newyorker--2020-11-26--Our Brains Explain the Season’s Sadness

Our Brains Explain the Season’s Sadness

I ’ ve been consumed this fall with a melancholy sadness .
It ’ s different from the loneliness that I felt in the early stage of the pandemic , during the lockdown , when I took a picture of my shadow after a neighborhood walk failed to jumpstart exercise endorphins .
Eleven months after COVID-19 spread globally , and during what would otherwise be a joyous Thanksgiving , my sorrow , and surely the emotion of many others , is more complicated .
Studies by health-care professionals show that our emotional challenges , from anxiety and depression to anger @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the pandemic .
In June , just three months into a historic health crisis , a survey by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention found that forty per cent of Americans were already struggling with at least one mental-health issue .
Among young adults between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four , one in four had thought about committing suicide during the previous thirty days .
By July , more than half of Americans over the age of eighteen said their mental health had been negatively affected by emotions evoked during the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In October , A.A.R.P .
reported that two-thirds of Americans felt increased anxiety .
For Americans , the pandemic ’ s spring scourge intersected with appalling human tragedies and unprecedented political rancor over the summer : the racial tension and unrest sparked by the murder of George Floyd , in the Midwest ; soaring unemployment , business shutdowns , and hunger nationwide ; the raging wildfires in the West and record-setting tropical storms in the South ; and a bizarre and bitter Presidential campaign .
Each calamity intensified our emotional state .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ by holidays without loved ones—at Thanksgiving , Christmas , and Hanukkah , then the New Year—and by the numbing rate of coronavirus infections and the darkening hours of winter .
The accumulation makes it harder , even with a vaccine around the corner .
So , over the past week , I ’ ve reached out to a neuroscientist , a sociologist , a psychologist , and a suicide expert to understand our states of mind .
Cheer up .
Just understanding the phenomenon—and the science of the brain that copes with crisis—helps @ @ @ @ @ @ @ timely new book , “ Apollo ’ s Arrow : The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live , ” Nicholas Christakis writes that epidemics also produce fear and grief that “ can themselves be contagious , forming a kind of parallel epidemic.
” Christakis , a sociologist and physician who directs the Human Nature Lab , at Yale , described a phenomenon called “ the cascades of grief.
” He told me , “ If the plague is one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse , then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Greek general and historian Thucydides , who noted during a plague in the fifth century B.C .
that “ the most terrible feature in the malady ” was public despair .
During a pandemic in the second century , the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius , observed , “ Corruption of the mind is a pest far worse than any such miasma and vitiation of the air which we breathe around us.
” This year ’ s simultaneous health , social , natural , and political crises have produced psychological phases , almost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University , told me .
“ Early on , I saw a lot of solidarity , ” she said .
It was visible when people took to their balconies or streets during the first phase of the pandemic to bang pots in support of medical workers and first responders .
Earlier data shows that suicides decrease at the onset of a national crisis “ as there ’ s a sense that we ’ re all in the same storm , ” Jonathan Singer , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and a professor at Loyola University in Chicago , told me .
But over the summer , fatigue and denial set in .
Holt-Lunstad explained , “ Initially , we all hoped that the pandemic was a short-term pause in life , but it lasted much longer than many anticipated.
” Social distancing and other restrictions exhausted patience and increased frustration ; some got tired of complying , and others took them as an affront to personal freedoms .
This fall , tension has emerged , even within families , over contact and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ own corrosive effect on the psyche , Holt-Lunstad told me .
There ’ s biology behind human connections , whether among family , friends , neighbors , or colleagues .
“ For many , people they thought were part of their tribe may not have the neurological signature of trust and safety anymore , ” she told me .
The problem goes beyond the reduction in contact with others .
“ Now we ’ re at the point where it ’ s difficult to get the emotional support from others that meet our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way our feelings bounce biologically off social networks is primitive and ancient , Christakis told me .
“ Our emotions have a collective existence .
They depend not only on your own genes and experiences .
They also depend on the biochemistry , genetics , physiology , thoughts , feelings , and actions of the people to whom we are directly—or even indirectly—connected.
” Our emotional state depends on what ’ s happening around us .
“ It ’ s the same with the germ and the same with emotions , ” he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ limited to humans .
Other species experience it as well .
“ If you map the social networks of elephants , you find that they are structurally the same as among humans—and our last common ancestor is from eighty-five million years ago , ” he said .
The good news is that , physiologically , science now understands the origin of the sadness and anger fuelling our current mental-health challenges .
Blame it on the prefrontal cortex , Jim Coan , a neuroscientist , clinical psychologist , and the director of the University @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , told me .
“ The prefrontal cortex is capable of doing these incredible things that no other animal can do .
It ’ s like the Ferrari car of our brain .
It is our majestic human-evolution innovation .
It helps us anticipate the future , make contingency plans , maintain vigilance for threats or opportunities , ruminate about past events in order to figure them out.
” It basically carries out the executive functions of the brain .
The reason that many feel troubled now , Coan said , is because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nutrients to the brain , is finite .
The brain moves blood around in short-term loans to its various parts as situations demand .
“ But the blood supply is not enough to run every part of the brain at the same time , ” he said .
“ When you ’ re running that prefrontal cortex at top speed , it ’ s sucking up a lot of blood from the brain .
So that ’ s the reason we subjectively experience a cognitive exhaustion and fatigue.
” The myriad crises each @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a second on political turmoil , a third on career and income , a fourth on kids and their education , a fifth on civil unrest , a sixth on wildfires and other climate catastrophes , and so on .
That ’ s six or seven eyes , and we only have two , Coan said .
Grief , anxiety , and trauma are pervasive today partly because the coronavirus surprised us .
Throughout most of history , human societies expected pestilence , famines , and nature ’ s disasters to cyclically cause @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Old Testament and ancient Greek and Roman literature .
But in the second half of the twentieth century , after the Great Depression and the two World Wars , modern progress allowed increasingly large numbers of people freedom from worries about daily subsistence , disease , or inexplicable natural disasters .
Science produced vaccines that warded off deadly diseases .
As a child , I was part of the clinical trial for the Salk vaccine for polio .
Modern economies were able to rebound after the great wars and repeated depressions .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ would always prevail .
We ’ ve refused to be humble or honest about our vulnerability .
“ It ’ s an arrogance that we should be spared our time in the crucible , ” Christakis said .
For me , the sadness is compounded by how many will die even as at least three new vaccines that could protect us are so close to being available .
It reminds me of the wars I ’ ve covered when peace talks have begun but the killing continues as negotiators dither over political and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ died in the final six hours of the First World War , between the signing of the pre-dawn peace agreement , in a railway car north of Paris , and when the Armistice formally took effect , at eleven A.M. Henry Gunther was the last American to be killed—exactly a minute before the war formally ended .
With sadness , I ’ ve thought of the American who might be last to die from COVID-19 .
In the meantime , we need to pay attention to the signals from our brains .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ encourage us gently not to use the prefrontal cortex so much , ” Coan told me .
That part of the brain is there to help humans be the dominant species on Earth , “ but it ’ s important for us to sparingly utilize the resource that is so magically powerful .
It has other shit to do.
” There are simple ways to relieve demands on the prefrontal cortex , such as getting enough sleep and basic exercise .
“ You brute-force a way to keep your prefrontal cortex from doing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Another is a vacation that reduces the demand for focus to an activity that requires only one eye .
And , perhaps , holiday lights .
In the past week , I ’ ve been surprised by how many people in my neighborhood , in Washington , D.C. , have put up twinkling lights and trees that usually go on display two or three weeks later in the year .
I ’ m convinced it ’ s a reflection of our brains ’ quest to alleviate sadness .
Homebound Americans began adorning yards @ @ @ @ @ @ @ year for the first time , the Wall Street Journal reported .
The connection is clear .
The Washington Post quoted the manager of a local Christmas-decoration store who reported that her top-selling items are pandemic-themed ornaments—emblazoned with toilet paper , hand sanitizer , masks , and pictures of Dr. Anthony Fauci .

