newrepublic--2020-10-27--Will The Wall Street Journal Be Destroyed by its Opinion section?

Last week , amid a torrent of bad press , President Trump teased one story as a game-changer .
“ The Wall Street Journal is working on a very , very important piece , which should be very good , ” he said on a campaign call , teasing an explosive story about Joe Biden ’ s son ’ s dealings with foreign officials .
That story was published on Thursday , the night of the final presidential debate .
But it appeared in an unexpected place : not on the newspaper ’ s front page , but in its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by Kimberly Strassel , was everything the Trump campaign hoped it would be .
It alleged that text messages reviewed by Strassel contained evidence that Biden had been cut into a deal involving his son and a Chinese energy conglomerate .
“ As Biden refuses to answer questions about this case , voters will have to make up their own minds , ” Strassel wrote .
“ But given Hunter ’ s exploits in China , Ukraine , Kazakhstan and elsewhere , much more is yet to come.
” For months , Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a corruption allegation they could pin on Biden—a search that led to , among other things , Trump ’ s impeachment .
Now , at long last , they had it .
It didn ’ t last long .
Not long after Strassel ’ s column was published online , reporters from the paper ’ s news division published a story of their own .
They had reviewed the same material as Strassel and come to the opposite conclusion .
“ The venture ... never received proposed funds from the Chinese company or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ familiar with the matter , ” Andrew Duehren and James Areddy wrote .
“ Corporate records reviewed by the Wall Street Journal show no role for Joe Biden.
” It was the latest skirmish in what The Washington Post ’ s Paul Farhi described as “ a civil war ” between the Journal ’ s news and opinion sides that has been playing out in public for months , a reflection of a larger existential crisis at a paper whose rabidly pro-Trump opinion section is damaging the credibility of its reporting .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conservative media ’ s allergy to truth and reporting , which has the capability to destroy the legitimacy of mainstream papers like the Journal .

On Sunday, The New York Times’ Ben Smith laid out the full-court press made by a White House lawyer, Eric Herschmann, and former deputy White House counsel, Stefan Passantino, to try to turn the story into an election-shaking scandal. The goal, Smith wrote, was straightforward: The Journal’s news division has credibility. Reporting on the entanglements between Hunter and Joe Biden and foreign officials could turn into a major story, as stories about the Clinton Foundation did in 2016. (The “Clinton Cash” stories were published in the Times, in conjunction with right-wing operative Peter Schweizer.)
Then Rudy Giuliani, in a plot twist worthy of a Coen Brothers movie, appeared on the scene. He handed many of the same documents being reviewed by the Journal to the New York Post, which is, like the Journal, owned by Rupert Murdoch. (Many veteran Post reporters refused to touch the Hunter Biden story, as the Times reported last week.) By the time of Thursday’s debate, there was already serious doubt about the credibility of the documents the Post was reporting on and concerns that it was all part of a foreign influence campaign.
Strassel’s column seems, in retrospect, a last-ditch effort to give the story the veneer of respectability it desperately needed. By batting down Strassel’s column, the Journal’s news side was asserting its independence, refusing to play a part in a partisan scheme. Without that dash of credibility, the story fizzled. “If you’d been watching the debate, but hadn’t been obsessively watching Fox News or reading Breitbart, you would have had no idea what Mr. Trump was talking about,” Smith wrote. “The story the Trump team hoped would upend the campaign was fading fast.”


newrepublic--2020-10-27--Can a Black Novelist Write Autofiction?

Can a Black Novelist Write Autofiction?

Quick : What names come to mind when you hear the term “ autofiction ” ?
Let me guess , you ’ re probably thinking about Rachel Cusk , Karl Ove Knausgaard , Ben Lerner , and Sheila Heti , among a few others .
I ’ ve seen these writers grouped together so often over the years that I ’ ve started to think of them as partners in a kind of literary professional services firm .
( The Offices of Cusk Heti Lerner & Knausgaard—I can actually see the commercial in my mind ’ s eye . )
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ many books that have been so labeled , there is not much agreement on the core features of autofiction beyond the autobiographical requirement ( and even that is up for debate ) .
But what nearly all writers of autofiction seem to have in common is that they ’ re white .
If we can say that autofiction generally lacks traditional character development and jettisons traditional notions of plot , while sometimes featuring fragmented structure and diaristic prose , I can instantly name a few books by people of color that qualify—among them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , The Residue Years by Mitchell Jackson , What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons , and Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi .
A few of these books have been described as autofiction by critics—Freshwater was labeled as such in this magazine—but for the most part when the autobiographical content of these novels is addressed it is simply described as being , well , autobiographical .
For example , The Residue Years is described as an autobiographical novel in The New York Times , The Guardian , and Publisher ’ s Weekly , and Freshwater @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Yorker and The Seattle Times .
I myself wrote my debut novel , published last year , under the influence of autofiction , but it was not ( to my knowledge ) described this way by critics .
Some mistook my book as an immigrant novel ( in Harper ’ s , my protagonist is called an immigrant even though he declares in the opening pages that he was born in America ) , and in The New York Times , my novel was called a bildungsroman , which is a close cousin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ autofiction and autobiographical fiction—is important because of the way each genre is assessed by critics .
Autofiction is at the cutting edge of literary innovation ; autobiographical fiction is as old as time .
When a critic invokes the phrase “ autofiction ” they are essentially arguing that a writer is helping to create a new kind of literature .
The phrase “ autobiographical fiction , ” on the other hand , denotes a book that could very well be artful but is drawing on a tradition that isn ’ t new at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ featured in appraisals of autofiction .
Indeed , the two writers of color who are consistently mentioned among the ranks of autofiction ’ s practitioners—Teju Cole and Tao Lin—use characters whose lives and preoccupations are likely comprehensible to most members of the literary critic class .
The protagonist of Lin ’ s Taipei is a writer named Paul who lives in Brooklyn and is on a book tour to publicize his second novel .
The first few pages of Open City , Cole ’ s debut novel , feature the protagonist , Julius @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Western artists and thinkers—including Ludwig van Beethoven , Richard Wagner , Rodion Shchedrin , Eugène Ysaÿe , Roland Barthes , Peter Altenberg , and St. Augustine—and describing his preference for classical radio stations from Canada , Germany , and the Netherlands ( American stations , he says , “ had too many commercials for my taste ” ) .
The effect is to signal to the reader that Julius is immersed in Western high culture , and that Western readers are entering a safe , well-appointed space in which their admiration for these @ @ @ @ @ @

This distinction—between autofiction and autobiographical fiction—is important because of the way each genre is assessed by critics. Autofiction is at the cutting edge of literary innovation; autobiographical fiction is as old as time. When a critic invokes the phrase “autofiction” they are essentially arguing that a writer is helping to create a new kind of literature. The phrase “autobiographical fiction,” on the other hand, denotes a book that could very well be artful but is drawing on a tradition that isn’t new at all.
Writers of color are sparingly featured in appraisals of autofiction. Indeed, the two writers of color who are consistently mentioned among the ranks of autofiction’s practitioners—Teju Cole and Tao Lin—use characters whose lives and preoccupations are likely comprehensible to most members of the literary critic class. The protagonist of Lin’s Taipei is a writer named Paul who lives in Brooklyn and is on a book tour to publicize his second novel. The first few pages of Open City, Cole’s debut novel, feature the protagonist, Julius, reeling off a dizzying number of Western artists and thinkers—including Ludwig van Beethoven, Richard Wagner, Rodion Shchedrin, Eugène Ysaÿe, Roland Barthes, Peter Altenberg, and St. Augustine—and describing his preference for classical radio stations from Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands (American stations, he says, “had too many commercials for my taste”). The effect is to signal to the reader that Julius is immersed in Western high culture, and that Western readers are entering a safe, well-appointed space in which their admiration for these same figures will be affirmed.


newrepublic--2020-10-27--The Ballot Initiative That Could Change How You Think About Defunding the Police

Something shifted in the weeks following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer , or at least it felt that way .
Calls to defund the police rang out in protests across the country and through the halls of city government .
The Minneapolis City Council , in a widely covered June rally , announced a veto-proof majority in support of dismantling its deadly police force .
In New York City , local officials were confronted by a protest encampment at City Hall that grew by the hour , coalescing around a single demand : to cut @ @ @ @ @ @ @ police budget .
National media outlets , including this one , dedicated unprecedented page space and airtime to ideas of abolition and life after the police .
But less than six months later , as a summer of upheaval and potential came to a close , many of the early pledges made by sympathetic—or at least politically shrewd—elected officials in Democratic cities have collapsed .
The Minneapolis City Council , facing pushback from its bureaucratic charter commission , decided it would not be disbanding its police force after all ; and onetime cuts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ York have been exposed as performative budgetary sleights of hand .
That was particularly true in Los Angeles , where the city council voted in July to cut just $ 150 million from the police department ’ s $ 1.8 billion budget , around the same time as officers received a 4.8 percent raise and new bonuses that will amount to $ 41 million by the end of the fiscal year .
These were lessons well learned .
Over the last few months , advocates in Los Angeles have quietly pushed through a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ research , organizing , and coalition-building , that would not only prevent funds from being spent on the traditional criminal justice system but—crucially—reserve them for social and community services .
It is uniquely designed not just to circumvent the fickle whims of elected officials but to outlast them .
It ’ s “ something that ’ s going to outlive me , it ’ s going to outlive you , and it hopefully impacts the communities that come after us , ” Eunisses Hernandez , a co-executive director of the decarceration group La @ @ @ @ @ @ @ L.A. campaign built around that ballot initiative , Measure J , told me in a recent Zoom interview .
If passed in November by voters in the nation ’ s most populous county , Measure J would amend the county charter to require that at least 10 percent of the roughly $ 8.8 billion in locally generated revenues be set aside every year for community investment and alternatives to incarceration like mental health treatment , substance abuse services , and counseling and rehabilitation programs .
By prohibiting these specific funds from being spent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the court system—which already account for a disproportionate amount of spending—it would move toward accomplishing what many activists across the country have been calling for : a government that spends its resources on housing , health care , and community instead of just cops .
Its passage would be historic in Los Angeles County , but it would also potentially create a road map for communities across the country .
Or at least that ’ s what its organizers hope .
The measure , though characterized by opponents as a rash , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ protests , grew out of an existing movement to reform the criminal justice system in Los Angeles County , which operates the world ’ s largest jail system and one of its deadliest , most well-funded sheriff ’ s departments .
Anti-carceral activists including Hernandez made huge strides last year when they pushed the county to cancel plans to build two massive correctional facilities that would have collectively detained more than 5,000 people and cost more than $ 2 billion .
At the same time , they also spurred the county to commission @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on alternatives to incarceration .
“ That ’ s I think where we saw the seeds of Measure J , because they met for over a year , they came in with a number of recommendations that were adopted by the board , ” said Sheila Kuehl , supervisor for the county ’ s third district .
“ It ’ s really those groups who were working together that recognized that it was very difficult to enact reform for the long-term .
”

