AUGUST 21/28, 2023

E S T. 1 8 6 5

THE MANY
ENIGMAS OF
OPPENHEIMER
JORGE COTTE

BARBIE’S
REINVENTION
MOIRA DONEGAN

Throughout the country, far-right groups

are trying to control what books kids
can read. In one small town, they tried to
shut the library down altogether.
SASHA ABRAMSKY
THENATION.COM
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 Nothing
compares: A
mural of Sinéad
O’Connor at the
Hard Rock Cafe
in Dublin.

F E AT U R E S

B&A
EDITORIAL
4 14 THE ARGUMENT
Israel’s Warring The Case for
16 The Library Wars
SASHA ABRAMSKY
Myths
AMJAD IRAQI
More Strikes
LUIS FELIZ LEON
B O O K S the
A R T S

Far-right groups will stop at nothing to 5 COMMENT

15 Letters
control what books children can read. Barbie Land 34 Friends and Lovers
Feminists are finding C O L U M N S
Brandon Taylor’s fiction
23 The New Red Meat
AMY LITTLEFIELD
camaraderie in one of
the unlikeliest places.
8 Class Notes
Does affirmative action
of class and campuses.
S A R A H C H I H AYA
MOIRA DONEGAN really reduce inequality?
Abortion is now a toxic issue for the 38 Our Names (poem)
D I S PAT C H E S ADOLPH REED JR.
GOP. Can “parental rights” replace it? 6 YA C C A I R A S A LV A T I E R R A
Star Struck
Scenes from the picket 39 President of the
28 Moon Committee
lines in Los Angeles.
PIPER FRENCH Walter Benjamin’s
Q&A radio years.
13 PETER E. GORDON
Donovan X. Ramsey
NAOMI ELIAS 16 43 A Black Hole
Christopher Nolan’s
10 Forever Wars Oppenheimer.
Trump wants to use the JORGE COTTE
security state against
24 “I Needed Asian
Plaintiffs”
domestic enemies.
SPENCER ACKERMAN

K A L I H O L L O W AY 12 Deadline Poet
The “legal entrepreneur” behind the Valuable Training
Opportunity
movement to kill affirmative action. 24 C A LV I N T R I L L I N

28 “We’re Just
Here to Observe”
J O C E LY N S I M O N S O N
“ Trump didn’t have a problem with
the existence of a so-called deep
34
NIALL CARSON / PA IMAGES VIA GETTY IMAGES

How courtwatchers are shifting the state; his problem was with a deep Cover illustration:

VOLUME
power dynamics in criminal courts. state he didn’t control. 10
” ROSS MACDONALD

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 E D I T O R I A L / A M J A D I R A Q I FOR T H E N AT I O N

Israel’s Warring Myths

n july 24, israel’s knesset enacted the first major piece of the far-
right government’s proposed “judicial reform,” aimed at undercutting
the Supreme Court’s role as a watchdog over the executive and legislative
branches. Passed by a margin of 64 to 0—opposition parties boycotted
the final vote—the new law removes judges’ ability to override decisions
made by elected officials that are deemed “unreasonable,” essentially
granting politicians the power to act with little legal accountability.
The cancellation of the “reasonableness clause” would enable
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (currently on trial for cor- almost all received the judges’ stamp of approval.
ruption) to fire the attorney general (who is leading the prosecution For instance, on July 25, Knesset members on
against him) without fearing the court’s intervention. both sides of the aisle voted to expand the scope
Netanyahu’s personal interest, however, aligns with a more of the “admissions committees” law, allowing
dangerous ideological agenda pursued by his coalition partners. localities to filter applicants for housing based
Hours before the Knesset vote, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, on their “suitability” to the existing “social and
one of the architects of the judicial overhaul, cited five rulings cultural fabric.” The original 2011 law—aimed
that he believed demonstrated the Supreme Court’s undue at Palestinian citizens of Israel who challenge
interference—all of them concerning Palestinians and critics of discriminatory housing policies—was approved
the occupation. No matter that such rulings are extremely rare; by the Supreme Court in 2014. The bluntly rac-
for the far right, the slightest chance that the court could ob- ist Jewish nation-state law, which proclaims that
struct state policy on the occupation must be eliminated. Jewish settlement is a “national value,” was also
The government is inching ahead with its plans despite the upheld by the court two years ago.
wave of protests. Hundreds of thousands are still demonstrating Most Israeli protesters don’t want to hear such
in the streets every week. Thousands of reserve soldiers have criticism—it would mean reckoning with the re-
declared that they will refuse military duty. ality that the “democracy”
Labor unions have organized strikes, and they are fighting to protect
tech and venture capital firms are redirecting is in fact a charade. Even if
their investments abroad. Even former IDF, Most Israeli protesters this far-right government
Mossad, and Shin Bet officials have encour- don’t want to hear is brought down, over half
aged defiance of the government. It is the that the “democracy” of the 14 million people
largest campaign of civil disobedience Israel they are fighting to under Israel’s rule will re-
has ever seen—and it appears set to escalate. main either completely
Israeli protesters are right to fear what protect is a charade. disenfranchised or forced
an ultranationalist/religious coalition might into second-class citizen-
do with no checks on its ambitions. Yet despite the real stakes, ship in the name of preserving the country’s
Israel’s political crisis remains predicated on a clash of two myths. “Jewish character”—one of many reasons Israel
The far right claims that the judiciary, and the Supreme Court in is rightly being called an apartheid state.
particular, constantly intrudes on the Knesset’s electoral mandate Americans, too, must abandon their illusions
and inhibits Zionism’s full potential. The opposition insists that about what Israeli democracy actually is. The
the courts are bastions protecting the rights of all inhabitants of Biden administration, American Jewish orga-
Israel, keeping authoritarian impulses at bay. nizations, and media commentators have cor-
Both narratives have little relation to reality. According to a rectly spoken up against the far right’s agenda
study of thousands of cases brought to the Supreme Court from in unprecedented ways. But will they use their
1995 to 2016, nearly 90 percent of petitions against the govern- leverage to demand real equality and justice for
ment were rejected by judges. These included challenges to the all? Or just enough to restore Israel’s facade for
state’s land seizures, brutal military practices, and racist legislation the next government? N
4 (less than 1 percent of the laws reviewed by the court were struck
down). Many of these policies were contested by Palestinians—and Amjad Iraqi is a senior editor at +972 Magazine.
  T H E N AT I O N 8.21–28.2023

C O M M E N T / M O I R A D O N E G A N This increasingly apparent dark side of Bar-

bie began to hurt Mattel’s bottom line. Bar-

Barbie Land bie sales plummeted by a third between 2011

and 2015, as millennial mothers, raised in the
comparatively enlightened 1990s and 2000s,
Feminists are finding camaraderie in the unlikeliest chose toys for their daughters that did not
places at a time when sexist forces are emboldened. promulgate such a narrow vision of gender.
When Mattel introduced new Barbie bodies
in 2016, it had these women in mind. “The
sking “is barbie a feminist?” is a bit like ask-
millennial mom is a small part of our con-
ing “Why would a loving God allow so much sumer base,” then-Barbie brand head Evelyn
suffering?” You’re not likely to get a satis- Mazzocco explained to Time, “but we recognize
fying answer, but the fact that you’re ask- she’s the future.” In a sense, this cold market
ing the question can reveal a lot about your calculation reveals some unambiguously good
situation. In 2023—a year after the Supreme Court over- news for American feminism: Mattel is telling
turned the national right to abortion in Dobbs, amid a us, with capitalism’s cruel honesty, that it doesn’t
virulent backlash against #MeToo, and as conservatives escalate think a rigidly sexist
their attacks on gay rights, gender-affirming health care, and birth Barbie can make a
control—Barbie might be the closest thing to a feminist icon that profit anymore. Peo-
we have in mass culture right now. To put it ple—women—want
Barbie, released in July, quickly became the biggest film of the mildly, this is something different.
year, earning $356 million worldwide at the box office in its opening something of That’s where
weekend. The phenomenal success was due not only to the film’s ag- a rebrand. For Greta Gerwig comes
gressive marketing to women and girls but also to the script’s unam- in. The director,
biguous, if tepid, feminist message: that girls can do anything—or, at decades, Barbie known for her mel-
least, that it would be nice if they could. The movie follows a Barbie was an object ancholic chronicles of
doll, played by the impeccably chipper Margot Robbie, as she makes of feminist girlhood, was tasked
her way out of the feminist utopia of Barbie Land into the messier scorn. with solving Mat-
and more complicated real world, healing a mother-daughter rela- tel’s marketing prob-
tionship and becoming human herself along the way. lem by reversing the
Quite boldly, the film presents the Barbie franchise as a synec- politics of Barbie. The result has been a blow-
doche for feminism itself. The dolls, we are informed, believe that out success, the sort of dramatic turnaround in
women in the real world can do anything, because Barbies, in their brand identity that will one day be taught in
world, hold all the positions of influence, responsibility, and power. business schools. Barbie is a feminist now, and
When the real world pales in comparison, it is because we, the hu- Barbie has proved a feminist moment.
mans, are not enough like the dolls. Teen girls whose feminist mothers didn’t let
To put it mildly, this is something of a rebrand. For decades, them play with Barbies are now gathering in sub-
Barbie was an object of feminist scorn. An impossibly thin, dis- urban movie theaters, wearing gleefully parodic
proportionately busty, and unblinkingly cheerful paragon of white pink ensembles and soaking in the film’s confused
femininity, she became a symbol of everything women were relent- but earnest message of gender equality. Grown
lessly instructed to be. And what they were supposed to be, if you women, who resent the messages Barbie sent to
were deducing from Barbie, were sexpot consumers: critically thin, them as girls, are in on the joke too, greeting
rabidly materialistic, and not very bright. Barbie often seemed to be one another with “Hi, Barbie!” on the bathroom
an advertisement for eating disorders, not only in her proportions line. More still are cheering from their seats as
but in the message pushed by her manufacturer, Mattel. Slumber America Ferrera, one of the film’s stars, delivers
Party Barbie, which came out in 1965, came with a scale stuck at a monologue recounting the impossible standards
110 pounds and a weight-loss book that read, “Don’t eat!” Barbie that women are held to—standards long embod-
trafficked in tropes of women as frivolous and stupid. Teen Talk ied by the Barbie dolls themselves. (For Mattel,
Barbie, from 1992, included a voice box that said things like “Want the movie may represent more of an evolution
to go shopping?” and “Math class is tough!” Studies conducted as of gender politics than of race: At one point,
recently as 2014 and 2021 found that playing with Barbie dolls Ferrera’s character compares the rapid spread of
damages young girls’ body image and limits their sense of the patriarchy in Barbie Land to the spread of small-
possibilities for their future. Barbie has been not only a symbol of pox among Indigenous Americans, a line
misogyny but an agent of it: a product that measurably makes the
world a worse place for girls.
that’s played for laughs.) It is a sign of
Gerwig’s talent, if also of her cynicism,
5
  T H E N AT I O N 8.21–28.2023

that she transformed Barbie—a ubiqui-

tous item of American girlhood that has
long marked the onset of misogyny—into
an opportunity to commiserate over the
DISPATCHES
L O S A N G E L E S / P I P E R F R E N C H
frustration of living under it.
In another era, women might have
found such commiseration elsewhere. In
the early 1970s, major cities were home
Star Struck
Despite its history of internal division, SAG-AFTRA
to dozens of women’s activist groups,
where women who were moved by the
has come together on the picket line.
feminist cause could find solidarity, as well
anessa lua, also known as aunt telma from
as mutual aid and opportunities for activ-
ism. Many groups offered consciousness-
Shameless, is perched on the curb a few blocks
raising sessions, organizing conversa- from Netflix’s Hollywood headquarters, rattling a
tions that brought women into a new wooden noisemaker at passing vehicles. When the
awareness of gendered hierarchy. These Showtime series played on cable television, Lua
groups have dis- tells me, she received residual payments of around $700 each time
appeared, but an episode aired. A check from Netflix, where viewers can watch
their tactics per- William H. Macy’s dysfunctional family squabble on a never-ending loop,
It may seem sist: Barbie offers might be less than a tenth of that.
that feminism its own version Because Lua doesn’t make enough from acting to qualify for the health care
is on the of consciousness plan of her union, SAG-AFTRA, she supplements her income by teaching
back foot. raising, as the film to elementary school students and leading Crossfit classes. “People say,
dolls’ conversa- ‘Get a real job,’” she tells me. “I’m like, ‘OK, I’ll get a real job—but when you
But women tions with Fer- get home, you can’t watch TV, read a book, or [consume] anything made by
are finding rera help restore people like me!”
camaraderie their self-respect. On July 14, after contract negotiations broke down between SAG-AFTRA
anyway. “By giving voice and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the associa-
to the cognitive tion that represents companies and studios like Netflix, NBCUniversal, and
dissonance re- Paramount/CBS, Lua and approximately 160,000 of her fellow union members
quired to be a woman under the patri- walked off the job. Now that SAG-AFTRA has joined the Writers Guild of
archy, you robbed it of its power!” one America, which walked off in early May, a majority of Hollywood’s creative
Barbie tells her. workers are on strike. The last time a strike of this size happened in the industry,
Something similar seems to be hap- Ronald Reagan was president—of the Screen Actors Guild, not the country.
pening among members of the audience The gains from that walkout transformed the industry for generations of
at screenings of Barbie, and it is hap- Hollywood writers and actors to come—but a lot has changed since 1960. The
pening at other major events this sum- rise of streaming has remade the entertainment industry for consumers, and
mer as well: from Taylor Swift shows, film and television workers have borne the stress, uncertainty, and financial
for instance, where teenage girls trade fallout of that shift. “The studios always try to use new technologies in ways
friendship bracelets, to a Lizzo concert that can depress wages and talent’s share of the profits,” says Patric Verrone,
in Tennessee, where the singer invit- a former WGA West president and current negotiating committee member.
ed drag queens onstage in defiance of Performers and writers often rely on residuals—payments they receive
a state anti-drag law. In politics and in each time their work re-airs—to make ends meet. But the residuals for-
law, gender progress is rapidly disappear- mula for streaming services is leaving workers with less money in their
ing in America, and the forces of sexism, pockets, despite the streamers’ dominance in the industry. Shaan Sharma,
homophobia, and transphobia are strong a SAG-AFTRA LA Local board member who is on the contract negoti-
and emboldened. To the untrained eye, ating committee, sees the current pay structure as a way to force workers
it may seem that feminism is on the back to provide subsidies that enable massive companies to tinker with new
foot. But women are finding camaraderie and lucrative forms of entertainment. “Before we can catch up, they move
anyway, often in unexpected places—even on to the next thing…. We’re always—always—behind,” he says. “We’re
places like Barbie. N just being nickeled-and-dimed to death.” To address this, SAG-AFTRA is
demanding across-the-board wage increases, a new profit-sharing residual
Moira Donegan is a feminist writer living in system for streaming content, and a host of other changes that will ben-
New York and an opinion columnist at The
Guardian.
6 efit the many workers who are essential to a production, even though
they may not be stars or series regulars.
  T H E N AT I O N 8.21–28.2023

For Charlie Kesslering, a screenwriter and WGA to Netflix lays on the horn at the coaxing of a
captain who is also on the picket line, putting stronger striker with a bullhorn. “Chants like ‘Hey hey,
guardrails around the use of AI is also essential. He The last time ho ho, LA is a union town’—it’s true! It really
wants movies to stay human. “It’s less about whether it a strike of this is,” says Ben Keller, a SAG-AFTRA member
threatens my job and more whether it comes to threat-
en the things I grew up loving,” he says—meaning the
size happened, (and former Teamster). Already this spring and
summer, LA has seen strikes by teachers, dock
films that made him want to make his own. Ronald Reagan workers, and hotel workers.
Unexpectedly, SAG-AFTRA may be more united was president— SAG-AFTRA’s entry into the fight has
now than it has ever been. Since the film and television of the Screen helped boost the WGA’s strike with not only
actors’ unions merged in 2012, the new, larger union
has been rife with internal discord, disagreements over
Actors Guild, worker power but also star power. Verrone
says wryly that it’s a classic case of “the writers
strategy, and bad blood from past skirmishes. But in early not the country. come up with the ideas, and the actors make it
June, nearly 98 percent of the members who voted opted look good.” Outside Netflix’s back entrance,
to authorize a strike. Sharma, who has been critical of the union’s lead- Keller bounces around, using a cartoon-villain voice—think
ership in the past, says that SAG-AFTRA’s initial proposal was “unlike Plankton from SpongeBob SquarePants—to encourage the
anything that we’ve come in [with] in recent history.” picketers to “high-five” his sign with theirs. An older actor
“Everybody knows that we’re stronger together,” he continues. tells me that I missed Marianne Williamson on the picket
“Despite the mistakes of the past, everybody came together to really line by a day, then notes her resemblance to Sally Field, who
resoundingly say that this isn’t right. And we deserve more.” won an Oscar for a film about a strike. “There’s only one
Sharma credits the union’s president, Fran Drescher, the cocreator thing these people care about, and that’s money,” he says of
and star of The Nanny, with helping to mend some of the studio heads.
the rifts of the past. Drescher is a beloved figure from The de facto production shutdown has had a cascad-
the days of network television and is known for her fiery ing effect, with craft union members across town now out
anti-capitalist rhetoric. Her July
13 speech announcing the work
stoppage—“They stand on the
wrong side of history at this very
moment! We stand in solidari-
ty!”—went viral, and on July 18,
On the picket line: SAG-AFTRA and WGA workers
picket outside Netflix offices on July 19.

she doubled down by chewing

out Disney CEO Bob Iger during
a live Twitter conversation with
Senator Bernie Sanders: “There
he is, sitting in his designer
clothes, just got off his private jet,
at the ‘billionaires’ camp,’ telling
us we’re unrealistic, when he’s
making $78,000—a day!” Deliv-
ered in her raspy outer-boroughs
accent, Drescher’s barn-burning
proclamations made her sound
a lot like—well, Bernie Sanders.
Verrone, who led the WGA
during its 2007–8 strike, praises
Drescher’s performance thus far but notes that there’s still of work. Despite the financial strain, many of these work-
a long way to go. “Management is constantly trying to por- ers staunchly support the strikes; a favorable resolution
tray us as either corrupt or incompetent,” he says, “while at for the WGA and SAG-AFTRA could help IATSE, the
the same time trying to convince us that the membership is union that represents nearly all crew members, negotiate
revolting or that solidarity is breaking down.” a stronger deal when their contract expires next year.
It’s not clear whether these public criticisms will shame “The momentum is only growing,” Kesslering
the studios back into the negotiating room any faster, but says, gesturing across the street at the union members
MARIO TAMA / GETTY IMAGES

they’re certainly not hurting morale. On the picket line, the marching with their signs. “Nothing we’re asking for
near-constant honking in support of the striking workers is unreasonable.” N
punctuates their chants. The most resounding endorsements
come from fuel trucks; the driver of a semi delivering wares Piper French is a writer living in Los Angeles.
7
  T H E N AT I O N 8.21–28.2023

