thenation--2020-04-20--How Sex Workers Are Using Mutual Aid to Respond to the Coronavirus

Ashley Madness says that by the time the Los Angeles chapter of the Sex Workers Outreach Project ( SWOP LA ) met on March 19 , they had all spent weeks dealing with crises in their personal lives on top of their normal organizing work .
The workers met virtually , on the day that California ’ s mandatory shelter-in-place order was announced .
Madness says every member at the meeting agreed on the same idea right away : They needed to create a Covid-19 mutual aid fund to get emergency grants to other sex workers all over their city—and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ The second we got together , we knew we had to launch an emergency fund immediately , ” says Madness .
Madness ( per request , many of the workers in this article are referred to by their work names ) serves as the political actions director and secretary for SWOP LA .
She says that the world completely changed in the month between the group ’ s February and March meetings .
At the February meeting , Covid-19 was a remote threat , but one that organizers continued to monitor .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ as diseased , so even mild epidemics can hurt business .
By the time of the March meeting , the SWOP LA team realized they ’ d be fighting something unprecedented .
In the midst of a pandemic that has completely overwhelmed institutional support structures , leaders as high-profile as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have encouraged communities to organize mutual aid projects to redistribute resources among the most vulnerable .
Sex worker organizing could be a model for this sort of work : There is a deep history of mutual aid and redistribution—both formal and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it became clear that Covid-19 would hit the United States with the force of an epochal disaster , sex workers were among the first to respond with broadscale mutual aid efforts—fundraising and organizing mutual support outside of an official government response .
In Las Vegas , where sex workers have been devastated by the loss of tourism , the Las Vegas Sex Worker Covid19 Emergency Relief Fund raised over $ 10,000 in just 15 days on GoFundMe .
In Brooklyn , the Emergency Covid Relief for Sex Workers in New York has collected @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Similar efforts have raised thousands of dollars in Austin and Detroit , Seattle and the San Francisco Bay Area , and cities across the country .
Madness says that some of organizers of SWOP LA had been inspired by another fund organized by SWOP Brooklyn ; the organizers at SWOP Brooklyn pointed to the Lysistrata Emergency Fund , a nationwide effort that predates the current pandemic , as its model .
And organizers in New York , Detroit , Oakland , and Los Angeles all explained that they had already been working @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronavirus pandemic broke out .
Because sex workers are often left out of social safety nets , organizing within the community has to make up the gaps : In pre-pandemic Detroit , organizers passed out Narcan and harm reduction kits ; in the Bay Area , they distributed small emergency grants for workers short on cash .
“ Mutual aid has always been a part of sex worker organizing , ” says Tea Antimony , a sex worker and organizer with SWOP Brooklyn .
Zee—a sex worker and organizer who helped create Detroit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ transgender historical icons , Marsha P. Johnson and Silvia Rivera , used money from their own sex work to pay rent for the shelter they started for LGBTQ teenagers in New York .
“ They did sex work to keep other people off the street , ” they say .
Molly Simmons , another sex worker and a founder of Brooklyn SWOP who helped create its fund , says that community-support structures come naturally to marginalized communities .
“ The thing about mutual aid , because it ’ s not institutionalized , is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ care of each other in really radical ways , ” Simmons says .
“ Marginalized communities have always taken care of each other because the state explicitly excludes us.
” The current global crisis has tested the boundaries of that radical mutual aid .
The pandemic has affected every worker in the country , but it has already proved particularly devastating for sex workers .
Most sex workers—from strippers and porn actors to full-service workers—rely on in-person contact to do their jobs .
In many places , that sort of contact now puts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ risk .
Of course , it ’ s not just the virus .
The governmental response to the exploding economic crisis has , predictably , missed many sex workers , who operate outside of the formal economy .
“ A lot of us have been on the margins of the economy for a very , very long time , if not our entire lives , ” says Madness .
“ Some of us have literally not taken a payment except in cash or on a cash app .
Some sex workers have never @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” As millions file for unemployment insurance , sex workers without pay stubs or 1099s can ’ t qualify .
Others with a lack of recent tax returns will miss the direct cash payments that passed as part of the congressional relief package last month .
At least one aid program even goes as far as to explicitly exclude sex workers : For people applying for the Small Business Administration federal aid available for those affected by the coronavirus , part of the application requires guaranteeing that the applicant does not engage in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nature.
” “ There ’ s no help coming from the government , there ’ s no help coming from other social institutions for so many of us , ” says Madness .
In addition to being excluded from stimulus legislation , many sex workers have difficulty accessing medical services .
Sex workers have a high uninsured rate as self-employed workers .
And when they can access care , many have to contend with mistreatment from medical professionals .
In Los Angeles , SWOP LA is working on a list of sex worker–friendly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and BAWS has created a resource guide for sex workers to access both reliable information and support .
Organizers across the country describe a mad rush against time to raise emergency funds during the last week in March .
The first of the month was approaching , rent was coming due and bills still needed to be paid .
The stakes were high .
Some people would become unhoused if they missed rent .
Madness describes an emotional and intense effort to fulfill hundreds of dollars in grants in less than a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , rent was often not even the most pressing concern for many .
“ Some people were asking for money to make their $ 1,500 rent , ” she says .
“ But then someone else was asking for $ 50 so they could get groceries for that week and not starve.
” Organizers say while they ’ ve been flooded with requests , there ’ s only really three core needs : medication , food , rent .
Because need has often outstripped funds , organizers have had to find different ways @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cofounder of Bay Area Worker Support , an organization that ’ s been providing $ 50–200 emergency grants to sex workers in need .
She says that they ’ ve already gotten over $ 20,000 in requests .
“ It ’ s a complicated thing to be a gatekeeper of funding for anyone .
At Bay Area Worker Support , we are very aware of those complexities and we try to hold that role with a lot of integrity , ” Holloway says , adding that , ultimately , they ’ ve been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Deciding who gets aid takes many forms .
Organizers have said they take into account whether workers have the option of taking on web-based work , like cam work or porn .
Sex workers explain that this sort of transition is often difficult on not just a practical level—they may have no WiFi or private space to work out of—but also on a mental health level , as the separation between work and life shrinks .
They also note if people are supporting children or other dependents .
There ’ s also the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Angeles , New York , Detroit , and the Bay Area all said that they ’ re all taking into account whether or not applicants are multiply marginalized—and therefore less capable of accessing other resources—when they allocate aid .
“ There are sex workers who can ’ t go and work other jobs , because they ’ re disabled , or because they ’ re undocumented , or because they ’ re black and trans and people treat them like shit , ” says Madness , who is trans .
In general , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are black and indigenous , undocumented , transgender , full-service sex workers , and/or disabled .
Disabled workers in particular face serious challenges at the current moment : Applying for unemployment or other aid might require them to admit they ’ ve lost income , which in turn could affect their ability to continue applying for disability insurance .
Fera Lorde , a sex worker and organizer with Brooklyn SWOP , says that this sort of redistributive mindset—informed by an intersectional perspective on how oppression works—comes naturally to many sex workers .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to name [ the need for mutual aid ] because a part of our marginalization is how we monetize our lives , ” they say .
“ It ’ s very easy for us to see the direct benefits we get because of our identities and circumstances , compared to another friend of ours whose livelihood is under duress from racism , or fat-phobia , or their disability .
So it ’ s a little easier to say , ‘ Well , I have these resources , so I ’ m gon na @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that came as part of the privileges I have.
’ ” Organizers say that although their profession can sometimes be solitary or even competitive , this sort of informal mutual aid has always been part of their experience as sex workers .
Madness says that even before the pandemic , she and the other sex workers she lives with relied on mutual support .
It takes different forms : providing child care for worker friends , opening up a spare couch , or delivering food , or Narcan , or ibuprofen .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ labor we ’ re always providing for each other , ” Simmons , one of the Brooklyn organizers , says .
The Coronavirus Strike Wave Could Shift Power to Workers—for Good Now , the formalized disbursement of funds—often requested online in e-mails and spreadsheets—has created a challenging experience for the people reviewing the applications .
As the requests come in—over a hundred already—Madness says it ’ s stirred emotions to recognize stage names of people she knows .
It ’ s been stressful for organizers to see the pain , and the level @ @ @ @ @ @ @ There is , of course , a problem with the web-based mutual aid : Many of the most vulnerable sex workers lack access to the aid forms , either because they don ’ t have Internet access or are unhoused .
Organizers say they ’ ve been working to ensure that part of the money raised reaches those folks .
Twenty percent of SWOP LA ’ s fundraising is reserved for street-based workers , and other fundraisers have partnered with direct aid organizations that can reach unhoused people .
While funds have been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the national crisis , organizers know that the true struggle lies in the months ahead , when donations slow down and need explodes in the midst of seemingly imminent recession .
They say they ’ re planning for the long term and trying to build these funds to last years .
Madness says that at the heart of sex workers ’ organizing capacity is their resilience in the face of adversity and trauma .
Just two years ago , federal legislation meant to target sex trafficking outlawed many of the platforms sex @ @ @ @ @ @ @ led to a Depression-level event for many workers as business dried up and became more dangerous .
“ We ’ re totally acclimated to responding to crisis , and coming together and executing under intense pressure , ” Madness says .
She says she ’ s been inspired by seeing donations come in from sex workers who themselves are completely out of work .
“ I see people who have lost all of their income due to Covid donating $ 50 to the fund , ” she says .
“ It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and struggle that ’ s going on .
But I ’ m also inspired .
I ’ m inspired that people are asking for help .
It makes me feel like maybe we can do something about it .
”

