thenation--2020-09-14--Democrats Have Ignored Cities Like Kenosha for Too Long

enosha , is.—Former vice president Joe Biden visited Kenosha just before Labor Day , making the first visit by a Democratic presidential nominee to Wisconsin since 2012 .
Biden was not campaigning in any traditional sense .
He came to this historic industrial city on the shores on Lake Michigan to talk with residents who were shaken by the August 23 police shooting of a 29-year-old Black man , Jacob Blake , and by the August 25 killing of two demonstrators for racial justice by a 17-year-old white vigilante .
Biden arrived two days after President Trump , who swept @ @ @ @ @ @ @ law enforcement officials , pose in front of rubble from destroyed buildings , and unload another fusillade of bombastic “ law-and-order ” rhetoric .
The president did not meet with the Blake family , did not condemn vigilantism , did not challenge systemic racism .
As Representative Mark Pocan , a Wisconsin Democrat who was born and raised in Kenosha , said , “ Donald Trump didn ’ t come to Kenosha for Jacob Blake or his family .
He didn ’ t come to condemn the murders of [ demonstrators ] Anthony @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to spread hate.
” Biden was on a different mission from the man he hopes to replace .
The former vice president met with the Blakes , said the officer who shot Blake seven times in the back should be charged , and spent more than an hour in a community meeting at Kenosha ’ s Grace Lutheran Church .
At the meeting , he listened .
That was good .
Biden should keep listening .
And he should keep coming up with proposals that address the crying need for economic , social @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the dozens of Great Lakes cities like it that will decide the 2020 presidential election .
Remove Postmaster General Louis DeJoy , by Any Legal or Constitutional Means Necessary These cities—with all their challenges and weaknesses , their hopes and possibilities—have been neglected for too long .
“ There ’ s a lot of frustration in Kenosha now , ” says Terrance Warthen , who organized unity rallies after the Blake shooting .
“ But there has been frustration in Kenosha for a long time.
” Much of that frustration in Kenosha has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ local and state levels—especially in Wisconsin , a state where basic steps to address police violence have been thwarted by Republican legislators , and where almost a decade of onetime Governor Scott Walker ’ s right-wing policies undermined not only unions but also industrial development , education , and health care in cities such as Kenosha .
But the frustration also has to do with the failure of Democrats at the national level to pay enough attention to Kenosha and other Great Lakes cities that have been upended economically and socially by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ jobs .
For too long , neoliberals in both parties peddled economic policies that shuttered factories and hobbled unions in cities like Kenosha .
They failed to address racial disparities ; in fact , they often made things worse with “ reforms ” that neglected human needs and over-emphasized policing .
That led to a decline in faith in government to be on the side of communities that were struggling , which was especially damaging to the Democrats .
Decades of Wall Street–friendly compromises and concessions on the part of the party that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ provide a part of the explanation for why Kenosha County , for the first time in decades , backed a Republican for president in 2016 .
What Happens Next Wisconsin ’ s Lieutenant Governor Talks About the Kenosha Protests and What Happens Next It wasn ’ t alone .
Across Wisconsin , Michigan , Ohio , and Pennsylvania , counties anchored by small- and mid-sized manufacturing centers were among the key places where Democratic vote totals slipped in 2016 , as Republican numbers rose .
These are the forgotten cities , where factories @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into decline , and old certainties have unraveled .
These are the places where the last several decades have seen inequality and injustice grow amid supposed economic boom times .
Kenosha is in the news now , but people like Terrance Warthen fear it will fade from view quickly .
Some Democratic strategists quietly suggest that this might be a good thing .
They ’ re afraid that too much focus on a city that experienced several nights of chaos after the Blake shooting will spur the “ backlash ” voting that Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ appearances , and vitriolic campaign ads—including a new one that declares , “ Lawless criminals terrorize Kenosha , Wisconsin and Joe Biden takes a knee.
” Democrats would be fools to neglect Kenosha and cities like it at this point .
If they put their time and energy into these communities , they can counter Trump ’ s divisive politics .
New polling from Wisconsin , conducted after tensions in Kenosha erupted , found Biden leading Trump 47-43 among likely voters—the same margin that the Democrat has enjoyed , with minimal variation , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of registered voters , the Marquette Law School survey found , Biden had a six-point lead—the same he enjoyed in early August , before the Democratic and Republican national conventions , the Blake shooting , and the shooting of the two protesters .
Attitudes regarding Black Lives Matter demonstrations “ barely moved following the Kenosha shootings and protests , ” according to the Marquette survey .
There is little doubt that Trump will keep trying to make inroads in Kenosha and surrounding Kenosha County , a key swing region in a key swing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a score of cities like it in the Great Lakes swing states that , by most indications , will be decisive in November .
At a moment when the nation ’ s attention has turned to this one city , Biden can develop a message that speaks to Kenosha and many other communities that have for too long been neglected by the Democrats .
Like many of America ’ s “ factory towns , ” Kenosha began to see job cuts and plant closures with the rise of corporate globalization in the 1970s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ government ’ s embrace of the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations in 1986 .
The job losses ramped up after Democrats and Republicans approved the North American Free Trade Agreement , permanent normalization of trade relations with China , and the other Wall Street–friendly trade deals that were supposed to be so good for American manufacturing .
Those agreements , along with a rush to relocate and automate heavy industries , left hundreds of cities struggling .
Instead of forging a “ new economy , ” they exacerbated existing disparities .
A @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and equitable industrial policies as an answer to the economic and social hurt felt by Great Lakes manufacturing centers—from Erie in Pennsylvania , to Lorain and Sandusky and Toledo in Ohio , to Port Huron and Bay City and Muskegon and Benton Harbor in Michigan , to East Chicago and Gary in Indiana , to Kenosha and Racine and Milwaukee and Sheboygan and Manitowoc in Wisconsin—upended American politics .
So , too , did the bailout of Wall Street following the 2008 economic meltdown , which said in no uncertain terms that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than the security of laid-off workers and homeowners struggling to make payments .
So , too , did the refusal of successive administrations , Democratic and Republican , to address structural racism in an economy and a society where the game has always been rigged—and where the old calculus of “ last hired , first fired ” continues to perpetuate inequality .
As Republicans grew meaner , seeking to exploit divisions with increasingly racist and xenophobic messaging , Democrats lost touch .
They should have listened more closely to A. Philip Randolph .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ justice insisted on labeling the 1963 mobilization for civil rights as “ The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
” The longtime leader of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters , who played a pivotal role in bringing organized labor into the civil rights movement , argued after the march for a “ Freedom Budget for All Americans , ” which promised “ the abolition of poverty , guaranteed full employment , fair prices for farmers , fair wages for workers , housing and healthcare for all , the establishment of progressive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the needs of working families.
” Randolph warned that without an intersectional understanding of the need for civil rights and economic rights , necessary change would be thwarted .
President Lyndon Johnson was interested in Randolph ’ s ideas , but he never implemented them .
Instead , Johnson steered resources into the Vietnam War , in which , the Rev .
Martin Luther King Jr. rightly recognized , “ the physical casualties of the war in Viet Nam are not alone the catastrophes.
” “ The security we profess to seek in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decaying cities , ” said King in 1967 .
“ The bombs in Viet Nam explode at home : they destroy the hopes and possibilities for a decent America.
” When the civil rights leader appeared in Kenosha in April of that year , King spoke with a sense of urgency , saying , “ As long as justice is postponed , we are caught in bitterness and despair.
” Successive Democratic presidents failed to renew those hopes and possibilities .
They got better at keeping Wall Street happy , but worse at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like Kenosha .
Donald Trump saw an opening , and he grabbed it in 2016 .
He paid a lot of attention to Wisconsin in the fall of 2016—especially southeast Wisconsin , a region represented then by former House Speaker Paul Ryan and the home to the Republican National Committee chairman , Kenosha ’ s Reince Priebus—and made a lot of false promises .
Hillary Clinton never came .
Trump ’ s fake populism was sufficient to alter voting patterns just enough in Kenosha County and places like it to flip Wisconsin , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , win an Electoral College majority , and claim the presidency .
