theatlantic--2020-01-17--Andrew Yang’s Campaign Is Not a Joke

Andrew Yang’s Campaign Is Not a Joke

Yang ’ s domestic-policy ideas clearly resonate far beyond the internet caverns where his Yang Gang ” first took root .
He has already done for automation what Bernie Sanders did for health care in 2016 .
With his devoted online-donor base , he could hang around in the primaries until only the billionaires and the front-runners are left .
And if the nomination remains tightly contested , and he has accumulated significant delegates , suddenly he looks like a potential power broker or a reasonable second-choice candidate , and … well , he and his staff have started to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fringe status , Yang needs to make voters comfortable with the idea of him as commander in chief .
So as we drove out of Des Moines early one recent seven-stop day , I told him I was going to take the idea of a President Yang seriously for a few minutes , and ask what a Yang White House would be like .
He deflected a question about which Cabinet departments he ’ d prioritize restructuring , saying he ’ d pick top people to run each of them ( he didn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them sort it out .
He said he ’ s unhappy with the current Israeli government and would restart negotiations around a two-state solution .
He said he doesn ’ t think Brexit was a good idea—but when I asked him what he thought about subsequent trade deals , that didn ’ t seem to have made it into the briefing book yet .
On Iran , Yang said he ’ d piece the nuclear deal back together .
How would he handle Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ?
“ I have the interest of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he said .
“ We have spent over $ 6 trillion in the Middle East at a terrible cost to both our people and our national resources , and … if he wants to find a diplomatic solution , I ’ m someone he can work with.
” Yang told me he would repeal the AUMF powers that the past three presidents have used as a blanket justification for all military operations , and go to Congress for a war declaration if he needed one .
Overall , he said , he expects @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a fresh start with a President Yang .
“ I believe that foreign leaders would find me to be very balanced and restrained and judicious , and good to my commitments .
Our allies would find me to be someone who actually included them in decisions before they are made , rather than after , ” he said .
The Yang doctrine , as he spelled it out for me , consists of a basic three-point test for military intervention : “ first , a clear , vital national interest at stake or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Second , a defined timeline for our troops to be there , so we can look them in the eye and say , ‘ You will be brought home at this date.
’ And No .
3 is that we have buy-in from our allies and partners.
” Yang is much more comfortable talking about domestic policy , which for him largely revolves around implementing a universal basic income .
He says he ’ s committed to making sure Congress doesn ’ t gut the social safety net to pay for his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not worried about being out-negotiated on the Hill .
How would he get it passed ?
Simple , Yang said .
Democrats will be so overjoyed that he beat Donald Trump , they ’ ll all be on board .
Conservatives will like it too—after all , he pointed out , deep-red Alaska , which distributes oil profits to all its citizens , is a model for the program .
( Instead of oil profits , he ’ d be drawing on data profits—taxes on companies like Amazon and Facebook . )
If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Yang said he ’ ll show up with a MATH cap in the district himself .

BURLINGTON, Iowa—Not long ago, Andrew Yang would have considered his presidential campaign a success just for having injected a discussion of job automation into the race. He was a novelty candidate, a single-issue candidate, known as much for joking around on the debate stage and for viral videos (like the one that shows him squirting whipped cream into the mouths of two kneeling volunteers) as for his signature policy position, the “freedom dividend,” a universal basic income of $1,000 a month.
But now that Yang has outlasted a number of more conventional and better-known rivals—and achieved surprisingly robust poll numbers and fundraising totals—his campaign has started to dream about what could happen if their candidate could transcend his novelty status. So when Yang’s top staff gathered at the end of December, his campaign chief, Nick Ryan, made clear that the strategy for the final weeks before voting starts would be to “present our guy as President Yang, Commander in Chief Yang.” How do you do that when Yang is the $1,000-a-month guy—not the bilateral-summit guy or the Situation Room guy? He’s the candidate who loves to crowd-surf, whose fans meme him into Obi-Wan Kenobi robes (“He is our only hope”), who wears his thick blue-and-red campaign scarf everywhere he goes. Can he convince voters he’s commander-in-chief material while continuing to indulge in the oddball routine to which he ascribes much of his success so far?
Yang’s domestic-policy ideas clearly resonate far beyond the internet caverns where his “Yang Gang” first took root. He has already done for automation what Bernie Sanders did for health care in 2016. With his devoted online-donor base, he could hang around in the primaries until only the billionaires and the front-runners are left. And if the nomination remains tightly contested, and he has accumulated significant delegates, suddenly he looks like a potential power broker or a reasonable second-choice candidate, and … well, he and his staff have started to dream.
