Innehållsförteckning för July 2024 från The Nation

THE VOTES HAD BARELY BEEN COUNTED WHEN THE New York Times rushed to offer a dose of reassurance: “In E.U. Elections, the Center Holds.” CNN also picked up the theme: “Far right surges in European Parliament elections but center still holds.” Yet most of the power in the European Union remains with its Council (which is composed of the heads of each member state, and which defines the EU’s priorities) and Commission (roughly, its unelected executive branch)—and the Council is free to ignore Parliament’s opinions. This renders the whole exercise safe for protest votes. But that doesn’t mean the rise of far-right parties across the continent shouldn’t be concerning, even here in the United States. I still recall the comical choreography of the customs line at Heathrow Airport the day before…

THE ONLY VOTE I’VE REGRETTED WAS MY FIRST. IN 2012, I was so furious about the Democratic Party’s failure to make meaningful progress on climate change that I used my first-ever ballot to cast a protest vote against President Barack Obama. Rather than forcing my way into the Democratic Party’s big tent, I sat outside it. That protest vote is on my mind as two startlingly unpopular presidents vie for another four years. Can I stomach a vote for Joe Biden, a man who promised jobs that would be good for the planet and workers’ wallets and delivered the funds for a super-charged domestic clean-energy industry, only to blow all of his goodwill by bear-hugging a far-right leader who is wanted by the International Criminal Court? And what do my…

DURING THE RUN-UP TO THE 2008 PRESIDENTIAL PRIMAries, a Washington press colleague of mine summed up why he thought Hillary Clinton already had a lock on the Democratic presidential nomination with a glib formula: “The Clintons know a lot more about this stuff than we do.” The tacit reasoning fueling that wayward prediction is a de facto slogan for the modern Democratic Party: Power equates to knowledge—which in turn translates into a righteous and unassailable foothold in the arbitration of the basic terms of engagement in political life. There’s a reason that the cult of savviness has taken firm hold in all redoubts of Democratic politics, from the party’s centers of financial and intellectual influence to its core messaging around the rival horrors of MAGA authoritarianism: The Democratic Party is…

Media Failure DEAN BAKER BACK IN THE 1990S, WHEN REPUBLIcans and even many Democrats were looking to cut and/or privatize Social Security, the standard wisdom was that if you wanted to be taken seriously, you had to acknowledge that Social Security was facing a crisis. Even many progressives who supported the program repeated that line. Social Security, of course, was not in a crisis, and it was important to say that to beat back the privatizers. We are seeing much the same story today, as when The Washington Post lectured us in a recent editorial headlined “Telling Americans the Economy Is Good Won’t Work.” Well, the economy is good, and we should not be shy about saying that. To be clear, we still have tens of millions of people who…

WELL BEFORE THE OCTOBER 7 HAMAS MASSACRE AND THE ongoing Israeli invasion of Gaza that followed it, the accusation levied against the growing ranks of Israel’s multiple critics, among them liberals and humanists, gentiles and Jews—many of whom had been raised on unconditional love for the country and had idolized and idealized it—was that they were motivated by antisemitism or self-hatred. The link between denying the decades-long oppression of millions of Palestinians and accusing those who pointed it out of antisemitism was made in Israel and then exported to Europe and the United States—wrapped in the underlying allegation that the “nations of the world,” which had stood by while 6 million Jews were murdered, have no right to criticize the Jewish state, which is fighting for its more the conditions…

“A MARRIAGE MADE IN HEAVEN,” GUSHED SENATOR Imee Marcos before her brother, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., sealed a deal with Sara Duterte, daughter of former president Rodrigo Duterte, to run as a duo in the lead-up to the 2022 national elections. Marcos Jr. would be president, Sara Duterte his vice president. The most influential dynasty of the northern Philippines had joined forces with the most powerful one from the south. That marriage is now over, with Vice President Duterte’s resignation from her cabinet position as secretary of education on June 19. Marcos Jr.’s father ruled the Philippines for over two decades, first as elected president, then as dictator. In 1986, a popular insurrection known as the EDSA Uprising ousted the elder Marcos, but his family maintained a large following in the…

THE TONE WAS SET EARLY. IT WAS AFTERNOON AT THE Poetry Project’s New Year’s Day Marathon, the 50th since the event’s debut in 1974. After an hour and a half or so of poems, the day’s topic had come into focus. Sarah Schulman was reading a short essay about Palestine and reaching what felt like a conclusion. “For me, personally, the turning point came when I realized that I would not want to live under occupation for even one day,” Schulman read. “This is what we need to make Americans ask themselves: If they were being occupied and controlled, never had safety, were told what roads to go on, could not travel, could not work or walk where they wanted to without being controlled, had their kids arrested at age…

