Deconstructing Face Mask Politics

The face mask has now become the “shiny object” of the Coronavirus pandemic – both a symbol and political statement.

Many on the Left believe all of us should wear masks all the time. This may be due to the fact that twice as many people on the Left are worried about getting the disease as those on the Right. I can’t explain that one. The Right thinks masks are appropriate, but fewer support them in polls, compared to the Left. Of course, there are many on the Right who wear masks all the time.

Before deconstructing mask usage, let’s go back and review how this issue evolved over the past few months.

Initially, the CDC stated, correctly, that wearing a mask does not protect you from catching the disease. Masks do not seal well and most don’t filter enough airborne material to offer adequate protection. Some politicians were concerned about the impact of a mask requirement on those who couldn’t tolerate wearing one, so there were mixed policies put into place Government leaders have to think about the psychological impact of having one’s breathing restricted and feeling closed in. Universal wearing of masks was not a part of the CDC recommendations.

Sometime later, mask use was refocused. Rather than worrying about protecting the person wearing the mask, it became more important to protect people coming in contact with that person. This logic was based on the fact that some people with symptoms could infect others, so mask use should be mandatory. Other people could be asymptomatic and infect others without knowing it, if they didn’t wear a mask. Makes sense.

Quickly, the mask debate got more heated and is now completely political. The Left criticizes those photographed without masks. Perhaps the assumption is these maskless villains are Republicans. But notice the CNN reporters at the White House who only wear masks when the camera is on. Or the CNN reporter commenting on lack of masks on the beaches Memorial Day. He had a mask. His cameraman didn’t. Trump is photographed golfing without a mask. How terrible of him, even though he’s outside and away from other people. Golf courses are open around the country and none require golfers to wear masks.

The public is riled up too. A grocery shopper in New Jersey was verbally attacked and driven out of a store recently because she wasn't wearing a mask. Whether you're social distancing or not, you better not leave that mask home. In this case, the customer was actually violating the governor’s order to have her face covered.

There are fifteen states that require masks while shopping, most of them in the Northeast. New York is a hair more lenient saying “wear a mask if social distancing is not possible.”

Let’s take the mask debate to its logical conclusion. If a person has COVID and knows it, or has symptoms, they should stay home. If they have to go out, they should wear a mask to protect others. Asymptomatic carriers are different story. Since we can’t know who is asymptomatic unless we test everyone for COVID or antibodies, how do we identify these people?

We might never reach a point where everyone is tested, which means all of us will have to keep wearing masks forever or stay home. Huh?

We should be using practical, rather than Draconian, rules. If you have COVID or have symptoms, you should wear a mask. Masks for the rest of us should be optional, unless social distancing is not possible.

The management of the pandemic depends on the commitment of the America people, so reality has to be applied to balance risk and behavior. Seventy three percent of COVID deaths in New York City involved people over the age of 65. Of the total deaths across all age groups in that same study, only .7% had no underlying conditions. If you’re older or have underlying conditions be careful and limit interactions with the public. Always wear a mask. Younger people with no underlying conditions have little to worry about.

Everyone should use social distancing as the primary method of keeping themselves safe. Masks are a backup.

It’s also important to follow the data. As summer heats up, the country becomes more open, and the graphs trend further downward, feel more confident about having your face uncovered.

Censorship in the Time of Pandemic

Censorship has become an important issue in America over the past two decades. It encompasses the news media, academia, and, lately, the Internet. Censorship impacts what we hear, what we read, and how well we are able to express our first amendment rights. Although it bears no relationship to the pandemic, the disease has become weaponized for political purposes and, in this election year, all things are political. One side provides information that the country should open and the other side says it shouldn’t. Even the president’s task force is not immune from bias because they are working for the benefit of the Republican Party.

For most of the history of our country, the first amendment stood as a measure of the value democracy brings to its people. Photos of flag burnings during the Viet Nam War were often cited as proof of this most fundamental freedom. The 1960s were a decade of the New Left attack on the establishment, which they said was out of touch and leading America in the wrong direction. Protestors fought for the right to speak freely and campaign against government misbehavior and censorship. A climax in this battle was reached, at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, when student protestors were attacked by the police.

