02 November 20
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Reader Supported News
Charles Pierce | Trump's Plan Isn't Merely Cheating. It's a Hijacking.
Charles Pierce, Esquire
Pierce writes: "The president*'s campaign is stating, flatly, that it intends to pretend he won re-election because only votes cast on Election Day are legitimate votes."
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President Donald Trump during an executive order signing in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2019, in Washington, D.C. (photo: Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)
RSN: Ronnie Dugger | Only Trump Controls Our H-Bombs? No!
Ronnie Dugger, Reader Supported News
Dugger writes: "The cruel and impulsive Donald Trump is the only person, among more than 328 million of us in the United States, who has the deciding control over our H-Bombs and the right to fire them off from probably the largest nuclear weapons arsenal in the world. This is because he is our president."
Last October 18th, the New York Times Editorial Board declared, “Mr. Trump is a man of no integrity.” The editorial stated, “Donald Trump can’t solve the nation’s most pressing problems because he is the nation’s most pressing problem.... He campaigned as a champion of workers, but he has governed on behalf of the wealthy. He promised to raise the federal minimum wage and to invest in infrastructure; he delivered tax cuts that mostly benefit the rich.”
Trump has totally failed to lead the federal response to Covid-19. To increase his chance of re-election, he falsely claims that the plague is over. This shows that he has no empathy. As the Times columnist Paul Krugman says, he just does not care about the 227,000 of his fellow citizens who are already dead from the virus. But he cares about slamming his critics as worthless or disloyal. He has publicly called at least eleven of his critics treasonous. And this year he has actually directed our military and federal officials against our millions of peaceful and constitutional citizen protesters in their demonstrations against systemic racism and police brutality in our country.
It’s like previews of what happens if he’s re-elected. On June 1st, five days after the killing of black George Lloyd by police seen on national TV, he announced in the Rose Garden behind the White House that he had ordered “thousands and thousands” of our world’s most powerful armed forces into military action against masses of active demonstrators then in about 140 of our cities. His explanation was against “looters” and “thugs.” Stopped publicly by our two highest military leaders from carrying through on that, Trump, instead since then, claiming for his re-election he’s law and order, has literally been ordering federal officials obviously under his presidential authority to go with subordinates, armed, into what he politically calls “Democrat-run” cities to literally take over their local police forces against legally activist citizens he condemns. Local officials and even governors telling him they don’t want his men in their cities doesn’t matter. Joe Biden, Trump’s humane and worthy opponent for president, says, “He’s rooting for more violence, and is clear about that.”
Trump’s sister, older than him by eight years, the retired federal judge Marianne Trump, who has known him longer than almost anybody, said to his niece Mary L. Trump, “He has no principles. None. None.” Again and again, Bernie Sanders has called him “a pathological liar.”
Is Trump the person we want to be in sole control of our nuclear weapons for the next four years? Our 1,500 deployed, ready-to-send-out nuclear bombs are likely, along with Russia’s, the most mass-murderous and destructive weapons in human history. Former friends quote Trump asking, “If we have nuclear weapons why don’t we use them?” The man asking this startling question has solitary and total control of the decision to unleash them and destroy our world.
In 1945, President Truman made the decision and gave the order to explode our first nuclear weapons over Japan. Since then it has become policy, but not law, that only our president can decide whether or not to detonate our nuclear weapons. Only our president, acting alone, can give the order to totally destroy with our H-bombs any nation or many of them, however large they are, and kill all – oh, probably except for a few – of their people.
Trump and Vladimir Putin, the dictator of Russia, the country which has the other of the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals, are of course the human species’ main nuclear planners now. They seem to be either close acquaintances or friends. Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer for ten years, wrote in his book “Disloyal: A Memoir” that Trump told him, “Putin is the richest man in the world by a multiple.... I know it for a fact. Putin is worth more than a trillion dollars.”
In 2016, as many will remember, Trump on international TV asked Russia, if listening (that is, Putin and his technicians), to continue to help him win the American presidency by revealing his opponent’s missing 30,000 or so emails. Formally told by our intelligence authorities that Putin did so help, Trump denies such assistance. The two of them have since conferred on occasion so privately that Trump reportedly even took an accompanier’s notes during one of their secret meetings away from her. Trump said again on U.S. TV that if a foreign official offered him information to help him get elected, that would be OK with him. Now our intelligence people tell us that again Putin and his agents have been secretly helping Trump politically. There could be a lot going on between them that Americans should know about but do not.
