COVID-19 Bill Will Be a One-Party Show

Congressional Democrats and Republicans don't see eye-to-eye on the COVID-19 relief bill, either in terms of how much to spend or where the money should go. Given that: (1) the Democrats control both chambers, (2) they have reconciliation at their disposal, (3) they got burned at the start of Obama's term by accommodating Republican concerns and limiting aid, and (4) the clock is ticking, the blue team does not have a lot of patience for foot-dragging or protracted negotiations. And so, they are going it alone.

In view of this, Republican operatives and officeholders are describing the bill as a sham, and are warning the Democrats that they are making a huge political blunder. "It's total bull**it, this package we're getting," said Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC). "What's in it is not going to be popular," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). "It's bad politics for them. Because the narrative is that they're liberal, they just spend money like there's no tomorrow, that every time there's a crisis they load it up with spending."

The Republicans know this is likely to come up during next year's midterms, and so they are already working on their responses. At the moment, they have three main arguments:

1. The Democrats are spending money recklessly, especially the money being sent to cities and states.
2. The Democrats refused to play nice and compromise.
3. The Democrats did not open the schools as quickly as they promised.

It sure feels like the GOP is trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear here. To start with, we are unaware of the occasion where voters punished a party for spending too much money when the people were legitimately in need. Last we checked, for example, Franklin D. Roosevelt was reelected three times. As to compromise, the messaging coming out of Washington Republicans may end up in conflict with that coming from Republicans at the state and local levels, who have been talking to the Democrats, and many of whom think the money they'll be getting is swell. Finally, in March 2021, parents may well be annoyed that their kids are still learning at home. However, if it's not safe for them to be in school, it's not safe. Further, everyone will surely be back by next year, and a lot of the irritation will surely have subsided by November of 2022.

Or, if you want to put this even more simply, the Republicans will say "The Democrats spent like drunken sailors, didn't play nice, and didn't open schools quickly." The Democrats will say "The Republicans were happy to leave you high and dry in the middle of the pandemic." Readers can decide for themselves which messaging seems more compelling, particularly 18 months from now.

Meanwhile, if the two sides can't arrange a meeting of the minds on this pressing issue, where the vast majority of the public supports doing something, how can they possibly come together on issues that are more fraught? At some point, the Joe Manchins and Kyrsten Sinemas of the world have surely got to see that their choice is between: (1) kill the filibuster and (2) do nothing for most of the year until the next reconciliation bill comes 'round. (Z)

Putting 500,000 in Context

Pretty much everyone knows by now that the United States passed a grim milestone this week, as 500,000 Americans have now perished from COVID-19. Several times, we have run a chart that puts the number of fatalities in context in terms of raw numbers, comparing COVID-19 to other historical tragedies. And each time, we are asked to come up with something that corrects for differences in population size. Today, we will take our best shot.

Let us first explain the meaning of each column:

• Event: This, of course, is the event in question. We chose 30 events based on notoriety, impact, etc., trying to select a broad variety in terms of type, era, geographic location, population affected, etc. In cases where we included both worldwide and American figures for an event, the one reflected in that particular row is specified in parentheses.
  
  
• Deaths: This is the number of fatalities, as best as historians have been able to determine. For nearly all events of this sort, a range of estimates has been put forward, and the "consensus" figure is usually somewhere in the middle.
  
  
• Timespan: The years over which the deaths occurred.
  
  
• Years: The length of time, rounded to the nearest year, over which the deaths occurred.
  
  
• Deaths/Year: The second column divided by the fourth column. Note that some events that spanned multiple years took place over most of those years, while others only took place over part. So, for example, the 1917-18 for the United States' involvement in World War I reflects something closer to 2 years rather than one, while the 2020-21 for COVID-19 reflects 1 year.
  
  
• Population: The approximate size of the base population from which the deceased came.
  
  
• Index, 1 Year: This is the fifth column divided by the sixth column and then multiplied by 1,000. This gives a rough sense of exactly how devastating the event was on an annual basis; the higher the number the worse it was. The multiplication is just to make the number easier to parse; the human mind grasps 13.9 better than .0139.