The broadcast and print media have evolved in tandem with the growth of tribalism in the United States. As Left and Right split farther apart, the tone has sharpened between them. Because the Left controls most of the broadcast spectrum, we get exposed to views of the Left more than the views of the Right. Forty years ago, we received most of our news from three networks and newspapers. Most biases showed up on the editorial pages and not the headline news pages. As citizens, we couldn’t know whether the reporting was shaded, because there was no way to validate the content. Still, there were accuracy standards journalists applied to their craft.

That has all changed now, because journalists have become ideology advocates, who attack those who do not share the opinions of their employer. As a citizen, if your beliefs match the content of your favorite media outlets, you’re hearing the truth. If they come from an opposing news outlet, you hearing lies.

Academia has trended left over the past thirty years and most conservative professors have left the stage for retirement or think tanks. The political voice of our universities is solidly left, with no probability of changing. How ironic it is, given the Left’s advocacy for free speech in the 1960s, that universities now prevent conservatives from speaking. Their view is that the Right does not tell the truth because its narrative was created by white privilege or a white man’s corrupt aristocracy. Bigots once are bigots for all time. The university’s fault is not that they are actively preventing free speech; its that they are afraid to oppose their students. Of course, the faculty shares the political views of the students so they are very supportive.

Starting in the middle ages, universities advocated a fundamental right that all points of view should be heard. The basis of that intellectual freedom was “debate leads to truth.” If that debate is missing today, we end up with propaganda.

In the last ten or fifteen years, the Internet has extended its role as a major communication platform across the globe. Facebook, Twitter, and Google control a large percentage of the content we receive. These platforms began with noble intentions; the desire to create platforms mankind could use to communicate and share common interests. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for bad actors to start using these platforms for their own nefarious purposes. Skinheads, anarchists, pedophiles, human traffickers, and other groups appeared, who would not normally have access to the personal sites of millions of people. The social media companies responded to these “attacks” by allocating resources to automated and human filtering of content to block the bad actors.

At the end of 2016, Facebook started looking into presidential campaign abuses and discovered that Russia had created false identities for the purpose of influencing the American election. They also started to look at ways to identify fake news so it could be barred from their platform. In May 2017, Facebook created new policies for dealing with sexual predators, sexist, racist, and hate speech. These changes were appropriate given the potential for abuse.

Since then, Facebook and the others have stepped over the line regarding censorship. Complaints have recently started to surface that conservatives are being blocked. Others including LGBT and African-Americans also complained, but the conservatives have been the most vocal. A widely cited example is Prager University, which is an online conservative website. YouTube took down several of their videos because they portrayed harmful or dangerous activities. These videos included “Are the police racist?”; “Why do people become Muslim Extremists?”; and “Are 1 in 5 Women Raped at College?” Prager University sued YouTube in 2017 and lost the case. The court ruled that YouTube is not a public forum, so they are not a state actor for the purposes of First Amendment rights.

This is an unfortunate outcome because it means that YouTube has the ability to censor free speech based on their own rules – and their political views. If they lean Left, there is even less balance in political expression than there was previously.

Now we move on to a more egregious example. On April 22^nd, two California ER doctors, Dr. Dan Erickson and Dr. Artin Massihi posted a YouTube video discussing results from their own analysis of COVID patients. The opinion was that stay at home orders were excessive, the disease had spread further than reported, and they recommended that the economy more open. At the beginning of the pandemic, they were on board with the CDC strategy but had changed their minds after two months of experience with patients. They were expressing their opinion, not advocating a revolt. Soon after its posting, the video was removed by YouTube.

YouTube issued the following statement, “We quickly remove flagged content that violate our Community Guidelines, including content that explicitly disputes the efficacy of local health authority recommended guidance on social distancing that may lead others to act against that guidance," said the statement. "However, content that provides sufficient educational, documentary, scientific or artistic (EDSA) context is allowed -- for example, news coverage of this interview with additional context. From the very beginning of the pandemic, we’ve had clear policies against COVID-19 misinformation and are committed to continue providing timely and helpful information at this critical time.”

