newrepublic--2020-10-29--The De-Radicalization of Supreme Court Reform

For most of the last 80 years , court-packing was a historical footnote for high-school students who learned about the New Deal era .
The idea that the Supreme Court , still clinging to the glow of its Warren Court years , would endure any similar threats to its composition was fanciful at best .
Then came the 2016 election , and the presidency of Donald Trump , and three staunchly conservative jurists who will hand down rulings for at least the next three decades .
For some liberals , who are now facing an indefinite future in the constitutional @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but urgent .
This sentiment has spread remarkably quickly through the ranks of the Democratic Party ’ s elite .
Roughly half of the Democratic presidential nominees for 2020 signaled that they might be open to the prospect of it .
Joe Biden , the eventual nominee , went from staunch opposition to , at best , substantially less staunch opposition over the course of the year .
As GOP senators performed a Supreme Court confirmation speed-run with Amy Coney Barrett over the past few weeks , even the most moderate and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contemplate the prospect of court-packing if Biden wins next month .
As Senator Chris Coons , nobody ’ s idea of a radical firebrand , told Jake Tapper on a recent edition of CNN ’ s State of the Union , “ Like Joe Biden , I ’ m not a fan of expanding the court , but we have a few weeks here to see whether there are four Republicans who will step back from this precipice.
” After that , Coons suggested , all bets were off , and that Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the right steps are to rebalance our federal judiciary.
” Asked whether he was referring to adding seats to the Supreme Court , Coons said , “ Yes.
” Angus King , Maine ’ s self-styled independent Senator , sounded a similarly regretful refrain regarding the place to which Trump had dragged the Supreme Court : “ I don ’ t want to have to change the number , ” he said , “ I don ’ t want to have to do that.
” If anything , however , King ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with considerably more menace : “ If all of this rule-breaking is taking place , what does the majority expect ?
What do they expect ?
They expect that they ’ re gon na be able to break the rules with impunity and when the shoe , maybe , is on the other foot , nothing is going to happen ?
” It mirrors a phrase that liberal proponents of court packing have memefied on social media into a warning for conservatives : “ Fuck around and find out.
” Assuming that Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Senate , however , the path to court-packing is far from guaranteed .
While there are relatively few opinion polls on the subject , the most recent ones still show overwhelming public opposition to the idea .
Biden himself appears to be more interested in a bipartisan commission on judicial reform at the moment , which seems more likely to diffuse support for court-packing than bolster it in the public square .
And there is nothing stopping the Supreme Court from waiting to overturn Roe v. Wade or gutting the federal government ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their Senate majority , and with it , the ability to respond .

While adding more justices is an extraordinary step by any measure, some have argued that the court’s extraordinary approach to democracy itself justifies it. One of the most persuasive arguments for court-packing came in response to the Roberts court’s antipathy toward voting rights. “Republicans appear committed to an agenda of dispossession and disenfranchisement, entrenching minoritarian rule without the consent of the electorate,” The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer wrote earlier this month. “Their appointees to the high court are bound to a legal ideology that would accept all but the most obvious of Jim Crow–era voting restrictions.”
While adding more justices is an extraordinary step by any measure, some have argued that the court’s extraordinary approach to democracy itself justifies it.
I am still deeply skeptical about court-packing as a solution to anything, let alone the judicial wars. Adding four more justices to the court, for one, is not a durable answer to any problem. Unless the Republicans never again simultaneously hold the White House and both houses of Congress—a bet I would not personally take—they will simply expand the court even further to restore an ultraconservative majority. Such a majority would be unlikely to show any restraint when imposing its constitutional vision upon the nation. Why would it bother, after all, when it knows the clock is ticking until the Democrats add yet another set of justices to join them?
Millhiser and others have argued, for example, that the mere threat of court-packing will serve as a deterrent against adverse Supreme Court rulings. Those who articulate this view often cite Franklin D. Roosevelt’s battle with the conservative Supreme Court justices of the 1930s over New Deal legislation, which culminated in the semi-mythical “switch in time that saved nine” and a majority that would uphold his agenda. If this is the case, then calls for court-packing are probably a mistake when six conservative justices could hear election-related disputes next month. They may silently conclude that the best way to preserve the court’s legitimacy and influence is simply not to let Democrats win cases that could decide the election.


newrepublic--2020-10-29--Election Season Is Wildfire Season. These Voters Lost Everything.

For 13 years , Erica Ramírez lived with her children in a house in Medford , Oregon , a small city in the southwestern corner of the state .
It was a modest two-bedroom , painted blue with white accents .
She ’ d saved up to purchase it after coming to the United States from Guatemala in 1993 seeking political asylum , working various jobs , often as an RV cleaner .
On September 8 , when the Alameda wildfire began north of Ashland and raged into the outskirts of her neighborhood , Ramírez was on a walk some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ alerting her and began running back , panicked about her pitbull , Rosie , who was still at the house .
The roads were closed and police blocked her entrance , but her son made it back .
He got Rosie out and tried to use the hose to stop the flames .
The house burned anyway .
“ I worked for many years to get what I have , a roof , a home , ” Ramírez told me .
“ I miss it a lot .
All the memories that burned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of my family , my whole family .
We couldn ’ t rescue anything.
” Ramírez is now living about a half an hour away with a friend who she used to work with and , for the moment , apart from her youngest son and seven-year-old grandchild .
She is one of thousands of people who are now unhoused in the wake of the wildfires that , since August , have destroyed more than 4 million acres across California , Oregon , and Washington .
Officials in Jackson County , one of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ president ’ s major disaster declaration in response to the fires , estimate that approximately 3,000 people were displaced by the fires and around 2,357 structures were destroyed—three quarters of which were mobile homes where many elderly , Latinx , and immigrant communities lived .
“ Some folks are staying in parking lots and living out of their cars , even though we have the Red Cross , ” said Virginia Camberos , the Rogue Valley Regional Director of Unite Oregon , an organization serving rural communities and people experiencing poverty across the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or friends , in shelters , hotels , and other temporary situations—in some cases throwing “ Covid out the window , ” Camberos said .
And yet , despite the anguish and uncertainty , many are still thinking about the November 3 election and how to cast a ballot without a stable address .
“ Even though folks have lost their homes and all that , they say , How am I going to get my ballot ?
These are first time voters , ” Camberos said .
“ It ’ s so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ became a U.S. citizen last October , is one of those voters .
She told me that while a lot of information is readily available about wildfire relief and voting , very little is written in Spanish .
This is her first election ; she ’ s anxious about the process .

Diana Ramos, a 19-year-old student at Southern Oregon University, joined forces with Project de La Raiz, a Latinx storytelling project, to assist as a social media intern and post key information about voting and community support efforts. Though the deadline to register to vote and to change a vote-by-mail address in Oregon has passed, Ramos is continuing to share Instagram posts, in both English and Spanish, paired with graphics and information such as a Jackson County voter guide. She wants to be sure people know how to vote if they were displaced, that they can find ballot drop-off boxes and have examples of how a mail-in ballot can be invalidated.
After coming to the U.S. 10 years ago from Mexico, Ramos made the decision last year, with her family, to become a U.S. citizen. She said it was an expensive, tiring process that took up most of her 2019, but she’s glad to be casting a ballot this year. “Being able to vote for the first time for a president is already something that I consider huge because my family has worked so hard to be here and for me to have this right,” Ramos said. “It is a huge responsibility because that vote is representative of not only the community that I am a part of but of my family, of those family members that don’t have that right to vote.”
The fire-affected people who can’t vote still have just as much at stake this election. “To have someone who is a climate denier, who wants to bring back coal and believes fossil fuels are not a problem is quite literally a death sentence, not just to humans, but to other life forms on this planet,” said Niria Alicia, a climate justice organizer who was born and raised in the Rogue Valley. Her father, who lost his mobile home in the Almeda fire, also faced the question of how to cast his ballot. “We’ve already seen how disastrous he has been in his disgusting abuse of human rights in detention centers in continuing to criminalize our communities, and climate refugees, who leave their home countries because they are literally displaced by the policies that this country enforces,” Alicia said of Trump. “It would be a great misrepresentation of our political power here to not be able to have our vote included in this election.”


newrepublic--2020-10-29--Celia Paul Redefines the Artist’s Model

Celia Paul Redefines the Artist’s Model

A woman sprawls on a bed , the suggestion of a wall behind her .
With her left hand , she cups her left breast , while the right falls free .
Her eyes are turned toward the pillow .
Her strong thighs don ’ t quite meet , and her knee points toward a table in the foreground , where a boiled egg , sliced in half , waits in a white cocotte ( a morning-after repast , maybe ) : a visual echo of her bountiful nipple .
Lucian Freud called this painting Naked Girl With Egg .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
She was in her twenties when she sat for the painting ; Freud was in his fifties .
Sure , it ’ s that old story : the art student and the visiting tutor , a passion we might speak of as forbidden were it not so familiar .
In her new memoir , Self-Portrait , Paul , now in her sixties , no longer student but master in her own right , writes of modeling for Freud in the fall of 1980 , not long after they ’ d met and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a decade .
She struggled under her lover ’ s scrutiny—she recalls that he “ peered down ” at her , though on canvas the subject ’ s body looms over the viewer .
“ I was very conscious of my flesh , and I felt myself to be undesirable.
” Of course , that ’ s Freud ’ s work : lush bodies and frank physicality , haunted faces with the suggestion of introspection .
We might understand his nude figures as sexual , but they ’ re rarely sexy .
Maybe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that ; maybe she thought modeling for her lover—intimacy with a complicated power dynamic—something close to a sex act .
“ I felt exposed and hated the feeling .
I cried throughout these sessions.
” She never gives her opinion of the finished work .
It ’ s probably wrong of me to begin with Freud , though I imagine there will be readers who come to this memoir looking for him .
In life , his fame far eclipsed hers—we might call her an artist ’ s artist .
Self-Portrait is not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the unvarnished truth about a great man .
Nor is it the work of an artist ’ s muse , speaking up at last .
It ’ s an account of a life so rigorously dedicated to art and family that fame seems beside the point .
Perhaps the most telling relationship in the book is Paul ’ s friendship and then rivalry with another girl , Linda , when she was only 15 , both so obsessed with art that they became “ secretive and mistrustful of each other.
” Self-Portrait @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , not other artists , but herself .
Celia Paul was born in 1959 in India , where her father was head of a seminary .
Faith was important to both her parents .
Her mother , frequently Paul ’ s model , used their sessions together to pray .
Paul doesn ’ t speak of religion ’ s role in her own life , but I understand art—defined broadly—as the filter through which she sees all , perhaps as total as her parents ’ Christianity .
As a writer , she ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a particular vantage on to the world .
Here ’ s her recall of India , which she left at age five :