If the movement to rethink policing and incarceration was well underway last year, then it only gained momentum—and a new sense of urgency—following Floyd’s murder, when thousands of protesters poured into the streets of Los Angeles, prompting Mayor Eric Garcetti to call in 1,000 armed troops from the national guard, despite his previous assurance that he wouldn’t. Protesters had reasons to be angry: L.A. officers from the police and sheriff’s department had killed 18 people, nearly all of whom were Black or Latinx, within the first five months of 2020 alone—and more than 200 people over the last five years, according to a database compiled by the Los Angeles Times. The killings didn’t stop after the protests: Since June, law enforcement officers in L.A. County have killed 11 people, according to the Times’ count, including 18-year-old Andres Guardado and 29-year-old Dijon Kizzee, both of whom were shot in the back multiple times. The county has declined to prosecute any of the officers involved. All of this unfolded against a backdrop of surging wage inequality, skyrocketing rents, and a homelessness crisis that in the past year ballooned by more than 12 percent, affecting more than 66,000 people—roughly a quarter of whom experience serious mental illness.
Measure J “is a reflection of what our values are in this moment of a pandemic, but even beyond that, we should be investing in people’s health, people’s housing, and alternatives to incarceration,” said Hernandez, who has cropped bleached-blonde hair and speaks with the rapid determination of a person familiar with getting her point across under a time cap—the kind of constraint you see at public hearings and policy meetings. When she first began approaching the Board of Supervisors in 2015 about shifting funding away from the largest jail system in the world, “nobody gave a fuck about that. Literally, it went from one ear and out the other, and that was it.”
Measure J “is a reflection of what our values are in this moment of a pandemic, but even beyond that; we should be investing in people’s health, people’s housing, and alternatives to incarceration.”
Hernandez’s path to anti-carceral activism began with her witnessing friends end up in jail for marijuana convictions—“Their lives still haven’t recovered because of that.” It inspired her to get her bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, with the intent of becoming a cop. “I was like, you know what? I could be the cop that doesn’t arrest people. I could be the cop that helps people and gets them some of the support they need,” she said. It was a course on criminology that introduced her to anti-capitalist critiques of criminalization that changed her mind. It was there that she first saw policing as a deeply entrenched institution—something bigger than her own good intentions. “As one person you could not change an institution,” she said.


newrepublic--2020-10-27--This Presidency Is Bad for Your Health

This Presidency Is Bad for Your Health

It ’ s a cliché at this point , but imagine being told 10 years ago that the final weeks of the 2020 election campaign would feature President Donald Trump telling enthusiastic supporters at campaign rallies that the deadly airborne virus they were at risk of contracting at that very moment—one for which there was no vaccine and limited treatment options—was not a big deal at all .
Wrap your head around your best friend dropping this prediction on you : “ Hey buddy , bit of a weird one : In 2020 the president is Donald Trump , there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ novel virus that ’ s killed more than 200,000 Americans , and thousands of his supporters are still showing up at his campaign rallies , where the closing argument is : ‘ This Is Fine !
’ ” Figuratively and literally , it ’ s a world of hurt .
The Guardian noted the sick symmetry this week : The states that Trump has chosen to round out the last few days of the campaign in are those that are seeing new surges in coronavirus cases .
Nebraska , where the campaign promised @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ahead of its planned rally in Omaha , has a positive test rate of 21.5 percent .
At least 16 cases have so far been linked to a single Trump rally in Bemidji , Minnesota , with two hospitalizations .
While outdoor rallies render the virus a significantly lesser threat , that benefit can be offset if attendees don ’ t stay apart and wear masks , as attendees at other Trump rallies have failed to do .
After all , these are the die-hard supporters of a president who has repeatedly disparaged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Whether or not these campaign events pose a danger is , perhaps , beside the point .
These rallies are for people who do not believe the coronavirus is a real threat , to themselves or others .
( Or they have weighed the threat and decided that seeing the president expound upon his desire to drive a truck off into the sunset is worth any risk . )
The secretive handling of the continued outbreak at the White House , which has now reached Mike Pence ’ s inner circle , has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ virus can be managed simply by willing yourself not to be sick or die—even if the president has access to a level of care of which they dare not dream .
Campaign rallies , by their very nature , don ’ t exist to bring waffling voters to a particular high school auditorium or airport hangar in order to persuade them .
Their purpose is to help campaigns with “ optics ” by projecting strength and garnering media coverage .
In certain instances , these perceptions might generate enthusiasm among those fence-sitting voters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conditions don ’ t exist in this election : The 2020 electorate is noteworthy by its low number of undecided voters .
Beyond that , Trump has had four years to build on his 2016 coalition and has instead gone out of his way to alienate any voters not already in his camp .
Trump is in trouble , especially with Biden ’ s surprising dominance with older voters and the way he ’ s made some unexpected states suddenly competitive .
Instead of working to expand his shrinking base , Trump is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : by doubling down on what he believes has worked before and going after aggrieved , white , maskless voters .

It’s a cliché at this point, but imagine being told 10 years ago that the final weeks of the 2020 election campaign would feature President Donald Trump telling enthusiastic supporters at campaign rallies that the deadly airborne virus they were at risk of contracting at that very moment—one for which there was no vaccine and limited treatment options—was not a big deal at all. Wrap your head around your best friend dropping this prediction on you: “Hey buddy, bit of a weird one: In 2020 the president is Donald Trump, there’s a pandemic because of a novel virus that’s killed more than 200,000 Americans, and thousands of his supporters are still showing up at his campaign rallies, where the closing argument is: ‘This Is Fine!’” Figuratively and literally, it’s a world of hurt.
The Guardian noted the sick symmetry this week: The states that Trump has chosen to round out the last few days of the campaign in are those that are seeing new surges in coronavirus cases. Nebraska, where the campaign promised “strong precautions” were in place ahead of its planned rally in Omaha, has a positive test rate of 21.5 percent. At least 16 cases have so far been linked to a single Trump rally in Bemidji, Minnesota, with two hospitalizations. While outdoor rallies render the virus a significantly lesser threat, that benefit can be offset if attendees don’t stay apart and wear masks, as attendees at other Trump rallies have failed to do. After all, these are the die-hard supporters of a president who has repeatedly disparaged mask-wearing as a sign of weakness.


newrepublic--2020-10-27--Brett Kavanaugh Will Have His Revenge on America

Two years ago , Justice Brett Kavanaugh appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to defend himself against allegations of sexual misconduct .
He lashed out at Democrats , left-wing activists , and those who sought “ revenge on behalf of the Clintons , ” whom he had investigated in the 1990s .
Then he gave a stark warning .
“ This grotesque and coordinated character assassination will dissuade competent and good people of all political persuasions from serving our country , ” Kavanaugh angrily told senators .
“ And as we all know , in the United States political system @ @ @ @ @ @ @ around comes around.
” “ What comes around goes around ” echoed in my ears last night as I read the Supreme Court ’ s order in Democratic National Committee v. Wisconsin State Legislature , a dispute over the state ’ s absentee ballot deadline .
A federal judge in Wisconsin , citing the coronavirus pandemic , ordered the state to count ballots that arrive by mail by November 9 so long as they are postmarked by Election Day on November 3 .
The Supreme Court blocked that ruling in a 5–3 vote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its “ shadow docket , ” where it decides emergency filings without full briefings or oral arguments .
The ruling is a victory for Republican efforts to deny voters greater flexibility while they vote during a pandemic .
Among the justices to explain their reasoning was Kavanaugh , who articulated a Trumpian view of the election process .
In his eyes , votes counted after the stroke of midnight on Election Day are inherently suspect ; news organizations ’ projections of the winner carry the same weight as the legal certification of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ensure voters ’ ballots are counted despite Post Office delays and the ongoing pandemic are destabilizing and delegitimizing to the electoral process .
It was a coldly partisan vision of how American elections should be run , often unmoored from fact or reasoning .
If this reasoning had sprung from the pen of the vast majority of Americans , it could be dismissed as ignorant ; from Kavanaugh , it is unabashed partisanship .
In a moment of cinematic timing , the court ’ s order came down just moments before the Senate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the ninth justice .
Barrett proceeded to the White House , where she took one of two oaths to become a Supreme Court justice in an outdoor ceremony led by Justice Clarence Thomas .
Then , in a highly unusual move , she joined President Donald Trump on the White House balcony for what amounted to a campaign photo op before an audience of his closest political supporters .
If two of the court ’ s leading conservatives wanted to signal that they were political actors instead of impartial jurists , they could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In shadow docket cases , unlike normal cases , there is no written opinion summarizing the views of the majority .
Their reasoning must instead be synthesized from any concurring opinions written by those justices , if they exist .
Chief Justice John Roberts briefly argued that the court was justified to intervene when a federal court changed state election laws but not when a state supreme court did so , thus explaining his vote in the Pennsylvania election case earlier this month ( when he voted with the three liberal justices to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ received by November 6 ) .
Justice Neil Gorsuch critiqued the lower court for imposing its own rules on Wisconsin because of the pandemic when state officials had already made significant accommodations .
Kavanaugh largely agreed with Gorsuch ’ s reasoning but added to it by explaining why he thought state ballot deadlines were sacrosanct .

