newyorker--2020-05-29--The Intolerable Tensions Between American Cities and their Police Forces

I lived in Baltimore during the Freddie Gray protests in April , 2015 .
My apartment was in a brownstone next to a small park in a pretty neighborhood called Bolton Hill , which sits on the border between downtown and the West Baltimore neighborhoods where the upheaval was centered .
A central image of those riots was a burning CVS at Pennsylvania and North Avenues ; that store was about ten blocks from my house .
My wife and I lived on the third floor of the brownstone , with our toddler daughter and infant son , and on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ things escalated , I sat on the stoop for a little while with an architect who lived downstairs , watching our normally quiet block .
Car after car drove by , most of them full of young people .
Another neighbor said that a grocery store and a pharmacy three blocks from us were being looted , but on our block no one was out of control .
People were on their phones texting , they were looking out their windows .
Something important was happening , and they were gathering information .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the uprising , and met a senior figure in the Baltimore Police Department named Melvin Russell .
He is as vivid in my memory as anyone I ’ ve written about , perhaps because it is rare to see a powerful person be so hugely sad .
A Baltimore native and career city cop , Russell led the B.P.D.
’ s citywide community-policing division , and for him community policing was both a professional program and a creed .
He had deployed it in some of the poorest neighborhoods in Baltimore , especially @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sure that the officers under his command had managed to narrow the gap between themselves and their community , and that this was at least part of the reason for a decline in violent crime in those neighborhoods , and for an increase in the number of crimes being solved .
During that last week of April , as the chaos deepened , Russell noticed that , in many of the most unsettled parts of West Baltimore , cops were nowhere to be found .
Russell , who is black , had worked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than thirty years , and he was not naïve about the racism within its ranks : he had six sons and two daughters , and he said that he and his wife had moved to the far suburbs in part because they wanted to keep their children safe from the Baltimore cops .
But it still seemed to surprise him , in a deep and unpleasant way , to see the police simply retreat when they were most needed .
The general tragedy of the Freddie Gray riots unfolded from there .
From @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a hundred and ninety-seven and two hundred and forty homicides each year in Baltimore ; since Freddie Gray ’ s killing , there have never been fewer than three hundred .
The city ’ s mayor at the time—a quiet , serious-minded black woman named Stephanie Rawlings-Blake , who had been seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party—eventually chose not to seek reëlection .
As I understood it through Melvin Russell , there was a more specific tragedy , concerning the Baltimore Police Department , contained within the larger one : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not actually taken hold in the department , at least not as deeply as he had hoped .
In an emergency , too many police officers had abandoned it .
The political gap between the liberal mayors who run most big cities and the officers who help police them seems especially pronounced right now , as a cycle of police violence and counter-violence unfolds , in Minneapolis and perhaps beyond , after the killing of George Floyd .
As the Black Lives Matter movement matured , from a sequence of protests into a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mayors usually tried hard to keep up , though this pattern seemed to make some police unions more reactionary and outspoken .
Meanwhile , visual evidence of police killings , from body cameras or mobile phones , has made the circumstances of those deaths more difficult for anyone to complicate or excuse .
A set of written witness statements and investigative reports , reviewed in City Hall , can leave some ambiguity about who is right and who is wrong ; a video of a police officer in Minneapolis kneeling for nine minutes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is not resisting and saying that he can ’ t breathe , as life drains from him , leaves no room at all .
There ’ s only one honest reaction .
The mayor of Minneapolis , Jacob Frey , expressed it out loud this week : “ Why is the man who killed George Floyd not in jail ?
” A whole generation of Democratic mayors have seen their reputations defined by their inability to manage the aftermath of police killings : Rawlings-Blake in Baltimore , Rahm Emanuel in Chicago , Bill @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Buttigieg in South Bend .
( Political pundits often wonder why the “ bench ” of Democratic Presidential candidates is so thin ; looking at that list , it doesn ’ t seem like such a mystery to me . )
One reaction , in some of the most progressive cities , has been to elect new leaders who champion activist causes , especially reform-minded prosecutors : Larry Krasner in Philadelphia ; Kim Foxx in Cook County , Illinois ; Rachael Rollins in Suffolk County , Massachusetts ; Chesa Boudin in San Francisco @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kicked up so much resistance from law enforcement that , in many cases , reforms have been smothered , in a more pitted battle between progressive elected officials and the rank-and-file cops whose behavior they seek to change .
Like so much else in the Trump era , these tensions have been made worse by the President , whose political instincts are to divide and who talks so easily of violence .
On Thursday night , after Minneapolis protesters set fire to a precinct station , Trump warned , on Twitter , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ starts.
” This put everyone in an even more dangerous position : the protesters , who now had more reason to expect violence from law enforcement , and the police officers , who had been described , by the President , as likely to fire into a crowd .
The political authorities in Minnesota have acted decisively : the four officers who were at the scene of Floyd ’ s death were quickly fired , and , on Friday , the officer who killed him , Derek Chauvin , was charged with third-degree @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , things are on a knife ’ s edge in Minneapolis .
Among the many questions is whether the gap between the nation ’ s liberal politicians and the police will continue to widen , or whether it can be reversed .
In Minneapolis , there have been some promising signs : the city ’ s first black police chief , Medaria Arradondo , apologized to George Floyd ’ s family .
Some police chiefs and police unions around the country have joined him in condemning Floyd ’ s killing .
Even so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ahead of him , because he has both a public audience , loud and enraged , and a private one composed of the police officers , whose voices are rarely heard by the general public and whose loyalty he needs to maintain order .
As protesters surrounded the Minneapolis Third Precinct ’ s police station last night , Frey instructed the officers inside to evacuate .
Soon it would burn .
He said , “ The symbolism of a building can not outweigh the importance of a life .
”

I lived in Baltimore during the Freddie Gray protests in April, 2015. My apartment was in a brownstone next to a small park in a pretty neighborhood called Bolton Hill, which sits on the border between downtown and the West Baltimore neighborhoods where the upheaval was centered. A central image of those riots was a burning CVS at Pennsylvania and North Avenues; that store was about ten blocks from my house. My wife and I lived on the third floor of the brownstone, with our toddler daughter and infant son, and on the evening of April 27th, as things escalated, I sat on the stoop for a little while with an architect who lived downstairs, watching our normally quiet block. Car after car drove by, most of them full of young people. Another neighbor said that a grocery store and a pharmacy three blocks from us were being looted, but on our block no one was out of control. People were on their phones texting, they were looking out their windows. Something important was happening, and they were gathering information.
Eventually, I decided to write about the uprising, and met a senior figure in the Baltimore Police Department named Melvin Russell. He is as vivid in my memory as anyone I’ve written about, perhaps because it is rare to see a powerful person be so hugely sad. A Baltimore native and career city cop, Russell led the B.P.D.’s citywide community-policing division, and for him community policing was both a professional program and a creed. He had deployed it in some of the poorest neighborhoods in Baltimore, especially in the Eastern District. He was sure that the officers under his command had managed to narrow the gap between themselves and their community, and that this was at least part of the reason for a decline in violent crime in those neighborhoods, and for an increase in the number of crimes being solved. During that last week of April, as the chaos deepened, Russell noticed that, in many of the most unsettled parts of West Baltimore, cops were nowhere to be found. Russell, who is black, had worked in the Baltimore Police Department for more than thirty years, and he was not naïve about the racism within its ranks: he had six sons and two daughters, and he said that he and his wife had moved to the far suburbs in part because they wanted to keep their children safe from the Baltimore cops. But it still seemed to surprise him, in a deep and unpleasant way, to see the police simply retreat when they were most needed.
The general tragedy of the Freddie Gray riots unfolded from there. From 2008 to 2014, there were between a hundred and ninety-seven and two hundred and forty homicides each year in Baltimore; since Freddie Gray’s killing, there have never been fewer than three hundred. The city’s mayor at the time—a quiet, serious-minded black woman named Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who had been seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party—eventually chose not to seek reëlection. As I understood it through Melvin Russell, there was a more specific tragedy, concerning the Baltimore Police Department, contained within the larger one: the liberal ethos of community policing had not actually taken hold in the department, at least not as deeply as he had hoped. In an emergency, too many police officers had abandoned it.
The political gap between the liberal mayors who run most big cities and the officers who help police them seems especially pronounced right now, as a cycle of police violence and counter-violence unfolds, in Minneapolis and perhaps beyond, after the killing of George Floyd. As the Black Lives Matter movement matured, from a sequence of protests into a more permanent political orientation, most liberal mayors usually tried hard to keep up, though this pattern seemed to make some police unions more reactionary and outspoken. Meanwhile, visual evidence of police killings, from body cameras or mobile phones, has made the circumstances of those deaths more difficult for anyone to complicate or excuse. A set of written witness statements and investigative reports, reviewed in City Hall, can leave some ambiguity about who is right and who is wrong; a video of a police officer in Minneapolis kneeling for nine minutes on the neck of a man who is not resisting and saying that he can’t breathe, as life drains from him, leaves no room at all. There’s only one honest reaction. The mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, expressed it out loud this week: “Why is the man who killed George Floyd not in jail?”
A whole generation of Democratic mayors have seen their reputations defined by their inability to manage the aftermath of police killings: Rawlings-Blake in Baltimore, Rahm Emanuel in Chicago, Bill de Blasio in New York, Pete Buttigieg in South Bend. (Political pundits often wonder why the “bench” of Democratic Presidential candidates is so thin; looking at that list, it doesn’t seem like such a mystery to me.) One reaction, in some of the most progressive cities, has been to elect new leaders who champion activist causes, especially reform-minded prosecutors: Larry Krasner in Philadelphia; Kim Foxx in Cook County, Illinois; Rachael Rollins in Suffolk County, Massachusetts; Chesa Boudin in San Francisco. This, in turn, has kicked up so much resistance from law enforcement that, in many cases, reforms have been smothered, in a more pitted battle between progressive elected officials and the rank-and-file cops whose behavior they seek to change.
Like so much else in the Trump era, these tensions have been made worse by the President, whose political instincts are to divide and who talks so easily of violence. On Thursday night, after Minneapolis protesters set fire to a precinct station, Trump warned, on Twitter, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” This put everyone in an even more dangerous position: the protesters, who now had more reason to expect violence from law enforcement, and the police officers, who had been described, by the President, as likely to fire into a crowd.
The political authorities in Minnesota have acted decisively: the four officers who were at the scene of Floyd’s death were quickly fired, and, on Friday, the officer who killed him, Derek Chauvin, was charged with third-degree murder. Nonetheless, this Friday evening, things are on a knife’s edge in Minneapolis. Among the many questions is whether the gap between the nation’s liberal politicians and the police will continue to widen, or whether it can be reversed. In Minneapolis, there have been some promising signs: the city’s first black police chief, Medaria Arradondo, apologized to George Floyd’s family. Some police chiefs and police unions around the country have joined him in condemning Floyd’s killing. Even so, Mayor Frey has a difficult path ahead of him, because he has both a public audience, loud and enraged, and a private one composed of the police officers, whose voices are rarely heard by the general public and whose loyalty he needs to maintain order. As protesters surrounded the Minneapolis Third Precinct’s police station last night, Frey instructed the officers inside to evacuate. Soon it would burn. He said, “The symbolism of a building cannot outweigh the importance of a life.”
Race, Policing, and Black Lives Matter Protests


