newyorker--2020-12-03--The Dangerous Possibilities of Trump’s Pardon Power

In a Rose Garden ceremony last week , Donald Trump described his final Thanksgiving ritual at the White House as “ the official Presidential pardon of a very , very fortunate turkey.
” The annual theatrics of the President sparing a bird from the fate of its flock provide a humorous performance of a profound power : the ability to grant an exception to the rule of law .
In the waning days of a Presidency known for exceptional self-dealing , it seemed seasonable that Trump followed up the symbolic ceremony by actually pardoning Michael Flynn , his former national-security @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2017 , to the crime of lying to federal investigators about his contacts with the Russian Ambassador during the 2016 Presidential transition .
The remaining weeks will involve drama about other associates , officials , and family members whom Trump may or may not pardon on his way out , including those who haven ’ t been convicted or even indicted .
The candidates include Trump himself , who has stated in a tweet , “ I have the absolute right to PARDON myself.
” Whether or not Trump will create , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the first Presidential self-pardon , Democrats ’ desires for accountability may clash with the Biden Administration ’ s need to move forward and restore normalcy .
Trump ’ s use of the pardon power since 2017 has largely appeared self-interested , rewarding political support and personal loyalty , and tweaking perceived enemies .
He pardoned the former Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio ( an early supporter of the birther conspiracy ) , the conservative publisher Conrad Black ( who published a pro-Trump book ) , the conservative commentator Dinesh D ’ Souza ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Hillary Clinton ) , and the former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich ( who , Trump said , was prosecuted by “ the same people ” Trump associates with investigations of him ) .
His pardon of Dick Cheney ’ s former aide Lewis ( Scooter ) Libby appeared to signal that Trump rewards not rolling on one ’ s boss .
Most disturbingly , Trump has seemed to hold out the possibility of commutations and pardons to associates in order to protect himself against snitching .
Trump commuted the sentence of his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ July , after a jury convicted Stone of witness tampering , obstruction of justice , and lying to Congress in the special counsel Robert Mueller ’ s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election .
Whatever Trump and Stone may have said to each other in private , their public comments smacked of a clemency-centered deal .
Mueller concluded that Trump ’ s public statements—including condemning “ flipping ” and praising Stone ’ s “ guts ” for refusing to coöperate— “ support the inference that the President intended to communicate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for refusing to provide testimony adverse to the President.
” Stone , for his part , told an NBC News reporter that he didn ’ t want a pardon , which implies guilt , but that he expected a commutation , because Trump “ knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him.
” In these last weeks of his Presidency , Trump will likely use the pardon power to reward other associates who refused to implicate him under prosecutorial pressure .
The candidates include his former campaign manager Paul Manafort , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ financial crimes and witness tampering .
Last year , the sentencing judge rebuked Manafort for misleading the court and the prosecutors , implying that she believed Manafort was holding out for a pardon .
Trump may also attempt to immunize loyal associates who have not yet been convicted of criminal conduct that may have benefited him , his businesses , or his campaign .
Steve Bannon , who has been indicted for defrauding GoFundMe campaign donors in order to divert funds to Trump ’ s border wall , could receive such a pardon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and his son-in-law , who haven ’ t yet been indicted .
Trump ’ s lawyer Rudy Giuliani has been under federal investigation for possible violation of foreign-lobbying laws , as part of his role in Trump ’ s attempt to pressure Ukraine to announce an investigation of Joe Biden .
Trump was impeached for abuse of power in connection with that effort .
Giuliani has reportedly broached with his client the topic of a pardon for himself .
All of this amounts to possible bribery , in which Trump exchanges pardons for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ implicating him in crimes .
It did occur to the Framers that a President might be tempted to pardon cronies who committed crimes that served his interests ; George Mason , a delegate to the Constitutional Convention , worried explicitly that a future President “ may frequently pardon crimes which were advised by himself.
” But the Framers appear to have thought that fear of impeachment would deter such abuses of the pardon power .
We may surmise from experience that they were mistaken .
If Trump does pardon allies like Manafort and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first time that corruption was suspected in a President ’ s exercise of the pardon power .
After Bill Clinton left office , federal prosecutors investigated whether he had pardoned two fugitives from justice in exchange for campaign contributions .
( Giuliani , who , as a prosecutor , had indicted the two men for tax fraud , called the pardons “ a disgrace.
” ) Clinton also pardoned four people who were convicted of conspiracy and bankruptcy fraud , in the nineteen-nineties , as a result of the independent counsel ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Arkansas in the nineteen-eighties .
Those pardon recipients included Susan McDougal , who had refused to coöperate with the investigation , but not her husband , James , who did coöperate and implicated the Clintons .
Before leaving office , Clinton himself reached a deal with the independent counsel to avoid indictment if he gave up his law license for five years and admitted that he had committed perjury .
Clinton also threw in a last-minute pardon for his half-brother , who ’ d served time for federal drug crimes .
• @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the press continue .
• Lessons of failed power grabs , in America and overseas .
• Could banks bail us out of the climate crisis ?
In her book , “ Theaters of Pardoning , ” from 2019 , the legal and literary scholar Bernadette Meyler observes that “ Trump has cannily recognized the theatrical power of pardoning.
” He has “ built pardons on personal dramas and stories ” and cultivated suspense—particularly about whether he will pardon himself .
Because the Justice Department holds the position that it does not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shielded from federal indictment .
On leaving office , however , he becomes vulnerable to investigation and indictment for a range of alleged crimes : for obstruction of justice , the facts of which the Mueller Report laid out ; for campaign-finance violations , in connection with payments for silence about Trump ’ s affairs , of which Trump ’ s former attorney Michael Cohen has been convicted and could provide evidence ; or for tax and other fraud crimes .
Soon enough , federal prosecutors will have to decide whether to forge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ charges against Trump .
( Cases pursued by state authorities , such as the financial-fraud matters already being investigated by the Manhattan District Attorney and the New York attorney general , could proceed to indictment and trial in the coming months or years .
In these cases , Trump ’ s pardon powers would offer no recourse : the President can not pardon anyone for crimes at the state level . )
At this point , Trump is , in all likelihood , considering two possible self-engineered pardon scenarios , both addressed in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Department ’ s Office of Legal Counsel provided on whether Richard Nixon could pardon himself .
The memo looked askance at a self-pardon , “ under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case.
” But it explained that if the President were to invoke the Twenty-fifth Amendment to declare that he is “ temporarily unable to perform the duties of the office , ” his Vice-President , upon becoming acting President , could then grant him a pardon .
Both before and after the congressional attempt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this year , the Twenty-fifth Amendment was widely discussed because of concerns about Trump ’ s mental instability .
Trump could have the last laugh , invoking that amendment so that Mike Pence could grant him a pardon .
The act that would be most true to Trump ’ s narcissistic absolutism about his power would be for him to claim to pardon himself outright .
But the legal validity of a self-pardon is far shakier than one that could be issued by Pence as the acting President .
No President has attempted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are vociferously divided on whether it would be valid , with one side pointing to its conflict of interest , to put it mildly , and the other side observing that neither the constitutional text nor judicial precedent limits the President ’ s pardon power .
If Trump were to try to pardon himself , that act ’ s constitutionality could be tested if federal prosecutors charge him with crimes and assert in court that the pardon power does not extend to a President pardoning himself .
But in the absence of federal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unchallenged : courts are likely to demur from considering its legitimacy under the constitutional rule that they decide only actual “ cases ” and “ controversies.
” In their recent book , “ After Trump , ” Bob Bauer , a White House counsel under Obama , and Jack Goldsmith , the head of O.L.C .
under George W. Bush , propose many legal reforms that the Trump Presidency has shown to be necessary ; among them are that Congress should act to make clear that the Constitution does not authorize self-pardon , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ President ’ s exchange of a pardon for anything of value , including influence on testimony , is criminal bribery .
Just this week , unsealed court records revealed that federal prosecutors are investigating a possible bribery conspiracy , involving “ a substantial political contribution in exchange for a presidential pardon or reprieve of sentence.
” The identities of the individuals under suspicion are not public ; Trump tweeted that “ the pardon investigation is Fake News !
” In Federalist No .
74 , Alexander Hamilton highlighted two reasons for the pardon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a criminal law that may be too cruel or too severe , and to “ restore the tranquility ” of the country in critical moments when not doing so may make such restoration impossible later on .
President Ford ’ s proclamation emphasized the latter of these rationales , acknowledging that Nixon was “ liable to possible indictment and trial ” for his acts in office , but that “ the tranquility to which this nation has been restored by the events of recent weeks could be irreparably lost by the prospects @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Doing so would “ cause prolonged and divisive debate over the propriety of exposing to further punishment and degradation a man who has already paid the unprecedented penalty of relinquishing the highest elective office of the United States.
” The pardon of Nixon was so unpopular with the public that commentators have blamed it for the loss of dozens of Republican seats in the 1974 midterm election and Ford ’ s defeat , by Jimmy Carter , in 1976 .
It is hard to imagine a surer way to ruin Biden ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in post-traumatic , high-drama controversy over misdeeds of the past Administration , keeping Trump ’ s term in the front rather than the rearview of our politics .
The dilemma puts into sharp relief the core quandary for the coming Administration : how to reconcile the desire not to alienate half the country , which wanted four more years of Trump even after observing him as President , with satisfying the demands of the other half , which voted him out .
Biden has signalled through his aides that he is not eager @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policy priorities bogged down by the circus-like attention and partisan division that would accompany any federal criminal matters involving Trump and his associates .
But the President-elect has also said that he will leave such matters to the Justice Department .
In the event that federal prosecutors don ’ t pursue indictments , it will anger those who want to see Trump brought to justice , particularly if the criminal investigation in New York also does not lead to charges .
At the same time , the risks of bringing criminal charges against @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be lost on anyone who recoiled from Trump ’ s craving for criminal investigations of Obama and Hillary Clinton .
Bauer and Goldsmith write that “ an administration poring over the actions in office of a just-ousted president , and of his administration , looking for crimes , would be a first in American history , ” and that it might “ threaten to begin a tit-for-tat cycle of recriminations across administrations.
” And , of course , there is significant risk that investigations and charges won ’ t end up becoming convictions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that case , those investigations may look like a colossal waste of time and resources ; they could also be falsely interpreted as , in Trump ’ s words about the Mueller Report , a “ complete and total exoneration.
” Still , Bauer and Goldsmith grant , “ It might seem strange to give a president immunity from criminal prosecution for public crimes while in office to avoid destabilizing the presidency , and then to give him a pass on the criminal law after office in order to avoid destabilizing the nation @ @

