newyorker--2020-12-10--The Distinct Political Paths of Barack Obama and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

None of this confident allocation of cool surprised Obama , who nodded—and who , incidentally , still looked cool himself , wearing a dark suit and tieless blue-striped shirt , his hair now on the white side of gray .
He said he thought that the Democrats should have given Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a much more prominent role at the national convention this past summer .
But , if he wanted Ocasio-Cortez to talk more , he didn ’ t think that the Party should talk more like her .
“ Socialism is still a loaded term for a lot of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ When it came to the call to defund the police , “ I guess you can use a snappy slogan like ‘ defund the police , ’ but you know you ’ ve lost a big audience the minute you say it.
” Obama added , “ The key is deciding do you want to actually get something done ?
Or do you want to feel good among the people you already agree with ?
” Right now , the most important arguments within the Democratic Party are taking place mostly out of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ place staffers in the Joe Biden Administration—and , in so doing , to shape its ambitions .
But in the month since the election a parallel argument has taken place in public between the Party ’ s most progressive elected officials and its moderates , who believe that the progressives ’ embrace of activist slogans—particularly the call to defund the police—cost the Democrats seats in 2020 and might eventually cost them their House majority .
The progressive faction is poor in numbers but rich in ideas and public profile , and the 2020 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Party nor wiped them out .
The dispute over whether the progressives are too radical in their talk has settled into a stalemate , especially because there is no consensus on what “ defund the police ” means ; Obama ’ s entry into the debate , characteristically caveated , didn ’ t break the impasse .
But Obama and Ocasio-Cortez are the two politicians who in this century have managed to embody the qualities essential to the Democratic Party : youth and idealism , hope and change , the promise of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ elevating Ocasio-Cortez and gently criticizing her ideas , Obama opened up a different conversation—not just about the left and the center but about how a star politician ought to be , between one generational talent and another .
During the tumultuous past half decade—as conservatives contemplated authoritarianism , as Democrats reconsidered socialism , as liberalism generally faltered—Obama spent much of his time writing a book .
Unlike his previous two books , his new memoir , “ A Promised Land , ” is mostly about the mature Obama ( he is inaugurated as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) and about the evolution of the character who appeared on Peter Hamby ’ s Snapchat show , with his caution and good humor .
The book ’ s first sections are the most interesting in terms of Obama ’ s account of his own character : a central theme is the tension that the future President felt , when he was around thirty , between “ wanting to be in politics and not of it.
” On an early date with Michelle , which takes place at an organizing workshop Obama is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is talking about a place between “ the world as it is and the world as it should be.
” In Obama ’ s account , he had been snapped out of a self-serious post-undergraduate mode—lost in the abstraction of “ the world as it should be ” —by his encounters with working-class people on the South Side of Chicago , during his pre-law-school stint as an organizer .
“ I came to love the men and women I worked with : the single mom living on a ravaged block who somehow got @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Irish priest who threw open the church doors every evening so that kids had an option other than gangs ; the laid-off steelworker who went back to school to become a social worker , ” he writes .
“ Their stories of hardship and their modest victories confirmed for me again and again the basic decency of people.
” Chicago brings him out of his own head : “ In other words , I grew up , and I got my sense of humor back.
” Reading this passage , I doubted it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
They read as grist for stump speeches .
They are rendered more than they are seen .
The people he does obviously love in this book , whom he takes the time to see in full , are the political professionals who work mostly for him .
When he is feeling grouchy on the Presidential campaign trail in 2008 , his spirits are restored by his body man , Reggie Love , who says that he ’ s “ having the time of my life.
” Obama admires his gruff , heavyset @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tewes , who has “ the heart of the ten year old boy who cared enough , who believed enough , to cry over an election.
” A couple of days before Osama bin Laden ’ s killing , he observes his devoted national-security adviser , Tom Donilon ( a man who just returned to BlackRock rather than take a job as Biden ’ s C.I.A .
director ) .
Donilon , Obama writes , had “ been trying to exercise more and lay off the caffeine but was apparently losing the battle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at Tom ’ s capacity for hard work , the myriad details he kept track of , the volume of memos and cables and data he had to consume , the number of snafus he fixed and the interagency tussles he resolved , all so that I could have both the information and the mental space I needed in order to my job.
” The White House becomes an image of the country he ’ d like to see .
Most people are not out for themselves .
Everyone works so hard .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ him back .
When Obama decided to run for President , he had been in Washington for two years , almost exactly as long as Ocasio-Cortez has been there now .
Nonetheless , in Obama ’ s account , he had the tacit support of many of the Party ’ s elders .
He spoke to Harry Reid , who told him a story about a young boxer and said he should go for it : “ You get people motivated , especially young people , minorities , even middle-of-the-road people .
That @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a visit to Ted Kennedy .
( He recalls the avuncular senator rising “ gingerly ” from his seat . )
Kennedy told Obama that he couldn ’ t endorse him early— “ too many friends ” — but , recalling his brothers , encouraged the younger senator to run nevertheless : “ The power to inspire is rare .
Moments like this are rare.
” Once in office , whenever Obama feels stuck , he notices the ambition , dedication , and hope in the people around him , and becomes determined @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , external pressures—the Republicans , the press—always nudge him toward loneliness .
The salve—in many ways , the theme of his story—is comradeship .
Who are Ocasio-Cortez ’ s comrades ?
If any leading senators are taking her aside to tell her that she represents the future of the Party , no one ’ s given any public hint of it .
Among Democrats , she often seems nearly alone .
The Squad , composed of Ocasio-Cortez and Representatives Ilhan Omar , Ayanna Pressley , and Rashida Tlaib , project a sense of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ four of them .
Trace Ocasio-Cortez ’ s public statements since her election and she makes her distance from the mainstream Democratic Party plain .
When David Remnick asked Ocasio-Cortez , in 2019 , whether she had a relationship with Nancy Pelosi , Ocasio-Cortez replied , “ Not particularly.
” When New York magazine ’ s David Freedlander asked her earlier this year what she made of Joe Biden , Ocasio-Cortez said , “ In any other country , Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party.
” There is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ both sides .
In November , 2018 , just after Ocasio-Cortez won , she participated in a sit-in of Pelosi ’ s office by the young climate activists of the Sunrise Movement ; a month later , Politico reported that she had recruited a challenger to Representative Hakeem Jeffries , the fifth-ranking Democrat in the House .
As for Pelosi , at that time , she made a habit of dismissing the dreams of young progressives , referring to “ their public whatever , ” “ the green dream or whatever they call @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Times ’ Astead Herndon that , during the first six months of her term , she was unsure whether she would even run for reëlection .
“ It ’ s the stress .
It ’ s the violence , ” she said .
“ I ’ m serious when I tell people the odds of me running for higher office and the odds of me just going off trying to start a homestead somewhere—they ’ re probably the same.
” The dispute between the moderates and progressives went on a long hiatus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ weeks since the election have made clear that it isn ’ t a matter of the past .
On a House Democratic Caucus call in November , Representative Abigail Spanberger , a former C.I.A .
analyst who was narrowly reëlected in a suburban Virginia district that voted for Trump in 2016 , asked her colleagues to watch reels of attack ads run against moderate Democrats , to see the political consequences of allying with activists .
In audio that leaked to the Washington Post , Spanberger said , “ The No .
1 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me in my district that I barely re-won was defunding the police .
And I ’ ve heard from colleagues who have said , ‘ Oh , it ’ s the language of the street—we should respect that.
’ We ’ re in Congress .
We are professionals .
We are supposed to talk about things in the way where we mean what we ’ re talking about.
” Ocasio-Cortez ’ s response was that the Democrats ’ failures were not ideological but tactical ; she blamed a lack of digital-ad spending and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ during the coronavirus pandemic .
But the details of the argument appeared less important than how eager both sides seemed to be to engage in it again .
A few days later , four progressive groups—New Deal Strategies , the Sunrise Movement , the Justice Democrats , and Data for Progress—produced a memo supporting Ocasio-Cortez ’ s contentions .
These have been Ocasio-Cortez ’ s comrades : not the Democrats but the activists .
A paradox of Ocasio-Cortez ’ s position is that her skills are not activist skills but mainstream ones .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ finds connections between niche political news and the lives of working people .
She can conjure a news cycle out of thin air—and then win it .
An early risk in Ocasio-Cortez ’ s Washington career was that she would be seen strictly as an ingénue , but she turned her committee hearings into platforms to showcase her careful study of policy and incisive questioning .
It isn ’ t news to her allies that her base is not big enough , and in the past two years they have taken steps to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her .
In July , after Representative Ted Yoho , a Republican of Florida , called her a “ fucking bitch ” in earshot of reporters , Ocasio-Cortez delivered a remarkable speech expressing frustration on behalf of all women , because “ all of us have had to deal with this in some form , some way , some shape , at some point in our lives.
” Not long after , Ocasio-Cortez sat for a long cover interview with Vanity Fair , which focussed on her upbringing , her personal life , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ person must endure .
The line of scrimmage between progressives and the established Democratic Party has not moved much since Bernie Sanders ’ s first Presidential campaign , five years ago .
For all the talk of generational revolution , the Party is run by more or less exactly the same people .
What has changed is that the Democratic establishment has embraced policy changes that it would have shunned a decade ago .
Having won the primary as the most moderate figure onstage , Biden adopted a much more progressive agenda in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ platform proposes raising three trillion dollars in revenue during the next ten years , almost entirely by taxing the wealthy and corporations .
He plans to spend two trillion dollars on climate transformation during his first term , forty per cent of it targeted to help disadvantaged communities .
Like nearly all Democrats , Biden now supports a fifteen-dollar-per-hour minimum wage , a key part of Sanders ’ s platform in 2016 , and like much of the Party he supports a public option for health insurance .
There isn ’ t such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democratic effort right now ; it is trying to persuade voters that an expansive agenda is actually pragmatic and common sense , while she is trying to emphasize what is revolutionary .
What were Obama ’ s and Spanberger ’ s arguments with Ocasio-Cortez about , anyway ?
Mostly , language .
Neither has emphasized policy differences with the progressives ; they were talking about talk .
In their interview , Obama told Hamby that Ocasio-Cortez and Biden shared a desire for broad action on climate change , and implied that they were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it : “ If you want to move people , they are moved by stories that connect with their own lives .
They ’ re not moved by ideology.
” This tendency to police language is part of what has always grated on the left about Obama .
But it is also a sign of a winning hand .
The paradox of Ocasio-Cortez ’ s position right now is that she isn ’ t isolated politically because she is losing .
She is isolated politically because , on more substantive matters than it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ admit , she has already won .

