newyorker--2020-08-18--What to Stream: “The 24th,” a Passionate Historical Drama of Military Honor Amid Jim Crow

There ’ s an element of quality that inheres in quantity .
Last month , I found , by chance , the streaming release of a remarkable film by Kevin Willmott , “ Jayhawkers , ” from 2014 ; I had no idea , at the time , that a new film by Willmott , “ The 24th , ” would soon be arriving in digital release ( it ’ s coming this Friday ) .
Willmott , who directed the scathing mockumentary “ C.S.A .
: The Confederate States of America , ” is a very busy filmmaker : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he also directed a feature called “ The Profit ” ( which hasn ’ t been released yet ) and co-wrote three of Spike Lee ’ s films— “ Chi-Raq , ” “ BlacKkKlansman , ” and “ Da 5 Bloods ” —while also making three documentaries .
His work is centered on one grand idea : a hunger to reclaim Black history and establish it at the very core of American history .
In this respect , he and Lee have had a mighty meeting of the minds , though for Willmott @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” the call of history is even more foregrounded .
“ The 24th ” is based on the story of the 24th Infantry Regiment and of one battalion in particular , the 3rd , a group of Black soldiers who , when the U.S. entered the First World War , in 1917 , were sent to Houston , Texas , to provide security for the Army ’ s construction of Camp Logan .
The battalion is under the leadership of First Sergeant Hayes ( Mykelti Williamson ) , an Army lifer who served @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and the entire regiment is under the command of a white officer , Colonel Charles Norton ( Thomas Haden Church ) , who is both deeply devoted to the troops and well aware of the injustices and dangers that they face and the burden that they bear as Black men in the South .
What the men of the 24th want , above all , is to prove themselves in battle overseas , rather than merely standing guard on home soil , and Norton vows to use his influence to help them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one recruit stands out : Private William Boston ( played by Trai Byers , who co-wrote the script with Willmott ) .
His skin is much lighter than that of the other men ( one insults him by calling him a “ mulatto ” ) , and his manner and background are different , too .
Though born in Atlanta , to parents who were born enslaved , Boston lived for many years in France and earned a degree from the Sorbonne ; he ’ s an inveterate reader who keeps a small @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tent , and the other men say that he talks like a white person .
For some in the outfit , he ’ s an object of admiration ; for many , he sparks bewilderment ; and for a few—notably , Hayes and another private , Zeke Walker ( Mo McRae ) —he ’ s a target of suspicion as someone who , in some essential way , isn ’ t authentically Black .
For Norton , Boston is a potential leader and a potential trailblazer , and the colonel plans to offer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ school , in Iowa—but Boston wants to make his way among Black soldiers , serving alongside them , proving his worth alongside them , and being of service to the Black community in the quest for justice .
They nonetheless consider him a man apart .
When Boston—who ’ s also seen by Norton as a potential peacemaker , able to help keep the Black troops calm despite their justified resentment of their treatment by local whites—is promoted to corporal and named to the military police , Hayes derides him and calls him @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the 24th , prepared to fight and die for the country , and sharing the military codes of honor , nonetheless find themselves subjected to the mortal terrors and gross indignities of Jim Crow .
They ’ re spat on and urinated on , harassed and threatened by the white laborers whom they ’ re protecting—and yet , despite the dangers that they face from the townspeople , they ’ re denied the right to bear arms .
Boarding a train that will bring them back to camp , they ’ re forced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ colored ” section ; when it fills up , Walker alone sits among whites , demanding the rights that he ’ s due as a soldier .
The result , predictably , is horrific ; both Walker and Boston , who attempts to protect Walker , are eventually ( and under trumped-up charges ) subjected to brutal punishment .
The crux of the plot involves Boston ’ s similarly daring and dangerous action , as a member of the military police , when a white laborer kills a Black man in cold @ @ @ @ @ @ @ town , but the white population refuses to accept it .
When the men of the 24th get wind of rumors that a white mob is approaching their camp , they resolve to defend themselves , as they confront the practical dangers and moral ambiguities of legitimate violence .
Willmott infuses this grand historical narrative with a vast range of intimate dramatic nuance .
He depicts Hayes ’ s deferential code-switching in the presence of white officers and Boston ’ s confidential relationship with Norton , and shows the soldiers agonizingly opening up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ legacies of racist violence , in scenes that embody an enormous depth of social history in the characters ’ behavior and , seemingly , their thoughts .
( Portraying one of these soldiers , Bashir Salahuddin delivers a particularly moving performance . )
Throughout , Willmott amplifies political and civic history with the stories that haven ’ t figured prominently in history textbooks and with the personal experience and the collective agonies that appear in the official record as generalizations and abstractions .
“ The 24th ” is suffused with an air of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ barely suppressed rage ; it ’ s filled with stories of so-called race riots ( i.e.
, wanton rampages by whites against Blacks ) and the ambient menace and unredressed violence by which the regime of white supremacy was maintained .
At the same time , “ The 24th ” builds a foundation of Black culture as a force of self-definition and self-affirmation—of shared joy and collective purpose .
At a local dance ( which Willmott films exuberantly ) , Boston courts a young woman named Marie Downing ( Aja Naomi King ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her provincial and church-bound training , is well aware of the modern music of Eubie Blake and James Reese Europe .
( Her story also provides a glimpse , an unromanticized one , of the double-edged authority of religion in daily life . )
Fascinatingly , “ The 24th ” also borrows several of the tropes of “ Jayhawkers ” —namely , that of the Black man who uses his esteem within white society to work on behalf of the rights of Black people , and of the sympathetic white figure whose authority @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s notice by higher-ups .
( Byers acts in the earlier film , too . )
Along with the particulars of Black politics and Black life , Willmott is working out , as if in a philosophical equation , the very terms and pitfalls of progress , the mechanics of justice along with its principles .
“ The 24th ” is a remarkable film ; it ’ s also a remarkable part of a body of work that is an all-too-hidden wonder .

There’s an element of quality that inheres in quantity. Last month, I found, by chance, the streaming release of a remarkable film by Kevin Willmott, “Jayhawkers,” from 2014; I had no idea, at the time, that a new film by Willmott, “The 24th,” would soon be arriving in digital release (it’s coming this Friday). Willmott, who directed the scathing mockumentary “C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America,” is a very busy filmmaker: between “Jayhawkers” and now, he also directed a feature called “The Profit” (which hasn’t been released yet) and co-wrote three of Spike Lee’s films—“Chi-Raq,” “BlacKkKlansman,” and “Da 5 Bloods”—while also making three documentaries. His work is centered on one grand idea: a hunger to reclaim Black history and establish it at the very core of American history. In this respect, he and Lee have had a mighty meeting of the minds, though for Willmott, as in “The 24th,” the call of history is even more foregrounded.
“The 24th” is based on the story of the 24th Infantry Regiment and of one battalion in particular, the 3rd, a group of Black soldiers who, when the U.S. entered the First World War, in 1917, were sent to Houston, Texas, to provide security for the Army’s construction of Camp Logan. The battalion is under the leadership of First Sergeant Hayes (Mykelti Williamson), an Army lifer who served under Teddy Roosevelt in the Spanish-American War, and the entire regiment is under the command of a white officer, Colonel Charles Norton (Thomas Haden Church), who is both deeply devoted to the troops and well aware of the injustices and dangers that they face and the burden that they bear as Black men in the South. What the men of the 24th want, above all, is to prove themselves in battle overseas, rather than merely standing guard on home soil, and Norton vows to use his influence to help them do so.
In the regiment, one recruit stands out: Private William Boston (played by Trai Byers, who co-wrote the script with Willmott). His skin is much lighter than that of the other men (one insults him by calling him a “mulatto”), and his manner and background are different, too. Though born in Atlanta, to parents who were born enslaved, Boston lived for many years in France and earned a degree from the Sorbonne; he’s an inveterate reader who keeps a small library and a chess set in his tent, and the other men say that he talks like a white person. For some in the outfit, he’s an object of admiration; for many, he sparks bewilderment; and for a few—notably, Hayes and another private, Zeke Walker (Mo McRae)—he’s a target of suspicion as someone who, in some essential way, isn’t authentically Black. For Norton, Boston is a potential leader and a potential trailblazer, and the colonel plans to offer him a place in officers’ training school, in Iowa—but Boston wants to make his way among Black soldiers, serving alongside them, proving his worth alongside them, and being of service to the Black community in the quest for justice. They nonetheless consider him a man apart. When Boston—who’s also seen by Norton as a potential peacemaker, able to help keep the Black troops calm despite their justified resentment of their treatment by local whites—is promoted to corporal and named to the military police, Hayes derides him and calls him “Corporal High-Faluttah.”
The soldiers of the 24th, prepared to fight and die for the country, and sharing the military codes of honor, nonetheless find themselves subjected to the mortal terrors and gross indignities of Jim Crow. They’re spat on and urinated on, harassed and threatened by the white laborers whom they’re protecting—and yet, despite the dangers that they face from the townspeople, they’re denied the right to bear arms. Boarding a train that will bring them back to camp, they’re forced to sit in a car’s “colored” section; when it fills up, Walker alone sits among whites, demanding the rights that he’s due as a soldier. The result, predictably, is horrific; both Walker and Boston, who attempts to protect Walker, are eventually (and under trumped-up charges) subjected to brutal punishment. The crux of the plot involves Boston’s similarly daring and dangerous action, as a member of the military police, when a white laborer kills a Black man in cold blood. His deed resonates widely through town, but the white population refuses to accept it. When the men of the 24th get wind of rumors that a white mob is approaching their camp, they resolve to defend themselves, as they confront the practical dangers and moral ambiguities of legitimate violence.
Willmott infuses this grand historical narrative with a vast range of intimate dramatic nuance. He depicts Hayes’s deferential code-switching in the presence of white officers and Boston’s confidential relationship with Norton, and shows the soldiers agonizingly opening up to one another about their memories and legacies of racist violence, in scenes that embody an enormous depth of social history in the characters’ behavior and, seemingly, their thoughts. (Portraying one of these soldiers, Bashir Salahuddin delivers a particularly moving performance.) Throughout, Willmott amplifies political and civic history with the stories that haven’t figured prominently in history textbooks and with the personal experience and the collective agonies that appear in the official record as generalizations and abstractions. “The 24th” is suffused with an air of grief, mourning, fear, and barely suppressed rage; it’s filled with stories of so-called race riots (i.e., wanton rampages by whites against Blacks) and the ambient menace and unredressed violence by which the regime of white supremacy was maintained.
At the same time, “The 24th” builds a foundation of Black culture as a force of self-definition and self-affirmation—of shared joy and collective purpose. At a local dance (which Willmott films exuberantly), Boston courts a young woman named Marie Downing (Aja Naomi King), a gifted musician who, despite her provincial and church-bound training, is well aware of the modern music of Eubie Blake and James Reese Europe. (Her story also provides a glimpse, an unromanticized one, of the double-edged authority of religion in daily life.) Fascinatingly, “The 24th” also borrows several of the tropes of “Jayhawkers”—namely, that of the Black man who uses his esteem within white society to work on behalf of the rights of Black people, and of the sympathetic white figure whose authority can be dissolved at a moment’s notice by higher-ups. (Byers acts in the earlier film, too.) Along with the particulars of Black politics and Black life, Willmott is working out, as if in a philosophical equation, the very terms and pitfalls of progress, the mechanics of justice along with its principles. “The 24th” is a remarkable film; it’s also a remarkable part of a body of work that is an all-too-hidden wonder.