“For important reasons, most States, including Wisconsin, require absentee ballots to be received by election day, not just mailed by election day,” Kavanaugh wrote. “Those States want to avoid the chaos and suspicions of impropriety that can ensue if thousands of absentee ballots flow in after election day and potentially flip the results of an election. And those States also want to be able to definitively announce the results of the election on election night, or as soon as possible thereafter. Moreover, particularly in a Presidential election, counting all the votes quickly can help the State promptly resolve any disputes, address any need for recounts, and begin the process of canvassing and certifying the election results in an expeditious manner.”
This is not how American elections work, and it’s profoundly embarrassing for a Supreme Court justice to claim otherwise.
This is not how American elections work, and it’s profoundly embarrassing for a Supreme Court justice to claim otherwise. States do not “definitively announce” results on an election night; news organizations like the Associated Press issue projections that are often correct but not legally binding. In arguing for mail-in ballots to be tossed, Kavanaugh prioritized the perception of election results over the results themselves. “There are no results to ‘flip’ until all valid votes are counted,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent from the court’s order. “And nothing could be more ‘suspicious’ or ‘improper’ than refusing to tally votes once the clock strikes 12 on election night. To suggest otherwise, especially in these fractious times, is to disserve the electoral process.”
Kavanaugh’s argument here amounted to little more than lending a judicial imprimatur to Trump’s own efforts to delegitimize election results that might not reflect him as the winner. “It would be very very proper and very nice if a winner were declared on November 3, instead of counting ballots for two weeks, which is totally inappropriate and I don’t believe that that’s by our laws,” he told reporters outside the White House on Tuesday. “I don’t believe that. So we’ll see what happens.” In this exchange and past ones, Trump appeared to be referring to the “blue shift,” a phenomenon in which Democrats tend to gain votes as absentee and provisional ballots are counted after Election Day.


newrepublic--2020-10-27--The Whole World Is on the Ballot

The Whole World Is on the Ballot

Every morning , I wake up to the sound of a new nail thudding into the coffin of yet another institution of U.S. democracy .
From the craven and brazen police violence this summer to the sitting president ’ s encouragement of white supremacist militias , to protesters disappearing and being held without charge , to the president ’ s outright refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power , it ’ s clear that American democracy is on life support .
It ’ s not a surprise , in a nation that has repeatedly sacrificed civil rights while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ child .
As far back as the George W. Bush years of extrajudicial imprisonments and warrantless wiretaps , I ’ ve heard warnings that the United States is on the brink of authoritarianism .
But this time , with the looming and accelerating climate crisis , feels different .
This time feels real .
That sinking feeling in your stomach is vertigo .
This is the edge .
America ’ s democracy was designed to be anything but democratic : built on stolen land , shifty suffrage , the Three-Fifths Compromise , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ popular will .
These days , it ’ s hard to tell if the system is broken or if it ’ s working as designed .
I think it ’ s both : The system was flawed—rigged—from the start , and has now degenerated into something even worse .
We ’ re seeing the corrosion of a corrupt system .
And it could lead to full-out collapse , right on top of us .
But as inherently inadequate as our democracy is and has always been , it would be a mistake to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at all .
Even a flawed democracy has the bones of the framework we need to create the world we want .
And this year , our choice is between a hollowed-out democracy and full-blown authoritarian chaos .
There ’ s no hyperbole there .
The world is literally on fire .
Global warming has not paused for the Covid-19 pandemic or the long-overdue reckoning on race or any of the other crises at play .
Quite the opposite .
The climate crisis has gained strength and run right smack into every other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ West Coast , for example , voters are struggling to find their way to polling places that may have burned down in an apocalyptic wildfire season that the state was ill-equipped to fight , partially because the prison labor it often exploited for this purpose has dwindled due to the coronavirus pandemic in its overcrowded prisons .

It’s ridiculous to say that Donald Trump does not have a climate plan. He absolutely does, and it’s terrifying. His plan to “mitigate” the crisis is to egg it on by pouring money into the fossil fuel fiasco; his plan to adapt to the crisis is to dehumanize and deny the waves of climate refugees as the blood of needless deaths coats his hands and the children kidnapped by the U.S. government cry out for their parents. Just because he doesn’t outright call it a strategy doesn’t make it any less of one.
Joe Biden, on the other hand, has a climate plan and says as much. As his campaign will tell you, it’s the most aggressive climate plan in history. As most climate activists will tell you, when you factor in how much more ferocious the crisis has gotten with every election cycle of delay, Biden’s plan still falls short. At the same time, it’s the best option on the table. Jane Fonda said it best: “I’d rather push a moderate than fight a fascist.”
This election is less about whether we should act on climate than how we should act on it. Should we act with compassion or with cruelty? Given that our national commitment to democracy has become debatable, this election is also about whether we even have the ability to act on climate in any meaningful way in the future.


newrepublic--2020-10-27--Will The Wall Street Journal Be Destroyed by its Opinion Section?

Last week , amid a torrent of bad press , President Trump teased one story as a game-changer .
“ The Wall Street Journal is working on a very , very important piece , which should be very good , ” he said on a campaign call , teasing an explosive story about Joe Biden ’ s son ’ s dealings with foreign officials .
That story was published on Thursday , the night of the final presidential debate .
But it appeared in an unexpected place : not on the newspaper ’ s front page but in its Opinion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kimberly Strassel , was everything the Trump campaign hoped it would be .
It alleged that text messages reviewed by Strassel contained evidence that Biden had been cut into a deal involving his son and a Chinese energy conglomerate .
“ As Biden refuses to answer questions about this case , voters will have to make up their own minds , ” Strassel wrote .
“ But given Hunter ’ s exploits in China , Ukraine , Kazakhstan and elsewhere , much more is yet to come.
” For months , Trump and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ corruption allegation they could pin on Biden—a search that led to , among other things , Trump ’ s impeachment .
Now , at long last , they had it .
It didn ’ t last long .
Not long after Strassel ’ s column was published online , reporters from the paper ’ s news division published a story of their own .
They had reviewed the same material as Strassel and come to the opposite conclusion .
“ The venture … never received proposed funds from the Chinese company or completed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the matter , ” Andrew Duehren and James Areddy wrote .
“ Corporate records reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show no role for Joe Biden.
” It was the latest skirmish in what The Washington Post ’ s Paul Farhi described as “ a civil war ” between the Journal ’ s news and opinion sides that has been playing out in public for months , a reflection of a larger existential crisis at a paper whose rabidly pro-Trump Opinion section is damaging the credibility of its reporting .
The controversy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ media ’ s allergy to truth and reporting , which has the capability to destroy the legitimacy of mainstream papers like the Journal .


newrepublic--2020-10-28--The Myths Fueling Today’s
Armed Right

The Myths Fueling Today’s
Armed Right

The 13 men charged in a plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer called themselves the Wolverine Watchmen , a possible reference to the white supremacist vigilante militia in the HBO series Watchmen .
The suspects began planning their kidnapping this summer , with live fire exercises and explosives , according to the charges .
Not long before , gangs of armed men , many of them carrying AR-15s , and defiantly not wearing facemasks , protested inside the state capitol in Lansing against strict health measures imposed by Whitmer .
Similar armed right-wing groups across the nation are planning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 3 , as President Donald Trump called for in the presidential debate in late September .
At first blush , it may seem hard to connect the various themes that crop up in recent stories about the armed right .
There is , of course , the adamant assertion of their right to bear arms , but also a penchant for white supremacy ( evidenced by their baleful presence at Black Lives Matter protests , and the online contempt they routinely hurl at the movement ) , a resistance to common sense public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a deadly pandemic , and the specter of voter intimidation .
But at a deeper level , what connects this powerful , and dangerous , set of attitudes and reflexes is a collection of myths that have spread like coronavirus mutations through social media , allowing the different groups of the armed right to perceive themselves as good guys fighting various historic evils .
Many of these myths can be traced back to the National Rifle Association , the once-powerful and now-waning guns rights organization that is in the midst of tearing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decline and in debt , laying off staff and losing members .
The New York Attorney General ’ s office is seeking “ to dissolve ” the NRA over credible charges of massive embezzlement first raised by the NRA whistleblower Oliver North , the Reagan-era White House official at the center of the Iran-Contra scandal .
North , identified as “ Dissident No .
1 ” in court documents , was backed by other NRA board directors , including the rock star Ted Nugent .
But even as the NRA teeters , its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ welter of new right-wing groups , some of which are neo-fascist—such as The Proud Boys , whom the president notoriously told to “ stand back and stand by ” at the first debate—or openly white supremacist , and some of which are not .
They are united in their paranoia , and in their anti-government agenda , by one of the NRA ’ s grand theories : the “ slippery slope.
” The idea is that even a little gun control , like background checks , can start a dangerous slide in disarmament @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Trump himself fuels the myth .
“ They call it the slippery slope , and all of sudden everything gets taken away , ” he told reporters last summer , explaining his own reversal on background checks .
For these armed groups , the slippery slope ’ s primary example is the Holocaust .
In 2016 Nugent posted a graphic on his Facebook page featuring photos of prominent Jewish American leaders , each one next to an Israeli flag , calling them “ punks ” who “ hate freedom ” over their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Anti-Defamation League denounced Nugent , saying that “ anti-Semitism has no place in the gun control debate.
” Nugent then posted in response , “ What sort of racist prejudiced POS [ piece of shit ] could possibly not know that Jews for gun control are Nazis in disguise ?
” Nugent was referring to the belief amongst gun activists and other conservatives across the country that the Nazis used gun control to disarm Europe ’ s Jews before they killed them .