Howard University commencement address. The

Class Notes sociologist Frank Dobbin has examined affirmative
action’s roots in the private sector, as well, tracing
Adolph Reed Jr. its growth as a pragmatic policy in corporate human
resources departments, rather than as the spread of
radical egalitarian social theories.
It is the right that is responsible for much of
the attempt to elevate affirmative action to the
level of high moral principle, like so many of its
Trickle-Down Diversity bogus misdirection campaigns. Ideologues have
denounced affirmative action with a lofty rhetoric
I’ve long been a supporter of affirmative action, but it of “colorblind ideals” or “merit,” shifting attention
away from the prosaic fact that it is a technique of
has never been a means of reducing actual inequality.
antidiscrimination enforcement. Anti-egalitarians
have a long history of concocting formalist “prin-
hat does the us supreme court’s ruling
ciples,” whether by advocacy or denunciation, to
against affirmative action in college admissions perfume their ugly and ultimately anti-popular
have in common with proposals for eliminating political agendas.
the “racial wealth gap”? Neither will have any This was at play during the good cop/bad cop
impact whatsoever on the lives and material choreography that Southern elected officials crafted
circumstances of the vast majority of Black Americans. It’s in their campaign of “Massive Resistance” to the
little wonder, then, that the group that cares most passionately Brown v. Board of Education decision that outlawed
about both is the upper middle class. Why do they care so much? school segregation. The good cops contended that
Because neither is even supposed to have any impact on the lives they were not so much opposed to desegregation as
and material circumstances of the vast majority of Black Americans. they were concerned with defending the hallowed
Wealth and income differentiation have increased greatly among principle of “states’ rights.” I still recall North Car-
Black Americans since 1967, when the percentage earning the equiv- olina Senator Sam Ervin passionately playing the
alent of $150,000 a year or more was negligible. By 2018, 7 percent good-cop role, styling himself as a constitutional
of Black Americans earned more than $150,000. Similarly, more “strict constructionist,” which later became the
than three-quarters of so-called Black wealth is held by the richest basis for his rise to folk-hero status as a “coun-
10 percent of Black people. Over the course of a half-century of wid- try lawyer” protector of the Constitution during
ening national inequality, the goal of affirmative action has not been to the Watergate hearings—not to mention his 1977
combat that inequality but to diversify its beneficiaries. American Express commercial.
For that reason, I was reluctant to write about the Supreme Court In the years since its implementation, affirmative
decisions in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows action has been a useful instrument in the enforce-
of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University ment of antidiscrimination law. In the 1970s, it
of North Carolina and have not followed the cases closely. I’ve long significantly informed efforts to open access for
supported affirmative action, even as I’ve long understood that its nonwhites and women in occupations and job cate-
interventions might produce only narrow forms of egalitarianism. At gories—notably in police departments, fire depart-
its core, affirmative action is a technique in the implementation of ments, and air traffic control, in part because all are
antidiscrimination law, based on an understanding that overt prejudice in the public sector—from which those groups had
is too limited a standard for identifying redressable discrimination. previously been largely excluded. Perhaps its most
It was a recognition of that limitation that underlay early notions important victory came in the Supreme Court’s
of institutional racism. Affirmative action was not, historically, a prod- 1971 Griggs v. Duke Power ruling, which mandated
uct of Black activists operating in their own interests. The term first that only tests related to actual job performance can
appeared in a provision of the 1935 National Labor Relations Act that be used to screen job applicants. (Those who have
directed employers to redress discrimination against union organiz- plowed through Richard Herrnstein and Charles
ers. President John F. Kennedy echoed the terminology in Executive Murray’s odious racist tract The Bell Curve will
Order 10925, issued in 1961, which required government contractors recall that Griggs was its main practical target.) As
to “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, Dobbin shows in his book Inventing Equal Oppor-
and that employees are treated during employment, without regard tunity, the greatest evidence of affirmative action’s
to their race, creed, color, or national origin.” President Lyndon B. success is its routine incorporation into human
Johnson used the same language in Executive Order 11246, on Equal resources management practices. That success also
JOE CIARDIELLO

8 Employment Opportunity enforcement, issued in 1965, and had

articulated the notion more extensively three months earlier in his
underscores its key limitation.
As an instrument of antidiscrimination enforce-
 Actual size
is 38.1 mm

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  T H E N AT I O N 8.21–28.2023

ment, affirmative action is not equipped

to address broader economic inequality,
which has steadily intensified throughout
Forever Wars
American society since the 1970s across
race, gender, and sexual orientation. The
Spencer Ackerman
court’s 1978 ruling in Regents of the Univer-
sity of California v. Bakke shifted affirmative
action’s justification from combating in-
equality to the pursuit of “diversity.” This
provided a workaround to address the com-
plaint that affirmative action constituted
Deep State Takeover
“reverse discrimination,” but an unintend- Trump doesn’t want to destroy the security state. He wants to
ed effect was to obscure its inadequacy as a
bend it to his will.
remedy to rising poverty and the increasing
concentration of wealth.
Equal opportunity in a diverse society is
pon a white horse rides donald trump, man of
an unobjectionable ideal. However, within a destiny, determined to recapture the White House
regime of ever greater economic polariza- and, from there, to purge the deep state. “The State
tion, in the absence of a vigorous commit- Department, the defense bureaucracy, the intelli-
ment to egalitarian economic redistribution, gence services, and all the rest need to be complete-
the pursuit of equal opportunity has come ly overhauled and reconstituted to fire the Deep Staters and put
to center on facilitating access to the upper America First,” the twice-indicted GOP front-runner declares in
reaches of wealth, status, and power for a video on his campaign website. His terrible swift sword is necessary to
individuals held to embody previously un- avert the “nuclear Armageddon” he sees the Ukraine war slouching toward.
derrepresented groups. Technically, this is as This is part of the animating premise of Trump’s 2024 campaign to
defensible a standard of equality as any other. consolidate dictatorial power within the White House. Through dubious
In practice, however, it depends on a mysti- assertions of presidential authority and the removal of civil service protec-
fied, essentialist understanding of the rela- tions, Trump intends to “identify the pockets of independence” within the
tion between individual and nominal group: executive branch “and seize them,” his former budget director Russell T.
That Kamala Harris is vice president does Vought told The New York Times in mid-July.
little for any Black woman not named Ka- But Trump’s rhetoric is not just the revenge fantasy of someone under
mala Harris. Diversifying the upper class can multiple indictments, nor is it merely a cynical harnessing of right-wing
be an ideal only for a “left” that is totally em- bloodthirst. As president, Trump didn’t have a problem with the existence
bedded within neoliberalism. It’s the sleight of a so-called deep state; his problem was a deep state he didn’t control.
of hand that Barbara and Karen Fields call Consider the case of Rudy Giuliani, his two goons, and Ukraine.
“racecraft,” which permits the presumption For a short but dramatic time in 2019, Giuliani captained an effort to
that benefits conferred on upper-status peo- leverage Ukrainian military dependence on the US to benefit Trump’s
ple of color will trickle down to all the rest. reelection campaign. The former New York City mayor dispatched two
And that presumption, by the way, is the underlings, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, to dig up dirt on Joe Biden.
quintessence of racism. N They and their Ukrainian allies concocted a smear campaign against the
US ambassador, Masha Yovanovitch, driving a perceived obstacle out of
MORE ONLINE the US Embassy in Kyiv.
LEFT FROM TOP: SCOTT OLSON / GETTY IMAGES; MAHMOUD ISSA / SOPA IMAGES /

T h e N a t i o n. com /h i gh l i g hts
Giuliani’s proximity to Trump permitted the team to imply that they
i Abortion were acting in an official capacity. Parnas, through his lawyer, later said that
LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES; ILLUSTRATION: JOE CIARDIELLO

Denied: Repro- he floated to a Ukrainian official that Vice President Mike Pence wouldn’t
ductive Injustice attend Volodymyr Zelensky’s inauguration unless the new president an-
Behind Bars nounced an investigation into Biden and his son Hunter, who was appointed
VICTORIA LAW to the board of a Ukrainian energy company. It culminated in the Trump
administration freezing $400 million in weapons intended for Ukraine until
i I Stand by Ev- Zelensky did Trump the “favor” of investigating Biden. All this is familiar
ery Word of My enough, since it was the centerpiece of Trump’s first impeachment.
Palestine Speech Less often remembered is that Trump didn’t stop the arms provisions.
FAT I MA In 2018, Trump supplied Ukraine with its first Javelin anti-tank missiles, a
MO HA MME D
10 weapon that came to symbolize US allyship early in Russia’s invasion. During
his impeachment, Trump didn’t argue that cutting off weapons to Ukraine
  T H E N AT I O N 8.21–28.2023

was necessary to stop a NATO grift that detention. They reflect long-standing right-
was pulling “the world into a conflict with a wing aspirations and have conservative leg-
nuclear-armed Russia.” He instead boasted, Trump’s ambitions as acy infrastructure behind them. The Times
as an exoneration tactic, about surpassing a dictator represent reports that the Heritage Foundation leads
Barack Obama’s security aid to Ukraine. Project 2025, which Heritage president
Trump isn’t interested in stopping a US
the next turn of the Kevin Roberts calls a blueprint for “dis-
security strategy that he currently decries as ratchet for the “unitary mantling the rogue administrative state.” It
a glide path to world war. He wants to make executive” theory. is intended for use by any Republican who
that security strategy work for himself. ends up in the White House.
Giuliani’s Ukraine escapade should be seen in the same light. The point of purging the security state is to make sure that
This is the future of US intelligence that MAGA wants: aiming the people who staff it won’t stand in Trump’s way as he targets
its expansive, intrusive tools at domestic political opponents. his domestic enemies with the most intrusive means the gov-
We saw that unfold in the summer of 2020, when Trump sicced ernment possesses. The crackdown on the George Floyd pro-
the Joint Terrorism Task Forces on antifascists and Black Lives tests in the summer of 2020 was a prologue for what will happen
Matter protesters, sent drones into the skies above 15 cities, and should Trump return to power—and after 2016, there is no
had Homeland Security stuff demonstrators into unmarked vans excuse for thinking Trump can’t win. That means that the sur-
in Portland, Ore. Almost immediately after Trump lost the 2020 veillance and detention authorities, operations, and institutions
election, one of the two flunkies he installed as head of national that emerged out of the War on Terror must be understood as
intelligence, Richard Grenell, baselessly declared that Demo- weapons in the hands of a president determined to wield them
crats were stealing the election in Nevada. The other flunky, against Americans. These powers must be abolished before he,
John Ratcliffe, recently told Breitbart that China may have com- or another president, makes full use of their potential. That is
promised Biden—yes, Biden, whose initiatives to block China’s how to uproot a deep state—and stop an elected dictatorship
access to microchips critical to its economy risk precisely the before it starts. N
kind of disastrous great-power war
that allegedly worries Trump.
Trump could hardly be clearer O P P A R T / J E N S O R E N S E N
about his intentions. In the same video
pledging to purge the deep state, he
names the “greatest threat to West-
ern Civilization,” and it isn’t a foreign
threat. It’s a litany of right-wing domes-
tic grievances about everything from
insufficiently brutal border enforce-
ment to falling fertility rates. Among
them: “the Marxists who would have
us become a Godless nation worship-
ing at the altar of race and gender and
environment.” Even China, against
whom Trump launched a cold war that
Biden has run with, registers only as a
subsidiary foe in the predatory machi-
nations of the “globalist class.” Group-
ing Marxists and capitalists together is
notable less for its incoherence than
for displaying the right’s appetite for
domestic retribution.
Making the president an elected
king, capable of eliminating pockets
of independence within the executive
branch, is not Trump’s idea. His am-
bitions as a dictator represent the next
turn of the ratchet for the “unitary ex-
ecutive” theory familiar from George
W. Bush’s presidency, when it was
used to justify torture and indefinite
  T H E N AT I O N 8.21–28.2023

SNAPSHOT Heat Wave

Mohammed Abed Children play at the beach in Gaza City on July 27, amid scorching temperatures exceeding
104 degrees Fahrenheit and power cuts lasting up to 12 hours a day.

By the
Numbers
(the CEO of Warner
Bros. Discovery) in 53% C A LV I N T R I L L I N
the past five years Growth of Holly-
wood executive
DeadlinePoet
$377M
Barbie’s opening-
salaries between
2018 and 2021 Valuable Training
Opportunity
weekend gross
29.6% “Slaves developed skills which, in some
65%
FROM TOP: AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES; CHRIS PIZZELLO / AP PHOTO

Portion of screen-
writers in 2020 instances, could be applied to their personal
Portion of Barbie’s who were women benefit.”
opening-weekend —Florida’s African American history standards
audience who were
women 14%
Amount by which It sounds like an internship program
screenwriter pay
64% declined in the
past five years
With spots that weren’t easy to win.

$498M
Earnings of the
Portion of
Hollywood’s ex-
ecutive producers
For instance, you had to get kidnapped
And hauled off in chains to get in.
highest-paid Holly- in 2020 who were
wood executive white men
  T H E N AT I O N 8.21–28.2023

NE: In your exploration of “anti-crack hits”—pop-

ular rap and hip-hop music and movies—you argue
they were an unlikely but effective reducer of drug
use. Why do you think these hits worked better
than programs like Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No”
campaign?
DR: That was incredibly surprising to me. I grew up
during the ’90s, and you often heard from those cri-
tiquing it that hip-hop was glamorizing street life. And
the common refrain back then from rappers was that
Donovan X. Ramsey they were reflecting the reality. I always thought that
was a little bit cliché, but that was before I went into
the music, into the archives, and saw that rappers were
rapping about crack as early as 1984… years before
the mainstream media was reporting on it. Hip-hop
In When Crack Was King, the journalist Donovan was one of the areas where Black voices were mostly
X. Ramsey delivers an intimate account of one of uninterrupted, so the messaging not only was more
the most “misunderstood” epidemics in US history: honest, but it also resonated with young people in a
way that other messaging didn’t.
what he calls a “narrative intervention” in the myths
that have circulated since Ronald Reagan resumed NE: This book is obviously about the crack epidem-
the Nixon administration’s War on Drugs, leading ic, but it’s also about community. What did you
to the crack cocaine crisis of the 1980s and ’90s. learn about community through your research?
Ramsey, who grew up poor and Black in Columbus, Ohio, during the DR: I’ve learned that community, for marginalized
crack epidemic, came to realize that his community was “in the middle people, is really often the best thing that we have.
of an invisible war.” The Nation spoke with Ramsey about how the era’s Community is the safety net; community is the harm
legacy can be seen today, including how ’90s pop culture influenced reduction. The things that community can give you
the relationship that successive generations have had with drugs. are typically what keeps you from death. People can’t
—Naomi Elias give you a wraparound service to get clean and to get
housed and all of that, but what they can give you is a
NE: This book tells the story of the crack epidemic, but from below. place to sleep for the night. You had grandparents that
What was the appeal of approaching this subject from that perspective? took in grandchildren, churches that did gun buy-back
DR: The story of the epidemic had been told in bits and pieces, but programs or bailed out people who had been incar-
almost always through the voices of policy experts and politicians, not cerated or jailed for drug crimes. I’m emphatic that we
necessarily the people who were directly impacted. It seemed to me that have to invest in community at every level: individually,
in order to paint the full picture, it was necessary to talk to people who socially, our government. We have to look at where
were at the center of the harm of the period, and that was often Black the community interventions were [during the crack
and brown folks, poor folks from major cities. cocaine epidemic] and reinforce those. Intervention is
at the community level. N
NE: You write that the 1970s “marked the birth of America’s racial dou-
ble standard on drugs.” Could you explain that double standard?
DR: We use terms like “experimentation” for casual drug use by white
people. White drug addicts are treated mostly as tragic figures who
stayed at the party too long. People of color—Black people in particular—
aren’t given that kind of grace and understanding. Take marijuana, for
example: Black and white people use it at about the same rate, but Black
people are nearly four times more likely to be arrested for possession.
That’s a double standard. Cocaine illustrates it even better, because the
“crackhead” [caricature] applied most often to drug users of color stands
in such stark contrast to the glamorous image of white cocaine users that
emerged in the ’70s. In my research, I came across dozens of ads for lux-
ury cocaine paraphernalia—crystal vials, spoon pendants, gold razors—
that ran in major fashion magazines. That was the ’70s, but the idea of
powder cocaine as a glamour drug in white hands continues today.

“Community is the safety

ANTONIO M. JOHNSON

net; community is the harm

reduction.”
  T H E N AT I O N 8.21–28.2023

the main leverage in a private-sector strike. UPS

THE took note, delaying the release of its second-

ARGU quarter earnings report to investors until August.

In the end, the Teamsters extracted big conces-
sions from UPS, including a tentative agreement to

MENT The Case for

More Strikes
L U I S F E L I Z L E O N
end two-tier pay for drivers (a setup in which older
workers earn much more than new hires doing the
same work). The talks had broken down over part-
time pay. Now all part-time workers will get a $7.50
wage increase; starting pay will go up from $15.50 to
$23 by the end of the contract; and 15,000 part-time
n his book THE MAN WHO HATED WORK jobs will be combined and converted into 7,500 new
and Loved Labor, Les Leopold tells a full-time ones. In a July 25 statement announcing the
agreement, which members will vote on in August,
story of practice pickets in which the the union’s general president, Sean M. O’Brien,
late Tony Mazzocchi, then-president declared: “UPS has put $30 billion in new money
of Local 149 of the United Gas, Coke, on the table as a direct result of these negotiations.”
and Chemical Workers Union, led a Since the 1980s, the labor movement has wit-
contract campaign in the 1950s at a cosmetics plant nessed a steep decline in strikes—even including
on New York’s Long Island. As the contract expiration the tiny uptick in 2022. In the 1980s and ’90s, man-
loomed, Mazzochi knew that the workers needed to get ready for ufacturers took advantage of strikes by members of
a showdown with management. The key was organizing a credible the United Auto Workers (UAW) at small plants
strike threat. Mazzocchi’s solution was for workers to save for a strike outside of the Big Three automakers to perma-
fund and walk the picket lines of other striking workers for more than nently replace union workers with scabs.
35 days, as practice for their own coming battle. To bring the employers to heel, workers fought
“The company was scared shitless,” Mazzocchi told Leopold. “They back differently. Jerry Tucker of the UAW reform
knew we were having a pitched battle with those Nassau County cops movement New Directions encouraged tactics like
every day. The company figured, if you’re going to do this on somebody work-to-rule, in which workers follow manage-
else’s picket line, what are you gonna do when it’s your own?” ment’s rules to the letter to show that a business can-
UPS came close to asking a similar question, after some 340,000 not run without the expertise of workers, winning a
UPS Teamsters were poised for what would have been the largest strike 36 percent wage hike at one plant over three years.
at a single private-sector employer in decades. Today the strategy card
But one week before workers were set to pound deck has been reshuffled, and
the pavement, the Teamsters announced they had strikes are on the table again.
reached a tentative agreement with UPS manage- Unions nationwide Reform leaders in the UAW
ment. Put simply, their strike threat had worked. must take advantage have already started nego-
As the fighting spirit spreads among workers, of their leverage and tiations with the Big Three
unions nationwide must take advantage of their use the strike weapon automakers—Ford, Stellantis,
leverage and use the strike weapon more often, and General Motors, cover-
but they need to do it in such a way that the more often. ing 150,000 workers—ahead
rank and file is involved and demonstrating its of contracts expiring on Sep-
power. For example, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters has tember 14. With the campaign ramp-up on a short
provided UPS Teamsters around the country with the tools to orga- timeline, the union isn’t wasting a second, whipping
nize an aggressive contract mobilization, from campaign rallies and up fighting enthusiasm among the rank and file
contract-unity pledge cards to a national day of action and practice with contract actions nationwide.
picketing. With record approval ratings, a strong job market, and low We are witnessing an uptick in labor militancy
unemployment, unions are in a position to secure big wins—so long the likes of which we haven’t seen in decades.
as they keep the pressure on. Thousands of workers have started picket lines
UPS workers began to participate in practice pickets in late June, around the country, from striking screenwriters
with backing from the Teamsters for a Democratic Union. TDU and actors to hotel workers, locomotive manufac-
encouraged this worker-led tactic, and the international union lead- turing workers, and Amazon workers. It won’t last
ership promoted it. When contract talks broke down on July 5, every forever. The time to build credible strike threats
union local had practice picket signs, and the tactic took off, spread- and hit the bricks is now. N
14 ing to hundreds of work sites in 49 states.
A credible strike threat raises the specter of economic damage— Luis Feliz Leon is an associate editor at Labor Notes.
  T H E N AT I O N 8.21–28.2023

