CAN SCHOOLS REOPEN? AMERICA’S BURNING HOUSE ZOË CARPENTER MARCIA CHATELAIN

SEPTEMBER 7/14, 2020 The 7,383-Seat Strategy

Democrats lost nearly 1,000 state legislative seats while Obama was in office. Under Trump, they’ve won back almost half. Can they close the gap this November? JOAN WALSH

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Workers Are Not Inputs seek a better understanding of Don- Re “McDonald’s Has a Real Sexual ald Trump, as we all do, but Mary Trump’s book about her uncle evi- Harassment Problem” by Bryce Covert dently falls a bit short. The diagnostic [August 10/17]: Economic evolution categories cited in her book do not over the past 30 years or so has created fit nearly as well as narcissistic per- a world in which people are considered sonality disorder. Theodore Millon’s Subscribe wherever you inputs for production in the same way chapter on it in Disorders of Personality: get your podcasts or go to potatoes are for french fries: They are DSM-IV and Beyond clarifies much fungible and easily replaced. TheNation.com/ for me about Trump, his chaotic ad- Whether the issue is sexual ha- StartMakingSense ministration, his incompetence with rassment, racism, or any other form to listen today. the Covid-19 pandemic, and what we of demeaning behavior, there is little should fear if a serious international STACEY ABRAMS incentive for McDonald’s or its fran- conflict erupts. Anyone who reads chisees to change their behavior or MARGARET ATWOOD CHARLES that chapter will likely be enlightened. policies as long as the power structure M. BLOW SHERROD BROWN Gary Johnson NOAM CHOMSKY GAIL COLLINS is dominated by an employer, with lit- tle real power in the hands of workers. Taking Back Control MIKE DAVIS ELIZABETH DREW With the economic disruption of BARBARA EHRENREICH Re “How to Define a Plague” by the current pandemic, the time for Sonia Shah [July 27/August 3]: Much DANIEL ELLSBERG FRANCES organized labor to expand its shield for of our media coverage, like the germ FITZGERALD ERIC FONER workers is now. Adam Charney theory itself, tends to foster an anxious, THOMAS FRANK HENRY LOUIS Starving the Beast passive victim mentality. It is good to be reminded of the ways we may take GATES JR. MICHELLE GOLDBERG Re “Will the Left Get a Say in AMY GOODMAN CHRIS HAYES action individually and as a society and the Biden Doctrine?” by David Klion how we can lessen the impact of future MARGO JEFFERSON DAVID [August 10/17]: The only way that the outbreaks. As Representative Alexan- CAY JOHNSTON NAOMI KLEIN US military monster will be cut down dria Ocasio-Cortez said, much that is RACHEL KUSHNER VIET THANH to size is a total financial collapse that distressing about this outbreak—the will cut off the revenues necessary to inadequacy of our health care system NGUYEN NORMAN LEAR GREIL support it. Neither party has any inter- MARCUS JANE MAYER BILL and the income gap, for instance—is est in reducing military expenditures. not new; it is just showing up more MCKIBBEN WALTER MOSLEY And we are not far from that collapse, clearly during this emergency. JOHN NICHOLS LAWRENCE like all empires that drown in their own Some of these things are within our O’DONNELL LAURA POITRAS arrogance. Michael Robertson control. Christiane Marks chatham, n.y. KATHA POLLITT ROBERT Trump’s Disordered Personality REICH JOY REID FRANK RICH Katha Pollitt [“An Unhappy Comment drawn from our website [email protected] ARUNDHATI ROY BERNIE Family,” August 10/17] continues to Please do not send attachments SANDERS ANNA DEAVERE The Nation (ISSN 0027-8378) is published 30 times a year (four issues in February; three issues in SMITH EDWARD SNOWDEN March, April, June, and November; and two issues in January, May, July, August, September, October, REBECCA SOLNIT MARGARET and December) by The Nation Company, LLC © 2020 in the USA by The Nation Company, LLC, 520 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY 10018; (212) 209-5400. Washington Bureau: Suite 308, 110 Maryland TALBOT CALVIN TRILLIN Avenue NE, Washington, DC 20002; (202) 546-2239. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. 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UPFRONT 3 Fight for the Post Office The Nation. John Nichols since 1865 4 Back to School? Zoë Carpenter 5 The Score Mike Konczal 38 Q&A: N.K. Jemisin Fight for the Post Office COLUMNS 6 Objection! DOJ v. Affirmative Action onald Trump’s attack on the United States Postal Ser- Elie Mystal 10 Subject to Debate vice is by design but not merely his design. Republicans Canceling and their corporate allies have been after the post office Margaret Sanger Katha Pollitt for years, undermining its ability to function and mock- 11 Deadline Poet ing its more than 600,000 workers in hopes of clearing the way for the Birtherism 2.0 D Calvin Trillin privatization of an agency that has, since the found- ing of the nation, provided essential infrastructure the Postal Service, Senate majority leader Mitch Features for American democracy. It is the role that the McConnell continued to block action. And Trump’s 12 The 7,383-Seat Postal Service will play in the 2020 elections that new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, was busy Strategy Is Working has Trump and his allies agitated now, but their slowing down—and physically dismembering—the Joan Walsh targeting of it is nothing new. agency. The crisis came to a head a day after Trump Since Trump took office, What could be new, however, is the opening talked about holding up the money. The Washington Democrats organized to that Trump has created not just for the defense of Post revealed that the Postal Service had warned win back almost half of the 1,000 state legislative the post office at this critical moment but for its ex- 46 states and the District of Columbia it could not seats that were lost under pansion to address the challenges of the 21st centu- guarantee that all ballots cast by mail for the No- Obama. They’re working ry. Democrats should seize that opening and make vember elections would arrive in time to be count- to recover the rest this fall. the promise of the post office’s renewal ed. Meanwhile, there were reports from 18 There Is Power central to their fall campaign. across the country that curbside mail Without a Union Trump’s jarring pattern of saying out EDITORIAL collection boxes and sorting machines in P.E. Moskowitz loud what others in his partisan cabal postal facilities were being removed. Target workers are taking have been thinking was on full display House Oversight Committee mem- on bosses themselves. Is this the future of August 13, when he revealed why he bers demanded that DeJoy, a major GOP radical organizing? and so many other Republicans see the donor and fundraiser, explain himself. Postal Service as an immediate threat. Speaker Nancy Pelosi called members 22 The Color of Contagion The president trails in the polls, and the back from vacation to address the is- Patricia J. Williams Republican hold on the Senate looks sue, and state attorneys general pre- The pandemic has shaky. A fairly conducted election with pared to take action. These are necessary intensified racial a high turnout could upend their political power. reactions,­ but there must also be a big-picture disparities. We have They’ve sent plenty of signals that they’d prefer to response that addresses the roots of the Postal to address them without reinforcing them. make it hard for voters who are disinclined toward Service’s fiscal problems: a draconian congressional the GOP to cast ballots in fall elections that could mandate that it fund pensions 75 years into the Books & be disrupted by Covid-19 outbreaks—and that are future and severe restrictions on how it can operate the Arts likely to see unprecedented levels of voting by mail. in competitive markets. Democrats have begun 27 The Burning House Explaining why he objected to emergency funding to embrace proposals to ease the burden on this Marcia Chatelain for the Postal Service, which has been stretched to enormously popular and vital agency. This fall they the limit by the demands of this pandemic moment, should go all in, with robust support for visionary 30 House Hunters (poem) Janine Joseph he bluntly acknowledged, “They want $25 billion— reforms such as postal banking, which would allow billion—for the post office. Now they need that post offices to provide basic financial services in 33 The Guardians money in order to have the post office work so it can underserved­ communities. Samuel Moyn take all of these millions and millions of ballots.” If it is a fight over the future of the Postal 36 Source Code The blowback was so intense that Trump walked Service that Trump and the Republicans want, Julyssa Lopez his remarks back a few steps that same evening, give it to them. People in rural towns and urban including suggesting that he might be open to neighborhoods don’t just want to vote by mail. VOLUME 311, NUMBER 5, SEPTEMBER 7/14, 2020 negotiation. But that didn’t change Republican They want to vote for a future that will keep The digital version of this issue is antipathy. While Democrats in the House voted the mail moving for generations to come. available to all subscribers August 25 at in May to get $25 billion in emergency funding to JOHN NICHOLS FOR THE NATION TheNation.com 4 The Nation. September 7/14, 2020

BY THE NUMBERS and Arizona—topping 10 and even 15 percent. Given these conditions, many teachers and some par- Back to School? ents are balking. The American Federation of Teachers We’ve squandered our chance to reopen safely. gave its 1.7 million members permission to go on “safety strikes” if they believe that their schools’ reopening plans n the second day of the new school year, put them in danger, and teachers in Michigan, Arizona, a high school sophomore named Hannah and other states are considering or have moved forward Watters snapped a photo of the hallway at with plans to do so. In response, critics of teachers’ unions her school in the suburbs of Atlanta. Kids in have accused teachers of extortion. Others say teachers backpacks were standing shoulder to shoul- should willingly put themselves in harm’s way just like Oder. Few were wearing masks. “This is not ok,” she tweet- nurses, transit employees, and other essential workers. But ed. Within four days, six students and three staff members no worker should be forced to accept needlessly unsafe reported new cases of Covid-19, and classes were moved conditions. The fact that teachers’ unions appear power- online for the following Monday and Tuesday. Brian ful says less about their members than it does about the 1/3 Otott, the superintendent of the county school district, abysmal state of labor rights in other essential industries. Portion of maintained that it wasn’t possible to require mask wearing. Teachers are regularly asked to cover gaping holes in Bangladesh that was underwater Watters, meanwhile, received a five-day suspension— America’s social safety net. In addition to education, the after torrential since rescinded—for sharing her photo online. public school system provides meals for nearly 30 million rains hit the The story of school reopenings is a study in skewed kids, counseling and other forms of developmental sup- country in priorities. For weeks, Donald Trump’s administration and port, and as we’ve recently been reminded, free child care. mid-July Republican officials like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Now schools are also being asked to absorb the fallout have insisted on the necessity of in-classroom learning. from the Trump administration’s botched response to the 15.5M But as the summer ticked by, the White House did little pandemic. “The truth is that schools are not reopening People in India to ensure that in-person instruction would in person because education is valued. Our and Bangladesh be safe; Trump’s leadership on the matter leaders are turning to education to get people displaced by amounted to an all-caps demand issued via For schools, back to work in an economy collapsing by flooding in August tweet in July: “SCHOOLS MUST OPEN Covid-19 is the minute,” one teacher wrote. The kinds IN THE FALL!!!” Instead, his administration a new crisis of questions that cloud reopening are dizzy- fixated on loosening restrictions on businesses, ing, from how best to control crowding in 82.5 which meant giving up on controlling the stacked on hallways and on buses to what to do about Inches of rain coronavirus’s spread. As restaurants and hair top of a very shared bathrooms and lunchrooms to how to that fell on salons began to bring back customers, cases properly ventilate buildings. “Do I keep my Mumbai from old one. July 10 to in the South and Southwest surged, making classroom door open to improve air circula- August 7 school reopenings increasingly dangerous. tion or close it to protect my students from Within weeks of the school year beginning, more than an active shooter?” another teacher asked. 1,000 students and school staffers were quarantined in Resolving many of these questions is not impossible, 443 Georgia’s Cherokee County. So were more than 80 stu- but it’s expensive. Smaller classes mean more teachers, Rivers in southern dents in Tennessee’s Putnam County and over a dozen at more space, and staggered schedules. Equipping schools China that an elementary school in Florida. A junior high in Indiana with enough hand sanitizer alone will cost the average have flooded had to put students in quarantine just hours into district $39,517 a year, according to one analysis. Neces- since early the first day of school. In Mississippi, which started sary protective measures for a district with 3,600 students June, affecting to reopen schools the same week the state led the will cost nearly $1.8 million for the year—no small sum, 37 million people country in per capita Covid deaths, more than 120 considering that public schools are often so underfunded students and staffers in the Corinth School District that many teachers purchase their own classroom supplies. 13M had to be quarantined, as well as more than 100 Congress allocated $13.2 billion for K–12 schools

Acres of Chinese COMMENT students in Gulfport. Cases have been confirmed in in a relief bill passed in April. Now Democrats in Con- cropland—about at least 22 schools across the state. gress have asked for $430 billion for public education, the size of West Virginia—that What’s happening in America’s schools, as Dr. Anthony including $175 billion for K–12 schools and $50 billion have been Fauci put it in late July, is an “experiment.” While the ex- for child care. Senate Republicans included $70 billion flooded this tent to which children and teenagers transmit Covid-19 is in funding for K–12 schools in their $1 trillion relief summer not fully known, it is clear that they are not immune to the package released in late July. But the bulk of the money virus: Cases among children jumped 90 percent between in the GOP proposal is contingent on schools reopening 630M July 9 and August 6, according to the American Academy at least partially, which some education experts have de- People currently of Pediatrics. And although Trump has argued that other scribed as a punishment for schools that decide they can’t living on land countries have reopened schools with “no problems,” the do so safely. (Twenty of the largest 25 school districts are below projected state of the pandemic is far worse here. Of 13 countries starting the school year with remote learning, according annual flood analyzed by the Kaiser Family Foundation—including to Education Week.) A separate bill from Washington Sen- levels for 2100 in a high emissions Germany, South Korea, and Israel—all but two had posi- ator Patty Murray that would provide $175 billion has scenario tivity rates below 4 percent when they resumed classes. In yet to been taken up by committee. Meanwhile, Trump, —Meerabelle the US the rate was approaching 8 percent as school began DeSantis, and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos

Jesuthasan to reopen, with some states—including Georgia, Florida, (continued on page 8) REHMAN ASAD / NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES September 7/14, 2020 The Nation. 5

THE SCORE/BRYCE COVERT + MIKE KONCZAL A Serious Plan

he Democrats’ 2020 presiden­ wealth from taxation at death. Such tax rules should remain. Taxes don’t just raise revenues; tial primary race was obsessed drive the inter­generational­ transfer of wealth they also structure the income distribution. with taxes. There was the among the ultrarich. All told, Biden’s tax And raising taxes on the rich would help stop public debate over how to plan would reduce the after-tax income of the economy from simply channeling income pay for Medicare for All. There the top 1 percent by around 17 percent. The to executives and owners. Taxes are about Twas also the insider dispute among experts, results would be concentrated among the top determining who benefits from the economy, no less contentious, over the feasibility 0.1 percent, whose after-tax income would fall and for too long, that has been only the and desirability of a wealth tax. Yet, as was an estimated 23.4 percent. rich. A sharp increase in taxes, as the Biden often the case during the primaries, these For the left, there are three important campaign has proposed, would push back discussions rarely included the person who questions that follow if this becomes the significantly against that. Mike Konczal was leading in the polls for almost the entire new baseline of the Democratic Party’s tax race: Joe Biden, whose tax plan is a serious agenda. The first is whether it is necessary proposal to reduce the power and income to tax wealth directly rather than tax income Biden’s Plan of the 1 percent. The former vice president’s from wealth. One advantage of Biden’s bold scheme provides a useful reference for proposal is that it would be easier to execute to Tax the 1% where the tax discourse among progressives and would more easily survive a challenge in The proposal would raise should go next. courts stacked with Trump-appointed judges. $4 trillion over 10 years. Another is that as income taxes become more aggressive, If this plan is fully implemented, they start to do the work of a it could significantly reduce wealth tax. As Greg Leiserson of the Washington Center for wealth inequality. Equitable Growth explained to me, the line between wealth According to the Tax Policy Center, Biden’s and income from wealth blurs if that income plan would raise upwards of $3.7 trillion over is vigorously taxed. If Biden’s plan is fully 10 years, similar to the amounts that would implemented, it could significantly reduce be raised by a wealth tax. And like the wealth wealth inequality. On the other hand, if Where most of tax supported by Senators Bernie Sanders executed poorly or with weak enforcement, it that revenue would and Elizabeth Warren, the money would come would make the case for a wealth tax better come from: entirely from those at the very top of the than any proponent could. $1.3 trillion by increasing the income distribution. The plan would do this There is also the question of whether we corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%.

by increasing the corporate income tax from should be focused on taxing people broadly $962 billion by lifting the Social Security cap. 21 to 28 percent and the top marginal rate or concentrating taxation on those at the very for those making over $400,000 a year from top. Biden’s plan forgoes the first option and $448 billion by taxing capital gains as ordinary income for millionaires. 37 to 39.6 percent, reversing most of Donald aims its taxes at the very rich. For the time Trump’s tax cuts. It would also remove the being, there is significant revenue to be raised It would raise income taxes cap on Social Security payroll taxes for those with this approach, which would deliver more on the ultrarich … making above $400,000, generating revenue than enough to pay for free public college, Average federal tax rate now for this vital program for low-income retirees. universal day care, and a child allowance and and under Biden’s plan: But the biggest difference from the to liberate many other aspects of our lives 46.7% status quo is that the plan would increase from the market. 41.7% 29.7% 30.4% taxes on capital income. Instead of giving a Given low interest rates and a severe preferential lower rate to those who make recession, there’s no pressure on the left to their income from owning wealth rather make the case for broad-based taxation. To Top 1% Top 0.1% than working, Biden’s plan would tax the the extent that taxing the rich comes up in the capital gains and dividend income of those context of austerity or a bipartisan bargain ... which would lower their earning more than $1 million as regular to balance the budget, it should be rejected. net income. Top 1% Top 0.1% income at the increased 39.6 percent rate. Interest rates have been low for decades, and Percentage change in after-tax income It would also close inheritance loopholes, with pressing political issues to address, the under Biden’s plan: -17.0% including one known as step-up in basis, main focus should be on how to spend. The -23.4% Sources: Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center which allows elites to shelter increases in prospect of raising taxes on the rich, however, Infographic by Tracy Matsue Loeffelholz 6 The Nation. September 7/14, 2020

