Trump took to Twitter to voice his frustration over losing the traditionally red state by 12,500 votes and said, “I will easily & quickly win Georgia if Governor [Kemp] or the Secretary of State permit a simple signature verification.”
“Has not been done and will show large scale discrepancies,” Trump claimed. “Why are these two ‘Republicans’ saying no? If we win Georgia, everything else falls in place!”
Everything’s under control.Big government is needed to fight the pandemic. What matters is how it shrinks back again afterwards
Editor’s note: The Economist is making some of its most important coverage of the covid-19 pandemic freely available to readers of The Economist Today, our daily newsletter. To receive it, register here. For more coverage, see our coronavirus hub
In just a few weeks a virus a ten-thousandth of a millimetre in diameter has transformed Western democracies. States have shut down businesses and sealed people indoors. They have promised trillions of dollars to keep the economy on life support. If South Korea and Singapore are a guide, medical and electronic privacy are about to be cast aside. It is the most dramatic extension of state power since the second world war.
One taboo after another has been broken. Not just in the threat of fines or prison for ordinary people doing ordinary things, but also in the size and scope of the government’s role in the economy. In America Congress is poised to pass a package worth almost $2trn, 10% of gdp, twice what was promised in 2007-09. Credit guarantees by Britain, France and other countries are worth 15% of gdp. Central banks are printing money and using it to buy assets they used to spurn. For a while, at least, governments are seeking to ban bankruptcy.
For believers in limited government and open markets, covid-19 poses a problem. The state must act decisively. But history suggests that after crises the state does not give up all the ground it has taken. Today that has implications not just for the economy, but also for the surveillance of individuals.
It is no accident that the state grows during crises. Governments might have stumbled in the pandemic, but they alone can coerce and mobilise vast resources rapidly. Today they are needed to enforce business closures and isolation to stop the virus. Only they can help offset the resulting economic collapse. In America and the euro area gdp could drop by 5-10% year-on-year, perhaps more.
One reason the state’s role has changed so rapidly is that covid-19 spreads like wildfire. In less than four months it has gone from a market in Wuhan to almost every country in the world. The past week logged 253,000 new cases. People are scared of the example of Italy, where almost 74,000 recorded cases have overwhelmed a world-class health system, leading to over 7,500 deaths.
That fear is the other reason for rapid change. When Britain’s government tried to hang back so as to minimise state interference, it was accused of doing too little, too late. France, by contrast, passed a law this week giving the government the power not just to control people’s movements, but also to manage prices and requisition goods. During the crisis its president, Emmanuel Macron, has seen his approval ratings soar.
In most of the world the state has so far responded to covid-19 with a mix of coercion and economic heft. As the pandemic proceeds, it is also likely to exploit its unique power to monitor people using their data (see article). Hong Kong uses apps on phones that show where you are in order to enforce quarantines. China has a passporting system to record who is safe to be out. Phone data help modellers predict the spread of the disease. And if a government suppresses covid-19, as China has, it will need to prevent a second wave among the many who are still susceptible, by pouncing on every new cluster. South Korea says that automatically tracing the contacts of fresh infections, using mobile technology, gets results in ten minutes instead of 24 hours.
This vast increase in state power has taken place with almost no time for debate. Some will reassure themselves that it is just temporary and that it will leave almost no mark, as with Spanish flu a century ago. However, the scale of the response makes covid-19 more like a war or the Depression. And here the record suggests that crises lead to a permanently bigger state with many more powers and responsibilities and the taxes to pay for them. The welfare state, income tax, nationalisation, all grew out of conflict and crisis (see article).
As that list suggests, some of today’s changes will be desirable. It would be good if governments were better prepared for the next pandemic; so, too, if they invested in public health, including in America, where reform is badly needed. Some countries need decent sick pay.
Other changes may be less clear-cut, but will be hard to undo because they were backed by powerful constituencies even before the pandemic. One example is the further unpicking of the euro-zone pact that is supposed to impose discipline on the member-states’ borrowing. Likewise, Britain has taken its railways under state control—a step that is supposed to be temporary but which may never be retracted.
More worrying is the spread of bad habits. Governments may retreat into autarky. Some fear running out of the ingredients for medicines, many of which are made in China. Russia has imposed a temporary ban on exporting grain. Industrialists and politicians have lost trust in supply chains. It is but a small step from there to long-term state support for the national champions that will have just been bailed out by taxpayers. Trade’s prospects are already dim (see article); all this would further cloud them—and the recovery. And in the long term, a vast and lasting expansion of the state together with dramatically higher public debt (see article) is likely to lead to a lumbering, less dynamic kind of capitalism.
But that is not the biggest problem. The greater worries lie elsewhere, in the abuse of office and the threats to freedom. Some politicians are already making power grabs, as in Hungary, where the government is seeking an indefinite state of emergency. Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, appears to see the crisis as a chance to evade a trial for corruption.
The most worrying is the dissemination of intrusive surveillance. Invasive data collection and processing will spread because it offers a real edge in managing the disease. But they also require the state to have routine access to citizens’ medical and electronic records. The temptation will be to use surveillance after the pandemic, much as anti-terror legislation was extended after 9/11. This might start with tracing tb cases or drug dealers. Nobody knows where it would end, especially if, having dealt with covid-19, surveillance-mad China is seen as a model.
Surveillance may well be needed to cope with covid-19. Rules with sunset clauses and scrutiny built in can help stop it at that. But the main defence against the overmighty state, in tech and the economy, will be citizens themselves. They must remember that a pandemic government is not fit for everyday life. ■
IF WE WANT LIP SERVICE FROM OBAMA WE WILL PAY FOR IT.
