newrepublic--2020-08-07--Don’t Blame Never Trumpers for the Left’s Defeat

The failure of Bernie Sanders to take control of the Democratic Party in the 2020 primaries was understandably traumatic for the American left .
Having rapidly ascended from seeming irrelevance to surging media attention and organizing in just a few years , many democratic socialists convinced themselves that their moment had come .
Sanders ’ s loss to—of all people—Joe Biden , therefore , came as a kind of cosmic joke .
How could it possibly be that a near-octogenarian , whose greatest legislative achievements were pro-creditor bankruptcy reform and the 1994 crime bill , would defeat the left ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ course .
If you ’ re looking for the person who stopped the Democratic Party ’ s movement to the left in 2020 , that man is Congressman Jim Clyburn .
It was South Carolina , under Clyburn ’ s leadership , that turned the tide , and it was the stubborn support of Biden by the older , more Southern , more church-going parts of the African American community that denied Sanders the nomination .
But for the democratic socialists working to make sense of Sanders ’ s loss , there must @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Yale professor Samuel Moyn , in his recent review in The New Republic of our book Never Trump , thinks he has found one : Republican opponents of Donald Trump .
Moyn writes that “ Sanders ’ s decline had many causes , including his own mistakes , but it definitely mattered that the Never Trump script as mirror image of Trump , and as equally perilous for ‘ democracy ’ —and that many a liberal embraced this idea.
” Yet he provides little actual evidence that the Never Trumpers “ mattered ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ influence .
A few talking heads on cable TV seems like a strange explanation for the behavior of largely African American voters in Greenville and Beaufort , which , given the rhythm of the primary , is the thing to be explained .
The Never Trumpers may make an appealing scapegoat for the left , but the far more obvious explanation for Sanders ’ s loss is the simple fact that the Democratic Party is just not composed of enough voters ( including , but not limited to , African Americans ) willing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , at least in larger turnout elections .
Moyn ’ s essential claim is that we served as easily duped mouthpieces for the Never Trumpers .
“ Saldin and Teles take a cozy approach to their study of this movement and its central characters , faithfully drawing on their accounts of the rise of Trump.
” What Moyn characterized as “ coziness , ” we think of as a rigorous , scholarly effort to try to convey the—inevitably partial—perspective of our sources .
We believe that the Never Trumpers can not be understood @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they were affiliated .
Moyn made only a passing reference to the central conceptual move in the book , which is to understand the Never Trumpers as providers of professional services to the Republican Party .
The Never Trumpers we devote our attention to were the kinds of people who provide policy expertise and key staff posts in GOP administrations , the political pros who run campaigns , and the public intellectuals who provide ideas and guard the intellectual boundaries of conservatism .
Each of these professional networks has its own unique story @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Had we simply engaged in some armchair theorizing without actually delving into these networks , we would never have been able to grasp many of the key factors that caused lifelong conservatives to oppose a nominee of their own party .

Across these various professional networks, a unifying theme emerged—both in our interviews as well as in the contemporaneous materials we drew on, most notably a private email chain of national security experts discussing a group statement denouncing Trump. His Republican opponents have consistently told us—and told themselves—that Trump is unacceptable because he is erratic, psychologically unstable, ignorant, demagogic, dishonorable, and possessed of a disturbing sympathy for the nation’s adversaries. Ideology and policy played a lesser role than did character. Their obsessive focus on character may, in fact, be a fatal flaw in the Never Trumpers, causing them to devote inordinate time to the president’s manifest defects rather than developing alternative ideas and policies for a non-Trumpy faction within the Republican party. Ironically, Moyn argues that “it’s difficult to believe that Trump’s character foibles and edgy nativism are supposed to explain the [Never Trumpers’] hatred for him” when it is precisely the fact that they (with a few notable exceptions, such as David Frum, Yuval Levin, and our compatriots at the Niskanen Center) are so focused on those “foibles” that they’ve failed to productively engage in the ideological warfare that Moyn seems to believe fundamentally motivates them.
Given that perhaps excessive focus on Trump (and his apologists), it is puzzling that Moyn takes us to task for failing to lay bare “all the Never Trump work that has gone into helping centrist liberals win their struggle against the left in the Democratic Party, a form of power even if they never get their party back.” To this claim we can only say that we sincerely wish that Never Trumpers had done such consequential work. Unfortunately, they have not been nearly as engaged in the actual contest for control of either party as we wish they had been. Most of their energy has been focused on cross-partisan efforts to defend democratic institutions and defeat Trump in the 2020 election, rather than on building the moderate wing of the Democratic Party or an organized faction within the GOP with the power to check Trump’s (presumably) more competent successors.
There is no question that many Never Trumpers have much to answer for in their pre-2016 careers, and we have significant criticisms of how they have devoted their energies since the election. But we also believe that both scholars and political activists are more effective when they strive to imagine what the world looks like to those in situations quite different from their own, rather than projecting motivations onto them from afar. Real, flawed, flesh-and-blood people with diverse circumstances and histories, seeking to find direction in radically unfamiliar circumstances are, we think, far more interesting and more surprising than straw men.


newrepublic--2020-08-10--The Unequal Future of Consumption

The Unequal Future of Consumption

Then there are the doomsayers .
To them , the world was already on a cliff edge in 2019 .
Globalization had been in retreat , productivity stagnant , and spending squeezed .
The lessons of the 2008 financial crisis had not been learned .
The coronavirus , in this view , is now pushing us over the edge , into a downward spiral of recession , mass unemployment , collapsing demand , poverty , conflict , and war .
Finally , there are the alternative optimists .
To them , the crisis will pull down consumer capitalism but , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a nirvana of greater self-sufficiency , environmental stewardship , and social justice .
Finally , the air is clean and the birds are singing .
Lockdown , in this view , is shaking people out of their materialist slumber , exposing all the “ false needs ” they had been brainwashed into , and teaching them to focus on their “ real ” needs instead : health , family and friendship , and baking bread .
This view , it is worth noting , is not limited to environmentalists , critics of neoliberalism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It is shared by some retail analysts .
“ If I sat here for the last three months , ” one British consultant said , “ and I haven ’ t bought a new pair of shoes or a handbag , maybe it wasn ’ t as important as I thought it was ?
” What is clear is that we are dealing with an unprecedented crisis .
At the time of writing , almost all rich societies have had a taste of lockdown .
In addition to the initial countermeasures taken to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ flatten the pandemic ’ s curve of lethal exposure , there will be a second and , perhaps , third wave of the virus to worry about .
People have flocked to parks and beaches and joined protest marches .
Still , all countries that have come out of lockdown continue to have various restrictions in place , from limiting numbers in bars and entertainment venues to the prohibition of group sport and leisure .
Scientists have warned that some physical distancing measures may need to remain in effect until 2022 .
Even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shops and restaurants to stay open in spring , have not been able to escape commercial meltdown .
Fewer people eat out in South Korea today than last year , and a sudden rise in the number of infections prompted a shutdown of bars in early May .
Shopping malls in Stockholm are half empty ; H & M sales fell by half in Denmark and Finland , but even in Sweden , without a lockdown , they dropped by a third .
Wherever we look , figures and forecasts are getting more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first quarter of 2020 , the U.S. economy shrank by 4.8 percent , and 30 million filed for unemployment benefits between mid-March and early May .
Spain is suffering the biggest recession since the Civil War ( 1936–39 ) .
Germany and Switzerland predict a 6 to 7 percent drop in GDP for the year .
When I started this article in the middle of April , British forecasts were for a 6 percent drop in GDP .
In early May , the Bank of England published its scenario that put it at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worst recession the nation of shopkeepers has suffered for three centuries ; by comparison , in the 2009 financial crisis , the British economy contracted by 4 percent .
In Britain , a quarter of the workforce has been laid off ; one million people applied for social benefits ( Universal Credit ) in the last two weeks of March alone .
American and British estimates predict that consumption will drop by 15 percent this year , and some analysts think even that might be optimistic .
What makes the coronavirus so disruptive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ take a few thousand dollars out of the pocket of the average customer this year ; rather , it ’ s shaking the foundations on which modern consumer culture has been built over the last 500 years .
The imperial trade in exotic goods , the lure of novelty and fashion , the expansion of comfort and convenience , and our accumulation and ever-faster replacement of possessions have been the result of a dynamic exchange between the local and global , the home and the city , public and private .
Bright , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from China ; sugar , coffee , and cocoa from the Caribbean and Latin America ; curtains and carpets , the tea party and coffeehouses , urban arcades , pleasure gardens , cinemas , and department stores—all of these depended on the joint movement of goods , people , and tastes .
The Bon Marché , Selfridges , and other department stores around 1900 were not entirely revolutionary , but one practice they introduced proved critical to the later consolidation of a culture of consumption : the simple act of letting customers touch @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ocean liners—and that is , of course , precisely why some have remained closed and , in several cases , will stay closed forever .
The virus has effectively stopped several pistons of consumer economy at once .
Tourism and mobility , restaurants and retail , live entertainment and sports : Each of these is a big sector in its own right , but together they are enormous .
In the United States , 6 percent of total consumer spending is on restaurants and hotels alone , and another 4 percent goes to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Spain each make about 14 percent of their GDP from tourism , Greece as much as 20 percent .
Retail experts forecast that 20,600 British stores ( with a quarter of a million jobs ) will have closed their doors by Christmas .
Germany has some 70,000 hotels and restaurants .
How many of these will survive the crisis ?
In Germany , some theaters are reopening , but with only half the seats .
Sporting events are gradually resuming , but behind closed doors .
Broadway is not expected to reopen until @ @ @ @ @ @ @ damaging is its synchronized effect on activities that mutually depend on mobility and proximity .
Fewer tourists and business travelers translate into fewer hotel and restaurant guests and fewer visitors to shops , special exhibitions , concert halls , and musicals .
Take the cruise , for example .
Cruises took off 30 years ago .
Last year , 30 million passengers sailed the seas .
They generated $ 68 billion in direct expenditure where they docked—spending on excursions , trinkets , and shopping , along with all the food and drink and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mediterranean and Baltic routes are now almost as popular as the Caribbean .
Half a million passengers embarked last year in the Finnish capital of Helsinki , which has just over one million inhabitants .
The MSC Meraviglia alone carries 4,500 passengers to Norway .
You can argue whether the 15-deck , 315-meter–long behemoth deserves its name ( “ Wonder ” ) , and cruises and airplanes carrying package tourists are big polluters .
Still , the spectacular new music halls , arts festivals , and restaurants that have regenerated many Nordic cities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ think about the future of demand , though , we need to ask about its quality as well as quantity .
What is all the demand made up of that we are so worried about ?
And how is life during and after lockdown changing the activities that result in demand ?
These may appear straightforward questions , but they are ones that economists and policymakers have been finding very hard to get their heads around .
Many simply assume that we will “ rebound ” and gradually resume our lives more or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the experience of isolation and ongoing distancing will not change how we consume ( and what we “ demand ” ) at all .
At most , they assume that it will take a few months for people to flock back to restaurants .
This is an extremely narrow view of consumers and how they lead their daily lives : All eyes are on the money in people ’ s pockets and how much makes it into the cash register .
But consumption is not simply a reflection of how much money there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ know why people turn to certain goods and services in the first place .
And disruption changes that .

