Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. Major League Baseball did not even make it a week before they had to cancel a game because of a krocoronavirus outbreak in th midst. The story of what happened is the story of americas utter failure to deal with this p pandemic that has killed nearly 150,000 of our fellow americans. You might remember back on march 11th, right, we had not quite shut down states yet, lots of schools were still open. There was supposed to be a regular season basketball game. Fans were in the stands. The game was about to start. And right before the tipoff, one of the jazz players tested positive and the game was canceled. Later that night, the season was postponed indefinitely. And then tom hanks announced he had the virus and then the nation basically shut down and then the before times were over. Four months later, we have not had sports for an obvious reason. You cannot safely crowd thousands of people, not to mention the competing athletes together and watch a game in the middle of a pandemic. But all these other sports leagues have a lot of money on the line. I mean, they have every single financial incentive to figure out a way to play and broadcast what their play is and to play safely. For months these sports teams have tried to figure out a way to make it work. The nba announced a plan to resume their season in an isolated zone in orlando called the bubble. The National Hockey league announced a similar plan. Major League Baseball worked on a similar plan of their own. Rob manfred telling the new york times, we cannot be the one sport that doesnt figure out how to play. The league created all sorts of protocols to make it work. They tried to cut down on travel, so there is a reduced travel schedule. There are, of course, no fans in the stands. Its bizarre to watch a game under those conditions. In fact, theyre piping in crowd noise to sort of give you the sense there are people cheering. Here is the Pittsburgh Pirates manager arguing with the umpire while both men wear masks. Look at that, putting it on to get down there. Here is chicago cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo jokingly giving the milwaukee runners hand sanitizer. Theyre getting results within two days, unlike the rest of america, where it is often taking two weeks. The league has nearly limitless resources, and every single incentive to figure out how to play safely and give fans sitting at home a product they can make money off of. But with less than a week, one week into the season, two games are postponed tonight. Because as of now, over a dozen, yes, you heard that correctly, over a dozen Miami Marlins players and Staff Members have tested positive. The marlins played a game in philadelphia against the phillies, despite having three players learn sunday they tested positive for covid19 just two days after a fourth player learned of a positive test on friday. And then earlier today the marlins learned at least 7 more players and 2 coaches tested positive. So now this team is stuck in philadelphia quarantining. The philadelphia enquirer reports with some players just tested positive and with some waiting for their test results, the players decided to vote by group text message to play the next day. Team officials or League Officials probably should have stepped in to make that call, dont you think . But thats par for the course with the american response. Like Texas Governor greg abbott opening the bars in his state and then chastising people for going to bars. Look, whether you like baseball or not, whether you care about sports or not, this is a business that has everything going for it, every resource it needs, every incentive to open safely. And their plan has basically not survived First Contact with the virus. And the reason for that is that they are trying to pull this off in a country with a raging outbreak. I mean, heck, the white house, the most tested workplace in the country with the resources of the entire federal government keeps having people test positive. Today was National Security adviser robert obrian. This is the fundamental problem we have been discussing for months. You cannot play a game of catch in the middle of a forest fire, at least not for very long. The epidemic is not under control in the u. S. , and any attempt, no matter how ingenerous to create normalcy amidst it is very likely to fail unless the epidemic is controlled. This is not just a story about baseball. This is a story about what is happening across the country. I mean, major League Baseball went through a planning process not that dissimilar to what my kids school is going through right now only with more resources at their disposal and a significantly smaller population to deal with than, say, new york city Public Schools and baseball already had a problem on its hands. What do you think is going to happen when people try to go back to work in the fall in Large Office Buildings . Or big urban School Districts, especially underresourced School Districts where theyre not going to have access to testing . A place where, say, a bunch of teachers could get it, get tested and still not know for 7 to 10 days. And thats not even to mention all the other disaster areas we know about, county jails, state and federal prisons, nursing homes, ice detention facilities. Here is the thing. It is not impossible to contain the virus. It is quite possible, actually. Other countries have done a much better job. But it is not possible to ignore the virus and then come out with some plan to get out there and play ball. Pretend you can have