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THE BEST OF THE U.S. AND INTERNATIONAL MEDIA A fight for control Can McConnell tame the GOP’s Trumpist rebellion? Pages 4, 6

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Editor’s letter America needs two viable, sane political parties. Parties provide Sens. Bill Cassidy and Ben Sasse for voting their consciences voters with a coherent choice of governing philosophies, and gal- on impeachment. State party chairmen in Wyoming and Texas vanize people to unite behind an agenda and candidates; without are raising the possibility of secession. Michigan Senate Major- opposition, any party inevitably falls prey to corruption and ex- ity Leader Mike Shirkey maintains that the Capitol assault was a tremism. Liberalism and conservatism are yin and yang, parts of “hoax” that “was all staged” to discredit Trump and his support- a whole, each contributing insights and values to guide the zig- ers. In Virginia, State Sen. Amanda Chase—who describes herself zag path forward. But when parties become enamored with un- as “Trump in heels”—is running for governor on a platform that popular and foolish ideas, they can die: The Federalists, the includes preserving “white history” and Confederate statues. Re- Whigs, and the Know Nothings all once flourished and then per- publican strategist Rick Taylor warns that the post-Trump GOP ished. (See The Last Word, p. 36.) Many Republicans— including is devolving into “a radicalized regional party” with “no lead- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell—now worry that if ership and no vision.” The party’s agenda is set by Fox News, their party can’t evolve beyond blind fealty to Donald Trump, where Tucker Carlson is telling his flock that a cop did not kill the GOP will also fade into history. (See Controversy, p. 6.) George Floyd, and that shadowy, powerful elites are “lying” to Many state Republican organizations remain in the grip of them about Covid vaccines. The Republican Party can be revived, Trumpist extremism. State parties have censured principled con- but it must first turn back from the Know Noth- William Falk servatives such as Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger and ing path it’s on now, which leads to Knowhere. Editor-in-chief

NEWS 4 Main stories Donald Trump acquitted Editor-in-chief: William Falk in impeachment trial; Managing editors: Theunis Bates, new Covid-19 variants Mark Gimein detected in the U.S. Assistant managing editor: Jay Wilkins Deputy editor/International: Susan Caskie 6 Controversy of the week Deputy editor/Arts: Chris Mitchell Senior editors: Chris Erikson, Danny Funt, Will the GOP remain the Michael Jaccarino, Dale Obbie, party of Trump? Zach Schonbrun, Hallie Stiller Art director: Dan Josephs 7 The U.S. at a glance Photo editor: Mark Rykoff Rush Limbaugh dies Copy editor: Jane A. Halsey Researchers: Joyce Chu, Alisa Partlan of cancer; New York Contributing editors: Ryan Devlin, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Bruno Maddox nursing-home scandal Chief sales and marketing officer: Adam Dub 8 The world at a glance SVP, marketing: Lisa Boyars A legal fi ght over Executive account director: Sara Schiano West Coast executive director: Tony Imperato offensive comedy in Central American migrants cross the border near El Paso, Texas. (p.16) Director, digital operations & advertising: Canada; feminist activist Andy Price Manager, digital campaign operations: freed in Saudi Arabia ARTS LEISURE Andrea Crino 10 People 22 Books 27 Food & Drink North American CEO: Randy Siegel Ashley Graham on being Chief operating & financial officer: America’s failed A simple, oven-roasted Kevin E. Morgan a plus-size role model; cyberwar strategy bang bang chicken; doing Director, financial reporting: Jon Bon Jovi’s gridiron Arielle Starkman good by ordering takeout VP consumer marketing: Yanna Wilson- clash with Donald Trump 23 Author of the week Fischer How Vanessa Springora 28 Consumer Consumer marketing director: 11 Briefi ng sparked a cultural Essential gear for winter Leslie Guarnieri Will renewable energy reckoning in France adventurers; how to get Senior digital marketing director: sources ever be able to Mathieu Muzzy through a power outage Manufacturing manager, North America: replace fossil fuels? 24 Stage & Music Lori Crook All the Devils HR manager: Joy Hart 12 Best U.S. columns Operations manager: Cassandra Mondonedo Are Here offers a BUSINESS Tucker Carlson’s master class in Chairman: Jack Griffin conspiracy theories; a 32 News at a glance Dennis Group CEO: James Tye Shakespearean new Hollywood blacklist Citigroup’s $500 million Group CRO: Julian Lloyd-Evans villainy mistake; Tribune Publishing U.K. founding editor: Jolyon Connell 15 Best international sold to hedge fund Company founder: Felix Dennis columns 25 Film Haiti spirals into a Minari’s 33 Making money violent political crisis elusive A warning about post- American pandemic infl ation; renting Visit us at TheWeek.com. 16 Talking points dream in Zoom boomtowns For customer service go to Biden and the southern TheWeek.com/service. border; diagnosing 34 Best columns Renew a subscription at

P Bitcoin and the crypto RenewTheWeek.com or give a A liberalism’s failures in Ashley

, s r bubble; how McKinsey gift at GiveTheWeek.com. e California; the Lincoln t Graham u e fueled the opioid epidemic R Project implodes (p.10)

THE WEEK February 26, 2021 4 NEWS The main stories... Trump acquitted as seven Republicans break ranks What happened history,” and even most Republicans Donald Trump’s second impeachment offered no defense of his “inexcusable” trial ended in an acquittal last week, but behavior. The trial “will mar his legacy “guilty” votes from seven Republican for all time.” America “is moving past senators and a blistering denunciation of the Trump presidency, and the GOP Trump from Senate Minority Leader Mitch will remain in the wilderness until it McConnell exposed a deep rift in the GOP. does, too.” The vote to convict Trump was 57-43, 10 short of the two-thirds majority required “The Republican Party has betrayed for conviction, with Sens. Richard Burr of the nation,” said the Fort Lauderdale, North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Fla., Sun-Sentinel. The party was “on Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski trial along with Donald Trump,” and of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben “both now stand convicted.” The 43 Sasse of Nebraska, and Patrick Toomey GOP senators willing to “excuse a of Pennsylvania breaking ranks to vote A House staff member tallies the historic vote. monumental crime against the Ameri- with 50 Democrats. The vote followed can people” have “prostituted our a three-day trial in which House impeachment managers argued democracy to a demagogue and despot.” But the 17 House and that Trump incited the violence with a deliberate, deceit-driven Senate Republicans who “put country above party” deserve the na- campaign to sow outrage over a “stolen” election and overturn his tion’s gratitude, said the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Instead of being loss. The evidence included harrowing footage of the Jan. 6 Capitol pilloried by their own party, these “profiles in courage” should be insurrection, which revealed that Vice President Mike Pence and “templates for the party’s future.” several lawmakers barely escaped from a rampaging mob. Trump’s lawyers insisted the former president truly believed the election was What the columnists said stolen and had a First Amendment right to say so, and called the Trump’s Republican enablers “put their careers over duty, honor, trial a “witch hunt.” It is a “blatantly unconstitutional act of politi- and the Constitution,” said Tom Nichols in USA Today. They are cal vengeance,” said attorney Michael van der Veen. guided by one principle: stay in office and keep power. If that re- quires “bending the knee yet one more time to the cult of Trump,” House managers opted not to call witnesses but read into the it is a price “they will gladly pay.” record an incriminating account from Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.) of a frantic phone call during the insurrection from The Democrats’ decision to pass on witnesses was “inexplicable,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to Trump. McCarthy, said Jim Geraghty in NationalReview.com. “Handed a gift- Herrera Beutler said, pleaded with Trump to call off the rioters, and wrapped bombshell witness” in Herrera Beutler, they took a pass, Trump responded, “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset saying Republicans would have voted to acquit no matter what. about the election than you are.” The account, along with GOP It was one of several “spectacularly wrongheaded” Democratic Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s statement that he’d told Trump in another moves, including charging Trump with incitement, a hard-to-prove call that Vice President Mike Pence had been hustled out of the Sen- charge that “offered too much wiggle room.” ate Chamber for his safety, indicated that Trump knew how dire the situation had McConnell tried to “have it both become and yet did nothing to stop it. What next? ways,” said Jonah Goldberg in The House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced plans Dispatch.com. He denounced Trump Many Republicans hung their votes on this week for “an independent, Sept. 11–style but voted to let him escape responsi- the argument—which the Senate had commission” to investigate the Capitol insur- bility, “in the hope of reconciling the voted earlier to reject—that the Con- rection, said Hope Yen in the Associated Press. divisions in the party that cannot be stitution forbids impeaching a former Bipartisan support “appeared to be growing” reconciled.” His moral abdication “is president. Senate Minority Leader Mitch for such a commission, which would address emblematic of the GOP’s rot.” McConnell voted to acquit on those questions left unanswered by the trial and offer grounds but then condemned Trump in “a definitive government-backed accounting Trump’s legal problems are hardly over, an extraordinary speech. “There’s no of events.” Even stalwart Trump ally Sen. Lind- said Jonathan Chait in NYMag.com. question, none, that President Trump sey Graham has backed a commission, which He faces state and local investigations is practically and morally responsible “would probably require legislation to create.” into potential financial crimes in New for provoking the events of the day,” Still, there are details to hammer out about the York and two probes into his pressure McConnell said. Citing reports that scope of such an investigation, and “Republicans campaign to overturn the Georgia Trump was happy as he watched the are likely to do everything they can to cripple it,” election results. The Capitol incite- assault on TV, McConnell accused him said Greg Sargent in The Washington Post. To ment could also bring criminal charges x u of a “disgraceful dereliction of duty” protect both Trump and Republicans with “ties and civil lawsuits. “The informal aura d e R / and suggested he should face criminal to some of the extremist groups that waged the of legal impunity granted to former s e m i T prosecution and civil lawsuits. assault,” they could mount a filibuster to deny presidents” has been “stripped off” by k r o Y it subpoena power or limit its focus. The 9/11 the trial and the weak defense of many w e N What the editorials said commission model, said one Senate Democratic Republicans, who “very obviously e h T /

Trump’s acquittal was “no vindication,” wish for Trump to be disqualified by f

aide, “depends on the good-faith cooperation of f a h somebody else”— prosecutors, judges, c said The Wall Street Journal. He faced a Republican leadership that no longer exists.” S

n i r

“the most bipartisan conviction vote in and juries. E Illustration by Howard McWilliam THE WEEK February 26, 2021 Cover photos from AP (3) ... and how they were covered NEWS 5 Biden pledges vaccines for all by August

What happened ing hosts.” An estimated “25 percent of With new daily cases of Covid-19 in the adults have Covid-19 antibodies from U.S. falling to their lowest level since a previous infection,” and 40 million October and the pace of vaccinations Americans have received at least one vac- accelerating, President Biden this week cine shot. “We’re adding about 10 million sought to temper expectations about the people to this ‘protected’ population every pandemic’s end by saying that coronavirus week,” so half of U.S. adults should have shots should be available for all adults by some protection by spring. Even with late July—and a return to normal life pos- cases declining, we can’t rush students sible by Christmas. The vaccination rate back into classrooms, said Dr. Leana Wen climbed 11 percent this week, to nearly 1.7 in WashingtonPost.com. The CDC lays million shots a day, and 13.5 million doses out sensible safety measures—“masking, were distributed to states, up 57 percent distancing, handwashing”—but its guide- since January. By the end of the year, Biden lines don’t mandate 6 feet of physical told a CNN town hall, “significantly Administering Covid vaccines in St. Albans, W.Va. distancing nor do they require teachers to fewer” Americans may need to socially be vaccinated. Are the guidelines “based distance or wear masks, though he added, “I don’t want to over- on the best available science,” or political “expediency”? promise anything.” Just days earlier, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, had walked back his recent projection Something’s wrong with the vaccine data, said Jim Geraghty in that vaccines would be widely available to the general public by late NationalReview.com. This week there appeared to be “anywhere April. That timeline had been based on Johnson & Johnson shipping from 15.4 million to 17.2 million doses either in transit or sitting on 30 million doses of its vaccine in the next two months, if the shot shelves somewhere.” Bad weather caused delays, and some vials are receives FDA authorization in the coming weeks. Production delays being held back for second shots, but that doesn’t fully account for mean fewer than 20 million J&J doses will likely go out by late April. the problem. Many states are simply “unable or unwilling to share how many doses they receive from manufacturers each week.” With The Centers for Disease Control urged states to reopen K-12 488,000 Americans already dead of Covid, we can’t afford to have schools as soon as possible, and issued new guidelines for get- lifesaving vaccines stuck in the supply chain. ting children back into classrooms safely. But according to those guidelines, 89 percent of U.S. children currently live in “red zone” “The U.S. vaccine rollout, for all its faults, is ahead of almost every counties, defined by the CDC as having a test-positivity rate of other country’s,” said Noah Smith in NoahPinion.Substack.com. 10 percent in the last seven days and where the agency says in- Among nations with large populations, only the U.K. is doing better person learning should be limited. Scientists continue to warn that in terms of doses administered as a percentage of population. And the more contagious U.K. and South African Covid variants could U.S. manufacturers are also rolling out vaccines faster than their soon send U.S. cases skyrocketing; a new study has identified seven foreign peers, a process Biden is speeding up through his use of the variants that originated in America. It’s not yet known whether Defense Production Act to boost supplies. those strains are more infectious. We might “never reach herd immunity” against the always evolving What the columnists said Covid-19, said Eric Levitz in NYMag.com, but that doesn’t mean Covid cases are dropping far faster than health experts had expect- this crisis will go on forever. The vaccines are incredibly effective ed, said Derek Thompson in TheAtlantic.com. Daily new cases are at preventing serious illness and death, and at least Pfizer’s shot now below 100,000, and hospitalizations have dropped 50 percent appears to work against all known variants. Perhaps we will need in a month. “What’s behind the change?” It’s largely because the booster shots every few years to protect us against new strains. But post-holidays surge scared many Americans into wearing masks it is well within our power to turn Covid from a deadly disease to and hunkering down. But the virus is also finding “fewer welcom- something no more troublesome than “an endemic common cold.”

It wasn’t all bad QA French nun survived the coronavirus to celebrate her 117th QWhen a TSA officer at Portland birthday. Sister André of Toulon, who lived through both world International Airport was called QThree people stranded on a small wars and the 1918 flu pandemic, is believed to be the world’s over to translate for a Spanish- uninhabited island in the Bahamas second-oldest person. Born in 1904, Sister André worked in a speaking family, he learned were rescued after 33 days. The hospital, took care of elders and orphans, and became a nun that they had been stuck in the two men and a woman, all Cuban at age 40. Last week, airport overnight. The family had nationals, had been on a boat that for her special day, she intended to travel to Portland, capsized in a storm, forcing them to enjoyed a special menu Maine, but a travel agent booked swim to the island. They survived of foie gras, baked them a flight to Portland, Ore. on coconuts and small animals for Alaska, and red wine— Officer Martin Rios escorted the nearly five weeks before a U.S. Coast “one of her secrets of family to the ticketing desk and Guard patrol spotted them waving longevity,” according to a found that they had just $200, not a makeshift flag. The crew dropped spokesman at her nurs- enough to fly across the country. food, water, and a radio, then air- ing home. After a Mass Rios paid for the tickets out of his lifted them to safety. “I was amazed in her honor she was own pocket and sent the family how well they had it together,” said treated to champagne, on their way. “I just know that I ) 2

( didn’t really have it in me to turn Lt. Justin Dougherty. “They are “because 117 years have s r e t incredibly lucky to be alive.” Miraculous longevity to be toasted.” them away,” he said. u e R

THE WEEK February 26, 2021 6 NEWS Controversy of the week The GOP: Is there life after Trumpism?

Donald Trump once bragged that if he shot somebody on going forward”—a number that’s risen 18 points since shortly Fifth Avenue “I wouldn’t lose voters,” said Peter Wehner after the Capitol riot. Whether establishment Republicans like it in The New York Times. His acquittal last week by or not, the GOP rank and file just “can’t quit Trump.” Republicans in his Senate impeachment trial shows how right his prophecy was. Five people died when Trump Trump faces so many potential criminal prosecutions loyalists stormed the Capitol in hope of reversing his he will probably never run again, said Gary Abernathy election defeat, yet the GOP remains a Trump party. in The Washington Post. But “while Trump will Still, there are some “embers in the ashes” that may be gone,” all signs indicate that “Trumpism is the signal “the timid start of a new, post-Trump” era. GOP’s future.” Trump acolytes fill Congress and the Seven GOP senators found the backbone to deem 30-plus state legislatures controlled by Republicans. Trump guilty of inciting the Jan. 6 riot with reck- “What is Trumpism without Trump?” It’s strident less rhetoric. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell advocacy for individual freedom, deregulation, voted to acquit Trump on the technicality that he’d McConnell: Done with Trump secure borders, an “America First” foreign policy, already left office, but delivered a blistering speech and an “unapologetic embrace of ‘God and denouncing Trump’s “wild falsehoods” about a stolen election Country’ values.” Trump’s popularity was rooted in “patriotic and his “unconscionable” behavior. Clearly sick of Trump and indignation,” said Charles Kesler in the New York Post. That spirit MAGA extremists, McConnell pledged to support only “electable” will define the GOP for years to come, “even without Trump’s Republican candidates in the future. Trump reacted by declar- continuing political presence.” ing war, said Mike Debonis in The Washington Post. The former president dismissed McConnell as a “dour, sullen, and unsmiling Trumpism’s real spirit is anti-democratic rage, said Michael Gerson political hack” and vowed to back pro-Trump Republicans in the in The Washington Post. The movement’s core belief—heavily 2022 midterms. He also told his followers that his “movement to promoted by Trump himself and right-wing media—is that “white, Make America Great Again has only just begun.” Christian America” faces imminent destruction by evil liberal elites, and “must be preserved by any means necessary.” In a new poll, a In the coming power struggle, the GOP establishment doesn’t stunning 55 percent of Republicans agree with the statement that stand a chance, said Jonathan Bernstein in Bloomberg.com. The “the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that vast majority of elected Republicans seem happy “to let the party we may have to use force to save it.” His angry followers “feel become more and more Trumpy.” That includes “playing footsie cheated rather than defeated,” and they aren’t going away. In fact, with white supremacist and other violent groups,” embracing Trumpists may grow even more militant, said Ronald Brownstein authoritarianism, and being willing to keep power through threats in CNN.com. The country is becoming only more racially diverse, and violence. Republican voters share these views, said Tara more culturally progressive, and more secular—the very changes Palmeri in Politico.com. In a poll this week, 59 percent of GOP that gave rise to Trumpism. If Republicans won’t or can’t “excom- voters say they want Trump to “play a major role in their party municate” their extremists, democracy itself is in peril.

