Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 60

The Familiar Insanity of Blaming Beyoncé

On CNN this week, the conservative pundit Betsy McCaughey was asked about the Republican politicians distancing themselves from Donald Trump after a tape leaked of him talking about grabbing women “by the pussy.” McCaughey quickly called those politicians “rats” and then asked to make another point.

“I abhor lewd and bawdy language,” she began. “I don’t listen to rap music, I don’t like that kind of thing. But Hillary Clinton, when she expresses—”

“Wait, you said rude and bawdy rap?” Don Lemon interjected.

“Bawdy language.”

“I thought you said rap music.”

“I did, I mentioned rap music because it’s full of the F word, the P word, the B word, the A word.”

McCaughey went on to quote Beyoncé’s “Formation,” saying “I came to slay, bitch, when he F me good I take his ass to Red Lobster,” in a cadence that makes it seem she’s never heard the original song. The argument: Because Hillary Clinton is a Beyoncé fan, she’s a hypocrite for calling Trump’s remarks “horrific.”

Lemon’s confusion at the apparent change of subject from politics to popular music is understandable. But McCaughey has not been alone in jumping, unprompted, from the topic of Trump’s lewdness to hip-hop’s lewdness. One of Ben Carson’s advisers, Armstrong Williams, told Business Insider that the Trump tape “unfortunately is the kind of language that we hear in rap music.” Conservative talk-show host Stacy Washington’s take on Trump included the idea that his words resemble “hip-hop music from today.”

This line of defense requires some very obvious logical leaps—like, say, over the fact that Beyoncé and other musicians are not running for president but Trump is. But the fact anyone would even attempt an argument so shaky—and that so many repeatedly do—speaks to the persistence of prejudices toward hip-hop and the culture around it.

The oddest part about the rappers-do-it-too defense is that it suggests that Trump’s comments offended people because of language alone. It implies that the problem with “the F word, the P word, the B word, the A word” is the words themselves, and if you don’t object to one use of them you can’t credibly object to any of them at any time. But Trump’s statements would have been controversial even if he hadn’t said “bitch” and “pussy.” Anderson Cooper tried to underline the real issue at Sunday’s debate by saying to Trump, “You bragged that you have sexually assaulted women. Do you understand that?”

If Republican surrogates’ underlying intention has been to call out not vulgarity in hip-hop but sexism on way to highlighting a double-standard against Trump, using “Formation” is a bizarre move. Beyoncé is a pop star—not a rapper, really—inverting stereotypically macho tropes to talk about consensual sex with her husband. And while few rap fans would say their preferred genre is free from misogyny, they would probably point out that even with its raunchier performers there are lines that don’t usually get crossed. When in 2013 Rick Ross rapped about putting drugs in a woman’s drink and taking her home, it triggered widespread outrage; he apologized profusely and lost a major endorsement deal.

trump: i do sex crimes

beyoncé: i reward consensual, enjoyable sex with cheddar biscuits

trump supporters: CHECKMATE LIBERALS https://t.co/VepXTJhF8Q

— Miss O'Kistic (@missokistic) October 11, 2016

Rap fans would also point out the double standard that brings their genre more scrutiny than other styles. Rock-and-roll history is full of sexist, predatory lyrics, including those that use the “p word” and the “b word.” But it’s understood that rock is an art form for fantasy and exaggeration, a distinction that isn’t always afforded rap, long a scapegoat for those looking to blame social problems on the cultural output of people trying to survive those very problems.

Just last year, a recording of a pro-lynching chant among fraternity members became a chance for TV commentators to draw false equivalence with rowdy hip-hop lyrics. Rappers often see their songs used against them in court as evidence of criminal intent. Politicians talk about hip-hop’s concern with violence as a cause of, not effect of, real violence. And now, in perhaps the most tenuous connection yet, rappers and rap-friendly singers are being invoked to excuse a potential president’s “locker-room talk” that, still, is grosser than most anything you’re likely to hear on the radio.

The End of Samsung's Galaxy Note 7

NEWS BRIEF Samsung will stop producing and selling its Galaxy Note 7 smartphone after reports that its battery overheats and can explode, an issue that led to restrictions by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and a massive recall last month.

The South Korea-based company said in a statement Tuesday it had asked distributors and retailers globally to stop selling the phones. Then The New York Times and BBC reported the company told the country’s stock exchange that it would completely end production of the Note 7.

Here’s part of that statement from the BBC:

We recently readjusted the production volume for thorough investigation and quality control, but putting consumer safety as top priority, we have reached a final decision to halt production of Galaxy Note 7s.