In a Rose Garden ceremony last week, Donald Trump described his final Thanksgiving ritual at the White House as “the official Presidential pardon of a very, very fortunate turkey.” The annual theatrics of the President sparing a bird from the fate of its flock provide a humorous performance of a profound power: the ability to grant an exception to the rule of law. In the waning days of a Presidency known for exceptional self-dealing, it seemed seasonable that Trump followed up the symbolic ceremony by actually pardoning Michael Flynn, his former national-security adviser, who pleaded guilty, in 2017, to the crime of lying to federal investigators about his contacts with the Russian Ambassador during the 2016 Presidential transition. The remaining weeks will involve drama about other associates, officials, and family members whom Trump may or may not pardon on his way out, including those who haven’t been convicted or even indicted. The candidates include Trump himself, who has stated in a tweet, “I have the absolute right to PARDON myself.” Whether or not Trump will create, in the coming weeks, the spectacle of the first Presidential self-pardon, Democrats’ desires for accountability may clash with the Biden Administration’s need to move forward and restore normalcy.
Trump’s use of the pardon power since 2017 has largely appeared self-interested, rewarding political support and personal loyalty, and tweaking perceived enemies. He pardoned the former Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio (an early supporter of the birther conspiracy), the conservative publisher Conrad Black (who published a pro-Trump book), the conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza (who produced films that criticized Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton), and the former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich (who, Trump said, was prosecuted by “the same people” Trump associates with investigations of him). His pardon of Dick Cheney’s former aide Lewis (Scooter) Libby appeared to signal that Trump rewards not rolling on one’s boss.
Most disturbingly, Trump has seemed to hold out the possibility of commutations and pardons to associates in order to protect himself against snitching. Trump commuted the sentence of his friend and adviser Roger Stone, in July, after a jury convicted Stone of witness tampering, obstruction of justice, and lying to Congress in the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election. Whatever Trump and Stone may have said to each other in private, their public comments smacked of a clemency-centered deal. Mueller concluded that Trump’s public statements—including condemning “flipping” and praising Stone’s “guts” for refusing to coöperate—“support the inference that the President intended to communicate a message that witnesses could be rewarded for refusing to provide testimony adverse to the President.” Stone, for his part, told an NBC News reporter that he didn’t want a pardon, which implies guilt, but that he expected a commutation, because Trump “knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him.”
In these last weeks of his Presidency, Trump will likely use the pardon power to reward other associates who refused to implicate him under prosecutorial pressure. The candidates include his former campaign manager Paul Manafort, who is serving a federal sentence for financial crimes and witness tampering. Last year, the sentencing judge rebuked Manafort for misleading the court and the prosecutors, implying that she believed Manafort was holding out for a pardon. Trump may also attempt to immunize loyal associates who have not yet been convicted of criminal conduct that may have benefited him, his businesses, or his campaign. Steve Bannon, who has been indicted for defrauding GoFundMe campaign donors in order to divert funds to Trump’s border wall, could receive such a pardon, as could Trump’s children and his son-in-law, who haven’t yet been indicted. Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani has been under federal investigation for possible violation of foreign-lobbying laws, as part of his role in Trump’s attempt to pressure Ukraine to announce an investigation of Joe Biden. Trump was impeached for abuse of power in connection with that effort. Giuliani has reportedly broached with his client the topic of a pardon for himself. All of this amounts to possible bribery, in which Trump exchanges pardons for something of value, namely forbearance from implicating him in crimes. It did occur to the Framers that a President might be tempted to pardon cronies who committed crimes that served his interests; George Mason, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, worried explicitly that a future President “may frequently pardon crimes which were advised by himself.” But the Framers appear to have thought that fear of impeachment would deter such abuses of the pardon power. We may surmise from experience that they were mistaken.
If Trump does pardon allies like Manafort and Giuliani, it would not be the first time that corruption was suspected in a President’s exercise of the pardon power. After Bill Clinton left office, federal prosecutors investigated whether he had pardoned two fugitives from justice in exchange for campaign contributions. (Giuliani, who, as a prosecutor, had indicted the two men for tax fraud, called the pardons “a disgrace.”) Clinton also pardoned four people who were convicted of conspiracy and bankruptcy fraud, in the nineteen-nineties, as a result of the independent counsel’s investigation of the Clintons’ land deals in Arkansas in the nineteen-eighties. Those pardon recipients included Susan McDougal, who had refused to coöperate with the investigation, but not her husband, James, who did coöperate and implicated the Clintons. Before leaving office, Clinton himself reached a deal with the independent counsel to avoid indictment if he gave up his law license for five years and admitted that he had committed perjury. Clinton also threw in a last-minute pardon for his half-brother, who’d served time for federal drug crimes.
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In her book, “Theaters of Pardoning,” from 2019, the legal and literary scholar Bernadette Meyler observes that “Trump has cannily recognized the theatrical power of pardoning.” He has “built pardons on personal dramas and stories” and cultivated suspense—particularly about whether he will pardon himself. Because the Justice Department holds the position that it does not indict sitting Presidents, Trump has been shielded from federal indictment. On leaving office, however, he becomes vulnerable to investigation and indictment for a range of alleged crimes: for obstruction of justice, the facts of which the Mueller Report laid out; for campaign-finance violations, in connection with payments for silence about Trump’s affairs, of which Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen has been convicted and could provide evidence; or for tax and other fraud crimes. Soon enough, federal prosecutors will have to decide whether to forge ahead with criminal investigations leading to possible charges against Trump. (Cases pursued by state authorities, such as the financial-fraud matters already being investigated by the Manhattan District Attorney and the New York attorney general, could proceed to indictment and trial in the coming months or years. In these cases, Trump’s pardon powers would offer no recourse: the President cannot pardon anyone for crimes at the state level.)
At this point, Trump is, in all likelihood, considering two possible self-engineered pardon scenarios, both addressed in a memo from 1974 that the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel provided on whether Richard Nixon could pardon himself. The memo looked askance at a self-pardon, “under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case.” But it explained that if the President were to invoke the Twenty-fifth Amendment to declare that he is “temporarily unable to perform the duties of the office,” his Vice-President, upon becoming acting President, could then grant him a pardon. Both before and after the congressional attempt to remove Trump through impeachment, early this year, the Twenty-fifth Amendment was widely discussed because of concerns about Trump’s mental instability. Trump could have the last laugh, invoking that amendment so that Mike Pence could grant him a pardon.
The act that would be most true to Trump’s narcissistic absolutism about his power would be for him to claim to pardon himself outright. But the legal validity of a self-pardon is far shakier than one that could be issued by Pence as the acting President. No President has attempted to pardon himself, and constitutional scholars are vociferously divided on whether it would be valid, with one side pointing to its conflict of interest, to put it mildly, and the other side observing that neither the constitutional text nor judicial precedent limits the President’s pardon power. If Trump were to try to pardon himself, that act’s constitutionality could be tested if federal prosecutors charge him with crimes and assert in court that the pardon power does not extend to a President pardoning himself. But in the absence of federal charges, a self-pardon may remain legally unchallenged: courts are likely to demur from considering its legitimacy under the constitutional rule that they decide only actual “cases” and “controversies.” In their recent book, “After Trump,” Bob Bauer, a White House counsel under Obama, and Jack Goldsmith, the head of O.L.C. under George W. Bush, propose many legal reforms that the Trump Presidency has shown to be necessary; among them are that Congress should act to make clear that the Constitution does not authorize self-pardon, and to remove any doubt that a President’s exchange of a pardon for anything of value, including influence on testimony, is criminal bribery. Just this week, unsealed court records revealed that federal prosecutors are investigating a possible bribery conspiracy, involving “a substantial political contribution in exchange for a presidential pardon or reprieve of sentence.” The identities of the individuals under suspicion are not public; Trump tweeted that “the pardon investigation is Fake News!”
In a town hall during the election campaign earlier this year, Joe Biden promised “absolutely” not to pardon Trump for any crimes. However unlikely a Biden pardon of Trump may seem, the question arises from the example of Nixon, the only President to receive a pardon. Nixon resigned the Presidency, in 1974, on the eve of his likely impeachment for obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress. Although his Vice-President, Gerald Ford, testified in his confirmation hearings that he wouldn’t pardon Nixon, because the public “wouldn’t stand for it,” a month after Ford became President, he granted Nixon a “full, free, and absolute pardon” for federal crimes he may have committed during his time in office. The pardon meant that the Justice Department did not pursue an indictment of Nixon, even as several of his former aides were indicted, some of whom, including his Attorney General and his chief of staff, served prison time for participating with him in the Watergate affair or its coverup.
In Federalist No. 74, Alexander Hamilton highlighted two reasons for the pardon power: to ameliorate the possible injustice of a criminal law that may be too cruel or too severe, and to “restore the tranquility” of the country in critical moments when not doing so may make such restoration impossible later on. President Ford’s proclamation emphasized the latter of these rationales, acknowledging that Nixon was “liable to possible indictment and trial” for his acts in office, but that “the tranquility to which this nation has been restored by the events of recent weeks could be irreparably lost by the prospects of bringing to trial a former President.” Doing so would “cause prolonged and divisive debate over the propriety of exposing to further punishment and degradation a man who has already paid the unprecedented penalty of relinquishing the highest elective office of the United States.” The pardon of Nixon was so unpopular with the public that commentators have blamed it for the loss of dozens of Republican seats in the 1974 midterm election and Ford’s defeat, by Jimmy Carter, in 1976.
It is hard to imagine a surer way to ruin Biden’s Presidency than to have it mired in post-traumatic, high-drama controversy over misdeeds of the past Administration, keeping Trump’s term in the front rather than the rearview of our politics. The dilemma puts into sharp relief the core quandary for the coming Administration: how to reconcile the desire not to alienate half the country, which wanted four more years of Trump even after observing him as President, with satisfying the demands of the other half, which voted him out. Biden has signalled through his aides that he is not eager to risk having his Administration’s policy priorities bogged down by the circus-like attention and partisan division that would accompany any federal criminal matters involving Trump and his associates. But the President-elect has also said that he will leave such matters to the Justice Department. In the event that federal prosecutors don’t pursue indictments, it will anger those who want to see Trump brought to justice, particularly if the criminal investigation in New York also does not lead to charges. At the same time, the risks of bringing criminal charges against a recently defeated political opponent cannot be lost on anyone who recoiled from Trump’s craving for criminal investigations of Obama and Hillary Clinton. Bauer and Goldsmith write that “an administration poring over the actions in office of a just-ousted president, and of his administration, looking for crimes, would be a first in American history,” and that it might “threaten to begin a tit-for-tat cycle of recriminations across administrations.” And, of course, there is significant risk that investigations and charges won’t end up becoming convictions, because of insufficient evidence. In that case, those investigations may look like a colossal waste of time and resources; they could also be falsely interpreted as, in Trump’s words about the Mueller Report, a “complete and total exoneration.” Still, Bauer and Goldsmith grant, “It might seem strange to give a president immunity from criminal prosecution for public crimes while in office to avoid destabilizing the presidency, and then to give him a pass on the criminal law after office in order to avoid destabilizing the nation.”


