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Politics
Pulling in
the youth
vote 4
Nation
Reshaping
college
budgets 9
Health
The crisis
of being
lonely 16
5 Myths
Donald
Trump 23
ABCDE
NATIONAL WEEKLY
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2016
.
IN COLLABORATION WITH
NEW WAVE
FEMINISM
Betty Friedan to Beyoncé:
How the generation that grew up
with the Internet embraces
feminism on its own terms PAGE 12
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3
KLMNO
WEEKLY
WORST WEEK IN WASHINGTON
Donald Trump
by Chris Cillizza
E
ver since Donald Trump rode his whitehot
rhetoric on immigration to the top of the
Republican presidential field, one question has
lingered: When voters went to, you know, vote, would
they have second thoughts about supporting The Donald?
The early returns suggest that the answer is yes. In the
runup to Monday’s Iowa caucuses, polling — including
the almostalwaysright survey conducted by Ann Selzer
for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics —
suggested that Trump was poised to win.
It didn’t turn out that way. Instead Ted Cruz, the
senator from Texas whom Trump had systematically
worked to savage in the final weeks before the caucuses,
rolled to victory on the strength of his very unTrumpian
focus on building a grassroots turnout organization.
Trump held on for second, but barely, as establishment
favorite Marco Rubio nipped at his heels.
Trump, unused to losing, gave a brief — and
remarkably lowkey — speech Monday night after it
became clear that he had come up short. Twentyfour
hours later, however, he was back to his old self, swearing
and threatening his way through a speech in New
Hampshire. By Wednesday night, he was insisting that
Cruz “illegally stole” Iowa and calling for a doover,
though there was no evidence to support his case.
The lone bright spot of the week for Trump was that
favorite crutch of his: polling. Surveys conducted after the
KLMNO
WEEKLY
JIM WATSON/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE VIA GETTY IMAGES
Iowa caucuses showed him maintaining a 20pointplus
lead over all comers in advance of New Hampshire’s
primary Tuesday. Of course, the Iowa polls showed
Trump winning, too.
Donald Trump, for not realizing that polling doesn’t
equal voting, you had the worst week in Washington.
Congrats, or something. n
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© 2016 The Washington Post / Year 2, No. 17
CONTENTS
POLITICS
THE NATION
THE WORLD
COVER STORY
FAMILY
BOOKS
OPINION
FIVE MYTHS
4
8
10
12
17
18
20
23
ON THE COVER Among other
changes, New Wave feminism is
held together not by national
organizations and charismatic
leaders but by the Internet and
social media. Photo illustration by
VOORHES for The Washington Post.
4
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WEEKLY
POLITICS
Sanders is big winner
among young voters
ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES
The dividing line in the Democratic candidates’ battle for support is 45 years old
BY R OSALIND S . H ELDERMAN
AND S COTT C LEMENT
Nashua, N.H.
W
hile Hillary Clinton
barely edged Bernie
Sanders to win the
Iowa caucuses, one
thing became clear Monday
night: The race for the Democratic presidential nomination is
turning into a battle of the ages.
The dividing line was 45 years
old — voters that age or older
went decisively for Clinton, while
those younger flocked to Sanders. Voters under 30 were the
most emphatic, with an astonishing 84 percent backing the 74year-old senator from Vermont,
according to entrance surveys.
Clinton, 68, appears to face a
similar problem in New Hampshire, which holds the first-in-thenation primary this week.
She kicked off her post-Iowa
efforts here by touting her razorthin caucus victory with a midday
rally at Nashua Community College, but despite the academic set-
ting, the 1,100-person crowd tilted
older.
“Hillary just isn’t trustworthy,”
said Amanda Delude, 22, who was
headed to her car instead of the
rally after class. She said she is
likely to vote for Sanders, who she
said strikes many in her generation as an uncommonly candid
politician.
Chloe Bruning, a 21-year-old
Boston University student who attended Tuesday’s rally, said she
and other members of the group
BU for Hillary were struggling to
Democratic
presidential
candidate Bernie
Sanders appears at
a caucus night party
Monday in Des
Moines. Sanders
barely lost in Iowa to
Hillary Clinton, but
84 percent of voters
under 30 backed the
senator from
Vermont.
convince pro-Sanders classmates
to give Clinton a new look.
“Clinton fatigue is a thing,” she
said. “It really is.”
Younger voters were a problem
for Clinton in 2008 as well, when
they emerged as a key element of
the support base that helped Barack Obama defeat her for the
Democratic nomination. In Iowa
that year, Obama beat Clinton
among caucus-goers under 30,
57 percent to 11 percent.
Clinton’s campaign has said
it intends to rebuild the Obama
5
POLITICS
MELINA MARA/THE WASHINGTON POST
Hillary Clinton speaks to supporters after the Iowa caucuses Monday at her victory party at Drake University
in Des Moines. At right, from top: Venee Galloway of Ashburn, Va., supports Bernie Sanders over Clinton in
the presidential race. “People are looking for answers she just doesn’t have,” Galloway says. Ashley Wang of
Manassas, Va., is a Clinton supporter who was surprised her victory in Iowa was so narrow. Felicia Thorpe of
Ashburn is leaning toward Sanders and thinks “Hillary is in trouble.”
coalition, which included blacks,
Hispanics, liberals and young people, while tapping into additional
excitement among women over
the possibility of the first female
president.
Typically, younger voters do not
turn out as reliably as older ones.
But Monday night’s entrance polls
and other opinion surveys suggest
a massive advantage for Sanders
among those who do turn out —
young women and men alike.
Ninety-three percent of caucusgoers under 30, for instance, said
Sanders shared their values, compared with 53 percent who felt
that way about Clinton, helping
Sanders surge past Obama’s performance in that age bracket eight
years earlier, according to the entrance surveys.
If Clinton wins the nomination,
reaching younger voters could be
a challenge for her in the fall,
particularly if the Republicans
nominate 44-year-old Sen. Marco
Rubio (Fla.).
Her husband, former president
Bill Clinton, told NBC News on
Tuesday that Sanders has built a
following among young people because he offers them “emotionally
satisfying” promises.
“If you vote for me, I’ll break up
the big banks, tax the millionaires
and give you free college, cut the
cost of health care — end of story,”
Bill Clinton said, recapping Sanders’s pitch. He suggested that his
wife, on the other hand, would
appeal to young people’s sense of
realism. “You tell them what you
think will really work and what we
can afford that will solve the problem, and ask for their help in doing
it, and it takes longer,” he said.
Hillary Clinton campaign officials noted that she performed
well among many important
groups, including minorities and
self-described Democrats.
“Her coalition reflects all parts
of the Democratic Party, and her
agenda of making college affordable, tackling climate change and
reforming our criminal-justice
system speaks to all parts of the
Democratic Party, especially
younger voters,” said campaign
spokeswoman Jesse Ferguson.
“She will continue reaching out to
them to earn their support.”
In terms of age breakdowns,
Clinton won among older voters,
and especially older women, on
her way to squeaking out her Iowa
victory.
A number of young people here,
including some Clinton supporters, said Sanders’s appeal has gone
beyond the issues. He has managed to capture an intangible
quality unexpected for a rumpled
grandfather figure with bad hair
who has served in Congress for 25
years: He’s cooler than Clinton.
In contrast, the former secretary of state has been in the middle of partisan battles for all their
lives.
Emma Sands, 21, another Clinton backer from Boston University, said that campus social media
is dominated by Sanders talk. And
while the BU group has more
women than men, Sands said it
KLMNO
WEEKLY
offends many young women’s
sense of gender equality to suggest
gender as a reason to back Clinton.
“I have an issue with the argument that you should like Hillary
just because she’s a woman,” she
said.
Amy Chapman, 43, who came to
hear Clinton speak but said she
remains undecided, said she is
disturbed by the candidate’s ties to
Wall Street banks, which have donated millions to her presidential
campaign and from which she and
her husband have earned major
speaking fees.
“How can you be completely
unbiased when you’re taking huge
amounts of money from them?”
asked Chapman, adding that she
may wind up voting for Clinton
anyway, out of fear that Sanders
would be a weak general-election
candidate.
Sonia Almeida, 40, a physician
assistant from Bedford, N.H.,
came to the rally with an undecided co-worker. Almeida said she’s
convinced that Clinton is the better choice on education, health
care and foreign affairs. But she
had one piece of advice for the
campaign: “They need to be on
social media more,” she said. “You
didn’t think he’d be so cool there.”
Her co-worker, Celia Ortiz, 36,
said Sanders seemed “more genuine.” Ortiz said she works in New
Hampshire but lives in Massachusetts, which holds its primary
March 1, and was also considering
Clinton because she liked the idea
of electing a female president.
Clinton enjoys a lot of support
at her own alma mater, the allfemale Wellesley College in Massachusetts. But there, too, Sanders
dominates online, said Laura
Prebble, 19, and Juliette Sander,
18, freshmen at the school who
said they support Clinton.
“People are always putting up
Bernie pictures or Bernie quotes,”
said Prebble, who grew up in Wisconsin.
Sander, a student from France,
said some of her classmates liked
the idea of a newcomer to the
presidential field.
“They like the idea that he’s not
part of ‘the Clinton family,’ ” she
said.
But the two students agreed
that the idea of electing the first
female president is powerfully
moving to them.
“For me, that’s incredibly meaningful,” Prebble said.n
6
KLMNO
WEEKLY
POLITICS
A surge in state takeovers of schools
Recent
moves
by GOP
governors
have
sparked
protests,
legal
challenges
and
charges of
racism
BY
L YNDSEY L AYTON
R
epublican lawmakers in
Illinois
last
month
pitched a bold plan for the
state to seize control of
the Chicago public schools, one of
a growing number of states that
are moving to sideline local officials — even dissolve locally elected school boards — and take over
struggling urban schools.
Governors in Michigan, Arkansas, Nevada, Wisconsin, Georgia,
Ohio and elsewhere — mostly Republican leaders who otherwise
champion local control in their
fights with the federal government — say they are intervening in
cases of chronic academic or financial failure. They say they have
a moral obligation to act when it is
clear that local efforts haven’t led
to improvement.
“I want to protect the schoolchildren and their parents; that’s
my first duty,” Illinois Gov. Bruce
Rauner (R) said about his plan,
which would wrest control of the
nation’s third-largest school district from elected city leaders and
was immediately opposed “100
percent” by Chicago Mayor Rahm
Emanuel (D).
After Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a
Republican presidential hopeful,
seized the struggling schools in
Youngstown last July, he described
it as an 11th-hour attempt to save
young lives. “If you’re a school
district that’s failed year after year
after year, someone’s going to
come riding to the rescue of kids,”
Kasich said, describing the
Youngstown school system, which
has regularly received an F on
state report cards and where just
1.1 percent of the Class of 2013 was
deemed ready for college.
Eleven states have passed or
debated legislation to create staterun school districts in the past
year, according to the Education
Commission of the States, which
tracks state education policy.
“There certainly is an effort
afoot in the country to dismantle
local government and reduce or
eliminate the role of local school
boards,” said Thomas Gentzel, executive director of the National
School Boards Association.
SKIP PETERSON/ASSOCIATED PRESS
“This was a blueprint to dismantle the city schools,” said Ohio Sen. Joe
Schiavoni (D) after the state took over Youngstown schools last year.
State takeovers were once a rarity, but they have become increasingly popular as the number of
states controlled by Republicans
doubled between 2010 and 2014.
“There’s been a sea change of
Republicans taking control of a
great many states, and this model
is quite appealing to them,” said
Kenneth K. Wong, education chair
at Brown University.
In the most recent versions,
states are creating “recovery districts” in which they take control
of large numbers of schools scattered across several districts.
Although the particulars vary,
an appointed manager wields
broad powers to redesign schools
or close them entirely. The state
manager can hire and fire, set
curriculum, reconfigure the
school day, sell property and, in
some cases, break existing labor
contracts. Increasingly, state managers are turning over traditional
public schools to charter school
operators, which are funded by tax
dollars but are privately managed.
The idea is that the state can
bring aggressive change in a way
that local politicians cannot.
The best known example is the
Recovery School District in Louisi-
ana, created by state lawmakers in
2003 to convert struggling traditional schools in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Shreveport into
charter schools. The district now
consists of about 70 charter schools.
But the move to replace locally
elected school officials with outsiders has yielded questionable results. Takeovers in Newark, Detroit and Memphis have not improved test scores — in fact, some
schools have gone backward.
“These ideas kind of travel like
wildfire,” said Kent McQuire, president and chief executive of the
Southern Education Foundation,
which recently analyzed state takeovers in three states. “But you can’t
really find evidence that there’s
been positive, sustainable changes
in learning in those places.”
And the takeovers have sparked
angry protests, legal challenges
and bitter complaints of racism.
All state takeovers to date have
occurred in school districts that
are impoverished and majority African American and Latino.