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service. For that reason, this article, and all of our coronavirus coverage, is now free. Please subscribe to support our writers and staff, and stay healthy.
Ashley Madness says that by the time the Los Angeles chapter of the Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP LA) met on March 19, they had all spent weeks dealing with crises in their personal lives on top of their normal organizing work. The workers met virtually, on the day that California’s mandatory shelter-in-place order was announced. Madness says every member at the meeting agreed on the same idea right away: They needed to create a Covid-19 mutual aid fund to get emergency grants to other sex workers all over their city—and they needed to do it fast. “The second we got together, we knew we had to launch an emergency fund immediately,” says Madness.
Madness (per request, many of the workers in this article are referred to by their work names) serves as the political actions director and secretary for SWOP LA. She says that the world completely changed in the month between the group’s February and March meetings. At the February meeting, Covid-19 was a remote threat, but one that organizers continued to monitor. Sex workers are consistently and unfairly stereotyped as diseased, so even mild epidemics can hurt business. By the time of the March meeting, the SWOP LA team realized they’d be fighting something unprecedented.
In the midst of a pandemic that has completely overwhelmed institutional support structures, leaders as high-profile as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have encouraged communities to organize mutual aid projects to redistribute resources among the most vulnerable. Sex worker organizing could be a model for this sort of work: There is a deep history of mutual aid and redistribution—both formal and informal—within the sex worker community.
As it became clear that Covid-19 would hit the United States with the force of an epochal disaster, sex workers were among the first to respond with broadscale mutual aid efforts—fundraising and organizing mutual support outside of an official government response. In Las Vegas, where sex workers have been devastated by the loss of tourism, the Las Vegas Sex Worker Covid19 Emergency Relief Fund raised over $10,000 in just 15 days on GoFundMe. In Brooklyn, the Emergency Covid Relief for Sex Workers in New York has collected over $100,000 on the same platform. Similar efforts have raised thousands of dollars in Austin and Detroit, Seattle and the San Francisco Bay Area, and cities across the country.
Madness says that some of organizers of SWOP LA had been inspired by another fund organized by SWOP Brooklyn; the organizers at SWOP Brooklyn pointed to the Lysistrata Emergency Fund, a nationwide effort that predates the current pandemic, as its model. And organizers in New York, Detroit, Oakland, and Los Angeles all explained that they had already been working on mutual aid efforts well before the coronavirus pandemic broke out. Because sex workers are often left out of social safety nets, organizing within the community has to make up the gaps: In pre-pandemic Detroit, organizers passed out Narcan and harm reduction kits; in the Bay Area, they distributed small emergency grants for workers short on cash. “Mutual aid has always been a part of sex worker organizing,” says Tea Antimony, a sex worker and organizer with SWOP Brooklyn. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
Zee—a sex worker and organizer who helped create Detroit’s mutual aid fund—notes that two transgender historical icons, Marsha P. Johnson and Silvia Rivera, used money from their own sex work to pay rent for the shelter they started for LGBTQ teenagers in New York. “They did sex work to keep other people off the street,” they say.
Molly Simmons, another sex worker and a founder of Brooklyn SWOP who helped create its fund, says that community-support structures come naturally to marginalized communities. “The thing about mutual aid, because it’s not institutionalized, is that we have the freedom to take care of each other in really radical ways,” Simmons says. “Marginalized communities have always taken care of each other because the state explicitly excludes us.” Current Issue View our current issue
The current global crisis has tested the boundaries of that radical mutual aid. The pandemic has affected every worker in the country, but it has already proved particularly devastating for sex workers. Most sex workers—from strippers and porn actors to full-service workers—rely on in-person contact to do their jobs. In many places, that sort of contact now puts workers and others’ health at intolerable risk.
Of course, it’s not just the virus. The governmental response to the exploding economic crisis has, predictably, missed many sex workers, who operate outside of the formal economy.
“A lot of us have been on the margins of the economy for a very, very long time, if not our entire lives,” says Madness. “Some of us have literally not taken a payment except in cash or on a cash app. Some sex workers have never had bank accounts. Some are undocumented.”
As millions file for unemployment insurance, sex workers without pay stubs or 1099s can’t qualify. Others with a lack of recent tax returns will miss the direct cash payments that passed as part of the congressional relief package last month. At least one aid program even goes as far as to explicitly exclude sex workers: For people applying for the Small Business Administration federal aid available for those affected by the coronavirus, part of the application requires guaranteeing that the applicant does not engage in “live performances of a prurient sexual nature.”
“There’s no help coming from the government, there’s no help coming from other social institutions for so many of us,” says Madness. In addition to being excluded from stimulus legislation, many sex workers have difficulty accessing medical services. Sex workers have a high uninsured rate as self-employed workers. And when they can access care, many have to contend with mistreatment from medical professionals. In Los Angeles, SWOP LA is working on a list of sex worker–friendly service providers still operating during the pandemic, and BAWS has created a resource guide for sex workers to access both reliable information and support.
Organizers across the country describe a mad rush against time to raise emergency funds during the last week in March. The first of the month was approaching, rent was coming due and bills still needed to be paid. The stakes were high. Some people would become unhoused if they missed rent. Madness describes an emotional and intense effort to fulfill hundreds of dollars in grants in less than a week.
Simmons says that in Brooklyn, rent was often not even the most pressing concern for many. “Some people were asking for money to make their $1,500 rent,” she says. “But then someone else was asking for $50 so they could get groceries for that week and not starve.” Sex worker organizing Who’s Afraid of a Sex Workers’ Union? Meaghan Beatley
Organizers say while they’ve been flooded with requests, there’s only really three core needs: medication, food, rent.
Because need has often outstripped funds, organizers have had to find different ways to prioritize. Maxine Holloway is the cofounder of Bay Area Worker Support, an organization that’s been providing $50–200 emergency grants to sex workers in need. She says that they’ve already gotten over $20,000 in requests.
“It’s a complicated thing to be a gatekeeper of funding for anyone. At Bay Area Worker Support, we are very aware of those complexities and we try to hold that role with a lot of integrity,” Holloway says, adding that, ultimately, they’ve been hampered by a lack of funds.
Deciding who gets aid takes many forms. Organizers have said they take into account whether workers have the option of taking on web-based work, like cam work or porn. Sex workers explain that this sort of transition is often difficult on not just a practical level—they may have no WiFi or private space to work out of—but also on a mental health level, as the separation between work and life shrinks. They also note if people are supporting children or other dependents.
There’s also the question of identity. Organizers in Los Angeles, New York, Detroit, and the Bay Area all said that they’re all taking into account whether or not applicants are multiply marginalized—and therefore less capable of accessing other resources—when they allocate aid. “There are sex workers who can’t go and work other jobs, because they’re disabled, or because they’re undocumented, or because they’re black and trans and people treat them like shit,” says Madness, who is trans.
In general, fundraisers say they are prioritizing workers who are black and indigenous, undocumented, transgender, full-service sex workers, and/or disabled. Disabled workers in particular face serious challenges at the current moment: Applying for unemployment or other aid might require them to admit they’ve lost income, which in turn could affect their ability to continue applying for disability insurance.
Fera Lorde, a sex worker and organizer with Brooklyn SWOP, says that this sort of redistributive mindset—informed by an intersectional perspective on how oppression works—comes naturally to many sex workers.
“Sex workers specifically have really been able to name [the need for mutual aid] because a part of our marginalization is how we monetize our lives,” they say. “It’s very easy for us to see the direct benefits we get because of our identities and circumstances, compared to another friend of ours whose livelihood is under duress from racism, or fat-phobia, or their disability. So it’s a little easier to say, ‘Well, I have these resources, so I’m gonna share that wealth and redistribute this income that came as part of the privileges I have.’”
Organizers say that although their profession can sometimes be solitary or even competitive, this sort of informal mutual aid has always been part of their experience as sex workers. Madness says that even before the pandemic, she and the other sex workers she lives with relied on mutual support. It takes different forms: providing child care for worker friends, opening up a spare couch, or delivering food, or Narcan, or ibuprofen. “It’s huge and largely untraceable labor we’re always providing for each other,” Simmons, one of the Brooklyn organizers, says. work and the coronavirus pandemic The Coronavirus Strike Wave Could Shift Power to Workers—for Good Bryce Covert
Now, the formalized disbursement of funds—often requested online in e-mails and spreadsheets—has created a challenging experience for the people reviewing the applications. As the requests come in—over a hundred already—Madness says it’s stirred emotions to recognize stage names of people she knows. It’s been stressful for organizers to see the pain, and the level of need, in their communities.
There is, of course, a problem with the web-based mutual aid: Many of the most vulnerable sex workers lack access to the aid forms, either because they don’t have Internet access or are unhoused. Organizers say they’ve been working to ensure that part of the money raised reaches those folks. Twenty percent of SWOP LA’s fundraising is reserved for street-based workers, and other fundraisers have partnered with direct aid organizations that can reach unhoused people.
While funds have been streaming in steadily during the first weeks of the national crisis, organizers know that the true struggle lies in the months ahead, when donations slow down and need explodes in the midst of seemingly imminent recession. They say they’re planning for the long term and trying to build these funds to last years.
Madness says that at the heart of sex workers’ organizing capacity is their resilience in the face of adversity and trauma. Just two years ago, federal legislation meant to target sex trafficking outlawed many of the platforms sex workers used for online advertising. It led to a Depression-level event for many workers as business dried up and became more dangerous.
“We’re totally acclimated to responding to crisis, and coming together and executing under intense pressure,” Madness says. She says she’s been inspired by seeing donations come in from sex workers who themselves are completely out of work. “I see people who have lost all of their income due to Covid donating $50 to the fund,” she says.
“It’s heartbreaking. I hate all the pain and struggle that’s going on. But I’m also inspired. I’m inspired that people are asking for help. It makes me feel like maybe we can do something about it.”