THE MOST DAUNTING RESPONSIBILITY FOR FOLLOWERS OF AN AUTHORITARIAN ruler is making excuses for when the boss screws up. Unfortunately for the Republicans who have chosen Donald Trump as their 2024 presidential nominee, they are having a hard time keeping up with the chaos that the 78-year-old convicted felon and aspiring dictator is spawning. It’s not that top Republicans have qualms about lying on their candidate’s behalf. They’re more than willing to maintain the cult of personality Trump demands. The problem is that they can’t keep their trumped-up stories straight. When it was reported in June that Trump told House Republicans that “Milwaukee, where we are having our convention, is a horrible city,” US Representative Bryan Steil, a Wisconsin Republican, declared, “I was in the room. President Trump did not…

ISRAEL’S ASSAULT ON GAZA HAS SHUTTERED EVERY one of its schools and universities, many of which have been reduced to rubble. Israel can cut off Internet and other forms of communication at any time. Air strikes have killed more than 100 journalists, many of whom Israel appears to have targeted. This is in addition to the tens of thousands of Palestinians killed by Israeli bombs (often manufactured by American companies), for whom there is, of course, no freedom of expression. In every conversation about Palestine, it is important to begin with these stakes. Because the material reality in Gaza is often lost in the debate over the appropriate response in the United States. As liberal organizations and universities in the US hem and haw over the merits of street protests,…

TWO MONTHS AGO, THE ALL-WHITE SCHOOL BOARD of Shenandoah County, Virginia, voted to reinstate the names of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Turner Ashby for two of its local schools. Amid a grounds-well of anti-racist protests four years ago, more than 60 schools around the country retired their Confederate names. Shenandoah County’s board did so after a June 2020 resolution “affirming the division’s commitment to an inclusive school environment for all.” But the appetite for such change, in certain communities, seems to have been short-lived. The Shenandoah County board’s restoration of the Confederate names may be the country’s first, but as the Virginia Mercury reports, the move “could be a regressive blueprint for other localities.” In another sign of the times, a federal appeals court in June…

The unforgiving, uniform structure of prison life makes it difficult for a person to hold on to their identity as an individual. Prisoner innovation is a way to reclaim control over one’s humanity. Angelo, an incarcerated artist who drew the pencil sketches shown here, writes, “If some of what’s presented here seems unimpressive, keep in mind that deprivation is a way of life in prison…. But inmates are resilient if nothing else—what’s taken today will be remade by tomorrow, and the cycle goes on and on.” Fakeup Restrictions on makeup differ from prison to prison and state to state. And the makeup selection at prison commissaries, if it is available, is extremely limited, forcing people to improvise alternatives to put their self-image together. Michelle, a woman incarcerated in California, says…

The Cost of Psychotherapy Re “Psychedelic Inequality,” by Alissa Quart [May 2024]: I am very sympathetic to Quart’s argument about the class advantage of access to psychedelic psychotherapies. However, I wish to point out that conventional psychotherapy, especially but not only psychoanalysis, is much more expensive, since it typically continues for years. In contrast, a few “journeys” with psychedelics that can apparently have a near-immediate effect cost a fraction of that amount. Legalization, price regulation, and insurance coverage would do much to prevent the abuse of profit-making entities. RENATE BRIDENTHAL Professor Emerita Women’s and Gender Studies The City University of New York NEW YORK CITY The Yemen Script Re “The Great Humbling,” by David Klion [April 2024]: During his 2020 campaign, Joe Biden pledged to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah”…

THERE IS NO VICTORY TO BE ACHIEVED BY ISRAEL, OR BY ITS AMERican sponsor, in its merciless devastation of Gaza. This was evident as far back as October, when many of us began warning that Israel’s onslaught bore all the hallmarks of America’s forever wars, but the horror and chaos of the last few weeks should convince any remaining doubters. Hamas itself made a mockery of Israel’s stated ambitions when, despite Israeli assurances that the southern city of Rafah was the group’s final stronghold, it initiated guerrilla attacks in May on the Israeli military in the north, heralding the insurgency that likely awaits Israel the longer it remains in Gaza. Despite this, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continued to insist on “total victory,” evading a clear response to President Joe Biden’s…

BY ANY REASONABLE METRIC, TAYLOR Swift has done everything any listener, critic, or fan could ask, and not just once but over and over and over again. Since she first became famous as a country star in her teens, Swift has evolved musically and lyrically; has shown that she can work on her own and with various collaborators; has given us bops and dance hits and introspective numbers—breakup songs and love songs, get-well songs and good-advice songs. Swift has learned from R&B artists and producers without trying to duplicate their glories, and from stripped-down 2000s indie without trying to copy its edge. She has written (and cowritten) phrases that have traveled the world and given new life to former clichés. Swift has also found ways to carve her own path,…

EVERY AMERICAN SEEMS TO KNOW THE NAME AND EVEN the story of Harriet Tubman. But do they? In spite of her stature and importance in American history, she seemed to have been ignored during much of the 20th century. In 2003 and 2004, six decades after the last major study of her life and times was published, readers got not one but two biographies: Catherine Clinton’s Harriet Tubman and Kate Clifford Larson’s Bound for the Promised Land. Since then there have been countless children’s books and several shorter books on Tubman, or books that examine particular episodes in her life. But these three groundbreaking books have remained the staples for anyone who wants to know more about one of the most famous Americans in history. However, three books, or even…

