newyorker--2020-10-05--Nine Days in Wuhan, the Ground Zero of the Coronavirus Pandemic

“ Not me , ” Sow said .
“ I want to get some steak .
Maybe some chicken .
Something grilled.
” I said something to the effect that the worst was behind them , and Sow grinned .
“ We ’ re still living , ” he said .
In town , I met two Chinese journalists in their twenties who were visiting from out of town .
They had been posted during the period of the sealed city : back then , anybody sent to cover events in Wuhan had to stay for the long haul .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ whom I ’ ll call Han , and he had found that government-run outlets generally wanted footage that emphasized the victory over the disease , not the suffering of Wuhan residents .
Han hoped that eventually he ’ d find other ways to use the material .
“ It will be in the hard drive , ” he said , tapping his camera .
The other journalist , a print reporter I ’ ll call Yin , reminisced about the unusual freedom the press had been granted for a brief period in January @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Li Wenliang , and they exposed some early missteps , like a failure by the Red Cross to distribute critical medical equipment .
Such problems were quickly fixed , and Yin felt glad to be of service to society .
“ I could see what it means to be the fourth estate , ” she said .
But , in February , as the government started to get control of the pandemic , it also tightened restrictions on the press .
“ A friend of mine said that it was a very short @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that , Yin reported on a number of issues that couldn ’ t be published or completed , and she often talked with scientists and officials who didn ’ t want to say too much .
“ One person said , ‘ Ten years later , if the climate has changed , I ’ ll tell you my story , ’ ” Yin told me .
“ He knew that he would be judged by history.
” She continued , “ These people are inside the system , but they also know that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an interview with an employee at a research institution who was so upset that he began to weep .
He wouldn ’ t answer her questions , but he said that he had been keeping a detailed diary .
She hoped that someday such materials would be released .
I suspect that this will eventually happen , because nowadays there are so many ways to preserve information .
In time , we will learn more , but the delay is important to the Communist Party .
It handles history the same way that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is crucial .
Throughout the Communist era , there have been many moments of quarantined history : the Great Leap Forward , the Cultural Revolution , the massacre around Tiananmen Square .
In every case , an initial silencing has been followed by sporadic outbreaks of leaked information .
Wuhan will eventually follow the same pattern , but for the time being many memories will remain in the sealed city .
Wafaa El-Sadr , the director of ICAP , a global-health center at Columbia University , pointed out that Chinese scientists had quickly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which was made available to researchers worldwide on January 11th .
“ I honestly think that they had a horrific situation in Wuhan and they were able to contain it , ” she said .
“ There were mistakes early on , but they did act , and they shared fast.
” For much of El-Sadr ’ s career , she has worked on issues related to AIDS in the United States , Africa , and elsewhere .
After years of research , scientists eventually came to the consensus that H.I.V .
most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ human was probably infected after coming into contact with a primate or primate meat .
El-Sadr views the coronavirus as another inevitable outcome of people ’ s encroachment on the natural world .
“ We are now living through two concomitant massive pandemics that are the result of spillover from animal to human hosts , the H.I.V .
and the COVID pandemics , ” she wrote to me , in an e-mail .
“ Never in history has humanity experienced something along this scale and scope.
” There ’ s a tendency to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the coronavirus if the Chinese had been more forthcoming , or if they hadn ’ t cleaned out the Huanan market before stalls and animals could be studied properly .
But Peter Daszak , a British disease ecologist who has collaborated with the Wuhan Institute of Virology for sixteen years on research on bat coronaviruses , told me that it ’ s typical to fail to gather good data from the site of an initial outbreak .
Once people get sick , local authorities inevitably focus on the public-health emergency .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not the veterinarians , ” he said , in a phone conversation .
“ And the doctors ’ response is to clean out the market .
They want to stop the infections.
” Daszak believes the virus probably circulated for weeks before the Wuhan outbreak , and he doubts that the city was the source .
“ There are bats in Wuhan , but it was the wrong time of year , ” he told me .
“ It was winter , and bats are not out as much.
” His research has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more than a million people each year are infected by bat coronaviruses .
Some individuals trap , deal , or raise animals that might serve as intermediary hosts .
“ But generally it ’ s people who live near bat caves , ” Daszak said .
“ Every night , the bats fly out , and they urinate and defecate .
Some might get on a surface , or on somebody ’ s clothes , and then they touch their mouths or noses.
” Daszak said that he had always thought that such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Kunming or Guangzhou , southern cities that are close to many bat caves and that also have an intensive wildlife trade .
He thinks that Chinese scientists are probably now searching hospital freezers for lab samples of people who died of pneumonia shortly before the outbreak .
“ You would take those samples and look for the virus , ” he said .
“ They ’ ll find something eventually .
These things just don ’ t happen overnight ; it requires a lot of work .
We ’ ve seen this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out that it was already trickling through the population.
” Daszak is the president of EcoHealth Alliance , a nonprofit research organization based in New York .
EcoHealth has become the target of conspiracy theorists , including some who claim that the virus was man-made .
Daszak and many prominent virologists say that anything created in a lab would show clear signs of manipulation .
There ’ s also speculation that the outbreak started when researchers accidentally released a coronavirus they were studying at the Wuhan Institute of Virology .
But there ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or even that the institute has ever studied a virus that could cause a COVID-19 outbreak .
“ Scientists in China are under incredible pressure to publish , ” Daszak said .
“ It really drives openness and transparency.
” He has spent a good deal of time in Wuhan , and co-authored more than a dozen papers with Chinese colleagues .
“ If we had found a virus that infected human cells and spread within a cell culture , we would have put the information out there , ” he said .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ve never come across the slightest hint of subterfuge .
They ’ ve never hidden data .
I ’ ve never had a situation where one lab person tells me one thing and the other says something else .
If you were doing things that you didn ’ t want people to know about , why would you invite foreigners into the lab ?
” In April , President Trump told reporters that the U.S. should stop funding research connected to the Wuhan Institute of Virology .
Shortly after Trump ’ s comments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a $ 3.7-million grant to EcoHealth , which had been studying how bat coronaviruses are transmitted to people .
EcoHealth has appealed the decision , but Daszak doesn ’ t expect a change unless there ’ s a new Administration .
I asked Daszak why , if he has such faith in the openness of his Wuhan colleagues , the Chinese government has been so closed about other aspects of the outbreak .
He said that science is one thing , and politics something else ; he thinks that officials were embarrassed about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they simply shut down all information .
“ You ’ re a journalist in China , ” he said .
“ I don ’ t know what you would say about the Chinese idea of P.R.
, but I ’ d say they ’ re pretty terrible.
” The plant has the capacity to produce more than a hundred million vaccine doses a year .
Another C.N.B.G .
factory , in Beijing , can make an additional hundred million doses a year of a different version of the vaccine .
Both plants are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which have almost completed Phase III trials .
Because China essentially has no active pandemic , C.N.B.G .
had to go far afield in order to find subjects .
Currently , researchers have enrolled more than fifty thousand people in the United Arab Emirates , Peru , and other countries in South America and the Middle East .
Yiwu He , the chief innovation officer at the University of Hong Kong , told me that the C.N.B.G .
vaccine has already been given to a number of Chinese government officials , under an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ I know a few government officials personally , and they told me that they took the vaccine , ” he said , in a phone conversation .
He thought that the total number was probably around a hundred .
“ It ’ s middle-level officials , ” he said .
“ Vice-ministers , mayors , vice-mayors.
” Pharmaceutical executives have also been expected to lead the way , like the construction manager who donned P.P.E .
in order to escort his workers into the patient ward .
“ Every senior executive at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” He said .
“ Including the C.E.O .
of Sinopharm , the chairman of the board , every vice-president—everyone.
” The Chinese press has reported that vaccinations have also been administered to hundreds of thousands of citizens in high-risk areas around the world .
( C.N.B.G .
did not respond to a request for comment . )
In the West , China ’ s image has been badly damaged by the pandemic and by other recent events .
The country has tightened political crackdowns in Hong Kong and Xinjiang , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for an investigation into the origins of the virus , China responded furiously , placing new tariffs and restrictions on Australian goods ranging from barley to beef .
But He believes that the situation is fluid .
“ All of these feelings can turn around quickly , ” he told me .
“ I think that once China has a vaccine , and if they can help other countries , it can make a huge difference .
”

