newyorker--2020-11-13--Is This a Coup, or Just Another Trump Con?

The exceptions , as of this writing , have remained so few as to be notable and , at the national level , countable on two hands : four sitting senators who have dared to call Biden the President-elect ( Susan Collins , Lisa Murkowski , Mitt Romney , Ben Sasse ) , a handful of House members , a few governors , and a host of formers , including former President George W. Bush .
Another half-dozen or so Republican senators , trying to split the difference , have stopped short of congratulating Biden or calling him the next @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at least let the official transition process begin or allow Biden to start receiving intelligence briefings .
On Thursday morning , when Governor Mike DeWine , Republican of Ohio , said on CNN , “ Joe Biden is the President-elect , ” it was treated as breaking news .
Merely acknowledging basic math , it seems , is now considered an act of political courage .
More foreign leaders have so far acknowledged the outcome of the American election than Republican Party officials .
Needless to say , this is not a good @ @ @ @ @ @ @ constitutional democracy .
At times , during this unnerving week in America ’ s capital , it has felt as though we were watching events unfold in Minsk or some other dictator stronghold where elections are not stolen the day votes are cast but in the weeks afterward , as the defeated President holes up in his palace , defying reality and increasingly urgent crowds in the streets .
Here in Minsk-on-the-Potomac , Trump has been perpetrating the Big Lie , claiming the election was stolen from him and apparently persuading millions of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fantasy .
Biden , so far , has urged calm .
It ’ s an “ embarrassment , ” he told reporters Tuesday in Wilmington , Delaware , where he continued to plan his transition , took congratulatory phone calls from world leaders , and appointed a White House chief of staff .
The official line from Biden has been clear and simple : concession or no concession , Trump will have to leave office at noon on January 20th , and that is that .
But is it ?
That we are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a defeat for the United States and a win not only for Trump but for all the Trumpists to come , who will forever have the example of a President of the United States flouting the most basic principle of American democracy : accepting the election results and the consequences that come with them .
I found out about the Pentagon chief ’ s ouster from Anthony Scaramucci , the former White House communications director , who has since become a fierce critic of Trump , as we were about to start an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hear the news of this latest firing from someone whose own short-lived tenure in the Administration—a mere eleven days—has since become a unit of measurement signifying the attenuated life cycle of a Trump-era official .
Scaramucci has fully embraced the linguistic legacy of his brief government service .
Trump , he told me , “ will have been President for 132.78 Scaramuccis , and unfortunately right now for the country we have six and a half more Scaramuccis to go .
I think the last six are going to be really tough on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s basically a sore loser and a big-time baby.
” Trump himself has declined to offer an explanation for just what exactly he is doing .
Throughout the week , he remained publicly silent , aside from various tweets denouncing the “ Rigged Election , ” complaining that Fox News has abandoned him , and insisting , “ WE WILL WIN !
” At the same time , unnamed senior Administration officials and outside advisers to the President told reporters that Trump was not , in fact , serious about defying the election @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden on track to receive far more than the two hundred and seventy votes needed to win the Electoral College , Trump was reported to be “ very aware there is not a path to victory , ” as the NBC correspondent Peter Alexander put it .
Others suggested that the President ’ s intransigence was merely a “ circus , ” a “ performance , ” or a temper tantrum that would amount to nothing .
Republicans , it was said , were just humoring Trump , or giving him time to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ boost turnout in the upcoming Georgia runoff elections that will decide control of the Senate .
Scaramucci theorized that maybe Trump would simply retreat to Mar-a-Lago , his winter home in Palm Beach , and never come back to the White House .
As for the firing of Esper , what appeared to be an act of pure vengeance by Trump began to seem even more sinister after the subsequent ouster of several of the Defense Secretary ’ s senior advisers .
Was this a sweeping purge that might presage more worrisome acts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ post-election firings a “ decapitation strike.
” Many theorized that the White House power play might have something to do with pulling troops out of Afghanistan and the Middle East—something that Pentagon officials have been publicly feuding about with Trump ’ s national-security adviser , Robert O ’ Brien .
Or maybe it was about politicizing intelligence .
Or defending Trump in the case of a truly contested succession .
What seemed clear was that the regime loyalists installed in key posts at the Defense Department and the National Security Agency weren ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to their résumés .
Even after a full four years of watching Trump , this might have been the most unsettling , and uncertain , few days in his Presidency .
On Monday , as Republicans made clear that they would not publicly challenge Trump ’ s election denialism , there were moments when I worried this really was the power grab we ’ ve spent the past few years dreading .
By late in the week , it seemed more like much of the tumult of the era : terrible for democracy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trumpian bluster rather than an ominous portent of tanks in the streets .
In private , the President reportedly was already telling advisers he would like to run again in 2024 , which at least sounded a lot less like a man who plans to barricade himself in the White House rather than leave in January .
Brendan Buck , a Republican strategist who served as a top adviser to former House Speaker Paul Ryan , called Trump ’ s actions this week “ a national embarrassment , ” but also “ a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ not change anything other than eroding confidence in elections among Republicans.
” The dénouement of whatever this is , Tom Davis , a former Republican member of Congress , told me , will come when states begin certifying the election results over the next few weeks .
“ Republicans know that Biden ’ s won .
They ’ re just giving him room , ” he said , of Trump .
“ When these are certified , this all crashes and burns.
” Several of them said the Pentagon firings—and the threat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the F.B.I .
director , Christopher Wray , and the C.I.A .
director , Gina Haspel—were even more worrisome than the spectre of Trump refusing to leave office in January .
“ The Pentagon purges are most troubling because there are two months remaining , ” William Antholis , the director of the Miller Center at the University of Virginia , who has studied Presidential transitions and their national-security risks , said .
Michael Abramowitz , the president of Freedom House , an N.G.O .
that supports democracy around the world , told @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ authoritarian tactics ” used elsewhere .
“ Will it be successful in helping President Trump keep power ?
I don ’ t think so , ” Abramowitz said .
“ But is it a chilling move and a bad precedent ?
Very much so.
” Perhaps the best-case version of what is going on came from Kori Schake , a Republican who served on the National Security Council under President George W. Bush and is now at the conservative American Enterprise Institute .
She told me the Pentagon firings were a “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ move.
” Miles Taylor , the former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff who later outed himself as the Anonymous author of a scathing anti-Trump Op-Ed in the Times and book , may have summed up the whole sorry episode best .
Trump ’ s outrageous behavior since the election that rendered him the first one-term President in three decades is the latest , the worst , and the most worrisome example yet , he told me , of “ Trumpism gone wild ” —which strikes me as both quite accurate and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ About the 2020 Election • William Barr is the one Administration official with the power to stop Donald Trump and his attempted coup .
• Trump has survived impeachment , twenty-six sexual-misconduct accusations , and thousands of lawsuits .
His luck may well end now that Joe Biden has been elected the next President .
• With litigation unlikely to change the outcome of the election , Republicans are looking to strategies that might remain even after rebuffs both at the polls and in court .
• We have to talk about what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we can prevent it from happening again .
• If 2020 has demonstrated anything , it is the need to rebalance the economy to benefit the working class—and there are many ways a Biden Administration can start .
• Sign up for our daily newsletter for insight and analysis from our reporters and columnists .

