newyorker--2020-09-23--Can the Democrats Win Back Pennsylvania?

Kamala Harris arrived at midday Thursday on the 7600 block of Forrest Avenue in the Mount Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia , and exited a campaign Suburban wearing a black face mask , a black suit , and a stark ivory scarf around her neck .
A block-party scene had been set , with music and two dancers from Philadanco !
( formerly the Philadelphia Dance Company ) , and Harris , a good dancer herself , sunk her hips , flexed her front knee , and pumped her palm skyward appreciatively .
With less than fifty days until November 3rd @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pandemic , Harris ’ s visit seemed in some ways to belong to an ordinary campaign and in others , not at all .
There were the motorcycle cops , looking important , and a fancy van to shepherd the press , and a gathering crowd that seemed half starstruck , half confused .
The actress Sheryl Lee Ralph , in a high-waisted plaid pantsuit , was on hand to m.c .
And all of this pomp for Harris to address a backyard audience of , by my count , twenty .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and Harris , a microphone in hand , settled into a patio chair , with a Biden-Harris mural on a brick wall behind her and an aboveground swimming pool to her left , topped by a single rubber duck .
Harris was speaking slowly and purposefully , but she also obviously gets a kick out of herself , and a line out of her own mouth will sometimes trigger a long , cackling laugh while her audience sits bemused .
A supporter asked a question about her own perspective on breaking barriers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Black woman in the U.S. Senate , said , “ Some people may think that breaking barriers means you start off on one side of the barrier and then you just show up on the other side.
” The thought was so plainly ridiculous to her that she dissolved into laughter .
Recovering , she said , “ No , that ’ s not how it works .
Breaking barriers means you have to break things .
And when you break things , that can be painful .
Sometimes you get cut.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kind of thing : a dozen and a half professional black women , one of whom said she thought she ’ d been at some parties with the Vice-Presidential nominee in college .
Before each question , one of the moderators—Ralph or Philadelphia Councilwoman Cherelle Parker , who was wearing a white suit with a cape—would hype Harris ’ s interlocutor : “ A woman we call our Fannie Lou Hamer , our Harriet Tubman !
” for example .
That turned out to be Ala Stanford , a pediatric surgeon who had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ help with community access to coronavirus testing and treatment , an effort that had required long negotiations with testing companies and local outreach .
“ We went to church parking lots , we went to street corners , ” Stanford said .
Her question was about what Harris would have done had she been in charge when the coronavirus crisis hit , and Harris took the opportunity to make what the consultants might have called a “ values contrast ” with the President .
“ In times of crisis , ” Harris said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the pain that you feel for the people you know are suffering.
” She went on , “ In stark contrast , the President seems to think strength is based on who you beat down , as opposed to realizing true strength is based on who you lift up . ''
Harris ’ s strength as a politician is that she carries a slightly world-weary perspective on injustice without sacrificing bonhomie—the idea of the politician you ’ d want to get a drink with was invented for male politicians , but it applies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her policy vision—not how does power sit on her but what would she do with it—can often seem slightly out of focus .
One reason her Presidential campaign foundered was that she could n't make clear whether she supported Medicare for All .
In Mount Airy , she began by emphasizing the need for better access to capital for minority-owned businesses—a decent applause line , but something of a niche issue , given the mass-scale pressures of disease and unemployment .
After the meeting in Mount Airy , Harris drove downtown to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and volunteers , though that office is normally closed so everyone can work from home .
The atmosphere was of a visit by a sitting Vice-President ; only here and there , when someone stopped to mention it , did it seem like an election was approaching .
How many days until the election , Ralph asked .
“ Forty-seven , ” Harris answered .
Fewer now .
Of all the Hillary Clinton campaign ’ s losses in 2016 , Pennsylvania might have been the most poignant—Democrats had won the state in six @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bill Clinton ’ s first , in 1992 .
In 2016 , the Democrats had held their Convention in Philadelphia , and Hillary Clinton had returned there for a final rally , with Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen warming up a crowd of thousands .
Donald Trump ’ s victory in Pennsylvania , by a margin of about forty-four thousand votes ( “ 44,292 , ” a Pennsylvania Biden-Harris staffer corrected me , dolefully ) owed less to a very slight decline in African-American voters than to swelling turnout from white voters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of them registered Democrats , who voted for Trump by larger margins than they had for Mitt Romney .
The Biden campaign ’ s aims are to shrink the Trump margin among rural and small-city voters and to take advantage of a general turn toward the Democrats among suburban voters , especially women .
In 2018 , female Democratic candidates flipped three congressional seats in the Philadelphia suburbs ; the state ’ s Democratic governor , Tom Wolf , a bearded , mild-mannered south-central Pennsylvanian who wrote his doctoral dissertation on the U.S. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more than seventeen percentage points .
When I spoke with officials from the Biden campaign and the Democratic Party about Pennsylvania , I got the impression that they did not see Joe Biden ’ s chances there as hinging upon a demographic breakthrough ( as they did in Arizona , Georgia , North Carolina , or Texas ) so much as on the correction of what they saw as a historical anomaly .
Of course , the main anomaly was Trump , and Trump is on the ticket again .
Over the weekend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Biden campaign ’ s state director in Pennsylvania , and Sinceré Harris , a senior adviser to the state campaign .
In a Presidential race , where message and policy are set from national headquarters , the operatives who run a state are often veterans of field work ( as McPhillips is ) and their focus is on the blunt work of turnout , vote counting , and matching volunteers and staffers to particular voters who might need a nudge .
Both McPhillips and Harris worked on the Clinton campaign in 2016 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their views on its strategies , they emphasized that they had planned a much more intense program of voter outreach in the small cities and towns that had shifted to Trump .
“ I ’ m sure you ’ ve heard the expression that Democrats need to do what they need to do in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh , and then Pennsylvania ’ s done—well , that ’ s clearly no longer the case , ” McPhillips said .
One of the campaign ’ s talking points has been how little Trump ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ well-being of the voters who swung to him in 2016 .
McPhillips said that his operation was organizing all sixty-seven counties in the state ; the campaign pointed out that it is holding weekly ( Zoom ) organizing meetings with members of growing communities of color in blue-collar cities like Erie , and in the Lehigh Valley .
( Some of those communities are very small . )
The hope , McPhillips said , was that Biden ’ s presence on the ballot and their outreach could persuade some ex-Democrats to “ come @ @ @ @ @ @ @ There were counties in Pennsylvania , McPhillips went on , where shrinking a Clinton loss by twenty-five points to a Biden loss by twenty might make a big difference .
The Democrats might be able to get away with margins like that because of the swing that has taken place in Pennsylvania ’ s suburbs , particularly in the mostly prosperous belt around Philadelphia—Bucks , Chester , Delaware , and Montgomery counties .
Harris told me that , from her view , the political transformation of these places was more durable than it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have been super-energized since Trump ’ s reëlection—it wasn ’ t just in 2018 , ” Harris said .
In 2017 , Democrats won control of the Delaware County legislature for the first time since the Civil War ; in 2018 , they flipped four suburban congressional seats ; in 2019 , they took control of the Bucks County board of commissioners for the first time since 1983 .
The Philadelphia Inquirer ’ s wrapup of last year ’ s election results was headlined “ The Blue Wave Crashed Down on Pennsylvania Again @ @

