Post 278 - December 14, 2020

Day 278…

It’s the beginning of a new week.

A usual December for me involves a lot of traveling. US tours tend to sit down for longer stays around the holidays which makes it the ideal time to head out and visit them and do a bit of rehearsing. There are also often a lot of holiday events like parades or tree-lightings with performances attached to them that need coordinating.

Most years, I almost need to schedule in some time to just sit back and allow myself to get into the holiday spirit.

Between work and getting presents bought, wrapped and shipped the month always seems rushed. More than once, I have ended up online ordering a gift from my seat on a plane as we were waiting to take off. Especially if there was a delay, flying was that rare moment of calm where I could focus. It always seems like Christmas is upon us before I am really ready for it.

This year, of course, is like no other year.

I am continually finding myself rushing around these days for no reason at all and I have to stop and remind myself to take a deep breath and slow down. This year, there are plenty of hours in the day and almost no distractions. I’ve already spent more time sitting by our tree than I have in any year in memory and we are still ten days away.

Across the country, the first Americans are receiving the vaccine today.

Sandra Lindsay, a frontline health care worker was the first person in New York to get it this morning. She got her first shot on camera with Governor Cuomo looking on via video conferencing.

The Pfizer vaccine appears to have slightly more side effects than the Moderna vaccine with two people in the UK reported to have had allergic reactions to it. Even with that, though, the differences still appear to be more or less negligible and, so far, both appear to be generally safe. This morning, the differences are somewhat moot as the only one that is actually available here is the Pfizer one.

The White House had announced that their staffers were going to be among the first to be given the inoculations beginning today, but last night the President changed his mind.

In 2007, under then President G.W. Bush, a National continuity policy was established. It is called the National Security Presidential Directive NSPD 51/Homeland Security Presidential Directive HSPD-20 or, in simpler terms, Executive Directive 51.

The directive is meant to offer a comprehensive plan to ensure the continuity of power in the midst of a national emergency. It defined an emergency as being "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions."

The COVID-19 pandemic certainly falls under this definition of national emergency. Under most circumstances it would make perfect sense that the people around the President and Vice President would be among the first to be inoculated to guarantee that the smooth forward movement of government would continue.

These aren’t most circumstances. Many White House staffers, including the President, himself, have already contracted the virus. They have also continued to downplay the seriousness of it. They are now in the strange position of having to convince the American public to take the vaccine for a virus that they have spent a year claiming was a hoax.

As injections are starting, there is a $250 million national public relations campaign getting underway to promote its safety.

Remember, this is the Administration that suggested injecting bleach to fight the virus.

This is the Administration that advocated several unproven drug protocols that subsequently turned out to be ineffective.

This Administration is the one that, even today, are hosting indoor holiday parties in the White House without masks, social distancing or any other of the guidelines suggested by the CDC.

The members of this Administration might not be the best people to head this particular PR campaign.

The Washington Post has an interesting article about an early smallpox vaccine that was developed by Cotton Mather in 1720.

It was somewhat dangerous as it involved infecting the recipient with a mild case of the disease. People administering this treatment would have a small section of their skin scraped off and a serum containing smallpox would be applied. When successful small pock marks would occur near where the procedure had been done. That’s actually where the name of the disease, ‘smallpox’ came from.

Cotton Mather’s procedure was considered so dangerous that several states banned it. Over 100,000 people in the colonies had already lost their lives to smallpox so people were desperate to get it anyway. The demand was so high that Massachusetts eventually repealed the ban.

People flocked to Boston.

Future First Lady Abigail Adams took her four children there in 1776 and submitted them all to the painful and dangerous operation. One of her kids had to have it done three times before it worked.

General Washington, in 1777, ordered that all of his troops submit to the inoculation.

In 1798, a British doctor, Edward Jenner, created an actual vaccine that didn’t require the live virus and Cotton Mather’s method could then be abandoned. Abigail Adams and her family survived the earlier method although Abigail, herself, would eventually lose her life to yet another disease for which there was no vaccine for yet, Typhoid fever.

When it was announced that the people around the current President were going to start getting the vaccine today, there was certainly a cry of complaint raised among his opponents.

Why should they get it? Why should the people who are denying that the virus even exists be among the first to be inoculated against it when there are so many more people around the nation who are more deserving?