Ever since Saturday morning, when Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 Presidential election, Donald Trump has been hunkered down in the White House, refusing to concede defeat, raising money for an “election-defense task force,” and pushing vague conspiracy theories about voter fraud to his millions of followers. That part we expected. What was not entirely clear in advance was how Republicans, when faced with decisive results pointing to Biden’s victory in every single one of the remaining battleground states, would choose to respond. It turns out they have reacted as they have to virtually all of Trump’s norm-shattering behavior for the last four years: by enabling it.
The exceptions, as of this writing, have remained so few as to be notable and, at the national level, countable on two hands: four sitting senators who have dared to call Biden the President-elect (Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse), a handful of House members, a few governors, and a host of formers, including former President George W. Bush. Another half-dozen or so Republican senators, trying to split the difference, have stopped short of congratulating Biden or calling him the next President, but say that Trump should at least let the official transition process begin or allow Biden to start receiving intelligence briefings. On Thursday morning, when Governor Mike DeWine, Republican of Ohio, said on CNN, “Joe Biden is the President-elect,” it was treated as breaking news. Merely acknowledging basic math, it seems, is now considered an act of political courage. More foreign leaders have so far acknowledged the outcome of the American election than Republican Party officials. Needless to say, this is not a good look for the world’s longest-running constitutional democracy.
At times, during this unnerving week in America’s capital, it has felt as though we were watching events unfold in Minsk or some other dictator stronghold where elections are not stolen the day votes are cast but in the weeks afterward, as the defeated President holes up in his palace, defying reality and increasingly urgent crowds in the streets. Here in Minsk-on-the-Potomac, Trump has been perpetrating the Big Lie, claiming the election was stolen from him and apparently persuading millions of Americans to go along with this evidence-free fantasy. Biden, so far, has urged calm. It’s an “embarrassment,” he told reporters Tuesday in Wilmington, Delaware, where he continued to plan his transition, took congratulatory phone calls from world leaders, and appointed a White House chief of staff. The official line from Biden has been clear and simple: concession or no concession, Trump will have to leave office at noon on January 20th, and that is that.
But is it? That we are reduced to even asking this question is a defeat for the United States and a win not only for Trump but for all the Trumpists to come, who will forever have the example of a President of the United States flouting the most basic principle of American democracy: accepting the election results and the consequences that come with them.
On Monday, after a weekend of jubilation in America’s heavily Democratic big cities—where the unofficial anthem was a rap song by YG, “Fuck Donald Trump”— the President left off sulking on the golf course long enough to fire the Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper. He was “terminated,” Trump tweeted at around noon.
I found out about the Pentagon chief’s ouster from Anthony Scaramucci, the former White House communications director, who has since become a fierce critic of Trump, as we were about to start an interview. It seemed somehow appropriate to hear the news of this latest firing from someone whose own short-lived tenure in the Administration—a mere eleven days—has since become a unit of measurement signifying the attenuated life cycle of a Trump-era official. Scaramucci has fully embraced the linguistic legacy of his brief government service. Trump, he told me, “will have been President for 132.78 Scaramuccis, and unfortunately right now for the country we have six and a half more Scaramuccis to go. I think the last six are going to be really tough on the country, because the guy’s basically a sore loser and a big-time baby.”
Trump himself has declined to offer an explanation for just what exactly he is doing. Throughout the week, he remained publicly silent, aside from various tweets denouncing the “Rigged Election,” complaining that Fox News has abandoned him, and insisting, “WE WILL WIN!” At the same time, unnamed senior Administration officials and outside advisers to the President told reporters that Trump was not, in fact, serious about defying the election results to remain in office. With Biden on track to receive far more than the two hundred and seventy votes needed to win the Electoral College, Trump was reported to be “very aware there is not a path to victory,” as the NBC correspondent Peter Alexander put it. Others suggested that the President’s intransigence was merely a “circus,” a “performance,” or a temper tantrum that would amount to nothing. Republicans, it was said, were just humoring Trump, or giving him time to accept his fate, or helping to boost turnout in the upcoming Georgia runoff elections that will decide control of the Senate. Scaramucci theorized that maybe Trump would simply retreat to Mar-a-Lago, his winter home in Palm Beach, and never come back to the White House.
As for the firing of Esper, what appeared to be an act of pure vengeance by Trump began to seem even more sinister after the subsequent ouster of several of the Defense Secretary’s senior advisers. Was this a sweeping purge that might presage more worrisome acts to come? Some analysts called the post-election firings a “decapitation strike.” Many theorized that the White House power play might have something to do with pulling troops out of Afghanistan and the Middle East—something that Pentagon officials have been publicly feuding about with Trump’s national-security adviser, Robert O’Brien. Or maybe it was about politicizing intelligence. Or defending Trump in the case of a truly contested succession. What seemed clear was that the regime loyalists installed in key posts at the Defense Department and the National Security Agency weren’t there just to add a line to their résumés.
Even after a full four years of watching Trump, this might have been the most unsettling, and uncertain, few days in his Presidency. On Monday, as Republicans made clear that they would not publicly challenge Trump’s election denialism, there were moments when I worried this really was the power grab we’ve spent the past few years dreading. By late in the week, it seemed more like much of the tumult of the era: terrible for democracy, but ultimately a bad case of Trumpian bluster rather than an ominous portent of tanks in the streets. In private, the President reportedly was already telling advisers he would like to run again in 2024, which at least sounded a lot less like a man who plans to barricade himself in the White House rather than leave in January.
On Thursday, five days into this insane impasse, I asked a dozen of the smartest Washington hands I know what to make of it all: Was this a coup in the making, or just another Trump con? Taken together, their responses were modestly reassuring. “A little coup, a lot of con, and a total and reckless disregard for the health of our democracy or country,” William Kristol, the conservative leader of the Never Trump movement, told me. “He couldn’t organize a one-car funeral; he sure as hell can’t organize a coup,” a leading Republican pollster, who worked with a number of the Party’s candidates this election and asked not to be named, said. “Besides, a coup would not stand. It would end the best way possible for the G.O.P.—with him dead or in jail. He doesn’t want either of those, so it’s a con.”
Brendan Buck, a Republican strategist who served as a top adviser to former House Speaker Paul Ryan, called Trump’s actions this week “a national embarrassment,” but also “a fantasy with no endgame” that will “not change anything other than eroding confidence in elections among Republicans.” The dénouement of whatever this is, Tom Davis, a former Republican member of Congress, told me, will come when states begin certifying the election results over the next few weeks. “Republicans know that Biden’s won. They’re just giving him room,” he said, of Trump. “When these are certified, this all crashes and burns.”
Several of them said the Pentagon firings—and the threat of additional firings, of officials like the F.B.I. director, Christopher Wray, and the C.I.A. director, Gina Haspel—were even more worrisome than the spectre of Trump refusing to leave office in January. “The Pentagon purges are most troubling because there are two months remaining,” William Antholis, the director of the Miller Center, at the University of Virginia, who has studied Presidential transitions and their national-security risks, said. Michael Abramowitz, the president of Freedom House, an N.G.O. that supports democracy around the world, told me that Trump’s moves resembled “authoritarian tactics” used elsewhere. “Will it be successful in helping President Trump keep power? I don’t think so,” Abramowitz said. “But is it a chilling move and a bad precedent? Very much so.” Perhaps the best-case version of what is going on came from Kori Schake, a Republican who served on the National Security Council under President George W. Bush and is now at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. She told me the Pentagon firings were a “spiteful indulgence rather than an ominous policy move.”
Miles Taylor, the former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff who later outed himself as the Anonymous author of a scathing anti-Trump Op-Ed in the Times and book, may have summed up the whole sorry episode best. Trump’s outrageous behavior since the election that rendered him the first one-term President in three decades is the latest, the worst, and the most worrisome example yet, he told me, of “Trumpism gone wild”—which strikes me as both quite accurate and not at all reassuring.
Read More About the 2020 Election


newyorker--2020-11-12--A Nobel Laureate on the Politics of Fighting the Coronavirus

This week , the United States set new records for COVID-19 cases .
Despite the rising numbers , the Trump @ @ @ @ @ severity of the pandemic .
While Donald Trump refuses to concede the 2020 election , @ @ @ @ @ a task force to help his Administration take immediate action to combat the coronavirus .
@ @ @ @ @ that it has developed a vaccine that may be more than ninety-per-cent effective against the @ @ @ @ @ , a Nobel laureate and former director of the National Institutes of Health , joins @ @ @ @ @ developments in the fight against the coronavirus , and what to expect from the year @ @

Download a transcript.|||
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Photograph by Esma Kucuksahin / Getty
This week, the United States set new records for COVID-19 cases. Despite the rising numbers, the Trump Administration continues to downplay the severity of the pandemic. While Donald Trump refuses to concede the 2020 election, President-elect Joe Biden has assembled a task force to help his Administration take immediate action to combat the coronavirus. Meanwhile, Pfizer has announced that it has developed a vaccine that may be more than ninety-per-cent effective against the coronavirus. Harold E. Varmus, a Nobel laureate and former director of the National Institutes of Health, joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss recent developments in the fight against the coronavirus, and what to expect from the year ahead.


newyorker--2020-11-12--Biden Could Receive Classified Intelligence Just by Hanging Out in Mar-a-Lago Dining Room

PALM BEACH , Florida ( The Borowitz Report ) —President-elect Joe Biden could obtain all the classified intelligence he needs @ @ @ @ @ the public dining room at Mar-a-Lago , members of the international espionage community recommend .
@ @ @ @ @ worry about getting official intelligence briefings , ” a foreign spy , who spoke on @ @ @ @ @ .
“ He should just reserve a table at Mar-a-Lago , and he ’ ll @ @ @ @ @ The spy offered his own methods for obtaining classified intelligence as a possible roadmap for @ @ @ @ @ a table near Trump , order an omelette , and turn on your recorder , @ @ @ @ @ the last four years “ the golden age of spying on the U.S. , ” @ @ @ @ @ about the impending Biden Presidency .
“ Nothing lasts forever , ” he said .

