The Coal Industry Continues to Falter, but Trump Can Still Rally the Miners

By Todd Lassa

Near rural Salisbury, Pennsylvania, just north of the Maryland border, there is a large building just off the state highway with a sign, “Trump Digs Coal.”

It’s a standout sign in this rural area filled with pro-Trump signs and campaign banners, the single sign calling out an industry that has helped define this part of the country for more than a century. There are far more “Pro Life, Pro-Trump” signs on lawns on the roads to Meyersdale, where we spoke with a Trump and a Biden supporter earlier this month [“Talking to Trump and Biden Supporters in Small-Town Pennsylvania,” Oct. 5].

The Biden supporter we interviewed, Jennifer Clark, said she thought it was time for locals to move beyond the coal industry and train for jobs in a modern industry. Because of natural gas production, spurred in recent years by the fracking process, the coal industry is declining on its own, independent of President Trump’s support for the electrical power source.

Pennsylvania is the third-biggest state for coal production according to a September 2018 report in Mining Technology [ https://www.mining-technology.com/features/five-largest-coal-producing-states-us/]. Wyoming was first with 297.2 million st/year. Even the next four biggest producers in the U.S.; West Virginia (at 79.8 million st), Pennsylvania (45.7 million st), Illinois (43.4 million st) and Kentucky (42.9 million st) don’t add up to the production from the nation’s least-populous state.

According to The New York Times’ recent deep-dive into the industry [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/05/us/politics/trump-coal-industry.html?searchResultPosition=1] 145 coal-burning units at 75 power plants have been idled since the president’s 2017 inauguration, enough to power about 30 million US homes. “Another 73 power plants have announced plans to close,” the Times reports, including the Navajo Generating Station in northern Arizona, which went offline October 2019, months before the coronavirus pandemic shut down major parts of the country and led to reduction in the burning of fossil fuels.

A positive effect of these shutdowns is that sulfur dioxide emissions are down nearly 30% for the first three years of the Trump administration, according to the Times. Coal burning accounts for about 20% US electricity production, down from 31% in 2017. Meanwhile, renewable energy, spurred by Obama administration policies, accounts for about 17%, NPR reports [https://www.npr.org/2020/10/19/925278651/what-would-a-2nd-trump-term-mean-for-the-environment].

Mining coal long has had a reputation as a dirty, dangerous, and life-shortening job. Former Murray Energy CEO Robert Murray has filed an application with the US Labor department for black lung benefits, according to West Virginia Public Broadcasting and Ohio Valley ReSource [https://ohiovalleyresource.org/2020/09/30/bob-murray-who-fought-black-lung-regulations-as-a-coal-operator-has-filed-for-black-lung-benefits/].

Despite the potential dangers, coal miners have prospered over the years, and the biggest threat to small towns and rural communities might be the wages lost. According to the Times report, miners at the Navajo station that closed late in 2019 earned an average of about $117,000/year.

Please address your comments to editors@thehustings.news

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Coal Miners are the Blue Collar Superdelegates that Still Support Trump

By Bryan Williams

How many years have we been hearing about “green jobs” that will employ blue-collar workers in obsolete smokestack industries, and how they will transform the American economy while curing the climate “emergency”?

Every election cycle, politicians say they will help foster more green jobs, which usually involves spending billions. This time, it’s $2 trillion if Democratic candidate Joe Biden gets to implement his plan. Four years ago, Hillary Clinton even went so far as to promise she would “destroy” the coal industry and then help the miners find training or new employment.

How did she expect this to play out in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and other blue-collar job states, such as Michigan and Wisconsin? She practically handed that to Donald J. Trump, who shrewdly swooped in to rescue the coal miners.

There were about 90,000 coal miners in the US, according to The Guardian (U.K.), and about half that – about 45,000 – currently.

Why all the hubbub over so few workers? I think it comes down to this – coal miners are superdelegates for all blue-collar workers.

Since I started paying attention to politics in the early 2000s, I have heard politicians of all stripes make claims that we must transition our economy and provide training for workers in obsolete blue-collar jobs. Twenty years later, what have we got?

I’m sure there are success stories of coal miners who have transitioned to green jobs. But for nearly a generation, politicians have told these workers, “I have a plan for you. It will take away your job. There might be some money to retrain you and then you might get a new job after.” That rings pretty hollow and is disingenuous.

