newrepublic--2020-07-09--Fear of a Forever Trump Administration

Fear of a Forever Trump Administration

What often comes next is an imaginative journey through the Constitution ’ s mechanisms for presidential elections .
The presidency has virtually no influence over the electoral process , so Trump has few options to unilaterally interfere on his own behalf .
In key states like Michigan and Pennsylvania , Democratic governors and secretaries of state would certify the election results , making it hard for Trump-minded Republicans to undermine .
Amherst College law professor Lawrence Douglas , who wrote an entire book on the possibility that Trump won ’ t leave office , suggested to Vox last month that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ try to send competing “ certified ” “ results ” to Congress .
Douglas also dismissed the idea that the Supreme Court could simply step in and resolve disputes , a la 2000 , by saying it was Al Gore ’ s willingness to concede after that ruling that actually ended the crisis .
While Gore ’ s concession helped defuse national tensions , it was not actually necessary as a matter of law or practice .
Faced with this daunting prospect , the natural question is what can be done to stop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ short .
“ We had better start thinking now about how we would handle such an electoral crisis , ” Boot wrote earlier this week in the final line of his column , conspicuously leaving the most important question raised by his column unanswered .
The Post ’ s Brian Klass wrote in May that Americans “ need to prepare for the possibility of Trump rejecting election results.
” After making good points about the falsehood of Trump ’ s claims and the dangers of delegitimizing the electoral process , however , he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to call out the president ’ s falsehoods about the election .
This is a dubious plan at best : The Trump era is essentially one giant warning against relying on the consciences of Republican officials to save the republic .
In fairness , counter-measures are hard to imagine when the range of scenarios for November is so wide .
The best-case side of the spectrum suggests that Biden will win by a healthy margin in the Electoral College and Trump is left grousing about mail-in voting .
He spends the interregnum tweeting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the rest of the country simply moves on .
Darker possibilities include a narrow result or a delayed mail-in vote count that gives Trump more rhetorical—and perhaps legal—room to question the results .
“ The potential for chaos exposes the frailties of an electoral tradition that depends on the goodwill of the two candidates involved , ” The Atlantic ’ s Peter Nicholas wrote last month .
“ If one won ’ t cooperate , the system seizes up.
” Most of these pieces draw upon Trump ’ s own temperament to support @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Perhaps the most common direct evidence for Trump ’ s possible refusal to leave office is his habit of joking about staying there longer than he ’ s allowed .
But the thrust of Trump ’ s jokes is that he runs for more than two terms because he ’ s so popular , not that he refuses to leave power altogether .
Perhaps the clearest warning from Trumpworld came from Michael Cohen , Trump ’ s former legal fixer , while testifying before Congress in February 2019 .
“ Given my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fear that if he loses in 2020 , that there will never be a peaceful transition of power , ” he told lawmakers .
It ’ s worth noting , however , that there are ample signs that Trump is envisioning a life beyond the White House .
The New York Times reported last month that Trump ’ s dire political straits—and his inability to change course—have had a profound impact on his thinking .
At a White House event in June , he mused about getting an RV after leaving office .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of those things , drive around town , ” he told the audience .
“ Maybe I ’ ll drive back to New York with our First Lady in a trailer.
” He also acknowledged in a Fox News interview that he could lose in November when asked about Biden ’ s comments on using the military to remove him from the White House .
“ If I don ’ t win , I don ’ t win , ” Trump said .
“ I mean , you know , go on and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would be a very sad thing for our country.
” There are other indications of relative normalcy .
Under federal law , each administration is required to plan for the smooth transition of power to a potential successor ahead of a presidential election , regardless of the likelihood that they ’ ll win .
There are well-known signs of this process—when candidates start receiving classified intelligence briefings , for example—but most of the work is quietly undertaken by civil servants and political appointees throughout the sprawling executive branch .
The Trump administration began @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there are no reports or indications thus far that it ’ s gone awry .
Biden ’ s formal acceptance of the Democratic nomination next month will likely accelerate it even further .
I need not recount Trump ’ s authoritarian tactics and maneuvers while in office .
But it ’ s also worth noting that he habitually refuses to follow through on the threats he makes .
He infamously boasted on the campaign trail in 2016 that he would jail Hillary Clinton if he won , only to publicly back down shortly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ close to trying to fire former Special Counsel Robert Mueller but never managed to follow through .
Trump ’ s presidency is essentially a catalog of empty threats : to adjourn Congress for not confirming his nominees , to shut down Twitter for fact-checking him , to collapse Turkey ’ s economy for attacking the Kurds , to release ISIS fighters into France and Germany , to withdraw the United States from NATO , and more .
The Post ’ s JM Rieger counted at least 32 examples of presidential threats that went @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( Remember when he was going to sue Saturday Night Live ? )
This isn ’ t the first time that Americans have felt this anxiety .
In the 2000s , some liberals occasionally floated the possibility that George W. Bush would somehow cancel or suspend the 2008 presidential election .
Stephen Gillers , a New York University law professor , wrote “ a news brief from the future ” for The Nation in July 2006 in which Bush postpones the next presidential election to protect Americans from terrorism .
Hillary Clinton , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as consulting pollsters about her response ; then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales makes a disingenuous argument that the Constitution doesn ’ t mean every four years when it says “ every four years.
” In the weeks before the 2008 election , various rumors circulated online that Bush would declare martial law to prevent Barack Obama ’ s victory .
He did not .

What often comes next is an imaginative journey through the Constitution’s mechanisms for presidential elections. The presidency has virtually no influence over the electoral process, so Trump has few options to unilaterally interfere on his own behalf. In key states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, Democratic governors and secretaries of state would certify the election results, making it hard for Trump-minded Republicans to undermine them. Amherst College law professor Lawrence Douglas, who wrote an entire book on the possibility that Trump won’t leave office, suggested to Vox last month that Republican legislatures in those states could still try to send competing “certified” “results” to Congress. Douglas also dismissed the idea that the Supreme Court could simply step in and resolve disputes, à la 2000, saying it was Al Gore’s willingness to concede after that ruling that actually ended the crisis. While Gore’s concession helped defuse national tensions, it was not actually necessary as a matter of law or practice.
Faced with this daunting prospect, the natural question is what can be done to stop it. Here, the writers fall short. “We had better start thinking now about how we would handle such an electoral crisis,” Boot wrote earlier this week in the final line of his column, conspicuously leaving the most important question it raised unanswered. The Post’s Brian Klass wrote in May that Americans “need to prepare for the possibility of Trump rejecting election results.” After making good points about the falsehood of Trump’s claims and the dangers of delegitimizing the electoral process, however, he offered no guidance beyond urging Republican officials to call out the president’s falsehoods about the election. This is a dubious plan at best: The Trump era is essentially one giant warning against relying on the consciences of Republican officials to save the republic.
In fairness, countermeasures are hard to imagine when the range of scenarios for November is so wide. The best-case side of the spectrum suggests that Biden will win by a healthy margin in the Electoral College and Trump is left grousing about mail-in voting. He spends the interregnum tweeting about the “rigged election,” while the rest of the country simply moves on. Darker possibilities include a narrow result or a delayed mail-in vote count that gives Trump more rhetorical—and perhaps legal—room to question the results. “The potential for chaos exposes the frailties of an electoral tradition that depends on the goodwill of the two candidates involved,” The Atlantic’s Peter Nicholas wrote last month. “If one won’t cooperate, the system seizes up.”