Good week for: Only in America In other news Rich bitches, after Lulu, a border collie from Nashville, was left QThe Oregon Department USPS preps plan for $5 million by her wealthy owner Bill Dorris. Lulu will be cared for slower, pricier delivery of Education is encouraging by Dorris’ friend Martha Burton, 88, who said that while it will be teachers to take a course on hard to spend that much money on the dog, “I’d like to try.” Postmaster General Louis “dismantling racism in math- DeJoy is preparing a plan to ematics.” The course instructs Karens, with the formation of a Facebook support group for end air transport of first- that the “focus on getting the women cursed with that now-demonized first name. The group class mail—meaning bills, ‘right’ answer” and students will help members bear the burden of Karen-ism, and encourage magazines, and even some being “required to ‘show their a wider “culture of compassion that supports all human beings prescription medicines would work,’” are actually “toxic char- regardless of what their name is.” no longer arrive within one acteristics of white supremacy Elias Quezada, a 7-year-old Florida boy who hid in a garbage to three days, according to a culture.” Teachers will be told bin that was dumped into a garbage truck. Sanitation worker report in The Washington Post. not to “perpetuate objectiv- The 10-year plan would lump ity” by “upholding the idea Waldo Fidele spotted Quezada on a surveillance camera and turned off the truck’s compaction blades just in time. “I was going all first-class mail into a de- that there are always right and livery window of three to five wrong answers.” to be a mashed potato,” a grinning Quezada noted afterward. business days, and include QA Michigan ammuni- Bad week for: a major hike in postage fees. tion supplier is requiring all The planned changes follow Stopping the steal, after sharp-eyed TV viewers spotted delivery delays that began customers to affirm that they Michael van der Veen, a personal-injury lawyer who defended for- didn’t vote for Joe Biden. shortly after DeJoy, a major Owners of Fenix Ammunition mer President Donald Trump in his impeachment trial, pocketing Republican donor and former explained that Biden ran on a three U.S. Senate drink coasters at the conclusion of proceedings. logistics executive, began “radical gun-control platform,” Fresh starts, after Spokane, Wash., police charged Marcus instituting cost cuts across the which included “banning the Goodman, 31, with a carjacking 20 minutes after he was released agency. On-time delivery rates online sale of ammunition.” from jail. Goodman was promptly returned to jail. have plummeted, with only A vote for Biden, they said, 38 percent of first-class mail Standing athwart, after William F. Buckley’s great-nephew, Leo sent with a three- to five-day was a vote “to bankrupt our Brent Bozell IV, was charged with storming the Capitol on Jan. 6 company,” and “we don’t want window meeting delivery ex- s r

to stop certification of the election. Bozell is the son of conserva- e pectations at the end of 2020. t your money.” u e

tive media critic L. Brent Bozell III. R

THE WEEK February 26, 2021 The U.S. at a glance ... NEWS 7

Albany, N.Y. Central U.S. In Texas, 4.1 million people Covid deception: Deadly polar vortex: were forced to endure the Gov. Andrew Cuomo A once-in-a-generation frigid temperatures with- conceded this week that out electricity, as the grid Arctic blast sent tem- he “should have provided peratures to historic lows failed under overwhelming more information faster” across much of the U.S. demand, prompting roll- about the number of ing blackouts stretching this week as authorities nursing-home residents reported at least 31 dead past two days. Prices on Record cold in Oklahoma City who died from Covid- Texas’ wholesale power and millions left with- 19 in the state, after market skyrocketed 100-fold. Republicans out heat or power. In Texas, Gov. Greg a top aide admitted Cuomo Abbott called the winter storm “unprec- blamed frozen wind turbines, though only that his administration 10 percent of the state’s winter power edented” in state history as temperatures hid the true number from the legislature. plunged into the single digits and snow comes from wind. Two-thirds of the gen- Secretary to the governor Melissa DeRosa erating capacity lost in Texas came from fell as far south as San Antonio. In Dallas, apologized to Democratic lawmakers coal, gas, and nuclear plants not weather- temperatures reached minus 2 degrees. during a video call for having with- In North Platte, Neb., temperatures ized against the extreme cold, as well as held the data, explaining that they had from shortages of natural gas caused by went down to minus 29 degrees, and in received an inquiry from former President Hibbing, Minn., minus 38. In Brunswick, frozen pipes. The combination of black- Trump’s Justice Department for the same outs and extreme cold terrified Texans. “I N.C., the storm brought on a tornado that information. “We froze,” she said, add- killed three people. Researchers cited cli- was afraid of not making it through the ing they were afraid the data would “be mate change as a factor in the Arctic blast, night,” said Esteban Ramirez, a 19-year- used against us.” The state did eventually noting a weakening of the jet stream that old from Del Rio, who hugged his grand- provide the information to the Justice usually keeps polar vortexes from creeping parents and mother on a sofa after they Department in September, but continued lost power in the night hours. south of the Arctic Circle. reporting publicly until January that only 8,500 nursing-home residents had died of Covid-19. The official Washington, D.C. tally is now 15,000-plus. White House resignation: “There was a delay,” said Deputy White House press Cuomo, who has written a secretary TJ Ducklo resigned book about his leadership during last week after threatening to the pandemic. “destroy” a reporter working on a story about a potential conflict of interest in his roman- Bethesda, Md. tic relationship with another Unreported crisis: President Trump reporter who had covered President had extremely depressed oxygen lev- Biden’s campaign. On Jan. 20, Ducklo els and was close to being placed on a called Politico reporter Tara Palmeri ventilator after contracting Covid-19 in after learning she was working on an October, even though his staff down- article about him and his girlfriend, Alexi played the severity of his illness at the McCammond, an Axios.com reporter. time. The New York Times cited four Ducklo reportedly called Palmeri “trash” Palm Beach, Fla. people with knowledge of the former during the call, accused her being “jeal- Deceased: Rush Limbaugh, the conserva- president’s medical condition last week ous” of McCammond, and said he would tive talk radio host who mocked “femi- in reporting that his status was far more “come after” her if she followed through nazis” and liberals and whose frequent dire than he and his physician, Dr. Sean with the story. Ducklo, who has stage IV disdain for mainstream media and facts Conley, had let on. After Trump was lung cancer, was initially suspended for a helped shape modern American politics, admitted to the Walter Reed National week without pay but then resigned after died this week after a battle with lung Military Medical Center, Conley the story became public and pressure cancer. Limbaugh, 70, first announced his announced that his condition was “noth- mounted on the Biden administration to illness in February 2020, the same month ing of any major clinical concern.” respond with harsher steps. Biden himself that former President Trump awarded According to the Times, though, had earlier issued an edict him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Trump’s blood oxygen levels to his staff warning that Limbaugh continued broadcasting to an slipped into the 80s and he if “you are ever working audience of 15 million until early this suffered from “lung infil- with me and I hear you month, on a three-hour daily show for trates,” substances such treat another colleague which he was paid $40 million a year. He as fluid or bacteria that with disrespect, was beloved by conservatives and loathed indicate an inflamma- talk down to by liberals, who called him a bigot. tion of the lungs. Such someone, I Limbaugh repeatedly mocked gays dur- infiltrates are a sign of an promise you I ing the AIDS crisis and compared NFL acute case of Covid-19, as are oxygen levels in the s will fire you games to a battle “between the Crips and r e t u the Bloods.” Limbaugh shrugged off his low 90s or below. Trump

e on the spot. R

, ) left Walter Reed after three 3 No ifs, ands, critics, saying, “I won’t stop until every- (

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A or buts.” Ducklo: Press aide resigns. one agrees with me.” days of treatment. Acute case

THE WEEK February 26, 2021 8 NEWS The world at a glance ...

Montreal Copenhagen Joke trial: A Canadian comedian went to the Terrorist attack foiled: Danish authorities have Supreme Court this week to defend his right arrested 13 people on suspicion of planning a to mock a disabled person. In a 2010 terrorist attack, saying the suspects had guns, stand-up routine, Mike Ward took bomb-making ingredients, and an ISIS flag. aim at various Canadian personalities, Among the arrested were two brothers iden- including Jérémy Gabriel, a then–13- tified as Syrian; a third brother was detained Ward: Laughing matter? year-old who was born with facial in Germany, where police found fuses and deformities and became a minor celebrity in Quebec after he sang 22 pounds of black powder at a property for Pope Benedict XVI. Ward joked that he had assumed people linked to the suspects. “Unfortunately, the were only nice to the boy because he would soon die, adding that case shows that the terrorist threat against Collecting evidence when he found out Gabriel’s illness wasn’t fatal, he tried to drown Denmark remains serious,” Justice Minister Nick Haekkerup him. Gabriel’s family sued, saying the jokes had led to bullying, said. Denmark has been a focus of jihadist anger since 2005, and in 2016 a tribunal awarded Gabriel $27,500 in damages. when the center-right newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 Backed by free-speech activists, Ward appealed the case to the cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammed, sparking protests Supreme Court. If the verdict stands, his lawyer told the justices, across the Muslim world. “the whole notion of a stand-up comic becomes questionable.”

London Assange still wanted: The Biden administration is continuing its predecessor’s attempts to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, last week appealing to a British court to overturn a rul- ing that blocked his extradition to the U.S. A British judge ruled in January that because Assange suffers from mental health problems, he would be at risk of suicide if he were sent to the U.S., where he is wanted for publishing thousands of secret U.S. military and diplomatic documents in 2009. The Obama admin- istration declined to prosecute, saying Assange was effectively a journalist. But in 2019, President Donald Trump’s Justice Department charged Assange under the Espionage Act. If found guilty, Assange could be sentenced to 175 years in prison. Facing life in prison Havana Coronavirus crisis: Covid-19 has swept Cuba since international flights resumed in November, and the country is running out of personal pro- tective equipment and tests. The Communist nation registered 15,168 cases in January, more than the total for all of 2020, and hospitals are reaching capacity. Many doctors and nurses are sick. “We’re collapsing under the weight of patients, and almost without tools to work appro- priately,” one doctor, who did not want to be named for fear of govern- ment reprisal, told the Miami Herald. The government says the surge is the result of people failing to wear masks and keep their distance, but Cubans say they have to wait in long food lines where distancing is impossible. The government is placing its hopes in Cuba’s home- grown vaccine, Soberana 2, which will soon begin human trials. Barcelona Brasília Free-speech protests: Thousands of people took to the streets Guns for everyone: Brazil’s far- of Barcelona and other cities across Spain’s Catalonia region this right president, Jair Bolsonaro, week, burning trash cans and erecting roadblocks, to demand the issued four decrees this week mak- release of a prominent rapper jailed for criticizing the Spanish ing it much easier for people to buy monarchy and praising Basque terrorists in his tweets and song guns and ammunition. The decrees lyrics. Pablo Hasél was convicted of libel and of supporting ter- increase the number of firearms and rorism in 2018, and after an appeals process, he was told to the amount of ammunition citizens can A pro-gun campaigner report to prison last week. He legally buy— hunters can now have 30 guns each and sport shoot- didn’t, and instead barricaded ers 60—and reduce police oversight of gun ownership. Bolsonaro himself in a room at the University had already relaxed restrictions on semiautomatic weapons, and of Lleida, retweeting the offend- gun sales have soared since he took office in 2019. Critics fear that P A

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Set ablaze during a demonstration “glorification” of armed groups. have stricter gun control. W

THE WEEK February 26, 2021 The world at a glance ... NEWS 9

Pyongyang Jerusalem Vaccine theft attempt: North Korea tried to hack the American Vaccine works great: A new study pharmaceutical firm Pfizer to steal information on how to make its from Israel has found that Pfizer’s Covid vaccine, a South Korean lawmaker revealed this week. Ha Covid-19 vaccine is proving to be Tae-keung said South Korean intelligence had briefed lawmakers remarkably successful in blocking on the attack, but he didn’t say whether the hack was success- new symptomatic cases of the dis- ful. Microsoft announced in November that North Korean and ease. Israel leads the world in inocu- Getting inoculated Russian hackers had tried to crack into the computer systems of at lations, having administered at least one shot of a two-dose regimen least seven pharma firms working on vaccines. Analysts said North to 42 percent of its 9 million population. The new study found a 94 Korea probably wanted to steal and sell a vaccine formula, not use percent drop in symptomatic Covid cases among 600,000 people the information to make its own shot. The totalitarian country is who had received two doses of Pfizer’s shot, compared with a simi- under strict international sanctions and often uses industrial espio- lar sized group that had not been vaccinated. The Pfizer group was nage to make money. It’s unclear how bad the pandemic is there. also 92 percent less likely to develop severe illness from the dis- Dictator Kim Jong Un says there have been no coronavirus cases. ease; no Covid deaths occurred among those who had received the shot. “It is now unequivocal that Pfizer’s vaccine against Wuhan, China the coronavirus is incredibly effective in real life one week When did virus start? Data gathered by after the second dose,” said study co-author Ran Balicer. the World Health Organization during its recent fact-finding mission in Wuhan suggest that Covid-19 was already wide- spread in the city when it was officially identified there in December 2019. WHO lead investigator Peter Ben Embarek told CNN that the earliest patients in Wuhan Wuhan’s ‘wet market’ exhibited more than a dozen different strains of the virus, indicating it had been around long enough to have mutated numerous times. Investigators found 92 suspected Covid-19 cases from October and November 2019 across Hubei province, where Wuhan is located. These patients were severely ill with Covid-like symptoms, but of the 67 who were later tested for Covid antibodies all proved negative. Ben Embarek said the investigators would seek access to 200,000 samples from Wuhan’s blood donor bank that date back two years to see whether any similar coronavirus was detected.

Erbil, Iraq Rocket attack: A rocket attack in the normally peaceful capital of Iraqi Kurdistan this week killed a civilian contractor with the U.S.- led military coalition and wounded six other personnel, including a U.S. soldier. The rockets rained down on Erbil’s airport and on residential areas nearby, and an unknown number of civilians were wounded. A little-known, Iranian-backed Shiite militant group calling itself the Guardians of the Blood Brigade claimed responsi- bility; Iran said it had nothing to do with the attack. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said President Biden “reserves the right to respond in the time and manner of our choosing” to the attack. Attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq briefly stepped up early last year after top Iranian commander Riyadh Qassem Soleimani was killed in a U.S. Feminist activist freed: A prominent Saudi Arabian drone strike in Baghdad. Analysts said women’s rights activist who pushed to overturn the this rocket attack could be Iran’s attempt country’s ban on female drivers has been freed after spend- to test the Biden administration. Wounded by a rocket ing nearly three years in prison, following pressure from the Biden administration. Loujain al-Hathloul, 31, Dubai, United Arab Emirates was arrested on charges of incitement and serving a Where is the princess? A daughter of Dubai’s ruler—who disap- foreign agenda just weeks before authorities legal- peared after she attempted to flee the emirate in 2018—is being ized women drivers in 2018. Hathloul is “a power- held captive by her family “in a villa converted into a jail,” accord- ful advocate for women’s rights,” President Biden ing to video messages she sent her friends. Desperate to escape said, “and releasing her was the right thing to what she said was her father’s cruel treatment, Sheikha Latifa bint do.” She will be on probation, though, and Mohammed Al Maktoum, now 35, tried to sail across the Arabian can’t leave the country for five years. The Biden Sea to reach India. The boat was stormed by commandoes, and ) 2 (

s administration said this week it was going to Sheikha Latifa was forcibly returned to Dubai. In captivity, she sent r e t u

e “recalibrate” the U.S.-Saudi relationship. On the her friends video messages using a smuggled-in phone. “Every day, R

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A campaign trail, Biden criticized former President I’m worried about my safety and my life,” she says in one message.

, s r e Trump’s policy of giving Riyadh “a blank check Her friends gave the videos to the BBC after they lost contact with t u e

R to pursue a disastrous set of policies.” Al-Hathloul her late last year. The royal family insists she is completely fine.

THE WEEK February 26, 2021 10 NEWS People

Bon Jovi’s beef with Trump Jon Bon Jovi has a weird history with former President Trump, said Hadley Freeman in The Guardian (U.K.). Back in 2014, the rock singer and a group of Canadian investors tried to buy the Buffalo Bills after the NFL team’s longtime owner died. Trump also coveted the team and allegedly exaggerated his net worth by more than $4 billion in order to secure a loan for his bid. Bon Jovi’s group placed a higher bid, but after unfounded rumors spread than it planned to move the team to another city, residents of Buffalo turned on Bon Jovi, with “Bon Jovi–free” zones and hateful graffiti sprouting up. It later emerged that the anti–Bon Jovi campaign was led by Michael Caputo, a political strategist hired by Trump. (As a Trump administration official, Caputo pressured government scientists to downplay the Covid-19 crisis and put a positive spin on their research.) “I was really shocked at the depths [Trump] went to,” says Bon Jovi, 58. “He did this dark shadow assassination thing, hoping to buy the team at a bargain basement price. It was seriously scarring.” Neither Bon Jovi nor Trump ultimately submitted the winning bid, but the rock star wonders whether, if Trump had succeeded in buying the Bills, he might not have run for president two years later. “For the sake of the world,” Bon Jovi says, “he definitely should have got the team.” Where Duvall went when she quit Shelley Duvall is a refugee from Hollywood, said Seth Abramovitch Graham’s outsize ambitions in The Hollywood Reporter. The actress best known for play- Ashley Graham is one of the few supermodels who refuses to ing Wendy Torrance in The Shining fled Hollywood for Texas starve herself, said Marisa Meltzer in The Wall Street Journal Hill Country 27 years ago, ending a highly successful career that Magazine. At size 14, Graham became the first plus-size model also included producing innovative children’s programming. After to grace the covers of Vogue and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Duvall walked away, she vanished from the public eye until a pain- issue, but there was a time when luxury fashion brands refused ful 2016 interview with Phil McGraw on Dr. Phil. A confused to dress her. “At this point, my skin is so thick,” says Graham, 33. Duvall voiced paranoid fantasies and claimed her Popeye co-star Although 68 percent of American women are size 14 or above, less Robin Williams was alive as a “shapeshifter.” Many said McGraw than 1 percent of runway models are plus-size. As a child, Graham had to shop in the mature women’s section. “That stuff was either exploited Duvall. “I found out the kind of person he is the hard too big or so matronly, so I would cut up really small clothes and way,” she says. These days, Duvall, 71, spends many days in her wear very provocative outfits,” she says. Discovered at a mall at car, chatting with locals who’ve become very protective of her. She age 12, she moved to New York five years later. “That’s when I got lives with Dan Gilroy, 76, a former member of Madonna’s band. my freshman 30,” Graham says. “My self-esteem plummeted. I She celebrated her 70th birthday last year with fans at her favorite had my agents telling me if you don’t lose weight, then you’re not restaurant, Red Lobster, and has vivid memories of filming The going to work. Realizing that I didn’t get a job because I was ‘too Shining, which took 56 weeks and required Duvall to work herself fat’ actually gave me the courage and ambition to go fill a void in into a state of hysteria day after day; for one scene, director Stanley an industry.” Since having a child last year, she’s gained 25 pounds, Kubrick demanded 127 takes. “To wake up and realize you had to if you must know. “I hate that I constantly have to discuss my cry all day,” she says, “I don’t know how I did it.” body,” Graham says. “I don’t know any man that has to do that.”

strong businesswoman she touts herself to When he was finally tested, Springsteen’s be,” the alleged ex-lover said. Greene called blood-alcohol level was 0.02—well below Q Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) the report “another attempt to smear my New Jersey’s legal limit of 0.08. name because I’m the biggest threat to the brazenly cheated on her husband with Q Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the both a “polyamorous tantric-sex Democrats’ socialist agenda.” Duchess of Sussex, are expecting their guru” and a co-worker, the Daily Q Bruce Springsteen was busted last No- second child. The baby will be eighth in line Mail (U.K.) alleged last week. An vember for driving while intoxicated after to the British throne, after Harry, 36, and his evangelical mother of three given police officers allegedly watched him pull 21-month-old son, Archie. “We can confirm to wild conspiracy theories, Greene, his motorcycle over to take a shot of tequila that Archie is going to be a big brother,” 46, allegedly cheated with Craig with a fan, the New York Post reported last a spokesperson for the couple said. In Ivey—a polyamorist who lives a week. Springsteen, 71, was riding his red- November, Markle, 39, revealed her “almost self-described “warrior lifestyle”— and-white Triumph through a national park unbearable grief” after she suffered a and Justin Tway, Greene’s manager in Sandy Hook, N.J., when he stopped to miscarriage last summer. Harry and Meghan at a CrossFit gym where she worked. take photos with fans. Police pulled Spring- have been on frosty terms with Buckingham One of the men showed The New steen over after they allegedly saw him Palace since they ditched their royal duties

Yorker a text from Greene admitting downing a shot with the fans. He refused to and moved to Santa Barbara, Calif., but a s r e t

to their affair; he said she was quite take a Breathalyzer test. The Boss smelled palace spokesperson said Queen Elizabeth II, u e R

, open about her extramarital dalliances. “strongly of alcohol,” had “glassy eyes,” and Prince Philip, and the entire royal family are P A

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“She’s not the pro-family, pro-Christian, failed a field sobriety test, an officer said. “delighted” about the pregnancy news. t e G

THE WEEK February 26, 2021 Briefing NEWS 11 The boom in ‘green’ energy Climate change and falling prices are driving a revolution in solar, wind, and other renewables.