Along comes populist Trump in the 2016 presidential race, promising to save blue-collar jobs and revitalize American manufacturing. Since his inauguration he has done quite a few things that many other presidents and elected officials have not.

Has he been successful? Not in the case of the coal industry. The market has helped kill coal, but so have government policies. I have a cousin who used to work at a coal plant here in California. The company had invested millions in clean coal technology to burn the fuel with minimal pollutants. The plant’s officials tried for years to get Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and then Gov. Jerry Brown to take a tour and see how their stringent environmental policies weren’t necessary. Neither governor would even send a representative, and my cousin finally moved to Texas to find work. How many coal miner families can relocate? The political abandonment was felt – my cousin felt it deeply as well, I’m sure, by coal miners and their families in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

Trump may not have been successful in bringing back those obsolete jobs, but what’s more important, I think, to those coal miners is they finally feel like someone powerful has their back.

They will vote for him again.

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Don’t be Lulled by Biden’s Big Lead in the Polls

By Chase Wheaton

After predicting, like most of the country did, that Hillary Clinton would win the 2016 presidential election by a landslide, and being proved quite wrong, I’ve been hesitant to make any predictions this year. Even now, the story of this election cycle feels eerily similar to that of the 2016 election: The Democratic candidate leads in virtually every national poll, while negative news story after negative news story is uncovered about President Trump, which then further infuriates the left while seemingly emboldens the right, and so on. While my conservative counterpart believes we’ll repeat history and see a slight Trump victory again, I must cautiously disagree and predict that Joe Biden will be victorious, although just barely, come Election Day.

Why am I so cautious with my prediction? My counterpart makes a lot of good arguments. An unenthused Biden voter myself, I agree that the average Trump voter’s enthusiasm is higher than that of the average Biden voter, largely due to the disenfranchisement that a lot of progressive (not Democratic) voters feel towards the Democratic Party after candidates like Bernie Sanders were disregarded by party establishment without being given a fair chance to succeed during the primary. Additionally, there are a huge number of voters that feel ashamed to voice their support for President Trump, but who will be the first in line to vote for him, and I’m sure that the number of people in this “silent majority” has only increased since 2016.

Going even further, the Electoral College, an archaic institution that needs to be abolished, makes it hard to feel confident about a Biden victory, as it has historically favored Republican candidates in presidential elections (in fact, only one Republican presidential candidate in the last 28 years has won both the popular and electoral votes in the general election). I’d also be remiss not to mention the hard-fought efforts by the Trump administration in recent weeks to suppress votes by denying adequate funding for the U.S. Postal Service, by fighting to remove ballot boxes in battleground states, and by spreading misinformation about the validity of mail-in voting during a global pandemic.

With all these factors in play, it’d be reckless to believe Biden will win this election with ease, and I caution other Democrats against feeling any sense of comfort or victory just yet. Yes, almost 21 million people have already voted in this election, 10 times the number of early voters at this point in the 2016 election. Yes, Biden has consistently held a double-digit lead over Trump in almost every national poll to date. And yes, the list of President Trump’s failures and offenses is seemingly never-ending. Unfortunately, I don’t believe it’ll be that easy, and I believe we’ll need every vote we can get if we want to rid ourselves of the nightmare that’s been the last 4 years.

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Biden Holds a Big Lead Over Trump, but How Reliable Are The Polls This Time?

By Todd Lassa

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden holds an 8.9-point lead over President Donald J. Trump (51.2 percent to 42.3 percent) according to an average of major political polls by Real Clear Politics. It is reasonable to ask whether the president’s Friday morning tweet slamming Sen. Susan Collins helps or hurts the Republican senator from Maine now fighting for her political life, who has said she will not vote in favor of Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. Collins faces a daunting challenge from Democrat Sara Gideon, Maine’s House speaker, in the Nov. 3 elections.

The president’s Friday tweet reads, “There is a nasty rumor out there that @Susan Collins of Maine will not be supporting our great United States Supreme Court Nominee. Well, she didn’t support Healthcare or my opening up 5000 square miles of Ocean to Maine, so why should this be any different. Not worth the work.”

Closing in on two weeks before the Nov. 3 national elections, the real threat of a Blue Wave accompanying a Biden win would entail a big swing from the GOP’s 53-47 Senate majority, and potentially has Democrats building on their 233-196 majority in the House. Even relatively secure Senate Republicans may be hedging their bets.

Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Nebraska, as a member of the Judiciary Committee handled Supreme Court nominee Barrett with kid gloves earlier this week but criticized President Trump’s Thursday night Town Hall on NBC in a conference call to constituents, the Washington Examiner reports.

Trump “kisses dictators’ butts,” “sells out our allies” and “trash-talks evangelicals behind their backs,” Sasse reportedly said. He further slammed the president for “mistreating women” and initially “ignoring COVID.” Trump supporters will note that Sasse is considered an early contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, a race Donald Trump Jr. may fight if the GOP balance of power remains in his family’s orbit.

While having brushed off polls showing a huge deficit to former Vice President Biden for many weeks, Trump himself has predicted a repeat of his 2016 campaign performance, which means he’s closing in, especially in the final week. Four years ago Trump gained on Hillary Clinton after the former secretary of state led many polls only by four or five points, often within statistical error of a tie. This year, Trump must overcome landslide-style deficits nationally as well as large margins in battleground states, and even in erstwhile Republican strangleholds like Arizona and North Carolina, where Sens. Martha McSally and Thom Tillis face potential losses to their Democratic challengers.

Our right-column pundit thinks President Trump has a big chance of pulling off another upset, and our left-column pundit, having been gobsmacked by the 2016 election worries the argument holds many valid points.

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Incumbent Trump is Set to Pull Out a Second Upset

By Bryan Williams

Predictions can be a wily business. Some tout that they have never been wrong since Dewey vs. Truman (and go on to be right), and some make grandiose claims and flame out. Others stick to a version of, “It’s the economy, stupid,” and base their prediction off what Wall Street investors think/say/invest in. Here is my first ever presidential prediction: Donald Trump will eke out a slim win (again) and get four more years. Here’s why:

Since 1952, political “outsiders” or candidates who are younger than their opponent have had advantage in key races. World War II general and war hero Dwight D. Eisenhower had far less political experience than Democrat Adlai Stevenson, yet beat him by a landslide, twice. Reagan had less political experience than Mondale, Clinton had less experience and was younger than Bush 41 while Bush 43 had less experience than either Gore or Kerry, and Obama had way less experience than McCain and is younger than Romney. Trump had no formal political experience and beat Clinton, and often compares his 45 or so months in the Oval Office to Biden’s 47 years Inside the Beltway.

Advantage, Trump.

Enthusiasm level: Who’s excited about Joe Biden? His supporters’ excitement appears to be, he’s “not Trump.” Will this equate to black and Latino voters turning out in big numbers for Biden? I am dubious. Trump voter’s enthusiasm level is also higher than Biden’s, according to David Sirota in the left-leaning online magazine Jacobin, citing a September Fox News poll that gives the president an 11-point margin in this category. Advantage: Trump.

Vote shaming: This is the common occurrence of people feeling their support of a candidate is shamed by popular opinion, as fueled by news and social media platforms. It’s safe to say that there are a lot of people afraid to admit they plan to vote for Trump. Many of those who like Trump will let their voices be heard at the ballot box. These are the voters Richard Nixon called “the silent majority.” Advantage: Trump.

While Trump had an obvious and clear electoral college victory by midnight Eastern time – 9 p.m. my time four years ago – pundits this year are predicting there will be no clear winner before Nov. 4, and perhaps not until much later. This is where the “Two Vs,” Valencia County, New Mexico, and Vigo County, Indiana, will come in handy. As small-population rural counties, their numbers should be counted not long after the polls close on Nov. 3. Vigo County has chosen the president all but twice since 1888, and Valencia County has been perfect since 1952. Keep your eye on Valencia and Vigo. I predict they will lead the nation to four more years for Trump.

But it’s gonna be close, folks.

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Of Time, Bells & Meaning

By Stephen Macaulay

In 1787 Paul Revere opened a bell foundry in Boston. In addition to things like copper spikes and bolts that were used for shipbuilding, Revere cast his first bell in 1792. One of them was produced for the USS Constitution. During the War of 1812, the bell was put out of commission by a British ship, HMS Guerriere.

(For those of you who have forgotten their American history classes, the War of 1812 pitted the U.S. against the United Kingdom, which would seem unthinkable today as the U.K. is now one of our closest allies—well, given the way the current administration has treated our closest allies, maybe it isn’t so unthinkable. Anyway, during this war the U.K. and Native Americans were on the same side; the U.S. tried to get chunks of Canada; the Brits burned the White House. Again, much of this seems bizarre, but things were different 208 years ago. Hang on to that thought.)

