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Catherine A. Sanderson, Opinion contributor Published 5:00 a.m. ET Dec. 23, 2020

Early intervention against low-level aggression applies in all sorts of situations. Sweating the small stuff works. Republicans should try it sometime.

Only 27 congressional Republicans were willing to acknowledge the results of the November election in a Washington Postsurvey this month.A majority of Republicans in Congress backed a lawsuit filed by the attorney general of Texas to overturn President-elect Joe Bidens victory. Multiple news outlets reported that on Friday, President Donald Trump discussed invoking martial law and appointing a conspiracy theorist to investigate voter fraud.On Sunday, he asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse three Pennsylvania Supreme Court rulings on ballots cast there.

Many have been shocked by the silence and even support of so many elected members of the GOP in response to Trumps increasingly outlandish claims. But their behavior isnt at all surprising to social psychologists: Its a perfect demonstration of how toxic environments grow gradually, as problematic behavior starts with something small that then continues and expands.

Francesca Gino and Max Bazerman at the Harvard Business School designed a series of studies to test whether people would be less likely to report bad behavior if it built up gradually. They asked participants to serve as auditors and to accept or reject estimates of the number of pennies in a jar. In some cases the estimators gradually inflated their numbers over time increasing by just 40cents a round. In others they made more abrupt changes,jumping by $4.Over half (52%) of the gradual change auditors approved the estimates, compared with only 24%of those in the abrupt change group.The authors attribute this difference to the boiling frog effect.

And this slippery slope isnt unique to the political world.It happens in all types of environments, from fraternity houses to corporate boards.

In the fall of 2018,the psychological community was stunned when they heard that current and former students of Dartmouth Colleges Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences had filed a lawsuit accusing three well-known faculty members of engaging in inappropriate behavior including sexual harassment and assault over more than 16years.(In August 2019, Dartmouth settled the lawsuit for $14million, although the college did not admit liability.)

As Leah Somerville, director of the Affective Neuroscience and Development Laboratory at Harvard University, wrote abouther own experience as a graduate student at Dartmouth: If you are steeped in an environment with toxic norms, it is likely that you cant even see it for yourself. For example, while I was there it was common for certain faculty members to joke about details of trainees sex lives in the lab and public settings. At first, this made me very uncomfortable. But as those types of exchanges happened regularly and became more egregious, they seemed less and less scandalous.

U.S. Capitol building on Dec. 20, 2020, in Washington, D.C.(Photo: Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

Real-world cases of corporate fraud provide similar evidence of the slippery slope of problematic behavior. Interviews with financial executives indicted for accounting fraud reveal that their conductin virtually all cases escalated gradually. Heres how one former chief financial officer described it: Crime starts small, it progresses very slowly. First you work off the books. Some people say its not a crime, OK, well rationalize it and say its not a crime. And once you start down this path, its really hard to pull yourself out.

What can we do to avoid following in the footsteps of so many in the Republican Party in our own personal and professional lives?

Strangers to me: I used to cover Republicans who are cowering to Trump. I don't recognize them now.

First, increase self-awareness.We all like to think of ourselves as good peoplewho do the right thing.Subtle reminders of our own behavior can therefore push us toward more ethical behavior.A study by researchers at Harvard Business School found that 37%of students who sign an honor code before completing a financial form ultimately cheat but that number climbs to 79%when students sign their name only after completing the form.

And it's not just college students who show greater honesty when first asked to affirm a commitment to ethical behavior.Car insurance customers who are asked to sign a statement verifying the information they provide is true before completing the form report higher car mileage (and thus greater premiums) than those who sign only at the end of the form. These small cues that increase self-awareness like signing your name can push people toward more ethical behavior. Its precisely why I make all students in my classes sign a pledge at the start of each exam I give.

Another subtle strategy for pushing people toward ethical behavior is to ask people to reflect on a time when they did not behave honorably and which they now regret. Research by Ayelet Fishbach at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Oliver Sheldon at Rutgers Business School demonstrates that asking people to reflect on their own bad behavior in the past reduces their willingness to do so again. Why? This step at least pushes us to think about the choice we are making, before we head down that slippery slope.

Former NH GOP chair: Texas lawsuit was the last straw. I'm leavingRepublicans.

Finally, when we find ourselves in a tricky situation, its really important to take a single step in the right direction.For example, the anti-bullying program Steps to Respect trains teachers and students to call out subtle forms of aggression like name-calling and ostracism, instead of waiting for behavior to escalate to physical violence. Responding to low-level types of bullying helps people gain skills that make it easier to respond more effectively to more overt acts of bullying. But more important, stopping low-level aggression mightchange the school climate to one where fewer students feel ostracized and there is less bullying later on.

This same process of early intervention applies in all sorts of daily situations, from calling out a friend for making a racist joke, reporting hazing on an athletic teamto confronting a colleague who falsifies expense reports.This is precisely the approach used in the most effective programs shown to prevent bullying in schools, harassment in the workplace, and police misconduct.In other words, do sweat the small stuff. Republicans should think about trying it.

Catherine A. Sanderson,the Poler Family Professor and Chair of Psychology at Amherst College, isthe author of "Why We Act: Turning Bystanders into Moral Rebels."Follow her on Twitter:@SandersonSpeaks

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Slippery slopes and the boiling-frog effect: How the Republican Party succumbed to Trump - USA TODAY

GOP party leaders and elected officials who've gone all-in for Trump, backed by right-wing media, have relentlessly attacked those who can't bring themselves to go along with the lame-duck President's refusal to concede.

