​The $600 per week federal supplement to state unemployment benefits runs out at the end of July. Data indicates that millions of Americans have been using this money to help pay their rent or mortgage. Almost 50 percent of renters pay more than 30 percent of their income for housing and utilities, and half of those pay more than 50 percent. Unless Congress comes to the rescue, we are likely to see mass evictions that will dwarf anything we witnessed during the Great Recession of 2008. While the House of Representatives is sensitive to this problem, Senate Majority Leader McConnell, his Republican Senate colleagues and President Trump are not. Yet another epic leadership failure looms.
 
Starting in April, many landlords and some banks deferred rental and mortgage payments, respectively, for 3-4 months, but they are not likely to do so much longer. A number of states are addressing what could be the largest increase in the homeless population in 40 years (since the courts, abetted by the Reagan administration, mandated the closure of hundreds of what we used to call mental institutions) by imposing a moratorium on evictions. This is the wrong way to approach the problem. Landlords should not be forced to bear the burden of zero rental income just because government is incapable of intelligent action. They must continue to pay property taxes, insurance, utility bills and other running expenses whether or not they are receiving rental income.
 
Here is what needs to happen. Congress should enact legislation—a Housing Protection Act (HPA)—comparable to the Paycheck Protection Act (PPA) that provided loans to employers that they do not have to pay back if they keep their employees on the payroll. Translated to housing, landlords would receive similar loans that could become grants if they allowed their tenants to remain in their rental units. Something similar needs to be done for mortgagors who face eviction if they are unable to meet their monthly mortgage payments.
 
Unlike PPA loans, which were rife with confusion, favoritism and application turn-downs by banks, HPA loans should be administered and awarded directly to applicants by either one of the bank regulatory agencies or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, cutting out banks as middlemen.
 
The wealthiest nation on Earth can well afford to come to the rescue of its citizens for the duration of this crisis. This is hardly the time to be fretting about increasing the national debt, something both political parties have ignored for 20 years. The time to address debt issues is when the economy is strong. The failure to do that over the last 6-7 years when we experienced a good economy was irresponsible. Moreover, cutting taxes when every responsible economist and public policy analyst called for raising them on rich Americans was a dereliction of duty by both Congress and the president. If we could afford that hit to the national debt, we can certainly afford one that benefits a much wider demographic.
 
But that’s all water over the dam. What we need now is bold and immediate action to stave off an imminent crisis. 4.3 million homeowners missed their May mortgage payments, and more than 665,000 of them are three months in arrears. Banks that deferred mortgage payments are not inclined to forbear any longer. If our political leaders don’t address this problem immediately, we risk adding millions of Americans to the homeless population (the Department of Housing and Urban Development says that 553,000 Americans are currently homeless)—a disaster that will haunt us for years to come and end up costing multiples of what it would cost now to enable them to remain under their own roofs until the current health and economic crises pass. The rending of what little remains of the social fabric that will result will be hard, if not impossible, to repair.
 
Don’t expect the Trump administration to take the initiative to get something like this done. It has failed at every decision point along the way during the coronavirus, economic and racial turmoil that have made our country the poster child for how not to run a government. It is up to Congress to act…and act now.
 
Dick Hermann
June 26, 2020

For three years America survived Donald Trump, fortunate that he had not been called upon to deal with a crisis not of his own making, one that would test his ability to meet the moment. The hope was that we could make it to November 2020 without having to test Trump’s ineptitude should Armageddon strike. 
 
And then all Hell broke loose. Simultaneously, he—and we—are being battered by four major crises: (1) the gravest pandemic in a hundred years, (2) the most serious economic collapse since the Great Depression, (3) massive protests against police brutality and systemic racism, and (4) the most profound rift between a civilian commander-in-chief and our military in our history.
 
These crises have put paid to any illusions anyone might have harbored that Donald Trump is capable of rising to the occasion. He has struck out swinging with respect to each one, in each case making the situation far worse.
 
Covid-19. His denial, delay and dithering has cost thousands of lives and put an ungodly strain on our healthcare infrastructure. His declaration of victory over the virus is a shameful abdication of responsibility. He even finds it OK for his own supporters to get sick and die so long as they shout out their adulation for him at mask-less rallies. Every one of his decisions has increased the infection rate and death toll. He is content with trading lives for his re-election.
 