While Revere’s bell foundry is somewhat obscure, it is worth noting that in 1787 the U.S. Constitution was signed.

According to the official White House website, “The founders also specified a process by which the Constitution may be amended, and since its ratification, the Constitution has been amended 27 times.”

Which is germane because it is clear from this that the founders didn’t think that what they had created was carved in stone tablets.

Even the White House understands that. Things change. Even words.

Judge Amy Coney Barrett has described herself as a “constitutional originalist” and that she takes a textualist approach to the law.

During the hearings for her appointment to the Supreme Court, Lindsay Graham, a former JAG lawyer (there is no evidence that he, like Harmon Rabb, suffers from night blindness, although he seems to be vexed by a tendency to behave as a presidential lickspittle), asked Judge Barrett what all that means in a way that could be understood.

She replied, "So in English, that means that I interpret the Constitution as a law, that I interpret its text as text, and I understand it to have the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it."

She added, "So that meaning doesn’t change over time and it’s not up to me to update it or infuse my own policy views into it."

“The meaning doesn’t change over time.”

Really?

So the words as written in 1787 have the same meaning as they do today? Back when Paul Revere was casting bells?

Let’s look at Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3, which is important vis-à-vis the recent decision regarding the U.S. census as this is where taking the census every 10 years came from:

“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.”

Note how there seems to be a randomized capitalization of words. Presumably were one to write that way on one a paper submitted to Judge Barrett when she was teaching they would have been in a World of Hurt because We don’t capitalize Nouns Nowadays.

What’s more, there is the word “Persons” not “citizens” (or Citizens). There are Persons counted as fractions (or Fractions).

And meaning doesn’t change over time?

Macaulay is a cultural commentator based in Detroit.

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Barrett is on Her Way to Senate Confirmation before the Election

By Todd Lassa

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has scheduled the panel’s vote on the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court for 1 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 22. The committee, comprising 13 Republicans and 10 Democrats, is considered a sure bet for approving Barrett, whose hearings with the panel concluded Wednesday.

The full Senate will vote to approve Barrett before the presidential election Nov. 3, Graham said. With just two Republican senators, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, having earlier opposed seating a replacement for the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg before the election, the GOP still maintains a majority to approve President Trump’s nominee before the month is over.

In her appearances before the Judiciary Committee Tuesday and Wednesday, Barrett carefully demurred on questions from Democratic members over concerns the nominee would rule with the court’s fortified conservative majority on potential disputes over the Nov. 3 election, as well as a case the Trump administration brought to the courts over the Affordable Care Act. For the longer term, Democrats interrogated the conservative Catholic mother of seven on her views regarding the 1973 Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court case that made abortion legal nationally.

But on these and other matters, Barrett repeatedly declined to answer on potential future cases.

In her opening remarks, Barrett described herself as an “originalist” in the mold of her mentor, Justice Antonin Scalia, whose replacement after his death early in 2016 resulted in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocking President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland.

“That means that I interpret the constitution as a law, that I interpret its text as text, and I understand it to have the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it,” she said.

Jeffrey Toobin, legal analyst for CNN and The New Yorker , told NPR Thursday morning that while several Supreme Court nominees have called themselves “originalists” since Scalia in 1982, “she may be the first one to actually mean it… .”

Barrett told the committee, however, that she is not a carbon-copy of her mentor.

“If I were confirmed, you’d be getting Justice Barrett, not Justice Scalia …,” she said. “I share Justice Scalia’s philosophy, but I never said I agree with him on every issue.”

She did give Democrats some hope in not ruling out the question of recusal from votes on next month’s election and on the ACA ruling, but again declined to answer Sen. Kamala Harris’, D-Calif., question on whether she believes in climate change, because of the potential for a case coming up before the court. [Republicans had singled out Harris, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, for what they considered aggressive questioning in Justice Brett Kavenaugh’s Judiciary committee hearing in 2018.]

Committee Republicans praised Barrett as a justice who will inspire young conservative women and girls the way Justice Ginsberg inspired young liberal women and girls.

“This is the first time we’ve nominated a woman who is unabashedly pro-life,” Graham said.

