theatlantic--2020-10-21--Paging Dr. Hamblin: I Don’t See the Upside of a Flu Shot

Read : Why the government pays billions to people who claim injury by vaccines So , really , this is sort of like talking about how seat belts may cause redness or irritation on bare skin and , in rare cases , can cause internal bleeding and organ damage during a serious car accident .
If you focus on those risks , wearing a seat belt sounds like a bad idea .
Why take a chance ?
But the value of seat belts becomes obvious when you shift your focus to the danger of going without a device that saves @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Likewise , when weighing the risks of getting a flu shot , you have to consider the much more relevant risks of not getting vaccinated .
We get used to health risks—such as deaths from car accidents , heart disease , gun violence , and influenza—as they lose their novelty and start to take them for granted , but that doesn ’ t make them any less dangerous .
Somewhere between 10,000 and 60,000 Americans die of the flu each year .
Combine that with the effects of so much illness and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s annual impact on the U.S. economy is about $ 90 billion .
This brings us to the upside : If everyone got a flu shot , we could bring those numbers down to about zero .
Vaccination is a measure that we undertake to remove ourselves from the pool of susceptible people who can become vectors of disease .
You have a great opportunity to do an essentially risk-free thing to play your part in saving thousands of lives .
And there ’ s really no opting out .
Whatever you choose @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s a personal decision in the same way that driving on the sidewalk is a personal decision .
This is true of getting any vaccine , but especially flu shots , because of the nature of the virus .
Influenza mutates so rapidly that each year ’ s vaccines are based on modeling predictions about which strains will spread most widely .
Some years those models work pretty well , and other years they don ’ t .
Even in a good modeling year , a flu shot offers only partial immunity : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ still be susceptible to the flu .
The imperfection means it ’ s especially important that everyone gets vaccinated to achieve some degree of herd immunity .
When you have a more reliably effective vaccine , you can get to herd immunity with a smaller percentage of the population being vaccinated .
But with the flu vaccine , we always need to aim for 100 percent participation .
Each year , about half of Americans get vaccinated .
A partially effective vaccine has one other important effect : It can make the disease @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prevent an infection .
That means a lower likelihood of going to the hospital and fewer days of being sick .
Even if that doesn ’ t matter to you personally—maybe you have unlimited sick days , or maybe you like being sick ( I don ’ t know ) —a shorter course of disease means you ’ re less likely to infect other people .
That ’ s ultimately what vaccination is about .

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, James Hamblin takes questions from readers about health-related curiosities, concerns, and obsessions. Have one? Email him at paging.dr.hamblin@theatlantic.com.
Dear Dr. Hamblin,
I’m perfectly healthy. I’m 42 and I exercise routinely, eat a whole-food, plant-based diet, and have excellent biomarkers. If I get the flu, chances are it will be mild and run its course. So why risk any potential negative side effects of a vaccine? To protect me against something that I might still get even with the shot? Even though I’m sure the risk is low, why should I potentially jeopardize my health? I guess I see only downsides and no upside.
Todd Kelly
Philadelphia, Pa.
Your concerns are widely shared, and your question is important. The answer is especially worth considering because the same logic that guides your decision will apply to the coronavirus vaccines in coming years.
Let’s start with the downsides. Any moral decision starts with accurately assessing the risk of taking an action. In this case, it’s as close to zero as anything modern medicine has to offer. If I were going to focus on risks, I’d be more worried about you getting hit by a car on your way to the pharmacy or doctor’s office than anything that might happen because of the shot.
Influenza vaccines come in a few types. For healthy American adults like you, the most commonly used variety is the shot. It contains an inactivated form of the virus—either segments of an actual influenza virus’s genetic material or synthetic mimics of those segments. In any case, it can’t cause the flu. Getting the flu from a segment of the virus’s genetic material is impossible. It’s like the difference between inhaling a bee’s wing and inhaling an actual bee.
The only type of flu vaccine that contains a living virus is the nasal spray. But even that can’t cause the flu. The nasal vaccine contains a “live attenuated” virus, meaning it can’t invade human cells and replicate, so it’s like inhaling a bee without its stinger and genitals. Why inhale a whole bee at all, you ask? Well, compared with shots, these live-virus vaccines can more reliably induce a broader immune response. Generating a sufficient immune response is, of course, the goal.
It’s also the source of any symptoms that might arise after the shot. Most people will have some mild soreness or redness at the injection site. A significant minority will have some fatigue or a headache. These symptoms are a result of your immune system reacting to the proteins that have just been injected into your muscle. Unpleasant as they may be, you could think of them as a sign of your immune system getting stronger, like being sore after one of your workouts. Even if you feel a little uncomfortable, none of these symptoms is comparable in scale or severity to having the flu itself. Like COVID-19, influenza is not a disease that completely spares healthy young adults. Some years it largely does, but other years see thousands of hospitalizations and even deaths. In 1918, to take the worst example, influenza killed millions of young, healthy people.
Vaccination carries nothing close to that level of risk. The one scary-sounding, longer-term complication that has been associated with the flu shot, if not definitively linked to it, is something called Guillain-Barré syndrome, an autoimmune condition that results when the immune system misfires and attacks parts of the nervous system, causing muscle weakness. In some cases it leads to temporary paralysis of certain muscles. It can happen in the days and weeks after all sorts of viral or bacterial infections (including COVID-19)—any of a menagerie of things that trigger the immune system to go into attack mode. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and global-health agencies suggest that the odds of developing Guillain-Barré syndrome after receiving the flu shot are about one or two in a million. And if that sounds too risky to countenance, consider that you’re much more likely to get Guillain-Barré after an actual case of the flu than after getting a vaccine.
Read: Why the government pays billions to people who claim injury by vaccines
So, really, this is sort of like talking about how seat belts may cause redness or irritation on bare skin and, in rare cases, can cause internal bleeding and organ damage during a serious car accident. If you focus on those risks, wearing a seat belt sounds like a bad idea. Why take a chance? But the value of seat belts becomes obvious when you shift your focus to the danger of going without a device that saves tens of thousands of lives every year.
Likewise, when weighing the risks of getting a flu shot, you have to consider the much more relevant risks of not getting vaccinated. We get used to health risks—such as deaths from car accidents, heart disease, gun violence, and influenza—as they lose their novelty and start to take them for granted, but that doesn’t make them any less dangerous. Somewhere between 10,000 and 60,000 Americans die of the flu each year. Combine that with the effects of so much illness and missed work, and the virus’s annual impact on the U.S. economy is about $90 billion.
This brings us to the upside: If everyone got a flu shot, we could bring those numbers down to about zero. Vaccination is a measure that we undertake to remove ourselves from the pool of susceptible people who can become vectors of disease. You have a great opportunity to do an essentially risk-free thing to play your part in saving thousands of lives. And there’s really no opting out. Whatever you choose, it affects everyone. It’s a personal decision in the same way that driving on the sidewalk is a personal decision.
Read: America should prepare for a double pandemic
This is true of getting any vaccine, but especially flu shots, because of the nature of the virus. Influenza mutates so rapidly that each year’s vaccines are based on modeling predictions about which strains will spread most widely. Some years those models work pretty well, and other years they don’t. Even in a good modeling year, a flu shot offers only partial immunity: Some people who get the shot will still be susceptible to the flu. The imperfection means it’s especially important that everyone gets vaccinated to achieve some degree of herd immunity. When you have a more reliably effective vaccine, you can get to herd immunity with a smaller percentage of the population being vaccinated. But with the flu vaccine, we always need to aim for 100 percent participation. Each year, about half of Americans get vaccinated.
A partially effective vaccine has one other important effect: It can make the disease milder even if it doesn’t prevent an infection. That means a lower likelihood of going to the hospital and fewer days of being sick. Even if that doesn’t matter to you personally—maybe you have unlimited sick days, or maybe you like being sick (I don’t know)—a shorter course of disease means you’re less likely to infect other people. That’s ultimately what vaccination is about.
Paging Dr. Hamblin: What if the vaccine works only half the time?
The flu is a global disease that kills more than 500,000 people every year. Someday it will again become a pandemic that kills millions. The rates of death are much higher in countries with less developed health-care systems. The currently available influenza vaccines are difficult to use in low- and middle-income countries without the systems required to vaccinate everyone every year. You and I are lucky to live in a wealthy country and have easy access to a free vaccine. For people like us to forgo it is morally unconscionable.
“Paging Dr. Hamblin” is for informational purposes only, does not constitute medical advice, and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. By submitting a letter, you are agreeing to let The Atlantic use it—in part or in full—and we may edit it for length and/or clarity.


