FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A23
P
resident-elect Joe Biden has
pledged to “restore the soul of
America.” It is a worthy, poetic goal.
Another, more prosaic objective
also lies before him: fixing America’s
plumbing.
By which I m ean repairing the machin-
ery of government, which has been corrod-
ed by Trumpian incompetence and malevo-
lence. In the months ahead, there are at
least three areas that need the Biden transi-
tion team’s urgent attention: policy, people
and public trust.
The federal government is a massive,
slow-moving ship. Even in the best of times
it is often dysfunctional. But for the past
four years, the Trump administration has
deliber ately made parts of government
more dysfunctional, throwing sand in the
gears in order to sabotage programs the
president doesn’t like that are nonetheless
required by statute.
The processing of various immigration
applications has slowed, for instance; the
number of enforcement actions against
polluters, white-collar criminals and even
child-sex traffickers has plummeted.
Where agencies still remain at least su-
perficially functional, they have been
steered toward helping the president’s own
political and financial interests — by
awarding contracts to cronies, say, or weap-
onizing antitrust and other state powers
against perceived enemies. Indeed, argu-
ably the biggest contrast in governing phi-
losophy between President Trump and
Biden is not over government size, per se;
it’s whether government should serve the
interests of the governed.
Already a number of journalists and
other analysts have written retrospectives
cataloguing the damage Trump has inflict-
ed upon major policy arenas and federal
agencies, and what it will take to rebuild.
They span immigration, the environment,
trade and health care, among other areas.
Some of Trump’s policy changes put in
place via presidential action can be un-
done, easily and swiftly, the same way;
indeed, Biden already has a pile of execu-
tive orders awaiting his signature on
Jan. 20. Other changes, implemented
throu gh the ungainly notice-and-com-
ment rule-making process, will take longer
to reverse.
Even now, Trump is developing regula-
tions that appear to have no purpose other
than gumming up the works for his succes-
sor.
Last week, for example, the Department
of Health and Human Services proposed a
rule that would require nearly every regula-
tion ever issued to automatically expire
unless reviewed within a certain time. The
goal seems to be to jam up the Biden
administration, so it spends all its time
keeping Medicaid, the Children’s Health
Insurance Program and Medicare from ac-
cidentally blowing up.
Merely rolling back Trump-era regula-
tions and enforcement memos won’t be
sufficient to repair the damage if govern-
ment infrastructure remains weak. And it
might, without concerted effort to improve
employee morale.
There have been purges, sidelinings of
expert talent and voluntary brain drain
across government agencies. Morale is
poor at age ncies whose missions have fun-
damentally changed under Trump, such as
the increasingly anti-consumer Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau. At least two
targeted agencies, the Agriculture Depart-
ment’s Economic Research Service and the
National Institute of Food and Agriculture,
were effectively dismantled; a sudden
(seemi ngly punitive) forced move across
the co untry led 75 percent of affected em-
ployees to quit.
Further, one possibly enduring legacy of
Trumpism may be the normalization of
threats against public servants. Former
Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon recently
called for beheading public health expert
Anthony S. Fauci; myriad other death
thre ats have been made against politicians,
state and local election officials, and other
career civil servants.
These j obs were never especially glamor-
ous or remunerative. Now that they’re evi-
dently dangerous, too, recruiting talent
may be challenging. Biden’s overt respect
for public health experts and lifelong evan-
gelization of public service are a good start
at fixing these problems. But more work
will be needed.
Finally, there’s the problem of public
trust.
Even if qualified people work in govern-
ment, and they make smart choices, such
efforts may be in vain if the public doesn ’t
believe their “deep state” work to be done in
good faith. To take one life-or-death exam-
ple: The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention’s covid -19 guidance is effective
only if it’s both evidence-based and credible
enough that people listen to it.
Distru st in government institutions has
been rising for decades; Trump both ex-
ploited and fe d these trends. Lately things
have become especially dire, with the pub-
lic distrusting official statistics, election
results and coronavirus vaccine safety.
Earning back the public’s trust will be
exceptionally challenging. It requires de-
livering good work. It requires having our
leaders model respect for experts and pub-
lic ser vants, as Biden has done. It requires
public officials to be honest with the public
even when the news isn’t good, and even
when they fail to deliver.
And it requires having an electorate
willing to believe that government can —
maybe just sometimes, maybe only under
certain conditions — work, if we demand
it.
[email protected]CATHERINE RAMPELLFix the
machinery
of government
O
ne of the better speeches I
helped produce for George
W. Bush was never given. On
election night 2000 — standing
outside in the rain, at an Austin victory
rally that never happened — I had the
copy of a concession speech in my
pocket. As I r emember it, the first lines
were: “I have just talked to my opponent,
who is no longer my opponent. He is the
president-elect of the United States.”