U.S. safety regulators had pointed to reports that the lithium-ion batteries in nearly 100 Note 7 phones overheated or caught fire. One Florida family even claimed the faulty battery burned their Jeep.

In the U.S., Samsung had tried to take care of the problem without involving the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), and issued a voluntary recall in September that would cover about 2.5 million phones. That didn’t fix the problem in the eyes of the CPSC. Last month the safety regulator announced a mandatory recall of the smartphone, and castigated Samsung for trying to handle the recall by itself. “As a general matter it’s not a recipe for a successful recall for a company to go out on its own,” Elliot Kaye, the commission’s chairman, said. A company thinking they can handle a recall of this size on its own, Kaye said, “needs to have more than their phone checked.”

None of it seemed enough to end the Note 7’s deficiencies. Last week a Southwest Airline flight headed from Louisville, Kentucky, to Baltimore, Maryland, evacuated passengers and crew when one person’s Note 7 started smoking. The FAA’s statement said the phone was supposed to be switched off, but this particular device was reportedly a replacement meant to fix the combustible battery problem.

Customers with Note 7 phones can switch to another Samsung phone, or return them to mobile-carrier retailers for full refunds.

A Tale of Two Putin Visits

NEWS BRIEF Russian President Vladimir Putin has canceled an upcoming trip to France over Francois Hollande’s remarks that he would use the visit to discuss Moscow’s actions in Syria.

“There were some events scheduled, including the opening of a Russian cultural and religious center, [and] exhibitions,” Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said. “Unfortunately, those events were struck off the program, so the president decided to cancel his visit to France for now.”

Tensions between the two countries have risen over the past few days over Russia’s military support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his campaign to wrest the eastern portion of Aleppo from the rebels. The recapture of the divided city would mark a major turning point in the Syrian civil war, as eastern Aleppo is the last major rebel redoubt. Western nations and monitoring groups say Russia and Syria have carried out airstrikes targeting civilian centers, hospitals, and humanitarian convoys in Aleppo, killing dozens; Russia denies those charges, saying it’s targeting terrorists, a catchall term used by the Assad regime to describe all rebel groups. Last week, the U.S., whose ties with Moscow are perhaps at their lowest point since the height of the Cold War, accused Russia of war crimes in Syria. Hollande echoed those remarks on Monday.

“These are people who today are the victims of war crimes,” he told French media. “Those that commit these acts will have to face up to their responsibility, including in the” International Criminal Court. While it’s unclear if Western nations have the resolve to bring Russia to the ICC, they certainly lack the legal authority to do so because neither Russia nor Syria is a member of the court.

On Tuesday, following the Russian announcement, Hollande said he was prepared to meet with Putin to discuss Syria “at any time.”

“I consider it is necessary to have dialogue with Russia, but it must be firm and frank otherwise it has no place and it is a charade,” he said.

Russia’s relations with the West might be at a low point, but Putin visited Turkey Monday to revive a suspended natural-gas pipeline and mark improving ties with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The two countries, traditional allies, had fallen out badly over the Syrian civil war, especially after Russia accused Turkey of shooting down a fighter jet, which Ankara said had crossed into Turkish airspace. Turkey opposes Assad and backs many of the rebel groups that are fighting him, but its relations with the West, especially the United States, have also deteriorated in recent months for two reasons: Ankara accuses Washington of supporting Kurdish rebel groups—which it views as terrorists—in the war against ISIS, and Erdogan is especially unhappy at what he regards as insufficient support from the U.S. after the failed coup attempt against him.  

It is with this backdrop that Putin visited Turkey. He and Erdogan revived the Turkish Stream pipeline, which would allow Russian natural gas to reach Western markets, bypassing the network of pipelines that run through Eastern Europe. Turkish Stream would run under the Black Sea to Turkey from where it would carry natural gas to Greece.

Putin and Erdogan also said they would work together to bring peace to Syria—a task that appears slightly more complicated given they are on opposite sides of the civil war in that country.

Independents and Women Bail on Trump, Giving Clinton a Double-Digit Lead

With less than a month to go until Election Day, Donald Trump’s standing has plummeted with likely voters, falling from a dead heat just two weeks ago to a double-digit deficit behind Hillary Clinton, according to a PRRI/The Atlantic poll released Tuesday.

