WINTER 2022 $ 6.

50

The Identity Cult

Martin Gurri
The Guardians in Retreat
Heather Mac Donald
The Other
New York
Nicole Gelinas
Transgenderism
and the Law
Leor Sapir
Andrey Mir and
Bruno Maçães on
Technology and Society
Oliver Wiseman and
Daniel Tenreiro on
Miami’s Ascendance
 If you aren’t following Manhattan Institute and
reading City Journal, you’re missing out on the sharpest
thinking on urban issues available anywhere.
— Sohrab Ahmari, Author

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part of our City Journal family.
 Contents

Martin Gurri 12 The Identity Cult

On the mass conversion of our institutions

Heather Mac Donald 18 The Guardians in Retreat

Redefining its purpose as antiracism, the Art Institute of Chicago abandons
its core mission of preserving history’s treasures and instructing future generations.

Tevi Troy 28 The de Blasio Debacle

Eight years of awful leadership have left New York in desperate need of revival.

Leor Sapir 36 Transgender Confusions

A series of court rulings illustrates how bad ideas travel from
fringe academic theory into law and policy.

Nicole Gelinas 44 The Other New York

Influential books on poverty in the city focus on institutional failure,
while overlooking the importance of personal agency.

Miami Ascendant
Oliver Wiseman 54 “The Least Woke City in America”
Miami’s increasingly conservative political culture reflects the
influence of immigrants fleeing socialist dystopias.

Daniel Tenreiro 61 America’s Tomorrow City

Miami seeks to build a startup haven for tech entrepreneurs and cryptocurrency innovators.

Technology and Society

Bruno Maçães 66 Enter the Metaverse
Unlike the Internet, the dawning digital environment
promises autonomy from the physical world.

Andrey Mir 72 The Medium Is the Menace

Ubiquitous digital media offer potent rewards—but at the
price of eroding our sensory and social capacities.

Allison Schrager 80 Bring Back Risk

Our increasing aversion to taking chances creates dangers of its own.

Steven Malanga 88 War of the States

In a battle for jobs and people, Republican governors challenge the Biden
agenda with tax-cutting and deregulation.

J. Joel Alicea 96 The Fate of the Conservative Legal Movement

Expected in June, the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dobbs abortion case will
be a defining moment in the Right’s battle for the Constitution.

Charles F. McElwee 106 The Supply-Chain Empire

Once an industrial powerhouse, Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley
has evolved to become the Northeast’s logistics hub.

Urbanities
Jonathan Clarke 114 William Faulkner’s Tragic Vision
In Yoknapatawpha County, the past never speaks with a single voice.

Departments
3 In Prospect

4 Soundings

America’s Redistributive Welfare State; Smash-and-Grab Retail;
Ganging Up on Law and Order; . . . and other matters.

Theodore Dalrymple 122 Oh, to be in England

Weighing Our Losses

127 Contributors

Jose Corpas 128 Brooklyn Diarist

Death of a Homeless Man

WINTER 2022 1
 Published by the Manhattan Institute
Winter 2022 Volume 32, Number 1

Editor
Brian C. Anderson
Senior Editor
Steven Malanga
Managing Editor
Paul Beston
Associate Editors
Daniel Kennelly
Theodore Kupfer
Editorial Assistant
Madeleine Miller
Editor-at-Large
Myron Magnet
Contributing Editors
William Andrews, Michael Knox Beran,
Claire Berlinski, Theodore Dalrymple,
Stephen Eide, Nicole Gelinas, Edward L. Glaeser,
Judge Glock, Victor Davis Hanson,
Howard Husock, Kay S. Hymowitz,
Andrew Klavan, Joel Kotkin, Charles Fain Lehman,
John Leo, Heather Mac Donald, Group Study 9 (oil on panel, 30” x 40”, 2020), by Geoffrey
Rafael A. Mangual, John O. McGinnis, Johnson. Born in 1965 in Greensboro, North Carolina,
Bob McManus, John H. McWhorter, Geoffrey Johnson graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy
Judith Miller, Lance Morrow, Peter Reinharz, of Fine Arts. Since 1995, he has exhibited in galleries and
Aaron M. Renn, Christopher F. Rufo, venues throughout the United States. His paintings may be
Allison Schrager, Fred Siegel, Lee Siegel, found in many private and corporate collections, including
Guy Sorman, Harry Stein, William J. Stern, those of Coca-Cola, Turner Broadcasting, BellSouth, and
John Tierney, Michael J. Totten, Wells Fargo. Working with a monochromatic palette of sepia
Adam J. White, Luigi Zingales
hues, the artist says that he strives to reproduce the places
Art Director that inspire him. Johnson is represented in New York City by
Jerome Rufino Hubert Gallery. For more information, please visit 
Picture Editor https://www.hubertgallery.com/geoffrey-johnson.
Karen Marston
City Journal (ISSN 1060-8540) is published four times
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© 2022 by the Manhattan Institute, Inc.

2 CITY JOURNAL
 In P rospect

A mericans canceled for exer-

cising First Amendment rights,
The Institute’s director, James
Rondeau, wants to push the
poured in to the city. Allison
Schrager’s “Bring Back Risk”
companies browbeating white antiracist agenda even further. (page 80) maintains that the
workers about race privilege, If racialist ideology spreads un- American economy as a whole
shifting acronyms signifying checked throughout the institu- needs an injection of that spirit
the latest innovations in gender, tions of high culture, Mac Don- of enterprise. The alternative is a
constant evocations of victim- ald warns, the result will be the more stagnant and less produc-
hood—what’s driving the cul- cancellation of a civilization. tive future.
tural ferment that threatens to Leor Sapir’s “Transgender Two stories in this issue ex-
transform the nation into some- Confusions” (page 36) assesses plore the technological fron-
thing unrecognizable? As Mar- the dubious judicial rulings that tier. Bruno Maçães’s “Enter the
tin Gurri argues in “The Identity have required schools to defer Metaverse” (page 66) explains
Cult” (page 12), the radicalism to the self-chosen gender iden- how the new immersive plat-
is a kind of substitute religion, tity of students or face charg- form will disrupt everything
embraced by young leftists and, es of discrimination. What he from commerce to work to geo-
far more cynically, older cor- finds, through his penetrating politics. In “The Medium Is the
porate and media elites seek- assessment of “a badly misun- Menace” (page 72), Andrey Mir
ing to maintain power. But as derstood phenomenon,” is a notes that the Internet has am-
a faith, it is internally contra- striking example of how bad plified our intellectual and social
dictory—nothing can reconcile ideas with little public support faculties far beyond our natural
the demands of its proliferat- can travel swiftly from the aca- abilities. But there has been a
ing identities—and bereft of demic fringe to the heart of law significant cost, including atro-
a hopeful vision of the future. and policy. phied attention spans and a de-
Gurri is thus skeptical that the One bastion of resistance to sire for immediate gratification.
identity cult can last, but the the identity cult is Miami, “The Mir offers a suggestion for age-
damage that its adherents can Least Woke City in America” based media management that
inflict in the meantime is con- (page 54), as one resident en- parents and educators should
siderable. thused to Oliver Wiseman in his listen to.
The museum world is a ma- look at the Magic City’s lively, Nicole Gelinas’s “The Other
jor site of that damage, Heather and increasingly conservative, New York” (page 44) revisits
Mac Donald reports in “The political scene. A major group three defining books on the
Guardians in Retreat” (page 18). of Hispanic Republicans has city’s poor. The books reflect
Mac Donald takes aim at the emerged in Miami, many with the anxieties of their eras, from
Art Institute of Chicago, once direct experience of socialist crime to gentrification, and gen-
one of America’s great cultural dystopias in their family histo- erally call for more extensive
institutions but now pursuing ries. That has helped push the government action to solve so-
a new mission to expose racist city rightward. But these Miam- cial problems. Yet what their
oppression everywhere—includ- ians also offer a vision of Amer- reporting shows—though the
ing under its own roof. Striking ican opportunity that Republi- authors rarely acknowledge it—
a blow for that new mission, cans can model to compete in is the role that self-destructive
the Institute recently fired its other cities, Wiseman believes. behavior plays in making pov-
82 unpaid docent volunteers, Miami mayor Francis Suarez erty a multigenerational fate.
who offered a wide variety of reflects that optimistic vision in Such misguided thinking—and
excellent educational programs his embrace of risk-taking tech not just in poverty policy—was
for the public, for the sole rea- innovation, says Daniel Tenreiro a hallmark of New York’s just-
son that most were white, and in “America’s Tomorrow City” ended Bill de Blasio years, which
will replace them with just six (page 61). Thanks in part to Su- Tevi Troy anatomizes in “The de
part-time paid employees, hired arez’s efforts, a massive influx Blasio Debacle” (page 28).
on identity-politics grounds. of venture capital money has —Brian C. Anderson

WINTER 2022 3
 America’s
Redistributive
A s part of a
recent study on
titlements to provide for all citizens, regardless
of their circumstances.
income disparities, When Britain extended eligibility for state
Welfare State Thomas Blanchet, pensions and health-care services to the middle
Contrary to popular belief, Lucas Chancel, and class, it did not increase funding proportionately.
government provides Amory Gethin of As a result, cash-benefit levels declined and the
more aid to the poor in the the World Inequal- quality of medical services deteriorated—leav-
U.S. than in Europe. ity Lab at the Paris ing the poor, who were already previously cov-
School of Economics ered, worse off. The working class, which had
Chris Pope found that the Unit- not paid income taxes prior to the war, found
ed States “stands itself paying for much of the expansion. Other
out as the country that redistributes the great- European nations, such as France and Belgium,
est fraction of national income to the bottom 50 which enacted equivalent reforms to universal-
percent.” This is not the American welfare state’s ize entitlements at the end of the war, saw a
traditional reputation and seems to have come as similar effect.
a surprise to the left-leaning authors. How can it For a while, the cost of the shift was masked
be so? by the rebound of ruined economies in the im-
Government spending accounts for a smaller mediate postwar era. But over time, the expense
share of national income in the United States (35 of providing generous retirement benefits and
percent) than in Europe (47 percent), but rates of comprehensive health-care services to all bal-
public spending on education, health care, and looned—tilting the bulk of government spending
benefits for the poor and disabled are similar. toward middle-class entitlements and eclipsing
The greater cost of government in Europe re- other spending priorities. France spends a much
sults largely from its spending 11 percent more larger share of GDP (13.6 percent) on public
of national income on public pensions than the pensions than does the United States (7.1 per-
United States—which serves to crowd out pri- cent), owing to a lower retirement age (62 vs.
vate pensions that higher earners would have 66) and disproportionately generous benefits for
provided for themselves. To finance these state wealthier seniors. Yet, as 69 percent of Ameri-
pensions, Europe imposes payroll and sales taxes can seniors receive private retirement benefits,
at rates twice as high as in the United States. incomes from private pensions in the U.S. (5.3
These additional taxes fall heavily on lower-in- percent of GDP) are much higher than in France
come groups—making government bigger, while (0.3 percent), and the median disposable income
imposing higher costs on the poor. of over-65s in the United States ($38,920) is also
Because raising taxes is unpopular, politicians much higher than in France ($23,490).
normally prioritize spending. For this reason, the Blanchet, Chancel, and Gethin make much of
U.S. established Medicaid, Medicare, Social Secu- the fact that income is more unequally distrib-
rity, and various welfare benefits as safety nets. uted in the U.S. than in Europe. The United
The middle class is expected to provide for its States does not have greater inequality because it
own health insurance through employment and has more poor people, however, but because its
most of its retirement through homeownership, nonpoor earn much more. In 2017, after adjust-
private pensions, 401(k)s, and other investments. ing for differences in the cost of living, only 19
In the early twentieth century, Europe’s wel- percent of Americans lived in households with
fare state was built along similar lines, through disposable incomes less than $20,000, compared
a combination of employer-sponsored benefits, with 22 percent in Germany, 27 percent in the
private insurance, and public assistance targeted United Kingdom, and 53 percent in Italy. By
at the needy. But World War II crashed the con- contrast, while 32 percent of Americans enjoyed
tinent’s private pension and insurance systems, disposable incomes greater than $50,000, only
forced the rationing of basic goods and services, 12 percent of Germans, 12 percent of Britons,
and led governments to establish universal en- and 4 percent of Italians did so. Americans live

4 CITY JOURNAL Photographs by Tim Clayton/Corbis/Getty Images

 Soundings

in houses that are, on average, twice as large as income in taxes in the U.S. and 35 percent in Eu-
those of Europeans. Indeed, the average resident rope, residents with below-average incomes pay
of France, Germany, or Britain has less living much less in tax in the U.S. (16 percent) than in
space than the poorest quintile of Americans. Europe (28 percent).
Rates of homelessness  are also substantially The United States has the highest levels of
lower  in the U.S. than in France, Germany, or disposable income among G7 countries for nine
the U.K. Only 3 percent of the U.S. population out of 10 income deciles. Such comparisons give
was  undernourished in 2016, the same as in the the impression that the poorest decile is little
E.U. better off in the United States than in Europe.
The swelling of Europe’s welfare states mostly But the U.S. relies heavily on in-kind benefits,
imposes additional costs on those with modest which traditional income statistics don’t count,
incomes, rather than the rich—of which it has to assist its neediest citizens. In 2018, Ameri-
many fewer than the United States. While the can families with children below the poverty
richest 1 percent pay about 33 percent of their line averaged posttax earnings of $18,148—in

