newyorker--2020-11-04--The Midwest Holds the Key for Biden

The Midwest Holds the Key for Biden

Three hours after the first polls closed in the 2020 election , the broad national rejection of Donald Trump that many pollsters forecast has not materialized .
Instead , there are the same familiar divisions that have characterized American politics for a decade : rural areas around the country continue to deliver large margins for the President , while Joe Biden has taken advantage of the continued slide of prosperous suburbs toward the Democrats .
There does seem to be one change , though : Trump won the first major victory of the night in Florida , where his totals @ @ @ @ @ @ @ large Cuban-American community , traditionally anti-communist and Republican , exceeded his 2016 numbers by more than a hundred thousand votes , making up for shortcomings elsewhere in the state .
The race is tight and the results uncertain .
But a few patterns are emerging .
President Trump ’ s strength among Latino voters goes beyond Florida .
Democrats watching the early returns in Miami-Dade consoled themselves with the reminder that South Florida , with its Cuban and Venezuelan immigrant communities , is a highly specific place .
But , by mid-evening , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hillary Clinton ’ s totals in the Latino-majority counties along the Texas border .
The Trump campaign has focussed on increasing its margins with Latino voters across the country since the beginning of the race , as the President has made anti-immigration talk a much smaller part of his pitch this time .
So far , that strategy seems to have paid off .
Democratic hopes for the Senate have dimmed a bit .
In order to win the Senate , Democrats need to pick up three seats if Biden wins and four @ @ @ @ @ @ @ party has taken one seat from the other : in Colorado , the Democrat , John Hickenlooper , beat the incumbent Republican , Cory Gardner , and in Alabama the Democratic Senator Doug Jones has likely lost to his challenger , Tommy Tuberville .
Meanwhile , several key states—Georgia , North Carolina , and Maine—all look likely to return incumbent Republicans to the Senate .
There is a long way to go , but it has got harder to map out a path to a Democratic majority .
The Midwest holds the key @ @ @ @ @ @ @ victory has always run through the Midwestern bloc of Michigan , Wisconsin , and Pennsylvania , the so-called Blue Wall that Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 .
One of the strongest arguments for Biden ’ s nomination was that he was seen as well positioned to win back those states .
The complexity of voting ( and vote-counting ) across the upper Midwest means that we may not know the outcomes in those states for days , but the early results in other Northern and Midwestern states have offered some reassurance to Democrats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a decisive win .
A key question : Will Biden ’ s margins in the Democratic strongholds of Detroit , Milwaukee , and Philadelphia exceed Clinton ’ s and be enough to carry him to victory ?
There is no major realignment .
The final fivethirtyeight.com average of the polls gave Biden a national lead of roughly nine points , and those aggregators who estimated the President ’ s chances at reëlection put it around ten per cent—numbers that hinted at a dramatic reorientation of American politics .
Several hours into Election Night @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more of the same : a drawn-out trench war between cities and rural places , with a few strategic differences this time .
The circumstances surrounding this election were much different from those of 2016 , with an unpopular incumbent on the ballot , an ongoing pandemic that has killed more than two hundred thousand Americans and cratered the economy , and a Democratic challenger who was broadly liked .
And yet the same essential pattern has so far held .
The dream of progressives had been that tonight might put 2016 firmly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or loses , we seem likely to keep reliving it .
Read More About the 2020 Election • Live election results : see the latest updates from the Presidential , Senate , House , and gubernatorial races .
• The New Yorker endorses a Biden Presidency .
What he must do to repair our democracy .
• Donald Trump has survived impeachment , twenty-six accusations of sexual misconduct , and thousands of lawsuits .
His luck may well end if Joe Biden wins .
• What happens if Trump fights the election results @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do if Trump stages a coup .
• To understand the path Trump has taken to the 2020 election , look at what he has provided the executive class .
• The refusal by Mitch McConnell to rein in Trump is looking riskier than ever .
• Sign up for our daily newsletter for insight and analysis from our reporters and columnists .

Three hours after the first polls closed in the 2020 election, the broad national rejection of Donald Trump that many pollsters forecast has not materialized. Instead, there are the same familiar divisions that have characterized American politics for a decade: rural areas around the country continue to deliver large margins for the President, while Joe Biden has taken advantage of the continued slide of prosperous suburbs toward the Democrats. There does seem to be one change, though: Trump won the first major victory of the night in Florida, where his totals in Miami-Dade County, home to a large Cuban-American community, traditionally anti-communist and Republican, exceeded his 2016 numbers by more than a hundred thousand votes, making up for shortcomings elsewhere in the state. The race is tight and the results uncertain. But a few patterns are emerging.
President Trump’s strength among Latino voters goes beyond Florida. Democrats watching the early returns in Miami-Dade consoled themselves with the reminder that South Florida, with its Cuban and Venezuelan immigrant communities, is a highly specific place. But, by mid-evening, it seemed that Biden was lagging behind Hillary Clinton’s totals in the Latino-majority counties along the Texas border. The Trump campaign has focussed on increasing its margins with Latino voters across the country since the beginning of the race, as the President has made anti-immigration talk a much smaller part of his pitch this time. So far, that strategy seems to have paid off.
Democratic hopes for the Senate have dimmed a bit. In order to win the Senate, Democrats need to pick up three seats if Biden wins and four if Trump does. So far each party has taken one seat from the other: in Colorado, the Democrat, John Hickenlooper, beat the incumbent Republican, Cory Gardner, and in Alabama the Democratic Senator Doug Jones has likely lost to his challenger, Tommy Tuberville. Meanwhile, several key states—Georgia, North Carolina, and Maine—all look likely to return incumbent Republicans to the Senate. There is a long way to go, but it has got harder to map out a path to a Democratic majority.
The Midwest holds the key. The likeliest path to a Biden victory has always run through the Midwestern bloc of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, the so-called Blue Wall that Hillary Clinton lost in 2016. One of the strongest arguments for Biden’s nomination was that he was seen as well positioned to win back those states. The complexity of voting (and vote-counting) across the upper Midwest means that we may not know the outcomes in those states for days, but the early results in other Northern and Midwestern states have offered some reassurance to Democrats still hopeful that Biden can pull off a decisive win. A key question: Will Biden’s margins in the Democratic strongholds of Detroit, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia exceed Clinton’s and be enough to carry him to victory?
There is no major realignment. The final fivethirtyeight.com average of the polls gave Biden a national lead of roughly nine points, and those aggregators who estimated the President’s chances at reëlection put it around ten per cent—numbers that hinted at a dramatic reorientation of American politics. Several hours into Election Night, that looks much less likely than more of the same: a drawn-out trench war between cities and rural places, with a few strategic differences this time. The circumstances surrounding this election were much different from those of 2016, with an unpopular incumbent on the ballot, an ongoing pandemic that has killed more than two hundred thousand Americans and cratered the economy, and a Democratic challenger who was broadly liked. And yet the same essential pattern has so far held. The dream of progressives had been that tonight might put 2016 firmly in the past. Whether Biden wins or loses, we seem likely to keep reliving it.
Read More About the 2020 Election


newyorker--2020-11-04--Voters’ Problems at the Polls Have, for the Most Part, Been Refreshingly Typical

At 7 a.m. on Election Day , when the doors opened for voting at the Resurgence Church in Philadelphia , voters were handed provisional ballots , because election officials noticed that the voting machines appeared to have been tampered with .
In Spalding County , Georgia , voting machines were inoperable for a few hours at the start of the day , forcing officials to extend voting until 9 p.m .
The electronic poll books in Franklin County , Ohio ’ s largest county , were out of commission before the day began .
Remarkably , given the coronavirus pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ experiencing record turnout , none of these problems were out of the ordinary .
Indeed , on a day when we had been primed for civil unrest , a Trump army of poll watchers , Russian hacking , targeted power outages , and ransomware attacks , shuttered polling places and broken machines seemed almost mundane .
It wasn ’ t that they didn ’ t have consequences—they did , of course—but it was that they were unplanned and largely the result of human error or negligence .
By the comparatively low standards of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ appears to have taken place in a fairly orderly and sedate manner .
Even so , Damon Hewitt , of the Lawyers ’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law , said , on a call at midday , “ We ’ re also seeing some new forms of chaos , especially with respect to potential acts of intimidation.
” For example , Hewitt mentioned reports that voters in Mobile County , Alabama , whose I.D.s didn ’ t match their registration addresses were told that they could cast only provisional ballots , even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ supposed to use I.D.s for this purpose .
At a polling place in Miami , voters had to walk past a police officer in a Trump mask .
The Reverend Steve Bland , who was one of a hundred and seventy-three “ poll chaplains ” in Michigan , told me about a white man standing outside a polling place in a predominantly Black neighborhood , holding a clipboard , and asking people their names and if they had criminal records .
“ He took off when someone accompanying one of our poll chaplains @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Bland said .
On SeeSay 2020 , an online dashboard where individuals can report problems at the polls , Pennsylvania and Florida each had more than eighty reports of ballot issues , machine failures , instances of voter intimidation , and registration problems by the end of the afternoon .
But the most disturbing reports were coming from Michigan , where voters in Flint were getting robocalls telling them that , owing to long lines at the polls , they should stay home and vote on Wednesday .
“ Obviously this is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vote .
No long lines and today is the last day to vote .
Don ’ t believe the lies !
Have your voice heard !
RT PLS , ” Michigan ’ s attorney general , Dana Nessel , posted on Twitter .
( In early October , Nessel filed felony charges against the conservative activists Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman , for a campaign of voter-suppression robocalls in Detroit .
Wohl and Burkman have pleaded not guilty . )
The Department of Homeland Security said the F.B.I .
was investigating a nationwide @ @ @ @ @ @ @ safe and stay home ” on Election Day , by way of robocalls to more than ten million voters .
“ This election season is a test of democracy , ” Hewitt , of the Lawyers ’ Committee , said .
“ We ’ re answering that question in real time.
” Read More About the 2020 Election • Live election results : see the latest updates from the Presidential , Senate , House , and gubernatorial races .
• The New Yorker endorses a Biden Presidency .
What he must do to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has survived impeachment , twenty-six accusations of sexual misconduct , and thousands of lawsuits .
His luck may well end if Joe Biden wins .
• What happens if Trump fights the election results ?
• Here is what you can do if Trump stages a coup .
• To understand the path Trump has taken to the 2020 election , look at what he has provided the executive class .
• The refusal by Mitch McConnell to rein in Trump is looking riskier than ever .
• Sign up for our daily @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reporters and columnists .

