newyorker--2020-11-06--Trump Gives New York City Another Reason to Protest

On Wednesday night , as Joe Biden closed in on President Donald Trump in battleground states such as Georgia and Pennsylvania , several hundred people milled around the fountain in Washington Square Park , in Greenwich Village .
The scene was not a jubilant street party , like those that took place in Harlem , in 2008 , after Barack Obama ’ s election , nor was it a burst of outrage , like in 2016 , when thousands of civilians swarmed Trump Tower , in midtown .
Rather , it was a kind of resistance family gathering .
Many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the New York Public Library , in a march organized by a coalition called Protect the Results .
( The group had formed , in June , in anticipation of Trump challenging the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election . )
The protesters wore T-shirts repping their memberships in organizations such as the Sunrise Movement , the Working Families Party , and the Democratic Socialists of America .
Many carried signs with the message “ Every Vote Counts/Count Every Vote.
” Others held up signs that read “ Jews Against Fascism , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and “ I ’ m Ready to Start Protesting Biden !
” “ The protest movement has certainly lost its steam since the summer , ” Christian Resseguie , a labor-and-employment lawyer in an orange sweatshirt , said .
But Trump had revived the movement—at least for one more night—with his frantic attempts to undermine the election .
Throughout the day , the President had been accusing states of election fraud .
( “ They are finding Biden votes all over the place—in Pennsylvania , Wisconsin , and Michigan , ” he tweeted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against the Board of Elections in Chatham County , Georgia .
And his supporters had descended on ballot-tallying stations in states where the President maintained a lead , yelling , “ Stop the count !
” “ We ’ re seeing him do exactly what we said he ’ d do—try to steal the election through voter suppression , ” Resseguie said .
“ At the end of the day , it needs to be every city and every town marching .
New York , for better or worse , sets an example @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In a few hours , the protest would turn violent .
The march would continue into other parts of Manhattan , and protesters would clash with the N.Y.P.D .
More than fifty people would be arrested ; activists later tweeted videos of officers in riot gear “ kettling ” demonstrators before tackling them to the ground .
The New York Post spotted protestors setting garbage fires and telling diners at Jeffrey ’ s Grocery , “ Fuck your dinner !
” But , at 7 p.m. , in the park , the atmosphere @ @ @ @ @ @ @ limited , aside from a few helicopters hovering overhead .
Venders circulated the area , selling Biden-Harris buttons and face masks , which no one seemed to buy .
A few members of the Flatbush chapter of New York Communities for Change chanted , “ Hey , hey !
Ho , ho !
Donald Trump has got to go !
” People kept checking their phones , to keep up with the news .
A trio of middle-aged protesters in matching face masks that read “ Socially distanced/Politically active ” repeated a rumor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gone blue , and received high-fives from the other demonstrators .
“ I ’ m on three hours ’ sleep , ” Mike Hisey , a member of the trio , said .
He had stayed up late the previous night to watch the election results trickle in , heading to bed just after Trump ’ s White House speech , in which the President preëmptively claimed victory .
The speech wasn ’ t a surprise , Hisey said , “ but that doesn ’ t make it any less horrible.
” He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Walker , the co-chairs of a political-advocacy group called Equality NY , which is focussed on advancing L.G.B.T.Q .
rights and “ general equality ” in New York State politics .
The two women are veterans of the AIDS campaign , the fight for gay marriage , and reproductive-rights bills in the state senate .
“ Activism is in our blood , ” Marino-Thomas said .
But , even though they had gone out that night to “ protect the vote , ” she said , they had also come to the protest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ need solidarity in this moment of being unsure , ” she continued .
“ They need to feel together.
” Hisey pointed out two young men circling the protesters and filming the event : .
“ Breitbart !
” he yelled .
“ They ’ re everywhere we go , ” Marino-Thomas said , sighing .
“ Mike always finds them.
” ( “ They try to bait you , ” Hisey explained , “ so that they can put it on their stupid Web site.
” ) On the other side of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about the city overspending on the N.Y.P.D .
and the injustices of unfettered capitalism .
“ Can Biden fucking fix this ?
” one speaker asked .
“ Fuck , no !
” She called for a “ die-in , ” to commemorate the lives lost to COVID-19 , and about fifty people lay on the ground .
Many listened attentively at the periphery .
Mark Moodi , a retired sanitation worker , had come down from Harlem for the event .
He said that he was moved by the diversity of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is it runs the gamut of different cultures , ages , races.
” He had been uninvolved with politics until Trump was elected .
“ There ’ s been so much fascism , so much racism , ” he said .
“ Another four years of Trump—I ’ d probably leave the country.
” Resseguie , the lawyer , is a member of Refuse Fascism , a group that formed in the wake of the 2016 election .
What might the resistance look like post-Trump ?
“ If there ’ s a Joe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pursue racial justice , we ’ ll be protesting , ” Resseguie said , simply .
“ We have so much work to do , ” Marino-Thomas said .
“ We ’ ve seen now that it wasn ’ t a mistake in 2016 .
People did it on purpose .
They voted for a misogynistic , homophobic , racist , fascist—you name it .
They voted for him outright .
So , whether he wins or not , we have a lot of work in this country.
” Also , Hisey said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We still have Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham.
” Rose Jacobs , a twenty-one-year-old political-science major at Columbia , sat near the fountain .
Along with many young people in the U.S. , she said , she ’ d begun to question whether the country ’ s political system is truly democratic or sustainable .
“ The fact that I have to be out here today protesting , to make sure that every vote counts in our supposedly democractic system , is terrifying to me , ” she explained .
“ I shouldn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ minimum .
I should be protesting for Breonna Taylor .
I should be protesting for George Floyd .
I should be protesting for a higher minimum wage or Medicare for All.
” Still , she went on , it was vital to show up .
“ We ’ ve seen in countries like Bolivia the importance that mass movements can have .
It ’ s important to use every single tool in our toolbox to fight for the changes that we seek .
Because , if I don ’ t fight , who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ comes crumbling down ?
” “ Wow , ” a woman standing next to her said .
“ That was really good.
” Jacobs smiled .
She is hoping to one day work in electoral politics .
Read More About the 2020 Election • Live election results : see the latest updates from the Presidential , Senate , House , and gubernatorial races .
• Biden may win , but Trump will remain the President of Red America .
• What happens if Trump fights the election results ?
• Early results suggest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ close , with no major realignment .
The Midwest holds the key for Biden .
• The disbelief and horror of Election Night were captured by a Russian poet in 1933 .
• Trump has survived impeachment , twenty-six sexual-misconduct accusations , and thousands of lawsuits .
His luck may well end if Joe Biden wins .
• Here is what you can do if Trump stages a coup .
• Sign up for our daily newsletter for insight and analysis from our reporters and columnists .

On Wednesday night, as Joe Biden closed in on President Donald Trump in battleground states such as Georgia and Pennsylvania, several hundred people milled around the fountain in Washington Square Park, in Greenwich Village. The scene was not a jubilant street party, like those that took place in Harlem, in 2008, after Barack Obama’s election, nor was it a burst of outrage, like in 2016, when thousands of civilians swarmed Trump Tower, in midtown. Rather, it was a kind of resistance family gathering. Many people in the park had walked downtown from the New York Public Library, in a march organized by a coalition called Protect the Results. (The group had formed, in June, in anticipation of Trump challenging the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election.) The protesters wore T-shirts repping their memberships in organizations such as the Sunrise Movement, the Working Families Party, and the Democratic Socialists of America. Many carried signs with the message “Every Vote Counts/Count Every Vote.” Others held up signs that read “Jews Against Fascism,” “Gay Liberation Front,” and “I’m Ready to Start Protesting Biden!”
“The protest movement has certainly lost its steam since the summer,” Christian Resseguie, a labor-and-employment lawyer in an orange sweatshirt, said. But Trump had revived the movement—at least for one more night—with his frantic attempts to undermine the election. Throughout the day, the President had been accusing states of election fraud. (“They are finding Biden votes all over the place—in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan,” he tweeted.) He had filed a lawsuit against the Board of Elections in Chatham County, Georgia. And his supporters had descended on ballot-tallying stations in states where the President maintained a lead, yelling, “Stop the count!”
“We’re seeing him do exactly what we said he’d do—try to steal the election through voter suppression,” Resseguie said. “At the end of the day, it needs to be every city and every town marching. New York, for better or worse, sets an example. People notice what we do.”
In a few hours, the protest would turn violent. The march would continue into other parts of Manhattan, and protesters would clash with the N.Y.P.D. More than fifty people would be arrested; activists later tweeted videos of officers in riot gear “kettling” demonstrators before tackling them to the ground. The New York Post spotted protestors setting garbage fires and telling diners at Jeffrey’s Grocery, “Fuck your dinner!”
But, at 7 p.m., in the park, the atmosphere was subdued. The police presence was limited, aside from a few helicopters hovering overhead. Venders circulated the area, selling Biden-Harris buttons and face masks, which no one seemed to buy. A few members of the Flatbush chapter of New York Communities for Change chanted, “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Donald Trump has got to go!” People kept checking their phones, to keep up with the news. A trio of middle-aged protesters in matching face masks that read “Socially distanced/Politically active” repeated a rumor spreading through the crowd that Arizona had gone blue, and received high-fives from the other demonstrators.
“I’m on three hours’ sleep,” Mike Hisey, a member of the trio, said. He had stayed up late the previous night to watch the election results trickle in, heading to bed just after Trump’s White House speech, in which the President preëmptively claimed victory. The speech wasn’t a surprise, Hisey said, “but that doesn’t make it any less horrible.” He was accompanied by Cathy Marino-Thomas and Tanya Walker, the co-chairs of a political-advocacy group called Equality NY, which is focussed on advancing L.G.B.T.Q. rights and “general equality” in New York State politics. The two women are veterans of the AIDS campaign, the fight for gay marriage, and reproductive-rights bills in the state senate.
“Activism is in our blood,” Marino-Thomas said. But, even though they had gone out that night to “protect the vote,” she said, they had also come to the protest for companionship. “I think people need solidarity in this moment of being unsure,” she continued. “They need to feel together.”
Hisey pointed out two young men circling the protesters and filming the event: “Breitbart!” he yelled.
“They’re everywhere we go,” Marino-Thomas said, sighing. “Mike always finds them.” (“They try to bait you,” Hisey explained, “so that they can put it on their stupid Web site.”)
On the other side of the fountain, protesters gave impassioned speeches about the city overspending on the N.Y.P.D. and the injustices of unfettered capitalism. “Can Biden fucking fix this?” one speaker asked. “Fuck, no!” She called for a “die-in,” to commemorate the lives lost to COVID-19, and about fifty people lay on the ground.
Many listened attentively at the periphery. Mark Moodi, a retired sanitation worker, had come down from Harlem for the event. He said that he was moved by the diversity of the crowd: “What’s beautiful is it runs the gamut of different cultures, ages, races.” He had been uninvolved with politics until Trump was elected. “There’s been so much fascism, so much racism,” he said. “Another four years of Trump—I’d probably leave the country.”
Resseguie, the lawyer, is a member of Refuse Fascism, a group that formed in the wake of the 2016 election. What might the resistance look like post-Trump? “If there’s a Joe Biden Presidency and he doesn’t pursue racial justice, we’ll be protesting,” Resseguie said.
“We have so much work to do,” Marino-Thomas said. “We’ve seen now that it wasn’t a mistake in 2016. People did it on purpose. They voted for a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, fascist—you name it. They voted for him outright. So, whether he wins or not, we have a lot of work in this country.”
Also, Hisey said, even if Biden wins, “We still have Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham.”
Rose Jacobs, a twenty-one-year-old political-science major at Columbia, stood near the fountain. Along with many young people in the U.S., she said, she’d begun to question whether the country’s political system is truly democratic or sustainable. “The fact that I have to be out here today protesting, to make sure that every vote counts in our supposedly democractic system, is terrifying to me,” she explained. “I shouldn’t be protesting for the bare minimum. I should be protesting for Breonna Taylor. I should be protesting for George Floyd. I should be protesting for a higher minimum wage or Medicare for All.” Still, she went on, it was vital to show up. “We’ve seen in countries like Bolivia the importance that mass movements can have. It’s important to use every single tool in our toolbox to fight for the changes that we seek. Because, if I don’t fight, who am I to complain when it all comes crumbling down?”
“Wow,” a woman standing next to her said. “That was really good.”
Jacobs smiled. She is hoping to one day work in electoral politics.
Read More About the 2020 Election


