Why Blue States Are the Real ‘Tea Party' →

Steven Johnson, writing for The New York Times:

Recall the line from “Cabinet Battle #1” from the musical “Hamilton”:

“If New York’s in debt —

Why should Virginia bear it? Our debts are paid, I’m afraid

Don’t tax the South cuz we got it made in the shade”

There’s a straight line that connects that caricature of more urban Northern states living beyond their means in the late 1700s to Ronald Reagan’s welfare queens in the 1980s: the prevailing sense that the big cities are dependent on government bailouts and benefits, while the less dense regions live responsibly. That sketch might have been accurate two centuries ago (at least if you took slavery out of the equation) but it bears no resemblance to the current economic map of the United States, where the major cities are now overwhelmingly the engines of economic growth and wealth creation — and also tax revenue.

This is an interesting piece, and anecdotally, I’d be willing to admit that there might be something there—I don’t remember this many liberal friends being this openly angry about politics. Honestly, I feel like there are more people expressing their feelings post election than before. But in breaking down his analysis by state, Johnson is missing a piece of the puzzle: counties. There has been a lot of misinformation spread on the internet lately (sometimes by Trump’s Chief Strategist’s website) about how many counties Hillary Clinton won or did not win. But, as is the case with most good propaganda, there is a kernel of truth. Take just New York for example. There are 62 counties in New York—Hillary Clinton won 16 of them. New York is a blue “state” because of New York City and a couple of surrounding counties. I would assume that if you broke Johnson’s math down on a county-by-county basis, it would still hold up, but you can’t kid yourself—there’s a divide here. We either bridge the divide, or radically change the system, but trying to simply get back to the result we want by doing different math is never going to work.

Simmons vs. Gladwell: The Future of Football →

Bill Simmons, writing for The Ringer:

Forty years from now, we won’t remember a specific concussion that transformed the way we watched football. I remember joking about Troy Aikman’s Concussion Face in columns as recently as the early 2000s (and only because I didn’t know any better). I remember my feelings slowly shifting after that unforgettably violent Steelers-Ravens playoff game in 2009, a night plagued by multiple knockouts and a 30-second span when we thought Willis McGahee was dead. Not hurt — DEAD. I remember Jamaal Charles getting rocked in the 2013 Colts-Chiefs wild-card game, then being examined on the sideline and realizing, “Holy shit, it’s the playoffs and he’s still not coming back.” I remember Julian Edelman getting belted late in Super Bowl XLIX, right after his season-saving third-down catch over the middle, and talking myself into Edelman NOT being concussed … but only because of the stakes.

These dicey moments have changed how we watch football, that’s for sure. Twenty years ago, I would have written a joke about the Luke Kuechly Concussion Face and moved on to the next riff. Now I’m a little haunted by it. We have too much information about head injuries. I feel like an accomplice. Everyone wondered why the NFL’s ratings slipped for those first nine weeks, but Malcolm, maybe it starts there?

Is there a better combination of brains than Bill Simmons and Malcolm Gladwell to discuss sports and pop culture in a slightly wordy, nerdy way that feels relatable while also academic? Maybe when Bill teams up with Chuck Klosterman? Imagine if the three of them just sat around watching TV all day? It could be its own channel.

Lessons from My Mother →

James Wood, writing for The New Yorker:

In the hospital room, grief conspired with natural curiosity: so this is how a body near death functions; this is how most of us will go. . . . Six or seven seconds passed between deep breaths; each was likely to be the last, and the renewal of breath, when it came, seemed almost like a strange, teasing physiological game—no, not yet, not quite. In the days before she died, a sentence from “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” kept coming to my mind. Peter Ivanovich is looking at Ivan Ilyich’s corpse: “The expression on the face said that what was necessary had been accomplished, and accomplished rightly.” Those words sustained me. A long life, a fulfilling career as a schoolteacher, a merciful end (relatively speaking), three children and a devoted husband: what was necessary had been accomplished, and accomplished rightly.

This was the first non-Trump and/or politics piece I’ve read since August that I felt compelled to post here. Beautiful writing and an honorable story, I was moved to tears as I read it, sitting next to my daughter as she watched The Muppet Christmas Carol. It’s one of the great cruelties of art—that so often the people who inspire the most moving tributes aren’t around to witness them, and even more so, that their absence is what inspired the creation.

Potential Conflicts Around the Globe for Trump, the Businessman President →

The New York Times:

“It is uncharted territory, really in the history of the republic, as we have never had a president with such an empire both in the United States and overseas,” said Michael J. Green, who served on the National Security Council in the administration of George W. Bush, and before that at the Defense Department.

The globe is dotted with such potential conflicts. Mr. Trump’s companies have business operations in at least 20 countries, with a particular focus on the developing world, including outposts in nations like India, Indonesia and Uruguay, according to a New York Times analysis of his presidential campaign financial disclosures. What’s more, the true extent of Mr. Trump’s global financial entanglements is unclear, since he has refused to release his tax returns and has not made public a list of his lenders.

In an interview with The Times on Tuesday, Mr. Trump boasted again about the global reach of his business — and his family’s ability to keep it running after he takes office.

“I’ve built a very great company and it’s a big company and it’s all over the world,” Mr. Trump said, adding later: “I don’t care about my company. It doesn’t matter. My kids run it.”

