newyorker--2020-12-31--Deconstructing the 2020 Latino Vote

Deconstructing the 2020 Latino Vote

Over the course of three meetings , held in Denver , Albuquerque , and Las Vegas , the group pondered what Valencia calls “ the promise and the peril ” of the growing Latino vote .
For years , Latinos had been talked about as a constituency that could help Democrats create a durable political majority at the federal and state levels , but the party had struggled to effectively engage them .
“ Historically , the way that campaigns look at targeting and reaching voters puts Latinos at a disadvantage , because we are less frequent voters , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Presidential primaries , she invited representatives from each candidate ’ s campaign to join the Latinati ’ s final gathering , in Las Vegas , where fundamental questions were asked : Is there a common agenda for the Latino community ?
Is it a progressive one ?
How do Latinos engage with their own identity ?
And how does their identity play into their politics ?
At an earlier meeting , the Puerto Rican writer Ed Morales had told the group not to expect easy answers .
Morales , who had just published @ @ @ @ @ @ @ New Force in American Politics and Culture , ” cast Latinos as “ one of the primary destabilizers ” of American identity .
In his view , Latinos , who represent various races and nationalities , had upended the “ black-white binary ” and embodied the “ X factor in America ’ s race debate.
” He argued in his book that Latinos presented “ a crucial counter narrative , a people that live in a world of many worlds , possessing an identity of multiple identities.
” Instead of questioning Morales ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on race , ethnicity , and politics , Valencia embraced it .
Together with Carlos Odio , a longtime colleague and friend , she set out to answer those central questions about the Latino electorate , which seemed perpetually unresolved .
“ We wanted to lean into complexity , ” Odio , who is also thirty-eight and an Obama Administration alumnus , said .
After the meeting in Albuquerque , he and Valencia met at his house in Miami , where they sketched out their project .
“ We sat down with a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and mapped out the critical gaps we saw , ” Valencia recalled .
It was clear that Latinos were still largely disengaged from the political process—campaigns dismissed them as “ infrequent ” voters , not to be relied on .
The problem was circular : if candidates didn ’ t bother targeting Latinos , voters would be deprived of the very information they needed to cast their ballots , exert power , and , ultimately , influence policy .
They also identified a glaring problem for Democrats in 2020 .
Despite the Party @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s political importance , there simply wasn ’ t enough polling data on Latino voters to figure out how to reach them , understand their motivations , or strategize ways to draw them to the polls .
“ If you ’ re invisible in the data , it ’ s hard to make you visible to a campaign , ” Odio warned .
After much deliberation , he and Valencia came up with a plan for their project , which they decided to name Equis , Spanish for the letter “ x.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Odio , who had been grappling with similar questions since 2008 , when they joined Obama ’ s campaign as deputy Latino-vote directors .
A photograph from that time shows the two of them working side by side in the campaign ’ s Chicago headquarters .
She is hunched over her laptop , immersed in its screen .
Her black , shoulder-length hair is pulled up in a bun ; a serious expression covers her face .
Odio is seated behind her , tilted back on his chair .
His right hand is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ youthful eyes are looking elsewhere .
The moment conveyed their differing work styles : Valencia turns ideas into action , Odio cherishes depth and data .
That year , the two of them worked with Marshall Ganz , a veteran organizer who had mobilized California farmworkers alongside Cesar Chavez , and built a strong nationwide ground operation .
Millions of Latinos ended up supporting Obama and his signature refrain of “ Yes We Can , ” inspired by the words of the civil-rights icon Dolores Huerta .
On Election Day , Obama won @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the largest share of this group ’ s support that any Presidential candidate had ever earned .
Latinos helped him clinch four key battleground states : Colorado , New Mexico , Nevada , and even Florida , where no Democrat had earned a majority of support from Latinos since the late eighties .
Twelve years later , as the 2020 election approached , the electoral map had dramatically changed .
Florida remained a battleground , and three other states , North Carolina , Michigan , and Wisconsin , had become pivotal as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seen as likely locks for Democrats .
The Latino vote had grown .
In 2008 , Latinos accounted for less than ten per cent of all eligible voters .
In 2020 , they represented thirteen per cent .
The community had also changed .
Latino voters were overwhelmingly young , and little was known about their political interests or priorities .
“ More than half of eligible Latino voters this year couldn ’ t vote in 2008 , ” Odio said .
“ Because it ’ s a constantly changing electorate , there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ memory that you ’ re carrying from cycle to cycle.
” Valencia felt that the strategies that worked for Obama and Democrats in the past might not apply .
“ It ’ s not necessarily a walk for Democrats , ” Valencia said .
“ It ’ s a lot more fragile than maybe we would like it to be.
” Raised in Las Cruces , New Mexico , Valencia grew up attuned to the complexities of the Latino identity .
In the late eighteen hundreds , southern New Mexico had been forcibly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mexican-American War .
Her mother , Dianne Rivera , always made their relationship to the politics of the border clear to Valencia : “ We didn ’ t cross the border .
The border crossed us.
” The roots of their family in New Mexico went back five centuries .
When Valencia was three years old , her father , Jack , was elected to the Las Cruces City Council .
She recalls walking precincts with him as a child and learning about Latino politics and public service through him .
“ I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ looked like me and sounded like me , ” Valencia said .
“ I didn ’ t ever feel like an outsider.
” When she attended Boston College in the early two thousands , that changed .
She had little in common with her peers from the Northeast , and the Latinos she met on campus were unlike any she had previously known .
They were Puerto Rican , Dominican , and Panamanian .
Some had been living in the country for decades ; others had arrived recently .
Spanish was the first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I was part of a broader Latino community that was very diverse , ” she said , of the dozens of nationalities it encompasses .
When she studied abroad in El Salvador and in Mexico , she found a peculiar affinity to the locals and their cultures ; her feeling of belonging deepened .
After graduation , Valencia worked on the Hill as a fellow with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute and later for then Senator Ken Salazar , a Democrat from Colorado .
Her office was on the same floor as Obama @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to admire .
After Obama was elected , Valencia oversaw the immigration , housing , and health-care agendas in the White House Office of Public Engagement .
She also led the effort to secure the confirmation of Justice Sonia Sotomayor , the first Latina Supreme Court Justice , and served as a chief of staff to Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker .
Over the years , Valencia remained close to Odio , who worked in the Administration ’ s Office of Political Affairs .
When Donald Trump narrowly won the 2016 election , they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We didn ’ t want to be Monday-morning quarterbacks , ” she said , but they both felt that the Party needed to broaden its understanding of the community .
“ Democrats have spent millions and millions of dollars , trying to understand every aspect of white swing voters .
My argument to the Democratic establishment , and to progressives , was that Latinos should be treated the same.
” The Obama and Trump campaigns had shown that data could be methodically used to better understand certain groups of voters .
Valencia and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Latinos in 2020 .
“ We had to figure out , how could we help bring in investment in sophisticated methods that are typically used to understand soccer moms in the suburbs ?
” Odio recalled .
National polls often featured only a small number of Latino respondents .
Sweeping conclusions were often drawn from the responses of fewer than a hundred members of the community .
To be effective , campaigns needed more breakdowns of the Latino vote by age or gender , and surveys conducted in Spanish .
A year before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than eight thousand Latinos in eleven states , from traditional battlegrounds like Florida and Nevada to states where the Latino electorate was growing and largely unstudied , such as Wisconsin , North Carolina , and Michigan .
An unmistakable pattern emerged : the gender gap in the Latino community was as much as three times larger than that of any other voter group .
Latino men and women had strikingly divergent views on Trump , immigration , and abortion .
“ It just pervaded all of our analysis , ” Odio said .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ and dice , gender was just staring at you.
” To Valencia and Odio , the 2020 election was a game of margins .
Trump didn ’ t need to win a plurality of Latino voters , only enough to hold off Biden in battleground states .
So , if Latinas turned out to vote in big numbers , the President ’ s gains could potentially be offset .
Early this year , Valencia shared her findings with the actresses Eva Longoria and America Ferrera at a meeting in Los Angeles .
They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ elections and said they were tired of seeing the Party treat outreach to Latinos as an afterthought .
“ Our communities are not dumb , ” Ferrera told me .
“ It always came down to the last month before an election and a candidate saying , ‘ Hey !
We ’ ve got Ugly Betty !
And she ’ s going to get Latinos to turn out to vote , so that should cut it , right ?
” Valencia described the gender gap and her other research which showed that Latinos @ @ @ @ @ @ @ median age is thirty—and their presence on social media was immense .
Ferrera and Longoria saw the potential of investing in Latinas , who have traditionally been the heads of households .
“ The empowerment of Latina women is the empowerment of their entire family , ” Ferrera said .
“ For us , the question was , ‘ How do we engage Latinas in a long-term and consistent way that really translates to them understanding their power ?
’ ” Any new outreach effort needed to address what Valencia called “ the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were growing but remained low compared with those of Latino men , as well as white and Black women .
In her view , Democrats needed to find the right mix of politics and culture—one that made it clear that women ’ s choices would determine what happened not only in Washington but also in their own communities .
“ If you wanted to reach the people who had not previously been reached by campaigns and who were historically on the sidelines , we had to go broader and create a platform that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Valencia said .
In August , she , Ferrera , and others launched “ She Se Puede , ” an initiative that they called “ A New Destination for the Modern Latina.
” She Se Puede was designed specifically for the country ’ s thirty million Latinas : the overlooked trailblazers and underappreciated bedrock of the arts , business , health care , education , and food worlds .
Their goal was to create a place where Latinas could find everything from inspiring talks by celebrities to tips on how to treat their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ When early voting started , in September , the numbers sparked optimism among Democrats .
“ In 2016 , working-class Latina voters cast 589k early votes , ” read an Instagram post from She Se Puede .
“ In 2020 , working-class Latinas cast more than 1.8 million early votes.
” Arizona , which no Democrat had won since 1996 , was among the largest of those states .
Latinos represent one of every five voters there—six hundred thousand went to the polls this year—and the vast majority of them voted for Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Valencia said , noting that Trump won the state four years ago by merely eighty thousand votes .
She credited a decade of organizing in response to Senate Bill 1070 , the “ show me your papers ” law , which was designed to crack down on the state ’ s immigrant community by allowing police officers to arbitrarily question individuals about their legal status .
For years , Latinos whose relatives , friends , or acquaintances had been impacted by the law and scarred by the climate of fear fostered by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In 2016 , Arpaio lost his reëlection bid , ending a two-decade tenure .
The same civil-rights groups that helped defeat him continued mobilizing in 2020 , including Living United for Change ( LUCHA ) , which placed twelve million calls to potential voters with a coalition of organizations .
“ We ’ ve been here for ten years , ” Tomás Robles , LUCHA ’ s executive director , said .
“ Elections are simply a marker for us.
” Similar efforts were mounted in Wisconsin , Georgia , and Nevada , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thirty thousand votes .
In Las Vegas and Reno , the Culinary Union , which represents sixty thousand workers , including porters , bellhops , and casino cooks , mounted its largest political effort in its eighty-five-year history , knocking on half a million doors .
“ We ’ re always on the field , ” Geoconda Argüello-Kline , the union ’ s secretary-treasurer , said of their organizing philosophy .
To Valencia , conducting robust field operations is the key to success .
“ Where we invest in organizing year-round in Latino @ @ @ @ @ @ @ long-term victories , ” she said .
“ We can ’ t come in and out of these communities every two years and expect people to show up.
” If Arizona and Nevada proved how important a consistent Democratic presence can be , Texas exposed the risks of neglecting the community .
In Hidalgo , the Rio Grande Valley ’ s largest county , which is ninety-two-per-cent Latino , Biden won by eighteen points , less than half of Hillary Clinton ’ s victory margin four years earlier .
The losses were more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lost by sixty points in 2016 and this year by only five .
For Danny Diaz , who oversaw the get-out-the-vote effort of the nonprofit La Unión del Pueblo Entero ( L.U.P.E . )
, the results were hardly a surprise .
“ I don ’ t know the last time that Democrats put money here , ” Diaz said .
He complained that the bulk of resources were spent on urban and suburban Texas voters , groups that are trending more Democratic .
L.U.P.E .
contacted two hundred and fifty thousand infrequent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ valley .
Most people ignored their texts , but the roughly ten per cent who responded appeared to be new voters who fervently backed Trump .
“ They were all Latinos who had never voted in their lives , texting us back , ‘ Trump 2020 , ’ ‘ Ridin ’ with Trump , ’ ‘ Trump all the way !
’ ” Diaz recalled .
“ It almost feels like the Trump propaganda got to them way before we did.
” In many states , Republicans aggressively targeted Latinos with disinformation .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden as “ socialism ’ s Trojan horse ” and claimed that the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro was actively promoting the former Vice-President ’ s candidacy .
Online , far-right sites mounted coördinated efforts to sow fear among Latinos over the Black Lives Matter protests , raise doubts about the election ’ s legitimacy , and pit communities of color against one another .
In Texas , the propaganda centered on the notion that Biden ’ s clean-energy plan would eliminate all jobs in the oil industry .
“ Oil , man , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Diaz recalled friends who had voted for Trump telling him .
The same logic influenced those who worked in law enforcement—one of the biggest employers in Texas .
Diaz pointed out that the Texas counties that boosted Trump in November had overwhelmingly supported Bernie Sanders during the primaries .
However opposed the two men ’ s platforms were , Diaz saw a commonality : Sanders and Trump had both cast themselves as standard-bearers for populist movements and promised transformative change , particularly when it came to economics .
Next to their messages , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even if more realistic .