PALM BEACH, Florida (The Borowitz Report)—President-elect Joe Biden could obtain all the classified intelligence he needs simply by hanging out in the public dining room at Mar-a-Lago, members of the international espionage community recommend.
“Biden shouldn’t worry about getting official intelligence briefings,” a foreign spy, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. “He should just reserve a table at Mar-a-Lago, and he’ll hear everything he needs.”
The spy offered his own methods for obtaining classified intelligence as a possible roadmap for the President-elect. “Get a table near Trump, order an omelette, and turn on your recorder,” he said.
Calling the last four years “the golden age of spying on the U.S.,” the intelligence agent was philosophical about the impending Biden Presidency. “Nothing lasts forever,” he said.


newyorker--2020-11-12--The Pandemic’s Winter Surge Is Here

The Pandemic’s Winter Surge Is Here

At first , European governments tried to avoid a return to the restrictions they ’ d used in February .
But , as the virus filled I.C.U.s , they realized that they had no choice .
This month , the United Kingdom entered a second national lockdown , with bans on gatherings of more than two people .
In France , only schools , factories , and essential businesses remain open .
Germany has announced “ lockdown light , ” with heavy restrictions on bars , restaurants , gyms , and theatres .
These measures seem to have come too @ @ @ @ @ @ @ half the world ’ s new coronavirus cases .
“ They opened up much too fast , ” Mitchell Katz , the president and C.E.O .
of N.Y.C .
Health + Hospitals , the largest public-hospital system in the U.S. , told me .
Over the summer , Europeans took vacations and went to bars and clubs , facilitating viral spread ; genetic analyses suggest that travel to and from Spain , in particular , may have contributed significantly to the resurgence of infection .
“ The only way you can open up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the virus , ” Katz said .
“ And the only way you can eradicate the virus with today ’ s tools is if you ’ re a totalitarian government or on an island.
” Almost every flu pandemic since the eighteenth century has come with a second wave ; the fall of 1918 was far deadlier than the spring .
Today , as the Northern Hemisphere steps deeper into autumn and more activity moves indoors , the spread of the coronavirus is , predictably , accelerating .
America is again following Europe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ week of October , the U.S. recorded more new coronavirus cases than it has at any point during the pandemic ; there have been days in November on which more than a hundred and thirty thousand people have been found to be newly infected .
A few states—Wisconsin , North Dakota , Iowa—have among the highest per-capita infection rates in the world .
The new surge has no epicenter .
Infection records are being set in more than half of U.S. counties , and large swaths of the Midwest and mountain West are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ days , more than a thousand Americans are now dying of COVID-19—a number that is certain to rise , since deaths lag behind infections by several weeks .
The mortality rate for the virus has fallen substantially since the start of the pandemic , probably because of improvements in care and a shift in viral demographics : many of the newly infected are young .
But a lower death rate combined with a vast rise in infections will still create profound suffering .
One model predicts that , by the end of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dying from COVID-19 each day .
The American death toll could reach four hundred thousand by January .
Speaking about the coming winter with the Washington Post , Anthony Fauci concluded that the U.S. is “ in for a whole lot of hurt.
” The challenge now , for citizens and leaders , is to shift from anticipating the winter surge to recognizing that it is already here .
In early April , when things were bad in the Northeast but mostly O.K .
elsewhere , I got to know Tony Edwards and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who had flown to New York City to help when the pandemic was at its peak .
A few weeks later , they flew back to Utah , where their hospital was preparing for its own COVID-19 deluge .
The surge didn ’ t immediately materialize : they returned to “ Mundane May , ” as Aberegg called it .
But then Memorial Day festivities set off a rise in cases , which peaked in the middle of July .
Utah ’ s hospitals were generally able to manage , so Gary Herbert @ @ @ @ @ @ @ declined to issue a statewide mask mandate , instead deferring to local leaders .
A mask requirement put in place by the mayor of Salt Lake City , where the majority of Utah ’ s cases were concentrated , was enough to keep viral spread within limits .
As summer turned to fall , however , the virus began to spread more aggressively .
In August , Salt Lake County started logging around two hundred new cases per hundred thousand people each day—a level of growth at which many public-health experts argue against @ @ @ @ @ @ @ discourages it at an infection rate above twenty-five cases per hundred thousand people . )
Schools for all ages opened anyway ; in the month afterward , the rate of viral growth more than tripled , and Utah set new records for coronavirus hospitalizations .
According to officials , parents at some schools created an informal “ Mom Code , ” agreeing among themselves not to get their children tested in an effort to keep statistics low .
In one Salt Lake City suburb , a high school switched to remote learning only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and one teacher had been hospitalized and put on a ventilator .
Schools opened when viral spread was already high , then failed to close as cases rose further : it seems likely that this combination created an overwhelming coronavirus surge , driven largely by high-school and college students .
By mid-September , people aged fifteen to twenty-four had the highest rate of infection of any demographic in Utah , accounting for more than a quarter of new coronavirus cases and prompting officials to develop a targeted public-health campaign .
( “ You @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
.
But if you wan na stay at school , you got ta avoid the Rona !
” ; “ # ronalert , # avoidtherona.
” ) Tensions persist between parents who believe schools must remain open and those who think they should have closed long ago .
Lindsay Keegan , an epidemiologist at the University of Utah , cited so-called pandemic fatigue as a key factor driving the aversion to new restrictions .
“ Early on , COVID was a new and terrifying and unknown problem , ” she told me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ home , lock down , and do everything they could to prevent spread of the virus .
But humans have a hard time staying activated against prolonged crises.
” For months , as the numbers climbed , Utah ’ s governor acknowledged reality without acting on it .
In the summer , Herbert said that , although he “ strongly ” supported mask-wearing , he was concerned that mandating mask use would create “ divisive enforcement issues.
” When anti-mask protesters gathered outside the home of Angela Dunn , the state ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ disgraceful.
” He has also communicated about the virus in increasingly personal and forthright terms , citing his daughter and granddaughter , both of whom caught the virus ; one hasn ’ t regained her sense of smell three months later , and the other has lost weight owing to nausea .
“ Our hospitals can not keep up with Utah ’ s infection rate , ” he tweeted , last month .
“ You deserve to understand the dire situation we face .
We have seen this in Italy .
We have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could see this in Utah if things do not change.
” Even so , it was only on Sunday , November 8th—after his Lieutenant Governor won the gubernatorial election—that Herbert , whose term ends in January , declared a state of emergency , issuing a statewide mask mandate “ for the foreseeable future ” and putting into place temporary limits on social gatherings and extracurricular activities .
( Schools can continue in-person instruction . )
For public-health officials , the orders are welcome , but , Keegan warned , Utah is “ way @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the infection curve is symmetric .
It ’ s going to be a while before we get things under control , even if we start now.
” Russell Vinik , the chief medical operations officer at the University of Utah Health , told me that his hospital is running at about ninety per cent of its I.C.U .
capacity ; on some days , it ’ s over one hundred .
More coronavirus patients are arriving than are being discharged , and so the university has opened a surge I.C.U .
staffed by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ roles .
“ This is sustainable for a short period of time , ” Vinik said , “ but not for very long.
” Still , he went on , “ I don ’ t see this tide turning until we have a major change in public perception .
We haven ’ t had that yet .
For the most part , people are still just going about their lives.
” When describing the quality of treatment their patients receive , clinicians speak in terms of “ standards of care.
” As grim @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s hospital has been able to hold to its usual standard .
If more patients arrive , that will become difficult .
Vinik told me that there are at least two major changes to the standard of care that he hopes desperately to avoid .
The first , which he calls “ contingency standard , ” takes effect when the volume of new patients so overwhelms the I.C.U .
staff that clinicians trained in other specialties must be brought in .
“ These are great doctors , but they ’ re not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with respiratory disease , ” Vinik said .
“ That ’ s not ideal , but it ’ s the best we could do.
” Next is “ crisis standard , ” at which I.C.U .
care must be rationed .
Recently , a group of hospital leaders briefed the governor on the “ decision tree ” they would use while rationing : they would first take into account various clinical measures—blood pressure , mental status , liver and kidney function , need for oxygen , and so on—and then , in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ patients over older ones , giving preferential treatment to pregnant women , who , according to the guidelines , “ represent two lives.
” “ Crisis standard is something none of us are prepared to enact , ” Vinik concluded .
“ If we ’ re forced to make those decisions , it will be the most heinous thing that any of us has ever had to do.
” Utah ’ s experience mirrors that of many states where the virus is surging .
This week , eighteen states reported record numbers of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beds have forced hospitals across the country to build surge units .
In Idaho , where hospitalizations increased by nearly fifty per cent in late October , a third of the state ’ s I.C.U .
beds are occupied by COVID-19 patients .
In Wisconsin , which continues to break infection records , an astonishing thirty per cent of those tested are positive , and hospitals are running at ninety per cent capacity .