I had no doubt that then-Gov. George
W. Bush would have delivered that
speech if necessary. The 2000 presiden-
tial election was far closer than the one
we just experienced — a slight electoral
wind could have blown it either way. But
Bush, had he lost, would have played by
the rules and accepted the outcome, just
as Vice President Al Gore eventually did.
And how do I know that Bush would
have done this? Because he is a man of
character who would have put the good
of the country ahead of his own interests
when the moment called for it.
What America is now experiencing is
a massive failure of character — a
nation wide blackout of integrity —
among elected Republicans. From the
president, a graceless and deceptive
insistence on victory after a loss that was
not even close. From congressional Re-
publicans, a broad willingness to con-
spire in President Trump’s lies and to
slander the electoral system without
consideration of the public good. Only a
few have stood up against Republican
peer pressure of contempt for the consti-
tutional order.
How could such a thing happen in the
GOP? It is not an aberration. It is the
culmination of Trump’s influence among
Republicans, and among White evangel-
ical Christians in particular. Their main
justification for supporting Trump —
that the president’s character should be
ignored in favor of his policies — has
become a serious danger to the republic.
Trump never even presented the pre-
tense of good character. His revolt
against the establishment was always a
revolt against the ethical ground rules by
which the establishment played. When
he mocked a reporter with a disability,
or urged violence at his rallies, or at-
tacked a Gold Star family, Republicans
accepted it as part of the Trump package.
And some of his most fervent defenses
came from White evangelicals.
A group that was once seen as censori-
ous became the least strict chaperone at
Trump’s bacchanal. Under the presi-
dent ’s influence, White evangelicals
went from the group most likely to
believe personal morality matters in a
politician to the group that is least likely.
“We’re not electing a pastor in chief,”
explained Jerry Falwell Jr., th e former
president of Liberty University. Robert
Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Dallas,
argued that “outward policies” should
matter more than “personal piety.”
Ralph Reed of the Faith and Freedom
Coalition made his case for Trump’s
reelection based on conservative deliver-
ables. “There has never been anyone,”
Reed said, “who has defended us and
who has fought for us, who we have
loved more than Donald J. Trump.”
This is politics at its most transaction-
al. Trump was being hired by evangeli-
cals to do a job — to defend their
institutions, implement pro-life policies
and appoint conservative judges. The
character of the president was irrelevant
so long as he kept his part of the bargain.
Which Trump largely did.
But now we know what a president
without character looks like in the midst
of a governing crisis. We see a dishonest
president, spinning lie after lie about the
electoral system. A selfish president,
incapable of preferring any duty above
his own narrow interests. A reckless
president, undermining the transition
between administrations and exposing
the country to risk. A vain president,
unable to responsibly process an elector-
al loss. A corrupt president, willing to
abuse federal power to serve his own
ends. A spiteful president, taking re-
venge against officials who have resisted
him. A faithless president, indifferent to
constitutional principles and his oath of
office.
Two lessons can be drawn from the
Republican failure of moral judgment.
First, democracy is an inherently moral
enterprise. Yes, politics has a transac-
tional element. But those transactions
take place within a system of rules that
depend on voluntary obedience. Our
electoral system and our presidential
transition process have flaws and holes
that an unprincipled leader can exploit.
Which is a good reason to prefer princi-
pled leaders.
And second, U.S. politics would be
better off if White evangelicals consis-
tently applied their moral tradition to
publ ic life. Not only Christians, of
course, can stand for integrity. But con-
sider what would happen if White evan-
gelicals insisted on supporting honest,
compassionate, decent, civil, self-
c ontrolled men and women for office.
The alternative is our current reality, in
which evangelicals have often been a
malicious and malignant influence in
U.S. politics.
This is what a purely transactional
politics has actually delivered — a law-
less leader resisting a rightful electoral
outcome. The only adequate response, as
President-elect Joe Biden seems to real-
ize, is a politics of character.
[email protected]MICHAEL GERSONA massive
failure of
character
BY JOSEPH G. ALLEN
AND SARA BLEICHT
he requirement for six feet of
distancing has forced many
schools to limit the number of
students attending in person
due to space constraints and thus has
become a key factor keeping millio ns
of kids home. That’s a mistake.
Six feet should be the default mini-
mum for adults, but it’s past time we
recognize that kids are different and
the importance of schools is different,
especially for the youngest learners.
Three feet should be the default dis-
tance for schools.
