newrepublic--2020-11-09--The Left Must Hit the Streets Again—Right Now

Enough about Donald Trump : The opportunity to plan beyond him is among the most important privileges the Democratic Party and the country won last week .
Unless Democrats sweep the Georgia runoffs in January , President-elect Joe Biden will take office with a divided Congress and beset by existential crises on all sides .
Having won a general election dominated almost entirely by matters of character and general competence , Biden is substantively short of where he ought to be on the issues that defined the Democratic primary and are likely to define the next decade or more of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he ’ ll be met with a public that will be roiled by the forces of reaction and dismayed by his inability to deliver the political comity and stability he has promised them .
Biden might have been the man for the moment , but the moment might not last through spring .
It is passing as we speak .
This is the fundamental problem with debates over whether and how to “ push Biden left ” : There ’ s no reason to believe he will be the central agent of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over the next four years , especially if Republicans keep the Senate .
Even under the strongest presidents , the American policy regime is ultimately the handiwork of a vast constellation of additional actors .
Senators , congressmen , governors , state legislators , mayors , judges , major corporations , civil servants and administrators , interest and advocacy groups—each category contains pivotal figures , spheres of influence , and reserves of independent power .
The policy fights ahead will be complex ; if the reasons to expect a wave of sweeping change @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are entirely broken now .
What ’ s needed is an approach capable of directing activists and an engaged public toward the right pressure points on the right issues at the right times .
What ’ s needed , in short , is a movement .
Fortunately , and despite what the moderates licking their wounds are telling themselves now , the left has one .
Bernie Sanders , a socialist , won nearly 10 million votes against a field of 29 candidates in this year ’ s primary ; in state after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ preferred candidate of not only the very young but all Democrats under the age of 45 .
The coalition he crafted wasn ’ t large enough to win him the nomination .
But it remains a force to be reckoned with , all the same .
Two months ago in Massachusetts , a state whose centrist Republican governor boasts a nearly 90 percent approval rating among Democrats , progressive activists torpedoed a Kennedy Senate campaign—proof positive that the left has muscle to throw around beyond municipal politics and urban House primaries .

Enough about Donald Trump: The opportunity to plan beyond him is among the most important privileges the Democratic Party and the country won last week. Unless Democrats sweep the Georgia runoffs in January, President-elect Joe Biden will take office with a divided Congress and beset by existential crises on all sides. Having won a general election dominated almost entirely by matters of character and general competence, Biden is substantively short of where he ought to be on the issues that defined the Democratic primary and are likely to define the next decade or more of American life. After the celebrations subside, he’ll be met with a public that will be roiled by the forces of reaction and dismayed by his inability to deliver the political comity and stability he has promised them. Biden might have been the man for the moment, but the moment might not last through spring. It is passing as we speak.
This is the fundamental problem with debates over whether and how to “push Biden left”: There’s no reason to believe he will be the central agent of all that’s set to happen over the next four years, especially if Republicans keep the Senate. Even under the strongest presidents, the American policy regime is ultimately the handiwork of a vast constellation of additional actors. Senators, congressmen, governors, state legislators, mayors, judges, major corporations, civil servants and administrators, interest and advocacy groups—each category contains pivotal figures, spheres of influence, and reserves of independent power. The policy fights ahead will be complex; if the reasons to expect a wave of sweeping change were strained before the election, they are entirely broken now. What’s needed is an approach capable of directing activists and an engaged public toward the right pressure points on the right issues at the right times.


newrepublic--2020-11-08--A Weeklong Election, in Pictures

A Weeklong Election, in Pictures

Most of America spent this week at home watching the events of this drawn-out election play out on their screens @ @ @ @ @ the anger , the joy , and the relief of this week didn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ doors .
Out on the streets , voters and ballot-counters and protesters of all stripes @ @ @ @ @ fret , and—for supporters of President-elect Joe Biden—ultimately celebrate .
Photojournalist Mark Peterson traveled to @ @ @ @ @ , and New York City to watch votes get counted , pro-democracy protesters rally in @ @ @ @ @ and Trump supporters cling to flagging hopes that this is not how his presidency ends @ @ @ @ @ , angry Trump supporters , exultant Biden fans , and a change in the national @ @ @ @ @ began its dénouement .

Most of America spent this week at home watching the events of this drawn-out election play out on their screens. But the anxiety, the anger, the joy, and the relief of this week didn’t take place solely behind closed doors.
Out on the streets, voters and ballot-counters and protesters of all stripes turned out to fight, fret, and—for supporters of President-elect Joe Biden—ultimately celebrate.
Photojournalist Mark Peterson traveled to Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., and New York City to watch votes get counted, pro-democracy protesters rally in support of election officials, and Trump supporters cling to flagging hopes that this is not how his presidency ends. He saw impatient voters, angry Trump supporters, exultant Biden fans, and a change in the national mood as the Trump administration began its dénouement.
Shortly after Pennsylvania was called for the Democratic ticket, pushing Biden over the 270 Electoral College–vote line needed to claim the win, the president-elect issued a statement calling for unity and healing. “With the campaign over, it’s time to put the anger and the harsh rhetoric behind us and come together as a nation,” he said. “There’s nothing we can’t do if we do it together.” Biden’s sentiments have a meaning beyond the moment. He will likely take office with the U.S. Senate still in the hands of Republicans—though a pair of runoff elections in Georgia, scheduled for January, provide some remote hope that the Senate may yet be claimed by the Democrats.
Even as President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President–elect Kamala Harris basked in their victory, it remained unclear whether a concession of the race from President Donald Trump would be forthcoming. Among his array of tweets on Saturday, many of which were flagged by Twitter for misinformation, came an insistent all-caps blurt, “I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT.” Whatever quixotic schemes he and his allies cook up in the days to come, this doesn’t seem to be the case.
One of the larger rallies during the last days of Trump’s campaign took place on Halloween in Reading, Pennsylvania. The crowds of supporters were active and responsive, voices booming as the president worked his call-and-response routine. But the crowds were carrying most of the energy. “It was his second rally of the day,” Peterson said, “He already seemed worn out, with a few rallies to go.”


newrepublic--2020-11-10--How the World Gave Up on the Stateless

How the World Gave Up on the Stateless

For almost a decade , Josef Ben-David was stateless .
The son of a Jewish elementary school teacher in Czarist Russia , he hated his native country , where prevalent antisemitism made his life impossible .
After World War I , violent pogroms ransacked his town ; he survived one of them by disguising himself as a Christian priest .
The trauma led him to embrace Zionism , and in 1921 he embarked on a long and arduous trip to Palestine .
To Josef ’ s misfortune , however , one of the towns where he stopped during the journey @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the region ’ s border disputes .
And there was no end to the legal misery inflicted by Polish state : the town clerk ’ s office confiscated his Russian documents after deeming them to be fake , but it also refused to grant him residency or traveling rights in Poland due to xenophobic policies that were designed to exclude Jews , Ukrainians , and other minorities .
Without these legal documents , he was trapped , lacking both permission to stay and permission to leave .
And so , for eight @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the stateless , the masses who lacked legal ties to any country .
Like many others who had lost their citizenship , he could not work or travel legally and he lived in abject poverty .
It was only in 1929 that his nightmare came to an end .
His older brother , who had arrived in British-ruled Palestine a few years earlier , managed to procure him new documents and within a few months , Josef walked off a train in Jerusalem and found work as a carpenter .
That the fulfillment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the country ’ s native population did not particularly bother Josef .
In the 1930s he joined the Irgun , a nationalist underground that sought to secure Jewish dominance through terrorist attacks on ( among others ) Palestinian civilians .
The lesson that Josef drew from his own experience was not about solidarity with the dispossessed , but about the overriding need to avoid the horror of exclusion .
He thus shed no tears in 1948 , when the creation of the state of Israel—during which he served in the military—granted him citizenship @ @ @ @ @ @ @ landless and stateless .
Josef , who was my great uncle , does not appear in historian Mira Siegelberg ’ s illuminating and rich Statelessness : A History .
But his story captures the book ’ s expansive sweep , drama , and dark ironies .
Statelessness became ubiquitous during the first half of the twentieth century , when governments ’ obsessions with controlling and crafting their populations often led them to strip certain groups of citizenship .
Siegelberg powerfully traces an array of ambitious campaigns to eradicate statelessness , as diplomats , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ North America sought to empower international organizations over state governments or attempted to make citizenship a universal right for all humans .
Yet these efforts , Siegelberg argues , ultimately failed .
By the 1960s , jurists and politicians had given up on their quest to modify or restrict state power .
They accepted governments ’ total authority to bequeath or deny citizenship .
Ever since , global elites have treated statelessness not as an urgent problem to be solved but as a sort of natural disaster : an uncomfortable fact of life @ @ @ @ @ @ @