How is this video dangerous when CNN can falsely report that Trump suggested people drink bleach?

YouTube is an extremely influential platform worldwide. Millennials say it is their number one source for news. To the extent that YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter censor content based on their own rules, these actions remove alternative viewpoints from public view so that only one side is heard.

Mark Zuckerberg was asked about Facebook guidelines in a recent interview. He said that Facebook was blocking all organizations trying to organize protests against stay at home orders because they oppose government rules. This is raw censorship. It assumes that the government always knows what is best for the public. Wrong. The government is supposed to be working for the public. What is the difference between censoring opposing opinions here and Nazi propaganda? Hitler won because the opposition was worn away to nonexistence.

Red State Versus Blue State Reopening

Its interesting to observe the difference in the red state and blue state opening’s, which are designed to carry the country back to full operation. I’m defining red and blue not by typical voting pattern but by the party of the state’s governor, who manages the response to the pandemic. Red state behavior shows a determined effort to move forward, while blue state efforts demonstrate a determined effort to stay closed. Why would that be? One might guess that part of the reason is due to blue states having large cities, which have concentrated populations leading to greater transmission of the disease. But that can’t tell the whole story.

Of the top ten states by population, five are red and five are blue. All have big cities.

Among the red states, twenty are open now. Five will open in mid-May, and one (Maryland) has no open date.

Among the blue states, five are open now, seven will open around mid-May, and the other twenty intend to open at the end of May or later.

Some of the behavior is logical. The Northeast is hit hard, particularly New York and New Jersey. Connecticut has a high commuter volume to New York. Massachusetts has Boston, and Rhode Island sits in the middle.

Likewise, one would expect the low-density states to be minimally affected and able to recover quite easily.

We can evaluate how well each state is doing managing the virus by dividing the population by the number of cases. That corrects for the size of the states. The ten best are Montana, Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon, West Virginia, Maine, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Texas, and Kentucky. Six of these ten are open.

The ten worst states are New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Louisiana, Delaware, Illinois, Michigan, and Maryland. None of these are open. Big cities are certainly a factor in all except Delaware, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.

Some states have a strategy that makes them an outlier. Maine has been 6^th best at managing its caseload, and it has had 56 deaths since the outbreak began. It has a stay at home order in place until May 31^st. Maine’s opening schedule follows.

As of May 1, gatherings of 10 or more people are prohibited, and all people entering or returning to Maine must quarantine for 14 days. This constitutes Stage 1.

For Stage 2, tentatively beginning June 1, only gatherings with less than 50 people are allowed, and maintains the aforementioned 14-day quarantine for those entering or returning to the state. There would also be some degree of reopening for restaurants, retail stores, lodging and campgrounds (for those who have met the 14-day requirement) and more.

In Stage 3, tentatively beginning July 1, gatherings with less than 50 people will continue to be allowed but the 14-day quarantine for visitors continues. Also, there would be some degree of reopening for lodging, hotels, summer camps and RV parks for both Maine residents and visitors.

There is also a Stage 4, although the timeline is undetermined, that would allow for businesses and activities to resume with the appropriate safety precautions and lifting the previous restrictions.

Hawaii also has a very conservative approach, even though it is 3rd best at managing cases. Below is its epidemic chart:

Hawaii reached its peak in number of new cases on March 18^th. They have had 16 deaths since the outbreak. Hawaii has a stay at home order until May 31^st. Beaches can be used and some elective surgeries can be performed. Maui is putting together a plan to reopen, because they haven’t had any cases in a couple of weeks.

Texas and California are interesting cases, with very different approaches. Texas is 9^th in population case ratio and has done a great job. It has restaurants and bars open, with reduced capacity. Malls and movie theaters are also open. California has also done a great job, but has been closed up tight with a schedule to hold off reopening until May 31^st. It appears the governor is now reacting to pressure to get the reopening started, because he announced that some businesses could open on May 8^th. These include places such as book, clothing, toy, and sporting goods stores as well as music shops and florists. Still, a very conservative opening strategy.

