newyorker--2020-12-03--The President Is Acting Crazy, so Why Are We Shrugging It Off?

On Wednesday , more than three thousand Americans died because of the coronavirus , the nation ’ s deadliest day yet during the pandemic .
The same day , the President of the United States chose to release , on social media , a forty-six-minute videotaped address from the White House .
He called it possibly “ the most important speech I ’ ve ever made.
” The pandemic ’ s grim toll was never mentioned .
What was ?
The “ tremendous vote fraud and irregularities ” in last month ’ s election , the results of which the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ statistically impossible ” victory of Joe Biden , and the idea that the Democrats had so “ rigged ” the election that “ they already knew ” the outcome in advance .
It was all “ corrupt , ” “ shocking , ” “ constitutionally absolutely incorrect , ” and “ so illegal.
” The President said he knew full well that he would be “ demeaned and disparaged ” for continuing to speak out , especially now that even some of his advisers have “ disappeared ” or , as he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But he would do so anyway .
Donald Trump in defeat , it turns out , is even more whiny , dishonest , and self-absorbed than he was before his decisive loss to Biden a month ago .
In the speech , delivered to an empty room and released straight to Facebook , for reasons that remain unclear , Trump repeated many of the election conspiracy theories , lies , and laments which he has been sending forth for weeks on Twitter and via emissaries like Rudy Giuliani .
The news was that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will be to further undermine public confidence in the U.S. government—were coming directly from the President , as he stood at a lectern bearing the Presidential seal .
And what words they were .
The pollsters were liars .
“ Detroit is corrupt.
” “ Millions of votes were cast illegally in the swing states alone.
” One of Trump ’ s biggest obsessions is with a voting-machine company known as Dominion .
Trump and his lawyers claim that Dominion , although it is owned by a New York-based private-equity firm , was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Venezuela Hugo Chávez , in a fantastical plot to steal the Presidency .
In his speech , Trump explained that “ we have a company that ’ s very suspect , ” and that “ with a turn of a dial , with a change of a chip , ” his votes could disappear on its systems , which are so confusing that “ nobody understands ” how they work , “ including in many cases the people that run them.
” Trump elaborated that the company had given many donations to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were numerous , and it was only “ the tip of the iceberg ” of wrongdoing .
He even suggested that the Dominion machines were secretly controlled from overseas .
How ?
Who knows .
Here ’ s his quote in full : “ And , frankly , when you look at who ’ s running the company , who ’ s in charge , who owns it , which we don ’ t know—where are the votes counted , which we think are counted in foreign countries , not in the United @ @ @ @ @ @ @ assaults on truth and the press continue .
• Lessons of failed power grabs , in America and overseas .
• Could banks bail us out of the climate crisis ?
There are only two possible conclusions from listening to this folly : either the President actually believes what he is saying , in which case he is crazy , or he does not , in which case he is engaged in the most cynical attack on American democracy ever to come from the White House .
Is Trump “ increasingly detached from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , strictly nonpartisan Associated Press put it , in recounting the speech ?
Or is that conclusion , harsh as it is , giving Trump the benefit of the doubt by implying that he is just misguided or uninformed ?
There is another explanation , after all , for this reckless speech : What if , in fact , the President is not delusional but is the purposeful , malevolent creator of an alternate reality , knowingly spewing disinformation , discord , and division ?
Either variant , of course , is terrible @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tune him out .
The newspapers did not put Trump ’ s speech on the front page .
The television networks did not carry it .
And I get it .
Why placate the President with the publicity for his baseless charges which he so palpably craves ?
This might have been a holy-shit speech , but it came in the “ yeah , whatever ” phase of Trump ’ s lame-duck Presidency .
The courts have thrown out his legal team ’ s cases .
The battleground states have all certified their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The Electoral College will meet on December 14th , and the outcome does not appear to be in doubt .
And yet there are nearly fifty days until Biden ’ s Inauguration .
This is far , far beyond the craziness of the past four years .
Is this the kind of speech from their leader that Americans should just ignore ?
Trump is reportedly considering using the powers of the Presidency in an absolutely unprecedented way : to pardon himself , Giuliani , and his three eldest children .
He is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , William Barr , and the F.B.I .
director , Christopher Wray , after they failed to meet his demands to investigate rivals and back his outlandish election conspiracy theories .
Barr , in what appeared to be an act of open defiance to Trump , told the A.P.
, on Tuesday , “ We have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.
” Trump ’ s speech seemed a direct response , as did the news reports that he was considering Barr ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Post put it .
Meanwhile , Trump ’ s remaining loyalists make ever more outrageous and inflammatory demands .
Trump ’ s former national-security adviser , the retired general Michael Flynn , was pardoned by Trump on Thanksgiving eve , after he pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I .
; this week , Flynn endorsed a manifesto calling on Trump to impose “ martial law , ” and use the military to cancel the election results and force a national “ re-vote.
” Cornyn ’ s speech was in response to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Secretary of State , Antony Blinken , and the advisory firm , WestExec Partners , of which he is a founding partner .
The company—made up of former high-level Obama Administration officials , including Blinken and Michèle Flournoy , a leading candidate to be Biden ’ s Secretary of Defense—has refused to disclose its client list .
( Blinken has said that the firm does not officially lobby , and so is not required to do so . )
A second controversy centers on Neera Tanden , Biden ’ s nominee for director @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Tanden , the head of the liberal think tank the Center for American Progress , has been a prolific and partisan tweeter .
Republicans , after four years of alternately ignoring and praising the prolific and partisan tweeter in the White House , immediately complained .
Do Republicans think they have a free pass to pretend that the past four years never happened ?
Do they think they can simply return to the partisan status quo ante , complaining about nasty tweets and potential conflicts of interest , without anyone bringing up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t think this was what Biden meant when he said , during the campaign , that his Presidency would mark a return to normal .
Meanwhile , not a single Republican senator had a word to say about Trump ’ s insane remarks from the White House on Wednesday , notwithstanding the President ’ s insistence that it was the most important speech of his tenure .
In many ways , the post-election period has revealed once again the shamelessly craven nature of the Trump-era G.O.P .
in Washington—by showing the country that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ comprising the state and local officials who have refused to go along with Trump ’ s manic crusade against the election results and have even denounced him publicly for it .
In a little more than four minutes , on Tuesday , Georgia ’ s voting-system implementation manager , Gabriel Sterling , managed to give one of the most effective and heartfelt rebuttals to Trump ’ s recent actions—and to his Republican enablers .
“ This .
Has .
To .
Stop , ” Sterling said , pausing after each word for emphasis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ emotion .
“ All of you who have not said a damn word are complicit in this , ” he added .
Whereas Trump offered a litany of fake complaints , Sterling offered a litany of real wrongs : the Trump promoter Joe diGenova calling for Trump ’ s fired cybersecurity chief , Christopher Krebs—a defender of the election ’ s integrity—to be shot .
A young Georgia election worker who found a noose outside his house .
Death threats to those who count the votes .
“ All of this is wrong @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has to stop.
” In its heartfelt outrage , the speech immediately reminded me of the impeachment speeches about Trump a year ago , back before the pandemic and all the other craziness of 2020 meant it was hard even to remember impeachment .
Listening to Sterling , I heard Alexander Vindman , the lieutenant colonel who assured his father that he would not get into trouble for testifying against the President , because here in the United States , unlike in the Soviet Union of his birth , “ right matters.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ patriotic immigrant , begging Republicans to stop promoting “ politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests.
” Most of all , I heard the echo of Adam Schiff , the House Democrat who led the impeachment case against Trump , who in his closing arguments to the Republican Senate had asked , “ Is there one among you who will say ‘ Enough ’ ?
” Schiff had warned back then that Trump , if left unchecked by the Senate , would surely try to undermine or corrupt the 2020 election @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had already been doing .
Impeachment failed , but the warning , as was evident even at the time , was prescient .
On Thursday morning , I spoke with Schiff .
He said he was “ heartened ” to hear Sterling and other Republicans speak out .
“ But a part of me also thought , This has been going on for a long time , and it shouldn ’ t have taken this long for others to recognize the threat to the country , ” he added .
“ We understood @ @ @ @ @ @ @ President were left in office , having tried to cheat in the last election , he would try to cheat in the next one .
.
.
.
And he did.
” The painful truth is that the defeat of Schiff ’ s impeachment effort has not made him any less incisive about the threat that Trump posed then and poses now .
“ It ’ s all tragically predictable , ” Schiff told me , and , of course , he was right .
Washington may have already moved on to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tweets .
But , when the President launches a direct attack on the most important traditions of American democracy , I ’ m not ready to say “ Yeah , whatever ” just yet .
Read More About the Presidential Transition • Donald Trump has survived impeachment , twenty-six sexual-misconduct accusations , and thousands of lawsuits .
His luck may well end now that Joe Biden is the next President .
• With litigation unlikely to change the outcome of the election , Republicans are looking to strategies that might remain even after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ court .
• With the Trump Presidency ending , we need to talk about how to prevent the moral injuries of the past four years from happening again .
• If 2020 has demonstrated anything , it is the need to rebalance the economy to benefit the working class .
There are many ways a Biden Administration can start .
• Trump is being forced to give up his attempt to overturn the election .
But his efforts to build an alternative reality around himself will continue .
• Sign up for our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our reporters and columnists .