IN OUR ORBIT Never Elie Mystal Forget efore George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery, before DOJ v. Affirmative Action B Michael Brown and Tray- von Martin, there was Emmett How Yale became the latest victim of the department’s plot to kill affirmative action. Till. Put on a Mississippi-​bound train by his mother, Mamie Till, he Department of Justice has not same legal test Harvard passed less than a year 65 years ago to visit relatives, filed a single case to defend the ago. Eric S. Dreiband, the assistant attorney the 14-year-old Chicago-born Voting Rights Act during the Trump general for civil rights, said, “Unlawfully dividing Emmett Till was beaten and mur- era. Other Republican administra- Americans into racial and ethnic blocs fosters dered on August 28, 1955, for the tions have mounted at least token stereotypes, bitterness and division,” which is crime of being young and Black, Tdefenses of the law, but Donald Trump’s DOJ has a statement devoid of any relevant information his mutilated body dumped into not found even one instance of voter discrimina- about Yale’s facially legal admissions priorities. the Tallahatchie River. Mamie tion or suppression that it is willing to bring to In its letter to the school, the Justice Depart- Till’s defiant insistence on jus- federal court. And it has all but stopped conduct- ment ordered Yale “not to use race or national tice for her son—her refusal to ing investigations into biased policing and greatly origin in its upcoming 2020-2021 undergraduate accept the all-white Tallahatchie County jury’s acquittal of Roy reduced the number of investigations into hate admissions cycle.” It’s an amazing commandment Bryant and J.W. Milam, the two crimes and disability rights cases. when you think about all the other things Yale is men who dragged Till from his What has the civil rights division at the Jus- still allowed to consider, according to the DOJ. uncle’s house—helped spark tice Department been doing all this Yale can consider if an applicant is the 20th century’s racial justice time? What has commanded the at- a legacy, a prince, or a celebrity. It revolution. “Emmett Till was my tention of federal law enforcement can consider an applicant’s gender George Floyd,” said John Lewis, in charge of policing racial discrim- or sexual orientation. It can consid- the late congressman whose ination? Apparently, it has been er whether an applicant can paint, legislative legacy includes the preoccupied with white kids who sing, or dunk. But Yale is being Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights can’t get into Yale. The Department ordered to put its head in the sand Crime Act, which allows for of Justice recently accused the uni- and ignore whether an applicant investigations of unsolved mur- versity of civil rights violations over has faced systemic racism. Yale can ders from the civil rights era. the school’s use of affirmative action look at whether an applicant is from To commemorate the anni- in college admissions. According to Manhattan, N.Y., or Manhattan, versary of his lynching, the BBC World Service is rebroadcasting the DOJ, a two-year investigation revealed that Kan., but it must ignore if the applicant’s ances- longtime Nation contributing Yale systemically discriminated against white and tors are from San Juan, P.R., or Lagos, Nigeria. editor Maria Margaronis’s radio Asian American applicants to the university. The argument against affirmative action is documentary “The Ballads of If this accusation sounds familiar, it should. never really about merit or fairness or any of Emmett Till.” As it recounts, Till’s The DOJ’s claims against Yale are near carbon the buzzwords con- death was both a call to political copies of allegations leveled by Students for Fair servatives use to mask action and the inspiration for Admissions, a group led by the anti-affirmative-​ ​ their racism. It’s always songs, poetry, and prose. Gwen- action activist Edward Blum against Harvard. about promoting the Yale is being dolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes, SFFA’s lawsuit against Harvard also used Asian chances of white kids ordered to put James Baldwin, Bob Dylan, Joni American students—who almost certainly are dis- over every­body else. Mitchell, and many more have criminated against—as a front for a legal action The Justice De- its head in the been drawn to tell the tale of this designed primarily to make it easier for mediocre partment gave Yale sand and ignore young Black life. With passage of white students to get into elite universities. until August 27 to vol- the Emmett Till Antilynching Act whether an still blocked in the Senate, the SFFA lost its lawsuit in front of US District untarily comply with program couldn’t be more timely. Judge Allison D. Burroughs last fall. She ruled its directive. Yale al- applicant has —D.D. Guttenplan that Harvard’s admissions policy was squarely in ready indicated it will faced systemic line with constitutional principles, as established not comply. Despite in Grutter v. Bollinger. That case, decided by the the lack of a valid legal racism. Supreme Court in 2003, requires affirmative ac- argument, the Justice tion programs to be “narrowly tailored” in order Department is likely to sue the school. to achieve the “compelling interest” of promoting Of course, offering valid legal arguments is diversity on college campuses. Burroughs ruled not ever the point when it comes to the Justice that Harvard’s use of race as one factor among Department under Trump and Attorney Gen- many was in keeping with Supreme Court prece- eral Bill Barr (or former AG Jeff Sessions, for dent. The case is now pending appeal. that matter). They’re not trying to make a case; The Department of Justice offers no compel- they’re simply trying to get a case in front of a ling evidence for how Yale’s admissions program Trump-appointed​ judge or an appellate court

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WineAd_NonGift_2020_V4.indd 1 3/11/20 1:45 PM 8 The Nation. September 7/14, 2020 the lower courts, well, there’s always the Supreme Court. into disarray, and wait for the conservative-controlled Supreme I believe there have been enough votes on the Supreme Court Court to sort out the mess. to end affirmative action in college admissions since alleged at- No matter who wins, Asian American students will lose. Asian tempted rapist Brett Kavanaugh ascended to that bench. I also Americans are the fastest-growing minority group in the country believe that Justice Clarence Thomas, who dissented in part and have been for most of this century, but their representation at in Bollinger and has contempt of affirmative action because he elite universities has not kept pace. It’s not because Black kids are thinks it made white people not take him seriously, will be able taking up spots. It’s because many of the other factors that univer- to keep himself alive on pure hatred until he is allowed to write sities consider serve to disadvantage Asian American applicants. the opinion ending its use. All Barr is trying to do is rush this Geographic diversity favors white kids, school recommendation case onto a court’s docket before Trump is (hopefully) kicked letters favor white kids, and most important, legacy status favors out of office in January. If it gets onto a court’s docket, it will white kids. To use just one popular example, more than a third of likely be assigned a lawyer by the court even if Joe Biden wins in those admitted to the Harvard Class of 2022 were legacies. November and his Justice Department withdraws the complaint. Trump’s Department of Justice isn’t trying to end affirmative At that point, Barr will have opened up another opportunity for action; it’s trying to keep Black children out of elite colleges and some conservative judge to issue a sweeping ruling that would universities. It has no problem with affirmative action for middling end affirmative action, throwing various university programs white students. ■

(continued from page 4) ier parents are hiring tutors for at-home dened by online instruction are also among have threatened to withhold funding from learning pods or microschools, other fami- those most at risk from the virus. schools that don’t reopen. lies are struggling just to get online. Nearly The chaos of early reopenings suggests None of this is to dismiss the horrors of 17 million children did not have high-speed that the most urgent question may not be remote learning, which widens existing eco- Internet at home in 2018, and more than how to safely resume in-person instruction nomic and racial chasms and is burdensome 7 million didn’t have a computer in their for everyone but rather how to get families in the best of circumstances. While wealth- household. Many of the families most bur- the services and support normally provided by schools. In the vacuum of national lead- ership, many districts are making their own JEN SORENSEN plans. Some schools in Massachusetts and COMIX NATION California are offering in-classroom instruc- tion only to targeted groups of students for whom remote learning might be particularly challenging, such as young children, those with special needs, kids from low-income families, and those who are learning English as a second language. Indianapolis is open- ing learning hubs specifically for homeless students. Many cities and nonprofits like the YMCA are trying to fill the child care gap, offering students space for remote school- work. These efforts to reimagine instruction are not sufficient, but they could be expand- ed with an infusion of federal funds. For schools, Covid-19 is a new crisis stacked on top of a very old one. Funding for public education has dropped precipitously since the Great Recession: In 2015 more than half of states were spending less per student than they did in 2008. Many of the equity issues that Trump and DeVos cite in their push to reopen schools are long- standing, exacerbated by funding schemes that tie school resources to the local tax base and by segregation. Both are political choices; neither will be resolved simply by reopening schools this fall. Other choices loom on the horizon as the virus decimates state revenues. The pandemic may have re- minded Americans of how much they need schools and teachers. It’s also made it clear that the country is a long way from making them a priority. ZOË CARPENTER Words Matter

hortly after I came from Europe Sto the US, a close friend gifted me “a subscription to The Nation. I’ve been a faithful reader and, when I was able to, supporter of the magazine. We need The Nation now more than ever; its voice needs to be heard. I like to think I’ll help keep it up for the future. It still reminds me of my old friend. —Claudia Sole,” Calif.

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Legacy_new covers_WordsMatter_2020.indd 1 7/9/20 2:32 PM 10 The Nation. September 7/14, 2020

TRUMP Dirty Katha Pollitt Tricks o retain power, Donald Trump is going to resort Canceling Margaret Sanger T to every dirty trick. Hence his campaign’s efforts Whatever the motive, the main winners here are abortion opponents. to help Kanye West get on the ballot in swing states, in the admit I took it a bit personally when was a progressive who believed in racial integration. hopes that he will siphon votes Planned Parenthood of Greater New She voted for Norman Thomas. She worked with from Joe Biden. Jared Kushner York took the name of the organization’s progressive Black people—W.E.B. DuBois, for reportedly talks frequently with founder, Margaret Sanger, off its flag- example, who along with Mary McCleod Bethune the rapper to discuss strategy. ship clinic in Manhattan in July. It will and Adam Clayton Powell Sr. served on the board Hence the ratcheting up of Inow be called Manhattan Health Center. What of the Negro Project, a network of birth control rhetoric against voting by mail. am I supposed to do now with the two Planned and maternal health clinics Sanger established in Trump has threatened to with- Parenthood Maggie Awards I’ve won for articles Harlem and the South. In 1966, Martin Luther hold federal funds from states on reproductive rights? Life comes at you fast. King accepted Planned Parenthood’s first Marga- that make it easier to vote by Some news reports made it sound as if the change ret Sanger Award, and in his statement offered a mail, and he admitted that he refused to sign off on desperate- was related to internal struggles over racism; vigorous endorsement of voluntary birth control. ly needed funding to shore up staffers of color have complained that they were Although she did not single out Black people, the US Postal Service because disrespected and passed over for promotion, and Sanger was, yes, a eugenicist. She thought people, he knew it would inhibit voting around the time that Sanger’s name especially poor people, often had too by mail. He has even alleged was removed, Laura McQuade, the many kids to care for properly and that that pets are being sent ballots CEO of the New York affiliate, was too many of those kids were born phys- in a nefarious animal-Democrat fired amid accusations of racism. ically disabled (or in the language of alliance to rob him of power. These were legitimate concerns. Of the day, “feeble-minded”). She did not Hence Senator Ted Cruz and the 22 members of the PPGNY oppose forced sterilization. Donald Trump Jr.’s recycling board, according to The New York In these views, she had a lot of com- of Russian-troll-generated Times, only one is Black. (Two are pany. Many intellectuals in the early misinformation about alleged Asian, and two are Hispanic.) Espe- 20th century—left, right, and center— Bible-burning episodes among cially given that Black women make went even further. That is, they traced Portland, Ore., protesters. up a large proportion of Planned social ills like crime and poverty to there Hence Donald Trump Sr.’s racist appeals to “suburban Parenthood patients, that’s pretty shocking. being too many of the wrong sort of people, a housewives,” who he believes Whether erasing Sanger was an olive branch to calamity that modern society, through science and can be scared into support- Black staffers or part of a deeper self-investigation,​ social control, could prevent. Because of the Nazis, ing him if he tells them often there’s no question that the main winners here are we think of eugenics as based on racism and pseudo­ enough that Biden wants poor abortion opponents. For decades, they’ve claimed scientific notions of Black people to move into their that Sanger was a racist bent on Black genocide breeding a racial ge- neighborhoods. and that Planned Parenthood is carrying out netic elite, but it was Meanwhile, the United States that mission today. In 2016, Planned Parenthood more about ableism, It’s very painful had its 20th consecutive week released a historically accurate, fair, and complex based on the belief that that this canard with more than 1 million Ameri- statement refuting that absurd claim, but why poverty, crime, prosti- cans filing unemployment claims. would anyone pay attention to that now? tution, and promiscuity about Sanger Trump has no anti-​poverty Never mind that the anti-choice movement were the result of infe- has now been strategy and no desire to force has never done a thing for Black people and, like rior genes. the GOP-led Senate to negotiate given the stamp with House Democrats to forge Sanger’s old enemy the Catholic hierarchy, is Avowed socialists a relief package. What he does closely allied with racist institutions like the Re- like H.G. Wells, George of approval by the have, in abundance, is animus. publican Party and white evangelical Protestant- Bernard Shaw, and very organization —Sasha Abramsky ism. The bogus anti-racism of the self-described even Helen Keller were pro-life movement was on full display in 2011, eugenicists. So were she founded. when billboards appeared picturing an adorable liberal reformers like Black child with the caption “The most dangerous Havelock Ellis and John Maynard Keynes and place for an African American is in the womb.” In traditionalists like Winston Churchill. Gunnar and other words: The biggest danger to Black people is Alva Myrdal, the architects of the Swedish wel- pregnant Black women. It is truly painful that this fare state (she was a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, canard about Sanger has now been given a stamp too), supported measures to help mothers and of approval by the very organization she founded. children, but they also enthusiastically support- For the record, Margaret Sanger was not a rac- ed sterilization of the “unfit.” Buck v. Bell, the ist, as PPGNY board chairman Karen Seltzer as- infamous Supreme Court decision that validated

serts. As her biographer Ellen Chesler told me, she forced sterilization, was written by one liberal hero, ANDY FRIEDMAN VIA AP IMAGES; TOP RIGHT: / ABACA PRESS SIPA OLIVIER DOULIERY LEFT: ANFIBIA BY THE PULITZER CENTER AND REVISTA SUPPORTED September 7/14 2020 The Nation. 11

Oliver Wendell Holmes, and approved by another, Louis I’ll just come right out and say it: Margaret Sanger Brandeis. As Chesler tartly observed, Sanger’s name is did more good for American women than any other more closely associated with this case than the men who individual in the entire 20th century. She is the person decided it. Nobody is demanding that Brandeis University who connected birth control not just to women’s health— change its name. something the Catholic Church has yet to grasp, although It’s one thing But who knows? Maybe that will happen. At least for it controls one in seven US hospital beds—but also to our to get rid of now, we seem uninterested in context or history or in self-determination​ and sexual freedom. She was the key Confederate weighing the bad with the good. The current wave of leader who really grasped the fact that without the ability monuments. name changes and erasures and pulling down of statues to control our own bodies, women would never be free It’s another to doesn’t leave much room for nuance, and maybe that’s in- or equal or even just happy and well. She was more than evitable in this astonishing transformative moment. Still, a writer, an activist, a health provider, and an organizer, read an entire it’s one thing to get rid of Confederate monuments or for though she was all those things. She was a whirlwind of heroic life Yale to change the name of its Calhoun College. Confed- energy who changed our understanding of womanhood, through the lens erates were traitors. Calhoun was a terrible person who sex, and marriage so fundamentally, we can barely picture of one fault. did nothing but harm. It’s another thing to read an entire what life was like before her. There are so many ways of heroic life through the lens of one fault. There won’t be forgetting where we have been. Planned Parenthood has many heroes left if we do that. just made doing so a little easier. ■

BIRTHERISM 2.0 SNAPSHOT / ANITA POUCHARD SERRA Trump spreads doubt about Kamala Harris’s Calvin Trillin citizenship. —news reports A Helping Hand No citizen, though Oakland-born, Yoli delivers supplies to people in lockdown in Deadline Poet Hints Donald and his claque— Villa 1-11-14, one of the most populous slums in Buenos Aires. Government aid has been slow to Just like Obama, culpable materialize, so community organizations are leading Of being born while black. the fight to keep residents safe. LEFT: OLIVIER DOULIERY / ABACA PRESS / SIPA VIA AP IMAGES; TOP RIGHT: ANDY FRIEDMAN VIA AP IMAGES; TOP RIGHT: / ABACA PRESS SIPA OLIVIER DOULIERY LEFT: ANFIBIA BY THE PULITZER CENTER AND REVISTA SUPPORTED 7,383-Seat Strategy gap thisNovember? Trump, they’ve won nearly 1,000state Can theyclosethe while Obamawas back almosthalf. legislative seats in office.Under Democrats lost The Nation. JOAN WALSH The

JUSTIN GIBBY September 7/14, 2020 The Nation. 13

or at least four decades, going back to the devastating rise of ronald reagan, progressives have heard the same refrain every presidential campaign year: This is the most important election of our lives. In 2020, though, it’s true. Really. Not just because it’s a chance to oust Donald Trump and undo the damage from 2016, says voting rights champion Stacey Abrams, who ran for Georgia governor in 2018. “2020 is also a redo and a redemption of the 2010 election,” she says fervently. 2010 was the year, Abrams explains, that Republicans, stunned by Barack Obama’s election in 2008, began their comeback. They didn’t ignore federal races, by any means, but they began pouring money and energy into flipping state legislative cham- bers, which had been dominated by Democrats for decades. They were astonishingly successful, not only in 2010 but throughout FObama’s two terms, eight sorry years in which Democrats lost 942 legislative seats. In 2009, Democrats controlled 27 state legislative assemblies and Republicans 14, with eight divided. (Nebraska’s unicameral legislature is nonpartisan.) By 2017, Republicans controlled 32 and Democrats 14, with three divided. In those years, Democrats’ fortunes eroded at other levels: The party lost the US House in 2010, the Senate in 2014, and stunningly, Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016 with an Electoral College win, though she captured the popular vote. Abrams and other Dem- ocrats connect many of those losses to the states Republicans won in 2010, where they gained control over redistrict­ ­ing. In many states they gerrymandered state and congressional districts to disadvantage Democrats and passed voting rights restric- need a diverse slate of challengers, especially to turn out tions. Those moves made it harder for Democrats to win This year, the people least likely to vote but most likely to be Dem- state and congressional races and, ultimately, the White ocrats: so-called low-propensity voters, mainly people of House. Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, three “Democrats color and younger people (who obviously overlap). Then states that Clinton lost by a combined 77,000 votes and aren’t play- Democrats need to target those voters, as well as run on thus the Electoral College, saw Republicans gain state ing defense issues and urgency that match the moment. power and pass voting rights restrictions between 2010 State-level Democrats are doing fairly well on all and 2016. to hold any three fronts. Covid-19 and the national uprising against The good news: In 2017 the resistance to Trump ran chamber police violence “have really made people understand the through state legislative races as Democrats won back 14 they control, power of state legislators and governors,” says Catherine state seats in special elections, plus an astonishing 15 in Vaughan, a cofounder of Flippable (now merged with Virginia that November (11 of them going to women, and they’ve Swing Left), formed in 2016 to focus on state races. Ac- including five women of color). Learning the lessons fielded more tivists are also inspired by the sheer number of candidates of Virginia, a broad roster of national groups, some of running—including many women of color—who lost them institutional and some the so-called resistance pop- candidates narrowly in 2018 and are running again. ups—from a renewed Democratic Legislative Campaign than Republi- “What’s great is that Democrats aren’t playing de- Committee (DLCC) to Indivisible, from Emily’s List to cans have.” fense to hold any chamber they control, and they’ve Flippable, from former attorney general Eric Holder’s — Carolyn Fiddler, fielded more state candidates than Republicans have,” well-funded National Democratic Redistricting Com- Daily Kos says Daily Kos communications director Carolyn Fid- mittee to scrappy Sister District—put admirable muscle dler, a veteran of state legislative politics. “So far, this into statehouse races in 2018. The result: They turned looks like it could be the inverse of 2010.” On the other 380 seats from red to blue that November, flipping On the ground: hand, the Covid pandemic has turned campaigning up- chambers in six states. Volunteers with Sister side down, making field organizing all but impossible In Colorado, New York, and Maine, Democrats took District, one of several and fundraising tougher, too. “We’re all just figuring new groups focused over Senate chambers. In Minnesota they grabbed the on winning state­ it out together,” says Amanda Litman, a cofounder of House, and in New Hampshire they turned both. They houses, canvassing in Run for Something, which recruits young Democrats to made huge strides elsewhere in eroding GOP power, Virginia in 2019. compete for state and local offices. “Anyone who tells switching 16 seats in North Carolina’s House and Senate, ending GOP supermajorities (which gave the legislature power to override the Democratic governor’s vetoes); 14 in Texas; and 19 in Pennsylvania. In 2019, Virginia Democrats finished their job, taking the House and the Senate. With a Democratic governor, the state returned to full Democratic control for the first time in over two decades. Counting those Virginia vic- tories, Democrats have won back over 450 seats and 10 state chambers in the Trump era. Now those groups and some new ones are trying to change more chambers to blue, especially in states where the legislature controls redistricting. But they need to learn the lessons of why state Democrats slumped after 2008, failing to rise to the GOP challenge, and surged after 2016. Chief among them: You can’t win if you don’t play. Democrats in many states had long failed even to field challengers to many Republican incumbents. That’s changed hugely since 2016. In this cycle, the DLCC has