a normal life as the virus wages across the country. Here is what Washington National pitchers Sean Doolittle said bt it earlier this month. Were trying to bring basketball back in a pandemic thats killed 130,000 people. Were way worse off as a country than where we were in march when we shut this thing down. And, like, look at where other developed countries are in their response to this. We havent done any of the things that other countries have done to bring sports back. Sports are like the reward of a functional society. We cant just have virus fatigue and think its been four months, were over it. This has been enough time, right . Weve waited long enough. Shouldnt sports come back now . No, there is things you have to do in order to bring this stuff back. Thats as good a 40 seconds on the american response to the virus i have heard from anyone. Sports are a reward of a functional society. Thats correct. If you take the right steps, you can have baseball. Look at south korea. They have their first case of the coronavirus the very same day we had our first confirmed case. In south korea, they worked fast to deploy an overwhelming force. They shut down their society and they contact traced relentlessly. They have had around 300 deaths total. Fewer coronavirus deaths in four months than the u. S. Has every single day for months stretching out into the future. That is what success looks like. And that is why yesterday south korean baseball fans were able to attend games in person while the american baseball season hangs in the balance. Joining me now is former s secretary of health and human services, former governor of kansas. Lets start on this basic notion here, which is all different parts of society have been tasked to solve a very difficult problem, which is how to do what you normally do while the virus rages. Is that a solvable problem . What does the experience of baseball show us about whether that is, in fact, a solvable problem . Well, chris, i think you laid out very well whats going on with baseball, highly skilled athletes, more money than any school, any office building, anybody else has, a big incentive to give back. As you say, its been four days since the league reopened and now we have a real crisis with a team with 14 players and coaches in quarantine. We have no idea whats going to happen in philadelphia because of their close proximity in the game. And we also have at the same time, and again this is sticking with baseball for just a moment, eduardo rodriguez, star pitcher for the boston red sox, who is out because of the ongoing injuries he suffered from having been a covid victim. 27yearold athlete in the prime of his life. I mean, this is serious stuff. So we have a failure at the national level. We have never had a national plan. You described south korea very well. We have never had a plan about how we are going to first shut down and drive the virus down and then reopen when the virus is down at a controllable level and you can test and trace and contract and then isolate. We have never done that. So what were seeing people talk about a second wave, we are still very much in the first wave. A thousand deaths for the last four days in florida where the marlins are, you have an 80 increase in hospitalizations since the 4th of july. We are in as serious a condition as this virus has ever been in. And now the push is lets put our kids back in school and lets have College Students return to campuses all over this country. And i think its an incredible recipe for danger. Im glad you mentioned college campuses. I was just with a college kid yesterday and talking about returning to school. The first thought i thought of mlb is like College Dorms . Major League Baseball cant keep testing, all this money. Obviously they have a difficult problem. People have to travel. There is clubhouses. People are in close proximity during the course of the game. But what hope do College Dorms have if major League Baseball has this problem a week in . Well, and i happen to take that very personally. I live in lawrence, kansas, the Wonderful University of kansas is here. There are 18,000 students enrolled. And they have basically been gone since the middle of spring break. I can tell you all over this community there are people who are very apprehensive because kids not only will be moving back into the campus but they will be going to grocery stores. They will be, you know, sharing the takeouts. They will be interacting. And, so, its a very precarious situation. But in dormitories, how kids eat in those settings. How do they have a system figured out i think for classrooms. But as you said, were in a situation where the athletes at the schools can get tested pretty rapidly and football started and suspended. There have been soccer that started and suspended. The kids will not have that access to Rapid Testing, so youre going to have potentially people roaming around campus for days and days on end not knowing theyre active carriers of the virus. Yeah. And on a final note, this really shows how important Rapid Testing is. I mean, this happened this outbreak was allowed to spread in the one to two to threeday gap between testing and results that major League Baseball has, which is very rapid. I mean, i have friends who have been tested recently, and its taken 14 days to get results back. At that point the testing means nothing. It doesnt do anything to prevent the virus. Thats right now what the testing backlogs look like. Well, you are absolutely right. In most cases, if you have a test that takes anymore than about 48 hours, it is