 Well, this is Think Tech on a given Thursday morning. I'm Jay Fidel and we have Tim Apachele, Cynthia Lee Sinclair, as opposed to other Cynthia Sinclairs around the world. There are so many. Stephanie Dalton and Winston Welch. Hi guys. So the title of our show today here is COVID is getting worse around the country. And the implications are more dire now. I guess we really don't have an immediate prospect of solution. And the way I put it is that it doesn't really matter who wins the election. We have COVID. COVID is not going to go away. I mean, Joe Biden can make all the commissions he wants. There's a lot of work to be done to deal with this disease, not only here but around the world. One thing is clear from the science, the scientific people who appeared in the media is that you have to deal with it globally. You can't just deal with it one country at a time. And so there's a lot of work to be done. But bottom line is Trump's legacy, when lose or draw, is COVID. He owns it. And he leaves us with a legacy that is quite extraordinary, a legacy that has changed our lives. And I want to talk about that today. So the status of the matter right now here on the very eve of the election, Tim, you know, we're only hours away. You know, we were projecting earlier that he would do amazing creative, you know, incredible things in the last few days before the election. I think the time is up. I think we're there already. And I think we're going to sail into this in a relatively subdued, you know, time of two or three days. Weekend doesn't count politically. For you know it, the election. And so that legacy, where does he leave us? Can you give us a handle on, you know, the spread of it, the situation? You know, Wilf Blitzer and the situation, Tim, you look like Wilf Blitzer, the situation around the world on COVID. Where we got here? Jay, he's left a legacy and where he's left us is a trail of death, literally 228,000 Americans. The number will grow. He's left our institutions weakened. He's left the employment sector horribly damaged, particularly the retail and all the restaurant sector, horribly damaged. He's left us with strained relationships within the family units, just by being locked down for six months alone. He has left us a legacy of really death and destruction. And it's not to be taken lightly, but at the same time, you're right. Where do we, how do we move forward? And I don't know if you've ever been in a car that suddenly lost its brakes going downhill, but I have. And it's scary. And that's how I feel like we've been for the last six months with his direction under COVID. And Joe Biden, he may have a car that has brakes and he knows how to apply them as we're speeding down the hill with COVID. And I feel a lot more confident that Joe Biden has a plan. I think he'll implement a national policy of mass testing, contract testing, tracing. And I think he will get us on the right foot. And I think the economy will respond to that. We'll be able to interact with one another, socially distanced, of course, but we will have an economy that still works. I used to suggest that if Trump does win, he will carry on his, quote, plan, which is really not a plan, into the future. Have you got a ghost of Christmas future to talk to? I mean, what would happen if Trump won and continued his plan or non-plan about COVID? Sadly, Jay, 400,000 dead before we get a vaccine. That's the bottom line as far as deaths. I think the economy will be in a far greater shambles. We can't keep spending deficit dollars that we don't have to prop up the unemployed, to prop up restaurants that aren't getting business, to prop up the airline industries that is just now starting to get passengers. You can only spend trillions of dollars so much in the future, at some point, we'll go bankrupt. And that can't continue forever. And so if Donald Trump continues as president, the economy will be in the, well, I can't say this word, it'll be in the hole. And we'll have a lot more deaths. And then we'll have something to really remember them by, two terms of death and destruction. Well, even the plague back in 14th century, ultimately spent itself, not permanently, but at least it got weaker over time. I just wanna make one point, the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union, the communism fell not because we are bright and smart, we just outspent them. They outspent themselves into oblivion with the military spending. Well, this could be our moment to outspent ourselves with COVID. We don't get a handle on it. Yeah, it really does affect the human race. Stephanie, to go to the question of the election, we don't know how the votes are. I mean, there's a lot of polls and there's a lot of people telling us not to listen to the polls. And there's a lot of speculation, which I'm gonna ask you to do, about what people are gonna do, what they have done in the mail voting. How do you think Trump's non-plan has affected the election? Is it the single most important issue? You think it's turned a lot of voters away from him? Or have they learned pursuant to his messaging from him that it really doesn't count that much? You think it's the most profound issue in the election or is it not? I personally think that it is, but I don't know about the rest of the world. I can only surmise that some are paying attention to his landfulness or may not. But I mean, for example, we've had, what is it? 10 billion of taxpayer money invested in the operation warp speed to get the vaccine now. To get the vaccine now. And absolutely no money, no plan on how to get it to Americans after it's prepared. So this was in the Washington Post today that the states are all saying, the CDC is coming out and asking them to be at