The Nation July 25/August 1, 2022

IN 1992, FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIANS WHO WISHED TO SEE THEOCRATIC LAW IMposed on the rest of the country were stabbed in the back by a conservative Supreme Court. In Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, the court ruled, 5-4, to affirm the right to abortion before fetal viability as recognized in Roe v. Wade. The court placed significant new restrictions on reproductive rights, but it didn’t overturn Roe. All five justices who voted to affirm Roe were appointed by Republican presidents. Indeed, the 1992 court comprised eight justices appointed by Republicans. Only Byron White was appointed by a Democrat, and he joined the dissent against Casey and Roe. Now, 30 years after Casey, the fundamentalists have the court they want. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court…

LESS THAN THREE HOURS AFTER THE SUPREME COURT overturned Roe v. Wade, Elyssa Klann sat down at her kitchen table, two laptops open in front of her. Klann is a psychologist who has volunteered for the All-Options Talkline for seven years, supporting callers who are making decisions about their pregnancies and connecting them to resources when they ask for them. Klann struggled to comprehend the map of abortion access as it shifted in real time on her laptop screen. Callers in states hostile to abortion rights wanted to know if they could still go to their appointments. Klann wasn’t sure. She checked the guide at abortionfinder.org. “I could tell they were updating states as I was watching,” she said. Klann knew that 13 states have trigger laws designed to ban…

ONE YEAR AGO, ON JULY 11, A SMALL PROTEST BY CUban dissidents in a poor suburb of Havana sparked nationwide anti-government demonstrations. In dozens of cities and towns, thousands marched to protest shortages of food and medicine, electricity blackouts, and a surge in Covid-19 infections. Most of the demonstrations were peaceful, but in some neighborhoods, protesters battled with police, overturned cars, and looted stores. The unprecedented protests were a symptom of deep economic and political discontent. They shocked Cuba’s leaders, emboldened the opposition, and rekindled Washington’s perennial pipe dream of regime change. Twelve months later, Cubans are still struggling with a sputtering economy, which is triggering a surge in irregular migration. When the protests erupted, President Miguel Díaz-Canel denounced them as counterrevolutionary and called loyalists into the streets to defend…

BAD ART IS DOING VERY NICELY THESE DAYS, AND the reason is that people want a message. An early symptom was the galloping first-personism of movie reviewers: “I feel…” was a hard-to-beat gambit, since who can refute a feeling? A more impartial claim was suggested by the successor locution “It feels like…”—where the “it” meant that the feeling in question ought to move anyone. The broad-church piety was harder to challenge than a mere first person. Meanwhile, negative judgments were on the way to becoming prohibited so long as the work wore its good intentions on its sleeve. This is not a question of sincerity. Oscar Wilde said, “All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling,” and in The Importance of Being Earnest, Algernon recoiled from the display of affection by…

EARLIER THIS MONTH, THE RIGHT-WING PROPAGANDIST Christopher Rufo gave his social media followers a tutorial in the dark art of fearmongering—specifically, how to lie in order to stoke anti-LGBTQ hatred. Republican legislators have already spent the past four years filing some 670 anti-LGBTQ bills, with more than 300 proposed in 2022 alone, a significant portion of which target vulnerable transgender children and young adults. In recent weeks, right-wingers have amped up their smears against drag queens who volunteer their time reading books to kids in schools and libraries, claiming those story hours create “a sexualized environment.” Rufo, doing his part, posted a Twitter thread advising conservatives to dispense with the term “drag queen” in favor of the phrase “trans stripper,” because the latter conjures “a more lurid set of connotations…

Yes BRIAN HANLON AND NED RESNIKOFF IN GOOD LEFTIST FASHION, WE’LL first answer the question by challenging its premise. New market-rate homes are rarely “luxury condos.” Only 5 percent of multifamily homes are condos, about the lowest rate in 50 years. The issue at hand concerns housing that does not receive subsidies to cover rent for low-income households. In California, nearly 90 percent of multifamily rental units are market-rate, and about 90 percent of low-income households live in market-rate homes. As for “luxury”—don’t believe what the landlords tell you. The scarcity of available apartments is what drives high housing costs, not stainless-steel appliances or a small fitness room. And that scarcity is real; contrary to what you may have heard, American cities don’t have a vast supply of apartment towers…