| Get Jonathan Bernstein's newsletter every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. After two months of taking a "wait and see" approach to the economic cataclysm brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, President Donald Trump and Senate Republicans have settled on more waiting and more seeing. By the time you read this, you may know whether unemployment is above or below 20%, a catastrophic number. Yet Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell doesn't expect to do anything until some time after July 20. Trump isn't in any hurry either; his economic plan seems to consist mainly of hoping things will work out okay. As far as any actual policy initiatives, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow tells the Washington Post: "We are going to come up with a plan when talks with Congress start formally." It is true that the CARES Act, passed in March, is a real policy response, so it's not fair to say that Republicans haven't had any significant reaction to the recession — although the bulk of the funding in the bill came from Democratic ideas added over Republican objections. But Democrats and almost all mainstream economists considered that bill only a down payment. With expanded unemployment benefits running out at the end of July, and direct stimulus payments certain to be spent by most voters long before then, it's just bewildering that Republicans have no further plans. The closest political parallel I can think of is from 1982, when President Ronald Reagan asked voters to "stay the course" in midterm elections during a deep recession (although Reagan himself didn't quite do so, signing a tax increase forced on him by Senate Republicans). Voters gave Democrats a landslide. But that was a very different situation, with Reagan protecting his core achievements and plenty of time for the economy to recover before he faced re-election in 1984. In this case, there's no obvious reason for Trump's inaction. Perhaps economic planning simply doesn't interest him. Perhaps he really has just given up. As for McConnell and the Senate Republicans, their actions are if anything even more inexplicable. It seems likely that the difference between a quick and a slow recovery could easily cost them their majority. It's hard to believe that McConnell has some principled belief about relief and stimulus measures that he cares about more than even a single Senate seat — let alone several of them and his position as majority leader. But if he really does let enhanced unemployment benefits expire it's going to cost the economy. And he's already delaying major aid to state and local governments, at the cost of further job losses and sharper contraction. Friday's jobs report may well put more pressure on Republicans to abandon "wait and see," but it's not as if the bad news will be any kind of surprise to them. They seem ready to go another six weeks without further action. So once again, the obvious Democratic response will be: What are you waiting for? Haven't you seen enough? 1. Dave Hopkins on the state of the conservative movement. 2. Margarita Konaev and Kirstin J.H. Brathwaite at the Monkey Cage on urban warfare and what "send in the troops" would really mean in practice. 3. Lee Drutman on the possibility that elite Republicans might turn on Trump. I do think that the events this week and Trump's sagging popularity may have small effects, but the partisan incentives to stick with the team are strongest in the run-up to an election. The real window of opportunity was in 2019 and early this year. At this point, no matter how unpopular Trump may get, Republicans on the ballot will be harming themselves if they collectively move away from him and make him even less popular. 4. Daniel Nichanian speaks with Juliet Hooker about Black Lives Matter. 5. And Seth Masket at Mischiefs of Faction writes in defense of photo ops. He's exactly correct. For me, this ties back to the concept of representation (following the late political scientist Richard Fenno): Politicians promise to act in certain ways and even to be a certain person if elected, and making good on those promises may entail things such as what they wear, what they eat, who they appear with and more. Those sorts of pledges are potentially just as important as policy promises and maybe more so — depending, mainly, on the representational relationship between politician and constituents. Get Early Returns every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. Also subscribe to Bloomberg All Access and get much, much more. You'll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, the Bloomberg Open and the Bloomberg Close. | 
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