newrepublic--2020-11-18--Transcript: Joe Biden’s Cabinet

Transcript: Joe Biden’s Cabinet

Osita : I don ’ t know that we should be expecting Mitch McConnell to do anything but make life as difficult for Joe Biden as he possibly can , no matter what kind of overtures Biden thinks he ’ s going to make .
But look , it ’ s not like Joe Biden is really itching to nominate a huge number of really progressive people to the Cabinet .
We ’ ll see what actually ends up happening , but McConnell isn ’ t somebody who ’ s going to force Biden into nominating a substantially or significantly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reason to expect .
I think that was probably going to be the case anyway .
I mean , what he ’ s actually going to be doing is governing from a position of total consensus .
The center , maybe slightly center-left Obama consensus is going to revive itself in this administration and show he ’ s been pushed in a progressive direction on a couple of fronts , particularly climate , but with all of the picks we ’ re seeing bandied about—Rahm Emanuel , for Christ ’ s sakes , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ might come into the administration—it shouldn ’ t be forgotten that Obama , when he came in in 2009 , bragged about appointing three Republicans to his Cabinet .
I think only two ended up getting appointed , but there was this whole song and dance about how it ’ s unprecedented that I ’ m bringing in this many people from the other party to the Cabinet and this signaling it was a new direction that we ’ re going to be taking our politics .
It ’ s functionally what Joe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and it ’ s going to involve the same kinds of looking for moderate and inoffensive Republicans to fill that vision out .
Alex : I think it ’ s important to say that one of the people we are talking about , to be specific , and this has been reported by Politico , is Meg Whitman to run the Department of Commerce .
Meg Whitman is the former CEO of eBay and Hewlett Packard , notable most of all in politics for losing an election for governor of California , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the video streaming service that provided quick bites of entertainment until , in less than a year , it just went out of business and closed , having burned millions and millions of dollars .
And the idea here is that this person should be in charge of the Department of Commerce because she has business experience—and also that it ’ s safe to put an unpopular , failed , Republican ex-CEO at Commerce because the Department of Commerce doesn ’ t do anything important , right ?
The idea is you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who even knows what a department of commerce does ?
Well , they are in charge the census ; they run the Patent and Trademark office ; they run the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration , the National Weather Service .
These people have actual responsibilities .
So , Osita , what do you think about the way that the actual functions of these departments is ignored in so much of these conversations ?
Osita : I think they ’ re ignored in just about all of them , because I don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that people come into thinking , “ Well , the person I really want is somebody who ’ s going to a good manager , ” right ?
They want to see their favorite advocates .
They want to see their favorite legislators .
They want to see people they recognize from TV .
They want to see business leaders that they ’ ve heard of whether or not they have a record of actually succeeding in business .
But fundamentally what these organizations or agencies do is implement policy—they run programs .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the world .
And so you can think to yourself , “ I like Bernie Sanders , ” right ?
Or another progressive politician .
“ I agree with their positions.
” But all of that is separate from the fundamental task of managing a large agency with thousands of people working under you that is actually implementing public policy and doing a lot of very boring things to make sure that the federal government is running properly and doing the things that it ’ s supposed to do .
And so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a little bit difficult , because I think a lot of the people who would be best at that kind of mundane task , which is the central task , aren ’ t people you ’ re going to have heard of .
I for the life of me don ’ t really know why , if you ’ re somebody like Joe Biden and you clearly aren ’ t looking to make sweeping progressive change , I don ’ t know why somebody like that doesn ’ t just go and say @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of this or that under Obama , and let ’ s just promote them up to the next to the next rung.
” Because they know that the agency works .
They know the ins and outs .
They ’ ve obviously been capable of managing a large part of it .
Let ’ s just bump that person up .
But the reason that doesn ’ t happen is because political appointments to the Cabinet have two real functions , it seems to me .
It ’ s 1 ) , you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the coalition that you care about them , even if you don ’ t .
And so you can have this token pick demographically or ideologically that signals that the party , this administration , is going to be welcoming to other people .