Can renewables replace panel capable of generating the fossil fuels? same amount of power as just Renewable energy sources like one of today’s panels would have solar, wind, and hydroelectricity approached $600,000. From are already overtaking fossil fuels 1976 to 2019, the price of a as the dominant means of power single watt of solar capacity fell generation in some parts of the 99.6 percent to just $0.38. And developed world. In 2019, 72 per- many engineers expect the trend cent of power plant additions to continue. The so-called learn- utilized renewables, according ing rate of solar energy is a very to the International Renewable high 20.2, meaning that every Energy Agency (IRENA). For time global capacity doubles, the the first time, the European cost of solar modules declines by Union generated more electric- 20.2 percent. Wind has an even ity (38 percent) from renewables higher learning rate of 23. in 2020 than from fossil fuels (37 percent). The U.S. still relies Installing solar panels at Van Nuys Airport in Los Angeles Are emissions down? heavily upon oil (37 percent), natural gas (32 percent), and coal While emissions are slowing in the Western world, global CO2 (11 percent), but the country is on pace this year to generate more emissions have risen from nearly 32 billion tons in 2009 to almost energy from renewables than from coal. Overall, renewables now 37 billion in 2019, according to the Global Carbon Project, as account for roughly 11 percent of U.S. energy production—with developing nations such as India and China modernize and pro- about a quarter of that derived from wind power, two-fifths from duce more energy, mostly through fossil fuels. In 1990, 81 percent biofuels and hydroelectricity, and a tenth from solar. Rapid growth of the world’s total energy consumption came from oil, gas, and in renewables is underway: In 2020, electricity producers installed coal. Last year, the figure was still 80 percent—and largely because 37 gigawatts of new solar and wind capacity, shattering the record of a global slowdown brought on by the pandemic. “We have the of 17 GWs from 2016. “The grid is changing so much faster than solution,” said Dave Jones, senior electricity analyst at Ember, a anyone expected,” said Daniel Cohan, an associate professor of climate-focused think tank. “It’s working. It’s just not happening civil and environmental engineering at Rice University. fast enough.”

What’s driving the transformation? Why not? Cost-effectiveness. Solar panel producers have steadily achieved Unlike fossil-fuel power plants, solar and wind power plants only greater efficiencies in manufacturing and in generating more power generate electricity when the sun shines and the wind blows. The from each individual solar cell. This has led to vast reductions in batteries needed to store power for the proverbial cloudy day price, so that solar and wind power now have surpassed coal—and are improving rapidly but are still not cheap enough—or able to even natural gas—as the cheapest forms of power generation. While store power for long enough periods—to rely heavily on. A break- the price of coal power largely remained through in battery technology will be the same from 2009 to 2019, the price needed for solar and wind to become of solar power fell by 89 percent and Auto companies going electric mainstays of electric grids. Geothermal Automakers are betting that electric vehicles (EVs) onshore wind power by 70 p ercent, energy, however, does not require bat- are the future. The switch is being powered by according to Lazard. The U.K., Norway, continued improvements in the lithium-ion bat- tery storage and has enormous poten- and other countries now generate a large tery packs that fuel these cars. In 2020, the aver- tial. The U.S. leads the world in geo- share of their electricity from offshore age price of lithium-ion battery packs fell to $137 thermal electricity production, or the wind farms, and that potential also per kilowatt-hour (kWh)—down 89 percent from process of mining the heat from Earth’s exists for the U.S., with seven states now 2010, reports BloombergNEF, an energy research crust to produce electricity. Although it studying how to set up arrays. “Right organization. Last year, prices for batteries used accounts for only 0.4 percent of total now, the economics of burning coal just in e-buses in China actually broke $100/kWh for U.S. utility-scale electricity production, don’t make sense,” said Joe Daniel, who the first time, a historic threshold that will allow the technology could someday provide monitors the power sector for the Union automakers to create and sell EVs at prices com- almost limitless amounts of power. of Concerned Scientists. The boom in parable to internal combustion vehicles. The so- Geothermal power plants situated near renewables has another economic benefit: called learning rate for lithium-ion battery packs hot spots in Earth’s crust could tap It has created hundreds of thousands of is 18, which is quite high; it means that for every the intense heat and steam by drilling jobs: About 446,000 Americans worked doubling of total volume, the price falls 18 percent. down 1 or 2 miles. The geothermal in the solar and wind industries as of Currently, EVs constitute only about 3 percent of company AltaRock Energy estimates 2019—more than double the 211,000 in the global auto market, but falling battery-pack that “just 0.1 percent of the heat con- coal mining and other methods of fossil- prices point to a much bigger future. President tent of Earth could supply humanity’s fuel extraction. Biden has ordered that the federal government total energy needs for 2 million years.” develop a plan to make its fleet of 645,000 vehicles Jamie Beard, who runs the Geothermal How did prices fall? go completely electric. General Motors recently Entrepreneurship Organization at the announced that by 2035 it would make only EVs. University of Texas at Austin, called it The space and satellite industries, which “It is a game changer,” said Harvard environmen- rely heavily on solar power, drove the tal law professor Jody Freeman of GM’s plan. an “engineering problem that, when P

A engineering. In 1956, the cost of a solar solved, solves energy.”

THE WEEK February 26, 2021 12 NEWS Best columns: The U.S.

With former President Trump off golfing full-time, “the greatest threat Carlson to U.S. democracy” may be Tucker Carlson, said Max Boot. The top- It must be true... rated Fox News host has gone off the deep end, “spreading dingbat, I read it in the tabloids has lost dishonest conspiracy theories” to more than 4 million viewers night his marbles after night. Last week, he attacked the Covid-19 vaccines, warning that QThe Texas Department of “the most powerful people in America” were “lying” about them. He Public Safety sent out an Max Boot never specified what the lies were, but discouraging Fox’s mostly elderly Amber Alert advising that The Washington Post viewers from getting vaccinated may cost them their lives. Carlson used the horror movie doll Chucky the same vague innuendo to downplay the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, from the Child’s Play series saying, “The known facts bear no resemblance to the story they’re tell- had kidnapped a 5-year-old ing.” The Black Lives Matter protests were also based on “an utter lie,” named Glen. The alert stated Carlson said, claiming that a Minneapolis cop didn’t kill George Floyd the 28-year-old, 16-pound, by kneeling on his neck for eight minutes, and that Floyd “almost cer- 3-foot-1-inch tall suspect tainly died of a drug overdose.” This is blatantly wrong: Two autopsies was last seen wearing “blue denim overalls” and “wield- found that while Floyd had fentanyl in his system, he died because he ing a huge kitchen knife” at couldn’t breathe. Carlson likes to portray himself as an embattled, lone a home at a specific address voice of truth, but in reality, he peddles “lunatic conspiracy theories in Henderson, Texas. Public that endanger people’s lives and shred our social fabric.” safety officials apologized, attributing the phony warn- In the McCarthy era, intimidated Hollywood movie studios promised ing to “a test malfunction.” The new A woman who answered the not to “knowingly employ a communist,” said Jonathan Chait. The phone at the listed address Hollywood era of the blacklist has returned, but this time for right-wingers. Actor curtly said, “Yes, I’m aware,” Gina Carano, who had a role in the Star Wars offshoot The Mandalo- before hanging up. rian, was fired by Disney last week for her social media posts, which blacklist were deemed anti-S emitic and transphobic by an online mob. Carano’s QA Texas prosecutor Jonathan Chait offense was sharing an Instagram story that compared the fate Jews surprised the NYMag.com suffered in the Holocaust with how some Americans are now ostra- judge at a cized “for their political views.” The comparison to Nazi Germany pretrial Zoom was “overheated” but not uncommon in political discourse, and it was hearing by inherently “not anti- Semitic.” Carano was condemned for other con- appearing troversial posts she made, including a claim that a photo ID should be as a cat face. required to vote and a sardonic joke on “he/him/his” identifications, Rod Ponton didn’t realize with Carano adding “boop/bop/beep” to her Twitter bio. It’s possible he had the cat filter on the to disagree with Carano’s fairly standard conservative views without computer, and his usually destroying her career. In the McCarthy era, some of the writers and di- sober face was replaced with rectors who were blacklisted, were, in fact, “bona fide communists.” It that of a blue-eyed kitten. was wrong then to purge people who were sympathetic to Joseph Sta- When the judge pointed it out, Ponton said, “I don’t lin, and it’s wrong now to fire people who agree with Donald Trump. know how to remove it.” He tried to press on, telling the The Framers of our Constitution feared the “fickleness and passion” of judge and other lawyers, The tyranny the masses, said David Frum. Rather than creating a pure democracy, “I’m prepared to go forward they set up the Electoral College and the Senate to serve as “a necessary with it.” Ponton eventually of a rabid fence” against “impetuous,” uneducated, unpropertied majorities. But removed the filter, saying, 234 years later, it’s an extremist minority that threatens our nation’s “I’m not a cat.” minority stability. In 2016, Donald Trump got just 46.1 percent of the national Q A toilet seat that once David Frum vote—less than Al Gore, John Kerry, and Mitt Romney got in defeat. belonged to Adolf Hitler has TheAtlantic.com But thanks to the Electoral C ollege— ironically set up to prevent popu- sold for $18,750 at auction. list demagogues from taking p ower—an unfit “flimflam man” became The white wooden seat was president. In 2020, Trump was walloped by 7 million votes, but the taken from Hitler’s Bavarian Electoral College gave him an opening to try to bully a handful of states retreat, the Berghof, by a into nullifying the vote. The anti-democratic practices of gerrymander- soldier, Ragnvald Borch, at the end of the Second World ing and the Senate filibuster have also entrenched minority rule, leading War. The seat remained to congressional paralysis, growing power for the presidency and the on display in the soldier’s courts, and far-right extremists running a mok— brandishing guns at basement for decades until state capitols, refusing to wear masks in defiance of the common good, his son decided to auction it. and trying to seize the presidency through violence. America needs more Bill Panagopulos of Alexan- democracy, not less; majority rule, not the tyranny of a rabid minority. der Historical Auctions said the toilet was “as close to a Viewpoint “Cancel culture necessarily erases intent. It relies on taking someone’s worst ‘throne’ as the dictator would moment out of context, on elevating a moment of ignorance, on exaggerating ever get,” adding, “One can a misstep and using that error to destroy someone’s life. We live in a time when almost everything scarcely imagine the plotting is posted, recorded, and shared—that’s the reality. Yes, I agree, it’s terrible. But we can’t unplug the the tyrant undertook while internet. Living in this world is going to require a deep and generous ethic of forgiveness. That isn’t contemplating the world possible without insisting that intent matters.” Bari Weiss in BariWeiss.substack.com from atop this perch.” P A

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i FREE M Houmas Baton Rouge House cruise guide Oak New Orleans Alley 14 NEWS Best columns: Europe

A documentary has helped turn Romania into a na- Bucharest hospitals began dying of infections, and ROMANIA tion of whistleblowers, said Andreea Pietrosel. The it was soon revealed that disinfectant sold to the Oscar- nominated film Collective follows the inves- facilities had been massively watered down. The Learning tigation into the 2015 fire at Bucharest’s Colectiv entire hospital system was corrupt, whistleblower nightclub, in which 64 people died and scores more Camelia Roiu—an anesthesiologist—told the inves- to demand were injured. It’s a story, director Alexander Nanau tigators. Everyone it hired, including doctors and says, of “how the state covers its incompetence nurses, had paid bribes to get in. Suppliers bribed integrity through lies and manipulation.” The club’s own- clerks to accept shoddy medical supplies, and ad- ers had used a flammable foam to soundproof the ministrators bribed government inspectors to say Andreea Pietrosel venue and had failed to install a sprinkler system nothing. Since the film came out, “the number of RFI.ro or to provide adequate exits. The owners and the whistleblowers going to the press has exploded.” bureaucrats who turned a blind eye to these safety Most of them, like Roiu, are women. Romanians violations were prosecuted. But the film exposes a are learning to denounce the corruption embedded much deeper rot. Burn victims who were taken to in our society—the first step toward eradicating it.

FRANCE France is taking baby steps toward affirmative ac- and replace it with a new school that would wel- tion, said Philippe Rioux. During the Yellow Vest come a broader group of students. But this week, Can our protests of 2019—when w orking-class French Macron rewrote the plan. A new “talent prepara- railed against inequality and the arrogance of tion” program will now award stipends to 1,000 meritocracy the cultural, business, and administrative elite— high school and college students who are consid- President Emmanuel Macron declared that our ered high- office material. Five to 10 spots at each be revived? meritocracy was indeed failing. It was no longer of the five top universities, including the ENA, will easy for someone from a family of workers or be reserved for these diversity picks. This gesture Philippe Rioux farmers, he said, to rise to the top levels of the civil toward affirmative action is a sop to the left wing La Dépêche service. Vowing change, Macron set up a task force of Macron’s ostensibly centrist Republic on the and last year accepted its recommendation that he Move party, which has lurched to the right since his scrap the prestigious École Nationale d’Adm in i stra- 2017 election. But it’s far from clear if the program tion (ENA), which churns out senior civil servants, will calm the discord in his party, or the nation. Poland: Slowly strangling the free press For one day last week, the independent ture of nationalist ideology and unreflec- media in Poland fell silent, said Gabriele tive Catholic dogma.” It has made a Lesser in Die Tageszeitung (Germany). farce of state TV, which displayed a chy- Newspapers ran front pages emblazoned ron reading “Leftist fascism is destroying with the headline “Media Without Poland” during ostensibly neutral cover- Choice.” TV networks went off air. age of recent demonstrations against an Radio stations broadcast one phrase abortion ban. Kaczynski is following the on repeat: “This is where your favorite anti-media “slicing the salami” tactics program should be.” That mass blackout of Hungarian Prime Minister Victor was a protest against a plan by the na- Orban, said Jerzy Baczynski in Polityka tionalist government to slap a tax of up (Poland). First, “sources of income are to 15 percent on advertising income. The whittled away” through taxes or state ruling Law and Justice party says this policy, then onerous legal requirements “solidarity fee” will raise money for the A headline warning of ‘Media Without Choice’ are imposed, then “fines are levied” for health-care and culture s ectors—both hit hard by the p andemic— tiny infractions of these arcane legal procedures, and finally the but the levy is clearly intended to bankrupt what little private pesky news outlet goes out of business. It’s an effective strategy: media remains in the increasingly authoritarian country. State- Hungary’s last independent radio station, Klubradio, had its op- owned outlets won’t be hurt, because they are heavily subsidized erating license revoked last week because, on one day, it played and benefit from generous ad buys by state-owned enterprises. slightly less Hungarian music than was required by law. No, it’s the independent press, the voices that criticize the govern- ment and expose corruption, that will be forced to fold. All that Why isn’t the European Union doing something about this demo- will be left is a media that churns out “downright embarrassing” cratic backsliding? asked Don Murray in CBC.ca ( Canada). propaganda. On the day of the blackout, one state-a llied news- When Poland and Hungary—both former Communist c ountries— paper had a front page hailing Law and Justice leader Jaroslaw joined the bloc in 2004, they pledged to uphold democracy and Kaczynski as “Man of the Year.” the rule of law, and in return won access to tens of billions of dollars in EU funds. “The EU has tried to fight back.” But by the The Polish government “sees a free and open society as its time EU courts ruled that Polish and Hungarian judicial inter- enemy,” said Piotr Stasinski in Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland). Law ference was illegal, the new state-approved judges were already and Justice has systematically dismantled the independent judi- ensconced. Brussels seems to be hoping that voters will eventually ciary, stacking the constitutional tribune with loyalists and bar- boot out their authoritarian leaders. Until they do, “the work of ring judges from criticizing its legal reforms. It has “corrupted the ‘moral revolution’ in Poland and of ‘illiberal democracy’ in y

our economy” and turned our education system into “a carica- Hungary will go on.” t t e G

THE WEEK February 26, 2021 Best columns: International NEWS 15

Haiti: Dueling presidents and a democratic crisis Haiti is once again spiraling into vio- justice or to rule as a dictator. And lence and political chaos, said Nicolas supporters of Jean-Louis must concede Bourcier in Le Monde (France). Thou- that nowhere in our constitution does sands of protesters took to the streets of it provide for a Supreme Court justice Port-au-Prince and other cities last week, to assume the presidency. With the lighting barricades of burning tires and executive and the judiciary attacking demanding the resignation of President one another, and the legislature entirely Jovenel Moïse. “Most of the population absent, Haiti is veering from “the as well as jurists and civil society orga- narrow path of the rule of law and de- nizations” say that Moïse’s term ended mocracy.” But then, given our history on Feb. 7, five years after his predeces- of U.S. imperialism, coups, and coun- sor left the presidency. But because the tercoups, the rule of law “never had a 2015–16 presidential election was so good reputation in Haiti anyway.” chaotic, Moïse wasn’t actually sworn Police and anti-Moïse protesters clash in Port-au-Prince. into office until Feb. 7, 2017. That year- Moïse is just another in a “long string long delay, the president says, means his five-year term expires in of corrupt, autocratic, and brutal” Haitian leaders, said Gustavo 2022. The United Nations and the U.S.—Haiti’s most important Sierra in Infobae.com (Argentina). During his four years in office, backer—support his claim. What complicates matters is that he has turned Port-au-Prince into “a city of fear and despair.” there is currently no national legislature. Moïse’s administration Armed gangs loyal to Moïse patrol the neighborhoods, “wreaking failed to hold the legislative elections that were due in 2019, and terror” and kidnapping and ransoming street vendors, merchants, he has been ruling by decree for a year. Claiming a coup was students, and even cops. Moïse has proclaimed that he is no ty- being organized against him, Moïse last week announced the rant, “but his actions suggest otherwise.” Why does Washington arrest of 23 alleged plotters and the forced retirement of three still consider him Haiti’s rightful leader? Because to do otherwise Supreme Court justices. Now the opposition has named one of would invite anarchy, said Jacobo García in El País (Spain). Not the fired justices, Joseph Mécène Jean-Louis, as interim presi- just the U.S. but also France, Germany, Spain, Brazil, and Canada dent, but the military and police remain loyal to Moïse. all recognize that under the constitution, Moïse is legally the presi- dent. They have criticized his “authoritarian turn,” but under- Madness has enveloped our country, said Frantz Duval in Le Nou- stand that his fall “could mean destabilization in a geopolitically velliste (Haiti). Protesters have thrown rocks at security forces, important area of the Caribbean.” Moïse’s armed supporters— and police have blasted demonstrators with tear gas and rubber “more powerful than the state itself”—could turn to trafficking bullets, killing at least one person. Backers of Moïse should re- drugs or humans. Still, “with the streets in turmoil and the oppo- member that he does not have the power to fire a Supreme Court sition mobilized,” Moïse’s downfall may be only a matter of time.

What good is a quarantine system that isn’t air- Clearly, we need to tighten our quarantine pro- AUSTRALIA tight? asked epidemiologist Tony Blakely. The en- tocols. All staffers at quarantine hotels should be tire state of Victoria had to go back into lockdown vaccinated immediately. And passengers arriving When Covid last week, thanks to a breach at a quarantine on international flights should be housed only in hotel. An asthmatic man who had returned from hotels “that turn the air over 10 times an hour or escapes from abroad—and who, it turned out, was infected with more,” and in rooms with windows and doors Covid-19—used his nebulizer to inhale medicine that open to the outside. If we don’t have enough quarantine while in his room, and the resulting germ-infested such spaces, then we should let in only as many mist wafted into a “poorly ventilated corridor” foreign arrivals as we can safely accommodate. Tony Blakely and then “hitched a ride on hapless staff out into Australia has done extremely well in beating back The Sydney Morning Herald Melbourne.” That nebulizer has spawned 16 cases the coronavirus, but we can’t afford to get com- so far, more than double the previous rolling placent. Until the pandemic is defeated worldwide, seven-day average of cases in the entire country. we will need “hypervigilance.”