[Read: The pull of Andrew Yang’s pessimism]
But to fully escape his fringe status, Yang needs to make voters comfortable with the idea of him as commander in chief. So as we drove out of Des Moines early one recent seven-stop day, I told him I was going to take the idea of a President Yang seriously for a few minutes, and ask what a Yang White House would be like. He deflected a question about which Cabinet departments he’d prioritize restructuring, saying he’d pick top people to run each of them (he didn’t say who) and let them sort it out. He said he’s unhappy with the current Israeli government and would restart negotiations around a two-state solution. He said he doesn’t think Brexit was a good idea—but when I asked him what he thought about subsequent trade deals, that didn’t seem to have made it into the briefing book yet.
On Iran, Yang said he’d piece the nuclear deal back together. How would he handle Ayatollah Ali Khamenei? “I have the interest of the American people at heart,” he said. “We have spent over $6 trillion in the Middle East at a terrible cost to both our people and our national resources, and … if he wants to find a diplomatic solution, I’m someone he can work with.”
Yang told me he would repeal the AUMF powers that the past three presidents have used as a blanket justification for all military operations, and go to Congress for a war declaration if he needed one. Overall, he said, he expects that world leaders would be happy for a fresh start with a President Yang.
“I believe that foreign leaders would find me to be very balanced and restrained and judicious, and good to my commitments. Our allies would find me to be someone who actually included them in decisions before they are made, rather than after,” he said.
The Yang doctrine, as he spelled it out for me, consists of a basic three-point test for military intervention: “first, a clear, vital national interest at stake or the ability to avert a humanitarian catastrophe. Second, a defined timeline for our troops to be there, so we can look them in the eye and say, ‘You will be brought home at this date.’ And No. 3 is that we have buy-in from our allies and partners.”
Yang is much more comfortable talking about domestic policy, which for him largely revolves around implementing a universal basic income. He says he’s committed to making sure Congress doesn’t gut the social safety net to pay for his freedom dividend, and he’s not worried about being out-negotiated on the Hill. How would he get it passed? Simple, Yang said. Democrats will be so overjoyed that he beat Donald Trump, they’ll all be on board. Conservatives will like it too—after all, he pointed out, deep-red Alaska, which distributes oil profits to all its citizens, is a model for the program. (Instead of oil profits, he’d be drawing on data profits—taxes on companies like Amazon and Facebook.) If anyone holds out on legislating the program, Yang said he’ll show up with a MATH cap in the district himself.
“If I was standing outside of … a resistant legislator’s [office] saying, ‘This man is standing between you and $1,000 a month for your family’—what is his argument going to be? ‘This money is going to hurt you’?” The freedom dividend “is very hard to demonize,” Yang told me. “I would love to see his phone lines and his office parking lot.”
Less than a year after he went on Joe Rogan’s podcast because no mainstream media outlet was interested in having him, Yang is now thinking about prospective running mates (he said he wants someone who has good experience dealing with Congress). His team has also been in touch with Barack Obama’s staff to schedule a get-to-know-you conversation. (Obama has already met with all the other candidates in the past two years.)
Is this new seriousness coming too late?
“Voters really like Andrew Yang; that’s clear,” says one of his newer—and most experienced—campaign consultants, Mark Longabaugh, who’s been working on his ads and rewriting his stump speeches. “Now we have to take it from ‘They like him and his economic agenda’ and close the sale with ‘He’s the candidate deserving of their precious vote.’”
The candidate himself has been resisting some of the getting-serious talk, warning his aides that he caught people’s attention in the first place because he wasn’t like “normal” presidential candidates. But he told me he’s getting the hang of it.
“It feels comfortable and natural to me. I think Americans can tell that I’m a parent and a patriot who just wants better for the country, and that I’m very serious about how we have to improve our way of life to avoid leaving a train wreck for our kids,” Yang said. “I think Americans now realize that you can be very serious in your message and vision while still also being a human … and enjoying moments on the trail.”
[Peter Beinart: Why Andrew Yang matters]
At every stop Yang makes, he first reviews notes from his campaign manager, Zach Graumann. He has never worked on a campaign before, but is always at Yang’s side, with duties that include managing the staff and combing gel through the candidate’s hair in the car. (Graumann is the one trying to pull Yang away in that whipped-cream video.)
In his speeches—which now include a PowerPoint presentation that he debuted in Ames, Iowa, on the morning of Tuesday’s Democratic debate—Yang hits his talking points as well as any practiced politician: automation, Amazon, the fourth industrial revolution, what’s going to happen when his “friends in Silicon Valley” finally pull off the self-driving truck. And he always comes back to some version of, “We’re all being told by the news that things are better than ever, but they don’t feel better than ever,” as he put it to 150 people one Saturday morning in heavily Republican Knoxville, Iowa. There’s so much money in the economy, yet so much stress and depression, so many drug overdoses and mental-health problems, and a life expectancy that is decreasing for the first time since the Spanish Flu.