newyorker--2020-11-06--The Count Continues, Despite Trump’s False Claims

Much of Thursday—day three of what is fast becoming Election Week—was quiet .
There were no mass protests , and , though Donald Trump ’ s campaign sent lawyers into courtrooms and surrogates before television cameras to challenge aspects of the vote-counting process , their critiques mostly failed to register : a Trump-campaign street-corner press conference in Philadelphia was drowned out by opponents blasting Beyoncé ’ s “ Party.
” The real action—the sorting , the tabulation—took place inside vote-counting centers in Arizona , Georgia , Nevada , North Carolina , Alaska , and , perhaps above all , Pennsylvania @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The mail-in ballots , generally the last to be counted , continued to deliver large margins for Joe Biden , and , although he did not yet lead in most of the counts , he was on a clear path to victory .
Across the country , sharp differences emerged in the partisan composition of the mail-in and Election Day ballots , presumably because Democrats urged their supporters to vote by mail , in order to limit the spread of the coronavirus , whereas Republicans , who have taken a more laissez-faire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In Pennsylvania , Biden was getting three-fourths of the mail votes , and Trump was getting two-thirds of the precinct votes .
The looming uncertainty of the day was how long it would take for each state to be called , which was mostly a math problem , involving how many outstanding votes there were of each type and the size of the margin between the candidates .
That ’ s not to say it wasn ’ t complicated .
On Wednesday , Fox News and the Associated Press called Arizona for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hundred and sixty-four electoral votes , just six shy of the two hundred and seventy needed for victory .
But other networks had declined to join them—largely , it seemed , because it remained unclear what types of ballots remained to be counted .
( On Thursday morning , the Trump campaign sent out a petulant press release attacking a man named Arnon Mishkin , who runs Fox News ’ s decision desk : “ Why would Mishkin put his finger on the scale for Joe Biden before so many votes are counted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) In other states , the count was trending toward Biden .
On Thursday afternoon , Biden maintained a very small lead in Nevada , of about eleven thousand votes , but the ballots that were being counted were strengthening his position .
Most of the rural vote was in , and more than ninety per cent of uncounted ballots came from Clark County , home to the Democratic stronghold of Las Vegas .
At 1:15 p.m. on the East Coast , Jon Ralston , the most prominent political reporter in Nevada , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ left for Trump here.
” In Georgia , what had been a large Trump lead was slowly , steadily diminishing , as final mail-in ballots were counted .
The modellers suggested that it was likely to be extremely close , with a margin of less than half a point , which would trigger an automatic recount .
Georgia ’ s deputy secretary of state told the Associated Press that the margin could be within a thousand votes .
But the count was most dramatic in Pennsylvania , where Trump had once had a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tip the Presidency to Biden .
Noting the huge margins for Biden among the mail-in votes , Dave Wasserman , of the Cook Political Report and NBC News , tweeted , “ PA is the ballgame , but at continued rates like these it wouldn ’ t be much of one.
” The slow drip of these results emphasized how surprisingly steady and unbothered the past few days have been .
In Philadelphia and other cities , officials were preparing for the arrival of armed pro-Trump agitators , and in Washington and New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in case of unrest after a disputed election .
But , two days after an unresolved vote , the country has been calm .
Television crews , starved for dramatic images , have settled for bureaucratic ones , of election administrators sitting at long tables , masked and socially distanced , carefully , quietly sorting and counting ballots .
Whose hands is this country in ?
Those of the voters and the elected officials .
But also , in some reassuring sense , in those of the middle management .
Fox News @ @ @ @ @ @ @ division , who have played it admirably straight on air .
Republican officials , summoned before cameras , kept saying that the count should continue .
Shortly before 4 p.m. , as the light began to dim on the East Coast , Donald Trump , Jr. , tweeted , in exasperation , “ The total lack of action from virtually all of the ‘ 2024 GOP hopefuls ’ is pretty amazing .
They have a perfect platform to show that they ’ re willing and able to fight but they will cower to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t worry , @ realdonaldtrump will fight and they can sit and watch as usual !
” Fighting meant a news conference , at the White House just after six-thirty , where Trump was blustery but flailing .
He said , “ If you count the legal votes , I easily win .
If you count the illegal votes , they can try to steal the election from us.
” His lead , he insisted , was being “ whittled away in secret.
” An anonymous Trump campaign adviser had told CNN ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an “ act of God ” to turn the election the President ’ s way ; as Trump spoke , his Georgia lead dropped to less than four thousand votes .
Kathy Boockvar , the Pennsylvania Secretary of State , told CNN in the afternoon that she expected the “ overwhelming majority ” of the remaining ballots ( there had been five hundred and fifty thousand at the beginning of the day ) to be counted by the evening—well ahead of schedule .
Could this be the end ?
It was hard to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the bureaucrats have a schedule of their own .
Read More About the 2020 Election • Live election results : see the latest updates from the Presidential , Senate , House , and gubernatorial races .
• Biden may win , but Trump will remain the President of Red America .
• What happens if Trump fights the election results ?
• Early results suggest that the Electoral College race will be close , with no major realignment .
The Midwest holds the key for Biden .
• The disbelief and horror of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ poet in 1933 .
• Trump has survived impeachment , twenty-six sexual-misconduct accusations , and thousands of lawsuits .
His luck may well end if Joe Biden wins .
• Here is what you can do if Trump stages a coup .
• Sign up for our daily newsletter for insight and analysis from our reporters and columnists .