Self-Portrait is loosely organized by theme, in chapters titled “Lucian,” “Home,” “Being a Mother,” “My Mother.” From them, the reader can piece together the particulars of Paul’s life: a happy upbringing with her four sisters, an adolescent mania for art that carried her to the Slade School of Fine Art, where she met Freud. The two had a son, Frank, in 1984, and their romance ended in 1988. Freud died in 2011. In a recent documentary, an art historian referred to him in plain hyperbole as “one of the great European painters of the last 500 years.” Self-Portrait illuminates what Freud’s long shadow obscured: Celia Paul herself, and an altogether different way of being an artist.
Though there are appreciable differences in their styles, as artists, both Freud and Paul are interested in people, depicted in constructed vignettes that imply some elusive narrative, a drama of the self. Generally, in these pages, Paul speaks of Freud not as a teacher, but a lover, a man who both delighted and frustrated her. She does not engage in the question of what effect his style might have had on her artistic development, nor does she answer whether her youthful experience modeling for Freud informed her own practice of painting from life—particularly her mother, her sisters, and her son, Frank—but a comparison suggests itself.
I have noticed that the men I have worked from are interested in the process of painting and in the act of sitting. The silence, when I am working from men, is less interior. Women, in my experience, find it easier to sit still and think their own thoughts, and they often hardly seem to be aware that I’m there in the same room. For this reason, I usually feel more peaceful when I’m working from a woman, and more free.
In My Sisters in Mourning, reproduced in this book, Paul paints her four sisters in shapeless white frocks, seated close together. They are arrayed by age, faces similar, as biological siblings’ so often are; it’s almost the progression of a single person over the years. The sitters’ hands are folded, almost in gestures of prayer. Paul speaks of the silence of her subjects in the moments she is painting them, and that quality exists in the finished work, too: the process informing the product.


newrepublic--2020-10-29--How the Stock Market Betrayed Donald Trump

There ’ s gratitude for you .
You halve corporate taxes and slash regulations indiscriminately , and Wall Street thanks you by going haywire less than a week before you ’ re up for reelection .
“ Stock market drop a blow to Trump ’ s election messaging ” blares today ’ s lead story , by Jeff Stein , in The Washington Post .
“ The Stock Market Is on the Edge of a Historic Crash , ” Dan Runkevicius wrote this morning in Forbes .
What the hell ?
At 8:30 a.m. , the Commerce Department reported third-quarter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on an annualized basis , the biggest gain in history .
In response , the Dow dropped 200 points .
It rebounded later , but The Wall Street Journal suggested that uptick probably had more to do with anticipated strong earnings set to be announced later today by Apple , Alphabet ( Google ) , Facebook , Amazon , and Twitter .
What exquisite torture for Donald Trump .
He could blame stock market volatility on Wall Street ’ s growing conviction that Joe Biden will be elected president on Tuesday , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stock performance is the single infallible metric of his presidency , that would concede Biden really will be elected president on Tuesday .
( For what it ’ s worth , USA Today says Wall Street is more worried that Democrats will win the Senate ; having written Trump off already , it now frets that divided government won ’ t be available to keep current tax rates in place . )
In Stein ’ s Post story , Stephen Moore , the Trump economic adviser without portfolio or doctorate , says , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ‘ Pelosi blocked the [ Covid stimulus ] plan because she wanted the blue state bailout.
’ ” But as Stein points out , the president ( perhaps not coincidentally pumped up on steroids ) “ kept trying to cancel and then un-cancel the negotiations , sometimes multiple times in a week.
” Moreover , that analysis is hard to square with Moore ’ s own argument yesterday ( in an op-ed he probably filed some days before ) that the market ’ s rise constituted “ a bet that President Donald Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump leaned hard into the GDP number on Twitter this morning , bellowing that “ Next year will be FANTASTIC !
” But by then , every financial journalist in America had already pointed out at least a dozen reasons not to take the expected rise very seriously .
Even Fox News discounted it , noting in the very same sentence in which it reported the 33.1 percent growth figure that “ the nation remains in a deep hole from the COVID-induced recession.
” Et tu , Rupert ?

It could be that, for investors, a coronavirus reckoning is finally at hand.
It could be that, for investors, a coronavirus reckoning is finally at hand. Covid-19 cases are at an all-time high, and all the president does in response is tell a rally full of maskless followers, “With the fake news, everything is Covid, Covid, Covid, Covid.” If Trump had a literary bent, one might suspect him of echoing deliberately Lear’s despairing cry of “Never, never, never, never, never,” in Act V’s “My poor fool is hanged” speech, the dead daughter in his arms not beloved Cordelia but Trump’s own moribund reelection prospects. (Even knowing that this is not the case, I can’t help reading the V in “Act V” as a Halloween rictus mocking the V-shaped recovery that Trump can’t seem to will into existence.)
But we were talking about Wall Street. I hesitate to conclude the stock market is responding to Covid news for the simple reason that, except at the beginning, investors never particularly cared about Covid-19. As for GDP, if Wall Street didn’t care after learning it fell 31 percent in June, why should it care now, after learning it rose 33.1 percent in September?
The brutal truth is that financial markets heed secret harmonies that convey, imperfectly and solipsistically, only whether the financial markets themselves will rise or fall. All else is sentimentality and vanity. Experts (including, now, the chief economist at the White House National Economic Council) admonish us not to mistake the stock market for the economy. More cynically, I have considered (here and here) whether, to the contrary, the stock market is the only economy we’ve got left.


newrepublic--2020-10-29--Biden’s Health Care Plan Is Somehow Still a Mystery

Here is a disclaimer for any omnipotent force that is reading this post : By writing about what might happen under a Biden presidency , I am in no way predicting the results of Tuesday ’ s election .
I am merely having a conversation with our readers about one of the many possibilities that you , the Great One ( or perhaps the Evil One ) , might bestow upon us next week .
Naturally , we all appreciate your many very funny pranks from the past , like George W. Bush getting elected by the Supreme Court and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ classic .
But I am not , in any way , attempting to trigger fate ’ s wrath by discussing what a President Joe Biden might do on health care .
Every presidential campaign involves no small amount of exaggeration and even some straight-up fibbing about the extent of that candidate ’ s priorities and plans .
Whether or not any of Biden ’ s campaign promises will be realized , after all , will depend greatly on the makeup of the Senate .
On top of that , much could ride on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ filibuster .
These are critical open questions .
But the Biden campaign has almost gone out of its way to foster a specific sort of unknowableness about the shape of his presidency .
So much has been staked on the idea of Getting Trump Out , and so much energy is absorbed by whatever nugget of insanity has lodged itself in Trump ’ s brain that day , that much less attention has been paid to the granular details of Biden ’ s plans and their policy specifics .
In a matchup between @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden , there might not be much point in delving too deeply into other matters , in terms of picking one or the other to be president .
Similarly , most of the important intraparty fights from the Democratic primary are wrapped in a fragile cloth that will break as soon as Biden wins the presidency ( if he does ) .
We don ’ t yet have a fix on what kind of president Joe Biden would really be , because what his campaign has labored to convey to voters is that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Donald Trump .
But assuming Biden wins , proceeds as he has promised , and guides Congress to enact a health care reform bill , there are still many unanswered questions about how his plan would work .
We have never heard from Joe Biden about why his plan only covers 97 percent of Americans .
This would leave approximately 10 million people uncovered ; we don ’ t know what these Americans did to deserve this fate or how they might avoid it .
And this is Biden ’ s plan at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it and Joe Manchin decides it needs to be less generous for reasons known only to him .
The last time Biden took a question about this puzzling detail , as far as I can tell , was on a debate stage in September 2019 , when Julián Castro noted that Biden ’ s plan “ leaves 10 million people uncovered.
” Biden responded by shaking his head , and no one thought to demand an actual answer from him .
Since then , he has repeatedly said his plan covers everyone .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ lie , and it is a lazy one .
It would be one thing if some think tank had analyzed his proposal , determined that it wouldn ’ t cover everyone , and this was a back-and-forth dispute between the Biden campaign and some other group of Beltway brains .
But the source of Castro ’ s claim is Biden ’ s own website , where the promise to limit coverage to approximately 97 percent of Americans remains to this day .
Biden hasn ’ t been consistent or honest on this point @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , when no one is asking him about it ?