I’ve been consumed this fall with a melancholy sadness. It’s different from the loneliness that I felt in the early stage of the pandemic, during the lockdown, when I took a picture of my shadow after a neighborhood walk failed to jumpstart exercise endorphins. Eleven months after COVID-19 spread globally, and during what would otherwise be a joyous Thanksgiving, my sorrow, and surely the emotion of many others, is more complicated. Studies by health-care professionals show that our emotional challenges, from anxiety and depression to anger and fear, have been deepened by the pandemic. In June, just three months into a historic health crisis, a survey by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention found that forty per cent of Americans were already struggling with at least one mental-health issue. Among young adults between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four, one in four had thought about committing suicide during the previous thirty days. By July, more than half of Americans over the age of eighteen said their mental health had been negatively affected by emotions evoked during the pandemic, the Kaiser Family Foundation found. In October, A.A.R.P. reported that two-thirds of Americans felt increased anxiety.
Get Support If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 or chat at 988Lifeline.org.
For Americans, the pandemic’s spring scourge intersected with appalling human tragedies and unprecedented political rancor over the summer: the racial tension and unrest sparked by the murder of George Floyd, in the Midwest; soaring unemployment, business shutdowns, and hunger nationwide; the raging wildfires in the West and record-setting tropical storms in the South; and a bizarre and bitter Presidential campaign. Each calamity intensified our emotional state. Now, our anxieties are further compounded by holidays without loved ones—at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Hanukkah, then the New Year—and by the numbing rate of coronavirus infections and the darkening hours of winter. The accumulation makes it harder, even with a vaccine around the corner. So, over the past week, I’ve reached out to a neuroscientist, a sociologist, a psychologist, and a suicide expert to understand our states of mind.
Cheer up. Just understanding the phenomenon—and the science of the brain that copes with crisis—helps a lot. In an excellent and timely new book, “Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live,” Nicholas Christakis writes that epidemics also produce fear and grief that “can themselves be contagious, forming a kind of parallel epidemic.” Christakis, a sociologist and physician who directs the Human Nature Lab, at Yale, described a phenomenon called “the cascades of grief.” He told me, “If the plague is one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, then grief is its squire.” Christakis quoted the Greek general and historian Thucydides, who noted during a plague in the fifth century B.C. that “the most terrible feature in the malady” was public despair. During a pandemic in the second century, the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius observed, “Corruption of the mind is a pest far worse than any such miasma and vitiation of the air which we breathe around us.”
This year’s simultaneous health, social, natural, and political crises have produced psychological phases, almost like seasons, Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University, told me. “Early on, I saw a lot of solidarity,” she said. It was visible when people took to their balconies or streets during the first phase of the pandemic to bang pots in support of medical workers and first responders. Earlier data shows that suicides decrease at the onset of a national crisis “as there’s a sense that we’re all in the same storm,” Jonathan Singer, the president of the American Association of Suicidology and a professor at Loyola University in Chicago, told me.
But over the summer, fatigue and denial set in. Holt-Lunstad explained, “Initially, we all hoped that the pandemic was a short-term pause in life, but it lasted much longer than many anticipated.” Social distancing and other restrictions exhausted patience and increased frustration; some got tired of complying, and others took them as an affront to personal freedoms. This fall, tension has emerged, even within families, over contact and precautions, causing divisions that have their own corrosive effect on the psyche, Holt-Lunstad told me. There’s biology behind human connections, whether among family, friends, neighbors, or colleagues. “For many, people they thought were part of their tribe may not have the neurological signature of trust and safety anymore,” she told me. The problem goes beyond the reduction in contact with others. “Now we’re at the point where it’s difficult to get the emotional support from others that meet our biological needs as social beings.”
The way our feelings bounce biologically off social networks is primitive and ancient, Christakis told me. “Our emotions have a collective existence. They depend not only on your own genes and experiences. They also depend on the biochemistry, genetics, physiology, thoughts, feelings, and actions of the people to whom we are directly—or even indirectly—connected.” Our emotional state depends on what’s happening around us. “It’s the same with the germ and the same with emotions,” he said. And it’s not limited to humans. Other species experience it as well. “If you map the social networks of elephants, you find that they are structurally the same as among humans—and our last common ancestor is from eighty-five million years ago,” he said.
The good news is that, physiologically, science now understands the origin of the sadness and anger fuelling our current mental-health challenges. Blame it on the prefrontal cortex, Jim Coan, a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and the director of the University of Virginia’s Affective Neuroscience Laboratory, told me. “The prefrontal cortex is capable of doing these incredible things that no other animal can do. It’s like the Ferrari car of our brain. It is our majestic human-evolution innovation. It helps us anticipate the future, make contingency plans, maintain vigilance for threats or opportunities, ruminate about past events in order to figure them out.” It basically carries out the executive functions of the brain.
The reason that many feel troubled now, Coan said, is because the flow of blood, which brings nutrients to the brain, is finite. The brain moves blood around in short-term loans to its various parts as situations demand. “But the blood supply is not enough to run every part of the brain at the same time,” he said. “When you’re running that prefrontal cortex at top speed, it’s sucking up a lot of blood from the brain. So that’s the reason we subjectively experience a cognitive exhaustion and fatigue.” The myriad crises each demand attention—one eye on the virus, a second on political turmoil, a third on career and income, a fourth on kids and their education, a fifth on civil unrest, a sixth on wildfires and other climate catastrophes, and so on. That’s six or seven eyes, and we only have two, Coan said.
Grief, anxiety, and trauma are pervasive today partly because the coronavirus surprised us. Throughout most of history, human societies expected pestilence, famines, and nature’s disasters to cyclically cause calamitous death or destruction. Epidemics fill the Old Testament and ancient Greek and Roman literature. But in the second half of the twentieth century, after the Great Depression and the two World Wars, modern progress allowed increasingly large numbers of people freedom from worries about daily subsistence, disease, or inexplicable natural disasters. Science produced vaccines that warded off deadly diseases. As a child, I was part of the clinical trial for the Salk vaccine for polio. Modern economies were able to rebound after the great wars and repeated depressions. Progress duped us into thinking modern humans would always prevail. We’ve refused to be humble or honest about our vulnerability. “It’s an arrogance that we should be spared our time in the crucible,” Christakis said.
For me, the sadness is compounded by how many will die even as at least three new vaccines that could protect us are so close to being available. It reminds me of the wars I’ve covered when peace talks have begun but the killing continues as negotiators dither over political and territorial terms. Almost eleven thousand people died in the final six hours of the First World War, between the signing of the pre-dawn peace agreement, in a railway car north of Paris, and when the Armistice formally took effect, at eleven A.M. Henry Gunther was the last American to be killed—exactly a minute before the war formally ended. With sadness, I’ve thought of the American who might be last to die from COVID-19.
In the meantime, we need to pay attention to the signals from our brains. “Our brains have a way to encourage us gently not to use the prefrontal cortex so much,” Coan told me. That part of the brain is there to help humans be the dominant species on Earth, “but it’s important for us to sparingly utilize the resource that is so magically powerful. It has other shit to do.” There are simple ways to relieve demands on the prefrontal cortex, such as getting enough sleep and basic exercise. “You brute-force a way to keep your prefrontal cortex from doing its work,” Coan said. Another is a vacation that reduces the demand for focus to an activity that requires only one eye.
And, perhaps, holiday lights. In the past week, I’ve been surprised by how many people in my neighborhood, in Washington, D.C., have put up twinkling lights and trees that usually go on display two or three weeks later in the year. I’m convinced it’s a reflection of our brains’ quest to alleviate sadness. Homebound Americans began adorning yards and homes with lights after Halloween this year for the first time, the Wall Street Journal reported. The connection is clear. The Washington Post quoted the manager of a local Christmas-decoration store who reported that her top-selling items are pandemic-themed ornaments—emblazoned with toilet paper, hand sanitizer, masks, and pictures of Dr. Anthony Fauci.


newyorker--2020-11-26--Melania Banishes Trump to Children’s Table

WASHINGTON ( The Borowitz Report ) —Claiming that his tantrum about losing the election had ruined Thanksgiving , Melania Trump exiled her husband to the children ’ s table .
Donald J. Trump ’ s expulsion occurred shortly after his wife asked those at the grownups ’ table to name things for which they were thankful .
Jared Kushner named “ doing such a kick-ass job on the pandemic , ” Ivanka Trump cited “ that I didn ’ t talk to Bob Woodward , ” and Rudy Giuliani chose “ my beautiful , naturally dark hair.
” When it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he launched into a ten-minute tirade about an election-stealing conspiracy involving George Soros , Dr. Anthony Fauci , and “ well-known Antifa sympathizer Tucker Carlson.
” By the time he began calling for the imprisonment of Lesley Stahl , Melania had heard enough .
“ You just wrecked Thanksgiving , which is my favorite holiday , ” she said .
“ It ’ s not like Christmas , which totally blows.
” She then banished her sulking husband to the children ’ s table , causing Barron Trump to remark , “ Why @ @ @ @ @ @ @ later emerged victorious in a wishbone game with his father , who demanded that the result of that contest be overturned .

