newyorker--2020-09-29--The Burdened Insights of Claudia Rankine’s “Just Us”

The subtitle of “ Citizen ” was “ An American Lyric.
” Rankine ’ s new collection , “ Just Us , ” is subtitled “ An American Conversation ” —the transparent eyeball has acquired ears and a tongue .
“ Just Us ” describes a series of racialized encounters with friends and strangers .
Rankine attends a lot of dinner parties ( perhaps too many , it must be said ) and is repeatedly subjected to white people stepping in it , thanks to a combination of willed oblivion and condescension .
At one gathering , Rankine challenges a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ theory of Trump ’ s win seems to elide the role of racism .
“ I was sailing closer and closer to the trope of the angry black woman , ” Rankine recounts .
A female guest interrupts , cooing over a tray of brownies .
The redirect is so obvious that Rankine blurts out , “ Am I being silenced ?
” The technologies of whiteness—silencing , surveilling , policing—are supposed to be frictionless for the user .
Rankine exposes and disrupts them , but not for long .
In this case @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fleet of Roombas , clear away the awkwardness , and a defeated Rankine pushes food around her plate , absorbing the discomfort back into her body .
Her book ’ s title comes from a Richard Pryor quote about the courthouse : “ You go down there looking for justice , that ’ s what you find , just us.
” Those two terms—justice and just us—provide some of the work ’ s animating tensions .
In Pryor ’ s skit , “ just us ” referred specifically to Black people , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is cross-racial , a seed planted in the dead land between Self and Other .
When Rankine wonders how individuals , much less community , can survive in our system , the question is intimately tied to justice—to whether “ just us ” is possible without the acknowledgment of inequity .
At one point , Rankine considers a white friend , whose ancestry dates back to the Mayflower .
Rankine loves this friend ; love urges her to tend their closeness beyond the reach of history .
But that ’ s impossible , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s “ innate advantages , ” she writes , “ is to stop being present inside our relationship.
” Rankine ’ s interest in the white part of “ us ” turns her into an anthropologist .
Several sections of the book are given over to masochistic exchanges with white men in airports .
( “ After a series of casual conversations with my white male travelers , would I come to understand white privilege any differently ?
” ) This goes neither well nor cartoonishly badly .
One man , upon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ complains that his son ’ s inability to “ play the diversity card ” sank his early-admissions chances .
Another interlocutor suggests that he doesn ’ t see color , and then characterizes his own comment as “ inane.
” The exchanges , even the positive ones , inspire a nervous excitement , somewhere between dread and hunger .
The reader fears for Rankine , although that doesn ’ t quite make sense ; she waits for catharsis , which is denied .
The book ’ s lack of resolution can feel like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ white men whom the narrator meets .
Even as Rankine stages scenes that touch the third rail of “ American conversation , ” she is only ever speaking indirectly , through questions .
This dynamic can make Rankine ’ s goal—what , in the end , she hopes to get out of these exercises—somewhat blurry .
After a white man cuts her in a first-class line , Rankine claims , “ What I wanted was to know what the white man saw or didn ’ t see when he walked in front of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she writes , “ I felt certain that , as a black woman , there had to be something I didn ’ t understand.
” If this is an accurate account of Rankine ’ s feelings , it is also a strange one .
Rankine teaches a class at Yale called “ Constructions of Whiteness.
” In 2016 , she founded the Racial Imaginary Institute , an “ interdisciplinary cultural laboratory ” that studies how “ perceptions , resources , rights , and lives themselves flow along racial lines that confront some of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ power.
” “ Just Us ” invokes the race scholarship of Édouard Glissant , Whitney Dow , Fred Moten , Frank B. Wilderson III , and Orlando Patterson—in the space of two pages .
Exactly what does Rankine think the entitled guy in D-14 is going to clarify that she doesn ’ t already know ?
Rankine ’ s humble posture may be a response to what her husband , who is white , refers to as “ white fragility , ” invoking Robin DiAngelo ’ s book of the same name .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s tendency to lash out under racial stress ; some have criticized the theory for painting a simplistic picture of Black people . )
Rankine ’ s thinking seems informed by DiAngelo , who blurbed her book , but “ haunted ” may be a more apt description .
Is it the spectre of hysterical white readers that causes Rankine , who needs no instruction on oppression , to pretend that white fellow-travellers are educating her ?
The language that results— “ I didn ’ t understand ” and “ I wondered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ curious ” —is needlessly caressing , and it gives the book a tortured , insincere quality .
But Rankine is not so committed to this act that she can ’ t also poke fun at it .
Chatting with a white man before a flight , she describes wanting “ to learn something that surprised me about this stranger , something I couldn ’ t have known beforehand.
” “ Coming or going ?
” she asks .
Rankine realizes , then , that conversing with white people isn ’ t likely to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In fact , this realization feeds into one of her central critiques : that white society is defined by an obstinate refusal to examine itself , and that , as a result , the well of white racial imagination has run dry .
Yet , once you understand this about the book , a sort of spell takes hold .
The narrator rides from encounter to encounter .
Scripts are recited ; formalities are observed .
There is an air of strange , exacting , half-understood rules , and of dangerous illusions .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ s path has a breath of epical romance to it : the knight says the words so that the lady will lower the drawbridge ; midway through a charmed banquet , all the fruits turn to dust .
After a while , I realized that I was reading “ Just Us ” as a kind of grail quest .
The book seeks the impossible thing , the healing thing , which is at once so impossible and so healing that it surpasses language .
Like Rankine ’ s previous work , “ Just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and first-person prose ; it remixes historical documents , social-media posts , and academic studies .
There ’ s the sense of a subject overflowing every genre summoned to contain it .
There ’ s also a contemporary feeling , of going about one ’ s day—switching on the news , talking to a friend , reading an essay—at a time when all discourse seems drawn back to the magnet of race .
Rankine has never not known of race , but she shows us life in a country that pretends to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that it has just lost .
“ You say and I say , ” she writes , as if foggy with sleep , “ but what / is it we are telling , what is it / we are wanting to know about here ?
” Narrating whatever “ it ” is will require “ a new sentence , ” one capable of resolving the book ’ s driving paradox : that “ just us ” is impossible without justice , but justice is unlikely to be done until a sense of “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conundrum—no transformation without identification , no identification without transformation—spurs the work forward , but not everyone will be persuaded that it matters .
A hotter and blunter activism has engulfed the United States in the wake of George Floyd ’ s murder .
Many feel that structural reform is a more effective path to justice than renovating white hearts and minds , at least partly because it does not depend on the types of conversations that Rankine wants us to have .
Rankine is a humanist : she prizes empathetic connection for its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it is only because such connection can seem to crumble when asked to bear the weight of history .
And yet the ache of “ Just Us ” isn ’ t that Rankine attempts too much but that she gets free of too little .
The ache is more than thirty pages , written by Claudia Rankine , on the meaning of blond hair , and many more pages , also written by Claudia Rankine , about white people who are not nearly as thoughtful , expert , funny , or compelling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Us ” includes gorgeous passages , ruminations that set the reader down on “ a patch of dry grass , a median strip , between infrastructures , between lanes of traffic , between nowhere and here , between him and her .
.
.
a necropastoral.
” But the book also litters Rankine ’ s inner landscape with “ fact checks.
” “ White people don ’ t really want change if it means they need to think differently than they do about who they are , ” the narrator suggests ; on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ text notes that “ there may be counterexamples.
” Studies are marshalled to corroborate perceptions or memories .
As Rankine considers the mistreatment of young Black boys in the classroom , a paper on the “ eye gaze patterns ” of early educators seems to license her thought .
This deference to objectivity , or to its appearance , is jarring .
It evokes another moment in the book , when Rankine writes that “ the black person is asked to leave to vacate to prove to validate to confirm to authorize to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
.
” The author ’ s vision , so suffused with longing , ends up impaled on facts .
If “ Just Us ” extends “ Citizens ” ’ s effort to “ pull the lyric back ” into reality , it may succeed too well .
Rankine cedes large swaths of her imagination to mourning the constraints placed on it , and her self-subordination—to white people , especially—hardens many of the certainties that her art aims to unsettle .
The book returns often to the phrase “ what if , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is ” : unfreedom is the point , as is a shift in the “ American conversation ” from hope to a kind of dignified resignation .
( One hears an echo of Michelle Obama ’ s Convention speech from this year : “ It is what it is.
” ) But progress , though challenging , doesn ’ t need to be a holy grail ; and poetry , though of this world , doesn ’ t need to be tied to it .
As a study of what it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ limits , “ Just Us ” is exactly the mixed triumph that Rankine has permitted herself to hope for .