Initially, Hui had an angry confrontation with the officials. They told him that if he didn’t allow them to seal the door he and his in-laws would be taken to a government quarantine facility. Hui decided they would be better off in their own apartment, and over time he came to believe that such strict policies were necessary. Tracking down Hubei connections was a key early strategy; at my home, in Chengdu, local committee members and volunteers came to the door five times. They always asked about recent travel to Wuhan or Hubei, which was how they caught the only case in my neighborhood. A resident had recently returned from Hubei, and the committee located him, tested him, and then isolated him, all before he showed symptoms.
“In terms of the big picture, it was correct,” Hui said. But he noted that anybody who witnessed the early mistakes in Wuhan was bound to feel differently from most Chinese. “Behind every statistic, there’s a broken family,” he said. “So I can’t say whether I’m satisfied or not satisfied with the government.”
When we met, Hui had returned to Wuhan on business. It was his first time back since his stepmother’s cremation. Earlier in the year, he had telephoned both the Wuhan mayor’s hot line and the local branch of the Chinese Center for Disease Control, in the hope of having his stepmother included in the coronavirus counts. But officials responded that it was impossible, because her death certificate listed pneumonia as the cause. Hui still hadn’t told his seven-year-old son that his grandmother was dead. “My father wants to tell him, but we haven’t figured out how to do it,” he said. Since January, they had been pretending that the boy’s grandmother was sick in Wuhan and couldn’t talk on the phone. During the Spring Festival holiday, they had given him a traditional gift envelope and said that it was from Grandma. After a while, the boy stopped asking questions. “I think he knows the truth,” Hui said.
When Wuhan was sealed, the strategy of isolation was replicated throughout the city. Housing compounds were closed and monitored by neighborhood committees, with residents going out only for necessities. Toward the end of the first month, the guidelines were tightened further, until virtually all goods were delivered. On February 17th, Fang Fang wrote, “Everyone is now required to remain inside their homes at all times.” Like other Wuhan diarists, she often referred to food, because it became hard to find much variety.
Meanwhile, approximately ten thousand contact tracers were working in the city, in order to cut off chains of infection, and hospitals were developing large-scale testing systems. But isolation remained crucial: patients were isolated; suspected exposures were isolated; medical workers were isolated. A nurse told me that she left for work on February 3rd and didn’t return home until June 7th. She was housed in a hotel room, like most medical workers with families. For four months, the nurse communicated with her husband and their five-year-old son only by phone and WeChat.
In order to create solitude on such a scale, it was necessary to do a great deal of construction. I met a young manager from a building company that renovated a hundred and ten hospitals, clinics, schools, gymnasiums, and other buildings. Much of their work involved installing walls, barriers, and special entrances and exits that allowed people to keep away from one another. The company also helped build Huoshenshan, one of two emergency hospitals that were constructed to house coronavirus patients. Huoshenshan, which had a thousand beds, including thirty in an intensive-care center, became a prime subject of government propaganda, because it went up in roughly ten days, from January 23rd to February 2nd. At one point, there were seven thousand workers on site, along with more than a hundred excavators.
The young manager, whom I’ll call Zhang, recruited and oversaw labor. He told me that he often appealed to the workers’ patriotism, but mostly he just paid them well. Recalling this period, he used a phrase that translates as “Money can make the Devil push the grindstone for you.” It was common to pay unskilled laborers the equivalent of hundreds of dollars a day, because of the risk and the long hours. The most Zhang ever handed over for a week’s work, to a carpenter, was fifty thousand yuan, about seven thousand dollars—ten times a normal wage. Even so, recruitment was difficult, because the city’s death toll was surging, and the lack of information terrified people.
The Huoshenshan site had been designed in zones, and Zhang’s workers were still finishing the hospital’s back zone while infected patients were being admitted in the front. “A big group of workers fled,” he said. “They didn’t even claim their salaries.” Once the hospital had been finished, it was immediately necessary to turn around and go inside, in order to fix leaks and other problems that resulted from the hurried construction.
At that point, Zhang offered the workers a thousand dollars a day, but nobody accepted, and they were unmoved by his talk of the Motherland. In August, when he looked back on this time, he was philosophical. “The pandemic is like a mirror,” he said. “A person can see himself more clearly, both his good qualities and his bad qualities.”
He found that the only solution was to put on personal protective equipment himself and accompany the workers into the areas where there were infected patients. “I said, ‘If you have a problem, then I have a problem,’ ” he recalled. “Once I did that, they were willing.” In truth, he wasn’t convinced that it was safe, and he was relieved that nobody got infected.
Zhang said the experience of working through the pandemic had left him calmer and more patient. He drove more carefully now; he wasn’t in such a rush. I often asked Wuhan residents how they had been personally changed by the spring, and there was no standard response. Some expressed less trust in government information; others said they had increased faith in the national leadership. The nurse who had been separated from her family admitted that sometimes she missed the simple life of the crisis, when she lived in a hotel room and thought about nothing but work. The physician who handled testing told me that since the city’s seal had been lifted he had become fixated on having enough food in his pantry. Nowadays, he always kept at least sixty-five pounds of rice, sixty-five pounds of noodles and pasta, and thirty tins of canned meat. “I have five friends who do the same thing, but they store even more than I do,” he told me.
Across Hubei, nearly four hundred tourist sites had offered free admission from August 8th until the end of the year, in the hope of conveying a message that the province was safe. I didn’t meet many people from other parts of China, but Wuhan natives seemed to be taking advantage of the opportunity. When I visited the Yellow Crane Tower, a reconstructed ancient building near the Yangtze, the site was so packed that it was hard to move. Workers told me that daily attendance was capped at twenty-five thousand; that day, the online reservation system filled before noon. At the Hubei Provincial Museum, anybody who wanted to enter had to show evidence of a negative coronavirus test, but that didn’t deter the crowds. Every half hour or so, workers doused blue rags in an alcohol solution and obsessively wiped down glass exhibition cases that contained the treasures of ancient Hubei noblemen: Marquis Yi, of Zeng, of the Warring States Period; Prince Liangzhuang, of the Ming dynasty.
I stayed at the Westin Wuhan Wuchang, on the Yangtze’s southeastern bank. When I checked in, a smiling clerk offered a special deal that allowed me to include the breakfast buffet for the equivalent of an additional twenty-three cents a day. In the elevator, on an endless loop, a screen played a promotional video that featured happy Westin Wuhan scenes: a wedding reception, a chef at work, some guests drinking cocktails. Then the footage abruptly shifted to men in gas masks, helmets, and white hazmat suits, identified as having come from the Yikang Chemical Company, Ltd., and carrying some kind of industrial-strength spray machines. They wielded the things like flamethrowers, dousing everything in the hotel in white chemical clouds: reception halls, dining rooms, air-conditioner vents. On a table, somebody laid out room-key cards in neat rows, like a game of solitaire, and then blasted them. The soundtrack to these scenes was “Love Is Greater,” by Amanda Noelle:
Friday night, feeling fine
I’m gonna have a good time.
Raise my hands, watch me dance
Everything’s alright . . .
Wuhan had most recently reported a locally transmitted symptomatic case on May 18th. It’s the most thoroughly tested city in China: at the end of May, in part to boost confidence, the government tried to test every resident, a total of eleven million. I never met a cabdriver who had been swab-tested less than twice, and a couple had been tested five times. Most of the cabbies had no relatives or friends who had been infected; swabbing was simply required by the city and by their cab companies. There are three hundred and twenty-one testing locations in the city, and the system is so extensive that in June, when Beijing suffered an outbreak, Wuhan hospitals sent seventy-two staffers to the capital to help with tests.
The physician who handled testing told me that, on average, his hospital still recorded one positive for every forty thousand exams. Most of these positives were repeat patients: after having been infected during the initial run of the virus, they recovered fully, and then for some reason, months later, showed evidence of the virus again. So far, most of the positives had been asymptomatic, and the physician saw no indication that the virus was spreading in the city. But, whenever the hospital entered these positive results into the government’s reporting system, somebody higher up made the decision not to publicize them. “I think they’re worried about undermining confidence,” the physician said.


