21 Books to Read This Spring

02.26-03.05.2021

plus: nikki haley eyes a 2024 run

POWER A record number of GOP women in Congress, among the most conservative ever, are shaking up Washington PLAYERS FEBRUARY 26 - MARCH 05, 2021 _ VOL.176 _ NO.07

FEATURES

THAT WAS THEN Former Ambassador to the United Nations 22 34 Nikki Haley (above, at the 2020 Republican National Convention), a possible contender for the *23 nomination in 202, Zas once on the Ready to Rumble Nikki Haley’s 7rump team but has critici]ed him recently Open Field

< A record number of GOP women 7 7

( COVER CREDIT are in Congress this year. They’re The January 6 riot cleared * ʔ

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SuFRObM $1s.90c PErR WiEbEK e Rewind The Archives 1971 Newsweek reported, “At a moment when they feel more cause for pride than ever before, American Jews ﬁnd themselves in the midst of a new, troubling search for identity—as Americans and as Jews.” A Newsweek Gallup poll found that nearly half of the Jewish Americans surveyed supported diplomatic and military aid to Israel. Fast forward nearly 50 years: Gallup reported that 95 percent of U.S. Jews were sympathetic to Israel in 2019, but only 29 percent approved of President Donald Trump, despite his pro-Israel policies.

1981

“Before a joint session of Congress, Ronald Reagan laid out his blueprint for a second New Deal potentially as historic as the ɿrst,Ť according to Newsweek—a plan that included major tax cuts for business and individuals. In contrast, President Joe Biden plans to raise taxes on corporations, for a total hike of $822 billion by 2024.

1998

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Madeleine Albright said in Newsweek, ʤ

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“We want a peaceful solution, but it must I H

be a principled one that gives...full and C R A

unfettered accessŤ to investigate possible K E weapons of mass destruction. Later that E W S

year, the U.S. launched Operation Desert W E

Fox, a four-day campaign against Iraq. N

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BLAGOEVGRAD, BULGARIA Prayer Celebration Believers, on February 10, pray around a platform— covered with candles attached to jars of honey— < 7 during a ceremony marking the day of Saint 7 E * ʔ

Haralampi, Orthodox patron saint of beekeepers, at P F A ʔ the Church of the Blessed Virgin in Eastern Bulgaria. V O N I H

NIKOLAY DOYCHINOV C < O D

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TAMPA, FLORIDA NEW DELHI, INDIA NAYPYITAW, MYANMAR Super Celebration Price Protests Uprising Mike Evans and Rob Gronkowski On February 9, police round up Indian $ police vehicle ɿres water can- of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Youth Congress workers during a protest nons in an attempt to disperse ride in a boat with the Lombardi against new agricultural laws, the rise protesters during a demonstra- trophy during the Tampa Bay of unemployment and increases in the tion against the military coup on Buccaneers Super Bowl Victory prices of goods and services. Farmer or- February 8. U.S. President Joe Boat Parade on February 10. ganizations contend that new agricultural Biden later announced sanctions Tampa Bay defeated the Kansas legislation passed in September shifts against military leaders, includ- City Chiefs 31 to 9 on February 7. power to corporations from small growers. ing their business interests.

Ơ JULIO AGUILAR Ơ PRAKASH SINGH Ơ STR

8 NEWSWEEK.COM MARCH 05, 2021 CLOCKWISE FROM LEF7 JULIO A*UILARʔ*E77<; PRAKASH SIN*HʔAFPʔ*E77<; S7RʔAFPʔ*E77< N E W S W E E K . C O M 9 10 NEWSWEEK.COM MARCH 05, 2021 “And now what? What does citizenship mean now?” » P.16

POLITICS The Exhausted Americans A growing number of citizens are fed up and want an end to “toxic polarization,” says crisis negotiator Peter Coleman. They may be sufɿciently motivated to change the status Tuo.

if president joe biden wants to heal the was overrun and five people were killed,” Coleman divisions in U.S. politics, he needs to stop all says. “That is a historic event in America. The evi- this talk about “unity” and instead focus the attention dence suggests more is to come. Unless we do some- of all Americans on a common foe: toxic polarization. thing to change course, extreme forces are going to That’s the advice the Biden administration has make things worse.” gotten from psychologist Peter Coleman. In a series Although the current state of affairs is dangerous, of memos, Coleman, a mediator with experience in Coleman believes that the nation may be ripe for a conflicts as far-flung as the Middle East, Haiti and new approach—86 percent of Americans are fed up Africa, has advised the new administration that the with the “dysfunctional divisiveness” in our nation best way to repair and reverse the extremism in U.S. and are eager to overcome them, according to one politics is to focus the attention of Americans on the poll. We may have reached a tipping point, he says. virulence of their divisions and mobilize them to “Trump, COVID, racial injustice and storming the Cap- attack the problem. itol is a pretty powerful wake up call for America. I’m Coleman has come to this conclusion after travel- optimistic that enough people will say ‘enough,’ and <

7 ing the world consulting with peacemakers and pol- that will start to move us in a different direction. But 7 E

* icymakers and studying the societal conditions that we have got to take advantage of this opportunity to ʔ I A

L often precede war, as well as those that often lead do the work that’s necessary to shepherd that process.” A *

M to peace. The current tensions in the U.S., Coleman Although Washington can support this effort, A O

N argues, have their roots in the cultural and political ultimately it has to come from communities. Cole-

H shocks of the 1960s, which upset the existing order, man, director of the Morton Deutsch International * I R

P and set the stage for a new era of political partisan- Center for Cooperation and Conﬂict Resolution at O 7

; ship that began in the early 1980s and Columbia University and author of < 7 7

E has been growing ever since. the forthcoming book The Way Out, * ʔ V Today, the nation is once again BY How to Overcome Toxic Polarization, M U

H experiencing disruptive cultural and spoke with Newsweek about how the D E

R political shocks. “Our Capitol building ADAM PIORE nation can heal.

NEWSWEEK.COM 11 Periscope POLITICS

Newsweek: What do you political parties. It’s a valid point. major political or cultural shock mean by “toxic polarization”? [The scholar] Jonathan Haidt [focuses that’s dramatically destabilizing— Political polarization can be a on] differences in moral values—his an assassination attempt, or a coup healthy phenomenon and a neces- research has found that liberals and attempt, or the end of the Cold War. sary phenomenon, particularly in a conservatives differ on what they pri- two-party system like ours, because oritize [conservatives favor loyalty You’ve said that the current you need to have tension and differ- and purity; liberals favor caring for polarization in the U.S. started ent points of view that come together communities and justice]. Others say around 1980. What caused it? to move us forward. Toxic polar- the internet ecosystem and the “enter- In the late ’60s and early ’70s you had ization is when you get into these tainmentization” of journalism and a lot of tumult in America—several almost psychotic camps that can’t media have split us. We’re addicted political assassinations, a culture even imagine the other side’s per- to the media, we’re addicted to enmity. war, an anti-Vietnam movement. And spective. In the ’50s and ’60s, there They are all right. It’s really how about 10 years later we settled into was actually a call for more polar- these things align and start to cre- these divisive patterns. ization in politics because we were ate dynamics that become very Somewhere between 75 percent N A M

sort of too homogenous, the parties change-resistant. It’s akin to a vicious and 90 percent of these long-term E L O C overlapping so much. But then in the cycle—a complicated set of problems problems, when they end, when R E 7

’70s, we started to see this movement that feed each other in unpredictable they deescalate, when they change— E P

away, with a big turning point com- ways. Just bringing people together they’ve also followed some kind of O

< S ing in 1980s. to talk can only have a limited impact major political shock. The combina- E 7 R U

because so many other elements are tion of COVID-19 and Trump consti- O C

;

ripping us apart. tute a major political shock to our < How do you measure it? 7 7 E

In Washington, you can ask, “Does system. It’s a political shock on ste- * ʔ * R

Congress cross the aisle and support What lessons can we draw roids. Sometimes these things destabi- E B M people on the other side, or do they from other places that have lize us enough that they provide fertile O O L B just really sort of start to stonewall?” experienced toxic polarization? ground for really changing directions, ʔ S E M

That’s one measure that they’ve Scholars who have looked at 200 and for bringing the country together. I 7

K been able to track since 1869, and years of data—on how states inter- That doesn’t mean it will happen, but R O <

that shows a clear upward trajec- act, trade and [ﬁght] wars [etc.]—ﬁnd it does mean the time may be right for W E N

tory, beginning about 1980. There’s that something like 95 percent of something like that to happen. E H 7 ʔ

also evidence about attitudes on the longer-term destructive relation- When a complex system is highly S D L the ground, about citizens and their ships that states get into are preceded destabilized, you see changes that lead O N < E

take on the other side. Trump was approximately 10 years by some to other changes that lead to other R

I N not the cause, he was in some ways changes, and across some threshold A F E 7 S the effect. He certainly exacerbated you see a major change. That’s what ; < 7 it. He’ll go away in some capacity, at we’ve seen in political polarization 7 E * ʔ S least as President, but the underlying in this country. Right now, we have I B R dynamics will remain. a unique opportunity to affect real O C ʔ

“Trump, COVID, racial S I

change because our government and B R O

What are those dynamics? injustice and storming our population has been increas- C ʔ E E

If you have a race-baiting presi- ingly moving towards war since the M

the Capitol is a pretty A N dent, that definitely triggers a lot mid-1970s. C M

powerful wake up call for < of trauma and a sense of injustice. L L A W

[Senator] Ben Sasse says we’re in America. I’m optimistic What can the Biden Administration P O 7 an epidemic of loneliness and dis- do to bring us together?

that enough people will M O

enfranchisement because we don’t Here’s my frank assessment. I don’t R F

say ‘enough,’ and that E S believe in the church and communi- think a presidential administration I W K

ties and our families are fractured, so will start to move us in a is going to be able to manage this, C O L we look for tribal belonging in our diɼerent direction.” because they’re in the middle of the C