Please address your comments to editors@thehustings.news

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Barrett Acquits Herself Well — Will Voters Care?

By Bryan Williams

Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hasn’t turned into the sort of disgusting hack job that afflicted Brett Kavanaugh’s appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee. ACB’s qualifications are unquestionable in my opinion, and she acquitted herself well in the hearing.

The headlines that have grabbed my attention are not about ACB, but regard my state’s senator, Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Many on the left were reportedly worried that the senior senator is not up to the task of grilling the nominee due to her advanced age (she’s 87) and diminished stamina. I was shocked when Feinstein ran for re-election in 2018 -- hasn’t she done her part for King and Country?

Democrats seem to have a thing for senior states-people hanging on to their office. News reports following her question time suggested that Feinstein, like the nine other Democrats on the committee failed to land a punch on the nominee. NPR ran a recording of the hearing for ACB’s nomination to the circuit court, in which Feinstein called her “dogmatic” in her devotion to her Catholic faith.

Really? Have we returned to the late 1950s, when opponents questioned John F. Kennedy’s Catholicism and devotion to the Pope? The “dogma” that put fear into Feinstein and the media is another way to build up the left’s fear that with Barrett on the court, Roe vs. Wade soon will be overturned.

But what effect will her inevitable confirmation have on the presidential election? I’d like to think that President Trump will get a nice bump from nominating such a qualified jurist whose experience, intellect, and opinions will shape our culture for up to 40 years. Let’s not forget, ACB is taking over for RBG and liberals are hopping mad that Trump and the Republicans are shoving through this confirmation with heaps of Merrick Garland-flavored hypocrisy.

This will only serve to please the Trump base and inflame the Left. How will the small slice of independents feel about this, and will it affect their vote? I can’t say for sure, but I really don’t think the average American voter has the Supreme Court on his or her mind in this weird year.

Williams is a mental health professional in California and a former Republican party official.

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Trump, China, COVID and the Absence of Leadership

By Stephen Macaulay

Let’s say for the sake of argument that Donald Trump is right, that COVID-19 is the “China virus,” that it was a deliberate release into the world. It seems as though all the Administration has going for it as a reaction was that they “banned” travel from China into the U.S. Which isn’t entirely true. That is, according to the Associated Press, because there was no restriction from the more than 8,000 Chinese and foreign nationals came in to the U.S. during the first three months of the “ban” from the administrative zones of Macau and Hong Kong. In addition to which, more than 27,000 Americans who were in mainland China returned during the first month. So let’s not put too much stock in that claim’s effectiveness.

And it wasn’t until March 11 that Trump banned travel to the U.S. from Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland—a.k.a., the Schengen Area. In making that proclamation, Trump wrote, “The Schengen Area currently has the largest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases outside of the People’s Republic of China.” That’s right—more than a month after the alleged China travel “ban” there were still people coming in from an area where there was apparently the second-largest number of confirmed cases. In addition to which, you’ll note that the U.K. wasn’t on the list. Oops. It made the list on March 14. Diligence.

“[I]t's China's fault, it should have never happened,” Trump said during the presidential debate (and several other times).

But it did happen. And what is he doing about it? Making fanciful claims and maintaining it will go away. As recently as Oct. 10 Trump said from the balcony of the White House in an Evita-like moment, “but it’s going to disappear, it is disappearing.” There are 7.7-million confirmed cases in the U.S. Disappear.

According to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, there have been 4,739 COVID-19 deaths in China. There are 1.393-billion people in China. Let’s say they’re lying. Let’s say there are 10 times as many deaths. 100 times as many deaths. What are we doing? Pretending.

There is the continuing myth of what a great business man Trump is. A myth that is beginning to dissolve as The New York Times reports on his massive losses and looming loans becoming due. According to the Congressional Budget Office, FY 2020 will have a U.S. deficit of $3.13 trillion. That means the U.S. debt is greater than the GDP. The last time this was the case was in 1946. The year after World War II ended.

Most Americans will lose a year of freedom in their lives. Freedom to do what they want. Sure, people cando it. But has been shown that unless people do things like distance and wear masks and practice good hygiene, they can die. But no one thinks they will die. It is someone else. Old people. Obese people. People with an underlying condition. Even though there are people of those characteristics in other countries, the U.S. level of death is dwarfing them. Why? Because the leaders of those countries are leaders.