To be sure, similar splits exist across the GOP nationwide. But the infighting in Arizona offers a clear picture of why some Republicans fear that if Trump continues stirring up and directing his followers once he's out of office, the party may cripple itself at the state and local level. The discord within the party could quickly hamstring the GOP as it enters a crucial election cycle: Republicans have lost both of Arizona's Senate seats in the last two elections, and are entering 2022 with both the governor's office and a Senate seat on the ballot. The divides between more moderate Arizona Republicans and Trump allies like state GOP chairwoman Kelli Ward could lead to bitter primaries that could hurt the party's hopes of fielding strong candidates in the fall.

"It has become very toxic," said one Republican state lawmaker, who would only speak on condition of not being named. "Eighty percent with you isn't enough for some people... Trump is so popular in the party and such an influence, that anyone who tries to purge Trump himself or his memory will utterly fail and go nowhere."

"Some Republicans have decided to file for divorce from reality, facts be damned," said Barrett Marson, a publicist who worked for Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey's political action committee in the 2020 election.

At the same time as Republicans did well in down-ballot races, Trump's hard-core following in Arizona wasn't enough for him to win the state this year. Nearly as shocking, to Republicans, was Democrat Mark Kelly's win in the US senate race over Sen. Martha McSally. McSally, after two terms in the US House, narrowly lost a Senate race to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema in 2018; Ducey later appointed her to the late Sen. John McCain's seat. She lost to Kelly in the race to serve out the last two years of McCain's term by nearly 79,0000 votes.

As one GOP official groused, "The last time Arizona had two Democrats in the US Senate, the nation was on edge waiting for little Ricky to be born on 'I Love Lucy.'" That was in 1953.

Normally, Kelly would be seen as vulnerable in 2022, because in Arizona, as elsewhere, the GOP historically has outpaced the Democratic Party in midterm turnout.

But the GOP infighting could change that calculus.

Former state attorney general Grant Woods, a lifelong Republican who says he left the party because of Trump, thinks the Arizona GOP has put itself in an impossible place.

"Right now, I'm confident the governor could not win a primary. He's entered into Jeff Flake territory; he's getting it from the right and the left...[And] You're not going to beat Kelly with a Trumper candidate in the general election, but could anyone else win the primary?"

Citing two of Trump's biggest supporters in the state's congressional delegation, Woods added that if Rep. Paul Gosar or Biggs "or one of those sorts runs, they're going to get stomped," in the general election.

Mike Noble, chief of research for OH Predictive Insights, an Arizona polling firm, says the data are clear: "A base-only strategy will not get it done for the GOP statewide." He said that the 2020 vote here was effectively a referendum, rejecting Trump even as Republicans held on to their 31-29 margin in the state house, and lost one seat but kept control of the state senate.

Noble said he considers Arizona a "magenta" state -- that is, the very lightest shade of red.

"The X factor out there is Trump," he said. "With a stroke of his thumb, he can raise funds overnight for someone, millions. If he stays involved and helps a Trump state, it could cause a lot of damage for the GOP, exhausting resources. It would be tough; Democrats, especially in Arizona, are very united, compared to Republicans."

Such fears aren't lost on some Trump backers within the party.

"Republicans in this state got a wake-up call; we have to do everything we can to find unity going into the next cycle," said Michael Burke, GOP party chair for Pinal County, southeast of Phoenix. Burke sent a letter to Ducey in November signed by 14 of the GOP's 15 party chairs, calling on the governor to convene a special session to look into allegations of voting irregularities. The fifteenth party chair, Rae Chornenky, of Maricopa County, resigned a week earlier under pressure from the state chair, Ward, after she failed to observe a pre-election test of voting equipment, including ballot tabulators from Dominion Voting Systems, in her county.

Still, Burke says of the party divisions, "there will be remnants of that for a long time, but it will blow over."

Marson, the publicist, agrees, saying, "People can move past things after two full years. There's a lot of time to heal the wounds of 2020."

Others see less prospect of any end to the infighting.

"The rift isn't, 'let's find a way to get along;' the rift is, you need to have the proper role of government restored," said state Senator-elect Kelly Townsend, who is aligned with Ward and signed a resolution asking Congress to recognize a slate of 11 pretend GOP electors.

Townsend said she simply meant the tweet as a criticism of Ducey's actions; but she also said of the governor, "How do you trust someone like that again?" and reiterated her belief that investigations into the election need to continue. "We should not turn our eyes away from this in the name of getting along to win."

Ducey declined requests for an interview with CNN, as did Ward. Reps. Gosar and Biggs didn't respond to interview requests.

On November 30, Ducey was in the midst of a public ceremony signing off on the certification of Arizona's election results, awarding the state's 11 electors to Biden, when his cell phone began playing "Hail to the Chief," a ringtone Ducey told reporters he'd reserved for Trump. Ducey muted his phone and put it on the desk while he finished signing. Trump attacked shortly after, saying "Arizona will not forget what Ducey just did."

Ducey, who is term-limited under state law, has not said what his plans are for 2022. But it isn't just the governor whose future is unclear.

"A lot of people are upset with legislators, with the governor, the attorney general. They think we have far more power to take pro-Trump measures than in fact we have," said one GOP state lawmaker who asked not to be named; similarly, the lawmaker said, "No one wins with Covid if you're a public official. Half the people think you're trying to kill them, and half think you're taking away their freedom."

Woods, for his part, sees one, narrow path forward for Republicans in Arizona: Organizing the moderate wing.

"If you want to get rid of Kelli Ward, you're going to have to organize, get regular people, spend the time and do it. They should do that. I don't know if they will or not; it's very difficult. It takes time and organizational skills... you have to spend the time, talk to people, motivate them. Moderation is a relative term. Being more moderate than Kelli Ward doesn't take a lot. But it's always more difficult to organize around the centrist," he said.