In the wake of the 2018 midterms, Stephanie Valencia, the co-founder of the research firm Equis, convened a gathering of progressive Latino leaders known as the Latinati. The idea was for people who had either spearheaded movements or multimillion-dollar political campaigns to bluntly share views about how to expand the community’s influence. “Some had protested outside the White House, others had worked inside,” Valencia, who is thirty-eight and served in senior roles during Barack Obama’s two terms in office, told me. “I think that, to effectively build power for our community, we have to be able to talk to one another.” The 2018 midterms had yielded mixed results: turnout among Latinos, who accounted for nearly thirteen per cent of eligible voters, had been exceptionally high, but it hadn’t always favored Democrats. The Latinati were turning their attention to the 2020 general election, in which thirty-two million Latinos would be eligible to vote, becoming the largest minority voting group for the first time in American history.
Over the course of three meetings, held in Denver, Albuquerque, and Las Vegas, the group pondered what Valencia calls “the promise and the peril” of the growing Latino vote. For years, Latinos had been talked about as a constituency that could help Democrats create a durable political majority at the federal and state levels, but the party had struggled to effectively engage them. “Historically, the way that campaigns look at targeting and reaching voters puts Latinos at a disadvantage, because we are less frequent voters,” Valencia said. During the 2020 Democratic Presidential primaries, she invited representatives from each candidate’s campaign to join the Latinati’s final gathering, in Las Vegas, where fundamental questions were asked: Is there a common agenda for the Latino community? Is it a progressive one? How do Latinos engage with their own identity? And how does their identity play into their politics? At an earlier meeting, the Puerto Rican writer Ed Morales had told the group not to expect easy answers. Morales, who had just published his book, “Latinx: The New Force in American Politics and Culture,” cast Latinos as “one of the primary destabilizers” of American identity. In his view, Latinos, who represent various races and nationalities, had upended the “black-white binary” and embodied the “X factor in America’s race debate.” He argued in his book that Latinos presented “a crucial counter narrative, a people that live in a world of many worlds, possessing an identity of multiple identities.”
Instead of questioning Morales’s message, which disrupted long-held views on race, ethnicity, and politics, Valencia embraced it. Together with Carlos Odio, a longtime colleague and friend, she set out to answer those central questions about the Latino electorate, which seemed perpetually unresolved. “We wanted to lean into complexity,” Odio, who is also thirty-eight and an Obama Administration alumnus, said. After the meeting in Albuquerque, he and Valencia met at his house in Miami, where they sketched out their project. “We sat down with a bunch of white papers on the wall and mapped out the critical gaps we saw,” Valencia recalled. It was clear that Latinos were still largely disengaged from the political process—campaigns dismissed them as “infrequent” voters, not to be relied on. The problem was circular: if candidates didn’t bother targeting Latinos, voters would be deprived of the very information they needed to cast their ballots, exert power, and, ultimately, influence policy. They also identified a glaring problem for Democrats in 2020. Despite the Party’s talk about the community’s political importance, there simply wasn’t enough polling data on Latino voters to figure out how to reach them, understand their motivations, or strategize ways to draw them to the polls. “If you’re invisible in the data, it’s hard to make you visible to a campaign,” Odio warned. After much deliberation, he and Valencia came up with a plan for their project, which they decided to name Equis, Spanish for the letter “x.”
The task came naturally to Valencia and Odio, who had been grappling with similar questions since 2008, when they joined Obama’s campaign as deputy Latino-vote directors. A photograph from that time shows the two of them working side by side in the campaign’s Chicago headquarters. She is hunched over her laptop, immersed in its screen. Her black, shoulder-length hair is pulled up in a bun; a serious expression covers her face. Odio is seated behind her, tilted back on his chair. His right hand is on his computer keyboard, but his youthful eyes are looking elsewhere. The moment conveyed their differing work styles: Valencia turns ideas into action, Odio cherishes depth and data. That year, the two of them worked with Marshall Ganz, a veteran organizer who had mobilized California farmworkers alongside Cesar Chavez, and built a strong nationwide ground operation. Millions of Latinos ended up supporting Obama and his signature refrain of “Yes We Can,” inspired by the words of the civil-rights icon Dolores Huerta. On Election Day, Obama won sixty-seven per cent of the Latino vote, the largest share of this group’s support that any Presidential candidate had ever earned. Latinos helped him clinch four key battleground states: Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and even Florida, where no Democrat had earned a majority of support from Latinos since the late eighties.
Twelve years later, as the 2020 election approached, the electoral map had dramatically changed. Florida remained a battleground, and three other states, North Carolina, Michigan, and Wisconsin, had become pivotal as well. New Mexico and Colorado were seen as likely locks for Democrats. The Latino vote had grown. In 2008, Latinos accounted for less than ten per cent of all eligible voters. In 2020, they represented thirteen per cent. The community had also changed. Latino voters were overwhelmingly young, and little was known about their political interests or priorities. “More than half of eligible Latino voters this year couldn’t vote in 2008,” Odio said. “Because it’s a constantly changing electorate, there isn’t this sense of institutional memory that you’re carrying from cycle to cycle.” Valencia felt that the strategies that worked for Obama and Democrats in the past might not apply. “It’s not necessarily a walk for Democrats,” Valencia said. “It’s a lot more fragile than maybe we would like it to be.”
Raised in Las Cruces, New Mexico, Valencia grew up attuned to the complexities of the Latino identity. In the late eighteen hundreds, southern New Mexico had been forcibly incorporated into the United States after the Mexican-American War. Her mother, Dianne Rivera, always made their relationship to the politics of the border clear to Valencia: “We didn’t cross the border. The border crossed us.” The roots of their family in New Mexico went back five centuries. When Valencia was three years old, her father, Jack, was elected to the Las Cruces City Council. She recalls walking precincts with him as a child and learning about Latino politics and public service through him. “I grew up in a community where everybody looked like me and sounded like me,” Valencia said. “I didn’t ever feel like an outsider.” When she attended Boston College in the early two thousands, that changed. She had little in common with her peers from the Northeast, and the Latinos she met on campus were unlike any she had previously known. They were Puerto Rican, Dominican, and Panamanian. Some had been living in the country for decades; others had arrived recently. Spanish was the first language for many. “I realized I was part of a broader Latino community that was very diverse,” she said, of the dozens of nationalities it encompasses. When she studied abroad in El Salvador and in Mexico, she found a peculiar affinity to the locals and their cultures; her feeling of belonging deepened.
After graduation, Valencia worked on the Hill as a fellow with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute and later for then Senator Ken Salazar, a Democrat from Colorado. Her office was on the same floor as Obama’s, whose politics she came to admire. After Obama was elected, Valencia oversaw the immigration, housing, and health-care agendas in the White House Office of Public Engagement. She also led the effort to secure the confirmation of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina Supreme Court Justice, and served as a chief of staff to Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker. Over the years, Valencia remained close to Odio, who worked in the Administration’s Office of Political Affairs. When Donald Trump narrowly won the 2016 election, they decided to work together again. “We didn’t want to be Monday-morning quarterbacks,” she said, but they both felt that the Party needed to broaden its understanding of the community. “Democrats have spent millions and millions of dollars, trying to understand every aspect of white swing voters. My argument to the Democratic establishment, and to progressives, was that Latinos should be treated the same.”
