newyorker--2020-07-01--At the Core of the Climate Crisis

At the Core of the Climate Crisis

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Why is it so hard to get Facebook to do anything about the hate and deception that fill its pages , even when it ’ s clear that they are helping to destroy democracy ?
And why , of all things , did the company recently decide to exempt a climate-denial post from its fact-checking process ?
The answer is clear : Facebook ’ s core business is to get as many people as possible to spend as many hours @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that it can sell those people ’ s attention to advertisers .
( A Facebook spokesperson said the company ’ s policy stipulates that “ clear opinion content is not subject to fact-checking on Facebook.
” ) This notion of core business explains a lot—including why it ’ s so hard to make rapid gains in the fight against climate change .
For decades , people have asked me why the oil companies don ’ t just become solar companies .
They don ’ t for the same reason that Facebook doesn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s core business is digging stuff up and burning it , just as Facebook ’ s is to keep people glued to their screens .
Digging and burning is all that oil companies know how to do—and why the industry has spent the past thirty years building a disinformation machine to stall action on climate change .
It ’ s why—with the evidence of climate destruction growing by the day—the best that any of them can offer are vague pronouncements about getting to “ net zero by 2050 ” —which is another @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re not going to change much of anything anytime soon.
” ( The American giants , like ExxonMobil , won ’ t even do that . )
Total , the French oil company , has made the 2050 pledge , but it is projected to increase fossil-fuel production by twelve percent between 2018 and 2030 .
These are precisely the years when we must cut emissions in half , according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , to have any chance of meeting the vital targets set by the Paris climate agreement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s temperature increase as close as possible to one and a half degrees Celsius .
The next six months will be crucial as nations prepare coronavirus recovery plans .
Because effective climate planning at this moment will require keeping most oil , coal , and gas reserves in the ground , the industry will resist fiercely .
So we need power brought to bear from companies whose core business is not directly challenged by climate activism .
Consider the example of Facebook again : after organizing by people like Judd Legum and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ agreed to temporarily stop advertising on the social platform .
Coke ’ s core business is selling you fizzy sugar water that can help make you diabetic—when that ’ s threatened , the company fights back .
But when it feared being attacked for helping Facebook ’ s core business , it simply stopped advertising with the company , which wasn ’ t essential for Coke ’ s business .
That ’ s why it is critical to get third parties to pressure the oil industry .
This past month , the growing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when the Vatican , whose core business is saving souls , called for divestment , and the Queen of England , whose core business is unclear but involves hats , divested millions from the industry .
Keith Ellison , the attorney general of Minnesota , announced that he was suing ExxonMobil , as well as the American Petroleum Institute and Koch Industries , for perpetrating a fraud by spreading climate denial for decades .
( Ellison ’ s core business is justice , and his office is pursuing this climate action at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ killers of George Floyd . )
All this , in turn , puts pressure on the financial industry to stop handing over cash to oil companies .
As I pointed out in a piece last summer , JPMorgan Chase may be the biggest fossil-fuel lender on earth , but that ’ s still only about seven per cent of its business—big , but not core .
Effective progress on climate will require government and the finance industry to enforce the edicts of chemistry and physics : massive action undertaken inside a decade , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And that will require the rest of us to press those institutions .
Because our core business is survival .
Anna Jane Joyner is a climate activist who concentrates on what she calls “ crafting stories and strategies that inspire new audiences to take action on climate change.
” She makes special effort to engage evangelical Christians , including her father , who is a prominent pastor .
She was featured in the Showtime series “ Years of Living Dangerously , ” and is the co-host of the podcast “ No Place Like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an activist from the Sierra Club .
You ’ re focussed on spirituality and the response to climate change this season on the podcast .
What are you learning ?
I ’ m learning to take the long view and just focus on the next right thing .
When the Rabbi Jennie Rosenn talked with us , for next week ’ s episode , about the seder—a celebration of the exodus of Israelites from slavery and oppression—she emphasized that part of that story is that , first , they wandered in the wilderness @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would happen , but with faith that God would protect them .
Reverend Lennox Yearwood , of the Hip Hop Caucus , reminded us that for many vulnerable people , activism isn ’ t a choice , it ’ s simply fighting for their lives , families , and homes .
For me , that means that even when we ’ re feeling despair , anxiety , and fear , we can ’ t give up—a lot of people don ’ t even have that option .
He told us , “ We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dr. Kritee Kanko , a Buddhist teacher , shared how meditation helped her climb out of a deep depression , and reminded us of our “ interbeing ” —how deeply interconnected we are , as we ’ re all witnessing now because of COVID-19 .
As activists , both Mary Anne and I have increasingly turned to spirituality as a way to find our own resilience and courage , and we ’ ve heard the same from a lot of fellow climate friends .
We wanted to dig deeper into that and share @ @ @ @ @ @ @ take a look at the landscape of spiritual stories and traditions to find even more tools and guides that offer light during hard , dark times .
You come from an evangelical background in your youth .
What ’ s made it seemingly uniquely hard for much of that world to grapple with this issue ?
I am a preacher ’ s daughter , and my dad is a climate-denying megachurch pastor .
To me , it seems most white evangelicals are lost in a false nostalgia and brainwashed by the cult of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re driven by an ideological identity and a mentality of my team vs. yours , not science , or even compassion , and stuck in the culture wars of the nineteen-eighties and nineties .
I like to remind people that there ’ s a lot more to Christianity than what white evangelicals have to say .
There ’ s still a lot of hope among young people who were raised in that space , and even those who still identify with it , who are far more likely to embrace science and social @ @ @ @ @ @ @ progressive Christians who care about the climate crisis and are inspired by Jesus ’ teachings and other tenets of Christianity to act .
But I fear that many , if not most , older white evangelicals may be lost—not that I won ’ t still keep trying .

Subscribers to The Climate Crisis newsletter received this piece in their in-boxes. Sign up to receive future installments.
Why is it so hard to get Facebook to do anything about the hate and deception that fill its pages, even when it’s clear that they are helping to destroy democracy? And why, of all things, did the company recently decide to exempt a climate-denial post from its fact-checking process? The answer is clear: Facebook’s core business is to get as many people as possible to spend as many hours as possible on its site, so that it can sell those people’s attention to advertisers. (A Facebook spokesperson said the company’s policy stipulates that “clear opinion content is not subject to fact-checking on Facebook.”) This notion of core business explains a lot—including why it’s so hard to make rapid gains in the fight against climate change.
For decades, people have asked me why the oil companies don’t just become solar companies. They don’t for the same reason that Facebook doesn’t behave decently: an oil company’s core business is digging stuff up and burning it, just as Facebook’s is to keep people glued to their screens. Digging and burning is all that oil companies know how to do—and why the industry has spent the past thirty years building a disinformation machine to stall action on climate change. It’s why—with the evidence of climate destruction growing by the day—the best that any of them can offer are vague pronouncements about getting to “net zero by 2050”—which is another way of saying, “We’re not going to change much of anything anytime soon.” (The American giants, like ExxonMobil, won’t even do that.)
Total, the French oil company, has made the 2050 pledge, but it is projected to increase fossil-fuel production by twelve percent between 2018 and 2030. These are precisely the years when we must cut emissions in half, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to have any chance of meeting the vital targets set by the Paris climate agreement, which aim to hold the planet’s temperature increase as close as possible to one and a half degrees Celsius. The next six months will be crucial as nations prepare coronavirus recovery plans. Because effective climate planning at this moment will require keeping most oil, coal, and gas reserves in the ground, the industry will resist fiercely.
So we need power brought to bear from companies whose core business is not directly challenged by climate activism. Consider the example of Facebook again: after organizing by people like Judd Legum and StopHateForProfit.org, companies including Unilever and Coca-Cola agreed to temporarily stop advertising on the social platform. Coke’s core business is selling you fizzy sugar water that can help make you diabetic—when that’s threatened, the company fights back. But when it feared being attacked for helping Facebook’s core business, it simply stopped advertising with the company, which wasn’t essential for Coke’s business.
That’s why it is critical to get third parties to pressure the oil industry. This past month, the growing fossil-fuel divestment campaign got a huge boost when the Vatican, whose core business is saving souls, called for divestment, and the Queen of England, whose core business is unclear but involves hats, divested millions from the industry. Keith Ellison, the attorney general of Minnesota, announced that he was suing ExxonMobil, as well as the American Petroleum Institute and Koch Industries, for perpetrating a fraud by spreading climate denial for decades. (Ellison’s core business is justice, and his office is pursuing this climate action at the same time that it is prosecuting the killers of George Floyd.) All this, in turn, puts pressure on the financial industry to stop handing over cash to oil companies. As I pointed out in a piece last summer, JPMorgan Chase may be the biggest fossil-fuel lender on earth, but that’s still only about seven per cent of its business—big, but not core.
Effective progress on climate will require government and the finance industry to enforce the edicts of chemistry and physics: massive action undertaken inside a decade, not gradual, gentle course correction. And that will require the rest of us to press those institutions. Because our core business is survival.
Passing the Mic
Anna Jane Joyner is a climate activist who concentrates on what she calls “crafting stories and strategies that inspire new audiences to take action on climate change.” She makes special effort to engage evangelical Christians, including her father, who is a prominent pastor. She was featured in the Showtime series “Years of Living Dangerously,” and is the co-host of the podcast “No Place Like Home” with Mary Anne Hitt, an activist from the Sierra Club.
You’re focussed on spirituality and the response to climate change this season on the podcast. What are you learning?
I’m learning to take the long view and just focus on the next right thing. When the Rabbi Jennie Rosenn talked with us, for next week’s episode, about the seder—a celebration of the exodus of Israelites from slavery and oppression—she emphasized that part of that story is that, first, they wandered in the wilderness for forty years, not knowing what would happen, but with faith that God would protect them. Reverend Lennox Yearwood, of the Hip Hop Caucus, reminded us that for many vulnerable people, activism isn’t a choice, it’s simply fighting for their lives, families, and homes. For me, that means that even when we’re feeling despair, anxiety, and fear, we can’t give up—a lot of people don’t even have that option. He told us, “We can be overwhelmed but not overcome.” Dr. Kritee Kanko, a Buddhist teacher, shared how meditation helped her climb out of a deep depression, and reminded us of our “interbeing”—how deeply interconnected we are, as we’re all witnessing now because of COVID-19.
As activists, both Mary Anne and I have increasingly turned to spirituality as a way to find our own resilience and courage, and we’ve heard the same from a lot of fellow climate friends. We wanted to dig deeper into that and share it with our listeners, and also take a look at the landscape of spiritual stories and traditions to find even more tools and guides that offer light during hard, dark times.
You come from an evangelical background in your youth. What’s made it seemingly uniquely hard for much of that world to grapple with this issue?
I am a preacher’s daughter, and my dad is a climate-denying megachurch pastor. To me, it seems most white evangelicals are lost in a false nostalgia and brainwashed by the cult of Trump and Fox News. They’re driven by an ideological identity and a mentality of my team vs. yours, not science, or even compassion, and stuck in the culture wars of the nineteen-eighties and nineties. I like to remind people that there’s a lot more to Christianity than what white evangelicals have to say. There’s still a lot of hope among young people who were raised in that space, and even those who still identify with it, who are far more likely to embrace science and social justice. And there are millions of progressive Christians who care about the climate crisis and are inspired by Jesus’ teachings and other tenets of Christianity to act. But I fear that many, if not most, older white evangelicals may be lost—not that I won’t still keep trying.
How do you find solace when you have to deal with this crisis all the time, and what do you do when you just get overwhelmed?
Buddhist teachings on non-attachment have been really helpful: the reminder that my job is not to know how to fix everything, it’s just to show up and do the next right thing. The Christian story of resurrection and life overcoming death is inspiring me right now. Often, when I’m really overwhelmed, I just stop what I’m doing and walk outside and listen and watch, to feel the universe itself giving me solace. When I was nineteen, I was on a sailing trip and we got caught in a terrible storm. It’s the closest to death I’ve come. And I was in a state of panic—finding it hard to breathe, etc.—and out of nowhere, for the first time in years, I prayed: “God if you can’t calm the storm outside, please calm the storm within me.” I’ve prayed that prayer a lot the past few years. When I really can’t get out of a funk, I pick up someone else’s story: a podcast, novel, memoir, show, or movie. I almost always find comfort, creativity, and courage in focussing on something beyond my own story for a minute. Then, I get back to work. There’s a lot of solace in action, too.
Climate School
This newsletter has covered the problem of abandoned oil wells before, but new numbers in a report from Reuters are truly striking. “More than 3.2 million abandoned oil and gas wells together emitted 281 kilotons of methane in 2018, according to the data, which was included in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s most recent report on April 14 to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. That’s the climate-damage equivalent of consuming about 16 million barrels of crude oil, according to an EPA calculation, or about as much as the United States, the world’s biggest oil consumer, uses in a typical day.”