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Claiming that his tantrum about losing the election had ruined Thanksgiving, Melania Trump exiled her husband to the children’s table.
Donald J. Trump’s expulsion occurred shortly after his wife asked those at the grownups’ table to name things for which they were thankful.
Jared Kushner named “doing such a kick-ass job on the pandemic,” Ivanka Trump cited “that I didn’t talk to Bob Woodward,” and Rudy Giuliani chose “my beautiful, naturally dark hair.”
When it was the President’s turn, he launched into a ten-minute tirade about an election-stealing conspiracy involving George Soros, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and “well-known Antifa sympathizer Tucker Carlson.”
By the time he began calling for the imprisonment of Lesley Stahl, Melania had heard enough.
“You just wrecked Thanksgiving, which is my favorite holiday,” she said. “It’s not like Christmas, which totally blows.”
She then banished her sulking husband to the children’s table, causing Barron Trump to remark, “Why am I being punished?”
Barron later emerged victorious in a wishbone game with his father, who demanded that the result of that contest be overturned.
Read More Satire from the Borowitz Report


newyorker--2020-11-27--Alternatives to the Electoral College

Alternatives to the Electoral College

Clearly , the Electoral College is a hot topic .
Plenty of voters , tired of its archaic , winner-take-all structure , seem ready to abandon it altogether .
But what then ?
How would we choose a President ?
Here are a few suggestions .
In ranked-choice voting , citizens vote for multiple candidates : a first choice , second choice , and so on .
If no candidate receives more than half the votes , the least-popular candidate is removed and the remaining contenders are locked in a windowless room to determine “ who wants it most.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s time and calls an Uber .
This is the same as ranked-choice voting , except viewers can watch a live stream of inside the windowless room , for $ 19.95 .
Democrats gather in the Pacific Northwest , Republicans in the Southeast .
Each group grasps one end of a twenty-five-hundred-mile-long rope and , on Wolf Blitzer ’ s count of three , pulls with all its might .
A bandanna is tied to the middle of the rope ; the first side to move that bandanna out of Kansas wins @ @ @ @ @ @ @ go of the rope suddenly , causing the other group to fall backward in a humiliating way .
( Third-party voters can watch the action in person or from the comfort of their homes . )
Each candidate gets to choose three of their sharpest , most prominent supporters to face off in an hours-long battle of wits , moderated by Steve Harvey .
For instance , a 2020 version might have featured Trump enthusiasts Scott Baio , Kirstie Alley , and Stephen Baldwin squaring off against Biden backers Jon Stewart and Michelle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the director of both Binghamton University ’ s chemistry department and the NorthEast Center for Chemical Energy Storage , a research center funded by the U.S. Energy Department .
Categories would include such topics as “ Civics 101 , ” “ American History , ” and “ Chemistry.
” The winning team ’ s candidate becomes President ; runners-up go home with a solid-oak bedroom set .
I ’ m not sure how exactly this would work as far as electing a President @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wouldn ’ t it be fun to watch ?
Chop , chop !
Saw , saw !
Every four years , residents of a small town in America ’ s heartland prepare slips of paper , placing a black dot on all but one of them .
On Election Day , the candidates join the townsfolk for a public drawing .
One by one , they are called to take a slip from a box .
The candidate who chooses the blank slip wins the Presidency ; all others get stoned , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ question decriminalized recreational marijuana use in a previous election .
This one is self-explanatory , and elegant in its simplicity .
But are Americans really ready to go there ?
Oh , my God , yes .
No question .
Should we ?
Perhaps not .
Let ’ s move on .
On Election Day , voters across the nation cast their “ ballots ” in the form of red or blue marbles .
Rules vary by state , but these marbles may be mailed to local election offices or taken in person @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them onto wire tracks .
These tracks take the marbles on a whimsical roller coaster of a journey to the state election office , where they fall from a chute in the ceiling onto a large scale .
Eventually , the scale sinks low enough to depress a switch , which starts a fan , which blows a toy sailboat across a kiddie pool , at the far side of which is an inflated balloon .
A needle affixed to the bow of the boat pops the balloon , startling a nearby elector @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pulls a blue or red lever , recording a vote for either the Democratic candidate or the Republican one .
Also , somewhere in there , the marble triggers a series of mechanical arms that light a gas burner under a skillet and crack and fry an egg—a treat for the elector !
Each voter casts a ballot for his or her preferred candidate .
In the end , the votes are counted and the candidate with the most votes wins .
On second thought , forget this one .
It ’ ll @ @ @

Ask Americans what they think of the Electoral College and you’ll hear a wide range of opinions, from “I don’t know” to “How did you get this number?” Press them for specifics and some will get downright angry!
Clearly, the Electoral College is a hot topic. Plenty of voters, tired of its archaic, winner-take-all structure, seem ready to abandon it altogether. But what then? How would we choose a President? Here are a few suggestions.
Ranked Choice
In ranked-choice voting, citizens vote for multiple candidates: a first choice, second choice, and so on. If no candidate receives more than half the votes, the least-popular candidate is removed and the remaining contenders are locked in a windowless room to determine “who wants it most.” The least-popular candidate apologizes for wasting everyone’s time and calls an Uber.
Ranked Choice Plus™
This is the same as ranked-choice voting, except viewers can watch a live stream of inside the windowless room, for $19.95.
Tug-of-War
Democrats gather in the Pacific Northwest, Republicans in the Southeast. Each group grasps one end of a twenty-five-hundred-mile-long rope and, on Wolf Blitzer’s count of three, pulls with all its might. A bandanna is tied to the middle of the rope; the first side to move that bandanna out of Kansas wins the Presidency and is entitled to let go of the rope suddenly, causing the other group to fall backward in a humiliating way. (Third-party voters can watch the action in person or from the comfort of their homes.)
Quiz Show
Each candidate gets to choose three of their sharpest, most prominent supporters to face off in an hours-long battle of wits, moderated by Steve Harvey.
For instance, a 2020 version might have featured Trump enthusiasts Scott Baio, Kirstie Alley, and Stephen Baldwin squaring off against Biden backers Jon Stewart and Michelle Obama and also M. Stanley Whittingham, a winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the director of both Binghamton University’s chemistry department and the NorthEast Center for Chemical Energy Storage, a research center funded by the U.S. Energy Department. Categories would include such topics as “Civics 101,” “American History,” and “Chemistry.”
The winning team’s candidate becomes President; runners-up go home with a solid-oak bedroom set.
Lumberjack Competition
I’m not sure how exactly this would work as far as electing a President is concerned, but, man, wouldn’t it be fun to watch? Chop, chop! Saw, saw!
Lottery
Every four years, residents of a small town in America’s heartland prepare slips of paper, placing a black dot on all but one of them. On Election Day, the candidates join the townsfolk for a public drawing. One by one, they are called to take a slip from a box. The candidate who chooses the blank slip wins the Presidency; all others get stoned, which is cool, because the town in question decriminalized recreational marijuana use in a previous election.
Steel-Cage Death Match
This one is self-explanatory, and elegant in its simplicity. But are Americans really ready to go there? Oh, my God, yes. No question. Should we? Perhaps not. Let’s move on.
Goldberg
On Election Day, voters across the nation cast their “ballots” in the form of red or blue marbles. Rules vary by state, but these marbles may be mailed to local election offices or taken in person to certified drop-off funnels, which deposit them onto wire tracks. These tracks take the marbles on a whimsical roller coaster of a journey to the state election office, where they fall from a chute in the ceiling onto a large scale. Eventually, the scale sinks low enough to depress a switch, which starts a fan, which blows a toy sailboat across a kiddie pool, at the far side of which is an inflated balloon. A needle affixed to the bow of the boat pops the balloon, startling a nearby elector, who races across the room and pulls a blue or red lever, recording a vote for either the Democratic candidate or the Republican one.
Also, somewhere in there, the marble triggers a series of mechanical arms that light a gas burner under a skillet and crack and fry an egg—a treat for the elector!
Popular Vote
Each voter casts a ballot for his or her preferred candidate. In the end, the votes are counted and the candidate with the most votes wins.
On second thought, forget this one. It’ll never fly.


newyorker--2020-11-27--A Prisoners’ Chorus in “Breathing Free”

A Prisoners’ Chorus in “Breathing Free”

The most memorable moment in Heartbeat Opera ’ s “ Fidelio , ” from 2018 , was a video of @ @ @ @ @ and women , including Michael Powell ( pictured ) —singing .
Heartbeat ’ s new @ @ @ @ @ Free ” ( Dec. 4-12 ) , pairs excerpts from the Beethoven opera with spirituals @ @ @ @ @ to consider the racial disparities in classical music , the prison system , and beyond @ @ @ @ @ released from prison in May amid a COVID-19 outbreak , joins a panel discussion on @ @ @

The most memorable moment in Heartbeat Opera’s “Fidelio,” from 2018, was a video of several prison choruses—dozens of men and women, including Michael Powell (pictured)—singing. Heartbeat’s new streaming show, “Breathing Free” (Dec. 4-12), pairs excerpts from the Beethoven opera with spirituals and works by Black composers to consider the racial disparities in classical music, the prison system, and beyond. Powell, who was released from prison in May amid a COVID-19 outbreak, joins a panel discussion on Dec. 5.


newyorker--2020-11-27--In Greenpoint, Edy’s Grocer Offers Lebanese Food with a Nod to the Polish Past