First, decisions about physical dis-
tancing must factor in risks beyond
covid-19. The severe harms of keeping
kids out of school have been known
for some time, such as loss in literacy,
missed meals (including more than
1 billion this past spring), virtual
dropouts and increasing inequity —
all of which hit low-income children
the hardest because their parents of-
ten lack flexible work schedules to
care for them at home.
Second, strict six-foot distancing
rules th at force schools into “hybrid”
models, in which students rotate days
at school, might increase community
risk, as our colleague William Hanage
warned in August. The reason is th at
kids are not always fully isolated at
home; instead, they are likely to have
an even wider network of contacts,
increasing the chances of the virus
entering schools.
Third, six feet is not a magical
cutoff. It has a weak scientific basis,
coming from a fundamental misun-
derstanding going back decades that
the tiny droplets we exhale when we
breathe and talk will fall to the
grou nd within six feet. The reality is
that while some large droplets do fall
out of the air, most are tiny and will
stay aloft for an hour or more —
traveling well beyond six feet. Thereis no bright-line cutoff.
Fourth, without such cutoffs, we
have to turn to the science to under-
stand risk in context. A r ecent evalua-
tion of 172 studies from 16 countries
found a significant reduction in risk
with dista ncing of at least three feet,
but no additional benefit at six feet so
long as baseline risk is low enough.
There is no question risk is higher at
close range, but where community
spread is low, three feet of physical
distancing should suffice.
Fifth, distancing must be evaluated
in the context of other controls in
place. The six-foot rule was declared in
March, before widespread mask man-
dates. Now, masks are our best friend
— even at three fe et. Consider what
happens when everyone wears masks
that are 70 percent efficient at filtering
particles (typical of two- and three-
l ayer masks). Because a virus must
pass through two of these masks to
move from one person to another, they
have a combined removal efficiency of
91 percent.
That leads us to the last — and
perhaps most critical — point: A room
with 25 adults is different from a room
with one adult and 24 kids. Kids are
less likely to catch this virus than
adults (especially children younger
than 10), and if they do, the fatality
rate is extraordinarily low. (There is
also evidence that kids transmit less,
although this is not completely set-
tled.) Remember, these are joint p rob-
abilities. The infection fatality rate for
kids is very low (3 per 100,000), but
they have to get it first. That means the
likelihood of any k id dying from
c ovid-19 is even lower. In fa ct, the
Centers for Disease Control and Pre-
vention shows that excess mortality
this year for those yo unger than 25 is
2 percent below average compared
with the past four years.
The critical question, then, is: How
do we protect teachers?
Teachers should continue to dis-tance six feet from students as much as
possible, limit adult-to-adult interac-
tion and wear better masks (a three-
layer mask is very effective in these
lower-risk settings). While transient,
close-range interactions are bound to
happen in a classroom, these are lower
risk because of their short duration
and masking.
Classrooms should also set a target
of four to six air changes per hour,
achieved through any combination of
filtration and ventilation. This is espe-
cially important for times when masks
are of f, such as during lunch — e ven if
it means keeping windows open a few
inches during the winter.
As cases rise in the United States, we
should acknowledge that there will be
cases in schools. There is no zero risk.
We should also be prepared to adapt
our strategies accordingly. If cases rise
quickly in a region, schools should not
automatically close; rather, the level of
controls should increase. That might
mean the six-foot rule could come
back for high schools, while the three-
foot rules remains for youn ger grades.
If high levels of community spread
emerge and school closures become
warranted, high schools should close
first, then middle schools. Elementary
schools should close last, if at all. Most
important, schools should be priori-
tized over bars and restaurants.
The risks from covid-19 in schools
are manageable. The risks to kids be-
ing out of school, however, are escalat-
ing rapidly. For the sake of our chil-
dren, it’s time for more scientifically
justified dista ncing guidelines in the
classroom.Joseph G. Allen is an associate professor
and director of the Healthy Buildings
program at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan
School of Public Health. He co-wrote
“Healthy Buildings: How Indoor Spaces
Drive Performance and Productivity.” Sara
Bleich is a professor of public health policy
at the Chan School.In schools, 3 feet is e nough
DAVID CRIGGER/BRISTOL HERALD COURIER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Barbara Gammon teaches third graders at Highland View Elementary S chool in Bristol, Va., on Sept. 24.O
n Tuesday, Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo triggered a scan-
dal when he responded to a
reporter’s question about Presi-
dent Trump’s refusal to acknowledge Joe
Biden’s electoral victory by saying he
would work to ensure “a smooth transi-
tion to a second Trump administration.”
Because he chuckled afterward, it’s safe
to assume he was joking. But it wasn’t
funny. Pompeo’s subsequent pledge to let
the process play out according to the law
didn’t erase the damage his joke has
done to the credibility of U.S. democracy
worldwide.