On Wednesday, more than three thousand Americans died because of the coronavirus, the nation’s deadliest day yet during the pandemic. The same day, the President of the United States chose to release, on social media, a forty-six-minute videotaped address from the White House. He called it possibly “the most important speech I’ve ever made.” The pandemic’s grim toll was never mentioned. What was? The “tremendous vote fraud and irregularities” in last month’s election, the results of which the President still refuses to accept. The “statistically impossible” victory of Joe Biden, and the idea that the Democrats had so “rigged” the election that “they already knew” the outcome in advance. It was all “corrupt,” “shocking,” “constitutionally absolutely incorrect,” and “so illegal.” The President said he knew full well that he would be “demeaned and disparaged” for continuing to speak out, especially now that even some of his advisers have “disappeared” or, as he claimed, been bullied into silence. But he would do so anyway.
Donald Trump in defeat, it turns out, is even more whiny, dishonest, and self-absorbed than he was before his decisive loss to Biden a month ago. In the speech, delivered to an empty room and released straight to Facebook, for reasons that remain unclear, Trump repeated many of the election conspiracy theories, lies, and laments which he has been sending forth for weeks on Twitter and via emissaries like Rudy Giuliani. The news was that these baseless claims—the only impact of which will be to further undermine public confidence in the U.S. government—were coming directly from the President, as he stood at a lectern bearing the Presidential seal. And what words they were. The pollsters were liars. “Detroit is corrupt.” “Millions of votes were cast illegally in the swing states alone.”
One of Trump’s biggest obsessions is with a voting-machine company known as Dominion. Trump and his lawyers claim that Dominion, although it is owned by a New York-based private-equity firm, was somehow in league with the deceased dictator of Venezuela Hugo Chávez, in a fantastical plot to steal the Presidency. In his speech, Trump explained that “we have a company that’s very suspect,” and that “with a turn of a dial, with a change of a chip,” his votes could disappear on its systems, which are so confusing that “nobody understands” how they work, “including in many cases the people that run them.” Trump elaborated that the company had given many donations to Democrats, that its “glitches” were numerous, and it was only “the tip of the iceberg” of wrongdoing. He even suggested that the Dominion machines were secretly controlled from overseas. How? Who knows. Here’s his quote in full: “And, frankly, when you look at who’s running the company, who’s in charge, who owns it, which we don’t know—where are the votes counted, which we think are counted in foreign countries, not in the United States.”
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There are only two possible conclusions from listening to this folly: either the President actually believes what he is saying, in which case he is crazy, or he does not, in which case he is engaged in the most cynical attack on American democracy ever to come from the White House. Is Trump “increasingly detached from reality,” as even the dispassionate, strictly nonpartisan Associated Press put it, in recounting the speech? Or is that conclusion, harsh as it is, giving Trump the benefit of the doubt by implying that he is just misguided or uninformed? There is another explanation, after all, for this reckless speech: What if, in fact, the President is not delusional but is the purposeful, malevolent creator of an alternate reality, knowingly spewing disinformation, discord, and division? Either variant, of course, is terrible.
Still, many Americans understandably may tune him out. The newspapers did not put Trump’s speech on the front page. The television networks did not carry it. And I get it. Why placate the President with the publicity for his baseless charges which he so palpably craves? This might have been a holy-shit speech, but it came in the “yeah, whatever” phase of Trump’s lame-duck Presidency. The courts have thrown out his legal team’s cases. The battleground states have all certified their election results affirming Biden’s win. The Electoral College will meet on December 14th, and the outcome does not appear to be in doubt.
And yet there are nearly fifty days until Biden’s Inauguration. This is far, far beyond the craziness of the past four years. Is this the kind of speech from their leader that Americans should just ignore? Trump is reportedly considering using the powers of the Presidency in an absolutely unprecedented way: to pardon himself, Giuliani, and his three eldest children. He is also reportedly considering firing the Attorney General, William Barr, and the F.B.I. director, Christopher Wray, after they failed to meet his demands to investigate rivals and back his outlandish election conspiracy theories. Barr, in what appeared to be an act of open defiance to Trump, told the A.P., on Tuesday, “We have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.” Trump’s speech seemed a direct response, as did the news reports that he was considering Barr’s immediate “termination,” as the Post put it.
Meanwhile, Trump’s remaining loyalists make ever more outrageous and inflammatory demands. Trump’s former national-security adviser, the retired general Michael Flynn, was pardoned by Trump on Thanksgiving eve, after he pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I.; this week, Flynn endorsed a manifesto calling on Trump to impose “martial law,” and use the military to cancel the election results and force a national “re-vote.”
The temptation is to look away, to move on, to cringe and avert your gaze. That is exactly what the Republicans in the Senate, who have stood by Trump through impeachment and other ignominies, have done this week, pivoting so seamlessly into bashing the new Biden Administration that they never even stopped to acknowledge its existence. Like the vast majority of his G.O.P. colleagues, Senator John Cornyn, of Texas, has yet to publicly admit that Biden won. Nonetheless, he gave a speech on the Senate floor decrying Biden’s choices for top posts. “I will not support any nominee who doesn’t provide full transparency into their work on behalf of a foreign government. I will not do it,” Cornyn said. Never mind, in other words, the past four years of the Trump Administration, when a President and his children profited every single day off undisclosed foreign business arrangements.
Cornyn’s speech was in response to reports about Biden’s nominee for Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, and the advisory firm, WestExec Partners, of which he is a founding partner. The company—made up of former high-level Obama Administration officials, including Blinken and Michèle Flournoy, a leading candidate to be Biden’s Secretary of Defense—has refused to disclose its client list. (Blinken has said that the firm does not officially lobby, and so is not required to do so.) A second controversy centers on Neera Tanden, Biden’s nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget. Tanden, the head of the liberal think tank the Center for American Progress, has been a prolific and partisan tweeter. Republicans, after four years of alternately ignoring and praising the prolific and partisan tweeter in the White House, immediately complained.
Do Republicans think they have a free pass to pretend that the past four years never happened? Do they think they can simply return to the partisan status quo ante, complaining about nasty tweets and potential conflicts of interest, without anyone bringing up the current President? I don’t think this was what Biden meant when he said, during the campaign, that his Presidency would mark a return to normal. Meanwhile, not a single Republican senator had a word to say about Trump’s insane remarks from the White House on Wednesday, notwithstanding the President’s insistence that it was the most important speech of his tenure.
In many ways, the post-election period has revealed once again the shamelessly craven nature of the Trump-era G.O.P. in Washington—by showing the country that there remains another species of Republicans, comprising the state and local officials who have refused to go along with Trump’s manic crusade against the election results and have even denounced him publicly for it. In a little more than four minutes, on Tuesday, Georgia’s voting-system implementation manager, Gabriel Sterling, managed to give one of the most effective and heartfelt rebuttals to Trump’s recent actions—and to his Republican enablers. “This. Has. To. Stop,” Sterling said, pausing after each word for emphasis, his voice at times shaking with emotion. “All of you who have not said a damn word are complicit in this,” he added. Whereas Trump offered a litany of fake complaints, Sterling offered a litany of real wrongs: the Trump promoter Joe diGenova calling for Trump’s fired cybersecurity chief, Christopher Krebs—a defender of the election’s integrity—to be shot. A young Georgia election worker who found a noose outside his house. Death threats to those who count the votes. “All of this is wrong,” Sterling said. “It has to stop.”
In its heartfelt outrage, the speech immediately reminded me of the impeachment speeches about Trump a year ago, back before the pandemic and all the other craziness of 2020 meant it was hard even to remember impeachment. Listening to Sterling, I heard Alexander Vindman, the lieutenant colonel who assured his father that he would not get into trouble for testifying against the President, because here in the United States, unlike in the Soviet Union of his birth, “right matters.” And I heard Fiona Hill, another patriotic immigrant, begging Republicans to stop promoting “politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests.” Most of all, I heard the echo of Adam Schiff, the House Democrat who led the impeachment case against Trump, who in his closing arguments to the Republican Senate had asked, “Is there one among you who will say ‘Enough’?” Schiff had warned back then that Trump, if left unchecked by the Senate, would surely try to undermine or corrupt the 2020 election, because that was exactly what he had already been doing. Impeachment failed, but the warning, as was evident even at the time, was prescient.