Another example marshaled to bolster the slippery slope argument comes from the Reconstruction era. “I’m a Black American, and I know that the NRA was started as a civil rights organization training Black Americans to arm themselves and defend themselves against the KKK,” said Candace Owens in 2018 on Fox News, announcing her membership in the NRA.
These gun myths about Reconstruction and the Holocaust are both the work of the NRA. The first is a fabrication wholly invented by its modern leadership, while the second is an old trope that the NRA has endorsed and amplified. The NRA’s messages have spread through social media to animate gun activists nationwide. The work of one NRA-funded scholar, David B. Kopel, has appeared in newspapers like The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, arguing that gun laws don’t work, usually without disclaimers reflecting the millions of dollars in NRA funding Kopel’s think tank, the Independence Institute, has received. The NRA’s rewriting of history continues to feed viral memes that appropriate the epic struggles of two historically persecuted minorities. These fantasies have saturated the Republican electorate to the point that the “slippery slope” is now embraced as gospel truth on the American right.
The NRA wasn’t always like this. For over a century, it was dedicated to riflery and the shooting sports. It was founded in New York City in 1871, during the peak of Reconstruction. Union Army veterans, most of whom were New York National Guard officers, formed the group to improve riflery among soldiers and able-bodied men in anticipation of future wars. They modeled their organization upon the National Rifle Association of the United Kingdom, inaugurated 12 years before by Queen Victoria, and borrowed its name and target designs for their shooting range. In 1876, during the American centennial, the NRA added “of America” to its name to prevent “any international confusion.”


newrepublic--2020-10-28--A Mission to Expose Far-Right Hate

A Mission to Expose Far-Right Hate

There is a long and noble tradition in this country of journalists going undercover to expose the far right .
More than a century ago , Walter White—a Black man so light-skinned he could easily pass for white—made a name for himself by infiltrating southern lynch mobs , gathering evidence against them , and then broadcasting their evil deeds to a broad reading public .
In the 1940s , Stetson Kennedy impersonated a racist encyclopedia salesman to penetrate the ranks of the Ku Klux Klan and then humiliated them by divulging their closely guarded secrets on a children ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Dick Lehr paid $ 28 for robes and joined the Connecticut chapter of David Duke ’ s Knights of the Ku Klux Klan , in an effort to “ get inside Duke ’ s local outfit , identify his local leader and either verify or debunk his headcount of followers.
” Into this remarkable pantheon of investigators enters Talia Lavin , a journalist and self-described “ schlubby , bisexual Jew , living in Brooklyn , with long brown ratty curls , the matronly figure of a mother in a Philip Roth novel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s not particularly sectarian but falls considerably to the left of Medicare for All.
” As she describes in her impassioned new book , Culture Warlords : My Journey into the Dark Web of White Supremacy , Lavin spent a full year infiltrating the online safe spaces of a panoply of modern white supremacists , from incel message boards to a European neo-Nazi terror propaganda cell .
For these efforts , as well as her earlier journalism and activism , Lavin has become a regular target and particularly loathed figure among the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ names on white supremacist social media sites , sent her parents a postcard bearing a Nazi slogan , and discussed in chatrooms “ whether I was too ugly to rape.
” These days , there is , to be sure , no shortage of studies of white supremacy , from the trenchant scholarship of Alexandra Minna Stern and Kathleen Belew to the powerful reporting of Vegas Tenold and David Neiwert .
Where precisely Lavin ’ s book fits in this firmament may , at first , seem a bit unclear .
Culture @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an ethnography or a memoir or even really a travelogue from racist site to racist site .
It belongs , rather , to an older model of writing .
It is a jeremiad , in the very best sense .
There may be deeper , more comprehensive studies of the far-right , but the value of Culture Warlords is its anger .
It is appropriate that the current profile picture on Lavin ’ s prolific Twitter account shows her wielding a massive sword .
With her frankness and unapologetic partisanship , Lavin models @ @ @ @ @ @ @ As she mentions early in Culture Warlords , Lavin ’ s first experience with antisemitism came online .
She grew up attending Orthodox Jewish schools in a neighborhood of Teaneck , New Jersey , known colloquially as the “ Hebrew Hills.
” The granddaughter of Holocaust survivors , hers was a childhood “ in which every meaningful personal relationship I had was with a Jew.
” As a result , antisemitism was largely abstract to Lavin until adulthood , when she took a job as an editorial intern with the tiny , venerable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , she felt secure in her “ secular , cultural Judaism , ” but she quickly learned that one of the main traffic drivers to JTA was the white supremacist website Stormfront.org .
It turned out , the neo-Nazis reveled in stories about Jews—Jews behaving badly , Jews exercising power , Jews identified publicly as Jews .
Reading the graphic , anonymous threats they sent made her “ bones ache , ” Lavin writes , but from that moment , she knew she was “ going to fight.
” Culture Warlords is an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
On June 1 , 2019 , Lavin joined more than ninety far right and white supremacist groups on the encrypted messaging app , Telegram .
There , she went by “ Tommy ” and just lurked and observed .
Soon , though , she became more active .
Lavin decided to endow Tommy with an anime porn addiction and have him join an online incel forum .
Though one survey suggested that 40 percent of incels—short for “ involuntary celibate ” —are people of color , Lavin found that racism was rife @ @ @ @ @ @ @ radicalized misogyny ” leading users “ straight into the arms of white supremacy.
” Soon , Tommy transformed into a pickup-driving West Virginian “ holy warrior for Christ ” and joined several white nationalist online religious groups .
There , Lavin studied the bizarre and vitriolic conflict between white supremacist Christians ( who celebrate mass murders of Jews and Muslims and view the Crusades as something of a Lost Cause ) and white supremacist pagans ( who loathe Jesus as a Jew and are drawn instead to the Norse gods by the lure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all-white religion , freed from the taint of Jewish perfidy ” ) .

Some journalists might hesitate to give these groups the detailed coverage that Lavin does here. When these groups gain so much attention, they might argue, it creates the impression that they occupy a more central position in the culture than they really do. Lavin, for one, does not believe that media outlets should give neo-Nazis a platform in public debate (“The effect of these ideas when they are aired out is much like Zyklon B,” she writes), but she argues that reporting on and exposing them is different. “Being able to trace, isolate, and identify these ideologies,” she writes, “means that racists can’t hide behind slippery code words or private vocabularies.” To expose their identities and hound them from public life is not the same as giving them a pulpit. The former is a vital tool in the fight against fascism; the latter is essentially what gave us Trump.
If the way to defeat Nazis is not to debate them, what precisely does Lavin propose? The answer to that question can be found in her final two chapters, as well as the book’s epigraph: “No pasarán!”—they shall not pass—a quotation made famous by the Communist leader Dolores Ibárruri speaking to the besieged city of Madrid in 1936, desperate to repulse the Fascist onslaught. The idea behind “no pasarán” is simple—that the legions of evil shall not be permitted to advance—and ancient, bringing to mind Job 38:11, rendered in the King James translation as, “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further.”
For the better part of a century, Lavin writes, the forces of anti-fascism have relentlessly opposed the forces of fascism. Emerging out of the guerilla opposition to Mussolini and Hitler in the 1920s and 1930s, antifa activism can be traced directly through the celebrated underground resistance movements of World War II to British anti-fascists who, in the 1950s and 1960s, harried a fascist resurgence out of existence, to the “black bloc” protesters of today. (For those interested in a thoughtful history of antifa, I would advise Mark Bray’s recent book.)


