newrepublic--2020-08-21--The Conservative Misdirection of the Affirmative Action Debate

Last week , concluding a two-year investigation into the university ’ s admissions process , the Justice Department accused Yale of discriminating against white and Asian American applicants in order to manipulate the demographics of its student body .
“ There is no such thing as a nice form of race discrimination , ” Eric Dreiband , assistant attorney general for the civil rights division , said in a statement announcing the move .
“ Unlawfully dividing Americans into racial and ethnic blocs fosters stereotypes , bitterness and division.
” It was the Trump administration ’ s latest assault on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ path first started by conservative activists toward an eventual Supreme Court case over the issue .
This is the second time in the last few years that the Ivy League has come under scrutiny for its admissions practices regarding race : Just last year , a federal court dismissed a high-profile lawsuit against Harvard over its admissions , which alleged that the university had discriminated against Asian applicants , and the plaintiffs are now appealing the ruling .
Though the affirmative action wars stretch back decades and have bubbled up in the past @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Texas systems , the more recent Ivy League cases represent a watershed in the fight .
Most notably , in both instances , Asian American students and parents—rather than white families—have been central actors , complicating the conception of opposition to affirmative action as an expression of white grievance .
The Harvard lawsuit , led by anti-affirmative action activist and attorney Edward Blum and his group Students for Fair Admissions , was filed on behalf of several Asian American students ; the Yale investigation followed a complaint lodged by a group called @ @ @ @ @ @ @ As journalist Jay Caspian Kang noted last year in The New York Times Magazine , Asian American progressives have often found it difficult to reconcile their own ideological support for affirmative action with the overwhelming evidence that elite schools are trying to keep the number of Asians—already technically overrepresented on many campuses—from exceeding a certain threshold .
( “ Look , I support Harvard ’ s right to pursue the diversity they want , ” one source told Kang , “ but of course they discriminate against Asian kids.
” ) Because some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have made common cause with political conservatives pushing for the end of affirmative action nationwide , liberals have tended to view them with a mix of consternation and embarrassment , often characterizing them as “ entitled ” ( as one professor put it to The New Yorker ) or even racist .
Some commentators have subsequently treated the admissions battle as a kind of metaphor for America ’ s racial hierarchy in which Asians enjoy a certain proximity to whiteness and are now seeking to entrench that advantage within the Ivy League system @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about Asians as a group , or even about race in the United States , than they do the peculiar nature of “ opportunity ” and education at this moment .
The warring over the racial makeup of the Ivy League—regardless of one ’ s perspective on what that makeup should be or how the schools in question should achieve it—is a conflict that by definition focuses on a handful of hyper-elite institutions to the exclusion of larger educational and economic crises .
Foremost among those is the fact that the soaring cost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ $ 1.6 trillion of student debt and jeopardized the financial solvency of even middle-class households .
The same economy that now demands a college degree no longer even rewards it ; wages have been stagnant since the end of the 1970s for the majority of workers , including those with college degrees .
Colleges themselves haven ’ t fared much better : According to an analysis released earlier this month by the Columbia Teachers College publication The Hechinger Report , more than 500 colleges nationwide showed signs of financial distress , including declining @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pandemic .

In the grand scheme of higher education, then, fixating on admissions at the most elite institutions is a classic case of rearranging chairs on a fast-sinking ship. And particularly as the U.S. struggles to control a pandemic and revive the economy, higher education is inching closer to a state of emergency. The ongoing imbroglio over whether to open campuses (or conduct the fall semester remotely while continuing to charge full tuition) reached a boiling point earlier this week when UNC-Chapel Hill, which had resumed in-person classes earlier this month, was forced to abruptly close its campus after around 130 students tested positive for Covid-19 in the first week of school. “We all saw this coming,” the editors of the UNC-Chapel Hill student newspaper wrote.
The pandemic and the economic downturn will likely also have longer-reaching consequences that exacerbate existing educational disparities, including retention and graduation rates for Black and Latinx students. As Inside Higher Education’s Paul Fain wrote in June, several polls have shown that as a result of the chaos around colleges reopening or trying to shift to remote learning, an overwhelming majority of students are now worried about graduating on time and gaining sufficient skills or work experience to find a job after college. “That impact has been felt most profoundly by students of color,” Fain wrote. “And some initial data suggest that lower-income students and those from minority groups may leave higher education, perhaps permanently.” The collapse of states’ revenue—with Senate Republicans continuing to block federal aid—is also taking a serious toll on the state schools and community colleges that rely on that funding; Maryland, for example, has already cut close to $190 million in funding to higher education, and the University of Texas system expects to lose around $77 million.
In other words, the uneasy truth is that the admissions process at Yale—an institution where the median family income of students is $192,600, or more than three times the median household income nationwide—is a kind of elite culture war that’s unlikely to yield any kind of satisfying outcome, especially in this moment. Conservatives naturally have their knives out, and the temptation, at least among the left-leaning, may be to defend universities’ efforts to ensure diversity among their student bodies. Yet entering that fight means risking overlooking the fact that far more Black, Latinx, and Asian students attend the public universities and state schools that now face severe budget shortfalls.


newrepublic--2020-08-21--The Biden Era Will Put the New Left to the Test

All eyes this week have been focused on the Democratic National Convention , which should probably be considered the formal kickoff of this year ’ s general election campaign .
Although the coronavirus pandemic forced Democrats to move to virtual proceedings , it should be said that the convention wasn ’ t all too different in substance from conventions past .
There were lofty speeches , moments of canned drama , and , of course , a set of ideologically driven controversies over the future of the party and the convention itself .
For all the energy and interest progressives @ @ @ @ @ @ @ length and content of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ’ s speech for Bernie Sanders , the presence of Bill Clinton and Republicans like John Kasich , and the inclusion or exclusion of certain provisions within the party platform that was approved on Wednesday , no one should be under the illusion that any of this really matters or that the convention realistically could have played out any other way .
The season of gestures to progressives is over ; less than three months out from the general election , the Democratic Party has no political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ concerns seriously .
Electorally , a small and unhelpfully distributed portion of the electorate doesn ’ t matter .
And the vast majority of progressives are always committed to whoever the Democratic nominee happens to be , whatever the platform happens to be , anyway ; Biden won most over the day the primary ended .
Contrary to popular belief , it wasn ’ t the left that cost Hillary Clinton the election in 2016 .
Likewise , the left will not be responsible for what happens this November .
What happens afterward @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden will depend in large part on whether the left makes itself ready for a once-in-a-generation wave of activism and advocacy .
The fear of progressive defection was among the factors that convinced so many primary candidates to reach leftward on policy , and the discourse around their proposals helped move the electorate in a more progressive direction .
But the promises those candidates made were , obviously , just words ; by the end of the primary , the co-sponsors of Bernie Sanders ’ s Medicare for All bill , for instance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one of the reasons why the project of extracting progressive commitments from Biden between now and November seems dubious , as nothing would actually hold him to his promises .
And his own stated positions on the policies in question will not , in and of themselves , determine what his administration manages to accomplish , if anything .
A progressive president might be a powerful public advocate for progressive policy and ideas .
And certain progressive goals could be advanced through executive action and federal agencies .
But if a President Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and come out as a supporter of Medicare for All , the Green New Deal , and all the rest , Congress—the Senate in particular—would remain an obstacle .
A president can propose legislation , and a president can be a key party to negotiations .
But functionally , if any significant and positive legislation happens over a Biden term at all , it will come from Congress to the White House , and Biden will be significantly pressured to sign those measures into law .
As given as we are to pretending @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how the presidency actually works .
It should be well known by now that even if Democrats take the Senate , a number of moderates in the chamber would oppose not only the substance of the major items on the progressive agenda but also the structural reforms that would be necessary to pass and defend them .
As such , the major task ahead isn ’ t only , or even primarily , pushing Joe Biden to the left but rather pushing Joe Manchin , Kyrsten Sinema , and other similarly positioned senators @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enough that major legislation can be passed before Republicans have a shot at retaking a chamber of Congress in 2022 .
There ’ s been little active discussion about how this might be done if it can be done at all .

It’s entirely possible that it can’t. But if there’s to be any chance of progressive legislative success during a Biden administration, it can only be the product of pressure and influence campaigns aimed at Congress and set in motion the very second it becomes clear Biden has won the presidency and Democrats have taken the Senate.
It seems plain that organized direct action will be one of the few real tools the left will have at its disposal.
The past several years have given us many examples of what that might look like. The physical occupation of Nancy Pelosi’s office by the Sunrise Movement in support of the Green New Deal, the throngs that descended upon Congress to protest the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh and the government shutdown, the demonstrations and public challenges to elected officials that took place this summer after the killing of George Floyd—the movement behind progressive legislation under Biden should resemble and surpass all of these. We will need targeted nonviolent action at a scale and intensity without recent precedent. The technocratically minded will continue to talk about campaign finance and electoral reforms. Writers and activists will continue debating how we might unify and activate the working class as a mass constituency. But progressives also need to plan actively for whatever moment they’re collectively thrust into just after the election—strategies not only for the next six years but for the next six months. And it seems plain that organized direct action will be one of the few real tools the left will have at its disposal.
It should be said that direct action will be just as important if Democrats don’t take the Senate or if Trump wins. In the former case, activists can continue building public support for progressive proposals until elections make passing them plausible. In the latter case, massive resistance to Trump and the right should amount to more than angst broadcast on social media or purely symbolic marches. As many groups did after the 2016 election, organizers can plan for the defense of immigrants and vulnerable communities. Disruptive demonstrations can be planned against fossil fuel, health care, and other industries as well as the political and commercial institutions sustaining the conservative movement and the GOP. And win or lose in November, labor actions might extract meaningful concessions directly from corporations to the American worker.


