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White House Divided: HHS Secretary Splits From Biden, Says Admin Will ‘Likely’ Appeal Mask Mandate Ruling

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Update: The Justice Department has announced it will appeal the mask mandate ruling from a Florida federal judge if the CDC concludes the mandates are “necessary” for public health.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" readability="4.7564766839378">
BREAKING: The Department of Justice has announced it will appeal the mask mandate ruling from a Florida federal judge. <a href="https://t.co/xc9LMOmRfC">pic.twitter.com/xc9LMOmRfC</a>
— Kyle Morris (@RealKyleMorris) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealKyleMorris/status/1516543078890455045?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 19, 2022</a></blockquote>
Original story below:
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Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra claimed that Biden’s administration will “likely” appeal a Florida judge’s decision to throw out mask mandates for public transportation, contradicting earlier remarks by Joe Biden.
“We are right now in the process of deciding, and we likely will appeal that ruling, but stay tuned,” Becerra told reporters.
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This comes just a day after U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle <a href="https://www.infowars.com/posts/breaking-federal-judge-strikes-down-bidens-public-transportation-mask-mandate/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ruled</a> that Biden’s mask mandate for airports, planes and other transportation imposed by the CDC is “unlawful” and therefore voided.
Becerra’s comments mark a significant departure from what Joe Biden said just hours ago when asked by a reporter if passengers should continue wearing masks on planes despite the ruling.
“It’s up to them,” Biden replied before boarding Air Force One for a stint to New Hampshire, where he <a href="https://thehill.com/news/administration/3272941-biden-to-wear-mask-on-flight-to-new-hampshire/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reportedly wore a mask</a> and required reporters to wear them too.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" readability="6.2513661202186">
REPORTER: “Mr. President, should people continue to wear masks on planes?”
BIDEN: “That’s up to them.” <a href="https://t.co/5ueNG9XIMT">pic.twitter.com/5ueNG9XIMT</a>
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) <a href="https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1516497149449678850?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 19, 2022</a></blockquote>
The mask mandate messaging conflict seems to be due to a misunderstanding by Biden or Becerra.
This may just be another example of how Biden doesn’t actually set any kind of agenda or policy within his own administration.
Such a responsibility appears to be left up to his unelected handlers.
Notably, Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki on Tuesday also <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://ussanews.com/2022/04/19/while-on-board-air-force-one-jen-psaki-lashes-out-at-airlines-no-longer-enforcing-mask-mandates/" target="_blank">refused to rule out</a> the Department of Justice appealing Judge Mizelle’s ruling, saying it would take “a couple of days to review and make an assessment” to appeal the lifting of the nationwide mask mandate.
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<a href="https://battleplan.news/watch?id=625db62aaa46080fe361a9ff" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Judge Overturns Biden Mask Mandate: Napolitano Responds</a>
 
 
source <a href="https://www.infowars.com/posts/white-house-divided-hhs-secretary-splits-from-biden-says-admin-will-likely-appeal-mask-mandate-ruling">https://www.infowars.com/posts/white-house-divided-hhs-secretary-splits-from-biden-says-admin-will-likely-appeal-mask-mandate-ruling</a>

news White House Divided: HHS Secretary Splits From Biden, Says Admin Will ‘Likely’ Appeal Mask Mandate Ruling

Update: The Justice Department has announced it will appeal the mask mandate ruling from a Florida federal judge if the CDC concludes the m...

Veritas Strikes Again! AstraZeneca CEO – ‘Millions of [Immunocompromised] People Can’t Be Vaccinated’

<a href="https://www.projectveritas.com/news/astrazeneca-source-recording-from-2020-shows-ceo-pascal-soriot-saying/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Project Veritas released a never-before-heard recording on Tuesday</a> where AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot admitted during a December 2020 Zoom call that many immunocompromised individuals shouldn’t have received the company’s Covid vaccine.
“If you have an immune disease, lupus or some other immune condition, you cannot – or multiple sclerosis, you can’t be vaccinated,” Soriot says in the clip. “So, there are millions of people in the world that will need a protection that cannot be coming from a vaccine.”
The CEO actually promoted monoclonal antibodies at the time, telling his staff, “The longer antibody has enormous potential.”
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Continuing to describe the monoclonal antibodies, Soriot said, “The long-acting antibody is quite unique because this is the only combination potentially will last more than six months, up to potentially 12 months and protect people for a long period of time.”
As Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe notes in the video, monoclonal antibodies were known to be effective against Covid-19 early in the pandemic.
However, the Biden administration made it difficult for states like Texas and Florida to obtain the treatment at the height of its demand so vaccines would be promoted instead.
Despite the company’s CEO acknowledging the shot is dangerous for certain people, the World Health Organization currently maintains, “the full two dose regimen of” the AstraZeneca vaccine is recommended.
In fact, the WHO advisory says, “SAGE [Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization] recommends that severe and moderately immunocompromised persons should be offered an additional dose of vaccine.”
<div class="mQgQkOJ6"><a href="https://www.infowarsstore.com/brain-force-ultra?ims=ekyab&utm_campaign=BFU40hero&utm_source=Infowars+Hero&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=BFU40hero" target="_blank"><img src="https://api.directus.libertycdn.com/uploads/_/originals/BFU-hero-385.png" /></a></div>
According to the Big Pharma CEO, the WHO is basically telling those who are at a higher risk of having an adverse reaction that they should take an extra dose of the experimental jabs.
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source <a href="https://www.infowars.com/posts/veritas-strikes-again-astrazeneca-ceo-millions-of-immunocompromised-people-cant-be-vaccinated">https://www.infowars.com/posts/veritas-strikes-again-astrazeneca-ceo-millions-of-immunocompromised-people-cant-be-vaccinated</a>

news Veritas Strikes Again! AstraZeneca CEO – ‘Millions of [Immunocompromised] People Can’t Be Vaccinated’

Project Veritas released a never-before-heard recording on Tuesday where AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot admitted during a December 2020 Zoo...