newyorker--2020-07-01--As Trump’s Hostility to Masks Fuels a Public-Health Nihilism, Fauci Issues a New Plea

On Tuesday , Anthony Fauci sat in a Senate hearing room that had been reconfigured for social distancing and listened , mask at hand , as Patty Murray , of Washington , described the consequences of America ’ s failure to manage its pandemic .
The tally of cases was soaring in a majority of states , particularly in the South and West ; Murray , speaking by video , quoted a C.D.C .
official who had warned that there was “ too much virus to control in the U.S. ” Murray stated the obvious : “ Our strategy hasn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asked , did the federal and state governments need to do to turn the numbers around ?
“ I am also quite concerned , ” Fauci replied .
He reeled off some of the statistics that Murray had alluded to— “ surges ” in Arizona , California , Florida , and Texas alone , he said , accounted for half of the new confirmed cases , which now amount to more than forty thousand a day .
Later in his testimony , in answer to a question from Elizabeth Warren , of Massachusetts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be surprised if the number of new cases reached a hundred thousand a day .
( He declined to make a guess as to how many deaths that would amount to . )
Perhaps , Fauci added , some states had reopened “ too quickly ” ; even in ones where the governors and mayors had acted properly , he had seen “ in clips and in photographs .
.
.
individuals in the community doing an ‘ all or none ’ phenomenon ” —by which he meant “ either be locked down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you see people at bars , not wearing masks , not avoiding crowds , not paying attention to physical distancing.
” To halt the pandemic , Fauci said , “ I think we need to emphasize the responsibility that we have both as individuals and as part of a societal effort.
” Fauci is , of course , right about personal responsibility ; everyone has a role to play in stopping the coronavirus .
But he was less clear about how that rallying cry fits into any federal or even state-government public-health strategy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that we have , at the moment , an all-or-none President , whose exercise of personal or political responsibility in dealing with this crisis is around the level of zero .
At times , it sounded as though Fauci had pretty much given up on Donald Trump , and had no option left but to appeal directly to the American people .
He could only hope that they would pay attention to his warnings rather than to Trump ’ s tweets mocking people who wear masks , or the clips and photographs of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ few of them wearing masks , at the President ’ s indoor events .
( At a rally in Tulsa , campaign workers reportedly removed labels encouraging social distancing from seats . )
That disconnect was not lost on Murray , who followed up by saying , “ I assume that would mean that elected and community leaders need to model good public-health behavior and wear a mask.
” Fauci , rather than simply saying yes , repeated the C.D.C.
’ s mask recommendations—wear one in public areas and crowded spaces .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Administration ’ s response has been that Fauci might regard a straightforward statement about what leaders should do as a matter to be handled delicately .
Even some Republicans are recognizing the destructive madness wrought by Trump ’ s hostility to masks .
The Senate Majority Leader , Mitch McConnell , of Kentucky , has come around , and tweeted a call for masks .
Lamar Alexander , of Tennessee , opened Tuesday ’ s hearing with an impassioned plea for mask wearing , which he credited with keeping him and others @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of his staff tested positive .
Alexander also cited Phillip Fullmer , the University of Tennessee ’ s athletic director , who said in a radio interview earlier this week that “ if you really , really want sports , football and all those things , then wear your mask and keep social distancing.
” Alexander thought that this appeal would have some influence in his state .
But the senator also said that many people in the country seem captive to the idea that “ if you ’ re for Trump , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; if you ’ re against Trump , you do.
” Alexander said , somewhat wistfully , that he wished Trump would disown that notion .
“ The President has plenty of admirers , ” he said .
“ They would follow his lead.
” He has been leading them to a dangerous place .
On Wednesday , as the pressure on him to reverse course on masks increased , Trump claimed to have nothing against them ; even that concession was presented in terms of his own narcissism .
“ I had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ I sort of liked the way I looked.
” Many Americans , in assessing their own behavior , are asking how the government is using the time that sheltering at home has bought ; without a better answer from someone , there is a risk that a sort of public-health nihilism will take hold .
Such a development would bring the pandemic to a new level of catastrophe , and that prospect makes Fauci ’ s plea at the hearing , lonesome as it is , all the more urgent and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ got to get that message out , that we are all in this together , and , if we are going to contain this , we ’ ve got to contain it together , ” Fauci said .
Trump or no Trump , people should do what they can .
The pandemic remains a national problem .
As Fauci noted , surges in any region put “ the entire country at risk , ” and not all of the problems brought up at the hearing could even notionally be solved by Americans simply @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a number of senators pressed Fauci and other witnesses—Robert Redfield , the head of the C.D.C .
; Stephen Hahn , of the Food and Drug Administration ; and Admiral Brett Giroir , the Health and Human Services official tasked with coördinating testing—on whether a real strategy exists for distributing a vaccine , if one becomes available .
The answer , in short , was no .
As Lisa Murkowski , of Alaska , pointed out , the obstacles include building trust in communities that may be resistant to any vaccine .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ should be available to everyone in the country , regardless of income , the witnesses answered , “ Yes.
” But that , too , remains nothing more than an aspiration .
There were also unanswered questions about who would bear the cost if low-income workers need to be tested repeatedly as a condition of returning to their jobs .
At one point , Rand Paul , of Kentucky , launched into a diatribe about how people who listened to “ experts ” are acting like “ sheep.
” And yet , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the reopening of schools in countries like Germany and Denmark had not been followed by major new waves of cases , and quoted the findings of contact-tracing studies there , the irony was almost unbearable .
These are countries that actually have functioning contact-tracing programs , organized by the experts that Paul , and his President , seem to despise .
( They also have cultures of mask wearing . )
Schools in those countries opened , often in limited ways , after a concerted and sophisticated national effort that is absent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , on Tuesday , that it would reopen its borders for nonessential travel to residents of countries where the virus was under control , the United States was not on the list .
( Canada , Japan , New Zealand , and Rwanda made it . )
Later in the hearing , Maggie Hassan , of New Hampshire , pointed to charts that compared the falling case levels in Europe and elsewhere to make a very different point than Paul .
“ The disparity is eye-popping , ” she said .
It is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and of its loss .
• The coronavirus vaccine is on track to be the fastest ever developed .
• What the coronavirus has revealed about American medicine .
• Recommendations for maintaining social distancing as the U.S. reopens , from socializing and using public bathrooms to wearing masks .
• Why remote work is so hard—and how it can be fixed .
• Seattle leaders let scientists take the lead in responding to the coronavirus .
New York leaders did not .
• The long crusade of Dr. Anthony Fauci , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the American people .
• What to read , watch , cook , and listen to under quarantine .