Europe’s second wave built slowly, starting in midsummer. At that time, charts comparing coronavirus cases in America and Europe highlighted the inadequacy of the U.S. response; there were days on which individual American states recorded more new infections than the entire European continent. But in July, cases in Spain started to tick upward, and in August the numbers in France began rising. By September, Spanish COVID-19 deaths had increased by a factor of ten, and France, for the first time, had recorded more than ten thousand new coronavirus cases in a single day. “We do have a very serious situation unfolding before us,” Hans Kluge, the W.H.O. regional director for Europe, warned. Spikes soon followed in the U.K., Italy, Germany, and other countries. The virus, once confined to a few hotspots, was everywhere.
At first, European governments tried to avoid a return to the restrictions they’d used in February. But, as the virus filled I.C.U.s, they realized that they had no choice. This month, the United Kingdom entered a second national lockdown, with bans on gatherings of more than two people. In France, only schools, factories, and essential businesses remain open. Germany has announced “lockdown light,” with heavy restrictions on bars, restaurants, gyms, and theatres. These measures seem to have come too late: Europe now accounts for nearly half the world’s new coronavirus cases. “They opened up much too fast,” Mitchell Katz, the president and C.E.O. of N.Y.C. Health + Hospitals, the largest public-hospital system in the U.S., told me. Over the summer, Europeans took vacations and went to bars and clubs, facilitating viral spread; genetic analyses suggest that travel to and from Spain, in particular, may have contributed significantly to the resurgence of infection. “The only way you can open up to that level is if you eradicate the virus,” Katz said. “And the only way you can eradicate the virus with today’s tools is if you’re a totalitarian government or on an island.”
Almost every flu pandemic since the eighteenth century has come with a second wave; the fall of 1918 was far deadlier than the spring. Today, as the Northern Hemisphere steps deeper into autumn and more activity moves indoors, the spread of the coronavirus is, predictably, accelerating. America is again following Europe’s lead. In the last week of October, the U.S. recorded more new coronavirus cases than it has at any point during the pandemic; there have been days in November on which more than a hundred and thirty thousand people have been found to be newly infected. A few states—Wisconsin, North Dakota, Iowa—have among the highest per-capita infection rates in the world. The new surge has no epicenter. Infection records are being set in more than half of U.S. counties, and large swaths of the Midwest and mountain West are struggling with skyrocketing hospitalizations. On many days, more than a thousand Americans are now dying of COVID-19—a number that is certain to rise, since deaths lag behind infections by several weeks.
The mortality rate for the virus has fallen substantially since the start of the pandemic, probably because of improvements in care and a shift in viral demographics: many of the newly infected are young. But a lower death rate combined with a vast rise in infections will still create profound suffering. One model predicts that, by the end of the year, two thousand Americans could be dying from COVID-19 each day. The American death toll could reach four hundred thousand by January. Speaking about the coming winter with the Washington Post, Anthony Fauci concluded that the U.S. is “in for a whole lot of hurt.” The challenge now, for citizens and leaders, is to shift from anticipating the winter surge to recognizing that it is already here.
The character of the winter surge changes depending on where you live. Over the course of the pandemic, the virus has moved inexorably from cities to rural areas. Today, many first-wave epicenters, including New York City, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, have successfully suppressed the virus and are now working to prevent a second surge. Less populous states, such as Utah, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas, muddled through over the summer, accepting a certain level of infection without imposing significant restrictions—but they are now losing control, and face unprecedented waves of infection with limited resources.
In early April, when things were bad in the Northeast but mostly O.K. elsewhere, I got to know Tony Edwards and Scott Aberegg, two doctors from Utah who had flown to New York City to help when the pandemic was at its peak. A few weeks later, they flew back to Utah, where their hospital was preparing for its own COVID-19 deluge. The surge didn’t immediately materialize: they returned to “Mundane May,” as Aberegg called it. But then Memorial Day festivities set off a rise in cases, which peaked in the middle of July. Utah’s hospitals were generally able to manage, so Gary Herbert, the state’s governor, declined to issue a statewide mask mandate, instead deferring to local leaders. A mask requirement put in place by the mayor of Salt Lake City, where the majority of Utah’s cases were concentrated, was enough to keep viral spread within limits.
As summer turned to fall, however, the virus began to spread more aggressively. In August, Salt Lake County started logging around two hundred new cases per hundred thousand people each day—a level of growth at which many public-health experts argue against in-person schooling. (A Harvard report discourages it at an infection rate above twenty-five cases per hundred thousand people.) Schools for all ages opened anyway; in the month afterward, the rate of viral growth more than tripled, and Utah set new records for coronavirus hospitalizations. According to officials, parents at some schools created an informal “Mom Code,” agreeing among themselves not to get their children tested in an effort to keep statistics low. In one Salt Lake City suburb, a high school switched to remote learning only after seventy-seven students had been diagnosed, and one teacher had been hospitalized and put on a ventilator.
Schools opened when viral spread was already high, then failed to close as cases rose further: it seems likely that this combination created an overwhelming coronavirus surge, driven largely by high-school and college students. By mid-September, people aged fifteen to twenty-four had the highest rate of infection of any demographic in Utah, accounting for more than a quarter of new coronavirus cases and prompting officials to develop a targeted public-health campaign. (“You’re so over it. . . . But if you wanna stay at school, you gotta avoid the Rona!”; “#ronalert, #avoidtherona.”) Tensions persist between parents who believe schools must remain open and those who think they should have closed long ago. Lindsay Keegan, an epidemiologist at the University of Utah, cited so-called pandemic fatigue as a key factor driving the aversion to new restrictions. “Early on, COVID was a new and terrifying and unknown problem,” she told me. “People were willing to stay home, lock down, and do everything they could to prevent spread of the virus. But humans have a hard time staying activated against prolonged crises.”
For months, as the numbers climbed, Utah’s governor acknowledged reality without acting on it. In the summer, Herbert said that, although he “strongly” supported mask-wearing, he was concerned that mandating mask use would create “divisive enforcement issues.” When anti-mask protesters gathered outside the home of Angela Dunn, the state’s epidemiologist, Herbert called their actions “disgraceful.” He has also communicated about the virus in increasingly personal and forthright terms, citing his daughter and granddaughter, both of whom caught the virus; one hasn’t regained her sense of smell three months later, and the other has lost weight owing to nausea. “Our hospitals cannot keep up with Utah’s infection rate,” he tweeted, last month. “You deserve to understand the dire situation we face. We have seen this in Italy. We have seen this in New York. We could see this in Utah if things do not change.”
Even so, it was only on Sunday, November 8th—after his Lieutenant Governor won the gubernatorial election—that Herbert, whose term ends in January, declared a state of emergency, issuing a statewide mask mandate “for the foreseeable future” and putting into place temporary limits on social gatherings and extracurricular activities. (Schools can continue in-person instruction.) For public-health officials, the orders are welcome, but, Keegan warned, Utah is “way behind. You have to remember that the infection curve is symmetric. It’s going to be a while before we get things under control, even if we start now.”
Russell Vinik, the chief medical operations officer at the University of Utah Health, told me that his hospital is running at about ninety per cent of its I.C.U. capacity; on some days, it’s over one hundred. More coronavirus patients are arriving than are being discharged, and so the university has opened a surge I.C.U. staffed by clinicians working overtime, sometimes in new roles. “This is sustainable for a short period of time,” Vinik said, “but not for very long.” Still, he went on, “I don’t see this tide turning until we have a major change in public perception. We haven’t had that yet. For the most part, people are still just going about their lives.”
When describing the quality of treatment their patients receive, clinicians speak in terms of “standards of care.” As grim as the current situation is, Vinik’s hospital has been able to hold to its usual standard. If more patients arrive, that will become difficult. Vinik told me that there are at least two major changes to the standard of care that he hopes desperately to avoid. The first, which he calls “contingency standard,” takes effect when the volume of new patients so overwhelms the I.C.U. staff that clinicians trained in other specialties must be brought in. “These are great doctors, but they’re not used to caring for acutely ill patients with respiratory disease,” Vinik said. “That’s not ideal, but it’s the best we could do.” Next is “crisis standard,” at which I.C.U. care must be rationed. Recently, a group of hospital leaders briefed the governor on the “decision tree” they would use while rationing: they would first take into account various clinical measures—blood pressure, mental status, liver and kidney function, need for oxygen, and so on—and then, in the case of a tie, favor younger patients over older ones, giving preferential treatment to pregnant women, who, according to the guidelines, “represent two lives.” “Crisis standard is something none of us are prepared to enact,” Vinik concluded. “If we’re forced to make those decisions, it will be the most heinous thing that any of us has ever had to do.”


newyorker--2020-11-12--William Barr’s “Radical Break” from Precedent, and the Future of the Justice Department

