Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 339

Obama, Putin, and Autumn in New York

Vladimir Putin really wants to talk to Barack Obama.

Earlier this month, Moscow suggested Russian and U.S. military officials discuss Syria, where Russia recently increased its military presence. Now, the Russian president has asked to meet with his American counterpart while they’re both in New York next week for the United Nations General Assembly, and the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine will no doubt dominate their conversation.

Washington accepted both offers, breaking from its posture toward Moscow that for the past year has involved diplomatic isolation and sanctions, sanctions, and more sanctions. The last time Obama and Putin met face-to-face was in November 2014, when they spoke on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Beijing. Before that, in June, they bumped into each other at lunch at the G-7 summit in Brus­sels. The leaders have spoken by phone a few times, most recently in July about the Iran deal—both the U.S. and Russia were part of the team of six countries that negotiated with the Islamic Republic—but until now there had been no effort on either side to schedule a formal meeting.

For Putin, the meeting is a chance to “get back in the West’s good graces in a hurry, or at least change the conversation,” explain Neil MacFarquhar and Andrew Kramer in The New York Times. For Obama, “it would be irresponsible not to test whether we can make progress through high-level engagement with the Russians,” an administration official told USA Today in an explanation of the president’s acceptance of the latest offer.

Russia’s annexation of Crimea—one of the reasons for Obama and Putin’s frosty relationship—can’t be undone. The White House knows this, and aside from imposing sanctions more Russian banks and giving Ukraine more military equipment, there’s not much the administration can do to influence the conflict there.

Syria is another story. Moscow and Washington both recognize the grave threat of the Islamic State, but they don’t agree on how to fight it. A U.S.-led coalition of European and Middle Eastern nations launched airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Syria last fall. Russia has acted alone, arming President Bashar al-Assad’s forces with weapons and warplanes to use against the Islamic State and other groups this month. Russia’s new military buildup inside Syria has made U.S. officials wary. But the fight against the Islamic State has become a global one, and the U.S. may not be able to isolate Russia in the way it has in response to the Ukraine crisis.

The same goes for the approach to the Syrian civil war, which has claimed more than 200,000 lives in nearly five years. The U.S. and Russia both say they want a diplomatic solution to the conflict, but are divided over the path to that solution. The U.S. wants Assad gone, while Moscow is a longtime ally of the Syrian leader.

For now, next week’s meeting is just that—a meeting. It may be the last for another stretch of months, or it could signal the first thaw of the U.S. and Russia’s relationship. The White House is hesitant, making sure to point out the “profound differences with Moscow” in its statement about accepting Putin’s offer. With U.S.-Russia relations these days, it’s always a wait-and-see game.

And Now Back to Your Regularly Scheduled Political Gridlock

Thanks for coming, Pope Francis. We really enjoyed your talk. It even brought some of us to tears. And we’d love to consider your call to action—on immigration, poverty, and the environment. But we have some pressing political matters to return to, and as you know, politics in America doesn’t wait long for anyone—even Your Holiness.

None of the 500 or so members of Congress who sat in the House chamber on Thursday actually said this in response to the pope’s historic address, but if actions speak louder than words, then this was their message. If Francis’s speech was a transcendent moment of comity for the nation’s bickering lawmakers, it was certainly a fleeting one.

In his speech, the pope referenced the plea he made in his encyclical and said Congress in particular had a role to play in the effort “to avert the most serious effects of the environmental deterioration caused by human activity.” Lawmakers—mostly Democrats, but some Republicans as well—applauded heartily, but just hours later the House began consideration of legislation designed to limit environmental reviews for construction projects. Specifically, the proposal dubbed the Rapid Act would prohibit any federal agency from considering “the social cost of carbon” in deciding whether to approve a project. In other words, House Republicans would explicitly prohibit the consideration of climate change in an environmental review.