useless. When but talk about putting kids back in school and every parent, every child, every teacher in the country wants to engage in in person learning, but they want to be safe. If you cant have a test back in a 7 to 10 day period, you could have a teacher in a classroom for weeks at a time. You could have kids interacting with other kids. I mean, this is a very precarious situation. And, you know, we dont have any plan once we gather kids like major League Baseball. Whats the threshold to shut that school down again . What are the guidelines and criteria to say that school shouldnt meet in person anymore . And i havent seen that articulated at all. Thats a great point and something clearly missing from major League Baseball because they played a game they probably shouldnt have. Always great to talk to you. Thank you very much. I want to now bring in jason starks, senior Baseball Writer at the athletic. He coauthored why did the marlins play baseball on sunday. Maybe lets start with the answer to that question. I have been following your reporting throughout this pandemic on the major League Baseball plan. As the details come out theyre voting by group texts that the manager basically said we never thought of not playing, how did this happen . Yeah. Its really quite amazing, chris, that from what we can gather no one seriously discussed the idea of not playing that game. Now, its not quite as simple as to say, the marlins had a group text and decided to play. There were conversations with major League Baseball. Major League Baseball was monitoring all these developments. What we were told at the athletic is that because no one else had tested positive, no one else had displayed symptoms, that there was no reason in their mind to not play, to cancel that game. Look, we have always wondered how many positive tests would it take to shut down a team . I mean, now we know. Four was not enough. 11 is not enough. Major League Baseball says there is a reason that every team has 60 players in its pool. We anticipated this. So the marlins are not playing tonight, right . The phillies and yankees not playing tonight. But major League Baseball views this as a shortterm shutdown, not a longterm threat to the season. Well, and that gets the point that theyre committed to this. There is two things here so striking to me as allegories for the larger american way of dealing with this is once you create your own incentives, essential essentially, that were opening, were doing it, which is what we saw happening with governors and policy. There is a certain force that you dont want to close back down. And i think were seeing that in action in major League Baseball. Yeah, we planned for this. Were going to keep going. Thats 100 right. Look at what happened in the three weeks when teams were in this summer training camp. We had multiple instances where a team didnt get its test results back and said, its not safe to even practice. Now the season starts and very similar types of uncertainty, plus positive tests, and, yet, the season goes on. Right. Its really fascinating to watch this, isnt it . There was a time when people in major League Baseball talked about the idea that they could be a model for how society could do this. How society could get back to some semblance of normalcy. Frequent testing, tracing of positive tests and constant monitoring of this situation. Now were seeing a situation where they have done all that and, yet, we have a team with 11 positive tests. Well, and on the testing front, i mean, again, it does illustrate how important testing and tracing is, right . If you want to contain the pandem pandemic, thats what you want to do. Everyone with the resources is doing that. Major League Baseball players are getting tested for it every other day. The question is, is that enough to prevent outbreaks . And, i mean, were kind of getting a lesson, right, which gives you both answers. No at one level because you have got over a dozen people test positive. At least we know that now and not a week or two from now. Let me illustrate the dilemma. On friday a player had been tested on wednesday. The next set of positive tests came in sunday from players who were tested on friday. Then there was another wave of testing. That was the positive test results we got today. Players on both the marlins and the phillies, the team they played over the weekend were tested today. Theyre awaiting more results either tonight or tomorrow. But we know the incubation period is three or five or seven days. So just because many players come back with negative results doesnt mean they have not been exposed and have not contracted this virus. And, so, if there are a number of negative tests, baseball is going to try to play and keep on playing. But this is really their worst nightmare, is the rapid spread of the virus within a team, and then the offshoot of that is the potential spread to other teams. Yeah. And also lets not forget there are people working in those hotels and those facilities and i hope theyre getting tested as well. I have been oddly trance fixed by this because it is such a problem and mlb put a lot of thought and resource into it, but it is not going so well. Thanks so much. Chris, thanks for having me. Tonight, the republicans have finally produced a rescue package that includes much less money for unemployed americans and much more money for a trump hotel boondoggle. Bernie sanders is here with reaction next. Your doctor about biktarvy. Biktarvy is a complete, onepill, onceaday treatment used for hiv in certain adults. Its not a cure, but with one small pill, biktarvy fights hiv to help you get to and stay undetectable. Thats when the amount of virus is so low it cannot be measured by a lab test. Research shows people who take hiv treatment every day and get to and stay undetectable can no longer transmit hiv through sex. Serious side effects can occur, including kidney problems and kidney failure. Rare, lifethreatening side effects include a buildup of lactic acid and liver problems. Do not take biktarvy if you take dofetilide or rifampin. 