I recently discussed Barr ’ s actions and the future of federal law enforcement with Wendy Weiser , who directs the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice , a nonpartisan think tank at the N.Y.U .
School of Law .
During our conversation , which has been edited for length and clarity , we discussed Barr ’ s track record of politicizing law enforcement to benefit Trump , how seriously we should take Barr ’ s promise of voter-fraud investigations , and what a Biden Administration can do to make the Justice Department less partisan .
Historically , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in making sure our elections are free and fair , and why is this memo from the Attorney General a break from tradition , if it is ?
The Department of Justice has played a few different roles in keeping our elections fair .
They have helped to monitor and observe elections for the purpose of insuring compliance with our nation ’ s civil-rights laws .
That was rolled back a little bit because of the Supreme Court decision , in 2013 , that gutted a portion of the Voting Rights Act .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ laws against voter fraud and other misconduct .
For decades , the Department of Justice has had a clear written policy prohibiting any public actions to investigate election crimes or voter fraud before an election is certified .
This has been in order to prevent interfering in the election and politicizing the law-enforcement process .
So this recent memo by Attorney General Barr is a radical break from this practice and from the long-standing rules of the Department of Justice to avoid any kind of public interference in the election process .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and law-enforcement actions taken while an election is still ongoing , and before the votes are certified .
Let me just play devil ’ s advocate for a minute here .
We obviously do not have widespread evidence of voter fraud at all—Trump ’ s allegations are completely unfounded .
But , if we did have reason to think that there was significant voter fraud , why wouldn ’ t we want the Justice Department to investigate it as soon as possible , especially before the vote is made official and the Electoral @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s the thinking there for keeping out the Department of Justice ?
There are a couple of things .
First , there ’ s nothing that prevents the Department of Justice from quietly investigating any election misconduct during this period .
The long-standing bar has been against any public actions .
But the Department of Justice isn ’ t the only body that is enforcing the integrity of our elections .
The principal actors responsible for election integrity and preventing voter fraud are state and local elected officials and law-enforcement officials .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ that their investigation and work is not sufficient .
There is no place for the Attorney General in elections .
The Attorney General doesn ’ t decide elections .
Courts don ’ t decide elections .
Voters do .
Imagine this crazy hypothetical , where we have an Attorney General who really wants to mess with the election results and writes a memo like this .
What would be the steps he could take that would concern you ?
It ’ s hard to imagine what steps the Department of Justice might take @ @ @ @ @ @ @ widespread misconduct or any factual predicate for any legal action or investigation .
This appears to be little more than a P.R .
stunt designed to sow doubt in the integrity and outcome of the election , which has been the strategy that the Trump campaign has been pursuing .
I want to find a balance between saying that this is O.K.
, and saying that this means William Barr is about to give Donald Trump a second term .
I think it ’ s a P.R .
campaign .
I don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ risk here .
I think , as you noted , it is absolutely appropriate , at the right time and in the right way , for the Department of Justice to investigate any misconduct and to enforce laws against that misconduct .
And there has been no evidence that has come to light that would justify any such action at this point .
So it ’ s hard to imagine what lawful nightmare scenario could unfold here without any factual basis .
With regard to Attorney General Barr , this seems to fit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he has gone about running the Department of Justice .
Are there other steps he has taken during his tenure that remind you of this ?
There has been a disturbing pattern of Attorney General Barr misusing the power of the Department of Justice for inappropriate political aims .
This is a pattern for which the Department of Justice has been criticized by the courts , for example , in the census case .
From the handling of the Mueller investigation to the handling of politically salient cases , there has been a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the benefit of the President .
I think that there ’ s a lot of work that ’ s going to need to be done in the coming months in the Biden Administration to restore the integrity and neutrality of the Department of Justice .
Obviously , Biden should appoint more upstanding people than Barr .
But how worried are you about the functioning of the Department of Justice now , and what could the next Administration do to insure less partisanship than there has been in recent years ?
Well , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ needs to be personnel changes and the removal of individuals who ’ ve been misusing the office of the Department of Justice .
But I think that we have had long-standing norms and practices that were designed to insulate the Department of Justice from political interference , from the White House , that need to be put back in place , and that can be done by executive order .
For example , in nearly every Administration before this one , the White House has issued a limited-contact policy that actually was designed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Department of Justice over ongoing enforcement matters , so as to prevent political interference .
This Administration did not issue—or adhere to these practices .
I think it is critical that , at the beginning of the new Administration , President-elect Biden adopts a similar policy .
There are a number of other executive actions that can be taken to insulate the Department of Justice from further politicization , including strengthening the role of , and insulating , the Inspector General .
We have proposed a series of executive actions that President Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the respect for the rule of law .
And it is not just the President .
Congress can also pass laws that are designed to rein in abuse of executive power and protect against the politicization of law enforcement .
Congress can impose these constraints and limits on the executive branch , so that we don ’ t have these risks going forward .
Correct me if this is wrong , but recently Congress has been unwilling to do things in this area , which is one of the problems , because if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ executive orders and norms , another Administration with a friendly Supreme Court can just issue whatever executive orders it wants .
Congress has been unwilling , but we ’ re going to be in a new era .
We ’ ll either see a shift in partisan control of the Congress , or an era of divided government during which the incentives will be different and the Executive might be willing to accept legislation that would codify these long-standing constraints .
So I do think that , going forward , the potential for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has shown itself to be unwilling to constrain the President in any way , and even appears to be going along with the President ’ s attempt to deny the election outcome .
As I was preparing for this interview , I was reading about the scandal during the second Bush Administration regarding U.S .
Attorneys and elections .
Can you talk about what that scandal was and how it played out in Congress after it was discovered ?
Yeah .
The Trump campaign is not the first campaign to raise bogus claims @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voting and get an edge in an election .
This has been a long-standing strategy among some Republicans for the past couple of decades .
It came to a head during the 2006 midterm elections .
Pressure was put on U.S .
Attorneys , in advance of the elections , to bring politically motivated prosecutions for voter fraud , against this long-standing policy that we were talking about earlier that prohibits taking such actions publicly before all the ballots have been counted .
Some U.S .
Attorneys who refused to engage in these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more compliant U.S .
Attorneys .
In addition , the Civil Rights Division and Voting Section—the civil-rights-enforcement apparatus of the Department of Justice—was enlisted in an effort to try to push more voting restrictions and reduce civil-rights protections for voters across the country , in the lead-up to that election .

On Monday, less than a week after President Trump lost the election to Joe Biden, the Attorney General, William Barr, authorized Justice Department prosecutors to investigate the President’s unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. The authorization was a significant departure from the norms of the department, which usually does not undertake public investigations of voter fraud until after local election officials have finished counting ballots and certified election results. In response to Barr’s announcement, Richard Pilger, who oversaw voter-fraud investigations at the Justice Department, stepped down from that role. (He remains an employee at the D.O.J.)
I recently discussed Barr’s actions and the future of federal law enforcement with Wendy Weiser, who directs the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan think tank at the N.Y.U. School of Law. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed Barr’s track record of politicizing law enforcement to benefit Trump, how seriously we should take Barr’s promise of voter-fraud investigations, and what a Biden Administration can do to make the Justice Department less partisan.
Historically, what role has the D.O.J. played in making sure our elections are free and fair, and why is this memo from the Attorney General a break from tradition, if it is?
The Department of Justice has played a few different roles in keeping our elections fair. They have helped to monitor and observe elections for the purpose of insuring compliance with our nation’s civil-rights laws. That was rolled back a little bit because of the Supreme Court decision, in 2013, that gutted a portion of the Voting Rights Act. The Department of Justice also enforces election laws against voter fraud and other misconduct. For decades, the Department of Justice has had a clear written policy prohibiting any public actions to investigate election crimes or voter fraud before an election is certified. This has been in order to prevent interfering in the election and politicizing the law-enforcement process. So this recent memo by Attorney General Barr is a radical break from this practice and from the long-standing rules of the Department of Justice to avoid any kind of public interference in the election process. It suggests that there can be public investigations and law-enforcement actions taken while an election is still ongoing, and before the votes are certified.
Let me just play devil’s advocate for a minute here. We obviously do not have widespread evidence of voter fraud at all—Trump’s allegations are completely unfounded. But, if we did have reason to think that there was significant voter fraud, why wouldn’t we want the Justice Department to investigate it as soon as possible, especially before the vote is made official and the Electoral College chooses the next President? What’s the thinking there for keeping out the Department of Justice?
There are a couple of things. First, there’s nothing that prevents the Department of Justice from quietly investigating any election misconduct during this period. The long-standing bar has been against any public actions. But the Department of Justice isn’t the only body that is enforcing the integrity of our elections. The principal actors responsible for election integrity and preventing voter fraud are state and local elected officials and law-enforcement officials. And there is no reason to think that their investigation and work is not sufficient. There is no place for the Attorney General in elections. The Attorney General doesn’t decide elections. Courts don’t decide elections. Voters do.
Imagine this crazy hypothetical, where we have an Attorney General who really wants to mess with the election results and writes a memo like this. What would be the steps he could take that would concern you?
It’s hard to imagine what steps the Department of Justice might take in the absence of any evidence of widespread misconduct or any factual predicate for any legal action or investigation. This appears to be little more than a P.R. stunt designed to sow doubt in the integrity and outcome of the election, which has been the strategy that the Trump campaign has been pursuing.
I want to find a balance between saying that this is O.K., and saying that this means William Barr is about to give Donald Trump a second term.
I think it’s a P.R. campaign. I don’t think there’s any legal risk here. I think, as you noted, it is absolutely appropriate, at the right time and in the right way, for the Department of Justice to investigate any misconduct and to enforce laws against that misconduct. And there has been no evidence that has come to light that would justify any such action at this point. So it’s hard to imagine what lawful nightmare scenario could unfold here without any factual basis.
With regard to Attorney General Barr, this seems to fit into a larger pattern in the way he has gone about running the Department of Justice. Are there other steps he has taken during his tenure that remind you of this?
There has been a disturbing pattern of Attorney General Barr misusing the power of the Department of Justice for inappropriate political aims. This is a pattern for which the Department of Justice has been criticized by the courts, for example, in the census case. From the handling of the Mueller investigation to the handling of politically salient cases, there has been a fairly consistent pattern of politicizing law enforcement for the benefit of the President. I think that there’s a lot of work that’s going to need to be done in the coming months in the Biden Administration to restore the integrity and neutrality of the Department of Justice.
Obviously, Biden should appoint more upstanding people than Barr. But how worried are you about the functioning of the Department of Justice now, and what could the next Administration do to insure less partisanship than there has been in recent years?
Well, obviously, first and foremost, there needs to be personnel changes and the removal of individuals who’ve been misusing the office of the Department of Justice. But I think that we have had long-standing norms and practices that were designed to insulate the Department of Justice from political interference, from the White House, that need to be put back in place, and that can be done by executive order. For example, in nearly every Administration before this one, the White House has issued a limited-contact policy that actually was designed to limit who can talk with the Department of Justice over ongoing enforcement matters, so as to prevent political interference. This Administration did not issue—or adhere to these practices.
I think it is critical that, at the beginning of the new Administration, President-elect Biden adopts a similar policy. There are a number of other executive actions that can be taken to insulate the Department of Justice from further politicization, including strengthening the role of, and insulating, the Inspector General. We have proposed a series of executive actions that President Biden can take, in order to restore the respect for the rule of law. And it is not just the President. Congress can also pass laws that are designed to rein in abuse of executive power and protect against the politicization of law enforcement. Congress can impose these constraints and limits on the executive branch, so that we don’t have these risks going forward.


