newyorker--2020-09-11--How Trump Could Still Win Reëlection

How Trump Could Still Win Reëlection

Among the categories of professionals that Donald Trump seems intent on obliterating , one is Republican political strategists .
The figures who guided his political rise in 2016 have been much diminished , because of criminal indictment ( Steve Bannon ) , criminal prosecution ( Roger Stone ) , incompetence ( Brad Parscale ) , or domestic ruptures ( Kellyanne Conway ) .
Trump ’ s campaign does not have many strategists , nor , it has often seemed , much strategy .
At the Republican National Convention , the idea of a second Trump term remained so undefined that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ formal platform .
Asked by the Times ’ Peter Baker what he meant to do with a second term , Trump said , “ I think it would be very , very , I think we ’ d have a very , very solid , we would continue what we ’ re doing , we ’ d solidify what we ’ ve done , and we have other things on our plate that we want to get done.
” The President has long succeeded by creating an environment of constant chaos ; now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it .
The professionals who remain at Trump reëlection headquarters are , with fewer than sixty days until the election , faced with a challenging set of statistics .
For months , Joe Biden has led in national polls by at least seven percentage points .
In order to win the Electoral College , Trump would need to beat Biden in about half of six swing states : Michigan , Pennsylvania , Wisconsin , North Carolina , Florida , and Arizona .
He trails Biden in all of them , though the margin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ two per cent .
About forty-two per cent of Americans approve of the job he has done as President , a number that has remained fairly constant throughout his Presidency , but fifty-four per cent now disapprove , which puts him behind the ratings of Barack Obama , George W. Bush , Bill Clinton , and Ronald Reagan at similar points in their reëlection campaigns—though well ahead of George H. W. Bush and Jimmy Carter .
In other words , Trump looks likely to be either the least popular incumbent to win reëlection @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most popular to lose it .
To a younger generation of Republican consultants—those who have made their careers in the rancorous twenty-first century , when there have been sharp partisan divisions and few swing voters—those numbers don ’ t look so bad .
The President , they point out , has consolidated his support among Republicans , roughly ninety per cent of whom say they support him .
Nearly every poll that has asked voters whom they trust to manage the economy has found a preference for Trump over Biden , even polls @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suggests that any skeptical Republicans and independents might be persuaded to vote for Trump because of their perceived self-interest .
Then , too , almost all of Trump ’ s decline has taken place among white voters .
Among Latinos—a crucial electoral coalition in the swing states of Florida and Arizona—Trump ’ s position has held steady and may even have strengthened .
Last month , a Public Religion Research Institute poll put his approval rating among Latinos in 2020 at thirty-six per cent , eight points ahead of the percentage of Latino @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 2016 .
More ominously for Democrats , a recent survey of Florida Hispanic voters found Biden polling eleven points behind Hillary Clinton ’ s exit-poll results in 2016 .
But even these strengths look more suspect on closer examination .
They do not , for one thing , account for the immense suffering of the coronavirus pandemic , in which more than a hundred and ninety thousand Americans , many of them elderly , have died , and nearly thirty million people have begun receiving unemployment benefits .
In 2016 , Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ senior citizens ; now poll after poll finds that he leads Biden among seniors by only a few points .
His strength on the economy may have been buoyed by the temporary unemployment benefits that Democrats demanded this spring , but those benefits have begun to expire , and Republicans have declined to renew them .
The Census Bureau has been surveying households this summer and has asked families whether they expect to make their next month ’ s rent or mortgage payment .
The responses put a lump in your throat .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , when in Florida , a state the President has to win , thirty-two per cent of respondents said that they had either missed their last housing payment or did not feel more than slightly confident that they would meet the next one .
Such numbers are almost unimaginably bleak .
So it surprised me a little to notice , in poll after poll , that the public ’ s view of Trump ’ s handling of the virus isn ’ t so bad—it tends to track with his over-all approval ratings and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the public ’ s view of his response to the Black Lives Matter protests that followed George Floyd ’ s death .
Most Republicans think that Trump is doing a fine job handling the pandemic , the universal crisis that he often seemed to want to minimize , but millions of Republicans disliked his response to demands for racial equity—an issue that he has deliberately sought to weaponize because he thought it might give him an advantage .
I mentioned this discrepancy to Charles Franklin , who runs the highly regarded Marquette @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Franklin said that he had been looking into that issue : “ Race is by far his worst evaluation , both in our data but , more importantly , in national data , and it has been for years.
” Franklin found that most Trump voters in Wisconsin don ’ t support his message on race—not even close .
“ It is really a rural and a non-college phenomenon , ” he said .
In the suburbs of Milwaukee , as well as smaller cities , such as Green Bay and Appleton , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has never really wanted to embrace the negative messages on race that he focusses on and who are reluctant to see themselves as racist.
” This pattern held true even after the violence in Portland and Kenosha .
Trump spent days tweeting about “ LAW & ORDER !
” and claiming that liberal cities needed a strong hand .
But the following week , polls suggested that this gambit hadn ’ t worked .
Trump remained behind in every swing state , and an ABC poll found that fifty-five per cent of voters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the protests made the situation worse , while only thirteen per cent thought that it made the situation better .
The raw statistical material is unpromising , but politics , at the highest level , is just talk .
Is there a story that Trump could tell that would change something important about the election ?
Is there a way , in other words , that he might alchemize a likely loss into a win ?
Just before the Conventions , I called political consultants of every stripe—devoted and dissident Republicans , Democrats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they could imagine a winning path for the President .
I found that , because of the pandemic , a striking number of them seemed to have spent the spring and summer far from Washington , holed up in their ski houses .
( “ Scout , no , ” one former Presidential adviser instructed his dog , when I reached him in the Rockies .
“ No bark.
” ) But I also found that the isolation , and maybe the vistas , and maybe , too , the nearing possibility of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to focus on a single , pivotal question .
Spin is such a weak , twentieth-century term for hard twenty-first-century realities : the pandemic , with more than a hundred and ninety thousand dead ; the mass unemployment ; the continuing patterns of unrest ; the climate-catastrophe wildfires that have menaced Silicon Valley , the center of America ’ s twenty-first-century economy .
Nevertheless , the consultants wondered , can all of this somehow be spun ?

