newyorker--2020-06-10--The Tom Cotton Op-Ed and the Tired Old “Snowflake” Defense

The September , 2015 , issue of The Atlantic included reporting on New Orleans and Havana , essays about Jonathan Franzen and Joan Didion , and an excerpt from Ta-Nehisi Coates ’ s soon-to-be-published book , “ Between the World and Me , ” a lyrical indictment of the endurance of American white supremacy ( “ In America , it is traditional to destroy the black body—it is heritage ” ) .
At the time , the front-runner in the race for the Republican Presidential nomination , according to nearly every poll , was Donald Trump ; yet almost no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what a Trump Presidency might look like , and The Atlantic was no exception .
The issue did , however , include a piece that warned of a “ dangerously hawkish turn ” among a new cohort of conservatives , including “ the most celebrated freshman Republican senator , ” a military veteran from Arkansas named Tom Cotton .
But the issue ’ s cover story was about none of those things .
It was about safe spaces and trigger warnings .
“ The Coddling of the American Mind , ” by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Greg Lukianoff , argued that a spectre was haunting American universities—a misbegotten crusade “ to scrub campuses clean of words , ideas , and subjects that might cause discomfort or give offense.
” In the article—and , later , in a best-selling book of the same name—Haidt and Lukianoff posited a dichotomy .
On one side were the defenders of free speech and open debate , the true heirs to the tradition of John Stuart Mill .
On the other were those who , hoping to protect students ’ delicate feelings , preferred @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The former were clearheaded about the fact that speech is speech and violence is violence .
The latter were constantly conflating the two , confusing mere disagreements or jokes with actual threats .
Contrary to what you might hear from some campus activists , Haidt and Lukianoff maintained , their safety was not literally at risk , because , in a classroom , “ a discussion of violence is unlikely to be followed by actual violence.
” “ The Coddling of the American Mind ” has since been criticized—the political scientist Jeffrey Adam @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a convincing case against several of its findings—but much of the argument is fine , as far as it goes .
And yet this is precisely the question : How far does it go ?
Haidt and Lukianoff have suggested that campus controversies are more important than they seem , because today ’ s Oberlin sophomore may be tomorrow ’ s congressional aide , trained to treat dissenting opinions as affronts to her personal safety .
But another potential problem runs in the opposite direction : What if Haidt and Lukianoff ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beyond the boundaries of the liberal-arts campus ?
If the free-speech stalwarts worry about the narrowing of debate , then their critics worry about a dogmatic and overzealous kind of broadening .
These critics—call them “ contextualists ” —are interested not in dismantling the bedrock value of free expression but in weighing it against other values .
What if the arbiters of national discourse are so determined to let a thousand flowers bloom , so insistent that the marketplace of ideas can solve any problem , that they will come to see everything @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as so much constructive disagreement ?
Open debate is a wonderful thing , but is it possible to be so predisposed toward openness that you can blind yourself to what is in fact a clear and present danger ?
In September , 2015 , the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic was James Bennet .
The following year , Bennet left The Atlantic to run the editorial section of the Times .
His tenure there was contentious from the start .
One of Bennet ’ s marquee hires was Bret Stephens , an anti-Trump conservative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ implied that “ total certainty ” about the severity of climate change was comparable to thought policing under Stalinism .
Some free-speech stalwarts saw this as a delightful provocation , just one more contribution to the marketplace of ideas .
The contextualists were less sanguine .
Unlike , say , a poetry reading at a campus café , an opinion column in the Times can have significant material consequences , consequences that are not limited to emotional discomfort .
In this case , the material objection was not that Stephens was enraging the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was giving some amount of intellectual succor to the people and companies engaged in the rapid destruction of the planet , a very real problem that the marketplace of ideas , not to mention the non-metaphorical marketplace , has come nowhere close to solving .
Last week , the Times published an Op-Ed by Tom Cotton , the hawkish senator from Arkansas , called “ Send in the Troops.
” In an incendiary tone , Cotton wrote that “ nihilist criminals are simply out for loot and the thrill of destruction , with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ protest marches to exploit [ George ] Floyd ’ s death for their own anarchic purposes.
” This claim—which has been largely discredited , including in the Times ’ own pages—was the basis for Cotton ’ s argument that President Trump should invoke the Insurrection Act and use the U.S. military to crush dissidents by force .
On Twitter and elsewhere , the free-speech stalwarts treated Cotton ’ s column as yet another interesting thought exercise .
But the contextualists saw it as a specific and actionable threat .
Cotton was not a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ without a trigger warning .
He was imploring a man he knows , a man who happens to control the world ’ s most powerful military , to physically subdue untold numbers of his own citizens .
Nor was this purely hypothetical .
Trump has often repeated his admiration for vicious strongmen around the world , his desire for unchecked power , and his belief that street protests should be met with “ overwhelming force.
” There was a national uproar over the column , and a backlash to the backlash .
Much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The free-speech stalwarts accused the contextualists of being coddled snowflakes who couldn ’ t handle the rough and tumble of debate .
But things have gone too far in this country for an old script about campus culture wars to be of much use .
Cotton ’ s piece was published two days after federal officers used batons and pepper balls to disperse peaceful demonstrators outside the White House , clearing a path for Trump to glower in front of a boarded-up church .
In a classroom , a discussion of violence is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But in a republic on the brink of a legitimacy crisis , a country where the highest office is held by a brute and would-be authoritarian , state violence is not an academic abstraction but a constantly looming menace .
Bennet resigned on Sunday , but his successor will surely face similar dilemmas in the near future .
In theory , the Times aims to reflect the breadth of the national discourse .
It also aims to remain faithful to its bedrock values—upholding democracy , decrying racism , and pursuing truth , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it ’ s not always possible to achieve both goals at once .
It ’ s easy for observers to call out the Times , or any paper of record , for this or that misstep ; it ’ s harder to come up with a consistent set of principles that would determine which opinions are fit to print .
The dilemma is especially pronounced in the age of Trump , because Trump ’ s values , to the extent that they exist , are antithetical to many of the Times ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Goldberg pointed out , any good newspaper should strive to avoid bigotry or dishonesty , but “ there ’ s generally no way to defend the administration without being either bigoted or dishonest.
” Cotton , in his Op-Ed , attempted to justify his argument by citing a recent poll suggesting that most Americans agree with him .
Critics later questioned this poll result , or at least contextualized it .
Should a national newspaper be willing to publish any opinion that is shared by at least half of the country ?
If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ barometer of popular opinion , then a poll would be sufficient .
If the paper wants to be something more , though , then some opinions will have to fall beneath its standards .

