newyorker--2020-07-23--J.F.K.’s “Profiles in Courage” Has a Racism Problem. What Should We Do About It?

Every so often I hear from the descendants of Adelbert Ames , a Union general during the Civil War and then the governor of Mississippi during Reconstruction , objecting to a paragraph about him in John F. Kennedy ’ s book “ Profiles in Courage , ” from 1956 .
“ No state suffered more from carpetbag rule than Mississippi , ” Kennedy wrote , about Ames ’ s governorship .
Corruption was rampant .
Taxes rose by a factor of fourteen .
“ Vast areas of northern Mississippi lay in ruins.
” None of this is true , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kennedy family to change the offending paragraph pretty much continuously for more than sixty years—including an in-person discussion with J.F.K.
, in 1963 , conducted in the White House by Ames ’ s great-grandson George Plimpton , the writer and editor of The Paris Review .
Nothing has worked .
But maybe now , at this moment of a great national reconsideration of our history and our monuments , especially on racial grounds , it might be different ?
I ’ m getting these entreaties , most recently a couple of weeks ago @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the bloody overthrow of Reconstruction by white terrorists in Mississippi in 1875 .
Ames is a leading character , presented far more positively than he is in “ Profiles in Courage.
” Since what happened during the Reconstruction period has never been very firmly fixed in American memory , some explanation is probably required .
What was Ames doing in “ Profiles in Courage ” in the first place , and why was he—a white politician elected by an overwhelmingly Black constituency—offered up by Kennedy as a villain ?
“ Profiles in Courage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years old .
He was the junior senator from Massachusetts , in the early stages of planning his campaign for President in 1960 .
The main body of the book is eight profiles of United States senators whom Kennedy considered to have been extraordinarily courageous , starting chronologically with John Quincy Adams , in the early nineteenth century , and ending with Robert A. Taft , in the mid-twentieth century .
It ’ s irresistible to think about the book in the light of Kennedy ’ s political ambitions .
Thanks to his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ officer in the South Pacific during the Second World War , courage was already identified as one of Kennedy ’ s salient qualities , and the framing device for the book underscored that .
The courageous subjects were distributed pragmatically , considering that Kennedy was a regional politician preparing to go national .
Two were from the Northeast , two from the South , and four from the Midwest .
Three were Republicans .
They stood for a broad range of political causes .
For many years , “ Profiles in Courage ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it isn ’ t clear that Kennedy wrote it himself , even though he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for biography for it , in 1957 , and the book continues to be an important part of his reputation .
( For the past thirty years , the Kennedy family has conferred an annual John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award on a prominent politician or group . )
At least among historians , the consensus is that his aide Theodore Sorensen was the principal author , acting at Kennedy ’ s direction @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , is that there hasn ’ t been more controversy , aside from the Ames family ’ s crusade against that one paragraph , about the content of “ Profiles in Courage.
” It must be one of those books that everybody has heard of but not many people have read lately .
Three of Kennedy ’ s eight Senate heroes were slaveholders .
None won inclusion in the pantheon for having taken what we ’ d now think of as a lonely liberal stand .
Taft ’ s courageous act was opposing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Nazi high command , because they had not broken any German law ; he preferred that they be put in a Napoleon-like exile in some remote place .
“ These conclusions are shared , I believe , by a substantial number of American citizens today , ” Kennedy asserted .
Daniel Webster ’ s was breaking with anti-slavery opinion in his home state of Massachusetts to support the Compromise of 1850 , which included the Fugitive Slave Act , making it a federal crime for Northerners to give shelter to escaped slaves @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ the preservation of the Union was far dearer to his heart than his opposition to slavery.
” John C. Calhoun , the most influential pro-slavery politician of the nineteenth century , didn ’ t get a full-dress profile , but Kennedy included him in a chapter devoted to senators who almost made the cut , and mentioned him throughout the book , always with the greatest respect , as , for example , “ that revered sage of the South.
” Not long after “ Profiles in Courage ” was published @ @ @ @ @ @ @ choosing five outstanding senators in American history .
Calhoun , Taft , and Webster were all on the list .
One can guess from this sentence where the Kennedy of that moment would have stood on the question of the South ’ s continuing to honor the Confederate flag : “ Surely in the United States of America , where brother once fought against brother , we did not judge a man ’ s bravery under fire by examining the banner under which he fought.
” Courage is a quality that can be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ defined courage in a U.S. senator as a willingness to take a stand that is unpopular with one ’ s constituents and the leadership of one ’ s party , in service of a larger , higher cause .
But what cause ?
For Kennedy in the mid-nineteen-fifties , it wasn ’ t anything in the range of what we ’ d now regard as social justice , especially racial justice .
Something else was at the top of the list of moral absolutes for him : maximizing the national power , wealth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In the early nineteenth century , it was crucial to expand the territory under American control .
Then it became necessary to postpone the Civil War , through compromises like the one Webster supported , until the North became populous and economically powerful enough to defeat the South .
After 1865 , reconciliation between the former Confederacy and the Union was essential .
At the moment when Kennedy was writing , the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union , he claimed , “ only the very courageous will be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decisions necessary for our survival in the struggle with a powerful enemy.
” Kennedy consistently dismissed political reformers who , by his lights , failed to understand the primacy of the national interest .
Abolitionists were an example .
“ Compromise need not mean cowardice , ” Kennedy declared , as long as it served what he—wholly in accord with the liberal-centrist conventional wisdom of the time—considered to be a higher purpose .
That was why he chose so many compromisers on racial justice as his exemplars of courage .
The paragraph at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s quarrel with “ Profiles in Courage ” is in the profile of Senator Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar , the most prominent Mississippi politician of the late nineteenth century .
Lamar , an especially militant secessionist and defender of slavery , won inclusion because of a counterintuitively warm eulogy he gave on the Senate floor , in 1874 , for Charles Sumner , the radical Republican senator from Massachusetts , who had been a leading abolitionist and had been subjected to a brutal beating in the chamber , in 1856 , by a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his subjects with a general-purpose magnificence—Lamar more than most .
He wrote , “ No petty issues , no political trivia , not even private affairs , were permitted to clutter up his intellect .
No partisan , personal , or sectional considerations could outweigh his devotion to the national interest and to the truth.
” Lamar decided to give his eulogy for Sumner , even though it would be unpopular back home , because “ he came to believe that the future happiness of the country could only lie in a spirit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people of all sections and all states.
” During Lamar ’ s speech itself , “ his full , rich voice touched the hearts of every listener with its simple plea for amity and justice between North and South .
”