A transcript of Episode 20 of The Politics of Everything, “Fantasizing About Joe Biden’s Cabinet”
Alex Pareene: I’m Alex Pareene. I’m a staff writer at The New Republic.
Laura Marsh: And I’m Laura Marsh, the magazine’s literary editor.
Alex: Today we’re talking about Joe Biden’s Cabinet.
Laura: This is The Politics of Everything.
Alex: We are joined now by The New Republic’s own Jason Linkins and Osita Nwanevu, two friends of the podcast, to discuss the topic that Americans can’t stop talking about right now, in mid-November: Who will serve in Joe Biden’s Cabinet? There has been a lot of speculation. As we are taping this, no one has been confirmed by the president-elect yet, although that could change by the time you are listening. So please keep that in mind, if, for example, we say it’s crazy to imagine that he will appoint Michelle Reid to be Secretary of Education, and it turns out we’re wrong next week.
So people who are the biggest nerds in the world, who don’t have hobbies—and I very much include myself in this—have been doing things like creating fantasy Cabinets, putting them on Twitter for everyone to see and to laugh at. Have either of you seen any of these that you thought were particularly dire or funny?
Osita Nwanevu: There’s a pollster named David Farrar who tweeted that his dream Cabinet included Mitt Romney as secretary of state, Larry Summers at Treasury, Pete Buttigieg at Defense, Michelle Reed at Education, Paul Ryan at Trade, David Petraeus as the director of National Intelligence. And I don’t know what this guy’s ideological disposition is—it seems to me he could be a Never Trump Republican or a centrist Democrat—but I think the gist of what he’s trying to do there is create a team of rivals approach where you have a lot of Republicans, a couple of Democrats, and they’re all just going to work together at a big boardroom table and solve the country’s problems without yielding to ideology and partisanship and blah, blah, blah. And I think that’s the way a lot of people think about the Cabinet. The opposite of that, which is equally ridiculous, is people who say to themselves, “Well, the Cabinet should be everybody who ran in the Democratic primary—just create a roster of people that’s entirely filled by candidates that we all know and love coming back for a season finale from the primaries.”
This is possibly one of the stupidest parts of American politics. This something that even smart people will engage in without having a real understanding of what the Cabinet is, what these agencies actually do—which is why I enter this conversation with a little bit of trepidation, because I feel like I don’t know enough about each and every one of these policy issues to recommend a particularly good person.
Laura: To go back to the David Farrar much dunked upon tweet: I think there’s something interesting there about forecasting the nature of a Joe Biden Cabinet, right? Because Joe Biden is a unique president-elect of recent years in that he hasn’t ruled out bringing Republicans into his Cabinet. He’s played to that ability to reach across the aisle. Whether those overtures will be reciprocated is another question, but it’s really not clear who Joe Biden might choose for some of these positions, because he isn’t someone with a really clear ideological line.
Jason Linkins: My expectation is that Joe Biden will tend to favor people who have logged many years in the trenches in Washington and are best known for being collegial. He’s thinking about gathering the old guard together to run the show.
Alex: The notable thing about the speculation that he’d pick a Republican is that almost by definition, it would be not just any old Republican, but someone who is years out from having served in office, right? Just because it’s hard to imagine current Republicans who would work in a Joe Biden Cabinet. I mean, is he going to pick, like, Josh Hawley? But so therefore you have to question the utility of even doing this, because you’re not reaching out to the current Republican Party, you are reaching out to a past version of it that is now obsolete.
We should also point out that assuming he remains Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell has made it clear that he will try to force Joe Biden to appoint only centrists. So theoretically, any discussion about the Cabinet would have to be people who could get past Mitch McConnell, right?
Osita: I don’t know that we should be expecting Mitch McConnell to do anything but make life as difficult for Joe Biden as he possibly can, no matter what kind of overtures Biden thinks he’s going to make. But look, it’s not like Joe Biden is really itching to nominate a huge number of really progressive people to the Cabinet. We’ll see what actually ends up happening, but McConnell isn’t somebody who’s going to force Biden into nominating a substantially or significantly more centrist Cabinet than we probably had reason to expect. I think that was probably going to be the case anyway. I mean, what he’s actually going to be doing is governing from a position of total consensus. The center, maybe slightly center-left Obama consensus is going to revive itself in this administration and show he’s been pushed in a progressive direction on a couple of fronts, particularly climate, but with all of the picks we’re seeing bandied about—Rahm Emanuel, for Christ’s sakes, is being talked about as somebody who might come into the administration—it shouldn’t be forgotten that Obama, when he came in in 2009, bragged about appointing three Republicans to his Cabinet. I think only two ended up getting appointed, but there was this whole song and dance about how it’s unprecedented that I’m bringing in this many people from the other party to the Cabinet and this signaling it was a new direction that we’re going to be taking our politics. It’s functionally what Joe Biden is going to do here, and it’s going to involve the same kinds of looking for moderate and inoffensive Republicans to fill that vision out.
Alex: I think it’s important to say that one of the people we are talking about, to be specific, and this has been reported by Politico, is Meg Whitman to run the Department of Commerce. Meg Whitman is the former CEO of eBay and Hewlett Packard, notable most of all in politics for losing an election for governor of California, and most recently, the CEO of Quibi, the video streaming service that provided quick bites of entertainment until, in less than a year, it just went out of business and closed, having burned millions and millions of dollars. And the idea here is that this person should be in charge of the Department of Commerce because she has business experience—and also that it’s safe to put an unpopular, failed, Republican ex-CEO at Commerce because the Department of Commerce doesn’t do anything important, right? The idea is you can park them somewhere like Commerce because who even knows what a department of commerce does? Well, they are in charge the census; they run the Patent and Trademark office; they run the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Weather Service. These people have actual responsibilities. So, Osita, what do you think about the way that the actual functions of these departments is ignored in so much of these conversations?
Osita: I think they’re ignored in just about all of them, because I don’t think that this is a conversation that people come into thinking, “Well, the person I really want is somebody who’s going to a good manager,” right? They want to see their favorite advocates. They want to see their favorite legislators. They want to see people they recognize from TV. They want to see business leaders that they’ve heard of whether or not they have a record of actually succeeding in business. But fundamentally what these organizations or agencies do is implement policy—they run programs. These are departments that actually do things in the world. And so you can think to yourself, “I like Bernie Sanders,” right? Or another progressive politician. “I agree with their positions.” But all of that is separate from the fundamental task of managing a large agency with thousands of people working under you that is actually implementing public policy and doing a lot of very boring things to make sure that the federal government is running properly and doing the things that it’s supposed to do. And so that’s what makes this conversation a little bit difficult, because I think a lot of the people who would be best at that kind of mundane task, which is the central task, aren’t people you’re going to have heard of.
I for the life of me don’t really know why, if you’re somebody like Joe Biden and you clearly aren’t looking to make sweeping progressive change, I don’t know why somebody like that doesn’t just go and say, “Well, who is undersecretary of this or that under Obama, and let’s just promote them up to the next to the next rung.” Because they know that the agency works. They know the ins and outs. They’ve obviously been capable of managing a large part of it. Let’s just bump that person up. But the reason that doesn’t happen is because political appointments to the Cabinet have two real functions, it seems to me. It’s 1), you want to signal to some constituency within the coalition that you care about them, even if you don’t. And so you can have this token pick demographically or ideologically that signals that the party, this administration, is going to be welcoming to other people.
And the other reason is just straight-up political patronage. These are roles that get given to people who donated a lot or facilitated a lot of donations. Neither of those seem like very good reasons to appoint somebody to the head of a federal executive agency, but that’s just how it works.
Laura: Well, when it comes to that kind of political patronage that you just mentioned, that brings us back to the democratic primary, right? Because there was an understanding, when a lot of the moderates dropped out before Super Tuesday, that they would be rewarded in some way. Kamala Harris has become vice president, but that still leaves us with a lot, Pete Buttigieg particularly is being talked about. So do you think that that’s one of the reasons that we’re seeing so many of these Avengers-style Cabinet ideas? Where it’s like Buttigieg, Klobuchar, I’ve seen Jay Inslee’s name coming back up again….
Jason: There’s an element to this that’s a lot like sports—I think Osita, on Twitter, likened it to fantasy football. As a fan of European soccer, I think of this as the weird chatter that happens when the transfer windows open and big names are being moved for millions of dollars from team to team. It feels to me like a very superficial vibe. And what isn’t being talked about are the practical needs the agency has. I think definitely promote the under-secretary. When I think about the actual needs of the Trump era, what Biden will be left with, he’s going to be left with a decimated federal workforce, a huge brain drain. He’s going to be left with institutions that are the dead hand of what they used to be.
Laura: So these agencies have been through a kind of brain drain. One of the themes that comes up when we’re talking about who might join the Cabinet is taking really talented people who were already in office in other forms of government. So appoint, say, the governor of Washington State to a Cabinet position, or someone who’s already in the House of Representatives, or someone who’s in the Senate, because they’re good. The problem here is that drains talent from those other branches of government, right? If someone is really fantastic in the House of Representatives, I’m not sure that’s an argument, is it, for bringing them into the Cabinet—because then who fills that role?
Osita: That’s absolutely true. And part of it is, again, the skills that are required to be a good legislator in the House of Representatives are not necessarily the skills that are required to manage an agency well. But I think the brain-drain thing applies to other kinds of posts you’d be drawing people from as well. My partner is an education sociologist, and so I asked her who she thought would be good at Department of Education. And we had a very long conversation about this. One of the things she said was, “Some of the people who would be in the best position, given the combination of skills they have, to do this would be superintendents of large school districts who are doing a really good job in particular cities.” But then you don’t want to pull those people out of those roles because it’s hard to find good superintendents for large school districts
Alex: That’s a very interesting point, because I know I’ve heard people say, not in any realistic way, but just “Wouldn’t it be great to have Sarah Nelson, the leader of the flight attendants union, become Secretary of Labor.” I’m sure she would love to wield that power, but then we would be losing one of the most talented labor organizers currently working in labor and organizing in the country, because she would now be the manager of an agency.
Laura: Right. Or another name I’ve seen come up is “Katie Porter is brilliant.” So we should appoint her to the Cabinet. And I wonder if it would be healthier if those people stayed in the House, for instance, and we could focus more on the House of Representatives and the Senate as being just as important as the presidency when we talk about national politics, because that’s where some of the more meaningful stuff is actually going to get done.
Alex: I think basically you should always assume that if you really like any particular lawmaker in America, their replacement will not be anywhere near as good as they are at what they do. We have a very limited number of successful, popular progressive lawmakers and the ones we have with power right now, we should work on keeping them there.
Laura: Well, it’s like when you listen to people talking about how they should get promotions at work, right, something they’re often told is, “Oh, you’re too good in your current job, your bosses don’t want to promote you,” but in politics, that’s literally what we want. If you’re an amazing representative, continue to be that—that’s the best role that you can fulfill. You shouldn’t be trying to get promoted to being Secretary for Energy or something.
Jason: We’ll get into like the sort of like fantasy football version of our Cabinet. But here’s my big fantasy about Joe Biden—this is I think even more pie-in-the sky than the notion of putting Elizabeth Warren at Treasury—but if we’re going to talk about the deep-rooted fantasies about what America could be, to my mind, the direction we could burrow in is not looking for this superhero celebrity politicians to run things, but instead head back down to earth and start picking and choosing among the best of this country has to offer.
Alex: I think that is a good way to segue into asking who the best this country has to offer is. I want to make it clear that we are deeply aware that we are mocking the idea of creating a fantasy Cabinet while at the same time, demanding that our wonderful guests create their fantasy Cabinet. So, Osita, who is first on your list of ideal Biden Cabinet members?
Osita: So the first is somebody who has been talked about for the Department of Labor, Mary Kay Henry, who’s the current head of the SEIU, the Service Employees International Union. She’s a well-regarded, well-respected labor leader, has been in the movement for a long time. So she’d be a pick that would signal a level of seriousness about labor issues to the progressives, she’s the capable manager of a large organization, she knows what she’s talking about. Um, you know, it hits all the sweet spots for me on that position.
Alex: All right, Jason, tell me one of your fantasy Cabinet picks.
Jason: So when I was thinking about the kind of person that I really wish could be in Biden’s ear all the time about the economy, never going to happen in a million years, but the person that I think about right off the bat is Stephanie Kelton, who is currently the professor of economics and public policy at Stony Brook University. And she’s a major proponent of modern monetary theory, which is a different way of thinking about deficit spending, and it’s thinking that Democrats desperately need to become unstuck in the policy realm. Because right now, when someone says, “I want to do this big, bold, progressive thing,” the first question is how are you going to pay for it? And Kelton’s basic premise is just “Stop answering the question, we should be deficit spending.”
Laura: Right, so this would be quite a departure from the kind of throwback Cabinet ideas that have been floated. Osita, do you have another pick?
Osita: So this next pick is Jessica Cardichon. She’s the director of the Learning Policy Institute, the federal policy division at the Department of Education. There’s a Bernie connection: She was at Sanders’s advisor about 10 years ago while in the Senate. She’s somebody who seems to think seriously about equity, civil rights. Again, somebody who nobody’s really heard of, but who knows the landscape and is engaging already with federal policymakers and presumably would be competent given her previous experience within an organization.
Alex: I like that pick a lot. And I like that it would be considered an unsexy pick because it’s not a person that normal politics followers have heard of. It reminds me—there’s been some talk recently that Bernie Sanders is angling to be made ahead of the Department of Labor. I mean, he doesn’t have decades left, but do we want him out of the U.S. Senate really? I do I think that the person he should be pushing for if he wants to be in a position to have influence over labor department policy, he should be pushing for his top advisor to be the head of the labor department, or has most militant labor issues advisor to go to the labor department. And so I like that your pick was indeed an education advisor to Sanders a while ago, which is one of those good indications that a certain candidate’s head is in the right place on issues you care about.
Laura: And Jason, do you have a final pick?
Jason: One of the things I thought about really hard before coming on today was the position of attorney general. I think that there are a lot of different directions you can go in for AG. The attorney general has a very broad remit, but you have to think about signaling what your priority is going to be by whom you pick. I’m a little bit biased toward a Department of Justice that works to fight corporate scofflaws, so I would be perhaps inclined to support the candidacy of someone like Barbara Underwood, current solicitor general of New York. She’s fought against big conglomerates, she’s done a lot to help mitigate corporate impact on climate change.
Someone who’s perhaps more interested in reversing the Trump administration’s predations on marginalized groups might lean to the direction of someone more like Vanita Gupta, who’s the former acting assistant attorney general for civil rights, the former deputy legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, has a very good record on prosecuting hate crimes, defending people of color.
Biden can give us an indication of where he thinks the DoJ’s most important work is going to be under his administration based on the kind of person he picks.
Laura: So maybe we could add a bonus round, because when Alex and I were talking about this show, one thing that came up was a kind of strategic appointment—playing on the brain drain effect, but using it to your advantage. So we came up with the concept of a “spite pick,” which would be if there’s someone who currently holds a position in the Democratic party who is just doing a really bad job, and you could plunk them into a Cabinet position where they can’t do much, who would that be? I mean, Alex, I feel like I should bring you in on this one, because you have a kind of inspired idea.
Alex: Well, I think a lot of people have already made the suggestion that Susan Collins should be appointed to the Biden administration, because then her replacement would likely be a Democrat.
I would like to see a real nice landing spot for Diane Feinstein. I really think this is a good opportunity, she’s done so much for the party, and I think Biden should try to find a place for her in his administration.
Laura: Other ideas?
Osita: My mega-fantasy pick is you appoint Collins to the Department of Homeland Security, she’s replaced by a Democrat. You use a brain slug on Joe Manchin—this is all assuming the Democrats get the Ossoff-Warnock picks, so you have to get it to the point where it actually will flip the Senate—but you move Collins out of the Senate into DHS, then abolish the filibuster, then abolish DHS.
Alex : That’s some classic game theory right there.
Jason: Real straightforward from here.
Alex: Osita, do you have anyone in mind?
Osita: I’m thinking about ambassadorships and how they figure into all of this. It’s not Cabinet stuff, but a lot of shenanigans always happened with the ambassadorships. They always seem to go to people with no real knowledge of the country that they’re going to be interacting with or its history and the policies there. So if that’s what the position is going to continue to be under Biden, you can just throw a lot of democratic leadership in there. There are ambassadors to the Vatican, Monaco, wherever else….
Alex: I have to imagine there are a lot of people listening who perhaps live in large American cities who would not mind if their mayor were made an ambassador to somewhere or other. I would be thrilled if Bill de Blasio were made ambassador. I would like him to be ambassador to the Netherlands so he can see what a country with a functional urban transportation policy looks like for once in his life.
Jason: Alex, you talked about how one of the big problems we have when we conceive of these things is that all of these agencies really do important things, and so there’s no real place to stash somebody. Maybe we should create a Cabinet-level agency that’s just there to stash people. Like, honestly, this is exactly what you would do in a corporate setting. People talk about running government like a business—well, finding a safe, dumb place for someone you can’t really get rid of but can do without, that is what a lot of people in the corporate world do.
Laura: Like a department of “new business” or “special projects.”
Alex: The Department of Special Projects would be perfect. And then I am the secretary at large for the Department of Special Projects.
Laura: Okay, well, I think we’ve got it figured out.
Alex : Yeah, it was a wonderful conversation, and I’m sure President-elect Biden will be listening very closely. So Jason and Osita, thank you so much.
Laura: Thank you, guys.