The Trump judge’s opinion striking down the airplane mask mandate is a legal disaster

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So, you’ve probably heard by now that Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, a Trump-appointed judge in Florida, issued a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21637266-health-freedom-defense-fund-inc-v-biden">sweeping opinion</a> striking down the Biden administration’s requirement that passengers wear masks on airplanes, trains, and similar methods of transportation.
This <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21637266-health-freedom-defense-fund-inc-v-biden">requirement</a> from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provided that “a person must wear a mask while boarding, disembarking, and traveling on any conveyance into or within the United States,” although it contained a few exceptions. For the moment, it is not in effect, as the Biden administration weighs whether to appeal the judge’s order. Hours after the decision, the country’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/18/us/politics/federal-mask-mandate-airplanes.html?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20220418&instance_id=0&nl=breaking-news&ref=cta&regi_id=86419414&segment_id=89585&user_id=72df3a03b331f442d9ef463ea0eac169">four largest airlines dropped their mask requirements</a> — prompting confusion, <a href="https://twitter.com/SangerNYT/status/1516231081011392513">sometimes mid-flight</a>.
Mizelle is the apotheosis of former President Donald Trump’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/12/9/20962980/trump-supreme-court-federal-judges">approach to selecting federal judges</a>. Appointed to the bench <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/cdc-mask-rules-junked-by-judge-kathryn-kimball-mizelle-in-floridatrumps-worst-judge">at age 33</a>, Mizelle was fresh off a clerkship for Justice Clarence Thomas and working as an associate at Jones Day, a large law firm closely associated with Trump, when she received her lifetime appointment to the federal bench. At the time, Mizelle had just eight years of experience practicing law — meaning that she had <a href="https://www.nalpdirectory.com/employer_profile?FormID=14451&QuestionTabID=37&SearchCondJSON=">not even yet completed the nine-and-a-half years of practice</a> that Jones Day typically requires for its lawyers to become partners of the firm.
But what Mizelle lacks in experience, she made up for in her ability to rack up conservative credentials. In addition to her Thomas clerkship, Mizelle clerked for two other prominent members of the conservative Federalist Society. At a 2020 speech to that organization, she <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvmGHEYmXSQ">quipped that paper money is unconstitutional</a>.
Mizelle was also nominated by a president who was about to be repudiated by the American public — Trump officially named her in September 2020, two months before Joe Biden defeated Trump in both the popular vote and the Electoral College. The Senate confirmed her while Trump was a lame duck, a week-and-a-half after <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/11/6/21534594/joe-biden-wins-2020-presidential-election">the election was called</a> for Biden.
Mizelle’s opinion in <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21637266-health-freedom-defense-fund-inc-v-biden">Health Freedom Defense Fund v. Biden</a>, the case striking down the masking requirement, is so poorly reasoned that it is difficult not to suspect that it was written in bad faith. Its primary argument is that federal law permits the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to require businesses to clean up contaminants that can spread disease, but that the law does not permit the CDC to actually prevent such contamination from occurring in the first place. But, to arrive at this interpretation of the law, Mizelle takes extreme liberties with statutory text.
I do not believe that Judge Mizelle is as incompetent as her opinion suggests. When Mizelle was up for Senate confirmation, the American Bar Association determined that she “<a href="https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/government_affairs_office/2020-09-08chair-rating-letter-to-graham-and-feinstein-re-nomination-of-kathryn-kimball-mizelle.pdf">has a very keen intellect, a strong work ethic and an impressive resume</a>,” despite the fact that she lacked enough experience to be traditionally qualified for the federal bench. By all accounts, Mizelle is a smart early-career attorney who could be a very effective advocate. Neither Justice Thomas nor Jones Day have a reputation for hiring rank incompetents, though the former, in particular, is known for hiring hardline conservatives.
The most likely reading of her opinion, in other words, is that she simply disagreed with the Biden administration’s masking policy, and concocted a justification for striking it down. That approach should trouble anyone who cares about democracy, regardless of what they think about mandatory masking on airplanes.
<h3>Mizelle’s opinion is an abomination against textual interpretation</h3>
Health Freedom turns on a federal law that empowers the CDC to “make and enforce such regulations as in [its] judgment are <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/264">necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases</a> from foreign countries into the States or possessions, or from one State or possession into any other State or possession.”
This statute also gives several examples of actions that the CDC is allowed to take, including regulations providing for “inspection, fumigation, disinfection, sanitation, pest extermination, destruction of animals or articles found to be so infected or contaminated as to be sources of dangerous infection to human beings” as well as any “other measures” the CDC determines “may be necessary.”
So this law is broadly worded, and it specifically gives the CDC the power to enact “sanitation” regulations that protect public health. Mizelle gets around the law’s broad wording largely by defining the word “sanitation” very narrowly and misreading other portions of the statute.
<h4>The word “sanitation” doesn’t mean what Mizelle says that it means</h4>
Mizelle begins her analysis by arguing that this list of examples limits the CDC’s authority to make regulations — an assumption that, in fairness, is <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=550234162675171904&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr">grounded in the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the statute</a>. Thus, according to Mizelle, if the law authorizes the masking requirement, “the power to do so much be found in one of the actions enumerated” in the statute’s list of examples. The masking rule must be a regulation providing for “inspection, fumigation, disinfection, sanitation,” or something similar.
But that shouldn’t be a problem. The word “sanitation” appears right there in the statute, and the masking requirement is a classic sanitation regulation. Its whole purpose is to prevent passengers from spewing a dangerous contaminant into the air that can infect other passengers. And, as Mizelle admits in her opinion, dictionary definitions of the word “sanitation” include “<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21637266-health-freedom-defense-fund-inc-v-biden">measures that keep something clean</a>.” She even quotes dictionaries that provide definitions such as “the use of sanitary measures to preserve health.”
Nevertheless, Mizelle refuses to give the word “sanitation” its ordinary meaning, instead claiming that this word’s meaning must be limited “to measures that clean something, not ones that keep something clean.”