There has been a lot of hand-wringing and attention devoted to trying to suss-out what Donald Trump will do in the future. And that’s understandable—he made a lot of grandiose statements, some of which will potentially impact the lives of millions of people. But this conflict of interest stuff regarding his business interests and the Trump brand? I’m going on record here, today, as saying that, if there is a fall from grace for President-Elect Donald J. Trump, it will be because of what is uncovered, or even more likely, because of what is covered-up, regarding where or who he received money from in a business transaction.

Al Capone didn’t go to prison because of the murders, or the booze smuggling, or the racketeering, or the prostitutes. He went to prison because he didn’t pay his taxes.

Obama Reckons with a Trump Presidency →

David Remnick, writing for The New Yorker:

And Obama related the Party’s losses this year to previous setbacks—and recoveries. “Some of my staff are really young, so they don’t remember this,” Obama said. “They remember my speech from the Boston Convention, in 2004, because they uploaded it on YouTube or something, but they might have been fifteen when it happened. Well, that’s the election that John Kerry lost. George Bush was reëlected. Tom Daschle, the Democratic leader in the Senate, was defeated. The Senate went Republican. The House was Republican. Me and Ken Salazar, of Colorado, were the only two Democrats nationally who won. It was a very similar period to where we are right now. Two years later, Democrats had won back the Senate; I think they had won back the House. And four years later I was the President of the United States.

“So this notion somehow that these irreversible tides have been unleashed, I think, surrenders our agency. It’s easier than us saying, Huh, we missed that, we messed that up, we’ve got to do better in how we organize. We have to stop relying on a narrow targeting of our base turnout strategy if we want to govern. . . . Setting aside the results of this election, Democrats are well positioned to keep winning Presidential elections just by appealing to the base. And, each year, the demographic improves.”

To put it more bluntly than Obama did, the nonwhite percentage of the population will continue to increase. “But we’ll keep on getting gridlock just because of population distribution in this country,” he went on. “As long as California and Wyoming have the same number of senators, there’s going to be a problem—unless we’re able to have a broader conversation and move people who right now aren’t voting for progressive policies and candidates. . . . All of this requires vigilance in protecting gains we’ve made, but a sense, yes, of equanimity, a sense of purposeful calm and optimism, and a sense of humor—sometimes gallows humor after results like the ones we just had. That’s how ultimately the race is won.”

It’s going to take you 45 minutes to read this piece—I saved it specifically for today, Sunday, so that I knew I would have the time—but reading it is the best I’ve felt post-election.

The American Thanksgiving →

View fullsize

Sam Sifton, writing for The New York Times:

Americans all come from somewhere. Their families may have roamed the continent for thousands of years before the Mayflower dropped anchor. They may have been on the ship. They may have come on later ones, freely or in chains. They may have come by truck, train or airplane. They came. And their journeys are reflected in the food they or their descendants eat. The Times asked 15 families from across the country to show us the holiday dishes they make that speak most eloquently about their heritage and traditions. The stories of these home cooks help tell the story of the nation, the story of who we are.

This piece—the videos and the pictures and the recipes and the families—is a pitch-perfect representation of what makes America so unique, and because of that, so great.

Question the agenda of anyone who tries to convince you otherwise.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

When a Populist Demagogue Takes Power →

Adrian Chen, writing for The New Yorker:

In 1965, Ferdinand Marcos, a young provincial senator, won the Presidency of the Philippines with the pledge “This nation can be great again.” Marcos appeared to have the will necessary to reduce the influence of the colonial élite. He was viewed as a technocrat, but he merely replaced the old oligarchy with his own friends and relatives, including his glamorous wife, Imelda. Over time, his family amassed a fortune of up to ten billion dollars. In 1972, during his second term, Marcos declared martial law, citing Communist and Muslim insurgencies. Marcos’s closest advisers, who were known as the Rolex 12, for the wristwatches that he supposedly gave them, rounded up and tortured the regime’s political rivals.

Sound familiar?

Mississippi Governor Decries Billboard by Artist-Led Super PAC →

View fullsize

"Political correctness is just absolutely killing us as a country." - President-Elect Donald J. Trump

/via Hyperallergic

Bryant Park: A Memoir →

Hilary Mantel, writing for The New Yorker:

There are some women who, the moment they have conceived a child, are aware of it—just as you sense if you’re being watched or followed. I have never had a child, but once in my life, a long time back and for a single day, I thought I was pregnant. I was twenty-three years old, three years a wife. I had no plans at that stage for a child. But my predictable cycle had gone askew, and one morning I felt as if some activity had commenced behind my ribs. It wasn’t breathing, or digestion, or the thudding of my heart.

I’ll be honest—I’m growing a bit numb to reading what is essentially the same alarmist, predictive article that those opposed to a Trump presidency have been writing as of late. And so I approached this collection of “sixteen writers on Trump’s America” with trepidation, literary firepower notwithstanding. Mantel’s piece takes a different approach, though, and because of that, it becomes something pretty special.

I'm So Mad About Trump Getting Elected, I'm Going to Do Exactly the Same Stuff, Only More So

Dan Hopper, writing for McSweeney’s Internet Tendency:

I’m done whining and handwringing about President-Elect Trump. It’s time to take ACTION to defeat him in 2020, by which I mean, doing the exact same stuff I’ve been doing for the last eighteen months, but, like, way more of it.

Yup.