newrepublic--2020-09-15--The Biden Adviser Who Gives Climate Activists Nightmares

If you haven ’ t heard of Ernest “ Ernie ” Moniz , there ’ s still a good chance you ’ ve seen a picture of him .
The 75-year-old nuclear physicist , MIT professor emeritus , multimillionaire , and former energy secretary for the Obama administration sports longish silver hair that looks fit for a daguerrotype .
His aesthetic sensibilities have turned him into a lovable meme among energy wonks , who for the most part regard him as a slightly quirky but eminently competent , whip-smart technocrat , credited as a central figure in negotiating the Iran @ @ @ @ @ @ @ weeks , this once-improbable figure of controversy has become a symbol of just how much climate politics have changed since the Obama era—a flashpoint in a growing fight over what energy policy should look like in a potential post-Trump government that won ’ t just be fighting to re-establish the rules and programs he gutted , but transform the country ’ s energy system in time to avert runaway climate catastrophe .
Moniz , a “ good friend ” of Biden ’ s , has been informally advising his campaign since at least @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Initiative ’ s partnership with certain unions has been an influential voice in crafting the former vice president ’ s and the party ’ s approach to climate issues .
Sources tracking transition talks say he could even be in the running to take back his old job as energy secretary .
That ’ s a prospect that worries climate watchers .
Earlier this month , 145 progressive groups sent a letter to Joe Biden ’ s campaign , urging the candidate to “ ban all fossil fuel executives , lobbyists , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on your campaign , transition team , cabinet , and administration.
” Many of them say Moniz fits the bill .
Moniz has had several lucrative relationships with fossil fuel companies during his career , including as an adviser to BP .
The Energy Initiative he founded at MIT—like many such initiatives in academia , quietly run on oil money—brought in sizable donations from some of the world ’ s largest fossil fuel producers , and produced research that made the case for their growth .
He disclosed his full financial holdings and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ head the Department of Energy in 2013 , and resigned from any posts that might carry conflicts of interest .
Since leaving government in 2017 , though , he ’ s accepted a paid position with a fossil fueled utility whose work he supported at the DOE .
Through it all he ’ s proudly maintained his commitment to an Obama-era energy strategy climate advocates say belongs in history ’ s dustbin : the “ all of the above ” approach first outlined in a 2012 speech , which pairs renewables investment with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Moniz said Moniz would not be available to comment on this story .
The typical defense of a once-and-future political appointee ’ s between-administration industry work is to normalize it .
But “ it ’ s not true that everyone came out and worked for fossil fuel companies or that there are not experts on climate without fossil fuel ties , ” said Collin Rees of Oil Change International , one of the groups that signed the letter to Biden opposing fossil fuel appointees .
Taking money from the fossil fuel industry was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Moniz as well as fellow Obama administration alums Amos Hochstein , Jason Bordoff and Heather Zichal , who have accepted jobs , payment , or research funding from fossil fuel companies since leaving government .
It wasn ’ t a universal choice , though : “ This is not an indictment of all Obama staffers , ” he added .

One of Moniz’s connections that’s come under scrutiny is Southern Company—a mammoth integrated electric utility that got $407 million in financing from the Department of Energy during Moniz’s tenure for a “clean coal” plant that was never completed. After championing the doomed project and leaving office, Moniz joined the company’s board in March 2018. According to Southern’s proxy statements, he accepted a combined $486,668 worth of fees and stock awards from Southern in 2018 and 2019.
Southern was among the first companies to sue the Obama-era Environmental Protection Agency over the Clean Power Plan, claiming that its compliance timeline was too short and would cost them too much money. Its subsidiaries have spent considerable sums lobbying against climate-friendly policies at the state level with little transparency. Like many other utilities, Southern helped fund outright climate denial on its own and as a member of the Edison Electric Institute and the Global Climate Coalition. In 1991, Southern teamed up with the EEI to form the Information Council on the Environment, an ad campaign intended to “reposition global warming as theory (not fact).” A Freedom of Information request filed by Greenpeace and the Climate Investigations Center found that between 2006 and 2015, Southern spent $400,000 funding the largely debunked research of climate skeptic Wei-Hock “Willie” Soon, complementing donations from ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute. In exchange, Soon allowed Southern to review his work, which focuses mainly on the idea that the sun—rather than greenhouse gas emissions—is to blame for global warming. Southern CEO Tom Fanning has echoed this denial of human-driven global warming in recent years. “Is climate change happening? Certainly. It’s been happening for millennia,” Fanning told CNBC in 2017. Speaking together at a Bipartisan Policy Institute event in 2016, Fanning said he and Moniz were “kind of a tag team,” and the two traveled together on multiple occasions during Moniz’s time at DOE.
Moniz defended his ties to Southern last week after being asked about progressive criticism. “I do not agree with the characterization of the Southern Company as a fossil fuel company,” he told Axios’s Amy Harder, likening the assertion to the idea that “anybody who drives an internal combustion car is a fossil fuel company because they use them.”


newrepublic--2020-09-15--Why Aren’t Voters Blaming Donald Trump for the Bad Economy?

Even by Donald Trump ’ s standards , his September has been dismal .
No convention bump ; allegations that he called soldiers killed in the line of duty “ losers ” ; a bombshell Bob Woodward book in which Trump admitted , on the record , that he downplayed the severity of the Covid-19 pandemic .
Oh , and the pandemic is still killing a thousand Americans a day .
Recent polling has shown that Trump is trailing Biden in nearly every key metric : leadership , trust , even “ law and order , ” the president ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there is a silver lining for the president : Trump still has a slight polling edge on who is trusted more on the economy—despite the fact that the economy has careened into a recession under his watch .
Trump ’ s allies were quick to seize on this morsel of good news .
Speaking to Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday , senior campaign senior adviser Steve Cortes insisted it practically guaranteed re-election .
“ You know , there ’ s a lot of crosscurrents , of course , in 2020 , many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ singular , but I still believe that the ultimate driver of the electoral decision for most Americans is going to be what it typically is—who can create prosperity for me , for my family , and for this country going forward , ” Cortes said .
“ And on that score , the president has a compelling story to tell , particularly given the current economic renaissance that is unfolding in this country.
” Trump ’ s economic edge is beguiling to many .
Yes , the unemployment rate fell earlier this month @ @ @ @ @ @ @ eight percent .
The president has promised that the economy will take off “ like a rocket ship , ” but the recovery , to the extent it exists at all , has hardly been V-shaped .
At the same time , much of the economic success of his first term was inherited .
While Trump ’ s deregulation efforts and corporate tax cuts may have extended a booming economy , he took office amid a record expansion that began eight years earlier .
Trump is certainly given the benefit of the doubt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his upwardly redistributive economic policies , that tanked the economy , after all .
But he ’ s also proven that the oldest rule of elections—that the economy is usually the top issue for voters—may not be true , especially if the media is unable to convey the severity of the damage .

This story has been swallowed by a number of other convulsions, some big (George Floyd’s murder and the subsequent protests), some small (the daily horrors that appear on the president’s Twitter feed). When unemployment is covered, it tends to be in relation to the unemployment rate. This is understandable but also somewhat misleading. There are estimates that between six and nine million people have become permanently unemployed; 40 million, meanwhile, were food insecure before Covid-19 hit. Tens of millions are behind on the rent and could be facing eviction before year’s end. This crisis is deep and structural—not exactly the kind of issue that cable news gravitates toward.
Meanwhile, many unemployed people were buoyed by aid from Congress that has since expired, meaning the focus on the economy could return with a vengeance in the fall.
The media is highly responsive to political fights. At the moment, the two dominant themes of the presidential campaign—Trump’s law and order and Biden’s pandemic response—don’t directly touch on the economy. Congressional negotiations about stimulus and further unemployment relief receive some coverage, but because Democrats and Republicans are so far apart, and because people are so sick of Congress anyway, these stories also rarely break through. Unwilling to express moral outrage over the fate of the poor and unemployed, many in the media are dependent on others to do so for them.


newrepublic--2020-09-17--Bill Barr’s Titanic Lack of Self-Awareness

On Wednesday afternoon , The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported that Attorney General Bill Barr instructed federal prosecutors last week to pursue harsher charges against alleged rioters .
Among his reported suggestions was sedition , an archaic and extraordinary offense that implies the defendants were trying to overthrow the federal government .
According to the Times , he also floated possible charges against Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkin over policies she pursued toward protests that took place in her city over the summer .
On Wednesday night , Barr delivered a speech at Hillsdale College on “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” that doubled as a barely disguised defense of his two-year tenure as attorney general .
In it , he criticized unnamed Department of Justice officials for pursuing “ fuzzy and manipulable criminal prohibitions that maximize our options as prosecutors ” in recent years .
“ Advocating for clear and defined prohibitions will sometimes mean we can not bring charges against someone whom we believe engaged in questionable conduct , ” he explained .
“ We can not let our desire to prosecute ‘ bad ’ people turn us into the functional equivalent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inscribed criminal laws in tiny script atop a tall pillar where nobody could see them.
” Such is the nature of Bill Barr , who is either the least self-aware man to ever lead the Justice Department or simply the most deceptive attorney general in American history .
He perpetually casts himself as nothing more than a fair-minded servant of the law , dispassionately meting out justice without fear or favor .
But his actions—shutting down cases against President Donald Trump and his allies , hinting at charges against his perceived foes , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ disprove that image .
And the worst of Barr ’ s hypocrisy may be yet to come .
The bulk of Barr ’ s Hillsdale College speech sought to denigrate Justice Department prosecutors who pursued the Russia investigation and similar cases over the past four years .
He implicitly compared them to a praetorian guard “ that watches over society impervious to the ebbs and flows of politics , ” an allusion to the guard ’ s historical role in deposing and elevating later Roman emperors .
“ Smart , ambitious lawyers have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ public figures since the Roman Republic , ” he claimed .
“ It is utterly unsurprising that prosecutors continue to do so today to the extent the Justice Department ’ s leaders will permit it.
” To that end , Barr denounced what he described as a “ culture of criminalization ” when it came to politically oriented offenses .
This critique is striking given Barr ’ s draconian approach to the rest of federal criminal law .
But it makes more sense as a defense of his efforts to shield the Russia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He pushed for a lighter sentence for Roger Stone , who lied to Congress about the Russia investigation , over the protests and resignations of line prosecutors .
He oversaw an attempt to end the prosecution of Michael Flynn , Trump ’ s former national security adviser , despite Flynn ’ s guilty pleas for lying to the FBI .
In Barr ’ s implicit telling , he did not provide leniency to Trump ’ s allies , he merely shielded them from “ head-hunters ” in the Justice Department ranks .