An opinion column in the Times, like Tom Cotton’s last week, can have significant material consequences. Photograph by Julio Cortez / AP / Shutterstock
The September, 2015, issue of The Atlantic included reporting on New Orleans and Havana, essays about Jonathan Franzen and Joan Didion, and an excerpt from Ta-Nehisi Coates’s soon-to-be-published book, “Between the World and Me,” a lyrical indictment of the endurance of American white supremacy (“In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body—it is heritage”). At the time, the front-runner in the race for the Republican Presidential nomination, according to nearly every poll, was Donald Trump; yet almost no one was ready to reckon seriously with what a Trump Presidency might look like, and The Atlantic was no exception. The issue did, however, include a piece that warned of a “dangerously hawkish turn” among a new cohort of conservatives, including “the most celebrated freshman Republican senator,” a military veteran from Arkansas named Tom Cotton.
But the issue’s cover story was about none of those things. It was about safe spaces and trigger warnings. “The Coddling of the American Mind,” by the psychologist Jonathan Haidt and the academic-freedom advocate Greg Lukianoff, argued that a spectre was haunting American universities—a misbegotten crusade “to scrub campuses clean of words, ideas, and subjects that might cause discomfort or give offense.” In the article—and, later, in a best-selling book of the same name—Haidt and Lukianoff posited a dichotomy. On one side were the defenders of free speech and open debate, the true heirs to the tradition of John Stuart Mill. On the other were those who, hoping to protect students’ delicate feelings, preferred “policing speech and punishing speakers.” The former were clearheaded about the fact that speech is speech and violence is violence. The latter were constantly conflating the two, confusing mere disagreements or jokes with actual threats. Contrary to what you might hear from some campus activists, Haidt and Lukianoff maintained, their safety was not literally at risk, because, in a classroom, “a discussion of violence is unlikely to be followed by actual violence.”
“The Coddling of the American Mind” has since been criticized—the political scientist Jeffrey Adam Sachs, for example, has made a convincing case against several of its findings—but much of the argument is fine, as far as it goes. And yet this is precisely the question: How far does it go? Haidt and Lukianoff have suggested that campus controversies are more important than they seem, because today’s Oberlin sophomore may be tomorrow’s congressional aide, trained to treat dissenting opinions as affronts to her personal safety. But another potential problem runs in the opposite direction: What if Haidt and Lukianoff’s framework is applied too broadly, far beyond the boundaries of the liberal-arts campus? If the free-speech stalwarts worry about the narrowing of debate, then their critics worry about a dogmatic and overzealous kind of broadening. These critics—call them “contextualists”—are interested not in dismantling the bedrock value of free expression but in weighing it against other values. What if the arbiters of national discourse are so determined to let a thousand flowers bloom, so insistent that the marketplace of ideas can solve any problem, that they will come to see everything, even unvarnished overtures toward fascism, as so much constructive disagreement? Open debate is a wonderful thing, but is it possible to be so predisposed toward openness that you can blind yourself to what is in fact a clear and present danger?
In September, 2015, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic was James Bennet. The following year, Bennet left The Atlantic to run the editorial section of the Times. His tenure there was contentious from the start. One of Bennet’s marquee hires was Bret Stephens, an anti-Trump conservative, whose first column for the paper implied that “total certainty” about the severity of climate change was comparable to thought policing under Stalinism. Some free-speech stalwarts saw this as a delightful provocation, just one more contribution to the marketplace of ideas. The contextualists were less sanguine. Unlike, say, a poetry reading at a campus café, an opinion column in the Times can have significant material consequences, consequences that are not limited to emotional discomfort. In this case, the material objection was not that Stephens was enraging the sensibilities of liberal snowflakes but that he was giving some amount of intellectual succor to the people and companies engaged in the rapid destruction of the planet, a very real problem that the marketplace of ideas, not to mention the non-metaphorical marketplace, has come nowhere close to solving.
Last week, the Times published an Op-Ed by Tom Cotton, the hawkish senator from Arkansas, called “Send in the Troops.” In an incendiary tone, Cotton wrote that “nihilist criminals are simply out for loot and the thrill of destruction, with cadres of left-wing radicals like antifa infiltrating protest marches to exploit [George] Floyd’s death for their own anarchic purposes.” This claim—which has been largely discredited, including in the Times’ own pages—was the basis for Cotton’s argument that President Trump should invoke the Insurrection Act and use the U.S. military to crush dissidents by force. On Twitter and elsewhere, the free-speech stalwarts treated Cotton’s column as yet another interesting thought exercise. But the contextualists saw it as a specific and actionable threat. Cotton was not a professor assigning “The Bell Jar” without a trigger warning. He was imploring a man he knows, a man who happens to control the world’s most powerful military, to physically subdue untold numbers of his own citizens. Nor was this purely hypothetical. Trump has often repeated his admiration for vicious strongmen around the world, his desire for unchecked power, and his belief that street protests should be met with “overwhelming force.”
There was a national uproar over the column, and a backlash to the backlash. Much of it took a familiar form. The free-speech stalwarts accused the contextualists of being coddled snowflakes who couldn’t handle the rough and tumble of debate. But things have gone too far in this country for an old script about campus culture wars to be of much use. Cotton’s piece was published two days after federal officers used batons and pepper balls to disperse peaceful demonstrators outside the White House, clearing a path for Trump to glower in front of a boarded-up church. In a classroom, a discussion of violence is unlikely to be followed by actual violence. But in a republic on the brink of a legitimacy crisis, a country where the highest office is held by a brute and would-be authoritarian, state violence is not an academic abstraction but a constantly looming menace.
Bennet resigned on Sunday, but his successor will surely face similar dilemmas in the near future. In theory, the Times aims to reflect the breadth of the national discourse. It also aims to remain faithful to its bedrock values—upholding democracy, decrying racism, and pursuing truth, to name a few. In practice, it’s not always possible to achieve both goals at once. It’s easy for observers to call out the Times, or any paper of record, for this or that misstep; it’s harder to come up with a consistent set of principles that would determine which opinions are fit to print. The dilemma is especially pronounced in the age of Trump, because Trump’s values, to the extent that they exist, are antithetical to many of the Times’ values. As the Times columnist Michelle Goldberg pointed out, any good newspaper should strive to avoid bigotry or dishonesty, but “there’s generally no way to defend the administration without being either bigoted or dishonest.” Cotton, in his Op-Ed, attempted to justify his argument by citing a recent poll suggesting that most Americans agree with him. Critics later questioned this poll result, or at least contextualized it. Should a national newspaper be willing to publish any opinion that is shared by at least half of the country? If the Times simply aims to be a barometer of popular opinion, then a poll would be sufficient. If the paper wants to be something more, though, then some opinions will have to fall beneath its standards.


newyorker--2020-06-11--The Georgia Primary and the State of Voting Rights

A favorite parlor game in some circles is to name the worst Supreme Court decision of all time .
From the nineteenth century , Dred Scott v. Sandford , from 1857 , is hard to beat , because it decreed that African-Americans could not be full citizens , and helped precipitate the Civil War .
From the twentieth century , Korematsu v. United States , which , in 1944 , upheld the forced removal of Japanese-Americans from the West Coast , often figures as a strong runner-up .
But it ’ s increasingly apparent that there is a modern contestant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Justice John Roberts ’ s opinion in Shelby County v. Holder , from 2013 .
In Shelby County , the Court ’ s five Republican appointees declared unconstitutional the core of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 , the most consequential civil-rights law in modern American history .
( The four Democratic appointees dissented . )
The act , and its subsequent reauthorizations , designated certain areas , mostly the states of the old Confederacy , for special scrutiny of their voting-rights practices .
If these states wanted to make any changes with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for legislative districts to determining the location of polling places—they had to obtain “ pre-clearance ” from the Department of Justice .
( The states could also go to court for pre-clearance . )
For decades , the pre-clearance process operated as an effective check on discrimination in voting rights .
But Roberts ’ s opinion asserted that times had changed since 1965 : as he put it , “ the conditions that originally justified these measures no longer characterize voting in the covered jurisdictions.
” As a result , the Court effectively @ @ @ @ @ @ @ under scrutiny free rein to change their voting practices without first obtaining approval from the federal government .
In practice , the Shelby County decision has been a disaster for voting rights , especially for the voting rights of African-Americans .
This was once again made clear in the shambolic primary election that Georgia held on Tuesday .
It was always going to be difficult to conduct elections in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic , but Georgia ’ s effort was an emphatic failure—with long lines , faulty voting machines—especially in poorer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Charles Bethea has some of the grim details here . )
Georgia was a covered jurisdiction under the Voting Rights Act at the time of the Court ’ s opinion , and if the Justices had not neutered the law the state would have been required to clear its plans for the primary .
The Shelby County decision has done more than just allow occasional misfires .
It has hastened perhaps the most sinister aspect of the contemporary political agenda of the Republican Party .
In every state and locality under its control @ @ @ @ @ @ @ limit the ability of Democrats , especially people of color and lower-income people , to vote .
This has often taken the form of demanding photo identification to vote ( to address the largely imaginary problem of voter fraud ) , limiting early and absentee voting , and closing polling places in certain neighborhoods .
These trends predated the Shelby County decision , but the Justices ’ green light spurred vote-suppression efforts literally overnight .
According to the Brennan Center , within twenty-four hours of the Shelby County ruling , in 2013 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strict photo-I.D .
law .
Two other states , Mississippi and Alabama , also began to enforce photo-I.D .
laws that had previously been barred under federal pre-clearance .
As the Brennan Center further noted , these Republican efforts to disenfranchise African-Americans have intensified in recent years .
The majority in Shelby County made sure that those with the worst of intentions—that this , officials who want to manipulate the electoral system to achieve their desired outcomes—have almost unlimited power to do so .
The demands of conducting elections in the wake of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bad situation worse .
The only hope for a fair election in November will rest with people at the local level , who will have to do their best to fight for what the Voting Rights Act once delivered .