On Thursday, sharp differences emerged in the partisan composition of mail-in and Election Day ballots. Photograph by Morgan Levy for The New Yorker
Much of Thursday—day three of what is fast becoming Election Week—was quiet. There were no mass protests, and, though Donald Trump’s campaign sent lawyers into courtrooms and surrogates before television cameras to challenge aspects of the vote-counting process, their critiques mostly failed to register: a Trump-campaign street-corner press conference in Philadelphia was drowned out by opponents blasting Beyoncé’s “Party.” The real action—the sorting, the tabulation—took place inside vote-counting centers in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Alaska, and, perhaps above all, Pennsylvania. There, the story was clear. The mail-in ballots, generally the last to be counted, continued to deliver large margins for Joe Biden, and, although he did not yet lead in most of the counts, he was on a clear path to victory.
Across the country, sharp differences emerged in the partisan composition of the mail-in and Election Day ballots, presumably because Democrats urged their supporters to vote by mail, in order to limit the spread of the coronavirus, whereas Republicans, who have taken a more laissez-faire approach to the pandemic, did not. In Pennsylvania, Biden was getting three-fourths of the mail votes, and Trump was getting two-thirds of the precinct votes. The looming uncertainty of the day was how long it would take for each state to be called, which was mostly a math problem, involving how many outstanding votes there were of each type and the size of the margin between the candidates. That’s not to say it wasn’t complicated. On Wednesday, Fox News and the Associated Press called Arizona for Biden, which would give him two hundred and sixty-four electoral votes, just six shy of the two hundred and seventy needed for victory. But other networks had declined to join them—largely, it seemed, because it remained unclear what types of ballots remained to be counted. (On Thursday morning, the Trump campaign sent out a petulant press release attacking a man named Arnon Mishkin, who runs Fox News’s decision desk: “Why would Mishkin put his finger on the scale for Joe Biden before so many votes are counted? Mishkin is a registered Democrat.”)
In other states, the count was trending toward Biden. On Thursday afternoon, Biden maintained a very small lead in Nevada, of about eleven thousand votes, but the ballots that were being counted were strengthening his position. Most of the rural vote was in, and more than ninety per cent of uncounted ballots came from Clark County, home to the Democratic stronghold of Las Vegas. At 1:15 p.m. on the East Coast, Jon Ralston, the most prominent political reporter in Nevada, tweeted, “I see no path left for Trump here.” In Georgia, what had been a large Trump lead was slowly, steadily diminishing, as final mail-in ballots were counted. The modellers suggested that it was likely to be extremely close, with a margin of less than half a point, which would trigger an automatic recount. Georgia’s deputy secretary of state told the Associated Press that the margin could be within a thousand votes. But the count was most dramatic in Pennsylvania, where Trump had once had a formidable lead, and which could well tip the Presidency to Biden. Noting the huge margins for Biden among the mail-in votes, Dave Wasserman, of the Cook Political Report and NBC News, tweeted, “PA is the ballgame, but at continued rates like these it wouldn’t be much of one.”
The slow drip of these results emphasized how surprisingly steady and unbothered the past few days have been. In Philadelphia and other cities, officials were preparing for the arrival of armed pro-Trump agitators, and in Washington and New York some store windows were boarded up, in case of unrest after a disputed election. But, two days after an unresolved vote, the country has been calm. Television crews, starved for dramatic images, have settled for bureaucratic ones, of election administrators sitting at long tables, masked and socially distanced, carefully, quietly sorting and counting ballots. Whose hands is this country in? Those of the voters and the elected officials. But also, in some reassuring sense, in those of the middle management. Fox News was in the hands of its news division, who have played it admirably straight on air. Republican officials, summoned before cameras, kept saying that the count should continue. Shortly before 4 p.m., as the light began to dim on the East Coast, Donald Trump, Jr., tweeted, in exasperation, “The total lack of action from virtually all of the ‘2024 GOP hopefuls’ is pretty amazing. They have a perfect platform to show that they’re willing and able to fight but they will cower to the media mob instead. Don’t worry, @realdonaldtrump will fight and they can sit and watch as usual!”
Fighting meant a news conference, at the White House just after six-thirty, where Trump was blustery but flailing. He said, “If you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us.” His lead, he insisted, was being “whittled away in secret.” An anonymous Trump campaign adviser had told CNN’s Jim Acosta that it would take an “act of God” to turn the election the President’s way; as Trump spoke, his Georgia lead dropped to less than four thousand votes. Kathy Boockvar, the Pennsylvania Secretary of State, told CNN in the afternoon that she expected the “overwhelming majority” of the remaining ballots (there had been five hundred and fifty thousand at the beginning of the day) to be counted by the evening—well ahead of schedule. Could this be the end? It was hard to believe. Whatever Trump might say, the bureaucrats have a schedule of their own.
Read More About the 2020 Election


newyorker--2020-11-06--What Black History Should Already Have Taught Us About the Fragility of American Democracy

As the rites of settling the 2020 Presidential election stretched past Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning , the weary analysts on cable news began sounding a similar theme .
The Presidency would be decided not simply by a handful of swing states but by a small grouping of districts within those states .
That responsibility fell largely to Milwaukee , Detroit , Philadelphia , and Atlanta—places with disproportionately Black and Democratic voting populations .
Two of the four cities , Philadelphia and Atlanta , experienced high-profile shootings of Black men by police in the months leading up to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is just forty miles north of Kenosha , Wisconsin , where a third such incident took place .
“ Democracy is on the ballot , ” we have heard ceaselessly since the beginning of the Presidential primary season .
The nation could not come back , many warned repeatedly , from a second term under Donald Trump .
The fact that a congenitally moderate figure such as Joe Biden could draw this conclusion gave ballast to an idea that many people have recognized from the moment that Trump ’ s 2016 campaign began @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an existential threat to the nation ’ s democratic traditions .
And , if this is true , it also means that , to a great degree , the future of American democracy hinges on the actions of Black people living in places that this system has consistently failed .
This year marks the centennial of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment and the hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment .
Between them , the two acts enshrined the franchise for women and for Black men—an expansion of the compact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ given that , in this election , Black women , a population that required two Constitutional amendments and the Voting Rights Act to gain the franchise , have voted for Biden at a rate of ninety-one per cent .
The Nineteenth Amendment , which came in the midst of Progressive Era reforms to American society , was the yield of an interracial movement that pushed for suffrage as a fundamental right of citizenship—and its significance has been rightly commemorated this year .
But the animating principles of the Fifteenth Amendment have gone comparatively @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an audacious Republican plan to create a new—and , likely , Republican—Black electorate to counterbalance the white , mostly Democratic voting bloc in the South .
In 1860 , Southern Democrats , flush with the disproportionate power granted to them by the Electoral College , had torn the Union in half and instigated four years of bloody internecine warfare .
Mindful of this history , in December , 1868 , Senator Aaron Cragin , of New Hampshire , and Representative William Kelley , of Pennsylvania , introduced drafts of what eventually became the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be a bulwark against a similar regime arising to again threaten national unity—which is to say that people who had scarcely ever experienced democracy were now among its chief safeguards .
The lynching campaigns and terrorism that disenfranchised Black people in the South in the decades that followed weren ’ t only an expression of racism , though they were very much that ; they were an attack on the mechanisms that were put in place to inhibit one of the nation ’ s worst habits : a gleeful expression of defiance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ uphold democracy .
The symmetry of the two moments , then and now , is nearly too heavy-handed to be believed .
But here we stand , a century and a half later , biting nails and trading Internet memes about which OutKast song best describes the undeterred tide of Black voters in Fulton County , Georgia—part of the late John Lewis ’ s district—whom , it had been hoped , would deliver the state to Biden and put the election in the history books .
On Tuesday night , in an overt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tweeted that the ongoing tallying of votes was a “ fraud ” and an attempt to steal the election from him .
The next day , the Administration filed suit to prevent the counting of votes in Michigan and Pennsylvania , a move that echoed the lawsuit filed by Texas Republicans to throw out a hundred and twenty-seven thousand votes in Harris County , Texas , which happens to be among the most ethnically diverse counties in the country .
Two weeks ago , F.B.I .
agents showed up at the homes of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ founders of the Black Lives Matter movement , and informed them that their names were on what appeared to be a hit list that was discovered during the arrest of a suspected white supremacist in Idaho .
Garza tweeted , in response , “ This is why this President is so dangerous .
He is stoking fires he has no intention of controlling.
” Later that week , the journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones noted that antagonism toward the New York Times Magazine ’ s “ 1619 Project ” —which she oversaw and which has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is foundational to the United States—had become so intense that she received threats that her and her mother ’ s homes would be burned to the ground .
The injustice here is not simply the fact that three Black women were given cause to fear for their safety for having done work intended to further the cause of democracy but that such work falls so disproportionately to them in the first place .
The parameters of American democracy correlate neatly with the parameters of the nation ’ s racial hypocrisy .
This is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ why , for instance , a large part of Russian disinformation during the 2016 election sought to exacerbate racial divisions within the country .
From the time of the abolitionists , the attempt to point out the fault lines in our democracy—for all our good—has been greeted with violent hostility .
But our commitment to democracy was never as unblemished as our national vanity supposed , and our institutions were always more vulnerable to the kinds of corruption that Trump has enacted with astonishing speed .
And America ’ s margins have often @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to survey the weaknesses .
To be Black in the first week of November , 2020 , is to yet again have the feeling of being called off the bench and being told that the whole game is riding on you .
Trump is a dangerous man , but he is not nearly as dangerous as the history that animates him .
He has retained the allegiance of more than sixty million voters , despite a shattered economy and the deaths of nearly a quarter million American victims of COVID-19 .
He still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Biden ’ s proposition about how much of him democracy can withstand might yet be put to the test .
“ Either the United States will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States , ” W. E. B .
Du Bois said , in a speech to the Niagara Movement .
The enduring value of the history that Black people have amassed is to facilitate the former proposition .
But it is particularly hard , this week , to not look around and suspect that ignorance still has more than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ title .
Read More About the 2020 Election • Live election results : see the latest updates from the Presidential , Senate , House , and gubernatorial races .
• Biden may win , but Trump will remain the President of Red America .
• What happens if Trump fights the election results ?
• Early results suggest that the Electoral College race will be close , with no major realignment .
The Midwest holds the key for Biden .
• The disbelief and horror of Election Night was captured by a Russian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ survived impeachment , twenty-six sexual-misconduct accusations , and thousands of lawsuits .
His luck may well end if Joe Biden wins .
• Here is what you can do if Trump stages a coup .
• Sign up for our daily newsletter for insight and analysis from our reporters and columnists .