12 NEWSWEEK.COM MARCH 05, 2021 Biden needs to genuinely listen to communities. But what it really is MAD AS HELL going to take is a social movement, Although the current and the infrastructure for that social state of affairs is dangerous, the nation movement is already there. may be ripe for a new approach. Clockwise from top: A protest What do you mean by near the Reʀecting existing infrastructure? Pool, Washington, At Columbia, we’ve been gathering D.C. ; President Joe the names of bridge-building orga- Biden; Peter Coleman. nizations. In America, most are community-based. They’re not like the professional organizations that work overseas. They mostly spring out of community tensions, maybe a local issue that divided a community in a church or local government and then if they’re effective they last. There are thousands of those groups across the country. In addition, there are groups in journalism, and in politics, and in media, and elsewhere that are actively working to try to bridge divides. You have these instances of “positive devi- ance.” These are people effectively staying in communication and building bridges in places where most people can’t because we can’t stand each other or tolerate each other. Gabriela Blum at Harvard stud- ied Kashmir and the Israel-Palestine conflict and other long-term protracted conflict zones. She finds that conflict. They can certainly not exac- things we’ve learned from peacebuild- groups and individuals are somehow erbate it and get out of the way. They ing is you don’t go into a war zone effectively managing, even under the can offer constructive solutions to real and tell people to reconcile. Instead, most difficult circumstances, to stay problems like COVID and joblessness you talk about toxic polarization as in communication with the other and racial injustice that can start to a pathology in our communities, our side and to build bridges. They’re reduce the resonance and grievances homes, and the impact it has on us sometimes surprising groups, like of many of the communities and take personally, our children’s health and fishermen in Mozambique, who the heat out of a lot of the current ten- our community’s health. would fish and be able to go across sions. But this really needs to be part The framing is critical. [The Biden enemy lines, because people needed of a social movement. administration] should say, ‘we need their food. They were bringing nour- to address this pathology of toxic ishment to the combatants, but they What kind of “constructive polarization like we’re going after were also a source of connection solutions” might Biden offer? COVID, because it’s a first order prob- and information that helped peo- The principal thing I would recom- lem. If we can’t come together in our ple begin to understand each other. mend that Biden do is not talk about problem solving, we can’t tackle these These are what I call the community unity and healing yet. One of the other problems.’ immune systems.

NEWSWEEK.COM 13 Periscope POLITICS

SIMMER DOWN Constructive solutions could serve to ease current political tensions. Left: An argument at a pro- police demonstration in California in June.

And that’s the key. These kinds of divisions don’t have to be toxic. It’s a profound metaphor about the power of these community-based structures. Bridge-building groups have net- works within communities and the capacity to ultimately affect broader levels of change. The Biden administration can help us—at the community level, at the state level and at the regional level— to understand where the resources are. I’ve been recommending a con- Are there any examples of vening of groups to map the ecology effective efforts of this sort in Research on protracted in communities, in states and then in the United States? conʀict tells us that regions of the country, where we start In 1994, a man named John Salvi people need to be to realize who’s there. drove to Boston and opened ﬁre on two women’s health clinics and ended suɽciently miserable Are Americans ready up killing three women and injuring with the status quo. for this kind of change? many others. He was a pro-life zealot. Research on ending protracted con- This was a time in Boston when rhet- flict tells us that people need to be oric and vitriol around abortion was “Talking With the Enemy.” They all sufﬁciently miserable with the status at a fever pitch. Boston in particular agreed to basically drop the rhetoric quo. The accumulation of emotional has a long history of pro-life and and the vitriol and speak as honestly exhaustion that is everywhere, includ- pro-choice activism that dates back as possible about what these issues ing my hometown of Dubuque, Iowa, decades. Then this event happened meant to them. Slowly over time, [means that] people are ripe for somewhere Salvi came in and shot these they developed such respect for one thing else. But they need to understand women. It was a destabilizing rupture. another that they really developed what that something else is. They have The mayor and the governor called for these close emotional bonds, but to have an alternative where they could talks and the archdiocese called for they also became more polarized save face and move forward. de-escalation. But a group called The on the issue. The more they spoke A report by More in Common, Public Conversations Project, which personally and honestly about what an international group that studies had worked in abortion, asked three it meant to the other, and the more polarization, has found that people pro-life and three pro-choice leaders their relationships across the divide are tired of the dysfunction. They see in the community to come together became important to them, the more a growing middle majority of what we for a short period of time in dialogue. difficult it was. But they learned to would call “exhausted Americans.” In They agreed to meet four times. It was work together to avoid violence in the 2016, after Trump’s victory, two-thirds <

difﬁcult, but it was worthwhile. They community. They learned to ﬁnd com- of Americans were exhausted, fed up 7 7 E extended it and ultimately engaged in mon ground for young mothers and and wanted a way out. After the 2018 * ʔ P F secret dialogues for almost six years. funding work for young mothers. The election that had grown to 86 percent. A ʔ S In 2001, these six women came dynamic between them changed pro- A lot of people are miserable, and E M O * out together and they co-authored foundly, even though their attitudes that’s a good thing. They may be moti- U P an article in The Boston Globe called on the issue became more polarized. vated to do something else. A

14 NEWSWEEK.COM MARCH 05, 2021

Periscope

damage represented something much worse than the routine political corruption we’d all pretty much come to expect. A civilization has an immune system just as the body does, and every citizen is an immune cell. Citizens rushed en masse to the wound that was represented by policies of the Trump administration. He got worse and worse at damaging our country; people got better and better at protecting it. In the end, the people of the United States kept a would-be dictator from mortally wounding our democracy. And now what? What does citizenship mean now? In keeping with President Joe Biden’s exhortation that we should “build back better,” millions are ask- ing themselves what this new chapter in our history should mean for their own involvement in politics. Do we just go back to our lives as we lived them before—barely casting a glance at what politicians are up to on any given day—or have OPINION we not learned that the political distractedness of far too many is part of what led to the problem to Building Back Better begin with? Nothing will ever be the same, Repairing the damage of the Trump years gives America a post-Trump. No one would have chance to redeɿne what being a citizen should mean guessed our democracy was so vulnerable; no one would have guessed one man could do so much damage in response to a gash on of “the resistance.” in such a short period of time; and the body, white blood cells People who were already involved no one would have guessed that so rush to the site of the wound. They in politics, as well as many who were many of America’s shadows would work vigorously, the body’s immune not that particularly interested at be up for review in such a concen- system alert to threat and activated any time before, became acutely trated way. Many of the things that to protect bodily systems from fur- aware that damage that could the former president so grotesquely ther harm. become irreparable brought to the surface were dynam- So it was that in response to the was being done to our ics that had been lurking for years. Trump administration’s authoritar- democracy. There was Trump did not just hurt us; he BY ian tendencies, made clear from the a vast realization—on showed us to ourselves. earliest days of his presidency, mil- the left and also on MARIANNE WILLIAMSON And now, an entirely new set of lions of Americans became members the right—that this @marwilliamson questions confronts us. How in fact

16 NEWSWEEK.COM MARCH 05, 2021 do we build back better? What do and we the people. We’ve upped the could. And this is similarly our we do to repair the damage that has game radically on the kind of per- chance, an opening that many of us been done, not just over the past son we’ve chosen to be our leader. have always wanted but could never four years, but some of it over the It’s time to up our game as well on make happen. A chance to do more past 40, and some of it ever since the kind of citizens we choose to be. than repudiate systems of injus- our founding? Citizenship should become an tice: A chance to design, articulate The country will never go back aspect of what all of us consider a and bring about changes that will to what it used to be; millions are meaningful and well-lived life. From actually put America on a better aware now of things that many of us attending city council meetings to path forward. From healthier food were not as acutely aware of before. reading our local newspapers, from and agriculture, to a more humane We’re aware of the perils of denial becoming active in civic affairs to policing and criminal justice sys- regarding institutionalized forms of considering running for political tem, to racial equity and amends, to injustice; we’re aware of the dangers ofﬁce ourselves, nothing less than a more enlightened educational sys- of distraction as too many of our a new era of citizen involvement tem and care for America’s children, citizens farmed out the responsi- will be an adequate transformation to more conscious business and bilities of governance to a too often of the resistance movement into its environmental protection, to just corrupted political class; and we’re next best thing. economics and proactively waging aware of the hypocrisy of our gov- The passions that drove us to peace, we have the chance now to ernment in acting as though they’re resist the authoritarianism of Don- take advantage of this moment, to protectors of our common good, ald Trump should not dissolve; they open a new window, to insist that when as often as not they’ve been should be transmuted into that the moral and aspirational needs selling the collective good down the which is called for now. To each of of humanity take precedence river for the past 40 years. us that will look different, but to over the outdated dictates of a We’ve changed. We’re different all of us it will represent not only soulless economics. now, as individuals and as a country, the active repair and rebuilding of Many of us are exhausted by the and that is not entirely a bad thing. our country but also some equally Trump years, but this isn’t a time to A year of COVID confinement, in important changes inside ourselves. go back to sleep. The rest we seek will addition to the last four years of I knew a couple whose house was come not from sleeping but from Trump chaos, has affected us in ways destroyed by an earthquake many waking. We need to be awake enough that aren’t quite obvious yet. But no years ago, a devastating event that to integrate fully the lessons we’ve person and no country can experi- occurred fortunately while they learned, as energized as we once ence the compounded traumas of were out of town. When I told my were to ward off an enemy, to create this past chapter of our history and friend how sorry I was, she said that something new and better for all the come out on the other side of it the in the end it was a good thing, that things that we have been through. same people we were before. in rebuilding the house they were In the words of Jean Paul Sartre, That is why “build back better” making some changes they had “These are not beautiful times, but must be more than a slogan; it must always wanted to make but never they are our times.” These are our be an intention now built into the times now, and we still have the sinews of who we are. option to make them beautiful. A mature, rational, responsible person now wields the power of the Ơ Marianne Williamson is a best-sell- presidency, and the value of that ing author, political activist and spir- cannot be overstated. We will agree Many of us are itual thought leader. She is founder of with him on some days and disagree Project Angel Food and co-founder of on others, but every day we should exhausted by the the Peace Alliance. She is the author give thanks for the fact that in Amer- Trump years, but of 13 books, among them Healing ica we are free to do that. A repre- the Soul of America and A Politics sentative democracy is a constant this isn’t a time to of Love. The views expressed in this conversation between our leaders go back to sleep. article are the writer’s own.