Yang believes that his universal basic income signals how he would remedy this general malaise. “I would consider myself post-inspirational inspiration,” he told me as we arrived at his next event. “I just want to put money in people’s hands, instead of trying to say, ‘I’m so inspirational.’”
At the Statesmen Lanes bowling alley in Oskaloosa, a woman named Susan Mitchell stopped Yang as he was trying to land a spare with the 14-pound hot-pink ball his staff had lined up for him. (His first roll had been a straight gutter ball.) She pulled him close and pressed him on how he’d make sure his freedom dividend didn’t come out of Social Security or other existing programs. “He answered it very nicely,” she told me afterward, watching with a smile as he celebrated finally knocking some pins down. “I think we need a fun guy to be the president,” she said.
A few hours later, Yang’s wife had caught up with us and was introducing Yang at a packed coffee shop in Mount Pleasant. She is currently a stay-at-home mother to their two sons and hadn’t been a visible part of the campaign until November—though the Yang Gang recognizes her well enough to scream “Evelyn!” when they see her. She’d written a speech on the plane about how the same qualities that made her fall in love with Yang now make her absolutely sure he’s the right person to be president.
“It’s certainly not luck. And it’s more than the ideas,” Evelyn said to the gathered crowd. “You’re not just voting for the ideas but for Andrew as a person.” He’s like Liam Neeson in the Taken movies, she said, going on to quote Neeson’s famous monologue from the first film. He has a very “particular set of skills,” but “instead of talking to kidnappers, he’s talking to politicians.”
At Shaggy’s Gourmet Burgers, a little red-and-white shack on a dark road in Wapello, Yang put on an apron with MATH, BABY! written in the spot for his name, and alternated between taking questions and flipping burgers. He started with his philosophy of preparing meat well-done: “What’s my downside if I overcook it? Pretty mild. What’s my downside if I undercook it?” He waited for the crowd to respond. “Food poisoning!” they yelled.
“I feel like some kind of Santa Claus, but the only present I have is burgers,” Yang said, as he gave sacks of them to patrons. “On Burger Day, an Asian man comes around handing out burgers.” He answered policy questions as he worked, giving his thoughts on the Democratic National Committee’s debate rules. (He used to praise them when he was getting onstage, but now he complains about them and said, “This campaign has transcended the debates.”) A boy asked him to put his hands in the dab position, and he obliged right away. “I got him to do it!” the boy squealed. Yang looked at him wryly and said, “You shouldn’t take too much pride in that, because I’ll do almost anything.” Then he was back to talking about labor-participation rates, health and life expectancy, and John Maynard Keynes. He gave his review of the new Star Wars film (he had low expectations going in, which left him “pleasantly surprised”). Another boy who’d just gotten a toy shaving kit for Christmas asked him whether he shaved. “I do shave, but very, very seldom, and more to feel like a man than because of any facial hair,” he said.
Early on, Yang’s events were heavily populated with the odd and disaffected, political and social outcasts who connected with him so viscerally that they would show up at events screaming, “Yang Gang! Yang Gang! Yang Gang!” like British soccer hooligans or Pentecostals speaking in tongues. Even as his support has grown—more than 500 new people showed up to see him during that day in Iowa, and another 50 or so followed him between events—that core has remained, and they say what they’re doing goes beyond wearing T-shirts with his face on them, flaunting blue MATH hats (to contrast with red MAGA hats), or getting Yang tattoos. If Trump woke up the Proud Boys, Yang resonates with the Lost Boys—people like Phillip Friedman, 28, whom I met at a Yang Gang debate afterparty at 1 a.m. in an Atlanta bar in November. He was looking for a job as a waiter, and had first come across Yang in a Tucker Carlson interview. Having joined the Yang community, he said, he’s definitely going to stay political now. “This is about so much more than becoming president. This is about a movement to bring humanity back together,” he told me. I’ve spoken with a number of other interesting young people who said similar things.
“I’m thrilled that we’ve activated people who’ve been disengaged with politics before, and young people, and independents,” Yang told me when I mentioned this to him. “The problems are not going away. This movement’s not going away. I believe that people will find this to be an extraordinarily passionate, dedicated group of people that will be here until the problems are solved.”
At his final campaign stop of his long day in Iowa, he went behind the counter at a bar in Burlington to pour himself a beer, then did a brief dance mostly for his own amusement, boogying in place.