Barack Obama is on a book tour, a setting so mundane that it can be a little jarring to encounter him there, amiably pursuing sales. Aiming for a young audience, the former President appeared this week on the Snapchat show “Good Luck America,” the host of which, Peter Hamby, asked whether the Democratic Party still had a “pro-capitalist” case to offer young voters. “Socialism is cool. Bernie, A.O.C., they’re cool. The Democratic Party isn’t really cool,” Hamby said.
None of this confident allocation of cool surprised Obama, who nodded—and who, incidentally, still looked cool himself, wearing a dark suit and tieless blue-striped shirt, his hair now on the white side of gray. He said he thought that the Democrats should have given Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a much more prominent role at the national convention this past summer. But, if he wanted Ocasio-Cortez to talk more, he didn’t think that the Party should talk more like her. “Socialism is still a loaded term for a lot of folks,” Obama told Hamby. When it came to the call to defund the police, “I guess you can use a snappy slogan like ‘defund the police,’ but you know you’ve lost a big audience the minute you say it.” Obama added, “The key is deciding do you want to actually get something done? Or do you want to feel good among the people you already agree with?”
Right now, the most important arguments within the Democratic Party are taking place mostly out of public view, in the maneuverings to place staffers in the Joe Biden Administration—and, in so doing, to shape its ambitions. But, in the month since the election, a parallel argument has taken place in public between the Party’s most progressive elected officials and its moderates, who believe that the progressives’ embrace of activist slogans—particularly the call to defund the police—cost the Democrats seats in 2020 and might eventually cost them their House majority. The progressive faction is poor in numbers but rich in ideas and public profile, and the 2020 election neither strengthened their position within the Party nor wiped them out. The dispute over whether the progressives are too radical in their talk has settled into a stalemate, especially because there is no consensus on what “defund the police” means; Obama’s entry into the debate, characteristically caveated, didn’t break the impasse. But Obama and Ocasio-Cortez are the two politicians who in this century have managed to embody the qualities essential to the Democratic Party: youth and idealism, hope and change, the promise of a future different than the past. In elevating Ocasio-Cortez and gently criticizing her ideas, Obama opened up a different conversation—not just about the left and the center but about how a star politician ought to be, between one generational talent and another.
During the tumultuous past half decade—as conservatives contemplated authoritarianism, as Democrats reconsidered socialism, as liberalism generally faltered—Obama spent much of his time writing a book. Unlike his previous two books, his new memoir, “A Promised Land,” is mostly about the mature Obama (he is inaugurated as President a third of the way in) and about the evolution of the character who appeared on Peter Hamby’s Snapchat show, with his caution and good humor. The book’s first sections are the most interesting in terms of Obama’s account of his own character: a central theme is the tension that the future President felt, when he was around thirty, between “wanting to be in politics and not of it.” On an early date with Michelle, which takes place at an organizing workshop Obama is leading, she tells him that he is talking about a place between “the world as it is and the world as it should be.”
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In Obama’s account, he had been snapped out of a self-serious post-undergraduate mode—lost in the abstraction of “the world as it should be”—by his encounters with working-class people on the South Side of Chicago, during his pre-law-school stint as an organizer. “I came to love the men and women I worked with: the single mom living on a ravaged block who somehow got all four children through college; the Irish priest who threw open the church doors every evening so that kids had an option other than gangs; the laid-off steelworker who went back to school to become a social worker,” he writes. “Their stories of hardship and their modest victories confirmed for me again and again the basic decency of people.” Chicago brings him out of his own head: “In other words, I grew up, and I got my sense of humor back.” Reading this passage, I doubted it a bit. Those characters are flat. They read as grist for stump speeches. They are rendered more than they are seen.
The people he does obviously love in this book, whom he takes the time to see in full, are the political professionals who work mostly for him. When he is feeling grouchy on the Presidential campaign trail in 2008, his spirits are restored by his body man, Reggie Love, who says that he’s “having the time of my life.” Obama admires his gruff, heavyset, flannel-clad Iowa field director, Paul Tewes, who has “the heart of the ten year old boy who cared enough, who believed enough, to cry over an election.” A couple of days before Osama bin Laden’s killing, he observes his devoted national-security adviser, Tom Donilon (a man who just returned to BlackRock rather than take a job as Biden’s C.I.A. director). Donilon, Obama writes, had “been trying to exercise more and lay off the caffeine but was apparently losing the battle. I’d come to marvel at Tom’s capacity for hard work, the myriad details he kept track of, the volume of memos and cables and data he had to consume, the number of snafus he fixed and the interagency tussles he resolved, all so that I could have both the information and the mental space that I needed in order to do my job.” The White House becomes an image of the country he’d like to see. Most people are not out for themselves. Everyone works so hard.
He loves them, and they love him back. When Obama decided to run for President, he had been in Washington for two years, almost exactly as long as Ocasio-Cortez has been there now. Nonetheless, in Obama’s account, he had the tacit support of many of the Party’s elders. He spoke to Harry Reid, who told him a story about a young boxer and said he should go for it: “You get people motivated, especially young people, minorities, even middle-of-the-road people. That’s different.” Obama also paid a visit to Ted Kennedy. (He recalls the avuncular senator rising “gingerly” from his seat.) Kennedy told Obama that he couldn’t endorse him early—“too many friends”—but, recalling his brothers, encouraged the younger senator to run nevertheless: “The power to inspire is rare. Moments like this are rare.” Once in office, whenever Obama feels stuck, he notices the ambition, dedication, and hope in the people around him, and becomes determined again. In Obama’s telling, external pressures—the Republicans, the press—always nudge him toward loneliness. The salve—in many ways, the theme of his story—is comradeship.
Who are Ocasio-Cortez’s comrades? If any leading senators are taking her aside to tell her that she represents the future of the Party, no one’s given any public hint of it. Among Democrats, she often seems nearly alone. The Squad, composed of Ocasio-Cortez and Representatives Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib, project a sense of solidarity, but there are still just four of them. Trace Ocasio-Cortez’s public statements since her election and she makes her distance from the mainstream Democratic Party plain. When David Remnick asked Ocasio-Cortez, in 2019, whether she had a relationship with Nancy Pelosi, Ocasio-Cortez replied, “Not particularly.” When New York magazine’s David Freedlander asked her earlier this year what she made of Joe Biden, Ocasio-Cortez said, “In any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party.” There is a history of slights and incursions on both sides. In November, 2018, just after Ocasio-Cortez won, she participated in a sit-in of Pelosi’s office by the young climate activists of the Sunrise Movement; a month later, Politico reported that she had recruited a challenger to Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the fifth-ranking Democrat in the House. As for Pelosi, at that time, she made a habit of dismissing the dreams of young progressives, referring to “their public whatever,” “the green dream or whatever they call it.” Last month, Ocasio-Cortez told the Times’ Astead Herndon that, during the first six months of her term, she was unsure whether she would even run for reëlection. “It’s the stress. It’s the violence,” she said. “I’m serious when I tell people the odds of me running for higher office and the odds of me just going off trying to start a homestead somewhere—they’re probably the same.”
The dispute between the moderates and progressives went on a long hiatus during the Presidential campaign, but the weeks since the election have made clear that it isn’t a matter of the past. On a House Democratic Caucus call in November, Representative Abigail Spanberger, a former C.I.A. case officer who was narrowly reëlected in a suburban Virginia district that voted for Trump in 2016, asked her colleagues to watch reels of attack ads run against moderate Democrats, to see the political consequences of allying with activists. In audio that leaked to the Washington Post, Spanberger said, “The No. 1 concern and thing that people brought to me in my district that I barely re-won was defunding the police. And I’ve heard from colleagues who have said, ‘Oh, it’s the language of the street—we should respect that.’ We’re in Congress. We are professionals. We are supposed to talk about things in the way where we mean what we’re talking about.” Ocasio-Cortez’s response was that the Democrats’ failures were not ideological but tactical; she blamed a lack of digital-ad spending and the Party’s abandonment of door-knocking during the coronavirus pandemic. But the details of the argument appeared less important than how eager both sides seemed to be to engage in it again. A few days later, four progressive groups—New Deal Strategies, the Sunrise Movement, the Justice Democrats, and Data for Progress—produced a memo supporting Ocasio-Cortez’s contentions. These have been Ocasio-Cortez’s comrades: not the Democrats but the activists.
A paradox of Ocasio-Cortez’s position is that her skills are not activist skills but mainstream ones. She delivers highly polished speeches. She finds connections between niche political news and the lives of working people. She can conjure a news cycle out of thin air—and then win it. An early risk in Ocasio-Cortez’s Washington career was that she would be seen strictly as an ingénue, but she turned her committee hearings into platforms to showcase her careful study of policy and incisive questioning. It isn’t news to her allies that her base is not big enough, and in the past two years they have taken steps to build it—to broaden her appeal without moderating her. In July, after Representative Ted Yoho, a Republican of Florida, called her a “fucking bitch” in earshot of reporters, Ocasio-Cortez delivered a remarkable speech expressing frustration on behalf of all women, because “all of us have had to deal with this in some form, some way, some shape, at some point in our lives.” Not long after, Ocasio-Cortez sat for a long cover interview with Vanity Fair, which focussed on her upbringing, her personal life, and the daily indignities that a working person must endure.
The line of scrimmage between progressives and the established Democratic Party has not moved much since Bernie Sanders’s first Presidential campaign, five years ago. For all the talk of generational revolution, the Party is run by more or less exactly the same people. What has changed is that the Democratic establishment has embraced policy changes that it would have shunned a decade ago. Having won the primary as the most moderate figure onstage, Biden adopted a much more progressive agenda in the general election. Biden’s platform proposes raising three trillion dollars in revenue during the next ten years, almost entirely by taxing the wealthy and corporations. He plans to spend two trillion dollars on climate transformation during his first term, forty per cent of it targeted to help disadvantaged communities. Like nearly all Democrats, Biden now supports a fifteen-dollar-per-hour minimum wage, a key part of Sanders’s platform in 2016, and like much of the Party he supports a public option for health insurance. There isn’t such an obvious place for Ocasio-Cortez in the Democratic effort right now; it is trying to persuade voters that an expansive agenda is actually pragmatic and common sense, while she is trying to emphasize what is revolutionary.
What were Obama’s and Spanberger’s arguments with Ocasio-Cortez about, anyway? Mostly, language. Neither has emphasized policy differences with the progressives; they were talking about talk. In their interview, Obama told Hamby that Ocasio-Cortez and Biden shared a desire for broad action on climate change, and implied that they were divided only by how to talk about it: “If you want to move people, they are moved by stories that connect with their own lives. They’re not moved by ideology.” This tendency to police language is part of what has always grated on the left about Obama. But it is also a sign of a winning hand. The paradox of Ocasio-Cortez’s position right now is that she isn’t isolated politically because she is losing. She is isolated politically because, on more substantive matters than it is in anyone’s interest to admit, she has already won.
A previous version of this post misstated Spanberger’s position at the C.I.A.