During the first few years of his career , the chef Edouard ( Edy ) Massih , who started a Brooklyn-based catering company when he was twenty-two , got into the habit of lying about his age .
If anyone asked , he was thirty .
“ New York has a really bad problem with ageism , ” he told me the other day .
“ Nobody takes you seriously if you ’ re in your early twenties .
You ’ re just another millennial who doesn ’ t know what they ’ re doing.
” Plenty of clients who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , including weddings and bat mitzvahs , were none the wiser , and none the worse for it ; their glowing recommendations were how he built a booming business and became a darling of the fashion world , completely by word of mouth .
But the person who gave him perhaps his biggest boost knew exactly how old he was .
Maria Puk opened Maria ’ s Deli , in Greenpoint , in 1978 , when she was just twenty-four , fourteen years after she ’ d immigrated to New York from Poland @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lebanon and immigrated to the U.S. when he was ten , has lived in Greenpoint since 2014 ; he became a regular of the deli , and then close friends with Puk , whom he thinks of as his honorary grandmother .
The pair had spoken casually about Massih someday taking over the business .
When the pandemic hit and Puk decided to move to Pennsylvania , it became a reality much sooner than either had imagined .
In July , just a few months before Massih turned twenty-six , Maria ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an invitingly bright and cheerful shop and café .
Students of Sahadi ’ s , a hundred-and-twenty-year-old Middle Eastern market with locations in Brooklyn Heights and Industry City , will recognize many of the packaged goods ; Massih uses the store , which is owned by a Lebanese family , as a supplier .
Floor-to-ceiling shelves , painted pale pink , are lined with Lebanese olive oil ( sourced from near where Massih was born , and where his grandfather presses small amounts of his own ) , rose water , pomegranate molasses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ potato chips , and sesame-studded breadsticks .
But Edy ’ s is much more than a Sahadi ’ s satellite .
Massih carries domestically made products from companies started by other young immigrants , including tahini and halvah from Seed + Mill and Sound sparkling rose-cardamom tea .
A rotating monthly menu offers house-made Lebanese soups such as adas bil hamoud , a lemony lentil , and made-to-order dishes such as a man ’ oushe , or Lebanese breakfast flatbread , topped with tomato , cucumber , olives , and za ’ atar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ grilled cheese featuring thyme-and-chili-flecked feta and a layer of fig jam .
The meze stacked in the glass refrigerators are all Massih ’ s own , a tantalizing array including stuffed grape leaves , marinated olives , garlicky labneh , and spicy tomato jam .
For dinner one recent night , I collected them all , plus pita ( from Damascus Bread & Pastry Shop , next to Sahadi ’ s on Atlantic Avenue ) , a container of winter-squash fatteh—a mix of roasted butternut , delicata , and acorn , tossed with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which Massih describes as Lebanese dirty rice , flecked with fine-ground beef , plump shreds of chicken , melty bits of onion , and pomegranate seeds .
For good measure , I swept the “ Polish Classics ” section of the menu , too .
Massih is bold in looking ahead—the world needs a Middle Eastern equivalent to Massimo Bottura and David Chang , he told me—but uninterested in erasing the past .
He pays tribute to his predecessor with pancakes of shredded potato or zucchini , plus a preposterously puffy fried-apple @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ramekin of sour cream seasoned with harissa or cinnamon .
Among the jars of pickled Lebanese wild cucumbers ( thinner and reedier than the domesticated kind ) and grilled-eggplant pulp , you ’ ll find Polish sauerkraut , grainy mustard , strawberry syrup , and cherry confiture , preserves both literal and figurative .
( Meze and ready-to-heat dishes $ 3.50- $ 20 . )
♦

During the first few years of his career, the chef Edouard (Edy) Massih, who started a Brooklyn-based catering company when he was twenty-two, got into the habit of lying about his age. If anyone asked, he was thirty. “New York has a really bad problem with ageism,” he told me the other day. “Nobody takes you seriously if you’re in your early twenties. You’re just another millennial who doesn’t know what they’re doing.”
Meze, clockwise from left: baba ghanoush; hummus; stuffed grape leaves; marinated feta. Photograph by Heami Lee for The New Yorker
Plenty of clients who hired him to pull off lavish events, including weddings and bat mitzvahs, were none the wiser, and none the worse for it; their glowing recommendations were how he built a booming business and became a darling of the fashion world, completely by word of mouth. But the person who gave him perhaps his biggest boost knew exactly how old he was. Maria Puk opened Maria’s Deli, in Greenpoint, in 1978, when she was just twenty-four, fourteen years after she’d immigrated to New York from Poland. Massih, who was born in Lebanon and immigrated to the U.S. when he was ten, has lived in Greenpoint since 2014; he became a regular of the deli, and then close friends with Puk, whom he thinks of as his honorary grandmother. The pair had spoken casually about Massih someday taking over the business. When the pandemic hit and Puk decided to move to Pennsylvania, it became a reality much sooner than either had imagined. In July, just a few months before Massih turned twenty-six, Maria’s Deli became Edy’s Grocer, an invitingly bright and cheerful shop and café.
Rotating dessert options include lemon-rosewater polenta cakes. Photograph by Heami Lee for The New Yorker
Students of Sahadi’s, a hundred-and-twenty-year-old Middle Eastern market with locations in Brooklyn Heights and Industry City, will recognize many of the packaged goods; Massih uses the store, which is owned by a Lebanese family, as a supplier. Floor-to-ceiling shelves, painted pale pink, are lined with Lebanese olive oil (sourced from near where Massih was born, and where his grandfather presses small amounts of his own), rose water, pomegranate molasses, grains and lentils galore, Master-brand potato chips, and sesame-studded breadsticks.
In July, at the age of twenty-five, Edouard (Edy) Massih took over the shop from Maria Puk, a Polish immigrant who opened it, as Maria’s Deli, in 1978, when she was twenty-four. Photograph by Heami Lee for The New Yorker
But Edy’s is much more than a Sahadi’s satellite. Massih carries domestically made products from companies started by other young immigrants, including tahini and halvah from Seed + Mill and Sound sparkling rose-cardamom tea. A rotating monthly menu offers house-made Lebanese soups such as adas bil hamoud, a lemony lentil, and made-to-order dishes such as a man’oushe, or Lebanese breakfast flatbread, topped with tomato, cucumber, olives, and za’atar; a chicken-shawarma wrap; and a grilled cheese featuring thyme-and-chili-flecked feta and a layer of fig jam.
The meze stacked in the glass refrigerators are all Massih’s own, a tantalizing array including stuffed grape leaves, marinated olives, garlicky labneh, and spicy tomato jam. For dinner one recent night, I collected them all, plus pita (from Damascus Bread & Pastry Shop, next to Sahadi’s on Atlantic Avenue), a container of winter-squash fatteh—a mix of roasted butternut, delicata, and acorn, tossed with chickpeas and tahini—and ready-to-heat riz a jej, which Massih describes as Lebanese dirty rice, flecked with fine-ground beef, plump shreds of chicken, melty bits of onion, and pomegranate seeds.
Edy’s winter-squash fatteh, featuring butternut, acorn, and delicata, tossed with chickpeas and tahini. Photograph by Heami Lee for The New Yorker
For good measure, I swept the “Polish Classics” section of the menu, too. Massih is bold in looking ahead—the world needs a Middle Eastern equivalent to Massimo Bottura and David Chang, he told me—but uninterested in erasing the past. He pays tribute to his predecessor with pancakes of shredded potato or zucchini, plus a preposterously puffy fried-apple variety, each served with a plastic ramekin of sour cream seasoned with harissa or cinnamon. Among the jars of pickled Lebanese wild cucumbers (thinner and reedier than the domesticated kind) and grilled-eggplant pulp, you’ll find Polish sauerkraut, grainy mustard, strawberry syrup, and cherry confiture, preserves both literal and figurative. (Meze and ready-to-heat dishes $3.50-$20.) ♦


newyorker--2020-11-27--New Releases from Sonny Rollins and Charles Mingus Reveal Crucial Conceptions of Political Art