Every so often I hear from the descendants of Adelbert Ames, a Union general during the Civil War and then the governor of Mississippi during Reconstruction, objecting to a paragraph about him in John F. Kennedy’s book “Profiles in Courage,” from 1956. “No state suffered more from carpetbag rule than Mississippi,” Kennedy wrote, about Ames’s governorship. Corruption was rampant. Taxes rose by a factor of fourteen. “Vast areas of northern Mississippi lay in ruins.” None of this is true, and the Ames family has been lobbying the Kennedy family to change the offending paragraph pretty much continuously for more than sixty years—including an in-person discussion with J.F.K., in 1963, conducted in the White House by Ames’s great-grandson George Plimpton, the writer and editor of The Paris Review. Nothing has worked. But maybe now, at this moment of a great national reconsideration of our history and our monuments, especially on racial grounds, it might be different?
I’m getting these entreaties, most recently a couple of weeks ago, because I wrote a book about the bloody overthrow of Reconstruction by white terrorists in Mississippi in 1875. Ames is a leading character, presented far more positively than he is in “Profiles in Courage.” Since what happened during the Reconstruction period has never been very firmly fixed in American memory, some explanation is probably required. What was Ames doing in “Profiles in Courage” in the first place, and why was he—a white politician elected by an overwhelmingly Black constituency—offered up by Kennedy as a villain?
“Profiles in Courage” was published when Kennedy was thirty-eight years old. He was the junior senator from Massachusetts, in the early stages of planning his campaign for President in 1960. The main body of the book is eight profiles of United States senators whom Kennedy considered to have been extraordinarily courageous, starting chronologically with John Quincy Adams, in the early nineteenth century, and ending with Robert A. Taft, in the mid-twentieth century. It’s irresistible to think about the book in the light of Kennedy’s political ambitions. Thanks to his heroic and well-publicized exploits as a Navy officer in the South Pacific during the Second World War, courage was already identified as one of Kennedy’s salient qualities, and the framing device for the book underscored that. The courageous subjects were distributed pragmatically, considering that Kennedy was a regional politician preparing to go national. Two were from the Northeast, two from the South, and four from the Midwest. Three were Republicans. They stood for a broad range of political causes.
For many years, “Profiles in Courage” has been controversial for one reason: it isn’t clear that Kennedy wrote it himself, even though he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for biography for it, in 1957, and the book continues to be an important part of his reputation. (For the past thirty years, the Kennedy family has conferred an annual John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award on a prominent politician or group.) At least among historians, the consensus is that his aide Theodore Sorensen was the principal author, acting at Kennedy’s direction. What’s amazing, though, is that there hasn’t been more controversy, aside from the Ames family’s crusade against that one paragraph, about the content of “Profiles in Courage.” It must be one of those books that everybody has heard of but not many people have read lately.
Three of Kennedy’s eight Senate heroes were slaveholders. None won inclusion in the pantheon for having taken what we’d now think of as a lonely liberal stand. Taft’s courageous act was opposing the Nuremberg trials for the members of the Nazi high command, because they had not broken any German law; he preferred that they be put in a Napoleon-like exile in some remote place. “These conclusions are shared, I believe, by a substantial number of American citizens today,” Kennedy asserted. Daniel Webster’s was breaking with anti-slavery opinion in his home state of Massachusetts to support the Compromise of 1850, which included the Fugitive Slave Act, making it a federal crime for Northerners to give shelter to escaped slaves. For Webster, Kennedy noted admiringly, “the preservation of the Union was far dearer to his heart than his opposition to slavery.” John C. Calhoun, the most influential pro-slavery politician of the nineteenth century, didn’t get a full-dress profile, but Kennedy included him in a chapter devoted to senators who almost made the cut, and mentioned him throughout the book, always with the greatest respect, as, for example, “that revered sage of the South.” Not long after “Profiles in Courage” was published, Kennedy chaired a committee charged with choosing five outstanding senators in American history. Calhoun, Taft, and Webster were all on the list. One can guess from this sentence where the Kennedy of that moment would have stood on the question of the South’s continuing to honor the Confederate flag: “Surely in the United States of America, where brother once fought against brother, we did not judge a man’s bravery under fire by examining the banner under which he fought.”
Courage is a quality that can be deployed toward many different ends. Kennedy defined courage in a U.S. senator as a willingness to take a stand that is unpopular with one’s constituents and the leadership of one’s party, in service of a larger, higher cause. But what cause? For Kennedy in the mid-nineteen-fifties, it wasn’t anything in the range of what we’d now regard as social justice, especially racial justice. Something else was at the top of the list of moral absolutes for him: maximizing the national power, wealth, and influence of the United States. In the early nineteenth century, it was crucial to expand the territory under American control. Then it became necessary to postpone the Civil War, through compromises like the one Webster supported, until the North became populous and economically powerful enough to defeat the South. After 1865, reconciliation between the former Confederacy and the Union was essential. At the moment when Kennedy was writing, the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, he claimed, “only the very courageous will be able to take the hard and unpopular decisions necessary for our survival in the struggle with a powerful enemy.” Kennedy consistently dismissed political reformers who, by his lights, failed to understand the primacy of the national interest. Abolitionists were an example. “Compromise need not mean cowardice,” Kennedy declared, as long as it served what he—wholly in accord with the liberal-centrist conventional wisdom of the time—considered to be a higher purpose. That was why he chose so many compromisers on racial justice as his exemplars of courage.
The paragraph at the heart of the Ames family’s quarrel with “Profiles in Courage” is in the profile of Senator Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, the most prominent Mississippi politician of the late nineteenth century. Lamar, an especially militant secessionist and defender of slavery, won inclusion because of a counterintuitively warm eulogy he gave on the Senate floor, in 1874, for Charles Sumner, the radical Republican senator from Massachusetts, who had been a leading abolitionist and had been subjected to a brutal beating in the chamber, in 1856, by a South Carolina congressman. Kennedy endowed all his subjects with a general-purpose magnificence—Lamar more than most. He wrote, “No petty issues, no political trivia, not even private affairs, were permitted to clutter up his intellect. No partisan, personal, or sectional considerations could outweigh his devotion to the national interest and to the truth.” Lamar decided to give his eulogy for Sumner, even though it would be unpopular back home, because “he came to believe that the future happiness of the country could only lie in a spirit of mutual conciliation and cooperation between the people of all sections and all states.” During Lamar’s speech itself, “his full, rich voice touched the hearts of every listener with its simple plea for amity and justice between North and South.”
There is another way to look at Lamar’s motivations. The post-Civil War Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution gave civil rights and voting rights to millions of formerly enslaved Black people in the former Confederacy. The white South considered full citizenship for African-Americans to be absolutely unacceptable—especially voting rights, especially in Black-majority states like Mississippi, which quickly elected a combination of Black officeholders and whites, like Ames, who appealed to Black voters’ interests. As Lamar put it in a letter to a friend, written a few months before his eulogy for Sumner, “Where is the constituency to which these men will be responsible? Negroes! . . . If there ever was a time when the white people of this state, the men in whose veins flows the blood of the ruling races of the world, should rise & with one unanimous voice protest against the domination about to piled upon them the present is that time.” Whites all over the South organized terrorist militias to prevent Black people from voting; if you’ve ever seen “Birth of a Nation,” you’ll recall that the climactic scene of Ku Klux Klan triumph is set at a polling place. The only protection against the militias was to station federal troops in the South to guarantee fair elections.


newyorker--2020-07-24--Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Delivers a Lesson in Decency on the House Floor

One could be forgiven for thinking that rhetorical dynamism long ago vanished from the hallways and chambers of the United States Congress .
It has been a hundred and sixty-four years , for example , since Charles Sumner , the anti-slavery Republican from Massachusetts , rose in the humid air of the Old Senate Chamber to unleash a five-hour , fully memorized onslaught against the idea of Kansas joining the Union as a slave state .
Along the way , Sumner paused to lash two of his Senate colleagues , calling Stephen Douglas , of Illinois , a “ noisome @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” and accusing Andrew Butler , of South Carolina , of taking up with a “ polluted ” mistress— “ I mean the harlot , Slavery.
” You can still hear such acidic flourishes in other legislatures around the globe , but the language of the U.S. Congress is rarely so vivid .
Generally , it is as flavorless as day-old gum .
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , a first-term Democrat from New York , provided a rare exception Thursday afternoon as she stepped to the microphone in the House chamber to make a hash @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tea Party member , and veteran Republican from Florida .
The story began earlier this week , when Yoho reportedly approached Ocasio-Cortez on the Capitol steps to inform her that she was , among other things , “ disgusting ” and “ out of your freaking mind.
” His analysis was directed at her ( hardly novel ) public statements that poverty and unemployment are root causes of the recent spike in crime rates in New York .
On matters of criminal-justice reform , Yoho is of a decidedly conservative bent .
Not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lynching a federal hate crime , saying that such a law would be a regrettable instance of federal “ overreach.
” According to a reporter for The Hill , Yoho did not cease in his expressive disdain for Ocasio-Cortez even as she walked away .
Once he believed her to be out of hearing range , Yoho reportedly described his colleague as a “ fucking bitch.
” On Wednesday , once the news of the encounter had circulated , Yoho delivered a statement that could best be described as the sort of non-apology @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sorry if you understood me to be saying .
.
.
.
” Yoho began by explaining that he wanted “ to apologize for the abrupt manner of the conversation I had with my colleague from New York.
” But his remorse was , at best , confined .
“ No one was accosted , bullied , or attacked , ” he went on .
“ This was a brief policy discussion , plain and simple , and we have our differences .
.
.
.
The fact still remains , I am @ @ @ @ @ @ @ didn ’ t say.
” With confused logic , Yoho invoked his wife and daughters and said that he objected to Ocasio-Cortez ’ s views because he had experienced poverty when he was young .
“ I can not apologize for my passion or for loving my God , my family , and my country , ” he said .
It was unclear who had asked him to apologize for his religious faith , his patriotism , or his love of family , but he was ardent all the same .
In all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a deflective , jittery performance that was in no wise enhanced by his spokesman , Brian Kaveney , who e-mailed the Washington Post to say that Yoho “ did not call Rep. Ocasio-Cortez what has been reported in the Hill or any name for that matter .
.
.
.
Instead , he made a brief comment to himself as he walked away summarizing what he believes her policies to be : bulls -- -.
” As a first-termer , Ocasio-Cortez has been a star , even if she has had her stumbles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Speaker of the House , Nancy Pelosi .
Ocasio-Cortez has been at the forefront of major issues , including climate change , immigration , campaign-finance reform , and income inequality .
Her ability to skewer a balky witness in committee hearings has proved as uncanny as it is entertaining .
She came to the House floor Thursday to rebut Yoho , insisting that , after delivering a short retort via Twitter , she might have kept her counsel had he not delivered such a lame non-apology .
Her speech , which was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democratic caucus , was not in the Charles Sumner category in either length or style—she favored righteous sincerity where Sumner employed florid invective—but the devastation was of a similar scale .
The sporting equivalent might be Billie Jean King ’ s measured yet unmistakable destruction of Bobby Riggs .
The video of Ocasio-Cortez ’ s speech is available online , of course ; it should be studied for its measured cadence , its artful construction , and its refusal of ugliness .
She began with narrative , setting the scene : “ I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up the steps , and Representative Yoho put his finger in my face .
He called me ‘ disgusting.
’ He called me ‘ crazy.
’ He called me ‘ out of my mind.
’ And he called me ‘ dangerous.
’ ” Then she broadened her scope : “ This issue is not about one incident .
It is cultural .
It is a culture of lack of impunity , of accepting violence and violent language against women and an entire structure of power that supports that.
” Ocasio-Cortez made it clear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ down and faint .
She had heard it all before , on the subway and as a bartender .
But she wasn ’ t going to let this pass , not from a fellow-member of Congress : “ I could not allow my nieces , I could not allow the little girls that I go home to , I could not allow victims of verbal abuse , and worse , to see that .
To see that excuse , and see our Congress accept it as legitimate and accept it as an apology @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of acceptance .
I could not allow that to stand.
” What ’ s more , she was not going to allow Yoho , in his clumsy way , to use his family as a “ shield ” for his barrage .
“ Having a daughter does not make a man decent .
Having a wife does not make a decent man .
Treating people with dignity and respect makes a decent man .
And when a decent man messes up , as we all are bound to do , he tries his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said .
“ I am someone ’ s daughter , too.
” The politics of our moment are dominated by a bully of miserable character , a President who has failed to contain a pandemic through sheer indifference , who has fabricated a reëlection campaign based on bigotry and the deliberate inflammation of division .
His language is abusive , his attitude toward women disdainful .
Trump is all about himself : his needs , his ego , his self-preservation .
Along the way he has created a Republican Party in his own @ @ @ @ @ @ @ follow his lead .
On the House floor Thursday , Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez exemplified a different sort of character .
She defended not only herself ; she defended principle and countless women .
And all in just a few short minutes on the floor of the House of Representatives .