Illustration by ALEX FINE NEWSWEEK.COM 17 Periscope

MISINFORMATION MONITOR Europe’s Conspiracy Theory Echo Chamber Several publishers and bloggers on the continent have repeated known falsehoods about both the election and the January 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol

following the violent XRVision, however, quickly said this storming of the U.S. Capitol in was untrue, and the Washington January—two weeks before the inau- Times’s story now features a promi- guration of President Joe Biden—mis- nent correction. The German Epoch information about what happened Times also published the Washington during the riots found a home over- Times’s correction and issued an apol- seas. Several European sites that had ogy. However, the site only issued the recently delved into promoting the correction after its article had already U.S.-centric QAnon conspiracy the- reached close to 900,000 users on ory and falsehoods about the 2020 Facebook and Twitter, according to U.S. election have now turned to CrowdTangle data. the Capitol riots, claiming—as have British conspiracy theorist David right-wing commentators, misinfor- Icke—a former soccer player known mation publishers and for his claim that some politicians in the shape-shifting aliens

U.S—that it was actually BY control the world—also the left who caused the republished the Wash- violence. Many of those VIRGINIA ington Times story yet has same sites continued to PADOVESE not issued a correction. push falsehoods about DataBaseItalia.it, an the U.S. election until right before Italian site rated Red (or generally President Biden was sworn in or even unreliable) by NewsGuard, regularly violence was committed by members during the inauguration. shares QAnon conspiracy theories of antifa posing as Trump supporters. Claims that antifa, a coalition of and claimed that, “It was Antifa’s ter- “It was actually antifa militias that left-wing activists, was responsible for rorists and not Trump’s supporters inﬁltrated the demonstration, and the Capitol riots have proven popular who rushed to the Capitol, broke in, proof is starting to accumulate,” the on European misinformation sites and tried to incite a riot.” Another site reported. and social media accounts, despite Red-rated site, MaurizioBlondet.it, Also in France, some unreliable the initial source for these claims later posted videos of the riots, comment- sites and commentators saw in these issuing a major correction to its story. ing: “Raid at the Capitol of Antifa events the beginnings of a so-called The German version of The Epoch wreckers who pretend to be ‘patriots.’ “U.S. Spring” —like the Arab Spring— Times, a right-wing pro-Trump news- Not very convincing.” and warned that a violent popular rev- paper, republished a Washington The day after the Capitol riots, far- olution might also happen in Europe. Times article claiming that a facial right French site RiposteLaique.com On January 7, Breizh-Info.com, a recognition ﬁrm, XRVision, detected claimed that the demonstration far-right site covering France’s Brit- antifa members at the Capitol. was “good natured,” yet also that the tany region, wrote: “Are we moving

18 NEWSWEEK.COM MARCH 05, 2021 ANTIFA IN DISGUISE? European misinformation sites have trafɿcked in the untruth that the invasion of the Capitol was sparked by leftist provocateurs pretending to be Trump supporters.

misinformation about the election having been stolen from Donald Trump continued spreading in Europe. On the day of the inauguration, the German Epoch Times published an article claiming that a “review of the elections [is] still far from complete” and that there had been “influence on the election from Italy.” Of course, the integrity of the U.S. election had already been affirmed by the governors and secretaries of state of all 50 U.S. states, as well as federal officials and the Electoral College. French QAnon website QActus.fr wrote that the inauguration was just an “illusion,” continuing to assert that Trump would stay in power as the heroic figure at the heart of the QAnon conspiracy theory. Real-life violence fed by online misinformation could well happen in Europe, too. Some well-known French misinformation websites are already warning about it. In Germany, observers of the Capitol riots were reminded of the events in Berlin in August 2020, when hundreds of people protesting the towards a US Spring?...Is it a fore- German government’s COVID-19 taste of what’s coming to Europe a measures attempted to storm the few years from now?” Reichstag. (Police stopped them Three days later, the site Dreuz.info from entering.) Prior to the pro-

< In the days and hours

7 asked if the invasion of the Capitol test, right-wing activists had used 7 E *

ʔ could be the ﬁrst act of a violent revo- leading up to Joe Biden’s messaging apps and social media to S E

M lution in the making. “What happens spread the falsehood that American I inauguration, and even 7

S when the democratic process does and Russian soldiers were in Berlin E L

E right after he was sworn

* not work anymore?...The impossibil- to help overthrow the German gov- N A ity to express oneself through voting in, misinformation about ernment. During the protest, the S O L

ʔ necessarily leads to civil war, and the claim emerged that even then-Pres- A the election having been R

U Capital storming is the ﬁrst act.” ident Trump himself was in town. M I

H stolen from Donald

S In the days and hours leading I N

7 up to Joe Biden’s inauguration, and Trump continued Ơ Virginia Padovese is NewsGuard N E K even right after he was sworn in, spreading in Europe. Managing Editor for Europe.

NEWSWEEK.COM 19 Periscope

NEWSMAKERS Talking Points

“He’s decompressing. “I’M HERE LIVE. He’s enjoying some I’M NOT A CAT.” of the time he hasn’t —Lawyer Rod Ponton who had in the past. And was accidentally using a cat ɿlter on a =oom hearing he’s thinking about impeachment.” SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM ON “It troubles and FORMER PRESIDENT TRUMP saddens me that in 2021 professionals “I THINK THAT CANCEL STILL have to CULTURE, A LOT OF THAT IS JUST A choose between FABRICATION. IT’S NOT REALLY REAL.” whistleblowing —don cheadle in the workplace <

“She was a trailblazer, 7 7 E

and job security.” * a diva and will ʔ A K —ǞǠǰǮǢǯǯ ǠǥǞǮǦǯǪǞ ǠǞǮǝǢǫǰǢǮ be deeply missed.” D O *

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—motown founder berry J

ǟǵ ǡǦǮǢǠǰǬǮ ǧǬǯǯ ǳǥǢǡǬǫ gordy on the death of mary O 7

wilson of the supremes O F

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Don Cheadle S * N I V I L

D I V A D

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“Going through the ﬁve phases “I’VE MADE IT A POINT TO STAY 7 E *

of grief, we need to come to ʔ

AWAY FROM POLITICS, BECAUSE R

the acceptance phase that our U O

EVERY FOUR YEARS IT CHANGES. 7

lives are not going to be the N O

YOU GET USED TO HATING ONE GUY, C same. I don’t think the world ʔ S N

has really absorbed the fact that THEN ANOTHER ONE COMES IN, THEN I B B

these are long-term changes.” YOU GET USED TO HATIN’ HIM. “ O R

—thomas frieden, former director A of the u.s. centers for disease R —Country singer Willie Nelson A C

control and prevention 7 F E L

M O R F

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22 NEWSWEEK.COM MARCH 05, 2021 O ervat ive Ras a group tUhan in the paMst and READY TO BPUSH hard foLr what thEey believe in

by steve friess

NEWSWEEK.COM 23 Y T

, just one day battered GOP, which lost not just the presidency but T E

In early February G ʔ

after the House banished Georgia Representative also effective control of the Senate with the surpris- O L G A

Marjorie Taylor Greene from congressional coming win of two Democratic ﬁrst-timers in Georgia’s I C

mittees for incendiary behavior and two days after runoff races in January. But anyone expecting these E A H

GOP lawmakers decided by secret ballot to allow Wy- female lawmakers to act as a tempering force with- C I M

;

oming Representative Liz Cheney to retain her lead- in the party—Republican women as a group his- Y T T ership position despite her vote to impeach Donald torically have been more moderate than their male E G ʔ P

Trump, a third drama involving Republican women counterparts and more open to negotiating with col- First-time GOP House F A ʔ

members (above, posing B was unfolding in upstate New York. In a case over leagues across the aisle—is likely in for a big surprise. E O

on the Capitol steps) L

disputed ballots in the state’s 22nd congressional This class of GOP congresswomen looks to be the L

include the the largest U A S district, a judge ruled in favor of Republican Claudia most conservative in history, with a larger-than-usu- number of women ever. ; Y

A month into her tenure, T

Tenney, handing her victory over Democrat Anthony al number whose views are sharply to the right and T Marjorie Taylor Greene E G Brandisi by a mere 109 votes—thereby settling the who are apparently in no mood for bipartisanship. ʔ S

of Georgia (near right) I D last undecided race of the 2020 election. That deci- “This cycle, we’ve elected some Republican wom- was removed from her O P

committee assignments O sion makes Tenney the 38th Republican woman to en who are quite strident in their positions—more T A K

for incendiary behavior. serve in Congress this year, smashing the previous strident than we’ve ever seen before,” says former S

Wyoming’s Liz Cheney O S A

record of 30 set in 2006 and more than doubling New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, a Re- (far left) faced backlash T

T the number of female GOP representatives in 2018. publican and former Cabinet ofﬁcial in the George from lawmakers and F E L

Trump supporters for

The rise of Republican women has been the one W. Bush administration. “They didn’t come to Wash- M

voting to impeach former O R bright spot in the 2020 election for an otherwise ington to compromise.” president Donald Trump. F

24 NEWSWEEK.COM MARCH 05, 2021 POLITICS

To be sure, not every newly-elected Republican Washington to mix it up. And early signs suggest it’s woman is a violence-espousing conspiracy theorist not just the hard-liners among them who will toe like Greene, whose antics have included heckling a the party line. Only one of the 19 newbies, Repre- Parkland school shooting survivor and seeming to sentative Young Kim of California, has joined the endorse the execution of House Speaker Nancy Pelo- Problem Solvers Caucus, a group of 54 Republicans si. Nor are they a Glock-toting gun-rights activist like and Democrats focused on writing and supporting Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert or an out- bipartisan legislation. (Three first-term Republican spoken firebrand like Illinois Representative Mary men are members.) By contrast, 11 voted against cer- Miller, who took flack for saying at the pro-Trump tifying President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victo- rally before the Capitol riot, “Hitler was right about ry, all of them voted against a second impeachment one thing.” A few of the new GOP congresswomen of former President Donald Trump and just three have even expressed willingness to work with Dem- voted to strip Greene of her committee assignments. ocrats, especially representatives like Tenney who What’s more, only seven of the new women signed narrowly flipped seats from blue to red. For them, on to an Inauguration Day letter from 17 freshmen seeking common ground is political common sense. Republicans to Biden calling for a fresh start. All Still, most of the record 19 first-term GOP women seven signatories won their elections by fewer than in the House won big, often by selling themselves as five percentage points; Representative Mariannette unbending, Trump-style conservatives heading to Miller-Meeks of Iowa won by a scant six votes. “After

“We’ve elected some REPUBLICAN WOMEN who are more strident than we’ve ever seen before. They didn’t come to Washington to COMPROMISE.”