Rollins , who is ninety , is no longer able to play the saxophone , but his recorded legacy continues to grow .
This three-LP set , featuring radio and concert performances from May , 1967 , comes out on Friday , for Record Store Day ( and as a two-CD set on December 4th ) , and it ’ s a major addition to his discography .
In 1958 , Rollins recorded “ Freedom Suite , ” an album that featured , as its title track , a nineteen-minute piece featuring four movements with extended improvisations on four distinct @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a crucial forebear to John Coltrane ’ s similarly structured album , “ A Love Supreme , ” from 1964 , and stands on its own as perhaps the first jazz album to make explicit reference to the oppression of Black Americans .
It did so both with its title and with Rollins ’ s note on the record jacket , which stated that “ the Negro , who has long exemplified the humanities in his very existence , is being rewarded with inhumanity.
” The album features him playing the tenor saxophone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the drummer Max Roach ( who was also a prominent activist , the leader of the recording “ We Insist !
Freedom Now Suite , ” from 1960 ) and the bassist Oscar Pettiford .
It ’ s the same instrumentation that figures on many of Rollins ’ s classic performances , including the Holland recordings , and the format exemplifies a dimension of artistic freedom that Rollins made a crucial part of his social vision .
If every great jazz musician has a pull toward the other arts , Rollins works as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ musician whose solos build not only musical ideas but drama .
His emphasis on melodic and thematic improvisation , along with harmonic exploration , gives him more musical material to work with than other soloists give themselves , and his inclination to see long musical story arcs adds yet another dimension to his art—and makes long solos inevitable .
For music , time is space , and Rollins is a virtual landscape artist , one who sees panoramically and travels extensively through the musical realm of his time and through his own imaginative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and a drummer , Rollins kept most of the solo space for himself , and , in concert , he often played numbers that ran fifteen minutes or more—and such heroic performances are the heart and highlights of “ Rollins in Holland , ” where he ’ s accompanied by the Dutch musicians Ruud Jacobs , on bass , and Han Bennink , on drums .
Rollins , a bebop prodigy who made historic recordings with Bud Powell at the age of eighteen , developed and expanded his art to embrace and to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crucial contemporaries as Coltrane and Ornette Coleman ( who rose to prominence a decade later ) , and the 1967 Holland sessions reflect his central place in the music ’ s evolution .
The compositions that he plays are from the Great American Songbook ( including three renditions of George Gershwin ’ s “ Love Walked In ” ) or the bebop-and-beyond book ( including two versions each of his own “ Sonnymoon for Two ” and Miles Davis ’ s “ Four ” ) , but what he does with them is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the new album was recorded in concert on May 3rd , and four of its five tracks run more than fifteen minutes , with two running for more than twenty .
On the up-tempo “ Three Little Words , ” Rollins plays for twenty-two straight minutes , punctuating his vigorous variations on the theme with a wild skein of shredding tones and abrupt fragments filled with a gleeful range of musical quotations , including the standard “ Polka Dots and Moonbeams ” and his own compositions “ St .
Thomas ” and “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to an exuberant shuffle , which Bennink and Jacobs deftly follow .
As the concert continues , Rollins ’ s shifts of tone and tempo grow even freer , with accelerations into mercurial high-velocity phrases of off-balance length that challenge Bennink and push the music into high-wire rhythmic ambiguity .
In the mid-sixties , Rollins was pushing his performances to ever more challenging heights of freedom , both in what he did with the melodies at hand and how he associated them with a virtual sense of musical montage—and the Holland concert is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ art .
These mighty performances , without any explicit political reference in the titles , are linked in form , tone , and ethos to “ Freedom Suite , ” and extend its stylistic range to the new times .
Charles Mingus , a virtuosic bassist and a complex and prolific composer , put political protest at the fore of his work , as with his 1959 composition “ Fables of Faubus ” ( referring to the segregationist governor of Arkansas , and including such lyrics as “ Oh Lord , no more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ku Klux Klan !
” ) and his 1960 piece “ Prayer for Passive Resistance.
” Born in 1922 , Mingus is a figure of paradox—and he knew it .
He was the most original bassist of the era , as soloist and accompanist ; he played with the great innovators of the time , including Charlie Parker , Dizzy Gillespie , and Bud Powell , and he also was a partner , with Duke Ellington and Max Roach , in my personal nominee for the greatest jazz album ever , “ Money @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and unlike the bebop heroes , was more of a composer than he was a soloist ; his sharply self-aware confrontation with history was a matter of both politics and art .
In a 1972 interview with John F. Goodman in the book “ Mingus Speaks , ” Mingus says , “ Charlie Parker was the most modern thing , but actually I should have come before him .
.
.
.
Then Bird should have come in , but instead they completely ignored me and I had to go play Bird ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ glad I did—I learned a lot from that—but it ’ s not honest because it makes kids come up and think [ jazz has ] got ta fit to this form right here.
” The two concert recordings featured in the four-CD set “ Charles Mingus @ Bremen ” suggests just what Mingus had in mind regarding his intermediate position between swing and bop : Mingus ’ s bands featured some of the best soloists of the time , but , unlike when they were playing in their own groups , their solos @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tethered to Mingus ’ s compositions as were big-band soloists .
Yet they were doing so in the age of the heroic soloist , and Mingus gives the great musicians here vast swaths of solo time .
Yet unlike , say , Rollins ’ s associative solos with his trio , their extended solos are patterned by the harmonic , rhythmic , and thematic contours of Mingus ’ s compositions .
The results are highly characterized : as with Ellington ’ s band , each piece is more than a set of solos @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that seems peopled and dramatized .
The artistic tendency of Mingus ’ s music is theatre ; he often relied on voices ( recitations and chants as well as singing ) , and Mingus , in relying on the history of jazz and variety of styles , ranging from stride piano to swing to bop to the avant-garde , treated idioms like personae , and worked best with musicians who shared his sense of history and of musical variety—and , for that matter , of derisive comedy along with heroic passion .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ features Mingus ’ s sextet , which showcases one of the most original and innovative jazz musicians , Eric Dolphy , who , in June of that year , after leaving Mingus ’ s group , died , in Berlin , of diabetic shock , at the age of thirty-six .
Dolphy ’ s recorded legacy is far too slight compared to his accomplishment , achievements , and the sheer quantity of his playing in the brief span of the early sixties .
His extended solos here on alto sax and bass clarinet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ place in Mingus ’ s compositions , including a tribute to Parker , “ Parkeriana ” ; “ Meditations on Integration ” ; and a thirty-three-minute version of “ Fables of Faubus , ” in which Dolphy plays a thrillingly extended and daring unaccompanied cadenza .
In the 1975 concert , Mingus ’ s group is a quintet .
The prime soloists—George Adams , playing tenor sax ; and the pianist Don Pullen , whose inclinations are toward the avant-garde—temper torrential , wildly vehement passages with self-consciously dramatic references to the emotional tones @ @ @ @ @ @ @ compositions ( which included the expressly political “ Free Cell Block F , ’ Tis Nazi USA ” and the music-historical “ Duke Ellington ’ s Sound of Love ” ) .
This quintet was Mingus ’ s last great band ; he fell gravely ill in 1977 and was diagnosed with A.L.S.
, and died in 1979 .
I ’ ve put together Spotify playlists for Rollins and Mingus , below .