thenation--2020-04-20--Conversations With ‘The Nation’: The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II

The Rev .
Dr. William J. Barber II joins Nation editorial director and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel in conversation on @ @ @ @ @ at 12 pm EST about the disproportionate effects of the coronavirus on communities of color @ @ @ @ @ about it .
Register now to join us for $ 10 .
Or you can @ @ @ @ @ this weekly event series .
Our weekly virtual series , “ Conversations With The Nation @ @ @ @ @ rigorous progressive journalism at a critical moment in our history .
Representative Pramila Jayapal of @ @ @ @ @ correspondent Elie Mystal , and Nation sports editor Dave Zirin have joined us .
Sign @ @ @ @ @ newsletter to receive new speaker announcements .

“If you had only 48 hours of breath left, what would you fight for?” the Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II asked. Barber joined “Conversations With The Nation” hosted by Katrina vanden Heuvel on April 22 to speak about the severe racial, economic, and social inequalities in the United States that the coronavirus pandemic has thrown into stark relief. Conversations With ‘The Nation’ “We Will Live in a Completely Different World”: A Conversation With Svetlana Alexievich Nadezhda Azhgikhina How a Climate-Justice Champion Won Office in Rural, Working-Class Maine Wen Stephenson Conversations With ‘The Nation’: Chase Iron Eyes, Takota Iron Eyes, and Madonna Thunder Hawk The Nation
“Pandemics exploit those inequalities. What this pandemic has been for this nation in some ways is kind of like the dye they put in your body when you go to get an X-ray.” He expressed disgust that the four coronavirus stimulus bills Congress has passed do not begin to adequately protect the least among us. “This magazine in its founding in some ways raised this question or this concern, and that is, that one of the ugly psychoses of America that we continue to see played out in this moment is when too many in power are too comfortable with other people’s death.”
The reverend called on Nation readers to join him and thousands of others online on June 20 for the Mass Poor People’s Assembly & Moral March on Washington to raise up the voices of 140 million poor and low-wealth people across the United States. “I believe in many ways that the only hope for this country, those who are dying, who’ve seen others die, to begin to stand up and say, ‘If it takes our last breath we’re not going to accept this America. We’re not going to accept people being comfortable, too comfortable with other people’s death. We have to be better than this.’”
Conversations With The Nation is a weekly virtual series that helps to support rigorous progressive journalism at a critical moment in our history. Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, Nation justice correspondent Elie Mystal, and Nation sports editor Dave Zirin have joined us. Sign up for our Nation event newsletter to receive new speaker announcements.


thenation--2020-04-20--How Brexit Infected Britain’s Coronavirus Response

On March 23 , in an abrupt about-face , Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that he would be tightening social distancing measures across the UK .
In a move characteristic of the British exceptionalism that has pervaded Brexit , the newly elected Tory government had clung to the notion of “ herd immunity ” for weeks , believing the British population could build up a collective resistance to the novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19 .
Britain ’ s schools , restaurants , pubs , and most workplaces had remained open , with Johnson telling the nation that “ many more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before their time.
” Even as outbreaks in Spain and Italy began to take horrific shape , Johnson stuck to his proverbial guns , only deciding to reverse course after Imperial College estimated that his chosen strategy could lead to a quarter of a million deaths .
Taken in total , the British government ’ s measures have fallen somewhere between the strict lockdowns imposed by France and Spain and the business-as-usual stance adopted by the Netherlands and Sweden .
While much of the continent asked their citizens to stay home , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to take appropriate distancing measures , largely allowing social and economic activities to continue unabated .
Unlike Johnson , however , Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte moved quickly to put in place guidelines and reassure citizens that the government would support them as the nation “ buil [ t ] up population immunity in a controlled manner.
” Meanwhile , in the UK , according to University of Amsterdam professor Claes de Vreese , British officials “ left people dangling and feeling like they were part of a bizarre social experiment.
” Unlike @ @ @ @ @ @ @ care than the average country in the EU , the Netherlands and Sweden likely decided that they could afford to put their robust health systems to the test .
But as their infection rates have climbed , both nations ’ governments have come under steep criticism—particularly that of Sweden , where the Covid-19 death toll is now greater than that of all other Nordic nations combined .
Britain ’ s coronavirus response , unlike its European neighbors ’ , is also playing out before the backdrop of another influential factor : Brexit .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the European Union has already plagued Britain for nearly half a decade , coloring all issues foreign and domestic .
During December ’ s snap election , Johnson repackaged the rhetoric on the superiority of British life he ’ d leveraged during the Leave campaign and promised to “ Get Brexit Done , ” ultimately stocking his cabinet with hard-line Brexiteers .
Yet , as several other nations tackle the pandemic in more effective ways , British exceptionalism has collided with reality .
It was the government ’ s decision to listen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , after all , that may have prevented the UK from ramping up its testing at a critical juncture in the pandemic .
Fewer than half a million people here have been tested to date , and roughly a tenth of Britain ’ s National Health Service workers have had to self-isolate—many without being able to confirm that they have Covid-19 .
Germany , by contrast , has tested nearly 2 million residents , a factor that , in tandem with an early lockdown , has been credited with helping keep its death @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , including the UK .
Other countries such as South Korea , China , Taiwan , and even the United States have also outperformed the UK on this front .
Perhaps the clearest evidence that Brexit has warped Johnson ’ s coronavirus response has been a scandal dubbed “ Brexit over breathing.
” In late March , news emerged that the UK had opted out of various EU schemes that would have allowed it to purchase ventilators and personal protective equipment in bulk—efforts that it was still allowed to participate in during the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ declared that they were not participating because the UK was “ no longer a member ” of the EU and that they would “ make their own efforts.
” While they later attempted to backtrack by citing ” missed emails , ” the Tory government reportedly participated in multiple discussions regarding joint EU procurement and continually failed to correct course .
The UK has indeed made its “ own efforts ” to source 30,000 ventilators , but the fine print that comes with these devices is illuminating in light of Brexit .
For @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the UK ’ s internal push is Leave champion James Dyson , whose company has received a plum contract for 10,000 new “ CoVent ” ventilators .
Additionally , US President Donald Trump claimed that Johnson called him requesting thousands of the devices—a plea firmly in line with the Tory promise that a close relationship with the United States would offset some of the worst economic consequences of leaving the EU .
Unfortunately for the British prime minister , this alleged request only gave Trump an opportunity to distract from his own @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Johnson after rejecting his appeal .
Ultimately , however , the implications of these incidents pale in comparison to how the pandemic might impact EU trade negotiations , which were already on an impossibly tight schedule .
During what was meant to be a critical negotiation period , both the EU and the UK chief Brexit negotiators had to self-isolate , while the British prime minister himself was hospitalized for a week , spending three days in intensive care .
Technology has also decidedly not been on anyone ’ s side , with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ botched video conferences .
Johnson has insisted he ’ ll still get Brexit done by December , and yet that ’ s becoming increasingly unlikely , especially since the EU itself is dealing with fissures that the pandemic has exposed .
It should be noted that the NHS , despite being largely underfunded since Margaret Thatcher ’ s reign , has responded valiantly to the public health crisis ; the lightning-fast construction of the NHS Nightingale , with its capacity for 5,000 hospital beds , has been one of the state ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rates began to double every two to three days , Britons started to question their government ’ s coronavirus competence .
A recent poll shows more than half the British public believes the delay in imposing a lockdown was a mistake , and Britain ’ s leading scientific advisers are now warning that the United Kingdom will likely be the hardest-hit nation in Europe .
Meanwhile , Johnson ’ s own brush with Covid-19 seems to have driven home the true threat the pernicious virus poses to the entire country .
It is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the UK ’ s handling of the pandemic , so too will the coronavirus affect Brexit in unexpected ways .
On Easter Sunday , as Johnson emerged from several days in intensive care , the prime minister thanked the medical professionals who treated him , naming two nurses from New Zealand and Portugal whom he credits with helping him turn a deadly corner .
The statement , coming from a man who rose to power in part by fueling xenophobia , marked a surprising shift in rhetoric .
It also served to highlight @ @ @ @ @ @ @ staff are not British—5.5 percent are in fact EU nationals .
Even as the prime minister was hospitalized , a New York Times report on how all the UK doctors who had died of the coronavirus were immigrants noted that Brexit ’ s anti-immigrant rhetoric had targeted the very people currently on the pandemic ’ s front lines .
Brexit negotiations resumed this Monday , as the UK continued to climb toward the predicted peak of its coronavirus curve .
With immigration once more front-and-center in deliberations , will Johnson remember who saved @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
Will Britons , who have begun to heal the considerable fractures inflicted by Brexit by relying on neighbors of all nationalities , see the value of pan-European cooperation ?
As with everything the coronavirus touches , only time will tell .