Francis also received loud applause for his one, oblique reference to abortion, when he said: “The Golden Rule also reminds us of our responsibility to protect and defend human life at every stage of its development.” Yet barely an hour after the pontiff left the Capitol, the White House issued a forceful veto threat on legislation before the Senate that would redirect funding from Planned Parenthood because of the videos that show its officials bluntly discussing abortion procedures. The bill was not expected to survive a Democratic filibuster later on Thursday, but the potency of the Planned Parenthood controversy could result in a government shutdown beginning in a week.

The back-to-business congressional schedule is a reminder that for all of the bipartisan adulation directed the pope’s way this week, he is unlikely to have a significant impact on American public policy—at least in the short term. The GOP-led Congress has no plans to act on immigration legislation anytime soon, and Republicans remain deeply opposed to taking any action on climate change that could have an adverse impact on the economy. While both parties profess a desire to renew the fight against poverty and income equality, they are still divided on how to do so.

Francis’s most meaningful move actually preceded his trip to the United States, when he helped broker the normalization of relations with Cuba. And the change he sought on Thursday that could have the best chance of happening—abolition of the death penalty—wouldn’t come from Congress but from the Supreme Court.

The lawmaker who seemed most deeply affected by the pope’s address was the teary-eyed speaker, John Boehner, who organized the pomp-filled reception Francis received at the Capitol and wept repeatedly during his visit. Yet as we’ve written, Boehner is too politically weak at the moment to push a major bipartisan piece of legislation through the House, and the best he can likely hope to do this fall is to keep the government open without losing his job.

“The Holy Father’s visit is surely a blessing for all of us.  With great blessings, of course, come great responsibility,” Boehner said after the pope's speech. “Let us all go forth with gratitude and reflect on how we can better serve one another.” Reflection is good, but action is better—and that might be too much to ask of this Congress.

A Papal Push for Peace in Colombia

Pope Francis’s highly symbolic swing through the United States and Cuba has yielded at least one tangible result: Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC guerrilla leader Rodrigo Londono have announced a deal to sign a definitive peace agreement within six months.

The two parties agreed to the interim deal in Havana on Wednesday, just days after the pontiff’s visit during which Pope Francis made a special plea for peace in Colombia during a Sunday mass.

“We do not have the right to allow ourselves yet another failure,” he said.

As my colleague Emma Green noted:

This isn’t a random choice—since at least June, the pope has been publicly pushing for a peace agreement in the country.

He met with President Juan Manuel Santos at the Vatican and dangled the possibility of a papal visit if the government could come to an agreement with the country’s rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

The 51-year battle by the far-left FARC against the Colombian government is thought to be the longest ongoing insurgency in Latin America. Hundreds of thousands of people have died in the violence. While “peace” is the day’s watchword, the theme of justice was notable, too.

“We have agreed to create a special jurisdiction for peace that is going to guarantee that the crimes committed during the conflict, especially the most serious ones, will not remain unpunished,” Santos said.

“Peace is now ever closer,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry wrote in a statement. “I have called President Santos to congratulate him and his negotiating team for their courage and commitment to the peace talks under extraordinarily difficult conditions.”

He added: “I also must express my deep appreciation to Pope Francis for his moral leadership and the Vatican’s good offices in the quest for peace in Colombia.”

South Park Imagines the Trumpocalypse

What is Donald Trump? Not who is he—we know quite enough about that—but what is he, taxonomically? Is he primarily politics or entertainment? Is he a distraction, or a demagogue-in-the-making? Will his views—enormous walls, mass deportations—be given the power, in short order, to affect the lives of real people, in the real world?

Many in the media, at least, have yet to figure that out, fully. (Witness the awkwardness of this week’s Colbert interview with the GOP front-runner.) But there’s one member of the media that claims to know exactly what Trump is, and what he could become: South Park. The topic of last night’s show—which, like the “P.C. culture” episode last week, generated a lot of pre-air buzz—was ostensibly immigration. The episode was more deeply, however, about Trump. He is much more than a passing whim, the episode argued. He could become dangerous. He could become president.

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The gist of the episode is this: Canadians have immigrated to Colorado. They have brought with them their foreign customs (politeness, the rampant use of the word “buddy,” a tendency to put maple syrup on pasta), in response to which the people of South Park are predictably indignant.

