newyorker--2020-10-20--How to Draw Feelings

How to Draw Feelings

Liana Finck , who ’ s been contributing cartoons to this magazine since 2015 , is full of feelings , which she unabashedly feels very deeply .
This makes her the type of person with whom you arrange to have a business lunch , only to end up talking at excessive length about your mother and your fears and the pet peeves you usually reveal only after years of friendship or many martinis .
She writes the captions on her cartoon submissions in such tiny handwriting that you have to lean way in to read them , as if you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ secret .
Then—wham !
It ’ s no secret—it ’ s an incisive , relatable , profound , hilarious joke or observation .
But don ’ t take my word for it .
Below ( and in the video above ) are some of her words , from which you can learn a bit about the art of emoting onto the page , from a master of the craft .
— Emma Allen Do you draw with your left or right hand ?
Left .
I think I was ambidextrous or undecided as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ my right hand in a cast for six months , and after it emerged—voilà , I was left-handed .
But my parents are both left-handed , so it was probably destiny , or something darker .
What art do you have hanging on your studio walls/above your drawing desk ?
Do you snack while you draw , and , if so , on what ?
Lately , I don ’ t eat , besides black coffee , till 4 P.M .
It has been working for me .
After that , I eat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and ice pops while I work .
Do you listen to music or podcasts while you draw ?
Yes , constantly .
It ’ s my great shame .
But whenever I try to stop I get depressed .
I do best with long things that walk the line between brilliant and boring—the Ezra Klein show is good for work .
I also like conversational ones .
A favorite is “ Retail Nightmares.
” But I ’ ve been on an audio-book kick for a long time .
I ’ m listening to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s “ My Struggle ” series right now .
I love him .
What object or setting do you absolutely hate drawing ?
A store full of items .
Like the greeting-card rack at a drug store .
Which is a trope .
Also the insides of trains , buses , and airplanes .
If you could have dinner with one cartoonist , living or dead , tonight , who would it be ?
What would you serve ?
Do I have to cook ?
If so , never mind .
What @ @ @ @ @ @ @ animation ) as a kid ?
I don ’ t want to admit which problematic Disney movies I loved .
I liked cartoons much better than live action ( which meant : “ Saved by the Bell ” ) for far too long , but was never a huge TV person .
I liked , but did not love , “ Tintin.
” And “ The Far Side.
” I ’ ve never gotten “ Peanuts ” or “ Calvin and Hobbes.
” Or , thankfully , “ Dilbert.
” I was very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Reading ( being read to ) Maira Kalman for the first time when I was four was a revelation .
I have somewhat better taste in comic strips now .
And I still love animated movies , especially Miyazaki .
My favorite is “ Ponyo.
” What did you spend your first New Yorker cartoon-sale check on ?
Very expensive sunglasses .
The irresponsibility and impulsiveness scared my mom .
But they ’ re still my only pair of sunglasses .
If you had to get a tattoo ( or new tattoo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get ?
Probably something accidental , because I would not willingly get a tattoo .
Both .
But I don ’ t know if I ’ ve ever really touched a cat .

Liana Finck, who’s been contributing cartoons to this magazine since 2015, is full of feelings, which she unabashedly feels very deeply. This makes her the type of person with whom you arrange to have a business lunch, only to end up talking at excessive length about your mother and your fears and the pet peeves you usually reveal only after years of friendship or many martinis. She writes the captions on her cartoon submissions in such tiny handwriting that you have to lean way in to read them, as if you’re being let in on a secret. Then—wham! It’s no secret—it’s an incisive, relatable, profound, hilarious joke or observation. But don’t take my word for it. Below (and in the video above) are some of her words, from which you can learn a bit about the art of emoting onto the page, from a master of the craft.
—Emma Allen, New Yorker cartoon editor
Do you draw with your left or right hand?
Left. I think I was ambidextrous or undecided as a little kid, but I had my right hand in a cast for six months, and after it emerged—voilà, I was left-handed. But my parents are both left-handed, so it was probably destiny, or something darker.
What art do you have hanging on your studio walls/above your drawing desk?
I’m more of a window person.
Do you snack while you draw, and, if so, on what?
Lately, I don’t eat, besides black coffee, till 4 P.M. It has been working for me. After that, I eat toast, salad, milky coffee, and ice pops while I work.
Do you listen to music or podcasts while you draw?
Yes, constantly. It’s my great shame. But whenever I try to stop I get depressed. I do best with long things that walk the line between brilliant and boring—the Ezra Klein show is good for work. I also like conversational ones. A favorite is “Retail Nightmares.” But I’ve been on an audio-book kick for a long time. I’m listening to the last book in Karl Ove Knausgaard’s “My Struggle” series right now. I love him.
What object or setting do you absolutely hate drawing?
A store full of items. Like the greeting-card rack at a drug store. Which is a trope. Also the insides of trains, buses, and airplanes.
If you could have dinner with one cartoonist, living or dead, tonight, who would it be?
Saul Steinberg, but alive.
What would you serve?
Do I have to cook? If so, never mind.
What was your favorite cartoon (strip or animation) as a kid?
I don’t want to admit which problematic Disney movies I loved. I liked cartoons much better than live action (which meant: “Saved by the Bell”) for far too long, but was never a huge TV person. I liked, but did not love, “Tintin.” And “The Far Side.” I’ve never gotten “Peanuts” or “Calvin and Hobbes.” Or, thankfully, “Dilbert.” I was very into children’s books, always. Reading (being read to) Maira Kalman for the first time when I was four was a revelation. I have somewhat better taste in comic strips now. And I still love animated movies, especially Miyazaki. My favorite is “Ponyo.”
What did you spend your first New Yorker cartoon-sale check on?
Very expensive sunglasses. The irresponsibility and impulsiveness scared my mom. But they’re still my only pair of sunglasses.
If you had to get a tattoo (or new tattoo) right now, what would you get?
Probably something accidental, because I would not willingly get a tattoo.
Dogs or cats?
Both. But I don’t know if I’ve ever really touched a cat.


newyorker--2020-10-20--Unexpected Benefits of Universal Health Care

You can finally watch  “ The Good Doctor ”  for the plot , rather than to spend forty minutes wondering whether you and a character on the show have the same rare genetic disorder for which you personally have zero symptoms .
At long last , you can get your eyes checked and stop suffering the frequent humiliation of waving at a stranger who you think is your friend .
Your actual friends will stop sending you pictures of their rashes and asking , “ Does this look like a problem ?
” The ratio of dog-to-rash photos @ @ @ @ @ @ @ You won ’ t be so reticent about bringing up your partner ’ s weird mole , since you know that they can afford to have it checked out .
It ’ s important that we all bring up our partners ’ flaws more often .
The pressure to get married for health insurance will lift .
Now you can get married for authentic reasons , like wanting to appear on  “ 90 Day Fiancé.
” You ’ ll have a new excuse for backing out of commitments .
“ That sounds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ frequently , because of universal health care—said that I shouldn ’ t attend your gender-reveal party , as there ’ s always a risk of explosives , which can aggravate my A.D.D.
” If men get regular physical exams , they ’ ll have their height measured more often and will be less likely to list it incorrectly on dating apps .
Actually—let ’ s be honest—they won ’ t .
Doctors will be allowed to take more breaks at work , which will not only improve the quality of care but will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have more sex in the on-call room .
Thus ,  “ Grey ’ s Anatomy ”  will be rendered more realistic , and you ’ ll be ridiculed less for watching it .
( Fun fact—it ’ s not a reboot ; it ’ s Season 17 . )
You ’ ll spend less time Googling symptoms now that there ’ s a professional whom you can call .
Your partner will be less weirded out by your search history , although there ’ s still no explanation for “ capybara @ @ @ @ @ @ @ your parents are currently paying for your health insurance , you can proudly inform them that you don ’ t need them anymore .
They ’ ll be impressed by your independence , and you can use that leverage to ask them to invest in your boyfriend ’ s new skateboard-helmet line .
They will be so pleased .
Having the same stable health insurance for years and years and years will teach thirty-two-year-old men that long-term commitment isn ’ t the most terrifying thing imaginable .
We ’ ll be more like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bezos may have to pay higher taxes , which will lead to more work for his accounting team .
It ’ s not impossible that he ’ ll worm his way out of said taxes , but that ’ s honestly even more work for his accounting team .
Everyone will have the same quality of health care , so we ’ ll go back to judging one another on what really matters—social-media followings .
We ’ ll finally have a health-care system that rivals that of the rest of the world .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ than Canada , anyway .
Everyone will have health insurance !
There will be less complaining , over all .
This is a double-edged sword , though , because it also will mean that you can ’ t complain as much .