Jazz and the civil-rights movement were closely intertwined, and two musicians whose work was at the forefront of this intersection, Sonny Rollins and Charles Mingus, have new releases this month of rediscovered concert and radio performances that relate to the struggle—one symbolically, one explicitly.
“Rollins in Holland” (Resonance Records)
Rollins, who is ninety, is no longer able to play the saxophone, but his recorded legacy continues to grow. This three-LP set, featuring radio and concert performances from May, 1967, comes out on Friday, for Record Store Day (and as a two-CD set on December 4th), and it’s a major addition to his discography.
In 1958, Rollins recorded “Freedom Suite,” an album that featured, as its title track, a nineteen-minute piece featuring four movements with extended improvisations on four distinct but related themes. It stands as a crucial forebear to John Coltrane’s similarly structured album, “A Love Supreme,” from 1964, and stands on its own as perhaps the first jazz album to make explicit reference to the oppression of Black Americans. It did so both with its title and with Rollins’s note on the record jacket, which stated that “the Negro, who has long exemplified the humanities in his very existence, is being rewarded with inhumanity.” The album features him playing the tenor saxophone as part of a trio, with the drummer Max Roach (who was also a prominent activist, the leader of the recording “We Insist! Freedom Now Suite,” from 1960) and the bassist Oscar Pettiford. It’s the same instrumentation that figures on many of Rollins’s classic performances, including the Holland recordings, and the format exemplifies a dimension of artistic freedom that Rollins made a crucial part of his social vision.
If every great jazz musician has a pull toward the other arts, Rollins works as a storyteller—he’s a great narrative musician whose solos build not only musical ideas but drama. His emphasis on melodic and thematic improvisation, along with harmonic exploration, gives him more musical material to work with than other soloists give themselves, and his inclination to see long musical story arcs adds yet another dimension to his art—and makes long solos inevitable. For music, time is space, and Rollins is a virtual landscape artist, one who sees panoramically and travels extensively through the musical realm of his time and through his own imaginative dimensions. Working with only a bassist and a drummer, Rollins kept most of the solo space for himself, and, in concert, he often played numbers that ran fifteen minutes or more—and such heroic performances are the heart and highlights of “Rollins in Holland,” where he’s accompanied by the Dutch musicians Ruud Jacobs, on bass, and Han Bennink, on drums.
Rollins, a bebop prodigy who made historic recordings with Bud Powell at the age of eighteen, developed and expanded his art to embrace and to lead subsequent modernisms, along with such crucial contemporaries as Coltrane and Ornette Coleman (who rose to prominence a decade later), and the 1967 Holland sessions reflect his central place in the music’s evolution. The compositions that he plays are from the Great American Songbook (including three renditions of George Gershwin’s “Love Walked In”) or the bebop-and-beyond book (including two versions each of his own “Sonnymoon for Two” and Miles Davis’s “Four”), but what he does with them is a novel astonishment. The majority of the new album was recorded in concert on May 3rd, and four of its five tracks run more than fifteen minutes, with two running for more than twenty. On the up-tempo “Three Little Words,” Rollins plays for twenty-two straight minutes, punctuating his vigorous variations on the theme with a wild skein of shredding tones and abrupt fragments filled with a gleeful range of musical quotations, including the standard “Polka Dots and Moonbeams” and his own compositions “St. Thomas” and “Pent-Up House.” Then he slows down to an exuberant shuffle, which Bennink and Jacobs deftly follow. As the concert continues, Rollins’s shifts of tone and tempo grow even freer, with accelerations into mercurial high-velocity phrases of off-balance length that challenge Bennink and push the music into high-wire rhythmic ambiguity. In the mid-sixties, Rollins was pushing his performances to ever more challenging heights of freedom, both in what he did with the melodies at hand and how he associated them with a virtual sense of musical montage—and the Holland concert is one of the crucial documents of his art. These mighty performances, without any explicit political reference in the titles, are linked in form, tone, and ethos to “Freedom Suite,” and extend its stylistic range to the new times.
“Charles Mingus @ Bremen 1964 & 1975” (Sunnyside Records)
The artistic tendency of Charles Mingus’s music is theatre: the bassist often relied on voices, and treated idioms like personae. Photograph by Guy Le Querrec / Magnum
Charles Mingus, a virtuosic bassist and a complex and prolific composer, put political protest at the fore of his work, as with his 1959 composition “Fables of Faubus” (referring to the segregationist governor of Arkansas, and including such lyrics as “Oh Lord, no more swastikas!/Oh Lord, no more Ku Klux Klan!”) and his 1960 piece “Prayer for Passive Resistance.” Born in 1922, Mingus is a figure of paradox—and he knew it. He was the most original bassist of the era, as soloist and accompanist; he played with the great innovators of the time, including Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell, and he also was a partner, with Duke Ellington and Max Roach, in my personal nominee for the greatest jazz album ever, “Money Jungle.” But Mingus, like Ellington and unlike the bebop heroes, was more of a composer than he was a soloist; his sharply self-aware confrontation with history was a matter of both politics and art. In a 1972 interview with John F. Goodman in the book “Mingus Speaks,” Mingus says, “Charlie Parker was the most modern thing, but actually I should have come before him. . . . Then Bird should have come in, but instead they completely ignored me and I had to go play Bird’s music. Which I’m glad I did—I learned a lot from that—but it’s not honest because it makes kids come up and think [jazz has] gotta fit to this form right here.”
The two concert recordings featured in the four-CD set “Charles Mingus @ Bremen” suggests just what Mingus had in mind regarding his intermediate position between swing and bop: Mingus’s bands featured some of the best soloists of the time, but, unlike when they were playing in their own groups, their solos were, with Mingus, as closely tethered to Mingus’s compositions as were big-band soloists. Yet they were doing so in the age of the heroic soloist, and Mingus gives the great musicians here vast swaths of solo time. Yet unlike, say, Rollins’s associative solos with his trio, their extended solos are patterned by the harmonic, rhythmic, and thematic contours of Mingus’s compositions. The results are highly characterized: as with Ellington’s band, each piece is more than a set of solos; it’s a musical world that seems peopled and dramatized. The artistic tendency of Mingus’s music is theatre; he often relied on voices (recitations and chants as well as singing), and Mingus, in relying on the history of jazz and variety of styles, ranging from stride piano to swing to bop to the avant-garde, treated idioms like personae, and worked best with musicians who shared his sense of history and of musical variety—and, for that matter, of derisive comedy along with heroic passion.