On Tuesday, Anthony Fauci sat in a Senate hearing room that had been reconfigured for social distancing and listened, mask at hand, as Patty Murray, of Washington, described the consequences of America’s failure to manage its pandemic. The tally of cases was soaring in a majority of states, particularly in the South and West; Murray, speaking by video, quoted a C.D.C. official who had warned that there was “too much virus to control in the U.S.” Murray stated the obvious: “Our strategy hasn’t worked.” What, she asked, did the federal and state governments need to do to turn the numbers around?
“I am also quite concerned,” Fauci replied. He reeled off some of the statistics that Murray had alluded to—“surges” in Arizona, California, Florida, and Texas alone, he said, accounted for half of the new confirmed cases, which now amount to more than forty thousand a day. Later in his testimony, in answer to a question from Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, Fauci said that he would not be surprised if the number of new cases reached a hundred thousand a day. (He declined to make a guess as to how many deaths that would amount to.) Perhaps, Fauci added, some states had reopened “too quickly”; even in ones where the governors and mayors had acted properly, he had seen “in clips and in photographs . . . individuals in the community doing an ‘all or none’ phenomenon”—by which he meant “either be locked down or open up in a way where you see people at bars, not wearing masks, not avoiding crowds, not paying attention to physical distancing.” To halt the pandemic, Fauci said, “I think we need to emphasize the responsibility that we have both as individuals and as part of a societal effort.”
Fauci is, of course, right about personal responsibility; everyone has a role to play in stopping the coronavirus. But he was less clear about how that rallying cry fits into any federal or even state-government public-health strategy. The great cause of confusion is that we have, at the moment, an all-or-none President, whose exercise of personal or political responsibility in dealing with this crisis is around the level of zero. At times, it sounded as though Fauci had pretty much given up on Donald Trump, and had no option left but to appeal directly to the American people. He could only hope that they would pay attention to his warnings rather than to Trump’s tweets mocking people who wear masks, or the clips and photographs of the people in the crowd, very few of them wearing masks, at the President’s indoor events. (At a rally in Tulsa, campaign workers reportedly removed labels encouraging social distancing from seats.)
That disconnect was not lost on Murray, who followed up by saying, “I assume that would mean that elected and community leaders need to model good public-health behavior and wear a mask.” Fauci, rather than simply saying yes, repeated the C.D.C.’s mask recommendations—wear one in public areas and crowded spaces. It is a depressing commentary on how distorted the Administration’s response has been that Fauci might regard a straightforward statement about what leaders should do as a matter to be handled delicately.
Even some Republicans are recognizing the destructive madness wrought by Trump’s hostility to masks. The Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, has come around, and tweeted a call for masks. Lamar Alexander, of Tennessee, opened Tuesday’s hearing with an impassioned plea for mask wearing, which he credited with keeping him and others in his office healthy when one member of his staff tested positive. Alexander also cited Phillip Fullmer, the University of Tennessee’s athletic director, who said in a radio interview earlier this week that “if you really, really want sports, football and all those things, then wear your mask and keep social distancing.” Alexander thought that this appeal would have some influence in his state. But the senator also said that many people in the country seem captive to the idea that “if you’re for Trump, you don’t wear a mask; if you’re against Trump, you do.” Alexander said, somewhat wistfully, that he wished Trump would disown that notion. “The President has plenty of admirers,” he said. “They would follow his lead.” He has been leading them to a dangerous place. On Wednesday, as the pressure on him to reverse course on masks increased, Trump claimed to have nothing against them; even that concession was presented in terms of his own narcissism. “I had a mask on,” he said. “I sort of liked the way I looked.”
Many Americans, in assessing their own behavior, are asking how the government is using the time that sheltering at home has bought; without a better answer from someone, there is a risk that a sort of public-health nihilism will take hold. Such a development would bring the pandemic to a new level of catastrophe, and that prospect makes Fauci’s plea at the hearing, lonesome as it is, all the more urgent and worth heeding. “We’ve got to get that message out, that we are all in this together, and, if we are going to contain this, we’ve got to contain it together,” Fauci said. Trump or no Trump, people should do what they can.
The pandemic remains a national problem. As Fauci noted, surges in any region put “the entire country at risk,” and not all of the problems brought up at the hearing could even notionally be solved by Americans simply rearranging their personal lives. For example, a number of senators pressed Fauci and other witnesses—Robert Redfield, the head of the C.D.C.; Stephen Hahn, of the Food and Drug Administration; and Admiral Brett Giroir, the Health and Human Services official tasked with coördinating testing—on whether a real strategy exists for distributing a vaccine, if one becomes available. The answer, in short, was no. As Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, pointed out, the obstacles include building trust in communities that may be resistant to any vaccine. When Bernie Sanders asked whether a vaccine should be available to everyone in the country, regardless of income, the witnesses answered, “Yes.” But that, too, remains nothing more than an aspiration. There were also unanswered questions about who would bear the cost if low-income workers need to be tested repeatedly as a condition of returning to their jobs.
At one point, Rand Paul, of Kentucky, launched into a diatribe about how people who listened to “experts” are acting like “sheep.” And yet, as Paul offered charts that he said showed that the reopening of schools in countries like Germany and Denmark had not been followed by major new waves of cases, and quoted the findings of contact-tracing studies there, the irony was almost unbearable. These are countries that actually have functioning contact-tracing programs, organized by the experts that Paul, and his President, seem to despise. (They also have cultures of mask wearing.) Schools in those countries opened, often in limited ways, after a concerted and sophisticated national effort that is absent here. When the European Union announced, on Tuesday, that it would reopen its borders for nonessential travel to residents of countries where the virus was under control, the United States was not on the list. (Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and Rwanda made it.) Later in the hearing, Maggie Hassan, of New Hampshire, pointed to charts that compared the falling case levels in Europe and elsewhere to make a very different point than Paul. “The disparity is eye-popping,” she said. It is a measure of America’s tragedy and of its loss.
A Guide to the Coronavirus


newyorker--2020-07-01--The Confederate Flag Finally Falls in Mississippi

Even after digging deep into my memory bank , I can ’ t remember the team that played at my first home football game , in 1974 , when I was a student at the University of Mississippi .
What reverberates from that day into my consciousness is both a sound and a vision : the abrupt thud of a bundle of flags , bearing the bright and unmistakable pattern of the Confederate stars and bars , landing at my feet .
Acting on impulse , I pushed this unwanted object down a row in the stadium with my foot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like a threat , whether on the back of a pickup truck on a lonely country road or in the hands of angry white men and women on the sidelines of a civil-rights march .
Given their abrupt arrival near my body , and years of conditioning as a black Mississippian , I could not resist the urge to shove them away as if they were an intruder or a bully .
Later that sunny fall afternoon , after a more amenable recipient got hold of the bundle of flags , they were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and I were sitting .
Both of us were dressed according to game-day tradition , me in a blazer and she in a dress and heels .
When the flags reached us again , we leaned back , our hands gripping the wooden bleachers , to keep from touching what we viewed as objects of intimidation .
We didn ’ t want to spread them .
Soon , though , we were lost in a sea of the Confederate cantons that mirrored the image of the Mississippi state flag .
In spite of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ code , we felt as if we did not belong in the stadium .
But we refused to leave—we wanted to prove that we had a right to be there .
The Confederate flag has historically been used as a means of demonstrating power and dominance over nearly half the citizens of Mississippi .
For all practical purposes , the Confederate battle flag and the state flag were the same : everyone from night-riding Klansmen to various governors used either or both of the flags to send the message that the Magnolia State @ @ @ @ @ @ @ always be dominant , one in which black men and women had no power , no role except subservience .
Driving the point home was the prominence of the flag at the state capitol , the governor ’ s mansion , and the county courthouse , often with the banner casting a shadow on a nearby Confederate memorial .
Even after the civil-rights movement changed both Mississippi and America , the state held on to its flag , asserting that the emblem had everything to do with heritage and nothing to do with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ McDaniel said that to change the flag would be to challenge the founding values of the country , and warned that the American Stars and Stripes would be next . )
Finally , though , the Legislature approved a procedural measure on June 27th to consider a flag change , allowing for a successful vote , the next day , to replace it , placing a means of intimidation in the dustbin of history .
As Myrlie Evers , the widow of the slain civil-rights activist Medgar Evers , said , in 1963 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but you can ’ t kill an idea.
” Retiring the flag has been an idea that Mississippi has tried to kill for decades .
What made the difference this time is that the voices involved were so loud and numerous that they could finally not be ignored .
First , a multiracial gathering of thousands of Black Lives Matter protesters converged on the state capitol , in early June , to protest police violence against African-Americans .
They chanted “ Change the flag , ” as well as the names of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was the largest protest in Jackson since Freedom Summer , in 1964 .
The rallying cry grew louder once prominent business and religious organizations joined the opposition , along with Walmart and the powerful Southern Baptist Convention .
Collegiate athletics was pivotal : the N.C.A.A .
prohibited championship events from being held in states where the Confederate flag is flown .
Football is a religion in Mississippi , so when coaches from all eight public universities began lobbying legislators , what once seemed impossible all at once seemed inevitable .
When Mississippi ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1894 , the Reconstruction era was over .
The flag represented a reassertion of power by conservative Democrats , which also meant unifying the state ’ s whites , who were divided politically , economically , and socially .
The so-called Mississippi Plan disenfranchised most African-Americans , and Jim Crow laws followed .
To shift attention from the flag ’ s connection to Jim Crow , defenders always argued that the flag was meant solely to honor the memory of Confederate veterans .
It was an odd defense , as secession had been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against the federal government .
Mississippi ’ s articles of secession include these words : “ Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world.
” The flag ’ s connection to slavery and racial oppression could never be denied .
After the integration of Mississippi ’ s public-school system and intercollegiate athletics , students and activists began to question the prominence of the battle flag more vigorously .
Black students at the University of Mississippi conducted public burnings of the Confederate flag throughout the nineteen-seventies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the first black cheerleader at Ole Miss , announced that he would not wave the Confederate flag or throw it up in the stands for students to wave at him .
As Hawkins then told the Times , “ While I ’ m an Ole Miss cheerleader , I ’ m still a black man .
In my household , I wasn ’ t told to hate the flag , but I did have history classes and know what my ancestors went through and what the Rebel flag represents .
It is my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one.
” As civil-rights activists like Aaron Henry became state legislators , they began to introduce bills to change the flag , in the nineteen-eighties and well into the nineties .
The Mississippi N.A.A.C.P .
even filed a lawsuit to this effect in 1993 , arguing that the display of the flag violated African-Americans ’ “ constitutional rights to free speech and expression , due process and equal protection as guaranteed by the Mississippi Constitution.
” Whether by lawsuits or through legislation , these efforts to change the flag were blocked and derided @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in 2001 , Mississippi decided to conduct a statewide referendum on the issue .
As I travelled around Mississippi while conducting research for a book , as the referendum drew near , I sometimes listened to the town-hall debates on public radio about the flag .
The argument I often heard in those meetings won the day : the efforts to change the flag were coming from outsiders .
In the end , more than sixty per cent of Mississippi voters opted to keep the flag .
The outside-agitator narrative lost its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ universities and towns from Tupelo to Biloxi opted to stop flying the state flag .
When the University of Mississippi took it down , a large billboard was erected at the county line that read “ Ole Miss : You TAKE Our Money , You FLY Our Flag.
” Groups such as Our State Flag Foundation assumed that their expensive marketing campaign of bumper stickers and billboards would carry the day , rather than a grassroots movement of people in their own communities .
The story of the Mississippi state flag provides a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the American South—are sustained .
It also presents an opportunity for the state to build and promulgate a new cultural narrative , one rooted in truth rather than deception about the past .
Mississippi is a place that comes alive in its stories .
This is one of Mississippi ’ s great stories ; within it exists a tension between the history of the place and the region ’ s idea of itself .
The Lost Cause was always wrapped up in Mississippi ’ s historical deception about its flag , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was about more than the rejection of a false ideology .
This summer , Americans—particularly white Americans—started to listen to black folks and realize that to deny racism as part of this country ’ s past and present only fuels more division .
This movement echoed in Mississippi .
For once , the forces at work for racial justice across this country made their way to Mississippi , and this time with all deliberate speed .

