George Packer's Blog, page 144

The Case for 2016 Being a Boring Election

Political journalists and political scientists have a tense relationship. Journalists cover politics as a riveting narrative, in which major events can always alter the outcome of the election. Political scientists tend to believe that a few big structural factors are all that really matter. The most exciting account of the 2012 election was “Double Down,” a book by two political reporters that treated every twist and turn of the election as a potentially game-changing event. The most accurate account of the race was “The Gamble,” a book by two political scientists which drained the race of drama by reminding readers that the underlying structure of the election had always favored Obama.

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Related:
Cover Story: Barry Blitt’s “Anything But That”
Anna Deavere Smith Contains Multitudes
Four Trump Rallies and a Fight for Florida

How Airbnb Makes It Hard to Sue for Discrimination

In March of 2015, Gregory Selden, a twenty-five-year-old black man from Virginia, was planning a trip to Philadelphia. He’d heard it could be cheaper to stay at someone’s house, through Airbnb, than to rent a hotel, so he created an Airbnb profile, with a photo and some basic details about himself, and sent an inquiry to a host whose place looked appealing. The host quickly wrote back: the accommodation was already taken for those dates. But Selden thought there was something strange about the exchange—for one thing, the Airbnb site described the place as available—so he decided to conduct an experiment. He created two fake Airbnb profiles, for white people named “Jessie” and “Todd,” and put in requests for accommodations at the same property over the same dates. Again, a reply arrived right away, but this time they were different: Jessie and Todd were welcome.

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Related:
Quail, the Quieter Back-Yard Egg Option
Stop, Collaborate, and Listen: Keys to Success in Business, By Vanilla Ice
Ivanka Trump Fights to Save the Brand

Quail, the Quieter Back-Yard Egg Option

On a hot Saturday morning in the waning days of summer, I joined a handful of people for a participatory quail slaughter at Pettibone Urban Game, a three-quarter-acre farm in Clinton Township, a neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio. “Would you like to scald or would you like to take the skin off?” our instructor, Jerah Pettibone, asked me. I was unprepared for this question, distracted by the immediate task before me, which was to decapitate a quail by snipping its tiny neck with shiny, sharp kitchen shears. After making the fatal cut, I dropped the headless body into a bucket lined with a plastic grocery bag. Later, I decided against scalding, and peeled off the skin in feathery strips.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
How Airbnb Makes It Hard to Sue for Discrimination
Stop, Collaborate, and Listen: Keys to Success in Business, By Vanilla Ice
Ivanka Trump Fights to Save the Brand

Two Americas: Why Donald Trump Still Has a Lot of Support

On Tuesday, an ABC News/Washington Post tracking poll showed Donald Trump leading Hillary Clinton by a single percentage point, and the news went around the Internet like a virulent flu bug. When my wife saw it, she asked, “How can Hillary Clinton be losing to a mentally unstable megalomaniac and sexual predator who doesn’t pay income taxes?”

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
What Bill Clinton Should Do as First Gentleman
Trump’s Last Pitch to the Philadelphia Suburbs
Are You Suffering from Election-Induced Fatigue and Related Trauma Syndrome?

What Bill Clinton Should Do as First Gentleman

One of the unresolved worries about a Hillary Clinton Presidency is her husband, Bill. Some of the discomfort has to do with his past: his unfortunate history with women; the perception that donors to the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation might have expected special access to Hillary Clinton; the discomfiting spectacle of the former President zipping around the world in various private jets, collecting exorbitant speaking fees. (Between 2001 and the launch of Hillary’s Presidential campaign, she and Bill were paid more than a hundred and fifty million dollars for speeches; we know that because the Clintons, unlike Donald Trump, disclosed their tax returns.) We can reasonably hope that, at age seventy, somewhat chastened, and living under steady scrutiny again, Bill Clinton won’t inflict the same sort of damage he once did. And, in August, he announced that, if his wife is elected, he will step down from the board of the Foundation and cease personally raising money for it. So, then, perhaps, the worry is less about the past than about the potential future. If Hillary Clinton wins the White House, what exactly is to be done with him?

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
Two Americas: Why Donald Trump Still Has a Lot of Support
Trump’s Last Pitch to the Philadelphia Suburbs
Are You Suffering from Election-Induced Fatigue and Related Trauma Syndrome?