In the Obama White House, Stephanie Valencia led the effort to secure the confirmation of Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Photograph by Miikka Skaffari / Getty
The Obama and Trump campaigns had shown that data could be methodically used to better understand certain groups of voters. Valencia and Odio wanted to apply that approach to Latinos in 2020. “We had to figure out, how could we help bring in investment in sophisticated methods that are typically used to understand soccer moms in the suburbs?” Odio recalled. National polls often featured only a small number of Latino respondents. Sweeping conclusions were often drawn from the responses of fewer than a hundred members of the community. To be effective, campaigns needed more breakdowns of the Latino vote by age or gender, and surveys conducted in Spanish. A year before the 2020 election, Equis surveyed more than eight thousand Latinos in eleven states, from traditional battlegrounds like Florida and Nevada to states where the Latino electorate was growing and largely unstudied, such as Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Michigan. An unmistakable pattern emerged: the gender gap in the Latino community was as much as three times larger than that of any other voter group. Latino men and women had strikingly divergent views on Trump, immigration, and abortion. “It just pervaded all of our analysis,” Odio said. “Any way you wanted to slice and dice, gender was just staring at you.”
To Valencia and Odio, the 2020 election was a game of margins. Trump didn’t need to win a plurality of Latino voters, only enough to hold off Biden in battleground states. So, if Latinas turned out to vote in big numbers, the President’s gains could potentially be offset. Early this year, Valencia shared her findings with the actresses Eva Longoria and America Ferrera at a meeting in Los Angeles. They both had campaigned for Democrats in past elections and said they were tired of seeing the Party treat outreach to Latinos as an afterthought. “Our communities are not dumb,” Ferrera told me. “It always came down to the last month before an election and a candidate saying, ‘Hey! We’ve got Ugly Betty! And she’s going to get Latinos to turn out to vote, so that should cut it, right?” Valencia described the gender gap and her other research which showed that Latinos were the youngest electorate in the country—their median age is thirty—and their presence on social media was immense. Ferrera and Longoria saw the potential of investing in Latinas, who have traditionally been the heads of households. “The empowerment of Latina women is the empowerment of their entire family,” Ferrera said. “For us, the question was, ‘How do we engage Latinas in a long-term and consistent way that really translates to them understanding their power?’ ”
Any new outreach effort needed to address what Valencia called “the confidence gap”: Latina turnout rates were growing but remained low compared with those of Latino men, as well as white and Black women. In her view, Democrats needed to find the right mix of politics and culture—one that made it clear that women’s choices would determine what happened not only in Washington but also in their own communities. “If you wanted to reach the people who had not previously been reached by campaigns and who were historically on the sidelines, we had to go broader and create a platform that served broccoli with ice cream,” Valencia said. In August, she, Ferrera, and others launched “She Se Puede,” an initiative that they called “A New Destination for the Modern Latina.” She Se Puede was designed specifically for the country’s thirty million Latinas: the overlooked trailblazers and underappreciated bedrock of the arts, business, health care, education, and food worlds. Their goal was to create a place where Latinas could find everything from inspiring talks by celebrities to tips on how to treat their curls, or register to vote. When early voting started, in September, the numbers sparked optimism among Democrats. “In 2016, working-class Latina voters cast 589k early votes,” read an Instagram post from She Se Puede. “In 2020, working-class Latinas cast more than 1.8 million early votes.”
On Election Day, turnout exceeded all expectations. Between fourteen and fifteen million Latinos cast ballots, and more than half of them did so early. According to the polling firm Latino Decisions, which had worked closely with Equis, the number of voters aged twenty-nine and younger who voted early increased by three hundred per cent compared with 2016. Turnout aided Biden in states such as Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Nevada, where a record Latino turnout contributed to his margin of victory. But, in Florida and Texas, high Latino turnout helped propel Trump to comfortable wins in states that Democrats had hoped would be part of a Biden landslide. Shocking Democrats, Trump received more Latino support in Florida’s reliably blue Miami-Dade and Texas’s Rio Grande Valley than he had in 2016. Even so, high Latino turnout helped Biden fare as well as Obama nationally, according to some estimates, winning nearly seventy per cent of the community vote. “There is no state Joe Biden loses because of the Latino vote,” Odio said. “But there are several states he wins thanks to critical contributions from Latino voters.”
Arizona, which no Democrat had won since 1996, was among the largest of those states. Latinos represent one of every five voters there—six hundred thousand went to the polls this year—and the vast majority of them voted for Biden. “Arizona was no fluke,” Valencia said, noting that Trump won the state four years ago by merely eighty thousand votes. She credited a decade of organizing in response to Senate Bill 1070, the “show me your papers” law, which was designed to crack down on the state’s immigrant community by allowing police officers to arbitrarily question individuals about their legal status. For years, Latinos whose relatives, friends, or acquaintances had been impacted by the law and scarred by the climate of fear fostered by Sheriff Joe Arpaio had organized politically. In 2016, Arpaio lost his reëlection bid, ending a two-decade tenure. The same civil-rights groups that helped defeat him continued mobilizing in 2020, including Living United for Change (LUCHA), which placed twelve million calls to potential voters with a coalition of organizations. “We’ve been here for ten years,” Tomás Robles, LUCHA’s executive director, said. “Elections are simply a marker for us.”
Similar efforts were mounted in Wisconsin, Georgia, and Nevada, which Biden won by slightly more than thirty thousand votes. In Las Vegas and Reno, the Culinary Union, which represents sixty thousand workers, including porters, bellhops, and casino cooks, mounted its largest political effort in its eighty-five-year history, knocking on half a million doors. “We’re always on the field,” Geoconda Argüello-Kline, the union’s secretary-treasurer, said of their organizing philosophy. To Valencia, conducting robust field operations is the key to success. “Where we invest in organizing year-round in Latino communities, we can turn those into long-term victories,” she said. “We can’t come in and out of these communities every two years and expect people to show up.”
If Arizona and Nevada proved how important a consistent Democratic presence can be, Texas exposed the risks of neglecting the community. In Hidalgo, the Rio Grande Valley’s largest county, which is ninety-two-per-cent Latino, Biden won by eighteen points, less than half of Hillary Clinton’s victory margin four years earlier. The losses were more dramatic in Starr County, which Trump lost by sixty points in 2016 and this year by only five. For Danny Diaz, who oversaw the get-out-the-vote effort of the nonprofit La Unión del Pueblo Entero (L.U.P.E.), the results were hardly a surprise. “I don’t know the last time that Democrats put money here,” Diaz said. He complained that the bulk of resources were spent on urban and suburban Texas voters, groups that are trending more Democratic. L.U.P.E. contacted two hundred and fifty thousand infrequent voters via phone and text in the valley. Most people ignored their texts, but the roughly ten per cent who responded appeared to be new voters who fervently backed Trump. “They were all Latinos who had never voted in their lives, texting us back, ‘Trump 2020,’ ‘Ridin’ with Trump,’ ‘Trump all the way!’ ” Diaz recalled. “It almost feels like the Trump propaganda got to them way before we did.”