The White House hasn’t said why he changed his mind. On some level, video of the President and Vice President getting the shots might actually help his supporters change their attitudes. Not getting the shot, is likely to have the opposite effect.

The other long-awaited event that is happening at exactly the same time this morning is that the Electoral College is convening around the country to formally cast their ballots. The process started this morning when Vermont cast its three votes for the Biden/Harris ticket and will conclude at 7pm EST when Hawaii cast their votes. If all goes well, President-elect Biden should pass the 270-vote threshold at about 5pm when California casts their ballots.

Despite the fact that it would be extremely unlikely that anything that happens today would change the outcome of the election, it is still rather nerve-wracking to watch it all unfold.

I don’t remember ever paying attention to the Electoral College casting their votes before. Today, there are cameras and reporters galore in every place around the country that it’s happening. All of the news outlets are carrying it live and will be all day.

32 states plus Washington D.C. have laws in place to discourage ‘faithless-electors’ meaning electors who end up voting for the opposite party. This summer the Supreme Court ruled on a case that upheld their right to do that.

Even given that there is the potential that the remaining 18 states could possibly switch their votes, it is extremely unlikely that they would.

Prior to the election each party nominates its slate of electors. So, in Vermont, for example, the Republicans had three and the Democrats had three. The Democrats won the popular vote in Vermont, so the three democrats are the ones who cast their ballots today.

It would be fairly remarkable for electors to vote for someone who didn’t win the popular vote to begin with, but extremely remarkable for electors to go against their own party.

In the last election, three electors in the state of Washington switched their votes to General Colin Powell instead of Hillary Clinton. A fourth cast their vote for Faith Spotted-Eagle an anti-Keystone Pipeline protester. They were each fine $1,000 and the appeal on that is the case that the Supreme Court ruled on when they said that states had the right to set their own rules around the process.

In the election of 2000, George W. Bush only won 271 electoral votes. If only two College electors had defected, the vote would have gone to the house. Biden’s lead is so big in comparison this year, that thirty-eight voters would need to switch allegiance before the President would get the requisite 270.

If this were a political thriller, the Republicans would have kidnapped the children of the Democratic electors and be holding them hostage or be blackmailing them to change their votes. While nothing that the Republicans have done this year would indicate that they wouldn’t stoop to something like that, given the votes already in, it doesn’t seem that they did. So far, anyway.

All of that is not to say that the Republicans are actually supporting this process. Far from it.

Republican state representative Gary Eisen announced on a Michigan radio station this morning that he was part of a group that is organizing a protest today against the casting of the Electoral College votes. He said that he couldn’t rule out violence. In response, his fellow Michigan Republican legislative leaders removed him from his committee assignments. The Capitol was closed to visitors today because of these credible threats of danger.

On Saturday night, crowds of the President’s supporters in response to the Supreme Court throwing out Texas’ bid to nullify some election results in other states, clashed with Police in Washington D.C. 8 officers were injured and 33 of the protesters were arrested.

By evening, counter-protesters far outnumbered the President’s people. Even so, members of far-right groups like the Proud Boys, kept the violence going through the night.

There have been countless reports of threats being made to Democratic electors across the nation ranging from violence against them and their families to actual death threats.

The few Republican voices that have spoken up against this have been drowned out by the silence from the White House. The President stands by all of this unlawful and dangerous action. He’s encouraging it.

Today will take us one more step closer to being rid of this President. While there is light at the end of the tunnel, it is still rather far away for us to really get a good fix on.

On a trip to Norway some years ago, Michael and I drove through the Laerdal tunnel on our way to Bergen which lies to the west of Oslo.

Laerdal is the longest traffic tunnel on the planet. It is just over 15 miles long. Entering the tunnel, you cannot see the light at the other end of it for a very long time. But you know it’s there ahead of you.

So it is for us. This seems endless, but we are getting there.

There is reason to be hopeful at the beginning of this, yet another, strange pandemic post-election week. The vaccine has begun being administered. The Electoral College vote will be done in a few hours.

If that wasn’t enough, early voting began today in Georgia for the Senate runoff race.

We are moving through this tunnel.

While we go, try and take in the gifts that all of the holidays that are happening around us offer.

Tonight, is the 5th night of Hanukkah. The Festival of Light.

Let's light another candle in this darkness and celebrate.

חנוכה שמח