newrepublic--2020-07-09--When Cops Kill White People, Black Lives Still Matter

Some beyond the conservative echo chamber agree the high incidence of white victims undermines Black Lives Matter messaging , even if not altogether disproving institutional racism in policing .
About a week after the matter was discussed on The Blaze , journalist and Columbia professor John McWhorter shared Timpa ’ s story , adding that the “ socioeconomic gap between blacks and whites is doubtless an important contributing factor ” in the higher probability of blacks being brutalized by cops .
Blacks are poorer , and therefore , more likely to commit crimes and live in neighborhoods where cops are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ black , reasoned .
A recent People Policy Project study substantiated the correlation between poverty and susceptibility to police violence , but found that blacks are disproportionately subjected to police violence even after class is factored , with blacks in the wealthiest neighborhoods being killed by cops at nearly the same rate as whites in the poorest ones .
However counterintuitive it may seem , we shouldn ’ t rush to dismiss racial animus in police shootings like Timpa ’ s and those of impoverished whites for the following reason : Much state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ white persons in the name of white supremacy .
Mentally ill , substance-dependent , sexually “ delinquent , ” and poor whites have long been suspect in the eyes of the law , because such persons intensify anxieties about black and nonwhite “ others ” conquering the white race .
There may be no clearer example of this than in the case of eugenics , a still-reverberating set of pseudo-scientific ideas that came to fore in the early twentieth century , leading to tens of thousands of supposedly inferior whites being targeted for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ early decades of the movement , a mentally ill white man consuming pornography could easily find himself strapped to a table and under a knife for the simple reason that authorities feared the Nordic race was losing dominance .
At the time , record numbers of Eastern Europeans were emigrating to the U.S. , and African Americans were migrating from Southern to Northern cities .
Many progressives , including Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt , feared these “ undesirables ” would soon overtake whites in number or otherwise pollute the gene pool @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Under the mantle of strengthening the white race , authorities in many states began to sterilize defective whites ( referred to as “ waste humanity ” ) , along with operating upon some people of color , prohibiting interracial marriage , and imposing stringent immigration restrictions .
In other words , purging the weak and the “ white trash ” from their own ranks was an essential , though not exhaustive , part of keeping whites at the top of the social hierarchy .
A California eugenicist named Paul Popenoe , whose @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , suggested in 1928 that approximately 10 million Americans—then , a tenth of the population—needed to be sterilized in order to eliminate “ inherited ” traits like poverty and criminality .
While he and his peers didn ’ t come close to achieving this goal before critics revealed that the science underlying eugenics was incredibly slapdash , they managed to build upon the vice commissions and police forces established to control the white working class .
For instance , they forced “ feebleminded , ” unemployed , substance-dependent , and gender-nonconforming whites into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to death .
As the century wore on , and particularly as African Americans gained civil rights , people of color supplanted whites as the primary targets of forced sterilization .
( Following World War II , sterilizations also moved from state-run asylums to public hospitals , where doctors often took the liberty of sterilizing black women when they came in for other procedures . )
But the state always kept questionable whites in view .
Today , an estimated 28 percent of white high school dropouts will be imprisoned in their lifetime @ @ @ @ @ @ @ commit more crimes than their more educated ( and presumably wealthier ) peers , others have observed law enforcement ’ s hyperattention to blue-collar crimes , such as shoplifting , and relative indifference to white-collar crimes , such as wage theft .
Disabled whites are similarly over-policed .
The very fact that armed cops are the default responders in cases like Timpa ’ s suggests that the state ’ s primary prerogative is still to control , rather than to protect or support , those with mental illnesses .
In New Hampshire , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ward for individuals deemed at high risk of violence ) is located within a prison .
In recent years , judges have involuntarily committed numerous young men with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder to this facility , where they are treated like inmates—photographed , forced to wear jumpsuits , and isolated for 23 hours a day .
White college student Andrew Butler was incarcerated there , after local law enforcement found him running through the woods and punching trees while experiencing paranoia and hallucinations .
He never hurt anyone or committed any crime .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ grown out of yesterday ’ s racism and xenophobia , is now compounded by the racial anxieties of the present—anxieties that Walsh and Beck want us to ignore .
Curiously , the talk radio hosts comment on the “ power trips ” that so many cops apparently experience without bothering to ask why a profession dominated by white men is so plagued by crises of masculinity .
They simply don ’ t probe why the officers in Timpa ’ s case felt compelled taunt a mentally ill man , nor why Shaver ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ You ’ re fucked.
” Nor do they wonder why police officers abuse their family members at four times the rate of the general population .

Today, an estimated 28 percent of white high school dropouts will be imprisoned in their lifetime. While some may presume these individuals commit more crimes than their more educated (and presumably wealthier) peers, others have observed law enforcement’s hyperattention to blue-collar crimes, such as shoplifting, and relative indifference to white-collar crimes, such as wage theft. Disabled whites are similarly over-policed. The very fact that armed cops are the default responders in cases like Timpa’s suggests that the state’s primary prerogative is still to control, rather than to protect or support, those with mental illnesses. In New Hampshire, the only secure psychiatric unit (a ward for individuals deemed at high risk of violence) is located within a prison. In recent years, judges have involuntarily committed numerous young men with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder to this facility, where they are treated like inmates—photographed, forced to wear jumpsuits, and isolated for 23 hours a day. White college student Andrew Butler was incarcerated there, after local law enforcement found him running through the woods and punching trees while experiencing paranoia and hallucinations. He never hurt anyone or committed any crime.
This classist system of law enforcement, grown out of yesterday’s racism and xenophobia, is now compounded by the racial anxieties of the present—anxieties that Walsh and Beck want us to ignore. Curiously, the talk radio hosts comment on the “power trips” that so many cops apparently experience without bothering to ask why a profession dominated by white men is so plagued by crises of masculinity. They simply don’t probe why the officers in Timpa’s case felt compelled to taunt a mentally ill man, nor why Shaver’s killer etched into his assault rifle “You’re fucked.” Nor do they wonder why police officers abuse their family members at four times the rate of the general population.
Researchers have shed light on these questions, attributing to police culture a widespread perception that white men are losing their privilege as a result of the meaningful gains that people of color and women have made over the last few decades, and further finding that insecure masculinity is predictive of using excessive force and harassing vulnerable individuals. One need only watch a few episodes of the now-canceled COPS to observe this dynamic. The beloved reality show repeatedly depicts white officers making derogatory remarks about “alien” others, claiming to be victimized by women, and dominating trailer park whites with missing teeth, as well as minorities. It’s hard not to see the same dynamic on the protester-filled streets, where officers are supporting armed vigilantes antagonizing protesters and beating white allies of black lives. The force inflicted upon such individuals as the 75-year-old Martin Gugino seems to suggest that if white poverty, disability, drug use, and sexual transgression have long threatened the vitality of whiteness, so, too, does white support of anti-racist causes.


newrepublic--2020-07-09--Inside the VA’s Long-Standing Racism Problem

The last straw for many Black employees at the Kansas City Veterans Affairs hospital was its Juneteenth celebration .
To commemorate the date in 1865 when word of emancipation reached slaves in Texas , a manager at the facility last month sent several Black subordinates an email informing them that they would be exhibits in a Juneteenth “ living museum.
” One worker was assigned to be Harriet Tubman ; others were told to dress up as Sojourner Truth and Martin Luther King .
One was slated to play George Floyd , the man whose death at the hands of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ current anti-police protest movement—but , according to one bemused employee , the Floyd character “ was later replaced with Emmett Till.
” Three days before that email leaked to reporters , roughly a dozen protesters had demonstrated outside the Kansas City VA with signs reading “ Black VA Employees Matter ” and “ We Can No Longer Be Silent.
” One woman present alleged she ’ d been fired by the hospital ’ s white director , David Isaacks , for “ speaking against discrimination.
” It was the culmination of three months @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as religious leaders and officials in the local NAACP chapter—for an outside investigation into the hospital ’ s culture , which they say has been openly and unrepentantly racist for years .
The list of alleged misdeeds against black veteran patients and employees over this period is long , and includes white staff cracking lynching jokes and dropping racial slurs including “ monkey ” and the N-word .
“ My chief of service referred to me as ‘ Aunt Jemima , ’ ” said former employee Charmayne Brown , a Navy veteran .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ racial statements he ’ s made to me , all well-documented , all reported to administration , and nothing was ever done about it.
” Nearly every American institution , public or private , large or small , has been infected by racism .
But the VA was supposed to be different ; though it was not officially established until 1930 , its founding principles were first articulated by President Abraham Lincoln in his second inaugural address .
As the Civil War was nearing its conclusion , Lincoln pledged to rebuild America and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to “ care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow , and his orphan.
” Among those who ’ d just been spit out of the Civil War grinder—still the bloodiest conflict in American history—were roughly 180,000 Black Union veterans .
In an extraordinary move for the time , Black Americans who ’ d served were made eligible for health care and pension programs enshrined after the war .
Subsequent wars , and new veteran benefit schemes like the post–World War II G.I .
Bill , gave enlisting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ jobs that would ultimately lead us into the middle class , ” as one of those veterans , singer and Civil Rights activist Harry Belafonte , once put it .
VA employment , too , appears to have been a boon for minority integration in the U.S. economy : As of 2015 , the department hired Black men and women at roughly twice the rate of the federal workforce at large .
Yet this blood oath is far less equitable for minority veterans and caregivers than publicly advertised .
Despite progress in recent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from sustained and significant racial inequities—not just in its delivery of benefits and healthcare to veterans , but in its treatment of its own workforce .
Allegations of overt racism today proliferate across the department , from Minnesota to Missouri and even inside the Washington .

Yet GI Bill data shows that black vets were often shut out of prestigious colleges and universities in the north. Many of the black Southern vets who did gain a chance at an education were funneled into private sector schools that, according to a 1947 review by the Urban League, didn’t meet core training standards. The VA was clearly not concerned with this inequity, as it was then urging blacks to skip a higher education and instead attend a vocational program. Many blacks were also denied access to the GI Bill’s home, business, and farm loans. Ebony magazine found that, in 1947, just two of the 3,229 VA loans offered in major Mississippi cities went to black vets.
The Vietnam War saw the highest proportion of black soldiers in American history, and many were sent to the front lines. This resulted in massive black casualty rates, with 25 percent of all combat deaths in 1965 hitting black families. (Because black service members are less likely to be made officers, they’ve long faced more danger than their white counterparts.) One in five black veterans who made it out alive suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, yet more than 80 percent of them never sought mental health treatment at the VA. The reasons for this care deficit are numerous and include the department’s failure to educate returning veterans of color on the benefits owed them. These numbers were also driven by the far-too-common notion in veteran circles that trauma can be handled alone.
Yet the black vets who sought help after Vietnam were often spurned. Such was the case with Ron Hill, who waited 43 years to secure disability benefits. “The way we were treated when we came home was different from white veterans,” Hill told a Pennsylvania newspaper in 2013. “Now that we’re older, we’re refiling (for benefits) because we want the injustice to be rectified. But VA hopes we die. They’re going to string us out because the older we get, the less likely they’ll have to pay us.”


