newyorker--2020-11-15--There Is No One Way to Win the Latino Vote

I recently spoke by phone with Ruben Gallego , the Democratic representative for Arizona ’ s Seventh Congressional District , which includes parts of Phoenix and has a majority-Latino population .
Gallego , the son of a Colombian mother and a Mexican father , is in his third term , and won an overwhelming victory on November 3rd .
During our conversation , which has been edited for length and clarity , we discussed what Democrats who are trying to win more Latino votes can learn from Bernie Sanders ’ s campaign , what the Trump campaign did differently this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gender gap among Latinos .
How do you understand Biden ’ s weakness with Latino voters , and how long have you thought that this disappointing showing was a possibility ?
Well , I don ’ t think we just generalize and say that it ’ s across the board .
He surpassed Hillary Clinton ’ s numbers both in the aggregate , as well as the percentage , in Arizona .
And then I think the area that we fell flat was with Florida Cubans .
And that ’ s not a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a function of the Cuban-American community .
The Republicans and Donald Trump had four years to work on this community , knowing that they were going to be a swing community , while the Democrats did not have a nominee for the last three and a half years .
So what it does tell me is that you can work on this .
We can win Latino votes back .
And we can encourage people to come out and vote .
One of the things we heard early on was , “ You @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Latinos excited about Biden , especially in Arizona.
” In the primary , Bernie won the Latino vote , and everybody was worried about that .
[ This was true in Nevada and other states , but not Arizona , according to exit polls . ]
And , at the end of the day , it wasn ’ t the case .
I know we don ’ t have final numbers in , but it definitely seems that even though Biden improved his standing in Texas over all , compared to Hillary Clinton @ @ @ @ @ @ @ What do you think people did not respond to about Biden or responded to about Trump ?
There are a couple of things you have to remember .
No .
1 , Donald Trump shut off his anti-immigrant rhetoric starting in June .
If you were watching Spanish-language TV , he was talking about how he ’ s going to pass citizenship for Dreamers by executive order .
I didn ’ t know that .
You ’ re saying that on Spanish-language TV , in the last few months , Donald Trump was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ absolutely .
And he was actually running ads in Spanish all over the country , which is something that did not happen in 2016 .
And he ’ s the incumbent .
That ’ s the other thing , too .
At some point , the bogeyman that you heard about for four years doesn ’ t end up being as horrible , and he ’ s running commercials .
So he ’ s going to narrow that margin .
And this happens every election cycle .
George W. Bush did better with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Part of the problem with Texas is that it ’ s so massive that , in order for you to get any work done , you have to start getting it done early .
And Trump ran a campaign that was targeting Latinos .
How much do you think that this story that we ’ re telling about the Latino vote is the gender gap manifesting itself across racial and ethnic lines ?
There ’ s a lot of early evidence to suggest that Trump increased his standing a lot with Latino @ @ @ @ @ @ @ growing trend where Latino men are still voting Democratic , but by not as much .
A lot of it , I think , has to do with just machismo and other types of anti-women sentiments .
I think that ’ s certainly a factor that Trump was playing into .
I don ’ t know if it ’ s something that ’ s long-term and lasting , though .
The Democratic-primary Latino electorate is obviously not the same as the entire Latino electorate , but Bernie Sanders had a lot of success @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
We saw that in his big win in Nevada .
What do you think it was that he was doing with a subset of the Latino population that Democrats should follow ?
Or is it something that ’ s maybe not replicable for a general election , but is replicable in a Democratic primary ?
It is actually replicable for a general election , because Bernie Sanders had the money to do it early .
It ’ s very intensive work for you to get younger Latinos out to vote , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and have the confidence that the money will have a return on investment .
This is why a lot of campaigns can ’ t do that , especially when it ’ s hard to fund-raise .
Bernie did not have that problem .
I think that President Biden , in his reëlection , is not going to have that same problem .
At least he ’ s going to be able to fund-raise early enough so that he can do all the general-election work to get back the Latino base and then some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years from now , we ’ re going to have the Cuban community back at the level that we wanted , and we will win and flip Florida because of it .
Thinking about flipping Florida , every four years .
You mentioned that Trump toned down some of his immigration rhetoric in Spanish-language ads , but how important is the immigration issue ?
I think that after 2012 , when Barack Obama won and there was a bipartisan push for immigration reform , the sense was that the only way to win @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of comprehensive immigration reform .
It seems like that ’ s perhaps less true now .
Do you think that the importance of immigration to Latino voters is overstated ?
It is a very complicated issue .
Latinos care about immigration reform .
But there are a couple of things to think about when it comes to this .
The Cuban migration story is very different from the non-Cuban migration story , right ?
Cubans , for decades , have not had a bad relationship with any Administration when it comes to immigration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ allows them to essentially automatically become a permanent resident , or used to , until recently .
So they don ’ t have the same kind of angst when it comes to immigration .
And then you have your different levels of migration within other Latino communities that give you different perspectives .
You have the Venezuelans , who look at it from a political-refugee perspective .
And then you have other Latinos that are running away from bad economic situations .
The fact is that , right now , the top priority @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to it , the economy .
And this is why a lot of them still voted for Biden .
For Cubans , a lot of it was still tied to the idea of socialism that was being amped up by Republicans .
If you don ’ t have the socialism rhetoric that ’ s coming out of Florida , then things might spring back .
Joe Biden is about as far from a socialist as anyone in the Democratic Party .
And yet the attacks seemed to have an effect .
Did you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this was potentially a problem ?
Yes , of course .
We knew that we were behind the eight ball , and the Biden campaign tried to pivot as fast as possible , but it was going to be difficult to pivot that fast in the middle of a pandemic .
The way you fight the issues of socialism down in Little Havana is you actually go there , you campaign a couple of times , and you send a bunch of surrogates .
And when you don ’ t have that , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people , from different governments or government officials , specifically in South America , comes in .
There were conspiracy theories that were going around social media and among Cuban-Americans , and they really took hold .
What governments are you talking about , and also how much are you concerned about misinformation ?
Well , I was definitely disappointed in Colombian right-wing politicians getting involved in our elections .
And they were helping spread a lot of misinformation about Biden and the Biden-Harris ticket .
There were a lot of social-media influencers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spreading misinformation .
I don ’ t know where they got their misinformation , but there was no way to answer it , because there was , again , no way for us to have a footprint , an organic social-media footprint , that is created from having rallies and talking to people , and things of that nature .
The Latino community has a lot of people who are religious , and some people who may be more socially conservative than the average Democrat .
Are you concerned that the Party is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a leftward turn on cultural issues and , if it did , what sort of challenges would the Party face winning the Latino vote ?
The Latino community is not as religiously conservative as people make it out to be .
Yes , we go to church .
Are we as conservative as evangelicals ?
No .
Are we anywhere near that ?
No .
I believe that being socially liberal is the correct thing to be .
You have to be socially liberal , but you also have to be fiscally liberal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ benefits for families , such as increasing wages and health care and things of that nature .
Because , if not , I think that ’ s when a lot of opportunities come for outside groups that basically point to the Democratic Party not doing anything for Latinos .

Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the Presidential election, despite the fact that he underperformed with Latino voters, compared to Hillary Clinton’s results in 2016. Although Biden won the votes of a majority of Latino Americans, Trump likely did somewhere between several and ten points better among them than he did in 2016. (We don’t have precise figures yet, but election data suggests that there was a large gender gap among nonwhite voters as well as white voters, with women more likely than men to favor Biden.) Biden not only lost Florida by the greater-than-expected margin of three percentage points, but he also struggled to compete in Texas, where some polls had shown a tight race. He won Nevada and Arizona, but the Democratic Party will have to find a way to appeal to more Latino voters if it wants to win consistently across the Sun Belt states.
I recently spoke by phone with Ruben Gallego, the Democratic representative for Arizona’s Seventh Congressional District, which includes parts of Phoenix and has a majority-Latino population. Gallego, the son of a Colombian mother and a Mexican father, is in his third term, and won an overwhelming victory on November 3rd. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed what Democrats who are trying to win more Latino votes can learn from Bernie Sanders’s campaign, what the Trump campaign did differently this time, and the reasons for the gender gap among Latinos.
How do you understand Biden’s weakness with Latino voters, and how long have you thought that this disappointing showing was a possibility?
Well, I don’t think we just generalize and say that it’s across the board. He surpassed Hillary Clinton’s numbers both in the aggregate, as well as the percentage, in Arizona. And then I think the area that we fell flat was with Florida Cubans. And that’s not a function of Biden; that’
s a function of the Cuban-American community. The Republicans and Donald Trump had four years to work on this community, knowing that they were going to be a swing community, while the Democrats did not have a nominee for the last three and a half years.
So what it does tell me is that you can work on this. We can win Latino votes back. And we can encourage people to come out and vote. One of the things we heard early on was, “You’re just not going to get Latinos excited about Biden, especially in Arizona.” In the primary, Bernie won the Latino vote, and everybody was worried about that. [This was true in Nevada and other states, but not Arizona, according to exit polls.] And, at the end of the day, it wasn’t the case.
I know we don’t have final numbers in, but it definitely seems that even though Biden improved his standing in Texas over all, compared to Hillary Clinton, he came up very short. What do you think people did not respond to about Biden or responded to about Trump?
There are a couple of things you have to remember. No. 1, Donald Trump shut off his anti-immigrant rhetoric starting in June. If you were watching Spanish-language TV, he was talking about how he’s going to pass citizenship for Dreamers by executive order.
I didn’t know that. You’re saying that on Spanish-language TV, in the last few months, Donald Trump was actually running pro-immigration ads?
Oh, absolutely. And he was actually running ads in Spanish all over the country, which is something that did not happen in 2016. And he’s the incumbent. That’s the other thing, too. At some point, the bogeyman that you heard about for four years doesn’t end up being as horrible, and he’s running commercials. So he’s going to narrow that margin. And this happens every election cycle. George W. Bush did better with Latinos when he was running for reëlection. Part of the problem with Texas is that it’s so massive that, in order for you to get any work done, you have to start getting it done early. And Trump ran a campaign that was targeting Latinos.
How much do you think that this story that we’re telling about the Latino vote is the gender gap manifesting itself across racial and ethnic lines? There’s a lot of early evidence to suggest that Trump increased his standing a lot with Latino men.
There’s certainly a growing trend where Latino men are still voting Democratic, but by not as much. A lot of it, I think, has to do with just machismo and other types of anti-women sentiments. I think that’s certainly a factor that Trump was playing into. I don’t know if it’s something that’s long-term and lasting, though.
The Democratic-primary Latino electorate is obviously not the same as the entire Latino electorate, but Bernie Sanders had a lot of success in the primary in winning Latino voters. We saw that in his big win in Nevada. What do you think it was that he was doing with a subset of the Latino population that Democrats should follow? Or is it something that’s maybe not replicable for a general election, but is replicable in a Democratic primary?
It is actually replicable for a general election, because Bernie Sanders had the money to do it early. It’s very intensive work for you to get younger Latinos out to vote, and you need to put in the money and have the confidence that the money will have a return on investment. This is why a lot of campaigns can’t do that, especially when it’s hard to fund-raise. Bernie did not have that problem. I think that President Biden, in his reëlection, is not going to have that same problem. At least he’s going to be able to fund-raise early enough so that he can do all the general-election work to get back the Latino base and then some. I predict that, by four years from now, we’re going to have the Cuban community back at the level that we wanted, and we will win and flip Florida because of it.
Thinking about flipping Florida, every four years.
Hope springs eternal.
You mentioned that Trump toned down some of his immigration rhetoric in Spanish-language ads, but how important is the immigration issue? I think that after 2012, when Barack Obama won and there was a bipartisan push for immigration reform, the sense was that the only way to win Latino voters was to be in favor of comprehensive immigration reform. It seems like that’s perhaps less true now. Do you think that the importance of immigration to Latino voters is overstated?
It is a very complicated issue. Latinos care about immigration reform. But there are a couple of things to think about when it comes to this. The Cuban migration story is very different from the non-Cuban migration story, right? Cubans, for decades, have not had a bad relationship with any Administration when it comes to immigration, because they have special status that allows them to essentially automatically become a permanent resident, or used to, until recently. So they don’t have the same kind of angst when it comes to immigration. And then you have your different levels of migration within other Latino communities that give you different perspectives. You have the Venezuelans, who look at it from a political-refugee perspective. And then you have other Latinos that are running away from bad economic situations. The fact is that, right now, the top priority for Latinos is COVID-19 and, related to it, the economy. And this is why a lot of them still voted for Biden. For Cubans, a lot of it was still tied to the idea of socialism that was being amped up by Republicans. If you don’t have the socialism rhetoric that’s coming out of Florida, then things might spring back.
Joe Biden is about as far from a socialist as anyone in the Democratic Party. And yet the attacks seemed to have an effect. Did you sense that the Biden campaign understood that this was potentially a problem?


newyorker--2020-11-17--Republican Officials Have Got to Start Telling Their Voters the Truth About the Election

On November 8th , the morning after the A.P .
and other news organizations , looking at the votes that had been counted in each state , recognized Joe Biden as the President-elect , Representative Jim Clyburn , Democrat of South Carolina , took something of a victory lap on the Sunday-morning news shows .
Clyburn ’ s decision , just ahead of the February 29th South Carolina primary , to endorse Biden and campaign for him , has been seen as transformative .
Biden won almost fifty per cent of the vote in the South Carolina primary , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of seven major candidates ; Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar promptly dropped out and endorsed him , just in time for Super Tuesday .
“ If it were not for you , I don ’ t think he would have gotten the nomination , ” Jake Tapper , of CNN , told Clyburn .
“ And I have no idea whether—whether or not I ’ d be covering a Democratic President-elect.
” Clyburn , in response , suggested that the real credit should go to an “ elderly lady ” he had encountered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rural church , who had called him over and asked which candidate he was voting for .
She added , “ If you don ’ t want anybody else to hear , just lean down and whisper it in my ear.
” “ And I did what she asked me to do , ” Clyburn said .
What persuaded him to do more , though , was “ the way she looked in my face and told me , ‘ I needed to hear that , and this community needs to hear from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ story , as Clyburn saw it , is that his choices and his actions had “ bubbled up ” from those of the people he served : he had already decided that he would vote for Biden but wasn ’ t sure how vocal he would be about it until that woman looked him in the eye .
And there is something worth contemplating in the idea that an elderly lady in a rural church might have had a part in changing history ; it mattered not only that Clyburn endorsed Biden but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wholeheartedly , rallying voters .
But there is another observation one could make , too , one that Republican elected officials should take as an admonition and a warning : even for Clyburn , a politician who seems to be in touch with his community , it can come as a jolt to realize that his words mean something to his constituents—they “ needed to hear that ” from him .
As cynical as one may be about politicians , they can serve as authorities for the people who check a box , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a switch next to their names .
And , when the moment calls for politicians to take a position , especially amid controversy or crisis , those voters need to hear that from them .
Joe Biden won the Presidential election , but most Republican voters have not heard that from their elected representatives .
More than a week after the A.P.
’ s call , still only four sitting G.O.P .
senators—Susan Collins , Lisa Murkowski , Mitt Romney , and Ben Sasse—have even congratulated Biden on his victory .
( Former @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so . )
Romney , the G.O.P.
’ s 2012 Presidential nominee , appearing on CNN immediately after Clyburn , spackled his statement with qualifiers ( “ unless , for some reason , that ’ s overturned , ” “ there are also allegations of irregularities ” ) , which other Republicans seem to have taken as a template for avoidance .
Many of them are lying low .
This Sunday , Chuck Todd , of NBC ’ s “ Meet the Press , ” said that the show had asked every sitting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no takers .
The best “ Meet the Press ” could do , in terms of a prominent Republican in office , was Asa Hutchinson , the governor of Arkansas , who , because of term limits , will not be running for reëlection .
Hutchinson managed to say , “ I expect Joe Biden to be the next President of the United States , ” but then moved on to refer to “ a process to get there ” and “ constitutional assertions ” that had to be resolved before that could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ isn ’ t the only Republican who has clung to the word “ process ” like a life raft .
“ This process will reach its resolution , ” Mitch McConnell , the Senate Majority Leader , said in a speech , from the Senate floor , which referred to “ allegations of irregularities.
” Senator Rick Scott , of Florida , said , “ I think we ought to finish going through the process .
.
.
There ’ ll be plenty of time.
” It ’ s as if they expect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that it is quite normal for elected officials not to accept state returns as real until the Electoral College has actually met .
Mike DeWine , the Republican governor of Ohio , had acknowledged , in a CNN interview on Thursday , that Biden should be considered the President-elect , but he went on to defend Trump ’ s efforts to contest the election , saying , on Sunday , again on CNN , that no one should “ begrudge ” the President that , raising the question of whether the process they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or a psychological one .
We are at a strange point when soothing a President ’ s ego is seen as an acceptable reason to sow doubts about our democracy .
Other Republicans are directly charging fraud .
Lindsey Graham has been railing about how the election looks crooked to him and that the President must keep fighting .
Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue , who are both headed for runoff elections in Georgia , said in a joint statement that their secretary of state had “ failed to deliver honest and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that a lot of dead people had voted .
Ted Cruz has suggested that the election was run in a manner that was not only rife with fraud but unconstitutional—there is no evidence for this—and that the question of who won would end up before the Supreme Court .
According to Bloomberg News , when Senator John Kennedy , of Louisiana , was asked whether he really thought that Trump could overturn the results , he said , “ That ’ s why God made judges.
” In Trump ’ s mind , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his judges .
To be clear , the only reason that the result might be overturned is if Trump manages to disenfranchise whole categories of voters ( those voting by mail , for example ) in multiple states .
The President ’ s allegations of fraud have so far amounted to fairy dust , including vague intimations that things just did not feel right to his election observers and outright falsehoods about how much access those observers had to the vote-counting proceedings .
Other technical complaints , such as one raised about ballots @ @ @ @ @ @ @ handful of votes .
( This suit was later dropped . )
It is shameful that Republicans even refer to the fraud allegations with a straight face , especially given the dangerous escalation of Trump ’ s rhetoric , with his furious tweets and retweets about how voting machines had supposedly been reprogrammed—possibly by Cuba , Venezuela , and China ?
—to steal his victory .
( There is , again , no evidence that such a thing happened . )
On Sunday , when he tweeted , of Biden , “ He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” a Presidential statement that would have been regarded as unimaginably extreme in pre-Trump America , it was seen , briefly , as a relief : Was he preparing to concede ?
“ I think that ’ s the start of an acknowledgment , ” Hutchinson said .
It wasn ’ t .
An hour and a half later , Trump tweeted , “ He only won in the eyes of the FAKE NEWS MEDIA .
I concede NOTHING !
We have a long way to go .
This was a RIGGED ELECTION @ @ @ @ @ @ @ certain returns .
He has begun saying that the whole election is a fraud and needs to be thrown out .
In yet another tweet , on Sunday night , he wrote that “ those responsible for the safeguarding of our Constitution can not allow the Fake results of the 2020 Mail-In Election to stand .
The World is watching !
” Nor is he suggesting that the matter be left entirely to the courts , where he has suffered setbacks .
( It turns out that you can ’ t just file @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nor is this merely a social-media tantrum .
On Saturday , Trump left the White House to drive past crowds who had gathered to “ Stop the Steal ” ; he later retweeted a split-screen video showing people waving Trump banners in the sunshine juxtaposed with footage of one of his supporters being knocked to the ground in darkness , adding the comment , “ We won ’ t let a RIGGED ELECTION steal our Country !
” He blamed “ ANTIFA SCUM ” for sporadic violence and added , “ DC Police @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t hold back !
!
!
” That is what people who voted for Trump are hearing from him .
How they evaluate his statements depends , to a significant degree , on what they hear from the people they voted for down the ballot .
This may be a responsibility that the Republicans desperately want to avoid , but they can ’ t .
For them to even stand back and talk about the “ process ” makes it sound as though Trump ’ s complaints are in the normal realm @ @ @ @ @ @ @ very close race , when they are not .
It has been remarkable to see , in the past week , how very little has been demanded of Republicans in Washington , and how they balk at even that .
On Wednesday , Senator James Lankford , of Oklahoma , said he believed that Biden should receive access to a version of the President ’ s daily brief , which the intelligence community assembles , as he did as the Democratic nominee and as is customary for a President-elect .
Lankford said that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that happened if Biden was not receiving them by Friday .
The next day , Lankford tempered his statement , telling reporters , “ Some individuals in the media made it more than it was ” —which was still not much .
“ We still do n't know who the President is going to be at this point , ” he said , adding , “ There are a lot of questions about a lot of states .
I completely trust the President trying to be able to push some of these issues.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Oklahoma should trust Trump , too , and that they shouldn ’ t trust the abundant evidence establishing that we do , in fact , know who the next President is going to be—or , at least , who the voters said the next President should be .
After Friday came and went without Biden receiving the briefings , Lankford told the Oklahoman that he was still on the case and hoped that the matter would be resolved “ sometime soon.
” As of Monday , it hadn ’ t been , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , have also said that Biden should still get the briefings .
It is a pathetic defeat , both because saying that a potential President should get intelligence briefs is still pretty far from saying that Trump lost—it can hardly count as bravery—and because of the sheer pettiness involved .
Similarly , the head of the General Services Administration still hadn ’ t signed the paperwork to release resources for the transition—which means , among other things , that Biden ’ s new coronavirus task force is being held back in its planning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pandemic .
These are practical matters that create risk for the country .