Even after digging deep into my memory bank, I can’t remember the team that played at my first home football game, in 1974, when I was a student at the University of Mississippi. What reverberates from that day into my consciousness is both a sound and a vision: the abrupt thud of a bundle of flags, bearing the bright and unmistakable pattern of the Confederate stars and bars, landing at my feet. Acting on impulse, I pushed this unwanted object down a row in the stadium with my foot. Confederate flags always looked and felt like a threat, whether on the back of a pickup truck on a lonely country road or in the hands of angry white men and women on the sidelines of a civil-rights march. Given their abrupt arrival near my body, and years of conditioning as a black Mississippian, I could not resist the urge to shove them away as if they were an intruder or a bully.
Later that sunny fall afternoon, after a more amenable recipient got hold of the bundle of flags, they were passed down the row where my date and I were sitting. Both of us were dressed according to game-day tradition, me in a blazer and she in a dress and heels. When the flags reached us again, we leaned back, our hands gripping the wooden bleachers, to keep from touching what we viewed as objects of intimidation. We didn’t want to spread them. Soon, though, we were lost in a sea of the Confederate cantons that mirrored the image of the Mississippi state flag. In spite of how perfectly we conformed to the dress code, we felt as if we did not belong in the stadium. But we refused to leave—we wanted to prove that we had a right to be there.
The Confederate flag has historically been used as a means of demonstrating power and dominance over nearly half the citizens of Mississippi. For all practical purposes, the Confederate battle flag and the state flag were the same: everyone from night-riding Klansmen to various governors used either or both of the flags to send the message that the Magnolia State was a place where white men would always be dominant, one in which black men and women had no power, no role except subservience. Driving the point home was the prominence of the flag at the state capitol, the governor’s mansion, and the county courthouse, often with the banner casting a shadow on a nearby Confederate memorial. Even after the civil-rights movement changed both Mississippi and America, the state held on to its flag, asserting that the emblem had everything to do with heritage and nothing to do with hate. (The state senator Chris McDaniel said that to change the flag would be to challenge the founding values of the country, and warned that the American Stars and Stripes would be next.) Finally, though, the Legislature approved a procedural measure on June 27th to consider a flag change, allowing for a successful vote, the next day, to replace it, placing a means of intimidation in the dustbin of history.
As Myrlie Evers, the widow of the slain civil-rights activist Medgar Evers, said, in 1963, “You can kill a man, but you can’t kill an idea.” Retiring the flag has been an idea that Mississippi has tried to kill for decades. What made the difference this time is that the voices involved were so loud and numerous that they could finally not be ignored. First, a multiracial gathering of thousands of Black Lives Matter protesters converged on the state capitol, in early June, to protest police violence against African-Americans. They chanted “Change the flag,” as well as the names of those killed by police violence. This was the largest protest in Jackson since Freedom Summer, in 1964. The rallying cry grew louder once prominent business and religious organizations joined the opposition, along with Walmart and the powerful Southern Baptist Convention. Collegiate athletics was pivotal: the N.C.A.A. prohibited championship events from being held in states where the Confederate flag is flown. Football is a religion in Mississippi, so when coaches from all eight public universities began lobbying legislators, what once seemed impossible all at once seemed inevitable.
When Mississippi’s now-discarded flag was adopted, in 1894, the Reconstruction era was over. The flag represented a reassertion of power by conservative Democrats, which also meant unifying the state’s whites, who were divided politically, economically, and socially. The so-called Mississippi Plan disenfranchised most African-Americans, and Jim Crow laws followed. To shift attention from the flag’s connection to Jim Crow, defenders always argued that the flag was meant solely to honor the memory of Confederate veterans. It was an odd defense, as secession had been intended to preserve the institution of slavery against the federal government. Mississippi’s articles of secession include these words: “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world.” The flag’s connection to slavery and racial oppression could never be denied.
After the integration of Mississippi’s public-school system and intercollegiate athletics, students and activists began to question the prominence of the battle flag more vigorously. Black students at the University of Mississippi conducted public burnings of the Confederate flag throughout the nineteen-seventies. In 1982, John Hawkins, the first black cheerleader at Ole Miss, announced that he would not wave the Confederate flag or throw it up in the stands for students to wave at him. As Hawkins then told the Times, “While I’m an Ole Miss cheerleader, I’m still a black man. In my household, I wasn’t told to hate the flag, but I did have history classes and know what my ancestors went through and what the Rebel flag represents. It is my choice that I prefer not to wave one.”
As civil-rights activists like Aaron Henry became state legislators, they began to introduce bills to change the flag, in the nineteen-eighties and well into the nineties. The Mississippi N.A.A.C.P. even filed a lawsuit to this effect in 1993, arguing that the display of the flag violated African-Americans’ “constitutional rights to free speech and expression, due process and equal protection as guaranteed by the Mississippi Constitution.” Whether by lawsuits or through legislation, these efforts to change the flag were blocked and derided. Yet after Georgia changed its flag, in 2001, Mississippi decided to conduct a statewide referendum on the issue. As I travelled around Mississippi while conducting research for a book, as the referendum drew near, I sometimes listened to the town-hall debates on public radio about the flag. The argument I often heard in those meetings won the day: the efforts to change the flag were coming from outsiders. In the end, more than sixty per cent of Mississippi voters opted to keep the flag. The outside-agitator narrative lost its sheen five years ago, when state universities and towns from Tupelo to Biloxi opted to stop flying the state flag. When the University of Mississippi took it down, a large billboard was erected at the county line that read “Ole Miss: You TAKE Our Money, You FLY Our Flag.” Groups such as Our State Flag Foundation assumed that their expensive marketing campaign of bumper stickers and billboards would carry the day, rather than a grassroots movement of people in their own communities.
The story of the Mississippi state flag provides a window into how false narratives about history—particularly in the American South—are sustained. It also presents an opportunity for the state to build and promulgate a new cultural narrative, one rooted in truth rather than deception about the past. Mississippi is a place that comes alive in its stories. This is one of Mississippi’s great stories; within it exists a tension between the history of the place and the region’s idea of itself. The Lost Cause was always wrapped up in Mississippi’s historical deception about its flag, but the decision to take down the flag was about more than the rejection of a false ideology. This summer, Americans—particularly white Americans—started to listen to black folks and realize that to deny racism as part of this country’s past and present only fuels more division. This movement echoed in Mississippi. For once, the forces at work for racial justice across this country made their way to Mississippi, and this time with all deliberate speed.


newyorker--2020-07-01--The Removal of a Theodore Roosevelt Statue Is a Good First Step in Rethinking America’s Monuments