Putin brags to the world about Russia’s recently expanded nuclear arsenal, saying that his is the only country in the world that can burn the United States – that is, us – to ashes. Nevertheless, in concord last year both of them withdrew their countries from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Marking the potentially tragic deterioration of the real progress in nuclear disarmament achieved by Mikhail Gorbachev, the first George Bush, and Ronald Reagan, the New START agreement is the only nuclear arms treaty left between us and Russia, and it expires in February. It now limits both countries to no more than 1,500 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers. For some time, Putin was open to renewing New START, but Trump would only consider it if China joined. That country, being so far behind them in nuclear weapons, has flatly refused. However, two weeks before the November 3rd election, Putin and Trump agreed to a freeze on their warheads and a one-year delay before the treaty’s scheduled expiration.
President Trump has been interviewed by the U.S. press about nuclear weapons and the public informed about it. He has said a lot about his realization of nuclear weapons’ mass-murdering destructive power and has exclaimed about it dramatically, but then said no more on that. He has emphasized publicly that he does not want anybody, obviously including potential adversaries, to know what his intentions are concerning our nuclear weapons.
As president, Trump has kept our Congress, industry, and military continuing a policy against disarmament of nuclear weapons in a ten-year, more than trillion-dollar “modernization” program. All the nine nuclear nations, the U.S. leading before and after Trump became president, also first ignored and then actively opposed, and still do, the historic treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons adopted in 2017 by 122 nations in the General Assembly of the United Nations. During promotion and debate on it, there was literally almost no journalism about it published in our country. It has just been ratified and becomes international law in about three months. The sponsors of “the ban treaty,” as it’s now called, were an international organization, ICAN, and its 50 or more member organizations. Some of the leaders, while not hopeful about its chances now, postulate that simply outlawing nuclear weapons changes the debate.
Ronnie Dugger is the founding editor of the Texas Observer and received the George Polk lifetime journalism award in 2011. In a 26,000-word article in The New Yorker in 1988, he advanced the proposition that even our presidential elections can be invisibly and unprovably stolen when the votes are counted by computers, which he believes has now been substantially realized. He has written biographies of Presidents Johnson and Reagan, books about Hiroshima and universities, and many articles in the Nation, The Atlantic, Harpers, The New York Times, and other periodicals. A number of his essays focused on Donald Trump have been published by Reader Supported News since 2016, and he has work on nuclear weapons and war under way. ronniedugger@gmail.com
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
A Trump supporter and her dog participate in a caravan departing from Rose Tree Park in Media, Pa., on Sunday. (photo: Bonnie Jo Mount/WP)
ALSO SEE: Trump Says Supporters Who Harassed Biden Campaign Bus 'Did Nothing Wrong
With Caravans and Outdoor Rallies That Some See as Intimidation, Trump Supporters Step Up Public Promotion
Scott Wilson, Mark Berman and Kayla Ruble, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "Thousands of Trump campaign supporters stepped up their public show of celebration, promotion and, in some cases, tacit intimidation over the weekend as a nervous nation prepared to head to the polls in two days."
The events, car caravans, midsize outdoor rallies and, on Sunday, the apparent blocking of roadways in the Democrat-heavy Mid-Atlantic, have been building in size as Election Day approaches. No injuries — or ostentatious displays of rifles and pistols — were reported, but the demonstrations underscore the unusual nature of this national election and the ends-justify-the-means tactics President Trump and his supporters often embrace.
In addition to the violent rhetoric and previous armed demonstrations by the far-right organization known as the Proud Boys, the election is being shaped by security precautions to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. More than 68 percent of the entire 2016 vote count already has been cast by mail and in person, a record that might help reduce long Election Day lines and the partisan frustrations that sometimes emerge.
But the early voting has been marred by accusations of voter intimidation and unease around the polls, including many reports of caravans of honking vehicles flying Trump flags at times blocking access to voting sites.
Although the cases have drawn significant attention online and have circulated widely on social media, they often stop short of crossing the line into illegal voter intimidation, election experts and officials say. What constitutes voter intimidation can be “subtle and context-dependent,” according to the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at the Georgetown University Law Center.
On Sunday, a group of Trump supporters in a vehicle caravan was filmed blocking the northbound express lanes of the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey. A man shooting video that was posted to Twitter can be heard saying, “We shut it down, baby. We shut it down.” The New Jersey State Police confirmed that the parkway was blocked but declined to provide additional information Sunday evening, saying authorities were still gathering details about what happened.
The highway stunt followed a similar, if more serious, one in Texas on Friday. Nearly 100 cars driven by Trump supporters surrounded a bus carrying Biden-Harris supporters due to appear at scheduled rallies, forcing it to a near stop; Biden-Harris proxies canceled the rest of the day’s events.
“They’re like chasing him out of the city,” one man said in a social media video, as “Eye of the Tiger” played in the background. “There’s like hundreds of them. They’re escorting them out.”