Another of Biden’s more inexplicable primary debate moments was when he said that “every single person who is diagnosed with cancer or any other disease can automatically become part of this plan.” Biden was referring to the part of his plan that promises “automatic enrollment” to everyone who makes under 138 percent of the federal poverty level—those who should qualify for Medicaid currently, barring the Supreme Court’s decision to allow states to decline it. The question of how a public option with income-based premiums can “automatically” enroll people, whose incomes may fluctuate frequently, has never been satisfactorily answered. Biden said in that debate that anyone who qualified for Medicaid would be automatically enrolled, but people who currently qualify for Medicaid are not automatically enrolled. Far from it: Many are kicked off Medicaid, having gone to the effort of enrolling themselves, because their income fluctuated above the poverty line, or simply because of an error.
So how are we going to do this? What agency is going to make these determinations? How will people who are automatically enrolled get word of their automatic enrollment?
So how are we going to do this? What agency is going to make these determinations? How will people who are automatically enrolled get word of their automatic enrollment? How will those enrolled be informed that they have been automatically unenrolled if their incomes jump above the magic enrollment line? What’s to be done about people whose incomes might yo-yo back and forth? The media didn’t find it particularly important to ask these questions, but someone so “enrolled” in Biden’s plan would need to have clear answers, lest they go to the doctor one day and discover only then and there that they no longer have insurance.
Biden says his plan would enroll qualified people who sign up for other benefits, like SNAP, but this would leave large coverage gaps. Only 84 percent of people eligible for SNAP used it in 2017, and in households with individuals who qualify for SNAP but are above the poverty line, just 41 percent participated. (Participation is much higher among people with the lowest incomes, according to the USDA.) This suggests that people who are poor, but not the poorest, are not participating in SNAP at a rate that would ensure they all get automatically enrolled in health insurance. Pete Buttigieg’s similar, public option–based health care plan would have employed “retroactive premiums” at tax time, to essentially tax people for the premiums that they owed while they were insured—even if they didn’t know they were covered. Biden’s campaign hasn’t suggested anything like that, but he also hasn’t suggested how people will be automatically enrolled without a premium, if they qualify, or how people who are automatically enrolled but then exceed the income limit for free insurance will pay the difference. These were all gaping questions during the Democratic primary that simply didn’t get asked.


newrepublic--2020-10-29--The Deradicalization of Supreme Court Reform

For most of the last 80 years , court-packing was a historical footnote for high-school students who learned about the New Deal era .
The idea that the Supreme Court , still clinging to the glow of its Warren court years , would endure any similar threats to its composition was fanciful at best .
Then came the 2016 election , and the presidency of Donald Trump , and three staunchly conservative jurists who will hand down rulings for at least the next three decades .
For some liberals , who are now facing an indefinite future in the constitutional @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but urgent .
This sentiment has spread remarkably quickly through the ranks of the Democratic Party ’ s elite .
Roughly half of the Democratic presidential nominees for 2020 signaled that they might be open to the prospect of it .
Joe Biden , the eventual nominee , went from staunch opposition to , at best , substantially less staunch opposition over the course of the year .
As GOP senators performed a Supreme Court confirmation speed-run with Amy Coney Barrett over the past few weeks , even the most moderate and even-tempered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the prospect of court-packing if Biden wins next month .
As Senator Chris Coons , nobody ’ s idea of a radical firebrand , told Jake Tapper on a recent edition of CNN ’ s State of the Union , “ Like Joe Biden , I ’ m not a fan of expanding the court , but we have a few weeks here to see whether there are four Republicans who will step back from this precipice.
” After that , Coons suggested , all bets were off , and Biden “ will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ steps are to rebalance our federal judiciary.
” Asked whether he was referring to adding seats to the Supreme Court , Coons said , “ Yes.
” Angus King , Maine ’ s self-styled independent senator , sounded a similarly regretful refrain regarding the place to which Trump had dragged the Supreme Court : “ I don ’ t want to have to change the number , ” he said , “ I don ’ t want to have to do that.
” If anything , however , King has laced his recent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ menace : “ If all of this rule-breaking is taking place , what does the majority expect ?
What do they expect ?
They expect that they ’ re gon na be able to break the rules with impunity and when the shoe , maybe , is on the other foot , nothing is going to happen ?
” It mirrors a phrase that liberal proponents of court-packing have memefied on social media into a warning for conservatives : “ Fuck around and find out.
” Assuming that Biden wins in November and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the path to court-packing is far from guaranteed .
While there are relatively few opinion polls on the subject , the most recent ones still show overwhelming public opposition to the idea .
Biden himself appears to be more interested in a bipartisan commission on judicial reform at the moment , which seems more likely to defuse support for court-packing than bolster it in the public square .
And there is nothing stopping the Supreme Court from waiting to overturn Roe v. Wade or gutting the federal government ’ s regulatory powers until @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , with it , the ability to respond .


newrepublic--2020-10-30--Glenn Greenwald Throws a Fit

Glenn Greenwald Throws a Fit

It takes a special kind of gall to quit a six-figure media job in the doomed year of 2020 .
But that ’ s just what Glenn Greenwald has done , following in the martyred footsteps of erstwhile New York Times freethinker Bari Weiss .
In a 4,000-word Substack post , Greenwald resigned from his healthy perch at The Intercept , a publication he co-founded , explaining , in his typically piqued and exhaustive manner , that he had been “ censored.
” The censorship—an inflated and , in this case , misapplied term that Greenwald would probably mock if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ submitted about Hunter Biden ’ s now infamous laptop .
In Greenwald ’ s view , the column was censored in favor of a pro-Biden narrative being promulgated throughout The Intercept , a once noble publication now laid low by the plague of liberal-leftist illiberalism and groupthink that has become Greenwald ’ s recent obsession .
As part of his comprehensive documentation of his Intercept exit , Greenwald posted the column on Substack , where he said his writing will appear for now .
Greenwald also posted email exchanges with Intercept editors that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other deficits , included sweeping and unsubstantiated claims about media malfeasance and implied Biden family corruption .
As Intercept editor Peter Maas wrote , in a section that Greenwald bolded : “ Overall I think this piece can work best if it is significantly narrowed down to what you first discussed with Betsy [ Reed ] —media criticism about liberal journalists not asking Biden the questions he should be asked more forcefully , and why they are failing to do that.
” Censorship !
Or , just maybe , an editorial note that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like .
That Greenwald chose to bold this section—as if it exemplified the suppressive behavior of what he calls “ an increasingly authoritarian , fear-driven , repressive editorial team in New York bent on imposing their own ideological and partisan preferences on all writers ” —only reveals his lack of familiarity with any rigorous editing .
You could spend hours of your life that you ’ ll never get back parsing Greenwald ’ s resignation letter , his spiked column , the emails from editors , and his feverish tweets about it all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the real problem here , which is that Greenwald seems to think he is beyond editing or critique .
As he wrote to an editor , “ Recall that under my contract , and the practice of The Intercept over the last seven years , none of my articles is edited unless it presents the possibility of legal liability or complex original reporting .
”

Beyond how grim it all looks, it’s rather sad. Greenwald has done groundbreaking reporting on NSA surveillance and Brazilian corruption. He’s risked jail to report necessary truths. He’s correct that much of the media is, in one form or another, corrupt—occupying a narrow Overton window, funded by special interests, willing to launder the reputations of awful people like Greenwald’s bête noire David Frum, the former George W. Bush speechwriter who is comfortably ensconced at The Atlantic. Cable news is irredeemable. A great deal of digital media is sponsored content, ad fraud, and content farms propping up more prestigious investigative units or simply pumping money into the pockets of venal corporate owners. Individual journalists, when they aren’t forced to seek an exit from an industry in terminal decline, are left to chase readers and clout on Twitter. There’s plenty to mock, as Greenwald spends hours doing each day. Whether his ornery brand of media criticism—often divorced from the material and labor conditions afflicting the profession—is the best use of his time and influence is apparently not up for question.
Betsy Reed, The Intercept’s editor in chief, summed up the situation well, writing in a response to Greenwald’s resignation: “We have the greatest respect for the journalist Glenn Greenwald used to be, and we remain proud of much of the work we did with him over the past six years. It is Glenn who has strayed from his original journalistic roots, not The Intercept.”
Bombast and ego have always been at the heart of Greenwald’s writing. But like many star journalists left to marinate in their own juices for too long, he’s become an asshole who equates being edited with the targeted suppression of his righteous beliefs. Whatever he does next will be interesting, at least at first, but absent a Snowden-level leak entrusted to him, his work is unlikely to be essential. That’s not all for the worse. With excellent reporting on militarism, political corruption, environmental issues, and much else, The Intercept has matured into an important publication producing exactly the kind of broadly adversarial journalism Greenwald has always sought. Its many fine journalists will be better off when they are out of the founder’s long shadow. Greenwald himself may not be.