At the opposite end of the spectrum are states like South Dakota, which never closed. It has experienced 800 cases and 21 deaths since the pandemic began. South Dakota is using Hydroxychloroquine in a clinical trial to treat the disease.

How is Georgia doing – the first state to open?

On April 20^th, Georgia reached its peak for the number of new cases added daily. That was four days before the open. Now 11 days into the open, the new case numbers are steady at a low level.

There is no question that we've reached one of the critical milestones of the pandemic; the point were open states will prove whether the disease can remain under control. Citizens of the states holding back will be watching closely. If things go well, there will be a stampede.

Are there politics at work here? Probably. It is an election year and the Left would like to postpone a strong economic upturn until after the election. The stock market is betting on faster versus slower. The S&P 500 lost 33% of its value in March, but since then has regained 21%.

The Price of Fear

The country is now beginning to open up economically, and all hope that things go well for the sake of the American people. What will that future look like?

Before trying to answer that question, let’s focus on the present for a moment. The mainstream media is all in to keep fear in the forefront of our thinking. In the beginning, it was fear of a disease we didn’t know anything about that would kill millions. Headlines quoted a worst-case scenario put together by epidemiologists, and the media joyfully ran with it. When that fear mongering had run its course, the media’s moved on to the lack of equipment and hospital space. Based on projections for the disease, those fears seemed to have merit, because world could not have been prepared for this pandemic.

In a historic show of unity, however, the American people came together and implemented the prescriptions given by the federal government. The people’s contribution to “flattening the curve” appears to have saved lives and our healthcare system, which would have been strained beyond its limits. Ultimately, the question will have to be answered, “what would have happened without stay at home? And what economic and personal price did America pay for taking on the Coronavirus in the way it did?”

Stage three of the media onslaught was creating fear about the opening. Headlines warning that “we’re not ready” have been seen everywhere, as soon as opening plans were announced. Now with states opening, the media has moved on to “there isn’t enough testing available.” Always something to fear.

I attribute most of the media behavior to the dislike of Trump intersecting with the election year. The Left will never get over the Trump election and its upset of the hoped for multi-generational Obama legacy. Trump Derangement Syndrome is now at its maximum level. The Left have spent four years attacking the president: Russian collusion (exposed as fake), Mueller investigation (inconclusive), impeachment (without merit), and now blame for the Coronavirus response. It’s the left who has the fear – fear of their weak candidate and an economic recovery before fall.

Let’s forget the media, for a moment, and concentrate on what we can conclude from our own observations about the pandemic.

It is a curse, but also blessing the pandemic is world-wide. Blessing because we have 210 laboratories (countries) doing the same experiment we’re doing. In the United States, there are 50 states acting as independent laboratories, each tackling a unique set of circumstances. The advantage of this large number is they are all developing different approaches, which will make plain for us what strategies work.

There is no logic too staying closed, given that you can open up carefully by geography and demographics. In fact, our states can’t open at the same time, anyway, because some have been hit harder by the disease and/or started late in an effort to control it. Moving forward, we will observe how these openings progress and adjust along the way. I’m betting on this being successful because I see the American people continuing their recent good behavior into the open because they understand the cost of failure.

This is the classic scientific method; performing experiments to discover the right path forward. Experimentation is the tool that has brought mankind to this point in history. All of the products and technologies we enjoy were developed through scientific experimentation. How many plane crashes occurred before the first successful flight?

As we accumulate information about the disease, there are facts emerging that improve our understanding of the disease. Antibody testing has shown there are a significant number of people who have had the disease previously and were cured on their own (in New York City 15%). This lowers the death rate (same death count/more cases), which make the disease appear less dangerous than first thought. We can’t protect everyone from infection because the disease will eventually reach everyone, but we have to keep the most vulnerable safe until a vaccine can be developed.

Its interesting to observe what is happening in Sweden. Their curve is flattening without stay at home orders. The entire Swedish economy is open albeit with social distancing in place. Shouldn’t we see their experience as a confidence builder for our own? Sweden is using the “herd” model to deal with the virus; let it spread through the population normally until everyone has been exposed.

