Background Briefing: July 7, 2020

On By gram

 

Are There Enough Racists in America for Trump to Win in November?

We begin with Trump’s reelection strategy which appears to be based on the idea that there are enough racists in this country who he can sufficiently rile up to vote for him by demonizing minorities and supporters of “social justice”. Amanda Marcotte, a politics writer for Salon joins us to discuss her latest articles at Salon “Donald Trump’s reelection bet: American voters are still racist at heart” and “Why the American Left Embodies the True Spirit of Patriotism”. With the Fox host Tucker Carlson who Trump slavishly follows, attacking Senator Tammy Duckworth, a likely VP pick for Biden, we assess how much Trump’s reelection strategy is also a continuation of his politics of distraction. Carlson accused Tammy Duckworth of hating America because in a CNN interview she said we should have a national debate about our founding father’s ties to slavery at another time but not now when 3 million Americans have the coronavirus and over 130,000 have died. Instead Senator Duckworth argued we should be talking about how Trump has failed to protect the American people and to protect our soldiers who the Russians are paying bounties to kill which Trump has said and done nothing about. Amanda argues that since Trump will not leave office once he is defeated in November, THAT is what we should be talking about now while planning to deal with how to win by such an overwhelming margin that this racist criminal will be swept into the dustbin of history.

 

A Little But Not Enough Transparency on Who Got the SBA’s PPP Money

Then with the SBA’s release of 650,000 recipients of forgivable loans under the Paycheck Protection Program which is only 15% of the total paid out, we will investigate why out of the $600 billion authorized, $125 billion is yet to be distributed. Craig Holman, the Government Affairs Legislative Representative for Public Citizen joins us to discuss how the money was funneled through banks to many of Trump’s cronies and family members along with Republican Congressmen whose businesses were bailed out without any requirement to protect jobs which was the intention of the legislation.

 

NATO Members French and Turkish Warships Clash Off Libya

Then finally with French and Turkish warships almost opening fire on each other near Libya, we look into growing tensions between NATO members on different sides of the civil war in Libya and Turkey’s extravagant claim of dominance over the Eastern Mediterranean. Henri Barkey, Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University who served as a member of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff working on the Middle East, the Eastern Mediterranean and Intelligence, joins us to discuss his article at The Asia Times “Turkey’s ‘Blue Homeland’ doctrine in the Mediterranean takes shape in Libya.”