Losing Kenosha was a hard blow for local Democrats .
Through much of the 20th and early 21st century , the city was reliably Democratic .
In 1932 , Franklin Roosevelt beat Republican Herbert Hoover by a 2-1 margin in Kenosha County , and in several City of Kenosha precincts , FDR and Socialist Party nominee Norman Thomas finished ahead of Hoover .
Kenosha kept backing FDR ; like many working-class towns , it found hope in his promise of an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ envisioned guarantees of work , education , and health care .
The pattern held for generations , with Kenosha and other factory towns frequently providing the margin of victory for Democrats running statewide in Wisconsin—that was certainly the case in 2000 , when Democrat Al Gore ’ s 3,500-vote advantage in Kenosha County accounted for most of his 5,708-vote victory statewide .
Gore was one of many national Democrats who made the political pilgrimage to Kenosha ’ s cavernous United Auto Workers Local 72 union hall .
Kenosha ’ s economy was dominated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ industry , and its politics was dominated by Local 72 , which dubbed itself “ A Union Born Fighting.
” With roots going back to a sit-down strike in 1933 , the multiracial , multiethnic workforce at the American Motors plant would eventually become the largest local in the UAW representing a single workplace .
Though the city ’ s Black population was small in the 1960s , and remains relatively small to this day ( 10 percent in the 201o Census ) , Local 72 , like many other auto locals in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Walter Reuther ’ s advocacy for civil rights .
There were always challenges , and few unions got everything right .
But Local 72 , prodded by African American members and their allies , tried to realize Reuther ’ s vision that “ the struggle for civil rights and the struggle for equal opportunity is not the struggle of Negro Americans but the struggle for every American to join in.
” A muscular Fair Employment Practices Committee was established in the 1940s , and from the early 1950s onward , African African and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
White , and Emil Garcia , among others ) were elected to executive board and chief steward positions .
Local 72 supported the 1963 March on Washington , sent members to work for voting rights in the segregated South , and talked up Randolph ’ s Freedom Budget .
It educated and advocated , hosted Representative John Lewis and other civil rights leaders in its union hall , invited the Rev .
Jesse Jackson to town to help fight plant closings , held the “ New Deal ” coalition together with more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kept delivering Democratic victories .
The work got harder as the old American Motors plant ( later Chrysler ) , where close to 15,000 people once built Ramblers , began a long , painful process of shutting down .
The line finally came to halt in 2010 , the same year that anti-labor Republican Walker was elected as governor of Wisconsin .
By that time , smaller factories and machine shops , which had employed thousands of Kenosha workers , were closed .
With the decline in union membership came a loss of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the historic working-class community .
These days , the largest employer in the area is the nonunion Amazon “ fulfillment center ” on the edge of town .
“ There ’ s an Amazon distribution center that was advertising , last time I was there , up to $ 12.75 an hour .
Your parents made that three decades ago , ” Pocan said earlier this year when he endorsed Bernie Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination .
Amazon pay has ticked up , but the point holds .
People are working harder @ @ @ @ @ @ @ without the good family-supporting benefits , as well , ” says Pocan .
Kenosha has survived .
But it has not thrived .
“ It says a lot that many of these factory spaces are still vacant .
There never was a Plan B , ” says Warthen .
“ There ’ s condos by the lake , but the people who live in them commute to Chicago or northern Illinois .
Most people in Kenosha can ’ t afford them.
” Even when employment numbers improved over the years , recoveries were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ calculations shifted .
“ It ’ s not so much that the Republican Party gained in Kenosha and Kenosha County , ” explains Warthen , who has been active with Our Wisconsin Revolution , a progressive group that grew out of the Sanders campaign in 2016 .
“ It ’ s that the Democratic Party lost popularity.
” Democrats maintained an advantage in the city , but the sprawling suburban stretches west of Kenosha trended conservative .
Trump didn ’ t prevail by much in 2016—238 votes out of more than 75,000 cast @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into the pattern that saw Wisconsin go Republican for the first time since 1984 .
The same thing happened in towns across Michigan , Pennsylvania , Indiana , and Ohio .
But Kenosha was emblematic of the shift—so much so that MSNBC ’ s Chris Hayes hosted a special from the town after the 2016 election .
Now , in another critical election year , Joe Biden must figure out how to speak to these towns .
Donald Trump Came to Kenosha to Make the Most Vile Campaign Commercial in American Political History @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he say it ?
“ A lot of what he ’ s doing is right , ” says Pocan , who is impressed that Biden is showing up , listening , and offering himself as an alternative to the chaos , the division , the racism , and the xenophobia that Trump promotes .
“ A lot of people just want to have a normal president again , ” says the congressman .
But Biden must also define a new normal .
“ People want a plan , ” says Warthen .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ presidential contender can ’ t resort to platitudes or simple sloganeering .
He can ’ t choose caution for fear that speaking frankly and boldly will somehow inspire backlash votes against the Democrats .
The fact is that a deeper , smarter , and more honest discussion is what ’ s needed to prevent backlash voting .
To that end , Biden must keep talking about reforming policing and addressing systemic racism—recognizing that the polls are right : People in Kenosha and across the country know a change must come .
He must @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but also about ending historic disparities and forging a just economy for all people—recognizing that voters in Kenosha need to hear this message , especially in a time of Covid-19 and mass unemployment .
Biden must acknowledge that recent Democratic administrations have not delivered enough for Kenosha or for cities like it .
He must accept that the United States needs an industrial policy that focuses attention on communities that have been left behind—and that addressing racial inequity must be central to that policy .
He should look forward , but he should @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it are still waiting for FDR ’ s “ Economic Bill of Rights ” and A. Philip Randolph ’ s “ Freedom Budget for All Americans .
”

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K enosha, W is.—Former vice president Joe Biden visited Kenosha just before Labor Day, making the first visit by a Democratic presidential nominee to Wisconsin since 2012. Biden was not campaigning in any traditional sense. He came to this historic industrial city on the shores on Lake Michigan to talk with residents who were shaken by the August 23 police shooting of a 29-year-old Black man, Jacob Blake, and by the August 25 killing of two demonstrators for racial justice by a 17-year-old white vigilante.
Biden arrived two days after President Trump, who swept into Kenosha to cheer on scandal-plagued local law enforcement officials, pose in front of rubble from destroyed buildings, and unload another fusillade of bombastic “law-and-order” rhetoric. The president did not meet with the Blake family, did not condemn vigilantism, did not challenge systemic racism. As Representative Mark Pocan, a Wisconsin Democrat who was born and raised in Kenosha, said, “Donald Trump didn’t come to Kenosha for Jacob Blake or his family. He didn’t come to condemn the murders of [demonstrators] Anthony Huber or Joseph Rosenbaum. He came to spread hate.”
Biden was on a different mission from the man he hopes to replace. The former vice president met with the Blakes, said the officer who shot Blake seven times in the back should be charged, and spent more than an hour in a community meeting at Kenosha’s Grace Lutheran Church.
At the meeting, he listened. That was good. Biden should keep listening. And he should keep coming up with proposals that address the crying need for economic, social, and racial justice in Kenosha and the dozens of Great Lakes cities like it that will decide the 2020 presidential election. More From John Nichols A GOP Debate Without Trump Is the Definition of Pointlessness August 11, 2023 A Win for Abortion Rights, a Win for Democracy: Ohio Voters Reject Issue 1 August 9, 2023 The Biggest Threat to Donald Trump Could Be the Constitution Itself August 4, 2023
These cities—with all their challenges and weaknesses, their hopes and possibilities—have been neglected for too long.
“There’s a lot of frustration in Kenosha now,” says Terrance Warthen, who organized unity rallies after the Blake shooting. “But there has been frustration in Kenosha for a long time.”
Much of that frustration in Kenosha has to do with leadership failures at the local and state levels—especially in Wisconsin, a state where basic steps to address police violence have been thwarted by Republican legislators, and where almost a decade of onetime Governor Scott Walker’s right-wing policies undermined not only unions but also industrial development, education, and health care in cities such as Kenosha. But the frustration also has to do with the failure of Democrats at the national level to pay enough attention to Kenosha and other Great Lakes cities that have been upended economically and socially by the decline of traditional industries and high-wage union jobs.
