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The story is COVID. Drive the story.

Everyone should be masking in public

If you subscribe to the right news services or social media accounts and look through the headlines, you will find out that right now, America and the world are facing a new COVID emergency. The problem, largely based on the “Delta variant,” is bad enough that organizations from the California State University System to the Washington Post are starting to require proof of COVID vaccination for those who show up in person, and the Department of Veterans Affairs (V.A.) announced Monday that it would mandate coronavirus vaccines for its front-line workers. Likewise, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) just announced that all people, including those fully vaccinated, should wear masks indoors again in areas with “high” or “substantial” COVID transmission.

However, U.S. Republicans, whose anti-vaccine, anti-mask diatribes and protests are largely responsible for the new COVID emergency, don’t want to talk about the new COVID surge (except, cynically, to try to blame President Joe Biden, who has made extraordinary strides and numerous public calls for full vaccination). Rather, Republicans want to distract by cosplaying about immigration, attacking the imaginary “Critical Race Theory,” fretting about trans people and their bathroom use, or just about anything else that is part of their 24/7 Culture War.

Democrats create achievements, Republicans create acrimony

Democrats getting things done while Republicans do each other in

Right now, there is a massive split between what is going on in the Democratic Party versus the Republican Party.

The Democrats, led by President Joe Biden, have had a tremendous 100 days. First and foremost, Biden has succeeded in getting over 200 million COVID vaccinations into Americans’ arms (double his original stated goal), and taking steps to beat the pandemic using real science and competence. Next, Biden pushed through and signed the American Rescue Plan, including stimulus checks for millions of Americans, all while rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate change and undoing many of Trump’s damaging executive orders. Biden is now being compared to progressive activist President Franklin Roosevelt, who also had a very successful first 100 days (as well as being re-elected president three more times).

Meanwhile, as if to quash another Republican myth, the U.S. stock market has had the best performance during a president’s first 100 days since the beginning of John F. Kennedy‘s presidency in 1961. Biden’s popularity is substantially high (and way higher than Trump’s), especially given our polarized politics today. Biden and Congressional Democrats have also continued on offense with a positive policy agenda that includes rebuilding America’s infrastructure, creating jobs, battling climate change, support for American families, and more. While they may not get all of it passed in its current proposed form (after all, Washington is about compromise and the art of the possible), they are poised to pass a great deal more.

Biden inauguration: America gets a reboot

One thing we’ll have less of in the Biden Oval Office

With a new year and the inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris tomorrow, many Americans are looking forward to getting a fresh start. In modern terms, we can call it a “reboot” for America. Here are some areas where we will get a much-needed reboot with President Biden:

COVID — we hardly need to recount the Trump administration’s failures to address the COVID pandemic. Those failures continue today, with vaccine distribution woefully inadequate, and Trump officials predictably lying to cover their negligence (or worse). However, Joe Biden and his team have a plan to hit the ground running, from better vaccine distribution to a nationwide mask mandate. There can be little doubt that Biden will improve the Coronavirus situation.

Five things the Democrats need to do after the election

Simple concept that GOP now opposes

While the 2020 presidential election and various other election races are still being fought, there are already some lessons to be learned. In particular, based on the Republicans’ behavior thus far, Democrats need to do some things differently to match and defeat their opponents going forward. Assuming that Joe Biden, currently well ahead in both electoral and popular votes, defeats Donald Trump for the presidency and/or Democrats at least tie the Republicans for control of the U.S. Senate, here are five things the Democrats should do as soon as they take power:

The coming Trump-Biden election horse race

How the media would like to portray the election

If the 2020 presidential election were held today, based on current polls, Joe Biden would beat Donald Trump in a landslide. In particular, Biden is ahead of Trump in crucial “battleground” states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Florida, and is even with (and in some polls ahead of) Trump in states like Arizona, Georgia and the big prize, Texas, all of which Trump won in 2016.