Mr. Garrison, awash in a nativist rage—and wearing a “Where My Country Gone?” baseball cap—takes it upon himself to travel to Canada to demand that South Park’s neighbor to the north take back its immigrants. He quickly discovers, however, that the Canadians have built a wall. To keep the Americans out.

A further discovery (obtained when Mr. Garrison infiltrates Canada by traveling through Niagara Falls in a barrel): Canada, as we know it, has been destroyed. Ottawa looks like what might happen if Cormac McCarthy discovered GeoCities. Buildings slump in disrepair. Trash tumbles through abandoned streets. The population has fled. Apocalypse, it seems—Canadapocalypse—has come.

There is only one building that gleams among all of this destruction: a towering skyscraper that appears to be plated in titanium. Mr. Garrison rides an Escher-esque series of escalators to the building’s penthouse. Inside, he finds … President Trump.

Not Prime Minister Trump, mind you. President Trump. They exchange words. South Parkian hijinx ensue.

Here, though, is the heart of the episode—the scene that distills all the satire into one political message. One of South Park’s Canadian immigrants—who are also, it’s becoming clear, Canadian refugees—explains over a dinner of poutine and pie how President Trump happened. And, by extension, how Canada met its dystopian fate.

Holding back tears, the well-dressed refugee recalls,

There were several candidates during the Canadian elections. One of them was this brash asshole who just spoke his mind. He didn’t really offer any solutions, he just said outrageous things. We thought it was funny.

His wife sobs, hugging her young son.

He continues:

Nobody ever thought he’d be president! It was a joke! We just let the joke go on for too long. He kept gaining momentum, and by the time we were all ready to say, “Okay, let’s get serious now, who should really be president?” he was already being sworn into office. We weren’t paying attention! We weren’t paying attention!

He breaks down, weeping. The whole family weeps. Everyone weeps.

Heroes Reborn Is a Pointless Reboot

2006 was a very different time for television. For one thing, there had never been a compelling superhero series realized on the small screen. But then came NBC’s Heroes, which filled a huge void on network TV with its sprawling ensemble, its story about superpowered people around the country, and its dense mythology. At the time, the show felt genuinely revolutionary, even if it was borrowing its storytelling tropes from the greatest hits of comic books.

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Heroes lasted four seasons, but creatively fizzled by the end of its first, and was cancelled after four seasons because its ratings had collapsed. So why has NBC decided to bring it back five years later? More importantly, how can Heroes Reborn, debuting Thursday, compete in a TV landscape where the kinds of stories it wants to tell are now commonplace?

When the first (Emmy-nominated) season of Heroes debuted in 2006, its use of time travel and other tricky narrative structures was pretty cutting edge for a network show. (Usually studios insisted that each week’s episode be fairly accessible to new viewers.) Now, shows like the CW’s Arrow and The Flash deploy those kinds of storytelling tricks every week and have whole universes of interconnected spinoffs built around them. Heroes Reborn reintroduces a world clogged with new characters and conspiracies to unravel, but it’s so hell-bent on being convoluted that those mysteries quickly lose their appeal.

That self-seriousness, combined with a lack of narrative rigor, is precisely what brought down Heroes in the first place. Characters like the time-traveling Hiro, the brain-eating villain Sylar, and the indestructible cheerleader Claire were fun to follow along with at first, but the show quickly got bogged down in the uninteresting origins of their powers and in the larger web of shadowy government agencies. Heroes Reborn decides to lead with the latter, tossing several unfamiliar characters into an even denser mystery, and expecting the audience to remember plot details from a show that went off the air in 2010.

Set five years after the fourth season finale, Heroes Reborn sees people with superpowers (now dubbed “evos”) facing public scrutiny after a terrorist incident in Texas is blamed on one of their own. One returning character, Noah Bennet (Jack Coleman), seeks to unmask the real perpetrators of the attack, which leads him to cross paths with a slew of new characters. For a show with Heroes in the title, it’s shocking just how many are seemingly mundane human beings, like Noah, the angry vigilantes (Zachary Levi and Judith Shekoni) seeking revenge for the loss of their families in the attack, and Quentin (Henry Zebrowski), a conspiracy theorist who spurs Noah to come out of hiding.