newrepublic--2020-10-30--The Quiet Suppression of Trans Voters

The Quiet Suppression of Trans Voters

Voter intimidation is not always easy to identify or to document , something voting rights advocates have emphasized this year .
“ It is often subtle or context-dependent , ” as a fact sheet from Georgetown University ’ s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection advises .
It ’ s also shaped by the kinds of intimidation voters might already experience outside the polling place .
Have they been able to get a form of legal identification that satisfies the voter ID requirements in 35 states , without being challenged based on the name or gender markers on their other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ polling place worker reads the name on that ID out loud , in front of the other people in line ?
If you thought you might face harm as a result , would you risk going to the polls ?
“ Trans people don ’ t know if that polling place is going to be safe , ” said Kit Malone , an advocate with the American Civil Liberties Union Indiana .
“ We don ’ t know if any place is going to be safe.
” In addition to the other barriers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , confusing restrictions on absentee and mail-in voting—trans people can ’ t trust that they ’ ll be able to vote and not also be outed or harassed .
“ Poll workers themselves might not be educated , ” Malone , who works on voting rights for trans people , told me by phone .
“ You may hand over an ID … but you haven ’ t had the money or the resources to update that ID , and you may find—and we have heard stories—poll workers may loudly announce that your @ @ @ @ @ @ @ look like , and they may say insulting things , calling you ‘ it ’ to other poll workers.
” Compounding that intimidation ?
There could be other voters watching and hearing this : “ People who may know you , people who may already be biased against you , using that opportunity to intimidate you when you are out in public.
” As of the 2020 election , there are more than an estimated 375,000 trans people who are eligible to vote in states where elections are not conducted entirely by mail @ @ @ @ @ @ @ show either their correct name or gender marker or both , according to an analysis by the Williams Institute .
That ’ s around 42 percent of eligible trans voters in those states who may face this kind of intimidation at the polls .
At the same time , around 260,000 trans voters live in a voter ID state , where they could be disenfranchised for lacking proper identification .
Voting in a state even without such laws doesn ’ t mean trans and nonbinary people won ’ t be challenged at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in those states , as one did in 2019 in North Carolina , telling a trans woman who was trying to vote she had to show him her ID “ because your face does not match your name.
” She asked , “ Is it because I ’ m transgender ?
” The voter has filed suit against that county ; her attorney said that despite being treated that way , “ she ’ s determined to vote.
” And she ’ s not alone : A trans woman in Vermont , Sade @ @ @ @ @ @ @ polling place in 2018 .
She said a poll worker accused her of having a fake ID and not being a woman .
An advocate went with her to another polling place , where she was able to vote .
It was the first governor ’ s race with a trans person running as a major-party candidate .
In the last presidential election , a poll worker in Allegheny County , Pennsylvania , reportedly told a trans woman she couldn ’ t vote unless she could show her legal name-change documentation .
Jesse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ polling place with her ID .
She told the local paper that poll workers asked her boyfriend , a trans man , for photo ID , as well—none of this is required in the state .
In light of this pattern of trans voter disenfranchisement , and the escalating attacks on voting rights generally , for trans and nonbinary people , “ this election is feeling more complicated and more burdensome than ever , ” said Arli Christian , a campaign strategist at the national ACLU .
Some states have removed more strict @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and updated identity documents : In 19 states and the District of Columbia , Christian told me by phone , people seeking to change their gender identity marker can do so by self-attestation—declaring it themselves .
Gender-neutral markers are now available on IDs in 19 states and D.C. , as well .
At the same time , there ’ s been a “ progression of stricter voter ID laws , ” Christian said .
The two sets of laws are “ clashing with one another.
” Still , though , “ gender presentation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ someone away at the polls .
”

Voter intimidation is not always easy to identify or to document, something voting rights advocates have emphasized this year. “It is often subtle or context-dependent,” as a fact sheet from Georgetown University’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection advises. It’s also shaped by the kinds of intimidation voters might already experience outside the polling place. Have they been able to get a form of legal identification that satisfies the voter ID requirements in 35 states, without being challenged based on the name or gender markers on their other identification? What could happen when a polling place worker reads the name on that ID out loud, in front of the other people in line? If you thought you might face harm as a result, would you risk going to the polls? “Trans people don’t know if that polling place is going to be safe,” said Kit Malone, an advocate with the American Civil Liberties Union Indiana. “We don’t know if any place is going to be safe.”
In addition to the other barriers people are up against voting this year—Covid-19, confusing restrictions on absentee and mail-in voting—trans people can’t trust that they’ll be able to vote and not also be outed or harassed. “Poll workers themselves might not be educated,” Malone, who works on voting rights for trans people, told me by phone. “You may hand over an ID … but you haven’t had the money or the resources to update that ID, and you may find—and we have heard stories—poll workers may loudly announce that your ID doesn’t match what you look like, and they may say insulting things, calling you ‘it’ to other poll workers.” Compounding that intimidation? There could be other voters watching and hearing this: “People who may know you, people who may already be biased against you, using that opportunity to intimidate you when you are out in public.”


newrepublic--2020-10-30--A Republican Oilman Is Running for Texas’s Top Oil-Regulation Seat

In recent weeks , Texas—long considered reliably red—has become a toss-up in the presidential race .
That has interesting implications for one of the most important and under-covered climate races in the country .
Engineer and lawyer Chrysta Castañeda is running for one of three seats on the GOP-controlled Texas Railroad Commission , the primary regulator for the state ’ s expansive oil and gas industry .
Castañeda wants to restrict gas flaring , the practice by which drillers burn off fuel they can ’ t sell , releasing prodigious amounts of methane .
If the new blue momentum holds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the first Democrat to win statewide office in Texas since 1994 .
Castañeda ’ s Republican opponent , Jim Wright , is in the oil industry .
And so far , the obscurity of this race has allowed his wackier statements to escape national attention .
During a podcast interview earlier this month , he wondered aloud whether climate change was just another example of the planet “ evolving , ” suggested—despite Texas being the top wind power producer in the nation—that he doesn ’ t believe real wind and solar energy are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s mostly running for the Railroad Commission ( commonly abbreviated as RRC ) to allow his industry to write its own rules .
Wright owns four businesses , including an oil field service company .
A prior oilfield waste management company he founded and sold off but continued to be listed as president of , according to court filings—Dewitt Recyclable Products—had its main facility shut down by the RRC in 2017 for storing waste directly on the ground and in un-permitted pits , and allowing frac fluid ( a chemical mixture used in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ As the Houston Chronicle reported , the Commission held Wright responsible for $ 181,000 worth of violations .
Wright and his attorney argued that he didn ’ t have operational control of the facility , though he ended up paying the fine .
Wright also faces an accusation of fraud from the oilfield services firm Petro Swift LLC , which alleges in a lawsuit that he engaged in “ fraudulent transfers ” to avoid paying Petro Swift for construction work .
As a result , the head of Petro Swift has denounced him @ @ @ @ @ @ @ side is anti-oil , anti-fracking , so let ’ s have a Republican on the Railroad Commission , ” Petro Swift co-owner Travis McRae recently told a local Texas newspaper , the Corpus Christi Caller-Times .
“ In this particular case , based on personal experience , I don ’ t want that dude running anything—even if that means voting Democratic.
” The podcast on which Wright aired his climate skepticism was “ Oil and Gas Startups , ” hosted by Colin McLelland and Jake Corley .
Likening regulations to the Bible , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a lot of interpretation ” in regulatory language , and complained that “ inexperienced ” regulators—those who haven ’ t had extensive careers in the industry—create delays that he says have cut into “ my customer base .
”

Then Wright told the story of how he came to run for the RRC. It started with an attempt to get oil industry folks into the process of drafting RRC regulations. “I actually had some of our customers and a couple other people that said, ‘Hey, we’ll volunteer our time if we get the Railroad Commission to accept us to come in and help write guidance documents for staff members to kind of follow so we get to a better level playing field,’” he said. “I actually went up, I talked to one of the commissioners. They said, ‘Yeah, we think that’s a great idea. We’ll give you access to staff.’ Well, lo and behold … we didn’t meet one [RRC] staff member that really wanted to work with an outside task force to write guidance documents. They were adamantly against that.” TNR contacted Wright for comment for this piece, asking him, among other things, which industry members were on this alleged proposed task force, and which commissioner encouraged him to have industry allies help write their own regulations. Wright has not responded as of publication time.
In the podcast interview with Corley and McLelland, Wright said that after he was stymied in the attempt to influence Railroad Commission guidance, the members of this industry task force asked him to run for a seat himself. The next day, on an anniversary trip with his wife, he had a private plane stop in Austin so he could file to compete in the primary. Wright won that primary in March. To add another layer of complexity, however, some have speculated that his upset victory against Commissioner Ryan Sitton had a lot to do with Wright’s name, which he shares with a longtime, now-deceased speaker of the House.
During the podcast interview, Wright doubled down on some climate-skeptic points he’s mentioned before, questioning whether the fossil fuel industry and flaring are even contributing to climate change. (They are.) “Can you tell me of any exact research that really says that flaring is actually harming our atmosphere any worse than emissions from a car or anything else that they’re claiming is making changes to our climate that we see today?” he asked. “There’s a lot of documents out there, but nobody’s proven to me exactly, and pinpoint what, what is really hurting our atmosphere.”


newrepublic--2020-10-30--Ten Moves, Two Tents, and Five Months of a Housing Reckoning in Minneapolis

Powderhorn Park was a well-calculated target for what quickly became a sprawling , ambitious mutual aid effort .
For several years , activists in Minneapolis have identified the city ’ s park system as a locus of , and a possible solution to , injustices within and around communities .
Minneapolis parks , which rank first in the nation for access and quality , cover 15 percent of all city land , and the Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board runs a yearly budget of more than $ 120 million .
It also oversees its own dedicated police force , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Department , though its “ peace officers ” are similarly armed and outfitted .
For several years , Parks and Power , a local nonprofit that seeks racial and economic equity within the Minneapolis park system , has targeted the park board , an elected body , to achieve its vision .
Powderhorn , named for the curved shape of the lake that sits near its center , is where the Minneapolis City Council chose to publicly announce its intent to disband the Minneapolis Police Department in early June .
In this way @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spaces but also a stage .
There are grill-outs during the summer and an ice rink in the winter , but Powderhorn Park is perhaps best known for its yearly May Day parade , which features a giant puppet show put on by a local theater and culminates in a festival .
By the time Little began living at the park , the scene there had the same mood , with tent encampments set up in two areas—one on the west side , and a second , larger one on the east—along with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and one formidable tepee .
There was live music on the park stage and cornhole boards laid out in the grass .
Fold-up tables were piled with diapers and sanitary goods , stores of the overdose-reversal drug naloxone , and racks of used clothing .
Hot food was served for free , and a plywood lean-to stored excess materials .
The harm-reduction approach at the park made living there feel more manageable for many of the residents , including Little , who describes herself as an alcoholic .
A sign with camp @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by residents of the park , was posted on a tree : “ Respect the locals , ” “ Respect the volunteers , ” “ Respect everybody.
” When the park police came to Powderhorn Park in early June to deliver the usual notices to vacate , citing the exception to the statewide ban on grounds of safety concerns within the encampment , neighbors who lived in the houses lining the perimeter of the park intervened , staging an impromptu rally and calling their local representatives in support of the small encampment .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ politics and social justice nonprofits , swelled with new energy after the uprising .
Little felt it : “ There ’ s been a lot of people coming in to volunteer , helping out with clothes and food—a little bit of everything , ” she told me .
Lee George , who lives in a house adjacent to the park , said he also sensed an awakening among his neighbors about the extent of the crisis , as they repurposed an active protest WhatsApp channel to support the new encampment .
“ The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ know simply kicking these people out of Powderhorn isn ’ t a solution or an answer , ” he said in June .
“ There is a compulsion for people to address it at this time.
” Jake Virden , the lead organizer of Parks and Power , agreed there was a palpable shift after George Floyd ’ s death and the subsequent protests that roiled the city .
On June 3 , the park board announced its commitment to reducing its collaboration with city police .
Soon after , the superintendent of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Getting the park board to deliver a single portable restroom at a nearby park at the onset of the pandemic had been like “ pulling teeth , ” Virden said , but days after the Powderhorn eviction was blocked , the board voted to designate Minneapolis parks a refuge for unsheltered people .
The resolution authorized “ all necessary administrative actions ” to make them as safe and habitable as possible for the homeless population , and committed the board to work closely with agency partners to secure support in service of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people are aware that our most vulnerable neighbors are living without housing , and it ’ s front and center , the more we can gather the political will to make change , ” Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board President Jono Cowgill said the next day .
“ This is one example of what has been , for years now , a housing crisis in the state and across the country , and we ’ re seeing it manifest right now in one of the premier parks in the city of Minneapolis .
@