Reformers agreed that citizenship determined people’s fundamental existence. The world was divided between those who basked in the sun of citizenship and those who languished in the shadows of statelessness.
But citizenship has rarely been the key to equality, and not only because states could so easily revoke it. After all, some of the world’s strictest hierarchies flourished within existing citizenship regimes and were sustained by mechanisms beyond naturalization laws. Black Americans under Jim Crow were U.S. citizens, but they lived under segregationist brutality. For much of the twentieth century, women in Japan, Russia, and France could hold passports but were harshly discriminated against by property, labor, and family laws and were long denied the right to vote. In Israel, Josef and his descendants made sure that Palestinians who did not flee in 1948 and who became Israeli citizens did not enjoy the full protection of the state. A flurry of zoning codes, discriminatory hiring policies, and public underinvestment schemes sought to preserve their status as a second-tier population and still continues today. The world’s main fault lines were therefore not just between citizens and the stateless. Full legal status did not look the same in all places or for all peoples, and its acquisition was only sometimes a solution to injustice.
The twentieth century’s most far-reaching emancipatory movements, therefore, did not focus only on obtaining citizenship but also on transforming the social and economic order in which citizenship existed. Struggles for gender equality, social democracy, and racial justice, which unfolded in parallel to the fight against statelessness, aimed to uproot the social, cultural, and political sources of inequality, often within states and their citizenship regimes. Their leaders viewed citizenship not as the ultimate shield from injustice but as a valuable social and legal status. This was also why, unlike Statelessness’s main protagonists, they complemented the fight for formal legal equality with other forms of action, such as challenging cultural representations or campaigning for material redistribution. They articulated broad social visions that went beyond the legal code, visions that helped them to galvanize mass mobilization. Passports alone were never going to eliminate the miseries of the stateless. This task was always going to require overcoming the animosities that led to their exclusion in the first place, even if this path defied universal prescriptions.
This, at least, was the lesson that other members of my family drew from their history. Among them was my father, Oliver Grünberg, whose German-Jewish parents were stripped of their citizenship by the Nazis in 1935 and later fled to South Africa. Just as Josef came to find life in Czarist Russia unbearable, Oliver grew to hate his native country and its racist apartheid regime. Upon turning 17 in 1964, he migrated to Israel, which he naïvely envisioned as a progressive experiment (an image fed by Israeli broadcasts to the Jewish diaspora), and became a citizen upon arrival. Unlike my great-uncle, however, Oliver dedicated his life to protesting its exclusionary politics. I have vivid childhood memories of accompanying him on visits to Palestinian villages, where he recorded people’s stories of their relatives, many of whom lived stateless and in exile. My father joined them in protest marches, where calls for the refugees’ return blended with demands for economic equality. When I asked him about these activities—as a child of Israel’s ethno-nationalist educational system, they were hardly intuitive—he answered that all of us share a destiny. We eat the same food and drink the same water, he said: Citizen or not, we prosper or sink together.


Ivanka in Exile

What now , for Ivanka Trump ?
Since publishing her unpleasant-to-pronounce self-help book Women Who Work in 2017 and closing her poorly-performing personal fashion line in 2018 , the favorite first daughter has appeared to work solely as an adviser to her father , while her husband and siblings have also crowded around the throne .
The role of United States president is extremely powerful , but temporary—Ivanka placed a high wager when she first leaned into her father ’ s campaign and later took on a job in the administration , and she ’ ll soon be out of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ longer .
Before joining the White House , Ivanka held a development and acquisitions role at the Trump Organization and did other things that the children of the wealthy do : attended galas , received serviceable though not always ideal seating at fashion shows , bought art , and bathed in the warm glow of softball profiles in women ’ s magazines .
( “ Full-speed at work and hands-on at home , Ivanka Trump knows what it means to be a modern millennial , ” one cooed in 2015 . )
During @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the White House , she has thrown in her glossy , blonde lot with child separations , flagrant racism , and the host of other outrages now synonymous with her own name .
She tried to craft an image as the softer Trump , focused as she was on entrepreneurship and STEM , but the project of maintaining some semblance of liberal cachet failed .
Her position is so dire that it is yet premature to think she ’ ll even attempt to stage a comeback .
But we ’ ve been wrong @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this tense lame-duck interim—after the pin has entered the balloon , as it were , but before the explosion itself—one can ’ t help but speculate on the calculations going on behind the scenes .
There may yet be such a thing as Ivanka 3.0 ( successor to Ivanka the First , the generic , sleek heiress , and Ivanka the Second , the babyfaced puppet of a would-be tyrant ) , but how will she try to pull it off ?

Sources told ArtNet that “many of the more prominent dealers would not think twice about selling Jared and Ivanka works, even if they wouldn’t want to be buddy-buddy with the couple in public,” which sounds about right. I asked Kaitlin Phillips, who described herself as a “headset-level publicist” at a P.R. firm, what she would do if Ivanka walked into a party she was running. She replied that a polite ejection would be in order. Adam Abdalla, CEO of Cultural Counsel, the firm where Phillips works, said, “Personally, I’d love to see these people become persona non grata. But recent history has taught me that’ll only happen if they go broke.”
Elizabeth Howard, a strategic communications consultant, explained to me what she perceived as the impossibility of Ivanka reentering high society. She’d have better luck staying in D.C., she said, where any degree of power can buy you some social cachet. (Though they may struggle, even there.) “I think she’s been seduced by Washington and power, a very different kind of power,” Howard observed, and in D.C., you’re “not as marginalized [by unpopularity] because you’re not being left off for the Met Gala or the Whitney Biennial Party or any of the cultural things that are so important to being a player in New York.”
And so her brand teeters between oblivion and the possibility of survival. One struggles to picture Ivanka Trump in a Manhattan gallery now. Some things are changing in the upper crust, even if just a little and mainly for the worst offenders. (Among whom Trump may now plausibly count herself.) The Sackler family, for example, are now so tainted by their culpability for the opioid crisis that they cannot launch new brands unscathed, even though there are galleries with their name on them all over the world. It’s a mixed existence: One couldn’t call it social death, but it is an adjustment in prestige.


newrepublic--2020-11-10--Why Are Democrats Shielding Republican Liars?

Speaking with CNN on Tuesday morning , Democratic Senator Chris Coons danced a tired routine .
As the interview turned @ @ @ @ @ congressional leaders to refute the lame-duck president ’ s dangerous attempts to invalidate the victory @ @ @ @ @ CNN anchor Alisyn Camerota asked Coons why his Republican colleagues are feeding a paranoid , @ @ @ @ @ … they call me to say , ‘ Congratulations , please convey my well wishes @ @ @ @ @ ’ t say that publicly yet , ’ ” Coons said .
As Camerota tried @ @ @ @ @ question , Coons noted , “ These are conversations best kept private.
” When Camerota @ @ @ @ @ Republicans might make their secret private feelings known , Coons stammered , finally , “ @ @ @ @ @ continue to urge them privately to do the right thing and help the president accept @ @ @ @ @ stand up publicly .
”

Brown, like Coons, did not deign to mention who was saying these things. All we knew was that they were Republicans and that they were mighty disappointed by Trump—a useful message, both for the Republican legislators planning for a post-Trump reality and for the Democratic senator purportedly speaking the truths shared in hushed tones by his cross-aisle buddies. Before Brown’s op-ed, it was Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts speaking with Greater Boston about his Republican colleagues. “In private, they tell me that they’re appalled by his behavior—and that this is the reality in their districts, they’re afraid of primary opponents,” McGovern said. “And I think there are moments you gotta put politics aside.”
McGovern was correct in his takeaway, but he was pointed in the wrong direction. When you have someone constantly acting as dangerously and recklessly as Trump, politics should be put aside—by the Democratic politicians Republicans apparently feel so safe confiding in! There is no good reason for Coons, or Brown, or McGovern, or any other Democratic politician in Congress to keep up the charade—much as it was obscene for Bob Woodward to conceal the fact that the president knew, early, how dangerous and airborne Covid-19 was while saying the opposite in public. If Republicans opposed Trump’s chicanery, they would oppose it. By acting as a conduit for the vague concerns of Republican legislators, these “in private” Democrats are either actively lying themselves—the my six-year-old said that he can’t believe the Bad Man is ruining the great American republic meme made flesh—or are concealing a dangerous lie. And why?
Burn your sources, or shut the hell up.


newrepublic--2020-11-10--Postelection Misinformation and Massacre Threats on Conservatives’ Favorite New Social Media App

If you want to understand the state of social media , take a look at a Twitter account called @ FacebooksTop10 .
Maintained by New York Times journalist Kevin Roose , the account tweets a daily list of the top-performing posts on Facebook .
Using data from Crowdtangle , a Facebook-owned analytics firm , each day ’ s list is almost invariably filled with the names of conservative personalities and media networks : Ben Shapiro , Kayleigh McEnany , Steven Crowder , Fox News , Franklin Graham , Breitbart , and so on .
The list is an antidote to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is “ shadowbanned ” or intentionally suppressed by large social networks .
( It is also a reminder that Facebook ’ s American user base skews conservative . )
In recent months , one name has dominated Roose ’ s list : Dan Bongino , a former secret service agent and thrice-failed congressional candidate who has ascended the digital commentariat to become one of the most popular political personalities in the country .
His podcast regularly tops the charts , and he has 6.6 million followers between Twitter and Facebook .
Having leveraged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s monopolist products , he now , like many conservatives , claims he is being targeted by them for ideological censorship .
( He has claimed his Facebook account may soon be taken down . )
Not coincidentally , he ’ s also become an investor in alternative social networks , including a video site called Rumble and a Twitter clone known as Parler , both of which emphasize their commitment to free speech , minimal content moderation , and independence from Big Tech .
You may have heard of the latter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reasons : Over the weekend , Parler became the most downloaded app in the country , a position it was still holding as of Tuesday morning .
It ’ s also the app in which Lang Holland , the police chief of Marshall , Arkansas , on Friday called for his fellow users to join him in traveling to Washington , D.C. , to “ fight our way into the Congress and arrest every Democrat who has participated in this coup ?
We may have to shoot and kill many of the Communist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to accomplish this !
!
!
” Holland added , “ Death to all Marxist Democrats .
Take no prisoners leave no survivors !
!
” He has since resigned .