“These proposals are not really
about school reform or improvement,” said Philip Lanoue, the
2015 national Superintendent of
the Year who runs a school district
in Georgia, where Gov. Nathan
Deal (R) wants to change the state
constitution to enable state takeovers. “These takeovers are entangled with money and power and
control.”
In Georgia, Deal wants to create
an Opportunity School District
composed of as many as 100 lowperforming schools from across
his state.
But voters first have to amend
the state constitution, which currently stipulates that education
must be controlled by “that level of
government closest and most responsive to the taxpayers and parents of the children being educated.”
If the referendum passes in November, Atlanta would be most
affected, with 27 eligible struggling schools.
The mere threat of a takeover
has prompted the Atlanta public
schools to act. It hired a top Deal
education aide — who had designed the governor’s plan for
takeovers — to advise the city on
how to avoid one. Atlanta Superintendent Meria Carstarphen announced last month that she was
inviting charter school operators,
local nonprofit agencies and other
organizations to submit proposals
for ways to boost performance of
those 27 struggling schools.
One elementary school in
Clarke County, Lanoue’s district,
would be a candidate for takeover.
He said lasting improvement
doesn’t come from a top-down
makeover.
“If you really wanted true reform, wouldn’t you work directly
with school boards and the school
system?” he said.
One of the most contentious
takeovers has been the seizure of
the Youngstown City Schools in
Ohio, which the Kasich administration orchestrated behind
closed doors.
Youngstown has been struggling since the collapse of the steel
industry in the 1970s. Nearly all
the district’s 5,100 students are
low-income, and 1 in 5 have special
needs. Classrooms churn with instability: Nearly 20 percent of
Youngstown students either came
into the district or left in the mid-
7
POLITICS
dle of the 2013-2014 school year,
while more than 1 in 4 were chronically absent. In summer 2014,
Tom Humphries, president of the
Youngstown/Warren Chamber of
Commerce and a Kasich supporter, said the governor told him to
devise a plan to fix the schools.
He launched 10 months of secret meetings between top Kasich
administration officials and a
handful of community leaders.
Participants’ notes released by
the state show the members pledging secrecy out of concern for anticipated public resistance. After
nearly a year of discussions, the
Kasich administration unveiled
plans for a turbo-charged state
takeover that includes dissolution
of the locally elected school board
and appointment of a chief executive officer with broad powers over
local schools. A special commission controlled by Kasich appointees is expected to name a chief
executive next month.
The administration and its allies in the state legislature rushed
the legislation, getting it approved
by a committee and narrowly
passed by both houses of the legislature less than 24 hours after it
was made public, drawing protests from Democratic lawmakers
who said it violated procedure.
“This was a blueprint to dismantle the city schools,” said state
Sen. Joe Schiavoni, a Democrat
who represents Youngstown and
is Senate minority leader.
Members of the elected
Youngstown school board said
they were blindsided.
“None of our community was
involved in this, period,” said
Brenda Kimble, president of the
Youngstown City Schools board of
education, which is suing to stop
the takeover. “No board members,
no parents, no elected officials, no
teaching staff. Nobody knew
about this.”
“This isn’t just something happening in this small city in Ohio,”
Schiavoni said. “This is going to
happen in other school districts in
Ohio, and it’s happening all over
the country.”
Talking to reporters four
months ago, Kasich was baffled
that some in the community oppose the takeover of a failing
school district.
“What do they want to do? They
want kids to continue to fail?”
Kasich said. “People ought to be
outraged when kids are trapped in
failing schools. It’s a disgrace.” n
CAMPAIGN
KLMNO
WEEKLY
2016 THE FIX
Debate winners, losers
BY
C HRIS C ILLIZZA
H
illary Clinton and Bernie
Sanders squared off in
the fifth Democratic
presidential debate in
New Hampshire on Thursday
night. I watched, and picked some
of the best and worst of the night.
WINNERS
Hillary Clinton: This was not a
debate in which Clinton scored a
knockout blow. It was one, however, that she won on points. Clinton came out super aggressive in
the debate’s first 30 minutes,
pushing Sanders back on his heels
on, well, everything: guns, experience, the tenor of the campaign,
what it means to be progressive
and plenty of other things.
There are those who will see
Clinton’s tone in those first 30
minutes as over the top and,
therefore, ineffective, but it
seemed to me that she set up lots
and lots of attacks that she can
follow through on beyond New
Hampshire. (Clinton made clear
— at least to my eyes — that she
understands the New Hampshire
primary is a lost cause.)
When the subject moved to foreign policy in the debate’s second
hour, Clinton was clearly more at
ease than Sanders and effectively
made the case that now isn’t the
time to put someone in the Oval Office who needs to learn on the job.
It was far from a perfect debate
for Clinton. She struggled, again, to
explain the speaking fees she took
as a private citizen and pointedly
refused the opportunity to release
the transcripts of those speeches.
Her response (or lack thereof) ensures the issue will linger.
Two-person debates: There’s a
reason that networks try to limit
the number of people on stage
during these debates. This debate
— the first one-on-one showdown
of the 2016 primary season —
proved that less is more in debates. The first hour was the best
hour of any debate of this election:
substantive, confrontational and
entertaining. Both candidates had
plenty of time to make their cases
to voters and, more importantly,
voters had a chance to get a deep
look at what these two people believe and where they differ.
Chuck Todd/Rachel Maddow:
Moderating a presidential debate
is really tough. Todd and Maddow
did the thing that is both hardest
and best for moderators at this
level: They let the candidates actually debate. There is nothing
that drives me crazier than when
a moderator steps into the middle
of a genuine conversation/disagreement between two (or more)
I thought Sanders was forceful
and effective, as always, when
talking about economic inequality
and campaign finance reform. I
thought he may have allowed himself to be put in a box as a singleor double-issue candidate down
the line by Clinton, however.
Sanders also continued to
struggle when the debate moved
off of domestic issues and onto
matters of foreign policy. On a
question about what the right
next steps were regarding Ameri-
DAVID GOLDMAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton
spar during the MSNBC debate Thursday in Durham, N.H.
candidates in order to move on to
some other topic. The whole point
of a debate is to figure out where
the differences are and how each
candidate explains those differences, not to try to see who can
ask the most questions.
Also, kudos to the duo for asking thoughtful questions that haven’t been asked of the candidates
a thousand times before. Todd’s
question to Sanders about why he
wasn’t taking public financing for
the primary campaign was an A+.
LOSERS
Bernie Sanders: I hesitate to
put the Vermont socialist in the
“loser” category because he did
very little in the debate that will
slow his momentum heading into
a near-certain New Hampshire
win. But I also hate when analysts
and reporters take the easy way
out when picking winners and
losers. It was a two-person debate; if Clinton won then Sanders,
by definition, didn’t win.
can troops in Afghanistan, Sanders’s answer was rambling and
generally nonsensical.
New Hampshire: Clinton
pledged repeatedly to fight for every vote in New Hampshire. But if
you read between the lines of
some of her statements, it was
clear that she understands that
the Granite State primary is probably already over. Her first big attack on Sanders was on his alleged lack of commitment to gun
control, including votes against
the Brady Bill. That attack won’t
play well in New Hampshire, a
Second Amendment-friendly
state, and Clinton knows it. But
she also knows that among Democrats nationally, being the candidate regarded as more liberal on
gun control is a good place to be.
New Hampshire, which fashions itself the picker of presidents
(or at least presidential nominees), almost certainly won’t get
the attention it has in past primary fights. n
8
KLMNO
WEEKLY
NATION
Now arriving: Uncertainty at airports
BY
C HRISTOPHER E LLIOTT
T
hese are confusing times
for airline passengers.
In recent weeks, the
government has made two
surprising policy changes: First,
the Transportation Security Administration announced that
screening with a full-body scanner
would no longer be optional for
some passengers, and then the Department of Homeland Security
said that soon your state-issued
driver’s license might not be sufficient ID for you to pass through the
airport screening area.
The result? Travelers are less
certain about the airport screening experience than they’ve been
in years.
Despite scattered reports of
travelers being required to pass
through the TSA’s scanners, the
agency insists that there’s only a
small chance you’ll be screened by
the controversial machines if you
don’t want to be. In other words,
you can generally still “opt out”
and receive what the agency refers
to as an enhanced pat-down from
an agent. And your state-issued ID
will continue to work until 2018,
and probably long after that, even
if it doesn’t comply with the new
federal standards.
The full-body scanners represent the most high-profile public
concern. Since the agency assigned to protect America’s transportation systems implemented
its new no-opt-out policy Dec. 18,
there have been a few media reports of agents insisting that passengers use the scanners.
A passenger with the TSA’s PreCheck designation in Akron, Ohio,
complained in a comment on a
civil rights blog that she’d been
selected for a mandatory scanning. PreCheck is an expeditedscreening program that costs $85
for a five-year membership and
allows you to bypass the full-body
scanners.
“The agent handed me a laminated green sheet and told me I
was randomly selected for additional screening and needed to go
through the full-body screening
machine,” said Tara MacLaren, a
marketing consultant who works
DAVID MCNEW/GETTY IMAGES
Policy changes about full-body scanners and IDs
are the latest source of confusion for travelers
for a Houston-based software
company. “When I tried to opt out,
I was told that was no longer an
option for those with TSA PreCheck.”
MacLaren reports that she
“pushed back,” telling the agents
she was pregnant. Only then did
the agents relent, allowing her to
be screened with a metal detector.
“I was not given any assurance
that my pregnancy will be sufficient opt-out justification in the
future, just told that the rules had
changed and those with TSA PreCheck are not eligible for opting
out,” she said.
The TSA refused to comment on
that and other incidents. A representative said that “generally”
passengers undergoing screening
will have the opportunity to decline being screened by a full-body
scanner. “However, some passengers will be required to undergo
screening [with a scanner] if their
boarding pass indicates that they
have been selected for enhanced
screening,” said Bruce Anderson, a
TSA spokesman.
It remains unclear how someone might be selected for mandatory full-body screening.
Passenger advocates don’t like
the scanners because they say they
were deployed without giving the
public a chance to comment, as
required by federal law. They say
the devices violate the Fourth
Amendment right to protection
from unreasonable searches and
seizures. And they believe the
scanners may present health risks.
Adding to the uncertainty is the
possibility that Congress could act
soon to rein in the TSA. An influential coalition of civil rights
groups recently sent a letter to
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah),
chairman of the Committee on
Oversight and Government Reform, asking him to take immediate action to stop the scans. They
demanded that the government
suspend funding for full-body
scanners until a public rulemaking process has been completed
and that the TSA evaluate the cost,
The Transportation
Security
Administration
recently announced
that screening with a
full-body scanner
would no longer be
optional for some
passengers.
including lost time to passengers,
of screening procedures using
full-body scanners.
As if that’s not enough, the DHS
on Jan. 8 also announced the “final” implementation of the REAL
ID Act. The law established minimum security standards for the
issuance of sources of identification, such as driver’s licenses, and
prohibited federal agencies from
accepting for certain purposes
driver’s licenses and ID cards from
states not meeting the act’s minimum standards.
Soon, air travelers with a driver’s license or ID card issued by a
state that doesn’t meet the requirements will have to present an
alternative form of identification,
such as a passport, to board a
domestic commercial flight.
Although the deadline isn’t for
another two years, travelers are
nervous about their IDs not working. Only 23 states are compliant
or certified as making progress
toward being compliant with the
REAL ID Act. Another 27 states
and territories have been granted
extensions. Six states and territories — Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, Washington
and American Samoa — are noncompliant and do not currently
have extensions. You can find a list
of compliant states and territories
on the DHS website.
The actual deadline for REAL
ID won’t come until at least Oct. 1,
2020, when every air traveler will
need a REAL ID-compliant license
or another acceptable form of
identification for domestic air
travel.
But that is by no means a hard
deadline, according to author and
consumer advocate Edward Hasbrouck. He says the ambiguous
scanning rules and the national ID
requirements amount to an overreach of the TSA’s authority.
“If the government tries to carry out its latest threats to harass,
delay or prevent people without
an ID it deems acceptable from
flying, those actions are certain to
be challenged in court and likely
to be overturned as unconstitutional,” Hasbrouck says.
In other words, air travel may
get even more confusing. n
9
NATION
KLMNO
WEEKLY
An out-of-state shift at top colleges
B Y N ICK A NDERSON AND
D ANIELLE D OUGLAS- G ABRIEL
Tuscaloosa, Ala .
A
merica’s most prominent
public universities were
founded to serve the people of their states, but they
are enrolling record numbers of
students from elsewhere to maximize tuition revenue as state support for higher education withers.
The shift has buttressed the finances and reshaped the profile of
schools across the country, from
the University of California’s
famed campuses in Berkeley and
Los Angeles to the universities of
Arkansas, Oregon, Missouri,
South Carolina and numerous
other places. Forty-three of the 50
schools known as “state flagships”
enrolled a smaller share of freshmen from within their states in
2014 than they had a decade earlier, federal data show. At 10 flagships, state residents formed less
than half the freshman class.