newyorker--2020-10-05--Chile at the Barricades

Chile at the Barricades

Guzmán ’ s political opponents would mostly agree—but , for them , that ’ s precisely the problem : Guzmán ’ s constitution , as they see it , acts as a kind of straitjacket on Chilean democracy .
Claudia Heiss , a professor of political science at the University of Chile , told me that the constitution has served , again and again , as an impediment to social progress .
Important reforms have passed the Chilean Congress , and even been signed into law—only to be struck down by the Constitutional Tribunal , an independent court that rules @ @ @ @ @ @ @ well as on Presidential and judicial decrees .
Heiss cited an example from early 2018 , when the Constitutional Tribunal overturned a bill that had given SERNAC , the government agency charged with consumer protection , the power to levy fines against businesses that committed fraud or abuse .
The reform had passed with broad support , and the court ’ s ruling caught many by surprise .
SERNAC ’ s director said that the decision severely diminished his agency ’ s ability to protect consumers , and could be “ potentially catastrophic.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the outside , Heiss said , it should come as no surprise that the people ’ s rage began to focus on a legal document .
Even before el estallido , she told me , “ there was a growing sense that the constitution was having a real impact on the problems people faced.
” Heiss noted the almost surreal ironies of growing up under Pinochet ’ s constitution .
Chilean high-school students in the nineteen-eighties studied a kind of theoretical civics : they learned about a Chamber of Deputies and a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but , of course , none of these things did or could exist under a dictatorship .
From 1980 until the return of democracy , a decade later , the constitution was a useful piece of fiction , and even after Pinochet had given up the Presidency he remained the head of the armed forces before serving , along with eight other allies , as an unelected senator .
Chile ’ s democracy in those early years was precarious ; President Patricio Aylwin , elected to succeed Pinochet and lead the transition @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that he would pursue justice for the many victims of the military regime only “ insofar as it is possible.
” In any case , Aylwin had no authority to remove Pinochet as head of the armed forces .
A series of reforms to the constitution in the two-thousands eliminated the designated senators , but the desire by many on the political left to rewrite the country ’ s foundational legal document did not go away .
Replacing Pinochet ’ s constitution with a new one would be a way of breaking—finally and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ There are grandparents who were tortured during the dictatorship who see this as the end of a cycle and say , ‘ I can die in peace , ’ ” Catalina Pérez told me .
In the days after el estallido , as public discourse coalesced around the constitutional question , mayors from across the country and across the political spectrum began to publicly support a referendum to decide the issue .
On November 13th , Mario Desbordes , the leader of President Piñera ’ s own party , expressed his support @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in March , Desbordes said he ’ d always known that political reforms were necessary , but the anger he witnessed last October caught him off guard .
“ I think the majority of us thought we had more time , ” he told me .
“ The violence surprised us all.
” Desbordes is a somewhat anomalous figure among the traditionally aristocratic élite of the Chilean right .
He grew up in the working-class district of Maipú and served as a police officer for seven years , before becoming a businessman and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It was a trip to visit his mother , Desbordes told me , that convinced him that there was widespread support for the protests .
The local metro station had been burned down , and the entire neighborhood was out banging pots and pans .
As he saw it , “ a pressure cooker had exploded.
” Once Desbordes had broken with the right , it was only a matter of time .
On November 15th , after a historic daylong negotiation in Congress , the political parties reached an agreement and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of April .
By mid-March , Piñera ’ s government had managed to secure nearly nine hundred respirators , and eventually expanded the number of available intensive-care beds from about seven hundred to nearly three thousand .
The President and other political leaders wore face masks at press conferences , while preaching social distancing and hand-washing .
Chile quickly became first among South American nations in tests per thousand residents ( and it was still leading the region in August , with a rate comparable to that of Germany ) .
Even as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and deaths steadily grew through March and mid-April , the public-health system did not collapse , nor did the hospital beds and respirators run out , as many had feared might happen , and as would occur in some neighboring countries .
It was the economic response to the disaster that split the political parties along predictable ideological lines .
By mid-April , Piñera ’ s government had begun to emphasize the need to reopen the economy , and , in late April , Piñera announced a phased reopening plan that he called @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no contradiction between protecting the health and life of the people , and protecting their jobs , their income , and their quality of life , ” he said .
The strategy was intended not to suppress the virus but to mitigate its impact .
As the left pushed for emergency subsidies to keep Chilean workers at home during the pandemic , Piñera ’ s allies in Congress resisted .
By May , with infections rising at an alarming rate and much of the country in quarantine , the legislative debate was deadlocked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the government would pay to those who were most in need .
In the end , Piñera ’ s allies won , and the first round of subsidies was only sixty-five thousand pesos , about eighty-one dollars .
Families struggling in an economy ravaged by the coronavirus were subjected to images of senators celebrating their legislative win .
Pablo Ortúzar , of the conservative think tank I.E.S.
, told me that Piñera ’ s strategy was to centralize the response to the virus .
The President ’ s approval ratings had dropped as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wake of el estallido .
“ The administration saw it as a way to recover the legitimacy it had lost , ” Ortúzar said .
It soon became clear that Piñera ’ s plan for a safe return to normalcy had been premature .
In a TV interview , Jaime Mañalich , the health minister , admitted that the virus had spread at a pace he had not anticipated , in part because of social conditions .
“ There is a level of poverty and overcrowding that I was not aware of , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ disconnect between the political élite and the lived reality of millions of ordinary Chileans .
In the middle of May , with new cases spiking by more than sixty per cent , a strict quarantine was imposed across Santiago ’ s entire metropolitan region , along with a couple of provincial cities .
The Army and the police were charged with enforcement , detaining and arresting violators .
Residents of Santiago , who had previously been allowed daily outings , were now limited to two a week , for groceries and other necessities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the highest per-capita rates of infection in the world , and a few days later Mañalich resigned , after the investigative Web site CIPER revealed a discrepancy between the number of deaths reported in his daily briefings to the nation and the far higher number that he sent to the World Health Organization .
By the end of June , more than two hundred and seventy-five thousand Chileans had tested positive for COVID-19 , and the virus had claimed more than five thousand lives .
Just as the unrest in the weeks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on a referendum possible , the pandemic and the battered economy presented the Chilean left with another unexpected opportunity .
This time , it was the chance to reform the controversial private pensions known as A.F.P.s , which are more or less like American 401 ( k ) s , only with miserly returns .
The proposal would allow Chilean workers to withdraw ten per cent of their A.F.P .
holdings without penalty .
The spectre of el estallido hung over the debate .
“ If we reject the withdrawal , there ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one senator said .
The U.D.I.
, the conservative party founded by Jaime Guzmán , on the other hand , argued that the proposed reforms were a short-term solution that would have long-term consequences for the middle class .
Pablo Ortúzar told me that he found the entire debate frustrating .
“ There was never any discussion of the common good .
No discussion of the economic impact , ” he said .
Workers in the informal economy were left out , and of course those with savings would benefit more .
Ortúzar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ purely tactical .
“ Everything was defined by the polarization of October , ” he said .
Nevertheless , the Senate vote was watched by millions of Chileans .
When the reform measure was approved , many districts of Santiago erupted in a celebratory cacerolazo once again .
Catalina Pérez told me that the vote “ would be remembered as one of the foundational events for the Chile that was born last October.
” By late July , with the coronavirus curve flattening , the country cautiously prepared to reopen for a second @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cero was lifted on August 17th , and residents emerged from their homes to discover that the area had had a makeover : many of its colorful murals and much of the political graffiti had been covered with fresh paint , the street lights repaired , the sidewalks restored .
Soon protesters , in smaller numbers now and flanked by large contingents of police , appeared in Plaza Dignidad again .
By then , some parts of the country had been in a continuous lockdown for four and a half months .
Fuentes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but in the run-up to the referendum he ’ d stepped out of the classroom , and was offering workshops on the constitution and its history to community groups and schools across the country .
It was a personal project , and he told me that he found it heartening to discover how much interest there was in the topic .
El estallido had made people hungry to know more about the current constitution , about what the referendum might mean .
Still , the same distrust that many Chileans felt toward the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ told me .
He found this bemusing , hard to square with his own background .
He ’ d grown up in San Bernardo , another working-class district of Santiago , the son of a truck driver and a stay-at-home mom .
His last name is not a typical upper-class surname of the Chilean élite , nor , with his dark hair and olive skin , did he look the part .
But he was a university professor , had studied abroad , occasionally even appeared on television , and that was enough @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , even as he entered spaces that felt entirely familiar to him , he had to prove that he belonged .
When we arrived at the school and introduced ourselves , the security guard informed us that the event had been cancelled .
We stood there a moment , in shock , until the guard finally smiled .
It was a coronavirus joke , told in that dim recent past when people could still joke about the virus .
We all laughed , and the guard beckoned us inside .
In the cafeteria @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chairs had been arranged in rows .
As we waited for the students , I chatted with a tall , thin veteran teacher named Sergio Salazar , who told me that on the night of el estallido neighborhood parents had gathered to protect the school , in case the rage spilled over and someone attacked the building .
Thankfully , he said , nothing had happened .
A few minutes later , the uniformed students filed in , filling the back rows first , joking with their classmates , casting a few ambivalent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ right away with questions : “ How many of you know that there ’ s a referendum in April ?
” Everyone raised a hand .
He quickly established the stakes of the debate .
“ How , ” he asked the students , “ do we want to be governed ?
” What followed was a thoughtful discussion about the political structure of a nation , the mechanics of the vote , the rights and responsibilities of citizenship , and what might lie ahead if the referendum was approved .
Even then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Only the week before , the Congress had mandated gender parity for a constitutional assembly , should the referendum pass .
There was talk of similar guarantees for the Mapuche community , Chile ’ s largest indigenous group , which makes up more than seven per cent of the population .
Meanwhile , the students had their own questions : Why doesn ’ t Piñera resign ?
( He can ’ t , by law . )
Who might write a new constitution ?
( Either a group of elected citizens or a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the outcome of the referendum . )
What might that new document say ?
This last question was unanswerable for the moment , and those opposed to the referendum argue that that is precisely the danger .
Why should Chile leap into the unknown ?
Why not reform the existing constitution instead ?