theatlantic--2020-10-21--The Wine Moms Are Just Getting Started

The Wine Moms Are Just Getting Started

To say that Susan Polakoff Shaw is a delight is to say nothing particularly controversial .
The 61-year-old Ohioan ’ s charm is an objective fact , like snow being cold or a square having four equal sides .
She laughs loudly and swears often .
Her strawberry-blond curls are piled on the top of her head , like Ms. Frizzle , and she wears jean jackets , chunky jewelry , and blue plastic-framed glasses , like the kooky aunt you wish you had .
She is also , importantly , a woman of action— “ a mover and a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ friends put it to me .
Her one-woman communications firm , which she founded in 1991 , has been hired by the International Olympic Committee to work press operations for 15 Olympic Games .
So naturally , when Shaw attended her first meeting of a local Democratic club in 2018 , she saw it as her next big project .
The gathering was fairly dull , a handful of older people seated around tables in an echoey ballroom on Cleveland ’ s west side .
There was pizza , sure , and a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was no attendance-taking , no callouts for volunteers , no planning for weekend projects—even though the midterm-primary season was under way .
Things have got to change if we ’ re going to beat Donald Trump , Shaw thought to herself as the meeting wrapped .
And things did .
Under the stewardship of Shaw and a handful of allies , the sleepy Ward 17 Democratic Club has been revitalized .
In less than two years , the group has doubled its membership , from 25 to 50 ; built a brand-new website @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Every weekend , the club holds voter-registration drives and literature drops , drawing from a pool of 90 volunteers—most of them women .
Americans know the bigger story well by now : how an all-consuming hatred of Trump has spurred women , especially suburban women like Susan , to campaign and vote for Democrats all across the country .
But the piece often missing from that narrative is that these women aren ’ t just expressing their outrage by voting in high-stakes national elections ; they ’ re funneling their energy toward @ @ @ @ @ @ @ statehouse races , local party organizations , and school boards .
And all of this activism has the potential to shape American politics in a much more significant way than their biennial votes .
“ It ’ s a renaissance of a very long-standing form of American civic engagement , ” Theda Skocpol , a Harvard sociologist and political scientist , told me .
The question now is whether these women will sustain their zealous engagement no matter which party is in power .
Is America entering a new age of activism—or is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
Before Trump ’ s election , Shaw read the news .
Like any good Democrat , she voted in general elections , and she sometimes wrote checks to Planned Parenthood and NARAL .
But she never volunteered to knock on doors or lick envelopes for Hillary Clinton , let alone for any local candidates .
She ’ d never once attended a local Democratic Party function—hell , she wasn ’ t entirely sure what a “ ward club ” did .
She was , in other words , exactly like a lot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lot of other Democrats , Trump ’ s victory took her completely by surprise .
The day after his win , she gathered with a few friends to mourn .
We “ just started bawling and drinking wine , ” Shaw told me .
One woman announced to the group : “ I feel like I ’ ve been asleep.
” Actually , they all felt that way .
Read : The significance of women in the streets They decided to start meeting regularly , but they didn ’ t want it to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ club , ” Shaw told me .
They are women of action ; they wanted to do something .
Things came together quickly after “ The Indivisible Guide ” —a handbook for grassroots activism—was released in December 2016 .
The women began meeting on the second Monday of every month , first at members ’ homes , and later at a local coffee shop owned by a member .
They called themselves the GrassRoots Resistance , or “ GRR , ” an onomatopoeic representation of their feelings toward the president .
Shaw , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ acquaintances in the lap pool and after workout classes to invite them to GRR meetings .
By January 2017 , GRR had settled on a few targets for their activism .
Their anger was national , but their action would be local , the thinking went .
The women , who were mostly white and ranged in age from 35 to 65 , studied up on the inner workings of the Cleveland city council and the Ohio legislature and on the quotidian operations of state-level campaigns .
They subscribed to state-politics newsletters , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and began researching those lawmakers ’ past votes .
Over the past three years , the group has grown to 150 members .
They ’ ve channeled their energies toward fundraising and door-knocking for candidates , and they ’ ve given themselves hand cramps writing hundreds upon hundreds of get-out-the-vote postcards .
For many of the GRR women , the group served as a kind of gateway drug , introducing them to other political projects of varying magnitude : A handful of members joined—and remade—the Ward 17 club ; others signed up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nora Katzenberger , a stay-at-home mother of two , led the ultimately successful charge for a new school levy to recruit more teachers and expand mental-health services for students .
Shaw , GRR ’ s leader , became a paid organizer for Red Wine and Blue , an Ohio-based organization working to activate suburban women .
( She recently starred in a video for the group in which she ’ s dressed as Mrs. Claus and reads a poem about a corruption scandal involving the state ’ s Republican speaker of the House @ @ @ @ @ @ @ runs communications for a real-estate company , signed on to manage former Cleveland councilwoman Monique Smith ’ s campaign .
Smith has a chance to become the first Democrat to represent the Sixteenth State House District in more than a decade .
“ Nobody ’ s coming to save us , ” says Heather Tuck-Macalla , a children ’ s librarian and GRR member who helped lead a statewide anti-gerrymandering campaign in 2017 .
“ We have to save ourselves.
” GRR was one of roughly 2,500 women-led groups that whirred into action @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Skocpol ’ s research .
Many of these women live in the suburbs of major cities , places that have traditionally been Republican but are rapidly turning blue as college-educated white women grow more and more repulsed by Trump and as neighborhoods become more and more diverse .
Some are former Republicans , while others were simply inactive Democrats , as Shaw was .
These so-called Resistance groups are always somewhere between 75 and 100 percent women , and they generally operate independently of national bodies .
Many of the women in these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ educated , and used to running or working on teams and planning big events .
The level of organization this work requires , Skocpol says , is already something they ’ re good at .
Some on the political left have dismissed these women , many of them white , as “ wine moms ” or “ MSNBC moms ” —silly , unprincipled newcomers to the political scene who are more interested in watching Rachel Maddow with a glass of pinot in hand than agitating for systemic change .
Black women in particular @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the backbone of the Democratic Party .
Where were the wine moms in 2016 , leftists wonder , when 53 percent of white women supported Donald Trump ?
These critics argue , too , that the “ Resistance ” can ’ t be counted on to stay politically involved .
And their concern is entirely legitimate , given that Trump ’ s election was the catalyst for these women ’ s activism .
Read : Donald Trump ’ s woman problem is only getting worse What the critics may be missing , though @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s influence—and their role in strengthening the Democratic Party ’ s infrastructure .
Despite the fact that most Democrats are concentrated in urban areas , Resistance groups have sprung up all over the country , from the Arizona desert to rural Pennsylvania .
“ You do not win elections in the United States if you don ’ t have a presence outside of college towns and big liberal metropolises , ” Skocpol told me .
“ The Resistance has been just as geographically widespread—if not more so—than the Tea Party , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who recently edited a book comparing the two movements , noted that they are alike in their grassroots focus .
But rather than acting as party antagonizers , Resistance groups “ give backbone ” to elected officials and reinvigorate local institutions .
Americans ’ civic involvement declined massively from the 1960s to the 2000s ; there was a kind of “ falling-away of regularly meeting groups , ” as Skocpol put it .
That loss has been felt by both political parties , but especially by Democrats , as their membership in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no longer attend church or join local labor unions at the rates they once did , depriving them of crucial forums for community and political engagement .
This means that today ’ s widespread , women-led activism represents a fundamental shift in American politics , says Lara Putnam , a history professor at the University of Pittsburgh who has studied the anti-Trump movement .
In many areas around the country where the Democratic Party has lost power or even gone extinct , the women of the Resistance have replaced it .
They ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and establishing formal databases of volunteers .
They ’ re boosting federal candidates and learning how to run—and win—state political campaigns .
“ They went to be troops fighting this battle for democracy and found no one there , ” Putnam told me .
“ So they basically rebuilt those structures.
” When Skocpol has shared her research on Resistance groups with Democratic Party consultants , some of the men have rolled their eyes .
The groups aren ’ t usually big fundraisers , and their ranks don ’ t include many young @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cohorts on the left who have a longer history of activism , which tends to be more visible , she told me .
“ But what they are is a crucial missing piece of a center-left coalition for a strong public sector in this country.
” Curious about the durability of their activism , I began attending GRR meetings in June , three months after the pandemic had forced the group to move their gatherings to Zoom .
Every other Monday , all summer , I sat at my desk in Washington , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 35 regular attendees logged on from their kitchens and living rooms in suburban Cleveland ( “ Georgene , you ’ re still on mute !
” ) .
The members would spend the first 30 minutes of each meeting chitchatting : cracking jokes about the usual firehose of news and scandal erupting from the White House ; showing off their new Resistance-themed face masks ( But Her Emails !
one read ) ; and execrating whoever stole the Biden sign from Susan Streitel ’ s yard—again !
But when 7 o ’ clock @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Over the past six months , GRR ’ s two biggest projects have been educating Ohioans about how to vote by mail in the general election and campaigning for Smith , the state-House candidate .
So each meeting is basically a series of assignments and requests : Who has some time to write a few hundred postcards encouraging swing voters to vote for Monique ?
Which ladies can help spread the word about her through peer-to-peer texting ?
Would anyone be willing to help the Ward 17 club create vote-by-mail packets to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work has seemed endless but , then again , so has their enthusiasm .
That could change if Biden wins the election next month .
White House scandals and nonsensical Trump tweets have been the focus of so many of their conversations , sustaining their outrage .
If Trump leaves office , it stands to reason that at least some of their motivation may disappear right along with him .
A Biden presidency could mean a chance to relax , to take some time off , to bond as friends rather than as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an interest in politics that is much higher than it was previously , ” Jessica Trounstine , a professor at UC Merced who focuses on local politics , told me .
“ But they ’ re gon na have a limited amount of energy they ’ re gon na put toward [ it ] .
” • Why People Who Hate Trump Stick With Him • ‘ I Moved on Her Very Heavily ’ : Part 1 Organizations working to channel suburban women ’ s political power are already worried about a potential @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Red Wine and Blue and the former CEO of the left-wing media company Shareblue , believes the path to turning both Ohio and the rest of the country Democratic runs through these women ’ s neighborhoods .
“ If we drop out , and don ’ t continue to be part of this coalition that presses for real change , then it will be a blip , ” Paris told me .
A blip could mean that the Democratic Party can no longer rely on their enthusiasm .
It could mean that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ routines of their pre-2016 lives , powering down the organizations they ’ ve created and letting the institutions they ’ ve reinvigorated go to seed .
This possibility , Paris says , “ gives me anxiety.
” It probably should .
Midterm-election turnout is typically abysmal for Democrats , whose voting base turns out much less reliably than Republicans ’ .
The GOP has , on average , a three-point turnout advantage over Democrats in midterm elections , according to FiveThirtyEight , and Democrats were dominated by Republicans in the 2010 and 2014 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : The work of these Resistance groups contributed to the highest turnout for a nonpresidential election in U.S. history , and helped deliver the House majority to Democrats .
But the party can ’ t assume that 2018 is the new normal .
It ’ s possible—even likely—that in 2022 , Democrats , under a President Biden , would return to their pre-Trump voting levels .
When I asked Shaw about all this in mid-September , she acknowledged the appeal of spending a day thinking about something—anything—other than politics .
She ’ d @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would feel just the other day while winding through aisles of Halloween decorations at Target , she told me .
How nice it would be to focus on running errands or visiting with friends without being “ constantly engaged in a state of chaos.
” Shaw is hopeful that a Biden presidency would actually make her and other GRR members more effective in their political work .
Maybe , she says , they wouldn ’ t be “ as frantic and depressed and emotionally exhausted ” as they are now .
Many of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ including Shaw , are adamant that there ’ s no turning back .
After all , they ’ ve already done the hard part .
“ People have developed the networks , the skills , the tools to do this work , ” said Nora Kelley , a 44-year-old lawyer and a leader in the group .
“ The faucet ’ s on , and it ’ s not getting turned off.
” The sisterly intimacy and grassroots nature of these groups could ultimately be what carries them forward .
Democratic organizing is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Obama years , experts told me—when , after Barack Obama won the presidency , the massive organization that he and his team had built was handed over to the Democratic National Committee and subsequently fell apart .
“ Picture a sprawling tomato plant which had the advantage of a structure around it that it grew up within , ” Putnam told me .
“ When you pull out the metal structure , it collapses.
” The Resistance movement , on the other hand , is like “ a tomato plant that has grown @ @ @ @ @ @ @ own way .
It supported its own weight.
” Last week , with just three weeks to go until the November election , Shaw and two dozen other women—some from GRR , some not—gathered in a parking lot in the northwest suburb of Bay Village .
Armed with markers and sheets of cardboard , they decorated their cars with BYE DON signs and discussed their planned driving route through BIDEN 2020 face masks .
It felt like the climax of a heist movie whose central characters are a band of exasperated , middle-aged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ group hit the road in a caravan of 16 vehicles and sped across Highway 90 toward the city ’ s downtown .
On the way , they honked loudly at the home of a man with a JOE DEMENTIA sign in his yard .
Then they drove , one after another , by the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections ’ drop box on Euclid Avenue and cast their ballots for Joe Biden .
“ Oh my god , here it is !
” Shaw shrieked happily as she reached out her window and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It was a meaningful moment—one that Shaw had been desperate for since she woke up on the morning of November 9 , 2016 , to discover that Donald Trump was America ’ s president-elect .
But it was just a moment .
A few days later , she and the other GRR women were back on the streets , passing out hundreds of door hangers to remind Clevelanders to vote early , by mail or in person .
On Monday night , Shaw and the other members of GRR logged back on to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Day .
On the agenda : planning two more literature drops for Monique Smith .
But first , a red-haired woman I did not recognize introduced herself .
“ It took me so long to realize you all existed !
” she told the group .
“ Sorry to come to the very last meeting !
” Some of the women laughed .
“ Oh , don ’ t worry , there ’ ll be more , ” Shaw told her .
“ We ’ re not going anywhere .
”