For too long, neoliberals in both parties peddled economic policies that shuttered factories and hobbled unions in cities like Kenosha. They failed to address racial disparities; in fact, they often made things worse with “reforms” that neglected human needs and over-emphasized policing. That led to a decline in faith in government to be on the side of communities that were struggling, which was especially damaging to the Democrats. Decades of Wall Street–friendly compromises and concessions on the part of the party that was supposed to represent the working class provide a part of the explanation for why Kenosha County, for the first time in decades, backed a Republican for president in 2016. 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 What Happens Next Wisconsin’s Lieutenant Governor Talks About the Kenosha Protests and What Happens Next John Nichols
It wasn’t alone. Across Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, counties anchored by small- and mid-sized manufacturing centers were among the key places where Democratic vote totals slipped in 2016, as Republican numbers rose. These are the forgotten cities, where factories have shut down, unions have gone into decline, and old certainties have unraveled. These are the places where the last several decades have seen inequality and injustice grow amid supposed economic boom times.
Kenosha is in the news now, but people like Terrance Warthen fear it will fade from view quickly. Some Democratic strategists quietly suggest that this might be a good thing. They’re afraid that too much focus on a city that experienced several nights of chaos after the Blake shooting will spur the “backlash” voting that Trump has sought to generate with speeches, appearances, and vitriolic campaign ads—including a new one that declares, “Lawless criminals terrorize Kenosha, Wisconsin and Joe Biden takes a knee.”
Democrats would be fools to neglect Kenosha and cities like it at this point. If they put their time and energy into these communities, they can counter Trump’s divisive politics. New polling from Wisconsin, conducted after tensions in Kenosha erupted, found Biden leading Trump 47-43 among likely voters—the same margin that the Democrat has enjoyed, with minimal variation, since June. Among the broader universe of registered voters, the Marquette Law School survey found, Biden had a six-point lead—the same he enjoyed in early August, before the Democratic and Republican national conventions, the Blake shooting, and the shooting of the two protesters. Attitudes regarding Black Lives Matter demonstrations “barely moved following the Kenosha shootings and protests,” according to the Marquette survey.
There is little doubt that Trump will keep trying to make inroads in Kenosha and surrounding Kenosha County, a key swing region in a key swing state. And the same goes for a score of cities like it in the Great Lakes swing states that, by most indications, will be decisive in November. At a moment when the nation’s attention has turned to this one city, Biden can develop a message that speaks to Kenosha and many other communities that have for too long been neglected by the Democrats.
Like many of America’s “factory towns,” Kenosha began to see job cuts and plant closures with the rise of corporate globalization in the 1970s and ’80s—which accelerated with the US government’s embrace of the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations in 1986. The job losses ramped up after Democrats and Republicans approved the North American Free Trade Agreement, permanent normalization of trade relations with China, and the other Wall Street–friendly trade deals that were supposed to be so good for American manufacturing. Those agreements, along with a rush to relocate and automate heavy industries, left hundreds of cities struggling. Instead of forging a “new economy,” they exacerbated existing disparities.
A failure by the Democrats to champion smart and equitable industrial policies as an answer to the economic and social hurt felt by Great Lakes manufacturing centers—from Erie in Pennsylvania, to Lorain and Sandusky and Toledo in Ohio, to Port Huron and Bay City and Muskegon and Benton Harbor in Michigan, to East Chicago and Gary in Indiana, to Kenosha and Racine and Milwaukee and Sheboygan and Manitowoc in Wisconsin—upended American politics. So, too, did the bailout of Wall Street following the 2008 economic meltdown, which said in no uncertain terms that the security of bankers and investors mattered more than the security of laid-off workers and homeowners struggling to make payments. So, too, did the refusal of successive administrations, Democratic and Republican, to address structural racism in an economy and a society where the game has always been rigged—and where the old calculus of “last hired, first fired” continues to perpetuate inequality.
As Republicans grew meaner, seeking to exploit divisions with increasingly racist and xenophobic messaging, Democrats lost touch.
They should have listened more closely to A. Philip Randolph. The great campaigner for economic and racial justice insisted on labeling the 1963 mobilization for civil rights as “The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.” The longtime leader of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, who played a pivotal role in bringing organized labor into the civil rights movement, argued after the march for a “Freedom Budget for All Americans,” which promised “the abolition of poverty, guaranteed full employment, fair prices for farmers, fair wages for workers, housing and healthcare for all, the establishment of progressive tax, and fiscal policies that respected the needs of working families.” Randolph warned that without an intersectional understanding of the need for civil rights and economic rights, necessary change would be thwarted. President Lyndon Johnson was interested in Randolph’s ideas, but he never implemented them. Instead, Johnson steered resources into the Vietnam War, in which, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. rightly recognized, “the physical casualties of the war in Viet Nam are not alone the catastrophes.”
“The security we profess to seek in foreign adventures we will lose in our decaying cities,” said King in 1967. “The bombs in Viet Nam explode at home: they destroy the hopes and possibilities for a decent America.” When the civil rights leader appeared in Kenosha in April of that year, King spoke with a sense of urgency, saying, “As long as justice is postponed, we are caught in bitterness and despair.”
Successive Democratic presidents failed to renew those hopes and possibilities. They got better at keeping Wall Street happy, but worse at meeting the needs of historic Democratic strongholds like Kenosha.
Donald Trump saw an opening, and he grabbed it in 2016. He paid a lot of attention to Wisconsin in the fall of 2016—especially southeast Wisconsin, a region represented then by former House Speaker Paul Ryan and the home to the Republican National Committee chairman, Kenosha’s Reince Priebus—and made a lot of false promises. Hillary Clinton never came. Trump’s fake populism was sufficient to alter voting patterns just enough in Kenosha County and places like it to flip Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania into his column, win an Electoral College majority, and claim the presidency.
Losing Kenosha was a hard blow for local Democrats. Through much of the 20th and early 21st century, the city was reliably Democratic. In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt beat Republican Herbert Hoover by a 2-1 margin in Kenosha County, and in several City of Kenosha precincts, FDR and Socialist Party nominee Norman Thomas finished ahead of Hoover. Kenosha kept backing FDR; like many working-class towns, it found hope in his promise of an “Economic Bill of Rights” that envisioned guarantees of work, education, and health care. The pattern held for generations, with Kenosha and other factory towns frequently providing the margin of victory for Democrats running statewide in Wisconsin—that was certainly the case in 2000, when Democrat Al Gore’s 3,500-vote advantage in Kenosha County accounted for most of his 5,708-vote victory statewide. Gore was one of many national Democrats who made the political pilgrimage to Kenosha’s cavernous United Auto Workers Local 72 union hall.
Kenosha’s economy was dominated through the 20th century by the auto industry, and its politics was dominated by Local 72, which dubbed itself “A Union Born Fighting.” With roots going back to a sit-down strike in 1933, the multiracial, multiethnic workforce at the American Motors plant would eventually become the largest local in the UAW representing a single workplace. Though the city’s Black population was small in the 1960s, and remains relatively small to this day (10 percent in the 201o Census), Local 72, like many other auto locals in Great Lakes cities, embraced then–UAW President Walter Reuther’s advocacy for civil rights. There were always challenges, and few unions got everything right. But Local 72, prodded by African American members and their allies, tried to realize Reuther’s vision that “the struggle for civil rights and the struggle for equal opportunity is not the struggle of Negro Americans but the struggle for every American to join in.” A muscular Fair Employment Practices Committee was established in the 1940s, and from the early 1950s onward, African African and Latino leaders (Walter Vaughn, J.T. White, and Emil Garcia, among others) were elected to executive board and chief steward positions. Local 72 supported the 1963 March on Washington, sent members to work for voting rights in the segregated South, and talked up Randolph’s Freedom Budget. It educated and advocated, hosted Representative John Lewis and other civil rights leaders in its union hall, invited the Rev. Jesse Jackson to town to help fight plant closings, held the “New Deal” coalition together with more success than in many places, and kept delivering Democratic victories. Current Issue View our current issue
The work got harder as the old American Motors plant (later Chrysler), where close to 15,000 people once built Ramblers, began a long, painful process of shutting down. The line finally came to halt in 2010, the same year that anti-labor Republican Walker was elected as governor of Wisconsin. By that time, smaller factories and machine shops, which had employed thousands of Kenosha workers, were closed. With the decline in union membership came a loss of the sense of solidarity and connectedness in the historic working-class community.