JUSTIN GIBBY spent $6.2 million to recruit candidates. Democrats also 14 The Nation. September 7/14, 2020 you they know what will happen in the states this year Virginia in 2017 and is mainly working with the Tarheel is full of shit.” State this year. In 2010 wealthy right-wing North Car- olina businessman Art Pope helped bankroll an assault he diverse roster of groups working in this on state Democrats, working with Republican strategist space is spread across the country, but most share Karl Rove and the notorious GOP Redistricting Major- several top-priority states, where there’s a good ity Project, along with Charles and David Koch. The chance to flip a chamber or where the legislature team won Republican control of both chambers of the plays a role in redistricting decisions. Thus the four state’s General Assembly for the first time since 1870. Tstates that are seeing the most investment are North Caro- “North Carolina was the original red state laboratory, lina, where there’s a chance to shift the House and Senate; where they created all their extremist legislation and then Arizona, where both chambers are likewise in play; and spread it everywhere,” Bachman laments. Texas and Michigan, whose Houses may be up for grabs. The Covid-19 Jessica Post, who now heads the DLCC, was a junior Fights are also underway to turn the Minnesota Senate, pandemic staffer with the organization in 2010. She saw what the Iowa and Ohio Houses, and both Pennsylvania cham- went down in North Carolina and elsewhere around the bers. Wisconsin and Georgia are getting attention, too. and the up- country that November. “In 2010 the [Democrats’] focus And with a late, unexpected surge of first-time can- rising against was on maintaining control of Congress. The feeling was didates, Florida has emerged as a fascinating laboratory police that top-of-the-ticket turnout would trickle down,” she for building Democratic infrastructure on the ground. says. The opposite happened. “Karl Rove did this in plain Republicans hold a trifecta in state power—hapless Gov- violence sight.” Indeed, in March 2010 he announced in The Wall ernor Ron DeSantis as well as both legislative houses— “have really Street Journal, “Republican strategists are focused on 107 and they have botched the pandemic response beyond made people seats in 16 states. Winning these seats would give them belief. Groups like Sister District, Forward Majority, and control of drawing district lines for nearly 190 congres- the DLCC are starting to spend money there to at least understand sional seats.” Post says, “We lost 21 chambers across the build a working Democratic Party in red areas, if not flip the power country that night. I remember crying on the sidewalk, a chamber. “Running up the margins” in blue districts and saying I never want to feel this way again.” preventing Republicans from doing so in red districts “can of state But North Carolina’s Democratic Party leaders turned help Joe Biden win the state,” says Fergie Reid Jr. of 90 for legislators.” the tables in 2018, and Post and others say the state party 90, a group formed to honor his father, Fergie Reid Sr., — Catherine Vaughan, has continued its rise this cycle, again recruiting candi- who was elected in 1967 as Virginia’s first Black state leg- Flippable dates to run in every district, plus doubling fundraising islator since Reconstruction, on his 90th birthday. (He’s since 2018, which was a good year. And several candidates now 95 and going strong.) It is one of the groups behind who lost that year are stepping up to run again. Virginia’s turnaround, by registering voters and recruiting Educator Aimy Steele of Cabarrus County, just Democratic challengers. Now it has helped inspire the late northeast of Charlotte, is one of them. An African surge of Florida Democratic candidates. American former principal who is married to a local For a lot of groups, North Carolina is the big prize. New leaders: pastor, she was driven to run in 2018 after the state leg- A Sister District “This is a microcosm of Trumpism. It all started in North captain summit in islature tried to lower class sizes from kindergarten to Carolina,” says Christine Bachman of Our States Matter, Oakland, Calif., third grade not by increasing funding but by increasing who is widely credited with focusing national activism on in 2018. class sizes in higher grades. She made a determined but underfunded challenge that year and came within 2,000 votes of winning. “I was devastated the night I lost, but the next day I said, ‘I’m not fin- ished,’” she recalls. She learned a lot from that first race—including that experts tend to want candidates to focus on people who vote routinely, even to try per- suading wobbly Republicans, but to ignore low-propensity​ voters, who tend to be people of color. Steele defied them, targeting those voters and turning out thousands of them. This time around, she has 12 new precincts, thanks to new and fairer North Carolina maps, which give her district more voters of color. That’s also more voters to introduce herself to, but she says, “I was principal of two schools in those precincts. People know me.” Being an educator is key

to her appeal during a pandemic in SARAH BLANK LEGISLATURES CONFERENCE OF STATE SOURCE: NATIONAL September 7/14, 2020 The Nation. 15 27 DEM 8 SPLIT 14 GOP 18 DEM 1 SPLIT 30 GOP

Control of State Legislatures, 2009 Control of State Legislatures, 2019

which elected officials, teachers, and parents are uncertain This time around, Steele is unapologetic about target- and sometimes divided over opening schools. Steele under- ing Black voters in a district that’s 23 percent African Amer- stands the tension. ican. “I told my team, we need to talk to all Black voters in “As if teachers already didn’t have an enormous the district. Because they need the person who is running amount of responsibilities that they’re not compensated for a position of power, who could possibly represent them, for. Now they need to be qualified to take tempera- to look like them,” she says. Talk of low-propensity voters tures, to ensure that kids are safely socially distancing frustrates her. “I could be one of those voters. I could fall themselves and also provide avenues to make sure all into the low-propensity category, had someone not con- the kids who stay home are learning, in addition to the vinced me of how important voting was.” kids who are at school,” she says. Parents are worried, On this score, Steele says, the pandemic hampers her too. But she has found constituents turning to her in the a little. (A lot of other second-time candidates of color crisis—​parents asking for help finding tutors, teachers say the same thing.) “Door knocking is my super­power!” asking questions about their safety. She has a spreadsheet “I told my she says. Bachman notes that “the resistance was really matching teachers who want work, often extra work, with team, we built on human contact—field organizing, reaching parents losing patience with their unexpected home­ voters in person, knocking on doors—which makes this schooling adventures. She makes these family-teacher need to talk cycle all the more challenging, given that Covid has connections almost every day. to all Black stripped our candidates of those tools.” (Canvassing Run for Something’s Litman sees a version of that all voters in with volunteers also costs less than paid media campaign over the country. “Candidates are acting as advocates for features.) “It’s just very sad,” Steele admits. “Last time, voters during [the pandemic]. They’re doing wellness the district. people told me, ‘Nobody ever knocks on our door.’ I’d checks. They’re connecting,” she says. Because they say, ‘Hey, I will!’ We just had so much fun on the doors. The other thing Steele learned was the importance of need the It’s cramping my style.” advocating for herself and raising money. Even in 2018, On the other hand, unlike many other states with when the North Carolina House Democratic caucus was person who Republican-controlled legislatures, North Carolina has a comparatively aggressive about challenging Republi- could possi- Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, who gets high marks cans, her district was written off as hopeless, yet she got for his handling of the pandemic. He is also on the ballot 47 percent of the vote. She says, “As soon as I decided to bly represent in November, which should boost Steele. “Our governor run again, I connected with the caucus, and I let them them to look is favored highly with his handling of the coronavirus, so know, ‘Listen, I take this very seriously. If you’re willing like them.” knowing I’m in his party, that’s a help.” So much so that to make an investment in me, I’m willing to run hard and —Aimy Steele, her opponent, Kristin Baker, has boasted about working run strong.’ And they said, ‘It looks like the race is going candidate, with Cooper while downplaying the “R” next to her name. to be better this cycle. So we will go ahead.’” North Carolina Bachman is optimistic. “What we know as the resis- legislature hat’s not the case in texas, where governor tance today started out as Rev. [William] Barber II and Greg Abbott is increasingly reviled for his pan- Moral Mondays in North Carolina in 2011,” she says. demic management—which is partly why Dem- “That was the blueprint.” After the state’s GOP leader- ocrats are increasingly optimistic about their ship began passing a barrage of right-wing legislation, chances to win the nine seats they need to turn including strict new voter ID measures, Barber and Tthe state House. There are nine House districts held by other religious and progressive leaders began weekly Republicans that were won in 2018 by Senate candidate protests in Raleigh and partnered on voter registration Beto O’Rourke, whose run is widely credited with reviv- drives. The activism culminated in Barber’s nationwide ing the state’s withered Democratic infrastructure. He

SARAH BLANK LEGISLATURES CONFERENCE OF STATE SOURCE: NATIONAL Poor People’s Campaign this year. lost to Senator Ted Cruz narrowly, but Democrats picked 16 The Nation. September 7/14, 2020

Democrat Split Republican Control of State Legislatures, 1997–2019

32 31 Democrat Split Republican 30 30 30 30 27 27 26 27 27 26 32 31 23 30 30 30 30 22 21 21 27 27 27 27 20 20 20 20 26 26 20 19 20 19 18 18 17 19 19 23 19 19 18 16 21 21 15 22 15 15 18 18 20 17 20 20 17 2014 14 14 14 14 20 15 19 16 20 19 11 12 14 18 18 11 17 11 11 10 16 1912 1912 19 18 19 12 18 12 158 8 8 15 15 14 14 18 10 17 17 10 10 14 14 714 15 16 8 8 11 12 14 11 4 3 3 11 4 11 1 12 1 110 1 1 1 12 1 1 1 12 1 1 1 1 1 121 18 18 1 8 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 10 10 10 7 8 8 2000 2005 2010 20154 3 2019 3 4 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 up an astonishing0 12 seats in the House that year. elected, she would be the first former foster care child 2000 2005 2010 2015 2019 Run by a bumbling GOP trifecta in the age of corona­ in the Texas legislature. virus, ruby red Texas is unpredictable this year. Biden This year, some hope that a presidential election, even leads Trump in a few polls there. “Governor Abbott which always gets more voters to the polls, could help has taken all the ownership of Covid and has refused to boost Texas turnout—but maybe not at the state legis- believe science,” says second-time Texas House candi- “The line lative level. “We have to avoid down-ballot drop-off,” date Joanna Cattanach. “We have refrigerator trucks used to be Cattanach says. That’s always a challenge in state leg- outside hospitals in Dallas County now.” islative races, even in the hyperenergized Trump era. The net approval rating for Abbott’s response to that I’m “In 2018 our candidates underperformed Democrats Covid has slipped 21 points since June, when 56 per- too liberal in the same congressional district by about 4 points,” cent of Texans approved and only 36 percent disap- for this Forward Majority cofounder Vicky Hausman warns. proved; he is now underwater, with 47 percent approval, “It’s a real problem.” 48 percent disapproval. “He’s really made himself the district. Not “This is where having an obnoxiously unique name face of the pandemic,” Cattanach says, sounding bewil- anymore.” could help me,” Cattanach jokes. Like Steele, she believes dered. Not only did Abbott open businesses too soon, the — Joanna Cattanach, her race will come down to mobilizing those less likely to public health data shows, but he also discouraged face second-time Texas vote, not persuading those on the fence. “We’re encour- masks and social distancing and even blocked localities legislature candidate aged by the digital market and reaching young people that from imposing stricter requirements. way. I’m seen as a progressive new voice. The line used Like Steele, Cattanach, a journalist turned com- to be that I’m too liberal for this district. Not anymore.” munity college instructor, thinks being an educator particularly helps in this race. “Abbott put together a athy lewis, who’s running a second time for task force on reopening the schools with no teachers on Florida’s Senate District 20, encompassing the it,” she notes. She says people are asking “if there will be Tampa–St. Petersburg area anchored by Hills- grief counselors when we open up the schools, because borough County, didn’t hear she was too liberal people will die. I’m hearing about teachers rushing to for the district in 2018. Mostly she didn’t hear make wills.” Kanything, especially from Democratic Party leaders. Also like Steele, Cattanach was given no chance of Like Steele and Cattanach, Lewis, who is African winning her race two years ago, but she came even closer, American, was driven to run in 2018 by experience. The within 220 votes. This time around, she’s getting more mother of an adult child who is autistic, she jumped local and even national support. She’s backed by Sister through the hoops of Florida’s health care system to get District, the National Democratic Redistricting Com- her child approved for services, only to wait four months mittee, and major labor unions. She says, “My message Kathy Lewis: She without getting any help. After a long struggle with mul- is, ‘Trust me to take care of your kids. Let me clean up is running for the tiple bureaucracies, she wangled the care she needed for this mess in Austin.’ And that’s resonating.” Florida legislature for her daughter—and decided to run for the state Senate a second time. Like so many women who have run for office in the against entrenched GOP incumbent Tom Lee. Trump era, Cattanach, who is Latina, says she returned “Everyone,” including many state Democratic lead- from the first Women’s March “and just felt like I’d ers, “said we were crazy,” she recalls. “No one would yelled and screamed but I had to do more.” In 2017 vote for us. But the party had somehow miscalculated she saw that the Texas House was considering a “reli- how much this district was changing.” She garnered an gious liberty” bill that, among other things, would let unexpected 46.5 percent of the vote, winning 52 per- state-funded foster care and adoption agencies, largely cent in populous Hillsborough County. In 2020, Lee controlled by Christian charities, discriminate on reli- resigned, and suddenly the party had an open seat to gious grounds—potentially locking out non-Christians, contest. According to several reports, Democratic lead- people in interfaith marriages, or LGBTQ parents. A ers approached at least two others to run, even though former foster child, she pitched local writers, “Do you Lewis filed almost immediately after Lee’s announce- Aimy Steele: She want to get the perspective of a foster care child on this wants to be part of a ment. “They said later they didn’t know I was on the one?” It was a winning angle and helped launch her blue wave in the North ballot,” she says, sounding unconvinced.

campaign. (A version of the bill eventually passed.) If Carolina legislature. If Democrats recruited two alternative potential can- LEGISLATURES CONFERENCE OF STATE SOURCE: NATIONAL September 7/14, 2020 The Nation. 17

didates for Lee’s seat, they neglected a whole lot of one asked about the party’s lack of support for Lewis her second time other districts. That’s where 90 for 90 came in. After the around, Townsend replied, “It’s not high on our list because of where the group’s Virginia successes, it moved on to other states, polling was. What we do is, we prioritize based on our overall goals. White, helping recruit candidates where party leaders seemed Black, brown—it doesn’t matter who that candidate is, it’s where they fall unable or uninterested. In Florida the Reids reached on our election priority list.” out to Janelle Christensen, the energetic head of the Angela Birdsong, a Hillsborough Democratic activist who ran for county state Democrats’ environmental caucus. “They explained commissioner in 2018, responded, “I just think any Black woman in the race the advantages of running in every district, and I said, right now stands a chance and should be given a little more money than you ‘Hey, I’m convinced,’” she says. “It’s not necessarily that might think they need. I just feel that you should give them more money!” they’re going to win, although they could, but they can Lewis, like other women of color running for office this year, believes cut the margins in red districts for Biden and educate the widespread American revulsion over George Floyd’s murder and the people on our issues.” She says she could fill maybe 10 movement to end police violence buoy her campaign. challengers’ seats with folks close to her caucus. “But For one thing, it has gotten people focused on the role of when I got started talking to them, they talked to their “I’m always state and local leaders in reforming police departments. friends, and we recruited 36.” 90 for 90 also worked to raising Here’s where electing Democrats can matter—if not help with the unlikely candidates’ state election filing always enough. Colorado, which elected a Democratic fees, which are $1,800 each. alarms that trifecta over the past few cycles, did away with qualified Other national groups, including the DLCC, have this field immunity for police officers in June; New York, which since jumped into Florida. “The conventional wisdom is isn’t well completed a trifecta in 2018, enacted other criminal there’s no path to winning the Florida House. We have justice reforms. “We now have a Black Senate leader, a contrarian view,” says Hausman. As in Texas, there are resourced. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, and a Black Assembly speak- districts that appear flippable, especially the 13 GOP- The vast er, Carl Heastie,” the DLCC’s Post says of New York. held seats that were won by either Clinton in 2016 or by majority of ”That’s truly made a difference.” gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum in 2018. Lewis talks about another benefit. “I have had at least Still, many people feel the state party is under­ donors are five white strangers call me out of the blue when George supportive of its new insurgents. Inexplicably, challeng- focused Floyd died,” she says. “They somehow found my website ers have had trouble getting access to VAN, a privately on federal and said they were looking to support an African Ameri- owned list of local voters, with names, addresses, and can woman running for office.” phone numbers, who have voted or might vote Dem- races.” ocratic. “It felt like the party was constantly trying to — Vicky Hausman, ut not all voters and, sadly, not all demo- reinterpret the rules for who qualifies [to get VAN],” Forward Majority cratic leaders feel the same way. The surge of Christensen says. “But even once you get it, most of the Black women running for office since Trump numbers are bad. Nobody’s even been trying in these was elected is unmistakable. In North Carolina Not done yet: In 2018 districts, in some cases for decades. They’re useless it was widely assumed four Black women are running in statewide races, for anyone coming in trying to organize. If all we did that Joanna Cattanach Bwhich Democrats believe will buoy Black turnout state- in these races is build a list of interested Democrats in had no chance of wide. All over the country, an unprecedented number of VAN, that’s something.” winning a seat in the women, many of them women of color, are stepping up. Texas House. She Sister District cofounder Gaby Goldstein, whose came within 220 votes But some people worry these women and other state- group is also working in Florida, says that’s a common and is running again level Democrats are not getting the support they need. problem in red states, many of which it has targeted since this year. (continued on page 26) its founding in 2016. “In some places, we have to lay the basic groundwork because VAN is garbage. Many Dem- ocratic voter lists are garbage,” she says. I have heard this a lot in red states and districts over the last four years. There have always been stalwart Democratic activists in the reddest places, but a lot of state parties have let the infrastructure “wither away,” Goldstein says. Lewis eventually got access to VAN. There are gaps in its data, but this time around, she’s more confident anyway. “You know what? With the coronavirus, we have local people who don’t have health care. They can’t access unemployment insurance. They know Florida is a mess,” she says. She adds that after hearing her story in 2018 about fighting with the state to get services for her daughter and hearing it again in 2020, people tell her, “Kathy, I didn’t understand last time, but now I see exactly what you were saying.” Unfortunately, local party leaders still don’t seem to understand. Lewis benefited from a widely seen Zoom call in July led by Hillsborough County Democratic