A woman says in another video: “We’re riding him out of Texas. It is hilarious.”
Long a deep if somewhat paling red, Texas might be in play this year, and a defeat in the Lone Star State would doom Trump’s reelection bid. Trump championed the public disruption in a tweet on Saturday, along with a picture of the cars surrounding the bus: “I LOVE TEXAS!”
On social media, members of the group that surrounded the bus — a chapter of an organization called the “Trump Train” — were alternately defending the legality of the action and boasting about their ability to run Joe Biden’s campaign out of their community.
Michelle Lee, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s San Antonio Field Office, confirmed Sunday that the FBI is “aware of the incident and investigating.” The FBI investigation was first reported by the Texas Tribune.
Trump has defended the group’s actions, posting Monday on Twitter that “They did nothing wrong.” he instead went on to decry what he called “the ANTIFA Anarchists, Rioters and Looters, who have caused so much harm and destruction in Democrat run cities,” saying that they were “being seriously looked at!”
Alarm about voter intimidation has grown in the run-up to Election Day, with civil rights advocates and election officials alike expressing concerns about voters who might feel frightened heading to the polls.
These anxieties appear particularly pronounced this year, with authorities, voters and experts also worried about possible unrest or violence Tuesday or in the days that follow.
Actions that amount to illegality include violent behavior in or outside polling places, confronting voters in official or military-style outfits, following voters, verbally threatening violence or aggressively asking people whether they are qualified to vote, the institute says.
Guns at polling sites also can be viewed as intimidating, though they also are legal in many cases. Citing fears of firearms intimidating voters, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) last month banned people from openly carrying guns at polling sites there on Election Day, but pro-gun groups challenged it in court, and a judge blocked the directive. The state is appealing.
Police say they are conducting unusually extensive election preparations, and departments across the country have emphasized they are protecting against possible voter intimidation, along with guarding against violence or clashes at the polls.
Some incidents of police showing clear backing for Trump — who has emphasized his support for law enforcement — have stirred additional fears among activists and others about possible bias among local officers who will be policing the polls.
They include a uniformed Miami police officer photographed wearing a Trump campaign-themed mask at a voting station and a New York police officer suspended after being filmed using his squad car loudspeaker to chant “Trump 2020” at people in Brooklyn.
In addition to repeatedly assailing the election’s integrity, Trump has sparked more unease about intimidation with his remarks, including his call for law enforcement officials to patrol voting sites, which raised the specter of tactics long used to frighten minorities.
During the first presidential debate, Trump said he was “urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully.” His campaign has defended volunteer poll watchers, who it said would be properly trained, and described observers as not “about intimidation but about transparency in the election process.”
Local and state officials have pushed back at Trump’s rhetoric regarding the election. In Philadelphia, a city that Trump has repeatedly singled out for criticism, District Attorney Larry Krasner issued a blistering statement last week against the president.
“Philadelphians from a diversity of political opinions believe strongly in the rule of law, in fair and free elections, and in a democratic system of government,” Krasner said. “We will not be cowed or ruled by a lawless, power-hungry despot.”
The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office issued an advisory emphasizing that state and federal laws “prohibit private actors from engaging in voter intimidation,” describing that as including a wide range of actions, from verbal and physical confrontations to following voters or demanding documentation.
In New Hampshire, the attorney general and secretary of state sent out a memorandum with guidance on issues including intimidation, warning against anyone using force, violence or coercion. The memo also noted that state law makes it a felony for someone to use any force, threat or violence to force someone to vote a certain way or not vote at all.
“Voter suppression or intimidation is not tolerated in New Hampshire,” the memo stated.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) said that a private security firm seeking former Special Operations personnel to guard polling places had canceled its plans, which he had described as something that could intimidate voters: “Minnesota and federal law are clear: It is strictly illegal to intimidate or interfere with voters.”
Much of the focus running up to in-person voting has centered on states where handguns and rifles have been displayed at political rallies — and, in one of those states, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) was the target of an alleged kidnapping plot authorities say was planned by an armed right-wing group.
Lansing City Clerk Chris Swope, also president of the state’s municipal clerk’s association, said recent demonstrations at the Michigan Capitol have left many on edge. In late April, demonstrators protesting Whitmer’s pandemic restrictions noisily entered the capitol, flanked by heavily armed men in paramilitary gear.
“It’s always unnerving when there’s discussion of people showing up with guns at the polls,” Swope said. “I’ve got poll workers at polling locations expressing concerns to me about that.”
There are particular concerns in African American enclaves across the state, in places such as Flint and Benton Harbor, which are located in counties that are overwhelmingly White.
Flint City Clerk Inez Brown said Sunday that recent events had her worried that people might show up at polling places with guns to intimidate voters.