To say that Susan Polakoff Shaw is a delight is to say nothing particularly controversial. The 61-year-old Ohioan’s charm is an objective fact, like snow being cold or a square having four equal sides. She laughs loudly and swears often. Her strawberry-blond curls are piled on the top of her head, like Ms. Frizzle, and she wears jean jackets, chunky jewelry, and blue plastic-framed glasses, like the kooky aunt you wish you had. She is also, importantly, a woman of action—“a mover and a shaker,” as one of her friends put it to me. Her one-woman communications firm, which she founded in 1991, has been hired by the International Olympic Committee to work press operations for 15 Olympic Games.
So naturally, when Shaw attended her first meeting of a local Democratic club in 2018, she saw it as her next big project. The gathering was fairly dull, a handful of older people seated around tables in an echoey ballroom on Cleveland’s west side. There was pizza, sure, and a lineup of local speakers. But there was no attendance-taking, no callouts for volunteers, no planning for weekend projects—even though the midterm-primary season was under way. Things have got to change if we’re going to beat Donald Trump, Shaw thought to herself as the meeting wrapped. And things did.
Under the stewardship of Shaw and a handful of allies, the sleepy Ward 17 Democratic Club has been revitalized. In less than two years, the group has doubled its membership, from 25 to 50; built a brand-new website; and developed a witty social-media presence. Every weekend, the club holds voter-registration drives and literature drops, drawing from a pool of 90 volunteers—most of them women.
Americans know the bigger story well by now: how an all-consuming hatred of Trump has spurred women, especially suburban women like Susan, to campaign and vote for Democrats all across the country. But the piece often missing from that narrative is that these women aren’t just expressing their outrage by voting in high-stakes national elections; they’re funneling their energy toward a collection of smaller targets, including statehouse races, local party organizations, and school boards. And all of this activism has the potential to shape American politics in a much more significant way than their biennial votes. “It’s a renaissance of a very long-standing form of American civic engagement,” Theda Skocpol, a Harvard sociologist and political scientist, told me. The question now is whether these women will sustain their zealous engagement no matter which party is in power. Is America entering a new age of activism—or is all of this just a Trump-era blip?
Despite the fact that most Democrats are concentrated in urban areas, Resistance groups have sprung up all over the country, from the Arizona desert to rural Pennsylvania.
Before Trump’s election, Shaw read the news. Like any good Democrat, she voted in general elections, and she sometimes wrote checks to Planned Parenthood and NARAL. But she never volunteered to knock on doors or lick envelopes for Hillary Clinton, let alone for any local candidates. She’d never once attended a local Democratic Party function—hell, she wasn’t entirely sure what a “ward club” did. She was, in other words, exactly like a lot of other Democrats. And like a lot of other Democrats, Trump’s victory took her completely by surprise. The day after his win, she gathered with a few friends to mourn. We “just started bawling and drinking wine,” Shaw told me. One woman announced to the group: “I feel like I’ve been asleep.” Actually, they all felt that way.
Read: The significance of women in the streets
They decided to start meeting regularly, but they didn’t want it to just be a “white suburban book club,” Shaw told me. They are women of action; they wanted to do something. Things came together quickly after “The Indivisible Guide”—a handbook for grassroots activism—was released in December 2016. The women began meeting on the second Monday of every month, first at members’ homes, and later at a local coffee shop owned by a member. They called themselves the GrassRoots Resistance, or “GRR,” an onomatopoeic representation of their feelings toward the president. Shaw, an avid swimmer, began stopping female acquaintances in the lap pool and after workout classes to invite them to GRR meetings.
By January 2017, GRR had settled on a few targets for their activism. Their anger was national, but their action would be local, the thinking went. The women, who were mostly white and ranged in age from 35 to 65, studied up on the inner workings of the Cleveland city council and the Ohio legislature and on the quotidian operations of state-level campaigns. They subscribed to state-politics newsletters, figured out who their state representatives were, and began researching those lawmakers’ past votes. Over the past three years, the group has grown to 150 members. They’ve channeled their energies toward fundraising and door-knocking for candidates, and they’ve given themselves hand cramps writing hundreds upon hundreds of get-out-the-vote postcards.
For many of the GRR women, the group served as a kind of gateway drug, introducing them to other political projects of varying magnitude: A handful of members joined—and remade—the Ward 17 club; others signed up for the League of Women Voters. Nora Katzenberger, a stay-at-home mother of two, led the ultimately successful charge for a new school levy to recruit more teachers and expand mental-health services for students. Shaw, GRR’s leader, became a paid organizer for Red Wine and Blue, an Ohio-based organization working to activate suburban women. (She recently starred in a video for the group in which she’s dressed as Mrs. Claus and reads a poem about a corruption scandal involving the state’s Republican speaker of the House.) And Misty Elek, who runs communications for a real-estate company, signed on to manage former Cleveland councilwoman Monique Smith’s campaign. Smith has a chance to become the first Democrat to represent the Sixteenth State House District in more than a decade.
Women in GRR have volunteered nearly every weekend this summer and fall for Monique Smith, who could be the first Democrat to represent Ohio’s Sixteenth State House District in more than a decade.
“Nobody’s coming to save us,” says Heather Tuck-Macalla, a children’s librarian and GRR member who helped lead a statewide anti-gerrymandering campaign in 2017. “We have to save ourselves.”
GRR was one of roughly 2,500 women-led groups that whirred into action following the 2016 election, according to Skocpol’s research. Many of these women live in the suburbs of major cities, places that have traditionally been Republican but are rapidly turning blue as college-educated white women grow more and more repulsed by Trump and as neighborhoods become more and more diverse. Some are former Republicans, while others were simply inactive Democrats, as Shaw was. These so-called Resistance groups are always somewhere between 75 and 100 percent women, and they generally operate independently of national bodies. Many of the women in these groups are middle- and upper-middle-class, well educated, and used to running or working on teams and planning big events. The level of organization this work requires, Skocpol says, is already something they’re good at.
Some on the political left have dismissed these women, many of them white, as “wine moms” or “MSNBC moms”—silly, unprincipled newcomers to the political scene who are more interested in watching Rachel Maddow with a glass of pinot in hand than agitating for systemic change. Black women in particular have been organizing for decades, forming the backbone of the Democratic Party. Where were the wine moms in 2016, leftists wonder, when 53 percent of white women supported Donald Trump? These critics argue, too, that the “Resistance” can’t be counted on to stay politically involved. And their concern is entirely legitimate, given that Trump’s election was the catalyst for these women’s activism.
Read: Donald Trump’s woman problem is only getting worse
What the critics may be missing, though, is the scope of these women’s influence—and their role in strengthening the Democratic Party’s infrastructure. Despite the fact that most Democrats are concentrated in urban areas, Resistance groups have sprung up all over the country, from the Arizona desert to rural Pennsylvania. “You do not win elections in the United States if you don’t have a presence outside of college towns and big liberal metropolises,” Skocpol told me. “The Resistance has been just as geographically widespread—if not more so—than the Tea Party, and that is an enormous achievement.” Skocpol, who recently edited a book comparing the two movements, noted that they are alike in their grassroots focus. But rather than acting as party antagonizers, Resistance groups “give backbone” to elected officials and reinvigorate local institutions.
Americans’ civic involvement declined massively from the 1960s to the 2000s; there was a kind of “falling-away of regularly meeting groups,” as Skocpol put it. That loss has been felt by both political parties, but especially by Democrats, as their membership in two key groups has declined. Liberals no longer attend church or join local labor unions at the rates they once did, depriving them of crucial forums for community and political engagement. This means that today’s widespread, women-led activism represents a fundamental shift in American politics, says Lara Putnam, a history professor at the University of Pittsburgh who has studied the anti-Trump movement. In many areas around the country where the Democratic Party has lost power or even gone extinct, the women of the Resistance have replaced it. They’re registering voters, raising money, and establishing formal databases of volunteers. They’re boosting federal candidates and learning how to run—and win—state political campaigns. “They went to be troops fighting this battle for democracy and found no one there,” Putnam told me. “So they basically rebuilt those structures.”
When Skocpol has shared her research on Resistance groups with Democratic Party consultants, some of the men have rolled their eyes. The groups aren’t usually big fundraisers, and their ranks don’t include many young people or people of color, two cohorts on the left who have a longer history of activism, which tends to be more visible, she told me. “But what they are is a crucial missing piece of a center-left coalition for a strong public sector in this country.”
GRR was one of roughly 2,500 women-led groups that whirred into action following the 2016 election.
Curious about the durability of their activism, I began attending GRR meetings in June, three months after the pandemic had forced the group to move their gatherings to Zoom. Every other Monday, all summer, I sat at my desk in Washington, D.C., and watched as 30 to 35 regular attendees logged on from their kitchens and living rooms in suburban Cleveland (“Georgene, you’re still on mute!”). The members would spend the first 30 minutes of each meeting chitchatting: cracking jokes about the usual firehose of news and scandal erupting from the White House; showing off their new Resistance-themed face masks (But Her Emails! one read); and execrating whoever stole the Biden sign from Susan Streitel’s yard—again! But when 7 o’clock hit, they got down to business.
Over the past six months, GRR’s two biggest projects have been educating Ohioans about how to vote by mail in the general election and campaigning for Smith, the state-House candidate. So each meeting is basically a series of assignments and requests: Who has some time to write a few hundred postcards encouraging swing voters to vote for Monique? Which ladies can help spread the word about her through peer-to-peer texting? Would anyone be willing to help the Ward 17 club create vote-by-mail packets to send to local Democratic voters? The work has seemed endless but, then again, so has their enthusiasm.
Read: A throwback way to win a pandemic election
That could change if Biden wins the election next month. White House scandals and nonsensical Trump tweets have been the focus of so many of their conversations, sustaining their outrage. If Trump leaves office, it stands to reason that at least some of their motivation may disappear right along with him. A Biden presidency could mean a chance to relax, to take some time off, to bond as friends rather than as political warriors. “They may maintain an interest in politics that is much higher than it was previously,” Jessica Trounstine, a professor at UC Merced who focuses on local politics, told me. “But they’re gonna have a limited amount of energy they’re gonna put toward [it].”
Organizations working to channel suburban women’s political power are already worried about a potential slump. Katie Paris, the founder of Red Wine and Blue and the former CEO of the left-wing media company Shareblue, believes the path to turning both Ohio and the rest of the country Democratic runs through these women’s neighborhoods. “If we drop out, and don’t continue to be part of this coalition that presses for real change, then it will be a blip,” Paris told me. A blip could mean that the Democratic Party can no longer rely on their enthusiasm. It could mean that the Resisters slip back into the apolitical routines of their pre-2016 lives, powering down the organizations they’ve created and letting the institutions they’ve reinvigorated go to seed. This possibility, Paris says, “gives me anxiety.”
It probably should. Midterm-election turnout is typically abysmal for Democrats, whose voting base turns out much less reliably than Republicans’. The GOP has, on average, a three-point turnout advantage over Democrats in midterm elections, according to FiveThirtyEight, and Democrats were dominated by Republicans in the 2010 and 2014 midterms. In 2018, that changed: The work of these Resistance groups contributed to the highest turnout for a nonpresidential election in U.S. history, and helped deliver the House majority to Democrats. But the party can’t assume that 2018 is the new normal. It’s possible—even likely—that in 2022, Democrats, under a President Biden, would return to their pre-Trump voting levels.
Read: Why Americans don’t vote
When I asked Shaw about all this in mid-September, she acknowledged the appeal of spending a day thinking about something—anything—other than politics. She’d gotten a taste of how good that would feel just the other day while winding through aisles of Halloween decorations at Target, she told me. How nice it would be to focus on running errands or visiting with friends without being “constantly engaged in a state of chaos.” Shaw is hopeful that a Biden presidency would actually make her and other GRR members more effective in their political work. Maybe, she says, they wouldn’t be “as frantic and depressed and emotionally exhausted” as they are now.
“Nobody’s coming to save us,” says Heather Tuck-Macalla, a children’s librarian and GRR member. “We have to save ourselves.”
Many of the GRR members I spoke with, including Shaw, are adamant that there’s no turning back. After all, they’ve already done the hard part. “People have developed the networks, the skills, the tools to do this work,” said Nora Kelley, a 44-year-old lawyer and a leader in the group. “The faucet’s on, and it’s not getting turned off.”
The sisterly intimacy and grassroots nature of these groups could ultimately be what carry them forward. Democratic organizing is different now than it was in the Obama years, experts told me—when, after Barack Obama won the presidency, the massive organization that he and his team had built was handed over to the Democratic National Committee and subsequently fell apart. “Picture a sprawling tomato plant which had the advantage of a structure around it that it grew up within,” Putnam told me. “When you pull out the metal structure, it collapses.” The Resistance movement, on the other hand, is like “a tomato plant that has grown as a volunteer seedling and sprawled its own way. It supported its own weight.”
Last week, with just three weeks to go until the November election, Shaw and two dozen other women—some from GRR, some not—gathered in a parking lot in the northwest suburb of Bay Village. Armed with markers and sheets of cardboard, they decorated their cars with BYE DON signs and discussed their planned driving route through BIDEN 2020 face masks. It felt like the climax of a heist movie whose central characters are a band of exasperated, middle-aged women.
By late afternoon, the group hit the road in a caravan of 16 vehicles and sped across Highway 90 toward the city’s downtown. On the way, they honked loudly at the home of a man with a JOE DEMENTIA sign in his yard. Then they drove, one after another, by the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections’ drop box on Euclid Avenue and cast their ballots for Joe Biden. “Oh my god, here it is!” Shaw shrieked happily as she reached out her window and shoved her envelope through the slot.
It was a meaningful moment—one that Shaw had been desperate for since she woke up on the morning of November 9, 2016, to discover that Donald Trump was America’s president-elect. But it was just a moment. A few days later, she and the other GRR women were back on the streets, passing out hundreds of door hangers to remind Clevelanders to vote early, by mail or in person. On Monday night, Shaw and the other members of GRR logged back on to Zoom for their last meeting before Election Day. On the agenda: planning two more literature drops for Monique Smith. But first, a red-haired woman I did not recognize introduced herself. “It took me so long to realize you all existed!” she told the group. “Sorry to come to the very last meeting!”
Some of the women laughed. “Oh, don’t worry, there’ll be more,” Shaw told her. “We’re not going anywhere.”