newyorker--2020-12-03--The Haitian Revolution and the Hole in French High-School History

Toussaint Louverture , according to the scholar Sudhir Hazareesingh , was “ the first black superhero of the modern age.
” Louverture was born enslaved on a sugar plantation on Saint-Domingue , a French colony on the island of Hispaniola , sometime in the early seventeen-forties .
He was emancipated in adulthood and , at about fifty , led the most important slave revolt in history , effectively forcing France to abolish slavery , in 1794 .
Next , he united the island ’ s Black and mixed-race populations under his military command ; outmaneuvered three successive French commissioners ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; and , in 1801—despite having been wounded seventeen times in battle and having lost most of his front teeth to a cannonball explosion—authored a new abolitionist constitution for Saint-Domingue , asserting that “ here , all men are born , live , and die free and French.
” Napoleon Bonaparte first sent twenty thousand men to overthrow him , reinstating slavery in the French colonies , in 1802 .
Louverture instructed Jean-Jacques Dessalines to torch the capital city , “ so that those who come to re-enslave us always have before their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Ultimately taken captive , Louverture was deported to France and died within months in a prison in the Jura Mountains .
In 1803 , Bonaparte ’ s army was defeated , having lost more soldiers ( his brother-in-law among them ) on Saint-Domingue than he would , twelve years later , at Waterloo .
The next year , the revolutionaries established a new , independent , and free nation : Haiti , the world ’ s first Black republic .
For the moment , a typical French student completes her high-school education @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Despite Marcus Garvey ’ s assertion that Louverture ’ s “ brilliancy as a soldier and statesman outshone that of a Cromwell , Napoleon , and Washington , ” despite Aimé Césaire ’ s belief that Haiti was the place where “ negritude stood up for the first time and proclaimed its faith in its humanity , ” despite the fact that Louverture—hailed as “ the Black Spartacus , ” hero of Frederick Douglass—embodied the ideals of the French Revolution and , then , the Haitian Revolution , which inspired the modern @ @ @ @ @ @ @ France has not seen him and his fight as indispensable elements of its national narrative .
“ It ’ s thought of as a minor story , not la grande histoire , ” Elisabeth Landi , a history professor in Martinique , said .
In 2009 , an inscription honoring Louverture was engraved in a wall at the Pantheon .
The story of his country ’ s revolution is taught in high schools in some of France ’ s overseas territories .
In metropolitan vocational high schools , whose students are more likely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the recently updated curriculum acknowledges the Haitian Revolution as a “ singular extension ” of the American and French revolutions .
But it is not mentioned in the general lycée curriculum .
A future pipe fitter in Paris will thus know that enslaved Black people in a French colony sought and secured their own freedom , but an aspiring politician , having done all her homework at lycée , may understand emancipation simply as a right granted in 1848 , by decree of the Second Republic .
Now the Fondation pour la @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the Memory of Slavery ) , an organization whose creation was announced in 2016 , under the Presidency of François Hollande , is lobbying French authorities to address these absences .
“ When it comes to slavery , we don ’ t teach the same history to all the children of France , ” the foundation wrote in a report published this September .
The report was issued in advance of the twentieth anniversary of the Taubira law , which in 2001 designated the slave trade and slavery as crimes against humanity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them “ the substantial place that they merit.
” France ’ s education system is highly centralized , and the years following the passage of the law saw significant progress in updating historiography , training teachers , and revising textbooks .
( The reforms were not without backlash : in 2005 , the French legislature passed a law requiring schools to emphasize the “ positive role ” of colonialism , a stipulation that was subsequently rescinded . )
In 2006 , the center-right President Jacques Chirac instituted an annual day of commemoration for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ education ministry issued a nonbinding suggestion that Haitian independence be taught in lycée .
In a groundbreaking speech , Chirac spoke explicitly of Haiti , invoking Louverture alongside such figures of resistance as Solitude , Cimendef , and Dimitile .
“ Too few French people know these names , ” he said .
“ However , they are part of the history of France.
” But , according to the foundation ’ s note , the momentum gained with the passing of the Taubira law “ has gradually faded.
” Jean-Marc Ayrault , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now serves as the organization ’ s president , told me that he wondered whether the Taubira law , unanimous in 2001 , would pass without opposition today , given the increasing polarization in French society around questions of race and identity .
“ When we discuss the history of slavery , we get the impression that we should almost apologize for talking about it , ” he said .
“ That ’ s a climate that worries me.
” The Ministry of Education updated the general high-school history program last year .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ slavery in the Portugese islands and Brazil , and in the Americas , but not in the French plantation economy .
Ayrault and Christiane Taubira—a former justice minister , who sponsored the 2001 law and serves as a patron of the Foundation for the Memory of Slavery—successfully petitioned for its inclusion .
But the Haitian Revolution , specifically , remains absent from the new curriculum .
Philippe Raynaud , the vice-president of the Conseil Supérieur des Programmes , the ministry body that advises on school curricula , pointed out that eighth graders study @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to cover Haiti as part of a unit on the French Revolution , “ even if it does not occupy the same place in all high school programs.
” Ayrault and others consider this insufficient .
“ This history needs to be heard , ” Marc Lienafa , who teaches history and geography at a vocational high school near Caen , said .
This year , his students created a comic book about slavery in Saint-Domingue , which was chosen as a finalist in an annual national competition co-sponsored by the Ministry of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ think that to put a veil on this colonial history is to nourish resentments and to encourage people to withdraw into identity.
” The Haitian anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot argued that the Haitian Revolution has been “ silenced ” in part because it was “ unthinkable even as it happened ” : white hegemony so pervaded the world views of white Europeans and Americans , as well as of observers in Saint-Domingue , that they were unable to conceptualize the military triumph and political birth of a Black nation .
This incredulity has , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
French historians , Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall has written , have tended to focus on the colonial traumas of the twentieth century rather than on French slavery , which took place outside its European borders , “ making slavery seem less central to France ’ s past.
” This is compounded by the fact that French universalism has traditionally precluded discussions of race , both as a specious scientific category and on the ground that “ citizen ” is one ’ s primary identity .
Yet , even as French historiography has obscured @ @ @ @ @ @ @ today .
In 1825 , France imposed a hundred-and-fifty-million-franc indemnity on Haiti , under threat of war , forcing the nation to borrow money from a French bank at extortionate rates in order to compensate former slaveholders .
Even though the debt was later reduced to ninety million francs , Haiti didn ’ t finish paying it off until 1947 , and , according to Marlene Daut , an expert on Haiti at the University of Virginia , its effects are still being felt .
Still , many French people are unaware of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Daut , who taught English at the Lycée Camille Saint-Saëns , in Rouen , in 2002 , recalled , “ On one occasion , a student asked me where my family was from , and , when I said ‘ Haiti , ’ he started doing the hula because he thought I said ‘ Tahiti.
’ ” During the 2017 Presidential race , Emmanuel Macron spoke of the need to face history honestly , calling colonialism a “ crime against humanity , ” but , recently—with another election coming in 2022 and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ competitors—he has struck a less progressive tone .
Jean-Michel Blanquer , the Minister of Education , does not appear to be particularly interested in examining the education system ’ s treatment of colonization .
Asked recently on television about the Algerian War , he replied , “ If we do more and more repentance , we ’ ll have less and less integration , ” adding that the French were better off “ not looking to excuse ourselves every five minutes for everything.
” On October 16th , an Islamist terrorist beheaded Samuel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ teacher who had shown caricatures of Mohammed to his students as part of a classroom discussion about free expression .
In an interview following the attack , Blanquer linked the fragmentation of French society to “ an intellectual matrix coming from American universities and intersectional theses , which want to essentialize communities and identities ” —a statement that the far right accused him of plagiarizing from its literature .
( Blanquer declined to comment through a spokesperson . )
As Hazareesingh writes in “ Black Spartacus : The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture @ @ @ @ @ @ @ perfect republican—even he , at one point , owned at least one slave , and he proclaimed himself governor for life .
But he was one of the most exemplary ones France has had .
In 1800 , Charles Vincent , who was sent by Bonaparte as an emissary to Saint-Domingue , wrote , “ There is no man more attached to the ideal of French republicanism.
” Louverture and the Haitian revolutionaries were maybe the ultimate Lumières , taking the ideals of liberté , égalité , and fraternité further than their European @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and envisioning , with racial equality , Hazareesingh writes , “ a much bolder vision of brotherhood than that of the French jacobins.
” Acknowledging their signal role in the history of France , Ayrault said , is a matter of national cohesion as much as of historical justice : “ When we evade these questions , when we hide them , when we forget them , there ’ s a risk that they resurge , ” he said .
“ If we try to cover up this history , it comes back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more violent manner .
”

