Innehållsförteckning för June 18/25, 2018 från The Nation

@thenation.com The Devil in the Details Michael Massing’s attempt to explain the enigma of American evangelical support for Donald Trump [“How Martin Luther Paved the Way for Donald Trump,” May 14] appears to be a straightforward case: Martin Luther’s reform efforts were in fact a faux-populist desire to make Christianity great again, a desire unconsciously transmitted to evangelicals through their indebtedness to Luther’s theology and inflamed now by Trump. In Luther, Massing finds the missing link connecting Trump’s personality to theologies that for him define American evangelicals. Thus, by believing as Luther believed, American evangelicals unwittingly became expectant watchers for a leader like Luther, found in Trump. Luther would wholeheartedly agree with Massing’s view that our beliefs have unintended consequences. False doctrine, however abstract, if sincerely believed could result in…

122.4ºF Temperature in southern Pakistan on April 30—the highest-ever reliably recorded April temperature 8% Percentage of the 2.8 billion people living in the hottest parts of the world who own an air conditioner 5.6B Estimated number of air-conditioning units that will be in use by 2050, up from 1.6 billion today; these AC units would use as much electricity as China does now 2ºF Approximate rise in overnight temperatures in many cities as AC units vent hot air outside of homes 21% Percentage of the global growth in electricity demand accounted for by fans and air conditioning…

The Nation is proud to announce the following honors: The James Aronson Awards for Social Justice Journalism honored Zoë Carpenter and Dani McClain’s cover package on “Black Births Matter,” as well as Emmanuel Felton’s investigation “The Secession Movement in Education” (produced in partnership with The Hechinger Report), on May 21 in New York City. The Human Rights Press Awards—presented by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong; Amnesty International Hong Kong; and the Hong Kong Journalists Association—recognized Julia Wallace’s piece “Cambodia’s Crackdown: What Happens When an Autocrat Shutters a Newspaper” as its winner in the commentary division (English). The Mirror Awards, honoring excellence in media-industry reporting (presented by Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications), announced that two Nation pieces—Charles Alexander’s “Don’t Let the Koch Brothers Buy Time Magazine” and…

THE Nation. Dear reader, Sinclair Broadcast Group recently caused controversy for forcing newscasters to read pronouncements from the corporation presented as news—putting profiteering ahead of the public interest. At The Nation, we publish to make a difference, not a profit. This has been our mission since 1865 and we’re still publishing 153 years later because of the support of readers like you. That support has allowed us to cover the assault on our democracy with full force, as well as the growing progressive resistance, movements, and electoral victories. But even more importantly, it lets us provide sustained attention to the most challenging issues of our time—peace and justice, economic inequality, voter disenfranchisement, criminal-justice abuses—and offer bold ideas and solutions. The Nation will be driving those ideas to the front and…

There are few things more dialectically riveting in the theater than a great musical actor standing downstage-center, in the demarcating glow of a spotlight, and singing her heart out. It’s a spectacle at once intimate and grandly histrionic, advancing the plot and removed from it. The character shares her innermost thoughts; the actor radiantly shows off her chops. The female leads in two Broadway revivals are blazing through such numbers eight times a week these days, both in unorthodox takes: Jessie Mueller as Julie Jordan in Carousel and Lauren Ambrose as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. A certain critical consternation awaited these productions, with good reason. Here, as several commentators have noted, are shows (along with the upcoming Pretty Woman and next season’s Kiss Me Kate), written by men…

The United States today is in the grip of a devastating affordable-housing crisis. We hear about soaring home prices in the booming coastal cities and gentrification in newly hip towns, but the problem we face is much broader: All across the country, people are scraping and scrambling for one of the most basic requirements of life—a home. This fact rarely cracks the news cycle, and even the most progressive potential contenders in the 2020 presidential election fail to mention it. But travel to any big West Coast city or small Northeastern one, to the growing exurbs or far-flung rural counties, and the evidence begins to mount like clues at a crime scene. You can see it in Rochester, New York, a midsize city where more than half of all tenants…

For a period of 40 years, something managed to keep inequality in check in the United States. From 1940 to 1980, the richest 1 percent took home 9 percent of the wealth generated by the economy. Today, just as they did in the 1920s, the top 1 percent grabs about double that share. Surprisingly, the cause of this midcentury “Great Compression” has been largely neglected by economists, with many of them casually dismissing the role of unions. One influential theory, especially among pundits, is that the supply of skilled workers curbed the growth of income inequality. Starting in the 1940s, the argument goes, the increasing education of the American workforce propelled a broad prosperity. Another recent account, associated with the economist Thomas Piketty, maintains that the devastation of World War…

