By Lambert Strether of Corrente
There will be plenty more about the exciting events in the Democrat Party. –lambert
Bird Song of the Day
Northern Mockingbird, Rocky Rill Farm; Farmyard, Whitfield, Georgia, United States. A reader asked for mockingbirds; here’s six minutes-worth!
In Case You Might Miss…
(1) Many new Covid charts, emergency department visits being especially disconcerting.
(3) Harris: Let the oppo begin!
Politics
“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
2024
Less than four months to go!
Friday’s RCP Poll Averages:
Virginia and North Carolina added to the list. NC was never going for Biden, but Virginia? Yikes!
* * * Events, dear boy, events.” —Harold MacMillan (apocryphal)
Patient readers: “Events” are moving too fast for me to rise above them with generalizations, and therefore I’m going to throw my timely gleanings into buckets with which you are already familiar. But it’s worth noting that our patient examination of events has yielded at least two results: The term “circle“*, and the idea of the “Inner Party,” which is a FlexNet (stigmatized here as the “Wretched Hive” of scum and villainy). Neither type of entity, you will have noticed, is small-d “democratic” to the slightest degree. I’m still long volatility. NOTE * We can now ask, for example, what Kamala’s circle is, and how it differs from Biden’s.
Biden Circle
“Inside Biden’s unprecedented exit from the presidential race” [CNN]. “Biden’s final decision to leave the race was reached in the last 48 hours, a senior campaign adviser said, as he consulted family and top advisers by telephone while recovering from Covid. A source familiar with the matter said the plans to exit the race began Saturday night and were finalized Sunday. The adviser said the president ‘was not dug in’ but was studying the data coming in and became convinced he would ‘weigh down’ the ticket and be a complication to defeating Trump. Biden’s decision did not have to do with any medical issues, a senior White House official told CNN.” We are now revising the narrative to eliminate both Covid and Biden’s cognitive difficulties. “It was the polling!” And indeed, that was part of the picture, but not all of it. More: “When Biden huddled with his two closest advisers Saturday, the information they provided on polling and where top Democratic officials stood underscored that a path to victory was ‘basically nonexistent,’ according to another person familiar with the matter. There wasn’t any single poll number, wavering Democratic official or fundraiser presented in the meeting with longtime aides Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti that pushed Biden toward his decision, the person said. Instead, the information highlighted that the path back to a viable campaign had been severely damaged by declining national and swing-state poll numbers, along with party defections that were likely to rapidly accelerate. The information included polling and details gathered from outreach outside Biden’s inner circle.” • But see the concept of “buzz“; sometimes the spontaneous gets a little help.
The Inner Party
“It was not undemocratic for the Democrats to dump Joe Biden” [VOX]. “What’s unfolded in the two weeks since has been a steadily intensifying pressure campaign from various members of the press, pundits, donors, and current and former elected officials aimed at making Biden quit. Some of these entreaties were made in private — and, when Biden didn’t appear to be listening, more spilled out [note lack of agency] into public view. They argued that he couldn’t win and, eventually, he listened. There may arguably be something a bit uncomfortable about the role of Democratic power brokers and donors in pushing Biden aside after his primary win. But while they’re doing this without voters’ explicit say, they’re doing so in an attempt to (belatedly) respond to voters’ beliefs that Biden is too old to serve another term.” • I am not sure of the timing on this. First, that “(belatedly”) is doing more work than a mere adverb should ever be called upon to do; these are all party professionals, how the heck did the problem sneak by them? Second, the Democrats have now managed to place a candidate on the top of the ticket who has never won a single Presidential primary in her life; this is remarkable, but how can it possibly be characterized as “democratic”? The only time Harris faced the voters, they rejected her! In her home state! And here we are. Third, considering how the Inner Party nobbled Sanders in 2016 and 2020, I’d say they have form, and the Party cannot be fairly characterized as democratic at all. Finally, putting on my tinfoil hat, the special model that works from 30,000 feet, this entire operation has the stench of a bait and switch. How far back did the planning go?
The DNC
“Replacing Biden: What happens now?” [Semafor]. “Only Harris, whose name is on the campaign’s organizing documents, would inherit the current Biden campaign and its resources. If the delegates rejected her, the Biden-Harris war chest could be donated to the DNC or a super PAC.”
Electeds
Clyburn endorses Harris:
My statement on President Biden. pic.twitter.com/xEq1tsQhAl
— Jim Clyburn (@ClyburnSC06) July 21, 2024
The Spooks
Lambert here: The spooks are silent. Kamala was on the Senate Intelligence Committee. What does that tell you?