The revolution, led by the formerly enslaved Toussaint Louverture, effectively forced France to abolish slavery, in 1794. Art work by George DeBaptiste / Library of Congress
Toussaint Louverture, according to the scholar Sudhir Hazareesingh, was “the first black superhero of the modern age.” Louverture was born enslaved on a sugar plantation on Saint-Domingue, a French colony on the island of Hispaniola, sometime in the early seventeen-forties. He was emancipated in adulthood and, at about fifty, led the most important slave revolt in history, effectively forcing France to abolish slavery, in 1794. Next, he united the island’s Black and mixed-race populations under his military command; outmaneuvered three successive French commissioners; defeated the British; overpowered the Spanish; and, in 1801—despite having been wounded seventeen times in battle and having lost most of his front teeth to a cannonball explosion—authored a new abolitionist constitution for Saint-Domingue, asserting that “here, all men are born, live, and die free and French.” Napoleon Bonaparte first sent twenty thousand men to overthrow him, reinstating slavery in the French colonies, in 1802. Louverture instructed Jean-Jacques Dessalines to torch the capital city, “so that those who come to re-enslave us always have before their eyes the image of hell they deserve.” Ultimately taken captive, Louverture was deported to France and died within months in a prison in the Jura Mountains. In 1803, Bonaparte’s army was defeated, having lost more soldiers (his brother-in-law among them) on Saint-Domingue than he would, twelve years later, at Waterloo. The next year, the revolutionaries established a new, independent, and free nation: Haiti, the world’s first Black republic.
For the moment, a typical French student completes her high-school education without hearing much about any of this. Despite Marcus Garvey’s assertion that Louverture’s “brilliancy as a soldier and statesman outshone that of a Cromwell, Napoleon, and Washington,” despite Aimé Césaire’s belief that Haiti was the place where “negritude stood up for the first time and proclaimed its faith in its humanity,” despite the fact that Louverture—hailed as “the Black Spartacus,” hero of Frederick Douglass—embodied the ideals of the French Revolution and, then, the Haitian Revolution, which inspired the modern anti-colonial movement all over the world, France has not seen him and his fight as indispensable elements of its national narrative. “It’s thought of as a minor story, not la grande histoire,” Elisabeth Landi, a history professor in Martinique, said. In 2009, an inscription honoring Louverture was engraved in a wall at the Pantheon. The story of his country’s revolution is taught in high schools in some of France’s overseas territories. In metropolitan vocational high schools, whose students are more likely to come from working-class and immigrant families, the recently updated curriculum acknowledges the Haitian Revolution as a “singular extension” of the American and French revolutions. But it is not mentioned in the general lycée curriculum. A future pipe fitter in Paris will thus know that enslaved Black people in a French colony sought and secured their own freedom, but an aspiring politician, having done all her homework at lycée, may understand emancipation simply as a right granted in 1848, by decree of the Second Republic.
Now the Fondation pour la Mémoire de l’Esclavage (Foundation for the Memory of Slavery), an organization whose creation was announced in 2016, under the Presidency of François Hollande, is lobbying French authorities to address these absences. “When it comes to slavery, we don’t teach the same history to all the children of France,” the foundation wrote in a report published this September. The report was issued in advance of the twentieth anniversary of the Taubira law, which in 2001 designated the slave trade and slavery as crimes against humanity, and mandated that school curricula accord them “the substantial place that they merit.” France’s education system is highly centralized, and the years following the passage of the law saw significant progress in updating historiography, training teachers, and revising textbooks. (The reforms were not without backlash: in 2005, the French legislature passed a law requiring schools to emphasize the “positive role” of colonialism, a stipulation that was subsequently rescinded.) In 2006, the center-right President Jacques Chirac instituted an annual day of commemoration for slavery, and an arm of the education ministry issued a nonbinding suggestion that Haitian independence be taught in lycée. In a groundbreaking speech, Chirac spoke explicitly of Haiti, invoking Louverture alongside such figures of resistance as Solitude, Cimendef, and Dimitile. “Too few French people know these names,” he said. “However, they are part of the history of France.”
But, according to the foundation’s note, the momentum gained with the passing of the Taubira law “has gradually faded.” Jean-Marc Ayrault, a former Prime Minister of France who now serves as the organization’s president, told me that he wondered whether the Taubira law, unanimous in 2001, would pass without opposition today, given the increasing polarization in French society around questions of race and identity. “When we discuss the history of slavery, we get the impression that we should almost apologize for talking about it,” he said. “That’s a climate that worries me.”
The Ministry of Education updated the general high-school history program last year. An early draft of the curriculum addressed slavery in the Portugese islands and Brazil, and in the Americas, but not in the French plantation economy. Ayrault and Christiane Taubira—a former justice minister, who sponsored the 2001 law and serves as a patron of the Foundation for the Memory of Slavery—successfully petitioned for its inclusion. But the Haitian Revolution, specifically, remains absent from the new curriculum. Philippe Raynaud, the vice-president of the Conseil Supérieur des Programmes, the ministry body that advises on school curricula, pointed out that eighth graders study slavery, and that teachers are free to cover Haiti as part of a unit on the French Revolution, “even if it does not occupy the same place in all high school programs.” Ayrault and others consider this insufficient. “This history needs to be heard,” Marc Lienafa, who teaches history and geography at a vocational high school near Caen, said. This year, his students created a comic book about slavery in Saint-Domingue, which was chosen as a finalist in an annual national competition co-sponsored by the Ministry of Education. Lienafa continued, “I think that to put a veil on this colonial history is to nourish resentments and to encourage people to withdraw into identity.”
The Haitian anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot argued that the Haitian Revolution has been “silenced” in part because it was “unthinkable even as it happened”: white hegemony so pervaded the world views of white Europeans and Americans, as well as of observers in Saint-Domingue, that they were unable to conceptualize the military triumph and political birth of a Black nation. This incredulity has, in some ways, never really faded. French historians, Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall has written, have tended to focus on the colonial traumas of the twentieth century rather than on French slavery, which took place outside its European borders, “making slavery seem less central to France’s past.” This is compounded by the fact that French universalism has traditionally precluded discussions of race, both as a specious scientific category and on the ground that “citizen” is one’s primary identity.
Yet, even as French historiography has obscured the Haitian Revolution, its consequences endure today. In 1825, France imposed a hundred-and-fifty-million-franc indemnity on Haiti, under threat of war, forcing the nation to borrow money from a French bank at extortionate rates in order to compensate former slaveholders. Even though the debt was later reduced to ninety million francs, Haiti didn’t finish paying it off until 1947, and, according to Marlene Daut, an expert on Haiti at the University of Virginia, its effects are still being felt. Still, many French people are unaware of the ties between the two nations. Daut, who taught English at the Lycée Camille Saint-Saëns, in Rouen, in 2002, recalled, “On one occasion, a student asked me where my family was from, and, when I said ‘Haiti,’ he started doing the hula because he thought I said ‘Tahiti.’ ”
During the 2017 Presidential race, Emmanuel Macron spoke of the need to face history honestly, calling colonialism a “crime against humanity,” but, recently—with another election coming in 2022 and the far right as one of his strongest competitors—he has struck a less progressive tone. Jean-Michel Blanquer, the Minister of Education, does not appear to be particularly interested in examining the education system’s treatment of colonization. Asked recently on television about the Algerian War, he replied, “If we do more and more repentance, we’ll have less and less integration,” adding that the French were better off “not looking to excuse ourselves every five minutes for everything.” On October 16th, an Islamist terrorist beheaded Samuel Paty, a middle-school history and geography teacher who had shown caricatures of Mohammed to his students as part of a classroom discussion about free expression. In an interview following the attack, Blanquer linked the fragmentation of French society to “an intellectual matrix coming from American universities and intersectional theses, which want to essentialize communities and identities”—a statement that the far right accused him of plagiarizing from its literature. (Blanquer declined to comment through a spokesperson.)
As Hazareesingh writes in “Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture,” Louverture wasn’t a perfect republican—even he, at one point, owned at least one slave, and he proclaimed himself governor for life. But he was one of the most exemplary ones France has had. In 1800, Charles Vincent, who was sent by Bonaparte as an emissary to Saint-Domingue, wrote, “There is no man more attached to the ideal of French republicanism.” Louverture and the Haitian revolutionaries were maybe the ultimate Lumières, taking the ideals of liberté, égalité, and fraternité further than their European contemporaries were willing or able to, and envisioning, with racial equality, Hazareesingh writes, “a much bolder vision of brotherhood than that of the French jacobins.” Acknowledging their signal role in the history of France, Ayrault said, is a matter of national cohesion as much as of historical justice: “When we evade these questions, when we hide them, when we forget them, there’s a risk that they resurge,” he said. “If we try to cover up this history, it comes back and it often comes back in a more violent manner.”


