newyorker--2020-10-17--How Should the Media Talk About Climate Change?

Altogether , an extremely grim tableau .
But among some environmental activists there was cause for celebration .
For once , climate change had broken into the foreground of our insane news cycle .
Within a week of Trump ’ s California visit , there was a pileup of evening TV news segments on the subject .
“ NBC Nightly News ” did a piece about California climate refugees .
CNN anchors interviewed the former California governor Jerry Brown about climate change and discussed Trump ’ s appointment of David Legates—a known climate-change denier—to lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric @ @ @ @ @ @ @ better than anything I ’ d even dreamed , ” the activist Genevieve Guenther told me recently , from her home in the West Village .
“ I ’ d been hoping the news anchors would mention climate change .
But they didn ’ t just do that .
They talked about it as the emergency that it is .
And they gave their guests space to connect it to the Presidential elections and American politics , and even talk about some of the policy solutions.
” Guenther runs a volunteer group called @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on combatting something more subtle than the aggressive climate denial espoused by Trump and his allies in government , or on Fox News : when news anchors or weather forecasters breathlessly cover an extreme-weather event—a hurricane , drought , forest fire , or heat wave—without ever mentioning the C-phrase .
Instead , they ’ ll talk around it , using terms like “ historic , ” “ unprecedented , ” and “ record-shattering.
” According to Guenther , this silence is just as pernicious as denial .
“ There is a name for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of extreme-weather disasters , ” she said .
“ Climate change.
” She added , “ If you fail to mention that , it gives people the impression that it ’ s not happening—that these disasters are acts of God.
” Until recently , climate silence was the norm on television .
In September , as the wildfires raged , the nonprofit group Media Matters published a study showing that only four per cent of ABC , NBC , and CBS news segments on the wildfires the month before had mentioned climate change @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an op-ed in the Boston Globe , citing another Media Matters finding that there had been a similar silence around Hurricane Laura .
( Out of fifty network news segments on the storm between August 24th and August 27th , none had mentioned climate change . )
“ For too long , journalists have feared that reporting the links between extreme weather and climate change might expose them to the charge of liberal bias , ” she wrote .
“ But the news media should not be influenced by such tactics.
” She @ @ @ @ @ @ @ group had commissioned , showing that the majority of Americans—including the majority of Republicans—want the media to highlight connections between climate change and extreme weather .
She promoted the findings on Twitter , where she has about thirty-four thousand followers.
“ I tweeted at the prime-time news shows ’ producers and anchors .
And I suspect that they did see it , just because of the dramatic shift in coverage , ” Guenther said .
Or the turnaround could have been driven entirely by Trump .
“ Whatever it was , I ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new to climate activism .
Until recently , she was an English professor .
She got her Ph.D. from Berkeley , in 2004 , in Renaissance literature .
Her first book , “ Magical Imaginations , ” analyzed texts by Spenser , Marlowe , and Shakespeare .
( Renaissance Quarterly called it “ sensible ” and “ brilliant.
” ) In 2010 , she was teaching at the University of Rochester , where she had a tenure-track job .
But she and her husband , a software engineer , had a baby that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her maternity leave at her apartment , something gradually shifted .
Studying Renaissance literature began to seem less important .
So did commuting between the West Village and Rochester .
Her husband worked at Google , so they didn ’ t need the money .
“ I just couldn ’ t do it , ” she said .
She quit her job , stayed home , and planned to write a book on Shakespeare .
She spent hours nursing her son while scrolling through the Times on her phone .
“ For the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ started really reading the newspaper , ” she said .
She lingered on the Science section .
“ The stories about climate change really stuck with me , and started to make me anxious , ” she explained .
“ The articles were saying that all these terrible things are going to happen by the year 2100 if we do not bring our emissions down to zero.
” Equatorial cities exposed to furnace-like heat .
New York , London , Mumbai , and Shanghai subsumed by the sea .
Wars in India and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ water from the evaporating Himalayan glaciers .
Refugees flooding into southern Europe , which will itself be struggling with food shortages and drought .
All these events are predicted to happen if the world is allowed to heat up by three degrees Celsius by 2100—which , mind-bogglingly , it will do if countries merely keep to the pledges in the Paris climate accord .
( And no major country is on track to do even that . )
“ My son was born in 2010 , and I knew that his life was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ century .
That meant he would see these predictions , ” Guenther said .
She put aside Shakespeare and started enrolling in online climate-science courses .
Then , in 2017 , came an event that radicalized her : the Times hired Bret Stephens , a former Wall Street Journal columnist with a history of questioning climate science , as a writer for its Opinion section .
Guenther was outraged .
“ I thought I could trust them to understand the gravity of this , and not imagine that climate denial was a legitimate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
She started an online petition calling for Stephens to be fired .
It didn ’ t work , but Guenther came to the attention of a group of climate scientists who are active on Twitter , including Michael Mann , Peter Kalmus , and Gavin Schmidt .
Guenther began to think that she might have something to contribute to the dialogue .
“ In Renaissance literature , there ’ s a rhetorical principle called energia—energy or vividness , ” she said .
“ It means that , if you ’ re trying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to give them vivid images that will capture their imaginations.
” She found most “ climate communications ” to be energia-deficient .
“ It was too data-driven and abstract .
It would talk about ice and the sea and polar bears—none of the things that made it urgent and personal to me.
” Instead of the Shakespeare book , she began writing a book about what she calls “ the language of climate change.
” It analyzes common words and phrases in the field , arguing that many of them are counterproductive , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against the solutions.
” Researchers such as Naomi Oreskes have documented the ways that , over the years , fossil-fuel interests have weaponized the notion of “ scientific uncertainty ” to manipulate public opinion .
In one chapter , Guenther focusses on the word “ uncertainty ” itself .
“ For normal people , you hear ‘ uncertainty ’ and it suggests that you don ’ t know something , ” she explained .
“ But in climate science ‘ uncertainty ’ basically means a range of possible outcomes .
As in , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ degrees Celsius to three degrees Celsius.
’ The synonym for that is confidence.
” She also dislikes the word “ consensus ” —as in “ the scientific consensus on climate change ” —because it gives rise to the vaguely conspiratorial image of a group of scientists getting together and coming to an agreement .
“ In science , consensus doesn ’ t refer to a discussion , ” she said .
“ It means knowledge that arises from independent research projects which all achieve the same results.
” She prefers the term “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the ubiquitous “ we , ” as in , “ We could have stopped climate change in the nineteen-eighties.
” “ You think this little pronoun is so innocent , but it actually obscures the political reality of the whole problem , ” she said , bringing up the vast differences in the carbon emissions of rich and poor countries , and the role of the fossil-fuel industry in blocking solutions .
She has written that , instead of thinking of climate change as something that “ we are doing , ” most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ something we are being prevented from undoing.
” Guenther was carving out a niche for herself discussing these ideas in panel appearances and on Twitter , when , in the summer of 2018 , she spent a morning stuck in traffic , listening to public radio .
In the course of three hours , she listened to three stories : a segment about catastrophic flooding in Japan ; an interview with a cattle rancher in drought-stricken Oregon ; and an interview with a French-Moroccan futurist .
“ He was praising the idea of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cars—without ever discussing the fact that we need to entirely electrify our transportation system within the next thirty years in order to hold warming at two degrees Celsius !
” Guenther said .
She went on , “ These three stories were clearly about climate change , but the announcers never even mentioned it once .
And this was NPR !
I felt like I was in some horror movie where I knew something terrible was happening but everyone was going about their lives in this surreal , almost zombified fashion.
” She @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Twitter , where it sparked a discussion among journalists .
A couple weeks later , the MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes was weighing in on the subject , writing in a tweet , “ Almost without exception .
every single time we ’ ve covered [ climate change ] it ’ s been a palpable ratings killer .
so the incentives are not great.
” Guenther suggested that , instead of doing segments focussed on climate change , he should make an effort to mention it in the coverage he was already doing .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ with and it ’ s something we do .
”