His motivations were obvious.
Pompeo is pandering to Trump and his
Make America Great Again officials, who
are still denying the election results
(often without Pompeo-style chuckles).
The secretary of state knows that his
future as a leader in the Trump-
d ominated Republican Party and his
prospects for a 2024 presidential run
depend on maintaining his MAGA bona
fides. Less visible is the parallel game
Pompeo is playing to woo the GOP
foreign policy establishment — the same
establishment Trump’s MAGA loyalists
are trying to destroy.
Few noticed the speech Pompeo gave
Tuesday morning before his news-
m aking press conference, at the launch
of the Ronald Reagan Institute’s Center
for Freedom and Democracy. His pre-
pared remarks, unlike his impromptu
news conference joke, were carefully
crafted to make the case that the Trump
administration’s foreign policy approach
is rooted in Reagan’s vision of American
exceptionalism and the promotion of
freedom and democracy against authori-
tarianism worldwide.
“He, President Reagan, put his belief
in freedom and the American promise at
the very center of how he thought about
foreign policy,” Pompeo said. “And so is
the Trump administration.”
It’s a t endentious argument thatPompeo and other senior Trump national
securi ty officials have made for years. By
cherry-picking Reagan slogans such as
“peace through strength” and “shining
city on a hill,” Trump officials are asking
their audiences to ignore an obvious flaw
in their claims of continuity: Trump has
made clear that he does not believe in
American exceptionalism and disdains
the idea of pushing American values in
foreign countries.
The Trump-Pompeo foreign policy
legacy is not without its accomplish-
ments; it can claim credit for facilitating
Israel’s normalization with Persian Gulf
monarchies and killing terrorist leaders.
But the expansion of freedom and de-
mocracy simply did not occur on Trump’s
watch. In fact, Freedom House reported
that 2019 was the 14th consecutive year
of democratic decline around the world.
Although U.S. of ficials are happy to
wag a finger about freedom and democ-
racy in the face of regimes such as Iran
and Venezuela, “the Trump administra-
tion has failed to exhibit consistent
commitment to a foreign policy based on
the principles of democracy and human
rights,” the Freedom House report stat-
ed. That has le ft a v acuum authoritarians
have rushed to fill.
There’s also great irony in Pompeo
repeatedly quoting Reagan’s June 1982
speech to the British Parliament at West-
minster, where the Gipper called for
building an “infrastructure of democra-
cy.” His administration soon followed up
by creating several new institutions to
promote American values abroad, in-
cluding the National Endowment for
Democracy. The Trump administration,
by contrast, has repeatedly proposed
slashing funding for NED and its partner
organizations, only to be rebuffed by a
bipartisan bulwark in Congress.
In the wake of Trump’s loss, the GOP
establishment is trying to bolster that
very infrastructure. The Reagan Insti-
tute’s first step is to bring Democrats andRepublicans together in a project called
the “Westminster 2.0 working group,”
co-chaired by Mark Green, former U.S.
Agency for International Development
administrator and former International
Republican Institute president, and by
Kenneth Wollack, former National Dem-
ocratic Institute president. The project’s
goal is to “update the infrastructure and
modernize the tool kit for promoting
freedom and supporting democracy in
today’s world,” Reagan Institute policy
director Rachel Hoff told me.
Pompeo is trying to play to the MAGA
crowd and the GOP foreign policy estab-
lishment at the same time. But that
balancing act is becoming more difficult
as the GOP moves into opposition and
2024 politics begin in earnest. The
MAGA crowd is not even waiting until
the end of Trump’s term to attack GOP
establishment foreign policy officials
across the Trump administration, shat-
tering an already shaky truce.
At the Pentagon, USAID and other
agencies, Trump loyalists are purging
GOP of ficials and trying to humiliate
them in the process. All the 2024 GOP
presidential aspirants, not just Pompeo,
may find satis fying both of these factions
increasingly untenable. Nikki Haley, Mike
Pence, Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio and
others will try to dodge the contradiction
until they are forced to confront it.
If compelled to choose, the MAGA
foreign policy platform seems more po-
litically expedient, especially in a Repub-
lican primary contest. The problem is,
Republicans like Pompeo likely believe
in Reagan’s vision over Trump’s and
would prefer to govern that way as well.
Not all 2024 GOP prospects are caught
on the horns of this dilemma. Maryland
Gov. Larry Hogan will be the next politi-
cian to speak to the Reagan Institute.
Last month, when asked if he chose
Trump or Biden, he said he “voted for
Ronald Reagan.”
[email protected]JOSH ROGINThe GOP can’t f ollow Reagan and Trump