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR & PUBLISHER: Katrina vanden Heuvel

EDITOR: D.D. Guttenplan PRESIDENT: Bhaskar Sunkara
DEPUTY EDITOR: Christopher Shay
Suburban Blight multifamily lending in the LITERARY EDITOR: David Marcus
Bronx in the early 1990s with MANAGING EDITOR: Rose D’Amora
P.E. Moskowitz’s article SENIOR EDITORS: Emily Douglas, Shuja Haider, Regina Mahone,
“America’s Suburbs Are the Northwest Bronx Com- Jack Mirkinson (acting), Lizzy Ratner
Breeding Grounds for Fas- munity and Clergy Coalition CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Robert Best

cism” [ June 26/July 3] is an and have written about it. COPY DIRECTOR: Clay Thurmond

insightful, if still dishearten- The parallels between then RESEARCH DIRECTOR: Samantha Schuyler
COPY EDITOR: Rick Szykowny
ing, addition to the louden- and now of overfinancing
MULTIMEDIA EDITOR: Ludwig Hurtado
ing discussions surrounding and the terrible results for ENGAGEMENT EDITOR: Alana Pockros
urban planning in the United the affordability and decency ASSOCIATE LITERARY EDITOR: Kevin Lozano
States, especially concerning of people’s homes are very ASSISTANT COPY EDITORS: Haesun Kim, Lisa Vandepaer

the suburbs. disturbing. In 1987, the WEB COPY EDITOR/PRODUCER: Sandy McCroskey
NWBCCC and the Univer- ASSISTANT TO THE EDITOR: Ricky D’Ambrose
I’m a 24-year-old from a DC BUREAU CHIEF: Chris Lehmann
middle-class Midwestern sity Neighborhood Housing
INTERNS: Faith Branch, Mara Marques Cavallaro, Gemma Sack, Thea Smith,
suburb, and for a long time I Program realized that Fred- Kelli Weston • Janice Han (Design), Peter Lucas (Business)
didn’t know how to verbalize die Mac was making very NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENTS: Jeet Heer, John Nichols, Joan Walsh

the feeling of malaise that large mortgages on Bronx JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Elie Mystal
apartment buildings. By 1989, COLUMNISTS: Spencer Ackerman, Alexis Grenell, Kali Holloway, Jane
suburbia conjures within me. McAlevey, Katha Pollitt, Adolph Reed Jr.
But now the reasons are all Freddie Mac held $663 mil- DEPARTMENTS: Abortion Access, Amy Littlefield; Architecture, Kate Wagner; Art,
too clear. In too many suburbs lion in debt on more than 700 Barry Schwabsky; Civil Rights, Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II; Defense, Michael
buildings in the Bronx. To T. Klare; Environment, Mark Hertsgaard; Left Coast, Sasha Abramsky; Legal
around the country, there are Affairs, David Cole; Music, David Hajdu, Bijan Stephen; Palestine, Mohammed
too few accessible public green pay that debt, landlords raised El-Kurd; Poetry, Kaveh Akbar; Public Health, Gregg Gonsalves; Sex, JoAnn
spaces, a deluge of sparsely in- rents (legally and illegally) Wypijewski; Sports, Dave Zirin; United Nations, Barbara Crossette; Deadline
and cut services to tenants. Poet, Calvin Trillin
habited or lifeless commercial CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Robert L. Borosage, Bob Dreyfuss, Susan Faludi,
developments tied together The tenants organized, con- Thomas Ferguson, Melissa Harris-Perry, Doug Henwood, Anna Hiatt,
by car dependency, and a fronting both the landlords Naomi Klein, Sarah Leonard, Michael Moore, Eyal Press, Joel Rogers, Karen
and Freddie Mac. Freddie Rothmyer, Robert Scheer, Herman Schwartz, Bruce Shapiro, Edward Sorel,
pervasive air of individualist Jon Wiener, Amy Wilentz
classism. From its terrible Mac said it knew what it was CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Eric Alterman, David Bacon, Ross Barkan, James
environmental impacts to doing. But it didn’t: In 1989 Carden, Zoë Carpenter, Wilfred Chan, Michelle Chen, Bryce Covert,
and 1990, Freddie Mac lost Liza Featherstone, Laura Flanders, Julianne Hing, Joshua Holland, Greg
its contributions to political Kaufmann, Stephen Kearse, Richard Kreitner, Amy Littlefield, Dani
elitism and social isolation, $278 million on its multifam- McClain, Ben Moser, Ismail Muhammad, Vikram Murthi, Erin Schwartz,
suburbia is a hidden blight on ily portfolio—half its total Scott Sherman, Mychal Denzel Smith, Patricia J. Williams, Jennifer Wilson

the lives of millions. I urge losses for the period, even EDITORIAL BOARD: Emily Bell, Deepak Bhargava, Kai Bird, Frances FitzGerald,
Bill Fletcher Jr., Eric Foner, Bill Gallegos, Greg Grandin, Richard Kim,
The Nation to further empower though multifamily lending Tony Kushner, Elinor Langer, Malia Lazu, Richard Lingeman, Deborah
its readers to understand how was a small fraction of its W. Meier, Walter Mosley, Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Victor Navasky, Pedro
lending. The real losses were Antonio Noguera, Richard Parker, Elizabeth Pochoda, Albert Scardino,
their environment shapes their Rinku Sen, Waleed Shahid, Dorian T. Warren, Gary Younge
lives and to give them the felt by tenants who suffered DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS: Denise Heller
tools to design (and redesign) poor housing conditions, ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER, SPECIAL PROJECTS: Peter Rothberg

the more sustainable, more faced higher rents, or lost VICE PRESIDENT, COMMUNICATIONS: Caitlin Graf

fulfilling, and more accessible their apartments. Freddie E-MAIL MARKETING MANAGER: Will Herman
Mac should be using its gov- ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER, DEVELOPMENT: Guia Marie Del Prado
types of communities the US DEVELOPMENT MANAGER: Lisa Herforth-Hebbert
so desperately needs. ernment-backed financing DEVELOPMENT COORDINATOR: Laurel Larson-Harsch

Chase Coselman to support quality affordable FULFILLMENT MANAGER: Christine Muscat

fenton, mich. housing, not to enrich spec- ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER, ADVERTISING: Suzette Cabildo
ADVERTISING ASSISTANT: Eleanor Buchanan
ulators intent on sucking the
Predatory Financing DIRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY AND PRODUCTION: John Myers
value out of apartment build- PRODUCTION COORDINATOR: Duane Stapp
I’m glad Eileen Markey’s re- ings that are also people’s HR DIRECTOR: Susan Bluberg
porting revealed the impact of homes. Margaret Groarke ASSISTANT MANAGER, ACCOUNTING: Alexandra Climciuc

Freddie Mac’s overfinancing, bronx, n.y. BUSINESS ADVISER: Teresa Stack

PUBLISHER EMERITUS: Victor Navasky (1932–2023)
and I’m furious that the lend- The writer is a professor of polit- LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: E-mail to letters@thenation.com with name and
er is doing it again [“Investors ical science and the coordinator of address (300-word limit). Please do not send attachments. Letters are subject
Eat First,” June 26/July 3]. Community-Engaged Learning at to editing for reasons of space and clarity.
I helped organize around
Freddie Mac’s irresponsible
Manhattan College.
letters @thenation.com
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query form. Each issue is also made available at TheNation.com. 15
 Throughout the country, far-right groups are trying to
control what books kids can read. In one small town,
they tried to shut the library down altogether.
BY SASHA ABRAMSKY

Dayton, Wash.
odd vandenbark stands at a table in the dayton memo-
rial Library and spreads out a cluster of books. All are aimed
at children and young adults, with titles such as What’s the
T?, Gender Queer, This Book Is Anti-Racist, and When They
Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir. They focus
on race relations or issues of sexuality and gender identity and include titles that
were bought to help celebrate Pride Month or Black History Month. Some are
cardboard books, usually housed on the basement shelves that form the young
children’s section. They include Being You, Our Skin, and Yes! No!, which explore
issues of sexuality and consent in a way that kids who are still learning to read
might understand.
Over the past couple of years, movements that seek to ban books with
LGBTQ+ or racial justice themes have picked up steam in GOP-controlled
states around the country. Pro-censorship groups have sprung up at both the
local and national levels, pioneered by a Florida outfit with the Orwellian ap-
pellation Moms for Liberty. The organization is endorsed by Steve Bannon, the
Heritage Foundation, and other avatars of the hard right and has more than 200
local chapters. Egged on by such groups, legislatures in Texas, Florida, Okla-
homa, Idaho, Indiana, and other states have either passed or are considering
policies restricting what sorts of books can be on school library shelves or lent
to children from public libraries. The tiny town of Dayton is one of the latest
flash points of this effort to limit what young readers can access.
Dayton is in the heart of southeastern Washington’s farm country, nearly
300 miles from Seattle, 125 miles from Spokane, and 270 miles from Portland,
Ore., making it about as far from the region’s big cities as it is possible to be.
The little town’s Main Street is lined with old stores and cafes, including a drug-
store that still has its original soda fountain. The overwhelming majority of its
residents are white, and most are conservative; in recent elections, upwards of
70 percent of the county voted for GOP candidates.
In the early 19th century, Lewis and Clark’s expedition traveled through this
region. More than half a century later, following the routes of the new cross-
country railroads, pioneers began settling small communities like Dayton, which
was founded in 1871. By the early 20th century, townsfolk and nearby farmers,
many of them growing apples and Bartlett pears on the sprawling orchards that
drew water from the Touchet River, were pitching in for a fund to create a library,
selling baked goods and scrap metal to raise money. In the 1930s, then-Governor
Clarence Daniel Martin reputedly donated $5,000 of his own money to the li-
brary fund. And in 1937, in the heart of the Great Depression, WPA crews finally
made that hope a reality, building the little brick library on South Third Street
where Todd Vandenbark became the director in early 2021. That federal invest-
ment in local literacy—the sort of investment fiercely opposed by much of the
right today—gave the out-of-the-way community access to a collection of books
that could never have been matched by any of the town’s private individuals.

Sasha Abramsky is The Nation’s West Coast correspondent.

16 ILLUSTRATION BY ROSS MACDONALD
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For the better part of a century, the library was run by the who identifies as a lesbian and lives in what she
small town—Dayton’s population, even today, is only around calls a “two-mom” household, says she doesn’t
2,500 people—and offered free borrowing privileges to all care whom adults decide to sleep with. She
Columbia County residents. But in the early 2000s, when the does, however, believe that there is a threat of
library faced insolvency, three-quarters of the county’s voters “hyper-sexualization” of young children from
chose to establish a library district that would tax all county books with graphic content.
residents so that the library could survive and flourish. “The images are not blocked out,” Bess
But now the library is under attack. Would-be censors says, referring to the scenes in Gender Queer
were marshaled on Facebook by a depicting fellatio and masturbation. “That’s
young mother of two—and a one- pornographic. It’s not educational to learn how
time library worker in the nearby to perform a blow job at 12 years old, or how
townlet of Prescott—named Jessica to insert your fingers in a vagina. That’s not
Closet doors that have Ruffcorn. Motivated by religious educational. Our kids can’t even tell time on a
been painstakingly and political objections to the con- regular clock, and two-thirds of kids can’t read
tent of certain books, Ruffcorn and at grade level. We need to go back to reading,
pushed open over the her followers are demanding that writing, and math.”
past 60 years are now the “offensive” materials be re- For Amy Rosenberg, a trained librarian and
moved from the children’s section member of the Dayton-based group Neighbors
being slammed shut. and placed on the highest shelves United for Progress, which was formed last year
in the adult section, preferably with to push back against the attacks on the library
warning labels pasted onto their and other conservative initiatives, this is a dis-
covers. The effort began with a hit ingenuous argument. Yes, of course kids should
list of a handful of books, which soon grew to a dozen. At last be taught the basics in schools, but she also be-
The warriors: Moms
for Liberty’s Tia Bess count, the number exceeded 100 volumes. According to a lieves they should be allowed to read books that
with Florida Governor representative of Moms for Liberty, the group has no chapter might be outside their parents’ comfort zone,
Ron DeSantis at the in the area and is not involved in the campaign, but many of even if others find those books to be in dubious
group’s Philadelphia these titles have also been identified by Moms for Liberty as taste. When Rosenberg was a librarian, she re-
summit in June.
being particularly objectionable. calls, laughing, she would routinely stock books
When Vandenbark and his colleagues, backed up by the that she found offensive—such as children’s
library’s five-member board books by Rush Lim-
of trustees, refused to cave baugh—because patrons
to Ruffcorn’s demands, the group went for the had requested them or
nuclear option, circulating a petition to put a shown an interest in
measure on this year’s November ballot to dis- them. That was, she
solve the library system altogether. If it succeeds, said, the give-and-take
the community will lose its library and all of the of any library—a kind
services that the institution offers to residents in of freedom represented
the town and the surrounding rural county—a by the institution that is
stark small-town example of the changes a grow- now under threat in the
ing movement is trying to make across America. name of “liberty.”
“There’s an outrage
oms for liberty, which has machine in the coun-
become notorious for targeting try, and it’s continual-
libraries, originated during the ly putting fuel in and
pandemic, when it focused on throwing things against
fighting mask mandates, school the wall and seeing what
closures, and, in the wake of the 2020 George Floyd racial justice protests, any- sticks,” Rosenberg says over a beer in the gar-
thing that could be labeled “critical race theory.” In the years since, using the den of a little pub on Main Street. “Perceived
rhetoric of “parental rights,” it has spearheaded the growing opposition to the obscenity always sticks. I don’t understand the
discussion of gender and sexuality in the classroom, mobilizing campaigns to correlation between books on a shelf and harm-
remove books with gay and transgender themes from school libraries and from ing or grooming children. It doesn’t make sense
children’s sections of public libraries. It claims to have members representing all to me—but it sure seems to resonate.”
races and political leanings, including at least some members of the gay commu- And resonate it has. In the name of “parental
nity who share its objections to the content of books such as Gender Queer, with its rights,” closet doors that have been painstak-
MICHAEL M. SANTIAGO / GETTY IMAGES

explicit illustrations of sexual acts, and This Book Is Gay, which makes reference to ingly pushed open over the past 60 years are
the hook-up app Grindr—prompting some critics to claim that the book serves to now being slammed shut again in communities
encourage teenagers who might want to use the app to seek out sexual encounters. across America. Conservative political leaders
“We want to make sure the library books aren’t violating state statutes,” says in Florida, Texas, and other red states have
Tia Bess, an African American mother of three from Florida’s Clay County who vied with one another to sign the most restric-
is Moms for Liberty’s national director of engagement. “If you look at the Flor- tive laws against doctors providing medical
ida state statutes, it describes what is obscene—genitalia being exposed.” Bess, care to the transgender community, libraries
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lending books with “gay” themes to

minors, schoolteachers discussing issues
of sexuality and gender identity with
students, and schools teaching “criti-
cal race theory.” Conservative coun-
ties in Washington, Idaho, Michigan,
and elsewhere have taken up the cry
at the local level, seeking to punish
librarians and teachers who make “of-
fensive” materials available. Late last
year, the American Library Association
calculated that in the first eight months
of 2022, 681 libraries had faced ef-
forts to restrict book access, with 1,651
books challenged during that period.
Now that state legislators, and gover-
nors such as Florida’s Ron DeSantis and
Texas’s Greg Abbott, are stampeding to
join this game, 2023 will almost certain-
ly end up with even higher numbers.
Moms for Liberty has eagerly ridden
this wave, going well beyond objecting to a espite the first amendment’s protections of free speech and
handful of provocative books. The organization free expression, the United States has a long and inglorious history
has built up a formidable political machine that of book burning and idea banning. Take the Espionage Act, which
seeks to push school boards and local govern- allowed the postmaster general to deny mailing privileges to radical
ments to the right across a range of issues. It has magazines and newspapers during and after World War I, or the
sought to broaden the definitions of “harmful” Scopes Monkey Trial, or the bonfires of Beatles albums in the Deep South.
material and to create enough anxiety among James Joyce’s Ulysses, D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and William S.
librarians and schoolteachers that they end up Burroughs’s Naked Lunch, among other now-canonical works of literature, were
pulling controversial books of their own accord. all for a time either banned or published in expurgated editions.
The organization’s online publicity materials Movements from across the political spectrum have, at times, reached for
speak of a conspiracy “to psychologically manip- the tools of censorship. These days, the far right has hit
ulate students to accept the progressive ideology lists of books, and, for different reasons, so do some on the
The hit list: A
that supports gender fluidity, sexual preference other side of the political arena. In the UK, Roald Dahl’s member of Moms
exploration, and systemic oppression.” It has publishers rewrote sections of his works to remove language for Liberty displays
endorsed hundreds of school board candidates, that might cause offense to contemporary readers. In the US, some of the books the
many of whom have gone on to win and then certain books by Dr. Seuss have been removed from public group has targeted at
push local education policies in a more con- libraries because they have illustrations that look like ethnic aVero
campaign event in
Beach, Fla.
servative direction. The group’s meetings are stereotypes. Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn has been subject
rapidly becoming as much a part of the political to campaigns to eliminate it from curriculums for its use of
circuit for GOP candidates with national ambi- racist language. US publishing houses have hired “sensitivity”
tions, including Ron DeSantis, as those of the readers to make sure writers don’t step outside their lanes
NRA or CPAC. Hundreds of Moms for Liberty by writing about scenes and lead
chapters have been seeded around the country, characters with racial and cultur-
with members asked to sign a pledge to “honor al backgrounds that are different
the fundamental rights of parents including, but from those of the authors. At least
not limited to, the right to direct the education, one well-known young adult fiction With the country riven
medical care, and moral upbringing of their chil- writer postponed publication of her
dren.” Once they sign on, they are described by work after being accused of cul- by political and cultural
the group as “joyful warriors.” tural insensitivity, and many other conflicts, libraries find
This spring, the Southern Poverty Law Cen- authors have reported feeling in-
ter categorized Moms for Liberty as an extremist timidated by the process. On social
themselves navigating
group, describing it as “a far-right organization media, a single reader’s objection to a minefield of compet-
that engages in anti-student inclusion activities.” a book can explode into widespread
ing demands.
GIORGIO VIERA / AFP / GETTY IMAGES