Ginny Hogan, Randall Otis, Jason Adam Katzenstein

You can finally watch “The Good Doctor” for the plot, rather than to spend forty minutes wondering whether you and a character on the show have the same rare genetic disorder for which you personally have zero symptoms.
At long last, you can get your eyes checked and stop suffering the frequent humiliation of waving at a stranger who you think is your friend.
Your actual friends will stop sending you pictures of their rashes and asking, “Does this look like a problem?” The ratio of dog-to-rash photos on your phone will improve significantly.
You won’t be so reticent about bringing up your partner’s weird mole, since you know that they can afford to have it checked out. It’s important that we all bring up our partners’ flaws more often.
The pressure to get married for health insurance will lift. Now you can get married for authentic reasons, like wanting to appear on “90 Day Fiancé.”
You’ll have a new excuse for backing out of commitments. “That sounds great, but my doctor—whom I see frequently, because of universal health care—said that I shouldn’t attend your gender-reveal party, as there’s always a risk of explosives, which can aggravate my A.D.D.”
If men get regular physical exams, they’ll have their height measured more often and will be less likely to list it incorrectly on dating apps. Actually—let’s be honest—they won’t.
Doctors will be allowed to take more breaks at work, which will not only improve the quality of care but will also make it possible for them to have more sex in the on-call room. Thus, “Grey’s Anatomy” will be rendered more realistic, and you’ll be ridiculed less for watching it. (Fun fact—it’s not a reboot; it’s Season 17.)
You’ll spend less time Googling symptoms now that there’s a professional whom you can call. Your partner will be less weirded out by your search history, although there’s still no explanation for “capybara in top hat, young.”
If your parents are currently paying for your health insurance, you can proudly inform them that you don’t need them anymore. They’ll be impressed by your independence, and you can use that leverage to ask them to invest in your boyfriend’s new skateboard-helmet line. They will be so pleased.
Having the same stable health insurance for years and years and years will teach thirty-two-year-old men that long-term commitment isn’t the most terrifying thing imaginable.
We’ll be more like Sweden. Everyone loves blondes.
Jeff Bezos may have to pay higher taxes, which will lead to more work for his accounting team. It’s not impossible that he’ll worm his way out of said taxes, but that’s honestly even more work for his accounting team.
Everyone will have the same quality of health care, so we’ll go back to judging one another on what really matters—social-media followings.
We’ll finally have a health-care system that rivals that of the rest of the world. We were always meant to be better than Canada, anyway.
Everyone will have health insurance!
There will be less complaining, over all. This is a double-edged sword, though, because it also will mean that you can’t complain as much.


newyorker--2020-10-20--Pushed to the Edge by “Beau Travail”

Pushed to the Edge by “Beau Travail”

Claire Denis ’ s film “ Beau Travail , ” a luminous tale of desire and despair in the French Foreign Legion , had an uncanny effect on me when I first watched it some years after its release , in 1999 .
I knew only that the movie was set in the East African nation of Djibouti , which I had visited not long after the film was made .
That journey had been so far outside the range of my usual experience that , later , my memories of the place felt unreal , and , when I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ arid mountains and lush seas , they worked on me like flashbacks to a lingering dream .
Also uncanny was the music that rumbles on the soundtrack , shortly after the film begins—a sailors ’ chorus from Benjamin Britten ’ s opera “ Billy Budd , ” an adaptation of the eponymous novella by Herman Melville .
The injection of Britten ’ s languidly surging music into a balletic ceremony of sun-bronzed legionnaires disoriented me further , as if one dream were invading another .
I soon realized that “ Beau Travail ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fable of repression and violence .
Our most potent aesthetic experiences are sometimes those for which we are least prepared .
Two decades on , “ Beau Travail ” has been inducted into the cinematic shrine of the Criterion Collection , a marker of the film ’ s status as a modern classic .
It feels , in a way , older than it is , a gorgeous relic of a period when gay desire could achieve only incomplete expression or had to be concealed altogether .
Denis ’ s movie seems like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decline of the tragedy of the closet as an artistic genre .
Melville ’ s John Claggart , the master-at-arms whose obsession with the handsome young sailor Billy turns destructive , is the archetypal self-hating gay villain .
In “ Beau Travail , ” Claggart becomes the tightly wound French sergeant Galoup , although his trajectory follows a significantly different course .
Melville began writing his story around 1886 and had not quite finished it at the time of his death , five years later .
The action takes place on board a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the peak of the French Revolution and the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars .
Brutal working conditions in the Royal Navy had spurred mutinies at Spithead and the Nore .
The guileless Billy is pressed into service without complaint , but his instant popularity among his fellow-sailors creates unease among the officers .
Claggart takes advantage of that paranoid atmosphere by accusing Billy of fomenting mutiny—a wholly unsubstantiated claim rooted in Claggart ’ s corrosive envy of , and lust for , the sailor .
The accusation reaches Edward Vere , the bookish @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and admiring of Billy .
When Billy is confronted , he finds himself robbed of speech , and can reply only by lashing out , killing Claggart with one blow .
Vere , standing over the body , exclaims , “ Struck dead by an angel of God !
Yet the angel must hang !
” When Billy is strung up on a yardarm , the sailors murmur their discontent ; a display of martial discipline staves off any threat of mutiny .
“ Billy Budd , Sailor ” was first published in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was cautiously emerging as a topic in literature and criticism .
F. O. Matthiessen , in his book “ American Renaissance , ” from 1941 , noted the “ sexual element in Claggart ’ s ambivalence , ” and the character ’ s “ inextricable mixture of longing and malice.
” Melville himself writes that “ Claggart could even have loved Billy but for fate and ban.
” Five decades later , the literary scholar Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick , in her book “ Epistemology of the Closet , ” brilliantly dissected the parallel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ notes , does not wish to possess Billy but simply to have him on display : “ The desires of Captain Vere are desires of the eye.
” Vere observes that Billy is “ a fine specimen of the genus homo , who in the nude might have posed for a statue of young Adam before the Fall , ” and intends to promote the sailor to a position “ that would more frequently bring him under his own observation.
” Despite much ingenious elucidation , Melville ’ s novella remains a cryptic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the arch irony typical of the author ’ s later fiction .
Britten ’ s opera , which had its première in 1951 , is a more earnest undertaking .
Although the composer never openly declared himself gay , he was known to be sharing his life with the tenor Peter Pears .
The co-author of the libretto , alongside Eric Crozier , was E. M. Forster , who had written his own tale of gay love , in the form of the novel “ Maurice.
” The result of their collaboration could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ opera , although the text stays close to Melville ’ s sly , indirect formulations .
Given that gay sex was criminalized in the United Kingdom in 1951 , it is difficult to imagine how much further they could have gone .
Many admirers of Britten ’ s music , myself included , have hesitated to embrace “ Billy Budd , ” which alternates uneasily between hearty naval spectacle and attempts at psychological revelation .
Forster and Crozier ’ s libretto tends to fall flat when it is forced to spell out , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more obliquely in his novella .
Claggart ’ s Iago-like manifesto of evil— “ O beauty , O handsomeness , goodness !
You are surely in my power tonight … and I will destroy you ” —is an unconvincing articulation of an inner monologue that surely would have been more chaotic and raw .
Melville lets us imagine it—in ways he could not have imagined .
Britten ’ s Vere , meanwhile , is a more sympathetic , philosophically troubled figure .
Lost in the adaptation is the suspicion harbored by the ship @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unhinged ” by Billy ’ s act .
The expected procedure would have been to submit the case to an admiral on land ; the captain ’ s insistence on an immediate court-martial has a whiff of overcompensation about it , as if he is keen to hide his emotions behind a wall of rectitude .
Nonetheless , Britten ’ s score has many magnificent stretches , and the full-throated , multilayered male choruses are perhaps its chief glory .
In the first scene , as the sailors scrub the deck , they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ O heave !
O heave away , heave !
O heave !
” —the music that is heard at intervals in “ Beau Travail.
” The main element of the melody is a rising fifth , from F-sharp to C-sharp , over an orchestral drone of D and F-sharp .
Billy , when he is pressed into service later in the scene , introduces himself with the same rising fifth , and he adopts the entire “ O heave !
” theme when he bids farewell to his old ship , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s pro-revolutionary pamphlet of 1791 : “ Farewell , old Rights o ’ Man !
” The music therefore represents the suffering of ordinary sailors under the naval order .
When Billy is hanged , the working song resurfaces as a wordless , growling chorus of protest .
Britten ’ s masterstroke is a brief orchestral interlude evoking an offstage exchange between Vere and Billy , in which the sailor learns his fate .
Melville ’ s devious narrator informs us that “ what took place at this interview was never known , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suggesting that Vere “ caught Billy to his heart.
” In Peter Ustinov ’ s film version of “ Billy Budd , ” from 1962 , the “ closeted interview ” is put onscreen , with disastrously mundane results : Vere comforts Billy in sad , fatherly tones .
Britten instead offers up an eerie kaleidoscope of thirty-four major and minor triads—a cryptic narrative of emotional turmoil and tentative peace .
The chords recur in the epilogue , as the aged Vere looks back on the central drama of his life .
( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is killed in battle soon after Billy ’ s execution . )
The implication seems to be that Vere has achieved a measure of redemption .
Yet , as the scholar J. P. E. Harper-Scott has argued , the captain ’ s belated reflections hardly change the cold reality of the systemic violence that the opera portrays—and which remained in force in the Cold War mind-set of 1951 .
Dozens of critical commentaries have expounded links between Melville ’ s story and “ Beau Travail , ” but little has been said about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I suspect that the opera ’ s influence goes beyond the periodic employment of the “ O heave !
” chorus .
Early in the movie , we see Denis Lavant , in the role of Galoup , writing in a notebook .
Unlike Claggart , he has survived the central crisis of the story , and is recalling it on a balcony in Marseille , where he leads a lonely life as a civilian : “ I have time to kill now.
” In this , he resembles Britten ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the beginning of the opera as well as at the end .
To be sure , the film has its own Vere figure : a commander named Bruno Forestier ( Michel Subor ) , who maintains a hardened macho façade even as he shoots sidewise glances at the young bodies under his command .
In one nighttime scene , Forestier converses briefly with a lean , feline soldier named Sentain ( Grégoire Colin ) , who inhabits the Billy role .
When Sentain explains that he was found as a baby in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a “ good find ” ( “ belle trouvaille ” ) —this is how Billy is described in Melville ’ s story and Britten ’ s opera .
The title of the film , meaning “ good work , ” seems a play on that borrowed phrase .
But Forestier is more a bystander than a participant in the central tension between Galoup and Sentain .
“ Beau Travail ” is often described as a homoerotic film , although nothing verifiably gay happens onscreen .
The legionnaires traipse about shirtless and perform exercises @ @ @ @ @ @ @ procedure , but the activity is more sexy than sexual .
( Bernardo Montet directed the choreography . )
Nor does Sentain come across as a charismatic young god , as presentable as he is .
Galoup himself—with his pug-like brow , his rasping voice , his piercing eyes , and his weathered-granite body—is arguably the most impressive male specimen on display .
There is something unexplained about his obsession with Sentain , and when he stages the climactic crisis—he mistreats a Black soldier , guessing that Sentain will step in and defy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the outcome unclear .
The neurosis at the heart of the film is that of the military order itself .
Forestier ’ s unit is a fighting force with nothing to fight ; the legionnaires spend their days swimming , hiking , ironing their dress whites , and prowling the streets of Djibouti City .
( A demi-brigade of the Foreign Legion was based in Djibouti from 1962 to 2011 . )
The atmosphere of a stymied craving for action has its analogue in a deliberately anticlimactic sequence in Britten ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ frigate arouses a crescendo of patriotic bravado , until the wind dies and the battle goes unjoined .
Denis draws a telling contrast between the regimented boredom of the legionnaires ’ lives and the mellow , purposeful routines of the Djibouti natives .
The Frenchmen blend into the desert terrain with their drab gear ; the Djibouti women light it up with vibrant color .
Marta Tafesse Kassa , who plays Galoup ’ s girlfriend , all but takes over the movie with her glowing , querying gaze .
The recurrence of Britten @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chorus , in conjunction with the beautiful and pointless movement exercises , bespeaks a longing for some other , more organic existence .
A possible vision of that life explodes in the film ’ s astounding final scene , in which Galoup , liberated from his coiled rage , dances a wild , exuberant solo in a discothèque .
Gia Kourlas , in an article on the choreography of “ Beau Travail , ” observes that Galoup “ dances as if someone were standing before him , and he reacts to every move @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lavant , in a commentary included with the Criterion release , describes the dance as “ a projection of who Galoup might wish to be.
” In that sense , it may be a fantasy of an uncloseted gay life .
Yet the ending retains a teasing ambiguity , in keeping with the inscrutable power of the original story .
We don ’ t know whether Galoup lives or dies—whether he escapes his rage or is consumed by it .
Melville ’ s “ Billy Budd ” ends with lines of poetry : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ oozy weeds about me twist.
” We could be seeing Galoup dancing at the bottom of the ocean , Claggart and Billy in a single writhing form .