When the park police came to Powderhorn Park in early June to deliver the usual notices to vacate, citing the exception to the statewide ban on grounds of safety concerns within the encampment, neighbors who lived in the houses lining the perimeter of the park intervened, staging an impromptu rally and calling their local representatives in support of the small encampment. The area, a bastion of liberal politics and social justice nonprofits, swelled with new energy after the uprising. Little felt it: “There’s been a lot of people coming in to volunteer, helping out with clothes and food—a little bit of everything,” she told me. Lee George, who lives in a house adjacent to the park, said he also sensed an awakening among his neighbors about the extent of the crisis, as they repurposed an active protest WhatsApp channel to support the new encampment. “The beautiful thing is the fact that we know simply kicking these people out of Powderhorn isn’t a solution or an answer,” he said in June. “There is a compulsion for people to address it at this time.”
Jake Virden, the lead organizer of Parks and Power, agreed there was a palpable shift after George Floyd’s death and the subsequent protests that roiled the city. On June 3, the park board announced its commitment to reducing its collaboration with city police. Soon after, the superintendent of the parks rescinded the order to vacate. Getting the park board to deliver a single portable restroom at a nearby park at the onset of the pandemic had been like “pulling teeth,” Virden said, but days after the Powderhorn eviction was blocked, the board voted to designate Minneapolis parks a refuge for unsheltered people. The resolution authorized “all necessary administrative actions” to make them as safe and habitable as possible for the homeless population, and committed the board to work closely with agency partners to secure support in service of long-term housing solutions. “The more people are aware that our most vulnerable neighbors are living without housing, and it’s front and center, the more we can gather the political will to make change,” Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board President Jono Cowgill said the next day. “This is one example of what has been, for years now, a housing crisis in the state and across the country, and we’re seeing it manifest right now in one of the premier parks in the city of Minneapolis.”
Cowgill was right about the depth of the crisis. According to the 2018 Minnesota Homeless Study, led by a local foundation, an estimated 19,600 Minnesotans experienced homelessness on any given night in 2018; on a single night in October of that year in Hennepin County, the number was 4,072. Nearly 50 percent of all adults experiencing homelessness in the county are Black, and 15 percent are Native American, even though they represent approximately 14 and 1 percent of the overall population, respectively. Yolanda Bowers, a Black woman who moved into the eastern camp at Powderhorn, had faced homelessness in the Twin Cities region for 30 years. “I’m just tired,” Bowers said, crossing her spindly legs as she sat in a patch of scorched grass. “I’ve never utilized Minnesota services when it comes to housing—they haven’t came.” After almost a year into her time on the county’s coordinated entry process to obtain subsidized housing, she said she still hadn’t received a call. (Half of the county’s adult unhoused population is in a similar holding pattern, and the wait time averages more than a year, according to the 2018 report.)


newrepublic--2020-10-30--Who Gets Included in “the American People”?

It ’ s one of the most lumbering clichés of American politics .
“ The American people , ” politicians intone , are hurting , tired , angry , or “ bitterly divided.
” Yet when this election is finished , they will have spoken , as if with one voice .
Defining “ the people ” is not a new problem .
The United States Constitution speaks in the voice of “ We the people , ” but it never explains who , exactly , that is .
The subsequent struggles over who counted as officially represented “ people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Americans whose rights could not be abridged gradually expanded—but only in part .
Does the people include noncitizens ?
Undocumented immigrants ?
Minors ?
Prisoners ?
Nor is this problem unique to the United States .
The French revolutionaries , who overthrew their king , declaring that sovereignty resided in le peuple , fought bitterly over who that word included , and who it didn ’ t .
In Spanish , el pueblo is especially ambiguous .
It can literally mean “ the people , ” but it is also the word for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to describe a rural village or an urban neighborhood or an immigrant enclave far from home .
It can mean the nation as a whole , or merely a part of it , in whose name one political faction acts against another , both claiming to defend el pueblo .
El pueblo mexicano or peruano or colombiano is always politicized , always something to fight over , and for .
That constant struggle to define the term makes sense in nations formed out of violent dispossession , revolution , and republican idealism , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ communities crossed , violently and often arbitrarily , by changing national borders .
Places like the United States , in other words .
But unlike the malleable pueblo , the “ American people ” conveys a static uniformity of purpose , a shared “ soul , ” in Joe Biden ’ s telling , that an election can redeem .
In Biden ’ s defense , you can ’ t run for president without imagining some sort of national consensus .
Even Bernie Sanders consistently used the phrase “ our people.
” “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the New Hampshire primary , “ transform this country so that it works for all of our people.
” It was a rare invocation of a national community based on something other than Biden ’ s conventionally sentimental patriotism or Trump ’ s bleating chauvinism .
“ Our people , ” with its implied sense of caretaking , suggests shared obligations as well as shortcomings : The country doesn ’ t currently work for our people .
And like the Spanish pueblo , “ our people ” is something to fight over .

El pueblo mexicano or peruano or colombiano is always politicized, always something to fight over, and for. That constant struggle to define the term makes sense in nations formed out of violent dispossession, revolution, and republican idealism, and forged out of ethnic and racial communities crossed, violently and often arbitrarily, by changing national borders. Places like the United States, in other words. But unlike the malleable pueblo, the “American people” conveys a static uniformity of purpose, a shared “soul,” in Joe Biden’s telling, that an election can redeem.
In Biden’s defense, you can’t run for president without imagining some sort of national consensus. Even Bernie Sanders consistently used the phrase “our people.” “We can,” he wrote before the New Hampshire primary, “transform this country so that it works for all of our people.” It was a rare invocation of a national community based on something other than Biden’s conventionally sentimental patriotism or Trump’s bleating chauvinism. “Our people,” with its implied sense of caretaking, suggests shared obligations as well as shortcomings: The country doesn’t currently work for our people. And like the Spanish pueblo, “our people” is something to fight over.


newrepublic--2020-11-02--The Libertarian Moment That Never Comes

The Libertarian Moment That Never Comes

Nearly four years removed from its best electoral performance in history , libertarianism finds itself on familiar terrain : tantalizingly close to a breakout moment that remains forever out of reach .
Bereft of serious candidates or political capital , it is a philosophy with many potential adherents and yet no national standard-bearers ; a movement teeming with ideas that have all been carted off by , or dissolved within , rival factions .
While there are a few explanations for these paradoxes , the proximate cause is brand awareness .
According to a 2014 survey from the Pew Research @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as libertarians .
But just 57 percent accurately associated the term with small government and personal freedom , and there is reason to think that a sizable chunk of the electorate is already favorably disposed toward the blend of social permissiveness and laissez-faire economics that the Libertarian Party champions .
Historically , though , that unwieldy group has found political homes in one of the nation ’ s two major parties .
This year , secular-trending suburbanites and college-educated whites—who are , at least in theory , demographically well suited to libertarian positions—look @ @ @ @ @ @ @ favoring Donald Trump four years ago .
The presidential candidacy of Jo Jorgensen , this year ’ s sacrificial offering to the Libertarian Party ballot line , is unlikely to disrupt that migration .
There are a few ways of looking at Jorgensen , a little-known psychologist and the party ’ s first female nominee .
She has grabbed as much as 4 percent in a national poll and approaches that number in surveys of some swing states .
If that doesn ’ t sound like much , consider that former New Mexico @ @ @ @ @ @ @ finish in 2016 was , by far , the Libertarians ’ high-water mark in any presidential race .
To come close to replicating that performance , in spite of voters ’ post-Trump fears of supporting a third-party spoiler , would be an achievement in its own right .
But there ’ s no such thing as a moral victory in politics .
For parties to win credibility and influence policy , they have to do more than vault over a two-foot bar .
Over the last five years , the two-party establishment has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of democratic socialism and right-wing nationalism , represented by dynamic personalities like Bernie Sanders , Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , and Donald Trump .
Who , exactly , will spearhead the libertarian revolution ?
Not Jorgensen , it seems .
Over at Reason , that most stalwart of libertarian publications , she has failed to win the unanimous support of the staff .
Many on staff plan simply to sit this election out ; a few shall vote for Joe Biden between gritted teeth .
That leaves viral sweater-wearer Ken Bone as Jorgensen ’ s @ @ @