newyorker--2020-12-04--How Dating During a Pandemic Is Like Being in a Jane Austen Novel

• None The whole town feels invested in your behaviors .
• None You regularly inquire about the health of @ @ @ @ @ members .
• None Strict manners and customs of the day , built around a @ @ @ @ @ dictate your interactions and lead to amusing mishaps .
• None Gossip helps edify listeners @ @ @ @ @ isn ’ t acceptable , and who has violated social conventions and decorum .
• @ @ @ @ @ na be tea at some point .
• None You inform your friends—who lead tranquil @ @ @ @ @ evenings at home—of recent romantic developments through vividly written correspondence .
• None Much of @ @ @ @ @ , too .
• None You and your prospective future husband barely touch .

It’s a long, drawn-out affair, composed of public meetings.
The main characters lead quiet domestic lives.
The whole town feels invested in your behaviors.
You regularly inquire about the health of each other’s family members.
Strict manners and customs of the day, built around a moral duty to society, dictate your interactions and lead to amusing mishaps.
Clever planning is involved.
Includes many brisk walks.
Gossip helps edify listeners by determining what is and isn’t acceptable, and who has violated social conventions and decorum.
Romantic encounters are very weather-dependent.
There’s gonna be tea at some point.
You inform your friends—who lead tranquil lives full of cooking and evenings at home—of recent romantic developments through vividly written correspondence.
Much of the romantic relationship is epistolary, too.
Eye contact and subtle gestures play an important role.


newyorker--2020-12-04--Meryl Streep on the High Seas in “Let Them All Talk”

The new movie from Steven Soderbergh , who directed “ Traffic ” ( 2000 ) , “ Ocean ’ s Eleven ” ( 2001 ) , and other films so numerous that he may have forgotten making them , is titled “ Let Them All Talk.
” It stars Meryl Streep as Alice Hughes , a distinguished American novelist who has been awarded something called the Footling Prize .
( Can that really be the name ?
I do hope so . )
In order to receive it , she must go to England , but she won ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ travel by water , roughing it in a two-story suite on the Queen Mary 2 , from New York to Southampton .
She is accompanied by her nephew , Tyler ( Lucas Hedges ) , plus two old friends of hers from college , Susan ( Dianne Wiest ) and Roberta ( Candice Bergen ) .
One is an advocate for imprisoned women , in Seattle ; the other sells lingerie in Dallas .
Alice hasn ’ t seen either of them in decades , so now is a chance to catch up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on whom this movie turns .
It should be called “ Ocean ’ s Four.
” One disappointment is that all of them , arriving on board , are politely conducted to their cabins .
Boring !
As any follower of the Marx Brothers can tell you , on the strength of “ Monkey Business ” ( 1931 ) , the best—and certainly the most fragrant—means of embarking on a luxury liner is to stow away in a barrel marked “ Kippered Herring.
” There is a secret passenger in the new film @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but the only person she ’ s hiding from is Alice , who , en voyage , will be working on the manuscript of a new book .
It ’ s rumored to be a sequel to one of her earlier successes , and Karen , having recently become Alice ’ s literary agent , yearns to discover what it ’ s about , and to chivvy along the creative process .
This involves recruiting Tyler to spy on his aunt and to report back , the sole result being that Tyler @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
With Karen , that is , not with his aunt .
That would be weird .
To be honest , Karen ’ s part in the story is slight to the point of absurdity , and there ’ s something equally thin in Alice ’ s motives .
If the plan was to revisit the past with her sisterly pals , why does she scarcely make contact with them , except at dinner ?
“ It ’ s really important that I know something of their state of mind , ” she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ poor boy with yet more espionage , but why that ’ s important to her remains obscure , and , indeed , the first half of “ Let Them All Talk ” is barely there as a movie .
Soderbergh seems to be sketching out ideas for a plot , and gingerly feeling his way into its moral possibilities , as if he were clinging to a rail , beside a heaving sea .
And yet the Atlantic stays calm .
Most of the action was filmed on the Queen Mary 2 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and you ’ re never entirely sure to what extent the resident mortals are aware of the stars who have descended among them .
Does the helpful member of the ship ’ s crew , giving directions to a lost and elegant lady , even realize that she is in the frame with Meryl Streep ?
“ Let Them All Talk ” belongs to the gang of speedy , shot-from-the-hip movies—like “ Bubble ” ( 2005 ) , “ Unsane ” ( 2018 ) , and “ High Flying Bird ” ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ off now and then , using the lightest and least obtrusive tools for the job .
One of his legacies will be the encouragement of younger filmmakers , who will watch his no-frills ventures and say to themselves , “ We may not have a Streep , but we ’ ve got a coffee machine , a script , and an iPhone 12 .
Let ’ s do it.
” The hardest thing to replicate , for any novice , will be the surreptitious ease with which , in the latest film , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all expectation , we find ourselves in a serious and somewhat Jamesian drama , strewn with riddles .
Who is the fellow who , observed by Tyler , emerges from Alice ’ s room every morning ?
Could Susan be the first person on record to discuss her distant sexual history while playing Monopoly and Scrabble , and , if so , does a threesome count as a triple-word score ?
And what is Roberta ’ s beef ?
The movie treats her ungallantly , I reckon , looking down on her as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yet there is genuine force when she suddenly says , of Alice , “ I am convinced she asked me on this trip to find out what happened to me after my divorce .
She wants to write about it as a sequel to her fucking book.
” Ah , that old lament .
Despite protestations to the contrary , every novel is a roman à clef , for readers who are privately acquainted with the novelist .
Most of them , moreover , persuade themselves that they are the keys that fit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ another novelist , a mystery-monger named Kelvin Kranz ( Dan Algrant ) , who outsells Alice , many times over .
Needless to say , she deems herself his artistic superior , and the film is worth seeing for a delicious moment of pure Streepery , when Alice and Kelvin meet in the dining room .
She asks him , “ How long does it take you to write one of your ” —she flutters her fingers , as if brushing off dirt— “ your books ?
” Three or four months , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s longer than I thought !
” she says .
Ouch .
The joke ’ s on her , though , for Kelvin is a gentlemanly soul , who admires Alice ’ s work , and it ’ s gratifying to see Susan curled up in bed with one of his best-sellers .
What I longed for was a closeup of Alice , too , sneakily plucking “ Fugue State , ” “ Boiling Point , ” or another gripping Kranz from the shelves of the ship ’ s library and smuggling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lapping up every word , her face aglow with envy , snobbery , thrills , and guilt .
Sadly , Soderbergh can ’ t bring himself to take that illuminating step .
One mystery that even Kranz couldn ’ t solve is : Where ’ s Elvis Costello ?
“ Let Them All Talk ” is the opening number , pumping and brassy , on his 1983 album , “ Punch the Clock.
” In the film , however , we never hear it .
( The succeeding track , “ Every Day @ @ @ @ @ @ @ may be the best song ever written about writing , would also be a nice fit for this movie . )
Instead , the score is by Thomas Newman , whose jazz compositions are , I guess , better suited to Soderbergh ’ s narrative riffs .
Much of the tale has a noodling and speculative air , and , if you ’ re braced for shipboard shenanigans , as in “ The Lady Eve ” ( 1941 ) , forget it ; the romance between Karen and Tyler is a nonstarter .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , when Alice , as requested , delivers a public lecture to her fellow-passengers , she addresses her thoughts— “ What a miracle it is that consciousness emerged , ” and so on—to a full house .
Give me a break .
I ’ ve been on the Queen Mary 2 , from America to England , and , believe me , the folks on that noble vessel are in no mood for miraculous consciousness .
They want to shop .
Soon afterward , in a further surprising development , Jean is hustled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ go on the run .
Eddie is a crook , he ’ s messed up , and now somebody ’ s seeking revenge on him and his loved ones .
Typically , though , he ’ s not around , and so the fleeing Jean is attended by a guy named Cal ( Arinzé Kene ) —a placid and capable sort , who drives her and Harry to a safe location and leaves them there , with plenty of diapers , food , and formula .
More loneliness ensues .
The movie , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ may have the outline of a thriller , but the gaps are filled with waiting .
The time is the nineteen-seventies B.C.—before cell phones , that is .
( The ubiquity of them , I ’ d argue , has proved fatal to the crime film ; information can now be instantly shared rather than being withheld in the interests of suspense or lost because of a missed call . )
The cars of the period are like whales on wheels , lumbering and wallowing along in the course of a chase .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ disco-driven sequence at a club , where the beat is interrupted by gunfire .
Jean , clad in a glittering jumpsuit , takes refuge in one of the club ’ s phone booths , and we glimpse the chaos from her point of view , as the customers race past in a terrified stampede .
“ I ’ m Your Woman ” needs these dynamic interludes , because the rest of it , alas , feels dangerously numb .
Remember the rollicking tone of “ Raising Arizona ” ( 1987 ) , another @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the opposite extreme and you come to Hart ’ s movie , where nobody rollicks at all .
Conversation is pause-heavy ; smiles are fleeting and tight with anxiety ; the plot is a knot .
True , there ’ s a smoothly controlled performance from Marsha Stephanie Blake as Teri , who also has Eddie troubles .
But why is everyone so scared of Eddie , anyway ?
Is he really Mr. Big ?
We meet him only briefly , but he strikes me as Mr. Medium-Sized Jerk .
Jean and Teri @ @ @ @ @ @ @ belong to nobody else .
♦