One could be forgiven for thinking that rhetorical dynamism long ago vanished from the hallways and chambers of the United States Congress. It has been a hundred and sixty-four years, for example, since Charles Sumner, the anti-slavery Republican from Massachusetts, rose in the humid air of the Old Senate Chamber to unleash a five-hour, fully memorized onslaught against the idea of Kansas joining the Union as a slave state. Along the way, Sumner paused to lash two of his Senate colleagues, calling Stephen Douglas, of Illinois, a “noisome, squat, and nameless animal,” and accusing Andrew Butler, of South Carolina, of taking up with a “polluted” mistress—“I mean the harlot, Slavery.” You can still hear such acidic flourishes in other legislatures around the globe, but the language of the U.S. Congress is rarely so vivid. Generally, it is as flavorless as day-old gum.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a first-term Democrat from New York, provided a rare exception Thursday as she stepped to the microphone in the House chamber to make a hash of Ted Yoho, a veterinarian, Tea Party member, and veteran Republican from Florida.
The story began earlier this week, when Yoho reportedly approached Ocasio-Cortez on the Capitol steps to inform her that she was, among other things, “disgusting” and “out of your freaking mind.” His analysis was directed at her (hardly novel) public statements that poverty and unemployment are root causes of the recent spike in crime rates in New York. On matters of criminal-justice reform, Yoho is of a decidedly conservative bent. Not long ago, he voted against making lynching a federal hate crime, saying that such a law would be a regrettable instance of federal “overreach.”
According to a reporter for The Hill, Yoho did not cease in his expressive disdain for Ocasio-Cortez even as she walked away. Once he believed her to be out of hearing range, Yoho reportedly described his colleague as a “fucking bitch.”
On Wednesday, once the news of the encounter had circulated, Yoho delivered a statement that could best be described as the sort of non-apology apology that begins, “I am sorry if you understood me to be saying . . .” Yoho began by explaining that he wanted “to apologize for the abrupt manner of the conversation I had with my colleague from New York.”
But his remorse was, at best, confined. “No one was accosted, bullied, or attacked,” he went on. “This was a brief policy discussion, plain and simple, and we have our differences. . . . The fact still remains, I am not going to apologize for something I didn’t say.” With confused logic, Yoho invoked his wife and daughters and said that he objected to Ocasio-Cortez’s views because he had experienced poverty when he was young. “I cannot apologize for my passion or for loving my God, my family, and my country,” he said. It was unclear who had asked him to apologize for his religious faith, his patriotism, or his love of family, but he was ardent all the same.
In all, Yoho’s was at best a deflective, jittery performance that was in no wise enhanced by his spokesman, Brian Kaveney, who e-mailed the Washington Post to say that Yoho “did not call Rep. Ocasio-Cortez what has been reported in The Hill or any name for that matter. . . . Instead, he made a brief comment to himself as he walked away summarizing what he believes her policies to be: bulls---.”
As a first-termer, Ocasio-Cortez has been a star, even if she has had her stumbles, including an initially troubled relationship with the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. Ocasio-Cortez has been at the forefront of major issues, including climate change, immigration, campaign-finance reform, and income inequality. Her ability to skewer a balky witness in committee hearings has proved as uncanny as it is entertaining. She came to the House floor Thursday to rebut Yoho, insisting that, after delivering a short retort via Twitter, she might have kept her counsel had he not delivered such a lame non-apology. Her speech, which was then echoed by other colleagues from the Democratic caucus, was not in the Charles Sumner category in either length or style—she favored righteous sincerity where Sumner employed florid invective—but the devastation was of a similar scale. The sporting equivalent might be Billie Jean King’s measured yet unmistakable destruction of Bobby Riggs. The video of Ocasio-Cortez’s speech is available online, of course; it should be studied for its measured cadence, its artful construction, and its refusal of ugliness.
She began with narrative, setting the scene: “I was minding my own business, walking up the steps, and Representative Yoho put his finger in my face. He called me ‘disgusting.’ He called me ‘crazy.’ He called me ‘out of my mind.’ And he called me ‘dangerous.’ ” Then she broadened her scope: “This issue is not about one incident. It is cultural. It is a culture of lack of impunity, of accepting violence and violent language against women and an entire structure of power that supports that.” Ocasio-Cortez made it clear that she was not going to fall down and faint. She had heard it all before, on the subway and as a bartender. But she wasn’t going to let this pass, not from a fellow-member of Congress: “I could not allow my nieces, I could not allow the little girls that I go home to, I could not allow victims of verbal abuse, and worse, to see that. To see that excuse, and see our Congress accept it as legitimate and accept it as an apology and to accept silence as a form of acceptance. I could not allow that to stand.” What’s more, she was not going to allow Yoho, in his clumsy way, to use his family as a “shield” for his barrage.
“Having a daughter does not make a man decent. Having a wife does not make a decent man. Treating people with dignity and respect makes a decent man. And when a decent man messes up, as we all are bound to do, he tries his best and does apologize,” she said. “I am someone’s daughter, too.”
The politics of our moment are dominated by a bully of miserable character, a President who has failed to contain a pandemic through sheer indifference, who has fabricated a reëlection campaign based on bigotry and the deliberate inflammation of division. His language is abusive, his attitude toward women disdainful. Trump is all about himself: his needs, his ego, his self-preservation. Along the way he has created a Republican Party in his own image. Imitators like Ted Yoho slavishly follow his lead. On the House floor Thursday, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez exemplified a different sort of character. She defended not only herself; she defended principle and countless women. And all in just a few short minutes on the floor of the House of Representatives.


newyorker--2020-07-23--“Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV”: Trump’s Mental Health Is a Test for America

Person .
Woman .
Man .
Camera .
TV .
Sadly , I suspect I don ’ t need to explain what I ’ m referring to here .
If you ’ re reading this , you most likely already know what these five words are : a direct quote from President Trump , who told a visibly discomfited Fox News interviewer the other night that he had aced a mental-acuity test by correctly reciting them .
Watch the clip , then watch it again : Trump even praised himself for getting extra points after remembering the five words in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ It ’ s actually not that easy , ” Trump said .
“ But for me it was easy.
” Yes , it has once again come to this : the President of the United States bragging—twice , just this week , in Fox interviews—that he does not have dementia and daring Joe Biden to take the same cognitive test .
When Trump pulled this stunt with Chris Wallace on “ Fox News Sunday , ” Wallace practically laughed at him .
The test requires takers to correctly identify an elephant , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s not the hardest test , ” Wallace said .
But Trump ’ s mental state has long been the elephant in the room for Republicans , and it ’ s not surprising that most G.O.P .
officials refuse to mention it .
Yet many Republicans have—brazenly , under the circumstances—followed Trump in questioning the fitness for office of Biden , a gaffe-prone septuagenarian who would be the oldest person elected to the Presidency should he beat Trump in November .
If the stakes weren ’ t so very , very high , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ having over which of our Presidential candidates is possibly senile would be exactly the sort of public car crash from which you ’ d want to avert your eyes .
It ’ s a national humiliation , an embarrassment .
Can ’ t we just make it stop ?
But this is one of those weeks in Trump ’ s America that does not allow for escapism .
The actual news is as bad as Trump ’ s shaky mental state , or worse : unemployment claims are rising again .
Federal aid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by the crisis is about to run out .
Coronavirus deaths in the U.S. are back above a thousand per day for the first time since early June .
Cases are rising at an alarming rate across the South and West .
States that have pushed and been pushed by Trump to reopen before the disease was under control are now being forced to close back up .
There is inadequate testing , and unacceptable delays in processing the tests that do take place .
Trump has repeatedly been asked in recent days @ @ @ @ @ @ @ national mask order , a national strategy to help schools serve students safely .
He has rejected all of them .
Instead , the President , when not touting his ability to count backward from a hundred in increments of seven , threatened this week to veto a bipartisan bill to remove Confederate generals ’ names from military installations , refused to say that he would accept the results of this fall ’ s election , and ordered federal paramilitary squads into “ Democrat-run cities ” that he claims are incapable of maintaining @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the mayor himself was teargassed on Wednesday , when the crowd he was in was attacked by camouflage-wearing federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security .
This isn ’ t just a bunch of crazy tweets we are talking about anymore .
The fact that Trump is so manifestly , obviously unfit for office may be one of the most striking aspects of his Presidency , but it is one of the hardest things for journalists to write about—or would be , except that he himself keeps bringing it up .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ suggests that he , or his doctor , was concerned about his mental decline , as the neurologist who created it , Dr. Ziad Nasreddine , told the Washington Post this week .
It ’ s hard to imagine a candidate in full command of his faculties who would make a point of publicly inviting comment on his mental capacity to do the job .
Trump , meanwhile , is doing so in the midst of a campaign that he is already losing , at a time when polls show that a majority @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the “ mental sharpness ” to be President , as a recent ABC News/Washington Post survey put it .
( It is notable in and of itself that the pollsters are even asking this question , which is hardly a routine query .
Can you imagine a survey asking voters this question about Barack Obama and Mitt Romney ?
Or Bill Clinton or Al Gore or the George Bushes ? )
Trump ’ s niece , Mary Trump , is out with a best-selling new book , which claims that , in addition @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suffering from , the President has an undiagnosed learning disability that hampers his processing and absorption of information—another elephant in the room that is impossible to ignore when Trump visibly struggles to read written remarks , as he did several times this week .
“ I don ’ t think he ’ s fit for office , ” Trump ’ s former national-security adviser , John Bolton , said while on book tour last month .
“ I don ’ t think he has the competence to carry out the job.
” Beyond @ @ @ @ @ @ @ basic fitness to handle the complexities of the Presidency , there is an entire public debate over his mental health .
A preening narcissist in the best of times , Trump ’ s lifelong self-absorption , lack of empathy , chronic untruthfulness , and apparent inability to distinguish right from wrong have led hundreds of psychiatrists to break with their profession ’ s rule against diagnosis without examination and call Trump mentally ill .
The conservative lawyer George Conway wrote a long screed in The Atlantic last fall asserting that “ Trump ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it impossible for him to carry out the duties of his Presidency in the way the Constitution requires.
” Conway ’ s wife , the White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway , publicly lobbied Trump in recent days to restart his nightly coronavirus briefings , where he labors to read his prepared text and showcases the pathologies that have made armchair shrinks of us all .
“ People want to hear from the President of the United States , ” she said .
We have heard an awful lot from him , though , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ problem of all for the President .
Voters do not have to render a verdict on Trump ’ s psyche in order to vote him out of office .
Trump fatigue alone is a perfectly acceptable rationale for ending this exhausting , embarrassing show .
On Wednesday , right after Trump announced his deployment of federal law-enforcement troops to cities that did not request them and right before he announced that , despite the resurgent wave of COVID-19 death and infection , “ It ’ s all going to work out and it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with John Kasich , the former Republican governor of Ohio .
On Monday , the Associated Press reported that Kasich will speak at the Democratic convention and support Biden .
Right before our conversation , Kasich published an op-ed in the Boston Globe , in which he warned that “ America ’ s soul will be irreversibly eroded under four more years of our current ‘ leadership , ’ ” and said that his dismay about the wreck Trump has made of the country have “ been enough to override my sturdiest political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as this crisis lasts .
”

Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV. Sadly, I suspect I don’t need to explain what I’m referring to here. If you’re reading this, you most likely already know what these five words are: a direct quote from President Trump, who told a visibly discomfited Fox News interviewer the other night that he had aced a mental-acuity test by correctly reciting them. Watch the clip, then watch it again: Trump even praised himself for getting extra points after remembering the five words in the correct order. Extra points. “It’s actually not that easy,” Trump said. “But for me it was easy.”
Yes, it has once again come to this: the President of the United States bragging—twice, just this week, in Fox interviews—that he does not have dementia and daring Joe Biden to take the same cognitive test. When Trump pulled this stunt with Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday,” Wallace practically laughed at him. The test requires takers to correctly identify an elephant, Wallace pointed out. “It’s not the hardest test,” Wallace said. But Trump’s mental state has long been the elephant in the room for Republicans, and it’s not surprising that most G.O.P. officials refuse to mention it. Yet many Republicans have—brazenly, under the circumstances—followed Trump in questioning the fitness for office of Biden, a gaffe-prone septuagenarian who would be the oldest person elected to the Presidency should he beat Trump in November. If the stakes weren’t so very, very high, the entire debate that Trump insists on having over which of our Presidential candidates is possibly senile would be exactly the sort of public car crash from which you’d want to avert your eyes. It’s a national humiliation, an embarrassment. Can’t we just make it stop?
But this is one of those weeks in Trump’s America that does not allow for escapism. The actual news is as bad as Trump’s shaky mental state, or worse: unemployment claims are rising again. Federal aid for the businesses and individuals hardest hit by the crisis is about to run out. Coronavirus deaths in the U.S. are back above a thousand per day for the first time since early June. Cases are rising at an alarming rate across the South and West. States that have pushed and been pushed by Trump to reopen before the disease was under control are now being forced to close back up. There is inadequate testing, and unacceptable delays in processing the tests that do take place. Trump has repeatedly been asked in recent days about a national testing plan, a national mask order, a national strategy to help schools serve students safely. He has rejected all of them.
Instead, the President, when not touting his ability to count backward from a hundred in increments of seven, threatened this week to veto a bipartisan bill to remove Confederate generals’ names from military installations, refused to say that he would accept the results of this fall’s election, and ordered federal paramilitary squads into “Democrat-run cities” that he claims are incapable of maintaining “law and order.” In Portland, the mayor himself was teargassed on Wednesday, when the crowd he was in was attacked by camouflage-wearing federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security. This isn’t just a bunch of crazy tweets we are talking about anymore.
The fact that Trump is so manifestly, obviously unfit for office may be one of the most striking aspects of his Presidency, but it is one of the hardest things for journalists to write about—or would be, except that he himself keeps bringing it up. That Trump even took the cognitive test suggests that he, or his doctor, was concerned about his mental decline, as the neurologist who created it, Dr. Ziad Nasreddine, told the Washington Post this week. It’s hard to imagine a candidate in full command of his faculties who would make a point of publicly inviting comment on his mental capacity to do the job. Trump, meanwhile, is doing so in the midst of a campaign that he is already losing, at a time when polls show that a majority of voters do not think he has the “mental sharpness” to be President, as a recent ABC News/Washington Post survey put it. (It is notable in and of itself that the pollsters are even asking this question, which is hardly a routine query. Can you imagine a survey asking voters this question about Barack Obama and Mitt Romney? Or Bill Clinton or Al Gore or the George Bushes?)
Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, is out with a best-selling new book, which claims that, in addition to whatever age-related impairment he may be suffering from, the President has an undiagnosed learning disability that hampers his processing and absorption of information—another elephant in the room that is impossible to ignore when Trump visibly struggles to read written remarks, as he did several times this week. “I don’t think he’s fit for office,” Trump’s former national-security adviser, John Bolton, said while on book tour last month. “I don’t think he has the competence to carry out the job.”
Beyond these ever-harder-to-ignore questions about Trump’s basic fitness to handle the complexities of the Presidency, there is an entire public debate over his mental health. A preening narcissist in the best of times, Trump’s lifelong self-absorption, lack of empathy, chronic untruthfulness, and apparent inability to distinguish right from wrong have led hundreds of psychiatrists to break with their profession’s rule against diagnosis without examination and call Trump mentally ill. The conservative lawyer George Conway wrote a long screed in The Atlantic last fall asserting that “Trump’s ingrained and extreme behavioral characteristics makes it impossible for him to carry out the duties of his Presidency in the way the Constitution requires.” Conway’s wife, the White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway, publicly lobbied Trump in recent days to restart his nightly coronavirus briefings, where he labors to read his prepared text and showcases the pathologies that have made armchair shrinks of us all. “People want to hear from the President of the United States,” she said.
We have heard an awful lot from him, though, which may end up being the biggest problem of all for the President. Voters do not have to render a verdict on Trump’s psyche in order to vote him out of office. Trump fatigue alone is a perfectly acceptable rationale for ending this exhausting, embarrassing show. On Wednesday, right after Trump announced his deployment of federal law-enforcement troops to cities that did not request them and right before he announced that, despite the resurgent wave of COVID-19 death and infection, “It’s all going to work out and it is working out,” I spoke with John Kasich, the former Republican governor of Ohio. On Monday, the Associated Press reported that Kasich will speak at the Democratic convention and support Biden. Right before our conversation, Kasich published an op-ed in the Boston Globe, in which he warned that “America’s soul will be irreversibly eroded under four more years of our current ‘leadership,’ ” and said that his dismay about the wreck Trump has made of the country have “been enough to override my sturdiest political attitudes and party loyalties for as long as this crisis lasts.”
Four years ago, Kasich was one of sixteen Republican candidates who ran against Trump. In the subsequent years, he has been practically the only one who has continued to speak out publicly against him. Two of the other candidates that year—Ben Carson and Rick Perry—have served in Trump’s Cabinet. Four are U.S. senators who regularly vote with Trump, publicly praise him, privately advise him, and, in the case of Lindsey Graham, play golf with him, though four years ago they all seemed to agree with Graham that Trump was a “kook.”
But the news here is not that Kasich will vote against Trump—he did so in 2016 and was always sure to do so again this time—or that other Republicans who once seemed clear-eyed about Trump and his manifest mental problems have decided to keep going along with him anyway. What I found most interesting in my conversation with Kasich was his sense that perhaps the country was finally done with the madness, rage, and division, an exhaustion that might even be reshaping the Presidential politics in Kasich’s home state of Ohio, which Trump won by eight points last time around. Trump’s recent screwups have hit Americans directly and personally, Kasich pointed out to me. “Coronavirus is a personal issue, as is the economy, as is race—and, when you strike out on all three, then it becomes a tipping point,” he said.
“I think that people have had enough,” he added. “I do.”


newyorker--2020-07-23--“Yes, God, Yes,” Reviewed: A Remarkable First Feature About a Catholic Girl’s Sexual Rebellion