Claudia Rankine’s interest in the white part of “us” turns her into an anthropologist. Photograph by Ike Edeani / NYT / Redux
In her book-length poem “Citizen,” from 2014, the writer Claudia Rankine probed some of the nuances and contradictions of being a Black American. Her focus fell on what it means to be erased, projected upon, or politicized, and how the cumulative effect can shatter one’s sense of self. Rankine has said that she wanted to “pull the lyric back into its realities,” and “Citizen” struck a delicate balance between the world that Rankine dreamed about and the one that she saw. The book’s narrator found words for the pain of racism, and little seemed lost in the translation; but there was, too, an aura around that pain, a ripple of reinvention. Rankine wrote poetry that was always slipping toward the next shape, the one that only she could see.
The subtitle of “Citizen” was “An American Lyric.” Rankine’s new collection, “Just Us,” is subtitled “An American Conversation”—the transparent eyeball has acquired ears and a tongue. “Just Us” describes a series of racialized encounters with friends and strangers. Rankine attends a lot of dinner parties (perhaps too many, it must be said) and is repeatedly subjected to white people stepping in it, thanks to a combination of willed oblivion and condescension. At one gathering, Rankine challenges a man about the 2016 election: his theory of Trump’s win seems to elide the role of racism. “I was sailing closer and closer to the trope of the angry black woman,” Rankine recounts. A female guest interrupts, cooing over a tray of brownies. The redirect is so obvious that Rankine blurts out, “Am I being silenced?”
The technologies of whiteness—silencing, surveilling, policing—are supposed to be frictionless for the user. Rankine exposes and disrupts them, but not for long. In this case, the other guests, like a fleet of Roombas, clear away the awkwardness, and a defeated Rankine pushes food around her plate, absorbing the discomfort back into her body. Her book’s title comes from a Richard Pryor quote about the courthouse: “You go down there looking for justice, that’s what you find, just us.” Those two terms—justice and just us—provide some of the work’s animating tensions. In Pryor’s skit, “just us” referred specifically to Black people, but Rankine’s primary “us” is cross-racial, a seed planted in the dead land between Self and Other. When Rankine wonders how individuals, much less community, can survive in our system, the question is intimately tied to justice—to whether “just us” is possible without the acknowledgment of inequity. At one point, Rankine considers a white friend, whose ancestry dates back to the Mayflower. Rankine loves this friend; love urges her to tend their closeness beyond the reach of history. But that’s impossible, Rankine finds. To ignore her friend’s “innate advantages,” she writes, “is to stop being present inside our relationship.”
Rankine’s interest in the white part of “us” turns her into an anthropologist. Several sections of the book are given over to masochistic exchanges with white men in airports. (“After a series of casual conversations with my white male travelers, would I come to understand white privilege any differently?”) This goes neither well nor cartoonishly badly. One man, upon learning that Rankine teaches at Yale, complains that his son’s inability to “play the diversity card” sank his early-admissions chances. Another interlocutor suggests that he doesn’t see color, and then characterizes his own comment as “inane.” The exchanges, even the positive ones, inspire a nervous excitement, somewhere between dread and hunger. The reader fears for Rankine, although that doesn’t quite make sense; she waits for catharsis, which is denied. The book’s lack of resolution can feel like a concession to the limits of the white men whom the narrator meets. Even as Rankine stages scenes that touch the third rail of “American conversation,” she is only ever speaking indirectly, through questions.
This dynamic can make Rankine’s goal—what, in the end, she hopes to get out of these exercises—somewhat blurry. After a white man cuts her in a first-class line, Rankine claims, “What I wanted was to know what the white man saw or didn’t see when he walked in front of me at the gate.” Elsewhere, she writes, “I felt certain that, as a black woman, there had to be something I didn’t understand.” If this is an accurate account of Rankine’s feelings, it is also a strange one. Rankine teaches a class at Yale called “Constructions of Whiteness.” In 2016, she founded the Racial Imaginary Institute, an “interdisciplinary cultural laboratory” that studies how “perceptions, resources, rights, and lives themselves flow along racial lines that confront some of us with restrictions and give others uninterrogated power.” “Just Us” invokes the race scholarship of Édouard Glissant, Whitney Dow, Fred Moten, Frank B. Wilderson III, and Orlando Patterson—in the space of two pages. Exactly what does Rankine think the entitled guy in D-14 is going to clarify that she doesn’t already know?
Rankine’s humble posture may be a response to what her husband, who is white, refers to as “white fragility,” invoking Robin DiAngelo’s book of the same name. (White fragility refers to white people’s tendency to lash out under racial stress; some have criticized the theory for painting a simplistic picture of Black people.) Rankine’s thinking seems informed by DiAngelo, who blurbed her book, but “haunted” may be a more apt description. Is it the spectre of hysterical white readers that causes Rankine, who needs no instruction on oppression, to pretend that white fellow-travellers are educating her? The language that results—“I didn’t understand” and “I wondered” and “I’m just curious”—is needlessly caressing, and it gives the book a tortured, insincere quality. But Rankine is not so committed to this act that she can’t also poke fun at it. Chatting with a white man before a flight, she describes wanting “to learn something that surprised me about this stranger, something I couldn’t have known beforehand.” “Coming or going?” she asks.
Rankine realizes, then, that conversing with white people isn’t likely to yield much new information about whiteness. In fact, this realization feeds into one of her central critiques: that white society is defined by an obstinate refusal to examine itself, and that, as a result, the well of white racial imagination has run dry. Yet, once you understand this about the book, a sort of spell takes hold. The narrator rides from encounter to encounter. Scripts are recited; formalities are observed. There is an air of strange, exacting, half-understood rules, and of dangerous illusions. Bizarre as it sounds, Rankine’s path has a breath of epical romance to it: the knight says the words so that the lady will lower the drawbridge; midway through a charmed banquet, all the fruits turn to dust.
After a while, I realized that I was reading “Just Us” as a kind of grail quest. The book seeks the impossible thing, the healing thing, which is at once so impossible and so healing that it surpasses language. Like Rankine’s previous work, “Just Us” collages poetry, criticism, and first-person prose; it remixes historical documents, social-media posts, and academic studies. There’s the sense of a subject overflowing every genre summoned to contain it. There’s also a contemporary feeling, of going about one’s day—switching on the news, talking to a friend, reading an essay—at a time when all discourse seems drawn back to the magnet of race. Rankine has never not known of race, but she shows us life in a country that pretends to be newly awakened, and mourning the dream that it has just lost. “You say and I say,” she writes, as if foggy with sleep, “but what / is it we are telling, what is it / we are wanting to know about here?”
Narrating whatever “it” is will require “a new sentence,” one capable of resolving the book’s driving paradox: that “just us” is impossible without justice, but justice is unlikely to be done until a sense of “just us” is achieved. This conundrum—no transformation without identification, no identification without transformation—spurs the work forward, but not everyone will be persuaded that it matters. A hotter and blunter activism has engulfed the United States in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. Many feel that structural reform is a more effective path to justice than renovating white hearts and minds, at least partly because it does not depend on the types of conversations that Rankine wants us to have. Rankine is a humanist: she prizes empathetic connection for its own sake. If this is unfashionable, it is only because such connection can seem to crumble when asked to bear the weight of history.
And yet the ache of “Just Us” isn’t that Rankine attempts too much but that she gets free of too little. The ache is more than thirty pages, written by Claudia Rankine, on the meaning of blond hair, and many more pages, also written by Claudia Rankine, about white people who are not nearly as thoughtful, expert, funny, or compelling as Claudia Rankine is. “Just Us” includes gorgeous passages, ruminations that set the reader down on “a patch of dry grass, a median strip, between infrastructures, between lanes of traffic, between nowhere and here, between him and her . . . a necropastoral.” But the book also litters Rankine’s inner landscape with “fact checks.” “White people don’t really want change if it means they need to think differently than they do about who they are,” the narrator suggests; on the opposite page, a line of text notes that “there may be counterexamples.” Studies are marshalled to corroborate perceptions or memories. As Rankine considers the mistreatment of young Black boys in the classroom, a paper on the “eye gaze patterns” of early educators seems to license her thought. This deference to objectivity, or to its appearance, is jarring. It evokes another moment in the book, when Rankine writes that “the black person is asked to leave to vacate to prove to validate to confirm to authorize to legalize their right to be. . . .” The author’s vision, so suffused with longing, ends up impaled on facts.
If “Just Us” extends “Citizens” ’s effort to “pull the lyric back” into reality, it may succeed too well. Rankine cedes large swaths of her imagination to mourning the constraints placed on it, and her self-subordination—to white people, especially—hardens many of the certainties that her art aims to unsettle. The book returns often to the phrase “what if,” but it feels besieged by “what is”: unfreedom is the point, as is a shift in the “American conversation” from hope to a kind of dignified resignation. (One hears an echo of Michelle Obama’s Convention speech from this year: “It is what it is.”) But progress, though challenging, doesn’t need to be a holy grail; and poetry, though of this world, doesn’t need to be tied to it. As a study of what it’s like to operate within society’s limits, “Just Us” is exactly the mixed triumph that Rankine has permitted herself to hope for.


newyorker--2020-09-30--“This Is So Unpresidential”: Notes from the Worst Debate in American History