Among the categories of professionals that Donald Trump seems intent on obliterating, one is Republican political strategists. The figures who guided his political rise in 2016 have been much diminished, because of criminal indictment (Steve Bannon), criminal prosecution (Roger Stone), incompetence (Brad Parscale), or domestic ruptures (Kellyanne Conway). Trump’s campaign does not have many strategists, nor, it has often seemed, much strategy. At the Republican National Convention, the idea of a second Trump term remained so undefined that the Party did not even offer a formal platform. Asked by the Times’ Peter Baker what he meant to do with a second term, Trump said, “I think it would be very, very, I think we’d have a very, very solid, we would continue what we’re doing, we’d solidify what we’ve done, and we have other things on our plate that we want to get done.” The President has long succeeded by creating an environment of constant chaos; now his campaign seems to be drowning in it.
The professionals who remain at Trump reëlection headquarters are, with fewer than sixty days until the election, faced with a challenging set of statistics. For months, Joe Biden has led in national polls by at least seven percentage points. In order to win the Electoral College, Trump would need to beat Biden in about half of six swing states: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Florida, and Arizona. He trails Biden in all of them, though the margin in North Carolina and Florida is under two per cent. About forty-two per cent of Americans approve of the job he has done as President, a number that has remained fairly constant throughout his Presidency, but fifty-four per cent now disapprove, which puts him behind the ratings of Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ronald Reagan at similar points in their reëlection campaigns—though well ahead of George H. W. Bush and Jimmy Carter. In other words, Trump looks likely to be either the least popular incumbent to win reëlection in the modern polling era or the most popular one to lose it.
To a younger generation of Republican consultants—those who have made their careers in the rancorous twenty-first century, when there have been sharp partisan divisions and few swing voters—those numbers don’t look so bad. The President, they point out, has consolidated his support among Republicans, roughly ninety per cent of whom say they support him. Nearly every poll that has asked voters whom they trust to manage the economy has found a preference for Trump over Biden, even polls that have Biden up by ten points—which suggests that any skeptical Republicans and independents might be persuaded to vote for Trump because of their perceived self-interest. Then, too, almost all of Trump’s decline has taken place among white voters. Among Latinos—a crucial electoral coalition in the swing states of Florida and Arizona—Trump’s position has held steady and may even have strengthened. Last month, a Public Religion Research Institute poll put his approval rating among Latinos in 2020 at thirty-six per cent, eight points ahead of the percentage of Latino voters that exit polls found he won in 2016. More ominously for Democrats, a recent survey of Florida Hispanic voters found Biden polling eleven points behind Hillary Clinton’s exit-poll results in 2016.
But even these strengths look more suspect on closer examination. They do not, for one thing, account for the immense suffering of the coronavirus pandemic, in which more than a hundred and ninety thousand Americans, many of them elderly, have died, and nearly thirty million people have begun receiving unemployment benefits. In 2016, Trump beat Clinton by about twenty points among senior citizens; now poll after poll finds that he leads Biden among seniors by only a few points. His strength on the economy may have been buoyed by the temporary unemployment benefits that Democrats demanded this spring, but those benefits have begun to expire, and Republicans have declined to renew them. The Census Bureau has been surveying households this summer and has asked families whether they expect to make their next month’s rent or mortgage payment. The responses put a lump in your throat. Worse numbers came midway through the summer, when in Florida, a state the President has to win, thirty-two per cent of respondents said that they had either missed their last housing payment or did not feel more than slightly confident that they would meet the next one.
Such numbers are almost unimaginably bleak. So it surprised me a little to notice, in poll after poll, that the public’s view of Trump’s handling of the virus isn’t so bad—it tends to track with his over-all approval ratings and to run five or ten points ahead of the public’s view of his response to the Black Lives Matter protests that followed George Floyd’s death. Most Republicans think that Trump is doing a fine job handling the pandemic, the universal crisis that he often seemed to want to minimize, but millions of Republicans disliked his response to demands for racial equity—an issue that he has deliberately sought to weaponize because he thought it might give him an advantage.
I mentioned this discrepancy to Charles Franklin, who runs the highly regarded Marquette Law School poll of Wisconsin voters. Franklin said that he had been looking into that issue: “Race is by far his worst evaluation, both in our data but, more importantly, in national data, and it has been for years.” Franklin found that most Trump voters in Wisconsin don’t support his message on race—not even close. “It is really a rural and a non-college phenomenon,” he said. In the suburbs of Milwaukee, as well as smaller cities, such as Green Bay and Appleton, “you have a Republican constituency that has never really wanted to embrace the negative messages on race that he focusses on and who are reluctant to see themselves as racist.” This pattern held true even after the violence in Portland and Kenosha. Trump spent days tweeting about “LAW & ORDER!” and claiming that liberal cities needed a strong hand. But the following week, polls suggested that this gambit hadn’t worked. Trump remained behind in every swing state, and an ABC poll found that fifty-five per cent of voters thought that Trump’s response to the protests made the situation worse, while only thirteen per cent thought that it made the situation better.
The raw statistical material is unpromising, but politics, at the highest level, is just talk. Is there a story that Trump could tell that would change something important about the election? Is there a way, in other words, that he might alchemize a likely loss into a win? Just before the Conventions, I called political consultants of every stripe—devoted and dissident Republicans, Democrats, progressives, and independents—to see whether they could imagine a winning path for the President. I found that, because of the pandemic, a striking number of them seemed to have spent the spring and summer far from Washington, holed up in their ski houses. (“Scout, no,” one former Presidential adviser instructed his dog, when I reached him in the Rockies. “No bark.”) But I also found that the isolation, and maybe the vistas, and maybe, too, the nearing possibility of a post-strategist politics, had caused them to focus on a single, pivotal question. Spin is such a weak, twentieth-century term for hard twenty-first-century realities: the pandemic, with more than a hundred and ninety thousand dead; the mass unemployment; the continuing patterns of unrest; the climate-catastrophe wildfires that have menaced Silicon Valley, the center of America’s twenty-first-century economy. Nevertheless, the consultants wondered, can all of this somehow be spun?
“I actually have a strong opinion about that,” Stuart Stevens, the Republican strategist who ran Mitt Romney’s Presidential campaign, said, when I reached him in Stowe, Vermont. “If you are thinking about what it takes for an unpopular incumbent to come back and win, there actually is a significant history. And I don’t know of any process that didn’t involve a mea culpa—an apology.”
Stevens is one of the most prominent anti-Trump Republicans, a consultant to the Lincoln Project and the author of the recent book “It Was All a Lie,” which gives a decades-long account of the moral hollowing of the Republican Party. The real problem for Trump, as Stevens saw it, was antipathy for the President. “You have forty-eight per cent—this is from the Monmouth poll—of the country with a very unfavorable view of Trump. I’ve never seen anything like that, short of the Eastern Bloc,” Stevens said. “The hardest thing in politics is to get someone with a very unfavorable view to vote for you. It makes sense, right? ‘I hate you.’ O.K. ‘But now I’m gonna vote for you.’ That’s gonna be hard.” The summer, Stevens went on, had been revealing. “The most vulnerable period any challenger has is from when they first secure the nomination until they put together their campaign. And what happened in that period? Trump went down; Biden went up. That’s incredibly telling.”
The summer proved, Stevens said, that Trump’s main act had worn thin. “Trump is a candidate of hate, and candidacies of hate are ultimately exhausting,” he said. But his campaign was suffering not only from the candidate but also from world-historically bad circumstances. The President spent months insisting that the coronavirus crisis would soon dissipate; now his campaign needed voters to disbelieve the evidence of their own eyes. Stevens said, “If I woke you in the middle of the night and said, ‘It’s the worst economy in American history. More Americans have died from this disease in the past four months than have ever died from a disease in a four-month period in the history of the United States. How’s the incumbent doing?’ The answer wouldn’t be ‘great.’ ”
That, Stevens went on, was why Trump needed a Hail Mary. “This is going to seem like the Crimean wars, but a very well-known example among political consultants is Charles Percy,” he said. In 1978, Percy, a moderate Republican senator from Illinois, faced a primary challenge from a hard conservative and found himself on the wrong side of the cultural wave that would become the Reagan revolution. With his campaign in dire straits, Percy appeared in a thirty-second ad looking, as Time magazine put it, “haggard and close to tears.” Percy said, “I have gotten the message, and you’re right. Washington has gone overboard, and I’m sure I’ve made my share of mistakes, but, in truth, your priorities are mine, too. Stop the waste. Cut the spending. Cut the taxes.” A man who had been mentioned as a plausible Republican Presidential contender was appearing before the voters to cry uncle. Surely, it was humiliating. It also worked.


newyorker--2020-09-11--MOMA Reopens with an Iconic Milton Glaser Mural

People ’ s love for New York assumes many forms , from a Frank Sinatra ballad to a Frank O @ @ @ @ @ newly reopened MOMA is greeting visitors to its lobby with a big mural of the @ @ @ @ @ in closeup , above ) .
It was conceived for a 1977 tourism campaign by @ @ @ @ @ Glaser , who died in June , at the age of ninety-one .
To insure @ @ @ @ @ the museum is making timed tickets available at moma.org ; admission is free through Sept. @ @

People’s love for New York assumes many forms, from a Frank Sinatra ballad to a Frank O’Hara poem. The newly reopened MOMA is greeting visitors to its lobby with a big mural of the iconic I♥NY logo (seen in closeup, above). It was conceived for a 1977 tourism campaign by the legendary graphic designer Milton Glaser, who died in June, at the age of ninety-one. To insure a safely reduced capacity, the museum is making timed tickets available at moma.org; admission is free through Sept. 27.


newyorker--2020-09-11--The Crisis in the Skies of San Francisco

There is a substantial corpus of writing on the merits and unreliability of California light—its clarity , iciness , fickleness , mood .
None of it could account for the light in the Bay Area on Wednesday , September 9th : a dark , ochre stain , like a scrim over the sunrise , that deepened as the day wore on .
For hours , it looked like four in the morning .
Drivers kept their headlights on ; neighbors drew their curtains .
There was an ongoing sensation of jet lag .
People quickly defaulted to a generational impulse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drones to capture the red glint of high-rises downtown and brought tripods and S.L.R.s to the top of Twin Peaks to stake out panoramas .
They took selfies in the tangerine light .
The skies were being changed by wildfires—in California , Oregon , and , more recently , Washington—that had overwhelmed the West Coast .
During Labor Day weekend , fires in the Sierra National Forest , northeast of Fresno , spread so quickly that campers and hikers there were subject to emergency evacuations ; after being told to seek refuge in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out by helicopter .
In Southern California , fire spread into the Angeles National Forest , a short drive from the northern edge of Los Angeles ; in Northern California , fires in the Mendocino National Forest—sparked , in mid-August , by a rash of lightning storms—were accelerated by dry winds , after weeks of attempted containment .
On Wednesday , the built environment in the Bay Area was safe .
It was the sky that was in crisis .
A layer of smoke and ash nearly fifty thousand feet high was blocking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ By midafternoon , San Francisco had an amber quality , bringing to mind Western films or the elementary-school pastime of antiquing paper .
Outside , I was startled to find the outdoors beautiful .
Labor Day weekend had coincided with a record-breaking heat wave , but Wednesday afternoon was cool ; we were separated from the smoke by the marine layer—the concentration of dense , humid air that often manifests , in San Francisco , as fog .
This was welcome , if confusing .
At 4 P.M. , in the Mission , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ artificial night .
There was a low note of disaster camaraderie , everyone looking out and checking in , waving one another across the street .
At a crosswalk , a man turned to me and noted that , in his forty-two years of living in San Francisco , he had never seen the sky this way—nothing like it .
Me , neither , I said , as if I ’ d lived here for even a decade .
We smiled at each other , probably ; it ’ s still hard to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Empty parklets , dotting the commercial corridors , looked like feeble solutions to some other , distant problem .
Two years ago , during the 2018 wildfires , I wrote a short dispatch in which I recounted watching a woman in a P100 respirator select salad dressing at a Safeway .
At the time , the image struck me as unusual ; now , during the coronavirus pandemic , it seems almost quaint .
In the past month , new rituals have emerged , some more ceremonial than others , first in response @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wipes , alcoholic gels and tonics—and now to the fires .
The rituals have begun converging .
We now monitor the air-quality index , consulting it like the weather , multiple times a day .
A.Q.I.—a measurement , established by the Environmental Protection Agency , that denotes the level of air pollution , using a scale from zero to five hundred—has become the determining factor for pandemic-safe social gatherings , telling us whether it ’ s safe to walk our dogs , exercise , or talk outside .
The Web site of PurpleAir @ @ @ @ @ @ @ displays a color-coded map of the world studded with A.Q.I .
data .
A healthy A.Q.I.
, of between zero and fifty , is denoted by circles of yellow and green ; orange and red indicate air that carries some risk .
For A.Q.I .
levels between two hundred and five hundred , the circles run from eggplant to maroon .
Their presence usually coincides with text messages from the city ’ s Department of Emergency Management , warning that outdoor activity should be avoided .
On Thursday , the A.Q.I .
map @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; the nearest clear air was in Nevada .
The orange light receded ; instead , the city was a dull white .
Friends in Portland packed go bags .
Group text messages fluttered around the question of whether those with small children should leave and where they might go .
People noted their headaches , sore throats , and itchy eyes .
By Friday , towns and communities up and down the West Coast had been incinerated .
Twelve people in California were reported dead .
Fires in Oregon had consumed nearly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been evacuated , with a half million more awaiting the order .
In San Francisco , the crisis remained confined to the air and the light .
Even indoors , a thin haze hovered .
Glancing through the windows , one saw what looked like heavy fog .
It was a thick , suspended ash , which clung to the glass .
It is hard not to sound histrionic when considering the source : what looks like a dusting from a mild snowfall is the particulate remains of people ’ s homes , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that these crises are too much to bear ; that the collision of public-health issues is unsustainable ; that California will soon become uninhabitable ; that people will flee .
But the state has always offered its residents reasons to leave : earthquakes , drought , heat , fires ; political and economic cruelties .
A certain degree of volatility is part of the pact .
It seems just as likely that people will adapt , as they always do , until adaptation , by will or necessity , turns into retreat .

