George Packer's Blog, page 136

How Much Do Republicans Have in Common with Trump?

During these first days of Donald Trump’s Presidential transition, the elevator at Trump Tower has become a character in its own right. Whom does it carry up to meet the President-elect? Unable to get past the lobby, beat reporters have stationed themselves there and reported the comings and goings. Shinzō Abe, the Prime Minister of Japan, went in. So did Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, and the Republican Senator Jeff Sessions, of Alabama, Trump’s nominee for Attorney General. Out came Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, who reportedly has expressed interest in working at the White House, and the retired general Michael Flynn, Trump’s new national-security adviser. The lobby became a scene. The lefty filmmaker Michael Moore hung out there with a camera crew, and a professional skateboarder named Billy Rohan claimed that he, too, had met with the President-elect. The answer to the underlying question—what types of Republicans are entering that elevator and, therefore, likely to staff this Administration?—has proved elusive, because they don’t come from a single ideological camp. Perhaps we are overthinking it, and their ideologies matter less than his. These are simply the Republicans who are interested in working for Donald Trump.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
What Will Become of the Dirtbag Left?
Talking to Young People About Trump, with Lessons from Gwen Ifill
The Failure of Facebook Democracy

Talking to Young People About Trump, with Lessons from Gwen Ifill

Last week, the day after the election of Donald Trump, I found myself recalling the words of Rodney King, spoken during the 1992 Los Angeles riots: “Can we all get along?” A black former congressman had told me about waking up his nine-year-old daughter that morning. When she heard the news, she began crying, fearful in ways she couldn’t exactly articulate, but fearful nevertheless. The following day, I travelled to Pennsylvania and met with two groups of young people, some her age and some a bit older, and, curious as to whether the nine-year-old’s reaction was unique, I began by relaying the story and asking how many of them had felt the same way. Most of the young people, in both groups, raised their hands, eager to share their anxieties and their fears.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
How Much Do Republicans Have in Common with Trump?
What Will Become of the Dirtbag Left?
The Failure of Facebook Democracy

It’s the Fight of the Year and No One Cares

Good news for boxing fans: this weekend’s fight is the most important one of the year, a long-awaited meeting of two of the best fighters on the planet, with no firm consensus about who will win. Bad news for boxing itself: many casual fans have probably never heard of either guy, and are therefore unlikely to spend seventy dollars to watch the pay-per-view broadcast.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

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Conor McGregor at the Garden: The Double-Champ Does What He Wants
Are Smartphones Ruining Distance Running?
At Last

The Total Trumpism of Jeff Sessions, Attorney General Nominee

“You know who I’m talking about? Who am I talking about?” It was last February, and Donald Trump was at an outdoor rally in Madison, Alabama. “Nobody knows right now, because we’ve kept it a surprise: Senator Jeff Sessions!” There were ways in which Sessions’s appearance was a surprise, at that point: few Republican elected officials at any level had endorsed Trump; that day in Alabama, his home state, Sessions became the first sitting senator to do so. Also, Sessions had been known as one of the few senators who could tolerate Senator Ted Cruz, who was still in contention and openly anticipated Sessions’s support. But, in terms of policies, beliefs, and a capacity for bigotry, Sessions’s endorsement of Trump, and his vigorous campaigning for him in the months that followed, should have been no surprise at all. Nor is the news, Friday morning, that Trump will nominate Sessions as his Attorney General. It is not any less dismaying, or potentially damaging.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
How Much Do Republicans Have in Common with Trump?
What Will Become of the Dirtbag Left?
Talking to Young People About Trump, with Lessons from Gwen Ifill

Has Rudy Giuliani Been Done In by His Own Buck-Raking?

During the Presidential campaign, there was no more hysterical critic of Hillary Clinton and her ethics than Rudy Giuliani. In August, he suggested that allegations of a “pay to play” scheme involving the Clinton Foundation—which received donations from foreign governments and billionaires—and the State Department were going to turn into something “bigger than Watergate.” The night before Election Day, speaking in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Giuliani said, of Clinton, “We have never had a person running for President who is so thoroughly corrupt.”

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
How Much Do Republicans Have in Common with Trump?
What Will Become of the Dirtbag Left?
Talking to Young People About Trump, with Lessons from Gwen Ifill

Has Rudy Giuliani Been Done in by His Own Buck-Raking?

During the Presidential campaign, there was no more hysterical critic of Hillary Clinton and her ethics than Rudy Giuliani. In August, he suggested that allegations of a “pay to play” scheme involving the Clinton Foundation—which received donations from foreign governments and billionaires—and the State Department were going to turn into something “bigger than Watergate.” The night before Election Day, speaking in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Giuliani said, of Clinton, “We have never had a person running for President who is so thoroughly corrupt.”

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
The Gathering Storm of Protest Against Trump
What You Can Do
Undocumented in a Red State and Asking, “What Now?”

The Gathering Storm of Protest Against Trump

The stagecraft of Donald Trump’s Inauguration, on the west front terrace of the Capitol, on January 20th, will reflect a nation divided not only between parties but also within them. The oath of office is to be administered by Chief Justice John Roberts, a fellow-Republican whom Trump has described as a “disaster” and a “nightmare” because of the Supreme Court’s rulings to uphold the Affordable Care Act.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
Has Rudy Giuliani Been Done in by His Own Buck-Raking?
What You Can Do
Undocumented in a Red State and Asking, “What Now?”

Undocumented in a Red State and Asking, “What Now?”

Last Wednesday morning, Fatima Linares, a twenty-two-year-old community-college student in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was in her bedroom getting ready for work, when her little brother burst in to her room with an urgent question. “Where are we going to go?” he asked. Her brother is ten years old and a U.S. citizen. But his parents and older sisters, including Fatima, are undocumented, and so, on election night, he’d stayed up late watching news clips on YouTube, trying to figure out his family’s fate if Donald Trump pulled off an upset. Waking up to find Trump the new President-elect, the boy believed that he’d see his family swiftly deported. “What’s going to happen to us?” he asked his sister.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
Has Rudy Giuliani Been Done in by His Own Buck-Raking?
The Gathering Storm of Protest Against Trump
What You Can Do

A Muslim Woman Also Got Elected Last Week

At the same time Donald Trump was watching the Presidential-election returns from Trump Tower, in New York, Ilhan Omar was in the Courtyard Marriott in Minneapolis, watching the returns and learning that she had also been elected, as a Minnesota House Representative for the city’s 60B District. Like Trump, Omar represented a change. Like Trump, Omar won on a platform promising to serve a community whose needs had been forgotten. But Omar represents many of the things that Trump has belittled: she’s a Muslim, an immigrant, a woman.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
Has Rudy Giuliani Been Done in by His Own Buck-Raking?
The Gathering Storm of Protest Against Trump
What You Can Do

Hate on the Rise After Trump’s Election

Since Donald Trump won the Presidential election, there has been a dramatic uptick in incidents of racist and xenophobic harassment across the country. The Southern Poverty Law Center has reported that there were four hundred and thirty-seven incidents of intimidation between the election, on November 8th, and November 14th, targeting blacks and other people of color, Muslims, immigrants, the L.G.B.T. community, and women. One woman in Colorado told the S.P.L.C. that her twelve-year-old daughter was approached by a boy who said, “Now that Trump is President, I’m going to shoot you and all the blacks I can find.” At a school in Washington State, students chanted “build a wall” in a cafeteria. In Texas, someone saw graffiti at work: “no more illegals 1-20-17,” a reference to Inauguration Day.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
Has Rudy Giuliani Been Done in by His Own Buck-Raking?
The Gathering Storm of Protest Against Trump
What You Can Do