At Hillsdale College, Barr complained that it has “become fashionable to argue that prosecutorial decisions are legitimate only when they are made by the lowest-level line prosecutor handling any given case.” But Barr’s critics aren’t concerned with his managerial skills as much as with his apparent eagerness to intervene in cases in ways that could boost Trump’s political fortunes. While attorneys general answer to the president, they are supposed to be ultimately loyal to the Constitution and the rule of law. Barr’s leniency toward Trump’s allies, as well as his zeal to pursue Trump’s perceived enemies, suggests his loyalties lie elsewhere.
Some Justice Department officials have complained, for example, that Barr appears to be hastening an antitrust probe of Google so it can go public before Election Day. He is also reportedly taking a similarly heavy-handed approach to U.S. attorney John Durham’s inquiry into the origins of the Russia investigation. When one of Durham’s top aides resigned earlier this month, The Hartford Courant reported that her departure was partly connected to pressure by Barr to produce public results in a probe into the Russia investigation’s origins before the election. The Justice Department even intervened this month in a defamation case brought against Trump personally by E. Jean Carroll, who accused him of sexually assaulting her in the mid-1990s, shortly after a state court judge allowed it to proceed.
Taken together, these moves suggest Barr is wielding the Justice Department’s immense resources for the president’s personal gain instead of the public good. At Hillsdale College, he appeared to reject the long-held notion that politics shouldn’t play a role in how the department operates. “The most basic check on prosecutorial power is politics,” he said. “It is counterintuitive to say that, as we rightly strive to maintain an apolitical system of criminal justice. But political accountability—politics—is what ultimately ensures our system does its work fairly and with proper recognition of the many interests and values at stake. Government power completely divorced from politics is tyranny.”


newrepublic--2020-09-17--The Cultural Permanence of Donald Trump

The Cultural Permanence of Donald Trump

It was in 2014 that the “ rolling coal ” phenomenon was first brought to our attention .
Conservative drivers , a flurry of articles reported that summer , had taken to modifying their trucks to produce comically large and thick plumes of black smoke that were often directed at the drivers of eco-friendly vehicles—a middle finger to not only the environmentally conscious but the Obama administration , environmental regulations , and liberalism broadly speaking .
In one piece , Slate ’ s David Weigel placed the trend alongside other Obama-era displays of political petulance on the right , from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nutrition initiatives to the campaigns against environmentally friendly fluorescent lightbulbs .
“ The liberals seem a little surprised that conspicuous consumption—waste , even—could be a method of protest , ” he wrote .
“ They shouldn ’ t be.
” Liberals also shouldn ’ t have been surprised to see the attitudes behind those protests carried over into the Trump era .
Brian Beutler drew a direct line between the practice and the Trump administration ’ s moves against environmental regulations for The New Republic in 2017 .
“ The question of whether @ @ @ @ @ @ @ off liberals has become a disturbingly reliable indicator of what President Donald Trump is likely to do and how Republicans in Congress are likely to defend it , ” he wrote .
“ Trump ’ s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement—and the way he made it—reflects the rolling-coal mindset of his administration perfectly.
” But the rolling-coal mentality lives on , not only in the Trump administration ’ s policies and the behavior of Trump himself , but in a right-wing culture that ’ s sprouted up around him—a culture @ @ @ @ @ @ @ taking the place of a traditional political campaign this cycle and that seems certain to endure no matter who wins the election in November .
On Tuesday , a group of anti-mask demonstrators paraded through a Target in Fort Lauderdale , Florida , urging shoppers to take off their masks as Twisted Sister ’ s “ We ’ re Not Going to Take It ” blared from a speaker .
A video of their antics has been seen over 30 million times on Twitter .
“ This is not Communist China , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the freedom to walk into a store without a mask like Saudi Arabia .
This is the United States of America , and we ’ re here to remind you of that.
” Tuesday was evidently “ Burn Your Mask Day , ” a social media–promoted event that saw , according to Infowars , “ good-hearted citizens torching their government or corporate-mandated face diapers in a show of defiance against the Coronavirus ‘ Scamdemic ’ threatening the freedom and future of humanity.
” It ’ s unclear how many people actually participated , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we ’ ve seen across the country over the past several months have regularly drawn hundreds of participants .
Earlier this week , a local news report on an August anti-mask protest in Utah went viral thanks to incredulous tweets about how close the demonstrators had come to self-parody .
One protester claimed that “ child molesters ” are fans of the mask mandate ; another compared wearing a mask to the chokehold that killed George Floyd : “ When George Floyd was saying ‘ I can ’ t breathe ’ and then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re wearing a mask , and we say ‘ I can ’ t breathe , ’ but we ’ re being forced to wear it anyway .
”

Support for Donald Trump and the Republican Party is as much, if not more, a cultural practice as it is an abstract political stance or a reflection of clear policy preferences.
In general, the anti-mask demonstrations make the huge pro-Trump boat parades of the last few weeks and the conservative vogue for consumer activism—Nike bad, Goya good—seem sane and sober by comparison. But they’re all animated by the same impulse and evidence of the same tendency: Support for Donald Trump and the Republican Party is as much, if not more, a cultural practice as it is an abstract political stance or a reflection of clear policy preferences. The weirdness of it all has been attributed variously to the conservative movement’s long history of conspiratorialism and the reality-distorting effects of social media. But another factor may be the collapse of the religious right. For decades, the conservative movement’s cultural grievances were aired by a network of churches, nonprofits, and advocacy groups—institutions that produced formal leaders and enforced message discipline.
While the fights against gay marriage and abortion have been characterized by extreme rhetoric and action, they’ve also been characterized by a unity of purpose, and they’re animated by a body of ideas and principles that, at least putatively, stand outside of politics rather than an impulse to simply push those buttons that reliably annoy liberals. And although evangelicals view Trump as a defender of the faith, it is inescapably true that his candidacy and presidency have accelerated the replacement of the right’s holy order with a vast secular messaging infrastructure built atop nothing but spite. The preachers are out; pundits, social media influencers, and a bizarre menagerie of out-and-out grifters are in.
Unlike Trump, the right’s cultural sphere can’t be defeated in any real way and might grow even stronger under a Biden administration, just as it did under the Obama administration. This is partially because the forces of reaction are empowered by perceived marginalization and partially because the new culture wars are being driven far less by confused seniors on Facebook than liberals tend to imagine. Trump is fairly strong with Gen Xers and enjoys the support of millions of young people: The ranks of the QAnon candidates and the likes of Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens should assure us that Trumpism and its attendant micromovements won’t simply age away. We can expect more wackiness and, grimly, more violence well into the future; extremists worked into a froth by the new culture wars have killed and will assuredly kill again. Before long, in fact, we might find ourselves pining for a time when the loudest voices on the right only wanted to own the libs.