Despite that kind of designation—or maybe denunciation, harassment, or “can-

because of it—Moms for Liberty’s rhetoric is celing” of the author, a pattern that
now firmly center stage, and Bess dismisses does not go unnoticed by decision-makers in the industry.
the SPLC’s censure as “intimidation tactics and In the 2020s, with the country riven by political and cul-
scare tactics.” As she puts it, “I’m far from white, tural conflicts, libraries find themselves navigating a minefield
5-feet-2, brown skin, been Black my entire life. of competing demands. But these campaigns aren’t all equiv-
Why would you put me on a list with the KKK?” alent. Efforts on the left to alter or restrict access to books or
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a lengthy screed on Facebook dis-

missing Vandenbark’s concerns as
“some phsyco [sic] babble about
the rise in LGTBQ+ [sic] popula-
tion especially a rise in our youth
and how they are more likely to
commit suicide.” But the numbers
back Vandenbark up. In 2022,
the Trevor Project, a crisis in-
tervention and suicide prevention
organization for the LGBTQ+
community, estimated that 28
percent of LGBTQ+ youths had
reported being homeless at some
point in their lives. In 2015, the
US Transgender Survey found
that more than half of transgender
youths who had experienced mul-
tiple instances of discrimination
or violence in the past year had
attempted to kill themselves.
In all the years she has lived
in Dayton, Weldert tells me, she
has never faced trouble based on
her gender. In fact, it is when she
authors are not backed up by major legislative efforts or by the voices of powerful visits the big cities on the coast that she has
elected officials. Censorship from the right, by contrast, as pushed by groups such been subject to threats and intimidation. Now,
as Moms for Liberty, now has a vast political infrastructure behind it, its goals however, the library battle is bringing ancient
central to the political identities of rising stars such as DeSantis and Georgia prejudices to the surface once more. “It makes
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. As a result, it is far more dangerous, me feel like even though people say I’m safe,
capable of long-term cultural damage, and well-positioned to further marginal- I’m not sure that I am,” she says. “From the
ize vulnerable people. The campaign to disappear the stories and experiences of rhetoric at these meetings, why would I feel
gay or transgender Americans doesn’t stop with books, either: Some members safe? It’s uncomfortable. Maybe I should back
of Moms for Liberty, according to the website Pinknews, have openly called for off, stay at the house, and be afraid. But that’s
LGBTQ+ kids to be educated in separate classrooms from not me. I’m going to come out and be visible.”
other students. But whether Dayton’s children will get to
Regina Weldert is a 72-year-old transgender resident of read about people like Weldert in the future,
Freedom to read:
Former Dayton Dayton who transitioned in her 60s, shortly after she retired by checking out books on the transgender ex-
library director Todd from her job as a fish biologist and started a coffee roasting perience at the local library, remains an open
Vandenbark displays company in town. “I retired on September 30, and on Octo- question.
a book from the ber 1, I showed up as Regina, and I’ve never been anything
children’s section.
other than that since then,” she says, her white hair cascading
over her shoulders and her toenails painted a brilliant red.
There’s a real risk, Weldert believes, that censoring books
on the LGBTQ+ experience could
harm the very children people like
Ruffcorn claim to be protecting. “It
gets to the point where we’re not
For more than a year, protecting children and are creating
a lot of animosity and discomfort
Vandenbark stood for children who need guidance on
firm, refusing to sexual orientation,” she says. “If we
remove or put don’t allow them to learn, the alter- culture war.
native is they run away from home For more than a year, Vandenbark stood
warning labels on and become alcoholics or drug ad- firm, refusing to remove or label the challenged
the challenged books. dicts or sex workers. Or they com- books, even when the level of acrimony be-
mit suicide.” gan to rise—including, as with many political
Vandenbark thought so too, crusades in recent years, on Facebook. One
SASHA ABRAMSKY

which was part of the reason he had fought so hard to keep comment proclaimed that “The IDIOTS who
the books available in the children’s section of the library. It are promoting this crap need to be in prison,
was a position that infuriated his opponents. Ruffcorn posted or pushing daisies up from the roots.” Another
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called Vandenbark’s book choices a deliberate books and threatening to close the library is a bridge too far. As
effort to desensitize and “groom” children. a mother herself, she remembers how much the library meant
Offline, he faced down a group called Colum- to her when she was young.
bia County Conservatives (CCC), run by a “I was always an avid reader,” Severe says. “I’d challenge
former county commissioner and special forces myself to read the classics over the summer—Jane Eyre, Lady
operative named Chuck Amerein, which took a Chatterley’s Lover. I had this huge list that I was very proud to
slightly different tack: While CCC’s members tick off. The best time to read was in the harvest field—it was
also opposed the content of the books that were hot, sunny, quiet.”
being displayed in the kids’ section, their rhet-
oric tended to focus more on what they saw as
the library’s waste of taxpayer dollars. This was
in keeping with the group’s broader worldview:
It has also opposed the building of a child care
center—one member spoke out at a public
meeting to say the service was unnecessary be-
cause women should stay at home and look after
their kids—as well as a bike trail and a com-
munity center. (Amerein didn’t return phone
messages asking him to comment for this story.)
Throughout this period, the library’s
five-person board of trustees backed up Van-
denbark, despite the recent appointment of a 300 signatures, and that she was
member of Columbia County Conservatives to confident the proposition would be on the ballot come No-
the board by the conservative county commis- vember. “There are a lot of people upset about the books
sioners. “Nothing got banned,” says Jay Ball, and budget, and a lot of people not happy with our director,”
a book-loving auto mechanic who moved to Ruffcorn said. “We’ve asked to have a few books moved and a
Out and visible:
Dayton in the early 2000s and is currently chair policy to protect our kids. We’ve been shot down every time.” Regina Weldert, a
of the library board. “We’re in the middle of If the referendum passes, the library will be defunded, transgender resident
it. It’s not that much fun. But we stick with it.” its collection seized by the state and distributed to the state of Dayton, opposes
Elise Severe, a 36-year-old self-proclaimed library, and a treasured local institution will bite the dust, the campaign against
“opinionated stay-at-home mother” who grew a casualty of America’s take-no-prisoners culture wars. Yet the library.
up on a wheat farm just outside town, isn’t tak- Ruffcorn, a diminutive, soft-spoken young mother who
ing any chances. Worried that the library board homeschools her kids and heads the local Little League,
wouldn’t have the strength, in the long run, to doesn’t see her campaign as censorship, but rather as a fight for individual free-
stand up to a large community effort to defund dom: the right for parents to limit the flow of information to their children.
the library or to stop the county’s rightward To her and her Facebook followers, books about young people exploring their
lurch, she set up a political sexuality are simply pornography by another name. And
action committee, Neigh- allowing children to peruse these books in the library, es-
bors United for Progress. pecially those that validate gay and transgender feelings,
It’s made up of moderates makes librarians little better than pedophiles and groom-
from both political parties ers. Ruffcorn’s Facebook profile image carries the motto:
and has a mission to push “Let men be masculine again. Let women be feminine
back against Ruffcorn, again. Let kids be innocent again.”
Amerein, and other local Standing on her front porch in a T-shirt reading
agitators. NUP’s members “Adulting Requires Alcohol,” Ruffcorn argued that the
have been putting forth books she had targeted “involved sexually explicit ma-
alternatives to CCC’s po- terial, sexual material involving minors, abuse against
sitions at public hearings, minors,” as well as “racial topics—basically racist books.”
educating residents about Ruffcorn felt that placing these books at the eye level of
the dangers of Ruffcorn’s young children exposes them to offensive ideas against
efforts, and recruiting their will and against the wishes of their parents. “My
slates of candidates to run 8-year-old, looking for a dinosaur book, doesn’t need to
for public office against come upon a sex book instead,” she says.
hard-right candidates. Ruffcorn’s actions have sparked a furor in Dayton,
The group’s chosen candidate for county com- and even many conservatives there say she has gone too far. “I’m a conservative
missioner, a moderate conservative named Jack Christian. I’ve been in church leadership for 20 years,” says Tanya Patton, a
Miller, defeated Amerein last year in the first of special-education teacher who led the campaign to create the library district
what they hope will be several electoral victories nearly 20 years ago. But, she says, “I support 100 percent the freedom to read. I
GEORGE GAGNON

in the coming years. Severe has even convinced believe passionately in libraries and the value of libraries.” In a town as small and
her parents, both of them moderately conserva- remote as Dayton, the library provides benefits to its residents that would other-
tive by temperament, that restricting access to wise remain lacking. In the information age, libraries function as much more than
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places to borrow books—they provide access to computers, attends the classes. Nobody goes to the teen
public space, and various social services. events or the computer classes. It’s a very small
“It doesn’t make sense to me,” Patton says. “I have the group that go to the story hour. The librarian
right to take the books out or not take them out. If there’s a has pushed people away; they don’t think it’s a
movie on TV, I have the right to watch it or not watch it. But safe space anymore.”
I don’t have the right to tell others what to watch or read. It In spite of Ruffcorn’s claim to speak for the
doesn’t seem right to me that one person or group of people broader community, her disregard for the li-
is making moral or ethical judgments about certain content brary was hardly unanimously embraced—even
and saying it needs to be singled out among those who otherwise shared her values.
and labeled as dangerous.” More- “Dayton is a small-town, good-old-boy place,
over, she says, the whole thing is where certain things are not accepted,” one
a red herring: If kids want to find very religious, very conservative worker at the
Library-defunding certain material, all they have to local drugstore told me. But she couldn’t get
do these days is whip out their on board with the anti-library effort. “It would
battles are unfolding smartphones. To Patton’s mind, re- be very detrimental to our community if the
all over the country, moving books from libraries simply library were to be closed,” she said. “I was at
makes them desirable contraband. the library today, printing some papers on my
including just across In mid-June, Ruffcorn turned lunch hour, and I got a movie. That’s how I
the state line in Idaho. in 16 pages of signatures to the spent my lunchtime.”
county courthouse for verification.
She told me that she put the odds of
the measure passing at about 50/50.
But by that time, the local prosecutor had sent a letter to
the state attorney general asking for an informal opinion on
The battleground:
whether the dissolution petition was constitutional. There
Dayton Memorial was a strong legal argument to be made against putting such
Library, the heart of a measure on the ballot in the first place. In another twist,
the rural library dis- the attorney general concluded that because of an obscure
trict now threatened provision in the state Constitution regarding rural library
with closure.
districts, only residents of the unincorporated part of the
county would get to vote on the measure; Dayton’s residents,
bizarrely, would have no say. That was yet another reason why opponents hoped
that their own attorney would be able to persuade a judge to block the initiative. Last year, a group called Concerned Citizens
As it turned out, days after Ruffcorn submitted her petition, the court ruled of Meridian began encouraging its members to
that a majority of the signatures were illegitimate, leaving her campaign a handful attend library board meetings. They presented
of signatures short of what it needed. The rules stipulated that she would have to lists of books that they said needed to be either
start from scratch, gathering all of the signatures all over again. removed from the library or cordoned off—much
But the petition itself wasn’t the only cause for alarm. It’s likely that the as pornographic videos used to be restricted to
conservative three-person Board of County Commissioners will, in the coming adults-only sections in video rental stores. When
years, continue to appoint people to the library’s board who reflect the values the librarians and trustees responded that they
of Ruffcorn and her fellow petitioners. In other words, Ruffcorn could lose in wouldn’t enforce censorship, CCM returned
November and yet still ultimately come out on top, setting a precedent in which (continued on page 29)
a few angry citizens would get to dic-
tate to librarians which books should
carry warning labels, or be relegated
to the top shelf of the adult section,
or require parental approval for a
child to check out.
Ruffcorn wasn’t concerned about
the resources that would be lost if
the library were dissolved. In fact,
she questioned the value of the insti-
tution altogether. “I think libraries
in this digital world are becoming
less and less of a priority,” she told
me. “We have enough resources in
this town to make up some of the
losses. The way our library is being
run doesn’t make it an asset any
JAY BALL

longer. From the people I’ve talked

to, they don’t really use it. Nobody
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as a report by the Network for Public Education

The New showed. They talked about “parental rights” and
“school choice,” and they railed against the fed-

Red Meat
Abortion has become a toxic issue for
eral government’s involvement in schools. “We
don’t need a federal Department of Education,
folks!” Walters said, as the audience went wild,
roaring and clapping. “Lotta moms like to hear
Republicans. So now they’re pivoting. that!” Tiffany Justice exclaimed.
I turned around to find that almost all of the
BY AMY LITTLEFIELD other journalists were gone. That seemed to be
what Christian Ziegler was after. By wrapping
ver the fourth of july weekend, moms for liberty held a packed its efforts in rhetoric about parental rights and
summit in downtown Philadelphia, its second-ever national con- protecting children, Moms for Liberty has suc-
vening. Founded in 2021, the fast-growing group claims 120,000 cessfully presented itself as just a group of angry
members in 285 chapters across 45 states, with hundreds of endorsed moms shouting down “wokeness,” rather than
candidates elected to school boards to promote purging “critical race as the latest link in a decades-long conservative
theory” and books with transgender characters from classrooms. At one session project to undermine public education while
I attended, titled “(Wo)manhandling the Media,” the group’s strategy became upholding white supremacy and patriarchy. In
crystal clear. Led by Christian Ziegler, the chair of the Florida Republican Party 1982, President Ronald Reagan called for shut-
and the husband of Bridget Ziegler, a Moms for Liberty cofounder and Sarasota ting down the Department of Education in a
County School Board chair, the session provided lessons for new recruits on how State of the Union address. More than 40 years
to get the media—whom Ziegler described as a bunch of “lazy” liars—to boost later, the most significant change in the right’s
their chapters’ profiles. A centerpiece of this approach involved using high-profile strategy is its use of transphobia to cast public
politicians to lure reporters to an event. “The media will show up because they’re schools as dens of indoctrination and danger. And
thinking that what [the elected officials] say is going to be news—not your chap- it’s working: People across the political spectrum
ter, no offense,” he told a chapter head from a blue state who’d complained that are being swayed by the right’s fearmongering
journalists weren’t covering her rallies. “So you got to piggyback off those VIPs as about trans kids; a Washington Post–KFF poll last
much as you can. It’s like this summit, right?” year found that a majority of Americans believe,
Right. I had to admit, that was why I was there—along with 132 other journal- for example, that trans women and girls should
ists, according to media handlers for the event. not be allowed to play sports with their peers.
The previous weekend had been the first anniversary Examples of conservatives’ efforts to stoke
of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, the Supreme Court anti-trans sentiment were everywhere. In the
decision that overturned the legal right to abortion na- exhibit hall, I picked up a “ministry curriculum”
tionwide. Anti-abortion leaders had rallied in Washing- At the Moms titled “God Created Them Male and Female,”
ton, D.C., to celebrate, inviting presidential candidates produced by a nonprofit called Advocates Pro-
from the party responsible for that monumental victory
for Liberty tecting Children. It contained a lesson that
to join them. The only one who came was Mike Pence. summit, their would teach children in elementary school to
The Moms for Liberty summit, by contrast, attracted real agenda recite the phrase “God created people male and
five candidates, including front-runners Donald Trump female; there is nothing else.”
and Ron DeSantis. Their mere presence quickly became becomes Abortion, the premier social conservative is-
the story itself—which suited Ziegler just fine. “Moms crystal clear. sue of the past half-century, was barely mentioned
for Liberty Didn’t Exist 3 Years Ago. Now It’s a GOP on the day I was there. I was beginning to realize
Kingmaker,” read a headline in The Washington Post that why. A majority of Americans disagree with the
morning. Ziegler called it “probably the best headline I’ve ever seen.” overturning of Roe, and Republicans are paying
At the event, the candidates played to the crowd. DeSantis gave his standard the price politically. The framework of parental
speech against wokeness and drag queens at breakfast time. Trump had the closing rights has given conservatives a way to meet the
spot that evening, drawing a raucous reaction from the crowd when he compared post-Dobbs moment by painting their opponents
“radical left socialism” to a religion: “Instead of taking children to church, they as the extreme ones. I asked Bridget Ziegler why
believe in taking children to drag shows,” he said. For all their fire and brimstone, I had heard so little at the Moms for Liberty con-
though, the candidates weren’t the real story. That was on display during lunch, ference about abortion. She told me she thought
when top education officials from four states—Florida, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and the summit probably “represents the country as
South Carolina—took the stage with Moms for Liberty cofounder Tiffany Justice. far as a spectrum,” although by that she meant
Their goal seemed to be to disparage public schools, painting a picture of a “lit- that some people were probably “pro-choice, not
eracy crisis” that they blamed on teachers’ unions and the encroachment into the pro-abortion.” But the topic wasn’t likely to come
classroom of “woke nonsense.” “These are folks that want to destroy our society; up at school board meetings, she added, unless it
they want to destroy your family, and they want to destroy America as we know was in relation to school-based medical clinics.
it,” Oklahoma schools superintendent Ryan Walters said. In May, Oklahoma’s Then she put into practice a lesson from that
governor signed a law creating a tax credit for families who send their children to morning’s media strategy session, steering our
private schools or homeschool them. The officials all spoke of the need to return to a conversation back to her talking points. “It really
“classical” education, which has become a dog whistle for Christian nationalists who comes down to parental rights,” Ziegler said. “I
oppose efforts to teach children about racism and gender diversity in the classroom, mean, that’s really the core issue.” N
23
 “I Needed
Asian
Plaintiffs”
Inside Edward Blum’s cynical, astroturfed effort
to convince the Supreme Court that
affirmative action hurts Asian Americans.