It is now October of 2020, the homestretch or—God help us—the halfway point of the Donald Trump years. As we flip through our metaphorical national photo album, reminiscing on some of the all-time darkest moments, there are so many to consider. You’ve got Charlottesville, of course, with the marching Nazis holding tiki torches—Trump’s “very fine people.” The peaceful protesters being tear-gassed in front of St. John’s Church. The maskless superspreader event in the Rose Garden. One event that comes up less often is Trump’s California wildfire briefing, early last month. The West Coast was in flames. The skies above San Francisco were red. Smoke and ash blotted out the sun. And the President was on television assuring the public that “it’ll start to get cooler. You just watch.” He added, “I don’t think science knows” the truth about climate change.
Altogether, an extremely grim tableau. But among some environmental activists there was cause for celebration. For once, climate change had broken into the foreground of our insane news cycle. Within a week of Trump’s California visit, there was a pileup of evening TV news segments on the subject. “NBC Nightly News” did a piece about California climate refugees. CNN anchors interviewed the former California governor Jerry Brown about climate change and discussed Trump’s appointment of David Legates—a known climate-change denier—to lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “Frankly, it was better than anything I’d even dreamed,” the activist Genevieve Guenther told me recently, from her home in the West Village. “I’d been hoping the news anchors would mention climate change. But they didn’t just do that. They talked about it as the emergency that it is. And they gave their guests space to connect it to the Presidential elections and American politics, and even talk about some of the policy solutions.”
Guenther runs a volunteer group called End Climate Silence, which is focussed on combatting something more subtle than the aggressive climate denial espoused by Trump and his allies in government, or on Fox News: when news anchors or weather forecasters breathlessly cover an extreme-weather event—a hurricane, drought, forest fire, or heat wave—without ever mentioning the C-phrase. Instead, they’ll talk around it, using terms like “historic,” “unprecedented,” and “record-shattering.” According to Guenther, this silence is just as pernicious as denial. “There is a name for the unprecedented intensity and scale and relentlessness of extreme-weather disasters,” she said. “Climate change.” She added, “If you fail to mention that, it gives people the impression that it’s not happening—that these disasters are acts of God.”
Until recently, climate silence was the norm on television. In September, as the wildfires raged, the nonprofit group Media Matters published a study showing that only four per cent of ABC, NBC, and CBS news segments on the wildfires the month before had mentioned climate change. On September 10th, Guenther published an op-ed in the Boston Globe, citing another Media Matters finding that there had been a similar silence around Hurricane Laura. (Out of fifty network news segments on the storm between August 24th and August 27th, none had mentioned climate change.) “For too long, journalists have feared that reporting the links between extreme weather and climate change might expose them to the charge of liberal bias,” she wrote. “But the news media should not be influenced by such tactics.” She included data from a poll that her group had commissioned, showing that the majority of Americans—including the majority of Republicans—want the media to highlight connections between climate change and extreme weather. She promoted the findings on Twitter, where she has about thirty-four thousand followers.“I tweeted at the prime-time news shows’ producers and anchors. And I suspect that they did see it, just because of the dramatic shift in coverage,” Guenther said. Or the turnaround could have been driven entirely by Trump. “Whatever it was, I’ll take it.”
Guenther is relatively new to climate activism. Until recently, she was an English professor. She got her Ph.D. from Berkeley, in 2004, in Renaissance literature. Her first book, “Magical Imaginations,” analyzed texts by Spenser, Marlowe, and Shakespeare. (Renaissance Quarterly called it “sensible” and “brilliant.”) In 2010, she was teaching at the University of Rochester, where she had a tenure-track job. But she and her husband, a software engineer, had a baby that year, and, as she spent her maternity leave at her apartment, something gradually shifted. Studying Renaissance literature began to seem less important. So did commuting between the West Village and Rochester. Her husband worked at Google, so they didn’t need the money. “I just couldn’t do it,” she said.
She quit her job, stayed home, and planned to write a book on Shakespeare. She spent hours nursing her son while scrolling through the Times on her phone. “For the first time in my life, I started really reading the newspaper,” she said. She lingered on the Science section. “The stories about climate change really stuck with me, and started to make me anxious,” she explained. “The articles were saying that all these terrible things are going to happen by the year 2100 if we do not bring our emissions down to zero.” Equatorial cities exposed to furnace-like heat. New York, London, Mumbai, and Shanghai subsumed by the sea. Wars in India and China as three billion people fight over water from the evaporating Himalayan glaciers. Refugees flooding into southern Europe, which will itself be struggling with food shortages and drought. All these events are predicted to happen if the world is allowed to heat up by three degrees Celsius by 2100—which, mind-bogglingly, it will do if countries merely keep to the pledges in the Paris climate accord. (And no major country is on track to do even that.) “My son was born in 2010, and I knew that his life was going to play out across the twenty-first century. That meant he would see these predictions,” Guenther said.
She put aside Shakespeare and started enrolling in online climate-science courses. Then, in 2017, came an event that radicalized her: the Times hired Bret Stephens, a former Wall Street Journal columnist with a history of questioning climate science, as a writer for its Opinion section. Guenther was outraged. “I thought I could trust them to understand the gravity of this, and not imagine that climate denial was a legitimate position in 2017,” she said. She started an online petition calling for Stephens to be fired. It didn’t work, but Guenther came to the attention of a group of climate scientists who are active on Twitter, including Michael Mann, Peter Kalmus, and Gavin Schmidt.
Guenther began to think that she might have something to contribute to the dialogue. “In Renaissance literature, there’s a rhetorical principle called energia—energy or vividness,” she said. “It means that, if you’re trying to persuade your reader, you need to give them vivid images that will capture their imaginations.” She found most “climate communications” to be energia-deficient. “It was too data-driven and abstract. It would talk about ice and the sea and polar bears—none of the things that made it urgent and personal to me.” Instead of the Shakespeare book, she began writing a book about what she calls “the language of climate change.” It analyzes common words and phrases in the field, arguing that many of them are counterproductive, “misrepresenting the problem and biasing us against the solutions.”
Researchers such as Naomi Oreskes have documented the ways that, over the years, fossil-fuel interests have weaponized the notion of “scientific uncertainty” to manipulate public opinion. In one chapter, Guenther focusses on the word “uncertainty” itself. “For normal people, you hear ‘uncertainty’ and it suggests that you don’t know something,” she explained. “But in climate science ‘uncertainty’ basically means a range of possible outcomes. As in, ‘The uncertainty interval is from 1.5 degrees Celsius to three degrees Celsius.’ The synonym for that is confidence.”
She also dislikes the word “consensus”—as in “the scientific consensus on climate change”—because it gives rise to the vaguely conspiratorial image of a group of scientists getting together and coming to an agreement. “In science, consensus doesn’t refer to a discussion,” she said. “It means knowledge that arises from independent research projects which all achieve the same results.” She prefers the term “discovery.” And she takes issue with the ubiquitous “we,” as in, “We could have stopped climate change in the nineteen-eighties.” “You think this little pronoun is so innocent, but it actually obscures the political reality of the whole problem,” she said, bringing up the vast differences in the carbon emissions of rich and poor countries, and the role of the fossil-fuel industry in blocking solutions. She has written that, instead of thinking of climate change as something that “we are doing,” most people should think of it as “something we are being prevented from undoing.”


newyorker--2020-10-17--A Pilot’s Son Takes Flight

A Pilot’s Son Takes Flight

Many people had told Wilson that his plan was foolish , and likely to lead to his death .
In the nineteen-twenties , three well-provisioned British expeditions , each involving several fine climbers and dozens of local porters , had travelled to Everest ; none of these parties had reached the peak , and several people had died making summit attempts .
Wilson was fit , and could walk long distances , but he had never ascended a high mountain , nor had he ever used crampons or an ice ax .
His alpine experience consisted of hikes around Wales @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Himalayas consisted of reading books and newspaper articles .
More pressing , Wilson had only recently learned to fly .
In the twenties , the members of official British Everest expeditions had travelled to India by ship .
They then took a train to Darjeeling—a hilltop town on the northeastern border of India—and walked three hundred miles , through Sikkim and Tibet , to base camp .
The entire journey took three months .
Wilson ’ s plan was more direct .
It was about five thousand miles by air to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from there it was possible to fly across Nepal to Everest without stopping .
A Gipsy Moth cruised at about eighty miles per hour ; with extra fuel tanks , it could fly some seven hundred and fifty miles in a single stretch .
Wilson reasoned that he could fly in stages through Europe , the Middle East , North Africa , India , and Nepal , arriving at the foot of Everest in little more than a fortnight .
At the beginning of 1933 , Wilson had bought a secondhand Moth and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
His progress was slow .
He had been shot through the back and the left arm while fighting in Flanders , in 1918 , and the resulting immobility on his left side made him clumsy .
Geoffrey de Havilland , who designed and manufactured the Moth series , had engineered his planes to be simple and robust ; as he once put it , they could take “ a pretty bad landing.
” Nevertheless , all aircraft of the era required a delicate touch .
During lessons , Wilson often pulled too @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the machine to yaw and his instructor to curse him .
In February , 1933 , after nineteen hours of instruction , Wilson was granted a license to fly solo .
He planned to take off for Everest that April .
Shortly before his proposed departure date , in the countryside near his home city of Bradford , he attempted an emergency landing in a crosswind , hit a hedge , and flipped his plane .
Wilson was somehow unhurt .
The crash did not diminish Wilson ’ s determination to reach the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Moth towed back to Stag Lane for repairs .
Serving in the First World War had ravaged his peace of mind .
In his twenties and early thirties , he had circled the globe , burning through jobs and relationships and accomplishing little .
Eventually , while visiting Germany in 1932 , he hit upon the idea of ascending Everest .
The achievement would give purpose to his life .
On May 21st , at Stag Lane , he entered the cockpit of his Moth and said goodbye to the people who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ His lover , Enid Evans , tied a mauve ribbon to the strut of his airplane , as an amulet .
A reporter from Reuters quoted a “ friend ” of the novice pilot ’ s , who said , “ Wilson is very keen , but the fact is he has not a chance .
Everyone has pointed this out to him , but he was determined to try.
” As Wilson maneuvered the airplane onto the runway , the bulbous nose of the Gipsy Moth , which contained its noisy engine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ where he was going , he needed to move his head left and right over the plane ’ s flanks .
Wind socks had been set up along the runway , and they indicated which way he should take off : upwind , to help provide lift .
But , in his excitement , Wilson forgot the rudiments of flight , and he headed downwind .
The Moth was laden with hundreds of pounds of luggage .
As Wilson accelerated along the runway , the plane gained speed but no altitude .
Wilson @ @ @ @ @ @ @ airfield when , at last , the Moth rose lazily from the ground , clearing a hedge by inches .
The Moth ascended .
Ever-Wrest was on her way to Everest .
I read widely about Wilson and his world—in books , in archives , in a diary he took to Everest , and in unpublished letters and documents .
There was clearly a psychological connection between his wartime service and his need to ascend Everest .
Yet , as I began to write about him , my historical inquiries seemed insufficient .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ there were aspects of Wilson ’ s journey that I couldn ’ t visualize or feel .
It was especially difficult to write about Wilson ’ s flight , which he did not describe vividly in letters home .
I was not a flier .
I could not fully imagine what it felt like for an aviator with scant experience to take off in a Gipsy Moth , carrying paper maps in his left hand and navigating across continents by compass .
In 2017 , I attended a Gathering of the Moths at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , at which several dozen amateur enthusiasts flew their planes .
I spoke to a few experienced Moth pilots , including David Cyster , a genial man , who , in 1978 , had flown a Tiger Moth ten thousand miles , from England to Australia .
( Cyster told me one of his secrets for staying comfortable in a biplane cockpit for long hours : “ pee tubes.
” ) At the gathering , I noted that the Gipsy Moth was designed with an exhaust pipe that ran down its left-hand side @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thought of Wilson , with his left arm still painful from his war wounds , and how the pipe would have warmed his aching limb in the cold , wind-rushed cockpit .
The event finished too soon .
I had taken my four-year-old son with me , who gawped for a while at the biplanes as they whizzed this way and that , but his sense of wonder was exhaustible , and we left early .
I desired a more immersive experience .
Unbeknownst to me , my family and some close family @ @ @ @ @ @ @ book project , had arranged one .
In April , 2018 , my mother , Janie , asked me to come to the Compton Abbas aerodrome , whose runway is on a hilltop in a ravishingly beautiful patch of Dorset , for a flying lesson .
A pilot named David Morgan would instruct me in a Tiger Moth built only a few years after Wilson ’ s plane was .
I looked Morgan up .
I was in safe hands .
In the Falklands War , Morgan had flown Sea Harrier fighter jets @ @ @ @ @ @ @ winning the Distinguished Service Cross .
After his retirement from the military , he flew for Virgin Atlantic .
Now in his seventies , he still flew his Moth , for fun .
I had never met Morgan before I arrived at Compton Abbas , and I didn ’ t know what he looked like .
But when he walked into the clubhouse , which was thronged with people , he walked up to me and said , “ You must be Caesar.
” I made the connection .
Morgan had served in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Apparently , I look very like my father .
President Ronald Reagan quoted the first and last lines of “ High Flight ” after the Challenger space disaster of 1986 .
In my house , the poem performed a similar memorial function .
It was placed next to a photograph of my father , Ben Caesar , in his naval pilot ’ s uniform .
Next to my dad was a photograph of another pilot—a handsome young man with red hair , whose identity was then , from my perspective , indistinct @ @ @ @ @ @ @ helicopter accident on October 10 , 1982 , when he was forty-three years old .
I was then two years old , and my older brothers were eight and ten .
My mother was deranged by grief .
Many years later , she told me that she felt as if she had gone into shock on the Sunday of the accident and hadn ’ t recovered for years .
My brothers , meanwhile , were clever , sensitive boys , who had already accrued a bank of happy filial memories .
They suffered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the tragedy was delayed , and possibly sublimated .
I clearly recall my mother telling me about the accident .
We sat on her bed .
I was as sad as a two-year-old can be .
But as I grew older , I retained only one or two snapshot recollections of my dad : gathering me into his massive arms when I hit my head against the coffee table ; leaving for work in an orange-colored car as I watched from the sitting-room window .
These memories were a comfort , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a person to me .
I became hungry for physical evidence of his life .
“ High Flight ” answered part of that yearning .
I never asked my mother why we had the poem in a frame , or who the second pilot was , until many years later .
The meaning of this arrangement of pictures and words in our family was unspoken—or , at least , it was not spoken about to me .
I drew my own conclusions .
My dad had died doing something noble , daring , @ @ @ @ @ @