newrepublic--2020-11-18--Joe Biden Can’t Compromise With the Rising Seas

Richmond himself is a case study in the perils of compromise .
He represents an area dense with chemical and fossil fuel infrastructure , much of it owned by firms who ’ ve donated generously to his campaigns .
The industry ’ s build-out there over the last 30 years has turned parts of his district into “ Cancer Alley , ” a majority-Black stretch of communities between Louisiana and Baton Rouge where cancer risk is as much as 50 times the national average .
When two Cancer Alley residents met with Richmond about reining in a toxic chemical plant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Apparently embarrassed by a Guardian report about the incident , he wrote a letter vaguely criticizing air pollution .
Having gotten a similar treatment , constituents of Richmond ’ s district who have battled fossil fuel infrastructure there sounded off to Earther against his appointment .
“ He ’ s never liaised with any environmental justice groups working on issues with the petrochemical industry in Louisiana .
He might have liaised with business , but he hasn ’ t talked with us , ” said Darryl Malek-Wiley , an organizer with Sierra Club @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have had one meeting with organizers , but there ’ s been no ongoing discussion.
” Biden has pledged to focus on climate change and certainly talks about it a lot .
Reportedly , his team is already drafting executive actions and planning for new climate-focused Cabinet posts and to make climate a top priority across agencies .
That ’ s all well and good .
But it ’ s perfectly possible for him to roll out shiny new offices and executive orders while keeping the likes of ExxonMobil happy .
He can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ details about how to meet its goals .
He can enlist academics and former White House officials housed at campus energy centers bankrolled by the fossil fuel industry who will pitch the White House on how to keep that industry ’ s core business model intact despite all the evidence that it should be dismantled .
He can slowly wean the power sector off fossil fuels while expanding export markets for them abroad .
And he can appoint more people like Richmond , centrist standard-bearers who ’ ll give industry a voice on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this with making the world a better place .
After he ran a primary campaign that was decidedly light on climate details , it was pressure from climate campaigners that made Biden take the issue seriously in the first place .
Postelection , he seems to be running with it .
If he ices progressives out of the administration—entrusting his climate agenda to industry-friendly centrist technocrats—he stands to demobilize the people he ’ ll need to boost Democratic ranks in Congress come 2022 .
Compromising with polluters out of the gate is a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .

Richmond himself is a case study in the perils of compromise. He represents an area dense with chemical and fossil fuel infrastructure, much of it owned by firms who’ve donated generously to his campaigns. The industry’s build-out there over the last 30 years has turned parts of his district into “Cancer Alley,” a majority-Black stretch of communities between Louisiana and Baton Rouge where cancer risk is as much as 50 times the national average. When two Cancer Alley residents met with Richmond about reining in a toxic chemical plant there, he brushed them off. Apparently embarrassed by a Guardian report about the incident, he wrote a letter vaguely criticizing air pollution. Having gotten a similar treatment, constituents of Richmond’s district who have battled fossil fuel infrastructure there sounded off to Earther against his appointment. “He’s never liaised with any environmental justice groups working on issues with the petrochemical industry in Louisiana. He might have liaised with business, but he hasn’t talked with us,” said Darryl Malek-Wiley, an organizer with Sierra Club in New Orleans. “He may have had one meeting with organizers, but there’s been no ongoing discussion.”
Biden has pledged to focus on climate change and certainly talks about it a lot. Reportedly, his team is already drafting executive actions and planning for new climate-focused Cabinet posts and to make climate a top priority across agencies. That’s all well and good. But it’s perfectly possible for him to roll out shiny new offices and executive orders while keeping the likes of ExxonMobil happy. He can rejoin the Paris Agreement without offering many details about how to meet its goals. He can enlist academics and former White House officials housed at campus energy centers bankrolled by the fossil fuel industry who will pitch the White House on how to keep that industry’s core business model intact despite all the evidence that it should be dismantled. He can slowly wean the power sector off fossil fuels while expanding export markets for them abroad. And he can appoint more people like Richmond, centrist standard-bearers who’ll give industry a voice on the inside. No one should confuse this with making the world a better place.
After he ran a primary campaign that was decidedly light on climate details, it was pressure from climate campaigners that made Biden take the issue seriously in the first place. Postelection, he seems to be running with it. If he ices progressives out of the administration—entrusting his climate agenda to industry-friendly centrist technocrats—he stands to demobilize the people he’ll need to boost Democratic ranks in Congress come 2022. Compromising with polluters out of the gate is a recipe for getting nothing done on climate.


What Now?

Liberal change , when it happens , is incremental and controversial .
Passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 helped fuel the Tea Party movement and the loss of a House majority for the remainder of Barack Obama ’ s presidency .
Crafted without a vote to spare in Congress , Obamacare has legislative flaws that normally would have been fixed long ago .
But Republican obstructionism has meant that the legislation is again facing judicial scrutiny and possibly could be upended by the new six-to-three Supreme Court majority , though the legislation ’ s survival appears likely after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in spite of the disappointing political landscape Biden will face in January , he does come into power with a popular mandate .
The slow pace of the election returns has meant that the full dimensions of Biden ’ s victory have not been appreciated .
On his third bid for the White House , Biden has matched Trump ’ s 2016 electoral vote total of 306—an achievement that once prompted the former reality-show host to breathlessly claim , “ We had a massive landslide victory ... in the Electoral College.
” And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when the final ballots from California and New York are tallied , Biden will end up winning by a larger percentage margin than any candidate in this century aside from Barack Obama in 2008 .
But it was in congressional races and state legislative battles where the Democrats took a major hit .
The disappointment was particularly acute in the Senate contests , where misleading polls and a lopsided Democratic fundraising advantage created unsustainable expectations .
There ’ s still a Hail Mary scenario for Democrats to engineer a split Senate , if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the January runoff Senate elections in Georgia .
And behind the apparent hold-the-line victory for Mitch McConnell ’ s Senate majority , there ’ s a reminder of how deeply polarized the electorate remains : Susan Collins in Maine was the only GOP incumbent reelected in a state that Biden carried .
It will take time and rigorous analysis of voting patterns to develop a firm understanding of why Biden ’ s coattails were clipped at the polls by an aggressively manic tailor .
There ’ s a range of intriguing theories to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voted for Biden before returning to their GOP proclivities in congressional races ; another suggests that a significant number of Americans prefer divided government .
It is also conceivable that down-ballot Democrats were hurt by the Biden campaign ’ s decision to curtail its ground game because of Covid .
Personally , I ’ m left wondering whether the heavy Democratic emphasis on early voting by mail meant that some voters felt they didn ’ t know enough to cast ballots in nonpresidential races .