newrepublic--2020-10-28--Donald Trump Doesn’t Have a Second Act

Donald Trump Doesn’t Have a Second Act

Here we finally are—on the cusp of what , after many false alarms , really might be the beginning of the end of Donald Trump ’ s presidency .
But given ample reasons to remain uneasy about what will happen next week , we might turn instead to recalling a few sure things about the way the Trump campaign , now mostly over , has gone .
Trump ’ s unpopularity made reelection an uphill climb even before the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic , which is worsening with the encroachment of colder weather and the winter months .
Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the course of the year to help matters , and nothing about their bizarre late turn toward material on Joe Biden ’ s son Hunter suggests that it will be able to buoy their electoral hopes .
Trump can ’ t really be faulted for not thinking or planning ahead .
He was impeached for a convoluted effort to surface some dirt about Hunter that began in the middle of last year—an effort that was probably given an unwitting assist by Democrats in their decision to try him exclusively for it .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for a while it seemed like Hunter Biden would be too .
Trump was happy to mention him here and there afterwards in his speeches and interviews , but the campaign eventually shifted to a more direct line of attack : That Joe Biden is an old man who is sure to hand over the reins to more able , and more radical , figures on the left if elected .
Inshallah , as Biden now says .
But Biden—a fully known quantity to the electorate after four years as Vice President , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moderates and conservatives about Obama—has given voters little reason to believe that Trump ’ s portrayal is accurate .
As protests against police violence erupted across the country in late spring , the dog-whistles sounded louder and the charges against him became more specific .
Biden , Trump alleged , was an antifa sympathizer unwilling to denounce rioters and looters and certain to allow the flow of violent undesirables into America ’ s suburbs .
To the surprise and probable dismay of centrists eager for reasons to condemn left-wing activists , that message @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , has totally failed .
Earlier this month , a Politico/Morning Consult poll found that voters still regard Trump as more of an extremist than Biden .
And Trump ’ s persistence with it over the summer , even as the polls continued to slide away from him , seemed to indicate a fully broken campaign .
The notion that he ’ s a political genius has always been silly and unfounded , but the ineptitude of the Republican political machine supporting him—a vast network of old hands , hacks , and pundits @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of reactionary political messaging—has been a bit surprising to witness these past few weeks .
Many liberal and left commentators , this writer included , assumed there would be an abrupt pivot away from direct attacks on Biden and an effort , animated by racism , sexism , and Trump ’ s favorite sociocultural anxieties , to shift attention towards more vulnerable targets—more tangents about the Squad perhaps , or a full court press against Kamala Harris .
So far , those assumptions have proven totally wrong .
Trump references AOC every now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have taken jabs at Harris ’ name and personality .
But for the most part , Donald Trump is finishing out this campaign exactly as he began—not just in the sense that he began this particular year talking about Hunter Biden but also in the sense that this campaign has been reduced to a cargo cult-like repetition of the final weeks of the last one , in 2016 .
A laptop with supposedly damning material has been produced .
The contents of supposedly damning emails are being published .
An evidently critical figure—one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and is being paraded around the conservative press to talk about what the Bidens have supposedly been up to .
And the formal messaging is , again , being undergirded by viral nonsense .

It should be said, though, that while the yammering about Burisma and China bears a resemblance to the talk about Uranium One and all the rest in 2016, the attacks on Hunter have been given a strange and pathetic character all their own by a fixation on his struggles with addiction and the affection and support Biden has given him. One widely mocked tweet from conservative television host John Cardillo last week featured a photo of Biden tenderly kissing Hunter. “Does this look like an appropriate father/son interaction to you?” Thousands replied that it did.
What’s going on here? You could talk yourself into thinking there might be a touch of logic to it—perhaps the campaign, finally convinced that the identity political material had failed them over the summer, decided to take on another line of attack that would still animate the base without alienating moderates upset about Trump’s bigotry quite so much. But there’s no real reason to suppose there’s an actual plan—it’s more likely that Trump simply believes he can win by transplanting as many of 2016’s conditions as he can into a completely different political situation with a completely different opponent on the ballot. It isn’t working: The public already considers him dishonest and is disinclined to believe the allegations he’s made; he doesn’t have half a leg to stand on as far as corruption and nepotism are concerned; and, most importantly, the coronavirus is at the top of voters’ minds. Every moment Trump isn’t speaking about the pandemic and what he intends to do about it is likely a moment wasted.
There’s probably no harsher indictment of Trump’s closing strategy than the fact that more Republicans are beginning to back away from him.
There’s probably no harsher indictment of Trump’s closing strategy than the fact that more Republicans are beginning to back away from him. In a telling interview with Politico earlier this month, Senator Thom Tillis, who’s struggling to overtake a Democratic challenger embroiled in a sex scandal in North Carolina, sold his candidacy as an opportunity to ensure the Senate remains an obstacle for a Biden presidency. “The best check on a Biden presidency is for Republicans to have a majority in the Senate,” he said. “And I do think ‘checks and balances’ does resonate with North Carolina voters.” And in a recent interview with Axios, Ted Cruz, one of the many Republicans clearly looking forward to 2024, openly dismissed the attacks on Hunter. “One of Biden’s best points was when he said, ‘All of these attacks back and forth about my family and his family, they don’t matter—what matters is your family,’” he told Axios’s Jonathan Swan. “I don’t think it moves a single voter.”


newrepublic--2020-10-28--Beltway Lobbyists Are Clutching Their Pearls Over Biden’s Ethics Reforms

If the polls are any guide , then change could soon be afoot in Washington , D.C. , in the form of an incoming Biden administration tasked with the challenge of rebooting an administrative state that ’ s been decimated under the Trump administration .
It ’ s likely to be a uniquely daunting and time-consuming endeavor .
But some concerns , when it comes to staffing up an executive branch and building a presidential inner circle , are perennial .
One such worry involves the revolving door between industry influence-peddlers and the halls of power .
One of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how quickly corruption can take root when the president of the United States refuses to lead by example .
Trump ’ s inner circle has taken the flouting of ethical norms to gaudy new heights , culminating in a Hatch Act–violating Republican National Convention .
Biden , seemingly hyperaware of the need to set a new tone , has promised that his transition team will hew to a higher ethical standard and limit the presence of lobbyists and influence-peddlers .
These are early days , of course , and the Biden team ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tested .
But as you might imagine , as professional Washington prepares for a potential transition to a Joe Biden administration , the usual suspects are clutching their cuff links again at the thought that their fellow elites might have a harder time revolving into government in 2021 as a result of the new strictures that Biden ’ s transition team seems to be imposing .
Locking down the revolving door is a popular cause among popular freshman House Democrats whom actual voters love .
But the party ’ s elite aren ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of reformists—and they ’ re more likely to get an earful from their colleagues in Official Washington ’ s shadow government about being shut out of plum positions .
Back in August , as liberal groups began to stake out positions on Biden ’ s potential personnel decisions , those efforts were treated as a severe affront to Washington ’ s elites .
“ We can ’ t all go to think tanks , or into academia , and you wouldn ’ t want to fill the government entirely with people who came @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the mechanics of Washington , ” complained James P. Rubin ( a State Department official turned chairman of the Trump-connected lobbying firm Ballard Partners ) to The New York Times , which would go on to report that Rubin had , however reluctantly , opted to “ terminate his lobbying registrations for a range of clients ” to better “ ease potential hurdles to joining a Biden administration.
” More recently , this conflict played out on the pages of Politico as an impediment to diversity , with liberal organizations such as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in direct conflict with the party ’ s overarching diversity goals ” and thwarting the effort to allow “ people of color , including those with ties to the financial world , from ascending to key positions long dominated by white males.
” The possibility that a diverse array of talented Black candidates for a Biden administration existed beyond the usual clutch of Wall Street firms and K Street shops seemed to be not worthy of consideration .

It takes plenty of ego for someone to think they’re so uniquely brilliant that their talents should outweigh the public’s interests and wishes.
It takes plenty of ego for someone to think they’re so uniquely brilliant that their talents should outweigh the public’s interests and wishes. But let’s leave that aside for now. The concerns of the Beltway elites is founded on a logic they presume to be unassailable: Surely it is wrong that skillful people may be unable to take jobs where they’d flourish, just because of concerns about their professional history and past obligations. Call it the Tragedy of the False Positive: What happens if locking the revolving door, while blocking plenty of corruption, might also exclude some competent people?
A simple solution suggests itself: Biden can go find other, just as competent people. There. Done. Was that so hard? But if the past is any guide, the process can prove to be difficult, and needlessly so at that.
Biden’s previous stint in the executive branch includes a fairly tawdry example of how badly things can go wrong when the revolving door spins the wrong way. Back in 2015, seven years after Wall Street greed demolished the global economy, an opportunity arose to change the rules of the economic game. The Obama administration had an opening for the number-three job at the Treasury Department—the undersecretary for domestic finance, which manages the Department’s oversight of the banking industry, among other duties. Treasury had no shortage of qualified, public-minded candidates: For instance, Heather McGhee, Nikitra Bailey, Julianne Malveaux, or Tish James. Any of these advocates for the well-being of everyday Americans could have made history as the first Black woman to fill this crucial job.


newrepublic--2020-10-28--Pandemic Fatigue Is Just Exhaustion in the Face of a Failed State

The coronavirus is once again on the rise in the United States , but panic over the recent record surge in infections and hospitalizations is another thing entirely .
Pandemic fatigue , The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week , has set in worldwide , and after seven months of avoiding social contact and public places , people are unsurprisingly letting down their guard .
According to the Journal , while 84 percent of Americans said they were avoiding small gatherings back in April , that number has since dwindled to a mere 45 percent .
The percentage of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has likewise fallen from around 80 to 53 percent .
Some of that no doubt reflects people moving to lower-risk outdoor gatherings ; yet , as The New York Times put it earlier this month , “ If the spring was characterized by horror , the fall has become an odd mix of resignation and heedlessness.
” After more than half a year of lockdowns , remote work , and social distancing guidelines that have kept friends and family largely separated from each other , it ’ s become increasingly difficult for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ high alarm even as the death toll continues to climb .
And while the weariness over quarantining and limiting one ’ s contact with others is clearly a global phenomenon , in the U.S. , pandemic fatigue also appears to be bound up with a certain exhaustion over the unspoken cultural mandate that Americans weather this disaster purely through individual adherence to social distancing guidelines and hunkering down frontier-style with only one ’ s household , waiting for the danger to pass without help from the government .
According to national polling , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the government to deliver a new stimulus package , which makes the ongoing congressional deadlock and Senate Republicans ’ hostility to passing a second relief bill even more grotesque .
We ’ ve been left to fend for ourselves in a public health crisis , and the delusion that we can individually bootstrap our way out of it without any kind of assistance has mostly evaporated .
“ I feel like we ’ ll be trapped in this situation forever , ” one laid-off worker waiting for a new stimulus package told @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recklessly large gatherings and individual bad behavior still reliably make the headlines , Americans have , for the most part , tried to do their part to mitigate the pandemic , particularly in the absence of the kinds of government measures that other countries adopted in the early days , such as simply paying people to stay home .
Even now , in a country notorious for its pockets of anti-vaxxer sentiment , a record number of people are getting flu shots at the urging of public health experts , and most people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ public , regardless of their political affiliation .
But the social contract has frayed dangerously thin as the Trump administration ( which previously suggested—and suggested and suggested—that the pandemic would be over by April ) drags its feet on any kind of action and Senate Republicans continue to block an infusion of federal funding to states and cities .
It gets rather difficult to ask individuals to do their part when , for instance , the few state and federal protections that exist for renters still leave people on the hook for missed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the rent debt that ’ s accumulating .
Or when the same people who lost their jobs and then their homes are now in danger of having their belongings auctioned off , too , because eviction protections never extended to storage space .
If the government—that is , the primary entity with the power to enact wide-scale economic relief right now—won ’ t lift a finger to help , how exactly can it expect a population of 328 million people to keep vigilantly following various distancing and sheltering guidelines as the sole cure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the last few months , as the anxiety and despondency that accompanies prolonged social isolation has deepened , medical professionals have offered various tips and tricks for people combating coronavirus-induced malaise .
“ Create some predictable routines , ” the Vanderbilt University Medical Center advised .
“ Focus on managing the things you have control over.
” Likewise , UCLA ’ s hospital network urged , “ Usher more joy into your days by creating new traditions .
You ’ ll have something fun to look forward to and you might even decide @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has passed.
” As Colette Shade wrote here earlier this month , though such advice might be well-intentioned , and occasionally even useful , positive thinking alone won ’ t remedy our national pandemic fatigue .
There ’ s no single switch that can flip it on or off , of course .
But a functioning , minimally humane government would be a good start .