WINTER 2022 5
 Soundings

addition to which government programs pro- other social programs, tends to run into dimin-
vided an average of $20,757 in cash, food, and ishing returns.
housing benefits, along with $4,967 in child care The welfare states facing the greatest struggles
and services and $14,960 in health-care benefits. are those that rely on a single payer to finance
Blanchet, Chancel, and Gethin note that gov- all activities. The sovereign debt crises in Por-
ernment spending on health care in the United tugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain were
States and Europe accounts for a similar share primarily due to the expansion of public pen-
of GDP. However, American entitlements to sions that largely replaced private retirement
health care are largely reserved for the elderly, finance. Maintaining broad access to essential
disabled, and poor through Medicare and Med- health-care services, as medical capacities devel-
icaid, which covers 34 percent of the population. op and citizens live further into old age, is also
Health care for middle-class families is typically likely to prove hardest for countries where the
paid for privately through employer-sponsored government is expected to provide these services
insurance. When government and private-sector to all.
spending are included, the U.S. spends a total Governments best help those in need when
of 17 percent of GDP on health care, compared they limit benefits to them, rather than trying to
with 10 percent in the E.U. provide for the entirety of society—an approach
Government budgets under single-payer that requires everyone to pay higher taxes, in-
health-care systems must be stretched to cover cluding the poor.
all, which typically leaves them short of funds
for the costliest services. Britain’s National
Health Service refuses to cover medical inter-
ventions that cost more than $40,000 per year
Smash-and-
Grab Retail
W hen police
busted a shoplift-
of life saved. As a result, the sickest patients are ing ring operating
Rising store crime now
often denied access to newly developed drugs out of a liquor store
plagues many communities.
or are treated with outdated equipment when last spring, they
major surgery is required. Even when proce- Steven Malanga calculated that the
dures are nominally covered, a shortage of dozen or so people
funds means that patients are regularly unable involved had swiped at least $375,000 worth of
to make timely appointments with specialists goods from retailers such as Walmart, Lowe’s,
for cancer care or forced to wait months for es- and Walgreens. The pair heading the ring relied
sential surgery. on small-time thieves, including several with
America’s health-care system is therefore re- drug arrest records, to launch brazen “grab-and-
markably progressive in its financing and at en- go” operations in which they snatched expensive
suring better access to care. The 82 million low- goods and then raced out of stores and fled in
income Americans covered by Medicaid in 2019 cars with phony license plates. Though police and
paid no premiums, deductibles, or coinsurance prosecutors often categorize shoplifting as a non-
for health-care services. Because insurance is violent crime, the gang’s sprees resulted in several
generally comprehensive, the share of household physical confrontations, including one in which a
consumption dedicated to out-of-pocket medical gang member assaulted a store employee with a
expenses is lower in the United States than in stun gun. This may sound similar to the organized
most other developed nations. smash-and-grab lootings that have plagued high-
American health care can improve. Employer end retailers in San Francisco and other North-
control of insurance makes plans unresponsive ern California communities recently, but this gang
to individual needs, creates gaps in coverage was operating out of Daytona Beach, Florida—and
when people move between jobs, and weak- had done so for nearly two years.
ens the incentive for hospitals to control costs. In fact, retail crime has been rising through-
These problems can and should be fixed. But out the U.S. for the past five years, with orga-
throwing more money at health care, as with nized criminal rings targeting stores everywhere

6 CITY JOURNAL
 Soundings

from Woonsocket (Rhode Island) to Greensboro that crime was climbing, but recent incidents
(North Carolina) to Grafton (Wisconsin). The Na- forced California governor Gavin Newsom to
tional Retail Federation reported that store losses announce that he would boost funding to fight
mounted from $453,940 per $1 billion in sales in retail theft. Meantime, local officials like San
2015 to $719,458 in 2020. The biggest increase Francisco district attorney Chesa Boudin, who
over that period happened not during the pan- has prosecuted fewer shoplifters than his prede-
demic but in 2019, when total losses from shop- cessor, have recently begun issuing indictments
lifting surged to $61 billion, up from $50 billion against gangs.
the previous year. The Covid-19 lockdowns in What has received far less attention, however,
2020 and early 2021 moderated losses, largely is the fact that California’s Prop. 47 was not an
because stores were closed or had curtailed op- outlier among states. In the past ten years, near-
erating hours. Now that retailing has resumed, ly half of all states have boosted their thresholds
crime has spiked again. for retail felony theft. Thirty-eight states now
Even more troubling, shoplifting no longer fits don’t consider shoplifting a felony unless $1,000
its traditional mold as a nonviolent crime per- or more of merchandise gets stolen. A 2020 Na-
petrated mostly by teens or substance-abusing tional Retail Federation report on organized re-
adults. Nearly two-thirds of the retailers sur- tail crime found that two-thirds of retailers in
veyed by the National Retail Federation said that states that had raised their felony shoplifting
violence associated with store thefts has risen, minimums reported growing retail theft. Stories
led by organized gangs that resell the goods like those in San Francisco have consequently
they steal. Corie Berry, CEO of Best Buy, recent- become more common.
ly said that store crime had become so pervasive Grafton, a suburban community some 20
that it was depressing profits and traumatizing miles north of Milwaukee, is located right off
staff. Like retailers, top law-enforcement officials Interstate 43 and is home to several large shop-
place some of the blame for the crime surge on a ping centers—an ideal mark for smash-and-grab
widespread lessening of penalties for shoplifting. gangs. Two-thirds of all reported crime in the
“As we’ve witnessed brazen smash and grabs, district is now retail theft. “People are literally
consequences are key,” Laura Cooper, head of walking out with cartloads of power tools, cart-
the Major Cities Chiefs Association, said before loads of air conditioners,” the town’s police chief
Thanksgiving. “Without deterrents and account- said in early November. “They’re just walking
ability, communities will be victimized, and right out.” In Wisconsin, the threshold for fel-
businesses terrorized.” ony theft is $2,500, one of the highest levels in
California’s recent headline-making shoplift- the country. Meantime, cops in rural Cabarrus
ing sprees have brought widespread attention County, North Carolina, busted a five-person
to Proposition 47—a 2014 state ballot initiative, retail theft ring last September, finding $400,000
supported by a range of left-leaning and libertar- worth of goods stolen from stores like Lowe’s
ian groups, which, among other things, boosted and Home Depot, including still-boxed power
the felony threshold for shoplifting from $450 of tools and small appliances. It took more than 12
merchandise to $950. Soon after it passed, retail- hours to inventory the haul.
ers in California began reporting a sharp uptick Changes to bail laws have also played a part
in retail theft, often in plain view of helpless in the crime wave, retailers say. Increasingly,
store personnel and distressed customers. “This those who engage in misdemeanor property
is an epidemic that has far-reaching effects, and crime—considered a nonviolent offense—are
it’s scary and upsetting to witness,” one resident quickly back on the streets, where some go right
wrote recently to the San Francisco Chronicle. back to stealing. New York City retailers have
Amid the frenzy, national chains like Walgreens been menaced by a thief known as the Man of
and Target have announced that they’re closing Steal, arrested 57 times through the first nine
their San Francisco stores, while others have cut months of 2021 alone, including 46 times for
operating hours. Some officials initially denied shoplifting. He is one of 77 habitual criminals

WINTER 2022 7
 Soundings

with at least 20 shoplifting arrests walking New way to dispose of their booty. Last summer, a
York’s streets, thanks to what police commis- security expert for drugstore chain CVS told the
sioner Dermot Shea called the state’s “disastrous” Wall Street Journal that he expected to shut down
bail-reform law. 73 online stores selling illegal goods worth $104
The unintended consequences of other govern- million in 2021. Stores complain that operators
ment policies have contributed to the problem. of big online marketplaces, especially Amazon,
Mask mandates allow criminals to cover up their don’t do enough to verify that the items sold on
faces in stores without attracting attention. Bans their sites are legitimate. Retailers have lobbied
on single-use plastic bags have made it accept- for a federal law requiring online sellers to dis-
able for consumers to walk around stores with close more information about their operations,
their own non-transparent reusable bags, en- though Amazon and other big tech companies
abling thieves to load up in the aisles and head have resisted.
for the exits. Some design so-called booster bags, Shopping this past holiday season came closer
lined with aluminum, to evade detection from to pre-pandemic normality. The only question
retail security systems. now is whether that normality will also include
The rise in shoplifting has been accompanied flash mobs, smash-and-grab thieves, and terror-
by a general escalation in crime, including vio- ized employees and customers.
lent offenses, at a time when police resources
have been strained by everything from defund-
the-police efforts to vaccine mandates. Mur-
ders alone rose 29 percent in the U.S. in 2020,
Ganging
Up on Law
T he elimination of
cash bail, the demoni-
swamping police departments and making the zation of policing, and
increase in shoplifting seem like a minor prob-
and Order the decriminalization of
lem by comparison. The latest cause of theft have led to soaring
Only now, after years of growing retail theft the anti-criminal-justice crime across the United
and California’s recent high-profile “flash mob” Left: abolishing States. In response, even
incidents, has the problem even begun to com- police databases of some big-city Democrats
mand media attention—a reminder that when gang members have backed off their
low-level crimes are allowed to grow unchecked, extravagant promises to
they inevitably evolve into something more dan- Seth Barron “reimagine” criminal
gerous and costly. Retailers and cops are looking justice as a noncoercive
for reforms to help stem the thievery. They’d form of human services, staffed by social work-
like local governments to amend shoplifting ers and culminating in talk of restorative justice
laws so that the aggregate value of a repeat of- instead of prison sentences. National polling indi-
fender’s stolen goods can count toward meeting cates that mainstream Democratic voters are turn-
the threshold for felony charges, rather than sim- ing away from a party that they see as too soft on
ply counting the cost of goods stolen from each crime.
incident separately. Similarly, businesses and As a measure of the shift, New Yorkers, fol-
security experts want tougher bail for repeat of- lowing a dizzying 40 percent rise in murders in
fenders, even if the offenses in question are only 2020, elected as mayor a former NYPD captain
misdemeanors. They also want a federal law tar- and self-described moderate, Eric Adams, with
geting interstate shoplifting gangs—an increas- hopes that he will restore public order. London
ingly common phenomenon, in which thieves Breed, mayor of crime-ravaged San Francisco,
target stores located out of state and hundreds recently came out as a tough-on-crime crusader;
of miles away. and Jim Kenney, Philadelphia’s mayor, has ten-
Finally, brick-and-mortar retailers want the tatively admitted that his city, which just broke
federal government to crack down on online its own murder record, has a “gun crisis.”
sites that sell stolen goods. The rise of online Yet even as some Democrats seem ready
retailing has given organized criminals an easy to embrace centrism, at least in their public

8 CITY JOURNAL
 Soundings

statements, the party’s far Left is redoubling and affiliates of violent criminal organizations—
its “abolitionist” efforts to end incarceration, began in earnest in 2017, after the election of
dismantle police departments, and reengineer Donald Trump, when the practice of local law-
society’s approach to crime and punishment. enforcement cooperation with federal immigra-
And in cities across the country, radical mem- tion authorities was denounced as authoritarian.
bers of local legislatures, activist groups, and The “resist” movement demanded that local gov-
the defense bar have opened a new front in the ernment stop supporting detention and removal
war on order: they are demanding that police proceedings of illegal aliens, and police-abolition
departments end the practice of maintaining activists pushed to broaden the concern about
lists of gang members in databases, which they federal databases to include any lists kept by
claim are unconstitutional, stigmatizing, and local law enforcement.  
racist. Nonprofit news organizations such as Pro-
Critical scrutiny of gang-member databases— Publica, the Intercept, and the Marshall Proj-
which keep track of the names, turf, “colors,” ect—all bankrolled by left-leaning foundations

WINTER 2022 9
 Soundings

supportive generally of the decarceration move- violence routinely takes the form of indiscrimi-
ment—commenced seemingly simultaneous in- nate shootings on the street or at parties, often
vestigations of gang databases in the months wounding or killing innocent bystanders.
leading up to and following Trump’s election. A city council hearing in 2018 made head-
At the same time, criminal-justice-reform advo- lines when then–chief of detectives (and later
cates in Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., NYPD commissioner) Dermot Shea revealed that
and New York City amped up pressure on local blacks and Latinos made up 98.5 percent of the
police departments to end their collection of in- 18,000 individuals in the gang database, a figure
formation on gang members.   seemingly confirming advocate suspicions that
“The gang database is not a crime-fighting the database is racist. “Instead of accepting that
tool,” said Victor Dempsey, a community or- certain racial groups are more prone to gang
ganizer with the Legal Aid Society, at a 2019 activity,” argues a broad coalition of criminal-
New York City Hall rally demanding its aboli- justice-reform organizations, “the database’s ra-
tion. “It is a tool of mass criminalization.” The cial bias may simply reflect where the NYPD
Legal Aid Society serves as an outsourced pub- chooses to prioritize law enforcement.” This idea,
lic defender’s office, providing constitutionally that the police look for crime guided by their
mandated indigent defense to New Yorkers, for own prejudices, is contradicted by decades of
which it receives hundreds of millions of tax data on who uses guns in New York City—the
dollars. Dempsey, a former gang member who demographic breakdown aligns almost exactly
spent time in prison for robbery, is effectively a with the racial composition of the gang database. 
public employee whose job is to inveigh against Undismayed by broad public support for
city policy.   law and order, progressive advocates have
The idea that keeping track of the members of methodically worked to dismantle the tools of
criminal enterprises leads to “mass criminaliza- law enforcement. From limiting stop-and-frisk
tion” is a cherished principle of the abolitionist to the decriminalization of minor offenses to
Left, which is eager both to assert that gangs the elimination of pretrial detention, they have
are the construct of a moral panic and to em- made significant strides toward ensuring that
brace their supposedly pro-social potential. The the criminal element is permitted to roam the
Grassroots Advocates for Neighborhood Groups streets. Their latest offensive—to end police sur-
& Solutions (G.A.N.G.S. Coalition) is a lead- veillance of criminal organizations that inflict
ing and oft-cited proponent of new legislation mayhem on cities—must be turned back.
to eliminate, erase, and forbid the collation of
gang-membership data by any New York City
agency.  
According to G.A.N.G.S., antigang policing
Follow the
“Diversity”
S oon after World
War II, Wernher von
developed after “young Black and Latinx people Braun, a German engi-
New analysis quantifies
formed street organizations to build up their neer who played a lead-
the politicization of
community while protecting themselves against ing role in developing
federal science grants.
police violence.” The myth of street gangs as the V-2 rocket, was
mutual aid groups functioning as part of civil Leif Rasmussen covertly moved to the
society is central to the Left’s discourse on the United States. Though
subject. Antisocial gang behavior, according to he had officially been a Nazi, von Braun was
G.A.N.G.S., is an unfortunate response to “sup- an exceptionally gifted aerospace engineer. A
pression tactics both by local police departments decade and a half later, when U.S. officials feared
and the federal government” because of which that they were falling behind scientifically after
“some groups engaged in destructive behaviors.” the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, von Braun
In reality, of course, street gangs are defined by became director of NASA’s new Marshall Space
destructive behavior. At least half of all murders Flight Center. One could criticize the decision to
in New York City are gang-related, and gang overlook von Braun’s odious past, but in that era,