Nowhere is the trend more pronounced than here at the University of Alabama, where students
who cheered recently when the
Crimson Tide won its fourth national football championship in
seven years were mostly from other states.
In 2004, 72 percent of new freshmen here were Alabamians. By
2014, the share was 36 percent.
That was the largest swing in the
country among 100 flagship and
Average tuition and fees at
four-year public universities
$9,410
In-state
$23,893
Out-of-state
Fewer in-state freshmen
Of 100 schools analyzed, the
University of Alabama saw the
biggest drop in the percentage of
freshmen from in-state over a
10-year period:
2004
72%
2014
36%
Sources: College Board, Washington Post
analysis of federal education data
EVELYN HOCKSTEIN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Share of local freshmen drops at dozens of
universities, reshaping profiles of state schools
other significant state universities
The Washington Post analyzed using federal data on student residency.
The percentage of in-state
freshmen fell at more than 70 of
those schools during that decade.
There were declines of 20 or
more percentage points at UCBerkeley and UCLA, Idaho State
University and the flagships of
South Carolina, Missouri, Oregon
and Arkansas. There also were
drops of more than 15 percentage
points at Michigan State, Ohio
State, and the universities of Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky and Washington.
The overhaul of the student
body at big-name schools reverberates in statehouses and among
consumers.
“People inside states believe
that they have greater access to
their state universities,” said Marguerite Roza, a Georgetown University research professor who
studies education finance. Many
are now asking, she said, “who
does that public university belong
to anymore? And what is it doing?
Is it seeking ‘elite’ status? That’s
great, but not if your own kids
can’t go there.”
Kendall Roden, 21, of Garland,
Tex., said she was lured to Tuscaloosa even though she had been
admitted to the University of Texas. Alabama offered her a sizable
scholarship. Plus she got to see
coach Nick Saban’s team win national titles in her freshman and
senior years. Being a football fan,
she said, is “a huge part of my life
and Alabama’s culture. It’s the lifeblood of the university.”
On one level, the shift is all
about money. Tuition and fees for
out-of-state students at four-year
public
universities
average
$23,893, according to the College
Board. In-state students are
charged an average of $9,410. The
out-of-state premium, 150 percent, is lucrative for schools that
draw thousands of nonresidents.
“They pay full freight,” said
UCLA Chancellor Gene Block.
Elliot Spiller of
Pelham, Ala., said
support from out-ofstate students
helped propel his
election as the first
African American
student government
president at the
University of
Alabama in decades.
“They bring in huge amounts of
additional revenue.” That funding
is key to maintaining academic
excellence, he said.
In 2004, 94 percent of UCLA’s
freshmen were Californians. Ten
years later, the share was 73 percent. The number of Californians
entering as freshmen at Westwood remained relatively stable —
averaging about 4,100 from 2008
to 2014 — but the number of nonresidents surged after the economic recession in 2007 to 2009.
There was an out-of-state spike
at Berkeley, too, creating political
problems. Three of every 10 freshmen at the California flagship in
2014 came from out of state, up
from 1 in 10 a decade earlier. Gov.
Jerry Brown (D) — a Berkeley alumnus — wondered last year whether
“normal” residents from the nation’s most-populous state were
getting a fair shot at admission to
their top university.
All of UC’s undergraduate campuses are planning to raise their
in-state totals significantly in the
next school year.
Numerous studies have shown
the historic decline of state support for higher education, although several states raised appropriations modestly in recent
years. The Delta Cost Project at
American Institutes for Research
found last month that state and
local funding per student at public
research universities was 28 percent lower in 2013 than in 2008,
after adjusting for inflation.
The fiscal vise forced universities to trim costs and raise revenue, largely through tuition increases or additional students.
Out-of-state expansion proved especially crucial for schools in
states with stagnant numbers of
high school graduates.
Experts say there is no sign the
trend will reverse.
“The reliance on nonresident
tuition income is probably going
to continue,” said George Pernsteiner, president of the State
Higher Education Executive Officers Association. “Even in the
states that have seen increases in
state support in the last few years
— have they reduced their nonresident enrollment? Well, no.” n
10
KLMNO
WEEKLY
WORLD
Drought ravages a parched Kenya
A BIGAIL H IGGINS
Kalokol, Kenya
BY
T
he lake that Philip Tioko
relies on for survival is a
fine turquoise strip that
seems to recede farther
into the distance each day. His
fishing village once hugged the
shore, but now it is 800 feet away,
and everything — food, water and
employment — is drying up.
Tioko, 46, remembers when fish
were abundant in Lake Turkana,
the world’s largest desert lake, and
there was enough rain for his livestock. “I used to have so many
animals. The lake used to be full —
life was good,” he said.
But rainfall has been decreasing in the northwestern Turkana
region of Kenya for decades.
Droughts now drag on interminably; one a quarter-century ago
wiped out his goat herd. Rivers
that once supplied drinking water
have run dry.
As the world grows increasingly
concerned about the looming effects of climate change, the perils
are already visible in African regions such as this one.
Temperatures have risen by at
least 0.5 degrees Celsius — that’s
nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit — in the
past 50 to 100 years in most parts of
Africa, and they are projected to
rise faster than the global average
in the 21st century, according to the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the leading
international authority on the subject. Most scientists say this increase is because of man-made
greenhouse-gas emissions.
Turkana has long suffered from
cyclical drought, and the lake’s
levels have risen and fallen over
the years. But the increasingly erratic rainfall pattern hews to scientific predictions about the effects of climate change.
Scientists think the warming
will probably continue even if the
world makes good on the commitments reached recently in Paris in
a landmark treaty to lower greenhouse-gas emissions.
In Africa, the effects of rising
temperatures could be especially
dramatic. By mid-century, climate
change will probably reduce the
EMILY H. JOHNSON FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Climate change is endangering the lives of
poor residents near the shrinking Lake Turkana
yields of major cereal crops in
sub-Saharan Africa by more than
20 percent, according to the IPCC.
“Africa is projected as the continent that will experience climate
deviations earlier and more severely than any other region,” said
Richard Munang, coordinator of
the Africa Regional Climate
Change Program for the U.N. Environment Program.
A variety of factors make the continent especially vulnerable. Africa
is naturally subject to extreme
weather, and two-thirds of the continent is already made up of desert
or drylands. Africans depend heavily on natural resources — rain-fed
agriculture employs 70 percent of
the population, according to the
WorldBank.Manycountriesaretoo
poor to afford projects to help residents cope with the change, such as
sophisticated irrigation systems.
The impact of the warming will
vary. In some areas, droughts will
extend; in others, there will be
flooding caused by rising sea levels
as glaciers melt or seawater ex-
pands because of higher temperatures, scientists say.
“I don’t know what climate
change is, but I know from all the
changes — the constant droughts,
the seasons are gone — these are
changes happening in our land.
Our life is becoming hard, and we
can’t do anything,” said Tioko’s
60-year-old father-in-law, Joseph
Ekimomor.
Turkana is known as the “cradle
of mankind,” because its soil holds
the richest fossil record of human
origins ever found.
Tioko lives in Namakat, a village of acorn-shaped huts. Two
decades ago, he had 200 goats and
two camels. He married three
women, a sign of prosperity in
Turkana culture.
But the region was already drying out. From 1940 until this year,
rainfall has decreased by 25 percent in Turkana while temperatures have risen steadily, according
to research by Chris Funk, a geographer at the University of California
at Santa Barbara. Kenyan govern-
Ekaale Ewoi guides a
fishing boat out to
deeper water near
Impressa Beach as
the sun rises on Lake
Turkana in Kalokol,
Kenya. Rainfall has
been decreasing in
the region for
decades.
ment figures obtained by Human
Rights Watch show temperatures
in Turkana increased by between
3.6 and 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit between 1967 and 2012.
“We always used to have
droughts, but they didn’t finish
everything. I’d remain with at
least five goats, and then I could
start over again, but then there
was the drought that finished everything,” Tioko said.
He does not remember when
that occurred, but it was probably
the drought in 1991-1992 that affected 1.5 million Kenyans. He
now survives by fishing.
Climate change is exacerbating
the droughts: Warming temperatures reduced the April-to-June
rainfall in East Africa in 2014 by 11
percent, according to research by
Funk.
Tioko’s wife, Elizabeth Lomare,
kneeled along open coals under
Turkana’s sweltering midday sun
one recent day. She swirled five
palm-sized Nile perch in water in
an aluminum pot for herself and
her nine children. Tioko had gotten lucky with fishing, providing
their first meal in two days.
“The difference between life and
death for the Turkana people is just
so fine, and this is putting them
over that balance,” said Felix
Horne, a Human Rights Watch researcher who has studied Turkana.
After the last of his goats died,
Tioko moved his family closer to
the lake so he could at least fish for
food. His father-in-law and mother-in-law, Leah Nakadi, 58, followed. But the supply of fish has
dwindled, in part because of decreasing water levels.
The situation in the region is
expected to worsen — and not just
because of climate change. Ethiopia recently completed the Gibe
III dam, which hydrologists say
will choke Ethiopia’s Omo River
Basin, the source of more than 90
percent of Lake Turkana’s water.
“With my age, I’m just counting
the days. I’ll die anytime, but what
of my grandchildren? I want them
to have a future, but what are their
lives going to be?” Ekimomor
asked.
“Maybe God knows how we’ll
survive,” his wife added. n
11
WORLD
KLMNO
WEEKLY
Could refugees be Merkel’s undoing?
A NTHONY F AIOLA
Berlin
BY
S
he was Time magazine’s
Person of the Year, a compassionate leader who
opened Germany’s door to
more than a million desperate migrants. Frau Nein became Frau
Nice. There was even talk of a
Nobel Peace Prize.
But German Chancellor Angela
Merkel is suffering a harsh reversal of fortune, confronting a political backlash that is isolating her
both at home and across Europe.
As Merkel is pushed into a corner
on migrant policy, political pundits are sounding a once-unthinkable alarm, warning that her job
may be at risk if she does not
quickly change course.
“I don’t think there is any question anymore,” said Werner J. Patzelt, a political analyst at Technical
University Dresden. “Angela
Merkel is really in trouble.”
For Merkel, the bad news just
keeps getting worse. In the aftermath of attacks in Cologne on New
Year’s Eve — in which asylum-seekers allegedly assaulted dozens of
Germanwomen—anewpollfound
that 40 percent of respondents now
want her to resign. Rebel lawmakers in her ruling coalition are openly criticizing her. The head of the
Christian Social Union in Bavaria
— formerly a staunch ally — is even
threatening to sue the government
if it does not curb the influx.
A new German poll says 81 percent of those asked think the government mishandled the refugee
crisis and Merkel’s approval rating
has fallen to 46 percent, the lowest
since August 2011.
Known for ruling by opinion
poll, Merkel has seemed to backtrack on aspects of her open-door
policy in recent days — insisting,
for instance, that most people
seeking refuge in Germany should
go back home after peace comes to
countries such as Syria and Iraq.
Her cabinet on Wednesday
backed new measures aimed at delaying refugees from bringing in
close relatives for two years and
declaringthreeNorthAfricancountries as “safe,” making it far harder
forasylumseekersfromthosecoun-
KRISZTIAN BOCSI/BLOOMBERG NEWS
German chancellor — once seen as a Peace Prize
nominee — is ‘really in trouble’ as crisis continues
tries to win refugee status.
But she is still mostly sticking to
her guns and refusing to close Germany’s doors. It is presenting a
chancellor who first came to power
when George W. Bush was still the
U.S. president with one of the
toughest choices of her decadelong tenure: whether to keep holding up the banner of humanitarianism or to be politically expedient.
“Merkel has become a prisoner
of her own politics,” said Jürgen
Falter, a political scientist at Mainz
University. He added, “I think the
likelihood is about 60 percent that
her policies don’t work out and she
throws in the towel.”
It is an unusually tight spot for
the Iron Chancellor, a woman who
rose to be the de facto leader of
Europe by driving hard bargains
on rescues for bankrupt Greece. In
the process, she elevated Germany
to the zenith of its post-World
War II power.
But the refugee crisis has damaged her profoundly, underscoring the high price of compassion
in a risk-averse world. A nation
whose World War II past made it
fully aware of the dangers of xenophobia, modern Germany was
leading by example in the 21st
century, becoming a beacon of
hope for desperate foreigners fleeing war and poverty. Merkel
staked her job on upholding what
she likes to call “European values”
— in effect, that the progressive
people of wealthy Europe should
not turn their backs on the human
right to sanctuary for Syrians,
Iraqis and others.