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service. For that reason, this article, and all of our coronavirus coverage, is now free. Please subscribe to support our writers and staff, and stay healthy.
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On March 23, in an abrupt about-face, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that he would be tightening social distancing measures across the UK. In a move characteristic of the British exceptionalism that has pervaded Brexit, the newly elected Tory government had clung to the notion of “herd immunity” for weeks, believing the British population could build up a collective resistance to the novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19. Britain’s schools, restaurants, pubs, and most workplaces had remained open, with Johnson telling the nation that “many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time.” Even as outbreaks in Spain and Italy began to take horrific shape, Johnson stuck to his proverbial guns, only deciding to reverse course after Imperial College estimated that his chosen strategy could lead to a quarter of a million deaths.
Taken in total, the British government’s measures have fallen somewhere between the strict lockdowns imposed by France and Spain and the business-as-usual stance adopted by the Netherlands and Sweden. While much of the continent asked their citizens to stay home, the two Northern European countries trusted their citizens to take appropriate distancing measures, largely allowing social and economic activities to continue unabated. Unlike Johnson, however, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte moved quickly to put in place guidelines and reassure citizens that the government would support them as the nation “buil[t] up population immunity in a controlled manner.” Meanwhile, in the UK, according to University of Amsterdam professor Claes de Vreese, British officials “left people dangling and feeling like they were part of a bizarre social experiment.”
Unlike Britain, which spends less on health care than the average country in the EU, the Netherlands and Sweden likely decided that they could afford to put their robust health systems to the test. But as their infection rates have climbed, both nations’ governments have come under steep criticism—particularly that of Sweden, where the Covid-19 death toll is now greater than that of all other Nordic nations combined.
Britain’s coronavirus response, unlike its European neighbors’, is also playing out before the backdrop of another influential factor: Brexit. The United Kingdom’s acrimonious divorce from the European Union has already plagued Britain for nearly half a decade, coloring all issues foreign and domestic. During December’s snap election, Johnson repackaged the rhetoric on the superiority of British life he’d leveraged during the Leave campaign and promised to “Get Brexit Done,” ultimately stocking his cabinet with hard-line Brexiteers.
Yet, as several other nations tackle the pandemic in more effective ways, British exceptionalism has collided with reality. It was the government’s decision to listen to a small handful of British scientists, after all, that may have prevented the UK from ramping up its testing at a critical juncture in the pandemic. Fewer than half a million people here have been tested to date, and roughly a tenth of Britain’s National Health Service workers have had to self-isolate—many without being able to confirm that they have Covid-19. Germany, by contrast, has tested nearly 2 million residents, a factor that, in tandem with an early lockdown, has been credited with helping keep its death toll dramatically below that of neighboring nations, including the UK. Other countries such as South Korea, China, Taiwan, and even the United States have also outperformed the UK on this front. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
Perhaps the clearest evidence that Brexit has warped Johnson’s coronavirus response has been a scandal dubbed “Brexit over breathing.” In late March, news emerged that the UK had opted out of various EU schemes that would have allowed it to purchase ventilators and personal protective equipment in bulk—efforts that it was still allowed to participate in during the Brexit transition period. Downing Street officials declared that they were not participating because the UK was “no longer a member” of the EU and that they would “make their own efforts.” While they later attempted to backtrack by citing ”missed emails,” the Tory government reportedly participated in multiple discussions regarding joint EU procurement and continually failed to correct course.
The UK has indeed made its “own efforts” to source 30,000 ventilators, but the fine print that comes with these devices is illuminating in light of Brexit. For starters, one of the main beneficiaries of the UK’s internal push is Leave champion James Dyson, whose company has received a plum contract for 10,000 new “CoVent” ventilators. Additionally, US President Donald Trump claimed that Johnson called him requesting thousands of the devices—a plea firmly in line with the Tory promise that a close relationship with the United States would offset some of the worst economic consequences of leaving the EU. Unfortunately for the British prime minister, this alleged request only gave Trump an opportunity to distract from his own disastrous pandemic response as he publicly ridiculed Johnson after rejecting his appeal. Current Issue View our current issue
Ultimately, however, the implications of these incidents pale in comparison to how the pandemic might impact EU trade negotiations, which were already on an impossibly tight schedule. During what was meant to be a critical negotiation period, both the EU and the UK chief Brexit negotiators had to self-isolate, while the British prime minister himself was hospitalized for a week, spending three days in intensive care. Technology has also decidedly not been on anyone’s side, with talks reportedly breaking down because of several botched video conferences. Johnson has insisted he’ll still get Brexit done by December, and yet that’s becoming increasingly unlikely, especially since the EU itself is dealing with fissures that the pandemic has exposed.
It should be noted that the NHS, despite being largely underfunded since Margaret Thatcher’s reign, has responded valiantly to the public health crisis; the lightning-fast construction of the NHS Nightingale, with its capacity for 5,000 hospital beds, has been one of the state’s true bright spots. But as fatality rates began to double every two to three days, Britons started to question their government’s coronavirus competence. A recent poll shows more than half the British public believes the delay in imposing a lockdown was a mistake, and Britain’s leading scientific advisers are now warning that the United Kingdom will likely be the hardest-hit nation in Europe. Meanwhile, Johnson’s own brush with Covid-19 seems to have driven home the true threat the pernicious virus poses to the entire country.
It is possible that just as Brexit has contaminated the UK’s handling of the pandemic, so too will the coronavirus affect Brexit in unexpected ways. On Easter Sunday, as Johnson emerged from several days in intensive care, the prime minister thanked the medical professionals who treated him, naming two nurses from New Zealand and Portugal whom he credits with helping him turn a deadly corner. The statement, coming from a man who rose to power in part by fueling xenophobia, marked a surprising shift in rhetoric. It also served to highlight that more than a tenth of NHS staff are not British—5.5 percent are in fact EU nationals. Even as the prime minister was hospitalized, a New York Times report on how all the UK doctors who had died of the coronavirus were immigrants noted that Brexit’s anti-immigrant rhetoric had targeted the very people currently on the pandemic’s front lines.
Brexit negotiations resumed this Monday, as the UK continued to climb toward the predicted peak of its coronavirus curve. With immigration once more front-and-center in deliberations, will Johnson remember who saved his life—at substantial risk to their own? Will Britons, who have begun to heal the considerable fractures inflicted by Brexit by relying on neighbors of all nationalities, see the value of pan-European cooperation? As with everything the coronavirus touches, only time will tell.


thenation--2020-04-20--The Coronavirus Has Lessons for Journalists Covering the Climate Crisis