newyorker--2020-12-10--Dianne Feinstein’s Missteps Raise a Painful Age Question Among Senate Democrats

It was a good question .
Feinstein seemed sharp and focussed .
For decades , she has been the epitome of a female trailblazer in Washington , always hyper-prepared .
But this time , after Dorsey responded , Feinstein asked him the same question again , reading it word for word , along with the Trump tweet .
Her inflection was eerily identical .
Feinstein looked and sounded just as authoritative , seemingly registering no awareness that she was repeating herself verbatim .
Dorsey graciously answered the question all over again .
Social media was less polite .
A conservative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the humiliating moment on YouTube , under the headline “ Senator Feinstein just asked the same question twice and didn ’ t realize she did it , ” adding an emoji of someone covering his face with his hand in shame , along with bright red type proclaiming “ Time to Retire !
!
” Six days later , under growing pressure from progressive groups who were already outraged by her faltering management of Amy Coney Barrett ’ s Supreme Court confirmation hearing , Feinstein released a statement announcing that she would step @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , while continuing as a non-ranking member of the committee .
Feinstein ’ s office declined to comment for this article .
Feinstein first became nationally known for the grit she showed in 1978 , when her fellow San Francisco city officials Harvey Milk and George Moscone were shot dead .
She has had a distinguished twenty-eight-year tenure in the Senate , taking on a range of powerful interests , from gun-rights groups to the C.I.A .
The moment marked a sad turning point for Feinstein and a reckoning for the Senate , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The presumption has been that it ’ s up to voters to fire aging senators who can no longer effectively serve .
But voters rarely do .
As Paul Kane , who covers Congress for the Washington Post , wrote in 2017 , the Senate was then the oldest in history .
Its eight octogenarians were almost twice the number that had simultaneously served before .
According to the Senate Historical Office , all of them held positions of vital importance to the country .
And while several were regarded as wise and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that clearly undermined the Senate ’ s ability to function .
Twitter and other social-media platforms are exposing lawmakers ’ infirmities to new and harsher scrutiny , violating an unspoken culture of complicity and coverup .
Prior to the recent reëlection of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell , the Internet was ablaze with close-up photos of his bandaged , purple hands , setting off wild speculation about the health of the seventy-eight-year-old Republican from Kentucky .
The physical and mental fitness of Trump , who is seventy-four , and Joe Biden , who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ covered .
“ In the 24/7 news cycle we have now , you can ’ t really hide , ” one former top aide to Feinstein told me .
Some former Feinstein aides insist that rumors of her cognitive decline have been exaggerated , and that video clips taken out of context can make almost anyone look foolish .
They also bridle at singling out her condition , because declining male senators , including Strom Thurmond , of South Carolina , and Robert Byrd , of West Virginia , were widely known by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ non-compos mentis .
“ For his last ten years , Strom Thurmond didn ’ t know if he was on foot or on horseback , ” one former Senate aide told me .
The former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid , of Nevada , is said to have snapped at a staffer who claimed to be relaying what Byrd thought .
“ Knock it off , ” Reid supposedly said .
“ Everyone knows it ’ s what you think.
” In contrast , one former aide to Feinstein argues that , even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she ’ s still smarter and quicker than at least a third of the other members.
” But many others familiar with Feinstein ’ s situation describe her as seriously struggling , and say it has been evident for several years .
Speaking on background , and with respect for her accomplished career , they say her short-term memory has grown so poor that she often forgets she has been briefed on a topic , accusing her staff of failing to do so just after they have .
They describe Feinstein as forgetting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when she can ’ t keep up .
One aide to another senator described what he called a “ Kabuki ” meeting in which Feinstein ’ s staff tried to steer her through a proposed piece of legislation that she protested was “ just words ” which “ make no sense.
” Feinstein ’ s staff has said that sometimes she seems herself , and other times unreachable .
“ The staff is in such a bad position , ” a former Senate aide who still has business in Congress said .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her seem normal.
” Feinstein has always been known as a difficult taskmaster .
She is said to have told someone applying for a job in her office , “ I don ’ t get ulcers—I give them.
” A stickler for detail , she demanded to see every page going out of her office with her name on it .
But with her diminishing capacity , this has become increasingly difficult .
The former Senate staffer who still works with Congress declared , “ It ’ s been a disaster.
” As @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be expected to run the Party ’ s strategy on issues of major national importance , including judicial nominations .
Instead , the committee has been hamstrung and disorganized .
“ Other members were constantly trying to go around her because , as chair , she didn ’ t want to do anything , and she also didn ’ t want them doing anything , ” the former Senate staffer said .
A current aide to a different Democratic senator observed sadly , “ She ’ s an incredibly effective human being , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the last year .
She ’ s in a very different mode now.
” Tensions began erupting in the summer of 2018 , during Brett Kavanaugh ’ s Supreme Court confirmation hearings , when the other Democrats on the committee belatedly learned that Feinstein ’ s office had sat on Christine Blasey Ford ’ s allegation that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her when they were in high school , instead of immediately alerting them or the F.B.I .
Ford had demanded that Feinstein keep the explosive charge confidential .
But , inevitably @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the media , triggering a second round of circus-like hearings that angered all sides .
The internal criticism grew more intense this fall over Feinstein ’ s handling of Amy Coney Barrett .
Feinstein had bungled a question about abortion during Barrett ’ s 2017 appeals-court confirmation hearing , provoking conservative indignation by casting it clumsily as a question about Barrett ’ s extreme religious beliefs .
“ Dogma and law are two different things , ” Feinstein observed .
“ The dogma lives loudly in you—and that ’ s a concern.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Barrett from any further questions about how her faith affected her judicial rulings .
According to several sources , Chuck Schumer , the Democratic Minority Leader , was so worried that Feinstein would mismanage Barrett ’ s confirmation hearings that he installed a trusted former aide , Max Young , to “ embed ” in the Judiciary Committee to make sure the hearings didn ’ t go off the rails .
He had done the same during Kavanaugh ’ s confirmation as well .
Schumer brought Young in from the gun-control group Everytown @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as Schumer ’ s “ eyes and ears ” on Feinstein , as one Senate source put it .
Schumer ’ s office declined to comment .
The precaution nonetheless failed .
The Democrats ’ strategy was to portray Barrett ’ s confirmation process as a travesty , jammed through the Senate in the final weeks before the Presidential election by hypocritical Republicans bent on using brute power to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg with her ideological polar opposite .
The Democrats sought to fire up their voters by highlighting the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the Democrats ’ dismay , Feinstein instead hugged the Republican chairman of the committee , Lindsey Graham , thanking him for his “ fairness ” and for running “ one of the best set of hearings that I ’ ve participated in.
” By the end of the confirmation hearings , public-opinion polls showed more support for Barrett than before they began .
Progressive advocacy groups demanded that Feinstein step aside .
Ilyse Hogue , the president of the reproductive-rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America , issued a statement accusing her of having @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ a grave threat ” to “ every freedom and right we hold dear.
” Instead , Hogue said , Feinstein had “ offered an appearance of credibility to the proceedings that is wildly out of step with the American people .
As such , we believe the committee needs new leadership.
” Brian Fallon , the executive director of the progressive advocacy group Demand Justice , who was a former aide to Schumer , was even more blunt .
“ It ’ s time for Senator Feinstein to step down from her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” he said .
“ If she won ’ t , her colleagues need to intervene .
”