As the rites of settling the 2020 Presidential election stretched past Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning, the weary analysts on cable news began sounding a similar theme. The Presidency would be decided not simply by a handful of swing states but by a small grouping of districts within those states. That responsibility fell largely to Milwaukee, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Atlanta—places with disproportionately Black and Democratic voting populations. Two of the four cities, Philadelphia and Atlanta, experienced high-profile shootings of Black men by police in the months leading up to the election; a third, Milwaukee, is just forty miles north of Kenosha, Wisconsin, where a third such incident took place. “Democracy is on the ballot,” we have heard ceaselessly since the beginning of the Presidential primary season. The nation could not come back, many warned repeatedly, from a second term under Donald Trump. The fact that a congenitally moderate figure such as Joe Biden could draw this conclusion gave ballast to an idea that many people have recognized from the moment that Trump’s 2016 campaign began to gather momentum: that he represents an existential threat to the nation’s democratic traditions. And, if this is true, it also means that, to a great degree, the future of American democracy hinges on the actions of Black people living in places that this system has consistently failed.
This year marks the centennial of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment and the hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment. Between them, the two acts enshrined the franchise for women and for Black men—an expansion of the compact of democracy that seems even more notable given that, in this election, Black women, a population that required two Constitutional amendments and the Voting Rights Act to gain the franchise, have voted for Biden at a rate of ninety-one per cent. The Nineteenth Amendment, which came in the midst of Progressive Era reforms to American society, was the yield of an interracial movement that pushed for suffrage as a fundamental right of citizenship—and its significance has been rightly commemorated this year. But the animating principles of the Fifteenth Amendment have gone comparatively unnoticed. The Amendment was part of an audacious Republican plan to create a new—and, likely, Republican—Black electorate to counterbalance the white, mostly Democratic voting bloc in the South. In 1860, Southern Democrats, flush with the disproportionate power granted to them by the Electoral College, had torn the Union in half and instigated four years of bloody internecine warfare. Mindful of this history, in December, 1868, Senator Aaron Cragin, of New Hampshire, and Representative William Kelley, of Pennsylvania, introduced drafts of what eventually became the Fifteenth Amendment. Black voters were meant to be a bulwark against a similar regime arising to again threaten national unity—which is to say that people who had scarcely ever experienced democracy were now among its chief safeguards. The lynching campaigns and terrorism that disenfranchised Black people in the South in the decades that followed weren’t only an expression of racism, though they were very much that; they were an attack on the mechanisms that were put in place to inhibit one of the nation’s worst habits: a gleeful expression of defiance toward a government that dared try to uphold democracy.
The symmetry of the two moments, then and now, is nearly too heavy-handed to be believed. But here we stand, a century and a half later, biting nails and trading Internet memes about which OutKast song best describes the undeterred tide of Black voters in Fulton County, Georgia—part of the late John Lewis’s district—who, it had been hoped, would deliver the state to Biden and put the election in the history books. On Tuesday night, in an overt attempt at voter suppression, the President tweeted that the ongoing tallying of votes was a “fraud” and an attempt to steal the election from him. The next day, the Administration filed suit to prevent the counting of votes in Michigan and Pennsylvania, a move that echoed the lawsuit filed by Texas Republicans to throw out a hundred and twenty-seven thousand votes in Harris County, Texas, which happens to be among the most ethnically diverse counties in the country.
Two weeks ago, F.B.I. agents showed up at the homes of Alicia Garza and Patrisse Cullors, two founders of the Black Lives Matter movement, and informed them that their names were on what appeared to be a hit list that was discovered during the arrest of a suspected white supremacist in Idaho. Garza tweeted, in response, “This is why this President is so dangerous. He is stoking fires he has no intention of controlling.” Later that week, the journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones noted that antagonism toward the New York Times Magazine’s “1619 Project”—which she oversaw and which has been widely assailed for asserting that racism is foundational to the United States—had become so intense that she received threats that her and her mother’s homes would be burned to the ground. The injustice here is not simply the fact that three Black women were given cause to fear for their safety for having done work intended to further the cause of democracy but that such work falls so disproportionately to them in the first place.
The parameters of American democracy correlate neatly with the parameters of the nation’s racial hypocrisy. This is not a secret; it helps explain why, for instance, a large part of Russian disinformation during the 2016 election sought to exacerbate racial divisions within the country. From the time of the abolitionists, the attempt to point out the fault lines in our democracy—for all our good—has been greeted with violent hostility. But our commitment to democracy was never as unblemished as our national vanity supposed, and our institutions were always more vulnerable to the kinds of corruption that Trump has enacted with astonishing speed. And America’s margins have often been the best vantage point from which to survey the weaknesses.
To be Black in the first week of November, 2020, is to yet again have the feeling of being called off the bench and being told that the whole game is riding on you. Trump is a dangerous man, but he is not nearly as dangerous as the history that animates him. He has retained the allegiance of more than sixty million voters, despite a shattered economy and the deaths of nearly a quarter million American victims of COVID-19. He still has a chance to be reëlected, and Biden’s proposition about how much of him democracy can withstand might yet be put to the test. “Either the United States will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States,” W. E. B. Du Bois said, in a speech to the Niagara Movement. The enduring value of the history that Black people have amassed is to facilitate the former proposition. But it is particularly hard, this week, to not look around and suspect that ignorance still has more than a puncher’s chance at the title.
Read More About the 2020 Election


newyorker--2020-11-05--Trump Defends Lawsuits: “No One Knows More About Fraud Than Me”

WASHINGTON ( The Borowitz Report ) —Donald J. Trump offered a full-throated defense of his election-related lawsuits on Thursday , @ @ @ @ @ knows more about fraud than me.
” Trump ridiculed television commentators who have dismissed his @ @ @ @ @ claiming that he has “ much more experience in fraud than all of these beauties @ @ @ @ @ forget that , right when I became President , I settled a twenty-five-million-dollar fraud case @ @ @ @ @ said .
“ You can ’ t beat hands-on experience like that.
” “ For @ @ @ @ @ have been drenched in fraud , ” he said .
Trump said that , when @ @ @ @ @ in court , his special expertise will win the day .
“ Fraud is my @ @ @ @ @ boasted .

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Donald J. Trump offered a full-throated defense of his election-related lawsuits on Thursday, arguing, “No one knows more about fraud than me.”
Trump ridiculed television commentators who have dismissed his accusations of election fraud, claiming that he has “much more experience in fraud than all of these beauties put together.”
“People forget that, right when I became President, I settled a twenty-five-million-dollar fraud case against me,” he said. “You can’t beat hands-on experience like that.”
“For my entire life, I have been drenched in fraud,” he said.
Trump said that, when his election lawsuits are argued in court, his special expertise will win the day. “Fraud is my middle name,” he boasted.


newyorker--2020-11-05--The Agonizing Election of 2020

The Agonizing Election of 2020

In the weeks before Election Day , Joe Biden was polling strongly in Florida and Texas , and Donald Trump @ @ @ @ @ foundering as the pandemic grew steadily worse .
But the President did well in traditionally @ @ @ @ @ as the votes were counted , excited talk of a “ Blue Wave ” was @ @ @ @ @ a “ Blue Wall ” in the Midwestern battleground states could enable Biden to eke @ @ @ @ @ Cobb , Jane Mayer , and Evan Osnos join Dorothy Wickenden to discuss what to @ @ @ @ @ confront the difficulties of governing an ever more deeply divided country .

Download a transcript.|||
Photograph by Stefani Reynolds / Bloomberg / Getty
In the weeks before Election Day, Joe Biden was polling strongly in Florida and Texas, and Donald Trump’s approval rating was foundering as the pandemic grew steadily worse. But the President did well in traditionally red states, and, as the votes were counted, excited talk of a “Blue Wave” was replaced by speculation about whether a “Blue Wall” in the Midwestern battleground states could enable Biden to eke out a victory. Jelani Cobb, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos join Dorothy Wickenden to discuss what to expect as the two parties confront the difficulties of governing an ever more deeply divided country.


newyorker--2020-11-05--What Happened to the Down-Ballot Blue Wave?