theatlantic--2020-10-21--The Challenge of Documenting White Nationalism

Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg : Daniel shot in a very fly-on-the-wall , observational style .
He filmed over three years , logging something like 300 hours of footage that really allows the viewer to see behind the facade that these subjects typically present to the mainstream media .
We decided against a more talking-head-style approach , interviewing experts from different backgrounds , because the film would lose that uniquely immersive quality—one that situates the viewer ’ s perspective “ inside the movement looking out , ” as Daniel has put it .
The footage Daniel brought back from the field reveals @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hypocrisies unfurl in this intimate , cinema verité way .
As a result , the film provides an unprecedented view of what makes these ideas so compelling to fans and so dangerous to the rest of the world .
Goldberg : Daniel , you were reporting on subjects who openly express anti-Semitic views .
Did they know you are Jewish ?
Lombroso : Whenever they asked , I would tell them .
Richard Spencer didn ’ t realize until a year into reporting .
And then one day on a road trip to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tell him more about my Italian ancestry—because my last name sounds Italian ( I ’ m actually Eastern European , but my family changed our last name in the 1920s ) .
And that ’ s when I told him .
Goldberg : And what did he do ?
Lombroso : He was taken aback because he thought , I think , that I was his little Italian reporter friend .
We were packed in this Honda sedan two-door , and the driver was just clutching the wheel nervously , I ’ ll @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the rearview mirror for the rest of the ride .
Later that night , Richard went out to dinner and left me with all the Nazi boys , and the driver kind of spread the word that I was Jewish .
And that ’ s when it got a little iffy .
They were saying really disgusting things and throwing Nazi salutes in my direction .
Goldberg : What were the disgusting things they said ?
Lombroso : Like , a lot of kikes , a lot of that stuff .
They were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , very openly .
Goldberg : There ’ s something very frightening about these people and the ideologies they ’ re pushing .
There is also something pathetic and tragicomic about them .
At the end of this project , are you more or less concerned about this movement and its impact on America ?
Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg : Personally , I ’ m more concerned—that , regardless of the motivations of the individuals perpetuating these ideas , the ideas are now loose in social media , and increasingly seeping into mainstream media @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seductive and have so much traction across social platforms , but also on college campuses , with very young people .
Lombroso : I think the alt-right , as a movement , the way we conceive of it , is essentially dead .
But even if the three figures in the film are becoming increasingly irrelevant for various reasons , their ideas are now in the mainstream of the conservative movement and on Fox News every night .
There is a deep-seated fear of white demographic decline in this country , and obviously @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is now the defining fault line in American politics : those who believe in multiculturalism and those who don ’ t .
The Republican Party had their famous autopsy report after the 2012 election , concluding that they needed to attract more minority voters .
That never happened .
And as long as Donald Trump wins through voter suppression , incitement against minorities , or other means , you know , they ’ re going to continue to double down .

