newyorker--2020-05-14--How the Coronavirus is Killing the Middle Class

Kelly Bates is a forty-one-year-old single mom who lives with her nine-year-old daughter , Danielle Lucky , in Collingdale , Pennsylvania , a middle-income neighborhood of aging red-brick row houses a few miles from the Philadelphia airport .
Bates , who is willowy , with large brown eyes , had grown up in South Philadelphia in the seventies and eighties , as part of the city ’ s burgeoning African-American middle class : her father was a heating contractor , and her mother worked for the Bell Telephone Company .
But over the decades crime in the neighborhood increased , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a three-bedroom house in Collingdale for seventy thousand dollars , hoping to escape the violence .
“ I wanted Danielle to go outside and play and not worry about getting shot , ” Bates told me recently .
Since 2016 , Bates has worked as an assistant director at Kinder Academy , a chain of five child-care centers around Philadelphia .
Through her work there , she received a grant to earn a bachelor ’ s degree in early-childhood education , and is about a year away from graduating .
“ Babies are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ I ’ m part mom , part dad , part therapist , part doctor , and part food-program officer.
” On March 16th , as the coronavirus spread in Pennsylvania , Governor Tom Wolf ordered all nonessential businesses , including child-care centers , to shut down indefinitely .
That evening , Leslie Spina , Kinder Academy ’ s fifty-four-year-old owner , decided that she was going to have to lay off all hundred of her employees .
The state had allocated some money to support child-care centers , but Spina didn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than a month or so .
She also worried that the longer she waited to let her employees go , the longer the line would be for unemployment .
She ’ d known most of her employees for decades and had helped raise their children at the centers .
“ The decision almost broke me , ” Spina said .
“ It ’ s not like other businesses .
They are my family.
” One of the workers she had to lay off was her own mother , Debby , who is seventy-three @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , she met with her employees on Zoom and read them a letter she had written , announcing the layoffs .
She didn ’ t allow her mother on the call , so that she wouldn ’ t have to break down in front of her .
“ We ’ re used to turning to Leslie to fix every problem , ” Monica Hernandez , a center director , told me .
“ Here was a problem she couldn ’ t fix.
” Spina offered to set up one-on-one tutorials with her employees @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unemployment-benefits system .
She and her assistant spent days helping employees who didn ’ t have computers submit claims .
Spina ’ s mother had to apply twice , after an initial application was lost .
That Tuesday afternoon , Bates filed for unemployment .
When I spoke to her on the phone , several days later , she was feeling disoriented .
“ I ’ ve always been able to provide for me and my daughter , ” she said , “ and now I ’ ve just applied for food stamps @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Bates normally makes about forty-one thousand dollars a year .
“ I am a person who lives check to check , ” she told me .
“ But I take care of my responsibilities and I don ’ t live beyond my means.
” In 2019 , she used her tax refund to take Danielle on their first cruise , to the Bahamas .
This year , with no income , she used it to pay her mortgage , car payment , water and gas bills , and car and life insurance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hundred dollars in her bank account .
Spina called Bates privately to offer help .
About ninety-five of the ninety-seven children at the Oxford Circle , Northeast Philadelphia , branch of Kinder Academy , where Bates worked , are on some form of public assistance , and the day-care center operates in partnership with a diaper bank and food pantry next door .
( Across all of Kinder Academy ’ s locations , about ninety per cent of families receive public assistance . )
Bates was accustomed to helping the families at Kinder @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they needed it .
Now she found herself needing some aid , too .
“ I never imagined anything like this would happen , ” she told me .
That Wednesday , she drove to the shuttered center and packed a grocery bag with applesauce , fruit cups , mini-pancakes , cereal , and the small cartons of milk used at Kinder Academy for the kids ’ snack and lunch .
Of all of her mounting concerns , Bates was most frightened of not being able to pay her mortgage .
“ If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ feel like a failure as a parent , ” she told me .
Every other bill would come second : “ If my lights get cut off , we ’ ll use candles.
” In the last four weeks , as large sections of the global economy have shut down , more than thirty-three million Americans have filed for unemployment .
People with jobs that aren ’ t deemed essential , or that render telework impossible , are suddenly without work , and , in many cases , savings .
According to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pandemic is likely to leave an additional seventeen million Americans needing food assistance in the next six months .
Recently , in Los Angeles , Pittsburgh , and Irving , Texas , people waited outside food pantries in lines that stretched miles .
Tens of thousands of people who can ’ t pay their bills have gone on rent strikes .
The disaster has become so dire so quickly owing , in part , to the legacy of the 2008 financial crisis .
Minimum wage , in real terms , is more than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fifty years ago .
( Since the nineteen-eighties , most of the benefits of America ’ s growing economy have gone to the wealthy . )
Meanwhile , housing costs have more than doubled since 2000 .
“ When people say they live paycheck to paycheck , it ’ s not that they ’ re managing their money poorly , ” Sharon Parrott , a senior vice-president at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities , told me .
“ Instead , their housing costs are taking up a disproportionate share of their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ margin of error : forty per cent of Americans don ’ t have four hundred dollars cash to spare in an emergency , and would need to rely on credit cards or friends and family to come up with the money .
“ We know for low-wage workers , three unpaid days away from a job threatens their ability to buy food for a month , ” Vicki Shabo , a policy expert at New America , a nonprofit think tank , said .
“ This is worse and weirder than anything I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Shierholz , a director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute , said .
Shierholz served as the chief economist at the Department of Labor from 2014 to 2017 and dealt firsthand with the slow recovery from the 2008 financial crisis .
“ We know how to wrap our brains around the bursting of an asset bubble of seven trillion dollars in the housing market , or the end of the dot-com boom , ” she said .
“ But we don ’ t have practice in dealing with the fallout from this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who will be most affected by the economic downturn .
Women are losing jobs at a higher rate , because there are more of them in the service sectors most affected by the virus .
The crisis has also been increasing racial economic disparities : black and Latino workers are more likely to work service-industry jobs—in restaurants , bars , hotels—and that sector was the first to shut down , and the least likely to fully reopen in the near term .
“ We always see this during recessions , but this one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Shierholz told me .