Remarkably enough , it was seemingly on purpose .
Losing in the polls , and with the country stricken by a pandemic that has claimed two hundred thousand American lives , the President offered incoherent bluster , inflammatory racism , and personal attacks on his opponent ’ s son .
But mostly what came through was Trump ’ s refusal to shut up .
He talked and talked and talked .
He talked over Biden .
He talked over the moderator , Fox News ’ s Chris Wallace .
He talked over Biden some more .
How bad was it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to record as among the most memorable was Biden ’ s lament , at the end of the debate ’ s very first segment : “ Will you just shut up , man ?
This is so unpresidential.
” To the extent that there was a substantive headline , it was Trump ’ s refusal to disavow white supremacy—after , it should be noted , claiming that he has been great for African-Americans—and his continued campaign to undermine public confidence in the upcoming election by baselessly asserting that ballots will be interfered with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ end well , ” he said , of the election , showing once again that his plan is to attack the very idea of voting itself .
He then repeated it , as if for emphasis .
“ This is not going to end well.
” It sure sounded like a threat .
Biden , for his part , made a strong argument for the over-all disastrousness of Trump ’ s tenure , speaking in especially caustic terms about Trump ’ s botched response to COVID-19 .
“ You ’ re the worst @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden said at one point .
Later , he added , “ Under this President , we ’ ve become weaker , sicker , poorer , more divided , and more violent.
” It was a tough line and potentially even memorable , but Trump ’ s crosstalk kept it from being memorably delivered , which was true of many of the specifics that Biden sought , and often failed , to get across .
He hardly mentioned , for example , the Times ’ revelation , this week , that Trump , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ release his tax returns—unlike all previous Presidents for the last four decades—had paid only seven hundred and fifty dollars in federal income tax for each of the first two years of his Administration .
Instead , Biden and Wallace were left sputtering by Trump for much of the evening , which is not a good look for either an aspiring President or a journalist who is generally admired for his tough questions .
At times , Trump succeeded , if that is the right word for it , in getting them to descend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ few insults of his own , calling Trump , at various points , “ racist , ” a “ clown , ” and even “ Putin ’ s puppy.
” Wallace , visibly frustrated and not sure what to do about it , was left to lecture Trump about not following the rules that Trump ’ s own campaign had agreed to—but Wallace was powerless to stop the rampaging President .
Trump even interrupted Biden as he attempted to finish his very last sentence at the end of the debate .
The whole @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nearly unwatchable , as if you ’ d stumbled into a family ’ s dinner-table fight over politics , and Trump was the drunk , belligerent uncle who would just not stop talking but could not make a coherent point .
With such tumult , of course , neither candidate was able to communicate much about his plans for the country , which seemed to be Trump ’ s point .
About midway through the debate , the evening ’ s low point came , just as predicted , when Trump attacked Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his history of drug use— “ Was it cocaine ?
” Trump asked—and falsely claimed that he had been “ dishonorably discharged ” from the U.S. military and had received “ millions ” from the former mayor of Moscow ’ s wife .
This was no surprise .
In the hours before the debate , Axios published an item about Trump ’ s plan to do just that .
In the end , the only shock was that Trump chose to launch the attack as Biden spoke about his other son , Beau @ @ @ @ @ @ @ serving in Iraq and going on to a career in public service like his father .
Biden , perhaps because the Trump campaign had put him on notice , maintained his composure , though there were more than a few times when he flashed his famous Biden grin in disbelief at what he was hearing .
As the ninety minutes wore on , Biden was at his best as the personification of the exhausted America he hopes to lead , shaking his head and commenting on the Trumpian tantrum as it played out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just pours gasoline in the fire constantly , ” Biden said at one point .
Later , the Democratic nominee observed , when Wallace tried to shame Trump into abiding by the agreed-upon rules , “ He never keeps his word.
” When Trump bragged about his response to the coronavirus pandemic , insisting that “ we are doing phenomenally ” and then claiming he had not been against wearing masks ( while making fun of Biden for wearing masks ) , the former Vice-President again assumed the role of weary narrator for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been totally irresponsible , ” Biden said .
“ He ’ s a fool on this.
” With the election now less than five weeks away , the question of Trump ’ s foolishness , and whether it will do him in politically , will soon be answered .
Trump ’ s debate performance will not help him in that respect : the race was Biden ’ s to lose before the debate and it almost certainly will remain that way after the debate .
As of Tuesday , the RealClearPolitics national polling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nationally , and FiveThirtyEight had Biden up by seven points—a wider margin than any candidate has had at this point in a U.S. general election since Bill Clinton trounced Bob Dole , in 1996 .
And those polls were before the Times ’ revelations about Trump ’ s taxes .
Even the setting of Tuesday ’ s debate , at Case Western Reserve University , in Cleveland , Ohio , underscored Trump ’ s political weakness .
Four years ago , he won Ohio , a bastion of his white working-class supporters , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ debate , a new Fox News poll showed Biden leading Trump in Ohio by five points , and the Cook Political Report changed its rating for the state from “ leans Republican ” to “ toss up.
” With Trump in a corner , everyone expected him to lash out at Biden with particular viciousness .
He does not do defensive crouches .
He does nasty .
He counter-punches .
This is , after all , Trump ’ s mantra , his lifelong habit .
“ When someone attacks me , ” Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ I always attack back… except 100x more.
” But even for Trump , there was something particularly over the top about his debate performance on Tuesday night .
It was more of a primal scream than a political appearance , a rant by a man who not only can not control himself but , for some reason , thinks he does not have to try .
Who could this possibly have been designed to persuade ?
For the last few months , as polls have shown the decisive suburbs slipping away @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his appeal to the “ suburban housewives ” of America .
If there is a single additional suburban housewife , or any woman , who is voting for Trump after that debate , I would like to meet her .
The bottom line is that Trump ’ s chances for a second term are dwindling fast .
He knows it .
Which is why he will not shut up , on the debate stage or anywhere else , for the next thirty-four days .
At this point , there is only one way @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Elections have consequences , ” he said , in his very first answer of the evening .
To which America will soon have its chance to reply : yes , they do .
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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at what he has provided the executive class .
• What happens if Trump fights the election results ?
• The refusal by Mitch McConnell to rein in Trump is looking riskier than ever .
• Sign up for our election newsletter for insight and analysis from our reporters and columnists .

What does the worst debate in American history look like? It looks like the debate that took place on Tuesday night between President Donald Trump and the former Vice-President Joe Biden. It was a joke, a mess, a disaster. A “shit show,” a “dumpster fire,” a national humiliation. No matter how bad you thought the debate would be, it was worse. Way worse. Trump shouted, he bullied, he hectored, he lied, and he interrupted, over and over again.
Remarkably enough, it was seemingly on purpose. Losing in the polls, and with the country stricken by a pandemic that has claimed two hundred thousand American lives, the President offered incoherent bluster, inflammatory racism, and personal attacks on his opponent’s son. But mostly what came through was Trump’s refusal to shut up. He talked and talked and talked. He talked over Biden. He talked over the moderator, Fox News’ Chris Wallace. He talked over Biden some more. How bad was it? The line that history is likely to record as among the most memorable was Biden’s lament, at the end of the debate’s very first segment: “Will you just shut up, man? This is so unpresidential.”
To the extent that there was a substantive headline, it was Trump’s refusal to disavow white supremacy—after, it should be noted, claiming that he has been great for African-Americans—and his continued campaign to undermine public confidence in the upcoming election by baselessly asserting that ballots will be interfered with. “This is not going to end well,” he said, of the election, showing once again that his plan is to attack the very idea of voting itself. He then repeated it, as if for emphasis. “This is not going to end well.” It sure sounded like a threat.
Biden, for his part, made a strong argument for the over-all disastrousness of Trump’s tenure, speaking in especially caustic terms about Trump’s botched response to COVID-19. “You’re the worst President America has ever had,” Biden said at one point. Later, he added, “Under this President, we’ve become weaker, sicker, poorer, more divided, and more violent.” It was a tough line and potentially even memorable, but Trump’s crosstalk kept it from being memorably delivered, which was true of many of the specifics that Biden sought, and often failed, to get across. He hardly mentioned, for example, the Times’ revelation, this week, that Trump, a self-proclaimed billionaire who has refused to release his tax returns—unlike all previous Presidents for the past four decades—had paid only seven hundred and fifty dollars in federal income tax for each of the first two years of his Administration.
Instead, Biden and Wallace were left sputtering by Trump for much of the evening, which is not a good look for either an aspiring President or a journalist who is generally admired for his tough questions. At times, Trump succeeded, if that is the right word for it, in getting them to descend to his level. Biden slung a few insults of his own, calling Trump, at various points, “racist,” a “clown,” and even “Putin’s puppy.” Wallace, visibly frustrated and not sure what to do about it, was left to lecture Trump about not following the rules that Trump’s own campaign had agreed to—but Wallace was powerless to stop the rampaging President. Trump even interrupted Biden as he attempted to finish his very last sentence at the end of the debate. The whole thing was hard to follow, and nearly unwatchable, as if you’d stumbled into a family’s dinner-table fight over politics, and Trump was the drunk, belligerent uncle who would just not stop talking but could not make a coherent point. With such tumult, of course, neither candidate was able to communicate much about his plans for the country, which seemed to be Trump’s point.
About midway through the debate, the evening’s low point came, just as predicted, when Trump attacked Biden’s son Hunter, talking about his history of drug use—“Was it cocaine?” Trump asked—and falsely claimed that he had been “dishonorably discharged” from the U.S. military and had received “millions” from the wife of the former mayor of Moscow. This was no surprise. In the hours before the debate, Axios published an item about Trump’s plan to do just that. In the end, the only shock was that Trump chose to launch the attack as Biden spoke about his other son, Beau, who had died of cancer after serving in Iraq and going on to a career in public service like his father.
Biden, perhaps because the Trump campaign had put him on notice, maintained his composure, though there were more than a few times when he flashed his famous Biden grin in disbelief at what he was hearing. As the ninety minutes wore on, Biden was at his best as the personification of the exhausted America he hopes to lead, shaking his head and commenting on the Trumpian tantrum as it played out onstage across from him. “He just pours gasoline in the fire constantly,” Biden said at one point. Later, the Democratic nominee observed, when Wallace tried to shame Trump into abiding by the agreed-upon rules, “He never keeps his word.” When Trump bragged about his response to the coronavirus pandemic, insisting that “we are doing phenomenally” and then claiming he had not been against wearing masks (while making fun of Biden for wearing masks), the former Vice-President again assumed the role of weary narrator for the public. “He’s been totally irresponsible,” Biden said. “He’s a fool on this.”
With the election now less than five weeks away, the question of Trump’s foolishness, and whether it will do him in politically, will soon be answered. Trump’s debate performance will not help him in that respect: the race was Biden’s to lose before the debate, and it almost certainly will remain that way after the debate. As of Tuesday, the RealClearPolitics national polling average had Biden up by six points nationally, and FiveThirtyEight had Biden up by seven points—a wider margin than any candidate has had at this point in a U.S. general election since Bill Clinton trounced Bob Dole, in 1996. And those polls were before the Times’ revelations about Trump’s taxes. Even the setting of Tuesday’s debate, at Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, Ohio, underscored Trump’s political weakness. Four years ago, he won Ohio, a bastion of his white working-class supporters, by eight points. Hours before the debate, a new Fox News poll showed Biden leading Trump in Ohio by five points, and the Cook Political Report changed its rating for the state from “leans Republican” to “toss up.”
With Trump in a corner, everyone expected him to lash out at Biden with particular viciousness. He does not do defensive crouches. He does nasty. He counterpunches. This is, after all, Trump’s mantra, his lifelong habit. “When someone attacks me,” Trump wrote on Twitter, back in 2012, “I always attack back…except 100x more.”
But, even for Trump, there was something particularly over the top about his debate performance on Tuesday night. It was more of a primal scream than a political appearance, a rant by a man who not only cannot control himself but for some reason thinks he does not have to try. Who could this possibly have been designed to persuade? For the last few months, as polls have shown the decisive suburbs slipping away from him, Trump has talked about his appeal to the “suburban housewives” of America. If there is a single additional suburban housewife, or any woman, who is voting for Trump after that debate, I would like to meet her. The bottom line is that Trump’s chances for a second term are dwindling fast. He knows it. Which is why he will not shut up, on the debate stage or anywhere else, for the next thirty-four days. At this point, there is only one way to get Donald Trump to shut up. “Elections have consequences,” he said, in his very first answer of the evening. To which America will soon have its chance to reply: yes, they do.
Read More About the 2020 Election