NEWSWEEK.COM 25 POLITICS

two impeachments, lengthy inter-branch investiga- the Value in Electing Women Political Action Com- tions, and, most recently, the horrific attack on our mittee, or VIEW PAC, formed in 1997 to help elect nation’s capital, it is clear that the partisan divide Republican women to Congress. There was also a between Democrats and Republicans does not serve tinge of admiration for how outside Democratic a single American,” the letter said. “We firmly believe groups had zeroed in on rising female politicians that what unites us as Americans is far greater than with prior office-holding experience and nurtured anything that may ever divide us.” them with early money that helped establish them It’s too soon to draw conclusions, particularly giv- as contenders. VIEW PAC subsequently forked out en what a tumultuous first month the congressional $640,000 to female Republican candidates in 2020 newcomers have faced, says former Ambassador to and raised another $1.2 million for their campaigns. Austria Swanee Hunt, founder of the Women and Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, who in Public Policy Program at Harvard’s Kennedy School the 2018 cycle headed up candidate recruitment for of Government. “There could hardly be a worse time the National Republican Congressional Committee, to forge cohesion, but the new women in Congress was particularly frustrated that just one of more are talking among themselves, and that’s where it than 100 female candidates she persuaded to run all starts,” says Hunt. “There will be dramatic twists in 2018 won. Her solution—that NRCC needed to WOMEN IN THE HOUSE and bumps in the road. But as bad as this moment is, support more women in their primaries—was met The ɿrst-timers: Lisa McClain of Michigan (top) with more GOP women in Congress I do think we’ll with resistance from male Republican leaders who sank 1 million into her see more women bonding across the aisle.” dismissed it as a form of “identity politics.” After a campaign to help win her An early test of the potential for compromise is public spat with then-NRCC Chair Tom Emmer, Ste- House seat; Colorado gun activist Lauren Boebert coming soon as Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID relief fanik vacated her NRCC post to relaunch her Elevate (middle) vowed to bring package begins to wend its way through Congress. PAC with a narrowed focus of financially support- her Glock to work. Initial signs are that the GOP women won’t break ing and personally mentoring female candidates New York’s Elise Stefanik (below) was key in the party mold: As of mid-February, no Republican at the earliest stages of their races. E-PAC doled out recruiting more GOP woman in Congress had indicated support. Given $415,000 to 2020 Congressional campaigns, up women to run in . that everyone seems to agree, at least in theory, that more needs to be done to stabilize the pandemic-battered economy, this does not bode well for other ar-

eas of policy and hopes of a new bipartisanship. Y T T E G ʔ L From the Ashes of Defeat L A C

the seeds of the 2020 surge in gop women in L L O R

Congress were planted in the weeks after the 2018 ʝ 4 C mid-term election, which saw Democratic women ʔ K R A

balloon their numbers in the House from 62 to a L C

record 89. At the same time, the ranks of Repub- L I B

; lican women shriveled from 23 to 13. Democrats ʥ 2 ʤ

took back control of the House on the strength of Y T T E

an especially motivated crop of female candidates G ʔ L L

offended by the ﬁrst two years of the Trump White A C

House and shocked that Hillary Clinton had failed L O R in 2016 to become the ﬁrst woman elected presi- ʝ 4 C ʔ

dent. Well-funded and well-organized Democratic S M A women booted Republicans out of seats in such un- I L L I

likely places as South Carolina and Oklahoma as W

M well as in more conservative corners of California, O T

New Mexico and New York. P O T

The showing by GOP women was deeply disap- M O R pointing, says Julie Conway, executive director of F

26 NEWSWEEK.COM “There could hardly be a WORSE TIME to forge cohesion, but the new women in Congress are talking AMONG THEMSELVES, and that’s where it all starts.”

nor Stefanik’s PAC supported the QAnon-promoting Greene, who triumphed anyway as the lone woman in a crowded primary ﬁeld to replace retiring Repre- sentative Tom Graves in a ruby-red northern Geor- gia district. “We supported and worked with every single one of the Republican women who won with the exception of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert,” Conway says. In the case of Greene, Conway adds, “not only did we not endorse her, I actively worked against her. It was the ﬁrst time I’d worked against Republican women because I knew what’s happening now was going to happen. The Democrats were going to make them our AOCs,” referring to Alexandria Ocasio-Cor- tez, the outspoken New York progressive.

Driving in the Right Lane greene and boebert are outliers in their from $118,000 in 2018. stridency and tendency toward harsh rhetoric as The parallel efforts by E-PAC and VIEW PAC bore well as in some of their more far-right views. But impressive fruit last November. Eleven of the 14 overall, the slate of new Republican women in the Republicans who won back seats that had flipped House is a mostly conservative bloc that appears, to Democrats two years earlier were women, and a thus far, to be in near lockstep with male leaders record seven women won GOP primaries in open who push adherence to the party line and, for that seats in heavily Republican districts. That “just nev- matter, with most of the GOP women already in er happens,” Conway says, because usually there’s a Congress. Only two Republican women in the long line of male politicians who have impatient- House supported the second Trump impeachment: ly waited for an incumbent to retire. Two of those Wyoming’s Liz Cheney, the No. 3-ranked Republi- winners, Representatives Diane Harshbarger of Ten- can House leader and the highest-ranking GOP nessee and Lisa McClain of Michigan, each plunged woman in Congress, who offered a withering con- more than $1 million of their own money into their demnation of the ex-president’s culpability in incit- campaigns in order to best a crowded field of men; ing the Capitol riot, and Representative Jaime Her- Conway says candidates spending big out of their rera Beutler of Washington. Among the first-timers, own pockets for House races was historically largely only Young Kim, and Representatives Maria Salazar the province of men. of Florida and Nicole Malliotakis of New York vot- Conway worried during the campaign about ed to remove Greene from committees. some of the more extreme candidates; neither she “This [behavior] should not be tolerated by either

NEWSWEEK.COM 27 POLITICS

party,” says Kim, explaining her vote. “Representa- and the ban on travel from several Muslim-majority tive Greene’s comments and actions, from spreading nations. Then, in 2019, her national profile soared anti-Semitic conspiracy theories to questioning 9/11 as one of the most vocal defenders of Trump as the and school shootings, are wrong in any context. I House moved to impeach him for his efforts to cannot in good conscience support this rhetoric.” strong arm Ukraine’s president into digging up dirt Comparing the 30 GOP women now in the House on the family of Joe Biden, his likely opponent in to the 25 Republican women serving in the 109th the 2020 election. The president rewarded Stefanik Congress of 2005-07, the previous record, shows for her advocacy by hopping on Fox News to lavish how much more conservative the group has be- praise: “This young woman from upstate New York, come. Most of the GOP female representatives of the she has become a star.” 109th were, predictably, anti-abortion, opposed to All of this was instructive to ambitious 2020 LGBTQ rights and affirmative action and took little candidates, says Liz Mair, a longtime Republican interest in protecting the environment. But about strategist who worked with Stefanik on Minneso- half of them received praise from the Federation ta Governor Tim Pawlenty’s short-lived bid for the for American Immigration Reform for votes op- 2012 GOP presidential nomination. “She really, really, posing restrictions on immigration and most voted really, really wants to be Speaker, and the reality of at least some of the time in ways that the National the Republican Party now is you’ve got her and Liz Association for the Advancement of Colored People Cheney playing two very different hands. Cheney approved of. Six of them supported some forms of clearly takes a view that you don’t get to be speaker abortion rights and gun control, for which they re- unless you do a good job and stick to your principles ceived grades lower than an “A” from the National and don’t waver and are consistent and tough. Ste- Rifle Association. One, then-Representative Nancy fanik has decided she can’t be speaker without being Johnson of Connecticut, received a 100 percent rat- super Trumpy so she’s just going to be super Trumpy.” ing from the pro-choice advocacy group NARAL, a 53 Yet Cheney too, despite her impeachment vote, percent rating from the pro-LGBTQ Human Rights is more typically a rock-ribbed, lock-step conser- Campaign and a 70 percent rating from the League vative. She has voted with House Minority Leader of Conservation Voters. (Johnson’s fate was a harbin- Kevin McCarthy 92 percent of the time—and, in ger of what moderate GOP women would face; she fact, in agreement with Trump’s positions about 93 lost her seat to a Democrat in 2006.) percent of the time, according to a FiveThirtyEight By contrast, not one of the Republican women tracker. (Stefanik, according to this measure, voted currently serving in the House supports abortion in accordance with Trump’s position about 78 per- rights and every one of them boasts an “A” rating cent of the time. Yet she has the ex-president’s favor from the NRA. On immigration, 25 of them sup- for her willingness to support his baseless election ported the hard-line anti-immigration policies of fraud claims and champion him personally.) Cheney, the Trump administration, including reductions daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, is so on asylum and the building of a border wall. (Three of the women from the 109th Congress are still in the House, and two of them—Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virgin- ia—are now senators.) “One of the things women The more conservative bent of many of the Re- bring to Congress is that we publican newcomers partly reflects Stefanik’s political sensibilities, given her hands-on efforts in re- are PROBLEM SOLVERS. cruiting them. The New Yorker provided a template It’s, ‘let’s figure out how for gaining traction and attention. She was elected in to make THINGS WORK.’” 2014 at 30 as the youngest-ever Republican woman; she had a moderate reputation, espousing a desire to work in a bipartisan fashion and opposing Trump on his coziness with Russia, his border wall efforts

28 NEWSWEEK.COM MARCH 05, 2021 conservative that she continues to oppose legalized Wyoming, Nebraska and Illinois have censured LEANING RIGHT same-sex marriage a good six years after the U.S. Su- prominent Republicans, male and female alike, who Pro-life activists, here demonstrating in front preme Court settled the matter and nearly a decade voted for the second impeachment or publicly refut- of the Supreme Court after her own sister married her wife. It is solely ed Trump’s election-fraud claims. That telegraphs a last year, were pleased that she accepted the presidential election results clear message to the new GOP women in Congress with the choice of judge Amy Coney Barrett, a and blamed Trump for inciting the January 6 riots that it behooves them not to cross party lines—or conservative and devout that turned her, temporarily, into the conservative Trump, even out of office. Says Deckman, “All of Catholic, to replace respected by Democrats. these women, regardless of their personal views, rec- the late Ruth Bader Ginsberg on the high “I think it’s notable that someone like Liz Cheney ognize how much hold Trump still has on the party.” court. Coney Barrett once is becoming the voice of reason,” says political sci- Whitman, who voted for Democrats over Trump wrote in a law school entist Melissa Deckman, an expert in gender and in both 2016 and 2020, but remains a registered Re- article that abortion Y

T is “always immoral.” T

E politics and author of Tea Party Women: Mamma publican “for now,” agrees: “There’s no longer a co- G ʔ Y

O Grizzlies, Grassroots Leaders and the Changing Face hesive Republican Party. To say ‘Republican,’ you’re C C

M of the American Right. “That doesn’t bode well for talking about Trump. It’s my way or the highway.