Kamala Harris arrived at midday Thursday on the 7600 block of Forrest Avenue in the Mount Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia, and exited a campaign Suburban wearing a black face mask, a black suit, and a stark ivory scarf around her neck. A block-party scene had been set, with music and two dancers from Philadanco! (formerly the Philadelphia Dance Company), and Harris, a good dancer herself, sunk her hips, flexed her front knee, and pumped her palm skyward appreciatively. With less than fifty days until November 3rd, in the sixth month of the pandemic, Harris’s visit seemed in some ways to belong to an ordinary campaign and in others, not at all. There were the motorcycle cops, looking important, and a fancy van to shepherd the press, and a gathering crowd that seemed half starstruck, half confused. The actress Sheryl Lee Ralph, in a high-waisted plaid pantsuit, was on hand to m.c. And all of this pomp for Harris to address a backyard audience of, by my count, twenty.
It was a clear, pretty September day, and Harris, a microphone in hand, settled into a patio chair, with a Biden-Harris mural on a brick wall behind her and an aboveground swimming pool to her left, topped by a single rubber duck. Harris was speaking slowly and purposefully, but she also obviously gets a kick out of herself, and a line out of her own mouth will sometimes trigger a long, cackling laugh while her audience sits bemused. A supporter asked a question about her own perspective on breaking barriers, and Harris, still the only Black woman in the U.S. Senate, said, “Some people may think that breaking barriers means you start off on one side of the barrier and then you just show up on the other side.” The thought was so plainly ridiculous to her that she dissolved into laughter. Recovering, she said, “No, that’s not how it works. Breaking barriers means you have to break things. And when you break things, that can be painful. Sometimes you get cut.”
It was a good audience for this kind of thing: a dozen and a half professional black women, one of whom said she thought she’d been at some parties with the Vice-Presidential nominee in college. Before each question, one of the moderators—Ralph or Philadelphia Councilwoman Cherelle Parker, who was wearing a white suit with a cape—would hype Harris’s interlocutor: “A woman we call our Fannie Lou Hamer, our Harriet Tubman!” for example. That turned out to be Ala Stanford, a pediatric surgeon who had founded a consortium of Black doctors to help with community access to coronavirus testing and treatment, an effort that had required long negotiations with testing companies and local outreach. “We went to church parking lots, we went to street corners,” Stanford said. Her question was about what Harris would have done had she been in charge when the coronavirus crisis hit, and Harris took the opportunity to make what the consultants might have called a “values contrast” with the President. “In times of crisis,” Harris said, strength “is born out of the pain that you feel for the people you know are suffering.” She went on, “In stark contrast, the President seems to think strength is based on who you beat down, as opposed to realizing true strength is based on who you lift up."
Harris’s strength as a politician is that she carries a slightly world-weary perspective on injustice without sacrificing bonhomie—the idea of the politician you’d want to get a drink with was invented for male politicians, but it applies to Harris. Her weakness is that her policy vision—not how does power sit on her but what would she do with it—can often seem slightly out of focus. One reason her Presidential campaign foundered was that she couldn’t make clear whether she supported Medicare for All. In Mount Airy, she began by emphasizing the need for better access to capital for minority-owned businesses—a decent applause line, but something of a niche issue, given the mass-scale pressures of disease and unemployment. After the meeting in Mount Airy, Harris drove downtown to the Philadelphia campaign offices to energize the staff and volunteers, though that office is normally closed so everyone can work from home. The atmosphere was of a visit by a sitting Vice-President; only here and there, when someone stopped to mention it, did it seem like an election was approaching. How many days until the election, Ralph asked. “Forty-seven,” Harris answered. Fewer now.
Of all the Hillary Clinton campaign’s losses in 2016, Pennsylvania might have been the most poignant—Democrats had won the state in six straight Presidential elections, dating back to Bill Clinton’s first, in 1992. In 2016, the Democrats had held their Convention in Philadelphia, and Hillary Clinton had returned there for a final rally, with Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen warming up a crowd of thousands. Donald Trump’s victory in Pennsylvania, by a margin of about forty-four thousand votes (“44,292,” a Pennsylvania Biden-Harris staffer corrected me, dolefully) owed less to a very slight decline in African-American voters than to swelling turnout from white voters without college educations, a significant minority of them registered Democrats, who voted for Trump by larger margins than they had for Mitt Romney. The Biden campaign’s aims are to shrink the Trump margin among rural and small-city voters and to take advantage of a general turn toward the Democrats among suburban voters, especially women. In 2018, female Democratic candidates flipped three congressional seats in the Philadelphia suburbs; the state’s Democratic governor, Tom Wolf, a bearded, mild-mannered south-central Pennsylvanian who wrote his doctoral dissertation on the U.S. House of Representatives, won reëlection by more than seventeen percentage points. When I spoke with officials from the Biden campaign and the Democratic Party about Pennsylvania, I got the impression that they did not see Joe Biden’s chances there as hinging upon a demographic breakthrough (as they did in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, or Texas) so much as on the correction of what they saw as a historical anomaly. Of course, the main anomaly was Trump, and Trump is on the ticket again.
Over the weekend, I spoke with Brendan McPhillips, the Biden campaign’s state director in Pennsylvania, and Sinceré Harris, a senior adviser to the state campaign. In a Presidential race, where message and policy are set from national headquarters, the operatives who run a state are often veterans of field work (as McPhillips is) and their focus is on the blunt work of turnout, vote counting, and matching volunteers and staffers to particular voters who might need a nudge. Both McPhillips and Harris worked on the Clinton campaign in 2016, and though they were circumspect about their views on its strategies, they emphasized that they had planned a much more intense program of voter outreach in the small cities and towns that had shifted to Trump.
“I’m sure you’ve heard the expression that Democrats need to do what they need to do in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and then Pennsylvania’s done—well, that’s clearly no longer the case,” McPhillips said. One of the campaign’s talking points has been how little Trump’s Presidency has done to improve the material well-being of the voters who swung to him in 2016. McPhillips said that his operation was organizing all sixty-seven counties in the state; the campaign pointed out that it is holding weekly (Zoom) organizing meetings with members of growing communities of color in blue-collar cities like Erie, and in the Lehigh Valley. (Some of those communities are very small.) The hope, McPhillips said, was that Biden’s presence on the ballot and their outreach could persuade some ex-Democrats to “come back home to the Democratic Party.” There were counties in Pennsylvania, McPhillips went on, where shrinking a Clinton loss by twenty-five points to a Biden loss by twenty might make a big difference.
The Democrats might be able to get away with margins like that because of the swing that has taken place in Pennsylvania’s suburbs, particularly in the mostly prosperous belt around Philadelphia—Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery counties. Harris told me that, from her view, the political transformation of these places was more durable than it might at first appear. “Women have been super-energized since Trump’s reëlection—it wasn’t just in 2018,” Harris said. In 2017, Democrats won control of the Delaware County legislature for the first time since the Civil War; in 2018, they flipped four suburban congressional seats; in 2019, they took control of the Bucks County board of commissioners for the first time since 1983. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s wrapup of last year’s election results was headlined “The Blue Wave Crashed Down on Pennsylvania Again.”
Harris and McPhillips sounded relatively sanguine about the electoral effect of the Supreme Court vacancy brought on by Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, perhaps because it will likely elevate the same issues that have turned the suburbs over the past four years. “Choice is on the ballot, yes. But having access to health care, or not, is also on the ballot,” Harris said. “Health care has been a crystallizing issue for many folks.” Harris was echoing the Biden campaign’s line on the vacancy, which marks a subtle retreat from the rhetoric of the Clinton campaign: from a specific focus on the difficulties faced by women and minorities to a more general discussion of some of those same issues, like health care, without the identity-politics framing.
Biden’s campaign, unlike Trump’s, has suspended door-knocking, as part of its precautions against COVID-19, which led last week to a round of Democrats expressing anxiety over the decision in the media. Obviously, McPhillips said, the campaign was not knocking on doors, but he emphasized that the campaign had put in five million phone calls to Pennsylvanians, and that it held regular Zoom meetings for organizers. This seemed like quite a lot to ask of Zooms. The Biden campaign had envisioned a strategy for Pennsylvania that had seemed most precisely expressed by the act of door-knocking—if the Republicans planned to demonize Democrats as representing the values of coastal élites, then the Democrats would put ordinary Pennsylvanians, starting with the Scranton-born candidate, in front of voters, maybe even at their doors, as a counterweight. There will be no door-knocking this time, and there have been no mass rallies yet; they have been replaced instead by other, less tangible forms of organizing (the phone banks, the Zooms) that do less to shrink the cultural distance between the swing voters in rural Pennsylvania and the Democrats on the coasts. Instead, there was the Vice-Presidential candidate visiting an audience of twenty, another of eleven, and a Zoom among a few dozen, whom the campaign would rely upon to pass the word. Running a Presidential campaign during a pandemic is a bit like learning to speak through a mask.
Biden has always been very clear about why he is running for President—his abhorrence of Trump’s corruption of democracy and callousness to the lives of ordinary people, his disgust at the President’s defense of racists in Charlottesville and embrace of Vladimir Putin at Helsinki. But that hasn’t always translated into a concise campaign message, nor a clear view of what a Biden Presidency would concern itself with. The primary voters who picked Biden over younger rivals often did so as an act of projection—he was the kind of Democrat, I often heard in the early primary states, who would not alienate swing voters in the upper Midwest. Tactically, this always sounded smart, and the wisdom has been borne out by Biden’s performance in the polls, where he has reduced Trump’s margins among senior citizens and white voters generally. But the focus on Trump has also made the Biden campaign itself a little elusive. Biden supports a fifteen-dollar-an-hour minimum wage, but rarely emphasizes it; he has embraced an expansive, potentially transformational climate agenda, but also tells Pennsylvania audiences he sees no need to phase out fracking. The consensus he means to build against Trump is so broad that it can be hard to envision his Presidency.
Thursday evening, just before the campaign declared a wheels-up for Harris at Philadelphia International Airport, a CNN town hall featuring Biden began two hours away, in Scranton, with a socially distanced audience of people in their cars, like at a drive-in theatre. Advisers to Bernie Sanders recently told the Washington Post of the venerable socialist senator’s concerns that Biden was not doing enough to emphasize pocketbook issues for working-class Democrats. This event, designed for Biden to make the case that the election is about “Park Avenue versus Scranton,” as the press releases framed it, seemed like an effort to show that the Presidential candidate was thinking along the same lines. Biden reminded the northeastern Pennsylvanians in their cars (and, on some occasions, outside of them) that he had been the first in his immediate family to go to college, and that his father had lost his job and left Scranton. “There used to be a bad joke in the sixties in Scranton—no one’s in Scranton, everybody’s from Scranton, because so many people lost their jobs,” he said. “Guys like Trump, who inherited everything, and squandered what they inherited, are the people that I have always had a problem with, not the people who are busting their neck.”
I watched this event on my phone, at an American Airlines gate so underpopulated it made me fear for the jobs of the gate agents and store attendants around me. The Biden campaign had sent me a pair of ads they’d recently put up in rural Pennsylvania, and as I watched them from the gate I didn’t hear much of the harder-edged Park-Avenue-versus-Scranton talk, of the kind that Bernie Sanders had been encouraging. A small-business owner from southwestern Pennsylvania said he didn’t like to talk politics but bemoaned Trump’s “divisiveness.” Rick Telesz, a soybean and dairy farmer from rural Volant, Pennsylvania, said he regretted voting for Trump in 2020 and would not repeat the mistake—on COVID-19, Telesz told the camera, “he’s been totally negligent on how he informed the people. I mean, the guy gets the blame for what’s happened.” The music was serene, and so was the scene, with cows and a red pickup truck and a big American flag on a hilltop. The tone, elegiac, had more sadness than anger. Biden’s campaign might strike some populist notes—he struck some of them again in a strong speech in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, on Monday—but it is not really a populist campaign.
At seventy-seven years old, with half a century of public life behind him, Biden is a less specific figure than the message of Park Avenue versus Scranton might make him out to be: he can’t run in the way that Trump did in 2016 or Barack Obama did in 2008, as a figure new to politics, embodying a single idea. A Republican pollster in Pennsylvania, who often works state legislative races, told me recently that he could detect no special advantage for Biden in his home region of northeast Pennsylvania. If Biden is running a big-tent campaign, then that has something to do with Trump and also with the reality that Biden, at the end of a long political career during which he’s taken many different positions, is himself a big tent. That neither Biden nor Harris is an especially ideological figure is a cause of the periodic fuzziness of their campaign, but it is also an effect, of the kind of figures who Democratic voters imagined might win them back Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. If they win, what comes next? Six weeks from the end, the Biden campaign in Pennsylvania has some of the quality of a light at the end of the tunnel, which, even as it draws near, makes it hard to clearly see.
Read More About the 2020 Election