newrepublic--2020-08-21--Joe Biden Has Found His Big Idea

Joe Biden Has Found His Big Idea

Not that long ago , Democrats spoke of ideas .
The 2020 presidential primary was rooted in policy : universal health care , the Green New Deal , immigration reform .
It also bravely faced what it meant to be “ political.
” Over the course of more than a year , dozens of presidential candidates acted out what was , in essence , an existential crisis , not just over how best to beat Donald Trump , but over what , exactly , the Democratic Party is meant to represent .
Joe Biden was , for quite a long @ @ @ @ @ @ @ oddly out to sea .
He ’ d reliably end up on the center of the debate stage , but his presence was almost airy .
A back-slapping transactional type behind the scenes , Biden is a feelings-first retail politician , hardly a wonk .
While nearly every candidate had a signature idea—Medicare for All ( Bernie Sanders ) , universal basic income ( Andrew Yang ) , the very concept of ideas ( Elizabeth Warren ) , good vibes ( Marianne Williamson ) —Biden had , well , not much more than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ love for the Spirit of America .
He often seemed to not know much about the policies he was promoting .
For most of 2019 and some of 2020 , Biden ’ s main purpose seemed to be a friendly reminder of what America was like before the 2016 election ; an archeological relic , anchoring us to a memory of the Before Times .
It made sense for Biden , as a candidate , to mine a vein of nostalgia for his electoral ambitions : The Obama years , those good old @ @ @ @ @ @ @ least a more humane era .
But Joe couldn ’ t quite shake that golden oldie vibe : the notion that he was also a living , breathing reminder of missteps and policy failures dotting the landscape sowed by four decades of Democrats—mass incarceration , student loans , banking , Anita Hill , Iraq .
His first major interaction with the woman who is now his running mate , opened up ancient grudges over school segregation .
These were unhealthy reminders .
And yet , thanks to Jim Clyburn—with an assist from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bernie Sanders—it didn ’ t matter .
Biden essentially ended the contest in South Carolina and with the smooth stage-managed coronation that ensued ; a pandemic that blew in from distant shores only added further incentives for Democratic voters to end the grand esoteric argument of the party ’ s future .
Now , Biden has a sizable lead in nearly every reputable poll .
It ’ s enough to make you wonder what all the arguing was even for .
But the question of what a President Joe Biden would stand for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by him , has remained unanswered by this convention .
Over four days , Democrats did everything they could to avoid political questions .
While the president was indicted , constantly and lustily and with increasing pointedness over the past few days , the convention strained itself to avoid making similar indictments of a radical Republican Party that built a home for Trump , and which will welcome Trumpian extremists into its midst for the foreseeable future .

It was as if everyone was forbidden to mention the existence of this second political party. As former political reporter Meredith Shiner pointed out on Twitter, the convention offered Sara Gideon—the Democrats’ hope for defeating Susan Collins for the Maine Senate seat—time to introduce a musical act but not to say “Susan Collins” or “Brett Kavanaugh” or “Mitch McConnell.” If the total omission of the central battle of ideas between a Democratic Party and a Republican Party wasn’t conspicuous to viewers, it will become more so next week when the Republican Party is likely to pull out all the stops depicting Democrats, writ large, as socialist extremists.
The void in the center of the convention was primarily filled by a constant reminder that Joe Biden wasn’t merely not Donald Trump; he is the anti-Trump–man of deep feeling, an empathetic listener who feels the pain of anyone who strays within fifty feet of him. But along with it, a signature idea has emerged. It’s not exactly a chicken in every pot or healthcare for every family, though Biden would love to see you obtain those things. Rather, Biden is promising to not merely dispatch Donald Trump to the dustbin of history but to provide all of America with an off-ramp from this all-consuming political moment. Biden’s promise goes well beyond the notion of having a competent leader at America’s tiller or a prevailing wind of sanity and humanity blowing o’er the land. The promise of Biden is that after four years of white-knuckling it on a daily basis, we will be able to let go of politics, of arguments, of partisanship, and rancor. At last, we shall lay our weary heads down and rest.
This couldn’t help but invite incoherence. Political conventions are typically optimistic affairs, opportunities for candidates to make the case that better days are ahead—as long as they are ultimately elected. But these are not particularly hopeful times: the coronavirus, economic collapse, police brutality, the rise of fascism. Democrats didn’t avoid these issues; in fact, they piled on more. But this left an impossible distance between the state of the world and their ultimate promise of blissful statelessness.


Ban Yachts

It ’ s been a big week for yacht news .
Yesterday , white supremacist shirt-layering aficionado Steve Bannon was arrested on a $ 28 million , 150-foot yacht in Connecticut for defrauding donors to his Build the Wall crowdfunding page .
* Also yesterday , Politico reported that the boat from which Evangelical Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. posted a scarring picture with his pants unbuttoned several weeks ago was , in fact , a 164-foot yacht owned by Nascar mogul Rick Hendrick that Falwell has repeatedly vacationed on “ after the university committed to a lucrative sponsorship @ @ @ @ @ @ @ amid mass unemployment on both sides of the Atlantic , British real estate mogul Nick Candy is selling his $ 71 million yacht for one simple reason : “ I want to build a bigger yacht.
” There ’ s a single common thread in these distasteful vignettes and only one obvious solution : ban yachts .
To clarify , I ’ m proposing making private yachts over 79 feet ( “ superyachts ” ) subject to 100 percent taxation .
Technically , there is no standard definition of a yacht , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to any sort of large or even mid-sized pleasure craft—and far be it from the long arm of the state to stop seafaring proms or bar mitzvahs .
Greta Thunberg crossed the Atlantic last year on a modest , carbon-neutral yacht , after all .
But private yachts of the sort showcased in The Wolf of Wall Street , featuring helipads , swimming pools , and their own tiny sub-yachts—have no place in a just and sustainable society .
If you don ’ t believe me , just look at their track record @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a yacht ?
Sure , people may have fallen in love or had pleasant family getaways to far-off lands .
You might have some passing fondness for yacht rock ( fair enough ) .
But superyachts are floating private castles providing safe havens for oligarchs and white-collar criminals , fenced off for the pleasure of the obscenely wealthy .
They can even be a means for the 1 percent to avoid paying property taxes , according to the website Mansion Global .
Like many other pastimes of the ultra-wealthy , superyachts are an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the air and pollution into the oceans , burning diesel as they idle in ports around the world .
The U.S. government valiantly sought to place environmental restrictions on new yachts in 2015 , requiring vessels built after 2016 to be equipped with machines for converting nitrous oxide into nitrogen and water .
The yacht lobby called this “ doomsday.
” If anything , those rules weren ’ t strong enough .
For practical and political reasons , banning superyachts could prove difficult .
Aside from the complete lack of domestic political will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of maritime vessels have well-worn ways of skirting regulations , flying under foreign flags to avoid U.S. law .
Banning superyachts even just in the United States may be a lost cause without international solidarity .
But as the world looks to increase collaboration to take on such pressing issues as a deadly pandemic and the climate crisis , leveraging multilateral institutions to reign in the scourge of the ultra-wealthy on the high seas could be good practice .
U.S. leadership should seek to curb the influence of Big Yacht and Big Shipping @ @ @ @ @ @ @ monied interests have consistently fought common sense reforms and climate rules .

It’s been a big week for yacht news. Yesterday, white supremacist shirt-layering aficionado Steve Bannon was arrested on a $28 million, 150-foot yacht in Connecticut for defrauding donors to his Build the Wall crowdfunding page.* Also yesterday, Politico reported that the boat from which Evangelical Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. posted a scarring picture with his pants unbuttoned several weeks ago was, in fact, a 164-foot yacht owned by Nascar mogul Rick Hendrick that Falwell has repeatedly vacationed on “after the university committed to a lucrative sponsorship deal with Hendrick Motorsports.” Meanwhile, amid mass unemployment on both sides of the Atlantic, British real estate mogul Nick Candy is selling his $71 million yacht for one simple reason: “I want to build a bigger yacht.” There’s a single common thread in these distasteful vignettes and only one obvious solution: ban yachts.
To clarify, I’m proposing making private yachts over 79 feet (“superyachts”) subject to 100 percent taxation. Technically, there is no standard definition of a yacht, which can be anything from a racing vessel to any sort of large or even mid-sized pleasure craft—and far be it from the long arm of the state to stop seafaring proms or bar mitzvahs. Greta Thunberg crossed the Atlantic last year on a modest, carbon-neutral yacht, after all. But private yachts of the sort showcased in The Wolf of Wall Street, featuring helipads, swimming pools, and their own tiny sub-yachts—have no place in a just and sustainable society. If you don’t believe me, just look at their track record.