Second, before we give you the table, let us add a trio of caveats, since we don't want to be accused of any flimflammery here:

• Fatality figures and, in particular, population figures can be hazy, especially the further back in the past we go. It is also somewhat difficult to assign base population figures for events that were transnational, like the Holocaust and the Crusades. It is similarly difficult to assign base population figures for events that were (or are) multigenerational.
  
  
• For American military deaths, we are using all deaths, and not just combat deaths.
  
  
• This is solely a comparison of fatalities, and naturally does not account in any way for non-fatal human suffering, economic turmoil, population dislocations, or other unpleasant consequences of these events. Put another way, just because something appears higher up on this chart, it does not mean we are making an argument for it being "worse" than something that is lower on the chart. That judgment is very subjective.

And now, the chart:

Event	Deaths	Timespan	Years	Deaths/Year	Population	Index, 1 Year
Holocaust	6,000,000	1941-45	4	1,500,000	9,500,000	157.9
Armenian genocide	1,100,000	1914-18	4	275,000	2,100,000	131.0
Bubonic Plague	160,000,000	1346-53	7	22,857,143	443,000,000	51.6
Spanish conquest of the Inca	8,400,000	1533-72	39	215,385	10,000,000	21.5
Spanish Flu (worldwide)	50,000,000	1918-20	2	25,000,000	1,800,000,000	13.9
1556 Shaanxi earthquake	830,000	1556	1	830,000	61,000,000	13.6
Leopold II and the Congo Free State	6,250,000	1885-1908	23	271,739	20,000,000	13.6
Mao's Great Leap Forward	25,250,000	1958-62	4	6,312,500	700,000,000	9.0
U.S. Civil War military deaths	800,000	1861-65	4	200,000	31,500,000	6.3
Chinese floods	3,000,000	1931	1	3,000,000	475,000,000	6.3
World War II (worldwide)	85,000,000	1939-45	6	14,166,667	2,300,000,000	6.2
Vietnam War (all participants)	3,350,000	1955-75	20	167,500	35,000,000	4.8
Spanish Flu (United States)	675,000	1918-20	2	337,500	100,000,000	3.4
World War I (worldwide)	23,500,000	1914-18	4	5,875,000	1,800,000,000	3.3
Trail of Tears	4,000	1830-50	20	200	80,000	2.5
Joseph Stalin regime	11,400,000	1922-53	31	367,742	150,000,000	2.5
COVID-19 (United States)	500,000	2020-21	1	500,000	332,000,000	1.5
Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki	105,000	1945	1	105,000	71,000,000	1.5
Darfur genocide	200,000	2003-present	18	11,111	9,000,000	1.2
French Reign of Terror	26,000	1793-94	1	26,000	28,000,000	0.9
World War II (American military)	405,000	1941-45	4	101,250	132,000,000	0.8
World War I (American military)	116,000	1917-18	2	58,000	100,000,000	0.6
COVID-19 (worldwide)	2,500,000	2020-21	1	2,500,000	7,400,000,000	0.3
British occupation of India	24,750,000	1757-1947	190	130,263	500,000,000	0.3
Mongol conquests	30,000,000	1206-1405	199	150,754	1,000,000,000	0.2
Atlantic slave trade	11,000,000	1500-1700	200	55,000	500,000,000	0.1
HIV/AIDS pandemic	35,000,000	1981-present	40	875,000	9,000,000,000	0.1
Vietnam War (American military)	58,000	1964-71	7	8,286	190,000,000	0.0
Crusades	2,000,000	1095-1291	196	10,204	300,000,000	0.0
Spanish Inquisition	32,000	1478-1834	356	90	800,000,000	0.0

Here is the same data, except without dividing things by year. So, this one gives a sense of the overall impact of the event:

Event	Deaths	Timespan	Years	Deaths/Year	Population	Index
Spanish conquest of the Inca	8,400,000	1533-72	39	215,385	10,000,000	840.0
Holocaust	6,000,000	1941-45	4	1,500,000	9,500,000	631.6
Armenian genocide	1,100,000	1914-18	4	275,000	2,100,000	523.8
Bubonic Plague	160,000,000	1346-53	7	22,857,143	443,000,000	361.2
Leopold II and the Congo Free State	6,250,000	1885-1908	23	271,739	20,000,000	312.5
Vietnam War (all participants)	3,350,000	1955-75	20	167,500	35,000,000	95.7
Joseph Stalin regime	11,400,000	1922-53	31	367,742	150,000,000	76.0
Trail of Tears	4,000	1830-50	20	200	80,000	50.0
British occupation of India	24,750,000	1757-1947	190	130,263	500,000,000	49.5
World War II (worldwide)	85,000,000	1939-45	6	14,166,667	2,300,000,000	37.0
Mao's Great Leap Forward	25,250,000	1958-62	4	6,312,500	700,000,000	36.1
Mongol conquests	30,000,000	1206-1405	199	150,754	1,000,000,000	30.0
Spanish Flu (worldwide)	50,000,000	1918-20	2	25,000,000	1,800,000,000	27.8
U.S. Civil War military deaths	800,000	1861-65	4	200,000	31,500,000	25.4
Darfur genocide	200,000	2003-present	18	11,111	9,000,000	22.2
Atlantic slave trade	11,000,000	1500-1700	200	55,000	500,000,000	22.0
1556 Shaanxi earthquake	830,000	1556	1	830,000	61,000,000	13.6
World War I (worldwide)	23,500,000	1914-18	4	5,875,000	1,800,000,000	13.1
Spanish Flu (United States)	675,000	1918-20	2	337,500	100,000,000	6.8
Crusades	2,000,000	1095-1291	196	10,204	300,000,000	6.7
Chinese floods	3,000,000	1931	1	3,000,000	475,000,000	6.3
HIV/AIDS pandemic	35,000,000	1981-present	40	875,000	9,000,000,000	3.9
World War II (American military)	405,000	1941-45	4	101,250	132,000,000	3.1
COVID-19 (United States)	500,000	2020-21	1	500,000	332,000,000	1.5
Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki	105,000	1945	1	105,000	71,000,000	1.5
World War I (American military)	116,000	1917-18	2	58,000	100,000,000	1.2
French Reign of Terror	26,000	1793-94	1	26,000	28,000,000	0.9
COVID-19 (worldwide)	2,500,000	2020-21	1	2,500,000	7,400,000,000	0.3
Vietnam War (American military)	58,000	1964-71	7	8,286	190,000,000	0.3
Spanish Inquisition	32,000	1478-1834	356	90	800,000,000	0.0

It's been a rough year for the U.S. and the world, but clearly both have had even rougher years in the past. And wow, did the bubonic plague leave all other pandemics in the dust. Meanwhile, at the bottom of the list, no one expects the Spanish Inquisition. However, it lasted a long time and the Tomás de Torquemada & Co. were not quite as bloodthirsty as other historical tyrants. (Z)

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

Tom Vilsack, who previously served as governor of Iowa and as Secretary of Agriculture under Barack Obama, has gotten his old job back. On Tuesday, he was approved for a second term as Secretary by a Senate vote of 92-7.

Inasmuch as Vilsack was approved unanimously back in 2009, and he now has 8 years' experience in the job under his belt, the most interesting thing about the vote is the 7 folks who voted against him. One of them was Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who isn't worth thinking about, because he casts votes for strange (and often selfish) reasons and then lies about what those reasons were. Another four were Sens. Rick Scott and Marco Rubio (both R-FL), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Josh Hawley (R-MO). That quartet is jockeying for position in the Trump lane for the 2024 presidential election, and is reflexively voting against most or all of Joe Biden's nominees as a result. The sixth "nay" came from Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK), who gave a short speech afterward in which he said he doesn't think Vilsack cares enough about the issues facing Alaskans, particularly those Alaskans in the fishing industry. And the seventh vote in opposition came from...Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who feels, as many progressives do, that Vilsack is just a bit too cozy with Big Agriculture. Sanders thus becomes the first member of the Democratic caucus to vote against one of Biden's nominees.