Much is made of the texture of movie images , the power of film stock to reflect , in grain and nuances of light and shadow , the medium ’ s essential physicality .
But a much more important form of movie texture is the mental kind—a film ’ s ability to evoke states of mind , maybe those of the characters , but , above all , those of the film ’ s creator .
That ’ s what the writer and director Karen Maine does in her remarkable new movie , “ Yes , God , Yes ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ virtual cinemas throughout the country ( including at Brooklyn ’ s The Future of Film Is Female ) and , next Tuesday , on many streaming services .
Starting from a premise so familiar—a tale of a teen-ager ’ s sexual awakening—Maine uses meticulously composed yet freely imaginative visual and sonic textures to develop the film into a vivid , varied comedic drama and an intricate portrayal of inner experience .
Set in the early two-thousands , somewhere in the Midwest , the film is an incisive satire of religious repression .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ named Alice ( Natalia Dyer ) who attends a Catholic school where a teacher , Mrs. Veda ( Donna Lynne Champlin ) , patrols the halls to supervise attire , from a boy ’ s lack of a belt to a girl ’ s skirt falling more than two and a half inches above the knee , and where a hip , bearded , energetic young priest , Father Murphy ( Timothy Simons ) , teaches a class on “ morality , ” i.e.
, sex—and abstinence .
From the start , Maine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ flamboyant , and perky rhetoric that Father Murphy ( called , by the students , simply “ Father ” ) deploys to ( mis ) inform and control students on the subject of sex .
Masturbation is “ outside God ’ s will ” and will lead to “ damnation for all eternity , ” he explains , reminding them that “ God is always watching , capeesh ?
” Alice and her best friend , or frenemy , Laura ( Francesca Reale ) , wax ironic about their sex lessons—the partial-birth-abortion video @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the baby doll that Laura is forced to schlep around school all day .
Yet , in these relentlessly dogmatic inculcations , Maine finds one of her crucially insightful themes .
From the start , she sketches rapidly and clearly the specific tensions within Alice ’ s circle—notably , Laura ’ s aspirations to in-crowd popularity , marked by her fawning , from a distance , over the school ’ s queen bee , Nina ( Alisha Boe ) —and the bitter social consequences of the school ’ s , and the church @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , including the inclination of those who absorb such self-hatred to inflict similar torments on others .
Laura holds a grudge against Alice for making her sin—for getting her to rewind , twice , to the sex scene in “ Titanic.
” A false rumor is circulating that Alice , at a recent party , “ tossed salad ” with a boy named Wade ( Parker Wierling ) , whose girlfriend , Heather ( Allison Shrum ) , is threatening to break up with him as a result .
( Alice has never @ @ @ @ @ @ @ obliviously mangles to comedic effect . )
What ’ s more , Laura believes it—as do their classmates and , for that matter , their teachers .
Apart from all misguided rumors , however , Alice is curious ; at home , in her basement bedroom , she signs in to an AOL chat room and , pretending to be an adult , elicits erotic conversation with a man who posts sexual images .
( Her inexperience shows comedically in her bewildered responses . )
Despite Father ’ s warnings , Alice is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other comedic contretemps get in the way of her plan ) .
Her sexual curiosity is aroused all the more by another detour , a school-sponsored four-day religious retreat at a nearby camp-like facility .
There , one of the group leaders is a tall and confident football star named Chris ( Wolfgang Novogratz ) , whose hairy arms remind her of those of the man in the anonymous online video and instantly send her sexual imagination into overdrive .
While at the retreat , she takes significant risks ( and acts with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ margin of physical and emotional freedom from the authoritarian program ; in doing so , she catches accidental glimpses of other people ’ s transgressions , which she processes as a revealing new realm of knowledge and leverages as a measure of power .
Maine unfolds the four-day retreat in detail , starting with the lines of tension among the students , the psychological intricacies and practical difficulties of Alice ’ s crush on Chris .
The film ’ s sharp , colorful dialogue and keenly delineated performances keep the story both precise @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of tones , emotions , and experiences .
Yet its satirical comedy also lampoons the retreat ’ s cheerily rigid program—and veers seriously into subtle realms of terrifying vulnerability , the forced performance of self-revelation .
The power of confession plays a crucial role in “ Yes , God , Yes.
” Scenes of Alice ’ s confession to Father Murphy have a chillingly confrontational pressure , and , alongside the formal sacrament , the retreat presents a wide variety of situations involving compulsory discourse in front of church authorities and classmates—the mandatory @ @ @ @ @ @ @ failings , to feelings , to lessons learned during the retreat .
The effect is double—the subjection of the students to both the official authority of the church and the social pressure of their similarly repressed ( and repressive ) peers .
Working with the cinematographer Todd Antonio Somodevilla , Maine creates images that are extraordinarily poised and exacting while remaining fluidly spontaneous , telegraphing her own intense , empathetic awareness of Alice ’ s shifting and clashing states of mind .
There are very few handheld shots in the movie ; the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and also inner turmoil .
Maine uses point-of-view shots more trenchantly than any director has since Jordan Peele in “ Get Out , ” and ( working with the editor Jennifer Lee ) merges Alice ’ s action with her perspective on it and on her surroundings into a tense subjective collage .
Alice sees the figures of authority surrounding her at school ( mostly crucifixes ) and hears the voices of authority ( mostly Father Murphy ’ s ) along with its iconography , whether the earnest ubiquity of the crucifix or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Titian ’ s “ The Fall of Man , ” showing a mostly naked Adam and Eve .
( She also glances at the charred marshmallow in a s ’ more , which Nina describes as a mortal sin that they ’ d burned . )
The movie conveys , with a complexity belied by its reserve , Alice ’ s frenetic sense of being under surveillance , constantly , relentlessly , by her warm and hearty but oblivious parents ( Carey Van Driest and Matt Lewis ) , by school and church @ @ @ @ @ @ @ few random yet significant strangers she encounters , by God—and , in her own intensely overheating self-consciousness , by herself .
Dyer ’ s mercurially nuanced yet unforced performance conveys Alice ’ s deep-rooted character as well as her practical struggles .
Dyer ’ s Alice gets through life with a natural briskness and an angular precision that ’ s matched by a sharply etched diction , with its eloquent pauses and sardonic silences—and by furtive glances and distant gazes that evoke yearnings both carnal and intellectual .
Alice ’ s notable absence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ discipline and determination , which is undermined by a pensive , nervous energy trembling below the surface , and Maine ’ s images tremble along with her .
In Maine ’ s quietly elaborate audiovisual compositions of fact and fantasy , of action and thought , Alice ’ s ordinary , orderly life is revealed to have vast novelistic , imaginative , and sensual dimensions .

Much is made of the texture of movie images, the power of film stock to reflect, in grain and nuances of light and shadow, the medium’s essential physicality. But a much more important form of movie texture is the mental kind—a film’s ability to evoke states of mind, maybe those of the characters, but, above all, those of the film’s creator. That’s what the writer and director Karen Maine does in her remarkable new movie, “Yes, God, Yes”—her first feature—which opens Friday in so-called virtual cinemas throughout the country (including at Brooklyn’s The Future of Film Is Female) and, next Tuesday, on many streaming services. Starting from a premise so familiar—a tale of a teen-ager’s sexual awakening—Maine uses meticulously composed yet freely imaginative visual and sonic textures to develop the film into a vivid, varied comedic drama and an intricate portrayal of inner experience.
Set in the early two-thousands, somewhere in the Midwest, the film is an incisive satire of religious repression. It’s centered on a high-school junior named Alice (Natalia Dyer) who attends a Catholic school where a teacher, Mrs. Veda (Donna Lynne Champlin), patrols the halls to supervise attire, from a boy’s lack of a belt to a girl’s skirt falling more than two and a half inches above the knee, and where a hip, bearded, energetic young priest, Father Murphy (Timothy Simons), teaches a class on “morality,” i.e., sex—and abstinence. From the start, Maine delights—albeit sardonically and ruefully—in the incantatory, flamboyant, and perky rhetoric that Father Murphy (called, by the students, simply “Father”) deploys to (mis)inform and control students on the subject of sex. Masturbation is “outside God’s will” and will lead to “damnation for all eternity,” he explains, reminding them that “God is always watching, capeesh?”
Alice and her best friend, or frenemy, Laura (Francesca Reale), wax ironic about their sex lessons—the partial-birth-abortion video that Alice has had to watch, the baby doll that Laura is forced to schlep around school all day. Yet, in these relentlessly dogmatic inculcations, Maine finds one of her crucially insightful themes. From the start, she sketches rapidly and clearly the specific tensions within Alice’s circle—notably, Laura’s aspirations to in-crowd popularity, marked by her fawning, from a distance, over the school’s queen bee, Nina (Alisha Boe)—and the bitter social consequences of the school’s, and the church’s, deforming teaching about sex, including the inclination of those who absorb such self-hatred to inflict similar torments on others. Laura holds a grudge against Alice for making her sin—for getting her to rewind, twice, to the sex scene in “Titanic.” A false rumor is circulating that Alice, at a recent party, “tossed salad” with a boy named Wade (Parker Wierling), whose girlfriend, Heather (Allison Shrum), is threatening to break up with him as a result. (Alice has never even heard the term, which she obliviously mangles to comedic effect.) What’s more, Laura believes it—as do their classmates and, for that matter, their teachers.
Apart from all misguided rumors, however, Alice is curious; at home, in her basement bedroom, she signs in to an AOL chat room and, pretending to be an adult, elicits erotic conversation with a man who posts sexual images. (Her inexperience shows comedically in her bewildered responses.) Despite Father’s warnings, Alice is determined to masturbate (and only some other comedic contretemps get in the way of her plan). Her sexual curiosity is aroused all the more by another detour, a school-sponsored four-day religious retreat at a nearby camp-like facility. There, one of the group leaders is a tall and confident football star named Chris (Wolfgang Novogratz), whose hairy arms remind her of those of the man in the anonymous online video and instantly send her sexual imagination into overdrive. While at the retreat, she takes significant risks (and acts with spontaneously ruthless cunning) to wrench a margin of physical and emotional freedom from the authoritarian program; in doing so, she catches accidental glimpses of other people’s transgressions, which she processes as a revealing new realm of knowledge and leverages as a measure of power.
Maine unfolds the four-day retreat in detail, starting with the lines of tension among the students, the psychological intricacies and practical difficulties of Alice’s crush on Chris. The film’s sharp, colorful dialogue and keenly delineated performances keep the story both precise and unstable, with a varied range of tones, emotions, and experiences. Yet its satirical comedy also lampoons the retreat’s cheerily rigid program—and veers seriously into subtle realms of terrifying vulnerability, the forced performance of self-revelation. The power of confession plays a crucial role in “Yes, God, Yes.” Scenes of Alice’s confession to Father Murphy have a chillingly confrontational pressure, and, alongside the formal sacrament, the retreat presents a wide variety of situations involving compulsory discourse in front of church authorities and classmates—the mandatory bearing of witness to troubles, to failings, to feelings, to lessons learned during the retreat. The effect is double—the subjection of the students to both the official authority of the church and the social pressure of their similarly repressed (and repressive) peers.
Working with the cinematographer Todd Antonio Somodevilla, Maine creates images that are extraordinarily poised and exacting while remaining fluidly spontaneous, telegraphing her own intense, empathetic awareness of Alice’s shifting and clashing states of mind. There are very few handheld shots in the movie; the restrained camerawork reflects states of outward control and also inner turmoil. Maine uses point-of-view shots more trenchantly than any director has since Jordan Peele in “Get Out,” and (working with the editor Jennifer Lee) merges Alice’s action with her perspective on it and on her surroundings into a tense subjective collage. Alice sees the figures of authority surrounding her at school (mostly crucifixes) and hears the voices of authority (mostly Father Murphy’s) along with its iconography, whether the earnest ubiquity of the crucifix or the ironic display of a print of Titian’s “The Fall of Man,” showing a mostly naked Adam and Eve. (She also glances at the charred marshmallow in a s’more, which Nina describes as a mortal sin that they’d burned.) The movie conveys, with a complexity belied by its reserve, Alice’s frenetic sense of being under surveillance, constantly, relentlessly, by her warm and hearty but oblivious parents (Carey Van Driest and Matt Lewis), by school and church authorities, by schoolmates, by a few random yet significant strangers she encounters, by God—and, in her own intensely overheating self-consciousness, by herself.
Dyer’s mercurially nuanced yet unforced performance conveys Alice’s deep-rooted character as well as her practical struggles. Dyer’s Alice gets through life with a natural briskness and an angular precision that’s matched by a sharply etched diction, with its eloquent pauses and sardonic silences—and by furtive glances and distant gazes that evoke yearnings both carnal and intellectual. Alice’s notable absence of awkwardness reflects a quasi-military sense of discipline and determination, which is undermined by a pensive, nervous energy trembling below the surface, and Maine’s images tremble along with her. In Maine’s quietly elaborate audiovisual compositions of fact and fantasy, of action and thought, Alice’s ordinary, orderly life is revealed to have vast novelistic, imaginative, and sensual dimensions.