“Naturally, we’re concerned,” Brown said. “I hope and pray that nothing violent happens.”
John Gleason, who has served in public office in Genesee County for more than two decades and has been the county clerk since 2012, said he doesn’t know of any time that people have openly carried guns to the polls in Michigan. But he says the energy for it has blown up since Benson’s decree inflamed conservatives.
In Michigan, permit holders are not allowed to carry guns at schools and can carry them in churches only if they have permission from the pastor. Gleason said all of the voting locations in Genesee County effectively fall under those restrictions.
“When you challenge them gun nuts, when you challenge them, they’ll accept,” Gleason said. “Nobody wore guns to the polls, but as soon as she made it an issue, then the crackpots got to do their part. . . . I guarantee you now there will be open carry at the poll. It was not even an issue those three weeks ago.”
Arthur Woodson, a community activist in Flint, was taken aback when he saw news reports of the Biden bus being driven off the road in Texas and law enforcement breaking up a Black Lives Matter march to the polls in North Carolina.
“The bus reminded me of the freedom fighters down in Mississippi, where the three young men were murdered. And watching North Carolina, it reminded me of 1964, with Martin Luther King, when all of them was marching to vote,” Woodson, who is Black, said Sunday. “I was up all last night thinking about it.”
Much like Michigan, a magnet for showy partisan tensions before the election, Portland, Ore., also has seen flares of unrest in recent days.
On Saturday night, Portland police declared a riot after 150 demonstrators broke windows and threw objects at officers near the arena where the city’s NBA team plays, another in a series of conflicts between protesters and police that shows no sign of abating.
The Rose City has been the site of right-wing and left-wing protests this year. Demonstrators have taken to the streets almost nightly since George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis police custody in May.
The consistent conflagrations — often focused on downtown police headquarters and a federal building next door — have turned blocks of the city center into a maze of boarded-up buildings. Trump has said the city is the poster child for a lawless Democratic city.
A September rally by the Proud Boys ended without violence, but spasms of conflict between ideologically opposed groups have turned violent, even deadly.
Health care activists rallied in front of the U.S. Capitol on March 22, 2017, to protest Republican efforts that would have dismantled the Affordable Care Act and capped federal payments for Medicaid patients. (photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Medicaid's Future Hinges on Who Wins the White House
Blake Farmer, NPR
Farmer writes: "Medicaid provides health care for millions of low-income Americans. But its future depends very much on politics."
t was either put food on the table or drop their health insurance, says Oscar Anchia of Miami. His wife's coverage was costing $700 a month, and his hours had been cut back because of the coronavirus pandemic. So Anchia made the difficult decision to drop his spouse from his policy, because they needed the money.
Then in October, his love for 40 years fell ill with COVID-19.
"This has been a crazy, crazy nightmare," he said, after his wife's first week in the hospital. He kept asking Baptist Health about the bill. He was already at $92,000 from her stay in the intensive care unit.
At this point, Anchia's best hope is that his wife will be covered by a federal assistance program for uninsured COVID-19 patients. But that's because he lives in one of the dozen holdout states that hasn't expanded Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act. That part of the ACA was intended to provide health coverage for adults who are working but who have no insurance through their job — either because it's not offered or because they can't afford the premiums.
Medicaid provides health care for millions of low-income Americans. But its future depends very much on politics. Over the past four years, the Trump administration has tried to impose conservative principles on the program and shrink it. A Joe Biden presidency would attempt to go the other way.
"For example, me, I always work. I've been working 36 years in the same company," says Anchia, who builds signage for airports. "And now I find myself in this position. Medicaid would be great for regular people. I'm not the only one."
Anchia's wife is out of the ICU, but he also expects he'll need help paying for prescription medication when she's sent home.
In Florida alone, roughly 1.5 million people would be eligible for coverage under Medicaid expansion, according to estimates by the Florida Health Justice Project. It's a number that has grown recently because of the economic trouble and job losses triggered by the pandemic.
"The pandemic has really elevated the visibility of the suffering and that it cuts across socioeconomic lines," says Miriam Harmatz, executive director of the Florida Health Justice Project. "These are folks you wouldn't have expected to be among the ranks of the uninsured."
Under a Biden administration, Democrats could deliver on a proposal known as "the public option." It would bring coverage to people in this uninsured group without requiring them to wait for state officials to take action on Medicaid.
But Harmatz is hopeful that Florida could still join the ranks of expansion states, no matter who becomes president.
Even under the Trump administration, some Republican-led states have moved forward with Medicaid expansion after initially refusing. New survey data from the Commonwealth Fund find that expansion remains popular with voters, even among Republicans, in 10 swing states that may decide the outcome of this election.