When we talk of the “new normal,” it is easy to forget that the “old normal” was once new. The notions that each person should have their own home, eat out, fly to Ibiza, exercise, take at least one hot shower a day, and change their clothes constantly—these are not inborn human rights, and were indeed regarded as exceptional before they established themselves as normal. The history of consumer culture since 1500 is a succession of many such new normals. They come and go, but they are never simply the result of changes in getting and spending. They have been aided and steered by politics and power.
Our taste for sugar and coffee, for example, would have been inconceivable without the brutal intervention of empires, slavery, and plantations. Likewise, the fact that the majority of people in the rich world right now live in their own home, have mortgages, and look at their electrical gadgets or a loaf of bread baking in their oven would be impossible to explain without reference to public policy support for homeownership, the purchase of the first refrigerators, and investment in infrastructures. The mass diffusion of TV sets, private cars, and modern bathrooms since the 1950s was not just a clever plot by Madison Avenue; it was made possible in part by the rise of welfare and unemployment benefits, public pensions, and public housing. Via such critical subsidies, the postwar state helped ordinary and vulnerable people to get a foot on the ladder of consumer society.
Our own still-evolving new normal will similarly depend on what kind of lifestyle our states, cities, and we as citizens want to promote in the new age of distance consumerism. Do we want a “rebound” or a new direction? Are we going to invest in new runways or in bike lanes; make balconies and allotments part of new housing standards or leave such questions to be answered by the market? Will we subsidize drive-in opera or local music schools? Can we provide communal sports grounds with body temperature monitors or reserve those for the professionals? Do we plan to give people the right to roam across fields and beaches as long as they keep their distance, and will we continue to protect second-home owners’ right to exclusive privacy? We are looking at a long list of possibilities that cry out for public debate, political vision, and leadership.
Unfortunately, we have seen very little of it so far. From Manhattan to Milan, mayors have made a pitch for more walking and cycling. National governments, by contrast, have mainly distinguished themselves by silence or by competing with one another about who can get their citizens back to shops and beaches as soon as possible. A charitable explanation for this uneasy stasis would be to say that, of course, governments have been under unprecedented pressure and had to focus on the immediate public health crisis. How could one expect them to lay out visions of the future when tens of thousands of their citizens are dying? Fair enough. But hidden in the forecasts and the way governments have been looking at the future after lockdown, we can also see certain protocols of thought that are instinctively favoring certain ideas of normality and editing out alternative futures.


newrepublic--2020-08-10--Tom DeLonge’s Warped UFO Tour

Tom DeLonge’s Warped UFO Tour

Luis Elizondo wanted me to believe .
I ’ d spent the past few hours nursing Diet Cokes at the Chart House bar north of San Diego while Elizondo , a retired Army counterintelligence special agent and former head of the Pentagon ’ s UFO program , drank beers and told me war stories .
It had been about half a year since Elizondo went on CNN in primetime and declared : “ There is very compelling evidence that we ” —meaning sentient earthlings— “ may not be alone.
” In that appearance , as he spoke to anchor Erin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ looped videos from two Navy F/A-18 fighter jets ’ infrared cameras , tracking an “ unidentified aerial phenomenon ” –typical , Elizondo said , of the craft studied by the military ’ s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program , “ things that don ’ t have any obvious flight surfaces and obvious means of propulsion … seemingly defying the laws of aerodynamics.
” The video was already more than a decade old when it had come to light that week in a New York Times story , but in a golden age of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a string of revelations about the United States government ’ s possible evidence that our planet has been visited by beings from elsewhere in the universe .
The following year , 2018 , another Navy UFO video came to light , spurring Christopher Mellon—a former high-ranking Pentagon official in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations as well as an heir to that Mellon fortune—to call for more U.S. government research and transparency around UFO encounters and their “ national security implications.
” ( Close encounters persisted in the military , Mellon insisted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ‘ the alien guy ’ in the national security bureaucracy ; nobody wants to be ridiculed or sidelined for drawing attention to the issue.
” ) By 2019— “ one of the biggest years ” for aliens “ in our modern era , ” according to New York magazine—UFO sightings in North America were estimated to have doubled over the previous year to nearly 6,000 .
The national coverage of alien speculation culminated in last September ’ s viral ( and unsuccessful ) “ Storm Area 51 , They Can ’ t Stop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the U.S. government ’ s secret desert testing site , where believers say the feds stash their evidence of little green men and flying saucers .
By the time the coronavirus racked the country this spring , Congress began demanding information on what the bureaucracy knows about extraterrestrial life and technology .
Florida Senator Marco Rubio told The New York Times he needed to be sure the Navy videos didn ’ t show some superior Russian or Chinese technology ; retired Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid , whose native Nevada includes Area 51 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reports “ that there were actual [ alien UFO ] materials that the government and the private sector had in their possession.
” Behind all these revelations , all of this renewed popular interest and government declassification , there was one primary mover : To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science , a for-profit company advised by Mellon , employing Elizondo , and run by co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Tom DeLonge , who was better known as the lead singer of the pop-punk band Blink-182 until the group ’ s conscious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ always been interested in UFOs , and I had an appointment the following day to meet with DeLonge and Steve Justice , To The Stars ’ s new chief operating officer , who ’ d spent three decades running research into advanced aeronautical systems at Lockheed Martin ’ s notoriously secretive Skunk Works .
But first , I ’ d connected with Elizondo through a mutual friend , hoping to loosen his tongue with drink .
“ Lue , ” as his friends called him , acted like we ’ d known each @ @ @ @ @ @ @ officer trick , no doubt .
At the bar , he ’ d shown me documents on his tablet and told me stories about senior Pentagon officials that sounded … well , here , you decide .

Luis Elizondo wanted me to believe. I’d spent the past few hours pounding Diet Cokes at the Chart House bar north of San Diego while Elizondo, a retired Army counterintelligence special agent and former head of the Pentagon’s UFO program, drank beers and told me war stories. It had been about half a year since Elizondo went on CNN in primetime and declared: “There is very compelling evidence that we”—meaning sentient earthlings—“may not be alone.” In that appearance, as he spoke to anchor Erin Burnett, his face floated beside grainy looped videos from two Navy F/A-18 fighter jets’ infrared cameras, tracking an “unidentified aerial phenomenon”–typical, Elizondo said, of the craft studied by the military’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, “things that don’t have any obvious flight surfaces and obvious means of propulsion … seemingly defying the laws of aerodynamics.”
The video was already more than a decade old when it had come to light that week in a New York Times story, but in a golden age of magical and conspiratorial thinking, it spurred a string of revelations about the United States government’s possible evidence that our planet has been visited by beings from elsewhere in the universe. The following year, 2018, another Navy UFO video came to light, spurring Christopher Mellon—a former high-ranking Pentagon official in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations as well as an heir to that Mellon fortune—to call for more U.S. government research and transparency around UFO encounters and their “national security implications.” (Close encounters persisted in the military, Mellon insisted, “but nobody wants to be ‘the alien guy’ in the national security bureaucracy; nobody wants to be ridiculed or sidelined for drawing attention to the issue.”)