There is a substantial corpus of writing on the merits and unreliability of California light—its clarity, iciness, fickleness, mood. None of it could account for the light in the Bay Area on Wednesday, September 9th: a dark, ochre stain, like a scrim over the sunrise, that deepened as the day wore on. For hours, it looked like four in the morning. Drivers kept their headlights on; neighbors drew their curtains. There was an ongoing sensation of jet lag. People quickly defaulted to a generational impulse, engaging through documentation. They launched drones to capture the red glint of high-rises downtown and brought tripods and S.L.R.s to the top of Twin Peaks to stake out panoramas. They took selfies in the tangerine light.
The skies were being changed by wildfires—in California, Oregon, and, more recently, Washington—that had overwhelmed the West Coast. During Labor Day weekend, fires in the Sierra National Forest, northeast of Fresno, spread so quickly that campers and hikers there were subject to emergency evacuations; after being told to seek refuge in a lake, several hundred were airlifted out by helicopter. In Southern California, fire spread into the Angeles National Forest, a short drive from the northern edge of Los Angeles; in Northern California, fires in the Mendocino National Forest—sparked, in mid-August, by a rash of lightning storms—were accelerated by dry winds, after weeks of attempted containment.
On Wednesday, the built environment in the Bay Area was safe. It was the sky that was in crisis. A layer of smoke and ash nearly fifty thousand feet high was blocking the sun and scattering its light. By midafternoon, San Francisco had an amber quality, bringing to mind Western films or the elementary-school pastime of antiquing paper. Outside, I was startled to find the outdoors beautiful. Labor Day weekend had coincided with a record-breaking heat wave, but Wednesday afternoon was cool; we were separated from the smoke by the marine layer—the concentration of dense, humid air that often manifests, in San Francisco, as fog. This was welcome, if confusing. At 4 P.M., in the Mission, shops and apartments glowed comfortingly against the artificial night. There was a low note of disaster camaraderie, everyone looking out and checking in, waving one another across the street. At a crosswalk, a man turned to me and noted that, in his forty-two years of living in San Francisco, he had never seen the sky this way—nothing like it. Me, neither, I said, as if I’d lived here for even a decade. We smiled at each other, probably; it’s still hard to translate facial gestures through a mask. Empty parklets, dotting the commercial corridors, looked like feeble solutions to some other, distant problem.
Two years ago, during the 2018 wildfires, I wrote a short dispatch in which I recounted watching a woman in a P100 respirator select salad dressing at a Safeway. At the time, the image struck me as unusual; now, during the coronavirus pandemic, it seems almost quaint. In the past month, new rituals have emerged, some more ceremonial than others, first in response to the pandemic—using masks, gloves, wipes, alcoholic gels and tonics—and now to the fires. The rituals have begun converging. We now monitor the air-quality index, consulting it like the weather, multiple times a day. A.Q.I.—a measurement, established by the Environmental Protection Agency, that denotes the level of air pollution, using a scale from zero to five hundred—has become the determining factor for pandemic-safe social gatherings, telling us whether it’s safe to walk our dogs, exercise, or talk outside. The Web site of PurpleAir, a manufacturer of air-quality sensors, displays a color-coded map of the world studded with A.Q.I. data. A healthy A.Q.I., of between zero and fifty, is denoted by circles of yellow and green; orange and red indicate air that carries some risk. For A.Q.I. levels between two hundred and five hundred, the circles run from eggplant to maroon. Their presence usually coincides with text messages from the city’s Department of Emergency Management, warning that outdoor activity should be avoided.
On Thursday, the A.Q.I. map looked like a cluster of ripening grapes; the nearest clear air was in Nevada. The orange light receded; instead, the city was a dull white. Friends in Portland packed go bags. Group text messages fluttered around the question of whether those with small children should leave and where they might go. People noted their headaches, sore throats, and itchy eyes. By Friday, towns and communities up and down the West Coast had been incinerated. Twelve people in California were reported dead. Fires in Oregon had consumed nearly a million acres, and thousands had been evacuated, with a half million more awaiting the order.
In San Francisco, the crisis remained confined to the air and the light. Even indoors, a thin haze hovered. Glancing through the windows, one saw what looked like heavy fog. It was a thick, suspended ash, which clung to the glass. It is hard not to sound histrionic when considering the source: what looks like a dusting from a mild snowfall is the particulate remains of people’s homes, their personal histories.
Some are saying that these crises are too much to bear; that the collision of public-health issues is unsustainable; that California will soon become uninhabitable; that people will flee. But the state has always offered its residents reasons to leave: earthquakes, drought, heat, fires; political and economic cruelties. A certain degree of volatility is part of the pact. It seems just as likely that people will adapt, as they always do, until adaptation, by will or necessity, turns into retreat.


