thenation--2020-06-29--Maria Reva’s Mordant and Profound Fiction

In “ Novostroïka , ” the opening story of Maria Reva ’ s Good Citizens Need Not Fear , we meet Daniil , a resident of 1933 Ivansk Street , a building that may or may not exist .
It is winter , and the heat in his family ’ s apartment isn ’ t working .
“ Grandfather Grishko ’ s telling everyone he hasn ’ t seen his own testicles in weeks , ” his aunt yells , adding , “ We ’ re tired of the cold , Daniil…and we ’ re tired of hearing about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the town council hall to get the heat turned on , the clerk has no record of the building , no address with that number .
Daniil becomes flustered , asking her to check again .
“ Nineteen thirty-three Ivansk Street , Kirovka , Ukraine , USSR .
Mother Earth.
” It might be tempting to read more into this , a post-Soviet short story about a place you call home no longer existing , but Reva insists that this actually happened with her family ’ s old apartment building in Ukraine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fiction Writers Review , “ My dad told me that during that first winter the heating didn ’ t turn on , which was strange because everything was centralized and connected .
He gave his address to the woman at the town council .
She said that there was no such address , and since they didn ’ t have it in the records , our building didn ’ t exist.
” Much of Good Citizens Need Not Fear teeters on the edge like this .
Reva is at once sober-minded about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how people learn to cope with them ; the result is a droll humor and grotesque absurdism that have drawn comparisons ( and deservedly so ) with the work of Nikolai Gogol .
She irreverently mines Marxism and the conditions that led to the Soviet Union ’ s collapse for good one-liners , invoking the kind of black but tender comedy common among people who lived in the USSR .
In “ Bone Music , ” a woman who sells banned Western records by imprinting them on X-rays sends her young daughter to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sick and can not make it to their “ biweekly study session on dialectical materialism.
” In “ Miss USSR , ” party leaders in Moscow are concerned that a beauty pageant in Kirovka might start a chain reaction of local , decentralized events .
“ Next thing we know , ” an angry official says , “ it ’ ll be Miss Estonia SSR .
Miss Latvia SSR .
Miss Georgia SSR.
” In moments like these , Reva showcases a deftness with dark humor that both resists sentimentalism about the difficult @ @ @ @ @ @ @ idea that it was nothing but bad .
Instead , she frees herself up to tell bigger ( and often smaller ) stories about her homeland—stories about agoraphobic black market profiteers , the practice of making swans out of old tires , and how to find privacy within yourself .
In doing so , she establishes herself as one of the leading post-Soviet writers of her generation while breaking through the limitations of the term itself .
More than anything else , Good Citizens Need Not Fear is about how things are made—the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fragile foundations upon which they ’ re built , and the humanity that is required to sustain them .
As readers , we become intimately familiar with where the sinkholes and exposed rebar can be found in Kirovka and whose bones are less sturdy than they appear .
( The foreign tourists want to know : Because of Chernobyl ? )
We learn how much tinplate you need for a can of pickles .
Diagrams , charts , models , and infrastructure reports abound .
That , too , feels like an inside @ @ @ @ @ @ @ genre of construction novels popular in the Soviet Union , like Cement ( 1925 ) and How the Steel Was Tempered ( 1934 ) .
It is a subject Reva knows intimately .
While pursuing her MFA at the University of Texas at Austin , she worked in construction .
As she told the author Lara Prescott , a guest instructor in the program , in an e-mail introducing herself ( as recounted by Prescott on the website Electric Literature ) , “ I work with some nasty chemicals and lead paint…but get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) .
” Likewise , in Good Citizens Need Not Fear , Reva trains your eye to look for loose screws and shaky support beams , inviting readers to think about how to build a sturdier foundation so that a better world , if we ever make one , won ’ t sink into the ground .
And she proves to be an incredible builder of worlds , largely by recognizing that people , like screws , can not simply be discarded because you don ’ t feel like finding out where they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ assemblage of personalities and types who , despite their mutual suspicions , are all equally dependent on one another , whether it ’ s for friendship , gossip , or cloves .
Perhaps that is why , for a book about a place that is falling apart , Reva ’ s stories are so prodigiously well structured .
She understands , as a facile young intelligence officer says in a moment of clarity , “ A bolt can not function without a nut and a nut can not function without a bolt.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ linked by 1933 Ivansk Street , where the characters live , lurk , or simply wind up , often through fantastical means .
As Reva tells us , the building was hastily assembled after construction workers realized they had enough spare parts to make not two but three towers ; hence it fails to show up in official records .
The people inside work at chemical plants , metallurgical factories , polyclinics—the sort of jobs that are often presented as banal and sources of pity in Western books and films but in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Daniil works at the Kirovka Canning Combine , where he has just been ordered to find ways to economize the amount of metal used to can various food items and begins to evaluate the “ squeezability ” of different products .
“ Some foods posed more of a packing problem than others , ” Reva writes .
“ Soups could be thickened and condensed milk condensed further , into a mortar-like substance .
String beans proved the most difficult : Even when arranged like a honeycomb , they could reach only 91 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ every three string beans hid an unfillable space.
” For Daniil , the task becomes a way of thinking about his access to breathable space .
Like “ pressed meat liver paste ” or “ whale meat in natural juice of the mammal , ” he feels squeezed in everywhere—in the factory , in the streets , and most important , in an apartment with 13 other family members .
He had been living in a communal apartment ( one of the multifamily buildings that were a common feature of Soviet life ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his job was quickly invaded by aunts , uncles , grandparents , and their pets , including a cage of hens .
Reflecting on his lack of privacy , Daniil creates a chart similar to what one would expect for his cans at work : “ Minimum Dimensions of Space Necessary for Human Functioning , 85 processes : Sleeping ( based on average Moscow male , head to toe ) = 175cm…Evacuating bladder ( volume ) = 400ml…Breathing ( torso expansion ) = 1.5cm.
” When we learn in a later story that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have begun to explode , leaving their purchasers with shrapnel wounds , one may start to wonder whether Daniil , too , will eventually burst in frustration .
When I studied abroad in Moscow , our orientation involved a brief lecture on the particularities of Russian and post-Soviet culture .