Assuming Vilsack stays in office until the end of Biden's term, it will mean the job will be held by just two men for close to two decades (or slightly more than two decades if Biden serves two terms and Vilsack is there for both). The fellow whose term Vilsack will bookend, Trump-era secretary Sonny Perdue, has now returned to his other career as beloved television actor Ed Asner:

You thought it was just a coincidence that nobody's ever seen them in the same room together? Oh, and the "Sonny" persona is pictured on the left, while the "Ed" persona is on the right. (Z)

Perdue Chickens Out

Last week, former Georgia senator David Perdue filed the paperwork that is a necessary first step to running in the 2022 U.S. Senate race. He also signaled, at that time, that his entry into the race was more likely than not. What a difference a week makes, however, because on Tuesday Perdue announced that he's definitely not running, and that his only goal will be to help the eventual Republican nominee.

Undoubtedly, the former senator took stock of the race, and noticed one or more of these things:

• The primary field is going to be crowded and messy. The other senator who got the boot in January, Kelly Loeffler, is hinting that she'll be back for another go-round. So is former representative Doug Collins. It will be hard to out-Trump those two. In addition, Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan (R-GA), Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court Harold Melton (R), Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black (R), and former state representative Vernon Jones (R) have also expressed interest. Duncan and Black are white, while Melton and Jones are Black, with the latter having spoken on behalf of Donald Trump at the 2020 RNC. So, every plausible Republican lane looks to be jam-packed.
  
  
• Black turnout figures to be very high. Not only will Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) be running for another term, but Stacey Abrams (D) is expected to take another shot at the governor's mansion. Depending on how effective the various Republican voter suppression efforts are (what a sad clause to have to write), the combination of high Black turnout plus the urban/suburban white Democratic vote might be too much for any Republican to overcome.
  
  
• Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) will be running for reelection. Donald Trump has the Governor in his sights, since he blames Kemp for not cooking the books in order to deliver Georgia's electoral votes into the Republican column in 2020. Exactly what the impact of Trump will be is not easy to guess at this point. Perhaps he will cause some percentage of Republican voters to sit the election out. Perhaps he will inspire the formation of a splinter party. It will be something like 18 months until it's clear what the Trump effect will be, and spending those months fundraising, and kissing babies, and going to county fairs with such a giant X-factor out there doesn't sound like a lot of fun.

So, Perdue is out. Since he was the strongest candidate that Georgia Republicans had, that news must gladden the heart of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), at least a little bit. (Z)

Texas Democratic Postmortem Is In

On Monday, we had an item about the national autopsy that the Democrats will perform on the 2020 elections, seeking to figure out why things didn't go as well as expected. But while the national-level pooh bahs are just getting started, Texas Democrats have already finished theirs, under the leadership of Hudson Cavanagh, data science director of the Texas Democratic Party.

Here are the key findings from the report:

• While demographic trends in the state are encouraging for the party, particularly in terms of increased Democratic votes from Asian Americans, they aren't gaining especially rapidly in terms of the Latino vote because there are a fair number of Republican Latinos and those folks tend to vote more reliably than Democratic Latinos.
  
  
• In 2020, the GOP benefited greatly from its willingness to disregard the pandemic. Specifically, Republican GOTV operations worked well, as did a last-minute voter registration push.
  
  
• The Republicans also benefited from Texas laws that make it more difficult to register or to cast ballots. The Lone Star State is one of the worst in the nation in this regard.
  
  
• The Democrats spent too much time making contact with, and speaking to, the already converted (that is to say, party members who were already going to vote). The state party estimates that there are at least 2 million would-be Democrats out there, in rural areas and/or ethnic enclaves, who could be gotten to the polls if only the Party had contact information for them.