newyorker--2020-05-29--How Violent Protests Change Politics

How Violent Protests Change Politics

On Thursday night , thousands of people gathered in the streets of Minneapolis , and other cities across the country , to protest the death of George Floyd , an unarmed black man who was killed by a Minneapolis police officer .
Outside the Minneapolis Police Department ’ s Third Precinct , the protests turned violent , as people looted businesses , threw projectiles , and set the station house on fire ; police in riot gear fired rubber bullets and sprayed tear gas at the crowds .
On Friday , Derek Chauvin , the officer who killed Floyd , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and charged with manslaughter and third-degree murder .
I spoke by phone , on Friday afternoon , with Omar Wasow , a professor of politics at Princeton , who studies protest movements and their effects on politics and elections .
During our conversation , which has been edited for length and clarity , we discussed which tactics worked best in the civil-rights era , what violent protests have meant , historically , for Democrats running for office , and whether Donald Trump is a figure of order or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work on the political effects of protest ?
I would say that nonviolent protests can be very effective if they are able to get media attention , and that there is a very strong relationship between media coverage and public concern about whatever issues those protesters are raising .
But there is a conditional effect of violence , and what that means , in practice , is that groups that are the object of state violence are able to get particularly sympathetic press—and a large amount of media coverage .
But that is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and what we often see is that , when protesters engage in violence , often in a very understandable response to state repression , that tends to work against their cause and interests , and mobilizes or becomes fodder for the opposition to grow its coalition .
What we observe in the nineteen-sixties is that there was a nontrivial number of white moderates who were open to policies that advanced racial equality , and were also very concerned about order .
The needle that civil-rights activists were trying to thread was : How @ @ @ @ @ @ @ capture the attention of often indifferent or hostile white moderates outside of the South , and at the same time grow a coalition of allies ?
And over time the strategy that evolved was one of nonviolent protest , which actively sought to trigger police chiefs like Bull Connor [ in Birmingham , Alabama , ] to engage in spectacles of violence that attracted national media and would , in the language of the nineteen-sixties , “ shock the conscience of the nation.
” So it isn ’ t just nonviolence that is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and vigilante brutality that is effective .
The interesting thing to me that came out of this research was that civil-rights leaders were picking Birmingham and Selma specifically because they had police chiefs with hair-trigger tendencies toward violence .
So there was this strategic use of violence by the civil-rights movement , but it was to be the object of violence , not the instigators of violence .
At the same time , what was very hard about , with that strategy , is that you had images of people observing their kinfolk @ @ @ @ @ @ @ helped fire up a more militant wing of the civil-rights movement , which endorsed violence in self-defense and was much less committed to tactics of nonviolence .
When we observed a wave of violent protests in the mid- to late sixties , those white moderates who supported the Democratic Party after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 defected to the Republican Party in 1968 .
So , when the state was employing violence and protesters were the targets of that violence , the strategy worked well , and when protesters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was—those voters moved to the law-and-order coalition .
What did you find in your research , specifically about the 1968 election ?
There has been a debate in social science for a long time about whether there was a backlash to the waves of violent protest in 1967 and 1968 .
Commonly , people will say “ riot , ” but I am using “ violent protest ” and “ nonviolent protest ” as the two categories .
I looked at a hundred and thirty-seven violent protests that followed Martin Luther King , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ April , 1968 .
There is a bunch of evidence that protests are sensitive to weather , and when rain happens it is much less likely people engage in protests .
And so we should expect that when there is more rainfall there is less likelihood that people will engage in protest , and when there is less rainfall there is more likelihood .
So we get a crude natural experiment—it ’ s as if some places were randomly assigned a violent protest and some were not .
And what I find is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s assassination , when ninety-five per cent of those violent April protests occurred , if your county was proximate to violent protests , then that county voted six to eight percentage points more toward Nixon in November .
But maybe there was something correlated with rainfall driving this result , and so to address the possibility of a confounding factor , like geography , I also looked at rainfall in periods where we should expect no effect of rainfall on voting—e.g.
, periods before and more than a few days after the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ test .
It is only rainfall in the one week after the assassination that predicts this conservative shift in November , and , in the absence of a plausible alternative story for why rainfall in April was predicting voting in November , the most obvious explanation is that the violent protests were the cause .
And so we can then claim a causal relationship between violent protests and the shift away from the Democratic coalition .
What protest tactics would you recommend for people concerned about police brutality today ?
On the one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sparked by state violence , so they don ’ t need to incite more of it .
On the other hand , we have had these viral videos of police brutality for years , and it is not clear all that much is changing .
If you are an activist and there is this outrageous incident ( like a knee on a neck ) and you say , “ How can we advance our interests ?
, ” it might be that both violent and nonviolent protests are legitimate—but it still might be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we get everything we would from a violent protest , plus we don ’ t splinter a coalition that favors change .
One puzzle is , if you are an activist , are nonviolent tactics going to get you more of what you want , or are violent tactics ?
And what I found from the sixties is that nonviolent protest achieved many of the same sorts of outcomes that the more militant activists were fighting for without splintering the Democratic coalition .
There was a pro-segregation media at the time , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ federal repression—and , despite all of that , the nonviolent wing of the civil-rights movement was really able to move the country from tolerating Jim Crow to breaking Jim Crow .
So I think there is a lot of evidence that nonviolent tactics can be effective .
You saw this on the first day in Minneapolis , where the police showed up with an excess of force , and you had these images of children running away and police dressed like stormtroopers .
There are a set of narrative scripts in the public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the news through those preëxisting narratives .
And so a nonviolent protest where we see state excesses is a very powerful and sympathetic narrative for the cause of fighting police violence .
And as soon as the tactics shift to more aggressive violent resistance—and , to be clear , as best I can tell , police were shooting rubber bullets and there was tear gas .
It seemed like an excessive police response , and so in reaction protesters escalated as well .
That has an unfortunate side effect of muddying the story @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of police killings in Minneapolis , we are talking about a store going up in flames , and the focus in reporting tends to shift from a justice frame to a crime frame .
And that is an unfortunate thing for a protest movement .
It ends up undermining the interests of the advocates .