newyorker--2020-12-03--Paul Giamatti Prefers to Read Melville

Paul Giamatti Prefers to Read Melville

A few years ago , Paul Giamatti , the actor , went to Wyoming to visit a friend .
After a flight to Cheyenne , he picked up a rental car and started driving north .
The car had Sirius XM satellite radio , and Giamatti , hunting for a channel that would sustain him across the empty spaces , settled on Radio Classics , which airs programs from the so-called golden age of radio , before the medium was shunted aside by television as a place for storytelling .
That day , Radio Classics was airing episodes of “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1956 about the lives of U.S. cavalry officers at a frontier outpost in the late eighteen-sixties , featuring Raymond Burr as Captain Lee Quince .
Coming out of the dashboard was a figurative Wyoming in counterpoint to the literal one that Giamatti was seeing through the windshield .
He settled into the narrative , as into a kind of aural cruise control , and felt a pleasure akin to what he experienced when he listened to recitations of Edgar Allan Poe stories on cassette when he was a boy .
That pleasure came @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when he got a request from Bernard Schwartz , the director of the Unterberg Poetry Center at the 92nd Street Y , in Manhattan .
The coronavirus pandemic had led the Poetry Center to suspend its literary events series , which has run more or less continuously since 1939 , and Schwartz was putting together an online events program , which would feature performers reading works of literature aloud .
Schwartz asked Giamatti if he would read “ Bartleby , the Scrivener.
” Giamatti said yes .
.
.
but .
New England @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and he was on Cape Cod , without a microphone .
Schwartz was undeterred .
“ He said , ‘ Can you just do it on the phone ?
Do it as bootleg as you possibly can , ’ ” Giamatti recalled , in a Zoom conversation .
So he set up his phone on a bed or a desk and read a few pages at a time .
Over four or five sessions , combined to make an hour and a half of recorded time , Giamatti transformed Herman Melville ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s struggle with a balky copyist into a comic performance , with the scrivener ’ s solemn “ I would prefer not to ” offset by the raconteurial relish that Giamatti took in reading the story aloud .
The experience of presenting Melville this way itself recalled a pleasure from Giamatti ’ s childhood , when he came to know Melville ’ s work and life story .
Growing up in New Haven , where his father was a literature professor at Yale , Giamatti was fascinated by whales .
“ I had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of ‘ MobyDick ’ ” —the one by Felix Sutton— “ and I was interested in Melville because I was fascinated by the whaling , ” he said .
Some years later , he read “ Moby-Dick , ” “ The Confidence-Man , ” and “ Pierre ” and was taken with Melville ’ s life story : his travels in the South Seas as a young man , his early fame as a writer , the commercial failure of “ Moby-Dick ” in 1851 , his subsequent career as a customs inspector @ @ @ @ @ @ @ weird way of extinguishing yourself , ” Giamatti said ) , and his last years , when he would tell stories of his seafaring adventures to his grandchildren as if they were fairy tales .
“ I remember one anecdote about taking one of his grandchildren out for a walk and forgetting the kid , ” Giamatti said .
Like so many people , Giamatti first read “ Bartleby ” in high school , and he still thinks of Bartleby ( whose age Melville does not specify ) as a stiff-necked teen-ager , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that he ’ d prefer not to do what he ’ s asked—to check a document , to move out of the law offices and into proper lodgings—for no reason other than that he ’ d prefer not to .
Giamatti ’ s Bartleby is as stiff-necked as ever .
But the experience of reading the story into his phone brought out aspects of the story that Giamatti hadn ’ t noticed when he was a teen-ager .
There ’ s the oral quality of the telling : while working in San Diego @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a public reading of Melville and chose , “ just randomly , ” a section of “ Bartleby ” — “ and I was amazed at how beautifully it reads out loud .
Melville didn ’ t write it to be read aloud , but it really works well as a dramatic monologue.
” There ’ s the complexity of the narrator : “ The guy is just this kind of oblivious asshole , but his voice is amazing .
And the nuances are incredible.
” And there ’ s the humor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Turkey , Nippers , and Ginger Nut ; the fussy , self-justifying lawyer-narrator ; and the physical comedy of office life , as in the episode where the narrator , exasperated by Bartleby ’ s refusals and distracted by the other clerks ’ comings and goings , puts up a “ high green folding screen ” so that he can give orders to Bartleby without looking at him .
Here Giamatti , in conversation , from memory , drew out the end of the episode deliciously : “ And thus , in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Giamatti is associated with the stiffened diction of the American past from his title performance in “ John Adams , ” the HBO dramatic series about the second President , and he is linked with lower Manhattan through his performance in the Showtime series “ Billions , ” as Chuck Rhoades , a U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York , who has made a career of investigating white-collar financial crimes .
In “ Bartleby , ” as in those productions , Giamatti ’ s voice is the opposite of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ astonished .
When the narrator calls Bartleby an “ intolerable incubus , ” Giamatti rolls the words off the tip of his tongue .
He makes Bartleby ’ s declaration— “ I would prefer not to ” —a sotto-voce refrain .
And he lingers a bit on Melville ’ s Dante-like similes , as when the narrator recalls the morning when he went to the law office unexpectedly and found that Bartleby had spent the night there : “ I was thunderstruck .
For an instant I stood like the man who , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cloudless afternoon long ago in Virginia , by summer lightning ; at his own warm open window he was killed , and remained leaning out there upon the dreamy afternoon , till some one touched him , and he fell.
” The first of the 92nd Street Y ’ s newly commissioned recorded readings was released in October : Marilynne Robinson ’ s novel “ Gilead , ” read by Ethan Hawke .
“ Bartleby , the Scrivener ” was posted last month , a hundred and sixty-seven years after the story was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
On December 3rd , Giamatti will take part in a video conversation with Andrew Delbanco , a Columbia professor and author of a biography of Melville .
And the 92nd Street Y will soon release recordings of William Maxwell ’ s “ So Long , See You Tomorrow , ” read by John Lithgow ; Saidiya Hartman ’ s “ The End of White Supremacy , An American Romance , ” read by André Holland ; and Anne Carson ’ s “ The Glass Essay , ” read by Maggie Siff , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” as Rhoades ’ s wife , Wendy .
With the fifth season of “ Billions ” in circulation and the sixth early in development , Giamatti is between projects .
He likes the idea of another audio-only project .
He provided the narration for an audiobook of Philip K. Dick ’ s novel “ A Scanner Darkly , ” and , as a listener , he has spent time with the almost forty-hour audiobook of Thomas Pynchon ’ s “ Gravity ’ s Rainbow , ” one of his favorite novels @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work of literature straight into his phone .
But he ’ d prefer not to .
He ’ d prefer to take a role in the reinvigoration of the radio-drama form—ideally , by getting several actors together at the microphone and working from scripts that would leave room for the listener ’ s imagination , aided by a sound-effects expert who would make guns blaze and rain fall .
“ There ’ s something very intimate about it , ” he said , of the form .
“ We don ’ t do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They still do a lot of it in England—and they do it really well , ” he said , mentioning “ The Archers , ” which has run for decades , and the productions of BBC4 in general .
In any case , Giamatti is ready to listen : he bought a new car a few months ago , and it ’ s the first car he has owned that has satellite radio .
• New Yorker writers on the best books they read this year .
• Amanda Petrusich counts down the @ @ @