In truth, though, the notion that the nation would pivot from Donald Trump’s America to a social-democratic dreamscape always reflected a misreading of political history. Only at rare moments in the past century have the Democrats possessed the votes on Capitol Hill to dramatically revamp American society. What made the New Deal possible was just such a rout of the GOP in Washington: From 1935 to 1939, the Democrats held three times as many House seats as the Republicans—and by 1937, there was a pitiful band of just 16 GOP senators. In similar fashion, LBJ was blessed with two-thirds majorities in both the House and the Senate when Congress approved the Voting Rights Act and Medicare in 1965.
Liberal change, when it happens, is incremental and controversial. Passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 helped fuel the Tea Party movement and the loss of a House majority for the remainder of Barack Obama’s presidency. Crafted without a vote to spare in Congress, Obamacare has legislative flaws that normally would have been fixed long ago. But Republican obstructionism has meant that the legislation is again facing judicial scrutiny and possibly could be upended by the new six-to-three Supreme Court majority, though the legislation’s survival appears likely after oral arguments in November.
Still, in spite of the disappointing political landscape Biden will face in January, he does come into power with a popular mandate. The slow pace of the election returns has meant that the full dimensions of Biden’s victory have not been appreciated. On his third bid for the White House, Biden has matched Trump’s 2016 electoral vote total of 306—an achievement that once prompted the former reality-show host to breathlessly claim, “We had a massive landslide victory ... in the Electoral College.” And the popular vote numbers suggest that, when the final ballots from California and New York are tallied, Biden will end up winning by a larger percentage margin than any candidate in this century aside from Barack Obama in 2008.


newrepublic--2020-11-19--Hayao Miyazaki’s Viral Stories

Hayao Miyazaki’s Viral Stories

I may not have written my King Lear during the pandemic , but I certainly have told a lot of stories .
This is because I spend my days minding a six-year-old .
Since we have nothing else to do but entertain each other , I tell her stories as I fix her lunch or as we walk around the neighborhood .
Perhaps it is less that we tell ourselves stories in order to live than to pass the time , like the character-narrators in The Decameron who regale each other with tales every night while Florence is being ravaged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them , I don ’ t have the imaginative wherewithal to invent stories of my own , so when the plea for a yarn is made , I fall back on the tried and true : “ Once upon a time there was a Hobbit named Frodo Baggins.… ” Lucky for me that I am decently familiar with the lore of The Lord of the Rings , since children have so many questions about the various other worlds that the people in our world have conjured up .
“ Where do orcs come @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Well , they were once elves who were tortured and corrupted by the Dark Lord , ” I say .
Every movie we watch , every book we read , spawns a whole galaxy of little stories that are told and retold as we cycle through the days that all feel like one interminable day , a strange pocket outside time that , in my house anyway , swims like a fish tank with legends and fantasies .
I ’ m not sure what I expected fatherhood to be like , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the umpteenth time , the familial relationship between Draco Malfoy and Bellatrix LeStrange .
The way women are depicted in stories has emerged as something of a roadblock to our pure enjoyment of them .
When we went through a phase of Greek myths , for example , we had to abort an attempt to read an abridged version of The Iliad because it was just too complicated to explain that Agamemnon and Achilles were fighting over a concubine slave .
The Norse myth phase went better , since she found a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , half-beauty who rules the underworld .
She is now crazy for stories from the Bible , though she doesn ’ t understand why it is Eve , and not Adam , who eats the forbidden fruit and condemns humankind to exile from paradise , or why it is Lot ’ s wife , and not Lot himself , who is turned into a pillar of salt .
“ Why is it always the woman ?
” she pouts , and I have no answer for her except to underscore that this is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we are not religious .

Nausicaä suggests the possibility of attaining quiet moments of happiness even in a world where the air is foul and the earth is blasted and barren.
Nausicaä, in particular, has become a fascination for us both, seemingly tailor-made for an audience in the grips of an airborne pandemic. It is set in the aftermath of an apocalyptic war that destroyed the industrialized world and gave rise to the Toxic Jungle, where the air is poisonous. First released in Japan in 1984, it is one of Miyazaki’s oldest films—the movie that led to the founding of his Studio Ghibli—and it holds up not just as a feat of animation in its own right but also as a precursor containing all the themes that will flourish in his later, more famous movies: a reverence for the natural world amid humanity’s heedless and ultimately self-defeating destruction of the environment; the value of courage and resilience in the face of both existential terrors and the petty disagreements of adults; the light that creativity and ingenuity can provide in a time of darkness. I find it both touching and entirely true to life that Miyazaki locates so many of these noble qualities in the persons of young girls.
The first time we see Princess Nausicaä, she is soaring through the air on a broad white glider, as if she is riding on the back of a great bird. She is wearing a blue jumpsuit and a brown mask that covers the lower half of her face, with a meshed snout over the mouth and nose, and air bags that hang on either side like a floppy pair of bunny ears. She enters the Toxic Jungle, a phantasmagoria of fuzzy-headed plants and enormous insects that circle lazily overhead and slink through the flora. The plants release clouds of poisonous white spores into the atmosphere, which settle about Nausicaä as if she is at the center of a snow globe that has been shaken. “It’s so beautiful,” she muses. “It’s hard to believe these spores could kill me. Five minutes without a mask and I’d be dead.”
Each time I watch or hear this opening sequence (“hear” because the iPad goes on whenever I need to do work without too much distraction), I am struck by its odd sense of peacefulness, the tranquility of the falling spore-snow. The point is to establish that she is unafraid of the Toxic Jungle, and indeed we will eventually learn that the jungle is not the destructive force the world’s other surviving humans believe it to be. But it also suggests the possibility of attaining quiet moments of happiness even in a world where the air is foul and the earth is blasted and barren.


newrepublic--2020-11-19--Why We Can’t Comprehend 250,000 Covid Deaths

The solution is not the end of statistics .
Despite the Trump administration ’ s efforts to make an enemy of numbers themselves , public health officials , climate scientists , and policymakers should craft policies based on reliable data .
But “ statistics does a violence to human experience , ” Carr said .
“ It crushes it down and throws out a lot of relevant information.
” These limitations must be augmented with other kinds of insight , or at least acknowledged .
We need to see the forest , but we must remember that we are the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ writers have taken on a new importance , Cep wrote in The New Yorker .
When the coronavirus first made headlines , outlets began weaving death tolls into their reporting and spinning numbers into elaborate infographics .
They also started publishing thousands of stories commemorating the people Covid-19 killed .
Staring down the landmark of 100,000 coronavirus deaths , The New York Times published a front page full of mini-obituaries in May with the name , age , location , and a single fact about each of the deceased .
Alternative proposals , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t “ really tell you very much about who these people were , the lives that they lived , [ or ] what it means for us as a country , ” Simone Landon , assistant editor on the Times graphics desk , said at the time .
These and numerous other memorialization efforts across the country reflect the earnest belief that an obituary , in Cep ’ s words , is “ as close as we come in times like these to squaring the demands of statistic and story.
” Health communications @ @ @ @ @ @ @ growing evidence that traditional communication of vaccines—e.g.
, messages focusing on statistics—has not worked well , ” Xiaoli Nan , director of the University of Maryland ’ s Center for Health and Risk Communication , told Undark .
Rather than shaming people for their misunderstanding—or even their willful indifference to the facts—Nan and her team are looking for alternatives .
“ More successful strategies rely on trustworthy messengers , telling stories rather than using statistics , and appeals to moral values.
” Seeing outside of our single cell on this vast spreadsheet can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just a number on the census , a Facebook algorithm , a product of our technocracy .
But Carr told me something that helps to lay the foundation of the paradigm shift we need : Statistics are more like quantum physics than basic math .
We want everything to add up as in middle-school algebra .
But the real world is more complex , and more uncertain , than that .
Embracing the chaos behind the cold , hard data could help us realize what we ’ ve lost—and what we can still @ @

Death—from a virus, from climate change, from old age—is typically something people aim to “realize” in the most literal meaning of that word: to make real. The living cut their hair and tear their clothes in grief; they don’t typically turn to national vital statistics to see how many other people died the same way as their loved one. Unless, of course, they want to distance themselves from their pain. This year, that numbing by numbers has become a chronic condition. “Such is the perverse mathematics of tragedy: the staggering specificity of any one life lost; the overwhelming obscurity of lives lost,” Casey Cep wrote in The New Yorker in May.
The solution is not the end of statistics. Despite the Trump administration’s efforts to make an enemy of numbers themselves, public health officials, climate scientists, and policymakers should craft policies based on reliable data. But “statistics does a violence to human experience,” Carr said. “It crushes it down and throws out a lot of relevant information.” These limitations must be augmented with other kinds of insight, or at least acknowledged. We need to see the forest, but we must remember that we are the trees.
In the pandemic, obituary writers have taken on a new importance, Cep wrote in The New Yorker. When the coronavirus first made headlines, outlets began weaving death tolls into their reporting and spinning numbers into elaborate infographics. They also started publishing thousands of stories commemorating the people Covid-19 killed. Staring down the landmark of 100,000 coronavirus deaths, The New York Times published a front page full of mini-obituaries in May with the name, age, location, and a single fact about each of the deceased. Alternative proposals, like printing 100,000 dots, wouldn’t “really tell you very much about who these people were, the lives that they lived, [or] what it means for us as a country,” Simone Landon, assistant editor on the Times graphics desk, said at the time. These and numerous other memorialization efforts across the country reflect the earnest belief that an obituary, in Cep’s words, is “as close as we come in times like these to squaring the demands of statistic and story.”