Heiss noted the almost surreal ironies of growing up under Pinochet’s constitution. Chilean high-school students in the nineteen-eighties studied a kind of theoretical civics: they learned about a Chamber of Deputies and a Senate, and they learned about elections, but, of course, none of these things did or could exist under a dictatorship. From 1980 until the return of democracy, a decade later, the constitution was a useful piece of fiction, and even after Pinochet had given up the Presidency he remained the head of the armed forces before serving, along with eight other allies, as an unelected senator. Chile’s democracy in those early years was precarious; President Patricio Aylwin, elected to succeed Pinochet and lead the transition, admitted as much, famously conceding that he would pursue justice for the many victims of the military regime only “insofar as it is possible.” In any case, Aylwin had no authority to remove Pinochet as head of the armed forces.
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A series of reforms to the constitution in the two-thousands eliminated the designated senators, but the desire by many on the political left to rewrite the country’s foundational legal document did not go away. Replacing Pinochet’s constitution with a new one would be a way of breaking—finally and definitively—with the legacy of his regime. “There are grandparents who were tortured during the dictatorship who see this as the end of a cycle and say, ‘I can die in peace,’ ” Catalina Pérez told me.
In the days after el estallido, as public discourse coalesced around the constitutional question, mayors from across the country and across the political spectrum began to publicly support a referendum to decide the issue. On November 13th, Mario Desbordes, the leader of President Piñera’s own party, expressed his support as well. When we spoke, in March, Desbordes said he’d always known that political reforms were necessary, but the anger he witnessed last October caught him off guard. “I think the majority of us thought we had more time,” he told me. “The violence surprised us all.” Desbordes is a somewhat anomalous figure among the traditionally aristocratic élite of the Chilean right. He grew up in the working-class district of Maipú and served as a police officer for seven years, before becoming a businessman and eventually entering politics, in his forties. It was a trip to visit his mother, Desbordes told me, that convinced him that there was widespread support for the protests. The local metro station had been burned down, and the entire neighborhood was out banging pots and pans. As he saw it, “a pressure cooker had exploded.”
Once Desbordes had broken with the right, it was only a matter of time. On November 15th, after a historic daylong negotiation in Congress, the political parties reached an agreement and a referendum was scheduled for the end of April.
The pandemic did not end the revolution unleashed by el estallido, but it did quite abruptly change the subject. March and April, which would have been consumed by the tense run-up to a historic vote, were instead spent dealing with an unprecedented public-health emergency.
By mid-March, Piñera’s government had managed to secure nearly nine hundred respirators, and eventually expanded the number of available intensive-care beds from about seven hundred to nearly three thousand. The President and other political leaders wore face masks at press conferences, while preaching social distancing and hand-washing. Chile quickly became first among South American nations in tests per thousand residents (and it was still leading the region in August, with a rate comparable to that of Germany). Even as the number of infections, hospitalizations, and deaths steadily grew through March and mid-April, the public-health system did not collapse, nor did the hospital beds and respirators run out, as many had feared might happen, and as would occur in some neighboring countries.
It was the economic response to the disaster that split the political parties along predictable ideological lines. By mid-April, Piñera’s government had begun to emphasize the need to reopen the economy, and, in late April, Piñera announced a phased reopening plan that he called Safe Return. “There’s no contradiction between protecting the health and life of the people, and protecting their jobs, their income, and their quality of life,” he said. The strategy was intended not to suppress the virus but to mitigate its impact.
As the left pushed for emergency subsidies to keep Chilean workers at home during the pandemic, Piñera’s allies in Congress resisted. By May, with infections rising at an alarming rate and much of the country in quarantine, the legislative debate was deadlocked on the size of the household subsidy the government would pay to those who were most in need. In the end, Piñera’s allies won, and the first round of subsidies was only sixty-five thousand pesos, about eighty-one dollars. Families struggling in an economy ravaged by the coronavirus were subjected to images of senators celebrating their legislative win.
Pablo Ortúzar, of the conservative think tank I.E.S., told me that Piñera’s strategy was to centralize the response to the virus. The President’s approval ratings had dropped as low as six per cent in the wake of el estallido. “The administration saw it as a way to recover the legitimacy it had lost,” Ortúzar said. It soon became clear that Piñera’s plan for a safe return to normalcy had been premature. In a TV interview, Jaime Mañalich, the health minister, admitted that the virus had spread at a pace he had not anticipated, in part because of social conditions. “There is a level of poverty and overcrowding that I was not aware of,” he said—another example of the startling disconnect between the political élite and the lived reality of millions of ordinary Chileans.
In the middle of May, with new cases spiking by more than sixty per cent, a strict quarantine was imposed across Santiago’s entire metropolitan region, along with a couple of provincial cities. The Army and the police were charged with enforcement, detaining and arresting violators. Residents of Santiago, who had previously been allowed daily outings, were now limited to two a week, for groceries and other necessities. By mid-June, Chile had one of the highest per-capita rates of infection in the world, and a few days later Mañalich resigned, after the investigative Web site CIPER revealed a discrepancy between the number of deaths reported in his daily briefings to the nation and the far higher number that he sent to the World Health Organization. By the end of June, more than two hundred and seventy-five thousand Chileans had tested positive for COVID-19, and the virus had claimed more than five thousand lives.
Just as the unrest in the weeks after el estallido had made an agreement on a referendum possible, the pandemic and the battered economy presented the Chilean left with another unexpected opportunity. This time, it was the chance to reform the controversial private pensions known as A.F.P.s, which are more or less like American 401(k)s, only with miserly returns. The proposal would allow Chilean workers to withdraw ten per cent of their A.F.P. holdings without penalty. The spectre of el estallido hung over the debate. “If we reject the withdrawal, there’ll be another social explosion,” one senator said. The U.D.I., the conservative party founded by Jaime Guzmán, on the other hand, argued that the proposed reforms were a short-term solution that would have long-term consequences for the middle class. Pablo Ortúzar told me that he found the entire debate frustrating. “There was never any discussion of the common good. No discussion of the economic impact,” he said. Workers in the informal economy were left out, and of course those with savings would benefit more. Ortúzar saw the left’s push as purely tactical. “Everything was defined by the polarization of October,” he said. Nevertheless, the Senate vote was watched by millions of Chileans. When the reform measure was approved, many districts of Santiago erupted in a celebratory cacerolazo once again. Catalina Pérez told me that the vote “would be remembered as one of the foundational events for the Chile that was born last October.”
By late July, with the coronavirus curve flattening, the country cautiously prepared to reopen for a second time. The last quarantine covering Zona Cero was lifted on August 17th, and residents emerged from their homes to discover that the area had had a makeover: many of its colorful murals and much of the political graffiti had been covered with fresh paint, the street lights repaired, the sidewalks restored. Soon protesters, in smaller numbers now and flanked by large contingents of police, appeared in Plaza Dignidad again. By then, some parts of the country had been in a continuous lockdown for four and a half months.
One afternoon in March, I went with the political scientist Claudio Fuentes to a school in La Florida, a working-class district southeast of Santiago. The day was bright and hot, and it got brighter and hotter, it seemed, the farther we moved from the center of the city. This was a different Santiago, bleached of color, with fewer trees and broader avenues, and block after block of low-rise housing.
Mario Desbordes, the president of National Renewal, at his office. Photograph by Tomás Munita for The New Yorker
Fuentes teaches at the Diego Portales University, but in the run-up to the referendum he’d stepped out of the classroom, and was offering workshops on the constitution and its history to community groups and schools across the country. It was a personal project, and he told me that he found it heartening to discover how much interest there was in the topic. El estallido had made people hungry to know more about the current constitution, about what the referendum might mean. Still, the same distrust that many Chileans felt toward the political élite extended to him, Fuentes told me. He found this bemusing, hard to square with his own background. He’d grown up in San Bernardo, another working-class district of Santiago, the son of a truck driver and a stay-at-home mom. His last name is not a typical upper-class surname of the Chilean élite, nor, with his dark hair and olive skin, did he look the part. But he was a university professor, had studied abroad, occasionally even appeared on television, and that was enough. Every time he gave a workshop, even as he entered spaces that felt entirely familiar to him, he had to prove that he belonged.
When we arrived at the school and introduced ourselves, the security guard informed us that the event had been cancelled. We stood there a moment, in shock, until the guard finally smiled. It was a coronavirus joke, told in that dim recent past when people could still joke about the virus. We all laughed, and the guard beckoned us inside. In the cafeteria, a couple of hundred straight-backed wooden chairs had been arranged in rows. As we waited for the students, I chatted with a tall, thin veteran teacher named Sergio Salazar, who told me that on the night of el estallido neighborhood parents had gathered to protect the school, in case the rage spilled over and someone attacked the building. Thankfully, he said, nothing had happened.
A few minutes later, the uniformed students filed in, filling the back rows first, joking with their classmates, casting a few ambivalent glances at the strangers. Fuentes began right away with questions: “How many of you know that there’s a referendum in April?” Everyone raised a hand. He quickly established the stakes of the debate. “How,” he asked the students, “do we want to be governed?”
What followed was a thoughtful discussion about the political structure of a nation, the mechanics of the vote, the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, and what might lie ahead if the referendum was approved. Even then, the details were in flux. Only the week before, the Congress had mandated gender parity for a constitutional assembly, should the referendum pass. There was talk of similar guarantees for the Mapuche community, Chile’s largest indigenous group, which makes up more than seven per cent of the population. Meanwhile, the students had their own questions: Why doesn’t Piñera resign? (He can’t, by law.) Who might write a new constitution? (Either a group of elected citizens or a group of citizens and lawmakers, depending on the outcome of the referendum.) What might that new document say? This last question was unanswerable for the moment, and those opposed to the referendum argue that that is precisely the danger. Why should Chile leap into the unknown? Why not reform the existing constitution instead?


The Mail

Steve Coll , in his article about the Electoral College , seems to recognize that the constitutional-amendment process makes it unlikely that the United States will move to a direct national vote anytime soon ( Comment , September 21st ) .
But he makes only a glancing reference to a serious flaw in the Electoral College that could be changed by congressional action—the winner-take-all system of allocating electoral votes , used by forty-eight states and the District of Columbia .
If , instead , either a proportional or a district system was employed to distribute electoral votes , the Electoral @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vote .
Another democratic measure worth considering would be increasing the size of the House of Representatives , whose membership has remained capped at four hundred and thirty-five since the passage , in 1929 , of the Permanent Apportion Act , which was premised on a U.S. population of ninety-two million , as shown by the 1910 census .
Our population is now an estimated three hundred and thirty million .
Adjusting for this demographic reality , the House would need to expand , by some estimates , to nearly six hundred members @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Bundestag has more than seven hundred members , and Germany ’ s population is a quarter the size of ours .
However , neither of these steps would reduce the conflict that plagues this country .
What needs to change are the two major political parties , which should broaden their appeal and seek to unify , rather than divide , us .
Coll ’ s reference to the winner-take-all method of distributing electoral votes prompts a look at how this process has discouraged the long-term prospects of secondary political parties .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ vote typically offers no reward of state electoral votes , and our history demonstrates that , after a cycle or two of activism , adherents of minor parties have migrated , with their key issues , into the more receptive one of the major parties .
Coll suggests that direct popular election is more democratic than the current system , but a strong case can be made that eliminating winner-take-all plurality voting may , over time , remove the forces for cohesion and spawn a truly multiparty alternative , resulting in even more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A system of many parties may be more democratic , but it may make governing this diverse nation even more problematic .
I was moved by Laura Miller ’ s piece about the author Susanna Clarke ( “ Labyrinths , ” September 14th ) .
Given Clarke ’ s creative sensibilities , it is no surprise that she should be drawn to the work of Jane Austen and to life in the nineteenth century .
Her ongoing battle with a mysterious , fatiguing illness ( which flared up , perhaps not coincidentally , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me of a research project that I worked on as an undergraduate , about the sociology of women ’ s health during the Victorian era .
Impossible cultural and familial demands led ( and still lead ) many gifted women to come down with a host of vague , debilitating symptoms .
I hope that Clarke ’ s willingness to share her experience of illness and her ambivalence toward publicity tours spurs the publishing industry to reconsider the wisdom of pushing writers to go on the road .
Many are introverts , who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , other ways to meet their readers .
Letters should be sent with the writer ’ s name , address , and daytime phone number via e-mail to themail @ newyorker.com .
Letters may be edited for length and clarity , and may be published in any medium .
We regret that owing to the volume of correspondence we can not reply to every letter .