newyorker--2020-01-31--“Cambodian Rock Band” ’s Disarming Exploration of Political Trauma

The playwright Lauren Yee has a disarming way of probing political trauma ; her play “ The Great Leap ” @ @ @ @ @ Revolution through basketball .
Her latest , “ Cambodian Rock Band ” —directed by Chay @ @ @ @ @ Feb. 4 , at the Pershing Square Signature Center—is the first work in Yee ’ @ @ @ @ @ The story , of a father and a daughter grappling with the atrocities of the @ @ @ @ @ through live rock music , including songs by the psychedelic-pop group Dengue Fever .

The playwright Lauren Yee has a disarming way of probing political trauma; her play “The Great Leap” explored China’s Cultural Revolution through basketball. Her latest, “Cambodian Rock Band”—directed by Chay Yew, starting previews on Feb. 4, at the Pershing Square Signature Center—is the first work in Yee’s Signature Theatre residency. The story, of a father and a daughter grappling with the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge, is told through live rock music, including songs by the psychedelic-pop group Dengue Fever.


newyorker--2020-01-31--Leo Has Its Finger on the Pulse

Leo Has Its Finger on the Pulse

Improbable but undeniable : beans are having a moment .
Last December , the food Web site Eater published an essay called “ Cool Beans , ” which detailed “ How the humble legume—especially heirloom varieties—became the go-to ingredient for home cooks.
” ( In 2018 , this magazine profiled Rancho Gordo , the largest , and cultiest , retailer of heirloom beans in the U.S. ) As of this month , you can buy a book , unaffiliated , called “ Cool Beans : The Ultimate Guide to Cooking with the World ’ s Most Versatile Plant-Based Protein , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Washington Post .
And so you could say that the people behind Leo , which opened last fall in Williamsburg , have their fingers on the pulse , pun intended ( and apologized for ) .
For several years , Ops , a restaurant in Bushwick with some of the same owners , has had simply prepared beans on its menu .
At Leo , Scarlet Runners , an heirloom variety , are gently braised with garlic , rosemary , and sage until easily crushed between the teeth but still firm and meaty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a glug of grassy olive oil .
Anthropologists reading this in the future , take note : Leo is a useful time capsule , a snapshot of right now .
To drink with the beans , there is natural wine , to which diners—who , like the staff , skew young and stylish , in cropped pants and clogs—may help themselves from a shelf or a refrigerator by the bar .
( To readers in the present , I suggest asking for a recommendation , lest you find yourself misled by a whimsical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of wet cardboard . )
To sop up the bean broth ( also known , to Rancho Gordo heads , as pot liquor ) , there is naturally fermented sourdough , baked on the premises and available by the loaf in an adjoining takeout shop .
Leo ’ s pizza—Neapolitan-style round pies in the dining room , Roman-style square slices in the shop—and calzones are also made with naturally fermented dough .
On a given day , a calzone might be stuffed with ’ nduja and collards , a pizza topped with tangy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and Robin ’ s Koginut squash , a variety bred by the chef Dan Barber .
A salad listed on the menu as “ lettuces ” might be heavy on chicories , pale spears of tender Belgian endive mingling with magenta ruffles of Treviso radicchio , frilly frisée , and flat-leaf parsley , all slicked in a citrusy vinaigrette .
More than one trend forecaster has predicted that lasagna is going to be huge in 2020 .
At Leo , you can order a gorgeous slab of it : pillowy layers of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and bright , tart marinara , with a bit of bite from crackly edges and the finely chopped blanched kale folded into the sauce .
You ’ d never know it was gluten-free ( thanks to corn-flour pasta ) .
For something sweet , the soft-serve is great—a swirl of pithy grapefruit and caramel approximates a breakfast brûlée—but the tiramisu , that lasagna of desserts , is better .
Until fairly recently , I associated tiramisu with the kind of red-sauce joint whose charmingly chintzy atmosphere is more alluring than its food .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ stodgy , compacted mass of ladyfingers and mascarpone cream , chalky with cocoa powder and flavorless but for blunt hits of Marsala wine and coffee , as if it were trying to sober itself up .
A few years ago , I started to suspect that a renaissance was afoot .
At Una Pizza Napoletana , on the Lower East Side , they swapped the ladyfingers for lemon sponge cake , the Marsala for rum and Cynar .
At Leonti , on the Upper West Side ( now , sadly , closed ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you could see air bubbles .
Leo ’ s version comes in a fluted glass tumbler that showcases its appealingly messy striations , as spoonable as pudding .
Vanilla angel-food sheet cake is soaked in espresso and a soft spike of rum and amaro .
The finished trifle is showered in delicate curls of Askinosie chocolate , and each creamy bite bears an unmistakable vein of salt .
Tiramisu is as cool as beans .
( Dishes $ 5- $ 14 , pizzas $ 16- $ 22 . )
♦

Improbable but undeniable: beans are having a moment. Last December, the food Web site Eater published an essay called “Cool Beans,” which detailed “How the humble legume—especially heirloom varieties—became the go-to ingredient for home cooks.” (In 2018, this magazine profiled Rancho Gordo, the largest, and cultiest, retailer of heirloom beans in the U.S.) As of this month, you can buy a book, unaffiliated, called “Cool Beans: The Ultimate Guide to Cooking with the World’s Most Versatile Plant-Based Protein,” by the food editor of the Washington Post.
The San Giuseppe pie, topped with tomato sauce, spicy sausage, onions, olives, and provolone. Photograph by Zachary Zavislak for The New Yorker
And so you could say that the people behind Leo, which opened last fall in Williamsburg, have their fingers on the pulse, pun intended (and apologized for). For several years, Ops, a restaurant in Bushwick with some of the same owners, has had simply prepared beans on its menu. At Leo, Scarlet Runners, an heirloom variety, are gently braised with garlic, rosemary, and sage until easily crushed between the teeth but still firm and meaty, generously salted, and finished with a glug of grassy olive oil.
Meatballs in marinara sauce come with naturally fermented sourdough. Wine, too, is naturally fermented. Photograph by Zachary Zavislak for The New Yorker
Anthropologists reading this in the future, take note: Leo is a useful time capsule, a snapshot of right now. To drink with the beans, there is natural wine, to which diners—who, like the staff, skew young and stylish, in cropped pants and clogs—may help themselves from a shelf or a refrigerator by the bar. (To readers in the present, I suggest asking for a recommendation, lest you find yourself misled by a whimsical label into choosing something with top notes of wet cardboard.)
A swirl of grapefruit sorbet and caramel soft-serve brings to mind a breakfast brûlée. Photograph by Zachary Zavislak for The New Yorker
To sop up the bean broth (also known, to Rancho Gordo heads, as pot liquor), there is naturally fermented sourdough, baked on the premises and available by the loaf in an adjoining takeout shop. Leo’s pizza—Neapolitan-style round pies in the dining room, Roman-style square slices in the shop—and calzones are also made with naturally fermented dough.
Initial orders are placed at the bar; servers bring food to the tables and field additional requests. Photograph by Zachary Zavislak for The New Yorker
On a given day, a calzone might be stuffed with ’nduja and collards, a pizza topped with tangy farmer cheese, flowering broccoli, prosciutto, and Robin’s Koginut squash, a variety bred by the chef Dan Barber. A salad listed on the menu as “lettuces” might be heavy on chicories, pale spears of tender Belgian endive mingling with magenta ruffles of Treviso radicchio, frilly frisée, and flat-leaf parsley, all slicked in a citrusy vinaigrette.
More than one trend forecaster has predicted that lasagna is going to be huge in 2020. At Leo, you can order a gorgeous slab of it: pillowy layers of thin noodles, stretchy provola cheese, and bright, tart marinara, with a bit of bite from crackly edges and the finely chopped blanched kale folded into the sauce. You’d never know it was gluten-free (thanks to corn-flour pasta).
For something sweet, the soft-serve is great—a swirl of pithy grapefruit and caramel approximates a breakfast brûlée—but the tiramisu, that lasagna of desserts, is better. Until fairly recently, I associated tiramisu with the kind of red-sauce joint whose charmingly chintzy atmosphere is more alluring than its food. It seemed too often to be a stodgy, compacted mass of ladyfingers and mascarpone cream, chalky with cocoa powder and flavorless but for blunt hits of Marsala wine and coffee, as if it were trying to sober itself up.
A few years ago, I started to suspect that a renaissance was afoot. At Una Pizza Napoletana, on the Lower East Side, they swapped the ladyfingers for lemon sponge cake, the Marsala for rum and Cynar. At Leonti, on the Upper West Side (now, sadly, closed), the mascarpone was so light that you could see air bubbles. Leo’s version comes in a fluted glass tumbler that showcases its appealingly messy striations, as spoonable as pudding. Vanilla angel-food sheet cake is soaked in espresso and a soft spike of rum and amaro. The finished trifle is showered in delicate curls of Askinosie chocolate, and each creamy bite bears an unmistakable vein of salt. Tiramisu is as cool as beans. (Dishes $5-$14, pizzas $16-$22.) ♦


newyorker--2020-01-31--What Will Brexit Britain Be Like?