newrepublic--2020-11-20--Why Police Back Gun Guys

Why Police Back Gun Guys

Three years since Charlottesville , armed clashes at street protests over racial justice are still a defining feature of American politics , but the constellation of participants has changed .
The white supremacists who paraded in fascist sword-and-sandals kitsch with homemade shields and spears have sharply receded .
But the paramilitaries who showed up that August claiming to be neutral security are now represented in greater numbers .
Nazis are out , patriots are in .
And while cops sat on the sidelines in Charlottesville , they have welcomed “ good guys with guns ” to buttress “ law and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ year ’ s eruption of social justice protest , even though time and time again , the militias and armed citizens have provoked rather than deterred violence .
A new book from University of Arizona sociologist Jennifer Carlson goes a long way to explaining why .
Drawing on interviews with 80 police chiefs , Policing the Second Amendment illuminates how central guns are to the ideology of police .
Firearms carriers , including police , Carlson argues , believe that guns don ’ t merely offer personal protection : The weapons produce a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ between “ good guys ” and “ bad guys.
” Thus carrying a gun is a higher form of citizenship : a commitment to wield deadly force to protect fellow Americans , which Carlson likens to “ hardened care work.
” For the subjects of her book , guns make the guy good , in a refraction of the old National Rifle Association adage that “ guns don ’ t kill , people do.
” It ’ s “ bad guys ” who commit criminal acts of violence , and only with guns @ @ @ @ @ @ @ implication , of course , is that gun carriers are constantly preoccupied with fear of lethal threat from a social other .
Rarely do the police chiefs or concealed carriers whom Carlson interviews stop to consider if the ubiquity of firearms in America is the source of that constant sense of danger .
Instead , their worldview is guided by twin instincts : what Carlson calls “ gun militarism ” and “ gun populism.
” Gun militarism , espoused by essentially every chief she interviewed , is synonymous with the infamous “ Warrior @ @ @ @ @ @ @ think of the world as filled with enemies at every corner who must be overpowered at all costs , necessitating an arms race with criminals .
Gun populism , meanwhile , aligns with the pro-gun dogma that lawful gun owners carrying in public make America safer either by providing quick responses to threats when police aren ’ t present or by deterring crime in the first place .
One is a top-down approach to meeting an ever-present threat , the other bottom-up .
Most of the chiefs Carlson interviewed argued that gun militarism @ @ @ @ @ @

After decades of NRA lobbying, gun laws are as likely to encourage gun carrying as to restrict it. A growing number of states, like Arizona, have so enthusiastically embraced gun populism that they no longer regulate guns in public at all. In places that do license firearms, police decide who gets to pack. Carlson observed the sheriff-run process in Michigan, one of the few states with public licensing hearings, and found that it often brutally reproduced racial hierarchy. Not only were African American applicants for concealed carry permits more likely than white applicants to be denied because of a criminal record, they were also subjected to more scrutiny in cases where the sheriffs had discretion and to revocations for nonviolent offenses; lectures on respectability politics; and, in a surprising number of cases, threat of arrests for open warrants.
This has been the NRA’s two-pronged strategy to the problem of gun violence since the early twentieth century: Convince both police and civilians to arm themselves heavily and to kill without a second thought as part of a never-ending “war on crime,” fought against internal opponents who pose a threat because of their innate “bad guy”-ness. The persistence of gun violence is just more evidence that the war has not been waged ruthlessly enough, that the Other side has not been sufficiently overpowered. As a result of a century of political organizing and lobbying, civilian gun owners and police see themselves as co-combatants fighting a perpetual domestic counterinsurgency. In other words, gun owners are cops, and cops are troops.
Though Carlson’s frame is strictly domestic, it is naturally in dialogue with work by security scholar Stuart Schrader on the ways that Cold War tactics developed by the United States and its allies to fight a global Communist and anti-colonial insurgency came back home to American policing, as well as historian Kathleen Belew’s work on the ways that America’s involvement in anti-Communist proxy wars shaped the latter-day militant hard-right movement. Read together, this body of work demonstrates a shared structure of feeling among concealed carriers, outright vigilantes, militia members, cops, and the American crusaders who fought the Cold War and later the “war on terror”: the conviction that the American way of life only survives because hard men are willing to kill to protect it. To these men, attempts to restrict their use of force amount to a threat to that way of life.


newrepublic--2020-11-20--The Airy Abstraction of “Our Democracy”

The Airy Abstraction of “Our Democracy”

“ That ’ s what ’ s at stake right now : our democracy , ” Barack Obama said in his speech at the Democratic National Convention in August .
Some version of this warning—somehow both apocalyptic and Pollyannaish—reverberated among political analysts for the entire presidential campaign , as it has for generations .
The Arena , an 1890s magazine of the left , invoked the phrase sarcastically , saying that “ our democracy ” was happy to let its citizens become “ serfs ” to big business .
In 1914 , The Atlantic wrote that “ our democracy must @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and ignorance from abroad.
” Most enduring , though , are uses of “ our democracy ” as the sugar that helps the bitter medicine of American governance go down , as when The Saturday Evening Post rhapsodized in 1933 about “ American destiny , American ideals , the American way of life , our democracy , our institutions.
” You can usually find “ our democracy ” in peril , forever being defended from some enemy , at home or abroad .
In the Cold War , the danger came from communism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Red threat mostly subdued , “ our democracy ” became something to be “ strengthened , ” usually against internal threats—often abstract ones , like voter apathy or polarization .
In the Trump years , liberals were the main purveyors of the phrase .
It fits a rhetorical pattern , embraced by the Biden campaign , of emphasizing patriotic moral abstractions over more concrete policy ambitions .
Biden ’ s often soaring rhetoric aspired to “ go high , ” rather than to play the demagogue down in the mud ( even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us live ) .
This is what makes the appeal to “ our democracy ” so paradoxically dire and cheerful .
While accepting the Democratic nomination , Biden framed the campaign against Trump as a campaign “ to save our democracy ” from catastrophe .
But without grappling with all the ways in which “ our democracy ” is already a catastrophe , these words sound as vacuous as that Saturday Evening Post editorial , which was , by the way , a tribute to Herbert Hoover .

“That’s what’s at stake right now: our democracy,” Barack Obama said in his speech at the Democratic National Convention in August. Some version of this warning—somehow both apocalyptic and Pollyannaish—reverberated among political analysts for the entire presidential campaign, as it has for generations. The Arena, an 1890s magazine of the left, invoked the phrase sarcastically, saying that “our democracy” was happy to let its citizens become “serfs” to big business. In 1914, The Atlantic wrote that “our democracy must not be weakened by dilutions of poverty and ignorance from abroad.” Most enduring, though, are uses of “our democracy” as the sugar that helps the bitter medicine of American governance go down, as when The Saturday Evening Post rhapsodized in 1933 about “American destiny, American ideals, the American way of life, our democracy, our institutions.”
You can usually find “our democracy” in peril, forever being defended from some enemy, at home or abroad. In the Cold War, the danger came from communism, and by the 1990s, with the Red threat mostly subdued, “our democracy” became something to be “strengthened,” usually against internal threats—often abstract ones, like voter apathy or polarization. In the Trump years, liberals were the main purveyors of the phrase. It fits a rhetorical pattern, embraced by the Biden campaign, of emphasizing patriotic moral abstractions over more concrete policy ambitions.


newrepublic--2020-11-20--Oligarch of the Month: Kelly Loeffler

Oligarch of the Month: Kelly Loeffler

Earlier this year , Kelly Loeffler—by many accounts the richest person in Congress—decided she wanted just a little more .
Publicly , Loeffler , a former asset management executive whom Georgia ’ s Republican governor had appointed to the Senate in December , was confident , reassuring , and , above all else , dismissive about Covid-19 .
“ Democrats have dangerously and intentionally misled the American people on # Coronavirus readiness , ” she tweeted in late February .
“ @ realDonaldTrump & his administration are doing a great job working to keep Americans healthy & safe.
” Two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her followers that there was nothing to worry about .
“ Concerned about # coronavirus ?
Remember this : The consumer is strong , the economy is strong , & jobs are growing.
” In private , Loeffler , who had received a briefing about the havoc Covid-19 was about to unleash on the country , was unloading millions in stock , while making two new investments , one in a company focused on teleworking software .
( Loeffler ’ s husband , Jeffrey Sprecher , is the chairman of the New York @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the companies whose stock Loeffler had sold had lost a third of their value .
The Department of Justice ultimately closed an insider trading inquiry into Loeffler , but she is still fending off accusations that she profited from the pandemic , as she tries to hold on to her seat in a January runoff election—an election that may decide which party controls the Senate .
The insider trading charges are now the least of her worries .
This summer , Loeffler reoriented her campaign around the supposed excesses of Black Lives Matter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Raphael Warnock , is Black . )
Her insistence that BLM is steeped in racist , Marxist ideology has put her in conflict not only with the women ’ s basketball team she co-owns , but with the entire league—players wore “ Vote Warnock ” t-shirts in warm-ups , raising over $ 100,000 for the Democratic candidate .
Loeffler responded by claiming that she was being “ canceled ” for refusing to speak out against racial injustice .
If she wins , she will have pulled off quite a coup : Profit off @ @ @ @ @ @ @ racial equality , and emerge the victim .