How can Heroes Reborn compete in a TV landscape where the kinds of stories it wants to tell are now completely commonplace?

But even the new superheroes often have baffling powers. There’s the awkward teen Tommy (Robbie Kay), who can teleport things ... to somewhere else. There’s Miko (Kiki Sukezane), who can, no kidding, transport herself inside video games. And there’s the promise of many returning favorites, from Hiro to the telepathic Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg) to the clairvoyant Angela Petrelli (Cristine Rose). Unfortunately, they don’t pop up in the two-hour opener, which is devoted instead to a vast cast of newcomers, each involved in some tiny personal drama that might, at some point in the future, tie into a larger plot.

This was a problem with the original Heroes, too—the creator Tim Kring got so invested in his individual characters that he forgot to unite them into a team. You might recall the show’s first season motto, “Save the cheerleader, save the world,” but you’d probably be hard-pressed to remember just how the plot eventually played out. Kring would set a hundred threads in motion but then struggle to knot them all together, and considering the amount of time Heroes Reborn spends on introducing new characters, it’s fair to worry that his latest effort will struggle in the same way.

Ultimately, you can’t make many excuses for Heroes Reborn considering the evolutionary leaps its genre has made in recent years. The massive Marvel films took lessons from the television model; comic-book adaptations like The Walking Dead own the ratings game; the interconnected worlds of Arrow and The Flash, and ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent Carter, juggle large ensembles and complicated serial storytelling with ease. Heroes Reborn would have to do something drastically different to distinguish itself in 2015, but all it seems to offer so far is more of the same.

A Rift Over Migrants

The worst migrant crisis since World War II has exposed such bitter divisions in Europe that it was only a matter of time until someone invoked the Nazis.

That reference came from a Serbian Foreign Ministry incensed over Croatia’s decision to ban Serbs and their cars from entering the country:

In their discriminatory character, they can only be compared with measures taken in the past, during the fascist Independent Croatia.

That’s a reference to the Nazi-backed Ustaše regime of Ante Pavelic, whose racist policies included the persecution of Serbs.  

The dispute stems from the flow of migrants to the EU. Croatia is a member of the bloc; Serbia is not. When their northern neighbor Hungary, also an EU member, closed its border to the flow, some 50,000 asylum-seekers crossed from Serbia into Croatia.

Croatia says it can’t cope with that many migrants, and in order to pressure Serbia into sending some of them to Romania and Hungary it closed nearly all of its border crossings with Serbia and then halted cargo traffic from its neighbor. That led to further tit-for-tat steps and the Nazi analogy.

The retaliatory measures by the two former Yugoslav states threaten to undermine whatever goodwill was built up after the bitter civil wars that accompanied the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. But they also make increasingly clear that a resolution of the migrant crisis is unlikely anytime soon.

That became apparent at an EU summit Wednesday at which leaders were unable to forge a common policy to deal with the crisis. But they did agree to give U.N. agencies who work with Syrian refugees about $1.1 billion, and, in the words of The Guardian, “[threw] money at aid agencies and transit countries hosting millions of Syrian refugees and ... [agreed] to step up the identification and finger-printing of refugees in Italy and Greece by November.”

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees welcomed the money, but expressed disappointment that “no further measures have been proposed to create more legal pathways for refugees to reach safety in Europe.”

One reason for the division is individual EU member states differ on whether they want migrants. Germany, France, and Sweden have been the most welcoming. Central European states such as Hungary have not. Earlier this week, EU ministers agreed to distribute 120,000 migrants among the member states, but via a majority vote—not through consensus as the bloc typically acts. The plan was strongly opposed by Hungary, Slovakia, and other Central European states.

Donald Tusk, the European Commission president who chaired Wednesday’s summit in Brussels, warned the worst is yet to come, and he added: “We need to correct our policy of open doors and windows.”