In a hearing on November 17th, Dianne Feinstein, the senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, who, at eighty-seven, is the oldest member of the Senate, grilled a witness. Reading from a sheaf of prepared papers, she asked Jack Dorsey, the C.E.O. of Twitter, whether his company was doing enough to stem the spread of disinformation. Elaborating, she read in full a tweet that President Trump had disseminated on November 7th, falsely claiming to have won the Presidential election. She then asked Dorsey if Twitter’s labelling of the tweet as disputed had adequately alerted readers that it was a bald lie.
It was a good question. Feinstein seemed sharp and focussed. For decades, she has been the epitome of a female trailblazer in Washington, always hyper-prepared. But this time, after Dorsey responded, Feinstein asked him the same question again, reading it word for word, along with the Trump tweet. Her inflection was eerily identical. Feinstein looked and sounded just as authoritative, seemingly registering no awareness that she was repeating herself verbatim. Dorsey graciously answered the question all over again.
Social media was less polite. A conservative Web site soon posted a clip of the humiliating moment on YouTube, under the headline “Senator Feinstein just asked the same question twice and didn’t realize she did it,” adding an emoji of someone covering his face with his hand in shame, along with bright red type proclaiming “Time to Retire!!” Six days later, under growing pressure from progressive groups who were already outraged by her faltering management of Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing, Feinstein released a statement announcing that she would step down from the Democrats’ senior position, while continuing as a non-ranking member of the committee. Feinstein’s office declined to comment for this article.
Feinstein first became nationally known for the grit she showed in 1978, when her fellow San Francisco city officials Harvey Milk and George Moscone were shot dead. She has had a distinguished twenty-eight-year tenure in the Senate, taking on a range of powerful interests, from gun-rights groups to the C.I.A. The moment marked a sad turning point for Feinstein and a reckoning for the Senate, which runs on the seniority system. The presumption has been that it’s up to voters to fire aging senators who can no longer effectively serve. But voters rarely do. As Paul Kane, who covers Congress for the Washington Post, wrote in 2017, the Senate was then the oldest in history. Its eight octogenarians were almost twice the number that had simultaneously served before. According to the Senate Historical Office, all of them held positions of vital importance to the country. And while several were regarded as wise and effective, others had disruptive health problems that clearly undermined the Senate’s ability to function.
Twitter and other social-media platforms are exposing lawmakers’ infirmities to new and harsher scrutiny, violating an unspoken culture of complicity and coverup. Prior to the recent reëlection of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Internet was ablaze with close-up photos of his bandaged, purple hands, setting off wild speculation about the health of the seventy-eight-year-old Republican from Kentucky. The physical and mental fitness of Trump, who is seventy-four, and Joe Biden, who is seventy-eight, have also been extensively covered. “In the 24/7 news cycle we have now, you can’t really hide,” one former top aide to Feinstein told me.
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Some former Feinstein aides insist that rumors of her cognitive decline have been exaggerated, and that video clips taken out of context can make almost anyone look foolish. They also bridle at singling out her condition, because declining male senators, including Strom Thurmond, of South Carolina, and Robert Byrd, of West Virginia, were widely known by the end of their careers to be non-compos mentis. “For his last ten years, Strom Thurmond didn’t know if he was on foot or on horseback,” one former Senate aide told me. The former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, of Nevada, is said to have snapped at a staffer who claimed to be relaying what Byrd thought. “Knock it off,” Reid supposedly said. “Everyone knows it’s what you think.” In contrast, one former aide to Feinstein argues that, even if her faculties are diminished, “she’s still smarter and quicker than at least a third of the other members.”
But many others familiar with Feinstein’s situation describe her as seriously struggling, and say it has been evident for several years. Speaking on background, and with respect for her accomplished career, they say her short-term memory has grown so poor that she often forgets she has been briefed on a topic, accusing her staff of failing to do so just after they have. They describe Feinstein as forgetting what she has said and getting upset when she can’t keep up. One aide to another senator described what he called a “Kabuki” meeting in which Feinstein’s staff tried to steer her through a proposed piece of legislation that she protested was “just words” which “make no sense.” Feinstein’s staff has said that sometimes she seems herself, and other times unreachable. “The staff is in such a bad position,” a former Senate aide who still has business in Congress said. “They have to defend her and make her seem normal.”
Feinstein has always been known as a difficult taskmaster. She is said to have told someone applying for a job in her office, “I don’t get ulcers—I give them.” A stickler for detail, she demanded to see every page going out of her office with her name on it. But with her diminishing capacity, this has become increasingly difficult. The former Senate staffer who still works with Congress declared, “It’s been a disaster.” As the ranking Democrat, Feinstein ordinarily would be expected to run the Party’s strategy on issues of major national importance, including judicial nominations. Instead, the committee has been hamstrung and disorganized. “Other members were constantly trying to go around her because, as chair, she didn’t want to do anything, and she also didn’t want them doing anything,” the former Senate staffer said. A current aide to a different Democratic senator observed sadly, “She’s an incredibly effective human being, but there’s definitely been deterioration in the last year. She’s in a very different mode now.”
Tensions began erupting in the summer of 2018, during Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings, when the other Democrats on the committee belatedly learned that Feinstein’s office had sat on Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her when they were in high school, instead of immediately alerting them or the F.B.I. Ford had demanded that Feinstein keep the explosive charge confidential. But, inevitably, word of it leaked elsewhere to the media, triggering a second round of circus-like hearings that angered all sides.
The internal criticism grew more intense this fall over Feinstein’s handling of Amy Coney Barrett. Feinstein had bungled a question about abortion during Barrett’s 2017 appeals-court confirmation hearing, provoking conservative indignation by casting it clumsily as a question about Barrett’s extreme religious beliefs. “Dogma and law are two different things,” Feinstein observed. “The dogma lives loudly in you—and that’s a concern.” The backlash over the question effectively indemnified Barrett from any further questions about how her faith affected her judicial rulings.


newyorker--2020-12-09--The Next Stage of the Ideological Struggle Between the U.S. and China