SOURCE: NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF STATE LEGISLATURES CONFERENCE OF STATE SOURCE: NATIONAL leader Ione Townsend with local Black leaders. When THERE18 IS POWER The Nation. September 7/14, 2020 WITHOUT A UNION

Target workers are taking on bosses themselves. Is this the future of radical organizing? P.E. MOSKOWITZ September 7/14, 2020 The Nation. 19

hristiansburg, va., resembles many other towns in the united policing are related. Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, States. There’s a small city center surrounded by strip malls, and the where Target has its corporate headquarters and where the vast sprawl is where most economic activity occurs. Given that these company has formed a close relationship with the police. corporate landscapes now dominate the country, maybe it’s appro- But many of Ryan’s coworkers have pushed back on his priate that this is where a radical labor movement is taking shape. attempts to show the links. He said some of his colleagues In the basement bedroom of his parents’ small brick house are so accustomed to labor organizing being siloed from is- along a hilly Christiansburg back road, Adam Ryan, a 31-year-old sues of race that he has found it hard to convince them that Cpart-time sales associate at Target, has amassed a tool kit for revolution: a the fight for higher wages and the fight against the racist megaphone, research reports and fliers, and hundreds of books—biographies American justice system can be one and the same. of Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx, histories of Jim Crow and capitalism, and “We need to be pointing out how these things are guides about organizing workers and the benefits and limits of unions. connected,” Ryan said. “[The mainstream] unions ignore This room has become an unlikely organizing center. Ryan wants to help all those connections.” build a workers’ movement that does not rely on unions or nonprofits to It’s not that he is anti-union. He’s not against joining educate or organize and instead trains the workers to do one in the future, but he said trade unions have lost their it themselves. The problem, according to him and others way. Gone is the anti-capitalist rhetoric of the early and doing similar work, is that the big traditional unions mid-1900s, during which unions supported workers have had their missions whittled down. They no longer seizing factories. Now unions represent the police Ryan fight to have workers at the levers of power, preferring to would like to organize against. bargain for better conditions at specific companies. That has alienated radicals like Ryan. They don’t want just a or the past 100 years, us labor law has left better contract. They want a worker-controlled future. many workers out of unions altogether. Contrac- Ryan is guided by the belief that nearly everything tors, who now make up 20 percent of the American good for workers will not be accomplished by paid or- “Folks are labor force, typically can’t join. That has led to a ganizers, nonprofits, or lobbying groups but will have to becom- long history of workers finding different paths to come from low-paid workers. Forganizing. The number of worker centers—where la- ing more The result is Target Workers Unite, a group that Ryan borers can learn about their rights, meet one another, and created in 2018 and has had involvement from Target agitated. obtain legal services—ballooned in the 1990s and early employees across 44 states. There are currently about I think that 2000s. There are also dozens of alliances that aren’t unions 500 TWU members, and that number is rapidly growing leaves us but fight for workers’ rights in similar ways. The National through the Covid-19 crisis as workers struggle to pay Domestic Workers Alliance has won wage increases and their bills and deal with managers who have underplayed with a good helped enact legal protections for domestic laborers. The the disease’s threat and with a corporation that has, like basis to Coalition of Immokalee Workers has organized tomato many of its ilk, refused to give employees comprehensive organize our farm laborers into a hunger strike, eventually winning paid sick leave. wage increases across the industry. “Folks are becoming more agitated,” Ryan told me. “I coworkers.” For now, TWU is a little more anarchic. There’s no think that leaves us with a good basis to organize our co- — Adam Ryan, nonprofit status, no outside donors, just rank-and-file workers. I’m hoping that’s the good thing that can come founder, Target Target workers organizing themselves, largely through Workers Unite out of all this, that we come out of this more organized the Internet. and unified as workers—as essential workers.” Ryan concluded this was the best tack after trying and TWU was birthed partly out of his frustration with Targeted: On May 1, failing to unionize workplaces in Richmond. In 2017, just the organizing that the unions were doing with retail Target Workers Unite as Donald Trump was taking office, Ryan moved in with workers. Before moving back to Christiansburg, Ryan organized a sick-out his parents, Republicans with a love for Fox News and the was living in Richmond, Va., and held a string of restau- to protest the lack Christian Broadcasting Network. He set up his basement of safety measures rant and retail jobs. At each, he tried to organize workers, and better protective as a communist haven and got to work. but he said the unions didn’t lend enough support. equipment during the He applied for a job at the local Target. He needed With the Industrial Workers of the World, Ryan said, Covid-19 pandemic. the money, but he also saw it as an opportunity to salt— he felt they were just telling him, “Let’s run everybody through the organizer training and then tell everybody to just go organize their workplaces,” without much contin- ued support. And he said it seemed the big groups, like the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), had too much of a top-down approach: They come in, help you get set up, help negotiate your con- tracts, then leave. For Ryan, there wasn’t enough of an emphasis on politicizing workers. Many unions, he said, want to smooth over the worker-boss relationship. He wants the opposite; he wants to agitate it. As the protests in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd spread, Ryan tried to talk to his fellow

OPPOSITE PAGE: MOVIESTORE COLLECTION LTD. / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; THIS PAGE: COURTESY OF TARGET WORKERS UNITE OF TARGET COURTESY / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; THIS PAGE: MOVIESTORE COLLECTION LTD. OPPOSITE PAGE: Target employees about how issues of labor, racism, and 20 The Nation. September 7/14, 2020 become an employee with the goal of organizing the workplace. He works about “There’s a whole generation or two of mistrust or 20 to 25 hours a week and makes around $12,000 a year. suspicion or at least resignation that these unions will Ryan drives the few miles from his parents’ home to the suburban strip not be able to do anything for them,” said Dan Graff, the where Target is the centerpiece of a shopping center that’s reminiscent of director of the Higgins Labor Program at the University thousands of others. This one also has a Home Depot, Petco, and Chick-fil-A. of Notre Dame. “It’s kind of a vicious cycle. The labor Shortly after getting the job, Ryan began agitating. His colleagues had movement gets smaller. Unions then look less able to do complained about a manager who sexually harassed his employees. Ryan and anything. And it’s hard to escape that.” a few other workers gathered testimonials and planned a ministrike. Ryan Most people in the labor movement are loath to crit- stood outside the store with a small group of supporters. Local unions arrived icize unions. But a big part of Ryan’s pitch to workers to show solidarity, and the media covered the demonstration. A few weeks is that skeptical workers are right: Unions haven’t been later, he got news that the manager no longer worked at the store. It became doing enough. Decades ago, most of them abandoned a blueprint for organizing against Target: Magnify the gap between what the radical acts and strikes in favor of contract negotiations. company preaches and how it acts. He points to a UPS contract negotiation in 2018, during “They’re so focused on their public image, and the amount of attention we’re which workers voted against the contract but the union able to get on it was enough to force them to concede to our demand,” Ryan said. ratified it anyway. For that reason, he said, he isn’t too worried about retaliation. In fact, the “They don’t organize workers to develop their capaci- more public he is, the better; privately complaining about a store isn’t consid- ty to be leaders,” he said. “It’s up to the paid staff and the ered protected concerted activity by the National Labor Relations Board, but internationals to determine all that for them. We’re not organizing out in the open is. a formal union, and we’re not really seeking that at this point…. We got the right to organize. We got the right to strike. What more do we need to do what we want to do?” he stats on labor organizing are grim. just At the same time, corporations have gotten better at over 10 percent of the country’s workforce is in persuading their employees to remain nonunionized, and a union—a 50 percent decrease since the ’80s. In Target is among the best. Instead of firing organizers—as retail, only 5 percent of workers are organized. Amazon appears to be doing—the company has become The reasons should be familiar to most Nation expert at doing just enough to placate workers. When the Treaders: union busting, right-to-work laws, and labor Fight for $15 campaign to raise the minimum hourly wage unions hobbled financially to the point that they cannot “There’s a was gaining traction a few years ago, Target was one of the effectively organize outside their remaining strongholds. first big corporations to announce a gradual increase in pay, The legal structure of unionization in the US also whole gener- garnering praise from many outside the company. But then shares much of the blame. There are so many loopholes ation or two to offset the higher rate, Target began cutting hours and in worker protection laws that it’s relatively easy for health benefits, which received much less attention than employers to get away with firing people for organizing. of mistrust or the increase. Ryan and other Target employees see this During the Covid-19 pandemic, employers like Amazon suspicion… strategy on a micro level, too. If employees complain about have cited vague employee policy violations to get away that these anything, Target encourages them to work out the issues with what is clearly union busting. through management or call the employee hot line. (Target Kate Andrias, a law professor at the University of Mich- unions will did not respond to requests for an interview.) igan, told me that for several decades the Supreme Court not be able to “Many workers get taken in by this,” at Target and oth- and the National Labor Relations Board under Trump do anything er companies, said Gordon Lafer, a professor at the Uni- have consistently interpreted laws in favor of corporations. versity of Oregon’s Labor Education and Research Center. “I don’t think it’s the case that it’s impossible for workers for them.” “They’re scared to be activists, because they’re scared to to engage in successful concerted action in a hostile legal — Dan Graff, lose their jobs, so they hold off on collective action while Notre Dame regime,” she said. “But it certainly doesn’t help that the giving the boss a chance. This can go on for a long time and laws frequently fail to effectively protect collective action.” suck the momentum out of collective action.” But to Ryan and others, there’s another problem: Many But many labor experts think this is changing. Over Americans simply do not want to join unions. Recent labor the past few years, dozens of worker groups have gone campaigns have failed by large 25% on strike without the backing of margins. In 2018 the UFCW at- State of the Union: unions—teachers in West Virgin- tempted to organize a Target on The percentage of workers older than 16 who belong to ia, gig laborers for Uber and Lyft, 20.1 a union has fallen dramatically since the 1980s. Long Island in New York. Nearly 20% graduate students at the Univer- four out of five employees voted sity of California at Santa Cruz. against it. Last year employees And Americans are increasingly at a Volkswagen plant in Ten- sympathetic to labor. After bot- 15% nessee rejected unionization for toming out in 2009, support for the second time. Organization Unionization rate unions has risen. Last year nearly United for Respect at Walmart, two-thirds of Americans surveyed 10% a unionization campaign fund- 10.5 by Gallup said they had a favor- ed in part by the UFCW, also able view of unions—one of the couldn’t draw enough support highest levels of approval in 50 to make a dent in the company’s 0% years. Simply put, workers are fed

million-strong workforce. ’83 ’88 ’93 ’98 ’03 ’08 ’13 ’18 up and taking action. SOURCE: US BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS WORKERS UNITE OF TARGET COURTESY September 7/14, 2020 The Nation. 21

Sharon Keel is one of those workers. She has worked at Targets in three states for a total of 13 years and cur- rently works in Christiansburg with Ryan. When she started, she found she had little to complain about but little to be enthusiastic about. Her hours were OK, and she had health insurance. Management never applauded her work, but she could make ends meet. Then Target cut her hours, making her ineligible for health insurance. She hadn’t gone to a doctor for five years, until March of this year, when she turned 65 and Medicare kicked in. Then something seemingly insignificant made Keel reconsider her relationship with the company. A few years ago, as she marked a decade with the company, she heard that it gave employees a $50 Target gift card for 10 years of employment. It didn’t give one to her because her years had been officially reset to Art for change: delivers goods from Target and elsewhere that, like the zero because of a short employment gap between stores. A drawing by a TWU rest of the gig economy, relies on independent contrac- Things have gotten worse since then. This year Keel’s member advertising tors. Willy Solis, a Shipt delivery person, said organizing a sick-out for hazard father died, and she couldn’t afford to attend his funeral pay and improved gig workers is hard because they are by design dispersed in Alabama. Target used to give employees paid time off personal protective and much of what they say to one another can be sur- for funerals and a sympathy card. It does neither now, equipment. veilled by the company. Nonetheless, thousands of Shipt she said. The gift card, the sympathy card—they’re small workers have reached out to Solis wanting to organize gestures, but they convinced her that the company she’d since the Covid-19 crisis started. worked so hard for did not care about her. “You’re just a Despite the rapid growth of TWU, it’s still tiny—a few number,” she said. hundred members in a corporation that employs 368,000 She began attending TWU meetings. She told me she people. But Ryan draws inspiration from the largely suc- now tries to persuade her fellow employees to join, too. cessful wildcat teachers’ strikes in 2018, not only because “I grew up [in Detroit] seeing the AFL-CIO, and I they were started by workers without the blessing of their just thought that was the best thing ever,” she said. She “I think union and snowballed into a national movement but also idolized Norma Rae, the union agitator played by Sally because he sees them as a necessary escalation. When I Field in the eponymous 1979 film. “Because, I mean, that we’re in a spoke with him in March, he predicted that more militant was how I felt, that that would be me.” moment of actions were not far off. Sure enough, two months later, Ryan bought Keel a poster of the movie. It hangs on a crisis where the country erupted over a series of police killings. wall in her trailer on the outskirts of town. “The pandemic is the straw that broke the camel’s workers are back,” he said. ear is a motivator. the fear of retaliation organizing Andrias said this new wave of labor action is likely hasn’t lessened, but the fear of everything­ else has to continue. “I think we’re in a moment of crisis where grown—and that’s an opportunity for organizers. despite workers are organizing despite all the obstacles,” she said. Ryan and countless others have seized the opening all the Little legacy of labor organizing exists in America’s provided by the coronavirus crisis to galvanize obstacles.” corporate sprawl. But taking what he has—books and Fworkers. He answers questions and posts information for research, online organizing, and most important, the in- — Kate Andrias, Target workers on TWU’s private Facebook page nearly University of Michigan creasing anger of the working class—Ryan believes he can every day. There, workers have detailed how Target hasn’t help create something lasting, an ever-growing group of provided adequate protective equipment, how customers self-trained organizers devoted to building labor power. appear not to care about how close they get to employees, From his basement bedroom, Ryan thought back to and how staffers dread going into work each day. They what helped get him into organizing: Occupy Wall Street. don’t have much of a choice. Target won’t pay for time That, he said, reminded Americans that class still existed off for employees unless they provide a doctor’s note that and that the working class needed to fight. Since then, he’s says they were required to be quarantined or they get a P.E. Moskowitz is seen Black Lives Matter, the Bernie Sanders campaign, positive coronavirus test result, forcing workers to choose the author of The wildcat strikes across the country, and the ongoing up- between missing pay if they exhibit any symptoms and Case Against risings against law enforcement. In Ryan’s eyes, it’s only getting others sick. Free Speech: a matter of time before all of these movements coalesce “It’s stressful,” one worker said. “If I get sick, I can’t go The First into something larger, perhaps a general strike, some- home.” Another said he felt a constant low-grade panic Amendment, thing TWU wants to be ready to help organize. working there during the pandemic. “We can be sick. Fascism, and “Workers are organizing and resisting, but it’s still very the Future of Some could die. But we all need to eat and pay bills.” underdeveloped, and it’s still very weak, and especially in Dissent and How Each week, Ryan has been leading video meetings, to Kill a City: places like where I’m at…we’re having to rebuild all that teaching Target workers their basic labor rights and en- Gentrification, from scratch,” Ryan said. “But there’s definitely a moment, couraging them to organize in public and with TWU. Inequality, and and there’s definitely going to be something that shifts Workers from other companies are also beginning to the Future of the beyond it. It isn’t just going to stay like this forever. I don’t

SOURCE: US BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS WORKERS UNITE OF TARGET COURTESY organize with TWU, including at Shipt, a business that Neighborhood. think we’re going back to an old normal. That’s done.” ■ 22 The Nation. September 7/14, 2020 THECOLOROF

CONTAGIONThe pandemic has intensified racial disparities. We have to address them without reinforcing them.