newyorker--2020-11-27--Trump’s Battle to Undermine the Vote in Pennsylvania

In recent weeks , Trump has claimed baselessly that he lost the Presidential election because of widespread voter fraud , and has launched lawsuits in key states to try to get ballots invalidated .
He has also pressured Republican state legislatures to intervene on his behalf .
In Pennsylvania , this legislative threat has taken different forms , but all have originated in the State Government Committee , a Republican-led group that focusses on oversight .
Kenyatta is in the committee ’ s Democratic minority , and is one of its most vocal members .
Before the election , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Election Integrity Committee , tasked with investigating potential election irregularities , and to grant the panel the power to summon election officials and impound ballot boxes .
The effort seemed designed to drum up claims of voter fraud to support Trump in the case , then theoretical , that he refused to concede .
It also seemed intended to stall the count : by some interpretations of the state ’ s constitution , if the governor is not able to certify the vote before December 8th , the Republican legislature could appoint its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against the resolution that the previous chair of the committee threatened to call security and have him removed .
After Kenyatta and others exposed the effort , several Republicans , worried about their Election Day prospects , withdrew their support , and the committee was forced to scuttle it .
Last week , however , a new effort surfaced : a resolution to perform a statewide audit of the election .
Dawn Keefer , a Republican member , argued for it , saying , “ Public sentiment and the sheer volume of lawsuits @ @ @ @ @ @ @ election , warrants such investigatory action.
” House Republicans held a press conference to air baseless claims that a company called Dominion Voting Systems had replaced Trump votes with votes for Joe Biden , and to demand that its representatives appear before the committee .
“ If they have nothing to hide , why are they hiding from us ?
” Seth Grove , the chair of the Governance Committee , said .
Keefer told me that thousands of Pennsylvanians had contacted her to demand an investigation .
“ Do I think there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there were , ” she told me .
She still wasn ’ t convinced that Biden was the legitimate victor .
“ I ’ m waiting to see the evidence to see the outcome of the election , ” she said .
The audit was to be overseen by the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee , and would scrutinize thousands of ballots , county by county .
It would focus especially on claims that Pennsylvania ’ s secretary of state had created procedural inconsistencies in voting between counties , which Republicans argued could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state were unconstitutional .
The effort could no longer stop certification ; the governor announced that the Pennsylvania Department of State had certified Pennsylvania ’ s vote on Tuesday .
But the audit seemed designed to cast doubt on the process and sow confusion , and perhaps to retroactively challenge the certification .
“ Claims that aren ’ t based in reality don ’ t deserve investigation , ” Kenyatta told me .
“ What ’ s troubling is the strategic decision to bring them forward in the first place.
” One morning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ State Government Committee met to debate the resolution .
Twelve Republicans and their staff members , some unmasked , sat at one end of a conference table in a room with sealed windows ; six masked Democrats sat at the other end .
( Although it is policy for staff members and capitol employees to wear masks , many Republican representatives refuse to wear them ; in the past two weeks , at least two more House members tested positive for the coronavirus . )
The committee was filled with hard-line Trump supporters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , gained notoriety in 2018 when he attempted to impeach four State Supreme Court justices for striking down the gerrymandering of certain districts .
Last spring , Stephanie Borowicz , another member , took a selfie at a pro-gun rally with a man wearing a T-shirt from a group tied to white supremacists .
In the stuffy room , she scrolled through her Instagram while the resolution was read .
Kenyatta questioned the narrative , quoted in the resolution , that the secretary of state and Pennsylvania ’ s Supreme Court had caused @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The only reason that there is any confusion is that confusion has been stoked by members of this committee , ” he said .
The Democrats introduced one motion and five amendments to get the resolution thrown out , all of which failed to pass .
Kevin Boyle , the Democratic committee chair , argued that the audit would serve only to bolster the false narrative , pushed by Trump , that the election had been stolen .
“ There is a broader movement of Trump supporters questioning the legitimacy of the vote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hours , the resolution passed and headed to the floor .
After the vote , I approached Grove and asked if he doubted the results of the election .
“ Generally , I think there were some problems , ” he said .
If the committee uncovered fraud , the findings would be referred to law-enforcement officials .
“ There have been cases .
Oversight operations have found it , ” he told me .
And , although he and others claimed that the audit wasn ’ t about overturning the results of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rule out the possibility that the committee might eventually find Trump had really won , and somehow retroactively change the designation of Pennsylvania ’ s electors .
“ I ’ m not an attorney , ” he said .
“ I don ’ t know the litigation risk of an audit two months later finding something and going back and overturning the election.
” This seemed unlikely to happen , but Democrats still worried that the committee would do damage .
“ In the short term , this audit gives them cover to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ something about what Trump is tweeting about , ” Boyle told me later .
“ But the long-term goal is to falsely delegitimize Joe Biden ’ s victory.
” Voters in Pennsylvania have received phone calls from an organization called the Voter Integrity Project , which was founded several weeks ago , by Matt Braynard , who ran Trump ’ s 2016 data-and-strategy campaign .
Braynard and several other Trump staffers have taken leave and are spending their days searching for voters who are potential victims of voter fraud .
Braynard told me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hadn ’ t voted in a long time , but filed a ballot last month , and asking if they did so themselves .
“ The vast majority are saying ‘ Yes , ’ but some are saying , ‘ No , and I ’ ll sign a statement to that fact , ’ ” he claimed .
The aim was to supply state legislatures or courts with information , and “ to turn up the temperature ” so that they had to pay attention .
Braynard told me that he didn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cast doubt on the election ’ s legitimacy—just a representative sample .
“ It ’ s a little bit like a COVID test , ” he said .
“ They might just find a couple of antibodies.
” Trump has launched a variety of legal cases in the state , alleging all manner of fraud .
“ As far as we ’ re concerned , Your Honor , those ballots could have been for Mickey Mouse , ” Giuliani , Trump ’ s personal lawyer , recently said , in a courtroom in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been thrown out for lack of evidence .
Recently , a federal judge dismissed a sprawling suit , saying that the campaign had posed “ strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations , ” with an intent to disenfranchise nearly seven million Pennsylvania voters .
Bill McSwain , a state ’ s attorney and a Trump ally , was granted the power to investigate allegations of fraud by the Justice Department , but he has so far been unwilling to come to the President ’ s aid .
Larry Krasner , Philadelphia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that , in Trump ’ s “ upside-down world , ” Biden ’ s win is “ characterized as being a close-enough margin that , yes , indeed , this could overturn Pennsylvania because of the sweeping fraud that is basically identified as follows : lots of my constituents are concerned and I have no evidence.
” But he said that any legitimate scrutiny of the process has only reinforced Biden ’ s victory .
As a result , Trump has turned his attention to state politicians .
He pressured officials in Georgia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the hope that they would block the certification of the vote and appoint electors who favor him .
He has urged the Michigan legislature not to certify the results of the election , in an effort to do the same .
He has taken a similar tack with Harrisburg .
“ Pennsylvania Party Leadership votes are this week , ” Trump tweeted earlier this month .
“ I hope they pick very tough and smart fighters .
We will WIN !
!
” Amel Ahmed , a professor of political science at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ told me that local politicians are in a tenuous position ; if they lose Trump ’ s base , they could lose their next primary .
“ We have a situation with a politician who will do anything to win , and a party too weak to stop him , ” she said .
“ They ’ re hoping by playing out the process , and entertaining investigations and recounts , that it will be enough to convince Trump that they did all they could.
” The audit in Pennsylvania was intended to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The day before the election , Kathy Boockvar , the secretary of the commonwealth , announced that , if counties received mail-in ballots that included mistakes , they could contact the voters and have them fill out provisional ballots , or contact parties and allow them to do so ; some counties contacted voters—others simply threw out the ballots .
Republicans argued that the inconsistency violates constitutional protections for equal treatment under the law .
“ The House wants to fixate on the alleged inconsistency across the state and claim that this violates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a professor of constitutional law at N.Y.U.
, told me .
Republicans claimed that the effort was nonpartisan .
“ This is not a campaign issue , ” Jesse Topper , a state representative who sponsored the resolution , told me .
“ It ’ s purely legislative.
” But it would likely result in challenges to mail-in ballots , which were cast predominantly for Biden .
Procedural inconsistencies served as part of the basis for Bush v. Gore , the Supreme Court case , from 2000 , that stopped recounts in Florida @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to George W. Bush .
But Pildes told me that , if the case becomes a legal battle , it is unlikely that a court would invalidate votes .
“ The Court is not going to throw out votes from eligible voters whom election officials have told could cure a procedural defect in their initial absentee ballots , ” he said .
Josh Shapiro , the state ’ s attorney general , told me that the committee is purely political theatre .
Now that the vote was certified , there was no constitutional @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Pennsylvania ’ s Department of State had conducted its own audit , so the House ’ s antics would be redundant .
“ They ’ re certainly welcome to do an audit and review , ” Shapiro said .
“ But that will not change the timetable or change the outcome of the election.
” The last step required to approve the audit was a vote from the leadership of the Legislative Budget Finance Committee .
The vote is typically a rubber stamp : the committee is charged with scores of audits each @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to comply in recent memory .
But , during a hearing , its two Democratic leaders spoke against the resolution .
“ I ’ m at a loss as to what , what the purpose of the resolution is and why it ’ s even necessary , ” Senator Jim Brewster , one of the leaders , said .
The other , Representative Jake Wheatley , Jr. , questioned whether the committee even had the authority to perform such an investigation , and called it a “ wasted effort.
” “ I really @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” he said .
The resolution failed , in a 2–1 vote .
( One of the two Republican leaders was absent , though even a tie would have stopped the audit . )
Democrats rejoiced .
“ Public pressure works !
” Kenyatta texted me .
House Republicans were shocked .
“ Normally , it ’ s a done deal , ” Grove told me afterward .
Topper , who sponsored the resolution , said , “ I ’ m disappointed .
Anybody who thinks that changes don ’ t need to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t grounded in reality.
” Grove released a report that catalogued reports of fraud in the 2020 election , among other things .
“ There are individuals who believe the election was stolen from Trump and there was massive fraud , who want us to do more , ” Grove told me .
He said that Republicans would keep up the pressure , and might press again for electoral audits in January .
Several days later , Pennsylvania Republicans staged a faux legal hearing in Gettysburg , in which Giuliani played prosecutor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and representatives .
State Senator Doug Mastriano spoke early on in the proceedings , saying , “ We ’ re not kings—we ’ re agents of public opinion , ” and adding that public opinion demanded an investigation into fraud .
“ Your election is a sham , ” Giuliani said .
Mastriano introduced poll watchers who told tales about phantom ballots , hacked machines , and dead voters , which they claimed had all led to an election stolen from Trump .
“ The Republic is angry , disgruntled , beaten up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this country , ” one poll watcher said .
Trump called in to the hearing , and repeated his familiar claims of poll-watcher affidavits “ piled up to the ceiling ” and dead people voting .
“ This election was rigged and we can ’ t let that happen !
” he said .