newyorker--2020-09-30--Welcome to the “Top Chef” Judges’ Table

Welcome to the “Top Chef” Judges’ Table

Bryce , you ’ re up first .
You made grilled octopus , using a recipe you dug up from your grandmother ’ s grave .
We loved your story , but your octopus was too dry and too wet .
It tasted like you never had a childhood .
We gave you fourteen seconds to make eighty entrées for two hundred people on the edge of a cliff .
What went wrong ?
Antonia , your entrée was mushroom balls .
We appreciate that it ’ s connected to your family ’ s demise at the hooves of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ didn ’ t like the dish ’ s texture , taste , flavor , smell , or sound .
You brought the ingredients together in a way that makes this dish technically illegal in Chechnya .
What went wrong ?
Candace , the apples in your tarte tatin weren ’ t uniform .
Some were burnt , some were raw , and some were turduckens .
How do you not know the difference between fruit and meat , when you ’ ve trained under Mark Wahlberg ?
Your dish tastes like it was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ never heard of food before .
What went wrong ?
Blemphis , we hate you as a person .
What went wrong ?
Brice , your tomato-basil soup brought me right back to my childhood , which was , unfortunately , a very bad time for me .
At age seven , I was in a terrible wagon accident that left me paralyzed from the tongue down for more than a year .
My parents forgot that they had a child , so they never fed me , but each day the maid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ soup into my I.V .
One day , she died on top of me , and no one came looking for her body .
For a week : the smell of her rotting corpse mixed with the smell of tomato and basil .
Your soup reminds me of that soup .
What went wrong ?
Priyanka , you didn ’ t plate your dish on time , so all we had to eat was the plate .
It was crunchy , but flavorless .
What went wrong ?
Tandy , your dish was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ my mother .
It was sweet but sour , rich but light , tingly but nutty , spicy but carrot , prolific but insane , complex but treacherous .
It transcended what food was previously capable of being and taught us all a lesson about humanity .
Unfortunately , we liked it too much .
Please pack your knives and go .
And , don ’ t worry , you can always relive your mistakes on “ Last Chance Kitchen.
” That way , if you fail , at least you ’ ll @ @ @ @ @

Welcome, chefs. Today, we asked you to come up with a twist on a traditional dish from your childhood for the Aspen Food & Wine Classic. We will be judging your dishes based on taste, presentation, and whatever mood we’re in.
Bryce, you’re up first. You made grilled octopus, using a recipe you dug up from your grandmother’s grave. We loved your story, but your octopus was too dry and too wet. It tasted like you never had a childhood. We gave you fourteen seconds to make eighty entrées for two hundred people on the edge of a cliff. What went wrong?
Antonia, your entrée was mushroom balls. We appreciate that it’s connected to your family’s demise at the hooves of a vengeful truffle pig. However, we didn’t like the dish’s texture, taste, flavor, smell, or sound. You brought the ingredients together in a way that makes this dish technically illegal in Chechnya. What went wrong?
Candace, the apples in your tarte tatin weren’t uniform. Some were burnt, some were raw, and some were turduckens. How do you not know the difference between fruit and meat, when you’ve trained under Mark Wahlberg? Your dish tastes like it was prepared by nine different people who have never heard of food before. What went wrong?
Blemphis, we hate you as a person. What went wrong?
Brice, your tomato-basil soup brought me right back to my childhood, which was, unfortunately, a very bad time for me. At age seven, I was in a terrible wagon accident that left me paralyzed from the tongue down for more than a year. My parents forgot that they had a child, so they never fed me, but each day the maid would sneak a little bit of tomato-basil soup into my I.V. One day, she died on top of me, and no one came looking for her body. For a week: the smell of her rotting corpse mixed with the smell of tomato and basil. Your soup reminds me of that soup. What went wrong?
Priyanka, you didn’t plate your dish on time, so all we had to eat was the plate. It was crunchy, but flavorless. What went wrong?
Tandy, your dish was so delicious that it made me forgive my mother. It was sweet but sour, rich but light, tingly but nutty, spicy but carrot, prolific but insane, complex but treacherous. It transcended what food was previously capable of being and taught us all a lesson about humanity. Unfortunately, we liked it too much. Please pack your knives and go.
And, don’t worry, you can always relive your mistakes on “Last Chance Kitchen.” That way, if you fail, at least you’ll know you deserved it.


newyorker--2020-09-30--Biden and Trump’s First Debate Did Not End Well

In recent weeks , President Trump ’ s reëlection campaign has sometimes slipped between a normal mode , in which he makes explicit appeals for the votes of suburban women and tries to pin left-wing labels on Joe Biden , and an abnormal one , in which he amplifies right-wing talking points and speaks suspiciously about the integrity of the election .
Even so , it was new to see the pattern on a Presidential debate stage .
Wallace asked whether the candidates would encourage their supporters to stay calm while the ballots were counted .
A simple ask .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ his campaign ’ s effort to get his supporters to monitor elections in big cities and on a Pennsylvania rule that might stand in the way of that effort .
He said , “ I ’ m urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully , because that ’ s what has to happen .
I am urging them to do it .
As you know , today there was a big problem in Philadelphia ; they went in to watch .
They are what you call poll watchers—a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They were thrown out ; they weren ’ t allowed to watch .
You know why ?
Because bad things happen in Philadelphia , bad things .
I am urging my people—I hope it ’ s going to be a fair election .
If it ’ s a fair election , I am a hundred per cent on board .
But if I see tens of thousands of ballots being manipulated , I can ’ t go along with that.
” Wallace kept trying to get the President to say that he would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ each exchange only encouraged Trump to signal that he wouldn ’ t .
A few minutes earlier , Wallace had asked the President about right-wing militia groups .
Trump responded , “ What do you want me to call them ?
” The Proud Boys , Biden said , from the other podium , naming a prominent far-right group .
Trump said , “ Proud Boys , stand back and stand by.
” Biden flashed a big grin , which covered some of the chill of the moment : Had Trump meant to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
The Proud Boys ’ chairman , Enrique Tarrio , wrote online , “ Standing by sir.
” There was quite an arc to the debate , which was held on a makeshift stage at the Cleveland Clinic .
It started as a farce , with Trump so relentlessly interrupting Biden that Wallace struggled to keep the early exchanges coherent .
“ Will you shut up , man ?
” Biden asked , exasperated , when Trump kept talking over him .
Biden tied himself in knots in the first few minutes , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ President shouldn ’ t get to nominate Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court before the election and to clearly explain the benefits of the Affordable Care Act and the threat Trump poses to it .
The speculation had been that at least eighty million people might watch the debate—which is a lot of eyes to simultaneously roll .
Debates are meant to present contrasts , but at the outset this one delivered only characters : the challenger serious and meandering ; the incumbent more concise , funnier , and saying plainly false @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plenty of Trump lies , about the Obama Administration ’ s Clean Energy Standard , about the extent of ballot fraud in New Jersey , about proper forest management .
Twenty-five minutes in , just after Trump had promised that a coronavirus vaccine will arrive within weeks , Biden asked , “ Do you believe for a moment what he ’ s telling you , in light of all the lies he ’ s told you about the whole issue relating to COVID ?
” Biden was looking directly at the camera ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Throughout the night , Trump seemed to be focussed on his opponent first and the audience only abstractly .
He did not seem to notice that his untrustworthiness was the main theme Biden had been pressing , inelegantly but effectively , to persuade voters away from Trump , in the long summer defined by the pandemic .
The President didn ’ t hear the challenge , only a pause .
He rushed to fill it , with an attack he ’ d signalled in his rallies .
“ Did you use the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asked Biden .
The Democrat had , though only in passing , while talking mainly about mass death .
“ So you said you went to Delaware State , but you forgot the name of your college.
” ( This was likely inscrutable to most of the audience : Biden , who attended the University of Delaware , has never said that he attended Delaware State , a historically Black college , though this has become a right-wing talking point . )
Trump went on , “ He graduated , either lowest or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Don ’ t ever use the word ‘ smart ’ with me.
” Trump ’ s trouble isn ’ t debating , exactly .
It ’ s the same political problem he ’ s had since the spring , when the pandemic turned a modest Biden lead into a large one .
Trump has tried to answer the material suffering of people with culture-war posturing , in a language mostly familiar to conservative political obsessives .
In the decisive second phase of the debate tonight , the one centered on COVID , Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ How many of you got up this morning and had an empty chair at the kitchen table because someone died , to COVID ?
” Biden asked .
“ How many of you are in a situation where you lost your mom or dad , and you couldn ’ t even speak to them—the nurse had to hold the phone up so you could , in fact , say goodbye ?
” One difference between the Trump of 2016 and the current version is that , in his campaign against Hillary Clinton , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ versions of people who ’ d been the victims of immigrant violence or betrayed by élites , but people still ) , and now he talks in the abstract nouns of news chyrons .
Presidents lose touch .
Trump trails in the polls by seven or eight points , and he spent the evening speaking to his base .
The debate went to Biden on points .
But that wasn ’ t the texture of the evening , or the story .
The texture was chaos—the overlapping non-responsiveness , visible even in those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a clear point of contrast , as they did in an exchange over the coronavirus lockdowns .
“ People want their places to be open , ” Trump said .
“ People want to be safe , ” Biden said .
For a moment , the contrast between the two men was correctly set , gemlike , just like that .
Wallace , for the first time all night , might have allowed himself a sense of triumph .
It didn ’ t last a full second .
Trump ’ s voice , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on , “ I ’ m the one that brought back football.
” And then , defiantly , “ It was me , and I ’ m very happy to do it.
” There is a comic version of Trump ’ s four-year term that ends on a note just like that .
But the story of the evening was that the same factors that have Trump behind in the polls—his sequestration in an imagined culture war , during a real pandemic—also raise the likelihood of a tragic , violent version of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ five weeks from now .
The mundane aspects of the campaign keep intersecting with the ominous , surreal ones .
Here ’ s hoping that we can look back on this debate and remember only the ridiculousness .
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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ election , look at what he has provided the executive class .
• What happens if Trump fights the election results ?
• The refusal by Mitch McConnell to rein in Trump is looking riskier than ever .
• Sign up for our election newsletter for insight and analysis from our reporters and columnists .