Some years ago, while we were getting ready to move out of state, my husband and I held a garage sale. We’d advertised it in our community newspaper and on flyers around the neighborhood and had a huge turnout as a result. Dozens of bargain hunters milled about, asking about this or that item. “Cuanto quiere usted por el sofá?” an older gentleman asked me, pointing to our old green couch. I quoted him a price, adding, “Es un sofá cama.” Hearing our exchange, a white woman turned around and yelled, “Speak English! You’re in America.” “Hey—” I said, but she walked away in a huff, got into her car, and drove off. I’ve been thinking about that moment, and the fiery anger behind it, as I hear about incident…

1867: The first tenement-law regulation in America is enacted in New York City to ban the construction of rooms without ventilators and apartments without fire escapes. 1923: Under Mayor Daniel Hoan of the Socialist Party, Milwaukee completes construction of the country’s first public-housing project. 1926: New York State passes the Limited Dividend Housing Companies Act, the first significant effort in the country to offer any kind of subsidy for affordable housing. 1933: FDR creates the Public Works Administration, which in addition to constructing major infrastructure projects builds model homes for the poor and the middle class. 1934: The National Housing Act establishes the Federal Housing Administration, which insures mortgages for small, owner-occupied suburban homes as well as private multifamily housing. 1937: Congress passes the Housing Act of 1937. Originally intended…

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s speech on May 21 only reinforced what was already known about Donald Trump’s strategy for Iran: Either the president is ratcheting up the pressure on Tehran to get a “better deal,” which is the official story and the gist of Pompeo’s message, or he is merely pretending to be interested in new negotiations, while putting into place the building blocks for a military assault on Iran. Yet even if Trump genuinely seeks new negotiations, he is more likely to end up in a war, because the very premise of Pompeo’s speech is false. That’s because more pressure on Iran would not have secured a better nuclear deal in 2015—it would only have led to war, or to a nuclear Iran. A persistent mythology on the…

The 70th anniversary of Israel’s founding, coupled with the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem and the mass protests and killings in Gaza, gives every indication of being a turning point. Israel is not divorcing America’s liberal Jewish community quite yet, but it is well on its way to estrangement. Not surprisingly, the media coverage of what’s happening on the ground has fallen behind. The sight of Israeli Defense Force snipers shooting unarmed protesters is indeed appalling. Yet the punditocracy remains filled with those who do not merely excuse Israel’s use of excessive force but actively praise it. This is particularly true of the New York Times op-ed page, which, aside from Michelle Goldberg’s laments for the fate of liberal Zionism, is dominated by apologists for the Netanyahu government.…

Stanford University students who consider suicide or self-harm are systematically forced out of their classes and housing, according to a lawsuit filed on May 17 by three individuals and a coalition of over 20 student groups. The plaintiffs argue that Stanford violates the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) with its “blanket practice of ejecting students” who struggle with suicidal ideation from its programs and housing. In the suit, one student recalls how a residence dean coerced him into agreeing to a “voluntary” leave of absence while he recovered from a suicide attempt; another recounts how university administrators evicted her from campus housing after calling her self-harm a “distraction to the community” and proceeded to charge her $450 for “terminating” her housing contract. Instead of asking for money for what the…

CROSSING THE FREDERICK DOUGLASS–SUSAN B. ANTHONY MEMORIAL Bridge (locally known as the “Freddie-Sue”) on a brisk spring morning in Rochester, New York, the first thing one sees is a small tent city scattered about the banks of the Genesee River. It’s a sprawl of black tarps, folding chairs, and a charcoal grill, all set up on private land. The property’s owner, a cable company called Spectrum, has attempted for some time to tear it down, urging local officials to clear the encampment. In an effort to forestall the destruction of their fragile shelters, the homeless people who live there have hung a banner at the edge of a nearby highway that reads, simply, “Forgive us our trespasses.” Continuing on toward the city’s southwest side, one finds a 48-unit building on…

We went to school we ate pink beef we dranklots of water we snorted ritalin our nostrilsturned red we lifted weights we killed a mama moosewe sold her teeth online we poked each other’s muscles we laidour large bodies down on docks and smelled the wind we buckedhay our skin was hard we touched our palms together speedingdown the highway we turned the headlights off and felta little holy we were strong but we were thin we slept on coucheswe tore rotten stumps with our big hands we swaddledour little sisters we wrestled our dogs we punched each otherin the kidneys we shinnied up magnolias we closedour eyes we went to church we pelted magpies offthe cherry trees we watched moonlight spreadacross the snow we trapped a spider and then…