On June 21st , the American Museum of Natural History made the clear-eyed decision to remove a racist equestrian statue of Theodore Roosevelt from its front steps .
In the monument , Roosevelt towers over an indigenous man and a black man , whose roles in the bronze—beyond literalizing the myth of white supremacy through their subordinate placement—are to carry Roosevelt ’ s guns .
The sculptor James Earle Fraser , who completed the statue in 1939 , saw the duo as “ guides , ” representing the North American and African continents and Roosevelt ’ s “ friendliness to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ emerges for me : proxies for the victims of state-sanctioned violence throughout our country ’ s history , from the massacre at Wounded Knee to the police killing of Breonna Taylor in her own home , bear that brutality ’ s symbolic weight .
The land that the statue has occupied since it was unveiled in 1940—former Lenape territory—belongs to New York City , and Mayor Bill de Blasio issued a statement on the same day that the museum did , confirming that it was time for the statue to go .
( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will be relocated are still being worked out . )
But people have been calling for the withdrawal of the Roosevelt monument for years .
Protests grew especially heated in 2017—the year that neo-Nazis descended on Charlottesville , Virginia , to protect a statue of Robert E. Lee—when the base of the bronze was spattered with blood-red paint by a group of activists calling themselves the Monument Removal Brigade .
The next year , New York convened a commission to consider removing the statue ( along with several others around the city ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a consensus .
( A monument to J. Marion Sims , known as the father of modern gynecology , who performed his experiments on enslaved black women without anesthesia , was removed from Central Park . )
The museum has emphasized that it is not disavowing Roosevelt ’ s legacy , however thorny it may be .
( Yes , he was a pioneer of land conservation , but he was also a champion of eugenics . )
Nor could it—the institution and the family name are inextricably intertwined .
The twenty-sixth President @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the museum , and his great-grandson—who issued a strong statement in support of the decision to remove the monument from the site—sits on its board .
In a compensatory gesture for moving the statue , the Hall of Biodiversity will be named in Roosevelt ’ s honor .
A cynic might see the call for relocation as somewhat preëmptive , an effort to stay a step ahead of protesters who in recent weeks have been targeting public monuments as emblems of the country ’ s deep-seated history of racism .
In the early @ @ @ @ @ @ @ iconic arch in Washington Square Park , two marble likenesses of George Washington—a Founding Father and a slave owner—were splashed red .
( As of this writing , no one has claimed responsibility , and evidence of the action has already been cleaned . )
Whatever drove the decision to relocate the Roosevelt monument , the museum has done the right thing , on the moral grounds that its statement lays out : “ Our museum community has been profoundly moved by the ever-widening movement for racial justice that has emerged after the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have watched as the attention of the world and the country has increasingly turned to statues and monuments as powerful and hurtful symbols of systemic racism.
” At a moment when the world ’ s museums are being called out for ingrained and unexamined inequalities , the American Museum of Natural History is one of the few to take decisive action .
Art institutions , by contrast , have largely engaged in hollow gestures .
Over the past weekend , thirteen museums around the world , from the Smithsonian , in Washington , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Amsterdam , simultaneously streamed the same work of art : Arthur Jafa ’ s short film collage “ Love Is the Message , the Message Is Death , ” from 2016 .
Jafa ’ s piece is a searing testament to the unassailable truth that black lives matter , but what kind of collective message of support might those museums have sent if they had instead streamed moving-image works by thirteen separate African-American artists , including , say , Howardena Pindell ’ s classic video “ Free , White and 21 , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Pindell , who turned twenty-one in 1964 , the year that the Civil Rights Act was passed , delivers a deadpan account of racist interactions throughout her life—a monument to black womanhood in its own right .
Or Steffani Jemison ’ s video “ Escaped Lunatic , ” in which a Houston parkour crew performs a riff on cinematic chase scenes that is both antic and intentionally painful to watch ; it was filmed in 2010 and 2011 but , viewed now , feels like a prayer for Ahmaud Arbery .
Inevitably , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ city made their announcements about the Roosevelt statue , the current American President tweeted his disapproval .
Suddenly , the same man who has repeatedly proposed eliminating both the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute of Museum and Library Services , which he has dismissed as “ wasteful and unnecessary , ” is rushing to sculpture ’ s defense .
On Friday , he issued an executive order protecting American monuments .
But the reason that people are taking to the streets in this remarkable summer of radical change is the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lives of its people .
Monuments are public property , true , but the current Administration too often wants to glorify a shameful period in American history when black lives were valued only as property .
New York City has already undertaken the work of better reflecting its citizens through its public art .
Next year , a forty-foot-tall memorial to Shirley Chisholm , designed by Amanda Williams and Olalekan Jeyifous , will rise in Prospect Park , uniting the silhouettes of the first black U.S. congresswoman and that of the U.S. Capitol @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rallying cry : “ Our Destiny , Our Democracy .
”

On June 21st, the American Museum of Natural History made the clear-eyed decision to remove a racist equestrian statue of Theodore Roosevelt from its front steps. In the monument, Roosevelt towers over an indigenous man and a black man, whose roles in the bronze—beyond literalizing the myth of white supremacy through their subordinate placement—are to carry Roosevelt’s guns. The sculptor James Earle Fraser, who completed the statue in 1939, saw the duo as “guides,” representing the North American and African continents and Roosevelt’s “friendliness to all races.” But an alternate allegory emerges for me: proxies for the victims of state-sanctioned violence throughout our country’s history, from the massacre at Wounded Knee to the police killing of Breonna Taylor in her own home, bear that brutality’s symbolic weight.
The land that the statue has occupied since it was unveiled in 1940—former Lenape territory—belongs to New York City, and Mayor Bill de Blasio issued a statement on the same day that the museum did, confirming that it was time for the statue to go. (Details about when and where the monument will be relocated are still being worked out.) But people have been calling for the withdrawal of the Roosevelt monument for years. Protests grew especially heated in 2017—the year that neo-Nazis descended on Charlottesville, Virginia, to protect a statue of Robert E. Lee—when the base of the bronze was spattered with blood-red paint by a group of activists calling themselves the Monument Removal Brigade. The next year, New York convened a commission to consider removing the statue (along with several others around the city), but it was unable to reach a consensus. (A monument to J. Marion Sims, known as the father of modern gynecology, who performed his experiments on enslaved black women without anesthesia, was removed from Central Park.)
The museum has emphasized that it is not disavowing Roosevelt’s legacy, however thorny it may be. (Yes, he was a pioneer of land conservation, but he was also a champion of eugenics.) Nor could it—the institution and the family name are inextricably intertwined. The twenty-sixth President’s father was a founder of the museum, and his great-grandson—who issued a strong statement in support of the decision to remove the monument from the site—sits on its board. In a compensatory gesture for moving the statue, the Hall of Biodiversity will be named in Roosevelt’s honor. A cynic might see the call for relocation as somewhat preëmptive, an effort to stay a step ahead of protesters who in recent weeks have been targeting public monuments as emblems of the country’s deep-seated history of racism. In the early hours of Monday morning, on the iconic arch in Washington Square Park, two marble likenesses of George Washington—a Founding Father and a slave owner—were splashed red. (As of this writing, no one has claimed responsibility, and evidence of the action has already been cleaned.)
Whatever drove the decision to relocate the Roosevelt monument, the museum has done the right thing, on the moral grounds that its statement lays out: “Our museum community has been profoundly moved by the ever-widening movement for racial justice that has emerged after the killing of George Floyd. We also have watched as the attention of the world and the country has increasingly turned to statues and monuments as powerful and hurtful symbols of systemic racism.”
At a moment when the world’s museums are being called out for ingrained and unexamined inequalities, the American Museum of Natural History is one of the few to take decisive action. Art institutions, by contrast, have largely engaged in hollow gestures. Over the past weekend, thirteen museums around the world, from the Smithsonian, in Washington, D.C., to the Stedelijk, in Amsterdam, simultaneously streamed the same work of art: Arthur Jafa’s short film collage “Love Is the Message, the Message Is Death,” from 2016. Jafa’s piece is a searing testament to the unassailable truth that black lives matter, but what kind of collective message of support might those museums have sent if they had instead streamed moving-image works by thirteen separate African-American artists, including, say, Howardena Pindell’s classic video “Free, White and 21,” from 1980. For twelve minutes, Pindell, who turned twenty-one in 1964, the year that the Civil Rights Act was passed, delivers a deadpan account of racist interactions throughout her life—a monument to black womanhood in its own right. Or Steffani Jemison’s video “Escaped Lunatic,” in which a Houston parkour crew performs a riff on cinematic chase scenes that is both antic and intentionally painful to watch; it was filmed in 2010 and 2011 but, viewed now, feels like a prayer for Ahmaud Arbery.
Inevitably, the day after the museum and the city made their announcements about the Roosevelt statue, the current American President tweeted his disapproval. Suddenly, the same man who has repeatedly proposed eliminating both the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which he has dismissed as “wasteful and unnecessary,” is rushing to sculpture’s defense. On Friday, he issued an executive order protecting American monuments. But the reason that people are taking to the streets in this remarkable summer of radical change is the government’s failure to protect the lives of its people. Monuments are public property, true, but the current Administration too often wants to glorify a shameful period in American history when black lives were valued only as property.
New York City has already undertaken the work of better reflecting its citizens through its public art. Next year, a forty-foot-tall memorial to Shirley Chisholm, designed by Amanda Williams and Olalekan Jeyifous, will rise in Prospect Park, uniting the silhouettes of the first black U.S. congresswoman and that of the U.S. Capitol Building. Its title sounds like a rallying cry: “Our Destiny, Our Democracy.”


newyorker--2020-07-02--Populists Inflame the Coronavirus Outbreak Across Latin America