But on the way out of the bar, I asked Yang whether he really, truly thought he could win—and whether he buys the argument some of his campaign aides make, that the only way to beat Trump is with a candidate who is as unusual and outside the box as Yang.
“As this process goes on, I’m getting stronger and stronger,” Yang said, his face settling into an expression of seriousness. “I will be unbeatable. Trump knows it; that’s why he’s never mentioned me. He’s hoping the Democratic Party doesn’t realize it.”


theatlantic--2020-01-16--The Atlantic Daily: The Senate Takes the Impeachment Case

It ’ s Thursday , January 16 .
Impeachment managers have been assigned .
The articles of impeachment have been read to the Senate .
Chief Justice John Roberts and the senators have been sworn in .
The trial resumes next week .
In today ’ s newsletter : Who is Lev Parnas again ?
Plus , the constitutionality of the ERA , and bipartisan kumbaya in Kansas ( spoiler : it worked ) .
Impeachment is now in the hands of the Senate .
But the reemergence of Lev Parnas reinvigorated old demands for new witnesses to be called @ @ @ @ @ @ @ associate of Trump ’ s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and one of the shadier figures affiliated with the Ukraine affair , took to MSNBC last night to further implicate President Trump in the efforts to pressure Ukraine to open an investigation into the Bidens .
If you remember from season one of this drama : Parnas was one of two Giuliani clients arrested at Dulles Airport back in October , allegedly trying to board a one-way flight to Vienna .
( In season two : Vienna was Giuliani ’ s intended destination 24 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ colleague Elaina Plott reported . )
Fast forward to the latest season : The House Intelligence Committee released new documents Parnas had turned over , materials that show supposed surveillance of former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and include plenty of claims that Trump “ knew exactly ” what was going on when it came to dealings with Ukraine .

Newly released documents provided by Lev Parnas offer more damning evidence against the president. Plus: bipartisan kumbaya in Kansas (spoiler: legislation passed).
It’s Thursday, January 16. Impeachment managers have been assigned. The articles of impeachment have been read to the Senate. Chief Justice John Roberts and the senators have been sworn in. The trial resumes next week.
In today’s newsletter: Who is Lev Parnas again? Plus, the constitutionality of the ERA, and bipartisan kumbaya in Kansas (spoiler: it worked).
*
« TODAY IN POLITICS »
(Mike Segar / Reuters )
Impeachment is now in the hands of the Senate. But the reemergence of Lev Parnas reinvigorated old demands for new witnesses to be called for the trial.
Parnas, an associate of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and one of the shadier figures affiliated with the Ukraine affair, took to MSNBC last night to further implicate President Trump in the efforts to pressure Ukraine to open an investigation into the Bidens.
If you remember from season one of this drama: Parnas was one of two Giuliani clients arrested at Dulles Airport back in October, allegedly trying to board a one-way flight to Vienna. (In season two: Vienna was Giuliani’s intended destination 24 hours after the arrests, my former colleague Elaina Plott reported.)
Fast forward to the latest season: The House Intelligence Committee released new documents Parnas had turned over, materials that show supposed surveillance of former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and include plenty of claims that Trump “knew exactly” what was going on when it came to dealings with Ukraine.
While his allegations should be taken with a grain (or a full cup) of salt, the new Parnas allegations bring back an old point: So much more is still unknown.
As my colleague David Graham writes:
[Parnas’s] claims can’t be believed at anything near face value. Yet they also cannot be dismissed out of hand, for the stakes are too high. As long as it’s Parnas’s story versus Trump’s, the question is which proven liar to trust.
Read the full argument.
—Christian Paz
*
« SNAPSHOT »
(RICARDO ARDUENGO / AFP / GETTY)
“The mainland usually ignores the U.S.-controlled island, but the president shows active hostility in its time of need.”
And, the University of Puerto Rico professor Pedro Reina-Pérez writes from San Juan, “regrettably, this episode is far from over.”
*
« IDEAS AND ARGUMENTS »
(Steve Helber / AP)
“And without quite saying so, the opinion claims that right of decision for none other than Attorney General William Barr.”
Virginia ratified the Equal Rights Amendment this week. But the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has said that the Congress can’t determine the validity of an amendment ratified after missing its deadline. Dueling court cases involving this 1970s-era rule imposing a time limit are wending through courts now.
But the power to decide on constitutional amendments belongs to Congress, and not at all the White House, the law professor Garret Epps argues.
+ More on the ERA: Neither the president nor the Supreme Court has any assigned role in constitutional amendments. The final steps fall to one obscure federal employee, now named in two lawsuits about the ERA.