THE SYMPATHIZER IS A CONFESSION. WE MEET THE CONfessor, narrator, and protagonist (played by Hoa Xuande) in a makeshift prison camp in Vietnam. Reading his confession, his interrogator plays the critic, saying, “Rewrite.… and this time remember everything.” Our hero goes back to solitary confinement and the loneliness of the writer’s desk. He starts over again. His first words are “I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces.” The camera dips down in front of the prisoner, and then we cut to the gigantic face of Charles Bronson, hoisted onto the marquee of a movie palace in Saigon, taking us back to an earlier and vastly different Vietnam. This matching shot is not merely a graphic lubricant, propelling us through time and space, but an…

AS JOE BIDEN’S REELECTION BID CONTINUES TO FALter, Democrats have to admit that the problem is either the message or the messenger. Two contradictory trends paint a bleak picture of a president who can’t get credit from the public for his genuine achievements. Writing in Forbes, New School economist Richard McGahey noted that with May’s unexpectedly strong employment report, which tallied the creation of 272,000 new jobs, “the Biden Administration’s robust and durable track record on jobs and unemployment is breaking records, putting up some of the best results we’ve seen in half a century.” Yet May was also when, according to Reuters, “Biden’s public approval rating…fell to its lowest level in almost two years, tying the lowest reading of his presidency in a warning sign for his reelection effort.”…

FEW PLACES IN THE WORLD FACE A MORE UNCERtain future than Gaza, where famine looms and 37,000 Palestinians have been killed in the course of Israel’s brutal retaliation for the October 7 Hamas attacks. But in May, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly unveiled a plan for the region dubbed “Gaza 2035.” As outlined in the trade publication The Architect’s Newspaper, the plan envisions postwar Gaza as a tabula rasa, purged of residents, on which Netanyahu can realize a cartoonish, convoluted vision of fossil fuel extraction (an estimated 1.7 billion barrels of oil sit in the Strip’s coastal area), preemptive greenwashing (there’s talk of “electric car manufacturing cities”), and total fealty to the technology and real estate industries to shape the land. The proposal was accompanied by…

1869 The year Congress set the number of justices on the US Supreme Court at nine 16 The average length of a Supreme Court justice’s term, in years 32 The number of years the longest-serving current justice, Clarence Thomas, has been on the court $2.4m The total value of gifts received by Thomas between 2004 and 2023, according to Fix the Court $36k The total value of gifts received by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, for 73 gifts—the second-highest number, behind Thomas 2 The number of justices who have been impeached or have resigned under the threat of impeachment…

IN LATE APRIL, ARIZONA STATE SENATOR ANthony Kern was hoping to make the leap from state politics to the national stage. A ruddy-faced man with a penchant for gray suits and a love of hyperbole, Kern has made a name for himself in recent years as an ultraconservative legislator, and he announced last October that he would run for the US House of Representatives. Not only had Kern been present for the events in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021, but he was one of the 18 false electors the Trump team put forward in Arizona after losing the 2020 election. Three years later, Kern remains defiant in his interpretation of the Capitol insurrection as a peaceful expression of discontent with what he is convinced was a stolen election. Kern’s…

YABOM WAS LUCKY. SHE HEARD A FLAT TONE, THEN AN ABRUPT pop. A moment of silence, then the flat tone again. “Thank God,” she thought. The phone was ringing. Yabom hadn’t been certain that her friend Musu’s phone would be on. It was almost late afternoon, and Yabom, who was calling from the police station, guessed that the electricity would be off just a few blocks away at Old Post, the neighborhood where she lived with her kids at the edge of Koidu, a city in eastern Sierra Leone. (“Yabom” and “Old Post” are both pseudonyms to help protect the identity of the woman at the center of this story.) Old Post had been there from before Yabom was born. It had been built by the British back in “colonial…

THE SUPREME COURT HAS TAKEN A POLITICAL BEATING lately over its rulings on abortion, guns, and affirmative action. Yet even liberals who attack the court tend to aim at these decisions and the justices who issued them, not the institution itself. More often than not, they accuse the Roberts court of betraying the Constitution and the legacy of earlier, more liberal justices. The Constitution itself remains a source of justice and guidance—at least in the hands of the right interpreters. Yet there are cracks in this structure of liberal feeling. It is common knowledge that under the Electoral College system created by the Constitution, Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016 even though he’d lost the popular vote, and that the Constitution apportions US Senate seats in a way that…

THERE ARE MANY STUNNING IMAGES IN LATOYA RUBY Frazier’s breakout first series, The Notion of Family (2001–14), but one in particular captures the essence of her work. Landscape of the Body (Epilepsy Test) is a diptych that pairs two black-and-white photos: On the left, a Black woman sits on a bed with her back to us, much of it exposed between the open sides of a medical gown; the wires attached to her head descend and then rise up, plugged into an EEG machine. On the right, we see a section of a building that has been partially demolished; wires, along with pieces of concrete and metal, form the structure’s jagged, cascading husk. thereafter. It was the only hospital in Frazier’s hometown of Braddock, Pennsylvania, which lies just upriver from…