Legal architect: In
June, the Supreme
Court gave Edward
Blum his most con-
sequential victory
since his successful
challenge to the
Voting Rights Act.
  T H E N AT I O N 8.21–28.2023

affirmative action,” Chin says. “The

relief isn’t to eliminate discrimination
against Asian Americans. It’s the exact
same relief they asked for in the Abigail
Fisher case.”
Critics maintain that Blum’s lawsuit
BY KALI H O L L O WAY
relied on and perpetuated the “model
minority” myth, which stereotypes Asian
n the late 1990s, after making a “small fortune” as a stockbroker, Americans as intelligent, high-achieving,
Edward Blum quit his day job to focus on finding plaintiffs for lawsuits that and economically successful—but also
would seek to overturn racial equality legislation. Nearly 30 years into his docile, obedient, and politically silent.
second career as a self-described “legal entrepreneur,” Blum has fulfilled The term first appeared in a 1966 New
another of his most cherished goals: having the Supreme Court’s conserva- York Times Magazine article, itself an
tive majority overturn nearly 50 years of legal precedent to end affirmative action unsubtle rebuttal to the era’s Black civil
in college admissions—which the justices did in June with Students for Fair Ad- rights movement. By suggesting that
missions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina. Asian Americans have overcome racial
The ruling is Blum’s most consequential win at the court since 2013’s Shelby discrimination through uncomplaining
County v. Holder, which sanctioned voter suppression by effectively nullifying the diligence, groups like SFFA can frame
Voting Rights Act. It also serves as proof of Blum’s commitment to weaponizing racial justice policies as entitlements that
the courts to roll back hard-fought civil rights gains. His first attempt to have the take from hardworking Asians and give
Supreme Court dismantle affirmative action was Fisher v. University of Texas, de- to underachieving Blacks and Latinos—
cided in 2016, in which Blum’s plaintiff was a white woman named Abigail Fisher. an equation that conveniently omits
That attempt failed. Perhaps recognizing that such an obviously undeserving white folks altogether.
plaintiff made for a poor litigant—not only did Fisher lack the grades and test “SFFA is trying to create this es-
scores for admission to UT Austin, but nearly 170 Black and Hispanic students sentialized picture of Asian Americans
with as good or better metrics were also rejected—Blum changed legal strategy. as a monolithic group universally dis-
This time around, Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), a legal nonprofit founded advantaged by affirmative action pol-
by Blum for the express purpose of outlawing affirmative action in college admis- icies. But we know this simply isn’t
sions, sued Harvard and the University of North Carolina, claiming that their true,” Kylan Tatum, copresident of the
race-conscious admissions favored unqualified Black and His- Harvard-Radcliffe Asian American As-
panic students, while “intentionally discriminating” against sociation and a rising junior at the uni-
deserving Asian American applicants. versity, told me. Tatum, who describes
In a 2015 speech that’s still on YouTube, Blum, who is white, themself as both Black and Asian,
said, “I needed Asian plaintiffs.” That disclosure drove suspi- points out that “the majority of Asian
cions that Blum has used Asian Americans to advance his white- Americans support affirmative action.”
supremacist agenda. Wang Qianxun, In fact, a Pew Research poll released
who just completed her sophomore in June 2023 found that Asian Ameri-
year at Harvard, where she is copres- cans approve of affirmative action at a
ident of the school’s Asian American higher rate than the general US adult
“SFFA is trying to Association, cites the video as evidence population. A 2020 survey by APIAVote
create a picture of that Blum’s anti-affirmative-action and other Asian American and Pacific
lawsuit “isn’t a cause that originated Islander organizations found that 70
Asian Americans as a within Asian American communities.” percent of Asian Americans support “af-
monolithic group uni- Blum’s skeptics also include Mar- firmative action programs designed to
garet Chin, who as a Harvard under- help Black people, women, and oth-
versally disadvantaged graduate in 1983 cowrote “Admissions er minorities” in higher education.
by affirmative action.” Impossible”—a paper cited by Blum In 2022, the same poll found Asian
—Kylan Tatum, Harvard-Radcliffe in his Harvard complaint—demand- American support at 69 percent, with
Asian American Association ing that colleges increase Asian Amer- 80 percent of Indian Americans, 82 per-
ican student admissions. Chin told me cent of Korean Americans, 67 percent of
that Blum’s use of her paper “surprised” her because of “its very Vietnamese Americans, and 67 percent
specifically pro-race-conscious” conclusion, which, she says, of Filipino Americans in favor.
Blum grossly misrepresented. “I went to Harvard because of a Chinese Americans were least likely
minority recruiter. It’s because they saw my race—because they to support affirmative action, at levels
CHIP SOMODEVILLA / GETTY IMAGES

went to [New York City’s] Chinatown—that I happened to meet wavering between 56 and 59 percent
the person who convinced me to think about going to Harvard,” in the annual APIAVote polls and at
Chin says. “I owe everything to affirmative action.” 45 percent in the Pew study. OiYan
Chin, who testified on Harvard’s behalf at trial, also sees Poon, former director of Colorado State
Blum’s recruitment of Asian students as a cynical tactic that University’s Race and Intersectional
belies his claims of dedication to remedying anti-Asian bias. “If Studies for Educational Equity (RISE),
you look at the actual court documents, the relief is to eliminate cowrote a 2018 study that examines
25
  T H E N AT I O N 8.21–28.2023

why Chinese Americans are outliers annual wages of just $44,400. As of 2019, ac-
among Asian Americans. The study cording to Pew, approximately 10 percent of
found that many Chinese immigrants Asian Americans live below the poverty line, a
“If you look at the were connecting online through the figure that increases to 13 percent for Cambodi-
Chinese-language app WeChat, ans, 17 percent for Hmong, and 25 percent for
court documents, the where misinformation about affirma- Mongolians and Burmese. Among Asian Amer-
relief isn’t to eliminate tive action proliferates. “Many of the icans age 25 and older, 75 percent of Indian
folks that are leading the anti-affir- Americans possess bachelor degrees, though the
discrimination against mative-action movements here in the same is true of just 17 percent of Laotians and
Asian Americans.” US came here as graduate students, 15 percent of Bhutanese. And unemployment
—Margaret Chin, Hunter College and after going to elite colleges in main- rates are higher among Pacific Islanders than
CUNY Graduate Center land China,” Poon told Mother Jones any other ethnic or racial group in the US.
in 2018. “They have a belief that For many AAPI students, affirmative action
high-stakes testing is the only and fair way to get into the best is critical to leveling the playing field in college
colleges.… Many of them, because of their class status, end up admissions, and studies agree that affirmative
in relatively white and upper-middle-class communities. And action benefits Asian Americans. It’s a fact that
that allows for the kind of development and perpetuation of Blum tries to hide by denying the existence of
stereotypes of other people.” affirmative action’s many AAPI beneficiaries.
Alex Chen is the founder of the Silicon Valley Chinese In a lawsuit against Yale, SFFA’s complaint took
Association Foundation, which filed an amicus brief in support pains to note that “references to Asian applicants
of SFFA. In a 2018 interview in The New Yorker, Chen said that will exclude racially-favored Asian applicants
affirmative action taught people to think they “don’t need to who identify, at least in part, as from a favored
work hard,” because they “still can get into a top school.” Kenny Asian-American subgroup, such as applicants
Taking aim: Abigail Xu, the 26-year-old son of Chinese immigrants, who is on the who identify as Cambodian, Hmong, Laotian,
Fisher, the plaintiff SFFA board, is a self-appointed spokesperson for Asian Amer- or Vietnamese.” The implication was that Cam-
in Edward Blum’s
previous legal chal-
icans who oppose affirmative action. “Affirmative action was bodian, Hmong, Laotian, and Vietnamese appli-
lenge to affirmative created because people saw so few Black Americans elevated, cants benefited from affirmative action but that
action, spoke outside in the sense that they wanted to. And so, they started to want other Asian groups didn’t.
the Supreme Court to create a program to be able to uplift them,” Xu said in 2021. “This is the point that makes me seethe,”
in 2015. “That eventually morphed into ‘We just want to lower the bar, says Marie Bigham, the founder and executive
so that more African Americans with lower skills can get into director of ACCEPT (Admissions Community
the same job that a white American would have otherwise gotten with higher skills.’” Cultivating Equity & Peace Today). “I am a
Xu is also the president of Color Us United, which says it is working for a multiracial Vietnamese woman. [Blum] has taken
“race-blind America.” He frequently appears as a talking head on right-wing it upon himself to redefine ‘Asian’ in this country
media, though he appeared on CNN the day and to inform me I am no lon-
of SFFA’s win to applaud the end of race- ger Asian, but that I am, as he
conscious admissions. And he often tweets describes it, ‘preferred Asian.’
that it’s “not racism” that causes racial ineq- That speaks to his awareness
uities but Black “culture,” which he contrasts that the Asian experience is
with “the culture of hard work and family not a monolith. The rest of
discipline that contributes to Asian success us—the ‘preferred Asians,’ as
in America.” “I’ll come out and say it: yeah, he describes us—experience
we’re model minorities,” Xu wrote on social exclusion in a pretty impactful
media earlier this year. “Heck yeah, people and very serious way.”
should be like us in education and hard work.” “It’s sort of a paradox
For Aarti Kohli, the executive director of that [Blum] is leveraging the
the Advancing Justice–Asian Law Caucus, Xu’s model-minority myth and
comments represent a gross misrepresenta- putting forth this idea that
tion of the demographics of Asian Americans. Asian Americans don’t benefit
“There is this perception that Asian Americans are all doctors, engineers, lawyers,” from race-conscious policies,” says Sally Chen,
Kohli says. “But the model-minority myth hides the needs of many members of our a 2019 Harvard graduate who now works for
communities. If you look at college completion rates for Native Hawaiian, Pacific Chinese for Affirmative Action and testified
Islander, and Southeast Asian communities, they’re very low. And it’s really unfortu- on Harvard’s behalf against SFFA. “That logic
nate that those members of our communities are not seen.” negates a lot of the realities of what Asian Amer-

I
icans face in society and on the road to higher
n the mid-1960s, anti-asian immigration quotas were raised just enough education and beyond.”
J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE / AP

to allow in highly skilled immigrants. But between the first wave of arrivals During the litigation over Fisher, more than
and more recent Asian immigration, the Asian American and Pacific Islander 160 AAPI groups filed amicus briefs in support
community has developed the greatest economic and education gaps of any of affirmative action; in this year’s affirmative
racial or ethnic group in the United States. Indian families top the AAPI in- action case, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund
come list with a median of $119,000 a year, while Burmese families report median submitted amicus briefs on behalf of 25 Harvard
26
 Asian American and Pacific Islander, Latinx,
Black, and Native American student and alumni
groups. A number of AAPI students and grad-
uates of Harvard testified for the university in
the trial’s stages. Blum and SFFA, meanwhile,
“failed to present a single Asian American stu-
dent at trial,” NBC News reported.
Now that affirmative action in college ad-
missions has been ruled discriminatory—except
at military academies—Blum claims that race-
neutral alternatives will replace affirmative ac-
tion and address racial inequalities. But his
preferred remedies seem unlikely to find favor
with the cohort he runs with. UCLA Law pro-
fessor Richard Sander, who wrote an amicus
brief for Blum in Fisher, has suggested that pro-
grams that use socioeconomic standing—which
Blum has cited as a useful replacement for race—
might be “surreptitiously reintroducing race,” as
The New York Times described it. Writing for the
American Bar Association, civil rights lawyer says Michaele N. Turnage Young, senior counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and
Genevieve Torres notes that “new lawsuits have Educational Fund. Bigham echoes this claim, saying, “The idea that, in that kind of
also been brought to challenge diversity pro- applicant pool, someone got in just based on race is so laughable.”
grams that consider factors correlated with race Were Blum truly concerned about the policies that steal college slots from de-
(so-called ‘race-neutral’ programs), which Jus- serving Asian American applicants, he would not have spent his time demonizing
tice [Anthony] Kennedy expressly encouraged Black and Hispanic students—who, a 2017 New York Times investigation found,
in Fisher.” In Virginia, a lawsuit over admissions “are more underrepresented at the nation’s top colleges and universities than they
to Thomas Jefferson High School for Science were 35 years ago.” Instead, he would have targeted legacy applicants and other
and Technology, an elite public school, claimed students who already have connections at the school. A report from the National
that scrapping entrance exams as a way to make Bureau of Economic Research found that 43 percent of white students accepted
the school more diverse is covertly anti-Asian, by Harvard between 2009 and 2014 were “ALDCs”: athletes, legacies, the kids of
though the policy is race-neutral on its face. (In big donors, or the children of faculty and staff. The same study
May, the Fourth Circuit ruled that the admis- found that three-quarters of “white ALDC admits would have Defending diversity:
sions policy did not discriminate against Asian been rejected if they had been treated as typical white appli- Supporters of
Americans.) The plaintiff, Coalition for TJ, was cants.” More than 30 percent of Harvard’s class of 2025 are affirmative action
rallied in front of the
represented by Pacific Legal Foundation, which legacies, and some 70 percent of legacy applicants to Harvard Supreme Court on the
filed an amicus brief on behalf of SFFA in both are white. (Less than 16 percent of Black, Latino, and Asian day the justices heard
the Harvard and University of North Carolina American kids who get into Harvard are ALDCs.) oral arguments in the
cases. Coalition for TJ cofounder Asra Q. No- Blum knows that legacies and other ALDCs displace a far college admissions
cases.
mani is also the former vice president of Parents greater share of Asian applicants than Black and brown stu-
Defending Education, which filed an amicus dents do. SFFA’s own expert witness concluded that affirmative
brief in support of SFFA in the Harvard case. action “for African American and Hispanic applicants could
Edward Blum is one of PDE’s directors. not explain the disproportionately

A
negative effect Harvard’s admission
ffirmative action never opened system has on Asian Americans.”
the f loodgates to unqualified Yet anti-affirmative-action cam-
hordes, as its opponents contend. It paigners would have you believe that In 2023, polling found
merely attempted to give those who the people who should be happiest
have been historically excluded— about the end of race-conscious ad-
that Asian Americans
provided they had the preparedness, talent, and missions are Black folks, because now approve of affirmative
qualifications—a way to open doors that white they have a real shot at white approv- action at a higher rate
supremacy was keeping under lock and key. Rac- al. Justice Clarence Thomas reiter-
ism, combined with the opacity of college admis- ated in his concurrence (quoting his than the general US
sions, generates wild conjecture and misinformed own words in an earlier opinion) that adult population.
CHIP SOMODEVILLA / GETTY IMAGES

presumptions. In reality, holistic admissions, like “racial preferences in college admis-

those at Harvard and UNC, take race into account sions ‘stamp [Blacks and Hispanics]
as just one element among a constellation of con- with a badge of inferiority.’” The
siderations. “At a school as selective as Harvard, end of racial remedies will thus bring about a real colorblind
they have so many applicants with perfect GPAs meritocracy. But critics of affirmative action seem to view the
and test scores, they could fill their class three, mere presence of Black folks at elite schools as inherently un-
four, five times over [on those qualifications],” deserved. For example, in April 2022, Xu tweeted that because
27
  T H E N AT I O N 8.21–28.2023

of “race preferences, Black Americans with STEM talent tend New York’s Hunter College and CUNY Gradu-
to go to UC-Berkeley over UC-Riverside”—the former being ate Center, published Stuck: Why Asian Americans
more selective in its admissions than the latter—“even with Don’t Reach the Top of the Corporate Ladder. She
lower qualifications.” But the UC told me that anti-Asian bias and the absence of
system got rid of affirmative action race-conscious policies in the corporate sector
in 1996—before Xu was born. explain the endurance of the “bamboo ceiling.”
With affirmative action gone, “Most of these companies don’t have affir-
“The model-minority will the alliance between conserva- mative action programs,” Chin said. “That’s why
myth hides the needs tive Asian Americans and their right- there’s so few minorities at the top of these cor-
wing white co-conspirators begin porations. It’s because these affirmative action
of many members of to fray? When Xu acknowledged programs have existed in colleges that we see
our communities.” the reality of legacy admissions on colleges with such diverse populations.”
—Aarti Kohli, Advancing Justice–Asian Law Caucus CNN after the June verdict, Ann Many of the interviewees for this article
Coulter went after him. “These fought tirelessly against SFFA’s attacks on affir-
aren’t your allies, White people,” mative action, but none were naive about how
Coulter wrote. The elimination of race-conscious admissions the Supreme Court would rule. “We always want
is predicted to increase Asian American enrollment numbers by to [work toward] a bigger picture for opportunity
just 3 percent. White enrollment is projected to go up 8 percent, for more people,” Sally Chen told me. “We are
according to the Berkeley economics professor and Harvard witness David Card. trying to think about ways to kind of just shift the
For Blum, the fight is never over. In an interview with The New York Times paradigm, too, beyond what affirmative action
days after his victory at the Supreme Court, he suggested that affirmative action can do. Its impacts were crucial but were never
in workplaces may be his next target. That would have negative impacts on Asian meant to be a cure-all solution.”
Americans workers, who already are dramatically underrepresented in leader- “Our role as an Asian civil rights organization
ship positions, representing just 1 percent of corporate board seats, 3 percent is to serve the most marginalized,” Kohli said.
of law partners and CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and 2 percent of college “How do we make it economically possible for
presidents—numbers out of step with their overall representation in those fields. low-income and racial minorities to access edu-
Multiple studies have found that while Asian Americans are significantly over- cation—and to actually stay at these educational
represented in the tech workforce, they are significantly underrepresented in institutions? So this is an important conversation.
senior leadership positions by comparison. But it has to be placed within the context of the
In 2020, Margaret Chin, now a professor of sociology at the City University of bigger challenges that we have.” N

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  T H E N AT I O N 8.21–28.2023

(continued from page 22)

with a petition urging the Ada County commis- Back in Dayton, the local government could well be headed in the same direc-
sioners to put a library dissolution vote on the tion. Two of the five members of the library’s board of trustees are solidly in the
ballot later this year. Two lengthy and sometimes conservative camp; next April, the term of office for another member will end.
heated meetings drew hundreds of residents— When the conservative county commissioners replace that member, it’s entirely
most of them infuriated at the prospect of losing possible the board will have a majority less inclined to defend the library’s choice
their library over 56 challenged books—who of books on First Amendment grounds.
spilled out into the overflow rooms and then Perhaps sensing that the writing was on the wall, Todd Vandenbark announced
beyond. In late March, the commissioners de- in mid-June that he would resign as library director, effective the following month.
clined to put library dissolu- He was, he told his supporters, simply fed up
tion on the ballot. with all the vitriol directed at him. He would
That wasn’t, however, be moving on to another job in another city,
the end of the matter. In but, not wanting the harassment to follow him
early 2022, members of the from Dayton, he refused to disclose where he
Idaho House of Represen- would be moving or what the job entailed.
tatives had passed a bill, “Despite the encouragement and support
HB 666, that would have of so many of the good townspeople here,
made it possible to prose- it’s become too uncomfortable to continue
cute people who distribut- working here,” he told me on a telephone
ed “obscene” materials—a call the next morning. He was hoping to
term so vague that even make new friends and put down new roots,
the US Supreme Court has but he had no plans to ever visit Dayton
struggled to define it. The again. “I worked hard to defend the First
bill died in the state Sen- Amendment,” he said, “and now it’s some-
ate. This year, however, in one else’s turn.”
the wake of the Meridian Elise Severe, of Neighbors United for
controversy, a similar, more Progress, was devastated by the news. “He
politically palatable bill was introduced during doesn’t even feel comfortable telling where he’s going,” she said. “I cannot believe
the three-month legislative session. The new how mean and hateful people are to each other. To react and target a single person,
bill, HB 314, would have allowed private cit- it’s beyond…” She stopped, momentarily at a loss for words. Then she continued:
izens to sue librarians and teachers for $2,500 “They openly posted ‘pedophile,’ ‘groomer,’ ‘porn-pusher.’ They accomplished
each time they were found to have made “ob- what they wanted. They ran a man out of town.”
scene” literature available to children. It passed Jessica Ruffcorn reacted more succinctly. On a Facebook page called “Dayton
in both chambers, but in the face of a furious Speak Freely,” she posted a GIF showing people waving hap-
reaction from librarians, educators, and civil pily. “Bye, Bye, Bye,” it read.
rights groups, the bill was eventually vetoed by A month later, the new interim library director made the
the governor. Yet supporters of the legislation decision to move the books that Ruffcorn’s group had targeted
are keen to reintroduce it in 2024. If some out of the children’s section. It was, Ruffcorn announced in a
version of the bill passes, it will essentially do public comment at a library board meeting in mid-July, “an
for Ada County and its libraries what the CCM amazing, positive step forward.” Nevertheless, she added,
failed to achieve, making it all but impossible if the signatures to put a dissolution measure on the ballot
to stock books deemed “offensive” by small but ended up being validated, the vote would still go forward
vocal factions. come November. To assuage her distrust, she said, the library
In late June, Moms for Liberty held its would have to promise not to move
annual summit in Philadelphia. Ron DeSantis the books back after November or
and Donald Trump both attended as speakers, buy more books on the same con-
as did several other GOP presidential hopefuls. troversial themes. She also wanted
Not surprisingly, the event was a smorgasbord the library to break away from the Perhaps sensing that
of misinformation. Trump claimed that for- American Library Association and
mer Virginia governor Ralph Northam wanted demanded that Jay Ball resign from
the writing was on
to give mothers permission to kill their new- the board. On July 21, Ruffcorn sub- the wall, Vandenbark
borns and that President Biden had personally mitted her new petition to the coun- announced that he
had Trump arrested on false charges. DeSantis ty auditor’s office, and a few days
wrongly stated that parents in California who later, it was certified as sufficient. would resign as library
oppose gender-affirming surgeries for their pu- Even if the library isn’t ultimate- director.
bescent children risk losing custody of them, and ly dissolved, Ruffcorn’s group has
he took yet another swipe at “critical race theo- already flexed its muscle. They have
ROSS MACDONALD

ry” as intrinsically anti-American. That so many shown that if the new director gives them an inch, they will
Republican presidential hopefuls have chosen to take a mile. As a result, whoever succeeds Vandenbark in the
cast their lot with an organization that has made long run will almost certainly think twice before stirring that
censorship mainstream again speaks volumes. hornet’s nest again. N
29
“We’re Just Her
How courtwatchers are shifting the power dynamics in criminal courtrooms.