How Bongino became so popular on Facebook is an unsettled mystery. He’s told The New York Times that he barely looks at analytics and has no idea why his material is so popular. In any case, now he’s sprinkling his viral magic over Parler, whose servers have been overwhelmed in the last week, causing the app to crash repeatedly. Whether Parler can solve its technical issues—the app itself is slow, buggy, and a little clunky in its design—will go a long way to determine whether it can scale up and become something other than the next Gab (a little-used Twitter alternative with a strong ideological bent, whose user base could be politely characterized as bigoted and violent).
With some rules regarding pornography, gore, and illegal material, Parler is a tamer culture than Gab. But Parler is disturbing in its own way, particularly as Republican voters and politicians refuse to acknowledge the results of the presidential election. Parler’s Trump-obsessed user base lives in its own epistemic bubble, where every unfounded accusation of voter fraud, every claim of Democratic perfidy, and every fantastical Trump boast is axiomatically true. Forsaking most mainstream news outlets, the app offers links to obscure, fly-by-night news sites or cultish propagandists like The Epoch Times. With no fact-checking and minimal algorithmic curation, Parler ostensibly empowers users to decide for themselves what to believe, and its user base has decided that Joe Biden stole the presidential election and that they have all been wronged.
In short, what Parler lacks is any truth quotient at all. You can scroll for hours and barely confront anything approaching a verifiable fact. It is a cauldron into which conservative personalities like Mark Levin, Sheriff David Clarke, and the QAnon-supporting Congresswoman-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene can pour a bitter stream of rhetoric about a stolen election, a hoax virus, and the many ways they have been betrayed by their political enemies. After just a day with Parler, I came away stunned and depressed and grateful for its occasional outages, when I would return to Twitter—a flawed, addictive platform that at least aspires, however ham-fistedly, to create a consensus reality based on truth. What I learned from my brief time on Parler, though, is that this consensus reality is gossamer-thin, a hallucination we agree to share. Plug yourself into another feed, another timeline, and your view of the world may become as warped as those on Parler.


newrepublic--2020-11-11--The Agenda Is Still Survival

The Agenda Is Still Survival

At the start of the week , as the Trump coup attempt cranked into gear , there was yet another entry in the Democratic Party ’ s continued identity crisis .
In dueling interviews with The New York Times , Democratic Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Conor Lamb shared their respective views for the future of their party .
Lamb , taking exception to Ocasio-Cortez ’ s analysis that Democratic candidates should run digital and on-the-ground campaigns that are focused more on organizing around progressive policies and less on candidate personalities , said that political demands like transitioning away from fracking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ aren ’ t just unpopular , they ’ re completely unrealistic , and they aren ’ t going to happen.
” The exchange was a reminder that the next four years are going to be a constant intra-party struggle to define what it means to be a Democrat right now .
Unlike previous moments of failure and policy divide in the party , though , there is no margin for error now .
Democrats do have a lot to figure out in the coming years : reckoning with the fact that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mean more Democratic victories , or how to contend with an increasingly unhinged and openly anti-democracy Republican Party .
They need to develop the kinds of campaigns that build the coalitions and majorities needed to win elections all the way down the ballot , and they need to do this while facing the extreme barriers of conservative-led voter suppression , court engineering , and gerrymandering .
But what can not change—and what must be fought for the hardest—is the urgency among Democratic lawmakers to enact the policies that we need to survive on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a pandemic recession .

While it requires a very elastic definition of what a so-called FDR-size presidency is—and a clearer definition of what his plans for labor unions and a climate agenda would actually entail—these were all decent, if slightly broad claims. The problem is, we have heard similarly bold promises before. As Laurie Bertram Roberts and other organizers and movement workers across the left told The New Republic in the wake of last week’s election, “Biden winning the presidency doesn’t ‘fix’ everything.”
Rather than enact the measures that the given moment demands, the Democratic Party’s leaders have repeatedly shown that they will instead triangulate, offering lukewarm versions of urgent policies and failing to commit to the political maneuvers necessary to achieving them. This just burns more and more of the people they need to build a coalition to actually govern.
This kind of timidity was made most clear when Giridharadas began to press Schumer on how far he’d be willing to go to achieve his legislative goals. Asked if he’d consider killing the filibuster, Schumer countered by saying that his party needs to gain the Senate majority first. When asked again—and again—he simply repeated the phrase, “Everything is on the table.” The same exchange repeated itself when Giridharadas asked about packing the Supreme Court to counter Trump’s rushed appointment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Schumer—who somehow concluded that the Democrats actually beat Trump “on every major issue” during his tenure—also seemed increasingly annoyed when Giridharadas asked him to concede that Democratic lawmakers of the past decade-plus have underwhelmed voters with constant compromises and halfhearted legislative measures.


newrepublic--2020-11-11--The Media Is Already Rehabilitating the GOP—and Walking America Into a Trap

On Monday , as White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany delivered a baseless rant about voter fraud to reporters and the American public , Fox News host Neil Cavuto decided to pull the plug .
“ Unless she has more details to back that up , I can ’ t in good countenance continue showing you this , ” Cavuto said .
The move almost immediately drew ecstatic praise from media observers .
The anchor ’ s decision was described as “ not unprecedented for Cavuto.
” He was further credited as being one of the staffers at the right-wing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump multiple times over the years.
” The Daily Beast joined the chorus , approvingly declaring Cavuto “ one of the few Fox News hosts to challenge President Trump ’ s lies , especially over the past several months.
” For a host at Fox , one of the most effective right-wing propaganda machines on the planet , to receive such outsized praise after providing the mildest of pushback against one of the president ’ s surrogates is a warning sign .
The presidential election is barely concluded , Republicans show no real @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their flamboyant willingness to proceed as if they got cheated on a vote they worked so diligently , for so many years , to literally rig in their favor will do real harm to our democratic institutions .
Nevertheless , the media institutions that liberals have come to rely upon during the illiberalism of the Trump era are already trying to rewrite the history of the last four years in a way that places the American right-wing as somehow in opposition to President Donald Trump and Trumpism , even as Joe Biden prepares @ @ @ @ @ @ @ transition of power the party has so far shown no real sign of recognizing .
Biden has used both his victory speech and remarks after Election Day to call for unity and for Americans to come together in the aftermath of one of the most hyper-partisan moments in U.S. history .
On Tuesday , the president-elect again assured reporters that Republicans would work with him once he takes office— “ They will , they will , ” he said—despite the fact the vast majority of the party won ’ t even recognize his @ @

On Monday, as White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany delivered a baseless rant about voter fraud to reporters and the American public, Fox News host Neil Cavuto decided to pull the plug. “Unless she has more details to back that up, I can’t in good countenance continue showing you this,” Cavuto said. The move almost immediately drew ecstatic praise from media observers. The anchor’s decision was described as “not unprecedented for Cavuto.” He was further credited as being one of the staffers at the right-wing media machine who has “called out Trump multiple times over the years.” The Daily Beast joined the chorus, approvingly declaring Cavuto “one of the few Fox News hosts to challenge President Trump’s lies, especially over the past several months.”
For a host at Fox, one of the most effective right-wing propaganda machines on the planet, to receive such outsize praise after providing the mildest of pushback against one of the president’s surrogates is a warning sign. The presidential election is barely concluded, Republicans show no real sign of accepting its results, and their flamboyant willingness to proceed as if they got cheated on a vote they worked so diligently, for so many years, to literally rig in their favor will do real harm to our democratic institutions. Nevertheless, the media outlets that liberals have come to rely upon during the illiberalism of the Trump era are already trying to rewrite the history of the last four years in a way that places the American right wing as somehow in opposition to President Donald Trump and Trumpism, even as Joe Biden prepares to take office in January in a transition of power the party has so far shown no real sign of recognizing.


newrepublic--2020-11-11--The Media Finally Figured Out Trump. Now Do the GOP.

Republican officials across the country are backing Donald Trump ’ s efforts to overturn the results of a lawful and legitimate election .
They are questioning vote counts at the state level , while refusing to acknowledge that Joe Biden is president-elect .
They are doing everything they can to undermine a clear and not particularly close contest .
And their excuse is that it ’ s all for show—a line that members of the mainstream press are peddling .
“ President Donald Trump ’ s allies know he ’ s lost , ” wrote the authors of Politico ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ They know there ’ s no lawsuit they ’ ll win , or recount that will get him the tens of thousands of votes he needs in the multiple states he needs to get closer to a second term .
Trump ’ s aides are looking for the exits , trying to find new jobs .
Republicans are readjusting to the reality of a Joe Biden presidency .
Yes , plenty of people are pretending otherwise , but it ’ s mostly performance art.
” There is certainly some truth to this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are flimsy , and its efforts to convince people outside the most rabid corners of the president ’ s base are farcical .
One can see two goals driving this breathtakingly cynical approach : keeping the base engaged enough to win control of the Senate , which will be decided by runoff elections in Georgia in early January , and delegitimizing Biden ’ s presidency in the eyes of millions of voters .