newrepublic--2020-09-17--Behind Every Republican Man

Behind Every Republican Man

Joni Culver was born in Iowa in 1970 and raised by a mother who felt , at times , isolated by a farm life spent cooking and cleaning .
At seven , asked as part of a second-grade project to name a potential career , the future U.S. senator offered three—Nurse , Farmer ’ s Wife , and Miss America .
By the time she was a high school junior in Coke-bottle glasses and braces , Miss America seemed a less plausible outcome , and Joni was unduly grateful for the attention of a classmate who soon became her boyfriend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ front of her friends , she made excuses for him .
When she was accepted to Iowa State , he was displeased , and when she returned home during her second semester , he raped her .
Joni joined the ROTC .
It was in this capacity that she met Gail Ernst , a divorced Army supervisor 17 years her senior .
When they married , she followed him to Savannah , Georgia , where she sold women ’ s shoes at a mall .
While her husband was overseas , she told @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the ultrasound technician told her she was having a girl , she worried he would be very disappointed .
They moved back to Iowa , and Joni joined the National Guard .
She was promoted in 2002 , the only woman officer .
Male officers found her presence disconcerting .
“ I ’ m sorry , ” one told her later .
“ I just didn ’ t know how to mentor a woman.
” In 2003 , when her daughter was still a toddler , she was deployed for a full year @ @ @ @ @ @ @ charged with trucking missiles and mail and mattresses to the front .
A commander from another battalion repeatedly came on to her ; there was no one to whom she could report him .
A group of troops hung around the female shower trailer , taking pictures when a door opened .
When she—a captain—told them to stop , they ignored her .
Back in Iowa , her service as a lieutenant colonel in the National Guard was low-status within the military , which ate at her .
She found that when she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ husband , he interrupted her to share stories of his own .
He joked about killing his ex .
What does it mean to be a Republican woman running for office in 2020 ?
There are currently 13 Republican women in the House .
There are 16 Republican House members named “ Michael ” or “ Mike.
” More Republican women than ever before are running , but they face such improbable paths to elected office that in November their numbers will improve only slightly , if at all .
This is largely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them .
“ On the Republican side , there is this misconception that it is somebody ’ s ‘ turn , ’ ” said Julie Conway of VIEW PAC , a political action committee that exclusively supports Republican women , “ and there are a lot more guys in the state House or Senate or mayors of towns waiting for the congressmen to retire than there are women.
” “ Unless all the cards are falling right for you , ” said Jennifer Lim , founder of the nonprofit Republican Women for Progress @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the party is running , usually an old white guy named Greg or Mike , or maybe a young white guy named Greg or Mike.
” But it ’ s bleaker than just a sclerotic system intent on perpetuating itself , because Republican primaries involve Republican voters .
A survey conducted by Republican Women for Progress found that 71 percent of Republican voters do not think the current number of women in Congress to be a problem , which is simply to say voters do not see electing more women as a worthwhile @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recruitment for the National Republican Congressional Committee , New York Representative Elise Stefanik recruited 100 Republican women to run .
Ninety-nine of them lost .
* Given their numbers , Republican women have little power , as a bloc , in Congress .
They get less credit when they speak out against the president , and are criticized more when they fall in line , a rule to which this profile is no exception .
Republican women must appear feminine , but not too feminine , and while they must overcome the mundane @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can not generally appeal to gender as a source of competence , which would be seen as playing identity politics .
The Republican women running in 2020 have a certain sheen , as if they have just walked off set .
They are asked to be everything at once ; “ Mother , Soldier , Leader , ” reads Joni Ernst ’ s web page , though traditional Midwestern motherhood and concurrent military service are presumably in tension .
It is harder to get Republican women to run , and when they do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ average , to defeat them .
Democrats are in fact spending millions to replace Iowa ’ s junior senator with first-time candidate Theresa Greenfield , and it may work ; as of late August , Greenfield and Ernst are tied .
Joni Ernst is a woman fighting to keep her seat at a time when women are abandoning her party en masse , among colleagues for whom recruiting women is not a priority , appealing to voters for whom the scope of acceptable female identity is contracting .
A county auditor is an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ county ’ s books .
At a 2003 budget meeting in Montgomery County , Iowa , tension over budgetary matters was sufficiently high that the sitting auditor , 50-year-old Connie Magnuson , appears to have punched the county supervisor , a 52-year-old woman , in the shoulder .
( Magnuson ’ s lawyer claimed it was a “ tap.
” ) According to Ernst , the GOP approached her husband and her mother while she was overseas to ask whether she might run for auditor against Magnuson .
This kind of tale is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a woman clean of ambition rising to power by doing a series of favors for other people .
Ernst won , removed the deadbolts and security cameras her paranoid predecessor had installed in the office , and by all accounts ably defused the drama surrounding the job .
While she was working , Ernst came to believe , her husband was having an affair with their daughter ’ s babysitter .
Standing on the landing of the stairs in their home in Red Oak , she confronted him , at which point , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ neck , threw her down , and pounded her head into the floor .

Joni Culver was born in Iowa in 1970 and raised by a mother who felt, at times, isolated by a farm life spent cooking and cleaning. At seven, asked as part of a second-grade project to name a potential career, the future U.S. senator offered three—Nurse, Farmer’s Wife, and Miss America. By the time she was a high school junior in Coke-bottle glasses and braces, Miss America seemed a less plausible outcome, and Joni was unduly grateful for the attention of a classmate who soon became her boyfriend. When this boyfriend hit her in front of her friends, she made excuses for him. When she was accepted to Iowa State, he was displeased, and when she returned home during her second semester, he raped her. Joni joined the ROTC. It was in this capacity that she met Gail Ernst, a divorced Army supervisor 17 years her senior. When they married, she followed him to Savannah, Georgia, where she sold women’s shoes at a mall. While her husband was overseas, she told him she was pregnant, and when the ultrasound technician told her she was having a girl, she worried he would be very disappointed.
They moved back to Iowa, and Joni joined the National Guard. She was promoted in 2002, the only woman officer. Male officers found her presence disconcerting. “I’m sorry,” one told her later. “I just didn’t know how to mentor a woman.” In 2003, when her daughter was still a toddler, she was deployed for a full year to Kuwait, where her unit was charged with trucking missiles and mail and mattresses to the front. A commander from another battalion repeatedly came on to her; there was no one to whom she could report him. A group of troops hung around the female shower trailer, taking pictures when a door opened. When she—a captain—told them to stop, they ignored her. Back in Iowa, her service as a lieutenant colonel in the National Guard was low-status within the military, which ate at her. She found that when she tried to tell war stories to her husband, he interrupted her to share stories of his own. He joked about killing his ex.
What does it mean to be a Republican woman running for office in 2020? There are currently 13 Republican women in the House. There are 16 Republican House members named “Michael” or “Mike.” More Republican women than ever before are running, but they face such improbable paths to elected office that in November their numbers will improve only slightly, if at all. This is largely because the party apparatus does not support them. “On the Republican side, there is this misconception that it is somebody’s ‘turn,’” said Julie Conway of VIEW PAC, a political action committee that exclusively supports Republican women, “and there are a lot more guys in the state House or Senate or mayors of towns waiting for the congressmen to retire than there are women.” “Unless all the cards are falling right for you,” said Jennifer Lim, founder of the nonprofit Republican Women for Progress, “there will be someone else the party is running, usually an old white guy named Greg or Mike, or maybe a young white guy named Greg or Mike.” But it’s bleaker than just a sclerotic system intent on perpetuating itself, because Republican primaries involve Republican voters. A survey conducted by Republican Women for Progress found that 71 percent of Republican voters do not think the current number of women in Congress to be a problem, which is simply to say voters do not see electing more women as a worthwhile goal. When she was head of recruitment for the National Republican Congressional Committee, New York Representative Elise Stefanik recruited 100 Republican women to run. Ninety-nine of them lost.*


newrepublic--2020-09-17--Corporate America and QAnon’s Joint Mission to Let the World Burn

The Republican Party this week is looking like a house divided on climate change : Specifically , it seems split between business interests who want at least the veneer of corporate responsibility and ideologues who think global warming is a conspiracy to make white men feel guilty .
Visiting a burning California on Monday , Donald Trump suggested that the planet will “ start getting cooler , ” doubling down on a brand of old-school climate denial that he ’ d recently seemed to be pivoting away from , given that he banned oil drilling off the coast of Florida @ @ @ @ @ @ @ broke earlier this week that the Trump administration has appointed the prominent climate skeptic David Legates to a senior post at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration .
In the broader conservative media scene , Tucker Carlson and Rush Limbaugh have been railing against “ environmentalist wackos , ” who “ want to convince you that your lifestyle choices are the reason why all these fires are firing up out on the Left Coast.
” The comments came amid the most active hurricane season since 2005 , and after the hottest summer on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conspiracy theorists , whose crackpot views have gained traction in the GOP recently , with positive shout-outs from Trump and other prominent Republicans , have blamed West Coast blazes on antifa , with “ Q ” having apparently suggested ( falsely ) that wildfires were the result of “ highly coordinated … domestic terrorism.
” Meanwhile , on Wednesday morning , the Business Roundtable—a big-spending and typically conservative-leaning trade association—announced its support for Congress to pass some kind of “ market-based mechanism ” to handle carbon emissions , though it didn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mechanisms refers to either a carbon tax or a carbon trading system like cap-and-trade .
It also got behind a goal of “ reducing net U.S. GHG emissions by at least 80 percent from 2005 levels by 2050.
” At first glance , then , it seems there ’ s growing daylight between the business elements of the Republican Party and its more freewheeling base .
But the gap between corporate conservatives and conspiracy theorists isn ’ t as big as the former might like you to believe .
Among the Roundtable ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( from ExxonMobil ’ s Darren Woods to Chevron ’ s Mike Wirth ) that have spent years funneling money to climate-denier groups that crafted the lines Trump ’ s been spouting about the wildfires this week .
Whatever their lobbying arms suggest about most oil majors ’ token interest in renewables , these companies ’ core business model is still actively fueling the problem .
Some of the biggest polluters represented at the Roundtable—including ExxonMobil—have nominally backed the idea of putting some kind of price on carbon , maybe , at some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ real possibility of a Biden administration on the horizon , the Business Roundtable ’ s announcement should be understood as a well-publicized hedging of bets .
It isn ’ t the first time corporate polluters have done this .
ConocoPhillips , for instance—whose CEO Ryan Lance sits on the Business Roundtable—was an early member of the U.S .
Climate Action Partnership when it launched in 2007 as a coalition between big Beltway green groups and big business .
Amid growing public concern about the issue and a tremendously unpopular Republican president , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ climate package looked increasingly likely as Election Day 2008 neared .