Trump?

Macaulay is a cultural commentator based in Detroit.

Please email your comments to editors@thehustings.news

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To Lead or Not to Lead: Do We Need a Mask Mandate to Fight the Pandemic?

By Todd Lassa

Until either Donald J. Trump or Joe Biden pulls a political rabbit with bigger teeth out of his hat, this election season’s October Surprise, so far, has been news that the president contracted the virus that causes COVID-19 around the time of the first, and probably only, debate between the incumbent and his Democratic challenger.

Yes, it’s always about the economy, stupid, but as the Trump administration shifts on efforts to enact another federal aid package for corporations, individuals, and state and local governments in time for the Nov. 3 election, the future of our economy, especially over the next year or two, remains closely tied to the global health crisis.

A second economic relief package appears to be in limbo, for now, as Senate Judiciary Committee hearings over the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the US Supreme Court takes political precedent over whatever the status of negotiations between Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Amid it all, wearing masks in public and the question of how and when to re-open the economy to save what’s left of the restaurant, tavern, airline, and shopping mall industries remain the two related, underlying issues behind next month’s elections. These issues drill to the core of our nation’s much-discussed widened political gulf. Each side sees the other’s position on these issues as evidence of ruthless authoritarianism.

But while our pundits to left and right appear irresolvably far apart, and while this center column strives to be as objective on such matters as possible, it is a relief that Stephen Macaulay and Bryan Williams see eye-to-eye on one important fact – wearing masks in public should not be a political issue. They agree that It is good citizenship and an important weapon in fighting the pandemic.

Please email your comments to editors@thehustings.news

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It’s Not the Masks We Reject; It’s the Mandate

By Bryan Williams

Joe Biden is running on a promise to America that he would protect us better from COVID-19 than Trump and his team. He has even gone so far as to say he would implement a national mask mandate. If the past 7 months has shown us anything it’s that Americans really don’t like being told what to do. But we’ve known that forever anyway - I mean a bunch of dudes threw perfectly good tea into Boston Harbor in the 1700s because they didn’t like King George telling them what to do.

We can go back and forth all day, split hairs over when a travel ban from China was put in place until we’re blue in the face, or whether or not President Trump wearing a mask would have made a big difference in the number of deaths related to COVID-19. I have never really given much credence to any of the above, and just go with what I know from my little corner of the world, and yes, I know this is anecdotal.

At the height of the pandemic, I worked in a mental health crisis clinic. We had no employer-provided masks for weeks and the layout of our building made it so social distancing was simply not possible. We also had no limit to the number of people we could admit. Patients we admitted were anyone from anywhere, most of them users of substances that inhaled, ingested, or intravenously injected those illicit substances with other people most assuredly in distances less than 6 feet, and many of them homeless. No one at my clinic in March through May 2020 contracted COVID-19 (my last day there was in May).

Then, in June, my family and I visited my parents (in their 60s) and grandparents (83 and 82) in Northern Nevada. All of us have used our common sense during the pandemic: we’ve worn masks everywhere we go, we socially distance ourselves as much as possible, and we limit our contact with others. Not a single one of us has contracted the coronavirus, and I think it’s because of my family’s common sense, prudence, and overall good health (we don’t smoke, vape or drink alcohol in excess, and we’re not morbidly obese).

What’s my point? I don’t think political leadership has a lot to do with whether or not people begin wearing masks or socially distance themselves more. Now I now work in a hospital, and I am around doctors all day. I cannot begin to tell you how many of them “wear” their mask with their nose still protruding in naked glory. These are men and women that should know better! Joe Biden mandating mask wearing won’t make these doctors pull their mask up over their nose. That old American chestnut -- personal responsibility -- still holds. Please wear a mask, and don’t party, okay? I just don’t want Joe Biden to tell me what to do. Donald J. Trump gets that.

Williams is a mental health professional in California and a former Republican party official.

Please email your comments to editors@thehustings.news

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Pundits on the Left Are Split on the Need for Another Debate

Liberal pundits’ comments …

Record numbers of early voters have already placed ballots. Minds are not being changed. Heels are dug. Further debate evenings are fodder for more reality TV: people have had enough of supporting the networks in the last four years. Advertising stands to lose the most by canceling all debates going forward. Late-to-work election teams are all focused on ballot education, and bracing voters for a probable drawn out result season -- an entirely new version of reality TV.