Clinton holds a 49-38 lead over the Republican. Two weeks ago, a previous PRRI/Atlantic poll found Trump and Clinton tied at 43-43. Following the first presidential debate in Hempstead, New York, the Democrat broke out to a 47-41 lead. She has now built on that lead.

Presidential Choice Among Likely Voters

That’s the bad news for Trump. The worse news is that this poll likely does not include the full impact of a video, published Friday afternoon by The Washington Post, in which Trump boasts about sexually assaulting women. The poll was conducted Wednesday through Sunday, meaning some respondents were interviewed before the video’s release and some afterward. It also does not take into account the second presidential debate, in which Trump’s performance drew widely varying reviews.

“At a time when Trump needs to be expanding his support, this new survey shows him faltering with independent voters and slipping further with women voters,” said Robert P. Jones, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute. “While white evangelical voters are mostly standing by their man, enthusiasm among his base supporters alone is certain to leave him short on Election Day.”

The shift toward Clinton is driven almost entirely by movement among independent voters. One week ago, Trump led Clinton 44-36 among independent voters. Those numbers have roughly flipped, with 44 percent backing Clinton now, and 33 percent supporting Trump.

Independent Voters’ Preference

Clinton also continues to lead Trump by hefty margins among women, with a 33-point gap separating the candidates. Just 28 percent of likely women voters intend to pull the lever for Trump, a five-point drop from one week ago, while 61 percent plan to vote for Clinton. The lewd video of Trump might lead to an even greater gap in the home stretch toward the election.

Even more remarkably, Trump’s support has collapsed among white women without college degrees. Until recently, they formed Trump’s largest bloc of support. In 2004, they voted for George W. Bush by 19 points; in 2008, they backed John McCain by 17 points; and in 2012, they went with Mitt Romney by 20 points. This poll finds them evenly split between Clinton and Trump, with each drawing 40 percent support.

One thing that makes the 11-point topline gap between the candidates so notable is that Trump retains impressive support—and Clinton remains conspicuously weak—among a couple of key demographics. Trump’s support among male voters is roughly flat, at 48 percent. Trump has a huge lead among white men with no college degree, 65-22, but also leads among college-educated white men, who back him at 46 percent to Clinton’s 39 percent.

The Gender Gap in Presidential Preference

Trump also remains very popular among evangelical voters. Roughly two of every three white evangelicals plans to vote for Trump, with only 16 percent backing Clinton. Among other white Christians, however, Trump’s support is weaker than previous Republican candidates.

The survey polled 1,327 adults living in the United States through telephone interviews, including 886 likely voters. The margin of error for the entire sample is +/- 3.2 percentage points, and the margin of error for the subsample of likely voters is +/- 3.9 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence interval. The topline questionnaire, including methodology, is available here.

The results lay out the stiff odds facing Trump as he attempts to put the video behind him and close his gap with Clinton. The PRRI/The Atlantic poll is the second in as many days to show Clinton opening up a double-digit lead. On Monday, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found Clinton holding a 14-point lead, 52-38, in a two-way race. In a four-way race, she led Trump 46-35.

But the impact of Trump’s video has not been fully felt in polls, nor has the tidal wave of Republican officeholders who have renounced Trump, withdrawn their support, and called on him to withdraw from the race. He shows little interest in doing so, and has struck a defiant tone. Yet there are now just four weeks left before the end of the race, and more than 400,000 ballots have already been cast. The Republican nominee’s political problems have become a math problem.

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The Atlantic's New Editor in Chief

Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for The Atlantic, is the new editor in chief of the 159-year-old magazine, Bob Cohn, The Atlantic’s president, announced Monday.

Goldberg, who joined The Atlantic in 2007 from The New Yorker, succeeds James Bennet, who left the company this spring to become editorial-page editor at The New York Times. Goldberg is The Atlantic’s 14th top editor since the publication was founded in 1857. His appointment is immediate, and he will report to Cohn.

“There are a couple of blessings here: I know the team and I think the team is great,” Goldberg said in an interview. “I’m not starting where James Bennet started. Thanks … to his efforts, we’re in a very good spot.”

Goldberg has written 11 cover stories for the magazine and is a prolific contributor to TheAtlantic.com, helping shape the website’s voice. His most recent cover story, “The Obama Doctrine,” chronicled the U.S. president’s evolving foreign policy. His April 2015 cover story, “Is it Time for the Jews to Leave Europe,” was a finalist for the National Magazine Award, a prize he won in 2003 for “In the Party of God,” his story for The New Yorker on Hezbollah, the Shia militant group in Lebanon.