URUGUAY Uruguay is in shock after losing one of its most gain, and missing workouts”—were signs of famous soccer stars to suicide, said Luis Cabral. García’s depression. He had, in fact, been receiving A brilliant Santiago García, 30, was found dead in his apart- psychiatric treatment. At the start of this year, the ment earlier this month. The forward had been soccer star received another hit: García tested posi- athlete playing for Argentine team Godoy Cruz since tive for Covid-19 and was forced to quarantine in 2016, and was the top scorer in the club’s history, his apartment, unable to go home to be with his in despair with 51 goals in 122 games. But his play slumped family in Uruguay. It is simply inexcusable that the last year after the pandemic forced a break in the club did not check on this young man and offer Luis Cabral game schedule, and club president José Mansur him the treatment he so obviously needed. Soccer El País had recently denounced García as a bad influence players are prone to depression, given that they and said his time with the team was finished. We often live abroad and face “intense performance s r e know now that the behaviors Mansur cited—the pressure.” Those who manage them have a re- t u e

R “poor performance, lack of motivation, weight sponsibility to protect their mental health.

THE WEEK February 26, 2021 16 NEWS Talking points

Noted The border: Biden’s immigration dilemma Q The federal government’s President Biden is facing a and since taking office, he’s total debt is expected to “new border crisis,” said talked up a pro- immigration exceed $21 trillion this Miriam Jordan and Max agenda and ordered a com- year and eclipse the size Rivlin-Nadler in The New plete review of the Trump of the U.S. economy, York Times. Spurred by administration’s asylum according to the Congres- promises that his administra- policies. The new president sional Budget Office. tion would relax draconian shouldn’t be surprised when Pandemic rescues and restrictions imposed by thousands of people take stimulus have ballooned former President Trump, his words to heart and start annual deficits to $3.2 tril- thousands of migrant families coming sooner rather than lion in 2020 and at least are arriving each day. Activ- later. The flood has just $2.3 trillion in 2021. Axios.com ists report that Customs and begun, said Mark Morgan Border Protection (CBP) has A migrant turns herself in to border agent. in WashingtonTimes.com. Q The Biden adminis- already released at least 1,000 Now that Biden has taken tration has launched a migrants into Texas, as well as hundreds more “a wrecking ball” to border security— including review of the U.S. military into San Diego in a renewal of the practice known halting construction of President Trump’s border prison at Guantánamo as “catch and release.” Across the border from wall—CBP reported 78,000 arrests in January, a Bay in Cuba, where 40 Brownsville, Texas, a new boomtown of migrants 10-year high for that month. terrorist suspects are still is arising. “This is the busiest we have been in a housed—about two dozen long time,” said Kate Clark, whose social service Biden is walking a “tightrope,” said Ted Hesson without ever having been agency provides food and personal- hygiene items and Steve Holland in Reuters.com. The Demo- charged. At one time, to migrants. The new arrivals are joining 25,000 crats’ progressive base is demanding a rapid roughly 800 prisoners asylum seekers whom the Trump administration overhaul of Trump’s harsh border policies. But were incarcerated at the facility. turned back at the border under a policy known the president faces a flood of illegal immigration Reuters.com as “Remain in Mexico,” said Nicole Narea in if he moves too quickly. So far, he’s taken “a wary Vox.com. At the rate of 300 a day, the earlier asy- approach,” ordering “a dizzying array of reviews Q Jared Kushner lum seekers will now be tested for Covid-19 and and reports” before new policies are established. and Ivanka Trump then released into the U.S. pending a court date— As Biden well knows, a major surge in illegal had at least usually under the supervision of a social worker. immigration “could give ammunition to Repub- $172 million licans in the 2022 congressional elections.” That and as much as Biden should have seen this mess coming, said could cost Democrats their control of Congress— $640 million David Ray in TheHill.com. During the campaign and severely constrain the Biden presidency. in outside income during their four years in the Trump New York Times: Now run by a ‘woke mob’? administration, according The forced resignation of a veteran New York to be deployed against the George Floyd protests. to a study by Citizens for Times reporter over allegations of racial insensi- Now McNeil and his “irreplaceable” expertise Responsibility and Ethics tivity has “unraveled the Times newsroom,” said are gone, too—with the Times saying his intent in in Washington. Ivanka Joe Pompeo in VanityFair.com. Donald McNeil using the word was irrelevant. The drama is “a Trump made more than Jr., a 45-year employee who’s led the paper’s pan- snapshot of a bigger culture feud,” said Kaylee $13 million alone from her stake in the Trump demic coverage, departed amid an uproar over McGhee White in WashingtonExaminer.com. It International Hotel in his use of the N-word on a Times-sponsored trip illustrates how Millennials “educated in the safe D.C., which the watchdog to Peru for high school students in 2019. McNeil spaces of left-wing universities” are now forcing group called “the locus of was reprimanded after students complained that a “hypersensitive social justice ideology” on their influence peddling in the he used the slur in a discussion of racist language, employers, social media, and everyone. Trump administration.” and scoffed at the concepts of systemic racism HuffPost.com and white privilege. But after TheDailyBeast The controversy is “a sign that The Times’ unique .com wrote about the incident last month, more position in American news may not be tenable,” Q While Americans drove than 150 staffers signed a letter expressing anger said Ben Smith in The New York Times. Its 15 percent fewer miles and “pain” over McNeil’s light punishment and agenda-setting role for “American news, culture, last year during the alleged he’d previously displayed “bias against and politics” has “intensified its status as a cul- pandemic, the number of people of color.” McNeil soon resigned, amid tural lightning rod,” even as a boom in digital people who died in high- way crashes from Jan. 1, furious internal debate over whether he was “the subscriptions has made the paper “more beholden 2020 through Novem- latest victim of cancel culture run amok.” to the views of left-leaning subscribers.” The Peru ber rose to 38,370—an incident, pitting idealistic high schoolers against increase of 7 percent The debacle is “deeply symbolic of the way woke- a famously grumpy reporter, was “a collision over 2019. Experts said ness has corrupted a major American institution,” between the old Times and the next generation of less- congested roads led said Rod Dreher in TheAmerican Conservative its core audience, the educated, globally minded to more speeding and ag- .com. Last year the “woke mob” demanded elite.” Does The Times want to be the voice of s gressive driving. and got the head of editorial page editor James the Left or to “hold what seems to be a disap- r e t u

The Washington Post Bennet after he dared to publish a column by pearing center in a deeply divided country?” The e R

, P

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton calling for troops question “won’t be easily resolved.” A

THE WEEK February 26, 2021 Talking points NEWS 17

California: A failed liberal experiment? Wit & “California is making l iberals it is regulation by so-called squirm,” said Ezra Klein experts that is the real source Wisdom in The New York Times. of California’s dysfunction. “To achieve great things Dominated by progressive Bloated government “distorts you need a plan and not Democrats, the country’s most markets,” prevents “solu- quite enough time.” Leonard Bernstein, quoted in populous state is beset by tions from rising organi- TheBrowser.com policy failures and is no lon- cally,” and creates scarcity ger anyone’s idea of paradise. and high prices. Yet the “The problem is not “California has the highest Biden administration wants so much whether one poverty rate in the nation,” the to use California “as a model trusts the news as whether one finds it.” median home costs more than for national policymaking,” A homeless encampment in Los Angeles Joan Didion, quoted in the $700,000, and “130,000 more said The Orange County Toronto Globe and Mail people leave than enter each year.” Many well-off Register in an editorial. Biden tapped former Cali- Californians are “symbolically liberal,” display- fornia Sen. Kamala Harris as his vice president “You always have to go too far to get anywhere at ing “Black Lives Matter” signs in their windows and former California Attorney General Xavier all, in art or life.” and cheering immigration, but send their kids to Becerra as health secretary. Why? A state where Painter Francis Bacon, quoted private schools and sue to block new, affordable Gov. Gavin Newsom faces a recall effort over his in The Times (U.K.) housing. San Francisco’s school board last month bungling of the Covid response and other prob- “When a man knows he is voted to rename schools honoring supposed rac- lems should be “a model for what not to do.” to be hanged in a ists like Abraham Lincoln and Paul Revere, while fortnight, it concentrates the schools themselves remained closed. Construc- Even tech moguls are fleeing California, said his mind wonderfully.” tion of an $80 billion bullet train connecting San Cyrus Farivar in NBCNews.com. Oracle and Samuel Johnson, quoted in Francisco and Los Angeles was derailed by end- Hewlett-Packard announced plans in December the Los Angeles Times less environmental reviews and cost overruns. “If to relocate to Texas, where Tesla CEO Elon Musk “It is disease that progressivism cannot work here, why should the has moved, and several prominent venture capital- makes health sweet.” country believe it can work anywhere else?” ists have ditched Silicon Valley for Florida. Tech Ancient Greek philosopher giants fear proposed new taxes targeting corpo- Heraclitus, quoted in Vogue It’s nice to see liberals conceding that California is rations and millionaires, and Texas and Florida “In memory everything a mess, said Kevin Williamson in NationalReview allow companies to pay workers less because of seems to happen to music.” .com. But well-intentioned progressives like Klein “a lower cost of living.” Until California addresses Tennessee Williams, quoted in think the state’s problems can be fixed by better its housing, tax, and cost issues, employers and ArtsJournal.com or smarter government and fail to understand that residents will continue their exodus. “As you get older, you don’t get wiser. You get irritable.” Author Doris Lessing, quoted Lincoln Project: A dark cloud of scandal in GoodReads.com “As quickly as it rose to its perch as a media dar- Liberals deserve blame, too, said Glenn Green- ling, the Lincoln Project is crashing down swiftly wald in Greenwald.Substack.com. They exalted to its fitting end,” said Joe Concha in TheHill the Lincoln Project’s leaders “as noble men of Poll watch .com. The Never-Trump Super PAC founded by conscience” even though these same strategists Q58% of Americans think former Republican strategists to produce polished had produced some of the “most grotesque and that Trump should have ads attacking Trump is now imploding in scan- amoral” Republican attack ads of the modern been convicted at his im- dal. The group’s leaders are facing allegations era— including one that suggested that Democratic peachment trial, including they used donors’ funds to enrich themselves and Sen. Max Cleland, a t riple- amputee Vietnam vet- 88% of Democrats, 64% that they covered up the sexual harassment of eran, was a tool of Osama bin Laden. As long as of independents, and 14% young interns and other males by co-founder John the Lincoln Project was using its dark arts against of Republicans. 56% think Weaver. Weaver, a 61-year-old married father of Trump, the Left and the media forgave all. there was strong evi- two, has since admitted sending “inappropriate” dence that Trump incited messages to at least 21 men—one as young as 14. Given that the Lincoln Project’s roots are in the insurrection, while The group’s leaders reportedly were told about the GOP, said Will Bunch in The Philadelphia 37% say the evidence Weaver’s predations in June, but they let Weaver Inquirer, it’s no surprise it turned out to be “mor- was weak. take a “medical leave” in August and professed ally bankrupt.” The party long ago abandoned ABC News/Ipsos to be “shocked” when the accusations became “any and all former principles” for a cynical, Q55% of Americans think public. Six of the Lincoln Project’s co-founders, self- dealing mentality. We should have seen this Trump should not be including George Conway, Steve Schmidt, Jennifer coming, said Alex Shephard in NewRepublic.com. allowed to hold public of- Horn, and Mike Madrid, have resigned. The Lincoln Project was founded on “the operat- fice ever again despite his ing theory” that “to defeat Trump, you needed to acquittal. 43% of Ameri- The Lincoln Project was “an ugly grift,” said act like him.” They sure did, assailing him with cans disagree, including David Harsanyi in NationalReview.com. The vicious personal attacks, stuffing their pockets 87% of Republicans who Associated Press reports that of the $90 million with donors’ cash, and reportedly creating a toxic say he should be able to the group raised, only $27 million was spent workplace culture rife with sexism. In fighting run for office again. on ads, while more than $50 million went to dirty, the Lincoln Project’s leaders became like the Quinnipiac University P

A consulting companies controlled by its leaders. monster they had set out to destroy.

THE WEEK February 26, 2021 18 NEWS Pick of the week’s cartoons

THE WEEK February 26, 2021 For more political cartoons, visit: www.theweek.com/cartoons.

20 NEWS Technology

Microchips: A worldwide crunch starts to bite There’s a global chip shortage that’s “limit- ing: TSMC’s newest factory, for producing ing production of everything from video next- generation chips, cost $19.5 billion. games to airplanes,” said Shira Ovide in The New York Times. Automakers have The bottleneck for automakers isn’t going been complaining for weeks about having away, said Dan Gallagher in The Wall to “slow or temporarily stop manufactur- Street Journal. “The harsh reality is that ing because they couldn’t get the required chips for cars have to compete for manu- computer chips” for entertainment consoles facturing space with other products that or power steering. Though those plant generate a much higher return.” About shutdowns have gotten the most attention, 70 percent of the car units are made by problems stretch far beyond the auto in- TSMC, which was already operating at dustry. Last spring, chipmakers struggled to capacity making components for phones keep pace with the “drastic demand surges” Few ‘fabs’ can handle the most advanced chips. and gaming devices. Adding to the dif- in consumer electronics, which is why it ficulties, many car chips are “still made on was “difficult or more expensive than you expected to buy a com- 200 mm wafers, which were phased out of the most advanced puter for your child’s school.” The logjam moved on to cars this chip- making processes more than a decade ago.” winter, and now it’s starting to “whipsaw back into electronics.” The White House has pledged to address the ongoing delays, “Designing chips is easier than ever,” said The Economist, but said Jenny Leonard in Bloomberg.com. President Biden signaled “making them has never been harder.” A growing number of tech last week he planned to sign an executive order to direct “a firms, including Apple, Amazon, and Google, as well as a “gaggle g overnment-wide supply-chain review” to better “identify choke of startups,” have begun designing their own custom silicon to points.” We desperately need to improve our domestic semicon- “eke out performance gains” and challenge the established play- ductor manufacturing capability, said Brad Slingerlend and Jon ers like AMD, Nvidia, and Intel. But only three firms in the world Bathgate in MarketWatch.com. This should serve as a wake-up are able to make advanced processors: Intel, Samsung, and Tai- call. It matters not only “as the digitization of the global economy wan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (and Intel said recently it accelerates” but also for national security. The idea that we’re would begin to outsource some of its designs). The costs of their “relying on Taiwan for the production of critical chip components precious high-tech “fabs,” as chip factories are known, are soar- for equipment such as the F-35 fighter is scary and untenable.”

Innovation of the week Bytes: What’s new in tech A very expensive internet upgrade ban shortly after reinstating Trump and deter- AT&T finally provided high-speed internet mining his account risked “further incitement for a man who paid $10,000 for a newspa- of violence.” Though Trump was acquitted per ad asking for better service, said Joanna in his second impeachment trial, Ned Segal, Nelius in Gizmodo.com. North Hollywood, Twitter’s chief financial officer, said the ban Calif., resident Aaron Epstein took out “a will stay. “When you’re removed from the quarter-page ad in The Wall Street Journal last platform, you’re removed from the platform,” week hoping to convince AT&T to upgrade Segal said. Trump also remains suspended A company in Israel created an edi- his slow-as-molasses DSL internet to fiber.” from Facebook, although the company’s over- ble rib-eye steak using a 3-D printer, In the ad, the 90-year-old Epstein wrote that sight board is reviewing his appeal. said Laura Reiley in The Washington AT&T had been advertising downloads “up Post. The technology, developed to 100 MBS for other neighborhoods,” but New research on violent video games by Aleph Farms in partnership the “fastest now available to us” was only Should parents let their kids into the violent with the Technion Israel Institute of Technology, prints living animal cells 3 MBS. Epstein’s neighbors apparently already video games they are “begging to play”? asked that are “incubated on a plant-based had AT&T Fiber, but he said the company Julie Jargon in The Wall Street Journal. It’s a matrix,” allowing them to interact told him installation at his home would “cost perennial question, though the consensus from and grow “to achieve the texture and the company thousands and thousands of numerous academic studies “appears to be qualities of a real steak.” The com- dollars.” But two days after Epstein’s ad went that neither cartoonish nor realistic violence in pany produced its first lab-grown viral, AT&T “showed up” and laid the fiber. video games translates to real-world violence.” thin-cut steak in 2018, but enhance- Researchers at Brigham Young University were ments to the system have improved Trump’s Twitter ban is permanent surprised to find that virtual violence didn’t the meat’s “sensory quality,” even show long-term negative effects on empathy or producing the “fatty marbling” of a Twitter said that ex-P resident Trump will re- thick, high-grade rib-eye. The break- main banned from the platform even if he runs pro-social behaviors. That doesn’t mean there through is big for the booming alt- again, said Haley Messenger in NBCNews is zero risk; “protective factors, such as having meat market; however, the Food and .com. “Twitter was the first social media plat- good friends and loving parents,” are impor- Drug Administration has yet to set a form to take permanent action against Trump tant to reduce developing aggressive behavior. date when it might rule on approv- following the Capitol riot on Jan. 6,” applying Also some games let you control the level of s ing lab-grown meat or poultry. r violence. Minecraft, for instance, has a “peace- e

a temporary suspension of his handle, @ real t u e

DonaldTrump. The company applied a full ful” level that cuts out hostile encounters. R

THE WEEK February 26, 2021 Health & Science NEWS 21

Missing: One flu season While Covid-19 continues to infect tens point in 2020. Scientists say the radical of thousands of Americans every day, behavioral changes that Americans have another usually rampant respiratory virus made during the p andemic—such as is almost nowhere to be seen: influenza. social distancing, mask wearing, and con- Since the fall, about 800,000 lab flu tests stant handwashing—are largely responsi- have been reported to the Centers for ble for this unusually quiet flu season. “Flu Disease Control and Prevention. Only just tends to be a lot less transmissible 1,500 have come back positive, or 0.2 per- [than a coronavirus], which means it’s eas- cent, an infection rate 100 times lower ier to suppress,” Shweta Bansal, a disease than it was 12 months ago. In a typical ecologist at Georgetown University, tells Covid restrictions have quashed the flu virus. year, hundreds of thousands of Americans The Atlantic. Travel bans have also helped are hospitalized with the flu, but this sea- quash influenza, which is often seeded in return: There’s some evidence infections son’s tally was only 155 as of last week. the Northern Hemisphere in fall by travel- are increasing in parts of Asia that have And only one child has died from the flu ers from the Southern Hemisphere. But eased anti-Covid precautions. “We may so far this year, compared with 78 at this influenza could still make a late-season not be out of the woods yet,” says Bansal.