Our future looks good. The impact on the economy will last awhile, but unlike 2008, there is no underlying cause for alarm. Remove the disease and the economy bounces back.

To be honest, we can’t say that the media alone caused our reaction to the disease. Our media doesn’t exist in the other 209 countries fighting it. There must be something about this time in history that has made us susceptible to the fear we have been experiencing. The media has, for its part, made matters worse in their zeal to define the truth, as opposed to just telling it.

The Electoral College

The debate over the Electoral College has been renewed again recently. The Left wants to eliminate it and the Right wants to leave it alone. What is the issue?

Like anything, this is about power. Because the Left lost two recent elections on electoral votes when they won the popular vote, they cry foul. They see the “antiquated” electoral college concept as preventing the will of the people from being realized. In other words, the will of the Left is not being realized.

How did we get here?

The Electoral College was invented by the framers as a way to elect the president of the United States. Similar to their experience debating the design of the legislative branch, the method for electing presidents resulted from a compromise made after looking at multiple options. One faction supported letting the states choose the president, a second faction supported the idea of Congress selecting the president, and a third faction supported the idea of a direct popular vote. The Congressional selection option was the early favorite, but Madison spoke out strongly against it because he feared it would make the executive a servant of the Congress rather than an independent branch. He asserted that the new government must adhere to a separation of powers philosophy.

Having the executive elected directly by the people did not get any traction. The founders feared that bad actors could influence the people’s vote toward unworthy candidates.

Governeur Morris, one of the most prominent of the founders, gave a passionate speech about the role and power of the president.

It has been a maxim of political science that a republican government is not adapted to a large extent of a country, because the energy of the executive Magistracy cannot reach the extreme parts of it. Our country is an extensive one. We must either then renounce the blessings of the union, or provide an executive with sufficient vigor to pervade every part of it. One great object of the executive is to control the legislature. The legislature will continually seek to aggrandize and perpetuate themselves; and will seize those critical moments produced by war, invasion, or convulsion for that purpose. It is necessary, then, that the executive magistrate be the guardian of the people, even the lower classes, against legislative tyranny against the great and wealthy who in the course of things will necessarily compose the legislative body.

Madison, in supporting the elector concept, asserted that since the Congress is a check on the misbehavior of the states, the states electing the chief executive would act as a check on the Congress. Madison felt that the electoral system would bind the states to the federal government through their participation, connecting the two so the states would not drift away on their own.

There was extensive debate at the convention about the number of electors. Various options were proposed including 1 per state. The founders could not agree so they referred the discussion to the committee on detail to come up with a solution. The committee decided the electors from each state should include the number of the representatives for that state plus the two senators.

The original arguments for using the elector system were valid and made sense. Are they still valid today? To change the system, one should have to provide convincing arguments that a new system would be better, or there is no reason to change it.

Let’s look at the arguments for change and see if they motivate us for change.

One of the most popular reasons for eliminating the Electoral College is the one man one vote concept. The idea is that a person’s vote should determine who is elected as president directly rather than using it to elect electors. This concept was debated in the 1960s, when lawsuits were filed to make Congressional districts the same size. Historically, districts were different sizes, meaning that one person’s vote was not equal to another person’s vote in a different district. The Supreme Court ruled that districts would have to be changed to make them equal in number of voters so everyone’s vote had the same value.

The problem with singling out the presidential election method as antiquated or unfair ignores the fact that the Senate is not one man one vote body either. Senators are elected by their states, instead of all the American people so their election does not result from one man, one vote. The only way to fix that would be to have all the American people vote for 200 Senatorial candidates.

The second common argument is that the presidential voting method is undemocratic. Our government is defined as a republic, not a democracy, so it’s reasonable and appropriate for some functions to be undemocratic. Republics allow participation in government by the people, but they use specialists (politicians) to represent the wishes of the electorate. Our government was designed to be balanced between the participation of the people and the power granted to representatives who will act for the people. Too much power to the people creates anarchy.