In this version of recent history, Republicans were enablers and toadies, but there was a hint of performance art as well. The failure to stand up to the president was depicted as cowardice or, in more cynical terms, politics—not as manifestations of these officials’ own beliefs. Trump was the most powerful person in the party. He could destroy a respectable career in politics with a mere tweet. Turning on him, even gently, was sure to create a primary challenge, and it was better to retire than to try to fend off a Trumpist from the right. And so, in public, Republicans backed the president: They claimed not to have read the tweets, they found silver linings in his most insane rants. In private, they told reporters that they did not approve of the president’s antics. Given Trump’s power within the party, what else were they supposed to do?
But the GOP’s anti-democratic ideology long preceded Trump—indeed, it paved the way for him. The press has been unwilling to acknowledge this fact, instead depicting the ongoing crisis over the election’s results as a purely Trumpian phenomenon.
This approach leaves out a great deal. It misses the obscene redistricting efforts in states like Wisconsin and North Carolina that have attempted to cement Republican rule for eternity. It ignores the Herculean efforts to suppress voters, particularly people of color, that have become the focal point of the GOP’s electoral efforts—efforts that will certainly increase in the future, thanks to the false allegations of fraud being perpetrated by nearly every Republican official. It ignores Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s legislative intransigence, his efforts to stop democratically elected Democrats from getting anything done, and his theft of two Supreme Court seats.


newrepublic--2020-11-11--Moderate Democrats Can Call the Green New Deal Whatever They Want

During a recent Axios on HBO interview , Jon Ossoff , the perpetual Democratic candidate who faces Georgia Republican Senator David Perdue in a January runoff election , was asked whether he supports a suite of left-wing policies .
The first item on the interviewer ’ s list , the Green New Deal , earned a quick “ no ” from Ossoff , who smirked at times as he declared his opposition to most of the progressive agenda .
Medicare for All , abolishing ICE , defunding the police , expanding the Supreme Court : no , no , no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ why policy discussions shouldn ’ t be framed as a series of rapid-fire yes/no questions : Ossoff ’ s opposition to the Green New Deal reveals next to nothing about his actual views on climate change .
On his website , as it happens , he calls for “ rapidly transitioning to clean energy sources , dramatically reducing carbon emissions , and increasing energy efficiency.
” This can be accomplished , he says , by a “ historic infrastructure plan that includes massive investments in clean energy , energy efficiency , and environmental @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you say ?
One that reduces emissions while also providing well-paying jobs ?
That sounds mighty familiar .
Ossoff clearly endorses something Green New Deal–ish , but , like many Democrats in his position , he can ’ t find the words ( or the courage ) to say so .

These attacks have not entirely succeeded. Polling from Data for Progress shows high levels of support for the Green New Deal, including a majority of respondents in Ossoff’s Georgia. But other polls have indicated that Ocasio-Cortez and other members of the left-wing “Squad” are unpopular in swing states: Ossoff may have good reason to distance himself from a policy associated with that wing of the party, even if the Green New Deal isn’t toxic itself.
Faced with this bind, moderate Democrats like Ossoff have chosen to denounce the Green New Deal even while agreeing with its core principles. Biden leads the way in this regard, insisting during a debate with President Trump that he did not support the Green New Deal but rather the “Biden Green Deal.” It went unsaid that Biden’s climate plan includes many of the same ideas as the Green New Deal.
This is not hypocrisy, necessarily. It’s not clear whether shying away from the Green New Deal helped Biden in the states that delivered him the presidency, and it’s not obvious that doing so will help Ossoff this winter. But if his campaign has sound reasons for believing it will, Ossoff can say whatever he thinks he needs to say to win a tight race in a red state. If he wins, though, he should be held to his promise to support a “historic infrastructure plan” that reduces emissions.


newrepublic--2020-11-12--Will Biden Repeat Obama’s Mistakes?

Will Biden Repeat Obama’s Mistakes?

Another Obama-era mistake Biden should avoid is appointing the wrong people to positions of power .
His elevation of Wall Street allies like Summers and Timothy Geithner has been denounced by liberals for what feels like a generation .
After raising alarm bells about rumored Biden cabinet picks for the last few months , the Sunrise Movement and Justice Democrats yesterday announced a list of 13 officials they ’ d like to see Biden appoint to top White House posts , along with several alternates .
Among those on the list are Bernie Sanders for Labor Secretary , California Congresswoman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ economist Darrick Hamilton to head the the Council of Economic Advisors , and Deb Haaland for secretary of Interior .
The New Mexico congresswoman , elected in 2018 , would be the first Native American to head the agency , which includes the Bureau of Indian Affairs .
Sunrise is also calling for the creation of a White House Office of Climate Mobilization , which would take on functions similar in scale to the World War II planning bodies of the 1940s .
There ’ s hardly any part of the federal government @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the work of decarbonizing the economy and adapting to the climate impacts already happening .
Sunrise is one of many groups who want those functions to have a permanent home in the Executive Branch with the authority to coordinate between administrators .
“ Regardless of what the Senate looks like , we are calling on Joe Biden to take his pledge seriously and use every tool in the tool belt to take action on his climate mandate , ” said Garrett Blad , a spokesperson for the Sunrise Movement .
“ If we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ see that personnel is policy , and in a scenario where the Senate is controlled by Mitch McConnell it makes these positions even more critical for using every tool of the executive branch.
” While they can drive forward climate action , lesser known departments could place serious constraints on it too .
Included within the Office of Management and Budget ( OMB ) is the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs ( OIRA ) .
Under Ronald Reagan , it became a battering ram for the right ’ s deregulatory agenda , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rules in the name of stringent cost-benefit analysis—where polluters have been able to generate mountains of paperwork arguing that the costs of new environmental protections , for instance , far outweigh the less easily monetized benefits .
Obama appointed cost-benefit analysis zealot Cass Sunstein to head the OMB .
And as a number of senators complained at the time , OIRA under Sunstein became a drag on efforts , among others , to use the full powers of the EPA and Department of Energy toward furthering climate and environmental goals .
However enterprising @ @ @ @ @ @ @ might be , that is , the wrong OMB director could weigh them down .

Another Obama-era mistake Biden should avoid is appointing the wrong people to positions of power. His elevation of Wall Street allies like Summers and Timothy Geithner has been denounced by liberals for what feels like a generation. After raising alarm bells about rumored Biden Cabinet picks for the last few months, the Sunrise Movement and Justice Democrats yesterday announced a list of 13 officials they’d like to see Biden appoint to top White House posts, along with several alternates. Among those on the list are Bernie Sanders for labor secretary, California Congresswoman Barbara Lee for secretary of state, economist Darrick Hamilton to head the Council of Economic Advisers, and Deb Haaland for secretary of interior. The New Mexico congresswoman, elected in 2018, would be the first Native American to head the agency, which includes the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Sunrise is also calling for the creation of a White House Office of Climate Mobilization, which would take on functions similar in scale to the World War II planning bodies of the 1940s. There’s hardly any part of the federal government that won’t be involved in the work of decarbonizing the economy and adapting to the climate impacts already happening. Sunrise is one of many groups that want those functions to have a permanent home in the executive branch with the authority to coordinate between administrators.
“Regardless of what the Senate looks like, we are calling on Joe Biden to take his pledge seriously and use every tool in the tool belt to take action on his climate mandate,” said Garrett Blad, a spokesperson for the Sunrise Movement. “If we look back to the Obama administration, we see that personnel is policy, and in a scenario where the Senate is controlled by Mitch McConnell, it makes these positions even more critical for using every tool of the executive branch.”
While they can drive forward climate action, lesser-known departments could place serious constraints on it, too. Included within the Office of Management and Budget is the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Under Ronald Reagan, it became a battering ram for the right’s deregulatory agenda, leveling a check on new and existing rules in the name of stringent cost-benefit analysis—where polluters have been able to generate mountains of paperwork arguing that the costs of new environmental protections, for instance, far outweigh the less easily monetized benefits. Obama appointed cost-benefit-analysis zealot Cass Sunstein to head the OMB. And as a number of senators complained at the time, OIRA under Sunstein became a drag on efforts, among others, to use the full powers of the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy toward furthering climate and environmental goals. However enterprising and progressive new appointees in other departments might be, that is, the wrong OMB director could weigh them down.


newrepublic--2020-11-12--The Never-Ending Crisis of the Electoral College

Every four years , Americans get a little lesson in constitutional law when they are reminded that presidents are not actually elected by the people ; the winner of the popular vote nationally doesn ’ t necessarily win the election , the official winner is chosen by the Electoral College .
When people vote in presidential elections , they aren ’ t really voting for president at all : They are voting for slates of electors put forward by each party who are expected to vote for the winner of their state ’ s presidential race .
According to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Electoral College ’ s actions , between Election Day and December 8 , states must resolve any disputes about who has won their election so that the proper electors are named .
Electors then meet to cast their votes in their respective states on December 14 .
The votes of the electors are placed in sealed envelopes and sent to Washington , where they must be received no later than December 23 .
On January 6 , after the new Congress convenes , it meets in joint session to literally count the electoral @ @ @ @ @ @ @ president will be .
If just one senator and one representative object to the results , each house meets separately to discuss the objections and resolve them .
As everyone knows , the winner is whoever gets 270 electoral votes—one more than half the total number of electoral votes .
Each state gets electoral votes equal to the number of House members and senators from that state , plus three for the District of Columbia , making a total number of 538 electoral votes , with 269 being exactly half .
( Ties @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the election would be thrown into the House of Representatives , where each state would have one vote , per the Twelfth Amendment . )