The new movie from Steven Soderbergh, who directed “Traffic” (2000), “Ocean’s Eleven” (2001), and other films so numerous that he may have forgotten making them, is titled “Let Them All Talk.” It stars Meryl Streep as Alice Hughes, a distinguished American novelist who has been awarded something called the Footling Prize. (Can that really be the name? I do hope so.) In order to receive it, she must go to England, but she won’t fly. Instead, she condescends to travel by water, roughing it in a two-story suite on the Queen Mary 2, from New York to Southampton. She is accompanied by her nephew, Tyler (Lucas Hedges), plus two old friends of hers from college, Susan (Dianne Wiest) and Roberta (Candice Bergen). One is an advocate for imprisoned women, in Seattle; the other sells lingerie in Dallas. Alice hasn’t seen either of them in decades, so now is a chance to catch up. Such is the quartet of characters on whom this movie turns. It should be called “Ocean’s Four.”
One disappointment is that all of them, arriving on board, are politely conducted to their cabins. Boring! As any follower of the Marx Brothers can tell you, on the strength of “Monkey Business” (1931), the best—and certainly the most fragrant—means of embarking on a luxury liner is to stow away in a barrel marked “Kippered Herring.” There is a secret passenger in the new film, named Karen (Gemma Chan), but the only person she’s hiding from is Alice, who, en voyage, will be working on the manuscript of a new book. It’s rumored to be a sequel to one of her earlier successes, and Karen, having recently become Alice’s literary agent, yearns to discover what it’s about, and to chivvy along the creative process. This involves recruiting Tyler to spy on his aunt and to report back, the sole result being that Tyler starts to fall in love with her. With Karen, that is, not with his aunt. That would be weird.
To be honest, Karen’s part in the story is slight to the point of absurdity, and there’s something equally thin in Alice’s motives. If the plan was to revisit the past with her sisterly pals, why does she scarcely make contact with them, except at dinner? “It’s really important that I know something of their state of mind,” she says to Tyler, thus burdening the poor boy with yet more espionage, but why that’s important to her remains obscure, and, indeed, the first half of “Let Them All Talk” is barely there as a movie. Soderbergh seems to be sketching out ideas for a plot, and gingerly feeling his way into its moral possibilities, as if he were clinging to a rail, beside a heaving sea. And yet the Atlantic stays calm.
Most of the action was filmed on the Queen Mary 2, during a crossing in August, 2019, and you’re never entirely sure to what extent the resident mortals are aware of the stars who have descended among them. Does the helpful member of the ship’s crew, giving directions to a lost and elegant lady, even realize that she is in the frame with Meryl Streep? “Let Them All Talk” belongs to the gang of speedy, shot-from-the-hip movies—like “Bubble” (2005), “Unsane” (2018), and “High Flying Bird” (2019)—that Soderbergh likes to fire off now and then, using the lightest and least obtrusive tools for the job. One of his legacies will be the encouragement of younger filmmakers, who will watch his no-frills ventures and say to themselves, “We may not have a Streep, but we’ve got a coffee machine, a script, and an iPhone 12. Let’s do it.”
The hardest thing to replicate, for any novice, will be the surreptitious ease with which, in the latest film, Soderbergh shifts gear. Gradually, against all expectation, we find ourselves in a serious and somewhat Jamesian drama, strewn with riddles. Who is the fellow who, observed by Tyler, emerges from Alice’s room every morning? Could Susan be the first person on record to discuss her distant sexual history while playing Monopoly and Scrabble, and, if so, does a threesome count as a triple-word score? And what is Roberta’s beef? The movie treats her ungallantly, I reckon, looking down on her as a gold-digger and an emotional desperado, yet there is genuine force when she suddenly says, of Alice, “I am convinced she asked me on this trip to find out what happened to me after my divorce. She wants to write about it as a sequel to her fucking book.” Ah, that old lament. Despite protestations to the contrary, every novel is a roman à clef, for readers who are privately acquainted with the novelist. Most of them, moreover, persuade themselves that they are the keys that fit.
But wait. Also aboard is another novelist, a mystery-monger named Kelvin Kranz (Dan Algrant), who outsells Alice, many times over. Needless to say, she deems herself his artistic superior, and the film is worth seeing for a delicious moment of pure Streepery, when Alice and Kelvin meet in the dining room. She asks him, “How long does it take you to write one of your”—she flutters her fingers, as if brushing off dirt—“your books?” Three or four months, he replies. “Oh, that’s longer than I thought!” she says. Ouch. The joke’s on her, though, for Kelvin is a gentlemanly soul, who admires Alice’s work, and it’s gratifying to see Susan curled up in bed with one of his best-sellers. What I longed for was a closeup of Alice, too, sneakily plucking “Fugue State,” “Boiling Point,” or another gripping Kranz from the shelves of the ship’s library and smuggling it to her room. Imagine her lapping up every word, her face aglow with envy, snobbery, thrills, and guilt. Sadly, Soderbergh can’t bring himself to take that illuminating step.
One mystery that even Kranz couldn’t solve is: Where’s Elvis Costello? “Let Them All Talk” is the opening number, pumping and brassy, on his 1983 album, “Punch the Clock.” In the film, however, we never hear it. (The succeeding track, “Every Day I Write the Book,” which may be the best song ever written about writing, would also be a nice fit for this movie.) Instead, the score is by Thomas Newman, whose jazz compositions are, I guess, better suited to Soderbergh’s narrative riffs. Much of the tale has a noodling and speculative air, and, if you’re braced for shipboard shenanigans, as in “The Lady Eve” (1941), forget it; the romance between Karen and Tyler is a nonstarter. Oddest of all is the fact that, when Alice, as requested, delivers a public lecture to her fellow-passengers, she addresses her thoughts—“What a miracle it is that consciousness emerged,” and so on—to a full house. Give me a break. I’ve been on the Queen Mary 2, from America to England, and, believe me, the folks on that noble vessel are in no mood for miraculous consciousness. They want to shop.
For fuchsia’s sake, the heroine of “I’m Your Woman,” Jean (Rachel Brosnahan), lounges around in a gauzy peignoir trimmed with fur. It still has the sales tag attached, suggesting that it was stolen rather than bought. Unhappy, bored, and home alone, Jean has tried in vain to have children—a hole in her life that is repaired, without warning, when her husband, Eddie (Bill Heck), returns one day with a baby. Where it hails from, and who its parents are, Lord knows; nonetheless, what a thoughtful gift. Jean names it Harry.
Soon afterward, in a further surprising development, Jean is hustled out of the house and compelled to go on the run. Eddie is a crook, he’s messed up, and now somebody’s seeking revenge on him and his loved ones. Typically, though, he’s not around, and so the fleeing Jean is attended by a guy named Cal (Arinzé Kene)—a placid and capable sort, who drives her and Harry to a safe location and leaves them there, with plenty of diapers, food, and formula. More loneliness ensues. The movie, which is directed by Julia Hart, may have the outline of a thriller, but the gaps are filled with waiting.
The time is the nineteen-seventies B.C.—before cell phones, that is. (The ubiquity of them, I’d argue, has proved fatal to the crime film; information can now be instantly shared rather than being withheld in the interests of suspense or lost because of a missed call.) The cars of the period are like whales on wheels, lumbering and wallowing along in the course of a chase. There’s also a splendid, disco-driven sequence at a club, where the beat is interrupted by gunfire. Jean, clad in a glittering jumpsuit, takes refuge in one of the club’s phone booths, and we glimpse the chaos from her point of view, as the customers race past in a terrified stampede.
“I’m Your Woman” needs these dynamic interludes, because the rest of it, alas, feels dangerously numb. Remember the rollicking tone of “Raising Arizona” (1987), another kid-kidnapping saga? Well, swing to the opposite extreme and you come to Hart’s movie, where nobody rollicks at all. Conversation is pause-heavy; smiles are fleeting and tight with anxiety; the plot is a knot. True, there’s a smoothly controlled performance from Marsha Stephanie Blake as Teri, who also has Eddie troubles. But why is everyone so scared of Eddie, anyway? Is he really Mr. Big? We meet him only briefly, but he strikes me as Mr. Medium-Sized Jerk. Jean and Teri should be their own women, and belong to nobody else. ♦


