together despite it all — but also for what’s missing. The part that fell away was the Confederate emblem: the ugly reminder of our state’s legacy of white supremacy and exclusion.

In a development that many Mississippians had longed for but never really expected to happen in our lifetimes, the state’s House and Senate on Saturday began the process of changing the flag adopted in 1894 as a backlash against Reconstruction. The way has been cleared for legislation, which Gov. Tate Reeves (R) has said he would sign, to introduce a new state flag that, finally, would represent all Mississippians.

Robert Reich: Donald Trump’s re-election playbook: 25 ways he’ll lie, cheat and abuse his power

From now until November, opponents of the most lawless president in history face a fight for democracy itself

Donald Trump will do anything to be re-elected. His opponents are limited because they believe in democracy. Trump has no limits because he doesn’t.

Here’s Trump’s re-election playbook, in 25 simple steps: [..]

Memo to America: beware Trump’s playbook. Spread the truth. Stay vigilant. Fight for our democracy.

Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news media and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Paul Krugman: America Didn’t Give Up on Covid-19. Republicans Did.

Partisanship has crippled our response.

Earlier this year much of America went through hell as the nation struggled to deal with Covid-19. More than 120,000 Americans have now died; more than 20 million have lost their jobs.

But it’s looking as if all those sacrifices were in vain. We never really got the coronavirus under control, and now infections, while they have fallen to a quite low level in the New York area, the pandemic’s original epicenter, are surging in much of the rest of the country.

And the bad news isn’t just a result of more testing. In new hot spots like Arizona — where testing capacity is being overwhelmed — and Houston the fraction of tests coming up positive is soaring, which shows that the disease is spreading rapidly.

It didn’t have to be this way. The European Union, a hugely diverse area with a larger population than the U.S., has been far more successful at limiting the spread of Covid-19 than we have. What went wrong?

The immediate answer is that many U.S. states ignored warnings from health experts and rushed to reopen their economies, and far too many people failed to follow basic precautions like wearing face masks and avoiding large groups. But why was there so much foolishness?

Well, I keep seeing statements to the effect that Americans were too impatient to stay the course, too unwilling to act responsibly. But this is deeply misleading, because it avoids confronting the essence of the problem. Americans didn’t fail the Covid-19 test; Republicans did.

Kara Swisher: A Suicide, an App and a Time for a Reckoning

Companies like the stock-trading app Robinhood can seem not just careless but also predatory.

I spent a lot of time this week trying to come up with the best way to get those who make things in Silicon Valley to better understand the suicide of Alex Kearns, a student at the University of Nebraska. He killed himself after he mistakenly believed that he had a $730,000 negative balance on the millennial-popular Robinhood app, which he had downloaded to learn about investing.

The tragedy got a lot of attention, especially after Forbes reported that Mr. Kearns left a note behind asking, “How was a 20-year-old with no income able to get assigned almost a million dollars of leverage?”

How, indeed.

Embedded in that query is a much bigger one that has been plaguing the tech industry and its innovative entrepreneurs for far too long: What is the reason for their persistent tendency to ignore the potentially dangerous impact of their creations? These days the companies can seem not just careless but also predatory.

Ruy Teixeira: Who Are the Key Voters Turning Against Trump?

They’re senior voters, and they could be Joe Biden’s secret weapon.

Joe Biden may be ahead in national and many battleground polls, but Democrats are still fretting about whether key constituencies will turn out in November. In particular, they worry about the level of support from young black and Hispanic voters — for good reason.

Mr. Biden’s margins among these groups, particularly African-Americans, tend to lag Hillary Clinton’s margins in the 2016 election (though the gap is smaller if you compare Mr. Biden’s margins now to Mrs. Clinton’s at the same point in her 2016 campaign). And young voters were notably unenthusiastic about the former vice president during the primary season.

But the Democrats have a secret weapon in 2020 on the other side of the age spectrum: senior voters. Among this age group — voters 65 and older — polls so far this year reveal a dramatic shift to the Democrats. That could be the most consequential political development of this election.