“The Electoral College is a disaster for a democracy.”—Donald Trump, November 6, 2012
“The Electoral College is actually genius in that it brings all states, including the smaller ones, into play. Campaigning is much different!”—Donald Trump, November 15, 2016
Every four years, Americans get a little lesson in constitutional law when they are reminded that presidents are not actually elected by the people; the winner of the popular vote nationally doesn’t necessarily win the election, the official winner is chosen by the Electoral College. When people vote in presidential elections, they aren’t really voting for president at all: They are voting for slates of electors put forward by each party who are expected to vote for the winner of their state’s presidential race.
According to the U.S. National Archives, which coordinates the Electoral College’s actions, between Election Day and December 8, states must resolve any disputes about who has won their election so that the proper electors are named. Electors then meet to cast their votes in their respective states on December 14. The votes of the electors are placed in sealed envelopes and sent to Washington, where they must be received no later than December 23. On January 6, after the new Congress convenes, it meets in joint session to literally count the electoral votes and formally determine who the next president will be. If just one senator and one representative object to the results, each house meets separately to discuss the objections and resolve them.


newrepublic--2020-11-12--The Case for Prosecuting Trump and His Cronies

Up until five years ago , the criminalization of one ’ s political opponents was patently taboo in the United States .
Presidential candidates did not haphazardly accuse their rivals of criminal behavior ; incumbents did not threaten to jail their opposition or try to wield the Justice Department as a cudgel against their foes .
Such rhetoric and tactics smacked of authoritarian nations overseas , not a mature , functional democracy .
But five years is a long time .
President-elect Joe Biden will succeed the most corrupt president in American history by virtually any metric .
President Donald @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rule of law , doled out favors to wealthy allies in exchange for their support , and misused government resources for personal gain , bilking at least $ 8 million from the government and his own supporters over the last four years .
Though not all of Trump ’ s sins may amount to violations of federal law , it is hard to imagine that none of them did .
Biden often framed this presidential election as a “ battle for the soul of the nation.
” Now he faces a choice about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump is no ordinary defendant , and prosecuting a defeated political rival is not a line to be crossed lightly , in any democratic society .
Biden , whose approach to power is more institutionalist than radical , may be reluctant to press charges against a former president .
But the culture of lawlessness Trump unleashed—and his own attempts to arrest foes on baseless grounds—justify such extraordinary measures .
If Biden truly wants to move the country forward , he needs to show that there are consequences for the misdeeds perpetrated under Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in American history , and by penalizing those who broke the law , can this country move forward .

Biden will likely face pressure to prosecute from others within his administration and his party. Vice President–elect Kamala Harris said during her own campaign that the Justice Department would have “no choice” but to prosecute Trump after he leaves office, telling NPR that “the president is not above the law.” But Biden may be more cautious; he is far less radical than the Republican campaign caricatures of the last year suggest. Reflexively moderate and deferential to the status quo, Biden as recently as last year expressed the wistful belief that Republican senators had been trapped in a sort of fugue state under Obama and, later, under Trump. That deference to tradition and longing for civility may turn him against prosecution.
But Biden has also witnessed firsthand the consequences of doing nothing. In the late aughts, the Obama administration took a forgiving approach to potential crimes committed by government officials under George W. Bush. Obama himself famously believed that “we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards” on scandals like the CIA’s illegal use of torture. “I don’t want them to suddenly feel like they’ve got to spend all their time looking over their shoulders,” he explained, referring to intelligence officials. That culture of impunity may have helped fuel the rampant abuses by ICE and CBP officials under Trump.
Not prosecuting Trump would have other consequences, as well. He presided over a spree of self-enrichment and corrupt dealmaking without parallel in modern American history. To absolve him of his possible crimes would be to normalize his behavior—and set a distressing precedent in American political life for what voters should tolerate from their elected officials. Biden’s policy aspirations may be limited, but his civic aspirations are laudable. He wants to build a functioning government and restore a measure of lost faith in American institutions. To do that, he must allow his predecessor to be treated equally before the law. America cannot ignore Trump’s crimes, for the simple reason that its democracy may not survive their being repeated.


newrepublic--2020-11-12--This Is (Probably) Not a Coup D’Etat

This Is (Probably) Not a Coup D’Etat

No one should feel ashamed for being worried about the state of America ’ s electoral democracy right now .
This weekend , candidate Joe Biden became President-elect Joe Biden after securing the Electoral College votes needed to win the 2020 presidential election .
Ever since that moment , President Donald Trump and his enablers have endeavored to undermine the nation ’ s faith in those results by piling up a portfolio of quixotic legal challenges and undertaking a series of illiberal stunts to suggest he may not yield power .
As a result , a black cloud has settled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ piled up a multitude of harms over the course of his tenure .
During that time , he ’ s also racked up any number of threats upon which he never followed through .
What Trump threatens now does not appear to be the total collapse of democracy , but it ’ s not nothing .
I warned earlier this week that this would be a very dangerous period in the life of the Trump administration .
So while I ’ ll endeavor to settle some nerves in the paragraphs to come , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are unfounded .
Let ’ s start with the obvious : Trump ’ s paths to a second term are phantasmal .
Biden is on track to win every state Hillary Clinton won in 2016 , as well as Arizona , Georgia , Michigan , Pennsylvania , and Wisconsin .
While recounts can shift the results of a race—typically by a few hundred votes here or there—Biden leads by at least 10,000 votes in Arizona and Georgia as of Wednesday , and by at least 50,000 votes in the other three states .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ for a recount to change vote totals by those margins , and there is no reason to believe these recounts would be any different .
Even Karl Rove , in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal , concluded that Trump ’ s hopes were for naught .
Former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker similarly assessed the president ’ s chances as approximately nil .

What happens next? Trump often claimed before the election that he expected the Supreme Court to intervene on his behalf in litigation over absentee ballots. But most legal observers, myself included, strongly doubt that even the court’s conservatives would be willing to hand him the election. The cases that Trumpworld has managed to gin up so far are objectively weak. Moreover, there isn’t a clear mechanism by which the justices could change the outcome of the election. The only case before the justices at the moment is a dispute over mail ballots in Pennsylvania that arrived three days after Election Day. According to the state, only 10,000 ballots fall into this category; they have yet to be counted so their loss wouldn’t affect Biden’s lead, which passed 50,000 votes on Wednesday.
I am even more skeptical that a majority of justices would embrace a flawed reading of the Constitution that would allow state legislatures to unilaterally overturn presidential election results. Even beyond the Supreme Court, any pathway to overturn the election results with competing slates of electors would still be stymied by a combination of Democratic secretaries of state, Democratic governors, and the Democratic-led House of Representatives. Losing Arizona and Georgia, the only states with a GOP trifecta that were won by Biden, wouldn’t be enough to pull him below 270 votes. As The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent noted in a comprehensive takedown on Wednesday, this whole thing simply isn’t likely to happen.
Just because Trump’s attacks on the election aren’t going to keep him in the White House doesn’t mean they’re harmless.
Just because Trump’s attacks on the election aren’t going to keep him in the White House doesn’t mean they’re harmless. According to one poll conducted after last week’s election, roughly 70 percent of Republicans don’t think that the election was “free and fair,” reflecting the extent to which the onslaught of disinformation from Trumpworld and its conservative media allies have poisoned the atmosphere. It is possible that these numbers will improve after Biden is sworn in on January 20 and passions settle. They also might not. Americans once viewed their democratic process as the pride and envy of the world. That self-confidence is not the first thing that Trump stole from the country over the past four years, but it will likely be one of the last.


newrepublic--2020-11-12--New York’s Feckless, Scientifically Illiterate Response to
the Covid Second Wave

In July , New York Governor Andrew Cuomo unveiled a poster to commemorate what New York had just suffered .
It depicted a mountain in the shape of the state ’ s Covid-19 case count .
“ We went up the mountain , we curved the mountain , we came down the other side , ” he said .
What he didn ’ t mention is that the mountain was a pile of dead bodies , the tens of thousands of New Yorkers who might not have died had he and other leaders throughout the state acted earlier and more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to pile up again , even as Cuomo is hawking a book he wrote about his own heroism leading his state through the early part of the pandemic .
New York State , like almost the entire country , is experiencing uncontrolled spread .
New York City , hardest hit in the spring but able to keep infections at bay during the summer , is entering a second wave .
We are seeing over 1,000 new cases a day , a situation we haven ’ t experienced since May , with a worrying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio have done almost nothing to stop a repeat of March and April .

In July, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo unveiled a poster to commemorate what New York had just suffered. It depicted a mountain in the shape of the state’s Covid-19 case count. “We went up the mountain, we curved the mountain, we came down the other side,” he said. What he didn’t mention is that the mountain was a pile of dead bodies, the tens of thousands of New Yorkers who might not have died had he and other leaders throughout the state acted earlier and more decisively.
Now the bodies are starting to pile up again, even as Cuomo is hawking a book he wrote about his own heroism leading his state through the early part of the pandemic. New York State, like almost the entire country, is experiencing uncontrolled spread. New York City, hardest hit in the spring but able to keep infections at bay during the summer, is entering a second wave. We are seeing over 1,000 new cases a day, a situation we haven’t experienced since May, with a worrying increase in deaths.


newrepublic--2020-11-12--This Is (Probably) Not a Coup D’État

This Is (Probably) Not a Coup D’État


newrepublic--2020-11-13--A Coup Is a Coup

A Coup Is a Coup

The attempt at an autogolpe is real , even if the sincerity with which many Republicans are pursuing it is unknown .
The purge at the Pentagon is very real , even if its connection to the election challenge is unclear .
The White House just ousted the head of the Department of Homeland Security ’ s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency , apparently for refusing to delete accurate information about the election results from the agency ’ s “ Rumor Control ” website .
Lying for the president ’ s sake also requires lying to everyone else in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for political journalists , to become inured to the way in which certain government officials treat their jobs as analogous to those of the cast and crew of The Truman Show , and to forget that the United States is more than just a collection of people in government .
It is an actual country with people in it .
Many of those people can not discern that all of this talk of illegal votes and Trump ’ s paths to victory is merely being done to help Trump come to terms with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a bit like Batkid , the young cancer patient on whose behalf the city San Francisco and the Make-a-Wish Foundation once staged a full day of make-believe superheroism—if roughly 40 percent of the residents of San Francisco genuinely believed the charade was real , believed Batkid was their only chance to stop the forces of evil descending on their city , and couldn ’ t understand why the media kept claiming The Riddler had fairly defeated him and would soon be in charge .
To sum up the current situation , the U.S. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the administration to do exactly the things a regime would do if it were attempting to stage an actual self-coup , with millions of people sincerely believing the stated justifications for the strongman ’ s consolidation of power and with the regime ’ s legislative allies playing along , under the apparent belief that eventually the courts , which are stocked with unqualified loyalists , will soon say the game is done .