These days, the largest employer in the area is the nonunion Amazon “fulfillment center” on the edge of town.
“There’s an Amazon distribution center that was advertising, last time I was there, up to $12.75 an hour. Your parents made that three decades ago,” Pocan said earlier this year when he endorsed Bernie Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination. Amazon pay has ticked up, but the point holds. People are working harder for less real money, and “without the good family-supporting benefits, as well,” says Pocan.
Kenosha has survived. But it has not thrived. “It says a lot that many of these factory spaces are still vacant. There never was a Plan B,” says Warthen. “There’s condos by the lake, but the people who live in them commute to Chicago or northern Illinois. Most people in Kenosha can’t afford them.” Even when employment numbers improved over the years, recoveries were uneven and inequality grew. Old political calculations shifted. “It’s not so much that the Republican Party gained in Kenosha and Kenosha County,” explains Warthen, who has been active with Our Wisconsin Revolution, a progressive group that grew out of the Sanders campaign in 2016. “It’s that the Democratic Party lost popularity.”
Democrats maintained an advantage in the city, but the sprawling suburban stretches west of Kenosha trended conservative. Trump didn’t prevail by much in 2016—238 votes out of more than 75,000 cast in Kenosha county—but the shift fit neatly into the pattern that saw Wisconsin go Republican for the first time since 1984. The same thing happened in towns across Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Ohio. But Kenosha was emblematic of the shift—so much so that MSNBC’s Chris Hayes hosted a special from the town after the 2016 election.
Now, in another critical election year, Joe Biden must figure out how to speak to these towns. Dateline: Kenosha Donald Trump Came to Kenosha to Make the Most Vile Campaign Commercial in American Political History John Nichols
What should he say and how should he say it? “A lot of what he’s doing is right,” says Pocan, who is impressed that Biden is showing up, listening, and offering himself as an alternative to the chaos, the division, the racism, and the xenophobia that Trump promotes. “A lot of people just want to have a normal president again,” says the congressman.
But Biden must also define a new normal. “People want a plan,” says Warthen. “They want a vision.”
The Democratic presidential contender can’t resort to platitudes or simple sloganeering. He can’t choose caution for fear that speaking frankly and boldly will somehow inspire backlash votes against the Democrats. The fact is that a deeper, smarter, and more honest discussion is what’s needed to prevent backlash voting.
To that end, Biden must keep talking about reforming policing and addressing systemic racism—recognizing that the polls are right: People in Kenosha and across the country know a change must come. He must speak not just about creating high-wage jobs but also about ending historic disparities and forging a just economy for all people—recognizing that voters in Kenosha need to hear this message, especially in a time of Covid-19 and mass unemployment.
Biden must acknowledge that recent Democratic administrations have not delivered enough for Kenosha or for cities like it. He must accept that the United States needs an industrial policy that focuses attention on communities that have been left behind—and that addressing racial inequity must be central to that policy. He should look forward, but he should also recognize that Kenosha and cities like it are still waiting for FDR’s “Economic Bill of Rights” and A. Philip Randolph’s “Freedom Budget for All Americans.”


thenation--2020-09-15--The Inner Lives of the Accused in Emma Cline’s ‘Daddy’

When we meet him , the first father in Emma Cline ’ s story collection Daddy is just chilling on the patio , eating salami off a paper plate , dressed California casual in “ jeans , his white socks , his white sneakers , a knitted sweater.
” The sweater almost definitely belongs to his wife , Linda , but John is too old to worry over silly things like necklines .
“ Who would care ?
” John considers himself a simple creature , but there are many hints that this man can ’ t be trusted to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Cline plants suggestions of his violent temper : how his default stress response is to “ knock things over , ” how he used to throw food at his oldest daughter when she wouldn ’ t eat it , and how that daughter , age 9 , called the police on him .
John doesn ’ t divulge why any of this happened and hardly approaches coming to terms with whatever it was— “ he guessed it would have been after one of the bad periods—though Cline obviously wants us to wonder @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , dreaming only of filial affection , do or not do to his family ?
John isn ’ t totally clueless , but “ these things seemed so far away , ” he thinks .
“ And then eventually they got further away , and then nobody talked about them anymore.
” In other words , who still cares ?
The past has passed .
John remembers the Disney movies his children once loved , in which “ the fathers were basically Jesus , the kids crowding around whenever the dad came into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” That he is not “ basically Jesus , ” pains him enough to compel him to open three bottles of wine , but his sins are anyone ’ s guess .
If only psychic resolution were as straightforward as assuming nobody cares .
Never mind that processing just isn ’ t something any of Cline ’ s characters do ; by the time we encounter them , it seems either too soon or too late to try .
This impasse is rendered at times too bluntly , but perhaps that ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , especially for characters as emotionally impaired as these—famous people , movie people , young people .
These stories suffer from bad timing in that they ’ re about men who date much younger women , sweet-faced teens just discovering porn and that their own bodies are perhaps wonderlands , old men living in the past , and girls who say things like , “ Men love that.
” These characters and their wrongdoings are best understood as parts of a larger project , united by Cline ’ s persistent interest in sidling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the complicit , the canceled .
You have to understand , as one of Cline ’ s several aging Hollywood executives might say over steepled fingers , there are predominantly two ideas in development here : Everyone is guilty , and no one is innocent .
Guilty of some things , sure .
But these characters obsess over whether theirs will “ turn out to be a bad story or a good one.
” Such moralizing would be too easy , and Cline , a former child actor , disdains Hollywood endings— “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In an essay for The Guardian , the author remembers movie sets as places where “ precise falsehoods were vastly preferable to the indignities and messes of real life.
” She writes her own fictions toward these messes with a corrective and contrarian zeal .
Narrators who would be considered survivors elsewhere think of themselves as perpetrators ; predators regard themselves as victims .
Characters tend to hover just outside themselves ( written falsehoods remain a solid medium for conveying disassociation ) , their innermost thoughts appearing as truth-booth questions that require a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would feel bad for her ?
” “ Did she know about him ?
” “ Wasn ’ t that what parents were supposed to do ?
” In a collection so densely populated with the wrongdoings of the rich and the influential , this interrogative impulse seems to challenge the objectivity of reported narratives .
It also asks us to consider the inner lives of the accused and accusers and whether these characters might be more alike than one might like to entertain the possibility of , even in fiction .
Cline @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his last days of relative freedom compulsively googling himself when she was moved to write “ White Noise , ” a baffling fictionalization of these final hours written from his perspective , which was published in The New Yorker this summer and is conspicuously absent from Daddy .
Detractors will say that Cline has a weakness for humanizing despicable men .
Actually , she said that herself .
She found this image of Weinstein “ piteous and human , ” and more alarming than any phantom idea of an “ Evil Man.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that Weinstein is a human and that fictional characters are not ( but writers dependably hope to render them so ) , like any extended delusion , this story requires a blinkered frame of mind to work .
In Cline ’ s alternative reality ( she reportedly abstained from looking up Weinstein ’ s biographical details while writing , working instead from what she already “ vaguely knew ” ) , he spends this time high on ketamine in a Connecticut home , cozy in the delusion that he ’ s going to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ filming the unfilmable : an adaptation of a celebrated Don DeLillo novel .
Some readers must have been tickled by the position reading this story afforded them—knowing , perhaps in part from following Ronan Farrow ’ s reporting in the same pages , that Weinstein is guilty but reading on to see what crises of conscience , if any , Cline thought to impose on and around her version of him .