Paul Giamatti transformed Herman Melville’s story of a balky copyist into a comic performance. Photograph by Mark Peterson / Redux
A few years ago, Paul Giamatti, the actor, went to Wyoming to visit a friend. After a flight to Cheyenne, he picked up a rental car and started driving north. The car had Sirius XM satellite radio, and Giamatti, hunting for a channel that would sustain him across the empty spaces, settled on Radio Classics, which airs programs from the so-called golden age of radio, before the medium was shunted aside by television as a place for storytelling. That day, Radio Classics was airing episodes of “Fort Laramie,” a drama from 1956 about the lives of U.S. cavalry officers at a frontier outpost in the late eighteen-sixties, featuring Raymond Burr as Captain Lee Quince. Coming out of the dashboard was a figurative Wyoming in counterpoint to the literal one that Giamatti was seeing through the windshield. He settled into the narrative, as into a kind of aural cruise control, and felt a pleasure akin to what he experienced when he listened to recitations of Edgar Allan Poe stories on cassette when he was a boy.
That pleasure came to his mind this past March, when he got a request from Bernard Schwartz, the director of the Unterberg Poetry Center at the 92nd Street Y, in Manhattan. The coronavirus pandemic had led the Poetry Center to suspend its literary events series, which has run more or less continuously since 1939, and Schwartz was putting together an online events program, which would feature performers reading works of literature aloud. Schwartz asked Giamatti if he would read “Bartleby, the Scrivener.” Giamatti said yes . . . but. New England was battened down against the coronavirus, and he was on Cape Cod, without a microphone. Schwartz was undeterred. “He said, ‘Can you just do it on the phone? Do it as bootleg as you possibly can,’ ” Giamatti recalled, in a Zoom conversation. So he set up his phone on a bed or a desk and read a few pages at a time. Over four or five sessions, combined to make an hour and a half of recorded time, Giamatti transformed Herman Melville’s story of a Wall Street attorney’s struggle with a balky copyist into a comic performance, with the scrivener’s solemn “I would prefer not to” offset by the raconteurial relish that Giamatti took in reading the story aloud.
2020 in Review New Yorker writers reflect on the year’s highs and lows.
The experience of presenting Melville this way itself recalled a pleasure from Giamatti’s childhood, when he came to know Melville’s work and life story. Growing up in New Haven, where his father was a literature professor at Yale, Giamatti was fascinated by whales. “I had a beautiful children’s picture-book version of ‘MobyDick’ ”—the one by Felix Sutton—“and I was interested in Melville because I was fascinated by the whaling,” he said. Some years later, he read “Moby-Dick,” “The Confidence-Man,” and “Pierre” and was taken with Melville’s life story: his travels in the South Seas as a young man, his early fame as a writer, the commercial failure of “Moby-Dick” in 1851, his subsequent career as a customs inspector in lower Manhattan (“such a weird way of extinguishing yourself,” Giamatti said), and his last years, when he would tell stories of his seafaring adventures to his grandchildren as if they were fairy tales. “I remember one anecdote about taking one of his grandchildren out for a walk and forgetting the kid,” Giamatti said.
Like so many people, Giamatti first read “Bartleby” in high school, and he still thinks of Bartleby (whose age Melville does not specify) as a stiff-necked teen-ager, who tells the lawyer he works for that he’d prefer not to do what he’s asked—to check a document, to move out of the law offices and into proper lodgings—for no reason other than that he’d prefer not to. Giamatti’s Bartleby is as stiff-necked as ever. But the experience of reading the story into his phone brought out aspects of the story that Giamatti hadn’t noticed when he was a teen-ager. There’s the oral quality of the telling: while working in San Diego, years ago, Giamatti took part in a public reading of Melville and chose, “just randomly,” a section of “Bartleby”—“and I was amazed at how beautifully it reads out loud. Melville didn’t write it to be read aloud, but it really works well as a dramatic monologue.” There’s the complexity of the narrator: “The guy is just this kind of oblivious asshole, but his voice is amazing. And the nuances are incredible.” And there’s the humor of the story: the scruffy clerks Turkey, Nippers, and Ginger Nut; the fussy, self-justifying lawyer-narrator; and the physical comedy of office life, as in the episode where the narrator, exasperated by Bartleby’s refusals and distracted by the other clerks’ comings and goings, puts up a “high green folding screen” so that he can give orders to Bartleby without looking at him. Here Giamatti, in conversation, from memory, drew out the end of the episode deliciously: “And thus, in a manner, privacy and society were conjoined.”
Giamatti is associated with the stiffened diction of the American past from his title performance in “John Adams,” the HBO dramatic series about the second President, and he is linked with lower Manhattan through his performance in the Showtime series “Billions,” as Chuck Rhoades, a U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, who has made a career of investigating white-collar financial crimes. In “Bartleby,” as in those productions, Giamatti’s voice is the opposite of sonorous: sly, excitable, easily astonished. When the narrator calls Bartleby an “intolerable incubus,” Giamatti rolls the words off the tip of his tongue. He makes Bartleby’s declaration—“I would prefer not to”—a sotto-voce refrain. And he lingers a bit on Melville’s Dante-like similes, as when the narrator recalls the morning when he went to the law office unexpectedly and found that Bartleby had spent the night there: “I was thunderstruck. For an instant I stood like the man who, pipe in mouth, was killed one cloudless afternoon long ago in Virginia, by summer lightning; at his own warm open window he was killed, and remained leaning out there upon the dreamy afternoon, till some one touched him, and he fell.”
The first of the 92nd Street Y’s newly commissioned recorded readings was released in October: Marilynne Robinson’s novel “Gilead,” read by Ethan Hawke. “Bartleby, the Scrivener” was posted last month, a hundred and sixty-seven years after the story was published in Putnam’s Monthly Magazine. On December 3rd, Giamatti will take part in a video conversation with Andrew Delbanco, a Columbia professor and author of a biography of Melville. And the 92nd Street Y will soon release recordings of William Maxwell’s “So Long, See You Tomorrow,” read by John Lithgow; Saidiya Hartman’s “The End of White Supremacy, An American Romance,” read by André Holland; and Anne Carson’s “The Glass Essay,” read by Maggie Siff, who stars opposite Giamatti on “Billions,” as Rhoades’s wife, Wendy.
With the fifth season of “Billions” in circulation and the sixth early in development, Giamatti is between projects. He likes the idea of another audio-only project. He provided the narration for an audiobook of Philip K. Dick’s novel “A Scanner Darkly,” and, as a listener, he has spent time with the almost forty-hour audiobook of Thomas Pynchon’s “Gravity’s Rainbow,” one of his favorite novels. He can envision reading another classic work of literature straight into his phone. But he’d prefer not to. He’d prefer to take a role in the reinvigoration of the radio-drama form—ideally, by getting several actors together at the microphone and working from scripts that would leave room for the listener’s imagination, aided by a sound-effects expert who would make guns blaze and rain fall. “There’s something very intimate about it,” he said, of the form. “We don’t do enough radio dramas in this country. They still do a lot of it in England—and they do it really well,” he said, mentioning “The Archers,” which has run for decades, and the productions of BBC4 in general. In any case, Giamatti is ready to listen: he bought a new car a few months ago, and it’s the first car he has owned that has satellite radio.
2020 in Review


newyorker--2020-12-03--Crimes I Committed with My Boyfriend vs. with My Actual Partner in Crime