Reforming Democracy
Steve Coll, in his article about the Electoral College, seems to recognize that the constitutional-amendment process makes it unlikely that the United States will move to a direct national vote anytime soon (Comment, September 21st). But he makes only a glancing reference to a serious flaw in the Electoral College that could be changed by congressional action—the winner-take-all system of allocating electoral votes, used by forty-eight states and the District of Columbia. If, instead, either a proportional or a district system was employed to distribute electoral votes, the Electoral College would more consistently reflect the popular vote.
Another democratic measure worth considering would be increasing the size of the House of Representatives, whose membership has remained capped at four hundred and thirty-five since the passage, in 1929, of the Permanent Apportion Act, which was premised on a U.S. population of ninety-two million, as shown by the 1910 census. Our population is now an estimated three hundred and thirty million. Adjusting for this demographic reality, the House would need to expand, by some estimates, to nearly six hundred members. That figure sounds large, but the Bundestag has more than seven hundred members, and Germany’s population is a quarter the size of ours.
However, neither of these steps would reduce the conflict that plagues this country. What needs to change are the two major political parties, which should broaden their appeal and seek to unify, rather than divide, us.
Olin Sansbury
Tryon, N.C.
Coll’s reference to the winner-take-all method of distributing electoral votes prompts a look at how this process has discouraged the long-term prospects of secondary political parties. Finishing second or third in the popular vote typically offers no reward of state electoral votes, and our history demonstrates that, after a cycle or two of activism, adherents of minor parties have migrated, with their key issues, into the more receptive one of the major parties. Coll suggests that direct popular election is more democratic than the current system, but a strong case can be made that eliminating winner-take-all plurality voting may, over time, remove the forces for cohesion and spawn a truly multiparty alternative, resulting in even more partisan division than we now have. A system of many parties may be more democratic, but it may make governing this diverse nation even more problematic.
Bob Hanley
Saginaw, Mich.
A Writer’s Life
I was moved by Laura Miller’s piece about the author Susanna Clarke (“Labyrinths,” September 14th). Given Clarke’s creative sensibilities, it is no surprise that she should be drawn to the work of Jane Austen and to life in the nineteenth century. Her ongoing battle with a mysterious, fatiguing illness (which flared up, perhaps not coincidentally, after a gruelling book tour) reminded me of a research project that I worked on as an undergraduate, about the sociology of women’s health during the Victorian era. Impossible cultural and familial demands led (and still lead) many gifted women to come down with a host of vague, debilitating symptoms. I hope that Clarke’s willingness to share her experience of illness and her ambivalence toward publicity tours spurs the publishing industry to reconsider the wisdom of pushing writers to go on the road. Many are introverts, who would appreciate, in a post-COVID world, other ways to meet their readers.
Debra L. Butterfield
Sandwich, N.H.
•
Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to themail@newyorker.com. Letters may be edited for length and clarity, and may be published in any medium. We regret that owing to the volume of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.


newyorker--2020-10-05--Inside the Lincoln Project’s War Against Trump

The week of Labor Day , the founders of the Lincoln Project , a super PAC of Republican operatives who have disavowed their own party in order to defeat President Donald Trump , set up a war room in a location far outside Washington , D.C .
Since January , the group , whose founders include the consultants Steve Schmidt and Rick Wilson , had been targeting Trump with the kind of merciless ads that the strategists had aimed at Democratic candidates throughout their careers .
A spot titled “ Regret ” features the comedian David Cross offering such a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ the blatant racism , and the crass sexism , and the deranged narcissism , and pandering to Nazis ” —that the recitation is still unspooling as the ad fades out .
This type of message is aimed at convincing Republican voters that Trump ’ s dangerous and divisive impulses imperil the country .
Another type of ad is designed to unsettle a single viewer—the President himself—and often appears during TV programs he is likely to watch .
“ Shrinking ” directly addresses Trump , saying , of his notorious Tulsa campaign rally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ve probably heard this before , but it was smaller than we expected.
” The founders knew that they were getting to the President when he started tweeting and talking about them , predictably calling their organization the Losers Project .
The founders , who consider themselves Trump “ anthropologists , ” try to predict the President ’ s missteps , stockpiling material that can be deployed at the ideal moment .
A recent spot , “ P.O.W.
, ” contrasted images of honorable military service with Trump ’ s denigration of people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ débuted shortly before The Atlantic reported that Trump , during a 2018 trip to France , had refused to visit an American cemetery and had referred to the war dead as “ suckers.
” In the ensuing public outcry , the Lincoln Project tweeted , “ Let ’ s show @ realDonaldTrump what real heroes look like , ” and asked its followers to tweet photographs of veterans , hashtagged # WeRespectVets .
Within an hour , the hashtag had become the leading Politics topic on Twitter .
On September 9th , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Carolina senator Lindsey Graham , “ Parasite , ” in which gruesome footage of feasting maggots is accompanied by narration mocking Graham ’ s obeisance to Trump : “ Parasites don ’ t care if they feed off a good host—or an evil one.
” At one of the strategists ’ regular morning meetings , Wilson—a gregarious Floridian , an aggressive adman , and the most likely of the founders to swear in public—said that a reporter had asked him , “ What do you guys say when people think that you ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ language that Trump uses ?
” Wilson said , “ I was , like , ‘ Who gives a fuck ?
’ I was , like , ‘ Dude , I ’ m not running for President.
’ ” Schmidt , who headed John McCain ’ s 2008 Presidential campaign and now elegantly eviscerates Trump on MSNBC , reminded the group that the President has insulted everyone from Gold Star families to disabled people .
The Project had endorsed the Democratic candidate , Joe Biden , and was airing positive spots about him @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The founders discussed how to target their advertising in such swing states as Florida , Arizona , and Pennsylvania .
Stuart Stevens , an adviser who has worked on five Presidential campaigns , suggested , “ Basically , look at it like we ’ re running three governor ’ s races.
” It would waste resources , he warned , to try “ to boil the ocean.
” An excerpt of Bob Woodward ’ s new book , “ Rage , ” had reported that Trump knew about the deadliness of the coronavirus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ promise that the virus was going to “ disappear.
” The founders decided to tweet about Woodward ’ s news and to produce a short video about the revelation .
As the group chatted , the Project ’ s communications director tweeted “ # TrumpKnew.
” The hashtag reached No .
1 before the meeting ended .
The Project , which was founded by eight people , now employs about thirty-five paid staffers .
For the first months , everybody worked remotely—in Tallahassee , Denver , East Hampton , Sacramento .
Once the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a dozen employees began arriving at their assigned housing with luggage and pets , prepared to stay until November .
The selection of a temporary headquarters had been complicated by the pandemic , but security was also a factor .
Founders had been publicly accosted for opposing Trump , and the Project had received menacing voice mails .
A Las Vegas caller : “ Get the fuck out of my country , bitches !
” From Pennsylvania : “ Fuck every last one of you motherfuckers !
And when a civil war happens @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fisher Stevens and Karim Amer , along with the producer Amy Redford , had arrived to shoot a documentary about the Project .
Stevens , a Hollywood actor and a liberal activist , had wanted to make anti-Trump ads himself , but every time he had an idea for a spot he discovered that the Lincoln Project had already done it .
“ These guys were out there every day , putting out a movie !
” he told me .
“ I thought , Who are these fucking people ?
Who is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Reed Galen , whose father worked for Newt Gingrich and Dan Quayle , oversaw with Schmidt the reëlection campaign of the California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger .
John Weaver , a Texan whom the Democratic strategist James Carville nicknamed Meat Cleaver Weaver , spent a decade trying to get McCain elected to the Presidency .
Stuart Stevens was Mitt Romney ’ s chief strategist in the 2012 race against Barack Obama .
A notable early Project participant was George Conway , the lawyer who antagonizes Trump on Twitter— “ You .
Are .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , was a top White House adviser until she resigned , in August .
The couple , citing family demands , receded from public life , and George Conway quit the Project .
The consultant Sarah Longwell , who heads a group called Republican Voters Against Trump , said , of the leaders of the Lincoln Project , “ They ’ ve very successfully tapped into the rage that a lot of people feel , including me.
” The Project ’ s scorched-earth approach distinguishes it from similar organizations : the founders , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republican identities , have left themselves no clear path of return .
( Wilson and Schmidt are now registered Independents . )
Longwell said , “ In many ways , this is their last stand.
” Most of the Project ’ s core founders are in their fifties and came of age under Ronald Reagan .
They were drawn to Reagan ’ s optimism and to his belief in fiscally responsible government , which , as Galen points out , “ doesn ’ t necessarily mean lower taxes—it means being smart with taxpayers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ individual liberty : worship however you want , marry whomever you want .
They support responsible gun ownership and a judiciously interventionist foreign policy .
Weaver served in the Air Force , and Wilson worked in the Defense Department , but all the founders revere military service .
In 2015 , Trump disgusted them when he mocked McCain—a fighter pilot who was a P.O.W .
during Vietnam—by saying , “ I like people that weren ’ t captured.
” After Obama won his second term , the Republican National Committee commissioned a study @ @ @ @ @ @ @ report.
” The country ’ s voting population was diversifying rapidly , and , the report said , young voters were “ increasingly rolling their eyes at what the Party represents.
” It noted , “ Many minorities wrongly think that Republicans do not like them or want them in the country.
” In a recent book , “ It Was All a Lie , ” Stevens writes , “ How do you go from dedicating a political party to expansion and inclusiveness and two years later rally around a man who calls @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for a religious test to enter the United States ?
” He goes on , “ For decades , conservatives attacked liberals for living by ‘ situational ethics , ’ but the ease with which Republican leaders abandoned any pretense of being more than a whites-only party is the ultimate situational ethic.
” In January , Wilson told Trevor Noah that Trump “ has broken the Republican Party—it doesn ’ t believe in anything.
” Stunningly , the 2020 Republican National Convention put forward no new platform , signalling that the Party ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In 2017 , Jennifer Horn , another Project founder , chose not to seek a third term as the chair of the Republican Party of New Hampshire , unable to countenance “ a President and Party leadership that think the President himself is above the law.
” She told me , “ Look at the deficit spending since Trump took office—we ’ re supposed to be the party of limited spending .
We ’ re the party of a strong national defense—we have a President who is colluding , basically , with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Horn said , she waited for Republican senators to uphold their constitutional oath , only to watch “ each one fall ” —except for Romney , who voted to convict .
Senators who condemned Trump privately said nothing publicly .
Schmidt told me , “ You have an entire political class that is scared to death of being tweeted at or given a Presidential nickname.
” Mike Madrid , a founder who analyzes voting patterns , joined the G.O.P .
as a young Latino with “ the idea that it could lift @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nineties , he served as the political director of the Republican Party in California , his home state .
He continued working for Republican causes , but , in 2016 , he was mortified when colleagues and friends “ somehow found the rationale ” to support Trump , even after his vilification of immigrants .
When Schmidt publicly left the Party , in 2018 , he tweeted that the Administration ’ s policy of separating migrant families at the border was “ connected to the worst abuses of Humanity in our history , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the current G.O.P .
represented a “ danger to our democracy.
” Galen ’ s long-held concerns about Trump intensified as he watched the President unleash unmarked officers on Black Lives Matter demonstrations .
He told himself , “ That ’ s about as anti-Republican as you can get—unfettered federal power , applied at the state level.
” The Project ’ s sole millennial founder , Ron Steslow , a political strategist , has said , “ My generation is being forced to learn that democracy can not be taken for granted.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ assembled the loose coalition now known as the Never Trump movement tended to represent certain interest areas , such as veterans ’ affairs .
No group had what Galen called “ the skills or the willingness ” to fight Trump publicly—or to convey explicitly the constitutional dangers of a second term .
“ He will be unrestrained , ” Schmidt said .
“ And he will be validated.
” The Project ’ s founders felt that the Democrats largely lacked killer instincts .
Watching the primary debates , they were dismayed that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on liberal policy divides , they were doing little to win over Republicans .
The founders had been combatting Trump individually , through books , tweets , podcasts , op-eds , and TV appearances .
Then , last fall , they decided to unite , in a move that Vox later compared to “ Darth Vader , at the very last minute , switching sides to help Luke Skywalker defeat the Emperor.
” On December 17th , they published a Times Op-Ed , written by Galen and bylined by Conway , Schmidt , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lincoln Project ’ s aim to persuade “ disaffected conservatives , Republicans and Republican-leaning independents ” to vote Trump out .
They also sought to remove Trump ’ s Senate “ enablers , ” even if it meant ceding Republican control of Congress , and to “ salt the earth ” —insuring that none of Trump ’ s children or other loyalists could become President .
Republicans have always invoked their connection to Abraham Lincoln , the Party ’ s first President ; the Project sought to weaponize it .
On February 27th @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cooper Union , in the East Village , where , in 1860 , Lincoln delivered an address that urged the containment of slavery and the preservation of the Union , propelling him to the Presidency .
His speech began with “ the facts ” ; in his conclusion , he said , “ Let us have faith that right makes might.
” Exactly a hundred and sixty years later , Wilson stood at the same lectern that Lincoln had used and invoked a tough-guy monologue from the vigilante movie “ Taken ” : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ political philosopher Liam Neeson once said , a particular set of skills—skills that make us a nightmare for people like Donald Trump .
”