A favorite parlor game in some circles is to name the worst Supreme Court decision of all time. From the nineteenth century, Dred Scott v. Sandford, from 1857, is hard to beat, because it decreed that African-Americans could not be full citizens, and helped precipitate the Civil War. From the twentieth century, Korematsu v. United States, which, in 1944, upheld the forced removal of Japanese-Americans from the West Coast, often figures as a strong runner-up. But it’s increasingly apparent that there is a modern contestant for this baleful roll call: Chief Justice John Roberts’s opinion in Shelby County v. Holder, from 2013.
In Shelby County, the Court’s five Republican appointees declared unconstitutional the core of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the most consequential civil-rights law in modern American history. (The four Democratic appointees dissented.) The act, and its subsequent reauthorizations, designated certain areas, mostly the states of the old Confederacy, for special scrutiny of their voting-rights practices. If these states wanted to make any changes with regard to elections—from redrawing the boundary lines for legislative districts to determining the location of polling places—they had to obtain “pre-clearance” from the Department of Justice. (The states could also go to court for pre-clearance.)
For decades, the pre-clearance process operated as an effective check on discrimination in voting rights. But Roberts’s opinion asserted that times had changed since 1965: as he put it, “the conditions that originally justified these measures no longer characterize voting in the covered jurisdictions.” As a result, the Court effectively ended pre-clearance, giving the states previously under scrutiny free rein to change their voting practices without first obtaining approval from the federal government. In practice, the Shelby County decision has been a disaster for voting rights, especially for the voting rights of African-Americans.
This was once again made clear in the shambolic primary election that Georgia held on Tuesday. It was always going to be difficult to conduct elections in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, but Georgia’s effort was an emphatic failure—with long lines, faulty voting machines—especially in poorer, minority areas. (My colleague Charles Bethea has some of the grim details here.) Georgia was a covered jurisdiction under the Voting Rights Act at the time of the Court’s opinion, and if the Justices had not neutered the law the state would have been required to clear its plans for the primary.
The Shelby County decision has done more than just allow occasional misfires. It has hastened perhaps the most sinister aspect of the contemporary political agenda of the Republican Party. In every state and locality under its control, the G.O.P. is trying to limit the ability of Democrats, especially people of color and lower-income people, to vote. This has often taken the form of demanding photo identification to vote (to address the largely imaginary problem of voter fraud), limiting early and absentee voting, and closing polling places in certain neighborhoods. These trends predated the Shelby County decision, but the Justices’ green light spurred vote-suppression efforts literally overnight. According to the Brennan Center, within twenty-four hours of the Shelby County ruling, in 2013, Texas announced that it would implement a strict photo-I.D. law. Two other states, Mississippi and Alabama, also began to enforce photo-I.D. laws that had previously been barred under federal pre-clearance. As the Brennan Center further noted, these Republican efforts to disenfranchise African-Americans have intensified in recent years.
The majority in Shelby County made sure that those with the worst of intentions—that this, officials who want to manipulate the electoral system to achieve their desired outcomes—have almost unlimited power to do so. The demands of conducting elections in the wake of a pandemic seem certain to make a bad situation worse. The only hope for a fair election in November will rest with people at the local level, who will have to do their best to fight for what the Voting Rights Act once delivered.


newyorker--2020-06-10--The Bicycle as a Vehicle of Protest

The Bicycle as a Vehicle of Protest

A week ago , on Wednesday night , the third night of a citywide curfew in New York , police officers were seen confiscating bicycles .
Posts on social media described N.Y.P.D .
officers violently seizing bikes from peaceful Black Lives Matter demonstrators , who were continuing to march in defiance of the 8 P.M.. lockdown .
In one widely shared video clip , a jittery camera captured a cop wheeling an apparently commandeered bike ; a woman can be heard screaming at police , asking why bikes are being taken , and how protesters are supposed to travel home @ @ @ @ @ @ @ retweeted by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , among others , shows three policemen clubbing a cyclist with batons on a Manhattan street .
It ’ s unclear whether the man was arrested , or what became of his bicycle .
In the days that followed , the N.Y.P.D ’ s anti-bicycle actions continued .
On Thursday , Catherina Gioino , a reporter for the Daily News , tweeted that police had been ordered to “ focus on the bicyclists.
” Newsday ’ s Matthew Chayes said in a tweet that police had proclaimed that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that bike-riding after the curfew would result in an “ automatic collar.
” Other online posts documented arrests and violent attacks on cyclists , including journalists with press credentials .
The city ’ s first curfew since the Second World War had been imposed , according to Mayor Bill de Blasio ’ s executive order , to curb “ assault , vandalism , property damage , and/or looting.
” New Yorkers were left to wonder how scenes of cops beating protesters and snatching their bikes—or , in some cases , leaving the bikes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ objectives .
These incidents were troubling but not exactly surprising .
The N.Y.P.D .
has a long history of hostility to cyclists , especially cyclists who are also left-leaning activists .
For years , police have used questionable , sometimes violent tactics to sweep up participants in Critical Mass , the guerilla group rides that aim to promote cyclists ’ rights .
In 2010 , a former N.Y.P.D .
officer received a felony conviction for body-slamming a Critical Mass rider and filing a false criminal complaint in an attempt to frame the cyclist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ agreed to pay a settlement of nearly a million dollars to eighty-three Critical Mass riders who had been wrongly detained or arrested between 2004 and 2006 .
In the de Blasio era , the N.Y.P.D .
has engaged in sporadic crackdowns against bicyclists , issuing tickets and confiscating bikes .
( Journalists and cycling advocates have charged that these “ ticket-blitzes , ” which often follow incidents in which cyclists are maimed or killed by automobiles , are a form of institutionalized victim-blaming . )
Many recent police actions have been directed at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the N.Y.P.D .
have waged a years-long “ war on e-bikes , ” seizing hundreds of the throttle-control bicycles , issuing summonses , and levying fines , a campaign that almost exclusively hits a workforce of immigrant food-delivery people , who are among the most vulnerable of the city ’ s working poor .
The N.Y.P.D .
have also targeted “ ride-outs , ” group rides that are popular with young black and Latino cyclists .
Cops have reportedly broken up the events by ramming mopeds into bicycles , and have trumpeted the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the social-media feeds of police precincts .
The conflict between law enforcement and cyclists is hardly restricted to New York .
Bicycles have played a starring role in the nationwide uprising that has followed George Floyd ’ s death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers two weeks ago .
In Los Angeles , San Francisco , Portland , Chicago , Atlanta , Miami , and dozens of other cities , protesters have pedalled and marched with their bicycles , facing off with police who , in many cases , are also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bicycles may be due , in part , to where the demonstrations are taking place , and who is doing the demonstrating .
The bicycle is , supremely , a city vehicle ; teens and young adults , who make up a sizable percentage of the protesters , are among the most enthusiastic urban cyclists .
But the visibility of bikes in the protests also reflects a larger trend .
In 2020 , we are experiencing what is likely the greatest bicycle boom in at least a half century .
Several factors have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the spectre of climate change and other crises gripping the globe are certainly part of the equation .
In an ecologically imperiled , rapidly urbanizing , traffic-shackled twenty-first century , the zero-emissions two-wheeler has reëmerged as a darling of urbanists , policymakers , and commuters .
The boom has transformed American cities with new bicycle infrastructure , bike-share programs , and other pro-cycling initiatives .
A further surge of bicycle commuting has accompanied the coronavirus pandemic : bike riding is an excellent way to maintain social distance , to swiftly navigate the city @ @ @ @ @ @ @ National Association of City Transport Officials has reported an “ explosion in cycling ” since the outbreak of the virus ; huge increases in sales have left bike shops with a shortage of stock .
Bicycle politics , the causes championed by cycling advocates and activists , are often dismissed by critics as esoteric or élitist .
But transportation issues are social-justice issues .
The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don ’ t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods , vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities .
In fact , you could say that Black Lives Matter is a moral crusade about freedom of movement and who is at liberty to go where .
For generations , police departments have patrolled African-American neighborhoods like occupying armies , surveilling and circumscribing the movements of residents , who are treated as interlopers even on their home turf .
The mobility of black people is additionally restricted by a system that construes their mere presence in many public spaces as trespassing , a de-facto @ @ @ @ @ @ @ death .
Tensions over freedom of movement are ratcheted up during times of civil unrest .
In the past two weeks , the streets of American cities have become ferociously contested terrain .
Protesters chant “ Whose streets ?
Our streets !
” ; police impose their authority with weapons and barricades .
A key episode was Donald Trump ’ s visit to St. John ’ s Episcopal Church , in Washington , which followed the violent clearing of protesters from neighboring Lafayette Square by police and National Guard troops .
Trump ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Bible outside the church ’ s parish house , has been endlessly dissected .
But the more significant photo op may have come moments earlier , when Trump strode across H Street at the head of a White House entourage .
Presidents are usually whisked from place to place by limousine , and Trump ’ s decision to go on foot was , surely , no accident : a strongman ’ s raw assertion that the streets belong to him .
In a conference call with state governors that morning , Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the streets , ” a sentiment echoed by the Secretary of Defense , Mark Esper , who stressed the need , in a startling turn of phrase , “ to dominate the battle space.
” Cyclists in New York and elsewhere found themselves caught up in a battle space .
The N.Y.P.D .
employed the military-style maneuver known as kettling , surrounding protesters on all sides to block exit routes and then charging in to make arrests .
The strong-arm approach calls to mind earlier chapters in bicycle history .
There is a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and of authoritarian governments cracking down on bicyclists .
One of Adolf Hitler ’ s first acts upon assuming power , in 1933 , was to criminalize cycling unions , which were associated with anti-Nazi political parties .
Brown Shirts were sent to villages to confiscate bikes , a practice that was repeated years later by German soldiers during the occupations of Denmark , the Netherlands , France , and other countries .
Then there are the famous scenes , from 1989 , of pro-democracy demonstrators in China pouring into Tiananmen Square @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of flattened frames and wheels that were left behind after tanks moved in to crush the revolt .