Today marks the U.S. release of White Noise, The Atlantic’s first feature documentary. The result of a multiyear reporting effort by the director Daniel Lombroso, White Noise explores the rise of the racist right in the United States. The film is an up-close look at a fractured but still-influential movement, and a study of how extremist views have infiltrated mainstream political discourse. I spoke with Daniel and Kasia Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg, the film’s executive producer, about the process of making the documentary. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Jeffrey Goldberg: White Noise is about the rise of far-right nationalism in the United States. Why did you start following the story?
Daniel Lombroso: I started covering the alt-right in 2016. I saw age-old hatreds—racism and anti-Semitism—bubbling up online, on chat forums, but also on college campuses, where I had been just a few years earlier. We started with a short documentary on Richard Spencer, who was then relatively unknown, and in filming a speech he gave in November 2016, we caught a room full of people breaking out into Nazi salutes. Then when Charlottesville happened, nine months later, we knew it had to be a feature film.
Kasia Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg: Charlottesville made it clear that these ideas hadn’t faded after the election. If anything, they were growing stronger.
Goldberg: The film focuses on three main subjects: Spencer, the far-right provocateur Mike Cernovich, and the white-nationalist YouTube star Lauren Southern. What struck you most as you followed them over the past few years?
Lombroso: I was surprised by how cynical and opportunistic they all are. My grandparents survived the Holocaust, and I spent a lot of time hearing from them about World War II and the rise of fascism. You think of it as this monolithic thing, that all of these people are ideologues standing in line ready to achieve whatever grand dream they have: the purity of the white race or, in this case, a white ethnostate. But I quickly found that with the alt-right, there was just a tremendous amount of infighting. They despise each other. And they’re also all branding experts. All of this is turbocharged by social media—they’re using the tools of the internet to bring racism, anti-Semitism, and conspiracy thinking mainstream.
Goldberg: How do you make a film about these people without helping them spread dangerous messages or humanizing their racism?
Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg: The potential pitfall of providing a platform for these people—we took that very seriously from day one. We spoke a great deal internally about the necessity to cover this rigorously and accurately and through a highly critical lens, and to provide enough context for our viewers. You hear Daniel in the film confronting all of the subjects about whether they feel any responsibility for their messages contributing to an atmosphere, around the world, of rising hatred and violence. And you see their responses in the film. We realize there are those who object to any coverage of far-right extremism, but these ideas are shaping our world, whether we cover them or not, and we see it as our responsibility as journalists to shine a light on them.
Lombroso: We thought about this question nonstop, every step of the way. It was really important to us not to amplify a fringe voice, someone who doesn’t already have a platform—that is why we ultimately played down some side characters who lack influence and simply want attention. The sad reality is that the three main subjects in the film have huge platforms, in the millions, and serious influence in the modern conservative movement. Social-media companies are starting to crack down, but they’re still able to fundraise. They’re able to spread their ideas. So, I mean, they have a platform, whether we take them seriously or not. And we feel like it’s our job to really engage with those ideas in the most thoughtful way possible, to subject them to scrutiny.
Goldberg: The film doesn’t have any narration or voice-over. How did you decide on this filmmaking approach?
Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg: Daniel shot in a very fly-on-the-wall, observational style. He filmed over three years, logging something like 300 hours of footage that really allows the viewer to see behind the facade that these subjects typically present to the mainstream media. We decided against a more talking-head-style approach, interviewing experts from different backgrounds, because the film would lose that uniquely immersive quality—one that situates the viewer’s perspective “inside the movement looking out,” as Daniel has put it. The footage Daniel brought back from the field reveals the subjects’ inconsistencies, and their hypocrisies unfurl in this intimate, cinema verité way. As a result, the film provides an unprecedented view of what makes these ideas so compelling to fans and so dangerous to the rest of the world.
Goldberg: Daniel, you were reporting on subjects who openly express anti-Semitic views. Did they know you are Jewish?
Lombroso: Whenever they asked, I would tell them. Richard Spencer didn’t realize until a year into reporting. And then one day on a road trip to a shoot, he asked me to tell him more about my Italian ancestry—because my last name sounds Italian (I’m actually Eastern European, but my family changed our last name in the 1920s). And that’s when I told him.
Goldberg: And what did he do?
Lombroso: He was taken aback because he thought, I think, that I was his little Italian reporter friend. We were packed in this Honda sedan two-door, and the driver was just clutching the wheel nervously, I’ll always remember, staring at me in the rearview mirror for the rest of the ride. Later that night, Richard went out to dinner and left me with all the Nazi boys, and the driver kind of spread the word that I was Jewish. And that’s when it got a little iffy. They were saying really disgusting things and throwing Nazi salutes in my direction.
Goldberg: What were the disgusting things they said?
Lombroso: Like, a lot of kikes, a lot of that stuff. They were talking about how they revered Dylann Roof, very openly.
Goldberg: There’s something very frightening about these people and the ideologies they’re pushing. There is also something pathetic and tragicomic about them. At the end of this project, are you more or less concerned about this movement and its impact on America?
Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg: Personally, I’m more concerned—that, regardless of the motivations of the individuals perpetuating these ideas, the ideas are now loose in social media, and increasingly seeping into mainstream media. And that these ideas are incredibly seductive and have so much traction across social platforms, but also on college campuses, with very young people.
Lombroso: I think the alt-right, as a movement, the way we conceive of it, is essentially dead. But even if the three figures in the film are becoming increasingly irrelevant for various reasons, their ideas are now in the mainstream of the conservative movement and on Fox News every night. There is a deep-seated fear of white demographic decline in this country, and obviously in Europe. And I think that is now the defining fault line in American politics: those who believe in multiculturalism and those who don’t. The Republican Party had their famous autopsy report after the 2012 election, concluding that they needed to attract more minority voters. That never happened. And as long as Donald Trump wins through voter suppression, incitement against minorities, or other means, you know, they’re going to continue to double down.
Goldberg: In some ways, the subjects of the film portray an honest form of Trumpism. Trump, when he’s pushed, will denounce white supremacy. These people don’t bother.
Lombroso: We talked a lot about how much to include Trump in the film. And we ultimately decided that his presence is always felt. He is like the gasoline that powers the engine. The alt-right would not exist without him. And I think Trump would not exist without the alt-right. They’re the base that he needs. One kind of extreme example, not that extreme anymore: Mike Cernovich created the meme on Twitter that Hillary Clinton had Parkinson’s disease. A few days later, the conspiracy theory came out of Sean Hannity’s mouth, and then the president’s mouth.
Whether Trump wins or loses, there is such an aggravated base, and so many young people that are being radicalized by these ideas—and social media just incentivizes that behavior. I think we’re going to be dealing with this long after the Trump presidency.