“Did you see what’s going on?” President Trump asked toward the end of the first Presidential debate, on Tuesday night. The moderator, Fox News’ Chris Wallace, had asked whether Trump would insure a smooth Presidential transition, should he lose. “Take a look at West Virginia. Mailmen selling the ballots,” Trump said. (In fact, a mail carrier from Dry Fork, West Virginia, pleaded guilty in July to altering eight primary-ballot request forms—which some in the conservative media have described as a portent of a stolen election.) “They’re being sold. They’re being dumped in rivers. This is a horrible thing for our country. This is not going to end well.”
In recent weeks, Trump’s reëlection campaign has sometimes slipped between a normal mode, in which he makes explicit appeals for the votes of suburban women and tries to pin left-wing labels on Joe Biden, and an abnormal one, in which he amplifies right-wing talking points and speaks suspiciously about the integrity of the election. Even so, it was new to see the pattern on a Presidential-debate stage. Wallace asked whether the candidates would encourage their supporters to stay calm while the ballots were counted. A simple ask. Biden agreed. Trump focussed instead on his campaign’s effort to get his supporters to monitor elections in big cities and on a Pennsylvania rule that might stand in the way of that effort. He said, “I’m urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully, because that’s what has to happen. I am urging them to do it. As you know, today there was a big problem in Philadelphia; they went in to watch. They are what you call poll watchers—a very nice, very safe thing. They were thrown out; they weren’t allowed to watch. You know why? Because bad things happen in Philadelphia, bad things. I am urging my people—I hope it’s going to be a fair election. If it’s a fair election, I am a hundred per cent on board. But if I see tens of thousands of ballots being manipulated, I can’t go along with that.”
Wallace kept trying to get the President to say that he would play by the normal rules, but each exchange only encouraged Trump to signal that he wouldn’t. A few minutes earlier, Wallace had asked the President about right-wing militia groups. Trump responded, “What do you want me to call them?” “The Proud Boys,” Biden said, from the other lectern, naming a prominent far-right group. Trump said, “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.” Biden flashed a big grin, which covered some of the chill of the moment: Had Trump meant to condemn the right-wing militias or encourage them? The Proud Boys’ chairman, Enrique Tarrio, wrote online, “Standing by sir.”
There was quite an arc to the debate, which was held on a makeshift stage at the Cleveland Clinic. It started as a farce, with Trump so relentlessly interrupting Biden that Wallace struggled to keep the early exchanges coherent. “Will you shut up, man?” Biden asked, exasperated, when Trump kept talking over him. Biden tied himself in knots in the first few minutes, struggling to make the case that the President shouldn’t get to nominate Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court before the election and to clearly explain the benefits of the Affordable Care Act and the threat Trump poses to it. The speculation had been that at least eighty million people might watch the debate—which is a lot of eyes to simultaneously roll. Debates are meant to present contrasts, but at the outset this one delivered only characters: the challenger serious and meandering; the incumbent more concise, funnier, and saying plainly false and ridiculous things.
The fact checkers tallied plenty of Trump lies, about the Obama Administration’s Clean Energy Standard, about the extent of ballot fraud in New Jersey, about proper forest management. Twenty-five minutes in, just after Trump had promised that a coronavirus vaccine will arrive within weeks, Biden asked, “Do you believe for a moment what he’s telling you, in light of all the lies he’s told you about the whole issue relating to COVID?” Biden was looking directly at the camera; Trump was looking sideways, at Biden. Throughout the night, Trump seemed to be focussed on his opponent first and the audience only abstractly. He did not seem to notice that his untrustworthiness was the main theme Biden had been pressing, inelegantly but effectively, to persuade voters away from Trump, in the long summer defined by the pandemic. The President didn’t hear the challenge, only a pause. He rushed to fill it, with an attack he’d signalled in his rallies. “Did you use the word ‘smart’?” Trump asked Biden. The Democrat had, though only in passing, while talking mainly about mass death. “So you said you went to Delaware State, but you forgot the name of your college.” (This was likely inscrutable to most of the audience: Biden, who attended the University of Delaware, has never said that he attended Delaware State, a historically Black college, though this has become a right-wing talking point.) Trump went on, “He graduated, either lowest or almost the lowest in his class. Don’t ever use the word ‘smart’ with me.”
Trump’s trouble isn’t debating, exactly. It’s the same political problem he’s had since the spring, when the pandemic turned a modest Biden lead into a large one. Trump has tried to answer the material suffering of people with culture-war posturing, in a language mostly familiar to conservative political obsessives. In the decisive second phase of the debate Tuesday night, the one centered on COVID-19, Biden kept the focus on people. “How many of you got up this morning and had an empty chair at the kitchen table because someone died, to COVID?” Biden asked. “How many of you are in a situation where you lost your mom or dad, and you couldn’t even speak to them—the nurse had to hold the phone up so you could, in fact, say goodbye?” One difference between the Trump of 2016 and the current version is that, in his campaign against Hillary Clinton, he talked about people (mostly exaggerated versions of people who’d been the victims of immigrant violence or betrayed by élites, but people still), and now he talks in the abstract nouns of news chyrons. Presidents lose touch. Trump trails in the polls by seven or eight points, and he spent the evening speaking to his base. The debate went to Biden on points.
But that wasn’t the texture of the evening, or the story. The texture was chaos—the overlapping non-responsiveness, visible even in those few moments when the candidates arrived at a clear point of contrast, as they did in an exchange over the coronavirus lockdowns.
“People want their places to be open,” Trump said.
“People want to be safe,” Biden said.
For a moment, the contrast between the two men was correctly set, gemlike, just like that. Wallace, for the first time all night, might have allowed himself a sense of triumph. It didn’t last a full second. Trump’s voice, throaty and random as ever, blundered on, “I’m the one that brought back football.” And then, defiantly, “It was me, and I’m very happy to do it.”
There is a comic version of Trump’s four-year term that ends on a note just like that. But the story of the evening was that the same factors that have Trump behind in the polls—his sequestration in an imagined culture war, during a real pandemic—also raise the likelihood of a tragic, violent version of the end to this election season, about five weeks from now. The mundane aspects of the campaign keep intersecting with the ominous, surreal ones. Here’s hoping that we can look back on this debate and remember only the ridiculousness.
Read More About the 2020 Election


newyorker--2020-09-30--The First Presidential Debate Was an Alarm Call for American Democracy

