The spreading coronavirus is adversely impacting global stock prices. The price of a barrel of Brent crude dipped 3.5% to about $56.40. Car sales in China, where Germany earns a hefty profit, fell 92% the first half of February.
The one thing an incumbent does not want in an election year is a recession. It is hard to see how the global economy avoids one now that the coronavirus has spread to the Middle East, Europe and is crossing borders in Southeast Asia.
The oligarchic elite have trundled out their first line of attack on the ascendant people-power campaign of Bernie Sanders. Bernie, we are told by anonymous national security officials, is favored by the Kremlin. Anderson Cooper in last night's 60 Minutes interview confronts Sanders with black-and-white video from four-decades past showing the Vermont politician praising Cuba for its healthcare.
These kind of smears will no doubt constitute the meat and potatoes of the Trump reelection campaign. If they are not calling Bernie a commie, they'll call him a brownshirt. This line of attack might resonate with older voters, voters Bernie is failing to persuade in Democratic primary contests so far, but I don't see it swinging a general election.
What the institutional red-baiting augurs is that the fantasy of a brokered convention where super delegates can award the nomination to a Mike Bloomberg on the second ballot will likely fail to materialize. Centrism is a zombie herd with marginal support. I don't even think party elites believe that Biden or Bloomberg or Buttigieg can somehow emerge from the pack and unite the party to defeat Trump.
I think before the primary is over we will witness the mainstream corporate media discard its "Never Trump" cheerleading for a 2020 red scare.
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