At one point , the program leader told us there was no word in Russian for “ privacy ” ( an oft-mentioned though somewhat misleading cultural anecdote ) .
Students suddenly looked wide-eyed , excited that these people were in fact going to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Starbucks and McDonald ’ s nearby .
However , in Good Citizens Need Not Fear , Daniil jealously guards what little privacy he has and resents its constant invasion .
At one point , he throws a space heater out a window to make room and perks up at the prospect of leaving the cramped apartment to retrieve it .
Here too , Reva pushes back against stereotypes and pat narratives about the Russian soul or Soviet mentality .
Daniil does not display some kind of primordial , Slavic , wholesale embrace @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Western peers , he wants his space .
But this never undercuts his belief in the broader principles that gave him and his family shelter in the first place .
He never rails against public housing or decries the communist system .
He is a “ good citizen.
” He just wants the heat turned on and for his grandfather to stop talking about his testicles .
In “ Novostroïka ” and in telling the story of the origin of 1933 Ivansk Street , Reva helps us understand what it means for anyone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , to fall through the cracks .
It can be a source of anguish but also an escape .
In “ Little Rabbit ” ( a story that won a National Magazine Award ) , she explores the inner workings of an orphanage in Kirovka where the children are rated from one to three based on their perceived value as future citizens .
“ Threes have a minor defect , ” she writes .
“ Twos are blind and/or deaf .
Skin disorders and ambiguous genitalia fit the criteria , too .
Ones @ @ @ @ @ @ @ arranged in a pattern , represented by Reva with a diagram in which threes are given pride of place .
“ The director would deny any pattern to the distribution of the babies .
If the healthier babies lie next to the great bright windows where they can chatter with the magpies , and next to the doors where the occasional Ministry inspector can see them best , it ’ s surely a coincidence , ” she writes .
One of the children , a little girl named Zaya , becomes ill with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a one .
As she lies in bed , she sees a slit in the vinyl floor .
A strange glow starts to emanate from it , and she becomes transfixed .
“ What she has to do is crawl toward that crack .
The need is bodily , instinctual .
She has seen it in every moth and mosquito bewitched by a flame.
” Zaya peels away the vinyl and , finding floorboards underneath , manages to dig her way through and escape , for a time .
She is the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ character in Good Citizens Need Not Fear ; she appears and reappears across the collection .
In a later story , she is adopted by Konstantyn Illych , the head of a cultural center , who tries to turn her into a beauty queen for the Miss USSR pageant—an endeavor that becomes a macabre version of Pygmalion .
“ What ’ s the one thing people don ’ t know about you ?
” he asks Zaya , quizzing her for the interview portion of the pageant .
Confused , she responds , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ squat [ at the orphanage ] without an audience .
Everyone knows everything about everyone.
” She runs away again here but returns in a later story , realizing , as the rest of her country will in time , that a way out is not the same as a way up .
As Part I of the collection , “ Before the Fall , ” comes to a close , the sense of collapse is underscored by Kirovka ’ s crumbling infrastructure .
In “ Bone Music ” we meet Smena , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reproduced on X-rays .
She is agoraphobic and depends on a trend hunter named Larissa and a polyclinic worker named Milena to help with her black market operation .
The three women crowd into Smena ’ s kitchen to hear one of Larissa ’ s latest acquisitions , a Megadeth album .
“ Megadeth is a deliberate misspelling of the English word ‘ megadeath , ’ one million deaths by nuclear explosion , ” she tells them ( another Cold War fear turned into a punchline ) .
Smena becomes increasingly anxious that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but this is accompanied by a more generalized dread about the world around them coming undone .
She reads reports in the papers about the city ’ s failing infrastructure that only confirm her sense of uneasiness : “ A sinkhole trapped a commuter bus .
A family of five plummeted to their deaths in an elevator malfunction .
A gas leak gently poisoned preschoolers for weeks before being discovered .
Pedestrians were advised to avoid underpasses.
” The stories in Part II , “ After the Fall , ” largely revisit the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now reversed in mostly meaningless ways .
Here too , Reva pushes back against the idea that this moment represents a glorious ushering in of wealth or freedom .
All that felt fragile becomes even less sturdy .
Everything continues to crumble , and not just concrete but also people .
Bodies become crushed or compromised by the need to earn money .
Konstantyn , who once made a political joke that got him in trouble with a KGB officer , now hires that officer to guard the ground floor of 1933 Ivansk @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a tomb for a supposed saint .
Konstantyn collects money from the pilgrims who travel there for a blessing ; it is said that praying to the saint can alleviate tinnitus and cure alcoholism .
One day while cleaning the tomb , the former KGB officer accidentally knocks over the body , causing the saint ’ s well-preserved white teeth ( the main attraction and source of revenue ) to spill across the floor .
The teeth begin to haunt the officer , seeming to wink at him , leading him on a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ retrieve them .
“ I tried to imagine myself as a lover , following rose petals to a bed , ” he says , “ but couldn ’ t help feeling like a rodent , lured by crumbs to a trap.
” He eventually trips and falls in his pursuit , knocking teeth out of his own mouth .
Much of the absurdity of the pre-fall stories is transformed in Part II into dark satires of capitalist consumption and the commodification of narratives that depict ( in the Western imagination ) Soviet life @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Roach Brooch , ” we meet Pyotr and Lila , new hawkers of “ bone music , ” which has been transformed from a clandestine practice into a way to create souvenirs for tourists .
Pyotr has a tumor that he leaves untreated so they can have continued access to free X-rays from the polyclinic .
When they sell the records , Lila points to the tumor to entice customers .
“ As with any growth or deformity , ” Reva explains , “ the tourists always want to know : ‘ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t want to say the dirty word themselves , but are itching to hear it , pronounced authentically by this kerchiefed babushka.
” Lila gives them what they want .
“ Chernobyl , ” she says , though her husband never served there .
Nonetheless , “ at the word ‘ Chernobyl , ’ the tourists have their wallets out.
” For their part , Larissa and Milena have moved on to the fur coat trade , working day and night to sew a coat out of ermines for a rich @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Canada .