--Michelle Naranjo

If the Commission on Presidential Debates cancelled the remaining two presidential debates, the majority of Americans would not be phased out and it would do nothing to change the Nov. 3 result. America is a country in crisis right now and most voters are focused on one thing: surviving the crisis. Not just the public health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, but also the crisis surrounding racial justice that is facing the millions of members of the Black community, the climate change crisis that’s facing the planet and is currently causing disaster-level weather events around the nation, and the economic crisis facing the millions of unemployed Americans that are struggling to pay rent and are facing eviction. Donald J. Trump and Mike Pence showed us everything we needed to see in the first two debates. They offered no substantive or meaningful answers to any of the questions, no specific plans or proposals for addressing these crises, constant lies and misinformation, a refusal to condemn white supremacy, and a refusal to show any serious remorse, or take any personal accountability or ownership, for the administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Unless Donald Trump intends to correct these blunders and outright failures in a future debate, they aren’t worth being had.

--Chase Wheaton

Do we need another debate? That very question presupposes that we had one. We didn’t. What we did was have an embarrassing spectacle of the President of the United States behaving like a petulant, churlish, loud individual and his opponent, a former Vice President of the United States trying to talk over the President and calling him a “clown.” Neither individual would make it out of a high school debate without being removed. Biden was ready to do it again, virtually. Trump wanted no part of it. A claim is that Biden would be “fed” the answers. If you look at the transcripts of the last “debate” you’d see that Trump needed an answer. Or many. His answers were logorrheic covfefe. Trump said he believes that the moderator would cut him off. And that would be bad, why? Forget the side show. It can do nothing but further make people—the world over—shake their head in sad disbelief that this is what the presidency has come to.

--Stephen Macaulay

Please address comments to editors@thehustings.news

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Our Pundits Debate Whether There Should be Another Presidential Debate

The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) has officially called off the Oct. 15 debate between Donald J. Trump and Democratic candidate Joe Biden, originally set to take place in Miami. After Trump was diagnosed with the coronavirus, spent last weekend at Walter Reed Medical Center and then declared his victory over COVID-19 from the Truman Balcony of the White House, the CPD said it would hold a virtual debate in place of the live event. The president declined, claiming the former vice president and U.S. senator would take answer prompts off-camera, from where such action could not be detected.

The Biden campaign accepted the CPD’s change, but Trump announced he instead would hold one of his famous public rallies in Miami.

With the CPD’s full cancelation of the Oct. 15 debate, that leaves the possibility Trump and Biden will meet for only a second time, after their Sept. 30 debate, on Oct. 22 in Nashville, Tennessee – if at all. Meanwhile, the president spoke to a crowd of supporters Saturday from a stand on the South Lawn of the White House.

The supporters wore masks, by and large, NPR reports, but generally were not socially distancing. “I know you were praying,” Trump said of his weekend at Walter Reed, “and I was watching down on all those people.”

Before the CPD’s cancelation of the Oct. 15 debate, The Hustings asked editors and contributing pundits for their opinions on whether two more debates were necessary, considering public reaction to the presidential shout-fest already in the books, and the vice-presidential debate Oct. 7 that appears to have not advanced understanding of either the Trump/Pence or the Biden/Harris platforms.

From the center, The Hustings Deputy Editor Nic Woods says “I wish they’d do one more just so we can gauge an average of the two performances.” She doesn’t expect the president’s performance would be any different than in the first debate, she says, and “a performance improvement would involve intense preparation that’s literally dangerous at the moment he should be in quarantine.”

Contributing Editor Charles Dervarics agrees. “Call me old school, but I think debates are still useful. To the general public that may tune in and out of a presidential campaign, they offer a rare chance to see (relatively) unfiltered candidates responding to questions they did not see in advance.

“The main problem right now is the format, specifically the single moderator. Having questioners outnumber the two candidates might be a start. Then allow follow-ups so reporters can press their case to those who deliberately ignore a question. Shutting off the mic once candidates go 10 seconds too long might be good, too.”

Please address your comments to editors@thehustings.news

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Pundits on the Right Favor One More Presidential Debate

Conservative pundits’ comments:

Should there be more presidential debates? Yes, indeed. Should they be in-person affairs? Without question. An informed electorate needs these opportunities to evaluate the candidates in full measure, absent the usual campaign props. The best idea I’ve heard of late is employing two moderators, each representing their political POV, like a Hannity and a Maddow, asking questions of the opposing side. That sounds to me like a great way to get past the talking points and to test the candidates' mettle, and it would net a huge audience on both sides of the aisle!