The coronavirus is once again on the rise in the United States, but panic over the recent record surge in infections and hospitalizations is another thing entirely. Pandemic fatigue, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week, has set in worldwide, and after seven months of avoiding social contact and public places, people are unsurprisingly letting down their guard. According to the Journal, while 84 percent of Americans said they were avoiding small gatherings back in April, that number has since dwindled to a mere 45 percent. The percentage of people avoiding restaurants and other public places has likewise fallen from around 80 to 53 percent. Some of that no doubt reflects people moving to lower-risk outdoor gatherings; yet, as The New York Times put it earlier this month, “If the spring was characterized by horror, the fall has become an odd mix of resignation and heedlessness.”
After more than half a year of lockdowns, remote work, and social distancing guidelines that have kept friends and family largely separated from each other, it’s become increasingly difficult for the public to maintain a constant state of high alarm even as the death toll continues to climb. And while the weariness over quarantining and limiting one’s contact with others is clearly a global phenomenon, in the U.S., pandemic fatigue also appears to be bound up with a certain exhaustion over the unspoken cultural mandate that Americans weather this disaster purely through individual adherence to social distancing guidelines and hunkering down frontier-style with only one’s household, waiting for the danger to pass without help from the government. According to national polling, a clear majority of Americans are eager for the government to deliver a new stimulus package, which makes the ongoing congressional deadlock and Senate Republicans’ hostility to passing a second relief bill even more grotesque. We’ve been left to fend for ourselves in a public health crisis, and the delusion that we can individually bootstrap our way out of it without any kind of assistance has mostly evaporated. “I feel like we’ll be trapped in this situation forever,” one laid-off worker waiting for a new stimulus package told Marketwatch last week.


newrepublic--2020-10-28--Car Companies Have Been Knowingly Screwing the Planet for Half a Century

At this point , you have to wonder which heavily polluting industries didn ’ t know about climate change half a century ago .
This week , E & E News published a months-long investigation showing that Ford and General Motors—the country ’ s two largest automakers—knew about the risks their business posed to climate change all the way back in the 1960s , and did nothing to stop it .
Worse still , they funded lobbying to make sure governments didn ’ t act , either .
The outlines of this story are by now broadly familiar , from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Earnest scientists decades back saw big companies as exciting and innovative places to continue on in their field with ample funding .
They found concerning signs that those companies ’ core business was fueling greenhouse gas emissions and raising temperatures , which seemed like it would have a considerable impact on human and planetary wellbeing in the decades to come .
They presented those findings to a set of largely indifferent higher-ups , who squirreled them away and plowed ahead with business as usual .
When global warming caught the public ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , they joined other polluters in casting doubt on the same type of science their own in-house researchers had presented long ago .
As a result , they were able to fend off policies that might threaten their bottom lines .
Like Exxon , Shell , and electric utility companies , Ford and GM—in addition to funding climate denying think tanks—also joined the Global Climate Coalition ( GCC ) , which actively targeted U.S. involvement in the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 .
Its biggest win would be the Byrd-Hagel Resolution , barring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any other UN agreement that would “ mandate new commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions ” for wealthier countries in the Global North , “ unless the protocol or other agreement also mandates new specific scheduled commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for Developing Country Parties within the same compliance period.
” It was a GCC talking point parroted by automakers in a well-funded advertising campaign against Kyoto , as E & E News points out .
It passed through the Senate unanimously in 1997 .
Though the GCC @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has been deeply influential in shaping U.S. strategy at global climate talks ever since .
Through both Democratic and Republican administrations , U.S. negotiators have pursued voluntary agreements that whitewash questions about the historical responsibility of wealthy nations in fueling warming that ’ s now hitting less-developed countries hardest .
Ford and GM , via spokespeople , told E & E News that all that is ancient history .
“ There is nothing we can say about events that happened one or two generations ago since they are irrelevant to the company ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a GM spokesman said .
Defending his company , a Ford representative said the car company is “ addressing it right now ” with investments in electric vehicles , and plans to make its manufacturing plants run on 100 percent renewable energy in 15 years .
In other words : They ’ re a part of the solution now , not the problem .
Or are they ?
The transportation sector remains the single biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. , making up 28 percent of all carbon emissions .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ 500 Company today would dare to suggest climate change is a hoax or fund people that do , as they have in the past .
Instead , however , they ’ re writing themselves into a future where plenty of science would suggest their business model doesn ’ t belong .

Just as Exxon and Shell project continued demand for oil and gas well past midcentury, Ford suggests that fossil fueled internal combustion engine vehicles (translation: cars running on some form of gasoline) will “continue to play a role in most markets” for “the foreseeable future,” even as they’re gradually “displaced by electric and other low-emission options.” The company’s Climate Change Scenario Report envisions four possible climate-changed futures depending on either low or high levels of innovation and low or high levels of climate damages. It’s similar to reports produced by Shell. In both cases, the reports are mostly used as public relations tools—something convenient for executives to mention in interviews to suggest they’re thinking deeply about these matters. But there’s a tell: However expansively polluters appear to think about their role in a warmer future, they can’t envision one without them in it.
Automakers, who have not been as aggressively targeted by climate campaigners as oil companies, still command a fair bit of public respect as job providers that keep the country moving. They figure heavily in Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan, which holds that all-American electric vehicle production will create as many as a million jobs and pave the road to both recovery and net-zero emissions. Whether subbing out today’s sprawling, car-centric planning with electric vehicles is a desirable vision is its own question, especially given the myriad ethical and logistical issues up and down the EV supply chain.
There’s nothing in automakers past or present, however, to suggest they will be good-faith participants in an energy transition. Their sole interest is to turn a profit—or stay “financially relevant,” as Ford euphemistically calls it. As E&E News’s reporting shows, that’s been the goal all along, whether they happen to be denying that climate change exists or not.


newrepublic--2020-10-28--Getting Out the Vote in the Maze of Mass Incarceration

For the people trying to get out the vote in jails across the United States , there are no doors to knock , no sidewalks to canvass from .
The people they are trying to reach may not even know they have the right to vote .
For people in jails who are registered to vote , the vast majority of them won ’ t have access to a polling place .
In reality , they have to rely on the people who jail them to ensure they get to vote .
The nearly half a million people , on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any given Election Day retain the right to cast a ballot .
But many of them , along with groups working to protect their votes , know that having the right isn ’ t enough .
For the past decade , Meredith Hellmer has been trying to reach voters who are jailed in Cuyahoga County , Ohio , with the Northeast Ohio Voter Advocates .
They had built a comparatively supportive relationship with the jail officials there , too .
“ It really waxes and wanes depending on who ’ s in charge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ few weeks ahead of the 2020 general election .
Up until this year , NOVA volunteers could visit the jail and have one-on-one meetings with people who wanted to register to vote .
They would register around 300 or 400 people in any given election cycle .
Those conversations with prospective voters , in visiting rooms and hallways , helped break down myths about voting that had prevented people from registering : “ Their biggest misconception is that they aren ’ t allowed to vote , that they think any kind of felony @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It ’ s understandable why people who are in jail may reasonably assume they ’ ve lost their right to vote .
Jails are “ incarceration ’ s front door , ” confining people who have been arrested , but , in most cases , have not yet been convicted of any criminal offense .
They may also be unable to afford their bail in order to get out as their criminal case progresses .
While around 631,000 people are held in U.S. jails every day , the number of people who have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is higher ; according to the Prison Policy Institute , “ every year , over 600,000 people enter prison gates , but people go to jail 10.6 million times each year.
” There are also about 5.2 million people in and outside prisons who are currently disenfranchised due to laws restricting voting rights for those convicted of felony crimes .
That ’ s one out of every 44 adults in the U.S. , according to a new report from the Sentencing Project .
( And in some states , the rate is much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Tennessee , one out of every 13 adults is disenfranchised . )
In recent years , while efforts to end felony disenfranchisement have gained more ground—and in some cases , have succeeded—the voting rights of those still incarcerated have received less scrutiny .
There isn ’ t national data available on jail voting turnout , but from what voting rights advocates have seen , these myths and obstacles have likely seriously depressed turnout .
The League of Women Voters of Metropolitan Columbus has started a jail voting outreach program in Franklin County @ @ @ @ @ @ @ county .
The program ’ s coordinator , Elizabeth Grieser , told me that during the 2016 presidential election , out of the 2,100 people jailed in Franklin County , the total turnout was 11—and in the 2018 election , it was zero .
Voting rights groups have turned their focus on people jailed in Ohio , along with other battleground states : Pennsylvania , Texas , and Arizona .
That was before Covid-19 .
The outreach work in places like Cuyahoga County , where it was making some progress , is now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ same day I spoke to Meredith Hellmer from NOVA , she was scheduled to have a video visit with a prospective voter in jail , something the jail staff had been accommodating as an alternative to the in-person visits they had to stop in the fall .
It wasn ’ t a given , even before , that jail officials would support their efforts , whether that was agreeing to make ballots available to those who asked but not doing much more , or getting more involved , like helping volunteers through the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ For my volunteers who don ’ t have a lot of experience with the criminal justice system , it ’ s hard for them to grasp—and understandably so—that there ’ s all these people in jail , awaiting trial , ” she said .
Some of her volunteers had never set foot in a jail before .

