George Packer's Blog, page 187

Mike Pence Becomes the Anti-Cruz

Governor Mike Pence, of Indiana, walked onstage Wednesday night at the Republican National Convention, in Cleveland, to illustrate what it looks like to make a deal with Donald Trump and then put aside every priority but keeping your side of it. Many Republican leaders have compromised themselves in getting on the Trump Train. A number of them seem to believe that if they don’t mention his name too often in their speeches (Paul Ryan), or if they address the Convention by video, rather than in person (Marco Rubio), they will have some shred of deniability in the event that the campaign ends in a crash, and just enough evidence of accommodation to collect some reward, or exemption, if Trump does come through. It is not a satisfying bargain, which may be why Senator Ted Cruz’s self-congratulatory gaming of it, in his non-endorsement speech earlier in the evening, enraged so many compromised Republicans. Pence is in a different position. He is putting his name down not only in the rolls of Trump supporters but on the signs that circle the Convention floor and, soon, right below Trump’s on a ballot.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
Ivanka Trump’s Walk on the Donald Side
Ted Cruz Has a History of Getting Himself Booed During Speeches
The Strangely Quiet Streets of Cleveland

Ted Cruz Spoils the Trump–Pence Party

Give one thing to the Republicans: they can’t be boring even when they try to be. On Wednesday night here in Cleveland, the idea was to force fifteen thousand or so journalists, many of whom have spent the past couple of days immersed in the intricate details of “Melaniagate,” to write and talk about the Republican Party coming together to hail the Donald Trump–Mike Pence ticket. A speech by the Vice-Presidential nominee was meant to be the highlight of the night.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
Ivanka Trump’s Walk on the Donald Side
Ted Cruz Has a History of Getting Himself Booed During Speeches
The Strangely Quiet Streets of Cleveland

Donald Trump Threatens the Ghostwriter of “The Art of the Deal”

When Tony Schwartz, Donald Trump’s ghostwriter for his 1987 memoir “The Art of the Deal,” decided to tell the public about his concerns that Trump isn’t fit to serve as President, his main worry was that Trump, who is famously litigious, would threaten to take legal action against him. Schwartz’s premonition has proved correct.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
The Republican Party’s Unrequited Love of Rock Music
Three Problems with the Melania Trump Plagiarism Admission
The R.N.C. on TV: Another Unbelievable Evening

Three Problems with the Melania Trump Plagiarism Admission

For the second day in a row, the biggest news at the Republican National Convention, in Cleveland, is not about Donald Trump’s ideas for the country or even his case against Hillary Clinton.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
The Republican Party’s Unrequited Love of Rock Music
Donald Trump Threatens the Ghostwriter of “The Art of the Deal”
The R.N.C. on TV: Another Unbelievable Evening

Fox and Fiends: The End of Roger Ailes

In early July, after the Fox News host Gretchen Carlson had filed a sexual-harassment lawsuit against Roger Ailes, the network’s chairman, but before a number of other women said that they, too, had been harassed by him—and long before reports emerged that Ailes was negotiating an exit under pressure—Fox resorted to a familiar tactic in such cases. It made available to the press notes that Carlson had written to Ailes after the alleged incidents had taken place. The notes were handwritten, and in one case included a smiley face. They read like the communications of an ambitious person trying to ingratiate herself with a powerful boss she knows has soured on her. “Thank you for offering me the opportunity to host the West Point Choir Christmas Special,” she wrote on November 11, 2015. “Maybe for the next Fox debates, you could incorporate my experience, smarts and wit—on stage—or doing the FoxNews.com analysis after. I know I wouldn’t let you down.” In other notes, Carlson, a Stanford graduate and former Miss America, talks about what a hard worker and a loyal employee she has been, cites her ideas for prime-time specials and her desire to substitute for the Fox anchors Megyn Kelly and Greta Van Susteren, and mentions she has been invited by a member of Congress to speak “at a conference of inspirational women.” She’s leaning in, but it’s too late. The West Point Choir special is not a good sign.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
Bonus Daily Cartoon: The Fox News Dress Code
Megyn Kelly’s Guide to Surrendering to Donald Trump
Why Cruz, and the G.O.P., Lost to Trump

The Dangerous Route of Ethiopian Migrants

The other day, on the outskirts of Fantahero, a small village in the desert of northern Djibouti, Sebhatou Mellis was sheltering from a-hundred-and-four-degree heat in the shade of an acacia tree. Mellis, who is twenty-six and has the rangy build of a runner, was about a thousand miles away from his home, in the impoverished Tigray region of northern Ethiopia. There, he and his family had taken a government loan to help improve his farm, tried to invest it, and failed, he told me. “At the end, the money was finished, and all the people began to insult us and say that we took the money from the government and used it badly,” he said.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
The American Promise in a Free Refill
Obama’s Failed Promise to Immigrant Families
An E-Commerce Challenge in Africa: Selling to People Who Aren’t Online

A Tense Scene in Cleveland’s Public Square

On Tuesday afternoon, protesters from Black Lives Matter and militia members carrying firearms collided in Cleveland’s Public Square. The photographer Philip Montgomery, who is covering the Republican National Convention for The New Yorker, was at the scene.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
The Republican Party’s Unrequited Love of Rock Music
Three Problems with the Melania Trump Plagiarism Admission
The R.N.C. on TV: Another Unbelievable Evening

Chris Christie: Human Tumult Machine

“Let’s do something fun,” Chris Christie said at the Republican National Convention last night. The governor of New Jersey had spent the past day in less expansive emotional states—defending Melania Trump’s plagiarized speech on the “Today” show, expressing his own disappointment that Mike Pence was the Republican Vice-Presidential pick—and he seemed due for some pleasure. Christie told the delegates that he, a famously truculent former federal prosecutor, would present an indictment against Hillary Clinton, and they would get to judge whether she was guilty or innocent.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
The Republican Party’s Unrequited Love of Rock Music
Donald Trump Threatens the Ghostwriter of “The Art of the Deal”
Three Problems with the Melania Trump Plagiarism Admission

This Year’s Most Awkward Job? Latino Republican Outreach

A few hours before the Republican Party officially awarded the nomination to Donald J. Trump, several dozen prominent Latino delegates, reporters, and others met, over coffee, to consider their conundrum. Among Latino voters, Trump trails Hillary Clinton by more than sixty points—seventy-six per cent to fourteen per cent, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Telemundo poll.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
The Republican Party’s Unrequited Love of Rock Music
Donald Trump Threatens the Ghostwriter of “The Art of the Deal”
Three Problems with the Melania Trump Plagiarism Admission

Magical Economic Thinking at the G.O.P. Convention

After the drama of the first night of the Republican National Convention, when the Donald Trump campaign threw Benghazi, grieving mothers, and angry cops at Hillary Clinton under the rubric “Make America Safe Again,” the theme of Day 2 was “Make America Work Again.” Or that was supposed to be the idea.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
The Republican Party’s Unrequited Love of Rock Music
Donald Trump Threatens the Ghostwriter of “The Art of the Deal”
Three Problems with the Melania Trump Plagiarism Admission