On November 8th, the morning after the A.P. and other news organizations, looking at the votes that had been counted in each state, recognized Joe Biden as the President-elect, Representative Jim Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina, took something of a victory lap on the Sunday-morning news shows. Clyburn’s decision, just ahead of the February 29th South Carolina primary, to endorse Biden and campaign for him, has been seen as transformative. Biden won almost fifty per cent of the vote in the South Carolina primary, in what was then still a crowded field of seven major candidates; Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar promptly dropped out and endorsed him, just in time for Super Tuesday. “If it were not for you, I don’t think he would have gotten the nomination,” Jake Tapper, of CNN, told Clyburn. “And I have no idea whether—whether or not I’d be covering a Democratic President-elect.” Clyburn, in response, suggested that the real credit should go to an “elderly lady” he had encountered sitting in the front pew at a rural church, who had called him over and asked which candidate he was voting for. She added, “If you don’t want anybody else to hear, just lean down and whisper it in my ear.”
“And I did what she asked me to do,” Clyburn said. What persuaded him to do more, though, was “the way she looked in my face and told me, ‘I needed to hear that, and this community needs to hear from you.’ ”
The moral of the story, as Clyburn saw it, is that his choices and his actions had “bubbled up” from those of the people he served: he had already decided that he would vote for Biden but wasn’t sure how vocal he would be about it until that woman looked him in the eye. And there is something worth contemplating in the idea that an elderly lady in a rural church might have had a part in changing history; it mattered not only that Clyburn endorsed Biden but that he did it so loudly and wholeheartedly, rallying voters. But there is another observation one could make, too, one that Republican elected officials should take as an admonition and a warning: even for Clyburn, a politician who seems to be in touch with his community, it can come as a jolt to realize that his words mean something to his constituents—they “needed to hear that” from him. As cynical as one may be about politicians, they can serve as authorities for the people who check a box, ink in an oval, or pull a switch next to their names. And, when the moment calls for politicians to take a position, especially amid controversy or crisis, those voters need to hear that from them.
Joe Biden won the Presidential election, but most Republican voters have not heard that from their elected representatives. More than a week after the A.P.’s call, still only four sitting G.O.P. senators—Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, and Ben Sasse—have even congratulated Biden on his victory. (Former President George W. Bush has also done so.) Romney, the G.O.P.’s 2012 Presidential nominee, appearing on CNN immediately after Clyburn, spackled his statement with qualifiers (“unless, for some reason, that’s overturned,” “there are also allegations of irregularities”), which other Republicans seem to have taken as a template for avoidance. Many of them are lying low. This Sunday, Chuck Todd, of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said that the show had asked every sitting Republican senator to come on and got no takers. The best “Meet the Press” could do, in terms of a prominent Republican in office, was Asa Hutchinson, the governor of Arkansas, who, because of term limits, will not be running for reëlection. Hutchinson managed to say, “I expect Joe Biden to be the next President of the United States,” but then moved on to refer to “a process to get there” and “constitutional assertions” that had to be resolved before that could be said with any certainty.
Hutchinson isn’t the only Republican who has clung to the word “process” like a life raft. “This process will reach its resolution,” Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, said in a speech, from the Senate floor, which referred to “allegations of irregularities.” Senator Rick Scott, of Florida, said, “I think we ought to finish going through the process . . . There’ll be plenty of time.” It’s as if they expect the public to join them in pretending that it is quite normal for elected officials not to accept state returns as real until the Electoral College has actually met. Mike DeWine, the Republican governor of Ohio, had acknowledged, in a CNN interview on Thursday, that Biden should be considered the President-elect, but he went on to defend Trump’s efforts to contest the election, saying, on Sunday, again on CNN, that no one should “begrudge” the President that, raising the question of whether the process they all were talking about was a constitutional or a psychological one. We are at a strange point when soothing a President’s ego is seen as an acceptable reason to sow doubts about our democracy.
Other Republicans are directly charging fraud. Lindsey Graham has been railing about how the election looks crooked to him and that the President must keep fighting. Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who are both headed for runoff elections in Georgia, said in a joint statement that their secretary of state had “failed to deliver honest and transparent elections.” Senator Rand Paul suggested that a lot of dead people had voted. Ted Cruz has suggested that the election was run in a manner that was not only rife with fraud but unconstitutional—there is no evidence for this—and that the question of who won would end up before the Supreme Court. According to Bloomberg News, when Senator John Kennedy, of Louisiana, was asked whether he really thought that Trump could overturn the results, he said, “That’s why God made judges.” In Trump’s mind, that’s why the Senate confirms his judges.
To be clear, the only reason that the result might be overturned is if Trump manages to disenfranchise whole categories of voters (those voting by mail, for example) in multiple states. The President’s allegations of fraud have so far amounted to fairy dust, including vague intimations that things just did not feel right to his election observers and outright falsehoods about how much access those observers had to the vote-counting proceedings. Other technical complaints, such as one raised about ballots in Arizona, would affect only a handful of votes. (This suit was later dropped.) It is shameful that Republicans even refer to the fraud allegations with a straight face, especially given the dangerous escalation of Trump’s rhetoric, with his furious tweets and retweets about how voting machines had supposedly been reprogrammed—possibly by Cuba, Venezuela, and China?—to steal his victory. (There is, again, no evidence that such a thing happened.) On Sunday, when he tweeted, of Biden, “He won because the Election was Rigged,” a Presidential statement that would have been regarded as unimaginably extreme in pre-Trump America, it was seen, briefly, as a relief: Was he preparing to concede? “I think that’s the start of an acknowledgment,” Hutchinson said. It wasn’t. An hour and a half later, Trump tweeted, “He only won in the eyes of the FAKE NEWS MEDIA. I concede NOTHING! We have a long way to go. This was a RIGGED ELECTION!”
Trump is not just questioning certain returns. He has begun saying that the whole election is a fraud and needs to be thrown out. In yet another tweet, on Sunday night, he wrote that “those responsible for the safeguarding of our Constitution cannot allow the Fake results of the 2020 Mail-In Election to stand. The World is watching!” Nor is he suggesting that the matter be left entirely to the courts, where he has suffered setbacks. (It turns out that you can’t just file a tweet in federal court.) Nor is this merely a social-media tantrum. On Saturday, Trump left the White House to drive past crowds who had gathered to “Stop the Steal”; he later retweeted a split-screen video showing people waving Trump banners in the sunshine juxtaposed with footage of one of his supporters being knocked to the ground in darkness, adding the comment, “We won’t let a RIGGED ELECTION steal our Country!” He blamed “ANTIFA SCUM” for sporadic violence and added, “DC Police, get going—do your job and don’t hold back!!!”
That is what people who voted for Trump are hearing from him. How they evaluate his statements depends, to a significant degree, on what they hear from the people they voted for down the ballot. This may be a responsibility that the Republicans desperately want to avoid, but they can’t. For them to even stand back and talk about the “process” makes it sound as though Trump’s complaints are in the normal realm of asking for a recount in a very close race, when they are not. It has been remarkable to see, in the past week, how very little has been demanded of Republicans in Washington, and how they balk at even that. On Wednesday, Senator James Lankford, of Oklahoma, said he believed that Biden should receive access to a version of the President’s daily brief, which the intelligence community assembles, as he did as the Democratic nominee and as is customary for a President-elect. Lankford said that he would get involved in making sure that happened if Biden was not receiving them by Friday. The next day, Lankford tempered his statement, telling reporters, “Some individuals in the media made it more than it was”—which was still not much. “We still don't know who the President is going to be at this point,” he said, adding, “There are a lot of questions about a lot of states. I completely trust the President trying to be able to push some of these issues.” The message was that the people of Oklahoma should trust Trump, too, and that they shouldn’t trust the abundant evidence establishing that we do, in fact, know who the next President is going to be—or, at least, who the voters said the next President should be.