In Florida, returning citizens—people who were formerly incarcerated—have fought and won to have their voting rights restored upon completing their sentence, with the ballot initiative Amendment 4, which passed with the support of nearly two-thirds of voters in 2018. Amendment 4 wasn’t a universal restoration of voting rights: It excluded people with felony convictions for murder or sex offenses. Shortly afterward, state legislators passed a law in response to Amendment 4, which stipulated that completing a sentence didn’t just mean being released from prison or jail; voting rights would only be restored once someone had paid off all their financial obligations related to their conviction—court fees, fines, restitution. Returning citizens have challenged the new law undermining Amendment 4, but as their case stands, the law remains in effect, leaving as many as 900,000 people who had their rights restored with Amendment 4 disenfranchised—again—in the 2020 general election.
By contrast, people who have completed a felony sentence in Ohio have their voting rights automatically restored—all they have to do is register to vote. Ohio’s voting rights are even more expansive: It is one of 17 states that only prohibit people from voting if they are currently serving a sentence. (People in Ohio jails serving a misdemeanor sentence can also still vote.) This makes Ohio look a bit like Florida could have with Amendment 4 truly in effect. There is a vast difference, though, between what the courts say, what state laws say, and what goes on in practice in county jails.
Ensuring people in jails who have the right to vote actually get to vote remains at the discretion of the people who run the jails. In Ohio’s Franklin County, voter registration work has historically been left solely to the jail social workers, said Grieser with the League of Women Voters of Metropolitan Columbus, and they can take “a pretty passive approach,” making registration forms available, if they are asked, or posting a flier a month before the deadline to request an absentee ballot. This year, she was hoping that the volunteers she coordinates would be able to work more directly with people in Franklin County jails. But Covid-19 limited their outreach to letters addressed to each person in the jail. Seventeen people so far returned their registration forms. “When we do voter registration drives in the community, we know people make mistakes on the forms pretty often,” Grieser told me. “We know that the best way to do outreach is in person.” But given everything against them this year, in a county jail system where zero people voted in 2018? “Even if we have 20 people register, that’s 20 more than we would have had.”


newrepublic--2020-10-28--Don’t Let Miles Taylor Get Away With Being a Fraud

The last four years have provided us with a number of tantalizing mysteries .
Just how many Melania Trumps are there ?
Who was White House Covid-19 patient zero ?
What , exactly , is going on with George and Kellyanne Conway ?
Will we ever recover from the Trump presidency ?
On Wednesday , one of its least intriguing open questions was answered .
The real author of the briefly explosive but historically flaccid New York Times op-ed “ I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration ” and subsequent 300-page version of that op-ed , A @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a longtime Republican staffer who served as chief of staff to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Acting Secretary Chad Wolf .
Given the possible names bandied about as Anonymous ’ s true identity—John Kelly !
Bill Stepien !
Mike Pence !
—the revelation that it was Taylor , hardly a household name , was a bit of a letdown , even if it was always highly likely that the shadowy figure was going to be the White House equivalent of middle management .
That Taylor has , since the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Trump and ally of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project only makes it less surprising .
Still , the revelation is revealing .
It shows the extraordinary extent to which Taylor concealed his own complicity in one of the Trump administration ’ s most heinous acts : He helped spin the administration ’ s family separation policy—perhaps the most morally abhorrent policy of an administration that specializes in abhorrent policies—as being about “ protecting children.
” It also reveals not only the lengths that ex-Trump officials will go to launder their soiled reputations but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ publishing institutions will help them do so .
“ I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration , ” published in 2018 , and A Warning , published in 2019 , are almost comically inept documents , even with the tiniest bit of hindsight .
Both consist of an endless litany of familiar criticisms of the president ’ s boorishness , stupidity , incompetence , and malevolence , without adding anything new to the most well-worn genre of the Trump era : people complaining anonymously to the media about the president @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And both depict a group of determined government officials working in the shadows to put country above party and protect the nation from a dangerous and unstable leader .

The overall sense is of a cabal of patriots who are in shock at what is happening around them (variations of “We all watched with a sense of doom” are peppered throughout) but are serious-minded and competent: They excel at stymying the president and yet, miraculously, evade responsibility for his administration’s moral failings. It is a portrait curiously at odds with much of what is happening in many departments under Trump. This is, after all, a government in which the Postal Service is barely functioning and the Department of the Interior is pushing Trump ads on its Instagram account. Taylor was offering a warning but also a reason to breathe easy: There are people working behind the scenes to make sure that Trump only fucks stuff up so much.
The biggest problem with both documents is that they had so little new insight. Taylor always privileged preserving his own anonymity over providing the public with relevant information. Taking every precaution not to be found out meant that he couldn’t actually write much that was interesting or informative. After all, if he were to take us inside the Department of Homeland Security, where he worked, then we would know that he worked at the Department of Homeland Security!
Now that we know that Anonymous was Taylor, however, it’s clear that there was extra motivation for obscuring particulars of his identity. Knowledge of Taylor’s involvement with the child separation policy would have jeopardized his growing status as a hero of the hashtag resistance, since he was actually complicit in the president’s horrific agenda.


newrepublic--2020-10-28--Are You Fracking Kidding Me, Trump?

Are You Fracking Kidding Me, Trump?

Donald Trump , The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday , is mulling an executive order to make federal agencies perform an economic analysis of fracking—on the theory , presumably , that there ’ s no voter-seducing soundbite better than one involving the words “ capital allocation.
” It ’ s an odd last-minute play for fuel-producing swing states like Pennsylvania and Texas .
As Pennsylvania faces 2,000 new coronavirus cases per day , you have to wonder how many undecided voters will swoon in anticipation of a hundred-page PDF that won ’ t be released until months after the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fact that fracking ’ s economic outlook is terrible .
Any analysis the Trump White House commissions , of course , might well just regurgitate talking points from the American Petroleum Institute .
But a serious report would probably observe that the fracking industry is in decline .
Shale ’ s eleventh-hour prominence in this race , in that respect , is pretty weird .
Since Joe Biden ’ s possibly-maybe gaffe in the last presidential debate suggesting the country should eventually transition off oil at some future point , the GOP has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hell-bent on banning fossil fuels .
The Biden campaign has vehemently denied those charges , reiterating the only direct constraints on fossil fuels that are actually in his platform : no new permits for fracking on federal land , where existing drilling already accounts for a quarter of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions .
( Biden ’ s plan wouldn ’ t touch existing drilling . )
Both the campaigns and the reporters covering them now seem to be debating the future of a shale business that hasn ’ t existed for several @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an energy transition this last week has assumed climate policies will be the major driver of job losses in fossil fuels in the years to come , the notoriously overleveraged sector has been shedding workers prodigiously after years of unprofitability : More than 100,000 people have lost their oil and gas jobs in recent months .
Wall Street investors , meanwhile , have lost their patience for companies ’ big spending and low returns .
It ’ s hard to blame them : Shale companies burned through $ 400 billion of investor cash @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump is fearmongering about is already happening .
If anything , his administration has sped it up .
Last week , the energy consultancy Rystad Energy found that debt held by bankrupt oil and gas producers had reached an all-time high this year .
So far , 84 exploration and production firms and oilfield services companies—providing equipment to drill sites—have filed for bankruptcy this year , with a combined $ 89 billion debt load— $ 19 billion higher than that of the 124 companies that went bankrupt after the last fuel price crash @ @ @ @ @ @ @ $ 100 billion by year ’ s end .
A wave of consolidations across the oil and gas sector has cost thousands of jobs , too .
Chevron , for instance , will lay off a quarter of Noble Energy employees by the time it finishes acquiring the company at the end of this month .
The liquefied natural gas exporter Tellurian has laid off 40 percent of its staff , with a market capitalization now hovering around just $ 500 million .
BP , ExxonMobil , and Shell have announced tens of @ @ @ @ @ @ @

The fracking industry sought to kill jobs in the before times, too. Drillers poured their investors’ billions into machine learning and artificial intelligence—for example, from Amazon Web Services—to automate more parts of the production process, allowing them to drive down costs by getting rid of workers. The Ohio River Valley Institute finds that the labor share of value created there by fracking companies—that is, the portion of profits paid out to employees in salaries, wages, and benefits—ranges between just 7 and 19 percent, compared to the economy-wide average in that region of around 50 percent. Any additional financial support Trump might hope to shower on the industry—by helping develop new technology, as one source told The Wall Street Journal—will only further that process and kill more jobs. Enterprising White House analysts might be surprised to find that there are well over a million more actually existing jobs in renewables and energy efficiency than in coal, oil, and gas.
The coronavirus has sped along a reckoning in the sector that’s hit its workers hardest: 107,000 oil and gas employees have lost their jobs since March. Some 70 percent of those may never return, and those that do are likely to be weighted heavily toward white-collar fields like data analysis, according to the management consultant Deloitte. “Such large-scale layoffs,” Deloitte analysts write, “are challenging the industry’s reputation as a reliable employer.”
What’s common sense for those tracking the industry closely hasn’t percolated up to the national conversation, where both parties and the media still take fracking’s job-producing reputation for granted. If Donald Trump doesn’t do an economic analysis of fracking that shows it to be a sorry bet for job creation, a Biden administration should.


newrepublic--2020-10-28--What Will the Lincoln Project Do After Trump?