In January , Abby Finkenauer , the freshman representative from Iowa ’ s First Congressional District , endorsed Joe Biden ’ s bid to become the Democratic Party ’ s Presidential nominee .
It seemed like a magnanimous act on her part .
Finkenauer , a Democrat , had flipped her eastern Iowa district two years earlier , at the age of twenty-nine , and helped Democrats to retake the House .
She was the first member of Congress from Iowa to endorse a campaign , back when a pack of Presidential hopefuls were still criss-crossing the state .
Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ embarrassing fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses , and his entire campaign , at that point , was teetering .
Finkenauer endorsed him , anyway , and stumped for him , emphasizing their connection as children of working-class , pro-union families .
“ He ’ s somebody who really gets it , ” she told voters .
When Biden became the presumptive Democratic nominee , a few weeks later , her endorsement looked prescient—the latest canny move from one of the Party ’ s rising stars .
Part of Biden ’ s pitch @ @ @ @ @ @ @ November , his moderate brand of politics would help Democrats like Finkenauer in competitive districts like Iowa ’ s First .
The plan appeared to be working , right up until Tuesday , when Biden lost Iowa , and Finkenauer lost her reëlection bid .
“ Turnout was unbelievably high on both sides , ” one Iowa Democrat told me .
“ We expected that was going to happen for us—we were really surprised that that happened for them , too.
” In recent weeks , many Democrats had begun to predict that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a landslide .
“ Tonight , House Democrats are poised to further strengthen our majority—the biggest , most diverse , most dynamic , women-led House majority in history , ” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said , on Election Day .
There was talk of Democrats flipping legislatures in Republican-controlled states such as Texas .
On the Senate side , more than a half-dozen Democratic challengers , the beneficiaries of a historic surge of donations , had mounted campaigns that put them at least within range of knocking off Republican incumbents , even in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , where Democrats rarely win statewide races .
Ending Donald Trump ’ s Presidency was the Democratic Party ’ s top priority this year , but candidates and voters alike were nearly as eager to end Mitch McConnell ’ s tenure as Senate Majority Leader .
What happened instead was a kind of duelling landslide : Biden received more votes than any Presidential candidate in U.S. history , which marks the seventh time in the past eight Presidential elections that Democrats have won the popular vote .
But Donald Trump may well end @ @ @ @ @ @ @ candidate in history .
Because of the way that congressional seats are carved up , and the fact that Senate seats dilute the electoral power of the country ’ s big cities , Republicans got enough votes to stymie Democratic gains .
The result is that , even as Biden is poised to expel Trump from the White House , extinguishing one crisis facing the country , Congress remains up for grabs .
In the House , Democrats will retain their majority , but it may well be smaller than the one they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Although progressive newcomers , such as Jamaal Bowman , in New York , and Cori Bush , in Missouri , won their progressive districts ( and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the other three original members of the Squad won emphatic reëlection victories ) , many of the first-term Democrats who stitched together winning coalitions in competitive districts in 2018—including Finkenauer , Kendra Horn , in Oklahoma , Xochitl Torres Small , in New Mexico , and Joe Cunningham , in South Carolina—lost on Tuesday .
Notably , given that Democrats gained their majority @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years ago , many of the Republicans who reclaimed these districts are newly recruited female candidates themselves : Finkenauer lost to Ashley Hinson , an Iowa state representative , and Horn lost to Stephanie Bice , an Oklahoma state senator .
For the immediate prospects of a potential Biden Presidency , the battle for the Senate is even more consequential .
The Democratic Party ’ s hopes there rested on Trump ’ s unpopularity and an outpouring of giving from both large and small donors which allowed its candidates to amass giant campaign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ online payment processor , funnelled more than three billion dollars to candidates and groups this cycle , much of it to Senate candidates .
Jaime Harrison , the Democrat who challenged Lindsey Graham , in South Carolina , raised more than a hundred million dollars .
Sara Gideon , who challenged Susan Collins , in Maine , raised more than sixty-eight million dollars .
Theresa Greenfield , who challenged Joni Ernst , in Iowa , raised more than forty-seven million dollars .
Going into Tuesday , the polls showed all three of them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Here ’ s the message I got : people like what I ’ m doing , and I ’ m going to keep doing it , ” Graham , who had tied himself ever closer to Trump in recent weeks , said , in his victory speech .
Democratic activists and Party members may ultimately reassure themselves that many of these Senate races took place in tough states for Democrats .
The losses in House races , however , present more complicated questions .
In general , since Tuesday , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has shifted .
Is Florida simply a Republican state now ?
Is Texas just a dream that Democrats keep chasing ?
And yet the results in Arizona—and perhaps in Georgia , too—are real breakthroughs for the Party .
On Tuesday morning , Representative Jim Clyburn , the hard-nosed South Carolina elder statesman , who gave Biden a pivotal endorsement in February , appeared on MSNBC to discuss Jaime Harrison ’ s campaign .
The race had not yet been decided , but Clyburn was already speaking in terms of what it had accomplished @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be a winner—he is a winner , ” Clyburn said .
“ He has shown young people that he has brought into this effort how to do it .
Lay the foundation , build upon that foundation.
” Democrats did pick up two Senate seats , in Arizona and Colorado , but they lost one in Alabama , where Doug Jones , who won a special election in 2017 , lost a reëlection bid that had never seemed within reach .
As of Thursday , it appeared possible that both parties would end @ @ @ @ @ @ @ control of the chamber turning on an unprecedented development : January runoff elections for both of Georgia ’ s seats .
At stake would be whether Democrats get a thin but clear margin to set an agenda in Washington next year—for passing pandemic relief , climate-change legislation , and so on , down the list—or whether the country will have a federal government defined by the narrow spaces where the interests of Biden , Pelosi , and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell overlap .
Will McConnell , who has been almost singularly focussed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ judges , even allow Biden-selected judges to move through a Senate that he controls ?
Already , there are hints of an answer to such questions .
“ Republicans ’ likely hold on the Senate is forcing Joe Biden ’ s transition team to consider limiting its prospective Cabinet nominees to those who Mitch McConnell can live with , ” Axios reported , on Thursday .
A source told the news outlet , “ It ’ s going to be armed camps .
”

In January, Abby Finkenauer, the freshman representative from Iowa’s First Congressional District, endorsed Joe Biden’s bid to become the Democratic Party’s Presidential nominee. It seemed like a magnanimous act on her part. Finkenauer, a Democrat, had flipped her eastern Iowa district two years earlier, at the age of twenty-nine, and helped Democrats to retake the House. She was the first member of Congress from Iowa to endorse a campaign, back when a pack of Presidential hopefuls were still criss-crossing the state. Biden, meanwhile, was heading for an embarrassing fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses, and his entire campaign, at that point, was teetering. Finkenauer endorsed him, anyway, and stumped for him, emphasizing their connection as children of working-class, pro-union families. “He’s somebody who really gets it,” she told voters.
When Biden became the presumptive Democratic nominee, a few weeks later, her endorsement looked prescient—the latest canny move from one of the Party’s rising stars. Part of Biden’s pitch to primary voters was that, come November, his moderate brand of politics would help Democrats like Finkenauer in competitive districts like Iowa’s First. The plan appeared to be working, right up until Tuesday, when Biden lost Iowa, and Finkenauer lost her reëlection bid. “Turnout was unbelievably high on both sides,” one Iowa Democrat told me. “We expected that was going to happen for us—we were really surprised that that happened for them, too.”
In recent weeks, many Democrats had begun to predict that their Party was on the cusp of a landslide. “Tonight, House Democrats are poised to further strengthen our majority—the biggest, most diverse, most dynamic, women-led House majority in history,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, on Election Day. There was talk of Democrats flipping legislatures in Republican-controlled states such as Texas. On the Senate side, more than a half-dozen Democratic challengers, the beneficiaries of a historic surge of donations, had mounted campaigns that put them at least within range of knocking off Republican incumbents, even in states such as Iowa and South Carolina, where Democrats rarely win statewide races. Ending Donald Trump’s Presidency was the Democratic Party’s top priority this year, but candidates and voters alike were nearly as eager to end Mitch McConnell’s tenure as Senate Majority Leader.
What happened instead was a kind of duelling landslide: Biden received more votes than any Presidential candidate in U.S. history, which marks the seventh time in the past eight Presidential elections that Democrats have won the popular vote. But Donald Trump may well end up receiving the second-most votes of any candidate in history. Because of the way that congressional seats are carved up, and the fact that Senate seats dilute the electoral power of the country’s big cities, Republicans got enough votes to stymie Democratic gains. The result is that, even as Biden is poised to expel Trump from the White House, extinguishing one crisis facing the country, Congress remains up for grabs.
In the House, Democrats will retain their majority, but it may well be smaller than the one they’ve held these past two years. Although progressive newcomers, such as Jamaal Bowman, in New York, and Cori Bush, in Missouri, won their progressive districts (and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the other three original members of the Squad won emphatic reëlection victories), many of the first-term Democrats who stitched together winning coalitions in competitive districts in 2018—including Finkenauer, Kendra Horn, in Oklahoma, Xochitl Torres Small, in New Mexico, and Joe Cunningham, in South Carolina—lost on Tuesday. Notably, given that Democrats gained their majority running a historic number of women two years ago, many of the Republicans who reclaimed these districts are newly recruited female candidates themselves: Finkenauer lost to Ashley Hinson, an Iowa state representative, and Horn lost to Stephanie Bice, an Oklahoma state senator.
For the immediate prospects of a potential Biden Presidency, the battle for the Senate is even more consequential. The Democratic Party’s hopes there rested on Trump’s unpopularity and an outpouring of giving from both large and small donors which allowed its candidates to amass giant campaign war chests. ActBlue, a progressive online payment processor, funnelled more than three billion dollars to candidates and groups this cycle, much of it to Senate candidates. Jaime Harrison, the Democrat who challenged Lindsey Graham, in South Carolina, raised more than a hundred million dollars. Sara Gideon, who challenged Susan Collins, in Maine, raised more than sixty-eight million dollars. Theresa Greenfield, who challenged Joni Ernst, in Iowa, raised more than forty-seven million dollars. Going into Tuesday, the polls showed all three of them as competitive. They all lost handily. “Here’s the message I got: people like what I’m doing, and I’m going to keep doing it,” Graham, who had tied himself ever closer to Trump in recent weeks, said, in his victory speech.
Democratic activists and Party members may ultimately reassure themselves that many of these Senate races took place in tough states for Democrats. The losses in House races, however, present more complicated questions. In general, since Tuesday, the map that Democrats hold in their minds has shifted. Is Florida simply a Republican state now? Is Texas just a dream that Democrats keep chasing? And yet the results in Arizona—and perhaps in Georgia, too—are real breakthroughs for the Party. On Tuesday morning, Representative Jim Clyburn, the hard-nosed South Carolina elder statesman, who gave Biden a pivotal endorsement in February, appeared on MSNBC to discuss Jaime Harrison’s campaign. The race had not yet been decided, but Clyburn was already speaking in terms of what it had accomplished. “Jaime has demonstrated himself to be a winner—he is a winner,” Clyburn said. “He has shown young people that he has brought into this effort how to do it. Lay the foundation, build upon that foundation.”
Democrats did pick up two Senate seats, in Arizona and Colorado, but they lost one in Alabama, where Doug Jones, who won a special election in 2017, lost a reëlection bid that had never seemed within reach. As of Thursday, it appeared possible that both parties would end the week with forty-eight senators, with control of the chamber turning on an unprecedented development: January runoff elections for both of Georgia’s seats. At stake would be whether Democrats get a thin but clear margin to set an agenda in Washington next year—for passing pandemic relief, climate-change legislation, and so on, down the list—or whether the country will have a federal government defined by the narrow spaces where the interests of Biden, Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell overlap. Will McConnell, who has been almost singularly focussed on filling the federal judiciary with conservative judges, even allow Biden-selected judges to move through a Senate that he controls? Already, there are hints of an answer to such questions. “Republicans’ likely hold on the Senate is forcing Joe Biden’s transition team to consider limiting its prospective Cabinet nominees to those who Mitch McConnell can live with,” Axios reported, on Thursday. A source told the news outlet, “It’s going to be armed camps.”