The 2020 Depression. The man who bragged that he produced the “greatest economy in history” (easily debunked) bears considerable blame for producing the worst economy in our history. Instead of persuading Congress to follow the example of Germany and other countries that moved quickly to make sure that no one would lose their jobs or healthcare due to the pandemic, he remained hidden in the White House while Congress hastily enacted poorly thought-out, half-baked legislation inadequate to the demands of the disaster. Building upon that gross failure, he is now hiding the fact that billions of relief funds likely went to his donors and cronies.
 
The Floyd Murder and Its Consequences. Trump should be in the best position to do something salutary about police behavior and racial injustice. Instead, he is totally compromised for being the president who in 2017 urged police to brutalize suspects and who consistently encourages racism, white supremacy and neo-Nazi violence. He continues to fan the flames of racial hatred—referring to the Secret Service as “the SS;” dog-whistling “law and order” in a Nixonian reprise; proclaiming that military bases named after traitors to the country are somehow part of our heritage; ignoring white supremacist violence in the streets; and denying that America is rife with systemic racism, deep-seated inequality, and widespread police misconduct, about which he issued a punch-less executive order
 
Vs. the Military. This president has consistently tried to exploit the military for his own crass purposes, ironic given his history of draft-dodging and his innate cowardice. No national leader has ever stooped so low as to threaten to unleash the armed forces on peaceful protesters, a shocking violation of the First Amendment. Fortunately, the military brass is resisting his abuse. Watching him speak platitudes and clichés to the much put-upon West Point grads he forced to return to the academy and quarantine for two weeks so he could have a photo-op was appalling.
 
We who have the right to expect much more need to hang on until November 3, when hopefully Americans can finally and resoundingly say: “YOU’RE FIRED!” and then again until January 20, 2021 when he either leaves office or is carried out kicking and screaming.
 
Dick Hermann
June 19, 2020

​This question has been asked repeatedly this century. Inflection points that trigger major change, however, are extremely rare. Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, young black men murdered by police, prompted “Black Lives Matter” protests. Each of those atrocities briefly focused media and public attention on police brutality, racism and its collateral effects, and resulted in…nothing. Police behavior leading to the disproportionate killing of African-Americans persists. Similarly, protests provoked by mass shootings at Virginia Tech, Newtown, Orlando, Las Vegas and Parkland did not sway our political leaders to do anything about an escalating problem measured by the terrible toll it was taking of human lives. We did not realize stricter gun laws and the pandemic of mass shootings continues.
 
Here we are once again. A black man—George Floyd—lost his life when a Minneapolis cop kneeled on his neck, asphyxiating him, his hand resting casually in his pocket and unconcerned that his action was being captured by a cellphone camera. Meanwhile, three cop colleagues abetted this excessive use of force that resulted in a public murder.
 
The response—mass protests involving Americans of all races erupted in more than 750 cities and towns throughout the nation and in cities around the world. For the most part peaceful, the starkest images we have seen involved police overreaction. A septuagenarian knocked to the pavement by police in Buffalo, exacerbated by fellow officers flaunting their approval for this outrage by walking past the bleeding victim’s inert form, was shocking enough. That was compounded by large-scale police defiance of the city’s timid step of suspending the assaulting officers.
 
While it is clear that discriminatory law enforcement and police misconduct, as well as the systemic racism that still today infects the American psyche, need to be addressed, there is no guarantee that both injustices will be.
 
Four hundred years of coping with America’s original sin—slavery—teaches that excising racism is a very long, hard slog. Comparing efforts to counteract anti-Semitism, note that despite going back millennia, hate crimes against Jews continue and have skyrocketed in the last three years, encouraged by dog whistles and more overt endorsements by the country’s elected leader (see, e.g., Charlottesville). At the very least, it will take education at every level to begin the lengthy, generations-long process of attempting to expunge racism from society. In America, progress is usually a step forward followed by a half-step back. Moreover, unlike the 1960s civil rights movement, there is no clear, charismatic leader around whom the movement can coalesce, no Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. That too could be a problem.
 
However, the situation is not without hope. We are certain to see some immediate law enforcement reforms. Several states and cities have already begun the process in response to Floyd’s murder. Banning chokeholds and strangleholds has been one development. In cities where this policy was already in force before, the ban has decreased police killings by 22 percent. Mandating body cameras and their activation at all times has also proven to be a strong deterrent to police brutality. Requiring a duty to intervene by attending officers has had a positive effect. Similarly, de-escalation training. It is also likely that psychological testing as a component of police officer recruitment will be instituted by some local departments. Congress too is considering a spate of reform proposals, including a national police misconduct database. If there will be a roadblock to reforming police procedures, it will likely be found in the collective bargaining agreements that, virtually across the board, protect officers from transparency and accountability. That is where the resistance will coalesce.
 