"You never see parades with people holding signs saying, 'moderation now,'' Wood added, "even though that's where most people are."

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Arizona Republicans worry party infighting could harm them in future elections - CNN

John Ahern, a longtime Spokane businessman-turned Republican lawmaker known for tireless door-to-door campaigning, his friendly nature and conservative politics died Saturday. He was 86.

He died from natural causes after enduring multiple cardiovascular issues and a recent case of pneumonia, said his son, Mike Ahern.

Prior to his work in the Legislature, Ahern ran his own business, Janco Products Incorporated, since 1981, selling office supply products. The skills he learned from running the business allowed him to connect to people while running and working in the Legislature.

Watching him in the Legislature, working and talking to people, is one my favorite memories of him, Mike Ahern said. He fought hard for his constituents. He didnt even care what party they were a part of or what cause they were fighting for. Every cause or issue they cared about he would listen to and, boom, he was on the phone.

Ahern had a reputation of being an affable and caring man.

He liked to involve people, said County Commissioner Josh Kerns, who served on Aherns staff in the Legislature. He would ask my thoughts on things, teach me the legislative process and how to find certain things. He was a teacher at heart. He always talked about how his grandmother was a teacher and some of that definitely rubbed off on him.

Ahern loved teaching young leaders and met frequently with Gonzagas College Republicans Club, Kerns said.

From 2001 to 2008, Ahern served as state representative for Washingtons 6th district. He lost his seat to Democratic Rep. John Driscoll in 2008. Ahern won the seat back from Driscoll in 2010 and served until he retired in 2012.

John was a devoted family man and I always admired that about him, Driscoll said. Wherever he went, he had his wife and at least one of his kids with him. He was just a good, solid Spokane citizen and I admire the public servant work he has done.

After leaving the Legislature, Ahern ran unsuccessfully for Spokane City Council in 2013 and for City Council president in 2015.

As a lawmaker, Ahern promoted low taxes and less regulations. He opposed abortion rights and same-sex marriage.

His biggest passion was public safety and veterans issues. He was incredibly proud to have played a roll in bringing a veterans home to Eastern Washington, Kerns said. And the felony DUI bill is always something he loved to talk about.

Ahern was instrumental in the creation of the Veterans Home in Spokane. He also helped to construct and pass a law that allowed felony charges and prison time to be given to chronic drunken or drugged drivers in Washington.

Politicians on both sides of the aisle knew Ahern as a campaigner who never tired of ringing doorbells to make a pitch to a voter.

Back in 2010, John was trying to get his seat back in the house. John was out there doorbelling every day, said Spokane County Treasurer Michael Baumgartner, who served with Ahern in the Legislature. I dont think God ever made a doorbeller like John Ahern. I think people had written him off and stopped talking to him, but he was a people person and dedicated to his job.

Kerns said many had written him off after he lost his race in 2008, assuming he wouldnt win again.

One thing about him is how forgiving he was, even when he lost his race in 2008 and a lot of people wrote him off and had nothing to do with him, Kerns said. When he won his seat back in 2010, he forgave every single person. He never held a grudge, was conniving, or looking for a way to get even. If you did him wrong, he would forgive you.

This level of forgiveness allowed Ahern to focus his energy on getting his policy passed instead of settling a score.

In his last term, Ahern wanted to pass a bill to extend the statute of limitations on cases of sexual assault involving children.

John was relentless on helping get a bill about helping the victims of sexual violence passed, Baumgartner said. He went to the Senate and camped out at Lisa Browns office, who didnt want to give him the bill and said she didnt have time to meet with him. He camped out there until she had time to meet.

Ahern was not ultimately the one who ushered it into becoming a law, but Kerns said he laid the groundwork for his predecessor, Rep. Jeff Holy.

Besides his son, Mike, Ahern is survived by his wife, Nancy Ahern, whom he married in 1963, two other children and four grandchildren.

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Retired Republican state Rep. John Ahern dies at 86 - The Spokesman-Review

After record turnout in the 2020 presidential election, Republicans in some states are already signaling they will pursue measures that make it harder to vote in the coming years.

The Republican efforts come after an election in which nearly 160 million people voted, the highest in a presidential election in over a century. About half of voters cast their ballots by mail, a big increase from 2016, while about another quarter cast their ballots in person ahead of election day.

The GOP backlash underscores how swiftly and severely the party is willing to cut off access to the ballot amid signs of a changing electorate. The baseless accusations of fraud that Donald Trump and other allies continue to levy about the election has offered election officials justification for passing the measures.

There will be some states where it is very clear that the existing power structure is worried about their voters. And part of their job security plan is to make it harder for their voters to participate, said Myrna Prez, director of the voting rights and elections program at the Brennan Center for Justice.

Two states that appear to be at the center of the push are Georgia and Texas, where Republicans are already advocating measures to scale back mail-in voting and other access to the ballot. Both states, traditionally seen as Republican strongholds, are increasingly seen as politically competitive because of demographic shifts, with the electorate becoming much more diverse. In Georgia, there has been significant growth among Black, Hispanic and Asian eligible voters over the last two decades, while Texas has seen a surge in its Latino population.

I am not at all surprised to see this happening in Texas and Georgia that I think are on the cusp of a big shift, Prez said. You have some dinosaurs who are not going to stay in power much longer trying to suppress votes.

In Georgia, a state where record numbers of voters cast their ballots by mail, Republicans who control the state legislature have said they want to pass a slew of new restrictions focused on mail-in voting. They have said they want to require voters to submit a copy of their ID with their mail-in ballot and eliminate ballot drop boxes. While Georgia currently allows anyone to vote by mail, Republicans said they intend to work on a new law that would only allow voters to cast a mail-in ballot if they have an excuse. Newt Gingrich, the conservative Georgian and former speaker of the US House, complained earlier this month that Republicans were helping Democrats by making it easier to vote.