On Thursday night, thousands of people gathered in the streets of Minneapolis, and other cities across the country, to protest the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who was killed by a Minneapolis police officer. Outside the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct, the protests turned violent, as people looted businesses, threw projectiles, and set the station house on fire; police in riot gear fired rubber bullets and sprayed tear gas at the crowds. On Friday, Derek Chauvin, the officer who killed Floyd, was taken into custody by Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and charged with manslaughter and third-degree murder.
I spoke by phone, on Friday afternoon, with Omar Wasow, a professor of politics at Princeton, who studies protest movements and their effects on politics and elections. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed which tactics worked best in the civil-rights era, what violent protests have meant, historically, for Democrats running for office, and whether Donald Trump is a figure of order or disorder.
How would you summarize your work on the political effects of protest?
I would say that nonviolent protests can be very effective if they are able to get media attention, and that there is a very strong relationship between media coverage and public concern about whatever issues those protesters are raising. But there is a conditional effect of violence, and what that means, in practice, is that groups that are the object of state violence are able to get particularly sympathetic press—and a large amount of media coverage. But that is a very hard strategy to maintain, and what we often see is that, when protesters engage in violence, often in a very understandable response to state repression, that tends to work against their cause and interests, and mobilizes or becomes fodder for the opposition to grow its coalition.
What we observe in the nineteen-sixties is that there was a nontrivial number of white moderates who were open to policies that advanced racial equality, and were also very concerned about order. The needle that civil-rights activists were trying to thread was: How do you advance racial equality, and capture the attention of often indifferent or hostile white moderates outside of the South, and at the same time grow a coalition of allies? And over time the strategy that evolved was one of nonviolent protest, which actively sought to trigger police chiefs like Bull Connor [in Birmingham, Alabama,] to engage in spectacles of violence that attracted national media and would, in the language of the nineteen-sixties, “shock the conscience of the nation.” So it isn’t just nonviolence that is effective, but nonviolence met with state and vigilante brutality that is effective.
The interesting thing to me that came out of this research was that civil-rights leaders were picking Birmingham and Selma specifically because they had police chiefs with hair-trigger tendencies toward violence. So there was this strategic use of violence by the civil-rights movement, but it was to be the object of violence, not the instigators of violence. At the same time, what was very hard about, with that strategy, is that you had images of people observing their kinfolk being brutalized on television, and that helped fire up a more militant wing of the civil-rights movement, which endorsed violence in self-defense and was much less committed to tactics of nonviolence. When we observed a wave of violent protests in the mid- to late sixties, those white moderates who supported the Democratic Party after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 defected to the Republican Party in 1968. So, when the state was employing violence and protesters were the targets of that violence, the strategy worked well, and when protesters engaged in violence—whether or not the state was—those voters moved to the law-and-order coalition.
What did you find in your research, specifically about the 1968 election?
There has been a debate in social science for a long time about whether there was a backlash to the waves of violent protest in 1967 and 1968. Commonly, people will say “riot,” but I am using “violent protest” and “nonviolent protest” as the two categories. I looked at a hundred and thirty-seven violent protests that followed Martin Luther King, Jr.,’s assassination, in April, 1968. There is a bunch of evidence that protests are sensitive to weather, and when rain happens it is much less likely people engage in protests. And so we should expect that when there is more rainfall there is less likelihood that people will engage in protest, and when there is less rainfall there is more likelihood. So we get a crude natural experiment—it’s as if some places were randomly assigned a violent protest and some were not.
And what I find is that, in the week following King’s assassination, when ninety-five per cent of those violent April protests occurred, if your county was proximate to violent protests, then that county voted six to eight percentage points more toward Nixon in November. But maybe there was something correlated with rainfall driving this result, and so to address the possibility of a confounding factor, like geography, I also looked at rainfall in periods where we should expect no effect of rainfall on voting—e.g., periods before and more than a few days after the assassination. This is called a placebo test. It is only rainfall in the one week after the assassination that predicts this conservative shift in November, and, in the absence of a plausible alternative story for why rainfall in April was predicting voting in November, the most obvious explanation is that the violent protests were the cause. And so we can then claim a causal relationship between violent protests and the shift away from the Democratic coalition.
What protest tactics would you recommend for people concerned about police brutality today? On the one hand, these current protests were already sparked by state violence, so they don’t need to incite more of it. On the other hand, we have had these viral videos of police brutality for years, and it is not clear all that much is changing.
If you are an activist and there is this outrageous incident (like a knee on a neck) and you say, “How can we advance our interests?,” it might be that both violent and nonviolent protests are legitimate—but it still might be more effective to employ nonviolence, if we get everything we would from a violent protest, plus we don’t splinter a coalition that favors change. One puzzle is, if you are an activist, are nonviolent tactics going to get you more of what you want, or are violent tactics? And what I found from the sixties is that nonviolent protest achieved many of the same sorts of outcomes that the more militant activists were fighting for without splintering the Democratic coalition. There was a pro-segregation media at the time, and there were all kinds of state and federal repression—and, despite all of that, the nonviolent wing of the civil-rights movement was really able to move the country from tolerating Jim Crow to breaking Jim Crow.
So I think there is a lot of evidence that nonviolent tactics can be effective. You saw this on the first day in Minneapolis, where the police showed up with an excess of force, and you had these images of children running away and police dressed like stormtroopers. There are a set of narrative scripts in the public mind, and I think we interpret the news through those preëxisting narratives. And so a nonviolent protest where we see state excesses is a very powerful and sympathetic narrative for the cause of fighting police violence. And as soon as the tactics shift to more aggressive violent resistance—and, to be clear, as best I can tell, police were shooting rubber bullets and there was tear gas. It seemed like an excessive police response, and so in reaction protesters escalated as well. That has an unfortunate side effect of muddying the story. Instead of talking about the history of police killings in Minneapolis, we are talking about a store going up in flames, and the focus in reporting tends to shift from a justice frame to a crime frame. And that is an unfortunate thing for a protest movement. It ends up undermining the interests of the advocates.
Your answers are making me think about the Régis DeBray line that “the Revolution revolutionizes the Counter-Revolution.” Because whether intentional strategy or not, firing rubber bullets and police violence against protests may have the effect of making the protests more violent, and thus hurting the cause.


newyorker--2020-05-29--In Minneapolis, the Shocking Arrest of the Journalist Omar Jimenez Live on CNN

The President has had plenty of success in his pet project to abrade public trust in our country ’ s newsrooms .
Yet there remains , among the media class especially , a strong conviction that individual journalists are members of a protected group , and reap certain benefits accordingly .
Early on Friday morning , that notion was shockingly upset , when Omar Jimenez , a CNN journalist reporting on the ground in Minneapolis , about the mass uprising against the police killing of George Floyd , was arrested on live television .
It was a little after 5 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ became the news ; the sky was still purple as Jimenez and members of his television crew were handcuffed .
One by one , they were escorted from their station on a city block strewn with the detritus of rebellion .
While he was in the process of being detained , a cameraman , struck with a documentarian ’ s foresight , left his device on the ground , still recording , facing upward at a gonzo angle .
We watched and heard the recession of an officer ’ s boots as he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our aperture to truth .
Viewers watching live would have heard the honest bafflement in the voices of the anchors back in the studio , disturbing the detached tone of morning TV .
Jimenez ’ s arrest was not only wrong , like the arrests of journalists in Ferguson , Missouri , six years ago .
Its occurrence on live television made it also cretinous , serving to highlight the state ’ s delay in apprehending Derek Chauvin , the officer who killed Floyd , on Monday night , by pressing his knee @ @ @ @ @ @ @ period of more than eight minutes .
( Chauvin was finally taken into custody on Friday afternoon . )
Here is the point in the piece in which the media critic rhapsodizes about Jimenez ’ s comportment as this scene unfolded .
I could mention his startlement as the officers approached him , looking , in their visors and riot gear , less like humans than automatons .
I could describe the crush of officers as a frightening , encroaching mass of the color black—how they looked like the Gestapo in a dystopian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ foreign and undemocratic country .
I could transcribe Jimenez ’ s comment— “ Put us back where you want us ” —when the officers told him that his crew was out of some unspecified bounds .
I could mention Jimenez ’ s poise , the careful way he extended his limbs to produce his press credentials , his surrender when the officer informed him that he was under arrest .
I could mention how the mask he was wearing accentuated his brown skin , and the fact that one of his white CNN @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the police , was not arrested .
Which is all to say : I could make an exception out of Jimenez .
He gets slotted into a certain spot in the gradient of victimhood , just as Christian Cooper , a black birder in Central Park , was , several days ago , after a video he recorded went viral , showing a white woman , Amy Cooper , calling the police on him after he asked her to heed park rules and put her dog on a leash .
The police in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ journalist , to actively suppress speech , on live television , just as Amy Cooper was brazen enough to feign fear at a man who satisfied every fantasy we have of the kindly black bourgeoisie .
As an acquaintance on Twitter mentioned to me on Thursday , the outrage over the treatment of Christian Cooper depended on a “ libidinal value ” assigned to him by voyeurs , based both on his looks and on the élite appeal of his interests .
The outrage over the arrest of Jimenez depends on assigning him @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that fixating on the supposed singularity of these events , and the behavior of these good black men ( even with caveats about how that behavior should not matter ) , is part of the same matrix that calculates the killing of someone like George Floyd , a trucker and erstwhile rapper , as inevitable , a matter of the season .
Jimenez was released from police custody nearly an hour after his arrest .
The governor of Minnesota issued an apology to him and to CNN .
The Minneapolis Police Department claimed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his crew had not adequately responded when asked what they were doing standing where they were , even though the footage we ’ d all watched had shown that they had .
This is another tool of authoritarianism : to warp the relationship between the camera and the truth .
Tell people that what they ’ re seeing isn ’ t actually what they ’ re seeing , and eventually they ’ ll start to believe you .
Jimenez went straight back out to work , and the news grew meta-referential , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a story .
The network has spoken out on behalf of its reporter , and in defense of journalism , but we would be remiss not to interrogate how it has wrung the injustice that Jimenez experienced for high-drama TV .
Since the uprising in Ferguson , CNN has descended on cities in crisis and arranged its disaster tableaux : the single intrepid reporter , backgrounded by the faceless , angry black crowd .
Occasionally , a demonstrator might give a passing interview , but mostly it ’ s the telegenic anchor who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
CNN makes a spectacle of its own act of watching , which is not the same as neutral investigation .
The chyron on the freeze-frame of Jimenez , as he was led away by the officers , read “ Third Night of Protests , Fires in Minneapolis ” —which put rhetorical distance between the uprising and its cause , which was the killing of Floyd .
If you ’ d just tuned in , you might have assumed that Jimenez , now anonymized , was a protester .