But she has run into serious
stumbling blocks. The attacks in
Cologne did not help her cause,
nor did the November massacre in
Paris that occurred after militants
entered Europe disguised as migrants. Additionally, a large percentage of the newcomers, it turns
A new poll says 81
percent of Germans
think the
government
mishandled the
refugee crisis, and
German Chancellor
Angela Merkel’s
approval rating has
fallen to 46 percent,
the lowest since
2011.
out, were not really escaping war
at all — but seeking to leverage
German kindness to build lives
away from places such as North
Africa, the Balkans and Pakistan.
She also erred by effectively
promising her countrymen something that she has thus far been
unable to deliver: a pledge that
other nations in Europe would
take in more migrants and start to
share Germany’s burden.
Instead of pitching in, countries
across Europe are barring their
doors. A voluntary European program to legally resettle refugees
has failed, with nations mostly refusing to accept newcomers from
the Middle East and elsewhere.
In fact, both publicly and privately, European politicians long
opposed to welcoming refugees are
reveling in the schadenfreude of
Merkel’s comeuppance. Recently,
Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka announced that a bloc of
anti-refugee nations — including
Hungary, Poland and Slovakia —
would hold their own meeting
ahead of a key E.U. summit in February to discuss alternative solutions to the crisis. Suggesting Berlin has gone too soft, Slovak Prime
Minister Robert Fico scoffed that
migrants have become a “protected
species” in Germany.
Meanwhile, the European
Union finally approved a key
$3 billion deal on Wednesday in
which Turkey would crack down on
the human traffickers ferrying
thousands of migrants to Europe
via Greece every week. But Turkish
demands for more money raise
questions about how quickly
change may happen on the ground.
Add it all together, and Merkel
is in a precarious spot. If she sticks
to her principles, it means Germany stands virtually alone in Europe as a haven for migrants. That
is a burden that the Germans —
initially welcoming to the waves of
refugees — are increasingly reluctant to shoulder.
“She is extremely worried about
the state of the public mood, but
she also sees a bigger picture,” said
Stefan Kornelius, foreign editor of
the Süddeutsche Zeitung. “It feels
like she is fighting for the European soul.” n
NEW WAVE FEMINISM
An
old
issue
gets
a new
look
BY DAVE SHEININ, KRISSAH
THOMPSON, SORAYA NADIA
MCDONALD AND SCOTT CLEMENT
S
tudent and professor sat across a desk
from each other one October morning
in a Georgetown University office. The
subject was an essay assignment in
Professor Elizabeth Velez’s Feminist
Theory class, in which she tasked her
19 students with writing a five- to seven-page
paper explaining and supporting their own personal theory of feminism.
Velez had invited all the students to visit during
her regular office hours to go over their theses.
This particular meeting did not go well.
“Feminism is not a political movement,” said
Madeline Budman, a sophomore English major
from Norfolk, bouncing her thesis off her professor.
Velez, a veteran of feminism’s Second Wave,
was “dumbfounded.” “Of course it’s a political
movement,” she recalled thinking. “I was never
going to dismiss her point of view, but I was
certainly going to push her to think it through
more. Part of me feels very strongly: How can
you see it otherwise?”
Budman left Velez’s office that day feeling “disheartened,” she said. “It was like, ‘Wow, my definitionoffeminismiswrong.’Shedidn’tsaythat,butI
felt like it was implied.”
Andthroughthatexchange,studentandteacher had arrived at one of the central tension points
confronting feminism’s modern age, and the one
that may define it going forward: the growing
tendency of younger generations of women to
untether feminism from its political and activist
foundation.
WHAT TYPE OF FEMINIST (OR ANTI-FEMINIST) ARE YOU?
A national survey by The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation reveals six distinct groups with a range of
views about feminism, the women’s movement and policies that affect women in the United States.
‘HELL, YEAH’
‘OKAY, SURE’
17% Of those, 98% are
among strong feminist
all women or feminist
22%
‘YES, BUT’
94%
This group has the most passionate
Over 9 in 10 identify with the
Percentage of women in each group who …
views toward the feminist
movement; only 20% say they are
…movement.
say feminism
is yeah”
empowering
“Hell,
feminists
“strong feminists.” 87% have
are the most politically active group
favorable views of feminism; 51%
87%
88%
‘HELL,
YEAH’
SURE’ Like
and see a very
active
role for the
say it has a‘OKAY,
good reputation.
government to play. They place a
the “Hell, yeah” group, they are
higher priority on getting women
likely to say the feminist movement
…elected
say feminism
outdated
to office;is95%
have voted
is focused on the changes they
for a candidate because of their
want; however, they are far less apt
16%
12%
stand on women’s issues. Twoto have engaged in contacting
Of those,is98%
22% posting
94%
thirds say17%
discrimination
the are
elected officials,
online or
among
strong
feminist
bigger
issue
keeping
women
back,
voting
regarding
these
issues.
… say the
feminist movement
all women
or feministfocuses on changes they want
the most
of any group.
78%
74%
2
95%
16%
This group overwhelmingly
identifies as feminists, but takes
more critical views of the
movement than others. 48% say
58% on the
BUT’
feminism is ‘YES,
not focused
changes they want. 50% say it does
not accurately reflect the view of
most women. 63% say it is
outdated and angry. 70% say it
63%
looks down on women without jobs.
95%men for
74% say it16%
unfairly blames
women’s challenges.
35%
Percentage of women in each group who …
say feminism
is empowering
……support
more government
action to ensure equal pay
87%
91%
77% 88%
58%
87%
say feminism
is outdated
……voted
for a candidate
because of their support for women’s rights
95%
16%
12%
34%
42%
63%
Note:
How
these groups
identified?
A nationally
representative
… say
thewere
feminist
movement
focuses
on changes
they wantWashington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation survey of over 1,600 American
78%
74%
35%
… support more government action to ensure equal pay
91%
77%
87%
… voted for a candidate because of their support for women’s rights
95%
34%
42%
Note: How were these groups identified? A nationally representative Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation survey of over 1,600 America
‘NO, BUT’
21%
‘WHATEVER’
NONE
This group is distinguished by the
fact that none of them identifies as a
feminist. But they are not the most
hostile to feminism either. They
‘NO,
BUT’67%policy
largely support
progressive
positions but are divided on whether
the movement is focused on
changes they want. They are more
likely to view feminism as optimistic
25% than outdated or
and empowering
21%
NONE
angry, and
a majority says
the
movement is still needed.
13%
51%
11%
While about half of this group
identifies as feminists, only 7%
identify strongly with the movement
and 21% have no opinion. They have
68%
‘WHATEVER’
mixed views
on policy positions;
52% say government should take a
more active role to ensure wage
equality, compared with 70% of all
women. Two-thirds say feminism is
26% empowering. 72% say
optimistic and
13% women51%
that the choices
make are
the bigger factor holding them back.
36%
38%
67%
74%
87%
‘CERTAINLY NOT’
25%
29%
This group is basically opposed to
anything and everything that
feminists support. 85% are not
feminists, with 12% identifying as
23% the highest
‘CERTAINLY
NOT’
anti-feminist,
of any
group. This group is overwhelmingly
Republican and conservative. 21%
say that women should not be
social, political and economic equals
55%
with men. 85% say the
choices
11% are the bigger
8% factor
women make
holding them back.
2%
52% 68%
26%
21%
8%
38%
7%
23%
55%
9%
of over 1,600 Americans was analyzed identify unique clusters of women based on their views of feminism and women’s rights issues.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY OLIMPIA ZAGNOLI FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
36%
87%
38%
74%
29%
2%
52%
21%
38%
7%
9%
of over 1,600 Americans was analyzed identify unique clusters of women based on their views of feminism and women’s rights issues.
Young women (and, increasingly, men) are
still coming to the movement in strong numbers, but this feminism looks different, in many
ways, than that of earlier generations. This New
Wave feminism is shaped less by a shared
struggle against oppression than by a collective
embrace of individual freedoms, concerned
less with targeting narrowly defined enemies
than with broadening feminism’s reach
through inclusiveness, and held together not
by a handful of national organizations and
charismatic leaders but by the invisible bonds
of the Internet and social media.
This feminism stresses personal freedom as
much as it does equality and, when infused
with the younger generation’s bent toward
inclusion, has the capacity to make room for
both Carly Fiorina and Beyoncé — even though
older generations might permit neither.
Feminism is still a vibrant part of today’s
culture: Forty-seven percent of the public (and
60 percent of women) identified themselves as
feminists in a Washington Post-Kaiser Family
Foundation poll of 1,610 American adults. That’s
up six percentage points from a Feminist Majority Foundation poll conducted 20 years ago.
But within the same poll data are signs of
fundamental disconnects, both old ones and
new ones. The word itself — “feminist” — still is
a sticking point for many, loaded with negative
connotations, thanks at least in part to the
efforts of influential right-wing radio host Rush
Limbaugh, who popularized the pejorative
term “feminazi” with his listeners. When half
the Post-Kaiser polling sample was asked
whether feminism has a good or bad reputation, 55 percent of the respondents chose “bad”
— with little difference between women and
men — while 32 percent chose “good.” But when
the other half was asked the same question,
except with “the women’s movement” substituted for “feminism,” the results were essentially reversed: with 54 percent choosing “good”
and 35 percent saying “bad.”
In contrast, 94 percent embraced feminism’s
bedrock principle: that men and women
should be social, political and economic equals.
Clearly, people believe in feminist ideals —
just not feminist labels.
“I believe women should have equal rights to
everything — in the workplace, equal pay,” said
Ashley Huber, a 24-year-old college student
from St. Petersburg, Fla., in a telephone interview after she answered the poll questions.
“What I don’t want to be is the hard-core
feminist: extreme and radical. . . . It’s not that I
don’t believe in feminism at all. I’m just not one
of those radical people who obsess over it.”
Broken down by age groups, the poll results
illuminated differences in generational stances
toward feminism. Millennial women (defined
as ages 18 to 34) identified as feminist in
numbers, 63 percent, that approached those of
baby-boomer women, 68 percent of whom
identified as feminists, and to a greater degree
than the women in between: those aged 35 to
49. Fifty-one percent of that Generation X age
group identified as feminists. When asked
whether the word “empowering” accurately
continues on next page
NOTE: HOW WERE THESE GROUPS IDENTIFIED? A NATIONALLY
REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON POST-KAISER FAMILY FOUNDATION
SURVEY OF OVER 1,600 AMERICANS WAS ANALYZED TO IDENTIFY
UNIQUE CLUSTERS OF WOMEN BASED ON THEIR VIEWS OF FEMINISM
AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS ISSUES.
14
KLMNO
WEEKLY
COVER STORY
represents feminism, for example, 58 percent
what it means to mobilize has shifted dramatidescribes their view of feminism, 83 percent of
of participants in last summer’s Post-Kaiser
cally,” said Tiffany Sun of Rockville, Md., a
women 35 or younger said yes, compared with
poll chose “no one” or offered no opinion.
senior government and gender studies student
56 percent of women 65 or older.
Hillary Clinton was named by 22 percent of the
at Georgetown and one of Velez’s current stuThrough a closer look at the poll data, as well
poll respondents. No other individual was
dents. “The Internet is the medium where
as dozens of interviews, it is clear there is one
named by more than 3 percent.
people assemble now.”
central disconnect: Although millennial womIn conversations with people for whom femiWithin the shifting media environment, moden, as a whole, view themselves largely as
nism continues to resonate, it increasingly is
ern feminism is blossoming most vividly, from
feminists — a logical notion, given their proxtaking place not in a political space but a
the wealth of provocative feminist writing found
imity to issues such as workplace equality and
cultural one, a sphere dominated by powerful
online to the popularity of television shows such
reproductive rights — their view of what it
young women — Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Jennias “Girls,” “Orange Is the New Black” and “Transmeans to be a feminist is often far different
fer Lawrence and others — who identify publicparent” that might have been unimaginable
than that of their mothers and grandmothers.
ly as feminists. This version of feminism is, by
even 10 years ago.
“To me, it’s about women being able to do what
definition, more inclusive than the versions
In the Post-Kaiser poll, 69 percent of women
they want within legal boundaries and about
that came before. It is more in tune with what
in the 18-to-34 age category said “yes” to the
being people not defined by what genitalia you
academics call “intersectionality” — gender,
question of whether there is an active movehave,” said Jamie McLaulin, 25, a
ment in the United States today.
fast-food worker in the Hampton
Forty-six percent of women 65 or
Roads area of Virginia who identifies
older agreed.
POLL Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation Poll
herself as a feminist. My feminism “is
Another large intergenerational
morepersonal,becauseI’mnotgoing
gap in the poll came in regard to the
Q: Do you consider yourself to be a strong feminist, a feminist,
to meetings or rallies or anything.”
true-false question of whether femnot a feminist or an anti-feminist?