Earlier this year, Kelly Loeffler—by many accounts the richest person in Congress—decided she wanted just a little more. Publicly, Loeffler, a former asset management executive whom Georgia’s Republican governor had appointed to the Senate in December, was confident, reassuring, and, above all else, dismissive about Covid-19. “Democrats have dangerously and intentionally misled the American people on #Coronavirus readiness,” she tweeted in late February. “@realDonaldTrump & his administration are doing a great job working to keep Americans healthy & safe.” Two weeks later, she continued to assure her followers that there was nothing to worry about. “Concerned about #coronavirus? Remember this: The consumer is strong, the economy is strong, & jobs are growing.”
In private, Loeffler, who had received a briefing about the havoc Covid-19 was about to unleash on the country, was unloading millions in stock, while making two new investments, one in a company focused on teleworking software. (Loeffler’s husband, Jeffrey Sprecher, is the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange.) Within weeks, the companies whose stock Loeffler had sold had lost a third of their value.


newrepublic--2020-11-20--Hazard Pay Was Just a Brand Exercise

Hazard Pay Was Just a Brand Exercise

Remember hazard pay ?
That fleeting practice of employers raising essential workers ’ wages during the pandemic—also known as a bare-minimum gesture of decency—first surfaced around the same time that New Yorkers were applauding nightly from their windows for frontline personnel and Congress had deigned to pass the first ( and so far only ) stimulus package .
It ’ s long gone , though .
Nine months and 250,000 deaths later , nearly every state in the country is undergoing what experts have called “ uncontrolled spread ” of the coronavirus , and no further assistance from either the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be in order for workers .
Back in the spring , when the unfolding devastation of the pandemic was still new enough to be shocking , grocery stores and retailers like Kroger , Albertsons , and others adopted temporary hazard pay raises for the workers putting their lives at risk to keep the economy ( and companies ’ profits ) moving along .
But those bonuses inevitably evaporated , even as Covid-19 continued to spread and the danger to essential workers remained high .
( As one Kroger employee put it in an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s dangerous enough that you have to require them to wear masks , why wouldn ’ t you continue that extra pay ?
” ) By the end of the summer , Amazon , Walmart , and several grocery chains had all quietly ended hazard pay for their workers ; Kroger , incredibly , even claimed at one point that some employees had been overpaid and asked them to return the money , prompting a public backlash .
But one of the bleakest aspects of pandemic hazard pay is that it was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
A survey conducted by the Economic Policy Institute in June found that only about 30 percent of people working outside of their homes during the pandemic had received hazard pay increases , and that number is almost certainly lower now that most of the businesses that previously adopted hazard pay have ended the practice .
That ’ s especially dismal given that so many essential workers are also low-wage workers : As the Brookings Institution recently noted , nearly half of all essential workers earn less than a living wage .

Remember hazard pay? That fleeting practice of employers raising essential workers’ wages during the pandemic—also known as a bare-minimum gesture of decency—first surfaced around the same time that New Yorkers were applauding nightly from their windows for frontline personnel and Congress had deigned to pass the first (and so far only) stimulus package. It’s long gone, though. Nine months and 250,000 deaths later, nearly every state in the country is undergoing what experts have called “uncontrolled spread” of the coronavirus, and no further assistance from either the government or the private sector appears to be in order for workers.
Back in the spring, when the unfolding devastation of the pandemic was still new enough to be shocking, grocery stores and retailers like Kroger, Albertsons, and others adopted temporary hazard pay raises for the workers putting their lives at risk to keep the economy (and companies’ profits) moving along. But those bonuses inevitably evaporated, even as Covid-19 continued to spread and the danger to essential workers remained high. (As one Kroger employee put it in an interview with Dissent, “If it’s dangerous enough that you have to require them to wear masks, why wouldn’t you continue that extra pay?”) By the end of the summer, Amazon, Walmart, and several grocery chains had all quietly ended hazard pay for their workers; Kroger, incredibly, even claimed at one point that some employees had been overpaid and asked them to return the money, prompting a public backlash.


newrepublic--2020-11-19--The Supreme Court Faces a Matter of Life and Death

Millions of Americans who were reared on Law & Order and other courtroom dramas have a familiar , if slightly misleading , understanding of how criminal trials are supposed to work .
The prosecution and the defense present their evidence and arguments to the court .
A lawyer occasionally shouts something like “ Objection !
” and the judge drily responds with “ Overruled !
” or “ Sustained !
” The trial attorneys trade barrages of high-flown oratory .
Then the jury deliberates and dramatically announces its verdict .
If it was a capital case , that jury would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ defendant lives or dies .
Until recently in Alabama , however , there was another step in death penalty cases : The trial judge could simply ignore the jury ’ s conclusion and send the defendant to death row anyway .
Calvin McMillan is one of 35 death-row prisoners in the United States who received a life sentence from a jury of their peers , only to have the presiding judge sentence them to death instead .
Thirty-two of those prisoners are from Alabama , where the state legislature recently scrapped the practice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Supreme Court in a petition for certiorari that the Court will consider Friday .
Lawmakers did not make the change retroactive , and McMillan is now asking the Supreme Court to rule that his execution would violate the Eighth Amendment ’ s ban on cruel and unusual punishment .
“ A system that determines who lives and who dies based on the timing of an election , or in this case , undue speculation about the jury ’ s level of exhaustion , can not satisfy the heightened standard of reliability that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s lawyers argued in their petition for the court .
The Supreme Court ’ s conservative majority is not known for its solicitude toward death-row prisoners , to say the least .
But it has shown a willingness to intervene in cases involving unusual practices that minimize a jury ’ s role in the outcome of trials .

The Supreme Court previously upheld state laws that allowed judicial overrides, including the one at question in McMillan’s case. In the 1984 case Spaziano v. Florida, the majority rejected a challenge to Florida’s judicial override law at the time that claimed it led to the arbitrary imposition of death sentences. In 1995, the court also signed off on Alabama’s system in particular in Harris v. Alabama, ruling that states with override laws weren’t obligated to require judges to place any particular weight on the jury’s sentencing conclusions.
But that status quo has been contested in recent years. In the 2016 case Hurst v. Florida, the justices reconsidered their ruling in Spaziano and struck down Florida’s system, which merely required juries to render an “advisory sentence” and left the final determination to the trial judge. That ruling raised questions about Harris, the constitutionality of Alabama’s system, and judicial overrides in capital cases in general. But the justices have not offered more clarity on the subject thus far. If anything, they’ve muddied the waters further. In an Arizona capital case earlier this year, the majority quoted Antonin Scalia’s concurring opinion in a pre-Hurst case where he opined that “states that leave the ultimate life-or-death decision to the judge may continue to do so.”
Even if the court takes up McMillan’s case, victory may be a long shot. The Supreme Court is arguably more favorable toward the death penalty than at any time in the last two decades. Over the last two years, the court lost Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had expressed support for revisiting the death penalty’s constitutionality, as well as Anthony Kennedy, who occasionally sided with the court’s liberals to limit the types of defendants who could be executed in America. Kennedy’s replacement with Brett Kavanaugh solidified a five-justice majority in favor of capital punishment in general. And while Amy Coney Barrett has yet to take part in a capital case since joining the court, she is expected to be far less averse to it than Ginsburg was.


newrepublic--2020-11-19--Can the Media Break Its Trump Addiction?

That , at least , will change when he leaves office .
Trump will be a private citizen , just another conservative septuagenarian Florida man , out to hit the links as much as possible .
Even as the press dutifully covers his ravings about election fraud , there is a palpable sense of exhaustion .
The promise of a Biden victory , for both the public and the press , was to make all this insanity go away .
Many who have been on the front lines of covering that insanity are clearly ready to cover something , anything @ @ @ @ @ @ @ breathlessly covering the president ’ s every tweet and statement are still there , waiting to roar back once ratings inevitably dip .
Trump ’ s status as an unprecedented generator of fodder for cable television has resulted in a financial windfall , no small accomplishment in the cord-cutting era : The New York Times and The Washington Post have gained millions of subscribers , despite having been in financial turmoil less than a decade ago .
The president knows this , tweeting that he ’ s the “ golden goose.
” One @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , president , and now lame duck—has been to do whatever it takes to make sure that he was constantly being covered on television .
It ’ s totally within the realm of possibility that his attempts to steal the election are really just designed to cause havoc and keep himself in the news .
As ex-president , Trump will undoubtedly do the same thing : behave outrageously in the hopes of garnering media attention .
He is also the unquestioned leader of the Republican Party , even if he will not hold @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in lockstep with him , backing all of his obscene allegations of widespread voter fraud .
Should Trump declare his 2024 candidacy before or shortly after leaving the White House , he would become an even more daunting problem for the media .
Not only would his presumably insane comments have the authority of an ex-president , but they would also be coming from the Republican Party ’ s primary front-runner .