. A

L compromise on policy.” That’s the message that’s been given to so many.” E A

H Also discouraging for potential cross-aisle biparti- Conway, the VIEW PAC executive director, dis- C I

M sanship: In recent weeks, the state GOPs in Arizona, misses such claims, insisting several of the newly

NEWSWEEK.COM 29 elected women—she pointed to Kim, Malliotakis, They also co-sponsor more bills with members of Salazar, Tenney and Representative Ashley Hinson the opposite party as well as with members of their of Iowa, among others—promised on the campaign own gender, according to an analysis by Quorum.us, trail they’d be bipartisan and independent. The vote a public affairs analysis ﬁrm. They take more bipar- to retain Cheney in a House leadership post was tisan fact-ﬁnding trips than men, attend hearings 145-61, an overwhelming statement in support of more frequently and, according to one 2011 analy- a woman who had gone head-to-head with Trump, sis by researchers at Stanford and the University of she notes. “Had she lost, I probably would’ve packed Chicago, they bring an average of $49 million more Y

it in because that would mean that there are more back to their districts than men. T T E

lunatic congressmen than not and to stand up for Yet past performance does not predict future re- G ʔ P F

what you believe in will you get punished,” Conway sults, and the 30 GOP women in the House bear little A ʔ M

says. “That’s not what happened, though.” resemblance in ideology or public demeanor to the M A K

Yet that vote did have one important distinction: prior cohorts. Nor, for that matter, do most of the S A L

It was taken by secret ballot. It’s unclear how the eight Republican women in the Senate (Maine’s Su- O H C I

new members voted—or if that vote might have san Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski are notable N

; Y

been different in a public tally. But none disagreed exceptions). Even Justice Amy Coney Barrett, now T T E G

when, the day after she lost her committee assign- the sole female Supreme Court appointee by a GOP ʔ G R

ments, Greene declared deﬁantly about Trump: “The president, was selected, in part, for her unwavering E B M

party is his. It doesn’t belong to anybody else.” arch-conservative take on Constitutional law—a far O O L B ʔ Y E N

How the Right Was Won D O

one reason conway remains cautiously O G

optimistic that the expanded ranks of Republican E H P

women in Congress will be a force for compromise O T S I

and cross-party collaboration, even with their more R H C

conservative leanings, is because, until the past de- ; Y T T

cade, that was generally true. “When we were up to E G ʔ 25 Republican women in the House [in 2006], they A M A T met regularly with the Democratic women to see O I R

what they could work on together,” Conway recalls. A M

“Women work better with women.” P O T A ﬂood of studies back the notion that women M O R

lead more collaboratively and less confrontation- F ally than men. Women in Congress sponsor and co-sponsor more bills than men, according to a study in the American Journal of Political Science.

“All of these women, regardless of their PERSONAL VIEWS, recognize how much hold Trump still has ON THE PARTY.”

30 NEWSWEEK.COM MARCH 05, 2021 POLITICS

federal level, a candidate had to be an unwavering conservative with little tolerance for compromise. By 2018, with the ascension of Trump, a mass exodus of white college-educated women from the GOP further reduced the variety of opinion within the party. Barbara Bollier, a lifelong Republican elected to the Kansas Legislature four times, switched parties in 2018 and ran unsuccessfully as the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in 2020. Part of a wave of GOP women leaders who switched sides in Kansas in recent years that also included the now-Democratic Governor Laura Kelly, Bollier says they saw the right- wing orthodoxy tighten its grip on the party and isolate women who didn’t toe the anti-abortion line. “The entire time I ran as a Republican, the Republi- can Party did not support me,” she says. “My run for U.S. Senate as a Democrat was my first experience having a party stand behind me even though I had been a Republican my whole life. I thought it was best to try to change things from within, so I worked to do that and failed. At some point, you have to recognize when what you’re doing isn’t working.” Whitman agrees: “Why would you be a woman in the Republican Party if you were a moderate given PAST AND PRESENT cry from the first woman appointed by a Republican the way we’ve been behaving as far as women’s rights Senator John McCain president, Sandra Day O’Connor, who became the and the way we treat women and the way we support surprised observers by picking Sarah Palin epitome of centrism in rulings regarding abortion, a president who’s clearly a misogynist? We’ve been (above) as his running affirmative action and LGBTQ rights. losing those centrist women because the party hasn’t mate in 2008. Former The shift, scholars say, is the logical result of an shown overall that it’s very interested in them.” New Jersey Governor Christie Whitman (left) evolution in women’s roles in the GOP that began By 2020, then, the women who could be suc- did not vote for Trump with John McCain’s surprise pick of then-Alaska cessful in GOP primaries, particularly in red dis- in 2016 or 2020. Below: Governor Sarah Palin as his vice presidential run- tricts, were likely to be conservative Trump acolytes, Coney Barrett is sworn in. ning mate in 2008. “It’s fair to say she disrupted Deckman says. “The idea that electing more wom- expectations of what it meant to be a Republican en means more compromise, more civility, more woman running for office,” says Kelly Dittmar, direc- attempts to reach across the aisle is rooted in the tor of the Center for American Women and Politics 1990s,” the political scientist says. “You had a lot at Rutgers University. “She was interestingly trying more moderate Republican women reaching across to balance her femininity and feminine expecta- the aisle, including a lot of women who were pro- tions—‘I’m a mother, I’m feminine in how I portray choice. That clearly is not the case for Republican myself’—while, at the same time saying, ‘I’m tough women now by and large in Congress.” as nails, I’m a pit bull with lipstick, I’m a hockey Deckman adds, “Like everything else, Republican mom. I’m strong, don’t mess with me.’” women who run for office, like Republican men, Palin gained additional fame and influence as the are more polarized. One impact of the Tea Party anti-Obama Tea Party movement took off in 2010, and then Trump has been to make the party more an intra-party insurgency that saw conservatives centered toward the right. You end up with more mount primary challenges against and otherwise conservative women coming to Congress.” impede advancement of GOP elected officials seen Or, as Susan Estrich, who in 1988 became the first as too bipartisan. The result was that, in order to woman to run a major-party presidential campaign succeed in Republican politics, especially at the for Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis, puts it:

NEWSWEEK.COM 31 POLITICS

“You can’t win a Republican primary if you are a mod- Abigail Spanberger, also a Democrat, about working erate—except maybe in Massachusetts.” together on the Foreign Affairs Committee. Yet Kim may be an exception owing to the fact Glimmers of Kumbaya that she won her seat over incumbent Representa- in early february, the dispute over greene’s tive Gil Cisneros by about 4,100 votes in one of the committee assignments unleashed a marathon year’s closest House races. And Conway admits that of recriminatory floor speeches complete with for many of the new House members, compromis- threats of future partisan retribution. By the time ing with Democrats may carry risks for 2022. the House voted to strip Greene of her committee “The No. 1 target for the Democrats are going to assignments on a near-party line vote, it was hard be our 11 Republican women who just flipped seats to imagine how a group of adults so bitterly angry because the best time to get that seat back is the first with one another could ever find common ground. time they’re running for re-election,” Conway says. Yet at the same time as that spectacle played out “All of these women are conservative, but they’re in their midst, Beutler, a Republican from rural not as conservative as some people who are going Y

southwestern Washington who was elected on the to be running against them in primaries. When a T T E G

Tea Party wave in 2010, and Representative Prami- right-winger runs against one of these women and MIXED VIEWS ʔ P F

Jamie Herrera Beutler A

la Jayapal, a Democrat from Seattle who co-chairs they get a lot of Trump money behind them, not ʔ K

(above) was one of two C the Congressional Progressive Caucus, were texting only do they beat the woman, they lose the seat.” E B GOP women to vote to N

each other. Both worried that the current system re- What’s more, for every Young Kim wanting to Y

impeach Trump. Nancy B O R

Mace (right) is feuding quiring sign-ups for COVID-19 vaccinations via the keep her head down and get to know her cross- ; Y

with Democrat AOC T T

Internet was leaving out Beutler’s older constituents aisle colleagues, there’s a representative like Re- E

on Twitter. Young Kim G ʔ L

and Jayapal’s poor and racially diverse electorate, so publican Nancy Mace of South Carolina realizing (below) is the lone L A C GOP female newbie in they were teaming up—even as their parties were the power of confrontation. Mace ignited a feud L L

the House to join the O R

tearing each other apart—to get a telephone hotline with Ocasio-Cortez of New York when she accused ʝ

bipartisan Problem 4 C ʔ

set up in their state. AOC of embellishing the danger she faced during Solvers Caucus. S M A I

“One of the things women bring here to Congress L L I W is that we are problem solvers,” Beutler says. “It’s, M O T

‘let’s ﬁgure out how to make things work.’ I don’t ; Y T

know if it comes from being a mom and you just T E G ʔ

gotta get it done regardless of how you feel or that O L G A you wish circumstances were different.” I C

L It’s examples like that that encourage Kim, the E A H C ﬁrst-termer from California who joined the Problem I M

; Y

Solvers Caucus and voted against Greene. Despite T T E G

their challenging ﬁrst month of the 117th Congress, ʔ E C I

she says, the new members have nonetheless tried to V R E S connect. “It’s a very close, tight-knit freshman class,” S W