If feminism is more personal
inism “accurately reflects” the view
than collective now, then each womof most women. Overall, 53 percent
1995 women
2015 women
an’s experience has its own meanof women chose “true,” but a trend
ing. And within Budman’s journey
line was clear: Younger women
14%
in a single essay assignment — a
chose “true” in much larger numStrong feminist
17%
process that essentially carried
bers than older women — includBudman’s thesis from “feminism is
ing 64 percent of women in the
37%
not political” to the more nuanced
youngest category, compared with
Feminist
43%
“feminism is not only political” —
44 percent of women in the oldest.
one can see larger truths: that there
This divide may reflect the long35%
Not a feminist/
are more similarities than differstanding criticism of feminism as
anti-feminist
33%
ences between the politicized femibeing overly focused on the needs
nism of the 1960s and ’70s and the
of white, upper-class women. It is a
13%
No opinion
more individualized version pracperception that has endured, sug7%
ticed by today’s generation.
gested the poll, in which 77 percent
Note: 1995 results based on Feminist Majority Foundation poll. Percentages may not add up
“It’s kind of a cliche,” Budman
of respondents agreed that femito 100% due to rounding.
said, comparing her brand of feminism has helped white women,
WEIYI CAI/THE WASHINGTON POST
nism to that of her professor’s, “but
while 64 percent said the same for
she grew up with the civil rights
black women, and 55 percent for
movement. We grew up with FaceHispanic women. About half said
book.”
race and sexuality coming together to inform a
feminism has helped poor women, while about
single identity — and less concerned with
7 in 10 said it has helped middle-class women.
Contrasts to Second Wave
women’s-only spaces, in part because gender is
The notion of a divide within feminism is
Ninety-six years after the ratification of the
increasingly viewed as something that is fluid,
nothing new. Over the years, some have com19th Amendment gave American women the
as opposed to binary.
plained that it was a zero-sum game that sought
right to vote, marking the unofficial end of
Like much of American society, the feminist
to diminish men, or that women were too often
feminism’s First Wave, and 53 years after the
agenda has migrated to the Internet, making it at
guilty of “eating their own” by being hypercritipublication of Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine
once less centered and communal, but more
cal of one another. But as feminist author
Mystique” ushered in the Second Wave, modaccessible and democratized.
Rebecca Traister said, “It’s a social movement
ern feminism has entered some new place.
“It’s not really one singular wave but multitrying to create opportunities for 51 percent of
Far from the largely monolithic feminism that
ple waves — because there are so many differthe population — that means you are going to
came of age amid the upheaval of the 1960s and
ent lines of thought,” said writer Jessica Valenti,
be inevitably riven by discord.”
’70s, it is splintered and amorphous. It fits varied
36, who co-founded the popular website FemiCriticism from elders
interests and groups under one massive umbrelnisting. “That doesn’t mean it’s not doing its job
la.WherewomenoftheSecondWavefoundtheir
or that feminism isn’t working. It just means
“The personal is political,” went one popular
entrée into feminism in a rousing speech, a book,
that we don’t necessarily need . . . a handful of
slogan for Second Wave feminism, and some
a march, a copy of Ms. Magazine or a women’s
organizations or one cohesive platform in oryounger feminists have revived the slogan to
group, now young women are frequently introder [to reach people]. At the end of the day, all of
reflect their belief that pursuing individual
duced to it through a Beyoncé video, a season of
those waves are moving in the same direction.”
freedoms is very much a political exercise and to
HBO’s “Girls” or a website such as Jezebel — all of
For a generation that came of age online,
defend themselves against criticism from older
them occupying wildly different plots on the
joining a Tumblr discussion or sharing an
feminists that they aren’t political enough.
vast, untamed feminist landscape.
article link is as natural as joining a women’s
“I think the critique that our generation is
While there was never much question as to
circle or attending a rally were to the movevery individualistic is misguided,” said Alyssa
who were the prominent faces of the Second
ment’s pioneers, who often question the effecPeterson, 23, an associate editor for the Center
Wave — Friedan and Gloria Steinem among
tiveness of this new “hashtag feminism.”
for American Progress and a former student of
them — the new feminism is largely leaderless
“I don’t know that our generation is any
Velez’s at Georgetown. “The conversation surand faceless. Asked to name a figure who
more or less political. I just think our view of
rounding feminism in pop culture and about
from previous page
“Part of the
reason people
are having
trouble
connecting to
feminism is
because
everything you
do in your life
has to be a big
feminist
stance. And I
don’t think
that’s the
case.”
Madeline
Budman,
19
“I feel like the
personal is
also a part of
feminism.
The microaggressions
you go through
every day kind
of aren’t part
of the larger
societal issue
that exists.
So being
assertive . . .
[is] still
important to
recognize,
as well.”
Victoria Riley,
20
15
COVER STORY
KLMNO
femininity as a construct is very political. We’re
and now. Whatever feminism is today, even
the case. . . . I think I speak more for people who
negotiating the political landscape in different
those who identify as feminists would probably
don’t identify as a feminist — even though I do.”
ways, because previous generations already
say it is not a revolution.
In Budman’s recollection of her initial meetachieved so much. Our battles are against more
ing with Velez, she argued, “Women can define
Bridging the gap
subtle forms of discrimination. It’s odd to me
feminism for themselves.” Velez’s response:
that ‘the personal is political,’ as feminists have
In Velez’s Georgetown classroom, where
“Well, then what is it?”
been saying for years, but somehow [feminism
some 50 years of life experience separates
“It made me really think hard about what I
within] pop culture is a separate thing.”
teacher and students, the disconnect between
was saying,” Budman recalled. “I basically deWhere that leaves the political facet of femithe new view of feminism and that of the
leted everything I had.”
nism is open to interpretation. It is not as if
Second Wave is something to be dissected,
A Jew who is considering a career as a rabbi,
today’s generation has abandoned it completedebated and — in many cases — bridged.
Budman had a breakthrough when she hit
ly. Awareness over sexual assault, for example,
Velez, 70, is a product of the 1960s and ’70s
upon the idea of using the story of Lilith as a
has given rise to a period of intense activism on
and a self-described Second-Waver — the brand
narrative device. According to Jewish folklore,
college campuses — to the point where there
of feminist who fought the political battles of
Lilith was created from the same earth as
has been an equally intense backlash against it.
that era and endured the type of discrimination
Adam, and simultaneously, but rejected the
And it’s not as if full equality has been
that would be unfathomable to her students
subservient role God ascribed to her — making
achieved: not when women make
her, in a sense, the original femiup 20 percent of members of Connist. In this folklore, Lilith was cast
gress and 5 percent of CEOs of
out of Eden as a demon, and Eve
POLL Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation Poll
Fortune 500 companies; and not
was created to replace her.
with women earning 78 cents for
Budman decided to call her
How many women identify as “feminist”?
every dollar earned by men.
brand of feminism “Lilithian FemiWomen in different age groups identify themselves as “feminist”(strong
“It’s a long and everlasting batnism” — one predicated upon an
feminist or feminist) differently.
tle,” said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand
unflagging dedication to equality,
(D-N.Y.), 48. “We have not achieved
inclusion and personal choice.
full equality. We certainly don’t
Another breakthrough came
have political parity. We haven’t
when she decided to tweak the old
Age
achieved the level of success in
feminist credo, “The personal is
35-49
65+
50-64
18-34
corporate America that our talents
political,” by arguing the converse.
would dictate. . . . We really should
“Theidea,”shesaidlater,“wasthat
have 51 percent [representation]
the personal was also personal. Yes,
of women in Congress.”
it’s political, and we need those polit63% identified
51%
68%
58%
Despite those realities, the Postical gains to further the movement,
as strong feminist
Kaiser poll reflected feminism’s
and nothing can happen without poor feminist
lack of political will or any visible
litical change. But also, nothing can
WEIYI CAI/THE WASHINGTON POST
momentum at the grass-roots levhappen without personal change.”
el. Asked to choose their “top priIn a subsequent office visit, Budorities for improving women’s
man presented Velez with her new
lives,” 84 percent of respondents selected “retoday. A native of Alabama, where her introducthesis — essentially saying, feminism is not only
ducing domestic violence and sexual assault,”
tion to social causes was through the civil rights
political — and her outline. Velez listened closely
making it the top choice, and 75 percent selectmovement, Velez arrived at Georgetown, a
and said, according to Budman: “This is much
ed “equal pay for equal work.” Thirty-two perJesuit university in Northwest Washington, in
more nuanced. You’re getting there. Good job.”
cent chose “getting more women elected,” mak1981 as a graduate student in the English
On her third visit, Budman handed in her
ing it the lowest-rated of the 11 choices.
department. She has been teaching the Femipaper. Its title: “Before Eve, There Was Lilith: A
“It’s hard to talk women into actually getting
nist Theory course for the women’s studies
New Take on Feminism and the Original Wom[into politics] — because politics is so unapdepartment for 30 years.
an.” “Before feminists can work to empower
pealing sometimes and made so unattractive,”
But Velez has noticed something changing in
other women, they must work to empower
said Mary Jean Collins, 75, a prominent Second
the past few years, a shift in attitude that has
themselves through their own choices,” she
Wave feminist who was president of the Chicaforced her to revamp her syllabus and rethink
wrote. (Budman shared a copy of her paper
go chapter of NOW in the 1970s and a national
the way she steers the classroom discussion.
with The Washington Post with the condition
vice president in the 1980s. “But I think to
Largely unburdened by the type of outright
that any excerpts be cleared with her in ad[make progress], it really requires that we get
discrimination Velez and her peers faced at the
vance.) “… While it’s also important to attend
more women into political office.”
same ages, her students often see feminism as
rallies for [abortion rights] and sue companies
Collins isn’t interested in kicking the younger
equating to personal freedoms — such as sexual
for workplace discrimination, a woman’s strongeneration of feminists. In the cacophony of
expression, gender identity and the choice to
gest impact is living her life and expressing her
voices and media today, she sees signs of proghave both a career and a family.
womanhood on her own terms.”
ress. She acknowledges the effectiveness of
The essay assignment — describing one’s perVelez’s students received their essay grades
hashtag feminism in connecting like-minded
sonal theory of feminism — was the first major
in November. Budman’s received an A.
women. She notices college students organizing
writing assignment of the class, and one of the
“A lot of thought went into this, for both of
around the topic of sexual assault. “I see young
first to visit Velez’s office to discuss it was Budus,” Velez said. “The essay she turned in was
women trying to make a difference for their
man, the sophomore from Norfolk. A self-dewell written and thoughtful, and she went
generation, and I applaud them,” she said.
scribed feminist who serves on the board of
through a difficult intellectual process to get
But it is only when she describes the past that
H*yas for Choice, an abortion-rights campus
there. For me, Maddy is on a journey. I think
Collins becomes animated. “We actually
organization, Budman nonetheless rejects what
she’s still thinking about it. And I’m still thinkthought we were making a revolution,” she
she sees as the rigidity of Second Wave feminism.
ing about it. I certainly listen to my students
said. “We said we were making a revolution. We
“Part of the reason people are having trouble
and learn from them. And I think that’s crucial.
wrote books as though we were doing that, or
connecting to feminism is because everything
Their ideas continue to evolve, as all of ours do.”
poems, or songs. We made it explicit.”
youdoinyourlife hastobeabig feministstance,”
The great gift of feminism, Velez said, “is it’s
Left unsaid was the contrast between then
she said in an interview. “And I don’t think that’s
always in some kind of evolution.”n
WEEKLY
“We have this
weird and
often
damaging
tendency to
[divide
people], where
you’re either
one thing or
you’re not. . . .
I think being a
feminist takes
all different
forms, and at
the core of it is
being inclusive
and not
excluding.”
Grace Smith,
20
“I don’t know
that our
generation is
any more or
less political.
I just think our
view of what it
means to
mobilize has
shifted
dramatically.”
Tiffany Sun,
21
16
KLMNO
WEEKLY
HEALTH
The menace of loneliness
ISTOCKPHOTO
BY
A MY E LLIS N UTT
I
t torments the young and terrorizes the old. It carved “caverns” in Emily Dickinson’s
soul and left William Blake
“bereaved of light.”
Loneliness, long a bane of humanity, is increasingly seen today
as a serious public health hazard.
Scientists who have identified significant links between loneliness
and illness are pursuing the precise biological mechanisms that
make it such a menace, digging
down to the molecular level and
finding that social isolation
changes the human genome in
profound, long-lasting ways.
Not only that, but the potential
for damage caused by these genetic changes appears comparable to
the injuries to health from smoking and, even worse, from diabetes
and obesity. The scientists’ conclusion: Loneliness can be a lethal
risk. And the United States —
which so prizes individuality — is
doing far too little to alleviate it.
“In public health, we talk all the
time about obesity and smoking
and have all these interventions,
but not about people who are lonely and socially isolated,” said Kerstin Gerst Emerson, an assistant
professor at the University of
Georgia’s Institute of Gerontology.
“There are really tangible, terrible
outcomes. Lonely people are dying, they’re less healthy, and they
are costing our society more.”