Goldberg began his career as a police reporter for The Washington Post. He was the Middle East correspondent and former Washington correspondent of The New Yorker, and also wrote for The New York Times Magazine and New York Magazine. Goldberg, a former New York bureau chief of the Forward, is the author of Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror.

Goldberg said he would approach his new job the way he would an article for The Atlantic: research it and speak to everyone on staff.

“The truth is I have general thoughts about The Atlantic, but I really want to dive in deeply and systematically,” he said. “I want to apply Atlantic values to the future of The Atlantic.” He said he would spend the next two months “figuring out the place.”

“I want to try and sit with everyone and really just interview them about what they do and what they want to do; treat it like a story for a couple of months,” he said.

Cohn in a statement said Goldberg’s career “exemplifies Atlantic editorial values: he’s smart, creative, resourceful, and iconoclastic—and has a sense of humor to go with his core commitment to fairness and integrity.”

“He takes over as editor in chief at a time when our digital and video teams are reaching more people and having more impact than ever before, and when the magazine cover is rightly seen by many as the most valuable real estate in American journalism,” Cohn said in the statement.

In a memo to The Atlantic’s staff, David Bradley, the chairman of Atlantic Media, said: “Jeff’s assignment is to make The Atlantic an unequaled talent destination for all our editorial disciplines. It is talent, not format, that has drawn us to Jeff.”

Goldberg emphasized the task ahead, as well. “The central challenge for any media company like The Atlantic is to constantly grow on all platforms and constantly evolve, but not sacrifice standards and quality,” he said in the interview. “To me, the scarcest resource in media is quality. That’s our chief competitive advantage. The trick is to grow without watering down quality.”

In a statement announcing the new appointment, The Atlantic said Goldberg will oversee editorial in print, digital, and video, while also providing guidance and counsel to the editorial teams at CityLab and the company’s events division, Atlantic Live.

The Long (and Short) History of the Choker

Last week, an image went viral. It was simple: just a picture a girl, Katie Rosebrook, had taken of herself as she took a current fashion craze to its logical extreme. She had taken a shoelace and turned it into … a choker.

this choker trend is wild y'all i wore a shoelace to the bars last night & i've never gotten so many compliments thanks @Nike just do it lol pic.twitter.com/K49fJmAXNe

— Katie Rosebrook (@katierosebrook) October 2, 2016

The image proved popular in part because chokers are having, as Rosebrook suggested, a(nother) moment right now. The simple adornment—a slim strip, usually composed of metal or fabric, that wraps around the neck, evoking both delicacy and boldness—has recently graced the necks of Willow Smith, and Kendall Jenner, and Taylor Swift, and Gigi Hadid, and Katy Perry. Chokers have walked down the runways for Balenciaga and Dior and Saint Laurent and Alexander Wang. Poppy Delevingne wore one to this year’s Met Ball. Olivia Wilde wore one to the Oscars. Beyoncé wore a stack of them in “Formation.” You can buy the most common version of the moment—a ’90s-tastic stretch-plastic situation that resembles a tattoo—at Forever 21 for $2.90.

The choker is, on the one hand, simply one more way that the current culture has been looking back nostalgically to the ’90s. But they evoke much more than ’90s grunge: Chokers were common across ancient cultures, and cycled in and out of style during the most recent centuries in the West—prized for their ability both to conceal the neck and to highlight it. Today they most readily suggest the romantic (and the Romantic). But they also carry a note, visually slicing as they do across the most vulnerable part of the human body, of violence. And, with it, control. As this year’s New York Fashion Week blog put it, commenting on the sudden ubiquity of the simple necklace, a choker is a “beautiful warning sign that you’re dealing with feminine ferocity.”

* * *

Chokers have wound around human necks for thousands of years—symbols, always, of the delicate dance fashion enables between vulnerability and power. Whether worn by people in Western Africa or Egypt or Sumer, the adornments may have served similar purposes. As Yvonne Markowitz, the curator emerita of jewelry at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, told National Jeweler, “a lot of ancient jewelry is protective and amuletic.” People tended to concentrate their ornamentation, she noted, on the parts of the body that were thought to be in particular need of protection—the head, the wrists, the ankles, the throat—and believed those items to be infused with special powers. Necklaces, though, could also have a more practical purpose: Native Americans wore versions of chokers, often made of the bones of birds, to protect the jugular in battle.