*
« EVENING READ »
Kansas’s Democratic governor, Laura Kelly, struck a deal with Republicans to expand Medicaid. (MARK REINSTEIN / MEDIAPUNCH / IPX / AP)
Are we not in Kansas anymore?
A Democrat worked with a Republican to pass health care legislation that dramatically expands publicly funded insurance coverage.
If that sounds like a Joe Biden bipartisan dream, it is—but it was also reality in Kansas. Russell Berman writes:
No state has seen a more rancorous debate over the issue than Kansas, the home base of the Koch empire, where a decade-long battle over taxes and spending has deepened fissures between the conservative and moderate Republicans who control the state legislature.
Read the rest.
*


theatlantic--2020-01-17--Arnold Schwarzenegger Is Not Impressed

Arnold Schwarzenegger Is Not Impressed

Our full interview can be heard on the latest episode of Radio Atlantic .
What follows is a lightly edited and condensed transcript of our conversation .
Subscribe to Radio Atlantic : Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher ( How to Listen ) Edward-Isaac Dovere : Environmentalism and increasing renewable energy is a major priority for you .
What do you make of the Green New Deal ?
Arnold Schwarzenegger : A slogan .
Kind of a marketing tool .
Something that is very well intentioned , but , I think , bogus .
Because that ’ s what they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ different people talk about it .
But to me , the only thing that really matters is : How do we move forward with our goals ?
And this means that we stop increasing the amount of greenhouse gases and pollution that we put out there .
The idea is to have the whole nation do that , and to have the whole world do that , and you don ’ t have to call them names .
But I understand also that it makes you feel like there ’ s a new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ calling it a different name .
But my point always was that there ’ s only one deal , and that is the California deal .
We in California have shown that it can be done , and we have shown how to do it .
And therefore , if the nation really wants to be serious in reducing greenhouse gases by 25 percent like we did , all they have to do is copy us .
That ’ s what states are supposed to do , to be the laboratory for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ federal government copy very good ideas done by various states .
Dovere : Do you get when people feel fatalistic about doing anything about climate change , and say , “ Maybe it ’ s too late already ?
” Schwarzenegger : I never go for that kind of an answer , because it ’ s no different than when you are 85 years old and you say , ‘ Well , it ’ s too late .
Why am I going to the gym and working out ?
Why should I do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do some exercise , do some cardio work or something ?
” It may be late , but it ’ s not too late , because still that person that is 85 can , instead of wiping out at 87 , maybe you stretch it to 90 .
You know , we have a gene that determines when you die , but you can alter that .
You can destroy it and set yourself back by drinking a lot , smoking a lot , and eating shitty foods .
And then you wipe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ go and exercise and live a clean life and extend it by five years or 10 years the other way .
I think it ’ s just the political will .
Do the various different leaders have the political will ?
Everyone always admires heroes .
But when it comes to … stepping up to the plate and becoming a hero yourself , then sometimes people kind of freak out : “ What does that mean ?
I have to make a commitment now .
I have to go and fight the oil @ @ @ @ @ @ @ companies .
I have to fight off this kind of lobbyist out there that is fighting for fossil fuels and having a lot of power .
Oh my God .
This is overwhelming .
”

Not with Trump, not with the Green New Deal, and not with the Democrats running for president
SANTA MONICA, Calif.—In another world, Arnold Schwarzenegger might be an elder statesman in his party. The former Republican governor of California might even be a top ally of the entertainment president: They used to be friendly, and Schwarzenegger was Donald Trump’s successor on Celebrity Apprentice.
In Trump’s world, though, Schwarzenegger is a GOP apostate. Fresh off of playing the president of the United States in a new movie—the upcoming Kung Fury 2, which has a plot about “Thundercops,” time travel, and the Miami Kung Fu Academy—Schwarzenegger is coming into 2020 trying to sort out his role in politics in the year ahead. He thinks Republicans should follow his lead on environmentalism and redistricting reform. He thinks the whole country should follow California’s lead on integrating economic growth into environmental protection.
Forget about the Green New Deal, he told me: “There’s only one deal, and that is the California deal.”
For now, Schwarzenegger’s involvement in the presidential race is much like the rest of the country’s: as a skeptical and unimpressed viewer. A big part of why he thinks show business has consumed politics is the length of campaigns, and the need to keep up with attention spans. That said, he hasn’t been impressed with the Democratic candidates’ chops. “They should take acting lessons, all of these people up there on the stage,” he said. “‘Oh, it was appalling that you used to endorse this,’ and ‘How could you have done that? Oh my God, it was horrendous!’ They do this whole drama as if it really affects their life. And then they walk off the stage again and smile and laugh.”