Trump’s Last Pitch to the Philadelphia Suburbs

Throughout the Presidential campaign, Donald Trump has occasionally interrupted his regular schedule of shouty rallies to give a more sedate, policy-oriented address. He tends to exchange his red power tie for a more subdued blue one, to surround himself with more traditional Republican supporters, and to speak of how “honored” he is to be in their presence. Yesterday, Trump held one such event at a Hilton in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, between the battlefield monument and the King of Prussia Mall. The plan, seven days before an election that he has a long shot of winning, was to bolster his establishment supporters with more details about his health-care plan. Trump brought with him Mike Pence, Ben Carson, and six House Republicans who are members of the “doc caucus.” At most Trump rallies, a stadium d.j. commands the sets between speakers, blasting Twisted Sister and the Backstreet Boys. At the Valley Forge Hilton, smooth jazz played.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
Two Americas: Why Donald Trump Still Has a Lot of Support
What Bill Clinton Should Do as First Gentleman
Are You Suffering from Election-Induced Fatigue and Related Trauma Syndrome?

The First Five-Borough New York City Marathon

In 1975, George Spitz found himself with time on his hands. A political iconoclast and gadfly, Spitz could generally be found campaigning for, and losing, elections for every office from the state assembly to city council to mayor. But that year, he was between jobs, and elections, so he trained for and ran the Boston Marathon. Afterward he began asking friends, “If Boston can have a marathon on its streets, why not New York?” There was already a small marathon that looped four times around Central Park, but Spitz had in mind a race that would go into all five boroughs. I was a friend of his and a reasonably well-known runner, and thus I became one of the people who would get his day-and-night phone calls. At first, none of us warmed to his vision, not even Fred Lebow, the president of the New York Road Runners, the largest running organization in the city. But Spitz persisted and eventually gained the support of Percy Sutton, the Manhattan borough president. When Sutton in turn secured a twenty-five-thousand-dollar commitment from the influential real-estate moguls Jack and Lewis Rudin, there was no turning back.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
The New York City Marathon Quadruplets
Welcome, 5K Runners!
America’s Overperforming Olympic Marathoners

The Thrilling Competence of Joe Maddon and Terry Francona

At some point, the producers of baseball broadcasts for television decided that the managers were the most important people in the ballpark. During this World Series, between what seems to be nearly every important pitch, the camera cuts to Terry Francona, of the Cleveland Indians, or Joe Maddon, of the Chicago Cubs, standing on the top steps of their respective dugouts, surveying the field, looking hopeful, or worried, or a bit bored—much like the rest of us. Unlike their peers in other sports, during games, baseball managers don’t seem very busy. Sometimes they signal to a coach on the field; occasionally a microphone catches a stray shout of encouragement to one of their players. When things get really exciting, they pick up a phone to call the bullpen or walk out onto the field to make a pitching change. Still, the TV tells us that it’s mostly in this stillness of a middle-aged man bearing witness that much of the drama resides. Watching baseball is, to some degree, about watching a manager watch the game.

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Related:
Daily Cartoon: Wednesday, November 2nd
Almost There
Ancient History and Short-Term Memories in World Series Game 1

Why the Fight to Control Congress Is Crippling Our Democracy

If you thought 2016 was a dismal political year, just wait until next year. The polls have tightened since last week, with the news of more e-mail troubles for Hillary Clinton, but the likeliest outcome remains a Clinton victory over Donald Trump, a reduced Republican majority in the House of Representatives, and—the most uncertain element—a narrow Democratic majority in the Senate, perhaps a fifty-fifty split with Tim Kaine, as Vice-President, able to cast tie-breaking votes. And, if the recent statements from Republican senators about blocking any Clinton nominee are borne out, the Supreme Court will remain split, with four liberals and four conservatives, for some time.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
The Quiet Ruthlessness of the Clinton Campaign
How Trump Fumbled Social Security Like No Republican Before Him
The Book That Predicted Trump

The Quiet Ruthlessness of the Clinton Campaign

On Friday, it looked as if Hillary Clinton’s Presidential campaign might be in big trouble. James Comey, the director of the F.B.I., announced that the bureau had found new evidence that might be relevant to the investigation into her e-mails. The evidence, it was soon reported, had surfaced on a laptop belonging to Anthony Weiner, the disgraced former congressman and estranged husband of Huma Abedin, one of Clinton’s closest aides. But, within a few days, the campaign had managed to change the subject from what Comey might find that Clinton had done to what Comey himself had done by making such a dramatic announcement less than two weeks before the election. Somebody mobilized a small army of congressional allies, letter-signing and op-ed-writing former high officials, and Sunday-morning-talk-show guests, all of whom offered severe critiques of Comey. Harry Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, went so far as to accuse Comey of violating the Hatch Act, the federal law that prohibits some high-level officials from engaging in political activity.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
Why the Fight to Control Congress Is Crippling Our Democracy
How Trump Fumbled Social Security Like No Republican Before Him
The Book That Predicted Trump