Thread by @BFriedmanDC

1. Elected officials across America are beginning to give up on governing.

Here, the Senate is failing to hold political appointees accountable. This is common now. The Senate has done it elsewhere, confirming judges deemed "not qualified."

But it's not just the Senate.

https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/1257376340346535948

2. In Stillwater, Oklahoma, the city mandated that business patrons wear a face covering. After receiving death threats, the city changed its policy. The mayor just gave up because he couldn't physically enforce the policy. washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05…

3. When armed gunmen stormed the Michigan statehouse last week, they weren't arrested. That's because the governor didn't want to provoke violence. So we all just pretended this was normal and okay. It was neither. nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny…

4. While most countries plagued by COVID-19 have limited their fatalities to the hundreds or low thousands, the U.S. surpassed 68,000 deaths--far more than any other country.

How are federal, state and local governments responding? By allowing business to reopen. It's madness.

5. Not all this chaos and failure to govern is Trump's fault. But he has capitalized on the cracks that were present. (For example, the failure to enact common sense gun regulations preceded Trump.)

Trump has NORMALIZED the failure and absence of governance.

6. I wish I could end this thread on a positive note, but states are forming their own consortiums to fill the federal void and we're not even assured of a free and fair election this fall.

We are headed down a very dangerous path.

7. Even the Republican governor of Ohio has backed off trying enforce public safety:

"It became clear to me that that was just a bridge too far. People were not going to accept the government telling them what to do."

Let that sink in.
politico.com/news/2020/05/0…