Our full interview can be heard on the latest episode of Radio Atlantic. What follows is a lightly edited and condensed transcript of our conversation.
Subscribe to Radio Atlantic: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher (How to Listen)
Edward-Isaac Dovere: Environmentalism and increasing renewable energy is a major priority for you. What do you make of the Green New Deal?
Arnold Schwarzenegger: A slogan. Kind of a marketing tool. Something that is very well intentioned, but, I think, bogus. Because that’s what they always do—they call things different names and different people talk about it. But to me, the only thing that really matters is: How do we move forward with our goals? And this means that we stop increasing the amount of greenhouse gases and pollution that we put out there. The idea is to have the whole nation do that, and to have the whole world do that, and you don’t have to call them names. But I understand also that it makes you feel like there’s a new beginning now, because we’re calling it a different name.
But my point always was that there’s only one deal, and that is the California deal. We in California have shown that it can be done, and we have shown how to do it. And therefore, if the nation really wants to be serious in reducing greenhouse gases by 25 percent like we did, all they have to do is copy us. That’s what states are supposed to do, to be the laboratory for the federal government, and just have the federal government copy very good ideas done by various states.
Dovere: Do you get when people feel fatalistic about doing anything about climate change, and say, “Maybe it’s too late already?”
Schwarzenegger: I never go for that kind of an answer, because it’s no different than when you are 85 years old and you say, ‘Well, it’s too late. Why am I going to the gym and working out? Why should I do Pilates? Why should I go and do some exercise, do some cardio work or something?”
It may be late, but it’s not too late, because still that person that is 85 can, instead of wiping out at 87, maybe you stretch it to 90. You know, we have a gene that determines when you die, but you can alter that. You can destroy it and set yourself back by drinking a lot, smoking a lot, and eating shitty foods. And then you wipe out earlier. But you can also go and exercise and live a clean life and extend it by five years or 10 years the other way.
I think it’s just the political will. Do the various different leaders have the political will? Everyone always admires heroes. But when it comes to … stepping up to the plate and becoming a hero yourself, then sometimes people kind of freak out: “What does that mean? I have to make a commitment now. I have to go and fight the oil companies, have to fight the coal companies. I have to fight off this kind of lobbyist out there that is fighting for fossil fuels and having a lot of power. Oh my God. This is overwhelming.”
Dovere: So much of our politics is about celebrity these days—with Donald Trump, with the Democratic presidential race. Is politics now consumed by entertainment?
Schwarzenegger: It is, but we just have a wacky system. We have created, in a way, a show-business system where you have a presidential campaign that lasts two years, but it gets boring when you see the same people up there and arguing with each other—and not only arguing with each other, but real fake and terrible acting, I have to say.
They should take acting lessons, all of these people up there on the stage, because the acting is just so horrible when they attack each other like, “Oh, it was appalling that you used to endorse this,” and “How could you have done that? Oh my God, it was horrendous!” They do this whole drama as if it really affects their life. And then they walk off the stage again and smile and laugh and have a good time and probably drink some schnapps together. It’s show business, and it’s all about who got the ratings up and who got the ratings down.
Dovere: Gerrymandering is your other big political cause. But you’re a Republican, and redistricting reform in California has been bad for Republicans. What would you say to Republicans who say they need to keep the district lines in order to hold power to do the other things you might agree with them more on?
Read: Is this the year for a redistricting revolution?
Schwarzenegger: It’s a selfish way of thinking because we know that the system is rigged and we know that it really hurts the country when Democrats and Republicans are so far apart with their ideology and they’re so stuck in the ideological corners that they can’t come together. So then nothing gets done.
So how do we stay competitive as a nation? The other countries move ahead. China moves ahead. The European Union moves ahead. India is moving ahead. The only way we can be competitive is if we collectively come together and say: “Here are the things that we need to do in order to fix the problem.” If you cannot be competitive, if you don’t have better ideas than the Democrats, then you’re going to lose. You can protect your job, as much as an Olympic champion can protect his medal and come back again and do it again. But he has to be the best. You cannot get shooed in because you already had a medal … because that’s the way the system works.
Dovere: A number of Republicans who don’t like Trump and the direction of the party have left. What makes you stay?
Schwarzenegger: Well, I think I’m a true Republican. If you look at Ronald Reagan or President Nixon or President Lincoln, these were people that were fighting for equality. I’m inclusive. I see myself as that. I see myself as a Ronald Reagan Republican, someone that is very, very good with protecting the economy, but also good at protecting the environment.
Dovere: Isn’t that kind of Republican gone?