newrepublic--2020-07-09--The Shallowness of the Self-Aware Novelist

If these names are virtually interchangeable , then so are the characters themselves .
Julia and Leslie are all but identical : attractive , “ laid back ” ( my scare quotes ) , adept at clever banter .
Ditto the men : attractive enough ( though tending toward chubbiness ) , “ chill , ” adept at clever flirtation .
All the characters , even the minor ones , are like this .
They have barely any money in their bank accounts , and many of them are only ambiguously employed , but it ’ s never a cause @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in dive bars , where they drink cheap beers and take shots .
Weed is vaped , cigarettes are guiltily smoked .
( “ Man , smoking , ” Peter sighs . )
They have omnivorous tastes in books and indifferent taste in clothing .
They listen to John Prine , but also Drake .
They are steeped in the stupidity of pop culture , but also stand in front of paintings by On Kawara and wonder whether they are any good or not .
They end normal sentences in question marks , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exclamations ( “ DRINKS ?
” ) , and pepper their speech with “ uh ” and “ like ” and “ naw.
” They are sophisticated but they ’ re not , you know , snobs .
As a writer , Martin exemplifies these traits .
His prose is smooth and unfussy ; as his stoner-intellectual characters might say , it pulls really well .
To quote him would be misleading , since it ’ s not really on the sentence level where Martin excels , but in the book ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ When I arrived home at three o ’ clock , I got very stoned and drank whiskey and ice from a jumbo plastic cup.
” ) It is all voice , no lyricism .
Martin , like many other American writers of his generation , is not one to strain for anything so gauche as poetry .
Instead there is a lot of authentic-ish dialogue , and the unhurried meanderings of Peter ’ s mind , and straightforward descriptions of very good sex , and little asides of cultural criticism .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Paris Trance by Geoff Dyer , except the characters are American and therefore less interesting .
Its tone of studied casualness is also reminiscent of the guy on Twitter with a devouring hunger for all things culture , who can speak fluently about both the avant-garde appeal of Andy Warhol ’ s silent films and “ James Harden and the ugly splendor of the Rockets ’ approach to basketball , ” as Peter says .
Nothing is beneath him , but nothing is above him either .
Peter and Leslie resurface in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ characters of similar backgrounds .
Several stories are set in Missoula , Montana , another college town with a prestigious writing program , though both Charlottesville and Missoula really function as satellites of the ur-writing town Brooklyn .
( There are stories set in Brooklyn , too . )
The old MFA vs. NYC distinction collapses in these books , revealing the swamp in which editorial assistants and unpublished novelists and creative writing adjuncts all swim—an indication , perhaps , of the creeping Brooklynization of America ’ s literary hot spots .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ increasingly circumscribed world of autofiction , which , out of fear of straying too far from the straight and narrow of the writer ’ s own experience , keeps things local , so to speak , shrinking its vistas to the dive bar , the studio apartment , the classroom .
There are , thankfully , different kinds of stories in this collection than Martin ’ s go-to story of the scruffy writerly type who may or may not be in the midst of screwing up his life .
There is a tale @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that is by turns horrifying and amusing .
There is another about a drunk father ruining a family vacation , and one about two teens going to a hardcore punk concert .
The alcohol and drug abuse is less cheerfully innocent in this book than the previous one , which features a funny Animal House-like scene in which one of Peter ’ s friends is “ drinking directly from a bottle of Old Grand-Dad , gratuitously swishing the whiskey around in his mouth and gargling before swallowing it.
” But lest you should @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reboot of Early Work , there is the same carefully cultivated nonchalance , a sense that even the emptiness of these people ’ s lives is a bit shallow .
“ The pursuit of unavailable women was the closest I could get to a life ’ s passion , ” a Peter-like character says .
There is a passage in Early Work in which Peter elucidates something like a theory for how a short story should go : “ I like it best when things just stop.
” Sure enough , nothing really @ @ @ @ @ @ @ America , and then they just stop .
There is no Joycean epiphany , no god descending from the proverbial rafters .
There is only life in media res , and the result is a successful translation of autofiction , which we normally associate with multi-volume quasi-autobiography , into a short story form .
Within Martin ’ s preferred context of the quarter-life crisis , the effect is to suggest that your twenties may be a confusing time , when you have to make all these life-altering decisions without the wisdom yet to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no future stage when that wisdom arrives .
If Martin presents life as it is , then what sort of life is it ?
It often seems to be a ghostly imitation of existence .
There is an ironic distance between these characters and their so-called passions , because no one really allows themselves to take anything too seriously .
Early Work is at its best when it simply lets the relationship between Peter and Leslie bloom .
“ Leslie grinned at me , ” Peter recounts , “ the full-toothed thing , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tentative step into the abyss of the rest of my life , or whatever you want to call it .
Love.
” But when the complications that come from cheating on one ’ s girlfriend inevitably set in , Peter shrinks from describing them in the old , ardent language of thwarted love : “ I wanted my unhappiness to be a result of defying convention—like a Hardy novel where I ’ d exceeded my society ’ s allowance for free thinking and was now being punished .
But I wasn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Early Work is thus less a tragedy or a romance than a sad joke .
Certainly , Martin is making a comment about these characters , and about the white middle and upper classes to which they belong , that is meant to be critical .
( In an interview with the Paris Review , Martin described the book as being about “ a moderately hideous man and some slightly less hideous women.
” ) And certainly , there is immense value in stories about white people having quotidian crises .
If I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tastes , I actually prefer these kinds of stories .
War and Peace , Pride and Prejudice , In Search of Lost Time—all books premised on extreme white privilege .
Some of the best books of recent vintage , such as the Patrick Melrose novels by Edward St. Aubyn , can be read as unapologetic narratives of white privilege .
To St. Aubyn ’ s credit , he seems to loathe the inhabitants of his own milieu ; Andrew Martin , for better or for worse , can ’ t help but like @ @ @ @ @

Peter and Leslie resurface in Cool for America, joined by similar characters of similar backgrounds. Several stories are set in Missoula, Montana, another college town with a prestigious writing program, though both Charlottesville and Missoula really function as satellites of the ur-writing town Brooklyn. (There are stories set in Brooklyn, too.) The old MFA vs. NYC distinction collapses in these books, revealing the swamp in which editorial assistants and unpublished novelists and creative writing adjuncts all swim—an indication, perhaps, of the creeping Brooklynization of America’s literary hot spots. It is representative, too, of the increasingly circumscribed world of autofiction, which, out of fear of straying too far from the straight and narrow of the writer’s own experience, keeps things local, so to speak, shrinking its vistas to the dive bar, the studio apartment, the classroom.
There are, thankfully, different kinds of stories in this collection than Martin’s go-to story of the scruffy writerly type who may or may not be in the midst of screwing up his life. There is a tale about a pair of sibling drug addicts that is by turns horrifying and amusing. There is another about a drunk father ruining a family vacation, and one about two teens going to a hardcore punk concert. The alcohol and drug abuse is less cheerfully innocent in this book than the previous one, which features a funny Animal House-like scene in which one of Peter’s friends is “drinking directly from a bottle of Old Grand-Dad, gratuitously swishing the whiskey around in his mouth and gargling before swallowing it.” But lest you should see Cool for America as a gritty reboot of Early Work, there is the same carefully cultivated nonchalance, a sense that even the emptiness of these people’s lives is a bit shallow. “The pursuit of unavailable women was the closest I could get to a life’s passion,” a Peter-like character says.
There is a passage in Early Work in which Peter elucidates something like a theory for how a short story should go: “I like it best when things just stop.” Sure enough, nothing really happens in the stories in Cool for America, and then they just stop. There is no Joycean epiphany, no god descending from the proverbial rafters. There is only life in medias res, and the result is a successful translation of autofiction, which we normally associate with multi-volume quasi-autobiography, into a short story form. Within Martin’s preferred context of the quarter-life crisis, the effect is to suggest that your twenties may be a confusing time, when you have to make all these life-altering decisions without the wisdom yet to make them well, but there is no future stage when that wisdom arrives.


newrepublic--2020-07-09--Reading the Literature of Grief During a Pandemic

Both characters are dealing with loss .
Mira ’ s parents have recently died , and her longtime boyfriend has left her for another woman .
The Captain is separating from his wife and worries that his own father might be dying .
These newfound absences are echoed in the backdrop of Athens itself , suffering through economic losses and austerity measures .
“ I noticed all the boarded-up buildings , ” Mira thinks , “ the closed businesses.
” The city , like the book ’ s protagonists , feels haunted .
In the apartment her parents left behind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Excavating these remnants of the past , I felt neither nostalgia nor a particular connection , ” she says .
“ I felt newly empty.
” The tone of the book , too , is emptied , the prose scraped clean of adornment .
Mira in no way resembles the spiny , venomous scorpionfish of the title ; her voice lies flat , as if attempting to avoid detection .
Throughout the novel , secondary characters frequently leave Athens , so that all that remains are the lean voices of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ functions to further the book ’ s doubling theme : two characters with ties to two countries ( both have spent significant time in America and Greece ) on two balconies speaking two languages , living in a world cleaved into the real and the shadowy .
Walking around Athens , Mira notes that “ light shimmered through the olive trees like an invitation to another world.
” This simile becomes increasingly literal as the story progresses .
The novel is thick with the memory of missing people , which creates a kind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the city .
When Mira meets The Captain on the roof of their apartment building , she ’ s assailed with a scene from the past : “ My mother is on that roof with us , in that yellow dress : drunk and singing.
” As Mira bends over to spit out toothpaste , she can “ just about feel ” her mother ’ s eyes on the back of her neck .
When she returns to shore after a swim , a woman asks her whether there was another person @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mira had gone alone .
Maybe the woman ’ s eyesight was hindered by distance .
Or perhaps the ghost map and its physical counterpart had merged , very briefly .
Even as Mira stumbles around in a fugue of grief , seeing her mother where she can ’ t be , the novel still allows for close , quiet moments of happiness and human connection .
In Athens , she revels in “ that fervent , liberating joy I felt nowhere else in the world.
” She spends her evenings talking to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stories—and lives—intertwining “ like a double helix.
” The book offers these two remedies as solutions against bereavement and loneliness : people and the city they make up .
Whereas Scorpionfish shows how grief threads itself through daily life , Victoria Chang ’ s Obit demonstrates how grief swallows everything—time and language , in particular .
The book is a collection of prose poems , modeled after narrow newspaper obituaries , though they also invoke the rectangular solidity of gravestones .
Some chronicle the deaths of concepts , such as ambition and friendship @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Chang ’ s mother and the illness of her father , whose brain , due to dementia , “ died before him .
”