theatlantic--2020-10-21--Revenge of the Wine Moms

Revenge of the Wine Moms

To say that Susan Polakoff Shaw is a delight is to say nothing particularly controversial .
The 61-year-old Ohioan ’ s charm is an objective fact , like snow being cold or a square having four equal sides .
She laughs loudly and swears often .
Her strawberry-blond curls are piled on the top of her head , like Ms. Frizzle , and she wears jean jackets , chunky jewelry , and blue plastic-framed glasses , like the kooky aunt you wish you had .
She is also , importantly , a woman of action— “ a mover and a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ friends put it to me .
Her one-woman communications firm , which she founded in 1991 , has been hired by the International Olympic Committee to work press operations for 15 Olympic Games .
So naturally , when Shaw attended her first meeting of a local Democratic club in 2018 , she saw it as her next big project .
The gathering was fairly dull , a handful of older people seated around tables in an echoey ballroom on Cleveland ’ s west side .
There was pizza , sure , and a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was no attendance-taking , no callouts for volunteers , no planning for weekend projects—even though the midterm-primary season was under way .
Things have got to change if we ’ re going to beat Donald Trump , Shaw thought to herself as the meeting wrapped .
And things did .
Under the stewardship of Shaw and a handful of allies , the sleepy Ward 17 Democratic Club has been revitalized .
In less than two years , the group has doubled its membership , from 25 to 50 ; built a brand-new website @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Every weekend , the club holds voter-registration drives and literature drops , drawing from a pool of 90 volunteers—most of them women .
Americans know the bigger story well by now : how an all-consuming hatred of Trump has spurred women , especially suburban women like Susan , to campaign and vote for Democrats all across the country .
But the piece often missing from that narrative is that these women aren ’ t just expressing their outrage by voting in high-stakes national elections ; they ’ re funneling their energy toward @ @ @ @ @ @ @ statehouse races , local party organizations , and school boards .
And all of this activism has the potential to shape American politics in a much more significant way than their biennial votes .
“ It ’ s a renaissance of a very long-standing form of American civic engagement , ” Theda Skocpol , a Harvard sociologist and political scientist , told me .
The question now is whether these women will sustain their zealous engagement no matter which party is in power .
Is America entering a new age of activism—or is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
Before Trump ’ s election , Shaw read the news .
Like any good Democrat , she voted in general elections , and she sometimes wrote checks to Planned Parenthood and NARAL .
But she never volunteered to knock on doors or lick envelopes for Hillary Clinton , let alone for any local candidates .
She ’ d never once attended a local Democratic Party function—hell , she wasn ’ t entirely sure what a “ ward club ” did .
She was , in other words , exactly like a lot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lot of other Democrats , Trump ’ s victory took her completely by surprise .
The day after his win , she gathered with a few friends to mourn .
We “ just started bawling and drinking wine , ” Shaw told me .
One woman announced to the group : “ I feel like I ’ ve been asleep.
” Actually , they all felt that way .
Read : The significance of women in the streets They decided to start meeting regularly , but they didn ’ t want it to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ club , ” Shaw told me .
They are women of action ; they wanted to do something .
Things came together quickly after “ The Indivisible Guide ” —a handbook for grassroots activism—was released in December 2016 .
The women began meeting on the second Monday of every month , first at members ’ homes , and later at a local coffee shop owned by a member .
They called themselves the GrassRoots Resistance , or “ GRR , ” an onomatopoeic representation of their feelings toward the president .
Shaw , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ acquaintances in the lap pool and after workout classes to invite them to GRR meetings .
By January 2017 , GRR had settled on a few targets for their activism .
Their anger was national , but their action would be local , the thinking went .
The women , who were mostly white and ranged in age from 35 to 65 , studied up on the inner workings of the Cleveland city council and the Ohio legislature and on the quotidian operations of state-level campaigns .
They subscribed to state-politics newsletters , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and began researching those lawmakers ’ past votes .
Over the past three years , the group has grown to 150 members .
They ’ ve channeled their energies toward fundraising and door-knocking for candidates , and they ’ ve given themselves hand cramps writing hundreds upon hundreds of get-out-the-vote postcards .
For many of the GRR women , the group served as a kind of gateway drug , introducing them to other political projects of varying magnitude : A handful of members joined—and remade—the Ward 17 club ; others signed up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nora Katzenberger , a stay-at-home mother of two , led the ultimately successful charge for a new school levy to recruit more teachers and expand mental-health services for students .
Shaw , GRR ’ s leader , became a paid organizer for Red Wine and Blue , an Ohio-based organization working to activate suburban women .
( She recently starred in a video for the group in which she ’ s dressed as Mrs. Claus and reads a poem about a corruption scandal involving the state ’ s Republican speaker of the House @ @ @ @ @ @ @ runs communications for a real-estate company , signed on to manage former Cleveland councilwoman Monique Smith ’ s campaign .
Smith has a chance to become the first Democrat to represent the Sixteenth State House District in more than a decade .
“ Nobody ’ s coming to save us , ” says Heather Tuck-Macalla , a children ’ s librarian and GRR member who helped lead a statewide anti-gerrymandering campaign in 2017 .
“ We have to save ourselves.
” GRR was one of roughly 2,500 women-led groups that whirred into action @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Skocpol ’ s research .
Many of these women live in the suburbs of major cities , places that have traditionally been Republican but are rapidly turning blue as college-educated white women grow more and more repulsed by Trump and as neighborhoods become more and more diverse .
Some are former Republicans , while others were simply inactive Democrats , as Shaw was .
These so-called Resistance groups are always somewhere between 75 and 100 percent women , and they generally operate independently of national bodies .
Many of the women in these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ educated , and used to running or working on teams and planning big events .
The level of organization this work requires , Skocpol says , is already something they ’ re good at .
Some on the political left have dismissed these women , many of them white , as “ wine moms ” or “ MSNBC moms ” —silly , unprincipled newcomers to the political scene who are more interested in watching Rachel Maddow with a glass of pinot in hand than agitating for systemic change .
Black women in particular @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the backbone of the Democratic Party .
Where were the wine moms in 2016 , leftists wonder , when 53 percent of white women supported Donald Trump ?
These critics argue , too , that the “ Resistance ” can ’ t be counted on to stay politically involved .
And their concern is entirely legitimate , given that Trump ’ s election was the catalyst for these women ’ s activism .
Read : Donald Trump ’ s woman problem is only getting worse What the critics may be missing , though @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s influence—and their role in strengthening the Democratic Party ’ s infrastructure .
Despite the fact that most Democrats are concentrated in urban areas , Resistance groups have sprung up all over the country , from the Arizona desert to rural Pennsylvania .
“ You do not win elections in the United States if you don ’ t have a presence outside of college towns and big liberal metropolises , ” Skocpol told me .
“ The Resistance has been just as geographically widespread—if not more so—than the Tea Party , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who recently edited a book comparing the two movements , noted that they are alike in their grassroots focus .
But rather than acting as party antagonizers , Resistance groups “ give backbone ” to elected officials and reinvigorate local institutions .
Americans ’ civic involvement declined massively from the 1960s to the 2000s ; there was a kind of “ falling-away of regularly meeting groups , ” as Skocpol put it .
That loss has been felt by both political parties , but especially by Democrats , as their membership in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no longer attend church or join local labor unions at the rates they once did , depriving them of crucial forums for community and political engagement .
This means that today ’ s widespread , women-led activism represents a fundamental shift in American politics , says Lara Putnam , a history professor at the University of Pittsburgh who has studied the anti-Trump movement .
In many areas around the country where the Democratic Party has lost power or even gone extinct , the women of the Resistance have replaced it .
They ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and establishing formal databases of volunteers .
They ’ re boosting federal candidates and learning how to run—and win—state political campaigns .
“ They went to be troops fighting this battle for democracy and found no one there , ” Putnam told me .
“ So they basically rebuilt those structures.
” When Skocpol has shared her research on Resistance groups with Democratic Party consultants , some of the men have rolled their eyes .
The groups aren ’ t usually big fundraisers , and their ranks don ’ t include many young @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cohorts on the left who have a longer history of activism , which tends to be more visible , she told me .
“ But what they are is a crucial missing piece of a center-left coalition for a strong public sector in this country.
” Curious about the durability of their activism , I began attending GRR meetings in June , three months after the pandemic had forced the group to move their gatherings to Zoom .
Every other Monday , all summer , I sat at my desk in Washington , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 35 regular attendees logged on from their kitchens and living rooms in suburban Cleveland ( “ Georgene , you ’ re still on mute !
” ) .
The members would spend the first 30 minutes of each meeting chitchatting : cracking jokes about the usual firehose of news and scandal erupting from the White House ; showing off their new Resistance-themed face masks ( But Her Emails !
one read ) ; and execrating whoever stole the Biden sign from Susan Streitel ’ s yard—again !
But when 7 o ’ clock @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Over the past six months , GRR ’ s two biggest projects have been educating Ohioans about how to vote by mail in the general election and campaigning for Smith , the state-House candidate .
So each meeting is basically a series of assignments and requests : Who has some time to write a few hundred postcards encouraging swing voters to vote for Monique ?
Which ladies can help spread the word about her through peer-to-peer texting ?
Would anyone be willing to help the Ward 17 club create vote-by-mail packets to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work has seemed endless but , then again , so has their enthusiasm .
That could change if Biden wins the election next month .
White House scandals and nonsensical Trump tweets have been the focus of so many of their conversations , sustaining their outrage .
If Trump leaves office , it stands to reason that at least some of their motivation may disappear right along with him .
A Biden presidency could mean a chance to relax , to take some time off , to bond as friends rather than as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an interest in politics that is much higher than it was previously , ” Jessica Trounstine , a professor at UC Merced who focuses on local politics , told me .
“ But they ’ re gon na have a limited amount of energy they ’ re gon na put toward [ it ] .
” • Why People Who Hate Trump Stick With Him • ‘ I Moved on Her Very Heavily ’ : Part 1 Organizations working to channel suburban women ’ s political power are already worried about a potential @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Red Wine and Blue and the former CEO of the left-wing media company Shareblue , believes the path to turning both Ohio and the rest of the country Democratic runs through these women ’ s neighborhoods .
“ If we drop out , and don ’ t continue to be part of this coalition that presses for real change , then it will be a blip , ” Paris told me .
A blip could mean that the Democratic Party can no longer rely on their enthusiasm .
It could mean that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ routines of their pre-2016 lives , powering down the organizations they ’ ve created and letting the institutions they ’ ve reinvigorated go to seed .
This possibility , Paris says , “ gives me anxiety.
” It probably should .
Midterm-election turnout is typically abysmal for Democrats , whose voting base turns out much less reliably than Republicans ’ .
The GOP has , on average , a three-point turnout advantage over Democrats in midterm elections , according to FiveThirtyEight , and Democrats were dominated by Republicans in the 2010 and 2014 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : The work of these Resistance groups contributed to the highest turnout for a nonpresidential election in U.S. history , and helped deliver the House majority to Democrats .
But the party can ’ t assume that 2018 is the new normal .
It ’ s possible—even likely—that in 2022 , Democrats , under a President Biden , would return to their pre-Trump voting levels .
When I asked Shaw about all this in mid-September , she acknowledged the appeal of spending a day thinking about something—anything—other than politics .
She ’ d @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would feel just the other day while winding through aisles of Halloween decorations at Target , she told me .
How nice it would be to focus on running errands or visiting with friends without being “ constantly engaged in a state of chaos.
” Shaw is hopeful that a Biden presidency would actually make her and other GRR members more effective in their political work .
Maybe , she says , they wouldn ’ t be “ as frantic and depressed and emotionally exhausted ” as they are now .
Many of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ including Shaw , are adamant that there ’ s no turning back .
After all , they ’ ve already done the hard part .
“ People have developed the networks , the skills , the tools to do this work , ” said Nora Kelley , a 44-year-old lawyer and a leader in the group .
“ The faucet ’ s on , and it ’ s not getting turned off.
” The sisterly intimacy and grassroots nature of these groups could ultimately be what carry them forward .
Democratic organizing is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Obama years , experts told me—when , after Barack Obama won the presidency , the massive organization that he and his team had built was handed over to the Democratic National Committee and subsequently fell apart .
“ Picture a sprawling tomato plant which had the advantage of a structure around it that it grew up within , ” Putnam told me .
“ When you pull out the metal structure , it collapses.
” The Resistance movement , on the other hand , is like “ a tomato plant that has grown @ @ @ @ @ @ @ own way .
It supported its own weight.
” Last week , with just three weeks to go until the November election , Shaw and two dozen other women—some from GRR , some not—gathered in a parking lot in the northwest suburb of Bay Village .
Armed with markers and sheets of cardboard , they decorated their cars with BYE DON signs and discussed their planned driving route through BIDEN 2020 face masks .
It felt like the climax of a heist movie whose central characters are a band of exasperated , middle-aged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ group hit the road in a caravan of 16 vehicles and sped across Highway 90 toward the city ’ s downtown .
On the way , they honked loudly at the home of a man with a JOE DEMENTIA sign in his yard .
Then they drove , one after another , by the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections ’ drop box on Euclid Avenue and cast their ballots for Joe Biden .
“ Oh my god , here it is !
” Shaw shrieked happily as she reached out her window and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It was a meaningful moment—one that Shaw had been desperate for since she woke up on the morning of November 9 , 2016 , to discover that Donald Trump was America ’ s president-elect .
But it was just a moment .
A few days later , she and the other GRR women were back on the streets , passing out hundreds of door hangers to remind Clevelanders to vote early , by mail or in person .
On Monday night , Shaw and the other members of GRR logged back on to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Day .
On the agenda : planning two more literature drops for Monique Smith .
But first , a red-haired woman I did not recognize introduced herself .
“ It took me so long to realize you all existed !
” she told the group .
“ Sorry to come to the very last meeting !
” Some of the women laughed .
“ Oh , don ’ t worry , there ’ ll be more , ” Shaw told her .
“ We ’ re not going anywhere .
”