Since November 3rd, Malcolm Kenyatta, a Democratic state representative from Philadelphia, has received a stream of threatening text messages and e-mails from voters. “You must not certify the fraudulent results of this election until all LEGAL ballots are counted,” Steven P. wrote to Kenyatta. “If you do, I will work tirelessly to make sure you are not reelected.” Kenyatta has also received death threats; the most disturbing, sent from an e-mail account registered in his own name, was laden with expletives and included the words, “How much death? So much death!” Kenyatta, who is thirty, with a baby face, believes that the threats are a by-product of a near-constant campaign waged by Donald Trump and his Republican colleagues to undermine the results of a free and fair election. “There is a contingent of Republicans who are afraid of Trump,” he told me. “Others really believe him.”
In recent weeks, Trump has claimed baselessly that he lost the Presidential election because of widespread voter fraud, and has launched lawsuits in key states to try to get ballots invalidated. He has also pressured Republican state legislatures to intervene on his behalf. In Pennsylvania, this legislative threat has taken different forms, but all have originated in the State Government Committee, a Republican-led group that focusses on oversight. Kenyatta is in the committee’s Democratic minority, and is one of its most vocal members. Before the election, it put forward a resolution to establish an Election Integrity Committee, tasked with investigating potential election irregularities, and to grant the panel the power to summon election officials and impound ballot boxes. The effort seemed designed to drum up claims of voter fraud to support Trump in the case, then theoretical, that he refused to concede. It also seemed intended to stall the count: by some interpretations of the state’s constitution, if the governor is not able to certify the vote before December 8th, the Republican legislature could appoint its own electors. Kenyatta argued so vociferously against the resolution that the previous chair of the committee threatened to call security and have him removed. After Kenyatta and others exposed the effort, several Republicans, worried about their Election Day prospects, withdrew their support, and the committee was forced to scuttle it.
Last week, however, a new effort surfaced: a resolution to perform a statewide audit of the election. Dawn Keefer, a Republican member, argued for it, saying, “Public sentiment and the sheer volume of lawsuits filed, both before and since the election, warrants such investigatory action.” House Republicans held a press conference to air baseless claims that a company called Dominion Voting Systems had replaced Trump votes with votes for Joe Biden, and to demand that its representatives appear before the committee. “If they have nothing to hide, why are they hiding from us?” Seth Grove, the chair of the Governance Committee, said. Keefer told me that thousands of Pennsylvanians had contacted her to demand an investigation. “Do I think there were cases of fraud? Yeah, there were,” she told me. She still wasn’t convinced that Biden was the legitimate victor. “I’m waiting to see the evidence to see the outcome of the election,” she said.
The audit was to be overseen by the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee, and would scrutinize thousands of ballots, county by county. It would focus especially on claims that Pennsylvania’s secretary of state had created procedural inconsistencies in voting between counties, which Republicans argued could mean that thousands of votes in the state were unconstitutional. The effort could no longer stop certification; the governor announced that the Pennsylvania Department of State had certified Pennsylvania’s vote on Tuesday. But the audit seemed designed to cast doubt on the process and sow confusion, and perhaps to retroactively challenge the certification. “Claims that aren’t based in reality don’t deserve investigation,” Kenyatta told me. “What’s troubling is the strategic decision to bring them forward in the first place.”
One morning last week, in Harrisburg, the State Government Committee met to debate the resolution. Twelve Republicans and their staff members, some unmasked, sat at one end of a conference table in a room with sealed windows; six masked Democrats sat at the other end. (Although it is policy for staff members and capitol employees to wear masks, many Republican representatives refuse to wear them; in the past two weeks, at least two more House members tested positive for the coronavirus.) The committee was filled with hard-line Trump supporters. Cris Dush, a Republican member, gained notoriety in 2018 when he attempted to impeach four State Supreme Court justices for striking down the gerrymandering of certain districts. Last spring, Stephanie Borowicz, another member, took a selfie at a pro-gun rally with a man wearing a T-shirt from a group tied to white supremacists. In the stuffy room, she scrolled through her Instagram while the resolution was read.
Kenyatta questioned the narrative, quoted in the resolution, that the secretary of state and Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court had caused confusion through their election policies. “The only reason that there is any confusion is that confusion has been stoked by members of this committee,” he said. The Democrats introduced one motion and five amendments to get the resolution thrown out, all of which failed to pass. Kevin Boyle, the Democratic committee chair, argued that the audit would serve only to bolster the false narrative, pushed by Trump, that the election had been stolen. “There is a broader movement of Trump supporters questioning the legitimacy of the vote,” Boyle said. After two hours, the resolution passed and headed to the floor.
After the vote, I approached Grove and asked if he doubted the results of the election. “Generally, I think there were some problems,” he said. If the committee uncovered fraud, the findings would be referred to law-enforcement officials. “There have been cases. Oversight operations have found it,” he told me. And, although he and others claimed that the audit wasn’t about overturning the results of the election, he didn’t rule out the possibility that the committee might eventually find Trump had really won, and somehow retroactively change the designation of Pennsylvania’s electors. “I’m not an attorney,” he said. “I don’t know the litigation risk of an audit two months later finding something and going back and overturning the election.” This seemed unlikely to happen, but Democrats still worried that the committee would do damage. “In the short term, this audit gives them cover to their constituents that they’re doing something about what Trump is tweeting about,” Boyle told me later. “But the long-term goal is to falsely delegitimize Joe Biden’s victory.”
Since the election, Trump has tweeted roughly once a day with claims of voter fraud in Pennsylvania. “The rate of rejected Mail-In Ballots is 30 X’s lower in Pennsylvania this year than it was in 2016,” he wrote recently. “This is why they kept our poll watchers and observers out of the ‘SACRED’ vote counting rooms!” Rudy Giuliani and Eric Trump have held press conferences; Fox News has maintained a steady drip of coverage. The effort has created a sense among Trump supporters in Pennsylvania, and elsewhere, that the election in the state was illegitimate. Danielle Friel Otten, a state representative from Chester County, told me that she gets regular messages from constituents who doubt the results. “A man from my church wrote me to say he believed the fraud claims and trusted me not to be partisan in investigating them,” she told me. Unmasked Trump supporters have gathered daily in front of the capitol building and in the galleries, blocking some entrances, shouting, “Stop the Steal,” and singing “God Bless America.” Kadida Kenner, a progressive organizer, said that she was confronted by unmasked protesters who tried to hold debates up close. Several days later, she contracted COVID-19. “I can’t say with a hundred-per-cent certainty where I got it,” she said. “But, having to confront all of these people who refused to wear masks, it’s a logical conclusion.”
Voters in Pennsylvania have received phone calls from an organization called the Voter Integrity Project, which was founded several weeks ago, by Matt Braynard, who ran Trump’s 2016 data-and-strategy campaign. Braynard and several other Trump staffers have taken leave and are spending their days searching for voters who are potential victims of voter fraud. Braynard told me that they are currently calling people who hadn’t voted in a long time, but filed a ballot last month, and asking if they did so themselves. “The vast majority are saying ‘Yes,’ but some are saying, ‘No, and I’ll sign a statement to that fact,’ ” he claimed. The aim was to supply state legislatures or courts with information, and “to turn up the temperature” so that they had to pay attention. Braynard told me that he didn’t need a lot of evidence to cast doubt on the election’s legitimacy—just a representative sample. “It’s a little bit like a COVID test,” he said. “They might just find a couple of antibodies.”
Trump has launched a variety of legal cases in the state, alleging all manner of fraud. “As far as we’re concerned, Your Honor, those ballots could have been for Mickey Mouse,” Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, recently said, in a courtroom in Williamsport. Most of the cases have been thrown out for lack of evidence. Recently, a federal judge dismissed a sprawling suit, saying that the campaign had posed “strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations,” with an intent to disenfranchise nearly seven million Pennsylvania voters. Bill McSwain, a state’s attorney and a Trump ally, was granted the power to investigate allegations of fraud by the Justice Department, but he has so far been unwilling to come to the President’s aid. Larry Krasner, Philadelphia’s District Attorney, told me that, in Trump’s “upside-down world,” Biden’s win is “characterized as being a close-enough margin that, yes, indeed, this could overturn Pennsylvania because of the sweeping fraud that is basically identified as follows: lots of my constituents are concerned and I have no evidence.” But he said that any legitimate scrutiny of the process has only reinforced Biden’s victory.
As a result, Trump has turned his attention to state politicians. He pressured officials in Georgia to call in the legislature, seemingly in the hope that they would block the certification of the vote and appoint electors who favor him. He has urged the Michigan legislature not to certify the results of the election, in an effort to do the same. He has taken a similar tack with Harrisburg. “Pennsylvania Party Leadership votes are this week,” Trump tweeted earlier this month. “I hope they pick very tough and smart fighters. We will WIN!!” Amel Ahmed, a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, told me that local politicians are in a tenuous position; if they lose Trump’s base, they could lose their next primary. “We have a situation with a politician who will do anything to win, and a party too weak to stop him,” she said. “They’re hoping by playing out the process, and entertaining investigations and recounts, that it will be enough to convince Trump that they did all they could.”
The audit in Pennsylvania was intended to focus on inconsistencies in election procedures. The day before the election, Kathy Boockvar, the secretary of the commonwealth, announced that, if counties received mail-in ballots that included mistakes, they could contact the voters and have them fill out provisional ballots, or contact parties and allow them to do so; some counties contacted voters—others simply threw out the ballots. Republicans argued that the inconsistency violates constitutional protections for equal treatment under the law. “The House wants to fixate on the alleged inconsistency across the state and claim that this violates the constitution,” Richard Pildes, a professor of constitutional law at N.Y.U., told me. Republicans claimed that the effort was nonpartisan. “This is not a campaign issue,” Jesse Topper, a state representative who sponsored the resolution, told me. “It’s purely legislative.” But it would likely result in challenges to mail-in ballots, which were cast predominantly for Biden.
Procedural inconsistencies served as part of the basis for Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court case, from 2000, that stopped recounts in Florida’s vote and gave the election to George W. Bush. But Pildes told me that, if the case becomes a legal battle, it is unlikely that a court would invalidate votes. “The Court is not going to throw out votes from eligible voters whom election officials have told could cure a procedural defect in their initial absentee ballots,” he said. Josh Shapiro, the state’s attorney general, told me that the committee is purely political theatre. Now that the vote was certified, there was no constitutional way to overturn the results. And Pennsylvania’s Department of State had conducted its own audit, so the House’s antics would be redundant. “They’re certainly welcome to do an audit and review,” Shapiro said. “But that will not change the timetable or change the outcome of the election.”
On November 19th, the resolution to begin the audit came to the House floor and passed 112–90. Kenyatta spoke out vehemently. “I told my colleagues that this constant drumbeat supporting what Trump is saying on Twitter has a corrosive effect on our democracy,” he told me. “Now every election—from school board to tax collector—now people who don’t win get to cry foul.” After the vote, Kenyatta worked with the organization OnePA on voter-protection efforts, to lead a grassroots campaign against the resolution. Support in Harrisburg seemed to be wavering. Grove told me that the White House scheduled a call between Republican legislators and Trump, though it never took place.
The last step required to approve the audit was a vote from the leadership of the Legislative Budget Finance Committee. The vote is typically a rubber stamp: the committee is charged with scores of audits each year, and it has not refused to comply in recent memory. But, during a hearing, its two Democratic leaders spoke against the resolution. “I’m at a loss as to what, what the purpose of the resolution is and why it’s even necessary,” Senator Jim Brewster, one of the leaders, said. The other, Representative Jake Wheatley, Jr., questioned whether the committee even had the authority to perform such an investigation, and called it a “wasted effort.” “I really suggest we put this to bed,” he said. The resolution failed, in a 2–1 vote. (One of the two Republican leaders was absent, though even a tie would have stopped the audit.)