One lasting mystery of the last half-decade is why the “libertarian moment,” which failed to manifest prior to Trump’s arrival, was not a tardy product of his administration. Here is a man who built an entire presidency around attacking immigration and free trade, who has escalated conflicts in the Middle East, and who has threatened religious minorities and members of the press; he is, in many ways, as anti-libertarian as they come. Yet the political faction most hostile to government overreach in both private and economic life has not been able to take advantage.
Johnson’s relatively strong showing in 2016 bespoke significant right-leaning dissatisfaction with Trump. The defeated ranks of the Never Trump crowd might easily have defected to the Libertarian Party in 2017, carrying a significant portfolio of media and donor assets out of the Republican tent along with them. Indeed, most of that cohort fit a socially liberal, fiscally conservative profile that would have required little ideological accommodation on either side. Instead, this faction gravitated toward novel enterprises like the Lincoln Project and formed a de facto armistice with Democrats in an effort to deny Trump reelection.
Rather than consolidating a newly aggrieved legion of supporters, movement libertarianism has spent the last few years in a state of reflective evolution. Prominent commentators like economist Tyler Cowen have observed the birth of a “state capacity libertarianism,” embodied in new groups like the Niskanen Center, that is more agnostic about the scope of government than traditional organizations like the Cato Institute. Meanwhile, activists and commentators have cast about for new identifying labels, some discarding “libertarian” for the more nebulous concept of “classical liberalism.”


newrepublic--2020-11-02--Why Ohio Is the State to Watch on Election Night

Veteran Ohio Democratic strategist Greg Haas has a vision .
“ At 11:05 on election night , the returns are going to show Ohio going for Joe Biden , ” he said .
“ And all across the country , people are going to begin chanting , ‘ O-H-I-O.
’ And then across the globe people are going to join in , even if they ’ re not sure what O-H-I-O even means.
” I cut Haas off before he started talking about how the Ohio State football chant would spread across the universe to Alpha Centauri .
But the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ serious point .
Ohio , half-forgotten through much of 2020 , may prove to be a bellwether on election night .
The Biden campaign clearly recognizes the state ’ s potential : At the last minute , it rejiggered the former vice president ’ s itinerary so that he could make a stop in Cleveland on Monday .
Ohio was the tipping-point state in 2004 , when George W. Bush carried it by 118,000 votes .
And I first sensed the magnitude of Barack Obama ’ s 2008 triumph interviewing exuberant voters casting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , aided by huge margins in rural counties , Donald Trump carried Ohio easily in 2016 , defeating Hillary Clinton by nearly 450,000 votes .
As a result , this year , Ohio has been seen , up until now , as a reach state by the Biden campaign .
It would be a nice prize to have , but the Democratic campaign has been more focused on the “ Blue Wall ” states of Pennsylvania , Michigan , and Wisconsin , which Clinton lost to Trump in 2016 .
In short , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ohio ’ s 18 electoral votes ( almost equal to Pennsylvania ’ s 20 ) , Biden has many roads to victory : He could lose the Buckeye state and still prevail .
What gives Ohio its sudden importance is that it counts votes quickly .
Absentee ballots will be processed before the polls close at 7:30 p.m. Eastern with the envelopes opened and the signatures verified .
The result ?
“ We ’ re going to know with a 95 percent chance how Ohio goes on election night , ” said Mike @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voting patterns .

Veteran Ohio Democratic strategist Greg Haas has a vision. “At 11:05 on election night, the returns are going to show Ohio going for Joe Biden,” he said. “And all across the country, people are going to begin chanting, ‘O-H-I-O.’ And then across the globe people are going to join in, even if they’re not sure what O-H-I-O even means.”
I cut Haas off before he started talking about how the Ohio State football chant would spread across the universe to Alpha Centauri. But the former Franklin County Democratic chairman makes a serious point. Ohio, half-forgotten through much of 2020, may prove to be a bellwether on election night. The Biden campaign clearly recognizes the state’s potential: At the last minute, it rejiggered the former vice president’s itinerary so that he could make a stop in Cleveland on Monday.


newrepublic--2020-11-02--A Groundbreaking New History of Gay Sex and Capitalism

In the earliest phase of European capitalism , Marx ’ s old story goes , a significant number of laborers renounced agrarian communities for towns and cities , dissolving the family unit and moving from one place to another .
As Christopher Chitty writes in Sexual Hegemony : Statecraft , Sodomy , and Capital in the Rise of the World System , these workers encountered the state of propertylessness for the first time and transformed from husbands of women and the land into people connected by “ impersonal market-mediated relations.
” In early modern towns and cities full of solitary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ where sailors flowed through a porous social texture like water , large numbers of men mingled in common lodgings .
These towns , where maritime trade and merchant capital had led to new pools of artisanal , servant , and slave labor , “ therefore tended to favor homosexuality , ” Chitty writes .
This is but one moment from Chitty ’ s sweeping history of the relationship between sexuality and capital , which seeks to answer a seemingly trollish question : What if there were no such thing as homophobia ?
Chitty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gays is some fiction .
Instead , he ’ s pointing out that homophobia tends to be treated as a “ timeless force of exclusion , ” some inevitable element of human nature , rather than a relatively recent historical behavior .
Specifically : behavior brought about by the convulsions of market capitalism .
To read Chitty is to experience something like the “ galaxy brain ” of meme culture , the kind of world-upending feeling one gets from Antonio Gramsci or Silvia Federici , who also use Marxian theory to question the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ take for granted .
Chitty is not alive to see the publication of these striking ideas .
Max Fox , the book ’ s editor , explains in his foreword that Sexual Hegemony “ represents both a precious record and a bitter loss ” : Chitty committed suicide in 2015 before he could submit a version of it as his doctoral dissertation .
In Fox ’ s words , he was a “ brilliant young scholar and activist ” in the University of California Santa Cruz ’ s History of Consciousness Department .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ family and friends gave Fox access to “ early drafts of chapters , essays submitted as coursework , notes for further refinement or research , ” and so on .
The book is structured like a dissertation , though a hair shorter than most .
The style is academic but sparklingly clear , if you concentrate , though it ’ s not what anybody would call skimmable .
Fox must get the credit for the polish and sheer rhetorical coherence that Sexual Hegemony boasts as a whole .
Here ’ s another historical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ century .
In 1841 , urinals “ towering twelve feet above the street , capped with a round glans-like finial , ” popped up along the busiest streets of Paris , sparking a trend in sanitation reform that would soon see public toilets studding all the major capitals of Europe .
Britain was in the full bloom of industrialization , and the towns buzzed with young workers .
Almost immediately , a new problem emerged , as women—especially middle-class British women—complained that these new conveniences provided them with unwanted glimpses of men ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fast and caused literal walls to be built around men ’ s public toilets , which , in Chitty ’ s rather luxurious phrasing , “ erotically intensified the experience of urination in public by providing a semiprivate , same-sex urban space.
” At the very same time , forensic medicine in France and Germany “ discovered ” the psychological definition of homosexuality .
British elites suddenly became terribly concerned about deviancy among the nation ’ s poor , of all genders , and “ mobilized forces of social control ” to make @ @ @ @ @ @ @ public urinal , and crackdowns on sex between men .
It was a “ struggle over the phallus , ” instigated by capitalism and animated by conflicts between various combinations of class and gender , one where “ the entry and influence of middle-class women into the public sphere is the decisive factor in changing norms of urban policing around public displays of sexuality—namely , prostitution and homosexuality .
”

It matters what we forget and what we remember. Perhaps the saddest moment in the book comes toward its end, when Chitty notes that the “boldest propositions have tended to be advanced at the margins of gay history, buried in endnotes or writing not published in the historian’s lifetime.” It’s certainly true here. Lovingly, he frames Sexual Hegemony as a tribute to the unremembered working-class gays of centuries past, who have not been part of the inherently elitist microscope of queer literature. “The oblivion faced by working-class homosexuals was an oblivion of historical memory,” Chitty writes; “by contrast, their elite counterparts left behind a labyrinthine wardrobe of tortured interiority, self-involvement, and coded references in which subsequent generations of queer readers have wandered.”
When we do history this way, Chitty argues, we can sidestep the problem of trying to guess whether queers from history were “authentically gay” or just responding to the pressures of poverty or class hierarchy. We think of modern queer sexuality as defined by the individual’s freedom: a tenet we can see most clearly in the importance we place on the concept of consent. When we read about a poor teenaged boy having sex with rich older men in early modern Venice, our ordinary language of consent just doesn’t apply. But this binary between “real” and “situational” gayness is a false one, Chitty thinks. All sexual encounters, whether present-day or historical, are subject to the contingencies of time and place and power dynamics.
The story behind Chris Chitty’s book also moved me, for a reason the author himself specified. Gay people, he writes, have a particular desire to understand themselves as part of history, for the very reason that we don’t see ourselves in the past. This makes the “homosexual desire for history … itself historical,” he writes, a phenomenon that always leads us to feeling out of place, cut off from solidarity. We have an uncertain kinship with the misunderstood and the dead, who have also lost their place in the world. The desire for history that runs so hot through queers today is also a desire to recognize and be recognized. Both a labor of love and a collaboration across the frontier of death, Sexual Hegemony is one of that desire’s most uniquely affecting expressions.


newrepublic--2020-11-02--Is Biden Ready for a Helter-Skelter Presidential Transition?