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As of today donald trump and Mitch Mcconnell and the entire Republican Party in washington are wholly responsible for slashing Unemployment Benefits for millions of americans in the middle of the pandemic. Back in march americans out of work started receiving an additional 600 a week because of a rescue package passed and signed amidst a country that was shutting down, right . You cant go to work, you need to stay home, here is a bonus to get you through this difficult period. Republicans grumbled about it from the beginning. They hated it. It came from the democrat. And then the expiration approached. And now it is expired basically. Today the republicans came up with their counter proposal to cut the extra help by twothirds to 200 per week. But theyre still not moving fast enough. Not only that, there are millions of people who suddenly became eligible for eviction this week. Again, that is thanks to donald trump and mitch mckonld and the Republican Party dragging its feet. Those people who might be kicked out on the street, their fate is unclear. But never fear, republicans do have a magic solution to get the economy back on track. The president s top economic adviser saying, quote, there will be increased business deductions for meals and entertainment. Oh, great. You could go out to meals and entertainment. Tax breaks for three martini lunches in the middle of a pandemic. Here with me now one of the senators who will be voting on a new rescue package, independent of vermont, bernie sanders. I have watched this with horror. There are finally some contours i think from the republicans today, finally after everything has already expired on their counter proposal. What do you think of what they appear to be proposing . I mean the pathetic would be too mild a word. The point that you just made is they are now giving 100 deduction for rich people to go out and have three martini lunches, but millions of families in this country are facing hunger. There is not an additional nickel in their package for nutrition programs for children or for working people. Not a nickel in their proposal for elections. Not a nickel for the post office. So what you are seeing is, i think, their priorities are coming out pretty clearly. In addition to the 100 deduction for lunches and entertainment, they also have some 30 billion into the pentagon on top of the 740 billion bill that was passed last week. So bottom line here is obviously democrats in the senate have got to remain strong. Weve got to make absolutely clear that workers in this country continue to receive that 600 in my view 1,200 per person is not enough. We should up it to 2,000. And by the way, we should guarantee health care for all people during this terrible crisis when so many people are worried about the pandemic. So you said something interesting, and its going to be key to how this all shakes out. Democrats have to remain strong and focussed on these priorities. Because right now this whole thing has been a mess on the republican side, an absolutely mess, right . The caucus is divided. Theyre yelling at each other behind closed doors. The white house has tried to take testing out of the bill. Its nuts. Heres Lindsey Graham showing the cards of his caucus that a lot of voters dont want to vote for this no matter whats in it. Take a listen. Half the republicans are going to vote no to any phase four package. Thats a packet. And a lot of democrats will insist on 3 trillion, which would be way too much. It would be wasted money. Now correct me if im wrong, if half the republicans in the senate are going to vote know, then they need democrats to pass it, which should give democrats a lot of leverage here. Well, i think the main leverage that we have, in fact, chris, is we are doing what the American People want us to do. We are looking today at a level of desperation that we have never seen in our lifetimes and perhaps not since the 1930s. And that is what we are looking at, is tens of millions of people have lost their jobs. They have lost their health insurance. People have no food in the cubburds. People as you indicated by the millions are facing evictions which they dont deal with and foreclosures. Kids are not getting the education that they need. This is an unprecedented crisis. And you got Lindsey Graham saying, well, half the republicans, they dont think its a problem. Theyre going to vote no on anything. Well, i think the republicans will cave, not because theyre nice guys, because they can read polls. And they will understand that the American People will come down heavily on those people who turn their backs on working people in the midst of this terrible crisis. So i tend to agree with that, but heres whats so bizarre about this. It looks like political suicide to me. The president right now, the only Silver Lining in his polling right now is on the economy. And i have a theory that that is because he signed that cares package and people did get a 1,200 and boosted unemployment and they did get protections in there. And republicans want