newyorker--2020-08-18--A Mother’s Steely Portraits of Her Daughter’s Life with Down Syndrome

Lulu has always needed someone to wait by her bedside while she falls asleep .
When she was younger , she slept next to her brother , who performed this role , and now it ’ s her mother ’ s job .
At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic , Grevenitis and her husband moved an extra bed into their room because Lulu had begun waking up in the middle of the night .
She doesn ’ t have a phone or use the Internet by herself , but the stress of the pandemic had reached her through her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ students , Lulu grew especially restless when classes moved to Zoom . )
One of the portraits in “ Regard ” shows Grevenitis securing a surgical mask to her daughter ’ s face as they prepare to exit the vestibule of their building .
Since March , they ’ ve ridden the subway once , to a doctor ’ s appointment , and shown up to local protests for the Black Lives Matter movement .
In Brooklyn , Grevenitis brings Lulu and Andoni along on trips to the grocery , where the children @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shopping cart .
“ It makes me feel overwhelmed , ” Lulu told me , of the pandemic .
“ It makes me feel sadness.
” But Lulu is also a homebody , Grevenitis said , who cherishes the excuse to stay inside .

Lulu has always needed someone to wait by her bedside while she falls asleep. When she was younger, she slept next to her brother, who performed this role, and now it’s her mother’s job. At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, Grevenitis and her husband moved an extra bed into their room because Lulu had begun waking up in the middle of the night. She doesn’t have a phone or use the Internet by herself, but the stress of the pandemic had reached her through her relatives and teachers. (Like many students, Lulu grew especially restless when classes moved to Zoom.) One of the portraits in “Regard” shows Grevenitis securing a surgical mask to her daughter’s face as they prepare to exit the vestibule of their building. Since March, they’ve ridden the subway once, to a doctor’s appointment, and shown up to local protests for the Black Lives Matter movement. In Brooklyn, Grevenitis brings Lulu and Andoni along on trips to the grocery, where the children scatter to sneak back snacks for the shopping cart. “It makes me feel overwhelmed,” Lulu told me, of the pandemic. “It makes me feel sadness.” But Lulu is also a homebody, Grevenitis said, who cherishes the excuse to stay inside.


newyorker--2020-08-18--Susan B. Anthony Begs Trump Not to Pardon Her: “I Don’t Want to Be on a Wikipedia Page with Roger St

Susan B. Anthony Begs Trump Not to Pardon Her: “I Don’t Want to Be on a Wikipedia Page with Roger Stone”

HEAVEN ( The Borowitz Report ) —In a rare utterance from beyond the grave , Susan B. Anthony on Tuesday @ @ @ @ @ to pardon her , stating , “ I don ’ t want to be on @ @ @ @ @ Roger Stone.
” Noting that an entire Wikipedia page had been created to record the @ @ @ @ @ granted executive clemency , Anthony said , “ It wasn ’ t exactly my dream @ @ @ @ @ same list as a guy with a Nixon tattoo on his back.
” In a @ @ @ @ @ Anthony told Trump , “ Plus , pardoning me would mean that you would now @ @ @ @ @ .
I am physically shuddering up here.
” Anthony noted that it was “ super @ @ @ @ @ to pardon her on the same day that he blasted Michelle Obama .
“ It @ @ @ @ @ were as nice to historic women who are still alive as you are to dead @ @ @ @ @ .

Photograph from Bettmann / Getty
HEAVEN (The Borowitz Report)—In a rare utterance from beyond the grave, Susan B. Anthony on Tuesday begged Donald J. Trump not to pardon her, stating, “I don’t want to be on the same Wikipedia page as Roger Stone.”
Noting that an entire Wikipedia page had been created to record the people to whom Trump had granted executive clemency, Anthony said, “It wasn’t exactly my dream to wind up on the same list as a guy with a Nixon tattoo on his back.”
In a further expression of horror, Anthony told Trump, “Plus, pardoning me would mean that you would now be on my Wikipedia page. I am physically shuddering up here.”
Anthony noted that it was “super ironic” that Trump planned to pardon her on the same day that he blasted Michelle Obama. “It would be cool if you were as nice to historic women who are still alive as you are to dead ones,” she said.


newyorker--2020-08-18--Daily Cartoon: Tuesday, August 18th

Daily Cartoon: Tuesday, August 18th

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newyorker--2020-08-18--Michelle Obama’s Unmatched Call to Action at the Democratic National Convention

The public life of Michelle Obama can be measured in nominating Conventions .
Her address in 2008 was a tentative initiation , a chance for the maligned Black lawyer to prove her worth as a potential political wife .
Four years later , now glamourized and possessing her unique social clout , Obama spoke as deputy for the former President , assuring voters that the office hadn ’ t changed him .
In 2016 , at the Convention for Hillary Clinton , Obama embraced the role of surrogate , nailing the rhythm of her catchphrase , “ When they go @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she was at the height of her oratorical powers during her keynote on Monday , the first night of the virtual Convention for Joe Biden , delivering a moral call to action that has been unmatched by any establishment Democrat during this campaign—a truth that , depending on one ’ s outlook , is either galvanizing or dismaying .
Many regular citizens were invited to speak at the first night of the D.N.C.
, and they seemed to understand the limits of the video frame , as their lives , for the past @ @ @ @ @ @ @ less relegated to the screen .
Some politicians , by contrast , seemed stumped by the format .
Understandably , little of the production was transmitted live , which made the run time smooth but imbued the speeches with a spectral air—our public servants were , quite literally , speaking to us from the past .
Muriel Bowser , the mayor of Washington , D.C. , appeared against a background showing her new Black Lives Matter Plaza .
The former Republican governor of Ohio , John Kasich , stood at the center of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reminded me , more than anything , of commercials—pharmaceutical , advertorial , docutainment , what have you .
New York ’ s governor , Andrew Cuomo , primed by the popularity of his daily coronavirus briefings , was among the few who excelled at the evening ’ s mandate .
There was flashy brand consistency in the graphic display of New York City blues behind him , and charisma in his delivery of a preposterous message—that America was still , and would always be , the greatest country ever .
Bernie Sanders , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ provided the only cogent argument for Biden ’ s policies .
Like Sanders , Michelle Obama has a real aversion to outright jingoism , which is exactly what the night warranted .
And the forced intimacy of the video form allowed her to draw from her new post as a cultural celebrity .
The composition of the room where she sat was warm but neutral , a Biden placard and some plants visible in the distance .
Obama looked like , and embodied , the archetypical voice of a concerned neighbor , speaking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ followed was something unprecedented , the invention of a form : the civilian State of the Union speech .
The teleprompter was there , but virtually unnoticeable .
“ Good evening , everyone .
It ’ s a hard time , and everyone ’ s feeling it in different ways , ” she began .
With both her words and her face , Obama painted a dark picture of America today .
Detailing the inability of children to attend school , she winced .
Our children , she said , “ see an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ here , that greed is good , and winning is everything , because as long as you come out on top , it doesn ’ t matter what happens to everyone else.
” The tenets of her panoramic portrait of the nation were recognizably Christian : the state on the brink of apocalypse , three hundred million lives in the balance .
Her thesis was empathy , which intensified her surgical exposure of the character of Trump .
“ Let me be as honest and clear as I possibly can , ” she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wrong President for our country.
” Almost shrugging , she punctuated the declaration with , “ It is what it is.
” The bluntness of the expression , the deployment of simple words to capture a world of unbearable fact , pumped new life into a dull point .
It also gestured at something irreconcilable : “ Over the past four years , a lot of people have asked me , ‘ When others are going so low , does going high really work ?
’ ” Obama said .
This acknowledgment of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more than implied .
Between the lines of the writing , in the grimace on her face , perhaps , one read what Obama could not utter : there may be no antidote to the strategy of going low .
The speech had been prerecorded , giving media outlets time to review some of its contents ahead of time .
Anchors on cable news networks teased it as a keynote like nothing ever before , a former First Lady ’ s takedown of her husband ’ s successor .
The speech would be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2016 , in New Hampshire , when she grew emotional while detailing her visceral response to Trump ’ s misogyny .
Last night , Obama invoked her intimate knowledge of the job of President to bring herself down to the level of the populace .
“ Now , I understand that my message won ’ t be heard by some people , ” she admitted , the concession weighting her voice .
“ We live in a nation that is deeply divided , and I am a Black woman speaking at the Democratic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Obama recorded her speech before Biden made his Vice-Presidential pick ; as a result , she made no mention of Kamala Harris ’ s historic nomination , an omission that only emphasized , to me , the Biden campaign ’ s general detachment from the volatile present .
“ You know I hate politics , ” Obama said .
This is the genius of Michelle Obama ’ s political life .
She is a true weapon for politicians , saying what they can never say but what the people desperately want to hear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tone of “ I ’ m not mad , I ’ m disappointed ” —is counterintuitively electrifying .
“ This is not the time to withhold our votes in protest or play games with candidates who have no chance of winning , ” Obama said .
This was a scolding : wearing her “ Vote ” nameplate necklace , Obama urged voters to prepare their brown-bag dinners , to get ready to wait in line to vote all night if they have to , however distant the act of casting a vote might @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump won his Presidency , by , as Obama reminded us , coming up more than three million votes short in the popular vote .
Toward the end of her eighteen minutes , Obama ’ s eyes turned to glass .
Her voice began to crack .
Her appeal to the American people won ’ t be remembered as an optimistic backing of her “ friend Joe Biden.
” None of the night was , really .
What do Conventions do ?
Ideally , raise money , inspire the base , persuade the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ among the opposition .
( A key motif of the evening was the Republican vowing to vote for the Democrat . )
But what is the point of a Convention in our moment of historic fracturing ?
On Tuesday morning , as Trump , right on time , berated Obama in tweets , I could almost feel her speech dissipating into a thousand parts , its imprint vanishing into his toxic air .
Biden is an absentee candidate ; Michelle Obama can not debate Trump for him .
There is no doubt that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more than ten million copies of her memoir , “ Becoming , ” sold , her influence could gather a contingent we might call the “ Becoming ” vote—if , by November , our democracy is still intact .

