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Imported. 7KLVRHULVYDOLGRQMen’s Jeans Classic SURGXFWFRGH LQ0LG'HQLPDQG'DUN 'HQLPRQO\7KLVRHUPD\QRWEHXVHGDJDLQVWDSUHYLRXVSXUFKDVHDQGFDQQRWEHXVHGLQ FRQMXQFWLRQZLWKDQ\RWKHURHURUGLVFRXQW2HUH[SLUHV0D\2HUFRGH+- magazine FOUNDED IN 1850 / VOL. 334, NO. 2003 APRIL 2017 WWW.HARPERS.ORG Letters 2 Rules for Radicals Claudia Koonz, Tenney Ford Easy Chair 5 You Can Run . Walter Kirn Harper’s Index 9 Readings 11 Jane Does the history of an underground abortion service Animal House a Texas town capitulates to cat memes Ways of Seeing Michael Clune’s aversion to eye contact Grim Sleeper the many deaths of Michel Leiris And . Olaf Breuning, Dapper Bruce Lafitte, Deana Lawson, and procrastinators tax the U.K. revenue agency’s patience Folio 25 THE MARCH ON EVERYWHERE Leslie Jamison The ragged glory of female activism From the Archive 38 Nice Girls Mary Gaitskill Report 41 DEFENDER OF THE COMMUNITY Alan Feuer Bill de Blasio gambles on doing the right thing Photo Essay 50 ASPHALT GARDENS Samuel James Letter from Germany 66 ECHT DEUTSCH Yascha Mounk How the refugee crisis is changing a nation’s identity Letter from Japan 73 THE BOY WITHOUT A COUNTRY Jessica Weisberg Tokyo’s painful exclusion of immigrants Story 79 NECESSARY DRIVING SKILLS Nat Segnit Reviews 91 NEW BOOKS Christine Smallwood BEHIND THE FIG LEAF Elaine Blair Mary McCarthy’s sexual revolution DOOR TO DOOR Francine Prose Mohsin Hamid’s displaced persons Puzzle 103 Richard E. Maltby Jr. Cover: At the Women’s March on Washington, January 21, 2017 Findings 104 © Benedict Evans/Redux LETTERS magazine John R. MacArthur, President and Publisher Editor James Marcus Managing Editor Hasan Altaf Senior Editors Katia Bachko, Emily Cooke, Giles Harvey, Betsy Morais Editor Emeritus Lewis H. Lapham Editor-at-Large Ellen Rosenbush Washington Editor Andrew Cockburn Art Director Stacey Clarkson James Deputy Art Director Sam Finn Cate-Gumpert Poetry Editor Ben Lerner Web Editor Joe Kloc Associate Editors Camille Bromley, Matthew Sherrill Assistant Editors Winston Choi-Schagrin, Matthew Hickey, Ava Kofman, Stephanie McFeeters, Rachel Poser Assistant to the Editor Rules for Radicals clarity before testing their efficacy. Adrian Kneubuhl Voters in North Carolina’s newly Editorial Interns Gabriella Dunn, Emma Hitchcock, “Resistance” derives from the drawn Congressional districts will Kendrick McDonald, Natalie Simone Meade Latin verb resistere, literally “to go to the polls this year. As we Art Intern Lydia Chodosh stand against.” A call to action—to wade into uncharted political wa- Contributing Editors stand up—is embedded in the very ters, “resistance” means using the Andrew J. Bacevich, Kevin Baker, Dan Baum, Tom Bissell, Joshua Cohen, John Crowley, etymology of the word. But the re- tried-and-true tools of democracy to Rivka Galchen, William H. Gass, flections in the recent issue tell us make our system work again. Gary Greenberg, Jack Hitt, Edward Hoagland, Scott Horton, Frederick Kaufman, more about how to think than how Garret Keizer, Mark Kingwell, Walter Kirn, Rafil Kroll-Zaidi, Gideon Lewis-Kraus, to act [“Trump: A Resister’s Guide,” Claudia Koonz Clancy Martin, Duncan Murrell, Forum, February]. Vince Passaro, Francine Prose, Professor Emeritus, Duke University Christine Smallwood, Zadie Smith, Our most urgent priority is to act Durham, N.C. Rebecca Solnit, Matthew Stevenson, now and think later. Corey Robin John Edgar Wideman, Tom Wolfe Contributing Artists and other contributors offer new Olive Ayhens, Lisa Elmaleh, Lena Herzog, ways to understand the nature of Wesley Yang hits the nail on the Aaron Huey, Samuel James, Steve Mumford, Richard Ross, Tomas van Houtryve, the menace we face, but the strate- head in his essay for the February Fo- Danijel Žeželj gies to resist that menace do not rum. “Four decades of neoliberal glo- Vice President and General Manager Lynn Carlson need much rethinking. A group of balization,” he writes, “have cleaved Vice President, Circulation former congressional staffers recent- our country into two hostile classes.” I Shawn D. Green ly created a website called Indivisi- used to argue about this with my pro- Vice President, Public Relations Giulia Melucci ble: A Practical Guide for Resisting NAFTA Democratic friends during Vice President, Advertising the Trump Agenda, which