This summer, voters in Oklahoma and Missouri approved ballot measures to expand Medicaid, against the wishes of their Republican governors and legislators.
Most recently, Georgia's request to expand Medicaid was approved this month by Trump appointees at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Georgia's expansion, however, will apply to fewer adults than in other states, allow the state to charge some monthly premiums and require adults to work or engage in other "qualifying activities."
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp hailed the limited expansion of Medicaid as a way to save money. Critics point out, however, that the Kemp plan means Georgia actually receives less federal aid to cover these new Medicaid enrollees, compared with states that embraced a full Medicaid expansion, and that tens of thousands of Georgians will still remain uninsured, which can put financial stresses on hospitals and local taxpayers.
In the last four years, Trump's health officials have pushed states to look for ways to spend less on Medicaid.
"I think the Trump administration views Medicaid the same way every Republican administration does, as sort of a nuisance," says Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute.
Making work requirements part of eligibility has been the most popular way to try to rein in spending and push back against Medicaid expansion.
But work requirements have been blocked by the courts.
"I don't really see a lot of enthusiasm for work requirements returning," Cannon says. "But I don't really see a lot of enthusiasm by Republicans to work on any broader Medicaid reforms, either."
The more sweeping Republican-backed initiative — which has been somewhat sidetracked by the pandemic — calls on states to overhaul how Medicaid is paid for. Currently, each state splits the costs of Medicaid with the federal government, with the feds paying 50% to 75% of each enrollee's cost, depending on the state. The new payment idea, called a "block grant," would involve the federal government giving each state a yearly lump sum payment for Medicaid and would essentially cap the federal government's responsibility. Block grants have been an ambition of the Republican Party for decades.
Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, paved the way for block grants in January. Tennessee was first in line. But the state is still the only one waiting to hear back on its request.
That's partly because Tennessee is asking for a block grant that would bring the state more federal money for Medicaid, not less — as much as a billion dollars a year.
"Folks here in Tennessee found a creative way to propose a block grant that, at least from a financial standpoint, didn't pose really any risk for the state," says Mandy Pellegrin, policy director of the Tennessee-based Sycamore Institute.
If the federal government approves the design of the proposed block grant, Tennessee could theoretically use the additional money to add more residents to its Medicaid rolls. "Expansion is certainly something that could happen under this waiver," Pellegrin says.
Even though Tennessee's specific proposal has the potential to cover many more people, Democrats have generally dismissed the idea of block grants as a backdoor way to cut benefits Americans are entitled to.
This policy push-and-pull over Medicaid assumes that the Affordable Care Act will stay intact, including the 90% federal matching money that most states have relied on to expand coverage to the working poor. But the Trump administration is still pushing for the Supreme Court to overturn the entire law, with an oral argument set for Nov. 10.
"We would not expect that to continue under a Biden administration," says Rachel Nuzum, vice president of federal and state health policy at the Commonwealth Fund. "So there's a fair bit of uncertainty. What we know is, states cannot operate well in an environment of uncertainty."
Nuzum says this election — from state legislative contests up to the White House — has the potential to provide a little more certainty on how millions of Americans receive their health care.
Sergio Garcia in front of the American flag that flew over the U.S. Capitol on the day he became a citizen, El Paso, Texas, Oct. 29, 2020. (photo: Justin Hamel/The Intercept)
A Public Defender's Lonely Fight Against Family Separation
Melissa del Bosque, The Intercept
del Bosque writes: "Sergio Garcia had been a federal public defender for five years, but he'd never heard of parents who were traveling with their children and had no prior criminal convictions being arrested for illegal entry after requesting asylum."
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Early voting at Philadelphia City Hall on Oct. 7. (photo: Gabriella Audi/Getty Images)
'It's Like You Want to Stop People From Voting': How US Elections Look Abroad
Chai Dingari, Brendan Miller, Adam Westbrook and Emily Holzknecht, The New York Times
Excerpt: "From gerrymandering to voter roll purges, we showed people around the world how the American system works. It didn't go well."
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Health care workers caring for a COVID-19 patient. (photo: Christopher Lee/NYT/Redux)
Seven Ways the Election Will Shape the Future of Science, Health and the Environment
Andrea Thompson, Tanya Lewis, Lee Billings, Sophie Bushwick, Clara Moskowitz and Kate Wong, Scientific American
Excerpt: "Climate change, nuclear arms control, the pandemic and more will be determined by whoever wins the White House and Congress."
hen all the votes are cast and counted in this year’s momentous November 3 election, the results will have deep and potentially long-lasting impacts on numerous areas of society, including science. President Donald Trump and his challenger, former vice president Joe Biden, have presented vastly different visions for handling crucial issues—ranging from the deadly coronavirus pandemic to the damaging impacts of climate change and immigration policies.
