Quarantine for thee, but not for me
Politicians should at least make an effort to live by their own rules.
Before I savage dome Democratic politicians for their handling of the COVID crisis, a little perspective:
That a Republican Congressman, retweeted by a Republican President, babbling about “COVID hysteria” and “COVID dictators” at a time when over 2,000 Americans per day are dying from the pandemic. So, yeah, I’m not forgetting which side is being the most irresponsible here.
That said, there is absolutely no excuse for this:
"Do as I say, not as I do" is increasingly the motto of politicians during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Witness Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, who urged residents of his city to stay home and not travel during Thanksgiving shortly before boarding a flight to visit family for the holiday.
"Pass the potatoes, not COVID," said Hancock today in a tweet that advised people to host virtual gatherings instead of in-person dinners and to "avoid travel, if you can."
That tweet was posted about half an hour before Hancock was set to fly to Houston, according to Denver-area NBC affiliate 9News. The mayor's ultimate destination, they reported, is Mississippi, where he will link up with his daughter and wife for Thanksgiving.
The mayor's office said in a statement to 9News that this small gathering of immediate family is in lieu of a larger gathering of all the Hancock clan.
[…]
Hancock's travels put him in the company of other politicians who've skirted the very pandemic precautions they have urged, and often required, ordinary people and businesses to comply with.
Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser traveled to Delaware to attend a celebration of President-elect Joe Biden's election victory, despite issuing health orders requiring D.C. residents to travel only for essential business, and to quarantine for 14 days when returning from high-risk states (which would include Delaware.)
Bowser has defended her Delaware trip by arguing that it involved government business and therefore counted as essential travel.
Perhaps the worst COVID-19 hypocrite is California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who attended a birthday party at a swanky Napa Valley restaurant in violation of his own COVID-19 limits on gatherings. Rising case numbers in California are prompting the closure of indoor dining in most of the state under the four-tiered reopening schedule crafted by Newsom and state public health officials.
Either we’re all in this together, or we’re not. Like Allahpundit, I don’t believe many Americans travelling for Thanksgiving (a “national pox party,” he calls it) would have stayed home had the likes of Newsom and Hancock modelled better behavior, but they sure as hell aren’t helping.
But the die may have been cast this past summer, when demonstrations against racism and police brutality were magically exempt from the rules designed to tramp down the pandemic:
As the pandemic took hold, most epidemiologists have had clear proscriptions in fighting it: No students in classrooms, no in-person religious services, no visits to sick relatives in hospitals, no large public gatherings.
So when conservative anti-lockdown protesters gathered on state capitol steps in places like Columbus, Ohio, and Lansing, Mich., in April and May, epidemiologists scolded them and forecast surging infections. When Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia relaxed restrictions on businesses in late April as testing lagged and infections rose, the talk in public health circles was of that state’s embrace of human sacrifice.
And then the brutal killing of George Floyd by the police in Minneapolis on May 25 changed everything.
Soon the streets nationwide were full of tens of thousands of people in a mass protest movement that continues to this day, with demonstrations and the toppling of statues. And rather than decrying mass gatherings, more than 1,300 public health officials signed a May 30 letter of support, and many joined the protests.
That reaction, and the contrast with the epidemiologists’ earlier fervent support for the lockdown, gave rise to an uncomfortable question: Was public health advice in a pandemic dependent on whether people approved of the mass gathering in question? To many, the answer seemed to be “yes.”
Mercifully, these protests may not have contributed to America’s COVID surge. Time will tell if the spontaneous Biden victory celebrations earlier this month have an impact:
…the country didn’t see a huge spike in COVID cases during the widespread outdoor protests against police brutality and racial injustice over the summer, according to research from Northeastern, Harvard, Northwestern and Rutgers universities, as well as a separate analysis by USA Today. This could be in part because it is harder for the virus to spread outdoors, especially when most of the population is wearing face masks.
But Wen noted that there are some stark differences between those summer gatherings and what we’ve seen with both the Biden victory parties and President Donald Trump’s recent campaign rallies. “One, we have a higher level of virus now than we did back over the summer, and that means that there is an even higher likelihood that there are people who are asymptomatic, who don’t know they have the infection, who are out on the street around other people,” she said.
Two, cooler fall temperatures are driving people indoors. And while these celebrations may have started outside, where it’s easier to space six feet apart, Wen was very worried that many folks kept the party going indoors at poorly-ventilated bars and private homes, where people may not have worn their masks. “I’m very worried about those informal indoor gatherings, including among friends and extended family, because we know that this is driving this latest surge of infections,” she said.
Climate-change skeptic Instapundit is fond of writing, “I’ll believe it’s a crisis when the people who tell me it’s a crisis start acting like it’s a crisis.” Needless to say, some politicians’ hypocrisy doesn’t mean you shouldn’t mask up and avoid crowds and unnecessary travel (or, for that matter, doing something about climate change). But when people are asked to make sacrifices, they really notice this kind of thing.