In mid-May , Brazil secured a grisly world record : it had the fastest-growing coronavirus infection rate of any country on earth .
Within a month , it surpassed a million confirmed cases .
This milestone made it second only to the United States in everything related to the pandemic , including total fatalities , with around a thousand people dying every day .
By some estimates , Brazil may eventually see as many as thirty-four million infected and three hundred thousand dead .
The country ’ s far-right President , Jair Bolsonaro , has made no effort to curb @ @ @ @ @ @ @ belittled the threat of the virus , calling it mere “ sniffles , ” and responded to reports of sufferers by declaring , “ We all have to die someday.
” When state governors encouraged social distancing , Bolsonaro joined rallies with supporters to demonstrate against them .
Oliver Stuenkel , an associate professor of international affairs at the Getulio Vargas Foundation , in São Paulo , believes that Bolsonaro ’ s pandemic response is the result of a brutal calculation .
“ I think he looked at this and thought , This @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Brazilian economy , ” he told me .
“ He knows it ’ s hard for a Latin-American leader to remain in office with an economy that gets as bad as it is now .
So , in the states where governors imposed social-distancing strictures , he ’ ll say the coming economic slump wasn ’ t his fault but theirs .
If the numbers level out , he ’ ll say , ‘ Look , it wasn ’ t that bad after all.
’ And even if they are bad , he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they really weren ’ t. ” For the moment , Bolsonaro ’ s P.R .
tactics seem to be working ; although recent polls show rising disapproval of his performance , about thirty per cent of the population still fervently supports him , as immovable as the fans of his role model Donald Trump .
Among Brazil ’ s neighbors , the fear of contagion has led governments to tighten their borders or shut them completely .
Still , two nearby countries have suffered soaring rates of COVID-19 .
Ecuador has fifty-eight thousand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Peru—despite a three-month lockdown , enforced by the police and the military—has two hundred and eighty-eight thousand cases and nearly ten thousand deaths .
In the Amazon region , where river traffic flows freely in and out of Brazil , the virus has spread to devastating effect , with some indigenous communities very badly affected .
It has claimed hundreds of lives , including that of Paulinho Paiakan , a prominent Kayapo chief who came to fame in the nineteen-eighties when he helped lead protests alongside other indigenous leaders and global celebrities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the construction of a massive dam on the Xingu River .
Thanks in large measure to Bolsonaro ’ s negligence , Latin America has become the world ’ s virus hot spot , but the misery has not been equally distributed .
The region ’ s chronic economic and social inequalities have meant that the poor , who often live in crowded slums and depend upon precarious daily earnings to survive , have been hit hardest .
It has not proved impossible for governments to curtail the effects .
In Costa Rica , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ region where COVID-19 appeared , the government banned mass gatherings within days , declared a state of emergency , and closed the borders .
It has had three thousand and seven hundred-odd cases and seventeen deaths .
Responses need to be swift , organized , and consistent .
Whether in Brazil or elsewhere , it now seems broadly true that when heads of state have reacted to the pandemic politically rather than clinically , their citizens have suffered for it .
The region ’ s autocrats have arguably led the worst responses ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to conform to their preferred political narratives , the consequences have been , from country to country , either devastating , punitive , or painfully absurd .
When the virus surfaced in Mexico , Andrés Manuel López Obrador , the left-of-center President , dismissed the dangers and encouraged people to go to restaurants , in order to support their local economies .
He insisted on attending gatherings with supporters , where he was seen hugging old women and kissing babies .
He claimed to have special protection from contagion , thanks to a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a four-leaf clover and a two-dollar bill .
By the end of March , however , López Obrador had changed tack .
He gave a speech recognizing the risks from the coronavirus , and encouraged Mexicans to practice social distancing .
Three days later , his government declared a national health emergency , and issued guidelines .
Schools , shopping centers , and government offices were closed , but there was no obligatory lockdown , and little testing was reportedly carried out .
A month later , Mexico ’ s official numbers—nineteen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a hundred and twenty-six million—still seemed low by comparison with other countries .
In late April , López Obrador proposed that his country had “ tamed ” COVID-19 , and his top health officials also suggested that the contagion would soon reach its peak .
Since then , a spike in cases , especially in Mexico City , suggests that the announcements of victory were premature .
Media outlets in Mexico and abroad published stories accusing the government of undercounting the dead .
A duel has ensued between the government ’ s critics @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the debate , José Hernández , a political cartoonist and commentator who supports López Obrador , expressed outrage over the critical media reports .
“ They portrayed things as really terrible , ” he said .
“ It ’ s just not like that .
Of course , there are deaths—this is a pandemic .
But nothing like what is said.
” He added , “ Mexico City is the place with most contagion in the country , but it has been kept under control , and , thanks to the fact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ per cent , the epidemic has been contained.
” Other observers dismissed this as wishful thinking .
Even López Obrador ’ s deputy health minister had estimated that the real number of infections was eight times greater than the confirmed number .
Enrique Krauze , a leading historian and ardent critic of the Mexican President , told me , “ López Obrador has never taken the pandemic seriously .
After the outbreak he continued travelling throughout the country , encouraging social interaction and even hugs ; his government has done almost no testing.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the daily infection rate had climbed to thirty-five hundred .
Nevertheless , the government put forth a plan to reopen the country to tourism .
As part of the promotional effort , some Cancún resorts began offering tourists free days on rental cars and hotel stays .
During the week when many hotels in Cancún reopened , Mexico reported the second-largest number of coronavirus deaths in Latin America : more than fifteen thousand .
( There are now more than two hundred and thirty thousand confirmed cases and twenty-eight thousand deaths , with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ five thousand . )
The real figure , by all accounts , is many times that .
“ López Obrador has restarted his trips around the country , without a face mask , ” Krauze said .
“ While he does , Mexicans are dying quietly and stoically in their homes.
” Earlier this week , López Obrador declared his intention to travel to Washington to meet with Trump .
The stated purpose of the trip , which will be López Obrador ’ s first outside Mexico since taking office , is to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ American trade pact between the U.S. , Mexico , and Canada .
But the move has raised a firestorm of criticism at home .
Mexico ’ s preëminent diplomat , the former foreign secretary Bernardo Sepúlveda , published an open letter arguing against the trip and reminding his successor as foreign secretary , Marcelo Ebrard , that “ Trump and his antagonism and contempt for Mexico can not be forgotten and be simply erased from the memory of Mexicans.
” Most controversially , López Obrador does not intend to meet with Joe Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that , amid the U.S. Presidential campaign , his participation in “ an irrelevant ceremony will be interpreted as support for the reëlection of President Trump.
” On Monday , in his daily press conference , López Obrador stubbornly defended his decision by saying he had “ no problem of conscience in going to the United States .
”