Kelly Bates is a forty-one-year-old single mom who lives with her nine-year-old daughter, Danielle Lucky, in Collingdale, Pennsylvania, a middle-income neighborhood of aging red-brick row houses a few miles from the Philadelphia airport. Bates, who is willowy, with large brown eyes, had grown up in South Philadelphia in the seventies and eighties, as part of the city’s burgeoning African-American middle class: her father was a heating contractor, and her mother worked for the Bell Telephone Company. But over the decades crime in the neighborhood increased, and, in 2015, Bates bought a three-bedroom house in Collingdale for seventy thousand dollars, hoping to escape the violence. “I wanted Danielle to go outside and play and not worry about getting shot,” Bates told me recently. Since 2016, Bates has worked as an assistant director at Kinder Academy, a chain of five child-care centers around Philadelphia. Through her work there, she received a grant to earn a bachelor’s degree in early-childhood education, and is about a year away from graduating. “Babies are my passion,” she told me. “I’m part mom, part dad, part therapist, part doctor, and part food-program officer.”
On March 16th, as the coronavirus spread in Pennsylvania, Governor Tom Wolf ordered all nonessential businesses, including child-care centers, to shut down indefinitely. That evening, Leslie Spina, Kinder Academy’s fifty-four-year-old owner, decided that she was going to have to lay off all hundred of her employees. The state had allocated some money to support child-care centers, but Spina didn’t think it would last more than a month or so. She also worried that the longer she waited to let her employees go, the longer the line would be for unemployment. She’d known most of her employees for decades and had helped raise their children at the centers. “The decision almost broke me,” Spina said. “It’s not like other businesses. They are my family.” One of the workers she had to lay off was her own mother, Debby, who is seventy-three.
The day after the centers closed, she met with her employees on Zoom and read them a letter she had written, announcing the layoffs. She didn’t allow her mother on the call, so that she wouldn’t have to break down in front of her. “We’re used to turning to Leslie to fix every problem,” Monica Hernandez, a center director, told me. “Here was a problem she couldn’t fix.” Spina offered to set up one-on-one tutorials with her employees for navigating the state’s arcane unemployment-benefits system. She and her assistant spent days helping employees who didn’t have computers submit claims. Spina’s mother had to apply twice, after an initial application was lost.
That Tuesday afternoon, Bates filed for unemployment. When I spoke to her on the phone, several days later, she was feeling disoriented. “I’ve always been able to provide for me and my daughter,” she said, “and now I’ve just applied for food stamps for the first time in my life.” Bates normally makes about forty-one thousand dollars a year. “I am a person who lives check to check,” she told me. “But I take care of my responsibilities and I don’t live beyond my means.” In 2019, she used her tax refund to take Danielle on their first cruise, to the Bahamas. This year, with no income, she used it to pay her mortgage, car payment, water and gas bills, and car and life insurance. After that, she had eight hundred dollars in her bank account.
Spina called Bates privately to offer help. About ninety-five of the ninety-seven children at the Oxford Circle, Northeast Philadelphia, branch of Kinder Academy, where Bates worked, are on some form of public assistance, and the day-care center operates in partnership with a diaper bank and food pantry next door. (Across all of Kinder Academy’s locations, about ninety per cent of families receive public assistance.) Bates was accustomed to helping the families at Kinder Academy find a little extra assistance when they needed it. Now she found herself needing some aid, too. “I never imagined anything like this would happen,” she told me. That Wednesday, she drove to the shuttered center and packed a grocery bag with applesauce, fruit cups, mini-pancakes, cereal, and the small cartons of milk used at Kinder Academy for the kids’ snack and lunch.
Of all of her mounting concerns, Bates was most frightened of not being able to pay her mortgage. “If I lose my house, I would feel like a failure as a parent,” she told me. Every other bill would come second: “If my lights get cut off, we’ll use candles.”
In the last four weeks, as large sections of the global economy have shut down, more than thirty-three million Americans have filed for unemployment. People with jobs that aren’t deemed essential, or that render telework impossible, are suddenly without work, and, in many cases, savings. According to the C.E.O. of Feeding America, the pandemic is likely to leave an additional seventeen million Americans needing food assistance in the next six months. Recently, in Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and Irving, Texas, people waited outside food pantries in lines that stretched miles. Tens of thousands of people who can’t pay their bills have gone on rent strikes.
The disaster has become so dire so quickly owing, in part, to the legacy of the 2008 financial crisis. Minimum wage, in real terms, is more than thirty per cent lower than it was fifty years ago. (Since the nineteen-eighties, most of the benefits of America’s growing economy have gone to the wealthy.) Meanwhile, housing costs have more than doubled since 2000. “When people say they live paycheck to paycheck, it’s not that they’re managing their money poorly,” Sharon Parrott, a senior vice-president at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told me. “Instead, their housing costs are taking up a disproportionate share of their incomes.” The result is a slim margin of error: forty per cent of Americans don’t have four hundred dollars cash to spare in an emergency, and would need to rely on credit cards or friends and family to come up with the money. “We know for low-wage workers, three unpaid days away from a job threatens their ability to buy food for a month,” Vicki Shabo, a policy expert at New America, a nonprofit think tank, said.
“This is worse and weirder than anything I’ve ever seen,” Heidi Shierholz, a director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, said. Shierholz served as the chief economist at the Department of Labor from 2014 to 2017 and dealt firsthand with the slow recovery from the 2008 financial crisis. “We know how to wrap our brains around the bursting of an asset bubble of seven trillion dollars in the housing market, or the end of the dot-com boom,” she said. “But we don’t have practice in dealing with the fallout from this pandemic.” We are beginning to see who will be most affected by the economic downturn. Women are losing jobs at a higher rate, because there are more of them in the service sectors most affected by the virus. The crisis has also been increasing racial economic disparities: black and Latino workers are more likely to work service-industry jobs—in restaurants, bars, hotels—and that sector was the first to shut down, and the least likely to fully reopen in the near term. “We always see this during recessions, but this one is likely to be worse,” Shierholz told me.
In late March, to mitigate the disaster, Congress passed a two-trillion-dollar stimulus package, the CARES Act, which included cash payments to workers, loans to small businesses, and a broadening of the categories of Americans eligible for unemployment assistance. “Our normal system has holes you could drive a truck through,” Shierholz said. Yet there were also flaws in the stimulus package, most notably a lack of safeguards, which has allowed federal money to be funnelled to executive bonuses and shareholder revenue instead of workers’ salaries. There was also an arbitrary deadline set for July 31st, at which point some provisions will expire. “Pulling back on provisions then, when unemployment is likely to be at least fifteen per cent, is nuts,” Shierholz told me. “It’s a huge mistake.” She hoped that, in the coming months, the government would take more ambitious steps: in the U.K. and Denmark, for example, the state has been directly paying some workers up to eighty and ninety per cent of their salaries, respectively. “I don’t say this all the time, but right now we don’t have to worry about deficits,” Shierholz said. “We’ll be better off if we make sure that people have enough money to not go into foreclosure and make their car loans.”
Some younger people with fewer responsibilities seemed to be faring O.K. Kyle McIntire, a twenty-four-year-old actor and waiter recently displaced from New York City, has been sleeping on his mom’s couch, in Salisbury, Massachusetts. McIntire combined his savings and his earnings from his unemployment benefits, and he now has enough money to keep his lease on his apartment in the city, pay rent to his mom, and still save money. “When this ends, I hope I’ll be able to spend more time auditioning instead of working in a restaurant,” he told me.
A handful of places where demand has increased have been hiring. In April, Walmart created two hundred thousand new associate positions, and received more than a million applications. In Norden, California, Dennis Kerr posted online that he’d lost his job at a ski resort, and by the time I reached him, in mid-April, he’d found a new one working at a grocery store in Reno, Nevada.
But many people are struggling. Nicole Ferrari, a single mother of four who owns a commercial and residential cleaning business in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, was spending her days scrolling through Facebook looking for tips on applying for unemployment. “You hear people talking about how physical grief is,” Ferrari told me. “I’m not very busy, but I’m exhausted.” Ferrari had applied for a small-business loan through the Paycheck Protection Program, and the loan would be forgivable if she used it to pay herself through payroll. To apply, she had to go through her bank, but her local branch was closed; by the time she finally reached a customer-service representative, on Twitter, she had learned that the loan program was out of money. “This is what Ruth’s Chris and Shake Shack applied for,” she told me. Pennsylvania’s unemployment Web site had to be redesigned to accommodate federal expansions, and when it finally relaunched, in mid-April, the system kept crashing. When Ferrari got online, the choices in the drop-down menu wouldn’t allow her to choose “self-employed.” She shares the computer with her son, who needs it to attend school remotely, and she eventually gave up. “I’ve seen online that the unemployment office is hiring workers,” she said. “Maybe I should just apply there.” (The Web site’s glitches have since been repaired, and Ferrari’s claim is pending.)


newyorker--2020-05-14--An Aerial View of New York City’s Pandemic

For more than a hundred and fifty years , New York City has buried its unclaimed dead on Hart Island , a narrow , mile-long strip of land just east of the Bronx ’ s Orchard Beach .
In April , at the height of the coronavirus pandemic , what had been the weekly burial rate became the daily rate .
The video above , shot by Zack Taylor , begins with bodies going into the ground .
We see wooden caskets stacked at the far end of a freshly dug trench , an idling skid loader , a few @ @ @ @ @ @ @ water—the Long Island Sound—flowing in the distance .
Then the camera cuts to more familiar scenes : sweeping aerials , shot with a drone , of a city , as Governor Andrew Cuomo often puts it , “ on pause.
” We linger on some of the postcard views , looking even more picturesque in the absence of people : the Brooklyn Bridge , the Flatiron Building , Washington Square Park .
At other times , we glide over anonymous intersections , the cold geometry of unused crosswalks and empty bike lanes , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Uncanny resonances suggest themselves .
I misread an advertisement for Beautycounter , a cosmetics company , on the side of a building at Houston and Crosby , as Bodycounter .
The carrousel on the Dumbo waterfront appears to be sheathed in field-hospital plastic .
A crisis tends to develop its own visual language .
The language of the coronavirus is spoken by drones .
In the past two months , eerily similar montages have emerged from around the world , of places without people , filmed from above : San Francisco , London @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In form and rhythm , these videos recall the aerial footage shot by the Allies of Europe immediately after the Second World War , all bombed-out cities and ravaged landscapes .
The bird ’ s-eye view is meant to scale tragedy , to enhance perspective .
Back then , the trauma of war was physically manifest—you could see the wrecked buildings and piles of rubble ; now the trauma is manifested in physical absence .
Patricia Zimmermann recently argued in Film Quarterly that “ the drones actually conceal the devastation of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of people in hospitals and homes , hidden from the sightlines of the drone.
” As an instrument of surveillance , it fails to capture the information that matters most .
What we crave now is closeups , and Taylor delivers , though not visually .
As his drone buzzes over the boroughs , a chorus of disembodied voices—echoing the disembodied cityscape—crackles warmly in our ears , with the low-fidelity , whispered intimacy of a telephone call .
Various medical personnel , a deli worker , the voices of these “ essential ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , dispel the illusion of a so-called empty city .
Hundreds of thousands of people get up each morning and go to work , just like they did before .
But now their jobs are harder , and the risks of performing them are greater .
“ Every day , I feel like I ’ m going to kill my dad , bringing the virus to the house , ” one says .
The contrast between the images and the audio is dizzying , like watching prestige TV—the opening credits of “ Succession @ @ @ @ @ @ @ soundtrack .
The class critique is inescapable .
We all stick our heads out the window and clap at seven o ’ clock .
But it ’ s a privilege to be able to hover above , like a drone , looking down .

For more than a hundred and fifty years, New York City has buried its unclaimed dead on Hart Island, a narrow, mile-long strip of land just east of the Bronx’s Orchard Beach. In April, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, what had been the weekly burial rate became the daily rate. The video above, shot by Zack Taylor, begins with bodies going into the ground. We see wooden caskets stacked at the far end of a freshly dug trench, an idling skid loader, a few scraggly trees, a metal-gray band of water—the Long Island Sound—flowing in the distance.
Then the camera cuts to more familiar scenes: sweeping aerials, shot with a drone, of a city, as Governor Andrew Cuomo often puts it, “on pause.” We linger on some of the postcard views, looking even more picturesque in the absence of people: the Brooklyn Bridge, the Flatiron Building, Washington Square Park. At other times, we glide over anonymous intersections, the cold geometry of unused crosswalks and empty bike lanes, a basketball court with no players. Uncanny resonances suggest themselves. I misread an advertisement for Beautycounter, a cosmetics company, on the side of a building at Houston and Crosby, as Bodycounter. The carrousel on the Dumbo waterfront appears to be sheathed in field-hospital plastic.
A crisis tends to develop its own visual language. The language of the coronavirus is spoken by drones. In the past two months, eerily similar montages have emerged from around the world, of places without people, filmed from above: San Francisco, London, Riyadh, the list goes on. In form and rhythm, these videos recall the aerial footage shot by the Allies of Europe immediately after the Second World War, all bombed-out cities and ravaged landscapes. The bird’s-eye view is meant to scale tragedy, to enhance perspective. Back then, the trauma of war was physically manifest—you could see the wrecked buildings and piles of rubble; now the trauma is manifested in physical absence. Patricia Zimmermann recently argued in Film Quarterly that “the drones actually conceal the devastation of the pandemic, which lies in the deaths of people in hospitals and homes, hidden from the sightlines of the drone.” As an instrument of surveillance, it fails to capture the information that matters most.
What we crave now is closeups, and Taylor delivers, though not visually. As his drone buzzes over the boroughs, a chorus of disembodied voices—echoing the disembodied cityscape—crackles warmly in our ears, with the low-fidelity, whispered intimacy of a telephone call. Various medical personnel, a deli worker, the voices of these “essential” workers, recounting their harrowing daily affairs, dispel the illusion of a so-called empty city. Hundreds of thousands of people get up each morning and go to work, just like they did before. But now their jobs are harder, and the risks of performing them are greater. “Every day, I feel like I’m going to kill my dad, bringing the virus to the house,” one says.
The contrast between the images and the audio is dizzying, like watching prestige TV—the opening credits of “Succession” come to mind—with a Studs Terkel soundtrack. The class critique is inescapable. We all stick our heads out the window and clap at seven o’clock. But it’s a privilege to be able to hover above, like a drone, looking down.
A Guide to the Coronavirus


