WASHINGTON (MaceNews) – The following is Monday’s status check of developments in the U.S. that can influence economic, health and political outcomes.
- First, everything is in the new context of Donald Trump not being Joe Biden’s problem any more. The angst of disappointment and the very emotional rejection of reality is not unexpected, surprising or by itself, dangerous. Of course Donald Trump will talk about running again in 2024. He’s not going to hesitate to appear vindictive, firing some Cabinet level officials just because he can, and like with Mark Esper, five minutes notice. How could it be otherwise? And yes, there will be more MAGA rallies – for the Georgia Senate Republicans headed to their early January runoffs, for the legal defense fund, because rallies are the oxygen Donald Trump needs to breathe – really not for some higher purpose, for the rallies for rallies’ sake.
- The weight of the inexorable vote counting process, of any recounts, of the court challenges, is all on Donald Trump, not Joe Biden. Can Trump in his fury bomb something or challenge some evildoing nation – like Iran – not to cross some red line placed in their way that’s unavoidable? That’s harder than it sounds and while the deep state never existed except in Stephen Miller’s mind, there is the responsible state of civil servants and even well-meaning Republican political appointees who will alert Congress in time to short-circuit any mischief.
- The impulse to keep fighting is necessary for the Trump campaign team, if for no other reason than to collect those legal defense funds that donors are being told in the small print can also be used for campaign funds. And until the next Federal Election Commission disclosure, no one outside the campaign knows the true state of Trump 2020 finances. And when the time comes, campaign workers will be the last to know, for the same reason restaurant workers are the last to know the place is shutting down. They’re needed to be on the floor waiting tables until the doors are locked for good. After the Georgia runoffs Jan. 5 the doors will be locked for good.
- As Democrats parachute into Georgia and Democratic donors dig deeper and Stacey Abrams doubles down on her Zen voter registration and turnout mechanisms there is a suspension of execution – a level at which the Biden transition does what it can to prepare – organizing the virus advisory committee on Monday without knowing which presidency lies ahead. The Senate in which Kamala Harris breaks the ties is a very different presidency from the one Mitch McConnell can ring fence.Health care policy, immigration policy, trade policy, climate policy, tax policy, infrastructure policy and more have different embodiments in those two scenarios. The scope and reach of the Biden presidency have different dimensions under the two scenarios.
- As Democratic party strategists do their forensic analysis of what went right and wrong the first priority should be installing those semantic sensors that alert you to the sucker-punch labeling so the counterpunch reflex is active and on a spring trigger. To turn the other cheek again and again was numbingly insensitive, when Democrats were labeled as Socialists in South Florida, and as police defunders in the cities, and for open borders in the southwest, and antifrackers in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
- The bright light just over the horizon, a vaccine candidate that at first glance of the independent reviewers is more than 90% effective, should help reactivate the survival instinct societies under threat can mobilize. The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine candidate is even more good news than being the answer to COVID-19. Its new technology can apparently work against a wide variety of coronaviruses, a pool from which a next pathogen is surely going to emerge someday.
- Upcoming economic data includes the 6a ET NFIB small-business sentiment report and an 11:45a discussion of central bank policies in general that includes Federal Reserve Chair JayPowell.