Representative Kevin McCarthy , the House Minority Leader , defended Trump , claiming that the President did , in fact , denounce white-supremacist groups after the debate ’ s moderator , Chris Wallace , of Fox News , gave him the opportunity to do so .
“ How many times does he have to say it ?
” McCarthy said .
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday afternoon , Trump himself pleaded ignorance , even as he adopted different language .
“ I don ’ t know who the Proud Boys are , ” he said .
“ I mean , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a definition , because I really don ’ t know who they are .
I can only say they have to stand down .
Let law enforcement do their work.
” It ’ s a frequent Trump tactic to claim he doesn ’ t know objectionable people or groups that ally themselves with him .
Given the chaos that he unleashed inside the Cleveland Clinic ’ s Samson Pavilion on Tuesday night , with his constant interrupting and hectoring , it was perhaps inevitable that Trump would have some cleanup to do afterward @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , if that is what his comments on Wednesday amounted to , can ’ t disguise the over-all impression he gave at the debate : one of an embattled President who is flirting with authoritarianism and doing all he can to undermine a fair election .
Given everything else he said , and his belligerent manner throughout , the discussion about whether he meant to say “ stand down ” instead of “ stand by ” is almost beside the point .
The message that came out of Cleveland is that Trump has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and that his primary strategy now is to disrupt the election and its aftermath .
To grasp how high the stakes are , it ’ s necessary only to look around .
For weeks now , Trump has been acting like he believes he is going to lose on November 3rd unless he can upend the election , suppress votes for his opponent , and , if necessary , mobilize his supporters to contest the outcome .
He told Sean Hannity—primus inter pares among the President ’ s media acolytes—that he would deploy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ polling stations .
At a recent rally in North Carolina , he told his own supporters that it was their job to “ watch all the thieving and stealing and robbing ” that he said Democrats will do at the polls .
In addition to adopting this sort of incendiary language , Trump has pointedly refused to say that he will accept the election result and accede to a peaceful transfer of power if he should lose .
It may be tempting to dismiss all this as Trumpian bluster .
But take a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump campaign on Facebook a week and a half ago .
Speaking close to the camera , Donald Trump , Jr. , a combative gun enthusiast who serves as an unofficial liaison to the alt-right , declares , “ The radical left are laying the groundwork to steal this election from my father .
.
.
.
They are planting stories that President Trump will have a landslide lead on Election Night but will lose when they finish counting the mail-in ballots .
Their plan is to add millions of fraudulent ballots that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ election .
We can not let that happen .
We need every able-bodied man , woman to join Army for Trump ’ s Election-Security Operation .
.
.
.
President Trump is going to win .
Don ’ t let them steal it.
” If any prominent member of a right-wing populist political group , in any country , talks openly about setting up an election “ army , ” it should set off alarm bells , especially if that group ’ s candidate is struggling in the polls and saying similar things @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s debate , Trump repeated his unfounded claims about widespread voter fraud , suggesting that the Democrats were trying to steal the election .
And , once again , he refused to say that he ’ d accept the election ’ s result and tell his supporters to do the same .
At the end of the debate , Wallace brought up the possibility of a period after November 3rd during which some states will still be counting mail-in ballots and the result won ’ t yet be clear .
He asked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he would urge his supporters “ to stay calm ” and “ not to engage in any civil unrest.
” Rather than responding positively to this request , and saying something reassuring , the President went back to his claims of rampant voter fraud , and said , “ If I see tens of thousands of ballots being manipulated , I can ’ t go along with that.
” Even as some Republican senators professed not to know what Trump was really doing at the debate , members of the Proud Boys @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doubt .
“ Starting Tuesday night and continuing Wednesday , Trump ’ s comments were enshrined in memes , including one depicting Trump in one of the Proud Boys ’ signature polo shirts , ” the Washington Post reported .
“ Another meme showed Trump ’ s quote alongside an image of bearded men carrying American flags and appearing to prepare for a fight .
A third incorporated ‘ STAND BACK AND STAND BY ’ into the group ’ s logo.
” Whether or not the next two Presidential debates occur as planned—and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ serious peril for as long as Trump remains in the White House .
To survive his attacks , and ultimately move beyond him , it will have to assert itself vigorously in the weeks ahead .
Read More About the 2020 Election • 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 2020 election , look at what he has provided the executive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 .

As the reverberations from Tuesday night’s shambolic Presidential debate echoed around Washington on Wednesday, Senator Tim Scott, of South Carolina, the sole Black Republican in the upper house of Congress, called on President Donald Trump to correct his call for the Proud Boys—a far-right group that glorifies violence—to “stand back and stand by.” Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, Scott suggested that Trump had spoken in error. “White supremacy should be denounced at every turn,” Scott said. “I think the President misspoke, and he needs to correct it.”
Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House Minority Leader, defended Trump, claiming that the President did, in fact, denounce white-supremacist groups after the debate’s moderator, Chris Wallace, of Fox News, gave him the opportunity to do so. “How many times does he have to say it?” McCarthy said. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday afternoon, Trump himself pleaded ignorance, even as he adopted different language. “I don’t know who the Proud Boys are,” he said. “I mean, you’ll have to give me a definition, because I really don’t know who they are. I can only say they have to stand down. Let law enforcement do their work.”
It’s a frequent Trump tactic to claim he doesn’t know objectionable people or groups that ally themselves with him. Given the chaos that he unleashed inside the Cleveland Clinic’s Samson Pavilion on Tuesday night, with his constant interrupting and hectoring, it was perhaps inevitable that Trump would have some cleanup to do afterward. But the effort to correct himself, if that is what his comments on Wednesday amounted to, can’t disguise the over-all impression he gave at the debate: one of an embattled President who is flirting with authoritarianism and doing all he can to undermine a fair election. Given everything else he said, and his belligerent manner throughout, the discussion about whether he meant to say “stand down” instead of “stand by” is almost beside the point. The message that came out of Cleveland is that Trump has no intention of surrendering power willingly, and that his primary strategy now is to disrupt the election and its aftermath.
To grasp how high the stakes are, it’s necessary only to look around. For weeks now, Trump has been acting like he believes he is going to lose on November 3rd unless he can upend the election, suppress votes for his opponent, and, if necessary, mobilize his supporters to contest the outcome. He told Sean Hannity—primus inter pares among the President’s media acolytes—that he would deploy sheriffs and other law-enforcement officers to monitor polling stations. At a recent rally in North Carolina, he told his own supporters that it was their job to “watch all the thieving and stealing and robbing” that he said Democrats will do at the polls. In addition to adopting this sort of incendiary language, Trump has pointedly refused to say that he will accept the election result and accede to a peaceful transfer of power if he should lose.
It may be tempting to dismiss all this as Trumpian bluster. But take a look at the video posted by the Trump campaign on Facebook a week and a half ago. Speaking close to the camera, Donald Trump, Jr., a combative gun enthusiast who serves as an unofficial liaison to the alt-right, declares, “The radical left are laying the groundwork to steal this election from my father. . . . They are planting stories that President Trump will have a landslide lead on Election Night but will lose when they finish counting the mail-in ballots. Their plan is to add millions of fraudulent ballots that can cancel your vote and overturn the election. We cannot let that happen. We need every able-bodied man, woman to join Army for Trump’s Election-Security Operation. . . . President Trump is going to win. Don’t let them steal it.”
If any prominent member of a right-wing populist political group, in any country, talks openly about setting up an election “army,” it should set off alarm bells, especially if that group’s candidate is struggling in the polls and saying similar things himself. At numerous points during Tuesday’s debate, Trump repeated his unfounded claims about widespread voter fraud, suggesting that the Democrats were trying to steal the election. And, once again, he refused to say that he’d accept the election’s result and tell his supporters to do the same. At the end of the debate, Wallace brought up the possibility of a period after November 3rd during which some states will still be counting mail-in ballots and the result won’t yet be clear. He asked Trump if, in such a period, he would urge his supporters “to stay calm” and “not to engage in any civil unrest.” Rather than responding positively to this request, and saying something reassuring, the President went back to his claims of rampant voter fraud, and said, “If I see tens of thousands of ballots being manipulated, I can’t go along with that.”
Even as some Republican senators professed not to know what Trump was really doing at the debate, members of the Proud Boys and other alt-right groups were in no doubt. “Starting Tuesday night and continuing Wednesday, Trump’s comments were enshrined in memes, including one depicting Trump in one of the Proud Boys’ signature polo shirts,” the Washington Post reported. “Another meme showed Trump’s quote alongside an image of bearded men carrying American flags and appearing to prepare for a fight. A third incorporated ‘STAND BACK AND STAND BY’ into the group’s logo.”
Whether or not the next two Presidential debates occur as planned—and they probably will—American democracy will be in serious peril for as long as Trump remains in the White House. To survive his attacks, and ultimately move beyond him, it will have to assert itself vigorously in the weeks ahead.
Read More About the 2020 Election


newyorker--2020-09-30--New York City’s Kids, Back at School

New York City’s Kids, Back at School

Camila Azcurrain-Joffee , eight , and Yuko Legarreta , nine , both in fourth grade .
The Earth School .
What did you do today ?
C .
A-J .
: I took a small tour , but it was really only to the bathroom .
This is my first year at this school .
Y. L. : I ’ ve been here since kindergarten .
Before , when I was in third grade , I ’ d go to a classroom for open work and I kind of just chilled there with my friends , and it was , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and there were , like , four people sitting together at one table—some of the tables had five people .
It ’ s not like that anymore .
Do you think you ’ ll get used to the changes ?
C .
A-J .
: It ’ s just really different , after five years of going close to each other , playing close to each other , roughhousing .
For free time , you ’ ve got to stay at your seat ; you can ’ t go anywhere else .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ your seats , too—there ’ s benches , and they have “ X ” s on them , and that ’ s where you sit .