newyorker--2020-05-15--“Obamagate” Is Niche Programming for Trump Superfans

Donald Trump will not shut up about Barack Obama—not now , not ever .
On Thursday morning , amid the gravest economic crisis in a century and a deadly pandemic that will have killed more than a hundred thousand Americans by the end of this month , Trump yet again accused his predecessor of culpability in “ the biggest political crime and scandal in the history of the USA.
” Obama , he said , should be hauled before the Senate to testify .
“ He knew EVERYTHING , ” Trump added in his tweet , one of dozens of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which he has targeted “ Obamagate.
” What crime , exactly , was Trump accusing Obama of ?
What should he testify about ?
Trump never said , and it ’ s a safe bet that he never will .
On Monday afternoon , at a press conference on the White House lawn , Trump made that clear , in a memorable exchange with Phil Rucker , of the Washington Post , that echoed the paranoid fulminations of Trump ’ s hero Joseph McCarthy at his worst .
“ What crime , exactly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ committing ?
” Rucker asked .
“ Obamagate , ” Trump replied .
“ It ’ s been going on for a long time , ” he added , without offering specifics .
“ What is the crime , exactly , that you ’ re accusing him of ?
” Rucker asked again .
“ You know what the crime is , ” Trump answered .
“ The crime is very obvious to everybody.
” Days later , that is still where we are : Trump is accusing Obama of a grave crime @ @ @ @ @ @ @ allegedly did , while repeating over and over that the former President is guilty of something , a technique of political agitprop that recalls not only McCarthy but every wannabe dictator for whom the rule of law has little or nothing to do with accusations of illegality .
Perhaps , to Trump and his defenders , “ Obamagate ” really is such a known commodity that defining it is superfluous , even if it is not at all obvious to those who don ’ t populate Trump ’ s alternate reality of conspiracy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in which Obama figures as a regular and sinister presence .
This is not the first time , nor will it be the last , that the gap between partisan truths in Washington is so wide it ’ s practically a vortex .
In many ways , the “ Obamagate ” exchange on Monday reminded me of the first day of the public impeachment hearings last fall in the House Intelligence Committee , in which Democrats spent hours outlining what they knew of the Trump Ukraine-shakedown scheme that had triggered the impeachment proceedings @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ranking member , offered up an array of little-known intrigues that seemed entirely unrelated to the matter at hand , including an alleged plot to “ obtain nude pictures of Trump , ” which , he said , was part of a “ three-year-long operation ” by Democrats , “ the corrupt media , ” and “ partisan bureaucrats to overturn the results of the 2016 election.
” I remember thinking : Naked pictures ?
What was he even talking about ?
It appeared to have something to do with a 2017 phone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Russian pranksters claiming to represent the Ukrainian government and offering nude pictures of Trump with a Russian celebrity .
Or something .
If you had been following along with Fox News and the darker corners of the right , you knew exactly what Nunes was talking about .
The same is true right now with Trump , who , starting with an anti-Obama tweet storm on Mother ’ s Day that does not seem to have ended yet , has been trying to deflect attention from the pandemic by pursuing a similar strategy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and other supporters used during the impeachment proceedings .
To the extent we can even discern what Trump is talking about , “ Obamagate ” seems to be the perfect crime for someone like Trump to allege : it is vague and all-encompassing , a conspiracy against the current President so broad that it apparently began before he won an election nobody expected him to win while simultaneously explaining away everything from the Mueller investigation ’ s findings to the Ukraine-extortion scheme that got Trump impeached .
Inasmuch as Trump ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ case , it is the still-unravelling mess involving his own former national-security adviser , Michael Flynn , who was fired by Trump and pleaded guilty twice to lying to investigators about his dealings with Russia , but who now claims he was framed by the F.B.I .
and has got Trump ’ s Justice Department to abandon the case that was successfully mounted by its own career prosecutors .
These , needless to say , are not the kind of facts that Trump has brought up when slinging his accusations against Obama , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ list of former Obama Administration officials who—completely legally , as far as anyone can tell—asked to “ unmask ” the name of an unidentified American dealing with foreign officials after the election , who turned out to be Flynn .
“ People should be going to jail for this stuff , ” Trump told an interviewer on Thursday .
“ This was all Obama .
This was all Biden .
These people were corrupt , the whole thing was corrupt , and we caught them.
” To outside observers , the charges—like Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about the easily provable fact of Obama ’ s birth in the United States—seem so absurd as to be the mere caricature of a conspiracy , as sketched by a con-man who couldn ’ t even bother to offer convincing details .
The point , though , is not to convince those who aren ’ t already in the know .
“ Obamagate ” is niche programming for the Trump superfan audience .
If you don ’ t get it , that doesn ’ t matter ; you ’ re not supposed to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a rallying cry .
Details are all but irrelevant .
At 8:57 P.M. on Wednesday , Trump sent out an all-caps tweet .
The message consisted solely of the word “ OBAMAGATE ” followed by an exclamation point .
To those not following Trump as a daily soap opera , it might seem like a desperate diversionary tactic from a floundering President .
To his supporters , it made perfect sense .
Which is why , when Trump followed up on Thursday morning , with an equally angry and cryptic demand that Obama @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what was entirely unclear—news organizations mostly ignored him in favor of the morning ’ s testimony by the recently fired head of vaccines at the Department of Health and Human Services , or , as the Drudge Report called Richard Bright , the “ whistleblower of doom.
” Except for Fox News , that is , which obliged the President with a banner headline .
Hating on Obama , lying about him , blaming him : these long ago became the default settings of Trump ’ s Presidency .
When Trump is troubled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do , he often finds a way to bring Obama into it , no matter how tenuous or even absurd the connection .
He has called Obama a “ bad ” person , a “ sick ” person , “ a disaster , ” “ the most ignorant President in our history , ” and even the “ founder of ISIS.
” Barely more than a month into his Administration , in early March of 2017 , Trump accused Obama of secretly wiretapping him at Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign , an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any of the other nutty things Trump has said about Obama since then .
During the course of the pandemic in the past couple of months , Trump has repeatedly invoked Obama and sought to blame his predecessor for everything from the lack of a sufficient national stockpile of medical supplies to inadequate testing for the coronavirus , which did not exist when Obama was President .
Trump often mentions Obama ’ s handling of the H1N1 swine flu , which killed twelve thousand Americans , but which Trump nonetheless claims was a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a national crisis that has so far tanked the American economy and killed more citizens than the wars in Vietnam , Iraq , and Afghanistan combined .
In fact , the President made a point of it again on Thursday afternoon during an appearance in Pennsylvania .
For Trump , spending the week attacking Obama , no matter what the subject , is the political equivalent of retreating to his bedroom and hiding under the blanket .
It ’ s his safe space , his comfort zone .