10 CITY JOURNAL
 Soundings

such criticisms were moot. Competence was the some insight into how this criterion is being
reigning currency. interpreted.
Today, our scientific institutions are going I decided to do some statistical and linguis-
in the opposite direction. Whether a scientist tic analysis to determine how much more fre-
is competent is often overlooked. Instead, his quent the use of “diversity,” “equity,” “inclusion,”
work’s political palatability determines wheth- and similar terms were becoming. My analysis,
er he is hired, funded, promoted, or granted which I published for the Center for the Study
tenure. of Partisanship and Ideology, shows a precipi-
I started working on a Ph.D. three years ago. tous increase in the use of words related to iden-
When I began graduate school, I was aware of tity politics. In 1990, only 3 percent of award
the charges about political homogeneity and abstracts contained one of the following terms:
performative activism on campuses but thought “equity,” “diversity,” “inclusion,” “gender,” “mar-
that these were usually exaggerated. Having dis- ginalize,” “underrepresented,” or “disparity.” As
covered the satisfaction of tutoring students in of 2020, 30 percent of all award abstracts had at
mathematical and technical subjects as an un- least one of these terms. The NSF directorate in
dergraduate, I wanted to make a career out of which abstracts most frequently contained one of
helping people acquire new competencies. I be- these terms was Education & Human Resources
lieved this to be one of the primary functions of (54 percent in 2020, up from 4 percent in 1990).
institutions of higher education. But in the three My analysis showed a general stagnation in
years since beginning graduate studies, I have the linguistic diversity of award abstracts over
changed my mind about the politicization of time. While the number of awards granted—and
academic life. Such terms as “diversity,” “equity,” the amount of money given out—by the NSF
and “inclusion,” I have come to see, are being has consistently grown since 1990, the degree of
used not only as administrative shibboleths but novelty in the award abstracts has remained flat
also in descriptions of actual scientific work— or fallen across the various NSF directorates. All
a troubling development, as the language can that talk of “diversity,” in other words, has been
shield shoddy ideas. “Equity-centered” research accompanied by diminishment of the actual di-
can deflect scrutiny through the tacit insinua- versity of ideas within these grant applications.
tion that anyone who finds fault with it must be Scientists dutifully paying lip service to fashion-
doing so out of hostility toward equity itself. It able progressive causes are more likely to be
is difficult, too, to get clear definitions of “diver- funded, disadvantaging those who go against
sity,” “inclusion,” and “equity,” even from those the current consensus. Such personalities, how-
using them in the titles of their own research ever, are crucial to the generation of novel ideas.
projects. The more the NSF pays attention to political or
Data bear out my experience. While help- temperamental litmus tests, the less it pays to
ing to develop an unrelated grant application, other, more vital, criteria—namely, the quality
I browsed through the archive of abstracts of of the proposed work and the competence of the
research projects funded by the National Sci- investigators. And the more that scientific insti-
ence Foundation—a government agency that tutions are viewed as conduits for promulgating
provides about $8 billion in annual monies. NSF ideology, the less capable they will be of sway-
funding goes largely to basic scientific research ing public opinion on important issues.
conducted at U.S. colleges and universities. The The infusion of fashionable political plati-
agency evaluates grant proposals on two crite- tudes into scientific research is bound to have a
ria: intellectual merit and broader impacts. The deleterious effect on both the quality of science
broader-impacts criterion requires that applicants and the public trust in scientific institutions. The
describe how their work will advance desired growing view of science as a vehicle for activ-
social outcomes. Grant application guidelines ism detracts from its vital role: acting as a dis-
don’t explicitly define what these broader im- passionate referee to adjudicate the validity of
pacts should be, but my own research provides empirical claims.

WINTER 2022 11
 The Identity Cult
On the mass conversion
of our institutions

Martin Gurri

L
inking to a Sesame Street celebration of “Latinx culture,” Anto-
nio García Martínez, sharpest wit on Twitter, recently wrote:
“One of the great mysteries is how every elite institution, from
universities to corporations to media to even Sesame Street, all
spontaneously coalesced on the same narrow set of values all
of a sudden.”
The set of values in question belongs to the cult of identity—
a ramshackle creed that maintains, for example, that the term “Latinx” sig-
nifies an actual human group. Once the province of pretentious professors
and their captive students, the cult has leaked out of the cannabis-scented
halls of academia to infect an astonishing number of people in power. Gar-
cía Martínez is right. In the scope and rapidity of institutional embrace,
nothing like it has transpired since the conversion of Constantine.
The National Archives in Washington, D.C., today places warning labels
on the Constitution, because reading it may induce unpleasant sensations
in some identity groups. Universities like Princeton now publish “antiracist
toolkits” to instruct the faithful on how to “move beyond diversity” and
into identity heaven. Nike, which makes sneakers, demands of its custom-
ers: “Don’t pretend there’s not a problem with America. Don’t turn your
back on racism.” The Cleveland Indians and Washington Redskins, two
time-honored sports franchises, for their identity sins have had their names
stripped away. I could extend the list unto boredom—it would range from
prestigious media institutions like the New York Times to local bodies like
the San Francisco school board.
Tyler Cowen, nobody’s idea of an identity enthusiast, has declared that
“wokeism”—a popular tag for the cult—“will rule the world.” “Winners win!
And woke is right now one of America’s global winners,” he writes.
What, specifically, are the values that the identity creed promotes? The
terms that the critics use, such as “woke” and “cancel culture,” don’t impart
much information. I tend to avoid them. The words used by true believ-
ers, like all attempts to describe the ineffable, are shifting, ambivalent, and
opaque. One must be initiated to grasp how many letters should go into
LGBTQIA and why the damned thing keeps growing.
Wesley Yang, a critic, sees the cult as the “successor ideology” to liber-
alism and, more recently, has referred to it as a “successor regime” whose
“year zero” began in 2021, after the electoral triumph of progressive-minded

12 CITY JOURNAL Illustrations by Martin Elfman

WINTER 2022 13
 The Identity Cult

Democrats. The objective of the successor ide- ents an insoluble dilemma, unless we opt for dis-
ology is to dismantle the citizen-based ideal of memberment. Yang’s successor ideology has no
equality and replace it with an identity-based way to reconcile conflicting identity claims; they
system of justice and government. Here are some can be adjudicated only by a power that stands
of Yang’s examples of how it has worked in outside the system.
practice: The second contradiction is even more de-
cisive. Identity as a sectarian faith genuflects
The Small Business Administration priori- before conflicting human ideals. It affirms that
tized emergency Covid grants to restaurants anyone can become anything—even, at its most
by race. The Department of Agriculture pri- exuberant, that everyone can become every-
oritized funding to black farmers. The state thing. This tendency proliferates pronouns and
of Vermont allowed BIPOC [“Black, Indig- aims to obliterate standards and differences: be-
enous, People of Color”] residents early ac- tween citizen and alien, for example, or between
cess  to the vaccine. The state of California being a man and being a woman. It’s all personal
mandates diverse representation on corpo- choice, with life pared down to an extreme uto-
rate boards. San Francisco introduced a pilot pian individualism.
public/private partnership program offer- At the same time, we are told that the only
ing monthly cash payments reserved exclu- meaningful human unit is the identity group,
sively for black and Pacific Islander women. whose borders are fortified and must be de-
fended at all costs. This tendency magnifies and
The revaluation of liberal values, Yang holds, sanctifies difference, until identity becomes des-
is already upon us. tiny. Every conversation begins with the words
“As a gay person” or “As a Latinx” because group

I f the cult of identity rested on a coherent ide-

ology, Yang would be its most perceptive inter-
experiences are taken to be incommensurable.
All products and tokens of the group are to be
shielded from profanation. White boys must
preter. But no such ideology exists. Fashionable never grow dreads or sing the blues: that’s “ap-
French philosophers hover in the background, propriation,” not admiration, and the minimum
yes, and there’s a dash of vulgar Marxism for sea- penalty is a virtual lashing on the web.
soning, but the curious inquirer will encounter far No doctrine in the world can reconcile a radi-
more mystery than logic and far more zeal than cal individualism with such an uncompromis-
programmatic thinking. Once removed from the ingly tribal perspective. The cult of identity,
realm of mysticism, the whole identity edifice col- taken neat, appears as a gigantic conflict-genera-
lapses like that condo in Surfside, Florida, from its tion machine, demanding constant outside inter-
own structural inadequacies. vention and tinkering just to keep the parts from
Let me cite just two internal contradictions, blowing off into the ether.
both seemingly fatal. The first concerns the nu- Given the ideological poverty of the cult’s
merology of identity. It is a dogmatic assertion “set of values,” how do we explain the mass con-
of the cult that outcomes must be at least propor- version of elites? Evidently, Donald Trump de-
tionate to population. If blacks represent 13 per- serves some credit. His election radicalized the
cent of the country’s population, there must be two groups that today wage holy war on behalf
at least 13 percent black CEOs, black Ivy League of those values: the young, who provide the bulk
professors, black New York Times columnists, of the activists; and the elites themselves, who,
black Google employees, and so on. after the shock of rejection by the voters, were
But given that victim groups are both unstable ready to think the worst of American society.
and overlapping, this mathematical quest breaks However, there were many possible responses
down almost immediately. Every person who is to Trump. If, as Cowen states, woke became the
black and “cisgender” (that is, they identify with winner, it was because it met an existential need
the sex that biology makes them) and male pres- in these two groups.

14 CITY JOURNAL
T he cult of identity, properly understood, con-
sists of a series of platitudes and stereotypes in-
cynicism, the cult of identity could be appropri-
ated by power.
variably leading to gestures of repudiation and The young, as might be expected, despise
calls for the ritual purification of society. By defini- these graying warriors, whom they consider
tion, there can be no missionaries of identity. True hypocrites tainted by the very sins of racism and
believers have shown little interest in persuasion: privilege they pretend to oppose. Periodically,
their faith has spread not because of clever argu- woke institutions like Google and the New York
ments but by relegating rival creeds beyond the Times are shaken by revolts from below, and lib-
pale of moral consideration. Hence the obsession eral governors and CEOs get consumed in inqui-
with nomenclature—with the magical force of sitional fires. As a matter of unromantic reality,
words. however, protesters need elite politicians and
Conversion has entailed drastically different executives to be the applauding audience in the
experiences, depending on where you stand in theater of grievance: they have no choice but to
the social pyramid. From below, at the level of rely on the institutions to expand their reach and
the young professional and the college student, adjudicate the cult’s contradictions into some
the cult provides a vision of truth and a source sort of bureaucratic order.
of meaning in a romantic struggle against the The elites, just as naturally, fear and detest the
systemic evil represented by the rest of us. From youthful zealots, whose proximity has an effect
above, at the level of high government and cor- similar to that of a ticking bomb. Yet every po-
porate officials, ostentatious adherence to the litical system needs fear-inducing enforcers. The
cult is a tool of control. elite class learned long ago that it inspires mostly
The dance between the generations has been scorn, so it has conscripted true believers to be
awkward. Young activists are eternally on the the attack dogs of virtue and the digital SWAT
hunt to identify and attack injustice, typically re- teams that will keep the rabble quiet on behalf of
vealed by the utterance of certain taboo words. a purified establishment.
They dwell in a world of weakened religious This is the uneasy bargain that, in García Mar-
and family ties, and their idea of community is tínez’s phrase, “spontaneously coalesced” during
a website. The cult of identity fills an existential the Trump years and today rules over every pres-
void and raises up the young to be the vanguard tigious corner of America. For all the differences
of avenging virtue in a sinful world. This cohort in age and status, the two groups come from the
is driven by the urge to purify—that is, by nega- same stock: upwardly mobile, hyper-educated,
tion to the edge of nihilism. and largely white. It’s really a family arrange-
Older institutional types, on the other hand, ment among parents and children in the upper
have seen their influence and authority plum- echelons of the great American middle class.
met over the past decade. Of this vertiginous fall Together, they constitute a small minority of
from grace, Trump was merely a symptom, not the electorate. Between them, they control the
the cause. The digital age will not tolerate the commanding heights of politics and culture, and
steep hierarchies of the twentieth century: these they may possess the means to intimidate a surly
will either be reconfigured or smashed. Stripped public into silence.
of the splendor of their titles, panicky elites have
cast about for some principle that will allow
them to maintain their distance from the public.
The puritanical slogans pouring out of anti-
N ow that all the famous names, from President
Biden to Kermit the Frog, have accepted identity
Trump protesters must have sounded, to this as the established church of the United States,
group, like an opportunity. They could reorga- what are they going to do about it? History sug-
nize society on woke values, with themselves in gests that nothing will change quickly. Even Con-
charge as high commissioners of purity. They stantine left the Temple of Jupiter alone.
could trade institutional authority for social Christianity advanced on the strength of a dou-
control. With uneven measures of sincerity and ble-edged strategy. From above, the government

WINTER 2022 15
 The Identity Cult

redirected its subsidies from pagan to Christian tudes and stereotypes for a reason: it has all
institutions, creating a potent incentive for the the outward trappings but none of the spiritual
upper classes to see the light. From below, mobs content of a true religious faith. Nothing about
of exalted souls ransacked pagan temples while it transcends or soars. Even the social aspect is
the police stood by, intimidating ordinary people mediated by the shallow narcissism of the digital
into abandoning the old gods. universe—you get more of a buzz at the sports
But the process took generations. We unre- arena, where fanatics at least come together face-
pentant sinners will probably not end our days to-face.
chained to the gloomy dungeons of the Iden- From the outside, identity feels like thin gruel.
tity Inquisition. In a more practical vein, we can Very little is demanded of true believers. They
expect the Biden administration to push its iden- arrive already in a state of grace. Total obedience
tity agenda to the bleeding edges of our consti- is demanded of everyone else. We are corrupt
tutional framework—and beyond. Republicans beyond redemption and can be detoxified only
and other unbelievers will push back, taking by our submission.
every available legal avenue. A conservative Su- The platitudes about justice, once questioned,
preme Court will be inclined to side with them. disintegrate into mere slogans. The groups that
From the perspective of American politics, too, supposedly define our identity are crude stereo-
nothing is likely to change soon. types. Nobody has ever cried, “Latinx or death!”
A more interesting question concerns the ef- or “Power to the LGBTQIA!” from atop a barri-
fects of the cult of identity—on the true believ- cade. Nobody ever will.
ers, on the country, and on the world. Cowen’s In its effects, identity fixation appears less like
generally benign take on wokeism includes a cult and more like the sociopolitical equivalent
speculation that its spread could improve the lot of a personality disorder. If evil forces inexora-
of oppressed groups in authoritarian countries. bly control society, the only possible responses
“It doesn’t much matter who controls the Eng- are paranoia or rage. If the world is about to end
lish Department at Oberlin,” he writes. “But it in a climate conflagration, depression seems like
would be nice if the Saudis allowed more rights a perfectly rational attitude. The youngest gen-
for women.” eration, which has most deeply imbibed these
This fails to account for the internal contradic- notions, suffers from unprecedented levels of
tions of the cult, though. Isn’t it Islamophobic to anxiety, depression, and suicide. On top of that,
foist feminism on a Muslim society? There’s no the birthrate is plummeting. Correlation isn’t
answer to that. The rival claims, again, can be causation—but let the buyer beware.
adjudicated only by an outside power. In Saudi
Arabia, that power is Prince Mohammed bin
Salman. Now, the prince could well put Saudi
women in charge and order Saudi men to wear
I s the cult of identity here to stay? I’m not sure
whether a few years’ run makes for a win or a
the veil, much like Peter the Great forced the fad. If Donald Trump declines to run again for
boyars to shave their beards. But the civil and office and the Democrats lose the White House
political rights of no one would be improved by and Congress, the elite wing of the cult could
this move. find itself back where it was before 2016—a loud
Cowen observes that wokeism is yet another but disconnected and mostly regional presence.
carrier of “American cultural influence.” It will The young activists would still be with us, impla-
be resisted as such. Outside the Anglosphere, the cable as ever—and, in that sense, the cult would
cult is unlikely to reach much further than the seem to own the future. But the future is equivo-
smoky catacombs of the intellectuals. cal. On this question, I stand with President
If identity offered adherents a soaring new John F. Kennedy, who was once asked about the
vision of human relations, as did Marxism and extravagant positions staked out by the Young
Christianity, it might overcome its contradic- Democrats. “Time,” Kennedy responded with a
tions. But I described the cult in terms of plati- sigh, “is on our side.”