So the good news for the blue team (Texas chapter) is that most of these issues are within their power to improve upon. The bad news is that some of them, like the voter registration laws, are not, at least not until they regain power at the state level. The other bad news is that turning Texas blue is not likely to happen rapidly, and is going to be a marathon and not a sprint (more below). (Z)

Gonna Turn My Red State...Blue

When it comes to turning red states purple, and purple states blue, there may not be anyone who has more expertise than Stacey Abrams. After all, she is the chief engineer of the Democrats' greatest recent success in that area, namely the ongoing conversion of Georgia. And Abrams and Lauren Groh-Wargo, co-founders of Fair Fight Action, published an op-ed recently that lays out exactly what Democrats need to know to replicate what happened in Georgia elsewhere (particularly in the Sun Belt).

It's worth reading in its entirety, but to get at the heart of the piece, it probably works best to extract a few key quotes. So:

• "It may take 10 years. Do it anyway."
  
  
• "Years of planning, testing, innovating, sustained investment and organizing yielded the record-breaking results we knew they could and should."
  
  
• "The task is hard, the progress can feel slow, and winning sometimes means losing better."
  
  
• "To know how to win, we first had to understand why a century of Democratic Party dominance in Georgia had been erased."
  
  
• "Organizing is the soul of this work."
  
  
• "A state Democratic Party is an engine of electoral transformation."
  
  
• "To win in the 21st century, Democrats must cultivate and hire people of color in the central areas of communications, fund-raising, research, operations and management. Diversity in staffing is more than a nice nod to our multicultural party. Our success is built on diverse coalitions, and Democrats must have culturally competent staff members."

Some of these things, like embracing diversity, should be a pretty easy sell. Others, like being patient and accepting that a close loss can still represent progress, have not been strong points for the blue team in recent years. So, it will be very interesting to see if they can implement the Abrams battle plan in places like Texas or North Carolina. (Z)

They Were Trump Before Trump, Part III: Henry Ward Beecher

We have a lot of interesting content on the back burner that, with the impeachment over, we can move to the front burner. And so, we finally resume our series on Trump-like figures from American history. Past entries:

• Samuel Adams, Pamphleteer and Politician
• Andrew Jackson, General and President

Up now, after spending well over a month on deck...Henry Ward Beecher.

What Makes Him Trump-like, in 25 Words or Less: He used both the mass media and religion to become "the most famous man in America." Not even an adultery scandal fazed his devoted followers.

Trump-like Quote: "No man is sane who does not know how to be insane on proper occasions." (1855)

The Rise: The Beechers were among the most famous families in America; Henry's father Lyman was among the most famous religious leaders in the country, and several of his siblings were prominent activists, most notably sister Harriet, who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852).

Young Henry was not one of his father's favorites, as he was considered dim-witted due to his stutter. He was often subject to embarrassment-based punishments, like being compelled to go to class with the girls rather than with the boys. Still, he determined to follow his father into the ministry, and was educated at Amherst and then at Lane Theological Seminary, where Lyman was president.

Upon the completion of his education, Henry assumed the leadership of a small Presbyterian congregation in Lawrenceburg, IN, in 1837. There, he put into practice a rather key insight he had about the directions in which American religion was developing. While Lyman was a Calvinist, which meant a fair bit of gloom and doom in sermons, Henry realized that people wanted something to be optimistic about. He knew it was even better if they could take something away from each sermon. So, he worked to develop an accessible, upbeat approach to preaching that was laced with generous amounts of humor and storytelling and abundant pragmatic advice. In fairness to Lyman, who was pretty liberal by the standards of his generation, Henry's approach was not so much a radical break with his father as it was the next step in the evolution of his father's approach. In 1839, his popularity growing by leaps and bounds, Henry relocated from Lawrenceburg to Indianapolis, which was then a frontier town of less than 3,000 people.