What Will Brexit Britain Be Like?

At 11 P.M. on Friday , Britain will leave the European Union .
Big Ben will not bong—it ’ s too expensive—but the United Kingdom will secede from its defining economic and political relationship of the past fifty years .
In Parliament Square , under the silent clock , Nigel Farage , the country ’ s most influential populist politician since Oswald Mosley , will headline a Brexit celebration event .
The invitation to the rally asks people to “ come in good voice to sing some patriotic songs and bring along as many Union flags as they can , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pride.
” Since the referendum , in 2016 , Brexiteers have sought to characterize leaving the E.U .
as an emancipatory act—an independence day for a country that once ruled the largest empire in history .
In March , 2019 , when Brexit was first supposed to have taken place , Boris Johnson had resigned from the government .
“ It was meant to be the week when church bells were rung , coins struck , stamps issued and bonfires lit to send beacons of freedom from hilltop to hilltop , ” he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ faithful farm workers “ weaving through the moonlit lanes of Sussex , half blind with scrumpy , singing Brexit shanties at the tops of their voices and beating the hedgerows with staves.
” Now that it has come to pass , Brexit Day will be muted by comparison .
As Prime Minister , Johnson is expected to celebrate with a low-key party in Downing Street .
Some Remainers have pledged not to handle a new fifty-pence coin commissioned by the government to mark the occasion .
The whole thing feels fairly peevish—that is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what will Brexit Britain actually be like ?
At the moment it happens , Britons will cease to be citizens of the E.U .
Until the end of 2020 , however , the country is officially in “ a transition period , ” while it negotiates a future trading relationship with the bloc , so nothing will immediately change .
On the surface , the second phase of the Brexit talks may well resemble the first : the E.U .
will play hardball , led by its arch-rational lead negotiator , Michel Barnier @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be periodic spasms in Westminster , as Johnson ’ s government figures out how to respond .
But a larger , subtler process of divergence will have already begun .
Brexit has always been fascinating to me because it contains a genuinely difficult question : Will a country like Britain be better off trying to navigate the challenges of the twenty-first century deeply embedded in an international bloc , or out on its own , with greater freedom to maneuver and , in theory , listen to its population ?
In 2000 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Harvard , first described what he has since called his “ impossibility theorem , ” in which the nation-state , democracy , and global economic integration are mutually incompatible .
“ We can have at most two of these three things , ” he wrote .
Britain ’ s forty-seven-year membership of the E.U .
turned out to be a case study in the impossible .
In 2016 , a narrow majority of voters chose what they perceived to be democracy and sovereignty over the economic logic of being part of a huge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Conservative Party conference , in Manchester , I listened to Stephen Harper and Tony Abbott , the former Prime Ministers of Canada and Australia , making the case that Brexiteers often like to make : that there is no reason why the U.K. , with its economy , its history , its language , should not be able to flourish alone , like Japan or South Korea or New Zealand .
Dominic Cummings , the campaign director of Vote Leave and now Johnson ’ s senior adviser , often quotes David Deutsch @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the nation-state as better equipped to correct itself in a complicated world than a vast , slow-moving entity like the E.U .
“ Error correction is the basic issue , ” Deutsch said .
“ And I can ’ t foresee the E.U improving much in this respect.
” But it is striking that these arguments are almost always made by those who wish to shrink the state or , in Cummings ’ s case , redesign it altogether .
A long time ago , it was common for British politicians on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to denounce European integration as a project that mostly benefitted the bloc ’ s richest countries and their largest corporations .
But , in the twenty-first century , the E.U .
has been a steady advocate for human rights , action on climate change , digital privacy , and the rules-based international order—even when that has proved awkward for its members .
Last week , with an eighty-seat majority in the House of Commons and Brexit Day in sight , Johnson ’ s government removed an amendment to protect unaccompanied child refugees coming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will finally set Britain free .
Margaret Thatcher was one of the architects of the E.U.
’ s single market .
She positioned Britain as a free-trading entry point to the more regulated economies of mainland Europe .
You don ’ t have to be Henry Kissinger to see that the obvious course for Brexit Britain is to try and become—in some form—an offshore competitor .
Earlier this month , Sajid Javid , the Chancellor , who is a former derivatives trader for Deutsche Bank , told the Financial Times that “ there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ E.U .
goods regulations in the future .
Since the eighties , successive British governments have had a remarkably relaxed attitude to foreign companies playing vital roles in the economy , or owning critical pieces of infrastructure .
The U.K. ’ s busiest airport , Heathrow , is owned by an international consortium led by a Spanish company and the Qatari government ; its busiest port , Felixstowe , belongs to a Hong Kong investment firm .
On January 28th , the government gave its approval for Huawei , the Chinese technology company @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new 5G cell-phone network , over the objections of the U.S. government and other security partners .
Brexit is often characterized as a populist rebellion against the forces of globalization , but the reality of life outside the E.U .
means that they will probably only accelerate .
Things that are distinctive , British , and publicly owned—like the BBC—will be vulnerable .
This week , the national broadcaster , which is under threat from streaming services and ideological opponents in the Conservative Party , announced that it will cut four hundred and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Brexit Britain won ’ t be unrecognizable .
Since 2017 , mainly under the influence of Michael Gove , Johnson ’ s wingman during the referendum , the country has committed itself to an ambitious environmental agenda .
Last year , Britain passed legislation to reduce its carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 .
Like Theresa May before him , Johnson plans to inject billions of pounds into the National Health Service , the final great edifice of the British welfare state .
Last December , the Conservatives won their decisive election @ @ @ @ @ @ @ northern England , which have traditionally voted for Labour but which backed Brexit .
Since then , Johnson ’ s government has promised to “ level up ” economic prosperity in the U.K. by signing off on ambitious infrastructure projects , such as HS2 , a high-speed rail link that is forecast to cost more than a hundred billion pounds .
As far as I can see , the signs point to a kind of hybrid nation : more welcoming to foreign capital but more hostile to foreign people ; greener but more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but weaker .
There will be shiny totems—a few new trains and hospitals—but the general safety net for most citizens , in terms of their rights and benefits , will be cut away .
Brexit has always been a mythical endpoint , which means that governments will be able to justify a great variety of things in its name .
It is the perfect project for Johnson , the most flexible of Prime Ministers .
More than anything , the enterprise appears unstable .
The most obvious tensions will be geographic .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Scotland voted overwhelmingly for anti-Brexit parties .
This month , the U.K. ’ s devolved assemblies in Belfast , Cardiff , and Edinburgh all rejected the government ’ s legislation to take Britain out of the E.U.—votes that were ignored in London , which is itself not a Brexit city .
As the Irish columnist Fintan O ’ Toole wrote in the Guardian on Sunday , “ While Johnson likes to talk of 31 January as ‘ this pivotal moment in our national story , ’ there is neither a settled nation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a deeply divided country before 2016 , and it led to Brexit .
What will be the next rupture ?