This story was originally co-published by Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation as part of Covering Climate Now , a global journalistic collaboration to strengthen coverage of the climate story .
The coronavirus pandemic is a tragic reminder of just how essential fact-based , outspoken journalism is , especially in times of crisis .
Without it , people die .
In China , the lack of an independent press made it easier for the government to hide the danger of the virus , putting many more people , especially health care workers , at risk .
In the United States @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , calling it a “ hoax , ” but faced pushback from much of the media .
By highlighting what science and medical experts say , rather than the fake controversies around it , such reporting is helping to push the US death toll lower than it otherwise would be .
Now , it ’ s time for the same journalistic rigor and urgency around the other great crisis of our time .
The overlaps between the coronavirus crisis and the climate crisis are many , and the same best practices when it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , too , newsrooms must let facts , especially scientific facts , be our guide .
We must stand up to the powerful , remembering that journalists work for the public , not for governments .
We must report with compassion , candor , and courage , not only chronicling the ongoing devastation , as important as that is , but also illuminating credible remedies and reasons for hope .
Toward that end , the global journalistic collaboration Covering Climate Now , founded a year ago by Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Earth Day and focusing on climate solutions .
Comprised of more than 400 TV , radio , wire service , digital , and print news outlets with a combined audience approaching 2 billion people , Covering Climate Now organized a similar week of joint coverage in September around the UN Climate Action Summit that helped drive a massive increase in overall media coverage of climate change .
Organizing on the Coasts Won ’ t Save the Planet The Media ’ s Covid-19 Coverage Proves It Could Also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ series Going ahead with this week of climate solutions coverage even as the coronavirus continues to ravage communities around the world is not an easy call .
We know from conversations with colleagues throughout the media that most newsrooms are already working overtime to cover this pandemic and that audiences crave that in-depth , 24/7 coverage .
Nevertheless , there is an opportunity for all of us here .
As awful as the coronavirus is , it is something of a test run for the challenges of a climate crisis that continues to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , is to extract lessons from the Covid-19 crisis that we can apply to covering the climate crisis .
It is , as author and activist Bill McKibben recently wrote in The New Yorker , a daunting task .
The edifice [ of contemporary society ] seems so shiny and substantial , a world of silver jets stitching together cities of towering skyscrapers , a globe of soaring markets and smartphone connectivity , ” McKibben wrote .
“ But a couple of months into this disease and it ’ s all tottering.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ solutions to the coronavirus and the climate crisis are nothing short of eerie .
In both cases , it is imperative to respect science , intervene early to flatten the curve , and prepare for impacts that can ’ t be avoided .
The coronavirus shows what horrors can result when governments , often abetted by propaganda organs masquerading as news organizations , scorn science , shun early action , and fail to fortify their societies against the predicted results .
It is precisely now , in this moment of rawness around the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ draw lessons to help us do better against the onrushing climate crisis .
It is notable and encouraging that even as people understandably obsess about the coronavirus , they remain interested in climate stories .
“ We ’ ve found that there is an audience ; a lot of people want to hear about climate change , ” Justin Worland , the climate correspondent for Time , said during a “ Talking Shop ” conference organized by Covering Climate Now on April 16 .
So , during this week of Earth Day ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ abundance of first-class reporting and analysis of climate solutions by the news outlets of Covering Climate Now .
We define solutions broadly , to include not only technical fixes such as solar panels and sea walls but also policy reforms such as pricing carbon and ending fossil fuel subsidies as well as civic actions to advance these reforms , including voting , protesting , and , yes , better journalism .
To reach the broadest possible audience , some of Covering Climate Now ’ s partners—including , The Guardian , Reuters , CBS @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Asahi Shimbun , and CJR—will make their coverage available free of charge for all partners to republish or rebroadcast .
We are also excited that on Earth Day itself , this Wednesday , a number of the biggest names in news will announce that they are joining Covering Climate Now , expanding our collaboration ’ s reach and ability to keep the climate story at the top of the public agenda .
Optimism does not come easy at this moment in our history .
But we can draw hope from the fact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crisis , and that it can provide a road map for stories that will matter about the climate crisis and , crucially , its solutions .

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service. For that reason, this article, and all of our coronavirus coverage, is now free. Please subscribe to support our writers and staff, and stay healthy.
This story was originally co-published by Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalistic collaboration to strengthen coverage of the climate story.
The coronavirus pandemic is a tragic reminder of just how essential fact-based, outspoken journalism is, especially in times of crisis. Without it, people die. In China, the lack of an independent press made it easier for the government to hide the danger of the virus, putting many more people, especially health care workers, at risk. In the United States, Donald Trump likewise downplayed the threat, calling it a “hoax,” but faced pushback from much of the media. By highlighting what science and medical experts say, rather than the fake controversies around it, such reporting is helping to push the US death toll lower than it otherwise would be.
Now, it’s time for the same journalistic rigor and urgency around the other great crisis of our time. The overlaps between the coronavirus crisis and the climate crisis are many, and the same best practices when it comes to reporting are needed. Here, too, newsrooms must let facts, especially scientific facts, be our guide. We must stand up to the powerful, remembering that journalists work for the public, not for governments. We must report with compassion, candor, and courage, not only chronicling the ongoing devastation, as important as that is, but also illuminating credible remedies and reasons for hope.
Toward that end, the global journalistic collaboration Covering Climate Now, founded a year ago by Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation, has launched a week of coverage coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Earth Day and focusing on climate solutions. Comprised of more than 400 TV, radio, wire service, digital, and print news outlets with a combined audience approaching 2 billion people, Covering Climate Now organized a similar week of joint coverage in September around the UN Climate Action Summit that helped drive a massive increase in overall media coverage of climate change. Covering Climate Now How to Stop the Spread of Climate Disinformation Erika Seiber and Michael Khoo A Soundtrack for the Climate Emergency Mark Hertsgaard Can Gen Z Save the Midterms for Democrats? Mark Hertsgaard
Going ahead with this week of climate solutions coverage even as the coronavirus continues to ravage communities around the world is not an easy call. We know from conversations with colleagues throughout the media that most newsrooms are already working overtime to cover this pandemic and that audiences crave that in-depth, 24/7 coverage.
Nevertheless, there is an opportunity for all of us here. As awful as the coronavirus is, it is something of a test run for the challenges of a climate crisis that continues to accelerate. Our job, as journalists, is to extract lessons from the Covid-19 crisis that we can apply to covering the climate crisis. It is, as author and activist Bill McKibben recently wrote in The New Yorker, a daunting task. The edifice [of contemporary society] seems so shiny and substantial, a world of silver jets stitching together cities of towering skyscrapers, a globe of soaring markets and smartphone connectivity,” McKibben wrote. “But a couple of months into this disease and it’s all tottering.”
The similarities between the causes of and solutions to the coronavirus and the climate crisis are nothing short of eerie. In both cases, it is imperative to respect science, intervene early to flatten the curve, and prepare for impacts that can’t be avoided. The coronavirus shows what horrors can result when governments, often abetted by propaganda organs masquerading as news organizations, scorn science, shun early action, and fail to fortify their societies against the predicted results. It is precisely now, in this moment of rawness around the coronavirus, that we can most ably draw lessons to help us do better against the onrushing climate crisis. Current Issue View our current issue
It is notable and encouraging that even as people understandably obsess about the coronavirus, they remain interested in climate stories. “We’ve found that there is an audience; a lot of people want to hear about climate change,” Justin Worland, the climate correspondent for Time, said during a “Talking Shop” conference organized by Covering Climate Now on April 16.
So, during this week of Earth Day’s 50th anniversary, look for an abundance of first-class reporting and analysis of climate solutions by the news outlets of Covering Climate Now. We define solutions broadly, to include not only technical fixes such as solar panels and sea walls but also policy reforms such as pricing carbon and ending fossil fuel subsidies as well as civic actions to advance these reforms, including voting, protesting, and, yes, better journalism. To reach the broadest possible audience, some of Covering Climate Now’s partners—including, The Guardian, Reuters, CBS News, WNYC public radio, HuffPost, Asahi Shimbun, and CJR—will make their coverage available free of charge for all partners to republish or rebroadcast.
We are also excited that on Earth Day itself, this Wednesday, a number of the biggest names in news will announce that they are joining Covering Climate Now, expanding our collaboration’s reach and ability to keep the climate story at the top of the public agenda.
Optimism does not come easy at this moment in our history. But we can draw hope from the fact that we can learn from the coronavirus crisis, and that it can provide a road map for stories that will matter about the climate crisis and, crucially, its solutions.