The public life of Michelle Obama can be measured in nominating Conventions. Her address in 2008 was a tentative initiation, a chance for the maligned Black lawyer to prove her worth as a potential political wife. Four years later, now glamourized and possessing her unique social clout, Obama spoke as deputy for the former President, assuring voters that the office hadn’t changed him. In 2016, at the Convention for Hillary Clinton, Obama embraced the role of surrogate, nailing the rhythm of her catchphrase, “When they go low, we go high.” But she was at the height of her oratorical powers during her keynote on Monday, the first night of the virtual Convention for Joe Biden, delivering a moral call to action that has been unmatched by any establishment Democrat during this campaign—a truth that, depending on one’s outlook, is either galvanizing or dismaying.
Many regular citizens were invited to speak at the first night of the D.N.C., and they seemed to understand the limits of the video frame, as their lives, for the past six months, have been more or less relegated to the screen. Some politicians, by contrast, seemed stumped by the format. Understandably, little of the production was transmitted live, which made the run time smooth but imbued the speeches with a spectral air—our public servants were, quite literally, speaking to us from the past. Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Washington, D.C., appeared against a background showing her new Black Lives Matter Plaza. The former Republican governor of Ohio, John Kasich, stood at the center of an actual crossroads. This light cinematography reminded me, more than anything, of commercials—pharmaceutical, advertorial, docutainment, what have you. New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, primed by the popularity of his daily coronavirus briefings, was among the few who excelled at the evening’s mandate. There was flashy brand consistency in the graphic display of New York City blues behind him, and charisma in his delivery of a preposterous message—that America was still, and would always be, the greatest country ever. Bernie Sanders, backgrounded by logs of Northeastern wood, provided the only cogent argument for Biden’s policies.
Like Sanders, Michelle Obama has a real aversion to outright jingoism, which is exactly what the night warranted. And the forced intimacy of the video form allowed her to draw from her new post as a cultural celebrity. The composition of the room where she sat was warm but neutral, a Biden placard and some plants visible in the distance. Obama looked like, and embodied, the archetypical voice of a concerned neighbor, speaking from the home. And yet what followed was something unprecedented, the invention of a form: the civilian State of the Union speech. The teleprompter was there, but virtually unnoticeable. “Good evening, everyone. It’s a hard time, and everyone’s feeling it in different ways,” she began. With both her words and her face, Obama painted a dark picture of America today. Detailing the inability of children to attend school, she winced. Our children, she said, “see an entitlement that says only certain people belong here, that greed is good, and winning is everything, because as long as you come out on top, it doesn’t matter what happens to everyone else.” The tenets of her panoramic portrait of the nation were recognizably Christian: the state on the brink of apocalypse, three hundred million lives in the balance.
Her thesis was empathy, which intensified her surgical exposure of the character of Trump. “Let me be as honest and clear as I possibly can,” she said. “Donald Trump is the wrong President for our country.” Almost shrugging, she punctuated the declaration with, “It is what it is.” The bluntness of the expression, the deployment of simple words to capture a world of unbearable fact, pumped new life into a dull point. It also gestured at something irreconcilable: “Over the past four years, a lot of people have asked me, ‘When others are going so low, does going high really work?’ ” Obama said. This acknowledgment of the limits of her own slogan was more than implied. Between the lines of the writing, in the grimace on her face, perhaps, one read what Obama could not utter: there may be no antidote to the strategy of going low.
The speech had been prerecorded, giving media outlets time to review some of its contents ahead of time. Anchors on cable news networks teased it as a keynote like nothing ever before, a former First Lady’s takedown of her husband’s successor. The speech would be an update of her campaign-trail castigation in 2016, in New Hampshire, when she grew emotional while detailing her visceral response to Trump’s misogyny. Last night, Obama invoked her intimate knowledge of the job of President to bring herself down to the level of the populace. “Now, I understand that my message won’t be heard by some people,” she admitted, the concession weighting her voice. “We live in a nation that is deeply divided, and I am a Black woman speaking at the Democratic Convention.” Obama aides have confirmed that Obama recorded her speech before Biden made his Vice-Presidential pick; as a result, she made no mention of Kamala Harris’s historic nomination, an omission that only emphasized, to me, the Biden campaign’s general detachment from the volatile present.
“You know I hate politics,” Obama said. This is the genius of Michelle Obama’s political life. She is a true weapon for politicians, saying what they can never say but what the people desperately want to hear. The reluctance in such a line—its tone of “I’m not mad, I’m disappointed”—is counterintuitively electrifying. “This is not the time to withhold our votes in protest or play games with candidates who have no chance of winning,” Obama said. This was a scolding: wearing her “Vote” nameplate necklace, Obama urged voters to prepare their brown-bag dinners, to get ready to wait in line to vote all night if they have to, however distant the act of casting a vote might feel from the real facts of how Trump won his Presidency, by, as Obama reminded us, coming up more than three million votes short in the popular vote.
Toward the end of her eighteen minutes, Obama’s eyes turned to glass. Her voice began to crack. Her appeal to the American people won’t be remembered as an optimistic backing of her “friend Joe Biden.” None of the night was, really. What do Conventions do? Ideally, raise money, inspire the base, persuade the non-voter, and steal away the wary among the opposition. (A key motif of the evening was the Republican vowing to vote for the Democrat.) But what is the point of a Convention in our moment of historic fracturing? On Tuesday morning, as Trump, right on time, berated Obama in tweets, I could almost feel her speech dissipating into a thousand parts, its imprint vanishing into his toxic air. Biden is an absentee candidate; Michelle Obama cannot debate Trump for him. There is no doubt that she commands an unrivalled audience; with more than ten million copies of her memoir, “Becoming,” sold, her influence could gather a contingent we might call the “Becoming” vote—if, by November, our democracy is still intact.


newyorker--2020-08-18--A Temporary Truce at the Democratic National Convention

Six months ago , when Bernie Sanders looked like the Democratic Party ’ s potential Presidential nominee , he was vowing to take on “ the entire system ” —Democrats , Republicans , moneyed interests , you name it .
He spent half a decade running for President , winning millions of fans by being uncompromising and unflappable in pursuit of the social spending programs—Medicare for All , free public college—that he helped popularize .
One charge that his opponents within the Party often lobbed at him was that he ’ d never be able to work with others .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ National Convention , on Monday , with his Presidential aspirations finally over , Sanders shared the digital stage with John Kasich , the Republican former governor of Ohio , who , in the nineteen-nineties , served as a lieutenant in Newt Gingrich ’ s Republican Revolution—a movement that is , in many ways , the anthesis of the one that Sanders leads .
“ In normal times , something like this would probably never happen , ” Kasich said .
“ But these are not normal times.
” The COVID-19-induced format of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , emceed by the actress Eva Longoria—was new , but it was in the ideological mix that the real science was happening .
What brought Sanders and Kasich together was the candidacy of Joe Biden and the Presidency of Donald Trump .
And it wasn ’ t great enthusiasm for Biden that Sanders and Kasich offered—though they both attested to his character—so much as it was an elucidation of the risks of a second Trump term .
Both former Presidential candidates pointed out that they disagreed with Biden on important elements of public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to imagine that they ’ d disagree even more with each other .
But removing Trump from office , they both said , was an imperative that made those other considerations secondary .
“ My friends , I say to you , to everyone who supported other candidates in the primary and to those who may have voted for Donald Trump in the last election , the future of our democracy is at stake , ” Sanders said , speaking from Burlington , Vermont .
“ The future of our economy is at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is at stake.
” In the run-up to the convention , progressive Democrats , including former top officials on Sanders ’ s campaign , were critical of the screen time that the Party had offered to Kasich and other Republicans .
( On Monday night , Christine Todd Whitman , the former governor of New Jersey ; Meg Whitman , the former C.E.O .
of Hewlett-Packard ; and Susan Molinari , a former House member from New York , also briefly spoke in support of Biden and against Trump . )
No lead @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but how big a tent can you make before it falls in on itself ?
On Monday , the Party ’ s response to this question was to go light on the policy talk—in the two-hour program , Sanders was the only speaker to use the time to focus on health care , unemployment benefits , and the minimum wage—in favor of appeals to unity and empathy .
George Floyd ’ s brother led a moment of silence .
An “ in memoriam ” montage of victims of the coronavirus was accompanied by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ last song recorded by the musician John Prine , who died of COVID-19-related complications in April .
A video feature about Biden ’ s Senate-era routine of riding the Amtrak back and forth every day between Wilmington , Delaware , and Washington , D.C. , included an interview with a retired train engineer whom Biden befriended on those journeys .
These were moments of real humanity .
“ Unity isn ’ t about settling , ” Amy Klobuchar offered .
“ It ’ s about striving for something more .
It isn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the means .
It ’ s how we get stuff done.
” This truce is temporary at best .
If Biden does manage to win in November , good luck getting Sanders , Kasich , and Klobuchar to agree on very much .
But , on Monday , all three urged viewers to consider the circumstances .
And the night ’ s most effective conveyer of this message , unquestionably , was Michelle Obama .
The former First Lady , wearing a necklace that spelled “ v-o-t-e ” and unbothered by the lack @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speech with her eyes fixed on the camera .
“ Let me be as honest and clear as I possibly can , ” she said .
“ Donald Trump is the wrong President for our country .
He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job , but he is clearly in over his head .
He can not meet this moment .
He simply can not be who we need him to be for us.
” She paused , shook her head slightly , and added @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Viewers on Twitter erupted .
The line wrapped a classic bit of shade around an echo of the words Trump used in a recent interview , when pressed about the death toll from the coronavirus .
Obama delivered the line sadly , but dispassionately .
“ Now , I understand that my message won ’ t be heard by some people , ” she went on .
“ We live in a nation that is deeply divided , and I am a Black woman speaking at the Democratic Convention .
But enough @ @ @ @ @ @ @ You know that I tell you exactly what I ’ m feeling.
” For years , many have wondered whether anyone would ever be able to pin Trump with a kind of Joseph Welch-to-Joe McCarthy “ Have you no sense of decency ?
” moment .
On Monday night , Obama came as close as anyone is likely to get .