newyorker--2020-11-05--By Declaring Victory, Donald Trump Is Attempting an Autocratic Breakthrough

I have borrowed the term “ autocratic attempt ” from the work of Bálint Magyar , a Hungarian sociologist who set out to develop analytical tools for understanding the turn away from democracy in many Eastern and Central European countries .
I have found Magyar ’ s ideas surprisingly illuminating when applied to the United States .
Magyar divides the autocrat ’ s journey into three stages : autocratic attempt , autocratic breakthrough , and autocratic consolidation .
The attempt is a period when autocracy is still preventable , or reversible , by electoral means .
When it is no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the autocratic breakthrough has occurred , because the very structures of government have been transformed and can no longer protect themselves .
These changes usually include packing the constitutional court ( the Supreme Court , in the case of the U.S. ) with judges loyal to the autocrat ; packing and weakening the courts in general ; appointing a chief prosecutor ( the Attorney General ) who is loyal to the autocrat and will enforce the law selectively on his behalf ; changing the rules on the appointment of civil servants ; weakening @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( to accommodate gerrymandering , for instance ) ; and changing the Constitution to expand the powers of the executive .
For all the apparent flailing and incompetence of the Trump Administration , his autocratic attempt checks most of the boxes .
He has appointed three Supreme Court Justices and a record number of federal judges .
The Justice Department , under William Barr , acts like Trump ’ s pocket law-enforcement agency and personal law firm .
Trump ’ s army of “ acting ” officials , some of them carrying out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ regulations , have made mincemeat of the rules and norms of federal appointments .
Trump has preëmptively declared the election rigged ; has incited voter intimidation and encouraged voter suppression ; has mobilized his armed supporters to prevent votes from being counted ; and has explicitly stated that he is changing the rules of the election .
“ We want all voting to stop , ” he said on Wednesday morning , and vowed to take his case to the Supreme Court .
“ The populist does not de jure eliminate the separation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ but he connects the branches through his competences of appointment in a single vertical of vassalage.
” The Russian President , Vladimir Putin , calls it the “ vertical of power.
” What allows the aspiring autocrat to transform the institutions of government is either a supermajority in parliament or , in a presidential system , a monopoly on political power—a situation in which the Presidency and Congress are held by the same political parties .
Americans aren ’ t used to thinking of a monopoly on political power as a problem @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that these are the conditions necessary for a President to be able to carry out his political agenda .
In fact , with the power to confirm Presidential appointments concentrated in the Senate , Trump didn ’ t even need the House .
In four years , Trump has created a “ vertical of vassalage ” that runs from him to Barr to the Senate Majority Leader , Mitch McConnell , and to the courts .
Its extension is Fox News , which has served as the fourth branch of Trump ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ notably noncompliant with Trump ’ s election narrative , starting with its early call of Arizona for Joe Biden , which incited the President ’ s rage . )
Trump is trying to use his vertical of vassalage to thwart the electoral system .
If he succeeds , his autocratic breakthrough will be complete .
If he fails , Trump will leave—reluctantly , petulantly , perhaps after a litigious delay—but much of the vertical that he has put in place will remain .
Autocratic structural changes are invariably harder to reverse than they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remains in Republican hands , reversal—at least in the short term—is virtually impossible .
If Biden wanted to expand the number of Justices on the Supreme Court , for example , he would be unable to get this through the Senate ; even regular district-level judgeships may prove difficult to fill .
All this increases the likelihood that , if he is elected , Biden will likely proceed as if politics as normal has been restored , because he and the Democratic Party treat Trump as an aberration—cured simply by being voted out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have , once again , shown that Trump is neither an aberration nor the product of Russian interference , but rather the conscious choice of roughly half of the voters , or some sixty-five million Americans .
This is a giant and , now , aggrieved movement , capable of carrying Trump or , more likely , one of his children , back into office in 2024 or 2028 .
( Incidentally , Viktor Orbán , following his first term as Prime Minister of Hungary , spent two electoral cycles as the leader @ @ @ @ @ @ @ back into office on a supermajority vote and immediately engineering an autocratic breakthrough . )
If , upon his Inauguration , a President Biden acts as though our national nightmare is over—if he attempts to build bridges and fetishizes bipartisanship in order to pass some watered-down legislation , rather than , say , even acknowledging the necessary and probably impossible task of unpacking the federal judiciary—then the autocratic attempt can return , and it will be stronger .
Biden will need to work to dismantle the Trumpian vertical and address the conditions that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ money in politics ; the Electoral College and all the active and passive ways in which the voting system discourages and prevents participation ; the unregulated profit-driven media , both traditional and new , and the underfunded public media ; the concentration of power in the executive branch ; and the gerontocratic political duopoly .
Nothing short of reinventing American democracy , spiritually and institutionally , can protect us .
Read More About the 2020 Election • Live election results : see the latest updates from the Presidential , Senate , House , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ win , but Trump will remain the President of Red America .
• What happens if Trump fights the election results ?
• Early results suggest that the Electoral College race will be close , with no major realignment .
The Midwest holds the key for Biden .
• The disbelief and horror of Election Night was captured by a Russian poet in 1933 .
• Trump has survived impeachment , twenty-six sexual-misconduct accusations , and thousands of lawsuits .
His luck may well end if Joe Biden wins .
• Here is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a coup .
• Sign up for our daily newsletter for insight and analysis from our reporters and columnists .

The President of the United States has called the election a fraud. He has declared victory without basis, tweeting on Wednesday, “We have claimed” Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, and perhaps Michigan—all states that were still counting votes. Donald Trump, who has been engaged in an autocratic attempt for the last four years, is now trying to stage an autocratic breakthrough.
I have borrowed the term “autocratic attempt” from the work of Bálint Magyar, a Hungarian sociologist who set out to develop analytical tools for understanding the turn away from democracy in many Eastern and Central European countries. I have found Magyar’s ideas surprisingly illuminating when applied to the United States.
Magyar divides the autocrat’s journey into three stages: autocratic attempt, autocratic breakthrough, and autocratic consolidation. The attempt is a period when autocracy is still preventable, or reversible, by electoral means. When it is no longer possible to reverse autocracy peacefully, the autocratic breakthrough has occurred, because the very structures of government have been transformed and can no longer protect themselves. These changes usually include packing the constitutional court (the Supreme Court, in the case of the U.S.) with judges loyal to the autocrat; packing and weakening the courts in general; appointing a chief prosecutor (the Attorney General) who is loyal to the autocrat and will enforce the law selectively on his behalf; changing the rules on the appointment of civil servants; weakening local governments; unilaterally changing electoral rules (to accommodate gerrymandering, for instance); and changing the Constitution to expand the powers of the executive.
For all the apparent flailing and incompetence of the Trump Administration, his autocratic attempt checks most of the boxes. He has appointed three Supreme Court Justices and a record number of federal judges. The Justice Department, under William Barr, acts like Trump’s pocket law-enforcement agency and personal law firm. Trump’s army of “acting” officials, some of them carrying out their duties in violation of relevant federal regulations, have made mincemeat of the rules and norms of federal appointments. Trump has preëmptively declared the election rigged; has incited voter intimidation and encouraged voter suppression; has mobilized his armed supporters to prevent votes from being counted; and has explicitly stated that he is changing the rules of the election. “We want all voting to stop,” he said on Wednesday morning, and vowed to take his case to the Supreme Court.
“The populist does not de jure eliminate the separation of powers,” Magyar writes, “but he connects the branches through his competences of appointment in a single vertical of vassalage.” The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, calls it the “vertical of power.” What allows the aspiring autocrat to transform the institutions of government is either a supermajority in parliament or, in a presidential system, a monopoly on political power—a situation in which the Presidency and Congress are held by the same political parties. Americans aren’t used to thinking of a monopoly on political power as a problem; on the contrary, we think that these are the conditions necessary for a President to be able to carry out his political agenda. In fact, with the power to confirm Presidential appointments concentrated in the Senate, Trump didn’t even need the House. In four years, Trump has created a “vertical of vassalage” that runs from him to Barr to the Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, and to the courts. Its extension is Fox News, which has served as the fourth branch of Trump’s government. (Fox News has been notably noncompliant with Trump’s election narrative, starting with its early call of Arizona for Joe Biden, which incited the President’s rage.)
Trump is trying to use his vertical of vassalage to thwart the electoral system. If he succeeds, his autocratic breakthrough will be complete. If he fails, Trump will leave—reluctantly, petulantly, perhaps after a litigious delay—but much of the vertical that he has put in place will remain.
Autocratic structural changes are invariably harder to reverse than they are to institute. If the Senate remains in Republican hands, reversal—at least in the short term—is virtually impossible. If Biden wanted to expand the number of Justices on the Supreme Court, for example, he would be unable to get this through the Senate; even regular district-level judgeships may prove difficult to fill. All this increases the likelihood that, if he is elected, Biden will likely proceed as if politics as normal has been restored, because he and the Democratic Party treat Trump as an aberration—cured simply by being voted out of office.
The last two days have, once again, shown that Trump is neither an aberration nor the product of Russian interference, but rather the conscious choice of roughly half of the voters, or some sixty-five million Americans. This is a giant and, now, aggrieved movement, capable of carrying Trump or, more likely, one of his children, back into office in 2024 or 2028. (Incidentally, Viktor Orbán, following his first term as Prime Minister of Hungary, spent two electoral cycles as the leader of the political opposition, before sweeping back into office on a supermajority vote and immediately engineering an autocratic breakthrough.) If, upon his Inauguration, a President Biden acts as though our national nightmare is over—if he attempts to build bridges and fetishizes bipartisanship in order to pass some watered-down legislation, rather than, say, even acknowledging the necessary and probably impossible task of unpacking the federal judiciary—then the autocratic attempt can return, and it will be stronger.
Biden will need to work to dismantle the Trumpian vertical and address the conditions that made it possible: the role of money in politics; the Electoral College and all the active and passive ways in which the voting system discourages and prevents participation; the unregulated profit-driven media, both traditional and new, and the underfunded public media; the concentration of power in the executive branch; and the gerontocratic political duopoly. Nothing short of reinventing American democracy, spiritually and institutionally, can protect us.
Read More About the 2020 Election