newyorker--2020-09-11--Georgia Voters Get Another Reason to Be Worried

Last week , when President Trump urged voters in North Carolina to vote twice—first by mail and then in person—ostensibly to “ test ” the system , it not only seemed like an irresponsible invitation to commit voter fraud but also served as yet another attempt to sow distrust in the electoral system .
On Tuesday , when Georgia ’ s secretary of state , Brad Raffensperger , announced that his office was investigating a thousand cases of double voting during that state ’ s primary election—a person convicted of double voting can face up to ten years in prison @ @ @ @ @ @ @ message of distrust .
Although , as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported , it appears that seven people in Georgia ’ s Long County may have cast two ballots in a race for probate judge—the case will be adjudicated later this month—there is no evidence yet that the thousand voters under investigation by the Secretary of State did so , or at least did so intentionally .
( The allegation is that , as a result of the pandemic , people may have voted by mail and in person . )
But , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before early voting begins , and as voters are requesting and receiving absentee ballots , Raffensperger appears to be furthering measures that discouraged voter participation put into place under his predecessor , Brian Kemp , who is now the governor .
Indeed , Raffensperger ’ s announcement may even scare voters into disenfranchising themselves .
It came less than a week after the Georgia A.C.L.U .
posted on its Web site a report from the Palast Investigative Fund , which claims that , of the more than three hundred thousand voters removed from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ per cent were eliminated in error .
During Kemp ’ s term as secretary of state , starting in 2010 , a million and a half voters—more than ten per cent of the registered electorate—were removed from the rolls .
According to a memorandum to the House Oversight Committee , from February of this year , in 2018 , behind the scene , Kemp ’ s office also advised counties on closing or consolidating polling places .
According to the Journal-Constitution , between 2012 and 2018 the state closed more than two hundred @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with significant numbers of African-American and low-income residents .
( In 2018 , Kemp oversaw his own gubernatorial election , which was met with widespread complaints of voter suppression , which he denied .
He won , beating the Democratic candidate , Stacey Abrams , by fewer than fifty-five thousand votes , or 1.4 percentage points . )
Voter fraud is rare .
According to a recent study by the Brennan Center for Justice , though claims of double voting are the most common assertions of voter fraud , it is “ far @ @ @ @ @ @ @ double voting that are unfounded.
” As Benjamin L. Ginsberg , a veteran G.O.P .
election lawyer , wrote in the Washington Post , “ The truth is that after decades of looking for illegal voting , there ’ s no proof of widespread fraud.
” Even so , Republicans have used the spectre of fraud as a cudgel to knock voters off the rolls or to keep them from registering to vote in the first place .
They have passed strict voter-I.D .
laws in nine states , including Georgia , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , especially people of color and young people , to cast a ballot .
Republican lawmakers have also instituted “ exact match ” signature requirements , which enable election officials to reject legitimate votes from legitimate voters , because the signature on the ballot does not perfectly conform to the signature on file .
( According to the Brennan Center , eighty per cent of the Georgia voters whose ballots were rejected in 2018 because of exact match were people of color . )
Ironically , the most egregious recent case of election @ @ @ @ @ @ @ operative working for a 2018 Republican congressional campaign in North Carolina , who paid people to collect unfinished absentee ballots from voters , which he then completed in favor of the candidate whose campaign was paying him , through a consulting firm .
( He has since been charged with obstruction of justice and illegal handling of ballots ; he has denied any wrongdoing . )
By any measure , the 2020 Georgia primary was a mess .
Once the pandemic hit , the voting , which had been originally scheduled for March @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 19th and then to June 9th .
In March , Raffensperger sent out nearly seven million absentee-ballot applications , to every active voter in the state , a measure that could be applauded for helping to safeguard public health during the pandemic .
More than a million voters sent them back—a record number that resulted in such a backlog that some voters didn ’ t receive their actual ballots until a few days before the election , and some didn ’ t get them at all .
Because of the delays , absentee-ballot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; because of the virus , many polling locations were closed , leading to hours-long lines at those that were open .
Voters—at least a hundred and fifty thousand of them—concerned that their mailed ballot had not been received , went to the polls to check .
If the system had been working as it should have been , poll workers would have checked the new electronic poll books , which connect to the voter-registration database , and , if the mailed ballot had been recorded , they would have called the county @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that didn ’ t always happen .
( Poll workers , unfamiliar with the state ’ s new , touch-screen voting equipment , struggled to get the machines up and running , and the electronic poll books turned out to be glitchy , at best . )
“ During the primary election , we could not reach anyone for hours on election day .
We had no choice but to have the voter sign an affidavit and let them vote , ” Todd Faircloth , a Fulton County poll worker , told the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the voters who had already voted by mail were , apparently , waved through and allowed to vote in person .
( In a postmortem at the State House , a few days after the election , poll workers told of delays caused when voters brought in absentee ballots that they wanted to have cancelled , and of paper jams that could allow voters to print multiple ballots . )
It is not yet known how many actual double votes were filed in the system .
But , this week , in announcing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who had cast two ballots , Raffensperger said that “ intentionality ” did not have to be taken into account .
Indeed , shortly after the absentee-ballot request forms were sent out , , he set up a task force to investigate absentee-ballot fraud .
It is not surprising that some people voting by mail for the first time make mistakes , failing to sign a completed ballot or using check marks rather than filling in an oval .
More than half a million ballots were tossed out nationwide during the 2020 primaries @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , not fraud .
It ’ s easy to imagine a group of prosecutors tasked with the broad authority to investigate every Georgian who has voted by mail becoming a force for voter suppression in the state .
Add to this efforts by local election officials to declare voters “ inactive ” if their absentee-ballot applications were unable to be delivered .
The problem , according to a lawyer for the Democratic Party of Georgia , is that voters may believe that they are then ineligible to vote .
They ’ re not—as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ declare themselves to be active voters .
It ’ s just another hurdle that Georgia has placed in the path to the polls .
It ’ s unclear what will happen to the thousand voters under investigation , but , in a way , it doesn ’ t matter .
Even if every case is eventually dropped , the shot has cleared the bow for November : voting , Georgia has signalled , can be—to pervert the words of the state ’ s late congressman John Lewis , a legendary champion of voting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2020 Election • Can Joe Biden win the Presidency based on a promise of generational change ?
• The fall and rise of Kamala Harris .
• When a sitting President threatens to delay a sacrosanct American ritual like an election , you should listen .
• To understand the path Donald Trump has taken to the 2020 election , look at what he has provided the executive class .
• What happens if Trump fights the election results ?
• The refusal by Mitch McConnell to rein in Trump is looking riskier @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our election newsletter for insight and analysis from our reporters and columnists .

Last week, when President Trump urged voters in North Carolina to vote twice—first by mail and then in person—ostensibly to “test” the system, it not only seemed like an irresponsible invitation to commit voter fraud but also served as yet another attempt to sow distrust in the electoral system. On Tuesday, when Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, announced that his office was investigating a thousand cases of double voting during that state’s primary election—a person convicted of double voting can face up to ten years in prison and a hundred-thousand-dollar fine—he was reinforcing that message of distrust. Although, as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported, it appears that seven people in Georgia’s Long County may have cast two ballots in a race for probate judge—the case will be adjudicated later this month—there is no evidence yet that the thousand voters under investigation by the Secretary of State did so, or at least did so intentionally. (The allegation is that, as a result of the pandemic, people may have voted by mail and in person.)
But, in announcing his probe just a few weeks before early voting begins, and as voters are requesting and receiving absentee ballots, Raffensperger appears to be furthering measures that discouraged voter participation put into place under his predecessor, Brian Kemp, who is now the governor. Indeed, Raffensperger’s announcement may even scare voters into disenfranchising themselves. It came less than a week after the Georgia A.C.L.U. posted on its Web site a report from the Palast Investigative Fund, which claims that, of the more than three hundred thousand voters removed from the rolls in 2019, some sixty per cent were eliminated in error. During Kemp’s term as secretary of state, starting in 2010, a million and a half voters—more than ten per cent of the registered electorate—were removed from the rolls. According to a memorandum to the House Oversight Committee, from February of this year, in 2018, behind the scene, Kemp’s office also advised counties on closing or consolidating polling places. According to the Journal-Constitution, between 2012 and 2018 the state closed more than two hundred precincts, many of them in counties with significant numbers of African-American and low-income residents. (In 2018, Kemp oversaw his own gubernatorial election, which was met with widespread complaints of voter suppression, which he denied. He won, beating the Democratic candidate, Stacey Abrams, by fewer than fifty-five thousand votes, or 1.4 percentage points.)
Voter fraud is rare. According to a recent study by the Brennan Center for Justice, though claims of double voting are the most common assertions of voter fraud, it is “far more common to see allegations of epidemic double voting that are unfounded.” As Benjamin L. Ginsberg, a veteran G.O.P. election lawyer, wrote in the Washington Post, “The truth is that after decades of looking for illegal voting, there’s no proof of widespread fraud.” Even so, Republicans have used the spectre of fraud as a cudgel to knock voters off the rolls or to keep them from registering to vote in the first place. They have passed strict voter-I.D. laws in nine states, including Georgia, which make it difficult for many potential voters, especially people of color and young people, to cast a ballot. Republican lawmakers have also instituted “exact match” signature requirements, which enable election officials to reject legitimate votes from legitimate voters, because the signature on the ballot does not perfectly conform to the signature on file. (According to the Brennan Center, eighty per cent of the Georgia voters whose ballots were rejected in 2018 because of exact match were people of color.) Ironically, the most egregious recent case of election fraud was reportedly perpetrated by a political operative working for a 2018 Republican congressional campaign in North Carolina, who paid people to collect unfinished absentee ballots from voters, which he then completed in favor of the candidate whose campaign was paying him, through a consulting firm. (He has since been charged with obstruction of justice and illegal handling of ballots; he has denied any wrongdoing.)
By any measure, the 2020 Georgia primary was a mess. Once the pandemic hit, the voting, which had been originally scheduled for March 24th, was moved first to May 19th and then to June 9th. In March, Raffensperger sent out nearly seven million absentee-ballot applications, to every active voter in the state, a measure that could be applauded for helping to safeguard public health during the pandemic. More than a million voters sent them back—a record number that resulted in such a backlog that some voters didn’t receive their actual ballots until a few days before the election, and some didn’t get them at all.
Because of the delays, absentee-ballot request forms listed the wrong Election Day; because of the virus, many polling locations were closed, leading to hours-long lines at those that were open.
Voters—at least a hundred and fifty thousand of them—concerned that their mailed ballot had not been received, went to the polls to check. If the system had been working as it should have been, poll workers would have checked the new electronic poll books, which connect to the voter-registration database, and, if the mailed ballot had been recorded, they would have called the county clerk to cancel that ballot. But that didn’t always happen. (Poll workers, unfamiliar with the state’s new, touch-screen voting equipment, struggled to get the machines up and running, and the electronic poll books turned out to be glitchy, at best.) “During the primary election, we could not reach anyone for hours on election day. We had no choice but to have the voter sign an affidavit and let them vote,” Todd Faircloth, a Fulton County poll worker, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. About a thousand of the voters who had already voted by mail were, apparently, waved through and allowed to vote in person. (In a postmortem at the State House, a few days after the election, poll workers told of delays caused when voters brought in absentee ballots that they wanted to have cancelled, and of paper jams that could allow voters to print multiple ballots.) It is not yet known how many actual double votes were filed in the system. But, this week, in announcing his office’s prosecution of voters who had cast two ballots, Raffensperger said that “intentionality” did not have to be taken into account.
Indeed, shortly after the absentee-ballot request forms were sent out, , he set up a task force to investigate absentee-ballot fraud. It is not surprising that some people voting by mail for the first time make mistakes, failing to sign a completed ballot or using check marks rather than filling in an oval. More than half a million ballots were tossed out nationwide during the 2020 primaries, typically because of errors like these, not fraud. It’s easy to imagine a group of prosecutors tasked with the broad authority to investigate every Georgian who has voted by mail becoming a force for voter suppression in the state. Add to this efforts by local election officials to declare voters “inactive” if their absentee-ballot applications were unable to be delivered. The problem, according to a lawyer for the Democratic Party of Georgia, is that voters may believe that they are then ineligible to vote. They’re not—as long as they contact election officials and declare themselves to be active voters. It’s just another hurdle that Georgia has placed in the path to the polls.
It’s unclear what will happen to the thousand voters under investigation, but, in a way, it doesn’t matter. Even if every case is eventually dropped, the shot has cleared the bow for November: voting, Georgia has signalled, can be—to pervert the words of the state’s late congressman John Lewis, a legendary champion of voting rights—bad trouble.
Read More About the 2020 Election


newyorker--2020-09-11--What to Do with a Confederate Monument?