That, at least, will change when he leaves office. Trump will be a private citizen, just another conservative septuagenarian Florida man, out to hit the links as much as possible. Even as the press dutifully covers his ravings about election fraud, there is a palpable sense of exhaustion. The promise of a Biden victory, for both the public and the press, was to make all this insanity go away. Many who have been on the front lines of covering that insanity are clearly ready to cover something, anything, else.
But the incentives of breathlessly covering the president’s every tweet and statement are still there, waiting to roar back once ratings inevitably dip. Trump’s status as an unprecedented generator of fodder for cable television has resulted in a financial windfall, no small accomplishment in the cord-cutting era: The New York Times and The Washington Post have gained millions of subscribers, despite having been in financial turmoil less than a decade ago. The president knows this, tweeting that he’s the “golden goose.” One consistent part of his attention-getting strategy—as candidate, president, and now lame duck—has been to do whatever it takes to make sure that he was constantly being covered on television. It’s totally within the realm of possibility that his attempts to steal the election are really just designed to cause havoc and keep himself in the news.
As ex-president, Trump will undoubtedly do the same thing: behave outrageously in the hopes of garnering media attention. He is also the unquestioned leader of the Republican Party, even if he will not hold any elected office. GOP leaders are in lockstep with him, backing all of his obscene allegations of widespread voter fraud. Should Trump declare his 2024 candidacy before or shortly after leaving the White House, he would become an even more daunting problem for the media. Not only would his presumably insane comments have the authority of an ex-president, but they would also be coming from the Republican Party’s primary front-runner.


newrepublic--2020-11-19--Ending the Forever Wars, by Any Means Necessary

President Trump ’ s decision-making is defined by , if anything , incoherence .
So it shouldn ’ t be a surprise that , in addition to golfing and undermining the election results , he is spending his last days in office making a hash of U.S. national security policy .
He has replaced top leadership at the Pentagon with cronies ; reportedly asked for options to and its nuclear program ; and now is planning thousands of soldiers from Afghanistan , Iraq , and Somalia before he leaves office .
The dominant reaction in Washington to the latter news @ @ @ @ @ @ @ devotion to the status quo .
Trump ’ s newly installed defense secretary the decision “ fraught with risk.
” Members of both major parties asked the administration to leave deployed soldiers at existing levels .
Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth , a veteran who lost both of her legs in Iraq , even went so far as that while we should aspire to bring home American troops , she didn ’ t want them to return “ in body bags.
” Republican Representative Dan Crenshaw , a former Navy SEAL , warned on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ back in the same place as pre-9/11.
” But the response from opponents of the Forever Wars is more complicated .
On the one hand , they are glad to see any movement toward full withdrawal .
On the other , they are skeptical of Trump ’ s motivations and his timing .

The reality is that ending America’s wars—and campaigning on doing so—is popular with much of the country. The main place it isn’t popular is in Washington, D.C., where Beltway politicos can’t seem to imagine any other mode of engagement with the world. Trump’s ham-fisted diplomacy with North Korea, which occurred between periods of dangerous saber-rattling, was dismissed by most Democratic politicians. Yet on exceedingly rare occasions, Trump can do something approximating the right thing, for the wrong reasons. (In the case of troop withdrawal, he may be indulging his congenital motivation to own the libs: An anonymous Trump administration official told CNN that Trump was looking to set fires that Biden would have to put out.)
Some political organizations approve of the possible withdrawals, even if they are dangerously haphazard. Describing it as a welcome step, the progressive group Win Without War published a statement declaring that it still wasn’t enough: “Maintaining thousands of troops in indefinite occupation is far from a rethinking of the logic of militarism, particularly when past drawdowns have been repeatedly undermined by troop surges, redeployments to nearby countries, increased reliance on private contractors, and the dramatic growth of aerial warfare.”
That logic is unlikely to change with President-elect Biden, who’s surrounded by interventionist centrists and hawkish foreign policy hands from the Obama administration. Michèle Flournoy, almost certain to be his defense secretary, argued for the NATO bombing of Libya, which led to dictator Muammar Qaddafi’s grisly killing in the streets of Misrata and the country’s descent into civil war. If Biden were to serve two terms, it’s very possible there would be American soldiers in Baghdad, Kabul, and Mogadishu—and who knows where else—in 2028.


newrepublic--2020-11-19--Barack Obama Doesn’t Have the Answers

Barack Obama Doesn’t Have the Answers

If he ever conceded so , Obama would likely insist nevertheless that the truth doesn ’ t matter nearly as much as maintaining faith in the American project .
“ I ’ m not yet ready to abandon the possibility of America , ” Obama writes in another excerpt published in The Atlantic , “ not just for the sake of future generations of Americans but for all of humankind.
” But he clearly understands , too , as Biden surely does on some level , that our situation is bleak .
“ I ’ m convinced that the pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ both a manifestation of and a mere interruption in the relentless march toward an interconnected world , one in which peoples and cultures can ’ t help but collide , ” he writes .
“ In that world—of global supply chains , instantaneous capital transfers , social media , transnational terrorist networks , climate change , mass migration , and ever-increasing complexity—we will learn to live together , cooperate with one another , and recognize the dignity of others , or we will perish.
” It ’ s a passage far less inspirational @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as he might disparage cynicism , Obama knows exactly what horrors await us in the years to come and that the curmudgeons and cranks on the left are , again , substantively correct about the trajectory we ’ re on .
What will it take to correct course ?
There ’ s a perfunctory nod above to social solidarity .
But Obama , as ever , is fundamentally an evangelist for personal responsibility .
This comes out most glaringly , as it did during his presidency , in his comments about race and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the gains Trump seems to have made among Black voters this year in his interview with The Atlantic , Obama turned quickly to a dated assessment of the hip-hop scene .
“ I have to remind myself that if you listen to rap music , it ’ s all about the bling , the women , the money , ” he told Goldberg .
“ A lot of rap videos are using the same measures of what it means to be successful as Donald Trump is .
Everything is gold-plated .
That insinuates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He goes on to reject material explanations for this .
“ I ’ m not an economic determinist , ” he says .
“ I think it ’ s important , but I think there are things other than stuff and money and income—the religious critique of modern society , that we ’ ve lost that sense of community.
” Maybe we have .
But it seems inescapably true that some who pine for stuff , and money , and income do so simply because they do not have enough stuff , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Even if it is true , as Obama says to Goldberg , that materialism wasn ’ t as “ in your face ” when he and Michelle were growing up , that observation can ’ t meaningfully be detached from the fact that inequality has been on the rise in this country and that Black wealth has been on the decline—thanks , in part , to his administration ’ s failure to rescue Black homeowners undone by the foreclosure crisis during the Great Recession .
Obama ’ s spiritual rendering of our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ why , beyond sheer egotism , he ’ s set on remaining an active narrator and promoter of his own story .
The spiritual void that birthed our turn toward materialism and Trump as a popular icon might be partially filled , he supposes , by more positive role models .
Reflecting further on Trump ’ s rise in his interview with Goldberg , Obama refers at one point to “ the classic male hero ” in the cultural milieu of his youth .
“ The John Waynes , the Gary Coopers , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , for that matter , ” he said .
“ There was a code … the code of masculinity that I grew up with that harkens back to the ’ 30s and ’ 40s and before that .
There ’ s a notion that a man is true to his word , that he takes responsibility , that he doesn ’ t complain , that he isn ’ t a bully—in fact he defends the vulnerable against bullies .
”

Obama and Tony, similarly aged, share more than an interest in Old Hollywood. Both killed people; both convinced themselves their professions indemnified them from judgment on the basis of that fact.
Ironically, one of the first major fictional characters in our age of anti-heroes pursued the same line of thought. “Nowadays, everybody’s got to go to shrinks, and counselors, and go on Sally Jessy Raphael and talk about their problems,” Tony Soprano famously tells his therapist in The Sopranos’ pilot episode. “Whatever happened to Gary Cooper? The strong, silent type. That was an American. He wasn’t in touch with his feelings, he just did what he had to do.” Obama and Tony, similarly aged, share more than an interest in Old Hollywood. Both killed people; both convinced themselves their professions indemnified them from judgment on the basis of that fact. “The work was necessary,” Obama writes of his administration’s drone program, “and it was my responsibility to make sure our operations were as effective as possible.” Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, he notes, gave him an additional responsibility—“his new, liberal president couldn’t afford to look soft on terrorism.” Wayne, Cooper, Stewart, and even Eastwood—political reactionaries all—might have offered the same advice.
Whatever one thinks of Donald Trump and the culture that created him, the society that lionized those men was, on the whole, more riven with violence and social pathologies than ours today. Obama has inherited from it a belief that the darkness within the American soul can be conquered with the projection of steely reserve. Mundanely, this belief manifests itself in his habit of suggesting that political contention itself is, more often than not, a symptom of immaturity. “I understand why there were times where my supporters wanted me to be more pugilistic, to, you know, pop folks in the head and duke it out a little bit more,” he said on 60 Minutes. “Every president brings a certain temperament to office. I think part of the reason I got elected was because I sent a message that fundamentally I believe the American people are good and decent, and that politics doesn’t have to be some cage match in—in which everybody is—is going at each other’s throats and that we can agree without being disagreeable.”
Joe Biden is on his way to the White House because the great middle of the country has been made to believe the same: That the primary obstacle to progress in America is nothing more than sheer pettiness on the part of our leaders and that Biden—who isn’t Jimmy Stewart but will have to do—might finally get all Washington to behave in the same way toddlers in a playroom might be encouraged to share their blocks. Politicians hoping to tart up this fantasy a bit often reach for Lincoln: His first inaugural is always a favorite. In his memoir, Obama invokes it in a reflection on his self-doubt. “There have been times during the course of writing my book,” Obama writes, “when I’ve had to ask myself whether I was too tempered in speaking the truth as I saw it, too cautious in either word or deed, convinced as I was that by appealing to what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature I stood a greater chance of leading us in the direction of the America we’ve been promised.”


newrepublic--2020-11-20--Trump’s Motley Gang of Dead-Enders Are Circling the Drain