Walking around Athens, Mira notes that “light shimmered through the olive trees like an invitation to another world.” This simile becomes increasingly literal as the story progresses. The novel is thick with the memory of missing people, which creates a kind of ghost landscape alongside the physical terrain of the city. When Mira meets The Captain on the roof of their apartment building, she’s assailed with a scene from the past: “My mother is on that roof with us, in that yellow dress: drunk and singing.”
As Mira bends over to spit out toothpaste, she can “just about feel” her mother’s eyes on the back of her neck. When she returns to shore after a swim, a woman asks her whether there was another person out there with her. No, Mira had gone alone. Maybe the woman’s eyesight was hindered by distance. Or perhaps the ghost map and its physical counterpart had merged, very briefly.
Even as Mira stumbles around in a fugue of grief, seeing her mother where she can’t be, the novel still allows for close, quiet moments of happiness and human connection. In Athens, she revels in “that fervent, liberating joy I felt nowhere else in the world.” She spends her evenings talking to The Captain on their balconies, their stories—and lives—intertwining “like a double helix.” The book offers these two remedies as solutions against bereavement and loneliness: people and the city they make up.


newrepublic--2020-07-09--Trump Is Numbing America to the Pandemic’s Ravages

It should be plain to all by now that America has not only lost control of the coronavirus pandemic , it has also given up on the possibility of regaining the upper hand .
On Wednesday , over 59,000 new cases were reported , setting a new national record for the fifth time in nine days .
Predictably , much of the new growth has been coming from the South , where conservative lawmakers , like the president , have pushed for the reopening of nonessential businesses and a return to normal behavior .
Texas alone reported nearly 10,000 cases @ @ @ @ @ @ @ authorities in Tulsa , Oklahoma , told the press that President Donald Trump ’ s June rally “ more than likely ” contributed to a dramatic spike in infections in that city .
But the march to deeper catastrophe continues .
It was announced at a Wednesday press conference that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would issue new , more lenient guidelines on reopening schools—not long after tweets from Trump criticizing the agency and threatening to cut federal funding to schools that stay closed in the fall .
All told , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the year wears on .
If masks are not universally used , the collected toll will reach more than 200,000 by November , according to a model from the University of Washington .
That fact is being assimilated into the president ’ s defensive reelection strategy .
“ The goal is to convince Americans that they can live with the virus—that schools should reopen , professional sports should return , a vaccine is likely to arrive by the end of the year and the economy will continue to improve , ” The Washington @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dawsey wrote , adding that the White House “ hope [ s ] Americans will grow numb to the escalating death toll and learn to accept tens of thousands of new cases a day.
” That hope is both evil and already being borne out , at least among the 40 percent of the country that , now as ever , doggedly supports the president .
But even in the world outside Red America , outrage over the article lasted about a quarter of a news cycle .
The president ’ s expectation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ accept deaths that his actions and recommendations are even now actively increasing , is no longer a headline story .
The nominal opposition party in Congress isn ’ t running before cameras to scream about the president ’ s indifference .
Its nominee for the presidency , as willing as he is to say that the administration has gravely mishandled the situation and acted irresponsibly , will not call the president what he is : a butcher .
Naturally , Biden doesn ’ t need to deploy this rhetoric—tonally , it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or used to hearing ; Biden probably wouldn ’ t have won the nomination or be as well-positioned against Trump as he is if it were .
However , this is what will ultimately determine whether November yields a transfer of power or transformational change .
The latter will only be likely if we allow ourselves to speak as candidly as possible about the consequences of politics and policy .

Even in what we’ve allowed ourselves to believe are the best of times, sick people die because poverty and circumstance have destroyed their health and rendered them unable to afford treatment from a system run largely for profit. Jobs and homes are routinely lost through the malice or incompetence of powerful people; remedies that might protect them are routinely rejected as too ambitious or too idealistic for both the dominant voices in our political discourse as well as the most conservative people in our electorate to swallow. Most in the country, whether or not they expect the politicians they support to say it bluntly, believe that we’re now being led by monsters. But there are monsters everywhere all the time; we’ve grown accustomed to their presence. There isn’t a better word for this than numbness.
On Wednesday, the Biden campaign released the unity platform it drafted with members of the Sanders campaign and its surrogates. Unsurprisingly, Biden still opposes Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, and other major proposals the left has pushed, although the project did move the campaign in a more progressive direction. But for all the attention that’s been given to narrowing the policy gap between Biden and the left, there also remains a yawning dispositional gap. Beyond the content of his administration’s initiatives, what will Biden do to ensure that they prevail not only against a party willing to let hundreds of thousands of Americans die or lose their livelihoods needlessly, but within a political and economic system that, in fact, regularly kills and destroys in ways less novel and jarring than the current crisis? These are difficult questions; they cannot be resolved without making the public viscerally aware of how sick this country truly is.


newrepublic--2020-07-09--The Supreme Court Brings the Presidency Back From a Lawless Brink

Naturally , Trump didn ’ t want law-enforcement agencies to probe his business dealings either .
In Vance , the president asked the federal courts to block a subpoena from a New York grand jury on behalf of Cyrus Vance Jr. , the district attorney for Manhattan .
Vance sought a wide range of Trump ’ s financial records , including his tax returns , as part of a criminal investigation .
While Vance ’ s office told the courts it wouldn ’ t try to indict or prosecute a sitting president , it sought to secure evidence and testimony @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Courts typically defer to prosecutors on these judgments , but Trump insisted that such a precedent would invite local prosecutors around the country to harass presidents with whom they disagreed .
Trump ’ s efforts raised profound questions about the nature of the presidency itself .
In each of the cases , Trump ’ s lawyers and the Justice Department tried to quash the subpoenas by arguing that he was a unique fixture in the American legal firmament .
While Americans generally can ’ t shield themselves or their records from grand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that he could do so because of his unusual constitutional status .
“ He is the sole person in whom all executive power is vested , ” Solicitor General Noel Francisco told the justices at oral arguments in May .
“ And so that necessarily implies that there are limits on what others can do to unduly burden him in his ability to do his job.
” In those oral arguments , some of the justices seemed uneasy with this sweeping proposition .
“ Why isn ’ t it sufficient just to apply @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asked Jay Sekulow , who represented Trump in a personal capacity .
“ I gather ordinarily any person who gets a subpoena can come in and say it ’ s unduly burdensome .
And what counts as unduly burdensome for a doctor who is in the middle of an operation might be very different from a person who ’ s a salesman , and similarly for the president .
All the factors you raise could come in under the title unduly burdensome.
” Sekulow argued that the president ’ s job was inherently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of ordinary Americans , and that he deserved special latitude from the courts in recognition of that .
“ Let ’ s assume the president were to hire me , ” he replied , “ and that I ’ m going to call the president of the United States today and say , ‘ I know you ’ re handling a pandemic right now for the United States , but I need to spend a couple , two to three hours with you going over a subpoena of documents that are wanted by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ district attorney.
’ ” The implication was that if the Supreme Court requires a sitting president to obey these subpoenas , people could die .
As I noted in May , however , there is little reason to think that complying with the subpoenas would actually make it harder for Trump to carry out his presidential duties .
The president , after all , does not personally enforce federal law on a day-to-day basis .
More than two million civil servants actually carry out those duties on his behalf , led by a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ president to supervise and manage them according to his policy agenda .
If Vance had attempted to charge Trump with a crime and remand him to Rikers Island while he awaited trial , the president would have a much stronger case that the executive branch was being undermined .
Letting the president ’ s bankers and accountants hand over his financial records would undermine nothing—save , perhaps , for his political fortunes this November and his risk of prosecution after leaving office .
Roberts , writing for the court , also rejected the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the presidency .
Complying with a criminal subpoena , especially one issued to a third party , would likely pose less of a burden than dealing with civil lawsuits , which the court allowed against sitting presidents in a 1997 case involving Bill Clinton .
On claims that the stigma of a subpoena would “ undermine his leadership at home and abroad , ” Roberts noted that there is “ nothing inherently stigmatizing ” about fulfilling a “ citizen ’ s normal duty ” to aid a criminal investigation .
And he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s efforts ever crossed the line into harassment , federal courts could still intervene on the president ’ s behalf .
In dissent , Alito argued that the court should consider whether a local district attorney could prosecute a president at all before deciding on the subpoena .
Though he did not say it outright , he strongly suggested that he thought it couldn ’ t be done .
“ Could [ a president ] effectively carry out all his essential Presidential responsibilities after the trial day ended and at the same time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his defense ?
” he asked in a long series of hypothetical questions .
“ Or should he be expected to give up the right to attend his own trial and be tried in absentia ?
And if he were convicted , could he be imprisoned ?
Would aides be installed in a nearby cell ?
This entire imagined scene is farcical.
” Even then , however , Alito rejected the Trumpian notion that presidents could never be subpoenaed by a local grand jury .
( So did Thomas in his own dissent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in which there is an urgent and critical need for the subpoenaed information , ” Alito acknowledged .
“ The situation in the [ Aaron ] Burr trial , where the documents at issue were sought by a criminal defendant to defend against a charge of treason , is a good example .
But in a case like the one at hand , a subpoena should not be allowed unless a heightened standard is met.
” Roberts and the majority rejected the idea of a heightened standard , concluding that existing checks on @ @ @ @ @ @