newyorker--2020-07-23--How Iowa Went from Trump Country to 2020 Battleground

Craig Kelley , the former mayor of Knoxville , Iowa , has had more than his share of close encounters with Presidents and Presidential hopefuls .
He once sang “ Puff , the Magic Dragon ” on a stage alongside John Kerry and Pete Seeger ; another time , he and his wife spent a half hour chatting with a friendly stranger who turned out to be Elizabeth Edwards .
At sixty-eight years old , he hasn ’ t missed an Iowa caucus since 1972 , the year the state became a staging ground for Presidential campaigns .
He likes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ votes accordingly .
“ I ’ m a misfit in the political parties , ” he told me .
In other words , he ’ s a swing voter .
In 2008 , Kelley thought Barack Obama “ hadn ’ t been around the block enough , ” and voted third party that November .
Obama , though , eventually won him over .
“ He saved the country from a depression , ” Kelley said .
“ He saved millions of jobs .
He made the first step into health care for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but it was sure better than nothing.
” In 2016 , four years after voting for Obama ’ s reëlection , Kelley attended a few Hillary Clinton events , but he couldn ’ t support her .
“ I just thought , the baggage and stuff that Hillary brought to the table , she probably wasn ’ t going to be electable , ” he said .
So he voted for Donald Trump , thinking that at least the reality-TV star was a Washington outsider .
“ I hadn ’ t done @ @ @ @ @ @ @ personal life , ” Kelley said .
“ I made a grave mistake.
” In 2016 , Trump beat Clinton in Iowa by nine points , thanks in part to people like Kelley in towns like Knoxville .
Although Trump ’ s victories elsewhere in the Midwest—Wisconsin , Michigan—were probed for deeper meaning , his win in Iowa , which had twice voted for Obama , was less of a national preoccupation .
Democrats began to feel that Iowa—a smaller state with an older , overwhelmingly white population that was rural both in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ place .
Joe Biden has suffered his share of defeats in Iowa , too .
Both of his first two Presidential campaigns went no further than the first caucus state .
Yet despite Trump ’ s strong showing in 2016 and Biden ’ s struggles there in February—he finished fourth in the caucuses , behind Pete Buttigieg , Bernie Sanders , and Elizabeth Warren—with three months to go before Election Day , the state remains in play .
Prior to the recent round of polls , which show Biden with leads as big @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the preëminent pollster in Iowa , was seeing signs of a close race .
In June , she conducted a poll that had Biden down just a single point to Trump , forty-three per cent to forty-four .
A recent FiveThirtyEight analysis found that the race between Biden and Trump in Iowa is tighter than in any other battleground state .
As recently as January , Trump was crowing about Iowa .
“ We ’ re going to win the great state of Iowa , and it ’ s going to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a crowd at a rally in Des Moines .
He invited the state ’ s Republican governor , Kim Reynolds , who won election in 2018 , up to the stage and said that he wanted “ full credit for the job she has done .
I endorsed her very early.
” But 2018 was also the year that Democrats flipped two of Iowa ’ s four congressional seats—a big sign that the state wasn ’ t yet uniformly Trump Country .
Kelley told me that he soured on Trump when the President @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Iowa ’ s agriculture industry .
“ Then he started the name-calling , and blaming everybody for this , and blaming everybody for that , ” Kelley said .
“ A lot of people are in the same boat I am .
They voted for Trump , because they couldn ’ t vote for Hillary .
And now they ’ re , like , What the hell did I do ?
” During the Democratic primary race , Kelley supported Buttigieg , whom he described as “ levelheaded.
” In November , Kelley @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dual economic and public-health crises brought on by COVID-19 have softened Trump ’ s support nationwide .
But the speed with which voters have tilted toward Biden in Iowa has come as a surprise .
Would it be a close race in the state had the pandemic not hit ?
The answer is complicated .
“ COVID is certainly playing a role here , ” Andrew Green , a political-science professor at Central College , in Pella , Iowa , who wrote a book about Trump ’ s 2016 victory , said .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ we can discount the role that the trade war was playing.
” During the past few years , as Trump levied tariffs on Chinese goods , China responded with tariffs and purchasing halts on Iowa ’ s major agricultural products : corn , soy , and pork .
The Trump Administration responded by offering billions of dollars in compensatory aid to farmers in Iowa and other states , and many Iowa farmers have professed continued loyalty to the President .
But the economic pain was still widespread , and it has spilled over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The relatively conciliatory manner in which the 2020 primary ended , at least compared with the 2016 Democratic race , has also helped Biden ’ s position in the state .
“ What happened in 2016 between Bernie and Hillary was so bloody , ” Sean Bagniewski , the chair of the Polk County Democrats , said .
“ It completely ripped the Democratic Party apart.
” Memories of the distrust and animosity within the Party that lingered into the general election four years ago informed Biden ’ s decision to build @ @ @ @ @ @ @ surrogates .
Misty Rebik , Sanders ’ s former Iowa state director , told me , “ Biden has really extended a hand to the progressive movement.
” Democrats are more unified , but that doesn ’ t fully account for why Biden against Trump is a different proposition for Iowa than Clinton against Trump .
“ I think , in trying to explain this Biden dynamic , part of it is that it ’ s not Hillary Clinton on the ballot , ” Green said .
According to Green , there was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ ceding ” rural Iowa to Trump .
And Trump ’ s smears and attacks succeeded in turning voters off to the former Secretary of State .
“ I think it ’ s also safe to say , ” Green added , “ for many Iowa voters who chose Trump over Clinton , gender attitudes played a role.
” Bagniewski added , “ Biden appeals to Obama-Obama-Trump voters in eastern Iowa in a way that Clinton did not .
I don ’ t think that ’ s fair , but I think that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s not necessarily male voters who are putting Iowa in electoral reach for Biden .
Around the country , polls are showing older voters trending toward Biden and away from Trump—a potentially tectonic development .
That trend exists in Iowa , too , Selzer , the pollster , told me , but she broke things down further .
“ There ’ s a huge gender gap , ” she said .
“ It really is a phenomenon.
” Selzer ’ s poll found that , among men over the age of fifty-five in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But , among women over fifty-five , Biden led by more than twenty points .
What Biden has done since the launch of his campaign is to make appeals to normalcy .
“ We have to remember who we are , ” Biden said in his campaign-launch video .
“ This is America.
” Abby Finkenauer , a first-term representative who flipped Iowa ’ s First Congressional District in 2018 , watched Biden closely as he campaigned through the state last year .
“ He ’ s somebody who has constantly talked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ necessarily the most exciting to tweet but that show up in a big way in our communities , ” she said .
He talked about general appeals to “ values ” and “ the dignity of work , ” and also about investing in infrastructure and closing unfair corporate “ loopholes.
” In January , Finkenauer endorsed Biden , at a time when his path to the nomination was uncertain .
( Cindy Axne , who flipped the state ’ s Third Congressional District in 2018 , also endorsed Biden . )
Finkenauer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unity swayed her .
“ People may think it ’ s naïve , but it ’ s necessary , ” she said .
“ That was really what did it for me .
”