Suppose, for example, that many toilets installed in airplanes had a design defect that causes them to spew sewage into the cabin. Under the ordinary definition of the word “sanitation,” the CDC could order airlines to fix these toilets to prevent passengers from being exposed to sewage in the first place. But, under Mizelle’s definition, the CDC would have to wait until passengers were wading through feces before it could order the airline to clean it up.
Mizelle reaches this creative interpretation of the statute by pointing out that the word “sanitation” appears in the same company as other words, such as “fumigation” or “disinfection” which involve the removal of existing contaminants and not preventative measures. “Words grouped in a list should be given related meaning,” she claims, quoting from a <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/494/26/">1990 Supreme Court opinion</a>.
But beyond semantic sophistry, Mizelle offers little explanation for why the common element uniting words like “fumigation,” and “disinfection” is that they involve efforts to clean something up that is already dirty. Another element uniting these words with the word “sanitation” is that they all describe ways to prevent people from being exposed to a disease — such as by requiring people to wear masks so that they don’t readily spew Covid germs into the air.
Mizelle also briefly notes that the statute CDC relies upon to require masking has historically been used for more modest regulations, such as “quarantining infected individuals and prohibiting the import or sale of animals known to transmit disease.” But Covid-19 is the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html">most serious public health crisis since the late 1910s</a>, and arguably the most serious crisis of any kind to face the globe since World War II. So it’s unsurprising that the CDC used its authority more aggressively to confront a historical crisis than it did to fight more ordinary diseases.
And really, why on earth would Congress write a statute to permit the CDC to clean up a mess, but to forbid it from preventing that mess from occurring in the first place? As Mizelle’s opinion shows, a lawyer of sufficient ability can offer come up with a legalistic justification for nearly any result that they want. But that’s not the role of a judge.
<h4>The rest of Mizelle’s opinion is even less persuasive than her interpretation of the word “sanitation”</h4>
In case there’s any doubt that Mizelle is not operating in good faith, the next segment of her opinion erases any doubt. Mizelle invents a distinction between CDC regulations governing “property” and CDC regulations governing “an individual’s liberty interests” that is directly counter to the statutory text.
As explained above, the CDC’s power to require masks on mass transit flows from a statute (<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/264">42 U.S.C. § 264(a)</a>) which permits the CDC to “make and enforce such regulations as in [its] judgment are necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases.” Mizelle claims that this provision of the statute must be read to only permit the CDC to regulate “property” because it is followed by three other provisions (<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/264">42 U.S.C. § 264(b–d)</a>) that give “the CDC power to directly impose on an individual’s liberty interest.”
But this reading of the statute is plainly wrong. The provisions she cites are placing limits on the general authority over property and individuals that is granted in the first part of the statute. To illustrate, read the text of one of the three provisions Mizelle describes as giving the CDC authority over individuals:
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Regulations prescribed under this section shall not provide for the apprehension, detention, or conditional release of individuals except for the purpose of preventing the introduction, transmission, or spread of such communicable diseases as may be specified from time to time in Executive orders of the President upon the recommendation of the Secretary, in consultation with the Surgeon General.
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Unlike the primary provision of the statute, which gives the CDC the power to “make and enforce” regulations, this later provision contains no language authorizing the CDC to do anything. Instead, it places a limit on the CDC’s power to issue regulations under the primary provision. The primary provision gives the CDC the power to issue regulations limiting individual liberty, while the subsequent provision provides that the CDC must satisfy certain conditions if it wants to apprehend, detain, or conditionally release an individual.
The other two provisions that Mizelle relies upon, which <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/264">can be read here</a>, similarly place limits on the CDC’s power to issue regulations. But they create no distinction between “property” and “individual’s liberty,” as Mizelle suggests.
In any event, there’s no need to get more into the weeds here. The point is that, while federal law does place some explicit limits on the CDC’s authority, there is no language whatsoever suggesting that the CDC’s sanitation regulations only apply to “property.” Mizelle appears to have just made this distinction up.
<h3>The elected branches, and not judges, should decide public policy</h3>
Although current polling data specifically on airplane mask mandates is hard to find, a Harris poll from early April found that <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2022/04/19/federal-mask-mandates-for-airplanes-transportation-dropped-but-americans-seem-to-want-them-polls-suggest/?sh=607373ae7e48">60 percent of people wanted the transportation mask mandate to be extended</a>, and only 21 percent strongly opposed it.
Other polls, however, suggest that <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/axios-ipsos-coronavirus-index">mask mandates more broadly are starting to fall out of favor</a>. An Axios/Ipsos poll, which was released last week, found that “the number of Americans who support their state or local government requiring masks in all public places has also dipped below 50% for the first time — now, 44% support such a requirement, down from 50% last month and 67% at the beginning of the year (during the height of the Omicron variant).”
Republicans like Mizelle, however, have long supported rolling back masking rules. A February Ipsos poll found that nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of Republicans “support government entities lifting all restrictions, compared to just 23% of Democrats.”
In any event, regardless of whether Mizelle ruled the way she did because she wanted to substitute conservative policy preferences for the Biden administration’s, or because she believed that popular opinion was on her side, this is not how a democratic society is supposed to function.
In 2020, the American people elected Joe Biden president. That means that Democrats will have an outsized say in determining America’s public health policy for the duration of Biden’s tenure in office. If the voters decide that Biden handled this responsibility poorly, then they will have the opportunity to swap in a different president in 2024.
The appointment of Mizelle — and <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/12/9/20962980/trump-supreme-court-federal-judges">other, similarly ideological judges</a> — by Trump was intended to short circuit this democratic process. Trump gave dozens of Federalist Society stalwarts the power to block literally any federal policy. And, especially in the public health context, Trump’s judges are <a href="https://www.vox.com/22820378/trump-biden-supreme-court-judiciary-sabotage">using this power quite aggressively</a>.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/4/19/23031891/supreme-court-trump-mask-mandate-airplane-airport-train-subway-metro-mizelle-health-freedom-biden">https://www.vox.com/2022/4/19/23031891/supreme-court-trump-mask-mandate-airplane-airport-train-subway-metro-mizelle-health-freedom-biden</a>