As they were adopted by Europeans during the Enlightenment, chokers ceased to serve explicitly martial or protective roles—but retained some of the suggestions of danger that earlier versions had evoked. Worn by the upper classes (which is to say, by people who could afford jewelry)—and also, now, almost exclusively by women—they were simultaneously subtle and ostentatious. Unlike other necklaces, chokers were never in danger on being visually sacrificed to the competing adornments of a complicated dress. They stood out, announcing themselves (and the ostentatious jewels that composed them). The most famous portrait of Anne Boleyn portrays the fated queen wearing a long necklace of large pearls that she had fashioned into a choker. Hers featured a charm in the shape of a “B” that dangled over her clavicle, daringly and, in retrospect, ironically.

In an age in which execution sentences were often fulfilled via beheadings, chokers also summoned their ancient origins to suggest the dangers of life in “interesting times.” In the aftermath of the French revolution, women took to tying red ribbons around their necks in silent remembrance of those who had lost their lives to the guillotine. But the semantics quickly evolved: Soon, prostitutes were identifying themselves according to the black-ribboned versions of the same style. (See: Édouard Manet’s “Olympia.”) Degas gave his otherwise pastel-delicate ballerinas black ribbons that wrapped around their necks in a similar fashion, the loose ends fluttering as they moved; it remains a matter of debate, today, whether he intended their adornment as a commentary on the demands their art placed on the dancers, or whether he simply borrowed the fashion to emphasize the dancers’ long necks.

Whatever the ribbons meant, they had their match in bejeweled counterparts that, as Degas did his work, served once again as signifiers of their wearers’ upper-class status. (Not to mention of those wearers’ youth and youthful beauty: Slim is the neck, generally, that can successfully rock a choker.) Queen Victoria wore the style, even in her older age. Alexandra, her daughter-in-law, was thought to have favored a stacked version of it because of the layered necklaces’ ability to hide a scar on her neck. The trend trickled down, in the manner of the cerulean sweater, to women of slightly less lofty station.

The style—mixing delicacy and danger—makes particular sense for a moment in which women are finding new ways to be powerful.

And it would continue trickling! Chokers were trendy into the 1920s—think Lady Mary in Downton Abbey—and would make a comeback again in the ’40s, as women in the U.S., in particular, began experimenting with “colliers de chien.” (An issue of Life magazine, in October 1944, announced that young girls had been reviving “a dowager fashion of 40 years ago”—and illustrated the trend with photos of models proudly wearing the now vaguely rebellious “dog collars.”) Chokers would be revived again, this time often by men, in the ’70s—one element of the experiments with gender-bending that Mick Jagger, Jimi Hendrix, and Elvis engaged in—and again in the ’90s, when the necklaces favored by Britney Spears and Gwen Stefani would also be worn by Prince, Lenny Kravitz, and Jordan Catalano.

And so, now, chokers are in style again, gracing the necks of the women (and occasionally the men) who are American culture’s readiest answer to royalty. “Like hemlines, necklace lengths go up and down,” Sophie Quy, Net-a-Porter.com’s fine jewelry buyer, noted of the choker’s inevitable return. But the style—that enticing blend of delicacy and danger, of control and its absence—makes particular sense for a moment in which women are finding new ways to be powerful. And one that finds many things coming, as they so often will, full-circle.

The Nobel Prize in Economics

This year’s Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded Monday to Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström for their work on contract theory, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced.

Hart, a professor at Harvard University, and Holmström, one at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, created theoretical tools that are “valuable to the understanding of real-life contracts and institutions, as well as potential pitfalls in contract design,” the academy said.

Here’s more:

Society’s many contractual relationships include those between shareholders and top executive management, an insurance company and car owners, or a public authority and its suppliers. As such relationships typically entail conflicts of interest, contracts must be properly designed to ensure that the parties take mutually beneficial decisions. This year’s laureates have developed contract theory, a comprehensive framework for analyzing many diverse issues in contractual design, like performance-based pay for top executives, deductibles and co-pays in insurance, and the privatization of public-sector activities.

Holmström, in the late 1970s, put forth the informativeness principle that showed how a principal—for instance, a company’s shareholders—should design an optimal contract for an agent, for instance the CEO, whose action aren’t always observed by the principal. The principle stated how the contract should link the agent’s pay to performance-relevant information. Using this model, he showed how the optimal contract carefully weighs risks against incentives.