Craig Kelley, the former mayor of Knoxville, Iowa, has had more than his share of close encounters with Presidents and Presidential hopefuls. He once sang “Puff, the Magic Dragon” on a stage alongside John Kerry and Pete Seeger; another time, he and his wife spent a half hour chatting with a friendly stranger who turned out to be Elizabeth Edwards. At sixty-eight years old, he hasn’t missed an Iowa caucus since 1972, the year the state became a staging ground for Presidential campaigns. He likes to evaluate candidates personally, and he votes accordingly. “I’m a misfit in the political parties,” he told me. In other words, he’s a swing voter.
In 2008, Kelley thought Barack Obama “hadn’t been around the block enough,” and voted third party that November. Obama, though, eventually won him over. “He saved the country from a depression,” Kelley said. “He saved millions of jobs. He made the first step into health care for all. It wasn’t perfect, but it was sure better than nothing.” In 2016, four years after voting for Obama’s reëlection, Kelley attended a few Hillary Clinton events, but he couldn’t support her. “I just thought, the baggage and stuff that Hillary brought to the table, she probably wasn’t going to be electable,” he said. So he voted for Donald Trump, thinking that at least the reality-TV star was a Washington outsider. “I hadn’t done enough research on the guy and his personal life,” Kelley said. “I made a grave mistake.”
In 2016, Trump beat Clinton in Iowa by nine points, thanks in part to people like Kelley in towns like Knoxville. Although Trump’s victories elsewhere in the Midwest—Wisconsin, Michigan—were probed for deeper meaning, his win in Iowa, which had twice voted for Obama, was less of a national preoccupation. Democrats began to feel that Iowa—a smaller state with an older, overwhelmingly white population that was rural both in demographics and in identity—had become a conservative place.
Joe Biden has suffered his share of defeats in Iowa, too. Both of his first two Presidential campaigns went no further than the first caucus state. Yet despite Trump’s strong showing in 2016 and Biden’s struggles there in February—he finished fourth in the caucuses, behind Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren—with three months to go before Election Day, the state remains in play. Prior to the recent round of polls, which show Biden with leads as big as fifteen points nationwide, Ann Selzer, the preëminent pollster in Iowa, was seeing signs of a close race. In June, she conducted a poll that had Biden down just a single point to Trump, forty-three per cent to forty-four. A recent FiveThirtyEight analysis found that the race between Biden and Trump in Iowa is tighter than in any other battleground state.
As recently as January, Trump was crowing about Iowa. “We’re going to win the great state of Iowa, and it’s going to be a historic landslide,” he told a crowd at a rally in Des Moines. He invited the state’s Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, who won election in 2018, up to the stage and said that he wanted “full credit for the job she has done. I endorsed her very early.” But 2018 was also the year that Democrats flipped two of Iowa’s four congressional seats—a big sign that the state wasn’t yet uniformly Trump Country. Kelley told me that he soured on Trump when the President’s trade war with China hit Iowa’s agriculture industry. “Then he started the name-calling, and blaming everybody for this, and blaming everybody for that,” Kelley said. “A lot of people are in the same boat I am. They voted for Trump, because they couldn’t vote for Hillary. And now they’re, like, What the hell did I do?” During the Democratic primary race, Kelley supported Buttigieg, whom he described as “levelheaded.” In November, Kelley plans to vote for Biden.
The dual economic and public-health crises brought on by COVID-19 have softened Trump’s support nationwide. But the speed with which voters have tilted toward Biden in Iowa has come as a surprise. Would it be a close race in the state had the pandemic not hit? The answer is complicated. “COVID is certainly playing a role here,” Andrew Green, a political-science professor at Central College, in Pella, Iowa, who wrote a book about Trump’s 2016 victory, said. “But I don’t think we can discount the role that the trade war was playing.” During the past few years, as Trump levied tariffs on Chinese goods, China responded with tariffs and purchasing halts on Iowa’s major agricultural products: corn, soy, and pork. The Trump Administration responded by offering billions of dollars in compensatory aid to farmers in Iowa and other states, and many Iowa farmers have professed continued loyalty to the President. But the economic pain was still widespread, and it has spilled over into other industries, including farm-equipment manufacturing.
The relatively conciliatory manner in which the 2020 primary ended, at least compared with the 2016 Democratic race, has also helped Biden’s position in the state. “What happened in 2016 between Bernie and Hillary was so bloody,” Sean Bagniewski, the chair of the Polk County Democrats, said. “It completely ripped the Democratic Party apart.” Memories of the distrust and animosity within the Party that lingered into the general election four years ago informed Biden’s decision to build a campaign platform with input from Sanders surrogates. Misty Rebik, Sanders’s former Iowa state director, told me, “Biden has really extended a hand to the progressive movement.”
Democrats are more unified, but that doesn’t fully account for why Biden against Trump is a different proposition for Iowa than Clinton against Trump. “I think, in trying to explain this Biden dynamic, part of it is that it’s not Hillary Clinton on the ballot,” Green said. According to Green, there was a feeling among voters that Clinton was “ceding” rural Iowa to Trump. And Trump’s smears and attacks succeeded in turning voters off to the former Secretary of State. “I think it’s also safe to say,” Green added, “for many Iowa voters who chose Trump over Clinton, gender attitudes played a role.” Bagniewski added, “Biden appeals to Obama-Obama-Trump voters in eastern Iowa in a way that Clinton did not. I don’t think that’s fair, but I think that’s important.”
But it’s not necessarily male voters who are putting Iowa in electoral reach for Biden. Around the country, polls are showing older voters trending toward Biden and away from Trump—a potentially tectonic development. That trend exists in Iowa, too, Selzer, the pollster, told me, but she broke things down further. “There’s a huge gender gap,” she said. “It really is a phenomenon.” Selzer’s poll found that, among men over the age of fifty-five in Iowa, Trump held a thirteen-point lead. But, among women over fifty-five, Biden led by more than twenty points.
What Biden has done since the launch of his campaign is to make appeals to normalcy. “We have to remember who we are,” Biden said in his campaign-launch video. “This is America.” Abby Finkenauer, a first-term representative who flipped Iowa’s First Congressional District in 2018, watched Biden closely as he campaigned through the state last year. “He’s somebody who has constantly talked about the issues that aren’t necessarily the most exciting to tweet but that show up in a big way in our communities,” she said. He talked about general appeals to “values” and “the dignity of work,” and also about investing in infrastructure and closing unfair corporate “loopholes.” In January, Finkenauer endorsed Biden, at a time when his path to the nomination was uncertain. (Cindy Axne, who flipped the state’s Third Congressional District in 2018, also endorsed Biden.) Finkenauer said that Biden’s focus on unity swayed her. “People may think it’s naïve, but it’s necessary,” she said. “That was really what did it for me.”