Savvy oil and gas producers—in addition to GOP nominee John McCain and the handful of Republicans who released dead-end climate bills in the Bush administration’s second term—conceded that global warming was a problem that needed to be dealt with, while aggressively attempting to define and limit the options for dealing with it. The result was a 2009 cap-and-trade bill that—while not without redeeming qualities—would have gutted the regulatory authority of the Environmental Protection Agency. As soon as the proposal lost its wind in Congress, several of the polluting companies this element of the bill was designed to please jumped ship anyway, along with its most prominent Republican supporters.
Let’s assume, momentarily, at least, that this time the magnates of the Business Roundtable are genuinely interested in reining in emissions at the rapid pace that the climate crisis requires. Let’s stretch the imagination on another front, and imagine that their favored carbon pricing mechanisms are the best way to do that. Even assuming all this, the Republican Party that business leaders have been working to craft since the days of the New Deal does not seem interested in any such legislation.
Climate could become an increasingly chaotic problem for conservative elites moving forward. It’s not clear whether big business interests or even the Tea Party insurgents they backed are capable of hemming in the full-blown QAnon conspiracy-theorist wing of the party they’ve unleashed, who, come next year, are almost certain to take up their first offices on Capitol Hill, given a QAnon supporter’s recent primary victory in Georgia. After almost a century of business elites fueling conspiracy thinking about everything from Cold War anti-communism to cigarette smoke to climate denial, they’ve created a monster. Trump is just a piece of it. Some Republicans, at least, seem worried. E&E News’s Scott Waldman reported Wednesday that Trump’s California remarks alarmed GOP strategists, who, like most fossil fuel companies, aren’t interested in straight-up climate denial anymore given how public opinion is shifting, particularly among young voters.


newrepublic--2020-09-17--ICE Is the New Face of America’s Legacy of Forced Sterilization

Earlier this week , multiple human rights organizations filed a complaint on behalf of women detained at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Georgia .
Based on accounts from detainees and corroborated by a nurse who worked at the facility , the Irwin County Detention Center , the complaint alleges multiple examples of substandard medical care , particularly around coronavirus prevention and treatment .
But what has drawn the most public outcry is allegations of what has been described as mass hysterectomies or sterilizations .
“ When I met all these women who had had surgeries , I thought @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It was like they ’ re experimenting with our bodies , ” one detained immigrant told Project South , one of the groups who filed the complaint .
She said she knew of five other women detained with her at ICDC who said they had undergone hysterectomies between October and December 2019 .
“ I ’ ve had several inmates tell me that they ’ ve been to see the doctor and they ’ ve had hysterectomies and they don ’ t know why they went or why they ’ re going @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nurse who worked at ICDC and has now come forward as a whistleblower , as quoted in the complaint .
“ We ’ ve questioned among ourselves like goodness he ’ s taking everybody ’ s stuff out.… That ’ s his specialty , he ’ s the uterus collector.
” Since the complaint was made public , further specifics have been reported—one physician involved , more women ’ s allegations—and others are still emerging .
Detained women face risks and complications if they speak to the media , so what we know @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is not clear how many have had hysterectomies , and if that was part of an explicit policy or widespread pattern at this detention center or possibly others .
What we do know is horrific and , as health care providers and experts have noted , part of a troubling history of reproductive coercion , one that remains with us .
The immigration detention system is part of this American system of population control .
The ideology of population control for the greater good is deeply embedded in U.S. policy , explained Dorothy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the University of Pennsylvania and author of Killing the Black Body : Race , Reproduction , and the Meaning of Liberty , speaking by phone this week after the ICE story broke .
“ To discourage childbearing by people who are receiving government public assistance—that ’ s written into laws in many states.
” Efforts to expand women ’ s reproductive choices have been entangled , too , with this ideology .
“ The origins of the movement for birth control is both a feminist movement and a eugenicist movement , and that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and ’ 30s , and was only discredited after the Nazi exterminations and their regime of eugenics.
” But in the United States , the eugenics project goes back further— “ built on top of the enslavement of African people and the denial of their reproductive autonomy altogether.
” Roberts said she sees the same ideology of reproductive control in the present-day policies and practices targeting immigrants , like family separation and now , allegedly , coercive hysterectomies .
“ Both forced sterilization and the forcible taking of children have been weapons the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years , ” she told The New Republic .
“ Both are political weapons that the U.S. government has used against marginalized groups for political reasons—to terrorize them , to punish them , and to marginalize them further .
”

Not far from the Irwin County Detention Center, where detained immigrant women were reportedly sterilized, there are living survivors of state eugenics programs fighting still for recognition and accountability. North Carolina sterilized more than 7,500 of its residents between 1929 and 1974. The state Eugenics Board deemed 14-year-old Elaine Riddick “feeble-minded” and “promiscuous,” after she was raped and impregnated. After giving birth, she was sterilized; consent was given by her grandmother, who was illiterate. Eighty-five percent of those the state sterilized in that period were women, and 40 percent were Black or Indigenous. Just six years ago, in 2014, the state began paying reparations to those survivors. A paper published this year in the American Review of Political Economy showed that the number of forced sterilizations was higher in counties with higher numbers of nonworking Black residents, and concluded that the state’s program was designed to “breed out” Black people, “genocide by any other name.”
Coercive sterilizations have continued up through the last decade in California state prisons. A Reveal/Center for Investigative Reporting investigation identified nearly 150 women incarcerated by the state from 2006 to 2010 were sterilized without required state approvals. A state audit later found that in more than a quarter of tubal ligations performed around that time, there were deficiencies in the informed consent procedure, though the number may be higher—records had been purged in one facility. One ob-gyn, Dr. James Heinrich, was responsible for dozens of sterilizations. He told Reveal the surgeries were a good deal for the state, “compared to what you save in welfare paying for these unwanted children—as they procreated more.”
The complaint concerning the Georgia ICE detention center referred to one gynecologist as being a “uterus collector.” He was unnamed, but Tina Vasquez at Prism has identified him as gynecologist Mahendra Amin, affiliated with Coffee Regional Medical Center and Irwin County Hospital in Georgia. “It is unclear if Amin is financially benefiting from the procedures,” Vasquez reported. “The gynecologist was once a co-defendant in a lawsuit in which he and other doctors were ordered to pay more than half a million dollars to resolve allegations that they caused false claims to be submitted to Medicare and Medicaid.” But regardless of motive, the economic and justice issues around sterilization are intertwined, whether providers are profiting directly or believe they are saving the public money; in either case, they are acting on a population of women who have been made available to them as a matter of state policy.


newrepublic--2020-09-17--Why Does The Washington Post Publish This Never-Trump Drivel?

Three weeks ago , as protests against police violence raged in Kenosha , Wisconsin , and Portland , Oregon , Never Trumpers had a stern warning for Joe Biden : Condemn the violence or lose the election .
Never mind that Biden had condemned rioting and looting , repeatedly , for months .
If he didn ’ t find a Sister Souljah moment—a reference to Bill Clinton ’ s dog-whistle attack on a virtually unknown rapper in 1992—and assert “ independence ” from the progressive left , argued George Will in The Washington Post , he could be in serious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moment when polls showed Biden and Donald Trump inching toward one another .
Trump ’ s favorability even appeared to flutter upward .
Given the role that riots played in the 1968 election , the assumption was that what was true 50 years ago was also true today : Urban violence helps the Republican law and order man and hurts the weak-kneed Democrat .
It didn ’ t matter that America has changed significantly since then , or that the Republican law and order man , in this case , is the incumbent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Three weeks later , those calls seem opportunistic .
Pundits like Will waited for a moment of maximum bed-wetting to insist that a Democrat campaign like a Jeb Bush Republican .
But the feared collapse of Biden ’ s campaign hasn ’ t happened ; indeed , polling has showed that voters favor Biden over Trump on the issue of law and order .
So what ’ s a political hack to do ?
Earlier this week , Danielle Pletka provided an answer : Ignore all the evidence and keep insisting , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do more to placate conservatives .
Her op-ed in The Washington Post , headlined “ I never considered voting for Trump in 2016 .
I may be forced to vote for him this year , ” is not just another example of the rot at the core of what ’ s left of the conservative movement .
It ’ s also the clearest sign yet that the Biden campaign can afford to dial back its significant overtures to figures like Pletka , and that media institutions like the Post op-ed page need to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ incoherent drivel by bad-faith conservatives .
Pletka casts herself as your standard Never Trump figure , a sensible Republican who is repulsed by Trump ’ s “ erratic , personality-driven decision-making ” and disgusting personality .
“ I don ’ t need a bumper sticker or a lawn sign to convey my distaste for Trump—his odious tweets , his chronic mendacity and general crudeness , ” she writes .
Joe Biden , in contrast , is a “ decent ” person .
This juxtaposition would seemingly be enough for a Never Trumper—particularly a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who is appalled whenever vulgarity and politics align—to make the right choice .

But, alas, there are greater evils than megalomania, constant lying, and several credible allegations of sexual harassment and assault. Something sinister is afoot on the left. Joe Biden, she writes, would be a Manchurian president, a Trojan Horse containing an army of leftist boogeymen. He “would be a figurehead president, incapable of focus or leadership, who would run a teleprompter presidency with the words drafted by his party’s hard-left ideologues,” she writes. This 77-year-old lifetime moderate and former vice president known for his across-the-aisle backslapping and advocacy on behalf of the credit card industry is little more than a stooge of the Squad.
This argument channels—coincidentally, I’m sure—the president’s own. It’s an op-ed that works by omission, to the extent it works at all. Pletka proudly lists her anti-Trump bona fides—which basically start and end at not voting for him in 2016 and thinking he’s gross—but neglects to mention that she was also proudly “Never Hillary.” Her own career as a far-right political operative who worked for segregationist Jesse Helms also goes unmentioned. Biden’s political career is memory-holed, as is his bedrock identity as a moderate, beyond being “decent.”
Also skipped over is the fact that Biden, arguably the most moderate candidate in the Democratic primary race, bested a number of progressives in his path to the nomination. Why would Biden exert so much energy running against Medicare for All and the party’s left wing only to bow to it once he reaches the White House?