At 7 a.m. on Election Day, when the doors opened for voting at the Resurgence Church in Philadelphia, voters were handed provisional ballots, because election officials noticed that the voting machines appeared to have been tampered with. In Spalding County, Georgia, voting machines were inoperable for a few hours at the start of the day, forcing officials to extend voting until 9 p.m. The electronic poll books in Franklin County, Ohio’s largest county, were out of commission before the day began.
Remarkably, given the coronavirus pandemic and the fact that many states are experiencing record turnout, none of these problems were out of the ordinary. Indeed, on a day when we had been primed for civil unrest, a Trump army of poll watchers, Russian hacking, targeted power outages, and ransomware attacks, shuttered polling places and broken machines seemed almost mundane. It wasn’t that they didn’t have consequences—they did, of course—but it was that they were unplanned and largely the result of human error or negligence. By the comparatively low standards of American elections, most voting on Tuesday appears to have taken place in a fairly orderly and sedate manner.
Even so, Damon Hewitt, of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said, on a call at midday, “We’re also seeing some new forms of chaos, especially with respect to potential acts of intimidation.” For example, Hewitt mentioned reports that voters in Mobile County, Alabama, whose I.D.s didn’t match their registration addresses were told that they could cast only provisional ballots, even though election officials in Alabama are not supposed to use I.D.s for this purpose. At a polling place in Miami, voters had to walk past a police officer in a Trump mask. The Reverend Steve Bland, who was one of a hundred and seventy-three “poll chaplains” in Michigan, told me about a white man standing outside a polling place in a predominantly Black neighborhood, holding a clipboard, and asking people their names and if they had criminal records. “He took off when someone accompanying one of our poll chaplains asked him what he was doing,” Bland said.
On SeeSay 2020, an online dashboard where individuals can report problems at the polls, Pennsylvania and Florida each had more than eighty reports of ballot issues, machine failures, instances of voter intimidation, and registration problems by the end of the afternoon. But the most disturbing reports were coming from Michigan, where voters in Flint were getting robocalls telling them that, owing to long lines at the polls, they should stay home and vote on Wednesday. “Obviously this is FALSE and an effort to suppress the vote. No long lines and today is the last day to vote. Don’t believe the lies! Have your voice heard! RT PLS,” Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, posted on Twitter. (In early October, Nessel filed felony charges against the conservative activists Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman, for a campaign of voter-suppression robocalls in Detroit. Wohl and Burkman have pleaded not guilty.) The Department of Homeland Security said the F.B.I. was investigating a nationwide effort to encourage people to “stay safe and stay home” on Election Day, by way of robocalls to more than ten million voters.
“This election season is a test of democracy,” Hewitt, of the Lawyers’ Committee, said. “We’re answering that question in real time.”
Read More About the 2020 Election


newyorker--2020-11-03--Biden’s Target of One on Election Night

Biden’s Target of One on Election Night

The most intriguing aspect of this election to ponder , as we wait for the results on Tuesday night , is that polls show Joe Biden narrowly ahead or narrowly trailing in a number of large states , any single one of which would likely deliver him the Presidency .
Let ’ s assume , for the sake of argument , that Biden holds on to all of the Hillary Clinton states , and adds the two Midwestern Trump states where Biden ’ s lead has been the safest , Michigan and Wisconsin .
And let ’ s also assume @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Congressional District , where he has led in the limited polling this year .
That leaves him with two hundred and fifty-nine electoral votes .
This means , to reach the magic number of two hundred and seventy , Biden needs only one of the following states : Pennsylvania , Arizona , Florida , Texas , Ohio , Georgia , North Carolina .
What ’ s so concerning to Democrats is that they ’ re not convinced that any one of them is certain to go blue .
Pennsylvania is Biden ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into Election Day leading by around five percentage points , according to the polling Web site FiveThirtyEight .
But possible pollster error in that state , combined with fears about ballot design and lawsuits—not to mention the prospect of a delayed vote count—have left Biden supporters looking elsewhere .
And that is what promises to make Tuesday night so fascinating , because none of the remaining states suggest a clear Biden advantage .
He has held small leads in the polling averages in Florida , North Carolina , and Georgia , but none @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thing .
Texas has seen remarkably high levels of early voting , but polls still show a Trump edge , and it may be another election cycle or two before Texas starts to lean Democratic .
And Ohio , which Trump won by more than eight percentage points in 2016 , will probably go to Biden only if it ’ s a truly lopsided night for him .
That leaves Arizona , which has shown a steady , consistent lead for the former Vice-President , and doesn ’ t have the same reservoir @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the polling error in 2016 .
It ’ s probably Biden ’ s best bet if he doesn ’ t want to wait until Pennsylvania .
The scary prospect facing Democrats is that Biden could win a majority nationwide—even a comfortable one—and come up just short in all of these states .
But Trump , again , almost certainly has to win them all , assuming that Biden can hold on to the two hundred and fifty-nine electoral votes his campaign feels most confident about .
That ’ s why what the Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ necessarily a strong showing across the Southern battlegrounds and Ohio but an outstanding showing in just one of them .
Such are the vagaries of the Electoral College .
Read More About the 2020 Election • Live election results : see the latest updates from the Presidential , Senate , House , and gubernatorial races .
• The New Yorker endorses a Biden Presidency .
What he must do to repair our democracy .
• Donald Trump has survived impeachment , twenty-six accusations of sexual misconduct , and thousands of lawsuits .
His @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wins .
• What happens if Trump fights the election results ?
• Here is what you can do if Trump stages a coup .
• To understand the path Trump has taken to the 2020 election , look at what he has provided the executive class .
• The refusal by Mitch McConnell to rein in Trump is looking riskier than ever .
• Sign up for our daily newsletter for insight and analysis from our reporters and columnists .

The most intriguing aspect of this election to ponder, as we wait for the results on Tuesday night, is that polls show Joe Biden narrowly ahead or narrowly trailing in a number of large states, any single one of which would likely deliver him the Presidency. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that Biden holds on to all of the Hillary Clinton states, and adds the two Midwestern Trump states where Biden’s lead has been the safest, Michigan and Wisconsin. And let’s also assume that he wins Nebraska’s Second Congressional District, where he has led in the limited polling this year. That leaves him with two hundred and fifty-nine electoral votes. This means, to reach the magic number of two hundred and seventy, Biden needs only one of the following states: Pennsylvania, Arizona, Florida, Texas, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina. What’s so concerning to Democrats is that they’re not convinced that any one of them is certain to go blue.
Pennsylvania is Biden’s most likely pickup, and he heads into Election Day leading by around five percentage points, according to the polling Web site FiveThirtyEight. But possible pollster error in that state, combined with fears about ballot design and lawsuits—not to mention the prospect of a delayed vote count—have left Biden supporters looking elsewhere. And that is what promises to make Tuesday night so fascinating, because none of the remaining states suggest a clear Biden advantage. He has held small leads in the polling averages in Florida, North Carolina, and Georgia, but none of them are close to a sure thing. Texas has seen remarkably high levels of early voting, but polls still show a Trump edge, and it may be another election cycle or two before Texas starts to lean Democratic. And Ohio, which Trump won by more than eight percentage points in 2016, will probably go to Biden only if it’s a truly lopsided night for him. That leaves Arizona, which has shown a steady, consistent lead for the former Vice-President, and doesn’t have the same reservoir of non-college-educated white voters that partly explained the polling error in 2016. It’s probably Biden’s best bet if he doesn’t want to wait until Pennsylvania.
The scary prospect facing Democrats is that Biden could win a majority nationwide—even a comfortable one—and come up just short in all of these states. But Trump, again, almost certainly has to win them all, assuming that Biden can hold on to the two hundred and fifty-nine electoral votes his campaign feels most confident about. That’s why what the Biden campaign will be looking for is not necessarily a strong showing across the Southern battlegrounds and Ohio but an outstanding showing in just one of them. Such are the vagaries of the Electoral College.
Read More About the 2020 Election


newyorker--2020-11-03--New York City Goes to the Polls

New York City Goes to the Polls

Who did you vote for ?
How do you feel about that ?
I liked him before .
I like him now .
Are you going to watch the election results come in tonight ?
No , I don ’ t look at television .
I ’ m a little worried about your legs .
I didn ’ t think it was gon na be this chilly .
Who did you vote for today ?
When I was a kid and I started voting , unions always voted for Democrats .
It might have switched today .
Being out here @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
How does that feel ?
It ’ s O.K .
Nobody really talks about it .
I know my wife has lost a few friends .
You know , I see a lot of people who say that Democrats are like sheep .
But I think it ’ s totally the opposite .
Most of these Republicans , whatever Trump says they believe .
It ’ s amazing .
Can I ask who you voted for ?
D.D .
: Can we say who we voted for ?
You can say whatever @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out .
Who did you vote for ?
No , not at all .