Kim says. “We regularly talk to each other, have our E N

own conversations in our own private chat rooms— N U B I

individually or as a group. We make an effort to get R T ʔ H C

to know one another. And I personally try to reach I V O

across the aisle and get to know my Democratic col- R A M

leagues too. It’s very important to me because I came E T E P

here to get things done in a bipartisan way.” Kim says P O T

she’s working with fellow California Representative M O

Katie Porter, a Democrat, on a bill to provide mon- R F

E S

ey for mental health services for youth impacted by I W K

the COVID-19 lockdowns and has had good intro- C O L

ductory conversations with Virginia Representative C

32 NEWSWEEK.COM “One thing I LIKE about working with some of these women is that in general, they don’t lead with their egos. They’re WORKHORSES.”

doing their work and are effective in a different way. It’s the personalities of these women.” Deckman also doubts that an era of comity is in the offing: “I’m not expecting this big influx of GOP women in Congress to really change much. If anything, members of the minority party often feel they have to stick together to have any leverage, so there’s even less incentive especially on the House side for people to want to work together.” Still, Beutler believes that as the drama of the riots and impeachment give way to a more normal legislative year, opportunities abound for the new women to find common ground. She views herself as a template—ProPublica shows she voted with Dem- ocratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi a surprising 46 percent of the time during the last Congress and still won re-election by a landslide—and points to topics like COVID-19 relief, sexual assault in the military and the Capitol riot for political gain. Mace discussed parental leave as areas ripe for compromise. the incident several times on Fox News and sent “One thing I like about working with some of these out fund-raising emails to capitalize on the drama. women is that in general, they don’t lead with their Ocasio-Cortez replied that such an effort shows egos,” she says. “They’re workhorses. When you’re Mace “is cut from the same Trump cloth of dis- well-prepared and you’re not shooting from the hip honesty and opportunism. Sad to see a colleague and you tend to have a little bit more of a circum- intentionally hurt other women and survivors to spect approach, I love that.” make a buck.” Uncowed, Mace mocked the Dem- Dittmar agrees that it’s too soon to know whether ocrat on Fox News the next day, saying that she’d the uptick of GOP women will alter the tempo and been “living rent-free I guess in her Twitter ac- temperature of the House. It depends, she says, on count all weekend.” “whether some of the women who were elected in Such moments bode poorly for collaboration, swing districts try to appeal to the ideological cen- but they don’t necessarily reflect what’s going on ter or will they feel like doubling down on the base behind the scenes, says Patricia Russo, executive di- because they’re electorally at risk if they don’t. If so, rector of The Campaign School at Yale University, you’re going to see less willingness to work across a non-partisan training program for female candi- party lines. We don’t have the answer to that yet.” dates. Folks like Mace “are being very forthright in their opinions and they’re getting covered dispro- Ơ Steve Friess is a newsweek contributor based in portionately to many other women who are quietly Ann Arbor, Michigan.

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E W S W S E E K . C O M 3 5 POLITICS

of South Carolina, Haley had won the support of women and college-educated voters in two statewide elections. Left unsaid— it didn’t need to be said—was that she didn’t think Trump could win those voters back, and that she could. It also went without saying that as an Indian-American woman, she would be perfect casting to run against Vice President Kamala Harris. Haley’s comments made clear how profoundly the Capitol debacle has altered the party landscape. With his Republican-record 74 million votes in 2020 and his close defeat (which his base didn’t accept, in any case), Donald Trump was the overwhelming GOP frontrunner for 2024. If the former president himself didn’t run, the leading spot would surely go to a Trump-anointed surrogate like Don Jr. or Cruz. But the violence in D.C. shriveled the Trumpists’ political power, and even an ac- quittal in the Senate impeachment trial won’t restore their hold. Many analysts had already speculated about Don Jr.’s prospects. During the 2016 campaign and ever since, Trump's eldest son had taken a high proﬁle political role in speeches, TV appearances and on social media, defending his father and eviscerating his Y T

critics. He was good on the stump, energized crowds and seemed T E G ʔ

to relish political combat. He had no political experience—he E C I V

still works as an executive vice president of his father’s compa- R E S

ny—but as his father’s 2016 win made clear, that can be a plus. S W E

ikki haley was a donald trump In the weeks since the 6th, Trump and his supporters com- N

loyalist, one of the rare high-profile forted themselves with polls that showed the former president N U B I

cabinet members to leave the White retained signiﬁcant support among GOP voters. An NBC survey R T ʔ E

House on good terms. Trump son-in- taken in late January showed 87 per cent approved of Trump’s T A T S law Jared Kushner even told Newsweek performance as president–just two points lower than his ap- E H T

last summer that she’d be welcome to proval rating among Republicans just before the election. ʔ = E

return, anytime she chose. But there But Junior’s political ambitions fell along with the Capitol D N E L

she was on the Laura Ingraham show barricades. He had been a warm-up speaker at the “Stop the E M

on Fox News in late January, offering a Steal” rally that turned deadly. Since then he has been on social Y R R E

distinctly non-Trumpian view of the 2020 election. media, defending the rally and bashing Democratic critics— G

N ; Y

“We lost a lot of women and a lot of college-educated. We want almost as if nothing important had happened. Most political T T E G

to bring them back in and expand the tent,” she said. “January 6 analysts and even some Trump loyalists can’t believe he actually ʔ N A

was a tough day, and the actions of the president since Election thinks that. “If any of [the Trumps] are thinking about a politi- M D R

Day were not his ﬁnest, and [that] troubles me greatly because cal future, then rehabilitating the ‘brand’s’ post-January 6 image E F

I’m really proud of the successes of the Trump administration, has to be a 24/7 operation,” says the former campaign adviser. E V E T

whether it was foreign policy or domestic policy. [But] the ac- S

; Y

tions of the president, post election day, were not great.” T

Haley to the Rescue? T E G

Haley’s statement rocked the GOP and, not coincidentally, ar- for those republicans who believe the party should simply ʔ P F A

ticulated a rationale for her own 2024 run, assuming she wants move on from the Trumps—just as it did from the Bushes after ʔ Y R E

one. She was careful to praise Trump’s achievements, but she George W.’s disastrous eight years in the White House—there I L U

unmistakably distanced herself from her former boss in a way stands Nikki Haley. She’s an obvious choice for a party that O D

R E

that other potential 2024 candidates—Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, needs to expand beyond non-college-educated white men. She’s I V I Rand Paul—have not. In Trump-world in Mar-a-Lago, says a an Indian-American woman, the daughter of immigrant par- L O

former senior campaign adviser who was granted anonymity ents, and has a record as a capable, two-term governor. As U.N. F E L

in order to speak candidly, “heads were exploding.” ambassador she worked quietly and, to hear several of her fel- M O R

As a pro-business, fairly conventional Republican governor low ambassadors tell it, effectively in pushing Trump’s foreign F

36 NEWSWEEK.COM MARCH 05, 2021 COOLER Nikki Haley (right, after being elected to a second term as South Carolina governor in 2014) may appeal to moderate Republican voters who are turned off by Trump s ʀamethrower rhetorical style and that of his son and possible political heir, Donald Jr.

After Haley’s comments on the Capitol riot, “heads were exploding” at Mar-a-Lago. policy. She has none of Trump’s sharp edges, but would bring, more for their own defense; opposition to illegal immigration; political allies believe, similar policies to the White House. and most important, a willingness to defend all of the above un- The idea of “Trump-ism without Trump” has serious appeal apologetically. Many of these were fringe positions pre-Trump; for many Republicans who believe Haley is positioned to be the they are now the new GOP catechism. bridge between “Trump-ism” and more conventional conserva- Haley is “a principled neo-Trumpian,” says Cliff May, founder tism. For a long time after his shock victory in 2016, most estab- and president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democra- lishment Republicans believed Trumpism was like a hurricane cies, a Washington think tank. In the eyes of her advocates, she blowing through town: an isolated event that causes damage but would sand down the rougher stylistic edges of Trump-ism— won’t be repeated anytime soon. The narrow 2020 loss—and the constant tweeting, the rhetorical combativeness that ex- the 74 million votes Trump received, more than any previous hausted so many Republicans over the last four years—while Republican candidate—put the lie to that idea. adhering to most of Trump’s policies. Haley, her friends say, long ago came to the conclusion that The one issue on which she differs markedly from Trump is the establishment view of Trump and what he stood for was race. Her friends cite what was arguably the signature moment wrong. She understood that the key policy tenets of Trumpism of her two terms as governor in South Carolina: the 2015 killing that differ markedly from what used to be GOP catechism are of nine African-Americans at Mother Emanuel African Method- here to stay: skepticism of free trade; deep reluctance to deploy ist Episcopal Church, a Black congregation outside Charleston, U.S. troops in protracted ground wars; a demand that allies pay by a white supremacist.

NEWSWEEK.COM 37 POLITICS

The murders devastated Haley CAROLINA COLORS and convinced her that the time had Top to bottom: Pro- Confederate battle ʀag come to remove the Confederate protestors at the state flag, which still flew above the state capitol, June 201; praying house in Columbia. The battle flag outside the church where nine Black people were had long been a political flash point killed in July 2015; Haley in South Carolina and throughout signing a bill the same much of the South. She knew she month to remove the battle ʀag from the state house. would need widespread support, Opposite: Vice President including from some politicians Kamala Harris is sworn in. who in the past had rejected any efforts to remove the flag. In the wake of the Mother Emanuel murders, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, whom Haley appointed to his Senate seat in 2012, told Newsweek that the only way to pull together that coalition was to lead “from a place of tenderness, of brokenness, of vulner- ability, and that’s exactly what she did. It was very impressive.” She drew predictable support from prominent Democrats such as African-American Congressman James Clyburn. But she also managed to persuade Paul Thurmond, a state senator and the son of segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond, to back the flag’s removal. Haley understood, as she put it, that some South Carolinians looked upon the flag “with reverence.” But she made clear that it was also a symbol of the ugliest chapter in American history. The day the flag was taken down, Haley said, “was a great day for the state of South Carolina.” By 2024, her allies hope the type of political judgment she demonstrated could be exactly what Republicans will be seeking. “You’d get a lot of the Trump policies, but none of the mess that comes with it,” a senator friendly with Haley told Newsweek before the election, granted anonymity in order to speak frankly. “You’d get someone who demonstrated calm, pragmatic compe- tence as a successful two-term governor, plus the foreign policy experience at the U.N., plus the immigrant story, all presented in a very elegant package. Do you honestly think Don Jr., or anyone else for that matter, is likely to beat that? I don’t.” That argument, to Haley’s supporters, became even more compelling after January 6—and is no doubt part of the reason Haley was willing to criticize Trump just weeks after the riot.