Psychologist Steve Cole, who
studies how social environments
affect gene expression, says re-
searchers have known for years
that lonely people are at greater
risk for heart attacks, metastatic
cancer, Alzheimer’s and other ills.
“But we haven’t understood why,”
he said.
Then last year, Cole and his
colleagues at the UCLA School of
Medicine, along with collaborators at the University of California
at Davis and the University of Chicago, uncovered complex immune
system responses at work in lonely
people. They found that social isolation turned up the activity of
genes responsible for inflammation and turned down the activity
of genes that produce antibodies
to fight infection.
The abnormalities were discovered in monocytes, a type of white
blood cell, produced in the bone
marrow, that is dramatically
changed in people who are socially
isolated. Monocytes play a special
immunological role and are one of
the body’s first lines of defense
against infection. However, immature monocytes cause inflammation and reduce antibody protection. And they are what proliferates in the blood of lonely people.
Such cellular changes, says University of Chicago social neuroscientist John Cacioppo, are a byproduct of human evolution.
Early on, when survival depended crucially on cooperation
and communication, social isolation was a huge risk. So evolution
shaped the primitive human brain
to desire and need social interaction in the same way it shaped the
brain to desire and need food.
Today, social isolation is often an
unavoidablelifestyle.Butitputsthe
body, on the cellular level, on constant alert for a threat. That helps
explain why lonely people are more
likely to act negatively toward others, which makes it that much harder for them to forge relationships.
“I do see these patients all the
time,” said psychiatrist Jacqueline
Olds, who has a private practice in
Cambridge, Mass., and has cowritten two books on the subject.
“Many of the people who end up
lonely give off signals they want to
be alone out of anxiety. . . . Feeling
left out has a huge effect on our
psyche from our evolutionary
worries that everyone else will
survive and we won’t.”
The most broadly accepted definition of loneliness is the distress
people feel when reality fails to
meet their ideal of social relationships. Loneliness is not synonymous with being alone. Many people live solitary lives but are not
lonely. Conversely, being surrounded by others is no guarantee
against loneliness.
Loneliness is also not the same
as depression, though the two often go hand in hand. The first,
related to the drive to belong, is
motivational. The other, a more
general feeling of sadness or hopelessness, is not.
At the University of Georgia,
Gerst and health economist
Jayani Jayawardhana wanted to
see how widespread the distress
from loneliness actually is. They
analyzed longitudinal data from
Scientists
find social
isolation
is more
dangerous
than
diabetes,
obesity
two national health and retirement studies conducted in 2008
and 2012. Through the answers
provided by 7,060 individuals 60
and older, the researchers concluded that chronic loneliness was
“a significant public health issue,”
one that “contributes to a cycle of
illness and health-care utilization.”
Among their more unusual
findings: Even when controlling
for an increase in physician visits
because of illness, loneliness appeared to be an important predictor of those visits. The doctorpatient relationship, it seemed,
provided one of the few social
outlets for isolated people.
Psychotherapist Matt Lundquist, director of TriBeCa Therapy
in New York City, has become
something of an expert on loneliness. Hardly a week goes by, he
says, without one of his patients
expressing “agony” over something seen on Facebook. “It’s a
reinforcement that everybody has
these connections and [they]
don’t,” he said.
A study published online recently in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences,
suggests there is also a parallel
effect with health and loneliness.
With every positive increase in
social relationships, researchers
in North Carolina and China saw
improvement in specific physiological biomarkers such as blood
pressure and body mass index.
The largest positive effect was
associated with those who had a
variety of relationships, such as
with friends, romantic partners
and co-workers.
Many researchers believe the
United States is not doing enough
to address loneliness as a public
health issue. For inspiration, they
point to the United Kingdom. Begun in 2011, its national Campaign
to End Loneliness involves five
social-service agencies and about
2,500 smaller organizations, all
working to raise people’s awareness of loneliness.
German psychoanalyst Frieda
Fromm-Reichmann could have
predicted the science more than a
half-century ago. One of the first to
examine social isolation from an
empirical perspective, she wrote
that the “naked horror” of loneliness shadows our lives because
the longing for intimacy is always
with us.
“There is no human being who
is not threatened by its loss.” n
17
FAMILY
KLMNO
WEEKLY
The high cost of infant day care
In December, Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez announced new aid for parents struggling to cover child-care costs.
Below is a comparison of the annual cost of full-time care for an infant at a day-care center in the 10 most costly states,
some major cities and Washington, D.C., according to government data. — Annys Shin
1. Minnesota
2. Oregon
3. New York
4. Massachusetts
5. Colorado
ANNUAL COST OF INFANT
CARE IN A CENTER:
CARE IN A CENTER:
CARE IN A CENTER:
CARE IN A CENTER:
CARE IN A CENTER:
$14,366
$11,322
$14,144
$17,062
$13,154
% OF MEDIAN
FAMILY INCOME:
% OF MEDIAN
FAMILY INCOME:
% OF MEDIAN
FAMILY INCOME:
% OF MEDIAN
FAMILY INCOME:
% OF MEDIAN
FAMILY INCOME:
MARRIED
COUPLE
MARRIED
COUPLE
MARRIED
COUPLE
MARRIED
COUPLE
MARRIED
COUPLE
15.2
15.2
15.2
53.6
50.7
54.5
SINGLE
PARENT
SINGLE
PARENT
SINGLE
PARENT
15.1
15.1
46.6
62.8
SINGLE
PARENT
SINGLE
PARENT
6. Washington
7. Illinois
The District
8. California
9. Nevada
CARE IN A CENTER:
CARE IN A CENTER:
CARE IN A CENTER:
CARE IN A CENTER:
CARE IN A CENTER:
$12,733
$12,964
$22,631
$11,817
$9,852
% OF MEDIAN
FAMILY INCOME:
% OF MEDIAN
FAMILY INCOME:
% OF MEDIAN
FAMILY INCOME:
% OF MEDIAN
FAMILY INCOME:
% OF MEDIAN
FAMILY INCOME:
MARRIED
COUPLE
MARRIED
COUPLE
MARRIED
COUPLE
MARRIED
COUPLE
MARRIED
COUPLE
14.8
14.4
14.7
49.2
SINGLE
PARENT
10. Kansas
CARE IN A CENTER:
$11,201
% OF MEDIAN
FAMILY INCOME:
14.1
MARRIED
COUPLE
46.9
54
SINGLE
PARENT
14.4
14.2
44.9
88.5
SINGLE
PARENT
SINGLE
PARENT
Post analysis of cost of full-time center-based
infant care, five days a week, 52 weeks a year,
in select other cities in 2011-2012, based on
available city, state and federal data
(annual cost and % of median family income):
The District: $18,528, 23%
New York City: $13,520, 19%
Chicago: $11,856, 16%
Boston: $19,500, 21%
Dallas: $7,613, 11%
SINGLE
PARENT
SOURCE: U.S. CENSUS, AMERICAN COMMUNITY SURVEY; CHILD CARE AWARE OF AMERICA; DAY CARE COUNCIL OF NEW YORK; ILLINOIS ACTION FOR CHILDREN; MASSACHUSETTS CHILD CARE RESOURCE
AND REFERRAL NETWORK; D.C. OFFICE OF THE STATE SUPERINTENDENT FOR EDUCATION; D.C. DEPARTMENT OF PLANNING; TEXAS WORKFORCE COMMISSION
34.9
SINGLE
PARENT
18
KLMNO
WEEKLY
BOOKS
Facing the camera, eyes on the cause
NON-FICTION
F
PICTURING
FREDERICK
DOUGLASS
An Illustrated
Biography of the
Nineteenth Century’s
Most Photographed
American
By John Stauffer, Zoe
Trodd and CelesteMarie Bernier
Liveright.
288 pp. $49.95
l
REVIEWED BY ELIZABETH R. VARON
rederick Douglass escaped
from slavery in Maryland
in 1838, then forged a storied career as his era’s preeminent champion of emancipation and civil rights. In his long
campaign against racial prejudice,
he marshalled not only the power
of words but also the power of
visual images.
Douglass was photographed
more than any other American of
his era: 160 distinct images have
survived (compared with 126 for
Abraham Lincoln). In “Picturing
Frederick Douglass,” we see that
the photographic portraits of the
abolitionist crusader had a distinct political purpose. Douglass
intended for them to be powerful
refutations of the pro-slavery
creed, with its theories of race
hierarchy and its venal stereotypes, and to demonstrate the
equality, fitness for citizenship,
variability and individuality of African Americans. By the late
1840s, Douglass the radical reformer had perfected a look of
“artful defiance or majestic wrath”
intended to shake viewers out of
their moral complacency.
Douglass’s portraits were reproduced and widely disseminated in his day in the form of lithographs or engravings cut from the
photographs. Professors John
Stauffer, Zoe Trodd and CelesteMarie Bernier have produced a
beautifully crafted and contextualized compendium of the extant
photographs of Douglass, images
that reflect Douglass’s passion for
the emerging medium of photography and his conviction that the
new technology could be a powerful tool for creating a truly democratic society.
In a superb epilogue, Henry Louis Gates Jr. notes that modern viewers cannot help but be astonished
by the technical quality of the images. The large-format plate cameras
of the day, with their long exposure
times, produced portraits of extraordinary detail. Some of the
photographs seem almost threedimensional in their depth.
ALBERT COOK MYERS
COLLECTION, CHESTER COUNTY
HISTORICAL SOCIETY
NELSON-ATKINS
MUSEUM OF ART
NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY
EDWIN BURKE IVES AND
REUBEN L. ANDREWS/
HILLSDALE COLLEGE
JOHN HOWE KENT/
ROCHESTER PUBLIC LIBRARY
DENIS BOURDON/FREDERICK
DOUGLASS NATIONAL HISTORIC
SITE/NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
Top, from left: May 1848, Edward White Gallery, New York; circa
1855; circa 1858. Bottom, from left: 1863, Hillsdale, Mich.; January
1874, Rochester, N.Y.; May 10, 1894, Notman Photographic
Company, Boston.
Part one of the book highlights
60 images, most of which have
never before been published in
their original form. They are arranged in chronological order and
annotated, with information
about the photographers who
took them — and thus the images
trace Douglass’s prodigious travels on the anti-slavery reform circuit and the arc of his growing
authority and fame. After the Civil
War, in his capacity as a distinguished statesman, Douglass favored more conventional threequarter and profile portraits.
Part two, a short section on
“contemporaneous artwork,” conjures up the contours of the “visual
war” that Douglass, in solidarity
with anti-slavery photographers,
waged against racist caricatures.
The lithographs, paintings, drawings and other renderings of
Douglass’s image that circulated
in his era lacked the accuracy and
objectivity that the medium of
photography could provide.
Part three, on the “photographic legacy” of the 19th-century images, makes the case that Douglass
won the visual war. We see how
individual photographic plates
have inspired a huge range of
modern artworks, most notably
sculptures and murals that locate
Douglass among the great heroes
of early American history and,
since the 1960s, alongside modern
icons such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi
and Malcolm X.
Douglass’s place in the socialjustice pantheon is due primarily
to his gifts as an orator and writer,
and these are represented in “Picturing Frederick Douglass,” too, in
the form of three previously unpublished speeches that the authors label, somewhat misleadingly, as Douglass’s “writings on photography.” The three speeches do
celebrate the advent of photographs. But they do much more
than that. Douglass meditates
about the power of art, the capacity for picture-making and
picture-appreciating that all humans share and that makes us
distinct from the rest of creation.
Even as he saw photography as a
potential vessel for objectivity, he
also acknowledged the pitfalls of
the new technology: It could promote vanity and a conservative
conformity to fixed images of ourselves. Douglass continually refashioned himself in photographs
to transcend these limits, and he
implicitly argued in these essays
that technology is a force for good
only if we use it in the right spirit.
The final section of “Picturing
Frederick Douglass” presents, nine
images per page, all 160 of the extant photographs. Together they
illuminate American history and
memory. In the context of the antislavery struggle, Douglass’s aim
was to prove irrefutably that he was
fully a man. Modern readers who
bring to this book a reverence for
Douglass as almost superhuman
can find poignancy in the evidence
that Douglass was just a man.
Some of the most affecting photographs are the rare ones taken
outside of studio settings, such as
the 1850 image of Douglass and
some fellow abolitionists seated in
an apple orchard in Cazenovia, N.Y.
Here we glimpse, as if in a moment
of time travel, Douglass alongside
the men and women he worked
with and inspired; there is no formality to hide the vulnerability of
these reformers, who were in the
throes of a seemingly unwinnable
struggle. Even the posed solitary
portraits convey some vulnerability: Like photographs of Lincoln
during the Civil War, the portraits
of Douglass invoke the profound
burdens of leadership, an abiding
spirit of humility and solemn intimations that even the greatest men
and women are mortal. n
Varon is a professor of history at the
University of Virginia and the author of
“Appomattox: Victory, Defeat and
Freedom at the End of the Civil War.”