vox The Trump judge’s opinion striking down the airplane mask mandate is a legal disaster

So, you’ve probably heard by now that Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, a Trump-appointed judge in Florida, issued a sweeping opinion strikin...

Crime will affect the midterms, but not in the way you think

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The images from the mass shooting on New York’s subway last week were jarring: Smoke in the air, blood on the tiles, and above ground, a massive manhunt underway.
So were Gov. Kathy Hochul’s words at a news conference that linked the shooting with the perception that the city and many others are being overrun with crime. “We are sick and tired of reading headlines about crime,” she <a href="https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/video-audio-photos-rush-transcript-governor-hochul-provides-briefing-sunset-park-subway">said</a>. “It has to stop.”
The last year’s increase in violent crime is a challenge dominating many conversations about Democratic governance. Property crime rates <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/20/facts-about-crime-in-the-u-s/">vary</a> by city and have <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-releases-2020-crime-statistics">generally been trending down</a>, but in 2021, violent crime, including assaults and murders, was up. Homicides rose 44 percent from 2019, and up 5 percent from 2020. In that first pandemic year, homicides <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/10/27/what-we-know-about-the-increase-in-u-s-murders-in-2020/">soared by a record amount</a>, though murder rates still remain lower than they were in the 1990s, according to the <a href="https://counciloncj.org/crime-trends-yearend-2021-update/">Council on Criminal Justice</a>.
Because of where that crime is happening most — urban areas — the issue is likely to have a much greater impact on the electoral fortunes of those governing at the state and local levels than on those running for Congress. The toughest political fights over crime in the coming months may unfold between Democrats facing Democratic electorates and primary challengers.
In cities and states big and small, Democrats have moderated their tone on policing and veered into “tough on crime” discourse usually deployed by Republicans. They’ve also halted or reversed many of the progressive changes activists had spent the last decade calling for: New York state restricted its 2019 bail reform with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/07/nyregion/new-york-budget-bail-reform.html">new rules</a>; Minneapolis funneled <a href="https://www.mprnews.org/story/2021/12/08/minneapolis-city-council-set-to-finalize-city-budget">more money</a> to its police department after cuts in 2020; Chicago wants to change its suspect monitoring program; Philadelphia and Los Angeles are debating how much to <a href="https://www.phillyvoice.com/philadelphia-community-policing-plan-city-council-budget/">grow</a> their police forces.
As right-wing critics attack the party in power and the general public wonders why their cities have become more violent, moderate Democrats are turning on the left, activists are worrying about premature rollbacks of more progressive justice reforms, and pundits and politicians alike are warning that insecurity might cost Democrats votes.
These dynamics — increasing crime, a worsening perception of public safety, incumbency, and the time it takes for reforms to take effect — all pose challenges for Democrats running for office this year. But crime likely won’t be the major midterm issue for all Democrats, especially those in Congress, and though an easy scapegoat, it likely won’t be the matter that determines Democratic success at the national level.
As political issues, crime and public safety carry a heavier cost in local elections, where policy is made and the voters most affected by and worried about crime are concentrated. The progressive-moderate tension within the Democratic Party is also more pronounced on this issue because many debates on policing and public safety are happening in municipalities dominated by Democrats. With growing discontent with Democratic governance in general, crime might just be one of a laundry list of Republican attacks, and not the decisive issue for control of Congress that <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/02/democrats-gear-up-to-change-course-on-crime">many</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/04/18/white-house-democrats-must-listen-to-voters-on-crime/">doomsayers</a> are <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/criminal-justice/564845-next-victims-of-rising-crime-democrats-in-2022-midterms/">claiming</a> it will be.
As inflation, gas prices, rising interest rates, and housing affordability all sour the national mood, “it makes me believe it’s even less likely now that crime is going to be featured centrally in a lot of campaigns, because of how effectively Republicans are going to be able to use the inflation issue against Biden and Democratic members of Congress,” Dan Cox, the director of the Survey Center on American Life and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told me.
Americans also have a warped understanding of how bad crime is, tending to think crime is up when, historically, data shows it is trending down. Gallup surveys over the last three decades have consistently shown a gap between how much Americans think crime is worsening around the country compared to around them. That gap was highest (with Americans thinking the country is more unsafe than their neighborhood) <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/323996/perceptions-increased-crime-highest-1993.aspx">in 2020</a>, though <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/357107/local-crime-deemed-worse-year-americans.aspx">it shrunk last year</a>, with more Americans thinking crime is now worse around them.
But that perception might not translate into major shifts in party support, like it favored Republicans in the 1970s and ’80s. Though in 2020, Democrats in competitive House races pinned losses on the progressive rallying cry to “defund the police,” crime tends to be more of a motivator for conservative base voters. Swing voters <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/07/25/pandemic-crime-politics-1970s-election-500653">don’t tend to live in cities and inner-ring suburbs</a> where crime is a bigger problem. That geographic sorting leaves Democrats to fight among themselves — and face backlash from Democratic voters.
<h3>Yes, crime is a problem that has worsened</h3>
The <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.vox.com/22578430/murder-crime-2020-2021-covid-19-pandemic&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1650310123506236&usg=AOvVaw11oBxuD-RCbjrsh8EU6ty2">days of debating</a> whether the country is <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/america-having-violence-wave-not-crime-wave/620234/">experiencing</a> a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/30/us-crime-rate-homcides-explained">crime wave</a> are over. While the last year provided shocking headlines about <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/12/shoplifting-holiday-theft-panic/621108/">shoplifting run amok</a>, violent acts of <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/anti-asian-hate-crimes-increased-339-percent-nationwide-last-year-repo-rcna14282">racism</a> in major cities, and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/19/politics/gun-violence-spike-2021-explainer/index.html">gun violence</a> not seen in years, the numbers since 2019 do indicate that violent crime has steadily been rising.
Homicide rates spiked in 2020, the Council on Criminal <a href="https://counciloncj.org/impact-report-covid-19-and-crime-6/">Justice concluded in a report</a> released this year, mirroring rises in aggravated assaults (up 4 percent) and gun assaults (eight percent) around the country as well. The FBI also <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/america-having-violence-wave-not-crime-wave/620234/">reported</a> the largest spike of murders since the 1960s, from 2019 to 2020 — and violent crime has been trending upward in cities like <a href="https://mpdc.dc.gov/page/district-crime-data-glance">Washington</a> (up 28 percent since 2021), <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/05/us/new-york-city-crime-wave-2022/index.html">New York</a> (major crime up 41 percent in the first three months of the year), <a href="http://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/Police/Reports/2021_SPD_CRIME_REPORT_FINAL.pdf">Seattle</a> (up 20 percent in 2021), and <a href="https://crime.denverpost.com/city/">Denver</a> (up 11 percent since 2021).