One issue arising from that scheme is that creating the appearance of challenging the results of the election in order to appease the president requires actually challenging the results of the election, in real life. The Trump campaign has filed numerous actual lawsuits in actual courts, and it is still weighing, reportedly, an insane strategy of suing to delay vote certification in certain states in the hopes that Republican state lawmakers decide to try appointing pro-Trump electors. As Ford wrote, such schemes are unlikely to work. But even if the conservative operatives behind these efforts are only going through the motions of seizing power, without any real expectation of success, they are still trying, however feebly, to seize power.
The attempt at an autogolpe is real, even if the sincerity with which many Republicans are pursuing it is unknown. The purge at the Pentagon is very real, even if its connection to the election challenge is unclear. The White House just ousted the head of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, apparently for refusing to delete accurate information about the election results from the agency’s “Rumor Control” website.
Lying for the president’s sake also requires lying to everyone else in the nation. It is easy, especially for political journalists, to become inured to the way in which certain government officials treat their jobs as analogous to those of the cast and crew of The Truman Show, and to forget that the United States is more than just a collection of people in government. It is an actual country with people in it. Many of those people cannot discern that all of this talk of illegal votes and Trump’s paths to victory is merely being done to help Trump come to terms with his loss.


newrepublic--2020-11-13--Republican Malice Has Turned the Pandemic Into a Deadly Loop

In a recent interview with Eater , San Francisco restaurant owner Pim Techamuanvivit articulated the bind she currently finds herself in : The pandemic has cratered her business at the same time that it ’ s made her staff ’ s continued employment—their salaries , their health insurance—that much more urgent .
It ’ s an impossible situation .
“ I don ’ t understand why it ’ s up to me as a small-business owner to search my conscience every month to decide whether or not to support my employees , ” she said .
“ Where is the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ social system to support people ?
Where is the conscience of the country ?
” Her point applies beyond just her industry .
There is no way that business owners , or individual workers or consumers , can fix the crisis .
We ’ ve been forced into this untenable situation by government incompetence and outright malice .
And things are about to get much , much worse .
The fall surge in Covid-19—precisely the thing that both public health experts and anybody with common sense warned would come unless drastic action was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a 54 percent positivity rate .
Texas became the first state to surpass a million positive tests .
Cases have been rising day to day for the past week and a half in New York City .

This is also how, in the same week, you end up with Missouri’s governor begging the state legislature to allow him to spend the roughly $1 billion in federal funds that the state has left sitting on the shelf, and Minnesota asking the feds to reimburse it for a cold storage facility the state bought to store the bodies of Covid-19 victims. Compounding this gridlock is the idiocy still on full display by conservative leaders: Republican governors, like Oklahoma’s Kevin Stitt and South Dakota’s Kristi Noem, who, despite seeing massive surges in positive cases and hospitalizations, refuse to do something as simple as issue a mask mandate. And even if a vaccine was released tomorrow, states aren’t sure they’ll have the money to pay for the medical infrastructure required for widespread distribution.
It doesn’t have to be this way. As Dr. Michael Osterholm, a medical adviser to President-elect Joe Biden, told CNBC, the situation, even with cases on the rise, is still manageable, but only with immediate action. The country could enter into a four-to-six-week lockdown, and the federal government “could pay for a package right now to cover all of the wages; lost wages for individual workers; for losses to small companies; to medium-size companies; or city, state, county governments,” Osterholm said. (Democratic Representative Ro Khanna has been pushing for a $2,000 monthly stimulus check since April, but as with many stimulus plans in Congress, the Republican Senate has blocked the way forward.)
The key word in all of this is “could.” Breaking this cycle is so infuriatingly simple—Congress could pay workers to stay home! Governors could tell people to Skype in with Grandma! Everybody could wear a fucking mask!


newrepublic--2020-11-13--My Quest for a Job at the Trump White House

According to two sources familiar with the situation , as well as written communications … the White House Presidential Personnel Office ( PPO ) is still in the process of vetting candidates for job openings in various parts of the federal government , positions that the White House intended to fill by early next year .
I ’ ve been out of a job since May , and the White House is hiring .
Never mind that the incumbent president , Donald Trump , lost reelection on November 3 .
Never mind that Trump is judged widely to be the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mind that , as I ponder my own career prospects , Trump ’ s attempting a harebrained coup d ’ état .
The Donald refuses to concede the election , and he ’ s merrily firing anybody he suspects of believing his loss wasn ’ t fake news .
Personnel chief John McEntee ( who lost his previous job as Trump ’ s “ body man ” because of gambling debts that imperiled his security clearance ) warns White House staffers : I catch you looking for a new job , you ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now The Daily Beast posts a dispatch under the sublime headline , “ Trump White House Still Vetting for Job Openings for a Second Term That ’ s Not Happening.
” Some might see in this a deleted scene from The Death of Stalin .
Others might see a constitutional crisis .
I see an opportunity to resume drawing a weekly paycheck .

According to two sources familiar with the situation, as well as written communications … the White House Presidential Personnel Office (PPO) is still in the process of vetting candidates for job openings in various parts of the federal government, positions that the White House intended to fill by early next year. —Asawin Suebsaeng, Daily Beast, November 10, 2020
I’ve been out of a job since May, and the White House is hiring. Never mind that the incumbent president, Donald Trump, lost reelection on November 3. Never mind that Trump is judged widely to be the worst president in U.S. history. Never mind that, as I ponder my own career prospects, Trump’s attempting a harebrained coup d’état.
The Donald refuses to concede the election, and he’s merrily firing anybody he suspects of believing his loss wasn’t fake news. Personnel chief John McEntee (who lost his previous job as Trump’s “body man” because of gambling debts that imperiled his security clearance) warns White House staffers: I catch you looking for a new job, you’re out on the street. And now The Daily Beast posts a dispatch under the sublime headline, “Trump White House Still Vetting for Job Openings for a Second Term That’s Not Happening.”


Waiting For Diana

In 1981 , in their first public appearance after their wedding , Prince Charles and Princess Diana visited Brecon , a small town in Wales with a population a little under 8000 .
“ It was very cold , but people didn ’ t seem to notice the cold because they were so excited about Diana coming , ” Valerie Harris , a Brecon resident , would later recall .
Townspeople lined both sides of the main street , waiting for the royal visitors to appear .
Charles had decided they would each take one side of the street and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Diana ’ s part of the crowd would let out a huge groan of disappointment .
As Charles shook their hands , they nonetheless continued calling out “ Di !
Di , ” Harris remembered , “ to come to their side.
” When The Crown premiered in 2016 , some viewers had the same reaction .
The series begins with a young and beautiful Queen Elizabeth I ( Claire Foy ) on the eve of her nuptials in 1947 .
Yet fans immediately began wondering when they could expect a glimpse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ born for another 14 years .
One tweeted “ I watched the first episode of The Crown tonight .
Unless Diana ’ s in the next one , I ’ m out.
” Not long after the series premiere , magazines began speculating who would be cast to play the people ’ s princess .
Perhaps Rosamund Pike , one publication speculated , could draw from her Gone Girl role to channel Diana , another wife at war with an adulterous husband .
Show creator Andrew Morgan quickly stepped in to tamp down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with People magazine that Diana would not appear until Season 3 ( which later turned into Season 4 ) .
Only in this latest season does Princess Diana ( Emma Corrin ) finally come to our side of the street—our reward for wading through the three previous seasons of relatively minor drama : the Queen ’ s overly close friendship with a horse breeder named “ Porchie ” ; a confusing sex scandal involving Prince Phillip ’ s osteopath ; a young Prince Charles butchering the Welsh language ; multiple failed attempts by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I recently joked with a friend that the first three seasons amount to probably the most expensive and drawn-out prequel in television history .
Even when Diana wasn ’ t on screen , her presence was everywhere .
In Seasons 1 and 2 , as the Queen denied Princess Margaret her love match to Peter Townsend in favor of a more suitable , but ultimately disastrous marriage to Lord Snowdon , it was as if we were watching a dress rehearsal for the infamous War of the Waleses .
And when the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Buckingham Palace flag be flown at half-mast to mark the death of John F. Kennedy , who among us did not gasp in horror , remembering that the palace refused to do the same for Diana following her car crash in Paris ?