Donald Trump will not shut up about Barack Obama—not now, not ever. On Thursday morning, amid the gravest economic crisis in a century and a deadly pandemic that will have killed more than a hundred thousand Americans by the end of this month, Trump yet again accused his predecessor of culpability in “the biggest political crime and scandal in the history of the USA.” Obama, he said, should be hauled before the Senate to testify. “He knew EVERYTHING,” Trump added in his tweet, one of dozens of attacks in the past few days in which he has targeted “Obamagate.” What crime, exactly, was Trump accusing Obama of? What should he testify about? Trump never said, and it’s a safe bet that he never will.
On Monday afternoon, at a press conference on the White House lawn, Trump made that clear, in a memorable exchange with Phil Rucker, of the Washington Post, that echoed the paranoid fulminations of Trump’s hero Joseph McCarthy at his worst. “What crime, exactly, are you accusing President Obama of committing?” Rucker asked. “Obamagate,” Trump replied. “It’s been going on for a long time,” he added, without offering specifics. “What is the crime, exactly, that you’re accusing him of?” Rucker asked again. “You know what the crime is,” Trump answered. “The crime is very obvious to everybody.” Days later, that is still where we are: Trump is accusing Obama of a grave crime but refusing even to say what Obama allegedly did, while repeating over and over that the former President is guilty of something, a technique of political agitprop that recalls not only McCarthy but every wannabe dictator for whom the rule of law has little or nothing to do with accusations of illegality.
Perhaps, to Trump and his defenders, “Obamagate” really is such a known commodity that defining it is superfluous, even if it is not at all obvious to those who don’t populate Trump’s alternate reality of conspiracy theories and outright lies, a world in which Obama figures as a regular and sinister presence. This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that the gap between partisan truths in Washington is so wide it’s practically a vortex. In many ways, the “Obamagate” exchange on Monday reminded me of the first day of the public impeachment hearings last fall in the House Intelligence Committee, in which Democrats spent hours outlining what they knew of the Trump Ukraine-shakedown scheme that had triggered the impeachment proceedings, while Devin Nunes, the Republican ranking member, offered up an array of little-known intrigues that seemed entirely unrelated to the matter at hand, including an alleged plot to “obtain nude pictures of Trump,” which, he said, was part of a “three-year-long operation” by Democrats, “the corrupt media,” and “partisan bureaucrats to overturn the results of the 2016 election.” I remember thinking: Naked pictures? What was he even talking about? It appeared to have something to do with a 2017 phone call to Representative Adam Schiff from two Russian pranksters claiming to represent the Ukrainian government and offering nude pictures of Trump with a Russian celebrity. Or something. If you had been following along with Fox News and the darker corners of the right, you knew exactly what Nunes was talking about.
The same is true right now with Trump, who, starting with an anti-Obama tweet storm on Mother’s Day that does not seem to have ended yet, has been trying to deflect attention from the pandemic by pursuing a similar strategy to the one that he, Nunes, and other supporters used during the impeachment proceedings. To the extent we can even discern what Trump is talking about, “Obamagate” seems to be the perfect crime for someone like Trump to allege: it is vague and all-encompassing, a conspiracy against the current President so broad that it apparently began before he won an election nobody expected him to win while simultaneously explaining away everything from the Mueller investigation’s findings to the Ukraine-extortion scheme that got Trump impeached. Inasmuch as Trump’s allegations are connected to a real criminal case, it is the still-unravelling mess involving his own former national-security adviser Michael Flynn, who was fired by Trump and pleaded guilty twice to lying to investigators about his dealings with Russia, but who now claims he was framed by the F.B.I. and has got Trump’s Justice Department to abandon the case that was successfully mounted by its own career prosecutors. These, needless to say, are not the kind of facts that Trump has brought up when slinging his accusations against Obama, which seem to currently revolve around a list of former Obama Administration officials who—completely legally, as far as anyone can tell—asked to “unmask” the name of an unidentified American dealing with foreign officials after the election, who turned out to be Flynn. “People should be going to jail for this stuff,” Trump told an interviewer on Thursday. “This was all Obama. This was all Biden. These people were corrupt, the whole thing was corrupt, and we caught them.”
To outside observers, the charges—like Trump’s original political sin, lying about the easily provable fact of Obama’s birth in the United States—seem so absurd as to be the mere caricature of a conspiracy, as sketched by a con man who couldn’t even bother to offer convincing details. The point, though, is not to convince those who aren’t already in the know. “Obamagate” is niche programming for the Trump superfan audience. If you don’t get it, that doesn’t matter; you’re not supposed to. It’s a slogan, a rallying cry. Details are all but irrelevant. At 8:57 P.M. on Wednesday, Trump sent out an all-caps tweet. The message consisted solely of the word “OBAMAGATE” followed by an exclamation point. To those not following Trump as a daily soap opera, it might seem like a desperate diversionary tactic from a floundering President. To his supporters, it made perfect sense. Which is why, when Trump followed up on Thursday morning with an equally angry and cryptic demand that Obama be called to testify before the Senate—about what was entirely unclear—news organizations mostly ignored him in favor of the morning’s testimony by the recently fired head of vaccines at the Department of Health and Human Services, or, as the Drudge Report called Richard Bright, the “whistleblower of doom.” Except for Fox News, that is, which obliged the President with a banner headline.
Hating on Obama, lying about him, blaming him: these long ago became the default settings of Trump’s Presidency. When Trump is troubled or cornered or simply deciding what to do, he often finds a way to bring Obama into it, no matter how tenuous or even absurd the connection. He has called Obama a “bad” person, a “sick” person, “a disaster,” “the most ignorant President in our history,” and even the “founder of ISIS.” Barely more than a month into his Administration, in early March of 2017, Trump accused Obama of secretly wiretapping him at Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign, an allegation that was no more true than any of the other nutty things Trump has said about Obama since then. During the course of the pandemic in the past couple of months, Trump has repeatedly invoked Obama and sought to blame his predecessor for everything from the lack of a sufficient national stockpile of medical supplies to inadequate testing for the coronavirus, which did not exist when Obama was President. Trump often mentions Obama’s handling of the H1N1 swine flu, which killed twelve thousand Americans, but which Trump nonetheless claims was a disastrous contrast to his own deft handling of a national crisis that has so far tanked the American economy and killed more citizens than the wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan combined. In fact, the President made a point of it again on Thursday afternoon during an appearance in Pennsylvania. For Trump, spending the week attacking Obama, no matter what the subject, is the political equivalent of retreating to his bedroom and hiding under the blanket. It’s his safe space, his comfort zone.
Since the beginning of his anti-Obama rant on Mother’s Day morning, Trump has tweeted and retweeted attacks on the former President thirty-three times, by my count, with around a dozen of those referring to the vague but nefarious “OBAMAGATE.” On Wednesday, Trump forwarded to his Twitter followers a video, from 2016, of Obama suggesting that Trump could never become President. “Obama was always wrong!” he tweeted. Although he never did spell out what it is, Trump promised his followers at one point, “OBAMAGATE makes Watergate look small time!” It’s as though he sees an attack on Obama as a political get-out-of-jail-free card, with the mere mention of Obama’s name an incantation of such political force that invoking it can miraculously rally Trump’s Obama-hating base.
But is there really political magic for Trump in this? The numbers don’t suggest it. Obama remains broadly popular with the American public, certainly far more so than Trump has ever been.Trump has been attacking Obama vociferously for the past three years of his Presidency, without those attacks demonstrably affecting either his or Obama’s over-all popularity. Why should “Obamagate,” coming as it does in the midst of a true national emergency, be any different? Yet, in seeking to explain the latest Trumpian distraction, Brian Kilmeade said on Fox the other day that this was in fact a strategic move by the President, an effort to reset the fall campaign from a race between Trump and the presumptive Democratic nominee, Obama’s former Vice-President, Joe Biden, into “Obama against Trump.”
Maybe, but I don’t buy it. Trump has been running this play for a long time already, and it seems to me not so much about electoral politics as it is a reflection of the ongoing temper tantrum that is Trump’s response to the global pandemic—a catastrophe that has upended Trump’s Presidency and may well spell his political doom. It’s about his fury at being impeached, and his rage at having as an enemy a virus that doesn’t give a damn about his Twitter feed. Trump’s attacks on Barack Obama, above all else, are a barometer for measuring the level of Trump’s raging insecurity, and what they tell us now is that Trump is having an enormous meltdown, almost certainly connected with his diminishing prospects for reëlection.
This seems to be Obama’s interpretation, too. On Friday, in a phone call with several thousand supporters that was quickly leaked, Obama called Trump’s response to the pandemic an “absolute chaotic disaster” and warned that the “rule of law” was at stake in Trump’s efforts to undo Flynn’s conviction. He then refrained from comment for days as Trump’s latest storm against him raged. Finally, at 2:44 P.M. on Thursday afternoon, Obama responded with a one-word tweet of his own. It said, simply, “Vote.”
A Guide to the Coronavirus


newyorker--2020-05-14--From the Justice Department to the Intelligence Community, Donald Trump and William Barr Have Won