The election’s outcome—not just who wins the White House but who controls Congress—will determine what laws get passed, how budgets are allocated and what direction key science-related agencies (such as NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) will take. The past four years have been marked by extensive deregulatory efforts that affect climate and public health. The Trump administration has also taken various steps that could undercut access to health care. And it has appointed industry officials to scientific advisory boards and made other moves that are likely to diminish the role and influence of scientific expertise. This approach has shown up acutely in what many public health experts see as the disastrous handling of the pandemic at the federal level—which has, in turn, undermined the reputation of storied agencies, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here, Scientific American takes a look at how the election could shape a few key scientific issues, depending on who wins.
Will We Bend the Pandemic Curve?
Undoubtedly the most immediate issue Biden or Trump will face as president is the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed more than 227,000 people in the U.S. to date. Trump and his administration have consistently downplayed the threat to the public. They have failed to address severe testing shortages, flouted basic public health guidelines by holding large rallies and refusing to wear masks (while mocking those who do), and even proved unable to contain outbreaks in the White House itself. The administration has been accused of interfering with federal health agencies for political gain. It has refused funding to the hardest-hit states and communities and, in concert with Republicans in the Senate, opposed pandemic relief bills that included extending the extra unemployment benefits of $600, thus letting them lapse.* Although several potential vaccines are in the final testing stages, none are on track for approval before the election. The president himself has repeatedly spread misinformation about COVID-19, promoting ineffective and dangerous therapies and falsely calling the disease no worse than the flu. He has, again and again, claimed the U.S. is “turning the corner” on the public health crisis, despite record-high numbers of cases and hospitalizations. His own chief of staff recently admitted that “we are not going to control the pandemic.”
Biden, by contrast, has put forth a detailed COVID-19 plan to make testing more widely available and to guarantee that testing and treatment are free. The plan would also continue supporting vaccine development and ensure states have adequate protective equipment and staffing. Further, it would provide economic relief for workers and small businesses and paid emergency leave. Biden has pledged to put scientists and public health experts front and center in daily pandemic briefings. His plan additionally includes preparing the country for future pandemics by supporting research and developing robust disease-surveillance programs. He has promised that on his first day in office, the U.S. would rejoin the World Health Organization (which the Trump administration pulled out of earlier this year). He also aims to restore the White House’s National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense, which was established by then president Barack Obama in 2014—and disbanded by the Trump administration in 2018. Biden has stopped short of calling for a national mask mandate but has said he would require masks in all federal buildings and interstate transportation.
“The biggest priority will be ending the pandemic and continuing to shepherd vaccines,” says Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University. “That’s going to be very challenging because of the loss of trust in health agencies like the CDC.” Biden would need to reengage the public and rebuild that trust, and he should also invest heavily in research and pandemic preparedness and response, Rasmussen adds.
How Clean Will the Air Be?
Despite Trump’s pledges to ensure the U.S. has clean air and water, his administration has undertaken significant environmental deregulations. Some of the biggest changes have been to rules addressing greenhouse gases and other air pollutants. The administration has repealed the Obama-era Clean Power Plan (which set limits on carbon emissions from coal- and gas-fired power plants) and now allows states to set their own rules. It has also weakened the fuel-efficiency standards for cars, permitting more tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases, and has loosened restrictions on toxic mercury emissions from oil- and coal-fired power plants.
A second Trump term would likely continue down the same path. It could, however, face some legal challenges: agencies have not always followed clearly set procedures for rulemaking, which leaves some Trump-era changes open to being overturned by the courts. “This administration’s track record in court is pretty bad,” notes Hillary Aidun, a fellow at Columbia’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.
The Trump administration’s existing rollbacks would add the equivalent of an estimated 1.8 billion metric tons of excess carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by 2035, according to an analysis by the Rhodium Group, an independent research outlet. Analyses from both academic scientists and the Environmental Protection Agency have shown that less stringent air pollution regulations can lead to thousands of premature deaths and cause or exacerbate lung illnesses.
Biden has been vocal about reversing Trump’s actions and strengthening regulations—as well as addressing the disproportionate harm pollution causes in Black, brown and low-income communities. Some actions would be easier to undo than others. It would be relatively simple to revoke or alter executive orders and guidance, such as the Trump administration’s directive not to use Obama-era estimates for the social cost of carbon.
Biden can also issue his own executive orders, as he has pledged to do to set a target for reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. Rule changes completed within the past 60 legislative days could be overturned by the new Congress, though this is only likely to happen if Democrats win control of both chambers. Some older regulations, such as the revisions to fuel-efficiency standards, would have to be altered through the laborious federal rulemaking process, which can take years. (There is one exception to the fuel-standards rule: a Biden administration could rescind the withdrawal of California’s waiver to set its own more stringent regulations—which other states would then be free to adopt.)