Holmström: if a manager’s performance pay emphasises short-term cash flow his actions may neglect the company’s long-term health #NobelPrize pic.twitter.com/KMZWu50uIl

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 10, 2016

Hart, in this work in the mid-1980s, contributed to a new branch of contract theory that deals with incomplete contracts. Here’s more:

Because it is impossible for a contract to specify every eventuality, this branch of the theory spells out optimal allocations of control rights: which party to the contract should be entitled to make decisions in which circumstances? Hart’s findings on incomplete contracts have shed new light on the ownership and control of businesses and have had a vast impact on several fields of economics, as well as political science and law.

“I woke at about 4:40 and was wondering whether it was getting too late for it to be this year, but then fortunately the phone rang,” Hart said. “My first action was to hug my wife, wake up my younger son ... and I actually spoke to my fellow Laureate.”

The duo will share the 8 million Swedish krona ($923,973) prize equally.

Bruce Springsteen and LeBron James: The Week in Pop-Culture Writing

The Limits of Loving the Boss

Ann Powers | NPR

“[Springsteen], too, is a disruptor of sorts, a protest singer with strong progressive views and a commitment to the voices he hears speaking from society's margins. He’s grown more committed to that stance over time. Yet the dissident Springsteen emerges from a highly ordered framework, one that still elevates the noble individualism at the heart of American self-perceptions.”

What Are White Writers For?

Jess Row | The New Republic

“Since high school, I’d known people, some of them intimate friends, who wanted to desperately escape their own whiteness. I felt that the longing to escape our own racial bodies was everywhere, from silly acts of what Shriver calls ‘trying on other people’s hats,’ to identity-switching and disguise, and finally to radical plastic surgery.  But this desire was found almost nowhere in contemporary fiction.”

The Internet Win Alone, Together

Rawiya Kameir | The Fader

“While today’s music industry seems designed to cycle artists through an overnight rise and eventual flameout, The Internet is playing the long game. ‘We are about the band,’ Matt says, ‘but at the same time, “What you got going on? Let’s get this shit popping. Let’s get this shit popping!”’ If it’s good for The Internet’s members, it’s good for The Internet.”

When Women Signify Too Much

Jia Tolentino | The New Yorker

“Neither the robbery nor the unmasking was a gender-specific privation. But both Ferrante and Kardashian West were targeted because they are famous, and the celebrity of each woman is connected to the ways in which she has navigated the predicament of womanhood. And while their methods are diametrically opposed, both have made it their life’s work to express a specifically feminine point of view.”



The Final Stretch of LeBron’s Race Towards Greatness

Jonathan Tjarks | The Ringer

“What makes him unique is how quickly he racked up such a massive workload. No player in the history of the NBA has played as many minutes as LeBron at his age. He’s a walking science experiment, quantifying how much high-level professional basketball the human body can withstand before it starts to break down.”

The Hard Lessons of Hey Arnold, 20 Years On

Caroline Framke | Vox

“Hey Arnold wove urban legends into its empathetic narrative of how hard it can be to grow up—and how rewarding the process can be when you have some friends and a whole lot of imagination.”

Letter of Complaint: Cards Against Humanity

Dan Brooks | The New York Times Magazine

“Because the premise of the game is that you play the cards you’re dealt, players get points for creating shocking combinations but don’t have to take responsibility for them. The genius of Cards Against Humanity, as a party game, is that it encourages intimacy by allowing players to violate norms together without worrying about offending one another.”

Insecure Is Quietly Revolutionary

Small-scale sitcoms based on the lives of their creators have long been a mainstay of TV—Louie, Better Things, Girls, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Maron. Mostly, these semi-autobiographical shows are character-driven and have an acidic, self-deprecating way of examining their stars. HBO’s Insecure is different. Tasked with scaling up her hit webseries Awkward Black Girl for HBO, Issa Rae has elected to take a positive and insightful approach, and the result is a rare TV treasure. But Insecure also feels fresh—it’s a relationship comedy that manages to find new angles on storylines that would otherwise feel hopelessly played out.

The show’s primary strength is its confidence. Insecure’s pilot episode focuses on two women, Issa (Rae, playing a fictionalized version of herself) and her best friend Molly (Yvonne Orji), and their relatively low-key relationship foibles. There’s no huge twist or major trauma to work through; Rae and her co-creator Larry Wilmore are hoping that their focus on deep characterization, and Issa’s delightful, witty internal monologue, will be enough to hook viewers. They’re right. Insecure is a lived-in, frequently hilarious gem, one that manages to offer a different entry point into the conversations about sexuality, race, and culture that TV is constantly trying to have.