What to Do with a Confederate Monument?

During the Civil War , Maryland stayed in the Union , but some Talbot County men crossed over to fight @ @ @ @ @ and slavery .
A monument honoring them stands on the courthouse lawn in the town @ @ @ @ @ ago , the county council voted unanimously to keep it in place .
Is time @ @ @ @ @ Talbot Boys statue ?
Plus , the music critic Alex Ross teases out the composer @ @ @ @ @ and vexed influence on the twentieth century—in music , film , politics , and more @ @ @ @ @ a Confederate Monument ?
During the Civil War , some men in Maryland ’ s @ @ @ @ @ side of slavery .
Now a small town struggles with the statue that honors them @ @ @ @ @ of history .
The Composer Richard Wagner and the Birth of the Movies The music @ @ @ @ @ Wagner ’ s huge and vexed influence on the twentieth century—in music , film , @ @ @ @

Illustration by Golden Cosmos
During the Civil War, Maryland stayed in the Union, but some Talbot County men crossed over to fight on the side of secession and slavery. A monument honoring them stands on the courthouse lawn in the town of Easton. Five years ago, the county council voted unanimously to keep it in place. Is time finally catching up with the Talbot Boys statue? Plus, the music critic Alex Ross teases out the composer Richard Wagner’s huge and vexed influence on the twentieth century—in music, film, politics, and more.
What to Do with a Confederate Monument?
During the Civil War, some men in Maryland’s Talbot County fought on the side of slavery. Now a small town struggles with the statue that honors them, and with the meaning of history.
The Composer Richard Wagner and the Birth of the Movies
The music critic Alex Ross teases out Wagner’s huge and vexed influence on the twentieth century—in music, film, politics and more.


newyorker--2020-09-11--Trump Agrees to Be Interviewed for New Book by Joe Biden

WASHINGTON ( The Borowitz Report ) —In a decision that surprised many political insiders , Donald J. Trump has agreed to be interviewed for a new book by Joe Biden .
According to Biden , the book will be “ an in-depth examination of the Trump Presidency , with special emphasis on his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and his comments about the military.
” Trump said that , when Biden approached him about the book project , “ I moved on it very strongly.
” “ This is a fantastic opportunity for me , quite frankly , ” Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be a major book , and I think Joe is going to make me look really good in it.
” Asked about the logistics of the interview , Trump said , “ Joe told me to call him up late at night and just start rambling .
This is the kind of thing I ’ m really , really good at , because I ’ m very smart.
” Biden ’ s book , titled “ Don ’ t Vote for Donald Trump , ” is set to go on sale a @ @ @ @ @

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a decision that surprised many political insiders, Donald J. Trump has agreed to be interviewed for a new book by Joe Biden.
According to Biden, the book will be “an in-depth examination of the Trump Presidency, with special emphasis on his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and his comments about the military.”
Trump said that, when Biden approached him about the book project, “I moved on it very strongly.”
“This is a fantastic opportunity for me, quite frankly,” Trump said. “It’s going to be a major book, and I think Joe is going to make me look really good in it.”
Asked about the logistics of the interview, Trump said, “Joe told me to call him up late at night and just start rambling. This is the kind of thing I’m really, really good at, because I’m very smart.”
Biden’s book, titled “Don’t Vote for Donald Trump,” is set to go on sale a week before the election.


God Made a Thing

And on the first day , God said , “ Umm , so , I made a thing.
” And on the second day , God retweeted Himself and said , “ Well , this blew up.
” And on the third day , God said , “ Wow , I ’ m overwhelmed by all your support .
It ’ s been years and years of working alone , uncertain that these Heavens and Earth would ever be seen .
So , yeah , my heart is about to explode .
Thank you .
This is surreal.
” And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ OMG , the Sun , the Moon , and the Stars just agreed to get involved !
I am freaking out .
What is my life ?
?
” And later on the fourth day , God created sound and clouds and then linked His SoundCloud account .
And on the fifth day , God posted a nude with Adam and said , “ Felt cute , might delete later .
; ) ” And God did not delete later .
And on the sixth day , God said , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ # FitTea and can ’ t wait to see how it works !
My friend swears by it .
Nothing like a detox to start the new world .
# enjoylife # detoxtea # sponsoredpost ” And on the seventh day , God said , “ Taking a day off from the hustle .
LOL # godofselfcare ” And two hours later on the seventh day , God said , “ I am here to humbly apologize to My supporters .
The comments I made were from a long time ago , before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were very different .
If you were offended , that was not My intention , and I ’ m sorry you were offended at all .
Anyway , here is a recipe for iguanas.
” And later on the seventh day , God continued , “ I APOLOGIZED !
What more do you want from Me ?
Today was supposed to be My day of REST !
I hate this term , but you S.J.W.s sound like you ’ d rather try to Milkshake Duck Me than actually deal with your own problems @ @ @ @ @ @ @ !
!
!
” And on the eighth day , God deleted His account and published an op-ed titled “ The Mental Cost and Brutality of Our Pre-Biblical Cancel Culture.
” And by noon on the eighth day , God was a meme .
And then God sent the flood .

And on the first day, God said, “Umm, so, I made a thing.”
And on the second day, God retweeted Himself and said, “Well, this blew up.”
And on the third day, God said, “Wow, I’m overwhelmed by all your support. It’s been years and years of working alone, uncertain that these Heavens and Earth would ever be seen. So, yeah, my heart is about to explode. Thank you. This is surreal.”
And on the fourth day, God said, “OMG, the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars just agreed to get involved! I am freaking out. What is my life??”
And later on the fourth day, God created sound and clouds and then linked His SoundCloud account.
And on the fifth day, God posted a nude with Adam and said, “Felt cute, might delete later. ;)” And God did not delete later.
And on the sixth day, God said, “Just got a 10 oz. lemon-zest #FitTea and can’t wait to see how it works! My friend swears by it. Nothing like a detox to start the new world. #enjoylife #detoxtea #sponsoredpost”
And on the seventh day, God said, “Taking a day off from the hustle. LOL #godofselfcare”
And two hours later on the seventh day, God said, “I am here to humbly apologize to My supporters. The comments I made were from a long time ago, before the first day, when the norms were very different. If you were offended, that was not My intention, and I’m sorry you were offended at all. Anyway, here is a recipe for iguanas.”
And later on the seventh day, God continued, “I APOLOGIZED! What more do you want from Me? Today was supposed to be My day of REST! I hate this term, but you S.J.W.s sound like you’d rather try to Milkshake Duck Me than actually deal with your own problems. . . . I CREATED YOU!!!”
And on the eighth day, God deleted His account and published an op-ed titled “The Mental Cost and Brutality of Our Pre-Biblical Cancel Culture.”
And by noon on the eighth day, God was a meme. And then God sent the flood.