The Republican push to do away with no-excuse absentee voting comes just 15 years after the party embraced the practice and adopted a state law doing away with the excuse requirement to vote by mail. In previous elections, Republicans in the state have used the practice more widely than Democrats, said Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia.

Now, theyre clearly operating on the premise that: fewer votes, we win, he said. Making it harder to do absentee voting, assuming we dont remain all locked in our homes because of the pandemic, that may hurt Republicans more than Democrats. Its kind of a simple, kneejerk reaction to an election they very narrowly lost.

Helen Butler, the executive director of the Georgia Coalition for the Peoples Agenda, a civil rights group that works on expanding voter access, questioned why Republicans were suddenly interested in restricting access to vote by mail. Im just gonna be honest, more white people used vote by mail than people of color, because they didnt trust the process now that weve got them trusting the process, now they want to go in and change the rules, she told the Guardian earlier this month.

In Texas, which already has some of the most stringent rules around voting in the country, lawmakers have pre-filed several bills with new restrictions. One bill would prevent state officials from sending out applications to vote by mail. The measure comes after election officials in Harris county tried to mail applications to all 2.4 million registered voters in the county.

There are definitely going to be those same efforts, like we saw during the election, to combat what local election administrators are doing to try and innovate to try and make voting more convenient and safer, said Anthony Gutierrez, the executive director of Common Cause Texas, a government watchdog group. Texas is always on the cutting edge of finding new ways to suppress the vote.

Another measure would require state officials to investigate anyone who casts a ballot while swearing they dont have an acceptable form of photo identification (something currently allowed under Texas law). The same bill would require the state to regularly compare its voter rolls with a Department of Homeland Security data to try and find registered non-citizens, a process that has been shown to be inaccurate in the past. In 2019, Texas officials announced they had found nearly 100,000 non-citizens on its voter rolls, but were forced to retract that accusation once the data was shown to be inaccurate.

This isnt the first time that lawmakers have moved to cut off voting access after turnout surged, Prez said. After the 2008 presidential election, Republicans took control of state legislatures in 2010 and were more likely to pass voting restrictions in places where there were high minority populations or high turnout among minority voters. People dont get threatened about participation levels until they start reaching a certain threshold where they can actually disrupt the power structure, she said.

Keith Bentele, a professor at the Southwest Institute for Research on Women at the University of Arizona who has studied efforts to restrict voting access, said it was extremely likely that Republicans who will still wield enormous power over state legislatures would pass new voting restrictions.

Given the extraordinarily intense amplification of the voter fraud myth by President Trump and allies unfolding currently, it would seem odd if state legislators did not follow through with legislation to address these alleged (and in nearly all cases immaterial) issues of election integrity, he wrote in an email.

Prez questioned what kind of message it would send to the American public to see politicians so swiftly restrict access to voting after many people used it for the first time.

What does it do to the American population to have to see our politicians being so self serving. So brazen in their attempts to make it harder for people to vote?, she said. Its just gonna tell a really ugly story about America.

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Republicans strategize for next elections: 'Their plan is to make it harder for voters to participate' - The Guardian

Fed officials might no longer have to fear presidential tweets calling them boneheads, as President Donald Trump did last year in one of many missives mocking Chair Jerome Powell. But with millions out of work and the economic recovery beginning to falter, the stakes are much higher for the central bank to help the economy without running afoul of Congress.

How much blowback the Fed gets will depend on how quickly the economy is able to recover, which will in turn drive how aggressive Powell and former Fed Chair Janet Yellen, now nominated for Treasury secretary, feel they need to be in their economic intervention.

The Federal Reserve building is seen in Washington, D.C. | Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo

This is a shot across the bow by Republicans, said Ed Mills, Washington policy analyst at Raymond James. All of the commentary after Yellen was selected was, They know the Feds authority better than anybody else. They could be this dynamic duo that could do whatever it takes to support this economy.

Republicans exerted their prerogative to send a warning to the Fed: The more creative you get, the more political risk you take, he added.

The push from Senate Republicans was striking, given that the Fed has received bipartisan praise all year for its efforts to prevent a financial crisis when key debt markets began freezing up at the onset of the pandemic.

But Toomey has framed it less as a rebuke of the Fed than as an effort to head off Democratic plans to use these lending programs to bail out struggling businesses and municipalities. The move also comes as Democrats have urged the central bank to do more to combat climate change through its lending programs and oversight of banks, a demand that has drawn opposition from Republicans.

Historically, the Feds emergency powers have been about ensuring the proper functioning of markets, but as part of the CARES Act, Congress asked the central bank to step in and more directly bolster nonfinancial corporations, as well as state and local governments.

That was within its power to do without authorization, but Toomey has essentially suggested that, going forward, the Fed should ask Congress for permission to do that type of intervention. The message: The central bank should stick to its traditional role.

Those programs were complete departures from traditional, historical, normal Fed [emergency] functions, which is why the Fed came to Congress to launch them and to fund them, Toomey told reporters on Sunday.

The purpose was to restore the normal functioning of the private lending and capital markets, not as a general, all-purpose fix-all for the economy, he added. They were remarkably successful. They achieved the results we wanted. Then, the Democrats came along and decided, now, lets morph this into some other purpose.

Lending programs for state and local governments and midsized businesses have both been disappointing to Democrats. The Main Street business program lent about $10 billion out of a total capacity of $600 billion. Similarly, the municipal program only lent to a couple of borrowers: Illinois and New York Citys transit system.