Bob Staake’s “Icons”

Ruth Bader Ginsburg , the second woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court , died on Friday , at the age of eighty-seven .
Ginsburg spent nearly three decades on the country ’ s highest bench , and five decades as a tireless scholar , teacher , and advocate of equality .
To commemorate her , the artist Bob Staake said , he “ needed to think of a graphic metaphor that embodied Ginsburg ’ s life and legacy.
” He wanted something that was “ honest and no-nonsense , ” like Ginsburg , and he landed on her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Ginsburg but , in Staake ’ s drawing , of women everywhere .
For more on Ginsburg , read : Ginsburg ’ s dissents carried a particular power , not only rhetorically but politically .
On the Roberts Court , she became the leader of the liberal wing , and , in 2007 , in a case involving Lilly Ledbetter , a supervisor for Goodyear Tires , she wrote a dissent objecting to the majority ’ s denial of an argument about sex discrimination in employment .
That opinion was so compelling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act , signed by Barack Obama in 2009 .
And perhaps Ginsburg ’ s most resonant dissent , in light of this year ’ s election , is the one she wrote in Shelby County v. Holder , in 2013 , in which the majority all but struck down the 1965 Voting Rights Act , on the basis of the bizarre argument that it ( and one of its features , known as “ preclearance ” ) had effectively solved voter suppression for posterity .
“ Throwing out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes , ” Ginsburg wrote , “ is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.
” “ I think we do her a disservice when we turn her into a superhero , ” Stiepleman , thirty-seven , said in his Upper West Side apartment .
Growing up , on Long Island , he found his aunt “ intimidating , ” he said , “ because you talk to her and there ’ s always a long silence .
It took @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that was how she communicated.
” Every Thanksgiving from when he was five to twelve , she would give him a copy of the U.S. Constitution for Hanukkah .
And Jeffrey Toobin on the politics of filling Ginsburg ’ s seat : The broad outlines of the situation are already clear .
Mitch McConnell , the Senate Majority Leader , announced within hours of Ginsburg ’ s death that he will make sure that a Trump nominee gets a vote in the Senate this year .
The hypocrisy of his position is breathtaking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , 2016 , nine months before that year ’ s Presidential election .
On that day , McConnell said that he would not allow a hearing or a vote on a nominee from President Barack Obama , because the next President should be allowed to make the choice .
McConnell and his Republican colleagues were as good as his word , and Merrick Garland , Obama ’ s nominee , never received a hearing or a vote .
Now , of course , the Presidential election is less than two months away , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through Trump ’ s nominee .
Find Bob Staake ’ s covers , cartoons , and more at the Condé Nast Store .

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court, died on Friday, at the age of eighty-seven. Ginsburg spent nearly three decades on the country’s highest bench, and five decades as a tireless scholar, teacher, and advocate of equality. To commemorate her, the artist Bob Staake said, he “needed to think of a graphic metaphor that embodied Ginsburg’s life and legacy.” He wanted something that was “honest and no-nonsense,” like Ginsburg, and he landed on her lace collar, a symbol not just of Ginsburg but, in Staake’s drawing, of women everywhere. For more on Ginsburg, read:
Jill Lepore on Ginsburg’s dissents:
Ginsburg’s dissents carried a particular power, not only rhetorically but politically. On the Roberts Court, she became the leader of the liberal wing, and, in 2007, in a case involving Lilly Ledbetter, a supervisor for Goodyear Tires, she wrote a dissent objecting to the majority’s denial of an argument about sex discrimination in employment. That opinion was so compelling that it led to the passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, signed by Barack Obama in 2009. And perhaps Ginsburg’s most resonant dissent, in light of this year’s election, is the one she wrote in Shelby County v. Holder, in 2013, in which the majority all but struck down the 1965 Voting Rights Act, on the basis of the bizarre argument that it (and one of its features, known as “preclearance”) had effectively solved voter suppression for posterity. “Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes,” Ginsburg wrote, “is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”
Michael Schulman’s portrait of Daniel Stiepleman, Ginsburg’s nephew:
“I think we do her a disservice when we turn her into a superhero,” Stiepleman, thirty-seven, said in his Upper West Side apartment. Growing up, on Long Island, he found his aunt “intimidating,” he said, “because you talk to her and there’s always a long silence. It took me a while to figure out that that was how she communicated.” Every Thanksgiving from when he was five to twelve, she would give him a copy of the U.S. Constitution for Hanukkah.
And Jeffrey Toobin on the politics of filling Ginsburg’s seat:
The broad outlines of the situation are already clear. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, announced within hours of Ginsburg’s death that he will make sure that a Trump nominee gets a vote in the Senate this year. The hypocrisy of his position is breathtaking. Antonin Scalia died on February 13, 2016, nine months before that year’s Presidential election. On that day, McConnell said that he would not allow a hearing or a vote on a nominee from President Barack Obama, because the next President should be allowed to make the choice. McConnell and his Republican colleagues were as good as his word, and Merrick Garland, Obama’s nominee, never received a hearing or a vote. Now, of course, the Presidential election is less than two months away, and McConnell has nevertheless vowed to jam through Trump’s nominee.
Find Bob Staake’s covers, cartoons, and more at the Condé Nast Store.


newyorker--2020-09-23--Donald Trump Is Attacking American Democracy at Its Core

One thing you can not accuse Donald Trump of is trying to disguise his nefarious intentions .
For months now , legal experts and Democratic campaign officials have warned that he may reject the results of this year ’ s election and pronounce himself the victor regardless of the vote tally .
On Tuesday , Trump virtually confirmed that this is his plan .
He also indicated that rushing through the appointment of another conservative to the Supreme Court is a key element of his strategy to stay in the White House .
Before Trump flew to Pittsburgh for a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asked the President how he reacted to Democratic claims that going ahead with the appointment of a new Justice would tear the country apart .
“ Oh , I don ’ t think so , ” Trump said .
“ We need nine Justices .
You need that .
With the unsolicited millions of ballots that they ’ re sending , it ’ s a scam ; it ’ s a hoax .
Everybody knows that .
And the Democrats know it better than anybody else.
” The ballots Trump was referring to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ including key battlegrounds like Florida , Michigan , and Pennsylvania , are using this year to make it easier and safer for people to vote during the coronavirus pandemic .
Surveys indicate that Democratic voters are far more likely to use mail-in ballots than are Republicans .
Even though Trump himself uses an absentee ballot—a type of mail-in ballot—to vote in Florida , he has been making unfounded accusations for months about the likelihood of large-scale voter fraud .
In July , he told Chris Wallace , of Fox News , “ I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the election .
I really do.
” The President has clearly been laying the groundwork for a legal challenge if the election goes against him , and he ’ s now confirmed that he expects the Supreme Court to play a key role .
In case anybody didn ’ t get the message from his initial remarks on Tuesday , he repeated it .
“ So you ’ re going to need nine Justices up there , ” he went on .
“ I think it ’ s going to be very important @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a hoax , with the ballots .
They ’ re sending out tens of millions of ballots , unsolicited—not where they ’ re being asked but unsolicited .
And that ’ s a hoax , and you ’ re going to need to have nine Justices.
” In the Trump lexicon , the word “ hoax ” has a particular meaning and weight .
For years , he applied it to the Mueller investigation .
He has also used it to disparage damaging news stories about him , including a report in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remarks concerning fallen members of the U.S. military .
In other words , it ’ s one of the rhetorical weapons that Trump uses to delegitimize , in the eyes of his supporters , potential threats to him .
Now Trump is trying to delegitimize a Presidential election .
He is doing it in plain sight , and he is dragging the Supreme Court into the mire with him .
This isn ’ t just a war of words .
As Trump has been escalating his verbal assault , Republican lawyers in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ challenge , or halt , mail-in voting procedures—thereby establishing a legal basis for subsequent challenges after November 3rd .
In a deeply reported piece in The New Yorker this week , my colleague Jeffrey Toobin writes at length about these legal maneuvers .
He also highlights the possibility that , come Election Night , Trump could appear to be ahead based on in-person voting , only for the tallies to shift against him as more mail-in ballots are counted in the subsequent days .
“ If the votes keep shifting , Trump may @ @ @ @ @ @ @ certified because he doesn ’ t trust the mail-ins , ” Edward B. Foley , a professor at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law , said .
In another alarming scenario that Toobin raises , some Republican state legislatures , relying on some obscure language in Article II of the Constitution , could even try to nullify the actual votes entirely and appoint slates of Party loyalists as electors to the Electoral College .
If you think this sounds too outlandish even for Trump and today ’ s G.O.P .
to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sources at the local and national levels , The Atlantic ’ s Barton Gellman reports that the Trump campaign is making contingency plans along precisely those lines .
“ With a justification based on claims of rampant fraud , Trump would ask state legislators to set aside the popular vote and exercise their power to choose a slate of electors directly , ” Gellman writes .
Any attempt by Trump and the Republicans to reverse the election results and finagle their way to victory would likely escalate into a constitutional crisis .
While @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the local level , one or more of the cases could well end up in the Supreme Court .
That ’ s what happened in 2000 .
After Al Gore demanded manual recounts in four Florida counties , a Florida district court and the Florida Supreme Court both issued rulings .
Ultimately , the U.S. Supreme Court , in a 5–4 decision , halted the recounts and allowed the initial vote certification , which showed George W. Bush as the winner , to stand .
Following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a 5–3 conservative majority on the Court .
Evidently , Trump doesn ’ t think this margin is sufficient to wait until after the election for a vote on a ninth Justice .
Perhaps he is worried that Chief Justice John Roberts , in a last-gasp effort to protect the reputation and independence of the Court , could join the liberal Justices and rule against him .
Perhaps he doesn ’ t want to take the risk .
In any case , the inner workings of Trump ’ s mind aren ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , what matters are his words and actions .
Right now , he is launching a dangerous attack on U.S. democracy .
Even as he seeks to undermine the voting process and stack the Supreme Court before Election Day , he is stepping up voter-suppression efforts aimed at minority groups that tend to vote Democratic .
And despite a couple of objections from individual Republican senators , his party , the Party of Lincoln , is overwhelmingly behind him .
At a White House press conference on Wednesday evening , a reporter asked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ peaceful transfer of power after the election .
“ We ’ re gon na have to see what happens , ” he replied .
This is how democracies decay and die .
Read More About the 2020 Election • Can Joe Biden win the Presidency based on a promise of generational change ?
• The fall and 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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 .