the ready on November 15th to distribute. They're supposed to be at the ready and the states are coming back so we don't have the federal funds to do this or any other funds. So how are we supposed to do this? Well, I don't know, it's the same thing as selling the Brooklyn Bridge, isn't it? Yeah, so I mean, there's no planning. And this is my issue with Trump as to his competency. I mean, the biggest issue is the president's capacity to manage the job, to solve the problems, to tackle the threats, you know, all of this. And that's where do we see any pattern of him being competent? Well, we do see a pattern. We see a pattern of people following him in a completely cynical process, in a Jim Jones of, you know, Guiana Town kind of process. We see government has changed the way that the way the Congress operates has changed, the way the CDC has changed. I mean, we see he has legitimized lying. And this is not, you know, you cannot assume that's the end of it. And that with the end of Trump, hopefully there's something coming soon. There won't be any more lying. He's legitimized it. And I think we'll see more of it. So my question to you is, you know, how indeed, how has this government changed around emergencies, around the perception of science about, you know, lying to people on things that may kill them? How has this government changed and how permanent has that changed, you know, is that change gonna be in our governmental system? Probably not too permanent because people are smart. Americans are smart. And it was Obama that was jumping around on the stage saying, wait, what happened to the book? We left the book right up there on the table about how to do this whole thing. Where'd the book go? Anyway, I think we'll get the book back. And once we have other than an autocrat who's demanding that everything he says and does is followed to the letter, we'll be back in the game again. Because, you know, America's expertise is overwhelming. I mean, we've solved Polio, we've solved Iban, Iban, Ibanah, Obama, Ibanah. Stephanie, isn't there a breaking point? You know, the processes that Tim was talking about, you know, are still in play. And no president, including Biden, can actually stop those processes on a dime. We have an economy that's in tatters. It's not likely to resurrect itself in 90 days. You know what? So, you know, clearly, you know, what is the level of damage to the economy, to the public, to the government as a consequence of what Trump has done? I don't think it's gonna be permanent because I feel that everybody is repressed. It's all being pushed down. This enormous energy that the United States has to help with it is gonna just swell. It's gonna swell. It's gonna return and Biden's gonna... From your lips to God's ears. Cynthia, you know, this has affected the country. It has affected the culture of the country. It has affected the way groups either, you know, unite or divide, mostly in the Trump time, they have divided. We have found flaws, perhaps fatal permanent flaws in a way the country works, the way the government relates to the people and the people relates to the government. And I just wonder, you know, if you could address the question of how the country and our individual lives, our culture as Americans has changed and whether those changes are long-term beyond this election. All right, I think that... No, I'm asking Cynthia. That's a huge question. And it's a hard one. Now, take two minutes. Yeah, it's a hard one. It's a hard one. You're fine. Because we thought racism was gone, right? We thought we elected a black president, so racism has finally been sent back home to stay. Yeah, well, obviously not. So how are we gonna manage those kind of separations is I think the key to getting us back together. And every time I hear Joe Biden or Kamala Harris say they're going to be the president of all America, not just Blue America, but all red and blue America, you know, and independent too. And I love hearing that because it's that kind of inclusive messaging that is going to slowly bring us back together. Can they pull it off, Cynthia? Can they pull it off? I mean, there are people in the country that blow that stuff off immediately and say, no, no, no, I hate. I have lots of hate and I'm skinhead and I don't like this minority or that minority. Make me change. Are they gonna change? Is Joe Biden gonna do that? How do you do that? Well, that's the thing that's gonna be so hard to define and whether or not they can. If he goes aggressively after all of these, though called militia, you know, goes after these white supremacists that are out there running around with their guns. And actually prosecutes them, then I think we'll maybe take a couple steps further. But remember, I worked down in the South. I worked in Alabama for a long time. And these people whisper the n-word behind their hands when nobody's looking. These are people that are now just have flourished because now they don't have to be ashamed of their racism. So how do we change the mentality so that they need to be ashamed of their racism? And I think that's gonna be the key. And so how do you do that and include them at the same time? It's gonna be a pretty- No, it's a key, but you know, to me, these are the flaws that existed in the country maybe a long time and you can exacerbate them. He has exacerbated them, not only the social flaws, but the view of science, the view of disease, the view of public health, the view of the government's relation to the people, it's the government's initiatives to help people and so forth. We've turned our back on all those values. And there are people who agree with them. 40% of the country agrees. How do you, it's rhetorical. I guess we agree that it's