to take this away from people when they are in worse shape now unless you believe, as they appear to, that you essentially need to starve people out in the labor market. That you need to basically take away all the rescue money so the people have no choice but to crawl out into the midst of the pandemic and go back to work and that that will be their political salvation. Is that their theory of the case here . Well, i think there are many of them who, in fact, believe that and when the original bill was passed i was on the floor taking on republicans who said, oh, my god, imagine workers today on unemployment receiving more than the starvation wages they previously received. They feel very strongly about the fact that workers should continue to receive starvation wages. But to be honest with you, i dont think there is a great theory here. I think you have a bunch of folks who do not believe we should be spending money on working people, on the children, on the elderly, on the people in need. Thats just what they believe. And i think they will pay a political price. But i think that mcconnell and others are going to understand that theyre going to have to move. This is their initial offer. Its a terrible offer. But i believe they will move very, very significantly in our direction. Its really interesting. A lot hangs in the balance here on these negotiations. Thank you so much for making time to talk to us tonight. Thank you, chris. The senator just mentioned the usps. Next, why the president is sabotaging the post office and setding up an Election Night disaster. Dangerous new campaign grab after this. New campaign grab after this okay. Okay safe drivers save 40 disaster. Dangerous new campaign grab after this. Sing up an election disaster. 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Ask an asthma specialist about fasenra. Could you be living a bigger life . To bit never bothered me. Dust . Until i found out what it actually was. Dust mite droppings . Ewww. Dead skin cells . Gross so now, i grab my swiffer sweeper and heavy duty dusters. Dusters has three layers that grab, trap and lock away gross dust. Gotcha and, for dust on my floors, i switch to my sweeper. The textured cloths grab, trap and lock dirt and hair. No matter where dust bunnies hide. No more heebie jeebies. Glad i stopped cleaning and started swiffering. I got to take a vacation last week. First time since quarantine started. Vacation allows you, if you have my job or a job like this, to get away from the minute by minute news sickcycles. I checked out a little. But one story put Everything Else in perspective in a strange way. Last tuesday an Animal Rights activists took 13 hostages on a bus in ukraine. Among his demands, he wanted the ukrainian president to endorse a 2005 Animal Rights film. So thats what president zelinsky did. He put out a facebook video telling his followers, the movie earthlings, 2005 everybody should watch. Then he released them and he deleted his post. The president needed to take action, and he did and those lives were saved. And it really focuses your mind on the human stakes of leadership and about the sheer scale of the horror were living through day after day after day as thousands of americans die. Busses and busses and busses full of people. Think of the terror of those 13 people trapped on a bus in danger of being killed by a madman. And in that context you can see so clearly the human stakes involved in all of this. But it is easy to look site of that with day of day of charts and statistics showing the fatality right climbing up. Right now, we have our own hostage situation. The virus is taking people hostage every day by the thousands. And the president is refusing to do the things necessary to save the lives of those people, instead consigning many of them to death. No amount of excuse making can justify that. I mean, imagine if president zelinsky said, no, it is the Regional Governors job. Get him to post the video. Or, look, we have an economy to worry about. We cant just shut down every road around the bus. People need to keep going with their lives. Thats whats happening in the u. S. Thats what were seeing that we have been seeing for months that we keep seeing day after day. It has been an explicit message from people that people dying is worth the tradeoff. No one reached out to me and said, as a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the america that all america loves for your children and grandchildren . And if thats the exchange, im all in. Those of us who are 70 plus, well take care of ourselves. But dont sacrifice the country. 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For months now, donald trump has attacked mailin voting, tweeting jed about how the 2020 election will be votely rigged if mailin voting is allowed to take place. At the same time, we have heard about issues with mail slowing down. Americans from coast to coast have been impacted. Now power users of the system are blowing the whistle about whats going on like this Small Business owner who has been mailing an average of 100 packages a week for years. She says up to 10 of her mail is now taking weeks to be delivered, with some stuck in the system for over a month. The president has attacked the United States post office, refusing to provide them relief during this pandemic and demanding they up their prices. Hes also installed his crony as postmaster general last month, a trump mega donor who established major operational changes that could slow mail delivery. So he put his guy in, now the nail is slower. Now the usps says americans