Schwarzenegger: You don’t have to change your principles. The party changes; it can go one way or the other. My responsibility is to keep reminding everyone: This is what the true Republican Party is all about. And we should not just change because a new president came in and he maybe is a little bit different in his approach. I think that we should really, as Republicans, fight for total equality.
Dovere: Have the people who have left the party made the wrong decision?
Schwarzenegger: No; it’s like in training, you know, in bodybuilding. I mean, there were guys that were doing 20 reps of 20 sets to get the most muscular chest. And I was doing five different exercises of five sets, each of 12 repetitions. So who was right and who was wrong?
Dovere: What do you want your role to be over this election year?
Schwarzenegger: I want to be as supportive as possible to get things done. America is the most important thing, not a political position. And that’s why I have no interest in running, myself, for anything—for senator, for Congress, or anything like that. I think that I can do a lot of good from the outside.
Read: Arnold Schwarzenegger: Trump ‘wants to be me’
Dovere: You have a movie coming out in which you play the president. Was that a tease for you?
Schwarzenegger: It’s fun to play something, at least, that you can’t be. This is why it’s fun to play a CIA agent like you do in the movies. The amount of cops I played—my father always wanted me to be a cop. So since we don’t have comprehensive immigration reform, and a foreign-born citizen cannot run for president, it’s fun to play.
Dovere: Does it make you think more about wanting to be president?
Schwarzenegger: Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think about it. It would’ve been fun to sit here and to have the power and to work with the world together and solve those problems and to take on those challenges. Yeah, of course I think about that. But at the same time, I also think about, Wait a minute, you can’t really complain about it too much, because everything that was accomplished in my life was because of America.


theatlantic--2020-01-17--The Atlantic Politics Daily: The Contractors Fighting America’s Wars

1 .
“ Bureaucrats are not viewed by most people as terribly sympathetic victims , but if you shoot these messengers , you end up wounding citizens.
” The Government Accountability Office released a decision on whether the Trump administration violated the law by freezing millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine : “ We conclude that OMB violated the ICA , ” the report stated .
“ In a reality-based world , this would at least be embarrassing for the president , ” David Graham writes .
That , of course , doesn ’ t appear to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unwittingly stumble into a foreign-policy … triumph ?
Read our London-based writer Tom McTague ’ s analysis .
2 .
“ There ’ s only one deal , and that is the California deal.
” That ’ s Arnold Schwarzenegger , to our campaign reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere , when asked about the Green New Deal .
Listen to their full interview on the latest episode of Radio Atlantic .
3 .
“ Twitter is both leaderless and influential , little used and widely reviled.
” When # NeverWarren began to trend , others @ @ @ @ @ @ @ merely ended up contributing to its popularity .
How the episode unfolded online is yet another example of how Twitter may be ruinous for the American left , Robinson Meyer writes .
4 .
“ To fully escape his fringe status , Yang needs to make voters comfortable with the idea of him as commander in chief.
” Andrew Yang isn ’ t looking so fringe anymore .
But how is his campaign plotting to push him from “ $ 1,000-a-month guy ” to “ Situation Room guy ?
” Isaac reports from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as he spelled it out for me , consists of a basic three-point test for military intervention : “ first , a clear , vital national interest at stake or the ability to avert a humanitarian catastrophe .
Second , a defined timeline for our troops to be there , so we can look them in the eye and say , ‘ You will be brought home at this date.
’ And No .
3 is that we have buy-in from our allies and partners.
” The “ Duluth model ” of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the idea that abuse isn ’ t an individual problem—it ’ s a societal one , stemming from the patriarchy .
Does it work ?
Matt Wolfe reported on one man ’ s journey through the program : Andrew Lisdahl was mad .
His wife , Gretchen , had smoked a cigarette , a habit he detested .
They fought , and Gretchen spent the night at a friend ’ s house .
The next day , Andrew drank a bottle of tequila and hitched a ride to the stained-glass studio where Gretchen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ When Andrew found her , he grabbed her left hand and tried to remove her wedding ring , but Gretchen fought him off .
As Andrew stumbled away , he took Gretchen ’ s car keys and phone .
After work , Gretchen ’ s father drove her back home to retrieve her things .
Inside , Andrew had been passed out on the couch , but he woke up and yelled at Gretchen , “ Get the fuck out !
” When she didn ’ t , he grabbed her by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ room , threw her on the carpet , kicked her in the chest , and pinned her to the ground .
As Gretchen ’ s father approached the house , Andrew let her go and she was able to escape .
Today ’ s newsletter was written by Christian Paz , a Politics fellow .