Claire Denis’s film “Beau Travail,” a luminous tale of desire and despair in the French Foreign Legion, had an uncanny effect on me when I first watched it some years after its release, in 1999. I knew only that the movie was set in the East African nation of Djibouti, which I had visited not long after the film was made. That journey had been so far outside the range of my usual experience that, later, my memories of the place felt unreal, and, when I saw Denis’s wide shots of arid mountains and lush seas, they worked on me like flashbacks to a lingering dream. Also uncanny was the music that rumbles on the soundtrack, shortly after the film begins—a sailors’ chorus from Benjamin Britten’s opera “Billy Budd,” an adaptation of the eponymous novella by Herman Melville. The injection of Britten’s languidly surging music into a balletic ceremony of sun-bronzed legionnaires disoriented me further, as if one dream were invading another. I soon realized that “Beau Travail” was a variation on Melville’s fable of repression and violence. Our most potent aesthetic experiences are sometimes those for which we are least prepared.
Two decades on, “Beau Travail” has been inducted into the cinematic shrine of the Criterion Collection, a marker of the film’s status as a modern classic. It feels, in a way, older than it is, a gorgeous relic of a period when gay desire could achieve only incomplete expression or had to be concealed altogether. Denis’s movie seems like the completion of an arc—the rise and decline of the tragedy of the closet as an artistic genre. Melville’s John Claggart, the master-at-arms whose obsession with the handsome young sailor Billy turns destructive, is the archetypal self-hating gay villain. In “Beau Travail,” Claggart becomes the tightly wound French sergeant Galoup, although his trajectory follows a significantly different course.
Melville began writing his story around 1886 and had not quite finished it at the time of his death, five years later. The action takes place on board a British man-of-war, in the period between the peak of the French Revolution and the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars. Brutal working conditions in the Royal Navy had spurred mutinies at Spithead and the Nore. The guileless Billy is pressed into service without complaint, but his instant popularity among his fellow-sailors creates unease among the officers. Claggart takes advantage of that paranoid atmosphere by accusing Billy of fomenting mutiny—a wholly unsubstantiated claim rooted in Claggart’s corrosive envy of, and lust for, the sailor. The accusation reaches Edward Vere, the bookish captain, who is suspicious of Claggart and admiring of Billy. When Billy is confronted, he finds himself robbed of speech, and can reply only by lashing out, killing Claggart with one blow. Vere, standing over the body, exclaims, “Struck dead by an angel of God! Yet the angel must hang!” When Billy is strung up on a yardarm, the sailors murmur their discontent; a display of martial discipline staves off any threat of mutiny.
“Billy Budd, Sailor” was first published in 1924, by which time gay identity was cautiously emerging as a topic in literature and criticism. F. O. Matthiessen, in his book “American Renaissance,” from 1941, noted the “sexual element in Claggart’s ambivalence,” and the character’s “inextricable mixture of longing and malice.” Melville himself writes that “Claggart could even have loved Billy but for fate and ban.” Five decades later, the literary scholar Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, in her book “Epistemology of the Closet,” brilliantly dissected the parallel yearnings of Vere, who, she notes, does not wish to possess Billy but simply to have him on display: “The desires of Captain Vere are desires of the eye.” Vere observes that Billy is “a fine specimen of the genus homo, who in the nude might have posed for a statue of young Adam before the Fall,” and intends to promote the sailor to a position “that would more frequently bring him under his own observation.”
Despite much ingenious elucidation, Melville’s novella remains a cryptic document, its narrative voice couched in the arch irony typical of the author’s later fiction. Britten’s opera, which had its première in 1951, is a more earnest undertaking. Although the composer never openly declared himself gay, he was known to be sharing his life with the tenor Peter Pears. The co-author of the libretto, alongside Eric Crozier, was E. M. Forster, who had written his own tale of gay love, in the form of the novel “Maurice.” The result of their collaboration could plausibly be described as the first gay opera, although the text stays close to Melville’s sly, indirect formulations. Given that gay sex was criminalized in the United Kingdom in 1951, it is difficult to imagine how much further they could have gone.
Many admirers of Britten’s music, myself included, have hesitated to embrace “Billy Budd,” which alternates uneasily between hearty naval spectacle and attempts at psychological revelation. Forster and Crozier’s libretto tends to fall flat when it is forced to spell out, in dramatic dialogue, what Melville evoked more obliquely in his novella. Claggart’s Iago-like manifesto of evil—“O beauty, O handsomeness, goodness! You are surely in my power tonight … and I will destroy you”—is an unconvincing articulation of an inner monologue that surely would have been more chaotic and raw. Melville lets us imagine it—in ways he could not have imagined. Britten’s Vere, meanwhile, is a more sympathetic, philosophically troubled figure. Lost in the adaptation is the suspicion harbored by the ship’s surgeon that Vere becomes “unhinged” by Billy’s act. The expected procedure would have been to submit the case to an admiral on land; the captain’s insistence on an immediate court-martial has a whiff of overcompensation about it, as if he is keen to hide his emotions behind a wall of rectitude.
Nonetheless, Britten’s score has many magnificent stretches, and the full-throated, multilayered male choruses are perhaps its chief glory. In the first scene, as the sailors scrub the deck, they sing a low, dragging chant of “O heave! O heave away, heave! O heave!”—the music that is heard at intervals in “Beau Travail.” The main element of the melody is a rising fifth, from F-sharp to C-sharp, over an orchestral drone of D and F-sharp. Billy, when he is pressed into service later in the scene, introduces himself with the same rising fifth, and he adopts the entire “O heave!” theme when he bids farewell to his old ship, which shares a name with Thomas Paine’s pro-revolutionary pamphlet of 1791: “Farewell, old Rights o’ Man!” The music therefore represents the suffering of ordinary sailors under the naval order. When Billy is hanged, the working song resurfaces as a wordless, growling chorus of protest.
Britten’s masterstroke is a brief orchestral interlude evoking an offstage exchange between Vere and Billy, in which the sailor learns his fate. Melville’s devious narrator informs us that “what took place at this interview was never known,” but ventures some guesses anyway, suggesting that Vere “caught Billy to his heart.” In Peter Ustinov’s film version of “Billy Budd,” from 1962, the “closeted interview” is put onscreen, with disastrously mundane results: Vere comforts Billy in sad, fatherly tones. Britten instead offers up an eerie kaleidoscope of thirty-four major and minor triads—a cryptic narrative of emotional turmoil and tentative peace. The chords recur in the epilogue, as the aged Vere looks back on the central drama of his life. (In Melville’s book, Vere is killed in battle soon after Billy’s execution.) The implication seems to be that Vere has achieved a measure of redemption. Yet, as the scholar J. P. E. Harper-Scott has argued, the captain’s belated reflections hardly change the cold reality of the systemic violence that the opera portrays—and which remained in force in the Cold War mind-set of 1951.
Dozens of critical commentaries have expounded links between Melville’s story and “Beau Travail,” but little has been said about Britten’s effect on the film. I suspect that the opera’s influence goes beyond the periodic employment of the “O heave!” chorus. Early in the movie, we see Denis Lavant, in the role of Galoup, writing in a notebook. Unlike Claggart, he has survived the central crisis of the story, and is recalling it on a balcony in Marseille, where he leads a lonely life as a civilian: “I have time to kill now.” In this, he resembles Britten’s Vere, who supplies mournful narration at the beginning of the opera as well as at the end.
To be sure, the film has its own Vere figure: a commander named Bruno Forestier (Michel Subor), who maintains a hardened macho façade even as he shoots sidewise glances at the young bodies under his command. In one nighttime scene, Forestier converses briefly with a lean, feline soldier named Sentain (Grégoire Colin), who inhabits the Billy role. When Sentain explains that he was found as a baby in a stairwell, Forestier remarks that it was a “good find” (“belle trouvaille”)—this is how Billy is described in Melville’s story and Britten’s opera. The title of the film, meaning “good work,” seems a play on that borrowed phrase. But Forestier is more a bystander than a participant in the central tension between Galoup and Sentain.
The legionnaires in “Beau Travail” are a fighting force with nothing to fight. Photograph courtesy Janus Films
“Beau Travail” is often described as a homoerotic film, although nothing verifiably gay happens onscreen. The legionnaires traipse about shirtless and perform exercises that resemble modern dance more than military procedure, but the activity is more sexy than sexual. (Bernardo Montet directed the choreography.) Nor does Sentain come across as a charismatic young god, as presentable as he is. Galoup himself—with his pug-like brow, his rasping voice, his piercing eyes, and his weathered-granite body—is arguably the most impressive male specimen on display. There is something unexplained about his obsession with Sentain, and when he stages the climactic crisis—he mistreats a Black soldier, guessing that Sentain will step in and defy the chain of command—the violence is glancing and the outcome unclear.