More warming, more pollen Black coffee for the heart If you think your pollen allergy is blowing Coffee may help reduce the risk of heart up earlier every year, you’re not mistaken— failure, but only if it’s black. Researchers and climate change might be to blame. A examined data from three major long-term new study has found that rising tempera- health and diet studies involving a total tures have both worsened and lengthened of 21,000 Americans. Across two of the the pollen season across North America. studies, people who drank at least one cup The researchers examined three decades’ of joe a day had a 5 percent to 12 percent worth of pollen-count data from 60 moni- lower risk of suffering heart failure than toring stations across the continent. They those who didn’t drink coffee at all. The found that pollen season now starts an aver- other study found no differences among Double masking doubles the protection. age of 20 days earlier than in 1990, lasts 10 those drinking one cup a day, but a roughly days longer, and involves 21 percent more 30 percent decreased risk for those drinking Two masks much better than one pollen. The biggest increases were recorded two or more. The apparent benefits were Wearing two masks at the same time—or in Texas and the Midwest, and from trees not seen among those who drank decaf- just fitting a single mask more tightly—sub- rather than grasses and other plants. The feinated coffee; in fact, they had a higher stantially reduces the risk of Covid-19 infec- researchers calculated that climate change risk of heart failure. The studies were done tion, reports The Wall Street Journal. In a accounts for about half the increased length only for black coffee— adding dairy, sugar, series of experiments using dummy heads of pollen season and 8 percent of the higher flavors, or nondairy creamer might negate and aerosol-generating machines, research- pollen count. Warmer temperatures keep any possible heart benefits. “Coffee and ers from the Centers for Disease Control plants and trees producing pollen for a caffeine are often considered to be ‘bad’ found that wearing a three-ply cloth mask longer period and increase pollen concen- for the heart,” senior author David Kao, over a three-ply surgical mask blocked as trations in the air. “Climate change isn’t from the University of Colorado, tells much as 92.5 percent of particles from a something far away,” lead author William CNN.com. “The consistent relationship cough. That’s more than double the pro- Anderegg, from the University of Utah, between increasing caffeine consumption tection offered by a surgical mask alone tells USA Today. “It’s already here in every and decreasing heart failure risk turns that (42 percent) or a cloth mask (44.3 per- spring breath we take.” assumption on its head.” cent). In another experiment, two dummies were placed 6 feet apart to test different The world’s teensiest reptile? ing it was an adult. The male’s genitals masking strategies. When one “breathing” were almost one-fifth of its body size— dummy didn’t wear a mask and the other Scientists have discovered what they possibly to enable it to mate with larger wore a tightly-fitted single surgical mask— think is the world’s smallest reptile: females. Confirming that Brookesia nana researchers tied knots in the ear loops and a chameleon so minuscule it is indeed the smallest of the world’s tucked the sides into the face—the mask can perch on a human fingertip. roughly 11,500 reptile species will wearer’s aerosol exposure was reduced by Roughly the size of a sunflower seed, require more specimens to be 64.5 percent. When the other dummy was Brookesia nana was spotted dur- found. But spotting them is no similarly masked, that number went up ing an expedition in northern cakewalk. “You really have to 95.9 percent. The researchers don’t yet Madagascar. Researchers found to get down on your knees,” know whether the performance of single a male with a 0.53-inch-long lead author Frank Glaw, or double masks is different against the body; nose to tail, it was from the Ba var ian State 0.85 inch. They also found P Col lec tion of Zoolo gy in A

new, more contagious Covid variants now , k a female, a relative giant Munich, tells the Associated c o t spreading in the U.S. “It’s the same virus, s r with an overall length of Press. “They are obviously e t t so the measures should work,” says John u 1.14 inches. A CT scan on the h camouflaged and they move S

, Brooks, chief medical officer of the CDC’s female revealed that it was m very slowly.” And, of course, o c s Covid-19 response. “What we don’t know carrying two eggs, confirm- A miniature male they’re very, very small. w e

N is how effectively they will work.”

THE WEEK February 26, 2021 22 ARTS Review of reviews: Books

spread, said Jonathan Tepperman in The Book of the week New York Times. Perlroth reports that This Is How They Tell Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran all now have hidden gateways into U.S. criti- Me the World Ends: The cal infrastructure, while various nonstate Cyberweapons Arms Race rogue actors are already causing mischief. by Nicole Perlroth (Bloomsbury, $30) In 2019 and 2020, 600 U.S. city, town, and county governments were struck by Nicole Perlroth’s first book is “scarier ransomware attacks. than the scariest sci-fi movie,” said Glenn Altschuler in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Perlroth spent years digging up secrets, Though we’ve been told before that our said Jill Lepore in The New Yorker, and water, electrical, and other critical systems her account of that work is both spell- are vulnerable to cyberattack, Perlroth The NSA’s cybersecurity headquarters in Utah binding and misleading. She blames the has flipped on the flashing red lights with NSA for spending exponentially more on a “stunningly detailed” book that “tells “Taxpayers and citizens will be rightly fum- cyberwar offensive capabilities than on the untold story of what may well be the ing at all this,” said Edward Lucas in The defense, but that failure obscures a larger clearest and most present danger facing Times (U.K.). Perlroth’s main argument truth about what’s gone wrong since the the world.” The New York Times reporter is that the U.S. National Security Agency dawn of the internet age: When everyone focuses on the booming global market for made us all less safe when its spending and everything is online, and software runs backdoor access to crucial software. The fueled the rise of the huge gray market in the world, true security and privacy become U.S., which initially was the main customer weaponized clandestine hacks, known in the impossible. “The arrogant recklessness of for such hacks, lost control of the market in trade as “zero days.” The results have been the people who have been buying and sell- the 2010s—and even had its secret stockpile episodes like the “devastating” U.S.-Israeli ing the vulnerability of the rest of us is not of such digital picklocks cleaned out by cyberattack on Iran’s nuclear centrifuges and just part of an i ntelligence- agency game; it unknown hackers in 2017. The market for Russia’s temporary destruction of Ukraine’s has been the ethos of Wall Street and Silicon such digital weapons is now a free-for-all, electricity grid, stories that are more fright- Valley for decades.” Government can keep Perlroth reports, and the attacks they enable ening here because of the collateral damage trying to bar the door to hackers, but the are mounting. Perlroth reveals. And the threat is wide- horses have left the barn.

Between Two Kingdoms: A “Jaouad’s self- awareness is part of what Novel of the week Memoir of a Life Interrupted makes this book such a transformative read,” said Maggie Smith in The Wash- We Run the Tides by Suleika Jaouad (Random House, $28) ington Post. “She doesn’t hide the least by Vendela Vida (Ecco, $27) Overcoming leuke- flattering parts of herself in those years— In Vendela Vida’s “exquisite” new mia does not make her neediness, her selfishness, even the novel, adolescence is a dangerous, everything else about cruelty she inflicts on those closest to overwhelming force for four 13-year- life instantly easy, her.” Later, she helps us understand how old friends, “and even the best adults said Heller McAlpin strange it can be to return to normal life can’t help,” said Maureen Corrigan in NPR.org. When after years of being defined by an illness. in NPR.org. The girls live in San Fran- Suleika Jaouad “Everything smells the same, looks the cisco’s Sea Cliff neighborhood, which in emerged, in her mid- 1984 mixed funkiness with privilege and same, feels the same, but you are differ- 20s, from a nearly ent,” she writes. offered a ready stage for the beautiful, four-year battle wealthy fabulist who is the best friend of our charismatic narrator, Eulabee. A against the disease, Jaouad never depicts herself as alone on rupture occurs when Eulabee refuses she was “newly her journey, and “she writes most mov- to back Maria’s claim about a voyeur, single, frail, and ingly about her fellow travelers,” said but then Maria briefly disappears, the lost.” She had already written about enter- David Ulin in the Los Angeles Times. In victim of an apparent kidnapping. Real ing “the kingdom of the sick” in a blog the second half of the book, she describes predation does occur in We Run the that became a popular New York Times a 100-day road trip in which she visited Tides, said Sam Sacks in The Wall column, and she retraces that journey in various strangers who had written to her Street Journal. But in this, her sixth her new memoir. The details are all here, when she was in treatment and produc- novel, Vida seems “mainly interested beginning with the excruciating itching in ing her Times column. The change in tone in the strange glamour that attaches her legs that she first experienced during “can be jarring,” yet it’s part of the point: to female vulnerability.” Eulabee is her senior year at Princeton. But Between “Jaouad is writing about a process,” a constantly aware of how her body is Two Kingdoms stands out even among back-and-forth in which the period after changing and the effect that that has illness can’t truly be a place wholly sepa- on men. The book relies too much for other powerful recent cancer memoirs its suspense on the gullibility of adults. because Jaouad has survived, enabling her rate from the illness. “Jaouad’s point is Still, “it’s insightful about the ways that to devote half of her “sometimes painfully that we never fully get better, just as we girls of a certain age feel pressured to honest” book to what she has called the were never fully well in the first place. Life let their imaginations run wild.” hardest part of her ordeal: figuring out how and death, health and sickness; they over- P

to live again. lap and blur together.” A

THE WEEK February 26, 2021

The Book List ARTS 23

Best books…chosen by Elizabeth Kolbert Author of the week Elizabeth Kolbert’s new book, Under a White Sky, explores climate engineering and other bids to address humanity’s impact on nature. Below, the P ulitzer-w inning author Vanessa Springora of The Sixth Extinc tion recommends six other books about people and the planet. Vanessa Springora never anticipated the impact her Encounters With the Archdruid b y John style that are equally unsparing. In these often memoir would have, said McPhee (1971). McPhee’s prismatic portrait of savage essays, he explains why he doubts the Rosie Kinchen in The Times David Brower, the California mountaineer con- optimistic presumption that, in his words, “we (U.K.). Consent, published sidered by many to be the “father” of the modern will be saved, by our cleverness, from the conse- in France early last year, environmental movement, is a classic. It captures quences of our cleverness.” describes how a French liter- ary celebrity initiated a sexual Brower’s often infuriating complexity, and in The Alchemy of Us: How Humans and the process poses one of the central questions of relationship Matter Transformed One Another b y Ainissa with her when our time: Can an affluent, technological society Ramirez (2020). Ramirez, a materials scientist, co exist with nature, or are the two incompatible? he was 50 argues that with our technologies we have trans- and she was Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next formed not just the world around us but also 14. The book Human Pandemic b y David Quammen (2012). ourselves. It’s a fascinating idea, and Ramirez “triggered a When I think of books that have changed the makes it come alive through the stories of inven- cultural reck- way I look at the world, Quammen’s The Song tors, some well-known, others underappreciated. oning akin to of the Dodo, published in 1996, is near the top the #MeToo A Friend of the Earth b y T.C. Boyle (2000). movement,” awakening of the list. Spillover is also a tour de force: It Fiction about ecological disaster tends to be writ- basically predicted Covid-19. For understanding multiple institutions to their ten in a tragic key. Boyle, by contrast, favors the failure to police pedophilia, how our treatment of animals, both domesticated darkly comic. In this novel, set in 2025, an aging especially among male art- and wild, made the current p andemic—or one radical environmentalist ex-con is caring for a ists like Springora’s abuser, like it— inevitable, there’s no better guide. pop star’s Noah’s Ark–like menagerie when a Gabriel Matzneff. Matzneff had Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist real flood arrives. garnered prestigious awards and Other Essays b y Paul Kingsnorth (2017). A Children’s Bible b y Lydia Millet (2020). for years after he wrote about Kingsnorth, a British writer and the co-f ounder Millet’s take on eco-c atastrophe is slyly off-k ilter the relationship— referring to of a collective of eco-f ocused artists called the in this novel about kids left to fend for themselves Springora as “little V”—and also about engaging in sex Dark Mountain Project, has a message and a as society unravels. with 8-year-old boys in Manila. Consent is not a simple tell- all, though. “I try to remind Also of interest...in excavations of the past people,” says Springora, who now runs a publishing house The Liar’s Dictionary Blood, Powder, and Residue in Paris, “that this is first and by Eley Williams (Doubleday, $27) by Beth A. Bechky (Princeton, $30) foremost a piece of literature.” This beguiling debut novel “show- This engaging portrait of the work Springora could not be more cases a delight in language that evokes that’s done in a crime lab offers right about that, said Lauren Nabokov,” said Heller McAlpin in “something quite different” from pure Collins in The New Yorker. In NPR.org. Two stories intertwine in an forensic science, said Kathy Reichs Consent, which has just been “increasingly intense pas de deux”: In in The New York Times. Sociologist published in the U.S., her sen- the present, a low-paid intern tries to Beth Bechky spent 18 months observ- tences “gleam like metal” and weed out fake entries from a massive dictionary ing technicians handling blood, weapon, and each chapter “snaps shut with while a century earlier a bored editor takes plea- DNA evidence to learn how relationships inside the clean brutality of a latch.” sure in inventing them. The two protagonists are and beyond the lab affected outcomes. The writ- She succeeds so brilliantly in richly drawn, adding weight and warmth to “an ing throughout is “crisp and jargon-free,” and her stated goal of “ensnaring audacious, idiosyncratic dual love story about how Bechky’s take on the conflicts inherent in forensics the hunter in his own trap” that it’s painful to think of how far we’ll go to save what we’re passionate about.” “should prove enlightening to outsiders.” many other books she might Hades, Argentina Dog Flowers have produced by now had her early passion for writing by Daniel Loedel (Riverhead, $27) by Danielle Geller (One World, $27) not been extinguished by the overbearing Matzneff. With k Daniel Loedel has written “a debut In other hands, the story Danielle c o t Consent, she reclaims her s r novel as impressive as they come,” Geller has to tell “might be too e t t voice, which Matzneff had sto- u h said Michael Upchurch in The Seattle grim to read,” said Joan Gaylord in S

, len by integrating her teenage x u Times. “Tough, wily, dreamlike,” CSMonitor.com. Geller’s mother was d e letters into his own books. The R / it follows an Argentine expat who an alcoholic who abandoned her, then h p runaway popularity of Consent o r a returns to Buenos Aires in 1986 and died after years of homelessness, and g i has been a happy byproduct F / a steps into a ghost story in which he’s forced to Dog Flowers is mostly drawn from photos, let- r a of her artistic triumph. “I think m r confront his complicity in government atrocities ters, and journals the older woman left in a suit- a that my book arrived at the M

e committed during the country’s 1976–83 Dirty case. But Geller is an archivist, and as she uses the h right moment,” she says. p o t

s War. This spellbinding tale “will hit home in any suitcase’s contents to reconnect with her Navajo i

r “Five years ago, it probably h C - society where democracy, the rule of law, and the roots and with some happy memories, she shows

n would have been buried.” a e

J very concept of the truth are in peril.” how exploring the past can be healing.

THE WEEK February 26, 2021 24 ARTS Review of reviews: Stage & Music

All the Devils Are Here Smithtown ++++ ++++ to change costumes to effect his transfor- “A quartet mations, becoming, among others, Iago, of appealing Shylock, Lady MacBeth, and a Richard III actors” has whose hair-raising smile is “so horrific that been assembled you half expect to see fangs.” to make the most of this Page speaks to the audience as not just pas- new online A homebound Harada sive witnesses to his various performances, play, said “but also as fellow scholars examining the Michael Schulman in The New Yorker. text with him,” said Maya Phillips in The Set in a Midwestern college town, Drew Larimore’s drama gives a monologue New York Times. To any Shakespeare buff, each to Michael Urie, Ann Harada, Colby “the contextual analysis is a touch light,” Stage magic: Page with his book of spells Lewis, and Constance Shulman as the offering little more than a thread connect- four characters discuss their links to a “Perfection is the rarest of stuff,” said ing the members of Page’s rogues’ gallery. recent local tragedy and reveal the ways Terry Teachout in The Wall Street Journal. Even so, “Page asks worthwhile questions: that blundering uses of digital communi- “But that is what All the Devils Are Here Is Iago a sociopath? Does Shylock reflect cation precipitated the central event. The gives us.” A one-man online show written Shakespeare’s early prejudices, and does script itself is so thin “it barely demands by and performed by “one of America’s Othello later subvert them?” And when a paper clip,” said Jesse Green in The greatest classical actors,” it opens a win- Page shifts from one villain to another, or New York Times. Yet somehow the dow on an “insufficiently appreciated from lecturer to baddie, “it’s like watch- four actors take the foolish characters aspect” of William Shakespeare’s genius: ing a chameleon change hue before your they’ve been given and deliver “riveting” eyes.” In the final scene, taken from The performances anyway. “It’s often said his creation of villains so memorable and that great actors can make compelling Tempest, he conveys Prospero’s change of deeply considered that they changed our drama just by reading the phone book. understanding of villainy. Patrick Page has heart before closing the book before him But should they?” The question is worth played his share of Broadway villains, most and breaking a staff in two, symbolically asking, because the pandemic-friendly notably in Spider-Man and Hadestown, breaking the spell he’s cast on us. That format of Smithtown could make it and he possesses a bass voice “so resonant trick didn’t work for me, though: “I’m a popular choice of regional theaters that it can actually make your theater still utterly beguiled.” $25 at shakespeare everywhere. $20, tskw.org, through seat shake.” Here, he doesn’t even need theatre.org, through July 28 March 13

Hayley Williams The Weather Station Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio Flowers for Vases/Descansos Ignorance I Told You So ++++ ++++ ++++ The second solo album Canadian singer- “You don’t need a from the frontwoman songwriter Tamara sprawling band the of Paramore arrives Lindeman “has a voice size of Parliament/ less than a year after that begs to be heard: Funkadelic to bring the the first, and it’s “more delicate but steady, a funk,” said Hal Horowitz solo than ever,” said breeze that can build in AmericanSongwriter Jon Pareles in The toward a gale when .com. Hammond B-3 New York Times. the situation demands organist Delvon Lamarr Hayley Williams recorded it in her home it,” said Justin Curto in NYMag.com. On has put together an instrumental-only studio, and like other quarantine albums, Ignorance, her ever-changing band drops trio that’s now “one of most talented and its songs often have “a folky acoustic all remnants of its folk origins. The new funkiest acts around.” Though the Seattle- guitar, strummed or picked, at their core.” Weather Station is “more electric than based group has built its reputation on live She easily handles keyboards and drums ever,” drawing on the precision of jazz and performances that can get a crowd danc- as well, though, and maintains a highly the groove of disco to create an eerie, driv- ing, the music on its “exhilarating” new polished sound throughout this breakup ing backdrop for what might loosely be studio album “will hold anyone’s attention.” record, whose 14 tracks highlight her “gift described as an “album-length statement Lamarr, guitarist Jimmy James, and pocket

for melody” and “careful emotional bal- about climate anxiety.” The new sound sug- drummer Grant Schroff work up grooves t s e W ancing: rage and self-criticism, insecurity gests “a Millennial Joni Mitchell fronting that are “as thick and deep” as any since the y e K

and conviction.” Don’t expect the arena- jazzy versions of LCD Soundsystem or the heyday of organ jazz legends Jimmy Smith f o

s ready vocal stylings that helped make Jonathan Bernstein Rolling or Jack McDuff. The trio does mix things up, o National,” said in i d u t

Williams a punk-pop star, said Mary Siroky Stone. Lindeman’s lyrics, meanwhile, range said Thom Jurek in AllMusic.com. After the S

e h

in ConsequenceOfSound.net. Here, the from a confession of stage fright (“Parking “biting, meaty” guitar vamping of the open- T

, y n

32-year-old “stays comfortably in her lower Lot”) to a reveling in the planet’s beauty ing track, we get “bright, summery” soul a p m register, spinning stories instead of span- (“Atlantic”) to a reckoning with capital- jazz in “Girly Face” before descending into o C

e r ning octaves.” The album feels like “a collec- ist greed (“Robber”). She has created “a the relatively sinister “From the Streets.” t a e h

tion of quiet, yearning, grieving love letters,” breakup record with her own dying planet,” Start to finish, though, I Told You So is T

e r a

some written to the world, some to herself. and it solidifies the 36-year-old as “one of the “grittier, edgier, and more confident” than e p s

As luck had it, “rather than tuck them away, most audaciously inventive auteurs working the trio’s first two albums. “Hands down, it’s e k a h she chose to share them with us.” in the broad singer-songwriter tradition.” their best outing yet.” S