There is nothing new about telling the story of the USSR and its fall through the country ’ s apartment buildings .
Historian Yuri Slezkine has made something of a career of it .
In 2017 ’ s The House of Government , he offered an epic , 1,128-page history of a single building in Moscow that housed Soviet officials .
Years earlier , he wrote a widely cited essay that discussed the Soviet Union and its amalgamation of distinct ethnic republics in similar terms : “ If the USSR @ @ @ @ @ @ @ family that inhabited it was entitled to a room of its own.
” Fellow scholar Margaret Litvin has suggested that the “ Soviet dormitory novel ” might constitute not only a distinct subgenre but also a useful heuristic for understanding the lived experience of communist internationalism .
Indeed , much history is inscribed in the courtyards , doorways , and stairwells of the former Soviet Union , where public housing was inextricable from the entire national project .
When I lived in Moscow , I once stayed in a khrushchevka , a prefab @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leader who oversaw their construction .
The private apartments with communal yards were originally intended to usher in a new era of consumer goods and the kind of suburban comforts that people thought existed only in the West .
What Maria Reva wants to say about the Soviet Union through the history of the apartment building at the center of Good Citizens Need Not Fear is less explicit , except that like 1933 Ivansk Street , it existed and then fell apart , but what has been built in its place is no @ @

This article appears in the July 13/20, 2020 issue.
In “Novostroïka,” the opening story of Maria Reva’s Good Citizens Need Not Fear, we meet Daniil, a resident of 1933 Ivansk Street, a building that may or may not exist. It is winter, and the heat in his family’s apartment isn’t working. “Grandfather Grishko’s telling everyone he hasn’t seen his own testicles in weeks,” his aunt yells, adding, “We’re tired of the cold, Daniil…and we’re tired of hearing about the testicles.” However, when Daniil goes to the town council hall to get the heat turned on, the clerk has no record of the building, no address with that number. Daniil becomes flustered, asking her to check again. “Nineteen thirty-three Ivansk Street, Kirovka, Ukraine, USSR. Mother Earth.” Books in Review Good Citizens Need Not Fear: Stories By Maria Reva Buy this book
It might be tempting to read more into this, a post-Soviet short story about a place you call home no longer existing, but Reva insists that this actually happened with her family’s old apartment building in Ukraine. She said in an interview in Fiction Writers Review, “My dad told me that during that first winter the heating didn’t turn on, which was strange because everything was centralized and connected. He gave his address to the woman at the town council. She said that there was no such address, and since they didn’t have it in the records, our building didn’t exist.”
Much of Good Citizens Need Not Fear teeters on the edge like this. Reva is at once sober-minded about the cruelties of bureaucracy and refreshingly sardonic about how people learn to cope with them; the result is a droll humor and grotesque absurdism that have drawn comparisons (and deservedly so) with the work of Nikolai Gogol. She irreverently mines Marxism and the conditions that led to the Soviet Union’s collapse for good one-liners, invoking the kind of black but tender comedy common among people who lived in the USSR. In “Bone Music,” a woman who sells banned Western records by imprinting them on X-rays sends her young daughter to inform her coconspirator that she’s sick and cannot make it to their “biweekly study session on dialectical materialism.” In “Miss USSR,” party leaders in Moscow are concerned that a beauty pageant in Kirovka might start a chain reaction of local, decentralized events. “Next thing we know,” an angry official says, “it’ll be Miss Estonia SSR. Miss Latvia SSR. Miss Georgia SSR.” In moments like these, Reva showcases a deftness with dark humor that both resists sentimentalism about the difficult aspects of Soviet life and rejects the idea that it was nothing but bad. Instead, she frees herself up to tell bigger (and often smaller) stories about her homeland—stories about agoraphobic black market profiteers, the practice of making swans out of old tires, and how to find privacy within yourself. In doing so, she establishes herself as one of the leading post-Soviet writers of her generation while breaking through the limitations of the term itself.
More than anything else, Good Citizens Need Not Fear is about how things are made—the labor that goes into them, the fragile foundations upon which they’re built, and the humanity that is required to sustain them. As readers, we become intimately familiar with where the sinkholes and exposed rebar can be found in Kirovka and whose bones are less sturdy than they appear. (The foreign tourists want to know: Because of Chernobyl?) We learn how much tinplate you need for a can of pickles. Diagrams, charts, models, and infrastructure reports abound. That, too, feels like an inside joke, a play perhaps on the genre of construction novels popular in the Soviet Union, like Cement (1925) and How the Steel Was Tempered (1934). It is a subject Reva knows intimately. While pursuing her MFA at the University of Texas at Austin, she worked in construction. As she told the author Lara Prescott, a guest instructor in the program, in an e-mail introducing herself (as recounted by Prescott on the website Electric Literature), “I work with some nasty chemicals and lead paint…but get to wear a spacesuit (kind of).” 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 A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life 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 A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
Likewise, in Good Citizens Need Not Fear, Reva trains your eye to look for loose screws and shaky support beams, inviting readers to think about how to build a sturdier foundation so that a better world, if we ever make one, won’t sink into the ground. And she proves to be an incredible builder of worlds, largely by recognizing that people, like screws, cannot simply be discarded because you don’t feel like finding out where they go. Her characters are an eclectic assemblage of personalities and types who, despite their mutual suspicions, are all equally dependent on one another, whether it’s for friendship, gossip, or cloves. Perhaps that is why, for a book about a place that is falling apart, Reva’s stories are so prodigiously well structured. She understands, as a facile young intelligence officer says in a moment of clarity, “A bolt cannot function without a nut and a nut cannot function without a bolt.”
The nine stories in the collection are linked by 1933 Ivansk Street, where the characters live, lurk, or simply wind up, often through fantastical means. As Reva tells us, the building was hastily assembled after construction workers realized they had enough spare parts to make not two but three towers; hence it fails to show up in official records. The people inside work at chemical plants, metallurgical factories, polyclinics—the sort of jobs that are often presented as banal and sources of pity in Western books and films but in the Soviet Union were recognized as essential.