At 11 P.M. on Friday, Britain will leave the European Union. Big Ben will not bong—it’s too expensive—but the United Kingdom will secede from its defining economic and political relationship of the past fifty years. In Parliament Square, under the silent clock, Nigel Farage, the country’s most influential populist politician since Oswald Mosley, will headline a Brexit celebration event. The invitation to the rally asks people to “come in good voice to sing some patriotic songs and bring along as many Union flags as they can, to wave in a patriotic display of pride.”
Since the referendum, in 2016, Brexiteers have sought to characterize leaving the E.U. as an emancipatory act—an independence day for a country that once ruled the largest empire in history. In March, 2019, when Brexit was first supposed to have taken place, Boris Johnson had resigned from the government. “It was meant to be the week when church bells were rung, coins struck, stamps issued and bonfires lit to send beacons of freedom from hilltop to hilltop,” he rued. Johnson summoned an image of faithful farm workers “weaving through the moonlit lanes of Sussex, half blind with scrumpy, singing Brexit shanties at the tops of their voices and beating the hedgerows with staves.” Now that it has come to pass, Brexit Day will be muted by comparison. As Prime Minister, Johnson is expected to celebrate with a low-key party in Downing Street. Some Remainers have pledged not to handle a new fifty-pence coin commissioned by the government to mark the occasion. The whole thing feels fairly peevish—that is to say, properly British.
But what will Brexit Britain actually be like? At the moment it happens, Britons will cease to be citizens of the E.U. Until the end of 2020, however, the country is officially in “a transition period,” while it negotiates a future trading relationship with the bloc, so nothing will immediately change. On the surface, the second phase of the Brexit talks may well resemble the first: the E.U. will play hardball, led by its arch-rational lead negotiator, Michel Barnier, of France, and there will be periodic spasms in Westminster, as Johnson’s government figures out how to respond. But a larger, subtler process of divergence will have already begun. Brexit has always been fascinating to me because it contains a genuinely difficult question: Will a country like Britain be better off trying to navigate the challenges of the twenty-first century deeply embedded in an international bloc, or out on its own, with greater freedom to maneuver and, in theory, listen to its population?
In 2000, Dani Rodrik, an economics professor at Harvard, first described what he has since called his “impossibility theorem,” in which the nation-state, democracy, and global economic integration are mutually incompatible. “We can have at most two of these three things,” he wrote. Britain’s forty-seven-year membership of the E.U. turned out to be a case study in the impossible. In 2016, a narrow majority of voters chose what they perceived to be democracy and sovereignty over the economic logic of being part of a huge supranational market. Last October, at the Conservative Party conference, in Manchester, I listened to Stephen Harper and Tony Abbott, the former Prime Ministers of Canada and Australia, making the case that Brexiteers often like to make: that there is no reason why the U.K., with its economy, its history, its language, should not be able to flourish alone, like Japan or South Korea or New Zealand. Dominic Cummings, the campaign director of Vote Leave and now Johnson’s senior adviser, often quotes David Deutsch, the celebrated physicist, who sees the nation-state as better equipped to correct itself in a complicated world than a vast, slow-moving entity like the E.U. “Error correction is the basic issue,” Deutsch said. “And I can’t foresee the E.U improving much in this respect.”
But it is striking that these arguments are almost always made by those who wish to shrink the state or, in Cummings’s case, redesign it altogether. A long time ago, it was common for British politicians on the left, such as Jeremy Corbyn, to denounce European integration as a project that mostly benefitted the bloc’s richest countries and their largest corporations. But, in the twenty-first century, the E.U. has been a steady advocate for human rights, action on climate change, digital privacy, and the rules-based international order—even when that has proved awkward for its members. Last week, with an eighty-seat majority in the House of Commons and Brexit Day in sight, Johnson’s government removed an amendment to protect unaccompanied child refugees coming to the U.K. from the legislation that will finally set Britain free.
Margaret Thatcher was one of the architects of the E.U.’s single market. She positioned Britain as a free-trading entry point to the more regulated economies of mainland Europe. You don’t have to be Henry Kissinger to see that the obvious course for Brexit Britain is to try to become—in some form—an offshore competitor. Earlier this month, Sajid Javid, the Chancellor, who is a former derivatives trader for Deutsche Bank, told the Financial Times that “there will not be alignment” with many E.U. goods regulations in the future. Since the eighties, successive British governments have had a remarkably relaxed attitude to foreign companies playing vital roles in the economy, or owning critical pieces of infrastructure. The U.K.’s busiest airport, Heathrow, is owned by an international consortium led by a Spanish company and the Qatari government; its busiest port, Felixstowe, belongs to a Hong Kong investment firm. On January 28th, the government gave its approval for Huawei, the Chinese technology company, to help build Britain’s new 5G cell-phone network, over the objections of the U.S. government and other security partners. Brexit is often characterized as a populist rebellion against the forces of globalization, but the reality of life outside the E.U. means that they will probably only accelerate. Things that are distinctive, British, and publicly owned—like the BBC—will be vulnerable. This week, the national broadcaster, which is under threat from streaming services and ideological opponents in the Conservative Party, announced that it will cut four hundred and fifty jobs from its news division.
Brexit Britain won’t be unrecognizable. Since 2017, mainly under the influence of Michael Gove, Johnson’s wingman during the referendum, the country has committed itself to an ambitious environmental agenda. Last year, Britain passed legislation to reduce its carbon emissions to net zero by 2050. Like Theresa May before him, Johnson plans to inject billions of pounds into the National Health Service, the final great edifice of the British welfare state. Last December, the Conservatives won their decisive election victory with the help of constituencies in northern England, which have traditionally voted for Labour but which backed Brexit. Since then, Johnson’s government has promised to “level up” economic prosperity in the U.K. by signing off on ambitious infrastructure projects, such as HS2, a high-speed rail link that is forecast to cost more than a hundred billion pounds.
As far as I can see, the signs point to a kind of hybrid nation: more welcoming to foreign capital but more hostile to foreign people; greener but more conservative; freer on the world stage, but weaker. There will be shiny totems—a few new trains and hospitals—but the general safety net for most citizens, in terms of their rights and benefits, will be cut away. Brexit has always been a mythical endpoint, which means that governments will be able to justify a great variety of things in its name. It is the perfect project for Johnson, the most flexible of Prime Ministers. More than anything, the enterprise appears unstable. The most obvious tensions will be geographic. In December, the people of Northern Ireland and Scotland voted overwhelmingly for anti-Brexit parties. This month, the U.K.’s devolved assemblies in Belfast, Cardiff, and Edinburgh all rejected the government’s legislation to take Britain out of the E.U.—votes that were ignored in London, which is itself not a Brexit city. As the Irish columnist Fintan O’Toole wrote in the Guardian on Sunday, “While Johnson likes to talk of 31 January as ‘this pivotal moment in our national story,’ there is neither a settled nation nor a shared story.” Britain was a deeply divided country before 2016, and it led to Brexit. What will be the next rupture?


newyorker--2020-01-31--New Reports Show That Trump’s Economic Promises Were Empty

With the impeachment trial , the coronavirus , and the Iowa caucuses in the news , dry economic statistics aren ’ t getting much attention right now .
But two new reports—the latest gross-domestic-product figures from the Commerce Department and a new set of budget projections from the Congressional Budget Office—shouldn ’ t be allowed to pass without comment .
Indeed , the issues they raise should be central to the 2020 election .
The core of Donald Trump ’ s platform is that his policies have produced what he touts as “ The Greatest Economy in American History !
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ By enacting a huge tax cut , in late 2017 , that was heavily slanted toward corporations and the rich , Trump and the Republicans gave the economy a temporary boost—in 2018 , it grew at an annual rate of 2.9 per cent—that has now faded .
In the fourth quarter of last year , G.D.P.—the broadest measure of activity in the economy—expanded at an annual rate of 2.1 per cent , the new report from the Commerce Department showed .
Taking 2019 as a whole , G.D.P .
grew at 2.3 per @ @ @ @ @ @ @ near the four-per-cent growth that Trump promised in 2016 .
Instead , they are in line with the average growth rate since 2000 , which is 2.2 per cent .
And this ho-hum outcome has only been achieved at a tremendous cost .
The federal government is now running an enormous budget deficit and accumulating vast amounts of new debt , which will burden taxpayers for decades to come .
After three years of Trump ’ s Presidency , in fact , the United States is starting to look like one of his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the new report from the C.B.O .
says , the deficit will be about a trillion dollars .
Ten years from now , it will be roughly $ 1.3 trillion .
Numbers like these are so big that they are hard to take in .
The way economists make sense of them is by comparing the dollar amount to the level of G.D.P.
, much like a family might compare its mortgage to its income .
If you do this , you can see just how out of whack with history the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the C.B.O.
’ s projections , the budget deficit will be 4.6 per cent of G.D.P .
this year , and by 2030 it will have risen to 5.4 per cent of G.D.P .
Before Trump took office , the United States had never run sustained deficits of this magnitude except during wars , when spending on armaments and other items increased sharply , or during economic slumps , when tax receipts plummeted .
“ Other than a six-year period during and immediately after World War II , the deficit over the past @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more than five consecutive years , ” the C.B.O .
report notes .
“ And during the past 50 years , deficits have averaged 1.5 percent of GDP when the economy was relatively strong ( as it is now ) .
” What about the level of government debt ?
“ Because of the large deficits , federal debt held by the public is projected to grow , from 81 percent of GDP in 2020 to 98 percent in 2030 ( its highest percentage since 1946 ) , ” the C.B.O .
report @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would be 180 percent of GDP—far higher than it has ever been.
” It ’ s no secret what happened during the early nineteen-nineties to some of Trump ’ s business ventures , including the Taj Mahal casino , in Atlantic City , and the Plaza , on Central Park South : they went bankrupt under the weight of the debts he had piled on them .
Is the same fate in store for the United States ?
Probably not , fortunately .
With interest rates at near-record lows , servicing large debts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And , in any case , governments have financing options that are unavailable to private businesses , such as raising taxes or , in extremis , having the central bank issue money and purchase bonds .
Despite the rising indebtedness of the United States , most investors still regard Treasury bonds as a safe asset .
But that doesn ’ t justify the profligacy of Trump and the Republicans in Congress .
At some point , interest rates could rise , and investors could lose faith in the U.S. government .
Even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ we ’ re borrowing money for all the wrong things , ” Jared Bernstein , a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities , points out .
Some of the debt that is being issued to pay for the tax cut could have been used to finance investments in infrastructure , renewable energy sources , universal day care , adult retraining , reducing the cost of higher education , or any other number of programs that yield long-term benefits to ordinary Americans .
Instead , the biggest handouts went @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rate reduced from thirty-five per cent to twenty-one per cent .
At the time , the White House argued that this would encourage multinational businesses to repatriate countless billions of dollars in profits they had stashed overseas .
Kevin Hassett , who was then the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers , claimed that once the tax bill was passed , grateful businesses would invest heavily in new factories , offices , equipment , and software—a process economists refer to as “ capital deepening ” —which , in turn , would raise @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Put simply , ” Hassett wrote , “ capital deepening , which brings additional returns to the owners of capital , brings substantial returns to workers as well.
” The new G.D.P .
report shows what actually happened .
Business investment did pick up a bit , in anticipation of the tax bill and immediately after it was passed .
Since then , though , it has slipped back .
For the past three quarters , the broad category of capital spending that the Commerce Department refers to as non-residential fixed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ biggest drop coming in “ structures ” —a category that includes factories , office buildings , and things like drilling platforms .
In the most recent quarter , spending on structures dropped ten per cent .
Some of this fall was probably attributable to a drop in the price of oil , but the energy sector wasn ’ t the only sector to exhibit weakness .
Others , such as manufacturing , did , too , Ian Shepherdson , the chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics , pointed out to me .
So , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
“ Business saved some of the tax cut , but most of it seems to have gone on stock buybacks and dividends , ” Shepherdson said .
“ There is zero evidence of any positive impact on capital expenditure.
” Just last week , I pointed out that the Democratic nominee , whoever it is , will need to debunk Trump ’ s claims about the economy .
These latest economic reports provide plenty of material to work with .