Visible collective:
Stills from the
award-winning
short film The Court
Watchers, created
by Zealous, with
a score by Fiona
Apple. View at
CourtWatch.org.
e to Observe” BY J O C E LY N SIMONSON

ll over the united states, criminal courtrooms are full as soon as possible—or, worse, joke
of poor people, disproportionately people of color, sitting on around with each other to pass the
rows of benches—or, if there isn’t enough room, standing time while people wait handcuffed in
in hallways—waiting for their criminal cases or the cases of dirty cells on the other side of the
their loved ones to be called. When I was a public defender courtroom walls.
working in the Bronx, I once heard a young Black boy ask his father as they Enter the courtwatchers. When
walked into a crowded felony courtroom, “Daddy, are we in church?” My heart people enter courtrooms as a visible
sank at the boy’s question, as the superficial solemnity of a courtroom filled with collective, not to wait for one case but
people who looked like him met the tedium of the exchanges that the boy would to watch all of them, they disrupt the
find himself surrounded by once he sat down. routine of casual forced submission.
For the words coming from the judges, clerks, and lawyers were not sermons; They wear matching T-shirts and take
nor were they even the hearings and trials that many have come to expect from up entire rows. They come with pads
the media’s accounts of criminal court. In a New York City criminal courtroom, and pens and fill out forms to capture
you might hear: “The People offer a 240.20 and community service.” “We have the details of what they observe. The
three bodies coming up.” “Do you waive the rights and charges?” “The People disruption is apparent immediately. It
consent to an ACD.” “Case adjourned for motion schedule, time is excludable.” may be a court officer coming up to
“Case adjourned for discovery.” “Case adjourned until the 180.80 date.” “The question their presence. It may be the
People are ready.” “Plea accepted. Mandatory court costs due in 60 days.” In the prosecutors or defense attorneys whis-
world of plea bargaining, in which well over 95 percent of cases do not go to trial, pering to each other and looking back.
such statements make up the entirety of “criminal justice.” There is nothing more. Or it may be a clerk telling them bluntly
Between these statements, there is only waiting. So much waiting, even on a day that they cannot come in if they are
with nearly 100 cases on the calendar: waiting for the judge to not connected to an individual case. So
take the bench, for the prosecutors to find the right files, for accustomed are court officials to seeing

 T H E N AT I O N
the defense lawyer and defendant to appear—waiting that is only the defendant’s family or friends
then punctured by a blur of legal language. When I practiced in the audience that they often believe
as a public defender, between 2007 and 2012, the rules of Bronx it is against the rules for strangers to
Criminal Court forbade audience members who were not attor- watch courtroom proceedings, let alone
neys from reading in the courtroom. If a teenager was reading a groups of strangers. (They are wrong:
book for school, a court officer would yell at him or her to put The First Amendment generally pro-

8.21–28.2023
the book away and face forward in tects people’s right to access criminal
order to show respect—to listen to trials, whether they are family or not.)
the words in the courtroom, as if those To simply be present inside a criminal
words carried important meaning. courtroom as a collective—even when
The criminal system’s The violence of criminal court sitting quietly and following the rules,
is easy to miss in the faces of people for most courtrooms do allow note-
actors are used to appearing remotely on screens, the taking—is to push back against the es-
having an audience, wrists in handcuffs, or the clerks tablished power dynamics there.
handing out pieces of paper listing The criminal system’s actors are
but they are not used the fine amounts that people must used to having an audience, but they are
to being watched. pay to avoid being caged. The legal not used to being watched. It is hard to
scholar Robert Cover, in a 1986 es- quantify the effects of the courtwatch-
say titled “Violence and the Word,” ers’ observation on the system they
wrote: “I do not wish us to pretend watch, but organizers with Philadelphia
that we talk our prisoners into jail. The ‘interpretations’ or Bail Watch have given us a few data
‘conversations’ that are the preconditions for violent incarcer- points. Their project emerged in 2018
ation are themselves implements of violence.” For those who as a joint effort of the Philadelphia Bail
Jocelyn Simonson work inside courtrooms, getting through a long day requires
is a professor of
ignoring the violence of the courtroom and its language. It
law at Brooklyn Copyright © 2023 by Jocelyn Simonson.
Law School and is in these courtrooms that assistant district attorneys refer This article was adapted from Radical
the author of to themselves as “the People” with casual certainty. And Acts of Justice: How Ordinary People
Radical Acts of it is here where court officers, judges, clerks, interpreters, Are Dismantling Mass Incarceration,
Justice (the New stenographers, program representatives, and even defense published by the New Press. Reprinted here
Press, 2023). lawyers rush through their days with an eye toward leaving with permission.
31
  T H E N AT I O N 8.21–28.2023

through a microphone that

broadcasts to the other side
of the glass partition. Each
time, the watchers replied,
“We’re just here to observe.”
At one point, Ginyard
witnessed the most com-
prehensive bail hearing he
had ever seen: It took a full
five minutes as the prosecu-
tor and the public defender
debated whether cash bail
should be set, naming spe-
cific things about the ac-
cused person who appeared
on the video screen, discuss-
ing his “ties to the commu-
nity” and the importance of
Fund and Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts. Philadelphia Bail Watch documents his criminal history. Ginyard gave a knowing look
what goes on in the bail hearing room at the Philadelphia Criminal Justice Cen- to his fellow watchers, who nodded back, amazed
ter, the city’s criminal courthouse. The basement room contains rows of seats for at what they saw as a performance for their
spectators, with a glass wall separating the audience from the hearing itself. Like benefit—the only time any of them had seen a
the bulletproof glass of a liquor store, the glass partition situates the audience bail hearing last for more than a minute or heard
members as potential threats to the safety of the hearings—even though the people any of those arguments being made. As Ginyard
accused of crimes are themselves not even present, but rather streamed in by video. said, “They put on a whole show.... It was like an
Philadelphia Bail Watch observes these hearings on and off throughout each year. episode of Law and Order.”
Organizer Fred Ginyard explained that between one and 30 courtwatchers sit in For the years 2018 and 2021, the court-
the audience, taking notes on what the magistrates and lawyers say and decide. watchers have been able to draw quantitative
Working with the bail fund, these courtwatchers also follow up with the conclusions about the effects of their presence,
people they see on the screens, whose bail is set by the magistrates in the room. scraping data from the First Judicial District’s
One person freed by the bail fund described their experience on the other side online portal and reconstructing the outcomes
of the screen in jail: “I heard all the questions they asked me, but I couldn’t hear of bail decisions for every day of the year. (They
when they were talking to each other. It was kind of hard to hear…and I was tired were not able to get this data during other years.)
and dehydrated.” Using their own observations and the reflections of the people In both years, the watchers found that during
whose fates are on the line at the bail hearings, the watchers the 24-hour action, magistrates set cash bail less
write formal reports and bring those reports to meetings with frequently than they did on other days of the
the courtroom players: the district attorney, the chief judge, year. This meant that magistrates were more

O
Demonstrators rally
to protect a New York the public defenders. likely to release people with no requirement
law that ends bail for that they pay money first, known as a release “on
most misdemean- nce a year, these philadelphia organizers their own recognizance.” In 2018, for example,
ors and nonviolent conduct a 24-hour courtwatching effort, usu- of the 97 people arraigned over the 24-hour pe-
felonies and stops
detention before trial.
ally close to the holidays in December. Being riod, 28 (or 28.9 percent) had cash bail assigned.
there for 24 hours allows them to compare the According to a volunteer data analyst, this was
outcomes of the day’s bail hearings with those the third-lowest “cash bail rate” for a 24-hour
from the rest of the year. In 2021, Ginyard headquartered the period in nearly a year. In 2021, the results were
24-hour effort in a hotel room across the street from the court- even more pronounced: During the 24-hour
house, so the courtwatchers would have a place to rest and snack courtwatch organized by Ginyard—the one that
between bail hearings. At least two watchers attended every included what the watchers saw as an extended
SHAWN INGLIMA FOR THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS VIA GETTY IMAGES

hearing, in three-to-four-hour shifts performance for their benefit—magistrates set

from 8 am until 8 am the following cash bail in just 25 percent of the cases. That
morning. They wore matching black 25 percent was not only lower than it had been
T-shirts with a royal blue outline on every other day of the year, but it was half the

T
of the Liberty Bell and “Philadel- average rate of 50.1 percent.
All courtwatchers phia Bail Fund” in orange letters on
report feeling as they the front. As the hearings continued he 24-hour courtwatches in phila-
into the night, there was evidence delphia provide a rare quantitative
sit in the audience that that the magistrates—five different account of something that all court-
they are changing the ones over the course of the 24-hour watchers report feeling as they sit in
period—noticed the courtwatchers, the audience: that they are chang-
proceedings just by according to Ginyard. Two of the ing the proceedings just by being there. In
being there. magistrates asked who they were social science, this is known as the observer
32
  T H E N AT I O N 8.21–28.2023

effect or, relatedly, the Hawthorne effect: Peo- Courtwatchers also try to
ple change their behavior when they know demonstrate solidarity with the
they’re being watched. Social theorists like Mi- people standing before the judges
chel Foucault have examined how the act of in handcuffs or appearing on vid-
watching can be a form of wielding power: In eo screens. Most fundamentally,
prisons, in schools, in hospitals, the architecture the observers make the silent argu-
of observation by those in charge becomes a ment that those accused of crimes
way to dominate and control people through are people, too. Ginyard told me
surveillance. Social theorists call the turning of that part of the purpose of being a
surveillance on those in power—watching the courtwatcher in Philadelphia’s bail
watchers—“sousveillance,” or surveillance from hearing room is “to ensure that the
below. Sousveillance is a way to challenge the person on the other side of that
monopoly of those in power over information, screen—who gets told ‘Don’t talk’ Most fundamentally,
technology, and control. And courtwatchers and ‘You can’t ask questions,’ and
model how sousveillance becomes even more who gets ignored—knows that there
the observers make
powerful when done collectively at the very are folks there to show that you can’t the silent argument

C
location of domination, such as a courtroom. ignore a human being that you’ve that those accused
put on a screen to dehumanize. You
ourtwatchers aren’t able to doc- can’t ignore that, and we’re going to of crimes are

T
ument all the details of how the let you know.” people, too.
system is operating. Though court-
rooms are technically open to the here are dangers in romanticizing observa-
public, they actively obscure what tion. Knowing that people are paying attention
is happening within them. After sitting in her to your case may be uncomfortable for some
local municipal court, one volunteer for Court- people accused of crimes, even if it is done in
Watch LA in Los Angeles wrote on her re- solidarity. And courtwatching faces more intrin-
Courtrooms are
flection form: “Imagine watching a foreign sic limitations. Communal observation on its own cannot technically open
language art film. It’s all a blur. I maybe can cure unfairness, even if it changes the behavior of state actors to the public, but they
capture a story, but not the specifics of the case. slightly in the moment. Bearing witness to someone’s being actively obscure
Or, if I get the specifics, [like the] case number, ordered into a cage does not make that outcome a fair one— what is happening
the story is obscured with jargon and informa- and it can be a traumatic experience to witness the violence. within them.
tion you can’t process.” Over time, officials may adjust to being watched, and trans-
It is not just the legal jargon. Most of the parency can legitimate and obscure what might otherwise be
“justice” has happened elsewhere: A police of- seen as oppressive.
ficer has decided to stop and arrest someone, On its face, the performance that the Philadelphia courtwatchers observed
a prosecutor has decided to charge them in the when the attorneys and magistrate seemed to carefully consider and argue a case
name of “the People,” and a before them might represent an ideal example
defense attorney has reviewed of public justice. And yet, when the person went
the case and, sometimes, to jail after the magistrate set bail, the result
talked to their client. Legisla- did not become “justice”—or at least not the
tors have in the first instance courtwatchers’ idea of justice—simply because
created the laws that allow the legal language of incarceration became
these decisions. Countless momentarily comprehensible. Instead, the per-
other employees have done formance highlighted for the courtwatchers
their jobs: They have hand- the absurdity of a system in which state actors
cuffed, caged, and fed human can, on command, recite with feeling the argu-
beings; typed, written, and ments, reinforced over decades, necessary to
stamped court forms; cleaned justify incarceration.
the courtroom; printed rap At its most subversive, observation can cut
sheets and docket numbers; through the obfuscation that legal language
conducted assessments of produces, undermining the legitimacy of the
people’s criminal histories, system that the language upholds. The bene-
their employment status, fit here does not come simply because, in the
their “ability to pay.” All of this has been done oft-quoted words of Justice Louis Brandeis, “sunlight is…the best disinfectant,”
out of sight of the public. But to call attention to but rather because the people opening the windows are the people traditionally
this smokescreen is to reduce its power; to bear shut out of the process of “justice.” In those moments, “the People” are no lon-
witness to the little that is said in each case adds ger just the assistant district attorneys; they are also the average people in the
up to something larger. In this way, one basic courtroom—people who do not approve of what the ADAs are doing in their
GETTY IMAGES

goal of organized courtwatching is to create the name. As the Rev. Alexis Anderson, a founder of Court Watch Baton Rouge in
palpable power shifts that can flow from the col- 2019, says of the courthouse in which its members do their watching: “When we
lective observation of those in power. enter, we consider it the People’s House!” N
33
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n his review of sally rooney’s

Friends Beautiful World, Where Are You?,
which appeared in The New York
and Lovers Times in 2021, the writer Brandon
Taylor took a certain tendency in
contemporary fiction to task. In the
Brandon Taylor’s fiction of class
and campuses growing body of novels about the panic and pre-
carity of 21st-century life, Taylor noted, the central
B Y S A R A H C H I H AYA
characters—often middle-class white women—talk
fretfully about “their privilege and access to capital”
as a stand-in for an “actual class critique.” But, he
wondered, “is that enough?”
When it came to Rooney’s novel, Taylor had his
34 doubts. He wasn’t convinced that Beautiful World
had successfully converted the chatty despair of its
ILLUSTRATION BY LILY QIAN
  T H E N AT I O N 8.21–28.2023

small cast of charismatic characters into an “actual consideration” of the social and family marked by the traumas of sexual
economic roles they occupied, though he did acknowledge that the novel at least made and emotional abuse. This is information
a “charming” if “also frustrating” attempt to do so. But the larger question in Taylor’s that he resists sharing with his peers;
review remains: What does it mean for a novel to engage in actual class critique to- instead, he trolls them. “I’m triggered by
day? The 19th- and early-20th-century fiction that largely occupies his thinking as a your insults,” he taunts his classmates,
critic—novels by Émile Zola, Henry James, and Edith Wharton, among others—peer even as he hints at how vulnerable he is.
into the social roles of a multitude of characters to consider the minute gradations and “They remind me of my torturous child-
degradations of class. One might say that the kind of contemporary novel that Taylor hood. Please stop.”
interrogates in his review, with its tight focus on “the tableaux of feeling overwhelmed” To make ends meet, Seamus has a
in the quotidian lives of individual protagonists, does the opposite. job working at a hospice, and it is there
Ironically, Taylor’s debut novel, Real Life, proved to be similarly evasive in its en- that we begin to see another side of him.
gagement with class. A work of campus fiction set in a prestigious, primarily white Speaking to Bert, a local man whose cruel
biology department, it sketched the network of racial, sexual, and economic tensions father is dying there, Seamus feels that,
that formed the background to the story of its protagonist, Wallace, a gay Black gradu- if anything, he is the one with an advan-
ate student. But much of the novel’s class tage, and so he experiences “some of that
analysis was eclipsed by the workings of old Marxist guilt. The reflexive pity and
Wallace’s immediate emotional responses shame of being a little better off than a
to the world around him; Real Life hewed The Late person to whom he was speaking.”
closely to his perspective alone. Americans Seamus’s “reflexive pity and shame”
Taylor’s new novel, The Late Americans, A Novel are aggravatingly clear to Bert, who views
however, takes on the challenge of telling By Brandon Taylor him as just another elitist college kid. Yet
the multiple stories of a larger social milieu Riverhead Books. as they speak, Seamus learns that Bert,
in scattered yet granular detail. Set at the 320 pp. $28 whose father owns the land on which
University of Iowa, it follows an academic they’re standing, is financially more stable
year in the life of young people living in than he is. Class cuts in many contradic-
Iowa City, students and otherwise, as they tory ways, and Seamus tries to make sense
grapple not only with their own privileges of his swift movement in and out of his
and access to capital but also with the ab- perspective. The narrative’s focus bounces various social positions. One can, he con-
sence of both in the lives of those around gently from one person to the next via cludes, “simultaneously [occupy] two sys-
them. Here we get a finely detailed, even social contact. We get incisive one-line tems then. How strange these networks
pointillistic portrait of class and the ways sketches of several MFA students spe- of human relation.” These networks are
it can make and unmake human relation- cializing in poetry—Beth, Helen, Noli, made even stranger and more convoluted
ships. Shifting from one point of view to Mika, and Linda—before realizing that by a terrifyingly brutal eruption of vio-
the next, the novel also breaks out of the their classmate Seamus is the first of our lence between the two men.
cloistered perspective of a single protago- central characters. We then skip to Fyo- But just as we begin to know Sea-
nist and examines how a slew of characters dor, whom Seamus meets at a bar, and his mus, Taylor quickly pivots to another
notice (and just as often fail to notice) boyfriend, Timo, then leapfrog again over life. (He is, after all, trying to paint a
their class positions. The dynamism of the Timo’s friend Goran to his boyfriend, many-figured mural rather than a sin-
novel comes from its movement between Ivan, and via Ivan to a cohort of dance gle portrait.) Yet he chooses not one
these characters but also from its ability to students. While many of these charac- of the more predictable characters—
see past them to the social structures that ters are separated by class, education, and Bert, perhaps, or one of the poetry
organize so much of their lives. As in the identity, they are also connected—often students—but instead Fyodor, the man
big, sweeping novels of Zola, James, and unpredictably so—through the bars and who briefly chats with Seamus at a bar.
Wharton, bit by bit the reader comes to coffee shops, the shared passions, and the Fyodor is a townie, a worker at a meat-
see the larger systems that these characters planned and unplanned proximity created packing plant who is in an on-again,
are bound up with, either by choice or by a small Midwestern college town. off-again relationship with Timo, a grad
circumstance, and the way these systems Appropriately, we are introduced to student in mathematics. Fyodor and
make them who they are. Seamus by way of one of the more familiar Timo are initially drawn together by