The Guardian adds:

Seldom had EU leaders met so divided. And seldom have the stakes been higher in the need to forge common ­positions to cope with the crisis and to limit the damage from months of blame games. The main aim was to cool tempers and try to strike a consensus on what to do. The results were inconclusive and the same issues will dominate yet another summit in three weeks.

Disaster at the Hajj

Updated on September 24 at 10:12 a.m.

Saudi officials now say at least 717 people are dead and 863 others were injured in a stampede near Mecca.

The Saudi Civil Defense Directorate said on Twitter that 4,000 emergency personnel and more than 220 emergency and rescue teams were sent to the scene of the stampede. Al Arabiya, the Saudi-owned Arabic language broadcaster, reported that the injured were taken to four hospitals in Mina; some were flown by helicopter to Mecca, which is a few miles away.

لا تزال عمليات الفرز مستمرة، وارتفع عدد الإصابات إلى 400 إصابة و 150 حالة وفاة. pic.twitter.com/HjZ2QuiYst

— الدفاع المدني (@KSA_998) September 24, 2015

Millions of Muslims are participating in the Hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca. Al Arabiya reports the stampede occurred in the city of Mina at the entrance to the Jamarat Bridge at about 9 a.m. local time. The bridge is where the “stoning of the devil,” one of the last major rites of the Hajj is performed.

In a statement, the Saudi Civil Defense Directorate said the stampede occurred after a “sudden increase” in the number of pilgrims to the pillars where the rite is performed, resulting “in a stampede among the pilgrims and the collapse of a large number of them.”

Khaled al-Falih, the Saudi health minister, said pilgrims had failed to follow directions.

“Many pilgrims move without respecting the timetables,” he said. “If the pilgrims had followed instructions, this type of accident could have been avoided.”

The deaths come less than two weeks after a crane collapse at Mecca’s Grand Mosque killed 109 people and injured about 400 others.

Fatalities at the Hajj are relatively common. Here’s a breakdown of recent deaths at the Hajj, via the BBC:

2006: 364 pilgrims die in a crush during the stone-throwing ritual

1997: 343 pilgrims killed and 1,500 injured in fire

1994: 270 killed in stampede

1990: 1,426 pilgrims killed in stampede inside tunnel leading to holy sites

1987: 400 people die as Saudi authorities confront pro-Iranian demonstration

Yogi Berra: Baseball's Philosopher King

Probably the most famous phrase associated with Yogi Berra is one he didn’t say: “To quote Yogi Berra…” The Hall of Fame Yankees catcher, who died Tuesday at the age of 90, is enshrined as one of the legendary philosopher kings of American sports, the kind of regular Joe athlete fans have always gravitated towards, whose iconic malapropisms, whether misappropriated or not, are almost a more significant part of his legacy than his stat lines.

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Berra played from 1946 to 1965, in the days when athletes made a fraction of the sums they earn now, but he was both an elite player and a canny salary negotiator, which made him one of the era’s best-paid stars. Still, in personality, looks, and language, he reflected a much earthier charm, playing in baseball’s most physically demanding position, and getting his point across in post-game interviews no matter how mangled his syntax was. “The lousy teams are good this year,” he grumbled once after losing to the Kansas City Royals. “A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore,” he groused about rising prices. When told a Jewish man had been elected Mayor of Dublin, Ireland, he responded, “Only in America!”

Yes, there’s much debate over whether Berra actually said many of his most famous catchphrases. Maybe he didn’t exactly coin “It ain’t over till it’s over,” but he definitely said, “You’re not out until you’re out.” He claimed he didn’t invent “It’s déjà vu all over again,” but he certainly started using it at some point. Either way, newspapers started attributing these Zen koans by way of New Jersey to him, including “I didn’t really say everything I said.” This practice took off in the 1980s, by which point Berra was long-retired as a player, had already had a cartoon character named after him, and had turned into even more of a character himself: as a wise old ornery coach for the New York Mets, then the Yankees, then the Houston Astros. He finally said goodbye to pro baseball in 1989.