From I to We

The Upswing , Robert Putnam and Shaylyn Romney Garrett ’ s ambitious new study of American Progressivism found and lost , opens with a disturbing vision .
If Alexis de Tocqueville , who chronicled the flowering of American democracy in the 1830s , were transported into the present , the authors imagine , this is what he would see : an inordinate and grotesque segregation of the population by class ; an economy ruled by corporate monopolies , gaining ever-greater power through mergers and acquisitions ; workers powerless to negotiate for themselves amid the suppression of labor unions ; and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to make money for their shareholders , acting with little or no regard for any public interest .
He would see the transmutation of corporate financial power into inordinate political power , undermining the machinery of democracy and leading to a pervading disillusionment among the citizenry .
Much as Virgil was for Dante in the Inferno , Tocqueville serves as Putnam and Garrett ’ s guide through the hell of contemporary American social , economic , and political life .
He would perceive the ideology of extreme individualism and pure self-interest in , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that is propelling the country toward an ecological crisis of disastrous proportions .
He would weep as he traveled throughout the land and discovered a population in the throes of widespread drug usage , alcohol abuse , and suffering through a plague of what the economists Angus Deaton and Anne Case have called “ deaths of despair.
” Above all , he would observe the evaporation of the public-mindedness he had hailed as America ’ s saving grace in the 1830s .
When Tocqueville , whom Putnam has called “ the patron saint @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his native France to the United States in 1831 , he was struck by the propensity of Americans to form multiple , overlapping private associations .
These private associations were one of the pillars of the American system of government , he argued in his classic study Democracy in America .
They provided a buffer between citizens and their government ( hence , contemporary social scientists have dubbed them “ intermediary associations ” ) .
Voluntary associations also helped citizens develop the skills of deliberation , mutual trust , and debate that allowed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ world .
In Tocqueville ’ s view , these social groupings served to balance the extremely individualistic nature of the American character , creating an integrated political perspective he called “ self-interest rightly understood.
” He found Americans of the time keenly interested in and well informed about political issues , unlike most Americans of today .
The disappearance of these virtues from society , Putnam and Garrett point out , is not without precedent .
There is a conceit hidden within their lengthy opening survey of inequalities : It is a portrait @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also of America in the Gilded Age at the end of the nineteenth century , another period of our history marked by extreme disparities of wealth and widespread social and political unrest .
We have succeeded , the writers are demonstrating , in creating a new Gilded Age .
The problems that we face today are the same challenges that confronted the first era of Progressive reform more than a century ago .
Between the first Gilded Age and ours , The Upswing proposes , there was a lengthy period—almost three-quarters of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the opposite direction .
This positive momentum of social change was set in motion by the Progressive movement of the first two decades of the twentieth century—a striking legacy of reform that is largely overlooked in standard historical analysis .
What ’ s more , if the first Progressives of the early twentieth century could reverse the course of history as they did , the authors contend , we of the early twenty-first century can do the same .
That is the message they wish to impart to Americans of today , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the American left .
We have the capability to re-create an American civic community .

A moral reawakening, assuming it can be achieved, must then be translated into effective citizen activism. The citizen organizers of the Progressive years took an innovative and open-ended approach to addressing the problems they confronted, with no prior assumptions about how to go about solving them, Putnam and Garrett explain. “No hard-and-fast rule can be laid down,” instructed Theodore Roosevelt in 1901, “as to the way such work must be done.” In the same vein, Putnam and Garrett write that “Progressivism didn’t privilege one type of reform over another, but was instead a holistic reorganizing of society that began at the bottom and was based on a reinvigoration of shared values.” They contrast this political modality with that of socialism, with its rigid, prefabricated solutions designed to be imposed from above, whether democratically or not.
The creative citizen activism that the authors advocate must then burgeon into a “groundswell of agitation,” they stipulate. Today’s nascent movement of citizen resistance is led, they insist, “not by far-left political operatives, as many have supposed, but by everyday people working on problems central to their own lives,” who, they note, just as in the Progressive era, are primarily middle-aged, middle-class, college-educated women. Ultimately, though, this agitation, no matter how spirited and well-intentioned, will come to naught if it does not result in the legislative enactment of concrete and effective policies and programs. And the youthful would-be organizers of a new Progressive movement need to bear that uppermost in mind.
The political anthropologist David Graeber has postulated that imagination—the ability to envision a better future for society, as a guide to action—is the foremost intellectual talent of the left, and he has expressed exasperation that there is so little imaginative thinking on the American left today. The Upswing serves as a call to the generations who have succeeded the baby-boomers to imagine a better future for the American project, and to pursue it. Rather than focusing on the tension between generations—the “OK Boomer” divide—the authors encourage young people to look for an earlier precedent for themselves. They remind us that the problems of today with which the new generations must grapple—the skyrocketing costs of health care, the weakness of environmental regulations, the power of corporate monopolies, and the urgent need for campaign finance reform—are almost exactly the same as those that confronted the original Progressives in their day, even if the solutions to these problems must be new and different ones. The faculty of imagination must be commandeered to create a new civic community for America.


newrepublic--2020-09-16--Let Congress Barge Into ICE Detention Camps

It is hard to choose the worst story of the Trump era , but a whistleblower complaint filed on Monday with the Department of Homeland Security ’ s inspector general is surely among them .
The complaint , which was brought by a coalition of legal advocacy and human rights groups in the South , focuses on alleged medical misconduct at the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia , which houses people detained for immigration violations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement .
It describes a litany of health and safety failures at the facility , including insufficient Covid-19 precautions , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and falsification of medical records , and more .
The most searing allegations of misconduct came from former nurse Dawn Wooten , who claims that multiple detained women were taken to a gynecologist who performed hysterectomies on them without their informed consent .
“ I ’ ve had several inmates tell me that they ’ ve been to see the doctor and they ’ ve had hysterectomies and they don ’ t know why they went or why they ’ re going , ” she recounted in the complaint .
There is a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forced sterilizations , which rank among the gravest possible violations of a person ’ s bodily integrity and dignity .
These matters cry out for the attention of lawmakers , but a key lesson of the Trump era is that they may need to take action to redouble their own oversight powers .
Reactions on Capitol Hill have been understandably intense since the story broke .
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders described the reports as “ simply horrifying ” and said they “ must be investigated by Congress and anyone responsible must be held @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Representative Ayanna Pressley also demanded congressional investigations into what she described as “ horrendous human rights abuses ” at the Georgia facility .
“ The fact of the matter is the United States has engaged in a program of mass human rights violations targeting immigrants , ” New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter .
“ Our country must atone for it all.
” One of the strongest statements , at least at first , came from Speaker Nancy Pelosi .
“ If true , the appalling conditions described in the whistleblower @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on vulnerable immigrant women—are a staggering abuse of human rights , ” she said .
“ This profoundly disturbing situation recalls some of the darkest moments of our nation ’ s history , from the exploitation of Henrietta Lacks , to the horror of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study , to the forced sterilizations of Black women that Fannie Lou Hamer and so many others underwent and fought.
” But things went awry when the top Democratic politician in America began talking about next steps .
Though the House of Representatives has both the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Pelosi fell short of promising or even threatening to invoke that power .
“ The DHS Inspector General must immediately investigate the allegations detailed in this complaint , ” Pelosi said .
“ Congress and the American people need to know why and under what conditions so many women , reportedly without their informed consent , were pushed to undergo this extremely invasive and life-altering procedure .
”

Punting the case to the DHS inspector general does not reflect the gravity of the allegations, which warrant Congress’s swiftest possible direct attention. Pelosi’s demand was largely superfluous considering the allegations became public as part of a complaint to the inspector general. What’s more, it expressed a level of confidence in inspectors general that they may no longer deserve. Though they were designed to act as quasi-independent watchdogs of the executive branch, Trump successfully purged more than a half-dozen of them in the months following his impeachment trial in the Senate, raising concerns about improper political influence in the process.
We’ve been here before with Pelosi. Along with passage of the Affordable Care Act, one of her defining moments as speaker of the House will be the impeachment of President Donald Trump. But even that momentous use of congressional authority came after she had spent most of the year defying calls for a more aggressive tack against Trump, even after Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report laid out a case for obstruction of justice charges in the Russia investigation. Pelosi eventually threw her weight behind an impeachment inquiry in the Ukraine scandal, but only after almost all of her caucus had already backed it.
There’s a fine line between caution and timidity. The full weight of Congress’s oversight powers can be a formidable tool when wielded properly, even despite Trump’s best efforts to defang them since 2018. Just last month, intense scrutiny by lawmakers successfully pressured Postmaster General Louis DeJoy into halting his disruptive reorganization of the U.S. Postal Service months before the presidential election. Congressional investigations can establish a basic historical record and collect facts that might be used in future criminal investigations. Not even Congress can undo what was allegedly done, but it can provide some official recognition that it was wrong and should never be repeated.


newrepublic--2020-09-16--We Work in Climate Justice. Our Office Burned Down, Thanks to Climate Change.

Our office burned down last Tuesday .
The little green and white rented bungalow along Route 99 was filled with art , houseplants , laughter , and sometimes tears .
It was a meeting place for Latinx youth to have coffee and organize climate justice events in their community .
We built folding desks so we could fill the space with volunteers while campaigning against the fracked gas pipeline a Canadian company is trying to ram through Oregon ’ s forests .
Now those walls and desks are all rubble , still hot to the touch .
As part of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ organization with an office in Phoenix , Oregon , we ’ ve fought for years not just against fossil fuel projects changing our climate but also to demand justice for those in our community most affected by that warming : Latinx essential workers and their families facing hazardous working conditions and Covid-19 , low-income rural residents plagued by rolling blackouts , and tribal members watching the salmon runs vital to their diet and culture dwindle in warming rivers .
On Tuesday , the Almeda fire raging through Southern Oregon took out the very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fights .
Many of our staff and volunteers have been evacuated ; some have lost their homes .
In the past few days , we ’ ve been out on the streets in the thick , gray smoke , getting food , water , cell phone chargers , hand sanitizer , tents , and blankets to people who have lost everything they owned .
Climate change has doubled the number of fires in the West in one generation : Even if the Almeda fire was started by a human , it was fanned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and windy conditions that climate change is producing .
Scientists have known about the link for decades .
The Environmental Protection Agency warned Congress in 1989 that “ the incidence of catastrophic wildfires will increase in U.S. forests with higher temperatures.
” 1989 was 31 years ago , before either of us was born .
And yet our government has done almost nothing to stop the pollution warming the world and fueling the fires .
The fracking and drilling has continued .
The CEO of Pembina , the company that wants to run @ @ @ @ @ @ @ home to the Jordan Cove LNG export terminal , emitting nearly 40 million tons of carbon dioxide a year , took home $ 7 million in 2018 .
In contrast , the median household income in Phoenix is $ 41,753 a year .
In nearby Talent , it is $ 33,244 .
The fire ran through both towns along Route 99 , torching apartment buildings , mobile and manufactured homes .
Thousands are unhoused .
Two are dead .