For many New York City voters, the question of the 2020 Presidential election was not whom to vote for but when. For the first time, the city offered all voters the option to cast their ballots in person ahead of Election Day. During nine days of early voting, many showed up to their polling places knowing they’d wait for hours. On the other hand, who could predict the swarms that might turn out on November 3rd? Voters were urged to dress warmly, pack snacks, and bring folding chairs. In the end, early voting drew about twenty-four per cent of the city’s registered voters (some 1.1 million people). Still, plenty held out for Tuesday—some because of logistical challenges to early voting (a job, a new puppy), others for the sheer satisfaction of performing their Election Day ritual. At 5:30 A.M. on Tuesday morning, a half hour before the city’s polling places opened their doors, two dozen or so voters were already lined up outside the gates of P.S. 316, an elementary school in Brooklyn. The early-morning air had a wintry bite, and the horizon was pale and pinkened with the beginnings of sunrise.
By nine o’clock, the pre-opening lines were long gone—at P.S. 316, as at poll sites around the city, voters were walking straight inside, picking up their ballots, and getting their democratic duty done with before heading off to catch buses, make it to doctor’s appointments, or head home to begin an anxious workday. In Staten Island’s Todt Hill, the borough’s ritziest neighborhood, a trickle of Land Rovers drove through the gates of Staten Island Academy, whose gymnasium serves as a polling place, many waving to a gentleman who stood just outside the hundred-foot electioneering boundary, handing out Trump literature to anyone whose car window happened to be down. Outside the gothic brick edifice of I.S. 73, a middle school in Maspeth, Queens, “VOTE HERE/VOTA AQUÍ” signs tied to the wrought-iron fencing were the only hint, on the otherwise sleepy block, that one of the most contentious, high-stakes elections in American history was under way. People walked in and just a few minutes later stepped out again into the clear morning light, pausing to adjust hats and sunglasses, making sure their “I VOTED” stickers were securely stuck to the front of their coats.


newyorker--2020-11-03--The Good News of Record Voter Turnout

The Good News of Record Voter Turnout

The slightly eerie element of this Election Day has been the linelessness .
So many Americans had already voted—by mail , at early in-person voting sites , at legally contested “ curbside ” polling places or drop boxes—that there were not many people left to clog the polling sites at junior high schools and senior citizens ’ centers this morning .
Our family of four wandered into our local polling site , in Massachusetts , a bit after 8 A.M. , as casually as if we were dropping off a package .
There were no lines , no surrogates wearing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a public-health notice reminding us to maintain social distance .
Joe Biden visited his childhood home , in Scranton , leaving a message scrawled on the living-room wall , in an elegant , Presidential-looking cursive : “ From this house to the White House with the grace of God.
” Donald Trump retweeted a video of a caravan of horse-drawn carriages , each flying a big Trump-Pence banner , speeding past a gas station , over the caption : “ The Amish are not playing around today.
” For the rest of us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chose to vote in person today , there was just the lightly nightmarish feeling of arriving at a party that has already ended .
By the time that early voting ended on Monday , more than a hundred million votes had been cast across the country ; by the time that polls close on Tuesday evening , the expectation is that more than a hundred and fifty million votes will have been cast , easily surpassing 2016 ’ s total of a hundred and thirty-seven million .
In Texas , Hawaii , Montana @ @ @ @ @ @ @ early this year than voted at all in 2016 .
In Florida , Georgia , and North Carolina , the 2020 early-vote totals were more than ninety per cent of the total vote last time .
Some analysts tried to compare the partisan registrations of this year ’ s early voters with those from 2016 , but , by midafternoon , there was no consensus on whether things looked better or worse for the President than expected .
All that anyone could agree on is that the final voter numbers are going to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ triumph , and maybe not a small one .
If the total vote passes a hundred and fifty million , that will mean a higher proportion of eligible Americans have voted this year than in any Presidential election since 1908 , when Theodore Roosevelt ’ s patrician Secretary of War , William Howard Taft , easily defeated the crusading left-wing populist William Jennings Bryan .
After Trump ’ s election , in 2016 , when both parties ran notably unpopular candidates , many feared that the American political system might simply wither from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ adopted a new slogan : “ Democracy Dies in Darkness.
” It was prophetic-sounding , but not ( so far , at least ) actually prophetic .
Trump has drawn millions of people into the public debate who had not been there before—against him , most visibly , but also for him .
If it seems a little breathtaking that the turnout should be so huge , then it also seems appropriate , for an election that might grant a second term to a President with authoritarian instincts .
Is our democracy intact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ways , doing some dying ?
It ’ s a few hours too early to say .
But whatever is happening , it isn ’ t happening in darkness .
Read More About the 2020 Election • Live election results : see the latest updates from the Presidential , Senate , House , and gubernatorial races .
• The New Yorker endorses a Biden Presidency .
What he must do to repair our democracy .
• Donald Trump has survived impeachment , twenty-six accusations of sexual misconduct , and thousands of lawsuits .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden wins .
• What happens if Trump fights the election results ?
• Here is what you can do if Trump stages a coup .
• To understand the path Trump has taken to the 2020 election , look at what he has provided the executive class .
• The refusal by Mitch McConnell to rein in Trump is looking riskier than ever .
• Sign up for our daily newsletter for insight and analysis from our reporters and columnists .

The slightly eerie element of this Election Day has been the linelessness. So many Americans had already voted—by mail, at early in-person voting sites, at legally contested “curbside” polling places or drop boxes—that there were not many people left to clog the polling sites at junior high schools and senior citizens’ centers this morning. Our family of four wandered into our local polling site, in Massachusetts, a bit after 8 A.M., as casually as if we were dropping off a package. There were no lines, no surrogates wearing pins or handing out literature, just a public-health notice reminding us to maintain social distance. Joe Biden visited his childhood home, in Scranton, leaving a message scrawled on the living-room wall, in an elegant, Presidential-looking cursive: “From this house to the White House with the grace of God.” Donald Trump retweeted a video of a caravan of horse-drawn carriages, each flying a big Trump-Pence banner, speeding past a gas station, over the caption: “The Amish are not playing around today.” For the rest of us, at least those of us who chose to vote in person today, there was just the lightly nightmarish feeling of arriving at a party that has already ended.
By the time that early voting ended on Monday, more than a hundred million votes had been cast across the country; by the time that polls close on Tuesday evening, the expectation is that more than a hundred and fifty million votes will have been cast, easily surpassing 2016’s total of a hundred and thirty-seven million. In Texas, Hawaii, Montana, and Washington, more people voted early this year than voted at all in 2016. In Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina, the 2020 early-vote totals were more than ninety per cent of the total vote last time. Some analysts tried to compare the partisan registrations of this year’s early voters with those from 2016, but, by midafternoon, there was no consensus on whether things looked better or worse for the President than expected. All that anyone could agree on is that the final voter numbers are going to be huge.
That itself is a triumph, and maybe not a small one. If the total vote passes a hundred and fifty million, that will mean a higher proportion of eligible Americans have voted this year than in any Presidential election since 1908, when Theodore Roosevelt’s patrician Secretary of War, William Howard Taft, easily defeated the crusading left-wing populist William Jennings Bryan. After Trump’s election, in 2016, when both parties ran notably unpopular candidates, many feared that the American political system might simply wither from a pox-on-both-their-houses despair. The Washington Post adopted a new slogan: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” It was prophetic-sounding, but not (so far, at least) actually prophetic. Trump has drawn millions of people into the public debate who had not been there before—against him, most visibly, but also for him. If it seems a little breathtaking that the turnout should be so huge, then it also seems appropriate, for an election that might grant a second term to a President with authoritarian instincts. Is our democracy intact, or is it, in small ways, doing some dying? It’s a few hours too early to say. But whatever is happening, it isn’t happening in darkness.
Read More About the 2020 Election


newyorker--2020-11-03--Washington, D.C., Braces for Election Night

On Tuesday morning , Washington , D.C. , ’ s gleaming downtown was braced for trouble—storefront windows boarded up with plywood , stone columns wrapped in plastic to thwart spray paint—but the streets were quiet .
A pedestrian could cross the wide avenues without bothering to look for cars and pull down his mask to breathe the crisp fall air .
Americans often forget how much violence has historically marred our elections , but never before have we had one where the Sweetgreens felt threatened .
Not to be outdone by the chain restaurants , the government had also beefed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reinforced by Jersey barriers , kept citizens out of an eight-block-by-four-block area from H Street to Constitution Avenue .
The south side of the zone , in the shadow of the Washington Monument , was deserted save for joggers and dog-walkers , but on the north side , above Lafayette Square ( where protesters were recently tear-gassed on orders from the Administration ) , a small collection of people was already starting to gather by mid-morning : tourists , students , foreign-media correspondents , people yelling about climate change , a flag-dance troupe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trees , you could just make out the White House in the distance .
A pair of teen-agers with green and red hair , Amichai Maciel and Ashley Gonzalez , stood by the fence , where signs in support of Black Lives Matter and memorials to John Lewis and Ruth Bader Ginsburg had been put up in recent days .
They had travelled into the District together , from Arlington , Virginia , and had made plans to meet up with a third friend , but weren ’ t sure if he was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are a little sketchy with COVID and stuff like that , ” Macil , who was holding a camera , said .
“ And also with what ’ s happened here before—all the violence .
You know , he ’ s still seventeen .
My parents are generally O.K .
with it .
I ’ d say they trust me .
I ’ m not going to throw eggs or something like that at a police officer .
I ’ m not that type of person .
I wanted to come here and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Macil and Gonzalez planned to leave before it got too late in the day , and they knew that they ’ d have to be patient waiting for the results .
“ I don ’ t see the election being called until maybe four days from now , ” Macil said .
“ I ’ m O.K .
with chilling .
That ’ s how it ’ s always been—it ’ s just , before , there ’ s been enough votes in , there ’ s not a lot of mail-in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ counted afterwards , for it to be decided.
” A few feet away , Carolina Ferrer and Pablo Reyes , television producers for Spanish and international news outlets , were talking logistics .
They had flown in from Spain on Saturday and had a long day of live hits and segments to plan .
“ It ’ s an important day for the country , and the whole planet , ” Reyes said .
“ Because , if there are serious riots in the U.S. , that will spread to the rest of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re hoping that peace wins out.
” In front of the Hay-Adams hotel , Antonio Cabbagestalk was wearing a Members Only jacket printed with Nickelodeon characters and an American-flag pattern .
He was waiting for his boss—they planned to set up a table selling political T-shirts and accessories a little ways up the street .
Lately , Cabbagestalk said , they ’ d been mostly selling Black Lives Matter goods , but they ’ d sold Donald Trump merchandise , and they ’ d sold Joe Biden merchandise .
Cabbagestalk , who is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ absentee , and that he ’ d found the process easy enough , but he declined to say who he voted for .
“ All I ’ m looking for is for them to do right by these people and do right by this country , ” Cabbagestalk said .
“ Because this year , this country has gone through a lot .
We ’ ve gone through a lot with the Black Lives Matter movement .
We ’ ve gone through a lot with the coronavirus , and now we have the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lot .
It ’ s a lot on the American people.
” Read More About the 2020 Election • Live election results : see the latest updates from the Presidential , Senate , House , and gubernatorial races .
• The New Yorker endorses a Biden Presidency .
What he must do to repair our democracy .
• Donald Trump has survived impeachment , twenty-six accusations of sexual misconduct , and thousands of lawsuits .
His luck may well end if Joe Biden wins .
• What happens if Trump fights the election @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can do if Trump stages a coup .
• To understand the path Trump has taken to the 2020 election , look at what he has provided the executive class .
• The refusal by Mitch McConnell to rein in Trump is looking riskier than ever .
• Sign up for our daily newsletter for insight and analysis from our reporters and columnists .