One thing you cannot accuse Donald Trump of is trying to disguise his nefarious intentions. For months now, legal experts and Democratic campaign officials have warned that he may reject the results of this year’s election and pronounce himself the victor regardless of the vote tally. On Tuesday, Trump virtually confirmed that this is his plan. He also indicated that rushing through the appointment of another conservative to the Supreme Court is a key element of his strategy to stay in the White House.
Before Trump flew to Pittsburgh for a super-spreader campaign rally, a pool reporter asked the President how he reacted to Democratic claims that going ahead with the appointment of a new Justice would tear the country apart. “Oh, I don’t think so,” Trump said. “We need nine Justices. You need that. With the unsolicited millions of ballots that they’re sending, it’s a scam; it’s a hoax. Everybody knows that. And the Democrats know it better than anybody else.”
The ballots Trump was referring to are mail-in forms that many states, including key battlegrounds like Florida, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, are using this year to make it easier and safer for people to vote during the coronavirus pandemic. Surveys indicate that Democratic voters are far more likely to use mail-in ballots than are Republicans. Even though Trump himself uses an absentee ballot—a type of mail-in ballot—to vote in Florida, he has been making unfounded accusations for months about the likelihood of large-scale voter fraud. In July, he told Chris Wallace, of Fox News, “I think mail-in voting is going to rig the election. I really do.”
The President has clearly been laying the groundwork for a legal challenge if the election goes against him, and he’s now confirmed that he expects the Supreme Court to play a key role. In case anybody didn’t get the message from his initial remarks on Tuesday, he repeated it. “So you’re going to need nine Justices up there,” he went on. “I think it’s going to be very important. Because what they’re doing is a hoax, with the ballots. They’re sending out tens of millions of ballots, unsolicited—not where they’re being asked but unsolicited. And that’s a hoax, and you’re going to need to have nine Justices.”
In the Trump lexicon, the word “hoax” has a particular meaning and weight. For years, he applied it to the Mueller investigation. He has also used it to disparage damaging news stories about him, including a report in The Atlantic this month about his disparaging remarks concerning fallen members of the U.S. military. In other words, it’s one of the rhetorical weapons that Trump uses to delegitimize, in the eyes of his supporters, potential threats to him. Now Trump is trying to delegitimize a Presidential election. He is doing it in plain sight, and he is dragging the Supreme Court into the mire with him.
This isn’t just a war of words. As Trump has been escalating his verbal assault, Republican lawyers in a number of states have already sought to challenge, or halt, mail-in voting procedures—thereby establishing a legal basis for subsequent challenges after November 3rd. In a deeply reported piece in The New Yorker this week, my colleague Jeffrey Toobin writes at length about these legal maneuvers. He also highlights the possibility that, come Election Night, Trump could appear to be ahead based on in-person voting, only for the tallies to shift against him as more mail-in ballots are counted in the subsequent days. “If the votes keep shifting, Trump may demand that the Election Night numbers be certified because he doesn’t trust the mail-ins,” Edward B. Foley, a professor at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, said.
In another alarming scenario that Toobin raises, some Republican state legislatures, relying on some obscure language in Article II of the Constitution, could even try to nullify the actual votes entirely and appoint slates of Party loyalists as electors to the Electoral College. If you think this sounds too outlandish even for Trump and today’s G.O.P. to consider, think again. Citing Republican sources at the local and national levels, The Atlantic’s Barton Gellman reports that the Trump campaign is making contingency plans along precisely those lines. “With a justification based on claims of rampant fraud, Trump would ask state legislators to set aside the popular vote and exercise their power to choose a slate of electors directly,” Gellman writes.
Any attempt by Trump and the Republicans to reverse the election results and finagle their way to victory would likely escalate into a constitutional crisis. While any initial rulings would be made at the local level, one or more of the cases could well end up in the Supreme Court. That’s what happened in 2000. After Al Gore demanded manual recounts in four Florida counties, a Florida district court and the Florida Supreme Court both issued rulings. Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5–4 decision, halted the recounts and allowed the initial vote certification, which showed George W. Bush as the winner, to stand.
Following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, on Friday, there is now a 5–3 conservative majority on the Court. Evidently, Trump doesn’t think this margin is sufficient to wait until after the election for a vote on a ninth Justice. Perhaps he is worried that Chief Justice John Roberts, in a last-gasp effort to protect the reputation and independence of the Court, could join the liberal Justices and rule against him. Perhaps he doesn’t want to take the risk.
In any case, the inner workings of Trump’s mind aren’t of much consequence. As the President, what matters are his words and actions. Right now, he is launching a dangerous attack on U.S. democracy. Even as he seeks to undermine the voting process and stack the Supreme Court before Election Day, he is stepping up voter-suppression efforts aimed at minority groups that tend to vote Democratic. And despite a couple of objections from individual Republican senators, his party, the Party of Lincoln, is overwhelmingly behind him. At a White House press conference on Wednesday evening, a reporter asked Trump if he would commit to a peaceful transfer of power after the election. “We’re gonna have to see what happens,” he replied. This is how democracies decay and die.
Read More About the 2020 Election


newyorker--2020-09-23--“Kajillionaire,” Reviewed: Miranda July’s Astounding Metaphorical Vision of a World Out of Whack

Imagination can not be quantified , but Miranda July nonetheless boldly tries to in her new film—starting with its title , “ Kajillionaire.
” It ’ s saying too little to credit July with more imagination than most filmmakers .
More important , her formidable powers are distinctively cinematic—they aren ’ t limited to the conceits of screenwriting but run comprehensively through her movies , inflecting image , performance , sound , dialogue , music , the conception of character , and the very vision of the world .
Like July ’ s 2011 film , “ The Future , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in theatres on Friday ) is built on a cosmic scale , with personal suffering finding correlates—even effects—in enormous geological events with a metaphysical twist .
Like “ The Future , ” “ Kajillionaire ” is a simple and linear story in which complexity arises from the radical expressiveness of more or less its every moment , and in which the elements of fantasy look deeply at fundamental realities .
Just as “ The Future ” is one of the most discerning movies about the lives and loves of young idealists , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about parents and children , about families and their bonds , about family unity and its place in the world .
It ’ s the tale of the Dyne family , a trio of desperate scammers : Theresa ( Debra Winger ) , Robert ( Richard Jenkins ) , and their daughter , Old Dolio ( Evan Rachel Wood ) , who has been raised to be a scammer along with them , and whose very name—which isn ’ t even heard until late in the film—is the vestige of a scam .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ strange and sordid unofficial apartment ( an empty office in a rundown factory ) , they pursue one more scheme , and , along the way , Theresa and Robert lure an outsider—an optician ’ s young assistant , named Melanie ( Gina Rodriguez ) —to work with them and enter the family circle , sparking Old Dolio ’ s jealous resentment .
Old Dolio has been raised with the toughest of love , with no discernible signs of affection and no childlike frippery .
( She wears style-free and mismatched sweatshirts and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , untended ; and her quasi-robotic voice reflects an upbringing without emotional expression or empathetic connection . )
Yet the faux warmth with which Theresa and Robert welcome Melanie arouses Old Dolio ’ s yearning for some authentic parental warmth—and Melanie , with authentically warm feelings toward Old Dolio , engages in some manipulative behavior of her own , in the interest of her prospective friend .
The movie ’ s drama is built on an abstract and fantastic framework ( Did Old Dolio ever go to school ?
Did her somewhat distinctive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a bare-bones synopsis hardly captures the florid displays and pointillistic touches with which July dramatically expands and exquisitely illuminates the action—the emotional power that arises from her large-scale inspirations along with her finely discerning , poignant sensitivity to the piercing power of offhand remarks and passing glances .
It ’ s in these adornments , at both ends of the perceptual spectrum—the monumental and the flickering—that July turns an implausible fantasy into a work of emotional and intellectual realism .
Also like “ The Future , ” “ Kajillionaire ” is a story @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the name of independence .
Yet “ The Future ” is built on the dramatic bedrock of simple , familiar , instantly recognizable situations and characters , a pair of thirtyish artists living on dull day jobs and pining for the time and the mental space to create in unencumbered freedom .
By contrast , “ Kajillionaire ” is a narrative house of cards , with many tiny backstory details , dropped in along the way , that have to fit together just so in order for it to make any sense @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the movie very hard to describe—because nearly every detail is both a plot point that shouldn ’ t be spoiled and a giddy surprise that ’ s wondrous to experience .
What ’ s more , it ’ s all too easy to dwell on July ’ s teeming , idiosyncratic contrivances at the expense of the strong ideas that energize them .
July ’ s world-building , her creation of a wholly synthetic setup , is ingenious in and of itself , but its allegorical artifice is not at all divorced from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Rather , its surrealism is a way of facing present-day realities minus the political particulars that can hardly be addressed without screaming .
“ Kajillionaire ” is a metaphorical vision of a world out of whack , and it sees the disturbances in a vicious cycle that links economic despair , embittered nostalgia , and wanton cruelty .
July ’ s aesthetic imagination is inseparable from her empathetic curiosity and emotional urgency ; it tempers a howl of anguish at a world of pain into a kind of cinematic music that unfolds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hand of consolation , even offers a note of hope .
The Dynes ’ main scheme is postal theft ; Old Dolio somersaults outside the post-office door ( as if avoiding detection ) and , reaching deep into a post-office box that they rent , steals letters and packages from neighboring boxes .
They don ’ t just pilfer merchandise and checks ; they insinuate themselves into the lives of people whose names and addresses they harvest , and hand-deliver ostensibly “ lost ” merchandise in quest of rewards , or , with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But , at the start of the action , the family is desperate : they ’ re on the verge of eviction from their utterly inadequate housing , an empty office in a company called Bubbles , Inc. , which actually makes bubbles .
Their room leaks bubbles ( they have to be there at specific times , to mop the overflow ) , but they pay only ( ! )
five hundred dollars per month , which now they don ’ t have .
They ’ re three months in arrears @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fifteen-hundred-dollar debt from the company ’ s owner ( Mark Ivanir ) , whose comedically involuntary soft-heartedness is a natural fit for a suds-maker .
It ’ s Old Dolio who figures out the scam that will pull them through , with a payout of fifteen hundred and seventy-five dollars ( a figure that turns into a sort of incantation , as does its divisibility into an even three-way split ) .
Old Dolio , the virtually nameless child , is also something of an ageless child ( though she ’ s revealed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an equal of sorts to her parents but also their total dependent—even as , to a large extent , her parents depend on her ( not least , for her skills as a forger ) .
Theresa and Robert , called upon to justify their unsentimental ways , present them as egalitarian—they treated her like an adult , without the comforting illusions or delusions of childhood gaiety and frivolity .
What ’ s more , they take for granted that their nurture follows her nature—that she utterly lacks the human feelings that others @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They ’ re wrong , of course ; Old Dolio ’ s journey of self-discovery—aided by Melanie ’ s alert ruses—and self-differentiation from her parents is the movie ’ s core .
The Dynes are raw survivalists whose lives of crime keep them off the grid , where Robert wants them to be ; he fears surveillance cameras , fears being traceable in any way by society at large , thinks that society at large is inherently corrupt and is run on addictions as much material as emotional .
( He cites caffeine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : with contempt for what passes for ordinary life , he uses the very title of the film to belittle the widespread and delusional dreams of wealth which he thinks drive people to lead lives of quiet aspiration .
( Spoiler alert : the real kajillions are love . )