The President has had plenty of success in his pet project to abrade public trust in our country’s newsrooms. Yet there remains, among the media class especially, a strong conviction that individual journalists are members of a protected group, and reap certain benefits accordingly. Early on Friday morning, that notion was shockingly upset, when Omar Jimenez, a CNN journalist reporting on the ground in Minneapolis, about the mass uprising against the police killing of George Floyd, was arrested on live television.
It was a little after 5 A.M. local time when the news generators became the news; the sky was still purple as Jimenez and members of his television crew were handcuffed. One by one, they were escorted from their station on a city block strewn with the detritus of rebellion. While he was in the process of being detained, a cameraman, struck with a documentarian’s foresight, left his device on the ground, still recording, facing upward at a gonzo angle. We watched and heard the recession of an officer’s boots as he retrieved the camera, which was also our aperture to truth. Viewers watching live would have heard the honest bafflement in the voices of the anchors back in the studio, disturbing the detached tone of morning TV. Jimenez’s arrest was not only wrong, like the arrests of journalists in Ferguson, Missouri, six years ago. Its occurrence on live television made it also cretinous, serving to highlight the state’s delay in apprehending Derek Chauvin, the officer who killed Floyd, on Monday night, by pressing his knee into Floyd’s neck for a period of more than eight minutes. (Chauvin was finally taken into custody on Friday afternoon.)
Here is the point in the piece in which the media critic rhapsodizes about Jimenez’s comportment as this scene unfolded. I could mention his startlement as the officers approached him, looking, in their visors and riot gear, less like humans than automatons. I could describe the crush of officers as a frightening, encroaching mass of the color black—how they looked like the Gestapo in a dystopian film, or the Gestapo in a foreign and undemocratic country. I could transcribe Jimenez’s comment—“Put us back where you want us”—when the officers told him that his crew was out of some unspecified bounds. I could mention Jimenez’s poise, the careful way he extended his limbs to produce his press credentials, his surrender when the officer informed him that he was under arrest. I could mention how the mask he was wearing accentuated his brown skin, and the fact that one of his white CNN colleagues, who was also questioned by the police, was not arrested.
Which is all to say: I could make an exception out of Jimenez. He gets slotted into a certain spot in the gradient of victimhood, just as Christian Cooper, a black birder in Central Park, was, several days ago, after a video he recorded went viral, showing a white woman, Amy Cooper, calling the police on him after he asked her to heed park rules and put her dog on a leash. The police in Minneapolis were brazen enough to arrest a journalist, to actively suppress speech, on live television, just as Amy Cooper was brazen enough to feign fear at a man who satisfied every fantasy we have of the kindly black bourgeoisie. As an acquaintance on Twitter mentioned to me on Thursday, the outrage over the treatment of Christian Cooper depended on a “libidinal value” assigned to him by voyeurs, based both on his looks and on the élite appeal of his interests. The outrage over the arrest of Jimenez depends on assigning him a professional value. The problem is that fixating on the supposed singularity of these events, and the behavior of these good black men (even with caveats about how that behavior should not matter), is part of the same matrix that calculates the killing of someone like George Floyd, a trucker and erstwhile rapper, as inevitable, a matter of the season.
Jimenez was released from police custody nearly an hour after his arrest. The governor of Minnesota issued an apology to him and to CNN. The Minneapolis Police Department claimed, on Twitter, that Jimenez and his crew had not adequately responded when asked what they were doing standing where they were, even though the footage we’d all watched had shown that they had. This is another tool of authoritarianism: to warp the relationship between the camera and the truth. Tell people that what they’re seeing isn’t actually what they’re seeing, and eventually they’ll start to believe you.
Jimenez went straight back out to work, and the news grew meta-referential, as CNN made its employee’s ordeal a story. The network has spoken out on behalf of its reporter, and in defense of journalism, but we would be remiss not to interrogate how it has wrung the injustice that Jimenez experienced for high-drama TV. Since the uprising in Ferguson, CNN has descended on cities in crisis and arranged its disaster tableaux: the single intrepid reporter, backgrounded by the faceless, angry black crowd. Occasionally, a demonstrator might give a passing interview, but mostly it’s the telegenic anchor who narrates events from his own first-person vantage. CNN makes a spectacle of its own act of watching, which is not the same as neutral investigation. The chyron on the freeze-frame of Jimenez, as he was led away by the officers—“Third Night of Protests, Fires in Minneapolis”—put rhetorical distance between the uprising and its cause, which was the killing of Floyd. If you’d just tuned in, you might have assumed that Jimenez, now anonymized, was a protester.
Race, Policing, and Black Lives Matter Protests


newyorker--2020-05-29--Life After Lockdown, and the Politics of Blaming China

Peter Hessler , who reported from China during quarantine , describes the lifting of those restrictions to David Remnick ; @ @ @ @ @ going to school , and he recently went to a dance club .
Meanwhile , @ @ @ @ @ Osnos explains how blaming China has become a touchstone of the Presidential race in America @ @ @ @ @ the government interventions he thinks are necessary to rebuild the economy for a post-COVID “ @ @ @ @ @ that would please Bernie Sanders .
And Susan Orlean tries her hand at origami .
@ @ @ @ @ , China , on what life after lockdown looks like , and why the experience @ @ @ @ @ very different .
The staff writer Evan Osnos explains Washington ’ s obsession with China @ @ @ @ @ shape the 2020 election .
Mark Cuban Wants to Save Capitalism from Itself A reality-show @ @ @ @ @ surprising approach to the economic crisis : socialism .
A books columnist picks three novels @ @ @ @ @ times .

Illustration by Golden Cosmos
Peter Hessler, who reported from China during quarantine, describes the lifting of those restrictions to David Remnick; Hessler’s children are going to school, and he recently went to a dance club. Meanwhile, back in Washington, Evan Osnos explains how blaming China has become a touchstone of the Presidential race in America. Uber-capitalist Mark Cuban describes the government interventions he thinks are necessary to rebuild the economy for a post-COVID “America 2.0”—a program that would please Bernie Sanders. And Susan Orlean tries her hand at origami.
Peter Hessler on Life After Lockdown
Peter Hessler reports from Chengdu, China, on what life after lockdown looks like, and why the experience in the U.S. will be very different.
The Rise of Anti-China Rhetoric
The staff writer Evan Osnos explains Washington’s obsession with China, and how it might shape the 2020 election.
Mark Cuban Wants to Save Capitalism from Itself
A reality-show mogul and multibillionaire offers a surprising approach to the economic crisis: socialism.
Katy Waldman on Comic Novels
A books columnist picks three novels to bring humor to dark times.
Susan Orlean Gets a Lesson in Origami
Who knew origami was a growth industry?


newyorker--2020-05-29--Fifty Years of Friendship with Larry Kramer

In 1997 , my younger daughter , Sarah , and I were both invited to contribute essays to an anthology called “ We Must Love One Another or Die : The Life and Legacies of Larry Kramer.
” Mine began like this : “ When I was asked if I could write about some aspect of Larry Kramer ’ s life for this book , I said , ‘ I might be able to write a piece about Kramer as a pain in the ass , but I suppose you have too many of those as it is.
’ ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Christmas Dinner with Uncle Larry , ” she said that the angry person she saw on television—someone who had been called “ the most belligerent man in America ” —was nothing like the sweet Larry Kramer she knew .
In nearly fifty years of friendship , our family saw a lot of both Kramers .
( I tended to call him Kramer , or Nedster , after Ned Weeks , the pain-in-the-ass character in “ The Normal Heart ” that he based on himself . )
We had been classmates at Yale @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to know each other until our fifteenth college reunion , in 1972 .
Kramer was a regular at reunions , even those like the fifteenth , which were relatively lightly attended .
I still have a picture in my mind of him chatting with a few of our more conservative classmates at what must have been our thirty-fifth , in 1992 : everyone in the conversation is in official reunion gear except for Kramer , who is wearing his ACT UP baseball cap .
At the time of the fifteenth , he had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doing some screenwriting in California , and had taken an apartment not far from where we lived , in the Village .
That must have been the first year he came to Christmas dinner .
His attendance record for the next forty-six years was not quite perfect .
One March , I received a copy of a long letter he ’ d sent to the president of Yale , complaining about how the university had handled the discipline of students who had disrupted a speech by the Secretary of Health and Human Services @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Yale at the time . )
Deep in the letter , he said he ’ d been so discouraged about how little his straight friends had done for the cause that he hadn ’ t been able to face going to the Trillins ’ for Christmas dinner .
I was under the impression that he ’ d been out of the country .
When I showed my wife , Alice , the letter , she said , “ Odd sort of R.S.V.P.
” Then she arranged a dinner to patch things up with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ known as a writer rather than as an activist .
He would have been pleased that the headline on his obituary in the Times this week identified him as an author and AIDS activist , in that order .
When he gave the manuscript of “ Faggots , ” his first novel , to Alice to critique , it was , as I remember , sixteen hundred pages long .
She suggested some cuts—apparently , according to many of the reviews , not enough of them .
“ Faggots ” was read as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bathhouse culture—the culture some gay men thought they ’ d fought for the right to embrace—and , in parts of the gay community , it made Kramer a pariah .
It was sort of a dress rehearsal for being the lone voice in the wilderness .
As the AIDS crisis grew , we watched Kramer get comfortable in the role of the most belligerent man in America .
He compared what was happening to the Holocaust .
He called Anthony Fauci “ an incompetent idiot , ” and even managed to insult Fauci @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was treating AIDS patients and developing protocols to alleviate their suffering .
He disrupted church services and funerals .
He once took it upon himself to write the C.E.O .
of a company with policies he considered detrimental to the cause and state that , if it didn ’ t change its ways , his older brother ’ s law firm would quit representing it .
( I thought of Arthur Kramer as the best big brother in the world—and the most tested . )
In 2002 , while talking to Joe Lelyveld @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Times made him a natural Kramer target , I mentioned that I was driving Kramer up to our forty-fifth reunion .
Joe said , “ I ’ ve been a bit cool on Larry since he accused me of murdering my friend.
” “ He probably wasn ’ t even mad , ” I said .
“ He was just clearing his throat.
” Was this the same man who was beloved by my daughters ?
There are a lot of ways of explaining Kramer ’ s behavior .
He himself , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anger during a troubled childhood with a father he hated .
The explanation I favor is that he was a pain in the ass as a matter of policy .
He was saying that people are dying and that polite conversations in well-modulated voices are not going to save them .
It would take some shouting .
And—this is the most important part—he was right .