The week of Labor Day, the founders of the Lincoln Project, a super PAC of Republican operatives who have disavowed their own party in order to defeat President Donald Trump, set up a war room in a location far outside Washington, D.C. Since January, the group, whose founders include the consultants Steve Schmidt and Rick Wilson, had been targeting Trump with the kind of merciless ads that the strategists had aimed at Democratic candidates throughout their careers. A spot titled “Regret” features the comedian David Cross offering such a long list of Trump’s flaws—“the blatant racism, and the crass sexism, and the deranged narcissism, and pandering to Nazis”—that the recitation is still unspooling as the ad fades out. This type of message is aimed at convincing Republican voters that Trump’s dangerous and divisive impulses imperil the country. Another type of ad is designed to unsettle a single viewer—the President himself—and often appears during TV programs he is likely to watch. “Shrinking” directly addresses Trump, saying, of his notorious Tulsa campaign rally, in June, “You’ve probably heard this before, but it was smaller than we expected.” The founders knew that they were getting to the President when he started tweeting and talking about them, predictably calling their organization the Losers Project.
The founders, who consider themselves Trump “anthropologists,” try to predict the President’s missteps, stockpiling material that can be deployed at the ideal moment. A recent spot, “P.O.W.,” contrasted images of honorable military service with Trump’s denigration of people in the armed forces. The ad débuted shortly before The Atlantic reported that Trump, during a 2018 trip to France, had refused to visit an American cemetery and had referred to the war dead as “suckers.” In the ensuing public outcry, the Lincoln Project tweeted, “Let’s show @realDonaldTrump what real heroes look like,” and asked its followers to tweet photographs of veterans, hashtagged #WeRespectVets. Within an hour, the hashtag had become the leading Politics topic on Twitter.
On September 9th, the group released an ad about the South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, “Parasite,” in which gruesome footage of feasting maggots is accompanied by narration mocking Graham’s obeisance to Trump: “Parasites don’t care if they feed off a good host—or an evil one.” At one of the strategists’ regular morning meetings, Wilson—a gregarious Floridian, an aggressive adman, and the most likely of the founders to swear in public—said that a reporter had asked him, “What do you guys say when people think that you’re using the same harsh tactics and language that Trump uses?” Wilson said, “I was, like, ‘Who gives a fuck?’ I was, like, ‘Dude, I’m not running for President.’ ” Schmidt, who headed John McCain’s 2008 Presidential campaign and now elegantly eviscerates Trump on MSNBC, reminded the group that the President has insulted everyone from Gold Star families to disabled people. The Project had endorsed the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, and was airing positive spots about him, with titles like “Decency.”
The founders discussed how to target their advertising in such swing states as Florida, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. Stuart Stevens, an adviser who has worked on five Presidential campaigns, suggested, “Basically, look at it like we’re running three governor’s races.” It would waste resources, he warned, to try “to boil the ocean.”
An excerpt of Bob Woodward’s new book, “Rage,” had reported that Trump knew about the deadliness of the coronavirus in early February yet went on to promise that the virus was going to “disappear.” The founders decided to tweet about Woodward’s news and to produce a short video about the revelation. As the group chatted, the Project’s communications director tweeted “#TrumpKnew.” The hashtag reached No. 1 before the meeting ended.
The Project, which was founded by eight people, now employs about thirty-five paid staffers. For the first months, everybody worked remotely—in Tallahassee, Denver, East Hampton, Sacramento. Once the war room was ready, more than a dozen employees began arriving at their assigned housing with luggage and pets, prepared to stay until November. The selection of a temporary headquarters had been complicated by the pandemic, but security was also a factor. Founders had been publicly accosted for opposing Trump, and the Project had received menacing voice mails. A Las Vegas caller: “Get the fuck out of my country, bitches!” From Pennsylvania: “Fuck every last one of you motherfuckers! And when a civil war happens . . . duck.”
The filmmakers Fisher Stevens and Karim Amer, along with the producer Amy Redford, had arrived to shoot a documentary about the Project. Stevens, a Hollywood actor and a liberal activist, had wanted to make anti-Trump ads himself, but every time he had an idea for a spot he discovered that the Lincoln Project had already done it. “These guys were out there every day, putting out a movie!” he told me. “I thought, Who are these fucking people? Who is doing this stuff?”
The Project’s founders are a murderers’ row of conservative operatives. Wilson, who has worked for Rudolph Giuliani and Dick Cheney, counts hundreds of elections, from “dogcatcher to U.S. Senate,” that he and the other founders have helped Republicans win. Schmidt served in the George W. Bush White House, where he was instrumental in seating the Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and John Roberts. He is widely known for having suggested Sarah Palin as a running mate for McCain, in 2008. Schmidt clearly regrets choosing someone whose crude populism presaged Trump. He was a source for “Game Change,” a book about the McCain campaign that characterized Palin as unprepared and difficult; in September, he said that Palin represented “the beginning of the politics of cowardice and fear.”
Another founder, Reed Galen, whose father worked for Newt Gingrich and Dan Quayle, oversaw with Schmidt the reëlection campaign of the California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. John Weaver, a Texan whom the Democratic strategist James Carville nicknamed Meat Cleaver Weaver, spent a decade trying to get McCain elected to the Presidency. Stuart Stevens was Mitt Romney’s chief strategist in the 2012 race against Barack Obama. A notable early Project participant was George Conway, the lawyer who antagonizes Trump on Twitter—“You. Are. Nuts.”—and whose wife, Kellyanne, was a top White House adviser until she resigned, in August. The couple, citing family demands, receded from public life, and George Conway quit the Project.
The consultant Sarah Longwell, who heads a group called Republican Voters Against Trump, said, of the leaders of the Lincoln Project, “They’ve very successfully tapped into the rage that a lot of people feel, including me.” The Project’s scorched-earth approach distinguishes it from similar organizations: the founders, some of whom have entirely shed their Republican identities, have left themselves no clear path of return. (Wilson and Schmidt are now registered Independents.) Longwell said, “In many ways, this is their last stand.”
Most of the Project’s core founders are in their fifties and came of age under Ronald Reagan. They were drawn to Reagan’s optimism and to his belief in fiscally responsible government, which, as Galen points out, “doesn’t necessarily mean lower taxes—it means being smart with taxpayers’ money.” Socially, they favor individual liberty: worship however you want, marry whomever you want. They support responsible gun ownership and a judiciously interventionist foreign policy. Weaver served in the Air Force, and Wilson worked in the Defense Department, but all the founders revere military service. In 2015, Trump disgusted them when he mocked McCain—a fighter pilot who was a P.O.W. during Vietnam—by saying, “I like people that weren’t captured.”
After Obama won his second term, the Republican National Committee commissioned a study that became known as the “autopsy report.” The country’s voting population was diversifying rapidly, and, the report said, young voters were “increasingly rolling their eyes at what the Party represents.” It noted, “Many minorities wrongly think that Republicans do not like them or want them in the country.” In a recent book, “It Was All a Lie,” Stevens writes, “How do you go from dedicating a political party to expansion and inclusiveness and two years later rally around a man who calls Mexicans ‘rapists,’ and called for a religious test to enter the United States?” He goes on, “For decades, conservatives attacked liberals for living by ‘situational ethics,’ but the ease with which Republican leaders abandoned any pretense of being more than a whites-only party is the ultimate situational ethic.” In January, Wilson told Trevor Noah that Trump “has broken the Republican Party—it doesn’t believe in anything.” Stunningly, the 2020 Republican National Convention put forward no new platform, signalling that the Party’s sole position was fealty to Trump.
In 2017, Jennifer Horn, another Project founder, chose not to seek a third term as the chair of the Republican Party of New Hampshire, unable to countenance “a President and Party leadership that think the President himself is above the law.” She told me, “Look at the deficit spending since Trump took office—we’re supposed to be the party of limited spending. We’re the party of a strong national defense—we have a President who is colluding, basically, with foreign dictators.” When Trump was impeached, Horn said, she waited for Republican senators to uphold their constitutional oath, only to watch “each one fall”—except for Romney, who voted to convict. Senators who condemned Trump privately said nothing publicly. Schmidt told me, “You have an entire political class that is scared to death of being tweeted at or given a Presidential nickname.”
“Is that better?” Cartoon by Edward Steed Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
Mike Madrid, a founder who analyzes voting patterns, joined the G.O.P. as a young Latino with “the idea that it could lift my community up.” In the late nineties, he served as the political director of the Republican Party in California, his home state. He continued working for Republican causes, but, in 2016, he was mortified when colleagues and friends “somehow found the rationale” to support Trump, even after his vilification of immigrants.
When Schmidt publicly left the Party, in 2018, he tweeted that the Administration’s policy of separating migrant families at the border was “connected to the worst abuses of Humanity in our history,” including slavery, and said that the current G.O.P. represented a “danger to our democracy.” Galen’s long-held concerns about Trump intensified as he watched the President unleash unmarked officers on Black Lives Matter demonstrations. He told himself, “That’s about as anti-Republican as you can get—unfettered federal power, applied at the state level.” The Project’s sole millennial founder, Ron Steslow, a political strategist, has said, “My generation is being forced to learn that democracy cannot be taken for granted.”