I recently discussed the state of Chinese-American relations with John Pomfret , the author of “ The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom : American and China , 1776 to the Present ” and the former Beijing bureau chief for the Washington Post .
During our conversation , which has been edited for length and clarity , we discussed the ideological competition between the U.S. and China , the complicated history of American companies doing business in the country , and how the Biden Administration ’ s approach to China might differ from that of the Trump Administration .
There @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and I ’ m curious whether you think they ’ re part of the same story .
The first is Chinese human-rights abuses in Hong Kong and Xinjiang , and the concern they have sparked here .
The second is just a growing American-Chinese rivalry , having to do with politics and business and other things .
I think that , fundamentally , we ’ re at a point where we have an ideological problem with China .
This is not simply two large nations competing with each other , like Germany @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or America and Japan .
This is an ideological challenge .
I think that has supercharged what would naturally be competition between us and a rising power in a region of the world where the United States has , for many years , been the preëminent power .
The ideological competition has many parts , and one of the parts has to do with American revulsion at Chinese human-rights abuses , not simply in Xinjiang and Hong Kong but in Han-dominated China , as well .
I also think there ’ s a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rising power deals with the resident power , which is just something that ’ s going to be an issue regardless of the political dimensions of the relationship .
I think that the way it combines with the human-rights issue is that this is an ideological competition between two fundamentally different systems , both political and economic .
If it is an ideological competition , isn ’ t it ironic that this is peaking at a time when the United States elected someone who has the most ideologically in common with an authoritarian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ China , and has even celebrated the Communist Revolution ?
Yeah , definitely .
I think that , regardless of whether you look at the U.S.-China relationship or the U.S.-Russian relationship , the election by the United States of someone with soundly antidemocratic instincts is highly ironic , given the fact that the United States now faces an ideational challenge from the P.R.C .
and from Russia , as well .
Do you think the Chinese government sees this , similarly , as an ideological challenge ?
I think that the Chinese have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ideological enemy for far longer than we ’ ve been fighting them .
I believe that China has viewed us as an ideological foe since 1989 and even before that .
A significant faction of the Communist Party viewed America as an ideological foe , and America only really began to catch on to this sometime near the end of the Obama Administration .
Look at , for example , Document No .
9 , which was a document that came out at the tail end of the Hu Jintao era and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which fingered the United States as an ideological foe ; talked about these seven viruses of Western thinking , including constitutionalism and a free press and other values that we supposedly hold dear in this society ; and basically said , “ This is something that is going to be pushed by hostile foreign forces , and we need to be vigilant about this.
” This was the summation of years of thinking about the challenges that China faced from the United States .
In the West , the managers of the relationship @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had this belief that , with free trade and open markets , China would naturally become a more pluralistic society .
It didn ’ t happen that way .
I think the United States only came to its senses about this issue at the tail end of the Obama Administration , and then Trump came into power .
Clearly , Trump as a character was completely shambolic in how he pursued and prosecuted the relationship .
How do you think the Biden Administration is going to approach China , and how will it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Administration ?
It appears that it may be an issue in domestic politics in a way it hasn ’ t been since the Clinton Administration , maybe since 1989 .
Yeah , for sure .
I also think that the generation of the folks who managed the China relationship under the old system—which was treating China relatively well in the hope that over time there would be peaceful evolution—that generation is gone .
And the Henry Kissingers of the world and others no longer have that much influence at all .
I think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ terms of intellectual dominance in the Democratic Party , are on the rise .
I think it ’ s significant that Susan Rice wasn ’ t given the Secretary of State position , from that perspective .
What do you mean by that ?
When she was Obama ’ s national-security adviser , Susan Rice argued for a broader perspective on the relationship , and not sweating smaller issues with China , in the hope of getting a bigger deal .
A lot of issues were put on the back burner because of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ getting a climate deal with China .
The Obama Administration didn ’ t put that much pressure on China on human-rights issues , or cyber espionage issues , or the South China Sea , because the big goal was what they would frame as an existential one .
Because climate change is so much more important , we have to sacrifice these other issues , ignoring the fact that if China is going to make a climate change deal with you , it ’ s not going to be because you were nice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It ’ s because it ’ s in China ’ s interest to do so .
Within the White House at the time , the attitude was “ We can ’ t let this big deal fall down , so we don ’ t need to sweat these other things , which are less important , ” and that allowed the Chinese to play the Obama Administration relatively well .
I think that generation is gone .
Can you say more about how , specifically , you think the Obama Administration was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ starts out in 2009 .
The Dalai Lama ’ s supposed to be coming to Washington .
The Obama Administration basically tells the Chinese government , “ Hey , we ’ re not going to meet him this time , because we want to set a good foundation for a relationship with you guys.
” It was a continuation of American behavior toward China , which is sort of upfronting the present in the hope of better future behavior .
They did that on several occasions .
An example would be the cyber-espionage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Within a year , the Chinese were violating it .
The obsession with getting “ deliverables ” from China blinded them to the reality that the Chinese were willing and happy to break these deals , because they didn ’ t really respect Obama ’ s use of power .
Because when the Americans would threaten to do things , they actually never did them .
Whereas the Trump people , for all their problems , they threatened to do things with China , and they actually did them .
Whether they worked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , right ?
Tariffs were a disaster , right ?
This is something that no other American Administration had done in the past , of actually carrying through on the threats that they made to the Chinese .
How does China approach the fact that America is going from an Administration that actively discouraged any action on climate change to an Administration that says climate change is one of its top priorities ?
I think from one perspective , the knee-jerk reaction in China would be , “ Oh , good .
We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , right ?
” I think that Biden and his people are far more wise to that M.O .
than the Obama Administration was , simply because they got burned so badly five , six , seven , eight years ago .
If you look at Biden ’ s interview with the Times , it ’ s interesting that he is not in any hurry to deal with China .
He ’ s not in any hurry to roll back the tariffs .
He ’ s not in any hurry to take back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s not in any hurry to pull up the Magnitsky Act-like restrictions on Chinese officials for Xinjiang , Hong Kong , et cetera .
I think that ’ s evidence , scant as it may be , of the fact that Biden is not in a hurry to bring the relationship back to normal .
Do you think the Chinese government wanted Trump to get reëlected ?

In September, the House passed a bill that would ban imports produced by Uighur forced laborers in Xinjiang. Companies such as Apple, Nike, and Coca-Cola have mounted a lobbying campaign against the bill, which passed the House by an overwhelming margin of four hundred and six to three, and is likely to pass the Senate. If the bill does become law, it will be the latest sign that the relationship between the United States and China is as contentious as it has been in decades. The Chinese Communist Party’s use of forced labor, its authoritarian activity in Hong Kong, and its obfuscation about the coronavirus have raised bipartisan concerns about the future of the relationship between the U.S. and China.
I recently discussed the state of Chinese-American relations with John Pomfret, the author of “The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: American and China, 1776 to the Present” and the former Beijing bureau chief for the Washington Post. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed the ideological competition between the U.S. and China, the complicated history of American companies doing business in the country, and how the Biden Administration’s approach to China might differ from that of the Trump Administration.
There are two things going on right now, and I’m curious whether you think they’re part of the same story. The first is Chinese human-rights abuses in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, and the concern they have sparked here. The second is just a growing American-Chinese rivalry, having to do with politics and business and other things.
I think that, fundamentally, we’re at a point where we have an ideological problem with China. This is not simply two large nations competing with each other, like Germany and the United States would be, or America and Japan. This is an ideological challenge. I think that has supercharged what would naturally be competition between us and a rising power in a region of the world where the United States has, for many years, been the preëminent power.
The ideological competition has many parts, and one of the parts has to do with American revulsion at Chinese human-rights abuses, not simply in Xinjiang and Hong Kong but in Han-dominated China, as well. I also think there’s a separate piece, which is how the rising power deals with the resident power, which is just something that’s going to be an issue regardless of the political dimensions of the relationship. I think that the way it combines with the human-rights issue is that this is an ideological competition between two fundamentally different systems, both political and economic.
If it is an ideological competition, isn’t it ironic that this is peaking at a time when the United States elected someone who has the most ideologically in common with an authoritarian regime, has celebrated the leader of China, and has even celebrated the Communist Revolution?
Yeah, definitely. I think that, regardless of whether you look at the U.S.-China relationship or the U.S.-Russian relationship, the election by the United States of someone with soundly antidemocratic instincts is highly ironic, given the fact that the United States now faces an ideational challenge from the P.R.C. and from Russia, as well.
Do you think the Chinese government sees this, similarly, as an ideological challenge?
I think that the Chinese have been fighting the United States as an ideological enemy for far longer than we’ve been fighting them. I believe that China has viewed us as an ideological foe since 1989 and even before that. A significant faction of the Communist Party viewed America as an ideological foe, and America only really began to catch on to this sometime near the end of the Obama Administration. Look at, for example, Document No. 9, which was a document that came out at the tail end of the Hu Jintao era and the beginning of the Xi Jinping Administration, which fingered the United States as an ideological foe; talked about these seven viruses of Western thinking, including constitutionalism and a free press and other values that we supposedly hold dear in this society; and basically said, “This is something that is going to be pushed by hostile foreign forces, and we need to be vigilant about this.”
This was the summation of years of thinking about the challenges that China faced from the United States. In the West, the managers of the relationship basically ignored that, partly because they had this belief that, with free trade and open markets, China would naturally become a more pluralistic society. It didn’t happen that way. I think the United States only came to its senses about this issue at the tail end of the Obama Administration, and then Trump came into power. Clearly, Trump as a character was completely shambolic in how he pursued and prosecuted the relationship.
How do you think the Biden Administration is going to approach China, and how will it differ from the approach of the Trump Administration? It appears that it may be an issue in domestic politics in a way it hasn’t been since the Clinton Administration, maybe since 1989.
Yeah, for sure. I also think that the generation of the folks who managed the China relationship under the old system—which was treating China relatively well in the hope that over time there would be peaceful evolution—that generation is gone. And the Henry Kissingers of the world and others no longer have that much influence at all. I think a new generation of people, in terms of intellectual dominance in the Democratic Party, are on the rise. I think it’s significant that Susan Rice wasn’t given the Secretary of State position, from that perspective.
What do you mean by that?
When she was Obama’s national-security adviser, Susan Rice argued for a broader perspective on the relationship, and not sweating smaller issues with China, in the hope of getting a bigger deal. A lot of issues were put on the back burner because of the Obama Administration’s interest in getting a climate deal with China. The Obama Administration didn’t put that much pressure on China on human-rights issues, or cyber espionage issues, or the South China Sea, because the big goal was what they would frame as an existential one. Because climate change is so much more important, we have to sacrifice these other issues, ignoring the fact that if China is going to make a climate change deal with you, it’s not going to be because you were nice to them over the South China Sea. It’s because it’s in China’s interest to do so.
Within the White House at the time, the attitude was “We can’t let this big deal fall down, so we don’t need to sweat these other things, which are less important,” and that allowed the Chinese to play the Obama Administration relatively well. I think that generation is gone.
Can you say more about how, specifically, you think the Obama Administration was played?
Well, the Obama Administration starts out in 2009. The Dalai Lama’s supposed to be coming to Washington. The Obama Administration basically tells the Chinese government, “Hey, we’re not going to meet him this time, because we want to set a good foundation for a relationship with you guys.” It was a continuation of American behavior toward China, which is sort of upfronting the present in the hope of better future behavior.
They did that on several occasions. An example would be the cyber-espionage deal between Obama and Xi Jinping. Within a year, the Chinese were violating it. The obsession with getting “deliverables” from China blinded them to the reality that the Chinese were willing and happy to break these deals, because they didn’t really respect Obama’s use of power. Because when the Americans would threaten to do things, they actually never did them. Whereas the Trump people, for all their problems, they threatened to do things with China, and they actually did them. Whether they worked or not is a totally different question, right? Tariffs were a disaster, right? This is something that no other American Administration had done in the past, of actually carrying through on the threats that they made to the Chinese.