Imagination cannot be quantified, but Miranda July nonetheless boldly tries to in her new film—starting with its title, “Kajillionaire.” It’s saying too little to credit July with more imagination than most filmmakers. More important, her formidable powers are distinctively cinematic—they aren’t limited to the conceits of screenwriting but run comprehensively through her movies, inflecting image, performance, sound, dialogue, music, the conception of character, and the very vision of the world. Like July’s 2011 film, “The Future,” “Kajillionaire” (which opens in theatres on Friday) is built on a cosmic scale, with personal suffering finding correlates—even effects—in enormous geological events with a metaphysical twist. Like “The Future,” “Kajillionaire” is a simple and linear story in which complexity arises from the radical expressiveness of more or less its every moment, and in which the elements of fantasy look deeply at fundamental realities. Just as “The Future” is one of the most discerning movies about the lives and loves of young idealists, “Kajillionaire” is a ferociously sharp-minded movie about parents and children, about families and their bonds, about family unity and its place in the world.
It’s the tale of the Dyne family, a trio of desperate scammers: Theresa (Debra Winger), Robert (Richard Jenkins), and their daughter, Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood), who has been raised to be a scammer along with them, and whose very name—which isn’t even heard until late in the film—is the vestige of a scam. Unable to raise the rent on their strange and sordid unofficial apartment (an empty office in a rundown factory), they pursue one more scheme, and, along the way, Theresa and Robert lure an outsider—an optician’s young assistant, named Melanie (Gina Rodriguez)—to work with them and enter the family circle, sparking Old Dolio’s jealous resentment. Old Dolio has been raised with the toughest of love, with no discernible signs of affection and no childlike frippery. (She wears style-free and mismatched sweatshirts and pants; her hair hangs loosely down, untended; and her quasi-robotic voice reflects an upbringing without emotional expression or empathetic connection.) Yet the faux warmth with which Theresa and Robert welcome Melanie arouses Old Dolio’s yearning for some authentic parental warmth—and Melanie, with authentically warm feelings toward Old Dolio, engages in some manipulative behavior of her own, in the interest of her prospective friend.
The movie’s drama is built on an abstract and fantastic framework (Did Old Dolio ever go to school? Did her somewhat distinctive background arouse questions?), but a bare-bones synopsis hardly captures the florid displays and pointillistic touches with which July dramatically expands and exquisitely illuminates the action—the emotional power that arises from her large-scale inspirations along with her finely discerning, poignant sensitivity to the piercing power of offhand remarks and passing glances. It’s in these adornments, at both ends of the perceptual spectrum—the monumental and the flickering—that July turns an implausible fantasy into a work of emotional and intellectual realism.
Also like “The Future,” “Kajillionaire” is a story of the temptations of isolation and solitude in the name of independence. Yet “The Future” is built on the dramatic bedrock of simple, familiar, instantly recognizable situations and characters, a pair of thirtyish artists living on dull day jobs and pining for the time and the mental space to create in unencumbered freedom. By contrast, “Kajillionaire” is a narrative house of cards, with many tiny backstory details, dropped in along the way, that have to fit together just so in order for it to make any sense at all. The elaborate setup makes the movie very hard to describe—because nearly every detail is both a plot point that shouldn’t be spoiled and a giddy surprise that’s wondrous to experience. What’s more, it’s all too easy to dwell on July’s teeming, idiosyncratic contrivances at the expense of the strong ideas that energize them. July’s world-building, her creation of a wholly synthetic setup, is ingenious in and of itself, but its allegorical artifice is not at all divorced from the mind-bending pressures of the modern day. Rather, its surrealism is a way of facing present-day realities minus the political particulars that can hardly be addressed without screaming. “Kajillionaire” is a metaphorical vision of a world out of whack, and it sees the disturbances in a vicious cycle that links economic despair, embittered nostalgia, and wanton cruelty. July’s aesthetic imagination is inseparable from her empathetic curiosity and emotional urgency; it tempers a howl of anguish at a world of pain into a kind of cinematic music that unfolds it in nuanced detail and extends a hand of consolation, even offers a note of hope.
The Dynes’ main scheme is postal theft; Old Dolio somersaults outside the post-office door (as if avoiding detection) and, reaching deep into a post-office box that they rent, steals letters and packages from neighboring boxes. They don’t just pilfer merchandise and checks; they insinuate themselves into the lives of people whose names and addresses they harvest, and hand-deliver ostensibly “lost” merchandise in quest of rewards, or, with clever diversionary tactics, steal from them. But, at the start of the action, the family is desperate: they’re on the verge of eviction from their utterly inadequate housing, an empty office in a company called Bubbles, Inc., which actually makes bubbles. Their room leaks bubbles (they have to be there at specific times, to mop the overflow), but they pay only (!) five hundred dollars per month, which now they don’t have. They’re three months in arrears and cadge a two-week extension for their fifteen-hundred-dollar debt from the company’s owner (Mark Ivanir), whose comedically involuntary soft-heartedness is a natural fit for a suds-maker.
It’s Old Dolio who figures out the scam that will pull them through, with a payout of fifteen hundred and seventy-five dollars (a figure that turns into a sort of incantation, as does its divisibility into an even three-way split). Old Dolio, the virtually nameless child, is also something of an ageless child (though she’s revealed to be twenty-six). She is an equal of sorts to her parents but also their total dependent—even as, to a large extent, her parents depend on her (not least, for her skills as a forger). Theresa and Robert, called upon to justify their unsentimental ways, present them as egalitarian—they treated her like an adult, without the comforting illusions or delusions of childhood gaiety and frivolity. What’s more, they take for granted that their nurture follows her nature—that she utterly lacks the human feelings that others, such as Melanie, display. They’re wrong, of course; Old Dolio’s journey of self-discovery—aided by Melanie’s alert ruses—and self-differentiation from her parents is the movie’s core.
The Dynes are raw survivalists whose lives of crime keep them off the grid, where Robert wants them to be; he fears surveillance cameras, fears being traceable in any way by society at large, thinks that society at large is inherently corrupt and is run on addictions as much material as emotional. (He cites caffeine and sugar.) Father knows best: with contempt for what passes for ordinary life, he uses the very title of the film to belittle the widespread and delusional dreams of wealth which he thinks drive people to lead lives of quiet aspiration. (Spoiler alert: the real kajillions are love.)
“Kajillionaire,” no less than “The Future,” focusses on the extraordinary distances that some people have to go in order to achieve a measure of the ordinary—and to discover the sublimity, the exaltation that lurks undiscovered in that ordinariness. For July, the first mark of that ordinary sublimity is in the blithe cheer and ritual gaiety with which well-meaning parents attempt to adorn their children’s childhoods. (Old Dolio’s awakening to her own deprivation involves an accidental encounter with a deeply empathetic child-care specialist.) Theresa and Robert—in raising Old Dolio without frivolities, with an unsoftened, unsheathed sense of ferocious self-interest and an awareness of the softness and persuadability of others, all in the name of trust—replay varieties of Herman Melville’s “The Confidence-Man.” They make the world their prey as they display, in their scuffling and desperate poverty, their superiority to easy marks, who are victimized by their drives for human connection.
“Kajillionaire” falls into the off-the-grid genre and the know-it-all subgenre (such as “Captain Fantastic”), in which parents take children into isolation not merely for the purpose of survival but in pursuit of an ideal that differs drastically from any that children are likely to acquire from peers, school, or media. Yet, for July, this bargain—shattering a child’s psyche, shattering the bonds of civic trust, pursuing the mighty recognition and urgency of self-transformation and, in the process, changing the world—is literally cosmic. In “The Future,” the cosmic element involves the stopping of time and tides; in “Kajillionaire” (aptly, for a movie set in Los Angeles), it’s earthquakes, which rumble with a monitory terror for the Dynes alone, and an unnamable (for spoilers) darkness that’s filled with stars.


