Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: How driving a bus epitomizes 2021

[Brexiter]

Ben Casselman/NY Times:

The number of U.S. workers quitting their jobs in September was the highest on record.

Employers are still struggling to fill millions of open jobs—and to hold onto the workers they already have.

More than 4.4 million workers quit their jobs voluntarily in September, the Labor Department said Friday. That was up from 4.3 million in August and was the most in the two decades the government has been keeping track. Nearly a million workers quit their jobs in leisure and hospitality businesses alone, reflecting the steep competition for workers there as the industry rebuilds from last year’s pandemic-induced shutdowns.

Here's a good test of whether Trump can still exert executive privilege: He should pardon Steve Bannon right now and see how that goes

— David Nir (@DavidNir) November 12, 2021

Abdallah Fayyad/Boston Globe:

Stop nationalizing local elections

There’s no single blueprint for how Democrats can win elections. What worked for Eric Adams in New York would not have worked for Michelle Wu in Boston.

Mayor-elect Michelle Wu’s victory in Boston was in some ways a rebuke to Adams’s in New York. She ran an unapologetically progressive campaign in which she called for a city-scaled Green New Deal, rent control, and free transit. And when it came to policing — an issue at the center of electability conversations among Democrats — Wu took a tough stance and stood firm in her call to reallocate some police funds to social services, and she still managed to win by nearly 30 percentage points against a moderate who was widely seen as the more police-friendly candidate. (It wasn’t just Wu: Kendra Hicks and Tania Fernandes Anderson, candidates for Boston City Council who campaigned on reducing police funding, also won by big margins.)

BLITZER: "If there is a vote on this, would you vote to censure Gosar? KINZINGER: "Yes, my lean would be yes... It can't be acceptable. I think, barring any egregious language in to resolution to censure, I would intend to vote yes."

— Ryan Struyk (@ryanstruyk) November 12, 2021

Maggie Koerth/FiveThirtyeight:

Would You Manage 70 Children And A 15-Ton Vehicle For $18 An Hour?

How the nationwide school bus driver shortage helps explain our economic weirdness.

It isn’t an easy job. The kids don’t behave. Some, unsure of their own addresses, can’t tell Steele where to go. When parents get angry at a system that isn’t working, they blame Steele. And the company that runs the buses has packed her schedule to the point that there’s no longer time left to pee between runs. She’s thinking of quitting, even though she knows that will make things even harder for the families relying on her…

As the bus driver shortage continues, parents and drivers, often women on both sides, have been stretched to the breaking point as they try to do more with less — less time, less money, less help, less of a sense of safety and respect. “This problem existed before COVID, but nobody wanted to hear about it, especially the school districts,” said Zina Ronca, a driver supervisor for DuVall Bus Service in West Grove, Pennsylvania, who has been in the industry for nearly two decades. There haven’t been enough school bus drivers nationwide for years. But it took a pandemic to make that shortage visible and painful to more than just the drivers themselves.

One of the reasons Trump has so much power over the GOP is his threat of defecting and starting his own party. In a two-party system, this threat is extremely powerful. In a multi-party system, Trump would already have a marginalized far-right party.https://t.co/0VI8lJIcgE

— Lee Drutman (@leedrutman) November 12, 2021

Magdi Semrau/Editorial Board ($$):

In the controversy over ‘race’ in public education, journalists can’t cover the story properly by amplifying white voices only


That Black people are invisible from the public education debate shows just how intellectually impoverished the conversation is.



Despite the repeated falsehoods on the right, it is extremely rare for a curriculum to devote considerable attention to racism as a systemic and ever-present problem. Rather, the opposite is usually taught: that racism and racists are far, far away and that children are color-blind.

well these are really starting to add up ??? pic.twitter.com/4Qxb6X42j2

— Dr. Lisa Iannattone (@lisa_iannattone) November 12, 2021

Spiegel:

Anti-Vaxxers and Politicians Push Germany to the Brink

Many in Germany thought the worst of the pandemic was behind them. But the country is now being slammed by the fourth wave – fueled by millions of people who refuse to be vaccinated and political leaders who have abdicated leadership. The situation, say virologists, is grave.

Nobody really wanted to listen to him in the last few months. He was seen as a killjoy, dragging down the mood. That annoying guy from Berlin's Charité University Hospital. German politicians also studiously ignored his warnings of a difficult fourth epidemic wave – of a deadly corona autumn. But here we are. Because as it happens, Germany’s best-known virologist, Christian Drosten, in concert with many of his fellow scientists, had been spot on.

Countries with high vaccination rates like Spain and Portugal, says Drosten now, "could definitively leave the pandemic behind them" in spring. But in Germany, because of the many people who still refuse to be vaccinated and due to the sluggish booster campaign, is "still miles away" from that. "As soon as Delta strikes with full force, the hospitals will quickly be overwhelmed," Drosten warns.

Sound familiar?

It's hard to fully explain Germany’s Covid surge. Here @celinegounder brings her usual great data and perspective; including: Germany has high vax rates with effective vaccines. But there are also distinctions between U.S. and Germany worth consideration https://t.co/6nmBgwKjr8

— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) November 12, 2021

McKay Coppins/Atlantic:

Inside the Red-State Plot to Take Down a Top Trump Ally


Mike Lee, the former Trump critic, and current Trump acolyte, may be vulnerable in 2022. An unusual coalition of opponents in Utah is trying to unseat him.

First elected in the Tea Party wave of 2010, Lee has long rankled the local establishment in Utah, where he is viewed by many as a showboating obstructionist whose penchant for provocation routinely embarrasses his home state and its predominant religion. Lee’s MAGA makeover during the Trump presidency served only to exacerbate that perception. Now, as he prepares to run for reelection next year, Lee is bracing for a concerted, multifront campaign to unseat him. He seems to know that a third term isn’t guaranteed.

GOPer Jack Ciattarelli officially concedes in the NJ gubernatorial race today, saying “There does not appear to be a path to victory, or the basis for a recount. Nor do we know of any systemic or widespread fraud… I see no proof that this election was stolen.”

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) November 12, 2021