In mid-May, Brazil secured a grisly world record: it had the fastest-growing coronavirus infection rate of any country on earth. Within a month, it surpassed a million confirmed cases. This milestone made it second only to the United States in everything related to the pandemic, including total fatalities, with around a thousand people dying every day. By some estimates, Brazil may eventually see as many as thirty-four million infected and three hundred thousand dead.
The country’s far-right President, Jair Bolsonaro, has made no effort to curb the pandemic. Instead, he has belittled the threat of the virus, calling it mere “sniffles,” and responded to reports of sufferers by declaring, “We all have to die someday.” When state governors encouraged social distancing, Bolsonaro joined rallies with supporters to demonstrate against them.
Oliver Stuenkel, an associate professor of international affairs at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, in São Paulo, believes that Bolsonaro’s pandemic response is the result of a brutal calculation. “I think he looked at this and thought, This will cause a profound crisis in the Brazilian economy,” he told me. “He knows it’s hard for a Latin-American leader to remain in office with an economy that gets as bad as it is now. So, in the states where governors imposed social-distancing strictures, he’ll say the coming economic slump wasn’t his fault but theirs. If the numbers level out, he’ll say, ‘Look, it wasn’t that bad after all.’ And even if they are bad, he can easily construe some narrative that actually they really weren’t.” For the moment, Bolsonaro’s P.R. tactics seem to be working; although recent polls show rising disapproval of his performance, about thirty per cent of the population still fervently supports him, as immovable as the fans of his role model Donald Trump.
Among Brazil’s neighbors, the fear of contagion has led governments to tighten their borders or shut them completely. Still, two nearby countries have suffered soaring rates of COVID-19. Ecuador has fifty-eight thousand cases and more than four thousand deaths. Peru—despite a three-month lockdown, enforced by the police and the military—has two hundred and eighty-eight thousand cases and nearly ten thousand deaths. In the Amazon region, where river traffic flows freely in and out of Brazil, the virus has spread to devastating effect, with some indigenous communities very badly affected. It has claimed hundreds of lives, including that of Paulinho Paiakan, a prominent Kayapo chief who came to fame in the nineteen-eighties when he helped lead protests alongside other indigenous leaders and global celebrities, including Sting, in opposition to the construction of a massive dam on the Xingu River.
Thanks in large measure to Bolsonaro’s negligence, Latin America has become the world’s virus hot spot, but the misery has not been equally distributed. The region’s chronic economic and social inequalities have meant that the poor, who often live in crowded slums and depend upon precarious daily earnings to survive, have been hit hardest.
It has not proved impossible for governments to curtail the effects. In Costa Rica, one of the first countries in the region where COVID-19 appeared, the government banned mass gatherings within days, declared a state of emergency, and closed the borders. It has had three thousand seven hundred-odd cases and seventeen deaths. Responses need to be swift, organized, and consistent. Chile, like Costa Rica, mounted a quick and apparently effective early response. By late April, with a death toll still in the low hundreds, its government, led by the conservative President Sebastián Piñera, announced an optimistic plan to begin reopening the country. But a precipitous spike in cases quickly followed, forcing a much stricter lockdown in mid-May, which continues today. Six weeks later, Chile has two hundred and eighty-five thousand confirmed cases and nearly six thousand deaths. Piñera’s sin seems to be hubris, rather than a willful dereliction of duty. But, whether in Brazil or elsewhere, it seems broadly true that, when heads of state have reacted to the pandemic politically rather than clinically, their citizens have suffered for it. The region’s autocrats have arguably led the worst responses; as they try to force medical realities to conform to their preferred political narratives, the consequences have been, from country to country, devastating, punitive, or painfully absurd.
When the virus surfaced in Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the left-of-center President, dismissed the dangers and encouraged people to go to restaurants, in order to support their local economies. He insisted on attending gatherings with supporters, where he was seen hugging old women and kissing babies. He claimed to have special protection from contagion, thanks to a pair of Catholic talismans, as well as a four-leaf clover and a two-dollar bill.
By the end of March, however, López Obrador had changed tack. He gave a speech recognizing the risks from the coronavirus, and encouraged Mexicans to practice social distancing. Three days later, his government declared a national health emergency, and issued guidelines. Schools, shopping centers, and government offices were closed, but there was no obligatory lockdown, and little testing was reportedly carried out.
A month later, Mexico’s official numbers—nineteen thousand cases, in a country of a hundred and twenty-six million—still seemed low by comparison with other countries. In late April, López Obrador proposed that his country had “tamed” COVID-19, and his top health officials also suggested that the contagion would soon reach its peak.
Since then, a spike in cases, especially in Mexico City, suggests that the announcements of victory were premature. Media outlets in Mexico and abroad published stories accusing the government of undercounting the dead. A duel has ensued between the government’s critics and its defenders. At the height of the debate, José Hernández, a political cartoonist and commentator who supports López Obrador, expressed outrage over the critical media reports. “They portrayed things as really terrible,” he said. “It’s just not like that. Of course, there are deaths—this is a pandemic. But nothing like what is said.” He added, “Mexico City is the place with most contagion in the country, but it has been kept under control, and, thanks to the fact that movement has been reduced by sixty-five per cent, the epidemic has been contained.”
Other observers dismissed this as wishful thinking. Even López Obrador’s deputy health minister had estimated that the real number of infections was eight times greater than the confirmed number. Enrique Krauze, a leading historian and ardent critic of the Mexican President, told me, “López Obrador has never taken the pandemic seriously. After the outbreak he continued travelling throughout the country, encouraging social interaction and even hugs; his government has done almost no testing.”
By the end of May, the daily infection rate had climbed to thirty-five hundred. Nevertheless, the government put forth a plan to reopen the country to tourism. As part of the promotional effort, some Cancún resorts began offering tourists free days on rental cars and hotel stays. During the week when many hotels in Cancún reopened, Mexico reported the second-largest number of coronavirus deaths in Latin America: more than fifteen thousand. (There are now more than two hundred and thirty thousand confirmed cases and twenty-eight thousand deaths, with a daily new infection rate of roughly five thousand.) The real figure, by all accounts, is many times that. “López Obrador has restarted his trips around the country, without a face mask,” Krauze said. “While he does, Mexicans are dying quietly and stoically in their homes.”
Earlier this week, López Obrador declared his intention to travel to Washington to meet with Trump. The stated purpose of the trip, which will be López Obrador’s first outside Mexico since taking office, is to celebrate the implementation of the revamped North American trade pact between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. But the move has raised a firestorm of criticism at home. Mexico’s preëminent diplomat, the former foreign secretary Bernardo Sepúlveda, published an open letter arguing against the trip and reminding his successor as foreign secretary, Marcelo Ebrard, that “Trump and his antagonism and contempt for Mexico cannot be forgotten and be simply erased from the memory of Mexicans.” Most controversially, López Obrador does not intend to meet with Joe Biden on the trip, and Sepúlveda warned that, amid the U.S. Presidential campaign, his participation in “an irrelevant ceremony will be interpreted as support for the reëlection of President Trump.” On Monday, in his daily press conference, López Obrador stubbornly defended his decision by saying he had “no problem of conscience in going to the United States.”
In El Salvador, the virus has been contained, but only with severe repression. The effort has been led by President Nayib Bukele, an insouciant thirty-eight-year-old former mayor and night-club manager, who ran for office as a political outsider, and who runs the country via Twitter. At the outset of the pandemic, before any cases were reported in El Salvador, he ordered one of the strictest lockdowns in the hemisphere. After closing the country’s borders and its international airport, Bukele deployed police and soldiers to make sure no one left their homes. Thousands of Salvadorans accused of violating quarantine were hauled away to “containment centers” for thirty-day detentions, as were Salvadorans returning to the country from abroad. When the country’s Supreme Court ruled that the detention decree was unconstitutional, Bukele ignored the rulings and ordered it extended.
Rule of law and transparency remain major issues in El Salvador, nearly three decades after a devastating civil war, and Bukele’s authoritarian streak has drawn criticism from human-rights organizations. In April, after a string of homicides in gang-controlled neighborhoods, he responded by orchestrating a mass humiliation. In prisons across the country, he placed gang inmates in cells with their rivals; he also arranged a bizarre photo op in which hundreds of handcuffed, shirtless gang members, with their heads uniformly shaved, were forced by armed guards into long rows, sitting body to body with the men in front of and behind them. This followed an episode in February, when Bukele ordered armed troops to accompany him into the Legislative Assembly, where he sat in the Speaker’s chair and demanded that legislators approve a hundred-million-dollar security-assistance loan to pay for a helicopter, night-vision goggles, and a video surveillance system for the military.
Bukele retains the unqualified backing of the Trump Administration; he has acceded to U.S. policies on immigration and narcotics trafficking, and positioned himself as a critic of China, which has been seeking inroads in the region. The U.S. Ambassador, Ronald Johnson, a longtime military officer and a C.I.A. agent, regularly tweets his approval of Bukele’s decrees, as well as dispensing unsolicited advice and warnings to Salvadorans. Last month, Bukele held a joint press conference with Johnson in which he revealed that, like Trump and “most of the world’s leaders,” he takes hydroxychloroquine as a preventive treatment against COVID-19. (In fact, the only other leader who has boasted of taking the medication is Bolsonaro.)


newyorker--2020-07-02--“The Truth,” Reviewed: Catherine Deneuve Is a Full-Time Diva of Quiet Ferocity

There ’ s a special energy unleashed when filmmakers depict versions of the milieu in which they work and the practice of their art form .
The inherent element of self-revelation in films about filmmaking is a severe test of artistry , which is why the truth of this new film , written and directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda , is found less in the characters ’ many repetitions of the ponderous title word than it is in the movie ’ s central subject—the turbulent life and work of a great actress .
“ The Truth ” ( which will be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and other services ) is the first drama that Kore-eda has made outside Japan , and the geographical and cultural distance that he has bridged to consider the milieu of moviemaking also gives rise to a gimlet-eyed emotional distance that , when the movie is at its intermittent best , yields startling insights about the art .
It stars three of the most famous actors of our time—Catherine Deneuve , Juliette Binoche , and Ethan Hawke—and its drama feels developed on the basis of their personalities and mythologies .
Deneuve plays a long-celebrated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dangeville , whose memoir—ominously titled “ The Truth ” —is about to be published .
For the occasion , Fabienne ’ s daughter , Lumir ( Binoche ) , a screenwriter who lives in New York , travels to Paris with her husband , Hank ( Hawke ) , a struggling actor , and their daughter , Charlotte ( Clémentine Grenier ) , who ’ s about seven , in tow .
Lumir has come to town ostensibly to celebrate the publication of her mother ’ s book , but actually to scrutinize @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fabienne ’ s lavish house ( in the Fourteenth Arrondissement ) , Lumir protests that Fabienne had promised to let her read and comment on the manuscript before the book was printed .
Upon arriving at Fabienne ’ s house , Lumir locks herself in with a copy of the book , a pen , and Post-its , and discovers that its contents are far from the truth and hardly the whole truth .
In confronting Fabienne with her omissions and fabrications , Lumir dredges up a lifetime of resentments—which are principally focussed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sarah Mondavan ( the last name is a near-homonym for monde d ’ avant , “ the world before ” ) , who was Fabienne ’ s close friend and Lumir ’ s virtual guardian when Fabienne was busy forging her career .
Decades ago , when Lumir was young , Fabienne stole a plum role from Sarah by sleeping with a director ; soon thereafter , Sarah died in a car accident , and Lumir has always blamed Fabienne for it .
The long-standing grudges that Lumir bares are soon amplified by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ star has cruelly alienated her longtime assistant , Luc ( Alain Libolt ) , by not mentioning him in her memoir .
She has also distorted tales of Lumir ’ s childhood to enhance her own image as a devoted mother—even as she avows , to Lumir ’ s face , her own maternal failings and defends them as the trivial price of artistic glory , which she ’ s still in the process of extending .
Fabienne is about to film a supporting role in a new science-fiction movie that ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the city .
When Luc abruptly quits his job with Fabienne after a forty-year collaboration , he manipulates Lumir—who had planned a mere few days ’ visit—to take his place as Fabienne ’ s factotum for the duration of the shoot .
( The movie , in a much too on-the-nose twist , is called “ Memories of My Mother , ” and requires Fabienne to play not a mother but a daughter . )
In the course of that shoot , Fabienne ’ s new artistic rivalry with a young star , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ merges with her old ones with Sarah ( to whom Manon is often likened ) .
This facile and prefabricated conflict gives rise to similarly facile resolutions : the tug of blood relations and family sentiment asserts itself , and the movie devolves into clichéd patterns of dependence , reconciliation , and redemption .
It ’ s all the more unfortunate given the tough-mindedness of the film ’ s first hour—a tough-mindedness that ’ s rooted in discerning intuition and observation .
Deneuve , front and center throughout , delivers steely determination and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ immovable object whose irresistible force sparks , all around her , the chaos and conflict on which she thrives .
From the very first scene , in which Fabienne endures an interview by a fawning journalist , she tosses off critical remarks and brusque judgments with a calmly untroubled pugnacity—and she doesn ’ t shrink from behaving as high-handedly to her latest husband , Jacques ( Christian Crahay ) ; to Luc ; to her first husband , Pierre ( Roger Van Hool ) , an amiable bohemian who is Lumir ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ memoir ( his role in it proves drolly dismissive , too ) ; to the new film ’ s young director ( Sébastien Chassagne ) ; to another supporting actress ( Ludivine Sagnier ) ; to Hank , whose lesser career she mocks ; and especially to Lumir herself , who is the prime target of her cavalierly destabilizing furies .
In bestowing dialogue of quiet ferocity on Deneuve , Kore-eda catches a tone from her that ’ s also an emblem of her times .
As she speaks with a regal control @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gestures , sitting or standing with magisterial stillness while launching pointed glances like laser-guided missiles , Deneuve both embodies the absolute discipline of a full-time diva and the ambient harshness of pre-1968 France .
Born in 1943 , schooled in the era depicted by François Truffaut in “ The 400 Blows , ” Deneuve here represents an age of collective rigid order and casual aggression , a time of frankness that inflicts emotional punishment along with stern discipline .
By contrast , Binoche—a child of the sixties and seventies , like Lumir—embodies , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the post- ’ 68 generation of liberalized mores and humanistic values .
( The conciliatory and empathetic Lumir is by no means weak , though the nature of her strength remains unexplored . )
It ’ s this extraordinary dramatization of France ’ s crucial generational divide , and its cinematic implications , that gives “ The Truth ” its resonance beyond the emotional specifics of the drama , potent though they often are .
The centerpiece of the movie is a remarkable sequence , about eight minutes long , at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ very much a matriarchy ) —Fabienne and Jacques ; Lumir , Hank , and Charlotte ; and Pierre—are assembled for festivities that quickly turn bitter when Fabienne mocks Hank ’ s achievements ( “ Nowadays anyone can be an actor ” ) and abilities ( “ It ’ s an imitation .
.
.
.
Acting is more than that ; what counts for an actor is personality , presence ” ) .
( Hawke , of course , has plenty of both , and his game artistry is reflected in the deprecating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she built her career by deliberately destroying the more talented Sarah ’ s professional and private life , and Fabienne tells Hank that actors waste time on humanitarian and political activities only when “ they ’ ve lost the battle onscreen , so they dive into reality .
They pretend to fight against reality .
.
.
.
I ’ ve always won that battle ; that ’ s why I can endure solitude.
” The juiciness of the dialogue in “ The Truth , ” the sublime pitch of Fabienne ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , whether family or friend or colleague , would risk self-parody with an actress more heated and less poised than Deneuve .
That ’ s why the rapid and frictionless shift of the drama to more conventional gratifications of family reconciliations and warm professional relations—admirable though they may be in life—proves so disheartening in the context of the movie .
Kore-eda ’ s own dramatic construction reveals its limits in depicting a character whose alluring and terrifying strength flows beyond the boundaries of the frame and of the scene , yet his scenes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dialogue ; they are not so much taut or tense as merely clipped to fit .
Kore-eda has created a character whose mighty creative energy is also essentially destructive , whose artistic power onscreen has the effect of a weapon in life , but his sense of form reduces it to the exemplary and the edifying .
It ’ s Kore-eda ’ s default habit , as in his 2016 film , “ After the Storm ” —his characters , however willful or disorderly , seem pinned to the screen—but , in “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ power threatens to break his neat system .
Perhaps a filmmaker whose powers were less orderly , less morally driven to soothe and pacify , could have pushed Fabienne—and Deneuve—to tragic and stylistic extremes that would have rendered the film ’ s reconciliations as mighty as its conflicts .
Instead , he offers half a film of magnificent fragments .

