Dispatches From the Culture Wars - March 26, 2019

Mueller dud; Reparations poll; Betocare; Power of the NRA; Trump, McCain and MIAs; Hudson Yards horrorshow; Sneak peek at Term 2

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Hudson Yards, Manhattan's latest monument to living death,Credit: NBC News

No Sudden, Magic Resolution to the Trump Tragedy

By Masha Gessen
March 24, 2019
The New Yorker

The Mueller investigation promised a way to avoid thinking of Trump as an American development. It also held the appeal of a secret answer to our catastrophe, one that would make the unimaginable suddenly explicable.

What Americans Think About Reparations

By Perry Bacon Jr.
February 26, 2019
FiveThirtyEight

These results are divided into three categories: ideas or rhetoric that is broadly popular (more than 60 percent support from Americans overall), ideas that are unpopular (less than 40 percent support), and those that are somewhere in between.

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Beto’s Favorite Health Care Plan

By Dylan Scott
March 18, 2019
Vox

Medicare for America is not really single payer. Private insurance is preserved. Most Americans would still have to pay premiums and out-of-pocket costs, which the Sanders Medicare-for-all bill would effectively eliminate.

Why the U.S. Can’t Ban Military-Style Firearms

By Rick Noack and Shibani Mahtani
March 21, 2019
Washington Post

The National Rifle Association can pressure politicians into following its demands, even though NRA supporters account for only a fraction of all U.S. voters.

Trump vs. McCain: An American Horror Story

By H. Bruce Franklin
March 22, 2019
CounterPunch

The president is speaking in coded language to his base, which regards McCain as the Judas who betrayed all those thousands of American POWs left behind in Vietnam.

Visiting Hudson Yards

By Jeremiah Moss
March 18, 2019
Jeremiah's Vanishing New York

In the hall of the mall, a massive video screen shows scenes from the lifestyles of the super-rich to a captive audience of tired parents and tourists beached on benches.

A Second Loss to Trump Could Produce Hellscape 2021

By Ed Kilgore
March 24, 2019
New York Magazine

Democrats didn’t see Trump’s first win coming. It’s time as to consider what a second Trump term might be like.