newyorker--2020-10-20--Fauci Admits He Does Not Have Brain Like Trump’s

WASHINGTON ( The Borowitz Report ) —Reacting to the President ’ s withering criticism of his intellect , Dr. Anthony Fauci admitted that he does not have a brain like Donald Trump ’ s .
“ I have to say that he has a point , ” Fauci said .
“ My brain could never come up with the things his brain comes up with.
” Having worked closely with Trump on the White House coronavirus task force , Fauci observed , “ His brain is scary.
” “ It ’ s much faster than mine , ” the esteemed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to look at facts and data before making a decision , but he makes decisions in seconds , without any information at all.
” While asserting that Trump ’ s gray matter “ merits further study , ” Fauci said that he has a theory for why the President ’ s brain is so much quicker than his .
“ My brain is all clogged up with decades ’ worth of epidemiology , ” he said .
“ His just has ‘ person , woman , man , camera , TV .
’ @

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Reacting to the President’s withering criticism of his intellect, Dr. Anthony Fauci admitted that he does not have a brain like Donald Trump’s.
“I have to say that he has a point,” Fauci said. “My brain could never come up with the things his brain comes up with.”
Having worked closely with Trump on the White House coronavirus task force, Fauci observed, “His brain is scary.”
“It’s much faster than mine,” the esteemed virologist added. “I need hours to look at facts and data before making a decision, but he makes decisions in seconds, without any information at all.”
While asserting that Trump’s gray matter “merits further study,” Fauci said that he has a theory for why the President’s brain is so much quicker than his.
“My brain is all clogged up with decades’ worth of epidemiology,” he said. “His just has ‘person, woman, man, camera, TV.’ ”


newyorker--2020-10-21--Spicy Sex Tips for the Couple Spending Every Waking Second Together

Turn off the lights in the bedroom and explore each other ’ s bodies .
You ’ ll wake the neighbors with your intermittent yelps of surprise as you discover remotes you didn ’ t even know you owned , buried in the sheets .
Your heart rates will soar at the possibility that maybe , just maybe , these remotes are to streaming services whose catalogues you haven ’ t torn through yet .
Here ’ s a fun role-play idea : Pop in a monocle and become Miss Petunia G. Havensworth , a nineteenth-century detective who always gets @ @ @ @ @ @ @ case of the birthmark on your partner ’ s shoulder that you ’ re convinced is melanoma .
Make sure to wrap up with an erotic massage , using your favorite high-S.P.F .
sunscreen , especially if this massage takes place right before your partner ’ s weekly walk to the bodega to restock on canned fish .
Throw on a sexy , sheer apron and make your partner ’ s favorite chili , “ quarantine style , ” which is a fancy way of saying “ with loads of extra beans.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his lunch of tacos , quarantine style , and chilaquiles , quarantine style .
Forget about the sex—do you have Febreze and a face mask that completely blocks your sense of smell ?
Stay up all night debating whether you should splurge on a BritBox subscription or explore sadomasochism by downloading Quibi .
Throw on some naughty librarian glasses and chastise your partner for having books that are way overdue , but it ’ s O.K.—you know just how they can pay the fines .
Build anticipation by asking if your partner paid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will literally drive your honey wild when you mutually realize that your collective side hustles will never earn enough to keep the two of you afloat .
Heat things up even more by suggesting that your partner go to grad school to become a C.P.A .
when this is all over .
Feel like giving a spanking ?
Improvise by paddling your husband with the plastic spatula that you got as a wedding gift five years ago .
The way it has melted and warped will add a little sting to the proceedings @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , all right , spending four dollars on a new spatula is perfectly reasonable when you haven ’ t been to a bar in six months .
Drive your partner wild with some crotchless panties .
No , no—the kind of panties that are designed to be crotchless .
Bring a third party into the mix by ordering some new panties , slipping the Amazon delivery driver a hefty cash tip , and riding the ecstasy of that social interaction for weeks .
Is it sexy to wear your guy ’ s oversized @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doorway , looking at him longingly with a wry smile on your face ?
Oh , yes .
Is it equally sexy to wear the oversized T-shirt that you got for free at a bar , on St. Paddy ’ s Day , which reads “ KISS ME , I ’ M DRUNK , ” and wryly smile through your mouth guard ?
No .
Objectively , it just isn ’ t .
Create a soundscape to set the mood , by playing the FiveThirtyEight podcast .
Nothing fires up your partner like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , though any mention of the strong , decisive Anthony Fauci may give him performance anxiety .
Cuddle up on the couch while binge-watching all of the “ John Wick ” movies .
If this leads to sex , cool .
But if not ?
Those “ John Wick ” movies are thrilling and among the six films in existence that you haven ’ t watched yet .
If all else fails , light some candles and share your hottest fantasies , like imagining your lives if your rent-relief application had actually been @ @

Drive your man wild in a sexy, satin corset. The padded cups are perfect for showing off your cleavage, as well as for storing those kinky sex toys that determine just how hot your bodies’ internal temperatures are, in case one of you accidentally coughs and you have to pause foreplay for a temperature check.
Turn off the lights in the bedroom and explore each other’s bodies. You’ll wake the neighbors with your intermittent yelps of surprise as you discover remotes you didn’t even know you owned, buried in the sheets. Your heart rates will soar at the possibility that maybe, just maybe, these remotes are to streaming services whose catalogues you haven’t torn through yet.
Here’s a fun role-play idea: Pop in a monocle and become Miss Petunia G. Havensworth, a nineteenth-century detective who always gets to the bottom of mysteries—such as the case of the birthmark on your partner’s shoulder that you’re convinced is melanoma. Make sure to wrap up with an erotic massage, using your favorite high-S.P.F. sunscreen, especially if this massage takes place right before your partner’s weekly walk to the bodega to restock on canned fish.
Throw on a sexy, sheer apron and make your partner’s favorite chili, “quarantine style,” which is a fancy way of saying “with loads of extra beans.” Quickly realize that this meal will follow his lunch of tacos, quarantine style, and chilaquiles, quarantine style. Forget about the sex—do you have Febreze and a face mask that completely blocks your sense of smell?
Stay up all night debating whether you should splurge on a BritBox subscription or explore sadomasochism by downloading Quibi.
Throw on some naughty librarian glasses and chastise your partner for having books that are way overdue, but it’s O.K.—you know just how they can pay the fines. Build anticipation by asking if your partner paid the gas bill this month. You will literally drive your honey wild when you mutually realize that your collective side hustles will never earn enough to keep the two of you afloat. Heat things up even more by suggesting that your partner go to grad school to become a C.P.A. when this is all over.
Feel like giving a spanking? Improvise by paddling your husband with the plastic spatula that you got as a wedding gift five years ago. The way it has melted and warped will add a little sting to the proceedings, and might just convince him that, all right, spending four dollars on a new spatula is perfectly reasonable when you haven’t been to a bar in six months.
Drive your partner wild with some crotchless panties. No, no—the kind of panties that are designed to be crotchless. Bring a third party into the mix by ordering some new panties, slipping the Amazon delivery driver a hefty cash tip, and riding the ecstasy of that social interaction for weeks.
Is it sexy to wear your guy’s oversized white button-down and stand in the bedroom doorway, looking at him longingly with a wry smile on your face? Oh, yes. Is it equally sexy to wear the oversized T-shirt that you got for free at a bar, on St. Paddy’s Day, which reads “KISS ME, I’M DRUNK,” and wryly smile through your mouth guard? No. Objectively, it just isn’t.
Create a soundscape to set the mood, by playing the FiveThirtyEight podcast. Nothing fires up your partner like hearing Trump’s dwindling polling numbers, though any mention of the strong, decisive Anthony Fauci may give him performance anxiety.
Cuddle up on the couch while binge-watching all of the “John Wick” movies. If this leads to sex, cool. But if not? Those “John Wick” movies are thrilling and among the six films in existence that you haven’t watched yet.
If all else fails, light some candles and share your hottest fantasies, like imagining your lives if your rent-relief application had actually been approved.