When people say climate change is real, this is what they mean. We can see it, smell it, feel it in our lungs as a dull ache. 2020 has presented multiple existential threats, disproportionately leveled at Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color: The fire is the latest in a long line, from police brutality to tear gas at protests to a mismanaged pandemic—and now an entire coast wreathed in smoke. The fight itself hasn’t changed: There’s merely an extra step after a day spent handing out emergency supplies, washing the ashes out of our hair before sleep and another day ahead.
We need bold climate action at the federal level. But there’s also an urgent need for each community to take action into its own hands. Local climate justice in Southern Oregon means fighting for the Oregon Green New Deal, to stop the Jordan Cove liquid natural gas export terminal, and to build a community that can be resilient in the face of climate chaos. In Southern Oregon that means Indigenous land management that can restore the salmon populations and oversee controlled burns to keep new homes from going up in smoke, agricultural workers protected from working in soaring temperatures and smoke-filled air, a solar economy that can support jobs for a new generation, and young and racially diverse climate leaders to lead it. The histories and patterns of injustice may differ elsewhere, requiring different solutions.
In the short term, it is going to be tough to realize that vision without an office. But we’ve already learned a lot about operating virtually from the pandemic. We will adapt. We’ve been working in crisis from the very beginning: Climate change has always been a crisis. We have so much work to do. We know that when the skies clear, more people here in Southern Oregon will come and join us to fight together for our futures. We are going to need a bigger office.


newrepublic--2020-09-16--The Good Life That Keynes Promised America Got Stolen

A century ago , economic experts thought everybody living in the present era would have it made .
And broadly speaking , we do : We live longer , we seldom try benightedly to “ cure ” gay people , we no longer have to leave the house to watch a movie , and so on .
But that ’ s not what the economic experts were talking about .
They were talking about how much easier it would become to earn a living wage—and there , they were quite wrong .
Writing in 1930 , at the start of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attributed the high unemployment of that moment “ to our discovery of means of economizing the use of labor outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labor.
” But that would sort itself out , Keynes predicted confidently .
Eventually , the glories of capital accumulation and technological advancement would end humankind ’ s “ struggle for subsistence , ” and we ’ d instead spend that time pondering “ how to occupy the leisure ” that “ science and compound interest ” would have granted us “ to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A new report by the Rand Corporation allows us to glimpse this alternate universe of Keynes ’ s imagining , and it ’ s lovely .
There , the median income for a full-time worker in the United States is about $ 100,000 .
The median for a full-time U.S. worker at the twenty-fifth percentile is about $ 65,000 .
There ’ s just one hitch , though : The income levels in this Randworld fantasia are about double the size of the ones we ’ re stuck with here on planet Earth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Randworld .
Median income for a full-time U.S. worker at the ninetieth percentile is more than 25 percent higher there than in the real world , and median income for a full-time U.S. worker at the ninety-fifth percentile is about 4 percent higher .
At the ninety-ninth percentile , meanwhile , a U.S. worker ’ s median income is more than 25 percent lower than in the real world .
That wouldn ’ t please the rich , but look on the bright side—in Randworld , it would be 25 percent easier to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the very elite one percent .
What is it that makes Randworld so much better than our own ?
Merely that since 1946 ( the year Keynes finally entered that long run in which we ’ re all dead ) , U.S. income growth , at all levels , has kept pace with gross domestic product .
That may sound absurdly idealistic , especially in the midst of our job-hemorrhaging Covid recession .
But it ’ s what Keynes expected , and it ’ s what actually happened for two decades after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a little while in the 1970s , incomes actually grew faster than the economy , creating a crisis of inflation .
But for the past four decades , we ’ ve had a different crisis .
Incomes have kept pace with the economy only at the very top , and income inequality , which shrank or remained constant for most of the twentieth century , has risen steadily .
Keynes failed to anticipate either of those things , and so the pleasant world he imagined never came to pass .

Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that we started to see glimpses of Keynes’s imagined world at midcentury, around the time the journalist Tom Wolfe documented a proliferation of American subcultures dedicated to leisure—surfing, stock-car racing, dropping acid—that Wolfe called “a happiness explosion.” That boom was short-lived, however, because the working-class prosperity that supported it went kaput. Looking at trends in U.S. work hours from 1979, when the rise in income inequality began, to 2007, Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute recorded an increase of nearly 11 percent—“the equivalent of every worker working 4.5 additional weeks per year.”
This spike in hours worked occurred across the board for all economic classes, but the biggest percentage increases were at the bottom of the income distribution and mostly got smaller as you moved up. In the bottom quintile (that is, up to the twentieth percentile), the number of hours worked per year rose 22 percent; in the second quintile (i.e., the twentieth percentile down to the fortieth), 15 percent; in the third quintile, 11 percent; and in the fourth, 6 percent. The pattern broke down slightly in the top quintile, with hours worked rising about 4 percent up to the ninety-fifth percentile and a bit faster (nearly 7 percent) for the top 5 percent. That probably reflected the much greater tendency for women rather than men to take on longer hours, since fewer women occupied the uppermost income brackets.
Keynes never anticipated that even the rich would choose longer work hours over more leisure, for cultural reasons that are debated endlessly. Perhaps the nonrich, if their incomes had risen commensurately with economic growth, would have worked longer hours, too. And Keynes certainly didn’t anticipate that for some working-class people denied any hope of rising prosperity, the leisure pursuit of choice would be an addiction to opiates. The Rand study’s hypothetical of a more just U.S. economy might not translate automatically into more leisure for today’s working class, but it would certainly afford them a richer menu of choices. Let’s try to achieve that soon. We don’t have another 90 years to wait.


newrepublic--2020-09-16--A Diversity of Terrible Bosses

A Diversity of Terrible Bosses

A visual feature recently assembled by The New York Times reveals in stark detail the dearth of people of color , in the year 2020 , in the country ’ s halls of power .
Of the 24 people in the Trump administration , only three aren ’ t white .
Only six of the top 25 companies in the United States are led by people of color ; among the presidents of the top 25 universities , all but one is white .
Over in publishing , things are worse : The editors in chief of the 10 most-read @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the heads of the five largest book publishers .
But Corporate America is , if anything , highly attuned to which way the wind is blowing .
As a result of the nationwide protests over police brutality and the ongoing tension between the radical demands of activists and the push by moderates to restore the status quo , a number of companies have pledged to rectify racial disparities across their leadership .
Reddit ’ s Alexis Ohanian , for instance , stepped down from his post in June and encouraged the company to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Companies like Wells Fargo , Delta Airlines , and Ralph Lauren have also recently pledged to institute quotas to boost racial diversity within their leadership .
“ We know that we can be a force for change across this country , ” Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf said in a statement about the new diversity measures .
( The company was arguably a force for change of a different kind a little over a decade ago , when its practice of selling off subprime mortgages helped set into motion the 2008 financial crisis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Black and Latinx families their homes . )
But the goal of these profit-driven enterprises and others is ultimately the protection of a bottom line , and a swift change-up of the demographics of their ranks at the very top is the type of reform that never seems to go very far at all .
So in the place of actual change , we instead get a diversity of bad bosses , or good bosses running bad companies .
Then we end up back where we started , which is the entire exercise @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been here before : In the wake of the 2017 # MeToo movement , which ignited a public reckoning over the pervasiveness of sexual violence in the workplace , a number of companies rushed to demonstrate their feminist bona bides by hiring or promoting more women into leadership .
( A 2018 feature in Elle , titled “ The Replacements , ” celebrated the new crop of women leaders taking over high-powered positions once occupied by predatory men . )
# MeToo , which was composed of what often felt like a series @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of victims , journalists , organizers , celebrities , and legal funds , managed to oust a number of serial abusers and elevate more women to leadership positions across several white-collar and creative fields .