On Tuesday, after seven months of closure due to the coronavirus pandemic, and two reopening delays, New York City’s public elementary schools welcomed students back inside their buildings. It wasn’t technically the first day of school—the beginning of the academic year took place remotely—and in many ways it didn’t feel like one. The streets of the East Village, a neighborhood with one of the highest densities of primary schools in the city, would in any other year be a snarl of yellow buses, and sidewalks and schoolyards would reverberate with operatic shouts and shrieks of greeting. This time, by comparison, the activity was sparse and subdued. Parents and caretakers, queuing for drop-off (their times staggered, at most schools, to avoid crowding), stood atop social-distancing markers—yellow lines painted on the pavement outside of one school building, yellow stars at another, blue “X”s of electrical tape on the sidewalk at a third. Kids, masked, greeted their teachers with pantomimed high-fives. Some rushed jubilantly toward their classmates, while others solemnly maintained a perimeter of personal space.
The return of five-to-eleven-year-olds marked the second stage of a phased reopening—pre-K and some special-needs students returned to schools last week; middle- and high-school students will go back on Thursday—though to call it a “full” reopening, as Mayor Bill de Blasio has in recent weeks, is something of a misnomer. Nearly half of all New York City public-school students have opted to continue full-time remote learning, and those who are back in the classroom have been divided into alternating cohorts, who split their time between in-person education and remote learning at home. If that sounds confusing, well—yes. On Tuesday morning, at eight o’clock, parents outside Manhattan’s East Village Community School clustered around a notice board pinned with a series of intricately color-coded spreadsheets listing which students were due where and on which days. The kids seemed less burdened. They were, for the most part, just happy to be there.


newyorker--2020-09-30--Doris Burke on Life Inside the N.B.A. Bubble

This season was interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic , which forced the league to relocate twenty-two teams to an isolated campus at Disney World , near Orlando ; it was nearly cancelled again after the shooting of Jacob Blake , in Wisconsin , led to the Milwaukee Bucks going on strike .
After two days , the players ( most of whom are Black ) , the team owners ( most of whom are white ) , and the league came to an agreement .
The result was a new commitment to social-justice causes , and a promise to use @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I recently spoke by phone with Burke , who was preparing for the Finals from inside the bubble .
During our conversation , which has been edited for length and clarity , we discussed the challenges of calling games in a new environment , the politics of the N.B.A.
, and the ways her profession has changed during the last thirty years .
Where are you , and what have your last six weeks or so been like ?
I am in what is referred to as the yellow bubble , which is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not in direct contact with the players and the coaches .
Our broadcast positions are maybe seventy-five to one hundred feet away from the court , and we ’ re elevated slightly to get a better view .
Any interaction we have with the coaches is via Zoom calls on game days .
Very atypical interactions with players and coaches , but certainly it ’ s working just fine .
We ’ re all joking here that every day is Wednesday .
What do you mean by that ?
You wake up in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people , eat the same food , and continue on a very particular schedule , depending on how you ’ re trying to pass your non-working hours in the bubble .
But , to be honest with you , Isaac , the working conditions really are as good as they possibly can be .
We are staying in a lovely hotel .
The staff here has been incredibly welcoming and gracious .
I don ’ t want to complain , mostly because I am very mindful of the fact that there have been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one challenge is that it ’ s difficult to be away from your family for such an extended period of time and not be in the comfort of your own home , eating the foods you eat and doing all the normal daily things that give you comfort in your home .
You know where it really strikes me , and , forgive me , I ’ m so accustomed to asking the questions , not answering them , so if I ramble just take out whatever you don ’ t need .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ do work , so keep going .
It was interesting for me to be on Zoom calls with coaches and have a [ Denver Nuggets coach ] Michael Malone or a [ Boston Celtics coach ] Brad Stevens say , “ This is day seventy-five , ” and to feel the weight of what they were saying .
Both of those coaches have young children , relatively young compared to mine , who are twenty-eight and twenty-six .
When we had Denver ’ s last game , Michael Malone had just missed his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s fourteenth birthday .
Those are the challenges of the bubble .
How many days have you been there ?
I arrived July 23rd .
But keep in mind that after two weeks , during the initial stage of this , they started to rotate [ the announcers ] Jeff [ Van Gundy ] , Mark [ Jackson ] , Mike [ Breen ] , and Mark Jones and I out just for a few days ’ break at a time .
I had one after two weeks .
I then had to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The reason for that was my daughter was getting married on September 13th .
It ’ s not that they don ’ t want to subject people to weeks with Van Gundy ?
How does it make your job easier or harder , if it does ?
They brought us down here a few days early so that we could get familiar with the campus and we could go over and see the positions where we would be broadcasting .
We were spaced six feet apart .
There was also an inch-thick @ @ @ @ @ @ @ including directly in front of your view to the court .
The hardest part is there ’ s a point at which that plexiglass meets , and so if you ’ re looking toward the right or the left it ’ s not easy to see through the plexiglass .
One of the things I said I was going to do as an analyst was take a beat .
I have to take a beat longer to be certain that I ’ m getting the right player in particular .
There was a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Smith as Kentavious Caldwell-Pope , I believe .
Now , this was weeks ago , so I could be wrong about who I misidentified .
But I thought , O.K.
, even slower .
You need to go even slower now .
There is something powerful about sitting courtside and watching closely the interactions of players with their teammates , with their opponents , with their coaching staff .
To watch their body language and their facial expressions when adversity is hitting , when the tension is high , when the pressure is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ being courtside .
To me , it gives you a better chance to try to relay that to the viewer .
I take enormous energy from the players on the court .
We are watching the best in the world do their thing .
Did you have to call two games in a day at all in the bubble ?
Yes .
Yeah , there were two or three occasions .
I don ’ t remember now .
Forgive me .
These weeks have all run together .
Had you ever done that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quite often , frankly .
We always would call games in a day for all three weekends of the N.C.A.A .
tournament .
On the men ’ s bracket , they would call four .
In fact , there was a year where I called four games in a day for ESPN : two in the afternoon , two in the evening .
When the protests started happening after the shooting of Jacob Blake , and it seemed like the season , or the playoffs , might stop , where were you and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sitting in my room prepping for our game the next day .
The Milwaukee players were not taking the court .
What I remember thinking at that moment was , This is historic .
I was riveted .
I was riveted to the coverage .
I flipped over to CNN , which I am always doing , to be honest with you , as I work .
Even if there ’ s ESPN on , NBA TV , TNT , I ’ m always flipping back to see the news .
I just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be powerful , because it was clear from the outset of this campus that these men so deeply wanted to have some kind of impact for their community .
Yeah , I just , I respect the hell out of what they ’ ve tried to do here .
What I think is lost , Isaac , to be honest with you , is the work that these young men did in their communities before George Floyd was killed .
This wasn ’ t the first time they had been dealing with these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me .
It only elevated what I thought of these young men and their commitment to make change .
If you ’ re paying attention to the interviews they ’ re doing , what comes across to me is the pain that they feel .
I watched that [ former Los Angeles Clippers coach ] Doc Rivers interview and I cried .
I cried .
Here ’ s a man whose father was a police officer , who I know loves the United States , who I think feels quite fortunate to have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he ’ s had , who wants to believe in our United States of America , who wants deeply to believe in it .
To feel Doc ’ s pain and to know the kind of man that he is , I cried .
When you got into sports announcing , did you see your role as being anything outside of calling games , and do you see that role any differently now ?
I think the start is important for me because this was not a career I aspired to .
Beth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Beth and I have often discussed her knowing from a very early age that this is what she had hoped to do .
She watched Phyllis George as a young girl and that put in her head , Oh , this is possible for me .
To be honest with you , Isaac , I was incredibly shy outside of the four lines of the basketball court .
Didn ’ t have a ton of confidence .
There ’ s not a shot in hell I ever thought I ’ d be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ college , I had bad hair , bad clothes , bad teeth , and bad skin .
That was not a great combination for being a sports announcer .
There also weren ’ t many women who were doing—