newyorker--2020-11-05--The Faces of Americans Living in Debt

The Faces of Americans Living in Debt

A large sum of money owed can seem strangely incorporeal—it may weigh heavily while still feeling somehow abstract , unreal .
Since shame accrues to debt as inexorably as interest , many people don ’ t like to talk about the topic , rendering it even less visible .
( An exception is the President , who has boasted , “ I ’ ve made a fortune by using debt.
” ) Like many other problems in America , debt is often a systemic dilemma for which individual solutions are expected—save more , cut up your credit cards , get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fourth job .
More than half of all overdue debt on Americans ’ credit reports is from medical bills—which , given the fundamental facts of human morbidity and mortality , can be neither avoided nor entirely planned for , especially in the absence of universal health insurance .
Meanwhile , forty-five million people in the United States carry a collective total of 1.5 trillion dollars in student debt , a direct result of a punishing formula : since the eighties , college tuition has risen at four times the rate of inflation and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ People make , and spend , their own money , to paraphrase Marx ( who knew a thing or two about debt , both personally and politically ) , but not under circumstances of their own making .
For all of these reasons , a good deal of the power in the new book “ The Debt Project : 99 Portraits Across America , ” by the photographer Brittany M. Powell , comes from a kind of transgressive mundaneness .
Powell set about photographing ninety-nine Americans who owe money ( she ended up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but started with that figure as a reference to the slogan “ We are the ninety-nine per cent ” ) and asked them to handwrite accompanying text about how much they owe , and to whom .
The litany of reasons gets repetitive , because that ’ s how it goes—difficulty finding a job in one ’ s field after graduating during the recession , a bad marriage , a bad divorce , vertiginous rents in expensive cities , medical crises , many , many student loans .
Occasionally , there are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s mother took out credit cards in her name and , in a ten-year period , racked up “ a mortgage worth of debt ” to fund her “ compulsive shopping and hoarding habits.
” Powell photographed her subjects in their homes , often in their bedrooms , and the portraits have the intimacy and lived-in particularity that derives from seeing people in their own spaces , surrounded by their own possessions .
Powell told me that she had Flemish portrait painting in mind—the way the genre depicted people among their belongings @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ephemerality of worldly goods .
Like such portraits , Powell ’ s are suffused with dramatic natural light , saturated color , and calm dignity .
She wasn ’ t going for a fly-on-the-wall documentary feel—no sense of “ gotcha ” here .
Her subjects are all photographed from eye level or below , what she calls an “ empowering ” perspective .
Naomi , an art therapist in Brooklyn , who says she owes seventy-five thousand dollars , mostly in student loans from a graduate degree , is shown seated on a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clasped in her lap , feet encased in striped socks , next to a shelf full of nuts and seeds in mason jars that made me think of the phrase “ squirrelling away ” for a rainy day .
A woman named Simone , who owes three hundred and thirty-two thousand dollars , for a mortgage and student loans , poses outside a tent on her property ; she is living in the tent while she rents out her house to save money .
She is neatly dressed in a sky-blue skirt , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a mug with an upside-down rainbow on it cradled in her hands ; there ’ s a camping stove visible in the background .
Simone is resigned to a lifetime of debt : “ My mortgage isn ’ t changing and I ’ ll never pay off my student loans , ” she writes in her accompanying text , “ so although I obsess about them , I don ’ t really ‘ worry ’ about them.
” The youngest person in the book , a nineteen-year-old from Boston named Lauren , is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sixty-four thousand dollars in hock , “ from this past year of college in addition to living expenses and my father being out of work due to legal and health circumstances.
” Her room is a congenial clutter of memories , a college student ’ s palimpsest : photos of friends and family taped to the walls , a tarot deck , piles of notebooks , a little cactus in a red pot on the windowsill .
Lauren gazes downward , cuddling a pet bunny .
Powell started the project in 2013 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ She , too , had student-loan debt .
She was living with three roommates in San Francisco , where so many people leave their hearts and their financial solvency .
She had landed a dream project , working on a long-term assignment for National Geographic , but , even with the other gigs she managed to stitch together—freelance work , teaching surfing on the weekends—Powell “ was always inches away from disaster , putting car repairs and vet bills on a credit card , or charging necessities and gasoline ” in order to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ As she proceeded through the bankruptcy system , Powell began to think about how debt shapes American culture , “ socially and financially , ” she writes in the introduction to her book .
“ I was surprised that once I filed , I no longer felt ashamed about my experience , and I wanted to talk to others about theirs.
” At first , Powell photographed people she knew , but , she told me , “ I wanted it to be about more than my artist friends in San Francisco who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Kickstarter campaign for the project ( “ I didn ’ t want to rack up more debt doing this ” ) and started advertising on Craigslist , offering people twenty-five to fifty dollars to pose and share their stories .
Taking to the road , Powell photographed subjects all over the country—some whose livelihoods you might guess would be chancy ( grad students , musicians , writers , restaurant workers , a tattoo artist , a hair stylist ) and some whose you might not ( a surveyor , a clinical-trials supervisor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) .
She finished the project seven years later— “ exactly the amount of time it took for my bankruptcy to be removed from my credit report and financial record ” —and just before the pandemic tipped so many more Americans into economic precarity .
Between 2016 and 2019 , she moved to Vermont , got married , had a baby , and bought a house .
Stories of people clambering out of debt on their own , as Powell did , are hopeful , but even more so are those people who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The foreword to Powell ’ s book is written by Astra Taylor , a filmmaker and veteran of the Occupy movement , who co-founded an organization called the Debt Collective , which exposes predatory lending practices , informs people of their rights , and organizes student-debt strikes .
Its slogan , a rich double-entendre , is “ You are not a loan.
” Powell ’ s portraits in “ The Debt Project , ” with their forthright and mostly unsmiling subjects , are a record of people struggling to remind themselves that such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , artist and cab driver .
About a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in debt .
“ My mom took out credit cards in my name .
From 1988-1998 she incurred ‘ a mortgage worth of debt ’ ( according to my bankruptcy attorney ) on my SSI , mostly to fuel her compulsive shopping and hoarding habits .
I have no credit debt , just about $ 3000- $ 5000 owed to various banks and cell phone companies and other evil corporations who hit me with erroneous charges .
But I was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ student loans available to me , even though I had a graduate teaching assistantship w/a stipend and tuition remission .
I have defaulted , and interest has risen .
I owed about $ 139,000 last time I opened a bill several years ago .
So it goes , ” Dyer writes .