Republicans have seized on these trends to step up their attacks on Democrats as being weak on crime, and have returned to the popular “defund the police” protest slogan as a cudgel, just as they used it during the 2020 elections. For many candidates now running for reelection or carving out support in primary races, the easiest defense is to rush to the center and fall in line behind President Joe Biden’s State of the Union message on crime, “not to defund the police [but] to fund the police. Fund them. Fund them.”
But reality works against Biden: There’s actually little he or his administration can do about local crime rates. Last summer, after the release of FBI statistics confirming the public’s fear of increasing crime and a Republican <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/04/republicans-attack-democrats-crime-increase">campaign</a> to pin the rise in crime on progressive Democratic reforms, the White House announced new efforts to try to combat gun violence specifically.
At the time, Biden’s action seemed like a desperate response to a problem no one understood: “Joe Biden knows he needs to appear to be doing something about crime,” the Atlantic’s David A. Graham <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/06/biden-americas-crime-spike-gun-violence/619282/">wrote</a>, “[but] the problem, for Biden, is that there’s simply not much the federal government can do: The fastest initiatives seem unlikely to have much effect, while others have more potential but are unlikely to come to fruition soon.”
Flash forward to this month, when the White House heralded new efforts to regulate <a href="https://www.axios.com/ghost-guns-biden-rule-372e7a9b-81ae-4848-a2f1-3e4f85fdb318.html">“ghost guns”</a> (firearms assembled and purchased in a piecemeal fashion, making them untraceable) a day before New York’s subway mass shooting, and the limits of rapid policy changes become more apparent. The quickest actions on incarceration, policing, gun regulation, and arrests tend to yield the least-durable changes on deeper, institutional problems — time that Democrats facing anxious electorates in a midterm year don’t necessarily have.
That tension is playing out in elections up and down the ballot, in red and blue states, and prompting Democrats with the most liberal-voting constituencies to change their stance to appear more credible on public safety.
<h3>Local and statewide races are where crime will be a defining factor</h3>
The tonal shift in how Democrats talk about crime and policing is more apparent the more local you look, and for good reason: That’s the level where policy is determined, and where voters may redirect most of their anger in punishing incumbents.
The change started among Democrats already in office. In San Francisco last year, Mayor London Breed exemplified this shift, announcing a <a href="https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2021/12/15/mayor-breed-orders-crackdown-on-crime-in-san-franciscos-tenderloin-neighborhood/">crackdown</a> on “criminals who are destroying our city”: “It comes to an end when we take the steps to be more aggressive with law enforcement, more aggressive with the changes in our policies and less tolerant of all the bullshit that has destroyed our city.”
Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago followed with a <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/2021/12/20/22847164/lightfoot-demands-moratorium-on-electronic-monitoring-for-most-violent-offenders">speech</a> calling for more federal prosecution in gun crimes and a moratorium on electronic monitoring of violent suspects.
In New York, Eric Adams, three months into a job he won due in large part to his credibility on policing, argued that his tenure as mayor will be judged on <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/10/nyregion/eric-adams-100-days.html">crime and safety</a>. After this month’s subway attack, he doubled down, saying he would “continue to do everything in my power to dam the rivers that feed the sea of violence.”
All three have years left in their terms, but fellow Democrats running for reelection, against recalls, and in primaries face a tougher dilemma: winning over voters who have lost faith in their ability to handle public safety, while defending their liberal credentials.
These more local races, like in Los Angeles, Louisville, Milwaukee, and Washington, DC’s mayoral contests or the recall efforts against progressive prosecutors in Los Angeles and San Francisco, are elevating moderate Democrats or forcing progressives to step back from their most bold reforms. An open governor’s race in New York and gubernatorial reelection bids in <a href="https://www.cpr.org/2022/03/10/rising-crime-colorado-politics/">Colorado</a> and <a href="https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/amid-michigan-rise-violent-crime-little-appetite-defunding-police">Michigan</a> all demonstrate how crime and policing have pushed Democrats to reconsider police funding and criminal justice reforms, campaign as tough on crime, and steadily abandon the most progressive pitches activists had made in 2020.
Candidates for mayor in Los Angeles and Washington, for example, are debating over how much to increase policing <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/04/04/police-hiring-dc/">funding</a> and <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/crime-now-a-top-issue-in-los-angeles-mayoral-election">staffing</a> — not about how much to cut it down, while New York’s Democrats are <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/11/new-york-democrats-pare-back-nation-leading-bail-reform-amid-crime-spikes-and-election-fights-00024361">pausing</a> a slew of bail reforms after Republican and centrist victories last year.
Public safety has taken a key role in these races so far, matching the steady polling over the last four years showing <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/1603/crime.aspx">growing dissatisfaction</a> with crime control and the <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/1603/crime.aspx">perception of worsening crime</a> since before the pandemic, according to Gallup.
But that dissatisfaction on public safety won’t hurt all Democrats equally. When looking at congressional races — where candidates can make a lot of noise (think of how progressives campaigned on defunding the police), but not take a lot of action on crime and policing — the economy will likely swamp crime as a midterms issue, experts told Vox.
<a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/1675/most-important-problem.aspx">Polling data from Gallup</a> and <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/02/16/publics-top-priority-for-2022-strengthening-the-nations-economy/">Pew</a> over the last few months shows a steady increase in the share of Americans reporting inflation and cost of living to be the most important problem the country faces. In <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/1675/most-important-problem.aspx">Gallup’s pol</a>l, crime ranks toward the bottom, even as Republicans’ concern has increased and Democratic concerns remain steady.
“Inflation just dwarfs everything else,” Cox told me. His organization, the Survey Center on American Life, is reviewing results of their most recent poll asking Americans about their thoughts on various culture war touch points and issues like crime, immigration, and the war in Ukraine ahead of elections. “People are absolutely focused on inflation and concerned about gas costs, housing costs, the cost of everything. That has pretty much taken a lot of the oxygen out of the room for these other issues,” he said.
Cox previously made this <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-crime-likely-wont-be-an-issue-in-the-2022-midterms/">argument</a> during the peak of the crime wave debate last year, saying Republicans might not need to make crime an issue when they have a strong enough case to make on the economy. The same might not be true for more localized races, though, and these fights will build as Democratic voters tune into primary contests.
Together, these dueling priorities between slow reform and quick action present a poisoned chalice for the Democrats running in state and local races who had pledged to tackle crime and public safety without resorting to heavy-handed tactics, but now face an exhausted electorate eager to see quick improvements. Whether voters grant them more time to effect change will depend on how deftly these candidates moderate their tone — and get creative with solutions.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/23032103/crime-midterms-elections-democrats-cities">https://www.vox.com/23032103/crime-midterms-elections-democrats-cities</a>