Eugene Robinson: It’s almost as if Trump is determined to destroy the Republican Party

Let me summarize the Republican platform for the coming election:

We are the party of white racial grievance. We believe those marching in Black Lives Matter protests are “thugs.” We see the term “systemic racism” as an unfair attack on white people. We support keeping Confederate monuments on their pedestals, and we have no idea why anyone would consider Confederate flags a problem. We are equal-opportunity racists. We see Latino immigrants as “bad hombres.” And we believe that using the racist term “kung flu” to describe covid-19 is hilarious, not least because we are convinced the covid-19 pandemic is basically over, anyway. Who cares what pointy-headed “experts” might say — we know in our hearts that patriotic Americans don’t wear masks.

Those are some of the views Republicans endorse by uncritically embracing and supporting President Trump. He is leading his party down a sewer of unabashed racism and willful ignorance, and all who follow him — and I mean all — deserve to feel the mighty wrath of voters in November. [..]

Trump’s antics are self-defeating. He’ll put on a racist show for a shrinking audience, but he won’t wear the masks that could allow the economic reopening he desperately wants. He may be able to avoid reality, but the Republican governors — including Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida — scrambling desperately to contain new outbreaks cannot.

It’s almost as though Trump is determined to destroy the Republican Party. Let’s give him his wish.

Karen Tumulty: It’s time to rethink the presidential debates

Given how many ugly turns this presidential election year has already taken and how many more are surely yet to come, it is probably a fool’s errand to go in search of silver linings in 2020.

But the realities of campaigning amid a pandemic are forcing adjustments to the rituals of politics — some of which are for the better and long overdue.

I’ve written before about how the quadrennial party conventions have outlived their purpose. There is no suspense any more to these pointless, lobbyist-funded infomercials, and television audiences find them boring.

President Trump and the Republicans are clinging to the idea of holding a huge gathering this summer, but the Democrats made a wise move on Wednesday and announced that theirs will be drastically scaled back, physically speaking.

While former vice president Joe Biden will not be accepting his party’s nomination with the cheers of 20,000 people ringing in his ears, 21st-century technology — if used creatively — gives the Democrats an opportunity to make their convention a more broadly shared experience and an organizing tool for mobilizing support as the fall campaign gets underway.

Next up: It’s time to do some rethinking about the debates.

Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news media and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Robert Reich: When Bosses Shared Their Profits

Since the 1980s, profit-sharing has declined. It deserves to make a comeback.

After the bruising crises we’re now going through, it would be wonderful if we could somehow emerge a fairer nation. One possibility is to revive an old idea: sharing the profits.

The original idea for businesses to share profits with workers emerged from the tumultuous period when America shifted from farm to factory. In December 1916, the Bureau of Labor Statistics issued a report on profit-sharing, suggesting it as a way to reduce the “frequent and often violent disputes” between employers and workers, thereby “fostering the development of a larger spirit of harmony and cooperation, and resulting, incidentally, in greater efficiency and larger gains.” [..]

But since the 1980s, profit-sharing has almost disappeared from large corporations. That’s largely because of a change in the American corporation that began with a wave of hostile takeovers and corporate restructurings in the 1980s. Raiders like Carl Icahn, Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken targeted companies they thought could deliver higher returns if their costs were cut. Since payrolls were the highest cost, raiders set about firing workers, cutting pay, automating as many jobs as possible, fighting unions, moving jobs to states with lower labor costs and outsourcing jobs abroad. To prevent being taken over, C.E.O.s began doing the same.

This marked the end of most profit-sharing with workers. Paradoxically, it was the beginning of profit-sharing with top executives and “talent.” Big Wall Street banks, hedge funds and private-equity funds began doling out bonuses, stock and stock options to lure and keep the people they wanted. They were soon followed by high-tech companies, movie studios and start-ups of all kinds.

Bryce Covert: Write a Book? Sure, Work From Home. Care for a Child? Nope.

An increase in remote workers won’t automatically usher in a gender-equal utopia. If we want it, we have to make it so.

Ever since the coronavirus pandemic began keeping most of us sheltered at home, work has rapidly shifted from the cubicle to the kitchen table. A number of surveys indicate that about half of the American work force is now doing their work at home. Companies that may have once been resistant to letting employees off the in-person leash are finding that yes, work can still get done outside the confines of an office building.