THE WEEK February 26, 2021 Review of reviews: Film ARTS 25

“makes the grandmother a chain-smoking, Mortensen playing off a ferocious Lance gambling, delightful force of nature,” and Henriksen, Falling turns out to be “an exam- Yeri Han delivers the most touching per- ple of how, in the hands of gifted artists, the formance, helping us feel the wife’s fear most mortifying parts of being human can that she can no longer trust her husband give way to unexpected beauty.” (In theaters to secure the family’s future. Steven Yeun or $4 on demand) R proves “spellbinding” as the man whose American dream of belonging initiates A Glitch in the Matrix the entire drama, said David Ehrlich in Rodney Ascher’s latest documentary “will IndieWire.com. Gentle as a stream, “yet at least serve as the jumping-off point for powerful enough to reverberate for genera- a strange conversation or two,” said Jacob tions,” this beautiful film “posits family as Oller in PasteMagazine.com. The director of Room 237, which probed the wild theo- Yeun and family: Putting down roots the ultimate journey, only to explore how dif- ficult it can be to agree on a destination.” (In ries that surround Stanley Kubrick’s The select theaters or via virtual cinemas) PG-13 Shining, this time immerses viewers in the Minari belief systems of a handful of subjects who ++++ Other new movies have in one way or another embraced the Barb & Star Go to Vista del Mar idea that we all live in a simulated reality. Despite some “genuinely gripping” seg- “The most efficient review of Minari Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo’s zany ments, the film is too scattershot to make would be something along the lines of ‘It’s new comedy seems “preordained for cult a lasting impact, getting by mostly on its wonderful. See it. You’ll love it,’” said Joe status,” said Bilge Ebiri in NYMag.com. The “tourist’s eye for novelty.” (In theaters or Morgenstern in The Wall Street Journal. erstwhile co-writers of Bridesmaids com- $7 on demand) Not rated A quasi-autobiographical film from direc- mit fully to their roles as middle-aged best tor Lee Isaac Chung, it builds a modern friends who take a trip to the kitschy heart The Mauritanian pioneer story around a Korean immigrant of Florida. The movie isn’t a mainstream Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s story might have who moves his family from California to a laugher; it’s “weirdo cinema all the way”—a made a sensational documentary, said mobile home in 1980s Arkansas so he can comedy that wins us over “not through belly David Rooney in The Hollywood Reporter. try his hand at farming. His wife doubts laughs but by making us feel like we’re privy Arrested shortly after 9/11, he was tortured his vision, and his mischievous young son to a wonderfully bizarre in-joke.” ($20 on by his U.S. captors and held at Guan- objects when told he has to share a room demand) PG-13 tánamo Bay for 14 years without being with his grandmother who’s come straight formally charged. But this dramatization, from Korea. We get to know each of these Falling despite “a gripping central performance” characters like our own kin, because Chung Viggo Mortensen’s directorial debut “isn’t from Tahar Rahim and the presence of manages them all “like a maestro conduct- always fun to watch,” said Ann Hornaday in Jodie Foster and Benedict Cumberbatch ing a chamber orchestra.” Audiences will The Washington Post. Because the drama as opposing attorneys, proves “strangely connect instantly with 7-year-old actor Alan focuses on a son coping with an irascible flat.” Though “unimpeachably well- Kim, said Ty Burr in The Boston Globe. But elderly father in the grip of dementia, “it’s intentioned,” it’s also “methodical and veteran Korean screen star Youn Yuh-jung often downright uncomfortable.” But with serious-minded to a fault.” (In theaters) R Sia’s autism movie: The skunk at the Golden Globes party One question repeatedly comes to mind dur- going through. The songs Sia wrote for the ing “almost every baffling minute” of Sia’s movie are fine, said David Fear in Rolling debut as a feature film director: “Why?” Stone. They remind you of why her best said David Ehrlich in IndieWire.com. Why music is “such a pure rush,” and each one did the Australian songwriter and pop star plays out in a Skittles-hued alternate realm veer into filmmaking to make a musical fea- that is supposed to represent Music’s imagi- turing a nonverbal autistic teenager? “Why, nation. Unfortunately, everything set in the against the advice of virtually every living real world “hits all the wrong notes.” human, did she cast her neurotypical teen- “I feel sorry for Ziegler,” said Sara Luter man age muse Maddie Ziegler as the nonverbal in Slate.com. A dancer whom Sia has fea- autistic girl?” Why did the stubborn auteur tured in many music videos, she was 14 engage in heated social media spats with Ziegler with Hudson: Empathy misplaced when Music was filmed, and knowing that autistic people about that casting choice? rights advocates say they don’t want to she meant no insult to autistic people like And why, finally, did this movie, with its see.” Petitioners describe the exaggerated myself “does not reduce the acute discom- dismal reviews and a script that “feels like autistic mannerisms of Music’s neurotypi- fort of watching her clumsily ape disability.” it was Human Centipede-ed together from cal performers as “nauseating,” and they The adults around her should have known 400 uplifting Instagram Stories,” wind up protested two scenes in the prerelease better. That said, Music’s central players garnering two Golden Globe nominations version that show the 14-year-old title don’t deserve to have their careers torpedoed that have put an international spotlight on it? character subjected to a practice, known by this mess, said Matthew Rozsa in Salon We all got an early warning when Sia as prone restraint, that has caused death. .com. “They do, however, need to realize t n e pitched her vision of Music as “Rain Man Leslie Odom Jr.’s character actually claims what they did was wrong and hurtful.” If m n i a the musical, but with girls,” said Ashley such restraint is an expression of love, while Music does nothing else worthwhile, it “can t r e t n Spencer in The New York Times. The Globe nominee Kate Hudson is taking shots serve as an object lesson for future filmmak- E l a c i earlier movie, with Dustin Hoffman as an from critics because her character’s journey ers dealing with sensitive subjects, reminding t r e V

, autistic savant, features “exactly the kind as an unlikely parent figure becomes more them to pay attention to the voices of the 4 2

A of stereotypical portrayal that disability important than anything young Music is communities they aspire to represent.”

THE WEEK February 26, 2021 26 ARTS Television

Streaming tips The Week’s guide to what’s worth watching

About the artist... Pelé Kusama: Infinity Soccer has never known another star to match Yayoi Kusama’s “Infinity Pelé. A member of Brazil’s national team from Rooms” have been a recent age 17, he played as though the ball answered his art-world phenomenon, every thought while leading Brazil to three World drawing huge lines in cit- Cups across a tumultuous period in the nation’s ies around the world. This history. In this powerful documentary, the portrait affirms the queen 80-year-old legend revisits his career, addressing of polka dots as one of the difficult questions about whether he should have most significant artists of done more to resist the rise of a brutal Brazilian our time, a Warhol since dictatorship. Available for streaming Tuesday, before Warhol. Hulu Feb. 23, Netflix Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child Superman & Lois No other film about painting’s Not even Superman finds it easy to be a super Ginny & Georgia: A girl and her wild-child mom 1980s shooting star has got- dad. Tyler Hoechlin, who has played the Man of ten as close to the young Steel in several Supergirl episodes, now assumes each week. Wednesday, Feb. 24, at 8 p.m., HBO man himself as this docu- the role for a series in which he returns in his mentary by Tamra Davis, Clark Kent guise to Smallville, the Kansas town 2021 Golden Globe Awards a friend. The Radiant Child where he was raised. He and wife Lois Lane, Awards season finally kicks off, with a Globes captures the whole scene— played again by Elizabeth Tulloch, are seeking a ceremony split between coasts, Tina Fey and features Basquiat in a more stable family life while their children are still emceeing at New York City’s Rainbow Room candid 1985 interview. teenagers. And they still don’t know that Dad’s a and Amy Poehler presiding at the Beverly Amazon Prime superhero. Tuesday, Feb. 23, at 8 p.m., the CW Hills Hilton. Expect a big night for the film Gerhard Richter: Painting Nomadland and many mentions of Michaela Ginny & Georgia Coel’s I May Destroy You, the critically One of the world’s greatest The latest series to try to recapture the spe- living painters let filmmaker acclaimed TV series that somehow scored no Corinna Belz watch him cial magic of Gilmore Girls makes the sober nominations. Sunday, Feb. 28, at 8 p.m., NBC teen daughter biracial and her young mom work, and the patient, quiet Other highlights documentary she created far more of a handful. Brianne Howey plays Georgia, a flirty blond Southerner who’s running Beartown makes the process thrilling In a five-part drama based on a best-seller, a even as the decisions that from the law when she moves Ginny and her Swedish town is torn apart when the star of its Richter makes from moment younger brother to a small New England town. to moment remain hard to Newcomer Antonia Gentry co-stars. Available celebrated junior hockey team is accused of rape. put into words. Kanopy.com for streaming Wednesday, Feb. 24, Netflix With subtitles. Available for streaming Monday, Feb. 22, HBO Max Sky Ladder: The Art of Allen v. Farrow Cai Guo-Qiang Almost three decades after Woody Allen was Punky Brewster Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang accused of sexually abusing his adopted 7-year- Soleil Moon Frye reprises her 1980s sitcom role, has expanded the possi- old daughter, this four-part documentary series now as a single mom who takes in a plucky fos- bilities for contemporary art argues that Allen, who denies the allegation, has ter child despite already having a crowded house. with his spectacular large- largely controlled the story that has nevertheless Available for streaming Thursday, Feb. 25, scale pyrotechnic displays. Peacock This documentary surveys clouded his career ever since. Filmmakers Amy the highlights while watch- Ziering and Kirby Dick won interviews with Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry ing him pursue a towering Allen’s then partner, Mia Farrow, and Farrow’s A documentary pulls back the curtain on Billie vision that took 20 years to daughter, Dylan, who has shared video clips Eilish as she works to reconcile pop stardom realize. Netflix of herself at 7 describing the event. The series, with just being a teenager. Available for stream- The Woodmans following a Feb. 21 debut, adds new episodes ing Friday, Feb. 26, Apple TV+ In this moving documentary, two committed artists recall raising a daughter, Francesca, Show of the week who, when she took her The United States vs. Billie Holiday own life at 22, had already To this day, Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” can produced an enduring body stop any listener cold. In this new biopic from of work in photography. director Lee Daniels, singer Andra Day chan- Kanopy.com nels Holiday to help tell the little-known story of how the jazz legend was taken down by federal Mapplethorpe: Look at narcotics agents because she wouldn’t stop the Pictures performing the haunting ballad about Southern The stir that Mapplethorpe’s lynchings. A heroin habit made her vulnerable, homoerotic photographs as did a romance with an uncover agent. Day’s created in the 1980s becomes first screen turn has earned her a Golden Globe a springboard for a thought- nomination. The screenplay comes from Daniels u l

ful examination of the artist’s u

and playwright Suzan-Lori Parks. Available for H

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streaming Friday, Feb. 26, Hulu t e N THE WEEK February 26, 2021 • All listings are Eastern Time. LEISURE 27 Food & Drink Bang bang chicken: An everyday take on a Sichuan classic Put away your Instant Pot and Dutch oven, 1 cup cilantro leaves and tender stems, said Cathy Erway in Sheet Pan Chicken: coarsely chopped 50 Simple and Satisfying Ways to Cook ½ cup roasted peanuts, coarsely chopped Dinner (Ten Speed Press). The low-rimmed (optional) sheet pan is “the no- nonsense workhorse of the home kitchen.” Roasting dinner on Preheat oven to 450. Rub chicken with it buys you time on a busy weeknight, and 1 tbsp sesame oil, salt, and white pepper. though my Taiwan-raised Chinese mom Gently slide your finger underneath skin of cooked almost everything on the stovetop, each breast to loosen it (which will help it “I’m convinced that roasting chicken is one crisp in the oven). Place chicken on a sheet of the easiest ways to coax out all the fla- pan, skin side up. Roast 30 to 35 minutes, vors and features chicken provides.” until skin is nicely crisped and a kitchen thermometer inserted into a breast registers With bang bang chicken, a Sichuan dish, 160 degrees. roasting the meat gives you ample time for making its sauce and the rice, noodles, or Big flavors in a healthy weeknight dish Meanwhile, prepare the sauce: In a small shredded lettuce you’ll serve it on. The dish bowl, combine chile oil, sesame paste if is called bang bang because the cook bangs 1 tsp salt using, 1 tsp sesame oil, soy sauce, vinegar, the roasted chicken with a wooden stick to ½ tsp white pepper sugar, and ginger. Set aside. shred the tender meat. You’ll need a crispy 2 tbsp crispy chile oil chile oil, such as Lao Gan Ma, and an Asian 1 tbsp Chinese sesame paste (optional) When chicken is done, remove pan to a flat sesame paste. “And sure, you could substi- ¼ cup soy sauce surface. Slowly press down on each chicken tute boneless, skinless chicken breasts here, ¼ cup Chinese black vinegar or red wine piece with a rolling pin and roll along its but I’d recommend any bone-in, skin-on vinegar length so that meat breaks apart and shreds chicken pieces, so you’ll get crispy skin as 2 tbsp sugar bit. Tear meat and, if preferred, remove well as juicy meat, and drippings to add to 1 1-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and bones. Scrape pan to collect any browned your sauce.” julienned bits and juices, and add them to your sauce. Steamed rice; cooked Asian wheat noodles, Recipe of the week soba noodles, or bean-thread noodles; or Place rice, noodles, or lettuce in a large Bang bang crispy chicken shredded lettuce serving dish and set bang bang chicken on 2 bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts, or any 1 medium cucumber, peeled, seeded, and top. Scatter with cucumber, then pour sauce other bone-in pieces julienned all over. Top with scallions, cilantro, and 1 tbsp plus 1 tsp toasted sesame oil 2 scallions, thinly sliced on a bias peanuts (if using). Serves 3 to 4.

Project Takeout: Order a burrito, save a restaurant Wine: Pink prosecco “Order takeout. It’s your civic duty,” said Devra First Italy’s prosecco industry is unusually in The Boston Globe. In our city, we’re promoting well prepared this year for the arrival of the idea that anyone who can afford to should be spring, said Elin McCoy in Bloomberg ordering takeout once or twice a week just until .com. For the fi rst time, vintners are April arrives and struggling restaurants get a boost being allowed to sell sparkling rosé from the return of outdoor dining. But this isn’t just wines as prosecco. None of it is unaf- a Boston thing. “The story is the same every- fordable, and the best options are where”: Independent restaurants, and the owners delightful—“delicious sip- anytime and employees who make them go, are fi ghting fi zz for when you need fi ve min- to make it to the other side of winter. And you can utes of relaxation.” help guarantee their continued existence by order- 2020 Villa Sandi Il Fresco Brut Every order helps right now. ing saag paneer this week, maybe a bean burrito ($15). This beautifully colored pro- next Tuesday, and a pho the week after that. We call the effort Project Takeout. secco is a standout, with fl oral aro- mas, hints of cherry, and a “zingy, Don’t assume that ordering delivery through an app will do just as much good, said salty, savory and citrusy taste.” Flora Tsapovsky in BonAppetit.com. At a time when restaurants have needed all the help 2019 Zonin Extra Dry ($16). You’ll they can get, DoorDash, GrubHub, and similar delivery services “haven’t been looking encounter “juicy strawberries- great.” Some have aggressively squeezed restaurants’ profi ts—while paying delivery and-cream fl avors” in this people poorly. Fortunately, new delivery services are arising that prioritize the health of “lively and frothy” sparkling local businesses. Black and Mobile, which promotes black-owned restaurants, started in wine. It’s “positively gulp-able.” Philadelphia before 2020 and has now expanded into fi ve cities. Fast-growing Chowbus 2020 Ruggeri Argeo Brut ($17).

boosts the reach of Asian restaurants in 30 cities, and in New York City, an app called “This pale pink fi zz offers a lush y t t e

G Traiilo is being launched to support Latino-owned restaurants and groceries. Look for texture, aromas of fl owers and

, o r

n similar operations. “These apps are changing the rules. They’re championing industry- red currants, and fl avors that u M wide change, and it couldn’t come at a better or more crucial time.” hint of fresh berries.” e i z z i L

THE WEEK February 26, 2021 28 LEISURE Consumer

The 2021 Genesis GV80: What the critics say Car and Driver preciate the extra power.” Upper trims also “It takes guts to design a $65,000 vehicle include an electronic suspension system that evokes a $180,000 Bentley.” The fi rst that anticipates bumps, creating an “impres- SUV from Hyundai’s luxury division is not sively smooth” ride. The beautiful interior some fake Rolex, though: The “lavish and “takes an all-inclusive spa-day approach,” striking” Genesis GV80 “impresses with a complete with mood lighting, seat mas- level of build and material quality that puts sage, active noise cancellation, plus nature some traditional luxury brands to shame.” sounds on tap. Fuel economy is subpar at In fact, “this could be the vehicle that makes 23 mpg, though, and the optional third row Genesis a real player in the luxury sphere,” is “pretty small.” especially because the price “makes even Korean luxury, from $48,900 experts like us do a double take.” Jalopnik.com Still, “Genesis nailed the luxury SUV on its other product on the market.” And despite Edmunds.com fi rst attempt, in both style and substance.” costing thousands less than the competi- Two engines are available, but go for the The GV80’s “gorgeous” art-deco design tion, “this is a car that does everything it can 3.5-liter, 375-hp twin-turbo V-6. “You’ll ap- language is “completely different from any to make you forget you’re driving.”

The best of...winter adventure

MSR Evo Backcountry Access Kahtoola Snowshoes Tracker3 Microspikes “The MSR Evo is a It’s been a deadly These robust stainless- Winnerwell Fastfold classic.” Novice snow- season for avalanches. Eskimo QuickFish 2i steel spikes “provide Titanium Stove shoers can’t go wrong If you’re a recreational Ice Shelter excellent traction for There’ll be “no more with these “reliable, backcountry skier and Ice fi shing becomes deep snow and thick ice,” stuffi ng feet into frozen well-priced, versatile, need a user-friendly “much more appeal- making them perfect boots” if you bring and easy to use” boot beacon with all the basic ing” when you don’t for winter hiking. Once this foldaway 4-lb extenders. Though the features, this perennial sit out in the cold. This wrapped around a boot woodburning stove plastic decking is loud best-seller is “a really pop-up tent provides or shoe, “they don’t slide on your next winter on crusty snow, “the nice choice.” It can great shelter from the around,” and the heat- adventure. It’ll cook Evo is a great option for transmit a signal for weather and makes it treated spikes “will easily a meal or warm your many scenarios.” 250 hours. easier to see the fi sh last multiple winters.” tent. A rollup chimney $140, rei.com $350, backcountryaccess.com below you. $70, rei.com is included. Source: Source: $200, geteskimo.com Source: $499, winnerwell.us OutdoorGearLab.com SwitchbackTravel.com Source: Outdoor Life OutdoorGearLab.com Source: Outside

Tip of the week... And for those who have Best websites... How to get through a power outage everything... For ordering houseplants Q Eat fresh food first. A refrigerator will keep Fighting words are so Q TheSill.com, a New York City retailer, food at a safe temperature for four hours, passé. The slogans “caters to the urban houseplant gardener a freezer for 24 to 48. Take no chances with that everyone wants who has little time to care for plants.” Look spoiled food, but if you have a gas stove (and to wear on their chest here for low-maintenance greenery. matches to light the burners), you can cook these days “just want Q AnniesAnnuals.com is a cheerful website normally at first. to lower the tempera- that’s “full of really fascinating plants.” Most Q Unplug other appliances. The eventual ture.” Consider Stella of the plants are for outdoor gardens, but return of power can create surges and McCartney’s ‘Smile’ Annie’s sells succulents too. damage appliances. Let your lights indicate Sweater, which keeps Q Monrovia.com sells shrubs, grasses, and when power has been restored. selling out even at the price of a round-trip perennials out of its nurseries in California, Q Conserve phone power. Use your smart- fl ight to Paris’ Fashion Week. But it’s not just Connecticut, Georgia, and Oregon, and can phone sparingly to keep the battery charged. a high-end trend. Many hot-selling T-shirts ship to your local garden center. “They pack- Write down any numbers you might regret and hoodies display such sincere and uncon- age their plants amazingly.” you can’t retrieve if the battery runs down. troversial messages as “Leave Only Good Q AndysOrchids.com, of Encinitas, Calif., is a Q Be cautious with generators. A running Vibes,” “Today Is a Good Day,” and even great source for orchids, included mounted generator should be kept 20 feet from the “Don’t Litter.” No irony is intended. These orchids and miniatures. house. Trapped carbon monoxide kills quickly. garments “mean what they say, but they Q NSETropicals.com specializes in rare tropi- Q Bundle up. In a winter outage, conserve don’t yell.” They’re a response to a world in cal plants, all grown in Florida. Two recom- any warmth you can by closing curtains and turmoil, a way of “covering our screaming mended species, because they aren’t “super blocking drafts. Layer up on clothing and hearts” with soft pleas for comity. fussy,” are Philodendron bipennifolium and blankets until you can safely relocate. $1,295, net-a-porter.com Rhaphidophora tetrasperma. Sources: ConsumerReports.com and CNN.com Source: NYMag.com Source: The Washington Post