vox Crime will affect the midterms, but not in the way you think

The images from the mass shooting on New York’s subway last week were jarring: Smoke in the air, blood on the tiles, and above ground, a ma...

Ignoring emails with Twitter’s funniest comedian

Welcome to <a href="https://www.vox.com/24-hours-online">24 Hours Online</a>, where we ask one extremely internetty person to document a day in their life looking at screens.
Caleb Hearon’s first time going mega-viral on Twitter was near the end of 2019, when he made a <a href="https://twitter.com/calebsaysthings/status/1201590348730032129?lang=en">now-legendary POV video</a> in which he pretended to agree with a friend who was venting to him about a situation in which they were clearly in the wrong. He’s been goofing around on the platform since 2010, back in the era of “Ashton Kutcher going on the Ellen show and talking about his ‘tweeps,’” as he describes it.
In those days, Hearon was a high schooler in rural Missouri working for what he calls a “family values” organization for teens. (“I had so much fun tweeting stuff like, ‘we need gun control now!’ and immediately getting in trouble,” he says.) Then, in college, he became the kind of Twitter micro-celebrity around campus who drunk sorority girls would ask to follow them back at parties.
Now 27, he’s living in LA and working as a comedian and TV writer, but still regularly goes viral on the platform. During his <a href="https://www.vox.com/24-hours-online">24 Hours Online</a>, Hearon ignores emails from Nancy Pelosi and JC Penney, mutes all his group chats, and considers buying a mixed-use building in Seattle on a late night Zillow binge. Here he is, in his own words.
<h3>8:30 am</h3>
I wake up and immediately delete like, 20 emails from brands that want me to buy stuff. They’re literally all from the fat guy fashion places that have sunk their hooks in me because there’s no good fashion for fat men: JC Penney, DXL, KingSize, and the non-cool shit from Carhartt. The emails are like, “Get your husky men’s clothes for cleaning out the gutter in your Saturday dad jeans!” and I’m like, “Dog, get me out of here.” And then of course, it’s Nancy Pelosi being like, “I did not want to send this email, Caleb. President Jimmy Carter needs you to pitch in for the North Carolina Senate,” and I’m like, “I thought this bitch was dead!”
I usually check Instagram first in the mornings because more often than not, I have some deranged Close Friends content to catch up on. I look for the little green VIP circles first then if I’m bored or have time to kill I’ll watch general admission stories. My favorite Close Friends stories are when it’s a B-list celebrity being like, “Had a beautiful morning. Walked to the park and saw a dog I thought was cute. Love you guys, have a good one!”
One of the first things I stop to actually read is from the account <a href="https://www.instagram.com/swipes4daddy/">@Swipes4Daddy</a>, one of my favorites. She swipes on much older men and then they flirt with her and it’s never not disgusting or insane. It’s hot girl heterosexual culture, which is something that I’m outside of.
I have a meeting at 10, so I get on the Starbucks app and order a venti iced caramel latte with blonde espresso. I’m not one of the advanced cool girls who likes black cold brew from a local coffee shop; I really love Starbucks. I hate to give them clout, but when I was broke in Chicago and needed somewhere to write for hours on end, Starbucks was perfect because you didn’t feel bad taking over a table.
<h3>9:45 am</h3>
Last night I tweeted something that accidentally became a viral prompt where gay men are quoting with what woman they would most like to die for. Doing a prompt tweet is one of the most embarrassing things you can ever do in your life. I read the replies to see how many people said Julia Roberts (my pick). You wouldn’t believe the actresses who have stans, women who’ve been in two movies in the past 25 years.
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
when gay boys turn 13 years old the universe assigns them one woman working in entertainment. from that point forward their purpose on earth becomes supporting this woman so hard that the force of their love for her could literally kill them.
— caleb hearon (@calebsaysthings) <a href="https://twitter.com/calebsaysthings/status/1511906542802518019?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 7, 2022</a></blockquote>
</div>
The <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@bradley.thor?lang=en">guy who splits logs on TikTok</a> is getting attention again because it makes people feral I guess? I don’t get it. Since he’s become big he has this air about him where he’ll chop the wood and give a little chuckle and smirk or lick his lips. I’m like, bitch, this is gross now.
Then I see this bizarre little video of Doctor Oz, who is of course running for senate and needs to be stopped; he’s in a grocery store going, “You can’t even buy groceries anymore because of Joe Biden!” Any time rich people cosplay as “everyday Americans” it cracks me up. I love watching rich people imagine the struggles of poor people.
I reply to some texts. I put all my group chats on mute a few weeks ago and now I’m the most at peace any person has ever been. I get irrationally angry when I’m doing something and then I get three texts in a row.
<h3>11 am</h3>
I go on TikTok to post a Story, which they have now. As somebody who has to promote my live shows constantly, Stories and Fleets (RIP) are the best way to do it. It helps those of us who don’t do sponsored content; I’m more interested in selling tickets, writing scripts, and being in TV shows. But there’s a lot more money on the spon-con side.
<h3>2 pm</h3>
I’m pitching a TV show this week, so I log on to a Zoom meeting with my co-creator, our showrunner, two producers, and some execs from a streaming network. It’s a live-action, queer TV show based in Kansas City. (I think I can say all of that?)
<h3>3 to 8 pm</h3>
I have a long break in the middle of the day so I drive me and a friend around in my Jeep to go get sushi. We listen to “All I Ever Wanted” by Mase radio on Spotify. I also rediscover Chingy’s “Right Thurr.” It’s great, real windows-down-on-a-nice-day music.
<h3>10 pm</h3>
Emails are the bane of my existence. I can’t fucking believe we still do this. Right before bed, I end up doing like, 20 of them because I put them off all day. When you’re a comedian you have a million little jobs, and for every little job you have seven fucking pages of paperwork. It makes me want to scream.
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I am a phone-in-bed person, but my big bedtime rule about media is I don’t watch TV in bed. I’m also not a big TikTok person; I don’t go down the five hour TikTok holes like a lot of people do. Instead I’ll look up property that I am not buying. I’ll be like, “houses in Kansas city under $500,000 with this many bedrooms.” Or I’ll look up mixed-use buildings. Maybe I want to open a coffee shop in Seattle! It’s nice to dream about. What if tomorrow I had to rip up the floorboards in an old building I just bought? What if I was doing something other than what I have to do?
Something I talk about a lot is how the internet makes mediocre people feel great and makes great people feel mediocre. It causes introspection for people who probably don’t need more introspection, and it causes delusions of grandeur for people who don’t need to feel better about themselves. It’s a very bizarre place to put worth into, and having a big following only makes it weirder.
You have a mix of people telling you you’re a genius because you did a 20-second video in your car — which is not genius, by the way, ever. And then you’ll have people telling you you’re the ugliest person who ever lived and that you should die. And it’s like, well, one day I will. The internet is a very strange place and I’ll probably be on it forever.
<h3>Total screen time</h3>
9 hours
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source <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/23030361/caleb-hearon-twitter-comedian">https://www.vox.com/the-goods/23030361/caleb-hearon-twitter-comedian</a>

vox Ignoring emails with Twitter’s funniest comedian

Welcome to 24 Hours Online , where we ask one extremely internetty person to document a day in their life looking at screens. Caleb Hearon...