newyorker--2020-09-12--My Local Confederate Monument

My Local Confederate Monument

The movement to relocate Easton ’ s Confederate monument began with a movement to erect a different one .
In 2002 , the Talbot Historical Society began exploring the life of Frederick Douglass ; to better acknowledge his connection to the region , they proposed a statue in his honor on the courthouse green .
But , when they brought the idea before the county council , they were told by its members that there was an “ unwritten rule ” that only veterans could be honored at the courthouse .
Dozens of local veterans voiced opposition to the Douglass @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rule , and for a few months the Star Democrat , Easton ’ s local newspaper , was filled with letters to the editor debating the appropriateness of paying tribute to one of the nation ’ s most famous abolitionists on the courthouse lawn .
When the council finally approved the Douglass statue , in 2004 , it did so by a single vote .
That approval came with some conditions , including this one : “ The policy adopted by the county is that any new statue would not exceed the proportions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Philip Carey Foster said , in rejecting the first design for the Douglass memorial , on the ground that it was taller than the “ Talbot Boys.
” “ And anyone who didn ’ t die in a war would not be acknowledged as greater than those who did.
” It took another seven years to get the Douglass statue installed .
When it finally was , many thought that settled the matter of statues on the courthouse lawn .
Instead , the discussion it had provoked about who deserved pride of place @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who did not .
That conversation came to a head in 2015 , after a white supremacist murdered nine people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church , in Charleston , South Carolina .
A few weeks later , Richard Potter , the president of the local chapter of the N.A.A.C.P.
, asked the county council to formally consider removing the “ Talbot Boys ” statue .
Potter was born and raised in Easton—a “ from here , ” although defenders of the monument often insist on portraying the N.A.A.C.P .
as a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the Star Democrat claimed that “ these people , ” including Potter ’ s organization , were “ attempting to force their opinions on the people of this county.
” But Potter can remember looking up at the Confederate monument as a young child and wondering what a boy had to do to become a statue ; only later did he realize what this particular human figure represented .
Then he began to wonder why he and everyone else had to pass by a Confederate statue in order to get a marriage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ go to court ; his members asked him how such a symbol could stand outside the very courts and offices ostensibly promising fairness and justice .
Eventually , Potter , on behalf of the N.A.A.C.P.
, presented a three-part proposal to the council : remove the monument , research the Civil War , and produce an accurate memorial .
In the fall of 2015 , after a series of meetings with activists , clergy , and the general public , the council held a vote behind closed doors—the first of many irregularities in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its decision not to relocate the monument .
When that vote was found to have violated Maryland ’ s open-meeting laws , the council was forced to vote again , publicly , in the summer of 2016 .
By then , private letters and public comments had turned into protests for removal .
Nonetheless , the council voted unanimously to keep the monument on the courthouse lawn .
Every so often , in the years that followed , a petition for removal would circulate , or something would occasion a new round of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Confederate monuments in New Orleans , the murder of a counter-protester by a white supremacist in Charlottesville , the two-hundredth anniversary of Douglass ’ s birth , the removal of all other Confederate statues outside battlefields and cemeteries in the state of Maryland .
The most recent such event was the murder of George Floyd , which sparked one of the largest public protests in the county ’ s recent history : around a thousand people joined a Black Lives Matter gathering in Talbot County in June , which ended with some attendees @ @ @ @ @ @ @ monument , including a sign at the feet of the “ Talbot Boys ” that read “ STILL ?
?
?
” By then , at least two people in a position to answer that question had concluded that it was time for the statue to go .
One of them was Pete Lesher : the only Democrat on the county council , a curator at the nearby Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum , and a descendent of some of those named on the monument .
The other was the president of the county @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Pack , who five years earlier had voted to protect the monument .
Now Pack felt that it was no longer appropriate for public property , and , not long after the Black Lives Matter protest , he introduced a resolution for its removal .
Pack was born in Baltimore , but he moved his family to Easton in 2002 , when he became a field supervisor for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services .
He was appointed to the council in 2007 and has been reëlected three times .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ keep the Confederate statue , he has talked with more and more African-Americans about their experiences of previous decades on the Eastern Shore .
The segregation that existed here before the Civil War remained entrenched in the decades after it .
In 1919 , not long after the Confederate monument was installed , a mob of some two thousand people surrounded the courthouse in an attempt to lynch a Black man named Isaiah Fountain , who was being tried for the rape of a teen-age girl .
In 1924 , another would-be lynch @ @ @ @ @ @ @ baseball hero , John Franklin ( Home Run ) Baker , prevented its members from lynching a Black man accused of assaulting Baker ’ s sister-in-law .
In 1957 , the year after schools in Talbot County began to integrate , eight hundred whites came together to form the Talbot County Citizens Association , which picketed elementary schools with signs that read “ Let ’ s Keep Our Schools White.
” One of the first Black families to send their children to a white school—two little boys , ages six and seven—found a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , its seven-foot fuse burned to within a few inches of detonating .
In 1986 , four locals were arrested for burning a cross on the lawn of the only Black family on Tilghman Island .
After they received their sentences , which ranged from community service to six months in jail , the Ku Klux Klan held a rally at the courthouse , to protest their treatment .
By then , the Black family had already moved away from the Eastern Shore .
In 1991 , three Black employees of the Talbot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the A.C.L.U.
, filed a lawsuit alleging “ an unbroken pattern of racial discrimination , segregation , and harassment.
” They described supervisors segregating road crews , harassing Black workers with racial epithets , and denying minority employees opportunities for overtime work , promotions , and training .
A U.S. District Court ordered the county to pay a settlement and court fees—and to develop proposals to address racial discrimination in local government .
In 2000 , a Black corrections officer filed charges of discrimination against the county ’ s detention center .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the county ’ s schools .

That does not comport with the narratives of slavery from the enslaved themselves, and certainly not with the most notable account from someone forced to live and work in bondage in Talbot County. In his autobiography, Frederick Douglass wrote of his master:
He was a cruel man, hardened by a long life of slaveholding. He would at times seem to take great pleasure in whipping a slave. I have often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most heart-rending shrieks of an own aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood. No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose.
At least fourteen of the men whose names appear on the Confederate monument in Easton owned slaves or belonged to slave-owning families, including the man whose name comes first: Admiral Franklin Buchanan, who married into the Lloyd family, which enslaved more than seven hundred people, Douglass among them, at their Wye House plantation. In the passage above, the man whom Douglass is describing worked for the Lloyds. The year before the Civil War began, nearly four thousand people were enslaved in Talbot County. Easton’s port had become a hub for the domestic slave trade, and the town’s slave market was located on the very grounds where the Confederate statue now stands.
The surnames on that statue also appear on local streets, towns, landmarks, and landings: a geography of place and power. Take “Tilghman,” the name of a nearby island, but also of Oswald Tilghman, who survived the war and helped Seth raise money for the monument. Around the same time that it was erected, Tilghman published a “History of Talbot County,” in which he described the death of another one of the statue’s honorees, his relative Lloyd Tilghman, at the Battle of Champion Hill, in Mississippi: “He was laid under the shade of a peach tree where his life’s blood ebbed slowly away, and another hero was added to that long list of martyrs who died for the cause, ‘the lost cause,’ though it be, still dear and will ever remain dear to the hearts of all true Southerners to the end of time.”
The movement to relocate Easton’s Confederate monument began with a movement to erect a different one. In 2002, the Talbot Historical Society began exploring the life of Frederick Douglass; to better acknowledge his connection to the region, they proposed a statue in his honor on the courthouse green. But, when they brought the idea before the county council, they were told by its members that there was an “unwritten rule” that only veterans could be honored at the courthouse. Dozens of local veterans voiced opposition to the Douglass statue on the basis of that dubious rule, and for a few months the Star Democrat, Easton’s local newspaper, was filled with letters to the editor debating the appropriateness of paying tribute to one of the nation’s most famous abolitionists on the courthouse lawn. When the council finally approved the Douglass statue, in 2004, it did so by a single vote. That approval came with some conditions, including this one: “The policy adopted by the county is that any new statue would not exceed the proportions or dimensions of other statues,” Philip Carey Foster said, in rejecting the first design for the Douglass memorial, on the ground that it was taller than the “Talbot Boys.” “And anyone who didn’t die in a war would not be acknowledged as greater than those who did.”
It took another seven years to get the Douglass statue installed. When it finally was, many thought that settled the matter of statues on the courthouse lawn. Instead, the discussion it had provoked about who deserved pride of place in the county led to questions about who did not. That conversation came to a head in 2015, after a white supremacist murdered nine people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, in Charleston, South Carolina. A few weeks later, Richard Potter, the president of the local chapter of the N.A.A.C.P., asked the county council to formally consider removing the “Talbot Boys” statue.
Potter was born and raised in Easton—a “from here,” although defenders of the monument often insist on portraying the N.A.A.C.P. as a group of outside agitators. One letter to the Star Democrat claimed that “these people,” including Potter’s organization, were “attempting to force their opinions on the people of this county.” But Potter can remember looking up at the Confederate monument as a young child and wondering what a boy had to do to become a statue; only later did he realize what this particular human figure represented. Then he began to wonder why he and everyone else had to pass by a Confederate statue in order to get a marriage license or serve on a jury or go to court; his members asked him how such a symbol could stand outside the very courts and offices ostensibly promising fairness and justice. Eventually, Potter, on behalf of the N.A.A.C.P., presented a three-part proposal to the council: remove the monument, research the Civil War, and produce an accurate memorial.
In the fall of 2015, after a series of meetings with activists, clergy, and the general public, the council held a vote behind closed doors—the first of many irregularities in how it has handled the issue—and announced its decision not to relocate the monument. When that vote was found to have violated Maryland’s open-meeting laws, the council was forced to vote again, publicly, in the summer of 2016. By then, private letters and public comments had turned into protests for removal. Nonetheless, the council voted unanimously to keep the monument on the courthouse lawn.
Every so often, in the years that followed, a petition for removal would circulate, or something would occasion a new round of letters and protest: the removal of Confederate monuments in New Orleans, the murder of a counter-protester by a white supremacist in Charlottesville, the two-hundredth anniversary of Douglass’s birth, the removal of all other Confederate statues outside battlefields and cemeteries in the state of Maryland. The most recent such event was the murder of George Floyd, which sparked one of the largest public protests in the county’s recent history: around a thousand people joined a Black Lives Matter gathering in Talbot County in June, which ended with some attendees leaving their signs and placards at the monument, including a sign at the feet of the “Talbot Boys” that read “STILL???”
By then, at least two people in a position to answer that question had concluded that it was time for the statue to go. One of them was Pete Lesher: the only Democrat on the county council, a curator at the nearby Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, and a descendent of some of those named on the monument. The other was the president of the county council, a Black Republican named Corey Pack, who five years earlier had voted to protect the monument. Now Pack felt that it was no longer appropriate for public property, and, not long after the Black Lives Matter protest, he introduced a resolution for its removal.
Pack was born in Baltimore, but he moved his family to Easton in 2002, when he became a field supervisor for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. He was appointed to the council in 2007 and has been reëlected three times. In the years since Pack voted to keep the Confederate statue, he has talked with more and more African-Americans about their experiences of previous decades on the Eastern Shore.
The segregation that existed here before the Civil War remained entrenched in the decades after it. In 1919, not long after the Confederate monument was installed, a mob of some two thousand people surrounded the courthouse in an attempt to lynch a Black man named Isaiah Fountain, who was being tried for the rape of a teen-age girl. In 1924, another would-be lynch mob was thwarted only when a local baseball hero, John Franklin (Home Run) Baker, prevented its members from lynching a Black man accused of assaulting Baker’s sister-in-law. In 1957, the year after schools in Talbot County began to integrate, eight hundred whites came together to form the Talbot County Citizens Association, which picketed elementary schools with signs that read “Let’s Keep Our Schools White.” One of the first Black families to send their children to a white school—two little boys, ages six and seven—found a bomb on their front lawn in Easton, its seven-foot fuse burned to within a few inches of detonating. In 1986, four locals were arrested for burning a cross on the lawn of the only Black family on Tilghman Island. After they received their sentences, which ranged from community service to six months in jail, the Ku Klux Klan held a rally at the courthouse, to protest their treatment. By then, the Black family had already moved away from the Eastern Shore.
In 1991, three Black employees of the Talbot County Roads Department, with the assistance of the A.C.L.U., filed a lawsuit alleging “an unbroken pattern of racial discrimination, segregation, and harassment.” They described supervisors segregating road crews, harassing Black workers with racial epithets, and denying minority employees opportunities for overtime work, promotions, and training. A U.S. District Court ordered the county to pay a settlement and court fees—and to develop proposals to address racial discrimination in local government. In 2000, a Black corrections officer filed charges of discrimination against the county’s detention center. A similar suit was later filed against the county’s schools.
Growing up, I saw Confederate flags on bumper stickers and T-shirts and baseball caps all around the county, but I didn’t learn any of this history. In school, we were taught about the Talbot Boys but not about the Hill, a free Black neighborhood in downtown Easton thought by some historians to be one of the oldest such communities in the country. We were taught about the naval career of Admiral Buchanan but not about Unionville, a community outside Easton which was settled by former slaves and free people of color, including eighteen Black veterans of the Union Army. When we were taught the history of the civil-rights movement, the boycotts and marches in faraway Montgomery were portrayed as necessary and heroic, but similar actions in nearby Cambridge were depicted as dangerous and thuggish. We read about the tragedy of the four little girls at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, in Birmingham, but not the attempted murder of two boys who helped integrate the very schools we attended.