PATRICIA J. WILLIAMS

State of emergency: Intensive care beds at a temporary hospital in New York

City’s Central Park. MISHA FRIEDMAN / GETTY IMAGES MISHA FRIEDMAN / GETTY IMAGES; THIS PAGE: OPPOSITE PAGE: September 7/14, 2020 The Nation. 23

s of the first week of august, there have been at least 160,000 deaths in the united states from Covid-19. There is data indicating race and ethnicity for approximately 90 percent of these deaths; in age-adjusted numbers analyzed by the American Public Media Research Lab, the widest disparities afflicted Black, Indigenous, Pacific Islander, and Latinx populations. Black mortality rates range from more than twice to almost four times as high as for white people. Among Indigenous people, the rates are as much as three and Aa half times as high and are two times as high for Latinx people. The death rate for predominantly Black counties is six times that of predominantly white ones. It is telling that all racial groups marked as minorities in the United States, including Asians and Pacific Islanders, are more likely than whites to die from Covid. And the true picture may be much worse. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention weights its calculations in ways that omit areas that have few to zero deaths—which, coincidentally, happen to be largely white. According to an article in the Journal of the American Medical Associ- vaccinations may be attractive to some as an attempted ation, this weighted counting “understates COVID-19 reversal of that acculturated sorcery and its death-​ mortality among Black, Latinx, and Asian individuals and enhancing consequence. overstates the burden among White individuals.” On the basis of these statistics, a federal committee There are so here are surely no easy answers to managing advising the CDC is reportedly considering who should many absurd scarce resources when dealing with a disease be put at the head of the line upon the release of a vaccine. whose tragic boundlessness is still revealing itself. There is relatively little disagreement that “vital medical assumptions Regardless, I am convinced it will not end well to and national security officials” (as they were described in about build public health architectures that use race or a recent New York Times article) would be first, as well as Tethnicity to signify innate vulnerability—or, for that mat- embodied others considered essential workers—however unclearly ter, invulnerability. There is already global panic about that’s defined. (Teachers? Poll workers? Grocery store racial which of us will live or die. One might anticipate vaccine clerks? Housekeepers? Mortuary staffers? Bus drivers?) difference eligibility by race turning into an unseemly competition More contentious is whether especially vulnerable abroad in over blood. How, precisely, would race or ethnicity even populations should be fast-tracked—and in particular be determined? By how you look? Who you grew up whether those identified as Black or Latinx should be our land. with? Your name? Your neighborhood? Would the whole prioritized. The controversy centers on the use of race thing end up being an economic boondoggle for sketchy and ethnicity as proxies for all the prejudices and vexed DNA testing companies? social conditions that render raced bodies as more sus- There are so many absurd assumptions about em- ceptible to begin with. One may wonder, in other words, bodied racial difference abroad in our land. “They” why minorities’ disproportionately lower survival rates The vulnerable and can’t swim because their bodies don’t float. “They” can couldn’t be more accurately attributed to homelessness or the dead: Protester jump higher, thanks to an extra muscle in their legs. The dense housing or lack of health insurance or inadequate Alice Gaskins joins a imagined Black body has a smaller brain, a bigger butt, a memorial procession food supplies or environmental toxins or the ratio of acute for essential workers longer penis, saltier blood, wider feet, thicker skin, extra care facilities to numbers of residents in the ghettoized who have suffered or genes for aggression. Nor is this just ancient history. To locations that have become such petri dishes of contagion. died from Covid-19. this day, the spirometer, a machine to assess breathing This is not to suggest that the discrimination suffered by Black and Latinx people is simply about class. In a nation shadowed by eugenic intuitions, race is its own risk. American prejudices about color and race are rooted in powerful long-term traditions of anti-miscegenation and untouchability. The propinquity of dark bodies— sometimes merely eye contact—incites anxiety and a fear of social contamination that operates a bit like the bestowing of “cooties” among children. Even to doctors, color can be an unacknowledged source of revulsion if they have grown up in all-white environments; it can operate affectively and aversively, like stigmatizing witchery. One can understand why racially prioritized

Patricia J. Williams is the university professor of law and philosophy and the director of law, technology, and ethics at

OPPOSITE PAGE: MISHA FRIEDMAN / GETTY IMAGES; THIS PAGE: MISHA FRIEDMAN / GETTY IMAGES MISHA FRIEDMAN / GETTY IMAGES; THIS PAGE: OPPOSITE PAGE: Northeastern University. 24 The Nation. September 7/14, 2020 function in asthma treatment, uses different scorings for black and white that underlying­ conditions are not the same as innate patients, based on a more than 200-year-old assumption that slaves had a predisposition: There is no known human immunity biologically unique lung volume. to this coronavirus. Our universal susceptibility to it is Even now, American medical students are taught that Black people have under­scored by the virus being labeled “novel.” But it greater muscle mass than whites. This is a fiction that dates to the days of bears repeating that underlying conditions like stress, slavery, yet it informs how kidney disease is treated today, for creatinine levels age, diabetes, asthma, crowded living conditions, and are used to measure kidney function, and greater muscularity can increase the having a risky job are factors directly accounting for release of creatinine in blood. But rather than assess individual patients’ mus- greater rates of infection. This much is not a mystery. cle mass, most hospitals rely on an algorithm that automatically lowers Black Attention to the fate of people of color, in particular, is patients’ scores below the level measured—thus delaying treatment in some both overdue and double-edged: It highlights inequities instances by making all Black people appear healthier than they might be. but also risks reinforcing them as somehow innate. If the A test developed and endorsed by the American Heart Association weighs US rates of infection are wildly off the charts compared race in determining the risk of heart failure. The algorithm automatically with other nations’, we do not generally blame it on the assigns three extra points to any “nonblack” patient; innate or underlying conditions of a peculiarly American the higher the score, the greater the likelihood of being biology; we know these numbers are the product of poor referred to a cardiology unit. Yet there is no rationale Black and policy decisions. Just so, disproportionate deaths in com- for making race a lesser risk factor for heart disease in Latinx munities of color must not be attributed to an imagined some people, and the AHA provides none. Needless to separateness of Black or Latinx biology. Yet that is the say, Black and Latinx patients with the same symptoms patients with risk when, as just one example, half of white American as their white counterparts end up being referred for the same medical students believe in medical myths about race. specialized care much less often. symptoms as Amid a welter of misguided fantasies, we forget at our Many dangerously unscientific beliefs about racial peril that the traumas and social factors disproportion- difference are baked into present-day pharmaceutical ti- their white ately affecting people of color are also driving death rates trations and point-based algorithmic calculations, altering counterparts among whites, even if not to the same degree. Trap white the diagnosis of everything from the incidence of skin people in crowded, poisoned contexts devoid of public cancer to diabetes to the likelihood of developing oste- end up being assistance, and they die too. oporosis to tolerance for pain. Underserviced, too many referred for Black patients go unnoticed till they’re at death’s door with specialized he proposal to use race or ethnicity as a mark- “sudden” or “aggressive” versions of common diseases. er of vulnerability to Covid-19 does one kind of With endless irony, that is when those neglected bodies cardiology work in the context of vaccine prioritization. But may become the exception that proves the rule of “genetic care much how it might intersect with the procedures that difference.” Medical historians like Harriet Washing- less often. govern triage in hospital settings is not yet known. ton, Dorothy Roberts, Lundy Braun, Troy Duster, and TRecognizing the risks of bias in such emergency circum- Evelynn Hammonds have been complaining about such stances, the Department of Health and Human Services’ stereotypes and biases for decades, but perhaps it has taken Scientific racism: Office for Civil Rights issued a bulletin on March 28 the convergence of Black Lives Matter, a global health An illustration from restating a federal commitment to protecting “the equal an 1830 book based crisis, and a diverse new generation of outspoken medical on a lecture on facial dignity of every human life from ruthless utilitarianism.” professionals for this topic to finally be taken seriously. angles by the Dutch Under the Americans With Disabilities Act and the Af- I raise these stereotypes in order to consider the anatomist Petrus fordable Care Act, people “should not be denied medical medical consequences of such epistemic foolishness, Camper. In the care on the basis of stereotypes, assessments of quality of 18th century, medical particularly at a moment when Covid-19’s disparate toll science was distorted life, or judgments about a person’s relative ‘worth’ based on Black and brown bodies has directed attention to for the purposes of on the presence or absence of disabilities or age.” underlying conditions. Careful observers will point out racial classification. Discrimination against those with loosely defined dis- abilities is quite common. The University of Washington Medical Center, for exam- ple, has argued for “weighing the survival of young otherwise healthy patients more heavily than that of older, chronically debili- tated patients.” The reconfigured overlay of race as a debilitating, resource-consuming morbidity risk worsens the situation. Dis- ability rights advocates have been working hard to push these concerns to the front burner, urging Congress to ban triage based on “anticipated or demonstrated resource-​ intensity needs, the relative survival proba- bilities of patients deemed likely to benefit from medical treatment, and assessments of pre- or post-treatment quality of life.” On July 22, the advocacy organization Disabil- ity Rights Texas filed a complaint with the September 7/14, 2020 The Nation. 25

Department of Health and Human Services against the North These comforting bromides are akin to naive beliefs that dis- Central Texas Trauma Regional Advisory Council for its use of ease invariably marks people’s bodies in visible ways. “Surely we’ll a rigid, point-based, algorithmic scoring system that can auto- be able to see it coming.” “You’re fine if don’t have a fever.” “You matically exclude from intensive care people with a range of pre­ can’t spread it if you’re not coughing.” “You won’t give it to any- exist­ing conditions and disabilities without resort to an individual one if you’re asymptomatic.” Well before this pandemic hit, we assessment. Other states have begun to reexamine their crisis Americans were blinded by the walls of our private bunkers. Yet the rules in response to such concerns. sense of entitlement that supposes disaster will strike over there Perceptions of disease and deviance and feelings of disgust but not in my backyard guarantees an amplification of misdirected have always enabled the timeworn constructions of resources and relative disparities from which everyone embodied difference to be carried forward. When will suffer eventually. Donald Trump speaks of “the China virus,” he not The very I don’t have an answer for any of this, although I truly only gives the disease a race and a place; true to his notion of wish I could think my way to a happy ending. So I read outsize colonial imagination, he gives it distance. It’s public health and study and reread those statistics about how ethnic over there, not here, well removed from the conceptual minorities, Black people, Black women are dying at high- possibility of our susceptibility. If we are afflicted, it is has been er rates. I am not an epidemiological statistic, yet I have not just the illness that debilitates us but our anger that undermined no doubt that my body will be read against that set of we have been invaded by “them.” by ingrained abstracted data points. I—and we all—will be read as the It is this form of displaced animus that emerged in lowest common denominator of our risk profiles at this spikes of anti-Asian prejudice that arose in the wake of brands of particular moment. Not only are we no longer a “we,” but outbreaks of smallpox in San Francisco. The epidemic individualism. I am also no longer an “I” in the time of the coronavirus. was blamed on the residents and culture of Chinatown Meanwhile, Covid-19 makes snacks of us. The fact in the 1800s, a pattern that culminated in the Chinese that there may be variations in death rates based on age or Exclusion Act of 1882. Anti-Semitic nativism targeted Jews after exposure or preexisting immunological compromise should not ob- bouts of typhus in 1892. Mary Mallon, better known as Typhoid scure the epidemiological bottom line of its lethality. Covid-19 kills Mary, was an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid fever; her arrest infants; it kills teenagers; it kills centenarians. It kills rich and poor, in 1907 on public health charges galvanized anti-Irish sentiment Black and white, overworked doctors and buff triathletes, police and in New York City, depicting them as immigrants importing un- prisoners, fathers and mothers, Democrats and Republicans. We sanitary and slovenly habits. When the AIDS epidemic started can divide ourselves up into races and castes and neighborhoods and in the 1980s in the United States, some people told themselves nations all we like, but to the virus—if not, alas, to us—we are one it was a disease conveniently localized to the bodies of gay men. glorious, shimmering, and singular species. ■ And when the Zika virus was carried from equatorial regions by mosquitoes riding the waves of climate change, New York City health officials began spraying insecticides by zip code (focusing on neighborhoods like East Flatbush, Bedford-​Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, and Brownsville in Brooklyn, as well as the neighborhood in upper Manhattan once known as Spanish Harlem), as though those pesky, identity-politicking​ insects could simply be redlined. Instead of coming together around our shared vulnerability, time and again we have created a set of golems to stand in for the virus, divisive demons that direct our fears of inherent viru- lence, murderous voraciousness, and leechlike parasitism. Asians. Aliens. Anarchists. Reporters. Media. Social media. Dr. Anthony Fauci. California. Chicago. “That woman” who is the governor of Michigan. People who wear masks. People who don’t wear masks. It is not by accident that Trump’s targeted rhetoric to white sub- urban housewives so neatly suture race, riot, and disease as a way to channel the existential fear to which we are all so vulnerable right now: If you can keep “them” out of your neighborhood, everything is going to be all right. NOURISHING CONSCIOUS COMMUNITIES mericans are not raised to believe in the entangle- ments of a common fate. The very notion of public health FRIDAY, VIRTUAL has been undermined by ingrained brands of individu- SEPTEMBER 25 SYMPOSIUM alism so radical that even contagious disease is officially This symposium is dedicated to exploring the regulated by the vocabulary of “choice,” “freedom,” and relationship between environmental and A“personal responsibility.” Many of us live in bubbles of belief that social injustices and how we can organize and conceptual walls will protect us from things that are not easily nourish conscious communities. walled off: Guns will bring peace, housing discrimination will bring bliss to soccer moms, segregated schools will serve up stable For details and to RSVP, please visit geniuses, and owning an island in the Caribbean will seal us off artandactivismsva.eventbrite.com SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS from child molesters, Mafia dons, and domestic abuse. 26 The Nation. September 7/14, 2020

(continued from page 17) “I’m always raising alarms that this field isn’t well resourced,” The Nation. says Hausman. “The vast majority of donors are focused on federal EDITORIAL DIRECTOR & PUBLISHER: Katrina vanden Heuvel races. But the Koch brothers’ infrastructure is still there. The dark EDITOR: D.D. ­Guttenplan PRESIDENT: Erin O’Mara money is still there.” The Republican State Leadership Commit- EXECUTIVE DIGITAL EDITOR: Anna Hiatt tee crushed Democrats in 2010; since then, the DLCC has held LITERARY EDITOR: David Marcus its own, occasionally beating its GOP rival in fundraising. The SENIOR EDITORS: Atossa Araxia Abrahamian (on leave), Roane Carey, Emily Douglas, RSLC’s rhetoric is silly: Its Right Lines 2020 campaign exhorts, Shuja Haider (acting), Lizzy Ratner, Christopher Shay MANAGING EDITOR: Rose D’Amora “Socialism starts in the states. Let’s stop it there, too.” CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Robert Best Though, by all accounts, Republicans have failed to recruit COPY DIRECTOR: Jose Fidelino competitive up-and-comers and savvy challengers, they still have RESEARCH DIRECTOR: Miguel Salazar access to dark money, as The Guardian reported in June. This year COPY EDITOR: Rick Szykowny MULTIMEDIA EDITOR: Francis Reynolds the RSLC is raising more money (it outraised the DLCC in the ENGAGEMENT EDITOR: Annie Shields second quarter), and it’s getting money from giant corporations. ASSOCIATE LITERARY EDITOR: Kevin Lozano Its top five donors are Chevron, Dominion Energy, the tobacco gi- ASSISTANT COPY EDITORS: Lisa Vandepaer, Haesun Kim ants Reynolds and Altria, and the private railway company BNSF. WEB COPY EDITOR/ PRODUCER: Sandy McCroskey Meanwhile, Democratic state House and Senate caucuses ASSISTANT TO THE EDITOR: Ricky D’Ambrose DC CORRESPONDENT: Ken Klippenstein have improved in supporting a broader range of challengers, but INTERNS: Emily Berch, Daniel Fernandez, Meerabelle Jesuthasan, Taliah Mancini, it’s not enough, many outside groups say. “Caucuses get a lot of Rima Parikh, Jessica Suriano • Cindy Lee (Design), Sara Baig (Business) money from incumbents, so they’re focused on protecting them,” NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENTS: Jeet Heer, John Nichols, Joan Walsh Vaughan of Flippable says, accurately. Since the Virginia elections JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Elie Mystal in 2017, which I covered intensively, I’ve heard that from chal- EDITOR AT LARGE: Chris Hayes lengers who weren’t getting support—some of whom won anyway. COLUMNISTS: Eric Alterman, Kali Holloway, Katha Pollitt “I am a little worried about the GOP making a late play,” ad- DEPARTMENTS: Art, Barry Schwabsky; Civil Rights, Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, Defense, Michael T. Klare; Environment, Mark Hertsgaard; Films, Stuart Klawans; mits Fiddler of Daily Kos. “They’re going to have lots of money. Legal Affairs, David Cole; Music, David Hajdu, Bijan Stephen; Poetry, Stephanie But they really haven’t done the candidate recruitment they’d need Burt, Carmen Giménez Smith; Sex, JoAnn Wypijewski; Sports, Dave Zirin; Strikes, to do,” the kind they did to rustle up challengers to incumbent Jane McAlevey; United Nations, Barbara Crossette; Deadline Poet, Calvin Trillin Democrats, especially in 2010. “So I’m not sure. What do they CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Robert L. Borosage, Stephen F. Cohen, Mike Davis, Bob have to work with?” Dreyfuss, Susan Faludi, Thomas Ferguson, Melissa Harris-Perry, Doug Henwood, Naomi Klein, Sarah Leonard, Maria Margaronis, Michael Moore, Eyal Press, Joel Geri Prado, the vice president for state and local campaigns for Rogers, Karen Rothmyer, Robert Scheer, Herman Schwartz, Bruce Shapiro, Edward Emily’s List, agrees. She’s optimistic, with a few reservations, given Sorel, Jon Wiener, Amy Wilentz the pandemic. “Some of our candidates’ individual fundraising is CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: James Carden, Zoë Carpenter, Wilfred Chan, Michelle Chen, being hard hit, plus they’re having to invest more in absentee vot- Bryce Covert, Liza Featherstone, Laura Flanders, Julianne Hing, Joshua Holland, ing,” she notes. But she says that support from large institutional Greg Kaufmann, Stephen Kearse, Richard Kreitner, Julyssa Lopez, Dani McClain, players like the DLCC and Emily’s List, combined with some Marcus J. Moore, Ismail Muhammad, Erin Schwartz, Scott Sherman, Mychal Denzel Smith, Jennifer Wilson of the more progressive state Democratic caucuses’ cooperation EDITORIAL BOARD: Emily Bell, Deepak Bhargava, Kai Bird, Barbara Ehrenreich, (however imperfect) with outside groups, will continue to improve Frances FitzGerald, Eric Foner, Greg Grandin, Lani Guinier, Richard Kim, and give Democrats an advantage this year. Tony Kushner, Elinor Langer, Malia Lazu, Richard Lingeman, Deborah W. Meier, Stacey Abrams says the party has certainly strengthened its Walter Mosley, Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Victor Navasky, Pedro Antonio Noguera, state legislative infrastructure since 2016. “The DLCC is laser fo- Richard Parker, ­Elizabeth Pochoda, Rinku Sen, Waleed Shahid, Zephyr Teachout, Dorian T. Warren, Gary Younge cused now,” she says, while praising Holder’s National Democratic ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER, SPECIAL PROJECTS: Peter Rothberg Redistricting Committee “and a lot of donors and outside activist VICE PRESIDENT, COMMUNICATIONS: Caitlin Graf groups.” But “the lack of participation by voters of color in 2010 ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER, CONSUMER MARKETING: Katelyn Belyus was so problematic, Republicans were able to gerrymander.” She, CONSUMER MARKETING MANAGER: Olga Nasalskaya like a lot of people I spoke with, continues to worry that those CIRCULATION FULFILLMENT MANAGER: Vivian Gómez-Morillo voters are still being missed by some state outreach efforts. E-MAIL MARKETING ASSISTANT: Will Herman ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER, DEVELOPMENT: Sarah Burke Even in Virginia in 2019, Bachman observes, “Democrats DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATE: Guia Marie Del Prado keep underperforming,” at least partly because outreach to voters DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANT: Yubei Tang scored as less likely to vote was sometimes undervalued when ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER, ADVERTISING: Suzette Cabildo it came to door knocking, media buys, and direct mail. Virginia ADVERTISING ASSISTANT: Kit Gross Democrats took control of both chambers but won only two state DIGITAL PRODUCTS MANAGER: Joshua Leeman Senate seats, fewer than expected. “Given the nature of the 2016 IT/PRODUCTION MANAGER: John Myers PRODUCTION COORDINATOR: Duane Stapp election, the voters who stayed home skewed to Democrats,” she DIRECTOR OF FINANCE: Denise Heller adds. “It couldn’t be more clear that the path to winning more seats ASSISTANT MANAGER, ACCOUNTING: Alexandra Climciuc is getting lower-propensity voters, particularly lower-propensity HUMAN RESOURCES ADMINISTRATOR: Lana Gilbert voters of color, engaged with our message and turning them out.” BUSINESS ADVISER: Teresa Stack That’s especially true, Abrams says, since 2020 is another PUBLISHER EMERITUS: Victor Navasky census year, with participation threatened by the pandemic and LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: E-mail to [email protected] (300-word limit). Please do not send Trump administration malfeasance. “If we do not have adequate attachments. Letters are subject to editing for reasons of space and clarity. SUBMISSIONS: Go to TheNation.com/submission-guidelines for the query form. participation by voters of color in November,” she warns, “gerry- Each issue is also made available at TheNation.com. mandering will be worse than we’ve ever seen.” ■ PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON AND HUD SECRETARY GEORGE ROMNEY WITH WASHINGTON, D.C., MAYOR WALTER WASHINGTON, 1969 (WALLY MCNAMEE / CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES) B ooks & the Arts & Books Georgetown University. the GreatMigration ica chise: TheGolden ArchesinBlackAmer Marcia Chatelainistheauthor of policing thatshedlightonhow reporting with thehistoriesofurbaninequality and privilege andallyship.Yet fewengage ries ofslaverytoself-helpguidesonwhite lists abound witheverythingfromhisto explain exactlyhowwegothere.Reading reading publictoturntexts that can T and lor, amongothers,hasinspiredthe maud Arbery, andBreonnaTay the deathsofGeorgeFloyd,Ah anti-Black violence ignited by he reenergized movement against South SideGirls: GrowingUpin . She teaches history at . Sheteacheshistory How federalhousingprograms failedBlackAmerica THE BURNINGHOUSE Fran - - - - - long that we often miss the relationship, long thatweoften misstherelationship, bound uptogether sotightlyandfor Property andracial inequalityhavebeen housing andracisminAmerican cities. in America,butsotooisthe history of to understandingtheproblem ofrace the privilegesaffordedthemare critical the waywhiteAmericanshavegalvanized rapacious gentrificationplans. knock warrantisentwinedwithacity’s raid authorizedby a controversialno- to murderajoggerorwhydeadlypolice ins emboldenedneighborhoodvigilantes how aseriesofallegedsuburbanbreak- the publicexecutionofaBlackmanor bill atanurbancornerstoresetinmotion someone using a possiblycounterfeit $20 The nation’s rootednessinslaveryand by MARCIA