Democratic lawmakers were hoping that Yellen, assuming she is confirmed, would make the loan terms more generous; the Treasury secretary shares authority over any emergency programs undertaken by the Fed.

Its an about-face from earlier this year when Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) warned the money set aside to boost Fed lending amounted to a slush fund for boosting big businesses.

You stick around D.C. long enough, all political battles come full circle, Mills said. This one just happened a little faster.

In the spring, Democrats were worried about who the Fed was going to help when [Treasury Secretary Steven] Mnuchin and Powell were setting this up, he said. Because of the election of Biden, now its Republicans who are concerned who Powell and Yellen were going to help.

For now, the $900 billion relief bill and hopes for more should lower that kind of pressure from Democrats on the Fed, particularly since the existing programs will now definitively close after this year. The programs also only offer the prospect of more debt for businesses and states, rather than an infusion of cash that only Congress can authorize.

But if Congress is unable to pass additional stimulus next year and if the economy begins sliding back into recession, the central bank could once again be in the hot seat to find a way to loosen its new handcuffs in the relief deal, which prevents the same lending programs from being recreated.

The language could give the Fed and Treasury more flexibility to design different programs that help businesses and municipalities, although Republicans would likely object if they tried, suggesting the fight this month over the Feds emergency powers could reemerge.

Already, the office of House Financial Services Chair Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) described the compromise as allowing substantially similar lending programs to help small businesses, nonprofits and states.

Its the predicament of being at the edge of your powers, said Sarah Binder, a political science professor at George Washington University, since the more the central bank does, the more it risks influencing who is able to borrow money and at what price. Its the same debates and pressures the Fed faced during the financial crisis last time. They were accused of determining winners and losers.

So long as the Fed remains central to the recovery and especially with a Democrat in the White House Republicans are likely to keep Powell in their crosshairs.

Continued here:

Fed enters Biden era with clipped wings and a warning from Republicans - POLITICO

Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, greets a supporter with an elbow bump at a drive-through event to pick up yard signs last month in Alpharetta, Ga. Ossoff is in a runoff with Republican David Perdue, the incumbent, for the U.S. Senate. Austin McAfee/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images hide caption

Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, greets a supporter with an elbow bump at a drive-through event to pick up yard signs last month in Alpharetta, Ga. Ossoff is in a runoff with Republican David Perdue, the incumbent, for the U.S. Senate.

There was still an hour to go before Vice President Pence took the stage to stump for Georgia's two incumbent U.S. senators, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. Both Republicans are fighting to hold onto their seats against Democratic challengers, with a runoff election set for Jan. 5.

But Pence was clearly the celebrity draw at this Nov. 20 campaign event in Canton, an Atlanta suburb. People were so eager to see him that parking spots were scarce and a long line of cars snaked through the parking lot of a community college. Some drivers jumped the curb and parked in the grass.

Hundreds of people, many unmasked, had to undergo temperature checks before boarding large coach buses for a short ride down the road to the rally site. It took place in a large open space outside of a conference center, but people stood close together, with little physical distancing.

Next month's runoff in Georgia was triggered after no candidate in either Senate race won more than 50% of the vote in the Nov. 3 general election.

In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and with the fate of the Affordable Care Act in question, Republicans are hoping the two incumbents can hang on to their seats, and thus preserve their party's control of the Senate, by a 50-48 margin.

But if the two Democratic challengers, the Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, both win their runoffs, it will allow Democrats to take narrow control of the Senate, with the help of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as a tiebreaker.

Yana De Moraes had come to the rally from another Atlanta suburb, Buford. She's uninsured, and, after a recent hospital stay, had been thinking a lot about how expensive medical care can be.

"We would like our health care costs lowered, so it could be more affordable," she said, with a rueful laugh. "So you don't get another heart attack while you're getting a bill!"

De Moraes added she'd also like to see better price controls on prescription drugs to stop pharmaceutical companies from "robbing American people."

Vice President Pence waves to supporters during a Nov. 20 rally in Canton, Ga. Pence appeared alongside U.S. Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. The Republican incumbents are defending their seats in a Jan. 5 runoff. Jason Armond /Los Angeles Times via Getty Images hide caption

Vice President Pence waves to supporters during a Nov. 20 rally in Canton, Ga. Pence appeared alongside U.S. Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. The Republican incumbents are defending their seats in a Jan. 5 runoff.

Other voters said they were just looking for any kind of change, ideally one that involves less government involvement in health care.

Barry Brown had made the 40-mile drive from his home in Atlanta for the rally. He's retired but too young to qualify for Medicare, so he has Obamacare insurance, which he affords with the help of a federal subsidy.

"It sort of works. It's better than nothing," Brown said. "I would like to see an improved health care situation. I don't know what that will be, so maybe they'll mention that today. I'm hoping so."

But Brown didn't get the answers he was looking for.

At the rally, Loeffler made only brief mention of her health care plan, which focuses on reducing drug prices and giving people access to insurance options that cost less but offer fewer benefits.

When it was his turn to speak, Perdue didn't talk much about health care either, though he did take a shot at Obamacare, which he's voted multiple times to overturn.

"Remember a little thing called the Affordable Care Act? You think that was done bipartisan?" Perdue asked the crowd. "No! It was done with a supermajority! Can you imagine what they're gonna do if they get control of the Senate?"

This has been typical for how the two Republicans handled health care as they campaigned throughout the state.

It's common to hear them stoke fears about what Democrats could do if they win the Senate. It's not common to hear them talk about health care despite their potential voters' interest in the issue.

Their Democrat challengers, however, have been all over health care in their own speeches.