newyorker--2020-11-12--The Professor and the Politician

The Professor and the Politician

The sociologist Max Weber spent much of his life seduced by this second fable .
A scholar of hot temper and volcanic energy , Weber longed to be a politician of cold focus and hard reason .
Across three decades of a scholarly career , in Wilhelmine and Weimar Germany , he made repeated and often failed incursions into the public sphere—to give advice , stand for office , form a party , negotiate a treaty , and write a constitution .
His “ secret love , ” he confessed to a friend , was “ the political.
” Even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he could be heard declaiming on behalf of the German people , jousting with their enemies in several of the many languages he knew .
“ If one is lucky ” in politics , he observed , a “ genius appears just once every few hundred years.
” That left the door wide open for him .
On the page , Weber told a different story .
In the last years of his life , which ended in 1920 , he delivered two lectures in Munich , one on the vocation of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vocation of the politician .
The lectures were published in 1919 and have now been reissued , in a brisk translation by Damion Searls , as “ Charisma and Disenchantment : The Vocation Lectures.
” In Weber ’ s hands , the professor and the politician are not figures to be joined .
Each remains a lonely hero of heavy burden , sent to ride against his particular foe : the overly structured institution of the modern mind , the overly structured institution of the modern state .
( Weber assumed both of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has much probability of success ; in part because of that improbability , each is possessed by a great determination to prevail .
Students of these lectures often miss the likeness that Weber draws between the professor and the politician because they ’ re misled by the distinction he makes , at the end of his second lecture , between “ an ethics of personal conviction ” and “ an ethics of responsibility.
” In conventional readings , the first ethic is associated with the purist , who codes as a professor or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his good intentions than the consequences of his actions .
The second ethic is associated with the realist , who codes as a savvy pol and cares about results .
The realist understands that not everyone shares his goals , that the highest ends require the lowest means , and that , if he acts in the world , he must take responsibility for the foreseeable consequences he creates in the world .
Making the distinction in this way seems to stack the deck against the purist .
He ’ s selfish and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hands and a clear soul .
The realist is responsive and responsible ; he cares for the world .
The simplicity of the distinction may be why it is so beloved of pundits and politicos ( or older activists giving instruction to younger ones ) .
The fact that it is so simple , the choice between the two ethics so clear-cut as to be no choice at all , should tell us that Weber had other things in mind .
The politician faces a different annihilation .
It is in the nature @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that it “ leads to final results that totally fail to fit , or even entirely go against , the original intention.
” We seek freedom ; we produce tyranny .
We want peace ; we wage war .
Machiavelli , writing four centuries earlier , had made a similar point about the gulf , so puzzling and peculiar to politics , between intention and result .
A prince wishes to be generous .
He showers the people with gifts , which must be paid for with taxes ; the people now see @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the other hand , even miserliness , saves the prince from lavishness and levies .
It wins for him a reputation for generosity .
That is the way of politics .
But where Machiavelli saw this gulf as an opportunity for a more sophisticated agency , in which the prince produces an intended effect by deliberately doing the opposite , Weber possessed little confidence in the politician ’ s ability to manipulate outcomes .
The medium of political action—the bureaucracies of the modern state ; the violent relations and imperial rivalries between states—was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a moment of collapse , in the sixteenth century , when the force field of the Church was weak and political actors were being released from their traditional obligations and constraints .
The state had not yet come into being : it was something to create , an opportunity for invention and originality .
By the time Weber began writing about politics , the state had become a mighty arsenal , with rules and claims of its own .
Weber ’ s politician may have had more power at his disposal than Machiavelli @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more checked in its use .
Perhaps that ’ s why Weber built into his conception of power the recoil of institutions .
Where a philosopher like Thomas Hobbes defined power in solipsistic terms—as simply our “ present means , to obtain some future apparent Good ” —Weber saw power as relational , the exertion of self against other people and other things , the “ enforcing of one ’ s own will even against resistance , ” as he put it in “ Economy and Society.
” That relational dimension of power @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s actions , setting a trap into which all too many fall .
The politician needs to convert effort into effect , to “ make an impression ” on the world .
But there ’ s a fine line between molding the world into a shape and needing to see one ’ s signature at the base of it .
The politician is always at risk of swapping out “ actual power ” —power tethered to purpose—for “ the brilliant appearance of power ” —power untethered from purpose .
The first is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the second , the temptation of vanity , which is “ the deadly enemy of any commitment to one ’ s goals.
” When a politician gives in to vanity , amending or adapting his aims in order to perform effectiveness , his power is drained of its design .
According to Weber , instead of giving up on his intentions or revising his ends , the politician should pursue them with greater force .
In politics , as in scholarship , we take on obligations that are difficult , if not impossible @ @ @ @ @ @ @ struggle , ” Weber wrote .
Or masochism : the harder the cause , the nobler the pain .
If he hopes to “ achieve what is possible , ” the politician must “ reach for the impossible.
” The scholar , for his part , must do “ something that will never be finished , in fact can ’ t be.
” Though the professor and the politician pursue their impossible dreams , they have no objective way of defending them .
The modern world is home to multiple and conflicting systems @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the division of the world into separate spheres of obligation and commitment , makes it difficult for anyone to claim , with confidence or honesty , that his values , and the actions his values demand , are necessitated by or correspond to the moral structure of the universe .
There is no such structure .
The professor can ’ t “ prove ” that his work is worth doing , that it is authorized by nature or God .
We can ’ t outsource our justifications to the world in that way @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ours alone , and we must take responsibility for them and the actions they inspire .
That ’ s the impossibility of the professor and the politician : neither has a ground to stand on ; both must reach for the sky .
Weber ’ s complaints will sound familiar to contemporary readers .
Budget-strapped universities pack as many students as possible into classes .
Numbers are a “ measure of success , ” while quality , because it is “ unquantifiable , ” is ignored .
Young scholars lead a “ precarious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a long-term career , and the rule of promotion is that “ there are a lot of mediocrities in leading university positions.
” Every aspiring academic must ask himself whether “ he can bear to see mediocrity after mediocrity promoted ahead of him , year after year , without becoming embittered and broken inside.
” The “ animating principle ” of the university is an “ empty fiction.
” The state is equally ossified .
Most people lack the time or wealth to devote themselves to politics .
Those who have the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ means .
There ’ s no way that politics can be “ institutionally organized to correspond to any kind of ‘ higher calling.
’ ” For Weber , the only place where “ unconditional , ruthless political idealism ” is to be found is “ among the classes who own nothing.
” They don ’ t participate , except in a revolutionary period , which Weber doesn ’ t believe he is in .
The events of 1918 and 1919 are a “ carnival being dignified with the name of ‘ revolution.
’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bureaucracy nor capitalism ( although capitalism does play an under-remarked role in these lectures ) .
Instead , it ’ s an ancient tension between hero and fate , transposed to modern life .
Where classical tragedy sees the hero felled by a destiny that he resists , the nemesis of the Weberian actor is absorption in the institutions that he ’ s meant to oppose .
Society is a siren , forever tempting us to forsake our tasks and seek the smaller goods of reputation and status .
The scholar becomes a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The danger is not defeat of the opposing self from without but corruption of the self from within , where the self ’ s diminishing desire to oppose comports all too well with society ’ s needs .
It ’ s tempting to see Weber ’ s theory as an empirical description of the modern world , particularly as the engines of social movement have slowed , and after we ’ ve elected a President whose appeal , as a candidate , was the promise of blank stability .
In a revisionist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ junk Weber ’ s notion of a political savior , while holding onto his account of institutions .
In this amended version of Weber ’ s theory , the structures of modern life remain , only it is democratic movements , rather than the heroic self , that are tragically arrayed against them .
Yet even this form of Weber ’ s tension should be seen for what it is : a fiction , profoundly modern , deeply misleading .
In an age of deep polarization , neoliberalism , and global warming , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an appealing one .
( The fact that he died at the tail end of a pandemic , which may have taken his life , and in the midst of a street battle between left and right , only adds to his aura . )
His spirit of melancholy—a word often heard on the academic left—registers a desire for something different without committing us to the confidence that collective action requires .
Yet for all the potency of that vision , Klein ’ s reading suggests the perils of overstating the vice grip @ @ @ @ @ @ @ possibilities of political action—possibilities not for the tragic elevation of the self or the sadness of social movements but for the collective transformation of the world .
Needs , after all , can and should be met .
If the last half century ’ s struggles over the economy have taught us anything , it ’ s that the provision of comforts will always be contested ; social democracy will always need defending .
We needn ’ t worry too much about the end of conflict or an abundance of ease .
When @ @ @ @ @ @ @ less a description than a prayer , a desperate bid to find friction in a world supposedly smoothed by structure .
He was hardly the only social theorist to over-structure reality , to mistake the suspended animation of a moment for the immobilisme of an epoch .
Tocqueville suffered from the same malady ; Marcuse , Arendt , and Foucault shared some of its symptoms as well .
But Weber needed the malady .
The question is : Do we ?