In 1997, my younger daughter, Sarah, and I were both invited to contribute essays to an anthology called “We Must Love One Another or Die: The Life and Legacies of Larry Kramer.” Mine began like this: “When I was asked if I could write about some aspect of Larry Kramer’s life for this book, I said, ‘I might be able to write a piece about Kramer as a pain in the ass, but I suppose you have too many of those as it is.’ ” In Sarah’s essay, titled “Christmas Dinner with Uncle Larry,” she said that the angry person she saw on television—someone who had been called “the most belligerent man in America”—was nothing like the sweet Larry Kramer she knew.
In nearly fifty years of friendship, our family saw a lot of both Kramers. (I tended to call him Kramer, or Nedster, after Ned Weeks, the pain-in-the-ass character in “The Normal Heart” that he based on himself.) We had been classmates at Yale, but we didn’t get to know each other until our fifteenth college reunion, in 1972. Kramer was a regular at reunions, even those like the fifteenth, which were relatively lightly attended. I still have a picture in my mind of him chatting with a few of our more conservative classmates at what must have been our thirty-fifth, in 1992: everyone in the conversation is in official reunion gear except for Kramer, who is wearing his ACT UP baseball cap. At the time of the fifteenth, he had just moved back to New York after doing some screenwriting in California, and had taken an apartment not far from where we lived, in the Village. That must have been the first year he came to Christmas dinner.
His attendance record for the next forty-six years was not quite perfect. One March, I received a copy of a long letter he’d sent to the president of Yale, complaining about how the university had handled the discipline of students who had disrupted a speech by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. (I was a trustee of Yale at the time.) Deep in the letter, he said he’d been so discouraged about how little his straight friends had done for the cause that he hadn’t been able to face going to the Trillins’ for Christmas dinner. I was under the impression that he’d been out of the country. When I showed my wife, Alice, the letter, she said, “Odd sort of R.S.V.P.” Then she arranged a dinner to patch things up with Kramer.
Kramer always wanted to be known as a writer rather than as an activist. He would have been pleased that the headline on his obituary in the Times this week identified him as an author and AIDS activist, in that order. When he gave the manuscript of “Faggots,” his first novel, to Alice to critique, it was, as I remember, sixteen hundred pages long. She suggested some cuts—apparently, according to many of the reviews, not enough of them. “Faggots” was read as a condemnation of the promiscuous, drug-fuelled bathhouse culture—the culture some gay men thought they’d fought for the right to embrace—and, in parts of the gay community, it made Kramer a pariah. It was sort of a dress rehearsal for being the lone voice in the wilderness.
As the AIDS crisis grew, we watched Kramer get comfortable in the role of the most belligerent man in America. He compared what was happening to the Holocaust. He called Anthony Fauci “an incompetent idiot,” and even managed to insult Fauci’s wife, a nurse who was treating AIDS patients and developing protocols to alleviate their suffering. He disrupted church services and funerals. He once took it upon himself to write the C.E.O. of a company with policies he considered detrimental to the cause and state that, if it didn’t change its ways, his older brother’s law firm would quit representing it. (I thought of Arthur Kramer as the best big brother in the world—and the most tested.)
In 2002, while talking to Joe Lelyveld, whose position as executive editor of the Times made him a natural Kramer target, I mentioned that I was driving Kramer up to our forty-fifth reunion. Joe said, “I’ve been a bit cool on Larry since he accused me of murdering my friend.”
“He probably wasn’t even mad,” I said. “He was just clearing his throat.”
Was this the same man who was beloved by my daughters? There are a lot of ways of explaining Kramer’s behavior. He himself, for instance, wrote about storing up anger during a troubled childhood with a father he hated. The explanation I favor is that he was a pain in the ass as a matter of policy. He was saying that people are dying and that polite conversations in well-modulated voices are not going to save them. It would take some shouting. And—this is the most important part—he was right.


newyorker--2020-05-29--Trump’s Phony War with Twitter Escalates

Donald Trump ’ s attacks against Twitter , which culminated in an executive order about free speech and alleged “ censorship ” on social media that he signed on Thursday , have succeeded in at least one of their aims .
As the death toll in the U.S. from the coronavirus passed a hundred thousand this week , many journalists , myself included , were writing about something else .
Nancy Pelosi , the Democratic Speaker of the House , got it right when she told MSNBC , on Thursday , “ People are dying , Rome is burning , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is what he said next about [ Twitter ] .
That is a success for him.
” The dispute between the President and the social-media network escalated early on Friday , when Twitter tagged a Trump tweet which appeared to suggest that the police in Minneapolis should shoot some of the people protesting the killing of George Floyd ; the company noted that the tweet “ violated the Twitter rules against glorifying violence.
” The White House responded by repeating Trump ’ s words on its official Twitter account , and Twitter tagged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ raises questions about how far the two sides are willing to go .
In signing the executive order on Thursday , Trump threatened to remove some of the legal protections that Internet companies were afforded in the Communications Decency Act of 1996 .
Earlier this week , when Twitter tagged a pair of Trump tweets about mail-in ballots as being factually inaccurate , it was widely seen as a narrow move : the company had previously announced that it would police disinformation about voting and voting systems .
But the company ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decided to curtail Trump ’ s incendiary trolling more broadly .
In two tweets he posted early on Friday , after protesters in Minneapolis torched a police precinct , Trump called the protesters “ thugs ” and threatened to send the National Guard to Minneapolis , saying , “ when the looting starts , the shooting starts.
” Explaining its decision to tag one of Trump ’ s tweets , Twitter said , “ We ’ ve taken action in the interest of preventing others from being inspired to commit violent acts , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because it is important that the public still be able to see the Tweet given its relevance to ongoing matters of public importance.
” White House officials reacted furiously .
“ Twitter is full of shit , ” Dan Scavino , the White House deputy chief of staff for communications , said in a tweet .
But there can be no doubt that Trump and his flaks are delighted to talk about anything other than the coronavirus pandemic .
A few hours before he signed the executive order about social media , Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ death toll .
Characteristically , he did it on Twitter , rather than in person—a single tweet to acknowledge all the lives lost , when , in the past three days , he has spoken out loud and at length about a whole variety of other subjects , including , of course , the dispute with Twitter .
Give Trump credit for one thing : with his approval rating in the G.O.P.-leaning Rasmussen poll hitting its lowest level since 2017 this week , he has displayed the survival instincts of a cornered rat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with Twitter , he has appealed to one of his supporters ’ core beliefs—that they are a persecuted minority .
The reality is that , for commercial reasons—divisiveness begets clicks which begets ad revenue—Twitter and Facebook have given Trump enormous license to peddle lies and disinformation , and to target individuals whom he perceives as his enemies , including , most recently , the MSNBC host Joe Scarborough , whom he has essentially accused of murder .
If Twitter has , indeed , decided to change tack and make Trump conform to at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to regular users of the platform , that is an entirely positive development .
But it was a decision that was sure to infuriate the Troll-in-Chief .
In signing the executive order , Trump claimed that he was moving to “ defend free speech from one of the greatest dangers it has faced in American history.
” The idea of Trump as a defender of free speech is nonsense , of course .
Last year , a federal appeals court ruled that he had violated the First Amendment by blocking some of his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ past four years berating the media and calling for television networks that cross him to lose their broadcasting licenses .
What Trump really desires is a slavish press and docile online platforms that distribute anything and everything he throws out there without raising any flags .
“ He wants what internet trolls and rebels have always wanted : to be allowed to post in peace , free of limits and restrictions , ” Kevin Roose , a technology columnist for the Times , pointed out .
“ Most of all , he wants @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who is really in charge.
” The White House is threatening to rewrite Section 230 of the 1996 legislation , which is the bit that exempts online companies like Twitter and Facebook from the possibility of being sued for libel or defamation due to material that appears on their platforms .
Trump ’ s executive order also directed the Department of Commerce to ask the Federal Communications Commission to look into changing the law , so that the federal government can remove an online company ’ s legal protections if it unfairly censors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reality is that this is very unlikely to happen—and Trump would be the first to complain if it did happen .
To begin with , the courts have taken an expansive view of the legal protections contained in Section 230 , and they will almost certainly object to Trump ’ s efforts to restrict them .
The Administration can ask Congress to rewrite the legislation , which has long been controversial , but this would involve dealing with the Democrats , who control the House .
On Thursday , the Attorney General , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the White House , said that the Justice Department would indeed draft some legislation for Congress .
Good luck dealing with Speaker Pelosi .
The legal and political basis of the executive order is flimsy , at best .
But the real giveaway that this initiative is baloney comes from the toxic contents of Trump ’ s own Twitter account .
It is the very provisions of Section 230 that allow him to post hateful and defamatory tweets , such as the ones he has directed at Scarborough in recent weeks .
If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to go ahead and strip Twitter of its legal immunities , the social-media platform would almost certainly have to shut down Trump ’ s account , along with the accounts of his son Donald , Jr. , and many other prominent Trump supporters .
If the company didn ’ t purge these accounts—or police them much more vigorously—it could be held liable for all the incendiary and slanderous material that they generate and amplify .
Having his online megaphone taken away is the last thing that Trump wants .
In addition to providing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , his real intention here is to bully Twitter into foregoing any actions that would seriously interfere with his exploitation of the platform during the upcoming election campaign .
An occasional fact check here and there—he can live with that .
But if Twitter were to fact-check all of his posts , or to tag them systematically in the way that it tagged his shoot-the-protesters tweet , it could significantly hamper his ability to propagandize effectively .
In theory , Trump could switch his messaging to Facebook , which has recently foresworn efforts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the posts of any other politician .
The Trump campaign has already pulled its online ads from Twitter and concentrated them on Facebook .
( On Thursday , the campaign put up an ad that showed Joe Biden wearing a mask and standing in front of a Chinese flag . )
But , for Trump , leaving Twitter would mean abandoning more than eighty million followers , a step that seems highly unlikely .
Despite all of the hullabaloo of the past few days , the Twitter Presidency is likely to continue .