The sky above North London burned blue the morning that Maurice Wilson steered his plane onto the grass runway at Stag Lane airfield. It was May 21, 1933. Wilson, a thirty-five-year-old English war veteran, was at the beginning of a mad quest. He proposed to fly from London to the Himalayas, land on one of the plateaus near Mt. Everest, and then, climbing alone, become the first person to reach the summit of the world’s highest mountain. Wilson’s aircraft was a de Havilland Gipsy Moth—a biplane with two open cockpits—which he had renamed Ever-Wrest. He sat in the rear cockpit, wearing a flying jacket and goggles. Climbing equipment and supplies were stuffed in the front. A small group of photographers, reporters, and friends had gathered to see him off.
Many people had told Wilson that his plan was foolish, and likely to lead to his death. In the nineteen-twenties, three well-provisioned British expeditions, each involving several fine climbers and dozens of local porters, had travelled to Everest; none of these parties had reached the peak, and several people had died making summit attempts. Wilson was fit, and could walk long distances, but he had never ascended a high mountain, nor had he ever used crampons or an ice ax. His alpine experience consisted of hikes around Wales and the Lake District. His knowledge of the Himalayas consisted of reading books and newspaper articles.
More pressing, Wilson had only recently learned to fly. In the twenties, the members of official British Everest expeditions had travelled to India by ship. They then took a train to Darjeeling—a hilltop town on the northeastern border of India—and walked three hundred miles, through Sikkim and Tibet, to base camp. The entire journey took three months. Wilson’s plan was more direct. It was about five thousand miles by air to Purnia, in northern India, and from there it was possible to fly across Nepal to Everest without stopping. A Gipsy Moth cruised at about eighty miles per hour; with extra fuel tanks, it could fly some seven hundred and fifty miles in a single stretch. Wilson reasoned that he could fly in stages through Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, India, and Nepal, arriving at the foot of Everest in little more than a fortnight.
At the beginning of 1933, Wilson had bought a secondhand Moth and started taking flying lessons at Stag Lane. His progress was slow. He had been shot through the back and the left arm while fighting in Flanders, in 1918, and the resulting immobility on his left side made him clumsy. Geoffrey de Havilland, who designed and manufactured the Moth series, had engineered his planes to be simple and robust; as he once put it, they could take “a pretty bad landing.” Nevertheless, all aircraft of the era required a delicate touch. During lessons, Wilson often pulled too violently on the control column, causing the machine to yaw and his instructor to curse him.
In February, 1933, after nineteen hours of instruction, Wilson was granted a license to fly solo. He planned to take off for Everest that April. Shortly before his proposed departure date, in the countryside near his home city of Bradford, he attempted an emergency landing in a crosswind, hit a hedge, and flipped his plane. Wilson was somehow unhurt.
The crash did not diminish Wilson’s determination to reach the summit of Everest, and he had the Moth towed back to Stag Lane for repairs. Serving in the First World War had ravaged his peace of mind. In his twenties and early thirties, he had circled the globe, burning through jobs and relationships and accomplishing little. Eventually, while visiting Germany in 1932, he hit upon the idea of ascending Everest. The achievement would give purpose to his life.
In 1933, the English war veteran Maurice Wilson embarked on a solo flight from London to the Himalayas, after which he planned to become the first person to climb Mt. Everest. Photograph from Getty
On May 21st, at Stag Lane, he entered the cockpit of his Moth and said goodbye to the people who had come to cheer him on. His lover, Enid Evans, tied a mauve ribbon to the strut of his airplane, as an amulet. A reporter from Reuters quoted a “friend” of the novice pilot’s, who said, “Wilson is very keen, but the fact is he has not a chance. Everyone has pointed this out to him, but he was determined to try.” As Wilson maneuvered the airplane onto the runway, the bulbous nose of the Gipsy Moth, which contained its noisy engine, obscured his view. To see where he was going, he needed to move his head left and right over the plane’s flanks.
Wind socks had been set up along the runway, and they indicated which way he should take off: upwind, to help provide lift. But, in his excitement, Wilson forgot the rudiments of flight, and he headed downwind. The Moth was laden with hundreds of pounds of luggage. As Wilson accelerated along the runway, the plane gained speed but no altitude. Wilson was almost at the perimeter of the airfield when, at last, the Moth rose lazily from the ground, clearing a hedge by inches. The Moth ascended. Ever-Wrest was on her way to Everest.
Eighty-five years later, on a bright and gusty spring day in Dorset, in southwestern England, I climbed into a Moth myself. I had been fascinated by the story of Maurice Wilson since 2011, when I read a few paragraphs about him in “Into the Silence,” Wade Davis’s absorbing account of the early British attempts to climb Everest. In the months and years after I learned the outline of Wilson’s tale, I sometimes woke up thinking about him. My interest grew into a compulsion and, eventually, into a book. Until quite recently, I was at a loss to understand exactly why the story of this haunted, unyielding man and his wild adventure had bitten me so hard. Whatever the reason, Wilson would not leave me alone, and so I resolved not to leave him alone.
I read widely about Wilson and his world—in books, in archives, in a diary he took to Everest, and in unpublished letters and documents. There was clearly a psychological connection between his wartime service and his need to ascend Everest. Yet, as I began to write about him, my historical inquiries seemed insufficient. I had gathered many facts, but there were aspects of Wilson’s journey that I couldn’t visualize or feel.
It was especially difficult to write about Wilson’s flight, which he did not describe vividly in letters home. I was not a flier. I could not fully imagine what it felt like for an aviator with scant experience to take off in a Gipsy Moth, carrying paper maps in his left hand and navigating across continents by compass.
In 2017, I attended a Gathering of the Moths at the Old Warden Aerodrome, in Bedfordshire, at which several dozen amateur enthusiasts flew their planes. I spoke to a few experienced Moth pilots, including David Cyster, a genial man, who, in 1978, had flown a Tiger Moth ten thousand miles, from England to Australia. (Cyster told me one of his secrets for staying comfortable in a biplane cockpit for long hours: “pee tubes.”) At the gathering, I noted that the Gipsy Moth was designed with an exhaust pipe that ran down its left-hand side and became skillet-hot during flight. I thought of Wilson, with his left arm still painful from his war wounds, and how the pipe would have warmed his aching limb in the cold, wind-rushed cockpit. The event finished too soon. I had taken my four-year-old son with me, who gawped for a while at the biplanes as they whizzed this way and that, but his sense of wonder was exhaustible, and we left early.
I desired a more immersive experience. Unbeknownst to me, my family and some close family friends, who were aware of my book project, had arranged one. In April, 2018, my mother, Janie, asked me to come to the Compton Abbas aerodrome, whose runway is on a hilltop in a ravishingly beautiful patch of Dorset, for a flying lesson. A pilot named David Morgan would instruct me in a Tiger Moth built only a few years after Wilson’s plane was. I looked Morgan up. I was in safe hands. In the Falklands War, Morgan had flown Sea Harrier fighter jets, shooting down four Argentinean aircraft and winning the Distinguished Service Cross. After his retirement from the military, he flew for Virgin Atlantic. Now in his seventies, he still flew his Moth, for fun.
I had never met Morgan before I arrived at Compton Abbas, and I didn’t know what he looked like. But when he walked into the clubhouse, which was thronged with people, he walked up to me and said, “You must be Caesar.” I made the connection. Morgan had served in the Fleet Air Arm with my dad. Apparently, I look very like my father.
When I was a child, I often stared at a poem that stood in a gilt frame on top of the upright piano in our living room. “High Flight” was written in 1941 by John Gillespie Magee, Jr., a nineteen-year-old airman with the Royal Canadian Air Force, who was then based in England. Magee died in a collision with another plane above Lincolnshire, shortly after composing the poem. It reads:
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air… Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew –
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
President Ronald Reagan quoted the first and last lines of “High Flight” after the Challenger space disaster of 1986. In my house, the poem performed a similar memorial function. It was placed next to a photograph of my father, Ben Caesar, in his naval pilot’s uniform. Next to my dad was a photograph of another pilot—a handsome young man with red hair, whose identity was then, from my perspective, indistinct.
My father was killed in a helicopter accident on October 10, 1982, when he was forty-three years old. I was then two years old, and my older brothers were eight and ten. My mother was deranged by grief. Many years later, she told me that she felt as if she had gone into shock on the Sunday of the accident and hadn’t recovered for years. My brothers, meanwhile, were clever, sensitive boys, who had already accrued a bank of happy filial memories. They suffered a scarcely endurable heartbreak.