With the impeachment trial, the coronavirus, and the Iowa caucuses in the news, dry economic statistics aren’t getting much attention right now. But two new reports—the latest gross-domestic-product figures from the Commerce Department and a new set of budget projections from the Congressional Budget Office—shouldn’t be allowed to pass without comment. Indeed, the issues they raise should be central to the 2020 election.
The core of Donald Trump’s platform is that his policies have produced what he touts as “The Greatest Economy in American History!” The truth is very different. By enacting a huge tax cut, in late 2017, that was heavily slanted toward corporations and the rich, Trump and the Republicans gave the economy a temporary boost—in 2018, it grew at an annual rate of 2.9 per cent—that has now faded.
In the fourth quarter of last year, G.D.P.—the broadest measure of activity in the economy—expanded at an annual rate of 2.1 per cent, the new report from the Commerce Department showed. Taking 2019 as a whole, G.D.P. grew at 2.3 per cent. These growth rates are nowhere near the four-per-cent growth that Trump promised in 2016. Instead, they are in line with the average growth rate since 2000, which is 2.2 per cent. And this ho-hum outcome has only been achieved at a tremendous cost. The federal government is now running an enormous budget deficit and accumulating vast amounts of new debt, which will burden taxpayers for decades to come. After three years of Trump’s Presidency, in fact, the United States is starting to look like one of his highly indebted business ventures.
This year, the new report from the C.B.O. says, the deficit will be about a trillion dollars. Ten years from now, it will be roughly $1.3 trillion. Numbers like these are so big that they are hard to take in. The way economists make sense of them is by comparing the dollar amount to the level of G.D.P., much like a family might compare its mortgage to its income. If you do this, you can see just how out of whack with history the Trump Presidency really is.
According to the C.B.O.’s projections, the budget deficit will be 4.6 per cent of G.D.P. this year, and by 2030 it will have risen to 5.4 per cent of G.D.P. Before Trump took office, the United States had never run sustained deficits of this magnitude except during wars, when spending on armaments and other items increased sharply, or during economic slumps, when tax receipts plummeted. “Other than a six-year period during and immediately after World War II, the deficit over the past century has not exceeded 4.0 percent for more than five consecutive years,” the C.B.O. report notes. “And during the past 50 years, deficits have averaged 1.5 percent of GDP when the economy was relatively strong (as it is now).”
What about the level of government debt? “Because of the large deficits, federal debt held by the public is projected to grow, from 81 percent of GDP in 2020 to 98 percent in 2030 (its highest percentage since 1946),” the C.B.O. report says. “By 2050, debt would be 180 percent of GDP—far higher than it has ever been.”
It’s no secret what happened during the early nineteen-nineties to some of Trump’s business ventures, including the Taj Mahal casino, in Atlantic City, and the Plaza, on Central Park South: they went bankrupt under the weight of the debts he had piled on them. Is the same fate in store for the United States? Probably not, fortunately. With interest rates at near-record lows, servicing large debts is easier than it used to be. And, in any case, governments have financing options that are unavailable to private businesses, such as raising taxes or, in extremis, having the central bank issue money and purchase bonds.
Despite the rising indebtedness of the United States, most investors still regard Treasury bonds as a safe asset. But that doesn’t justify the profligacy of Trump and the Republicans in Congress. At some point, interest rates could rise, and investors could lose faith in the U.S. government. Even if that doesn’t happen, “we’re borrowing money for all the wrong things,” Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, points out.
Some of the debt that is being issued to pay for the tax cut could have been used to finance investments in infrastructure, renewable energy sources, universal day care, adult retraining, reducing the cost of higher education, or any other number of programs that yield long-term benefits to ordinary Americans. Instead, the biggest handouts went to corporations, who saw their tax rate reduced from thirty-five per cent to twenty-one per cent.
At the time, the White House argued that this would encourage multinational businesses to repatriate countless billions of dollars in profits they had stashed overseas. Kevin Hassett, who was then the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, claimed that once the tax bill was passed, grateful businesses would invest heavily in new factories, offices, equipment, and software—a process economists refer to as “capital deepening”—which, in turn, would raise the productivity and wages of their workers. “Put simply,” Hassett wrote, “capital deepening, which brings additional returns to the owners of capital, brings substantial returns to workers as well.”
The new G.D.P. report shows what actually happened. Business investment did pick up a bit, in anticipation of the tax bill and immediately after it was passed. Since then, though, it has slipped back. For the past three quarters, the broad category of capital spending that the Commerce Department refers to as non-residential fixed investment has actually fallen, with the biggest drop coming in “structures”—a category that includes factories, office buildings, and things like drilling platforms. In the most recent quarter, spending on structures dropped ten per cent. Some of this fall was probably attributable to a drop in the price of oil, but the energy sector wasn’t the only sector to exhibit weakness. Others, such as manufacturing, did, too, Ian Shepherdson, the chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, pointed out to me.
So, what happened to the Trump tax cut? “Business saved some of the tax cut, but most of it seems to have gone on stock buybacks and dividends,” Shepherdson said. “There is zero evidence of any positive impact on capital expenditure.”
Just last week, I pointed out that the Democratic nominee, whoever it is, will need to debunk Trump’s claims about the economy. These latest economic reports provide plenty of material to work with.