16 CITY JOURNAL
WINTER 2022 17
 The Guardians in Retreat

18 CITY JOURNAL
 Redefining its purpose
as antiracism, the Art Institute
of Chicago abandons its
core mission of preserving
history’s treasures and
instructing future generations.

Heather Mac Donald

I
n 2012, the Art Institute of Chicago posted
a tribute to its volunteer museum educa-
tors. “Our docents are incredible,” read
the Facebook post. “ ΩTo walk through the
galleries and see children, led by docents,
jumping up and raising their hands to talk
is to see the work of the museum at its
best,≈ ” the entry continued, quoting then–Insti-
tute director Douglas Druick.
At that time, the Art Institute was still seeking
to expand its docent corps. “We Want You! (To
Become a Docent),” announced a contemporane-
ous article in the museum’s newsletter. The arti-
cle emphasized the program’s rigor: becoming a
docent “was no small task,” the museum advised,
involving a competitive admissions process and
written, supervised research on the museum’s
collections.
ELROY CHIEN/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Less than a decade later, in September 2021,

the Art Institute shut down its docent program
entirely and told its participants that they would
no longer be allowed to serve the Institute in a
volunteer capacity. Henceforth, six salaried part-
time employees would replace the 82 unpaid
educators. The docents were told to clean out
their lockers; as a consolation prize, they were

The storied Art Institute of Chicago, founded in

1879 as both a museum and an art school

WINTER 2022 19
 The Guardians in Retreat

offered a two-year complimentary membership filling out the collections as well; the largest gift
in the museum. in the Institute’s history, from civic leader Martin
Had the docents been delivering subpar per- Ryerson in 1933, included Asian art among Old
formances? Had the Institute discovered an in- Master paintings, textiles, and decorative arts.
curable flaw in their training? No, it had noticed Philanthropists underwrote the nearly con-
that they were overwhelmingly white. And that, tinuous expansions of the Institute’s 1893
in 2021, constituted a sin almost beyond redemp- Beaux-Arts building on Michigan Avenue to
tion, whether found in an individual or in an in- accommodate the growing holdings. Today, the
stitution. Institute constitutes one of the finest reposito-
The racialist wave that swept the United States ries of global art on the American continent; one
following the arrest-related death of George small corridor, containing exquisite pastel por-
Floyd in May 2020 has taken down scientists, art- traits by Martin Quentin de la Tour, Chardin,
ists, and journalists. Entire traditions, whether in and other Ancien Régime artists, alone war-
the humanities, music, or scientific discovery, rants a visit.
have been reduced to one fatal characteristic: The Institute’s docent program grew out of
whiteness. And now the antiwhite crusade is tar- a particularly fertile period in American volun-
geting a key feature of American exceptionalism: teerism—the 1950s, which saw the creation of
the spirit of philanthropy and volunteerism. hundreds of new civic associations, many or-
The Art Institute of Chicago is not the first mu- ganized and run by women. In 1951, a group
seum to turn on its docent program. But it is the of public-minded women from Chicago and its
most consequential. It is worth tracing the devel- suburbs offered to help the Institute raise capital
opments that led to the docent firings in some during an emergency fund drive; they were so
detail. The Institute is a case study in what hap- successful that the museum incorporated their
pens when museums and other cultural organi- organization into its administrative structure.
zations declare their mission to be antiracism. The newly created Woman’s Board next tackled
The final result, if unchecked, will be the cancel- children’s art education. The board proposed a
lation of a civilization. corps of volunteer educators, despite the pre-
vailing view in the museum world that only pro-

C hicago’s Art Institute, founded in 1879 as

both a museum and an art school, emerged from
fessionals should instruct the public, including
children, about art. Ironically, it would be the
head of the Woman’s Board who would deliver
the post–Civil War wave of museum building. the docents’ death sentence 70 years later.
Successful businessmen from San Francisco to Barbara Wriston, sister of Citibank chairman
Boston created grand receptacles for European (and later Manhattan Institute trustee) Walter
art in the spirit of democratic elitism, believing Wriston, created the first docent curriculum
that history’s masterpieces should be available in 1961. She insisted on “standards,” she later
to all. The Institute’s original holdings consisted said. Students attended curatorial lectures, read
almost entirely of plaster casts of Greek and Ro- widely in the museum’s library, and wrote pa-
man sculpture, reflecting the centuries-long view pers proposing ways to communicate art-histori-
that the classical world represented the pinnacle of cal concepts to children. The 18-month program,
artistic achievement in the West. Soon, however, run with “military” discipline, according to an
Chicago’s Gilded Age benefactors began donating inaugural trainee, was the virtual equivalent of
a more sweeping range of works, starting with a an MFA; graduates followed up with ongoing
bequest of 44 predominantly Barbizon School oil study of art history and pedagogy.
paintings from the widow of Henry Field, brother The question of “inclusion” arose early. By the
of the Marshall Field & Company founder. More end of the 1960s, Institute staff were grappling
than four dozen classics of Impressionism and with how to make the museum more “accessible”
Post-Impressionism came the Institute’s way in to Chicago’s poor communities. The museum
1925 and 1926. Non-Western traditions started began a series of targeted outreach efforts, such

20 CITY JOURNAL
as Spanish-language programming and an urban ent.” They are particularly exercised by the failure
professionals’ group to serve as ambassadors to of their predecessors to embrace Black Lives Mat-
black neighborhoods. The Woman’s Board pro- ter values. “Firmly rooted in Eurocentric tradition,
vided framed reproductions of Institute art, care- the founding objectives of our institutional history
fully chosen for diversity, to all Chicago public did not consider gender, ethnic, and racial equity,”
and parochial schools, along with resources for laments the Institute’s website. But no museum
teachers. founder at the time was considering “gender, eth-
The museum’s most important outreach was nic, and racial equity,” beyond a generalized aim
simply the docent tours themselves, which to make beauty widely available to a democratic
brought thousands of public school students into citizenry.
the museum to experience its wonders. Though Not good enough. Today’s Art Institute ac-
the docents were color-blind, docent training cuses itself of sins of commission, not just of

“
was expanded to in- omission. The mu-
clude months of di- seum has long “cen-
versity awareness on tered certain stories
the assumption that
In good show-trial while marginalizing
black and Hispanic fashion, Institute leaders and suppressing oth-
children required a ers.” The Institute, in
special method of
confess to the ‘biases and this telling, did not
inequities of our history

”
delivery and special just focus initially on
approach to art. The those artists and tra-
docents formed their
and the present.’ ditions that its found-
own diversity and ers knew best and
inclusion committee and presented activism- that they viewed as central to America’s cultural
themed lectures in the pitch for “relevance.” legacy: it actively sought to silence other artists
Meantime, universities had started “problema- and traditions out of a racist, colonialist impulse.
tizing” art museums and their contents as means Despite the Institute’s assertions, there is no evi-
by which white males maintain their alleged dence of such malign intent or unintended effect
privilege. In 1992, the dean of the Institute’s af- on the part of the founders or their successors.
filiated art school wrote that art raises questions The artists’ names carved across the exterior
about “who gets to write, to speak, . . . to frame of the Institute’s original building are an espe-
and interpret reality, [and] to position their text cially fertile source of self-flagellation. The 35
as part of the cultural mastertext.” Academic the- individuals are a Who’s Who of Western art and
orists cast museums as tools of exclusion and art architecture, starting with Praxiteles and Phidias
as a mask for power. It took a while for this de- from classical Greek times, proceeding through
mystifying reflex to migrate from academia into the early and high Renaissance (including Fra
the very bloodstream of art museums, but by the Angelico, Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, da Vinci, Mi-
second decade of the new century, curators and chelangelo, and Veronese) and into the Baroque
museum directors nationwide had become fluent (Rubens, Van Dyck, Velázquez, and Rembrandt).
in deconstructive rhetoric, which they directed at The roll call extends into the eighteenth century
their own institutions. The death of George Floyd (Reynolds and Gainsborough) and ends with
only accelerated the trend. early-nineteenth-century Romanticism (Turner).
No such list can be exhaustive, and one can al-

T he Art Institute is emblematic of this conver-

sion, by which the impulse to share culture be-
ways quibble with the choice of this, rather than
that, potential member. These 35 creators are
nevertheless justifiably nominated as paragons
comes culpable and tainted by whiteness. In good of human achievement, each having broken into
show-trial fashion, Institute leaders confess to the unexplored realms of representation. Yet if land-
“biases and inequities of our history and the pres- mark preservation laws allowed, the Institute

WINTER 2022 21
 The Guardians in Retreat

would have sandblasted the names off its entab- misia Gentileschi is a particular target for pro-
lature by now. The frieze is an “unsustainable motion. But however accomplished her work,
formulation,” current Art Institute director James only gender equity could justify inducting her
Rondeau said during a 2019 lecture, “in the con- into the highest ranks.
text of our mission today.” Why? Because it pres- Identity, however, is now the driving force
ents “exclusively white Western European male in the Institute’s collecting practices. Rondeau
artists.” (In his zeal to apologize for the founders’ bragged in his 2019 speech, delivered at the Des
“profoundly limited” art-historical aspirations, Moines Art Center, that the first two trans artists
Rondeau overlooked the ninth-century Japanese had now entered the collection, as well as an in-
court painter Kose Kanaoka, who also occupies digenous artist who addresses “non-binary, gen-
a place on the frieze.) The museum’s Equity der, and sexual identity” in his work.
statement amplifies Rondeau’s dissatisfaction: Sometimes such equity bingo produces a di-
“The omission of artists of color, especially Black lemma. In April 2019, the Institute purchased two
artists, as well as female, Indigenous, and non- nineteenth-century silk portraits embroidered
Western artists, is glaring.” by an Italian princess, Maria Isabella Albertini
Only someone with an adolescent approach to de Medici di Ottaiano, based on a design by a

E. JASON WAMBSGANS/CHICAGO TRIBUNE/TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE/GETTY IMAGES

reality would reduce Giotto, Dürer, and Murillo, male painter. Rondeau’s assistant advised him
say (also members of the frieze), to the common that when flogging the purchase for equity and
denominator of “whiteness” and “maleness”— inclusion points, he should omit the “princess”
preposterously unilluminating categories for descriptor. History, it seems, does not conform
artists with such different styles and sensibili- to contemporary moral classification schemes.
ties. The absence of any historical awareness on
the part of frieze critics is equally “glaring,” to
borrow a phrase, especially coming from an art
museum. There were no known indigenous art-
T he self-abasement common in the post–
George Floyd era is actually a form of self-
ists whom the Institute’s founders could have or aggrandizement. Individuals and institutions
should have memorialized; American Indian art blame themselves for inequalities for which
was anonymous, produced within a collective they have no responsibility in order to claim a
craft tradition. current impact that they do not possess. The In-
As for black and female artists, whom do stitute has issued an acknowledgment of the “ad-
the Institute’s equity enforcers think the 1893 verse consequences” of its “exclusionary past” for
frieze should have included? There were a few Chicago’s black neighborhoods. This acknowl-
pre-twentieth-century black painters, and their edgment is posturing. The sources of the area’s
works deserve wider exposure. Henry Ossawa problems lie elsewhere. Nothing on the outside
Tanner’s Portrait of the Artist’s Mother (1897), or inside of the Institute hurt Chicago’s South
for example, is a haunting psychological study, Side. The creation of Fragonard’s surprisingly
sharing the muted palette of Whistler and Tan- proto-Expressionist Portrait of a Man in Costume
ner’s sometime-teacher Thomas Eakins. The In- and its 1977 gifting to the Institute, say, stripped
stitute presciently bought a religious work from no one of opportunity, unless one holds that any-
the artist in 1906, notwithstanding the callous thing made by a white person over the last 2,000
discrimination that Tanner and his contempo- years is implicated in the West’s hardly unique
raries experienced. But it would be ludicrous to lapses of compassion and equal rights. By that
equate any such premoderns to Botticelli, Ra- logic, every African work in the Institute’s col-
phael, and Titian (also commemorated on the lection must also be condemned for the geno-
frieze), if for no other reason than their lack of cidal tribal warfare practiced by African cultures
historical influence. and for the corruption that continues to depress
Female artists have been more numerous, and Africa’s economic development.
much effort has gone into elevating them to the The Institute’s “land acknowledgments,”
creative pantheon. The Baroque painter Arte- now inserted at the beginning of every public

22 CITY JOURNAL
The Institute shut down its volunteer program for docents (some depicted here) because its participants
are overwhelmingly white.

pronouncement, are equally self-aggrandizing. were long gone by the time construction began;
“Our building is located on the  traditional un- the Institute is not responsible for their disap-
ceded homelands of the Council of the Three pearance, nor is Western art.
Fires: the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Na- Asserting such an impact allows the Institute
tions; this region has been a center for Indige- and its funders to position themselves as essen-
nous people to gather, trade, and maintain kin- tial to the antiracism crusade, however, a much
ship ties since long before our Michigan Avenue more exciting function than curating beauty—
building was constructed in 1893,” reads the In- and now, crucially, the only way to attract foun-
stitute’s Equity page.  The Institute’s statement dation support. And so the Institute has rede-
implies that the three nations are still gathering fined its mission: “The Art Institute of Chicago
on Michigan Avenue, or perhaps would do so commits to advancing racial justice now and in
but for the buildings’ footprint. In fact, the tribes the future.” The Institute will create an “antiracist