newyorker--2020-10-17--Aaron Sorkin Puts America on Trial

Aaron Sorkin Puts America on Trial

Aaron Sorkin has other ideas .
He is a man in a hurry .
It ’ s true that , almost thirty years ago , in his script for “ A Few Good Men ” ( 1992 ) , he stuck to the usual blueprint ; with an hour gone , Tom Cruise declared , “ We ’ re going to get creamed , ” whereupon the legal creaming began .
There , however , the director was Rob Reiner , and the plot had to be carefully tailored and laid out in advance , like a uniform .
Now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chicago 7 , ” a new film that Sorkin both wrote and directed , there ’ s no messing around .
Within twenty minutes , the court is in session .
Be seated .
Let the Sorkinizing commence .
The title gives you the gist .
It ’ s September , 1969 , and the seven are as follows : Tom Hayden ( Eddie Redmayne ) , Rennie Davis ( Alex Sharp ) , Jerry Rubin ( Jeremy Strong ) , David Dellinger ( John Carroll Lynch ) , Abbie Hoffman ( Sacha @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Noah Robbins ) , and John Froines ( Danny Flaherty ) .
The charge of conspiracy to cross state lines with the intent to riot relates to the tumultuous events at the Democratic National Convention , the year before .
The defense is led by William Kunstler ( Mark Rylance ) and Leonard Weinglass ( Ben Shenkman ) .
The prosecuting attorney is Richard Schultz ( Joseph Gordon-Levitt ) , a straight arrow who isn ’ t quite convinced by his target ; at his side is Thomas Foran ( J. C. MacKenzie @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( Frank Langella ) , who is not—repeat not—related to Abbie .
The film is a distillation , as it has to be .
The transcript of the original trial ran to twenty-two thousand pages .
In the book “ Conspiracy in the Streets , ” from 2006 , that vast haul of words was whittled down to a mere three hundred pages , and the editor , Jon Wiener , remarked on how much had been omitted ; the distinct tone of the court proceedings , he said , is “ left @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sorkin does is to answer that imaginative challenge .
He fills us in not simply on the celebrated japes ( Abbie Hoffman and Rubin dressing in black robes , for example , to match and mock the judge ) but on the prevailing air of derision and disbelief .
There is an exchange between Judge Hoffman and Dellinger , whose name has been mispronounced , which comes straight out of the trial scene— “ Nathaniel Daniel or Daniel Nathaniel ?
” —in “ The Pickwick Papers.
” There is the maddened logic whereby @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by a former Attorney General of the United States , is ruled inadmissible .
And there is the gradual realization that the judge , like the Queen of Hearts , is losing control .
He covers his panic with citations for contempt of court : a hundred and seventy-five in all , reportedly , dished out to lawyers and defendants alike .
Off with their heads !
The high-fevered chaos of August , 1968 , infected both the throng inside the Convention and the streets outside , where tens of thousands of people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gathering that the forces of law and order , under the apoplectic aegis of Chicago ’ s mayor , Richard J. Daley , did their utmost to block and to break up .
( An added irony : in 1959 , Daley had sought to ban screenings of “ Anatomy of a Murder ” in the city . )
If you want to take the temperature of that summer , before you watch the new film , read Norman Mailer ’ s “ Miami and the Siege of Chicago , ” which is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ belligerence , and fear .
No one but Mailer would have the gall to open his description of Chicago with a tribute to its stockyards , where he sniffs a hot-blooded stench that is then allowed to waft through the succeeding pages .
If the pandemonium in Chicago was the stuff of headlines , as was the ensuing trial , Sorkin must know that , for many younger viewers , the late sixties count as ancient history .
Never one to miss a connection , however , he will also be aware that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ convulsions and the clamors for justice that have arisen in 2020 , will be all too alert to any parallels with tremors of the past .
So it is that , once the film has embarked upon the scenes in court , we cut back , repeatedly , to the unrest of 1968—to the fog of tear gas , the storm of truncheon blows , and the sudden shattering , as protesters are hustled and bunched against the plate-glass windows of the Haymarket Tavern , at the Hilton Hotel .
( Inside the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and cocktails are being sipped . )
We are also treated to the sight of Allen Ginsberg attempting to lead a procession with a pacifying chant of “ Om.
” That really helps .
To describe “ The Trial of the Chicago 7 ” as an action flick would be going too far .
Anyone hoping for Dwayne Johnson to show up as Hubert Humphrey , securing his nomination as the Democratic candidate with a thump of his mighty fists , will be disappointed .
And yet , for Sorkin , talk is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the hilt , barely pausing to reload .
Think of his TV shows , like “ The West Wing ” and “ The Newsroom , ” or the films that he wrote , like “ Charlie Wilson ’ s War ” ( 2007 ) and “ The Social Network ” ( 2010 ) , and ask yourself : Does anybody , in Sorkin ’ s world , ever sit back , switch off , and shut up ?
His specialty is not just rat-a-tat dialogue but a battle of ideas , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are equipped with a point of principle .
More often than not , the fight occurs within a single camp .
Thus , away from the courtroom , Tom Hayden takes the line that only by mastering the dull grind of electoral politics can one acquire the power to enact substantial change .
Anything else is mere show .
Opposing him is Abbie Hoffman , who favors a cultural revolution .
Protest is theatre , he would argue , shaping and shifting the minds of its audience in ways that no policy-wrangling can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Screw the grind .
“ The Trial of the Chicago 7 ” is coruscating in its discourse , and graced by a formidable squadron of actors , and yet , for all that , it verges on the dogged .
It lacks the biting toughness of “ The Social Network , ” Sorkin ’ s finest hour , in which his liberal urgings had to contend with the bleaker and less hopeful outlook of the director , David Fincher .
Here , by contrast , there ’ s scarcely any moral letup , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Pemberton , leaves us precious little room for maneuver ; it ’ s as though we were being instructed what to feel .
( The same problem nagged at “ The West Wing , ” not least in the laughable theme that soared and drummed above the opening credits . )
That is why , when we are granted a brief patch of calm , it comes as a relief .
Abbie Hoffman ’ s appearance on the stand , for example , is a welcome surprise .
Throughout the trial , he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but now , under oath , he cools it , and proves to be a persuasive witness—even quoting from Abraham Lincoln and Holy Scripture in support of his radical cause , which is not what we foresaw .
The fact that he ’ s played by Sacha Baron Cohen , an actor whose comic personae so frequently operate at full tilt , lends further weight to this weirdly ruminative scene .
As Abbie says , “ I ’ ve never been on trial for my thoughts before.
” Then we have Bobby Seale @ @ @ @ @ @ @ national chairman of the Black Panther Party .
He , too , is one of the accused , raising the seven to eight , but the charge against him is patently absurd .
He was only fleetingly in Chicago at the time of the demonstrations ; he did not hook up with the other defendants , thus rendering any notion of conspiracy null and void ; and he has no lawyer to defend him .
All of which riles Judge Hoffman , who so objects to Seale ’ s legitimate complaints that he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And there he sits , in public view .
You might find it difficult to believe that this monstrosity took place , in open court , but it did—and the image of such blatant racial humiliation may be the most abiding legacy of the trial , more so than the antiwar pronouncements of Hayden , Dellinger , and the rest of the gang .
People are seldom lost for words , in any tale told by Aaron Sorkin , but this particular loss—words torn away from a citizen , by the state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a crime .
There are a dozen people onstage , Byrne included , and they all do everything .
They all sing , they all dance , and they all play at least one instrument .
And they all stroll freely around the set , since every connection is wireless .
One guy has a keyboard strapped to him by a sort of harness ; as he wanders to and fro , he brings to mind a cigarette seller of the old school , purveying her wares in a night club .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of silver-gray ; as looks go , it may sound a little Brechtian and grim , and yet it is their troubadour-like liberty , not their regimentation , that strikes the eye .
I guess it helps that none of them wears shoes .
Picture the world ’ s most melodic beach bums , and you ’ re pretty much there .
For Byrne devotees and fans of Talking Heads , there is plenty on show .
“ How did I get here ?
” , the crowd cries out , in loyal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Once in a Lifetime.
” But Lee , who keeps his cameras moving with a busy elegance , somehow fends off any threat of the cramped and the exclusive—the standard risks of a concert film .
Now and then , Byrne puts the songs on hold and issues a few short political commands ; as the movie ’ s title suggests , though , these are so unexceptionable ( everyone should register to vote ! )
, and so whimsically benign , that only the most churlish of viewers will dissent .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ paradox : the sense of uplift for which Sorkin strives , so tenaciously , in “ The Trial of the Chicago 7 , ” is reached by Byrne , Lee , and their heavenly host of musicians with every appearance of ease .
Their efforts are at once tightly organized and suavely disguised , and what I want to know is : Will this movie transform the template of the rock concert , shaming other artists into broadening their horizons and expanding their acts ?
At the Rolling Stones ’ next gig , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will Keith and Ronnie skip around and do a little dance ?
Don ’ t hold your breath .