Glory Days: News moved slowly in those days, and so it took a while for people on the East coast to learn of the dynamic young preacher, but learn they eventually did. After a decade in Indiana, Beecher was invited to take over the pastorship of Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn, New York, where he would remain for the balance of his career. This was the big time; Brooklyn—then an independent city—had a population of 96,000, about 20 times that of Indianapolis, and good enough to be the seventh-largest city in the country. Further, Brooklyn was next to #1 city New York, with its 515,000-plus souls. That made it possible for Beecher to give many guest sermons, in exchange for fatter and fatter fees as his fame grew. Eventually, and consistent with the custom of the day, Beecher got in the habit of undertaking national speaking tours where he absolutely raked in the bucks.

That said, a large-sized crowd in that not-terribly-urbanized, pre-electric-amplification era was a few thousand people. Even if he delivered 100 sermons a year, that meant that there remained a vast untapped audience that Beecher could not reach in person. And so, he began cranking out books, commencing with 1844's Seven Lectures to Young Men, and eventually reaching a rate of about one per year between 1858 and 1872. The books were filled with pithy aphorisms, like "The most miserable pettifogging in the world is that of a man in the court of his own conscience," (Life Thoughts, 1858) or "Tears are often the telescope by which men see far into heaven," (Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, 1877). In a different era, these books would have been entitled Chicken Soup for the Soul.

Beecher also had no qualms about wading into the great political issues of the day, often with loud words and sharply worded op-eds. He opposed slavery, and supported Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War, temperance, a none-too-harsh Reconstruction plan, labor unions, and Darwin's theory of evolution. In addition to his sermons, Beecher was fond of holding large political rallies, where he would lead the crowd in chanting whatever the slogan du jour was. Given his brashness, he made more than a few enemies, and had to be protected by undercover security guards for the last 20 years of his life.

Beecher married a socially appropriate woman, Eunice Bullard, in 1837, but the marriage was not a happy one. Divorce was basically out of the question in that era, especially for a religious leader. On the other hand, committing adultery left, right, and sideways was certainly possible, and Beecher partook enthusiastically. Only he knew how many different women there were, but it was certainly in the dozens, and may have been in the hundreds. They did not have porn stars back then, but he is known to have enjoyed dalliances with at least a few prostitutes. As the gossips put it, "Beecher preaches to seven or eight of his mistresses every Sunday evening."

Over time, Beecher got a little overconfident, or maybe he just wasn't quite as sharp in his old age. In any case, in 1870, his affair with the very married Elizabeth Tilton came to light when she confessed her infidelities to her husband Theodore. The Tiltons were well connected, and so the news quickly became known to many of the leading feminists and reformers of the day, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Victoria Woodhull, and Susan B. Anthony. With another man, they might have let it go, but the trio was not happy with Beecher's repeated criticisms of their efforts, and especially with his public position that sex was for married women only and that adultery was a particularly egregious sin. They sensed just a wee bit of hypocrisy there, so they made a public issue of Beecher's philandering.

What happened next was quite a soap opera, one that would put Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen to shame. Because Woodhull had sent pro-free-love materials through the mail, Beecher's allies arranged for her to be arrested and tried for obscenity (she got off on a technicality). Then, Theodore Tilton was booted from the Plymouth Church for slurring Beecher. In retaliation, Tilton sued Beecher for defamation. The jurors in that trial deliberated for 6 days before announcing they were hopelessly deadlocked. Meanwhile, Beecher's superiors in the Congregational church looked into the matter and decided there was nothing to see, so they exonerated him. It's not easy to toss your biggest star (and biggest moneymaker) overboard.

Afterwards: Although Beecher escaped the Tilton scandal with his reputation basically intact among his faithful followers, his pocketbook took a big hit. So, he undertook several lecture tours in order to restore his bank account, including one of Europe. He also accepted a teaching post at Yale, The Lyman Beecher Lectureship. In 1884, he broke with the Republican Party and endorsed Democrat Grover Cleveland for president. Cleveland was enmeshed in a sex scandal of his own at that time, but Beecher said it was no big deal, and shouldn't disqualify a man from public service. Who knows where Beecher got that idea. He died of a stroke during Cleveland's first term, in 1887, and was remembered fondly in obituaries across the country.

Next up: James Gordon Bennett. (Z)

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