Three years ago , President Donald Trump appeared to be politically wounded and legally encircled .
On May 17 , 2017 , eight days after Trump had fired James Comey , then the F.B.I .
director , Robert Mueller was appointed as special counsel , to investigate ties between the Trump campaign and Russia .
Memos written by Comey stated that Trump had asked him to “ let go ” of the F.B.I .
investigation of Michael Flynn , Trump ’ s national-security adviser , who had been fired after he lied to Vice-President Mike Pence and other officials about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he ’ d had with the Russian Ambassador .
As 2017 came to a close , Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to F.B.I .
agents about the call and agreed to serve as a coöperating witness for Mueller ’ s investigation .
Trump ’ s effort to flout post-Watergate reforms , which were designed to prevent a President from pressuring the F.B.I .
into halting a politically embarrassing investigation , appeared to have failed .
Yet now , six months before he faces reëlection , Trump , with the help of Attorney General @ @ @ @ @ @ @ history .
Last Thursday , Barr dismissed the charges against Flynn , declaring him the victim of an F.B.I .
plot .
( The federal judge who oversaw Flynn ’ s case said that he would appoint a retired judge to review Barr ’ s action , and whether Flynn should now be charged with perjury . )
At Barr ’ s direction , the Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation of Comey , the F.B.I .
officials who investigated the Trump campaign , and the C.I.A .
officials who concluded that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Trump ’ s behalf .
Barr is flatly rejecting the findings of Mueller and the Justice Department ’ s inspector general : that the F.B.I was justified in investigating the highly unusual contacts between the Trump campaign and a hostile foreign government—which did , in fact , intervene in the race on Trump ’ s behalf—and that Trump and his aides had welcomed that aid and repeatedly lied about their own actions .
Instead , Barr , in an extraordinary act by an Attorney General , declared , last month , that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ campaign was “ without any basis , ” an attempt to “ sabotage the Presidency , ” and “ one of the greatest travesties in American history.
” He added , in reference to his department ’ s new investigation—but without citing any specifics—that “ the evidence shows that we are not dealing with just mistakes or sloppiness ” but that “ there was something far more troubling here.
” Those statements violated a long-standing Justice Department practice of not commenting on investigations before they have been completed .
In a subsequent interview @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the results of the ongoing probe , led by a federal prosecutor , John Durham , before the election .
Barr said that a Justice Department policy prohibiting prosecutors from filing criminal charges or taking investigative steps to impact elections did not apply .
“ The idea is you don ’ t go after candidates , ” Barr said .
“ But , you know , as I say , I don ’ t think any of the people whose actions are under review by Durham fall into that category.
” On Wednesday @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Richard Grenell , gave Republican senators records he had declassified that listed the names of three dozen Obama Administration officials , including Joe Biden , who requested to know the identity of an American citizen who had had a series of phone calls with foreign officials after Trump won the election .
The citizen was Flynn .
On Wednesday , those senators released the names of the officials and accused the former Vice-President of participating in a plot to entrap Flynn .
Former national-security officials said that it is routine to request @ @ @ @ @ @ @ names of Americans whose conversations with foreign officials contain intelligence , and noted that the practice has increased by seventy-five per cent under Trump .
Ben Rhodes , a former top Obama adviser , tweeted , “ The unconfirmed , acting DNI using his position to criminalize routine intelligence work to help re-elect the president and obscure Russian intervention in our democracy would normally be the scandal here.
” Grenell replied in a tweet , “ Transparency is not political .
But I will give you that it isn ’ t popular in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Senate Intelligence Committee is expected to approve the nomination of John Ratcliffe , a pro-Trump Republican congressman from Texas , to replace Grenell as the director of National Intelligence .
Ratcliffe caught Trump ’ s eye when he assailed Mueller on national television during the former special counsel ’ s testimony before Congress .
An individual involved in Ratcliffe ’ s confirmation effort said that “ the fact that the President trusts Congressman Ratcliffe—not because they are friends but because he ’ s observed his good judgment and the way he handles himself—that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ relationship between the President and the intelligence community.
” Former Justice Department and intelligence officials have expressed alarm at Trump ’ s success at appointing partisan loyalists who they say echo the Presidents political messaging .
David Laufman , a former head of the Justice Department ’ s counterintelligence section , who worked on the Trump-Russia investigation , told me , “ I think we need to be careful not to be too lackadaisical in recognizing the significance of what is happening throughout our government , not just in law enforcement and intelligence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health system , ” citing attacks by Trump supporters on Dr. Anthony Fauci , one of the government ’ s top infectious-disease experts .
“ It ’ s everywhere , and it matters in ways that are increasingly important to the well-being of people in our country.
” The transformation has been most striking at the Justice Department , an institution that , after Watergate , both Republicans and Democrats agreed should strive to remain politically neutral .
Stephen Gillers , a professor of legal ethics at New York University , said that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ General , Barr has enabled the President to use the department for his own purposes .
“ I ’ ve lived through Attorneys General Mitchell and Meese , ” Gillers said , referring to John Mitchell and Edwin Meese , who served as Attorneys General in the Nixon and Reagan Administrations , respectively .
“ Those guys were choir boys next to Barr.
” ( A spokeswoman for Barr did not respond to a request for comment . )
Barr and some conservative legal scholars contend that the Constitution gives Presidents the power @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Justice Department and the C.I.A.—as they see fit .
They view the post-Watergate oversight bodies created to investigate abuses by Presidents and their aides—from special counsels , such as Mueller , to the inspectors general appointed to oversee coronavirus spending—as unlawful infringements on Presidential power .
On Tuesday , Justice Department lawyers joined Trump ’ s personal lawyers in arguing , before the Supreme Court , that a House committee and New York City prosecutors should not be granted access to Trump ’ s tax returns , because it would distract the President @ @ @ @ @ @ @ office of the Presidency .
Donald Ayer , who served as Deputy Attorney General under George H. W. Bush , told me that Barr ’ s “ systematic trashing of the department ’ s traditions of evenhandedness and independence have helped him make significant progress toward his goal of an autocratic President.
” He added , “ I think Barr is getting as much out of Trump as Trump is getting out of Barr .
All for his own reasons of wanting the President to have complete and unchecked power .
”

Attorney General William Barr has enabled Donald Trump to use the Justice Department for his own purposes. Photograph by Carlos Barria / Reuters
Three years ago, President Donald Trump appeared to be politically wounded and legally encircled. On May 17, 2017, eight days after Trump had fired James Comey, then the F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller was appointed as special counsel, to investigate ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. Memos written by Comey stated that Trump had asked him to “let go” of the F.B.I. investigation of Michael Flynn, Trump’s national-security adviser, who had been fired after he lied to Vice-President Mike Pence and other officials about the nature of a phone call that he’d had with the Russian Ambassador. As 2017 came to a close, Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to F.B.I. agents about the call and agreed to serve as a coöperating witness for Mueller’s investigation. Trump’s effort to flout post-Watergate reforms, which were designed to prevent a President from pressuring the F.B.I. into halting a politically embarrassing investigation, appeared to have failed.
Yet now, six months before he faces reëlection, Trump, with the help of Attorney General William Barr, is successfully rewriting that history. Last Thursday, Barr dismissed the charges against Flynn, declaring him the victim of an F.B.I. plot. (The federal judge who oversaw Flynn’s case said that he would appoint a retired judge to review Barr’s action, and whether Flynn should now be charged with perjury.) At Barr’s direction, the Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation of Comey, the F.B.I. officials who investigated the Trump campaign, and the C.I.A. officials who concluded that Russia had intervened in the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf. Barr is flatly rejecting the findings of Mueller and the Justice Department’s inspector general: that the F.B.I was justified in investigating the highly unusual contacts between the Trump campaign and a hostile foreign government—which did, in fact, intervene in the race on Trump’s behalf—and that Trump and his aides had welcomed that aid and repeatedly lied about their own actions.
Instead, Barr, in an extraordinary act by an Attorney General, declared, last month, that the F.B.I. investigation of the Trump campaign was “without any basis,” an attempt to “sabotage the Presidency,” and “one of the greatest travesties in American history.” He added, in reference to his department’s new investigation—but without citing any specifics—that “the evidence shows that we are not dealing with just mistakes or sloppiness” but that “there was something far more troubling here.” Those statements violated a long-standing Justice Department practice of not commenting on investigations before they have been completed. In a subsequent interview, Barr hinted that he might release the results of the ongoing probe, led by a federal prosecutor, John Durham, before the election. Barr said that a Justice Department policy prohibiting prosecutors from filing criminal charges or taking investigative steps to impact elections did not apply. “The idea is you don’t go after candidates,” Barr said. “But, you know, as I say, I don’t think any of the people whose actions are under review by Durham fall into that category.”
On Wednesday, the acting director of National Intelligence, Richard Grenell, gave Republican senators records he had declassified that listed the names of three dozen Obama Administration officials, including Joe Biden, who requested to know the identity of an American citizen who had had a series of phone calls with foreign officials after Trump won the election. The citizen was Flynn. On Wednesday, those senators released the names of the officials and accused the former Vice-President of participating in a plot to entrap Flynn. Former national-security officials said that it is routine to request, or “unmask,” the names of Americans whose conversations with foreign officials contain intelligence, and noted that the practice has increased by seventy-five per cent under Trump. Ben Rhodes, a former top Obama adviser, tweeted, “The unconfirmed, acting DNI using his position to criminalize routine intelligence work to help re-elect the president and obscure Russian intervention in our democracy would normally be the scandal here.” Grenell replied in a tweet, “Transparency is not political. But I will give you that it isn’t popular in Washington DC.”
Next Tuesday, the Senate Intelligence Committee is expected to approve the nomination of John Ratcliffe, a pro-Trump Republican congressman from Texas, to replace Grenell as the director of National Intelligence. Ratcliffe caught Trump’s eye when he assailed Mueller on national television during the former special counsel’s testimony before Congress. An individual involved in Ratcliffe’s confirmation effort said that “the fact that the President trusts Congressman Ratcliffe—not because they are friends but because he’s observed his good judgment and the way he handles himself—that affords a great opportunity to strengthen the relationship between the President and the intelligence community.”
Former Justice Department and intelligence officials have expressed alarm at Trump’s success at appointing partisan loyalists who they say echo the Presidents political messaging. David Laufman, a former head of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence section, who worked on the Trump-Russia investigation, told me, “I think we need to be careful not to be too lackadaisical in recognizing the significance of what is happening throughout our government, not just in law enforcement and intelligence but the attempted politicization of our public health system,” citing attacks by Trump supporters on Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the government’s top infectious-disease experts. “It’s everywhere, and it matters in ways that are increasingly important to the well-being of people in our country.”
The transformation has been most striking at the Justice Department, an institution that, after Watergate, both Republicans and Democrats agreed should strive to remain politically neutral. Stephen Gillers, a professor of legal ethics at New York University, said that, more than any other modern Attorney General, Barr has enabled the President to use the department for his own purposes. “I’ve lived through Attorneys General Mitchell and Meese,” Gillers said, referring to John Mitchell and Edwin Meese, who served as Attorneys General in the Nixon and Reagan Administrations, respectively. “Those guys were choir boys next to Barr.” (A spokeswoman for Barr did not respond to a request for comment.)
Barr and some conservative legal scholars contend that the Constitution gives Presidents the power to run the executive branch—which includes the Justice Department and the C.I.A.—as they see fit. They view the post-Watergate oversight bodies created to investigate abuses by Presidents and their aides—from special counsels, such as Mueller, to the inspectors general appointed to oversee coronavirus spending—as unlawful infringements on Presidential power. On Tuesday, Justice Department lawyers joined Trump’s personal lawyers in arguing, before the Supreme Court, that a House committee and New York City prosecutors should not be granted access to Trump’s tax returns, because it would distract the President from his official duties and damage the office of the Presidency. Donald Ayer, who served as Deputy Attorney General under George H. W. Bush, told me that Barr’s “systematic trashing of the department’s traditions of evenhandedness and independence have helped him make significant progress toward his goal of an autocratic President.” He added, “I think Barr is getting as much out of Trump as Trump is getting out of Barr. All for his own reasons of wanting the President to have complete and unchecked power.”
Trump appears emboldened. More personnel moves are possible. Asked during a “Fox & Friends” interview if Christopher Wray would remain the head of the F.B.I., Trump replied, “Let’s see what happens with him,” adding that “the jury’s still out.” The comment was not new. For the past three years, Trump has repeatedly ridiculed or threatened to fire senior law-enforcement and intelligence officials who have publicly contradicted him. As a result, both Wray and the C.I.A. director, Gina Haspel, have minimized their public comments, apparently in order to avoid provoking the President. After Watergate, in an effort to protect the F.B.I. director from being pressured politically, a law was passed mandating that directors serve just one ten-year term. If Trump fires Wray, he will be the first President to remove two F.B.I. directors from office.
During Barr’s confirmation hearing, last January, he declared, “The Attorney General must insure that the administration of justice—the enforcement of the law—is above and away from politics.” Since then, Barr has distorted the findings of the Mueller investigation, dismissed an inspector general’s report that found the Trump-Russia investigation proper, reduced the prison sentence that prosecutors had requested for Trump’s ally Roger Stone, and threatened to sue governors that impose coronavirus-related shelter-in-place orders that he feels violate Americans’ right to practice their religion. On Wednesday, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which Barr oversees, released Paul Manafort, a former Trump campaign manager convicted of tax fraud, from federal prison, citing concerns about the coronavirus. Manafort will be allowed to serve the remaining four years of his prison sentence from home. Barr has won. Trump has won. And the post-Watergate reforms that were intended to stop Presidents, Attorneys General, and spy chiefs from using law-enforcement and intelligence agencies for political purposes have been obliterated.