As with her debut novel , The Girls—which fictionalized the Manson family murders from the perspective of one of the cult @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Noise ” is written in the grain of once current events .
As required by historical fiction , readers ought to suspend disbelief , but it ’ s even better to play dumb , to willfully forget or ignore any conflicting facts of public record that may tempt to distract from this half-novel rendition .
As one character in Daddy reminds us , caring about “ the minutiae of historical events ” is boring .
These stories will most acutely affect those who , rightly or righteously , haven ’ t read further @ @ @ @ @ @ @ six years .
In Daddy , Cline lingers on stale remnants and dated , embarrassing details .
Or the golden days in the minds of her myriad fathers .
This seems to be a function of how aged some of her narrators are but also demonstrates that anything can be anachronistic if you stare at it longer than might be comfortable .
Cline ’ s best lines point out cultural ephemera to satisfying and accusatory effect .
A teenage boy ’ s surf posters are “ like porn about the color blue.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a remnant of a kind of gaudy , old-school pleasure it was no longer fashionable to enjoy , ” and burgundy hair is “ associated with 1993.
” Outfits look like costumes : A wool sweater makes a young woman “ feel like a newsie , ” while a group of women in their 30s look “ like they should be scrubbing laundry a hundred years ago.
” It ’ s hardly worth mentioning that John ’ s white-on-white-on-denim look is redolent of a tired meme about how certain family guys dress .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re reading staunchly into the present day ( or the closest thing to the present the publishing apparatus can approximate ) .
With the exception of “ Marion ” —Cline ’ s 2014 Plimpton Prize–winning story that does everything The Girls does but better and with less space—the stories in Daddy trigger recent public memory .
“ Northeast Regional ” recalls a mash-up of the college admissions scandals and hazing horror stories , “ Los Angeles ” takes us behind the scenes of the abuses of American Apparel corporate culture , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ power imbalances having to do with age , gender , and the workplace that we all know to scan for by now , both on and off the page .
Cline identifies the imaginative gaps necessarily left by reportage but is in no hurry to fill them .
These stories read like freshly broken news , not least because of their familiar subject matter but also in their delicacy and euphemism .
Cline ’ s writing circles bad behavior .
John ’ s story is typical in its avoidance of the events at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and opinions—the messy subjectivities Cline at first seems to be after .
Elsewhere , another father makes an appearance at an elite East Coast boarding school to learn just how his son put another boy in the hospital ( “ The story ” —details withheld— “ was awful , perverse , made his gut tighten ” ) while taking care to discourage “ any kind of future lawsuit.
” Some will appreciate Cline ’ s tact , but others might wish she cared to make our guts tighten here instead of relaying how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ directly in touch with her source .
The unnamed act seems more lurid by omission , the involved parties inscrutable .
Later , we see the father lash out , but all he says is “ cunt , ” which could mean anything .
One can truly only imagine what these people are going through .
But isn ’ t this—imagining what people who don ’ t exist are going through—supposed to be the author ’ s job , and the point of fiction ?
That it ’ s not bound by libel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is sometimes invited to play dumb , her characters enact it too , often as an aspect of self-fashioning .
In “ A/S/L , ” Thora , a woman in her 30s addicted to catfishing men , adopts the persona of an underage cheerleader .
The men are delighted by her supposed stupidity and explaining how sex works .
Thora likes the “ knowing/unknowing ” of her role so much that she ends up in a posh rehab with a sexual predator celebrity chef and takes offense when he isn ’ t interested @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more than offense ; it ’ s a sick entitlement , denied when he goes off script by keeping to himself .
“ Didn ’ t he know that Thora knew every awful thing he had done ?
Every darkness that hid in his heart had been exposed.
” With this , Cline wonders where the power of secrecy goes when private acts become public knowledge and ends up refuting that knowledge is power at all .
In “ The Nanny , ” Cline reverses this search .
Kayla the nanny refrains from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to preserve the private texture of their affair .
She wants to hear the bullet points of his IMDb page straight from the source .
Kayla calls this approach “ pretended unknowing , ” which she continues to pursue with paparazzi in mind after their liaison ’ s very public dissolution .
She sucks in her stomach , expecting the cameras to come out when she least expects them .
Like many of the men in Daddy , Ben , the bicoastal narrator of “ Menlo Park ” spends a lot of time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ everything he ’ d allegedly done.
” Somehow , he still thinks the world owes him an apology , because “ many of the women pursued him.
” Ben identifies as “ unhireable , ” following some vague sexual misconduct and an ouster from his job editing a magazine that highlights the fabulous homes of one-percenters .
Nevertheless , he freelances .
Ben is brought on to help a failed but still ultrawealthy tycoon turned lifestyle guru edit ( and falsify ) his biography so it reads like “ a hero ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Securities and Exchange Commission violations .
In a focal scene , his sorry conscience seems to surface as an injurious contact lens .
He raises a hand to his weeping right eye , and “ touched the wetness , convinced it would be blood.
” But there ’ s nothing there—it was all in his head .
And Cline ’ s spare deadpan about Ben ’ s inability to see himself clearly excuses her from going deeper than a jab .
Other characters surprise themselves by crying real tears .
Like the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she ’ s forced to part with her best friend , a 13-year-old with whom she used to discuss Roman Polanski ’ s lechery .
“ My face was wet and I was hiccupping , but I didn ’ t feel like I was crying.
” And our old man John when a single day on medication makes him manic for yard work and gets him elbow deep in gutter muck .
“ When he ’ d wiped his cheek with his shirtsleeve , it came back damp .
His whole face was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to these characters whether they like it or not , deserve it or not—all these wet faces , like participation awards in some human race .
Cline ’ s basic proposal that we ’ re all depraved is not at all far-fetched .
But blanking on the evidence sensationalizes this idea .
Part of the problem—or heightening the tabloid effect—is that she refrains from chaperoning her characters through turmoil .
They don ’ t know how they feel about their misdeeds , and at key moments , she just steps back and wonders @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” to signal revelation , despite the care and control with which she tracks the movements of people in space , eyes flicked away , beads of sweat .
This hands-off method seems meant to give things room to play out fast and loose , but by deferring to her narrators , she does herself a disservice .
Readers ( i.e.
, witnesses , bystanders ) are also made to watch and speculate .
This is fine if one reads primarily to be entertained or feel superior , and we already know that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ life lessons .
But if approximating the real world is her goal , a surer approach might start with establishing humanity as a drab uniform rather than asking and never answering who wields it worst .

When we meet him, the first father in Emma Cline’s story collection Daddy is just chilling on the patio, eating salami off a paper plate, dressed California casual in “jeans, his white socks, his white sneakers, a knitted sweater.” The sweater almost definitely belongs to his wife, Linda, but John is too old to worry over silly things like necklines. “Who would care?” John considers himself a simple creature, but there are many hints that this man can’t be trusted to know himself. As he putters around, Cline plants suggestions of his violent temper: how his default stress response is to “knock things over,” how he used to throw food at his oldest daughter when she wouldn’t eat it, and how that daughter, age 9, called the police on him. John doesn’t divulge why any of this happened and hardly approaches coming to terms with whatever it was—“he guessed it would have been after one of the bad periods—though Cline obviously wants us to wonder why. What did this sexless father, dreaming only of filial affection, do or not do to his family? John isn’t totally clueless, but “these things seemed so far away,” he thinks. “And then eventually they got further away, and then nobody talked about them anymore.” In other words, who still cares? The past has passed. John remembers the Disney movies his children once loved, in which “the fathers were basically Jesus, the kids crowding around whenever the dad came into a room, hanging off his neck.” That he is not “basically Jesus,” pains him enough to compel him to open three bottles of wine, but his sins are anyone’s guess. Books in Review Daddy: Stories By Emma Cline Buy this book
If only psychic resolution were as straightforward as assuming nobody cares. Never mind that processing just isn’t something any of Cline’s characters do; by the time we encounter them, it seems either too soon or too late to try. This impasse is rendered at times too bluntly, but perhaps that’s the best way to render an impasse, especially for characters as emotionally impaired as these—famous people, movie people, young people. These stories suffer from bad timing in that they’re about men who date much younger women, sweet-faced teens just discovering porn and that their own bodies are perhaps wonderlands, old men living in the past, and girls who say things like, “Men love that.” These characters and their wrongdoings are best understood as parts of a larger project, united by Cline’s persistent interest in sidling into the minds of the guilty, the complicit, the canceled. You have to understand, as one of Cline’s several aging Hollywood executives might say over steepled fingers, there are predominantly two ideas in development here: Everyone is guilty, and no one is innocent. Guilty of some things, sure. But these characters obsess over whether theirs will “turn out to be a bad story or a good one.” Such moralizing would be too easy, and Cline, a former child actor, disdains Hollywood endings—“the prevailing story, the cliché.”