The Press
“Editorial: Biden’s decision not to seek nomination was courageous” [Los Angeles Times]. “In announcing Sunday that he is abandoning his candidacy for reelection, President Biden admirably put his party and the country above his personal interests. That he was responding to an increasing chorus from within the party doesn’t make his decision any less statesmanlike. His willingness to step aside, and the respectful calls for him to do so from other Democrats, amount to a striking contrast to the Republican Party, which has a cult-like focus on the supposed indispensability of Donald Trump.” •
CrapMaterial like this is all over my Twitter feed like kudzu. Everybody who stuck a shiv in Biden’s back is now professing admiration for him in the most fulsome terms. They all turned on a dime! Together! First, if indeed it was “time to take away the car keys” from Biden, it’s not clear that his decision was “ccurageous” at all, because we can’t be sure of his mental capacity. Second, note the contrast between Democrats and Republicans: Biden’sdefenestration by Democratscourageous decision was entirely a case of the Inner Party putting pressure on his circle by leaks in the press; totally top down. By contrast, say what you like about Trump, but his ascendancy in the Republican party was bottom up, i.e. small-d democratic. Republican voters weren’t having Jeb!, or Haley, or any RINO, and they kept banging on their party apparatus until it did (in their terms) the right thing.* * * Harris (D): From the archives:
Am I the only one who remembers the time Kamala Harris’s father upbraided her in public? pic.twitter.com/JuBY6a263v
— Alice (@AliceFromQueens) July 22, 2024
I certainly do. And so it begins–
Harris (D): “Scandal behind the cackle! As Kamala’s former lover – who’s 31 YEARS her senior – demands Biden make her president NOW… all the sordid secrets America’s ‘Momala’ hopes you’ve forgotten” [Daily Mail]. I wouldn’t expect this to be slow in crossing The Pond. “In 1994, Harris was a 29-year-old rising star in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office when she struck up a relationship with Brown – the 60-year-old speaker of the state Assembly and one of the most powerful men in California…. In a 2019 op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle, [Brown] wrote: ‘Sure, I dated Kamala Harris. So what?’ conceding that he ‘certainly helped with her first race for district attorney in San Francisco,’ but that he also assisted other prominent California Democrats.” Weak oppo. The key point (from WikiPedia (!)): “In 1994, Speaker of the California Assembly Willie Brown, who was then dating Harris, appointed her to the state Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and later to the California Medical Assistance Commission.” It’s one thing to have a girlfiend; it’s quite another to arrange for her to be take a State salary. And apparently, Willie Brown is still at it: “Speaking outside John’s Grill, where he holds court with the city’s political elite, just moments after President Joe Biden’s surprise announcement that he’d immediately suspended his campaign, Brown put forward a bold idea. “Not only should Joe stand aside as a candidate, he said, but Biden should also resign as President, allowing Harris to take up the role. ‘[Harris’s] chances go up if [Biden] would at this moment say not only am I no longer the candidate, I’m no longer the president — she is,’ Brown said. Sounding more like a doting teacher than a past lover, he heaped praise on Harris, telling The San Francisco Chronicle: ‘In all the jobs she’s had… she’s always been outstanding.’ It’s a sharp change of tune from Brown, who advised Harris in 2020 to turn down Biden’s invitation to be his running mate, telling her the second seat was a ‘dead end’. Brown’s about-face is in line with a general shift in the Democratic party – as left-wing [sic] political operators and a sympathetic media rush to rehabilitate Harris’s image in the hopes that she can take on and beat former President Donald Trump.”
* * * IL: “Biden’s decision changes the calculus for 2028 hopefuls” [Politico]. “[Governor JB Pritzker of Illinois] has been working behind the scenes for years preparing for a future presidential run. His political team is made up of veterans from two past political campaigns for governor, including the seasoned campaign manager Anne Caprara. The question is whether running for president risks Pritzker, who co-chaired Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2008, being seen as pushing out a woman — and a woman of color — in what would be a historic candidacy. Unlike other potential presidential candidates, Pritzker is a billionaire who can self-fund a campaign and wouldn’t need Biden’s campaign funds to move forward. He can write a check and build infrastructure in every state and get on TV tomorrow, according to Illinois campaign veterans who were granted anonymity to speak freely about a sensitive subject.” • And best of all, he didn’t date Willie Brown! That we know of, at least.
MI: “Gov. Whitmer endorses Kamala Harris for president, says she’s not leaving Michigan” [Detroit News]. “Asked Monday morning if she was interested in being vice president, Whitmer said: ‘I am not leaving Michigan. I am proud to be the governor of Michigan. I have been consistent. I know everyone is always suspicious and asking this question over and over again … I am not going anywhere.’ Whitmer announced her support for Harris a day after Democratic President Joe Biden revealed that he was dropping his reelection bid, 107 days before the general election on Nov. 5. Whitmer, whom many Democrats see as a potential future candidate for president, had been a co-chairwoman of Biden’s campaign and had repeatedly touted her belief in the 81-year-old Biden as others called for him to get out of the race.” • Eight years of Kamala means the blight of the Democrat bench continues. If the Democrats can win the House or the Senate, ideally both, with Biden off the top of the ticket, it might suit a lot of ambitious electeds if Kamala didn’t make it.