newrepublic--2020-08-21--Health Care Reform Is Being Slashed Into Oblivion

If one issue dominated the Democratic presidential primaries this cycle , it was health care .
Bernie Sanders ’ s Medicare for All proposal set a standard that other candidates vied to match while simultaneously striving to not commit to as generous a plan .
Debate moderators asked endless variations of the same question : How will you pay for it ?
The more moderate candidates , including Joe Biden , attacked single-payer with criticisms that often veered into the territory of inane lies .
But now that the anti-single-payer wing has prevailed and Joe Biden is the nominee , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the patchy , cut-rate health care proposal that Biden promised survive beyond Inauguration Day ?
The outlook is not so good .
Over the last week , ominous signs have emerged that should trouble anyone who ’ s counting on Biden to enact the public option plan that he offered as an alternative to single-payer .
Among them was the notable way that Bernie Sanders ’ s Democratic National Convention speech did not use the words “ public option.
” The only specific health care proposal of Biden ’ s that he cited @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people aged 60 to 65 .
Sanders also did not describe Biden ’ s plan as “ universal , ” saying only that it would “ greatly expand ” coverage .
Biden himself referred briefly to his proposal in a pre-recorded video during the convention , but his acceptance speech made no mention of a public option .
Reading between the lines of convention speeches might seem like hysterical tea-leaf reading—if it weren ’ t for other bad omens , like a story in The Hill this week that reported that some congressional @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with a more modest package of fixes to ObamaCare that did not include a public option in an effort to get some early points on the board.
” One Senate Democratic aide told the paper that “ if Democrats win back the Senate , it will be through red or purple states , and there will be plenty more moderate members in the caucus.
” It is all too easy to see a scenario where Biden squeaks into office after weeks of uncertainty relating to mail-in ballots and Republican whining , with a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ put those points on the board by passing some narrow amendments to the Affordable Care Act , or ACA—and then somehow just never gets around to passing that public option , what with everything else going on .
As former Bernie Sanders staffer David Sirota wrote in his newsletter with Andrew Perez , these sorts of quotes may be a “ trial balloon ” for a forthcoming retreat on health care .
Sirota noted that the Partnership for America ’ s Health Care Future , or PAHCF , the industry-run astroturf group that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that might undercut their masters ’ profit-raking , announced last Friday that it would run a campaign to dissuade lawmakers from supporting a public option during convention coverage .
These sorts of ad buys are aimed at Washington policymakers , not the kind of Real Americans that it pretends are invested in its campaigns .
In this case , their rhetoric is centered on scaremongering about the cost of a public option and , as has always been consistent with PAHCF ’ s messaging , building on “ what ’ s working ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ government-run ” plan .
That is to say , making minor fixes to the ACA is about all that the well-remunerated captains of the health care industry will allow .
The coming effort to drive Biden away from his public option plan will be dependent on some artful deceptions , chief among them being that the public wants Biden and his fellow Democrats to leave well enough alone and not put the tenuous gains of the last decade-and-a-half at risk .
But the public very much wants this system to be amended @ @ @ @ @ @ @ medication or fear going to the doctor because of cost or to the hospital because of massive bills .
The United States spends more on health care for worse outcomes than other countries .
The situation in this country was objectively dire before the pandemic arrived and unemployment exploded with millions losing their employer-provided health insurance .

Even many better-off people have a rough time with our health care system. A poll by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation from January this year found that 30 percent of “higher income” people, defined as making between $100,000 and $499,999 a year, reported trouble paying for health care costs. (Among adults making less than $35,000 a year, 57 percent reported the same problems.) The constituency for maintaining the status quo is very small. Only 36 percent of Republicans “strongly oppose” a public option; just 17 percent of voters overall feel this way. It is hard to imagine where this argument, that the public option is too extreme, will come from other than from industry lobbyists.
Part of the clumsy sleight of hand that is on the way will be pretending that “fixing the Affordable Care Act” is a thing that can be done and that voters actually understand what these repairs would entail. The health care industry will point to polls showing that voters would prefer “fixing the ACA” to “blowing up the system.” But these respondents will only have a vague sense of what these choices entail. They may not realize that “fixing” the ACA would leave intact many of their biggest gripes with the system: savings-draining deductibles, inflated prescription prices, the lack of insurance security for those facing job loss. And those pulling the strings won’t be offering an accurate picture of what they intend to fix or why anyone should support that effort.
A measure passed by House Democrats this past June provides some insight into what “fixing the ACA” might mean. That bill would make premiums on the ACA marketplace—which only covers 11 million people, or 3.35 percent of the population—more affordable by getting rid of the upper-income limit for subsidies and slightly reducing the cap on premiums. It would also fix the “family glitch,” a problem with the law as written where the standard that determines whether employer-based coverage is “affordable” is on individual premium rates rather than family premium rates. This oversight has locked many families out of premium subsidies on the ACA marketplace, even though they can’t afford the family coverage their employer offers. But these matters are difficult to explain to anyone without their eyes glazing over–certainly not the kind of thing that would, in Ady Barkan’s words, inspire people to “get arrested” protesting on behalf of such arcane tweaks.


newrepublic--2020-08-21--Joe Biden Finds His Voice

Joe Biden Finds His Voice

Throughout his entire political career , stretching from Richard Nixon to Donald Trump , Joe Biden has been searching for his voice and for words that were authentically his own .
Thursday night , flanked by American flags in an empty hall in Delaware , Biden found those elusive words .
He delivered a memorable speech that defined who he is in his eighth decade on earth , how he views America as it teeters on the brink , and the way in which he intends to wage the most important presidential campaign of his lifetime .
The convention ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a life of loss and a personal triumph over stuttering—failed to fully convey Biden ’ s long quest to be himself in politics .
It is a journey that shapes everything in Biden ’ s headlong race to save America from Donald Trump .
Coming of age in the 1960s as an ambitious young man with Irish Catholic roots , Biden inevitably was shaped by the Kennedys .
In the Senate and on the campaign trail during his ill-fated 1987 bid for the presidency , Biden kept struggling to find rhetoric and poses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the late Richard Ben Cramer in his enduring portrait of the candidate What It Takes , Biden stumbled into plagiarism because he depended too heavily on his campaign consultants to provide the magic words to forge a connection with voters .
The words really didn ’ t matter when Biden made his second bid for the White House in 2008 .
He neither possessed the soaring eloquence of Barack Obama nor the cracks-in-the-glass-ceiling power of Hillary Clinton .
Biden was just another six-term Senate committee chairman used to bloviating during Capitol Hill hearings @

The 2019 Joe Biden, who was seemingly headed toward political oblivion as he played to small crowds last year in Iowa and New Hampshire, was an authentic political figure. But nothing about Biden, during what appeared to be his last-hurrah moment, was compelling. His rambling town meetings (where you could always find parking) were filled with riffs featuring long dead Senate colleagues, sentences with predicates stretching into a different zip code, and such comically outdated words as “malarkey.”
But then the miracle happened in the South Carolina primary, fueled by Jim Clyburn’s last-minute endorsement and the realization by Black voters in particular that the Democrats couldn’t afford a long, debilitating primary struggle. Suddenly, Biden was the nominee of a united, rather than fractious, Democratic Party.
But the words still weren’t there. Granted, it was unimaginably difficult for Biden to forge a connection with anyone while a pandemic confined him to his home in Wilmington. While leading Democrats pressed Biden to resume a semblance of a normal campaign, Trump (projecting as usual) unleashed a barrage of vicious and unjustified attacks on Biden’s mental acuity.


newrepublic--2020-08-24--Trump’s Incredible Ignorance of Suburbia

It says a lot about President Trump ’ s misunderstanding of the suburbs that the Republican National Committee has designated Mark and Patricia McCloskey , the Midwestern couple who two months ago pointed guns at peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters marching in front of their house , to represent beleaguered white suburbanites this week at the Republican National Convention .
The McCloskeys are indisputably white and , according to a devastating profile in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch , they have a rich litigious history .
But they aren ’ t suburbanites .
Their gated community , Portland Place , sounds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inside St. Louis , a jurisdiction that Trump isn ’ t even trying to win .
The “ house ” the McCloskeys defended is no Dutch colonial out of Leave It to Beaver .
It ’ s an ersatz Medici palazzo with ceiling frescoes , silk damask wall coverings , walnut carvings edged in gilt , and pissing putti—a habitat more suited to the sultan of Brunei than to Ward Cleaver .
But the McCloskeys fit the cartoonish and outdated stereotype of suburbanites that Trump , a city boy , has been courting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he declared that Joe Biden wanted to “ Abolish Suburbs , ” warning the “ Suburban Housewives of America ” that the Democratic nominee would “ destroy your neighborhood and your American Dream.
” In a tweet on Saturday , the president made his racist subtext more clear .
“ Why would Suburban Women vote for Biden and the Democrats , ” he queried , “ when Democrat run cities are now rampant with crime … which could easily spread to the suburbs , and they will reconstitute , on steroids , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The women in question were presumptively white , the criminals and beggars presumptively black , and the threat to feminine honor best left to the imagination .
Trump isn ’ t the only person misreading the suburbs ’ role in this election .
It ’ s an accepted political cliché that the 2020 contest will be won or lost in the suburbs .
That isn ’ t wrong , exactly , but it ’ s misleading because almost every presidential election is won or lost in the suburbs .
That ’ s been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1992 when the 1990 Census revealed that for the first time more Americans lived in suburbs than in urban or rural areas .
( A plurality then , suburbanites today represent a 52 percent majority . )
The 1990 Census scared the bejeezus out of Democrats because the suburbs were then solidly Republican .
No Democratic presidential candidate had won the suburbs since Lyndon Johnson ’ s landslide in 1964 .
The suburbs were full of white country club Episcopalians out of a John Cheever short story—the kind who rode the commuter train @ @ @ @ @ @ @ double martinis .
Since the 1960s , they ’ d been joined by white blue-collar and professional-class families fed up with urban crime and decay .
Both groups voted Republican .