encour- the Clinton Administration, when Jocelyn D. Giannini Virginia Navarro, Assistant to the Publisher ages people to organize locally, free trade was embraced by both par- Kim Lau, Senior Accountant bombard elected representatives ties as a way to make America more Eve Brant, Office Manager Courtney Joyal, Staff with calls, and turn Republicans’ prosperous. At that time, nobody Advertising Sales: misdeeds into media buzz. These seemed to be thinking about the (212) 420-5760; Fax: (212) 260-1096 tasks are as unoriginal as they are Americans in aging factories and fray- Natalie C. Holly, Advertising Sales Representative Marisa Nakasone, Production and Advertising mundane—and, to be honest, we ing communities. Services Manager don’t have time to wait for analytic What economists don’t seem to Sales Representatives Chicago: Tauster Media Resources, Inc. understand is that a country cannot (630) 858-1558; [email protected] Harper’s Magazine welcomes reader response. export good jobs overseas for three Detroit: Maiorana & Partners, Ltd. Please address mail to Letters, Harper’s (248) 546-2222; [email protected] decades without causing huge prob- Canada: JMB Media International Magazine, 666 Broadway, New York, N.Y. lems at home. They seem to have (450) 538-2468; [email protected] 10012, or email us at [email protected]. Direct Mail: Special Aditions Advertising, LLC Short letters are more likely to be published, no concern for the losers in their [email protected] For subscription queries and orders please call: and all letters are subject to editing. Volume models. And now the losers think 800-444-4653 precludes individual acknowledgment. they have found a champion in 2 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / APRIL 2017 GROWING YOUR OWN Trump. So we find ourselves with support—particularly intelligence VEGETABLES IS no jobs, no prospects, and an unsta- resources, close air support, and ble demagogue in the White House. medevac assistance—in order to re- duce the shockingly high numbers Tenn ey Ford of casualties experienced by Af- SMART. San Rafael, Calif. ghan forces. Our objective should not be to de- feat the Taliban, since no senior BUYING BOOKS Somehow, the articles in the re- official—Afghan or American, civil- sisters’ guide to Trump missed the ian or military—thinks that force AT HUGE DISCOUNTS IS crucial point. Our federal govern- alone can achieve our strategic goals. ment is the institution that has the But increased military assistance daedabundant best chance of solving income in- from the United States could pres- equality, extricating us from our re- sure the Taliban to come to the ne- liance on fossil fuels, providing gotiating table. We would, of course, health care to all Americans re- have to pair that effort with diploma- gardless of their ability to pay, dis- cy. We should strongly encourage mantling the military-industrial Pakistan to play a more constructive complex, and helping disadvan- regional role and pressure the Na- taged people acquire the skills and tional Unity Government in Kabul knowledge necessary for jobs that to reduce the rampant corruption pay family-sustaining wages. The that delegitimizes it and fuels the in- Trump Administration has neither surgency. Ultimately, the key to a the desire nor the ability to use the successful policy in Afghanistan is to federal government for those pur- shift the focus from winning the war poses. That is the point that needs to winning the peace. to be addressed. Andrew Wilder Al Galves United States Institute of Peace Las Cruces, N.M. Washington War and Peace Conspiracy Weary May Jeong’s article makes clear Walter Kirn warns Trump oppo- that it will be challenging to find a nents not to fall victim to conspira- viable path to peace in Afghani- cy theories about his win [“A Grim stan [“The Patient War,” Letter Fairy Tale,” Easy Chair, February]. from Kabul, February]. More than From the wide-open spaces of Mon- fifteen years after invading the tana, he says, this election looked country, the United States still like nothing more than your average lacks a strategy for bringing about a “anticlerical” populist revolt. Kirn negotiated end to the Taliban-led neglects to mention that, thanks to insurgency. While President Trump “river-bound New York” and “grid- has thus far given few signals as to locked