Daniil works at the Kirovka Canning Combine, where he has just been ordered to find ways to economize the amount of metal used to can various food items and begins to evaluate the “squeezability” of different products. “Some foods posed more of a packing problem than others,” Reva writes. “Soups could be thickened and condensed milk condensed further, into a mortar-like substance. String beans proved the most difficult: Even when arranged like a honeycomb, they could reach only 91 percent packing efficiency. In the middle of every three string beans hid an unfillable space.” Current Issue View our current issue
For Daniil, the task becomes a way of thinking about his access to breathable space. Like “pressed meat liver paste” or “whale meat in natural juice of the mammal,” he feels squeezed in everywhere—in the factory, in the streets, and most important, in an apartment with 13 other family members. He had been living in a communal apartment (one of the multifamily buildings that were a common feature of Soviet life), and the personal unit provided by his job was quickly invaded by aunts, uncles, grandparents, and their pets, including a cage of hens. Reflecting on his lack of privacy, Daniil creates a chart similar to what one would expect for his cans at work: “Minimum Dimensions of Space Necessary for Human Functioning, 85 processes: Sleeping (based on average Moscow male, head to toe) = 175cm…Evacuating bladder (volume) = 400ml…Breathing (torso expansion) = 1.5cm.” When we learn in a later story that Daniil’s cans are overpacked and have begun to explode, leaving their purchasers with shrapnel wounds, one may start to wonder whether Daniil, too, will eventually burst in frustration.
When I studied abroad in Moscow, our orientation involved a brief lecture on the particularities of Russian and post-Soviet culture. At one point, the program leader told us there was no word in Russian for “privacy” (an oft-mentioned though somewhat misleading cultural anecdote). Students suddenly looked wide-eyed, excited that these people were in fact going to be very different from us, despite the Starbucks and McDonald’s nearby. However, in Good Citizens Need Not Fear, Daniil jealously guards what little privacy he has and resents its constant invasion. At one point, he throws a space heater out a window to make room and perks up at the prospect of leaving the cramped apartment to retrieve it. Here too, Reva pushes back against stereotypes and pat narratives about the Russian soul or Soviet mentality. Daniil does not display some kind of primordial, Slavic, wholesale embrace of communalism; like any of his Western peers, he wants his space. But this never undercuts his belief in the broader principles that gave him and his family shelter in the first place. He never rails against public housing or decries the communist system. He is a “good citizen.” He just wants the heat turned on and for his grandfather to stop talking about his testicles.
In “Novostroïka” and in telling the story of the origin of 1933 Ivansk Street, Reva helps us understand what it means for anyone, in the Soviet Union or elsewhere, to fall through the cracks. It can be a source of anguish but also an escape. In “Little Rabbit” (a story that won a National Magazine Award), she explores the inner workings of an orphanage in Kirovka where the children are rated from one to three based on their perceived value as future citizens. “Threes have a minor defect,” she writes. “Twos are blind and/or deaf. Skin disorders and ambiguous genitalia fit the criteria, too. Ones simply lie there.” They’re arranged in a pattern, represented by Reva with a diagram in which threes are given pride of place. “The director would deny any pattern to the distribution of the babies. If the healthier babies lie next to the great bright windows where they can chatter with the magpies, and next to the doors where the occasional Ministry inspector can see them best, it’s surely a coincidence,” she writes.
One of the children, a little girl named Zaya, becomes ill with pneumonia and is downgraded from a three to a one. As she lies in bed, she sees a slit in the vinyl floor. A strange glow starts to emanate from it, and she becomes transfixed. “What she has to do is crawl toward that crack. The need is bodily, instinctual. She has seen it in every moth and mosquito bewitched by a flame.” Zaya peels away the vinyl and, finding floorboards underneath, manages to dig her way through and escape, for a time. She is the closest thing we get to a main character in Good Citizens Need Not Fear; she appears and reappears across the collection. In a later story, she is adopted by Konstantyn Illych, the head of a cultural center, who tries to turn her into a beauty queen for the Miss USSR pageant—an endeavor that becomes a macabre version of Pygmalion. “What’s the one thing people don’t know about you?” he asks Zaya, quizzing her for the interview portion of the pageant. Confused, she responds, “You can’t take a squat [at the orphanage] without an audience. Everyone knows everything about everyone.” She runs away again here but returns in a later story, realizing, as the rest of her country will in time, that a way out is not the same as a way up.
As Part I of the collection, “Before the Fall,” comes to a close, the sense of collapse is underscored by Kirovka’s crumbling infrastructure. In “Bone Music” we meet Smena, the woman who sells forbidden music illicitly reproduced on X-rays. She is agoraphobic and depends on a trend hunter named Larissa and a polyclinic worker named Milena to help with her black market operation. The three women crowd into Smena’s kitchen to hear one of Larissa’s latest acquisitions, a Megadeth album. “Megadeth is a deliberate misspelling of the English word ‘megadeath,’ one million deaths by nuclear explosion,” she tells them (another Cold War fear turned into a punchline). Smena becomes increasingly anxious that their underground operation will be discovered, but this is accompanied by a more generalized dread about the world around them coming undone. She reads reports in the papers about the city’s failing infrastructure that only confirm her sense of uneasiness: “A sinkhole trapped a commuter bus. A family of five plummeted to their deaths in an elevator malfunction. A gas leak gently poisoned preschoolers for weeks before being discovered. Pedestrians were advised to avoid underpasses.”
The stories in Part II, “After the Fall,” largely revisit the characters from Part I, their roles now reversed in mostly meaningless ways. Here too, Reva pushes back against the idea that this moment represents a glorious ushering in of wealth or freedom. All that felt fragile becomes even less sturdy. Everything continues to crumble, and not just concrete but also people. Bodies become crushed or compromised by the need to earn money. Konstantyn, who once made a political joke that got him in trouble with a KGB officer, now hires that officer to guard the ground floor of 1933 Ivansk Street, which has been converted into a tomb for a supposed saint. Konstantyn collects money from the pilgrims who travel there for a blessing; it is said that praying to the saint can alleviate tinnitus and cure alcoholism. One day while cleaning the tomb, the former KGB officer accidentally knocks over the body, causing the saint’s well-preserved white teeth (the main attraction and source of revenue) to spill across the floor. The teeth begin to haunt the officer, seeming to wink at him, leading him on a wild goose chase as he attempts to retrieve them. “I tried to imagine myself as a lover, following rose petals to a bed,” he says, “but couldn’t help feeling like a rodent, lured by crumbs to a trap.” He eventually trips and falls in his pursuit, knocking teeth out of his own mouth.