newrepublic--2020-08-10--The Unfinished Business of Women’s Suffrage

One hundred years on from “ woman suffrage , ” and women in the United States are still denied the right to vote , whether through outright disenfranchisement for past involvement with the criminal legal system , voter intimidation , bogus claims of “ voter fraud , ” or the realization—perhaps logical—that there isn ’ t much worth voting for in a political system that has so often failed and excluded them .
The Nineteenth Amendment , under which no state may abridge or deny the right to vote based on sex , was ratified one hundred years ago this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out of the franchise are the fractured legacy of a fractured movement .
On August 18 , 1920 , the Nineteenth Amendment was officially ratified—and it ’ s this date that has become its centenary .
This year on August 18 , a federal appeals court will hear the case of Rosemary McCoy and Sheila Singleton , two Black women in Florida whose right to vote in the November election hangs in the balance .
All but two states currently deny people convicted of felony offenses their rights to vote—some can regain them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ parole and probation , and some are barred from voting for the rest of their lives .
It is hard to say precisely how many women are currently denied the vote due to felony disenfranchisement .
Nationwide , according to a 2016 report by the Sentencing Project , 6.1 million people ( of all genders ) face felony disenfranchisement .
And while more recent figures are not available for women , in 2000 , they estimated more than 676,000 women had lost their voting rights under such laws .
Over the last four @ @ @ @ @ @ @ women in federal prison , state prison , or jail has increased by 750 percent—from 26,378 in 1980 to 225,060 in 2017 .
If you add women on parole or under probation , that number goes up to 1.3 million .
All this likely makes women with felony convictions the fastest growing group of United States citizens to be denied their right to vote .
McCoy and Singleton were first stripped of their right to vote due to felony disenfranchisement laws , which date back to the days of the women ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a felony offense in 2011 and completed her six-month sentence and probation in 2014 ; McCoy was convicted of three felony offenses and given a two-year sentence with eighteen months probation in 2015 , which she completed in 2017 .
They were supposed to regain their right to vote after completion of their sentences .
But now the state of Florida wants to make regaining that right virtually impossible , especially for low-income Black women .
“ My family , I have generations going down—many of them died—they went through a lot for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” Singleton said .
“ And for us to still be fighting ?
” More than 150 years ago , Frances Ellen Watkins Harper appealed to white women in the suffrage movement , as historian Martha S. Jones recounts her struggle in her forthcoming book , Vanguard : How Black Women Broke Barriers , Won the Vote , and Insisted on Equality for All .
Harper sought to unify them beyond securing their own right to vote—which meant to fight for Black women .
At the time , the predominantly white suffrage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who should get the vote first : Black men , or ( white ) women ?
But some formed a coalition to demand universal suffrage , not limited by race or sex or class .
As Harper would argue in support of such efforts , “ We are all bound up together in one great bundle of humanity.
” At the same time , “ Harper doubted that white American women would join her in this movement , ” writes Jones , and when these coalitions collapsed , Black women went on to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the vote on more expansive terms .
Suffrage alone would not be enough .
Their movement would span multiple terrains , long past 1920 .
“ The Nineteenth Amendment cracked open a door , ” Jones writes .
But on the other side was the intimidation and violence the men in their lives already faced at the ballot box , and with the passage of women ’ s suffrage , “ now beset Black women ’ s lives .
”

One hundred years on from “woman suffrage,” and women in the United States are still denied the right to vote, whether through outright disenfranchisement for past involvement with the criminal legal system, voter intimidation, bogus claims of “voter fraud,” or the realization—perhaps logical—that there isn’t much worth voting for in a political system that has so often failed and excluded them. The Nineteenth Amendment, under which no state may abridge or deny the right to vote based on sex, was ratified one hundred years ago this August. The women who remain locked out of the franchise are the fractured legacy of a fractured movement.
On August 18, 1920, Tennessee became the last state needed to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment—and it’s this year that has become its centenary. This year on August 18, a federal appeals court will hear the case of Rosemary McCoy and Sheila Singleton, two Black women in Florida whose right to vote in the November election hangs in the balance.
All but two states currently deny people convicted of felony offenses their rights to vote—some can regain them upon release, some only after completing parole and probation, and some are barred from voting for the rest of their lives. It is hard to say precisely how many women are currently denied the vote due to felony disenfranchisement. Nationwide, according to a 2016 report by the Sentencing Project, 6.1 million people (of all genders) face felony disenfranchisement. And while more recent figures are not available for women, in 2000, they estimated more than 676,000 women had lost their voting rights under such laws. Over the last four decades, however, the number of women in federal prison, state prison, or jail has increased by 750 percent—from 26,378 in 1980 to 225,060 in 2017. If you add women on parole or under probation, that number goes up to 1.3 million.


newrepublic--2020-08-10--The Christian Devotion to a White America

Latter-day scholars and polemicists will never resolve the question of whether the continuation of slavery was a price too high to establish the United States as an independent nation under the Constitution .
Similarly , no one can offer any definitive assessment of whether the deadliest war in American history in terms of total battlefield deaths by Americans ( North and South ) was necessary to end slavery definitively .
The treatment of the former slaves and their descendants , both during Reconstruction and down to the present day , will likewise forever be questioned and debated .
But some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in shaping current political debates are particularly salient .
One is the responsibility of Christianity in the establishment and perpetuation of slavery as well as its role in present-day support for white supremacy and discrimination against racial minorities .
This is the subject of a new book White Too Long by Robert P. Jones , founder of the Public Religion Research Institute .
The undeniable fact is that there are many passages in the Bible that support slavery in both the old and new testaments .
They were frequently invoked by defenders of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Senator Davis said of slavery during the same speech : “ It was established by decree of Almighty God … it is sanctioned in the Bible , in both Testaments , from Genesis to Revelations [ sic ] .
” James H. Hammond , who served as representative , governor , and senator from South Carolina , was even more adamant , arguing that the Bible demanded the existence of slavery ( emphasis in original ) : It is impossible , therefore , to suppose that slavery is contrary to the Will of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as the definition of our slavery , and its precepts as the guide of our conduct… .
I think , then , I may safely conclude , and I firmly believe , that American slavery is not only not a sin , but specially commanded by God through Moses , and approved by Christ through His Apostles .
Of course , the abolitionists responded with biblical arguments of their own for why slavery was abhorrent .
Although they essentially won the debate by default when the Union was victorious in the Civil War @ @ @ @ @ @ @ toward slavery lives on today in the form of evangelicalism , biblical literalism , and Christian fundamentalism .
In debates with abolitionists , defenders of slavery found it necessary to take the Bible literally in order to get maximum value from its many pro-slavery passages .
In this way , they could ignore the general thrust of Christ ’ s teachings to love our fellow man .
Defenders of slavery also found it expedient to support an originalist interpretation of the Constitution because of its implicit support for slavery .
Thus , religious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that was the hallmark of the southern zeitgeist .
The historian Clement Eaton put it in The Growth of Southern Civilization : Equally troubling is another article of faith among Southern slave-holding Christians : the notion that racial discrimination is justified by Christianity .
This belief derives in part from a passage of the Bible in the Book of Genesis where Noah ’ s son Ham sees his father ’ s nakedness and is cursed for it , causing him and his descendants to be marked .
Many segregation-minded biblical literalists continue to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by this mark and thus carries Noah ’ s curse , or the curse of Ham , for all time .
Many also believe that Jesus was white , contrary to all historical evidence .
The utterly nonsensical theory that black people are born cursed by God because of some trivial event millennia ago could easily be dismissed—except that there is much evidence that many Christian fundamentalists accept it , at least implicitly .
It was also part of the official doctrine of the Mormon Church throughout most of its history before its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strands of Christian theology vitally underpin the defense of white supremacy today :

Latter-day scholars and polemicists will never resolve the question of whether the continuation of slavery was a price too high to establish the United States as an independent nation under the Constitution. Similarly, no one can offer any definitive assessment of whether the deadliest war in American history in terms of total battlefield deaths by Americans (North and South) was necessary to end slavery definitively. The treatment of the former slaves and their descendants, both during Reconstruction and down to the present day, will likewise forever be questioned and debated.
But some key points about the legacies of slavery in shaping current political debates are particularly salient. One is the responsibility of Christianity in the establishment and perpetuation of slavery as well as its role in present-day support for white supremacy and discrimination against racial minorities. This is the subject of a new book White Too Long by Robert P. Jones, founder of the Public Religion Research Institute.
The undeniable fact is that there are many passages in the Bible that support slavery in both the old and new testaments. They were frequently invoked by defenders of slavery to justify that peculiar institution. Senator Davis said of slavery during the same speech: “It was established by decree of Almighty God … it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelations [sic].”


newrepublic--2020-08-10--Alexander Lukashenko’s Belarusian Dictatorship Is Going Down in Flames

