Hello, and happy Friday! Like a lot folks living far from home right now, I’ve been contending with the fact that I might not be returning for the holidays this year.
I say might because despite knowing full well that the pandemic continues to rage on and that there’s no way of traveling from London to San Francisco entirely risk-free, I can’t bring myself to definitively say I’m not going home. When friends ask, I tell them I haven’t decided yet. When the topic comes up on phone calls with my mom, we treat it like a problem for our future selves to solve. “Let’s wait and see” was our classic deflection over the summer. By the fall, it became, “Who knows how things will be by then.” These days, I’ve taken to saying, “We don’t have to rule anything out just yet.”
Deep down, I know this stalling is a form of merciful self-delusion: I’d much rather treat the prospect of going home as an eventual matter to be decided if it means not having to contend with a reality in which I haven’t hugged my mom in a year or the fact that there could be an entire chapter of my brother and sister’s lives (both of whom, for context, are teenagers and therefore growing rapidly) that I will have missed out on. Still, I recognize that I’m one of the lucky ones: My family are safe and healthy, and so am I. If not going home means I’m doing my part to ensure we all stay that way, so be it.
To my fellow Americans, I hope you have a happy (and safe) Thanksgiving, wherever and however you’re celebrating it. Here’s some pumpkin pie.
What I’ve written
Joe Biden won. America is back. After four years of abandoning its role as a defender of democracy and human rights (and cozying up to leaders who have little regard for either), many are wondering whether the United States will begin promoting those liberal values again.
For perhaps no other country is the answer more immediately existential than Belarus. I spoke with Franak Viačorka, an adviser to Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, about what the U.S. election means for the country’s prodemocracy movement and whether they are hopeful that a Biden administration will do more to support Belarusians than its predecessors did. “We felt … abandoned,” Viačorka told me. Keep reading here.
If ever the United States needed neutral, outside observers overseeing its democracy, it’s now. I caught up with Urszula Gacek, the former Polish politician leading the OSCE mission observing this year’s election, to discuss Donald Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud (“We have found no evidence of systematic wrongdoing with this system, despite this extreme stress test that the system came under”), the issue over observer access in Pennsylvania (“Had somebody listened to us in the past, they wouldn’t be outraged now”), and much more. Read the full interview here.
What I’ve read
This extraordinary Atlantic cover story about Down syndrome, prenatal testing, and the question of whose lives are worth living is easily one of the best pieces of magazine journalism you’ll read this year:
“The forces of scientific progress are now marching toward ever more testing to detect ever more genetic conditions. Recent advances in genetics provoke anxieties about a future where parents choose what kind of child to have, or not have. But that hypothetical future is already here. It’s been here for an entire generation.”
Ben Smith’s latest column on French President Emmanuel Macron’s beef with the “Anglo-American press,” which features an interview with Jupiter himself:
“I asked him whether his vocal complaints about the American media weren’t themselves a little Trumpian — advancing his agenda through high-profile attacks on the press. Mr. Macron said he simply wanted himself and his country to be clearly understood. ‘My message here is: If you have any question on France, call me,’ he said. (He has, in fact, never granted The Times’s Paris bureau an interview, which would be a nice start.)”
This interview with Barack Obama on why he fears for America’s democracy. This exchange was one of my personal favorites:
Goldberg: Have you explained to yourself the Trump phenomenon in such a way that doesn’t cause you to write off the Americans who voted for him?
Obama: I will say that I’m not surprised that somebody like Trump could get traction in our political life. He’s a symptom as much as an accelerant. But if we were going to have a right-wing populist in this country, I would have expected somebody a little more appealing.
Goldberg: Not a man-child?
What I’m thinking about
The devastating accuracy of this tweet.
Until next time,
Yasmeen
P.S. This tribute to Dolly Parton by Quartz’s Tim McDonnell is well worth your time.