While the show starts with this question, the conflict is largely brushed aside except for how it plays into the story behind Charles’s engagement to Diana. While salmon fishing in Iceland with friends (as one does), Charles learns that his great uncle and surrogate father, Lord Mountbatten, has been assassinated in an IRA attack. Charles is racked with guilt, as the two had earlier argued on the phone over Charles’s continued relationship with a married Camilla Parker-Bowles. On his way home to the funeral, Charles receives a letter Mountbatten wrote to him after their fight, warning him against meeting the same fate as the last Prince of Wales, Edward VIII, who abdicated to marry the American divorcée Wallis Simpson. Mountbatten, known affectionately as “Dickie,” tells Charles he must fulfill his duty and find a wife who is “sweet and innocent, [a] well-tempered girl with no past who knows the rules and will follow the rules.”
Fortunately, he has recently met Diana Spencer, the virginal teenage daughter of the eighth Earl Spencer. Diana is so blinded by the youthful fantasy of marrying a prince that she overlooks what an egotistical bore he is (if season 3 was about humanizing Charles, season 4 undoes that work in quick order). When they go on a date to the opera (chaperoned by Diana’s grandmother), he begins lecturing her on Verdi, chastising her for calling his music romantic: “to focus simply on romance diminishes Verdi’s legacy and political influence.” He invites her to Balmoral Castle in Scotland for a weekend of “tests,” which she passes. The tests, as far as I can tell, revolve around knowing what to wear when hunting and which chair to sit in (not Queen Victoria’s!). Charles phones Camilla after the weekend to break the news that his family loves Diana, or, as he puts it, she got “rave reviews from the whole ghastly politburo,” and they want him to marry her.
In this season, we don’t yet see Diana the global humanitarian and icon who would raise awareness about land mines or stand side by side with Mother Teresa. We still have Diana as a young girl enamored of Diana Ross, roller-skating, and fan letters. This infuriates Charles, who can’t understand how he can love someone who watches “television” (he says the word like he’s scared he’ll choke on it) and expresses no interest in his tutorials on poetry, let alone how the whole world can adore her. Diana is soon miserable in the marriage, well aware by now that Charles has no plans to end things with Camilla (on the eve of her wedding, Diana discovers a bracelet Charles has had made for Camilla with their nicknames, “Fred and Gladys,” engraved on it).


newrepublic--2020-11-13--The Supreme Court Is in Charge Now

The Supreme Court Is in Charge Now

And then there is how the court handles the Biden administration itself .
Biden will be the first Democratic president in decades to enter the White House without Democratic control of the House and the Senate , curbing his ability to implement key parts of his agenda .
Unless his predictions about a post-Trump epiphany among Republicans prove true , Biden may find himself reliant on executive orders and regulatory changes to carry out Democratic policy goals on immigration , health care , and climate change .
Those efforts would be met with legal challenges no matter the Supreme Court @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s bolstered conservative bloc makes it an even more fraught proposition than for his former running mate Barack Obama , or even for Donald Trump .
With six votes , legal campaigns by conservatives to undermine what they call the “ administrative state ” —the medley of federal departments and agencies with regulatory powers—may only intensify .
The years ahead could see major Supreme Court rulings that give courts greater leeway to review federal regulations , limit the government ’ s power to make sweeping climate change rules , and even rule @ @ @ @ @ @ @ own power in executive branch agencies .
All of this is to say that if the court ’ s conservative majority wanted to move fast and break things , they would have few practical checks on their ability to do so .
In one sense , it would be hard to blame them .
After all , the conservative legal movement spent a half-century working toward a Supreme Court that would engrave its worldview into constitutional law .
But there are also other considerations at play .
Many Americans are more familiar with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Court than what could lie ahead .
Under Sandra Day O ’ Connor and Anthony Kennedy , the court drifted rightward while leaving the status quo intact on abortion rights and other major social issues .
If the justices wanted it , the Supreme Court could act as a force for American social and political cohesion instead of a factor in its destabilization .
It could avoid groundbreaking rulings on the nation ’ s cultural fault lines , at least for a few years , and take a wait-and-see approach to a president @ @ @ @ @ @ @ revanchism .
To do otherwise would risk the prospect of outraged Democrats capturing the Senate in 2022 on a platform of reining in a renegade Supreme Court , and the court-packing debate starting anew .
I am skeptical that the court will show this level of foresight over the next few years .
But it never hurts to hope .

With Roberts displaced, it’s unclear which of the conservative justices will take his place as the Supreme Court’s figurative fulcrum. Indeed, it’s more likely that different justices will play that role in different areas of the law. Gorsuch might tack toward the liberal wing in Fourth Amendment cases from time to time, while Justice Brett Kavanaugh may diverge from his conservative colleagues in cases involving Sixth Amendment rights and racial discrimination in jury selection. It will be at least a year before court observers can discern where the court’s relative center now lies; what matters now is that this center will be substantially further to the right than it has been in recent decades.
Either way, the conservatives are in control of the high court for at least a generation, if not longer. Some proponents of court-packing suggest that the mere threat of adding additional seats to the Supreme Court could well serve as a deterrent of sorts against the Supreme Court’s six-justice conservative majority—a way to pressure the court from pursuing sharp, sudden changes in American law. This theory shall, for the time being, go untested; voters have chosen unilateral disarmament. Without the threat of court-packing, we will soon find out if the Supreme Court pursues the long-sought goals of the conservative legal movement in an unconstrained way.
Foremost among them is the demolition of abortion rights. There has been an ongoing debate in some legal circles about whether the conservative justices would try to overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey outright, or if they would avoid the potential blowback by simply ruling in favor of state-level restrictions on abortion until Roe and Casey offered virtually no protections. With Barrett’s ascension, the odds that the court will have the votes to overturn Roe and Casey altogether have jumped substantially.


newrepublic--2020-11-13--Can Book Publishers Afford to Publish Donald Trump?

The backlash would surely be enormous .
The publishing landscape has shifted dramatically in the Trump era ; employees are energized and more organized than ever before .
Conversations with publishing employees returned again and again to three precedents .
First , there was the decision by Simon & Schuster ’ s conservative imprint Threshold Editions to offer a book deal to right-wing troll Milo Yiannopoulos—and then rescind it after authors began to pull out of the company ’ s other imprints .
Then , earlier this year , Hachette tried to publish a memoir by Woody Allen with little @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dozens of staffers walked out in protest .
Hachette ’ s U.K. division has also lost authors and dealt with a staff revolt over its decision to continue publishing J.K. Rowling after she has repeatedly made transphobic comments .
One staffer , a publicist at a “ big five ” imprint , told me that publishing Trump “ for even a fraction of $ 100 million would go against everything we ’ ve heard from the higher-ups this year .
I mean , we ’ ve had so many town halls , committee @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it , to talk about race , privilege , and how ‘ publishing can do better.
’ ” An editor at a different big five imprint was certain there would be controversy but noted that pressuring their company from within would be difficult , given the pandemic .
“ If we were at our normal pre-Covid capacity , I think a walkout would be very likely , ” but “ Trump is almost certainly not waiting until summer 2021 to ink a deal.
” Increased labor activism and demands that publishers live up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the biggest stories in publishing during the Trump era—a larger publisher putting out a Trump memoir would lead to a surge in both .
Outside pressure would certainly be brought to bear , too .
Authors would likely pull their books , as has happened in earlier controversies .
Managers and owners of independent bookstores who I spoke to were divided over whether to carry a hypothetical book .
Some said they would , but in small quantities , while others told me they wouldn ’ t stock it at all .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ hell ” that RiffRaff in Providence , Rhode Island , would carry the book , the store ’ s co-owner Tom Roberge told me .
Barnes & Noble and Amazon would undoubtedly stock and sell the book in large quantities , however .
Consumer boycotts would also follow and are not unprecedented .
In 1978 , Tom Flanagan and Bill Boleyn formed the Committee to Boycott Nixon ’ s Memoirs , with the slogan “ Don ’ t buy books by crooks.
” They were featured on Good Morning America , the Tom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Boleyn told me they sold “ thousands ” of T-shirts .
“ I do think there will be another resistance movement ” to a Trump book , Boleyn told me .
“ I think it fits the same bill .
The money should go back into the government coffers and not line the pockets of someone who has done criminal wrongdoing.
” Boleyn also noted that his campaign was launched before social media ; a new “ Don ’ t buy books from crooks ” movement would likely go viral in days @ @ @ @ @ @ @ publishers .

Normally, a book guaranteed to sell in the hundreds of thousands, and likely to sell in the millions, would be a no-brainer for publishers. Not so a Trump memoir. The Associated Press’s Hillel Italie surveyed a number of New York imprint heads and found only a few who would be willing to meet with ex-President Trump, let alone offer him a contract. A potential Trump memoir is being viewed warily by nearly everyone not employed by a conservative imprint.
The backlash would surely be enormous. The publishing landscape has shifted dramatically in the Trump era; employees are energized and more organized than ever before. Conversations with publishing employees returned again and again to three precedents. First, there was the decision by Simon & Schuster’s conservative imprint Threshold Editions to offer a book deal to right-wing troll Milo Yiannopoulos—and then rescind it after authors began to pull out of the company’s other imprints. Then, earlier this year, Hachette tried to publish a memoir by Woody Allen with little notice. That book was pulled after dozens of staffers walked out in protest. Hachette’s U.K. division has also lost authors and dealt with a staff revolt over its decision to continue publishing J.K. Rowling after she has repeatedly made transphobic comments.
One staffer, a publicist at a “big five” imprint, told me that publishing Trump “for even a fraction of $100 million would go against everything we’ve heard from the higher-ups this year. I mean, we’ve had so many town halls, committee meetings, book clubs, you name it, to talk about race, privilege, and how ‘publishing can do better.’” An editor at a different big five imprint was certain there would be controversy but noted that pressuring their company from within would be difficult, given the pandemic. “If we were at our normal pre-Covid capacity, I think a walkout would be very likely,” but “Trump is almost certainly not waiting until summer 2021 to ink a deal.” Increased labor activism and demands that publishers live up to their stated values have been two of the biggest stories in publishing during the Trump era—a larger publisher putting out a Trump memoir would lead to a surge in both.