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GovMint.com® is a retail distributor of coin and currency issues and is not affi liated with the U.S. government. The collectible coin market is unregulated, highly speculative and involves risk. GovMint.com reserves the right to decline to consummate any sale, within its discretion, including due to pricing errors. Prices, facts, fi gures and populations deemed accurate as of the date of publication but may change signifi cantly over time. All purchases are expressly conditioned upon your acceptance of GovMint.com’s Terms and Conditions (www.govmint.com/terms-conditions or call 1-800-721-0320); to decline, return your purchase pursuant to GovMint.com’s Return Policy. © 2021 GovMint.com. All rights reserved. THE BEST SOURCE FOR COINS WORLDWIDE™ 30 Best properties on the market This week: Homes with make-believe features

1 X Newport, R.I. Architect Richard Morris Hunt designed “Hilltop” in 1870, blending styles to evoke a baronial estate. The five- bedroom house features Moorish arches, carved doors, stained-glass windows, a tiger maple–and-oak stair- case, oak tinder beams and joists, window seats, stone and carved-wood fireplaces, a tiled Moroccan oven, and stone loggias. The 3-acre lot near downtown Newport is landscaped with lawns, shrubs, specimen trees, and daffodil beds. $2,999,000. Jose Aguon, Gustave White/ Sotheby’s International Realty, (401) 263-4168

2 W Los Angeles Built in 1926 by Roland E. Hill, designer of Dis- neyland’s Sleeping Beauty Castle, this four-bedroom French Eclectic– Storybook home is a registered historic property. A complete restora- tion and update preserved all original details, including a turret with wind- ing staircase, stained-glass windows, oversize fireplace, and onion-arch doorways. The Hollywood Hills property features a swimming pool, slate patio with firepit, fountain, citrus trees, front garden, guesthouse, garage, and sweeping views of the San Fernando Valley. $2,495,000. Altman Brothers, Douglas Elliman, (310) 819-3250

3 X Garrison, N.Y. A Hudson Highlands icon, this two-bedroom castle dates to 1881. Built of rough-cut stone, with red slate–roofed towers and dormers, it retains its original hardware, ornate master staircase, and paneled walls. The 16.5-acre estate above the Hudson has views of the river and West Point, sits next to 100 acres of protected woodland and trails, and is an hour’s drive from New York City. $3,450,000. Melissa Carlton, Houlihan Lawrence, (914) 474-0111

THE WEEK February 26, 2021 Best properties on the market 31

4 X Shiloh, Tenn. This 1,100-acre estate features a make-believe Western town complete with a general store, barber shop, and hotel. The three-bedroom main house, built in 1998, has a carved-wood staircase, three fireplaces, a vaulted great room, and a billiard room. The property includes a pavilion with kitchen, a formal garden, two bungalows, a barn, two creeks, and a 4-acre duck pond with dock, and abuts Shiloh National Battlefield. $3,499,000. Pam Klos, Zeitlin Sotheby’s International Realty, (615) 509-1616

1 3

2

5 4 6

5 W Westcliffe, Colo. The main residence of this ranch estate includes an Old West–style saloon bar. The 12- bedroom house also has a bil- liard room, a sauna, and a gym. On the property’s 200 deeded acres are a three- bedroom cabin built in 1870 and renovated as a home- stead, a three- bedroom Victorian-style cottage, a swimming pool and hot tub, a horse stable, grazing pastures, and a volleyball court. The parcel borders conservation easement land and overlooks the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. $3,440,000. Simon Foster, Porchlight Real Estate Group/Luxury Portfolio International, (720) 299-5040

Steal of the week

6 X Boca Raton, Fla. This four-bedroom home has a Polynesian-themed backyard with a swimming pool, spa, two tiki huts, a wet bar, a kitchen with a Brazilian wood rotisserie and grill, and a shower shaped like a surfboard. The house features tiled floors, crown molding and tray ceilings, a tankless water heater, hurricane- resistant windows, and three fireplaces. The quarter-acre landscaped lot at the end of a cul-de-sac is steps from the Intracoastal Waterway. $550,000. Ben Giordano, The Best Waterfront Realty, (561) 929-9955

THE WEEK February 26, 2021 32 BUSINESS The news at a glance

The bottom line Citigroup: Plenty of problems for new CEO to fix QSpending by consumers Citigroup lost its effort to undo Incoming Citi CEO Jane Fraser who make less than $60,000 a half-billion-dollar mistake, said has a massive cleanup on her a year jumped by more than Chris Dolmetsch in Bloomberg hands, said John Foley in 20 percent in the week after the Treasury Department .com. U.S. District Judge Jesse BreakingViews.com. Fraser, began electronically sending Furman said this week that who will begin her tenure as stimulus payments of $600 10 creditors of Revlon could the first woman to lead a major per adult and $600 per child. keep the staggering sum the bank U.S. bank on March 1, has “to A study of the effects of the “mistakenly transferred in August act as a sort of plumber,” fixing earlier March 2020 stimulus while trying to make an interest Citi’s pipes “before they leak found that a $1,200 stimulus payment.” Some hedge funds in Fraser: Fixing Citi’s many leaks again.” Among the big banks, check raised spending by the creditor group had already returned their por- only Wells Fargo’s shares have performed worse $604 in the following two tion of the money, but others argued that the trans- over the past decade. What’s especially damaging, weeks—with $94 of that go- ing to Walmart. fer “didn’t look like a mistake when it arrived,” though, has been “the perception that the bank has The Wall Street Journal and since it settled Revlon’s debt, “it was theirs yet to get on top of its corrosive habit of careless- QU.S. airlines carried 58.7 per- to keep”—an argument Furman accepted. “The ness.” The mistaken Revlon transfer was a “pain- cent fewer passengers in 2020 downside of working from home, maybe the dog ful example of human error” that’s become typical compared with 2019, accord- hit the keyboard,” one fund manager joked to col- of the bank. Until Fraser tackles these issues, it will ing to U.S. data released this leagues after Citi asked for its money back. be hard “to address bigger questions.” week. The number of people flying internationally dropped You can finish this 70.4 percent. Newspapers: Hedge fund to buy Tribune story in 41 seconds Axios.com Alden Global Capital, “a hedge fund with a history of deep cost- cutting,” QThe came to an agreement this week to take over Tribune Publishing, owner “Productivity gurus” Disney+ of the Chicago Tribune and other major dailies, said Robert Channick are bringing their life hacks to the masses on streaming in the Chicago Tribune. Alden owns about 200 publications and already social media, said Claire service held a 31.6 percent stake in Tribune. The deal, which values Tribune at passed Hubble in Vice.com. about $630 million, still needs the agreement of Patrick Soon-Shiong, “With many studying or 94.9 million the owner of the Los Angeles Times and a major Tribune shareholder. subscribers, up from roughly working from home for 74 million last quarter. Disney As part of the agreement, The Baltimore Sun will be sold to a nonprofit. the first time because now says it expects to have One Tribune shareholder said that he’d hoped for a more civic-minded of the pandemic—and 230 to 260 million subscrib- buyer for the whole company, but “despite all the talk about saving the others trying to fill their ers by 2024, quadrupling its papers and community interest, no one stepped up.” time on furlough— initial projections. Google Trends data CNBC.com Economy: Stimulus checks lift consumer spending show that searches QDetective Chinatown 3, the Retail sales rose 5.3 percent in January, thanks to a boost from the lat- for ‘productivity’ and latest installment in a long- est round of stimulus checks, said Jeff Cox in CNBC.com. The jump far ‘time management’ running buddy-cop series exceeded estimates and is likely to encourage proponents of President hit a five-year high in with tepid reviews, raked in Biden’s bigger $1.9 trillion economic stimulus package. The data found 2020.” Many of those an estimated $397 million shoppers returned to the marketplace “armed with $600 checks they searches lead to the over three days in China, a used to buy a variety of goods,” including electronics and appliances (up YouTube and Instagram world record for the largest 14.7 percent) and home furnishings (12 percent). Even restaurants saw a pages of “productiv- opening weekend in a single ity influencers,” offer- market. The previous record 6.9 percent sales increase despite continued restrictions. ing free life lessons holder, Avengers: Endgame, Delivery: Uber Eats now as big as ride hailing and visions of days took in $357 million in its Uber’s food-delivery business is now almost as big as its ride-hailing “mapped out in Google weekend opening in the calendar squares and United States and Canada business, said Kate Conger in The New York Times. Uber Eats has neatly color-coded in 2019. been “a bright spot” for the company, which reported a $6.77 billion notebooks.” “Hustle The New York Times loss in 2020. “Ride hailing declined precipitously during the early days culture,” though, is also QThe federal debt is expected of the pandemic” and has been slow to pick up. But food delivery eliciting some backlash, to rise to a record 107 percent brought in $1.35 billion in the fourth quarter, nearly matching its and even some of the of economic output by 2031. $1.47 billion revenue from rides. gurus themselves have For 2021, the Congressional some second thoughts. Budget Office projects the GameStop: DOJ probes market manipulation Ali Abdaal, who has deficit will total $2.3 trillion. The Justice Department opened an investigation last week into the 1.4 million subscribers The federal deficit hit rapid run-up in stocks such as GameStop, said Dave Michaels in The to his tips for maximiz- 14.9 percent of total national Wall Street Journal. Federal prosecutors working with the U.S. attor- ing time and energy, output for fiscal 2020 and is ney’s office in San Francisco “have subpoenaed information from bro- admits his regimented projected to be 10.3 percent kers such as Robinhood,” the popular brokerage app. Investigators are schedule may have for 2021, the highest numbers “thwarted his creative since the end of World War II. also seeking information from social media companies such as Reddit, s

ability” and slowed r

which became a “hub for the trading frenzy,” to compare investors’ e The Wall Street Journal t u

progress on his book. e

public statements to their trading records. R

THE WEEK February 26, 2021 Making money BUSINESS 33

Inflation: How much stimulus is too much? When the pandemic passes, will there “be a he did then, saying, “See, government huge burst of inflation?” asked Neil Irwin in spending doesn’t work.” Summers is a The New York Times. The question is at the “natural gadfly” who’s actually been argu- center of a heated debate among economists. ing for years that the U.S. needs to combat Set off by a Washington Post column by for- stagnant growth with increased federal mer Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, poli- spending, said Jordan Weissmann in Slate cymakers have been arguing about whether .com. “Now that Washington’s purse is the proposed $1.9 trillion “pandemic rescue open, he’s suddenly freaking out.” plan is too big.” Inflation hawks believe the stimulus being poured into the pandemic- There are several genuine reasons for deflated economy exceeds what’s needed alarm, said Bill Dudley in Bloomberg.com. to bring it back to full potential. Instead of The pandemic has “wiped out a lot of generating more real production, the extra small businesses,” meaning there “won’t money will “slosh around the economy, be enough capacity to meet resurgent Summers: Warning of stimulus risks causing prices to rise” and creating the pos- demand” as the economy reopens. And sibility of “a new recession.” The White House and Treasury Sec- many households have money to spend that they saved over the retary Janet Yellen argue that the economy is in a “do-whatever- months of lock-ins. That’s a recipe for higher prices. If the Fed it-takes moment” and that inflation is a “manageable risk.” has to “pull back on stimulus sooner and with greater force than anticipated,” there may be a “volatile market reaction.” Think of what we’re getting now as a “war budget,” said Paul Krugman, also in the Times. It’s true that “wartime surges in For the moment, markets aren’t worried, said James Mackintosh spending have often been accompanied by bursts of inflation.” in The Wall Street Journal. Investors seem to be pricing in “the That’s not a reason for “skimping on Covid relief.” If indeed sort of inflation they like, slightly higher in the next few years but inflation does occur, “the Federal Reserve can tighten monetary moderating back down after that.” The situation we saw in the policy”—as it has often been eager to do. The more immediate 1970s came about “in large part because powerful unions were danger here is that the government spends too little to bring the able to demand wages rise with prices, pushing companies to raise economy back to capacity and we lose the political wherewithal prices, in a nasty spiral.” The labor market is quite different now. for additional spending. That’s what happened in 2009. If we There’s also more “faith in the Fed” to forestall any disaster. “I don’t do enough now, Mitch McConnell will come back just as very much hope such faith isn’t misplaced.”

What the experts say Charity of the week Navigating the unemployment maze Bozeman home clocks in around $700,000,” Reddit has become an “unofficial hotline” for and similar housing spikes are being reported the nation’s jobless, said Ella Koeze in The in other Montana cities like Billings and Mis- New York Times. On the increasingly popular soula. Locals in many of these so-called Zoom subreddit forum, r/Unemployment, “post after boomtowns are “getting squeezed out” by out- post conveys bureaucratic problems with end- of-towners. “The Bozeman boom has fueled less variations,” from frustration with “jammed an ‘incredible increase’ in the local homeless Casting for recovery (castingforrecovery phone lines” and “glitch-prone online portals” population,” according to a local nonprofit, .org) was formed in 1996 by a professional to questions about “what to do if you make a “as well as a spate of pop-up RV communities fly-fisher and a breast-reconstruction surgeon to provide breast cancer patients mistake on your claim.” The majority of those for those who’ve been displaced.” and survivors rejuvenating weekend fly- answering are “other out-of-work people” who fishing retreats. Each one of these retreats can empathize with the concerns, although Avoid investing in ETF fads includes a counselor, fishing instructors, there are some on the forum who do work for A study found that newly launched exchange- and medical professionals. Seventy percent of the women who go on these state unemployment offices. But 10 months traded funds typically “lag behind the broad retreats have never attended a support into the pandemic, the volume of posting just market’s returns over at least five years after group, so being in nature and with others keeps growing; last month, “the forum had launch,” said Mark Hulbert in The Wall Street can be an incredibly healing and sup- one of its busiest weeks ever, driven by delays Journal, and many don’t make it that long. In portive experience. In addition, the gentle motion of throwing the fishing line into in payments and uncertainty around legislation an analysis of all U.S. equity ETFs from 1993 the river can help them increase mobil- signed late last year.” to 2020, “specialized funds lagged behind the ity. Casting for Recovery offers dozens of broad market’s return by an average of 5.4 retreats across the country each year and No room in Zoom boomtowns percentage points on a risk-adjusted basis over has helped more than 10,000 women find hope and support since its inception. Home rental prices in Bozeman, Mont., have the first five years of their lives.” To capture risen 58 percent in a year, said Patrick Sisson investors’ attention and attract assets, fund Each charity we feature has earned a in Bloomberg.com, and locals are pretty sure sponsors “tend to focus on increasingly spe- four-star overall rating from Charity they know the cause: “White-collar workers cialized sectors and investment themes,” often Navigator, which rates not-for-profit fleeing the pandemic-ravaged metropolis.” Re- to “capitalize on the latest trend.” Many end organizations on the strength of their mote work has upended real estate across the up “investing in overvalued stocks” already finances, their governance practices, and the transparency of their operations. s r e country, and not just in trendy tech hubs like bid up to unsustainable levels “by the same fad t Four stars is the group’s highest rating. u e

R Miami or Austin. “The median sale price for a that tempted the ETF sponsor to launch.”

THE WEEK February 26, 2021 34 Best columns: Business

Bitcoin: Bubble or breakthrough? The frenzy over Bitcoin brought the plex payment arrangements.” The peo- world’s total value of the digital currency ple who’ve stuck with Bitcoin are those to $877 billion last week, and major fi- “genuinely dedicated to the ideal of pri- nancial institutions have taken notice, said vate money and competing currencies.” Robin Wigglesworth and Eva Szalay in the Some of those early advocates are now Financial Times. The decentralized cur- billionaires, because “Bitcoin may be the rency, ‘mined’ through “an energy- intensive best- performing investment of all time,” network of computers,” has gained wildly said Nir Kaissar in Bloomberg.com. diverse adherents, from hedge funds to A $100 bet on Bitcoin on day one, or banks to the actress Lindsay Lohan. Tesla even close to it, would be worth nearly spent $1.5 billion of its cash reserves on $80 million. The trouble is that Bitcoin’s Bitcoin and said it would soon start ac- wild swings “don’t make it easy to hold cepting it as payment for its vehicles. That Crashing past the $50,000 mark on,” so “investors who were in and out inspired a flurry of digital c urrency– related announcements from had as much opportunity to lose a fortune as make one.” other companies, including MasterCard. This week, the price of a single Bitcoin (which can be divided into fractional payments) There’s a reason people talk about investing in Bitcoin, not spend- soared to $50,000. Believers say that Bitcoin offers “protection ing it, said Nouriel Roubini in the Financial Times: “The Flint- against currency debasement or authoritarianism” and could stones had a more sophisticated monetary system.” Their shells replace the role gold played in previous eras. But we’ve seen this were a more practical store of value. For Bitcoin, “currency” is pattern before. Bitcoin enjoyed “a similarly wild upswing in 2017, a misnomer; even a conference about Bitcoin refused to take it only to subsequently plummet 80 percent from its peak.” Many as payment. Its future is “only as a speculative asset bubble.” At of the current bulls may be following the credo of George Soros, least the Dutch tulips of the 1600s had some utility, as flowers. who once said, “When I see a bubble forming, I rush in to buy.” Bitcoin’s ascent is fueling a surge in even stranger digital assets, said Robert Hackett in Fortune.com. Take Dogecoin. Doge was The ideology of competing currencies actually has a “rich histori- intended as a joke, and most investors don’t realize that “10,000 cal tradition that includes such luminaries as F.A. Hayek, Milton new ‘Dogecoins’ are programmed to be issued every minute for Friedman and Ludwig von Mises,” said Max Raskin in The Wall the rest of eternity, all but ensuring the debasement of their value Street Journal. The long-term value of Bitcoin will be determined over time.” But the ubiquitous Elon Musk has been “singing its not by speculators but by true believers who keep an eye “on praises” on Twitter, and the rapper Snoop Dogg “recently re- new applications and technological developments as well as daily branded himself, in jest, as ‘Snoop Doge.’” The result: It went up price swings.” Digital currency enables powerful real applications, in value by 1,600 percent, with only a few “spoilsports” griping “such as smart contracts, which automate and authenticate com- that it might pop and give all digital currencies a bad name.

“My decades of pride in McKinsey evaporated” as Point presentations,” tasked solely with improving The fall I read of the consulting giant’s $574 million settle- market share and profitability. Taken too far, this ment this month for its role in the opioid crisis, said combination is “poisonous.” McKinsey advised the of the house Tom Peters. The McKinsey I served, from 1974 to OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma to offer rebates to 1981, was focused on strategy, and not enough on pharmacies based on the number of people who died of McKinsey people, but it was an honorable institution. I don’t or became addicted to painkillers. “One presentation Tom Peters want to sound “holier than thou.” I have “known calculated that if Purdue paid $14,810 per ‘event,’ Financial Times and worked with two people who did time in federal and 2,484 customers of the CVS pharmacy chain prison. Both were from McKinsey”: Enron’s Jeff overdosed or became addicted in 2019, Purdue would Skilling and Rajat Gupta, who served time for insider pay CVS $36.8 million that year.” That’s an extreme trading. But the problems at my old employer are abandonment of moral responsibility. “Disregard for now clearly deep-seated. McKinsey is “loaded with higher societal purposes is nothing new, but for me, high-IQ MBAs addicted to spreadsheets and Power- the McKinsey- Purdue affair represents a new low.”