newyorker--2020-11-17--“Beethoven for One” Boldly Imagines a New Kind of Concert

Even more than I ’ ve missed seeing movies in theatres during the pandemic , I ’ ve missed concerts ; though I attend them only rarely , they ’ re among the most memorable events of my year .
That ’ s why , as soon as I got word of an event called “ Beethoven for One , ” a series of live musical performances to celebrate the composer ’ s two hundred and fiftieth birthday , which were designed to meet New York City ’ s required precautions , I signed up .
The program , held @ @ @ @ @ @ @ known as the Goethe-Institut ) , a grand converted town house on Fifth Avenue , ran from November 8th to the 15th , and involved performances of Beethoven ’ s string quartets—ten minutes at a time—for one person , couple , or household ( I attended with my wife ) .
The anticipated pleasure turned out to be a shock : what I expected was a heartfelt yet minor substitute for the usual concert-hall experience ; what I got was an overwhelming new kind of concert , in some ways superior to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fifteen minutes before our sign-up time , my wife and I were greeted by a receptionist in the otherwise empty lobby ; we were required to wear masks , use hand sanitizer , and sign a health form ( with our phone number , for contact tracing ) .
A few minutes later , another spectator came down the staircase and we were sent upstairs to a waiting room , across a wide hallway from the closed doors of the concert space , where other listeners were about to start their ten-minute concert @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ d be able to listen to those ten minutes of music , too , albeit at a distance and through the closed doors .
That overhearing provided the day ’ s first glorious musical jolt : the quartet played the first movement of Beethoven ’ s quartet , Op .
59 , No .
1 , which , even in muffled form , rang out both resonantly and spikily , as if its harmonies had been swapped out for abrasive dissonances .
At the movement ’ s end , a family of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ space and we were led into it—a small , ornately wood-panelled library-like space , with leaded windows , that ’ s about the size of a large living room .
The musicians ( eight took part in the performances throughout the week ; the quartet we saw featured the violinists Emily Smith and Michelle Ross , the violist Melissa Reardon , and the cellist Jia Kim , the organizer of the series ) were arrayed in two rows , about twelve to sixteen feet from us , and they , too , were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we were about to hear—the second movement of the same quartet , which she described lovingly as a musical “ conversation ” between the four instruments—and that sense of a conversation emerged from the start .
The movement opens with a brief cello solo , and the grain of the instrument was so pronounced , in that tight and reverberant space , that it seemed like a texture palpable to the hand .
As the other instruments entered , it became clear that the quartet ’ s musical ideas befit the setting : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ large hall or even a recording , the blend of a quartet comes to the fore , here each voice was distinct .
The musicians emphasized the diversity within the piece ’ s unity , and heightened the dramatic silences that separated phrases , the abrupt shifts of tone , and—above all—the mighty intensity of the climaxes .
The players veered between suavely beautiful sounds and furiously slashing ones ; when the music got loud , it did so with a hectic energy that ricocheted like shots off the wood panels .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and delivered was no distant forebear but a radical contemporary whose daring originality remained undiminished .
I ’ ve heard Beethoven performed in large and famous concert halls by some of the great quartets of the era ( including the Juilliard , the Emerson , and the Takács ) ; none came close to delivering the jagged immediacy and breathtaking intimacy of Saturday afternoon ’ s quartet .
The difference is in the coalescence of interpretation and setting .
Performing in Carnegie Hall is like performing a play on Broadway ; it demands @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , to put a quartet ’ s sound over and up to the balcony in a huge hall .
By contrast , the “ Beethoven for One ” quartet ’ s playing felt more like a movie performance : in the small , domestic-sized room and with the camera-like intimacy of our seating arrangement , the greatness of these not-yet-famous musicians was revealed and exalted in closeup , in a way that might not have been as immediately apparent in a larger setting .
( There ’ s a reason that it ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an ideal frame for the music ’ s visceral power . )
What ’ s more , the private aspect of the concert—the direct and exclusive mutual connection between musicians and listeners , undiluted by any wider audience—inspired awe and reverence without ritual .
If the formality and the reserve , the pomp and the ceremony of the concert world is off-putting to many would-be concertgoers , the sort of invigorating experience that my wife and I had on Saturday could serve as a template for shaking preconceptions regarding classical music ( both @ @ @ @ @ @ @ music ) .
For me , “ Beethoven for One ” stands as an ideal and a corrective to the usual run of classical concerts , even after they ’ re able to resume .