Six months ago, when Bernie Sanders looked like the Democratic Party’s potential Presidential nominee, he was vowing to take on “the entire system”—Democrats, Republicans, moneyed interests, you name it. He spent half a decade running for President, winning millions of fans by being uncompromising and unflappable in pursuit of the social spending programs—Medicare for All, free public college—that he helped popularize. One charge that his opponents within the Party often lobbed at him was that he’d never be able to work with others. On the first night of the Democratic National Convention, on Monday, with his Presidential aspirations finally over, Sanders shared the digital stage with John Kasich, the Republican former governor of Ohio, who, in the nineteen-nineties, served as a lieutenant in Newt Gingrich’s Republican Revolution—a movement that is, in many ways, the anthesis of the one that Sanders leads. “In normal times, something like this would probably never happen,” Kasich said. “But these are not normal times.”
The COVID-19-induced format of the Convention—an audience-less mashup of speeches and clips, emceed by the actress Eva Longoria—was new, but it was in the ideological mix that the real science was happening. What brought Sanders and Kasich together was the candidacy of Joe Biden and the Presidency of Donald Trump. And it wasn’t great enthusiasm for Biden that Sanders and Kasich offered—though they both attested to his character—so much as it was an elucidation of the risks of a second Trump term. Both former Presidential candidates pointed out that they disagreed with Biden on important elements of public policy. And it’s easy to imagine that they’d disagree even more with each other. But removing Trump from office, they both said, was an imperative that made those other considerations secondary. “My friends, I say to you, to everyone who supported other candidates in the primary and to those who may have voted for Donald Trump in the last election, the future of our democracy is at stake,” Sanders said, speaking from Burlington, Vermont. “The future of our economy is at stake. The future of our planet is at stake.”
In the run-up to the convention, progressive Democrats, including former top officials on Sanders’s campaign, were critical of the screen time that the Party had offered to Kasich and other Republicans. (On Monday night, Christine Todd Whitman, the former governor of New Jersey; Meg Whitman, the former C.E.O. of Hewlett-Packard; and Susan Molinari, a former House member from New York, also briefly spoke in support of Biden and against Trump.) No lead in the polls is too big, but how big a tent can you make before it falls in on itself? On Monday, the Party’s response to this question was to go light on the policy talk—in the two-hour program, Sanders was the only speaker to use the time to focus on health care, unemployment benefits, and the minimum wage—in favor of appeals to unity and empathy. George Floyd’s brother led a moment of silence. An “in memoriam” montage of victims of the coronavirus was accompanied by “I Remember Everything,” the last song recorded by the musician John Prine, who died of COVID-19-related complications in April. A video feature about Biden’s Senate-era routine of riding the Amtrak back and forth every day between Wilmington, Delaware, and Washington, D.C., included an interview with a retired train engineer whom Biden befriended on those journeys. These were moments of real humanity. “Unity isn’t about settling,” Amy Klobuchar offered. “It’s about striving for something more. It isn’t the end; it’s the means. It’s how we get stuff done.”
This truce is temporary at best. If Biden does manage to win in November, good luck getting Sanders, Kasich, and Klobuchar to agree on very much. But, on Monday, all three urged viewers to consider the circumstances. And the night’s most effective conveyer of this message, unquestionably, was Michelle Obama. The former First Lady, wearing a necklace that spelled “v-o-t-e” and unbothered by the lack of a live audience, delivered her speech with her eyes fixed on the camera. “Let me be as honest and clear as I possibly can,” she said. “Donald Trump is the wrong President for our country. He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us.” She paused, shook her head slightly, and added, “It is what it is.” Viewers on Twitter erupted. The line wrapped a classic bit of shade around an echo of the words Trump used in a recent interview, when pressed about the death toll from the coronavirus. Obama delivered the line sadly, but dispassionately. “Now, I understand that my message won’t be heard by some people,” she went on. “We live in a nation that is deeply divided, and I am a Black woman speaking at the Democratic Convention. But enough of you know me by now. You know that I tell you exactly what I’m feeling.” For years, many have wondered whether anyone would ever be able to pin Trump with a kind of Joseph Welch-to-Joe McCarthy “Have you no sense of decency?” moment. On Monday night, Obama came as close as anyone is likely to get.


newyorker--2020-08-19--Checking the Weather Before Your Socially Distanced Walk with a Friend

Updated on Saturday at 9 A.M .
Sunny with a high near seventy-two .
Perfect for that socially distanced walk you ’ re taking this afternoon with your only friend in the neighborhood !
Updated on Saturday at 9:30 A.M .
Sunny with a high near seventy-two and clear skies .
Text your friend now to confirm the plan !
Updated on Saturday at 10 A.M. Actually , partly cloudy with a high near seventy-two .
Forty-per-cent chance of showers in the afternoon .
Hmm .
Chance of walk : fifty per cent .
Updated on Saturday at 10:30 A.M. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a high near eighty—muggy , overcast , gray , dispiriting .
But you can still go if you want .
In these times , we all need human connection .
Updated on Saturday at 11 A.M .
Slow-moving cold front is expected to bring thunderstorms to the area in fifteen minutes , and also torrential rainfall , flooding , and gale-force winds .
These conditions will continue for the next five days .
Cancel all walks with friends .
Updated on Saturday at 11:30 A.M .
The storm should be coming any minute @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Sorry—is your friend still available ?
Remember , you live by yourself .
Walks are all you have !
It took you months even to get comfortable with meeting another person for a walk at a distance !
The weather ’ s fine , partly cloudy , etc .
More clouds .
What did she say ?
Partly sunny with a high of seventy-two .
I know , I also hate this .
Total and utter whiplash at a time when people already feel destabilized !
I ’ m sorry .
Is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Oh , you didn ’ t text her because you don ’ t want to be annoying , going back and forth with plans ?
Because , even if it ’ s sunny now , I might say there will be another storm as soon as you agree to meet up ?
O.K .
Well , you ’ ll be staying inside for a long time .
Because I have received new data , and it seems that there will be thunderstorms and hail every day until we develop a vaccine .
There @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ m not sure .
My rainbow projections have been off lately .
What are you planning on doing this afternoon instead ?
Partly sunny with a high of seventy-two .
What about trying out needlepoint ?
I ’ m sorry !
You could go for a walk alone .
I really don ’ t think there are going to be any storms .
Just stay inside .
Why don ’ t you see if your friend is free tomorrow at 5:30 A.M. , when there are never any storms .
Yeah , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be good .
From 6:30 to 6:45 A.M. it should be totally clear , as well .
Great—it ’ s a plan .
I texted the details to your friend .
Don ’ t worry , you can definitely meet your friend for a walk tomorrow .
Looks like it ’ s going to be sunny with a high of seventy-two .
I swear !

New York City Weather Conditions
Updated on Saturday at 9 A.M.
Sunny with a high near seventy-two. Perfect for that socially distanced walk you’re taking this afternoon with your only friend in the neighborhood!
Updated on Saturday at 9:30 A.M.
Sunny with a high near seventy-two and clear skies. Text your friend now to confirm the plan!
Updated on Saturday at 10 A.M.
Actually, partly cloudy with a high near seventy-two. Forty-per-cent chance of showers in the afternoon. Hmm. Chance of walk: fifty per cent.
Updated on Saturday at 10:30 A.M.
Welp. All cloudy now, with a high near eighty—muggy, overcast, gray, dispiriting. But you can still go if you want. In these times, we all need human connection.
Updated on Saturday at 11 A.M.
Slow-moving cold front is expected to bring thunderstorms to the area in fifteen minutes, and also torrential rainfall, flooding, and gale-force winds. These conditions will continue for the next five days. Cancel all walks with friends.
Updated on Saturday at 11:30 A.M.
The storm should be coming any minute now.
Updated on Saturday at 12 P.M.
Hang on.
Updated on Saturday at 12:30 P.M.
Whoops! No more storm. Sorry—is your friend still available?
Updated on Saturday at 1 P.M.
Remember, you live by yourself. Walks are all you have! It took you months even to get comfortable with meeting another person for a walk at a distance! The weather’s fine, partly cloudy, etc.
Updated on Saturday at 1:30 P.M.
More clouds. What did she say?
Updated on Saturday at 2 P.M.
Partly sunny with a high of seventy-two. I know, I also hate this. Total and utter whiplash at a time when people already feel destabilized! I’m sorry. Is your friend free now, though? Oh, you didn’t text her because you don’t want to be annoying, going back and forth on plans? Because, even if it’s sunny now, I might say there will be another storm as soon as you agree to meet up? O.K. Well, you’ll be staying inside for a long time. Because I have received new data, and it seems that there will be thunderstorms and hail every day until we develop a vaccine. There might be one rainbow, but I’m not sure. My rainbow projections have been off lately. What are you planning on doing this afternoon instead?
Updated on Saturday at 2:30 P.M.
Partly sunny with a high of seventy-two. What about trying out needlepoint? I’m sorry!
Updated on Saturday at 3 P.M.
You could go for a walk alone. I really don’t think there are going to be any storms.
Updated on Saturday at 3:30 P.M.
Never mind!
Updated on Saturday at 4 P.M.
Just stay inside. Why don’t you see if your friend is free tomorrow at 5:30 A.M., when there are never any storms.
Updated on Saturday at 4:30 P.M.
Yeah, I think tomorrow at 5:30 A.M. should be good. From 6:30 to 6:45 A.M. it should be totally clear as well. Great—it’s a plan. I texted the details to your friend.
Updated on Saturday at 5 P.M.
Don’t worry, you can definitely meet your friend for a walk tomorrow. Looks like it’s going to be sunny with a high of seventy-two. I swear!


newyorker--2020-08-19--Has Self-Awareness Gone Too Far in Fiction?