No rushing. Such is the rule that governs most courtroom dramas. We are expected to work through a heavy load of drama—crimes, misdemeanors, and character buildups—until we reach the doors of the courtroom. Almost an hour passes, in “Anatomy of a Murder” (1959), before the trial of the accused gets going, and even that is a false start. In “To Kill a Mockingbird” (1962), the wait is longer still. Not until halfway through the film do we see folks hasten toward the courthouse, in anticipation of “the most excitin’ thing that’s ever happened in this town,” as one of the children calls it.
Aaron Sorkin has other ideas. He is a man in a hurry. It’s true that, almost thirty years ago, in his script for “A Few Good Men” (1992), he stuck to the usual blueprint; with an hour gone, Tom Cruise declared, “We’re going to get creamed,” whereupon the legal creaming began. There, however, the director was Rob Reiner, and the plot had to be carefully tailored and laid out in advance, like a uniform. Now, in “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” a new film that Sorkin both wrote and directed, there’s no messing around. Within twenty minutes, the court is in session. Be seated. Let the Sorkinizing commence.
The title gives you the gist. It’s September, 1969, and the seven are as follows: Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne), Rennie Davis (Alex Sharp), Jerry Rubin (Jeremy Strong), David Dellinger (John Carroll Lynch), Abbie Hoffman (Sacha Baron Cohen), Lee Weiner (Noah Robbins), and John Froines (Danny Flaherty). The charge of conspiracy to cross state lines with the intent to riot relates to the tumultuous events at the Democratic National Convention, the year before. The defense is led by William Kunstler (Mark Rylance) and Leonard Weinglass (Ben Shenkman). The prosecuting attorney is Richard Schultz (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a straight arrow who isn’t quite convinced by his target; at his side is Thomas Foran (J. C. MacKenzie). The judge is Julius Hoffman (Frank Langella), who is not—repeat not—related to Abbie.
The film is a distillation, as it has to be. The transcript of the original trial ran to twenty-two thousand pages. In the book “Conspiracy in the Streets,” from 2006, that vast haul of words was whittled down to a mere three hundred pages, and the editor, Jon Wiener, remarked on how much had been omitted; the distinct tone of the court proceedings, he said, is “left for the reader to imagine.” What Sorkin does is to answer that imaginative challenge. He fills us in not simply on the celebrated japes (Abbie Hoffman and Rubin dressing in black robes, for example, to match and mock the judge) but on the prevailing air of derision and disbelief. There is an exchange between Judge Hoffman and Dellinger, whose name has been mispronounced, which comes straight out of the trial scene—“Nathaniel Daniel or Daniel Nathaniel?”—in “The Pickwick Papers.” There is the maddened logic whereby testimony of the gravest import, offered by a former Attorney General of the United States, is ruled inadmissible. And there is the gradual realization that the judge, like the Queen of Hearts, is losing control. He covers his panic with citations for contempt of court: a hundred and seventy-five in all, reportedly, dished out to lawyers and defendants alike. Off with their heads!
The high-fevered chaos of August, 1968, infected both the throng inside the Convention and the streets outside, where tens of thousands of people gathered to protest the war in Vietnam—a gathering that the forces of law and order, under the apoplectic aegis of Chicago’s mayor, Richard J. Daley, did their utmost to block and to break up. (An added irony: in 1959, Daley had sought to ban screenings of “Anatomy of a Murder” in the city.) If you want to take the temperature of that summer, before you watch the new film, read Norman Mailer’s “Miami and the Siege of Chicago,” which is unsurpassed in its record of outrage, belligerence, and fear. No one but Mailer would have the gall to open his description of Chicago with a tribute to its stockyards, where he sniffs a hot-blooded stench that is then allowed to waft through the succeeding pages.
If the pandemonium in Chicago was the stuff of headlines, as was the ensuing trial, Sorkin must know that, for many younger viewers, the late sixties count as ancient history. Never one to miss a connection, however, he will also be aware that those same viewers, primed by the convulsions and the clamors for justice that have arisen in 2020, will be all too alert to any parallels with tremors of the past. So it is that, once the film has embarked upon the scenes in court, we cut back, repeatedly, to the unrest of 1968—to the fog of tear gas, the storm of truncheon blows, and the sudden shattering, as protesters are hustled and bunched against the plate-glass windows of the Haymarket Tavern, at the Hilton Hotel. (Inside the inn, the talk is small, and cocktails are being sipped.) We are also treated to the sight of Allen Ginsberg attempting to lead a procession with a pacifying chant of “Om.” That really helps.
To describe “The Trial of the Chicago 7” as an action flick would be going too far. Anyone hoping for Dwayne Johnson to show up as Hubert Humphrey, securing his nomination as the Democratic candidate with a thump of his mighty fists, will be disappointed. And yet, for Sorkin, talk is action; his creatures come verbally armed to the hilt, barely pausing to reload. Think of his TV shows, like “The West Wing” and “The Newsroom,” or the films that he wrote, like “Charlie Wilson’s War” (2007) and “The Social Network” (2010), and ask yourself: Does anybody, in Sorkin’s world, ever sit back, switch off, and shut up? His specialty is not just rat-a-tat dialogue but a battle of ideas, in which both the rat and the tat are equipped with a point of principle. More often than not, the fight occurs within a single camp. Thus, away from the courtroom, Tom Hayden takes the line that only by mastering the dull grind of electoral politics can one acquire the power to enact substantial change. Anything else is mere show. Opposing him is Abbie Hoffman, who favors a cultural revolution. Protest is theatre, he would argue, shaping and shifting the minds of its audience in ways that no policy-wrangling can rival. The show goes on. Screw the grind.
“The Trial of the Chicago 7” is coruscating in its discourse, and graced by a formidable squadron of actors, and yet, for all that, it verges on the dogged. It lacks the biting toughness of “The Social Network,” Sorkin’s finest hour, in which his liberal urgings had to contend with the bleaker and less hopeful outlook of the director, David Fincher. Here, by contrast, there’s scarcely any moral letup, and the musical score, by Daniel Pemberton, leaves us precious little room for maneuver; it’s as though we were being instructed what to feel. (The same problem nagged at “The West Wing,” not least in the laughable theme that soared and drummed above the opening credits.) That is why, when we are granted a brief patch of calm, it comes as a relief. Abbie Hoffman’s appearance on the stand, for example, is a welcome surprise. Throughout the trial, he’s been the class clown, but now, under oath, he cools it, and proves to be a persuasive witness—even quoting from Abraham Lincoln and Holy Scripture in support of his radical cause, which is not what we foresaw. The fact that he’s played by Sacha Baron Cohen, an actor whose comic personae so frequently operate at full tilt, lends further weight to this weirdly ruminative scene. As Abbie says, “I’ve never been on trial for my thoughts before.”


newyorker--2020-10-17--Could Joe Biden Actually Bring America Back Together?