The bulk of the op-ed was devoted to defending regulations. That might seem strange coming from a president who has himself declared war on regulations. But those were regulations to prevent industry from polluting the air and water or from exploiting workers and so on. The regulations that Trump and Carson favor are local zoning rules that limit real estate developers to building single-family dwellings. Conservatives have traditionally loathed such rules and fought them. As recently as 2018, even Trump and Carson’s own HUD complained that “in the suburbs, NIMBYism (Not in My Back Yard, or resistance to unwanted development in one’s own neighborhood) may have worsened,” exacerbating “an already serious affordability problem.” But the Trump administration was already moving to shore up suburban NIMBYs and exacerbate the affordability problem further.
The Obama administration pushed very gently against local zoning plans in 2015 with its Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) Rule. That directive made it easier for fair housing advocates to challenge zoning rules in court as a violation of the 1968 Fair Housing Act. It didn’t make it all that much easier. Fair housing advocate Jonathan Zasloff of the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law condemned the Obama rule recently as “almost comically weak.” But even a weak challenge to exclusionary suburban zoning was too much for the Trump administration, so in 2018 Carson suspended it, and last month he announced he’ll terminate it.
...Your housing prices will go up based on the market, and crime will go down. I have rescinded the Obama-Biden AFFH Rule. Enjoy! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2020
Biden says he’ll revive the AFFH, which is why Trump has lately been saying Biden will “destroy” the suburbs. It’s race-baiting in code, straight out of George Wallace’s 1968 playbook. Even in 1968, though, Wallace’s dog whistle couldn’t win him any states outside the South. Today the strategy is useless because that suburban world no longer exists. Suburbia is no longer dominated by Episcopalians in lime-green pants (and anyway, a lot of them became Democrats as the GOP moved further right). The families fleeing big cities today aren’t doing it because big cities are failing; they’re fleeing because those cities are succeeding so spectacularly that only the wealthy can afford to live there. The very word “urban,” which for decades was a euphemism for “low-income Black,” is becoming a euphemism for “rich and white” because low-income families are leading the exodus out of cities. It’s simply wrong to think today that the majority of America’s poor live in rural hollers or urban slums. They live in the suburbs. And they don’t waste much time worrying that Joe Biden will destroy the suburbs by encouraging high-density construction there.


newrepublic--2020-08-24--How to Break a Big Pharma Monopoly on a Covid-19 Vaccine

In mid-July , the U.S. media lit up with a big story about the global race for a Covid-19 vaccine .
State-backed Russian hackers , it was alleged , were poking around the vaccine trade secrets of U.S. , Canadian , and British drug companies .
This was framed as a serious national security issue , as if Moscow was seeking recipes for a Doomsday bioweapon and not data related to an urgently needed antidote to the pandemic .
The straight-faced intelligence sources driving the story captured perfectly the Strangelovean heart of corporate vaccine nationalism : “ We condemn these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to combat the coronavirus pandemic , ” Paul Chichester , the director of operations for Britain ’ s National Cyber Security Center , told The New York Times .
When the story expanded to include allegations of Chinese vax hacks , it further distanced the U.S. media from what much of the world sees as the real issue : Why are rich nations allowing publicly funded Covid-19 research to be treated as objects of corporate secrecy and control in the first place ?
Why doesn ’ t everyone have access to this science @ @ @ @ @ @ @ question was closer to the center of the summer ’ s second big story involving Covid-19 and intellectual property .
On August 4 , attorneys general from 34 states and territories published a letter accusing the California-based drugmaker Gilead Sciences of abusing its monopoly on remdesivir , the only approved antiviral Covid-19 treatment .
“ Gilead has not established a reasonable price , nor has it met the health and safety needs of the public given the Covid-19 pandemic , ” stated the bipartisan letter , whose signatories included Xavier Becerra , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Landry .
Citing the federal government ’ s crucial role in developing remdesivir , the attorneys general urged federal health officials to use the regulatory authority written into the 1980 Patent and Trademark Law Amendments Act , better known as Bayh-Dole .
The law sets conditions on property rights on publicly funded research and related inventions and allows the government to “ march-in ” on those rights in the name of the public interest .
The attorneys general were correct to invoke the government ’ s duty to push Bayh-Dole ’ s patent-override @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some dusting off ; in 40 years , it has never been used .
The attorneys general letter flipped the vaccine espionage story on its head .
It describes a world in which the danger isn ’ t the intellectual property hoarded by drug companies falling into the hands of rival nations but monopoly control over that I.P .
here at home .
It was California-based Gilead , not a foreign power , that developed remdesivir with funds from the U.S. Treasury , all while stashing its I.P .
and profits in Ireland @ @ @ @ @ @ @ taxes .
It was the Nasdaq-listed Gilead , not an enemy state , that has priced remdesivir at $ 520 a vial—around 50 times the cost of manufacture .
Gilead ’ s production of the drug , meanwhile , is expected to result in national and global shortages through its stingy approach to licensing , designed to maximize profits during a global public health emergency .
The strategy looks like a success .
On the morning the attorneys general published their letter , a Motley Fool health care reporter explained , “ Investors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ [ which ] expects full-year revenue will be between $ 23 billion and $ 25 billion.… What ’ s the main reason for this optimism ?
Remdesivir .
”

The call from the 34 attorneys general to break Gilead’s remdesivir monopoly by licensing off-patent manufacture is the most serious political attack on the intellectual property rights of a U.S. drug company in memory. By spotlighting the broken intersection of patent law and federal science policy, this appeal has the potential to shift the politics around drug prices and drug development. The conflict at the center of these debates, between human needs and private profit, is also driving a global movement centered on the World Health Organization’s Covid-19 Technology Access Pool. This initiative was launched in May with a “Solidarity Call to Action” to make vaccine research and technology available on an open-science and open-license basis. The Pool’s 40 signatory states brought their entreaty to last month’s meeting of the World Trade Organization’s Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, where South Africa is leading a charge to activate and expand that organization’s I.P. opt-out clause for states during public health emergencies.
South Africa and other less developed countries have hard-earned experience in how I.P. barriers slow and restrict access to new inventions. Most notoriously, a 20-year I.P. lag separated the patenting of the first effective HIV drugs and the arrival of affordable generics in the global South, which only happened because a determined worldwide campaign spent years shaming companies like Gilead into submission. At the World Trade Organization meeting in July, South Africa’s representative described how the familiar script was already playing out with Covid-19, beginning with Gilead’s profit-driven handling of remdesivir. The representative said the company’s limited licensing strategy is “an attempt to contain competition by creating an oligopoly. Generic manufacturers globally that can contribute to expanding global supply have been excluded. The lack of transparency and accountability in the present dire times is extremely worrying and dangerous.”
For now, the process of moving the U.S. drug debate closer to the global one can be advanced by pursuing the attorneys general case against Gilead and demanding that federal health officials break its remdesivir monopoly. But while the attorneys general make a strong case based on the government’s role in developing remdesivir, multiple recent studies suggest the public’s claim on it and other drugs—and, crucially, a future vaccine for Covid-19—is far greater than generally understood. If a future Democratic administration were to be interested in breaking Big Pharma’s stranglehold on medicine, this is where it could begin.


newrepublic--2020-08-24--When the Republican Party Was Sane

When the Republican Party Was Sane

We charge that they have arrogantly deprived our citizens of precious liberties by seizing powers never granted .
We charge that they work unceasingly to achieve their goal of national socialism .
We charge that they have disrupted internal tranquility by fostering class strife for venal political purposes .
We charge that they have choked opportunity and hampered progress by unnecessary and crushing taxation .
They claim prosperity but the appearance of economic health is created by war expenditures , waste and extravagance , planned emergencies , and war crises .
They have debauched our money by cutting in half @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We charge that they have weakened local self-government which is the cornerstone of the freedom of men .
We charge that they have shielded traitors to the Nation in high places , and that they have created enemies abroad where we should have friends .
We charge that they have violated our liberties by turning loose upon the country a swarm of arrogant bureaucrats and their agents who meddle intolerably in the lives and occupations of our citizens .
We charge that there has been corruption in high places , and that examples @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moral standards of the American people .
We charge that they have plunged us into war in Korea without the consent of our citizens through their authorized representatives in the Congress , and have carried on that war without will to victory .
Right-wingers thought that the welfare state desperately needed to be rolled back , with Social Security and the rest of the New Deal repealed .
But this was extraordinarily naïve .
It was obvious that there was broad support for Social Security even within the GOP .
The 1950 amendments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expanded Social Security benefits and passed with overwhelming Republican support ; only two Republicans voted against the bill in the Senate and just one in the House .
Senator Robert Taft of Ohio , leader of the conservative wing of the GOP , was among the ayes .
The 1952 amendments further increased benefits .
Again , the legislation passed with vast Republican support ; just 20 GOP members voted against it in the House and none did in the Senate .
In a letter to his brother Edgar , Eisenhower made clear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even try to repeal the welfare state : Should any political party attempt to abolish Social Security , unemployment insurance , and eliminate labor laws and farm programs , you would not hear of that party again in our political history .
There is a tiny splinter group , of course , that believes you can do these things .
Among them are H. L. Hunt … a few other Texas oil millionaires , and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas .
Their number is negligible and they are stupid .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ scale back America ’ s foreign commitments and return to prewar isolationism .
Again , this was naïve .
Once the Soviet Union got nuclear weapons , there was simply no going back .
Conservatives had to content themselves with agitating for the Bricker Amendment , a proposed constitutional amendment that would prevent treaties from overriding the Constitution .
Of particular concern was the possibility that the United Nations could somehow intervene in our domestic affairs—a fictitious threat that still animates right-wingers to this day .
Despite the acute mismatch between platform and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to win was so strong that most Republicans overcame whatever reservations they had about Eisenhower and named him as their standard bearer .
He won easily over the untelegenic Democrat , Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois , in the first campaign of the television age .
Almost immediately upon taking office , Eisenhower dissed the right flank of his party by throwing cold water on its desire for a big tax cut .
He said at his first presidential press conference :