Rae’s Awkward Black Girl was an early webseries hit that was optioned by HBO in 2013. Like High Maintenance (which premiered on HBO last month) it was an intimate comedy distinguished by the bold, imaginative voice of its star. The network wisely nurtured Insecure’s creative process from web to TV by having Rae work with Wilmore, an established hand in more traditional sitcoms. The result is a show that feels immediately self-assured, partly because it isn’t arguing that it’s “the voice of a generation,” like HBO’s much-critiqued Girls. Nor is it making grand self-reflective jokes about Hollywood life, like Netflix’s Love or Lady Dynamite.

Issa Dee (Rae) lives in Los Angeles, but she works at a youth-oriented non-profit; this isn’t a show where the main character spills her guts in confessional stand-up comedy interludes or bickers with self-satisfied artistes. In the pilot, she’s considering leaving her long-term boyfriend Lawrence (Jay Ellis), a dependable, but low-energy sweetheart with whom she’s stuck in a rut. Molly is an intense, driven lawyer struggling to navigate the glut of idiotic or non-committal men that the online dating world throws at her. Their friendship is strong, though they’re both neurotic enough to get on each other’s nerves.

Insecure’s conflicts, whether romantic or platonic, always feel organic. The sex scenes are realistic and sparing, and the show isn’t afraid to ask more probing questions—such as an episode where Molly is unfairly put off by the revelation that a boyfriend had a sexual experience with a man in the past. This is a life-and-relationship comedy first, but one that knows there aren’t enough shows on television that explore the regular lives of people of color.

Indeed, the show’s emotional intelligence shines through the most in how it addresses race and coding. Issa is one of the only black women at her job (a sad irony given the non-profit is focused on services for black youth), and Insecure punctuates that tension with a dozen little jokes and uncomfortable moments. At one point, a white coworker proposes having the program’s teens clean up garbage on the beach, almost chain-gang style, as a way of helping the community; Issa fantasizes about shaking her with rage, but then also struggles to come up with constructive alternatives. Later, at the beach, her coworker asks why so many of the African American children aren’t swimming. “Slavery,” is Issa’s deadpan reply.  

Rae’s triumph on Insecure is in making a smart, funny show about issues both universal and specific.

Rae has said in interviews that she didn’t want to make a show about “the struggle of being black,” but rather, one about “regular black people living life.” Insecure isn’t trying to shoulder some imaginary, unfair burden of curing TV’s diversity problem with one subtle sitcom. But at the same time, it refutes the idea that black life can be summed up as one universal cultural experience—something the webseries also excelled at. Crucially, Insecure is a personal tale at heart. Issa is funny, but flawed; good at dispensing advice but horrible at taking her own; someone who values what she’s built with Lawrence, but who wrestles with very real (and relatable) temptation as the show goes on.

Insecure feels most inspired by comedies of manners like Curb Your Enthusiasm or The Office; its biggest laughs live in the awkward pauses and stilted social interactions. And that’s why it’s so wonderful: It’s taking a genre that’s long been pitched at one small sector of the viewing audience, and drawing the circle a little wider. Rae’s triumph on Insecure is in making a smart, funny show about issues both universal and specific. It’s a brilliant commentary on love and friendship that manages to bring a fresh vision to the table, and that by itself feels quietly revolutionary.

Trump Brags About Groping Women

Updated at 10:38 p.m. ET

“Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”

That’s Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, in a video obtained by The Washington Post. Trump was speaking with with the television personality Billy Bush, waiting for an appearance on a TV show, in 2005. It’s unclear how the newspaper obtained the video, but it shows Trump making a series of lewd comments about women. He ogles some, and describes his unsuccessful efforts to pick up a married woman.

In describing his behavior toward women, Trump is describing sexual assault: non-consensual kissing and grabbing of women’s genitals. He is bragging, if privately, about appalling and illegal behavior.

The video has thrown the Trump campaign, which has shown itself able to weather storms that would have destroyed many other candidates, into chaos. House Speaker Paul Ryan announced that he had disinvited Trump from a joint appearance in Ryan’s home state of Wisconsin on Saturday. “I am sickened by what I heard today. Women are to be championed and revered, not objectified,” Ryan said. “I hope Mr. Trump treats this situation with the seriousness it deserves and works to demonstrate to the country that he has greater respect for women than the clip suggests.”

Trump, in an apparent attempt at cleaning up the mess, issued a statement in which he said, “Governor Mike Pence will be representing me tomorrow in Wisconsin.” He said he would spend his Saturday prepping for Sunday’s second presidential debate, working with Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Chris Christie, and Jeff Sessions.