Earlier this month , on a sunny , cloudless day at the Civil War battlefield in Gettysburg , Pennsylvania , former Vice-President Joe Biden delivered a sombre speech about “ the cost of division ” in America .
“ The country is in a dangerous place , ” he said .
“ Our trust in each other is ebbing .
Hope seems elusive .
Too many Americans see our public life not as an arena for mediation of our difference but , rather , they see it as an occasion for total , unrelenting partisan warfare .
Instead of treating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ opposition , we treat them as the enemy.
” Biden called for a revival of the “ spirit of bipartisanship in this country ” and an end to “ this era of division.
” It is a message that Biden has turned to time and again when summoning an overarching purpose for his campaign .
“ We can choose the path of becoming angrier , less hopeful , and more divided , a path of shadow and suspicion , ” he said , when he accepted his party ’ s nomination for President @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Or we can choose a different path and , together , take this chance to heal , to be reborn , to unite—a path of hope and light.
” Biden has long valorized comity and respect in the political arena .
In his memoir “ Promises to Keep , ” from 2007 , he recalls the counsel of Mike Mansfield—the Democratic Majority Leader when Biden arrived in the Senate , in 1973 , at the age of thirty—to always “ find the good things in your colleagues.
” Mansfield ’ s admonition @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mississippi Democrat James Eastland , the powerful , longtime chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and an unrepentant segregationist .
Eastland eventually awarded Biden a seat on his committee and later offered to come to Delaware to aid his reëlection campaign .
“ I ’ ll campaign for ya or against ya , Joe , ” Biden recalls Eastland saying .
“ Whichever way you think helps you the most.
” The Eastland anecdote is a typical Biden parable , a testament to his belief that decency matters in politics .
It is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is making to voters in his Presidential campaign .
But the American political landscape has been transformed in the course of Biden ’ s half century in public life .
The country ’ s deepest racial , ethnic , religious , geographic , and cultural cleavages are now imprinted onto Americans ’ Party affiliations , driving the unrelenting partisan rancor that characterizes our politics today .
Ideological polarization in Congress is higher than at any point since the end of the Civil War .
The election of Donald Trump and the remarkable stability @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as the vast majority of Americans say that they are dissatisfied with the direction of the country—can also be traced to this new confluence .
If Biden is elected on November 3rd , one of his pressing tasks will be to take steps to rehabilitate the partisan divisions that imperil American democracy .
In “ The Great Alignment , ” a compact book published in 2018 , Alan Abramowitz , a political scientist at Emory University , sketches the changes that have so drastically altered the makeup of the country ’ s two-party @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Southern white conservatives like Eastland gradually disappeared from the Democratic Party , as part of a broader shift of white voters—particularly religious conservatives , people without college degrees , and older people—to the Republican Party .
Meanwhile , the Democratic coalition became increasingly nonwhite , secular , educated , urban , and young .
The Parties have become defined largely by their responses to unfolding demographic and cultural changes : the country ’ s growing racial and ethnic diversity ; the advancement of women ’ s rights and gay rights ; the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ In general , Americans can be sorted into two camps : those who view the past half-century ’ s changes as having mainly positive effects on their lives and on American society , and those who view the effects of these changes as mainly negative , ” Abramowitz writes .
“ Since the 1960s , Americans in the first group have increasingly come to support the Democrats , while those in the second group have increasingly come to support the Republicans.
” Fighting between factions has existed since the earliest days of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inevitable , even healthy , feature of politics .
What is new is the way that partisan affiliations are so enmeshed with other fundamental aspects of people ’ s identities .
Political parties have become shorthand for far more than just policy preferences .
“ Partisanship can now be thought of as a mega-identity , with all the psychological and behavioral magnifications that implies , ” Lilliana Mason , a professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland , writes in her book , “ Uncivil Agreement.
” Making matters worse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ isolated from each other .
“ Partisans have less and less in common , ” Mason writes .
“ Fewer cross-cutting cleavages remain to link the parties together and allow the understanding , communication , and compromise necessary to fuel the American electorate , and , by extension , the American government.
” The end result is a phenomenon that political scientists call “ negative partisanship.
” Americans increasingly are voting based not on any sort of devotion to their party as much as to signal a loathing for the other side .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Why We ’ re Polarized , ” explains negative partisanship this way : “ If you ’ ve ever voted in an election feeling a bit bleh about the candidate you backed , but fearful of the troglodyte or socialist running against her , you ’ ve been a negative partisan.
” Any serious attempt to curb the toxicity of American politics today requires either disrupting the ways that voters are sorted into parties or somehow transcending the political mega-identities that have emerged .
In “ Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ political scientist Lee Drutman makes the case for America to become a multiparty democracy .
“ A fully divided two-party system without any overlap is probably unworkable in any democracy , given what it does to our minds , ” he writes .
“ It leads us to see our fellow citizens not as political opponents to politely disagree with but as enemies to delegitimize and destroy.
” Notably , Drutman argues that , for a period that encompassed the bulk of Biden ’ s Senate career , the country actually had a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the liberal and conservative wings of both the Democrats and the Republicans .
The result was a strikingly productive several-decade span for Congress .
Short of a radical overhaul , such as what Drutman proposes , a more tolerant , inclusive G.O.P.
, no longer under the sway of religious conservatives , would perhaps be the most powerful way to dislodge the current party alignment around social and cultural issues .
In the aftermath of the 2012 election , the Republican National Committee actually released a lengthy postmortem that recommended serious changes to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Hispanic , and gay voters ; recruiting more candidates from minority communities ; and greater openness on social issues .
But the Trump Presidency––and his makeover of the Party in his own image––scuttled any hope of those changes coming to pass .
A resounding electoral defeat in November could impel the G.O.P .
to reverse course , but a fundamental shift in its identity will take time .
There are other possibilities for deëscalation .
In 1954 , Gordon Allport , a social psychologist , published a landmark book , “ The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how hostility between groups could be reduced by contact between them .
Allport believed certain conditions were necessary for this to occur , such as the groups involved working toward common goals , and that the interactions lead to “ the perception of common interests and common humanity.
” More recent research has found that not all of Allport ’ s conditions are strictly necessary , and that any interactions between groups can ameliorate tensions .
The challenge , of course , is that Democrats and Republicans increasingly are socially isolated from each @ @ @ @ @ @ @ take steps to spur community groups and other social institutions that encourage the breaking down of political barriers .
Social psychologists have also studied the ways in which a “ superordinate identity , ” such as a strong national identity , can make it easier for people to accept their differences with others .
Calls for Republicans to put “ country over Party ” have failed time and again during the Trump Presidency .
But a Biden Presidency could consciously aspire to a common agenda and spirit that transcends party .
In “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lepore makes the case for a “ new Americanism , ” bound together “ by a devotion to equality and liberty , tolerance and inquiry , justice and fairness , along with a commitment to a national prosperity inseparable from an unwavering dedication to a sustainable environment the world over.
” Twenty years ago , Robert D. Putnam , a Harvard political scientist , published “ Bowling Alone , ” which documented how Americans had become increasingly disconnected from one another ; how participation in social and community organizations , from bridge clubs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how norms of reciprocity , honesty , and trust had steadily declined across society .
Putnam devoted only a small portion of “ Bowling Alone ” to comity in politics , but in his new book , “ The Upswing , ” written with Shaylyn Romney Garrett , he argues that increasing levels of social solidarity in the course of the first two-thirds of the twentieth century , followed by a sharp decline at the end of it , largely track with a number of other important trends , including the country ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ finds many similarities between the United States at the turn of the twentieth century and the nation today .
“ Inequality , political polarization , social dislocation , and cultural narcissism prevailed––all accompanied as they are now , by unprecedented technological advances , prosperity , and material well-being , ” he writes .
He credits the Progressive movement—which began to gain momentum in the late eighteen-hundreds and waned in the nineteen-twenties—with transforming the country into a “ more egalitarian , cooperative , cohesive , and altruistic nation , ” only to have those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Although that decade was marked by the passage of watershed civil-rights legislation and other Great Society initiatives , Putnam describes the sixties as a pivot point for the country .
Economic mobility stalled , community and family ties frayed , and American culture turned inward , losing focus on the common good .
He labels this pattern the “ I-we-I ” curve , arguing that America clambered from an individualistic “ I ” society to a more communitarian “ We ” ethos , only to revert back .
In Putnam ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ map for national restoration , one that involves collective effort and a fostering of a collective American identity .
“ No one party , no one policy or platform , and no one charismatic leader was responsible for bringing about America ’ s upswing as we entered the twentieth century , ” Putnam writes .
“ It was , instead , countless citizens engaging in their own spheres of influence and coming together to create a vast ferment of criticism and change––a genuine shift from ‘ I ’ to ‘ we.
’ ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ imagine that Biden , or any single individual , could engender a movement for the common good .
But , if anything has been made plain by the Trump era , it is that the Presidency offers a megaphone to shape the broader culture .
A narcissistic President drives a narcissistic culture .
A movement toward “ We ” in America could start with a President less focussed on “ I.
” Read More About the 2020 Election • The fall and rise of Kamala Harris .
• When a sitting President threatens @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an election , you should listen .
• To understand the path Donald Trump has taken to the 2020 election , look at what he has provided the executive class .
• What happens if Trump fights the election results ?
• The refusal by Mitch McConnell to rein in Trump is looking riskier than ever .
• Sign up for our election newsletter for insight and analysis from our reporters and columnists .