theatlantic--2020-10-22--The Case Against Donald Trump

The Case Against Donald Trump

In most matters related to the governance and defense of the United States , the president is constrained by competing branches of government and by an intricate web of laws and customs .
Only in one crucial area does the president resemble , in the words of the former missile officer and scholar Bruce Blair , an absolute monarch—his control of nuclear weapons .
Richard Nixon , who was president when Major Hering asked his question , was reported to have told members of Congress at a White House dinner party , “ I could leave this room and in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be dead.
” This was an alarming but accurate statement .
When contemplating their ballots , Americans should ask which candidate in a presidential contest is better equipped to guide the United States through a national-security crisis without triggering a nuclear exchange , and which candidate is better equipped to interpret—within five or seven minutes—the ambiguous , complicated , and contradictory signals that could suggest an imminent nuclear attack .
These are certainly not questions that large numbers of voters asked themselves in 2016 , when a transparently unqualified candidate for president won @ @ @ @ @ @ @ At the time , Donald Trump had not yet served in public office , so concerns about his ability to protect the United States from harm were hypothetical , though grounded in his long and terrible record as a human being .
As The Atlantic stated in its October 2016 endorsement of his opponent , Hillary Clinton , Trump “ traffics in conspiracy theories and racist invective ; he is appallingly sexist ; he is erratic , secretive , and xenophobic ; he expresses admiration for authoritarian rulers , and evinces authoritarian tendencies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fact-based discourse ; he is ignorant of , and indifferent to , the Constitution ; he appears not to read.
” What we have learned since we published that editorial is that we understated our case .
Donald Trump is the worst president this country has seen since Andrew Johnson , or perhaps James Buchanan , or perhaps ever .
Trump has brought our country low ; he has divided our people ; he has pitted race against race ; he has corrupted our democracy ; he has shown contempt for American ideals @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; he has provided comfort to propagators of hate ; he has abandoned America ’ s allies ; he has aligned himself with dictators ; he has encouraged terrorism and mob violence ; he has undermined the agencies and departments of government ; he has despoiled the environment ; he has opposed free speech ; he has lied frenetically and evangelized for conspiracism ; he has stolen children from their parents ; he has made himself an advocate of a hostile foreign power ; and he has failed to protect America from a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for all of the 220,000 COVID-19-related deaths in America .
But through his avarice and ignorance and negligence and titanic incompetence , he has allowed tens of thousands of Americans to suffer and die , many alone , all needlessly .
With each passing day , his presidency reaps more death .

In 1973, a United States Air Force officer, Major Harold Hering, asked a question that the Air Force did not want asked. Hering, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, was then in training to become a Minuteman-missile crewman. The question he asked one of his instructors was this: “How can I know that an order I receive to launch my missiles came from a sane president?”
The writer Ron Rosenbaum would later call this the “forbidden question.” Missile officers are allowed to ask certain sorts of questions—about the various fail-safe systems built to prevent the accidental launching of nuclear weapons, for instance. But the Air Force would not answer Hering’s question, and it moved to discharge him after determining that officers responsible for launching nuclear weapons did not “need to know” the answer. “I have to say I feel I do have a need to know because I am a human being,” Hering said in response.
Hering’s question was taboo because the national defense strategy of the United States is built on the unstated assumption that the American people will not allow a lunatic to become president. If that assumption is wrong, then no procedural, legal, or technological mechanisms exist that are able to fully protect the human race from such a lunatic. Hering discovered a catastrophic flaw in U.S. nuclear doctrine, and for this he was driven from the Air Force.
In most matters related to the governance and defense of the United States, the president is constrained by competing branches of government and by an intricate web of laws and customs. Only in one crucial area does the president resemble, in the words of the former missile officer and scholar Bruce Blair, an absolute monarch—his control of nuclear weapons. Richard Nixon, who was president when Major Hering asked his question, was reported to have told members of Congress at a White House dinner party, “I could leave this room and in 25 minutes, 70 million people would be dead.” This was an alarming but accurate statement.
When contemplating their ballots, Americans should ask which candidate in a presidential contest is better equipped to guide the United States through a national-security crisis without triggering a nuclear exchange, and which candidate is better equipped to interpret—within five or seven minutes—the ambiguous, complicated, and contradictory signals that could suggest an imminent nuclear attack. These are certainly not questions that large numbers of voters asked themselves in 2016, when a transparently unqualified candidate for president won the support of 63 million Americans.
At the time, Donald Trump had not yet served in public office, so concerns about his ability to protect the United States from harm were hypothetical, though grounded in his long and terrible record as a human being. As The Atlantic stated in its October 2016 endorsement of his opponent, Hillary Clinton, Trump “traffics in conspiracy theories and racist invective; he is appallingly sexist; he is erratic, secretive, and xenophobic; he expresses admiration for authoritarian rulers, and evinces authoritarian tendencies himself … He is an enemy of fact-based discourse; he is ignorant of, and indifferent to, the Constitution; he appears not to read.”
What we have learned since we published that editorial is that we understated our case. Donald Trump is the worst president this country has seen since Andrew Johnson, or perhaps James Buchanan, or perhaps ever. Trump has brought our country low; he has divided our people; he has pitted race against race; he has corrupted our democracy; he has shown contempt for American ideals; he has made cruelty a sacrament; he has provided comfort to propagators of hate; he has abandoned America’s allies; he has aligned himself with dictators; he has encouraged terrorism and mob violence; he has undermined the agencies and departments of government; he has despoiled the environment; he has opposed free speech; he has lied frenetically and evangelized for conspiracism; he has stolen children from their parents; he has made himself an advocate of a hostile foreign power; and he has failed to protect America from a ravaging virus. Trump is not responsible for all of the 220,000 COVID-19-related deaths in America. But through his avarice and ignorance and negligence and titanic incompetence, he has allowed tens of thousands of Americans to suffer and die, many alone, all needlessly. With each passing day, his presidency reaps more death.
But let us lay all of this aside for the moment. Let us even lay aside the extraordinary fact that Donald Trump has been credibly accused of rape. Compelling evidence suggests that his countless sins and defects are rooted in mental instability, pathological narcissism, and profound moral and cognitive impairment. Which returns us to the subject of Major Hering.
Trump’s opponent, Joe Biden, is in many ways a typically imperfect candidate, but if we judge these men on two questions alone—Who is a more trustworthy steward of America’s nuclear arsenal? Which man poses less of a threat to our collective existence?—the answer is spectacularly obvious.
The Atlantic has endorsed only three candidates in its 163-year history: Abraham Lincoln, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Hillary Clinton. The latter two endorsements had more to do with the qualities of Barry Goldwater and Donald Trump than with those of Johnson and Clinton. The same holds true in the case of Joe Biden. Biden is a man of experience, maturity, and obvious humanity, but had the Republican Party put forward a credible candidate for president, we would have felt no compulsion to state a preference. Donald Trump, however, is a clear and continuing danger to the United States, and it does not seem likely that our country would be able to emerge whole from four more years of his misrule. Two men are running for president. One is a terrible man; the other is a decent man. Vote for the decent man.
— Jeffrey Goldberg, on behalf of the editors of The Atlantic