A week ago, on Wednesday night, the third night of a citywide curfew in New York, police officers were seen confiscating bicycles. Posts on social media described N.Y.P.D. officers violently seizing bikes from peaceful Black Lives Matter demonstrators, who were continuing to march in defiance of the 8 P.M.. lockdown. In one widely shared video clip, a jittery camera captured a cop wheeling an apparently commandeered bike; a woman can be heard screaming at police, asking why bikes are being taken, and how protesters are supposed to travel home. Another piece of viral footage, retweeted by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, among others, shows three policemen clubbing a cyclist with batons on a Manhattan street. It’s unclear whether the man was arrested, or what became of his bicycle.
In the days that followed, the N.Y.P.D’s anti-bicycle actions continued. On Thursday, Catherina Gioino, a reporter for the Daily News, tweeted that police had been ordered to “focus on the bicyclists.” Newsday’s Matthew Chayes said in a tweet that police had proclaimed that bicycles were “not allowed” and that bike-riding after the curfew would result in an “automatic collar.” Other online posts documented arrests and violent attacks on cyclists, including journalists with press credentials. The city’s first curfew since the Second World War had been imposed, according to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s executive order, to curb “assault, vandalism, property damage, and/or looting.” New Yorkers were left to wonder how scenes of cops beating protesters and snatching their bikes—or, in some cases, leaving the bikes littered on the street—squared with the stated objectives.
These incidents were troubling but not exactly surprising. The N.Y.P.D. has a long history of hostility to cyclists, especially cyclists who are also left-leaning activists. For years, police have used questionable, sometimes violent tactics to sweep up participants in Critical Mass, the guerilla group rides that aim to promote cyclists’ rights. In 2010, a former N.Y.P.D. officer received a felony conviction for body-slamming a Critical Mass rider and filing a false criminal complaint in an attempt to frame the cyclist. That same year, the city agreed to pay a settlement of nearly a million dollars to eighty-three Critical Mass riders who had been wrongly detained or arrested between 2004 and 2006.
In the de Blasio era, the N.Y.P.D. has engaged in sporadic crackdowns against bicyclists, issuing tickets and confiscating bikes. (Journalists and cycling advocates have charged that these “ticket-blitzes,” which often follow incidents in which cyclists are maimed or killed by automobiles, are a form of institutionalized victim-blaming.) Many recent police actions have been directed at cyclists of color. De Blasio and the N.Y.P.D. have waged a years-long “war on e-bikes,” seizing hundreds of the throttle-control bicycles, issuing summonses, and levying fines, a campaign that almost exclusively hits a workforce of immigrant food-delivery people, who are among the most vulnerable of the city’s working poor. The N.Y.P.D. have also targeted “ride-outs,” group rides that are popular with young black and Latino cyclists. Cops have reportedly broken up the events by ramming mopeds into bicycles, and have trumpeted the confiscation of teen-agers’ flashy BMX bikes on the social-media feeds of police precincts.
The conflict between law enforcement and cyclists is hardly restricted to New York. Bicycles have played a starring role in the nationwide uprising that has followed George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers two weeks ago. In Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, and dozens of other cities, protesters have pedalled and marched with their bicycles, facing off with police who, in many cases, are also mounted on bikes. The omnipresence of bicycles may be due, in part, to where the demonstrations are taking place, and who is doing the demonstrating. The bicycle is, supremely, a city vehicle; teens and young adults, who make up a sizable percentage of the protesters, are among the most enthusiastic urban cyclists.
But the visibility of bikes in the protests also reflects a larger trend. In 2020, we are experiencing what is likely the greatest bicycle boom in at least a half century. Several factors have contributed to the bicycling revival, but the spectre of climate change and other crises gripping the globe are certainly part of the equation. In an ecologically imperiled, rapidly urbanizing, traffic-shackled twenty-first century, the zero-emissions two-wheeler has reëmerged as a darling of urbanists, policymakers, and commuters. The boom has transformed American cities with new bicycle infrastructure, bike-share programs, and other pro-cycling initiatives. A further surge of bicycle commuting has accompanied the coronavirus pandemic: bike riding is an excellent way to maintain social distance, to swiftly navigate the city while avoiding buses and subways. The National Association of City Transport Officials has reported an “explosion in cycling” since the outbreak of the virus; huge increases in sales have left bike shops with a shortage of stock.
Bicycle politics, the causes championed by cycling advocates and activists, are often dismissed by critics as esoteric or élitist. But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities.
In fact, you could say that Black Lives Matter is a moral crusade about freedom of movement and who is at liberty to go where. For generations, police departments have patrolled African-American neighborhoods like occupying armies, surveilling and circumscribing the movements of residents, who are treated as interlopers even on their home turf. The mobility of black people is additionally restricted by a system that construes their mere presence in many public spaces as trespassing, a de-facto crime, punishable by imprisonment or even death.
Tensions over freedom of movement are ratcheted up during times of civil unrest. In the past two weeks, the streets of American cities have become ferociously contested terrain. Protesters chant “Whose streets? Our streets!”; police impose their authority with weapons and barricades.
A key episode was Donald Trump’s visit to St. John’s Episcopal Church, in Washington, which followed the violent clearing of protesters from neighboring Lafayette Square by police and National Guard troops. Trump’s bizarre photo opportunity, posing with a Bible outside the church’s parish house, has been endlessly dissected. But the more significant photo op may have come moments earlier, when Trump strode across H Street at the head of a White House entourage. Presidents are usually whisked from place to place by limousine, and Trump’s decision to go on foot was, surely, no accident: a strongman’s raw assertion that the streets belong to him. In a conference call with state governors that morning, Trump called for law enforcement to “dominate the streets,” a sentiment echoed by the Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, who stressed the need, in a startling turn of phrase, “to dominate the battle space.”
Cyclists in New York and elsewhere found themselves caught up in a battle space. The N.Y.P.D. employed the military-style maneuver known as kettling, surrounding protesters on all sides to block exit routes and then charging in to make arrests. The strong-arm approach calls to mind earlier chapters in bicycle history. There is a long record of bicyclists engaging in protest, and of authoritarian governments cracking down on bicyclists. One of Adolf Hitler’s first acts upon assuming power, in 1933, was to criminalize cycling unions, which were associated with anti-Nazi political parties. Brown Shirts were sent to villages to confiscate bikes, a practice that was repeated years later by German soldiers during the occupations of Denmark, the Netherlands, France, and other countries. Then there are the famous scenes, from 1989, of pro-democracy demonstrators in China pouring into Tiananmen Square on bicycles, and the macabre images of flattened frames and wheels that were left behind after tanks moved in to crush the revolt.