newyorker--2020-09-12--The Layered Deceptions of Jessica Krug, the Black-Studies Professor Who Hid That She Is White

At the end of August , a famous white celebrity appeared on Instagram wearing a hair style best known for gracing the heads of Black women .
No , it wasn ’ t Khloe ( Koko ) Kardashian , or anyone of that tribe , nor any of the usual-suspect pop girls , Miley Cyrus , et al .
It was Adele , of the power-ballad tribe , sporting Bantu knots—but that ’ s not all .
Posted late on a Sunday evening London time—a few hours before this year ’ s virtual-ish MTV Video Music Awards—the photo showed the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ red-carpet glamour , frolicking as part of what appeared to be a homespun Carnival celebration .
She was costumed for the occasion in gold hoops and a Jamaican-flag bikini top , a yellow-feathered headdress arrayed about her neck .
I ’ m told jokes were made , but by the time I approached social media , on Monday morning , the conversation had already coalesced around the dreaded phrase “ cultural appropriation.
” This time , however , the culture , or some portions of it , pushed back against the label .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Carnival tradition—it is welcome to all who come respectfully .
West Indians in the United States , in turn , were irritated by their imperious compatriots .
Jamaicans on and off the island bemoaned that the hand-wringing was thieving joy from their moment in the sun .
( Whites , I imagine , clung to whichever angle most eased their secondhand guilt . )
These lines of contention—cultural , ethnic , national—were overlapping and inexact ; the diaspora , made up of so many ongoing resettlements , resists summary .
The only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the singularity that is Adele , looking snatched and a bit silly in her Bantu knots and tie-dye leggings .
Across the pond , a few days later , a woman waved a white flag .
The historian Jessica A. Krug , then an associate professor at George Washington University , posted a confession on the publishing platform Medium , last Thursday , explaining that she is not who she ’ d been claiming to be .
“ To an escalating degree over my adult life , ” she wrote , “ I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ white Jewish child in suburban Kansas City under various assumed identities within a Blackness that I had no right to claim : first North African Blackness , then US rooted Blackness , then Caribbean rooted Bronx Blackness.
” Her life and , by extension , her scholarly career—or is it the other way around ?
—had been based on a lie , she admitted , or rather a glut of them , feeding on good faith like , as Krug put it , “ not a culture vulture ” but “ a culture @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on details—the where , when , and how of Krug ’ s masquerade .
She speculates that “ mental health issues ” were an impetus for her behavior ; professionals have assured her that altered identity is a “ common response ” to “ the severe trauma ” that she incurred during childhood .
But she does not name a diagnosis or elaborate upon the instigating traumatic events , resorting instead to the generic jargon of self-help , blended with the D.I.Y .
verbiage endemic to the self-care branch of social justice : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” “ gaslit , ” “ belonging , ” “ accountability.
” ( Absent are the words “ sorry ” and “ apologize.
” ) The post is not well written , but it wants to be—its self-flagellations taking on the repetitious rhythms of slam poetry .
( “ I am a coward… .
I am a coward ” ; “ Intention never matters more than impact.
” ) The performance is , above all , profoundly awkward .
For all her apparent study of the ways in which certain oppressed groups address @ @ @ @ @ @ @ incapable of writing her way to recompense .
“ You should absolutely cancel me , and I absolutely cancel myself , ” she writes , borrowing , with all sincerity , a term of cultural panic that lost its candor eons ago .
“ What does that mean ?
” she asks .
“ I don ’ t know.
” Within twenty-four hours , a group of Krug ’ s colleagues at G.W .
released a statement calling on her to resign or , if not , to be stripped of her tenure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Dr. Krug has raised questions about the veracity of her own research and teaching , ” the G.W .
Department of History said in a written statement posted to its Web site .
On Wednesday , it was announced that Krug had resigned .
( She did not respond to my requests to speak with her . )
It seems that Krug exposed herself to avoid being exposed .
“ I had been following her transformation for a while , ” a scholar in Krug ’ s field told me .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to remain anonymous , met Krug more than a decade ago .
“ The first time I encountered her , she would talk about ‘ us ’ and ‘ we , ’ ” the junior professor said over the phone .
“ And I was scratching my head , like , ‘ us ’ and ‘ we ’ ?
And then I realized she meant Black.
” Specifically , “ part Algerian ” —Krug said that she was the daughter of Algerian immigrants on her mother ’ s side , and that her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ origin .
“ I took her at her word , ” the professor said , “ But I always had certain misgivings.
” Krug spoke back then of trauma as part of her heritage , describing herself as the product of rape between her mother and father , and the junior professor said that she didn ’ t want to impinge on Krug by bringing it up , even as she and other friends , all Latinx , harbored doubts about Krug ’ s claims .
The way Krug spoke about the junior @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of what aroused her suspicion .
“ I ’ m middle class .
I ’ ve never tried to be anything else , ” she said .
“ I think she was pushing me or encouraging me to adopt a more radical political position.
” These sorts of challenges ate away at the remaining amiability between Krug and her Afro-Latinx peers .
“ There came a point when we were just , like , ‘ This is bullshit.
’ ” Still , they were operating on a feeling .
Without proof or a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Krug ’ s scholarship— “ I always respected her intellectually , ” the junior professor said—there was nothing to be done but add distance .
“ There wasn ’ t any big dramatic moment .
I just quietly severed the relationship on all fronts.
” Years later , Krug came back on the scholar ’ s radar when mutual friends on Facebook shared articles Krug had written for RaceBaitr , a platform for race-forward news and criticism , and later for Essence .
Those articles , now deleted ( though Krug ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Essence ) , made it apparent that a change had occurred .
Krug had left her Algerian roots and been remade , chameleon-like , by Spanish Harlem .
“ I am boricua , just so you know , ” she wrote for Essence last year .
Still , the junior scholar told me , “ I just sat quietly with it , because who is going to believe me ?
” Krug ’ s reckoning was finally set in motion after another G.W .
professor , H. G. Carrillo , died , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fifty-nine , due to complications of the novel coronavirus .
Carrillo , who went by the nickname Hache ( “ H ” in Spanish , spelled out ) , was known as a queer Cuban-American author who captured the estranged experience of the Latin American diaspora , notably in his novel “ Loosing My Espanish , ” from 2004 .
Upon reading a tribute to the author in the Washington Post , however , Carrillo ’ s sister and niece contacted the paper with some critical updated information : Carrillo was not born @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Detroit to be exact .
His parents were also born in Michigan , and they , like Carrillo ( born Herman Glenn Carroll ) , were Black Americans with no Latino heritage .
This was a shock to Carrillo ’ s husband and to the literary community , prompting conversations among Afro-Latinx writers who had counted him as one of their own .