newyorker--2020-12-11--It’s Not Just Trump’s War on Democracy Anymore

The streets are still quiet in Washington , nine months into a pandemic that is reaching yet another deadly peak .
Most of the offices remain closed , and even outdoor sports have been cancelled by the mayor once again .
The dog-walkers and joggers passing by our house wear masks , though there is rarely another person anywhere near them .
A couple of miles away , at the White House , First Lady Melania Trump announced this week the official unveiling of a new tennis pavilion , completed by “ talented craftsmen ” during the pandemic , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ night .
A Hanukkah gathering on Wednesday—the worst day yet of this unparalleled public-health crisis—featured hundreds of attendees , many unmasked , jammed together , according to a grainy leaked video .
The crowd chanted “ Four more years !
” as President Donald Trump said , “ We ’ re gon na win this election in a landslide , ” more than a month after losing the election .
In a sign of the mordant times , Thursday night ’ s Congressional Ball , also hosted at the White House , was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and hundreds more revellers were expected to attend .
Even before all this entertaining , more than fifty people in Trump ’ s orbit have come down with the coronavirus—including , this week , the lawyers who have been flying around the country challenging the election on his behalf , Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis .
Welcome to late-stage Trumpism : defiant decadence with a potentially deadly edge .
After four years of the unthinkable becoming reality under Trump , I thought I was prepared for the various unprecedented scenarios that might unfold @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We knew , because Trump told us , that he would not accept a loss to Joe Biden , no matter what .
We knew , because Trump told us , that he would not suddenly get serious about the pandemic after hundreds of thousands of Americans died from it .
We knew , in other words , that the country had to brace for an alarming confluence of virus denialism and election denialism between November 3rd and January 20th .
As devastating as it is for American democracy , it is no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as he did in a tweet the other day , that he is the victim of the “ greatest Election Fraud in the history of the United States.
” In the days immediately following the election , Trump said that his goal was to “ STOP THE COUNT.
” Then it was to “ stop the steal , ” or to demand recounts , or to discover evidence of fraud .
During this period , one senior Republican official said there was no real harm in letting Trump have his temper tantrum ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ What is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time ?
No one seriously thinks the results will change , ” the Republican told the Washington Post .
“ He went golfing this weekend .
It ’ s not like he ’ s plotting how to prevent Joe Biden from taking power on January 20 .
He ’ s tweeting about filing some lawsuits , those lawsuits will fail , then he ’ ll tweet some more about how the election was stolen , and then he ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ merely taking a few days to come to terms with his loss , and then sulk off to Florida once the courts threw out his lawsuits , Trump has escalated and escalated , culminating on Wednesday with a single-word tweet announcing his new goal : not to win the election but to “ # OVERTURN ” the results .
Even more strikingly , while his allies have lost fifty-plus cases since the election , Trump has convinced millions of Americans to believe that the election was rigged against him—seventy-seven per cent of Republicans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a new Quinnipiac poll out Thursday—and enlisted virtually the entire national leadership of the Republican Party in his concerted attack on the legitimacy of the results .
This week , twenty-seven House Republicans asked the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel to investigate the election—the same number as House and Senate Republicans who , as the Post found in a survey , will publicly recognize Biden ’ s victory .
Not only have both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy refused to recognize his win ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the committee organizing the January 20th handover of power to “ notify the American people ” of plans to inaugurate Biden .
In the immediate aftermath of the election , McConnell said that Trump “ has every right to look into allegations and request recounts under the law.
” Now that Trump has lost the recounts and lost the lawsuits , now that the results have been certified and Trump is openly talking about overturning them , McConnell has been silent .
Somehow , that ’ s the part I was not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Republican enabling and excuses of the past four years .
The ballots that Trump and his allies are attacking , after all , are the same that elected Trump ’ s allies , if not Trump himself .
The votes that they want thrown out were cast not only by evil Democrats in faraway cities but by their friends and , in some cases , neighbors .
They were counted and recounted and certified by Republican officials in many of the places that sealed Trump ’ s defeat .
On Tuesday evening @ @ @ @ @ @ @ team ’ s Pennsylvania lawsuit , an evidence-free concoction demanding that every single mail-in ballot from the state be thrown out .
It did so in a single-sentence order : “ The application for injunctive relief presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied.
” No need even to rule on the merits of such an absurdity .
That should have been the end of the line for Trump .
Tuesday , after all , was also , by federal law , the national “ safe harbor ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ election results in advance of the Electoral College ’ s upcoming meeting , on December 14th .
Despite all of Trump ’ s pressure , in fact , every battleground state met the deadline and certified their results .
Under the law , that means they are not subject to any challenge .
The law does not appear to give Trump any further room to maneuver .
Undaunted , in the space of a few hours on Wednesday , Trump had his campaign join an even more far-fetched lawsuit , by Texas , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of votes in battleground states that decided the election ’ s outcome—Georgia , Michigan , Pennsylvania , and Wisconsin—all of which have already certified their results .
A few hours after this news , Hunter Biden , the son of the man who did win the election , announced that Trump ’ s appointee as U.S. Attorney for Delaware had opened a federal criminal investigation of his tax dealings .
Here , too , you could say it was all just a predictable mess .
Trump has been obsessed with Hunter Biden for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a politically harmful investigation of Biden so hard that he got impeached over it .
So why wouldn ’ t the President join the Texas case , even though it is , as the election lawyer Rick Hasen put it , more press release than legal argument ?
Trump certainly has never minded losing in court .
What came as a gut punch , though , and still , even after all this time , a real surprise to me , was the announcement that seventeen other states—or at least their attorneys general—had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lawsuit , representing , from South Carolina to Utah , an array of pro-Trump red states .
Eighteen states , in other words , are making the preposterous—and democratically devastating—argument that the Supreme Court should throw out other states ’ votes because they do not like the results .
So much for federalism and states ’ rights and all those other previously cherished Republican principles .
Up on Capitol Hill , meanwhile , a hundred and six House Republicans filed an amicus brief of their own supporting the Texas lawsuit .
Some of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also now considering objecting to the Electoral College results when they are presented to the House , on January 6th , in what is meant to be a purely pro-forma procedural move .
Mitt Romney dismissed the idea as “ madness , ” but he remains a lonely public voice against Trump , as his fellow-Republicans either fall in line or remain inexcusably silent .
This has gone far beyond just humoring Trump for a few days .
I have every expectation that the Supreme Court will do so .
I know that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expect that the courts will put an end to Trump ’ s groundless attacks on American democracy .
That is a positive of sorts to come out of this very negative moment .
In filing so many lawsuits and having so many courts across the country reject them , Trump has produced an unintended result : a resounding judicial affirmation of the integrity of our system .
Trump appointees have rejected his cases ; Obama appointees have rejected his cases .
State courts have rejected them .
The Supreme Court has , too @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remember of this COVID-and-constitutional-crisis season ?
I ’ m quite sure we will remember that Donald Trump is a sore loser ; the sorest loser , in fact , who ever was President .
But what about the Republican Party—is this the moment when the G.O.P .
abandons its belief in democracy and the simple nonnegotiable principle that the losing party must accept the results of an election ?
On Monday , there will be another test , another chance for them to finally , belatedly , get it right .
The Electoral @ @ @ @ @ @ @ give Joe Biden a victory , with three hundred and six electoral votes .
Will that be enough to end this ?
Read More About the Presidential Transition • Donald Trump has survived impeachment , twenty-six sexual-misconduct accusations , and thousands of lawsuits .