On Tuesday morning, Washington, D.C.,’s gleaming downtown was braced for trouble—storefront windows boarded up with plywood, stone columns wrapped in plastic to thwart spray paint—but the streets were quiet. A pedestrian could cross the wide avenues without bothering to look for cars and pull down his mask to breathe the crisp fall air. Americans often forget how much violence has historically marred our elections, but never before have we had one where the Sweetgreens felt threatened.
Not to be outdone by the chain restaurants, the government had also beefed up security. Newly installed fences, reinforced by Jersey barriers, kept citizens out of an eight-block-by-four-block area from H Street to Constitution Avenue. The south side of the zone, in the shadow of the Washington Monument, was deserted save for joggers and dog-walkers, but on the north side, above Lafayette Square (where protesters were recently tear-gassed on orders from the Administration), a small collection of people was already starting to gather by mid-morning: tourists, students, foreign-media correspondents, people yelling about climate change, a flag-dance troupe. Through the fence, past some trees, you could just make out the White House in the distance.
A pair of teen-agers with green and red hair, Amichai Maciel and Ashley Gonzalez, stood by the fence, where signs in support of Black Lives Matter and memorials to John Lewis and Ruth Bader Ginsburg had been put up in recent days. They had travelled into the District together, from Arlington, Virginia, and had made plans to meet up with a third friend, but weren’t sure if he was going to show. “His parents are a little sketchy with COVID and stuff like that,” Macil, who was holding a camera, said. “And also with what’s happened here before—all the violence. You know, he’s still seventeen. My parents are generally O.K. with it. I’d say they trust me. I’m not going to throw eggs or something like that at a police officer. I’m not that type of person. I wanted to come here and take photos. Just take it in.” Macil and Gonzalez planned to leave before it got too late in the day, and they knew that they’d have to be patient waiting for the results. “I don’t see the election being called until maybe four days from now,” Macil said. “I’m O.K. with chilling. That’s how it’s always been—it’s just, before, there’s been enough votes in, there’s not a lot of mail-in or other votes that have to be counted afterwards, for it to be decided.”
A few feet away, Carolina Ferrer and Pablo Reyes, television producers for Spanish and international news outlets, were talking logistics. They had flown in from Spain on Saturday and had a long day of live hits and segments to plan. “It’s an important day for the country, and the whole planet,” Reyes said. “Because, if there are serious riots in the U.S., that will spread to the rest of the world immediately. So we’re hoping that peace wins out.”
In front of the Hay-Adams hotel, Antonio Cabbagestalk was wearing a Members Only jacket printed with Nickelodeon characters and an American-flag pattern. He was waiting for his boss—they planned to set up a table selling political T-shirts and accessories a little ways up the street. Lately, Cabbagestalk said, they’d been mostly selling Black Lives Matter goods, but they’d sold Donald Trump merchandise, and they’d sold Joe Biden merchandise. Cabbagestalk, who is fifty-four, said he’d voted absentee, and that he’d found the process easy enough, but he declined to say who he voted for. “All I’m looking for is for them to do right by these people and do right by this country,” Cabbagestalk said. “Because this year, this country has gone through a lot. We’ve gone through a lot with the Black Lives Matter movement. We’ve gone through a lot with the coronavirus, and now we have the election. And it’s a lot. It’s a lot on the American people.”
Read More About the 2020 Election


newyorker--2020-11-03--Ariana Grande Talks Dirty on “Positions”

Ariana Grande ’ s voice could never be called demure , not even in its lowest or breathiest registers , or in its manifestation as the endearingly eccentric latter half of the Nickelodeon duo “ Sam & Cat.
” Yet it wasn ’ t until the release of her third album , “ Dangerous Woman , ” in 2016 ( well out of the way of that year ’ s election ) , that her music was permitted an explicit rating .
The album ’ s first expletive belonged to the then-reigning queen of hip-hop , Nicki Minaj , on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ song about the squishy pleasure of finding oneself temporarily hobbled after a round-the-clock sex romp .
On “ Everyday , ” Ari again sang the praises of a marathon man , silkily , accompanied by the marathon hit- and baby-maker , the rapper Future .
In the song ’ s music video , everyday couples got it in where they could , Dr. Seuss-style—on a car , on the bus , at the laundromat , by the watercooler—as Grande sang the memorable hook : “ He giving me that good shit / That @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s something special about the moment a pop star takes the opportunity to cuss in key .
Grande has largely escaped the narrative of sexual rebellion that has stuck to other pop-star alums of children ’ s programming , who have tended to sublimate adult desires into experiments in new genres , with tear-away wardrobes to match .
Still , the announcement of Grande ’ s sixth studio album , and its title— “ Positions ” —was met with anticipation , and maybe a small bit of trepidation , over what an outright @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like—as if she hadn ’ t already donned a black latex bunny hood several albums prior .
Perhaps caught up in the mood myself , I didn ’ t bother to consider other possible meanings of the title until the album ’ s lead single was released , on October 22nd .
The music video for “ Positions , ” released on the same day , swings viewers into the White House for a fly ’ s-eye view of The Ari Administration .
This provides Grande the opportunity to cosplay Jackie O in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ courtesy of Gigi Hadid ’ s frequent stylist , Mimi Cuttrell ( who also worked on the video for Grande ’ s “ God Is a Woman ” ) .
The easy , midtempo track , about being a jack-of-all-trades lover—a spiritual descendant of Destiny ’ s Child ’ s “ Cater 2 U , ” if you will—is nestled , on the album , alongside thirteen other tracks that are similarly concerned with flights of fucking , among other things .
Wresting symbolic timeliness from new album releases has become an even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when all of our lives feel as if they ’ re on hold .
Poptimists routinely clamor to crown the most emblematic quarantine releases , only to discard them weeks later in favor of the next , more perfect music of the moment .
Whether that music was executed within the constraints of quarantine ( as in “ How I ’ m Feeling Now ” or “ folklore ” ) or simply released during the pandemic ( “ Fetch the Bolt Cutters , ” “ Future Nostalgia , ” “ Chromatica ” ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Against the flow of traffic , I ’ ll resist offering such a reading here , as “ Positions ” also resists such a mating of content and circumstance .
Whereas Grande ’ s other recent albums—including the Grammy award-winning “ Sweetener , ” partially produced by Pharrell Williams ; and “ thank u , next , ” recorded in mourning—ascended to the realm of high concept , “ Positions ” alights back on Earth , where it roams among modest and more comforting rhythms .
The architects behind some of Grande ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the making of this album : her besties and fellow-singer-songwriters Tayla Parx and Victoria Monét and the producer Tommy Brown , who has worked with Grande since her début album , “ Yours Truly.
” “ Positions ” contains , I think , the essence of Grande , maintaining a feeling of coziness even as it serves new dishes that delight in their vulgarity .
The ninth track , “ Nasty , ” is punctuated with both the P-word ( that ’ s “ pussy , ” people ) and whistle tones @ @ @ @ @ @ @ favored flexes , which conjure the ingénue antics of Grande ’ s principal forebearer , Mariah Carey .
The word “ vibe ” and its adjectival equivalent are too ubiquitous to mean much these days , but something similar does seem apt for this album ’ s brand of easy listening , which is characterized by pleasant beats that cede attention to lyrical come-hithers aplenty .
The first track on the album , “ Shut Up , ” features a series of choral runs technically populated by one : Grande , of course @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vocal habits is the triplet flow , a sung or spoken rhythm fitting three syllables in the space of one beat , inherited from trap music , which , here , she bends to the whims of mood and genre , from bratty ( “ 34+35 , ” you do the math ) to jazzy ( “ love language ” ) .
“ Motive , ” with its kiss of house , would have done just fine without the intrusion of the singer Doja Cat , whose tributes to the dance floor are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all—of her celebrity peers , Grande has weighed in publicly on the overlapping crises of the past year , in acts of protest and in online messages , with special attention to the looming deadline of Tuesday ’ s election .
But given the surplus of misguided quasi-protest music released in the past months , I am thankful that these admirable messages were reserved for their proper venues .
That “ Positions ” eschews a higher calling—political or aesthetic—may disappoint some listeners , whereas others may also find it something of a relief @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to please and nothing more .
Of all the things sex can be , for the consenting parties involved , it can , least and best of all , be uncomplicatedly good—not unlike pop .

