George Packer's Blog, page 118

Draining the Swamp

On October 17th, during a speech on ethics reform, Donald Trump announced, “It is time to drain the swamp in Washington, D.C.” A day later, he repeated the phrase in a tweet, adding the hashtag #draintheswamp for good measure. It was late in the campaign for a new slogan, but soon audiences were chanting it.

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Related:
Listen to “Tiny Hands,” Fiona Apple’s Anti-Trump Protest Song
An Emerging, and Very Pointed, Democratic Resistance
The Somehow Controversial Women’s March on Washington

An Emerging, and Very Pointed, Democratic Resistance

“I would like your views,” Senator Al Franken said to Betsy DeVos, the Education Secretary-designate, at her confirmation hearing, on Tuesday, “on the relative advantage of doing assessments and using them to measure proficiency or to measure growth.”

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
Draining the Swamp
Listen to “Tiny Hands,” Fiona Apple’s Anti-Trump Protest Song
The Somehow Controversial Women’s March on Washington

The Lost Hopes for South Sudan

After half a century of civil war, South Sudan declared independence from Sudan, in 2011. Two years later, the world’s youngest country erupted in its own civil war. In 2015, the combatants signed a peace agreement, but then the scales of power were tipped, and the government struck out against the opposing side. Now some are warning of genocide.

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“Westworld,” Race, and the Western
The Tragic, Forgotten History of Black Military Veterans
This Week in Fiction: Mohsin Hamid on the Migrants in All of Us

Donald Trump’s Cheap Talk About NATO and Europe

The Inciter-in-Chief has outdone himself. In an interview with the Times of London and Germany’s Bild published a few days ago, Donald Trump called NATO “obsolete,” described the European Union as a German scheme to get the best of the United States, and suggested that he had as much faith in Vladimir Putin as in Angela Merkel. “Well, I start off trusting both—but let’s see how long that lasts,” Trump said.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
Draining the Swamp
Listen to “Tiny Hands,” Fiona Apple’s Anti-Trump Protest Song
An Emerging, and Very Pointed, Democratic Resistance

Five Reasons that President Obama Was Right to Commute Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

On Tuesday, three days before the end of Barack Obama’s term as President, the White House announced that he had commuted the sentences of two hundred and nine people, including Private Chelsea Manning, who was arrested, in 2010, for giving hundreds of thousands of files classified as secret—the revelation of which caused diplomatic tumult and other difficulties for the United States—to WikiLeaks. Manning had been court-martialed and sentenced to thirty-five years in military prison. Under Obama’s order, she will be released in May, after being incarcerated for more than six years. Here are five reasons that Obama’s decision on Manning was the right and just move.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
A Poet’s Tale from Obama’s First Inaugural
Trump vs. Obama on the Press
Daily Cartoon: Monday, January 16th

The Strongman Problem, from Modi to Trump

At eight o’clock in the evening on November 8th, India Standard Time, just hours before American voters shocked the world by electing Donald Trump as their next President, Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, went on television to address his country’s more than a billion citizens. At midnight, Modi proclaimed, all of India’s five-hundred-rupee and thousand-rupee notes, worth about seven dollars and fifteen dollars, respectively, and constituting about eighty-six per cent of all cash in circulation, would be banned from use, in an effort to battle corruption. He said that cash was easier for terrorists to use, and that other lawbreakers used it to evade taxes and store ill-gotten wealth.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
Trump Disrupts World
Bush Counting Down Days Until He Is No Longer Worst President in History
Daily Cartoon: Tuesday, January 17th

Trump Disrupts World

Donald Trump knows how to rattle the world. Since Friday, the President-elect has given two interviews that jolted governments from Brussels to Beijing. Many of his ideas disparage the principles, institutions, and alliances central to U.S. foreign policy. Some date back to the Republic’s founding, while others have been adopted since the mid-twentieth century to prevent global conflagrations.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
The Strongman Problem, from Modi to Trump
Bush Counting Down Days Until He Is No Longer Worst President in History
Daily Cartoon: Tuesday, January 17th

At Volkswagen, a Scandal Where Executives Could Pay the Price

At the Detroit Auto Show last week, Volkswagen hoped to escape the present with a nod to the past, introducing a revamped version of its iconic flat-faced, boxy Microbus, the vehicle that shepherded the counterculture across the interstates some five decades ago. The bus’s reincarnation is a battery-propelled, self-driving vehicle called ID Buzz. But nostalgic wing-vent windows and chrome trim could not distract from the company’s current predicament. Barely had the auto show kicked off when the Justice Department announced that VW had pleaded guilty to criminal and civil charges related to its efforts to cheat on U.S. emissions standards.

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The iPhone Turns Ten
The Growing Gap Between the U.S. and the International Anti-Death-Penalty Consensus
The Humble Elevator and the Rise of Modern Civilization

An American Tennis Player Finds Her Voice

Nicole Gibbs is a twenty-three-year-old American tennis player, currently ranked No. 92 in the world. She might climb the rankings in the next few years—she was an indomitable national collegiate champion and stays in points with her sound defense; last March, at Indian Wells, I watched her play clean, aggressive, Top Twenty-level tennis, defeating, in straight sets, Madison Keys, who is now ranked No. 8 and is the best bet among U.S. women for the post-Serena Williams era. Or it’s possible that Gibbs might not get much further than she has: she’s five feet six and slender, and has neither a stroke nor a serve that she hits with commanding power—power being what the women’s game, like the men’s game, has by and large come to be about.

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The Cartoon Lounge: Pezident of The United States
Immersion Therapy in the Trump Archive
Lessons from Playing Golf with Trump

Trump vs. Obama on the Press

Tomorrow, President Barack Obama will hold the final press conference of his Presidency. The event will take place in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, just steps from the Oval Office. The cramped space in the West Wing, with seven rows of seven seats apiece, has served as the main theatre of conflict between Presidents and reporters since the Nixon era.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
The Strongman Problem, from Modi to Trump
A Poet’s Tale from Obama’s First Inaugural
Trump Disrupts World