It ’ s been almost a fortnight since Joe Biden secured the necessary number of Electoral College votes to officially append the title “ president-elect ” to his name .
But this reality has not yet been fully accepted by President Donald Trump and his most steadfast enablers , and so talk of coups d ’ état continues to flourish in the discourse .
On these pages , we ’ ve faced this cloud of seeming uncertainty in straightforward fashion : The likelihood that the election will be overturned is vanishingly remote .
But this strange psychodrama has yet to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attempt to cling to power has been riveting to watch and , at times , comedically hapless , but it ’ s still likely to do lasting harm to our democracy .
That ’ s a fitting epitaph for his presidency , but that gravestone is not yet carved .
As we ’ ve noted , this is perhaps the most dangerous period of the Trump presidency .
And while the president ’ s hopes of remaining in power have largely played out in a series of legal schemes that have , up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ needed fatal blow to Biden ’ s obvious claim to the presidency , we ’ re starting to learn more about what sort of person remains willing to stand in Trump ’ s corner as he wages his last , limp efforts to seed doubts about the election , and what sort of harm they could leave behind .
While it may resemble a sideshow at times , as Trump ’ s ragged gang of loyalists contort their faces for the camera , these dead-enders are doing real damage to the country .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ test with as much fervor for self-debasement as Trump consigliere and Borat Subsequent Moviefilm star Rudy Giuliani , who , having long set his reputation aflame , spent the week in a frenzied effort to further torch the ashes .
This week , on the day before a major hearing in Pennsylvania in which Trump had hoped to halt the certification of the state ’ s election results , three of the president ’ s lawyers attached to the suit abruptly withdrew , initially leaving Marc Scaringi , a Harrisburg lawyer and conservative @ @ @ @ @ @ @

It’s been almost a fortnight since Joe Biden secured the necessary number of Electoral College votes to officially append the title “president-elect” to his name. But this reality has not yet been fully accepted by President Donald Trump and his most steadfast enablers, and so talk of coups d’état continues to flourish in the discourse. On these pages, we’ve faced this cloud of seeming uncertainty in straightforward fashion: The likelihood that the election will be overturned is vanishingly remote. But this strange psychodrama has yet to run its course. Trump’s attempt to cling to power has been riveting to watch and, at times, comedically hapless, but it’s still likely to do lasting harm to our democracy.
That’s a fitting epitaph for his presidency, but that gravestone is not yet carved. As we’ve noted, this is perhaps the most dangerous period of the Trump presidency. And while the president’s hopes of remaining in power have largely played out in a series of legal schemes that have, up to now, failed to deliver the needed fatal blow to Biden’s obvious claim to the presidency, we’re starting to learn more about what sort of person remains willing to stand in Trump’s corner as he wages his last, limp efforts to seed doubts about the election, and what sort of harm they could leave behind. While it may resemble a sideshow at times, as Trump’s ragged gang of loyalists contort their faces for the camera, these dead-enders are doing real damage to the country.


newrepublic--2020-11-20--The Fed Could Help Cash-Strapped Cities and States. Mnuchin Has Other Ideas.

With the pandemic spiking and the economic conditions of the states worsening , the view that the MLF has done its job appears sadly misguided .
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has called the deadline for expiration “ dangerously premature.
” Oregon Senator Ron Wyden described Mnuchin ’ s November 19 letter to Powell as “ economic sabotage.
” According to the senior Democrat in the Senate Finance Committee , the Treasury secretary “ is salting the earth in an attempt to inflict political pain on president-elect Biden.
” Powell has signaled that the Fed might agree .
“ When @ @ @ @ @ @ @ put those tools away , ” he stated about the emergency lending powers on November 17 .
“ I don ’ t think that time is yet.
” Responding to Mnuchin ’ s November 19 letter requesting the Federal Reserve close down the MLF , the Federal Reserve released a statement indicating that it would “ prefer that the full suite of emergency facilities established during the coronavirus pandemic continue to serve their important role as a backstop for our still-strained and vulnerable economy.
” The question of who has final control over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
So far , the Treasury and Fed have acted in concert with decisions about the Cares-related facilities , seeing it as in their mutual interest to work collaboratively .
The Board of Governors likes to see itself as apolitical and above the fray , acting on technocratic judgments about what best allows markets to function , rather than explicit decisions about economic policy that reveal its role in creating winners and losers .
Moreover , they fear that moves that could be labeled “ activist ” might prompt Congress to challenge the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” in the United States that dates to the Korean War .
Such concerns have no doubt limited Powell ’ s willingness to ramp up conflict with Mnuchin , although disagreements have now broken into the open .
The Fed insisting on the continued need for lending to fend off state and local austerity increases the likelihood that the facilities might be able continue in their current form—or , if closed , that they could be revived anew under a Democratic White House with willing cooperation from the central bank .
“ If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the programs , ” The Wall Street Journal has reported , “ Mr .
Biden ’ s Treasury Department could determine whether to reactivate them in some fashion after the new administration takes office Jan. 20 .
”

The question of who has final control over the MLF’s future is ambiguous. So far, the Treasury and Fed have acted in concert with decisions about the Cares-related facilities, seeing it as in their mutual interest to work collaboratively. The Board of Governors likes to see itself as apolitical and above the fray, acting on technocratic judgments about what best allows markets to function, rather than explicit decisions about economic policy that reveal its role in creating winners and losers. Moreover, they fear that moves that could be labeled “activist” might prompt Congress to challenge the seven-decade tradition of “central bank independence” in the United States that dates to the Korean War.
Such concerns have no doubt limited Powell’s willingness to ramp up conflict with Mnuchin, although disagreements have now broken into the open. The Fed insisting on the continued need for lending to fend off state and local austerity increases the likelihood that the facilities might be able continue in their current form—or, if closed, that they could be revived anew under a Democratic White House with willing cooperation from the central bank. “If the Trump administration decides not to extend the programs,” The Wall Street Journal has reported, “Mr. Biden’s Treasury Department could determine whether to reactivate them in some fashion after the new administration takes office Jan. 20.”
Such reactivation might involve a legal battle that pits the different parties’ interpretations of the Cares legislation against one another. While those who oppose federal financing of state and local governments argue that deadlines in Cares prohibit further action in the new year, a variety of experts contend that the law will give incoming officials room to maneuver, regardless of the views held by congressional Republicans and Mnuchin. “They don’t have the power to shut it down,” says Bob Hockett, former counsel for the New York Federal Reserve and the International Monetary Fund, and now a professor of law at Cornell. “They would have to legislate a shutdown.”


newrepublic--2020-11-20--Democrats’ Fear of the Green New Deal Is Tearing the Party Apart

When political parties underperform in elections , there ’ s normally at least a discussion about a change in leadership .
While they were expected to pick up seats , Democrats lost at least eight , failing to beat a single Republican incumbent , let alone take back the Senate .
But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer were reelected to their posts .
Meanwhile , moderate Democrats—from Abigail Spanberger to Conor Lamb to Jim Clyburn—have lashed out at their more progressive colleagues , blaming proposals like defunding the police and the GND for supposedly costing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ messaging strategies cost Democrats which seats is extraordinarily difficult , but it ’ s worth noting two things : The Green New Deal is popular , even in red states , and Republican attack ads in competitive districts focused on a wide range of issues , frequently citing Democrats ’ loyalty to the supposedly radical leftist Pelosi .
One ad even skewered South Carolina Democrat Joe Cunningham for taking oil and gas cash .
As for the party ’ s new leader , Biden has alarmed climate advocates by appointing Congressman Cedric Richmond—a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fossil fuel industry—to head the Office of Public Engagement .
Worst still is the news that Bruce Reed , a member of Biden ’ s campaign team and his former chief of staff , is reportedly in talks to head up the Office of Management and Budget .
A longtime deficit hawk , Reed could turn the OMB into a graveyard for any progressive policy , much less the sort of sweeping changes the climate crisis demands .
There are often gaps between what ’ s needed to solve societal problems and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s been especially stark on climate , where long-standing talk of a modest carbon tax was at odds with the “ rapid , far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society ” —in the words of the United Nations ’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—that are required to avert catastrophe .
There are frustrating but logical reasons for this .
Fossil fuel corporations—historically , some of the most powerful companies on earth—have a vested interest in making sure as little as possible is done to lower emissions since that will infringe on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one of America ’ s two political parties and have gargantuan lobbying arms they can wield to torpedo legislation .

When political parties underperform in elections, there’s normally at least a discussion about a change in leadership. While they were expected to pick up seats, Democrats lost at least eight, failing to beat a single Republican incumbent, let alone take back the Senate. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer were reelected to their posts. Meanwhile, moderate Democrats—from Abigail Spanberger to Conor Lamb to Jim Clyburn—have lashed out at their more progressive colleagues, blaming proposals like defunding the police and the GND for supposedly costing the party seats. Sorting out which messaging strategies cost Democrats which seats is extraordinarily difficult, but it’s worth noting two things: The Green New Deal is popular, even in red states, and Republican attack ads in competitive districts focused on a wide range of issues, frequently citing Democrats’ loyalty to the supposedly radical leftist Pelosi. One ad even skewered South Carolina Democrat Joe Cunningham for taking oil and gas cash.
As for the party’s new leader, Biden has alarmed climate advocates by appointing Congressman Cedric Richmond—a Democrat who is unusually close to the fossil fuel industry—to head the Office of Public Engagement. Worst still is the news that Bruce Reed, a member of Biden’s campaign team and his former chief of staff, is reportedly in talks to head up the Office of Management and Budget. A longtime deficit hawk, Reed could turn the OMB into a graveyard for any progressive policy, much less the sort of sweeping changes the climate crisis demands.
There are often gaps between what’s needed to solve societal problems and the policies that lawmakers propose. That’s been especially stark on climate, where long-standing talk of a modest carbon tax was at odds with the “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society”—in the words of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—that are required to avert catastrophe. There are frustrating but logical reasons for this. Fossil fuel corporations—historically, some of the most powerful companies on earth—have a vested interest in making sure as little as possible is done to lower emissions since that will infringe on their profits. They effectively now own one of America’s two political parties and have gargantuan lobbying arms they can wield to torpedo legislation.