Much of the absurdity of the pre-fall stories is transformed in Part II into dark satires of capitalist consumption and the commodification of narratives that depict (in the Western imagination) Soviet life as miserable and physically degrading. In “Roach Brooch,” we meet Pyotr and Lila, new hawkers of “bone music,” which has been transformed from a clandestine practice into a way to create souvenirs for tourists. Pyotr has a tumor that he leaves untreated so they can have continued access to free X-rays from the polyclinic. When they sell the records, Lila points to the tumor to entice customers. “As with any growth or deformity,” Reva explains, “the tourists always want to know: ‘A victim of…?’ The tourists don’t want to say the dirty word themselves, but are itching to hear it, pronounced authentically by this kerchiefed babushka.” Lila gives them what they want. “Chernobyl,” she says, though her husband never served there. Nonetheless, “at the word ‘Chernobyl,’ the tourists have their wallets out.” For their part, Larissa and Milena have moved on to the fur coat trade, working day and night to sew a coat out of ermines for a rich young girl so that Larissa can move to Canada.
There is nothing new about telling the story of the USSR and its fall through the country’s apartment buildings. Historian Yuri Slezkine has made something of a career of it. In 2017’s The House of Government, he offered an epic, 1,128-page history of a single building in Moscow that housed Soviet officials. Years earlier, he wrote a widely cited essay that discussed the Soviet Union and its amalgamation of distinct ethnic republics in similar terms: “If the USSR was a communal apartment, then every family that inhabited it was entitled to a room of its own.” Fellow scholar Margaret Litvin has suggested that the “Soviet dormitory novel” might constitute not only a distinct subgenre but also a useful heuristic for understanding the lived experience of communist internationalism.
Indeed, much history is inscribed in the courtyards, doorways, and stairwells of the former Soviet Union, where public housing was inextricable from the entire national project. When I lived in Moscow, I once stayed in a khrushchevka, a prefab five-story apartment building named after the thaw-era leader who oversaw their construction. The private apartments with communal yards were originally intended to usher in a new era of consumer goods and the kind of suburban comforts that people thought existed only in the West. What Maria Reva wants to say about the Soviet Union through the history of the apartment building at the center of Good Citizens Need Not Fear is less explicit, except that like 1933 Ivansk Street, it existed and then fell apart, but what has been built in its place is no sturdier.


thenation--2020-06-29--Run the Jewels’ Wake-up Call

Run the Jewels’ Wake-up Call

The previous Run the Jewels album Run the Jewels 3 arrived one month after Donald Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States .
Atlanta ’ s Killer Mike and Brooklyn ’ s El-P echoed the horror and anger of many Americans shocked by the results of the 2016 election .
The country felt raw , a powder keg of rage , anxiety , and fear brought on by Wall Street greed and the police killings of unarmed black people .
Sensing an upheaval , Mike , an outspoken Trump detractor and Bernie Sanders surrogate , openly wondered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the song “ 2100 ” he rapped , “ Nuclear ’ s too near / And the holders of the Molotov / Say that revolution ’ s right here , right now / And they ain ’ t callin ’ off.
” Indeed , Trump ’ s victory conjured the specter of full-scale revolt , the idea that this might be the breaking point .
We all know the story of the last three years , though : Nothing happened .
Run the Jewels 4 finds the country on fire once again , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than it was in 2016 .
The coronavirus pandemic has halted the economy and killed more than 120,000 people in the United States .
Over 40 million people are unemployed , and mandated social distancing has forced many into long periods of isolation .
Then in May , a white Minneapolis police officer named Derek Chauvin knelt on the neck of George Floyd , an unarmed black man , killing him and setting off mass demonstrations .
Protesters also wanted justice for Breonna Taylor , who was gunned down in her apartment by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Ahmaud Arbery , who was harassed and fatally shot by two white men in Georgia as he jogged ; and for the many other black Americans who have suffered at the hands of police brutality and violence .
These uprisings felt different from protests in the past : In Minneapolis , rioters burned down the police department ’ s Third Precinct station house , where Chauvin worked .
The uprisings also took place in Mike ’ s hometown .
In Atlanta , protesters vandalized the College Football Hall of Fame and Phipps @ @ @ @ @ @ @ among other landmarks .
In years past , this seemingly would have pleased Mike .
On “ Close Your Eyes ( and Count to Fuck ) , ” from the stellar Run the Jewels 2 , he urged fellow anarchists to kill the police , take over a prison , and waterboard the warden .
Yet on the heels of the recent Atlanta incidents , Mike sounded a different note , passionate but measured .
“ I watched a white police officer assassinate a black man , and I know that tore your @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a tearful , widely circulated speech .
“ It is your duty not to burn your own house down for anger with an enemy .
It is your duty to fortify your own house so that you may be a house of refuge in times of organization .
And now is the time to plot , plan , strategize , organize , and mobilize .
It is time to beat up prosecutors you don ’ t like at the voting booth.
” He has a point , but for those who have followed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ advice seems to contradict the scorched-earth tenor of his previous rhymes .
What Run the Jewels 4 makes clear is that Mike and El are still gearing up for a fight and providing another soundtrack for rebellion—but with age , world-weariness , and introspection , they ’ ve begun to bare their souls to their listeners , too .
On “ Walking in the Snow , ” Mike breaks down what systemic racism feels like for black Americans , from the discrimination we face beginning in elementary school to the police brutality we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his finger at the armchair activists who rant about injustice on Twitter but don ’ t take any other action : “ Truly the travesty / You ’ ve been robbed of your empathy / Replaced it with apathy.
” Like the band ’ s previous albums , Run the Jewels 4 is turbulent , a rebel-rousing LP meant to scourge law enforcement , political leaders , and bootlicking yes-men .