Earlier this month, on a sunny, cloudless day at the Civil War battlefield in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, former Vice-President Joe Biden delivered a sombre speech about “the cost of division” in America. “The country is in a dangerous place,” he said. “Our trust in each other is ebbing. Hope seems elusive. Too many Americans see our public life not as an arena for mediation of our difference but, rather, they see it as an occasion for total, unrelenting partisan warfare. Instead of treating each other’s party as the opposition, we treat them as the enemy.” Biden called for a revival of the “spirit of bipartisanship in this country” and an end to “this era of division.” It is a message that Biden has turned to time and again when summoning an overarching purpose for his campaign. “We can choose the path of becoming angrier, less hopeful, and more divided, a path of shadow and suspicion,” he said, when he accepted his party’s nomination for President, at the Democratic National Convention. “Or we can choose a different path and, together, take this chance to heal, to be reborn, to unite—a path of hope and light.”
Biden has long valorized comity and respect in the political arena. In his memoir “Promises to Keep,” from 2007, he recalls the counsel of Mike Mansfield—the Democratic Majority Leader when Biden arrived in the Senate, in 1973, at the age of thirty—to always “find the good things in your colleagues.” Mansfield’s admonition helped Biden forge a relationship with the Mississippi Democrat James Eastland, the powerful, longtime chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and an unrepentant segregationist. Eastland eventually awarded Biden a seat on his committee and later offered to come to Delaware to aid his reëlection campaign. “I’ll campaign for ya or against ya, Joe,” Biden recalls Eastland saying. “Whichever way you think helps you the most.”
The Eastland anecdote is a typical Biden parable, a testament to his belief that decency matters in politics. It is, essentially, the pitch that he is making to voters in his Presidential campaign. But the American political landscape has been transformed in the course of Biden’s half century in public life. The country’s deepest racial, ethnic, religious, geographic, and cultural cleavages are now imprinted onto Americans’ Party affiliations, driving the unrelenting partisan rancor that characterizes our politics today. Ideological polarization in Congress is higher than at any point since the end of the Civil War. The election of Donald Trump and the remarkable stability of his approval ratings throughout his Presidency—even as the vast majority of Americans say that they are dissatisfied with the direction of the country—can also be traced to this new confluence. If Biden is elected on November 3rd, one of his pressing tasks will be to take steps to rehabilitate the partisan divisions that imperil American democracy.
In “The Great Alignment,” a compact book published in 2018, Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University, sketches the changes that have so drastically altered the makeup of the country’s two-party system. Over the past several decades, Southern white conservatives like Eastland gradually disappeared from the Democratic Party, as part of a broader shift of white voters—particularly religious conservatives, people without college degrees, and older people—to the Republican Party. Meanwhile, the Democratic coalition became increasingly nonwhite, secular, educated, urban, and young. The Parties have become defined largely by their responses to unfolding demographic and cultural changes: the country’s growing racial and ethnic diversity; the advancement of women’s rights and gay rights; the evolution of the traditional family structure. “In general, Americans can be sorted into two camps: those who view the past half-century’s changes as having mainly positive effects on their lives and on American society, and those who view the effects of these changes as mainly negative,” Abramowitz writes. “Since the 1960s, Americans in the first group have increasingly come to support the Democrats, while those in the second group have increasingly come to support the Republicans.”
Fighting between factions has existed since the earliest days of the Republic, and conflict is an inevitable, even healthy, feature of politics. What is new is the way that partisan affiliations are so enmeshed with other fundamental aspects of people’s identities. Political parties have become shorthand for far more than just policy preferences. “Partisanship can now be thought of as a mega-identity, with all the psychological and behavioral magnifications that implies,” Lilliana Mason, a professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland, writes in her book, “Uncivil Agreement.” Making matters worse, the two sides have become increasingly isolated from each other. “Partisans have less and less in common,” Mason writes. “Fewer cross-cutting cleavages remain to link the parties together and allow the understanding, communication, and compromise necessary to fuel the American electorate, and, by extension, the American government.” The end result is a phenomenon that political scientists call “negative partisanship.” Americans increasingly are voting based not on any sort of devotion to their party as much as to signal a loathing for the other side. Ezra Klein, in his recent book “Why We’re Polarized,” explains negative partisanship this way: “If you’ve ever voted in an election feeling a bit bleh about the candidate you backed, but fearful of the troglodyte or socialist running against her, you’ve been a negative partisan.”
Any serious attempt to curb the toxicity of American politics today requires either disrupting the ways that voters are sorted into parties or somehow transcending the political mega-identities that have emerged. In “Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop,” published earlier this year, the political scientist Lee Drutman makes the case for America to become a multiparty democracy. “A fully divided two-party system without any overlap is probably unworkable in any democracy, given what it does to our minds,” he writes. “It leads us to see our fellow citizens not as political opponents to politely disagree with but as enemies to delegitimize and destroy.” Notably, Drutman argues that, for a period that encompassed the bulk of Biden’s Senate career, the country actually had a hidden four-party system, made up of the liberal and conservative wings of both the Democrats and the Republicans. The result was a strikingly productive several-decade span for Congress. Short of a radical overhaul, such as what Drutman proposes, a more tolerant, inclusive G.O.P., no longer under the sway of religious conservatives, would perhaps be the most powerful way to dislodge the current party alignment around social and cultural issues. In the aftermath of the 2012 election, the Republican National Committee actually released a lengthy postmortem that recommended serious changes to the Party, including outreach to Black, Hispanic, and gay voters; recruiting more candidates from minority communities; and greater openness on social issues. But the Trump Presidency––and his makeover of the Party in his own image––scuttled any hope of those changes coming to pass. A resounding electoral defeat in November could impel the G.O.P. to reverse course, but a fundamental shift in its identity will take time.
There are other possibilities for deëscalation. In 1954, Gordon Allport, a social psychologist, published a landmark book, “The Nature of Prejudice,” that demonstrated how hostility between groups could be reduced by contact between them. Allport believed certain conditions were necessary for this to occur, such as the groups involved working toward common goals, and that the interactions lead to “the perception of common interests and common humanity.” More recent research has found that not all of Allport’s conditions are strictly necessary, and that any interactions between groups can ameliorate tensions. The challenge, of course, is that Democrats and Republicans increasingly are socially isolated from each other. But a Biden Administration might take steps to spur community groups and other social institutions that encourage the breaking down of political barriers.
Social psychologists have also studied the ways in which a “superordinate identity,” such as a strong national identity, can make it easier for people to accept their differences with others. Calls for Republicans to put “country over Party” have failed time and again during the Trump Presidency. But a Biden Presidency could consciously aspire to a common agenda and spirit that transcends party. In “This America,” my colleague Jill Lepore makes the case for a “new Americanism,” bound together “by a devotion to equality and liberty, tolerance and inquiry, justice and fairness, along with a commitment to a national prosperity inseparable from an unwavering dedication to a sustainable environment the world over.”
Twenty years ago, Robert D. Putnam, a Harvard political scientist, published “Bowling Alone,” which documented how Americans had become increasingly disconnected from one another; how participation in social and community organizations, from bridge clubs to churches, had plummeted; and how norms of reciprocity, honesty, and trust had steadily declined across society. Putnam devoted only a small portion of “Bowling Alone” to comity in politics, but in his new book, “The Upswing,” written with Shaylyn Romney Garrett, he argues that increasing levels of social solidarity in the course of the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, followed by a sharp decline at the end of it, largely track with a number of other important trends, including the country’s degree of political polarization. Putnam finds many similarities between the United States at the turn of the twentieth century and the nation today. “Inequality, political polarization, social dislocation, and cultural narcissism prevailed––all accompanied as they are now, by unprecedented technological advances, prosperity, and material well-being,” he writes. He credits the Progressive movement—which began to gain momentum in the late eighteen-hundreds and waned in the nineteen-twenties—with transforming the country into a “more egalitarian, cooperative, cohesive, and altruistic nation,” only to have those positive trends reversed in the mid-nineteen sixties. Although that decade was marked by the passage of watershed civil-rights legislation and other Great Society initiatives, Putnam describes the sixties as a pivot point for the country. Economic mobility stalled, community and family ties frayed, and American culture turned inward, losing focus on the common good. He labels this pattern the “I-we-I” curve, arguing that America clambered from an individualistic “I” society to a more communitarian “We” ethos, only to revert back.


newyorker--2020-10-17--The Racial Politics of Kamala Harris’s Performance Style

What happened between Senator Kamala Harris and Vice-President Mike Pence onstage at the University of Utah , during the Vice-Presidential debate , on October 7th , was a twist on the familiar script .
I confess that I did not subject myself to watching the debate live , instead relying ( as is my wont ) on social media to circulate ( as is its wont ) the most sensational and therefore most relevant portions for after-the-fact perusal .
Most of these clips , on my feed , at least , turned out to be ones in which Harris seemed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , eying him and grinning like a cat with its corpse .
Both spoke long , and both had their moments , but Harris anticipated the visual language of the production better than her opponent , whose eyes never quite felt like they were making contact ( and who , anyway , got upstaged by a fly ) .
When Pence interrupted her repeatedly , Harris profferred a new entry to the pantheon of politico sound bites turned pop-feminist catchphrases : “ Mr .
Vice-President , I ’ m speaking.
” On Twitter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Harris ’ s performance down to six concrete gestures , which she cut and compressed into a series of GIFs .
The first shows her looking to the side , nodding and blinking vigorously in the looping , sped-up pace of a digital image .
In one , she reaches for a pen and pencil ; in another , she turns back to front , resetting her gaze with the slight raise of an eyebrow .
Mahlmeister offered up the GIFs as a public service of sorts .
“ Hi i made # @ @ @ @ @ @ @ use on every single day of their dang life , ” Mahlmeister tweeted .
Though closed captions are common among GIFs posted online , none of Harris ’ s speech survived the conversion from video to image .
Instead of the candidate ’ s words , Mahlmeister supplied moods : there ’ s “ the ‘ let me get those receipts ’ ” ; “ the ‘ pretending to care about ur mansplaining ’ ” ; or “ the ‘ wow the sephora lady was right this primer is making me PORELESS.
’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ own contributions .
A few people in Mahlmeister ’ s comments made reference to an essay I wrote a few years back , for Teen Vogue , titled , in that publication ’ s lightly scolding parlance , “ We Need to Talk About Digital Blackface in Reaction GIFs.
” The piece , which was illustrated with an image of the former Real Housewife NeNe Leakes wearing a snarl , analyzed the digital legacy of cross-racial performance , and , in particular , how the prevalence of Black figures in so-called reaction shots—used @ @ @ @ @ @ @ express impudent feelings of the moment—relied upon racist interpretations of Black expression dating back to the minstrel stage .
I was a graduate student at the time , and my reading of the phenomenon of Black figures emoting on behalf of non-Black users online was informed by the work of young scholars such as Joshua Lumpkin Green ( who coined the term “ digital blackface , ” in the context of video games ) and Katherine Brown ( who applied the term to GIFs on Tumblr ) .
The piece was resurfaced , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ performance , presumably in the hope that it might prompt people to think again about their ready presumptions of sass and shade when it comes to interpreting the nonverbal gestures of a Black woman at work .
It ’ s true that Harris has , since her own campaign for President , been a frequent subject of a sort of sista-girl ventriloquism , which gets played up by non-Black and Black people alike , even if it ’ s rarely put as baldly , or curated as carefully , as Mahlmeister ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ twofold .
First , that as a Black and Indian-American woman , with a name that still gets mispronounced by a not insignificant portion of the populace , she must contend with the racism , misogyny , and xenophobia that de facto cling to her person .
Second , that even her fans tend to resurrect tiresome tropes about what , and whom , Black women are for .
Despite everything “ Veep ” has taught us about the office of the Vice-President , many have rushed to suggest that they ’ ve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the ballot , a sentiment which suggests that no electable Black woman can escape being imagined as someone ’ s caretaker .
Mark Ruffalo , bless him , will carry on if you let him .
“ I said a prayer the other day and when God answered me back she was a Black Woman , ” he tweeted after the victory , in Alabama , of the Democratic Senator Doug Jones over the Trumpist Republican Roy Moore , an outcome that was attributed , in good part , to the loyalties @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the actor , like many other commentators , reached for the language of structural critique to describe what occurred on the Vice-Presidential debate stage : “ The way Mike Pence constantly interrupted and spoke over @ KamalaHarris was the prime example of white male supremacy and its common dismissal and disrespect for black woman , ” he tweeted .
Memories of Hillary Clinton no doubt cling to Harris as well .
Liberal concern for the way Harris is interpreted , by detractors and superfans alike , recalls the protective instinct that many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the more muted concern that gets extended to other , more junior congresswomen of color , such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Ilhan Omar .
There is doubtless a contingent that still , despite everything we know about then and now , accounts for the triumph of Trump in 2016 in terms of gender alone , just as there are followers of Harris who assume that an unfavorable compound of race and gender was responsible for her flameout in the Democratic primaries .
Clinton and Harris share the trait of competency , those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Clinton , a white woman , it was considered too cold , whereas in Harris it earns her the label of either bully or boss .
But fretting about such things ignores the fact that Harris has made canny use of the assumptions that come with her image , as both the Black-lady savior and the pen-in-hand , pant-suited Clintonite , either of which might be enough to leaden a less establishment politician .
Eliana Johnson , of The Washington Free Beacon , had it backward when , in an analysis immediately after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ PBS NewsHour ” that Harris hadn ’ t done “ a great job controlling her face , ” and that her “ smirks ” and “ grimaces ” suggested that the senator may have been unaware of the broadcast ’ s split-screen presentation .
On the contrary , Harris ’ s performance seemed calibrated to the pundit-versus-pundit cable-news format , where arguments can be won out of turn .
In the cold open of “ Saturday Night Live , ” the show ’ s go-to Harris impersonator , Maya Rudolph , imagined the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the Rolodex of GIF culture .
“ I ’ m going to smile at him like I ’ m in a T. J. Maxx and a white lady asked me if I work here , ” she said , crinkling her eyes in an icing-sweet smile .
“ O.K.
, now , Susan , what I ’ m going to do is I ’ m going to switch to more of a Clair Huxtable side-eye , ” she added , switching into a Clair Huxtable side-eye .
The point : nothing uncontrolled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Senate confirmation hearings of Judge Amy Coney Barrett , Harris was back in her seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee—figuratively , that is , as she chose to appear virtually , as a coronavirus safety precaution .
Harris ’ s prosecutorial flair at congressional hearings has inspired its own surfeit of viral clips .
Back in 2017 , when then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions was summoned before the Senate Intelligence Committee for questioning on Trump ’ s relationship with Russia , Harris was flashing the smile , her eyebrows raised , pushing past @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through her questions with nary any breathing room .
In contrast to the Vice-Presidential debate ( and to the spectacular rancor of Brett Kavanaugh ’ s hearings ) , Harris ’ s exchange with Barrett , on subjects including racial justice , climate change , and health care , was notable for its low register .
Harris delivered her pointed questioning ; Barrett sometimes seemed to subtly bristle .
But their voices were flat , their faces largely impassive .
Barrett , new as she is to the national spotlight , also has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spectacle .
What a liberal audience might wish were gaffes—such as the missing constitutional freedom in Barrett ’ s recitation of First Amendment protections—registered , on her face , as mildly amusing at best .
“ I wondered where you were going with that , ” Barrett told Harris with a small sidelong glance , after leading questions about scientific consensus on the coronavirus and smoking ended up on the subject of climate change .
Barrett ruled that matter too “ contentious ” for comment , and Harris didn ’ t press her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the Times have called this reticence a new tack for Harris , born of the fact that the approaching election has her name on the ballot—and maybe so .
But the expectations for Harris ’ s performance might also say something about the influence of all those well-trimmed GIFs .
The Harris of the Barrett hearings is most likely the Harris we can expect in office .
If GIF-worthy is the measure , this will—one hopes—be a slow four years .
Read More About the 2020 Election • The fall and rise @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sitting President threatens to delay a sacrosanct American ritual like an election , you should listen .
• To understand the path Donald Trump has taken to the 2020 election , look at what he has provided the executive class .
• What happens if Trump fights the election results ?
• The refusal by Mitch McConnell to rein in Trump is looking riskier than ever .
• Sign up for our election newsletter for insight and analysis from our reporters and columnists .