If he hopes to “achieve what is possible,” Max Weber argued, the politician must “reach for the impossible.” Photograph from Zuma / Alamy
The professor and the politician are a dyad of perpetual myth. In one myth, they are locked in conflict, sparring over the claims of reason and the imperative of power. Think Socrates and Athens, or Noam Chomsky and the American state. In another myth, they are reconciled, even fused. The professor becomes a politician, saving the polity from corruption and ignorance, demagoguery and vice. Think Plato’s philosopher-king, or Aaron Sorkin’s Jed Bartlet. The nobility of ideas is preserved, and transmuted, slowly, into the stuff of action.
The sociologist Max Weber spent much of his life seduced by this second fable. A scholar of hot temper and volcanic energy, Weber longed to be a politician of cold focus and hard reason. Across three decades of a scholarly career, in Wilhelmine and Weimar Germany, he made repeated and often failed incursions into the public sphere—to give advice, stand for office, form a party, negotiate a treaty, and write a constitution. His “secret love,” he confessed to a friend, was “the political.” Even in the delirium of his final days, he could be heard declaiming on behalf of the German people, jousting with their enemies in several of the many languages he knew. “If one is lucky” in politics, he observed, a “genius appears just once every few hundred years.” That left the door wide open for him.
On the page, Weber told a different story. In the last years of his life, which ended in 1920, he delivered two lectures in Munich, one on the vocation of the scholar and the other on the vocation of the politician. The lectures were published in 1919 and have now been reissued, in a brisk translation by Damion Searls, as “Charisma and Disenchantment: The Vocation Lectures.” In Weber’s hands, the professor and the politician are not figures to be joined. Each remains a lonely hero of heavy burden, sent to ride against his particular foe: the overly structured institution of the modern mind, the overly structured institution of the modern state. (Weber assumed both of his protagonists were male.) Neither has much probability of success; in part because of that improbability, each is possessed by a great determination to prevail.
Students of these lectures often miss the likeness that Weber draws between the professor and the politician because they’re misled by the distinction he makes, at the end of his second lecture, between “an ethics of personal conviction” and “an ethics of responsibility.” In conventional readings, the first ethic is associated with the purist, who codes as a professor or intellectual, and who cares more about his good intentions than the consequences of his actions. The second ethic is associated with the realist, who codes as a savvy pol and cares about results. The realist understands that not everyone shares his goals, that the highest ends require the lowest means, and that, if he acts in the world, he must take responsibility for the foreseeable consequences he creates in the world.
Making the distinction in this way seems to stack the deck against the purist. He’s selfish and solipsistic, concerned only with his clean hands and a clear soul. The realist is responsive and responsible; he cares for the world. The simplicity of the distinction may be why it is so beloved of pundits and politicos (or older activists giving instruction to younger ones). The fact that it is so simple, the choice between the two ethics so clear-cut as to be no choice at all, should tell us that Weber had other things in mind.
Education and government, said Freud, are two of the world’s “impossible professions.” Weber had a theory as to why. Every effort of the professor and the politician is haunted by the spectre of its disappearance. As a scholar, the professor wagers his soul on getting “this specific conjecture exactly right about this particular point in this particular manuscript.” The smaller the question, the larger the devotion—a “strange intoxication,” Weber concedes, “mocked by all who do not share it.” That is the poignancy of the scholar’s vocation: to demonstrate his worth by taking on a task that no one believes is worth doing, and in which “success is by no means guaranteed.” Even if he is successful, the scholar must face the fact that his work will produce new questions. Those can be answered only by new scholarship, which, one day, will surpass his. It is the “destiny,” and even the “point,” of the scholar’s work to be “left behind.”
The politician faces a different annihilation. It is in the nature of political action, Weber said, that it “leads to final results that totally fail to fit, or even entirely go against, the original intention.” We seek freedom; we produce tyranny. We want peace; we wage war. Machiavelli, writing four centuries earlier, had made a similar point about the gulf, so puzzling and peculiar to politics, between intention and result. A prince wishes to be generous. He showers the people with gifts, which must be paid for with taxes; the people now see him as rapacious. Thrift, on the other hand, even miserliness, saves the prince from lavishness and levies. It wins for him a reputation for generosity. That is the way of politics.
But where Machiavelli saw this gulf as an opportunity for a more sophisticated agency, in which the prince produces an intended effect by deliberately doing the opposite, Weber possessed little confidence in the politician’s ability to manipulate outcomes. The medium of political action—the bureaucracies of the modern state; the violent relations and imperial rivalries between states—was simply too dense.
Machiavelli wrote at a moment of collapse, in the sixteenth century, when the force field of the Church was weak and political actors were being released from their traditional obligations and constraints. The state had not yet come into being: it was something to create, an opportunity for invention and originality. By the time Weber began writing about politics, the state had become a mighty arsenal, with rules and claims of its own. Weber’s politician may have had more power at his disposal than Machiavelli’s prince, but he was more checked in its use. Perhaps that’s why Weber built into his conception of power the recoil of institutions. Where a philosopher like Thomas Hobbes defined power in solipsistic terms—as simply our “present means, to obtain some future apparent Good”—Weber saw power as relational, the exertion of self against other people and other things, the “enforcing of one’s own will even against resistance,” as he put it in “Economy and Society.”
That relational dimension of power is the dramatic context of the politician’s actions, setting a trap into which all too many fall. The politician needs to convert effort into effect, to “make an impression” on the world. But there’s a fine line between molding the world into a shape and needing to see one’s signature at the base of it. The politician is always at risk of swapping out “actual power”—power tethered to purpose—for “the brilliant appearance of power”—power untethered from purpose. The first is the aim of the true politician; the second, the temptation of vanity, which is “the deadly enemy of any commitment to one’s goals.” When a politician gives in to vanity, amending or adapting his aims in order to perform effectiveness, his power is drained of its design.
According to Weber, instead of giving up on his intentions or revising his ends, the politician should pursue them with greater force. In politics, as in scholarship, we take on obligations that are difficult, if not impossible, to fulfill. “Politics is struggle,” Weber wrote. Or masochism: the harder the cause, the nobler the pain. If he hopes to “achieve what is possible,” the politician must “reach for the impossible.” The scholar, for his part, must do “something that will never be finished, in fact can’t be.”
Though the professor and the politician pursue their impossible dreams, they have no objective way of defending them. The modern world is home to multiple and conflicting systems of belief. That moral pluralism, the division of the world into separate spheres of obligation and commitment, makes it difficult for anyone to claim, with confidence or honesty, that his values, and the actions his values demand, are necessitated by or correspond to the moral structure of the universe. There is no such structure. The professor can’t “prove” that his work is worth doing, that it is authorized by nature or God. We can’t outsource our justifications to the world in that way. Our values are ours, and ours alone, and we must take responsibility for them and the actions they inspire. That’s the impossibility of the professor and the politician: neither has a ground to stand on; both must reach for the sky.
Weber delivered the first of the two lectures, on the scholar’s work, on November 7, 1917, the day of the Bolshevik Revolution. One year later, a wave of revolution and counter-revolution swept across Germany. It didn’t break until after Weber delivered his second lecture, on the politician’s work, on January 28, 1919. Weber makes occasional, if oblique, reference to the swirl of events around him, but the dominant motif of both lectures is neither turbulence nor movement. It is stuckness. The particles of academic and political life have slowed to a halt; all that was air has become solid.
Weber’s complaints will sound familiar to contemporary readers. Budget-strapped universities pack as many students as possible into classes. Numbers are a “measure of success,” while quality, because it is “unquantifiable,” is ignored. Young scholars lead a “precarious quasi-proletarian existence,” with little prospect of a long-term career, and the rule of promotion is that “there are a lot of mediocrities in leading university positions.” Every aspiring academic must ask himself whether “he can bear to see mediocrity after mediocrity promoted ahead of him, year after year, without becoming embittered and broken inside.” The “animating principle” of the university is an “empty fiction.”
The state is equally ossified. Most people lack the time or wealth to devote themselves to politics. Those who have the resources see politics as business by other means. There’s no way that politics can be “institutionally organized to correspond to any kind of ‘higher calling.’ ” For Weber, the only place where “unconditional, ruthless political idealism” is to be found is “among the classes who own nothing.” They don’t participate, except in a revolutionary period, which Weber doesn’t believe he is in. The events of 1918 and 1919 are a “carnival being dignified with the name of ‘revolution.’ ”
The spectre haunting Weber is neither bureaucracy nor capitalism (although capitalism does play an under-remarked role in these lectures). Instead, it’s an ancient tension between hero and fate, transposed to modern life. Where classical tragedy sees the hero felled by a destiny that he resists, the nemesis of the Weberian actor is absorption in the institutions that he’s meant to oppose. Society is a siren, forever tempting us to forsake our tasks and seek the smaller goods of reputation and status. The scholar becomes a scribe; the politician, a hack. The danger is not defeat of the opposing self from without but corruption of the self from within, where the self’s diminishing desire to oppose comports all too well with society’s needs.
It’s tempting to see Weber’s theory as an empirical description of the modern world, particularly as the engines of social movement have slowed, and after we’ve elected a President whose appeal, as a candidate, was the promise of blank stability. In a revisionist mode, we might be tempted to junk Weber’s notion of a political savior, while holding onto his account of institutions. In this amended version of Weber’s theory, the structures of modern life remain, only it is democratic movements, rather than the heroic self, that are tragically arrayed against them. Yet even this form of Weber’s tension should be seen for what it is: a fiction, profoundly modern, deeply misleading.
As the political theorist Steven Klein argues in his enormously clarifying study, “The Work of Politics: Making a Democratic Welfare State,” Weber had a suspicion, almost a fear, of the realm of everyday needs, particularly material needs. A need or want demands gratification. Sometimes, that demand sets the stage for revolutionary leaders who transform society, whether with a social contract or a workers’ republic. Even capitalism, according to Weber, was once the work of a charismatic cohort of schismatics. But while unmet needs may elicit acts of extraordinary creativity, both moral and political, met needs limit our capacity to experience suffering, and to generate meaning from that suffering. When fulfillment replaces frustration, social structures degenerate into flattened planes of existence, free of friction. For Weber, capitalism and socialism, the market and the welfare state, firms and social movements, economics and politics—all spell the same end: people getting what they want. With that satisfaction comes the retirement from striving, the disappearance of tragedy, and the loss of the tutelage of suffering.
In an age of deep polarization, neoliberalism, and global warming, Weber’s vision can seem like an appealing one. (The fact that he died at the tail end of a pandemic, which may have taken his life, and in the midst of a street battle between left and right, only adds to his aura.) His spirit of melancholy—a word often heard on the academic left—registers a desire for something different without committing us to the confidence that collective action requires. Yet for all the potency of that vision, Klein’s reading suggests the perils of overstating the vice grip of the material world and underestimating the possibilities of political action—possibilities not for the tragic elevation of the self or the sadness of social movements but for the collective transformation of the world.
Needs, after all, can and should be met. If the last half century’s struggles over the economy have taught us anything, it’s that the provision of comforts will always be contested; social democracy will always need defending. We needn’t worry too much about the end of conflict or an abundance of ease. When Weber constructed his theory, it was less a description than a prayer, a desperate bid to find friction in a world supposedly smoothed by structure. He was hardly the only social theorist to over-structure reality, to mistake the suspended animation of a moment for the immobilisme of an epoch. Tocqueville suffered from the same malady; Marcuse, Arendt, and Foucault shared some of its symptoms as well. But Weber needed the malady. The question is: Do we?