Belarus remains in a holding pattern .
The prevailing social contract , in which Lukashenko retains power in return for economic and socio-political stability , is clearly fractured , perhaps beyond repair .
What comes next is anyone ’ s guess .
Lukashenko might cede ground , as we saw in Armenia in 2018 , allowing a new generation to rise .
He could attempt to cling to power in a manner similar to Ukraine in 2014 , in which an aging and rattled despot loses grip while the country devolves into violence and successful overthrow , with a nearby @ @ @ @ @ @ @ invade .
Or he could go a separate , more horrific route and begin gunning down protesters à la Uzbekistan circa 2005–a solution at which Lukashenko has already terrifyingly hinted .
Whatever comes next in Belarus , Lukashenko ’ s illiberal gyrations highlight the parameters of modern dictatorship and the depths to which despotic figures will sink in order to retain power .
Lukashenko ’ s ludicrous claim that he won more than three-quarters of Belarusians ’ votes illuminates how , and why , modern dictators routinely inflate returns to ridiculous sums .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ signal strength to wobbling elites , as well as potential external actors ( like Russia ) eyeing potential territorial gains , but it further illustrates that the regime can blatantly implement fraud and pay no consequences .
However , it ’ s also a means of signaling–as with all of the widespread voter suppression , voter intimidation , and vote manipulation–to the opposition that they remain beaten , battered , and beleaguered .
More broadly , Lukashenko ’ s efforts highlight just how much his brand of dictatorial misrule has infected regimes both @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s no longer quite fair to describe Lukashenko as the “ last dictator of Europe.
” Vladimir Putin in Russia and Ilham Aliyev in Azerbaijan help round out Europe ’ s dictatorial claque , with Hungary ’ s Victor Orban eyeing potential entry into their ranks .
For every successful European anti-authoritarian revolution–in Ukraine , in Georgia–a regime elsewhere picked up the slack , carrying the dark torch of dictatorship well into the twenty-first century .
Nor , of course , is this by any means limited to Europe .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ November election–and continues to be steered by a president without precedent .
Donald Trump , as we ’ ve all seen over the past few years , shares all of the leanings of Lukashenko ’ s autocratic cohort , even if he hasn ’ t yet been able to use all of the tools Lukashenko has at his disposal .
Just look at all of the historic firsts Trump has racked up in his brief presidency .
Trump is the first American president to call to delay the presidential election , despite the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of making such a move .
He ’ s the first American president to ever threaten not to recognize election results and to claim that the presidential election will be “ rigged.
” He ’ s the first American president to solicit offers of foreign aid in an election and to accept it when it comes .
He ’ s the first American president to strong-arm a foreign government for “ dirt ” on a political rival–landing him as the first American president to be impeached on national security grounds–and the first to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” He is the closest American approximation to that species of authoritarian ruler and despotic demagogue the post-Soviet space knows so well .
This may well be why the U.S. took so long to issue a statement on Belarus ’ s sham election or on the security service violence we ’ ve already seen .
Trump is someone Lukashenko would implicitly recognize as being cut from the same cloth .
One would be hard-pressed to disagree with such observations .
When Lukashenko first rose to power in 1994 , the budding autocrat was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , an empty suit , a pig farmer , who few in Minsk ’ s political ranks took seriously .
“ Others waited in the wings , confident they could manipulate Lukashenko in their own interests , or steer their own craft in his wake , ” Andrew Wilson wrote in Belarus , his seminal book on the country .
“ Politics was divided between those who were traumatized by the rise of the pig farmer and those who failed to take him seriously.
” Those pushing Lukashenko to power were all “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one of Lukashenko ’ s early media advisers , remembered , simply looking to “ destroy the old machine of executive power and take power in their own hands.
” In that sense , they got their wish .
But Lukashenko quickly discovered he had a taste for power , which he ’ s attempted to sate for almost all of Belarus ’ s post-Soviet history .
It “ was clear that [ he ] thirsted for power , ” Feduta would later write , “ like a 16-year-old youth wants intimacy with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fiber of his spirit , every cell of his organism , desired power as such .
”

Belarus remains in a holding pattern. The prevailing social contract, in which Lukashenko retains power in return for economic and socio-political stability, is clearly fractured, perhaps beyond repair. What comes next is anyone’s guess. Lukashenko might cede ground, as we saw in Armenia in 2018, allowing a new generation to rise. He could attempt to cling to power in a manner similar to Ukraine in 2014, in which an aging and rattled despot loses grip while the country devolves into violence and successful overthrow, with a nearby Russia pawing and probing for ways to invade. Or he could go a separate, more horrific route and begin gunning down protesters à la Uzbekistan circa 2005–a solution at which Lukashenko has already terrifyingly hinted.
Whatever comes next in Belarus, Lukashenko’s illiberal gyrations highlight the parameters of modern dictatorship and the depths to which despotic figures will sink in order to retain power. Lukashenko’s ludicrous claim that he won more than three-quarters of Belarusians’ votes illuminates how, and why, modern dictators routinely inflate returns to ridiculous sums. Not only does it allow them to signal strength to wobbling elites, as well as potential external actors (like Russia) eyeing potential territorial gains, but it further illustrates that the regime can blatantly implement fraud and pay no consequences. However, it’s also a means of signaling–as with all of the widespread voter suppression, voter intimidation, and vote manipulation–to the opposition that they remain beaten, battered, and beleaguered.
More broadly, Lukashenko’s efforts highlight just how much his brand of dictatorial misrule has infected regimes both near and far. After all, it’s no longer quite fair to describe Lukashenko as the “last dictator of Europe.” Vladimir Putin in Russia and Ilham Aliyev in Azerbaijan help round out Europe’s dictatorial claque, with Hungary’s Victor Orban eyeing potential entry into their ranks. For every successful European anti-authoritarian revolution–in Ukraine, in Georgia–a regime elsewhere picked up the slack, carrying the dark torch of dictatorship well into the twenty-first century.


newrepublic--2020-08-10--Kick Kelly Loeffler Out of the WNBA

Kick Kelly Loeffler Out of the WNBA

This line , that Black voices speaking against systemic forms of racism are the product of the communist agenda , is an argument with a distinct connotation .
It ’ s a line that was ridden into the dirt by segregationists during the civil rights era .
In 1956 , Mississippi convened a State Sovereignty Commission to oppose integration and educate the public on the “ evils of communism , ” then kept it alive in the subsequent decades to denigrate the movement ’ s work .
In 1983 , North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms railed against the “ action-oriented @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jr. as he argued against a national holiday in King ’ s remembrance .
Loeffler ’ s comments forced the Dream players to respond in kind .
Last week the team , along with the Phoenix Mercury , wore warm-up shirts that read “ Vote Warnock , ” encouraging Georgia voters to vote for Raphael Warnock , a Democratic candidate who is running against Loeffler for Senate in November ’ s special election .
Speaking with The New York Times , forward Elizabeth Williams addressed the spot that Loeffler had put herself in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she wants the league to push her out , ” Williams said .
“ She wants that to be part of this statement that she ’ s making that , ‘ Oh , Black Lives Matter is divisive .
They pushed me out because they feel differently , blah blah blah.
’ ” Williams noted that by ignoring Loeffler and instead advocating for an opposing candidate , the players are trying to avoid a situation that gives their owner the attention she desires .
The question for the WNBA is this : How @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wants to capitalize on that punishment ?
Williams ’ s assessment seems accurate : that Loeffler is angling for the WNBA to oust her a la Sterling so she can claim to have been “ canceled ” by the liberal establishment ahead of a tight special election .
For now , the league is trying to thread the needle instead .
Engelbert said in mid-July that Loeffler is “ no longer involved in the day-to-day business of the team , ” but she was emphatic that the league will not force Loeffler to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the WNBA players ’ union .
Even if the WNBA helped tender a sizable exit package in exchange for Loeffler agreeing to sell , there would be no reason for Loeffler to do so because antagonizing her employees has now become such a central and valuable political asset for her .
That alone should justify her removal as an owner .
Even at the height of former National Football League quarterback Colin Kaepernick ’ s police brutality protest , with Trump calling for teams to fire players who joined in , NFL @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this way ( though they did continue to blackball Kaepernick ) .
This isn ’ t the reality for the Dream players .
Any time the team tries to speak on Black Lives Matter or WNBA attempts its brand of corporate social justice , Loeffler will be right there with a quote about how it ’ s all socialism .
Citizens using their First Amendment rights to promote a candidate for the United States Senate is not proof of “ out of control cancel culture , ” as Loeffler claimed in a statement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ warm-up shirt protest .
It is a reaction to a situation that Loeffler , in her roles as both owner and politician , engineered to build her personal brand .
As Williams pointed out to the Times , there ’ s little the players can do to affect Loeffler ’ s ownership status .
“ We can control who we vote for , ” she said .
But Warnock is currently polling at 9 percent behind Loeffler and Republican Doug Collins .
Barring a sudden surge from the teams ’ sartorial endorsement , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a January runoff between the two uber-conservative candidates , leaving the players in the unenviable position of having flipped their boss the bird and then being left to deal with the league ’ s inaction .
It is undoubtedly an infuriating situation for the WNBA and more so for the players , who have to question whether their employer or the league truly believe in the progressive values they spout .
It ’ s true that forcing Loeffler to sell , or otherwise pushing her out , will galvanize Loeffler and her supporters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can only control what you control .
The players alone can not unseat Loeffler from Congress , but the league certainly has the authority to ditch her as an owner , and that would be in the best interests of the Dream players .
The National Basketball Association proved it ’ s possible , if the will exists .
Eliminating her negative influence from the lives of her employees is worth the cost of a few delirious Fox News segments .

Williams’s assessment seems accurate: that Loeffler is angling for the WNBA to oust her a la Sterling so she can claim to have been “canceled” by the liberal establishment ahead of a tight special election. For now, the league is trying to thread the needle instead. Engelbert said in mid-July that Loeffler is “no longer involved in the day-to-day business of the team,” but she was emphatic that the league will not force Loeffler to sell the team, despite a demand from the WNBA players’ union.
Even if the WNBA helped tender a sizable exit package in exchange for Loeffler agreeing to sell, there would be no reason for Loeffler to do so because antagonizing her employees has now become such a central and valuable political asset for her. That alone should justify her removal as an owner. Even at the height of former National Football League quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s police brutality protest, with Trump calling for teams to fire players who joined in, NFL owners did not openly belittle their players this way (though they did continue to blackball Kaepernick). This isn’t the reality for the Dream players. Any time the team tries to speak on Black Lives Matter or WNBA attempts its brand of corporate social justice, Loeffler will be right there with a quote about how it’s all socialism.
Citizens using their First Amendment rights to promote a candidate for the United States Senate is not proof of “out of control cancel culture,” as Loeffler claimed in a statement last week following her team’s warm-up shirt protest. It is a reaction to a situation that Loeffler, in her roles as both owner and politician, engineered to build her personal brand. As Williams pointed out to the Times, there’s little the players can do to affect Loeffler’s ownership status. “We can control who we vote for,” she said. But Warnock is currently polling at 9 percent behind Loeffler and Republican Doug Collins. Barring a sudden surge from the teams’ sartorial endorsement, the election seems likely to end in a January runoff between the two uber-conservative candidates, leaving the players in the unenviable position of having flipped their boss the bird and then being left to deal with the league’s inaction.


newrepublic--2020-08-10--Can Platform Vaccines Really Save Us?