But our mainstream media will not let Joe Biden run away with the election if they can help it. The media want a “horse race,” and you can bet that, with barely over 90 days to go until the election, you will soon be hearing about how “the race is tightening.” Here are some ways that can happen:

Is it too late for Trump?

Black Lives Matter protesters, at odds with Donald Trump

In 2012, President Barack Obama and his reelection campaign team did something very smart: they came out early and defined Obama’s opponent, Willard Mitt Romney, in a very unflattering way before Romney could define himself to the voters. Specifically, the Obama campaign defined Romney as an out-of-touch elitist, Mr. One Percent, with his offshore bank accounts and his dressage horse. This reinforced an existing narrative about Romney, one that Romney himself fed with his “47 percent” video, ultimately leading to Romney’s defeat.

This year, Joe Biden‘s campaign is taking a similar approach towards Donald Trump. Biden smartly has been running a general election-style campaign against Trump from day one. This was a risky strategy, since Biden had to battle some 24 challengers for the Democratic Party presidential nomination before he could run against Trump as the nominee. However, the strategy worked, and Biden is now the official Democratic nominee, something that would have happened sooner if not for primaries that were delayed due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19).

What happens after Trump’s impeachment?

Trump impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., speaks at trial of Donald Trump in U.S. Senate

Last May, when U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was still reticent to impeach Donald Trump, she explained that Trump was “self-impeaching.” What Pelosi likely meant was that Trump was digging his own political grave, hurting his chances for reelection in 2020. Pelosi’s prediction seems to be coming true now, as the latest polls indicate that the top six Trump challengers for the general election — Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Michael Bloomberg, Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigiegall beat Trump in head to head match-ups. This latest good news for Democrats comes as Trump has been impeached (“for life,” as Nancy Pelosi brilliantly said), and is now undergoing a trial for removal in the U.S. Senate.

The anti-Trump ad that Joe Biden should run immediately

Former Vice President Joe Biden

Joe Biden has run essentially a general election campaign against Donald Trump from the day Biden joined the 2020 presidential race. For example, while the Democratic primaries don’t even begin until February 2020 and the candidates are slugging it out with each other, Biden aims most of his rhetoric, and his ads, directly at Trump or the general electorate itself. Biden’s first big ad showed world leaders laughing at, ridiculing, and even ignoring Trump on the world stage. Biden’s latest ad, released just yesterday, warns that, if America is to continue its progress towards justice for all, Donald Trump must not be reelected.

Biden’s general election campaign in the primaries may make good sense, given that Biden is the only Democratic candidate this year to have served eight years as Vice President (to beloved Democratic President Barack Obama), as well as having been a long-serving leader in the U.S. Senate, including being Chairman of the Foreign Relations and Judiciary Committees. And such gamble apparently has paid off, as Biden has led the Democratic presidential primary polls, on the national level and in most states, virtually every day since joining the contest.

Therefore, Biden’s next ad should continue his general election theme, and attack Donald Trump on something on which Trump is extremely vulnerable: his physical and mental health, as evidenced by his speech slurring and other behavior.

No surprise as mainstream media fall short in Trump impeachment coverage

Protesters share their opinion on Donald Trump impeachment

While many mainstream media outlets have aired the Donald Trump impeachment hearings that began in the U.S. House on Wednesday, the commentary by some of the media afterward was cringeworthy. Special mention goes to NBC News and Reuters, who faulted the hearings for not being scintillating enough. According to NBC News:

Reuters followed up with “Consequential, but dull: Trump impeachment hearings begin without a bang.” Sadly, this is the kind of circus coverage that we have come to expect from our news media.

Unplugging from Republican-leaning Facebook

Turning off Facebook

In the very first Messaging Matters post, nearly nine years ago, we wrote: “Republicans have placed a ‘matrix’ over this country” with the help of “news media [that] are largely controlled by giant corporations,” as well as an organized Republican “messaging machine.” Based on recent revelations, it turns out that Facebook is part of this Republican machine too. As a result, we’re unplugging from the Facebook matrix.