Vaccines may help bring a gradual end to the coronavirus pandemic – if we are smart enough to use them.  The case surge in the US suggests we may not be – and makes me wonder yet again where our national leadership is on the issue.  Focusing on disenfranchisement, I guess.

The graph id from David Leonhardt’s The Morning newsletter at the NY Times. Sources: Hospitals and health agencies, World Bank

The first doses of an approved SARS-CoV2 vaccine to be administered in the US are being given today, December 14. It’s hard to overstate what an incredible achievement this is for the scientific community that rapidly identified the culprit virus, quickly identified and published its genome, determined its means of cellular entry, identified target proteins for vaccine development, produced a number of apparently functionally protective vaccines, and then rapidly began manufacture, all in less than a year.  This could not have happened so quickly even a decade ago.  Thank you to everyone who made these efforts first possible, then come to fruition, and to the health care workers who have striven so mightily to keep people alive while awaiting what will hopefully be a solution to the pandemic.  We owe you all an enormous debt.

From the NY Times’ Decency Agenda series, expressing yet another way DJT has damaged our country: “Presidents are role models. Their words and comportment influence their supporters and, more generally, set the tone for the national discourse. Mr. Trump has not merely normalized cruelty and boorishness; he has given it the imprimatur of the Oval Office.”

The multitude of reprehensible, self-centered, and self-evidently false tweets and statements issued by our current president regarding the November presidential election are by any standard destructive and un-American.  That they have been met by a most conspicuous silence on the part of Republican leadership is yet another striking example of their hypocrisy, lack of empathy and fixation on their idiosyncratic goals rather than those of all Americans.  So kudos to Georgia’s voting system implementation manager Gabriel Sterling, who finally called out his leadership for their failures (reported by the NYT here):

“This is elections,” Mr. Sterling said. “This is the backbone of democracy, and all of you who have not said a damn word are complicit in this. It’s too much. Yes, fight for every legal vote. Go through your due process. We encourage you, use your First Amendment, that’s fine. Death threats, physical threats, intimidation — it’s too much, it’s not right. They’ve lost the moral high ground to claim that it is.”

He continued: “I can’t begin to explain the level of anger I have right now over this. And every American, every Georgian, Republican and Democrat alike, should have that same level of anger.”

Thank you, Mr. Sterling.

Heather Cox Richardson reminds us that the origins of Thanksgiving as a national holiday lie in the Civil War. Read more in her November 25 Letters from an American.

This can’t be good for America (or the world); consider a national Monmouth poll released yesterday where the specific wording of the question was, “Do you believe Joe Biden won this election fair and square, or do you believe that he only won it due to voter fraud?” Overall, 60% of the public agrees that Biden won “fair and square” (!only 60%!). Then consider this: 58% of conservatives, 70% of Republicans, and 77% of Trump voters said they believe Biden only won the election due to voter fraud.  If you are worried about how the president-elect can hope to govern effectively, I am too. I suggest the following:

Yuval Noah Harari’s “When the World Seems Like One Big Conspiracy”  Excerpt: “A recent survey of 26,000 people in 25 countries asked respondents whether they believe there is “a single group of people who secretly control events and rule the world together.” Thirty seven percent of Americans replied that this is “definitely or probably true.” So did 45 percent of Italians, 55 percent of Spaniards and 78 percent of Nigerians.”

Farhad Manjoo’s “I Spoke to a Scholar of Conspiracy Theories and I’m Scared for Us” Excerpt: “I have become consumed with an alarming possibility: that neither the polls nor the actual outcome of the election really matter, because to a great many Americans, digital communication has already rendered empirical, observable reality beside the point…What makes digital lies so difficult to combat is not just the technology used to spread them, but also the nature of the societies they’re targeting, including their political cultures.”

We have been incredibly patient, @GSAEmily, but we can wait no longer. Your refusal to follow the law is active and existential threat to our democratic norms and institutions.

You owe us, and the American people, an explanation. We are demanding you provide one. By Monday. pic.twitter.com/lcMfJNrp2P

— Rep. Gerry Connolly (@GerryConnolly) November 20, 2020

Thank you, thank you, to the millions who voted to fill the American leadership vacuum with someone actually fit to do the job. Future Americans are in your debt.

• If you have not already voted, please remember to vote today. I hope you will choose to do so in a way that preserves our democracy.

• Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz tells the truth about taxes in the NYT – Republicans, Not Biden, Are About to Raise Your Taxes (except if you’re rich, in which case they will go down).  The law initially lowered taxes for many, but there are automatic stepped increases starting after this election year, increases every two years through 2027 for people making under $75K (about 65% of the population).  Some excerpts:

• The current poverty line for a family of four is $26,200: People with incomes between $10,000 and $30,000 — nearly one-quarter of Americans — are among those scheduled to pay a higher average tax rate in 2021 than in years before the tax “cut” was passed. The C.B.O. and Joint Committee estimated that those with an income of $20,000 to $30,000 would owe an extra $365 next year — these are people who are struggling just to pay rent and put food on the table.

• By 2027, when the law’s provisions are set to be fully enacted, with the stealth tax increases complete, the country will be neatly divided into two groups: Those making over $100,000 will on average get a tax cut. Those earning under $100,000 — an income bracket encompassing three-quarters of taxpayers — will not.

• At the same time, Trump has given his peers, people with annual incomes in excess of $1 million dollars, or the top 0.3 percent in the country, a huge gift: The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated the average tax rate in 2019 for this group to be 2.3 percentage points lower than before the tax cut, saving the average taxpayer in this group over $64,000 — more than the average American family makes in a year.