The Rev. Raphael Warnock kicks off his runoff campaign Nov. 12 to try to unseat Loeffler. Warnock leads Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta and has been politically active in the fight to expand Medicaid to uninsured Georgians. Sam Whitehead/WABE hide caption

The Rev. Raphael Warnock kicks off his runoff campaign Nov. 12 to try to unseat Loeffler. Warnock leads Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta and has been politically active in the fight to expand Medicaid to uninsured Georgians.

Warnock opened his runoff campaign to unseat Loeffler with a modestly attended Nov. 12 event that focused entirely on health care. So did Ossoff in his bid to win Perdue's seat.

"This is why these Senate runoffs are so vital," Ossoff said at a small, physically distanced event Nov. 10 in the shadow of the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta.

Ossoff and Warnock support adding a public insurance option to the Affordable Care Act. They also have emphasized the role Democrats will play in resurrecting key parts of the law if the U.S. Supreme Court decides to overturn it. The justices are set to make a ruling next year.

"If the Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act, it will be up to Congress to decide how to legislate such that preexisting conditions remain covered," Ossoff said.

Democratic voters such as Janel Green connect with that message. She's from the nearby suburb of Decatur and is fighting breast cancer for the second time. Green is worried that if the protections in the Affordable Care Act disappear, her private health insurance might try to deny her coverage.

"I have to worry about whether or not next year in open enrollment that I won't be discriminated against, that I won't have limits that would then potentially end my life," she said.

More than one-quarter of Georgians have preexisting conditions that could make it hard to get coverage if the Affordable Care Act is struck down, according to an analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

That possibility is also driving Atlanta resident Herschel Jones to get involved in the runoff. On a recent weekday morning he dropped by an Ossoff campaign office to pick up a yard sign.

Jones, who has diabetes, is insured through the Department of Veterans Affairs. He said everyone deserves access to health care.

"It's a main issue, because the Affordable Care Act benefits all those individuals who might have preexisting conditions," Jones said.

One reason why Ossoff and Warnock are running so much harder on health care than Perdue and Loeffler is because that strategy paid off for Democrats in the general election, said Ken Thorpe, a health policy professor at Emory University.

President-elect Joe Biden can thank independent voters for his win in Georgia, Thorpe said, and they were drawn to him because of his promise to uphold Obamacare.

"The threat of potentially losing health insurance in the midst of this pandemic turned out to be probably the major defining issue in the election," he said.

Polling in the days leading up to the Nov. 3 election showed Democrats were motivated on the issues of health care and the coronavirus pandemic.

If Democrats want to win these Senate runoffs in Georgia, Thorpe said, they'll need to continue to stay focused on those issues. That emphasis could help them attract additional moderate voters as well as provide the motivation to entice those in the party base to come out again and cast ballots for a second time.

"The health care issue is the probably main motivating factor that's gonna get Democrats and independents to the polls," he continued.

But in a state that's traditionally favored Republicans in runoff races, even with a strong health care message, it'll be tough for Ossoff and Warnock to break that trend and unseat the Republicans, Thorpe said.

This story comes from NPR's reporting partnership with WABE and Kaiser Health News.

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In Georgia Senate Runoffs, Parties Diverge Sharply On Health Care Messaging : Shots - Health News - NPR

Today in a nation of 317 Million people, some 109,631,000 Americans now live in a household that receives government welfare. The number, which is likely much higher, comes from the latest Census Bureau data from the fourth quarter of 2012.

According to the Census Bureaus 2012 data, the number of people on welfare now outnumbers the number of full-time workers in this country by 6,544,000.

I believe weve reached a point in this country where theres no longer a way to dig ourselves out of the hole. While the mainstream media and the federal government continues to ignore the problem, the reality of the situation is this country is heading towards not only an economic collapse, but a collapse of society as well.

Over the last 10 days weve seen a large segment of the community in Ferguson, Missouri take to the streets violently looting, attacking and even shooting other protestors. The social unrest in this country has reached a boiling point, and its not going to take much for this chaos to spread to other areas of the country.

What were seeing happen in Ferguson is only the tip of the iceberg; once the printing presses in D.C. stop running, and once we reach the point where the government can no longer continue to fund these welfare programs, the chaos in Ferguson is going to seem like Childs play.

Unfortunately, most of the country seems to have forgotten how close we came to a complete meltdown of the entire financial system back in 2008. Even more troubling is how the problems that created the 2008 meltdown have been exacerbated in the years following that crisis.

While many in this country continue to buy into the recovery myth, the fact is, our economy is in much worse shape than it was in 2008.

Start an Emergency Fund & Get out of Debt: Starting an emergency fund is one of the best things you can do to protect yourself and your family from not only large-scale disasters, but those events in life that can feel like the end of the world when youre in the middle of the situation. During any type of economic collapse, those in debt and those without savings are going to immediately feel the pain.

During the 2008 economic meltdown, millions of people lost their homes, lost their jobs, and were unable to pay for even basic necessities because they lacked adequate savings to see them through the disaster. During an economic collapse the possibility of losing your home to debt collectors becomes a real possibility. If you can get out of debt, you limit your risk and put yourself far ahead of most Americans.

Invest in Long-term Consumables: Start stocking up on things that you know youll need and use in the future.Emergency supplies, a long-term food pantry, and everyday household goods are all things that youll need and will continue to hold their value after the collapse.

Take a serious look at your Defense: If the collapse happens, one of the biggest threats youre going to face is from people looking to take advantage of the situation. The chaos we are witnessing this week in Ferguson, Missouri is going to pale in comparison to what well see during a full-scale economic collapse.

Invest in a Bugout Bag, and have an evacuation plan: Having an emergency evacuation plan is an important part of being prepared for any type of disaster. If things start going really bad, there may be a need to temporarily evacuate your immediate area. In cases where evacuation becomes necessary, you need to have a bag full of emergency supplies that are ready to go at a moments notice.

