The Nation June 2024

IF YOU BELIEVE THE HEADLINES, THE SPECTER haunting the minds of Democrats today is not communism but the shadow of Chicago 1968, when young people protesting the Vietnam War—and the machine-backed nomination of Hubert Humphrey (presented to the Democratic National Convention though he hadn’t won a single primary)— flooded into the city, where they were met by Mayor Richard Daley’s cops. The ensuing riot, broadcast on national television, is widely blamed for propelling Richard Nixon into the White House. If Israel is still using American weapons to kill Palestinian civilians this August, the anti-war movement may well show up in Chicago again. Even so, it strains credulity that, as Politico recently reported, “some in Biden’s orbit are aggressively pushing” the Democrats to adopt a hybrid mode for their 2024 convention,…

VIOLENCE CONTINUES TO HAUNT EASTERN EUROPE. THE ATTEMPTED ASSASSINAtion of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico on May 15 inevitably conjures up the memory of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo 110 years earlier, which led to the First World War. It is, tragically, not an exaggeration to say that Europe (and crucially, this time, the United States) again faces a fateful choice: between a negotiated settlement in Ukraine and the possibility of a third, and perhaps final, world war. If recent statements by US and European officials are to be believed, there is a growing consensus in favor of war. On May 16, The New York Times reported that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, with regard to the possibility of NATO sending military trainers…

IN RECENT WEEKS, ONE STORY HAS FAILED TO GARner as many headlines or dominate as many social media feeds as it should have, despite its widespread implications. Right now, Canadian wildfires are once again issuing a grave global warning: Catastrophic climate change is no longer just a future dystopian possibility; it’s a present, inescapable reality. While fires blaze across Western Canada, spreading smoke, making it harder to breathe, and diminishing air quality for people living as far away as South Dakota and Iowa, millions of people in Brazil are recovering from severe floods in Rio Grande do Sul, which, as with the Canadian wildfires, scientists and major research organizations have characterized as an alarming sign of what is to come from accelerating climate change. Following the last Canadian wildfire season,…

WHEN LESLIE MOVED TO NATICK, MASSACHUSETTS, an outer suburb of Boston, it seemed to her like an “extremely welcoming place.” There were rainbow flags everywhere; three-quarters of its voters went for Biden. When her child came out as nonbinary, they had a “pretty decent” time at their public school. Leslie (a pseudonym) wasn’t surprised: Massachusetts has long prided itself on being at the leading edge of LGBTQ equality. In 2003, it became the first state to legalize marriage equality, and over the past 15 years it has passed laws that prohibit discrimination against trans people and ban conversion therapy. As red and purple states have been consumed by fights over bathroom bans and gender-affirming care for minors, Massachusetts has charted a different course, enshrining the right to such care. In…

IN MAY, NEWS REPORTS PROCLAIMED THAT THE death counts of women and children in Gaza had been dramatically exaggerated. “UN admits Gaza death toll wrong, with almost 50% fewer women, children killed than previously reported,” a New York Post headline asserted. Yet not only does an examination of the available statistics leave no doubt that civilians in Gaza have overwhelmingly borne the brunt of Israel’s military campaign, but deaths from malnutrition and disease make it likely that the full toll is considerably higher. Conflict fatality data in Gaza is typically reported by the Gaza Ministry of Health, whose figures in previous conflicts have generally aligned with those from independent agencies. Yet throughout the war, US and Israeli officials have questioned the MOH death counts, citing the ministry’s position as part…

DECADES OF LIBERAL ADVOCACY PREACHING “DON’T let the perfect be the enemy of the good” have led us directly to City of Grants Pass v. Johnson. The case, for which the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in April, will determine whether the law, in its majestic equality, deems it “cruel and unusual” to penalize anyone for sleeping on public property. Concern with ameliorating people’s suffering is understandable. But the liberal position on homelessness has encouraged ceding important ground in favor of securing palliative interventions that will be palatable to governing elites. As a price of gaining support for helping homeless people as individuals, this compromise accepts homelessness as a fact of life, or an ecological condition, to which individuals can succumb. The demand for public housing for people in need…