rhetorical. Maybe we'll cover it more with Winston. Winston, my question just slightly refined here is how long will it take for us to address this and will we be able to do it in a safe way? I mean, starting with the fact that if Biden wins, there'll be violence. I mean, there's a fair chance the assault rifles will be out there. And how are we gonna handle that and how are we gonna get back to some level of civilized communal life in this nation after this election next week? But it's a great question. And it's one that's been begging to be answered. Really, if you look at income inequality charts for the last really three, four decades since the Reagan era came in and you're seeing now that a bubble down so that ordinary people with full-time jobs, two full-time jobs cannot pay their rent. This is what's doing so much anger in the nation. People at the top ranks if you're making $100 billion a year, should you be at a 22% maximum cap for your income? I think that's one thing that we're not really aware of. It's not in our face all the time, but it's about sort of paying your fair share. That level of income inequality and just the circumstances in which people find themselves fuels all of this. So we have some very structural problems to address after Biden and Harris take place. And again, it's malice towards none, charity towards all. We are in this with all of the people in the nation together. We have to find out how to address the real grievances. These other things are just smoke and mirrors and noise. And that's what Donald Trump is doing. Excellent at exploiting staying. Here's the people of the blame. Look at them as he's manipulating the leverage behind the curtain. As we go through and you asked an important question, I think to Tim or perhaps Stephanie about are the damage done to our institutions and how long that will take to recover? I think if we look back in the olden days and four years ago or eight years ago and remember that the, I think it was in the Bush administration when the surgeon general was prohibited from issuing anything about gun violence in our nation as a public health threat. That they were, it might have been a law passed by Congress. And we thought that was so egregious that the surgeon general could not address a public health concern. You look at the damage that has been done across the board in every single agency. And it's not just reversing policies. It's not just saying we should have a coal plant or not a coal plant. It's saying if you do this, you'll be fired, you'll be marginalized, you'll be shamed nationally, you'll get death threats because you stood up for a position as a government worker. That is much harder to undo. And it makes people think twice about going into public service when you might be Gretchen Whitmire and what is Gretchen's last name in Michigan. And suddenly you wanna be Whitmire and you wanna be a public servant, but now you're facing this insanity. We have a lot of backpedaling to do where we need to go deeply into our civic and nonprofit institutions and organizations to have a healing and a repair of what's gone on. And we really have to take a look at the whole thing from the 30,000 foot perspective so that we can, and then we drill down from there and say, what are these issues that have fueled all of this? And of course, people are racist. They're sexist, they're homophobic. That's just how they are. But how do we say, hey, folks, your neighbors aren't so different than you are and do you really wanna put them down? No, we need to lift everybody up in this nation. And I think that's what we have a chance of doing if we do it right and we don't. Well, that's the problem. The devil's in the detail. Tim, in his recent public statements, campaign statements, Biden has said that in order to address, for example, a question of packing the Supreme Court, which I think is an easy question, but that's just me, easy, easy, easy. I would pack it right away. He says, no, he wants to have a commission, create a commission, a bipartisan commission and study the problem. But that sounds a lot like kicking it down the road. And it sounds a lot like trying to deflect any responsibility for it. And that's just one tiny example. So you also have the example of COVID. You have the example of public, of Obamacare and public health care initiatives. You have the example of the environment, I could go on. How is Biden gonna do that? You gotta be pretty strong and the buck has got to stop with you and you can't have 27 commissions all around reporting to you at convenience. So I'm going to make you just for this show a member of Biden's inner circle as the newly elected president. What do you tell him? How do you, how does he actually do what Winston is saying? Well, okay. I don't like blue ribbon commissions cause you're right. It's usually a symptom of kicking the can down the road, but you're only as good as you are surrounding yourself with the best and brightest minds that have the nation's interest in mind not sucking up to you as president of the United States. Donald Trump was only I can fix it. And he, as we've talked many times the sole proprietorship of government and the leader in running the government all by himself that cannot be done. And in my mind, these institutions can be repaired. It's gonna take the best and brightest experts to the table, bipartisan experts to really come up and hammer out a solution. I think the first thing we have to look at believe it or not is education. We are in this mess because of 40 years of failed education to our public. Now, if you had the funds and the resources to send your children to a nice private school, wonderful but unfortunately a lot of people don't have those