Continued here:

The Coming Socioeconomic Collapse: Over 35% of U.S. On Welfare

Reporting from: New York City

For the last few days, weve been having an important discussion about the magnitude of the economic challenges in the west; if you didnt read yesterdays letter, I really encourage you to do so before proceeding because its important to understand why the west has truly passed the point of no return.

Simply put, the United States and much of Europe are borrowing an extraordinary amount of money now just to pay interest on the money theyve already borrowed. They cannot even self-fund their mandatory entitlement programs without going into the hole, and their options are limited:

As long as the government CAN do this, they WILL do this. Regardless of their intentions, though, more debt only worsens the situation, creating higher borrowing costs in the long run, and even more debt. As this happens, the pool of buyers begins to dry up, especially from overseas.

The more buyers stop purchasing Treasury securities, the more the Federal Reserve will mop up the excess liquidity. In doing so, the Fed essentially conjures up money and loans it to the government.

No matter what the government monkey statistics say, this is inflationary, plain and simple. The more money they print, the greater the level of inflation in the long-term. Meanwhile, as foreigners simultaneously reduce their US dollar holdings, this inflation will become more acutely felt in the US.

Theres going to come a time when the US government is forced to face its economic reality and make some incredibly deep cuts that would be felt across society, from Wall Street and the military industrial complex to project housing on the other side of the tracks.

Eventually, the debt burden is simply going to be too much, and the most obvious solution will be to default. Politicians will make China out to be the enemy and they will probably invent a war just to have an excuse to default on Chinese owned debt. Americans will wave the flag and celebrate defaulting on their enemies.

In the best traditions of Atlas Shrugged, the government will continue its persecution of the productive class professionals, investors, entrepreneurs, and skilled workers. Existing taxes will rise, new taxes will be created, trade barriers will be enacted, and a maze of cost prohibitive regulations will be passed.

The first option (keeping the party going) is what has been happening for years. Politicians make small concessions to show theyre serious about fiscal discipline, cutting laughably small programs while dumping hundreds of billions of dollars into wars and entitlement programs.

The worse the debt situation becomes, though, the higher the borrowing costs become, and the worse the debt situation becomes. Its not an enviable position. Existing lenders will continue backing away from the US Treasury market, giving option 1 a half-life measured in months at best.

In the longer term, only options 2-5 remain: inflation, austerity, default, and cannibalism. Each of these remaining options will shake the financial system to its core. More importantly, each of these has the power to create widespread social upheaval.

When inflation eats away at a familys already meager standard of living, when austerity eliminates the benefits to which recipients have grown accustomed, when default vanquishes a retirees savings, when high taxes make workers feel like theyre just government serfs this is when the real turmoil will begin:

There are a number of other manifestations, and many are already showing signs of emergence. The US and European police states are alive and well. Crime is on the rise.

In Europe, cops are doing battle in the streets with their citizens. Think it cant happen in the US? Remember tanks in the streets during the LA riots? Remember New Orleans? Remember any number of G8/G20 protests?

Heres the bottom line: all you have to do is glance at the headlines to see what happens when you strip people of their livelihood, of their ability to put food on the table for their families.

The US has been able to kick the can down the road with the most blunt social implications simply because the country benefits so much from a US-oriented financial system. This is coming to an end very, very quickly.

As a rule of thumb, the greater the economic distortion, the harder the collapse. The US economy has been in a fantasy world for so long, and when its dominant primacy is yanked away, the collapse will be at freefall speed.

Listen Im not talking about the end of the world here, Im talking about difficult times ahead, and the things that go beyond economics. Its time to face facts and look at how society will change (and has already changed).

Tomorrow, Id like to write more about what we can do now. Meanwhile, please tell me what you think about this how do you see society changing from this reset of the financial system?

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What are the social implications of economic collapse ...

As of March 2020, the entire world is affected by an evil with which it is incapable of dealing effectively and regarding whose duration no one can make any serious predictions. The economic repercussions of the novel coronavirus pandemic must not be understood as an ordinary problem that macroeconomics can solve or alleviate. Rather, the world could be witnessing a fundamental shift in the very nature of the global economy.

The immediate crisis is one of both supply and demand. Supply is falling because companies are closing down or reducing their workloads to protect workers from contracting COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. Lower interest rates cant make up the shortfall from workers who are not going to workjust as, if a factory were bombed in a war, a lower interest rate would not conjure up lost supply the following day, week, or month.

The supply shock is exacerbated by a decrease in demand due to the fact that people are locked in, and many of the goods and services they used to consume are no longer available. If you shut countries off and stop air traffic, no amount of demand and price management will make people fly. If people are afraid or forbidden to go to restaurants or public events because of the likelihood of getting infected, demand management might at most have a very tiny effectand not necessarily the most desirable one, from the point of view of public health.

The world faces the prospect of a profound shift: a return to naturalwhich is to say, self-sufficienteconomy. That shift is the very opposite of globalization. While globalization entails a division of labor among disparate economies, a return to natural economy means that nations would move toward self-sufficiency. That movement is not inevitable. If national governments can control or overcome the current crisis within the next six months or a year, the world would likely return to the path of globalization, even if some of the assumptions that undergirded it (for example, very taut production chains with just-in-time deliveries) might have to be revised.

But if the crisis continues, globalization could unravel. The longer the crisis lasts, and the longer obstacles to the free flow of people, goods, and capital are in place, the more that state of affairs will come to seem normal. Special interests will form to sustain it, and the continuing fear of another epidemic may motivate calls for national self-sufficiency. In this sense, economic interests and legitimate health worries could dovetail. Even a seemingly small requirementfor instance, that everyone who enters a country needs to present, in addition to a passport and a visa, a health certificatewould constitute an obstacle to the return to the old globalized way, given how many millions of people would normally travel.