newyorker--2020-09-23--A Post-Ruth Bader Ginsburg Court Could Be One More Climate Obstacle

A technical problem prevented last week ’ s newsletter from reaching some subscribers .
If you missed it , you can read it here .
Among its many other tragic consequences , the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg may dramatically complicate the process of finding a legislative solution for the climate crisis .
It now seems possible that a Democratic White House and Congress could convene in January , with a commitment to finally—after three decades of ducking—taking federal action on global warming .
Indeed , after this record season of flame and gale , new polling shows that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ change for natural disasters , and one in five are open to the idea that they may need to move in order to escape danger .
But , if public pressure for action is mounting , structural obstacles may be mounting , too .
The filibuster is one such block .
As long as the oil-and-gas industry remains dominant in the Republican Party , it ’ s hard to imagine finding sixty votes for serious climate action .
But Democratic leaders seem more and more committed to ending that procedural tradition , especially @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through the confirmation of a new Supreme Court Justice before next year .
A lopsidedly conservative Supreme Court may be harder to overcome .
Since 2007 , the federal ability to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act has rested on a one-vote margin in Massachusetts v. E.P.A .
The Court repeatedly messed with the original New Deal , frustrating FDR no end ; even the most modest version of the Green New Deal would face an immediate Court challenge and , quite possibly , bleak prospects in a post-Ginsburg judiciary .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ that might motivate the Democrats , if they win in November , to restructure the Court ; some have suggested adding new Justices .
But it ’ s also a bracing reminder that we need strategies for rapid and sweeping change that don ’ t rely entirely on congressional action .
In particular , activist pressure on big oil companies may be producing a sea change in the world view of at least some of those companies .
BP has promised to reduce oil and gas production by forty per cent this decade @ @ @ @ @ @ @ C.E.O .
said that 2019 may have marked peak oil demand—a scandalous break with the industry gospel of ever-rising demand .
The Telegraph called the remarks a “ cluster bomb ” thrown into the energy debate ; the Financial Times said that they might mean the “ slow death of big oil.
” A new academic analysis dismisses much of the industry rhetoric as greenwashing , but , at least in Europe , corporations may have little choice : new E.U .
legislation would dramatically scale up the continent ’ s commitment to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ savvier .
As more and more big banks announce that they want their lending practices to align with the Paris climate accord , a consortium of sixty environmental groups last week laid out an analysis showing just what that would have to mean in practice : in essence , no more loans for anything that expands the size of the fossil-fuel empire .
And , if congressional action continues to be blocked , activists will look elsewhere for change .
This month , for instance , Connecticut , Delaware , and the city @ @ @ @ @ @ @ announced plans to sue big oil companies for climate damages .
It ’ s useful to remember that it was state attorneys general who brought Big Tobacco to heel .
And , of course , some jurisdictions may be large enough to force action on their own .
Governor Gavin Newsom , of California , gave a perfect example on Wednesday , announcing plans to ban sales of gas cars by 2035 in a state that has the fifth-largest economy in the world .
That ’ s the biggest boost the electric vehicle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s death––not to mention Tropical Storm Beta , spinning in the Atlantic––is a reminder that normal action through established channels has done pitifully little to address our greatest crisis .
Any chance we still have will require distinctly abnormal action .
A Brooklyn native , Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a marine biologist and the founder of Ocean Collectiv , a strategy-consulting firm for conservation solutions grounded in social justice , and Urban Ocean Lab , a think tank for the future of coastal cities .
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson , an Atlantan and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of , among other things , the Times best-seller “ Drawdown.
” Together , they ’ ve edited a fascinating new anthology , “ All We Can Save , ” featuring perspectives on the climate crisis from fifty-eight women across the United States .
You shaped this grand collection of essays : Are there a couple of uniting threads ?
The subtitle is actually a good description of some of the threads : “ Truth , Courage , and Solutions for the Climate Crisis.
” The book was supposed to be around twenty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and seventeen poems , plus quotations and original illustrations , because there ’ s just so much to this topic and so much good work being done .
As co-editors , we were extremely deliberate in our curation , making sure the essays were forward-looking , neither wallowing nor Pollyanna , making sure as many perspectives and insights were included as possible .
Over the nine months from the day we began putting the book together to the publication date , the world has changed so much—from the hunkering down of the pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
So when we sat down to give the manuscript one last read before sending it off to the printer , we were nervous that the book would not meet this moment .
But we should not have feared , because the contributors to the book—activists , scientists , wonks , farmers , journalists , and artists ; women spanning generations , geographies , races , and areas of expertise—are people who have long been thinking deeply and intersectionally .
Throughout the collection , a commitment to linking arms as we each play @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through .
And , as we write in the book ’ s final paragraph , “ If there is one theme that runs through the collection , it is ferocious love—for one another , for Earth , for all beings , for justice , for a life-giving future.
” Some of the greatest figures in the climate story—from Eunice Foote to Christiana Figueres—have been women .
The books posits a “ characteristically feminine and faithfully feminist ” voice on climate .
What does that sound like ?
The first thing is that it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sounds like voices , like a mighty chorus .
That ’ s really how we think about what these pages contain .
This isn ’ t a book about heroes ( even though it opens with one of ours : Eunice Newton Foote , the scientist who discovered that carbon dioxide would lead to planetary warming ) .
We hope “ All We Can Save ” is a reflection of the diverse community showing up in and for this moment .
We don ’ t think feminine and feminist climate leadership is limited @ @ @ @ @ @ @ certainly bringing it in droves .
It ’ s deeply collaborative , focussing on making change rather than being in charge .
It insists on centering justice as necessary and right and effective .
It integrates the powers of heart and head .
It focusses on building community because we can ’ t build a better world without it .
So there are no untethered techno-utopian whimsies in “ All We Can Save.
” But there is an abundance of courage , connection , healing , nurturing , creativity—a lot of things historically @ @ @ @ @ @ @ movement .
But they ’ ve always been here , and they ’ re upwelling now with what we ’ ve come to call the feminist climate renaissance .
And to carry forward the work of unfurling this renaissance , we have co-founded the All We Can Save Project , a nonprofit to support women climate leaders .

A technical problem prevented last week’s newsletter from reaching some subscribers. If you missed it, you can read it here.
Among its many other tragic consequences, the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg may dramatically complicate the process of finding a legislative solution for the climate crisis. It now seems possible that a Democratic White House and Congress could convene in January, with a commitment to finally—after three decades of ducking—taking federal action on global warming. Indeed, after this record season of flame and gale, new polling shows that three out of four Americans blame climate change for natural disasters, and one in five are open to the idea that they may need to move in order to escape danger. But, if public pressure for action is mounting, structural obstacles may be mounting, too.
The filibuster is one such block. As long as the oil-and-gas industry remains dominant in the Republican Party, it’s hard to imagine finding sixty votes for serious climate action. But Democratic leaders seem more and more committed to ending that procedural tradition, especially if the G.O.P. insists on forcing through the confirmation of a new Supreme Court Justice before next year. A lopsidedly conservative Supreme Court may be harder to overcome. Since 2007, the federal ability to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act has rested on a one-vote margin in Massachusetts v. E.P.A. The Court repeatedly messed with the original New Deal, frustrating FDR no end; even the most modest version of the Green New Deal would face an immediate Court challenge and, quite possibly, bleak prospects in a post-Ginsburg judiciary. It’s one issue of several that might motivate the Democrats, if they win in November, to restructure the Court; some have suggested adding new Justices. But it’s also a bracing reminder that we need strategies for rapid and sweeping change that don’t rely entirely on congressional action.
In particular, activist pressure on big oil companies may be producing a sea change in the world view of at least some of those companies. BP has promised to reduce oil and gas production by forty per cent this decade, and, last week, its C.E.O. said that 2019 may have marked peak oil demand—a scandalous break with the industry gospel of ever-rising demand. The Telegraph called the remarks a “cluster bomb” thrown into the energy debate; the Financial Times said that they might mean the “slow death of big oil.” A new academic analysis dismisses much of the industry rhetoric as greenwashing, but, at least in Europe, corporations may have little choice: new E.U. legislation would dramatically scale up the continent’s commitment to carbon reductions. And campaigners are growing savvier. As more and more big banks announce that they want their lending practices to align with the Paris climate accord, a consortium of sixty environmental groups last week laid out an analysis showing just what that would have to mean in practice: in essence, no more loans for anything that expands the size of the fossil-fuel empire.
And, if congressional action continues to be blocked, activists will look elsewhere for change. This month, for instance, Connecticut, Delaware, and the city of Hoboken, New Jersey, all announced plans to sue big oil companies for climate damages. It’s useful to remember that it was state attorneys general who brought Big Tobacco to heel. And, of course, some jurisdictions may be large enough to force action on their own. Governor Gavin Newsom, of California, gave a perfect example on Wednesday, announcing plans to ban sales of gas cars by 2035 in a state that has the fifth-largest economy in the world. That’s the biggest boost the electric vehicle market has received yet.
Ginsburg’s death––not to mention Tropical Storm Beta, spinning in the Atlantic––is a reminder that normal action through established channels has done pitifully little to address our greatest crisis. Any chance we still have will require distinctly abnormal action.
PASSING THE MIC
A Brooklyn native, Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a marine biologist and the founder of Ocean Collectiv, a strategy-consulting firm for conservation solutions grounded in social justice, and Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank for the future of coastal cities. Dr. Katharine Wilkinson, an Atlantan and one-time Rhodes Scholar, is the author of, among other things, the Times best-seller “Drawdown.” Together, they’ve edited a fascinating new anthology, “All We Can Save,” featuring perspectives on the climate crisis from fifty-eight women across the United States.
You shaped this grand collection of essays: Are there a couple of uniting threads?
The subtitle is actually a good description of some of the threads: “Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis.” The book was supposed to be around twenty essays but ended up as forty-one essays and seventeen poems, plus quotations and original illustrations, because there’s just so much to this topic and so much good work being done. As co-editors, we were extremely deliberate in our curation, making sure the essays were forward-looking, neither wallowing nor Pollyanna, making sure as many perspectives and insights were included as possible.
Over the nine months from the day we began putting the book together to the publication date, the world has changed so much—from the hunkering down of the pandemic to the uprising for Black Lives Matter. So when we sat down to give the manuscript one last read before sending it off to the printer, we were nervous that the book would not meet this moment. But we should not have feared, because the contributors to the book—activists, scientists, wonks, farmers, journalists, and artists; women spanning generations, geographies, races, and areas of expertise—are people who have long been thinking deeply and intersectionally. Throughout the collection, a commitment to linking arms as we each play our part in this great transformation shines through. And, as we write in the book’s final paragraph, “If there is one theme that runs through the collection, it is ferocious love—for one another, for Earth, for all beings, for justice, for a life-giving future.”
Some of the greatest figures in the climate story—from Eunice Foote to Christiana Figueres—have been women. The books posits a “characteristically feminine and faithfully feminist” voice on climate. What does that sound like?
The first thing is that it doesn’t sound like one voice—it sounds like voices, like a mighty chorus. That’s really how we think about what these pages contain. This isn’t a book about heroes (even though it opens with one of ours: Eunice Newton Foote, the scientist who discovered that carbon dioxide would lead to planetary warming). We hope “All We Can Save” is a reflection of the diverse community showing up in and for this moment. We don’t think feminine and feminist climate leadership is limited to any gender, but women are certainly bringing it in droves. It’s deeply collaborative, focussing on making change rather than being in charge. It insists on centering justice as necessary and right and effective. It integrates the powers of heart and head. It focusses on building community because we can’t build a better world without it. So there are no untethered techno-utopian whimsies in “All We Can Save.” But there is an abundance of courage, connection, healing, nurturing, creativity—a lot of things historically sidelined to the detriment of the climate movement. But they’ve always been here, and they’re upwelling now with what we’ve come to call the feminist climate renaissance. And to carry forward the work of unfurling this renaissance, we have co-founded the All We Can Save Project, a nonprofit to support women climate leaders.