How did online shopping get so competitive? asked for accounts to purchase multiple pairs of shoes” The bots are Casey Taylor. Early in the pandemic, the most popu- faster than humanly possible. New sites, such as lar toy for parents with young kids was the Nugget StockX, also made reselling them easier. Now these winning the couch, which has foam blocks that can be formed computer-aided buyers have started expanding “into into “fort-like designs.” Unfortunately, each new other categories with manufactured scarcity and cult shopping war batch sold out within minutes, forcing parents to pay followings,” be it the PlayStation 5 or foam blocks. Casey Taylor twice the retail price on aftermarket platforms such A September drop of Nvidia’s coveted RTX 3080 Vox.com as Facebook Marketplace to resellers who used soft- “was raided by resellers,” who snatched up the $699 ware to get first dibs. Years ago, programmers “with graphics cards and turned them around “for an aver- an affinity for rare Nikes” started to create “product- age sale of nearly $1,200 on StockX.” Retailers are monitor bots” that could automatically scan sneaker fighting back with methods such as “blacklisting IP s r

websites for coveted new product “drops.” Such bots addresses with known bot activity.” But the resellers e t u e

can fill out buying forms in milliseconds, “allowing just see each countermove “as a new challenge.” R

THE WEEK February 26, 2021 Obituaries 35

The ‘smut peddler’ who relished free-speech fights The soul singer who was the linchpin Larry Larry Flynt took delight soon Hustler Clubs across Ohio, and of the Supremes Flynt in demolishing the in 1974 Flynt converted his popular 1942–2021 boundaries of decency. four-page “Hustler” newsletter into When Mary Wilson and the Scoffing at Playboy’s a glossy, national magazine. Hustler rest of the Supremes signed idea of pornography as art, the Hustler “became a sensation in 1975” when with Motown in 1961, the magazine founder built a $400 mil- it published photos of Jacqueline record label sent the teen- lion raunch empire by printing graphic Kennedy Onassis sunbathing nude age singers to its famed in- nude close-ups and depicting women in in Greece, said The Hollywood house “charm Mary school.” every degrading pose imaginable: on a Reporter. Flynt had paid a paparazzo Wilson Etiquette leash, nailed to a cross, and, for a 1978 $18,000 for the shots; sales of the 1944–2021 coach Maxine cover, halfway through a meat grinder. issue made him a millionaire. Powell told Hustler taunted conservative religious “Arriving for a 1978 obscenity trial Wilson and bandmates Diana leaders and feminists and ran cartoons that Ross and Florence Ballard in Georgia,” Flynt was shot by a white suprema- depicted rape, botched abortions, and children in that they were “diamonds cist who objected to Hustler’s depictions of sexual poses. Flynt relished the ensuing outrage in the rough” who needed a interracial sex, said the Los Angeles Times. Left and obscenity lawsuits, once appearing in court little polish because “one day paralyzed from the waist down, Flynt bought an wearing an American-flag diaper, and another you’re going to be singing $85,000 gold-plated wheelchair. He remained before kings and queens.” time in a shirt that read “F--- this court.” His a regular in courtrooms. In his most notorious The Supremes, neighbors goal, he later explained, was simple: “I wanted to case—portrayed in the 1996 film The People vs. from Detroit’s Brewster- offend everyone on an equal-opportunity basis.” Larry Flynt—he was hit with a $45 million libel Douglass Housing Projects, Flynt was born to an “alcoholic father and a suit by televangelist Jerry Falwell after Hustler all laughed. “We were like, ‘Yeah, sure,’” recalled Wilson. teenage mother” in the “hardscrabble hollows published a parody in which the preacher remi- But seven years and a dozen of Magoffin County, Ky.,” said The Washington nisced about an outhouse rendezvous with his No. 1 singles later—i ncluding Post. At age 15, he quit school and—using a fake mother. A jury awarded Falwell $200,000, but the “Baby Love” and “Stop! birth certificate—joined the Army and then the Supreme Court threw out the damages, affirming In the Name of Love”—the Navy, where he served as a radar operator for five the right to publish “outrageous opinions” about Supremes were performing years. After being discharged in 1964, Flynt began public figures. “If the First Amendment will pro- for British royalty at a tele- buying bars in Dayton, Ohio, and opened his first tect a scumbag like me,” Flynt said, “then it will vised London gala, having strip joint, naming it the Hustler Club. There were protect all of you. Because I’m the worst.” established themselves as pop-soul superstars. Born in Greenville, Miss., and raised in Detroit, Wilson The virtuoso pianist who pioneered jazz fusion teamed up with Ballard For Chick Corea, jazz Corea—nicknamed “Cheeky” by a and Ross in high school Chick to form a girl group, said Corea was all about free- cheek-pinching aunt, a name that dom. On more than morphed into Chick—began study- The Washington Post. After 1941–2021 signing with Motown, the 90 albums recorded ing piano at age 4. After high school Supremes scored a hit with with scores of groups and collabora- he moved to New York City to study 1963’s “When the Lovelight tors, the piano virtuoso and 23-time at Columbia University and the Starts Shining Through His Grammy winner ranged joyfully Juilliard School. But Corea “quickly Eyes.” The group had its first across genres, playing free jazz, found himself lured out of the No. 1 the following year with bebop, Latin jazz, and classical con- classroom and into the clubs,” said “Where Did Our Love Go?” certos. Most notably, he was an inte- The New York Times. He gigged Fractures soon emerged, gral figure in the 1970s jazz fusion with Latin percussionists Mongo said the Associated Press. movement, both as the keyboardist Santamaría and Willie Bobo and top Ballard “became resentful of in Miles Davis’ first electric band— jazz artists including Stan Getz and Ross’ growing prominence” performing on groundbreaking albums includ- Hubert Laws. His first two albums as a leader and was replaced by Cindy ing In a Silent Way (1969) and Bitches Brew “earned rave reviews,” and in 1968 he joined Birdsong in 1967. The group (1970)—and from 1971 as the leader of the group Davis’ band, experimenting with the Fender was renamed Diana Ross and Return to Forever. With a driving, progressive Rhodes piano and other electronic keyboards. the Supremes by Motown—a rock–influenced sound and a roster that included name that held until 1970, In the decades that followed, “Corea remained a bassist Stanley Clarke and guitarist Al Di Meola, when the fiercely ambitious musical chameleon, adapting to almost any musi- Ross went solo. Replacement Return to Forever was among the most success- cal setting with ease,” said The Washington Post. members came and went, ful fusion bands of all time, filling arenas and A tireless touring artist who relished collabora- and Wilson finally disbanded cracking the Billboard Top 40 with albums such tion, “he often had three or four working groups the Supremes in 1977. She as 1976’s Romantic Warrior. “Great art is made going at a time.” He performed into his late 70s, went on to write best-selling when the artist is free to try whatever techniques autobiographies and to per- until sidelined by a rare form of cancer. “My mis- he wants and combine things any way he wants,” form solo. Wilson said she sion has always been to bring the joy of creating Corea said. “I try to live that way as best I can.” hoped fans left her shows anywhere I could,” he wrote in a final message thinking, “Wow, it wasn’t just Armando Corea grew up outside Boston in a to fans. “To have done so with all the artists that one girl in the Supremes. ) 2 (

y musical family, said the Los Angeles Times. “His I admire so dearly—this has been the richness of Maybe it was three.” t t e

G trumpet-playing dad led a Dixieland band,” and my life.” THE WEEK February 26, 2021 36 The last word What the Know Nothings didn’t know Long before QAnon and today’s GOP, a political party grew up around conspiracy theories, said Zachary Karabell in Politico.com. It turned out that wasn’t enough to hold together a national movement.

HE RISE OF QAnon beliefs in Republican Tpolitics has been treated with a degree of shock: How could a fringe internet con- spiracy theory have worked its way into the heart of a major political party? The ideas behind the QAnon movement Southern contingents, the are lurid, about pedophilia Know Nothing movement and Satan worship and a com- avoided the issue of slav- ing violent “storm,” but the ery. Instead, it directed the impact is real: Many of the passions of its supporters pro-Trump Capitol insurrec- toward laws against drink- tionists were QAnon support- ing (the Irish were seen ers, as is at least one elected as overly fond of drink; Republican in Congress. they were Catholics; they were in thrall to the pope; As tempting as it is to take the hence alcohol was evil); rise of conspiracy theories as laws against immigra- a singular mark of a partisan tion; laws in cities such as internet-fueled age, however, Chicago banning any new there’s nothing particularly The Know Nothings fed off resentment of immigrants, especially Irish Catholics. immigrants from munici- modern or unique about what is happening in a country that seemed to be changing pal jobs; laws to prevent immigrants from now. To the contrary. Conspiracy theories, around them. attaining citizenship. as they say, are as American as apple pie—as These were not marginal moves. At their are their entanglement with nativist politics. In the late 1840s, the United States was height, the Know Nothings, newly chris- Those currents have usually flowed beneath being flooded with immigrants, in this case tened the Native American Party (long the surface, but for a time in the middle from Ireland. The arrival of hundreds of before that connoted the original inhabitants of the 19th century, they broke out into thousands of poor Irish Catholics led to a of North America), controlled the state legis- the open, powering a major political rise of political groups in New York, Boston, latures and governorships of Massachusetts, movement that dominated state govern- Baltimore, and Philadelphia convinced that Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Maine, and ments, ensconced itself in the House of these immigrants could form a fifth col- California. They also held numerous seats in Representatives and became a credible force umn taking direction from the pope. Under state assemblies throughout the South, and in presidential elections. The American orders from Rome, the theory went, these they sent to Congress more than 40 House Party, popularly referred to as the “Know immigrants would undo American democ- representatives and several senators. Most Nothings,” may not have seized the White racy and steal jobs from hardworking native of them supported stringent nativist, anti- House, but its story bears an uncanny citizens whose economic prospects were immigrant legislation; all emerged from resemblance to what’s happening within hardly secure even in the best of times. conspiratorial clubs that had spread theories today’s Republican Party. Though these groups had actual names, such about possible papist aggression and plots against the sovereignty of the United States. The sudden implosion of the Know as the Order of the Star Spangled Banner, Nothings should also serve as a warning their membership at first was guarded and In the Know Nothings’ grotesque accusa- to Republicans that the forces that have secretive. Asked about their views and politi- tions about Catholic priests and nuns propelled them to the apex of American cal plans, members would reply only, “I strangling babies and holding young women politics, helping Donald Trump win the know nothing.” The nickname was born. against their will, it’s not hard to see an White House, can also tear them apart, Fringe movements need both oxygen and early version of QAnon’s core obsession leaving barely a trace. The Know Nothings fuel. The panic over an influx of Irish with imagined globalist pedophiles. In 1856, today are a barely remembered footnote Catholics was the oxygen, and the fuel was the name was shortened to the American to American history; if it continues on its provided by the breakup of one of the two Party and its leaders nominated former current path, today’s version could end up major American political parties, the Whigs, president Millard Fillmore as their candidate much the same. after 1850. The Whig Party was never for president under the slogan “Americans a coherent coalition, and when it finally Must Rule America.” UCH LIKE QANON, the Know cracked under the weight of North-South

Nothings started life as a secretive And then, almost as quickly as the Know ) 2 ( division over slavery, the Know Nothings a i

cabal convinced that the country Nothings surged, they split apart. Formed d e

suddenly emerged from the shadows to p M i k was being controlled by an even more from scattered groups sharing a sensibility i W

become a viable political force. , secretive cabal—and much like Trump-era and an animus into a loose national coali- y m a l

Republicans, their anxieties were rooted Given that there were both Northern and tion, the party was never tightly organized, A

THE WEEK February 26, 2021 The last word 37 much like the Tea Party in our time. more potent national movement. But even Northern and Southern branches were just then, he never truly managed to deliver as divided over the issue of slavery as was results, or to bend the government to his the Democratic Party in the 1850s, which loose collection of ideas; a faction with one also began to break apart into two distinct primary ethos subsumed to one primary camps. The rise of the newly founded leader could have been viable long-term only Republican Party in the Northern states if Trump had actually managed to decon- also siphoned off Know Nothing support. struct the government systems in a way that Fillmore managed to get 21 percent of the he largely failed to do. vote in the 1856 presidential election and Without that kind of success to build win Maryland (which was bitterly divided a broader base, the QAnon wing now over slavery, then legal in the state). But that threatens to push Republicans much closer was not the start of a national party; it was to the fate of the Know Nothing Party, the end of one. even though they don’t know it. Many Though the political movement collapsed, Republican voters, like Know Nothing the anti-immigrant nativism of the Know voters in the mid-1850s, have legitimate Nothings never really went away. Even grievances about economic equity and during the Civil War, when all other issues opportunity, but the party itself rests on were subsumed, the passions stirred by the deeper and more exclusionary currents of Know Nothings were never far from the conspiracy, us-versus-them anti-immigration, surface. The New York Draft Riots of 1863 and nativism. Trump remains the party’s were in part an uprising of Irish immigrants most important figurehead, even out of after years of discrimination, with African- power, but the fervent supporters who keep Americans bearing the brunt of their rage. him there aren’t mainstream voters but hard-to-control online cells and local parties. After the Civil War, a Republican-controlled Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act That doesn’t mean that all GOP voters of 1882, which banned all immigration for buy into all of that—not even close. But it 20 years. Those currents also worked their means that the party itself will struggle to way into the Populist and Progressive move- survive as an organizing force without that ments of the late 19th and early 20th centu- energy, and will be limited as a national ries, which ultimately became a prominent party because of it. That limit is the lesson strain of both parties, the Republicans under of the Know Nothings. Teddy Roosevelt and the Democrats during It’s possible that the Republicans will the Woodrow Wilson years. evolve, even though the Know Nothings HERE ARE LESSONS here for the couldn’t. It’s also possible that political Republican Party today. History movements have changed enough in the Tdoesn’t repeat itself. It does, as Mark The party recruited former President Fillmore. early 21st century that a minority party Twain is reputed to have quipped, often with a conspiratorial bent and a small rhyme, which means that its echoes reso- Even then, populist outrage could only pro- menu of adversarial issues can consolidate nate over subsequent generations in ways pel them to statehouses and to the House power in a large and messy democracy. But that can offer guidance, though never clear of Representatives. Then, as now, those are the latter isn’t likely, and it wouldn’t be a pathways. One lesson for 2021 Republicans the most fruitful avenues for grassroots and good bet for the Republican Party to think is that being purely against something and single-issue campaigns. Gaining larger blocs that it found a viable model after four years someone can take you only so far. The of support as a national movement is much of Trump. more challenging and requires organization Know Nothings needed the surge in immi- A final lesson of the Know Nothings is and coherence, and the ability to build and gration of the 1840s, and needed economic that those voters aren’t going anywhere maintain some kind of coalition. and political conditions to be perfectly even if the party begins to fall apart. Some aligned, to create an opening for a move- Conspiracy theories, which were the core may be lost to conspiracy thinking and ment whose ideas were largely unidimen- DNA of the Know Nothings, have coher- hence best not indulged; some may be sional, or at least monotonal. ence in their way, but they do best when racist (though some Democratic voters are In their policy goals, the Know Nothings they avoid the light of public scrutiny. As all those things as well). Many are simply were in part a reformist party representing a local phenomenon, Know Nothingism legitimately angry at a political class that working Americans against the elite; they thrived; as a national movement, it could has failed them, and an economy that has ended up passing a variety of laws about only go so far before it splintered, fractured, changed too quickly and too disruptively, working conditions that presaged the union and collapsed. and the vehicle they’ve chosen is a deeply and labor movements after the Civil War. That is one likely path for the Republican flawed one. The task ahead is to address But the movement was founded, and grew, Party today, if the Trumpian-conspiracy the plaints that are distinct from conspir- purely on the strength of anger and resent- wing keeps its vital place in the party. acy and nativism—and to recognize that ment. And only because of instability in Trump reached office by loudly giving voice some of the voters do know something, the political system—the collapse of the to undercurrents that the Republican Party even as their party knows nothing. Whigs and the widening divisions between had largely kept in check, and had he been Northern and Southern Democrats—was re-elected, it’s of course possible that his This article was originally published in there an opening for them in the first place. long grip on power would have led to a Politico.com. Used with permission.

THE WEEK February 26, 2021 38 The Puzzle Page

Crossword No. 588: The Way of the Bay by Matt Gaffney The Week Contest 123456 789 10111213 This week’s question: A Louisiana woman who used 14 15 16 Gorilla Glue to keep her hair in place—and soon found she couldn’t remove the stuff—blamed the company, 17 18 19 complaining that the glue’s labeling only warns against getting the product “in eyes, on skin, or on clothing.” If a movie studio were to make a drama about her ordeal, 20 21 22 23 24 what should the film be titled? 25 26 27 28 29 Last week’s contest: A ragtag band of investors tempo- rarily caused the stock price of struggling video-game 30 31 32 retailer GameStop to s kyrocket— netting a few lucky indi- viduals millions of dollars and costing some hedge funds 33 34 35 billions in losses. What could Hollywood call a movie about this short-lived stock-market rebellion? 36 37 THE WINNER: “Get Shorters” Tim Mistele, Coral Gables, Fla. 38 39 SECOND PLACE: “Mutiny on the S&P” Jesse Rifkin, Glastonbury, Conn. 40 41 42 43 44 45 THIRD PLACE: “The Hedge Clippers” 46 47 48 Bill Levine, Belmont, Mass. For runners-up and complete contest rules, please go 49 50 51 52 53 to theweek.com/contest.

54 55 56 57 58 How to enter: Submissions should be emailed to contest @theweek.com. Please include your name, address, and daytime telephone number for verification; this 59 60 61 week, please type “Gorilla case” in the subject line. Entries are due by noon, Eastern Time, Tuesday, Feb. 23. 62 63 64 Winners will appear on the Puzzle Page next issue and at theweek.com/puzzles on Friday, Feb. 26. In the case of identical or similar entries, the first ACROSS 40 Walk like a peacock 11 Having just doubled one received gets credit. 1 Old MacDonald, e.g. 41 New cow 12 Record producer’s 7 Cleopatra’s killer 42 Rejuvenating breaks exclamation WThe winner gets a one-year 10 It’s flipped before a 46 The Tampa Bay Rays’ 13 Made after expenses subscription to The Week. football game stadium is named 18 Horizontal punctuation 14 Mountaineering tool for this producer of 23 Like newborn babies 15 Princess’ problem orange juice 26 Went to town on 16 Chips before cards 48 Concur 28 Empire from 1299 Sudoku 17 Tampa Bay was for 49 Rower’s need to 1922 centuries a pirates’ 50 Quarterback Newton 29 Time for a soiree Fill in all the haven, hence this 51 2028 Summer 31 One of the Jackson 5 boxes so that name of its Super Olympics host nat. 34 Interesting and each row, column, Bowl champion 53 Gates’ portal unfamiliar and outlined NFL team 54 Collins or Ivey 35 Left-hand letters on a square includes 19 Attention-getting hiss 56 The diet of indigenous keyboard all the numbers from 1 through 9. 20 Suffix for fail or press Tampa Bay–area 36 Greek group

21 Child’s shout tribes included these 37 Dots over a German Difficulty: 22 H, in Athens creatures, still found in vowel medium 24 Snack on the bay today 38 Good Morning 25 Hits the tarmac 59 Fence feature America host 27 He won a Best 60 Do it wrong 40 Congested, as traffic Supporting Actor 61 Make a new home in 41 Phone feature Oscar for 1985’s 62 Black gemstone 43 Small bay Cocoon, which was 63 Took a chair 44 Spain’s currency filmed at and set in a 64 GM navigation system before the euro retirement community 45 Security system on Tampa Bay DOWN feature 30 ___ spumante 1 Bone whose name is 47 Docket items Find the solutions to all The Week’s puzzles online: www.theweek.com/puzzle. (sparkling wine) Latin for “clasp” 48 He shoots Alexander 31 “Buh-bye!” 2 NSX’s and Integras, in Hamilton 32 Egg-shaped e.g. 52 Sport whose 33 Believer in a 3 In the news participants wear a ©2021. All rights reserved. The Week (ISSN 1533-8304) is published weekly with an additional issue in “watchmaker” god 4 Laptop with fruit on it mawashi October, except for one week in each January, June, July, and September. 35 Fail to be 5 Semester-ending 55 ___ Luthor The Week is published by The Week Publications, Inc., 155 East 44th Street, 22nd fl., 36 Tampa Bay was hurdles (Superman’s nemesis) New York, NY 10017. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and at additional formed roughly this 6 “The Biggest Little 57 Pottery or poetry, e.g. mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send change of address to The Week, PO Box 37252, Boone, IA 50037-0252. One-year subscription rates: U.S. $150; Canada $180; many years ago when City in the World” 58 Sets on the wall all other countries $218 in prepaid U.S. funds. Publications Mail Agreement the Gulf of Mexico 7 Mimic No. 40031590, Registration No. 140467846. Return Undeliverable Canadian breached into an 8 Star often seen near Addresses to P.O. Box 503, RPO West Beaver Creek, Richmond Hill, ON L4B 4R6. S

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