newyorker--2020-10-21--The Montana Voters Who Could Decide Control of the Senate

On the cool , drizzly last Saturday of September , Montana ’ s governor , Steve Bullock , spent yet another afternoon on the road , travelling from the capital , Helena , to the western part of the state for a string of appearances .
A former state attorney general and onetime Presidential candidate , he is challenging the freshman Republican senator Steve Daines in a race that could very well flip the Senate in the Democrats ’ favor .
Bullock was trailing or leading in the polls by a point or two , depending on the week .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the coronavirus pandemic has been on trial : his spring shutdown earned high praise , but case numbers have recently soared .
To win , Bullock needs every vote he can get from Montana ’ s traditional Democratic coalition , which is composed of seniors and conservationists and , above all , Native Americans and union workers .
Which is why , on that Saturday , he made sure to visit a union headquarters and a tribal reservation .
In a small office in Kalispell , a northwestern town best known for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Park , Bullock greeted a few of the seven hundred nurses who recently formed a union at Kalispell Regional Healthcare , a local hospital network .
Purple stickers and “ WE SUPPORT KRH NURSES ” yard signs seemed to be everywhere , along with whiteboard flowcharts and children ’ s toys .
Molly Moody , an organizer with the Service Employees International Union , gave Bullock a hug—they ’ d first met twenty years ago , when he was a labor lawyer .
Bullock listened to the nurses describe their fight for a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an hour south , to a coronavirus-safe , drive-in rally on the campus of Salish Kootenai College , on the Flathead Reservation .
Under darkening clouds , a long line of mostly trucks and S.U.V.s turned past a highway billboard reading “ PLEASE WEAR A MASK / PROTECT OUR ELDERS ” and into a giant parking lot .
In Montana , as in the rest of the country , Native communities have suffered more sickness and death owing to COVID-19 than their population numbers would predict .
A prerecorded drum circle played over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and head shots of Democratic candidates for local , state , and federal office .
One after another , eight politicians climbed a dais and unmasked at the mike .
Bullock spoke last .
“ I ’ ve learned from you .
I ’ ve grown with you .
I ’ ve respected the government-to-government relationship , ” he said , teeth chattering , to a barrage of supportive honks .
“ There ’ s a real choice here—Indian country should never be an afterthought.
” Native Americans are the largest minority group @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Democratic Party , as presumptively reliable a voting block as Latinos in the Southwest or Black voters in big cities and the South .
In 2018 , when Montana ’ s other Senate seat was on the ballot , Native voters , concentrated among late-count absentees , were widely credited with securing a third term for the Democrat Jon Tester .
But they are not a monolith .
Ian I. McRyhew , a Jicarilla Apache citizen and student at Salish Kootenai , told me at the rally , “ I don @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Republican .
Some of my views fall more into Libertarian.
” In 2016 , he voted for Donald Trump , he whispered—a fact he rarely discloses .
But “ I ’ m definitely voting for Bullock , ” he said .
This year , the Senate race in Montana , population one million , could be decided by a vanishingly thin margin .
Bullock ’ s fate , and perhaps the nation ’ s , may rest on the ballots of around forty-five thousand voting-age Native Americans and forty-six thousand union workers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Montana Federation of Public Employees .
Every election , in every state , invokes its own peculiar imagery and slogans and categorically “ American ” tests of authenticity .
In Montana , candidates must wear the worn blues of old jeans , along with belt buckles , cowboy boots , and rugged fall jackets .
They must pose in various outdoor settings , lift guns in the air , and speak of “ access to public lands ” in lieu of climate change .
They must distance themselves from candidacy-killing concepts like a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or a ban on the Keystone XL pipeline , while promising health care , jobs , and tribal sovereignty .
Republicans like Daines , a wealthy businessman from Bozeman , hope to benefit from their association with President Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence , who won the state in 2016 by a margin of twenty per cent .
Meanwhile , Democrats like Bullock avoid gratuitous references to “ Chuck and Nancy ” —Charles Schumer , the Senate Minority Leader , and Nancy Pelosi , the Speaker of the House .
Montanans pride themselves @ @ @ @ @ @ @ here , in early August , for a journalism fellowship at the University of Montana , several people have used the same gesture by way of explanation .
Holding an imaginary pencil , they start at the top of a ballot and move down in a series of left-right zigzags : Democrat , Republican , Democrat , Republican .
The statewide and federal offices currently abide by this logic : a Democratic governor ( Bullock ) , a Republican congressman ( Greg Gianforte , famous for body-slamming a Guardian reporter ) , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republican senator ( Daines ) , a Republican secretary of state , and a Republican auditor .
The question is : Will this purple pattern hold four years into the Trump era and in the thick of an ever-worsening pandemic ?
At the end of March , Bullock shut down the state , drawing national admiration and surprise , perhaps on the mistaken assumption that Montana is Tea Party red .
But , after he eased restrictions , businesses reopened , summer vacationers arrived en masse , and schools and colleges resumed in-person @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cases went from seven to seven hundred .
In a debate between the Senate candidates hosted by Montana PBS , in late September , Daines criticized Bullock by pointing to “ consecutive days of record positive COVID numbers.
” Montana now has one of the worst per-capita infection rates in the country .
Yet only a small minority of Montanans I interviewed , Democrat and Republican alike , told me that they were dissatisfied with Bullock ’ s handling of the pandemic .
A few people complained that Phase I had not lasted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the governor should have required masks in schools from the beginning of the summer , instead of adding that requirement much later .
And some Native citizens regretted that the highways cutting through their land had not been closed to outside traffic .
The Blackfeet Nation , for one , restricted access on the eastern side of Glacier National Park , even after the state began to move into Phase II .
( About two-thirds of Montana ’ s indigenous people live on reservation land . )
“ I supported Bullock ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ extend it , ” Alissa Snow , a Blackfeet citizen and director of the Native vote program for the Montana Democrats , told me .
The disproportionate impact of the pandemic makes Native outreach at once more necessary and more fraught .
Snow is currently supervising twenty-four organizers across the state ’ s seven reservations , where sovereignty , reproductive rights , health care , language preservation , domestic abuse , and environmental policy are core issues .
But , given the well-documented history of discrimination against indigenous voters in the U.S. , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It ’ s new to Native people .
”

On the cool, drizzly last Saturday of September, Montana’s governor, Steve Bullock, spent yet another afternoon on the road, travelling from the capital, Helena, to the western part of the state for a string of appearances. A former state attorney general and onetime Presidential candidate, he is challenging the freshman Republican senator Steve Daines in a race that could very well flip the Senate in the Democrats’ favor. Bullock was trailing or leading in the polls by a point or two, depending on the week. As a sitting governor, his handling of the coronavirus pandemic has been on trial: his spring shutdown earned high praise, but case numbers have recently soared. To win, Bullock needs every vote he can get from Montana’s traditional Democratic coalition, which is composed of seniors and conservationists and, above all, Native Americans and union workers. Which is why, on that Saturday, he made sure to visit a union headquarters and a tribal reservation.
In a small office in Kalispell, a northwestern town best known for its proximity to the sublime Glacier National Park, Bullock greeted a few of the seven hundred nurses who recently formed a union at Kalispell Regional Healthcare, a local hospital network. Purple stickers and “WE SUPPORT KRH NURSES” yard signs seemed to be everywhere, along with whiteboard flowcharts and children’s toys. Molly Moody, an organizer with the Service Employees International Union, gave Bullock a hug—they’d first met twenty years ago, when he was a labor lawyer. Bullock listened to the nurses describe their fight for a first contract, then made his way an hour south, to a coronavirus-safe, drive-in rally on the campus of Salish Kootenai College, on the Flathead Reservation.
Under darkening clouds, a long line of mostly trucks and S.U.V.s turned past a highway billboard reading “PLEASE WEAR A MASK / PROTECT OUR ELDERS” and into a giant parking lot. In Montana, as in the rest of the country, Native communities have suffered more sickness and death owing to COVID-19 than their population numbers would predict. A prerecorded drum circle played over loudspeakers as a jumbotron projected the names and head shots of Democratic candidates for local, state, and federal office. One after another, eight politicians climbed a dais and unmasked at the mike. Bullock spoke last. “I’ve learned from you. I’ve grown with you. I’ve respected the government-to-government relationship,” he said, teeth chattering, to a barrage of supportive honks. “There’s a real choice here—Indian country should never be an afterthought.”
Steve Bullock, Montana’s Democratic governor, is challenging Senator Steve Daines in a tossup race that could tip the Senate.
Native Americans are the largest minority group in Montana and, from the perspective of the Democratic Party, as presumptively reliable a voting block as Latinos in the Southwest or Black voters in big cities and the South. In 2018, when Montana’s other Senate seat was on the ballot, Native voters, concentrated among late-count absentees, were widely credited with securing a third term for the Democrat Jon Tester. But they are not a monolith. Ian I. McRyhew, a Jicarilla Apache citizen and student at Salish Kootenai, told me at the rally, “I don’t identify as a Democrat or a Republican. Some of my views fall more into Libertarian.” In 2016, he voted for Donald Trump, he whispered—a fact he rarely discloses. But “I’m definitely voting for Bullock,” he said.
This year, the Senate race in Montana, population one million, could be decided by a vanishingly thin margin. Bullock’s fate, and perhaps the nation’s, may rest on the ballots of around forty-five thousand voting-age Native Americans and forty-six thousand union workers, half of whom belong to the Montana Federation of Public Employees.
Every election, in every state, invokes its own peculiar imagery and slogans and categorically “American” tests of authenticity. In Montana, candidates must wear the worn blues of old jeans, along with belt buckles, cowboy boots, and rugged fall jackets. They must pose in various outdoor settings, lift guns in the air, and speak of “access to public lands” in lieu of climate change. They must distance themselves from candidacy-killing concepts like a sales tax, friendliness with China, or a ban on the Keystone XL pipeline, while promising health care, jobs, and tribal sovereignty. Republicans like Daines, a wealthy businessman from Bozeman, hope to benefit from their association with President Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence, who won the state in 2016 by a margin of twenty per cent. Meanwhile, Democrats like Bullock avoid gratuitous references to “Chuck and Nancy”—Charles Schumer, the Senate Minority Leader, and Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House.
Montanans pride themselves on voting independently. Since I moved here, in early August, for a journalism fellowship at the University of Montana, several people have used the same gesture by way of explanation. Holding an imaginary pencil, they start at the top of a ballot and move down in a series of left-right zigzags: Democrat, Republican, Democrat, Republican. The statewide and federal offices currently abide by this logic: a Democratic governor (Bullock), a Republican congressman (Greg Gianforte, famous for body-slamming a Guardian reporter), a Democratic senator (Tester), a Republican senator (Daines), a Republican secretary of state, and a Republican auditor. The question is: Will this purple pattern hold four years into the Trump era and in the thick of an ever-worsening pandemic?
At the end of March, Bullock shut down the state, drawing national admiration and surprise, perhaps on the mistaken assumption that Montana is Tea Party red. But, after he eased restrictions, businesses reopened, summer vacationers arrived en masse, and schools and colleges resumed in-person teaching—and the number of new daily COVID cases went from seven to seven hundred. In a debate between the Senate candidates hosted by Montana PBS, in late September, Daines criticized Bullock by pointing to “consecutive days of record positive COVID numbers.” Montana now has one of the worst per-capita infection rates in the country.
Yet only a small minority of Montanans I interviewed, Democrat and Republican alike, told me that they were dissatisfied with Bullock’s handling of the pandemic. A few people complained that Phase I had not lasted long enough. Several teachers said that the governor should have required masks in schools from the beginning of the summer, instead of adding that requirement much later. And some Native citizens regretted that the highways cutting through their land had not been closed to outside traffic. The Blackfeet Nation, for one, restricted access on the eastern side of Glacier National Park, even after the state began to move into Phase II. (About two-thirds of Montana’s indigenous people live on reservation land.) “I supported Bullock’s shutdown, also because tribes could then extend it,” Alissa Snow, a Blackfeet citizen and director of the Native vote program for the Montana Democrats, told me.
The disproportionate impact of the pandemic makes Native outreach at once more necessary and more fraught. Snow is currently supervising twenty-four organizers across the state’s seven reservations, where sovereignty, reproductive rights, health care, language preservation, domestic abuse, and environmental policy are core issues. But, given the well-documented history of discrimination against indigenous voters in the U.S., she explained, “voting feels foreign. It’s new to Native people.”