Look , I ’ ve described my boyfriend as my “ partner in crime ” just as often as the next woman who has no respect for the ears of the people around her .
Still , it can get a little dicey .
While my boyfriend and I do slay on the dance floor at weddings ( love ya , Stace , sorry we broke your great-aunt ’ s hip ) , I also commit felonies with my real partner in crime all the time .
Here ’ s a rundown of which crimes I commit with whom .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ bae ” on social media .
My actual partner in crime : Called in a bomb threat to get us out of jury duty .
My boyfriend : Held hands in a very crowded subway car even though it involved stretching his armpit over a woman with two toddlers and putting everyone at risk for COVID-19 .
My actual partner in crime : Held up a group of teen-age girls .
Stole their keychains and iPads , made them cry .
My boyfriend : Staged a proposal involving all of our mutual friends @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cliché and dorky—I love him so much !
My actual partner in crime : Staged a heist .
Robbed the good people of Arlington , Virginia , of seven hundred thousand dollars .
A lot more money than those teens had !
Sadly , fewer keychains .
My boyfriend : Requested just one fork for our shared order of nachos # engagementgoals .
My actual partner in crime : Used a fork to stab a man after he witnessed us leaving the bank robbery .
Unfortunately , the only weapon we had with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trying to pack salads instead of eating out # weddingdiet .
My boyfriend : Committed ourselves to each other in front of our cherished friends and family .
Wept profusely .
Kissed with tongue in front of the priest .
My actual partner in crime : Committed arson .
Burned down the bank so that our fingerprints wouldn ’ t be at the scene of the crime when the F.B.I .
arrived .
My boyfriend : Stole each other ’ s hearts !
But at least it was mutual , so we each @ @ @ @ @ @ @ My actual partner in crime : Stole a car because the police were after us .
My boyfriend : Got caught red-handed hiding each other ’ s anniversary gifts in the same spot .
Oops !
( Also , why did he get me a Peloton ?
What is he trying to say ? )
My actual partner in crime : Got caught red-handed in a stolen vehicle on the 101 after we used his license to buy beer .
Arrested for grand theft auto , burglary , and murder .
It wasn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ boyfriend : Lied about enjoying “ Emily in Paris ” because we both thought the other loved it .
It ’ s just like that O ’ Henry short story , but I get to keep my hair and watch bad TV !
My actual partner in crime : Lied under oath when questioned about the armed robbery and our subsequent crime spree .
Also , lied about enjoying “ You ”  because it hit too close to home and neither of us wanted to admit it .
Wished that we could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ instead. My boyfriend : Got jealous about how much time we were devoting to our naughty hobbies ( him : brewskis and poker with the boys ; me : manslaughter ) .
My actual partner in crime : Got jealous that I seemed to have a better lawyer .
Got life in jail .
My boyfriend : Referred to us as “ partners in crime ” in public .
Made a joke about how the F.B.I .
should investigate us .
My actual partner in crime : Actually , that ’ s worse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and I ever did .

Look, I’ve described my boyfriend as my “partner in crime” just as often as the next woman who has no respect for the ears of the people around her. Still, it can get a little dicey. While my boyfriend and I do slay on the dance floor at weddings (love ya, Stace, sorry we broke your great-aunt’s hip), I also commit felonies with my real partner in crime all the time. Here’s a rundown of which crimes I commit with whom.
My boyfriend: Called each other “bae” on social media.
My actual partner in crime: Called in a bomb threat to get us out of jury duty.
My boyfriend: Held hands in a very crowded subway car even though it involved stretching his armpit over a woman with two toddlers and putting everyone at risk for COVID-19.
My actual partner in crime: Held up a group of teen-age girls. Stole their keychains and iPads, made them cry.
My boyfriend: Staged a proposal involving all of our mutual friends on Valentine’s Day. How cliché and dorky—I love him so much!
My actual partner in crime: Staged a heist. Robbed the good people of Arlington, Virginia, of seven hundred thousand dollars. A lot more money than those teens had! Sadly, fewer keychains.
My boyfriend: Requested just one fork for our shared order of nachos #engagementgoals.
My actual partner in crime: Used a fork to stab a man after he witnessed us leaving the bank robbery. Unfortunately, the only weapon we had with us was my lunch fork—I’m trying to pack salads instead of eating out #weddingdiet.
My boyfriend: Committed ourselves to each other in front of our cherished friends and family. Wept profusely. Kissed with tongue in front of the priest.
My actual partner in crime: Committed arson. Burned down the bank so that our fingerprints wouldn’t be at the scene of the crime when the F.B.I. arrived.
My boyfriend: Stole each other’s hearts! But at least it was mutual, so we each still have exactly one human heart.
My actual partner in crime: Stole a car because the police were after us.
My boyfriend: Got caught red-handed hiding each other’s anniversary gifts in the same spot. Oops! (Also, why did he get me a Peloton? What is he trying to say?)
My actual partner in crime: Got caught red-handed in a stolen vehicle on the 101 after we used his license to buy beer. Arrested for grand theft auto, burglary, and murder. It wasn’t even good beer.
My boyfriend: Lied about enjoying “Emily in Paris” because we both thought the other loved it. It’s just like that O’Henry short story, but I get to keep my hair and watch bad TV!
My actual partner in crime: Lied under oath when questioned about the armed robbery and our subsequent crime spree. Also, lied about enjoying “You” because it hit too close to home and neither of us wanted to admit it. Wished that we could relate to “Emily in Paris” instead.
My boyfriend: Got jealous about how much time we were devoting to our naughty hobbies (him: brewskis and poker with the boys; me: manslaughter).
My actual partner in crime: Got jealous that I seemed to have a better lawyer. Got life in jail.
My boyfriend: Referred to us as “partners in crime” in public. Made a joke about how the F.B.I. should investigate us. My actual partner in crime: Actually, that’s worse than anything my actual partner in crime and I ever did.


newyorker--2020-12-03--Donald Trump’s Latest Grift May Be His Most Cynical Yet

If you want to see how Donald Trump ’ s world works , register on his campaign Web site—it ’ s still active .
To help keep tabs on the Trump campaign ’ s activities , I took this step many months ago , and , since then , I ’ ve been receiving text messages and e-mails every day , purportedly from Trump and his sons , asking for money .
After the election , I thought these fund-raising alerts might stop arriving , but they didn ’ t .
They just changed topic .
Instead of requesting donations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asked for money to finance his flailing challenge to the results .
In the past few weeks , there seem to be more texts than ever .
“ Eric Trump : Almost out of time !
” said one that arrived on Monday morning .
“ Our End-of-Month fundraising Deadline is almost here .
Pres Trump activated a 1000 % IMPACT for 1 HOUR .
Donate.
” After I failed to click the accompanying link to the WinRed online fund-raising platform , and become one of the campaign ’ s “ IMPACT ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ another chance .
“ This is Don Jr. , ” said a message that hit my inbox on Monday afternoon .
“ I spoke with my father & he ’ s REACTIVATED your 1000 % offer for 1 more HOUR !
...
Donate NOW.
” Again , I failed to click the link , but that didn ’ t get me off the hook .
“ Pres Trump : I UPPED the stakes & EXTENDED our End-of-Month Election Defense Deadline !
” said a text that arrived the following afternoon .
“ All @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a 1000 % IMPACT !
ACT !
” Alas , I never did make it onto this exclusive donor list .
It ’ s safe to assume , however , that some of Trump ’ s supporters did .
Since the election , according to the Times , the President has raised about a hundred and seventy million dollars by continuing to “ aggressively solicit donations.
” Trump is no stranger to high-pressure sales tactics , of course .
Years before he became President , employees of his Trump University , which wasn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ allegedly encouraged people , including the elderly , to max out their credit cards to take courses that many said were worthless .
In soliciting donations , his campaign is similarly relentless .
On Tuesday morning , I got another message , which said , “ FINAL NOTICE !
Pres Trump EXTENDED your 1000 % Offer .
We need YOU to help us stop this CHAOS…Donate NOW.
” After deciding to write this column , on Wednesday , I clicked on one of the fund-raising links .
It took me to a WinRed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump holding two thumbs up .
“ President Trump is counting on YOU to DEFEND the Election , so he asked us to EXTEND your 1000 % offer , ” said an accompanying piece of text .
A bit farther down the page , there were a number of boxes with suggested donations , ranging from forty-five to twenty-eight hundred dollars .
If I contributed the higher amount , the page said , I could join the “ Election Defense Team , ” the “ Trump 100 Club , ” and the “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t cough up any money , of course .
But if I had done so , where exactly would it have gone ?
Below the suggestion boxes , a piece of text said , “ Your contribution will benefit Trump Make America Great Again Committee.
” That seemed straightforward enough .
In the past few years , the Trump Make America Great Again Committee has raised money for the President ’ s campaigns and the Republican National Committee , both of which have been deeply engaged in his post-election legal battles .
Many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have assumed that their money was being passed on to the election-defense fund .
But it wasn ’ t .
The actual destination of the donations was revealed in some fine print located below a blue button marked “ Continue , ” which was the natural place to stop reading and start transferring cash .
Any money donated to the Trump Make American Great Again Committee would be “ allocated according to the following formula , ” the fine print said : “ 75 % of each contribution first to Save America , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ DJTFP ’ s Recount Account , up to a maximum of $ 2,800/ $ 5,000… .
25 % of each contribution to the RNC ’ s Operating Account , up to a maximum of $ 35,500/ $ 15,000.
” It ’ s not clear how many Trump donors have read this declaration or understood its meaning , which isn ’ t immediately obvious .
What it seems to say is that , for any donation of up to five thousand dollars , not a cent goes directly to the campaign account that is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ battle—the Donald J. Trump for President Recount Account .
Instead , a quarter of the donation goes to the R.N.C.
, and the other three quarters goes into a new Trump fund-raising vehicle called Save America .
What is this entity ?
The WinRed page doesn ’ t say , but , in the past few days , some details about the fund have emerged .
Save America is a so-called leadership PAC , which OpenSecrets.org , a Web site run by the Center for Responsive Politics , a Washington-based nonprofit that tracks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ political action committee that can be established by current and former members of Congress as well as other prominent political figures.
” In an interview with S. V. Date , of HuffPost , Paul S. Ryan , a campaign-finance lawyer at the watchdog group Common Cause , used more colloquial language .
“ It ’ ll be a slush fund , ” he said .
Whereas the rules governing campaign PACs are fairly strict , the rules for leadership PACs are scandalously lax .
OpenSecrets notes that some politicians use such funds to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their party .
Trump could end up doing this , too , but he also has many other options , including directing some of the donations to himself and his children .
“ Trump could decide to pay himself $ 1 million a year out of this fund , ” Ryan noted .
“ That ’ s legal .
He could pay Don Jr. and Ivanka , if he wanted to.
” Is the forty-fifth President that skeezy ?
“ Trump was a grifter before he was in the White House .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the White House .
There ’ s surely no reason to expect him to stop grifting as he leaves and once he ’ s gone , ” Robert Weissman , the president of Public Citizen , another watchdog group , told HuffPost .
“ The special problem this time is , in conning his supporters , he ’ s also sowing deep distrust of the most basic institutions of our democracy.
” That he is—and his fund-raising alerts are still going out , many of them virtually repeating the previous ones .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ arrived on Wednesday afternoon .
“ You won the Trump 1000 % IMPACT extension !
Pres Trump will look for your name in 1 HOUR , friend .
Donate $ 10 & claim NOW.
” Ten bucks doesn ’ t seem like a lot .
But Trump will take everything he can get .

