Editors’ Blog

Yesterday we discussed the ‘schools must never close’ diehards who dominate much of the current COVID policy debate. I wanted to give you an update on the situation in the New York City public schools because I think it illustrates some Omicron-specific dynamics which haven’t really become part of that discussion. I don’t know precisely how far New York City and DC and other parts of the Northeast are ahead of the rest of the country right now. Maybe it’s like this everywhere. If not, likely it soon will be. But I know it’s like this here and in much of the Northeast. I’m going to reference some personal experiences but only to illustrate things I know are widespread if not universal throughout the city and region.

A follow-up from TPM Reader LF …

In your recent post about Covid and school closures, I think you get something very right when you talk about the PhD and elite scolds demanding schools remain open no-matter-what. There is one element in all of this that I think you do not fully appreciate—the anger and legitimate fear that teachers have been living with for the entirety of the pandemic.

I am a college teacher, my partner teaches high school, my friends teach at every level of the educational system. During the pandemic, many have retired early or quit, many of those who have stayed have only done so because they are too young to retire and too old to do something else. Just to be clear, the kids are alright. Almost all teachers love teaching–given how shitty the job is, why else would we do it?

A decent chunk of what would’ve been the right’s blusteringly distasteful counter-programming to Congress’ introspective coup-versary commemorations today were canceled last minute.

There’s a deep conventional wisdom out there which has it that liberal Twitter and the broader Blue State commentariat is a hotbed of demands for school closures. The reality is almost diametrically opposed to this. From mid-2020 the country’s most esteemed and prestigious liberal/cosmopolitan publications, electronic broadcasts and university programs have been dominated by voices of highly educated, affluent and mostly white people demanding schools never close, even for brief periods, and almost always in the name of students from minority and/or marginalized communities.

But there is an upside down character to the image these demands create. In fact, during the pre-vaccine period, when significant sections of the country remained in remote leaning, it was precisely these communities which were most resistant to going back to in-person education. The blunt reality is that the staunchest voices against school closures of any sort for any duration are people with PhDs working from home. That’s just the fact.

J.D. Vance’s initially-praised memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” was celebrated as a pioneering work when it was first published in 2016. Pundits and conservative intellectuals lionized Vance for his supposed ability to explain a certain type of blue-collar Republican to confused Ivy Leaguers and “establishment” elites who had never met one.

But the once anti-Trump venture capitalist-turned-social commentator has since turned over yet another new leaf, and can be found embracing some of the most bombastic styles of Trumpism as he seeks to elevate his primary race for a Senate seat in Ohio’s crowded primary. As Washington Post writer Simon van Zuylen-Wood outlines in this new in-depth profile on Vance, the author’s descent into MAGAland was complex, and years in the making.

But, per WaPo, the “last straw” that finally thrust Vance into the raging faux-populist arms of Trumpism was about as shallow as some of the former president’s pettiest grievances: the mainstream masses made fun of him.

Follow-on overnight reporting suggests that ex-President Trump canceled his January 6th celebration event because top lackeys and toadies lobbied him hard against it and he gave way. I doubt it was any fear of legal jeopardy – it’s hard to say Trump and his top supporters have ever pursued a legal strategy per se. They were just smart enough to see that the spectacle of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago celebration and cheering for freedom and vindication for the insurrectionists wouldn’t be helpful. It would put members of Congress in an awkward position. But the biggest insight was from TPM alum Benjy Sarlin, now of NBC News. As he put it, “I don’t think people quite get how far out his daily comments are already mainly because outlets are reluctant to publicize them.”

This is right on the mark. Booted off social media and mostly ignored in the mainstream press, Trump’s comments and positions have radicalized greatly over the course of 2021. In a sense it’s hard to say he’s “radicalized” in his increasingly explicit support for January 6th when after all, he led it in the first place. But Benjy’s right: most people don’t get how wild his regular comments are. His biggest supporters on Fox and Capitol Hill would prefer to keep it that way. Yes, Trump is still covered in the political news media. But you don’t generally hear directly what he’s saying.

Times columnist Zeynep Tufekci has a good column this morning running through a number of key Omicron related pandemic issues, especially the continuing poor messaging and guidance on rapid tests and masks. This is more detail and commentary on issues we’ve discussed – how do you know which mask is best to use, shouldn’t we be using rapid antigen tests to tailor shorter isolation periods, how is it that we’re still facing widespread test shortages two years into this?

Thanks to Peter Navarro’s new memoir, we now have a first-person account of just how President Trump and his closest friends planned to do a coup on Jan. 6.

But it’s not, Navarro claims, the one we saw violently come into fruition.

TPM detailed some of the latest reports on Navarro’s new book as well as recent interviews with the former White House trade adviser here. But a reasonable conclusion to draw about the purpose of Navarro’s latest press tour is a relatively simple one: He’s attempting to signal that Trump and his team couldn’t possibly be blamed for the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection because that attack actually scuttled their plans for a different, friendlier coup.

This again? After months of categorically ruling out any changes to the Senate legislative filibuster, Manchin is now saying any changes to the filibuster would be a “heavy lift” and that his “absolute preference” is to get Republican buy-in for making changes that would prevent Republicans from preventing any Democratic legislation other than budget reconciliation bills from coming to a vote. (Got that?) This comes after Democrats seem back to negotiating over the President’s Bill Build Back better bill which died back in December but is now back as some kind of zombie legislative discussion with Joe Manchin. The only thing that makes me think this might be kind of something real is that Mitch McConnell thought it was necessary to roundly denounce the idea today.

So is this real? Are we back to this?

Just last month GOP activist and Orange County Deputy DA Kelly Ernby was speaking at an anti-vaccine rally put on by local Turning Point USA chapters in Irvine. “There’s nothing that matters more than our freedoms right now,” she told the small but enthusiastic crowd. “Our government for the people and by the people is not going to exist without action of the people.” In 2020 Ernby had run unsuccessfully for a state Assembly seat as a Republican.

This week Ernby died of COVID-19 at age 46.