Here we are in the midst of a pandemic, an imploding economy, and an unprecedented surge in anti-racist action, and what are Senate Republicans doing? In coordination with the White House, this noxious and spinless cast of characters are promoting a number of “recovery” measures that can be characterized as “neoliberalism at warped speed.” These include more tax cuts for the corporations and the wealthy elite, sweeping deregulation of the economy, and handouts to corporate and business cronies.

And there is more.

Trump and the GOP are also plotting to liquidate the post office and force states and cities into bankruptcy, while opposing a second stimulus bill to assist millions who are drowning in a tsunami of economic hardship and pain. And it’s being done in the name of allowing “free” markets to work their magic and the argument that the economy can’t stay closed forever (as if anyone is saying that), even if, in doing so, millions are left without income and the coronavirus spikes and takes more lives.

On its face it sounds like a suicidal path for Trump and Congressional Republicans to pursue in an election year. Looks like a death wish? Aren’t they worried that a big swath of the electorate, angry at their callous indifference to their economic plight and health, will take out their anger on them on election day?

So why would they choose such a perilous course of action?

The only answer I can come up with is this. No longer able to claim the “greatest economy ever,” they decided to double down with a two pronged strategy. One prong is to gin up turnout of his base, especially high school educated white men, with ample and sustained doses of brazen lies and demagogy, particularly racist demagogy. The other prong is suppress the vote by means, foul and fouler. And together, they will take to Trump over the top on election day.

This is a big gamble. It may have worked 4 years ago, but even then only because they drew an inside straight and won by a hair. This year looking at current polling, including in the battleground states, and the resoluteness of voters to dump Trump and his Congressional enablers, they will have to draw 4 aces to come out on top. And that’s rarely done.

Lenin the often insightful analyst and leader of the Russian revolution said that politics begins where there are millions. Over the past month we saw the materialization of that observation as the politics of racism and anti-racism commanded the attention of the world, energized millions and turned politics as we had know it upside down.

In such moments, Lenin also would say that the challenge for activists is to turn a spontaneous uprising (any uprising that reaches the scale of millions has a spontaneous element to it) into a durable social movement able to combine and move from one to another form of struggle, as conditions change and new opportunities arise.

The guy wasn’t perfect, far from it. But, to use an old expression of my parent’s generation, he was no slouch.

In thinking about Trump’s rally and death march tonight, which will give new meaning to ugly, ignorant, and desperate, I keep in mind that Trump and his brand are on the defensive and losing support. They’re not surging. Over the past few months, his combination of bullying, lying, and sheer incompetence in the face of multiple and devastating crises has managed to piss off lots of people at the grassroots and elite levels. His road to reelection is a much steeper climb now.

Postscript: The rally was a flop.

As a country, we are confronted by two contagions. One is a virus that goes unseen by the naked eye, unknowingly invades the body, attacks the immune system, and can bring death in its wake; the other is white in skin color, dresses in a blue uniform, carries extraordinary fire power on his person, and makes a habit of killing Black men for no reason other than their Blackness.

Both contagions, if they are to be vanquished, and they can be, require the concentrated attention of all decent minded people from all walks of life.

The rebukes of Trump by General James Mattis and other top military officers for his threat to deploy the military to put down protests had to give Trump some second thoughts about any consideration of remaining in office by extra constitutional means. People sometimes forget that if such an attempt backfires, its conspirators are in very deep sh t!