newyorker--2020-10-21--Can We Trust the Presidential-Election Polls?

Polls are not predictive .
They are snapshots taken at a particular moment in time .
By the time the public sees a poll , that moment will have passed .
Andrew Weissert , who runs a Republican polling firm outside of Chicago , told me , “ I remember , in 2012 , when Mitt Romney had a stellar debate performance , and , all of a sudden , people were writing President Obama ’ s political obituary .
Then the next debate happened .
Obama had a strong debate .
And suddenly the polls were showing something completely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ news because people are sensitive to the news .
They are inconsistent because people are inconsistent .
According to Andrew Mercer , a senior research methodologist at the Pew Research Center , polls also tend to vary because “ there are a lot of subjective decisions about how to go about things that different pollsters do differently for a variety of reasons.
” When pollsters rely on landlines , they tend to get older voters .
A reliance on mobile-phone numbers might miss rural voters who don ’ t have cell service .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ respond to pollsters , but people who are civically engaged—and research shows that those people tend to be Democrats—do .
Polls are based on models , and models are built on assumptions about who is likely to vote and how much weight to afford each demographic cohort in that universe of likely voters .
Tom Bonier , the C.E.O .
of TargetSmart , a polling and analytics company that works with Democratic candidates and progressive organizations , told me about a 2016 online survey , where a young Black man reported that he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there were so few men of color in his exact age range being surveyed , his voice was weighted as if he represented the universe of young Black men .
“ It just screwed up the whole poll , where it went heavily to Trump , ” Bonier said .
Trump did win , of course , and his victory highlights the inherent fallibility of polls .
Because they capture a lapsed moment in time , they couldn ’ t account for voters who turned to Trump at the last minute , or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who succumbed to the Trump campaign ’ s efforts to keep them from voting .
And polling samples that are poorly calibrated fail to accurately reflect the electorate .
In 2016 , pollsters gave too much weight to college-educated voters , who tend to vote for Democrats , and not enough to those with less education , as well as people who typically don ’ t vote .
“ The question is , how are you constructing the sample , ” Bonier told me .
“ That ’ s especially true this year @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who ’ s going to vote in this election is a really difficult question .
After 2016 , every poll should be offered with the caveat that the results are meaningful if the electorate looks like we think it will look.
” If 2016 taught us anything , it ’ s that national polls are deceptive .
Clinton was projected to beat Trump in the popular vote by about three percentage points , which turned out to be largely correct .
But , since U.S. elections are not popularity contests , a better @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chances is to look at polls of voters in battleground states , where , ultimately , the race will be determined .
Those polls show Biden and Trump nearly tied in Florida and Ohio ; according to the RealClearPolitics polling average , Trump is ahead in Texas by about the same margin that Biden is ahead in Arizona .
Even so , are those numbers meaningful ?
Maybe not .
One impediment , Bonier said , is that the cohort of people who tell pollsters they are not going to vote has the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rate .
“ Pollsters are guessing what the voting population looks like , ” Mercer told me .
“ But it ’ s hard , because it ’ s not a population that exists until the election.
” To account for this , most polls are accompanied by a kind of consumer warning , the margin of error , which signals that the poll is likely to contain sampling errors .
It is not an admission that the poll may be wrong .
Rather , Mercer said , “ it ’ s the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ error in a poll , ” a benchmark that shows the spread of possible outcomes .
A candidate polling at fifty-one per cent with a three-point margin of error , for example , is likely to receive anywhere from forty-eight per cent to fifty-four per cent of the vote .
Assuming the other candidate has forty-nine per cent of the vote , with the same margin of error , the race is , statistically , a tossup .
Recent research suggests that the margin of error only accounts for a portion of potential @ @ @ @ @ @ @ account for respondents who don ’ t understand what the pollster is asking , or who are unwilling to divulge the candidate whom they are actually supporting .
Mercer , among others , suggests a simple solution : double the margin of error .
“ That ’ s because of all those other kinds of problems and subjective decisions that just aren ’ t captured by the margin of error as it ’ s typically constructed , ” he told me .
The recent New York Times/Siena College poll of likely voters in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden up by ten points , with a four-point margin of error , would not only look much closer , it would suggest that Trump could still pull out a victory .
“ Right now I think it would be feasible to say that Vice-President Biden is winning , ” Weissert told me .
“ But , really , this will come down to a handful of states , and they are closer , I think , than people realize.
” Campaigns looking for a more dynamic understanding of voter intent have turned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Weissert has worked with AdVictory , a data-analytics and media-placement company that uses an artificial-intelligence tool called Eyesover to comb through social media .
( AdVictory ’ s clients have included Senator Ben Sasse , a Republican from Nebraska ; Bill Lee , the Republican governor of Tennessee ; and the College Republican National Committee . )
“ We ’ re able to treat social media as a kind of always-on focus group to get a more real-time understanding of trends than you get with polling , ” Adam Meldrum , AdVictory @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ By analyzing what people are saying on social media , we can see what people are thinking .
Over time , as we start to see issues pop up in greater frequency around a candidate ’ s name , we ’ ll look at how people are talking about them .
Is it positive ?
Is it negative ?
And are people starting to pick up on what we ’ re putting out there in the broadcast media ?
” In late September , Meldrum was seeing that Trump ’ s comments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ positive responses than Biden ’ s .
On the Democratic side , a company called Avalanche Insights , led by Michiah Prull , a veteran of both Obama campaigns , is also using machine learning , in tandem with human analysts , to better understand the electorate .
Avalanche convenes online groups , with as many as ten thousand participants , that are representative of the larger universe of likely voters .
Traditional polls , by contrast , tend to query a thousand or fifteen hundred people .
The company uses algorithms to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ language that are otherwise difficult to identify .
( Participants are compensated with non-monetary incentives , such as a couple of Candy Crush jewels . )
“ You want to say , ‘ Here are the undecided voters , ’ and find out what they care about right now , because you want to understand why they are undecided , ” Prull told me .
“ It ’ s that qualitative component that gives a deeper understanding that makes us different than a traditional poll.
” Neither AdVictory nor Avalanche Insights is working @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but a company called Expert.ai has been sifting through hundreds of thousands of social-media posts to determine which candidate is currently winning the race .
Using a natural-language processor to extract what its algorithms determine to be the most relevant information , it currently shows Biden slightly ahead of Trump , with a lead so narrow that it ’ s hardly a lead at all .
It ’ s too early to know if Expert.ai ’ s model will be more accurate than traditional polling , but a recent article in Fortune magazine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and would have come closer to anticipating Trump ’ s success in 2016 than the polls led the public to believe .
Of course , compared to 2016 , there are so many unique variables this year that it ’ s unlikely that polls will be able to reflect all of them .
Even doubling the margin of error may be inadequate .
Voters are heading to the polls during a pandemic .
Republicans have stepped up their efforts to keep people from voting—and from having certain votes counted .
Hundreds of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by mail than in previous years , even as the Postmaster General has intentionally attempted to slow down the mail .
Something like sixty per cent of Democrats will have cast ballots by Election Day .
The electorate is energized and turning out in unprecedented numbers .
It is also more polarized than ever .
As Weissert , the Republican pollster , told me , “ People want to anoint Biden , but what I see is a very close race .
I would not write out the President.
” Read More About @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rise of Kamala Harris .
• When a 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 .