resources. So public education is job one to get us sitting in the right direction. Then of course, the Affordable Care Act needs to be hammered out a little bit better so that it's not gonna bankrupt the country but at the same time it's gonna get more people into the system. And we have to be able to do it without a Supreme Court challenge. So there are institutions that can be repaired. It's gonna take folks on both sides of the red and blue divide to do so. Yeah, so institutions, problems we've found commissions or no commissions maybe the Bucks just stops here with a new president. And we'll be able to examine this going forward, right at the next time we all meet we'll be after election day. So this is actually our ninth inning here in terms of these shows, Trump week and Coronaville. But Stephanie, what are the priorities? If you're on that same board of advisors for the new president, what should he attack first and second and third? Because it's nice to have 27 things on your plate. But in a political world in a presidential the world of presidential power you really have to focus on things if you want people to follow you. What are the things that Biden should focus on first? Well, I think he'll have some relief to help him because I saw an article on what's gonna happen to Fox News if Biden does win. So there'll be a little shift there in that kind of a blast out. Of course, there's other blasts coming out but perhaps there can be some abatement in that kind of education that is going on in our country. And I think it's making a really big difference. And I guess that's under the rubric of, so it's media, not necessarily just social media but certainly that could make a difference. But as far as the other influence I just, we have to recall that we have a state's rights issue here versus the federal government. So even when it's getting to education which thank you very much, Tim is really, really important to do that. Feds only cover about 7% of that cost but that makes a big difference if the feds would come up with the kind of gift to education. So you're saying money, fiscal policy, tax policy is right at the top? Right, because for instance like Bush for no child left behind, the reason it's no child left behind is because that's the elementary and secondary education act named for him that he got a huge bushel of money. Obama never got any money which was why they were running around trying to make deals with the states all the time. So I mean, there's some things about expediting the conveyance of federal funds to what the targets must be according to our new president and his commission. So I mean, there are many, many levers to start to pull and push to make this happen but there has to be some learning going on through and taking advantage of that learning. So essentially, I give you a situation, let's assume Biden is successful whether by commission or direct decision process and he respects science and at least medical science and he finds that you can do this or that and you can save the country and the world from COVID. Okay, and I don't know how fast this can happen. I don't know how fast it would work once he has a solution. My question to you is you wake up one morning in the time of Biden and it's done. We are now out of COVID. We have seen the light at the end of the tunnel and my question to you is, what is that like? How will your life change the life of your neighbors, the life of the businesses that you deal with? Your life in general, how would the life of all of us change? Will we simply go back to the way it was? I doubt that. How do you see our life at that point? I don't think we will go back to the way things were. I think that a lot of people have learned a lot of things about themselves, about each other, about the government, things are different. We have more people being involved in politics right now with this election than we have in 25, 30 years. So I think that alone will make a difference, right? And we've got some things that are gonna be coming out here though going forward that are not part of a hypothetical. It turns out that Trump has got his hands on $250 million to put out a COVID ad campaign that is specifically going to help his reelection saying he's done a good job. And they asked, the Congress asked Azar for the paperwork about all of it and he refused to turn it over. So they dug and they went straight to the specific people and got some of those papers and were able to... They were interviewing Representative Kristen Worthy this morning. And that money was designated to educate America about COVID. It's not gonna really do any of that. Apparently it's all just a big ad campaign to help Trump. So people are going to be seen this and that's going to affect how we go from here. So to answer the final part of that question you asked me is even if we open up and we find out that Biden's fixed everything and it's all good, we've still got all this time in between that's going to be polluting people's minds with who knows what. So it's so impossible to say, well, sure we're gonna all learn and I'll go back to a better way of life. That's what we hope, that's what we want. But there's a lot of misinformation still being pumped in. Right, and it has a life, a useful life that goes beyond the election. People's thinking is affected by all the lies that he's given. For example, and Tim and I joke about this. A lot of people in this country still think that COVID is a hoax. Right now today, they still think it's a hoax. Winston, let's go to you for a minute. I always say that the most important thing about a democracy is that the people have to see the government as belonging to them, the extension of them. And the