newyorker--2020-12-04--Ten Great Performances of 2020

Ten Great Performances of 2020

At the same time , large swaths of performance were wiped off the map .
Theatres , opera houses , concert halls , and comedy clubs shut down , and the date of their return is still uncertain .
It ’ s impossible to celebrate the performances we had without mourning the ones we never got to see .
In the “ before times , ” I was looking forward to Katrina Lenk in “ Company ” and Laurie Metcalf in “ Who ’ s Afraid of Virginia Woolf ?
” —Broadway revivals that went poof .
In the absence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ emerged , from Zoom dramas to socially distanced ballets .
Entertainers , cooped up and crazed like the rest of us , took to social media , with mixed results : for every cringeworthy cover of “ Imagine , ” there was a Leslie Jordan or a Patti LuPone , delightfully hamming it up in the basement .
What follows is a non-comprehensive , utterly subjective list of performances that arrived , one way or another , in this year of perpetual isolation , and that helped us stay connected , mark time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the start of 2020 , Cooper was a fortysomething former Google designer still trying to find her footing in comedy , but , within a few months , she became the pandemic ’ s quintessential star .
In the spring , she began uploading TikTok videos that she shot in her apartment , in which she lip-synched the inanities of Donald Trump , twisting her face into an angry amalgam of the President ’ s cocksure idiocy and our collective exhaustion with it .
The videos racked up millions of views , turning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hero .
By year four of Trump ’ s Presidency , you ’ d think that we would have had enough of Trump imitations , but Cooper ’ s was so blunt and ( in the best sense ) nasty that it felt invigorating .
And , of course , the fact that a Jamaican-born woman was pulling this off made it only tastier .
Cooper ’ s star rose fast , and in October she put out a Netflix special , “ Sarah Cooper : Everything ’ s Fine , ” directed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ great lip-synching , of course , but a lot else , too , that showed us how much Cooper has to offer .
The fourth season of Netflix ’ s royal jubilee felt like a long-awaited entrée after several scrumptious appetizers .
Not only did we get Princess Diana , finally , but we also got the draconian chaos of Margaret Thatcher , played with spine-tingling specificity by Anderson .
With her clenched jaw and shellacked hair , she looked the part—but that ’ s easy enough .
Anderson dug into the Iron @ @ @ @ @ @ @ showboating .
Her Thatcher was creepy , even spectral—not to mention a killjoy , as in an indelible scene in which she awkwardly huffs through a drinking game with the Royal Family .
At times , Anderson ’ s lips seemed at war with her teeth , so tense and self-punishing was Thatcher ’ s curdled sense of striving .
Anderson ’ s Thatcher bests Meryl Streep ’ s Oscar-winning portrayal , because “ The Crown ” doesn ’ t try to shoehorn her into a feminist hero ’ s journey .
Thatcher @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or an antihero , than as a needling antagonist , as in her heavenly toe-to-toe scenes with Olivia Colman ’ s Queen Elizabeth .
Blanchett also had the juicy task of playing a real-life conservative firebrand with a starched personal aesthetic .
More than Anderson , though , Blanchett leaned into the drag-queeny excess of her subject , Phyllis Schlafly , the homemaker turned activist who stood athwart the Equal Rights Amendment yelling , “ Stop !
” The FX miniseries put Schlafly at its center , with second-wave feminist icons , such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ underestimating her at their continual peril .
Blanchett , whose self-possession always makes her watchable , rarely shies away from the theatrical , and she captured the conflicted pleasure that Schlafly took in the spotlight , even as she preached the gospel of domesticity .
As in “ Carol , ” from 2015 , Blanchett used her own movie-star magnetism to unsettle her characters ’ mid-century notions of conformity and show how they draw less self-assured souls into their orbit .
Sacha Baron Cohen in “ The Trial of the Chicago 7 ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the 2020 election looming , the autumn brought back-to-back doses of Cohen as button-pusher par excellence .
In Aaron Sorkin ’ s “ The Trial of the Chicago 7 , ” he captured Abbie Hoffman ’ s prankster defiance , a throwback to an age when the left , not the right , drew its power from irreverence .
Working with a terrific ensemble cast , including Frank Langella , Michael Keaton , Yahya Abdul-Mateen II , and Eddie Redmayne , Cohen had a direct route to Hoffman ’ s blurring of activism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ made his name doing something similar .
Enter Borat .
In the fourteen years since the first “ Borat ” was released , America has become a mean satire of itself , and yet Cohen found new ways to tease out our sins—with the significant help of Maria Bakalova , as Borat ’ s daughter , Tutar .
As long as the United States preens at its own exceptionalism , Borat will be there to reveal our inner Kazakhstan .
No offense to Kazakhstan , of course .
In her searing and inventive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ steps of a real incident , in which she was drugged at a bar and sexually assaulted .
But “ I May Destroy You ” was neither a confessional nor a revenge fantasy , even though it toyed with both genres .
Instead , it was a prismatic study of trauma that both inhabited and interrogated the inner life of Coel ’ s alter ego , Arabella , a social-media phenom and aspiring writer in London .
As the show ’ s creator , writer , and star , Coel flexed her creative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sympathies , and the pat narratives that accumulate around rape—there was no getting one step ahead of this show .
At its core was Coel ’ s captivating performance as Arabella , whom she infused , by turns , with bravado , confusion , vulnerability , and raspy humor .
On May 26th , a day after the killing of George Floyd , Keedron , a twelve-year-old from Jacksonville , Florida , posted a fifty-one-second-long video on social media , in which he sings a gospel anthem , called “ I Just Wan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mother , Johnnetta Bryant .
The performance was simple—sung a cappella and shot on a smartphone—but devastating , owing to lyrics that captured the moral urgency of the moment ( “ Every day , I ’ m being hunted as prey ” ) and to Bryant ’ s resonant but still adolescent voice .
It was hard to forget that Bryant was the same age as Tamir Rice was when Rice ’ s life was cut short in Cleveland , Ohio .
The video , shared by the likes of LeBron James , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Obama , soared past three million views .
By his thirteenth birthday , in July , Bryant had been signed by Warner Records , and soon after he released a music video of the song .
But there was enough raw power in the original video to imprint Bryant ’ s voice on a movement , harking back to the protest anthems of the civil-rights era .
Yet again , McDormand has etched a redoubtable woman into the cinematic landscape .
In Chloé Zhao ’ s film , which played a slew of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scheduled for release on December 4th , McDormand plays Fern , a Nevada widow who loses her house and her livelihood and takes off in a white van , finding a community of fellow-itinerants in the Arizona desert .
The film is based on a nonfiction book , by Jessica Bruder , and Zhao surrounds McDormand and her co-star David Strathairn with real-life drifters .
Not many Oscar-winning movie stars could slip so seamlessly into the “ real ” America , but McDormand had not a speck of vanity to shed , her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inhospitable landscapes captured by Zhao .
She also didn ’ t play Fern as a social cause incarnate .
As in “ Fargo , ” “ Three Billboards Outside Ebbing , Missouri , ” and everything else she touches , McDormand harnessed the full power of her conviction , her eccentricity , and her earthy , ornery soul .