Can Platform Vaccines Really Save Us?

“ I think that platform technologies are the way to go , ” Dr. Angela Rasmussen , a virologist at Columbia University , told me .
The reason why vaccines from Moderna , Oxford , Johnson & Johnson , Pfizer and others “ are all sort of winning the race is because they were able to start designing these vaccines , because they had these platforms ready to go as soon as they got the sequence on January 10 , ” she said .
“ They didn ’ t have to wait for somebody to isolate the virus , they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ grow it up , they didn ’ t have to try to attenuate it.
” “ They were able to just take that sequence , pop it into their platform and get started making the vaccine , and start researching it , ” Rasmussen said .
She called platforms “ the wave of the future in terms of our being able to rapidly start scaling up and manufacturing and testing vaccines.
” Dr. Anthony Fauci , director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases , has compared platforms to the chassis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ build a chassis for the vaccine , and you would have it on the shelf , ” Fauci said in 2016 .
“ Then all you would need to do is insert the gene of the protein you want to express and make a gazillion doses and send it out.
” Once biotechnology companies and researchers develop the platform , it can be adapted across several different virus families .
The platform from Oxford and AstraZeneca , for instance , is based on an engineered chimpanzee adenovirus , a type of respiratory virus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Other companies use RNA and DNA platforms .
“ We keep trying to develop a vaccine for one thing—usually the last [ big virus ] —and it ’ s a waste of time , ” Fauci said .
“ Every time we get hit , it is always something we didn ’ t expect .
So , instead of predetermining what it is you ’ re going to prepare for , make universal platforms.
” But there are some obstacles these platforms need to clear .
First of all : They need to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that you have to develop the platforms , right ?
And they have to be good , ” CEPI ’ s Dr. Nicole Lurie told me .
So far in the platform class of vaccines , only Merck ’ s Ebola vaccine and Sanofi ’ s dengue vaccine have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration , and Johnson & Johnson ’ s Ebola vaccine is in use .
But most platforms “ are not yet licenced with no proof of long-term efficacy and reactogenicity , ” Dr. Vipul Chowdhary , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Research , told me .
It can also be difficult to administer some of the platform vaccines , especially those based on DNA , Chowdhary said .
Traditional vaccines are often less complicated and proven to be effective , so they still play a role in vaccine development , he said .
It ’ s in the specific context of a pandemic like the current one , Chowdhary said , where platform vaccines theoretically have the competitive edge .
Amesh Adalja , a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be one of the solutions to emerging infectious disease vaccines , which have been one of the hardest tasks to solve when it comes to pandemic preparedness , ” he told me .
“ Moving away from ‘ one bug , one drug ’ — ‘ one bug , one vaccine , ’ basically—you ’ re saying you have one platform or one technology that can be adapted to many different types of approaches , ” he said .
That platform could be used for anything , even outside of infectious diseases , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vaccines .

Safety is one of these experts’ foremost concerns when it comes to new vaccines’ potential to fight the Covid-19 pandemic—safety and politics. If a vaccine works safely in the short-term, Rasmussen said, it will likely be distributed while long-term trials are still underway. “If there are indications that any of these vaccines are at least 50 percent protective, then they’ll probably approve it and probably continue following the people in the trial so that they’re gathering that durability data at the same time as people are starting to get vaccinated,” she said. But there could be longer-term side effects that haven’t yet been observed, especially if they only occur in a small group of people. That being said, the trials have been designed to make sure the vaccines work with limited side effects before they are administered to larger groups of people, as long as the trials are allowed to continue without interference. “What I’m very concerned about is that there will be political pressure to approve a vaccine prior to having that type of safety and efficacy data,” Rasmussen said. Last week, for example, President Trump said he was “optimistic” that a vaccine would materialize by Election Day—something experts think is impossible given where trials stand at present.
A compressed timeline could obscure a vaccine’s side effects, or it could obscure the fact that a given vaccine simply doesn’t work—leading those who were immunized to believe they’re protected when they’re not. If that happens, Rasmussen said, “That’s going to really erode people’s trust in the entire process. And then we’re going to be in really bad shape…. If people don’t trust the process, if you don’t trust the vaccines, more and more people are not going to get the vaccines, and then we will really have no hope of ever being without the coronavirus circulating among us.”
We got lucky in 2009 with the swine flu pandemic. Rules and procedures were already in place for creating an updated flu vaccine quickly; vaccines for completely new viruses can take a decade or more to create and move through the approval process. The 2009 outbreak also wasn’t as deadly as feared, so those who contracted the flu before the vaccine was ready did relatively well.


newrepublic--2020-08-11--How the GOP Became the Party of Resentment

Few have done more than Perlstein to help cement that interpretation of the decade .
His first book , Before the Storm , began the story with a thickly descriptive examination of Goldwater ’ s consequential loss in the presidential contest of 1964 .
Goldwater , the scion of a prominent Arizona family , had inherited a department-store fortune .
He hated Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal , and saw his family ’ s success as a triumph of individual entrepreneurship , erasing the role that the federal government had played in supporting his family business in particular and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But while anti–New Deal politics necessarily sought a home in the Republican Party—given that it was not the party of Roosevelt—it was not yet the default party for conservatives .
Like the Democratic Party , the GOP was a coalition of regional interests , containing both liberals and conservatives .
Goldwater ’ s presidential run gave voice to those who yearned for a real conservative , rejecting Dwight Eisenhower as a pusillanimous moderate .
The John Birch Society , founded in 1958 by retired candy-manufacturer Robert Welch , was the vehicle for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ himself was secretly an agent of the massive international Communist conspiracy .
( Perlstein cogently points out that if Birchers were paranoid about Communism , one reason might have been that their government had spent years encouraging them to be so . )
Goldwater would not always publicly ally himself with the Birchers—polls suggested only 5 percent of Americans held similar views—but he too had argued that Eisenhower was too moderate .
Parts of Bircher language would gradually work their way into Republican common sense : Their slogan was “ less government and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that would eventually take over the party .
He called for the Republican Party to become the party of the “ silent Americans ” ( the phrase famously picked up by Nixon ) who “ quietly go about the business of paying and praying , working and saving.
” He yoked together libertarian economics with militant anti-Communism , speculating about the use of low-yield atomic weapons in Vietnam .
He appealed to racist voters by opposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on the grounds that it would entail “ the loss of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ states : his home state of Arizona and the Deep South .
Much of the press greeted him as an extremist , his supporters as mentally disturbed .
( It was the Goldwater campaign that prompted the historian Richard Hofstadter to compose his best-known essay , “ The Paranoid Style in American Politics.
” ) Journalists were roundly booed at Goldwater events , and a mob once threw stones at the press bus following the campaign .
“ Goldwater in 1964 ” bumper stickers were soon met with mocking counter-stickers : “ Goldwater @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In your heart you know he ’ s right ” would be parodied by the Johnson campaign as “ In your guts , you know he ’ s nuts.
” The only international support he got came from apartheid South Africa , Spanish monarchists , and German neofascists .
He resented being portrayed as an extremist , and his famous line spoken while accepting the party ’ s nomination— “ I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice !
” —was greeted with 41 seconds of sustained @ @ @ @ @ @ @ LBJ , but Perlstein shows that the defeat was widely misinterpreted .
It overlooked the conservative publishers with surprise hits , the Orange County activists building networks to support conservative causes , the churches entering political activism in new ways .
Perhaps the book ’ s most consistent theme is that liberal analysts and the media have often failed to understand conservative sentiment .
Midterm elections in 1966 delivered conservatives in large numbers to Congress and state houses .
Mainstream pundits “ did not detect the ground shifting beneath their feet , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ long run , perhaps no one was more instrumental to the growing power of the conservative movement than Ronald Reagan , who had thrilled audiences a week before Election Day in 1964 with his televised endorsement of Goldwater .
Whereas Goldwater was abstract , Reagan used personal and anecdotal language , connecting with audiences in ways that Goldwater never could .
Reagan called it “ a time for choosing , ” and , in typically emotive and Manichean language , articulated a choice between “ the maximum of individual freedom consistent with law @ @ @ @ @ @ @ heap of totalitarianism.
” The speech was a sensation : Local committees formed around the country to keep it on the air .
Sixteen years later , Ronald Reagan would be elected president .
Perlstein ’ s next three books , Nixonland , The Invisible Bridge , and now Reaganland—though their titles suggest a series of nightmarish theme parks—chronicle that 16-year process , leading to Reagan ’ s election in 1980 .
Nixonland covers the years from 1964 to 1972 , in which Perlstein contends that the “ battle lines that define our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and fire.
” The book combines a biography of Nixon with a portrait of the nation .
Perlstein sees the key to Nixon—both psychologically and politically—in the club he founded at Whittier College : the Orthogonian Society , a home for the strivers , rather than manor-born Franklins who ran the place .
A man who collected hatred and resentments became a good match for an electorate , for a time .
“ The inner dynamics of the Roosevelt coalition have shifted from those of getting to those of keeping , ” a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to thrive in the backlash to the civil rights movement and the cultural changes of the 1960s .
“ What one side saw as liberation the other saw as apocalypse , ” writes Perlstein , “ and what the other saw as apocalypse , the first saw as liberation.
” The Invisible Bridge and Reaganland are essentially two volumes of a single work covering the next eight years .
The Invisible Bridge makes Reagan the central character , filling in his biography and showing how he came close to taking the Republican nomination @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a slipperier biographical subject than Nixon , a skilled but shallow performer .
Athletics and the boosterizing mythology of his era ’ s sports broadcasting seem to have been central to his approach to life .
According to his son Ron Jr. , when his father was suffering from the memory loss of Alzheimer ’ s disease , he would wake and feel himself not in the Oval Office or a on a movie set but in a locker room , muttering : “ There ’ s a game .
They ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ school yearbook contains a remarkable comment on his character and work as a lifeguard , when people suspected him of making up rescue stories .
A drowning young man says , “ Don ’ t rescue me .
I want to die , ” and Reagan is made to say , “ Well , you ’ ll have to postpone that : I want a medal.
” As Perlstein notes , “ Presidents are always also storytellers , purveyors of useful national mythologies.
” And Reagan was without question a skilled storyteller .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ : Throughout his career he stretched , invented , and imagined things that he wished were true .
He divided the world into heroes and villains and could not be budged by evidence .
He defended Nixon to the end , calling the break-in at the Watergate illegal but insisting that the men who carried it out were not “ criminals at heart.
” He knew whom to praise , telling repatriated prisoners of war from Vietnam : “ You gave America back its soul .
God bless a country that can produce @ @ @ @ @ @ @ knew who to attack , saying of the left-wing student activists at Berkeley that he would “ like to harness their youthful energy with a strap.
” His charm and wit covered over the cruelty of his views .
But he seemed nice .