CHATELAIN raise awareness abouttheracisthistory “The CaseforReparations” havehelped examinations like Ta-Nehisi Coates’s stein’s depressed andsegregated. ular, Blackcommunities—​ keeps communitiesofcolor—in partic tion, butitisviolencenonetheless and is oftenindirectandreceiveslessatten This formofwhitesupremacistviolence undesired neighbors and groups away. security, andtorealestateagentskeep home, hecanturntothepolice,private doesn’t caretotakeuparmsprotecthis it. Whenthekingofagentrifiedcastle brutality intheUnitedStateswithout and yetwecannotunderstandpolice Recent bookslikeRichard Roth The ColorofLaw andjournalistic economically economically - - - 28 The Nation. September 7/14, 2020 of real estate in the United States by re- Race for Profit as efforts to take the wealth from cities and minding us of the intimate relationships How Banks and the Real Estate Industry direct it to those new developments. among housing, racial inequality, and to- Undermined Black Homeownership By the early 1950s, Black veterans had day’s racial wealth gap. But some parts of By Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor returned home from the war and saw no the story are still neglected. We are just University of North Carolina Press. racial progress offered in exchange for their beginning to confront, for example, how 368 pp. $30 service. The civil rights movement was as- fixtures of the inner city—the fast-food cendant, and more Black leaders started to restaurants, the payday lenders, the cash- rich economic and policy history, mobilize around the issue of housing. Ac- for-homes fliers—are all outward signs of Race for Profit begins and ends its tivists applied considerable pressure in the the physical and financial exploitation that account of housing inequality with North as well as the South, demanding that was routinized in the post-civil-rights years people—those deemed either power­ the federal government intervene to create and has undermined Black advancement, ful or powerless in their times. There better housing for Black people and later to despite the passage of laws that were sup- Aare the presidents, Lyndon Johnson and prevent the further segregation of American posed to ensure equal treatment in housing. Richard Nixon, who may have diverged on cities. Yet despite new anti-segregation laws As Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor shows in Race civil rights but who agreed on the impor- and local anti-discrimination ordinances, for Profit, we are also only beginning to reck- tance of private sector responses to public finding affordable housing remained a chal- on with the complex network of bankers, problems and, as a result, doomed efforts lenge. As Taylor shows, for all the old slums real estate agents, and federal agencies that to remedy long-standing forms of racial cleared and new shopping districts chris- used the rhetoric of equality to obscure a set inequality in American cities. There are the tened, for all the highways extended and of race-to-the-bottom schemes that sought powerful bankers, insurance executives, and mixed-income developments opened, hous- to extract as much wealth as possible from real estate traders who benefited from these ing options for the poor remained limited. poor Black Americans. private sector solutions, as well as the often In fact, all this development often led In Race for Profit, Taylor provides new well-intentioned but wrongheaded adminis- to fewer choices, as these urban renewal insight into many of these processes, exam- tration officials, especially George Romney, programs simply razed cheap but neces- ining one of the most exploitative attempts to the Republican governor of Michigan who sary housing for the poor and limited the bring the Black urban poor and working class became Nixon’s HUD secretary. And in expansion of public housing, which could into the fold of homeownership. Histories crisp and empathetic detail, Taylor also dis- have provided some relief. Although some of Black urban life have focused on public cusses the Black people who were cynically hoped that Supreme Court decisions like housing, housing discrimination, redlining, given predatory loans to purchase dilapidat- 1948’s Shelley v. Kraemer, which ended racial- and the rise and fall of tenants’ rights move- ed houses and who eventually fought back. ly restrictive covenants, and 1954’s landmark ments, but Taylor’s book shows us how tens Although most of Taylor’s study takes Brown v. Board of Education would revolu- of thousands of Black people were manip- shape in the late 1960s and early ’70s, she is tionize housing practices, inequality seemed ulated by the federal government and un- careful to discuss the larger arc of this histo- only to worsen in these years. By the end of scrupulous bankers and real estate agents ry, too. Her first chapters explore how hous- the 1960s, “it was becoming clear,” Taylor through a program of predatory lending that ing became an outward sign of citizenship writes, “that transforming the law was dif- claimed to empower Black homeowners but and belonging for Black Americans in the ferent from transforming the attitudes of the ultimately pushed them into greater financial United States and how, in the wake of the federal agents charged with enforcing the insecurity. Agencies like the Federal Hous- Great Migration, efforts to challenge this new laws or of those…private agencies where ing Administration (FHA) and the Depart- citizenship and belonging manifested them- the new policies would be implemented.” ment of Housing and Urban Development selves in a variety of insidious real estate A glimmer of hope came in the late (HUD) may have been founded “to trans- practices. As Taylor shows, these practices ’60s. Johnson’s massive War on Poverty form low-income renters into low-income were about reinforcing the racial order, and and Great Society programs had begun to homeowners,” Taylor writes, but they ended in doing so, they were also about supporting wrestle with the links between race and up squeezing poor Black homeowners while racial capitalism: With Black renters gener- economic oppression, and soon Congress creating lucrative financial instruments for ating sound profits for landlords, there was passed the Fair Housing and Housing and lenders and real estate interests. little interest to change the status quo. Urban Development acts. By creating the Rather than create a nation of home- To tell this story, Taylor opens her book Office of Fair Housing and HUD, the acts owners, the housing programs of the Great decades before the declaration of the urban empowered the federal government to en- Society, which relied on public-private crisis in the mid-1960s, with the history of force equal protection laws in the area of ventures that almost always benefited the Black migration to Northern cities in the housing; they also created the Government private interests, only helped to intensify first half of the century and the development National Mortgage Association to guarantee racial disparities. Taylor’s book offers us a of the suburbs after World War II. As she mortgages to low-income buyers. Although warning about the dangers of these public-​ shows, this Black population growth sparked Johnson seemed to take an approach similar private programs, which have become ever white fear, which inspired, in turn, a wave of to Franklin Roosevelt’s by using the state, more common in our neoliberal age. It also regressive policies as well as the increasing through an alphabet soup of agencies, to cre- reminds us of just how deep the roots of in- criminalization and hyperpolicing­ of Black ate programs and expand the workforce, he equality and violence in our cities are—that communities by many cities. From there, did something that FDR often did not: He even the efforts to create more black home- Taylor traces how the growth of this urban delegated much of the work to the private owners were stymied by racist stereotypes white panic calcified redlining and inspired sector. “Subsidies, tax relief, and govern- and a federal government determined to the drafting of racially restrictive covenants, ment guarantees,” Taylor writes, were what shrink its presence in the life of the poor. which led to the rise of the suburbs as well Johnson relied on “to reverse course and Explore The Nation Online Make the most of your subscription

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Circulation_Ad_2020 Subs_V4_RB.indd 1 7/6/20 1:07 PM 30 The Nation. September 7/14, 2020