thenation--2020-04-20--On China, Biden Falls Into Trump’s Xenophobia Trap

Donald Trump ’ s oft-displayed ignorance of the most rudimentary matters of policy and law shouldn ’ t blind us to his genuine political skills .
He might not understand the Constitution or know how to govern , but he has an uncanny mastery of negative partisanship .
He has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to combine brazen corruption and unabashed incompetence while still retaining the loyalty of the Republican base .
All he has to do is remind them that Democrats are even worse .
In 2016 , Trump successfully pinned the label “ Crooked Hillary ” on his rival @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” is going to be “ Beijing Biden , ” a nickname that the Trump campaign is already promoting on social media as part of an effort to tie the former vice president to the Chinese regime .
As The Washington Post reports , “ President Trump ’ s campaign is preparing to launch a broad effort aimed at linking Joe Biden to China , after concluding that it would be more politically effective than defending or promoting Trump ’ s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
” Speaking to the Los Angeles Times @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that internal polls showed that “ Joe Biden ’ s softness on China is a major vulnerability.
” Biden , Murtaugh added , “ doesn ’ t view China as an economic competitor , he was critical of the president ’ s life-saving China travel restrictions , he has resisted holding China accountable for the virus outbreak , and his son Hunter entered business with a state-owned Chinese bank after he accompanied his then-vice president father on an Air Force 2 trip to Beijing.
” Last week , America First Action , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of ads along these lines , with a special emphasis on Biden ’ s historic friendliness to good trade relations with China .
“ Stop China , Stop Joe Biden , ” the ads implored .
Thanks to Covid-19 , Neoliberal Globalization Is Unraveling Can Obama Unite the Democrats Behind Biden ?
On Friday , Biden ’ s presidential campaign responded with an ad that correctly chides Trump for his botched response to the Covid-19 pandemic .
Then the ad added , “ So now , Trump and his allies are launching negative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ truth .
Here are the facts : Joe Biden warned the nation in January that Trump had left us unprepared for an epidemic.
” The ad goes on to say , “ When Trump rolled over for the Chinese , he took their word for it .
Trump praised the Chinese 15 times in January and February as the coronavirus spread across the world.
” The use of the phrase “ the Chinese ” is troubling , since it fails to acknowledge the distinction between the Chinese people and the government of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ For that matter , it eludes the reality of Chinese people living outside the PRC , in Taiwan , Singapore , and the United States .
Some political pundits , especially those in the MSNBC resistance liberal camp , loved the ad .
“ This is the most devastating political ad I ’ ve seen in years , ” Joe Scarborough tweeted .
“ It reveals the truth about Trump and China , and that truth is ugly.
” Scarborough ’ s colleague Joy Reid agreed , tweeting , “ This @ JoeBiden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ very , very angry.
” Yet , even if the ad can be commended for forcefully responding to Trump ’ s attack , it was hard to ignore the undercurrent of xenophobia .
Cecillia Wang , deputy legal director of the ACLU , tweeted , “ Wow @ JoeBiden .
Already trying to out-Trump Trump .
This kind of fearmongering is causing violent attacks on Asian Americans .
If you are trying to reform your past history of racist policymaking , like your 1994 crime bill , you had better do some homework @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In an e-mail , Emma Ashford , a research fellow in defense and foreign policy at the Cato Institute , noted that the ad implied a hawkish foreign policy , with Biden promising to stand up to the Chinese government .
“ First , I think politically this does Joe Biden no favors , as it effectively buys into Trump ’ s narrative on the virus , ” Ashford informed me .
“ Clearly , they ’ re trying to criticize Trump here , but they ’ re buying his argument more broadly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ virus , and he should have dealt with China more strictly , rather than the alternate narrative that pandemics are a known threat , and Trump undermined our ability to respond effectively .
It still pins much of the blame on China.
” The ad , Ashford argues , is “ bad for the future of Democrats ’ foreign policy .
It ’ s going to be very difficult to make progress on cutting the defense budget , ‘ ending endless war , ’ or other progressive priorities in foreign policy if a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s model of confrontation with China.
” To effectively answer Trump , Biden needs to walk a difficult tightrope : He must address criticisms of his past robust support for trade with China and explain how he has changed in light of new realities , while criticizing Trump ’ s currying favor with the authoritarian Chinese regime .
All of this has to be combined with an explicit rebuke to xenophobia .
This nuanced position on China isn ’ t impossible—it ’ s very close to what Bernie Sanders ran on .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ longtime critic of trade agreements that allow offshoring to China without asking for protection of labor rights and environmental standards .
Lacking that history and , in fact , being an avid free-trader , Biden has made the mistake of over-compensating by going full-blast in criticizing China .
This is the likely source of the xenophobia of the ad , which can charitably be seen as inadvertent .
Biden has fallen into Trump ’ s trap .
Trump is using China as a wedge issue to divide different Democratic voting blocs .
Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voters for himself .
He just has to make sure they are discouraged enough to stay home in November .
By highlighting Biden ’ s longtime support of unbridled trade with China , Trump is hoping to dampen pro-Biden enthusiasm among blue-collar workers in the Midwest .
Biden ’ s strategy of responding to this attack with xenophobia will only further fragment his base .
It might win back some of those blue-collar voters , but at the risk of alienating Asian Americans ( a group that has been strongly trending towards the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ progressives with the Yellow Peril undercurrent of the ad , as well as those who fear ramping up military tensions with a rising world power .
A more nimble approach to the China question is still possible .
Biden could try to adopt Bernie Sanders ’ s approach to trade and also reaffirm the distinction between the Chinese people and their government .
But this would require an ability to convey a nuanced message , a talent that Biden hasn ’ t shown yet during this election cycle .
Biden ’ s campaign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to make their case in a nuanced way , since China as a hot-button issue is going to continue to dominate the election .

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Donald Trump’s oft-displayed ignorance of the most rudimentary matters of policy and law shouldn’t blind us to his genuine political skills. He might not understand the Constitution or know how to govern, but he has an uncanny mastery of negative partisanship. He has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to combine brazen corruption and unabashed incompetence while still retaining the loyalty of the Republican base. All he has to do is remind them that Democrats are even worse.
In 2016, Trump successfully pinned the label “Crooked Hillary” on his rival. The sequel to “Crooked Hillary” is going to be “Beijing Biden,” a nickname that the Trump campaign is already promoting on social media as part of an effort to tie the former vice president to the Chinese regime. As The Washington Post reports, “President Trump’s campaign is preparing to launch a broad effort aimed at linking Joe Biden to China, after concluding that it would be more politically effective than defending or promoting Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.”
Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh claimed that internal polls showed that “Joe Biden’s softness on China is a major vulnerability.” Biden, Murtaugh added, “doesn’t view China as an economic competitor, he was critical of the president’s life-saving China travel restrictions, he has resisted holding China accountable for the virus outbreak, and his son Hunter entered business with a state-owned Chinese bank after he accompanied his then-vice president father on an Air Force 2 trip to Beijing.”
Last week, America First Action, a pro-Trump Super PAC, released a series of ads along these lines, with a special emphasis on Biden’s historic friendliness to good trade relations with China. “Stop China, Stop Joe Biden,” the ads implored. More From Jeet Heer The Indigenous Roots of Robbie Robertson’s Rock and Roll Revolution August 14, 2023 Why Does This Racist Keep Getting Silicon Valley Money? August 11, 2023 When Phallocrats Go Limp August 4, 2023
On Friday, Biden’s presidential campaign responded with an ad that correctly chides Trump for his botched response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Then the ad added, “So now, Trump and his allies are launching negative attacks against Joe Biden to hide the truth. Here are the facts: Joe Biden warned the nation in January that Trump had left us unprepared for an epidemic.” The ad goes on to say, “When Trump rolled over for the Chinese, he took their word for it. Trump praised the Chinese 15 times in January and February as the coronavirus spread across the world.” Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
The use of the phrase “the Chinese” is troubling, since it fails to acknowledge the distinction between the Chinese people and the government of the People’s Republic of China. For that matter, it eludes the reality of Chinese people living outside the PRC, in Taiwan, Singapore, and the United States.
Some political pundits, especially those in the MSNBC resistance liberal camp, loved the ad. “This is the most devastating political ad I’ve seen in years,” Joe Scarborough tweeted. “It reveals the truth about Trump and China, and that truth is ugly.” Scarborough’s colleague Joy Reid agreed, tweeting, “This @JoeBiden ad is going to make @realDonaldTrump very, very angry.” Current Issue View our current issue
Yet, even if the ad can be commended for forcefully responding to Trump’s attack, it was hard to ignore the undercurrent of xenophobia. Cecillia Wang, deputy legal director of the ACLU, tweeted, “Wow @JoeBiden. Already trying to out-Trump Trump. This kind of fearmongering is causing violent attacks on Asian Americans. If you are trying to reform your past history of racist policymaking, like your 1994 crime bill, you had better do some homework. This ain’t it.”
In an e-mail, Emma Ashford, a research fellow in defense and foreign policy at the Cato Institute, noted that the ad implied a hawkish foreign policy, with Biden promising to stand up to the Chinese government.
“First, I think politically this does Joe Biden no favors, as it effectively buys into Trump’s narrative on the virus,” Ashford informed me. “Clearly, they’re trying to criticize Trump here, but they’re buying his argument more broadly, arguing that this was a foreign virus, and he should have dealt with China more strictly, rather than the alternate narrative that pandemics are a known threat, and Trump undermined our ability to respond effectively. It still pins much of the blame on China.”
The ad, Ashford argues, is “bad for the future of Democrats’ foreign policy. It’s going to be very difficult to make progress on cutting the defense budget, ‘ending endless war,’ or other progressive priorities in foreign policy if a Biden administration effectively adopts the Trump administration’s model of confrontation with China.”
To effectively answer Trump, Biden needs to walk a difficult tightrope: He must address criticisms of his past robust support for trade with China and explain how he has changed in light of new realities, while criticizing Trump’s currying favor with the authoritarian Chinese regime. All of this has to be combined with an explicit rebuke to xenophobia. China Policy Sanders v. Biden (v. Trump) on China Rob Howse and Zephyr Teachout
This nuanced position on China isn’t impossible—it’s very close to what Bernie Sanders ran on. Sanders has the advantage of being a longtime critic of trade agreements that allow offshoring to China without asking for protection of labor rights and environmental standards. Lacking that history and, in fact, being an avid free-trader, Biden has made the mistake of over-compensating by going full-blast in criticizing China. This is the likely source of the xenophobia of the ad, which can charitably be seen as inadvertent.
Biden has fallen into Trump’s trap. Trump is using China as a wedge issue to divide different Democratic voting blocs. Trump doesn’t need to win these voters for himself. He just has to make sure they are discouraged enough to stay home in November. By highlighting Biden’s longtime support of unbridled trade with China, Trump is hoping to dampen pro-Biden enthusiasm among blue-collar workers in the Midwest.
Biden’s strategy of responding to this attack with xenophobia will only further fragment his base. It might win back some of those blue-collar voters, but at the risk of alienating Asian Americans (a group that has been strongly trending towards the Democrats). Biden is also antagonizing progressives with the Yellow Peril undercurrent of the ad, as well as those who fear ramping up military tensions with a rising world power.
A more nimble approach to the China question is still possible. Biden could try to adopt Bernie Sanders’s approach to trade and also reaffirm the distinction between the Chinese people and their government. But this would require an ability to convey a nuanced message, a talent that Biden hasn’t shown yet during this election cycle. Biden’s campaign would do well to figure out how to make their case in a nuanced way, since China as a hot-button issue is going to continue to dominate the election.