Though the vitriol of their older work remains , the new album feels more settled , even somewhat familiar .
Producers El-P @ @ @ @ @ @ @ create dystopian electronic breakbeats for the rappers to stomp through , and for 39 minutes , they devastate everything in sight .
Yet the déjà vu this album engenders is welcome at this moment .
Whereas other mainstream rappers might create one song or one album dedicated to the unrest , Mike and El have carried that torch for six years .
Once again , they ’ re urging us to wake up and keep fighting the system .
In an interview with The New York Times , Mike and El explained how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a much-needed break from the road , where the duo spent over a year and a half performing more than 100 shows in the United States and Europe .
Reportedly , it was the first time they ’ d stopped working since they met nearly a decade ago , when El made all the beats for Mike ’ s breakthrough album , R.A.P .
Music .
El got married and took on a film scoring project , while Mike admitted that he was “ mentally , spiritually , physically…fried.
” That might explain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jewels 4 .
Historically , the rappers ’ flows have been combative and outward-facing , but on Run the Jewels 4 , especially on the concluding track , “ A Few Words for the Firing Squad ( Radiation ) , ” they tend to look inward .
El-P unpacks the anxiety he ’ s been suffering through : “ I should ’ ve focused mostly on the heart / ‘ Cause I ’ ve seen smarter people trample life like it ’ s an art.
” Mike ’ s verses also capture him @ @ @ @ @ @ @ explain why he was cautious in his speech to the Atlanta protesters .
Here he delves into a talk he had with his wife and how , as an outspoken famous black man , he now has to temper his desire to incite rebellion : “ Friends tell her he could be another Malcolm , he could be another Martin / She told her partner , ‘ I need a husband more than the world need another martyr.
’ ” The lyrics show a side we hadn ’ t heard from Mike and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re a little older and wiser and have more to lose .
Elsewhere on their new album , however , it ’ s business as usual .
The song “ JU $ T ” dissects capitalism and police brutality and features a defiant Pharrell , who chides “ all these slave masters posing on your dollar.
” Mike reduces Trump to a mere casino owner , and El scolds New York City police officers , calling them “ murderous choke hold cops still earning a living.
” On “ Pulling the Pin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mavis Staples and singer-songwriter Josh Homme , El sounds obstinate but somewhat jaded .
He ’ s still pushing for change , but it can feel futile with the current administration still taking up space .
Then Mike spits a rhyme that has rattled in my head since I first heard it : “ Fuck the political .
The mission is spiritual.
” That says it all , really .
In times like these , when life can feel daunting and nothing prevails but anger , the line snapped me back to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ administration is , ultimately , finite ; it ’ s time for America to fully acknowledge the centuries of terror the black people who built this country have faced .
There ’ s never been a better time to destroy the system and the racists who maintain it .

This article appears in the July 13/20, 2020 issue.
The previous Run the Jewels album Run the Jewels 3 arrived one month after Donald Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States. Atlanta’s Killer Mike and Brooklyn’s El-P echoed the horror and anger of many Americans shocked by the results of the 2016 election. The country felt raw, a powder keg of rage, anxiety, and fear brought on by Wall Street greed and the police killings of unarmed black people. Sensing an upheaval, Mike, an outspoken Trump detractor and Bernie Sanders surrogate, openly wondered when the revolution would arrive. On the song “2100” he rapped, “Nuclear’s too near / And the holders of the Molotov / Say that revolution’s right here, right now / And they ain’t callin’ off.” Indeed, Trump’s victory conjured the specter of full-scale revolt, the idea that this might be the breaking point. We all know the story of the last three years, though: Nothing happened.
Run the Jewels 4 finds the country on fire once again, yet the mood is somehow more urgent than it was in 2016. The coronavirus pandemic has halted the economy and killed more than 120,000 people in the United States. Over 40 million people are unemployed, and mandated social distancing has forced many into long periods of isolation. Then in May, a white Minneapolis police officer named Derek Chauvin knelt on the neck of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, killing him and setting off mass demonstrations. Protesters also wanted justice for Breonna Taylor, who was gunned down in her apartment by the police in Louisville, Ky.; for Ahmaud Arbery, who was harassed and fatally shot by two white men in Georgia as he jogged; and for the many other black Americans who have suffered at the hands of police brutality and violence. These uprisings felt different from protests in the past: In Minneapolis, rioters burned down the police department’s Third Precinct station house, where Chauvin worked.
The uprisings also took place in Mike’s hometown. In Atlanta, protesters vandalized the College Football Hall of Fame and Phipps Plaza, an upscale shopping center, among other landmarks. In years past, this seemingly would have pleased Mike. On “Close Your Eyes (and Count to Fuck),” from the stellar Run the Jewels 2, he urged fellow anarchists to kill the police, take over a prison, and waterboard the warden. Yet on the heels of the recent Atlanta incidents, Mike sounded a different note, passionate but measured. “I watched a white police officer assassinate a black man, and I know that tore your heart out,” he declared in a tearful, widely circulated speech. “It is your duty not to burn your own house down for anger with an enemy. It is your duty to fortify your own house so that you may be a house of refuge in times of organization. And now is the time to plot, plan, strategize, organize, and mobilize. It is time to beat up prosecutors you don’t like at the voting booth.”
He has a point, but for those who have followed Mike and Run the Jewels, that advice seems to contradict the scorched-earth tenor of his previous rhymes. What Run the Jewels 4 makes clear is that Mike and El are still gearing up for a fight and providing another soundtrack for rebellion—but with age, world-weariness, and introspection, they’ve begun to bare their souls to their listeners, too.
On “Walking in the Snow,” Mike breaks down what systemic racism feels like for black Americans, from the discrimination we face beginning in elementary school to the police brutality we endure as adults:
They promise education, but really they give you tests and scores.
And they predicting prison population by who scoring the lowest.
And usually the lowest scores the poorest, and they look like me.
And every day on the evening news they feed you fear for free.
And you so numb, you watch the cops choke out a man like me.
Until my voice goes from a shriek to whisper, “I can’t breathe.”