by poor plumbing, faulty wiring, and other House Hunters problems and soon defaulted on their loans. Rather than solve housing inequality, these Under the spindlework arch of the wraparound public-private ventures ultimately enabled porch, no one ever thinks they’ll expose redlining to exist after it was deemed illegal. the original hardwood for its kindling. But no one To make matters worse, when some of those participants defaulted, federal agencies and the media depicted them as undeserving ever likes the wall-to-wall carpets, the disco granite, welfare recipients recklessly living a life of the open concept concept. For every wish excess while enjoying state benefits. for character—the toilet, sink, and clawfoot tub he HUD Act began with a rather a demolition green—there is an equal desire ambitious idea: It called for building for move-in ready, for a home’s lines to be stock and eradicating racial discrim- ination in housing by 1978. Almost as clean as a bowl. At the bay window, a buyer as soon as it was passed, however, housingT advocates recognized how unlikely draws imaginary curtains when she says she wants it was that these goals would be accom- to feel the outside when inside. Another wants plished in little more than a decade. Nixon’s to start a family, so descends the narrowing acreage reelection in 1972 made it clearer how little chance the FHA and HUD programs had to achieve their goals by any date. Under into the basement she’ll make a cave. When one his so-called New Federalism, the same ascends the budget, the other makes to slash states that had long denied Black peo- her throat with her index finger and the ruin ple basic citizenship rights were granted more authority over local housing policies. I imagine spills evenly across the split-level stairs. Not surprisingly, rather than seek to miti- gate widening racial inequality, these states On the couch eating cereal, I see myself flash sought to extend it. on the screen gone black between cuts, and soon I too want Romney’s appointment as HUD secre- tary in 1969 marked a brief moment of op- to gut the entryway for its potential, want to carve the suites timism for housing advocates. While Nixon until what’s left is a plat of bones and my stomach full. demonized Black activists and city dwellers and offered vacuous Black capitalism initia- tives in response to calls for Black freedom, JANINE JOSEPH his choice of Romney led some to believe that HUD had been given a green light to continue in its ambitious aims. Having help stem the urban crisis.” But instead of FHA-backed mortgages and extended the governed Michigan during the 1967 Detroit turning the tide, these generous handouts to repayment period to 40 years, which made uprising, Romney departed from the rest of the private sector just made matters worse. the payments more affordable. the Republican Party in championing feder- Yet from the outset these programs, hob- al measures to ensure Black equality and in escribing the early years of these bled by constant mismanagement and ne- challenging white hostility to civil rights, es- programs, Taylor is careful to doc- glect, never fully got off the ground. They pecially when it came to suburban housing. ument how much of their problems were also swiftly taken advantage of by pri- When Romney took over HUD, how- were structural. The motivations be- vate interests. The mortgage debt acquired ever, he found himself caught between hind the various initiatives were, for by first-time Black homeowners was soon LBJ’s failed public-private programs and Dthe most part, noble. Section 235 of the viewed by banks as “oases of new investment Nixon’s lack of interest in seeing any of HUD Act, for example, sought to encour- opportunities,” Taylor writes. Lenders and them through, let alone improving them. age homeownership for poor families by insurance companies, now under growing Romney also could not let go of his racist providing mortgage subsidies to lenders scrutiny for their years of financing and ideas about Black fitness for citizenship that offered these families loans despite building segregated housing, tried to re­ and homeownership. He could be calm and their inability to meet credit requirements. habili­tate­ their image while feasting off their level­headed in his appeals for compassion Section 237 sought to assist poor families slice of a potential $50 billion market. for the dispossessed, but he could also be that were once ineligible for FHA-backed Through the early ’70s, the vulnerability alarmist, warning the public that Black rad- mortgages because of their income and of these programs became more pronounced icals might adopt the tactics of the Vietcong credit scores; the families could now get this as interest rates climbed and white suburbs if the federal government didn’t take mea- FHA backing after they attended a series continued to bar Black homeowners. Bur- sures to resolve urban tensions. of counseling programs and complied with dened with predatory loans and without Taylor guides us through the litany of a set of rules. Section 221(d)(2) allowed other support, many low-income borrowers programs that Romney tried to imple- people receiving public assistance to obtain lacked the funds to maintain houses beset ment, including Operation Breakthrough, September 7/14, 2020 The Nation. 31 which sought to remedy the public housing In its attempt to usher in a new era of crisis by building homes in the efficient, fair housing, the FHA opened not only the assembly-line style of the Motor City. But housing market but also employment in he discovered that the racism of the sub- the agency to Black Americans. But when urbs and the deteriorated state of the cities Romney brought the FHA under the con- made finding locations for this new public trol of HUD, tensions between the agency’s housing next to impossible. Romney next old faithful and the new HUD officers soon looked to Project Rehab, a plan to repair erupted. Meanwhile, HUD’s efforts during and restore existing houses, but many were and after Romney continued to prove in- in a decrepit condition, and the costly fixes adequate, especially in the face of white made them unappealing to homeowners­ resistance in the suburbs, where residents and banks, so he soon abandoned this effort refused to accommodate low- and mixed-​ as well. income housing. Having failed to build or rehabilitate The powerful real estate industry also urban housing, Romney turned to over- created obstacles, as developers looked to seeing the well-chronicled Open Commu- simply repurpose segregated urban spaces nities plan to integrate the suburbs, which instead of building homes in undeveloped WRITER. ACTIVIST. collapsed in the face of opposition from suburban ones. To address these quandaries, their residents and little provision from the Romney shifted his focus from building to federal government. Each failed attempt rehabilitating houses in the communities TURNCOAT. offered Nixon and Congress an opportunity in need, but these efforts proved to do little to strip HUD and its leader of more power. more than breathe faint life into slums. As By the time Romney left Nixon’s cabinet, the Taylor notes, “The poorest people eligi- THIS IS THE LIFE OF department was mostly gutted. ble to participate in the FHA homeowner- Taylor is fair and clear-eyed when she ship program lived in proximity to housing ELDRIDGE CLEAVER. describes Romney’s travails at HUD, but that was in the lowest, often substandard she also rightly holds that as “the outermost condition.” liberal edge of the Nixon administration,” Real estate profiteers play a starring chicagoreviewpress.com he still did much to undercut attempts to role throughout this grim affair. Real es- @ChiReviewPress “combat racism in the dissemination” of his tate agents posed as landlords and were in own programs. Romney collected no racial cahoots with appraisers, who were friend- data on their implementation, so he could ly with contractors, who were sometimes afford the penalties. A Detroit real estate never definitively name the discriminato- investors in the banks that handed out company purchased a house below market ry practices that were rampant across the predatory loans. Discussing the long his- rate and then sold it the same day to Sally FHA and that effectively blocked housing tory of property appraisals and their racist Fordham for a $3,500 profit. What she opportunities for its participants. He also pseudoscientific underpinnings, Taylor il- found when she moved in was horrifying: allowed lenders to flout requests for data on lustrates that the problem wasn’t just with The house lacked a working furnace, and their practices and ignored the concerns of the lenders; more profoundly, it was also poor plumbing caused human waste to pool Black HUD employees about discrimina- with the entire logic of the market for in the basement. Fordham sought help from tion within the agency. The Congressional mortgage-backed securities, a many-headed local Legal Aid attorneys, who merely ad- Black Caucus and the Urban League ques- monster that fed on volume and was stuffed vised her to stop making mortgage payments tioned the quality and delivery of services with graft and fraud. Even if the HUD and search for other housing options. Such to Black clients. subsidies were unattractive to traditional woes were not hers alone: More than 40 per- The disasters in HUD’s national and lenders, bankers and brokers found ways cent of Black mothers who owned homes in local offices, which were regularly investi- to profit from discount points and fees and Detroit and were receiving Aid to Families gated for mismanagement and inefficiency, unregulated ways to resell the mortgages. With Dependent Children saw their homes were mirrored by the calamities in the in- fall into foreclosure in a similar fashion. dividual houses that fell under the purview aylor’s book also highlights Black Although women nationwide who re- of its programs. In Taylor’s descriptions of families—in particular, those headed ceived AFDC funding had only a 3.5 per- the faulty boilers, constant chills, and the by Black women—that found them- cent foreclosure rate, media reports often dangerous, sometimes life-threatening ex- selves squeezed by these unscrupulous implied that many of the Black women who periences of their residents, she evokes the practices. The tales she compiles are lost their homes through FHA programs depraved conditions depicted in Native Son oftenT gut-wrenching. We meet Alice Mun- were on welfare, helping create the insidi- and other Great Migration–era texts, re- dy, who purchased a house in Detroit for ous image of the welfare cheat, which served minding us how little had changed from the $9,750, even though it was acquired a year to enhance racist stereotypes and helped first half of the century. The houses proved earlier by a local development corporation hasten an end to programs like AFDC. As to be a cruel joke on Black Americans who for just $3,000. Soon after moving in, she Taylor documents, rather than being in- believed they were finally being welcomed discovered a rat infestation and holes in the formed of their rights and responsibilities into the circle of American homeownership ceiling. After calling the city for help, she as the recipients of housing assistance, these and prosperity but were moving into homes was fined for the house’s poor condition home buyers were often given only counsel- that were in states of dangerous disrepair. and ultimately lost it because she could not ing that furthered these stereotypes. Instead 32 The Nation. September 7/14, 2020 of ending the sale of dilapidated houses to in 1973 an indefinite moratorium on any hurt Black homeowners the most because poor families, the federal government issued funding for housing assistance programs or they were more likely to hold shaky sub- pamphlets like “Housekeeping Job Sheets construction of low-income housing nation- prime mortgages. Nor did they enjoy the for Use With Aspiring Homemakers” and wide. Although he had tried to prevent such benefits of the post-recovery housing mar- “How to Keep a Stove Clean.” Needless an extreme measure, he was unable to prevail ket, because they tended to own cheaper to say, housing inequality worsened under against Nixon’s desire to keep the US gov- homes in neighborhoods considered less these circumstances. As Taylor writes, the ernment from intervening to foster mean- desirable. In fact, nearly a decade after the tremendous “downward pressure on the ingful change in housing. As Taylor sums it crisis, there remains a 30 percentage point quality of [the] housing” that Black people up, “Nixon’s decisive victory over McGovern difference in homeownership rates for white could secure made it nearly impossible for provided a political mandate to move away and Black Americans. This gap exacerbates FHA mortgage receivers to find themselves from federal involvement in cities.” the vulnerability of Black people to fore- in a safe home and with the resources to Even after Watergate forced Nixon out closure and worsens the wealth gap, as maintain it adequately. of office, the ghosts of his New Federalism well as drives further criminalization and continued to haunt both the Republicans’ police brutality when Black city dwellers at- ood intentions and bad outcomes and the Democrats’ approaches to poverty. tempt to move outside racially homogenous run throughout Taylor’s narrative. Gerald Ford signed the Housing and Com- neighborhoods. Whether it was Romney’s desire to munity Development Act into law, which Today, with short-term eviction relief see some type of racial integration further removed Washington from the due to the Covid-19 pandemic set to ex- in American suburbs or the efforts of management of housing programs. The leg- pire and low interest rates fueling increases GMilwaukee-based FHA program director islation provided for “‘no strings attached’ in home prices, advocates for affordable Lawrence Katz, who supplied Black women revenue sharing and block grants that were housing may look to Taylor’s book as they with sometimes helpful (but often infan- touted as new, innovative tools that would prepare themselves for another looming tilizing) tips on homemaking, white liberal transform ‘urban renewal’ into ‘commu- calamity. What is still unclear is whether politicians proved incapable of seeing or nity development.’” With states allowed the fair housing planks of Bernie Sanders’s overcoming the limits of the public-private discretion over what funding for housing presidential campaign or the leadership of programs that created greater segregation. would look like, Black home seekers found Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez In the absence of substantial government themselves subject to the whims of localities and Jamaal Bowman on housing issues will funding and responsible oversight, these that were more likely to protect suburban inspire a wider commitment by the Dem- programs were guaranteed never to succeed. homeowners and the value of their proper- ocratic Party to address this crisis. As the Some of the most powerful parts of ty, especially given the decade’s economic cries to cancel rent become louder, progres- Taylor’s book examine how Black home- instability. sive leaders must focus more and more of owners came together to fight back. Black The failures of HUD also set the stage their energy on creating policies that keep women in Seattle collectively sued HUD for our current housing crisis by creating housing affordable for all people. for its failure to ensure that the properties a path for the convergence of “neoliberal- Over the past few years, on the anni- sold to them met “the requirements of all ism and neoconservatism,” Taylor writes, versary of the Fair Housing Act’s passage, state laws, or local ordinances,” as stated in around “the demonization of working-class a pundit or observer would invariably ask Section 235. This provision was routinely and poor Black people in cities to undermine why, in light of the long-standing legislation ignored as contractors collected fees for the legitimacy of a welfare state perceived to against housing discrimination and the sup- services never rendered and repairs never be prioritizing the care of ‘undeserving’ Af- posed growth in economic opportunity for made. Eventually Congress updated the leg- rican Americans.” Black Americans, the Black homeowner­ ­ship islation to allow reimbursement for “dam- This meeting of the center left and cen- rate was still at pre–Housing Act levels. In ages in the amounts that [home buyers] had ter right in both parties not only resulted in response, some cite the lack of generational paid to have repairs done” after purchasing smaller government for the poor, tax breaks wealth transfer among Black Americans and these homes. for the rich, and a colorblind approach ongoing lending discrimination, but few Likewise in the early ’70s, a set of Black toward policy; it also helped create more consider that it might be due to the very homeowners began to testify before Con- draconian measures for welfare recipients system of racial capitalism that exists in the gress and turn to other movement tactics, and regulations on access to public housing United States. including mounting picket lines outside lo- under Bill Clinton’s massive welfare “re- James Baldwin’s and Martin Luther King cal FHA offices. Homeowners offered inter- form” measures in the 1990s. Jr.’s warnings that Black Americans should views to investigative journalists and risked be cautious about integrating into a “burn- being further embarrassed or made to feel ousing inequality remains a pressing ing house” seems an apt metaphor here. ashamed for their living conditions. From issue in the struggle for racial justice What we need is a new housing system al- Kansas City, Mo., to Paterson, N.J., their in the United States. According to together. As the 2008 crisis reminded many stories were eerily similar: These home buy- the Census Bureau, Black families Americans, as long as housing is tied to a ers were poor, Black, and desperate to find a have lagged the general population in for-profit system that mercilessly exploits place to live. They owned houses that were Hhomeownership for the past 70 years. From vulnerable families instead of empowering certified as safe by HUD affiliates but were the post–World War II era to the start of them and as long as values rise and fall rel- a nightmare of neglect and disrepair. the Reagan years, Black homeowner­ ship­ ative to racist perceptions of what is a good By the mid-’70s, the federal experiment rates rose from 35 to 44 percent. These or bad school district and who makes good in encouraging Black homeownership had rates remained relatively steady from the or bad neighbors, housing inequality will collapsed. A deflated Romney announced 1970s to the 2008 financial crisis, which persist—a burning house, indeed. ■ September 7/14, 2020 The Nation. 33

America should remain, in some sense, a place where the people rule, he still insists that our experience with Trump makes clear the eternal worth of Plato’s insight—and the need to save elite control from democracy. His attempt to do so, however, shows the reverse is true: What the Trump era proves is that we need more democracy in America, not less.

leading law professor at the Univer- sity of Chicago, Posner is a gifted scholar. The son of Richard Posner, the founder of the law and econom- ics school that sought to wreck the Apremises of the redistributive and regu- latory state, Posner fils spent most of his early career building a withering attack on international law. In part, he chose the topic because there were few other fields of law for him to turn the family’s demolition busi- ness on. In part, he did so because criticizing appeals to global norms before and during the War on Terrorism allowed him to make his own contribution to the American right. Together with some like-minded col- leagues at the University of Chicago, es- pecially his frequent coauthor Adrian Vermeule, Posner cultivated the reputation THE GUARDIANS of a generational bad boy. He collaborated Does “the Resistance” actually want more democracy or less? with Vermeule on a defense of their friend John Yoo’s torture memos that appeared in by SAMUEL MOYN The Wall Street Journal in 2004. Associating himself with the early years of the Bush ad- t is one of the virtues of an extraordi- George W. Bush was justified in pushing its ministration, Posner also defended coercive narily vicious presidency that it has led boundaries in the War on Terrorism, Posner interrogation, a broader category overlap- some to openly confess their preference became an unexpected ally of those decrying ping with torture, as a necessary tactic in for elite rule. Even those who vigorous- Trump’s propensity to smash norms. Hav- some circumstances. Apparently, for Posner, ly promoted elements of aristocracy—or ing made his reputation as a scourge of pro- the War on Terrorism and its associated Ioligarchy—once used to feign devotion to a gressives, the legal scholar became a leading costs were not all that objectionable; he democratic creed. Now, alongside the reg- critic of the miscreant in chief. But Posner’s certainly did not argue that they were the ular suggestion that Donald Trump threat- new history, The Demagogue’s Playbook, re- fruits of demagogy. ens democracy, some are willing to say he veals he has not so much changed his mind Posner and Vermeule also worked to re- proves its bankruptcy. “Voters know in the as found a propitious moment to defend habilitate Carl Schmitt, the notorious Nazi abstract what they ought to know,” conceded his belief that elites should control politics jurist. They coined “tyrannophobia” to de- Jason Brennan, the author of Against De- and that American traditions of dethroning scribe the notion that if one temptation in mocracy, after the last presidential election. them suggest what happens when democra- governance is to allow too much authority “They just don’t actually know the things cy goes too far. For Posner, too, Plato was in one place, another is to fear its concen- they think they should.” When the people right: Democracy unleashes the base pas- tration so much as to incur even higher chose Trump, Brennan concluded, it proved sions, and it is therefore to be expected that costs. (Vermeule impishly titled one of his the need for “epistocracy,” a kind of update in the resulting disorder and tumult, people more notorious papers “Optimal Abuse of to the ancient Greek philosopher Plato’s will turn to a tyrant for a modicum of order. Power.”) As their last major act together contention that the wise should rule. The Demagogue’s Playbook tells how before Trump’s election, they penned the Like many members of the self-anointed politicians throughout the history of the 2011 book The Executive Unbound, which “Resistance,” Eric A. Posner was shaken United States have drawn on democrat- claimed that the American presidency had by Trump’s election. Best known as a skep- ic legitimation while upending the elit- outgrown the founders’ attempts to impose tic of inter­national law who agreed that ist designs of the American founders and checks and balances against it. Public opin- the normal functioning of the government. ion, they maintained, was now nearly the sole Samuel Moyn teaches law and history at Yale. His “For Plato,” Posner writes, “pretty much force that kept America’s national leaders most recent book is Not Enough: Human Rights any popular leader in a democracy was a from transgression—and this was a good in an Unequal World. demagogue.” While he acknowledges that thing, too, because of the beneficial role a ILLUSTRATION BY TIM ROBINSON 34 The Nation. September 7/14, 2020 competent administrative state plays relative The Demagogue’s Playbook of 1800—Jackson was the real deal. A white to dysfunctional legislatures and ignorant ju- The Battle for American Democracy From nationalist who railed against elite projects diciaries. In the fun and games of intellectual the Founders to Trump like Alexander Hamilton’s national bank, strife before Trump, no one anticipated that By Eric A. Posner “Old Hickory” portended Trump, Posner someone like him was coming to inherit the All Points Books. 320 pp. $28.99 asserts, like no president before or since. power the authors defended. A lot of ills followed, but Posner disputes Known to their liberal opponents as a dictator on the make are not so much mis- the notion that Jackson did any good in the horsemen of the apocalypse, these now taken as premature. They are “more like an exchange for the horrors he brought, even middle-aged conservatives blinked in No- inarticulate attempt to express—in constitu- for the ordinary white men he claimed to vember 2016 when the apocalypse actually tional terms—an uneasiness.” If democracy represent. In Posner’s view, Jacksonianism materialized. Posner soon discovered his in- can lead to tyranny, as Plato first proposed, proved that democracy is the worst of both ner liberal: Within a matter of months and demagogy is a distinct and preliminary stage. worlds: You lose elite governance without without ever explaining his turnabout, he And, Posner insists, it is more present, so far, helping the masses, either. began regularly advising liberals on how they in American history. Given that most of the people then could could use the law to constrain the current The threat of demagogy, Posner con- not even vote, it took the new era of mass president. No longer an edgy gadfly and tends, is the reason the American founders democracy that followed the Civil War for outlier, he now helps man the ramparts of the were Platonists: They crafted a modern re- the next wave of demagogy to arrive. Wad- Resistance and has been heralded by many public on the assumption that the people ing into an old debate over late 19th century of his erstwhile critics. Heads nod sagely themselves were the chief threat to it, and political history, Posner insists that a dem- everywhere The New York Times is read as it they sought to make popular legitimation agogic politics was central to the populist prints op-ed after op-ed from a defender of safe for and through elite rule. To do so, movement. But with little interest in the torture about how to hem Trump in. they constructed the Constitution in different economic and social grievances that But for informed observers, it a manner that not only respond- propelled it, he generally conflates left and seemed more like an atheist ed to the frailty of the federal right populism and sees little reason people rushing into the arms of government after 1776 but in the late 1800s—America’s first Gilded Age the church after the devil also warded off the grow- of the victory of the rich, before our own— appeared. (For his part, ing signs of democracy, might have been interested in reclaiming Vermeule literally joined like the radical Pennsyl- power from elites. Generously, however, he the church—he con- vania state government concedes that William Jennings Bryan, the verted to Catholicism and Shays’s Rebellion. Nebraskan Democrat who ran unsuccessful- in 2016—and embraced Their inspired achieve- ly for president three times as a progressive reactionary positions ment was the suite of and pacifist, wasn’t a demagogue. much more consistent antidemocratic devices Posner’s chronicle of American histo- with his earlier writings, but that the Constitution en- ry continues with what he applauds as that is another story.) shrined, from the Electoral “the triumph of elite technocracy” in the Part of Posner’s appeal to the College to the enumeration of 20th century. Progressives may have ad- centrist coalition known as the Resistance congressional powers, from a Senate to opted populist ends, he allows, but they is no doubt found in the fact that he is not in- cool any populist legislation to a Supreme “distrusted the ordinary people whom the terested in the root causes that led to Trump’s Court that could invalidate it. Founder John populists celebrated.” Franklin Roosevelt election. Though Posner has written a book Adams’s main mistake, Posner writes, was capped this movement of elite egalitarian with the economist E. Glen Weyl, Radical “incautiously” telling the people openly it change: He helped the people by keeping Markets, that belatedly registered some of was good for them to defer to the superiors, them in their place, according to Posner. the costs of America’s accelerating inequality, as in his proposal of the tag “Your Majesty” The Cold War, he argues, merely extended the only credible alternative to neoliberal- for the president of the new republic. His son this suppression. He acknowledges that ism, they insisted, was even more of it. (We John Quincy Adams enthusiastically predict- demagogues could still rear their heads should marketize the voting system!) And ed that the handiwork of the founding gen- throughout, from anti-communist zealots now in The Demagogue’s Playbook, Posner eration would “increase the influence, power, like Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s to blames “the people” for Trump’s rise. For and wealth of those who have it already.” Southern segregationists like George Wal- Posner, all manner of evils are defensible, After celebrating the origins of the rule of lace in the ’60s. But Posner is wistful for from free markets on steroids to forever the wise, American style, Posner goes on to the middle decades of the 20th century as a wars that ruin the world, as long as elites are discuss how challenges to it were contained. time when no president came close to dem- the ones who implement them. What the The process started, he argues, when, in the agogy, in spite of a few feints by Richard Platonist cannot abide is when the people name of agrarian ideals, one of the found- Nixon. Instead, the party establishments push back. ers, Thomas Jefferson, decided to take a worked to enthrone experts, pretty much run at the ascendancy of the best and the as the Platonist founders had planned it. osner’s opening premise in The Dema- brightest he had helped set up. Then came In tracing the final stretches of the road gogue’s Playbook is that “demagogue” is “the first demagogue,” Andrew Jackson. to Trump, Posner shifts from his study of a better label for Trump than “author- Whereas Jefferson conceded the need for personalities to a story of the “political in- itarian” or “fascist,” at least to date. elites and attacked the original framework stitutions that constrained the public’s influ- For Posner, the frequent arguments at the margins—earning resistance from his ence on the selection of the president and Pthat Trump is already a fascist politician or never-Jefferson​ opponents after the election other major politicians.” He has in mind, in September 7/14, 2020 The Nation. 35 particular, nomination processes and trans- his centrism was anything but uncomplicat- ner disarmingly proposes. Rather, they were formations in the media. Predictably, for ed, in part because it was far more open to symptoms of how catastrophic the elite’s Posner, all hell broke loose as the parties how universal ir­rationality­ is. performance was at home and abroad. The democratized after 1968. With the rules This is why the most revealing section of clues to the mystery of how Trump became changed, the people now had more power, Posner’s book is on the mid-20th century, credible to 60 million Americans surely lie in which he argues allowed a series of figures to when Hofstadter could consider centrist these decades—but not because democracy arise who now seem like premonitions of our liberalism a fait accompli, thus normalizing was unleashed, since, after all, a minority put moment—rabble-rousers like Pat Buchanan the New Deal and the emerging Cold War him in office, thanks to the very minority-​ and Ross Perot. Posner specifically rejects consensus. For starters, Posner bends over rule mechanisms the founders designed. In- economic and status grievances as causes for backward to distract us from recog- stead, the outcome signaled just how Trump’s success, first among Republicans nizing how damaging Roosevelt disastrous the preceding decades and then against his Democratic opponent, is to his whole framework. of elite rule had been. Hillary Clinton. Instead, he contends that Although highborn, FDR As for Posner’s explana- Trump inherited and maximized the popu- nonetheless played the tion for Trump’s elector- list undercurrent that elites sagaciously kept man of the people, al success, it is circular. from surging in the prior century. challenging norms and On the one hand, he institutions for their rejects the combination he defects in Posner’s account be- failures, and rightly so. of grievance and rac- gin with the sloppiness of his central For his trouble, he was ism that drew voters to concept. The word “demagogue,” he commonly branded a Trump in order to insist says, has a “core meaning” that has demagogue—or an au- it was demagogy that did “remained stable over millennia.” In thoritarian or fascist—by it; on the other, he acknowl- fact,T the ancient Athenians who coined the his enemies, far beyond the edges that these very factors term—which literally means “leader of the denunciations that all leaders made the situation ripe for dem- people”—used it as the title for an office that earn from their foes. agogy. (He explains that they were just advocated, after Pericles’s death, the correct The real reason that memory has not pre- not “a sufficient condition”—though who course for the city-state to take. It was not a served how profound Roosevelt’s challenge said they were?—and required a demagogue term of abuse; for that matter, Plato never was to the norms and institutions of his time to take advantage of the situation.) used it in any of his dialogues. is one that Posner eventually comes around One might expect Posner to close his tale When it comes to modern history, Pos- to conceding: FDR “was vindicated by of American demagogues kept at bay with a ner is on sturdier ground and is clearly onto events, as much as history ever allows.” The suite of new remedies for the pathologies of something when he asserts that some politi- victorious demagogue in one era becomes popular rule. Surprisingly, he offers none. He cians flirt with the boundaries of acceptable the mainstream democrat in the next. Fortu- acknowledges that “constitutional reform” discourse to the point of outrageous excess. nately, that will not happen with Trump. But is on the agenda. “Perhaps,” he muses, “we But rereading US history as a series of dry if Roosevelt succeeded where Trump fails, it need to strip the presidency of many of the runs for Trump—and as a set of struggles is hardly because of the latter’s excoriation of powers that it has accumulated over the by elites to maintain control of a democracy elite mistakes. Rather, it is because his perso- years, so that future demagogues who are they were sometimes forced to build upon na and program intensified the elite rule of elected president will be unable to cause and expand—misses most of its moral drama our time, as part of what the political scien- harm.” But the sole indication that Posner and almost all of its social conflicts. Gone, in tists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson recently has thought about how to reconcile his old particular, are the deeper reasons elites desire dubbed “plutocratic populism.” and new selves—the apologist for presiden- control and sometimes lose it when their fail- Likewise, Posner does not engage the for- tial aggrandizement and the critic of this ures and shortcomings become clear. eign policy fiascoes of elites that—especially particular president—comes in a footnote. Part of the problem (though Posner gets given his own past—ought to loom large in “I believe,” he says there, “that only a strong points for honesty here) is how apologetical- any assessment of how they lost hold. During presidency can solve the problems with the ly he slips into laudatory portraits of elites as the Cold War, which Posner portrays as a American constitutional system.” The only disinterested rather than self-dealing and golden age of elite rule, Roosevelt’s “tech- fair conclusion is that for Posner, even once of populist forces as uneducated and un- nocratic” successors armed the American you realize demagogy is a risk, you do not washed. In some ways, he is attempting state like no power before it and made the act to contain unaccountable and unchecked to revive the consensus historiography of globe its killing field. Posner affectionately power; you just pray that elites wield it. Richard Hofstadter, a Columbia histori- cites John Adams, who remarked that “the an and the most celebrated scholar of the Athenians grew more and more Warlike in n the end, Posner replaces one Resistance American past in the mid-20th century. Yet proportion as the commonwealth became cul-de-sac with another. Instead of focus- Hofstadter, a former radical who was not more democratic.” Posner doesn’t mention ing on impending tyranny, he endorses an merely anxious about challenges to cen- that the Cold War and the War on Terrorism only slightly more useful notion that the trist rule but also sensitive to liberalism’s would have made Adams blanch. country’s problem is demagogy. But it is dark sides, was not above excoriating the As the 1980s and ’90s brought early warn- Inot clear that any political leaders elected by injustices that elites perpetrate. He hoped ing signs of the impending disaster of 2016, a majority have ever have seized dictatorial to confine the most potentially destructive like Buchanan’s candidacy, it hardly signified control of their countries, and certainly none forces on the right to their fringe while pro- that the dangerous people were improvi- have done so in American history. (So much tecting the vital center against the left. But dently being given a chance to speak, as Pos- for Plato’s theory.) And Posner’s charge that 36 The Nation. September 7/14, 2020