WINTER 2022 23
 The Guardians in Retreat

culture” in the U.S. and internally, proclaims the racist curricula,” priorities that the Institute
museum’s statement of values. That responsibil- shares, she said approvingly.
ity can never be discharged; it is “intersectional It was Stein who finalized and delivered the
and ongoing.” Translation: diversity consultants docent termination plan. Replacing the docents
may feed at our trough indefinitely. with paid educators “responds to issues of class
It would be enough to preserve history’s trea- and income equity,” she wrote them on Septem-
sures and to teach visitors to understand those ber 3, 2021. Stein and the Institute imply that
treasures’ place in the evolution of human ex- there exists a significant group of would-be tour
pression. An art museum’s comparative advan- guides who cannot pursue their dream of edu-
tage lies in its art-historical expertise, not in any cating the public about art because they lack the
supposed capacity for racial justice “work.” It “financial flexibility to participate.” This proposi-
should be a place apart, a sanctuary for aesthetic tion is speculative at best. The Institute is trading
contemplation. But cultural authority today a corps of nearly 100 highly trained and enthu-
comes from one of two sources: the assertion of siastic volunteers for six part-time staffers. The
victimhood or the acknowledgment that one is number of tours on offer will plummet. But it is
oneself a victimizer. It is not open to the Institute better not to offer a tour to children at all than
to take the first course, given the race and sex of to do so in a way that fails to redress “class and
its founders. That leaves the vigorous assertion income equity.”
of racial guilt as the second-best means of retain- The Institute’s chairman, Robert Levy, offered
ing cultural capital. a different explanation in a Chicago Tribune op-
In the years leading up to the docent sacking, ed. The docents constituted a “barrier to engage-
the Institute deepened its self-directed exorcism ment,” he wrote. The Institute was choosing to
rituals. Upon ascending to the directorship from “center . . . our students across Chicago—as we
his position as the Institute’s chief curator of take this unexpected moment to rethink, redraw
modern and contemporary art, Rondeau volun- and iterate.” Sacking the docents was an example
teered himself for a three-day training in how to of the “critical self-reflection and participatory,
dismantle the systems of racism that hold back recuperative action” that is required for the Insti-
“ALAANA” (African, Latinx, Asian, Arab, Na- tute to remain relevant to “changing audiences.”
tive American) individuals in the arts; Rondeau This euphemistic phraseology, too, requires
labeled the pedagogy “cathartic,” “eye-opening,” translation. Put simply, the Institute terminated
and “deeply moving.” The museum’s senior staff the docents because they were, as Rondeau put
was put through the same catharsis. The Institute it in Iowa, “99 percent white females.” “Center-
hired an equity consultant to assess its “struc- ing” Chicago’s students means not subjecting
tural and systemic issues of identity.” Hundreds them to the trauma of learning about art from
of staff have taken off two days of work for an- white females volunteering their time and en-
other “incredibly powerful” (in Rondeau’s words) ergy. (Rondeau’s “99 percent” estimate was too
workshop in systemic racism. And in March high, but the hyperbole was born of shame and
2021, the Institute hired the antiracism advocate frustration.)
who would become the docents’ nemesis. The Institute has thus reinforced the consen-
The press release announcing Veronica Stein’s sus among the nation’s elites that racial divides
employment as the new Woman’s Board execu- should be deepened rather than dissolved. Us-
tive director said much about antiracism and ing white docents to serve “urban schools,” Ron-
little about art. Stein had previously worked at deau said in Iowa, creates a “disconnect between
a foundation that provides arts-informed pro- the voices [that students] hear for interpretation
gramming to youth in Chicago’s hospitals. She and the population we’re trying to serve.” Never
transformed that programming “toward antira- mind that the docents were connecting to stu-
cist, trauma-informed modules.” Her priorities dents through the language of art and percep-
throughout her career have been the design of tion. Their voices are irredeemably white, and
“culturally responsive programming and anti- thus a barrier to engagement.

24 CITY JOURNAL
 Of course, this imaginative apartheid only orchestras. In 2015, a Mellon Foundation survey
works one way. No one would dare suggest that found that 84 percent of curators, conservators,
a black person can’t teach white students. But it educators, and other professionals in art muse-
is unobjectionable to say that whites are not com- ums were white. Four percent were black and 3
petent to teach blacks. percent Hispanic. The survey did not disclose the
It may be the case that inner-city Chicago number of graduate degrees in art history going to
students see whites, especially older bourgeois minorities each year, the bare minimum of infor-
whites, as alien. But white middle-class females mation needed to determine if museums were dis-
in the early twentieth century taught immigrants criminating against qualified minority candidates.
who did not look like them the fundamentals of Nevertheless, the racial ratios were universally re-
American history and literature, helping them to garded as scandalous and “damning,” in the words
assimilate into American culture. That instruc- of Art News.

“
tion did not harm In November 2021,
the immigrants. An the Crocker Art Mu-
encounter with the seum in Sacramento,
bourgeois world of
White middle-class California, bragged
accomplishment and females in the early about its own “prog-
manners could con- ress” in culling its
stitute a lifeline to
1900s helped immigrants docent corps: down
assimilate into

”
Chicago’s inner-city from 85 percent white
children, compared in 2017 to 76 percent
with the oppositional
American culture. white in 2019. Given
underclass norms too the inarguable truth,
prevalent in urban schools and families. Teach- as the Crocker put it, that “museums are the
ing them to expect color-coding and to view its legacy of Western colonialism, serving as the
absence as oppressive, by contrast, will prepare products of straight, able-bodied, white, male
them for a life of resentment and excuse-making. privilege,” reducing the number of white docents
The new, paid educators will be chosen for was essential to ensuring that Crocker could
their antiracist credentials, not for their ability serve as a “safe space to talk about systemic in-
to present art as a means of expanding one’s equality and inequity.” Addressing “inequality
knowledge of what it means to be human. They and inequity” is now so obviously a function of
must have previous experience facilitating “anti- an art museum as to require no explanation. A
racist” programming and be “equity-focused,” board member of several New York art venues
according to the Institute’s job announcement. reports: “Museums can’t hire a white person to-
A minimum of two years’ experience “work- day; everyone’s looking to hire blacks.”
ing with people who identify as ALAANA” is a The fatal taint of whiteness is taking down not
must. Once on the job, the new hires will deploy only the contents of our cultural legacy but also
“anti-racist museum teaching,” develop “anti- its means of transmission. Museum directors are
racist pedagogy,” and engage “anti-racist student openly disparaging the philanthropy, past and
experiences.” One might think that students vis- present, that makes their organizations and their
iting the Institute were entering KKK territory, jobs possible. Upon the 150th anniversary of the
rather than a welcoming environment eager for Metropolitan Museum of Art, director Max Hol-
their presence. lein lamented the “inherent noblesse oblige of
the founders’ ambitions,” reports James Panero

T he overt white-culling that doomed the do-

cents is becoming more frequent across the cultural
in The New Criterion. The Met, according to Hol-
lein, is connected to the logic of “what is defined
as white supremacy.” James Rondeau views his
landscape, exiling white artists from museum col- board as his biggest obstacle to transforming
lections and exhibitions and white musicians from the Art Institute into an antiracist vehicle. The

WINTER 2022 25
 The Guardians in Retreat

board’s leadership, he told his audience at the Des 2018, Alice Walton, art benefactor and heiress to the
Moines Art Center, was not “responding power- Walmart fortune, told Rondeau that she wanted to
fully” to the “narratives” of oppression embraced give him a “ton of money,” by his recounting, to
by the museum’s paid staff. Rondeau was quick loan some of the Institute’s unexhibited holdings
to worry about disrespect—not toward his own to poor rural communities in America. Rondeau
board but toward that of his host. “No offense to was contemptuous. “I don’t want to get into your
the trustees at the Des Moines Arts Center; I’m business, Alice,” he told her, with a sneering em-
sure you’re better than . . .,” he trailed off. “I mean phasis, “but I’m not sure poor rural communities
I have powerful affinity groups on my board that in America need Toulouse-Lautrec. I’m not sure
are invested [in this work] but it’s just that if I’m that that’s what they’re asking for. But this kind of
speaking to my board like I’m speaking to you, art for the people, like, eat your Shakespeare, look
it’s like a giant. . . . ” Rondeau trailed off again. at beautiful paintings, you will be ennobled, not
The contradiction between museum directors’ so much. I don’t, you know, I don’t think that that
social-justice pronouncements and their position methodology is sufficiently sophisticated even
as beneficiaries of the artistic and philanthropic though we’re seeing it still operable.” Rondeau
traditions that they now disparage can reduce then hit Walton up for a contribution to Chicago’s
them to incoherence. Rondeau was asked in ethnic museums that “struggle to keep their doors
Iowa about his relationship to under-resourced open.” What is the difference between the poor ru-
ethnic museums in Chicago. His response was ral communities that don’t need the Art Institute’s
a non sequitur: There’s “like this weird kind of, art and the hoped-for audiences of Chicago’s eth-

BRIAN CASSELLA/CHICAGO TRIBUNE/TNS/ALAMY LIVE NEWS

weird concentration of capital that we represent, nic museums that deserve Walton’s money? The
it’s like we’re kind of fundamentally not an equi- former are white, the latter are not.
table proposition. Like, I’ve got 40 Monet paint- The persistent denigration of our cultural in-
ings. It’s weird you know, it’s just, it’s weird. stitutions and their supporters as bearers of op-
Like there’s a, you know. And we’re in the busi- pressive white privilege is taking its toll. During
ness of kind of doing all this social-justice work an equity and inclusion session for the board of
and then just yesterday we, I, presided over buy- the Whitney Museum of Art in October 2021,
ing like Pauline Bonaparte’s rock crystal casket board member Laurie Tisch observed that it was
for baby clothes [Pauline was the sister of Na- a “tough time to be a not-for-profit leader. People
poleon Bonaparte] for 1.5 million it was like are tiptoeing around every issue . . . afraid of ev-
sha-a-a-a . . . like super-rich, weird. We’re in the ery word coming out of their mouth being sliced
business of these, there’s seven [crystal caskets] and diced.” Organization heads have been taken
in the world, like we, so we do have this weird down; it may be difficult to get the next genera-
Jekyll and Hyde thing going where we’re trying tion of leadership, she added.
to do this work, but we’re in the business of, like, It will be even more difficult to get the next
I got a lot of gold, you know, it’s just stuff.” generation of art lovers. Identity politics poisons
To the extent that this statement can be deci- its host. As with classical music, instructing po-
phered, it seems to suggest that the very fact of tential audiences that an art form is repressive
owning a collection is now a source of discomfort, will only give them another reason to maintain
though not enough to lead to voluntary resigna- their ignorance. (See “Classical Music’s Suicide
tions from this “super-rich, weird” concentration Pact,” Summer 2021.) And yet museum directors
of capital. Those benefactors whose donations are doubling down on just such a message; the
created the Institute might find it disconcerting Metropolitan Museum of Art engages humanities
to hear their gifts referred to as “just stuff.” professors to “challenge” the Met’s “history and
collections”—as if such challenges are not already

T he new antiracism mission of museums is not

an outgrowth of the democratic impulse that in-
pouring forth spontaneously from the academy.
There is no counterpart to American philan-
thropy, not even in other Western nations. In the
spired those institutions—it is its repudiation. In absence of royal patrons for the arts, wealthy

26 CITY JOURNAL
Director James Rondeau views his board as the biggest obstacle to transforming the Institute into an
antiracist vehicle.

Americans created institutions that would pass their “super-rich, weird” capital, and nonprofits
on our inheritance, confident that there was might have considerably less “gold” with which
something worth preserving in that inheritance. to pursue their social-justice ambitions. Follow-
Now the antiracism crusade erodes that belief by ing the docent sacking, letter writers to the Chi-
the day. Voluntarism was already on the decline cago Tribune announced that if the Institute can
before the racial-justice movement; it hit a 15- do without its volunteers, it must not need finan-
year low in 2015. Good luck finding volunteers cial contributions, either.
and donors if some of the most generous of them Western civilization is not about whiteness; it
are told that their whiteness brands them as pa- is a universal legacy. But the guardians of that
riahs and that the American and Western past is civilization, by portraying it as antithetical to
defined by white oppression. In 2012, the top 1 racial justice because of demographic character-
percent of donors gave 43.5 percent of all indi- istics, are stunting the human imagination—and
vidual donations. Impugn their identities and impoverishing the world.

WINTER 2022 27
 The de Blasio Debacle

28 CITY JOURNAL
 Eight years of awful
leadership have left
New York in desperate
need of revival.
Tevi Troy

A
s Bill de Blasio’s tenure as mayor of New
York City concludes, it is worth examin-
ing how he dismantled the foundations of
the city’s decades of success. Studying de
Blasio’s tenure can give incoming mayor

YANA PASKOVA/GETTY IMAGES

Eric Adams a road map for doing things
differently—and differently, in this case,
means better. Understanding New York’s recent history can
also help provide the city with a long-term direction. A
resurgent Gotham would send a powerful message
of confidence, nationally and internationally.

Over his two terms in office, Mayor Bill

de Blasio dismantled the foundations
of the city’s decades of success.