newyorker--2020-02-03--The Return of “The Oscar,” an Unseeable, Unwatchable Flop

The Oscars : Hollywood ’ s proudest , most self-aggrandizing pageant , a prom and a graduation rolled into one .
“ The Oscar ” : A 1966 film , with a script by the prolific science-fiction writer Harlan Ellison , depicting the sleazy machinations of a vapid , selfish actor to redeem himself by winning a golden statuette .
The film , its cast packed with stars—Frank Sinatra , Bob Hope , Tony Bennett , Milton Berle , Ernest Borgnine , Joseph Cotten—some of them Oscar winners , was an overblown , A-list flop , a “ Gigli ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Bosley Crowther called it a “ cheap , synthetic film which dumps filth upon the whole operation of Hollywood.
” The Academy , which lent the film its logo and its blessing , apparently regretted it , and has not done so since .
For decades , the practically unwatchable film was largely unseeable , an unrestored embarrassment buried in the Paramount archives .
“ There ’ s a samizdat quality , ” Erik Nelson , a filmmaker who made a documentary about Ellison , said .
“ Like ‘ Fahrenheit 451 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ copies and reciting the dialogue.
” This Oscar week , an art-house distributor will release a remastered , wide-screen , HD version .
“ For us , it ’ s like finding the lost reels of ‘ The Magnificent Ambersons ’ or Erich von Stroheim ’ s nine-hour cut of ‘ Greed , ’ ” Nelson said .
“ Among comics , this film has a real resonance .
There ’ s a level of complete and utter commitment : the actors are convinced they ’ re delivering Oscar-worthy material .
Every scene @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a “ Rocky Horror ” -like cult future for “ The Oscar.
” Several months ago , Nelson gathered with a few others who love to hate “ The Oscar ” at a house in the Hollywood Hills , to record commentary for the DVD .
Establishing his bona fides , he said , “ They film April 5 , ’ 65—who ’ s a nerd ?
—at the Academy Awards at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium , where ‘ My Fair Lady ’ is beating out ‘ Dr .
Strangelove ’ for Best @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Best Actor.
” The house belonged to Josh Olson , a screenwriter who collaborated with Ellison .
“ The Oscar ” was Ellison ’ s first film , and he never managed to make another one .
Patton Oswalt , the comedian , arrived , wearing brick-red shorts and a matching hoodie .
He described attending a rare screening of “ The Oscar ” at the Egyptian Theatre in the early two-thousands : “ When Harlan walked down the aisle to go onstage , he went down with both birds blazing , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Ellison died in 2018 .
His widow , Susan , sat quietly in a swivel chair , sipping a margarita .
“ You could not mention ‘ The Oscar ’ around Harlan at all , ” she said .
“ He took it so personally.
” Susan—Ellison ’ s fifth wife— was married to him for thirty-two years .
He once gave her a birthday gift of a color-pencil drawing done of Elke Sommer by Edith Head .
( Head , who designed the costumes for “ The Oscar , ” also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the movie ’ s stars . )
Recently , working with an archivist , Susan discovered her husband ’ s original three-hundred-and-forty-four-page script .
Nelson had already committed most of it to memory .
The men got miked , and “ The Oscar , ” projected onto a large screen in Olson ’ s living room , began to roll .
“ Ladies and gentlemen , the star of ‘ The Oscar , ’ the great Stephen Boyd , ” Nelson said .
Boyd , as the soulless , amoral actor Frankie @ @ @ @ @ @ @ played by Jill St. John , for Sommer , whom he later spurns .
Oswalt put in a good word for Boyd , who played the antagonist to Charlton Heston ’ s Ben-Hur in the William Wyler film .
“ He gets a lifetime pass for conspiring with Gore Vidal behind Heston ’ s back to make Ben-Hur ’ s backstory gay , ” Oswalt said .
St. John appeared in a tiger-striped bikini and long , claw-tipped gloves .
“ She made out with Henry Kissinger , ” Oswalt said , appreciatively @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a new Zapruder print , ” Nelson said .
“ It has details !
Note the claws.
” An hour and twenty minutes in , Oswalt was feeling the weight of time : “ Who ’ s President ?
What ’ s a gallon of milk cost now ?
” He went on , “ Folks , you could have read a story to your child , done a puzzle , had a nice conversation with a friend .
You will flash back to this moment on your deathbed and curse yourself .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re up there !
So sorry !
This movie is so fuckin ’ bad !
’ ” Nelson produced Werner Herzog ’ s “ Encounters at the End of the World ” and was nominated for an Academy Award in 2009 ; certain that “ Man on Wire ” would win , he didn ’ t attend the ceremony .
Olson , too , is an Oscar nominee , for his adaptation of “ A History of Violence , ” a contender the same year that “ Brokeback Mountain ” won .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , when we were writing together and arguing , ‘ You are an Academy Award loser , ’ ” he said .
In the movie ’ s final scene , Frankie Fane is at the Academy Awards , up for Best Actor .
When Merle Oberon , as herself , announces the winner— “ Frank .
.
.
Sinatra ” —Fane begins clapping psychotically , his face a mask of bewilderment , a GIF in every frame .
Nelson said , “ We have to swear a blood oath that , the next @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , we ’ ll stand up and do the Frankie Fane clap.
” ♦

The Oscars: Hollywood’s proudest, most self-aggrandizing pageant, a prom and a graduation rolled into one. “The Oscar”: A 1966 film, with a script by the prolific science-fiction writer Harlan Ellison, depicting the sleazy machinations of a vapid, selfish actor to redeem himself by winning a golden statuette. The film, its cast packed with stars—Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Tony Bennett, Milton Berle, Ernest Borgnine, Joseph Cotten—some of them Oscar winners, was an overblown, A-list flop, a “Gigli” for the ages. In the Times, Bosley Crowther called it a “cheap, synthetic film which dumps filth upon the whole operation of Hollywood.” The Academy, which lent the film its logo and its blessing, apparently regretted it, and has not done so since.
For decades, the practically unwatchable film was largely unseeable, an unrestored embarrassment buried in the Paramount archives. “There’s a samizdat quality,” Erik Nelson, a filmmaker who made a documentary about Ellison, said. “Like ‘Fahrenheit 451,’ fans would be passing around copies and reciting the dialogue.” This Oscar week, an art-house distributor will release a remastered, wide-screen, HD version. “For us, it’s like finding the lost reels of ‘The Magnificent Ambersons’ or Erich von Stroheim’s nine-hour cut of ‘Greed,’ ” Nelson said. “Among comics, this film has a real resonance. There’s a level of complete and utter commitment: the actors are convinced they’re delivering Oscar-worthy material. Every scene is dialled to eleven.” He imagines a “Rocky Horror”-like cult future for “The Oscar.”
The narrator, Hymie Kelly (Tony Bennett), explains how his friend the movie star Frankie Fane (Stephen Boyd) has become addicted to success.
Several months ago, Nelson gathered with a few others who love to hate “The Oscar” at a house in the Hollywood Hills, to record commentary for the DVD. Establishing his bona fides, he said, “They film April 5, ’65—who’s a nerd?—at the Academy Awards at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, where ‘My Fair Lady’ is beating out ‘Dr. Strangelove’ for Best Picture and Rex Harrison beats Peter Sellers for Best Actor.”
The house belonged to Josh Olson, a screenwriter who collaborated with Ellison. “The Oscar” was Ellison’s first film, and he never managed to make another one. Patton Oswalt, the comedian, arrived, wearing brick-red shorts and a matching hoodie. He described attending a rare screening of “The Oscar” at the Egyptian Theatre in the early two-thousands: “When Harlan walked down the aisle to go onstage, he went down with both birds blazing, flipping off the audience the whole way.”
Ellison died in 2018. His widow, Susan, sat quietly in a swivel chair, sipping a margarita. “You could not mention ‘The Oscar’ around Harlan at all,” she said. “He took it so personally.” Susan—Ellison’s fifth wife— was married to him for thirty-two years. He once gave her a birthday gift of a color-pencil drawing done of Elke Sommer by Edith Head. (Head, who designed the costumes for “The Oscar,” also appeared in it; Sommer was one of the movie’s stars.) Recently, working with an archivist, Susan discovered her husband’s original three-hundred-and-forty-four-page script. Nelson had already committed most of it to memory.
The men got miked, and “The Oscar,” projected onto a large screen in Olson’s living room, began to roll. “Ladies and gentlemen, the star of ‘The Oscar,’ the great Stephen Boyd,” Nelson said. Boyd, as the soulless, amoral actor Frankie Fane, ditches his stripper girlfriend, played by Jill St. John, for Sommer, whom he later spurns. Oswalt put in a good word for Boyd, who played the antagonist to Charlton Heston’s Ben-Hur in the William Wyler film. “He gets a lifetime pass for conspiring with Gore Vidal behind Heston’s back to make Ben-Hur’s backstory gay,” Oswalt said.
Frankie Fane flirts with the fashion designer Kay Bergdahl (Elke Sommer) at a party.
St. John appeared in a tiger-striped bikini and long, claw-tipped gloves. “She made out with Henry Kissinger,” Oswalt said, appreciatively. “This is like looking at a new Zapruder print,” Nelson said. “It has details! Note the claws.” An hour and twenty minutes in, Oswalt was feeling the weight of time: “Who’s President? What’s a gallon of milk cost now?” He went on, “Folks, you could have read a story to your child, done a puzzle, had a nice conversation with a friend. You will flash back to this moment on your deathbed and curse yourself. ‘Harlan, Harlan, if you’re up there! So sorry! This movie is so fuckin’ bad!’ ”
Nelson produced Werner Herzog’s “Encounters at the End of the World,” which was nominated for an Academy Award in 2009; certain that “Man on Wire” would win, he didn’t attend the ceremony. Olson, too, is an Oscar nominee, for his adaptation of “A History of Violence,” a contender the same year that “Brokeback Mountain” won. “As Harlan was fond of saying, when we were writing together and arguing, ‘You are an Academy Award loser,’ ” he said.
In the movie’s final scene, Frankie Fane is at the Academy Awards, up for Best Actor. When Merle Oberon, as herself, announces the winner—“Frank . . . Sinatra”—Fane begins clapping psychotically, his face a mask of bewilderment, a GIF in every frame.
Nelson said, “We have to swear a blood oath that, the next time we all lose at the Oscars, we’ll stand up and do the Frankie Fane clap.” ♦
An earlier version of this article mistakenly credited Erik Nelson with an Academy Award.