T
set pieces in fiction set at the University their commonalities—both are mixed-
he novel’s shape is de- of Iowa: a horrendously uncomfortable race gay men—but their relationship is
ceptively simple: Each seminar in the Writers’ Workshop. Sea- constantly challenged by reminders of
chapter of The Late Amer- mus is a gay, white, Ivy League–educated the differences that exist within what
icans focuses on a differ- man who rolls his eyes at invocations of they share: Timo comes from a suc-
ent character, observed personal trauma and intentionally enrag- cessful professional family that lacks
through a limited omniscient third-person es his fellow students with his response to the cushion of generational wealth that
the poem being discussed. Yet even if he some of his peers have. Yet though he is
Sarah Chihaya is the author of the forthcoming is one of those guys, once we follow him constantly aware of money as a problem,
Bibliophobia and a coauthor of The Ferran- out of the classroom, we learn that much it is not in the acute, pragmatic
te Letters: An Experiment in Collective of his performed privilege is just that: an
Criticism. act. Seamus comes from a working-class
way that Fyodor is. When Timo
complains about Fyodor’s job,
35
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B O O K S the
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T
citing the “morally indefensible” nature hroughout The Late Amer- pus novel—the work of producing art
of killing and eating animals, Fyodor re- icans, Taylor is especially and scholarship often trumps any other
plies, “This is what my life is. You think concerned with the way concern, such as money, time, material
that this will be temporary, but it isn’t. that the more privileged need, or even the work that students
This is what my life is. What I will be.” among his student char- are required to take up to get by. (An-
Timo cannot comprehend the starkness acters naively assume an equality of other version of this novel might have
of Fyodor’s frustrated declaration or opportunities and resources. This mis- focused on PhD students rather than
understand what experiences could mo- apprehension is clearest in the relation- MFA students, which would have forced
tivate it. Like Seamus and Bert, the two ship between Ivan and Goran, whom Taylor to also wrestle with the labor
men are never fully visible to each other. we meet three chapters into the novel, issues of graduate students employed by
The movement from one character to and who weave in and out of sight until a university.)
the next does not always have a clear so- the end. Ivan, the son of Russian immi- Nowhere are the blurring boundaries
cial logic: We travel from lover to friend grants living in Boston, is in the final between these two types of work clearer
to near stranger, often getting to know year of work on his MBA, after which he than in a group of dancers that we meet
just enough about a hopes to get a finance in the book’s last sections. Noah, an Iowa
character to start to job in New York or native, works in construction when he’s
wonder about them San Francisco. Ivan is not in the dance studio, while Fatima
once they’re almost also a former dancer, alternates between shifts at a local coffee
entirely gone from forced by an injury to shop and long hours of rehearsal. She
view. Sometimes we quit the pursuit of an bears the brunt of this social pressure
loop back and en- art he loves. Goran, a to demonstrate a wholehearted com-
counter the same per- pianist and a gradu- mitment to dance, no doubt because she
son again; sometimes ate student in music, is a woman (one of only two we get to
we meet someone we simply cannot under- know in the novel), subject to the sexist
wish we could know stand Ivan’s financial- demands still made upon female dancers;
better but only ever ly motivated choices, the other students resent the demands of
see in passing; and especially when he her hourly wage work, seeing it as a mark
sometimes we linger The Late Americans discovers that Ivan has of both greater and lesser dedication
with someone who works the way most been earning money to their shared art.“But this is the real
doesn’t seem to fit in by posting artful por- work,” a classmate tells her. To which
at all. university towns work: nographic video clips Fatima responds: “I don’t know what
In this regard, The People move in, out, online. But Goran is you mean. It’s all work, you know. Work,
Late Americans works and on. not painted simply as work, work.”

A
the way that univer- an annoyingly inno-
sity towns do. Peo- cent wealthy person; s the reader comes to the
ple move in, move out, move on—not his and Ivan’s relationship is also end of The Late Amer-
everyone gets to meet, but everyone complicated by the fact that he is the icans, having zigzagged
temporarily occupies the same spaces. Black adopted son of a rich white fam- between characters and
But in the background is also the wider ily. Ivan, who is white, cannot grasp social settings, one real-
social system—in particular, the finan- how Goran’s Blackness affects the way izes that perhaps a better question to ask
cial and cultural pressures that some that he himself, or the world at large, of this novel is not whether its depiction
face and others do not. One person views him; all Ivan can see is Goran’s of class is enough, but whether it’s too
doesn’t need a first job, let alone a sec- economic position rather than his race. much. By dipping in and out of so many
ond; another is conspicuously worried The “networks of human relation” different lives and relationships, does
about their landlord raising the rent; that Seamus puzzles over grow more The Late Americans take on too big a
while a third is wracked with anxiety and more tangled with every character task? Constrained only by the tempo-
about making enough money to send we meet. ral limits of the school year, the book
home to their parents. Graduate school The novel depicts these episodes of could still go on forever, skipping from
begins with the origin myth that every- often unspoken misperception with al- one small galaxy within the universe of
one is a poor student, pulled together by ternating tones of sadness, humor, frus- the big state school to the next. What’s
the same idealistic and heady desire to tration, and optimism. But Taylor is more, unlike most campus fiction, the
learn more about the world and about doing something else too: He is offering university does not serve as a boundary
one another. But as the semesters pass, us a portrait of the different kinds of for the novel. Yet The Late Americans
students have to confront the dawning work that take place in a college town. seems to anticipate this question; at
understanding that some of them are From the beginning, when we see Sea- times when the reader expects a nar-
from wealthy backgrounds while oth- mus move directly from the institu- rowing of perspective, the novel takes a
ers are not, and all manner of stealthy tional scene of artistic work to one of sudden, wider turn.
avoidance tactics become nec- paid employment, we are asked to view The most jarring of these happens
36 essary to keep the illusion of these types of work simultaneously: In
shared enterprise intact. an academic milieu—and in the cam-
in a late chapter in which we meet Bea,
Noah’s neighbor. She is a disconnected,
  T H E N AT I O N 8.21–28.2023

isolated character, not of interest to the

grad students moving in and out of the
rest of the novel. Shifting from Noah’s
perspective to hers, we see Bea notice
him, and though Noah must notice her,
too, he shows no sign of it. Yet when
they pass each other one day, Noah sud-
Our Names denly waves, and Bea waves back. For a
fleeting moment, this simple sign of rec-
ognition feels tremendous to this largely
Sometimes, when everyone is asleep, invisible woman, and Bea “felt her place
we rise quietly. in the world’s great calculating machine
shift slightly.” In a novel of mispercep-
We open our windows, remove screens. tions and misunderstandings, the scene
stands out. For Bea, it is temporarily
transformative: To be observed and rec-
Bike. Skateboard. Ride into the night.
ognized is an event in what she feels
to be her eventless life. “It is enough,”
We meet in alleyways, Bea thinks, echoing a line—whether
behind industrial buildings, or not she intends the allusion, Taylor
beneath highway underpasses. clearly does—from Virginia Woolf’s To
the Lighthouse.
In Woolf’s novel, the words are ex-
Tonight, our backpacks are our shadows. claimed inwardly by Mrs. Ramsey. As
Tonight, spray paint, she watches the beam of the lighthouse
an extension of an arm. sweep over the sea at dusk, “the ecstasy
burst in her eyes and waves of pure de-
We are echoes passing through tunnels. light raced over the floor of her mind
and she felt, It is enough! It is enough!”
But Bea’s neutral, even resigned phrasing
We are tree roots eating through dirt, makes clear the hard limit of this refer-
breaking through concrete. ence; certainly there are no exclamation
marks. Taylor’s Americans are too late
All we want is the quietude of dignity for the epiphanic rhapsodies of modern
fiction. The title itself, with its grandly
& our own names.
gloomy take on James, suggests a kind
of fatigue—of the realist novel, perhaps,
Whatever beauty exists, exists for us too. or of late capitalism, or of the idea that
revelation itself is possible.
Stars. Ocean. Wings of a dragonfly. The novel offers an acknowledg-
ment of this tiredness while still de-
picting the need to go on despite it.
Tree bark. Wet earth. Breeze.
Our ways of being and of creating and
of working are tired, and the task of re-
Whatever beauty exists, also exists evaluating our received notions of class
in our names: and race and gender and privilege feels
unending. The novel of social critique
is still with us, but in this case, its aim is
de la Torre. Cabrera. Salvatierra.
not to rouse protest or deliver scathing
criticism, but to reveal our exhaustion
[ ]. [ ]. [ ]… in beautifully exacting detail and with
an intensity of consideration and ten-
YA C C A I R A S A LVAT I E R R A derness.
We may never get to see these charac-
ters fully understand or even directly con-
front their complicated entanglements
in the social worlds they move through,
but The Late Americans reminds us that
38 sometimes, even the briefest recognition
can be enough. N
 B&A
B O O K S the
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President of the Moon Committee

Walter Benjamin’s radio years
BY PETER E. GORDON

o audio recordings of walter benjamin have sur- German Baroque drama and dashed his
vived. His voice was once described as beautiful, hopes for an academic career, he found
even melodious—just the sort of voice that would himself adrift, with little assurance of a reg-
have been suitable for the new medium of radio ular income. But this failure also brought
freedom. His untethering from the uni-
broadcasting that spread across Germany in the versity meant that he could indulge in his
1920s. If one could pay the fee for a wireless receiv- interests without restraint, and he turned
er, Benjamin could be heard in the late afternoons or early evenings, his talents to writing essays that took in
often during what was called “Youth Hour.” His topics ranged widely, the whole panorama of modern life—from
from a brass works outside Berlin to a fish high literature to children’s books and
market in Naples. In one broadcast, he lav- into surrealist fantasy. One such play in- from photography to film—and, for nearly
ished his attention on an antiquarian book- troduced a lunar creature named Labu six years, he supplemented his earnings
store with aisles like labyrinths, whose who bore the august title “President of the with radio broadcasts, some for adults
walls were adorned with drawings of en- Moon Committee for Earth Research.” and others meant especially for children.
chanted forests and castles. For others, he Today Benjamin is widely esteemed Of the many broadcasts, about 90 in all,
related “True Dog Stories” or perplexed as one of the foremost cultural critics that he produced for the radio stations in
his young listeners with brain teasers and and theorists of the 20th century. But his Frankfurt and Berlin, only a fragment of a
riddles. He also wrote, and even acted in, career was uneven and marked by failure. single audio recording has been
a variety of radio plays that satirized the
history of German literature or plunged
In 1925, after the faculty of philosophy in
Frankfurt rejected his enigmatic study of
preserved; unfortunately, Benja-
min’s voice cannot be heard.
39
ILLUSTRATION BY JOE CIARDIELLO
 B&AB O O K S the
A R T S

Now transcripts of these broadcasts have been assembled and translated into reports on Soviet culture that Benjamin
English in a new volume edited by Lecia Rosenthal, whose incisive introduction published that same year, all of them
assists the reader in appreciating their true significance. One can’t help but won- reflecting his grim recognition that the
der what Benjamin would have made of all this attention, since he was inclined to USSR was hardly the workers’ and artists’
dismiss his radio work as unimportant. In correspondence with his friend Gershom paradise of leftist imagination.
Scholem, he wrote with some embarrassment of “piddling radio matters” and con- Following this first leap into radio
demned nearly all of it as having “no interest except in economic terms.” Today we commentary, Benjamin continued to
know that he was mistaken. The transcripts are more than mere ephemera; they build his career in Germany as both a
are perfect specimens of Benjamin’s interpretative method, exercises in a style of freelance writer and a critic on the air, and
urban semiotics that he would later apply during his exile in Paris. Hannah Arendt for several years he managed to scratch
once likened her late friend to a pearl diver who possessed a gift for diving into the out a more-than-tolerable existence, all
wreckage of bourgeois civilization and emerging into the sunlight with the rarest of the while hoping for grander things. His
treasures. The radio transcripts offer further evidence of a genius whose career was ultimate goal, as he confessed to a friend
ended far too soon. in 1930, was to become “the foremost
The transcripts have the virtue of brevity, making them welcome introductions to critic of German literature.” But this
Benjamin’s ideas for those who may find his major tomes—such as Origin of German Tragic ambition would go unfulfilled, and his
Drama or The Arcades Project—ponderous bold forays into the high canon, such as
or forbidding. Although in subject matter an early essay on Goethe’s novel Elective
they travel a vast terrain, they also have Affinities, were masterful but rare. More
the intimacy of a personal essay spoken Radio Benjamin typical were his exercises in short-form
right into your ear. A written transcript, By Walter Benjamin criticism, including the stories he wrote
after all, is also technically a recording, Edited by Lecia expressly for the radio. Among the most
even if it is a soundless one. When we read Rosenthal entertaining are reports in which the ev-
these transcripts carefully, we can still hear Translated by eryday becomes exotic or the modern is
what scholars of literature like to call “the Jonathan Lutes, interlaced with nostalgia. In a broadcast
authorial voice.” But even those who don’t Diana Reese, and Lisa from late 1929 or early 1930, he describes
especially care about Benjamin will find his Harries Schumann the market halls in Berlin that he had
radio tales fascinating as specimens in the Verso. 424 pp. $24.95 first visited as a child, where the smells of
history of technological communication, fish, cheese, flowers, raw meat, and fruit
a history that spans the modern era from was also a monthly fee. In the popular intermingle under one roof, creating a
the early days of wireless journalism to the imagination, we tend to picture a family “dim and woozy aroma” that comple-
digital podcasting of our own day. Step into nestled in comfort before a single speaker ments “the light seeping through the
a time machine and travel back a century: as if around the family hearth. But the murky panes of lead-framed glass.” Nor
You’d hear the voice of Walter Benjamin earliest radios were not elegant pieces can he leave out the smallest detail: “And
instead of Ira Glass. of furniture for shared experience; they let’s not forget the stone floor, which is al-

T
were exotic contraptions with exposed ways awash with run-off or dishwater and
he very first radio trans- mechanics and personal headphones that feels like the cold and slippery bottom of
mission ever heard in Ger- isolated each listener within a private the ocean.”
many was broadcast at 8 auditory space. Only in the late 1920s This description closely anticipates his
pm on October 29, 1923. did the household radio assume a more project on the Parisian arcades, those iron-
It lasted only a single hour, domestic form, with a single loudspeaker and-glass passages lined with shops that
after which the station went silent. The that projected the transmissions into a would become the focus of his fascination
Berlin Funk-Stunde or “Radio Hour” shared room. This was when Benjamin in the 1930s. But the radio addresses come
soon extended its programming to nearly made his debut. almost entirely from a time before Benja-
eight hours each day; its programs con- Imagine “Dr. Walter Benjamin” (as min’s emigration to France, and in many
sisted chiefly of music supplemented with he was listed in the Frankfurt Radio bul- of them one can hear the enthusiasm of
the occasional lecture, literary reading, letin), whose disembodied voice floated the Berlin native who loves nothing more
or play. By 1930, regional broadcasting through the airwaves into German homes than to share stories of the city he knows
companies had stretched their electro- for the very first time on March 23, 1927. best. Nor can he resist a winking nod to his
magnetic waves to cover nearly 70 percent He lectured on young Russian writers, listeners: “If I really want a special treat, I
of potential German audiences, but those an edifying topic about which he could go for a walk in the Lindenstraße market
who could actually afford to tune in were claim some familiarity thanks to his re- hall in the afternoons between four and
still overwhelmingly urban; the farmlands cent travels in the Soviet Union, where five. Maybe someday I’ll meet one of you
and forests remained mostly silent. he had weathered two months of a bleak there. But we won’t recognize each other.
In its initial years, the radio was a Moscow winter while pursuing a hope- That’s the downside of radio.”
luxury reserved exclusively for the urban less romance with Asja Lacis, a Latvian-
middle class. To listen to the wireless, a born communist who was active in the Peter E. Gordon teaches social theory and philos-
household had to buy a receiver, children’s proletarian theater. Though ophy at Harvard. His newest book, A Precari-
40 and then pay the post office for the full transcript of this early lecture is
a “license” to operate it; there missing, it’s only one sample of the many
ous Happiness: Adorno and the Sources of
Normativity, is due out later this year.
  T H E N AT I O N 8.21–28.2023

W
as this really a disadvantage? One might argue that radio was Benja- him is menaced by a rising tide of hatred,
min’s ideal medium, because he loved to hide. Though some readers be it fascism in Europe or the Klan in the
have claimed his legacy for the tradition of Marxism, he was never a United States. Like a man climbing to
firebrand, and he found his greatest happiness not in public controversy his roof, Benjamin reports on the flood
but while burrowed away privately with his books. In a 1930 broadcast that threatens to engulf him and he hopes
called “Demonic Berlin,” he tells his auditors that as a child his parents forbade him for rescue. But the waters continue to
from reading the stories of the 19th-century German author E.T.A. Hoffmann, be- rise; by early 1933, the Nazis would seize
cause his tales were populated with ghosts and doppelgängers and “monstrous figures power in Germany and bring his career
of every kind.” Hoffmann was a master of the uncanny, about whom his contemporary, on the radio to an end. His last commis-
the poet Heinrich Heine (a distant relation of Benjamin’s), once observed that “even sioned work for Radio Berlin was a fantas-
the devil could not write such devilish stuff.” So of course Benjamin read Hoffmann’s tical play he had composed himself. The
tales all the more passionately, in secret, seated alone in the family’s dining room, where transcript, titled “Lichtenberg: A Cross-
(Benjamin tells us) “all the terrors, such as fish with stubby snouts, gradually gathered Section,” ranks among the strangest things
in the darkness at the edge of the table.” that he ever wrote. Beings who live on the
The printed page was Benjamin’s place of safety, where he could hide himself as he moon are charged with the task of inves-
had in childhood. But he also transformed the cityscape itself into a refuge: the artifice tigating the career of Georg Christoph
of urban space turned into an interior, the outside into inside. He treated cities, chiefly Lichtenberg, a prominent physicist of the
Berlin and Paris, as objects of reading. For these exercises, Hoffmann was an early German Enlightenment. The moon be-
inspiration. Benjamin tells his listeners ings have uncanny names—Labu, Quikko,
that Hoffmann saw the city of Berlin that claimed hundreds of lives in sev- Sofanti, and Peka—and they convene as
with the eyes of a physiognomist, reveal- eral states, and according to Benjamin the Moon Committee for Earth Research,
ing that “this prosaic, sober, enlightened, plunged 100,000 square miles of farmland which deploys odd contraptions for its
and rational Berlin is full of things to underwater from Missouri to Kentucky work, each of them “easier to use than a
charm a storyteller—not only in its medi- to Tennessee. An es- coffee grinder.” There
eval nooks, secluded streets, and somber timated half-million is a “Spectrophone,”
houses, but also in its working inhabitants inhabitants lost their which permits them
of every social rank.” homes, and Benjamin to hear and see every-
This was not only a portrait of Hoff- provides the auditor thing that happens
mann; Benjamin was also describing his with a desperate por- on Earth; a “Parla-
own method. This would become his spe- trait of three brothers monium” that trans-
cial skill as a writer: He offered physiog- who tried to save their lates human speech
nomies of modern life and transformed livestock but were into music; and an
everything he saw into a dreamscape that forced to climb to “Oneiroscope” that
spilled over with both promise and dan- the peak of their roof allows the research-
ger. He devoted one broadcast to the while the rising waters ers to observe human
Lisbon earthquake of 1755, whose trem- raged below. Only one Even those who don’t dreams. With the aid
ors were felt from the coasts of Morocco of the brothers would especially care about of these devices, the
to France. Eighteenth-century Lisbon, survive, and Benjamin moon beings seek to
a thriving hub of Portugal’s global em- quotes a long passage Benjamin will find his understand why hu-
pire, had well over 250,000 inhabitants, from the man’s har- radio tales fascinating. mans are so afflicted
of whom nearly a quarter perished. It was rowing experience. with misery. Their
said that the cathedral towers in faraway With his characteristic habit of interpre- investigations finally reach the tentative
Seville shook “like reeds in the wind.” tation, Benjamin turns the disaster into conclusion that even if humans are un-
Benjamin was only one in a long line an allegory for politics. Just before he says happy, “perhaps it is their unhappiness
of critics to write about the earthquake; goodbye to his listeners, he promises that that allows them to advance.” To hon-
European philosophers from Voltaire to he is not done with the Mississippi: “On or the scientific achievements of Herr
Kant had pondered its meaning. But Ben- some other occasion we’ll return to its Lichtenberg, they conclude by naming a
jamin possessed a skill in description that banks during times when the river flowed crater in his honor, a crater from which
surpassed nearly all of his predecessors, peacefully in its bed, but there was little shines a “magical light that illumines
and in the brief 20 minutes of his broad- peace to be found on its shores.” Once the millennium.”
cast, he conveyed the terror of the event again, he says, “we’ll find ourselves on the Unlike the other broadcasts tran-
with inimitable precision. He ascribed banks of the Mississippi, but this time fac- scribed in this book, the Lichtenberg play
special importance to the earthquake as a ing the raging elements of human cruelty,” was never heard on the air. Benjamin’s
sign that the earth’s crust is never at rest, by which he means the Ku Klux Klan. final radio appearance came on January
that the ground beneath us is in “perpet- “The dams that the law has built to con- 29, 1933, when he read early selections
ual upheaval,” and that nature is no less tain them have held up no better than the from what would later appear as his most
violent than the history of humanity. actual ones made from earth and stone.” affecting book, Berlin Childhood Around
That theme recurs in one of his final In these words, one can hear the grow- 1900. The very next day, Adolf
broadcasts from the spring of 1932, a ing desperation of an intellectual who rec- Hitler was appointed chancellor
report on the Mississippi flood of 1927 ognizes that the civilization that surrounds of Germany, and Lecia Rosenthal
41
 B&AB O O K S