No living President has taken the LOW ROAD like Barack Hussein Obama; a full fledged member of the Black Lives Matter Tear Down America Movement. Hussein, a Suicide Bomber in his own right, is heading to the Peach State, the home of Gone With the Wind; the Deep South of the Confederacy, trying his utmost to rouse up the great grandsons and great daughters of slaves. He is a suicide bomber roadshow, hoping to arouse the crowd to vote for two flaming liberals. The Senate is at stake. Georgia must make a choice, Destroy America or Keep in America Great.
The progressive wing of the Democrat party is going all in on this one. Don’t let it happen. A loss of the Senate will cut Biden’s cajones off for the next four years. We must due to him what he did to us – four years of investigations. Hunter Biden is a criminal, Joe Biden is a criminal. WE WANT JUSTICE.
VOTE LOEFFLER, VOTE PERDUE, KEEP IN AMERICA GREAT – DON’T LET RADICAL LEFT GO BEZERK, YOUR LIFE IS AT STAKE
President Trump is heading to Georgia on Saturday, seeking to boost the two GOP senators heading into critical runoffs while simultaneously complicating their path to victory.
Republicans view Trump’s presence as key to rallying the base, but many are concerned his attacks on the voting system and Republicans in Georgia could have a negative impact on the Jan. 5 races that will decide the Senate majority for the next two years.
How Georgia’s Senate race pits the Old South against the New South
“There’s a third rail of politics in the South. And it’s race.”
Georgia’s campaign ads tell a tale of two states: Raphael Warnock’s ads are bright and sunny, featuring the pastor expounding on health care policy, telling his family story and walking a puppy. But the majority of Kelly Loeffler’s spots take a grimmer tone, attacking Warnock as “the most dangerous, radical candidate in America.” In one ad, the camera pans across a photo of Warnock, who is Black, darkened and superimposed over footage of riots. “Saving the Senate,” the narrator intones, “is about saving America … from that.”
It could work. But with Georgia’s demographics shifting, Loeffler’s approach — a familiar playbook tailored to older, whiter voters who skew Republican — is just as likely to prove out of step with a changing electorate. It’s pitting the politics of the Old South, often characterized by thinly-veiled racist rhetoric and maintenance of the predominantly white status quo, against the New South’s increasingly young and racially diverse constituency. This fundamental tension is shaping the contours of the messaging wars in the Senate race — and could reverberate in the broader region for decades to come.
Republicans remain confident that their strategy is effective, one that appeals to both their predominantly white voting base and communities of color.
Check 4.45 into the video for the STEAL UNDER DARKNESS
Governor Kemp points finger at Secretary of State Raffensberger. A verification of the vote is in the cards. Check the video, thousands of ballots wheeled in, in the cover of darkness.
WE WANT VERIFICATION OF SIGNATURES – STOP THE STEAL
The group, The New Georgia Project, was founded by former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams to help register new voters. Ultimately, the 2014 investigation found no wrongdoing by the group, but did cite 14 people for forging 53 voter applications. All those cited were working as independent contractors, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Of course they found no wrongdoing, they never do because Democrats are above the law. The fact that they independent contractors is the reason they couldn’t pin the rap on Abrams. But we know who is guilty here.
This Jew Hater from Michigan has consistently spilled Anti-Semitic diatribe at Israel and the Jews. Remember this “mother fucker” when she called for the impeachment of President Trump. She is a Suicide Bomber from the territories which are better known in Israel as Judea and Samaria. We are 100% certain if she had a DNA test it would confirm her squatter status. She has gone past the pale by continuing to froth hate speech against Israel. Her latest diatribe calls for the annihilation of Israel.
Any Democrat members of Congress of the Jewish persuasion have to self analyze their affiliation with this Jew Hater. They have a choice, come forward and renounce her rhetoric by switching parties. We can’t understand that they would have a party affiliation with Hitler aficionados.
CONGRESS HAS NOT CHOICE BUT TO CENSURE HER If they don’t it is a confirmation of their own racist attitude. Jewish members of Congress should rise up and call out this racist bitch.
The name Palestine was a new name given to the country of Israel by Roman Emperor Hadrian. It was punishment for the Israeli revolt which started in 70AD and lasted until 135AD. The name has endured for the past 2000 years. So the question remains, where did all of those Palestinians of today come from?
To quote Mark Twain, who visited Israel in 1880? He described what he saw in three words, “Palestine is desolate.” The Holy Land was occupied by the Ottoman Turks in the 1800’s; they settled Turks in Palestine to farm and strip the forests for Turkish export. From 1840 to 1920 the Turks brought in 506,000 Arabs. In 1920 The British Mandate approved by the League of Nations in 1922 opened the floodgates to more foreigners. The British allowed 36,000 Syrians to enter the land in 1934. From 1924-1947 the British secretly brought in 440,000 Arabs from Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon and Iraq. During the Holocaust, the British smuggled in 200,000 more Arabs.
Of the 1,303,000 Arabs living in Palestine in 1947, 1 million were illegally brought in and the other 300,000 were born to those brought in after the Zionist movement in 1882 was born. The lie continues to this day. One question remains to be answered; why is the western media continuing the perpetration of this lie?
Of course we have pointed out the culprits before, but Tucker Carlson lays out the paradigm that resulted in millions affected by the China Corona Virus. The WHO, bought and paid for by China, touted their innocence.
The criminal head of the WHO, Tadros and President XI are responsible for the murder of millions of innocent people across the globe.
You may disagree with the President, but everything he said since taking office has come true. The hoax Russian investigation, the hoax impeachment and now the Hoax Election. THE KRAKEN WILL BE UNVEILED. THE DEEP STATE CAN’T HIDE FOREVER.
President Trump is once again charging that last month’s presidential election was rigged and rampant with fraud.
Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced during a press conference Monday that his office is currently investigating more than 250 claims of fraud related to the 2020 election.