Donald Trump’s attacks against Twitter, which culminated in an executive order about free speech and alleged “censorship” on social media that he signed on Thursday, have succeeded in at least one of their aims. As the death toll in the U.S. from the coronavirus passed a hundred thousand this week, many journalists, myself included, were writing about something else. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House, got it right when she told MSNBC, on Thursday, “People are dying, Rome is burning, and all people want to talk about is what he said next about [Twitter]. That is a success for him.”
The dispute between the President and the social-media network escalated early on Friday, when Twitter tagged a Trump tweet which appeared to suggest that the police in Minneapolis should shoot some of the people protesting the killing of George Floyd; the company noted that the tweet “violated the Twitter rules against glorifying violence.” The White House responded by repeating Trump’s words on its official Twitter account, and Twitter tagged that tweet, too.
This escalation raises questions about how far the two sides are willing to go. In signing the executive order on Thursday, Trump threatened to remove some of the legal protections that Internet companies were afforded in the Communications Decency Act of 1996. Earlier this week, when Twitter tagged a pair of Trump tweets about mail-in ballots as being factually inaccurate, it was widely seen as a narrow move: the company had previously announced that it would police disinformation about voting and voting systems. But the company’s latest action suggests that it may have decided to curtail Trump’s incendiary trolling more broadly. In two tweets he posted early on Friday, after protesters in Minneapolis torched a police precinct, Trump called the protesters “thugs” and threatened to send the National Guard to Minneapolis, saying, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” Explaining its decision to tag one of Trump’s tweets, Twitter said, “We’ve taken action in the interest of preventing others from being inspired to commit violent acts, but have kept the Tweet on Twitter because it is important that the public still be able to see the Tweet given its relevance to ongoing matters of public importance.”
White House officials reacted furiously. “Twitter is full of shit,” Dan Scavino, the White House deputy chief of staff for communications, said in a tweet. But there can be no doubt that Trump and his flaks are delighted to talk about anything other than the coronavirus pandemic. A few hours before he signed the executive order about social media, Trump finally got around to acknowledging the tragic death toll. Characteristically, he did it on Twitter, rather than in person—a single tweet to acknowledge all the lives lost, when, in the past three days, he has spoken out loud and at length about a whole variety of other subjects, including, of course, the dispute with Twitter.
Give Trump credit for one thing: with his approval rating in the G.O.P.-leaning Rasmussen poll hitting its lowest level since 2017 this week, he has displayed the survival instincts of a cornered rat. By whipping up a fake controversy with Twitter, he has appealed to one of his supporters’ core beliefs—that they are a persecuted minority. The reality is that, for commercial reasons—divisiveness begets clicks which begets ad revenue—Twitter and Facebook have given Trump enormous license to peddle lies and disinformation, and to target individuals whom he perceives as his enemies, including, most recently, the MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, whom he has essentially accused of murder. If Twitter has, indeed, decided to change tack and make Trump conform to at least some of the rules that apply to regular users of the platform, that is an entirely positive development. But it was a decision that was sure to infuriate the Troll-in-Chief.
In signing the executive order, Trump claimed that he was moving to “defend free speech from one of the greatest dangers it has faced in American history.” The idea of Trump as a defender of free speech is nonsense, of course. Last year, a federal appeals court ruled that he had violated the First Amendment by blocking some of his Twitter followers. He has spent the past four years berating the media and calling for television networks that cross him to lose their broadcasting licenses. What Trump really desires is a slavish press and docile online platforms that distribute anything and everything he throws out there without raising any flags. “He wants what internet trolls and rebels have always wanted: to be allowed to post in peace, free of limits and restrictions,” Kevin Roose, a technology columnist for the Times, pointed out. “Most of all, he wants the mods”—moderators—“to know who is really in charge.”
The White House is threatening to rewrite Section 230 of the 1996 legislation, which is the bit that exempts online companies like Twitter and Facebook from the possibility of being sued for libel or defamation due to material that appears on their platforms. Trump’s executive order also directed the Department of Commerce to ask the Federal Communications Commission to look into changing the law, so that the federal government can remove an online company’s legal protections if it unfairly censors or discriminates against certain users.
The reality is that this is very unlikely to happen—and Trump would be the first to complain if it did happen. To begin with, the courts have taken an expansive view of the legal protections contained in Section 230, and they will almost certainly object to Trump’s efforts to restrict them. The Administration can ask Congress to rewrite the legislation, which has long been controversial, but this would involve dealing with the Democrats, who control the House. On Thursday, the Attorney General, William Barr, appearing alongside Trump at the White House, said that the Justice Department would indeed draft some legislation for Congress. Good luck dealing with Speaker Pelosi.
The legal and political basis of the executive order is flimsy, at best. But the real giveaway that this initiative is baloney comes from the toxic contents of Trump’s own Twitter account. It is the very provisions of Section 230 that allow him to post hateful and defamatory tweets, such as the ones he has directed at Scarborough in recent weeks. If the Administration, or Congress, were to go ahead and strip Twitter of its legal immunities, the social-media platform would almost certainly have to shut down Trump’s account, along with the accounts of his son Donald, Jr., and many other prominent Trump supporters. If the company didn’t purge these accounts—or police them much more vigorously—it could be held liable for all the incendiary and slanderous material that they generate and amplify.
Having his online megaphone taken away is the last thing that Trump wants. In addition to providing a distraction from the disastrous coronavirus statistics, his real intention here is to bully Twitter into foregoing any actions that would seriously interfere with his exploitation of the platform during the upcoming election campaign. An occasional fact check here and there—he can live with that. But if Twitter were to fact-check all of his posts, or to tag them systematically in the way that it tagged his shoot-the-protesters tweet, it could significantly hamper his ability to propagandize effectively.
In theory, Trump could switch his messaging to Facebook, which has recently foresworn efforts to police Trump’s posts or the posts of any other politician. The Trump campaign has already pulled its online ads from Twitter and concentrated them on Facebook. (On Thursday, the campaign put up an ad that showed Joe Biden wearing a mask and standing in front of a Chinese flag.) But, for Trump, leaving Twitter would mean abandoning more than eighty million followers, a step that seems highly unlikely. Despite all of the hullabaloo of the past few days, the Twitter Presidency is likely to continue.


newyorker--2020-05-29--Hunger, Infection, and Repression: Venezuela’s Coronavirus Calamity