Who Will Have Reliable and Affordable Health Care?
Trump and congressional Republicans have repeatedly tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act, or ACA. The law provides health insurance to more than 20 million Americans and protects up to 129 million people with preexisting conditions (which could include COVID-19). Repeal efforts have thus far failed, and the Trump administration has not revealed a plan for replacing the coverage. Instead Trump has issued a toothless executive order claiming he will protect insurance for those with preexisting conditions. He has signed several other executive orders that he contends will reduce drug prices, but the details are murky, and the orders are far from being implemented. Meanwhile, in a highly unusual and widely condemned move, his Republican party rammed through Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat—just a week before the election. In early November the court is scheduled to hear a case to decide whether the entire ACA is unconstitutional because of its individual mandate to purchase health insurance. The court’s six-to-three conservative majority could also threaten to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that guarantees the right to an abortion. The Trump administration has already chipped away at women’s reproductive rights through a series of rules that threaten insurance coverage for abortions and contraception. If reelected, he could roll these rights back even further.
Biden was part of the Obama administration, which created the ACA, and he has said that if he is elected, he will build on it rather than replace it. His health plan would add a public option to the ACA, increase tax credits in order to lower premiums and provide coverage for Americans who would have become eligible for Medicaid if their state had not refused to expand it. Biden’s plan aims to make health care more affordable by allowing the public option section to negotiate costs with providers and by repealing the exception that allows pharmaceutical companies to avoid negotiating with Medicare over drug prices. He would also work to shore up access to contraception and abortion by protecting Roe v. Wade, restoring funding to Planned Parenthood and rescinding the so-called Mexico City Policy that bars federal funding to global health organizations that perform or promote abortion as a method of family planning. Biden also says he wants to reduce the unacceptably high maternal mortality rate among women of color and to guard the ACA’s health care protections, regardless of gender, gender identify or sexual orientation. He supports paid leave for workers and has floated a plan to address gun violence.
But Biden’s ideas face some potential roadblocks. “One thing that’s really important to realize, [with a six-to-three conservative majority in the Supreme Court and 200 confirmed judges nominated by Trump], is: anything Biden does is going to be immediately challenged,” says Tim Jost, an emeritus professor at the Washington and Lee University School of Law. And of course, in order to pass any health care legislation, he would likely need a Democratic majority in the Senate.
Who Will Keep the U.S.—and the World—Safe?
In the high-stakes arena of nuclear weapons, the differences between the two candidates could not be clearer. Biden has expressed support for existing arms-control agreements as a way to prevent nuclear proliferation—and annihilation. In contrast, Trump has consistently sought to weaken U.S. participation in such agreements, arguing that unilateral freedom of action is better than accepting safety-boosting norms set by international partnerships.
This “America First” approach has led to numerous setbacks in nuclear nonproliferation during Trump’s first term, most notably the U.S. withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2018. More commonly known as the “Iran deal,” this 2015 agreement between Tehran and the member nations of the United Nations Security Council was meant to halt Iran’s nuclear-weapons program in return for the lifting of crippling economic sanctions—many of which the Trump administration has now reinstated. Iran has responded in kind by continuing its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Biden has stated he would seek for the U.S. to rejoin the deal.
Similarly, Trump has denounced the only active nuclear arms agreement between the U.S. and Russia—the New START treaty enacted in 2010, which aims to prevent a ruinous cold war–style arms race by limiting the sizes of both nations’ nuclear arsenals. The treaty expires in February, 15 days after the next presidential inauguration, but it includes a provision that it can be renewed for up to five years. Trump had previously called for China to join the treaty (which would be unlikely) before the U.S. would renew, placing New START in limbo. Russia and the Trump administration now seem to be moving toward a short-term extension, but the treaty’s fate remains uncertain. Biden has said his administration would renew it.
Despite his high-profile courting of North Korea’s authoritarian leader Kim Jong-un, Trump has failed to contain the rogue nuclear state’s ongoing development of warhead-carrying missiles that threaten the U.S. and its allies. Biden, in contrast, has compared Kim to Hitler and vowed to take a tougher stance against his regime’s aggressive nuclear aspirations. But even so, according to Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear-arms expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, in the aftermath of Trump’s actions, “it’s not clear that [a Biden administration] can put Humpty Dumpty back together again.” As for another four years of Trump? “It’s probably back to the arms race and proliferation,” Lewis says.
Who Will Be Allowed to Enter the Country?