That process of unraveling might be, in its essence, similar to the unraveling of the global ecumene that happened with the disintegration of the Western Roman Empire into a multitude of self-sufficient demesnes between the fourth and the sixth centuries. In the resulting economy, trade was used simply to exchange surplus goods for other types of surplus produced by other demesnes, rather than to spur specialized production for an unknown buyer. As F. W. Walbank wrote in The Decline of the Roman Empire in the West, Over the whole [disintegrating] Empire there was a gradual reversion to small-scale, hand-to-mouth craftsmanship, producing for the local market and for specific orders in the vicinity.

In the current crisis, people who have not become fully specialized enjoy an advantage. If you can produce your own food, if you do not depend on publicly provided electricity or water, you are not only safe from disruptions that may arise in food supply chains or the provision of electricity and water; you are also safer from getting infected, because you do not depend on food prepared by somebody else who may be infected, nor do you need repair people, who may also be infected, to come fix anything at your home. The less you need others, the safer and better off you are. Everything that used to be an advantage in a heavily specialized economy now becomes a disadvantage, and the reverse.

The movement to natural economy would be driven not by ordinary economic pressures but by much more fundamental concerns, namely, epidemic disease and the fear of death. Therefore, standard economic measures can only be palliative in nature: they can (and should) provide protection to people who lose their jobs and have nothing to fall back on and who frequently lack even health insurance. As such people become unable to pay their bills, they will create cascading shocks, from housing evictions to banking crises.

Even so, the human toll of the disease will be the most important cost and the one that could lead to societal disintegration. Those who are left hopeless, jobless, and without assets could easily turn against those who are better off. Already, some 30 percent of Americans have zero or negative wealth. If more people emerge from the current crisis with neither money, nor jobs, nor access to health care, and if these people become desperate and angry, such scenes as the recent escape of prisoners in Italy or the looting that followed Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005 might become commonplace. If governments have to resort to using paramilitary or military forces to quell, for example, riots or attacks on property, societies could begin to disintegrate.

Thus the main (perhaps even the sole) objective of economic policy today should be to prevent social breakdown. Advanced societies must not allow economics, particularly the fortunes of financial markets, to blind them to the fact that the most important role economic policy can play now is to keep social bonds strong under this extraordinary pressure.

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The Real Pandemic Danger Is Social Collapse | Foreign Affairs

The effect of inequalities aggravated by economic recessions in the mortality rates of certain diseases has been previously described. In this study, we analyzed the relationship between socio-economic deprivation and cancer mortality. We focused on lung, colon, prostate, and breast cancers in nine European urban areas over three periods: two before (2000-2003 and 2004-2008) and one after (2009-2014) the onset of the 2008 financial crisis.

This is an ecological study of trends. The units of analysis were small areas within nine European urban areas. We used a composite deprivation index as a socio-economic indicator. As a mortality indicator, we used the smoothed standardized mortality ratio, calculated using the hierarchical Bayesian model proposed by Besag, York and Molli. To analyze the evolution of socio-economic inequalities, we fitted an ecological regression model that included the socio-economic indicator, the period of time, and the interaction between these terms.

In men, socio-economic inequalities in all-cancer and lung cancer mortality were observed in most of the cities studied, but did not increase after the onset of the economic crisis. In women, only two cities (Stockholm and London) showed socio-economic inequalities in all-cancer and lung cancer mortality; there was also no increase in inequalities.

Our results did not validate our hypothesis that inequalities increase in times of crisis. However, they emphasize the importance of socio-economic measurements for understanding mortality inequalities, and can be used to inform prevention strategies and help plan local health programs aimed at reducing health inequalities.

Cancer epidemiology. 2020 Oct 07 [Epub ahead of print]

Laia Palncia, Josep Ferrando, Marc Mar-Dell'Olmo, Merc Gotsens, Joana Morrison, Dagmar Dzurova, Michala Lustigova, Claudia Costa, Maica Rodrguez-Sanz, Lucia Bosakova, Paula Santana, Carme Borrell

Agncia de Salut Pblica de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain; CIBER Epidemiologa y Salud Pblica (CIBERESP), Madrid, Spain; Institut d'Investigaci Biomdica (IIB Sant Pau), Barcelona, Spain. Electronic address: ., Agncia de Salut Pblica de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain., Agncia de Salut Pblica de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain; CIBER Epidemiologa y Salud Pblica (CIBERESP), Madrid, Spain; Institut d'Investigaci Biomdica (IIB Sant Pau), Barcelona, Spain. Electronic address: ., Agncia de Salut Pblica de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain; Institut d'Investigaci Biomdica (IIB Sant Pau), Barcelona, Spain., Institute of Health Equity at the Research Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, London, United Kingdom., Department of Social Geography and Regional Development, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, Czechia., Centre of Studies in Geography and Spatial Planning, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal., Agncia de Salut Pblica de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain; CIBER Epidemiologa y Salud Pblica (CIBERESP), Madrid, Spain; Institut d'Investigaci Biomdica (IIB Sant Pau), Barcelona, Spain; Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain., Department of Health Psychology and Research Methodology, Medical Faculty, P. J. Safarik University in Kosice, Kosice, Slovak Republic; Olomouc University Social Health Institute (OUSHI), Palacky University in Olomouc, Olomouc, Czech Republic.

PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33038640

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Socio-economic inequalities on cancer mortality in nine European areas: The effect of the last economic recession. - UroToday