Even more than I’ve missed seeing movies in theatres during the pandemic, I’ve missed concerts; though I attend them only rarely, they’re among the most memorable events of my year. That’s why, as soon as I got word of an event called “Beethoven for One,” a series of live musical performances to celebrate the composer’s two hundred and fiftieth birthday, which were designed to meet New York City’s required precautions, I signed up. The program, held at the cultural space 1014 (formerly known as the Goethe-Institut), a grand converted town house on Fifth Avenue, ran from November 8th to the 15th, and involved performances of Beethoven’s string quartets—ten minutes at a time—for one person, couple, or household (I attended with my wife). The anticipated pleasure turned out to be a shock: what I expected was a heartfelt yet minor substitute for the usual concert-hall experience; what I got was an overwhelming new kind of concert, in some ways superior to the old one.
Arriving at the specified fifteen minutes before our sign-up time, my wife and I were greeted by a receptionist in the otherwise empty lobby; we were required to wear masks, use hand sanitizer, and sign a health form (with our phone number, for contact tracing). A few minutes later, another spectator came down the staircase and we were sent upstairs to a waiting room, across a wide hallway from the closed doors of the concert space, where other listeners were about to start their ten-minute concert. The usher informed us that we’d be able to listen to those ten minutes of music, too, albeit at a distance and through the closed doors. That overhearing provided the day’s first glorious musical jolt: the quartet played the first movement of Beethoven’s quartet, Op. 59, No. 1, which, even in muffled form, rang out both resonantly and spikily, as if its harmonies had been swapped out for abrasive dissonances.
At the movement’s end, a family of four was guided out of the concert space and we were led into it—a small, ornately wood-panelled library-like space, with leaded windows, that’s about the size of a large living room. The musicians (eight took part in the performances throughout the week; the quartet we saw featured the violinists Emily Smith and Michelle Ross, the violist Melissa Reardon, and the cellist Jia Kim, the organizer of the series) were arrayed in two rows, about twelve to sixteen feet from us, and they, too, were wearing masks. Kim introduced the piece we were about to hear—the second movement of the same quartet, which she described lovingly as a musical “conversation” between the four instruments—and that sense of a conversation emerged from the start.
The movement opens with a brief cello solo, and the grain of the instrument was so pronounced, in that tight and reverberant space, that it seemed like a texture palpable to the hand. As the other instruments entered, it became clear that the quartet’s musical ideas befit the setting: where, so often, in a large hall or even a recording, the blend of a quartet comes to the fore, here each voice was distinct. The musicians emphasized the diversity within the piece’s unity, and heightened the dramatic silences that separated phrases, the abrupt shifts of tone, and—above all—the mighty intensity of the climaxes. The players veered between suavely beautiful sounds and furiously slashing ones; when the music got loud, it did so with a hectic energy that ricocheted like shots off the wood panels. The Beethoven whom this unnamed string quartet imagined and delivered was no distant forebear but a radical contemporary whose daring originality remained undiminished.
I’ve heard Beethoven performed in large and famous concert halls by some of the great quartets of the era (including the Juilliard, the Emerson, and the Takács); none came close to delivering the jagged immediacy and breathtaking intimacy of Saturday afternoon’s quartet. The difference is in the coalescence of interpretation and setting. Performing in Carnegie Hall is like performing a play on Broadway; it demands an elaborate technique, a big-time craft, to put a quartet’s sound over and up to the balcony in a huge hall. By contrast, the “Beethoven for One” quartet’s playing felt more like a movie performance: in the small, domestic-sized room and with the camera-like intimacy of our seating arrangement, the greatness of these not-yet-famous musicians was revealed and exalted in closeup, in a way that might not have been as immediately apparent in a larger setting. (There’s a reason that it’s called chamber music—a small space is an ideal frame for the music’s visceral power.)
What’s more, the private aspect of the concert—the direct and exclusive mutual connection between musicians and listeners, undiluted by any wider audience—inspired awe and reverence without ritual. If the formality and the reserve, the pomp and the ceremony of the concert world is off-putting to many would-be concertgoers, the sort of invigorating experience that my wife and I had on Saturday could serve as a template for shaking preconceptions regarding classical music (both music of the past and newly composed music). For me, “Beethoven for One” stands as an ideal and a corrective to the usual run of classical concerts, even after they’re able to resume.


newyorker--2020-11-16--“Emily in Paris” and the Rise of Ambient TV

Emily is a millennial naïf , played by Lily Collins , who is meant to bring American-capitalist wisdom to a French agency that caters to luxury brands .
The showrunner is Darren Star , the creator of “ Sex and the City , ” but if Carrie ’ s column lent that show a narrative structure and momentum—everything is copy— “ Emily in Paris ” begins and ends in an avalanche of desiccated digital-marketing language that seems to have subsumed Emily ’ s soul .
She cares about nothing more than “ social , ” impressions , R.O.I .
Many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a photo for Instagram .
In the course of the season , fulfilling a prophecy cast by Collins ’ s dramatic eyebrows and wide eyes , our heroine becomes an Instagram influencer in her own right , those onscreen follower numbers jumping to ten , twenty thousand ( not nearly enough to make her the kind of celebrity the show portrays , as viewers pointed out ) .
Emily ’ s job is to get more likes for brands ; her life is to get more likes for herself .
Everything is content @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The purpose of “ Emily in Paris ” is to provide sympathetic background for staring at your phone , refreshing your own feeds—on which you ’ ll find “ Emily in Paris ” memes , including a whole genre of TikTok remakes .
It ’ s O.K .
to look at your phone all the time , the show seems to say , because Emily does it , too .
The episodic plots are too thin to ever be confusing ; when you glance back up at the television , chances are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Seine or cobblestoned alleyways , lovely but meaningless .
If you want more drama , you can open Twitter , to augment the experience .
Or just leave the show on while cleaning the inevitable domestic messes of quarantine .
Eventually , sensing that you ’ ve played two episodes straight without pausing or skipping , Netflix will ask if you ’ re still really watching .
Shamed , I clicked the Yes button , and Emily continued being in Paris .
In this and other recent programming , Netflix is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ come to think of as ambient television .
It ’ s “ as ignorable as it is interesting , ” as the musician Brian Eno wrote , when he coined the term “ ambient music ” in the liner notes to his 1978 album “ Ambient 1 : Music for Airports , ” a wash of slow melodic synth compositions .
Ambient denotes something that you don ’ t have to pay attention to in order to enjoy but which is still seductive enough to be compelling if you choose to do so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ Emily in Paris ” is soothing , slow , and relatively monotonous , the dramatic moments too predetermined to really be dramatic .
Nothing bad ever happens to our heroine for long .
The earlier era of prestige TV was predicated on shows with meta-narratives to be puzzled out , and which merited deep analyses read the day after watching .
Here , there is nothing to figure out ; as prestige passes its peak , we ’ re moving into the ambient era , which succumbs to , rather than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Emily in Paris ” was just renewed for a second season ; its formula of thin fictional storytelling wrapped in exotic backdrops was an instant success that seems destined to be reiterated many times over , in other locales , with other Emilies .
But Netflix ’ s back catalogue of ambient options is made up of reality shows : “ Dream Home Makeover ” is ambient interior decorating ; “ Taco Chronicles , ” ambient foodie travel ; “ Get Organized with the Home Edit , ” ambient cleaning ; “ Street @ @ @ @ @ @ @ MeatEater , ” ambient outdoorsmanship .
What these shows all have in common is their placidity—there ’ s little in the way of conflict or tension—and their reliance on B-roll , the footage that filmmakers intersperse with their main shots to smooth transitions between cuts .
There often seems to be more B-roll than A , however .
Viewers can select from footage of beef getting sliced , shelves being filled , or walks through foreign cities .
Like earlier eras of TV , ambient television is less a creative innovation than a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of our time .
Beginning in the nineteen-thirties , soap operas , first on the radio and then on television , broadcast long-running daytime dramas in which the logic of subplots didn ’ t matter as much as consistency—the fact that they were produced quickly and cheaply and broadcast at the same time every day .
The name came from the soap brands that bought ads on the shows , to reach the audience of women at home , but it also evoked the banality of domestic labor that the programs distracted from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ advent of streaming , and cord-cutting , allowed viewers a more intentional relationship to TV , at least in theory .
When Netflix and other platforms began dumping entire seasons of shows at once , binging became a byword for paying deep attention , as viewers gave themselves over to intricate drama or quirky comedy .
But now we ’ re learning to stream as if we never abandoned cable in the first place , especially during quarantine , when nothing ’ s stopping you from leaving the TV on all day long @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the current flow of ambient television provides a numbing backdrop to the rest of our digital consumption : feeds of fragmented text , imagery , and video algorithmically sorted to be as provocative as possible .
Ambience offers the increasingly rare possibility of disengagement while still staring at a screen .
In the two-thousand-tens , there was a brief vogue for “ slow TV , ” reality television of unedited reality , such as a more than seven-hour real-time video of a train ride from Bergen to Oslo , shot in 2009 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , showing twelve hours of the extreme tidal current in the strait of Saltstraumen .
The durational videos inspire introversion and reflection , like meditation : “ Slow TV is high-definition in its visual information , yet it gets its meaning from viewers ’ imaginative consciousness , ” Nathan Heller wrote , in The New Yorker .
I recall the videos chiefly from parties at my artist friends ’ house , where everyone would inevitably end up stoned on the couch , gasping as the train entered a tunnel and the screen blacked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of awe at realness , the texture of experience itself ; it ’ s a phenomenological exercise that heightens our perception .
Ambient television , in contrast , aims to erase thought entirely , smoothing any disruptive texture or dissonance .
Its high-resolution shots are chopped and composed into lulling montages—slow motion , fast motion , drone footage—that numb the senses with color and movement .
It provides glossy , comforting oblivion , or , as Matisse once wrote , of his own paintings , “ something like a good armchair.
” The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ boon for streaming services , which just want you to keep binging so that you feel your subscription is justified .
I noticed the show “ Dream Home Makeover ” immediately when it débuted , on October 16th , because Netflix ’ s recommendation algorithm put it at the top of my account ’ s home page .
In February of this year , the streaming service launched a “ Top 10 ” feature , which displays the ten most popular shows of the day in your country and tags the shows ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the uncanny feeling , often inspired by algorithmic feeds , that no one else is seeing quite the same thing that you are .
The feature also makes surfing Netflix an even more passive experience : whatever other people are watching is probably good , or at least you ’ ll be able to discuss it with a friend later .
( “ Emily in Paris ” made the top spot . )
“ Dream Home Makeover ” immediately hit the charts ; I clicked on it because it was there .
What @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fabric , built-in open shelving , and brass fixtures , as Shea and Syd McGee , the co-founders of the Utah design firm Studio McGee , decorated vast minimalist mansions around their home base of Salt Lake City .
Client projects are interspersed with vignettes of the McGees ’ s own under-construction home , which looks like a cavernous ski lodge crossed with a denuded Dutch church after the sixteenth-century Protestant Beeldenstorm .
Another couple the McGees work for , wealthy developers of tract housing , boast on camera that their new house @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has a television show featured so much blank , empty space—a mirror to the state of my mind as I watched it .
Shea , the principal designer , overlays each new room with the same palette of custom molding , faux mid-century furniture , gleaming countertops , and pendant lamps .
Knowing exactly what to expect each time doesn ’ t dull the pleasure of the unveiling ; the change is still more satisfyingly dramatic than the superficial closet rearrangements of “ The Home Edit.
” Yet even an authentic mid-century-modern house @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beige-couch , marble-backsplash treatment in Episode 4 , its history flattened into easy Instagram friendliness .
“ Dream Home Makeover ” is Netflix ’ s attempt to replicate the successful format of “ Fixer Upper , ” HGTV ’ s redecorating behemoth , which stars another husband-and-wife team with a signature style commodified by books and product lines .
What distinguishes Netflix ’ s version is the sheer visual vacuum .
Everything is white , including nearly all of the people .
Shea graduated from Brigham Young University , and she and Syd @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to establish their company and raise their two daughters .
The first few episodes focus on other Utah couples who want the replica-McGee style .
Many of them dress the same and have the same haircuts : military-short for the men , blond fusilli curls for the women .
The clients often have a plenitude of bedrooms or bunks and boast of their large families .
Mormonism is all but explicit , and yet the show , coasting along on its identikit makeovers , never acknowledges it .
The ambience of ambient TV @ @ @ @ @ @ @ diversity or discordance would disrupt the smooth , lulling surface .
( “ Emily in Paris ” almost entirely stars white actors , too . )
The lurking subtext of “ Dream Home Makeover , ” a kind of soft-white capitalist nationalism cloaked in throw pillows , brought to mind for me the architect Rem Koolhaas ’ s essay “ The Generic City , ” from 1995 .
In it , Koolhaas argues that globalization has caused a mass homogenization that leaves modern cities feeling like an airport , “ a trance of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the “ pervasive lack of urgency and insistence acts like a potent drug , ” inducing “ a hallucination of the normal.
” In other words , the hypnotic quality of ambient content creates a false sense that whatever it presents is a neutral condition , a common denominator , though it is decidedly not .