In late February , Carolina González , a Venezuelan health-care worker , was summoned for a meeting near the Clinic hospital , in northern Caracas .
Doctors , nurses , residents , and union leaders crowded the room .
One of the doctors spoke of a deadly virus that had originated in China and was spreading rapidly around the world .
The doctor said that no cases of the coronavirus had been confirmed yet in Venezuela , but the country ’ s ties with China were close enough that workers needed to know that it would surely reach them and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of every one of us , ” González recalled .
Many people around her broke into tears .
Others asked how a country where most hospitals lack running water , electricity , and soap could combat such an illness .
González ’ s thoughts drifted away from the meeting room .
She feared for her seventy-year-old mother , who suffers from hypertension ; her three children , ages twenty-one , eighteen , and eleven ; and her granddaughter , who has been in González ’ s charge since her daughter-in-law fled to Peru @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a joint income of ten dollars per month , González and her partner support the entire family .
Sheltering in place was not an option for them , nor for millions in Venezuela , a country where the poor line up outside slaughterhouses to fill buckets with cow blood , the only protein they can afford .
González , whose name has been changed to protect her identity , lives with her family in Barrio Kennedy , a slum on the capital ’ s southwestern edge .
Spread for miles over a hilltop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shanties and narrow streets .
Like many of her neighbors , González , who is in her forties , knew that a national lockdown would be impossible to comply with .
“ We were told that the cure to the coronavirus was isolation , ” she said .
“ But , in a country where there is no food , no water , no light , no nothing , how are you supposed to isolate ?
” In mid-March , when President Nicolás Maduro ordered a lockdown , she and many other Venezuelans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ That meant going to the market every day to find whatever they could afford , if anything .
Venezuela has the highest inflation rate in the world—bolivares are practically worthless , and most prices are in U.S. dollars .
“ A kilo of flour that today costs two hundred and ten thousand bolivares will be two hundred and fifteen thousand tomorrow , ” González told me .
Eggs now cost more than the monthly minimum wage , and the World Food Programme has warned of a potential famine during the coronavirus pandemic .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ buy food , she would have no way to store it for long periods of time .
Power in Kennedy comes and goes .
The first time González and I spoke , she had gone twenty-two days without running water .
When it finally returned , in the middle of the night , she woke her children to help her fill every container they had .
“ We spent hours filling tanks , plastic buckets , pitchers , pots , bottles , ” she recalled .
“ We ’ d fill teaspoons if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , doctors are finding it difficult to raise awareness about COVID-19 .
Jaime Lorenzo , a surgeon from Caracas , told me that he has spent days in the city ’ s slums talking about how to contain the virus .
“ When you tell people that they need to wash their hands for at least forty seconds , they look at you as if you came from another world , ” Lorenzo said .
“ An old lady recently told me , ‘ Look , my son , I ’ d rather @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And when someone speaks to you with such truths , there ’ s nothing else to be said.
” Until last week , the Maduro regime had recorded a suspiciously low case count—fewer than a thousand coronavirus infections and only ten deaths in a nation of twenty-nine million .
In recent days , though , the number of cases reported by the government more than doubled .
Some argue that Venezuela ’ s isolation from the rest of the world has helped contain the virus ’ s spread , but the country ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ official figures .
All testing has been centralized in one laboratory , the National Institute of Hygiene , in Caracas , which can only process six hundred tests per day .
Since the country ’ s first coronavirus cases were reported , on March 13th , the government has carefully guarded testing data .
Julio Castro , an infectious-disease specialist at the Central University , in Caracas , criticized the government ’ s lack of transparency .
“ They claim to be making hundreds of thousands of rapid tests , but no one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conducted , ” Castro , who also advises the opposition leader Juan Guaidó , said .
“ If you don ’ t have any information or data to monitor an epidemic , it will very likely go astray.
” It ’ s increasingly clear that Venezuela ’ s regime is using the pandemic to strengthen its hold on power .
Earlier this month , the Academy of Physical , Mathematical , and Natural Sciences issued a report accusing the government of underreporting infections .
It warned of an estimated one thousand to four @ @ @ @ @ @ @ early as June .
Days later , Diosdado Cabello , the Vice-President of Venezuela ’ s ruling party , dismissed the report and announced an investigation into the academy ’ s work .
Appearing on his weekly state-television program , “ Beat Them with a Club , ” Cabello declared the report “ an invitation to state security bodies to summon ” its authors .
Maduro ’ s nationwide lockdown has largely thwarted people ’ s ability to hold mass demonstrations .
In a show of force , the military is enforcing quarantine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a dozen health-care workers and journalists have been detained for speaking publicly about missing supplies or questioning the official infection count .
As the pandemic spreads , the Trump Administration has continued its aggressive use of economic , legal , and military pressure on Venezuela—first by tightening sanctions , and recently by deploying naval destroyers off the country ’ s coast .
The country ’ s health-care system is in disarray after years of mismanagement and corruption .
Shortages of medicine , supplies , and personal protective equipment are endemic .
As of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hospitals tracked by health-care unions in Caracas did not have face masks , five had no running water , and thirteen did not have soap .
Not a single MRI machine in the capital is running .
In the country ’ s forty largest hospitals , just more than two hundred ventilators and a hundred and sixty-three I.C.U .
beds are functioning .
Doctors no longer speak of apagones , or blackouts , but of alumbrones—a reference to the rare occasion when the lights turn back on .
The majority of Venezuelan doctors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to stay say that they are woefully unprepared to deal with a pandemic .
Lorenzo , the surgeon in Caracas , fears that the coronavirus is drawing attention away from combatting other diseases .
A number of illnesses , including measles and diphtheria , have resurfaced in recent years .
“ We have malaria and tuberculosis pretty much all over the country , malnutrition is growing , and cancers go untreated , ” he said .
The regime has not published periodic health statistics in years , and one of the few international @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the World Health Organization .
Its local representative , Gerardo de Cosío , has publicly praised some of the measures adopted by the regime , and has also participated in meetings held by a government-appointed commission , treading carefully in his dealings with officials .
“ We have to earn their confidence in order to access that kind of information , ” de Cosío told me .
“ And we try to keep a low profile to have an impact on the country ’ s health issues.
” Many of the Venezuelan doctors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 's deterioration take issue with the W.H.O.
’ s approach .
“ It ’ s a problem when technicians assume a diplomatic role just to guarantee their presence in the country , ” Lorenzo said .
The fear is that the W.H.O.
’ s coöperation with Maduro may conjure a false sense of security , and allow officials to deflect attention from the dire conditions inside hospitals .