These self-conscious times have furnished us with a new fallacy .
Call it the reflexivity trap .
This is the implicit , and sometimes explicit , idea that professing awareness of a fault absolves you of that fault—that lip service equals resistance .
The problem with such signalling is that it rarely resolves the anxieties that seem to prompt it .
Mocking your emotions , or expressing doubt or shame about them , doesn ’ t negate those emotions ; castigating yourself for hypocrisy , cowardice , or racism won ’ t necessarily make you less hypocritical , cowardly , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our systems become increasingly visible , the reflexivity trap casts self-awareness as a finish line , not a starting point .
To the extent that this discourages further action , oblivion might be preferable .
There are plenty of reasons to think about the trap and its offshoots , which include performative allyship and self-protective irony .
I ’ ll confine myself to books : reflexivity traps are springing all across literature .
Aesthetic and commercial incentives drive authors toward the “ authentic , ” and a newly legible form of authenticity , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , is a kind of pained complicity .
The most trustworthy speakers strike us as perceptive but self-critical .
Often , they are darkly funny .
Desperate to undercut themselves before the reader can , they don ’ t prescribe or argue or even exercise much agency but , rather , turn inward , holding up a disenchanted mirror to what they think and feel .
The result , viewed uncharitably , is a crop of protagonists who are to be congratulated for spending enough time contemplating themselves that they can correctly diagnose @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a wildly grumpy introduction to some likable books , including “ Exciting Times , ” a new novel by the twenty-eight-year-old Irish author Naoise Dolan .
Dolan ’ s plot follows Ava , a twenty-two-year-old Dubliner who lives in Hong Kong and teaches English to local children .
She meets her “ banker friend Julian , ” a self-assured and emotionally distant Brit , in his late twenties , at a bar .
( “ Julian had gone to Eton and was an only child .
These were the two least surprising @ @ @ @ @ @ @ themselves.
” ) After a few weeks of casual sex , Ava moves from her shoebox apartment into Julian ’ s flat , where she begins to ironically cosplay wifedom : tidying up , ironing clothes , giving blow jobs .
Despite her Marxist politics , “ I enjoyed his money and he enjoyed how easily impressed I was by it , ” Ava admits .
Dolan has a wonderfully intuitive and fluid handle on Ava , a young person who equates adulthood with moral imperfection and who finds herself disgusted and beguiled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tell her what to want , but she ’ ll settle for wanting nothing .
She and Julian evince the self-inflicted unhappiness of people whose loneliness only heightens their fear of intimacy .
When they ’ re not tending to the exhausting project of their own nonchalance , they drink wine and trade tentative compliments .
( “ I told him he was attractive .
I said it exactly like that— ‘ I find you attractive ’ —to avoid seeming earnest .
‘ You ’ re quite attractive , too , ’ he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ flattened affect has the paradoxical effect of implying depth , and their cynicism suggests a vulnerability that needs protecting .
When Ava catches herself daydreaming , she starts “ correctively listing things I disliked about myself .
.
.
flat feet , doughy hands , clumsiness , moral cowardice.
” The novel takes a turn when Julian transfers temporarily to London , and Ava , while continuing to live in his apartment , starts seeing Mei Ling ( Edith ) Zhang , a lawyer who was born in Hong Kong and educated abroad @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to fall in love with Edith .
The women are the same age ; they bond over Instagram and the wrongs of the British Empire .
Dolan sometimes flicks at the limits of Ava ’ s identification with Edith— “ You ’ re not noticing because you ’ re white , ” Edith snaps , when Ava asks why it matters that a waiter addressed her in Cantonese—but , over all , the story requires the two of them to be relatively similar .
When Julian returns , Ava feels torn between the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ perilous intimacy that Edith offers .
“ Exciting Times ” is an examination of sex , queerness , self-sabotage , power , and privilege .
Its milieu is young and left-leaning , and its tone is dry , sharp , and cerebral .
Unavoidably , Dolan , a first-time novelist , has drawn comparisons to Sally Rooney , comparisons that her publisher has encouraged : two out of the book ’ s five blurbs name-check Rooney , and Dolan ’ s bio states that “ ‘ Exciting Times ’ is her first novel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in [ the literary journal ] ‘ The Stinging Fly ’ by Sally Rooney.
” Rooney , if you are just visiting Earth , is an Irish writer , now twenty-nine , whose name has become synonymous with disaffected millennial longing .
Her two novels , “ Normal People ” and “ Conversations with Friends , ” follow brainy , alienated young people as they seek intimacy and—like Jane Austen ’ s heroines , but less subtly—refract their obsessions with interpersonal power through a sociopolitical lens .
Please !
Believe me when I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ make this review all about Rooney .
But imitation is part of “ Exciting Times ” ’ s virtuosity .
Deadpan prose punctuated by similes ?
Check .
( “ It was humid .
Briefcase-bearers clopped out of turnstiles like breeding jennets.
” ) Exquisitely precise observations about social dynamics ?
Check .
( “ At the restaurant he put his phone facedown on the table , so I did the same , as if for me , too , this represented a professional sacrifice.
” ) Repurposed financial language ?
Cheque .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Julian and Edith ] took work , but their similarities lent the enterprise a certain economy of scale.
” ) Even the specifics align : both Dolan and Rooney give us mean-girl rivals , Marxist erotica , climactic medical scares , and e-mails and texts , sent and unsent , that propel the plot forward .
Rooney ’ s weaknesses are inscribed here , too .
Like Frances and Marianne , the main characters in “ Conversations with Friends ” and “ Normal People , ” Ava falls into baroque spirals of self-hatred @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for .
Dolan , like Rooney , conjures her protagonists in a few selective strokes—an effect that bewitches , at first , but the characters don ’ t linger afterward , and they seem mostly defined by the impression they make on others .
Most important , Dolan follows Rooney into the jaws of the reflexivity trap .
This is a frequent gripe with Rooney : that it ’ s hard to tell exactly how far her self-awareness goes .
In a review of “ Normal People , ” for New York , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the characters ’ politics ( “ May the revolution be swift and brutal ” ) and their behavior ( chatting in a coffee shop while activists protest the household tax ) .
But Delistraty didn ’ t just take aim at Rooney ’ s characters ; he claimed that politics , for Rooney herself , “ is ultimately more setting than subject , more a way of quickly defining characters and creating tensions rather than necessarily motivating them.
” In other words , Rooney , like her characters , seems content to perform @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it as a device , but not to engage with it as a profound and messy reality .
( “ Normal People , ” for example , makes Marianne ’ s love interest , Connell , the son of the woman who cleans Marianne 's house ; the woman is meant to represent the dignity of the working class , but she has little life of her own . )
To better earn her lefty laurels , the argument runs , Rooney could dramatize economic suffering , rather than relegating it to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ still , Rooney ’ s women suffer in modes that are precisely palatable—even glamorous—to the market .
They invite men to hurt them ; they have eating disorders ; they despise themselves and try endlessly , futilely , to be “ good.
” Such characters suggest less a challenge to capitalism than a capitalist wet dream .
Dolan ’ s engagement with politics feels at least as superficial .
Not only does Ava admit to not being able to name a single candidate in Hong Kong ’ s upcoming election , but the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ parties and designer handbags than spend any time among the lower or middle classes .
( The book ’ s jacket copy also compares it , hilariously , to “ Crazy Rich Asians.
” ) Dolan offers little about the city ’ s history or people , and not much physical evocation beyond the escalators ribboning up and down the hill , connecting the business district to the rich residential neighborhoods .
When Edith muses that she sees the merits of Marxism but that she also appreciates having nice things , Ava texts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ should have nice things.
” Then the women go shopping together .