We charge that they have arrogantly deprived our citizens of precious liberties by seizing powers never granted. We charge that they work unceasingly to achieve their goal of national socialism. We charge that they have disrupted internal tranquility by fostering class strife for venal political purposes. We charge that they have choked opportunity and hampered progress by unnecessary and crushing taxation. They claim prosperity but the appearance of economic health is created by war expenditures, waste and extravagance, planned emergencies, and war crises. They have debauched our money by cutting in half the purchasing power of our dollar. We charge that they have weakened local self-government which is the cornerstone of the freedom of men. We charge that they have shielded traitors to the Nation in high places, and that they have created enemies abroad where we should have friends. We charge that they have violated our liberties by turning loose upon the country a swarm of arrogant bureaucrats and their agents who meddle intolerably in the lives and occupations of our citizens. We charge that there has been corruption in high places, and that examples of dishonesty and dishonor have shamed the moral standards of the American people. We charge that they have plunged us into war in Korea without the consent of our citizens through their authorized representatives in the Congress, and have carried on that war without will to victory.
Right-wingers thought that the welfare state desperately needed to be rolled back, with Social Security and the rest of the New Deal repealed. But this was extraordinarily naïve. It was obvious that there was broad support for Social Security even within the GOP. The 1950 amendments to the basic provisions of the program expanded Social Security benefits and passed with overwhelming Republican support; only two Republicans voted against the bill in the Senate and just one in the House. Senator Robert Taft of Ohio, leader of the conservative wing of the GOP, was among the ayes. The 1952 amendments further increased benefits. Again, the legislation passed with vast Republican support; just 20 GOP members voted against it in the House and none did in the Senate. In a letter to his brother Edgar, Eisenhower made clear his belief that it was stupid to even try to repeal the welfare state:
Should any political party attempt to abolish Social Security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt … a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.
The Taft wing also wanted to sharply scale back America’s foreign commitments and return to prewar isolationism. Again, this was naïve. Once the Soviet Union got nuclear weapons, there was simply no going back. Conservatives had to content themselves with agitating for the Bricker Amendment, a proposed constitutional amendment that would prevent treaties from overriding the Constitution. Of particular concern was the possibility that the United Nations could somehow intervene in our domestic affairs—a fictitious threat that still animates right-wingers to this day.
Despite the acute mismatch between platform and candidate, the GOP’s desire to win was so strong that most Republicans overcame whatever reservations they had about Eisenhower and named him as their standard bearer. He won easily over the untelegenic Democrat, Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois, in the first campaign of the television age.


newrepublic--2020-08-24--When “Police Reform” Came to Kenosha, Wisconsin

Six years before Jacob Blake was shot and critically injured by police in Kenosha , Wisconsin , the city made national headlines for a case that became the impetus for groundbreaking reforms concerning the use of deadly force .
“ Could it help provide a new faith in the justice system ?
” The New York Times asked at the time .
Those reforms , however , were narrowly focused on making changes to how law enforcement investigates its own , the kind of reform strategy that once may have seemed like enough .
On Sunday , when police shot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as he walked back to the car where his children reportedly sat waiting for him , it wasn ’ t a failure of reform but evidence of what a reform really does : It makes some changes , but it keeps in place law enforcement ’ s most central and lethal power .
Groups like Campaign Zero are emblematic of this approach .
The organization ’ s “ 8 Can ’ t Wait ” ( or # 8CantWait ) campaign was released at the height of a national uprising over the police who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Ahmaud Arbery .
It offered eight proposals , like banning chokeholds and requiring a warning before shooting , which campaigners said would reduce police killings by 72 percent .
The campaign was seen by abolitionists—the organizers and activists calling for an end to prisons , policing , and the carceral state—as an effort to water down their own demands .
( After overwhelming opposition from the left , some of # 8CantWait ’ s architects pulled back , and a graphic recommending “ abolition ” was added to the campaign website , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Focused on regulating which types of force police could used and how , and how to report the aftermath , # 8CantWait seemed to assume that police would continue to kill .
And in fact , that ’ s what the reforms had yielded elsewhere .
Abolitionists and others pointed out that the country ’ s largest police forces had already implemented the vast majority of the recommendations , yet killings continued .
The reforms # 8CantWait proposed didn ’ t meaningfully confront or limit that lethal power but rather gave new policy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ justify killing .
Some of the other broader police reforms supported by Campaign Zero are either already enacted or close to being adopted in Kenosha , like mandating body cameras , which the county board voted in favor of , 22-0 , this July .
Independent investigations into police killings have been adopted statewide and were driven in part by a Kenosha police killing in 2004 .
Michael Bell , Jr. , a 21-year-old white man , was shot point-blank and killed by an officer , who yelled out that Bell was reaching @ @ @ @ @ @ @ His sister and mother witnessed this and say they tried to tell the officer that Bell was not .
An investigation was concluded within 48 hours of the shooting in which Kenosha police internal affairs determined the officer had done nothing wrong .
Bell ’ s father then brought in his own investigators .
The Bell family brought a civil suit against the city and won a settlement ( the department claimed no wrongdoing ) .
With the money , Bell “ bought every available billboard in Milwaukee , ” All Things Considered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ When police kill , should they judge themselves ?
” Police unions came to the table , said Bell , but it was only “ after we created enough ruckus.
” A policy both sides supported was the result , making Wisconsin “ the first state in the nation to mandate on a legislative level that if an officer is involved with a loss of life , that outside investigators must come in and collect the data and investigate that shooting .
”

The guidelines for independent investigations that followed were greeted optimistically as something that might even inspire other states. It’s one step forward, to no longer allow police officers under the same roof to investigate one another. But “independent” only excludes officers in the same department; still eligible includes those with whom the officers involved may have a conflict of interest. The fate of this independent investigation still comes down to the district attorney, who decides if it will result in indicting an officer.
Inside law enforcement’s own institutions, its systemic abuses are not a secret. When the Wisconsin Supreme Court considered misconduct allegations against a Kenosha district attorney, involving planting evidence in a homicide case, the court’s investigator concluded that “corruption, lies … and deceit existed throughout the entire Kenosha criminal justice system.” It’s this system that is tasked with considering criminal charges against police officers when they kill.
Police defenders are not wrong to identify the institution of policing itself as a target for activists, though they are overstating the degree to which even the modest reforms they oppose could do anything like dismantle law enforcement entirely. In June, Kenosha was the site of one of the “Back the Badge” rallies seen this summer across the country. “This country is under siege. This profession of law enforcement is under siege,” said former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, a vocal Trump supporter known for his questionable pins and the rally’s headliner. For Clarke and others joining forces under the banner of Blue Lives Matter, the opposition is police reform of any kind, even when carried out by people who take pains to say nice things about the police. “They’re doing a good job,” an activist calling for reform, while still citing a good working relationship with the Kenosha department, told the local Fox news outlet. “They could do better, but we don’t want David Clarke coming down here and really stirring up what we have going on.”


newrepublic--2020-08-24--Republican Voters Embrace Trump’s Cult of Destruction

There is a certain kind of sputtering disbelief that characterizes a lot of liberal reactions to Trump , for good reason .
Even after four years of this routine , it can still seem unbelievable to watch him openly admit to many of the things he admits to and continue to get away with it ; he takes the thing that ’ s supposed to be whispered in private and just tweets it out .
Since the coronavirus pandemic has torn across America , this phenomenon has taken on an even more horrible tone .
He makes proclamations that seem @ @ @ @ @ @ @ such as his belief that the virus will “ disappear ” on its own or how in the meantime it ’ s a bad idea to increase testing for Covid-19 because that just makes the number of cases go up .
It ’ s hard to pinpoint exactly why this combination of foolhardiness and bravado works so well on his voters , but it does , and a grim new piece of evidence for this emerged in time for the quadrennial Republican National Convention : A new poll has found that 57 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deaths that have occurred in the United States is “ acceptable.
” You read that right .
A majority of Republicans think the death toll from the coronavirus—currently at 177,000 , though the true number may be more than 200,000—is just fine .
It is surely related that the same poll showed 64 percent of Republican voters believe the true number of deaths to be lower than what ’ s being reported .
They have heard their president sow doubt and dismissal about the coronavirus and responded accordingly .
It is hardly news @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the opposite of reality .
What is significant is that there is a disconnect between the scale of disaster currently happening in America with its accompanying loss of life and the response of huge , important groups of voters .
How many deaths would it take for Republican voters to change their minds—or to not vote enthusiastically for Trump ?
( After a five-point dip in May , his approval rating with Republicans is back up to 90 percent in the Gallup poll—which means , if both polls are right , there ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ think the coronavirus death toll is real and unacceptable but still approve of the president . )
Perhaps the question is not how many people would have to die but who would have to die .
The virus has killed more people who generally don ’ t vote for Republicans than those who do .
The biggest and most deadly outbreak was in New York City , where more than 23,000 people have died .
New York City is famously not part of Republican America , even though it ’ s where their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cities were hit later—but many of those hit were “ small and mid-sized metros in the Southwest with large Native American or Hispanic populations , ” according to The New York Times .
Most of the clusters of outbreaks , the paper said , were in “ nursing homes , food processing plants and correctional facilities ” —not exactly major sources of the Republican vote .
The message from the Republican Party did shift throughout the course of the pandemic with characteristic shamelessness : It took until the end of June , by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had died , for Republican leaders in Washington to start publicly wearing masks and endorsing the practice—around the time that the virus started spreading to more Republican areas , according to an analysis at the time by the Brookings Institution .
At this stage , all of the counties on the Times ’ s list of counties with the highest cases per capita are in red states .
Still , people of color have been consistently more adversely affected than white people .
According to one analysis , “ Black , Indigenous , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ COVID-19 death rates of triple or more the rate of White Americans , ” after adjusting for age .