A veteran of World War Two who served as a gunner’s mate on a boat during the D-Day landings, Berra returned to minor-league baseball after the war and was quickly called up by the Yankees. He was an All-Star 15 times, named the American League MVP three times, and was a seven-time World Series champion as a player. His offensive and defensive skills as a catcher were highly valued, and he caught the only perfect game in the history of the World Series in 1956, famously leaping into pitcher Don Larsen’s arms for one of the sport’s most iconic photos. The same year, the Times photographed his battered hands, punished by years of catching fastballs—a perfect snapshot of his rugged appeal. Standing 5 foot 7, he was the squat, weathered lynchpin of teams that included superstars like Joe DiMaggio, Whitey Ford, Mickey Mantle and Phil Rizutto.

In his older age, Berra managed a museum in New Jersey devoted to him, ran educational events for children, and became a sort of lucky charm for the Yankees after burying the hatchet with owner George Steinbrenner (he had boycotted the team for years after Steinbrenner fired him as manager without warning in 1985). More than that, he represented an utilitarian ideal for America’s sport right down to every one of his famed one-liners. “Always go to other people’s funerals,” he wrote in The Yogi Book in 1998. “Otherwise they won’t go to yours.”

How Chain Restaurants Sing ‘Happy Birthday’: An Elegy

A federal judge has ruled that Warner/Chappell does not have a valid copyright to the song that may be one of the most-sung in recent memory: “Happy Birthday to You.”

We, the “public” in the “public domain,” stand to gain a lot from that landmark decision, with only one element being that “Happy Birthday” can now be sung in movies and TV shows. But we stand to lose something, too: the delightfully ridiculous songs that restaurants—chain restaurants, in particular—have written to wish their patrons a happy birthday without having to pay royalties to Warner/Chappell. Songs that are sometimes performed dutifully, with rolled eyes and limp claps, songs that remind their audiences of the power of corporatism and the demands of capitalism and the fact that all of us, one day, will die. But songs that are, much more often, performed with a generous gusto, with entire wait-staffs assembling to remind one of their guests, “You’re big time, big stuff, going far!”

Here’s hoping the restaurants below will continue the cheesy birthday-song tradition even when they’re no longer legally compelled to do so. Because, while sometimes the songs are accompanied by a little gift—a free cheesecake, maybe, or (as is the case for the birthday-celebrating patrons of Chevys Fresh Mex®) a bedazzled sombrero—mostly, they are gifts unto themselves. For the person who is marking the passage of another year, and, really, for us all.

* * *

Applebee’s

Applebee’s is fun, it’s true,
Especially when we sing for you.
Good news is we sing for free!
Bad news is we sing off key!

Chevys

Happy, happy birthday,
Today’s your birthday day!
You are one year older,
And so we’re here to say:
First you get your flan,
And then you eat it, too.
So happy, happy birthday,
From all of us to you!
Ole!

Chuck E. Cheese

Clap your hands!
Now stomp your feet!
You’re a Birthday Star at Chuck E. Cheese!
You’re our special guest,
We all aim to please
You’re big time, big stuff, going far
Here’s to you, our Birthday Star!

Chili’s

Happy happy birthday,
From the Chili’s crew,
We wish it was our birthday
So we could party too.
HEY!

LongHorn Steakhouse

Fried chicken,
Country hog,
It’s your birthday:
Hot dog!

Olive Garden

From the pasta we make
To lasagna we bake
Ba ba ba ba
We’re wishing you a happy birthday!

We hope you will remember
This fond event forever
We’re wishing you a happy birthday!

It’s like family and friends
At the Olive Garden
In the true Italiano way
Hey! Hey!

So if you’re looking for some fun
Try Hospitaliano
Have a happy happy day!

Hey!

Red Lobster

Happy, happy birthday,
We’re really glad you came,
Happy, happy birthday,
From the lobster gang!
We hope you had a good time,
On this, your special day,
So have a happy birthday!
Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!
Hey!

