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 THENATION.COM Version 01-08-2020 2 The Nation. Join the conversation, every Thursday, on the Start Making Letters Sense podcast. @thenation.com 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 under served communities.