Eyes on the Prize few in haley’s orbit doubt that her eyes are on the prize. At a conservative political convention during Christmas 2019 in Palm Beach, a number of Republican luminaries, Fox News personalities, GOP donors and current and former Trump advisers gathered for cocktails one evening. The off-the-record conversation got around to what the post-Trump GOP would look like. Haley’s name quickly came up. “Well, she’s sure got the ﬁre in

38 NEWSWEEK.COM MARCH 05, 2021 Y T T E G ʔ P F A ʔ K I N R A H

W E R D N A

; Y T T E G ʔ E E M

A Trump aides. And then, more or less si- N C

M As an Indian-American woman, multaneously, they all laughed out loud.

N I However former Governor-and-Am- W

;

Y Haley could be a T bassador Haley wants to characterize T E G

ʔ her own ambition, it’s pretty clear

E fearsome challenger R

O it extends to residing at 1600 Penn- O M to Kamala Harris sylvania Avenue. Having formed an N H

O advocacy group in 2019—Stand For J

; Y

T America—to give her a voice in policy T E G

ʔ the belly,” said a GOP senator who may be mulling a run for the debates, Haley, like the rest of the GOP, waits to see what Trump E R

O White House. “Hell, she’s got a furnace in that damned thing.” will do about 2024. If he stands down, Haley will be among the O M This reporter reminded the group that in her memoir, Haley GOP front runners. And even if he doesn’t, she may, friends say, N H O

J said she doesn’t consider herself ambitious: she calls it “the A go for it anyway—and run against her former boss. “I’m not

F word.” (“I’ve never thought of myself as ambitious,” she writes, saying she’s 100 percent all-in at this point,” says a longtime E L

M “at least not in the calculating way people use this word to de- South Carolina political ally, speaking off the record in order O T T scribe women.”) to be candid. “But January 6 shook her, and disgusted her. She’s O B

M A prominent conservative pundit looked at the senator, who gonna look around pretty soon and ask, 'can I clean up this O R

F looked at a big Trump ﬁnancial backer, who looked at one of the mess?' And her answer’s gonna be yes.”

NEWSWEEK.COM 39 Culture HIGH, LOW + EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN

BOOKS 21 Books to Read in Spring 2021 Y T T E G ʔ Y R U F

H C I R

T H G I R

P O T

; Y T T E G ʔ O D O M I S A V 4

40 NEWSWEEK.COM MARCH 05, 2021 THE MAURITANIAN

“It’s about a dark moment in our history as a country .” » P.48

the end of winter and the beginning of spring is a fickle time, weather-wise. You might see snow, rain or sun on any given day. But whether you’re curling up in front of a cozy fire or catching some rare rays of sunshine on a park bench, you can depend on good books to keep you company. Looking for a small-town feel-good love story, a hair-raising thriller about the subject of a true-crime podcast, inside looks at two famous first ladies, Good Company the history of how a famous publishing house got started By Cynthia D’Aprix in the shadow of the Nazis—or more? Newsweek has cho- Sweeney | April sen some of the best new fiction and nonfiction available 2. ʖ ECCO SweeneyŠs highly this spring for your reading pleasure. —Juliana Pignataro anticipated, poignant second novel introduces us to Flora and Julian Mancini, a married couple whose 20-year relationship is called into question when Flora stumbles upon FICTION an envelope containing her husbandŠs wedding ring, one he said he lost years before.

The Sweet Taste The Dictionary Early Morning Riser of Muscadines of Lost Words By Katherine Heiny | April By Pamela Terry | March By Pip Williams | April $2. ʖ KNOPF $2 ʖ BALLANTINE BOOKS $28 ʖ BALLANTINE BOOKS Jane arrives in Boyne City, Project Hail Mary Lila Bruce Breedlover What if the women Michigan, population By Andy Weir | May returns to her small involved in the making ,000, and quickly falls $28. ʖ BALLANTINE hometown in Georgia, of the Oxford English in love with a local wood- BOOKS a place she left in a Dictionary got the worker. Only it turns out From the author of The hurry after high school, credit they deserve" that dating Duncan means Martian and Artemis following her motherŠs Williams turns history getting involved with more comes another interstellar sudden death in the as we know it on its than a few exes, neighbors story, in which the sole grape arbor behind head in this delightful and townspeople. HeinyŠs survivor of a mission their home. Lila and her debut, spotlighting novel is the perfect pick- has the weight of the two siblings begin to those women and their me-up, ɿlled to the brim world on his shoulders. uncover the truths of contributions, using the with lovable eccentrics Weir spins a space yarn their familyŠs history in awe-inspiring power and delightful oddballs, all in a way only he can. this gracefully plotted, of words themselves of who seem to be moon- Fans of his earlier works sweet Southern story. to illuminate them. lighting as something else. wonŠt be disappointed.

NEWSWEEK.COM 41 Culture BOOKS

ing job, suddenly ɿnds herself the assistant to a world famous but elusive writer, nom de plume Maud Dixon. DixonŠs writing takes them on a trip to Morocco, where Florence wakes up in a hospital with no memory and Dixon nowhere to be found. This propul- We Begin at the End Who is Maud Dixon? sive tale keeps ratch- By Chris Whitaker By Alexandra eting up the suspense | March Andrews | March until youŠre ʀying blind $2. ʖ HENRY $28 ʖ LITTLE, BROWN through hairpin turns at HOLT AND CO. AND COMPANY light speed. Just who is Duchess Day Radley is Florence Darrow, let go Maud Dixon" And who an outlaw. At , sheŠs from her junior publish- is Florence Darrow" hardened against the world, having seen more of its jagged edges than a child should. Trying to survive and raise her younger brother, DuchessŠ life is again knocked off course by an earth- shattering tragedy. If I Disappear With prose as eerily By Eliza Jane Brazier | January | $2 ʖ BERKLEY beautiful as its settings, Sera Fleece, alone and adrift, is spurred youŠll be left thinking to action when her favorite podcast host, about this novel long Rachel, goes missing. But when she arrives after the ɿnal page. at the isolated ranch of Rachel’s parents, things get stranger and stranger. Sinister characters and inexplicable occurrences punctuate the dreamlike trance and surreal landscapes in this debut novel, where everything might just be exactly as it seems.

Ivy League educated engineer, returns to her Folklorn Indiana hometown in By Angela Mi Young 2008 to ɿnd it beset Hur | April by despair, as lost jobs $2. ʖ EREWHON and racial tensions Elsa Park, a physicist crack its foundation. ItŠs working in Antarctica, there, however, that China must contend with the she ɿnds a connection By Edward Rutherfurd | May | $ ʖ DOUBLEDAY unknown after the world to Midnight, a young The unparallelled master of the historical sheŠs tried to outrun white boy looking for saga returns, this time, with an eye on China. plants itself directly in The Kindest Lie meaning. This profound Beginning with the First Opium War in 1839 front of her. This soulful By Nancy Johnson and beautiful debut and continuing through the present day, saga is replete with | February is a sharp exploration Rutherfurd tells a sweeping tale that brings evocative settings and $2. ʖ WILLIAM MORROW of racial divides and to life a nation’s history, traditions and the masterfully crafted lives. Ruth Tuttle, a Black community in America. people who lived through it as if by magic.

42 NEWSWEEK.COM MARCH 05, 2021 is further destroyed when the rest of the family, except their college-aged NONFICTION son Danny and his older imprisoned brother Matt, are found dead on a vaca- tion in Mexico. While Dan- ny serves a life sentence for the murder of his high school girlfriend, young Matt must attempt to Every Last Fear piece together what hap- By Alex Finlay | March pened to his family, and $2. ʖ MINOTAUR how it might be linked BOOKS to his brotherŠs fate. This The already-shattered debut is gripping from Pine family, the subject of the ɿrst bone-chilling a hit true crime podcast, line until the ɿnal page.

Good Neighbors By Sarah Langan | February | $2 ʖ ATRIA BOOKS A false narrative reaches a fever pitch in this unsettling story set in the quasi-dystopian future of a Long Island suburb. The Wilde family, freshly arrived from Brooklyn, don’t quite ɿt in on idyllic Maple Street. Neighborhood queen Rhea Schroeder casts them out once and for The Triumph of Nancy Reagan all at the same time as a sinkhole opens inside a nearby park and Rhea’s daughter falls inside. By Karen Tumulty | April | $2.0 ʖ SIMON SCHUSTER Washington Post columnist Karen Tumulty examines the impact First Lady Nancy Reagan had on her husband’s presidency, starting with a look at her childhood to her time in the White House. Tumulty does a remarkable job presenting a complete picture of a renowned ɿrst lady, and bringing novel material to the subject.

Sweig deftly pulls back the curtain on the life and achievements of First Lady Claudia Alta “Lady Bird” Johnson, inviting us to explore the lesser known aspects of a woman who helped shape her hus- bandŠs presidency. Armed with thorough research and a keen eye, Sweig Lady Bird Johnson: gives Johnson the credit Hiding in Plain Sight she so richly deserves, By Julia Sweig | March all the while entertain- $2 ʖ RANDOM HOUSE ing us in the process.

NEWSWEEK.COM 43 Culture BOOKS

and history of his father and great-grandfa- ther, the distinguished founder of Pantheon Books. As books were being burned and banned by the Na]is, Kurt Wolff escaped from Germany and ended up in New York, by way of France, where he began Under a White Endpapers: A Family the still-ʀourishing pub- Sky: The Nature Story of Books, War, lishing house. Drawing of the Future Escape and Home upon extensive family By Elizabeth Kolbert By Alexander documents, Endpapers | February Wolff | March is as riveting as the $28 ʖ CROWN $28 ʖ ATLANTIC ɿction the Wolffs them- The authoritative mind MONTHLY PRESS selves have published, behind the ground- Wolff explores the lives and deeply affecting. breaking Sixth Extinction follows with a stark look The Nation of Plants at the world humans have created, focusing $2. ʖ OTHER PRESS By Stefano Mancuso | March | on those whose lives are Originally published in Italian and written dedicated to solving the by a top plant neurobiologist, this artfully challenges weŠve wrought crafted exposition delightfully delves into in the natural world. With the lives of plants by presenting the eight her signature sharp eye pillars on which those lives are built. and deep understanding, Kolbert brings us with her as she travels to the far- thest reaches of the globe.