PA: “Pennsylvania Democrats give mixed response to idea of Harris as nominee” [Washington Examiner]. “Pennsylvania is arguably the most important swing state in the country. But while gushing endorsements for Harris came from the likes of Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington State, chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Pennsylvania party leaders sang a different tune…. Sen. John Fetterman, a fearless supporter of the current president, said he was unimpressed with the members of his own party who pushed Biden out, who then praised him extravagantly only after he withdrew. ‘Spare me the soaring accolades from people with their fingerprints on the blades in our President’s back,’ he said…. One longtime Democratic voter, a union Democrat who has never voted Republican, said he felt, ‘Harris wasn’t up for the job, I hope it will be someone else, I don’t like how they pushed Joe out.’ … .While elected Democrats, including Democrat Gov. Josh Shapiro, spent the day sending out full support for Harris, Democrats here in Pennsylvania worry about her appeal in the state, especially in Western Pennsylvania where hydraulic fracking has been an economic game changer—something Harris adamantly opposes…. On the politics of the Keystone State, political science professor Jeff Brauer said Pennsylvania remains essential to a presidential victory of either party. ‘Biden has always had close ties to Pennsylvania, especially with his hometown of Scranton and First Lady Jill Biden considering herself a Philadelphian,’ he said, adding, ‘without Biden on the ticket, the chances for Democrats in this all-critical state certainly diminish.’ Brauer said if Harris is chosen, this state is in flux for Democrats, more so than it was before the debate and the assassination attempt on Trump here, ‘Many in Pennsylvania, which is generally a moderate state, will find her to be too liberal,’ he said. Which means undoubtedly, her vice-presidential pick then will become very important electorally, and he points to Shapiro as an excellent selection in this regard.” • See The New Arab, “Who is Josh Shapiro, the ‘pro-Israel’ frontrunner tipped to be Kamala Harris’ running mate?” and Spotlight PA, “Shapiro orders state employees to avoid ‘scandalous’ conduct amid Gaza protests, raising free speech concerns.” However, with Shapiro, the Democrats may trade a better chance in PA for worse chances in MI and MN. And they need all three.
Realignment and Legitimacy
“‘I’m not voting’: Why should Donald Trump, Kamala Harris or anyone else make a difference to my finances? I’ll never be able to retire and I’m always broke.” [MarketWatch]. Question: “Dear Quentin, I don’t care. I think they are all the same. My life has been a struggle for the last 10 years and it has made no difference who is president of this country: Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris or whoever ends up taking over the Democratic ticket for president. What does it matter to someone like me? I’ll never be able to retire. A brief summary: I am in my 50s and still renting. I cannot afford to buy a house and I never have any money at the end of the month. I earn $67,000 a year, a decent salary by most standards, but it doesn’t go far. I dread getting older as I will need to keep working. America is divided between red and blue, but I’m tired of all the game playing and point scoring. Just sharing my thoughts about why I’m not voting. You read that correctly: I won’t be going to the polling booth in November. –Fed Up in Virginia (and Fed Up with D.C.). Lengthy answer, concluding: “Dear Virginian…. It’s not good to feel you will never be able to afford to retire. But remember: Social Security was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935. Whether you are a Republican, Democrat or Independent, go to the ballot box on Nov. 5, and let your voice be heard.”
Syndemics
“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison
Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).
Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!
Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (dashboard); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).
Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).
Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
Transmission: Covid
“Age-specific nasal epithelial responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection” [Nature]. From the Discussion: “In summary, we have shown that SARS-CoV-2 shows age-specific tropism in nasal epithelial cells, targeting goblet cells in children and secretory cells in older adults. Paediatric cells exhibit a strong antiviral response, resulting in limited viral replication. Older adult cells undergo shedding and more epithelial damage. Altered repair pathways and an increase in basaloid-like 2 cells associated with fibrosis markers contribute to greater viral spread in older adults. These findings provide insights into age-related COVID-19 pathogenesis and demonstrate how impaired repair processes enhance SARS-CoV-2 infection in older individuals.”
Lambert here: Looks like the holiday travel dumped accelerant on the pre-existing surge; see especially the growth in wastewater “hot spots.” Stay safe out there!
TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts
LEGEND
1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.
2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”
NOTES
[1] (CDC) This week’s wastewater map, with hot spots annotated. Keeps spreading.
[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.
[3] (CDC Variants) KP.* very popular.
[4] (ER) Worth noting Emergency Department use is now on a par with the first wave, in 2020.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Keeps up steady increase. (The New York city area has form; in 2020, as the home of two international airports (JFK and EWR) it was an important entry point for the virus into the country (and from thence up the Hudson River valley, as the rich sought to escape, and then around the country through air travel.)