In an essay for The Guardian, the author remembers movie sets as places where “precise falsehoods were vastly preferable to the indignities and messes of real life.” She writes her own fictions toward these messes with a corrective and contrarian zeal. Narrators who would be considered survivors elsewhere think of themselves as perpetrators; predators regard themselves as victims. Characters tend to hover just outside themselves (written falsehoods remain a solid medium for conveying disassociation), their innermost thoughts appearing as truth-booth questions that require a witness to mean anything. “Who would feel bad for her?” “Did she know about him?” “Wasn’t that what parents were supposed to do?” In a collection so densely populated with the wrongdoings of the rich and the influential, this interrogative impulse seems to challenge the objectivity of reported narratives. It also asks us to consider the inner lives of the accused and accusers and whether these characters might be more alike than one might like to entertain the possibility of, even in fiction. 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
Cline was reading about how Harvey Weinstein spent his last days of relative freedom compulsively googling himself when she was moved to write “White Noise,” a baffling fictionalization of these final hours written from his perspective, which was published in The New Yorker this summer and is conspicuously absent from Daddy. Detractors will say that Cline has a weakness for humanizing despicable men. Actually, she said that herself. She found this image of Weinstein “piteous and human,” and more alarming than any phantom idea of an “Evil Man.” Though it should come as no surprise that Weinstein is a human and that fictional characters are not (but writers dependably hope to render them so), like any extended delusion, this story requires a blinkered frame of mind to work. In Cline’s alternative reality (she reportedly abstained from looking up Weinstein’s biographical details while writing, working instead from what she already “vaguely knew”), he spends this time high on ketamine in a Connecticut home, cozy in the delusion that he’s going to wring buckets of meaning and cash from filming the unfilmable: an adaptation of a celebrated Don DeLillo novel. Some readers must have been tickled by the position reading this story afforded them—knowing, perhaps in part from following Ronan Farrow’s reporting in the same pages, that Weinstein is guilty but reading on to see what crises of conscience, if any, Cline thought to impose on and around her version of him.
As with her debut novel, The Girls—which fictionalized the Manson family murders from the perspective of one of the cult members instead of the ringleader—“White Noise” is written in the grain of once current events. As required by historical fiction, readers ought to suspend disbelief, but it’s even better to play dumb, to willfully forget or ignore any conflicting facts of public record that may tempt to distract from this half-novel rendition. As one character in Daddy reminds us, caring about “the minutiae of historical events” is boring. These stories will most acutely affect those who, rightly or righteously, haven’t read further than headlines in the past five or six years.
In Daddy, Cline lingers on stale remnants and dated, embarrassing details. Or the golden days in the minds of her myriad fathers. This seems to be a function of how aged some of her narrators are but also demonstrates that anything can be anachronistic if you stare at it longer than might be comfortable. Cline’s best lines point out cultural ephemera to satisfying and accusatory effect. A teenage boy’s surf posters are “like porn about the color blue.” The rare non-LED light bulb is “a remnant of a kind of gaudy, old-school pleasure it was no longer fashionable to enjoy,” and burgundy hair is “associated with 1993.” Outfits look like costumes: A wool sweater makes a young woman “feel like a newsie,” while a group of women in their 30s look “like they should be scrubbing laundry a hundred years ago.” It’s hardly worth mentioning that John’s white-on-white-on-denim look is redolent of a tired meme about how certain family guys dress.
But at the same time, we’re reading staunchly into the present day (or the closest thing to the present the publishing apparatus can approximate). With the exception of “Marion”—Cline’s 2014 Plimpton Prize–winning story that does everything The Girls does but better and with less space—the stories in Daddy trigger recent public memory. “Northeast Regional” recalls a mash-up of the college admissions scandals and hazing horror stories, “Los Angeles” takes us behind the scenes of the abuses of American Apparel corporate culture, and several other stories follow affairs with built-in power imbalances having to do with age, gender, and the workplace that we all know to scan for by now, both on and off the page. Related Article Mary Gaitskill’s Art of Loneliness Maggie Doherty
Cline identifies the imaginative gaps necessarily left by reportage but is in no hurry to fill them. These stories read like freshly broken news, not least because of their familiar subject matter but also in their delicacy and euphemism. Cline’s writing circles bad behavior. John’s story is typical in its avoidance of the events at its center, where facts become feelings and opinions—the messy subjectivities Cline at first seems to be after. Elsewhere, another father makes an appearance at an elite East Coast boarding school to learn just how his son put another boy in the hospital (“The story”—details withheld—“was awful, perverse, made his gut tighten”) while taking care to discourage “any kind of future lawsuit.” Some will appreciate Cline’s tact, but others might wish she cared to make our guts tighten here instead of relaying how we might feel should we ever get directly in touch with her source. The unnamed act seems more lurid by omission, the involved parties inscrutable. Later, we see the father lash out, but all he says is “cunt,” which could mean anything. One can truly only imagine what these people are going through. But isn’t this—imagining what people who don’t exist are going through—supposed to be the author’s job, and the point of fiction? That it’s not bound by libel law?
If Cline’s reader is sometimes invited to play dumb, her characters enact it too, often as an aspect of self-fashioning. In “A/S/L,” Thora, a woman in her 30s addicted to catfishing men, adopts the persona of an underage cheerleader. The men are delighted by her supposed stupidity and explaining how sex works. Thora likes the “knowing/unknowing” of her role so much that she ends up in a posh rehab with a sexual predator celebrity chef and takes offense when he isn’t interested in her. But it’s more than offense; it’s a sick entitlement, denied when he goes off script by keeping to himself. “Didn’t he know that Thora knew every awful thing he had done? Every darkness that hid in his heart had been exposed.” With this, Cline wonders where the power of secrecy goes when private acts become public knowledge and ends up refuting that knowledge is power at all. In “The Nanny,” Cline reverses this search. Kayla the nanny refrains from googling Rafe the movie star in order to preserve the private texture of their affair. She wants to hear the bullet points of his IMDb page straight from the source. Kayla calls this approach “pretended unknowing,” which she continues to pursue with paparazzi in mind after their liaison’s very public dissolution. She sucks in her stomach, expecting the cameras to come out when she least expects them.
Like many of the men in Daddy, Ben, the bicoastal narrator of “Menlo Park” spends a lot of time wondering whether people he meets know about “everything he’d allegedly done.” Somehow, he still thinks the world owes him an apology, because “many of the women pursued him.” Ben identifies as “unhireable,” following some vague sexual misconduct and an ouster from his job editing a magazine that highlights the fabulous homes of one-percenters. Nevertheless, he freelances. Ben is brought on to help a failed but still ultrawealthy tycoon turned lifestyle guru edit (and falsify) his biography so it reads like “a hero’s journey” rather than a string of Securities and Exchange Commission violations. In a focal scene, his sorry conscience seems to surface as an injurious contact lens. He raises a hand to his weeping right eye, and “touched the wetness, convinced it would be blood.” But there’s nothing there—it was all in his head. And Cline’s spare deadpan about Ben’s inability to see himself clearly excuses her from going deeper than a jab. Other characters surprise themselves by crying real tears. Like the 11-year-old narrator of “Marion” when she’s forced to part with her best friend, a 13-year-old with whom she used to discuss Roman Polanski’s lechery. “My face was wet and I was hiccupping, but I didn’t feel like I was crying.” And our old man John when a single day on medication makes him manic for yard work and gets him elbow deep in gutter muck. “When he’d wiped his cheek with his shirtsleeve, it came back damp. His whole face was wet.” Somatic responses just keep happening to these characters whether they like it or not, deserve it or not—all these wet faces, like participation awards in some human race.