Hungry Hearts: The Loneliest Polar An Alternative Essays on Courage, Bear: A True Story History of Pittsburgh Desire, and Belonging of Survival and Peril By Ed Simon | April Edited By Jennifer on the Edge of a $. ʖ BELT Rudolph Walsh | February Warming World PUBLISHING $2 ʖ THE DIAL PRESS By Kale Williams | March Simon tells the story of Think Again: The Power of Sixteen inʀuential $28 ʖ CROWN the city and all the chang- Knowing What You Don’t Know thinkers from a range of This heartrending and es that made it what it By Adam Grant | February | $28 ʖ VIKING ɿelds, including Ashley true tale follows Nora, a is today in a way thatŠs Renowned Wharton professor Grant spotlights C. Ford, Sue Monk Kidd polar bear cub left behind entirely new, by the hand one of the most important and impactful themes and Bo]oma Saint John, by her mother, Aurora, of someone who is deeply of our time: questioning one’s own deeply held share personal and at the =oo in Columbus, familiar. Simon shines a beliefs. Grant frames true knowledge as not vulnerable stories of love, Ohio, and the group light on things often for- knowing everything, but rather, listening as loss and ɿnding oneself of people who worked gotten, and uncovers un- if we knew nothing at all in this intrepid book in a world of uncertainty. furiously to keep her alive. told stories in the process. that is what our present moment requires.

44 NEWSWEEK.COM MARCH 05, 2021 “Since losing my mother to pancreatic cancer, my goal has been to ensure that everyone facing a pancreatic cancer diagnosis knows about the option of clinical trials and the progress being made.” -Keesha Sharp

Photo By Brett Erickson

Stand Up To Cancer and Lustgarten Foundation are working together to make every person diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a long-term survivor.

To learn more about the latest research, including clinical trials that may be right for you or a loved one, visit PancreaticCancerCollective.org.

Stand Up To Cancer is a division of the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF), a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Culture 06 Gropius Bau Berlin Lifelong as well as more recent fans can follow the trajectory of Kusama’s seven decades of creative output with this comprehensive retrospective tracing her work from early paintings and rise in popularity in the mid-1960s to her lesser-known work in Germany and Europe, as well as debuting a new 01 New York Botanical Garden immersive inɿnity mirrored room. New York City This spring you can immerse yourself in the artist’s fascination with the natural world at 5 NYC’s 250-acre living museum as she debuts a 16-foot bronze sculpture, Dancing Pumpkin (2020), an outdoor inɿnity mirrored room, Illusion Inside the Heart (2020) and and a ɿrst- ever “obliteration greenhouse” installation. 3

1 Inhotim

02 , R N

Brumadinho , Brazil O E T S C K

One of Kusama’s most iconic— E A L L L S O A

and at ɿrst controversial— C

R E A T

pieces is Narcissus Garden, N A I V E I

: which debuted at the 33th R O P

T A

O Y

Venice Biennale in 1966. An H B P

, D E

installation of 1,500 plastic E C T I N N E silver globes it was a jab E S V ʔ E R at commercialization and N P O

E D T repetition in the art world. Now N A O T

L :

Kistefos Museum , the piece has been recreated 05 3 O 0

; R I Jevnaker, Norway Y T all over the world, as it is M

T A E The polka dotted tentacles of Shine of Life rise 20 I R here with 500 stainless steel G ʔ O P T F

feet out of a historic wood pulp mill inlet in the C A spheres ʀoating in a pond I ʔ V

A D heart of Kistefos Musuem’s outdoor sculpture D in one of Latin America’s I N E A

M I

garden. A site-speciɿc piece amidst woodland and L

largest outdoor art centers. A A

H N water, it rests in good company: the 1,000-square- G O N S A L H

meter Twist gallery/bridge/sculpture is a stroll away. E S N ʔ

: E 2 R 0

O ; P N A E G D N R I A 2 S ʔ G

O L Y A K C I O T N

The Tate Modern , 03 A S T T O R

London B

K E R

Another show postponed due to COVID-19, Tate N I O F Y

A W Modern’s Kusama exhibition is scheduled to open in T E O

spring 2021. Her signature immersive inɿnity mirror F S O E

T Y

rooms here will include Filled With the Brilliance of Place François R 04 S U E T O R Life and Chandelier of Grief, a room of rotating crystal Mitterrand C

: U 5 O 0

chandeliers, as well as photographs on display for the Lille, France C :

: Y 1 T 0 T ɿrst time showing the history of her mirrored rooms. Kusama’s ɿrst public sculp- ; E A G ʔ M

ture in Europe, Les Tulipes P A I S S B U

de Shangri-La, a creation : K

4 I 0 O

Y taken from her Flower 9 A 1 Y 0

K K R R

color and joy that will stop O O Y

W you in your tracks amidst L E L N the dull grey cityscape A of Lille’s railway station.

46 NEWSWEEK.COM MARCH 05, 2021 09 Yayoi Kusama Museum Tokyo Opened in Shinjuku in late 2017, this is the ɿrst permanent 07 Ota Fine Arts museum dedicated to Singapore Yayoi Kusama, ɿttingly While Kusama is known for her bursts of color, in her home country the artist departs from her vibrant hues in of Japan. The ɿve- Recent Paintings, on view at Ota Fine Arts in story museum let fans Singapore. Featuring 15 monochrome paintings, immerse themselves in and Clouds, a sculpture installation of mirror all the struggles it took stainless steel forms, this exhibit shows how her for Kusama to become an 6 work has continued to evolve in recent years. artist on the world stage. M U E S U M

A M A S U K

I O

Y 08 Benesse House A 9 Y

F Hotel 8 O

S Naoshima, Japan E T R This yellow polka-dotted 10 National Gallery of U O

C pumpkin on a pier is Australia

: 9 0

the unofɿcial symbol for Canberra, Australia ; Y T

T Japan’s contemporary art Kusama is known for her E G ʔ

P mecca. But you won’t ɿnd love of a certain gourd. U O

R this giant gourd in the She’s been drawn to G

S ultra-modern metrop- pumpkins since she was E G

A olis of Tokyo; instead, a child and has attributed M I

A it’s on a small sparsely that to “their humorous S R

E populated rural island in form, warm feeling and a V I 7 N Japan’s Seto Inland Sea. human-like quality.” Step U ʔ S

E into her whimsical world G A

M with the The Spirits of the I

O Pumpkins Descended into I T A

C the Heavens, an immersive U D

E installation of black dots

8 UNCHARTED 0

around a mirrored box. ; I A H G N A H S ʔ E R O P A Where to See Yayoi Kusama’s G N I S ʔ O

Y 10 K O T

S Art Around the World T R A

E She’s been dubbed the “world’s favorite artist.” But while images of her kaleidoscopic inﬁnity rooms are hot on N I F

A Instagram, she’s no derivative newcomer to the art scene. This Japanese pop-art icon has been creating fresh work T O

F since the 1950s, and her creative output hasn’t subsided. Now a nonagenarian who has voluntarily made a home O

Y S

E for herself in a Tokyo psychiatric asylum, Yayoi Kusama continues to produce the signature larger-than-life polka- T R

U dotted pumpkins, reﬂective rooms and myriad other pieces that ﬁrst captivated the world long before social media. O C

0 This year, shows of her work that had been postponed in 2020 by the pandemic are scheduled to open, including 1

7 the New York Botanical Garden’s much anticipated “Cosmic Nature” exhibit. From Japan’s rural islands to Berlin’s 0

, 6 0 avant-garde museums, this eccentric master’s art work will be on display all over the world. —Kathleen Rellihan

NEWSWEEK.COM 47 Culture

P ARTING SHOT Jodie Foster

jodie foster hasn’t made many political films because they’re not so Why do you think this story is so entertaining to her. “Everybody is born and then they die. There’s nothing relevant right now? new about that.” But all that changed for the Oscar-winner with her latest film It’s about a dark moment in our history The Mauritanian (in theaters and streaming on February 12), which tells the true as a country. We have these moments story of Mohamedou Ould Salahi, who was held without being charged at Guan- in time that we have to revisit and tanamo Bay from 2002 until 2016 on allegations he was a member of Al-Qaeda. recognize our part in and see where Foster plays defense attorney Nancy Hollander. “We let fear and terror discard our emotions got the best of us. the rule of law and discard our own humanity,” says Foster, who adds it was the “first-person look at the life and the character of this Muslim man” that inspired What was it about Nancy Hollander her to do this film. “We were all there to serve his story,” she says. Of course, that stood out to you? getting that story out was more difficult because of the pandemic, the impact of Most people don’t know a lot about which, Foster says, has accelerated what Hollywood has known for years: “There her. That allowed me to change parts will be a major shift in audience habits and in the strength and power of stream- of her character in order to serve ers.” But Foster says she’s ready. “Look, I’m happy to act on an iPhone” [laughs]. Mohamedou’s story. I had to basically say, “Look, she’s going to be rude and short with people and self-protective.” She’s had to build walls of protection “We let fear in order to uphold her mission. and terror Did the way you approach a role discard the change after you started directing? rule of law I remember being 6 or 7 on this television show and an actor who I’d and discard been working with was the director our own that day. My mind was blown. So I humanity.” always had my eye on that. How I’ve worked as an actor is a little bit like a Y

director; it wasn’t a big switch. T T E G ʔ R U

The Silence of the Lambs’ 30th O T N

anniversary is coming up. Did you O C ʔ L

foresee it becoming such a classic? A V I T

I’m kind of in awe of that movie. For S E F me, it’s the best movie I’ve ever made M L I F by far. It’s timeless. But I have to also A C

give credit to the Thomas Harris book E B I R T

because it was that text. Literally, ʔ A C

Ted Tally’s ɿrst draft was virtually the C A S

script that was shot. So it really did U B

feel like there was something magical R R A about it. —H. Alan Scott L

48 Visit Newsweek.com for the full interview A Healthier You Starts With Healthier Food!

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