--Andrew Boyd

Conventional wisdom insists there are virtually no undecided voters remaining, accounting for 3 percent to 6 percent of the electorate, if even that much. Considering the close 2016 election was, even a small smattering of votes can change the election results if they are from battleground states. The debates should go on, even if electronically, so voters have all the information they need to make a good choice. Even if the media feed Biden questions or mute Trump, this will allow those voters who watch to learn a little bit more about the candidates. Debate on, Don! Not showing up will only hurt Trump, and he needs to try and do better than in his first, er, debate. As for Biden, the more he obfuscates or ignores questions the more the undecideds will break for Trump.

--Bryan Williams

The Commission of Presidential Debates has done a disservice to the country by politicizing the presidential face-offs. The Veep debate stage was a farce with plexiglass between two healthy, socially-distanced candidates. The Commission further spread unnecessary fear by canceling Thursday’s Trump-Biden Town Hall which should have been a feel-good moment for the president’s recovery from COVID. Outside the CPD/media bubble, Americans have adapted. I am in Georgia this weekend, which is a planet away from the panic being spread by political elites. Cases are way down, schools open, and the state’s 5.6-percent unemployment rate is one of the lowest in the country.

That said, President Trump has also done the American people a disservice by backing out of the debate. As president, he should take every opportunity to communicate how to combat the virus. He could simply have used the Zoom debate to read from the Great Barrington Declaration – a petition written by top Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford epidemiologists (and signed by nearly 20,000 medical experts). It details how to protect the vulnerable while opening society as Sweden has done – to date one of the most successful countries in combatting the virus.

--Henry Payne

Terri Walker of Meyersdale, Pennsylvania [“View from the Right: Talk with a Trump Supporter in Rural Pennsylvania,” Oct. 5] says via email: “I personally would rather see a live debate. It's important to observe body language. You can tell if someone is being untruthful. I'd much rather see the debates held with a clear barrier of some sort only used while President Trump is potentially still infectious. I do however, think it best that President Trump wear a face mask as precaution for himself and others. I do believe another debate is crucial for those still on the fence.”

Please address comments to editors@thehustings.news

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Pence Attempts to Overtake Debate Rules, but Harris Drives Home the Democratic Message

By Michelle Naranjo

The debate between Vice President Pence and Senator Harris in Salt Lake City was distinctive for many reasons. Both are the running mates to the oldest presidential candidates in history. Separated by protective plastic panels designed to provide a COVID-safe distance, Harris, and Pence remained seated, instead of standing per the usual.

But these contrasts were the least notable aspects of Utah.

What became clear is that the traditional debate format voters have long expected has dissolved into a spectacle and proved itself outdated. Sure, this disruptive format has been coming for several election cycles now, but the structure in which candidates respect the debate rules while making their political distinctions clear has dissolved into a chaotic rumble.

A friend wondered pre-debate if we would see the politician-side of Harris or the fighter version.

What we got was a well-prepared, self-assured candidate who wasn’t about to allow her opponent to walk over her words, dismiss her professional record, or steal her appointed speaking times. And, while she brought her politician side to the dais, she also began with a statement that was an apparent slight to Pence, the czar of COVID-19, without being a direct, personal attack.

Harris set the fighting words tone in her response to moderator Susan Page’s opening question about the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. She declared it ”the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country.”

What followed was Pence never directly answering any of Page’s remaining questions. Instead, he repeatedly spoke over both Harris and the moderator. Would this have been Candidate Pence speaking for any other election and not one led by Trump, he might have been perceived as extremely inconsiderate and even dishonest. But Pence’s slights failed to faze the former prosecutor, who drove home the Biden/Harris platform of raising up all Americans. She confidently topped off her arguments with the expert voice of a woman acclimated to facing male authority that talks over and steals her air time.

It is 2020. Racism, women’s rights, the economy, and the ever-present pandemic are at the forefront of this presidential election. Harris showed what led Biden to choose her as a running mate who can speak with confidence to all of these issues -- and even have a plan to address them.

Pence brought a fly.

Naranjo is a freelance writer based in rural Pennsylvania.

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