On October 18, 2016, the New York Times gave Hillary Clinton a ninety-one-per-cent chance of beating Donald Trump. Five days later, ABC News released a tracking poll showing her ahead of Trump by twelve points. Buoyed by the polls, Democrats—especially Democratic women—approached November 8th with a joyful sense of inevitability. The collective disbelief when Clinton lost was tinged with confusion: How could the pollsters have been so wrong? Now, with Joe Biden leading Trump by double digits in the lead-up to Election Day, according to the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist survey, the question has to be asked: Are voters hoping for a Biden victory about to fall in the same trap?
Polls are not predictive. They are snapshots taken at a particular moment in time. By the time the public sees a poll, that moment will have passed. Andrew Weissert, who runs a Republican polling firm outside of Chicago, told me, “I remember, in 2012, when Mitt Romney had a stellar debate performance, and, all of a sudden, people were writing President Obama’s political obituary. Then the next debate happened. Obama had a strong debate. And suddenly the polls were showing something completely different.” Polls are sensitive to the news because people are sensitive to the news. They are inconsistent because people are inconsistent. According to Andrew Mercer, a senior research methodologist at the Pew Research Center, polls also tend to vary because “there are a lot of subjective decisions about how to go about things that different pollsters do differently for a variety of reasons.”
When pollsters rely on landlines, they tend to get older voters. A reliance on mobile-phone numbers might miss rural voters who don’t have cell service. People whose candidate is losing may not respond to pollsters, but people who are civically engaged—and research shows that those people tend to be Democrats—do. Polls are based on models, and models are built on assumptions about who is likely to vote and how much weight to afford each demographic cohort in that universe of likely voters. Tom Bonier, the C.E.O. of TargetSmart, a polling and analytics company that works with Democratic candidates and progressive organizations, told me about a 2016 online survey, where a young Black man reported that he planned to vote for Trump. Because there were so few men of color in his exact age range being surveyed, his voice was weighted as if he represented the universe of young Black men. “It just screwed up the whole poll, where it went heavily to Trump,” Bonier said.
Trump did win, of course, and his victory highlights the inherent fallibility of polls. Because they capture a lapsed moment in time, they couldn’t account for voters who turned to Trump at the last minute, or for people of color in swing states who succumbed to the Trump campaign’s efforts to keep them from voting. And polling samples that are poorly calibrated fail to accurately reflect the electorate. In 2016, pollsters gave too much weight to college-educated voters, who tend to vote for Democrats, and not enough to those with less education, as well as people who typically don’t vote. “The question is, how are you constructing the sample,” Bonier told me. “That’s especially true this year, because to get a sense of who’s going to vote in this election is a really difficult question. After 2016, every poll should be offered with the caveat that the results are meaningful if the electorate looks like we think it will look.”
If 2016 taught us anything, it’s that national polls are deceptive. Clinton was projected to beat Trump in the popular vote by about three percentage points, which turned out to be largely correct. But, since U.S. elections are not popularity contests, a better way to assess a candidate’s chances is to look at polls of voters in battleground states, where, ultimately, the race will be determined. Those polls show Biden and Trump nearly tied in Florida and Ohio; according to the RealClearPolitics polling average, Trump is ahead in Texas by about the same margin that Biden is ahead in Arizona. Even so, are those numbers meaningful? Maybe not.
One impediment, Bonier said, is that the cohort of people who tell pollsters they are not going to vote has the potential to vote at a surprisingly high rate. “Pollsters are guessing what the voting population looks like,” Mercer told me. “But it’s hard, because it’s not a population that exists until the election.” To account for this, most polls are accompanied by a kind of consumer warning, the margin of error, which signals that the poll is likely to contain sampling errors. It is not an admission that the poll may be wrong. Rather, Mercer said, “it’s the minimum estimate for the range of possible error in a poll,” a benchmark that shows the spread of possible outcomes. A candidate polling at fifty-one per cent with a three-point margin of error, for example, is likely to receive anywhere from forty-eight per cent to fifty-four per cent of the vote. Assuming the other candidate has forty-nine per cent of the vote, with the same margin of error, the race is, statistically, a tossup.
Recent research suggests that the margin of error only accounts for a portion of potential sampling problems. It doesn’t account for respondents who don’t understand what the pollster is asking, or who are unwilling to divulge the candidate whom they are actually supporting. Mercer, among others, suggests a simple solution: double the margin of error. “That’s because of all those other kinds of problems and subjective decisions that just aren’t captured by the margin of error as it’s typically constructed,” he told me. The recent New York Times/Siena College poll of likely voters in Wisconsin, for instance, which showed Biden up by ten points, with a four-point margin of error, would not only look much closer, it would suggest that Trump could still pull out a victory. “Right now I think it would be feasible to say that Vice-President Biden is winning,” Weissert told me. “But, really, this will come down to a handful of states, and they are closer, I think, than people realize.”
Campaigns looking for a more dynamic understanding of voter intent have turned to technology to supplement their internal polling. Weissert has worked with AdVictory, a data-analytics and media-placement company that uses an artificial-intelligence tool called Eyesover to comb through social media. (AdVictory’s clients have included Senator Ben Sasse, a Republican from Nebraska; Bill Lee, the Republican governor of Tennessee; and the College Republican National Committee.) “We’re able to treat social media as a kind of always-on focus group to get a more real-time understanding of trends than you get with polling,” Adam Meldrum, AdVictory’s C.E.O., told me. “By analyzing what people are saying on social media, we can see what people are thinking. Over time, as we start to see issues pop up in greater frequency around a candidate’s name, we’ll look at how people are talking about them. Is it positive? Is it negative? And are people starting to pick up on what we’re putting out there in the broadcast media?” In late September, Meldrum was seeing that Trump’s comments on the Supreme Court were getting more positive responses than Biden’s.
On the Democratic side, a company called Avalanche Insights, led by Michiah Prull, a veteran of both Obama campaigns, is also using machine learning, in tandem with human analysts, to better understand the electorate. Avalanche convenes online groups, with as many as ten thousand participants, that are representative of the larger universe of likely voters. Traditional polls, by contrast, tend to query a thousand or fifteen hundred people. The company uses algorithms to search within massive datasets for nuances in language that are otherwise difficult to identify. (Participants are compensated with non-monetary incentives, such as a couple of Candy Crush jewels.) “You want to say, ‘Here are the undecided voters,’ and find out what they care about right now, because you want to understand why they are undecided,” Prull told me. “It’s that qualitative component that gives a deeper understanding that makes us different than a traditional poll.”


newyorker--2020-10-21--There’s Nothing Sacred about Nine Justices; a Livable Planet, on the Other Hand . . .

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Still , it ’ s not the most remarkable thing about the moment .
For me , anyway , that came when Senator John Kennedy , of Louisiana , asked Barrett if she had an opinion on climate change .
“ I ’ ve read things about climate change , ” she said .
“ I would not say I have firm views on it.
” It ’ s hard to imagine that an intelligent and highly educated person , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reached a conclusion on the key questions facing the future of life on earth : Is global warming dangerous , and is it caused by humans ?
Neither of these positions is controversial among the scientific community , nor , for that matter , in the Catholic community where Barrett makes her spiritual home .
Pope Francis ’ s lengthiest and most important encyclical , “ Laudato Si , ” takes on the climate crisis with a philosophical and sociological depth that few others have even attempted .
The Pope ’ s newest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ released this month , covers much the same ground , and he has helpfully produced a TED talk that makes the point in much sharper terms .
“ We must act now , ” he said , which is what every scientist studying the crisis has said , too .
My guess is that Senator Sheldon Whitehouse , of Rhode Island , probably explains such evasiveness best .
After years of tracking the influence of dark money on the courts ( as he demonstrated at Barrett ’ s hearings ) , he was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ week released a vital report .
Titled “ What ’ s At Stake : Climate and the Environment , ” it explains the legal doctrines that the courts will likely use to make the regulation of greenhouse gases more difficult ( unitary executive theory and the non-delegation doctrine chief among them , which Abbie Dillen discusses in an interview below ) .
Whitehouse ’ s bête noire is Charles Koch , who has reportedly spent millions of dollars backing Barrett ’ s nomination , and who is among the nation ’ s biggest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Prosperity group has been ridiculing clean energy for years—back in 2008 , it offered free balloon rides over crucial states as part of a “ Hot Air ” tour attacking solar and wind energy .
( As the Pope pointed out in his recent encyclical , “ often the voices raised in defense of the environment are silenced or ridiculed , using apparently reasonable arguments that are merely a screen for special interests.
” ) It is clear , first , that regulation is going to be essential to bring greenhouse gases @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that it ’ s going to have to happen fast .
The world ’ s climate scientists have stated plainly that the next decade represents the critical time frame : without fundamental transformation by 2030 , the chances of meeting the Paris accord ’ s climate targets are nil .
Given Barrett ’ s performance at her hearings , it seems doubtful that she ’ ll let America play its role—if you ’ re not even clear that climate change is real , how much latitude will you give government agencies to attack @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about climate change , the problem is ultimately mathematical .
Joe Biden , should he be elected , acting not out of anger but out of sorrow at Republican gamesmanship , could make sure that the will of the people , not just the will of Charles Koch , is represented on the bench .
The composition of the Supreme Court has varied over time from five Justices to ten ; eleven seems like the right number for 2021 .
Or maybe thirteen .
Abbie Dillen is the president of EarthJustice , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ firm .
In her twenty years there , she ’ s gone to court to protect wolves and grizzly bears and to close down dirty coal plants .
The courts have served as a bulwark against the worst environmental excesses of the Trump Administration , but , as the President ’ s appointments to the federal bench pile up , is that bulwark beginning to crumble ?
Not yet .
The Trump Administration has been so lawless that even Trump-appointed judges have been stepping up to check abuse .
Over the last four @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has been huge .
But litigation by public-interest lawyers and progressive states has been extraordinarily successful in limiting the damage .
EarthJustice has so far filed a hundred and fifty-nine lawsuits against the Administration .
Of the fifty cases that have been decided , we have won forty-one , and we expect to improve that record on appeal .
Because the vast majority of environmental rollbacks have been overturned or stalled in the courts , there is still an opportunity for swift repair .
That said , stacking the courts with Federalist Society @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is bad for the planet .
The impact will become more apparent as soon as there is strong federal action on the climate crisis , entrenched environmental injustice , and biodiversity collapse .
At that point , polluting industries will be going to court to challenge government action , and they will want to make their cases before Trump-appointed judges .
Will state courts be able to exert meaningful control on companies like ExxonMobil , or will their lawsuits end up under federal jurisdiction ?
State and cities should be able to pursue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state courts , and several federal courts have held as much .
However , climate cases have a way of attracting the Supreme Court ’ s attention , and we will see whether conservative Justices abandon their solicitude for the states to favor industry .
The first test will come in the New Year , when the Court hears arguments on a narrow procedural issue in the city of Baltimore ’ s case against Exxon and others .
No matter how it all plays out , these lawsuits are creating the spectre of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shareholders can ’ t ignore .
And with every new climate disaster it becomes more politically popular to argue that Exxon and other companies should help pay for the damage .
Some energy companies are seeing the risks and getting ahead of them by pivoting to clean energy .
Also , it ’ s always worth underscoring the power of state lawmaking .
States are exerting their greatest influence over fossil-fuel companies by enacting ambitious clean-energy standards .
What novel areas of jurisprudence and arguments should we look for in the years ahead @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and , just as climate has reshaped energy law , climate change will become a defining issue in other areas , including civil rights , land use , insurance law , and water law .
As we see more ambitious climate action at all levels of government , industry and political opponents will try to revive very old arguments that would diminish the power of Congress and federal agencies .
For example , we will likely see constitutional arguments that Congress simply doesn ’ t have enough power under the Commerce Clause to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to address the climate crisis .
And we are already seeing a resurgence of the antiquated “ non-delegation ” doctrine , which would prevent Congress from relying on the E.P.A .
and other federal agencies to sweat the details and make our laws work in practice .
Obviously , without the ability to delegate , modern government grinds to a halt .
The Supreme Court nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett , who holds a narrow view of the Commerce Clause and embraces the non-delegation doctrine , is a harbinger of legal battles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a student at Yale Law School , has helped coördinate a remarkable project—she and her colleagues have graded the nation ’ s hundred biggest law firms on their climate records .
Many of the most famous firms got Fs—they represent Big Oil in all its efforts to hold off the regulation that science demands , and the liability that justice requires .
The level of detail in the effort is incredible—apparently law students are good at detailed analysis .
( This interview has been edited for length . )
The scorecard is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to you ?
While I knew that law firms are supporting the fossil-fuel industry , I was surprised and angered to see just how much top law firms do to enable the industry .
For a harmful project like the Dakota Access Pipeline , at least eight top law firms were there to support and push forward the pipeline ’ s development every step of the way .
I was especially caught off guard by the staggering magnitude of work that law firms are doing to support fossil-fuel transactions ( one of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) .
Law firms serve as legal advisers on the financing of new coal plants , adding new facilities to gas fields , refinancing pipelines , and the like .
The hundred top law firms are doing this work to the tune of over $ 1.3 trillion from 2015-19 alone .
Even with a background in environmental law and climate-change work , this number shocked me .

