Interesting Times highlights

• Yes: Churchill was a racist. But, as the joke goes, wait till they find out about the guy he was at war with.
• Trump’s main achievement in immigration policy has been to permanently stigmatize the whole idea of lowering immigration to help the working poor, thus actually moving the U.S. to the left on the issue.
• And then there’s simply Joe Biden’s affect, record, and faith. It’s hard to see this lifelong Catholic really conniving with neo-Marxist atheists pledging to “dismantle whiteness.” He’s clearly not in favor of allowing crime to run rampant in the streets. He has made a critical distinction between Confederate statues and those of the Founders, and he has insisted that any removal of monuments be done peacefully and democratically.
• the virus will be the real swing voter in this election. The sheer scale of the health crisis, and its current trajectory, obviously sweeps every other issue before it, as it should. It sure hasn’t ended the culture war, which at the elite level is arguably more intense than ever, but it is in the driving seat of the economy, and that is almost always dispositive. If we enter November closing in on 200,000 deaths, with the toll rising, and in a virally caused economic slump, I just can’t see how any incumbent can get elected, and I’m usually pretty good at seeing the worst.
• The world is laughing at us, when they are not crying at what we have become. And if that isn’t the Trumpiest reason to vote against Trump, I don’t know what could be.

Andrew Sullivan: COVID-19 Will Be the Real Swing Voter