Mike also wags his finger at the armchair activists who rant about injustice on Twitter but don’t take any other action: “Truly the travesty / You’ve been robbed of your empathy / Replaced it with apathy.” Like the band’s previous albums, Run the Jewels 4 is turbulent, a rebel-rousing LP meant to scourge law enforcement, political leaders, and bootlicking yes-men. Though the vitriol of their older work remains, the new album feels more settled, even somewhat familiar. Producers El-P, Little Shalimar, and Wilder Zoby create dystopian electronic breakbeats for the rappers to stomp through, and for 39 minutes, they devastate everything in sight. Yet the déjà vu this album engenders is welcome at this moment. Whereas other mainstream rappers might create one song or one album dedicated to the unrest, Mike and El have carried that torch for six years. Once again, they’re urging us to wake up and keep fighting the system.
In an interview with The New York Times, Mike and El explained how Run the Jewels 4 was created after a much-needed break from the road, where the duo spent over a year and a half performing more than 100 shows in the United States and Europe. Reportedly, it was the first time they’d stopped working since they met nearly a decade ago, when El made all the beats for Mike’s breakthrough album, R.A.P. Music. El got married and took on a film scoring project, while Mike admitted that he was “mentally, spiritually, physically…fried.”
That might explain the self-reflection we hear on Run the Jewels 4. Historically, the rappers’ flows have been combative and outward-facing, but on Run the Jewels 4, especially on the concluding track, “A Few Words for the Firing Squad (Radiation),” they tend to look inward. El-P unpacks the anxiety he’s been suffering through: “I should’ve focused mostly on the heart / ‘Cause I’ve seen smarter people trample life like it’s an art.” Mike’s verses also capture him in a moment of introspection and might explain why he was cautious in his speech to the Atlanta protesters. Here he delves into a talk he had with his wife and how, as an outspoken famous black man, he now has to temper his desire to incite rebellion: “Friends tell her he could be another Malcolm, he could be another Martin / She told her partner, ‘I need a husband more than the world need another martyr.’” The lyrics show a side we hadn’t heard from Mike and El. Four albums in, they’re a little older and wiser and have more to lose.
Elsewhere on their new album, however, it’s business as usual. The song “JU$T” dissects capitalism and police brutality and features a defiant Pharrell, who chides “all these slave masters posing on your dollar.” Mike reduces Trump to a mere casino owner, and El scolds New York City police officers, calling them “murderous choke hold cops still earning a living.” On “Pulling the Pin,” which features soul music legend Mavis Staples and singer-songwriter Josh Homme, El sounds obstinate but somewhat jaded. He’s still pushing for change, but it can feel futile with the current administration still taking up space. Then Mike spits a rhyme that has rattled in my head since I first heard it: “Fuck the political. The mission is spiritual.” That says it all, really.
In times like these, when life can feel daunting and nothing prevails but anger, the line snapped me back to the true mission of the uprisings. This administration is, ultimately, finite; it’s time for America to fully acknowledge the centuries of terror the black people who built this country have faced. There’s never been a better time to destroy the system and the racists who maintain it.


thenation--2020-06-29--Here’s How to Stop the Next Bill Barr From Gutting the Rule of Law

The damage Attorney General William Barr has done to the Department of Justice is incalculable .
He has surpassed every institutional metric in his quest to become the worst attorney general in US history .
He ’ s likely responsible for shutting down the Robert Mueller investigation and is certainly responsible for misrepresenting its contents .
He ’ s helped Donald Trump implement a truly monarchical theory of executive power .
He ’ s ordered the teargassing of peaceful protesters so his boss could do a photo op with the Bible .
And most recently , he tried to fire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Southern District of New York , via press release , possibly because Berman was looking into crimes committed by the Trump Organization or Trump ’ s cronies .
Simply listing a few lawless highlights from Barr ’ s tenure , however , undersells how thoroughly he has mangled the theory of impartial justice .
The attorney general is supposed to be the top lawyer for the American people , but Barr has turned the entire Department of Justice into a weapon for Trump ’ s reelection .
It ’ s Barr who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s political rivals , Barr who has joined Trump ’ s attempts to scare people away from mail-in voting .
Barr has placed Trump above the rule of law—from within the country ’ s legal department .
Unfortunately , nothing can be done about him so long as Trump is still in power .
Yes , Barr can be impeached by the House of Representatives and removed from office if convicted by at least two-thirds of the Senate—but that will never happen .
The Republican Party has so thoroughly committed itself to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ does not have the moral strength to remove one of the president ’ s chief henchmen mere months before the election .
Then again , the GOP ’ s approach to injustice within the Justice Department is nothing new .
This is the second time that Barr has been the US attorney general .
The last time , he used his power to help Republican operatives secure pardons to escape accountability for the Iran-contra scandal .
In fact , he isn ’ t all that unusual among corrupt Republican attorneys general .
Remember @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Many recall him as a pro-rendition guy who supported warrantless wiretaps and all manner of post-9/11 excesses in law enforcement .
But people forget that he was suspected of doing what Barr is doing now : allegedly firing US attorneys who refused to open investigations into the president ’ s political enemies .
Gonzales eventually resigned , but Republican presidents know they can always find somebody willing to do their bidding under the color of law .
In the Saturday Night Massacre , Richard Nixon eventually fired his way to Robert Bork , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Watergate-related purges that better men like Elliot Richardson refused to do .
Republicans have been politicizing the Department of Justice for decades .
But every time the Democrats retake power , all they do is nominate decent people while leaving the structure in place for indecent people to do great harm when Republicans regain control .
That cycle must end .
The Democrats must stop hoping that Republicans will act in good faith and start protecting the country from them when they inevitably do not .
And the only way to do that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Justice truly impartial .
The attorney general ’ s position must be placed at a remove from the regular political appointment process .
Congress should pass ( and the new president should sign ) a law transforming the term of the attorney general into a single , six-year appointment , which can not be revoked by the president .
This office must be given protection from the president , and the responsibility for removing a rogue AG must be laid squarely at the feet of Congress through the impeachment process .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his way to a compliant attorney general , the way Nixon got to Bork—and Trump got to Barr .
The act of creating an independent Justice Department must happen with the next Democratic administration , because a lot lies ahead for the next attorney general .