Sekulow argued that the president’s job was inherently more stressful and complex than the jobs of ordinary Americans, and that he deserved special latitude from the courts in recognition of that. “Let’s assume the president were to hire me,” he replied, “and that I’m going to call the president of the United States today and say, ‘I know you’re handling a pandemic right now for the United States, but I need to spend a couple, two to three hours with you going over a subpoena of documents that are wanted by, here, the New York County district attorney.’” The implication was that if the Supreme Court requires a sitting president to obey these subpoenas, people could die.
As I noted in May, however, there is little reason to think that complying with the subpoenas would actually make it harder for Trump to carry out his presidential duties. The president, after all, does not personally enforce federal law on a day-to-day basis. More than two million civil servants actually carry out those duties on his behalf, led by a cadre of political appointees chosen by the president to supervise and manage them according to his policy agenda. If Vance had attempted to charge Trump with a crime and remand him to Rikers Island while he awaited trial, the president would have a much stronger case that the executive branch was being undermined. Letting the president’s bankers and accountants hand over his financial records would undermine nothing—save, perhaps, for his political fortunes this November and his risk of prosecution after leaving office.
Roberts, writing for the court, also rejected the notion that subpoenas posed any inherent threat to the presidency. Complying with a criminal subpoena, especially one issued to a third party, would likely pose less of a burden than dealing with civil lawsuits, which the court allowed against sitting presidents in a 1997 case involving Bill Clinton. On claims that the stigma of a subpoena would “undermine his leadership at home and abroad,” Roberts noted that there is “nothing inherently stigmatizing” about fulfilling a “citizen’s normal duty” to aid a criminal investigation. And he noted that if a local prosecutor’s efforts ever crossed the line into harassment, federal courts could still intervene on the president’s behalf.


newrepublic--2020-07-09--The Limits of Democrats’ Climate Progress

The Biden campaign has , at this point , committed only to reviewing the task force recommendations , not to embracing them as part of its platform .
Even if Biden does pick up every bullet point , there ’ s still an open question as to whether he ’ ll hire senior staff willing to make them a reality and not hire senior staff who ’ ll block them .
And in the extraordinarily optimistic scenario in which the Biden administration is elected and then full-throatedly takes on the climate challenge along the lines the unity task force outlines @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that can be done through executive orders and agency maneuvering .
Republican control of the Senate , should that still exist , will place a hard ceiling on whether anything called climate legislation makes it to the president ’ s desk ; conservative Democrats will pose a challenge , too .
Should it clear all those hurdles , a judicial system packed with Trump appointees can ensnare it in years of legal challenges .
And then there are the barriers posed by any number of obscure trade rules .
That strain of sober @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moderate their plans so as to conform with some aesthetic commitment to what constitutes reasonable policy .
But neither the GOP ’ s response nor the current moment in world history makes a good case for such preemptive walk-backs .
Given that the GOP has likened modest , gradual carbon-offsetting strings on aviation sector bailouts to a Green New Deal , there ’ s no reason not to talk an actual Green New Deal , which is broadly popular .
Nor is this a moment for nihilism : Each 0.1 degree of warming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lives saved .
Hopefully the pandemic hasn ’ t so numbed lawmakers to death that those numbers seem trivial .
This is my plea for more honesty in describing new climate policy packages , at least among those of us who have to write about this stuff .
Pandemic coverage has pointed to one possible approach .
Reporters and analysts are now judging the success of public health measures by hard metrics : The numbers of infections and related deaths are now daily being used as a basis for comparison across cities and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Why not make these sorts of policy assessments a new normal ?
While projected deaths are admittedly trickier to calculate than recorded deaths , let ’ s judge climate policies by how many people they ’ ll kill , anywhere , based on our best scientific understanding of the problem .
Let ’ s not judge them based on the progress they show compared to more obviously inadequate plans , or—for the love of God—by how much they ’ ll cost .
Even in cold and conservative economic terms , the costs of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ outstrip the cost of preventing it by tens of trillions of dollars .
Every person who dies of a climate-fueled disaster is a sign of failure of policymakers ’ ability to mitigate rising temperatures and adapt to the hotter world that past failures have made inevitable .
There ’ s been a lot of progress in terms of how ambitious mainstream politicians are willing to be in their climate proposals , virtually all of that owed to pressure from below .
By almost any metric , those politicians are still failing .

The Biden campaign has, at this point, committed only to reviewing the task force recommendations, not to embracing them as part of its platform. Even if Biden does pick up every bullet point, there’s still an open question as to whether he’ll hire senior staff willing to make them a reality and not hire senior staff who’ll block them. And in the extraordinarily optimistic scenario in which the Biden administration is elected and then full-throatedly takes on the climate challenge along the lines the unity task force outlines, there’s only so much that can be done through executive orders and agency maneuvering. Republican control of the Senate, should that still exist, will place a hard ceiling on whether anything called climate legislation makes it to the president’s desk; conservative Democrats will pose a challenge, too. Should it clear all those hurdles, a judicial system packed with Trump appointees can ensnare it in years of legal challenges. And then there are the barriers posed by any number of obscure trade rules.
That strain of sober realpolitik has led even progressive Democrats to moderate their plans so as to conform with some aesthetic commitment to what constitutes reasonable policy. But neither the GOP’s response nor the current moment in world history makes a good case for such preemptive walk-backs. Given that the GOP has likened modest, gradual carbon-offsetting strings on aviation sector bailouts to a Green New Deal, there’s no reason not to talk an actual Green New Deal, which is broadly popular. Nor is this a moment for nihilism: Each 0.1 degree of warming averted translates to tens of thousands of lives saved. Hopefully the pandemic hasn’t so numbed lawmakers to death that those numbers seem trivial.
This is my plea for more honesty in describing new climate policy packages, at least among those of us who have to write about this stuff. Pandemic coverage has pointed to one possible approach. Reporters and analysts are now judging the success of public health measures by hard metrics: The numbers of infections and related deaths are now daily being used as a basis for comparison across cities and states and from country to country. Why not make these sorts of policy assessments a new normal? While projected deaths are admittedly trickier to calculate than recorded deaths, let’s judge climate policies by how many people they’ll kill, anywhere, based on our best scientific understanding of the problem. Let’s not judge them based on the progress they show compared to more obviously inadequate plans, or—for the love of God—by how much they’ll cost. Even in cold and conservative economic terms, the costs of 2.5 or three degrees of warming will outstrip the cost of preventing it by tens of trillions of dollars. Every person who dies of a climate-fueled disaster is a sign of failure of policymakers’ ability to mitigate rising temperatures and adapt to the hotter world that past failures have made inevitable.


newrepublic--2020-07-09--Neil Gorsuch Affirms That Treaties With Tribal Nations Are the Law

The United States Constitution established unequivocally in 1789 that treaties are the “ supreme law of the land.
” On Thursday , the Supreme Court stood by the nation ’ s original promise .
Ruling on McGirt v. Oklahoma , a case concerning how reservations are disestablished and the jurisdictional ability for states to charge and convict tribal citizens on sovereign tribal land , the justices held in a 5–4 vote that the Muscogee ( Creek ) Nation ’ s reservation is still intact , with Justice Neil Gorsuch authoring the majority opinion .
“ Today we are asked whether @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Indian reservation for purposes of federal criminal law , ” Gorsuch wrote .
“ Because Congress has not said otherwise , we hold the government to its word.
” The ruling is one of the most potentially consequential decisions from the high court on federal Indian law , both in recent memory and historically .
It establishes that roughly three million acres of what is now known as Oklahoma have belonged to the Muscogee ( Creek ) Nation for the past 154 years and reestablishes the nation ’ s sovereignty over those lands @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ginsburg , Sonya Sotomayor , Elena Kagan , and Stephen Breyer .
Justices Samuel Alito , Brett Kavanaugh , John Roberts , and Clarence Thomas voted in favor of the state of Oklahoma , with Roberts penning the dissent .
“ A century of practice confirms that the Five Tribes ’ prior domains were extinguished , ” Roberts wrote .
“ The State has maintained unquestioned jurisdiction for more than 100 years .
Tribe members make up less than 10 % –15 % of the population of their former domain , and until @ @ @ @ @ @ @ itself acknowledged that it no longer possessed the reservation the Court discovers today.
” ( This portion of Roberts ’ s analysis conveniently ignores that the cited population data is the consequence of centuries of genocidal and displacement policies . )
While McGirt was new to this term , the central argument—whether the Muscogee ( Creek ) Nation ’ s reservation is still intact—was not .
The court initially took up Sharp v. Murphy in 2019 in an attempt to settle the argument but held off on releasing an opinion , instead using @ @ @ @ @ @ @ punt the case to the next session .
In that case , Gorsuch , the only justice with any serious judicial experience with federal Indian law , recused himself , as he had heard the case when he was still on the Tenth Circuit bench .
Until Thursday , it was unclear whether the justices had reached an impasse and needed Gorsuch ’ s swing vote , or whether they simply desired his Indian law expertise for their argument .
The cases centered on the 1866 treaty that the Creek Nation signed with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
At the time , the land it occupied was officially designated as Indian Territory and was home to several tribal nations , including what were known as the “ Five Civilized Tribes ” —the Creek , Cherokee Nation , the Seminole , the Chickasaw Nation , and the Choctaw Nation .
But colonizers illegally flooded into the lands owned and occupied by the Native nations , systematically enacting a reign of violence and displacement .
After decades of disregarding the Native nations , Congress declared statehood for Oklahoma in 1906 .
( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Indian Territory attempted to establish their own separate state , Sequoyah , but were denied by Congress . )
During that period of land theft , though , Congress never took the time to disestablish the Creek reservation .