If you want to see how Donald Trump’s world works, register on his campaign Web site—it’s still active. To help keep tabs on the Trump campaign’s activities, I took this step many months ago, and, since then, I’ve been receiving text messages and e-mails every day, purportedly from Trump and his sons, asking for money. After the election, I thought these fund-raising alerts might stop arriving, but they didn’t. They just changed topic. Instead of requesting donations to help reëlect the President, they asked for money to finance his flailing challenge to the results. In the past few weeks, there seem to be more texts than ever.
“Eric Trump: Almost out of time!” said one that arrived on Monday morning. “Our End-of-Month fundraising Deadline is almost here. Pres Trump activated a 1000% IMPACT for 1 HOUR. Donate.” After I failed to click the accompanying link to the WinRed online fund-raising platform, and become one of the campaign’s “IMPACT” donors, the Trumps kindly gave me another chance. “This is Don Jr.,” said a message that hit my inbox on Monday afternoon. “I spoke with my father & he’s REACTIVATED your 1000% offer for 1 more HOUR!... Donate NOW.” Again, I failed to click the link, but that didn’t get me off the hook. “Pres Trump: I UPPED the stakes & EXTENDED our End-of-Month Election Defense Deadline!” said a text that arrived the following afternoon. “All gifts in the NEXT HR will make a 1000% IMPACT! ACT!”
Alas, I never did make it onto this exclusive donor list. It’s safe to assume, however, that some of Trump’s supporters did. Since the election, according to the Times, the President has raised about a hundred and seventy million dollars by continuing to “aggressively solicit donations.” Trump is no stranger to high-pressure sales tactics, of course. Years before he became President, employees of his Trump University, which wasn’t a university at all, allegedly encouraged people, including the elderly, to max out their credit cards to take courses that many said were worthless. In soliciting donations, his campaign is similarly relentless. On Tuesday morning, I got another message, which said, “FINAL NOTICE! Pres Trump EXTENDED your 1000% Offer. We need YOU to help us stop this CHAOS…Donate NOW.”
After deciding to write this column, on Wednesday, I clicked on one of the fund-raising links. It took me to a WinRed Web page that featured a picture of Trump holding two thumbs up. “President Trump is counting on YOU to DEFEND the Election, so he asked us to EXTEND your 1000% offer,” said an accompanying piece of text. A bit farther down the page, there were a number of boxes with suggested donations, ranging from forty-five to twenty-eight hundred dollars. If I contributed the higher amount, the page said, I could join the “Election Defense Team,” the “Trump 100 Club,” and the “First Family Circle.”
I didn’t cough up any money, of course. But if I had done so, where exactly would it have gone? Below the suggestion boxes, a piece of text said, “Your contribution will benefit Trump Make America Great Again Committee.” That seemed straightforward enough. In the past few years, the Trump Make America Great Again Committee has raised money for the President’s campaigns and the Republican National Committee, both of which have been deeply engaged in his post-election legal battles. Many Trump supporters who made modest donations may have assumed that their money was being passed on to the election-defense fund. But it wasn’t.
The actual destination of the donations was revealed in some fine print located below a blue button marked “Continue,” which was the natural place to stop reading and start transferring cash. Any money donated to the Trump Make American Great Again Committee would be “allocated according to the following formula,” the fine print said: “75% of each contribution first to Save America, up to $5,000 … then to DJTFP’s Recount Account, up to a maximum of $2,800/$5,000…. 25% of each contribution to the RNC’s Operating Account, up to a maximum of $35,500/$15,000.”
It’s not clear how many Trump donors have read this declaration or understood its meaning, which isn’t immediately obvious. What it seems to say is that, for any donation of up to five thousand dollars, not a cent goes directly to the campaign account that is helping pay for Trump’s legal battle—the Donald J. Trump for President Recount Account. Instead, a quarter of the donation goes to the R.N.C., and the other three quarters goes into a new Trump fund-raising vehicle called Save America. What is this entity? The WinRed page doesn’t say, but, in the past few days, some details about the fund have emerged.
Save America is a so-called leadership PAC, which OpenSecrets.org, a Web site run by the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based nonprofit that tracks political money, defines as a “political action committee that can be established by current and former members of Congress as well as other prominent political figures.” In an interview with S. V. Date, of HuffPost, Paul S. Ryan, a campaign-finance lawyer at the watchdog group Common Cause, used more colloquial language. “It’ll be a slush fund,” he said. Whereas the rules governing campaign PACs are fairly strict, the rules for leadership PACs are scandalously lax. OpenSecrets notes that some politicians use such funds to make campaign donations to other candidates in their party. Trump could end up doing this, too, but he also has many other options, including directing some of the donations to himself and his children. “Trump could decide to pay himself $1 million a year out of this fund,” Ryan noted. “That’s legal. He could pay Don Jr. and Ivanka, if he wanted to.”
Is the forty-fifth President that skeezy? “Trump was a grifter before he was in the White House. He was a grifter while he was in the White House. There’s surely no reason to expect him to stop grifting as he leaves and once he’s gone,” Robert Weissman, the president of Public Citizen, another watchdog group, told HuffPost. “The special problem this time is, in conning his supporters, he’s also sowing deep distrust of the most basic institutions of our democracy.”
That he is—and his fund-raising alerts are still going out, many of them virtually repeating the previous ones. “CONGRATULATIONS!” said a message that arrived on Wednesday afternoon. “You won the Trump 1000% IMPACT extension! Pres Trump will look for your name in 1 HOUR, friend. Donate $10 & claim NOW.” Ten bucks doesn’t seem like a lot. But Trump will take everything he can get.