It was edited by Shan Wang , who oversees newsletters .
You can reply directly to this newsletter with questions or comments , or send a note to politicsdaily @ theatlantic.com .
Your support makes our journalism possible @ @ @ @

They’re ubiquitous but largely unseen; they’re indispensable but under-acknowledged. And presidents usually ignore the thousands who have died. Plus: Andrew Yang is not a joke.
It’s Friday, January 17. In today’s newsletter: The American war machine runs on contractors. Plus: Can Andrew Yang make the leap from “$1,000-a-month guy” to “Situation Room guy?”
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« TODAY IN POLITICS »
(Mike Segar / Reuters )
The American war machine runs on contractors.
In 1991, at the time of the Persian Gulf war, one in 50 people fighting the war was an American civilian contractor; that proportion crept to one in 10 by 1996, during Bosnia, according to a 2002 New York Times story.
The latest figures from last fall show that that ratio is now nearly 1 to 1. And that’s just American contractors. Kathy Gilsinan tells their story.
Mike Jabbar never met his replacement. But when Nawres Hamid died in a rocket attack on a military base in Iraq after Christmas, Jabbar saw photos of the wreckage and recognized the American flag he himself had helped paint on the door of a room now mangled. That was his old room, on his old base. It could have been him. “Imagine something like that happens, knowing that you were supposed to be there and you weren’t there, and the person that replaced you is gone,” Jabbar, who like Hamid served as a translator for the U.S. military, told me in an interview. “It absolutely feels horrible.” Jabbar was one of the lucky ones. He left his home country of Iraq last fall, at age 23, for the United States, where he’s now a permanent resident living with a friend in North Carolina.
Read the rest.
*
« IDEAS AND ARGUMENTS »
(Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty)
1. “Bureaucrats are not viewed by most people as terribly sympathetic victims, but if you shoot these messengers, you end up wounding citizens.”
The Government Accountability Office released a decision on whether the Trump administration violated the law by freezing millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine: “We conclude that OMB violated the ICA,” the report stated.
“In a reality-based world, this would at least be embarrassing for the president,” David Graham writes. That, of course, doesn’t appear to be the case.
+ Did President Trump unwittingly stumble into a foreign-policy … triumph? Read our London-based writer Tom McTague’s analysis.
2. “There’s only one deal, and that is the California deal.”
That’s Arnold Schwarzenegger, to our campaign reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere, when asked about the Green New Deal.
Listen to their full interview on the latest episode of Radio Atlantic.
3. “Twitter is both leaderless and influential, little used and widely reviled.”
When #NeverWarren began to trend, others using the hashtag to denounce the hashtag merely ended up contributing to its popularity. How the episode unfolded online is yet another example of how Twitter may be ruinous for the American left, Robinson Meyer writes.
4. “To fully escape his fringe status, Yang needs to make voters comfortable with the idea of him as commander in chief.”
Andrew Yang isn’t looking so fringe anymore. But how is his campaign plotting to push him from “$1,000-a-month guy” to “Situation Room guy?” Isaac reports from Burlington, Iowa:
The Yang doctrine, as he spelled it out for me, consists of a basic three-point test for military intervention: “first, a clear, vital national interest at stake or the ability to avert a humanitarian catastrophe. Second, a defined timeline for our troops to be there, so we can look them in the eye and say, ‘You will be brought home at this date.’ And No. 3 is that we have buy-in from our allies and partners.”
Read the rest.
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« WEEKEND READ »
(David Kasnic)
The Effort to Rehabilitate Domestic Abusers
The “Duluth model” of rehabilitation for domestic batterers is based on the idea that abuse isn’t an individual problem—it’s a societal one, stemming from the patriarchy. Does it work?
Matt Wolfe reported on one man’s journey through the program:
Andrew Lisdahl was mad. His wife, Gretchen, had smoked a cigarette, a habit he detested. They fought, and Gretchen spent the night at a friend’s house. The next day, Andrew drank a bottle of tequila and hitched a ride to the stained-glass studio where Gretchen, an artist, gave lessons. When Andrew found her, he grabbed her left hand and tried to remove her wedding ring, but Gretchen fought him off. As Andrew stumbled away, he took Gretchen’s car keys and phone. After work, Gretchen’s father drove her back home to retrieve her things. Inside, Andrew had been passed out on the couch, but he woke up and yelled at Gretchen, “Get the fuck out!” When she didn’t, he grabbed her by the hair, dragged her into the living room, threw her on the carpet, kicked her in the chest, and pinned her to the ground. As Gretchen’s father approached the house, Andrew let her go and she was able to escape.
Read the rest.
*