Ariana Grande’s voice could never be called demure, not even in its lowest or breathiest registers, or in its manifestation as the endearingly eccentric latter half of the Nickelodeon duo “Sam & Cat.” Yet it wasn’t until the release of her third album, “Dangerous Woman,” in 2016 (well out of the way of that year’s election), that her music was permitted an explicit rating. The album’s first expletive belonged to the then-reigning queen of hip-hop, Nicki Minaj, on “Side to Side,” a song about the squishy pleasure of finding oneself temporarily hobbled after a round-the-clock sex romp. On “Everyday,” Ari again sang the praises of a marathon man, silkily, accompanied by the marathon hit- and baby-maker, the rapper Future. In the song’s music video, everyday couples got it in where they could, Dr. Seuss-style—on a car, on the bus, at the laundromat, by the watercooler—as Grande sang the memorable hook: “He giving me that good shit / That make me not quit.” There’s something special about the moment a pop star takes the opportunity to cuss in key.
Grande has largely escaped the narrative of sexual rebellion that has stuck to other pop-star alums of children’s programming, who have tended to sublimate adult desires into experiments in new genres, with tear-away wardrobes to match. Still, the announcement of Grande’s sixth studio album, and its title—“Positions”—was met with anticipation, and maybe a small bit of trepidation, over what an outright sexual album from this artist would look like—as if she hadn’t already donned a black latex bunny hood several albums prior. Perhaps caught up in the mood myself, I didn’t bother to consider other possible meanings of the title until the album’s lead single was released, on October 22nd. The music video for “Positions,” released on the same day, swings viewers into the White House for a fly’s-eye view of The Ari Administration. This provides Grande the opportunity to cosplay Jackie O in her way, with sexed-up sixties silhouettes courtesy of Gigi Hadid’s frequent stylist, Mimi Cuttrell (who also worked on the video for Grande’s “God Is a Woman”). The easy, midtempo track, about being a jack-of-all-trades lover—a spiritual descendant of Destiny’s Child’s “Cater 2 U,” if you will—is nestled, on the album, alongside thirteen other tracks that are similarly concerned with flights of fucking, among other things.
Wresting symbolic timeliness from new album releases has become an even headier pastime than usual during this period when all of our lives feel as if they’re on hold. Poptimists routinely clamor to crown the most emblematic quarantine releases, only to discard them weeks later in favor of the next, more perfect music of the moment. Whether that music was executed within the constraints of quarantine (as in “How I’m Feeling Now” or “folklore”) or simply released during the pandemic (“Fetch the Bolt Cutters,” “Future Nostalgia,” “Chromatica”) isn’t really the point. Against the flow of traffic, I’ll resist offering such a reading here, as “Positions” also resists such a mating of content and circumstance. Whereas Grande’s other recent albums—including the Grammy award-winning “Sweetener,” partially produced by Pharrell Williams; and “thank u, next,” recorded in mourning—ascended to the realm of high concept, “Positions” alights back on Earth, where it roams among modest and more comforting rhythms.
The architects behind some of Grande’s earwormier tracks and sturdiest LPs reunited in the making of this album: her besties and fellow-singer-songwriters Tayla Parx and Victoria Monét and the producer Tommy Brown, who has worked with Grande since her début album, “Yours Truly.” “Positions” contains, I think, the essence of Grande, maintaining a feeling of coziness even as it serves new dishes that delight in their vulgarity. The ninth track, “Nasty,” is punctuated with both the P-word (that’s “pussy,” people) and whistle tones, one of the singer’s favored flexes, which conjure the ingénue antics of Grande’s principal forebearer, Mariah Carey. The word “vibe” and its adjectival equivalent are too ubiquitous to mean much these days, but something similar does seem apt for this album’s brand of easy listening, which is characterized by pleasant beats that cede attention to lyrical come-hithers aplenty. The first track on the album, “Shut Up,” features a series of choral runs technically populated by one: Grande, of course. One of Grande’s underrated vocal habits is the triplet flow, a sung or spoken rhythm fitting three syllables in the space of one beat, inherited from trap music, which, here, she bends to the whims of mood and genre, from bratty (“34+35,” you do the math) to jazzy (“love language”). “Motive,” with its kiss of house, would have done just fine without the intrusion of the singer Doja Cat, whose tributes to the dance floor are better enjoyed elsewhere.
Like some—but not all—of her celebrity peers, Grande has weighed in publicly on the overlapping crises of the past year, in acts of protest and in online messages, with special attention to the looming deadline of Tuesday’s election. But given the surplus of misguided quasi-protest music released in the past months, I am thankful that these admirable messages were reserved for their proper venues. That “Positions” eschews a higher calling—political or aesthetic—may disappoint some listeners, whereas others may also find it something of a relief to listen to an album that aspires to please and nothing more. Of all the things sex can be, for the consenting parties involved, it can, least and best of all, be uncomplicatedly good—not unlike pop.


newyorker--2020-11-03--The Latinx Brewers Whose Trump-Branded Beer Became a Drink of the Resistance

“ That was the end of Trump Gold , ” Elliott told me recently .
He ’ s now retired , but that particular morning has stayed with him over the years ; it ’ s a story he loves to tell .
“ It was a fleeting moment—it probably lasted all of thirty seconds—but I knew right away what was going on , ” he said .
“ You could see the labels.
” The beer , a blond ale produced by the local brewery 5 Rabbit Cervecería , had been available for a little more than a month @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a lounge in the hotel ’ s mezzanine .
The white-label commission had been a windfall for 5 Rabbit , the sort of reliable income stream that can be a lifeline for a small brewery .
The partnership was born out of affinity .
5 Rabbit describes itself as a “ Latin American-inspired brewery ” ; Mauricio Kuri , a former food-and-beverage manager at the Chicago Trump Tower , who is Mexican , had felt connected to the brewery and its mission , and commissioned the custom ale , which was on tap @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in the hotel rooms ’ minibars .
“ It was huge for us , ” Mila Ramirez , a partner at 5 Rabbit , told me , of getting the contract .
Then , on June 16 , 2015 , Donald Trump kicked off his campaign for President with a speech in which he smeared Latinx immigrants , particularly those from Mexico .
“ When Mexico sends its people , they ’ re not sending their best , ” he said .
“ They ’ re bringing drugs .
They ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Ramirez was born in Peru and grew up in countries including Brazil and Venezuela ; her husband , Andrés Araya , was born in Costa Rica .
The couple had lived in Mexico City , where their first daughter was born , and many of the brewery ’ s employees were Mexican .
To 5 Rabbit , Trump ’ s comments were deeply personal .
“ All Trump had been to us before then was this clown of reality TV , ” Ramirez said .
“ For him to use his platform @ @ @ @ @ @ @ my culture—we thought , O.K.
, we need to remove ourselves completely .
I was , like , ‘ I will hop in my car right now .
I ’ m going to get my beer back !
’ ” Within a week , 5 Rabbit had called its distributor , killed its contract with Rebar , and repossessed Trump Golden Ale , about fifty kegs in all .
The business couldn ’ t afford to write the beer off as a loss , so Ramirez , Araya , and their partners began @ @ @ @ @ @ @ explaining the situation .
Within a couple of hours , the entire stock was accounted for .
“ All the local places , they all mentioned what a big part of their restaurant family or bar family Latinos and Latinas were—back of house , doing a lot of the cooking , a lot of the dishwashing .
Without that community , the restaurant and bar business wouldn ’ t even exist , ” Ramirez said .
On the kegs ’ collars—the round , sticker-like labels found on top of the reusable metal barrels—a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ And I guess—I don ’ t really know , but I guess—that it was one of the guys at the brewery who , as a joke , took a Sharpie and wrote ‘ Chinga tu Madre Donald ’ ” —Spanish for , more or less , “ fuck your mother , Donald ” —Ramirez said .
“ And it went out the door like that .
And some bars started using that name , and that ’ s what the beer became.
” “ I remember perfectly , there was a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ‘ I am not buying this , because you ’ re making fun of Americans by calling it Gringolandia ’ —even though we were doing the opposite , ” Ramirez said .
She was speaking to me over FaceTime from 5 Rabbit ’ s brewery and tasting room , which sits in an industrial park near Midway Airport .
The warehouse space is filled with rows of silvery fermentation tanks ; one wall is hung with the flags of Costa Rica , the United States , and Mexico ; other walls are decorated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ artists from Chicago and Mexico .
Ramirez is forty-two , with expressive eyebrows and a waterfall of dark hair .
During our call , she walked through the space , pausing to scratch the ears of the brewery cat , Simón , and eventually sat down in front of a mural depicting the Virgin of Guadalupe wearing a red gown painted with flowers that resemble hops blossoms .
Gringolandia was conceived , Ramirez explained , as an homage to the dream of emigration , the hope of finding a better life in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , once you realize people think you ’ re saying something you ’ re not , “ you can not desmentir—there ’ s no good word for that in English , but it ’ s like to ‘ un-lie , ’ to fix the incorrect story.
” The brewery took the word “ Gringolandia ” off the beer .
It wasn ’ t the only 5 Rabbit creation whose name came up for revision .
Just a few weeks after Chinga tu Madre made its public début , Ramirez said , she saw @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Twitter—not about its political message , necessarily , but about its name .
“ They were , like , ‘ Isn ’ t this name misogynist ?
How is his mother involved in this ?
’ ” she recalled .
Ramirez , a committed feminist , took the note to heart .
( “ Though Trump ’ s mother , I ’ ve read , wasn ’ t so great either , ” she noted . )
She called an emergency confab of the brewery ’ s partners , and they settled on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in tone but still clearly dissenting : Chinga tu Pelo— “ Fuck Your Hair.
” In the weeks after Chinga tu Pelo ’ s ersatz launch , the brewery ’ s social-media and voice-mail in-boxes filled up with notes of support , and with screeds from angry Trump supporters .
A driver from one of their distributors refused to drive any truck containing the beer .
If Ramirez believes in not offending people , I asked her , did she ever consider pulling the beer entirely ?
“ I ’ ve always said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to offend , ” she said .
“ But the minute I feel anyone is being disrespected because of color , religion , sexual orientation , anything—I will always feel comfortable disrespecting the person who is disrespecting .
I think that ’ s what Chinga tu Pelo is about.
” When Trump was sworn in as President , in January of 2017 , 5 Rabbit renamed Chinga tu Pelo yet again .
“ We needed to make something more active , more about doing something , not just reacting , ” Ramirez explained @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( “ the Protest ” ) , and the brewery used it to bring attention to the progressive values that the Trump Administration seemed intent on eroding : immigrant rights , L.G.B.T.Q .
rights , voter access .
The beer continued to sell ( the filmmaker Lilly Wachowski designed a can in honor of trans rights ) , but customers still clamored for Chinga tu Pelo—never mind that La Protesta was the exact same beer .
“ F*** Your Hair , ” a documentary short about the beer , from 2019 , raised @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , this August , when the film mysteriously disappeared from Amazon , its streaming distributor , seemingly in response to a coördinated complaint campaign by Trump supporters .
( Amazon did not respond to a request for comment . )
Earlier this year , by popular demand , 5 Rabbit brought back the Chinga tu Pelo branding .
In the weeks leading up to the election , Ramirez told me , she received daily requests for the beer , mostly from people out of state , especially New York and California .
5 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ distributors who are licensed to ship alcohol outside of the state , so she was busy telling people no .
Even if Ramirez could have shipped the beer , though , supplies were dwindling .
When I spoke to her in early October , she had only two cases left at the brewery .
She later dug up more from an off-site storage unit , and she ’ ll be serving it at an Election Night party she ’ s hosting .
Depending on how things turn out , the beers that her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cans .
“ If Trump loses , that ’ s it , ” Ramirez told me .
“ We ’ re done , once he ’ s gone .
I hope we never brew Chinga tu Pelo ever again.
” Read More About the 2020 Election • Live election results : see the latest updates from the Presidential , Senate , House , and gubernatorial races .
• The New Yorker endorses a Biden Presidency .
What he must do to repair our democracy .
• Donald Trump has survived impeachment , twenty-six @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of lawsuits .
His luck may well end if Joe Biden wins .
• What happens if Trump fights the election results ?
• Here is what you can do if Trump stages a coup .
• To understand the path Trump has taken to the 2020 election , look at what he has provided the executive class .
• The refusal by Mitch McConnell to rein in Trump is looking riskier than ever .
• Sign up for our daily newsletter for insight and analysis from our reporters and columnists .

The Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago is home to three hundred and thirty-nine hotel rooms, four hundred and eighty-six residential apartments, a huge spa, a hair salon, a suite of event spaces, a restaurant, and a cocktail lounge. As at many luxury buildings, the fleet of workers who perform the cleaning, stocking, fixing, and general upkeep of these spaces are admitted via a service entrance; when a plumber or a furniture-delivery person arrives for a job, he is obligated to check in at a security desk near the service elevators, where he can observe the flow of building employees coming in and out. It was here, in June, 2015, that John Elliott, a union carpenter and woodwork installer, who was working a job inside one of the building’s condominiums, saw handcarts stacked high with kegs of beer being rolled out by a small group of men grinning ear to ear, like they’d pulled off a jewel heist.
“That was the end of Trump Gold,” Elliott told me recently. He’s now retired, but that particular morning has stayed with him over the years; it’s a story he loves to tell. “It was a fleeting moment—it probably lasted all of thirty seconds—but I knew right away what was going on,” he said. “You could see the labels.” The beer, a blond ale produced by the local brewery 5 Rabbit Cervecería, had been available for a little more than a month as the house beer of Rebar, a lounge in the hotel’s mezzanine. The white-label commission had been a windfall for 5 Rabbit, the sort of reliable income stream that can be a lifeline for a small brewery. The partnership was born out of affinity. 5 Rabbit describes itself as a “Latin American-inspired brewery”; Mauricio Kuri, a former food-and-beverage manager at the Chicago Trump Tower, who is Mexican, had felt connected to the brewery and its mission, and commissioned the custom ale, which was on tap at Rebar and stocked, in bottles, in the hotel rooms’ minibars. “It was huge for us,” Mila Ramirez, a partner at 5 Rabbit, told me, of getting the contract.
Then, on June 16, 2015, Donald Trump kicked off his campaign for President with a speech in which he smeared Latinx immigrants, particularly those from Mexico. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” he said. “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” Ramirez was born in Peru and grew up in countries including Brazil and Venezuela; her husband, Andrés Araya, was born in Costa Rica. The couple had lived in Mexico City, where their first daughter was born, and many of the brewery’s employees were Mexican. To 5 Rabbit, Trump’s comments were deeply personal. “All Trump had been to us before then was this clown of reality TV,” Ramirez said. “For him to use his platform to speak the way he spoke of my culture—we thought, O.K., we need to remove ourselves completely. I was, like, ‘I will hop in my car right now. I’m going to get my beer back!’ ”
Within a week, 5 Rabbit had called its distributor, killed its contract with Rebar, and repossessed Trump Golden Ale, about fifty kegs in all. The business couldn’t afford to write the beer off as a loss, so Ramirez, Araya, and their partners began calling friends at bars and restaurants and explaining the situation. Within a couple of hours, the entire stock was accounted for. “All the local places, they all mentioned what a big part of their restaurant family or bar family Latinos and Latinas were—back of house, doing a lot of the cooking, a lot of the dishwashing. Without that community, the restaurant and bar business wouldn’t even exist,” Ramirez said. On the kegs’ collars—the round, sticker-like labels found on top of the reusable metal barrels—a 5 Rabbit employee made a spontaneous edit. “And I guess—I don’t really know, but I guess—that it was one of the guys at the brewery who, as a joke, took a Sharpie and wrote ‘Chinga tu Madre Donald’ ”—Spanish for, more or less, “fuck your mother, Donald”—Ramirez said. “And it went out the door like that. And some bars started using that name, and that’s what the beer became.”
5 Rabbit Cervecería is named after Macuiltochtli, the Aztec god of drunkenness, a rabbit-shaped deity who is one of the Ahuiateteo, a quintet of gods who embody various excesses. The business is unabashedly Latinx in its branding and values; their brews draw inspiration (and ingredients, such as the Peruvian chocolate in their CaCao imperial stout) from throughout South and Central America, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and from the broader Latinx diaspora. Some beers are named for the rest of the Ahuiateteo—5 Lizard, 5 Vulture—and their ultra-small-batch Lotería beers are inspired by the cards of the Mexican game of chance. Some of the brewery’s best-sellers are the American-style beers of their “Gringolandia” quartet, which in their original runs had the name stamped across the bottles and cans in a swirly, Disneyland-style typeface: America as a magic kingdom, a place of fantasy.
“I remember perfectly, there was a beer buyer in Chicago who said, ‘I am not buying this, because you’re making fun of Americans by calling it Gringolandia’—even though we were doing the opposite,” Ramirez said. She was speaking to me over FaceTime from 5 Rabbit’s brewery and tasting room, which sits in an industrial park near Midway Airport. The warehouse space is filled with rows of silvery fermentation tanks; one wall is hung with the flags of Costa Rica, the United States, and Mexico; other walls are decorated with vast, colorful murals painted by artists from Chicago and Mexico. Ramirez is forty-two, with expressive eyebrows and a waterfall of dark hair. During our call, she walked through the space, pausing to scratch the ears of the brewery cat, Simón, and eventually sat down in front of a mural depicting the Virgin of Guadalupe wearing a red gown painted with flowers that resemble hops blossoms. Gringolandia was conceived, Ramirez explained, as an homage to the dream of emigration, the hope of finding a better life in the United States. But, she added, once you realize people think you’re saying something you’re not, “you cannot desmentir—there’s no good word for that in English, but it’s like to ‘un-lie,’ to fix the incorrect story.” The brewery took the word “Gringolandia” off the beer.
It wasn’t the only 5 Rabbit creation whose name came up for revision. Just a few weeks after Chinga tu Madre made its public début, Ramirez said, she saw someone posting negatively about the beer on Twitter—not about its political message, necessarily, but about its name. “They were, like, ‘Isn’t this name misogynist? How is his mother involved in this?’ ” she recalled. Ramirez, a committed feminist, took the note to heart. (“Though Trump’s mother, I’ve read, wasn’t so great either,” she noted.) She called an emergency confab of the brewery’s partners, and they settled on an amended title, a little lighter in tone but still clearly dissenting: Chinga tu Pelo—“Fuck Your Hair.”
In the weeks after Chinga tu Pelo’s ersatz launch, the brewery’s social-media and voice-mail in-boxes filled up with notes of support, and with screeds from angry Trump supporters. A driver from one of their distributors refused to drive any truck containing the beer. If Ramirez believes in not offending people, I asked her, did she ever consider pulling the beer entirely? “I’ve always said that it’s not my intention to offend,” she said. “But the minute I feel anyone is being disrespected because of color, religion, sexual orientation, anything—I will always feel comfortable disrespecting the person who is disrespecting. I think that’s what Chinga tu Pelo is about.”
When Trump was sworn in as President, in January of 2017, 5 Rabbit renamed Chinga tu Pelo yet again. “We needed to make something more active, more about doing something, not just reacting,” Ramirez explained. The new name was La Protesta (“the Protest”), and the brewery used it to bring attention to the progressive values that the Trump Administration seemed intent on eroding: immigrant rights, L.G.B.T.Q. rights, voter access. The beer continued to sell (the filmmaker Lilly Wachowski designed a can in honor of trans rights), but customers still clamored for Chinga tu Pelo—never mind that La Protesta was the exact same beer. “F*** Your Hair,” a documentary short about the beer, from 2019, raised the beer’s profile even more—especially, this August, when the film mysteriously disappeared from Amazon, its streaming distributor, seemingly in response to a coördinated complaint campaign by Trump supporters. (Amazon did not respond to a request for comment.)
Earlier this year, by popular demand, 5 Rabbit brought back the Chinga tu Pelo branding. In the weeks leading up to the election, Ramirez told me, she received daily requests for the beer, mostly from people out of state, especially New York and California. 5 Rabbit doesn’t work with any distributors who are licensed to ship alcohol outside of the state, so she was busy telling people no. Even if Ramirez could have shipped the beer, though, supplies were dwindling. When I spoke to her in early October, she had only two cases left at the brewery. She later dug up more from an off-site storage unit, and she’ll be serving it at an Election Night party she’s hosting. Depending on how things turn out, the beers that her guests drink may be among the final cans. “If Trump loses, that’s it,” Ramirez told me. “We’re done, once he’s gone. I hope we never brew Chinga tu Pelo ever again.”
Read More About the 2020 Election


newyorker--2020-11-03--The Count Begins in Pennsylvania: “It’s Going to Be a Wild Ride”