newyorker--2020-10-05--“Leave the World Behind,” a Novel About the Disaster That Won’t End

If such stocking up is common sense , it ’ s also a form of denial .
Food may keep you alive , but the emotional wallop of a crumbling civilization can ’ t be numbed by a fibre-filled date-and-nut bar .
So when we find Amanda , a central character in “ Leave the World Behind , ” Rumaan Alam ’ s enthralling third novel , prepping for her family ’ s Hamptons vacation with a gleeful trip to the grocery store , it is not a mark in her favor .
Amanda buys yogurt and blueberries , sliced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pebbly mud-colored mustard , ” twelve-dollar maple syrup , and the virtuous snack of the bourgeoisie , hummus .
An upwardly mobile Brooklynite , she ’ s “ the kind of woman interested in blending in , ” and she feels protected , even validated , by the things that she tosses into her cart , like three pints of Ben & Jerry ’ s and recycled-paper coffee filters .
But she ’ s about to get pushed out of her cosseted life , and all of its trappings—even the hummus—won ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Behind ” is a coy little thing : a disaster novel without the disaster .
Amanda , an advertising account director ; her husband , Clay , a tenured professor and book critic ; and their two kids , fifteen-year-old Archie and thirteen-year-old Rosie , have rented an Airbnb among the raspberry fields of rural Long Island .
The house is “ old but new .
.
.
solid but light , ” with a white picket fence , and made of brick , “ the very material the smartest little piggy chose @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Soon after the novel begins , the family has finished up a long day at the beach , and a late-night knock on the door yanks them out of their reverie .
It ’ s the house ’ s owners , George , or “ G.H.
, ” and Ruth Washington , who bring news of a blackout across Manhattan—though they think the outage might have spread farther .
The two families reluctantly hunker down in the home , which still has power .
Soon more disturbing news arrives , the way it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ There are vague headlines about the blackout hitting the whole East Coast and a hurricane making landfall .
On her phone , Amanda sees “ a final ‘ Breaking ’ followed by nonsensical letters.
” Then the Internet blinks out .
What is happening ?
Is there one crisis or a series of them ?
Over the next few days , Clay notices that the birds are silent .
G.H .
and Ruth mention that the private planes of their richest neighbors aren ’ t flying .
Rose stands in the backyard and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , unnerving in their congregation .
I expected , after all of this , the natural tick-tock of a disaster novel .
The invasion or superstorm or missiles would arrive ; the characters would run for it ; inevitably , some innocent would be sacrificed to the gods who demand such things from novelists .
But , although the tension heightens , no such moments arrive .
Where other practitioners of the genre revel in chaos—the coarse spectacle of society unravelling—Alam keeps close to his characters , who , like insects in acrylic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suspended unease .
This , he suggests , is the modern disaster—the precarity of American life , which leaves us unsure , always , if things can get worse .
Despite the prospect of doom , the characters in “ Leave the World Behind ” spend a lot of time tidying the counters or chopping garlic .
You get the sense that , if a 747 were to crash through the windows , their first instinct might be to run for the broom .
Every calamity is met with an equal and opposite @ @ @ @ @ @ @ town seeking information and stays out long past the time he ’ s due , Amanda , in a nauseating gesture , whips up some Brie-and-chocolate sandwiches .
When one character grows suddenly , alarmingly ill , two more bake a Duncan Hines cake and then pepper it “ with sugar confetti , a nice little duet , ” while Ruth collects everyone ’ s laundry , to “ save them the trek to the Laundromat when they got home.
” No matter how bleak the situation , these people cling to normalcy—and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , entails consumption , comfort , and domestic equilibrium .
At the same time , another narrative voice worms its way into the text , sometimes in the middle of sentences .
It is seemingly omniscient about the state of the world but proffers only small bits of information .
It tells us what the characters don ’ t know , that planes have been “ dispatched to the coast , per protocol , ” that trapped subway riders are suffocating beneath Manhattan ’ s blacktop , that “ a major television star @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the intersection of Seventy-ninth and Amsterdam and died because the ambulances couldn ’ t get anywhere.
” The voice knows whether bombs are flying or the power grid ’ s been hacked , but it , too , remains nonchalant , its disinterest almost cruel , like a clinician observing a dying animal , clipboard in hand .
Its interruptions both make the reader complicit and remind her that , in our world , we ’ ll never enjoy the luxury of clairvoyance .
After the Internet cuts out , the characters can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Still , their reactions—fill the hot tub , keep the vodkas on ice flowing—are never quite in keeping with the scale of what ’ s happening around them .
Amanda is more alarmed by the fact that the Washingtons are black— “ those people didn ’ t look the sort to own such a beautiful house , ” she thinks—and Ruth fusses over the sink , as though its messiness were deadly .
We want these people to run , to find other humans , to do something , anything , that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ judge them , too , as avatars of our own worst instincts , so enmeshed in the comforts of life that they believe that a pretty little home in the woods will keep them safe from the big bad wolf of civilizational collapse .
It becomes clear , over time , that they ’ re trapped less in the house than in a fantasy of their making , even as doubt creeps in at the edges .
“ George had ten thousand dollars in cash tucked away for emergencies , ” Ruth thinks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But then , “ Would any of that be a salve to whatever this was ?
” Part of the problem is that these people aren ’ t just used to comfort ; they ’ re used to crisis , and it ’ s left them unable to properly tabulate risk .
These are characters who live in our political world , who know that “ the morbidly obese grandson of the Eternal President ” ( Mr. Kim ) has itchy fingers and that “ this president ” ( Mr. Trump ) is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ This kind of thing , ” Clay thinks , as he and G.H .
discuss whether terrorism might have caused the power outage , “ used to sound like paranoia , but now it was just pragmatism.
” They can putter on precisely because this new series of strange events is not so far from life as usual .
Thinking of Venetian tourists snapping pictures of palazzos in waist-high water , Ruth notes , “ It was like some tacit agreement ; everyone had ceded to things just falling apart.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tolerance for the absurd .
What would it take for them—for us—to truly panic ?
In most literature of this ilk , the disaster , whether rising seas or a virus , is a force of narrative tension : the reader is keen to learn how humans move from a time of upheaval to one of stability .
Alam never gets there ; upheaval is all his characters have .
His achievement is to see that his genre ’ s traditional arc , which relies on the idea of aftermath , no longer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ call for something different , a recognition that we won ’ t find a new normal , even if we ’ ve hoarded our Duracells and tucked ourselves behind sturdy walls in forested hideaways .
The catastrophe came long ago , before Amanda went grocery shopping and the Washingtons left Manhattan , and before Clay submitted his latest piece to the Times Book Review .
And it isn ’ t ending , only changing shape .
In the book ’ s final pages , as the tension suddenly ratchets up , Amanda thinks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to handle certain fears .
This was something else .
It was hard to remind yourself to be rational in a world where that seemed not to matter as much , but maybe it never had .
”