In late February, Carolina González, a Venezuelan health-care worker, was summoned for a meeting near the Clinic hospital, in northern Caracas. Doctors, nurses, residents, and union leaders crowded the room. One of the doctors spoke of a deadly virus that had originated in China and was spreading rapidly around the world. The doctor said that no cases of the coronavirus had been confirmed yet in Venezuela, but the country’s ties with China were close enough that workers needed to know that it would surely reach them and their families. “Fear took hold of every one of us,” González recalled. Many people around her broke into tears. Others asked how a country where most hospitals lack running water, electricity, and soap could combat such an illness. González’s thoughts drifted away from the meeting room. She feared for her seventy-year-old mother, who suffers from hypertension; her three children, ages twenty-one, eighteen, and eleven; and her granddaughter, who has been in González’s charge since her daughter-in-law fled to Peru, in search of work. With a joint income of ten dollars per month, González and her partner support the entire family. Sheltering in place was not an option for them, nor for millions in Venezuela, a country where the poor line up outside slaughterhouses to fill buckets with cow blood, the only protein they can afford.
González, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, lives with her family in Barrio Kennedy, a slum on the capital’s southwestern edge. Spread for miles over a hilltop, the community is blanketed by red-brick shanties and narrow streets. Like many of her neighbors, González, who is in her forties, knew that a national lockdown would be impossible to comply with. “We were told that the cure to the coronavirus was isolation,” she said. “But, in a country where there is no food, no water, no light, no nothing, how are you supposed to isolate?” In mid-March, when President Nicolás Maduro ordered a lockdown, she and many other Venezuelans carried on with their normal lives. That meant going to the market every day to find whatever they could afford, if anything. Venezuela has the highest inflation rate in the world—bolivares are practically worthless, and most prices are in U.S. dollars. “A kilo of flour that today costs two hundred and ten thousand bolivares will be two hundred and fifteen thousand tomorrow,” González told me. Eggs now cost more than the monthly minimum wage, and the World Food Programme has warned of a potential famine during the coronavirus pandemic.
Even if González had the means to buy food, she would have no way to store it for long periods of time. Power in Kennedy comes and goes. The first time González and I spoke, she had gone twenty-two days without running water. When it finally returned, in the middle of the night, she woke her children to help her fill every container they had. “We spent hours filling tanks, plastic buckets, pitchers, pots, bottles,” she recalled. “We’d fill teaspoons if we could!” Amid such deprivation, doctors are finding it difficult to raise awareness about COVID-19. Jaime Lorenzo, a surgeon from Caracas, told me that he has spent days in the city’s slums talking about how to contain the virus. “When you tell people that they need to wash their hands for at least forty seconds, they look at you as if you came from another world,” Lorenzo said. “An old lady recently told me, ‘Look, my son, I’d rather die from COVID than from hunger.’ And when someone speaks to you with such truths, there’s nothing else to be said.”
Until last week, the Maduro regime had recorded a suspiciously low case count—fewer than a thousand coronavirus infections and only ten deaths in a nation of twenty-nine million. In recent days, though, the number of cases reported by the government more than doubled. Some argue that Venezuela’s isolation from the rest of the world has helped contain the virus’s spread, but the country’s limited testing casts doubt on the official figures. All testing has been centralized in one laboratory, the National Institute of Hygiene, in Caracas, which can only process six hundred tests per day. Since the country’s first coronavirus cases were reported, on March 13th, the government has carefully guarded testing data. Julio Castro, an infectious-disease specialist at the Central University, in Caracas, criticized the government’s lack of transparency. “They claim to be making hundreds of thousands of rapid tests, but no one knows how or where they are being conducted,” Castro, who also advises the opposition leader Juan Guaidó, said. “If you don’t have any information or data to monitor an epidemic, it will very likely go astray.”
It’s increasingly clear that Venezuela’s regime is using the pandemic to strengthen its hold on power. Earlier this month, the Academy of Physical, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences issued a report accusing the government of underreporting infections. It warned of an estimated one thousand to four thousand cases, per day, as early as June. Days later, Diosdado Cabello, the Vice-President of Venezuela’s ruling party, dismissed the report and announced an investigation into the academy’s work. Appearing on his weekly state-television program, “Beat Them with a Club,” Cabello declared the report “an invitation to state security bodies to summon” its authors. Maduro’s nationwide lockdown has largely thwarted people’s ability to hold mass demonstrations. In a show of force, the military is enforcing quarantine measures and overseeing hospitals. More than a dozen health-care workers and journalists have been detained for speaking publicly about missing supplies or questioning the official infection count. As the pandemic spreads, the Trump Administration has continued its aggressive use of economic, legal, and military pressure on Venezuela—first by tightening sanctions, and recently by deploying naval destroyers off the country’s coast.
The country’s health-care system is in disarray after years of mismanagement and corruption. Shortages of medicine, supplies, and personal protective equipment are endemic. As of May 28th, six of the sixteen hospitals tracked by health-care unions in Caracas did not have face masks, five had no running water, and thirteen did not have soap. Not a single MRI machine in the capital is running. In the country’s forty largest hospitals, just more than two hundred ventilators and a hundred and sixty-three I.C.U. beds are functioning. Doctors no longer speak of apagones, or blackouts, but of alumbrones—a reference to the rare occasion when the lights turn back on. The majority of Venezuelan doctors have fled, and those who chose to stay say that they are woefully unprepared to deal with a pandemic. Lorenzo, the surgeon in Caracas, fears that the coronavirus is drawing attention away from combatting other diseases. A number of illnesses, including measles and diphtheria, have resurfaced in recent years. “We have malaria and tuberculosis pretty much all over the country, malnutrition is growing, and cancers go untreated,” he said.
The regime has not published periodic health statistics in years, and one of the few international organizations with knowledge of the situation is the World Health Organization. Its local representative, Gerardo de Cosío, has publicly praised some of the measures adopted by the regime, and has also participated in meetings held by a government-appointed commission, treading carefully in his dealings with officials. “We have to earn their confidence in order to access that kind of information,” de Cosío told me. “And we try to keep a low profile to have an impact on the country’s health issues.” Many of the Venezuelan doctors who have spent years denouncing the system's deterioration take issue with the W.H.O.’s approach. “It’s a problem when technicians assume a diplomatic role just to guarantee their presence in the country,” Lorenzo said. The fear is that the W.H.O.’s coöperation with Maduro may conjure a false sense of security, and allow officials to deflect attention from the dire conditions inside hospitals.
Nationwide, gas shortages make it increasingly difficult for medical workers and sick patients to reach hospitals. Although Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves, the government has no means to refine them, and it relies heavily on imports. Many gasoline stations in the country have closed, and those that remain open are tightly guarded by the military. Lines outside gas stations stretch for miles in Caracas and elsewhere, and people wait for hours, if not days, only to get five or ten gallons. According to the government, doctors and nurses should be able to fill their tanks freely, but the health workers I spoke to said that they’re subject to the whims of whichever military officer is in command. González can no longer rely on the minibus she used to ride to get to the train every day. Instead, she has to walk several miles to her closest subway station, where trains are often too crowded to board. Funeral homes also struggle to find gasoline for hearses. In some cases, families have been forced to transport the bodies of their loved ones in the backs of their own cars. Military officers are reportedly asking hearse drivers to show corpses as a condition for filling their tanks.
Inside hospitals, military officers are also asserting their authority. Some health workers said that they were directly involved in medical decisions. Others claimed that they were primarily there to spy on health-care workers. “Sometimes they pretend to be patients or dress as civilians,” Mauro Zambrano, a union representative of hospitals and clinics in Caracas, told me. “You see someone standing in a corner, looking around conspicuously, and you know it’s a military agent.” He added, “Infectious-disease wards typically have a very limited staff, three doctors and three nurses, and they’re terrified of telling the truth about what they see.” According to the human-rights group Foro Penal, at least eighteen health-care workers and journalists have been detained for denouncing conditions inside hospitals or criticizing the government. “One can’t contest the data publicly without being cast as a liar or risking persecution,” a doctor from the western state of Barinas, who asked not to be named, told me.
In late March, six members of a special police force surrounded the home of a journalist named Darvinson Rojas, in Caracas. Rojas had tweeted about a discrepancy in the government case count, and the officers claimed to have received an anonymous tip regarding a COVID-19 case. After Rojas refused to open his door before seeing a search warrant, forty officers arrived and took him into custody. He spent twelve days in detention and was released pending a criminal investigation on several charges, including inciting hatred. “It sets a precedent,” Rojas told me. “What they’re wanting to say is that the only figures that can be put out are theirs.” Similar excuses have been used to go after members of the opposition. Ten people close to Juan Guaidó have been detained—half of them were abducted in the midst of the pandemic.
After Maduro declared a lockdown, on March 16th, Henrique Capriles, a leader of the opposition, called for a negotiation with the regime to address the needs of Venezuelans during the pandemic. “You know you can’t do this alone, that you need international help,” Capriles said. The I.M.F. had just rejected the government’s request for five billion dollars of assistance, and Maduro offered to begin talks without Guaidó. Ultimately, the opposition and the government could not reach an agreement. Since Guaidó declared himself interim President, last year, he’s repeatedly insisted that Maduro step down and allow a transition to democracy in Venezuela. Michael Shifter, the president of the Inter-American Dialogue, said that Guaidó should compromise. “The opposition makes the argument that, in order to solve the humanitarian crisis, you have to have a political solution,” Shifter told me. “I think that’s true over the long term, but saving lives should take precedence right now.”
The Trump Administration, though, has complicated negotiations with bellicose rhetoric and demands for Maduro’s arrest. The day after Capriles’s call for negotiation, the U.S. Justice Department indicted Maduro and fourteen other Venezuelan officials on charges of narco-terrorism and corruption. Attorney General William Barr claimed that the timing of the announcement was right because “people are suffering.” But many observers said that the indictments and other Administration actions doomed potential talks between the regime and the opposition. Less than a week later, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released a “Democratic Transition Framework for Venezuela,” which proposed a lifting of U.S. sanctions and then a free election. It also stipulated that the military high command can remain in power until elections are held. Pompeo’s framework was similar to a proposal laid out by Guaidó last year, during talks brokered by Norway. But the opposition leader was not one of the people whom the State Department’s proposal named as potential members of a new Council of State. “It’s one thing if Guaidó decides to take a step back, and another if the Americans decide to leave him out,” a leader of the opposition told me. (A State Department official said that the framework would allow Guaidó to run for President eventually.)
The Administration’s twin announcements appear to be backfiring. For more than a year, it has tried to convince the military that abandoning Maduro is in their best interest. Yet the indictment seems to have convinced military leaders that they are better off remaining loyal to Maduro. Inside the regime, generals and admirals have free rein to command, and profit, from state contracts or illicit activities. If they abandon it, they face accountability, or worse, retribution. “To undertake both of these in the midst of a pandemic just seems to be tone-deaf,” Shifter observed. “The Venezuelan military may be many things, it may be corrupted and involved in criminal activity, but I’m not sure they’re stupid.”
Elliott Abrams, the U.S. government’s special representative for Venezuela, has publicly defended the framework. He has insisted that Venezuelan officials have reached out to the State Department, secondhand or thirdhand, to inquire about it. Some say that the Administration’s approach is the result of incompetence; others point to domestic political interests. “Maybe the audience is not the Venezuelan regime,” Harold Trinkunas, a scholar of Venezuelan politics at Stanford University, told me. “Maybe the audience are Venezuelan-Americans and other conservative-leaning people in Florida, for whom the indictments against Maduro are more important than the transitional framework.”
The pandemic has also placed U.S. sanctions in the spotlight. Since Trump took office, his Administration has carried out a “maximum pressure” campaign of attrition, gradually broadening sanctions against Venezuela. Many have questioned the efficacy of the current sanctions regime, which Maduro has largely managed to evade with the aid of Iran, Russia, and China. He has also shown a bewildering capacity to adapt in the midst of mayhem and retain the support of key military and political leaders. “When you’re the captain of a sailing ship, you want sailors who don’t know how to swim, because they have a vested interest in keeping the ship afloat,” Trinkunas said. “Every time the U.S. sanctions somebody in the Venezuelan regime, that’s one more sailor that has no other place to go.”
Abrams has insisted that none of the measures in place limit the flow of food or medicine to Venezuela, and he has rejected calls for sanctions relief during the pandemic. Yet experts point out that they act as a deterrent to any bank involved in transactions of humanitarian supplies to Venezuela, and that they may be hurting average Venezuelans. As Shifter observed, “It defies common sense to say that cutting off the main source of foreign exchange in the country only hurts the regime.”