WINTER 2022 29
 The de Blasio Debacle

Looking closely at the de Blasio years can help ex- a second stint as head of the NYPD, de Blasio
pose not only what the mayor did wrong but also seemed to encourage protests against the cops
what should be done to reverse the city’s slide. following the police-related deaths of Michael
Brown in Ferguson and Eric Garner in New York

T he mayoral tenures of Rudolph Giuliani and

Michael Bloomberg—de Blasio’s immediate pre-
in 2014. When, in the aftermath of those protests,
two New York City police officers, Rafael Ramos
and Wenjian Liu, were murdered at point-blank
decessors—were successful for one overarching range as they sat in their patrol car, Police Be-
reason: both leaders focused on the first priority nevolent Association head Patrick Lynch told
of government, the rule of law. Ensuring citizen the press: “There’s blood on many hands tonight.
safety and maintaining order led to significant and That blood on the hands starts at City Hall in the
sustained reductions in crime. During the early Office of the Mayor.” Hundreds of police officers
1990s, when David Dinkins was mayor, New York turned their backs on the mayor at Liu’s funeral.
City was suffering from more than 2,000 homi- After this strong message from the men and
cides a year. Criminals, as well as the law-abiding, women on the front lines of the fight against
knew that the city had a decidedly unsafe feel. The crime, de Blasio tried to modulate his progres-
high crime rates and menacing atmosphere dis- sivism, at least on law and order. He reaffirmed
couraged tourists, investment, business develop- his desire to “put an end to economic and social
ment, and newcomers. inequalities that threaten to unravel the city we
When Giuliani won the 1993 election, he, love” but admitted that doing so depended on
together with his first police commissioner, keeping the streets safe. He toned down his criti-
William J. Bratton, resolved to apply ground- cisms of the police. According to the New York
breaking policing strategies—many championed Times’s Dana Rubinstein, the Ramos and Liu
in the pages of this magazine. The strategies backlash proved “a turning point in the de Blasio
(some of which started under the tenure of Police administration, making the mayor more eager
Commissioner Raymond Kelly in 1992) included to accommodate the department.” Few ever mis-
a renewed focus on data to determine where took Blasio for a police lover, but he generally al-
crimes took place—especially via CompStat, a lowed them to do their work, and crime in New
computerized system, introduced by Bratton, York remained under control through 2019.
that tracked crime by neighborhood and held
local precinct commanders accountable. They
also included bolstering the department’s anti-
crime unit, which pursued known criminals more
T hen came the coronavirus. De Blasio was a Co-
vid-19 skeptic in the pandemic’s early stages. In
aggressively. And the NYPD put into action a February 2020, he admonished people not to avoid
Broken Windows policing approach that cracked Asian neighborhoods, saying, “New York City’s
down on aggressive panhandling, the notorious Chinatowns are open for business!” His health
“squeegee men” who menaced drivers coming commissioner, Oxiris Barbot, added: “While it is
into Manhattan, and subway fare-beaters, who understandable for some New Yorkers to feel con-
were often found to have committed other crimes cerned about the novel coronavirus situation, we
as well. This comprehensive effort helped initiate cannot stand for racist and stigmatizing rhetoric.”
a city-saving 80 percent crime drop over the next Though de Blasio should have known better
few decades. Mayor Bloomberg maintained these by March, he was still complacent in the face of
approaches and accelerated tactics like stop-and- the threat. On March 5, after New York gover-
frisk to get guns off the street. nor Andrew Cuomo had issued a stay-at-home
By contrast, de Blasio took a more skeptical order, de Blasio told New Yorkers to go about
view of the police. He campaigned on ending their business as usual—even as he faced a near-
stop-and-frisk. He spoke openly of warning his revolt from his health department. According
biracial son, Dante, about interacting with the to Lawrence Wright’s The Plague Year: Amer-
police. And, while he had hired Bratton to serve ica in the Time of Covid, the health department

30 CITY JOURNAL
complained: “Every message that we want to Parents understandably sought other options; de
get to the public needs to go through him, and Blasio obstructed their efforts. He had a particu-
they end up getting nixed. City Hall continues to lar aversion to charter schools. Though charters
sideline and neuter the country’s premier health are public schools—albeit ones that often get
department.” Another official complained of the much better results and thus have long waiting
mayor: “He doesn’t get it. . . . [He’s] not con- lists of parents clamoring to get their children
vinced there’s a volcano about to blow beneath in—de Blasio tried to make charters pay rent to
us.” In the end, New York City was devastated the city, as if they were private-sector entities.
by the virus, logging more than 1 million cases In his anti-charter efforts, de Blasio often
and more than 35,000 deaths. found himself impeded by New York governor
As the pandemic continued, New York’s un- Andrew Cuomo, with whom he had a relation-
derlying problems worsened. Following the ship of mutual loathing. De Blasio had actually

“
George Floyd pro- worked for Cuomo at
tests in the spring of Housing and Urban
2020, de Blasio took Development dur-
the slogan “defund
De Blasio took the ing the Clinton ad-
the police” seriously slogan ‘defund the police’ ministration, but that
and pledged to cut did not stop them
$1 billion from the
seriously and pledged from becoming mor-
to cut $1 billion from the

”
police budget and re- tal enemies later on.
duce the size of the The New York Times’s
force by 1,100. Crime
police budget. Shane Goldmacher and
exploded—burglary J. David Goodman
surged 42 percent, car thefts rose 67 percent, and wrote that the two men were “engaged in a feud
shootings nearly doubled, leading to a 44 percent so nasty, petty and prolonged that even in the
rise in homicides. Crime numbers came nowhere cutthroat politics of New York, few can remem-
near the highs of the pre-Giuliani days, but the ber ever seeing anything quite like it.”
spike was enough to make crime a prominent Lots of politicos have rivalries, but the Cuomo–
public issue again. New York residents rated de Blasio feud would have policy implications.
crime as the Number Two issue of concern in an In 2015, Cuomo even shut down the subways in
April 2021 poll, trailing only the pandemic. And anticipation of a winter storm without warning
adding to the sense of dissolution in the city was de Blasio, and he mocked the mayor’s haphaz-
the growing presence of the homeless in public ard plans for closing Rikers Island prison. The
spaces—not just on street corners but in parks two Democrats fought over de Blasio’s efforts
and other public facilities, as well as on transit to thwart charter schools until late in the may-
systems. Like other worsening problems that af- or’s second term, when Cuomo faced his own
fected everyday life for New Yorkers, however, problems—political fallout from his mishan-
the homelessness issue did not seem to trouble dling of the Covid-19 crisis, along with several
the mayor terribly. sexual harassment accusations, which led to his
resignation.

O n education, always an issue of high impor-

tance in the city, de Blasio proved as divisive
De Blasio also sought to eliminate the tests
for New York’s elite schools, such as Stuyvesant
and Bronx Science. These public schools, which
as he was ineffective. His vision of educational base admissions strictly on entrance exams, have
equality appeared to mean closing off alternative long been a ticket to a better life for children
pathways for kids in New York City’s poorly per- from lower-income and immigrant families.
forming traditional public schools, where a ma- The insistence on the exam as the sole criterion
jority of African-American and Latino students ensured that every child who made it felt that
don’t score at grade level in math or reading. he belonged in the school and could compete in

WINTER 2022 31
 The de Blasio Debacle

the high-level classes. Alleging that the schools’ approached 20 percent.

standards produced unfair demographic out- Hedge funds closed
comes, de Blasio tried to stop their reliance on their New York opera-
the merit-based test. Fortunately, de Blasio was tions and decamped for
thwarted in these efforts as well. Florida.
De Blasio’s other main foray into education Everyone seemed to
policy came in his cooperation with teachers’ have stories of people
unions on keeping public schools closed longer who had left. Yet while
than necessary during the pandemic. Private 1.4 million people re-
schools and public schools elsewhere figured out portedly had moved
how to manage the Covid threat, but de Blasio out of the New York
seemed uninterested in doing so. Since the teach- metro area since 2010,
ers’ unions were among his main political bene- the census revealed that
factors, he was generally willing to collaborate New York’s population
with them against public school parents. had actually grown
For all de Blasio’s bluster about equity, the re- relative to 2010, to 8.8
sults of his educational policies were abysmal. million—an increase of
The racial achievement gap worsened during more than 600,000 from
his tenure. Enrollment in New York City’s pub- the previous decade.

TAYFUN COSKUN/ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES

lic schools plummeted, from nearly 1 million to De Blasio, of course,
fewer than 890,000 students. Half of the city’s took credit for this de-
public schools have seen an enrollment drop of velopment, crowing on
at least 10 percent since 2017, reflecting parental Twitter: “The Big Apple
interest in exploring other educational options just got bigger!”
for their children. Some of those options were One factor in the
private schools in the city, but others repre- population increase
sented a more dramatic choice: an exodus from was the Department of
de Blasio’s increasingly unlivable city. City Planning’s addi-
tion of 265,000 previ-

S tories about departures from New York did

not start with Covid-19. Census figures for 2018
ously missing housing
units, which city offi-
cials explained as part
demonstrated significant out-migration from the of an effort to improve
New York region, which led the nation in that the count. City demographer Arun Peter Lobo
category. New York’s high cost of living was a told the New York Times: “This allowed the Cen-
factor, with rents skyrocketing even in the outer sus Bureau to enumerate half a million people
boroughs. Covid accelerated the departures. which they would have otherwise missed.” It’s
Bloomberg News reported a doubling of people optimal to get the best possible count, of course,
looking to leave the city. A Manhattan Institute but the move raises the question of whether pop-
survey revealed that only 23 percent of Bronx ulation comparisons from the beginning and the
residents said that they were happy with their end of the de Blasio term are apples-to-apples
neighborhood, and 26 percent of Staten Islanders comparisons.
reported an interest in moving “somewhere far Regardless, New York will need the maximum
away from New York City.” United Van Lines re- number of citizens to maintain the tax base re-
ported a serious disconnect in New York–linked quired to support de Blasio’s blowout spending.
long-distance moves: 70 percent were made by Municipal unions were rewarded for their sup-
people leaving the state, while 30 percent were port, with gushers of taxpayer dollars. De Blasio
people coming in. Rents dropped 7.8 percent in boosted spending by $25 billion, an astonish-
the third quarter of 2020, and office vacancy rates ing 34 percent increase, almost quadruple the

32 CITY JOURNAL
The decline of order in public spaces, exemplified by the rise in homelessness, became a mounting
concern of New Yorkers during the de Blasio years.

inflation rate of 9 percent over that period. He budget. New York has a history of carrying un-
fattened wage and benefit spending at the De- manageable levels of debt—most prominently,
partment of Education, which pays teachers’ in the 1970s, during the Abe Beame administra-
union salaries, by $4.6 billion. He even gave tion. Back then, an $11 billion debt threatened
teachers retroactive pay increases dating back to to push New York into default, and President
the second term of the three-term Bloomberg ad- Gerald Ford refused to rescue the city without
ministration. The budget crunch precipitated by the promise of significant fiscal reforms. The
Covid did not slow down his spending, either. crisis prompted the legendary Daily News head-
From spring 2020 through summer 2021—the line “Ford to City: Drop Dead” and epitomized
peak of the pandemic—New York City’s back the depths to which the city had fallen in that
payments to teachers totaled $1.5 billion. period. Today, de Blasio’s debt—vastly larger—
The profligacy had serious fiscal implications. threatens the city once again, though it will be
Under de Blasio, New York’s debt increased his successors who have to deal with it. What-
by $40 billion. To put that in perspective, this ever solutions they come up with will have to
$40 billion growth is the equivalent of approxi- consider that New York is already the nation’s
mately 40 percent of New York’s bloated current most heavily taxed city, with a tax burden 90

WINTER 2022 33
 The de Blasio Debacle

percent higher, on average, than other large enough to stop them. In a March 2021 vigil for
American cities. Increasing that burden to deal victims of anti-Asian hate crimes, protesters
with the debt crisis risks driving out more New chanted, “What are you going to do about it?” as
Yorkers, further eroding the tax base. de Blasio spoke. When the mayor went to leave,
they surrounded his motorcade. Asians had their

D e Blasio also helped drive away New York-

ers by making it clear that he disfavored certain
problems with de Blasio’s education policies, too,
but their protests that his moves against merit-
based testing would hurt low-income members
populations. His most prominent target was Or- of their community—and cut Asian elite-school
thodox Jews. An upsurge in hate crimes against enrollment in half—fell on deaf ears.
the Orthodox did not lead him to direct more De Blasio also created the impression that he
police resources, or even strong rhetoric, to ad- didn’t much like taxpaying, law-abiding, busi-
dress the problem. But he came down hard on ness-running New Yorkers, either. Journalist
the Orthodox community—and here, he did call Seth Barron felt that this was a deliberate strat-
for more police—for violations of his Covid-19 egy to shape the electorate that de Blasio desired.
protocols. This is not to say that there were not As Barron wrote in The Last Days of New York,
protocol violators in the Orthodox community; “[Only people] who tolerate the politics of racial
there were. But violators in other communities resentment, onerous business regulations, and
seemed not to attract the mayor’s ire compara- a school system dedicated to equity over excel-
bly. De Blasio had police weld shut park gates in lence stick it out.” Despite a 72 percent disap-
Orthodox neighborhoods and send out officers proval rate in June 2021, de Blasio was doing
to monitor compliance by Orthodox institutions. okay with the people who matter to him. “He’s
In a tweet, he even called out Jews by name, only a failure by the standards of the 90 percent
saying, “My message to the Jewish community, of the city who want to have a livable city with

MICHAEL NAGLE/BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES

and all communities, is this simple: the time economic opportunity, good schools, and safe
for warnings has passed. I have instructed the streets,” Barron writes.
NYPD to proceed immediately to summon or Bloomberg and Giuliani attacked the mayor’s
even arrest those who gather in large groups. job with zeal and dedication, but de Blasio had a
This is about stopping this disease and sav- questionable work ethic, showing up late, find-
ing lives. Period.” Democratic congressman ing time to go to his gym in Brooklyn—at tax-
Max Rose responded: “For him to paint the en- payer expense—for two hours nearly every day,
tire Jewish community as uncooperative was and even engaging in a pointless run for presi-
breathtaking. Words matter. Threatening ev- dent, in which he barely registered with Iowa
ery Jewish New Yorker with arrest was beyond voters. As Edward-Isaac Dovere wrote in Battle
insensitive.” for the Soul, at one Iowa rally, “A little under three
Asians had their problems with de Blasio, too. dozen people came to see de Blasio that day.
He appeared to avoid visits to Chinese neighbor- More people tended to show up to protest him
hoods, and he didn’t make his first appearance at rallies back home.” Near the end of his tenure,
at a Chinatown Lunar New Year parade until the mayor would take long, aimless walks—and
2019, well into his second term. In August 2020, New Yorkers being New Yorkers, they would tell
he turned his back on an Asian-American bakery him what they thought of him. “No one wants
manager suffering under Covid restrictions, say- you,” a man with his young son screamed at de
ing, “We’re all hurting.” Blasio, in a scene chronicled by Politico. “You’re
Hate crimes against Asians rose during de the worst. YOU’RE THE WORST!”
Blasio’s tenure, especially during the pandemic, In the end, de Blasio did not appear to like
when, according to NYPD statistics, they ex- his job, the city, its residents—or even, as a Red
ploded by 1,300 percent. De Blasio wasn’t to Sox fan, its sports teams. He treated New York-
blame for these racist attacks, but some in the ers accordingly, making their city less safe, less
Asian community felt that he was not doing livable, less fiscally sustainable, and less united.

34 CITY JOURNAL
Shootings have doubled in New York, as part of a larger explosion in crime.

W ith the de Blasio years finally ending, the

hope is that Eric Adams, who positioned himself
ing the public safety and civic flourishing of the
Giuliani and Bloomberg years. In a way, de Bla-
as a moderate in relation to the extreme progres- sio offers a template for how to achieve this: just
sives in the Democratic primary, can chart a better do the opposite of what he did. Such an approach
path. The New York Times has reported, however, would include backing the police; spending less
that de Blasio is expected to serve as an advisor to on giveaways to municipal unions; supporting
Adams and that the two men speak often. This is charter schools and New York’s successful elite
bad news for New Yorkers who want a livable city public schools; treating all New Yorkers equally;
again. Adams has also been talking to Bloomberg, and working hard at the job of mayor of Ameri-
though—a more promising sign. ca’s greatest city. A rejection of de Blasioism im-
The next mayor’s primary focus, ambitious plies the very agenda that could help bring New
as it sounds, must be nothing less than restor- York back.