theatlantic--2020-10-22--The Coronavirus Surge That Will Define the Next 4 Years

The third surge has belied some of Trump ’ s predictions about the pandemic .
The president has repeatedly said that only states led by Democrats have struggled with the virus .
“ If you take the blue states out , we ’ re at a level that I don ’ t think anybody in the world would be at , ” he said at a press conference last month .
Since then , coronavirus infections have skyrocketed in rural America .
The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 has more than tripled in North Dakota , Montana , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ South Dakota , Utah , Indiana , and Ohio .
Read : The vaccine news that really matters But describing what ’ s happening now as simply a red-state surge would be too pat .
Cases are now rising in all but nine states—meaning this surge is more widespread , and harder to explain , than either of the earlier waves .
It may end up being less deadly , however : The United States now runs many more tests than it could in March and April , and people who are hospitalized @ @ @ @ @ @ @ die .
At the same time , the virus ’ s long-term complications , which might range from respiratory disability to cognitive decline , now seem more ominous .
What ’ s happening now might be best understood as three smaller types of outbreaks .
You could call them the rural explosion , the swing-state surge , and the fatigue creep .
The first phenomenon : After months when viral transmission seemed to dominate cities , the coronavirus has now wheedled its way into rural America .
That ’ s a large part @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and South Dakota , which stand out even in a country of hot spots .
Earlier in this article , I mentioned that one in 1,000 Americans has tested positive for COVID-19 in the past week .
But on Tuesday alone , one in every 1,000 residents of North and South Dakota was diagnosed with COVID-19 .
That ’ s a per-capita rate of infection nearly double New York State ’ s during the spring .
In North Dakota , the harder hit of the two , the number of people hospitalized with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The state is so deluged that it has asked residents to do their own contact tracing .
The state ’ s cases are not limited to its largest cities , such as Fargo and Bismarck .
Look at Ward County , for instance , which is home to about 68,000 people and , according to the state health department , reports nearly 646 active cases—one case for every 105 residents .
Or Williams County , with a population of about 38,000 , which reports 203 active cases—one case for every 187 residents @ @ @ @ @ @ @ times more residents than tiny Stark County , North Dakota , but they reported the same number of new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday .
To some degree , the rural explosion is playing out across the conservative Mountain West .
The western U.S. now reports as many cases per capita as it did in late June—but spread over the country in a very different way .
In the early summer , California and the Pacific Northwest dominated the region ’ s numbers ; today , the interior states lead .
Wyoming , Idaho @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Steve Bullock has fought incumbent Senator Steve Daines in a close congressional race , now each report at least 400 cases each day per 1 million residents .
Utah is reporting more than 1,200 new cases a day , its worst-ever outbreak , but most cases remain concentrated in Salt Lake City and the surrounding area , according to state data .

Cases are rising in all but nine states. Unlike the past two waves, this one has no epicenter.
Updated at 9:20 p.m. ET on October 22, 2020
The United States is sleepwalking into what could become the largest coronavirus outbreak of the pandemic so far. In the past week alone, as voters prepare to go to the ballot box, about one in every 1,000 Americans has tested positive for the virus, and about two in every 100,000 Americans have died of it. Today, the United States reported 73,103 new cases, the third-highest single-day total since the pandemic began, according to the COVID Tracking Project at The Atlantic.
This third surge is far more geographically dispersed than what the country saw in the spring or summer: The virus can now be found in every kind of American community, from tiny farm towns to affluent suburbs to bustling border cities. This is the first of the American surges with no clear epicenter: From North Carolina to North Dakota, and Colorado to Connecticut, more Americans are contracting COVID-19.
The United States now reports nearly 60,000 new cases every day, numbers previously seen only during the peak in July and early August. Since the middle of September, the number of new cases diagnosed each day has swelled by 73 percent. The number of Americans hospitalized has increased by at least 40 percent.
True to its pandemic response so far, the White House has not mounted an effort to stop this spike. Donald Trump has not spoken to the nation or pushed forward a strategy to address a third surge. And both the president and Vice President Mike Pence are holding crowded in-person rallies in some of the same states—such as Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Indiana—now seeing surges. In the next two weeks, yet more Americans will fall ill, in numbers that are certain to make this an Election Day unlike any other. If the country’s medical and political crises were ever separate, they are not now.
The third surge has belied some of Trump’s predictions about the pandemic. The president has repeatedly said that only states led by Democrats have struggled with the virus. “If you take the blue states out, we’re at a level that I don’t think anybody in the world would be at,” he said at a press conference last month.
Since then, coronavirus infections have skyrocketed in rural America. The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 has more than tripled in North Dakota, Montana, and Wisconsin. It has roughly doubled in South Dakota, Utah, Indiana, and Ohio.
Read: The vaccine news that really matters
But describing what’s happening now as simply a red-state surge would be too pat. Cases are now rising in all but nine states—meaning this surge is more widespread, and harder to explain, than either of the earlier waves.
It may end up being less deadly, however: The United States now runs many more tests than it could in March and April, and people who are hospitalized with the virus are less likely to die. At the same time, the virus’s long-term complications, which might range from respiratory disability to cognitive decline, now seem more ominous.
What’s happening now might be best understood as three smaller types of outbreaks. You could call them the rural explosion, the swing-state surge, and the fatigue creep.
The rural explosion
The first phenomenon: After months when viral transmission seemed to dominate cities, the coronavirus has now wheedled its way into rural America. That’s a large part of what’s happening in North and South Dakota, which stand out even in a country of hot spots. Earlier in this article, I mentioned that one in 1,000 Americans has tested positive for COVID-19 in the past week. But on Tuesday alone, one in every 1,000 residents of North and South Dakota was diagnosed with COVID-19. That’s a per-capita rate of infection nearly double New York State’s during the spring.
In North Dakota, the harder hit of the two, the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 has tripled in the past month. The state is so deluged that it has asked residents to do their own contact tracing.
The state’s cases are not limited to its largest cities, such as Fargo and Bismarck. Look at Ward County, for instance, which is home to about 68,000 people and, according to the state health department, reports nearly 646 active cases—one case for every 105 residents. Or Williams County, with a population of about 38,000, which reports 203 active cases—one case for every 187 residents. The state of Maine has 43 times more residents than tiny Stark County, North Dakota, but they reported the same number of new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday.
To some degree, the rural explosion is playing out across the conservative Mountain West. The western U.S. now reports as many cases per capita as it did in late June—but spread over the country in a very different way. In the early summer, California and the Pacific Northwest dominated the region’s numbers; today, the interior states lead. Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana, where Democratic Governor Steve Bullock has fought incumbent Senator Steve Daines in a close congressional race, now each report at least 400 cases each day per 1 million residents. Utah is reporting more than 1,200 new cases a day, its worst-ever outbreak, but most cases remain concentrated in Salt Lake City and the surrounding area, according to state data.
The swing-state surge
Cases and hospitalizations are also rising across some of the Great Lakes and upper-Midwest states that could prove most crucial in the presidential election. The Midwest now has more COVID-19 cases per capita than any other region in the country, and is reaching rates of infection that come close to matching the worst of the Northeast’s during the spring and the worst of the South’s during the summer.
These regions are as defined by the U.S. Census, which includes North and South Dakota in the Midwest.
I wrote last month that Wisconsin looked like a growing hot spot. That warning has come true: New cases in Wisconsin have more than quintupled since dipping in late August, and hospitalizations have reached an all-time high. More than 3,500 Wisconsinites now test positive for the virus every day. The state’s pandemic response has been politically polarized: While its Democratic governor, Tony Evers, has defended a mask mandate against criticism from Republican leaders and conservative legal groups, mask wearing has been spotty in some areas and many people have refused to reduce their travel to stop the spread of the disease, according to Wisconsin Public Radio.
In Ohio, cases and hospitalizations have more than doubled in the past month and now exceed the previous all-time peak. More than 2,000 Ohioans, on average, are now diagnosed with the virus each day.
In Iowa, the home of a close congressional race that could determine whether Democrats retake the Senate, a large outbreak continues to grow. More than 950 Iowans, on average, are diagnosed with the virus each day; and more than 500 are currently in the hospital, an all-time high.
Read: Why Trump’s rapid-testing plan worries scientists
The most ominous state may be Pennsylvania, whose 20 electoral votes could determine the election’s winner. The Keystone State saw a huge coronavirus outbreak in the spring, but this appears not to have protected it from another surge: Its numbers have deteriorated in the past month. On Saturday, the state reported more than 1,800 new cases, its third-highest single-day total of the pandemic. While many fewer people are hospitalized now than were in the spring, the state’s outbreak is still growing: There are now at least 1,400 new cases a day, as many as in late April.
Voting in Pennsylvania has already become contentious, and Republicans and Democrats have fought over rules for voters who want to avoid going to polling places. Earlier this week, the Supreme Court ruled that the state could count mail-in ballots received up to three days after Election Day, blocking a Republican challenge to the policy. While voting in person is relatively safe, registered Democrats have requested absentee ballots at two to three times the rate of Republicans, according to the Pennsylvania Department of State. If a surge in COVID-19 cases limits turnout on Election Day, it could depress the GOP vote more significantly.
A pandemic-fatigue-induced creep of cases
The fact that Pennsylvania’s cases are rising despite its earlier outbreak raises a third specter, which seems to be happening in New Jersey, where new cases have quadrupled since their low in mid-August. More than 1,000 residents of the Garden State now test positive for the virus every day, a return to late-May levels. Hospitalizations have remained at much lower levels, though about 300 more people are hospitalized than were last month. Deaths have not increased at all.
In the Northeast, cases have also recently increased in Massachusetts and Connecticut. They have also modestly risen in New York—every day, about 400 more people now test positive for the virus than did in the middle of last month—but numbers still pale in comparison with springtime levels.
Read: This overlooked variable is the key to the pandemic
Many of these states, Pennsylvania among them, saw large spikes in the country’s first two waves. They successfully kept cases low throughout the summer. If they cannot now keep viral levels low as they enter the winter, it bodes ill for the hopes that any region can depress transmission indefinitely. (Surging caseloads in Europe offer the same warning.)
Since March, the United States has failed to keep the virus from spreading widely. In the past few weeks, that failure has again become acute, and now the most important date on the American political calendar will be defined by sickness. Trump has chosen Americans’ fate during the coronavirus pandemic. Now the disease will define the day that the country chooses his.