Take, for example, the many companies that have long had women and executives of color at the helm. The presence of women leaders hasn’t, on its own, made workplaces any more hospitable for the women who work under them. There was plenty of evidence of that even prior to #MeToo, perhaps most notably the allegations of abusive work environments at NastyGal, the creation of so-called #GirlBoss Sophia Amoruso, and Thinx, led by self-styled “She-E-O” Miki Agrawal. Likewise, earlier this year at the Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, staff members spoke out against a woman president who, they claimed, had fostered a toxic work environment despite the organization’s stated progressive values. That same dynamic has surfaced again as Black and other workers of color at other women-led companies—including Glossier, Refinery29, and the Wing—have protested against persistent mistreatment and racism in those offices. (Refinery29 editor Christine Barberich and former Wing CEO Audrey Gelman have since stepped down.)
Earlier this year, a group of Black women working at Essence magazine released an anonymous statement alleging widespread mistreatment and abuse. “Essence’s C-suite leadership team strategically tells the market it ‘serves Black women deeply’ under the safe seal of 100 percent Black ownership,” they wrote, “but for the Black women who make up over 80 percent of the company’s workforce, they are systematically suppressed by pay inequity, sexual harassment, corporate bullying, intimidation, colorism and classism.” (The managers named in the statement have all since stepped down.)
There isn’t anything about diverse company leadership that fundamentally alters the power imbalance between the employer and employee (or, in the case of, say, Wells Fargo, the way that such companies exploit the working class).


newrepublic--2020-09-16--The Personal History of David Copperfield and Emma Are Perfect Movies for a Pandemic

Critics rarely recommend movies their readers have little chance of seeing in the near future .
Nonetheless , you can only watch Armando Ianucci ’ s new film , The Personal History of David Copperfield , by physically going to a cinema—something a New York–based professor of medicine recently likened to “ Russian roulette ” during a pandemic like ours .
It is a disappointing situation but also fitting , since contagious respiratory illnesses are such a hallmark of the nineteenth-century English novel .
From Jane Eyre ’ s friend Helen Burns dying meekly in the school ’ s “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who expires passively on “ a fine , mild autumn day ” in Charles Dickens ’ s Nicholas Nickleby , these books are crawling with illnesses like cholera , diphtheria , and tuberculosis .
Dickens himself wrote from the 1830s to 1870 , meaning that his career ran parallel to a number of serious outbreaks of disease in London , including the particularly wretched Third Cholera Pandemic of 1846–60 .
Those conditions are borne out in Dickens ’ s fiction , which is filled with death of all kinds ( murder , drowning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) .
There ’ s even a chart available of his body count per novel .
The Personal History , Adventures , Experience , & Observation of David Copperfield the Younger , to give the book its full title , was Dickens ’ s favorite of his works .
It begins with the sentence which best captures the soul of the nineteenth-century Bildungsroman : “ Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life , or whether that station will be held by anybody else , these pages must @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tell a story in two halves , first recounting his loss of innocence in childhood , when his evil stepfather exiled him from the family home to labor in a London bottling factory .
In the second , David rises up the social ladder to become a proctor of law .
He makes a glorious jumble of friends of all social stations along the way , including the lobster-people of Yarmouth and arch school chum Steerforth .
There are few sick people in this story , and an unusually high proportion of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by drowning ( as one sailor puts it , “ There ’ s a lot of drowning goes on ” ) .
But there ’ s a reason that Dickens suddenly veered away from writing peaceful deathbed scenes à la Smikes : In 1848 , his own sister Fanny , whom he loved dearly , died of tuberculosis .
In a letter to his wife , he wrote , “ No words can express the terrible aspect of suffering and suffocation—the appalling noise in her throat—and the agonized look.
” Having witnessed it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ able to romanticize pulmonary distress .
The January after Fanny died , Dickens ’ s first son was born , and he began writing David Copperfield .
As a result , perhaps , of all that suffering being followed by new life , David Copperfield is a story exploding with vitality .
David grows up across its pages , as if his very biological growth were pushing the story forwards , while each of his friends , mentors , and enemies runs on their own similar momentum .
The new film adaptation , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ takes that human energy as its lifting-off point , and is simply too faithful , rich , and bright to be dimmed by the circumstances of its release .

Iannucci stages the book’s opening literally, by having the adult David leap onstage to celebrate the publication of his own memoir in a theater, in front of all his friends. Then we immediately flash back to meet the adorable Ranveer Jaiswal as David aged 4-7, and Dev Patel as the hero from adolescence onward. The scenes come thick and fast, with an overstuffed feel. Standout performances come from both Davids as well as Tilda Swindon as aunt Betsy, and Daisy May Cooper as David’s loyal and hilarious nurse Peggotty. Amid a strong selection of the hardest-working actors in Britain (Benedict Wong, Gwendoline Christie, Nikka Amuka-Bird), Hugh Laurie shines as the odd Mr. Dick, dotty cousin and dependent of Betsy, who can never get down to writing his bill to improve housing conditions for the poor because the thoughts of King Charles II have taken up residence in his head.
In some of the film’s most touching scenes, David helps Mr. Dick relieve himself of Charles II’s burdens by attaching his notes to a kite and flying them high. “The sky is absorbing my thoughts!” Laurie trills, happy at last. Mr. Dick forms a kind of light/dark dyad with Uriah Heep, the obsequious servant who rises to power through evil scheming. It’s the role Ben Whishaw was born to play, his intense acting style turning Heep’s sarcastic bowing habit into a balletic expression of hatred.
In his bottling-factory years, young David teams up with a Mr. Micawber, the grandiloquent charlatan with a heart of gold played to his absolute maximum by Peter Capaldi, an old collaborator of Iannucci’s beloved for his performances in The Thick of It and In the Loop. The pair meet after Micawber collars the boy and asks him to divert the attention of his creditors. To little avail: Even inside his house, an unseen man’s hand yanks an upright clock offscreen through the window. The smallest of the Micawber brood glides away in his baby carriage, because the bailiff is dragging the hallway carpet out from under the front door.


newrepublic--2020-09-15--American’s Food Supply Chain Was Already Deadly. Then Came the Wildfires.

In a video shared by the United Farm Workers on Friday evening , the sky was orange and the air hazy .
In Oregon City that day , the Air Quality Index was hovering between 201 to 300 , deemed “ very unhealthy ” by the Environmental Protection Agency .
But the farmworkers were there all the same , standing in a field with masks , handkerchiefs , and neck gaiters on , trying to pick as many grapes off the vine as possible .
It ’ s not just Oregon .
In California , 38-year-old farmworker Juan Reyes told @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hurting after a full day of picking strawberries and that he was having “ difficulty breathing.
” At a grape field in Lodi , picker Luis Sandoval told ABC10 the notion of hazard pay was never broached by his boss .
Go back further , and you ’ ll see a familiar cycle of coverage .
Wildfires in 2018 didn ’ t stop strawberry field supervisors from pushing 34-year-old farmworker Santiago to pick up the pace .
“ They don ’ t care about our health , ” Santiago said in an interview @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just care about the strawberries.
” Much like the Smithfield plant workers forced back into slaughterhouses shortly after the pandemic exploded , farmworkers in California and Oregon are being pushed out into the fields despite chaotically dangerous conditions .
Their pay hasn ’ t budged , nor do they have the promise of health care for potential long-term health impacts from repeated smoke and ash exposure .
An out-of-control virus , on one hand , fields set ablaze on the other : This is the ghoulish normalcy established by decades of corporate-led attacks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ locking farmworkers out of basic labor protections .
As a result , the American agriculture and food processing industries come with a kind of death pact built in for workers .
Things don ’ t have to be this way , but the people picking grapes while the wildfires rage in the mountains behind them are running out of time .
The labor schemes employed by agriculture and food production companies alike follow the same model : Where technology has begun to eliminate the need for pickers in the harvesting process for crops @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , other crops , like grapes and strawberries , still require human hands to transport them safely from the field to the delivery trucks .
So , to keep their profit margins as wide as possible , corporations have learned to lean on undocumented workers .

They’ve also figured out the right government and other levers to pull to ensure that workers are always available, regardless of external conditions and in spite of their health. “Whether it’s wildfire, pandemic, drought or storm, farmworkers are out in the field,” Lucas Zucker, the policy and communications director for the Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy, told The Guardian. “It’s a largely immigrant workforce, many undocumented. Many are from Indigenous communities from southern Mexico who face even greater barriers to accessing services and reporting labor abuses.”
American workers were able to stay home from work, if only temporarily, because the federal government issued one-time stimulus checks in addition to bolstering unemployment assistance with a weekly $600 supplement (which has now expired). Undocumented workers were excluded from those programs, with many states failing to fill in the gaps and offer desperately needed material supports. (California and Oregon have made some funds available, and California recently passed another set of aid provisions for undocumented residents, but the governor has yet to sign it. Still, these are patchwork programs.)
What’s unfolding now is a man-made disaster. As the workers who spoke to ABC10 and The Guardian explained, their only real option was to continue going to work if they didn’t want their families to go broke. After watching two fellow farmworkers die from the coronavirus in Washington, an anonymous 47-year-old Jamaican visa worker and father of five told Crosscut he decided it was better to just pack it up and go home. “I need the money,” he said. “But I’m not going to risk it.” For the undocumented population for whom return is not always an option, the situation is even more dire. Smithfield workers in North Carolina informed WRAL of that much in May, with one anonymous employee painting the dilemma clearly: “We can’t miss work. We can’t stay home. We are afraid of this disease.”