newyorker--2020-06-10--A White House Tour, from Outside Trump’s Fence

Washington is a city of tours , of carefully curated tellings of history .
Official White House tours were suspended nearly three months ago , due to the coronavirus pandemic , and it ’ s not clear when they will resume .
For now , the closest that most Americans can get to visiting is something of a self-guided tour along the fence that went up June 4th , swaddling the White House , the Treasury , and other buildings in reinforced black-metal mesh .
Pennsylvania Avenue is blocked , so a circumnavigation is best launched a couple of blocks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the corner of Fifteenth Street .
Heading south , one of the first sights is the face of a pig , scrawled in graffiti beside the word “ Oink !
” The pig , on the wall of the Treasury building , evidently went up before the fence , during the early protests over the police killing of George Floyd , so , ten days after the marches began , it still peers out , like a museum piece behind glass .
Continue south along the fence line , and other graffiti on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and among the Greek columns , composes a montage of recent history : “ I Can ’ t Breathe , ” “ We Are Unarmed , ” and “ Black Lives Matter.
” Walking on , a glance to the left offers a glorious view of the limestone blocks of the Herbert C. Hoover Federal Building , which houses the Commerce Department and is named for a President who mishandled an economic crisis and tried to shift the blame to other nations , telling Congress , in 1930 , that “ the major @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the United States.
” ( Two years later , after losing his bid for reëlection , Hoover left Washington on a train , weeping during the journey , and then dedicated his life to resisting the work of his successor , Franklin Roosevelt . )
Above the door of the Hoover Building , the inscribed words of George Washington offer a soothing reminder of greatness : “ Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair.
” But you can ’ t linger in the reveries for too @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sign that has been recently adorned with a sticker marked “ Bunker Bitch.
” Glance right again and you pass the darkened hall of the Ellipse Visitor Pavilion , usually a destination for tourists seeking shade in the splendid fifty-two-acre public park south of the White House .
When the Secret Service ordered the fence put up , Deborah Berke , the dean of the Yale School of Architecture , observed that it was not just the vicinity of the White House that became inaccessible .
“ Part of what ’ s so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the wall , but the grabbing nature of it , ” she told me .
“ It takes a public park along with it.
” Last week , when William Barr , the Attorney General , dispatched members of law enforcement and the National Guard to barricade the Lincoln Memorial , Berke saw another example of a seizure of space .
“ I had a childhood connection to the Lincoln Memorial—my father idolized Lincoln and could quote many of his speeches by heart—and when I go to Washington , I always make a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It ’ s an homage to our better selves , ” she said .
“ Preventing any one of us from going to stand in that hallowed space and read those words is like a wall at the White House .
We , as Americans , should be able to go and talk to Mr. Lincoln whenever we want .
This stuff should not be taken away from us as citizens of this country .
This stuff is ours.
” The southward leg of the tour concludes at the corner of Constitution @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the city ’ s best view of the Museum of African American History , a modern beauty rising in three upward-thrusting levels , inspired by the three-tiered crowns used in West African Yoruba art .
The building is wrapped in a bronze-colored screen , which the museum describes as a “ tribute to the intricate ironwork crafted by enslaved African Americans ” in the southern United States .
That lattice now stands as a counterpoint to the black fence across the street .
On the corner , five members of the National Guard @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the shade beside an idling tan truck .
As you head west , along the southern border of the fence , the pedestrians thin out .
Constitution Avenue is broad , and the mind wanders .
As I walked , it reminded me of experiences in Beijing , where I lived for many years , and where people are more accustomed than Americans are to the notion of leaders who live and work secluded from the public .
Long before Trump got his fence , Chinese leaders in the fifteenth century built @ @ @ @ @ @ @ compound in the center of Beijing , which only the emperor ’ s closest family and attendants were allowed to enter .
Geremie Barmé , a historian and the author of the book “ The Forbidden City , ” from 2008 , told me that the compound was “ quasi-sacred territory , where the Son of Heaven formally resided.
” Over the centuries , some emperors preferred to enjoy their vacation properties and “ spent up to one-third of the year at various other garden palaces or hunting grounds , or travelling , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the emperors ’ penchant for luxury and seclusion contributed to their downfall ; the imperial court became so contemptuous of criticism , so focussed on rumor and palace intrigue , that it missed the seriousness of a democratic uprising .
In 1912 , China ’ s last emperor fell to revolution .
For a time , China ’ s revolutionaries opened some of Beijing ’ s treasured terrain to the public .
The palace complex known as Zhongnanhai was converted , at various points , into a public park and municipal offices @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the public .
But , in 1948 , the Communist Party , too , opted for greater seclusion , and Zhongnanhai became the new seat of the state .
“ It once again became a jìn dì , that is , a ‘ forbidden ’ or ‘ exclusive ’ zone , ” Barmé told me .
( By the time Mao Zedong died , in 1976 , he had taken to living in the swimming-pool complex . )
Ge Yang , a Party stalwart until the late nineteen-eighties , when she became an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ both physical and psychological , makes it difficult for a leader to sense distress ; the leaders of the Communist Party , for example , misjudged the rage that exploded in Tiananmen Square , in 1989 .
“ Many Communist leaders moved into quarters within the old imperial city , ” Ge said , in 1995 .
“ Before , they had lived with the peasants , and it was said , ‘ Fish can not live out of water.
’ ” Continuing the tour and turning north on Seventeenth Street , I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speak to moments of rupture in American history—the Daughters of the American Revolution and the American Red Cross , whose building is dedicated to “ the heroic women of the Civil War.
” As I approached Lafayette Park , the pedestrian traffic thickened into a cross-section of ideologies : I passed a man and woman wearing shirts marked “ Corinthians 5:20 ” ( “ We are therefore Christ ’ s ambassadors ” ) and another couple in blue MAGA-style hats marked “ Make Lying Wrong Again.
” On the final blocks to Lafayette @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fence itself has been adorned with homemade protest signs that tell a history more directly than any tour guide can : “ Who Do You Protect ?
” “ Everything Hurts , ” and “ You ’ ve fucked with the last generation.
” Shut out for now from the history on display in “ the People ’ s House , ” protesters have assembled a gallery of the moment , a mosaic manifesto that is , by turns , profound , prurient , inspiring , and determined .
The asphalt itself has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Washington , Muriel Bowser , has famously emblazoned with giant yellow letters that spell out “ Black Lives Matter .
”

Washington is a city of tours, of carefully curated tellings of history. Official White House tours were suspended nearly three months ago, due to the coronavirus pandemic, and it’s not clear when they will resume. For now, the closest that most Americans can get to visiting is something of a self-guided tour along the fence that went up June 4th, swaddling the White House, the Treasury, and other buildings in reinforced black-metal mesh.
Pennsylvania Avenue is blocked, so a circumnavigation is best launched a couple of blocks east of the White House, at the corner of Fifteenth Street. Heading south, one of the first sights is the face of a pig, scrawled in graffiti beside the word “Oink!” The pig, on the wall of the Treasury building, evidently went up before the fence, during the early protests over the police killing of George Floyd, so, ten days after the marches began, it still peers out, like a museum piece behind glass. Continue south along the fence line, and other graffiti on the wall of the Treasury, in and among the Greek columns, composes a montage of recent history: “I Can’t Breathe,” “We Are Unarmed,” and “Black Lives Matter.”
Walking on, a glance to the left offers a glorious view of the limestone blocks of the Herbert C. Hoover Federal Building, which houses the Commerce Department and is named for a President who mishandled an economic crisis and tried to shift the blame to other nations, telling Congress, in 1930, that “the major forces of the depression now lie outside of the United States.” (Two years later, after losing his bid for reëlection, Hoover left Washington on a train, weeping during the journey, and then dedicated his life to resisting the work of his successor, Franklin Roosevelt.) Above the door of the Hoover Building, the inscribed words of George Washington offer a soothing reminder of greatness: “Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair.” But you can’t linger in the reveries for too long before running headlong into a street sign that has been recently adorned with a sticker marked “Bunker Bitch.”
Glance right again and you pass the darkened hall of the Ellipse Visitor Pavilion, usually a destination for tourists seeking shade in the splendid fifty-two-acre public park south of the White House. When the Secret Service ordered the fence put up, Deborah Berke, the dean of the Yale School of Architecture, observed that it was not just the vicinity of the White House that became inaccessible. “Part of what’s so offensive to me isn’t just the wall but the grabbing nature of it,” she told me. “It takes a public park along with it.” Last week, when William Barr, the Attorney General, dispatched members of law enforcement and the National Guard to barricade the Lincoln Memorial, Berke saw another example of a seizure of space. “I had a childhood connection to the Lincoln Memorial—my father idolized Lincoln and could quote many of his speeches by heart—and when I go to Washington, I always make a point of going to the Lincoln Memorial. It’s an homage to our better selves,” she said. “Preventing any one of us from going to stand in that hallowed space and read those words is like a wall at the White House. We, as Americans, should be able to go and talk to Mr. Lincoln whenever we want. This stuff should not be taken away from us as citizens of this country. This stuff is ours.”
The southward leg of the tour concludes at the corner of Constitution Avenue and Fifteenth Street, which affords the city’s best view of the Museum of African American History, a modern beauty rising in three upward-thrusting levels, inspired by the three-tiered crowns used in West African Yoruba art. The building is wrapped in a bronze-colored screen, which the museum describes as a “tribute to the intricate ironwork crafted by enslaved African Americans” in the southern United States. That lattice now stands as a counterpoint to the black fence across the street.
On the corner, five members of the National Guard, in desert camouflage, milled around in the shade beside an idling tan truck. As you head west, along the southern border of the fence, the pedestrians thin out. Constitution Avenue is broad, and the mind wanders. As I walked, it reminded me of experiences in Beijing, where I lived for many years, and where people are more accustomed than Americans are to the notion of leaders who live and work secluded from the public. Long before Trump got his fence, Chinese leaders in the fifteenth century built the Forbidden City, a walled palace compound in the center of Beijing, which only the emperor’s closest family and attendants were allowed to enter. Geremie Barmé, a historian and the author of the book “The Forbidden City,” from 2008, told me that the compound was “quasi-sacred territory, where the Son of Heaven formally resided.” Over the centuries, some emperors preferred to enjoy their vacation properties and “spent up to one-third of the year at various other garden palaces or hunting grounds, or travelling,” he said. In the end, the emperors’ penchant for luxury and seclusion contributed to their downfall; the imperial court became so contemptuous of criticism, so focussed on rumor and palace intrigue, that it missed the seriousness of a democratic uprising. In 1912, China’s last emperor fell to revolution.
For a time, China’s revolutionaries opened some of Beijing’s treasured terrain to the public. The palace complex known as Zhongnanhai was converted, at various points, into a public park and municipal offices, with a swimming pool open to the public. But, in 1948, the Communist Party, too, opted for greater seclusion, and Zhongnanhai became the new seat of the state. “It once again became a jìn dì—that is, a ‘forbidden’ or ‘exclusive’ zone,” Barmé told me. (By the time Mao Zedong died, in 1976, he had taken to living in the swimming-pool complex.) Ge Yang, a Party stalwart until the late nineteen-eighties, when she became an apostate, later observed that seclusion, both physical and psychological, makes it difficult for a leader to sense distress; the leaders of the Communist Party, for example, misjudged the rage that exploded in Tiananmen Square in 1989. “Many Communist leaders moved into quarters within the old imperial city,” Ge said, in 1995. “Before, they had lived with the peasants, and it was said, ‘Fish cannot live out of water.’ ”
Continuing the tour and turning north on Seventeenth Street, I passed a series of shuttered offices that speak to moments of rupture in American history—the Daughters of the American Revolution and the American Red Cross, whose building is dedicated to “the heroic women of the Civil War.” As I approached Lafayette Park, the pedestrian traffic thickened into a cross-section of ideologies: I passed a man and woman wearing shirts marked “Corinthians 5:20” (“We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors”) and another couple in blue MAGA-style hats marked “Make Lying Wrong Again.”