For the past several months , Marian Moskowitz , the chair of the Board of Commissioners in Chester County , Pennsylvania , has been having nightmares .
“ I dream the craziest things , ” she told me last Friday , at County Cup , a coffee shop inside one of the county ’ s office buildings .
In one dream , she ’ s hosting an emergency meeting about an election crisis in a location that she doesn ’ t recognize .
In another , she ’ s calling officials for advice about some calamity , but no one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ my worst nightmare , we are starting to count votes on Election Day , and somebody gets an injunction and stops us , ” she said .
Moskowitz is sixty-four , trim and tidy , and was wearing a pink blazer .
She has run both a cosmetics company and a trucking outfit , and she describes herself as a “ business-friendly Democrat.
” Chester County , which is just outside of Philadelphia , has historically been a red district , but , this year , Democratic voter registrations outpaced those of Republicans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden in the Presidential race .
When I visited the county offices on Friday , a line of people in heavy coats waited to get coronavirus tests .
In another line , voters waited to place their mail-in ballots into a drop box , which was monitored by both Republican and Democratic volunteers .
When county staff came to retrieve the ballots , they wore body cameras .
Moskowitz worried that any procedural oversight would later be used to challenge votes , and she was not taking any chances .
“ We ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
For months , Republicans in Pennsylvania have been laying the groundwork for sowing confusion in the aftermath of the election .
The Republican legislature refused to allow counties to begin opening or counting mail-in ballots—a process called “ pre-canvassing ” —until 7 A.M. on Election Day , which seemed sure to cause delays and mishaps .
Republicans have also mandated that each mail-in ballot be sealed in a second “ secrecy ” envelope , a provision that will likely slow counts and lead to voter error .
( In Philadelphia ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ secrecy envelopes were made on six per cent of ballots . )
These efforts could delay the announcement of results from mail-in ballots , which more Democrats have requested than Republicans by a margin of two to one .
This increases the likelihood of a “ red mirage , ” the announcement of Election Night results that favor Republicans , even if the true total favors Democrats .
Such efforts could also be used to invalidate large numbers of Democratic votes , which could help Trump take the state .
And , if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chance that the results will be determined by a Supreme Court ruling or by the state legislature , both of which seem likely to favor Trump .
Chester County has already been inundated with legal demands for documents .
“ In addition to all our staff has to do , they are dealing with request after request for discovery , ” Moskowitz told me .
Moskowitz led me down two flights of stairs and into the building ’ s windowless basement .
Under fluorescent lights , a staff of fifteen , who had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ since March 13th , toiled away .
“ These are the unknown essential workers , ” Alexis Barsamian , an election official on the team , told me .
Sealed mail-in ballots were being sorted by a giant , room-sized machine that sent them through a whirling set of gears until they ended up in one of two hundred and thirty blue baskets , organized by precinct .
These would be sealed in shrink wrap , and then transported securely to a gym at West Chester University .
On the morning of Election @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scanned by sixty-five employees working in shifts , twenty-four hours a day .
To expedite the process , Chester County has purchased ten extractors , machines that open both envelopes at a rate of a thousand ballots per hour .
The county , which is wealthy , has spent more than a million dollars on equipment alone to try to speed its count .
But the most time-consuming part of the process , smoothing the ballots so that they can be fed into the scanner , still has to be done by hand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ delayed the county ’ s certification by several days .
This time , the ballots have one fewer fold , which officials are counting on to speed things up .
“ We hope to be done with the majority by sunrise on Wednesday , ” Moskowitz told me .

For the past several months, Marian Moskowitz, the chair of the Board of Commissioners in Chester County, Pennsylvania, has been having nightmares. “I dream the craziest things,” she told me last Friday, at County Cup, a coffee shop inside one of the county’s office buildings. In one dream, she’s hosting an emergency meeting about an election crisis in a location that she doesn’t recognize. In another, she’s calling officials for advice about some calamity, but no one knows what to do. “In my worst nightmare, we are starting to count votes on Election Day, and somebody gets an injunction and stops us,” she said.
Moskowitz is sixty-four, trim and tidy, and was wearing a pink blazer. She has run both a cosmetics company and a trucking outfit, and she describes herself as a “business-friendly Democrat.” Chester County, which is just outside of Philadelphia, has historically been a red district, but, this year, Democratic voter registrations outpaced those of Republicans, indicating that it could tip to Biden in the Presidential race. When I visited the county offices on Friday, a line of people in heavy coats waited to get coronavirus tests. In another line, voters waited to place their mail-in ballots into a drop box, which was monitored by both Republican and Democratic volunteers. When county staff came to retrieve the ballots, they wore body cameras. Moskowitz worried that any procedural oversight would later be used to challenge votes, and she was not taking any chances. “We’re vulnerable,” she told me.
For months, Republicans in Pennsylvania have been laying the groundwork for sowing confusion in the aftermath of the election. The Republican legislature refused to allow counties to begin opening or counting mail-in ballots—a process called “pre-canvassing”—until 7 A.M. on Election Day, which seemed sure to cause delays and mishaps. Republicans have also mandated that each mail-in ballot be sealed in a second “secrecy” envelope, a provision that will likely slow counts and lead to voter error. (In Philadelphia’s municipal elections last year, mistakes regarding secrecy envelopes were made on six per cent of ballots.) These efforts could delay the announcement of results from mail-in ballots, which more Democrats have requested than Republicans by a margin of two to one. This increases the likelihood of a “red mirage,” the announcement of Election Night results that favor Republicans, even if the true total favors Democrats. Such efforts could also be used to invalidate large numbers of Democratic votes, which could help Trump take the state. And, if votes are contested, it increases the chance that the results will be determined by a Supreme Court ruling or by the state legislature, both of which seem likely to favor Trump. Chester County has already been inundated with legal demands for documents. “In addition to all our staff has to do, they are dealing with request after request for discovery,” Moskowitz told me.
Moskowitz led me down two flights of stairs and into the building’s windowless basement. Under fluorescent lights, a staff of fifteen, who had been working twelve-hour shifts almost every day since March 13th, toiled away. “These are the unknown essential workers,” Alexis Barsamian, an election official on the team, told me. Sealed mail-in ballots were being sorted by a giant, room-sized machine that sent them through a whirling set of gears until they ended up in one of two hundred and thirty blue baskets, organized by precinct. These would be sealed in shrink wrap, and then transported securely to a gym at West Chester University. On the morning of Election Day, ballots would be opened and scanned by sixty-five employees working in shifts, twenty-four hours a day. To expedite the process, Chester County has purchased ten extractors, machines that open both envelopes at a rate of a thousand ballots per hour. The county, which is wealthy, has spent more than a million dollars on equipment alone to try to speed its count. But the most time-consuming part of the process, smoothing the ballots so that they can be fed into the scanner, still has to be done by hand. During the primary, this process delayed the county’s certification by several days. This time, the ballots have one fewer fold, which officials are counting on to speed things up. “We hope to be done with the majority by sunrise on Wednesday,” Moskowitz told me.