man are also used for disinformation and

the
A R T S

street, no two people are listening simul-

hatred by the likes of Rush Limbaugh taneously to the same podcast or song.
and Alex Jones. This irony is probably Thanks to the digital revolution, the
built into radio, as it is with all forms old monopolies of corporate media have
Advertising of mass media. To imagine a medium of
communication that would be immune
given way to a new situation where just
about anyone can start up a podcast and
Opportunities to such pathologies is like trying to
imagine a language without curses. But
share their opinions about whatever they
wish—whether their opinions are helpful
that would be a language reserved for the or not, and whether the statements are
angels alone. true or false. This diversity has the great

T
advantage of democratizing the medium
oday audio communication of communication. But with this advan-
continues its swift meta- tage also comes a host of disadvantages—
morphosis, from the first more ranting, more conspiracy theories,
wireless broadcasts of a more hate. The more populist the tech-
century ago to the podcasts nology, the more eloquence is mistaken
that are accessible not on the radio but via for elitism. And this is a problem not
cellular technology or the Web. These only for politics but also for aesthetics;
innovations have also restored something after all, not every aspiring podcaster has
akin to the original experience of individ- Benjamin’s gift for language. Many pod-
ualized listening: Earbuds have replaced casts today are unscripted, free-for-all
Special packages available for small the cumbersome headphones that were chats with little form and little content.
businesses, authors, and nonprofit shackled to the first wireless boxes, but Benjamin understood these risks, but he
organizations. Options for website they have also reintroduced the experi- still held fast to the hope that the radio
banner advertising and e-newsletters ence of auditory isolation from one’s spatial could introduce what he called “a total
with modest budgets. surroundings. One can’t help but wonder transformation and rearrangement of the
what this new technology is doing to our material.” Today that optimism may be
More information at sense of shared public space, which is now hard to sustain, but open a new podcast
TheNation.com/advertise fractured into millions of separate sound- and you might discover a pearl.
scapes even while everyone may be phys- The best of them still bear some re-
ically navigating the same street. Can we semblance to Benjamin’s broadcasts from
feel the same responsibility for the places a century ago. When I lived in Paris in the
records the bitter fact that, to celebrate we inhabit when we no 1990s, I listened in the
their victory, the Nazis held a torchlight longer hear the same evenings to Domaine
parade that was broadcast across all of things? The risk is not Privé, a radio show that
Germany—the first live transmission by only that the pedestri- In his radio addresses, was hosted weekly by
radio that was truly nationwide. an misses the roar of one can hear an a different personality,
As the Third Reich brought all forms the car that is turning artist, or intellectual
of communication under state control, into the crosswalk. intellectual working in who selected a favorite
the radio became yet another medium How often does one the shadow of crisis. musical example and
of Nazi propaganda on which the Ger- hear the panhandler then offered reflec-
man people could hear the voice of the who is asking for change, or the busker tions on its meaning. (I still recall Julia
Führer. The irony, of course, is that it who is singing in the subway? The danger Kristeva on The Magic Flute.) More recent
was the massive expansion of wireless is that we may begin to lose the sense of examples include the Ideas series, hosted by
broadcasting in the 1920s that assisted belonging to the same world at all. Nahlah Ayed on the CBC Radio One, or
the Nazis in tightening their grip on Back when Benjamin delivered his In Our Time, hosted by Melvyn Bragg on
popular consciousness. The same was broadcasts by radio, he was preoccupied BBC Radio Four, or Le Pourquoi du com-
true in the United States, where the with the question of how we experience ment, a daily radio show on France Culture
wireless technologies introduced in the urban space, but he believed that we all that lasts all of six minutes each morning,
’20s became the preferred medium in could experience that space in common, in which the philosopher Frédéric Worms
the ’30s for hatemongers and conspira- and he even nourished a kind of utopi- offers brief, gemlike commentaries on phil-
cy theorists like Martin Luther Thom- an idea that modern technology could osophical themes. Along with well-known
as and Father Coughlin. No doubt all bring collective action—or possibly rev- Anglophone programs such as This Amer-
forms of mass media have this double olution. But the new technologies have ican Life and Radiolab, these broadcasts all
edge: They can enhance democracy but defeated this dream. They often make us share Benjamin’s spirit of curiosity and his
also destroy it. The same technologies not more united but more isolated from talent for conveying through the spoken
that are used for public benefit in broad- one another, while at the same time the word the sheer abundance of things that
casts such as WNYC’s On the sheer number of broadcasting signals can fascinate and inform, turning us all
42 Media with Brooke Gladstone or
Democracy Now with Amy Good-
has multiplied to the point where it’s en- back into children, listening with rapt at-
tirely conceivable that on a crowded city tention to the voices on the air. N
  T H E N AT I O N 8.21–28.2023

A Black Hole
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer
BY JORGE COTTE

robert oppenheimer made his most important ed. Oppenheimer does not yet know
contribution to physics in 1939. It was three years it, but in a few years, he will be part of
before he met Leslie Groves, four years before this war, helping to build its most ter-
they built a town in the New Mexico desert, and rifying weapon. Then he will become
an advocate for the control of this new
four years before they recruited thousands of sci- weapon, opposing its proliferation, and,
entists and their families to live there and work eventually, he will fall out of favor with
toward a singular goal: the development of a weapon of such de- his former colleagues.
structive power that it would end World War II, and perhaps even Oppenheimer is a story about a char-
STILL FROM OPPENHEIMER (COURTESY OF UNIVERSAL PICTURES)

all wars. Hitler had just invaded Poland, ismatic man of ideas, a figure of intense
and Oppenheimer, a professor at the call him “Oppie” and speculates on the willfulness who puts scientific theory
University of California, Berkeley, was mysteries of the cosmos. What happens to the test and becomes caught in the
working on a paper that used Einstein’s when a star dies? Does it burn out and harrowing consequences of his actions
theory of relativity to identify what we collapse? If so, does it fizzle out or does and convictions. Like several of Nolan’s
now call black holes. it implode and generate a gravitation- films, it tracks a figure of incredible ge-
The opening scene of Christopher al force so powerful it swallows even nius who endeavors, through sheer force
Nolan’s latest film introduces us to this light? A continent away, many of the of will, to transform ideas into realities
Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy). Gaunt world’s most prominent physicists are that in the end have terrible out-
and dapper, he stands in a classroom
full of fawning graduate students who
being chased out of their countries by
the Nazis and the war they have start-
comes. Oppenheimer was not
the most profound of physicists.
43
 B&AB O O K S the
A R T S

He was no Einstein or Niels Bohr. He did not come up with the theories that made for over a decade, and the congressional
the atomic bomb possible. Rather, he used his genius to see the whole picture and committee that is reviewing his appoint-
to organize hundreds of scientists around it, coordinating a lab so big it was a whole ment has concerns. Strauss first met Op-
secret town. In this way, he was a symbol of the arrogance, the nationalism, and the penheimer when he tried to recruit the
naivety that resided at the heart of the machinery that built the bomb. And he would world-famous physicist to the Institute
soon become a symbol of the violence that this machinery, once it was operational, for Advanced Study in 1947. But now
would unleash on the world and that would slip out of his control. that Oppenheimer has fallen out of fa-
Nolan neither indicts nor vindicates Oppenheimer. Instead, he maintains an in- vor—both with Strauss and many of the
timate proximity to him, documenting country’s cold warriors—Strauss finds
his captivating, then horrible, achieve- flounder in laboratory work. We fol- himself under the gun, interrogated by
ments and his eventual downfall. Like a low him as he zips across the European a panel of senators. Downey plays him
star that becomes a black hole, Oppen- continent, from Göttingen, where he as a man who likes to be in control; he
heimer burns so strongly he burns out studies theoretical physics, to Leiden and fought for a seat at the table and he will
and becomes a force that swallows up Zurich, before returning to the Unit- fight to keep it.
everything around it—himself included. ed States and moving to Berkeley and But as the line of questioning digs
Oppenheimer is based on the Pulitzer Caltech. Waves of static twist around the into the events leading up to Oppen-
Prize–winning biography by Kai Bird young man, particles shimmer before his heimer’s own security clearance hear-
and Martin Sherwin, and the title they eyes. Oppenheimer, we are told, sees the ings—how did they happen, and what
gave their book was apt: American Pro- world differently, but doesn’t know how was Strauss’s role?—Strauss finds that his
metheus. As Bohr observes in the film, to use his unique vision. fate is caught up with Oppenheimer’s,
invoking the myth, Oppenheimer has On the West Coast, the precocious whether he likes it or not. The menacing
helped create not just a new weapon but student becomes Oppie, charismatic elements of the machine—whether the
a frightening new world—one that now guru and brilliant physicist. He teach- bomb or the national security state—can
has the power to destroy itself. es himself Sanskrit and flirts with col- turn on its creators. Strauss may have

F
leagues’ wives. There is a ranch in New had Oppenheimer in his sights in 1954,
rom the outset, Oppen- Mexico to which he and friends run off but now the committee members have
heimer runs along two whenever they can. He follows his curios- Strauss in theirs.

T
tracks at once, each struc- ities, intellectual and romantic, wherever
tured by an official hear- they lead. He attends Communist Party he centerpiece of the
ing and distinguished by meetings and befriends leftist professors. film is the bomb’s devel-
the presence or the absence of color. The Women seem to be a consistent source of opment, testing, and de-
color track is set in 1954: Oppenheimer angst for him. He begins a romance with ployment, all carried out
sits before an Atomic Energy Commis- a communist medical student named on a mesa in the New
sion board that is questioning his loyalty Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh) before Mexico desert called Los Alamos. There,
and threatening to revoke his security he meets the former communist Kitty Oppenheimer and Groves construct a
clearance. Before Oppenheimer helped Puening (Emily Blunt), who is already town to house the scientists, who will
the United States get married, which Op- develop the bomb in isolation; the town
the bomb, we learn, pie views as more of rises from the landscape like a film set.
he ran in a circle of a speed bump than a Here we see Oppenheimer at his most
communists and fel- In the film, Nolan stop sign. iconic: a wooden pipe in his mouth and
low travelers: He neither indicts By 1942, Oppen- a distinctive wide-brimmed hat on his
sent money to left- heimer’s inexhaustible head, suspenders and gray suit, hands in
ist groups during the nor vindicates energy has found a his pockets as the desert dust whips past
Spanish Civil War, Oppenheimer. new target. Despite him. It is here, in Los Alamos, that the
made friends and had the many rumors fly- film’s pacing also finally becomes more
love affairs with avowed communists, ing around—“dilettante,” “womanizer,” deliberate and deliberative.
and supported students trying to union- “suspected communist”—he catches the Oppenheimer is faithful to the science
ize the lab. At the time, the Soviet Union attention of Lt. Gen. Groves (Matt Da- that was done in Los Alamos, but it
was an ally, not an enemy, but the AEC’s mon), who recruits him to work on the doesn’t get too bogged down in scientific
suspicions are seemingly backdated, and then-secret Manhattan Project, tasked detail. The film is more concerned with
it wants answers. It also wants to know with building a novel weapon. The story how the project of building the deadliest
why Oppenheimer has become a vocal of the atomic bomb begins. weapon ever created became a mission
advocate of nuclear arms control. Parallel to this propulsive biograph- so monumental that it overshadowed any
During this hearing, Oppenheimer ical retrospective runs another track, doubts its creators held. When Groves
recounts his life in a whirlwind of im- set in 1959 and in black and white. asks whether the bomb could destroy
pressionistic and breathless episodes. We It follows the AEC’s chairman, Lewis the world, all Oppenheimer can tell him
see him as a homesick graduate student Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.), who has is that chances are near zero, quipping,
in Cambridge. We watch him been nominated to be the secretary of
44 read T.S. Eliot, admire cubist commerce. A self-professed self-made
paintings, meet Niels Bohr, and man, Strauss has known Oppenheimer
Jorge Cotte last wrote for The Nation on Boots
Riley’s I’m a Virgo.
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 B&AB O O K S

“What do you want from theory alone?”

the
A R T S

terrogating Oppenheimer demands that

Throughout the process, we see Op- the physicist explain why his views about
penheimer’s justifications for building the bomb have changed. Surrounded by
the bomb evolve. First, the bomb is an his accusers, Oppenheimer cannot pin-
attempt to move from the realm of the point the moment, but we understand
theoretical to the practical, to make an his reasoning: Humanity has not reacted
A biweekly collection impact on the world. Then it is a way to such a weapon by laying down its
to end the war. Then it is a way to end sword. Instead of ushering in a future
of The Nation’s top all wars, not just the present one. Even- of peaceful cohabitation, the bomb has
climate coverage, tually, another reason becomes clear: A triggered an arms race and inaugurated
deadline looms. an era in which the specter of nuclear an-
including interviews By 1945, Groves is pushing Oppen- nihilation is part of daily life. His vision
heimer and his team of scientists to put back on that podium in Los Alamos has
with leading environ- their bomb to the test. The Trinity test proved true: He has helped create a tool
is the film’s most elaborately planned of mass genocide, a technology that will
mental activists. sequence—both for Oppenheimer and cast a shadow of terror over the rest of
Plus: Urgent climate for Nolan. We watch as Oppenheimer the 20th century.

O
and his team map the location, erect a
news as it happens. platform, establish observation sites, ppenheimer has already
and finally disperse as their metallic garnered comparisons to
orb is put into place and then released. Oliver Stone’s JFK for its
When the bomb detonates, scientists historical scope, how it
and soldiers watch in awe. Oppen- is framed by official pro-
heimer returns to base camp a hero. ceedings and uses flashbacks and multi-
He is hoisted into the air by a swarming ple points of view to construct histories
crowd as if he were a sports champion. that can never quite be reconciled. But
Three weeks later, though, he is at a at its most powerful, the film is just as
lectern, looking out on an auditorium much like Pablo Larrain’s Jackie in its
full of scientists, engineers, and their commitment to telling the story of its
families. Word has just reached the title character through the character’s
residents of Los Alamos that the United perspective. Though we get beautiful
States has dropped an atomic bomb on vistas of the desert and, in the third act,
Hiroshima. There is cheering, jubi- the terrifying inferno of an atomic explo-
lation, foot pounding. Oppenheimer sion, Nolan uses his 70mm IMAX film to
walks onto the stage, but, rather than search for hints and revelations on Mur-
basking in the crowd’s adoration, he phy’s face. Murphy’s Oppenheimer never
makes an ambiguous statement: “The fully gives away what he is thinking.
world will remember this day.” There is no moment when the man is
Nolan keeps the camera closely fo- settled, or defined. He is always shifting,
cused on Murphy’s face. Behind him, a presence that is evasive.
the multicolored brick wall becomes a In his book The Meanings of J. Rob-
blurred and shuddering background. ert Oppenheimer, Lindsey Michael Banco
There is a flash, as if a bomb has gone describes his subject as a shifting sign, a
off there, too; a massive flare blankets the “cultural cipher with many, often con-
frame in white. Oppenheimer’s face is tradictory, meanings.” The film does not
bleached by the light; his blue eyes look shy away from these contradictions. Op-
out into the horrifying future that he has penheimer is self-important and actually
helped to create. Bodies dematerialize. important; he is the great salesman of
Oppenheimer catches sight of a young science, until the science he sells is no
woman whose skin is tattered, trembling longer in his control. He is an arrogant
in the wake of the blast. He takes a step and effective administrator, a bureaucrat
forward and hears a crunch: Beneath his willing to do all he must do to succeed in
foot is a charred body. his mission, and yet in the end he is also
This harrowing scene is the mov- a great doubter, trying to contain the
ie’s most direct confrontation with the destructive forces he has helped release
devastation Oppenheimer’s efforts have into the world. Nolan illuminates this
Scan code to sign up, wrought. We don’t see what happened enigmatic figure. But, like a black hole,
or go to: TheNation.com/ in Hiroshima or Nagasaki, but we do see Oppenheimer remains a contradiction,
climate-update-signup Oppenheimer watch the footage. Years an entity whose gravity absorbs any light
later, at the AEC hearing, the man in- we cast on him. N
 CUBA:
HAVANA TO VIÑALES
with optional post-tour Trinidad extension
NOVEMBER 11–18, 2023

For more than 60 years, The Nation has called for lifting the US
embargo on Cuba. The roots of our travel program to the island
extend back to that commitment to forge a more sensible, sane,
and productive US policy toward Cuba, a critical necessity I witnessed
for myself when I traveled there on a Nation tour.

This November, Nation Travels will be returning to Cuba, and

we invite you, along with The Nation’s leading writer on US-Cuba
relations, Peter Kornbluh, to see for yourself the effects the embargo
exacts on Cuba. I hope you will join him and other progressive
travelers—for mojitos, salsa lessons, and intelligent travel with
humane and principled purpose.

Katrina vanden Heuvel

Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

100% of the proceeds from our travel programs support The Nation’s journalism.

For more information, visit TheNation.com/HAVANA-VINALES, e-mail us at

travels@thenation.com, or call 212-209-5401.

The Nation purchases carbon offsets for all emissions generated by our tours.
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