newyorker--2020-05-14--The Danger of Rushing Through Clinical Trials During the Coronavirus Pandemic

The drug remdesivir , developed by the biopharmaceutical giant Gilead , was recently approved for emergency use in the United States .
The hope is that the medication , which has not been extensively tested , can alleviate symptoms of COVID-19 and even prevent some deaths .
The excitement surrounding remdesivir—Gilead shares went up by more than 5.5 per cent after a federal trial conducted by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases ( NIAID ) showed modest benefits—follows on the heels of the White House-backed push of the drug hydroxychloroquine , which has had mixed results in clinical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drugs has raised concerns that potentially dangerous medicines will be used without adequate study because of the urgency of the pandemic .
I recently spoke by phone with Peter B. Bach , a physician and epidemiologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center , where he runs the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes , a health-care policy think tank .
Bach is also an expert on clinical trials , and I asked him exactly what we know about remdesivir , as well as how we should be thinking about standards of evidence in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ During our conversation , which has been edited for length and clarity , we also discussed what makes a good clinical trial , why a pandemic is not necessarily the time to speed up the drug-approval process , and the most important fixes for our health-care system .
You wrote something a little while back that included this line : “ At the core of all scientific research lies an inflexible paradox .
Urgency demands patience .
Our progress has always come from our missteps.
” Can you expand upon that in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ making a simple point—borne of a pretty substantial history of trying to develop new treatments and testing them out—which is that there ’ s this romantic vision of the genius scientist who has the eureka moment and it all plays out well , but cluttered among all those events are many more missteps where we have an idea and we think it will work and , when we rigorously evaluate it , it doesn ’ t .
And that ’ s all O.K .
Frustrating as it is in the moment , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ consistently made progress against human disease—and we have made considerable progress .
The genesis of that point was the inclination , which is entirely understandable and human , to speed up , hurry along , make the tough calls—the kind of heroic notion of working under pressure and with incomplete information .
But just being bold is the wrong approach here .
And we know that because it has always been the wrong approach .
Every generation thinks we suddenly became smarter than biology and , every time we make that decision , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
What are examples of getting our hats handed to us ?
My whole career .
After heart attacks , we used to give patients these drugs that would make the cardiac rhythm look better , called encainide and flecainide .
Repeat heart attacks were a big concern , and arrhythmias , fatal electrical short circuits of the heart , were a big concern .
These drugs suppressed signs that that was going on .
When we finally looked at them in randomized trials , they were also causing people to die of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ my career was re-analyzing data from something called the CARET trial .
That was a study of Vitamin A and its precursor , beta carotene , because we were absolutely sure that vitamins—I mean , who could think vitamins are bad for you ?
—were going to prevent people from getting lung cancer .
That study had to be stopped because those vitamins not only gave people lung cancer , they also caused people to die of heart attacks .
About two-thirds of Phase III clinical trials for new drugs—the trials we first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those drugs don ’ t work , or the amount they work is unfavorable with respect to their side effects , or they ’ re worse than the standard of care .
Even for drugs that go on the market , I routinely get letters from the F.D.A .
and from the drug companies saying , “ Hey , we just learned something worrisome about this drug because we did more studies.
” That ’ s the process .
Just to play devil ’ s advocate with you for a second , we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it does seem like , whatever the normal risks and rewards are of new drugs , you could make an argument that the costs are so great that we should be willing to take more risks .
How do you respond to that argument ?
I think the implied dichotomy is a little false there .
It suggests that really evaluating each treatment is going to slow us down massively .
But let ’ s just take that as a presumption .
I would come back with my own devil ’ s-advocate question @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and I suddenly started to have chest pain , and you were in some part of the country where you didn ’ t know where the hospital was , would you pause to input the hospital ’ s address on the G.P.S.
, or would you just get in the car and hit the gas ?
The methodical approach is predicated on the notion that without doing these kinds of tests we are going to make wrong calls , and that ’ s not some weird ivory-tower orthodoxy .
That ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s a little bit of a false choice is that there ’ s so much going on right now with COVID-19 , in terms of the volume of patients that are going into hospitals—many of which are high-quality academic centers that are very accustomed to doing research—that we can get these studies done if we always reflex to , “ This question should be investigated .
The answer shouldn ’ t be assumed.
” How does a randomized clinical trial for drug-approval work , at the most basic levels ?
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because , in truth , there ’ s no euphemisms here—clinical trials are experiments done on people .
But the patients either get the treatment you want to evaluate or they get what they would have gotten if you didn ’ t have that treatment .
Sometimes we call that standard of care , like , we currently use chemotherapy A but we want to test chemotherapy B .
Sometimes , when there ’ s no treatment , we give them a fake medicine—a placebo , saline , a sugar pill , something @ @ @ @ @ @ @ toss or a random number generator to figure out who ’ s going to get which one , and then we mask it or blind it—the two words mean the same thing—at every level we possibly can .
And , by masking , I mean we try to keep people from knowing who is getting A and who is getting B .
We try to keep the patient from knowing .
We try to keep the doctor or nurse or health-care provider who ’ s taking care of them from knowing .
We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Every layer we can .
This is why people refer to masking as , like , single and double and triple and quadruple masking .
Often most important , we try to keep the people who are then evaluating what happened in the trial from knowing who got A and who got B .
That is the prototype of the randomized trial .

The drug remdesivir, developed by the biopharmaceutical giant Gilead, was recently approved for emergency use in the United States. The hope is that the medication, which has not been extensively tested, can alleviate symptoms of COVID-19 and even prevent some deaths. The excitement surrounding remdesivir—Gilead shares went up by more than 5.5 per cent after a federal trial conducted by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) showed modest benefits—follows on the heels of the White House-backed push of the drug hydroxychloroquine, which has had mixed results in clinical trials. The hype around these two drugs has raised concerns that potentially dangerous medicines will be used without adequate study because of the urgency of the pandemic.
I recently spoke by phone with Peter B. Bach, a physician and epidemiologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where he runs the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes, a health-care policy think tank. Bach is also an expert on clinical trials, and I asked him exactly what we know about remdesivir, as well as how we should be thinking about standards of evidence in the middle of a public-health catastrophe. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we also discussed what makes a good clinical trial, why a pandemic is not necessarily the time to speed up the drug-approval process, and the most important fixes for our health-care system.
You wrote something a little while back that included this line: “At the core of all scientific research lies an inflexible paradox. Urgency demands patience. Our progress has always come from our missteps.” Can you expand upon that in the context of the coronavirus?
That was making a simple point—borne of a pretty substantial history of trying to develop new treatments and testing them out—which is that there’s this romantic vision of the genius scientist who has the eureka moment and it all plays out well, but cluttered among all those events are many more missteps where we have an idea and we think it will work and, when we rigorously evaluate it, it doesn’t. And that’s all O.K. Frustrating as it is in the moment, it’s the only way we have consistently made progress against human disease—and we have made considerable progress.
The genesis of that point was the inclination, which is entirely understandable and human, to speed up, hurry along, make the tough calls—the kind of heroic notion of working under pressure and with incomplete information. But just being bold is the wrong approach here. And we know that because it has always been the wrong approach. Every generation thinks we suddenly became smarter than biology and, every time we make that decision, we get our hats handed to us.
What are examples of getting our hats handed to us?
My whole career. After heart attacks, we used to give patients these drugs that would make the cardiac rhythm look better, called encainide and flecainide. Repeat heart attacks were a big concern, and arrhythmias, fatal electrical short circuits of the heart, were a big concern. These drugs suppressed signs that that was going on. When we finally looked at them in randomized trials, they were also causing people to die of heart attacks.
A big piece of my career was re-analyzing data from something called the CARET trial. That was a study of Vitamin A and its precursor, beta carotene, because we were absolutely sure that vitamins—I mean, who could think vitamins are bad for you?—were going to prevent people from getting lung cancer. That study had to be stopped because those vitamins not only gave people lung cancer, they also caused people to die of heart attacks.
About two-thirds of Phase III clinical trials for new drugs—the trials we first do to get them on the market—show those drugs don’t work, or the amount they work is unfavorable with respect to their side effects, or they’re worse than the standard of care. Even for drugs that go on the market, I routinely get letters from the F.D.A. and from the drug companies saying, “Hey, we just learned something worrisome about this drug because we did more studies.” That’s the process.
Just to play devil’s advocate with you for a second, we are in a completely unprecedented situation and it does seem like, whatever the normal risks and rewards are of new drugs, you could make an argument that the costs are so great that we should be willing to take more risks. How do you respond to that argument?
I think the implied dichotomy is a little false there. It suggests that really evaluating each treatment is going to slow us down massively. But let’s just take that as a presumption. I would come back with my own devil’s-advocate question. If you and I were together, and I suddenly started to have chest pain, and you were in some part of the country where you didn’t know where the hospital was, would you pause to input the hospital’s address on the G.P.S., or would you just get in the car and hit the gas? The methodical approach is predicated on the notion that without doing these kinds of tests we are going to make wrong calls, and that’s not some weird ivory-tower orthodoxy. That’s borne of experience.
The other reason it’s a little bit of a false choice is that there’s so much going on right now with COVID-19, in terms of the volume of patients that are going into hospitals—many of which are high-quality academic centers that are very accustomed to doing research—that we can get these studies done if we always reflex to, “This question should be investigated. The answer shouldn’t be assumed.”
How does a randomized clinical trial for drug-approval work, at the most basic levels?
The patients should be called human subjects, because, in truth, there’s no euphemisms here—clinical trials are experiments done on people. But the patients either get the treatment you want to evaluate or they get what they would have gotten if you didn’t have that treatment. Sometimes we call that standard of care, like, we currently use chemotherapy A but we want to test chemotherapy B. Sometimes, when there’s no treatment, we give them a fake medicine—a placebo, saline, a sugar pill, something like that.
We use a coin toss or a random number generator to figure out who’s going to get which one, and then we mask it or blind it—the two words mean the same thing—at every level we possibly can. And, by masking, I mean we try to keep people from knowing who is getting A and who is getting B. We try to keep the patient from knowing. We try to keep the doctor or nurse or health-care provider who’s taking care of them from knowing. We try to keep the pharmacist from knowing. Every layer we can. This is why people refer to masking as, like, single and double and triple and quadruple masking.
Often most important, we try to keep the people who are then evaluating what happened in the trial from knowing who got A and who got B. That is the prototype of the randomized trial.
What have you made of the different work going on with remdesivir?
There’s the Wuhan randomized trial that had a placebo control and blinding that didn’t fully enroll. There’s the NIAID [National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases] trial that had the press conference at the White House that was fully enrolled. And then there are a couple of trials that Gilead itself is running that are ongoing.