Cline’s basic proposal that we’re all depraved is not at all far-fetched. But blanking on the evidence sensationalizes this idea. Part of the problem—or heightening the tabloid effect—is that she refrains from chaperoning her characters through turmoil. They don’t know how they feel about their misdeeds, and at key moments, she just steps back and wonders. Alternatively, she overuses “suddenly” to signal revelation, despite the care and control with which she tracks the movements of people in space, eyes flicked away, beads of sweat. This hands-off method seems meant to give things room to play out fast and loose, but by deferring to her narrators, she does herself a disservice. Readers (i.e., witnesses, bystanders) are also made to watch and speculate. This is fine if one reads primarily to be entertained or feel superior, and we already know that Cline isn’t interested in teaching life lessons. But if approximating the real world is her goal, a surer approach might start with establishing humanity as a drab uniform rather than asking and never answering who wields it worst.


thenation--2020-09-15--Young, LGBTQ Voters of Color Could Swing This Election

This story is published as part of StudentNation ’ s “ Vision 2020 Election : Stories From the Next Generation , ” reports from young journalists that center the concerns of diverse young voters .
In this project , working with Dr. Sherri Williams , we recruited young journalists from different backgrounds to develop story ideas and reporting about their peers ’ concerns ahead of the most important election of our lives .
We ’ ll continue publishing two stories each week over the course of the next month .
Jameelah Jones wasn ’ t always a proponent of voting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ State University graduate student didn ’ t take voting seriously until the most recent presidential election .
“ I have a problem with our current political system , ” Jones said .
“ I just don ’ t believe in one person having as much power as the president of the United States does .
I feel like a lot of people have to lose for that one person to win.
” But when Donald Trump was elected , Jones felt a shift in her perspective .
She felt more than ever before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ woman was threatened .
“ The rampant racism and homophobia that he comes with changed my mind , ” she said .
“ There are people coming behind me who are going to need good policy to survive.
” Early in his administration , Trump released a statement pledging to protect the rights of LGBTQ Americans .
Yet from banning transgender people from serving in the military to enabling anti-LGBTQ discrimnation with its religious liberty guidance , the Trump administration has rolled back key protections for LGBTQ people .
Consequently , these actions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hopelessness among some queer communities of color .
Some young queer voters of color worry that even if Trump is defeated , policies codifying racism and homophobia will continue to prevail .
This story was produced for Student Nation , a section devoted to highlighting campus activism and student movements from students in their own words .
For more Student Nation , check out our archive .
Are you a student with a campus activism story ?
Send questions and pitches to Samantha Schuyler at samantha @ thenation.com .
The Student Nation program @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Puffin Foundation .
About 9 million LGBTQ adults are eligible to vote in the 2020 election , and nearly half of them are under age 35 , according to a recent poll by the Williams Institute .
Twenty-two percent of LGBTQ voters are Latino , 13 percent Black , 61 percent white , and 4 percent other races or multiracial .
Additionally , 34 percent of LGBTQ people who voted on Super Tuesday are under 30 years old , according to the NBC News Exit Poll .
Sixty-five percent are under age @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are a little bit more likely to support diverse candidates , particularly in terms of race and sexual orientation and gender identity , ” said Christy Mallory , the author of the study .
“ I think the biggest difference demographically is LGBT voters tend to be younger…so we ’ re seeing the voter trend kind of follow that general trend.
” David Johns , the executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition , a civil rights organization aimed at empowering the Black LGBTQ community and combating racism and homophobia , said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ face were not adequately addressed in the Democratic debates or among the candidates .
“ The safe issues for politicians to talk about were all that they put forward , ” Johns said .
“ There was a lot of basic talk about basic equality for everybody , but not very many candidates had actual policy for meeting the needs of queer voters of color.
” At the same time , the current administration is leveraging political and governmental resources to wage war against queer people .
In the South , it ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ large Black populations—to discriminate against people based on actual or perceived sexual identity and gender orientation or expression .
“ When people in those communities are battling with the messages of enslavement , white supremacy and anti-Blackness , individuals who are Black and queer face some extreme challenges that often go unstated , ” Johns said .
Before Joe Biden became the 2020 presidential nominee , the Democratic field was the most diverse in history—including the first openly gay candidate , Pete Buttigieg .
However , Buttigieg ’ s historic campaign didn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , especially Black ones , because of his strained relationship with the Black community in South Bend , Ind.
, where he served as mayor .
Romy Keuwo , a Black bisexual man from Olathe , Kan. , said he didn ’ t feel like Buttigieg reflected his identity .
“ Having a queer candidate is great , but he ’ s the least representative version of what queer people are because he only represents white queer people , ” said Keuwo , 23 .
“ He would ’ ve had to come @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if he wanted to beat Trump.
” Keuwo said the biggest challenge he faces regularly is living at the intersection of Blackness , queerness , and being a first-generation Cameroonian-American .
He ’ s concerned how the next president will handle issues related to those demographics .
“ Although my family has citizenship status now , it took a lot for that to happen , and a day doesn ’ t pass when I ’ m not thinking about the sacrifices my parents made , ” he said .
Keuwo ’ s family @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ So when Trump aims to be discriminatory toward people who aren ’ t naturalized citizens , that directly affects my family and I.
” Like Keuwo , Johns thinks the issues related to LGBTQ rights that were addressed by presidential candidates were mainly meant to serve white LGBTQ people , a reflection of how issues pertinent to queer communities of color are often ignored .
“ Last year was the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall resistance , which wouldn ’ t have happened if it wasn ’ t for Marsha P. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Johns said .
“ During the month of June , there were six Black trans women murdered , and there were millions of dollars spent by corporations literally painting towns with rainbows to provide safe spaces for mostly white queer people and to celebrate many of the political gains that have been won .
It ’ s a travesty that Black queer people are still dying because of their identity.
” Ashley Phivalong , a Lao transgender woman , agreed that more work needs to be done to ensure the safety of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a third-year student at the University of Kansas and a peer educator for the University ’ s Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity .
“ If I ’ m ever traveling or in a city by myself , I always watch my back to make sure I ’ m safe , ” she said .
“ I stay on the phone with someone just in case because I just never know what kind of reaction I ’ m going to get out of someone .
As much as I really want to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t be myself everywhere .
Sometimes when I either go to a classroom or even if I go to a store or restaurant , my skin color alone sticks out to people .
I also like to dress up , and people stare at me for that .
Whenever I go somewhere , I can feel everyone ’ s eyes on me.
” Young queer voters of color also worry about economic issues .
Jones is concerned about how her student loan debt will affect her future after she completes her graduate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ m a millennial trapped in a student loan crisis .
I need somebody to say something about that , ” Jones said .
“ Knowing what I know about the job process and long-term employments , the salaries between white women and Black women and the salaries between queer and non-queer people , student loans are big economic burdens to me , just because I am already less likely to make the kind of money I need to make to pay my student loans back.
” To better address the needs of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to work more with those communities and include them in their campaigns , Johns said .
“ All of these campaigns can hire Black queer folks—and not just people who volunteer , ” Johns said .
“ They can offer paid positions to people who can add value to their campaign in terms of messaging and policy .
The second thing they could be doing is working with more grassroots organizations , not just predominantly white [ organizations ] .
” The Human Rights Campaign , the nation ’ s largest LGBTQ civil @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its Equality Voter Model to ensure that issues facing LGBTQ voters of color are addressed in elections .
Created in 2016 , the model reflects the degree to which a voter is likely to support progressive LGBTQ policies .
“ There ’ s 57 million Americans who identify as equality voters , those are individuals who prioritize LGBTQ issues at the ballot box , ” said Alphonso David , president of the HRC .
“ So they may go in and vote for a candidate who supports equality , or who will support @ @ @ @ @ @ @ federal or the state level , or who supports , you know , funding for homeless youth services , or who supports—right , it ’ s a laundry list of issues .