newyorker--2020-11-03--Why Conrad Black Supports Trump’s Reëlection

Black , who considers Donald Trump a friend , wrote a biography of the President , “ Donald J. Trump : A President Like No Other , ” that was published in 2018 .
Black had previously written an admiring biography of Richard Nixon , and has contributed for many years to National Review , so his flattering portrait of the President was no surprise .
But the book became more notable the following year when Trump pardoned Black .
Announcing the decision , the then White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders referred to Black ’ s “ tremendous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to political and historical thought.
” Recently , Black signed a statement in support of Trump ’ s reëlection issued by a group called Scholars and Writers for Trump , which includes Dinesh D ’ Souza , who also received a pardon from Trump .
Black remains in Canada , despite having renounced his Canadian citizenship two decades ago in order to be seated in the House of Lords , in the United Kingdom .
I recently spoke with him by phone about his support for the President .
During our conversation , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clarity , we discussed his long friendship with Trump , how Black responded to the “ Access Hollywood ” tape , and why he believes that the accusations about Trump ’ s racism are four-fifths false .
We hear a lot about Trump supporters who are coal miners or factory workers , and what they respect and admire about the President .
But , as you make clear , he is also supported by media barons and multimillionaires .
What is it that you like about him , specifically , that we might @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have two aspects of that .
In public-policy matters , I credit him with practically ending illegal immigration—although he is very much in favor of legal immigration—and by his tax reductions and his immigration policy eliminating unemployment prior to the onset of the COVID-19 crisis .
[ The unemployment rate in February was 3.5 per cent . ]
We can just forget the COVID-19 crisis and focus on before then .
Yeah .
And the consequence of that was that you finally had the lower twenty per cent of income earners advancing more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
[ Annual earnings for the bottom ten per cent increased faster than those of the top ten per cent during just one year , in 2018 . ]
Second , while there have been some backing and filling on aspects of it , I think he has focussed correctly on the Chinese challenge , and he hasn ’ t done it in a bombastic way that reminds me—as an older person—of the McCarthy era .
We aren ’ t getting that kind of paranoid hysteria .
Third , I credit this President @ @ @ @ @ @ @ demands of the climate-change- and environmental-alarmist groups .
This idea that we have to shut down the oil industry is nonsense .
The idea , in the words of Al Gore , that it is settled science—it is nothing of the kind .
On a personal level , I have known him a long time , and I had some considerable difficulties , legally , years ago , and he was extremely supportive and volunteered to come and give evidence for me , and I found him to be a loyal friend .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I am disappointed and sometimes annoyed by the vagaries of his public personality , as I am sure most of your readers are , but in the balance of estimating the importance of these things , his personality is neither here nor there .
It is what he does as President in policy terms that is more important , and that ’ s why I support him .
One thing that connects some of the things you are talking about is that he refers to global warming as a Chinese hoax .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ it was a Chinese hoax .
He said it was a hoax .
I think he quite rightly feels that the global-warming argument was a group of conservationists and ecological zealots who suddenly found a vast accretion of people in the international left routed after the collapse of international Communism , who embraced the environment as a new way to attack capitalism .
That is what Trump thinks it is , and I agree with him .
I was just quoting him , when he said , “ The concept of global warming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in order to make U.S. manufacturing noncompetitive.
” That was the Copenhagen thing .
It was one of the dumbest ideas the Obama Administration had , and they had no shortage of them .
You mentioned lowering illegal immigration , but I think people have had issues with the way Trump has carried it out .
A lot of immigrants were separated from their children at the border .
Some of them remain separated .
Do things like that concern you ?
Yes , I thought that was botched when [ Jeff ] @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I thought it was the dumbest thing I ever heard , and it didn ’ t last long .
It was revoked quickly because the outcry against it was vigorous .
I thought it was a mistake .
I am not suggesting the President is infallible , for heaven ’ s sakes .
I would be completely out of my mind if I said that .
And he wouldn ’ t even claim it himself .
You write in your book , “ Donald Trump possesses the optimism to persevere and succeed , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a genius for spectacle , and a firm belief in common sense and the common man.
” Yeah , well , that ’ s what I wrote , and I think that ’ s accurate .
In fairness , I would like to make the point that , in various places , I accused him of unutterable hucksterism and serious errors and ethically questionable conduct .
I am not whitewashing this guy .
We know what we are dealing with .
But I think he has been a good President .
Can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ friendship with him , and what he is like as a friend ?
Yes , and I am happy to do it , because the public Trump is often almost unrecognizable to people who know him personally .
And I have known him for over twenty years .
I haven ’ t seen much of him for the last few years .
He calls me occasionally , very occasionally , and I would never presume to bother him .
He has a lot on his mind on the average day .
He is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the last thing in the world he needs is someone phoning him up for no good reason .
But , to answer your question , he is a remarkable raconteur , a loyal friend , and his nature is positive .
He can certainly be destructive about people he feels are doing something to him .
That is a well-known fact , but his basic idea , and his whole ethos as a person , is that positive booster-ish thing , which got him into some pretty cheesy commercial operations , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a New York developer and he is a very positive personality .
And , as a cordial acquaintance , he is always courteous .
If you are having dinner with him , he never speaks over people .
He is a good listener .
He is very amusing and has a good sense of humor .
And he is rather a generous man .
A couple of times I have mentioned charitable causes I have been associated with , and he always donated well .
So reports about charitable donations being used for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not in line with your experience ?
Absolutely not .
And all legitimate charities get favorable tax treatment , as they should .
I don ’ t think his conduct , in that respect , is different from the Rockefeller Foundation to any university or the Roman Catholic Church or anyone else .
I often heard in 2016 from people who knew him that he was very different in private .
Maybe that ’ s why the “ Access Hollywood ” tape was so shocking .
It was the private Trump , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ man we see in public .
How did you understand it ?
Well , that was from eleven years before , and , of course , I knew him at that time .
I was surprised , in a way .
I had known he had been a womanizer of fairly energetic proportions , but I had thought that once he took up with Melania he laid off that .
Now , what he actually said , as far as the recording of it , did not in itself contradict that .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is what I do all the time.
” I think what he was saying was , “ a celebrity can do this.
” I have known him really only in the time he has been with Melania , and I have never seen the slightest hint that he was anything other than faithful to her .
And the only contradiction to that that I am aware of is the Stormy Daniels business , which was , after all , a one-night stand .

Conrad Black, the former owner of the Daily Telegraph, the Chicago Sun-Times, and numerous media properties in his native Canada, was convicted of mail fraud and obstruction of justice in 2007, after charges of siphoning money from his company to fund his lavish lifestyle. The U.S. Supreme Court took up his case in 2010, which led to the overturning of two of the three mail-fraud counts, but Black served three and a half years in federal prison before being deported to Canada, in 2012.
Black, who considers Donald Trump a friend, wrote a biography of the President, “Donald J. Trump: A President Like No Other,” that was published in 2018. Black had previously written an admiring biography of Richard Nixon, and has contributed for many years to National Review, so his flattering portrait of the President was no surprise. But the book became more notable the following year when Trump pardoned Black. Announcing the decision, the then White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders referred to Black’s “tremendous contributions to business, as well as to political and historical thought.” Recently, Black signed a statement in support of Trump’s reëlection issued by a group called Scholars and Writers for Trump, which includes Dinesh D’Souza, who also received a pardon from Trump.
Black remains in Canada, despite having renounced his Canadian citizenship two decades ago in order to be seated in the House of Lords, in the United Kingdom. I recently spoke with him by phone about his support for the President. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed his long friendship with Trump, how Black responded to the “Access Hollywood” tape, and why he believes that the accusations about Trump’s racism are four-fifths false.
We hear a lot about Trump supporters who are coal miners or factory workers, and what they respect and admire about the President. But, as you make clear, he is also supported by media barons and multimillionaires. What is it that you like about him, specifically, that we might not hear so much about?
You have two aspects of that. In public-policy matters, I credit him with practically ending illegal immigration—although he is very much in favor of legal immigration—and by his tax reductions and his immigration policy eliminating unemployment prior to the onset of the COVID-19 crisis. [The unemployment rate in February was 3.5 per cent.]
We can just forget the COVID-19 crisis and focus on before then.
Yeah. And the consequence of that was that you finally had the lower twenty per cent of income earners advancing more quickly than the top ten per cent. [Annual earnings for the bottom ten per cent increased faster than those of the top ten per cent during just one year, in 2018.] Second, while there have been some backing and filling on aspects of it, I think he has focussed correctly on the Chinese challenge, and he hasn’t done it in a bombastic way that reminds me—as an older person—of the McCarthy era. We aren’t getting that kind of paranoid hysteria. Third, I credit this President with standing resolutely against the more extreme demands of the climate-change- and environmental-alarmist groups. This idea that we have to shut down the oil industry is nonsense. The idea, in the words of Al Gore, that it is settled science—it is nothing of the kind.
On a personal level, I have known him a long time, and I had some considerable difficulties, legally, years ago, and he was extremely supportive and volunteered to come and give evidence for me, and I found him to be a loyal friend. Now, with that said, Isaac, I am disappointed and sometimes annoyed by the vagaries of his public personality, as I am sure most of your readers are, but in the balance of estimating the importance of these things, his personality is neither here nor there. It is what he does as President in policy terms that is more important, and that’s why I support him.
One thing that connects some of the things you are talking about is that he refers to global warming as a Chinese hoax.
I don’t think he said it was a Chinese hoax. He said it was a hoax. I think he quite rightly feels that the global-warming argument was a group of conservationists and ecological zealots who suddenly found a vast accretion of people in the international left routed after the collapse of international Communism, who embraced the environment as a new way to attack capitalism. That is what Trump thinks it is, and I agree with him.
I was just quoting him, when he said, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing noncompetitive.”
That was the Copenhagen thing. It was one of the dumbest ideas the Obama Administration had, and they had no shortage of them.
You mentioned lowering illegal immigration, but I think people have had issues with the way Trump has carried it out. A lot of immigrants were separated from their children at the border. Some of them remain separated. Do things like that concern you?
Yes, I thought that was botched when [Jeff] Sessions was still the Attorney General. I thought it was the dumbest thing I ever heard, and it didn’t last long. It was revoked quickly because the outcry against it was vigorous. I thought it was a mistake. I am not suggesting the President is infallible, for heaven’s sakes. I would be completely out of my mind if I said that. And he wouldn’t even claim it himself.
You write in your book, “Donald Trump possesses the optimism to persevere and succeed, the confidence to affront tradition and convention, a genius for spectacle, and a firm belief in common sense and the common man.”
Yeah, well, that’s what I wrote, and I think that’s accurate. In fairness, I would like to make the point that, in various places, I accused him of unutterable hucksterism and serious errors and ethically questionable conduct. I am not whitewashing this guy. We know what we are dealing with. But I think he has been a good President.
Can you talk a little more about your friendship with him, and what he is like as a friend?
Yes, and I am happy to do it, because the public Trump is often almost unrecognizable to people who know him personally. And I have known him for over twenty years. I haven’t seen much of him for the last few years. He calls me occasionally, very occasionally, and I would never presume to bother him.
He has a lot on his mind on the average day.
He is the holder of a great office, and the last thing in the world he needs is someone phoning him up for no good reason. But, to answer your question, he is a remarkable raconteur, a loyal friend, and his nature is positive. He can certainly be destructive about people he feels are doing something to him. That is a well-known fact, but his basic idea, and his whole ethos as a person, is that positive booster-ish thing, which got him into some pretty cheesy commercial operations, but that is his nature. He is a New York developer and he is a very positive personality. And, as a cordial acquaintance, he is always courteous. If you are having dinner with him, he never speaks over people. He is a good listener. He is very amusing and has a good sense of humor. And he is rather a generous man. A couple of times I have mentioned charitable causes I have been associated with, and he always donated well.