newyorker--2020-05-14--Trump’s Day at the Supreme Court, Remote and Live-Streamed

This term , for the third time in recent U.S. history , the Supreme Court is considering just how far @ @ @ @ @ Tuesday , the Court heard two cases relating to President Trump ’ s financial records—one @ @ @ @ @ Representatives and another by the New York District Attorney Cyrus Vance .
During the coronavirus @ @ @ @ @ time , the court is hearing oral arguments remotely , and the arguments are being @ @ @ @ @ Jeffrey Toobin joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss the cases against the President and what they @ @ @ @ @ for the country .

Photograph by Doug Mills / Getty
This term, for the third time in recent U.S. history, the Supreme Court is considering just how far executive privilege extends. On Tuesday, the Court heard two cases relating to President Trump’s financial records—one brought by the House of Representatives and another by the New York District Attorney Cyrus Vance. During the coronavirus pandemic, for the first time, the court is hearing oral arguments remotely, and the arguments are being live-streamed to the public. Jeffrey Toobin joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss the cases against the President and what they could mean for Trump and for the country.


newyorker--2020-05-14--A New History of Being Asian-American

A New History of Being Asian-American

Most politicians mark Asian Pacific American Heritage Month each May with some kind of rote message of tribute to the nation ’ s twenty million or so Americans of Asian descent—a sizable population , and the nation ’ s fastest-growing ethnic group .
In contrast , President Trump decided to speak not to Asian Americans but for them .
On Monday , after he berated Weijia Jiang , a reporter for CBS News , at a press conference , and hinted that she was somehow intimate with China , he fended off accusations of racism by tweeting that he was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : “ Asian Americans are VERY angry at what China has done to our Country , and the World .
Chinese Americans are the most angry of all .
I don ’ t blame them !
” Regardless of how Trump gleaned this information , it was a reminder of how , during the past two hundred years , Asian-Americans have grown accustomed to life as a kind of movable chess piece , beholden to political whims beyond their control .
Most often , Asian-Americans are met with indifference because we lack the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to shape national conversations on our terms .
We seem invisible and , if scrutinized , indistinguishable .
During bad times , such as the Second World War or the collapse of the auto industry in the eighties , we are scapegoats .
The coronavirus pandemic has revived a gamut of often contradictory stereotypes about Asian people .
On the one hand , the Chinese are accused of being the primary bearers of the disease , drawing from nineteenth-century stereotypes that they are dirty and disgusting .
On the other hand , South @ @ @ @ @ @ @ praised for halting the disease ’ s spread , owing to more recent , twentieth-century stereotypes about Asians being passive , collective-minded , and obsessed with hygiene .
When Andrew Yang published an op-ed early in the pandemic about how Asian-Americans had to double down on their Americanness , it was an almost note-perfect echo of what the Japanese American Citizens League had told internees during the Second World War .
A few weeks later , one of Joe Biden ’ s boldest yet attacks on President Trump was actually an attack on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ permissive toward the authoritarian regime .
Biden was once again challenging the average American to distinguish the Chinese government from its people , and the Chinese from other Asian people in general .
Meanwhile , many Asian-Americans , fearful of rising incidents of anti-Asian violence , wonder if stories of slurs and assault will unite a diffuse and seemingly fractured community .
This week , PBS airs the five-part documentary series “ The Asian Americans , ” an ambitious attempt to make Asian-American history accessible to a broader public .
( It will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) The PBS treatment suggests a kind of citizenship test , taking subjects like baseball or jazz and offering them as a purely American product .
In this case , “ The Asian Americans ” celebrates a community that has become synonymous with American possibilities .
How else to explain the rags-to-riches trajectory of Asian America , in which , during the course of a couple generations , a stereotype of Asians can change from godless subhumans snacking on rats to a model minority whose achievements seem to rationalize the whole of American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Asian Americans ” was led by the award-winning documentarian Renee Tajima-Peña , and the episodes , which follow a chronological story , were directed by a collection of talented and experienced Asian-American filmmakers .
Thematically , the series moves from the early struggles for citizenship and dignity , in which Asian immigrants were instrumental in challenging the legal definition of whiteness and the segregation of public schools , to questions of fitting into Eisenhower-era America .
From there , the series focusses on the more proactive movements toward self-definition in the sixties @ @ @ @ @ @ @ became part of the lexicon , and what contemporary generations have done with that identity .
The first episode of “ The Asian Americans ” begins with a teasingly brief look at the life of Antero Cabrera , one of eleven hundred Filipinos brought to America as part of the Philippines Exposition at the 1904 World ’ s Fair , in St. Louis .
The exposition was one of the fair ’ s most popular , a celebration of America ’ s acquisition of the archipelago after the Philippine-American War , and also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ human zoo.
” Cabrera had come to America to portray an Igorot “ savage , ” yet he stays , building a nice life for himself , even while continuing to act out a racist trope at subsequent fairs .
Most people interacting with him , as part of the fair , or in the polite , genteel company of civilized , white society , probably never bothered to recognize the difference between the two roles that Cabrera inhabited .
Much of the episode focusses on the Chinese railroad workers and their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ working-class organizers sought to push them out of the country .
Many wondered , “ Return to China , or carve out a future in America ?
” History shows that a lot of these workers , who rarely had the means to return , didn ’ t actually have the luxury of a choice .
Instead , they stayed , building Chinatowns on the edges of American cities , enclaves out of necessity .
The episode closes at Promontory , Utah , with a ceremony commemorating the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ When it was originally completed , the Chinese workers weren ’ t included in the official photographs .
But , generations later , things have changed .
At the celebration , one even sees the Chinese-American politician Elaine Chao , who is currently the Secretary of Transportation , offering platitudes from the podium .
Like many postwar immigrants—especially ones who found fortune in international shipping and trading—her connection to these railroad workers is largely abstract .
Her association with the Asian-American community has often been strained , given her allegiance to the conservative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ distinguish these different versions of the Chinese-American experience , either .
Watching “ The Asian Americans ” is a bit surreal , since it ’ s a story about mobility , at a time when that is impossible , and about choices , which have come to seem illusory .
From early on , the question for Asian-Americans was whether to stay or go home .
One of the series ’ most engrossing stories is that of Buddy Uno , a Japanese-American who anticipated that the Second World War would be a tragic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to go back to Japan , not so much out of a desire to serve the Emperor but because his opportunities in America seemed so limited .
Meanwhile , his brothers stayed and volunteered for the all-Japanese American 442nd Battalion , leaving the family behind in the internment camps .
When they came back from the front lines to visit , armed guards stood watch .
“ It ’ s just something we had to take , ” Uno ’ s brother , Ernest , explains , of this seeming contradiction , after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ country that viewed his family as a domestic threat .
There ’ s an undercurrent of tragedy throughout the entire series .
The dilemmas of a previous generation are often inscrutable to those who follow , such as the fascinating look back at the debates among Hawaiians about American statehood , and the subsequent trials of Patsy Mink , the first woman of color elected to the House of Representatives .
Similarly , it ’ s hard to convey how crucial military integration once seemed to people of color , as they sought @ @ @ @ @ @ @ politics .
The members of Japanese-American 442nd Battalion sacrificed themselves for reasons that aren ’ t as legible so many decades later , with the perspective of history .
But these lunges toward acceptance always seem to fall short .

