Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill took effect this month. Signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis, it limits the discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in grade school classrooms, in some cases banning it completely. It threatens the ability of teachers to affirm of the existence of LGBTQ students, and to share materials, including books, that depict or discuss queer lives. The legislation has inspired a number of copycat laws across the country, including in Texas, South Dakota, Indiana, Tennessee, and Alabama. For a special digital-only issue about the notion of family,Jessica Winter, aNew Yorkerwriter and editor, has taken an in-depth look at the history of queer children’s literature, and the threats it faces in today’s political climate. She joins guest hostTyler Foggattto discuss what these books mean to LGBTQ families, why the right finds them so dangerous, and how their banning will affect the lives and education of young people.
Justice Clarence Thomas once was an outlier for his legal views. But Thomas is now the heart of the Court’s conservative bloc, and his concurring opinion in the recent abortion ruling calls out some other precedents the Court might overturn.Jeannie Suk Gersenteaches constitutional law at Harvard Law School and clerked for former Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court; she has been covering the end of Roe v. Wade forThe New Yorker, and she spoke with David Remnick about Thomas’s concurrence. It articulates a view more extreme than Justice Alito’s majority opinion, saying that other rights derived from privacy—such as contraception and same-sex intimacy—are not constitutional rights at all. “We have to remember he’s been saying it out loud for quite some time,” Suk Gersen says. “This is not a new thing from Justice Thomas. It’s just that we normally—over decades—didn’t pay that much attention to him, because he was alone in his dissents and concurrences.”
Last week, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark decision that established a constitutional right to abortion. Although this outcome had been anticipated for months—for years, even—it has had an immediate, visceral effect on abortion providers, those seeking abortions, and the nation at large. In some states, abortions stopped overnight; in others, there’s widespread confusion over what qualifies as legally acceptable circumstances for having an abortion. As states move to either outlaw abortion or codify it, the larger political question of “What next?” looms. TheNew Yorkercontributing writer Stephania Taladrid and staff writer Jia Tolentino have both reported extensively on abortion access in the United States. They join theNew Yorkersenior editor and Politics and More guest host Tyler Foggatt. “Flat out, women will die in the course of ordinary pregnancy because of physician fearsof doing anything that might make them liable for felony changes of perfo...
When theNew Yorkerstaff writerAndrew Marantzfirst heard that the Conservative Political Action Conference, the flagship event of the American conservative movement, was being held in Hungary, he thought it might be a joke. “A lot of people have worried for a few years now that the Republican Party is becoming more ambivalent about certain bedrock norms of American democracy,” Marantz told David Remnick. “To openly state, ‘We’re going to this semi-authoritarian country’ . . . I thought it was maybe a troll.” But C.P.A.C. Hungary was very real, and the event demonstrated an increasingly close relationship between American conservatives and authoritarians abroad. Viktor Orbán wins elections and claims a democratic mandate, but his legislative maneuvers and rewrites to the constitution have rendered political opposition increasingly powerless. Marantz finds the admiration for him by many in America unsettling. “I couldn’t really imagine a Putin-style takeover” of power in Ame...
Two hearings this week laid out the stark implications of President Trump’s efforts to stay in office. On Tuesday, members of the House Select Committee on January 6th heard testimony about attempts to deliver “fake” slates of electors to Congress. State election officials and poll workers spoke, in powerful terms, about the intense vitriol and harassment they were subjected to by Trump supporters, simply for doing their jobs. On Thursday, the Committee explored President Trump’s pressure campaign at the Justice Department to get top officials to go along with false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election. As Evan Osnos wrote for The New Yorker, “Trump’s political formula has rested on a dark genius at leveraging the powerful against the vulnerable, a tribe against a dissenter, the mob against the foe—and he nearly succeeded in using that recipe to overturn the election that he lost.” In the third installment of a special series for the Politics and More podcast, three me...
Florida GovernorRon DeSantishas shown himself uniquely skilled at attracting attention beyond the borders of his home state. Just this month, DeSantis blocked state funds for the Tampa Bay Rays’ stadium after players voiced support for gun control in the wake of themass shooting in Uvalde, Texas. He’s also continuing a fight to punish the Disney corporation for criticizing Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law. An Ivy League-educated anti-élitist firebrand, he is willing to pick a fight with anyone—reporters, health officials, teachers, Mickey Mouse—to grab a headline. DeSantis “practically radiates ambition,” the staff writerDexter FilkinstellsDavid Remnick. “He sounds like Trump, except that he speaks in complete sentences.... He’s very good at staking out a position and pounding the table and saying, I’m not giving in to the liberals in the Northeast.” Yet, despite having been anointed by Donald Trump in his primary election, DeSantis has refused to “kiss the ri...
This week, the House select committee held two more hearings to review its astonishing findings on the events of January 6, 2021, featuring testimony from onetime enablers of President Donald Trump: Bill Barr, the former Attorney General, and Bill Stepien, Trump’s former campaign manager. These hearings are revealing the extraordinary drama that was unfolding that day, not just on the Capitol lawn but also in the top ranks of the government, where Vice-President Mike Pence was being coerced to overturn the election. As Susan B. Glasser put it in her column for newyorker.com this week, “On Thursday, the House committee devoted its hearing to attempting to explain Trump’s scheme to pressure Pence—which unfolded in a series of inflammatory Presidential tweets, angry phone calls, and bizarre White House meetings that were a mix of constitutional-law seminars and live reënactments of ‘The Godfather.’” In the second installment of a special series for the Politics and More podcast...
A widespread view that cities have become less safe in recent months is transforming local politics.Eric Adamsbecame Mayor of New York City on a tough-on-crime platform. Anxiety about public safety has also played a significant role in the ongoing Los Angeles mayoral race. In San Francisco,Chesa Boudin—a reform-minded district attorney—was recalled by voters by a significant margin last week. Boudin had instituted a number of progressive reforms, from liberalizing bail policies to reducing jail populations through diversion programs. But those changes were buried by the perception that the city had descended into a state of chaos. His recall has been cast as a referendum on crime and on the public’s attitudes toward progressive criminal-justice policies. What were the voters in San Francisco blaming on Boudin? TheNew Yorkerstaff writerBenjamin Wallace-Wellsrecently wrote about Boudin’s recall. He speaks with theNew Yorkersenior editorTyler Foggatt.
For months, the House Select Committee on January 6th has examined Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and cling to power. Roughly a thousand witnesses have been interviewed—including Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. Tens of thousands of documents have also been reviewed, such as text messages from the former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. The committee held its first public hearing last night and presented some of what it has learned. Representative Jamie Raskin had promised that the findings would “blow the roof off the House.” The New Yorker’s Washington correspondents Jane Mayer and Evan Osnos join guest host Susan Glasser to discuss the revelations.
Before the pandemic, Sara Nelson had emerged as one of the most visible leaders in the labor movement. The Association of Flight Attendants represents some fifty thousand workers and nearly twenty airlines, and, as the union’s international president, Nelson made regular appearances on CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, and Fox Business. During the pandemic, she became a critical voice amid reports of unruly and abusive passengers, urging Congress to pass greater protections for airline staff and pushing for restrictions on the sale of alcohol in airport terminals. “We’ve got a lot more work to do to get things under control,” Nelson tells Jennifer Gonnerman, who profiled her last month, “and make sure that people don’t think that when you get on a plane you get to punch the flight crew.” Organized labor is newly resurgent, with recent drives at Amazon making headlines. Nelson speaks about the push to unionize flight attendants of Delta Air Lines, which—if successful—would be one of the lar...