newyorker--2020-06-10--How the Federal Government Can Reform the Police

On Monday , in response to the killing of George Floyd and nationwide protests against police violence , Democrats in the House of Representatives introduced a bill to reform America ’ s police departments by banning choke holds and tracking police misconduct nationally .
The bill is unlikely to make it through the Republican-controlled Senate , but criminal-justice reform is now certain to be one of the top items in a potential Biden Administration .
Meanwhile , activists and protesters are advocating for more radical transformations of the criminal-justice system , including the defunding of police departments .
In Minneapolis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ city council has announced its intention to defund and dismantle its police department .
( On Monday , a spokesperson for Biden ’ s campaign said , in response to demands from protesters , that the former Vice-President “ does not believe the police should be defunded.
” ) To discuss how best to reform America ’ s police departments , I spoke by phone with Tracey Meares , a professor and the founding director of the Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School .
In 2015 , Meares served on President Obama ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which was convened in response to the unrest in Ferguson , Missouri , and offered a detailed set of recommendations for how police departments could build better relationships with the communities they serve .
During our conversation , which has been edited for length and clarity , we discussed how much reform can take place at the federal level , why Obama ’ s task force didn ’ t focus on structural problems , and what “ defunding the police ” means in practice .
Michelle Alexander wrote , in a recent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decades of reform , countless commissions and task forces and millions of dollars poured into ‘ smart on crime ’ approaches , the police behave with about as much brutality today as they did in 1966.
” What ’ s your response to that ?
I have a couple of responses .
Let ’ s start with talking about people killed by police as a way of trying to figure out how to respond to that question .
We know that from the time people have been trying to get a count , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t have adequate national data on this question , which I think is really important .
Even trying to understand the shape of the problem is incredibly difficult when there are no standardized measures of what police do , and then no requirement that those measures be reported to the federal government so that there could be the possibility of oversight .
It makes talking about this really hard .
That ’ s one of the reasons why one of the commissions that I served on—the Obama task force—mentioned that issue as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ago .
And I also think it is fair to say that some of these commissions have recommended policies and approaches that have changed things .
So , for example , I think it ’ s notable that there are police executives across the country who are speaking out and who condemned George Floyd ’ s killing in really strong terms , and I don ’ t think that would have happened ten years ago .
I also think that we can point to city agencies across the country where reforms have made @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the number of people who are killed .
But that ’ s not her point .
I don ’ t think her point is that there has been absolutely no change .
The point is that these kinds of changes around the edges have not addressed the fundamental issues identified by the Kerner Commission , the commission , fifty years ago , about how police violence relates to the communities that they supposedly serve .
And that ’ s really , I think , that ’ s the crux of the matter .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ issue , what do you think about the idea of “ defunding the police , ” and what specifically does the phrase mean to you ?
I wrote a piece in the Boston Review , in 2017 , arguing that policing as we know it must be abolished before it can be transformed .
And the point of that was to understand that the way the state goes about supporting the polity ’ s interest in safety can not just be sending armed first responders to places that the state had a hand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in history , which was also what Michelle Alexander is talking about in her piece .
And so when people say “ defund , ” I think they are saying resources that go to this armed first responder ought to go to a bunch of other aspects of the state that support community vitality and community flourishing .
So my view is that we need to have a serious conversation about the set of public goods that the polity is entitled to in order to maintain safety and security .
What would those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to start with the state ’ s response .
There is a whole set of emergency first-response things that the state provides that we don ’ t need to have an armed person doing .
One person couldn ’ t possibly be trained really well to respond to all of the kinds of things that we expect police to respond to .
You can imagine having emergency mental-health-crisis folks showing up to do certain kinds of things .
You can imagine having community-based problem solvers addressing more long-term issues that communities face in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and making their communities nicer and better places to live .
But you can also imagine rethinking how we deliver public health in this country , and I think a lot of that is going to happen more on the local level , at least in the immediate term , as Congress continues to debate our national response to health care .
This may be too wonky , but there ’ s this thing called the police power that the state has , right ?
It ’ s the state ’ s power @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its citizens .
So the police power that sends out armed first responders is also the power of the state that we ’ ve been dealing with in our COVID-19 response .
And it ’ s also the power of the state to require minimum education standards .
So , for me , when I think about reconstructing police , I ’ m actually talking about a fulsome discussion of the police power .
President Obama ’ s commission did not talk about defunding police or abolishing police .
There have been two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
One was that it wasn ’ t radical enough and tried to reform things that needed to be completely reconceived , and the second was that it didn ’ t work because the Trump Administration undermined its execution after 2016 .
What do you think about each ?
Let ’ s start with the second , about how the current Administration has addressed this .
To the extent that there was an attempt to begin to implement some of those recommendations that happened late in the Obama Administration , there ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which shows some examples of what folks did across the country .
And there was one relatively large demonstration project that I participated in .
It was a $ 4.7 million strategy over six cities in three years to try to implement some training ideas and the like .
We were excited to be able to demonstrate an impact .
But I ’ m not sure that there was a level of serious investment , in part because of the change of Administration .
The current Administration just dropped all of the task @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Washington Post reported that a spokesperson for the Department of Justice “ noted that the probes have not gone away entirely—pointing to a pattern-or-practice case initiated last year into the former narcotics unit of the Springfield , Mass.
, police department.
” ] That said , my own view about the recommendations is that , even if every single one of them had been fully implemented across the country , the kind of conversation that we are starting to have now would still be necessary .
Because a lot of those recommendations were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now better .
And we can make what is happening now better .