voting by mail should allow every ballot to take 14 days. It seems pretty clear that the Trump Administration is trying to diseven franchise people by creating problems and delays crucially with vote by mail and then calling into question legitimacy of the whole vote by mail operation in the midst of a pandemic. Trump is also politicizing voting by mail so his voters may be more likely to vote in person on election day, while more democrats mail in their ballots. All that would set us up for an Election Night where the president might look like he has performed well in states while we wait for all the mailin ballots to be counted and the president yells about the election being stolen from him. Im joined now by the political and legislative director for the american postal workers union. Thank you for your time tonight. Let me start by asking you what your members, the people that work for the Postal Service, what are they seeing in the changes that happened in the last month under the new postmaster general . Well, they have seen the mail slow down, no doubt about it. They have been given instructions by their supervisor to leave mail and go home or leave mail and go out on the routes. Just leave mail. But, you know, our postal workers take pride in going to work every day during this pandemic. They take pride in serving the American People. And they know how to sort this mail. They know how to get the mail out. Yeah, you know, we have more packages than we normally have. But they deal with that every day. So if the postmaster general would not, you know, slow down the mail, and its no doubt hes part of the administration. He was appointed by the postal board of governors who were dominated by trump and its obvious that what hes trying to do. But we need to do something about this. Congress can do something about this. Let me just make sure i have a firmer grasp on whats been happening because we have seen reports about slower mail and we have seen folks inside the postal system. This is a memo from inside the Postal Service outlining changes to the system that had come in under the new management. And one of the things that it says is temporarily we may see mail left behind or mail on the work room floor or docks, which is not typical. We will address root causes of these delays and adjust the very next day. So i guess my question is what is the change here . If you could explain it to a laypers layperson, what are they doing to the mail that is making it get worse in its quality . The postal employees, when they go to work, they know that they have to sort the mail. They have to process it. They have to give it to the carriers. They have to have all the mail out that day. Thats what they take pride in doing. When they go home at the end of the day, they know the people will get their medicine. They will get their packages. They take pride in it. So if their supervisor said leave that mail where it is, leave it in the tray, leave that mail in the boxes and just go to lunch, and theyre like, what . Go home. Work it up the next day. Its just going to pile up. Tomorrow its going to be the same situation. Its going to be double the amount of mail left. So its deliberately changing the way the workers process the mail, deliberately to slow it down, which is terrible. And the postmaster said hes doing it for financing. All we need is congress, the Bipartisan Senate to say, hey, give the post office 25 billion in the next bill all covid related because, you know, the Postal Service and the postal employees are sick, theyre at home some of them. But the ones that come to work want to get the mail out. And, so, over time some of them have to work overtime and some of them dont, but theyre just leaving it. I see. So basically you got the postmaster general saying, for budgetary reasons, were going to put new processes in place to increase efficiency, which is going to slow down mail and probably increase error rates in terms of mail getting left behind. People working there for a long time say, no, that is not the way we do things here. The postmaster saying, well, we dont have money. And the solution which is that, given the trillions of dollars flowing out the door, that this essential service could be funded fully by the u. S. Government to take away this problem. Thats what im hearing from you. You know, all covid related money. You know, the post office is spending money on overtime. Theyre spending money on ppe. Theyre spending money on plastic thats up so that people wont get sick. Theyre spending money on covid related they have covidrelated expenses. Right. So if they got 25 billion to spend on covidrelated expenses and the mail would still flow if there wouldnt be any orders saying slow down the mail. But we think its another reason why theyre doing this. We know that the Trump Administration has tried to tried to privatize the post office, so this is another way to degrade the service that the American People deserve. Were going to keep following this story because i think it might prove to be one of the most crucial of this entire year as we head toward the election. So thank you so much for joining us tonight. And thank you. Thank you for having me. Still to come, the memorial for congressman john lewis still making history, while his legacy of getting into good trouble continues on. Thats next. This is about the next 10 years. And you can make a difference today by completing the census. The census impacts everything from hospitals, schools and public transportation. The census builds america, so the census should look like america. Shape