The Invisible Bridge and Reaganland are essentially two volumes of a single work covering the next eight years. The Invisible Bridge makes Reagan the central character, filling in his biography and showing how he came close to taking the Republican nomination from Gerald Ford in 1976. Reagan is a slipperier biographical subject than Nixon, a skilled but shallow performer. Athletics and the boosterizing mythology of his era’s sports broadcasting seem to have been central to his approach to life. According to his son Ron Jr., when his father was suffering from the memory loss of Alzheimer’s disease, he would wake and feel himself not in the Oval Office or a on a movie set but in a locker room, muttering: “There’s a game. They’re waiting for me.” His high school yearbook contains a remarkable comment on his character and work as a lifeguard, when people suspected him of making up rescue stories. A drowning young man says, “Don’t rescue me. I want to die,” and Reagan is made to say, “Well, you’ll have to postpone that: I want a medal.”
Perlstein’s works are like an MRI of the nation’s nervous system, showing when different regions of the brain lit up: here, activated by fear, here by sex, here by anger.
As Perlstein notes, “Presidents are always also storytellers, purveyors of useful national mythologies.” And Reagan was without question a skilled storyteller. His stories were unbound by the facts: Throughout his career he stretched, invented, and imagined things that he wished were true. He divided the world into heroes and villains and could not be budged by evidence. He defended Nixon to the end, calling the break-in at the Watergate illegal but insisting that the men who carried it out were not “criminals at heart.” He knew whom to praise, telling repatriated prisoners of war from Vietnam: “You gave America back its soul. God bless a country that can produce men like you.” But he also knew who to attack, saying of the left-wing student activists at Berkeley that he would “like to harness their youthful energy with a strap.” His charm and wit covered over the cruelty of his views. But he seemed nice.
To reduce Perlstein’s works to political biographies, however, would not be accurate. What he is writing is more of an excavation of the sediment produced by the media of the time: Especially in recent works, he uses archival documents sparingly, but reads deeply in the public record. The books are primarily political history, but they also take up cultural changes. What does it mean that Superman, a comic-book character from the 1930s, became a blockbuster hit in 1978, and what did it have to do with the broader mood? “Clark Kent had not been around during the 1960s,” Perlstein notes. “He thus returned to 1978 not just with superpowers, but his Norman Rockwell values intact. They were intertwined: nostalgia was a superpower.” Perlstein’s works are less X-rays of the internal structures of the nation at a given time than an MRI of its nervous system, showing when different regions of the brain lit up: here, activated by fear, here by sex, here by joy, here by anger. This is what has made his books grow in size—Reaganland runs to over 1,000 pages—they resemble reading several years of news, with the benefit of hindsight. They succeed when they can make sense of the structure of people’s feelings in a time of significant social division.


newrepublic--2020-08-11--A Radical Movement to Take Back Our Cities

Since the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer , protest encampments have sprung up all over the country , physical spaces that call attention to the dual crises of police brutality and housing insecurity in the midst of a pandemic .
Those displaced by the unrest in Minneapolis began setting up tents in Powderhorn Park—near the site of Floyd ’ s murder—in June , partly to protest the condition of the city ’ s shelters .
The local residents initially made the collective decision to keep the site police-free .
Volunteers and residents collaborated with American Indian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ maintain it .
The site grew to about 500 tents before it was cleared on July 20 .
In Seattle , the Capitol Hill Organized Protest , or CHOP , demanded the city cut its police budget by half .
Protesters rallied around the East Precinct until it was abandoned by the police on June 8 , after which they occupied it and declared it a no-cop zone .
Seattle has the third-largest homeless population in the country ; the city had already , earlier in the pandemic , evicted a homeless encampment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Prevention strongly urging against it .
One of the volunteers estimated that over half the residents of the encampment were otherwise homeless .
CHOP was cleared on July 1 after incidents of gun violence in which two people were killed .
These encampments weren ’ t any kind of utopia .
They saw crime , overdoses , and violence .
They were perhaps mundane in that way .
But evicting encampments does nothing to resolve violence or need ; these are all public health crises that the residents are in danger of even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ residents acknowledged to a CNN reporter that the gang members involved in the shootings in Seattle were “ victims of the same system ” of white supremacy and capitalism as were the protesters .
“ Violence is not born out of what CHOP did , ” said a member of the encampment ’ s security team .
“ Violence moved to CHOP.
” In our increasingly commodified cities , where the sanctity of private property reigns ( conditions that are only more deeply entrenched by the pandemic ) , it has become more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of public space : those it can really belong to , those it is given to , and those who are forced to take it .
The last few months have shown us that public space can be reconfigured as private property and can exclude those whom cities deem unworthy .
At the same time , though , the movement to reclaim public space has grown , drawing on radical history and building new solidarities .
Then as now , these are the spaces and relationships where radical communities have been formed , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new worlds have been glimpsed .
Squatting ’ s history is long and political , the cursed child of the marriage between police brutality and the housing crisis .
In the 1970s , New York City saw a wave of housing activism led by squatters after the city ’ s deep debt launched a new “ crisis regime ” and a rollback of municipal services in minority neighborhoods .
In his nonfiction account The Autonomous City : A History of Urban Squatting , Alexander Vasudevan notes the “ new forms of systems analysis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in military operations and civil defense planning ” that took over certain public services in the city ; they ended up cutting the number of fire stations in poor neighborhoods , and entire blocks burnt to the ground .
By 1980 , almost 8 percent of the entire Bronx had been lost to this “ epidemic of conflagration.
” In the midst of this rampant crisis , coupled with the AIDS epidemic and worsening anti-homeless surveillance with the subway sanitization , squatters occupied and rehabilitated buildings that would otherwise have been demolished .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now , or ACORN , occupied 25 buildings in East New York , part of their long and sustained protest against the federal Urban Homesteading program .
The city took out a restraining order on ACORN but , amid growing local support , eventually allowed the squatters financial assistance and access to 58 buildings that couldn ’ t be resold for profit .
In June 1988 , in response to the growing number of people living in Tompkins Square Park , the city ’ s Parks Department @ @ @ @ @ @ @ park .
Furious , hundreds of protesters demonstrated in the park that August chanting , “ It ’ s our fucking park , you don ’ t live here ” and brandishing signs that read “ Gentrification is class war , fight back.
” What followed was a police riot .
New York Police Department officers concealing their badges entered the park , backed up by more police on horseback and sharpshooters on neighboring roofs , and began beating and attacking not only the residents of the park but confused residents of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the squatters flatly refused to be fully evicted , remaining in the park as “ both an encampment for the homeless and as a ‘ firewall ’ of sorts that would protect and immunize the neighborhood against further gentrification , ” Vasudevan writes .
Following the Tompkins Square Park riot , many people returned ; by 1989 there were about 300 people living in the park .
It wasn ’ t until 1991 that the park was cleared entirely , locked up and guarded by 50 permanently stationed cops for the next @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not-so-mysterious ” fires destroyed several of the surrounding Lower East Side squats as well .