The Lincoln Project is betting that anti-Trumpism can outlast Donald Trump ’ s presidency .
On Tuesday , Axios reported that the group of ad-making former Republicans “ is weighing offers from different television studios , podcast networks , and book publishers.
” Everything , it seems , is on the table : The group is currently producing a documentary about the election while studios want the Lincoln Project ’ s help in developing “ a House of Cards–like fiction series , ” definitive proof that the Golden Age of Television is behind us .
Given its status as a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not surprising that eyeball-obsessed media executives are eyeing the Lincoln Project as a partner .
“ As a media business , we ’ re putting a pretty big bet on the idea that they know how to get audiences , ” United Talent Agency ’ s Ra Kumar told Axios .
Studios , networks , and publishers need big audiences like never before , and since it was founded last December , the Lincoln Project has shown it can deliver them in the millions .
In less than a week , however , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the groups that have sprung up in the last four years—Run for Something , Indivisible , the Sunrise Movement , Swing Left—should have little trouble adjusting to a post-Trump future : Left-leaning politicians will still be running for office , swing districts will need targeting , climate change will remain an existential threat .
But the same may not be true of the Lincoln Project .
There are still giant questions about what , exactly , this group of former Republican operatives believes .
What ’ s the point of an anti-Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Earlier this month , 60 Minutes ’ Lesley Stahl asked the founders of the Lincoln Project to respond to criticisms that , for all the online attention their attack ads had received , they weren ’ t accomplishing much of anything .
“ I think we have hurt him , we have cut him , we have defined him , we have provoked him , ” Steve Schmidt , who managed John McCain ’ s unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign , responded .
“ There was not a glove proverbially laid on him for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we ’ re amongst the first groups to effectively do that.
” The one thing you can say for certain is that the Lincoln Project is good at provoking Donald Trump and many of those close to him .
He has tweeted about the group several times and ranted about it at rallies , calling its founders “ real garbage ” and “ not smart people.
” His daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner have threatened to sue them over a Times Square billboard blaming them for the Trump administration ’ s disastrous @ @ @

As for hurting, cutting, defining—that is much less clear. “Every time Donald Trump loses his mind and throws things at the wall because a Lincoln Project ad is up, that takes the whole campaign off track,” said Rick Wilson, who once made an ad tying disabled veteran (and Democrat) Max Cleland to Osama bin Laden. “There’s one thing you never get back in a campaign. That’s a lost day.” But the idea that the Lincoln Project is throwing sand in the gears of a well-oiled machine simply doesn’t track. The Lincoln Project clearly makes Trump very mad, but so does everything else. It’s not evident that the group is moving voters, and particularly Republican voters—“independent-leaning men, those college-educated Republicans, the suburban Republican women,” as Wilson put it on 60 Minutes—into the anti-Trump camp, which has been the group’s stated purpose.
Making Trump mad has become a financial juggernaut. The Lincoln Project makes a simple promise to donors: Give us your money, and we will use it to make the president angry. Much of its spending—advertising on Fox News in Washington, D.C., (so the president can see it while he binge-watches), buying Times Square billboards in the famous battleground state of New York—is advertising for itself. These displays only bring in more money. (Representatives from the Lincoln Project did not respond to a request for comment.)
The Lincoln Project fills a void for liberals who are concerned that the Biden campaign too often goes high when Trump goes low and believe that it should more closely mimic Trump’s own tactics. The Lincoln Project’s founders argue that they get in the mud so Biden doesn’t have to, allowing him to run a positive campaign. It now sells merch and builds its audience by stealing memes from Twitter and Instagram users—an unethical practice made famous by the Instagram account FuckJerry of Fyre Festival fame.


newrepublic--2020-10-29--Will Airbnb Do to Small Towns What It Did to New York and Barcelona?

In August , despite a global pandemic that had caused a nosedive in travel revenue , Airbnb filed initial public offering paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission .
In an interview with CNBC , CEO Brian Chesky was emphatic : “ Travel as we knew it is over.
” He had spent the spring overhauling his business model ; laying off roughly a quarter of his global workforce ; touting his rentals as work spaces , not just vacation homes ; and shifting Airbnb ’ s marketing focus from the urban core to more rural destinations like small towns @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with national parks , where families could enjoy socially distanced vacations .
Cleverly , Chesky framed these efforts as an opportunity to return to his original vision for Airbnb , which he had started in 2008 , renting out air mattresses on the floor of his San Francisco apartment : “ This crisis , ” he said in a letter to employees in May , “ has sharpened our focus to get back to our roots , back to the basics , back to what is truly special about Airbnb—everyday people who host @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years , Airbnb had promised customers that it sold an experience rather than a glorified hotel room .
On its website , you can not only browse rooms for the night but also dip into such “ experiences ” as “ Go on a Leopard Safari in Sri Lanka ” ( $ 12 ) and “ Follow a Plague Doctor Through Prague ” ( $ 18 ) .
When the pandemic hit , Airbnb moved these classes online ( you can now explore the winding medieval blocks of Paris by day and crash @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the comfort of your sofa ) .
In the process , though , the company unintentionally revealed a white lie in the narrative it has told about itself since day one .
Chesky maintains that Airbnb is “ truly special , ” but he has essentially created a boutique hotel chain with an added perk : online streaming seminars .
The company had made a fortune by mass-producing the unique and selling “ one-of-a-kind ” experiences to hundreds of thousands of people—and in doing so , it pioneered a brand of marketing geared @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of consumption , transforming it into a statement of adventure and authenticity .
But if you think about it , promising guided tours in Prague and leopard-spotting in Sri Lanka exposes the truth , which is that Airbnb is hawking plain , old-fashioned tourism—no different from what any other travel agent offers , but cloaked in a stew of buzzwords and twee design .
The irony of Airbnb is that it promises authenticity but often ruins that authenticity by the sheer force of its own omnipresent branding .
The company has been credited @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new minimalist design aesthetic to overrunning previously quiet communities in cities like Vancouver and Amsterdam with tourists looking for a more “ genuine ” or photogenic vacation experience .
These tourists have put a strain on residents and municipalities alike .
To take just one example , after Airbnb ’ s site started listing the Quarry Rock trail in Vancouver as an “ experience , ” the route became so overrun with tourists that the city stopped promoting it altogether .
As pandemic-stressed urbanites start renting Airbnbs in small towns , they , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ same political battles against displacement and gentrification that Airbnb has triggered in such cities as New York and Barcelona .
But at least we can expect to see a shift in what ’ s idealized .
Before Covid hit , much of Airbnb ’ s brand strategy had revolved around cities , turning once-quiet spaces and under-the-radar dive bars into status symbols to be consumed as Instagram rites of passage .
But as the travel industry attempts to cash in on the millennial consumers longing to make Zoom calls from a barn in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Manhattan , the narrative that the urban condition can be bought and sold will become—like Covid itself , God willing—something that we can finally be inoculated against .

In August, despite a global pandemic that had caused a nosedive in travel revenue, Airbnb filed initial public offering paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In an interview with CNBC, CEO Brian Chesky was emphatic: “Travel as we knew it is over.” He had spent the spring overhauling his business model; laying off roughly a quarter of his global workforce; touting his rentals as work spaces, not just vacation homes; and shifting Airbnb’s marketing focus from the urban core to more rural destinations like small towns in Texas and the Catskills, together with national parks, where families could enjoy socially distanced vacations. Cleverly, Chesky framed these efforts as an opportunity to return to his original vision for Airbnb, which he had started in 2008, renting out air mattresses on the floor of his San Francisco apartment: “This crisis,” he said in a letter to employees in May, “has sharpened our focus to get back to our roots, back to the basics, back to what is truly special about Airbnb—everyday people who host their homes and offer experiences.” For years, Airbnb had promised customers that it sold an experience rather than a glorified hotel room. On its website, you can not only browse rooms for the night but also dip into such “experiences” as “Go on a Leopard Safari in Sri Lanka” ($12) and “Follow a Plague Doctor Through Prague” ($18).
When the pandemic hit, Airbnb moved these classes online (you can now explore the winding medieval blocks of Paris by day and crash underground parties by night, all from the comfort of your sofa). In the process, though, the company unintentionally revealed a white lie in the narrative it has told about itself since day one. Chesky maintains that Airbnb is “truly special,” but he has essentially created a boutique hotel chain with an added perk: online streaming seminars. The company had made a fortune by mass-producing the unique and selling “one-of-a-kind” experiences to hundreds of thousands of people—and in doing so, it pioneered a brand of marketing geared toward millennial consumers that reifies the act of consumption, transforming it into a statement of adventure and authenticity. But if you think about it, promising guided tours in Prague and leopard-spotting in Sri Lanka exposes the truth, which is that Airbnb is hawking plain, old-fashioned tourism—no different from what any other travel agent offers, but cloaked in a stew of buzzwords and twee design.