It will be incumbent upon the new AG to take up what Barr has refused to investigate and to hold to account those wrongdoers who have thus far gotten away with it .
This includes investigating Trump and his entire crime family .
It also includes prosecuting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ukraine into interfering in the upcoming election .
And it might include prosecuting Barr for corruption .
An investigation into a previous presidential administration and a previous president ’ s criminal family is inherently political .
It can be carried out only by a body that is viewed as politically independent .
That ’ s why Elizabeth Warren , when she was running for president , proposed an independent task force , separate from her administration , that would investigate Trump .
It was a good idea , but Barr has exposed the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
If Barack Obama had established nonrenewable six-year terms for the attorney general during his first year in office , when he had 60 votes in the Senate , 2021 would have been the end of Loretta Lynch ’ s term as AG .
Imagine how different everything would be if we had had an independent attorney general these past four years .
Or flip the script : Imagine how much less of a danger Barr would be if we had to put up with him for only a few more years under @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expired .
Barr would be reduced to mewling about Burisma while the Trump family lawyered up for the federal prosecutions inevitably coming their way from an independent Justice Department in 2023 .
Bill Barr has wrecked the Department of Justice .
The solution isn ’ t to return it to the way it was before .
The solution is to remake it , better and stronger than it ’ s ever been .
Do Democrats have the will to do what is necessary ?
Or will they just wait for another Republican like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ take over the department and finally destroy the rule of law ?

This article appears in the July 13/20, 2020 issue.
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The damage Attorney General William Barr has done to the Department of Justice is incalculable. He has surpassed every institutional metric in his quest to become the worst attorney general in US history. He’s likely responsible for shutting down the Robert Mueller investigation and is certainly responsible for misrepresenting its contents. He’s helped Donald Trump implement a truly monarchical theory of executive power. He’s ordered the teargassing of peaceful protesters so his boss could do a photo op with the Bible. And most recently, he tried to fire Geoffrey Berman, the head prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, via press release, possibly because Berman was looking into crimes committed by the Trump Organization or Trump’s cronies.
Simply listing a few lawless highlights from Barr’s tenure, however, undersells how thoroughly he has mangled the theory of impartial justice. The attorney general is supposed to be the top lawyer for the American people, but Barr has turned the entire Department of Justice into a weapon for Trump’s reelection. It’s Barr who has flirted with investigating the president’s political rivals, Barr who has joined Trump’s attempts to scare people away from mail-in voting. Barr has placed Trump above the rule of law—from within the country’s legal department.
Unfortunately, nothing can be done about him so long as Trump is still in power. Yes, Barr can be impeached by the House of Representatives and removed from office if convicted by at least two-thirds of the Senate—but that will never happen. The Republican Party has so thoroughly committed itself to the lawlessness of the Trump regime that it does not have the moral strength to remove one of the president’s chief henchmen mere months before the election.
Then again, the GOP’s approach to injustice within the Justice Department is nothing new. This is the second time that Barr has been the US attorney general. The last time, he used his power to help Republican operatives secure pardons to escape accountability for the Iran-contra scandal.
In fact, he isn’t all that unusual among corrupt Republican attorneys general. Remember George W. Bush appointee Alberto Gonzales? Many recall him as a pro-rendition guy who supported warrantless wiretaps and all manner of post-9/11 excesses in law enforcement. But people forget that he was suspected of doing what Barr is doing now: allegedly firing US attorneys who refused to open investigations into the president’s political enemies.
Gonzales eventually resigned, but Republican presidents know they can always find somebody willing to do their bidding under the color of law. In the Saturday Night Massacre, Richard Nixon eventually fired his way to Robert Bork, who was willing to carry out the Watergate-related purges that better men like Elliot Richardson refused to do. Republicans have been politicizing the Department of Justice for decades. But every time the Democrats retake power, all they do is nominate decent people while leaving the structure in place for indecent people to do great harm when Republicans regain control. 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 A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life 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 A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
That cycle must end. The Democrats must stop hoping that Republicans will act in good faith and start protecting the country from them when they inevitably do not. And the only way to do that is to try to make the Department of Justice truly impartial. The attorney general’s position must be placed at a remove from the regular political appointment process. Congress should pass (and the new president should sign) a law transforming the term of the attorney general into a single, six-year appointment, which cannot be revoked by the president. This office must be given protection from the president, and the responsibility for removing a rogue AG must be laid squarely at the feet of Congress through the impeachment process. The president should not be able to fire his way to a compliant attorney general, the way Nixon got to Bork—and Trump got to Barr. Current Issue View our current issue
The act of creating an independent Justice Department must happen with the next Democratic administration, because a lot lies ahead for the next attorney general. It will be incumbent upon the new AG to take up what Barr has refused to investigate and to hold to account those wrongdoers who have thus far gotten away with it. This includes investigating Trump and his entire crime family. It also includes prosecuting Rudolph Giuliani for his efforts to blackmail Ukraine into interfering in the upcoming election. And it might include prosecuting Barr for corruption.
An investigation into a previous presidential administration and a previous president’s criminal family is inherently political. It can be carried out only by a body that is viewed as politically independent. That’s why Elizabeth Warren, when she was running for president, proposed an independent task force, separate from her administration, that would investigate Trump. It was a good idea, but Barr has exposed the need for an even more expansive solution.
If Barack Obama had established nonrenewable six-year terms for the attorney general during his first year in office, when he had 60 votes in the Senate, 2021 would have been the end of Loretta Lynch’s term as AG. Imagine how different everything would be if we had had an independent attorney general these past four years.
Or flip the script: Imagine how much less of a danger Barr would be if we had to put up with him for only a few more years under a Democratic president, until his term expired. Barr would be reduced to mewling about Burisma while the Trump family lawyered up for the federal prosecutions inevitably coming their way from an independent Justice Department in 2023.
Bill Barr has wrecked the Department of Justice. The solution isn’t to return it to the way it was before. The solution is to remake it, better and stronger than it’s ever been. Do Democrats have the will to do what is necessary? Or will they just wait for another Republican like Barr, Gonzales, or Bork to take over the department and finally destroy the rule of law?