Most politicians mark Asian Pacific American Heritage Month each May with some kind of rote message of tribute to the nation’s twenty million or so Americans of Asian descent—a sizable population, and the nation’s fastest-growing ethnic group. In contrast, President Trump decided to speak not to Asian Americans but for them. On Monday, after he berated Weijia Jiang, a reporter for CBS News, at a press conference, and hinted that she was somehow intimate with China, he fended off accusations of racism by tweeting that he was very much on the side of Asian-Americans: “Asian Americans are VERY angry at what China has done to our Country, and the World. Chinese Americans are the most angry of all. I don’t blame them!”
Regardless of how Trump gleaned this information, it was a reminder of how, during the past two hundred years, Asian-Americans have grown accustomed to life as a kind of movable chess piece, beholden to political whims beyond their control. Most often, Asian-Americans are met with indifference because we lack the critical mass (and shared interests) to shape national conversations on our terms. We seem invisible and, if scrutinized, indistinguishable. During bad times, such as the Second World War or the collapse of the auto industry in the eighties, we are scapegoats. The coronavirus pandemic has revived a gamut of often contradictory stereotypes about Asian people. On the one hand, the Chinese are accused of being the primary bearers of the disease, drawing from nineteenth-century stereotypes that they are dirty and disgusting. On the other hand, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan are praised for halting the disease’s spread, owing to more recent, twentieth-century stereotypes about Asians being passive, collective-minded, and obsessed with hygiene.
When Andrew Yang published an op-ed early in the pandemic about how Asian-Americans had to double down on their Americanness, it was an almost note-perfect echo of what the Japanese American Citizens League had told internees during the Second World War. A few weeks later, one of Joe Biden’s boldest yet attacks on President Trump was actually an attack on China, accusing Trump of being overly permissive toward the authoritarian regime. Biden was once again challenging the average American to distinguish the Chinese government from its people, and the Chinese from other Asian people in general. Meanwhile, many Asian-Americans, fearful of rising incidents of anti-Asian violence, wonder if stories of slurs and assault will unite a diffuse and seemingly fractured community.
This week, PBS airs the five-part documentary series “The Asian Americans,” an ambitious attempt to make Asian-American history accessible to a broader public. (It will stream on PBS until June 8th.) The PBS treatment suggests a kind of citizenship test, taking subjects like baseball or jazz and offering them as a purely American product. In this case, “The Asian Americans” celebrates a community that has become synonymous with American possibilities. How else to explain the rags-to-riches trajectory of Asian America, in which, during the course of a couple generations, a stereotype of Asians can change from godless subhumans snacking on rats to a model minority whose achievements seem to rationalize the whole of American meritocracy?
The production team behind “The Asian Americans” was led by the award-winning documentarian Renee Tajima-Peña, and the episodes, which follow a chronological story, were directed by a collection of talented and experienced Asian-American filmmakers. Thematically, the series moves from the early struggles for citizenship and dignity, in which Asian immigrants were instrumental in challenging the legal definition of whiteness and the segregation of public schools, to questions of fitting into Eisenhower-era America. From there, the series focusses on the more proactive movements toward self-definition in the sixties, when the term “Asian-American” became part of the lexicon, and what contemporary generations have done with that identity.
The first episode of “The Asian Americans” begins with a teasingly brief look at the life of Antero Cabrera, one of eleven hundred Filipinos brought to America as part of the Philippines Exposition at the 1904 World’s Fair, in St. Louis. The exposition was one of the fair’s most popular, a celebration of America’s acquisition of the archipelago after the Philippine-American War, and also possibly its most garish—described later as a “human zoo.” Cabrera had come to America to portray an Igorot “savage,” yet he stays, building a nice life for himself, even while continuing to act out a racist trope at subsequent fairs. Most people interacting with him, as part of the fair, or in the polite, genteel company of civilized, white society, probably never bothered to recognize the difference between the two roles that Cabrera inhabited.
Much of the episode focusses on the Chinese railroad workers and their struggles to make a living as white working-class organizers sought to push them out of the country. Many wondered, “Return to China, or carve out a future in America?” History shows that a lot of these workers, who rarely had the means to return, didn’t actually have the luxury of a choice. Instead, they stayed, building Chinatowns on the edges of American cities, enclaves out of necessity. The episode closes at Promontory, Utah, with a ceremony commemorating the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad. When it was originally completed, the Chinese workers weren’t included in the official photographs. But, generations later, things have changed. At the celebration, one even sees the Chinese-American politician Elaine Chao, who is currently the Secretary of Transportation, offering platitudes from the podium. Like many postwar immigrants—especially ones who found fortune in international shipping and trading—her connection to these railroad workers is largely abstract. Her association with the Asian-American community has often been strained, given her allegiance to the conservative establishment. But few will bother to distinguish these different versions of the Chinese-American experience, either.
Watching “The Asian Americans” is a bit surreal, since it’s a story about mobility, at a time when that is impossible, and about choices, which have come to seem illusory. From early on, the question for Asian-Americans was whether to stay or go home. One of the series’ most engrossing stories is that of Buddy Uno, a Japanese-American who anticipated that the Second World War would be a tragic one for his community. He decided to go back to Japan, not so much out of a desire to serve the Emperor but because his opportunities in America seemed so limited. Meanwhile, his brothers stayed and volunteered for the all-Japanese American 442nd Battalion, leaving the family behind in the internment camps. When they came back from the front lines to visit, armed guards stood watch. “It’s just something we had to take,” Uno’s brother, Ernest, explains, of this seeming contradiction, after he had risked his life for a country that viewed his family as a domestic threat.
There’s an undercurrent of tragedy throughout the entire series. The dilemmas of a previous generation are often inscrutable to those who follow, such as the fascinating look back at the debates among Hawaiians about American statehood, and the subsequent trials of Patsy Mink, the first woman of color elected to the House of Representatives. Similarly, it’s hard to convey how crucial military integration once seemed to people of color, as they sought full participation in the economy and in politics. The members of Japanese-American 442nd Battalion sacrificed themselves for reasons that aren’t as legible so many decades later, with the perspective of history. But these lunges toward acceptance always seem to fall short.
What does it mean for an entire community, disparate and far-flung, to experience progress? There are material markers—the right to be a citizen, the right to vote. But these feel like low bars in a democracy. The strange thing isn’t that harassment or violence against Asian-Americans continue to happen; it’s how easily this history is forgotten, if it was ever learned. While watching “The Asian Americans,” it was hard not to feel the uniquely cyclical character of this community’s history. The way it remains obscure and tenuous, which gives every generation the feeling that they are discovering it for the first time. The way that antique stereotypes still circulate with ease. How to narrate this story as anything less than a reflection of the erratic and occasionally cruel whimsy of the American creed?
A viewer can trace a cautionary tale throughout “The Asian Americans”: the hazard of not knowing yourself or your history. Tajima-Peña, the series’ producer, was a huge part of the Asian-American political consciousness. In 1987, she and Christine Choy premièred “Who Killed Vincent Chin?” a fantastic documentary about the 1982 murder of a Chinese-American man by two disgruntled Detroit auto workers who were angry about the late-seventies ascension of Japanese car manufacturers. It proved to be one of the single most galvanizing events for Asian-Americans across the country, who suddenly understood the local and personal consequences of larger economic or geopolitical rifts. The film carried that message forward for younger audiences.
Time and again, throughout “The Asian Americans,” people recall moments when they are shocked into recognizing something about themselves. A wayward Japanese-American kid goes to Vietnam, and finally realizes that he, too, is a “gook.” He returns home and becomes part of the nascent Yellow Power movement. In one stirring scene, a classroom of young men incarcerated at San Quentin Prison find purpose and community by studying immigrant history. A young Filipino works in the agricultural fields instead of going to school, until the old-timers tell him that he should set his sights higher. He returns and becomes a pioneering historian of the Filipino-American experience.
The resilient trajectory of “The Asian Americans” means that it inevitably ends with an observation that this community is the “quintessential” American one. There are aspects of the Asian-American experience that don’t quite fit that narrative, such as the rise of conservatives like Chao, the robust communities within Asian-American churches, the internal fights around development and gentrification. Though the series tries to integrate the experiences of South Asians and Southeast Asians, these stories often feel ancillary to one dominated by immigrants from East Asia. Yet the connections are there. The majority of Asians in America arrived after 1965, and the connection of these newer populations to the struggles that paved their way remain hazy, despite the clear echoes of nineteenth-century exclusion in post-9/11 Islamophobia, the persistence of stereotypes that link yesterday’s railroad workers to today’s Silicon Valley engineers.
In 1997, Tajima-Peña put out “My America . . . Or Honk If You Love Buddha,” a moving, first-person documentary that was essentially a road trip collecting various Asian-American outliers: activists, rappers, Chinatown hippies. It captured a kind of eclecticism lacking in “The Asian Americans.” Even though the series doesn’t intend to reinforce a “good immigrants” narrative, in which Asian-Americans exist largely to flatter the national myth of meritocracy, it ends up doing something similar, anyway. The variation being that the metric celebrated here isn’t achievement so much as a kind of political consciousness, a knowledge of self. For many of the film’s subjects, this consciousness itself is progress. Rather than leaving individuals despairing and adrift in their anger, it connects them to something larger than themselves. As the prize-winning author and academic Viet Thanh Nguyen remarks at one point, it’s up to later generations to decide where they stand in relation to the past. Maybe it won’t be for him. The important part, one assumes, is that they realize they are not taking these steps alone, and that they never were.