At the end of August, a famous white celebrity appeared on Instagram wearing a hair style best known for gracing the heads of Black women. No, it wasn’t Khloe (Koko) Kardashian, or anyone of that tribe, nor any of the usual-suspect pop girls: Miley Cyrus, et al. It was Adele, of the power-ballad tribe, sporting Bantu knots—but that’s not all. Posted late on a Sunday evening London time—a few hours before this year’s virtual-ish MTV Video Music Awards—the photo showed the blue-eyed-soul singer, usually known for smoked-out red-carpet glamour, frolicking as part of what appeared to be a homespun Carnival celebration. She was costumed for the occasion in gold hoops and a Jamaican-flag bikini top, a collar of yellow feathers about her neck. I’m told jokes were made, but by the time I approached social media, on Monday morning, the conversation had already coalesced around the dreaded phrase “cultural appropriation.” This time, however, the culture, or some portions of it, pushed back against the label. Black Britons chided Americans for their ignorance of Carnival tradition—it is welcome to all who come respectfully. West Indians in the United States, in turn, were irritated by their imperious compatriots. Jamaicans on and off the island bemoaned that the hand-wringing was thieving joy from their moment in the sun. (Whites, I imagine, clung to whichever angle most eased their secondhand guilt.) These lines of contention—cultural, ethnic, national—were overlapping and inexact; the diaspora, made up of so many ongoing resettlements, resists summary. The only stable reference point in the debate was the singularity that is Adele, looking snatched and a bit silly in her Bantu knots and tie-dye leggings.
Across the pond, a few days later, a woman waved a white flag. The historian Jessica A. Krug, then an associate professor at George Washington University, posted a confession on the publishing platform Medium, last Thursday, explaining that she is not who she’d been claiming to be. “To an escalating degree over my adult life,” she wrote, “I have eschewed my lived experience as a white Jewish child in suburban Kansas City under various assumed identities within a Blackness that I had no right to claim: first North African Blackness, then US rooted Blackness, then Caribbean rooted Bronx Blackness.” Her life and, by extension, her scholarly career—or is it the other way around?—had been based on a lie, she admitted, or rather a glut of them, feeding on good faith like, as Krug put it, “not a culture vulture” but “a culture leech.”
The blog post is light on details—the where, when, and how of Krug’s masquerade. She speculates that “mental health issues” were an impetus for her behavior; professionals have assured her that altered identity is a “common response” to “the severe trauma” that she incurred during childhood. But she does not name a diagnosis or elaborate upon the instigating traumatic events, resorting instead to the generic jargon of self-help, blended with the D.I.Y. verbiage endemic to the self-care branch of social justice: “redress,” “harm,” “gaslit,” “belonging,” “accountability.” (Absent are the words “sorry” and “apologize.”) The post is not well written, but it wants to be—its self-flagellations taking on the repetitious rhythms of slam poetry. (“I am a coward…. I am a coward”; “Intention never matters more than impact.”) The performance is, above all, profoundly awkward. For all her apparent study of the ways in which certain oppressed groups address wrongs that are done, Krug proves incapable of writing her way to recompense. “You should absolutely cancel me, and I absolutely cancel myself,” she writes, borrowing, with all sincerity, a term of cultural panic that lost its candor eons ago. “What does that mean?” she asks. “I don’t know.” Within twenty-four hours, a group of Krug’s colleagues at G.W. released a statement calling on her to resign or, if not, to be stripped of her tenure and fired. “With her conduct, Dr. Krug has raised questions about the veracity of her own research and teaching,” the G.W. Department of History said in a written statement posted to its Web site. On Wednesday, it was announced that Krug had resigned. (She did not respond to my requests to speak with her.)
It seems that Krug exposed herself to avoid being exposed. “I had been following her transformation for a while,” a scholar in Krug’s field told me. The scholar, a junior professor who wished to remain anonymous, met Krug more than a decade ago. “The first time I encountered her, she would talk about ‘us’ and ‘we,’ ” the junior professor said over the phone. “And I was scratching my head, like, ‘us’ and ‘we’? And then I realized she meant Black.” Specifically, “part Algerian”—Krug said that she was the daughter of Algerian immigrants on her mother’s side, and that her father was a white man of German origin. “I took her at her word,” the professor said, “But I always had certain misgivings.” Krug spoke back then of trauma as part of her heritage, describing herself as the product of rape between her mother and father, and the junior professor said that she didn’t want to impinge on Krug by bringing it up, even as she and other friends, all Latinx, harbored doubts about Krug’s claims. The way Krug spoke about the junior professor’s own identity was part of what aroused her suspicion. “I’m middle class. I’ve never tried to be anything else,” she said. “I think she was pushing me or encouraging me to adopt a more radical political position.” These sorts of challenges ate away at the remaining amiability between Krug and her Afro-Latinx peers. “There came a point when we were just, like, ‘This is bullshit.’ ” Still, they were operating on a feeling. Without proof or a violation of academic protocol or issues with Krug’s scholarship—“I always respected her intellectually,” the junior professor said—there was nothing to be done but add distance. “There wasn’t any big dramatic moment. I just quietly severed the relationship on all fronts.”
Years later, Krug came back on the scholar’s radar when mutual friends on Facebook shared articles Krug had written for RaceBaitr, a platform for race-forward news and criticism, and later for Essence. Those articles, now deleted (though Krug’s work appears in the September/October print issue of Essence), made it apparent that a change had occurred. Krug had left her Algerian roots and been remade, chameleon-like, by Spanish Harlem. “I am boricua, just so you know,” she wrote for Essence last year. Still, the junior scholar told me, “I just sat quietly with it, because who is going to believe me?”
Krug’s reckoning was finally set in motion after another G.W. professor, H. G. Carrillo, died, in April, at the age of fifty-nine, due to complications of the novel coronavirus. Carrillo, who went by the nickname Hache (“H” in Spanish, spelled out), was known as a queer Cuban-American author who captured the estranged experience of the Latin American diaspora, notably in his novel “Loosing My Espanish,” from 2004. Upon reading a tribute to the author in the Washington Post, however, Carrillo’s sister and niece contacted the paper with some critical updated information: Carrillo was not born in Cuba but in the United States, Detroit to be exact. His parents were also born in Michigan, and they, like Carrillo (born Herman Glenn Carroll), were Black Americans with no Latino heritage. This was a shock to Carrillo’s husband and to the literary community, prompting conversations among Afro-Latinx writers who had counted him as one of their own.
It was also, the junior scholar told me, “a moment of synchronicity.” On August 26th, she texted two other Afro-Latinx scholars, after hinting, on Twitter, about a possible Carrillo-like situation within her field. One of the people she texted was Yomaira C. Figueroa-Vásquez, an associate professor of Afro-diaspora studies at Michigan State University. Together with a third scholar, Figueroa-Vásquez began doing research into Krug’s background and found proof of her identity once and for all in the obituaries of Krug’s parents. But there remained the question of what to do with the information. “We were not going to write some big flashy letter. We were not trying to ruin her life,” Figueroa-Vásquez said. “We were really thinking, as Black Latina women, how do we do this ethically?” They had no plans to contact G.W.; what they wanted, Figueroa-Vasquez said, was simply for Krug to “stop lying” and apologize. They reached out to people who know Krug personally, colleagues in her field and editors she had worked with, to gather more information. But Figueroa-Vásquez suspects that Krug was “tipped off” by one of those people. Within eight days of their initial conversation about Krug (“Black women are efficient if nothing else—we get to the bottom of things,” Figueroa-Vásquez joked), the Medium post was online and a frenzy of news coverage had begun.
Jessica Anne Krug grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. Her parents, Stuart and Sherry Krug, worked as a grocer and a teacher, respectively, according to obituaries in the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle. Krug attended the Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy, a Jewish day school located in the suburb of Overland Park, followed by the Barstow School, a prep school in the city proper. In 1996, when she was in the eighth grade, Krug wrote an op-ed in the Kansas City Star against “white-male bashing,” despite her experiences with harassment from people in that demographic. “A few years ago, while taking a shortcut through a local country club, I was confronted by people who uttered slurs about the Jewish star hanging around my neck,” she wrote. She attended Portland State University and received her doctorate in history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in 2012. She was “passionate about African and African Diaspora history,” Francisco Scarano, a member of her dissertation committee, told me via e-mail, describing her as a “voracious reader.” After travels to Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America, he said, “she always seem to come back energized by experiences she had and by the people she had met here.” They never had conversations about her race and ethnicity, though, and Scarano said that he was shocked by the news of her forged identities.
“North African Blackness,” “US rooted Blackness,” “Caribbean rooted Bronx Blackness”—even the coming clean reverts to a sweeping shorthand. In the course of her academic career, Krug has identified as Algerian, African-American, Black Boricua, vaguely Afro-Latinx, vaguely Caribbean; she’s been from Kansas City, from the Bronx, and “of the hood.” Krug’s students, interviewed by The Cut, recalled a “very heavy accent” and an affected brown-girl cool. The trail of locales and labels explicates little besides their author’s own ethnographic tastes. What unites them, though, is Krug’s affinity for Blackness as an instrument of authenticity as she made her way through academia.