Despite these hurdles, we can hope that this time will be different and that America will be a better country because of it.
 
Dick Hermann
June 12, 2020

The last week of May began with a public nightmare: the brutal murder of George Floyd caught on a cellphone for the whole world to see. Did our president reach out to calm the nation’s horror and grief, to console and to call for unity? Not at all. Instead, he continued to divide America, presenting us with yet another new rock bottom.
 
His daily indecencies and democracy shredding make us forget the transgressions he committed only days before. Thus, in the interests of documenting what must not be forgotten, I provide the list below.
 
Here is what the Leader of the Free World focused on during the last week of the decidedly un-merry month of May:

• He falsely accused a cable TV host of murder, at the same time causing the family of the deceased greater pain and more suffering.
• He pulled the US out of the World Health Organization in the midst of a global health emergency.
• He encouraged law enforcement to shoot Americans looting stores during the nationwide protests of George Floyd’s murder.
• He claimed that violent protesters are from the “radical, Antifa left,” citing no evidence, and said nothing about the surge in white supremacist social media polemics urging violence.
• He threatened DC protesters with “vicious dogs” and “ominous weapons.”
• He falsely claimed that DC Mayor Muriel Bowser kept DC Police away from the White House demonstrations. They were there.
• He invited his supporters to confront protesters at the White House.
• He went to war with Twitter after the social media site labeled some of his tweets misleading (only two of his 84 lies for the week).
• He demanded that North Carolina allow the Republican convention to proceed with no masks or social distancing.
• He refused to wear a face mask in public in contravention of his own White House guidelines while ridiculing Joe Biden for wearing a face mask.
• He gratuitously insulted Stacy Abrams regarding her weight.
• He tweeted that Nancy Pelosi has a drinking problem (she doesn’t drink).
• He said “MAGA loves the Black people” (this from the Birther-Conspirator-in-Chief whose racist diatribes have continued).
• He said next to nothing about coronavirus deaths passing 100,000.
• He continued to promote a ridiculous, evidence-free “Obamagate” conspiracy.
• He re-tweeted a video of a man saying ”the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.”
• He continued to falsely claim that absentee voting is rife with fraud.
• He threatened to eliminate the U.S. Postal Service.
• He said he wanted to invite our Russian enemy back into the G-7.
• He played two rounds of golf when not tweeting his lies and rages.

 
Trump’s entire attention was on these sickening stunts and shenanigans, anything to distract attention from the health emergency and resulting economic collapse that he has grossly mismanaged, and the challenging issues raised by Floyd’s murder. Instead of stepping up when leadership was desperately needed, he went AWOL, resorting to ridicule, insults, lies and avoidance of responsibility along with megadoses of distraction, deflection and distortion.
 
And how did Trump begin the following week? By stewing over reports of him retreating to the White House bunker during protests. To show what a macho man he is, he ordered federal law enforcement (the Park Police, Secret Service, DC National Guard, U.S. Marshals et al.) to use pepper spray, rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades to clear the 100 percent peaceful protesters in Lafayette Park so that he and his spineless sycophants—Barr, Esper and General Milley among others—could strut across to St. John’s Church for a nauseating photo-op of him standing in front of the church holding up a Bible. This is what we get instead of leadership.
 
I had the good fortune twice to work for bosses who epitomized real leadership. They instilled a sense of purpose in their organizations and employees; they had carefully thought-out goals; they inspired their people; they planned, including contingency and backup planning; they never disparaged or insulted anyone; they were disciplined; they worked hard; they were empathetic; they consoled when necessary; they took responsibility and were accountable for mistakes; and they never let their personal interests get in the way of our missions. They possessed all the leadership qualities that Donald Trump lacks.
 
So here we are, stuck with a fatally flawed and failed, insecure creature who regrettably still has many months to go at the increasingly unstable tiller of the ship of state he is doing so much to sink. The damage he could inflict in his remaining tenure could be even worse than what he has wrought so far.
 
Dick Hermann
June 5, 2020