These self-conscious times have furnished us with a new fallacy. Call it the reflexivity trap. This is the implicit, and sometimes explicit, idea that professing awareness of a fault absolves you of that fault—that lip service equals resistance. The problem with such signalling is that it rarely resolves the anxieties that seem to prompt it. Mocking your emotions, or expressing doubt or shame about them, doesn’t negate those emotions; castigating yourself for hypocrisy, cowardice, or racism won’t necessarily make you less hypocritical, cowardly, or racist. As the cracks in our systems become increasingly visible, the reflexivity trap casts self-awareness as a finish line, not a starting point. To the extent that this discourages further action, oblivion might be preferable.
There are plenty of reasons to think about the trap and its offshoots, which include performative allyship and self-protective irony. I’ll confine myself to books: reflexivity traps are springing all across literature. Aesthetic and commercial incentives drive authors toward the “authentic,” and a newly legible form of authenticity, under (forgive me) late capitalism, is a kind of pained complicity. The most trustworthy speakers strike us as perceptive but self-critical. Often, they are darkly funny. Desperate to undercut themselves before the reader can, they don’t prescribe or argue or even exercise much agency but, rather, turn inward, holding up a disenchanted mirror to what they think and feel. The result, viewed uncharitably, is a crop of protagonists who are to be congratulated for spending enough time contemplating themselves that they can correctly diagnose their own flaws.
All of which is a wildly grumpy introduction to some likable books, including “Exciting Times,” a new novel by the twenty-eight-year-old Irish author Naoise Dolan. Dolan’s plot follows Ava, a twenty-two-year-old Dubliner who lives in Hong Kong and teaches English to local children. She meets her “banker friend Julian,” a self-assured and emotionally distant Brit, in his late twenties, at a bar. (“Julian had gone to Eton and was an only child. These were the two least surprising facts anyone had ever told me about themselves.”) After a few weeks of casual sex, Ava moves from her shoebox apartment into Julian’s flat, where she begins to ironically cosplay wifedom: tidying up, ironing clothes, giving blow jobs. Despite her Marxist politics, “I enjoyed his money and he enjoyed how easily impressed I was by it,” Ava admits.
Dolan has a wonderfully intuitive and fluid handle on Ava, a young person who equates adulthood with moral imperfection and who finds herself disgusted and beguiled by both. Ava wants someone to tell her what to want, but she’ll settle for wanting nothing. She and Julian evince the self-inflicted unhappiness of people whose loneliness only heightens their fear of intimacy. When they’re not tending to the exhausting project of their own nonchalance, they drink wine and trade tentative compliments. (“I told him he was attractive. I said it exactly like that—‘I find you attractive’—to avoid seeming earnest. ‘You’re quite attractive, too,’ he said.”) The pair’s flattened affect has the paradoxical effect of implying depth, and their cynicism suggests a vulnerability that needs protecting. When Ava catches herself daydreaming, she starts “correctively listing things I disliked about myself . . . flat feet, doughy hands, clumsiness, moral cowardice.”
The novel takes a turn when Julian transfers temporarily to London, and Ava, while continuing to live in his apartment, starts seeing Mei Ling (Edith) Zhang, a lawyer who was born in Hong Kong and educated abroad. To her terror, Ava begins to fall in love with Edith. The women are the same age; they bond over Instagram and the wrongs of the British Empire. Dolan sometimes flicks at the limits of Ava’s identification with Edith—“You’re not noticing because you’re white,” Edith snaps, when Ava asks why it matters that a waiter addressed her in Cantonese—but, over all, the story requires the two of them to be relatively similar. When Julian returns, Ava feels torn between the chilly safety that he represents and the perilous intimacy that Edith offers.
“Exciting Times” is an examination of sex, queerness, self-sabotage, power, and privilege. Its milieu is young and left-leaning, and its tone is dry, sharp, and cerebral. Unavoidably, Dolan, a first-time novelist, has drawn comparisons to Sally Rooney, comparisons that her publisher has encouraged: two out of the book’s five blurbs name-check Rooney, and Dolan’s bio states that “ ‘Exciting Times’ is her first novel, an excerpt from which was published in [the literary journal] ‘The Stinging Fly’ by Sally Rooney.” Rooney, if you are just visiting Earth, is an Irish writer, now twenty-nine, whose name has become synonymous with disaffected millennial longing. Her two novels, “Normal People” and “Conversations with Friends,” follow brainy, alienated young people as they seek intimacy and—like Jane Austen’s heroines, but less subtly—refract their obsessions with interpersonal power through a sociopolitical lens.
Please! Believe me when I say that I did not want to make this review all about Rooney. But imitation is part of “Exciting Times” ’s virtuosity. Deadpan prose punctuated by similes? Check. (“It was humid. Briefcase-bearers clopped out of turnstiles like breeding jennets.”) Exquisitely precise observations about social dynamics? Check. (“At the restaurant he put his phone facedown on the table, so I did the same, as if for me, too, this represented a professional sacrifice.”) Repurposed financial language? Cheque. (“Keeping up with both [Julian and Edith] took work, but their similarities lent the enterprise a certain economy of scale.”) Even the specifics align: both Dolan and Rooney give us mean-girl rivals, Marxist erotica, climactic medical scares, and e-mails and texts, sent and unsent, that propel the plot forward.
Rooney’s weaknesses are inscribed here, too. Like Frances and Marianne, the main characters in “Conversations with Friends” and “Normal People,” Ava falls into baroque spirals of self-hatred that the plot does not wholly account for. Dolan, like Rooney, conjures her protagonists in a few selective strokes—an effect that bewitches, at first, but the characters don’t linger afterward, and they seem mostly defined by the impression they make on others. Most important, Dolan follows Rooney into the jaws of the reflexivity trap. This is a frequent gripe with Rooney: that it’s hard to tell exactly how far her self-awareness goes. In a review of “Normal People,” for New York, Cody Delistraty noted the awkward dissonance between the characters’ politics (“May the revolution be swift and brutal”) and their behavior (chatting in a coffee shop while activists protest the household tax). But Delistraty didn’t just take aim at Rooney’s characters; he claimed that politics, for Rooney herself, “is ultimately more setting than subject, more a way of quickly defining characters and creating tensions rather than necessarily motivating them.”
In other words, Rooney, like her characters, seems content to perform awareness of inequality, even to exploit it as a device, but not to engage with it as a profound and messy reality. (“Normal People,” for example, makes Marianne’s love interest, Connell, the son of the woman who cleans Marianne’s house; the woman is meant to represent the dignity of the working class, but she has little life of her own.) To better earn her lefty laurels, the argument runs, Rooney could dramatize economic suffering, rather than relegating it to the margins of the plot. More damning still, Rooney’s women suffer in modes that are precisely palatable—even glamorous—to the market. They invite men to hurt them; they have eating disorders; they despise themselves and try endlessly, futilely, to be “good.” Such characters suggest less a challenge to capitalism than a capitalist wet dream.
Dolan’s engagement with politics feels at least as superficial. Not only does Ava admit to not being able to name a single candidate in Hong Kong’s upcoming election, but the novel itself would rather gawk at lavish parties and designer handbags than spend any time among the lower or middle classes. (The book’s jacket copy also compares it, hilariously, to “Crazy Rich Asians.”) Dolan offers little about the city’s history or people, and not much physical evocation beyond the escalators ribboning up and down the hill, connecting the business district to the rich residential neighborhoods. When Edith muses that she sees the merits of Marxism but that she also appreciates having nice things, Ava texts her: “Marxism means thinking everyone should have nice things.” Then the women go shopping together.
Hypocrisy is rich territory for fiction, and the fact that Dolan writes about young people who contradict themselves is not, in itself, a problem. One could even argue that Dolan’s own socialist leanings—her grasp of how grinding and impossible the system can be—inform her depiction of characters with untenable ideological commitments. But those commitments, and others, never feel real on the page; they feel like credentials, and if a character acts against them he or she is dutifully redeemed by self-awareness. “I was a horrible person,” Ava laments at one point. “I was living in one person’s flat, fucking someone else without telling them. . . .” Yet, because Ava knows what she’s doing and feels conflicted about it, Dolan still presents her as superior to her peers, who are vapid and doltish. After concluding that it would be “ungrateful” to refuse “a mythologically beautiful girlfriend and a nice apartment to share with her,” Ava winds up keeping both the girlfriend and the luxury, having earned them, apparently, through the moral work of feeling bad. As Edith tells Ava: “You want to feel special—which is fair, who doesn’t—but you won’t allow yourself to feel special in a good way, so you tell yourself you’re especially bad.” It is a neat and brutal insight, which Ava promptly forgets about. The reflexivity trap twangs.
Rooney and Dolan, who study the intersection of innocence, experience, and self-delusion, are working in the Bildungsroman tradition, which is where the reflexivity trap most often finds its prey. This makes some sense. The Bildungsroman, or coming-of-age story, and its cousin the Künstlerroman, or becoming-an-artist story, are journeys of the self. Historically, these journeys have involved growth (Candide tempers his optimism, Emma her entitlement) and the painful reconciliation of action and belief. But today’s practitioners—Rooney and Dolan, and also Ben Lerner, Sheila Heti, and Kate Zambreno, among others—halt the journey midway through, leaving their characters tuned to problems but unable to solve them. The self-scrutiny and self-recrimination remain; the maturity is optional.
At worst, the books can feel stunted themselves, unsophisticated and void of stakes. The critic Becca Rothfeld has usefully compared Rooney’s novels, for instance, to “Twilight” and “Fifty Shades of Grey,” books that waft seemingly ordinary women into fairy-tale lives. “If you are a writer in a Rooney novel,” Rothfeld observes, “you are sure to be discovered without going to any great lengths to promote yourself. . . . And if you are a woman in a Rooney novel, you will only ever become disheveled in a glamorous way.” One can fairly connect Rooney (and Dolan) to the young-adult (Y.A.) genre, whose business is less often growth than the slow-motion coronation of a reader surrogate. Even the yearnings that shape how these books measure success are adolescent. Characters say that they care about love or justice; what they really seem to care about is external validation.
In fact, “Exciting Times” suggests that Julian and Ava get along precisely because each can provide the other with that most valuable social resource. Julian relishes being the type of man who dates intelligent, aloof women—“He enjoyed my sharpness primarily because it was an impressive thing to have on retainer”—and Ava is pleased when Julian acknowledges “both my outer sparkle and the interior layer only clever people saw.” Ava delivers these comments ironically: we’re meant to wince at her and Julian’s symbiotic narcissism; furthermore, we might expect Edith to give us some respite from all the sizing up. But Dolan also insists, confusingly, on Edith’s social desirability: her high-powered résumé, her covetable clothes, her many friends. Beyond these sterile indications of worthiness—and the pat suggestion that Edith understands Ava better than anyone else does—the love of Ava’s life remains a cipher.


newyorker--2020-08-19--An Intimate Look at a Farmworker’s Divided Life, in “Guanajuato Norte”