The third common argument against the Electoral College is that it removes states from participation. Candidates spend all their time visiting swing states because those states determine who wins the election. The rest of the states are ignored. That problem does not go away with a direct vote for president, however. In that case, the candidates would spend all their time in the largest states and ignore all of the smaller ones.

One might think we can turn to scholars to help us out with this issue. What would they say? Unfortunately, there are no unbiased scholars left. Left scholars say the Electoral College is obsolete. Right scholars say that it should be retained.

Those on the Left cite polls where more than 50% of the public would like direct vote for president. Changing the Constitution was designed to take time so adequate thought could be given to the issue before a change is made. In other words, a process designed to avoid the fickleness of the public, which is never constant and always changing. Our government works because our representatives apply public opinion to law and tradition, rather than doing what the people want at any given time.

The difference in the popular vote in 2016, was completely attributable to the vote in California.

Hillary won the national popular vote by 2.8 million. She won California by 4.2 million. If she would have campaigned in the Midwest, where the swing votes were, she would have won the popular vote and the electoral vote.

Too Much Democracy?

A democracy is a political system that engages citizens to vote and elect others to represent them. Commonly, this involves majority rule, so the candidate that receives the most votes is elected.

Democracies were invented by the Greeks who employed this form successfully for over one hundred years during the Golden Age of Athens. The Greek democracy included a citizen’s assembly which held the responsibility for passing laws and electing government officials. The assembly was made up of all Athenian citizens who were present at the assembly meetings. Issues were decided by the vote of the majority of those in attendance.

The obvious limitation of direct voter participation made the Greek model an exception in the ancient world. Greek cities were small and it was not difficult for the people to travel to their town for voting.

Rome invented a different form of government, the Republic, after it exiled its last king. The word republic comes from the Latin res publica – thing of the people. The “thing of the people” was a government where the people had rights and participated in passing new laws and electing officials. The Senate was a holdover from the time of the kings, but the people had no real power at that time. The republic created an assembly; a government body of citizens who could vote on laws and elect magistrates.

Like the Greek democracy, the Roman Republic was an exception in antiquity. Monarchies were the predominant form of government in the world from 2300 BC until the Enlightenment Period, which began in 1650 AD.

When America’s founders were planning our political system, they were influenced by the British Constitution, the political systems of the ancient world, and their own colonial experience. The Articles of Confederation were a failure because they did not include an executive, so the work of the confederation was always hampered by fights between the states that could not be resolved. This experience convinced the framers that a chief magistrate was vital to the success of a new government. They had no use for a king, so they created a system where the chief magistrate was elected.

As the founders thought about what their new government should look like, the realized there was no obvious answer because no one had created a new government in the West for a thousand years. Moreover, the European concept of government had been altered by the Enlightenment, which granted new freedoms for the individual.

In 1786, Madison and others tried to schedule a constitutional convention but there was little enthusiasm for a new government among the states. That all changed after an incident that occurred late that summer, which shook up the colonial governments, and drove them into action. An insurrection, called Shay’s Rebellion, took place in Massachusetts, in August, and lasted until February 1787. A group of farmers, led by Daniel Shays, unhappy with their taxes being raised, put together a small army, blockaded some of the courthouses in Massachusetts, and kept them from operating. With no means of stopping the rebels, the government was paralyzed. James Warren, an official with the state legislature, wrote a letter to John Adams, stating that Massachusetts was in a state of anarchy bordering on civil war. The federal government could not help because it had no army, so Massachusetts organized its militia, augmented it with some mercenaries, and set out to break up the rebellion.

After several skirmishes, where a few were killed, the insurrection finally ended on February 27, 1787, when the remaining rebel force was broken up. Four thousand of the rebels signed confessions that they participated in the rebellion, a few hundred were put on trial, and two were hanged.

Shay’s Rebellion shook the founders to their core. What would prevent revolts like this from happening throughout the colonies? Would the American confederation always be one step away from anarchy?

The states now realized that a Constitutional Conversation was a critical step in building a political system that would prevent anarchy. The idea of continuing on with a distributed system, with power held by the states, had suddenly vanished. It was now clear that a strong federal government was needed to balance uncivil behavior by the people. The question was, “How could that balance be created and maintained?”