America’s difficulty is that the country has -fi nally fallen to the very demagogy its founders designed it to avoid really just distracts from assessing the costs of elite rule. New Deal reformer and Yale Law professor Thurman Arnold had it right: “The man with the social values which you do not like, you will call the demagogue.” Crying “demagogue” is anoth- er kind of evasion. Learning nothing from his experi­ ences,­ Posner offers an apology for elite rule during a period in which it is in a state of crisis—an apology that will persuade only those who share his complacency. A study that found the top 10 percent of earners control the political system “does not prove that elite control is excessive,” he asserts. Instead, “we would need to know what policy would look like if elites held less control, and no one knows.” He prefers to rest content with the wisdom that in “any organized system of governance” there is a “need for division of labor and specialization of functions” that “results in a small number of people at the top.” Instead of calling for better elites, however, Posner goes so far as to indict the rare ones who bolt from the defense of their privileges. But the fact that “there is no direct way for the people to rule in the American sys- tem,” as he observes, is hardly an excuse for suggesting that we should simply ac- cept the status quo ante of the rule of the self-appointed wise. Thanks to thinkers like Gaetano Mosca, Vilfredo Pareto, and Joseph SOURCE CODE Schumpeter, the first lesson of modern po- Arca’s transcendent pop litical science as a profession is indeed that elites will rule even in democracies. But it by JULYSSA LOPEZ very much matters which ones do so, for whose sake, and to what ends. Among other n the cover of her new album, KiCk i, example of how Arca has found a way to be things, they can help democracy live up more the Venezuelan experimental artist and so much at once, committed only to pushing and more to its promise of collective self-​ producer Arca is wrapped in white deeper into her mind-bending artistry. government, challenging the line between underwear,­ the soft fabric across her Transformations—both major, mirac- the ruling class and the rest of us. skin in stark juxtaposition to the blade- ulous ones and steady, gradual shifts—are Finally, unlike Posner and the other Olike bionic prostheses on her limbs. She’s bare central to Arca’s slinking path through music. latter-day Platonists, we know that elites but also armed, vulnerable yet gladiatorial. She began as a bit of a cipher, dwelling in have their own passions and prejudices, The image, taken by the Spanish pho- the underground corners of the Internet and as disabling and distorting as those of the tographer Carlota Guerrero, captures some- releasing sonic experiments on SoundCloud people and probably more so. Posner’s most thing of the album’s tensions—the way Arca in the early 2010s. Then she caught the at- debatable error—one that connects his ear- stitches together industrial blasts, blankets tention of Kanye West, who enlisted her to lier career arguing for free markets and of glitch noise, and sudden waves of glossy contribute production to 2013’s Yeezus. As executive power with his current bout of pop into songs that mutate by the second. she gained more recognition for her albums democratic malaise in the Trump era—is in The shards of sound that Arca uses are of- (2014’s Xen, 2015’s Mutant, 2017’s Arca), she giving elites a pass for their dysfunctions. ten incongruous and alarmingly divergent, became something of a secret weapon of That the ancient case against the irrational- so much so that each change is like an un­ the avant-pop set. Her name sprang up in ity of democracy is itself irrational suggests expected­ splash of cold water to the face. But the credits for albums by Björk, FKA Twigs, that Plato is the wrong place to begin when KiCk i isn’t simply a study in contrasts; it’s a Kelela, and Frank Ocean. Arca evolved mu- explaining Trump’s rise. The reasonable rebellion against convention in both music sically with each new record, testing vocals, fear for the immediate future, once Trump and life. The project is a living, breathing serpentine structures, and unpredictable pro- is kicked out by the people, is of a baleful duction work. She launched conceptual work elite restoration. In fact, it already seems Julyssa Lopez is a contributing writer for The as well: 2020’s @@@@@ was a 62-minute like the biggest thing to fear. ■ Nation who covers music, art, and culture. track conceived as a transmission from a char- LËSHKINA) ARCA (HART September 7/14, 2020 The Nation. 37

acter named Diva Experimental, and last year media debate about her privileged upbring- an slang over a grim reggaeton beat. Since she debuted Mutant;Faith, a four-day perfor- ing, which Arca addressed somewhat clumsi- 2019, the Spanish-speaking music industry mance art piece at the Shed in Manhattan. ly on Twitter by saying she hadn’t seen “$1” has boosted Rosalía to the center of reggae- Still, given her past collaborators, it’s not from her family “since college graduation.” ton and dembow, despite the fact that she’s a all that surprising she’d eventually move her Regardless, Arca doesn’t shy away from the white European experimenting with sounds career under a pop spotlight, and KiCk i is that truths she represents. She exposes her com- created by Black people in Latin America and leap forward. With this latest album, Arca has plexities and, in the process, refuses to exist the Caribbean. Arca’s decision to have her slipped into the deepest layers of popular in marginalized, limited spaces or adhere lead yet another reggaeton-influenced song music and changed its source code without to simplistic binaries. She takes on hetero­ is a disappointment, and though it boasts giving in to its structural traditions. She’s also normative­ gender roles and subverts ideas of contributions from the talented producer brought along some of her contemporaries desire frequently. “I want a male that knows Cardopusher, “KLK” doesn’t really take the and previous collaborators: Björk, the Scot- how to touch me,” she purrs in an androg- genre anywhere new. It’s a missed opportu- tish artist Sophie, the Spanish singer Rosalía, ynous Auto-Tuned voice on the electronic nity to acknowledge the roots of music that the London DJ Shygirl. And while the album dreamscape “Machote.” Often she delivers has clearly had an influence on Arca, and doesn’t sound much like the approachable her lyrics in quick, winding twists, as on “Rip it stands out as almost regressive on such a mainstream, it’s occasionally entangled in the Slit,” in which she raps in a helium-high progressively minded project. the larger problems of pop music—a risk any pitch, “I’ll hit you with that limp wrist / Lip- foray into the genre would likely have faced. stick / Slit lip / Rip slit.” Each verse unspools he power of Arca’s work is its inven- KiCk i is loaded with some of Arca’s most like a riddle, as knotty and intricate as the tiveness. Cultural work that proposes technical work, but these sonic flexes can feel aspects of herself she’s putting forward. new modes of expression and commu- more impenetrable, even messier, than her Arca’s full-length self-titled album from nication is especially important right prior releases. Certain moments also seem to 2017 was as raw and pained as an open now as people have organized to call counter the radical impulses Arca has become wound, tying together queer experiences and outT the lack of imagination that has con- known for, yet these contradictions end up diasporic desolation. The aims of KiCk i are tinued systems of oppression and inequality shaping an album that’s as complex, free, and decidedly different. “Rather than depicting for generations. KiCk i fits into a recent unyielding as Arca and her uncompromising gender dysphoria, I want to explore gender series of releases—some of the year’s best, in artistic method. euphoria,” she told Garage magazine this fact—from queer and nonbinary artists that The opener, “Nonbinary,” is a manifesto year. She has chosen instead to focus on the defy the limits of traditional genre and form for Arca’s current mindset: propulsive, sa- exhilaration of queer love and the blurring in distinct ways. Moses Sumney turned soul lacious, and proud. (Arca came out as non- of body and form that happens on the dance and R&B inside out on his 20-song master- binary in 2018 and uses “she” pronouns.) floor. “Calor,” which most resembles the piece græ. Perfume Genius’s Set My Heart A distant smattering of thuds and snares spaciousness of Arca, is a tender ballad in on Fire Immediately came out in May and trickle into the arrangement before which she sings about her partner, offered gut-wrenching portraits of intimacy. she darts in and drops heat- showing off a more intimate side. Just a few weeks later, Yves Tumor embraced ed spoken-word verses, her Later, she and Sophie kick up off-kilter, abrasive sounds on Heaven to a voice as smooth and fluid crackles of noise and grime Tortured Mind. It’s not exactly fair to group as molten lava. “I do what on “La Chíqui,” creating these artists, given how wildly different their I wanna do when I wanna the kind of pitch-black, output has been, but what they share is a do it / Bitch, I got the bags pulsing club moment you’d resistance to convention that creates a portal to prove it / Hips to move want to experience with your into an uncharted artistic future. it around and make shapes,” closest friends. Both are de- Sasha Geffen summed up their work best she says sharply before hit- monstrative of the many ways in the recent book Glitter Up the Dark. “I ting the kicker: “It’s French tips in which Arca has interpreted hear a refusal to force the body against its wrapped ’round a dick.” It’s a show- ideas of ecstasy, but perhaps the best true shape,” Geffen writes. “In their slip- stopper of a song that marks a departure example is “Mequetrefe.” The title comes pery, confounding, and transcendent music, from her earlier music; she started experi- from a colloquial term, Arca has explained, these artists—and the hundreds of others menting with vocals only later in her career. thrown around in Venezuela at sleazy, good- that join them on this path—cast off the To some, the new lyricism might seem too for-nothing men. She sings about how badly claustrophobic molds that would keep them direct or obvious, but it exemplifies the un- she wants this kind of guy for her enjoyment, from themselves. Their music twists into filtered approach Arca has taken here. She’s for a mischievous reclamation of the word, new shapes without names, shapes that open unafraid to use her words to demand and but steely synth twinkles and reggaeton per- the way into a world that lets in the light.” set the terms for her visibility, all while her cussion make the track so blissful, you just During her own act of letting in the light community and her fans cheer her on. want to get lost dancing in it. The sound is on this record, Arca is fearless. She lays bare The beat skips along and then speeds up; nostalgic, understated, and mesmerizing— her multiplicity and her contradictions, the Arca’s voice becomes amorphous and robot- just before it explodes into a firework of static compelling and unflattering bits, celebrating ic. She sings at one point, “Ask me about my and chopped-up vocal loops. it all. The title of the final song, “No Queda luck / Yeah, I’ve been lucky / And I’ve been Unfortunately, the depth of “Meque­ Nada” (“There Is Nothing Left”), is a love unlucky / It’s both.” The declaration is sub- trefe” doesn’t carry into “KLK,” a highly letter to her partner that rejoices in how full tle, but it hints at the challenges she’s faced anticipated collaboration with Rosalía that’s and self-realized she is in this moment of her as well as the breaks she’s had throughout her far less moving (and even discomfiting) as career. “Nothing left,” she sings. “Except

ARCA (HART LËSHKINA) ARCA (HART career. It might even evoke a recent social the two artists trade boasts and Caribbe- that which you see.” ■ 38 The Nation. September 7/14, 2020 Q&AN.K. JEMISIN

For a work of fantasy, The City We being sapped by people that it’s real. And if they can handle don’t seem to understand what that, then they become New Became, the first book in a new trilogy the city needs to thrive. Yorkers. You don’t have to be But also, part of New York born a New Yorker. This is a city by the sci-fi bard N.K. Jemisin, reads like is fighting back. When the city that’s hungry for new people. an act of near-journalism. In its pages, starts to become a place where the poor cannot live or where JS: Will everything that’s New York City, once the epi­ Black people cannot simply happened in the past five center of this country’s Covid-19 our society that have been walk down the street and be months influence the rest of outbreak, is battling another like a slow-motion plague. It’s themselves, New York fights. the trilogy? terrifying contagion. This one just made that more visible New York sees a threat and be- NKJ: It has, because I had doesn’t attack the lungs and and acute. gins to work against it, and that intended to do some things in blood vessels, but it is no less is also what I wanted to capture. later volumes that got stolen vicious. Loosed upon the city’s JS: Would you say that this by reality. You can kind of see five boroughs by the book’s book was written out of a love JS: What makes someone a in the book that I had been villain, the Woman in White, it for New York or frustration? New Yorker? planning to explore an angle attaches “long, feathery white NKJ: Love for New York and NKJ: Oh, that’s deeply exis- with [the New York Police De- tendrils” to people and rapidly fear for New York. I’m 47. I’ve tential. I think there comes a partment]. I may still go with multiplies, with the goal of de- lived here on and off since I moment after you’ve been here that, because the NYPD is still stroying the city. As in real life, was 5, enough to see New York for a year or so when you just going to be the NYPD. They the virus disproportionately go through massive changes. suddenly realize this is your didn’t get defunded. Nothing endangers people of color. Around the time that I was born, city, that you don’t want to live has changed. I don’t know ex- I recently spoke with Jemisin the city was going through anywhere else. New Yorkers are actly how I want to handle that. about how a book she wrote white flight as a result of deseg- chosen: New Yorkers choose That was for book three, and almost two years ago turned regation. And then the city al- themselves. And then New York once again, thanks, America, eerily prescient. Here are some most went bankrupt. Then there tests them to kind of make sure for stealing my ideas. n highlights of our conversation. was a crack epidemic. There —Jessica Suriano was a period in the ’90s when the city was finally free of crack JS: What has it been like to What The City but the drug war was still a huge We Became is have this book come out problem. The police were a during this period, when a lot talking about huge problem. But people were is the almost of events in it feel more like able to get jobs, and neighbor- plaguelike reality than fantasy? hoods were being built instead NKJ: Well, I wrote the book al- of burned down. A lot of New afflictions that most two years ago, so it wasn’t Yorkers started to feel hope. have been like I intended for that congruity And then a different kind attacking the to be there. The pandemic is a of plague began to hit, which city for a new thing, but what The City was housing prices going so far long time. We Became is talking about is beyond affordable that there’s the almost plaguelike afflictions effectively no middle class in that have been attacking the New York anymore. Suddenly, city for a long time. What I think when new people came in, the is happening is that I described city became beholden to real things like gentrification as viral estate developers. Suddenly, or as infectious. And then we we started to not get the fund- have a literal plague. The pan- ing that we needed for infra- demic has really exacerbated structure and repair. What I see a lot of existing issues within is the city’s growth and health LAURA HANIFIN GREAT READING, GREAT COFFEE

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