Combine this reality—that Republicans are simply less likely to have died or know people who have died, even now—with the messages Republicans receive from conservative media. They are told that the media and government scientists aren’t to be trusted, that the risks of reopening are small, that making sure college sports go on is more important than the lives of those involved. The pandemic has, among Republicans, become absorbed into the greater culture war. They use it to gin up white racial resentment. They lionize heroes of the “give me reopening or give me death” movement and whip up outrage against measures as minor as wearing a mask. It is no wonder that a majority of the party’s voters would question the true extent of the death toll, but whether they acknowledged it or not, they would find a way to justify it.
The Republican National Convention begins tonight, and in a sensible world, the big question should be: How can these party leaders even show their faces? How can the party that has presided over such a disaster with nearly 200,000 dead, and in full refusal to extend the vital financial lifelines needed to keep people home and safe, get up on stage and triumphantly declare that Everything Is Great?
It is years, perhaps decades, past time to pose questions about the decency of the Republican Party. Over and over again, they have demonstrated that they are a committed death cult. It welcomes a future in which climate change makes life intolerable and deadly for billions of people. It embraces the idea that poor Americans should die of preventable disease, poverty, pollution, or lack of health insurance. It rejoices in the deaths of desperate immigrants at the border. As long as conservative media and the Republican Party keeps telling these voters that it’s all nothing to worry about and that attempts to halt the virus are “tyrannical,” they will hoot and cheer to their last rattled breath.


newrepublic--2020-08-25--Carl Hiaasen’s Secret to Writing a Good Trump Novel

Speaking to Poets & Writers in the fall of 2017 , Salman Rushdie admitted that he saw a silver lining in Donald Trump ’ s election .
“ It ’ s an awful thing to say , ” he said , “ that this thing that is very bad for America is very good for the novel.
” This was a common sentiment in the early days of the Trump administration .
His election may have been a political low point , the thinking went , but it could very well turn into a cultural high one .
Tyranny , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ historically led to transcendent art and satire .
Shakespeare , after all , wrote King Lear in quarantine during a time of extraordinary political turbulence .
The idea seemed to be that you , too , can write a classic .
All you have to do is look outside your window and see the truth .
But with the benefit of hindsight , we can safely say Rushdie was wrong .
His own attempt at a Trump novel , the overstuffed and undercooked The Golden House in which a twisted Trump appears as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new nadir for a writer who these days seems to hit nothing but nadirs .
Efforts from novelists like Howard Jacobson and Dave Eggers have been similarly embarrassing .
Capturing this wildly absurd moment has proved difficult for novelists .
The jokes are too obvious , having been made thousands of times already on Twitter and The Daily Show .
The general thrust of these novels is the same : The president is a boor , his supporters are dumb , and together they might just kill us all .
Novelists , like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t look away from the Trump administration .
Unfortunately , they haven ’ t found much interesting to say about it .
Carl Hiaasen ’ s thriller Squeeze Me is , blessedly , an exception .
While the best Trump fiction ( Mark Doten ’ s Trump Sky Alpha , Stephen Wright ’ s Processed Cheese ) has dialed up the absurdity to speculative extremes , Hiaasen is clear-eyed : He meets the president on his subterranean level .

After getting wasted (and taking some MDMA), Fitzsimmons wanders off and is devoured by a 20-foot python. Fearing the loss of business that would follow the death of an elderly, wealthy woman, caretaker Tripp Teabull clumsily covers up her death. (Hiaasen has a Pynchon-esque gift for names: Other principal characters include Fay Alex Riptoad, Yirma Skyy Frick, and Clinton “Skink” Tyree, an eccentric former governor who has appeared in several of Hiaasen’s books.) By the time her body is found, an undocumented Honduran immigrant named Diego has been arrested for murder.
That is where Trump—referred to only as “Mastodon,” his Secret Service code name—comes in. Smelling a campaign issue—“No More Diegos”—Mastodon spins a lurid tale of Fitzsimmons’s death, quickly embraced by Fox News. Diego, a college-educated Honduran, is recast as a “terrorist” leader of a vicious gang set on murdering the president’s most ardent supporters. It’s up to Squeeze Me’s heroine, Angie Armstrong, to sort out the whole mess, exonerate Diego, and make sure that south Florida’s python problem is contained before another old bat gets devoured. Armstrong is not a cop or a private eye but a pest removal specialist who once served hard time for feeding the hand of a poacher to an alligator.
Any summary of Hiaasen’s work inevitably makes it seem way less crazy than it is. For example, at least one of the pythons is on LSD. Also, there is a device at the stand-in for Mar-a-Lago that can only be described as “Chekhov’s Tanning Bed.” But placing our absurd president in an equally absurd setting normalizes Trump in useful ways: He becomes a product of a distinctly American environment. Hiaasen’s own fondness for vulgarity—“nut sack” appears roughly once every 100 pages, a variant of “fuck” every three—diminishes the usual gap between more highbrow novelists and the president.


newrepublic--2020-08-25--Donald Trump Declares Total War on the Civil Service

Monday was the first day of the Republican Party ’ s national convention to renominate President Donald Trump , and it dwelled on little else .
The quadrennial conventions are typically used by the parties to lay out a governing vision and a policy platform , to elevate rising stars and honor party elders , and to make a direct case to voters who tune in .
But if the first night of four to come is any guide , this year ’ s convention will be molded around a cult of personality .
Speaker after speaker at tonight ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , while others lacked that excuse—lauded the president in hyperbolic tones .
Charlie Kirk , a conservative activist and the convention ’ s first speaker , described Trump as “ the bodyguard of Western civilization.
” In between those speeches , the GOP played glossy , well-produced clips of Trump hosting various groups inside the White House , including people freed from hostage situations .
Beyond the content of these clips , the repeated inclusion of the White House raised new questions about whether the administration , and this convention , is violating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all executive-branch employees from engaging in a variety of political activities , especially with official time or resources .
While Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are personally exempt from the law , many White House aides and officials are not .
Then again , what difference would it make if they did violate the Hatch Act ?
The law ’ s ultimate enforcement mechanism , at least where the White House is concerned , is the president ’ s personal discretion , and Trump has made abundantly clear that he has no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hinder his subordinates from cheerleading him or his causes .
As Trump makes the case for a second term as the nation ’ s chief executive , it ’ s worth considering the implications it could have for the executive branch itself—and for the long-fought dream of a professional , non-partisan civil service .
Modern American presidents often filled multiple public and private roles , each of which carried its own duties and obligations .
Presidents are the leaders of political parties , the chief of the executive branch , and the U.S. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , they also have personal obligations to family and friends .
Ethical quandaries are inescapable , and most presidents have made at least an effort to avoid them .
Some have failed .
Richard Nixon resigned after abusing his office to cover up a burglary that targeted the Democratic Party ’ s headquarters .
Bill Clinton was impeached for lying to a grand jury about an extramarital affair with a White House employee .
Trump draws no line between his body natural and his body politic .
He regularly merges his official duties @ @ @ @ @ @ @ goals with his policy objectives , and his personal whims with his professional obligations .
He sees no issue with extorting a friendly foreign government to sabotage a political rival .
He welcomed the opportunity to funnel government and diplomatic business to his personal businesses .
Government officials who hesitate or resist these corrupt acts are dismissed as agents of the mythical “ deep state ” that purportedly seeks to overthrow his administration .

Those around him have taken the same approach. Kellyanne Conway, one of his closest White House advisors, routinely flouted federal ethics guidelines during interviews and media appearances. A February 2017 Fox News interview where she urged viewers to buy goods from Ivanka Trump’s boycotted lifestyle brand even drew a rare bipartisan rebuke. In June 2019, the Office of Special Counsel formally recommended that Conway be removed from her post, citing multiple high-profile breaches of the law. Trump did not remove her from her post then or now; she announced over the weekend that she would resign at the end of the month for family reasons. And while Conway may be the most egregious example, she’s far from the only one: At least 10 high-ranking Trump officials were found to have violated the Hatch Act in some way as of April 2019.
In theory, the federal government is supposed to work for the American people. Over the past few years, that focus has shifted toward working for Trump himself. Televised cabinet meetings and similar events often feature top officials praising the president himself for all of his hard work and effort, as if making Trump feel better about himself is the point of the government. It helps, of course, that Trump has partially abandoned Senate confirmations for a wide swath of top executive-branch posts and turned to pliable “acting” officials to lead key agencies, sometimes with threadbare legal rationales for their leadership.
There are signs that the Trump administration may try to reshape the federal civil service if he wins a second term. The RNC approved a resolution ahead of this week’s convention “in favor of providing the necessary tools for President Trump to finish draining the swamp.” The resolution itself complains about “rampant Democrat obstruction” by the “entrenched bureaucracy” and other nefarious forces. “While President Trump has appointed excellent agency chairpersons, directors, and administrators, their efforts at reform are often stymied and obstructed by mid-level agency staff,” it reads. To fix this, the RNC called for a “complete overhaul of the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 (APA) so that President Trump can thoroughly ‘drain the swamp’” for full GOP control of the House, Senate, and Supreme Court to aid him.


“Everything Was Destroyed”

On September 20 , 2017 , Hurricane Maria , which had already devastated the island of Dominica , hit Puerto Rico as a Category 4 hurricane with winds reaching 155 miles per hour .
The island had seen other storms—including Hurricane Irma weeks earlier .
But Maria wiped out not just homes and buildings but also the island ’ s power and communications grid .
Between the grid damage and a patchy governmental response , fatalities continued to accumulate long after the winds themselves had faded .
Glorynel Ojeda Matos studies sustainability .
And when hurricanes ravaged her home in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Puerto Rico would never be the same .
“ Hurricane Maria happened in September , but before that , we had Irma , ” Ojeda Matos said .
“ It left so many people without electricity , so it helped us to be more prepared .
We knew we ’ d have to count on the generator .
We were close to water , but we needed water .
We knew that if Maria were to hit , we would say , ‘ OK .
This will be worse than what happened with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Irma caused some damage to the island , Maria debilitated it .
“ When we opened the door the next morning , ” Ojeda Matos remembers , “ everything was destroyed .
Totally .
All of the vegetation .
The streets were closed .
The electrical grid was down .
I grew up in Puerto Rico , so I ’ ve seen hurricanes my whole life .
But I ’ ve never seen anything like Maria .
”

The emergency response was slow and aid from the government slower. According to Federal Emergency Management Agency documents, 1.6 million meals were delivered to Puerto Rico within nine days of Maria. Under 3 million liters of water were delivered, along with 5,000 tarps. By comparison, victims of Hurricane Harvey, which hit Texas and Louisiana in 2017, received 5.1 million meals, 4.5 million liters of water, and 20,000 tarps nine days after the storm.
Ojeda Matos and her family had a decision to make. Their house, in which they’d weathered the storm, sustained some damage but did better than other houses on the island.
“We never saw FEMA. We never saw the local government. We were working a lot, really helping each other in the community.”
“The first day, the second, the third, we were just trying to get out of the house,” she said. “Nature, trees, everything was in the middle of the street. So the people and the communities were working together to try to move everything. Then, we had food at home, but a week or two weeks after, the supplies weren’t still there. Most of them were destroyed. And the flow of food in the port was stopping. Two weeks later, we were thinking, ‘What do we do now?’”