That realization may last long after stay-at-home orders are lifted, leading to a permanent change in how we work. Silicon Valley is leading the way, with Twitter, Square and Facebook announcing that employees will be able to work remotely after the pandemic subsides. Companies in other white-collar industries are certain to follow. Nearly two-thirds of surveyed hiring managers say that their workforces will be more remote moving forward.

But offices are already starting to reopen, and it’s likely to be up to individual workers to decide whether to return. We may end up, then, in a world of haves and have-nots — those who have more ability to start commuting again and those who can’t, because they have increased health risks or they have children at home and no child-care options. And among heterosexual couples, it’s not hard to guess which parent will almost certainly be stuck at home longer until child-care options are open again. Will these employees be treated differently, even inadvertently?

It’s hard to predict just how these shifts will play out — but as things stand, women are in a poor position to benefit.

Charles M. Blow: Can We Call Trump a Killer?

There is no way to remove his culpability in the neglectful handling of the coronavirus.

The coronavirus pandemic is still raging in this country. In fact, in more than 20 states, the number of cases is rising. More than 120,000 Americans have died from the virus. This country has a quarter of all the cases in the world even though it makes up only 4 percent of the world population.

Things are so bad here that the European Union, which has lowered its rates, is considering banning U.S. citizens when it reopens its borders.

This situation is abysmal, and it would not have been so bad if President Trump had not intentionally neglected his duty to protect American citizens.

From the beginning, Trump has used every opportunity to downplay the virus, claiming in February, “Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.” Well, we’re now in June, summer. It’s not just warm, it’s hot. And the cases in the hottest states — those in the South and Southwest — are surging.

Trump has consistently been resistant to testing, falsely claiming that an increase in testing is somehow linked to an increase in cases. But in fact, the more you test, the more you are able to control the virus by identifying, isolating and treating the infected, thereby reducing the spread of the virus. Testing is how you reduce your cases. It is also how you save lives.

But Trump believes that to reveal the true extent of the virus’s presence in this country would make him look bad. So more people get sick and more people die.

Amanda Marcotee: Trump and the statues: He still thinks provoking conflict will get him re-elected

Despite the tear gas and Tulsa, Trump still believes he can win by inciting cops to crack protesters’ skulls

Donald Trump is convinced he’s the second coming of Richard Nixon. We’ll leave aside the psychoanalysis of why someone might be so eager to present himself as heir to one of the greatest villains in American history, but Trump hasn’t been subtle about his belief that he can replicate Nixon’s 1968 electoral victory by triggering the same animus against civil rights activists and leftist protesters that Nixon successfully exploited back then, but with even less subtlety. (And Nixon wasn’t exactly subtle.) Trump even routinely echoes the “law and order” language of the Nixon campaign, even while gleefully flaunting his own criminality and corruption, lest there be any doubt that “law and order” is simply coded language for racism and reactionary impulses.

The problem is that Trump’s efforts to demonize anti-racist protesters keep backfiring. [..]

The irony in all this is Americans are learning way more history from the statues coming down than they ever did walking past them in the first place. Most Americans couldn’t tell you much about Andrew Jackson at this point, but if they read a newspaper article about the controversy surrounding his statue, they might learn why his legacy of racism and genocide is problematic at best. They might not know how or why city governments erected Confederate statues as a signal to 20th-century white supremacy — in most cases, they went up many decades after the Civil War — but if they’ve followed the reporting on the statue removals, now they know. They may not know who Frank Rizzo was before his statue came down, but now they know that in the recent past Philadelphia had a mayor who literally told people to “vote white.”

People are defacing or pulling down these statues in no small part to draw attention to real histories and educate the public about the depth and breadth of American racism. By making a stink about it, Trump might be helping them out. He is arguably the most hated man in America, with more than 55% of the voting public consistently expressing their disapproval. At this point, if Trump hates something, that’s likely to make most Americans like it even more. The more he bashes the protesters, the more the general public will view their cause with sympathy.