The first time that Wenceslao ( Winny ) Contreras left Mexico for the United States , he did not intend to look back .
It was the spring of 1984 , and an uncle had agreed to let Contreras join his journey north .
All he had heard about the U.S. was that wages there were exceptionally high—enough to rouse a sixteen-year-old boy whose parents and younger siblings depended on him .
With his uncle , Contreras travelled by bus from Tierra Blanca , his home town in the central state of Guanajuato , to Tijuana .
Setting out on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he packed just one small bag of canned goods , a handful of tostadas , and lemons .
When he arrived at the U.S. ’ s southern border , Contreras waded across a treacherous canal in a daze .
He remembers there being a crowded baseball field on the other side—the players ’ encouraging shouts of “ corre , ” or “ run , ” still echo in his mind .
In some ways , Contreras chose to follow in the steps of his father , who worked in Michigan as a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ until the late nineteen-sixties .
But , unlike his father , Contreras settled in the U.S. and became eligible for amnesty under a sweeping immigration-reform bill signed by Ronald Reagan in 1986 .
Over the years , many men and women from Guanajuato have ventured north in search of work .
The money they have brought or sent home has been a means of survival for their relatives and a source of income that local authorities have come to rely on .
Last year , guanajuatenses sent back more than three billion dollars @ @ @ @ @ @ @ per cent of his earnings—the rest goes to his family .
As a farmworker , he has managed to save just enough for his children to receive what was out of reach to him in his own youth : a higher education .
The sacrifices that Contreras has made along the way are intimately captured in the short documentary “ Guanajuato Norte , ” directed by Sana A. Malik and Ingrid Holmquist .
The directors met Contreras at Rose ’ s Berry Farm , in Connecticut , where he has spent the past @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ The stories about farmworkers in America have often been framed through the lens of exploitation , ” Malik observed .
“ We talk about essential workers , but we don ’ t know anything about them.
” Along with Holmquist , she hoped to convey that , for many of these workers , staying in the U.S. is more of an obligation than a choice—it ’ s a condition that ’ s necessary in order for their families to thrive , even if it means being apart .
By the end of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ children will have finished college , and Contreras hopes to spend longer periods of time at home in Mexico , a country that he ’ s lived away from for most of his life .
“ We wanted the film to be true to life and specific about what the meaning of home is , ” Holmquist said .
In the opening of the documentary , Contreras observes that his life is “ divided into two parts : here and in Mexico.
” He usually returns to Tierra Blanca once a year , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the fields of Connecticut .
In the eighties , while back in Guanajuato , he started dating his longtime neighbor , Maura .
When he returned to the U.S. for work , they began exchanging letters .
“ It would take a month to a month and a half for the letters to arrive , ” Maura recalled .
Despite the challenges of their long-distance courtship , they married , in 1994 .
“ All that mattered was the trust we had in each other , ” Maura told me .
By the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ telephone booth had been installed in the town .
Mayra , their eldest daughter , remembers spending hours in front of the phone , waiting for her father ’ s call to come through .
Her father ’ s absence produced a precocious maturity in Mayra—who , from a young age , had a clear understanding of the larger economic system that drew so many of her neighbors to the U.S. for work .
“ There were many migrants around us , ” she said .
“ Among friends , it was common @ @ @ @ @ @ @ left , ’ or ‘ My dad has returned.
’ ” Contreras reckons that it is a privilege to come and go between both countries .
The amnesty of 1986 allows him to preserve a job in the U.S. while keeping his ties to Mexico intact .
“ It ’ s because of it that my children are who they are now , ” Contreras says .
He wishes that his fellow-workers were granted a similar opportunity .
A decade ago , a colleague of his died crossing the border—one of thousands who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ north .
Fewer Mexicans are making the trip now , which is an issue for both the workers and the farm owners whose fields go untended .
“ The problem used to be in Mexico , but now it ’ s on both sides , ” Contreras told me .
“ It ’ s harder to come into the U.S. , and people can no longer afford the price of crossing the border.
” He said that he is vexed by the current policies , adding , “ It ’ s clear that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can ’ t even begin to fathom , how it is that food reaches his table .
”

The first time that Wenceslao (Winny) Contreras left Mexico for the United States, he did not intend to look back. It was the spring of 1984, and an uncle had agreed to let Contreras join his journey north. All he had heard about the U.S. was that wages there were exceptionally high—enough to rouse a sixteen-year-old boy whose parents and younger siblings depended on him. With his uncle, Contreras travelled by bus from Tierra Blanca, his home town in the central state of Guanajuato, to Tijuana. Setting out on the journey of nearly two thousand miles, he packed just one small bag of canned goods, a handful of tostadas, and lemons. When he arrived at the U.S.’s southern border, Contreras waded across a treacherous canal in a daze. He remembers there being a crowded baseball field on the other side—the players’ encouraging shouts of “corre,” or “run,” still echo in his mind.
In some ways, Contreras chose to follow in the steps of his father, who worked in Michigan as a bracero, a seasonal agricultural worker, until the late nineteen-sixties. But, unlike his father, Contreras settled in the U.S. and became eligible for amnesty under a sweeping immigration-reform bill signed by Ronald Reagan in 1986. Over the years, many men and women from Guanajuato have ventured north in search of work. The money they have brought or sent home has been a means of survival for their relatives and a source of income that local authorities have come to rely on. Last year, guanajuatenses sent back more than three billion dollars in remittances. Contreras usually keeps twenty per cent of his earnings—the rest goes to his family. As a farmworker, he has managed to save just enough for his children to receive what was out of reach to him in his own youth: a higher education.
The sacrifices that Contreras has made along the way are intimately captured in the short documentary “Guanajuato Norte,” directed by Sana A. Malik and Ingrid Holmquist. The directors met Contreras at Rose’s Berry Farm, in Connecticut, where he has spent the past two decades tending a thirty-acre field. “The stories about farmworkers in America have often been framed through the lens of exploitation,” Malik observed. “We talk about essential workers, but we don’t know anything about them.” Along with Holmquist, she hoped to convey that, for many of these workers, staying in the U.S. is more of an obligation than a choice—it’s a condition that’s necessary in order for their families to thrive, even if it means being apart. By the end of the year, two of his three children will have finished college, and Contreras hopes to spend longer periods of time at home in Mexico, a country that he’s lived away from for most of his life. “We wanted the film to be true to life and specific about what the meaning of home is,” Holmquist said.
In the opening of the documentary, Contreras observes that his life is “divided into two parts: here and in Mexico.” He usually returns to Tierra Blanca once a year, in December, when the frost reaches the fields of Connecticut. In the eighties, while back in Guanajuato, he started dating his longtime neighbor, Maura. When he returned to the U.S. for work, they began exchanging letters. “It would take a month to a month and a half for the letters to arrive,” Maura recalled. Despite the challenges of their long-distance courtship, they married, in 1994. “All that mattered was the trust we had in each other,” Maura told me. By the time their children were born, a telephone booth had been installed in the town. Mayra, their eldest daughter, remembers spending hours in front of the phone, waiting for her father’s call to come through. Her father’s absence produced a precocious maturity in Mayra—who, from a young age, had a clear understanding of the larger economic system that drew so many of her neighbors to the U.S. for work. “There were many migrants around us,” she said. “Among friends, it was common to say, ‘My dad just left,’ or ‘My dad has returned.’ ”
Contreras reckons that it is a privilege to come and go between both countries. The amnesty of 1986 allows him to preserve a job in the U.S. while keeping his ties to Mexico intact. “It’s because of it that my children are who they are now,” Contreras says. He wishes that his fellow-workers were granted a similar opportunity. A decade ago, a colleague of his died crossing the border—one of thousands who have sacrificed their lives on their way north. Fewer Mexicans are making the trip now, which is an issue for both the workers and the farm owners whose fields go untended. “The problem used to be in Mexico, but now it’s on both sides,” Contreras told me. “It’s harder to come into the U.S., and people can no longer afford the price of crossing the border.” He said that he is vexed by the current policies, adding, “It’s clear that the person behind them ignores, and can’t even begin to fathom, how it is that food reaches his table.”


newyorker--2020-08-19--Joe Biden, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the Shaky Unity of the Democratic National Convention