His luck may well end now that Joe Biden is the next President .
• With litigation unlikely to change the outcome of the election , Republicans are looking to strategies that might remain even after rebuffs both at the polls and in court .
• With the Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about how to prevent the moral injuries of the past four years from happening again .
• If 2020 has demonstrated anything , it is the need to rebalance the economy to benefit the working class .
There are many ways a Biden Administration can start .
• Trump is being forced to give up his attempt to overturn the election .
But his efforts to build an alternative reality around himself will continue .
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The streets are still quiet in Washington, nine months into a pandemic that is reaching yet another deadly peak. Most of the offices remain closed, and even outdoor sports have been cancelled by the mayor once again. The dog-walkers and joggers passing by our house wear masks, though there is rarely another person anywhere near them. A couple of miles away, at the White House, First Lady Melania Trump announced this week the official unveiling of a new tennis pavilion, completed by “talented craftsmen” during the pandemic, and there have been packed holiday events every night. A Hanukkah gathering on Wednesday—the worst day yet of this unparalleled public-health crisis—featured hundreds of attendees, many unmasked, jammed together, according to a grainy leaked video. The crowd chanted “Four more years!” as President Donald Trump said, “We’re gonna win this election in a landslide,” more than a month after losing the election. In a sign of the mordant times, Thursday night’s Congressional Ball, also hosted at the White House, was dubbed the “COVID Ball,” and hundreds more revellers were expected to attend. Even before all this entertaining, more than fifty people in Trump’s orbit have come down with the coronavirus—including, this week, the lawyers who have been flying around the country challenging the election on his behalf, Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis. Welcome to late-stage Trumpism: defiant decadence with a potentially deadly edge.
After four years of the unthinkable becoming reality under Trump, I thought I was prepared for the various unprecedented scenarios that might unfold in this post-election, pre-Inauguration period. We knew, because Trump told us, that he would not accept a loss to Joe Biden, no matter what. We knew, because Trump told us, that he would not suddenly get serious about the pandemic after hundreds of thousands of Americans died from it. We knew, in other words, that the country had to brace for an alarming confluence of virus denialism and election denialism between November 3rd and January 20th. As devastating as it is for American democracy, it is no longer news that the President insists, as he did in a tweet the other day, that he is the victim of the “greatest Election Fraud in the history of the United States.”
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In the days immediately following the election, Trump said that his goal was to “STOP THE COUNT.” Then it was to “stop the steal,” or to demand recounts, or to discover evidence of fraud. During this period, one senior Republican official said there was no real harm in letting Trump have his temper tantrum; it would not affect the outcome anyway. “What is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time? No one seriously thinks the results will change,” the Republican told the Washington Post. “He went golfing this weekend. It’s not like he’s plotting how to prevent Joe Biden from taking power on January 20. He’s tweeting about filing some lawsuits, those lawsuits will fail, then he’ll tweet some more about how the election was stolen, and then he’ll leave.”
But, rather than merely taking a few days to come to terms with his loss, and then sulk off to Florida once the courts threw out his lawsuits, Trump has escalated and escalated, culminating on Wednesday with a single-word tweet announcing his new goal: not to win the election but to “#OVERTURN” the results. Even more strikingly, while his allies have lost fifty-plus cases since the election, Trump has convinced millions of Americans to believe that the election was rigged against him—seventy-seven per cent of Republicans now say mass fraud occurred, according to a new Quinnipiac poll out Thursday—and enlisted virtually the entire national leadership of the Republican Party in his concerted attack on the legitimacy of the results.
This week, twenty-seven House Republicans asked the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel to investigate the election—the same number as House and Senate Republicans who, as the Post found in a survey, will publicly recognize Biden’s victory. Not only have both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy refused to recognize his win; they both voted against a ceremonial motion of the committee organizing the January 20th handover of power to “notify the American people” of plans to inaugurate Biden. In the immediate aftermath of the election, McConnell said that Trump “has every right to look into allegations and request recounts under the law.” Now that Trump has lost the recounts and lost the lawsuits, now that the results have been certified and Trump is openly talking about overturning them, McConnell has been silent.
Somehow, that’s the part I was not entirely prepared for, even after all the Republican enabling and excuses of the past four years. The ballots that Trump and his allies are attacking, after all, are the same that elected Trump’s allies, if not Trump himself. The votes that they want thrown out were cast not only by evil Democrats in faraway cities but by their friends and, in some cases, neighbors. They were counted and recounted and certified by Republican officials in many of the places that sealed Trump’s defeat. On Tuesday evening, the Supreme Court rebuffed the Trump team’s Pennsylvania lawsuit, an evidence-free concoction demanding that every single mail-in ballot from the state be thrown out. It did so in a single-sentence order: “The application for injunctive relief presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied.” No need even to rule on the merits of such an absurdity.
That should have been the end of the line for Trump. Tuesday, after all, was also, by federal law, the national “safe harbor” date—the deadline by which states certify their election results in advance of the Electoral College’s upcoming meeting, on December 14th. Despite all of Trump’s pressure, in fact, every battleground state met the deadline and certified its results. Under the law, that means they are not subject to any challenge. The law does not appear to give Trump any further room to maneuver.
Undaunted, in the space of a few hours on Wednesday, Trump had his campaign join an even more far-fetched lawsuit, by Texas, asking the Court to throw out millions of votes in battleground states that decided the election’s outcome—Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—all of which have already certified their results. A few hours after this news, Hunter Biden, the son of the man who did win the election, announced that Trump’s appointee as U.S. Attorney for Delaware had opened a federal criminal investigation of his tax dealings. Here, too, you could say it was all just a predictable mess. Trump has been obsessed with Hunter Biden for years; he pushed Ukraine to launch a politically harmful investigation of Biden so hard that he got impeached over it. So why wouldn’t the President join the Texas case, even though it is, as the election lawyer Rick Hasen put it, more press release than legal argument? Trump certainly has never minded losing in court.
What came as a gut punch, though, and still, even after all this time, a real surprise to me, was the announcement that seventeen other states—or at least their attorneys general—had filed a brief supporting the spurious Texas lawsuit, representing, from South Carolina to Utah, an array of pro-Trump red states. Eighteen states, in other words, are making the preposterous—and democratically devastating—argument that the Supreme Court should throw out other states’ votes because they do not like the results. So much for federalism and states’ rights and all those other previously cherished Republican principles. Up on Capitol Hill, meanwhile, a hundred and six House Republicans filed an amicus brief of their own supporting the Texas lawsuit. Some of these same Trump supporters in Congress are also now considering objecting to the Electoral College results when they are presented to the House, on January 6th, in what is meant to be a purely pro-forma procedural move. Mitt Romney dismissed the idea as “madness,” but he remains a lonely public voice against Trump, as his fellow-Republicans either fall in line or remain inexcusably silent. This has gone far beyond just humoring Trump for a few days.
In its response to the Texas case, filed Thursday afternoon, Pennsylvania called the lawsuit’s claims “moot, meritless, and dangerous,” and said that its Trump-inspired assault on results in states where Biden won amounts to a “seditious abuse of the judicial process.” The Supreme Court, Pennsylvania argued, should not only reject the Texas case but in so doing “send a clear and unmistakable signal that such abuse must never be replicated.”
I have every expectation that the Supreme Court will do so. I know that many Republicans are silent precisely because they expect that the courts will put an end to Trump’s groundless attacks on American democracy. That is a positive of sorts to come out of this very negative moment. In filing so many lawsuits and having so many courts across the country reject them, Trump has produced an unintended result: a resounding judicial affirmation of the integrity of our system. Trump appointees have rejected his cases; Obama appointees have rejected his cases. State courts have rejected them. The Supreme Court has, too.


