We Need a 9/11 Commission for COVID

A.B. Stoddard on Deborah Birx's attempt to whitewash her Trumpian actions.

Leading The Bulwark…

We Need a 9/11 Commission for COVID

A.B. STODDARD: Deborah Birx’s attempt to whitewash her actions shows why we need a full accounting of what the Trump administration did.

🎧 On the Pods… 🎧

Tim Miller on Making Sense of Georgia

On today’s Bulwark podcast, Tim Miller joins Charlie Sykes to discuss the Georgia voting law, Trump’s apparent election fundraising scam, the Matt Gaetz allegations, and the GOP’s growing obsession with the culture war. Plus, the NCAA finals!

For Bulwark+ Members… 🔐

MORNING SHOTS: The Politics of Retaliation 🔓

CHARLIE SYKES: Getting it right on Georgia

THE TRIAD: COVID Is Worse Than We Think 🔓

JONATHAN V. LAST: We have new data on excess deaths. It's horrifying.

From The Bulwark Aggregator…

• It’s anything but the economy, stupid – Josh Kraushaar, National Journal

• One Republican’s Lonely Fight Against a Flood of Disinformation – Jeremy W. Peters, The New York Times

• What the New CDC Travel Guidance Means—And Doesn’t – The Atlantic

• How a Custody Fight Plus QAnon Turned Deadly – Georgia Wells and Justin Scheck, The Wall Street Journal

• High-Speed Rail Advocates Should Pay Attention to California’s Costly Disaster – Paul Detrick, Reason Magazine

• Why Being ‘Anti-Media’ Is Now Part Of The GOP Identity – Meredith Conroy, FiveThirtyEight

• Progressives target Jim Cooper for primary challenge – Molly Otterbein, Politico

In The Bulwark...

WEEKEND TRIAD: The Georgia Debacle

TIM MILLER on why suppression ain’t peachy.

WEEKEND MORNING SHOTS: Georgia, Gaetz, and Infrastructure

CHARLIE SYKES on the week’s reader mail.

🚨OVERTIME 🚨

Happy Monday! If you celebrated a holiday over the past few days, I hope it was a good one. I smoked some Easter briskets and they turned out great. I may have to turn in my Midwesterner card, but we also had baked ham, but I am not a fan of ham.

The Easter Egg hunt was a success… and many an Easter memory was created. Though, I was bothered all weekend about the attack on the Capitol, and the death of Billy Evans, who had served on the USCP force for 18 years. I may have met him over the years in passing, at a checkpoint or something, but I did not know him. Friends of mine on the force knew him and spoke highly of him. Including one who has known him since childhood. It’s heartbreaking to watch your kids celebrate a holiday and think of a family like his, lacking their dad. When there is an official GoFundMe, I will be sharing it here and hope you will consider donating if you’re able.

Rest in Peace.

Are conservatives facing extinction? At The Washington Post, Daniel Drezner argues:

Conservatives are not crazy to feel like they are facing some existential threats. They start to sound crazy in failing to recognize their own culpability in the situation they find themselves in.

“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”

As a lifelong conservative Republican, I see this going on right now with the GOP’s crazily woke counter-cancel-culture. “I HAVE ALWAYS LOVED PEPSI.” Look at this op-ed in Sundays’s Wall Street Journal. It’s insane. Consumers are insisting their corporations love or turn a blind eye to their political beliefs? Are you kidding me? Next up: 2022 candidates on the GOP side arguing against Citizens United.

It’ll be a long road for Republicans to attract voters like me, who, as I said earlier, have worked in Republican politics their entire adult lives, with shit like this.

We already saw it in Georgia. Nice fuel tax breaks you have there, Delta. Shame if anything were to happen to them. MLB, oh, your congressional antitrust exemption? Chip Roy is #OnIt.

Burgess Everett @burgessev

McConnell takes aim at corporate US: “Parts of the private sector keep dabbling in behaving like a woke parallel government. Corporations will invite serious consequences if they become a vehicle for far-left mobs to hijack our country from outside the constitutional order."

While there are good policy reasons to argue against such tax breaks or antitrust exemptions, that is not what GOP politicians are doing. Their feelings are hurt and they’re reacting out of malice. Muh principles.

There were always the roots. Consider David Harsanyi, formerly of The Federalist, now of National Review, who tweeted the following on the same day this news broke:

It’s all silly, of course. David, presumably from his tweet, ate chicken sandwiches he thought were stupid for years as a form of protest. Why.

And to those reading who have deeply rooted boycotts, based on a personal experience I hear you. It’s just that they generally don’t work. Ask Chick-fil-A, which still is thriving (despite LGBT advocates boycotting, and now, David Harsanyi), or generally any primetime show on Fox News which has objectionable content. Which is to say all of nearly all of them.

It just seems to me that at some point if you’re living your life by some extremely complicated Rube Goldberg scheme that points, eventually, back to supporting the Kochs or George Soros or, in these times, Coca-Cola, Delta, or Major League Baseball, you’re doing it wrong.

But I’m not the boss of you. You do you. Like Harvey Dent said: "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."

I think we know which route the current crop of Republican leaders chose.

But hey, that last guy who told us to boycott Oreos, iPhones, and many other things? Looky here:

Josh Billinson @jbillinson

He’s hiding his Diet Coke bottle behind the phone a day after telling everyone to boycott Coca-Cola! https://t.co/K2is5hpl7o

Stephen Miller @StephenM

Just had a terrific meeting with President Trump! https://t.co/jGyAnURAky

“partisan political politics…” I think the Governor of Texas needs better letter writers.

Jonathan Franks @jonfranks

The Governor of Texas has written a letter to MLB accusing it of “being influenced by partisan political politics.”

This is embarrassing. Not only does Rep. Gaetz apparently lack such counsel, so does The Washington Examiner.

Oliver Darko @oliver_drk

Does Matt Gaetz have no lawyer friends who shout "stop"?

Bally Games? It’s opening day in Cleveland, and I was (rudely) awakened to the fact that Fox Sports sold their rights to others and those others, who will not be named, let a casino and sports gaming network take over its name? It’s capitalism, but it’s gross.

Do Facts Matter Anymore? Listen to our pal Tom Nichols on Utterly Moderate.

Speaking of which… Half of GOP voters have lost it.

Get ready for the cicada social media invasion. Because last time it happened big time, Twitter wasn’t a thing.

Turns out trying to be Donald Trump… Only works for Donald Trump.

Labash v. Metaxas. I’m not a boxing or wrestling guy, but Labash seems to have won in round 1. Granted, I’m biased because I worked with Matt, love him like a brother, and think that Evil Paul Rudd is an unprincipled sellout. But even putting aside those biases, it was quite the read.

I want to make this. Will my wife let me? Probably not.

That’s it for me for today. We’ll see you back tomorrow. Questions, comments, concerns? Drop me a line: swift@thebulwark.com.

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