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a woman of considerable power joins a man of considerable power onstage for a televised debate. The woman is cool, composed. She knows her stuff—she’s “done the homework,” let’s say. The man, meanwhile, is somehow both wicked and aloof. He lies without finesse, which doesn’t stop him from guzzling the available air time as if it’s his right. Their encounter is a Pyrrhic victory for womankind, a pluckable symbol for women who believe that their best selves could flourish in the professional sphere, if only men would stop intruding.
What happened between Senator Kamala Harris and Vice-President Mike Pence onstage at the University of Utah, during the Vice-Presidential debate, on October 7th, was a twist on the familiar script. I confess that I did not subject myself to watching the debate live, instead relying (as is my wont) on social media to circulate (as is its wont) the most sensational and therefore most relevant portions for after-the-fact perusal. Most of these clips, on my feed, at least, turned out to be ones in which Harris seemed to make a meal of the Vice-President, eying him and grinning like a cat with its corpse. Both spoke long, and both had their moments, but Harris anticipated the visual language of the production better than her opponent, whose eyes never quite felt like they were making contact (and who, anyway, got upstaged by a fly). When Pence interrupted her repeatedly, Harris proffered a new entry to the pantheon of politico sound bites turned pop-feminist catchphrases: “Mr. Vice-President, I’m speaking.”
On Twitter, the television producer Chrissy Mahlmeister whittled Harris’s performance down to six concrete gestures, which she cut and compressed into a series of GIFs. The first shows her looking to the side, nodding and blinking vigorously in the looping, sped-up pace of a digital image. In one, she reaches for a pen and pencil; in another, she turns back to front, resetting her gaze with the slight raise of an eyebrow. Mahlmeister offered up the GIFs as a public service of sorts. “Hi i made #KamalaHarris reaction gifs for every woman to use on every single day of their dang life,” Mahlmeister tweeted. Though closed captions are common among GIFs posted online, none of Harris’s speech survived the conversion from video to image. Instead of the candidate’s words, Mahlmeister supplied moods: there’s “the ‘let me get those receipts’ ”; “the ‘pretending to care about ur mansplaining’ ”; or “the ‘wow the sephora lady was right this primer is making me PORELESS.’ ” Other users chimed in with their own contributions.
A few people in Mahlmeister’s comments made reference to an essay I wrote a few years back, for Teen Vogue, titled, in that publication’s lightly scolding parlance, “We Need to Talk About Digital Blackface in Reaction GIFs.” The piece, which was illustrated with an image of the former Real Housewife NeNe Leakes wearing a snarl, analyzed the digital legacy of cross-racial performance, and, in particular, how the prevalence of Black figures in so-called reaction shots—used, including by white people, to express impudent feelings of the moment—relied upon racist interpretations of Black expression dating back to the minstrel stage. I was a graduate student at the time, and my reading of the phenomenon of Black figures emoting on behalf of non-Black users online was informed by the work of young scholars such as Joshua Lumpkin Green (who coined the term “digital blackface,” in the context of video games) and Katherine Brown (who applied the term to GIFs on Tumblr). The piece was resurfaced, in the context of Harris’s performance, presumably in the hope that it might prompt people to think again about their ready presumptions of sass and shade when it comes to interpreting the nonverbal gestures of a Black woman at work.
It’s true that Harris has, since her own campaign for President, been a frequent subject of a sort of sista-girl ventriloquism, which gets played up by non-Black and Black people alike, even if it’s rarely put as baldly, or curated as carefully, as Mahlmeister’s thread on Twitter. The worry is twofold. First, that as a Black and Indian-American woman, with a name that still gets mispronounced by a not insignificant portion of the populace, she must contend with the racism, misogyny, and xenophobia that de facto cling to her person. Second, that even her fans tend to resurrect tiresome tropes about what, and whom, Black women are for. Despite everything “Veep” has taught us about the office of the Vice-President, many have rushed to suggest that they’ve breathed easier with a woman like Harris on the ballot, a sentiment which suggests that no electable Black woman can escape being imagined as someone’s caretaker. Mark Ruffalo, bless him, will carry on if you let him. “I said a prayer the other day and when God answered me back she was a Black Woman,” he tweeted after the victory, in Alabama, of the Democratic Senator Doug Jones over the Trumpist Republican Roy Moore, an outcome that was attributed, in good part, to the loyalties of Black women voters. More recently, the actor, like many other commentators, reached for the language of structural critique to describe what occurred on the Vice-Presidential debate stage: “The way Mike Pence constantly interrupted and spoke over @KamalaHarris was the prime example of white male supremacy and its common dismissal and disrespect for black woman,” he tweeted.
Memories of Hillary Clinton no doubt cling to Harris as well. Liberal concern for the way Harris is interpreted, by detractors and superfans alike, recalls the protective instinct that many Democrats felt toward Clinton—and stands in contrast to the more muted concern that gets extended to other, more junior congresswomen of color, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. There is doubtless a contingent that still, despite everything we know about then and now, accounts for the triumph of Trump in 2016 in terms of gender alone, just as there are followers of Harris who assume that an unfavorable compound of race and gender was responsible for her flameout in the Democratic primaries. Clinton and Harris share the trait of competency, those followers might point out, but in Clinton, a white woman, it was considered too cold, whereas in Harris it earns her the label of either bully or boss.
But fretting about such things ignores the fact that Harris has made canny use of the assumptions that come with her image, as both the Black-lady savior and the pen-in-hand, pant-suited Clintonite, either of which might be enough to leaden a less establishment politician. Eliana Johnson, of the Washington Free Beacon, had it backward when, in an analysis immediately after the Vice-Presidential debate, she told “PBS NewsHour” that Harris hadn’t done “a great job controlling her face,” and that her “smirks” and “grimaces” suggested that the senator may have been unaware of the broadcast’s split-screen presentation. On the contrary, Harris’s performance seemed calibrated to the pundit-versus-pundit cable-news format, where arguments can be won out of turn. In the cold open of “Saturday Night Live,” the show’s go-to Harris impersonator, Maya Rudolph, imagined the candidate knowingly pulling her range of expressions from the Rolodex of GIF culture. “I’m going to smile at him like I’m in a T. J. Maxx and a white lady asked me if I work here,” she said, crinkling her eyes in an icing-sweet smile. “O.K., now, Susan, what I’m going to do is I’m going to switch to more of a Clair Huxtable side-eye,” she added, switching into a Clair Huxtable side-eye. The point: nothing uncontrolled here.


newyorker--2020-10-18--The Cryptic Crossword: No. 66

The Cryptic Crossword: No. 66

Some clues have been edited for clarity .
Subscribers can find explanations of the original puzzle ’ s answers in @ @ @

Some clues have been edited for clarity. Subscribers can find explanations of the original puzzle’s answers in our archive.