But the backlash extended well beyond Ryan. Priebus himself issued a statement condemning Trump. “No woman should ever be described in these terms or talked about in this manner. Ever,” he said.

There were signs that the damage could be wider-spread still. The Associated Press reported that Pence, Trump’s vice-presidential running mate, was “beside himself” and that his wife was “furious” over the comments. There was speculation among reporters and politicos about whether Trump might be removed, or forced to remove himself, from the GOP ticket, though the seriousness of such discussions was unclear. It’s not clear what mechanisms party leaders might have to force Trump out, nor how that patchwork of state elections laws might affect such a decision. Indeed, early voting has already begun in several states and, presumably, ballots have been cast for the Republican presidential nominee.

Among other high-profile Republicans who have endorsed Trump, there was further backlash. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, an erstwhile rival of Trump’s for the presidential nomination, tweeted:

Donald's comments were vulgar, egregious & impossible to justify.

No one should ever talk about any woman in those terms, even in private.

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) October 8, 2016

Governor Scott Walker also condemned Trump:

Inexcusable. Trump's comments are inexcusable.

— Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) October 8, 2016

Neither man directly withdrew his endorsement, however.

Senator Ted Cruz, another former rival who recently endorsed Trump, tweeted that “Every wife, mother, daughter—every person—deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.” Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, a Republican, called on Trump to drop out, and current Governor Gary Herbert, also a Republican, said he could not vote for Trump. Longstanding Trump critics like Senators Jeff Flake and Mark Kirk piled on, too.

The Trump video features a long list of offensive comments.

“I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there. And she was married,” Trump says. “Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look.”

As actress Arianne Zucker approaches to lead them on to the set, Trump continues, “I’ve gotta use some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her. You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything.”

The tape represents yet another remarkable moment in a campaign full of them. Politicians, like all people, lead different lives in public and in private, and say things behind closed doors that they would never say publicly. While plenty of former presidents have had a penchant for lewd remarks—witness the hilarious recording of Lyndon Johnson ordering trousers—and plenty have been womanizers, including Johnson and President Bill Clinton, never has a recording of a presidential candidate speaking this way made its way into public while he was running.

Responding to the story, Trump tried to play the remarks off as simply boys-will-be-boys behavior, and—continuing a recent pattern of making unsubstantiated allegations—claimed that Bill Clinton “has said far worse to me on the golf course.” Trump continued: “I apologize if anyone was offended.” That non-apology falls short on several counts. Trump seems to view these statements simply offensively rude.

The Clinton campaign, in a statement, said, “This is horrific. We cannot allow this man to be president.”

The recording, made as Trump was on microphone, offers an unusual window into his private conversation. There’s a powerful impact to hearing Trump make the comments himself, as one can in the new tape, though it matches with previous stories. “You know, it doesn’t really matter what [the media] write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass,” he said. He famously conducted an affair with Marla Maples, who would become his second wife, while still married to his first wife. Jill Harth, who worked with Trump on a pageant in the 1990s, accused him of attempted rape and told The Guardian this summer that Trump had groped her.

After the Post published its story, The New York Times published online a column by Nicholas Kristof that will be printed in Sunday’s edition, adding to Harth’s story. Harth described her encounters with Trump in harrowing detail. In one case, she says he attempted to have sex with her while she was looking at his daughter Ivanka’s bedroom.

“I was admiring the decoration, and next thing I know he’s pushing me against a wall and has his hands all over me,” Harth told Kristof. “He was trying to kiss me. I was freaking out.” In one case, she vomited “as a defense mechanism.”

In an interview this week, Trump argued that some of the comments he has made about women—often delivered during appearances on Howard Stern’s radio show—were not sincere, but were in fact made in character, under his guise as an entertainer.

“A lot of that was done for the purpose of entertainment, there’s nobody that has more respect for women than I do,” he said. Asked whether he was trying to tone that down now, he said, “It’s not a question of trying, it’s very easy.”

These private comments contradict Trump’s idea that it’s all just public posturing.

They also come at inopportune time, both for Trump and for his allies. There’s about one month left before the election, and Trump’s standing in the polls has been falling. The second presidential debate is scheduled for Sunday night, and Trump is likely to be asked about the comments. During the first debate, Hillary Clinton brought up old disparaging statements he had made about former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, baiting Trump into responding and making new disparaging comments.

If Trump is able to quiet the furor by Sunday evening’s debate, he’s sure to face more questions about his treatment of women there.