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The Republican-controlled Senate, by any measure, is acting dishonorably as it moves to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett for the high court: having previously declared that Presidents in their last year in office should not be able to nominate a new Justice, it reversed this “McConnell rule” when it served them to do so. The Trump years have been so ugly that this hypocrisy doesn’t stand out as sharply as it should, but it is an ignoble thing to have done and, in Barrett’s case, to have gone along with.
Still, it’s not the most remarkable thing about the moment. For me, anyway, that came when Senator John Kennedy, of Louisiana, asked Barrett if she had an opinion on climate change. “I’ve read things about climate change,” she said. “I would not say I have firm views on it.” It’s hard to imagine that an intelligent and highly educated person, such as Barrett, would not have reached a conclusion on the key questions facing the future of life on earth: Is global warming dangerous, and is it caused by humans? Neither of these positions is controversial among the scientific community, nor, for that matter, in the Catholic community where Barrett makes her spiritual home. Pope Francis’s lengthiest and most important encyclical, “Laudato Si,” takes on the climate crisis with a philosophical and sociological depth that few others have even attempted. The Pope’s newest encyclical, “Fratelli Tutti,” released this month, covers much the same ground, and he has helpfully produced a TED talk that makes the point in much sharper terms. “We must act now,” he said, which is what every scientist studying the crisis has said, too.
My guess is that Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, of Rhode Island, probably explains such evasiveness best. After years of tracking the influence of dark money on the courts (as he demonstrated at Barrett’s hearings), he was one of nine Senate Democrats who last week released a vital report. Titled “What’s At Stake: Climate and the Environment,” it explains the legal doctrines that the courts will likely use to make the regulation of greenhouse gases more difficult (unitary executive theory and the non-delegation doctrine chief among them, which Abbie Dillen discusses in an interview below). Whitehouse’s bête noire is Charles Koch, who has reportedly spent millions of dollars backing Barrett’s nomination, and who is among the nation’s biggest oil and gas barons. His Americans for Prosperity group has been ridiculing clean energy for years—back in 2008, it offered free balloon rides over crucial states as part of a “Hot Air” tour attacking solar and wind energy. (As the Pope pointed out in his recent encyclical, “often the voices raised in defense of the environment are silenced or ridiculed, using apparently reasonable arguments that are merely a screen for special interests.”)
It is clear, first, that regulation is going to be essential to bring greenhouse gases under control, and, second, that it’s going to have to happen fast. The world’s climate scientists have stated plainly that the next decade represents the critical time frame: without fundamental transformation by 2030, the chances of meeting the Paris accord’s climate targets are nil. Given Barrett’s performance at her hearings, it seems doubtful that she’ll let America play its role—if you’re not even clear that climate change is real, how much latitude will you give government agencies to attack it? As with so many things about climate change, the problem is ultimately mathematical. Joe Biden, should he be elected, acting not out of anger but out of sorrow at Republican gamesmanship, could make sure that the will of the people, not just the will of Charles Koch, is represented on the bench. The composition of the Supreme Court has varied over time from five Justices to ten; eleven seems like the right number for 2021. Or maybe thirteen.
Passing the Mic
Abbie Dillen is the president of EarthJustice, the country’s most important nonprofit environmental-law firm. In her twenty years there, she’s gone to court to protect wolves and grizzly bears and to close down dirty coal plants.
The courts have served as a bulwark against the worst environmental excesses of the Trump Administration, but, as the President’s appointments to the federal bench pile up, is that bulwark beginning to crumble?
Not yet. The Trump Administration has been so lawless that even Trump-appointed judges have been stepping up to check abuse. Over the last four years, the lost opportunity for progress has been huge. But litigation by public-interest lawyers and progressive states has been extraordinarily successful in limiting the damage. EarthJustice has so far filed a hundred and fifty-nine lawsuits against the Administration. Of the fifty cases that have been decided, we have won forty-one, and we expect to improve that record on appeal. Because the vast majority of environmental rollbacks have been overturned or stalled in the courts, there is still an opportunity for swift repair.
That said, stacking the courts with Federalist Society picks that are hostile to government protections is bad for the planet. The impact will become more apparent as soon as there is strong federal action on the climate crisis, entrenched environmental injustice, and biodiversity collapse. At that point, polluting industries will be going to court to challenge government action, and they will want to make their cases before Trump-appointed judges.
Will state courts be able to exert meaningful control on companies like ExxonMobil, or will their lawsuits end up under federal jurisdiction?
State and cities should be able to pursue their state-law claims against fossil-fuel companies in state courts, and several federal courts have held as much. However, climate cases have a way of attracting the Supreme Court’s attention, and we will see whether conservative Justices abandon their solicitude for the states to favor industry. The first test will come in the New Year, when the Court hears arguments on a narrow procedural issue in the city of Baltimore’s case against Exxon and others.
No matter how it all plays out, these lawsuits are creating the spectre of liability on a scale that executives and shareholders can’t ignore. And with every new climate disaster it becomes more politically popular to argue that Exxon and other companies should help pay for the damage. Some energy companies are seeing the risks and getting ahead of them by pivoting to clean energy.
Also, it’s always worth underscoring the power of state lawmaking. States are exerting their greatest influence over fossil-fuel companies by enacting ambitious clean-energy standards.
What novel areas of jurisprudence and arguments should we look for in the years ahead?
The climate crisis touches everything, and, just as climate has reshaped energy law, climate change will become a defining issue in other areas, including civil rights, land use, insurance law, and water law.
As we see more ambitious climate action at all levels of government, industry and political opponents will try to revive very old arguments that would diminish the power of Congress and federal agencies. For example, we will likely see constitutional arguments that Congress simply doesn’t have enough power under the Commerce Clause to drive the transformative changes that are required to address the climate crisis. And we are already seeing a resurgence of the antiquated “non-delegation” doctrine, which would prevent Congress from relying on the E.P.A. and other federal agencies to sweat the details and make our laws work in practice. Obviously, without the ability to delegate, modern government grinds to a halt. The Supreme Court nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who holds a narrow view of the Commerce Clause and embraces the non-delegation doctrine, is a harbinger of legal battles to come.
Meanwhile, Alisa White, a student at Yale Law School, has helped coördinate a remarkable project—she and her colleagues have graded the nation’s hundred biggest law firms on their climate records. Many of the most famous firms got Fs—they represent Big Oil in all its efforts to hold off the regulation that science demands, and the liability that justice requires. The level of detail in the effort is incredible—apparently law students are good at detailed analysis. (This interview has been edited for length.)