In our increasingly commodified cities, where the sanctity of private property reigns (conditions that are only more deeply entrenched by the pandemic), it has become more and more urgent to question the meaning of public space: those it can really belong to, those it is given to, and those who are forced to take it. The last few months have shown us that public space can be reconfigured as private property and can exclude those whom cities deem unworthy. At the same time, though, the movement to reclaim public space has grown, drawing on radical history and building new solidarities. Then as now, these are the spaces and relationships where radical communities have been formed, where revolution has been imagined, where new worlds have been glimpsed.
Squatting’s history is long and political, the cursed child of the marriage between police brutality and the housing crisis. In the 1970s, New York City saw a wave of housing activism led by squatters after the city’s deep debt launched a new “crisis regime” and a rollback of municipal services in minority neighborhoods. In his nonfiction account The Autonomous City: A History of Urban Squatting, Alexander Vasudevan notes the “new forms of systems analysis and management whose origins were firmly rooted in military operations and civil defense planning” that took over certain public services in the city; they ended up cutting the number of fire stations in poor neighborhoods, and entire blocks burnt to the ground. By 1980, almost 8 percent of the entire Bronx had been lost to this “epidemic of conflagration.”
In the midst of this rampant crisis, coupled with the AIDS epidemic and worsening anti-homeless surveillance with the subway sanitization, squatters occupied and rehabilitated buildings that would otherwise have been demolished. In the summer of 1985, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, occupied 25 buildings in East New York, part of their long and sustained protest against the federal Urban Homesteading program. The city took out a restraining order on ACORN but, amid growing local support, eventually allowed the squatters financial assistance and access to 58 buildings that couldn’t be resold for profit.


newrepublic--2020-08-12--The Unlikely Bond Between Joe Biden and Kamala Harris

Many volumes will be written about why Biden chose Harris .
But the truest bond between them may be the simplest—they are both politicians in the best sense of the word .
They understand elections , Capitol Hill , and how to be tough without losing your sense of humor .
Harris , of course , was always the obvious vice-presidential choice who , in the cliche of the moment , checked all the boxes .
She is a woman of color who chose to attend Howard University rather than following the Barack Obama path to the Ivy League .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ attorney general , she has a strong enough prosecutorial background to help fend off Trump ’ s attempts to portray the Democratic Party as the electoral branch of antifa .
And having run for president , she does not need weeks of introduction and buildup to be a credible VP candidate .
Harris was never a particularly strong presidential candidate in her own right .
Her campaign was unfocused and erratic .
It ended when she ran out of money two months before the Iowa caucuses .
Her critics claim that she was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ though the same could have been said of Biden when he first ran for president in 1987 ) .
But she does boast instant credibility : If , God forbid , something were to happen to Biden , she would be a plausible president .
Only two of the other women Biden was considering could have said the same—and former national security adviser Susan Rice has never run for public office , and Elizabeth Warren is 71 , no matter how vibrant she appeared as a candidate .
Both political science research and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that a vice-presidential pick has limited electoral significance .
What Biden wanted to avoid at all costs was causing any kind of distraction with his VP choice .
He also wanted to avoid sending the press pack off to rummage through the political history of a little-known running mate .
That is what happened with Karen Bass , who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus , when reporters discovered that she had volunteered to cut sugar cane in Cuba in the early 1970s , a youthful odyssey that seemed to suggest some naiveté about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the biggest misconceptions surrounding the Harris pick is that she will now be on a glide path to the 2024 nomination .
In reality , Harris , whose own ideological orientation can be blurry , may get caught in the ideological battles that are likely to be waged if Biden doesn ’ t run for a second term .
And her relationship with Biden may prove to be a liability if Biden struggles to contain the ongoing pandemic or to pull the country out of a deep recession .
What is surprising @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s scattershot reaction .
Since Harris was the obvious pick , one might think that the Trump team would have an elaborate game plan ready to roll out as soon as she were announced .
Instead , Trump merely called her “ nasty ” for her questioning of Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings ( horrors ) , and the campaign rushed out an uninspired ad about “ Slow Joe and Phony Kamala.
” Maybe the boldest aspect of the Harris choice is that she will make history by becoming not only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Asian American woman to grace the national ticket , but also the first Democrat from the West Coast .
She also fits the odd Democratic tradition of almost always picking a senator for vice president , since there have been only two exceptions to that iron rule since Senator Harry Truman was nominated in 1944 .

Many volumes will be written about why Biden chose Harris. But the truest bond between them may be the simplest: They are both politicians in the best sense of the word. They understand elections, Capitol Hill, and how to be tough without losing your sense of humor.
Harris, of course, was always the obvious vice presidential choice who, in the cliché of the moment, checked all the boxes. She is a woman of color, who chose to attend Howard University rather than following the Barack Obama path to the Ivy League. As both a district attorney and California attorney general, she has a strong enough prosecutorial background to help fend off Trump’s attempts to portray the Democratic Party as the electoral branch of antifa. And having run for president, she does not need weeks of introduction and buildup to be a credible VP candidate.
Harris was never a particularly strong presidential candidate in her own right. Her campaign was unfocused and erratic. It ended when she ran out of money two months before the Iowa caucuses. Her critics claim that she was powered by ambition and little else (though the same could have been said of Biden when he first ran for president in 1987). But she does boast instant credibility: If, God forbid, something were to happen to Biden, she would be a plausible president. Only two of the other women Biden was considering could have said the same; and former national security adviser Susan Rice has never run for public office, and Elizabeth Warren is 71, no matter how vibrant she appeared as a candidate.


newrepublic--2020-08-11--The Pioneering Morality of Raven Leilani’s Luster

Edie , the 23-year-old resident of a mouse-infested Bushwick walkup and the narrator of Raven Leilani ’ s debut novel Luster , has an editorial position at a children ’ s book publisher until she loses it by sleeping with one too many of her colleagues .
Like Meursault , the protagonist in Camus ’ s The Stranger , she seems indifferent to other people ’ s disapproval .
Her eye roves the world with an alienated intelligence , taking everybody ’ s measure , including her own .
She acknowledges her own attractiveness ( “ Here ’ s a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which have warped my spine ” ) and precarious social position ( “ More facts : My salary is very low ” ) like an arborist taking notes about a tree .
Luster ’ s plot kicks into high gear after Edie meets Eric , a married man living with his family in suburban New Jersey .
She follows the tractor beam of physical desire into his life .
She is bloodlessly accurate about their age difference : “ Beyond the fact of older men having more stable finances and a different understanding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ there is the potent drug of a keen power imbalance.
” In contrast to her detailed inner monologue , Edie says little out loud .
Edie is Black and Eric is white , for example , but they don ’ t talk about it .
Edie likes it when Eric chokes or punches her during sex but doesn ’ t explain why .
Edie reveals in an almost offhand way that she found her mother ’ s dead body six months ago but devotes pages of attention to the “ inarticulable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the sweet , feral thing underneath their cologne , the way it sometimes feels as if there are no whites to their eyes.
” Then everything changes .
After hitting financial rock bottom and running into Eric ’ s wife , Rebecca ( they seem to have an ill-defined open marriage ) , Edie moves into Eric ’ s family home , where she discovers that they have an adopted Black daughter of 13 named Akila .
At first , Edie simply ignores Akila and continues to think about what interests her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Eric .
She ’ s ostensibly there as a sort of nanny-meets-mistress while she gets back on her feet , but really she ’ s more like an embedded anthropologist , studying the habits of life-partnered white heterosexuals in their New Jersey habitat .
Her own mother was loving but unreliable and committed suicide not long before the book ’ s events take place .
Rebecca is the exact opposite , mothering with competence but coldness—enrolling Akila in infinite extracurricular activities but neglecting to tend to her hair , for example .
Edie @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like a peer to Sally Rooney ’ s Conversations With Friends , which also told in an evenhanded , almost clinical tone the story of an extra-marital affair from the perspective of the “ mistress.
” Leilani has a blistering talent for describing a moment while refusing to name its undercurrents .
What begins as an erotic novel about Eric turns into the story of Edie ’ s fascination with Rebecca .
She describes the wife in pointillist , physical terms : She is “ sexy in the way a triangle can be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A to B to C , ” wearing her “ depressing beige bra and high-waisted underwear with Wednesday on the back.
” Rebecca is a medical examiner by trade , and Edie ’ s forensic inquiry into her private life mirrors the dissections Rebecca performs in the morgue .

But beneath all her analytical intelligence, Edie is a traumatized narrator. So when she meets Akila, a slightly miserable girl wearing a pink Party City wig who needs her adoptive parents to maintain a stable household more than Edie needs them for her own entertainment, it represents the intrusion of reality into the protagonist’s fantasy. Edie’s analyses of other people—these white New Jerseyans, her own dead parents, the people who work in publishing—are abstract, even dissociative. But Akila’s need is palpable. Amid all the delicious ambiguity of interfering in a marriage, Akila enters Edie’s life like one of God’s more obvious messages to tell her that there is sometimes such a thing as the right thing to do.
Several rave reviews have already focused on Leilani’s remarkable ability to turn straight sex into something terrifyingly strange yet familiar, almost as if Edie is reproducing an othering, fetishized gaze for what is considered normal. But Luster is also an interesting meditation on social ethics since the conundrum Akila poses to Edie is ultimately a moral one: Will she lend this kid a hand or not? In a recent piece on Sally Rooney for Bookforum, Lauren Oyler wrote that fiction today is overly concerned with being good. In novels by Rooney, Ben Lerner, Jenny Offill, and Sheila Heti, she writes, the young narrators’ anxieties “seem to be modeling contemporary ideas about morality, which is measured by contributions to the collective good.” Being perceived as good is the new version of divine judgment, Oyler goes on, since social media now requires that we perform our own goodness at all times online. The result has been a generation of creatives who are more censorious and judgmental than their forebears.
The latter point is a fairly widely held opinion among older professors and critics, many of whom think that fiction, morality, and social politics have been disastrously conflated to produce rigid and lifeless art. This view echoes others in the internet culture wars, which Oyler describes as a product of the “Great Awokening.” Think of the professors who argue that undergraduates who demand trigger warnings are waging war on ambiguity itself or the skeptical essays that bubbled up in the wake of #MeToo, claiming that feminists were on a witch hunt disguised as a justice mission.