newyorker--2020-09-23--Review: “Get Organized with The Home Edit” Is Infomercial Reality Television

In the past month , my Instagram ads have been increasingly occupied by shelves .
I don ’ t know what triggered the invasion ; maybe it was the fact that I followed a slew of vintage-furniture stores , or maybe I Google-searched credenzas one too many times , or said out loud that my apartment could use more shelving and got surveilled by my phone .
Through these ads , I have discovered that there is a Web site called shelving.com , on which you can purchase arcane industrial products like wire shelves that slide on tracks , shelving @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mezzanine , which is a shelf for humans .
In recent issues of the London Review of Books , I also noticed an ad for Vitsoe , the mid-century-modern furniture company famous for its wall-mounted “ universal shelving system , ” which promises a utopian solution to your storage problems but can run thousands of dollars for even the smallest installation .
I ’ ve been drawn to the images of empty shelves , pristine and full of potential , because after six months of quarantining in one apartment I ’ ve come @ @ @ @ @ @ @ luxury than as a dire need .
Our homes must serve more purposes than ever during the pandemic—office , classroom , gym , broadcasting studio—and so we have acquired new equipment to facilitate this versatility .
But where do we put the pullup bar , Zoom microphone , or craft supplies ?
We want to be able to stash things away so that we don ’ t have to think about them , banishing them in a way not unlike how we banish our anxieties in order to continue going about daily life @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gaston Bachelard wrote in his book “ The Poetics of Space , ” from 1958 , “ Wardrobes with their shelves , desks with their drawers , and chests with their false bottoms are veritable organs of the secret psychological life.
” In this light , Netflix ’ s latest reality show , “ Get Organized with The Home Edit , ” should be positively Freudian .
It is named for an organizing agency , founded in 2015 , by two friends who met in Nashville , Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s hosts .
In each episode , they take on two tidying projects , one for a celebrity—like Reese Witherspoon ( also an executive producer ) , Khloé Kardashian , or Neil Patrick Harris—and one for a normal family , whose home is much messier .
Along with their team of assistants , who all have the same wavy haircuts and branded black outfits , the hosts transform cluttered kitchens , offices , and closets into rigorously ordered spaces .
Their main tools for doing so are vast collections of shelves and storage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nest infinitely .
In the parlance of the show , these devices are called “ product , ” the way hairdressers refer to conditioner or traffickers to drugs .
Both hosts buzz with energy-drink fervor , but Teplin is usually optimistic whereas Shearer is the Daria of home organizing , doubting strategies or freaking out over deadlines .
They offer a stream of cleaning platitudes like “ small items don ’ t mean a small job ” and “ choose between the item or the space.
” Though it was developed and shot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has been pitched as perfect quarantine content .
Like an A.S.M.R .
video , it creates a fantasy that it ’ s your own home getting organized , that it might be possible to impose logic and structure on the unknowable confusion of life at the moment by starting with your possessions .
When the hosts show up to organize Kardashian ’ s garage , which is crowded with her toddler daughter ’ s collection of ride-on cars , she exclaims that she feels “ a sense of relief.
” ( Their solution @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with black cones and pink tape for striping . )
Over the course of each fifteen- or twenty-minute segment , a system is imposed with its own governing logic and structure .
Zones are created for specific types of accessories or supplies , which are diagrammed onscreen by text overlays , like an architect ’ s drawing .
Every zone gets a label in a typeface made from Shearer ’ s own loopy cursive .
The show should come with a trigger warning for librarians : books , like clothing , art supplies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by color .
In one episode , a Los Angeles youth center is subsumed by such rainbows , down to a gradient of color coding on the cupboard doors .
“ Get Organized , ” if you haven ’ t noticed , is strikingly similar to another one of Netflix ’ s reality productions , “ Tidying Up with Marie Kondo , ” which débuted in January , 2019 .
Kondo ’ s famous rule was that everything that doesn ’ t spark joy has to be discarded .
She dealt with hoarders @ @ @ @ @ @ @ widow , proceeding through an emotionally charged cleansing ritual that had glancing reference to Kondo ’ s Shinto spirituality .
But there is no emotion in “ Get Organized ” ; it ’ s weirdly bloodless , which is why it ends up being so unsatisfying .
Shearer and Teplin ’ s strategy is enshrined in the dry steps “ Edit , Categorize , Contain , and Maintain.
” “ Purge ” things you don ’ t need , designate your zones , then put everything into transparent plastic boxes , ideally on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is the most difficult and goes largely unaddressed : things have to stay in their boxes .
In the “ after ” montages , each room ends up looking the same , a monotonous grid of plastic .
Reality TV requires some kind of drama to succeed , however minor .
With Kondo , it was the cathartic decision to sacrifice some previously beloved object , but the biggest upset here is when Shearer and Teplin miscalculate the size of the bins needed .
It ’ s the rare production that may have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ streaming service Quibi , because there ’ s only ten minutes of meaningful content per episode .
“ The Home Edit ” is less a show than an elaborate infomercial , the kind where people struggle with some onerous household task in black-and-white and then relax into color when they obtain some new miracle product .
Shearer and Teplin ’ s brand was already a commercial machine , with two hardcover instructional books ( one released just after the show launched ) ; branches in nine cities offering organizing for up to two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a series of Home Edit bins and labels for sale online ; and more than three million followers on Instagram , where they post shots of well-organized drawers , jokey video clips , and sponsored content for cleaning supplies .
( The show ’ s subjects often proclaim fandoms predating their appearances ; Ali , a New York City real-estate broker with a messy kitchen , says that she discovered them on the social-media platform . )
Streaming television usually represents a jump up in terms of fame , a graduation from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more glamorous small screen , but in this case Netflix just seems like another marketing channel for these organizing influencers .
Kondo at least waited until after her show to launch a Web store selling a signature collection of household accessories .
Kondo ’ s store and Shearer and Teplin ’ s brand ultimately operate on the same mixed message : dealing with your stuff is easier if you buy even more of it .
“ Get Organized ” doesn ’ t engage with the problem of consumerism ; there ’ s no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the anxiety that causes people to obsess over “ back stock , ” the show ’ s term for extra bulk food and supplies that should be hidden away .
Throughout the show , storage comes off less as a vessel for the “ secret psychological life , ” or for personal weirdness , than as a banal acceleration of capitalism in which every mass-produced object , from jewelry to breakfast cereal , is reified as precious , each encased in a transparent reliquary .
In a way , though , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ After watching the eight-episode season , I ’ m no longer so bothered by the unruly clutter in my apartment .
Instead , I see it as a shred of personality and evidence that our domestic spaces don ’ t have to be completely perfect or packed up , especially when there are much bigger problems at hand than rainbow color coding .