On Monday, in response to the killing of George Floyd and nationwide protests against police violence, Democrats in the House of Representatives introduced a bill to reform America’s police departments by banning choke holds and tracking police misconduct nationally. The bill is unlikely to make it through the Republican-controlled Senate, but criminal-justice reform is now certain to be one of the top items in a potential Biden Administration. Meanwhile, activists and protesters are advocating for more radical transformations of the criminal-justice system, including the defunding of police departments. In Minneapolis, where Floyd was killed, the city council has announced its intention to defund and dismantle its police department. (On Monday, a spokesperson for Biden’s campaign said, in response to demands from protesters, that the former Vice-President “does not believe the police should be defunded.”)
To discuss how best to reform America’s police departments, I spoke by phone with Tracey Meares, a professor and the founding director of the Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School. In 2015, Meares served on President Obama’s Task Force on Twenty-first Century Policing, which was convened in response to the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, and offered a detailed set of recommendations for how police departments could build better relationships with the communities they serve. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed how much reform can take place at the federal level, why Obama’s task force didn’t focus on structural problems, and what “defunding the police” means in practice.
Michelle Alexander wrote, in a recent Op-Ed for the Times, “After decades of reform, countless commissions and task forces and millions of dollars poured into ‘smart on crime’ approaches, the police behave with about as much brutality today as they did in 1966.” What’s your response to that?
I have a couple of responses. Let’s start with talking about people killed by police as a way of trying to figure out how to respond to that question. We know that from the time people have been trying to get a count, it has been difficult. We don’t have adequate national data on this question, which I think is really important. Even trying to understand the shape of the problem is incredibly difficult when there are no standardized measures of what police do, and then no requirement that those measures be reported to the federal government so that there could be the possibility of oversight. It makes talking about this really hard.
That’s one of the reasons why one of the commissions that I served on—the Obama task force—mentioned that issue as something incredibly important to do five years ago. And I also think it is fair to say that some of these commissions have recommended policies and approaches that have changed things. So, for example, I think it’s notable that there are police executives across the country who are speaking out and who condemned George Floyd’s killing in really strong terms, and I don’t think that would have happened ten years ago. I also think that we can point to city agencies across the country where reforms have made a difference, for example, in the number of people who are killed.
But that’s not her point. I don’t think her point is that there has been absolutely no change. The point is that these kinds of changes around the edges have not addressed the fundamental issues identified by the Kerner Commission, the commission, fifty years ago, about how police violence relates to the communities that they supposedly serve. And that’s really, I think, that’s the crux of the matter.
So then, turning to that fundamental issue, what do you think about the idea of “defunding the police,” and what specifically does the phrase mean to you?
I wrote a piece in the Boston Review, in 2017, arguing that policing as we know it must be abolished before it can be transformed. And the point of that was to understand that the way the state goes about supporting the polity’s interest in safety cannot just be sending armed first responders to places that the state had a hand in creating over a very long time in history, which was also what Michelle Alexander is talking about in her piece.
And so when people say “defund,” I think they are saying resources that go to this armed first responder ought to go to a bunch of other aspects of the state that support community vitality and community flourishing. So my view is that we need to have a serious conversation about the set of public goods that the polity is entitled to in order to maintain safety and security.
What would those things be, specifically?
I want to start with the state’s response. There is a whole set of emergency first-response things that the state provides that we don’t need to have an armed person doing. One person couldn’t possibly be trained really well to respond to all of the kinds of things that we expect police to respond to. You can imagine having emergency mental-health-crisis folks showing up to do certain kinds of things. You can imagine having community-based problem solvers addressing more long-term issues that communities face in terms of achieving their goals and projects and making their communities nicer and better places to live. But you can also imagine rethinking how we deliver public health in this country, and I think a lot of that is going to happen more on the local level, at least in the immediate term, as Congress continues to debate our national response to health care.
This may be too wonky, but there’s this thing called the police power that the state has, right? It’s the state’s power to legislate for the general welfare of its citizens. So the police power that sends out armed first responders is also the power of the state that we’ve been dealing with in our COVID-19 response. And it’s also the power of the state to require minimum education standards. So, for me, when I think about reconstructing police, I’m actually talking about a fulsome discussion of the police power.
President Obama’s commission did not talk about defunding police or abolishing police.
No.
There have been two critiques of the commission’s work. One was that it wasn’t radical enough and tried to reform things that needed to be completely reconceived, and the second was that it didn’t work because the Trump Administration undermined its execution after 2016. What do you think about each?
Let’s start with the second, about how the current Administration has addressed this. To the extent that there was an attempt to begin to implement some of those recommendations that happened late in the Obama Administration, there’s this thing called the implementation guide, which shows some examples of what folks did across the country. And there was one relatively large demonstration project that I participated in. It was a $4.7 million strategy over six cities in three years to try to implement some training ideas and the like. We were excited to be able to demonstrate an impact. But I’m not sure that there was a level of serious investment, in part because of the change of Administration. The current Administration just dropped all of the task force’s work. [The Washington Post reported that a spokesperson for the Department of Justice “noted that the probes have not gone away entirely—pointing to a pattern-or-practice case initiated last year into the former narcotics unit of the Springfield, Mass., police department.”] That said, my own view about the recommendations is that, even if every single one of them had been fully implemented across the country, the kind of conversation that we are starting to have now would still be necessary. Because a lot of those recommendations were about how to make what is happening now better. And we can make what is happening now better.


newyorker--2020-06-10--Why the Polls Are Alarming for Donald Trump

In the past couple of weeks , as protests over the killing of George Floyd have convulsed the country , a number of polls have showed Donald Trump trailing badly behind Joe Biden in the race for the Presidency .
A CNN survey released on Monday put Biden ’ s lead at fourteen percentage points—a finding that Trump dismissed , on Twitter , saying it was “ as FAKE as their Reporting.
” After what happened in 2016 , it is imperative to interpret poll results cautiously .
But the President ’ s bluster couldn ’ t hide the fact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reason—about the way things are heading .
Here are some bad signs for Trump that struck me after I spent some time burrowing into the invaluable polling databases that are maintained by RealClearPolitics and FiveThirtyEight .
In the past two months , Trump hasn ’ t led in a single national poll .
The FiveThirtyEight general-election database contains the results of hundreds of surveys , and the last one showing Trump in front of Biden nationally was conducted by Change Research on April 2nd and 3rd—a moment at which Bernie Sanders was still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2016 , Trump trailed Hillary Clinton in the vast majority of national surveys , too .
But , during the two-month period from April 9th to June 9th of that year , he led in five of them , including a poll in May from ABC News/Washington Post that got quite a bit of attention .
Since early April of this year , every single national poll in the FiveThirtyEight database , including some that tend to lean Republican , has shown Biden ahead .
Biden ’ s lead appears to be growing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
poll average showed the former Vice-President leading Trump by 6.3 percentage points nationally .
Since Monday , Biden has been ahead by eight percentage points .
During the past week and a half , four surveys have shown Biden with double-digit leads , and three of them—from Monmouth University , ABC News/Washington Post , and CNN—have been wholly or partly conducted by telephone , which is generally considered a more reliable method than online surveys .
Two other recent telephone surveys—from NBC News/Wall Street Journal and Marist College/NPR/PBS—showed Biden ahead by seven @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the support of older voters .
In 2016 , Trump carried voters sixty-five and older by seven percentage points , according to exit polls .
This advantage enabled him to overcome Clinton ’ s whopping fourteen-percentage-point victory among voters aged forty-four and under .
Given Trump ’ s deep unpopularity with young voters at the moment , it is critical for him to maintain the backing of older Americans .
An Economist/YouGov survey showed Biden trailing Trump by just three points among voters aged sixty-five and older , and the Monmouth poll showed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It would appear that Trump ’ s handling of the coronavirus pandemic hasn ’ t impressed some of the people who are potentially among the most vulnerable to the disease .
There is evidence of more independents turning against Trump .
According to the network exit poll in 2016 , the President scored a narrow victory over Clinton among self-identified independents .
The most recent Economist/YouGov poll suggests that Biden holds a two-point lead in this demographic , and there is other evidence to indicate that Trump ’ s reaction to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has hurt his standing with non-aligned voters .
In the Marist/NPR/PBS survey , forty-three per cent of independents said that they strongly disapproved of Trump ’ s job performance , up from thirty-three per cent in March .
Nearly three quarters of independents said that Trump ’ s reaction to the protests had increased tensions .
More people think that the country is going in the wrong direction than at any point in Trump ’ s Presidency .
Mass pessimism is not new .
During recent decades , Americans have consistently told pollsters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the wrong track ” rather than “ on the right track.
” Since the start of March , though , when the pandemic got going in earnest , their assessment has become even darker .
On February 28th , according to the R.C.P .
poll average , 40.2 per cent of Americans thought the country was on the right track , and 54.5 per cent thought it was on the wrong track .
On Tuesday , the numbers were 27.1 per cent for the right track , and 66.9 per cent for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the highest we ’ ve seen since Trump took office , and it has spiked in the past two weeks .
Polls from key states are also pointing to trouble for Trump .
The R.C.P .
database lists thirteen states as battlegrounds : Arizona , Florida , Iowa , Michigan , Minnesota , Nevada , New Hampshire , North Carolina , Ohio , Pennsylvania , Texas , Virginia , and Wisconsin .
According to R.C.P.
’ s poll averages , Trump is leading in just three of these states—Iowa , North Carolina , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ advantage more than three percentage points .
In Arizona , Florida , and Ohio , all of which Trump carried in 2016 , Biden is slightly ahead .
And in Michigan , which was another linchpin of Trump ’ s 2016 victory in the Electoral College , a new poll released on Monday showed Biden doubling his lead , to twelve points , compared with a survey that the same pollster , EPIC-MRA , took in January .
Finally , compared with this point in 2016 , Biden is much less unpopular than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s victory over Clinton was largely based on the success that he and other Republicans had in attacking early on and raising negative sentiment about her .
On June 10 , 2016 , Clinton ’ s favorability rating in the R.C.P .
poll average was just 38.3 per cent , and her unfavorability rating was 55.7 per cent .
Thus far , at least , Biden has proved harder for Trump and the Republicans to tar .
His favorability rating is 44.3 per cent , and his unfavorability rating is 45.7 per @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there is a big difference between Biden ’ s net figure of negative 1.4 per cent and Clinton ’ s minus 17.4 per cent .
Biden is also considerably more popular than Trump , who has a 41.3 per cent favorability rating and a 54.5 per cent unfavorability rating .
That ’ s a net rating of minus 13.2 points .
It ’ s important to emphasize that none of these findings imply that Trump is sure to lose in November .
Much can change in five months , or even in shorter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the R.C.P .
national poll average showed Trump trailing Hillary Clinton by 6.6 percentage points .
As late as the first half of October , polls showed Clinton with a lead of six to eight points , a margin that would have assured her a comfortable victory in the Electoral College as well as the popular vote .
On Election Day , Clinton won the popular vote by 2.1 percentage points , and Trump carried the Electoral College , 304 to 227 .
In trying to pull off a repeat of that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will take comfort from the fact that Biden ’ s polling lead in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—two of the Rust Belt states that ensured Trump ’ s Electoral College victory in 2016—is small : 3.3 percentage points and 3.4 percentage points , respectively , according to the R.C.P .
averages .
They can also point to data suggesting that , despite the recession brought on by the coronavirus , a plurality of Americans still look favorably on Trump when it comes to economics .
In the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll , for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said they trust Trump over Biden to cut the unemployment rate and get people back to work , compared with thirty-five per cent who said they trusted Biden over Trump .
Findings like these explain why , according to Axios , Trump ’ s campaign aides have “ settled on a theme of the ‘ Great American Comeback.
’ ” If the economy recovers rapidly in the coming months , and the reopenings don ’ t spark a big second wave of infections—two major unknowns , to be sure—the political environment could conceivably @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fastening onto this scenario will give Republicans hope that they can still turn things around by November 3rd .
At this moment , though , Trump ’ s reëlection campaign is faltering .