newrepublic--2020-08-11--The Pandemic Is a Perfect Time to Soak the Rich

Last week , while as many as 25 million laid-off workers lost their weekly $ 600 federal unemployment supplement and Congress bickered over government aid for people cut off from their income , Amazon Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos sold over $ 3 billion in his company ’ s stock .
That sell-off came after several consecutive weeks of Bezos ’ s and other billionaires ’ net worths surging as the stock market rebounded .
Since April , billionaires have not only been insulated from the worst of the pandemic and the foundering economy but together have seen their fortunes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Amid the coronavirus pandemic and economic collapse , the already grotesque divide between the top 0.01 percent and everyone else has widened further .
The record-breaking bounty enjoyed by the few has been matched only by the spike in precarity for the many .
Over the same period that billionaires reaped record earnings , food insecurity across the nation doubled .
Twenty-eight million renters are on the verge of eviction , unemployment is above 10 percent ( with an estimated 40 percent of the jobs lost during the pandemic potentially gone forever @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is struggling to keep afloat months before an election that will depend more heavily than usual on mail-in voting .
Despite President Trump ’ s blustering promises , there are few signs that any of this stands to improve by the end of the year , which guarantees a long stretch of hardship for the majority of workers .
“ You ’ ve got a kind of overwhelming sense of dread , ” one laid-off bartender in Oregon told the Associated Press about his bleak financial prospects .
“ But there ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do about it.
” While Congress haggles over the details of a new stimulus bill , the most straightforward solution to the vast gulf between the billionaires and the rest of us—particularly now , as several states verge on bankruptcy and Americans grapple with financial ruin—is to soak the rich .
Last Thursday , Senator Bernie Sanders introduced a bill to tax the pandemic-time profits of billionaires at 60 percent to cover health care costs for all Americans over the next year .
This would help the millions of people who have lost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , to begin with ) , while a life-threatening virus continues to spread .
But the proposal will have a hard slog ahead in a Republican-controlled Senate , not to mention with Trump , who recently signaled some mild disapproval of rampant income inequality but has also been more than willing to help line the pockets of his wealthy cronies .
More depressing still , Democrats at both the national and state levels have failed to present a united front on taxing the rich , though it ’ s something that 91 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Republicans agree should be done to mitigate inequality .
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has vowed not to raise taxes on billionaires , allegedly to preserve their residency in the state ( and presumably , to keep his campaign coffers flush ) , but several studies suggest that the tax flight is largely nonexistent .
“ You got to come back , when are you coming back ?
’ ” Cuomo jokingly pleaded to elites who had left the city to shelter in the Hamptons .
“ We ’ ll go to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a drink , come over , I ’ ll cook.
” Likewise , Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Tom Suozzi are pushing to repeal a cap on state and local tax ( SALT ) deductions , a change that would overwhelmingly benefit high earners rather than working-class people .

“Without the full SALT deduction families will leave New York, and the last thing we need in the midst of the health and economic devastation of coronavirus is to lose our residents and taxpayers,” Suozzi said in a statement last month. Like Cuomo, he meant wealthy families: Though the deduction cap was originally a cynical ploy engineered by the Trump administration to offset corporate tax cuts (and simultaneously hit blue states), the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has argued that repealing the cap would do almost nothing for the bottom 80 percent of households while also costing hundreds of billions in tax revenue.
At a time when millions of Americans face profound immiseration, and with Congress unwilling to deliver relief, the ruling class hardly needs any more glad-handing. Treating oligarchs delicately in the hopes that they’ll relinquish their riches on their own hasn’t worked out particularly well so far. Ten years ago this week, a group of billionaires—including Bezos, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk—signed the Giving Pledge, a commitment to donate at least half of their wealth to charity. But according to a recent report from the Institute for Policy Studies, that scheme hasn’t yielded much. Billionaires’ wealth has increased so dramatically over the last decade that the amount they’ve given away pales in comparison to what they’ve accumulated. Moreover, a significant portion of their charitable donations inevitably ends up in private foundations, free from both taxes and public oversight. As Chuck Collins of the Institute for Policy Studies wrote, “Instead of supporting charities on the frontlines of problem solving, these billions end up sitting in tax-advantaged intermediaries.” Philanthropy remains a pretty poor mechanism for redistributing wealth.
What, then, could be the downside to finally confronting the billionaire class head-on? Earlier this week, as food banks across the nation reported continued unprecedented surges in demand, Apple’s Tim Cook officially achieved billionaire status. One possible consequence of raising taxes on such earners, Cuomo recently lamented, would be that “you’d have no billionaires left.” He only meant that they’d abscond from New York, but given the extreme disparity that defines the present moment, “no billionaires” should be the point.


newrepublic--2020-08-11--Is the Media About to Screw Up Coverage of Biden’s Vice Presidential Pick?

Donald Trump ’ s attacks on Joe Biden aren ’ t working .
The president has sought to portray Biden as a closet Antifa member out to abolish everything : the police , the suburbs , god .
Those attacks aren ’ t working because they ’ re preposterous .
Voters have a good idea of who Biden is—a moderate former vice president—and know he doesn ’ t throw on a Che Guevera T-shirt before working on his Corvette .
“ In lobbing such extravagant attack on Biden , Trump has concocted a profile of the presumptive Democratic nominee at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ personal and professional life—a cartoonish depiction so distant from the reality of Biden that the hits don ’ t always resonate , ” wrote The Washington Post ’ s Ashley Parker on Monday .
Voters aren ’ t the only ones who haven ’ t bought these efforts to rebrand Joe Biden as an uber-woke Trojan Horse for the left .
One reason why they ’ ve failed to stick is that the press hasn ’ t taken them seriously , either .
Trump ’ s attacks on Hillary Clinton worked because they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Without credulous attention from outlets like The New York Times and CNN , overheated partisan scandals like Benghazi and Clinton ’ s emails would have lacked mainstream credibility .
All of this is partly why Trump and his campaign are eager to turn their attention to the Democratic nominee for vice president .
Stories about Representative Karen Bass ’ s trips to Cuba as a young woman and praise for the Church of Scientology already appear to have damaged her standing with the Biden camp .
Republicans are dusting off the Benghazi playbook @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into major political earthquakes .
The press has been a key ally for the GOP in amplifying these fake scandals .
They have been treated as seriously as Trump ’ s shady finances , lengthy history of sexual misconduct , and demagoguery .
In 2020 , there is a danger that the media is about to get it wrong again—this time about Joe Biden ’ s vice presidential pick .
If Biden chooses former national security adviser Susan Rice as his running mate , Benghazi will be dredged up by the Republicans .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ appearances on several Sunday shows in 2012 , shortly after the United States consulate in Libya was attacked by terrorists .
Standing in for then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton , Rice repeated the best intelligence she had at the time : that the attack on the embassy began as a protest against a video of an American pastor burning a Quran , then spiraled out of control .
That intelligence was wrong—as initial intelligence often is .
But Republicans held Rice ’ s statements up as evidence of a cover-up , launching @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their political rivals , particularly Clinton , for years .
Republicans spent millions of dollars investigating the Benghazi scandal , culminating in a report that cleared Clinton of blame .
Despite its nakedly partisan intent , the Benghazi investigation was treated respectfully by the media , which covered all its twists and turns .
Roughly the same dynamic played out in the investigation into Clinton ’ s use of a private email server : A minor story became a damaging months-long saga in large part because it was covered as front-page news .

Trump in 2016 greatly benefited from the GOP’s ability to get the media to legitimize the half-baked scandals they were using to discredit Clinton. The strategy worked because of the press’s persistent inability to distinguish between good and bad faith political attacks. The stories were also grounded in real scandals, even if those scandals weren’t earth-shattering. The response to Benghazi was sloppy. Clinton really did use a private email server (as did Colin Powell when he was in the same role). The attacks on Biden haven’t landed because they’re so outlandish that even the most naive Beltway hack isn’t paying them any heed.
That will almost certainly change when Biden selects his running mate, whoever she may be. Tucker Carlson has already previewed how Trump and Republicans will attack the Democratic vice presidential nominee. Rice did Benghazi and is the personification of the Deep State. “Susan Rice knows exactly what she wants and she understands the system well enough to get it,” Carlson said earlier this month. “Bass is a lunatic Fidel Castro acolyte, who praised Scientology and once belonged to an armed revolutionary group.” Kamala Harris, meanwhile, will get raked over the coals for her record as a prosecutor and her deep connections to California’s political machine. As Osita Nwanevu argued in The New Republic last week, Harris’s relationship to former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, whom she dated in the 1990s, will almost certainly be used as grist for Trump should she be the nominee.
Citing polls suggesting that half of the country believes that Biden will not serve his full term, Republican National Convention operatives have already begun priming the press to treat the eventual nominee as a de facto president-in-waiting. The scandal imbalance at the moment—Trump is overrun by bad press, while Biden sits peacefully in his basement—will be an incentive for tough coverage of the Democrats. Eager as ever to show they’re not the “liberal media,” reporters will see any Biden-adjacent scandal as red meat.