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). The visualization suppresses what is, in percentage terms, a significant increase.
[7] (Walgreens) An optimist would see a peak.
[8] (Cleveland) Still going up!
[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Up. Those sh*theads at CDC have changed the chart so that it doesn’t even run back to 1/21/23, as it used to, but now starts 1/1/24. There’s also no way to adjust the time rasnge. CDC really doesn’t want you to be able to take a historical view of the pandemic, or compare one surge to another. In an any case, that’s why the shape of the curve has changed.
[10] (Travelers: Variants) Same deal. Those sh*theads.
[11] Deaths low, but positivity up.
[12] Deaths low, ED up.
Stats Watch
There are no official statistics of interest today.
Tech: “The serious science of trolling LLMs” [lcamtuf’s thing]. “We were talking about trolling large language models — that is, the practice of fiddling with the prompt to get the machine to say something outrageous or nonsensical, and then publicly displaying the result to earn retweets and likes… [B]ecause the models’ internals are inscrutable, the proxy measurement we rely on is the extent to which the models appear human-like. An LLM stuck in the uncanny valley is bound to scare the customers away. Responding to this incentive, vendors engage in sleight-of-hand. The models are made to appear more human by forcing them to feign emotions, profusely apologize for mistakes, or even respond with scripted jokes that mask the LLMs’ inability to write anything resembling humor…. The vendors’ hope is that with time, we will reach full human-LLM parity; and until then, it’s OK to fudge it a bit. From this perspective, the viral examples that make it patently clear that the models don’t reason like humans are not just PR annoyances; they are a threat to product strategy. Far from being a waste of time, internet trolling is becoming a legitimate scientific pursuit. When a model aces a human benchmark, it’s hard to know how much of this can be credited to reasoning and how much of it boils down to recall from the training data set. It’s when it fails at a simple task that we know what the limitations are — and trolls are the torch-bearers of this new englightenment.”
Manufacturing: “Boeing is offering a stark and expensive example of how supply-chain shortfalls can trigger cascading problems across a company’s operations” “[Logistics Report, Wall Street Journal]. “Parts shortages and other issues have left the jet maker facing a major storage issue, with about 200 fully or mostly finished airplanes sitting in airfields, outside plants and—in one location—an employee parking lot. The WSJ’s Sharon Terlep reports that supplier shortages have saddled the company with planes short of parts such as seats and emergency doors. But a handful of 777 freighters in Everett, Wash., are awaiting engines because manufacturer GE Aerospace has struggled with shortfalls from its own suppliers. Boeing had delivered only two freighters this year through May. But the engines have started rolling in, and Boeing delivered five of the planes in June. The bigger problem is with passenger jets including some single-aisle 737 MAXs that are now several years old.”
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 53 Neutral (previous close: 49 Neutral) [CNN]. One week ago: 63 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jul 22 at 12:14:59 PM ET.
Rapture Index: Closes down one on Floods. “It has been dry in many parts of the US” [Rapture Ready]. Record High, October 10, 2016: 189. Current: 184. (Remember that bringing on the Rapture is good.) • Hard to believe the Rapture Index is going down. Where are there people getting their news?!
The Gallery
Add an element of horror to the brushwork, and I’m reminded of Francis Bacon!
Tennis Game by the Sea https://t.co/1e0tzvLMk4 pic.twitter.com/KoeyJj1r8R
— Edouard Vuillard (@edouardvuillard) June 15, 2024
Zeitgeist Watch
What happens to Western Civilization if nobody can read?
For lit classes, I require PAPER TEXTS. I email students ahead of the semester and explain this so they are not horrified on day 1. They can opt out and use e-texts if they come to me with a reason (disability etc)–but they have to provide a reason. (I never say no)
— Alden Jones (@aldenejones) July 20, 2024
This is a long thread; click through for a complete image (especially if you are a teacher).
Class Warfare
“No One Expects Young Men To Do Anything and They Are Responding By Doing Nothing” [Rob Henderson’s Newsletter]. Hmm:
If you come from poverty and chaos, you are up against 3 enemies:
1. Dysfunction and deprivation
2. Yourself, as a result of what that environment does to you
3. The upper class, who wants to keep you mired in it.
The people with the most money and education—the class most responsible for shaping politics and culture and customs—ensure that their children are raised in stable homes.
But actively undermine the norm for everyone else.
The educated class decides cohabiting partnerships are just as valid and important as marriage. And they also believe it’s okay to walk away at a moment’s notice from a cohabiting relationship.
Luxury beliefs are ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class while often inflicting costs on the lower classes.
“Actively undermining norms” reminds me of what our ruling class has done to public health.
News of the Wired
I am not yet completely wired.
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