thenation--2020-04-21--What’s the Deal With Grimes?

What’s the Deal With Grimes?

Claire Boucher , the Canadian artist and producer better known as Grimes , often makes music so manic , energetic , and lively , it feels animated .
Her songs are hyperactive and kinetic—chemical electro-pop with a mind of its own .
“ Oblivion , ” from her 2012 breakthrough album , Visions , sounds like a cartoon baby doll springing through the stages of a colorful video game .
It ’ s easy to imagine “ Flesh Without Blood , ” from 2015 ’ s Art Angels , blasting out of a top-down convertible driving across a psychedelic Candy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Miss Anthropocene , released this year , Grimes trades brightness for anarchy .
Brooding synths and beats as sparse as empty fields build into songs that are easily her most despondent .
There ’ s a logic to the darkness here : On this record , she ’ s envisioned music for a planet obliterated by ecological disaster .
Grimes announced in 2019 that she was planning “ a concept album about the anthropomorphic goddess of climate change.
” To some , her out-of-the-box thinking and off-the-wall imagination could offer an original @ @ @ @ @ @ @ realities of global warming .
Others were skeptical and even annoyed .
The ground had been shifting beneath Grimes and her project for some time .
Over the last eight years , she has gone from being an indie auteur to a contentious persona straddling pop stardom .
Outspoken , unpredictable , and contrarian , Grimes has challenged the narrative fans wanted to assign her as a beloved queen of DIY .
She ’ d harbored more mainstream interests and ambitions , and the accusation that she ’ d sold out frequently and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expectations and her more pop-driven impulses .
The criticism extended to her politics ; she ’ d been blunt about certain progressive causes , often pointing out gender disparities in music and appending “ anti-imperialist ” to her Twitter bio .
But all of that fell under suspicion when she started dating Tesla ’ s CEO and cofounder , the billionaire Elon Musk .
They announced this year they were expecting a child .
Upon its release , Miss Anthropocene quickly summoned a vast Internet din of gossip and criticism .
As a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ always easy to follow .
Grimes ’ s ideas and characters carom off one another like uncontrollable ping-pong balls .
But it ’ s an eerily catchy pop record , infectious enough to keep luring listeners back , despite the slightly garbled storytelling and her contradictions as an artist and a celebrity .
While some of its solipsistic and absurdist turns are grating and even a little obtuse , they hit on a few unnerving truths about humans in the face of overwhelming disasters .
At the core of Miss Anthropocene , Grimes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can ’ t always escape in a crisis .
Throughout her career , Grimes has played up her maximalist inclinations with extravagant visuals that explode with movement , color , and cultural references .
Her videos are loaded with blood-soaked characters inspired by Marie Antoinette and sci-fi experiments , dancers performing in Mortal Kombat–style balaclavas , scenic backdrops that evoke the sets of Mad Max , creative treatments that meld cyberpunk with Greek mythology and glitter .
The aesthetic is brilliantly paradoxical—heady artiness and lowbrow camp—and it hints at the endless , eclectic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her brain .
But pain and trauma have often lurked beneath Grimes ’ s bubbly melodies .
The opening lines of “ Oblivion , ” written about her experiences with assault , narrate the post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety that linger after an attack : “ And never walk about after dark / It ’ s my point of view / ‘ Cause someone could break your neck / Coming up behind you , always coming / And you ’ d never have a clue.
” On Miss Anthropocene , she ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pop-driven touches .
The sonic mood is generally foreboding , although the album ’ s hooks and choruses poke above the gloom .
“ Delete Forever , ” a moment of grief driven by spiky acoustic guitars , is an example of when this works best .
Grimes ’ s vocals remain crystalline as she sings a mournful chorus that , even in its somberness , has hints of buoyant ’ 90s alt-pop .
The song was inspired by the opioid epidemic and the drug overdose of rapper Lil Peep , and its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I did everything / More lines on the mirror than a sonnet ” ) are despairing , especially as she delivers them with chillingly tender emotion .
Yet at the end of the chorus , she adds a cheerful yelp of “ Woo !
” tempering the sentimentality and capturing the broad and multilayered ways she engages with our grim world .
Grimes often turns the lens back on herself .
The album ’ s titular character is supposed to be a “ space-dwelling demon / Beauty queen who relishes the end @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also reads as a stand-in for Grimes .
“ So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth , ” the atmospheric opener , conjures images of the planet in free fall , although Grimes said in an interview with Apple Music that she wrote the song about her pregnancy .
“ It ’ s this weird loss of self , or loss of power or something , ” she explained .
“ Because it ’ s sort of like a future life in subservience to this new life.
” The glitchy standout “ You @ @ @ @ @ @ @ m Not Around ” tells the story of a suicidal angel , but lyrics like “ If they could see me now , smiling six feet underground / I ’ ll tie my feet to rocks and drown / You ’ ll miss me when I ’ m not around ” hint at her tortured celebrity and her frustrations with the criticism to which she ’ s been subject .
“ It ’ s sort of about when you ’ re just pissed and everyone ’ s being a jerk to you , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Grimes ’ s conflating global crises with the public scrutiny of her career strikes a note of shallowness , as does her expressed desire to make “ climate change fun.
” The approach is somewhat defensible if you ’ re familiar with how she mixed camp and darkness in the past , but it ’ s undeniably tone-deaf .
As part of the album ’ s publicity cycle , billboards for its release announced “ Global warming is good ” —purportedly meant as an absurdist demonstration intended to shock people into paying attention @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I was like , ‘ Oh , fuck no , this is a huge mistake , ’ ” she told Pitchfork recently .
“ Then I was like , ‘ Wow , this is so scary that I think we should probably put it up.
’ The goal was to have less advertising and more public art.
” The problem is that the billboards are , at the end of the day , advertising for a new album by Grimes , who is now having a child with the 19th-richest person in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ grappling with the climate crisis in their work , and a celebrity platform , some might argue , should be used to amplify the warnings of rising temperatures and ecosystem collapse .
But scientists have pointed out that the climate crisis highlights and exacerbates economic inequality on an already unequal planet .
It isn ’ t a great equalizer that will unite us in tragedy ; its effects will be felt , first and most drastically , among the most vulnerable and impoverished populations around the world .
In most circumstances , bringing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ discussion of her art wouldn ’ t seem fair , but the context is impossible to ignore when the entire premise of the album is tied up in questions of global inequality .
Perhaps against its own intentions , Miss Anthropocene mirrors a larger question of popular artists blurring the lines between activism and entertainment—and of how serious the alarm bells sound when they ’ re ringing from the peaks of celebrity and privilege .
In the midst of a pandemic marked by isolation and angst , Miss Anthropocene takes on a different @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s off-putting artistic choices make sense in this new light .
The decision to frame humanity ’ s doom around her experiences in songs like “ You ’ ll Miss Me When I ’ m Not Around ” and “ So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth ” coheres a bit more ; it ’ s difficult not to tally the personal costs and filter communal disaster through one ’ s existential despair , although for most people , this probably happens only in private .
But Grimes isn ’ t afraid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the album was written some time ago , she sharply invokes the rage and cynicism that have become rampant in the past few weeks .
The acidic pop song “ My Name Is Dark ” is an ode to the unavoidable nihilism that rears its head when things appear hopeless ( “ I don ’ t need to sleep anymore / That ’ s what the drugs are for , ” she sings between background screeches ) .
“ Violence ” is a portrait of blind rage , while the staticky synths on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ feel like a deadly lullaby encouraging humans to submit to their fate .
Miss Anthropocene isn ’ t always coherent , but neither is our moment .
On “ IDORU , ” Grimes ends the album by painting an idealistic picture of the future .
She weaves in samples of birds chirping and dreamy synths that sound as if they ’ ve been piped in from a better place .
“ As my fingers tremble / This is who I am , ” she sings earnestly .
Grimes hasn ’ t actually clarified @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to believe her .
And though the song is unsettling , when it ends , it ’ s good enough to make you hit Repeat .