Luppe B. Luppen, writing in The Washington Post, argues that lawyers should not dignify Donald Trump’s shambolic election-related cases by taking them to court:
First, from Adams to the modern day, the notion that everyone deserves a lawyer has rested on the rationale of service. We celebrate a lawyer’s competent work defending a criminal suspect (even one later proved to be guilty), or a civil suit advocating for a client’s interests (even if they are unpopular) because it demonstrates the system’s impartiality and the community’s enduring commitment to fairness. The lawyer’s assistance, if it’s effective, signals to some degree the presence of justice. That rationale won’t stretch to cover Trump’s cause: He seeks to mute the community’s voice in choosing its government. If his efforts were successful in installing authoritarianism by judicial fiat, they would reveal the courts to be the tools of a dictator. One cannot serve the community by silencing it, or serve the republic by attempting to destroy it.
Second, lawyers are not simply advocates in court; they are also gatekeepers for the court. Each lawyer has a responsibility to evaluate the merits of a case or an argument before bringing it before a judge. No one, in fact, has a right to file frivolous lawsuits, and lawyers are supposed to either talk their clients out of filing frivolous claims or withdraw from the representation. Telling a client they have no case, when that’s what the facts and law indicate, is an essential part of the job. If lawyers fail to do so, court-imposed sanctions or bar discipline can follow.
While we don’t know the ins and outs of privileged conversations, public evidence — the unusually frequent withdrawals of lawyers; the absence of high-caliber Republican lawyers, such as Ben Ginsberg and James Baker — suggests that at least some lawyers approached by Trump Republicans are, in fact, carrying out their professional responsibilities: They are evaluating these cases with a critical legal eye, and either refusing or withdrawing when asked to make unsupportable arguments. Giuliani himself acknowledged that “we have a little difficulty getting lawyers.” (He claimed it was because they received death threats; none of the lawyers who declined or dropped out of pro-Trump election cases have publicly provided that explanation.) The lawyers who are fulfilling their gatekeeper role deserve praise, and no one should be subject to threats or harassment. However, those who are wasting courts’ time with meritless cases deserve criticism and accountability.
Third, while lawyers will defend clients for their past conduct, they’re of course not supposed to participate in ongoing criminal behavior. Lawyers are subject to criminal laws like everyone else, and moreover, the privilege that protects communications between a lawyer and their client disappears when evidence shows that the lawyer is participating in an ongoing criminal scheme. Obviously, the evaluation of any individual lawyer’s culpability in chargeable crimes is a fact-intensive process that requires analysis of both conduct and intent. But — just as obviously — the overall purpose of the Republicans’ efforts in the courts is to steal this election and illegitimately keep Donald Trump in power. Whether it prospers or is ever punished, that’s a crime, a historic one, and any lawyer who knowingly assists with it deserves all the criticism and accountability in the world.
Luppen’s points are well taken, though in response to his first and third arguments, I’d still say that hypothetically, if Team Trump had evidence that Biden’s election was tainted by fraud, they would be entitled to bring it before the courts regardless of what the TV networks have declared. His second point, about the gatekeeping function lawyers are asked to play, is his strongest. I often find myself trying to talk clients out of legal strategies and arguments that have no chance of success, and even making motions to withdraw when they won’t be moved.
But while Luppen agrees that “no one should be subject to threats or harassment,” that is basically what The Lincoln Project was encouraging when it launched its campaign against Trump’s lawyers. They encouraged people to go on LinkedIn and confront Jones Day employees, and even posted contact information for some of his lawyers on Twitter. (Yes, that is publicly available information, but come on: when you post someone’s phone number on your Twitter account with hundreds of thousands of followers, you know damn well what you’re trying to accomplish.)
The real “tell” will be if and when Trump faces criminal charges after he’s evicted from the White House. In that case it would be the ex-President being dragged into court against his will, not initiating the proceeding. Will people accept that Trump is entitled to a competent defence, or will this time be “different” because he’s unusually bad?
Only in 2020 could you read a headline like this and think, “yeah, that sounds about right.”
The key difference between the street gatherings of liberals (protests for racial justice; Biden celebrations) and those of Trumpists (anti-lockdown protests; Trump rallies; baseless protests of imagined election fraud) are that the liberals almost invariably wear masks and the Trumpists almost invariably do not. This makes a significant difference in whether these events cause COVID spikes. Just today I saw a photo of an unmasked “Stop the steal” demonstrator yelling, with droplets visibly flying from his mouth. Not good.
Modelling proper behaviour is a much stronger way of getting anyone, of any age, to do the right thing than merely talking about it. But actively doing the opposite of what one tells others is worse. It’s going to be so much harder to bring people back to the table and get them to cooperate after that because they will rightfully see their leaders as hypocritical. That’s not just damaging in the situation at hand, but also harmful for the future months, where cooperation may become much more essential.
Decades ago, I was in court with someone who kept dragging the matter back before the judge. He “fired” one lawyer; another quit in exasperation. In repeatedly bringing the case back to court without any merit, he accidentally showcased his personality, attitude and the reasons why his custodial access was limited in the first place. He also gave the judge sufficient reason to eventually order a very controlled situation supervised by a court appointed professional. Had he not been given that opportunity to make his case, this would not have happened.
If Trump were denied court, he would not stop. It would merely force him to find a different, less predictable outlet. The lawyers who represent him and the manner in which these efforts to undermine the election are conducted speak for themselves. It’s ultimately a more powerful way of clarifying the situation because he had the opportunity to make his case, and largely failed.