God willing , we will know who our next president is sometime late Tuesday night and it will be Joe Biden .
It ’ s of course possible that Donald Trump may refuse to concede and try to get the 6–3 Republican majority on the Supreme Court to overturn the election results .
But I ’ m going to ignore that possibility for now and look at the law , history , and practice of presidential transitions .
Even under conditions far less trying than those Biden may face on Wednesday , transitions are difficult , especially when they involve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to another .
There are many ways that things can go wrong even with solid advance planning and goodwill on the part of the departing administration .
In nations with parliamentary systems , there is no transition to speak of from one government to another .
One day the government in power is gone , and the next day there is another one .
For this reason , systems were developed to make the transition as fast , easy , and frictionless as possible .
First , the number of political appointees in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , with the career civil service , especially a permanent secretary , having considerable power to run Cabinet departments regardless of the party in power .
This provides substantial continuity over time .
Second , political parties out of power are better prepared to take over quickly by having shadow Cabinets .
Usually , they will have an official spokesman for each department who is very familiar with the issues within its purview , ready to become the head of that agency at a moment ’ s notice .
When a new government @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not always get the top job , but they usually end up in a policymaking role .
For reasons I have never understood , American political parties don ’ t do this .
I have been told by lawyers that it is illegal to designate a Cabinet secretary in advance of an election because it can be construed as bribing someone for their vote .
I think this is nonsense , but it provides a fig leaf for candidates to avoid doing what no potential president wants to do—having their hands tied in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ secretaries not of their own choosing imposed upon them , recruited by party leaders .
Choosing a Cabinet is , of course , the most important job for any president-elect to do .
The Constitution is silent on the issue of a Cabinet , and its creation by George Washington was one of his most important contributions to the American system of government .
But whereas parliamentary systems typically stock their Cabinets with many members of parliament , the Constitution explicitly prohibits this practice .
A member of Congress may not simultaneously serve @ @ @ @ @

God willing, we will know who our next president is sometime late Tuesday night and it will be Joe Biden. It’s of course possible that Donald Trump may refuse to concede and try to get the 6–3 Republican majority on the Supreme Court to overturn the election results. But I’m going to ignore that possibility for now and look at the law, history, and practice of presidential transitions. Even under conditions far less trying than those Biden may face on Wednesday, transitions are difficult, especially when they involve the transfer of power from one party to another. There are many ways that things can go wrong even with solid advance planning and goodwill on the part of the departing administration.
In nations with parliamentary systems, there is no transition to speak of from one government to another. One day the government in power is gone, and the next day there is another one. For this reason, systems were developed to make the transition as fast, easy, and frictionless as possible. First, the number of political appointees in those governments is much smaller than here, with the career civil service, especially a permanent secretary, having considerable power to run Cabinet departments regardless of the party in power. This provides substantial continuity over time.


Libertarian vs. Bear

In the early 2000s , a group of libertarians moved to a small town in New Hampshire , where they @ @ @ @ @ budget .
The newcomers wanted to be free from taxes and government regulation , and @ @ @ @ @ would show the world the virtues of their political philosophy while allowing them to live @ @ @ @ @ before long , they found themselves fighting off packs of black bears .
On Episode @ @ @ @ @ Everything , hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk to Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling , the author @ @ @ @ @ a Bear : The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town ( and Some Bears @ @ @ @ @ chaos , and the political lessons to be drawn from it .
Later in the @ @ @ @ @ Shade explores the unhelpfulness of self-help tips in a collapsing society .

In the early 2000s, a group of libertarians moved to a small town in New Hampshire, where they set about slashing the municipal budget. The newcomers wanted to be free from taxes and government regulation, and they envisioned an experiment that would show the world the virtues of their political philosophy while allowing them to live as they liked. But before long, they found themselves fighting off packs of black bears. On Episode 19 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk to Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling, the author of A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (and Some Bears), about the ensuing chaos, and the political lessons to be drawn from it.
Later in the episode, TNR contributor Colette Shade explores the unhelpfulness of self-help tips in a collapsing society.


newrepublic--2020-11-02--Is Fox News Ready for Former President Trump?

Rupert Murdoch may be “ resigned ” to a Trump loss , according to a recent Washington Post report , but he needn ’ t fret about the future of his media empire .
No matter who emerges victorious on Tuesday , Fox News will win .
That , at least , is how Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch see things .
If Trump wins , the network will maintain its link to a president who has been very good for business .
The network ’ s hosts can enjoy four more years of defending and championing the president , for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
If he loses , the network can revert to its Obama-era posture and become the standard-bearer for the new , right-wing resistance .
“ Fox thrives when it is in the opposition because they have a real-time bad guy to beat up on , ” Jonathan Klein , a former president of CNN , told the Post .
“ A Biden win would be great for Fox ’ s business.
” Part of Fox ’ s success is that it can seamlessly transition from being state television to a beacon of resistance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the network ’ s core programming—covering the treasonous offenses of the Democratic Party and the hegemonic power of the woke left—doesn ’ t have to change at all .
Fox News is built for polarization and the culture wars ; neither will dissipate when the next president is inaugurated , no matter what Joe Biden says .
But there is one big , unanswered question about Fox News ’ s future , should Donald Trump lose : What will the network do about him ?
A lot of this depends on Trump himself @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years that Trump was interested in starting his own television network .
In the weeks leading up to the 2016 election , when it seemed all but certain that he would lose , his son-in-law Jared Kushner reportedly discussed launching a Trump TV network .
A week after the Access Hollywood tape appeared to sink the campaign , it was reported that Kushner had contacted a potential partner , investment banker Aryeh B. Bourkoff , about such a deal .
Now , with Trump once again trailing in the polls in the days @ @ @ @ @ @ @ back .

The appeal of such a venture is obvious. Trump has a huge base of supporters. He is a one-man merchandising machine, as any of his rallies will testify. But the presidency has limited his ability to profit from his base. A television network would theoretically allow him to corner the market on the most valuable commodity in right-wing media: himself. In the summer of 2016, he had come “to the conclusion that he has the business acumen and the ratings for his own network,” one source told Vanity Fair in 2016. “So now he wants to figure out if he can monetize it.” There’s no reason to believe that even a landslide defeat on Tuesday would change his thinking.
And yet, there are substantial hurdles to setting up a new television network. Such a venture would require a partner and, perhaps, Trump staking tens of millions of dollars of his own money—something that might not even be possible, given Trump’s well-established (thanks to The New York Times’ investigation into his taxes) lack of liquidity and sizable amount of debt. Throughout his career, Trump has hardly been willing to stake his own money on risky bets; there’s no reason to think that he would do so now. New cable networks are enormously expensive and hardly guaranteed to succeed, no matter who is backing them—just ask Oprah.
But if Trump were to start Trump TV—and, miraculously, it didn’t turn out to be another boondoggle like Trump Vodka or Trump Steaks—it would put Fox News in a bind. Trump, once the channel’s biggest source of content, would suddenly be a competitor. In that situation, the network could see its audience—and, perhaps, stars like Sean Hannity—migrating to Trump’s network. It would continue to generate culture war storylines and cultivate the next generation of GOP stars like Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley, but, in this scenario, Trump, not Fox, would be the biggest kingmaker in the business.


newrepublic--2020-11-02--The Pandemic Case for the Two-Day Workweek

It ’ s not like you really need data to confirm that things are bad right now—being alive and awake should take care of that—but the latest reports do support the general thesis : Coronavirus infections are spiking yet again , violence stalks Tuesday ’ s election , 22.7 million people remain unemployed , and the Senate has once again casually abandoned a second stimulus bill .
The onset of longer nights and drearier weather , The Washington Post noted last week , also means that seasonal affective disorder has begun to collide with so-called pandemic fatigue and other mental @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of lockdown , which have been exacerbated by the failed political response to the pandemic .
Worse still , because the mounting psychological distress is so much a product of external factors , we ’ re even running up against the limits of therapy itself .
As The Cut ’ s Katie Heaney recently wrote , “ How does texting with a therapist address the problems of overwork or a total lack of child care ?
” Which is to say that if you ’ re like everyone else who ’ s now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nightmare , it ’ s probably the case that you don ’ t feel much like being at work this week .
Or perhaps you ’ re one of the tens of millions of people who were laid off , and are now in the ridiculous position of gamely trying to find a new job during a still-active pandemic and wondering why , in the richest country in the world , so much of our basic material safety net is entirely contingent on our jobs .
In any case , the current punishing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; widespread unemployment ; and rapidly increasing burnout for frontline workers , caregivers , and others suggests that it ’ s time for a radical reorganization of work .
Right about now , we all need a two-day workweek .
In 1930 , John Maynard Keynes famously speculated that his grandchildren might only work 15 hours per week—which , spread across consecutive 7.5-hour workdays , amounts to a two-day workweek—thanks to technological advances and consequent increases in productivity and efficiency .
Of course , nearly a century since his prediction , it seems @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sociologist Jamie McCallum , Americans ’ work hours have in fact increased , on the whole , since the 1970s .
Much of today ’ s overwork is driven by part-time hours and unpredictable scheduling within the low-wage sector , a practice that forces workers to cobble together a living from multiple unstable jobs , as well as spend more and more time looking for work , traveling between jobs , or preparing for their next shift .
“ Overwork and underwork are both two sides of the same coin , with a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and people sometimes even experience them simultaneously , ” McCallum told Jacobin last month .
While no nation has yet achieved the 15-hour workweek , Keynes was nevertheless correct that advancements in technology and efficiency have made it possible to reduce working hours while still keeping the economy running .
( The late anthropologist David Graeber argued that “ bullshit jobs ” have proliferated to fill the gap between the amount of labor that society needs to keep functioning and the number of people who need jobs to survive . )
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ simultaneous overwork and underwork—perhaps never more visible than during a pandemic that resulted in mass layoffs and explicitly divided the workforce into essential and nonessential workers—is only the product of various political commitments , not some immutable aspect of nature .
As sociologist Juliet Schor told Marketwatch earlier this year , it was the erosion of organized labor and decades of stagnant wages that made it impossible for workers , rather than employers , to benefit from increases in productivity .
“ Employers have had increasing desire for workers to work long hours @ @ @ @ @ @ @ workers haven ’ t had the power to resist that upward pressure.
” But given that our world has now been upended in so many other ways , a sweeping reorganization of work maybe isn ’ t so far-fetched as it once was .
“ In the immediate term , we should be fighting for things like shorter workweeks , steeply increased overtime pay , lower retirement ages , expanded social security , family leave , paid vacation , paid sick leave , child allowances , and sabbaticals , ” the critic Miya @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leisure time for all .
As it happens , those are all things that would have mitigated the strain of the pandemic from the start .
Together , they also point the way toward a life in which no one dies from overwork , or has to make the outrageous choice between making rent or seeing their kids , or is pushed to the verge of a breakdown when schools close unexpectedly .
A society-wide reduction in work doesn ’ t automatically have to entail chronic or wide-scale underemployment for the masses ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the work that needs to be done ( and the fruits of that labor ) more fairly across the population .