By the end of its second episode, I knew that Netflix’s new series “Emily in Paris” was not a lighthearted romantic travelogue but an artifact of contemporary dystopia. At that point, Emily had already gone jogging, and the multicolored wheels of her Apple-esque step-counter appeared on my television screen. The circles filled; Emily had pleased the robots monitoring her health. During her next run, a small square popped up: a visualization of Emily’s Instagram account, to which she posted a photo of Paris, accruing onscreen likes. Later, Emily talked, via video call, with her old marketing-agency boss back in Chicago, whom she had replaced on the Paris sojourn when the boss found herself pregnant. My television displayed a closeup of Emily’s phone showing the boss’s face, inset with an image of Emily’s face—three layers of screens at once.
Emily is a millennial naïf, played by Lily Collins, who is meant to bring American-capitalist wisdom to a French agency that caters to luxury brands. The showrunner is Darren Star, the creator of “Sex and the City,” but if Carrie’s column lent that show a narrative structure and momentum—everything is copy—“Emily in Paris” begins and ends in an avalanche of desiccated digital-marketing language that seems to have subsumed Emily’s soul. She cares about nothing more than “social,” impressions, R.O.I. Many episodes climax in the successful taking of a photo for Instagram. In the course of the season, fulfilling a prophecy cast by Collins’s dramatic eyebrows and wide eyes, our heroine becomes an Instagram influencer in her own right, those onscreen follower numbers jumping to ten, twenty thousand (not nearly enough to make her the kind of celebrity the show portrays, as viewers pointed out). Emily’s job is to get more likes for brands; her life is to get more likes for herself. Everything is content.
But all of that barely matters. The purpose of “Emily in Paris” is to provide sympathetic background for staring at your phone, refreshing your own feeds—on which you’ll find “Emily in Paris” memes, including a whole genre of TikTok remakes. It’s O.K. to look at your phone all the time, the show seems to say, because Emily does it, too. The episodic plots are too thin to ever be confusing; when you glance back up at the television, chances are that you’ll find tracking shots of the Seine or cobblestoned alleyways, lovely but meaningless. If you want more drama, you can open Twitter, to augment the experience. Or just leave the show on while cleaning the inevitable domestic messes of quarantine. Eventually, sensing that you’ve played two episodes straight without pausing or skipping, Netflix will ask if you’re still really watching. Shamed, I clicked the Yes button, and Emily continued being in Paris.
In this and other recent programming, Netflix is pioneering a genre that I’ve come to think of as ambient television. It’s “as ignorable as it is interesting,” as the musician Brian Eno wrote, when he coined the term “ambient music” in the liner notes to his 1978 album “Ambient 1: Music for Airports,” a wash of slow melodic synth compositions. Ambient denotes something that you don’t have to pay attention to in order to enjoy but which is still seductive enough to be compelling if you choose to do so momentarily. Like gentle New Age soundscapes, “Emily in Paris” is soothing, slow, and relatively monotonous, the dramatic moments too predetermined to really be dramatic. Nothing bad ever happens to our heroine for long. The earlier era of prestige TV was predicated on shows with meta-narratives to be puzzled out, and which merited deep analyses read the day after watching. Here, there is nothing to figure out; as prestige passes its peak, we’re moving into the ambient era, which succumbs to, rather than competes with, your phone.
“Emily in Paris” was just renewed for a second season; its formula of thin fictional storytelling wrapped in exotic backdrops was an instant success that seems destined to be reiterated many times over, in other locales, with other Emilies. But Netflix’s back catalogue of ambient options is made up of reality shows: “Dream Home Makeover” is ambient interior decorating; “Taco Chronicles,” ambient foodie travel; “Get Organized with the Home Edit,” ambient cleaning; “Street Food,” ambient cooking; “MeatEater,” ambient outdoorsmanship. What these shows all have in common is their placidity—there’s little in the way of conflict or tension—and their reliance on B-roll, the footage that filmmakers intersperse with their main shots to smooth transitions between cuts. There often seems to be more B-roll than A, however. Viewers can select from footage of beef getting sliced, shelves being filled, or walks through foreign cities.
Like earlier eras of TV, ambient television is less a creative innovation than a product of the technological and social forces of our time. Beginning in the nineteen-thirties, soap operas, first on the radio and then on television, broadcast long-running daytime dramas in which the logic of subplots didn’t matter as much as consistency—the fact that they were produced quickly and cheaply and broadcast at the same time every day. The name came from the soap brands that bought ads on the shows, to reach the audience of women at home, but it also evoked the banality of domestic labor that the programs distracted from, providing welcome background noise.
The advent of streaming, and cord-cutting, allowed viewers a more intentional relationship to TV, at least in theory. When Netflix and other platforms began dumping entire seasons of shows at once, binging became a byword for paying deep attention, as viewers gave themselves over to intricate drama or quirky comedy. But now we’re learning to stream as if we never abandoned cable in the first place, especially during quarantine, when nothing’s stopping you from leaving the TV on all day long. As with soaps and chores, the current flow of ambient television provides a numbing backdrop to the rest of our digital consumption: feeds of fragmented text, imagery, and video algorithmically sorted to be as provocative as possible. Ambience offers the increasingly rare possibility of disengagement while still staring at a screen.
In the two-thousand-tens, there was a brief vogue for “slow TV,” reality television of unedited reality, such as a more than seven-hour real-time video of a train ride from Bergen to Oslo, shot in 2009, and a Norwegian production, in 2016, showing twelve hours of the extreme tidal current in the strait of Saltstraumen. The durational videos inspire introversion and reflection, like meditation: “Slow TV is high-definition in its visual information, yet it gets its meaning from viewers’ imaginative consciousness,” Nathan Heller wrote, in The New Yorker. I recall the videos chiefly from parties at my artist friends’ house, where everyone would inevitably end up stoned on the couch, gasping as the train entered a tunnel and the screen blacked out. Slow TV inspires a kind of awe at realness, the texture of experience itself; it’s a phenomenological exercise that heightens our perception. Ambient television, in contrast, aims to erase thought entirely, smoothing any disruptive texture or dissonance. Its high-resolution shots are chopped and composed into lulling montages—slow motion, fast motion, drone footage—that numb the senses with color and movement. It provides glossy, comforting oblivion, or, as Matisse once wrote, of his own paintings, “something like a good armchair.”
The 2015 début of Netflix’s “Chef’s Table,” in retrospect, may have paved the way for ambient streaming content. It mingled documentary-style interviews of and about chefs, whom it upheld as visionary artists, with salivating closeups of their dishes, on the model of “Jiro Dreams of Sushi.” (The show and the film were both created by David Gelb.) After six seasons of “Chef’s Table,” Netflix has spun the show off into multiple, increasingly literal series that exemplify the tendencies of ambient TV. “Street Food” focusses on the casual cuisine of different regions, a mood board of inebriated snacking. “Taco Chronicles” eliminates the need for a human subject altogether, by offering narrations from the personified voice of the food itself: “Soy el taco de carnitas.” Chef biography or historical education come second to the hindbrain visual pleasure of meat bouncing on a grill. The shows are functionally screen savers, never demanding your attention; they do draw it, but only as much as a tabletop bouquet of flowers. (Still, owing to such blatant subliminal messaging, I finished watching “Taco Chronicles” absolutely desperate for tacos.)
The passive engagement of ambient television is a boon for streaming services, which just want you to keep binging so that you feel your subscription is justified. I noticed the show “Dream Home Makeover” immediately when it débuted, on October 16th, because Netflix’s recommendation algorithm put it at the top of my account’s home page. In February of this year, the streaming service launched a “Top 10” feature, which displays the ten most popular shows of the day in your country and tags the shows’ thumbnails with their rank—an effort to ameliorate the uncanny feeling, often inspired by algorithmic feeds, that no one else is seeing quite the same thing that you are. The feature also makes surfing Netflix an even more passive experience: whatever other people are watching is probably good, or at least you’ll be able to discuss it with a friend later. (“Emily in Paris” made the top spot.) “Dream Home Makeover” immediately hit the charts; I clicked on it because it was there.
What followed was a plush haze of beige fabric, built-in open shelving, and brass fixtures, as Shea and Syd McGee, the co-founders of the Utah design firm Studio McGee, decorated vast minimalist mansions around their home base of Salt Lake City. Client projects are interspersed with vignettes of the McGees’s own under-construction home, which looks like a cavernous ski lodge crossed with a denuded Dutch church after the sixteenth-century Protestant Beeldenstorm. Another couple the McGees work for, wealthy developers of tract housing, boast on camera that their new house is seventy-nine hundred square feet. Never has a television show featured so much blank, empty space—a mirror to the state of my mind as I watched it.
Shea, the principal designer, overlays each new room with the same palette of custom molding, faux mid-century furniture, gleaming countertops, and pendant lamps. Knowing exactly what to expect each time doesn’t dull the pleasure of the unveiling; the change is still more satisfyingly dramatic than the superficial closet rearrangements of “The Home Edit.” Yet even an authentic mid-century-modern house in Los Angeles gets the white-wall, beige-couch, marble-backsplash treatment in Episode 4, its history flattened into easy Instagram friendliness.