In “The Truth,” an actress played by Catherine Deneuve (second from right) prepares for the publication of her own self-serving memoir. Photograph Courtesy IFC Films
There’s a special energy unleashed when filmmakers depict versions of the milieu in which they work and the practice of their art form. The inherent element of self-revelation in films about filmmaking is a severe test of artistry, which is why the truth of this new film, written and directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda, is found less in the characters’ many repetitions of the ponderous title word than it is in the movie’s central subject—the turbulent life and work of a great actress. “The Truth” (which will be released Friday on Amazon, iTunes, and other services) is the first drama that Kore-eda has made outside Japan, and the geographical and cultural distance that he has bridged to consider the milieu of moviemaking also gives rise to a gimlet-eyed emotional distance that, when the movie is at its intermittent best, yields startling insights about the art.
It stars three of the most famous actors of our time—Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche, and Ethan Hawke—and its drama feels developed on the basis of their personalities and mythologies. Deneuve plays a long-celebrated French actress of about seventy, Fabienne Dangeville, whose memoir—ominously titled “The Truth”—is about to be published. For the occasion, Fabienne’s daughter, Lumir (Binoche), a screenwriter who lives in New York, travels to Paris with her husband, Hank (Hawke), a struggling actor, and their daughter, Charlotte (Clémentine Grenier), who’s about seven, in tow. Lumir has come to town ostensibly to celebrate the publication of her mother’s book, but actually to scrutinize it. Moments after their arrival at Fabienne’s lavish house (in the Fourteenth Arrondissement), Lumir protests that Fabienne had promised to let her read and comment on the manuscript before the book was printed.
Upon arriving at Fabienne’s house, Lumir locks herself in with a copy of the book, a pen, and Post-its, and discovers that its contents are far from the truth and hardly the whole truth. In confronting Fabienne with her omissions and fabrications, Lumir dredges up a lifetime of resentments—which are principally focussed on the memory of another actress, Sarah Mondavan (the last name is a near-homonym for monde d’avant, “the world before”), who was Fabienne’s close friend and Lumir’s virtual guardian when Fabienne was busy forging her career. Decades ago, when Lumir was young, Fabienne stole a plum role from Sarah by sleeping with a director; soon thereafter, Sarah died in a car accident, and Lumir has always blamed Fabienne for it. The long-standing grudges that Lumir bares are soon amplified by Fabienne’s new misdeeds. The star has cruelly alienated her longtime assistant, Luc (Alain Libolt), by not mentioning him in her memoir. She has also distorted tales of Lumir’s childhood to enhance her own image as a devoted mother—even as she avows, to Lumir’s face, her own maternal failings and defends them as the trivial price of artistic glory, which she’s still in the process of extending.
Fabienne is about to film a supporting role in a new science-fiction movie that’s being shot in a studio just outside the city. When Luc abruptly quits his job with Fabienne after a forty-year collaboration, he manipulates Lumir—who had planned a mere few days’ visit—to take his place as Fabienne’s factotum for the duration of the shoot. (The movie, in a much too on-the-nose twist, is called “Memories of My Mother,” and requires Fabienne to play not a mother but a daughter.) In the course of that shoot, Fabienne’s new artistic rivalry with a young star, Manon Lenoir (Manon Clavel), merges with her old ones with Sarah (to whom Manon is often likened). This facile and prefabricated conflict gives rise to similarly facile resolutions: the tug of blood relations and family sentiment asserts itself, and the movie devolves into clichéd patterns of dependence, reconciliation, and redemption. It’s all the more unfortunate given the tough-mindedness of the film’s first hour—a tough-mindedness that’s rooted in discerning intuition and observation.
Deneuve, front and center throughout, delivers steely determination and heedless reserve. Her Fabienne is an immovable object whose irresistible force sparks, all around her, the chaos and conflict on which she thrives. From the very first scene, in which Fabienne endures an interview by a fawning journalist, she tosses off critical remarks and brusque judgments with a calmly untroubled pugnacity—and she doesn’t shrink from behaving as high-handedly to her latest husband, Jacques (Christian Crahay); to Luc; to her first husband, Pierre (Roger Van Hool), an amiable bohemian who is Lumir’s father and also shows up in the memoir (his role in it proves drolly dismissive, too); to the new film’s young director (Sébastien Chassagne); to another supporting actress (Ludivine Sagnier); to Hank, whose lesser career she mocks; and especially to Lumir herself, who is the prime target of her cavalierly destabilizing furies.
In bestowing dialogue of quiet ferocity on Deneuve, Kore-eda catches a tone from her that’s also an emblem of her times. As she speaks with a regal control over her own emotions and her own gestures, sitting or standing with magisterial stillness while launching pointed glances like laser-guided missiles, Deneuve both embodies the absolute discipline of a full-time diva and the ambient harshness of pre-1968 France. Born in 1943, schooled in the era depicted by François Truffaut in “The 400 Blows,” Deneuve here represents an age of collective rigid order and casual aggression, a time of frankness that inflicts emotional punishment along with stern discipline. By contrast, Binoche—a child of the sixties and seventies, like Lumir—embodies, in her looser gestures and freer manner, the post-’68 generation of liberalized mores and humanistic values. (The conciliatory and empathetic Lumir is by no means weak, though the nature of her strength remains unexplored.)
It’s this extraordinary dramatization of France’s crucial generational divide, and its cinematic implications, that gives “The Truth” its resonance beyond the emotional specifics of the drama, potent though they often are. The centerpiece of the movie is a remarkable sequence, about eight minutes long, at the dinner table where the Dangeville family (very much a matriarchy)—Fabienne and Jacques; Lumir, Hank, and Charlotte; and Pierre—are assembled for festivities that quickly turn bitter when Fabienne mocks Hank’s achievements (“Nowadays anyone can be an actor”) and abilities (“It’s an imitation. . . . Acting is more than that; what counts for an actor is personality, presence”). (Hawke, of course, has plenty of both, and his game artistry is reflected in the deprecating role.) Lumir reminds Fabienne that she built her career by deliberately destroying the more talented Sarah’s professional and private life, and Fabienne tells Hank that actors waste time on humanitarian and political activities only when “they’ve lost the battle onscreen, so they dive into reality. They pretend to fight against reality. . . . I’ve always won that battle; that’s why I can endure solitude.”
The juiciness of the dialogue in “The Truth,” the sublime pitch of Fabienne’s relentless domination of anyone in her path, whether family or friend or colleague, would risk self-parody with an actress more heated and less poised than Deneuve. That’s why the rapid and frictionless shift of the drama to more conventional gratifications of family reconciliations and warm professional relations—admirable though they may be in life—proves so disheartening in the context of the movie. Kore-eda’s own dramatic construction reveals its limits in depicting a character whose alluring and terrifying strength flows beyond the boundaries of the frame and of the scene, yet his scenes exist only to the extent of the dialogue; they are not so much taut or tense as merely clipped to fit. Kore-eda has created a character whose mighty creative energy is also essentially destructive, whose artistic power onscreen has the effect of a weapon in life, but his sense of form reduces it to the exemplary and the edifying. It’s Kore-eda’s default habit, as in his 2016 film, “After the Storm”—his characters, however willful or disorderly, seem pinned to the screen—but, in “The Truth,” Deneuve’s power threatens to break his neat system. Perhaps a filmmaker whose powers were less orderly, less morally driven to soothe and pacify, could have pushed Fabienne—and Deneuve—to tragic and stylistic extremes that would have rendered the film’s reconciliations as mighty as its conflicts. Instead, he offers half a film of magnificent fragments.