On Day Two of the Democratic National Convention , the Party ’ s recent past kept ghosting in and out .
Before the networks had even begun their broadcasts , the Party rolled through half a century of its own history : Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter , from Georgia , and then Caroline Kennedy and her son in front of the unpainted shingles of a Cape Cod home , and , finally , Bill Clinton , sitting on a flowered couch at his home in Chappaqua , New York .
Clinton and Biden form generational bookends—one moderate icon hailing another @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , or historical , about Clinton ’ s praise of the nominee .
His account leaned on Biden ’ s role in the Obama Administration ’ s response to the 2008 financial crisis .
“ Joe helped bring us back from a recession before , and he can do it again , ” Clinton said .
The Party ’ s political history of its candidate had been somewhat radically shortened , so that it began in 2008 .
Is this still the Party that Clinton remade ?
Five prerecorded minutes , broadcast early @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , indicated that his personal influence has waned .
Ideologically , too , Democrats have drifted away from him : any talk of triangulation was largely left to the dissident Republicans who spoke on both Monday and Tuesday evenings .
But , in other ways during the lead-up to the nomination of a Presidential candidate born in 1942 to challenge an incumbent born in 1946 , older Democrats ’ hold on their party ’ s politics remained strong—and not only in the frequency of Springsteen tracks .
Biden , whose instinct has often @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his own party , once followed a moderate , Clintonite path , and the project of remaking him during this past year ’ s long primary campaign was one of suppressing those earlier stands : for the crime bill of 1994 ; for the Iraq war in 2003 ; and , above all , during the seventies , against court-mandated school desegregation .
The Democrats who gave Biden the nomination seemed to want a familiar candidate , but actually nominating him has required eliding much of his political history .
Clinton ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t just mean a preference for pragmatism .
It meant a belief in the transformative powers of youth .
The Democratic Party of the nineteen-eighties—of Walter Mondale , Dick Gephardt , Dan Rostenkowski , and Geraldine Ferraro—was a traditional operation , dependent on political machines in declining cities and the workingman politics of big unions .
The Party that Clinton celebrated at the 2000 Democratic National Convention—a handheld camera tracking him for over a minute as he strode through the bowels of the Staples Center , in Los Angeles , on his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his image : telegenic , optimistic , assured of its own expertise .
The Democrats are still ( relative to Republicans ) the party of the future , but now the vision belongs to the Parkland survivors and the Sunrise Movement and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—another generational talent who is seen by her opponents as a media persona and by her supporters as a serious policy entrepreneur , a preternaturally talented political figure who arrives with white papers and twelve-point plans .
On Tuesday , the Party gave Ocasio-Cortez only the brief role of seconding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ She used it to dwell on some recent history that the Party might have been happy to paper over .
Ocasio-Cortez praised the “ mass people ’ s movement ” behind Sanders ’ s campaign : “ a movement striving to repair the wounds of racial injustice , colonization , misogyny , and homophobia , and to propose and build reimagined systems of immigration and foreign policy that turn away from the violence and xenophobia of our past.
” Was she speaking from inside the Democratic tradition or outside it ?
She didn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is often said to embody a generational break with senior Democrats .
“ In any other country , Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party , ” she told New York magazine , in January .
But she also represents a suppressed strain .
Watch the network coverage of the 1988 Democratic Convention and you ’ ll find that the standout performer wasn ’ t Michael Dukakis , whose acceptance speech was dull , or Clinton , then the governor of Arkansas , who spoke for thirty-three minutes and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the words of Chris Matthews , then a young NBC reporter on the floor .
( Biden , who was feuding with Dukakis ’ s campaign , missed the Convention because he was recovering from surgery for a brain aneurysm . )
The obvious star was Jesse Jackson , then forty-six and the embodiment of a rising multiracial progressivism , having won nearly seven million votes and eleven contests in the primaries .
“ For almost eight years , we ’ ve been led by those who view social good coming from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a means to increase private wealth , ” Jackson said .
“ We believe in a government that is a tool of our democracy , not an instrument of the aristocracy in search of private wealth.
” Of all the talented speakers at that Convention , it was Jackson who would fit seamlessly onto the virtual stage of 2020 .
In 1988 , as the baby boomers took over the Party , Clinton ’ s vision represented a viable electoral proposition , and Jackson ’ s didn ’ t .
Now , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a party that was dominated by the Clintonite wing , Biden finds himself the standard-bearer at a moment when leading the Party means undoing that choice—to identify the Democratic Party fully with the Black Lives Matter movement , to take a more combative stance on capital and wealth , to supplant Clinton ’ s legacy with Jackson ’ s .
That ’ s a big job for any politician .
Perhaps it ’ s too big for this campaign .
What the Biden operation has chosen instead is to include what it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of embodying this reconciliation , on Tuesday night , fell to Jill Biden , who isn ’ t a politician at all , and whose speech , taped at a Delaware high school where she once taught , closed the evening .
Neither the Biden campaign nor Jill Biden specialize in subtlety .
“ You can hear the anxiety that echoes down empty hallways , ” she said .
“ There ’ s no scent of new notebooks or freshly waxed floors .
The rooms are dark as the bright young faces that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ boxes on a computer screen.
” The political past had been displaced by the macabre present : “ The indescribable sorrow that follows every lonely last breath , when the ventilators turn off.
” Joe Biden isn ’ t nearly as dextrous a politician as Clinton or Barack Obama , each of whom found ways to unite the cosmopolitanism of the Democratic governing classes with the suffering of working people .
The hope for Biden , in the general election , is that he might substitute that skill with his own blunt experience @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pain , Biden might wear his own on his face .
The biographical video introducing Jill Biden emphasized the circumstances under which they met : he was a thirty-year-old senator who had recently lost his wife and infant daughter in a car accident that seriously injured their two sons .
“ How do you make a broken family whole ?
” Jill Biden asked .
“ The same way you make a nation whole .
With love and understanding and with small acts of kindness.
” At the end of the video , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ surprising ” his wife with a kiss , a mask dangling from his hand .
Biden may well be the last liberal of his generation to be nominated for President , and what his has candidacy has shed , above all , is the old Clintonite triumphalism .
The official theme of the night was repair , and this , too , has a generational element .
Biden is asking for the chance to fix what his generation has broken .

On Day Two of the Democratic National Convention, the Party’s recent past kept ghosting in and out. Before the networks had even begun their broadcasts, the Party rolled through half a century of its own history: Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, from Georgia, and then Caroline Kennedy and her son in front of the unpainted shingles of a Cape Cod home, and, finally, Bill Clinton, sitting on a flowered couch at his home in Chappaqua, New York. Clinton and Joe Biden form generational bookends—one moderate icon hailing another. But there was nothing especially historic, or historical, about Clinton’s praise of the nominee. His account leaned on Biden’s role in the Obama Administration’s response to the 2008 financial crisis. “Joe helped bring us back from a recession before, and he can do it again,” Clinton said. The Party’s political history of its candidate had been somewhat radically shortened, so that it began in 2008.
Is this still the Party that Clinton remade? Five prerecorded minutes, broadcast early on the second night of the Convention, indicated that his personal influence has waned. Ideologically, too, Democrats have drifted away from him: any talk of triangulation was largely left to the dissident Republicans who spoke on both Monday and Tuesday evenings. But, in other ways during the lead-up to the nomination of a Presidential candidate born in 1942 to challenge an incumbent born in 1946, older Democrats’ hold on their party’s politics remained strong—and not only in the frequency of Springsteen tracks. Biden, whose instinct has often been to seek out the center of his own party, once followed a moderate, Clintonite path, and the project of remaking him during this past year’s long primary campaign was one of suppressing those earlier stands: for the crime bill of 1994; for the Iraq war in 2003; and, above all, during the seventies, against court-mandated school desegregation. The Democrats who gave Biden the nomination seemed to want a familiar candidate, but actually nominating him has required eliding much of his political history.
Clinton’s ascendance, a generation ago, didn’t just mean a preference for pragmatism. It meant a belief in the transformative powers of youth. The Democratic Party of the nineteen-eighties—of Walter Mondale, Dick Gephardt, Dan Rostenkowski, and Geraldine Ferraro—was a traditional operation, dependent on political machines in declining cities and the workingman politics of big unions. The Party that Clinton celebrated at the 2000 Democratic National Convention—a handheld camera tracking him for over a minute as he strode through the bowels of the Staples Center, in Los Angeles, on his way to the podium—had been remade in his image: telegenic, optimistic, assured of its own expertise. The Democrats are still (relative to Republicans) the party of the future, but now the vision belongs to the Parkland survivors and the Sunrise Movement and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—another generational talent who is seen by her opponents as a media persona and by her supporters as a serious policy entrepreneur, a preternaturally talented political figure who arrives with white papers and twelve-point plans.
On Tuesday, the Party gave Ocasio-Cortez only the brief role of seconding the symbolic nomination of Bernie Sanders. She used it to dwell on some recent history that the Party might have been happy to paper over. Ocasio-Cortez praised the “mass people’s movement” behind Sanders’s campaign: “a movement striving to repair the wounds of racial injustice, colonization, misogyny, and homophobia, and to propose and build reimagined systems of immigration and foreign policy that turn away from the violence and xenophobia of our past.” Was she speaking from inside the Democratic tradition or outside it? She didn’t mention Biden once.
Ocasio-Cortez is often said to embody a generational break with senior Democrats. “In any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party,” she told New York, in January. But she also represents a suppressed strain. Watch the network coverage of the 1988 Democratic Convention and you’ll find that the standout performer wasn’t Michael Dukakis, whose acceptance speech was dull, or Clinton, then the governor of Arkansas, who spoke for thirty-three minutes and “completely lost this crowd,” in the words of Chris Matthews, then a young NBC reporter on the floor. (Biden, who was feuding with Dukakis’s campaign, missed the Convention because he was recovering from surgery for a brain aneurysm.) The obvious star was Jesse Jackson, then forty-six and the embodiment of a rising multiracial progressivism, having won nearly seven million votes and eleven contests in the primaries. “For almost eight years, we’ve been led by those who view social good coming from private interest, who view public life as a means to increase private wealth,” Jackson said. “We believe in a government that is a tool of our democracy, not an instrument of the aristocracy in search of private wealth.” Of all the talented speakers at that Convention, it was Jackson who would fit seamlessly onto the virtual stage of 2020.
In 1988, as the baby boomers took over the Party, Clinton’s vision represented a viable electoral proposition, and Jackson’s didn’t. Now, having spent much of his career working in a party that was dominated by the Clintonite wing, Biden finds himself the standard-bearer at a moment when leading the Party means undoing that choice—to identify the Democratic Party fully with the Black Lives Matter movement, to take a more combative stance on capital and wealth, to supplant Clinton’s legacy with Jackson’s.
That’s a big job for any politician. Perhaps it’s too big for this campaign. What the Biden operation has chosen instead is to include what it can’t reconcile. The work of embodying this reconciliation, on Tuesday night, fell to Jill Biden, who isn’t a politician at all, and whose speech, taped at a Delaware high school where she once taught, closed the evening. Neither the Biden campaign nor Jill Biden specialize in subtlety. “You can hear the anxiety that echoes down empty hallways,” she said. “There’s no scent of new notebooks or freshly waxed floors. The rooms are dark as the bright young faces that should fill them are now confined to boxes on a computer screen.” The political past had been displaced by the macabre present: “The indescribable sorrow that follows every lonely last breath, when the ventilators turn off.”
Joe Biden isn’t nearly as dextrous a politician as Clinton or Barack Obama, each of whom found ways to unite the cosmopolitanism of the Democratic governing classes with the suffering of working people. The hope for Biden, in the general election, is that he might substitute that skill with his own blunt experience of loss. If Clinton felt your pain, Biden might wear his own on his face. The biographical video introducing Jill Biden emphasized the circumstances under which they met: he was a thirty-year-old senator who had recently lost his wife and infant daughter in a car accident that seriously injured his two sons. “How do you make a broken family whole?” Jill Biden asked. “The same way you make a nation whole. With love and understanding and with small acts of kindness.”
At the end of the video, Joe Biden appeared in the classroom, “surprising” his wife with a kiss, a mask dangling from his hand. Biden may well be the last liberal of his generation to be nominated for President, and what his candidacy has shed, above all, is the old Clintonite triumphalism. The official theme of the night was repair, and this, too, has a generational element. Biden is asking for the chance to fix what his generation has broken.