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Trump can’t delay the vote, but he can try to spoil it

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Today's Agenda

Take his words seriously, and maybe also literally.

Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North America

Trump's Election Threat Is Hollow But Scary

Back in April, Joe Biden suggested President Donald Trump might try to delay November's election. Trump's campaign called Biden's warning "the incoherent, conspiracy theory ramblings of a lost candidate who is out of touch with reality." Three months later:

The fury this tweet inspired led Trump's campaign to say the president was simply "raising a question" about delaying the election. But you see how this slippery slope goes: One day it's a conspiracy theory, the next day you're just asking questions about it, and pretty soon you're in the Supreme Court arguing for it. This "just asking" is basically like when you tell your crush you're only joking about wanting to kiss them … unless???

The fact is, Trump can't delay the election on his own, Cass Sunstein reminds us. Only Congress has that power, and the House is controlled by Democrats who probably wish the election was yesterday. To their great credit, Senate Republicans showed no interest in helping Trump on this one either.

But what Trump can do, Bloomberg's editorial board notes, is take what he once called Biden's conspiracy theory and remold it into a far darker one of his own, one about an election being stolen from him by dastardly Antifa postal workers or something. It's completely baseless, but some 30% to 40% of the country will believe him, and the election's legitimacy will be in doubt. On a day when former presidents of both parties eulogized John Lewis for his heroic efforts to 

strengthen American democracy, the current president was whacking at its foundations with a sledgehammer.

Further Democracy-Assault Reading: Trump's push to spend pandemic relief money on a new FBI headquarters looks an awful lot like an effort to help out one of his hotels. — Bloomberg's editorial board  

Bonus Election Reading: Kamala Harris's presidential ambition is the very thing that makes her a good veep pick. — Jonathan Bernstein 

New Coronavirus Symptom: Impatience

America's pandemic failure has many causes, but insufficient testing capacity and public skepticism of health experts are high on the list. Both are on grim display in this Michael Lewis dispatch from Humboldt County in California, where one heroic nurse has watched public attitudes about fighting the disease deteriorate, even as cases rise. 

You almost can't blame people; many of us dutifully quarantined for months, only to see all that precious time wasted by governments that never figured out how to reopen safely. Now Covid-19's resurgence means we may have to shelter in place again. Faye Flam suggests full lockdowns shouldn't be necessary this time, given what we know now about the disease. To make it work, though, we'll still need clear communication from health officials, good data and good planning — all of which remain in short supply.

Big Tech in Big Trouble

Congress called Big Tech executives to testify yesterday about their very large bigness. Mark Zuckerberg took the opportunity to throw his rivals under the bus, arguing they were the ones who were too big and that Facebook is just a poor little social network struggling to make ends meet. Don't buy it, writes Tae Kim. Facebook and its subsidiaries, including Instagram, have far too much power over the advertising and media industries. Facebook should be broken up, maybe starting with a spinoff of Instagram. 

A somewhat more sympathetic Big Tech company these days is Intel, if only by virtue of how badly it's doing. The chipmaker is bleeding market share and market valuation to rivals. Congress is considering throwing some cash Intel's way to help it compete, but Noah Smith argues this will be money wasted. Bankrolling up-and-comers, and enticing Taiwan's TSMC to locate more factories in the U.S., would do much more good. 

Telltale Charts

Hedge funds are kayaking into the choppy waters of Bitcoin, but there are big, scary whales in there, warns Lionel Laurent, that could tip your hedge-fund-kayak right over. 

Anheuser-Busch InBev will have to sell a whole lot more beer to cut into this debt pile, writes Andrea Felsted.

Further Reading

Grim GDP and jobless-claims numbers hammer home the need for more stimulus. — Mohamed El-Erian

At least America's investment banks are in better shape than Europe's. — Elisa Martinuzzi 

New UPS CEO Carol Tome has quickly made her mark. — Brooke Sutherland

Kodak has once again captured the zeitgeist just enough to spark a short-term rally in its stock price. — Matt Levine 

It's hard to get jazzed about buying an electric car when rapid obsolescence makes their resale values plummet. — Anjani Trivedi 

China appears to realize rejecting the world's recycling was a bad idea. — Adam Minter 

Trump's inability to pick a side has left it powerless over Libya's civil war. — Bobby Ghosh 

ICYMI

Australia is having a winter coronavirus surge.

Oh, the things you'll see on private jets.

Almost 30 million Americans didn't have enough to eat last week.

Kickers

Emus banned from hotel for bad behavior. (h/t Zoe DeStories

Learning music won't make children smart, a study has shown.

Nature tends to break into cubes.

These birds never touch the ground.

Note: Please send ice cubes and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net.

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