WINTER 2022 35
 Transgender Confusions
A series of court rulings
illustrates how bad ideas
travel from fringe academic
theory into law and policy.

Leor Sapir

I
t’s hard to think of an area of medicine ligious liberty and transgender “inclusive” poli-
more controversial today than the treat- cies. If the litigation campaign over restrooms is
ment of gender dysphoria in youth. Pro- any indication, we should expect most or all of
ponents and opponents of the new “af- these cases to be resolved in favor of transgen-
firming” paradigm of treatment routinely der students.
accuse each other of politicizing medicine, Last year’s Supreme Court decision Bostock

ERIC AUDRAS/PHOTOALTO/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

promoting dangerous ideologies, and v. Clayton County held that Title VII of the Civil
abusing vulnerable children. Rights Act of 1964 protects gay and transgender
In the United States, civil rights discourse has people from employment discrimination under
come to overlay—some would say distort—these the “ordinary public meaning” of “sex.” Justice
debates. In 2016, Attorney General Loretta Lynch Neil Gorsuch, who wrote the opinion, went out
likened North Carolina’s “bathroom bill” to the of his way to explain that the Court’s decision
“dark days” of Jim Crow, when states “had signs didn’t turn on whether “sex” means reproductive
above restrooms, water fountains and on public traits or gender identity. Thus, he emphasized,
accommodations keeping people out based upon the ruling did not reach controversies over ac-
a distinction without a difference.” cess to sex-specific accommodations. Yet lower
A handful of federal circuit and district courts courts have since interpreted Bostock to mean ex-
have ruled that schools must defer to the gen- actly that, ruling that schools may not rely on the
der identity of their students or risk being found conventional definition of “sex.”
guilty of sex discrimination. Most of these cases At the heart of these legal controversies is the
have dealt with access to restrooms, and courts question of what makes people male or female.
have consistently held that schools may not re- Without exception, courts in the education law-
quire transgender boys—most plaintiffs have suits have based their answer on what they have
been natal females who identify as male—to learned from the medical experts who testify
use the girls’ restrooms or some alternative uni- or file amicus briefs on behalf of transgender
sex facilities. Additional lawsuits have raised students. Yet the arguments that these experts
questions about who may participate in girls’ present to federal judges are highly partisan
sports, whether schools may facilitate gender interpretations of an already limited, and of-
transitions for students without notice or con- ten methodologically flawed, body of research.
sent from their parents, and clashes between re- Their interpretations seem geared to producing

36 CITY JOURNAL
At the heart of the legal controversy surrounding transgender identity is the question of what makes
people male or female.

a desired legal outcome rather than faithfully re- to desired legal outcomes as rooted in ignorance
porting on an ongoing medical debate. and bigotry. Scientific inquiry, by contrast, calls
More broadly, transgender student lawsuits for self-doubt, skepticism, and genuine openness
illustrate the deeper difficulties involved in us- to being proved wrong. In theory, these are two
ing law to settle scientific controversies and, at wholly different enterprises guided by different
the same time, expanding science beyond its values and incentives.
sphere of competence to settle, through legal
means, moral and philosophical questions. Civil
rights discourse relies on abstract analogies and
moral absolutism. It avoids talk of ambiguity
T wo arguments underwrite judicial rulings on
transgender students. According to one, gender
and trade-offs on principle, treating opposition identity is rooted in the brain, fixed by age three,

WINTER 2022 37
 Transgender Confusions

and immutable. When that identity conflicts with tive” care, told a Florida district court that gen-
the sex that one was “assigned at birth,” the only der identity is “primarily dictated by messages
medically appropriate treatment is to alter the from our brain.” Thus, she argued, the only
body to align it with the mind. According to the medically appropriate treatment for gender dys-
experts who testify in court, the transition process phoria is gender transition. The plaintiff’s use of
includes living full-time according to one’s felt the boys’ restrooms was crucial in this regard,
gender, using puberty blockers to prevent the on- since being recognized by others as a boy was es-
set of undesirable physical traits, and injecting hor- sential to his medical treatment for gender dys-
mones to spur the onset of desirable ones. Courts phoria. The court agreed that “neurological sex
have declared this treatment protocol, known in and related gender identity are the most impor-
professional circles as the “affirming” or Dutch tant and determinative factors” in who counts as
model (due to its country of origin), as having the male or female and ruled that the school district
unanimous endorsement of “all major medical or- had relied on unlawful “stereotypes.” Yet in her
ganizations.” To them, it is “settled science.” own peer-reviewed research, Ehrensaft notes a
But even if the gender feelings that plaintiffs “lack of evidence” for the biological explanation
have are sincere and persistent, why should they of gender identity. When it comes to why some
trump reproductive traits and capacities in de- children identify as another gender, “the ques-
termining maleness or femaleness? To answer tion of nature versus nurture,” she writes, is “yet
this question, plaintiffs and judges have needed to be settled.”
a second argument, one meant to call into ques- An amicus brief submitted by reputable “med-
tion the belief that humans are, by nature, di- ical organizations” in the same lawsuit claimed
vided into two sexual categories according to that, though researchers were “not certain” what
reproductive capacity. This second argument, causes cross-gender identification, “[s]ome re-
which need not have anything to do with gender search suggests . . . biological influences.” Amici
identity, asserts that sex in humans is not binary provided two citations. One is an article whose
but actually ranges on a “spectrum,” with up to authors recommend “assigning” a female gender
1.7 percent of the population falling between the identity to females born with congenital adrenal
male and female poles. Because many students hyperplasia—a condition in which overexposure
are “intersex,” goes this argument, schools could to masculinizing hormones makes the body ap-
not consistently enforce their definition of “sex,” pear more masculine—even though 5 percent of
even if legally allowed to do so. females with this condition experience “serious
Together, these two arguments make up a gender identity problems.” The other citation
philosophical anthropology—a theory about the states unequivocally that “the (patho-) biological
fundamental basis of human nature and sexual- basis of [gender dysphoria] is still poorly under-
ity. According to this anthropology, “biological stood” and that diagnosis of gender dysphoria
sex” is a social construct, while gender identity “relies totally on psychological methods.” This
is real, universal, and scientifically demonstra- is important, the authors emphasize, consid-
ble. Both arguments suffer from empirical diffi- ering that “80–95 percent” of the prepubertal
culties. More important, the premises that make children diagnosed with gender dysphoria will
the second argument plausible make the first desist from it later on and feel comfortable in
impossible. their own bodies. In simple terms, socialization
To understand the empirical problems, con- seems to play a major, if not fully understood,
sider the evidence that the transgender experts role in gender-identity development.
themselves have presented to the courts. In the In the Virginia case G. G. v. Gloucester County
Florida case Adams v. School Board of St. John’s School Board, the first federal lawsuit over rest-
County, in which a transgender boy sued his rooms in high schools, the American Civil Liber-
school for being denied access to the boys’ rest- ties Union also asserted that gender identity is
rooms, Diane Ehrensaft, a clinical psychologist rooted in the brain. The ACLU cited a law review
and one of the leading proponents of “affirma- article that it claimed “summarizes the research”

38 CITY JOURNAL
on human gender development. The article’s au- yet Levasseur doesn’t mention them. Still, the
thor is M. Dru Levasseur, a lawyer who, at the Fourth Circuit agreed with the ACLU that the
time of writing, was director of the Transgender meaning of sex “in 2016” is psychological rather
Rights Project at LAMBDA Legal. Its revealing than reproductive.
title is “Gender Identity Defines Sex: Updating To date, researchers have not been able to
the Law to Reflect Modern Medical Science Is trace cross-gender identification exclusively, or
Key to Transgender Rights.” even primarily, to biological causes. Postmor-
Levasseur bases his claim that “all [experts] tem studies on the brains of adults have shown
agree” that gender identity is “hardwired into the that transgender women (natal males) may have
brain” on two sources. One, an article by another brain structure more typical of natal females;
legal scholar, merely suggests that neurological but, given a phenomenon known as neuroplas-
explanations for gender identity might be true ticity, these studies cannot refute the possibility

“
on a “balance of prob- that the resemblance
abilities,” while em- is a result, rather than
phasizing that “there a cause, of lifelong
will be no conclusive
Researchers have cross-gender identi-
Ωscientific proof≈ of the not traced cross-gender fication and therapy.
causation of transsex- Studies of identical
ualism until medical
identification exclusively, twins suggest a pos-
or even primarily, to

”
science can identify sible role for genetic
and ratify the sexual factors in gender-
differentiation of the
biological causes. identity development
human brain and/or but are otherwise in-
genetic identifiers for transsexualism in living conclusive. In sum, very little is known about
human beings.” why some children are gender-dysphoric. The
The other source is a single sentence—“the or- consensus among researchers seems to be that
gan that appears to be critical to psychosexual cross-gender identification is neither entirely a
development and adaptation is not the external result of biological factors nor entirely a result of
genitalia, but the brain.” This sentence comes social conditioning but is instead some combina-
from an article published 20 years earlier by tion of the two. Nevertheless, these inquiries can
William Reiner, a physician with expertise in tell us only about the causes of sincere and per-
child psychiatry and urology. Levasseur leads sistent cross-gender identification. They cannot
the reader to believe that this quotation summa- tell us how much weight society should give to
rizes Reiner’s position, but Reiner’s argument is sincerity—or, to use the preferred nomenclature,
only that reproductive (genital) anatomy alone “authenticity”—in determining what male and
cannot account for gender-identity develop- female mean.
ment in humans. In the same article, moreover, Why, then, do medical professionals who par-
Reiner stresses that “gender identity, like sexual ticipate in transgender lawsuits assure judges
orientation, is a complex process in only the that the neurological explanation is, if not quite
initial infancy of scientific understanding.” In a “settled science,” then close to it? One reason is
later article addressing the misuse of his earlier that this belief carries important therapeutic im-
work by activists, Reiner clarified his position: plications. If gender identity is innate and un-
“Trans-friendly, and, in general, patient-friendly, changeable, then the only way to resolve gender
evidence for [the neurological explanation] is dysphoria is to bring the body into alignment
generally lacking.” In fact, he says, that explana- with the patient’s felt gender. Note that this is a
tion may be “too patient friendly” if it reinforces purely technological argument. We must defer to
clinicians’ “faith in following the child’s lead” self-identification because changing the body is
(i.e., self-diagnosis). Reiner published these easier, technologically speaking, than changing
comments a few years before Levasseur’s article, the brain. If a technology existed that allowed us

WINTER 2022 39
 Transgender Confusions

to change the brain, the experts would have no ment to 1.7 percent in 2000, after conducting
principled reason to object to it—and perhaps independent research with colleagues. Academic
strong reasons to support it. But in any case, it is publications, advocacy literature, and corpo-
easier to change the body before the patient has rate diversity training seminars widely cite this
gone through full puberty. figure today.
Another reason for the medical professionals’ Several scholars have taken Fausto-Sterling to
insistence is that “brain sex” resonates with a le- task for sloppy empirical work and politically
gal culture shaped by the civil rights movement. motivated definitions. On the first front, Univer-
The Supreme Court has long recognized that a sity of Toronto political science professor Carrie
trait’s immutability is relevant to its eligibility Hull accepts, for the sake of argument, Fausto-
for constitutional protection. In the final stages Sterling’s definition of intersex as “any devia-
of the Gloucester litigation, the Fourth Circuit tion,” however slight, from the “Platonic ideal” of
based its equal protection analysis on the claim male and female but finds serious errors of inter-

ALEKS TAURUS/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

that gender identity is, like race, an “immutable pretation and computation. Using data from the
characteristic.” studies on which Fausto-Sterling relies but with
“correct math,” Hull finds that a more accurate

T his brings us to the second argument shaping

federal regulation of schools—namely, that in-
estimate of intersex incidence is 0.373 percent.
Even this, Hull emphasizes, is likely a “dramatic
overstatement.”
tersex conditions prove that sex in humans is not The primary driver of Fausto-Sterling’s exag-
binary but ranges on a spectrum between male gerated assessment was her inclusion of a con-
and female. Intersex refers, broadly, to a range of dition known as late-onset congenital adrenal
conditions in which both male and female physi- hyperplasia (CAH). The classic version of this
cal attributes of sex (gonads, external genitalia, condition occurs when hormonal production
secondary sex characteristics such as breasts) structures are defective in utero, causing the
appear in a single individual. In the past, these overproduction of male sex hormones, which
conditions were referred to as hermaphroditic or impairs anatomical development in females.
as disorders of sex development. In recent years, Practically speaking, this leads to a female in-
these terms have fallen out of fashion in favor of fant being born with genitals that appear more
“intersex.” The argument is that there are no dis- masculine than feminine. In the condition’s late-
orders but only differences of sex development, onset version, however, hormonal malfunction
which are just as natural and normal as “typi- occurs much later in life, and because it is often
cal”—that is, statistically common—male and fe- asymptomatic, those who have it tend to dis-
male phenotypical alignments. cover that fact only incidentally, in the context of
Gender-rights advocates insist that intersex treatment for infertility.
and transgender are distinct phenomena. In The study on which Fausto-Sterling relies for
practice, however, the experts who participate her assessment of late-onset CAH reports an
in transgender litigation argue that “neurologi- incidence rate of 1.5 percent. Hence, this single
cal sex” is one of several biological components condition represents 88 percent of all intersex
that make up an individual’s sex. Intersex is de- conditions in her 1.7 percent figure. Yet the
fined as misalignment of biological traits; so by original study (1985) did not say that late-onset
this logic, students with gender dysphoria are CAH occurs at 1.5 percent across the general popu-
intersex. lation. Rather, it sampled four high-risk demo-
By far the leading scientific authority on in- graphic groups: Ashkenazi Jews (3.7 percent),
tersexuality is Anne Fausto-Sterling, a profes- Hispanics (1.9 percent), Yugoslavs (1.6 percent),
sor of evolutionary biology and gender studies and Italians (0.3 percent). The 1.5 percent figure
at Brown University. Having originally claimed seems to be an average of these four groups, ad-
that up to 4 percent of the population is inter- justing for their respective portion in the general
sex, Fausto-Sterling downgraded her assess- population. Among Caucasians, the frequency