Trump has followed through on his campaign promise to restrict immigration, establishing a number of barriers to reduce the number of both authorized and unauthorized entrants to the U.S. Biden has pledged not only to tear down Trump’s restrictions but also to reform the U.S. immigration system to encourage entry. “Currently, we are not taking advantage of America’s ability to attract the best and brightest workers in the world,” reads a statement on his campaign Web site. Evidence suggests that immigrants boost the economy in general—and they play a particularly significant role in academia and technology.
The president’s anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric are already impacting U.S.’s ability to attract foreign-born talent. The number of new international students has fallen each year since 2016, depriving colleges and universities of their tuition—and the tech sector of their abilities. After graduation, many such people continue working here: for example, more than 80 percent of international students who earn doctorates in artificial intelligence at U.S. institutions remain in the country after graduation. In fact, more than half of the nation’s AI workers were born abroad, and as China strives to overtake it in this field, the U.S.’s ability to attract AI researchers will be vital. Artificial intelligence is only one example. Any highly technical research field, such as quantum computing, relies on skilled workers with specialized knowledge, many of whom come from beyond U.S. borders. This reliance is so important to both academia and technology companies that the Trump administration’s onerous new visa rules for skilled workers have drawn lawsuits from entities in both fields.
If Biden wins the election, his proposed immigrant-friendly policies could restore the U.S.’s reputation as an attractive destination for scientists from all over the world. If Trump remains in power, his administration will likely continue to restrict people born elsewhere from entering the country, driving many stars of artificial intelligence, quantum computing and other fields to take their valuable talents elsewhere.
Where Will We Go in Space?
The next administration must decide whether to push on toward Trump’s goal of sending astronauts back to the moon by 2024 and then on to Mars in the 2030s under the Artemis program. Budget uncertainties and technical challenges make the deadline for a moon landing tight. The main hurdle in returning to Earth’s satellite is transportation, and NASA is developing its Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lift rocket for the mission. It is also contracting with three commercial companies to develop vehicles to touch down on the moon’s surface and then launch astronauts back to lunar orbit for the return trip.
New presidential administrations have a history of changing space-exploration plans, with the inevitable result of delaying any eventual goal by forcing NASA to change gears. Former president George W. Bush had instructed the agency to head for the moon under the Constellation program, but his successor Obama cancelled Constellation and directed NASA to make a charge for an asteroid instead. When Trump took office, the U.S. set its sights back on the moon—resulting in neither goal being achieved so far. If Trump wins again, he will presumably continue on the current course. Biden has not explicitly stated his space goals, but he might at least push back the Artemis time line, as suggested by a U.S. House bill introduced in January 2020.
What Will Happen to Our Shared Lands?
The fate of more than a quarter of the nation’s land—and with it, a sizable chunk of its greenhouse gas emissions—is in the hands of the next president. The federal government owns some 640 million acres of land in the U.S., managing its use for purposes ranging from conservation to energy development. Nearly 20 percent of the country’s emissions come from producing and using oil, gas and coal extracted from these public lands, which encompass ecologically important wilderness areas, as well as culturally and scientifically significant national monuments. Tensions over how to balance preservation of the land with natural-resource development have always existed. But against the backdrop of the unfolding climate crisis, the stakes are now higher than ever before.
Trump’s administration has made vast tracts of public land available for resource extraction. It has opened up parts of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas development—and now proposes to do the same with most of the nearby National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. The latter is the country’s largest single piece of public land; it contains critical habitats for polar bears, caribou and other animals. In September the administration released its plan to open more than half of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest—an intact temperate rain forest that stores about 8 percent of the carbon held in all the forests in the lower 48 states combined—to logging, which would release greenhouse gases back into the atmosphere.
In Utah, Trump has drastically downsized the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments, which contain hundreds of key fossil and archaeological sites. This change leaves nearly two million acres of previously protected land open to uranium mining, oil and gas drilling, and road construction. In New Mexico, his administration is looking to sell oil and gas leases in the area around Chaco Canyon, the sacred ancestral grounds of Navajo and Pueblo peoples. Since taking office, the Trump administration has offered millions of acres of public lands across the country for fossil-fuel-lease sales. And in July it rewrote the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)—a foundational conservation law—to limit environmental review of, and public input on, proposed infrastructure projects, among other changes. In his pursuit of his “energy dominance” agenda, Trump will continue to push for deregulation, exploration and fossil-fuel extraction on public land if he is reelected.
If Biden is elected, he has pledged to take executive action on day one that would include “permanently protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other areas impacted by President Trump’s attack on federal lands and waters” and “banning new oil and gas leasing on public lands and waters.” Importantly, Biden would be able to nominate new people to lead the Department of the Interior and its subagencies, including the Bureau of Land management, which control most public land. And he could, with the support of a Democratic Congress, undo Trump’s changes to NEPA.
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