This article appears in the May 4/11, 2020 issue.
Claire Boucher, the Canadian artist and producer better known as Grimes, often makes music so manic, energetic, and lively, it feels animated. Her songs are hyperactive and kinetic—chemical electro-pop with a mind of its own. “Oblivion,” from her 2012 breakthrough album, Visions, sounds like a cartoon baby doll springing through the stages of a colorful video game. It’s easy to imagine “Flesh Without Blood,” from 2015’s Art Angels, blasting out of a top-down convertible driving across a psychedelic Candy Land. But on her latest album, Miss Anthropocene, released this year, Grimes trades brightness for anarchy. Brooding synths and beats as sparse as empty fields build into songs that are easily her most despondent. There’s a logic to the darkness here: On this record, she’s envisioned music for a planet obliterated by ecological disaster.
Grimes announced in 2019 that she was planning “a concept album about the anthropomorphic goddess of climate change.” To some, her out-of-the-box thinking and off-the-wall imagination could offer an original way to process the harsh and inevitable realities of global warming. Others were skeptical and even annoyed. The ground had been shifting beneath Grimes and her project for some time. Over the last eight years, she has gone from being an indie auteur to a contentious persona straddling pop stardom.
Outspoken, unpredictable, and contrarian, Grimes has challenged the narrative fans wanted to assign her as a beloved queen of DIY. She’d harbored more mainstream interests and ambitions, and the accusation that she’d sold out frequently and unfairly followed her as she navigated audience expectations and her more pop-driven impulses. The criticism extended to her politics; she’d been blunt about certain progressive causes, often pointing out gender disparities in music and appending “anti-imperialist” to her Twitter bio. But all of that fell under suspicion when she started dating Tesla’s CEO and cofounder, the billionaire Elon Musk. They announced this year they were expecting a child.
Upon its release, Miss Anthropocene quickly summoned a vast Internet din of gossip and criticism. As a concept album, it isn’t always easy to follow. Grimes’s ideas and characters carom off one another like uncontrollable ping-pong balls. But it’s an eerily catchy pop record, infectious enough to keep luring listeners back, despite the slightly garbled storytelling and her contradictions as an artist and a celebrity. While some of its solipsistic and absurdist turns are grating and even a little obtuse, they hit on a few unnerving truths about humans in the face of overwhelming disasters. At the core of Miss Anthropocene, Grimes captures a self-centeredness and bleakness that we can’t always escape in a crisis.
Throughout her career, Grimes has played up her maximalist inclinations with extravagant visuals that explode with movement, color, and cultural references. Her videos are loaded with blood-soaked characters inspired by Marie Antoinette and sci-fi experiments, dancers performing in Mortal Kombat–style balaclavas, scenic backdrops that evoke the sets of Mad Max, creative treatments that meld cyberpunk with Greek mythology and glitter. The aesthetic is brilliantly paradoxical—heady artiness and lowbrow camp—and it hints at the endless, eclectic pop culture Rolodex that she carries in her brain. But pain and trauma have often lurked beneath Grimes’s bubbly melodies. The opening lines of “Oblivion,” written about her experiences with assault, narrate the post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety that linger after an attack: “And never walk about after dark / It’s my point of view / ‘Cause someone could break your neck / Coming up behind you, always coming / And you’d never have a clue.” Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
On Miss Anthropocene, she’s mastered this balance of harrowing themes and pop-driven touches. The sonic mood is generally foreboding, although the album’s hooks and choruses poke above the gloom. “Delete Forever,” a moment of grief driven by spiky acoustic guitars, is an example of when this works best. Grimes’s vocals remain crystalline as she sings a mournful chorus that, even in its somberness, has hints of buoyant ’90s alt-pop. The song was inspired by the opioid epidemic and the drug overdose of rapper Lil Peep, and its lyrics (“But I did everything, I did everything / More lines on the mirror than a sonnet”) are despairing, especially as she delivers them with chillingly tender emotion. Yet at the end of the chorus, she adds a cheerful yelp of “Woo!” tempering the sentimentality and capturing the broad and multilayered ways she engages with our grim world.
Grimes often turns the lens back on herself. The album’s titular character is supposed to be a “space-dwelling demon / Beauty queen who relishes the end of the world,” but she also reads as a stand-in for Grimes. “So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth,” the atmospheric opener, conjures images of the planet in free fall, although Grimes said in an interview with Apple Music that she wrote the song about her pregnancy. “It’s this weird loss of self, or loss of power or something,” she explained. “Because it’s sort of like a future life in subservience to this new life.” The glitchy standout “You’ll Miss Me When I’m Not Around” tells the story of a suicidal angel, but lyrics like “If they could see me now, smiling six feet underground / I’ll tie my feet to rocks and drown / You’ll miss me when I’m not around” hint at her tortured celebrity and her frustrations with the criticism to which she’s been subject. “It’s sort of about when you’re just pissed and everyone’s being a jerk to you,” she said in an interview. Related Article Jenny Offill’s Novel of Climate Dread Tony Tulathimutte
Grimes’s conflating global crises with the public scrutiny of her career strikes a note of shallowness, as does her expressed desire to make “climate change fun.” The approach is somewhat defensible if you’re familiar with how she mixed camp and darkness in the past, but it’s undeniably tone-deaf. As part of the album’s publicity cycle, billboards for its release announced “Global warming is good”—purportedly meant as an absurdist demonstration intended to shock people into paying attention. “When I saw it, I was like, ‘Oh, fuck no, this is a huge mistake,’” she told Pitchfork recently. “Then I was like, ‘Wow, this is so scary that I think we should probably put it up.’ The goal was to have less advertising and more public art.”
The problem is that the billboards are, at the end of the day, advertising for a new album by Grimes, who is now having a child with the 19th-richest person in the world. Certainly, artists should be grappling with the climate crisis in their work, and a celebrity platform, some might argue, should be used to amplify the warnings of rising temperatures and ecosystem collapse. But scientists have pointed out that the climate crisis highlights and exacerbates economic inequality on an already unequal planet. It isn’t a great equalizer that will unite us in tragedy; its effects will be felt, first and most drastically, among the most vulnerable and impoverished populations around the world. In most circumstances, bringing Grimes’s personal life into a discussion of her art wouldn’t seem fair, but the context is impossible to ignore when the entire premise of the album is tied up in questions of global inequality. Perhaps against its own intentions, Miss Anthropocene mirrors a larger question of popular artists blurring the lines between activism and entertainment—and of how serious the alarm bells sound when they’re ringing from the peaks of celebrity and privilege.
In the midst of a pandemic marked by isolation and angst, Miss Anthropocene takes on a different meaning, and even some of Grimes’s off-putting artistic choices make sense in this new light. The decision to frame humanity’s doom around her experiences in songs like “You’ll Miss Me When I’m Not Around” and “So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth” coheres a bit more; it’s difficult not to tally the personal costs and filter communal disaster through one’s existential despair, although for most people, this probably happens only in private.
But Grimes isn’t afraid to reflect our ugliest habits. Though the album was written some time ago, she sharply invokes the rage and cynicism that have become rampant in the past few weeks. The acidic pop song “My Name Is Dark” is an ode to the unavoidable nihilism that rears its head when things appear hopeless (“I don’t need to sleep anymore / That’s what the drugs are for,” she sings between background screeches). “Violence” is a portrait of blind rage, while the staticky synths on the prescient “Before the Fever” feel like a deadly lullaby encouraging humans to submit to their fate.
Miss Anthropocene isn’t always coherent, but neither is our moment. On “IDORU,” Grimes ends the album by painting an idealistic picture of the future. She weaves in samples of birds chirping and dreamy synths that sound as if they’ve been piped in from a better place. “As my fingers tremble / This is who I am,” she sings earnestly. Grimes hasn’t actually clarified who she is, yet you want to believe her. And though the song is unsettling, when it ends, it’s good enough to make you hit Repeat.