When the series between the Los Angeles Lakers and Miami Heat starts on Wednesday night in the N.B.A. “bubble,” Doris Burke—a television analyst and sideline reporter for ESPN—will be calling the game on radio, the first woman to ever do so for the N.B.A. Finals. Burke, who played basketball at Providence College more than three decades ago, has been in sports journalism since the nineteen-nineties, calling both men’s and women’s games on radio and television. She became a full-time N.B.A. analyst three seasons ago, and quickly gained a devoted following. In a piece for The New Yorker published during last year’s N.B.A. playoffs, David Remnick wrote, “The good news is that the best broadcaster in the game is Doris Burke. This has been the case now for years. There is no one remotely close.”
This season was interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, which forced the league to relocate twenty-two teams to an isolated campus at Disney World, near Orlando; it was nearly cancelled again after the shooting of Jacob Blake, in Wisconsin, led to the Milwaukee Bucks going on strike. After two days, the players (most of whom are Black), the team owners (most of whom are white), and the league came to an agreement. The result was a new commitment to social-justice causes, and a promise to use arenas as voting sites this November.
I recently spoke by phone with Burke, who was preparing for the Finals from inside the bubble. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed the challenges of calling games in a new environment, the politics of the N.B.A., and the ways her profession has changed during the last thirty years.
Where are you, and what have your last six weeks or so been like?
I am in what is referred to as the yellow bubble, which is the bubble where reporters and broadcasters are not in direct contact with the players and the coaches. Our broadcast positions are maybe seventy-five to one hundred feet away from the court, and we’re elevated slightly to get a better view. Any interaction we have with the coaches is via Zoom calls on game days. Very atypical interactions with players and coaches, but certainly it’s working just fine. We’re all joking here that every day is Wednesday.
What do you mean by that?
You wake up in the same hotel and see the same people, eat the same food, and continue on a very particular schedule, depending on how you’re trying to pass your non-working hours in the bubble. But, to be honest with you, Isaac, the working conditions really are as good as they possibly can be. We are staying in a lovely hotel. The staff here has been incredibly welcoming and gracious. I don’t want to complain, mostly because I am very mindful of the fact that there have been economic realities to this pandemic. The one challenge is that it’s difficult to be away from your family for such an extended period of time and not be in the comfort of your own home, eating the foods you eat and doing all the normal daily things that give you comfort in your home. You know where it really strikes me, and, forgive me, I’m so accustomed to asking the questions, not answering them, so if I ramble just take out whatever you don’t need.
No, I like not having to do work, so keep going.
It was interesting for me to be on Zoom calls with coaches and have a [Denver Nuggets coach] Michael Malone or a [Boston Celtics coach] Brad Stevens say, “This is day seventy-five,” and to feel the weight of what they were saying. Both of those coaches have young children, relatively young compared to mine, who are twenty-eight and twenty-six. When we had Denver’s last game, Michael Malone had just missed his twenty-second wedding anniversary and his daughter’s fourteenth birthday. Those are the challenges of the bubble.
How many days have you been there?
I arrived July 23rd. But keep in mind that after two weeks, during the initial stage of this, they started to rotate [the announcers] Jeff [Van Gundy], Mark [Jackson], Mike [Breen], and Mark Jones and I out just for a few days’ break at a time. I had one after two weeks. I then had to come back and do a month straight. The reason for that was my daughter was getting married on September 13th.
It’s not that they don’t want to subject people to weeks with Van Gundy?
[Laughs]
How does it make your job easier or harder, if it does?
They brought us down here a few days early so that we could get familiar with the campus and we could go over and see the positions where we would be broadcasting. We were spaced six feet apart. There was also an inch-thick plexiglass on three sides of you, including directly in front of your view to the court. The hardest part is there’s a point at which that plexiglass meets, and so if you’re looking toward the right or the left it’s not easy to see through the plexiglass. One of the things I said I was going to do as an analyst was take a beat. I have to take a beat longer to be certain that I’m getting the right player in particular. There was a seeding game where I misidentified J. R. Smith as Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, I believe. Now, this was weeks ago, so I could be wrong about who I misidentified. But I thought, O.K., even slower. You need to go even slower now.
There is something powerful about sitting courtside and watching closely the interactions of players with their teammates, with their opponents, with their coaching staff. To watch their body language and their facial expressions when adversity is hitting, when the tension is high, when the pressure is most palpable—there is something so powerful about being courtside. To me, it gives you a better chance to try to relay that to the viewer. I take enormous energy from the players on the court. We are watching the best in the world do their thing.
Did you have to call two games in a day at all in the bubble?
Yes. Yeah, there were two or three occasions. I don’t remember now. Forgive me. These weeks have all run together.
Had you ever done that before?
Well, I did it quite often, frankly. We always would call games in a day for all three weekends of the N.C.A.A. tournament. On the men’s bracket, they would call four. In fact, there was a year where I called four games in a day for ESPN: two in the afternoon, two in the evening.
When the protests started happening after the shooting of Jacob Blake, and it seemed like the season, or the playoffs, might stop, where were you and what were you thinking?
I was sitting in my room prepping for our game the next day. The Milwaukee players were not taking the court. What I remember thinking at that moment was, This is historic. I was riveted. I was riveted to the coverage. I flipped over to CNN, which I am always doing, to be honest with you, as I work. Even if there’s ESPN on, NBA TV, TNT, I’m always flipping back to see the news. I just remember thinking, This is going to be powerful, because it was clear from the outset of this campus that these men so deeply wanted to have some kind of impact for their community. Yeah, I just, I respect the hell out of what they’ve tried to do here.
What I think is lost, Isaac, to be honest with you, is the work that these young men did in their communities before George Floyd was killed. This wasn’t the first time they had been dealing with these things. It didn’t surprise me. It only elevated what I thought of these young men and their commitment to make change. If you’re paying attention to the interviews they’re doing, what comes across to me is the pain that they feel. I watched that [former Los Angeles Clippers coach] Doc Rivers interview and I cried. I cried. Here’s a man whose father was a police officer, who I know loves the United States, who I think feels quite fortunate to have had the career playing and coaching that he’s had, who wants to believe in our United States of America, who wants deeply to believe in it. To feel Doc’s pain and to know the kind of man that he is, I cried.


newyorker--2020-09-30--Biden to Do Remaining Debates by Mail

Biden to Do Remaining Debates by Mail

PITTSBURGH ( The Borowitz Report ) —One day after the most chaotic Presidential debate in U.S. history , Joe Biden @ @ @ @ @ in the remaining two debates by mail .
Campaigning in Pittsburgh , Biden said that @ @ @ @ @ answer a series of debate questions and mail his responses to the appropriate venues .
@ @ @ @ @ my answers aloud and then Trump can howl like a damn hyena , for all @ @ @ @ @ said .
“ The idea that I would spend another ninety minutes of my life @ @ @ @ @ mon , man .
Life is too short for this horseshit.
” At the White @ @ @ @ @ vehemently opposed Biden ’ s proposal , claiming that debating by mail was “ totally @ @ @ @ @ fraud .
“ If Joe sends in his answers by mail , what ’ s @ @ @ @ @ opening the envelope and writing in better answers ?
” Trump said .
“ This @ @ @ @ @ of times .
”

PITTSBURGH (The Borowitz Report)—One day after the most chaotic Presidential debate in U.S. history, Joe Biden said that he would participate in the remaining two debates by mail.
Campaigning in Pittsburgh, Biden said that he would be happy to answer a series of debate questions and mail his responses to the appropriate venues.
“The moderator can read my answers aloud and then Trump can howl like a damn hyena, for all I care,” Biden said. “The idea that I would spend another ninety minutes of my life listening to that clown—c’mon, man. Life is too short for this horseshit.”
At the White House, Donald J. Trump vehemently opposed Biden’s proposal, claiming that debating by mail was “totally rigged” and rife with fraud.
“If Joe sends in his answers by mail, what’s to keep a mailman from opening the envelope and writing in better answers?” Trump said. “This exact thing has happened millions of times.”


newyorker--2020-09-30--The Children’s Hour: Watching the First Presidential Debate of 2020

I am one hundred years old and first voted in the Presidential election of 1944 , while stationed with the Army Air Forces in the Central Pacific .
I did this by mail , of course , and recall that this privilege was heavily shared by my fellow-G.I.s .
Since then , I have written more than once about the singular pleasures and trappings of voting , but today a particular part of this has come strongly to mind .
I am thinking of the evening of Monday , September 26 , 1960 , when my wife and I allowed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to stay up late and watch the debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon .
She listened raptly , of course , and her mother and I tried to imagine her feelings as she sensed that she was now a participant in something complex , historic , and profoundly American .
I can ’ t remember any conversation from that occasion but almost feel our silent collective emotions of the moment .
This was a political event , to be sure , but the fact of the debate itself , and not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us .
This , by the way , was the very first televised debate between two Presidential candidates .
I voted Democratic , but what I know for certain is that this significant familial sharing was happening all across the country in countless thousands of Republican , as well as Democratic , households , and with the same sense of common pride and excitement .
This family event , quadrennially renewed down the decades , has mattered to millions .
We are larger today , by a hundred and fifty million , than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ live in a different world , but I believe that something like the scene I ’ ve described was happening in hundreds of thousands or millions of households on Tuesday night , where it was grotesquely shattered by the actions of President Donald Trump .
( Someone ’ s grandchild , my wife learned from a friend on Facebook , left the room in tears . )
None of us can be sure now that the precious rite and process will ever be restored .
Read More About the 2020 Election • The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ • When a sitting President threatens to delay a sacrosanct American ritual like an election , you should listen .
• To understand the path Donald Trump has taken to the 2020 election , look at what he has provided the executive class .
• What happens if Trump fights the election results ?
• The refusal by Mitch McConnell to rein in Trump is looking riskier than ever .
• Sign up for our election newsletter for insight and analysis from our reporters and columnists .

I am one hundred years old and first voted in the Presidential election of 1944, while stationed with the Army Air Forces in the Central Pacific. I did this by mail, of course, and recall that this privilege was heavily shared by my fellow-G.I.s. Since then, I have written more than once about the singular pleasures and trappings of voting, but today a particular part of this has come strongly to mind.
I am thinking of the evening of Monday, September 26, 1960, when my wife and I allowed our almost-twelve-year-old older daughter, Callie, to stay up late and watch the debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. She listened raptly, of course, and her mother and I tried to imagine her feelings as she sensed that she was now a participant in something complex, historic, and profoundly American. I can’t remember any conversation from that occasion but almost feel our silent collective emotions of the moment. This was a political event, to be sure, but the fact of the debate itself, and not its content, was what most engaged us. This, by the way, was the very first televised debate between two Presidential candidates.
I voted Democratic, but what I know for certain is that this significant familial sharing was happening all across the country in countless thousands of Republican, as well as Democratic, households, and with the same sense of common pride and excitement. This family event, quadrennially renewed down the decades, has mattered to millions.
We are larger today, by a hundred and fifty million, than we were in 1960, and we live in a different world, but I believe that something like the scene I’ve described was happening in hundreds of thousands or millions of households on Tuesday night, where it was grotesquely shattered by the actions of President Donald Trump. (Someone’s grandchild, my wife learned from a friend on Facebook, left the room in tears.) None of us can be sure now that the precious rite and process will ever be restored.
Read More About the 2020 Election