newyorker--2020-07-23--Trump’s Fake Solution to the Fake Crisis in Portland

On night fifty-two of the Portland protests , a pink beach ball , adorned with the face of a cartoon pig , bounced through Lownsdale Square .
The park sits across the street from the Mark O. Hatfield U.S .
Courthouse , the site of daily standoffs with federal agents sent by President Trump supposedly to quell unrest .
As the sunlight began to fade , the pink , pig-festooned ball flew above the small crowd of several dozen protesters , kept aloft as it bumped from protester to protester in the way beach balls once passed from concertgoer to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ concerts still existed .
The porcine orb sprung past demonstrators fussing over their handmade protest signs , and past demonstrators clad entirely in black .
It vaulted through the smoke cloud wafting above Riot Ribs—the popup plating free barbecue ribs , sides , and sometimes ice cream for protesters—and finally came to rest at the base of a thirty-foot monument commemorating the Spanish-American War .
Across the granite memorial—built to honor Oregonians killed in battle a hundred and twenty-two years ago—hailed the spray-painted rally cries from a newer era of loss : “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Porkland , ” and “ Get out of our city , ” the latter presumably a message for the federal officers holed up in the courthouse across the street .
Since early July , dozens of agents from multiple federal agencies , lead by the Department of Homeland Security , had insinuated themselves into Portland ’ s weeks-long protests following the murder of George Floyd .
At first , the federal agents had fired tear gas at any demonstrator who allegedly inched too close to the courthouse , which succeeded only in drawing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the July 4th weekend , the agents escalated , assaulting protesters nightly with tear gas , rubber bullets , and flashbangs .
On July 11th , Donavan La Bella , a twenty-six-year-old protester , stood at the edge of Lownsdale Square and held a boombox over his head , like John Cusack in “ Say Anything.
” From across the street , a deputy U.S. marshal fired an impact munition directly into La Bella ’ s forehead ; the protester crumpled to the ground .
A video posted on social media showed blood @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and smeared along the sidewalk , as fellow-protesters dragged his unconscious body away .
Medical scans showed that the impact munition cracked La Bella ’ s skull .
Doctors performed facial-reconstructive surgery and placed a titanium plate in his forehead .
Four days later , an unmarked , rented minivan pulled up in front of a protester named Mark Pettibone .
Federal agents leapt from the vehicle , seized Pettibone , and detained him in a holding cell for about ninety minutes , never explaining who they were or why they had apprehended @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on video and shared on Twitter , the same story : federal agents , with a generic “ Police ” emblazoned in yellow across their camouflage fatigues , rushed at a protester , placed his hands behind his back , and marched him into the back of a silver minivan .
President Trump applauded the agents ’ work , tweeting that they were defending Portland after local leaders “ lost control of the anarchists , ” and claiming that the demonstrators “ hate our country.
” Cable-news hosts painted fraught visions of chaos @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Sean Hannity intoned on Fox News , “ has been ripped apart by a group of malicious so-called anarchists.
” None of this squares with what was on display in the leafy plaza on Sunday , where the pink beach ball pinged amid sun-drunk protesters in repose ; nor with what happened after dark , when more people arrived , and the protest for Black lives really got going .
A little after 8 P.M. , the southeast corner of the plaza stirred .
A group of maybe a hundred demonstrators approached @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Avenue , toward the federal courthouse , before pausing at the corner of Third and Main .
They were led by three Black men in identical black T-shirts that read , in red and white , “ Portland Justice.
” The men passed a megaphone between them , describing to the mostly white crowd their lives in the U.S. and in Portland as Black men .
“ You didn ’ t have to grow up .
.
.
knowing , already from the first grade , where you stand [ in ] the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said .
“ All the stuff we saw on TV , the cartoons , all that shit , all of it had racist connotations to it.
” As the men spoke , protesters gathered , shutting down a block of Third Avenue , cordoned off by bicyclists on each end .
One speaker said that he thought the mayor , Ted Wheeler , and the newly sworn-in police chief , Chuck Lovell , should be there .
“ I don ’ t know why they won ’ t come out and deal with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they would , ” he said , the crowd around him growing .
( Wheeler attended the protests three nights later and was gassed along with other demonstrators . )
“ What they ’ re expecting is for everybody to get quiet , everybody to get tired , everybody to go home , and for all you good white people to be like , ‘ Yeah , I went downtown , and I stood with the black people , and it was cool last summer , ’ and then it ’ s over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ve been in Portland my whole life , so I ’ m acutely aware of how we get down.
” By then , a second block of Third Avenue was closed to traffic , the section of street directly in front of the courthouse , which was covered in graffiti and surrounded by a metal fence , erected by federal workers that morning .
At 9 P.M. , another stir , this time from the other end of the block .
A couple hundred women , most in yellow T-shirts , turned the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Third Avenue .
The crowd cheered , fists in the air , as the women surged down the street .
They call themselves the Wall of Moms , and they ’ re pissed .
After seeing coverage of young people assaulted with munitions and doused with pepper spray—and after some tasted federal pepper spray themselves at earlier protests—the mothers of Portland formed their “ wall ” to protect demonstrators .
The moms encircled the protesters , faced outward , and linked arms—a human barrier that dared federal agents , Go ahead , blind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ see how it looks .
One held a sign that said , preëmptively , “ ‘ I ’ m so disappointed in you ’ —Mom.
” The speakers continued to work the crowd , which was by this time mostly gathered at the Main Street corner of the federal courthouse .
One of the men in a Portland Justice shirt : “ There ’ s one race , and that race is the human race .
Black Lives Matter !
” The Moms chanted back : “ Black Lives Matter !
” Meanwhile @ @ @ @ @ @ @ block , protesters , clad in black , began quietly dismantling the fence around the courthouse .
Using tools and a lot of muscle , they removed one section , then another .
A disembodied voice boomed from inside the building : “ This is the Federal Protective Service .
Do not attempt to damage , remove , or climb the fence around the federal courthouse .
Failure to obey this lawful order will result in arrest or use of crowd control munitions.
” Around 9:45 P.M. , when a few more warnings @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is the Federal Protective Service .
Do not attempt .
.
.
” ) and it looked as if something bad might happen , the Moms moved in .
Linking arms , they formed a line in front of the fence .
If the Feds came charging out—which everyone expected they would—they ’ d have to go through the Moms .
The situation was untenable even before Trump butted his head into Portland ’ s business , Juan Chavez told me .
An attorney who directs the Oregon Justice Resource Center ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ litigation with the Portland police on multiple cases , including the gassing of a Muslim family that peacefully assembled , on June 2nd , to honor of George Floyd .
“ Unlovingly referred to as Tear Gas Tuesday , ” Chavez said .
“ We ’ ve had many subsequent Tear Gas Tuesdays , but that one galvanized a lot of people .
”

On night fifty-two of the Portland protests, a pink beach ball, adorned with the face of a cartoon pig, bounced through Lownsdale Square. The park sits across the street from the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse, the site of daily standoffs with federal agents sent by President Trump supposedly to quell unrest. As the sunlight began to fade, the pink, pig-festooned ball flew above the small crowd of several dozen protesters, kept aloft as it bumped from protester to protester in the way beach balls once passed from concertgoer to concertgoer, back in the time when concerts still existed.
The porcine orb sprung past demonstrators fussing over their handmade protest signs, and past demonstrators clad entirely in black. It vaulted through the smoke cloud wafting above Riot Ribs—the popup plating free barbecue ribs, sides, and sometimes ice cream for protesters—and finally came to rest at the base of a thirty-foot monument commemorating the Spanish-American War. Across the granite memorial—built to honor Oregonians killed in battle a hundred and twenty-two years ago—hailed the spray-painted rally cries from a newer era of loss: “George Floyd,” “Welcome to Porkland,” and “Get out of our city,” the latter presumably a message for the federal officers holed up in the courthouse across the street.
Since early July, dozens of agents from multiple federal agencies, led by the Department of Homeland Security, had insinuated themselves into Portland’s weeks-long protests following the murder of George Floyd. At first, the federal agents had fired tear gas at any demonstrator who allegedly inched too close to the courthouse, which succeeded only in drawing the demonstrators’ attention there. During the July 4th weekend, the agents escalated, assaulting protesters nightly with tear gas, rubber bullets, and flashbangs.
On July 11th, Donavan La Bella, a twenty-six-year-old protester, stood at the edge of Lownsdale Square and held a boombox over his head, like John Cusack in “Say Anything.” From across the street, a deputy U.S. marshal fired an impact munition directly into La Bella’s forehead; the protester crumpled to the ground. A video posted on social media showed blood pouring down La Bella’s face and smeared along the sidewalk, as fellow-protesters dragged his unconscious body away. Medical scans showed that the impact munition cracked La Bella’s skull. Doctors performed facial-reconstructive surgery and placed a titanium plate in his forehead.
Four days later, an unmarked, rented minivan pulled up in front of a protester named Mark Pettibone. Federal agents leapt from the vehicle, seized Pettibone, and detained him in a holding cell for about ninety minutes, never explaining who they were or why they had apprehended him. In another incident, captured on video and shared on Twitter, the same story: federal agents, with a generic “Police” emblazoned in yellow across their camouflage fatigues, rushed at a protester, placed his hands behind his back, and marched him into the back of a silver minivan.
President Trump applauded the agents’ work, tweeting that they were defending Portland after local leaders “lost control of the anarchists,” and claiming that the demonstrators “hate our country.” Cable-news hosts painted fraught visions of chaos in Rose City. “Portland,” Sean Hannity intoned on Fox News, “has been ripped apart by a group of malicious so-called anarchists.”
None of this squares with what was on display in the leafy plaza on Sunday, where the pink beach ball pinged amid sun-drunk protesters in repose; nor with what happened after dark, when more people arrived, and the protest for Black lives really got going.
A little after 8 P.M., the southeast corner of the plaza stirred. A group of maybe a hundred demonstrators approached, marching down the sidewalk of Third Avenue, toward the federal courthouse, before pausing at the corner of Third and Main. They were led by three Black men in identical black T-shirts that read, in red and white, “Portland Justice.” The men passed a megaphone between them, describing to the mostly white crowd their lives in the U.S. and in Portland as Black men. “You didn’t have to grow up . . . knowing, already from the first grade, where you stand [in] the country,” one of the men said. “All the stuff we saw on TV, the cartoons, all that shit, all of it had racist connotations to it.”
As the men spoke, protesters gathered, shutting down a block of Third Avenue, cordoned off by bicyclists on each end. One speaker said that he thought the mayor, Ted Wheeler, and the newly sworn-in police chief, Chuck Lovell, should be there. “I don’t know why they won’t come out and deal with their constituencies, but I really wish they would,” he said, the crowd around him growing. (Wheeler attended the protests three nights later and was gassed along with other demonstrators.) “What they’re expecting is for everybody to get quiet, everybody to get tired, everybody to go home, and for all you good white people to be like, ‘Yeah, I went downtown, and I stood with the black people, and it was cool last summer,’ and then it’s over. No, seriously. I’ve been in Portland my whole life, so I’m acutely aware of how we get down.” By then, a second block of Third Avenue was closed to traffic, the section of street directly in front of the courthouse, which was covered in graffiti and surrounded by a metal fence, erected by federal workers that morning.
At 9 P.M., another stir, this time from the other end of the block. A couple hundred women, most in yellow T-shirts, turned the corner on Salmon Street and marched down Third Avenue. The crowd cheered, fists in the air, as the women surged down the street. They call themselves the Wall of Moms, and they’re pissed. After seeing coverage of young people assaulted with munitions and doused with pepper spray—and after some tasted federal pepper spray themselves at earlier protests—the mothers of Portland formed their “wall” to protect demonstrators. The moms encircled the protesters, faced outward, and linked arms—a human barrier that dared federal agents, Go ahead, blind a mother of two with mace, see how it looks. One held a sign that said, preëmptively, “ ‘I’m so disappointed in you’—Mom.”
The speakers continued to work the crowd, which was by this time mostly gathered at the Main Street corner of the federal courthouse. One of the men in a Portland Justice shirt: “There’s one race, and that race is the human race. Black Lives Matter!” The Moms chanted back: “Black Lives Matter!” Meanwhile, at the other end of the block, protesters, clad in black, began quietly dismantling the fence around the courthouse. Using tools and a lot of muscle, they removed one section, then another. A disembodied voice boomed from inside the building: “This is the Federal Protective Service. Do not attempt to damage, remove, or climb the fence around the federal courthouse. Failure to obey this lawful order will result in arrest or use of crowd control munitions.”