Romano’s Macaroni Grill

Tanti auguri a te
Tanti auguri a te
Tanti auguri, caro/a mio/a
Tanti auguri a te

TGI Fridays

I don’t know, but I’ve been told!
Someone here is getting old!
I don’t know what has been said!
Someone’s face is turning red!
Good news is we sing for free!
Bad news is we sing off key!

Sound off! HAPPY
Sound off! BIRTHDAY
Happy birthday—
To you!

Empire's Ambiguous Take on the Social-Justice Movement

“Did you know there are 1.68 million black men being held under mass incarceration in America’s prison system today, right now?”

That’s the first line of dialogue spoken in Empire season two, from the hip-hop producer Swizz Beatz to a crowd of thousands in Central Park. Is this a signal of new intentions for Empire, whose wildly popular first season was driven by murders and affairs, psychological breakdowns and chart hits, double crossings and one-liners? Having a gay character come out and a few references to Barack Obama are one thing, but is Empire about to go full-on political, making like an Atlantic cover story?

Not quite. The next scene opens backstage with the playboy rapper Hakeem complaining to his mom, Cookie, that they’re “fronting” by holding a concert to free their patriarch, the rap mogul Lucious Lyon. Everyone knows that Lucious committed the murder he’s accused of. “We should be performing for the brothers and sisters that are innocent,” Hakeem says.

“You think I don’t know that, stupid?” Cookie snaps back. “This is about us taking the empire. Stay focused.”

Ah, right: Empire’s Empire, the record company Lucious and Cookie founded and whose ownership appears to be up for grabs. Anyone who watched the first season knows how this is going to go: At various points one or another member of the family will, often somewhat inexplicably, be announced as having the dominant position in the business, and the others will, somewhat inexplicably, line up either for or against the newly powerful person. In the two new episodes I’ve seen, the music—Timbaland homages to top 40 hip-hop and R&B—sounds slightly less corny than it did last season, but it’s still a mere metaphor for the larger battle of control. The same can be said of familial ties, of sex, of the media, all of which can serve up delicious twists and moving moments but mostly are just there to provide weight to add to one side or another of the power seesaw.

And now, the same goes for protests against mass incarceration. The #FreeLucious concert produces a searing onstage jeremiad against the jailing of black men from Cookie, the kind of speech that would go viral for its passion and precision were a famous record executive to give it in public in the real world. And this is, make no mistake, meant to be the real world—there are references to Hillary’s campaign, and in-character appearances from the likes of Al Sharpton. But the activism is really a pretext, not even to free Lucious from jail but rather to impress a potential investor (played by Marisa Tomei, in one of many splashy but ultimately forgettable cameos of the new season). Cookie’s assistant Porsha even gets the name of Ferguson, Missouri, wrong, though Cookie quickly corrects her.

Porsha even gets the name of Ferguson, Missouri, wrong, though Cookie quickly corrects her.

This could all be read as a fairly biting satire of the social-justice movement, fuel for those who say it’s been co-opted, that its energy is used too often to sell products or shore up celebrity credibility. But Empire is so obsessed with its main conflict and family psychodrama that it’s probably safer to see the subplot as just a depiction of some savvy, self-involved operators. It might even be an endorsement of realpolitik in activism. The looks on the faces of those in the crowd at the #FreeLucious concert, and the conscious rapping on stage by Sean Cross, appear to be plenty sincere. If political change aligns with business concerns, well, that’s often good for political change.

Incarceration itself is portrayed with a similar mixture of social awareness and Machiavellian expedience. In prison, Lucious is both bedeviled and benefitted by the fact that so many men from the streets he grew up in are behind bars with him. He faces a longstanding nemesis in a quietly vicious gangster played by Chris Rock (and later an abusive guard played by Ludacris), but it’s also his friends from back home that help him fight back. The larger point is more about asserting Lucious’s prowess, but if you want to read an allegory into what happens, you can. For a show so frequently derided for ridiculous plotting and simplistic writing, there’s a significant helping of ambiguity and moral complexity here, a fact that might represent the truest insight about the real world that Empire has yet offered.