government has to see itself as serving the public. One of the interesting things about Helsinki is they call it cities as a service, C-A-A-S. And it demonstrates their dedication to serving the people who live in the city. And it takes all the politics out of it actually. And so maybe in this country, we're gonna have government as a service to people where people think the government is part of them and the government thinks that they work for the people. Wouldn't that be wonderful? And we have lost that. I think we started losing it when we lost the draft actually back in the 70s. National service has gone away. People do not connect. They do not feel connected with the government. So my question to you is after this is over, we will need to re-examine the relationship of the citizen and the government, all citizens and the government. How should we do that? And what's the desired result? I said it's a great question, Jay. I remember when I went to Denmark the first time and I was young and of course, the first of the first world, right? But they're a different population. They're one people going together and I was staying with an older couple that had been through the war. And they said, oh, the government says this or that. And I can't remember what the specific was, but it was something that they completely knew that that was in their best interest, whatever the government action was. And I said, are you telling me you trust that the information your government is just sending you? And they said, of course, we are our government. Our government is us. They look out for us. They're doing the best for us. And as a young American, that sort of blew my mind because I think we've been taught from a young age to distrust the government on some level, to distrust institutions. And it's gotten way worse in the last 40 years, but at the same time, we're a nation of rule of law. And so we can go back to that fundamental principle. When we understand, we begin to look at these whole systems, like you were saying, the city and service. We need to look at that locally, on a state level, on a national level. I was thinking whoever the next mayor is of Honolulu. We institute citizen strike teams where we go out and address citizen concerns be me based on city council zone where they say, this is always a corner where trash is always there or there's no curb cut, or we need trees here or whatever it is. We need these, this trash bin is always overflowing or whatever it is so that we feel like we own this, but you're right. We have to start also with each of us. Each of us getting invested in our own neighborhood, in our own districts, in our own chosen organizations, whether they're religious or the Kiwanis or the Rotary or all of those things, the PTA, the Boy Scouts, and then also being connected politically so that we are the government and the government is us and we are listening to each other rather than just talking. And so I have faith in this nation that we will find the best answers. And once we remove beyond what has been really just horrible for this nation, we're gonna have a chance to come together. And I think Joe Biden's gonna do it right. And I think that we have to be thoughtful and careful about the way we do it so that we are inclusive of people and we're not talking the extreme and the lunatics. We're talking the huge majority of American people that say, I want a better future for myself, for my children and my nation. And this is a time for us to pull back, look at where we've been going wrong, whether it's socially, politically, economically, environmentally, whatever it is. And we start taking the hard looks again and say, is this really serving all of us and our needs for the short, medium, and long-term? And I think we have the chance to do that now. Okay, we're almost out of time here. In fact, we are out of time, but hey. So Cynthia, one word that describes your summary of this discussion, I know that's not an easy question. See what you can do. One word, give me a lot of time to think about it. Okay. Antibodies is my word. Okay. My word is because a UK study of 17,000 people found out that after three months, there's a 26% drop in antibodies. So just because people are infected and recovered doesn't necessarily mean they're out of the woods forever. And so it means a lengthening time, right? Right. With COVID. Right, we still a lot we don't know. And if you confuse the people about science then what you do know you're not confident about. Stephanie, what's your take away on this discussion? I would say prospects. We see prospects. I also wanted to log UJ and Winston for that way of thinking about, because we've got to get back to our representatives representing us. I don't understand what anything in the Senate has to do with any people that ever sent them there. They've done absolutely nothing for people. So I think the point I'm taking, it was Winston's beautiful municipal focus, but we've got the national government too to have to get those people to go back. If you don't do what you vote, what people want you to do, then you got to go. That's what it's all about. Tim, can you be optimistic at level, okay. Tell us also. Let me just say, I'm going to go opposite of you guys that are in the ethereal here. And it is the responsibility of every citizen to question authority, Ben Franklin. And if you're a journalist, question authority always. Okay, that's beautiful you guys. You're great. Tim Apachele, Stephanie Dolphin, Cynthia Lee Sinclair, Winston Welsh, thank you for a wonderful discussion. And have a good time on election day and we'll see you the day after. Wow, exciting. Tim, you must be thinking about that all day and all night. I do. Aloha. Aloha.