newyorker--2020-11-16--Jane Mayer on the G.O.P.’s Post-Trump Game

The President ’ s fantastical allegations about “ illegal ballots ” are being indulged by quite a number of prominent @ @ @ @ @ have declined to acknowledge Joe Biden as President-elect .
If Republicans in some key state @ @ @ @ @ electors who disregard their states ’ popular votes , the electoral chaos would be disastrous @ @ @ @ @ politicians may proceed , David Remnick spoke with Jane Mayer , who has written extensively @ @ @ @ @ .
and the forces that drive it .

Download a transcript.|||
Photograph by Kerem Yucel / AFP / Getty
The President’s fantastical allegations about “illegal ballots” are being indulged by quite a number of prominent Republicans in Washington, who have declined to acknowledge Joe Biden as President-elect. If Republicans in some key state legislatures go further and appoint electors who disregard their states’ popular votes, the electoral chaos would be disastrous. To understand how the politicians may proceed, David Remnick spoke with Jane Mayer, who has written extensively about today’s G.O.P. and the forces that drive it.


newyorker--2020-11-16--Trump Is Right: Andrew Cuomo Should Accept F.D.A. Approval of a Coronavirus Vaccine

Trump also attempted to claim credit for the coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer , in collaboration with the German biotech firm BioNTech .
The vaccine has not yet been approved , but in preliminary studies it protected more than ninety per cent of its recipients from infection .
Trump attacked New York ’ s governor , Andrew Cuomo , who has said that federal approval of any such vaccine would not be enough for him to grant access to residents of his state .
“ As soon as April , the vaccine will be available to the entire general population @ @ @ @ @ @ @ New York , ” Trump announced .
( On Monday , a second company , Moderna Therapeutics , released preliminary data demonstrating that its vaccine had protected more than ninety-four per cent of the people who received it . )
“ Frankly , I ’ m not going to trust the federal government ’ s opinion , ” Cuomo has stated .
“ New York State will have its own review.
” The governor has done a remarkable job of dealing with the pandemic , and it is impossible not to contrast his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ intervention with the President ’ s repeated lies and almost complete indifference .
But to ignore any eventual approval made by the Food and Drug Administration , a decision that Cuomo stressed again in an interview with Katy Tur , on MSNBC , immediately after Trump spoke , is worse than dangerous .
This can only have been a political decision , because Cuomo understands as well as anyone else that there will be a different President in charge of distributing this vaccine .
“ Polls say fifty per cent of American people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if it were available today , because they don ’ t trust the way this federal government has politicized the process , ” Cuomo said on Sunday , during remarks at Riverside Church in New York City .
That ’ s true .
There is a crisis of confidence in vaccines in this country , which has existed for years , long before the emergence of the coronavirus , and it has only grown worse in the past year .
But can Cuomo genuinely think that this kind of response will increase public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ undertake this misbegotten mission , but he is no longer alone .
Officials in California , Connecticut , West Virginia , and the District of Columbia have also appointed committees to review coronavirus vaccines offered for F.D.A .
approval , while the governors of Nevada , Oregon , and Washington have joined California ’ s effort , with each state adding a representative to that review panel .
If approval relied solely on Trump , or on the “ federal government ’ s opinion , ” such an action would make sense .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Drug Administration is responsible for approving vaccines , and , although its leadership has been bullied and weakened by Trump , the Office of Vaccines Research and Review , the group within the agency that has evaluated vaccines for decades , has no such taint .
Vaccine approvals in the United States follow a detailed , lengthy , and public process .
And the F.D.A.
’ s success is unrivalled .
“ We uphold globally respected standards for product quality , safety , and efficacy , ” Peter Marks wrote last month @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Today .
Marks is the director of the agency ’ s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research .
As the headline of his piece noted , “ I ’ m the FDA point person on COVID-19 vaccines .
We ’ ll make sure they ’ re safe and effective.
” “ I understand the frustration and anger that Trump and his team have generated by their mismanagement of highly regarded federal health agencies , but the answer is not to create fifty state agencies to do their work , ” Harold E. Varmus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Prize winner , is a former director of the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute .
He asked if we would want a system in which a Vermont Cancer Institute and forty-nine other such centers replaced the National Cancer Institute .
Let ’ s suppose that the states ’ plans for individual reviews go forward .
The F.D.A .
will eventually approve several vaccines for the prevention of the coronavirus .
There are at least a dozen such vaccines in advanced stages of testing ( including the two with such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more in earlier stages .
Will each vaccine have to gain the approval of every state ?
I live in New York , but I also spend considerable time in California .
What if New York accepts the Pfizer vaccine , but California prefers another—perhaps the similar Moderna vaccine now in Phase III trials or one of the others that will almost certainly also be approved ?
What if I am in California when I am vaccinated ?
Would I be allowed back in New York if it has not also approved the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ required to get an additional vaccine that meets the Cuomo Administration ’ s standards ?
Will people need the national equivalent of the World Health Organization ’ s international vaccination certificate—the yellow card that travellers carry to countries where they need to prove that they have been vaccinated against diseases like yellow fever ?
Will the standards for safety and efficacy be the same in Nevada and Oregon as they will be in New York or Washington ?
It ’ s not hard to imagine that one state will prefer one vaccine , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over another .
This is one reason that we have a federal system .
It is perhaps worth remembering how intensely vaccines are studied before they reach the level of F.D.A .
approval .
Making billions of doses—all to the same standard—is not a simple feat .
Before a drug or vaccine enters human trials , it is first tested on animals ( and cells in laboratories ) .
That leads to an initial phase of testing in humans , in which a vaccine is administered to a small number of healthy people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ safe .
In the second phase , scientists look to see if the vaccine produces an immune response , and , if it does , it moves to Phase III .
At that point , tens of thousands of people enter the trial : half of them receive the vaccine ; the other half get a placebo .
The assignments are random , and neither the patients nor the people who administer the shots know which is which .
That ’ s why they are referred to as double-blind tests .
The researchers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infected with the virus .
If they find that a statistically greater number of people who took the placebo fall ill , then the vaccine would almost certainly be the reason for the difference .
There are more than thirty thousand participants in the Moderna study .
The company reported that ninety-five of them contracted the coronavirus : five who were vaccinated and ninety who received placebos .
Statistically , the difference between the two groups was highly significant .
And , of the ninety-five cases , eleven were severe—all in the placebo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been peer-reviewed or published , but , as is the case with other vaccines under study , they are monitored closely by independent analysts .
More than forty-three thousand people have participated in the study of the Pfizer vaccine .
That study , as well as those of other potential coronavirus vaccines , has been continually analyzed by a data-safety monitoring board , which consists of independent experts ( who do not work for the agency or the company ) .
If the data establishes that a vaccine is sufficiently effective , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
committee .
The F.D.A .
had initially stated that coronavirus vaccines would need to be at least fifty per cent effective for approval , but , if the results from Pfizer and Moderna are accurate , that figure will no longer make sense .
The agency will then place any approval request before a public advisory committee for open discussion .
“ The materials discussed during open sessions of these meetings , which will be live-streamed , will be posted on FDA ’ s website , ” Marks wrote in his USA @ @ @ @ @ @ @ system that works , ” Margaret A. Hamburg , who was the F.D.A .
commissioner for six years during the Obama Administration , told me .
She pointed out that Marion F. Gruber , who directs the Office of Vaccines Research and Review , has decades of experience .
“ Marion is a world-class expert , ” Hamburg said , “ and she has an excellent team working with her .
”