Rumaan Alam’s new book follows its characters to the Hamptons as the world crumbles around them. Photograph by David A. Land
There comes a moment in every disaster novel when a character stocks up on supplies or fantasizes about discovering them. This is the survivor’s dream: bulk-packed goods of Costco abundance. In Ling Ma’s “Severance,” a pandemic renders most of the world “fevered,” and a crew of survivors is rewarded by the endless material recompense of life in a mall: shelves of L’Occitane hand lotion, racks of Gap T-shirts. In Emily St. John Mandel’s “Station Eleven,” a “Georgian flu” flattens the world’s population, and one character makes six trips through the grocery store, dragging carts loaded with “cans and cans of food, all the tuna and beans and soup on the shelf . . . aspirin, garbage bags, bleach, duct tape.” He survives for months, and watches the rest of Toronto die outside his high-rise.
If such stocking up is common sense, it’s also a form of denial. Food may keep you alive, but the emotional wallop of a crumbling civilization can’t be numbed by a fibre-filled date-and-nut bar. So when we find Amanda, a central character in “Leave the World Behind,” Rumaan Alam’s enthralling third novel, prepping for her family’s Hamptons vacation with a gleeful trip to the grocery store, it is not a mark in her favor. Amanda buys yogurt and blueberries, sliced turkey, thick-cut bacon, “that pebbly mud-colored mustard,” twelve-dollar maple syrup, and the virtuous snack of the bourgeoisie, hummus. An upwardly mobile Brooklynite, she’s “the kind of woman interested in blending in,” and she feels protected, even validated, by the things that she tosses into her cart, like three pints of Ben & Jerry’s and recycled-paper coffee filters. But she’s about to get pushed out of her cosseted life, and all of its trappings—even the hummus—won’t save her.
“Leave the World Behind” is a coy little thing: a disaster novel without the disaster. Amanda, an advertising account director; her husband, Clay, a tenured professor and book critic; and their two kids, fifteen-year-old Archie and thirteen-year-old Rosie, have rented an Airbnb among the raspberry fields of rural Long Island. The house is “old but new . . . solid but light,” with a white picket fence, and made of brick, “the very material the smartest little piggy chose because it would keep him safest.” Soon after the novel begins, the family has finished up a long day at the beach, and a late-night knock on the door yanks them out of their reverie. It’s the house’s owners, George, or “G.H.,” and Ruth Washington, who bring news of a blackout across Manhattan—though they think the outage might have spread farther. The two families reluctantly hunker down in the home, which still has power.
Soon more disturbing news arrives, the way it so often does—via Times push notifications. There are vague headlines about the blackout hitting the whole East Coast and a hurricane making landfall. On her phone, Amanda sees “a final ‘Breaking’ followed by nonsensical letters.” Then the Internet blinks out. What is happening? Is there one crisis or a series of them? Over the next few days, Clay notices that the birds are silent. G.H. and Ruth mention that the private planes of their richest neighbors aren’t flying. Rose stands in the backyard and spots a herd of thousands of deer, unnerving in their congregation.
I expected, after all of this, the natural tick-tock of a disaster novel. The invasion or superstorm or missiles would arrive; the characters would run for it; inevitably, some innocent would be sacrificed to the gods who demand such things from novelists. But, although the tension heightens, no such moments arrive. Where other practitioners of the genre revel in chaos—the coarse spectacle of society unravelling—Alam keeps close to his characters, who, like insects in acrylic, remain trapped in a state of suspended unease. This, he suggests, is the modern disaster—the precarity of American life, which leaves us unsure, always, if things can get worse.
Despite the prospect of doom, the characters in “Leave the World Behind” spend a lot of time tidying the counters or chopping garlic. You get the sense that, if a 747 were to crash through the windows, their first instinct might be to run for the broom. Every calamity is met with an equal and opposite domestic reaction. When Clay heads for town seeking information and stays out long past the time he’s due, Amanda, in a nauseating gesture, whips up some Brie-and-chocolate sandwiches. When one character grows suddenly, alarmingly ill, two more bake a Duncan Hines cake and then pepper it “with sugar confetti, a nice little duet,” while Ruth collects everyone’s laundry, to “save them the trek to the Laundromat when they got home.” No matter how bleak the situation, these people cling to normalcy—and normalcy, as for any upper-middle-class American, entails consumption, comfort, and domestic equilibrium.
At the same time, another narrative voice worms its way into the text, sometimes in the middle of sentences. It is seemingly omniscient about the state of the world but proffers only small bits of information. It tells us what the characters don’t know, that planes have been “dispatched to the coast, per protocol,” that trapped subway riders are suffocating beneath Manhattan’s blacktop, that “a major television star had been struck by a car at the intersection of Seventy-ninth and Amsterdam and died because the ambulances couldn’t get anywhere.” The voice knows whether bombs are flying or the power grid’s been hacked, but it, too, remains nonchalant, its disinterest almost cruel, like a clinician observing a dying animal, clipboard in hand. Its interruptions both make the reader complicit and remind her that, in our world, we’ll never enjoy the luxury of clairvoyance.
After the Internet cuts out, the characters can’t watch the disasters rack up. Still, their reactions—fill the hot tub, keep the vodkas on ice flowing—are never quite in keeping with the scale of what’s happening around them. Amanda is more alarmed by the fact that the Washingtons are black—“those people didn’t look the sort to own such a beautiful house,” she thinks—and Ruth fusses over the sink, as though its messiness were deadly. We want these people to run, to find other humans, to do something, anything, that feels useful in crisis. And we judge them, too, as avatars of our own worst instincts, so enmeshed in the comforts of life that they believe that a pretty little home in the woods will keep them safe from the big bad wolf of civilizational collapse. It becomes clear, over time, that they’re trapped less in the house than in a fantasy of their making, even as doubt creeps in at the edges. “George had ten thousand dollars in cash tucked away for emergencies,” Ruth thinks. “They were rich!” But then, “Would any of that be a salve to whatever this was?”
Part of the problem is that these people aren’t just used to comfort; they’re used to crisis, and it’s left them unable to properly tabulate risk. These are characters who live in our political world, who know that “the morbidly obese grandson of the Eternal President” (Mr. Kim) has itchy fingers and that “this president” (Mr. Trump) is constitutionally unable to respond appropriately to disaster. “This kind of thing,” Clay thinks, as he and G.H. discuss whether terrorism might have caused the power outage, “used to sound like paranoia, but now it was just pragmatism.” They can putter on precisely because this new series of strange events is not so far from life as usual. Thinking of Venetian tourists snapping pictures of palazzos in waist-high water, Ruth notes, “It was like some tacit agreement; everyone had ceded to things just falling apart.” As a result, they have increasing tolerance for the absurd. What would it take for them—for us—to truly panic?
In most literature of this ilk, the disaster, whether rising seas or a virus, is a force of narrative tension: the reader is keen to learn how humans move from a time of upheaval to one of stability. Alam never gets there; upheaval is all his characters have. His achievement is to see that his genre’s traditional arc, which relies on the idea of aftermath, no longer makes sense. Today, disaster novels call for something different, a recognition that we won’t find a new normal, even if we’ve hoarded our Duracells and tucked ourselves behind sturdy walls in forested hideaways. The catastrophe came long ago, before Amanda went grocery shopping and the Washingtons left Manhattan, and before Clay submitted his latest piece to the Times Book Review. And it isn’t ending, only changing shape. In the book’s final pages, as the tension suddenly ratchets up, Amanda thinks to herself, “They were equipped to handle certain fears. This was something else. It was hard to remind yourself to be rational in a world where that seemed not to matter as much, but maybe it never had.”