Performance was an old concept made new in 2020. Stuck in our homes, month after punishing month, so many of us lived vicariously through the people on our screens. Television, already a dominant cultural force, became a lifeline, a way to travel to far-flung places or to rub up against bodies in a crowded room. Movies, like stars light-years from Earth, were images beamed from the past, artifacts of an era in which talking face to face didn’t require wearing a mask or being six feet apart. Actors always allow us to imagine lives beyond our own; this year, they were our avatars, roaming free while we sat and watched and waited.
2020 in Review New Yorker writers reflect on the year’s highs and lows.
At the same time, large swaths of performance were wiped off the map. Theatres, opera houses, concert halls, and comedy clubs shut down, and the date of their return is still uncertain. It’s impossible to celebrate the performances we had without mourning the ones we never got to see. In the “before times,” I was looking forward to Katrina Lenk in “Company” and Laurie Metcalf in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”—Broadway revivals that went poof. In the absence of live performance, curious new subgenres emerged, from Zoom dramas to socially distanced ballets. Entertainers, cooped up and crazed like the rest of us, took to social media, with mixed results: for every cringeworthy cover of “Imagine,” there was a Leslie Jordan or a Patti LuPone, delightfully hamming it up in the basement.
What follows is a non-comprehensive, utterly subjective list of performances that arrived, one way or another, in this year of perpetual isolation, and that helped us stay connected, mark time, and have a laugh.
Sarah Cooper
Photograph by Lacey Terrell / Netflix
At the start of 2020, Cooper was a fortysomething former Google designer still trying to find her footing in comedy, but, within a few months, she became the pandemic’s quintessential star. In the spring, she began uploading TikTok videos that she shot in her apartment, in which she lip-synched the inanities of Donald Trump, twisting her face into an angry amalgam of the President’s cocksure idiocy and our collective exhaustion with it. The videos racked up millions of views, turning Cooper into a kind of quarantine folk hero. By year four of Trump’s Presidency, you’d think that we would have had enough of Trump imitations, but Cooper’s was so blunt and (in the best sense) nasty that it felt invigorating. And, of course, the fact that a Jamaican-born woman was pulling this off made it only tastier. Cooper’s star rose fast, and in October she put out a Netflix special, “Sarah Cooper: Everything’s Fine,” directed by Natasha Lyonne. There was some great lip-synching, of course, but a lot else, too, that showed us how much Cooper has to offer.
Gillian Anderson in “The Crown”
Photograph by Des Willie / Netflix
The fourth season of Netflix’s royal jubilee felt like a long-awaited entrée after several scrumptious appetizers. Not only did we get Princess Diana, finally, but we also got the draconian chaos of Margaret Thatcher, played with spine-tingling specificity by Anderson. With her clenched jaw and shellacked hair, she looked the part—but that’s easy enough. Anderson dug into the Iron Lady’s cruelty and conviction without showboating. Her Thatcher was creepy, even spectral—not to mention a killjoy, as in an indelible scene in which she awkwardly huffs through a drinking game with the Royal Family. At times, Anderson’s lips seemed at war with her teeth, so tense and self-punishing was Thatcher’s curdled sense of striving. Anderson’s Thatcher bests Meryl Streep’s Oscar-winning portrayal, because “The Crown” doesn’t try to shoehorn her into a feminist hero’s journey. Thatcher is less palatable as a hero, or an antihero, than as a needling antagonist, as in her heavenly toe-to-toe scenes with Olivia Colman’s Queen Elizabeth.
Cate Blanchett in “Mrs. America”
Photograph courtesy FX
Blanchett also had the juicy task of playing a real-life conservative firebrand with a starched personal aesthetic. More than Anderson, though, Blanchett leaned into the drag-queeny excess of her subject, Phyllis Schlafly, the homemaker turned activist who stood athwart the Equal Rights Amendment yelling, “Stop!” The FX miniseries put Schlafly at its center, with second-wave feminist icons, such as Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, underestimating her at their continual peril. Blanchett, whose self-possession always makes her watchable, rarely shies away from the theatrical, and she captured the conflicted pleasure that Schlafly took in the spotlight, even as she preached the gospel of domesticity. As in “Carol,” from 2015, Blanchett used her own movie-star magnetism to unsettle her characters’ mid-century notions of conformity and show how they draw less self-assured souls into their orbit.
Sacha Baron Cohen in “The Trial of the Chicago 7” and “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”
Photograph by Nico Tavernise / Netflix
With the 2020 election looming, the autumn brought back-to-back doses of Cohen as button-pusher par excellence. In Aaron Sorkin’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” he captured Abbie Hoffman’s prankster defiance, a throwback to an age when the left, not the right, drew its power from irreverence. Working with a terrific ensemble cast, including Frank Langella, Michael Keaton, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Eddie Redmayne, Cohen had a direct route to Hoffman’s blurring of activism and clowning, because he’s made his name doing something similar. Enter Borat. In the fourteen years since the first “Borat” was released, America has become a mean satire of itself, and yet Cohen found new ways to tease out our sins—with the significant help of Maria Bakalova, as Borat’s daughter, Tutar. As long as the United States preens at its own exceptionalism, Borat will be there to reveal our inner Kazakhstan. No offense to Kazakhstan, of course.
Michaela Coel in “I May Destroy You”
Photograph courtesy HBO
In her searing and inventive BBC One/HBO series, Coel retraced the steps of a real incident, in which she was drugged at a bar and sexually assaulted. But “I May Destroy You” was neither a confessional nor a revenge fantasy, even though it toyed with both genres. Instead, it was a prismatic study of trauma that both inhabited and interrogated the inner life of Coel’s alter ego, Arabella, a social-media phenom and aspiring writer in London. As the show’s creator, writer, and star, Coel flexed her creative freedom by messing with time lines, sympathies, and the pat narratives that accumulate around rape—there was no getting one step ahead of this show. At its core was Coel’s captivating performance as Arabella, whom she infused, by turns, with bravado, confusion, vulnerability, and raspy humor.
Keedron Bryant


newyorker--2020-12-04--How Joe Biden Could Help Internet Companies Moderate Harmful Content

Danielle Citron , a law professor at Boston University who has studied Section 230 for more than a decade , told me that she believes Biden ’ s call to scrap the law was “ a placeholder , a way of saying we need to have a meaningful discussion about reforming it.
” When Section 230 was passed , with bipartisan support , in 1996 , the Internet was primarily a collection of home pages , Listservs , and bulletin boards ; Google searches , click bait , social media , online shopping ( as we know it today ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The previous year , though , an early online service , Prodigy , was successfully sued for defamation after a user posted untrue claims about an investment company and its president on one of Prodigy ’ s bulletin boards .
Because Prodigy moderated the content on its sites , the court reasoned that it was acting as a publisher and was liable for the material that it hosted .
In response , Christopher Cox , Republican of California , and Ron Wyden , Democrat of Oregon , co-authored a bill in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Internet companies for exerting editorial control over the material that appeared on their sites .
The law , Section 230 , was intended to prevent the Internet from becoming home to all kinds of unsavory , offensive , and possibly illegal content—content that would drive away potential users and stifle the fledgling industry .
Section 230 has two parts .
The first states that Internet companies are not to be treated as publishers , and , as such , are not responsible for the material on their sites that is created by third @ @ @ @ @ @ @ companies can not be held liable for good-faith efforts to filter or block user-generated content .
Liberals tend to take issue with the first part , finding it overly generous to the tech companies .
Conservatives take issue with the second .
As Trump ’ s executive order put it , “ In a country that has long cherished the freedom of expression , we can not allow a limited number of online platforms to hand pick the speech that Americans may access and convey on the internet .
This practice is fundamentally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ states that Congress “ shall make no law .
.
.
abridging the freedom of speech , or of the press.
” It places no obligation on private entities to publish , broadcast , or in any way promulgate the speech of others .
It is entirely Twitter ’ s prerogative to ban Steve Bannon for tweeting about his desire to see the beheading of the F.B.I .
director , Christopher Wray , and the infectious-disease expert Anthony Fauci .
By way of analogy , Mary Anne Franks , a law professor at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the nonprofit Cyber Civil Rights Initiative , told me , “ You can ’ t tell a night-club owner that you have the right to come into the club every night , grab the microphone , and spout your political views .
It ’ s a private space.
” ( In his order , Trump attempted to skirt this inconvenience by claiming that social-media companies like Twitter and Facebook are equivalent to “ the public square.
” ) To be clear , even though Internet companies are within their rights to censor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that those voices are being muted .
A Politico study of social-media posts before the November election concluded that “ conservatives still rule online.
” Working with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue , a London-based think tank , which scraped millions of posts from Facebook , Instagram , Twitter , Reddit , and 4Chan , the researchers found that the most viral right-wing posts about Black Lives Matter protests were shared more than ten times as often as the most popular liberal posts ; voter-fraud posts from conservative commentators were shared twice as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his spurious executive order , and his threat , this week , to veto the National Defense Authorization Act if Congress didn ’ t repeal Section 230 are clumsy sleight-of-hand tricks—as are Republican legislators ’ efforts to punish Internet companies on the President ’ s behalf .
But they ’ re also part of a wider effort to feed a narrative about fake news : according to a recent Pew Research Center survey , ninety per cent of Republicans and right-leaning independents believe that social-media companies are likely to censor political viewpoints that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden ’ s objection to Section 230 is that the law allows Internet companies to operate in a largely regulation-free zone .
Other industries , after all , are bound by product-safety laws , consumer-protection laws , and tort laws .
“ You can sue a store for not fixing a floorboard if they knew about it , and knew that people were going to trip on it , ” Franks said .
“ With Section 230 , as it ’ s been interpreted by the courts , none of that matters online @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is just let stuff happen , be in a position of power and watch as people get harassed and exploited and have their lives ruined , and just take the money from the advertising and the clicks that you get .
Things you couldn ’ t get away with doing in the physical world , you ’ re allowed to do in the online world.
” In 2012 , a domestic abuser purchased a gun through the Web site armslist.com , which can match gun dealers with people who are unable to pass @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the weapon to kill his estranged wife and two others , the site successfully invoked Section 230 to avoid liability .
More recently , Grindr , a dating app , took cover behind Section 230 when Matthew Herrick , an actor in New York , sued the site as a result of false profiles that were created by an ex-boyfriend .
The profiles , which included Herrick ’ s home and work addresses , suggested that Herrick had rape fantasies , and that any resistance he put up was part of the fantasy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ men showed up at his apartment door or at his workplace , at all hours , month after month , forcibly demanding sex .
“ You look at that law , and it seems very narrow , ” Herrick ’ s lawyer , Carrie Goldberg , told me .
“ But it ’ s been interpreted really extravagantly over the years by the courts to the point where , basically , there ’ s almost no way whatsoever to ever hold these companies liable.
” The assumption embedded in Section 230 is that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This made sense in the early days of the Internet , when it was primarily a medium of communication , but makes less sense as the Web became a place of commerce , targeted advertising , and lucrative data mining .
“ There is no justification for treating the Internet as a magical speech conversion machine , ” Citron and Franks wrote recently , in The University of Chicago Law Forum .
“ If the conduct would not be speech protected by the First Amendment if it occurs offline , it should not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ occurs online.
” The Herrick case is an object lesson .
The court interpreted the fake profiles on Grinder as speech , but Goldberg , his lawyer , saw it differently .
“ Section 230 is about content .
But we were not suing Grindr for content ; we were suing for Grindr ’ s conduct , as well as that of Matthew ’ s former boyfriend , and how he was using the product , ” she said .
“ Men were still coming to his house and his work , demanding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the lawsuit.
” The relief Herrick was after was simple : he wanted Grindr to remove the posts that targeted him and insure that other similar ones would not be posted .
The visits only stopped after the former boyfriend who was posting about Herrick was arrested on charges related to the abuse .
“ Grindr didn ’ t give a fuck , ” Goldberg said .
“ This was not about speech .
Everyone should want there to be pressure on Internet companies to prevent this kind of thing.
” But not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the digital-rights organization Electronic Frontier Foundation called Section 230 “ the most important law protecting Internet speech.
” The group argues that the protective barrier around Internet companies to ward off prosecution has enabled entrepreneurs to innovate , and for platforms to grow .
Yet E.F.F.
’ s claim that “ this legal and policy framework has allowed for YouTube and Vimeo users to upload their own videos , Amazon and Yelp to offer countless user reviews , craigslist to host classified ads , and Facebook and Twitter to offer social networking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” which looks convincing , is unprovable .
Surely , other industries have innovated and flourished despite being held accountable for their products , conduct , and business practices .
In fact , contrary to the argument that removing Section 230 immunity would harm startups and smaller companies , two lesser-known dating sites where Herrick ’ s former boyfriend also posted fake profiles took them down when they learned how their platforms had been weaponized .
Citron said that a dozen years ago , when she began writing about reforming Section 230 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was breaking the Internet and I was an enemy of the First Amendment.
” ( Last year , she won a MacArthur “ genius ” grant for her work . )
Senator Ron Wyden , who , as one of the law ’ s original authors , has a proprietary interest in the fate of Section 230 , told me in an e-mail that he is not opposed to amending it .
“ I am certainly open to improving the law if there are proposals that identify a problem and solve it , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ m eager to work with anyone who is ready to have a serious discussion .
But I have two key principles : first , any changes must not target constitutionally protected speech , and second , they should not discourage moderation .
”