newyorker--2020-11-13--With Trump Leaving, We Can Finally Stop Worrying About This Wolf

These past four years have been a stress-filled nightmare .
As soon as Donald Trump took office , the world started to feel scarier and more dangerous .
But thanks to the American people stepping up to vote in record numbers , we will never again have to think about that wolf who prowls our property and scratches up all our umbrellas .
He ’ s gotten way more aggressive over time , and our mailman now refuses to deliver packages .
Our long national nightmare of having a wolf who somehow got our house key is over .
No @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at dinnertime and steal the turkey off the table .
He didn ’ t even eat it !
He just didn ’ t want us to have it .
Trump has clearly brought out something cruel and ugly in wild carnivores .
My kids were reduced to eating creamed corn in a locked bathroom , and they had to share a spoon .
But the people of this great country fought back with their ballots .
They said no to wolves knocking over bottles of wine just to ruin the carpet .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Although this week was a good one for the country , we still have a long way to go .
Despite four chaotic years of wolves jumping through our windshields and making us swerve into a fruit cart , forty-eight per cent of voters still chose Trump , which is worrisome and disturbing .
It ’ s difficult to understand what would make someone want four more years of that .
Do they like having to pull tufts of wolf fur out of their dashboards ?
Trump ’ s inept mishandling of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ well as his complete ignorance of wolf history , was at the forefront of voters ’ minds this year .
Had this President stood up on Day One and told the American people not to stare down wolves , because they view eye contact as threatening , he would have cruised to reëlection .
But you can ’ t just ignore the biggest problem that the people of this nation are facing and expect them to support you .
Wolves are dangerous , and we need to take their snarls seriously .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be dealt with .
This byzantine system thwarts the will of the people to sleep in an honest-to-goodness bed instead of a protective metal barrel with a hole so that you can breathe .
It hurts our democracy , and our knees , to cram ourselves into cylinders that heat up like a skillet when sunlight hits them .
The American people are sick and tired of barrel burns .
Election Night was a stressful one , to be sure .
The uncertainty , the what-ifs , the howling .
I think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ too much and set up a Rube Goldberg machine to kick encroaching wolves with a boot .
But , that night , it felt like the boot was kicking us .
In the end , thankfully , everything worked out .
Come January , we will have a President who cares about all Americans with wolf scratches that look infected .
Here ’ s hoping that Joe Biden will step up , put on eight-ounce boxing gloves , and beat the snot out of this wolf , so that we can use our @ @ @ @

These past four years have been a stress-filled nightmare. As soon as Donald Trump took office, the world started to feel scarier and more dangerous. But thanks to the American people stepping up to vote in record numbers, we will never again have to think about the wolf that prowls our property and scratches up all our umbrellas. He’s gotten way more aggressive over time, and our mailman now refuses to deliver packages.
Our long national nightmare of having a wolf that somehow got our house key is over. No longer will a cocky wolf saunter in at dinnertime and steal the turkey off the table. He didn’t even eat it! He just didn’t want us to have it. Trump has clearly brought out something cruel and ugly in wild carnivores. My kids were reduced to eating creamed corn in a locked bathroom, and they had to share a spoon. But the people of this great country fought back with their ballots. They said no to wolves knocking over bottles of wine just to ruin the carpet.
It’s like we can breathe again.
Although this week was a good one for the country, we still have a long way to go. Despite four chaotic years of wolves jumping through our windshields and making us swerve into a fruit cart, forty-eight per cent of voters still chose Trump, which is worrisome and disturbing. It’s difficult to understand what would make someone want four more years of that. Do they like having to pull tufts of wolf fur out of their dashboards?
Trump’s inept mishandling of the wolf-wearing-my-son’s-clothes-and-pretending-to-be-my-son issue, as well as his complete ignorance of wolf history, was at the forefront of voters’ minds this year. Had this President stood up on Day One and told the American people not to stare down wolves, because they view eye contact as threatening, he would have cruised to reëlection. But you can’t just ignore the biggest problem that the people of this nation are facing and expect them to support you. Wolves are dangerous, and we need to take their snarls seriously.
The Electoral College is another issue that needs to be dealt with. This byzantine system thwarts the will of the people to sleep in an honest-to-goodness bed instead of a protective metal barrel with a hole so that you can breathe. It hurts our democracy, and our knees, to cram ourselves into cylinders that heat up like a skillet when sunlight hits them.
The American people are sick and tired of barrel burns.
Election Night was a stressful one, to be sure. The uncertainty, the what-ifs, the howling. I think we can admit that we all drank too much and set up a Rube Goldberg machine to kick encroaching wolves with a boot.
But, that night, it felt like the boot was kicking us.
In the end, thankfully, everything worked out. Come January, we will have a President who cares about all Americans with wolf scratches that look infected. Here’s hoping that Joe Biden will step up, put on eight-ounce boxing gloves, and beat the snot out of this wolf, so that we can use our riding mower again.
God bless America.