The major sticking point for some of the justices during oral arguments concerned the breadth of the McGirt case. The state of Oklahoma repeatedly leaned on the practicality argument, which several justices from both sides of the bench found enticing. Ginsburg voiced her concern that a ruling in favor of Jimcy McGirt, a 71-year-old citizen of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma who was convicted by the state for committing sex crimes against a minor on Creek land, would overturn thousands of prior convictions—a claim that was dissected and debunked in The Atlantic by Cherokee journalist Rebecca Nagle, who worked on an investigation that found fewer than 10 percent of reviewed cases would need a retrial. Thomas was dubious about whether the same standards could be applied to the case of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation reservation, asking McGirt’s lawyer whether the court had ever ruled on a case “that does as much as this?”
But as Gorsuch proved during oral arguments and again in his opinion, such practical arguments matter little when it comes to applying the letter of the law. His presence was also a testament to the fact that all courts, not just the Supreme Court, need more voices on the bench that understand and appreciate treaty rights and tribal sovereignty. As Nagle noted in the wake of the case, this doesn’t make Gorsuch any kind of great defender of Indian Country. The decision simply followed the law.
There is still a great deal of work to be done to ensure treaty rights are upheld for all tribes—the Black Hills remain illegally in American hands, and Congress has yet to place the Cherokee Nation’s treaty-guaranteed congressional delegate. But it feels prudent to give in to the empowering feeling brought on by seeing a treaty recognized. After centuries of watching American legislatures, courts, and militaries act in service of the nation’s colonizing whims, it is more than relieving to see its institutions not only admit their ill-gotten gains but make an attempt to right the wrong.


newrepublic--2020-07-09--Fear of a Forever-Trump Administration

Fear of a Forever-Trump Administration

What often comes next is an imaginative journey through the Constitution ’ s mechanisms for presidential elections .
The presidency has virtually no influence over the electoral process , so Trump has few options to unilaterally interfere on his own behalf .
In key states like Michigan and Pennsylvania , Democratic governors and secretaries of state would certify the election results , making it hard for Trump-minded Republicans to undermine them .
Amherst College law professor Lawrence Douglas , who wrote an entire book on the possibility that Trump won ’ t leave office , suggested to Vox last month @ @ @ @ @ @ @ still try to send competing “ certified ” “ results ” to Congress .
Douglas also dismissed the idea that the Supreme Court could simply step in and resolve disputes , à la 2000 , saying it was Al Gore ’ s willingness to concede after that ruling that actually ended the crisis .
While Gore ’ s concession helped defuse national tensions , it was not actually necessary as a matter of law or practice .
Faced with this daunting prospect , the natural question is what can be done to stop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ short .
“ We had better start thinking now about how we would handle such an electoral crisis , ” Boot wrote earlier this week in the final line of his column , conspicuously leaving the most important question it raised unanswered .
The Post ’ s Brian Klass wrote in May that Americans “ need to prepare for the possibility of Trump rejecting election results.
” After making good points about the falsehood of Trump ’ s claims and the dangers of delegitimizing the electoral process , however , he offered no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out the president ’ s falsehoods about the election .
This is a dubious plan at best : The Trump era is essentially one giant warning against relying on the consciences of Republican officials to save the republic .
In fairness , countermeasures are hard to imagine when the range of scenarios for November is so wide .
The best-case side of the spectrum suggests that Biden will win by a healthy margin in the Electoral College and Trump is left grousing about mail-in voting .
He spends the interregnum tweeting about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rest of the country simply moves on .
Darker possibilities include a narrow result or a delayed mail-in vote count that gives Trump more rhetorical—and perhaps legal—room to question the results .
“ The potential for chaos exposes the frailties of an electoral tradition that depends on the goodwill of the two candidates involved , ” The Atlantic ’ s Peter Nicholas wrote last month .
“ If one won ’ t cooperate , the system seizes up.
” Most of these pieces draw upon Trump ’ s own temperament to support their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Perhaps the most common direct evidence for Trump ’ s possible refusal to leave office is his habit of joking about staying there longer than he ’ s allowed .
But the thrust of Trump ’ s jokes is that he runs for more than two terms because he ’ s so popular , not that he refuses to leave power altogether .
Perhaps the clearest warning from Trumpworld came from Michael Cohen , Trump ’ s former legal fixer , while testifying before Congress in February 2019 .
“ Given my experience @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that if he loses in 2020 , that there will never be a peaceful transition of power , ” he told lawmakers .
It ’ s worth noting , however , that there are ample signs that Trump is envisioning a life beyond the White House .
The New York Times reported last month that Trump ’ s dire political straits—and his inability to change course—have had a profound impact on his thinking .
At a White House event in June , he mused about getting an R.V .
after leaving office .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of those things , drive around town , ” he told the audience .
“ Maybe I ’ ll drive back to New York with our First Lady in a trailer.
” He also acknowledged in a Fox News interview that he could lose in November when asked about Biden ’ s comments on using the military to remove him from the White House .
“ If I don ’ t win , I don ’ t win , ” Trump said .
“ I mean , you know , go on and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would be a very sad thing for our country.
” There are other indications of relative normalcy .
Under federal law , each administration is required to plan for the smooth transition of power to a potential successor ahead of a presidential election , regardless of the likelihood that they ’ ll win .
There are well-known signs of this process—when candidates start receiving classified intelligence briefings , for example—but most of the work is quietly undertaken by civil servants and political appointees throughout the sprawling executive branch .
The Trump administration began @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there are no reports or indications thus far that it ’ s gone awry .
Biden ’ s formal acceptance of the Democratic nomination next month will likely accelerate it even further .
I need not recount Trump ’ s authoritarian tactics and maneuvers while in office .
But it ’ s also worth noting that he habitually refuses to follow through on the threats he makes .
He infamously boasted on the campaign trail in 2016 that he would jail Hillary Clinton if he won , only to publicly back down shortly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ close to trying to fire former special counsel Robert Mueller but never managed to follow through .
Trump ’ s presidency is essentially a catalog of empty threats : to adjourn Congress for not confirming his nominees , to shut down Twitter for fact-checking him , to collapse Turkey ’ s economy for attacking the Kurds , to release ISIS fighters into France and Germany , to withdraw the United States from NATO , and more .
The Post ’ s JM Rieger counted at least 32 examples of presidential threats that went @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( Remember when he was going to sue Saturday Night Live ? )
This isn ’ t the first time that Americans have felt this anxiety .
In the 2000s , some liberals occasionally floated the possibility that George W. Bush would somehow cancel or suspend the 2008 presidential election .
Stephen Gillers , a New York University law professor , wrote “ a news brief from the future ” for The Nation in July 2006 , in which Bush postpones the next presidential election to protect Americans from terrorism .
Hillary Clinton @ @ @ @ @ @ @ described as consulting pollsters about her response ; then–Attorney General Alberto Gonzales makes a disingenuous argument that the Constitution doesn ’ t mean every four years when it says “ every four years.
” In the weeks before the 2008 election , various rumors circulated online that Bush would declare martial law to prevent Barack Obama ’ s victory .
He did not .