newrepublic--2020-08-25--Héctor Tobar’s Radical Road Trip Novel

Héctor Tobar’s Radical Road Trip Novel

A quarter of the way through Héctor Tobar ’ s novel , his young , blond protagonist stands on the edge of National Highway Number 9 in Chile , thumb pointed south in hopes of hitching a ride .
Drivers speed past , giving him puzzled looks , and only when a taxi stops does Joe Sanderson find out that there is nothing south of Punta Arenas .
“ This is the last town , the last place in Chile where people live , ” the driver says .
Nevertheless , the man agrees to take him to the end @ @ @ @ @ @ @ old colonial fort and a “ very , very cold ” place .
The road ends , Joe proceeds by foot toward Fuerte Bulnes , and the paragraph soars in the style characteristic of the book , jeweled with lyricism but freighted with history : Climbing the slope on which the fort resided , he saw the soapy blue current of the famous straits sought out by European mariners .
Calm ocean water , sheltered from bigger , meaner seas .
Magellan and his crew navigated through this channel , their Portuguese sails @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the misty air , the captain and his sailors thinking : Is this the way , have we found it ?
Asia and spices and riches !
Magellan ’ s eyes upon the way forward , to Japan and then Africa and home to Lisbon .
And now my eyes on this same body of water , lonesome waves .
From Urbana to here .
Tobar ’ s hero is an ingenue , perched in the full glory of his American innocence on the edge of a world shaped irrevocably by successive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ America by loving middle-class parents—his father is an entomologist , his mother a bank official—in the booming middle decades of the twentieth century , Joe is driven by aspirations to be a writer .
Bored in college , restless , he decides to hitchhike across the world in a bid to find suitable material for his great American novel .
Joe ’ s journey is , for the first part of Tobar ’ s book , a freewheeling , blurry picaresque , borders and years dissolving before the young man .
Possessing no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unselfconscious imperial privilege , he sweeps through countries and continents .
Across Central and South America , to North Africa , the Middle East , and South Asia he goes , finding hospitality among elites and underclass alike , welcomed by both policemen and fellow Western bums .
His modes of transportation include trucks , buses , VW vans , trains , cruise ships , freighters , planes , helicopters , and foot .
The trips are funded by occasional returns home to the Midwest , where Joe paints flagpoles flying the Stars @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all , a patriot , someone who has done basic military training and supported the presidential bid of Richard Nixon .
When he is back on the road and cash runs short , he has his mother or brother wire him money to the U.S. Embassy next on his itinerary .
Otherwise , he shares the resources of women he meets and seduces on the way .
Occasional excerpts from Joe ’ s letters home to his mother capture both his own charm and that of the world as he perceives it , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the astonishing lists that make up chapter headings : “ Vientiane , Laos .
Bali , Indonesia .
Djibouti , Afars and Issas .
Addis Ababa .
Kigali , Rwanda .
Stanleyville , Congo .
Johannesburg .
Lagos .
Uyo , Biafra.
” It is around this time , however , that Joe ’ s vision begins to darken .
In Saigon , he sees teenage Vietcong guerrillas summarily executed after a skirmish .
In Laos , as Buddhist monks in orange robes walk the dirt and asphalt streets of the capital , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forests .
In Biafra , he encounters the devastation of famine up close .
His letters home attempt to give voice to the eerie details extracted from these journeys , the “ Yankee bombers moving back and forth overhead from runs into Vietnam and the Ho Chi Minh Trail , ” their target population consisting of “ bare-breasted women , kids with malaria , workers making 50c per day .
”

The change in focus suggests an internal shift: The places he is traveling through are no longer a backdrop. While Joe is collecting material for his unwritten novel and attempting to find a suitable voice, he is also engaged in a process that Tobar considers far more important, especially in our bewildering present moment, when writing often seems to be entirely about the privilege of self-discovery. Joe is beginning to discover not just the relationship between the world and his aesthetic impulses, but also the bloody, vital interplay between writing, politics, and the world, with the ensuing dialectic of failure and hope that forms the subject of Tobar’s own novel.
Joe Sanderson was a real person. Dropping out of college and rejecting many of the comforts of his American birthright, he was—as Tobar informs us in a preface—a vagabond drawn to those places once called the Third World, tracts of the globe trying to break the shackles imposed upon them from Magellan onward. Traveling this decolonized and decolonizing world for 20 years, Sanderson eventually died in El Salvador, leaving behind a journal that ended up in Tobar’s hands. Sanderson’s mother, Virginia Colman, preserved and cataloged the letters he had sent her from around the world, while his brother Steve assembled an archive that included boxes of unpublished novels. This was the varied matter, fictional and nonfictional, that Tobar has drawn on in his novelistic rendering of Sanderson’s life.
It’s not difficult to imagine why such material might have attracted Tobar. Based in California and the child of immigrants from Guatemala, Tobar has in his writing encompassed fiction and nonfiction as well as the United States and Central America. His brilliant first novel, The Tattooed Soldier (1998), brings together Antonio, a refugee in Los Angeles suddenly rendered homeless, with the man who murdered his wife, Elena, and two-year-old child in Guatemala. Tobar’s second novel, The Barbarian Nurseries (2011), is set in the aftermath of the financial crash of 2008 and centers around Araceli, a Mexican woman working as a maid for a well-to-do California family. His nonfiction, meanwhile, includes Translation Nation (2005), a reported account of the Latino population living in the United States, and Deep Down Dark (2014), which captures the story of 33 men trapped in a copper-gold mine in Chile for over two months.


newrepublic--2020-08-25--Republicans Invite America to Play the “Dear Leader” Lottery

David Bossie knew he ’ d fucked up as the word started to emerge from his mouth .
The 2016 Trump campaign veteran , now representing Maryland in the Republican National Convention ’ s roll call of delegate votes Monday morning , was supposed to say that the Civil War border state had been a vital conduit for runaway slaves and a home to abolitionists Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass .
That wasn ’ t what came out .
“ Maryland is home of the underground railroad , and two of our greatest segregat— ” Segregationists .
This was a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He heard himself , and he stopped , and he stammered .
He got the line right eventually , and the party rolled on .
It was a brief moment , but it was also eternal .
It was the elephant in every Republican ’ s room .
It reared up and roared even louder shortly after , during Donald Trump ’ s surprise hour-long morning speech—the first of at least four he plans to deliver at this convention , which is at least three more than any other candidate .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Barack Obama , and a man in the crowd yelled , quite audibly , that Obama was a “ MONKEY , ” to which Trump , grinning , said “ Let ’ s be nice !
” to a chorus of laughs .
Warmed by the yuks , his smile widened and he added , “ Only in North Carolina.
” Which is not , strictly speaking , true .
Though it might be slightly less false when Donald Trump is in North Carolina .
All of this had happened by 1:30 in @ @ @

Long before the main events of the prime time broadcast were being streamed out to an unsuspecting nation, the Republican convention to renominate Donald John Trump had already shown what it was going to be: the coming-out for America’s new fascist party, a nouveau-riche country-club cotillion of racial animus, leader worship, and glorification of righteous violence against domestic enemies. There were two major themes, and they were not subtle. First, white America is under attack from radical Democrats, and second, adoration—not merely reelection—of Donald Trump is the only hope.
You could have missed the morning festivities and still caught this point full in the face when the first prime time speaker strode to the dais: Talking Points USA president Charlie Kirk, whose star has risen considerably in the three years since he had to publicly, if weakly, apologize for tweeting an anti-Semitic crack at me. (Disclosure: I am not Jewish by faith.) Kirk identified himself as the leader of “the largest pro-American student organization in the country,” talked at length about the need to defend “the American way of life,” and extolled Trump as nothing less than “the bodyguard of Western civilization.”
He was immediately followed by Rebecca Friedrichs, a former California teacher turned right-wing “school choice advocate,” whose slight stature behind the dais was in inverse proportion to the full-throated fascist declaration of war between Americans that she delivered in her brief screed against teachers’ unions. “Unions are subverting our republic” was the theme and also perhaps the most pleasant line in her diatribe. “They’ve intentionally rewritten American history to perpetuate division, pervert the memories of our American founders, and disparage our Judeo-Christian virtues,” she said. “Their lenient discipline policies morphed our schools into war zones, and they back defunding police and abolishing ICE.” Trump, she insisted, was “breaking the unions’ grip on our schools. That’s why unions have tried to destroy him since the day he was elected.”


newrepublic--2020-08-27--Who Will Get Rich Off of Hurricane Laura?