19
BOOKS
KLMNO
WEEKLY
New series from
a mystery master
A sweeping story
of autism’s history
F ICTION
N ON-FICTION
T
l
REVIEWED BY
M AUREEN C ORRIGAN
here’s the thrill that comes
in discovering a terrific
new mystery writer, and
then there’s the thrill that
comes in discovering a terrific
new — and different — mystery
novel written by an already acknowledged master.
Reed Farrel Coleman has been a
big macher on the mean streets of
hard-boiled detective fiction for a
couple of decades now. He has
created standalone novels and
several series, foremost among
them the acclaimed Moe Prager
books featuring a Jewish ex-cop in
1980s New York, whose cases have
led him into the shadowy side of
Coney Island and the Catskills.
Coleman is a busy guy, but like
many of the best mystery and
suspense writers, he seems to
thrive on deadlines rather than
downtime. Which leads us to his
superb new novel, “Where It
Hurts,” the first in what promises
to be another standout series.
“Where It Hurts” sticks close to
the hard-boiled formula, yet in
Coleman’s hands, all the standard
elements seem as radiant and new
as a freshly peroxided blonde. The
main character, Gus Murphy, is yet
another middle-aged ex-cop who’s
been chewed up and spat out by
life. When his teenage son dies
suddenly, Gus’s marriage falls
apart and he sinks into depression.
Seeking numbness as a survival
strategy, Gus lands a job at the
Paragon Hotel (“a paragon of nothing so much as proximity, proximity to Long Island MacArthur Airport”) where, in exchange for a
paycheck and a room, he drives the
courtesy van and works security at
the dreary joint. “The Paragon
wasn’t the kind of place with bridal
or presidential suites. It wasn’t the
kind of place with suites at all,” Gus
says. “No one came here to be
pampered or to have free wine at
five or complimentary continental
breakfast in the morning. People
came here to leave.”
Perhaps not since F. Scott
Fitzgerald surveyed the Valley of
Ashes has a writer so evocatively
nailed the peculiar deadness of certain stretches of Long Island that
fortunate
commuters
pass
through on the way to better places.
Early one morning, Gus is
roused from his room at the Paragon by a phone call from the lobby: A man is waiting for him in the
hotel’s airplane-themed “Runway
coffee shop.” The mystery caller
turns out to be Tommy Delcamino,
“Tommy D.” — a small-time drug
dealer and thief whom Gus, in his
days on the force, arrested many
times. A few months earlier, Tommy’s son, T.J., was murdered — his
body burned and then dumped in
a garbage-strewn vacant lot. In
their meeting, Tommy D. offers
Gus a roll of cash to ask around
and find out why T.J.’s murder is
such a low priority for the police.
Gus responds by exploding in
white-hot rage. He suspects Tommy D. of trying to manipulate him
because they’re both grieving fathers. But, as days pass, Gus finds
that he can’t forget the image of
Tommy D’s wrecked face — a mirror image of his own. Soon enough,
Gus is driving all over “the Island,”
seeking out cops and criminals
who might know something about
T.J.’s murder. Along the way, Gus
not only stirs up more violence,
but also stirs himself back to life.
“Where It Hurts” is one of those
evocative mysteries that readers
will remember as much for its
charged sense of place as for any of
its other considerable virtues.
Coleman draws on loads of flashy
local color. After all, as Gus tells
us: “Outsiders don’t get Long Island, most New Yorkers don’t understand it. They can’t see past the
beaches and the sound, the Hamptons and the Gold Coast, the country clubs and the marinas. . . .
What off-islanders see is the 24karat gilding along the edges
where the money flows, not the
fool’s gold in the middle.” n
Corrigan, who teaches literature at
Georgetown University, is a book critic
for the NPR program “Fresh Air.”
I
WHERE IT HURTS
By Reed Farrel
Coleman
G.P. Putnam’s Sons.
368pp. $26.95
IN A DIFFERENT KEY
The Story of Autism
By John Donvan and
Caren Zucker
Crown. 670 pp. $30
l
REVIEWED BY
A NN B AUER
was on Page 86 of John Donvan and Caren Zucker’s magnificent opus, “In a Different
Key: The Story of Autism,”
when I began casting the movie.
This is when the gentle Leo Kanner — a psychiatrist who first used
the word “autism” to describe the
childhood disorder in 1943 — turns
on the mother he’s been encouraging and mentoring to care for her
odd and special child.
Up until this point, Kanner had
a close relationship with Mary
Triplett, whose son Donald’s story
bookends “In a Different Key.”
Donald was autism’s “Case 1,” so
Mary’s information was critical to
Kanner’s research. In letters, the
doctor assured her that she was an
excellent mother, admirable and
capable, and that Donald’s peculiarities were not her fault.
But in 1949, Kanner recanted all
of it, writing a major article about
the “coldness,” “obsessiveness”
and “maternal lack of genuine
warmth” he’d seen in the vast majority of mothers of autistic children — including Mary Triplett.
Why would he do such a cruel
thing? The answer, according to
Zucker and Donvan, is ambition.
Kanner (who should be played by
Ben Kinsgley) seized on a darkly
provocative theory — also espoused by Bruno Bettelheim — because it elevated his work. When
Kanner could offer no scientific
explanation for autism, he got little
attention and respect. But finding a
witch to burn set fire to his career.
Kanner’s betrayal is the centerpiece of this book — a fable about
greed, power and betrayal told
through the lens of autism.
Don’t worry that I’ve ruined the
drama. “In a Different Key” is
chock-full of suspense and hairpin
turns. This is a story of violence,
avarice, politics and valor. From
mid-century institutions where
children deemed feebleminded
were committed to live in dark
corners covered with their own
excrement to the millennial vaccine mania that corrupted autism
research and set health policy
back years, Donvan and Zucker
paint the story in sweeping, cinematic bursts.
Yes, there are crucial omissions
in this far-reaching book. Despite
a nearly 80-page section on Ivar
Lovaas and his breakthrough behavioral approach (called ABA)
for children with autism, Donvan
and Zucker fail to mention that
Lovaas used the same sort of pyschological conditioning to “normalize” young boys suspected of
being gay or transgender.
In fact, parents get very loving,
Hallmark-television treatment
from the two authors (one of
whom has an autistic child). The
only families who come under fire
are the anti-vaxxers, along with
researcher Andrew Wakefield,
whose vaccine studies — later discredited as fraudulent — unleashed epidemic disease.
Much as I think Donvan and
Zucker tried to be objective, “In a
Different Key” reads not like a
history but a story (hence, the
subtitle), with drama and narrative, heroes and villains, a beginning, middle and end. But this is
precisely the magic of their extraordinary book. Because a story
can lift and inspire and center you.
I have been the mother of an
autistic son since 1988. So I came
to “In a Different Key” braced for a
tedious lecture. Who were these
authors to tell me about autism?
Yet this book does what no other
on autism has done: capture all
the slippery, bewildering and deceptive aspects.
I wept and laughed and raged
while reading it, all the while
thinking, “Yes! This is my experience,” including the raw and dirty
parts, but also the wonder and joy.
It’s the bones of a screenplay about
what it’s like to be human in this
particular, vulnerable way. More
important, this is my son’s story,
his whole strange, endearing clan
brought to life with dignity and
affection on the page. n
Bauer is the author, most recently, of
the novel, “Forgiveness 4 You.”
20
KLMNO
WEEKLY
OPINIONS
Why do so many people
hate Cam Newton?
CINDY BOREN
writes for The Washington
Post’s sports blog The
Early Lead and is the
social media editor for
Sports.
This season, Cam Newton’s level of play, and the
according level of notoriety, has risen sharply. But along
with the acclaim for a star quarterback playing at an elite
level, so, too, rose a furor from those who see the face of the
Carolina Panthers as more villain than hero.
He dances, he smiles, he hands footballs to young fans —
each action rustling up irate radio callers or a flurry of letters
to the editor. For his part, Newton maintains he doesn’t care
but with his Panthers playing in Super Bowl 50 today, the
conversation around the perception of perhaps the NFL’s
best player has only intensified.
“I’m an African American
quarterback that may scare a lot
of people because they haven’t
seen nothing that they can
compare me to,” Newton said the
other week, confronting the
matter head-on.
Race, as he pointed out, almost
certainly has something to do
with it. Fox Sports’ Jason
Whitlock may envision Newton as
the new Magic Johnson, with a
dazzling smile and a game to
match, but Ryan Clark, a former
NFL player turned ESPN
commentator, recalled the wife of
one player telling him that
Newton “rubs her the wrong way
and I don’t know why.”
“ ‘Here’s why he rubs you the
wrong way, because you don’t
understand it,’ ” Clark said he told
her, as retold on the “Mike and
Mike” show. “Because for so many
years black quarterbacks didn’t
have to conform to a way of
playing quarterback, they had to
conform to a way of behavior.
[Seattle Seahawks quarterback]
Russell Wilson is easier to take
because every time he gets on the
mic, he speaks about God.”
Where does the intense dislike
for the presumptive MVP —
whose jersey is only the 22nd best
seller in the NFL — come from?
It’s an issue that bubbled up
and intensified during the regular
season. Newton’s joyous
touchdown celebrations triggered
many angry letters to the editor of
the Charlotte Observer, with a
Tennessee Titans fan asking how
she could talk to her daughter
about dancing quarterbacks,
concluding by calling Newton a
“spoiled brat.” Another letterwriter criticized Newton later in
the season for having a child with
his girlfriend outside of marriage.
Never mind that the
appropriateness of suggestive
dance moves might be better
directed to the NFL’s
cheerleaders. And never mind
that New England Patriots
quarterback Tom Brady also
fathered a child out of wedlock. It
was Newton that earned their ire.
Where exactly is the harm in
his touchdown dances, in
exuberantly being himself? In
terms of conduct unbecoming,
there are certainly better
examples.
Critics will point to a stolen
laptop in college, but Newton
confronted that in November and
spoke of his maturation.
“When I talk to people, I try to
make it personable, because if I
can make it anybody can,”
Newton said. “You’re talking
about a person six or seven years
removed from a stolen laptop –
things that people don’t really
CHRIS KEANE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
want to talk about – a person that
had to go to junior college. It’s
athletes all in junior college right
now asking, ‘Am I going to make
it? Am I going to get a
scholarship?’ But I did all of that,
and look at who I am today.
“I’m not saying that to brag or
boast. I’m saying that because
somebody is listening to this right
now and they’re in that situation
right now where they may have
had a mistake that happened, but
that doesn’t necessarily describe
who they are as a person. We all
make mistakes. But yet, it’s all
about how you rebound from that
mistake instead of just giving up.”
Since he has been in the NFL,
he has reached out to help
disadvantaged people and
children during the holidays —
and literally reaches out to kids
with a football after every
touchdown he scores.
Maybe the vitriol toward
Newton is partly rooted in his
outspokenness, confidence and
competitiveness. He warned
opponents that the best way to
stop his touchdown dances was to
keep him from scoring.
Newton is clearly being held to
a different, higher standard and
one easy explanation is that he is
black. But ESPN’s Clark traces the
dislike of Newton to culture, not
race.
“He isn’t disliked because he’s
brown-skinned. He’s disliked
because it’s culturally hard to
understand for most people,” he
said. “See, for many years, if you
looked at the black quarterbacks
that were accepted, it wasn’t
about skill set. . . .
“Russell Wilson is a brown
quarterback, but Russell Wilson’s
culture is easier to understand.
Russell Wilson doesn’t dance.
Russell Wilson doesn’t have the
hip-hop culture. Young Jeezy and
Future aren’t going to Russell
Wilson games. So, for the
Caucasian fan, for the fan who
doesn’t understand that culture,
Cam Newton’s culture is too
young, hip-hop, too young brown.”
Part of it, too, is that we’ve
never seen a quarterback quite
like Newton. At 6-foot-5 and 260
pounds, he is a powerful runner
with a strong, accurate arm.
Newton embodies the evolution
of the NFL quarterback, and
people are slow to embrace such
bold change, particularly after the
cerebral Peyton Manning-Tom
Brady era. Everything is
scrutinized, no matter how many
charity events he hosts in
Charlotte or how often he hands a
football to a kid in the stands.
Now, in his fifth season and
leading a team with just one loss
this season to the Super Bowl,
Cam Newton should be becoming
the face of the league, no matter
how difficult that may be for some
people to accept.
“People can’t even articulate
why they don’t like him, but I’m
not going to turn this into race
and say they don’t like him
because he’s black,” Clark said.
“They don’t like his culture. They
don’t like what he embodies, what
he embraces. It’s not right for that
position, but he’s winning and it’s
right for that team, so we all just
need to get over it and just stop
having this conversation.” n
21
OPINIONS
KLMNO
WEEKLY
TOM TOLES
Cancer ‘moonshot’ isn’t a cure-all
VINAY PRASAD
is a cancer researcher
and assistant professor at
Oregon Health and
Science University and is
co-author of the 2015
book “Ending Medical
Reversal: Improving
Outcomes, Saving Lives.”