newrepublic--2020-07-10--Mary Trump Diagnoses the President

Mary Trump Diagnoses the President

The women of the house—the matriarch Mary Trump and her daughters , Maryanne and Elizabeth—were confined to gender roles that were rigid even for the 1950s .
The three boys—Fred Jr. , Donald , and Robert—had to fend for themselves in an environment not unlike The Lord of the Flies .
Enamored with the prosperity gospel , Fred Trump Sr. drilled a ruthless code into his sons : Do whatever it takes to get ahead .
Emotion of any kind was weakness .
Lying , cheating , stealing—all encouraged .
Crushed by his overbearing father , Fred Jr. left the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ joining TWA as a pilot .
His father , furious that one of his children should deign to leave his shadow , belittled him endlessly , comparing him to a “ bus driver.
” Fred Jr. turned to alcohol , lost his job , and returned to the family business .
It wasn ’ t long before he lost everything : His wife left him , taking their young children , including Mary .
He died , age 42 , living in his parent ’ s attic .
It is strongly suggested that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , his parents for weeks ignored signs that he was on the verge of death before he was ultimately stricken with a fatal heart attack .
When Fred Sr. died , Mary and her brother discovered they had been cut out of the will—almost as if their father had never existed at all—provoking a lengthy and bitter legal fight with the patriarch ’ s four surviving children .
( As a negotiating ploy , the four Trump children kicked Mary , her brother , and their families—including a toddler with severe epilepsy—off the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) Donald was the one Trump child who lived up to Fred Sr. ’ s expectations ( he would also be the only one Fred Sr. would remember when suffering , late in life , from dementia ) .
While the other Trump children gained little from their extremely wealthy father for most of his life ( Maryanne , who became a federal judge , at one point was reduced to begging her mother for spare change ) , Donald was endlessly rewarded for his mendacity and aggression in the rough-and-tumble world of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ showered his son with money , allowing him to create the illusion that he was self-made , a brilliant dealmaker .
This phony personal brand would be the foundation of Donald ’ s successful presidential campaign .
But Donald , in Mary ’ s telling , was the most wounded of the Trump children .
He was also the most pathetic .
He became profoundly needy as a result of childhood neglect but lacked the means of processing his emotions .
He got stuck in an endless feedback loop of self-aggrandizement and self-loathing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that he really was great—even though , deep down , he knew he was unloved and incapable of executing even the most basic tasks .
All of this is apparent to anyone who has observed Trump closely ( or even not so closely ) these past few years .
Trump ’ s daddy issues are nothing new .
Despite Mary ’ s insistence that the media has failed to cover the issues she writes about in this book , the truth is that no political figure in modern history has received more negative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mary can twist the knife in describing Trump ’ s insecurities—describing him as someone who “ knows he has never been loved ” —but this is not a book that will likely change anyone ’ s mind about the character of the president .
But perhaps the American public isn ’ t the intended audience .
The people in Trump ’ s orbit have long been accused of performing for an “ audience of one.
” Too Much and Never Enough appears to have been written for an audience of four : Donald @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
For Mary , these siblings have , for too long , escaped the consequences of supporting their horrible brother .
Those revelations have likely already torn a hole in the family .
( Much of the most salacious information in the book evidently comes from Maryanne .
Although she is thanked in the acknowledgments , it is not clear that she knew the things she told her niece about her upbringing , her father , and her brother would ever be made public . )
And there ’ s more : Late @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a key source in The New York Times investigation that showed Donald ’ s lifelong dependence on his father ’ s wealth , as well as extraordinary financial fraud committed by every member of the Trump family .
Mary provided the Times with documents she obtained while contesting Fred Sr. ’ s will .

Donald was the one Trump child who lived up to Fred Sr.’s expectations (he would also be the only one Fred Sr. would remember when suffering, late in life, from dementia). While the other Trump children gained little from their extremely wealthy father for most of his life (Maryanne, who became a federal judge, at one point was reduced to begging her mother for spare change), Donald was endlessly rewarded for his mendacity and aggression in the rough-and-tumble world of New York real estate. Fred Sr. showered his son with money, allowing him to create the illusion that he was self-made, a brilliant dealmaker. This phony personal brand would be the foundation of Donald’s successful presidential campaign.
But Donald, in Mary’s telling, was the most wounded of the Trump children. He was also the most pathetic. He became profoundly needy as a result of childhood neglect but lacked the means of processing his emotions. He got stuck in an endless feedback loop of self-aggrandizement and self-loathing, seeking out sycophants to assure him that he really was great—even though, deep down, he knew he was unloved and incapable of executing even the most basic tasks.
All of this is apparent to anyone who has observed Trump closely (or even not so closely) these past few years. Trump’s daddy issues are nothing new. Despite Mary’s insistence that the media has failed to cover the issues she writes about in this book, the truth is that no political figure in modern history has received more negative attention or had more obvious flaws. Mary can twist the knife in describing Trump’s insecurities—describing him as someone who “knows he has never been loved”—but this is not a book that will likely change anyone’s mind about the character of the president.


newrepublic--2020-07-10--The Law Was Never Meant for Ghislaine Maxwell

Men like Jeffrey Epstein did not need to head to Craigslist or Backpage to find women and girls .
He allegedly had Ghislaine Maxwell for that , who , according those who say she essentially delivered them to Epstein , approached them outside Manhattan high schools or at Mar-a-Lago .
The indictment describes Maxwell using her presence as a woman to gain victims ’ trust , taking girls on shopping trips and trying to befriend them , to “ normalize ” abuse .
It ’ s not that the Justice Department was unaware of Epstein .
He was facing a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Julie K. Brown at The Miami Herald reported , “ accused of assembling a large , cult-like network of underage girls—with the help of young female recruiters—to coerce into having sex acts behind the walls of his opulent waterfront mansion as often as three times a day , the Town of Palm Beach police found.
” Yet in 2007 , a federal prosecutor worked with Palm Beach prosecutors to cut a secret deal with Epstein ’ s attorneys , preventing him from facing federal charges .
At the same time , as Brown @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shut down an ongoing FBI probe into whether there were more victims and other powerful people who took part in Epstein ’ s sex crimes.
” ( That prosecutor was Alex Acosta , whom Trump appointed to head the Labor Department and who , once Epstein was indicted in 2019 , stepped down . )
As the Justice Department turned away from Epstein , it ramped up other sex trafficking prosecutions : Between 2005 and 2015 , Black men were charged in 59 percent of federal sex trafficking cases involving minors and in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ adults ( according to an analysis by human trafficking researcher and Texas Christian University political scientist Vanessa Bouché ) .
It is not incidental that the Mann Act , one of the first federal laws against ( what is now called ) “ sex trafficking , ” was also named the White-Slave Traffic Act .
The law helped institutionalize the figure of the sex trafficking victim .
As historian Jessica R. Pilley shows in her 2014 book Policing Sexuality : The Mann Act and the Making of the FBI , the victim imagined @ @ @ @ @ @ @ law was a sexually innocent , American-born white girl .
To then call her condition “ slavery ” was not meant as sensationalism but to explicitly liken “ white slaves ” to enslaved Black people .
Such advocates , in pushing their narratives of white slavery , “ consistently contrasted white sex slaves ’ bondage with the bondage of African Americans.
” Their conception of white slavery , Pilley adds , held the American imagination from the 1880s through the 1910s—the era of Jim Crow and when the sexual abuse of Black women @ @ @ @ @ @ @ advocates or prosecutors , as an equal concern to that of “ innocent ” white girls .
But such innocence is never uniformly applied .
Many of the women and girls Epstein targeted some hundred years later , as journalist Brown showed in her investigative reporting , were never afforded the “ good ” victim status .
“ Most of the girls came from disadvantaged families , single-parent homes or foster care , ” she wrote .
Their class background and experiences of poverty pushed them outside of that charmed circle of perfect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Courtney Wild , told her , “ Jeffrey preyed on girls who were in a bad way , girls who were basically homeless .
He went after girls who he thought no one would listen to and he was right.
” When Epstein was charged in Palm Beach County in 2005 , the prosecutor declared there were “ no victims ” in the case , according to documents obtained by The Palm Beach Post .
Prosecutors brought the case before a grand jury , where proceedings are secret , and where , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can even more significantly shape the outcome .
Usually , they do so in their own favor—the defense has no attorney , can call no witnesses .
But in this case , they appeared to make Epstein ’ s attorneys ’ points for them , undermining the alleged victim they called as a witness .
Jurors heard from only one of the 13 girls who had told police Epstein abused them , and according to sources with knowledge of the grand jury proceedings , The Palm Beach Post reported , “ Prosecutor Lanna @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her social media pages.… The girl ’ s MySpace account , supplied to prosecutors by Epstein ’ s lawyers , portrayed her drinking liquor with boys and talking about sex.
” Documents later showed that one of Epstein ’ s attorneys , Alan Dershowitz , had provided the copies of her social media .
The prosecution could have called as witnesses any of the 12 others who came forward ; they only approached three , giving them two days ’ notice .
One said she never received her subpoena .
“ I never @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be heard , ” Wild told The Palm Beach Post .
“ My voice was muted by the same government that was supposed to protect me.
” Epstein was able to evade prosecution in part because he didn ’ t fit the profile of a “ sex trafficker.
” But he was aided by myths about the girls who say he abused them , who were seen essentially as incapable of being victimized .
Such myths helped people like Ghislaine Maxwell and others around Epstein insulate him—including those in the justice system .