In the past couple of weeks, as protests over the killing of George Floyd have convulsed the country, a number of polls have showed Donald Trump trailing badly behind Joe Biden in the race for the Presidency. A CNN survey released on Monday put Biden’s lead at fourteen percentage points—a finding that Trump dismissed, on Twitter, saying it was “as FAKE as their Reporting.” After what happened in 2016, it is imperative to interpret poll results cautiously. But the President’s bluster couldn’t hide the fact that Republicans are increasingly concerned—and for good reason—about the way things are heading. Here are some bad signs for Trump that struck me after I spent some time burrowing into the invaluable polling databases that are maintained by RealClearPolitics and FiveThirtyEight.
In the past two months, Trump hasn’t led in a single national poll. The FiveThirtyEight general-election database contains the results of hundreds of surveys, and the last one showing Trump in front of Biden nationally was conducted by Change Research on April 2nd and 3rd—a moment at which Bernie Sanders was still contesting the Democratic primary. Back in 2016, Trump trailed Hillary Clinton in the vast majority of national surveys, too. But, during the two-month period from April 9th to June 9th of that year, he led in five of them, including a poll in May from ABC News/Washington Post that got quite a bit of attention. Since early April of this year, every single national poll in the FiveThirtyEight database, including some that tend to lean Republican, has shown Biden ahead.
Biden’s lead appears to be growing. Two months ago, the R.C.P. poll average showed the former Vice-President leading Trump by 6.3 percentage points nationally. Since Monday, Biden has been ahead by eight percentage points. During the past week and a half, four surveys have shown Biden with double-digit leads, and three of them—from Monmouth University, ABC News/Washington Post, and CNN—have been wholly or partly conducted by telephone, which is generally considered a more reliable method than online surveys. Two other recent telephone surveys—from NBC News/Wall Street Journal and Marist College/NPR/PBS—showed Biden ahead by seven points.
Trump is struggling to maintain the support of older voters. In 2016, Trump carried voters sixty-five and older by seven percentage points, according to exit polls. This advantage enabled him to overcome Clinton’s whopping fourteen-percentage-point victory among voters aged forty-four and under. Given Trump’s deep unpopularity with young voters at the moment, it is critical for him to maintain the backing of older Americans. An Economist/YouGov survey showed Biden trailing Trump by just three points among voters aged sixty-five and older, and the Monmouth poll showed Biden ahead by four points with seniors. It would appear that Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic hasn’t impressed some of the people who are potentially among the most vulnerable to the disease.
There is evidence of more independents turning against Trump. According to the network exit poll in 2016, the President scored a narrow victory over Clinton among self-identified independents. The most recent Economist/YouGov poll suggests that Biden holds a two-point lead in this demographic, and there is other evidence to indicate that Trump’s reaction to the coronavirus and the protests against police brutality has hurt his standing with non-aligned voters. In the Marist/NPR/PBS survey, forty-three per cent of independents said that they strongly disapproved of Trump’s job performance, up from thirty-three per cent in March. Nearly three quarters of independents said that Trump’s reaction to the protests had increased tensions.
More people think that the country is going in the wrong direction than at any point in Trump’s Presidency. Mass pessimism is not new. During recent decades, Americans have consistently told pollsters they think the country is “on the wrong track” rather than “on the right track.” Since the start of March, though, when the pandemic got going in earnest, their assessment has become even darker. On February 28th, according to the R.C.P. poll average, 40.2 per cent of Americans thought the country was on the right track, and 54.5 per cent thought it was on the wrong track. On Tuesday, the numbers were 27.1 per cent for the right track, and 66.9 per cent for the wrong track. That last figure is the highest we’ve seen since Trump took office, and it has spiked in the past two weeks.
Polls from key states are also pointing to trouble for Trump. The R.C.P. database lists thirteen states as battlegrounds: Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. According to R.C.P.’s poll averages, Trump is leading in just three of these states—Iowa, North Carolina, and Texas—and only in Iowa is his advantage more than three percentage points. In Arizona, Florida, and Ohio, all of which Trump carried in 2016, Biden is slightly ahead. And in Michigan, which was another linchpin of Trump’s 2016 victory in the Electoral College, a new poll released on Monday showed Biden doubling his lead, to twelve points, compared with a survey that the same pollster, EPIC-MRA, took in January.
Finally, compared with this point in 2016, Biden is much less unpopular than Clinton was. In retrospect, Trump’s victory over Clinton was largely based on the success that he and other Republicans had in attacking early on and raising negative sentiment about her. On June 10, 2016, Clinton’s favorability rating in the R.C.P. poll average was just 38.3 per cent, and her unfavorability rating was 55.7 per cent. Thus far, at least, Biden has proved harder for Trump and the Republicans to tar. His favorability rating is 44.3 per cent, and his unfavorability rating is 45.7 per cent. Putting these figures together, there is a big difference between Biden’s net figure of negative 1.4 per cent and Clinton’s minus 17.4 per cent. Biden is also considerably more popular than Trump, who has a 41.3 per cent favorability rating and a 54.5 per cent unfavorability rating. That’s a net rating of minus 13.2 points.
It’s important to emphasize that none of these findings imply that Trump is sure to lose in November. Much can change in five months, or even in shorter periods. On June 25, 2016, the R.C.P. national poll average showed Trump trailing Hillary Clinton by 6.6 percentage points. As late as the first half of October, polls showed Clinton with a lead of six to eight points, a margin that would have assured her a comfortable victory in the Electoral College as well as the popular vote. On Election Day, Clinton won the popular vote by 2.1 percentage points, and Trump carried the Electoral College, 304 to 227.
In trying to pull off a repeat of that outcome, Trump’s campaign managers will take comfort from the fact that Biden’s polling lead in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—two of the Rust Belt states that ensured Trump’s Electoral College victory in 2016—is small: 3.3 percentage points and 3.4 percentage points, respectively, according to the R.C.P. averages. They can also point to data suggesting that, despite the recession brought on by the coronavirus, a plurality of Americans still look favorably on Trump when it comes to economics. In the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, for example, forty-eight per cent of respondents said they trust Trump over Biden to cut the unemployment rate and get people back to work, compared with thirty-five per cent who said they trusted Biden over Trump.
Findings like these explain why, according to Axios, Trump’s campaign aides have “settled on a theme of the ‘Great American Comeback.’ ” If the economy recovers rapidly in the coming months, and the reopenings don’t spark a big second wave of infections—two major unknowns, to be sure—the political environment could conceivably look very different after Labor Day. Fastening onto this scenario will give Republicans hope that they can still turn things around by November 3rd. At this moment, though, Trump’s reëlection campaign is faltering.