So we are focused on those two voting blocks .
To make sure that LGBTQ people of color , and the issues that affect LGBTQ people of color are elevated and amplified and addressed during this election.
” Although Jones isn ’ t convinced that issues for LGBTQ people of color will be addressed in the presidential election , she hopes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ communities .
“ One of the most radical things I think that people can accept right now is that politicians and millionaires and billionaires aren ’ t going to save us , ” Jones said .
“ One of the things that I hope for is that local communities treat their citizens better because waiting on the right president to be elected is not going to save us .
”

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This story is published as part of StudentNation’s “Vision 2020 Election: Stories From the Next Generation,” reports from young journalists that center the concerns of diverse young voters. In this project, working with Dr. Sherri Williams, we recruited young journalists from different backgrounds to develop story ideas and reporting about their peers’ concerns ahead of the most important election of our lives. We’ll continue publishing two stories each week over the course of the next month.
Jameelah Jones wasn’t always a proponent of voting. In fact, the 29-year-old Georgia State University graduate student didn’t take voting seriously until the most recent presidential election. “I have a problem with our current political system,” Jones said. “I just don’t believe in one person having as much power as the president of the United States does. I feel like a lot of people have to lose for that one person to win.”
But when Donald Trump was elected, Jones felt a shift in her perspective. She felt more than ever before that her identity as a Black queer woman was threatened. “The rampant racism and homophobia that he comes with changed my mind,” she said. “There are people coming behind me who are going to need good policy to survive.”
Early in his administration, Trump released a statement pledging to protect the rights of LGBTQ Americans. Yet from banning transgender people from serving in the military to enabling anti-LGBTQ discrimnation with its religious liberty guidance, the Trump administration has rolled back key protections for LGBTQ people. Consequently, these actions have created an ostensibly unyielding sense of hopelessness among some queer communities of color. Some young queer voters of color worry that even if Trump is defeated, policies codifying racism and homophobia will continue to prevail. This story was produced for Student Nation, a section devoted to highlighting campus activism and student movements from students in their own words. For more Student Nation, check out our archive. Are you a student with a campus activism story? Send questions and pitches to Samantha Schuyler at [email protected]. The Student Nation program is made possible through generous funding from The Puffin Foundation.
About 9 million LGBTQ adults are eligible to vote in the 2020 election, and nearly half of them are under age 35, according to a recent poll by the Williams Institute. Twenty-two percent of LGBTQ voters are Latino, 13 percent Black, 61 percent white, and 4 percent other races or multiracial. Additionally, 34 percent of LGBTQ people who voted on Super Tuesday are under 30 years old, according to the NBC News Exit Poll. Sixty-five percent are under age 45. 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
“LGBT voters in general are a little bit more likely to support diverse candidates, particularly in terms of race and sexual orientation and gender identity,” said Christy Mallory, the author of the study. “I think the biggest difference demographically is LGBT voters tend to be younger…so we’re seeing the voter trend kind of follow that general trend.” Current Issue View our current issue
David Johns, the executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, a civil rights organization aimed at empowering the Black LGBTQ community and combating racism and homophobia, said the challenges that LGBTQ people of color face were not adequately addressed in the Democratic debates or among the candidates. “The safe issues for politicians to talk about were all that they put forward,” Johns said. “There was a lot of basic talk about basic equality for everybody, but not very many candidates had actual policy for meeting the needs of queer voters of color.”
At the same time, the current administration is leveraging political and governmental resources to wage war against queer people. In the South, it’s legal in some states—many which have large Black populations—to discriminate against people based on actual or perceived sexual identity and gender orientation or expression. “When people in those communities are battling with the messages of enslavement, white supremacy and anti-Blackness, individuals who are Black and queer face some extreme challenges that often go unstated,” Johns said.
Before Joe Biden became the 2020 presidential nominee, the Democratic field was the most diverse in history—including the first openly gay candidate, Pete Buttigieg. However, Buttigieg’s historic campaign didn’t appeal to queer communities of color, especially Black ones, because of his strained relationship with the Black community in South Bend, Ind., where he served as mayor.
Romy Keuwo, a Black bisexual man from Olathe, Kan., said he didn’t feel like Buttigieg reflected his identity. “Having a queer candidate is great, but he’s the least representative version of what queer people are because he only represents white queer people,” said Keuwo, 23. “He would’ve had to come a lot harder than what he did if he wanted to beat Trump.”
Keuwo said the biggest challenge he faces regularly is living at the intersection of Blackness, queerness, and being a first-generation Cameroonian-American. He’s concerned how the next president will handle issues related to those demographics. “Although my family has citizenship status now, it took a lot for that to happen, and a day doesn’t pass when I’m not thinking about the sacrifices my parents made,” he said. Keuwo’s family came from Cameroon when he was young. “So when Trump aims to be discriminatory toward people who aren’t naturalized citizens, that directly affects my family and I.”
Like Keuwo, Johns thinks the issues related to LGBTQ rights that were addressed by presidential candidates were mainly meant to serve white LGBTQ people, a reflection of how issues pertinent to queer communities of color are often ignored. “Last year was the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall resistance, which wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for Marsha P. Johnson, a Black trans woman,” Johns said. “During the month of June, there were six Black trans women murdered, and there were millions of dollars spent by corporations literally painting towns with rainbows to provide safe spaces for mostly white queer people and to celebrate many of the political gains that have been won. It’s a travesty that Black queer people are still dying because of their identity.”
Ashley Phivalong, a Lao transgender woman, agreed that more work needs to be done to ensure the safety of transgender women in this country. Phivalong is a third-year student at the University of Kansas and a peer educator for the University’s Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity. “If I’m ever traveling or in a city by myself, I always watch my back to make sure I’m safe,” she said. “I stay on the phone with someone just in case because I just never know what kind of reaction I’m going to get out of someone. As much as I really want to be myself, I know I can’t be myself everywhere. Sometimes when I either go to a classroom or even if I go to a store or restaurant, my skin color alone sticks out to people. I also like to dress up, and people stare at me for that. Whenever I go somewhere, I can feel everyone’s eyes on me.”
Young queer voters of color also worry about economic issues. Jones is concerned about how her student loan debt will affect her future after she completes her graduate studies at Georgia State.
“I’m a millennial trapped in a student loan crisis. I need somebody to say something about that,” Jones said. “Knowing what I know about the job process and long-term employments, the salaries between white women and Black women and the salaries between queer and non-queer people, student loans are big economic burdens to me, just because I am already less likely to make the kind of money I need to make to pay my student loans back.”
To better address the needs of queer voters of color, politicians need to work more with those communities and include them in their campaigns, Johns said.
“All of these campaigns can hire Black queer folks—and not just people who volunteer,” Johns said. “They can offer paid positions to people who can add value to their campaign in terms of messaging and policy. The second thing they could be doing is working with more grassroots organizations, not just predominantly white [organizations].”
The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ civil rights organization, is mobilizing allies with its Equality Voter Model to ensure that issues facing LGBTQ voters of color are addressed in elections. Created in 2016, the model reflects the degree to which a voter is likely to support progressive LGBTQ policies.
“There’s 57 million Americans who identify as equality voters, those are individuals who prioritize LGBTQ issues at the ballot box,” said Alphonso David, president of the HRC. “So they may go in and vote for a candidate who supports equality, or who will support nondiscrimination policies’ being implemented at the federal or the state level, or who supports, you know, funding for homeless youth services, or who supports—right, it’s a laundry list of issues. So we are focused on those two voting blocks. To make sure that LGBTQ people of color, and the issues that affect LGBTQ people of color are elevated and amplified and addressed during this election.”
Although Jones isn’t convinced that issues for LGBTQ people of color will be addressed in the presidential election, she hopes that state governments will better serve queer communities. “One of the most radical things I think that people can accept right now is that politicians and millionaires and billionaires aren’t going to save us,” Jones said. “One of the things that I hope for is that local communities treat their citizens better because waiting on the right president to be elected is not going to save us.”