In the past month, my Instagram ads have been increasingly occupied by shelves. I don’t know what triggered the invasion; maybe it was the fact that I followed a slew of vintage-furniture stores, or maybe I Google-searched credenzas one too many times, or said out loud that my apartment could use more shelving and got surveilled by my phone. Through these ads, I have discovered that there is a Web site called shelving.com, on which you can purchase arcane industrial products like wire shelves that slide on tracks, shelving for indoor agriculture, or an entire mezzanine, which is a shelf for humans. In recent issues of the London Review of Books, I also noticed an ad for Vitsoe, the mid-century-modern furniture company famous for its wall-mounted “universal shelving system,” which promises a utopian solution to your storage problems but can run thousands of dollars for even the smallest installation.
I’ve been drawn to the images of empty shelves, pristine and full of potential, because after six months of quarantining in one apartment I’ve come to think of organization less as a luxury than as a dire need. Our homes must serve more purposes than ever during the pandemic—office, classroom, gym, broadcasting studio—and so we have acquired new equipment to facilitate this versatility. But where do we put the pullup bar, Zoom microphone, or craft supplies? We want to be able to stash things away so that we don’t have to think about them, banishing them in a way not unlike how we banish our anxieties in order to continue going about daily life. Storage offers convenient repression. As Gaston Bachelard wrote in his book “The Poetics of Space,” from 1958, “Wardrobes with their shelves, desks with their drawers, and chests with their false bottoms are veritable organs of the secret psychological life.”
In this light, Netflix’s latest reality show, “Get Organized with The Home Edit,” should be positively Freudian. It is named for an organizing agency, founded in 2015, by two friends who met in Nashville, Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin, and who serve as the show’s hosts. In each episode, they take on two tidying projects, one for a celebrity—like Reese Witherspoon (also an executive producer), Khloé Kardashian, or Neil Patrick Harris—and one for a normal family, whose home is much messier. Along with their team of assistants, who all have the same wavy haircuts and branded black outfits, the hosts transform cluttered kitchens, offices, and closets into rigorously ordered spaces. Their main tools for doing so are vast collections of shelves and storage boxes, which the organizers stack and nest infinitely. In the parlance of the show, these devices are called “product,” the way hairdressers refer to conditioner or traffickers to drugs. Both hosts buzz with energy-drink fervor, but Teplin is usually optimistic whereas Shearer is the Daria of home organizing, doubting strategies or freaking out over deadlines. They offer a stream of cleaning platitudes like “small items don’t mean a small job” and “choose between the item or the space.”
Though it was developed and shot long beforehand, “Get Organized” has been pitched as perfect quarantine content. Like an A.S.M.R. video, it creates a fantasy that it’s your own home getting organized, that it might be possible to impose logic and structure on the unknowable confusion of life at the moment by starting with your possessions. When the hosts show up to organize Kardashian’s garage, which is crowded with her toddler daughter’s collection of ride-on cars, she exclaims that she feels “a sense of relief.” (Their solution is to create a mini parking lot with black cones and pink tape for striping.) Over the course of each fifteen- or twenty-minute segment, a system is imposed with its own governing logic and structure. Zones are created for specific types of accessories or supplies, which are diagrammed onscreen by text overlays, like an architect’s drawing. Every zone gets a label in a typeface made from Shearer’s own loopy cursive. The show should come with a trigger warning for librarians: books, like clothing, art supplies, and board games, get sorted by color. In one episode, a Los Angeles youth center is subsumed by such rainbows, down to a gradient of color coding on the cupboard doors.
“Get Organized,” if you haven’t noticed, is strikingly similar to another one of Netflix’s reality productions, “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo,” which débuted in January, 2019. Kondo’s famous rule was that everything that doesn’t spark joy has to be discarded. She dealt with hoarders, empty nesters, and a grieving widow, proceeding through an emotionally charged cleansing ritual that had glancing reference to Kondo’s Shinto spirituality. But there is no emotion in “Get Organized”; it’s weirdly bloodless, which is why it ends up being so unsatisfying. Shearer and Teplin’s strategy is enshrined in the dry steps “Edit, Categorize, Contain, and Maintain.” “Purge” things you don’t need, designate your zones, then put everything into transparent plastic boxes, ideally on modular faux-Vitsoe shelving. The final step is the most difficult and goes largely unaddressed: things have to stay in their boxes. In the “after” montages, each room ends up looking the same, a monotonous grid of plastic. Reality TV requires some kind of drama to succeed, however minor. With Kondo, it was the cathartic decision to sacrifice some previously beloved object, but the biggest upset here is when Shearer and Teplin miscalculate the size of the bins needed. It’s the rare production that may have been better off on the short-form mobile streaming service Quibi, because there’s only ten minutes of meaningful content per episode.
“The Home Edit” is less a show than an elaborate infomercial, the kind where people struggle with some onerous household task in black-and-white and then relax into color when they obtain some new miracle product. Shearer and Teplin’s brand was already a commercial machine, with two hardcover instructional books (one released just after the show launched); branches in nine cities offering organizing for up to two hundred and fifty dollars per hour; a series of Home Edit bins and labels for sale online; and more than three million followers on Instagram, where they post shots of well-organized drawers, jokey video clips, and sponsored content for cleaning supplies. (The show’s subjects often proclaim fandoms predating their appearances; Ali, a New York City real-estate broker with a messy kitchen, says that she discovered them on the social-media platform.) Streaming television usually represents a jump up in terms of fame, a graduation from the tiny screen of social media to the more glamorous small screen, but in this case Netflix just seems like another marketing channel for these organizing influencers. Kondo at least waited until after her show to launch a Web store selling a signature collection of household accessories.
Kondo’s store and Shearer and Teplin’s brand ultimately operate on the same mixed message: dealing with your stuff is easier if you buy even more of it. “Get Organized” doesn’t engage with the problem of consumerism; there’s no acknowledgment of why clutter builds up or of the anxiety that causes people to obsess over “back stock,” the show’s term for extra bulk food and supplies that should be hidden away. Throughout the show, storage comes off less as a vessel for the “secret psychological life,” or for personal weirdness, than as a banal acceleration of capitalism in which every mass-produced object, from jewelry to breakfast cereal, is reified as precious, each encased in a transparent reliquary. In a way, though, the show has solved my shelving obsession. After watching the eight-episode season, I’m no longer so bothered by the unruly clutter in my apartment. Instead, I see it as a shred of personality and evidence that our domestic spaces don’t have to be completely perfect or packed up, especially when there are much bigger problems at hand than rainbow color coding.


newyorker--2020-09-23--Ming Smith’s Pioneering Excavations of Black Femininity

Smith photographed many famous Black cultural figures in the course of her career , and her images of Black women communicate the resilience and vigor necessary to flourish in the face of society ’ s exclusions .
In “ Grace Jones , Studio 54 ” ( 1970s ) , the performer doesn ’ t so much pose as unfurl herself before the camera , wafting a gilded scarf over her head and shoulders , wearing bewitching black-tinted glasses and staring into the middle distance , lips apart .
Glamour , here , is a weapon and a power source that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for movement .
In an interview last year with the Financial Times , Smith said that she and Jones , a friend , would commiserate about “ trying to make money , trying to survive.
” She added , “ We came out of Jim Crow .
And so just coming to New York and trying to be a model or to be anything was new.
” “ Tina Turner , What ’ s Love Got to Do with It ” ( 1984 ) was captured at the second apex of the singer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not the show-woman of MTV .
Standing on a dock beneath the Brooklyn Bridge , Turner looks off to one side , her lips pursed and her eyes shaded as if she ’ s conjuring up a difficult memory .
Smith must have waited to get the shot , knowing not to chatter or ask too many questions but to let silence descend on the scene so that Turner would begin to turn inward .
In 1975 , Smith became the first African-American female photographer to have her works enter MoMA ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said in one recent interview , “ for forty years , there was nothing , no shows , no artist talks.
” But it appears that the modern day has finally caught up to Smith , who is by now about seventy .
( She does not disclose her exact age . )
In recent years , her work has been included in exhibitions such as “ Soul of a Nation : Art in the Age of Black Power ” and the Brooklyn Museum ’ s “ We Wanted a Revolution : Black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who lives in Harlem , has welcomed the recognition— “ It ’ s not just having my photographs in Frieze Masters , it ’ s people who are supportive of black artists , ” she told the Financial Times—but she has waited too long for it .
Her remarkable body of photography belongs in the canon for its wealth of ideas and for its preservation of Black women ’ s lives during an age , not unlike today , when nothing could be taken for granted .
This piece was drawn from an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Aperture Monograph , ” which is out in November from Aperture .

Smith photographed many famous Black cultural figures in the course of her career, and her images of Black women communicate the resilience and vigor necessary to flourish in the face of society’s exclusions. In “Grace Jones, Studio 54” (1970s), the performer doesn’t so much pose as unfurl herself before the camera, wafting a gilded scarf over her head and shoulders, wearing bewitching black-tinted glasses and staring into the middle distance, lips apart. Glamour, here, is a weapon and a power source that Jones embodies with her seemingly unvanquishable gift for movement. In an interview last year with the Financial Times, Smith said that she and Jones, a friend, would commiserate about “trying to make money, trying to survive.” She added, “We came out of Jim Crow. And so just coming to New York and trying to be a model or to be anything was new.” “Tina Turner, What’s Love Got to Do with It” (1984) was captured at the second apex of the singer’s fame, but this is not the show-woman of MTV. Standing on a dock beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, Turner looks off to one side, her lips pursed and her eyes shaded as if she’s conjuring up a difficult memory. Smith must have waited to get the shot, knowing not to chatter or ask too many questions but to let silence descend on the scene so that Turner would begin to turn inward.
In 1975, Smith became the first African-American female photographer to have her works enter MoMA’s permanent collection. Then, as she said in one recent interview, “for forty years, there was nothing, no shows, no artist talks.” But it appears that the modern day has finally caught up to Smith, who is by now about seventy. (She does not disclose her exact age.) In recent years, her work has been included in exhibitions such as “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power” and the Brooklyn Museum’s “We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85.” Smith, who lives in Harlem, has welcomed the recognition—“It’s not just having my photographs in Frieze Masters, it’s people who are supportive of black artists,” she told the Financial Times—but she has waited too long for it. Her remarkable body of photography belongs in the canon for its wealth of ideas and for its preservation of Black women’s lives during an age, not unlike today, when nothing could be taken for granted.
This piece was drawn from an essay in “Ming Smith: An Aperture Monograph,” which is out in November from Aperture and Documentary Arts.