Finance is functionally ambivalent about death .
Companies are obligated to return profits to their shareholders , and the presence or absence of human suffering is frequently irrelevant to that pursuit unless the intensity or scale of it starts to really turn shareholders ’ stomachs or spark boycotts that endanger the rate of return—both pretty rare .
Insurance companies defrauded homeowners to the tune of $ 240 million in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy while working as glorified contractors for the National Flood Insurance Program .
Real estate magnates get a big cut , too .
In the decade after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Arizona State University and Christopher Wyczalkowski found , hurricane damage was positively correlated with a neighborhood ’ s likelihood of gentrifying : Gentrification was more likely in parts of the city that had been hit harder , since whole blocks could be razed or rebranded , the storm having cleared out many working-class Black and brown residents who can ’ t afford to come back .
As Naomi Klein has documented , it was Mike Pence who convened a meeting at the corporate-funded Heritage Foundation in the wreckage of Hurricane Katrina , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ everything from the wholesale privatization of the New Orleans school system to turning the entire area hit by the storm into a “ flat-tax free-enterprise zone.
” Disaster capitalism thinks big , even betting on whole islands and governments : Klarman ’ s Baupost Group was until recently one of the largest holders of Puerto Rican debt , having—like many other bondholders—bought it while it was cheap thanks to painful recession and then Hurricane Maria , using a shell company called Decagon Holdings LLC .
Klarman wasn ’ t the only one out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s misfortune , either .
Wall Street banks collaborated with hedge funds and private equity to find loopholes around the island ’ s borrowing limit , extracting hefty fees and imposing punishing rates of interest on an estimated $ 74 billion worth of debt whose full value has never been properly audited .
Klarman sold off his stake in Puerto Rico ’ s debt for $ 615 million in 2019 , following student divestment campaigns targeting Baupost and other bondholders in the U.S. As Bloomberg noted then , while the exact price-to-payout @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who purchased debt around the same time made out well in the debt-restructuring deal eventually agreed to under PROMESA , the legislation that set up a bankruptcy-like process for the island and puts its finances in the hands of an unelected fiscal control board .
Seth Klarman might not be someone you ’ d want to have a beer with .
But his business model is less a product of sociopathy than structure .
Distressed asset investors are now a common feature of the global economy .
Known as “ vulture funds , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the lifecycles of sovereign governments , struggling cities , and corporations , stripping their bones for meat .
It ’ s what the legendary investor Paul Singer did in Argentina , buying up public debt at sale-bin prices as the country ’ s finances faltered .
After the government defaulted in 2001 , Singer ’ s firm , Elliott Management , spent years litigating its way to a full payout of $ 2.4 billion .
There ’ s a whole body of international law backing investors ’ rights to extract as much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Klarman and Singer are just taking advantage , though they donate generously to politicians who ’ ll keep those laws in place and expand them—a pretty bipartisan issue , historically .
Paul Singer is a megadonor to the Republican Party .
He ’ s a vocal supporter of President Trump , having warned—in line with the Republican National Convention—that “ socialism is on the march again.
” Klarman , on the other hand , has given prolifically to Democrats .
In the past year alone , he ’ s donated $ 1.5 million @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Acronym , the consultancy behind the party ’ s Iowa caucus debacle .
Klarman also gave $ 1 million to Priorities USA , $ 500,000 to the Democratic House Majority PAC , and over $ 500,000 to the Democratic National Committee , on top of contributions to a number of largely centrist Democratic congressional candidates and presidential primary candidates , including $ 8,400 to Joe Biden ’ s campaign .
Trade agreements that give investors free rein have been pushed enthusiastically by Democrats from Bill Clinton to Nancy Pelosi , and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s and Klarman ’ s possible are kept in place by laws on the books of Democratic-controlled New York state .

Finance is functionally ambivalent about death. Companies are obligated to return profits to their shareholders, and the presence or absence of human suffering is frequently irrelevant to that pursuit unless the intensity or scale of it starts to really turn shareholders’ stomachs or spark boycotts that endanger the rate of return—both pretty rare. Insurance companies defrauded homeowners to the tune of $240 million in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy while working as glorified contractors for the National Flood Insurance Program. Real estate magnates get a big cut, too. In the decade after Katrina, researchers Eric Joseph van Holm of Arizona State University and Christopher Wyczalkowski found, hurricane damage was positively correlated with a neighborhood’s likelihood of gentrifying: Gentrification was more likely in parts of the city that had been hit harder, since whole blocks could be razed or rebranded, the storm having cleared out many working-class Black and brown residents who can’t afford to come back. As Naomi Klein has documented, it was Mike Pence who convened a meeting at the corporate-funded Heritage Foundation in the wreckage of Hurricane Katrina, dreaming up a wish list that included everything from the wholesale privatization of the New Orleans school system to turning the entire area hit by the storm into a “flat-tax free-enterprise zone.”
Disaster capitalism thinks big, even betting on whole islands and governments: Klarman’s Baupost Group was until recently one of the largest holders of Puerto Rican debt, having—like many other bondholders—bought it while it was cheap thanks to painful recession and then Hurricane Maria, using a shell company called Decagon Holdings LLC. Klarman wasn’t the only one out to attempt to profit from the island’s misfortune, either. Wall Street banks collaborated with hedge funds and private equity to find loopholes around the island’s borrowing limit, extracting hefty fees and imposing punishing rates of interest on an estimated $74 billion worth of debt whose full value has never been properly audited. Klarman sold off his stake in Puerto Rico’s debt for $615 million in 2019, following student divestment campaigns targeting Baupost and other bondholders in the U.S. As Bloomberg noted then, while the exact price-to-payout ratio is hard to know, those who purchased debt around the same time made out well in the debt-restructuring deal eventually agreed to under PROMESA, the legislation that set up a bankruptcy-like process for the island and puts its finances in the hands of an unelected fiscal control board.
Seth Klarman might not be someone you’d want to have a beer with. But his business model is less a product of sociopathy than structure. Distressed asset investors are now a common feature of the global economy. Known as “vulture funds,” these financial engineers are now ubiquitous in the lifecycles of sovereign governments, struggling cities, and corporations, stripping their bones for meat. It’s what the legendary investor Paul Singer did in Argentina, buying up public debt at sale-bin prices as the country’s finances faltered. After the government defaulted in 2001, Singer’s firm, Elliott Management, spent years litigating its way to a full payout of $2.4 billion.


newrepublic--2020-08-27--Biden’s Distracting Parade of Celebrity Boomers

With the tiresome necessity of political convention season concluding , we now enter the homestretch of a long two years of presidential campaigning .
Here , we will see exactly how Joe Biden plans to argue his case .
According to an Associated Press story on Wednesday , it will involve plenty of celebrities .
Biden ’ s superstar backers are “ flooding the zone as much as possible , ” in the words of Michelle Kwan , the Olympic figure skater and a seasoned Democratic celebrity surrogate .
It is hard not to get chills hearing about Biden ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ given how the same sort of strategic deployment turned out for Hillary Clinton .
But so far , Biden is taking a slightly different approach .
His gang is a little more … distinguished .
Experienced .
Seasoned .
We ’ re talking Carole King , James Taylor , David Crosby , Barbara Streisand , Sheryl Crow—singers of the same vintage or earlier as the musicians Homer Simpson got roasted by his kids for liking in the “ Homerpalooza ” episode .
Which aired in 1996 .
Perhaps Biden ’ s Boomer Bench @ @ @ @ @ @ @ approach Clinton took four years ago , which dutifully trotted out huge millennial stars like Taylor Swift and Katy Perry , as if to say : This is the shit you idiot kids like , right ?
Her campaign also engaged in more niche , targeted pandering to young and trendy , more media-savvy audiences , like writing a post for the now-defunct website The Toast and appearing on Broad City .
It is a little harder to imagine Joe Biden showing up on a Twitch stream or appearing on the Office Ladies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of time .
After all , he does have Diplo in his corner .
There are advantages to getting celebrities involved in your campaign .
For a start , they are super rich .
Secondly , their friends tend to be similarly wealthy .
And maybe there ’ s a third advantage , who knows ?
Focus on the first two .
In one revealing story , The Financial Times noted in May that wealthy participants in virtual fundraisers expect a “ rain check ” on the “ perks ” that they would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as getting face time with the candidate .
This is the avenue of influence that causes campaign finance reform advocates to warn about these events .
It ’ s definitely a more acute concern when it ’ s a lobbyist paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to whisper in the candidate ’ s ear , of course , but it ’ s not like these multimillionaire celebrities have no interests of their own .
Still , the Biden campaign ’ s strategy of “ flooding the zone ” with celebrities may have more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , less famous wealthy donors than with attracting donations from the celebs themselves .
A Biden campaign official told The Financial Times that they were “ preparing to test new fundraising measures , such as deploying more celebrity surrogates , ” to make up the gap with Trump ’ s more robust fundraising .
Those less well-known but critical donors—your Average Joe Millionaire—might need an added inducement to shell out if they aren ’ t going to get to chat to Biden himself .
The chance to speak with pop-cultural royalty about politics @ @ @ @ @ @ @ part of The Biden Experience .

Celebrities have stumped for Democratic presidential candidates for years, but the genuine love celebrities and musicians had for Obama, who was also perhaps the only president we’ve ever had to come close to being “cool,” greatly accelerated this dynamic. It’s almost easy to forget that Obama was once an outsider candidate, challenging the Clinton status quo, and that—combined with the obvious fact that he stood to break the centuries-long cycle of white presidents—allowed him to accrue no small amount of street cred with hip backers. Obama used indie sad-dad rockers The National’s song “Fake Empire” (which actually doesn’t hold a very positive message about America) in an ad during his primary campaign, and the band played a benefit show in their home state of Ohio for him. This was all very trendy stuff, in 2008. The excitement about Obama was inextricably wrapped up in celebrity, both his own and that of his famous supporters.
Now the same celebs who loved Cool Obama are on the hook for Old Joe. At least one celebrity endorser even explicitly mentioned Obama when endorsing Biden. In an updated version of “Lookin’ for a Leader,” Neil Young sang last month: “Yeah, we had Barack Obama, and we really need him now. The man who stood behind him has to take his place somehow.” Talk about damning with faint praise. But if Obama made it a trend, now it’s mandatory.
One unspoken benefit of celebrity surrogates: It means Joe Biden doesn’t have to do all the campaigning himself, or more specifically, that he doesn’t have to talk so much, thus defusing some of his well-known gaffe risk. Biden reiterated last week that he doesn’t intend to resume active, in-person campaigning, telling Reuters that he and his running mate, Kamala Harris, were “going to follow the science, what the scientists tell us” and that the campaign “will win” despite the candidate choosing to sequester himself at his Delaware home.