Hello, and happy Friday! Would you believe this is our last correspondence before the U.S. election? Time flies when you’re having a very strange, shambolic time.
As we approach November 3, I can’t help but think back to the 2016 election: I was four months into my editorial fellowship at The Atlantic and, like a lot of folks living in Washington, D.C. at the time, I felt fully engrossed in the Trump-Clinton horserace: I went to debate watch parties, religiously listened to NPR’s politics podcast, and thought of myself as having a pretty decent idea of which way the contest would go. When my mom called me from California the day after the vote, she said, “What happened? I thought you knew what you were talking about!”
Reader, so did I.
So while I won’t be making any predictions this year, I will leave you with this: The coming election stands to be very different to previous ones—not least because this one is taking place amid a pandemic and the results could take longer to determine than we’re used to. In order to avoid any confusion, it’s worth checking out how news outlets are planning to report on this year’s vote (the Associated Press, for example, laid out its coverage plans here). If you’re a fellow hack, I found this guide on how to cover the election particularly useful.
In non-election news: I joined the final (!) episode of the Remainiacs podcast, which will reveal its brand new name next week. As usual, you can tune in via your favorite podcast app or by clicking below👇
What I’ve written
One of the most visible ways Donald Trump has altered the United States’s role in the world has been through his chosen friendships. His penchant for personality politics has led him to find common cause with leaders in whom he sees a bit of himself: populists and nationalists who share a disregard for norms, a disdain for dissent, and a dedication to strengthening their own power.
Here is my roundup of the world leaders who have most benefited from having a like-minded ally in the White House, and those who stand to have the most to lose should Trump’s first term be his last.
Jacinda Ardern showed the world how leading a country through a global health crisis is done. The New Zealand prime minister not only rid her country of coronavirus cases (twice!), but also offered the world a model for how to manage a pandemic with clarity, compassion, and competence. Last weekend, New Zealanders rewarded her with a landslide reelection victory.
But the issue that appears to have bolstered Ardern’s premiership is the same one that could make her next term even more difficult. I wrote about how her electoral victory foreshadows the challenges facing all leaders in the months and years ahead: Though succeeding in the face of the pandemic is hard, dealing with its aftermath will be harder. Keep reading here.
What I’ve read
White Noise director Daniel Lombroso’s profile of the alt-right’s most famous woman:
“I had seen Lauren Southern challenge sexual-assault survivors, turn back refugee boats, exploit desperate migrants for political gain, and rake in considerable cash—all to the benefit of an insurgent racist right. The day after I landed in Belgium to see her give her speech at the European Parliament, I’d learned that my grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, had died. As my family gathered in Israel to lay Shulamit Lombroso to rest, I’d watched the parliamentarians applaud their brightest young star. Now Southern was acting like none of this had ever happened. Having thrown her bombs, she had, indeed, simply gone back to a normal life.”
This piece on the future of the office lunch by the New Yorker’s pre-eminent sandwich historian, Sam Knight:
“The damage to Pret signified something more than trouble for another quick-service restaurant chain. For a disproportionate quantity of Britain’s politicians, business executives, and journalists, the Pret buzz—tactile, hectic, caffeinated, everything tasting somehow the same—stood for work itself. … When the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, urged people back to work in city centers, in order to restart the economy, the shift in policy was widely abbreviated as ‘Save Pret.’ When, as predicted, this helped lead to a surge in coronavirus cases in September, prompting new restrictions and advice to start working from home again, people on Twitter shortened the next iteration of rules to ‘Fuck Pret.’”
This fascinating theory about the evolution of the English language and how Americans lost their British accent (spoiler: they didn’t):
“Around the turn of the 18th 19th century, not long after the revolution, non-rhotic speech took off in southern England, especially among the upper and upper-middle classes. It was a signifier of class and status. This posh accent was standardized as Received Pronunciation and taught widely by pronunciation tutors to people who wanted to learn to speak fashionably. Because the Received Pronunciation accent was regionally "neutral" and easy to understand, it spread across England and the empire through the armed forces, the civil service and, later, the BBC.”
Finally, an election special: The Atlantic published its fourth presidential endorsement in its 163-year history. Bet you can’t guess who it’s for:
“[Joe] Biden is a man of experience, maturity, and obvious humanity, but had the Republican Party put forward a credible candidate for president, we would have felt no compulsion to state a preference. Donald Trump, however, is a clear and continuing danger to the United States, and it does not seem likely that our country would be able to emerge whole from four more years of his misrule. Two men are running for president. One is a terrible man; the other is a decent man. Vote for the decent man.”
What I’m thinking about
Now that I’ve nearly exhausted by Netflix queue, I’m trying to dedicate more time to books! Some of my recent reads include The Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum (an urgent read on right-wing populists and the lure of authoritarianism), The Influence of Soros by Emily Tamkin (a great primer on the right’s favorite boogeyman and what it takes to build a more open society), and Sadness Is a White Bird by Moriel Rothman-Zecher (one of the best novels on Israel-Palestine that I’ve read yet).
What should I read next? What are you reading? Hit ‘reply’ and let me know!
Until next time,
Yasmeen
P.S. ICYMI, The Atlantic launched a brand new section devoted to climate change called Planet, as well as an accompanying weekly newsletter, The Weekly Planet. Check ‘em out!