Last December, during a conversation with the New York Times editorial board, then-candidate Joe Biden declared that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a foundational law of the Internet that was intended to govern how companies moderate speech online, “immediately should be revoked, number one.” Presidents, of course, can’t simply make legislation disappear, but they can try to move things along with executive orders. Back in May, Donald Trump issued an order meant to dissuade social-media companies from exercising editorial control over material that appeared on their platforms. Twitter had recently infuriated him by adding a generic fact-check label to a tweet of his that declared mail-in ballots to be fraudulent. Biden’s complaint about Section 230, however, was not that social-media companies were exercising too much editorial control but that they were not exerting enough. It is irresponsible, Biden suggested, that Section 230 immunizes companies from libel and civil suits for material posted on their sites by third parties, no matter how harmful.
Danielle Citron, a law professor at Boston University who has studied Section 230 for more than a decade, told me that she believes Biden’s call to scrap the law was “a placeholder, a way of saying we need to have a meaningful discussion about reforming it.” When Section 230 was passed, with bipartisan support, in 1996, the Internet was primarily a collection of home pages, Listservs, and bulletin boards; Google searches, click bait, social media, online shopping (as we know it today), and YouTube did not yet exist. The previous year, though, an early online service, Prodigy, was successfully sued for defamation after a user posted untrue claims about an investment company and its president on one of Prodigy’s bulletin boards. Because Prodigy moderated the content on its sites, the court reasoned that it was acting as a publisher and was liable for the material that it hosted. In response, Christopher Cox, Republican of California, and Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, co-authored a bill in the House of Representatives that sought to indemnify Internet companies for exerting editorial control over the material that appeared on their sites. The law, Section 230, was intended to prevent the Internet from becoming home to all kinds of unsavory, offensive, and possibly illegal content—content that would drive away potential users and stifle the fledgling industry.
Section 230 has two parts. The first states that Internet companies are not to be treated as publishers, and, as such, are not responsible for the material on their sites that is created by third parties. The second says that those companies cannot be held liable for good-faith efforts to filter or block user-generated content. Liberals tend to take issue with the first part, finding it overly generous to the tech companies. Conservatives take issue with the second. As Trump’s executive order put it, “In a country that has long cherished the freedom of expression, we cannot allow a limited number of online platforms to hand pick the speech that Americans may access and convey on the internet. This practice is fundamentally un-American and anti-democratic.”
The First Amendment states that Congress “shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” It places no obligation on private entities to publish, broadcast, or in any way promulgate the speech of others. It is entirely Twitter’s prerogative to ban Steve Bannon for tweeting about his desire to see the beheading of the F.B.I. director, Christopher Wray, and the infectious-disease expert Anthony Fauci. By way of analogy, Mary Anne Franks, a law professor at the University of Miami and the president of the nonprofit Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, told me, “You can’t tell a night-club owner that you have the right to come into the club every night, grab the microphone, and spout your political views. It’s a private space.” (In his order, Trump attempted to skirt this inconvenience by claiming that social-media companies like Twitter and Facebook are equivalent to “the public square.”)
To be clear, even though Internet companies are within their rights to censor conservative voices, there is no evidence that those voices are being muted. A Politico study of social-media posts before the November election concluded that “conservatives still rule online.” Working with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based think tank, which scraped millions of posts from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, and 4Chan, the researchers found that the most viral right-wing posts about Black Lives Matter protests were shared more than ten times as often as the most popular liberal posts; voter-fraud posts from conservative commentators were shared twice as much. Trump’s tweets, his spurious executive order, and his threat, this week, to veto the National Defense Authorization Act if Congress didn’t repeal Section 230 are clumsy sleight-of-hand tricks—as are Republican legislators’ efforts to punish Internet companies on the President’s behalf. But they’re also part of a wider effort to feed a narrative about fake news: according to a recent Pew Research Center survey, ninety per cent of Republicans and right-leaning independents believe that social-media companies are likely to censor political viewpoints that they don’t like.
President-elect Biden’s objection to Section 230 is that the law allows Internet companies to operate in a largely regulation-free zone. Other industries, after all, are bound by product-safety laws, consumer-protection laws, and tort laws. “You can sue a store for not fixing a floorboard if they knew about it, and knew that people were going to trip on it,” Franks said. “With Section 230, as it’s been interpreted by the courts, none of that matters online. All you have to do online is just let stuff happen, be in a position of power and watch as people get harassed and exploited and have their lives ruined, and just take the money from the advertising and the clicks that you get. Things you couldn’t get away with doing in the physical world, you’re allowed to do in the online world.”
In 2012, a domestic abuser purchased a gun through the Web site armslist.com, which can match gun dealers with people who are unable to pass background checks. After the buyer used the weapon to kill his estranged wife and two others, the site successfully invoked Section 230 to avoid liability. More recently, Grindr, a dating app, took cover behind Section 230 when Matthew Herrick, an actor in New York, sued the site as a result of false profiles that were created by an ex-boyfriend. The profiles, which included Herrick’s home and work addresses, suggested that Herrick had rape fantasies, and that any resistance he put up was part of the fantasy. As a consequence, hundreds of men showed up at his apartment door or at his workplace, at all hours, month after month, forcibly demanding sex. “You look at that law, and it seems very narrow,” Herrick’s lawyer, Carrie Goldberg, told me. “But it’s been interpreted really extravagantly over the years by the courts to the point where, basically, there’s almost no way whatsoever to ever hold these companies liable.”
The assumption embedded in Section 230 is that everything which happens online is speech. This made sense in the early days of the Internet, when it was primarily a medium of communication, but makes less sense as the Web became a place of commerce, targeted advertising, and lucrative data mining. “There is no justification for treating the Internet as a magical speech conversion machine,” Citron and Franks wrote recently, in The University of Chicago Legal Forum. “If the conduct would not be speech protected by the First Amendment if it occurs offline, it should not be transformed into speech merely because it occurs online.” The Herrick case is an object lesson. The court interpreted the fake profiles on Grinder as speech, but Goldberg, his lawyer, saw it differently. “Section 230 is about content. But we were not suing Grindr for content; we were suing for Grindr’s conduct, as well as that of Matthew’s former boyfriend, and how he was using the product,” she said. “Men were still coming to his house and his work, demanding sex, even when we were filing the lawsuit.” The relief Herrick was after was simple: he wanted Grindr to remove the posts that targeted him and insure that other similar ones would not be posted. The visits only stopped after the former boyfriend who was posting about Herrick was arrested on charges related to the abuse. “Grindr didn’t give a fuck,” Goldberg said. “This was not about speech. Everyone should want there to be pressure on Internet companies to prevent this kind of thing.”


newyorker--2020-12-04--Atul Gawande on Coronavirus Vaccines and Prospects for Ending the Pandemic