While no nation has yet achieved the 15-hour workweek, Keynes was nevertheless correct that advancements in technology and efficiency have made it possible to reduce working hours while still keeping the economy running. (The late anthropologist David Graeber argued that “bullshit jobs” have proliferated to fill the gap between the amount of labor that society needs to keep functioning and the number of people who need jobs to survive.) In other words, the tightening vise of simultaneous overwork and underwork—perhaps never more visible than during a pandemic that resulted in mass layoffs and explicitly divided the workforce into essential and nonessential workers—is only the product of various political commitments, not some immutable aspect of nature. As sociologist Juliet Schor told Marketwatch earlier this year, it was the erosion of organized labor and decades of stagnant wages that made it impossible for workers, rather than employers, to benefit from increases in productivity. “Employers have had increasing desire for workers to work long hours,” she said. “And workers haven’t had the power to resist that upward pressure.”
But given that our world has now been upended in so many other ways, a sweeping reorganization of work maybe isn’t so far-fetched as it once was. “In the immediate term, we should be fighting for things like shorter workweeks, steeply increased overtime pay, lower retirement ages, expanded social security, family leave, paid vacation, paid sick leave, child allowances, and sabbaticals,” the critic Miya Tokumitsu wrote in a call for more leisure time for all. As it happens, those are all things that would have mitigated the strain of the pandemic from the start. Together, they also point the way toward a life in which no one dies from overwork, or has to make the outrageous choice between making rent or seeing their kids, or is pushed to the verge of a breakdown when schools close unexpectedly. A society-wide reduction in work doesn’t automatically have to entail chronic or wide-scale underemployment for the masses; it can also simply mean spreading out the work that needs to be done (and the fruits of that labor) more fairly across the population.


newrepublic--2020-11-02--The Elusive Dream of a Functioning Native Caucus

Rudy Soto , a Shosone-Bannock citizen running for a House seat for Idaho ’ s First District , had to remind me of something that can be surprisingly easy to forget : There is , technically , already a Native American Caucus in Congress .
This is not a setup for a commentary on the visibility of the four Native representatives in the House : Deb Haaland , Tom Cole , Sharice Davids , and Markwayne Mullin .
Individually , each representative has undeniably used their seat to help tribal communities since being elected .
But taken together , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sole caucus dedicated to serving Indian Country , their collective legacy , and the future direction of the caucus , is a bit more muddled .
Part of this can be attributed to the caucus ’ s makeup .
Its membership , along with several chair positions , continues to be filled by non-Native politicians of different ideological stripes , some of whose districts include tribal communities .
In their press releases , the caucus members often underscore the nonpartisan nature of the issues they ’ re hoping to address .
And this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ There is obvious potential in using the caucus to establish a steady network of allies on both sides of the aisle .
Throughout the pandemic , as an example , the caucus has worked with leaders on the Appropriations Committee , helping ensure that Indian Country programs and tribes are allocated funding in stimulus bills—albeit with mixed results .
But as Soto noted , the big-tent nature of the caucus more often limits its potential to act as a cudgel for tribal communities .
And that ’ s really what ’ s needed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to secure a holistic set of policies that strengthen tribal communities and enforce treaty and trust responsibilities .
“ You have a lot of Republicans that are in the caucus that don ’ t allow it to really take a stand on much that impacts Indian Country , ” Soto said .
“ They throw their name on it just because they have some tribes in their district .
And it looks good for them .
They show up , they say a few nice things here and there , and that ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t active.
” The effectiveness of any caucus will always be determined by its members and the policies they go hardest for , not by a loose creed , pledge , or promise to serve an amorphously defined community .
A Native caucus does not necessarily need to model itself after the Congressional Black Caucus or the Congressional Hispanic Caucus , nor does it need to confine itself to a single party .
What it does need , though , if it ever wants to wield legislative power , is clarity for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Country policy .
As more Native candidates become Native members of Congress , the caucus they join will need to find a long-term fix for the complications caused by its bipartisan makeup and , increasingly , splits among Democrats about the party ’ s future .
This is not an academic inquest or some cute political gaming exercise .
If the Native caucus can not come together to serve Indian Country , then the future of tribal communities and their members , as well as the sovereign tribal governments that oversee them , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of people who hardly understand , or care about , either .
Stakes are high .

But let’s say we are giving ourselves a moment to imagine a different kind of world, one where the steady increase of Native representation in Congress was not an abstract and oft-repeated goal, but a very real thing. Let’s say, even, that Soto and Herrell win—a good test case given their respective political leanings. With their inauguration, the number of Native representatives in the House would instantly grow by 50 percent, and the caucus would likely soon add two new vice chairs. Those are significant numbers, but would it make for a more effective caucus?
If, at this point in the hypothetical, the caucus decided to reorient its membership rules to include only tribal community members or enrolled citizens while maintaining close relationships with the current non-Native members, the caucus would be evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, three to three. The main issue that then arises—the same one that has hung over the current caucus the past two years—is whether party loyalty can be put aside long enough to maintain a functional, effective caucus. And even if it is, the caucus would still need to clearly define what it means to serve Indian Country in Congress given the broad ideological range of the group. Does it mean protecting Chaco Canyon and supporting a Green New Deal, or does it mean opening up tribal lands for the gas and oil industry as a way to secure these jobs for Native workers? Is it a Medicare for All proposal that increases Indian Health Service funding and helps tribes assume control over their local facilities? Stand against the desecration of sacred Indigenous lands, or cheer on the construction of the border wall that purportedly protects tribal citizens?
The political spectrum among the hypothetical incoming Native delegation would range from two far-right conservatives, in Mullin and Herrell; one moderate Republican, in Tom Cole; two moderate Democrats, in Soto and Davids; and one progressive, in Haaland. This breakdown might raise some non-Native eyebrows, given that Native voters tend to lean Democrat when Republicans aren’t suppressing the vote. But as Phil Deloria, a professor of Native Studies at Harvard University, told me—and as I’ve covered in the past—“It’s really not surprising to see Native Republicans or people that are further right on the spectrum.”


newrepublic--2020-11-03--The Crushing Anxiety of the Worst Election of Our Lifetimes

I ’ ve always had trouble watching the countdown to Election Day .
Even in a cycle that passes for normal , issues get reduced to talking points trotted out for their appeal to marginal polling demographics .
Since the Electoral College robs us of one-person-one-vote fairness and hinges on the favors of undecided voters in swing states , candidates ’ rhetoric and campaign promises descend into pandering to these small groups .
And because they ’ re not seen as the key to winning Pennsylvania hearts , the most universally relevant and urgent matters that have ever come before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or completely shelved .
As though our children ’ s future doesn ’ t hang on our handling of these emergencies—right now , not down the road—by the thinnest of possible threads .
This year the stakes are so brutally high it feels like a sucking wound of anxiety , a whirling vortex of potentially chaotic outcomes .
We ’ re forced to picture a scenario where the incumbent baselessly declares victory or refuses to concede , exhorting his angriest diehard supporters to take to the street—some of them , doubtless , bearing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or Trump-supporting militia groups .
Or the men who plotted to kidnap the governor of Michigan .
We ’ re forced to picture a scenario where the vote in a key state is suddenly , opaquely hijacked by hacker minions of Vladimir Putin bent on retaining their useful idiot in the White House .
Or where vote-counting rules and logistics keep us all in limbo for weeks , during which the incumbent , in a fit of vengeful petulance , hurls himself even further into a scorched-earth dismantling of our civil-service apparatus purely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with a grossly depopulated administrative state—or drags his cause before a newly hard-right Supreme Court , hand-picked to vote in favor of extreme forms of presidential authority .
All these scenarios , and more , flash before our dazzled and exhausted eyes .
In the meantime a third wave of disease crashes over us , with almost a quarter-million dead—most of them needlessly—as the incumbent holds chanting , Nuremberg-like rallies crowded with unmasked admirers and barks out , against obvious evidence to the contrary , that we ’ re “ rounding the turn.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a stronger argument for an executive shuffle in the Oval than the one presented by the past eight months of bungled pandemic response .
But still , largely because of the separate information and propaganda silos into which our voters are now funneled , the competition in this presidential race has been tragically stiff .

I’ve always had trouble watching the countdown to Election Day. Even in a cycle that passes for normal, issues get reduced to talking points trotted out for their appeal to marginal polling demographics. Since the Electoral College robs us of one-person-one-vote fairness and hinges on the favors of undecided voters in swing states, candidates’ rhetoric and campaign promises descend into pandering to these small groups. And because they’re not seen as the key to winning Pennsylvania hearts, the most universally relevant and urgent matters that have ever come before us—the climate and extinction crises—are either trivialized or completely shelved. As though our children’s future doesn’t hang on our handling of these emergencies—right now, not down the road—by the thinnest of possible threads.
This year the stakes are so brutally high it feels like a sucking wound of anxiety, a whirling vortex of potentially chaotic outcomes. We’re forced to picture a scenario where the incumbent baselessly declares victory or refuses to concede, exhorting his angriest die-hard supporters to take to the street—some of them, doubtless, bearing arms, like Trump supporter Kyle Rittenhouse or Trump-supporting militia groups. Or the men who plotted to kidnap the governor of Michigan.