Like many oncologists and cancer researchers, I rolled my eyes when I
first heard about Vice President Biden’s cancer “moonshot,” but not
because of the noble goal. I was among the many people who were deeply
sorry to hear about the death of the vice president’s son Beau from
cancer last year. And I, too, have mourned the untimely deaths from the
disease of people close to me. Those of us who care for cancer patients
would give nearly anything to be able to cure all those with cancer or, at a
minimum, to greatly extend their lives. Today, we can sometimes do this,
but sadly those circumstances remain far too limited.
But a cancer moonshot evokes
a sense of deja vu. The 1970s
ushered in the War on Cancer,
which was largely unsuccessful at
generating better treatments. In
2003, it was then-National Cancer
Institute head Andrew Von
Eschenbach assuring then-Sen.
Arlen Specter that, for just
$600 million a year, we could rid
the world of cancer five years
ahead of 2015, the target at that
time. Now here were Biden and
the Obama administration
making another tall promise. Did
we really need this again?
One of Biden’s first
announcements was that the
Food and Drug Administration
would speed the approval of
promising drug combinations.
But thinking you will
substantively improve cancer
treatment by altering how it is
regulated is like thinking you can
run a faster mile by buying a new
stopwatch. The efficacy of cancer
drugs is beyond the FDA’s control,
and no one doubts it would
approve transformative drugs or
drug combinations if they
appeared. A study of 71 drugs
approved for solid tumors from
2002 through 2014 showed that
the median improvement in
survival times was just 2.1
months. If we are going to make
real progress against cancer, we
must acknowledge that such
marginal gains — achieved at the
price of substantial cost and
toxicity — are not good enough.
Another oft-mentioned
proposal is harnessing the power
of big data. One such idea is to
closely examine what therapies
have worked for individuals and
which unique genetic traits
allowed those therapies to work,
and then extend these findings to
other patients. Unfortunately,
such an approach is fraught with
limits. My colleague Andrae
Vandross and I recently reviewed
the published reports of patients
who have had an exceptional
response to a cancer drug. In
many instances, we found that
these patients responded
unusually well not only to the
studied drug but also to older
ones. It is hard, then, to conclude
which patients have great
outcomes because of a drug and
which simply have slow-growing
cancers. Observational data — no
matter how “big” — will have
difficulty overcoming this
challenge.
Biden has recently offered up
two more moonshot ideas:
immunotherapy and increasing
access to trials. Immunotherapy
refers to promising new drugs
that harness the body’s immune
system to fight cancer, and indeed
these have generated impressive
outcomes for some patients. But
with dozens of immunotherapy
studies underway, that rocket has
already lifted off, and it’s unclear
what Biden’s moonshot can add.
And, unfortunately, the bitter
reality is that immunotherapy is
unlikely to be a panacea.
Increasing access to cancer
trials would be a great thing, but
it is hard not to think of it as only
a modest step, as well.
But the fundamental problem
with a moonshot — a surge of
concentrated effort to tackle a
single problem — aimed at cancer
is that it does not fit the way that
medical progress occurs.
Scientific discovery is hard to
predict, and breakthroughs occur
in serendipitous and unexpected
ways, arising from diverse
disciplines. A serious moonshot
would require funding science
broadly, consistently and in
steadily increasing amounts. This
money would go to cancer biology
research, but also to physiology,
molecular biology, genetics,
physics, chemistry, social science,
clinical trials, supportive care and
on and on. The way in which we
will ultimately make progress in
fighting cancer, and for that
matter Alzheimer’s disease, and
emphysema, and mental illness,
will probably surprise even the
most farsighted experts, and may
have surprisingly diverse origins.
Such science is not just the best
way to improve human health but
also the only way. A commitment
to funding science generally in
times of budget surplus and
shortfall, would be a true
moonshot for the United States.
Sadly, this is the one moonshot no
one in politics seems to have the
courage to fight for. n
22
OPINIONS
BY WASSERMAN FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE
A bipartisan Obamacare solution
NEWT
GINGRICH
AND TOM
DASCHLE
Gingrich, a Republican,
was speaker of the House
of Representatives from
1995 to 1999. Daschle,
a Democrat, was Senate
majority leader from
2001 to 2003. They are
co-chairs of the Bipartisan
Policy Center’s Insurance
Coverage Initiative.
Last month, majorities in Congress voted to repeal the Affordable
Care Act. Not surprisingly, President Obama vetoed the repeal bill, and
the Republican Congress was unable to override the president’s veto.
As former leaders in Congress, we have a message for both sides in
this debate: It’s time to give the states a chance.
This doesn’t mean that conservatives and Republicans have to give
up the fight to reduce the regulations and taxes in the law. It also
doesn’t mean that progressives and Democrats have to stop defending
protections for the underinsured and uninsured.
Instead, it’s time to look to a
provision of the Affordable Care
Act — Section 1332 — that can
achieve what both sides
earnestly wish for: providing
more Americans with access to
more affordable, flexible,
patient-centered health care.
Since we share these goals, we
prepared a report with the
Bipartisan Policy Center by
working out our differences and
seeking common ground. The
process was at times grueling,
but that made it all the more
rewarding to be able to develop
collaborative, bipartisan
recommendations. We wanted to
offer a way past the impasse over
the Affordable Care Act without
either of us having to sacrifice
our core principles.
Section 1332 of the Affordable
Care Act creates a process for
generating State Innovation
Waivers — the result of a
bipartisan agreement between
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and
then-Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah).
As a result, both sides have the
ability to explore ways to serve
taxpayers and patients better by
rewarding innovative, localized
and effective systems of care
delivery while maintaining
critical protections.
Beginning in 2017, the
provision allows states to opt out
of the Affordable Care Act
requirements, so long as certain
conditions — or “guardrails” —
are adhered to. These guardrails
require states to offer coverage
that is at least as comprehensive
as the ACA’s essential healthbenefits package; that is at least
as affordable; that insures at
least a comparable number of
KLMNO
WEEKLY
BY OHMAN FOR THE SACRAMENTO BEE
residents; and that maintains
federal deficit neutrality.
So long as those conditions are
satisfied, the waiver provision is
intended to give states a great
deal of flexibility. Namely, states
can waive certain provisions of
the law, including those relating
to the individual and employer
mandates, provided they
demonstrate that a comparable
number of residents would
receive coverage. However, some
provisions, such as requiring the
coverage of those with preexisting
conditions, cannot be waived.
Unfortunately, the
administration didn’t
promulgate its interpretation of
Section 1332 until December.
Consequently, in the absence of
earlier guidance, states have
been slow to act on this
opportunity to experiment,
innovate and transform their
health-care systems within this
framework. And the recent
federal guidance may further
delay the use of this provision
should states perceive it as not
providing sufficient flexibility.
To correct this, we encourage
the Obama administration to
convene the nation’s governors
to advise it on future Section
1332 rule-making. Collaboration
between the states and the
Department of Health and
Human Services would ensure
the implementation of a
regulatory framework that can
help states realize their full
potential as laboratories of
innovation.
While we support the
administration’s decision to
interpret the requirement to
permit deficit neutrality over the
length of the waiver, we would
encourage it to go a step further.
The administration should allow
states to combine related
funding streams (such as from
Medicaid and tax credits) into
any comprehensive waiver
program put forth. Together,
these recommendations would
maximize state flexibility and
ensure that upfront costs were
invested wisely by the states.
This, and other efforts to
improve our health-care system,
will require bipartisan consensus
and action from Congress and the
administration. Despite the talk
of dysfunction in Washington and
the heated rhetoric of another
campaign cycle, we believe it’s
essential that this opportunity not
be missed.
Our proposal represents a step
toward bipartisan health-care
reform. More important, it offers
a glimmer of hope that pressing
concerns can be addressed
thoughtfully and substantively
by this and the next generation
of leaders in Washington. n
23
KLMNO
WEEKLY
FIVE MYTHS
Donald Trump on Donald Trump
BY
G LENN K ESSLER
Plenty of wouldbe presidents make dubious claims about what they
have accomplished in office (created millions of jobs! slashed spend
ing!). Few make such claims about their personal attributes. Donald
Trump has no such hesitation. Here are five of the biggest myths
Trump tells about himself.
1
“I’m, like, a really smart
person.”
Of course, “smart” is a bit
subjective. There’s book smarts
as well as street smarts. Many
would say Trump has run a pretty
smart campaign. But clearly he’s
saying that his brain is very sharp
— as he puts it, “super-genius
stuff.’’
Trump’s college background, in
fact, is often his key piece of
evidence for his intellectual
superiority. But there’s less here
than meets the eye. Trump did
graduate from the Wharton
School of business at the
University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy
League college. But Trump did
not get an MBA from Wharton;
he has a much less prestigious
undergraduate degree. He was a
transfer student who arrived at
Wharton after two years at
Fordham University, which U.S.
News & World Report currently
ranks 66th among national
universities. (Besides, simply
going to an Ivy League school
doesn’t prove you’re a genius.)
For years, numerous media
reports said Trump graduated
first in his class from Wharton,
but that’s wrong. The 1968
commencement program does
not list him as graduating with
any sort of honors.
2
“I have the world’s
greatest memory.”
One of Trump’s most
controversial claims is that he
saw a television news report
about thousands of Muslims in
New Jersey cheering the collapse
of the World Trade Center in
2001. That statement ended up
on the Washington Post Fact
Checker’s list of 2015’s biggest
Pinocchios.
Trump insisted he was right
because he has such a great
memory.
But no television network
could find such a clip — though
extensive searches were made. No
news reports were tracked down
to validate Trump’s claim of
“thousands.” The closest thing
ever found was a local newscast at
the time, from a CBS affiliate in
New York, that reported on the
arrest of eight men who
neighbors said had celebrated the
attack. That’s a far cry from
thousands. There were also video
clips of several Palestinians in the
Israeli-occupied territories
cheering. But that wasn’t New
Jersey — and again, it wasn’t
thousands.
Trump also tried to point to a
line in a Washington Post article
written days after the attacks that
said law enforcement authorities
detained and questioned some
people who were allegedly seen
celebrating. But when one of the
reporters, Serge Kovaleski, said
the article did not validate
Trump’s claim, the real estate
magnate mocked Kovaleski’s
disability. (Kovaleski has a
chronic condition that limits his
mobility.)
Trump later denied doing so,
claiming that he didn’t know the
reporter — even though Kovaleski
had closely covered Trump in the
1980s and 1990s and had
interviewed him several times.
Maybe Trump should rephrase
his boast: “I have the world’s most
selective memory.”
3
“I’m proud of my net
worth. I’ve done an
amazing job.”
RAINIER EHRHARDT/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Trump frequently touts his
financial acumen. He often says
he is worth $10 billion, though
most analysts say that is
exaggerated. Bloomberg News
closely studied his 92-page
financial disclosure report and
concluded that he is really worth
$2.9 billion.
That may sound like a lot of
money. But don’t forget that
Trump inherited a lot of money,
too — about $40 million in 1974.
National Journal noted that
Warren Buffett was also worth
$40 million in 1974 — and he
managed to turn that into $67
billion today. But then Buffett
doesn’t have a long list of
business flops, such as Trump
Airlines, Trump Vodka, various
Trump casinos, Trump Steaks and
Trump University.
4
“I’m self-funding my
campaign.”
Trump keeps saying that
unlike his rivals, he’s paying for
his own presidential campaign,
but that’s largely false.
At the start of his campaign, he
loaned his political operation
$1.8 million.
As of Oct. 1, he had given his
campaign an additional
$104,829.27 — but he had also
received $3.9 million from
donors, which accounted for the
vast majority of the $5.8 million
his campaign had taken in by
then.
Ultimately, all of his spending
— and where the money came
from — will have to be disclosed
in campaign finance reports. The
odds are his personal share of the
spending will be less than 50
percent.
5
“I’m probably the least
racist person on Earth.”
Trump has a pattern of
racially tinged remarks and
actions.
Speaking to the Republican
Jewish Coalition in December,
Trump made a speech riddled
with Jewish stereotypes, such as:
“Look, I’m a negotiator like you
folks; we’re negotiators.”
Another Trump observation:
“A well-educated black has a
tremendous advantage over a
well-educated white in terms of
the job market. . . . If I were
starting off today, I would love to
be a well-educated black, because
I believe they do have an actual
advantage.’’
When Trump launched his
campaign, he made a broadbrush accusation against Mexico:
“They’re sending people that have
lots of problems, and they’re
bringing . . . drugs, they’re
bringing crime, they’re rapists.
And some, I assume, are good
people.” n
24
2016
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Winners published Sunday, March 20th

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