The founders could read and write in Greek and Latin, and learned about the ancient political systems as a part of their classical education. In applying that knowledge, they quickly rejected the Greek Democracy as an unworkable model. Because of the vast expanse of the American territory, it was impractical to have the people come to the capitol to vote. They settled on the Roman Republic as the best model for the new American government. It would have three branches: A Senate of the most experienced statesmen, an assembly (House of Representatives) representing the people, and a chief magistrate, serving as the executive. In the Roman Republic, there were two chief magistrates, called consuls. They had veto power over each other and acted together to administer the state.

The Constitutional Congress began with a debate about the structure of the legislative branch; who would elect the Senators and Congressmen and how they would be elected. Some wanted the Senators and Congressmen elected by the people, but that was vetoed. Some wanted an equal number of Senators and representatives from each state, but that idea was also vetoed. The final design set up a Senate with two elected from each state, and a Congress with proportional representation by population, elected by the people. Only citizens who owned land could vote.

The debate about the executive branch was about term of office and method of election. Many of the delegates wanted a single seven-year term for the president. Agreement was eventually reached on a four-year term with no term limit. The method of choosing the president would be an Electoral College, consisting of officials from each state, who were elected by the voters of each state.

This new government came into being as a republic of republics, as Madison called it. Each state was a republic, and the federal government was a republic designed to deal with issues that went beyond the capability of the states, such as treaties with foreign nations.

The first great political battles in our country were fought between the Federalists and the Democratic-Republican Party of Thomas Jefferson. The Federalists, who were led by Alexander Hamilton, believed in a strong centralized government as necessary to keep order. Jefferson’s group, envisaged a de-centralized federal government were power concentrated in the hands of the states, and the wealthy landholders within them. The election of Jefferson in 1800, marked the end of Federalist philosophy and eventual extinction of that party.

During the Jefferson period and after there was increasing pressure to make America more democratic. The requirement for land ownership was gradually relaxed until 1856, when all white men were permitted to vote. Interestingly, women could vote in some states in the early years, if they owned property, but that ended in 1807.

The final voting roadblocks were torn down when African-Americans received the right to vote in 1870, and women were granted suffrage in 1920.

The other important step toward more democracy occurred with the passage of the 17^th amendment in 1913, which made senators electable by the people rather than being chosen by the state legislatures.

The argument that generated the title for this article, Too Much Democracy, has existed since the writing of the Constitution. The Enlightenment view of government, albeit biased, was that educated people should serve in government because they are the best trained to solve the problems of society. In addition, voting should be limited to persons with a stake in what the government does; that is property holders. Property owners care about what happens to their taxes, so they will pay attention to the platform of those who are running. It’s a simple idea, but it goes back to the Roman Republic.

Hamilton, Madison, and many other founders believed in this argument. The risk of having everyone vote is the case of voters who are influenced by others and not objective. Shays Rebellion made Madison see the influence of bad actors. If someone bribes voters to vote a certain way, you have mob rule, and not best candidate selection. Mob-based elections, eventually lead to tyranny, because those who have the most power and money can win. That is not to say all the votes in the early days in the country were good ones, but the theory suggests that having stakeholders increases the odds of selecting a good candidate.

How has the modern world, changed this theory? Perhaps the property ownership argument is no longer relevant with the creation of income taxes, which affect everyone who works. That should help keep them interested in the direction of the government.

Today we have a convergence of expanding voting rights and increased risk of bad voting. This is not a racial, gender, or party issue. If someone gets a ride to a polling place, receives $ 10, and is told how to vote, what value does that vote have? It contributes nothing to the selection of the best candidate. There is a tradition of union voters being given ballots marking the candidates to vote for. Great for electing pro-union candidates; bad for electing the best candidate for all.

It takes time to read about the candidates and issues, in order to form an opinion of what/who to vote for. Most Americans don’t take the time. Proof of that is the impact of attack ads on voters. If you spend enough money on ads, bending the truth, you can win. Look at the case of Mike Bloomberg, who got himself up to 15% popularity in the Democratic Primary without appearing in public. His ads created his persona.