newyorker--2020-12-10--Dianne Feinstein and the Perils of an Aging Leadership

In January , Joe Biden will become the oldest President in U.S. history .
Of the leaders in the other @ @ @ @ @ Chief Justice John Roberts , who is sixty-five .
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is @ @ @ @ @ the House Nancy Pelosi is eighty .
The unsteady handling of the confirmation hearings for @ @ @ @ @ Barrett by the eighty-seven-year-old Dianne Feinstein , the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee @ @ @ @ @ some Party members and progressive advocacy groups , who say it is time for her @ @ @ @ @ joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss the generational divide in American politics and what can be @ @ @ @

Download a transcript.|||
Photograph by Erin Schaff / Pool / Getty
In January, Joe Biden will become the oldest President in U.S. history. Of the leaders in the other branches, the youngest is Chief Justice John Roberts, who is sixty-five. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is seventy-eight, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is eighty. The unsteady handling of the confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett by the eighty-seven-year-old Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has raised alarm among some Party members and progressive advocacy groups, who say it is time for her to retire. Jane Mayer joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss the generational divide in American politics and what can be done about it.


newyorker--2020-12-10--The Billionaires Who Profited from the Pandemic Should Help Pay for Our Recovery

Among the biggest gainers are eight tech barons with large stock holdings : Elon Musk ( Tesla ) , Jeff Bezos ( Amazon ) , Mark Zuckerberg ( Facebook ) , Larry Ellison ( Oracle ) , Larry Page and Sergey Brin ( Alphabet ) , and Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer ( Microsoft ) .
The new study , which comes from Americans for Tax Fairness , a lobbying group , and the Institute for Policy Studies , a Washington-based think tank , notes that between March 18th and December 7th , Musk ’ s worth rose by $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rose by $ 71.4 billion , and Zuckerberg ’ s worth rose by $ 50.1 billion .
The other five—Ellison , Page , Brin , Gates , and Ballmer—each saw gains of between twenty billion and thirty billion dollars .
As a result of these developments , the report adds , Musk , Zuckerberg , and Gates have joined Bezos as “ centi-billionaires , ” meaning that each is now worth more than a hundred billion dollars .
The surge in tech stocks that fuelled this explosion of wealth was driven partly by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pandemic , and partly by the Federal Reserve ’ s crisis policy of pumping trillions of dollars into the financial markets and adding financial assets to its balance sheet .
Either way , the billionaire class , over all , has been the biggest winner from the pandemic , and the working class has been the biggest loser .
Published at a moment when the country is seeing record numbers of COVID-19 cases , and when at least 10.7 million Americans are without jobs , the new report argues that the country ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bear more of the cost of providing additional financial relief to workers , small businesses , and state and local governments .
• After the election , assaults on truth and the press continue .
• Lessons of failed power grabs , in America and overseas .
• Could banks bail us out of the climate crisis ?
The collective wealth gain of roughly a trillion dollars that the billionaires have enjoyed is more “ than it would cost to send a stimulus check of $ 3,000 to every one of the roughly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the report states .
“ A family of four would receive over $ 12,000.
” The report points out that a trillion dollars is also “ double the two-year estimated budget gap of all state and local governments ” —the deficit facing states that will certainly prompt them to make more cuts in public jobs and services if it isn ’ t addressed .
The authors of the report don ’ t argue that taxing the recent gains of the mega-rich would cover the entire fiscal cost of the pandemic .
They stress @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , at the very apex of U.S. society , there is now a staggering—and historic—amount of wealth that could be taxed .
“ Never before has America seen such an accumulation of wealth in so few hands , ” Frank Clemente , the executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness , said in a statement accompanying the report .
Of course , given that the Republican Party controls the Senate , and Donald Trump would have to sign any new spending bill , there is virtually no prospect of the U.S. government sending @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or even part of it , to its billionaires .
But just because something isn ’ t viable in a deeply corrupt political system doesn ’ t mean it isn ’ t an idea worth considering .
And , indeed , there is now a well-formulated plan on the table to make the wealthy bear at least some of the costs of the pandemic .
The plan comes from the United Kingdom , which the coronavirus has hit exceptionally hard in human and economic terms .
In a country of just about sixty-seven @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than seventy-three thousand deaths .
Gross domestic product is heading for a fall of more than ten per cent in 2020 , and the budget deficit is expected to approach twenty per cent of G.D.P.
, a peacetime record .
To help restore the country ’ s battered public finances , a U.K. commission of independent economists and tax experts is calling for a one-off , emergency tax on wealth .
In a lengthy report issued earlier this week , the Wealth Tax Commission , which was created earlier this year , laid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much as ten per cent of G.D.P .
Under the simplest one , anyone with over-all wealth , including financial assets and real estate , of more than five hundred thousand pounds would be obliged to pay an annual levy of one per cent for five years .
Other versions of the plan are more progressive , with higher tax rates exercised on the largest fortunes , but all of the plans share one thing .
“ The defining feature of a one-off wealth tax is that it would be a one-off exceptional @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the report states .
Because this tax would involve a onetime hit on wealth that has been accumulated in the past , it shouldn ’ t affect incentives to work and invest in the future , the report adds , gesturing toward a concern that many critics of wealth taxes have used to knock down such proposals .
The members of the commission argue that this critique doesn ’ t apply here .
Britain has never had a wealth tax , and the commission pointed to a number of problems associated with introducing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ costs and widespread avoidance .
But a one-off levy “ is a very different proposition , ” Gus O ’ Donnell , a former Cabinet secretary and head of the civil service , wrote in a foreword to the commission ’ s report .
The basic idea is to ask the country ’ s wealthiest people to help address an unprecedented economic emergency .
The report recalls how after the First World War , Italy , Austria , Hungary , and Czechoslovakia introduced one-off wealth taxes .
After the Second World War , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ played a role in the reconstruction efforts of France , West Germany , Japan , Belgium , the Netherlands , Finland , Luxembourg , Norway and Denmark .
.
.
.
The Japanese levy of 1946–7 raised over 10 % of national income in the year that it was collected , mainly from the wealthiest 3 % of Japanese society.
” The Covid-19 pandemic isn ’ t a ruinous military conflict , to be sure , but the shutdowns it engendered delivered an unprecedented financial shock to workers , small businesses , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lame-duck U.S. Congress passes another relief package to address some of the crisis ’ most pressing needs , the Treasury Department will issue bonds to cover its cost , and the new borrowing will be added to the budget deficit for the 2021 fiscal year .
In February or March , the incoming Biden Administration will be looking for Congress to pass another big spending bill , which may contain more COVID-19 relief , as well as funding for some of the President-elect ’ s longer-term proposals , such as expanding child tax @ @ @ @ @ @ @ interest rates at historic lows—ten-year Treasury bonds are yielding less than one per cent—and mass vaccination likely to fuel a sharp economic recovery and surging tax revenues in 2021 , the United States can afford these expenditures .
But it would still be better off if it could quickly defray some of the debt that the pandemic has imposed .
In fiscal 2020 , the budget deficit , of 14.9 per cent of G.D.P.
, was the highest it has been since 1945 .
Between 2019 and 2020 , the over-all federal debt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ per cent of G.D.P .
to 100.1 per cent .
Given this background , the Congressional Budget Office , in a report released earlier this month , warned that the country ’ s longer-term fiscal outlook was “ daunting.
” Republican opposition almost certainly precludes any kind of wealth tax , including a one-off version .
And it ’ s far from clear that Biden would endorse such a proposal , either .
But the sight of billionaires getting even richer as tens of millions of Americans face titanic financial struggles is an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decency .
In the extraordinary circumstance of a pandemic , wouldn ’ t it be reasonable to ask those who have benefitted financially from this annus horribilis to make a contribution toward getting the country beyond it ?
Read More About the Presidential Transition • Donald Trump has survived impeachment , twenty-six sexual-misconduct accusations , and thousands of lawsuits .
His luck may well end now that Joe Biden is the next President .
• With litigation unlikely to change the outcome of the election , Republicans are looking to strategies that might @ @ @ @ @ @ @ polls and in court .
• With the Trump Presidency ending , we need to talk about how to prevent the moral injuries of the past four years from happening again .
• If 2020 has demonstrated anything , it is the need to rebalance the economy to benefit the working class .
There are many ways a Biden Administration can start .
• Trump is being forced to give up his attempt to overturn the election .
But his efforts to build an alternative reality around himself will continue .
• Sign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and analysis from our reporters and columnists .

As the awful year of 2020 draws to a close, at least one small group of people will look back on it as a very prosperous one: America’s billionaires. Since the coronavirus shutdowns began, in March, six hundred and fifty-one members of this exclusive club have seen their collective wealth increase by more than a trillion dollars, a new report from progressive groups notes.
Among the biggest gainers are eight tech barons with large stock holdings: Elon Musk (Tesla), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Alphabet), and Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer (Microsoft). The new study, which comes from Americans for Tax Fairness, a lobbying group, and the Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington-based think tank, notes that between March 18th and December 7th, Musk’s worth rose by $118.5 billion, Bezos’s worth rose by $71.4 billion, and Zuckerberg’s worth rose by $50.1 billion. The other five—Ellison, Page, Brin, Gates, and Ballmer—each saw gains of between twenty billion and thirty billion dollars. As a result of these developments, the report adds, Musk, Zuckerberg, and Gates have joined Bezos as “centi-billionaires,” meaning that each is now worth more than a hundred billion dollars.
The surge in tech stocks that fuelled this explosion of wealth was driven partly by the shift to remote commerce during the pandemic, and partly by the Federal Reserve’s crisis policy of pumping trillions of dollars into the financial markets and adding financial assets to its balance sheet. Either way, the billionaire class, over all, has been the biggest winner from the pandemic, and the working class has been the biggest loser. Published at a moment when the country is seeing record numbers of COVID-19 cases, and when at least 10.7 million Americans are without jobs, the new report argues that the country’s wealthiest people could well afford to bear more of the cost of providing additional financial relief to workers, small businesses, and state and local governments.
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The collective wealth gain of roughly a trillion dollars that the billionaires have enjoyed is more “than it would cost to send a stimulus check of $3,000 to every one of the roughly 330 million people in America,” the report states. “A family of four would receive over $12,000.” The report points out that a trillion dollars is also “double the two-year estimated budget gap of all state and local governments”—the deficit facing states that will certainly prompt them to make more cuts in public jobs and services if it isn’t addressed. The authors of the report don’t argue that taxing the recent gains of the mega-rich would cover the entire fiscal cost of the pandemic. They stress, instead, the undoubted fact that, at the very apex of U.S. society, there is now a staggering—and historic—amount of wealth that could be taxed. “Never before has America seen such an accumulation of wealth in so few hands,” Frank Clemente, the executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness, said in a statement accompanying the report.
Of course, given that the Republican Party controls the Senate, and Donald Trump would have to sign any new spending bill, there is virtually no prospect of the U.S. government sending the tab for a relief package, or even part of it, to its billionaires. But just because something isn’t viable in a deeply corrupt political system doesn’t mean it isn’t an idea worth considering. And, indeed, there is now a well-formulated plan on the table to make the wealthy bear at least some of the costs of the pandemic.
The plan comes from the United Kingdom, which the coronavirus has hit exceptionally hard in human and economic terms. In a country of just about sixty-seven million people, there have been more than seventy-three thousand deaths. Gross domestic product is heading for a fall of more than ten per cent in 2020, and the budget deficit is expected to approach twenty per cent of G.D.P., a peacetime record. To help restore the country’s battered public finances, a U.K. commission of independent economists and tax experts is calling for a one-off, emergency tax on wealth.
In a lengthy report issued earlier this week, the Wealth Tax Commission, which was created earlier this year, laid out several proposals that could raise as much as ten per cent of G.D.P. Under the simplest one, anyone with over-all wealth, including financial assets and real estate, of more than five hundred thousand pounds would be obliged to pay an annual levy of one per cent for five years. Other versions of the plan are more progressive, with higher tax rates exercised on the largest fortunes, but all of the plans share one thing. “The defining feature of a one-off wealth tax is that it would be a one-off exceptional response to a particular crisis,” the report states. Because this tax would involve a onetime hit on wealth that has been accumulated in the past, it shouldn’t affect incentives to work and invest in the future, the report adds, gesturing toward a concern that many critics of wealth taxes have used to knock down such proposals. The members of the commission argue that this critique doesn’t apply here.
Britain has never had a wealth tax, and the commission pointed to a number of problems associated with introducing a permanent one, including high administrative costs and widespread avoidance. But a one-off levy “is a very different proposition,” Gus O’Donnell, a former Cabinet secretary and head of the civil service, wrote in a foreword to the commission’s report. The basic idea is to ask the country’s wealthiest people to help address an unprecedented economic emergency. The report recalls how after the First World War, Italy, Austria, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia introduced one-off wealth taxes. After the Second World War, the report adds, “capital levies played a role in the reconstruction efforts of France, West Germany, Japan, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, Luxembourg, Norway and Denmark. . . . The Japanese levy of 1946–7 raised over 10% of national income in the year that it was collected, mainly from the wealthiest 3% of Japanese society.”
The Covid-19 pandemic isn’t a ruinous military conflict, to be sure, but the shutdowns it engendered delivered an unprecedented financial shock to workers, small businesses, and state and local governments. If the lame-duck U.S. Congress passes another relief package to address some of the crisis’ most pressing needs, the Treasury Department will issue bonds to cover its cost, and the new borrowing will be added to the budget deficit for the 2021 fiscal year.