your future. Start here at 2020census. Gov. This right now is the scene outside the United States capitol building. Mourners paying respect to congressman john lewis, civil rights icon, who became the first black lawmaker in our history to lie in state inside the capitol rotunda. In the wake of lewis death, it is impossible not to look back at his life and those historic images of a Young John Lewis on the Edmund Pettus bridge in selma, alabama. Those are some of the most morally meaningful images in all of American History because they illustrate the evil, the system that he was protesting. That was the point of the nonviolent action that he undertook so bravely. He confronted an evil system and shows how evil it was. The police baton that cracked his skull was also an actual baton and a symbol of the broader violence of segregation. This is true of people all over the world who have used nonviolent action to expose evil. The guy in the front of the tanks leading tiananmen square. The people getting beaten up in egypts Tahrir Square or the tens of thousands protesting in hong kong against the Chinese Communist party. Up until today we are still seeing moments of sheer moral depravity in the protests in seattle, portland and other places, depravity on the part of those who should be protecting us. The graphic image from this 41yearold mother of three who writes on facebook she was shot in the face by federal officers in portland on saturday. The vietnam veteran also in portland who was pepper sprayed in the face yesterday after reminding the federal officers of the moral compromise of serving an unjust government. When john lewis talked about making good trouble, this is what good trouble looks like. Joining me now to talk about this is carol anderson, professor of africanamerican studies, the author of white rage, the unspoken truth of our racial divide. Professor, its wonderful to have you and its striking as we commemorate and mourn john lewis tonight to think about just how unpopular so much of what he did as a young man that is so celebrated now, how unpopular it was at the time broadly throughout the country. Absolutely. There was a kind of sense that this was disruptive, that it was destabilizing, that it was messing with the way that things were done. And this is where good trouble comes from. It is showing the hidden oppression and the hidden violence of a system that would repress you, that would denigrate you, that would debase you, that would subjugate you and that was the power of nonviolence to get at this asymmetrical power from those who are oppressing to those who are oppressed. You know, i think sometimes people confuse nonviolent direct action with things that are just like chill and peaceful. I mean lewis and king and rustin and the theorists of this, they were looking for confrontation. That was the whole point. The whole point was not for things to be relaxed. It was there was going to be tension, there was going to be conflict. We look at whats happening now and we watch these tear gassing and pepper sprays of nurses and moms and all these people. You know, its revealing something about the system, it seems to me, when you watch a government do that to protesters. Absolutely, because what its getting at, particularly lets talk about the United States, a democracy, where we hold these truths. And so that has become so foundational in our narrative that what nonviolence direct action protest does is to destabilize that narrative, to reveal the oppression, to reveal the antidemocratic forces at work. It is designed to in fact create a violent confrontation with the cameras rolling. Because that is also what was so essential in the movement. I mean those iconic photographs were designed to force people to reckon with the ills, the fault lines in american society, almost like looking at the portrait of dorian gray. And then to then have to reflect on that and to demand of themselves to do better. This is not who we are. That was what nonviolent confrontation was designed to do. So this is why it worked with bull connor in birmingham and jim clark in selma, but it didnt work with Lori Pritchett in albany, georgia, who knew the playbook but said, okay, were just not going to confront them in ways that will be photographically vibrant. Right. And people, i think, underestimate sometimes how much sophistication and incredible thought goes into the way that this was all built up, because they understood precisely what the goal was and you can see now trump, being frustrated, that the wall of moms, right, hes tweeting about them. This is deceptive because he also understands theres a battle for Public Opinion happening in the moment of conflict of images. Right. And so when you they love the kind of sense of these violent anarchists, right . Except then you get this wall of moms. First it looks weird because youre doing this for graffiti . And then the wall of moms, and the wall of white mothers. Because that again becomes very destabilizing to a narrative of these violent anarchic systems of criminally based cities. And the wall of moms, and the wall of dads with leaf blowers . That is so suburban but hes talking about how the suburbs are under attack but here the suburbs are coming to protect democracy. Yeah. And then the wall of veterans, because, again, iconic. So when veterans are coming there to defend democracy, it just it makes it very difficult to hold on to a narrative. Carol anderson, who i always love talking with and listening to and reading, thank you for making time tonight. Thank you. That is all in on this