newrepublic--2020-09-18--What Trump Taught America About the Bible

Five years ago this week , Donald Trump ’ s presidential campaign hit a snag .
The second Republican primary debate had not gone well , and he was taking so much flak for failing to correct an Islamophobic supporter at a rally in New Hampshire that he canceled an event in South Carolina scheduled for the next day .
In just 72 hours , he seemed to go from dominant front-runner to an amateur making rookie mistakes .
Heading to Iowa on September 19 for a meeting of the Faith and Freedom Coalition , where every major Republican candidate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decided to try something new .
“ I brought my Bible , ” he said to the audience of conservative Christians , waving a faded blue hardcover embossed with the words Donald Trump as he took the podium .
“ See ?
I ’ m better than you thought.
” In case his intended message was too subtle , he made it plain a few minutes later .
“ I ’ m a Christian , ” he said .
“ Do you believe me ?
” Such an obvious ploy seemed unlikely to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his Bible overhead , looking uncharacteristically sheepish , almost acknowledging the absurdity of it— “ the religious equivalent , ” CNN commentator Errol Louis noted at the time , “ of going to an Iowa farmer in some overalls and some brand new boots.
” Taking the stage after Trump , Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal tore into his GOP primary rival ’ s attempt to use holy writ as a shibboleth .
“ The reality of Donald Trump is that he ’ s a narcissist .
He believes in nothing but himself , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he hasn ’ t read the Bible , you know he hasn ’ t read the Bible .
He only reads books he ’ s in.
” That both Jindal and Trump received hearty applause suggested a rift in the room that would not soon heal .
And yet , somehow it did—thanks perhaps to these remarkable moments when Trump , with a wink , played the part of a man of God , and conservative Christians decided to play along .
Since that day in 2015—which seems to have been Trump ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ relationship to the potent , contentious religious symbol has evolved from smirking , half-hearted displays of feigned piety to grave rituals designed to feed the devotion of his base .
As he has repeated the scripture-waving act—a week later at the Values Voters Summit , then in a video thanking evangelicals for their support in January 2016 , and most recently in June , when police teargassed protesters outside the White House so he could pose in front of a nearby church—it has grown darker , while its broader significance has become more @ @

Thomas Jefferson took this idea literally. Going through the four gospels line by line to remove parts he felt could not be supported by reason, he cut away the virgin birth, miracles like turning water into wine, and even the resurrection. He called what remained The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, better known now as the Jefferson Bible.
In his way, Trump might be seen as part of this tradition of radically revising scripture, reducing it to the parts that seem to matter most in a particular place and time—reducing it, in this case, until only the notion of it remains. Trump doesn’t want to get into specifics because he doesn’t know them, as his much-derided “Two Corinthians” remark showed. For the most part, whenever he has appeared with the good book, it has remained resolutely closed. When he signed Bibles at a Baptist church in Alabama last year, his Sharpie did not make it past the front cover. As he held a Bible aloft in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church in June, he turned it over in his hands, looking for a moment like he was trying to find the “on” button. The few times he has opened it before an audience, he has turned to the same page: the one that shows where his mother wrote his address when he was a boy.
None of this is meant as a criticism of Trump’s religiosity or lack thereof. In a perfect world, what he believes or does not believe would have no bearing on how he does his job or his prospects for reelection. Yet it is significant nonetheless because it lays bare a hidden truth about Christianity in America. The Bible is a powerful talisman for the majority of Americans, but Trump’s successful use of it these past five years suggests that, to many, it is only that: a symbol to be wielded; a book whose content matters less than the one holding it; an expression of tribal identity as much as creed.


newrepublic--2020-09-18--Barack Obama’s Memoir Is Set to Be the Biggest Book This Year

Book publishers have had a chaotic year .
There have been protests and walkouts over Woody Allen ’ s memoir and the industry ’ s lack of diversity—unprecedented activism in an industry with little history of mobilization .
One Big Five publisher , Simon & Schuster , is up for sale ; two have new CEOs .
And then there is the ongoing fallout from Covid-19 , which shuttered bookstores across the country .
On Thursday , things got even crazier .
Barack Obama and Penguin Random House announced that the first volume of the president ’ s memoir , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ November 17—two weeks after the presidential election .
That book will cover Obama ’ s presidency from his election in 2008 to the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011 .
The memoir “ brings readers inside the Oval Office and the White House Situation Room , and to Moscow , Cairo , Beijing , and points beyond , ” the publisher told Axios .
“ We are privy to his thoughts as he assembles his Cabinet , wrestles with a global financial crisis , takes the measure of Vladimir Putin , overcomes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Affordable Care Act.
” It will also be publishing ’ s equivalent of an eclipse , blotting out other releases in a crucial fall season .
Michelle Obama ’ s memoir , Becoming , is the biggest hit of the Trump era , selling more than ten million copies in its first six months ; A Promised Land , even at 768 pages , should be expected to sell in the millions , if not tens of millions .
( Given Michelle Obama ’ s sales , the $ 60 million Penguin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ couple now looks like a bargain . )
Barnes & Noble CEO James Daunt predicted that it well “ sell as no other book has done since July 21 , 2007 ” —the date that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows , still an industry touchstone , was released .
It also practically guarantees that the blackout that followed Covid-19 will effectively continue .
For months , practically no new books were released ; this fall , it may seem like there is only one book in the universe .
Rumors about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ memoir accompanied reports of a mysterious printer slowdown .
As The New York Times reported last month , “ The two largest printing companies in the United States , Quad and LSC Communications , have been under intense financial strain , ” and its assets are about to be auctioned off .
With many new books postponed , backlist sales boomed ; this , too , created a printing problem , with publishers having to balance reprints with upcoming releases .
The result was a choked supply chain .
Many books that had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fall—and some whose publication had been pushed back in the spring due to Covid—were delayed .

But there were also rumors that the supply chain was jammed in part due to one book with a ginormous print run. (When I first heard this, I hoped the book was George R.R. Martin’s Winds of Winter. Alas.) A Promised Land has a staggering first printing of three million copies, a number so large that one-third of them are being produced in Germany. (Penguin Random House is owned by Bertelsmann, a German conglomerate.)
The related publication delays, according to conversations with publishing insiders, stemmed not just from A Promised Land and other new and backlist titles but also the expectation that Obama will dominate pre-Christmas book sales, as well as the first quarter of 2021, if not beyond.
Even so, the publication of A Promised Land is a gift, albeit one with a significant catch. “For our store and no doubt independent bookstores everywhere, it’s a holiday gift, sure to boost sales during the holiday shopping season. And of all years, we really need a boost now,” Bradley Graham, owner of Washington D.C.’s Politics & Prose, told Publishers Weekly. Bookstores badly need the boost that Obama’s book will certainly give them. Bookstore sales in July—the most recent data available—were down nearly 25 percent from the previous year. That number is still a significant improvement on the first three months of the pandemic. Overall, bookstore sales are down over 30 percent.


newrepublic--2020-09-18--The Psychological Perks of Joining a Revolution

Workdays in fiction aren ’ t like real workdays at all .
Office novels will never adequately capture the deadening experience of exchanging your time for money , of watching your hours , like elastic bands , stretch out to the snapping point .
They tend to lack the minute experiences that lend offices their particular flavor : hundreds of closed-lip smiles , hundreds of emails , hundreds of bland yogurts eaten at bland desks .
Yet the workdays in Vigdis Hjorth ’ s novel , Long Live the Post Horn !
, ring false for another reason altogether : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enjoys her job .
Ellinor , Hjorth ’ s narrator , is a publicist tasked with handling the Norwegian postal union ’ s fight against the Third Postal Services Directive in 2011 .
Proposed by the European Union , the directive sought to introduce more private-sector competition to the mailing business , specifically for letters weighing less than 50 grams .
The proposal , its opponents argued , would make mailing more costly and pose threats to the salaries and pensions of postal workers .
Describing herself as “ a letter with no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ unsuited to being the protagonist.
” This detachment isn ’ t an affect or a self-protective pose .
After her colleague quits unexpectedly—leaving behind his workload and a note in which he calls Ellinor a “ spineless bitch ” —she feels that she ought to despair , to weep .
She ought to be angry .
But she can ’ t muster the feeling .
“ I couldn ’ t even react the way I was supposed to , ” she thinks : “ with emotion.
” A little later in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mysterious envelope , she experiences curiosity .
“ So I ’ m capable of feeling something , ” she muses .
Ellinor ’ s despondency swiftly lifts , however , when she takes over her departed colleague ’ s campaign against the postal directive .
At one point , Ellinor becomes so moved by a postal worker ’ s story that she has to support herself on the wall behind her .
Her involvement with the postal directive begins to wield an extreme influence over her life .
She realizes that she ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that she wants “ to sit in a room with people who feared what [ she ] feared.
” She asks her reflection , on two separate occasions , what her “ purpose ” is .
Ellinor throws herself ardently into the campaign on behalf of the public servant who delivers “ love letters , birthday cards , postcards , ” and “ perhaps a bill , but we don ’ t count them.
” She anxiously attends the Labour Party Conference , where the directive is rejected , in a victory for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ step for Labour ’ s grassroots , ” Ellinor thinks , “ but a life-changing one for me.
” Throwing off her earlier numbness , Ellinor has crafted her own directive : to live “ in good spirits .
”

It would be temptingly easy to conclude that, through collective action, Ellinor has found a public-spirited purpose in life. But what could be a story about awakening class solidarity in the face of the private sector’s encroachments turns, in Hjorth’s darkly comic rendering, into something more personal and cutting. Ellinor finds that her purpose isn’t to work for the social good but to cultivate her own happiness. Reflecting on the campaign’s victory, Ellinor thinks: “It hadn’t been given the attention it deserved at the time, but it was good to know that so many people were on my, or rather, our side.” This small misstep neatly captures her inability to see beyond the desire to involve herself in “issues,” independent of what those issues actually are.
Ellinor wants to feel like she’s part of something bigger than herself, but in this acidic portrait, Hjorth suggests that there’s an element of self-interest in even the most civic-minded endeavors. Ellinor describes her journey of self-discovery as a “small, one-woman revolution.” In her mouth, even the language of social movements has been repurposed to serve the individual.
Ellinor’s portrait is typical of Hjorth, who is very good at parceling out her characters’ faults and mining them for hypocrisy. In the three books that have been translated into English, her protagonists—financially stable, seemingly straight white women over the age of 30—believe that they’re politically correct liberals, and would be surprised if you were to tell them otherwise. Their prejudices, which they rarely register, are folded into the texture of their ordinary observations. Walking through the center of Oslo, Ellinor catalogs what she’s wearing and then seamlessly remarks that there’s “a junkie” on every block.