Gawande is also a writer , and he has been publishing in The New Yorker for more than two decades .
In 2009 , heading into the debate over the Affordable Care Act , President Obama told colleagues that he had been deeply affected by Gawande ’ s article in the magazine called “ The Cost Conundrum , ” a study conducted in McAllen , Texas .
Obama made the piece required reading for his staff .
Gawande ’ s most recent book , a Times No .
1 best-seller , is “ Being Mortal : Medicine and What Matters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the coronavirus pandemic , Gawande has been sharp in his criticism of the Trump Administration and , like Anthony Fauci and other prominent figures in public health , insistent on clear , basic measures to reduce levels of disease .
After the election in November , President-elect Biden formed a COVID-19 advisory board and included Gawande among its members .
Earlier this week , I spoke with Gawande for The New Yorker Radio Hour .
In the interview , which has been edited for length and clarity , Gawande says that President @ @ @ @ @ @ @ issue after the election might be a blessing ( considering the alternative ) .
He suggests that the development of vaccines promises great things down the line , a return to relative normalcy some months from now .
But , before that happens , he says , we may not only see terrible rates of illness and death—we will also experience an almost inevitably contentious rollout of the vaccine .
Questions of who gets the vaccine and when will test a deeply divided society .
As Gawande put it , “ The bus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” We currently have one of the highest death and transmission rates of COVID-19 in the world .
What went wrong ?
There ’ s so many things that went wrong , but you can boil it down to the difficulty of pulling together .
One of the most critical things you have in the toolbox in public health is communications .
It ’ s your ability to have clear priorities and communication about those priorities to your own public and to all of the players who get stuff done .
We didn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We weren ’ t calling the laboratories together to get testing built and created right from the get-go .
And then fast-forward to where we are today .
We still are in a world where we have not had clear communications from the top of the government around whether we should be wearing masks and having an actual national strategy to fight the virus .
I would boil down what went wrong to not committing to communicating clearly and with one voice about the seriousness of what we ’ re up against and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
When this began , I read “ The Great Influenza , ” John M. Barry ’ s book about 1918 and the horrendous flu that killed millions worldwide , and many hundreds of thousands in the United States .
I thought to myself , Well , it ’ s not possible that we would repeat these mistakes , because , after all , we learn from history , even if the President of the United States does not .
How is it possible that we made these same mistakes on such a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all at the feet of the President ?
There ’ s a big part of this that I lay at the feet of the President .
Imagine Pearl Harbor happened , and then we spent seven or eight months deciding whether or not we were going to fight back .
And then , seven or eight months into it , a new President is going to come in who says , O.K.
, we are going to fight now .
But you now have substantial parts of the country already arrayed against the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In the meantime , some states have fought the attack and other states have not , and they ’ ve had to compete with each other for supplies .
That ’ s the mess we have .
In May , I got to write about this in The New Yorker : the hospitals learned how to bring people to work and have them succeed .
It was a formula that included masks , included some basic hygiene , some basic distancing , and testing .
That ’ s been the formula , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it possible for people to resume a normal life .
But we did not have a commitment from the very top to make this happen on a national basis .
And we are continuing to litigate that issue to this very day .
You are now on President-elect Biden ’ s advisory board on COVID-19 , and I wonder what kind of coöperation you ’ re getting from the Trump Administration ’ s own advisory board .
Well , remember : up until just a few days ago , there was no contact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the Biden-Harris transition team .
So only in the last few days have there started to be the contacts that would allow for basic information to be passed .
I think it ’ s too early to say how well those channels of communication are turning out .
I ’ m sorry to interrupt , Atul , but , just to be clear here : we ’ re in a public-health emergency .
Are you saying that the President ’ s theories , ill-founded and fantastical theories about the election , held @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s advisory board and President-elect Biden ’ s board ?
Absolutely .
And I want to put a pin in what that means , in concrete fact .
Here , we had a vaccine trial that came out three weeks ago showing a successful , effective vaccine , followed , just a few days later , by another vaccine trial .
We did not have access to the information they were getting about the status of those trials .
We did not have access to information about supplies .
So , at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Operation Warp Speed , the target was three hundred million vaccines produced by the end of the year .
Instead , what we ’ re seeing is reportedly thirty million or so by the end of [ December ] .
We ’ re seeing in the press some backtracking from that as well .
What were the bottlenecks that meant that this couldn ’ t be done ?
Is it a shortage of raw ingredients ?
Are they having stockpile problems ?
Is it a problem with the actual production processes ?
Here @ @ @ @ @ @ @ m talking to colleagues around the country who are going to be involved in distributing the vaccine : We hear about everything from shortages of gloves , uncertainty about supplies of needles and syringes for three hundred and thirty million people to get two rounds of doses .
There ’ s no information yet on how many vaccines will be allocated to a given state or a given big pharmacy company like CVS or Walgreens—places that are an important part of the distribution chain .
So there ’ s a lot of basic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
That discovery process is just starting .
The Biden Administration-to-be ’ s COVID-19 task force has got a seven-point plan to stop the pandemic .
What are the crucial elements of that plan ?
It ’ s the same story that we ’ ve known since April : It ’ s mandating masks—that ’ s one of the most important tools we have for driving transmission down .
It ’ s testing and being able to make sure that there ’ s widespread availability of testing .
It ’ s supplies for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ proper gloves , masks , et cetera .
It ’ s continuing , based on the level of spread in a given community , to tune how much capacity restriction you have on indoor environments , whether it ’ s bars and restaurants or weddings or other gatherings that are seen to be currently driving transmission .
Those are all critical elements .
I ’ m firmly in agreement with where the President-elect is going on heeding the advice from public-health people that schools can be opened .
But , in order for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ especially elementary and middle schools , there ’ s still a lot of work to do to insure they have the supplies that they need to maintain distancing , to have the right ventilation .
Thanksgiving was a week ago .
Anthony Fauci says that what he fears is a spike on top of a spike , a leap on top of a leap .
Do you share that fear ?
I do .
A lot of people heeded the C.D.C .
advice to not travel during Thanksgiving and to limit the size @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that will help a great deal .
But clearly large numbers of people did not heed that advice .
And that ’ s the reason for the fear of the spike on top of a spike .
We saw that , during the Thanksgiving weekend , we had the highest level of hospitalizations at any time in this pandemic , including the darkest days of spring .
That ’ s going to have consequences in the days to come .
I ’ m concerned that we ’ ll go into the Christmas holiday @ @ @ @ @ @ @ make that holiday all that much more challenging .
Spike upon spike upon spike is the fear in this six-week-long period .

Atul Gawande is participating in a trial of a coronavirus vaccine. Photograph by Chris McAndrew / Camera Press / Redux
Atul Gawande is outlandishly accomplished. The son of Indian immigrants, he grew up in Athens, Ohio, and was educated at Athens High School, Stanford, Oxford, and Harvard, where he studied issues of public health. Before working as a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in Boston, he advised such politicians as Jim Cooper and Bill Clinton. He teaches at Harvard and is the chairman of Ariadne Labs, which works on innovation in health-care delivery and solutions, and he recently spent two years as the C.E.O. of a health-care venture called Haven, which is co-owned by Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, and Berkshire Hathaway.
Gawande is also a writer, and he has been publishing in The New Yorker for more than two decades. In 2009, heading into the debate over the Affordable Care Act, President Obama told colleagues that he had been deeply affected by Gawande’s article in the magazine called “The Cost Conundrum,” a study conducted in McAllen, Texas. Obama made the piece required reading for his staff. Gawande’s most recent book, a Times No. 1 best-seller, is “Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End.”
Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, Gawande has been sharp in his criticism of the Trump Administration and, like Anthony Fauci and other prominent figures in public health, insistent on clear, basic measures to reduce levels of disease. After the election in November, President-elect Biden formed a COVID-19 advisory board and included Gawande among its members. Earlier this week, I spoke with Gawande for The New Yorker Radio Hour. In the interview, which has been edited for length and clarity, Gawande says that President Trump’s relative silence on the issue after the election might be a blessing (considering the alternative). He suggests that the development of vaccines promises great things down the line, a return to relative normalcy some months from now. But, before that happens, he says, we may not only see terrible rates of illness and death—we will also experience an almost inevitably contentious rollout of the vaccine. Questions of who gets the vaccine and when will test a deeply divided society. As Gawande put it, “The bus drivers never came before the bankers before.”
We currently have one of the highest death and transmission rates of COVID-19 in the world. What went wrong?
There’s so many things that went wrong, but you can boil it down to the difficulty of pulling together. One of the most critical things you have in the toolbox in public health is communications. It’s your ability to have clear priorities and communication about those priorities to your own public and to all of the players who get stuff done. We didn’t get testing started early. We weren’t calling the laboratories together to get testing built and created right from the get-go. And then fast-forward to where we are today. We still are in a world where we have not had clear communications from the top of the government around whether we should be wearing masks and having an actual national strategy to fight the virus. I would boil down what went wrong to not committing to communicating clearly and with one voice about the seriousness of what we’re up against and what the measures are to solve it.
When this began, I read “The Great Influenza,” John M. Barry’s book about 1918 and the horrendous flu that killed millions worldwide, and many hundreds of thousands in the United States. I thought to myself, Well, it’s not possible that we would repeat these mistakes, because, after all, we learn from history, even if the President of the United States does not. How is it possible that we made these same mistakes on such a mass scale? Do you lay it all at the feet of the President?
There’s a big part of this that I lay at the feet of the President. Imagine Pearl Harbor happened, and then we spent seven or eight months deciding whether or not we were going to fight back. And then, seven or eight months into it, a new President is going to come in who says, O.K., we are going to fight now. But you now have substantial parts of the country already arrayed against the idea that fighting it is worthwhile. In the meantime, some states have fought the attack and other states have not, and they’ve had to compete with each other for supplies. That’s the mess we have.
In May, I got to write about this in The New Yorker: the hospitals learned how to bring people to work and have them succeed. It was a formula that included masks, included some basic hygiene, some basic distancing, and testing. That’s been the formula, and is the formula still, for making it possible for people to resume a normal life. But we did not have a commitment from the very top to make this happen on a national basis. And we are continuing to litigate that issue to this very day.
You are now on President-elect Biden’s advisory board on COVID-19, and I wonder what kind of coöperation you’re getting from the Trump Administration’s own advisory board.
Well, remember: up until just a few days ago, there was no contact allowed at all between any Administration officials and the Biden-Harris transition team. So only in the last few days have there started to be the contacts that would allow for basic information to be passed. I think it’s too early to say how well those channels of communication are turning out.
I’m sorry to interrupt, Atul, but, just to be clear here: we’re in a public-health emergency. Are you saying that the President’s theories, ill-founded and fantastical theories about the election, held up any communication whatsoever between President Trump’s advisory board and President-elect Biden’s board?
Absolutely. And I want to put a pin in what that means, in concrete fact. Here, we had a vaccine trial that came out three weeks ago showing a successful, effective vaccine, followed, just a few days later, by another vaccine trial. We did not have access to the information they were getting about the status of those trials. We did not have access to information about supplies. So, at the beginning of the year, with Operation Warp Speed, the target was three hundred million vaccines produced by the end of the year. Instead, what we’re seeing is reportedly thirty million or so by the end of [December]. We’re seeing in the press some backtracking from that as well. What were the bottlenecks that meant that this couldn’t be done? Is it a shortage of raw ingredients? Are they having stockpile problems? Is it a problem with the actual production processes?