The post-Hamilton era of historical musicals has begun

Seven years after <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/21305967/hamilton-debate-controversy-historical-accuracy-explained">Hamilton</a> first hit Broadway, we’re finally beginning to see how large its legacy will loom. This spring, two new musicals are taking New York with an approach to history that gestures emphatically toward Hamilton: race-conscious, aiming for progressive ideas, and pitched squarely to the audiences of today. They pull it off with mixed results.
Broadway has always loved both a <a href="https://www.vox.com/22641501/hamilton-parks-rec-harry-potter-cringe-obama-era-pop-culture">painfully earnest</a> historical musical (see: 1776) and an <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/4/14/11418672/hamilton-is-fanfic-not-historically-inaccurate">arch and knowing deconstruction of history</a> (see: Evita, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, and, more recently, <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/21171636/six-broadway-musical-review">Six</a>). Among Hamilton’s great innovations was that it found a way to serve both subgenres at once. Hamilton invited audiences to empathize sincerely with the travails of the Founding Fathers, and it also used its color-conscious casting to <a href="https://www.vox.com/21308627/hamilton-movie-review-disney-2020">subtly critique America’s historical racism</a>. It’s a tricky, supremely delicate balancing act, but Hamilton proved it could be done. Now its first true imitators are finally here.
On Broadway, cluttered and chaotic Paradise Square delves into the gritty history of New York’s Civil War-era Five Points district. There, Black and Irish Americans lived in the slums shoulder to shoulder, and, the leaden lyrics helpfully spell out, could “love who we want to love with no apology.” Downtown at the Public Theater, where Hamilton premiered, flawed, ambitious Suffs takes on the suffragist fight for the 19th Amendment and the flawed, ambitious women who brought it to pass. “Don’t forget our failure, don’t forget our fight,” they admonish.
Neither Paradise Square nor Suffs quite works at the level Hamilton did, although of the two, Suffs comes a hell of a lot closer. Together, they form a case study in the best and worst ways of putting Hamilton’s legacy to work.
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334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="Actors in period costume dance onstage." data-upload-width="6001" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/KnobrT9lB9hiDm7WmokLbxewQ40=/0x0:6001x3993/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:6001x3993):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23397914/0060___Center__Joaquina_Kalukango__Nathaniel_Stampley__Chilina_Kennedy_and_the_cast_of_Paradise_Square__Kevin_Berne.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Tufi2XVg1zoRZ3n3fsMsrj2UBDk=/0x0:6001x3993/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:6001x3993):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23397914/0060___Center__Joaquina_Kalukango__Nathaniel_Stampley__Chilina_Kennedy_and_the_cast_of_Paradise_Square__Kevin_Berne.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/6QhvbbJWvjFCn36Jgj1n84mdmk8=/0x0:6001x3993/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:6001x3993):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23397914/0060___Center__Joaquina_Kalukango__Nathaniel_Stampley__Chilina_Kennedy_and_the_cast_of_Paradise_Square__Kevin_Berne.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/DhFOmjYsDsmCwMYbw07yBEkyCNk=/0x0:6001x3993/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:6001x3993):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23397914/0060___Center__Joaquina_Kalukango__Nathaniel_Stampley__Chilina_Kennedy_and_the_cast_of_Paradise_Square__Kevin_Berne.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/o8WhUgez_9XrvJgePkhRseKF2uQ=/0x0:6001x3993/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:6001x3993):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23397914/0060___Center__Joaquina_Kalukango__Nathaniel_Stampley__Chilina_Kennedy_and_the_cast_of_Paradise_Square__Kevin_Berne.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/f8AsAS4LO54RtHKkZin553fk9ws=/0x0:6001x3993/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:6001x3993):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23397914/0060___Center__Joaquina_Kalukango__Nathaniel_Stampley__Chilina_Kennedy_and_the_cast_of_Paradise_Square__Kevin_Berne.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/VBQtcT2ZC2XzytLd802LyNJ2RmQ=/0x0:6001x3993/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:6001x3993):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23397914/0060___Center__Joaquina_Kalukango__Nathaniel_Stampley__Chilina_Kennedy_and_the_cast_of_Paradise_Square__Kevin_Berne.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/kXmgdRQpimTdpamKUyL_SfDtOvs=/0x0:6001x3993/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:6001x3993):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23397914/0060___Center__Joaquina_Kalukango__Nathaniel_Stampley__Chilina_Kennedy_and_the_cast_of_Paradise_Square__Kevin_Berne.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/54rXe7U2YScI1_m51if3Ow58H2w=/0x0:6001x3993/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:6001x3993):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23397914/0060___Center__Joaquina_Kalukango__Nathaniel_Stampley__Chilina_Kennedy_and_the_cast_of_Paradise_Square__Kevin_Berne.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/zsOCTvkkxRDr3inZ0jIDNNdflBI=/0x0:6001x3993/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:6001x3993):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23397914/0060___Center__Joaquina_Kalukango__Nathaniel_Stampley__Chilina_Kennedy_and_the_cast_of_Paradise_Square__Kevin_Berne.jpg 1920w" /></picture>
<figcaption>Center, Joaquina Kalukango, Nathaniel Stampley, Chilina Kennedy, and the cast of Paradise Square.</figcaption>
<cite>Kevin Berne</cite></figure>
Paradise Square <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/01/theater/paradise-square-musical-berkeley-drabinsky.html">has been in development for 10 years</a>, since before Hamilton rewrote the rules of the historical musical. It began in 2012 as an off-Broadway show called Hard Times, written by Irish American musician Larry Kirwan and centered around Stephen Foster, the celebrated American pop composer of the 19th century. Its long and tortured development history shows in the final result.
Stephen Foster was in many ways a thoroughly American musical genius. He wrote songs still regularly hummed today (“Oh! Susanna,” “Swanee River”), but he also appropriated much of his music from Black culture and <a href="https://www.npr.org/transcripts/126035325">wrote racist songs meant for minstrel shows</a>. He spent the last years of his life drinking away his money in the Five Points, where New York City’s poor Black and Irish populations lived next door to one another.
Hard Times put Foster and his music at the center of <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/draft-riots">the Draft Riots of 1863</a>, when working-class white men rioted over being drafted to fight for the Union in the Civil War. The idea was that the Five Points symbolized the possibility for racial solidarity, the riots showed America’s racial unrest, and Foster’s songs sat squarely in the middle of both. The show premiered in 2012 at New York’s Cell Theatre to largely positive reviews.
“Mr. Kirwan has not only delivered a knockout entertainment, he’s done a public service,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/theater/reviews/hard-times-an-american-musical-at-the-cell-theater.html?smid=pl-share">the New York Times review declared</a>, “reacquainting us with the Foster songbook and the striving, teeming America for which it was written.”
Hard Times would become Paradise Square when controversial producer Garth Drabinsky signed on to shepherd the show to Broadway. Drabinsky, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/theater/06drabinsky.html">who was convicted of fraud and forgery in both Canada and the US</a> in 2009, pinned a lot to this project, seeing it as a comeback vehicle of sorts after his release from Canadian prison in 2013. As he prepared for a 2019 workshop at the Berkeley Rep, he decided to thoroughly rework it.
Drabinsky “shied away from anchoring the show in Foster’s music, with its romanticization of the slavery-era South,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/01/theater/garth-drabinsky-broadway-paradise-square.html">explained Richard Zoglin for the New York Times this April</a>. Instead, he decided the show should be centered on the previously minor character of Nellie O’Brien, a Black woman married to an Irishman who owns the tavern called Paradise Square.
Drabinsky also felt that the show should have new music and a diverse creative team. To that end, he brought on writer after writer after writer. The final result credits Christina Anderson, Craig Lucas, and Larry Kirwan for the book, Jason Howland for the music, and Nathan Tysen and Masi Asare for the lyrics.