A large sum of money owed can seem strangely incorporeal—it may weigh heavily while still feeling somehow abstract, unreal. Since shame accrues to debt as inexorably as interest, many people don’t like to talk about the topic, rendering it even less visible. (An exception is the President, who has boasted, “I’ve made a fortune by using debt.”) Like many other problems in America, debt is often a systemic dilemma for which individual solutions are expected—save more, cut up your credit cards, get a second or a third or a fourth job. More than half of all overdue debt on Americans’ credit reports is from medical bills—which, given the fundamental facts of human morbidity and mortality, can be neither avoided nor entirely planned for, especially in the absence of universal health insurance. Meanwhile, forty-five million people in the United States carry a collective total of 1.5 trillion dollars in student debt, a direct result of a punishing formula: since the eighties, college tuition has risen at four times the rate of inflation and eight times that of household income. People make, and spend, their own money, to paraphrase Marx (who knew a thing or two about debt, both personally and politically), but not under circumstances of their own making.
For all of these reasons, a good deal of the power in the new book “The Debt Project: 99 Portraits Across America,” by the photographer Brittany M. Powell, comes from a kind of transgressive mundaneness. Powell set about photographing ninety-nine Americans who owe money (she ended up with a few more, including herself, but started with that figure as a reference to the slogan “We are the ninety-nine per cent”) and asked them to handwrite accompanying text about how much they owe, and to whom. The litany of reasons gets repetitive, because that’s how it goes—difficulty finding a job in one’s field after graduating during the recession, a bad marriage, a bad divorce, vertiginous rents in expensive cities, medical crises, many, many student loans. Occasionally, there are epic and awful variations: one woman’s mother took out credit cards in her name and, in a ten-year period, racked up “a mortgage worth of debt” to fund her “compulsive shopping and hoarding habits.”
Powell photographed her subjects in their homes, often in their bedrooms, and the portraits have the intimacy and lived-in particularity that derives from seeing people in their own spaces, surrounded by their own possessions. Powell told me that she had Flemish portrait painting in mind—the way the genre depicted people among their belongings, conveying both economic rank and the ephemerality of worldly goods. Like such portraits, Powell’s are suffused with dramatic natural light, saturated color, and calm dignity. She wasn’t going for a fly-on-the-wall documentary feel—no sense of “gotcha” here. Her subjects are all photographed from eye level or below, what she calls an “empowering” perspective.
Naomi, an art therapist in Brooklyn, who says she owes seventy-five thousand dollars, mostly in student loans from a graduate degree, is shown seated on a gray couch, gaze straightforward, hands clasped in her lap, feet encased in striped socks, next to a shelf full of nuts and seeds in mason jars that made me think of the phrase “squirrelling away” for a rainy day. A woman named Simone, who owes three hundred and thirty-two thousand dollars, for a mortgage and student loans, poses outside a tent on her property; she is living in the tent while she rents out her house to save money. She is neatly dressed in a sky-blue skirt, her legs crossed at the ankles, a mug with an upside-down rainbow on it cradled in her hands; there’s a camping stove visible in the background. Simone is resigned to a lifetime of debt: “My mortgage isn’t changing and I’ll never pay off my student loans,” she writes in her accompanying text, “so although I obsess about them, I don’t really ‘worry’ about them.” The youngest person in the book, a nineteen-year-old from Boston named Lauren, is a student and waitress who is already sixty-four thousand dollars in hock, “from this past year of college in addition to living expenses and my father being out of work due to legal and health circumstances.” Her room is a congenial clutter of memories, a college student’s palimpsest: photos of friends and family taped to the walls, a tarot deck, piles of notebooks, a little cactus in a red pot on the windowsill. Lauren gazes downward, cuddling a pet bunny.
Powell started the project in 2013, just after filing for bankruptcy herself. She, too, had student-loan debt. She was living with three roommates in San Francisco, where so many people leave their hearts and their financial solvency. She had landed a dream project, working on a long-term assignment for National Geographic, but, even with the other gigs she managed to stitch together—freelance work, teaching surfing on the weekends—Powell “was always inches away from disaster, putting car repairs and vet bills on a credit card, or charging necessities and gasoline” in order to pay rent or make debt payments. As she proceeded through the bankruptcy system, Powell began to think about how debt shapes American culture, “socially and financially,” she writes in the introduction to her book. “I was surprised that once I filed, I no longer felt ashamed about my experience, and I wanted to talk to others about theirs.”
At first, Powell photographed people she knew, but, she told me, “I wanted it to be about more than my artist friends in San Francisco who were struggling.” So she put together a Kickstarter campaign for the project (“I didn’t want to rack up more debt doing this”) and started advertising on Craigslist, offering people twenty-five to fifty dollars to pose and share their stories. Taking to the road, Powell photographed subjects all over the country—some whose livelihoods you might guess would be chancy (grad students, musicians, writers, restaurant workers, a tattoo artist, a hair stylist) and some whose you might not (a surveyor, a clinical-trials supervisor, a physician, an economics professor). She finished the project seven years later—“exactly the amount of time it took for my bankruptcy to be removed from my credit report and financial record”—and just before the pandemic tipped so many more Americans into economic precarity. Between 2016 and 2019, she moved to Vermont, got married, had a baby, and bought a house.
Stories of people clambering out of debt on their own, as Powell did, are hopeful, but even more so are those people who have organized to help one another. The foreword to Powell’s book is written by Astra Taylor, a filmmaker and veteran of the Occupy movement, who co-founded an organization called the Debt Collective, which exposes predatory lending practices, informs people of their rights, and organizes student-debt strikes. Its slogan, a rich double-entendre, is “You are not a loan.” Powell’s portraits in “The Debt Project,” with their forthright and mostly unsmiling subjects, are a record of people struggling to remind themselves that such a statement is true.
“Debt Portrait #84, Waterville Valley, NH, 2020.”
François Bessing, freelance performer.
Fifty-five thousand dollars in debt.
Bessing writes:
-Graduated top of my class in 2017 with B.A. in Music (Vocal Performance)
-Can’t find stable work in field
-Had legal troubles. Was incarcerated
-Did AirBnb to make ends. Was evicted.
-Borderline homeless—living with friend.
-Struggled with finding a relationship.
-Doing therapy and singing often.
-Decided to focus on healing and pursuing my calling


newyorker--2020-11-06--British Mystery Shows That I Would Watch

Samuel Wellington is a man of the cloth , with six-pack abs underneath it .
When he ’ s not delivering sermons or explaining the difference between a vicar and a priest , he ’ s investigating crimes in the sleepy village of Helenmirrenshire .
The reverend has a knack for solving complex mysteries but has yet to crack the biggest case of all—it ’ s 2020 , so why are there only white people living and working in this town ?
Set in England during the interwar period , the show focusses on Mary Wordsworth , a genial but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Biscuits-by-the-Sea .
What she lacks in sex appeal , she makes up for in amateur sleuthing skills and an ability to intimidate suspects with a mere glimpse of her unmarried face .
She can also slip into crime scenes and police precincts undetected , as her spinster status renders her invisible to society .
In the series finale , Mary reveals that she is twenty-nine years old .
The cozy hamlet of Shortbread-upon-Avon is put on high alert when residents begin receiving anonymous death threats .
The town ’ s only hope @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bread baker/former Royal Air Force commander with a dark past .
( Viewers should watch the eight-hour prequel , “ Active Yeast on Duty , ” for his full backstory . )
In the season finale , a thrilling cat-and-mouse chase takes place in his bakery , ending with a thirty-minute climactic scene in which Liam sensuously kneads dough .
Viewers will be on the edge of their seats as they watch characters pour cups of tea and then sip cups of tea .
When the protagonists aren ’ t putting a kettle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ windows or tending their gardens .
Aside from the occasional character being poisoned by cyanide , this is a very relaxing show .
In this long-running series , the private investigator Andrew Beefeater interrogates murderers and thieves , frequently muttering his iconic catchphrase , “ You ’ re my No .
1 suspect.
” When he ’ s not chasing bad guys , he ’ s drinking from a bottomless bottle of whiskey and snapping at his female assistant , who hasn ’ t received a raise in years .
The series concludes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ types of complex characters we could devote an entire TV series to ?
“ Where Do I Know That Actor From ?
” During the pilot episode , you ’ ll ask yourself , “ Is that the guy from ‘ Game of Thrones ’ ?
” You ’ ll then spend the entire season wondering if it is indeed Robb Stark or just someone who looks a lot like Robb Stark .
Midseason twist : the actor is actually from “ The Crown.
” When Mary the Midwife isn ’ t investigating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , she ’ s delivering babies in London ’ s East End .
This show is basically for fans of “ Call the Midwife ” whose main gripe with that television drama is that it isn ’ t a murder mystery .
“ Seriously , Has Anyone Looked Into Why This Quaint Town Has So Many Murders ?
” Each episode asks viewers to suspend disbelief that a small , rural village could be the site of more murders per capita than most large nations but to reject the possibility that this same @ @ @ @ @ @ @ diverse .
Actually , this show has been on the air for far too long .
A university maths professor moonlights as a private detective because it ’ s hard to make a living in the Margaret Thatcher era .
His sidekick is an American exchange student who excels at solving proofs but fails to remember that in England you say “ maths , ” not “ math .
”

“The Hot Vicar”
Samuel Wellington is a man of the cloth, with six-pack abs underneath it. When he’s not delivering sermons or explaining the difference between a vicar and a priest, he’s investigating crimes in the sleepy village of Helenmirrenshire. The reverend has a knack for solving complex mysteries but has yet to crack the biggest case of all—it’s 2020, so why are there only white people living and working in this town?
“Lonely Lady Detective”
Set in England during the interwar period, the show focusses on Mary Wordsworth, a genial but lonely spinster residing in the coastal town of Biscuits-by-the-Sea. What she lacks in sex appeal, she makes up for in amateur sleuthing skills and an ability to intimidate suspects with a mere glimpse of her unmarried face. She can also slip into crime scenes and police precincts undetected, as her spinster status renders her invisible to society. In the series finale, Mary reveals that she is twenty-nine years old.
“Baker’s Dozen (Murders)”
The cozy hamlet of Shortbread-upon-Avon is put on high alert when residents begin receiving anonymous death threats. The town’s only hope is Liam Baker, an amateur sleuth/professional bread baker/former Royal Air Force commander with a dark past. (Viewers should watch the eight-hour prequel, “Active Yeast on Duty,” for his full backstory.) In the season finale, a thrilling cat-and-mouse chase takes place in his bakery, ending with a thirty-minute climactic scene in which Liam sensuously kneads dough.
“Not My Cup of Tea”
Viewers will be on the edge of their seats as they watch characters pour cups of tea and then sip cups of tea. When the protagonists aren’t putting a kettle on, they’re gazing out windows or tending their gardens. Aside from the occasional character being poisoned by cyanide, this is a very relaxing show.
“No. 1 Suspect” Series 45
In this long-running series, the private investigator Andrew Beefeater interrogates murderers and thieves, frequently muttering his iconic catchphrase, “You’re my No. 1 suspect.” When he’s not chasing bad guys, he’s drinking from a bottomless bottle of whiskey and snapping at his female assistant, who hasn’t received a raise in years. The series concludes with a dramatic cliffhanger—might there be other types of complex characters we could devote an entire TV series to?
“Where Do I Know That Actor From?”
During the pilot episode, you’ll ask yourself, “Is that the guy from ‘Game of Thrones’?” You’ll then spend the entire season wondering if it is indeed Robb Stark or just someone who looks a lot like Robb Stark. Midseason twist: the actor is actually from “The Crown.”
“The Midwife Searching for Jack the Ripper”
When Mary the Midwife isn’t investigating Jack the Ripper’s gruesome murders, she’s delivering babies in London’s East End. This show is basically for fans of “Call the Midwife” whose main gripe with that television drama is that it isn’t a murder mystery.
“Seriously, Has Anyone Looked Into Why This Quaint Town Has So Many Murders?”
Each episode asks viewers to suspend disbelief that a small, rural village could be the site of more murders per capita than most large nations but to reject the possibility that this same village could also be racially and ethnically diverse. Actually, this show has been on the air for far too long.
“Maths and Murders”
A university maths professor moonlights as a private detective because it’s hard to make a living in the Margaret Thatcher era. His sidekick is an American exchange student who excels at solving proofs but fails to remember that in England you say “maths,” not “math.”