Last Friday, at the end of a week in which the coronavirus infected more people than it ever had before, President Trump held a press conference to congratulate himself on his stewardship of the crisis. “My Administration has initiated the single greatest mobilization in U.S. history,” he said. It was one of many false assertions he made in his brief remarks.
Trump also attempted to claim credit for the coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer, in collaboration with the German biotech firm BioNTech. The vaccine has not yet been approved, but in preliminary studies it protected more than ninety per cent of its recipients from infection. Trump attacked New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, who has said that federal approval of any such vaccine would not be enough for him to grant access to residents of his state. “As soon as April, the vaccine will be available to the entire general population, with the exception of places like New York,” Trump announced. (On Monday, a second company, Moderna Therapeutics, released preliminary data demonstrating that its vaccine had protected more than ninety-four per cent of the people who received it.)
“Frankly, I’m not going to trust the federal government’s opinion,” Cuomo has stated. “New York State will have its own review.” The governor has done a remarkable job of dealing with the pandemic, and it is impossible not to contrast his active, vigorous, and largely successful intervention with the President’s repeated lies and almost complete indifference. But to ignore any eventual approval made by the Food and Drug Administration, a decision that Cuomo stressed again in an interview with Katy Tur, on MSNBC, immediately after Trump spoke, is worse than dangerous. This can only have been a political decision, because Cuomo understands as well as anyone else that there will be a different President in charge of distributing this vaccine. “Polls say fifty per cent of American people say they will not take the vaccine if it were available today, because they don’t trust the way this federal government has politicized the process,” Cuomo said on Sunday, during remarks at Riverside Church in New York City.
That’s true. There is a crisis of confidence in vaccines in this country, which has existed for years, long before the emergence of the coronavirus, and it has only grown worse in the past year. But can Cuomo genuinely think that this kind of response will increase public confidence? He was the first to undertake this misbegotten mission, but he is no longer alone. Officials in California, Connecticut, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia have also appointed committees to review coronavirus vaccines offered for F.D.A. approval, while the governors of Nevada, Oregon, and Washington have joined California’s effort, with each state adding a representative to that review panel. If approval relied solely on Trump, or on the “federal government’s opinion,” such an action would make sense. But it does not. The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for approving vaccines, and, although its leadership has been bullied and weakened by Trump, the Office of Vaccines Research and Review, the group within the agency that has evaluated vaccines for decades, has no such taint.
Vaccine approvals in the United States follow a detailed, lengthy, and public process. And the F.D.A.’s success is unrivalled. “We uphold globally respected standards for product quality, safety, and efficacy,” Peter Marks wrote last month, in an opinion piece for USA Today. Marks is the director of the agency’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. As the headline of his piece noted, “I’m the FDA point person on COVID-19 vaccines. We’ll make sure they’re safe and effective.”
“I understand the frustration and anger that Trump and his team have generated by their mismanagement of highly regarded federal health agencies, but the answer is not to create fifty state agencies to do their work,” Harold E. Varmus told me. Varmus, a Nobel Prize winner, is a former director of the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute. He asked if we would want a system in which a Vermont Cancer Institute and forty-nine other such centers replaced the National Cancer Institute.
Let’s suppose that the states’ plans for individual reviews go forward. The F.D.A. will eventually approve several vaccines for the prevention of the coronavirus. There are at least a dozen such vaccines in advanced stages of testing (including the two with such promising early results), and dozens more in earlier stages. Will each vaccine have to gain the approval of every state? I live in New York, but I also spend considerable time in California. What if New York accepts the Pfizer vaccine, but California prefers another—perhaps the similar Moderna vaccine now in Phase III trials or one of the others that will almost certainly also be approved? What if I am in California when I am vaccinated? Would I be allowed back in New York if it has not also approved the Moderna vaccine? Or would I be required to get an additional vaccine that meets the Cuomo Administration’s standards?
Will people need the national equivalent of the World Health Organization’s international vaccination certificate—the yellow card that travellers carry to countries where they need to prove that they have been vaccinated against diseases like yellow fever? Will the standards for safety and efficacy be the same in Nevada and Oregon as they will be in New York or Washington? It’s not hard to imagine that one state will prefer one vaccine, perhaps from a company based there, over another. This is one reason that we have a federal system.
It is perhaps worth remembering how intensely vaccines are studied before they reach the level of F.D.A. approval. Making billions of doses—all to the same standard—is not a simple feat. Before a drug or vaccine enters human trials, it is first tested on animals (and cells in laboratories). That leads to an initial phase of testing in humans, in which a vaccine is administered to a small number of healthy people, to make sure that it is safe. In the second phase, scientists look to see if the vaccine produces an immune response, and, if it does, it moves to Phase III. At that point, tens of thousands of people enter the trial: half of them receive the vaccine; the other half get a placebo. The assignments are random, and neither the patients nor the people who administer the shots know which is which. That’s why they are referred to as double-blind tests.


newyorker--2020-11-16--Obama Offers to Read His Book Aloud to Trump

WASHINGTON ( The Borowitz Report ) —Saying , “ It ’ s the least I can do , ” former @ @ @ @ @ to read his new book aloud to Donald J. Trump .
“ There ’ s @ @ @ @ @ democracy , governmental norms , and the rule of law , ” Obama said of @ @ @ @ @ ” which is being published this week .
“ I think he ’ d get @ @ @ @ @ being read to him.
” Obama said that he had thought about sending Trump the @ @ @ @ @ realized that “ there would be no one to help him when he got to @ @ @ @ @ t understand.
” “ I ’ m excited to do this , ” Obama said @ @ @ @ @ nothing more important than education.
” Acknowledging that it would take a lot of time @ @ @ @ @ the entire seven-hundred-and-sixty-eight-page book , Obama said , “ He has a lot of time @ @ @ @ @ stopped going to meetings of the coronavirus task force .
”

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Saying, “It’s the least I can do,” former President Barack Obama has offered to read his new book aloud to Donald J. Trump.
“There’s a lot in there about democracy, governmental norms, and the rule of law,” Obama said of “A Promised Land,” which is being published this week. “I think he’d get a lot out of it being read to him.”
Obama said that he had thought about sending Trump the audiobook version, but then realized that “there would be no one to help him when he got to a word he didn’t understand.”
“I’m excited to do this,” Obama said. “There’s nothing more important than education.”
Acknowledging that it would take a lot of time for Trump to listen to the entire seven-hundred-and-sixty-eight-page book, Obama said, “He has a lot of time on his hands since he stopped going to meetings of the coronavirus task force.”