The Democrats are always fighting to expand voting to excluded groups, like convicted felons. Obviously, they believe expanded voting rights will help them. Republicans tend to resist these changes because they don’t want to see new Democrat voters.

The lack of voter knowledge and its impact on elections is questionable now, because both parties seek election by the mob. There’s no other way to win. The notion of a governing class of educated, moral individuals dedicated to what is best for the country is dead. It’s now a popularity contest, driven by marketing and backed by billionaires. The mob is at the top.

Starting up the Economy

I read an article yesterday that got me thinking about how we are getting information during the pandemic. The title was We Can’t Shelter in place Forever, and it was published in the Los Angeles Times. The following comments were made in the article by public health officials:

They caution that coronavirus cases are likely to rise when stay-at-home orders are relaxed.

Public health officials will want to see a drastic reduction in the number of new coronavirus infections confirmed each day before they begin to relax current restrictions, scientists said.

However, before they can feel confident that a drop has truly occurred, testing capacity must increase dramatically.

In California, which has a population of nearly 40 million people, stay-at-home restrictions are not likely to be relaxed until the number of new cases statewide drops below 10 per day (currently 375).

After restrictions ease, will we be asked to shelter in place again? That largely depends on when restrictions are lifted.

“If we resume normal life too soon, the chances of seeing a second wave are higher,”

These statements reflect the opinions of the health care professionals interviewed. Unfortunately, the article presents a very narrow view of the subject because only one stakeholder was participating and, absent other stakeholder opinions, there is no proper context. The health care professionals do not run the country and that’s a good thing.

There are two additional stakeholders in this pandemic; businesses and workers. With every day that passes, the pressure from those two groups will become stronger in opposition to the scientists. It some point, the health care professional’s views will become secondary.

Every day that people are unemployed, their lives are affected and the economy is affected. Every day a business is shut down, its operation is threatened. The net effect on individuals is worry over whether financial aid from the government will be adequate and reach them before their cash flow becomes critical. In the case of small business, where cash flow is tighter than big business, survival of the business is at stake. If financial help does not arrive in time, small businesses will die. In the case of big business, there are more options – extended credit lines etc. But there, whole industries are dead – travel, dining, and hotels. These industries will have to be propped up, before they can return to normal.

How do we reconcile the need for controlling the pandemic with the collapse of our economy?

We can answer that question by looking at the problem in an analytical way.

Here is a chart I designed to show stakeholder behavior (click on to enlarge). The y axis is an index showing the continuing interest in isolation. The x axis is months. There are four lines designating four stakeholders: the scientists, business leaders, the public, and the politicians. The slopes of the graphs are an estimate of what will really happen.

I have mentioned the first three stakeholders, but politicians are a fourth, because they run the government and will ultimately decide the exit strategy for containment. Politicians have no opinions of their own that they act on. Their goal in life is to be reelected, so they act to ensure that outcome by taking the pulse of their constituents. They are the ones who must decide when the cure is worse that the disease. The fact that this is election year makes things more complicated because the Left has a stake in making Trump look bad.

The chart starts at an arbitrary point (this month) reflecting agreement on the necessity of isolation. In another month the lines will begin to diverge. Why? Because stakeholder interests will diverge. The scientists will stay cautious and remain focused on controlling the disease. Businesses and the public will lose interest in the science as the effects on them increase. The political line was created as an average of the positions of the three stakeholders. That shows the politicians will have to balance the other three to chart a course for the country.

Its possible that the politician’s line will be lower than I have drawn it, depending on the anxiety level among the people. In addition, country-wide aid has to stop at some point or we blow up the national debt.

Epidemiological models do not become accurate until sufficient data is collected, but the models used for this pandemic have been consistently wrong by exaggerating the caseload and death toll. One suspects that the numbers will continue to go down – not up – so the justification for starting up the economy will become stronger over time.

We can keep a tight hold on efforts to protect the vulnerable members of the population, while the economy gets moving again. Using temperature taking, social distancing, and masks in nursing homes and hospitals will be an important parallel step.