newrepublic--2020-11-13--Samuel Alito Is Tired of Winning

Samuel Alito Is Tired of Winning

An inescapable risk in writing about current events is that they have the tendency to swiftly overtake the last thing you wrote .
On Thursday afternoon , I filed an article explaining why the Supreme Court will likely take a sharp right turn after President-elect Joe Biden ’ s victory last week but noted that it still had the option to take a less aggressive tack .
“ If the justices wanted it , the Supreme Court could act as a force for American social and political cohesion instead of a factor in its destabilization , ” I wrote .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the nation ’ s cultural fault lines , at least for a few years , and take a wait-and-see approach to a president who is calling for reconciliation instead of revanchism.
” That article was published in the early hours of Friday morning .
In the intervening hours , Justice Samuel Alito addressed the Federalist Society ’ s annual convention .
Alito , one of the court ’ s most conservative conservatives , did not sound interested in bridging political divides or promoting social cohesion .
He instead aired a long list of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rulings to a receptive audience and suggested that the court would be more aggressive in fighting back against this tide in the future .
So much for détente .
What makes Alito ’ s speech so remarkable is the combination of message and venue .
In his eyes , conservatives are fighting a rising tide of religious and ideological persecution that threatens to cast them to the outer fringes of American society .
He declared this in a speech to a Federalist Society convention where the conservative and libertarian legal elite gather in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ non-pandemic years .
That movement just spent four years in the ascendance , leaving a multigeneration imprint on the federal courts , including a six-justice majority on the Supreme Court where Alito sits .
But for Alito , “ religious freedom ” and “ freedom of speech ” sound less like legal principles and more like vehicles to secure a fading cultural dominance .

Alito described other perceived threats to liberty. He complained about the court’s recent approach to Second Amendment cases that had rendered it a “second-tier” constitutional right. He derided the legal underpinnings of modern federal regulatory agencies, which he described as “lawmaking by executive fiat rather than legislation,” and foreshadowed an imminent judicial war on the precedents that made agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency possible. In his eyes, the state and federal efforts to control the coronavirus’s spread marked the culmination of this strain of progressive governance. “The pandemic has resulted in previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty,” he noted without regard for hyperbole.
Much of Alito’s criticism of recent public-health measures centered on Calvary Chapel v. Sisolak, a case brought by a rural Nevada church that challenged the occupancy limits that the state temporarily mandated in an effort to stem the spread of Covid-19. Those orders allowed no more than 50 people at houses of worship, while also allowing casinos and certain other businesses to allow no more than 50 percent occupancy. Nevada argued that it had discretion to tailor its public-health measures to different activities and businesses based on how they operated; the Supreme Court apparently agreed and quietly rejected the church’s request to block the order over the summer.
Alito, who dissented from that move, renewed his objections on Thursday night. “Nevada was unable to provide any plausible justification for treating casinos more favorably than houses of worship,” he claimed. “But the court nevertheless deferred to the governor’s judgment, which just so happened to favor the state’s biggest industry and the many voters it employs.” The imagery of Las Vegas gamblers cavorting with the state’s blessing while churchgoers are denied the right to worship is an evocative one. It is also somewhat misleading. The occupancy restrictions for churches also applied to similar secular gatherings like movie theaters, concerts, and sporting events. Nevada also placed no restrictions on outdoor worship services, even as it forbade outdoor concerts and other forms of live entertainment, and even encouraged the church to conduct multiple indoor services to accommodate Calvary Chapel’s 90-person congregation.


newrepublic--2020-11-13--Philadelphia’s Election Results Are a Warning to the Democratic Party

Throughout this election cycle , pundits and Electoral College–watchers trained their gaze on Pennsylvania , singling it out as the state that would likely determine the winner of the presidency .
And as the year wound on , it became just as clear that the path to winning the Keystone state ran through Philadelphia and its suburban counties .
That all turned out to be true , and those who aimed for President Donald Trump ’ s ouster can thank the City of Brotherly Love for buying four years of breathing room .
On its face , the outcome might @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strategy pursued by the Democratic Party for the past decade or more : Run up the score in the cities and win over an increasing number of suburban residents to assemble an insurmountable metropolitan voting bloc .
Republicans can dominate the areas where few people live so long as Democrats control the population centers .
From a purely mathematical perspective , this outlook makes enough sense .
But real politics are rather more complicated than numbers on a spreadsheet , and aggregates can obscure at least as much as they reveal .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fact that , relative to Hillary Clinton ’ s 2016 performance , Joe Biden lost ground everywhere except among white professionals .
And a closer look at those professional-class voters ’ preferences suggests that they may not be here to stay .
Let ’ s start with the suburbs .
In the four Philadelphia “ collar counties , ” the Democratic presidential swing—Biden ’ s gain over Clinton , less Trump ’ s gain from 2016—was some 100,000 votes .
Given that Clinton lost the state by 44,000 and that Biden won it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as decisive as Democratic strategists could have hoped .
But there is good reason to believe that this will not be replicated in the future .
While these suburban voters were turning out for Biden , they were simultaneously voting for Republicans down ballot in large numbers .
Taken together , the Democratic candidates for the House of Representatives in these four counties underperformed Biden by roughly 65,000 votes .
Take those votes away four years from now , and the Democrats lose the state .

Thankfully, this election did offer a glimpse into that possible future. In recent months, unions like Unite Here worked tirelessly in these very communities to claw every last vote they could into the Biden camp. Without their efforts, these worrying numbers would certainly have looked even more grave. But organizers were forced to push against very strong headwinds of disregard for the working-class communities that Democrats will have to win by massive margins in order to compete in states like Pennsylvania in the years to come. Because of that disregard, in Philadelphia, some 40 percent of eligible—as opposed to registered—voters did not even cast a ballot. In the poorest and most diverse parts of the city, the figure is considerably higher.
The bright side of all this is that the Republican Party has nothing to offer this population and shows no inclination toward changing that any time soon, making it unlikely that it will sufficiently broaden its appeal within these communities to close the gap by more than Trump managed. Moreover, there is clearly enormous room for progressives to grow by reaching out to these large reservoirs of untapped voters. But Democrats won’t capitalize on this opportunity unless they extract the right lessons from the numbers in this election. Moderation and decency are compelling alternatives to Trumpism, but these concepts do not put food on the table or pay the bills. In order to hold the territory that Biden claimed and build upon it, Democrats need to offer working people something that does.
Update: The original version of this article stated that without Biden’s 65,000 margin over Democratic candidates for the House of Representatives in the four Philadelphia suburban counties, a future Democrat could lose a statewide election. As of November 16, Biden’s statewide lead is 68,000 and is likely to grow further. It would therefore be more accurate to say that without that top of ticket margin over down-ballot Democrats in the suburbs a future statewide election would be very close. Also, as a result of provisional ballots that have been counted since the date of publication, the Trump swing in Philadelphia areas with a population of at least 40 percent Black and Latino and a median household income of below $50,000 is, as of Nov. 16, 24,000 and 29,000, respectively. These figures may continue to change somewhat as all provisional ballots are counted.


Waiting for Diana

In 1981 , in their first public appearance after their wedding , Prince Charles and Princess Diana visited Brecon , a small town in Wales with a population a little under 8,000 .
“ It was very cold , but people didn ’ t seem to notice the cold because they were so excited about Diana coming , ” Valerie Harris , a Brecon resident , would later recall .
Townspeople lined both sides of the main street , waiting for the royal visitors to appear .
Charles had decided they would each take one side of the street and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Diana ’ s part of the crowd would let out a huge groan of disappointment .
As Charles shook their hands , they nonetheless continued calling out “ Di !
Di , ” Harris remembered , “ to come to their side.
” When The Crown premiered in 2016 , some viewers had the same reaction .
The series begins with a young and beautiful Queen Elizabeth II ( Claire Foy ) on the eve of her nuptials in 1947 .
Yet fans immediately began wondering when they could expect a glimpse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ born for another 14 years .
One tweeted “ I watched the first episode of The Crown tonight .
Unless Diana ’ s in the next one , I ’ m out.
” Not long after the series premiere , magazines began speculating who would be cast to play the People ’ s Princess .
Perhaps Rosamund Pike , one publication speculated , could draw from her Gone Girl role to channel Diana , another wife at war with an adulterous husband .
Show creator Andrew Morgan quickly stepped in to tamp down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with People magazine that Diana would not appear until season 3 ( which later turned into season 4 ) .
Only in this latest season does Princess Diana ( Emma Corrin ) finally come to our side of the street—our reward for wading through the three previous seasons of relatively minor drama : the queen ’ s overly close friendship with a horse breeder named “ Porchie ” ; a confusing sex scandal involving Prince Phillip ’ s osteopath ; a young Prince Charles butchering the Welsh language ; multiple failed attempts by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I recently joked with a friend that the first three seasons amount to probably the most expensive and drawn-out prequel in television history .
Even when Diana wasn ’ t on screen , her presence was everywhere .
In seasons 1 and 2 , as the queen denied Princess Margaret her love match to Peter Townsend in favor of a more suitable but ultimately disastrous marriage to Lord Snowdon , it was as if we were watching a dress rehearsal for the infamous War of the Waleses .
And when the queen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Palace flag be flown at half-mast to mark the death of John F. Kennedy , who among us did not gasp in horror , remembering that the palace refused to do the same for Diana following her car crash in Paris ?