In its final version, Paradise Square sees Nellie struggling to keep her business afloat with her husband away at war, while rich white men from uptown slam her tavern with fines for trumped-up offenses. Her solution is to host a dance-off, with both her striving immigrant nephew and a formerly enslaved man on the run from the law competing for the trophy. Meanwhile, Stephen Foster lurks drunkenly on the sidelines, stealing songs, and a Civil War veteran who is one of Paradise Square’s patrons foments unrest at the new draft laws.
To be frank: This is too many plotlines from too many cooks. Paradise Square in the final product is cluttered and disjointed. It’s a musical by committee that circles blandly around its 10 (10!) major characters without succeeding in making a single one of them feel human or alive. It seems to know it can’t be great and so strives to be sentimental instead, and then fails at even that. It is unspecific and uninteresting; all the things that a show about awful, brilliant Stephen Foster could have avoided being.
If you’re making a musical about race in America, it’s a good idea to aim for a diverse creative team. And surely it’s reasonable to want to throw your resources behind a story that centers the experiences of Black people circa the Civil War over those of a problematic white man. The problem with Paradise Square seems to be that Drabinsky has applied those lessons of the post-Hamilton era to his own show clumsily and without nuance.
Instead of starting with a story that centered the 19th-century Black experience, he started with a musical story about a white man and his appropriated music, and then pushed both man and music to the side. Rather than building a diverse creative team from the ground up, he built a post-hoc committee, and then he asked them to create a compelling concept to fill the theatrical vacuum he himself created. It was a losing proposition from start to finish.
When Paradise Square manages to come to life, it is always thanks to the titanic efforts of individual figures. Joaquina Kalukango, Tony-nominated for her performance in <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/12/5/20961826/slave-play-broadway-2019-review">Slave Play</a>, manages to find the specificity in Nellie O’Brien through sheer force of will, despite a script that never once allows Nellie to make an active choice. Kalukango wrings a standing ovation out of audiences every performance with her rendition of the 11 o’clock rock ballad “Let It Burn,” and while weeks later the memory of her voice still gives me chills, the song itself is so generic I cannot recall a single lyric or chord from it.
Meanwhile, choreographer Bill T. Jones managed to find the one subplot in this doomed show that works at the level of both theme and form. Historically, tap dance was born in the Five Points, an American art form blossoming out of the union of Irish step and Black buck-and-wing. In a dance-off at Nellie’s tavern, Jones shows you how it happened, right on stage in front of you.
It’s a glorious theatrical moment, an illustration of what can be born out of racial solidarity that only musical theater could deliver. It also happens in a show that otherwise seems to have no idea why it’s a musical at all.
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<figcaption>Nikki M. James as Suffs’ Ida B. Wells at the Public Theater.</figcaption>
<cite>Joan Marcus</cite></figure>
If Paradise Square is a musical by committee, Suffs is the product of a singular vision. With book, music, and lyrics by Shaina Taub, who also stars, Suffs focuses its aims on a woman of singularly focused aims: Alice Paul, who devoted her life first to the 1919 passage of the 19th Amendment and then to the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. (<a href="https://www.alicepaul.org/equal-rights-amendment-2/">Paul drafted the ERA</a>, which still has yet to be ratified.) And Suffs makes it plain that Paul’s single-minded drive came with costs.
In her quest to get women the right to vote, Paul suffers harassment and ridicule. She is imprisoned and then violently force-fed in prison, which Taub renders in a particularly harrowing scene. She also sacrifices other principles.
Infamously, Alice Paul invited Ida B. Wells to join her in a march for suffrage before Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration — and then, after southern white suffragists objected, asked Wells to march in the back, behind everyone else. (Wells refused.) In Suffs, this choice becomes Paul’s original sin, tainting all her later work.
“This fight is only for suffrage, above all else, at any cost,” Paul says staunchly. “Not colored rights or any other cause.” Wells (played here by a stunning Nikki M. James), makes it clear that Paul is fooling herself if she thinks her activism can be so neatly divided. “Since when does a radical roll over for bigots in the first place?” she demands. “Wait my turn? Well I sure don’t see you waiting yours.”
A weaker or less nuanced version of this story would make Wells the only Black woman Paul and her team encounter, a walking reminder of their racial guilt who serves no other dramatic purpose. In Suffs, Wells is an icon in her own right, a firebrand activist who is committed to the suffrage movement and refuses to bow to anyone else’s agenda. Her most important relationship is not with Paul, but with her fellow Black activist Mary Church Terrell. Together, they playfully spar over how best to ally with the white suffragists, with Wells favoring confrontation and Terrell favoring conciliation. Crucially, their debate echoes Paul’s fight with the establishment suffrage leader Carrie Catt, who calls for slow and incremental change and can’t abide Paul’s rabble-rousing ways. All of these disparate subplots revolve around the same central set of ideas, which keeps the play feeling focused and on-mission.
Suffs’ ferocious discipline here recalls the best of Hamilton, which derived much of its theatrical power from its ability to bring the broad biographical sweep of Hamilton’s life into parallel with the narrower thematic aims of its music. Likewise, Suffs’ careful attention to racial nuance is a legacy of the post-Hamilton era. It even seems, in a way, to be responding to the critiques of Hamilton: While Hamilton is consistently dinged for its refusal to fully interrogate its subjects’ slave-holding practices, no one can accuse Suffs of whitewashing away Alice Paul’s racism. These are not the only parallels between the two shows. As Helen Shaw <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2022/04/theater-review-shaina-taubs-suffs.html">wrote for Vulture</a>, doing a shot anytime someone talking about Suffs brings up Hamilton will quickly get you sloshed.
Suffs has its premiere at the Public Theater, where Hamilton was born. The show stars its own composer, book-writer, and lyricist, as Hamilton did. It takes a progressive lens to history, like Hamilton did. Its all-women-and-nonbinary cast rhymes with Hamilton’s famous color-conscious cast. It features Phillipa Soo, Hamilton’s Eliza, clearly having a ball as the slinky and glamorous “beautiful suffragette” Inez Milholland (“We must put the sex in sex equality!”).
Where Paradise Square put the lessons of Hamilton to use clumsily, without appearing to understand their logic, Suffs understands why its famous predecessor worked. Its radicalism is baked into its form, and it doesn’t have to compensate with last-minute changes to its creative team. As a result, the power of its original vision keeps shining through, undiluted.
Where Suffs falls short of Hamilton’s example is in its inability to find the joy in the dark history it covers. This is a grim, even nightmarish account of the fight for equality, and while the dourness effectively evokes the historic and brutal costs of that fight, it also becomes wearing over time. Taub’s music, which is mostly serviceable when compared to her knife-sharp lyrics, has a tendency to repeat itself, which adds to the wearing effect. The only playfulness Suffs offers comes from the repeated device of having the cast burlesque itself as the suffragists’ male antagonists (Grace McLean is a stunning Woodrow Wilson), and that is a joke that suffers from some diminishing returns.
By the end of Suffs’ first act, I was weeping freely behind my mask. I was also longing for just one song that might be a little bit light. Something to lessen the effect of grinding misery that constantly threatens to overshadow the whole show.
The biggest problem Suffs is dealing with is that it is, if anything, too much itself. It stands as a sharp contrast to a show like Paradise Square, which doesn’t seem to have a very clear idea at all of what it is — and as a reminder that for all the power of Hamilton’s politics, and whatever backlash it might face as the cultural mood shifts, its greatest legacy is as a show committed fully and with all its might to the force of its vision.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/23020581/suffs-paradise-square-review-post-hamilton-historical-musicals">https://www.vox.com/culture/23020581/suffs-paradise-square-review-post-hamilton-historical-musicals</a>

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