It is not incidental that the Mann Act, one of the first federal laws against (what is now called) “sex trafficking,” was also named the White-Slave Traffic Act. The law helped institutionalize the figure of the sex trafficking victim. As historian Jessica R. Pilley shows in her 2014 book Policing Sexuality: The Mann Act and the Making of the FBI, the victim imagined by the Progressive Era advocates of the law was a sexually innocent, American-born white girl. To then call her condition “slavery” was not meant as sensationalism but to explicitly liken “white slaves” to enslaved Black people. Such advocates, in pushing their narratives of white slavery, “consistently contrasted white sex slaves’ bondage with the bondage of African Americans.” Their conception of white slavery, Pilley adds, held the American imagination from the 1880s through the 1910s—the era of Jim Crow and when the sexual abuse of Black women and girls was not seen, by advocates or prosecutors, as an equal concern to that of “innocent” white girls.
But such innocence is never uniformly applied. Many of the women and girls Epstein targeted some hundred years later, as journalist Brown showed in her investigative reporting, were never afforded the “good” victim status. “Most of the girls came from disadvantaged families, single-parent homes or foster care,” she wrote. Their class background and experiences of poverty pushed them outside of that charmed circle of perfect victimhood. As one of them, Courtney Wild, told her, “Jeffrey preyed on girls who were in a bad way, girls who were basically homeless. He went after girls who he thought no one would listen to and he was right.” When Epstein was charged in Palm Beach County in 2005, the prosecutor declared there were “no victims” in the case, according to documents obtained by The Palm Beach Post. Prosecutors brought the case before a grand jury, where proceedings are secret, and where, as opposed to a criminal trial, they can even more significantly shape the outcome. Usually, they do so in their own favor—the defense has no attorney, can call no witnesses. But in this case, they appeared to make Epstein’s attorneys’ points for them, undermining the alleged victim they called as a witness.
Jurors heard from only one of the 13 girls who had told police Epstein abused them, and according to sources with knowledge of the grand jury proceedings, The Palm Beach Post reported, “Prosecutor Lanna Belohlavek peppered the girl with questions about her social media pages.… The girl’s MySpace account, supplied to prosecutors by Epstein’s lawyers, portrayed her drinking liquor with boys and talking about sex.” Documents later showed that one of Epstein’s attorneys, Alan Dershowitz, had provided the copies of her social media.


newrepublic--2020-07-10--There’s No Such Thing as Pandemic Austerity for Billionaires

Donald Trump ’ s response to the coronavirus from the very start was more or less willful neglect , and lately , according to White House officials , he ’ s banking on that strategy for reelection .
The administration ’ s plan , current and former staffers recently told The Washington Post , is to force the country to reopen in the hopes that going back to offices and restaurants will mean that no one notices a pandemic is still raging .
“ They ’ re of the belief that people will get over it , or if we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ move on and the public will learn to accept 50,000 to 100,000 new cases a day , ” one staffer said .
That could be setting the stage for a kind of slow-motion apocalypse : If things continue in this vein , the public will have to accept not just more Covid deaths but also widespread hunger and homelessness .
Recently , the Institute for Policy Studies estimated that food insecurity in the United States has doubled since the start of the pandemic , with Black and Latinx households hit hardest , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ called the surge in demand at food banks “ unprecedented and unlike any challenge that we ’ ve faced in food bank history in the United States.
” ( Feeding America also estimates that 40 percent of people now visiting food banks are first-time recipients of food assistance . )
Things are well on track to get even more dire : As federal and state-level eviction moratoriums expire over the coming months , as many as 23 million renters could face eviction by the end of the summer , according to a new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Senate Republicans continue their crusade to end pandemic unemployment benefits at the end of this month .
“ We should help people when they ’ re down and out .
And we have .
But we have to be careful , ” Alabama Senator Richard Shelby said .
“ Somebody ’ s going to have to pay this debt some day.
” Of course , it ’ s not much of a surprise at this point that this kind of budget hand-wringing all but vanishes when it comes to certain other expenditures @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be plenty of money in the coffers—over $ 740 billion , to be exact—for the Pentagon .
A bill to authorize the annual defense budget , now idling while the Senate is in recess , so far has overwhelming bipartisan support , save for a last-ditch effort by a few Congress members , led by Bernie Sanders , to cut that amount by 10 percent .
( Trump , perpetually drowning in a culture war of his own making , has threatened to veto the bill because it requires renaming Army bases currently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have bravely vowed not to let that happen .
“ If it came to overriding a veto , we ’ d probably override the veto , ” Iowa ’ s Chuck Grassley said this week .
What a relief ! )
In fact , the defense budget has increased by more than $ 100 billion annually since Trump took office , which is also , as it happens , the same time period during which the president and congressional Republicans rammed through massive tax cuts for the wealthy .
This year ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ double what the country spends on all anti-poverty safety net programs combined ( with the exception of Social Security ) , including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program , housing assistance for low-income families , and disability benefits .
It ’ s also about $ 50 billion more than the government spent on subsidizing health care in 2018 .
That kind of warped allocation , as Representative Barbara Lee recently noted , set the stage for the current crisis .
“ The prioritization of defense spending and the underinvestment in public health has led @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan , ” Lee said .
“ By over-prioritizing the Pentagon and military solutions , our country is drastically underprepared for any crisis that needs a non-military solution.
” The war machine isn ’ t the only thing that ’ s caught a windfall recently .
This week , the watchdog Public Citizen found that a group of lobbyists with ties to Trump had collectively reaped more than $ 10 billion in federal aid during the pandemic .
( The swamp , that is , appears to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . )
Likewise , federal documents on the Paycheck Protection Program released this week revealed that a number of billionaires and already flush companies and organizations had collected huge sums of money intended to keep small business afloat .
Those included possible presidential candidate Kanye West ’ s fashion brand , Yeezy , worth approximately $ 3 billion , and the Church of Scientology , which is worth around $ 1.75 billion and famously pays no taxes as a religious institution .
Then there ’ s the airline industry , which was all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beginning and collected hundreds of millions of dollars in federal relief money on the promise that it wouldn ’ t lay off workers .
As it turns out , several companies did , anyway , and this week , United Airlines announced plans to follow suit starting in October .

Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus from the very start was more or less willful neglect, and lately, according to White House officials, he’s banking on that strategy for reelection. The administration’s plan, current and former staffers recently told The Washington Post, is to force the country to reopen in the hopes that going back to offices and restaurants will mean that no one notices a pandemic is still raging. “They’re of the belief that people will get over it, or if we stop highlighting it, the base will move on and the public will learn to accept 50,000 to 100,000 new cases a day,” one staffer said.
That could be setting the stage for a kind of slow-motion apocalypse: If things continue in this vein, the public will have to accept not just more Covid deaths but also widespread hunger and homelessness. Recently, the Institute for Policy Studies estimated that food insecurity in the United States has doubled since the start of the pandemic, with Black and Latinx households hit hardest, and a spokesperson for the organization Feeding America called the surge in demand at food banks “unprecedented and unlike any challenge that we’ve faced in food bank history in the United States.” (Feeding America also estimates that 40 percent of people now visiting food banks are first-time recipients of food assistance.) Things are well on track to get even more dire: As federal and state-level eviction moratoriums expire over the coming months, as many as 23 million renters could face eviction by the end of the summer, according to a new analysis from the Aspen Institute. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans continue their crusade to end pandemic unemployment benefits at the end of this month. “We should help people when they’re down and out. And we have. But we have to be careful,” Alabama Senator Richard Shelby said. “Somebody’s going to have to pay this debt some day.”


newrepublic--2020-07-10--The Two Sides of Biden’s Economic Plan

The Two Sides of Biden’s Economic Plan

Joe Biden gave a speech Thursday and released an economic plan .
News coverage focused on the latter , which mimics President Donald Trump ’ s “ Buy American ” theme and promises that Biden will be more protectionist than Trump on trade .
I preferred the speech .
The economic plan is a mixed bag of worthwhile proposals ( such as boosting investment for research and development and protecting intellectual property ) and empty promises ( such as reviving manufacturing and repatriating supply chains ) .
Biden pointed out that Trump is losing the trade war that he started @ @ @ @ @ @ @ PolitiFact says so . )
Then he said a Biden administration will wage a tougher trade war than Trump .
While I don ’ t doubt Biden will pursue a more surgical and strategically shrewd trade strategy against the Chinese , any notion that Biden will out-Trump Trump strikes me as highly implausible .
Biden ’ s economic record is that of an internationalist—not a doctrinaire free-trader , but a free-trader nonetheless .
As senator , he voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement and to normalize trade relations with China .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Partnership .
That ’ s a problem in midwestern battleground states like Michigan and Wisconsin .
I ’ m inclined to think , though , that it isn ’ t a big problem : Biden ’ s up 5 or 6 points in Michigan , and 8 or 9 points in Wisconsin .
Voters there know that Biden is reliably pro-labor , and that ’ s what they like about him .
Biden ’ s Thursday speech , delivered just outside his hometown of Scranton , Pennsylvania , emphasized protecting workers ( real @ @ @ @ @ @ @ phony Biden ) .
The phrase “ Buy American , ” which appeared more than a dozen times in the economic plan , appeared only twice in the Scranton speech .
The word “ union , ” meanwhile , was sprinkled 15 or 16 times through the speech .
Biden talked about health care , and how Trump “ continues to try to wipe out Obamacare in the middle of a pandemic.
” He said that “ after months of doing nothing other than predicting the virus would disappear or maybe , if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ okay , Trump has simply given up .
He ’ s waved the white flag.
” The hard-to-dispute nature of this statement is the main reason that a second Trump term grows unlikelier by the day .

Incomes rose a bit faster under Trump, but in large part that was attributable to state-level minimum wage hikes that the GOP opposed. The good news was that the poor were gaining on the working class. The bad news was that the working class was no longer, economically speaking, an especially great destination. According to a team of researchers at Cornell, the quality of new jobs has been declining since 1990. Sixty-three percent of all jobs created during the past 30 years were low-wage and low-hour.
The third and final idea is that, as Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman wrote in their 2019 book, The Triumph of Injustice, the average effective U.S. tax rate on capital had, the year before—and for the first time in modern memory—fallen below the average effective tax rate on labor. Some have disputed this calculation on technical grounds, but there’s no gainsaying Saez and Zucman’s conclusion that the United States has, over the past two decades, and especially under President Donald Trump, drastically reduced taxation on capital.
One needn’t be a proponent of Karl Marx’s labor theory of value (I am not) to find this state of affairs very distressing. The enthronement of capital at the expense of wages, income, and economic growth itself is a winning theme for Democrats, and Biden has found an excellent way to distill it into a few words. Though for the record, I would add two more: “We must reward work at least as much as we’ve rewarded wealth.”