40 CITY JOURNAL
The flag for intersex, which refers to a range of conditions in which both male and female physical
attributes appear in a single individual

is about 0.1 percent; among blacks and Native A good example is Klinefelter syndrome,
Americans, the figure is close to zero, according which accounts for roughly 5 percent of intersex
to the authors of the original study. Fausto-Ster- conditions in Fausto-Sterling’s final estimate. In-
ling has conceded that this study is nonrepre- dividuals with Klinefelter are essentially males
sentative, but her 2000 article leads the reader born with an additional X chromosome (X-X-Y).
to believe that 1.5 percent is universal. That has The features that distinguish them from other
certainly been the way lawyers and judges have males become detectable after puberty and in-
used her work. clude smaller-than-average testes, larger-than-
Leonard Sax, a physician and psychologist with average breast tissue, and lower-than-average
extensive clinical experience in treating children bone density and muscle mass. Genitals are
with intersex conditions, believes that behind normal for such males and capable of both erec-
Fausto-Sterling’s dubious empirical claims lurks tion and ejaculation. The majority of Klinefelter
a politicized definition of intersex. That defini- males are infertile. Affected individuals are usu-
tion is clinically useless, he argues, because it ally so indistinguishable from other males that
makes no distinction between symptomatic and their condition may go undiagnosed until fertil-
asymptomatic conditions, or between types and ity problems arise; those who are fertile may go
severities of symptoms, and it fails to recognize their entire lives without knowing that they have
that the vast majority of intersex people have it. Yet the Fourth Circuit in Gloucester suggested
variations of sex development so subtle as to be that the existence of students with Klinefelter
imperceptible to the untrained eye—or even to makes it impossible for schools consistently to
the person with the condition. “A definition of enforce a policy that adheres to the conventional
intersex which encompasses individuals who are meaning of male and female. The Obama ad-
phenotypically indistinguishable from normal,” ministration’s definition of “sex” as a matter of
Sax cautions, “is likely to confuse both clinicians gender identity, the court explained, would at
and patients.” least “resolve ambiguity” by applying a fail-proof

WINTER 2022 41
 Transgender Confusions

criterion (the assumption being that a student’s or females with “disorders of sex development”
asserted gender identity is accurate simply by and do not find this terminology offensive?
virtue of being sincere). In response to Hull’s criticism of her numbers,
True intersex conditions, according to Sax, Fausto-Sterling herself has conceded possible
are extremely rare, representing fewer than two “mistakes in interpretation and imperfect judg-
out of every 10,000 births, or 0.018 percent of the ment” but has allowed her erroneous findings to
population. Put into perspective, this means that stand uncorrected. “I am not invested in a par-
a medium-size high school is likely to have one ticular final estimate,” she has written, but “only
intersex student every 15 years or so, making that there BE an estimate. . . . Beyond getting the
utterly implausible the claim by federal judges numbers right . . . our article suggests a different
that intersex conditions create an administrative approach to conceptualizing sexual difference,
headache for schools that choose to enforce the one that allows for human sexual variation to be
conventional definition of “sex.” considered socially normal, albeit infrequent.”
Hull, a self-described feminist, is disheartened

I t is essential to distinguish between the in-

tersex-rights movement and the use of intersex
to find “many feminists and activists” who “un-
questioningly” repeat Fausto-Sterling’s inflated
statistic. Feminist-oriented law reviews are per-
conditions by feminists to advance the idea that haps the worst offenders in this regard and give us
sex—not gender, but sex—is socially constructed. a good example of what philosophy professor Pe-
Fausto-Sterling explicitly cites the latter as the ter Boghossian has called “idea laundering” (schol-
goal of her scholarship. A self-described lesbian ars citing dubious research and then one another,
and feminist, she regards intersex phenomena as thus creating the impression of a well-established
having “profound” implications for women, gays, empirical tradition). In one recent example, a legal
and lesbians. “If nature really offers us more than scholar noted that statistical assessments of inter-
two sexes, then it follows that our current no- sex range from 0.018 percent to 4 percent (a figure
tions of masculinity and femininity are cultural that Fausto-Sterling has long disavowed). After
conceits. Reconceptualizing the category of Ωsex≈ calling 4 percent “extreme,” the author described
challenges cherished aspects of European and 1.7 percent as a “conservative” estimate.
American social organization.” To achieve this This is not mere academic nitpicking. In a law-
objective, one must understand intersex condi- suit filed by non-transgender students against
tions as mere differences, rather than disorders, their school after it voluntarily adopted a gen-
of sex development. Fausto-Sterling wants us to der-identity policy, the plaintiffs argued that
think of the typical as merely “statistically com- separating restrooms by male and female gender
mon” rather than “natural” (in the sense of “nor- identity would be no less problematic consider-
mal”) and, for that matter, of “perfectly dimor- ing that, if gender identity has nothing to do with
phic” males and females as less frequent than is reproductive traits, there would be no reason to
commonly supposed. suppose that only two gender identities exist—
But if the statistically common is no guide thus calling into question the school’s decision
to the natural/normal, why should it matter to maintain only male and female restrooms on
whether intersex conditions occur in 1.7 per- the same “stereotyping” grounds cited by many
cent or 0.018 percent of the population? Either transgender plaintiffs. Judge Edward G. Smith
way, there would be a naturalistic fallacy, or of Pennsylvania’s Eastern District Court agreed
inferring an ought from an is. Is it possible that that the school’s policy was “unworkable” for
Fausto-Sterling’s insistence on higher-than- this reason. However, since “1 to 4 percent” of
expected numbers reflects deeper insecurities students are intersex, the judge explained, the
over whether what is common in nature does, in conventional definition of “sex” is equally un-
fact, give us clues as to the normal? Moreover, workable, and it is not for the court to tell the
does it matter that about seven in ten people with school which of two unworkable solutions it
intersex conditions regard themselves as males should enforce.

42 CITY JOURNAL
 Judge Smith took the “1 to 4” statistic from the is the criticism that court rulings have received
first sentence of a law review article by Jenni- from transgender advocates in the academy.
fer Relis, who took it from the first sentence of Much to the chagrin of “critical theorists,” judges
a law review article by Kate Haas, who took it have, at the urging of plaintiffs and their experts,
from Anne Fausto-Sterling. On appeal, the Third held that gender identity can only be male or fe-
Circuit commended Judge Smith for his “exceed- male. (To suppose otherwise would be to con-
ingly thorough, thoughtful, and well-reasoned cede that the brain is naturally and by default
opinion.” androgynous and becomes gendered through
socialization, which would call into question the

T hus far, we have discussed the distortions

within the arguments about gender identity and
need for “affirming” medical intervention.) They
have further insisted, to the alarm of Foucauld-
ians, that being transgender is synonymous with
intersex. It’s no less important that the premises having diagnosed gender dysphoria. The ex-
that make these arguments possible are mutu- perts have dismissed identities like “nonbinary,”
ally exclusive. Fausto-Sterling credits Michel “queer,” and “genderfluid” as lacking any clinical
Foucault’s notion of “bio-power” as inspiration basis and thus as not being “identities” in the rel-
for her thinking on human nature (or on the lack evant sense of the word.
thereof). Like Foucault, she regards objectivity
as a charade and calls science “politics by other
means.” In an interview with the New York Times
a few years before the transgender issue hit the
C ourt rulings on transgender students are a
fascinating example of how ideas travel from
federal courts, she emphasized that choosing fringe academic theory into law and policy. The
which attributes define a person’s sex is “a social point is that they do not travel well. Yet to blame
decision given that a statistical or scientific way judges for these distortions is somewhat un-
of deciding does not exist.” Intersex conditions fair. After all, judges are experts in law and, in
are theoretically significant in this light because their attempt to understand novel issues, must
they prove that sex is really gender all the way rely on what they learn from experts in a highly
down. formalistic process ill-equipped to evaluate
Fausto-Sterling thus agrees with Sax that her nonlegal knowledge. On the other hand, given
definition of intersex and, by extension, of sex judges’ busy schedules, lack of specialization,
is political rather than scientific; but this, to her and reliance on self-interested plaintiffs and
mind, is a problem only for those who maintain their partisan witnesses, one could expect them
a naïve faith in scientific objectivity. As for her to refrain from declaring a novel and (as yet)
views on gender identity: in her most impor- inadequately tested treatment protocol “settled
tant book, she contends—in an understatement science.”
suggesting a desire to avoid confrontation with A highly complex, still-evolving field of medi-
transgender activists—that the “born that way” cal research on a badly misunderstood phenom-
narrative of gender identity “does not neces- enon (gender dysphoria) now commands the
sarily describe the process by which the person moral urgency of a national civil rights cause.
develop[s] . . . a particular identity.” In effect, Court rulings on transgender students provide
then, she agrees with critics of Diane Ehrensaft a powerful tool for activists to demonize crit-
(on the left and the right) who argue that gender ics, deter skepticism, and discourage careful
identity, perhaps especially when sincere, may thinking.  For  children and adolescents whose
be the result of internalized social conventions innocent confusions, insecurities, or playful-
or “stereotypes.” ness about gender are medicalized and treated
In short, the philosophical anthropology be- as gender dysphoria, “affirming” care is likely to
hind federal court rulings is a combination of exacerbate their suffering. It helps no one (save
two mutually exclusive philosophical positions. perhaps a tiny cohort of activists) that this issue
Perhaps the strongest evidence for this confusion has become as politicized as it has.

WINTER 2022 43
 The Other New York
Influential books on
poverty in the city focus on
institutional failure, while
overlooking the importance
of personal agency.

Nicole Gelinas

I
n December 2013, just as the 12-year
Michael Bloomberg era was giving way to
the Bill de Blasio years, the New York Times
published a bombshell investigation. The
report, called “Invisible Child,” appeared
to demolish Bloomberg’s claim that he
had left New York City a better place.
The story’s focus was Dasani, an 11-year-old
Brooklyn girl, who shared with nine other fam-
ily members a single room in a rodent-infested
homeless shelter. For journalist Andrea Elliott,
Dasani was a symbol, her plight partly the result
of “decisions made a world away, in the marble
confines of City Hall.” Because of the administra-
tion’s decisions and negligence, Dasani had been
“pushed further into the margins.” The five-part,
nearly 30,000-word series riveted New York’s
political and intellectual classes. Times readers
were “heartbroken” and “ashamed.” Bloomberg
attempted damage control, calling Dasani’s situ-
ation “atypical” and lamenting that “this kid was
dealt a bad hand.” Mayor-elect de Blasio, prepar-
ing to take office, promised “a very different ap-
proach.”
RUTH FREMSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX

Elliott has now turned Dasani’s story into an

extraordinarily reported 530-page book. She
spent eight years with Dasani’s family, sometimes
sleeping on the floor with them. With Dasani’s
mother’s and stepfather’s permission, she pored
through city records, tracking everything from
child-abuse allegations to drug-addiction treat-
ment. Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival and Hope in
an American City is beautifully written and sear-
ingly empathetic.

Dasani Coates, the subject of Andrea Elliott’s new

book Invisible Child

44 CITY JOURNAL
WINTER 2022 45
 The Other New York

Yet the book already feels dated, reflecting a leashes and infants riding in elevated strollers
particular moment in New York’s history. Invis- with shock-absorbing wheels” perambulate near a
ible Child isn’t just the story of Dasani—compel- “fancy wine shop,” across from “the Chinese Fried
ling as it is—but an expression of affluent New Chicken that gives fries to hungry kids.”
York’s postmillennial, pre-pandemic anxieties. The contrasts are accurate enough, provid-
Elliott expertly understands her educated read- ing a vivid picture of pre-pandemic Brooklyn.
ership’s guilty worry in the years before 2020. It’s also true, as Elliott writes, that Dasani’s Af-
She sees Dasani and her family through an angle, rican-American ancestors had a much tougher
sometimes strained, of racialized class stratifica- time of it than did comparable white families
tion. New York’s main problem, in her book’s in post–World War II New York. Migrants from
telling, is white gentrification. the South, they faced racial discrimination in
Each New York generation gets its defining job opportunities—Dasani’s great-grandfather,
journalistic tome of urban deprivation. In 1995, a trained mechanic and World War II veteran,
the book was All God’s Children: The Bosket Fam- had to work as a janitor—and in housing, where
ily and the American Tradition of Violence, by Times banks wouldn’t approve mortgages for decaying
writer Fox Butterfield; it won a Pulitzer Prize. In brownstone apartment buildings.
2003, it was Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, But Dasani and her parents are not in a home-
and Coming of Age in the Bronx, by Adrian Nicole less shelter by 2013 because of gentrification. Be-
LeBlanc. The formula is the same: multiyear ac- fore having children, Chanel, Dasani’s mother,
cess to a poor family that stands in for the per- already dependent on drugs, had quit her Mc-
ceived problems of a whole city and beyond. In Donald’s job to work as a low-level drug dealer
Butterfield’s book, the dominant theme, from and madam. In 2001, when Chanel, at 24, gives
the perspective of the early 1990s, when he fin- birth to Dasani, her first child, she is already
ished writing it, is government’s failure to stop homeless, chiefly because she doesn’t want to
violent crime. For LeBlanc, from the perspective live with her mother, Joanie, a Metropolitan
of the late 1990s, as she finished reporting, the Transportation Authority subway cleaner with
theme is the city’s abdication of responsibility a decent apartment. With baby Dasani, Chanel
for its most vulnerable citizens. Each is worth and her then-boyfriend, Dasani’s father, enter
reading as a capsule of the prevailing elite anxi- the city’s shelter system, “the fastest way for
ety of its time—even if the authors are more any single, young Black parent who wants to
comfortable blaming external forces than reck- get out of their mama’s house,” she tells Elliott.
oning with the role of human agency that they But Chanel gravitates back to Brooklyn, spend-
so aptly chronicle. ing her days either in a “crack-induced high” or
depressed. Her boyfriend leaves, and she’s back

E lliott wants readers to ponder New York’s

postmillennial gentrification. Bloomberg’s suc-
in the shelters. Thanks to New York’s social ser-
vices, though, she, Dasani, and her second child,
Avianna, wind up in a private Harlem apart-
cesses carry a dark side. “More than three hun- ment, complete with a kitchenette. There, she
dred miles of fresh bike lanes connect commuters meets—and then marries—Supreme, a widower
to high-tech jobs.” Wealthier New Yorkers enjoy with two young children.
“futuristic projects like the High Line.” In Manhat- The city gives Chanel and Supreme, a convicted
tan and Brooklyn, “glassy roofs reach skyward.” In drug dealer and trained barber, many chances
Fort Greene, Brooklyn, by contrast, where Dasani to assume responsibility for their growing fam-
lives in the homeless shelter in a neighborhood ily. By 2006, when Dasani is five, the couple get
where her mother has deep roots, families like hers “their first real apartment,” a two-bedroom unit
are “erased by a gentrification so vast and meteoric in East New York, Brooklyn. For 18 months,
that no brand of bottled water could have signaled under a new Bloomberg subsidy program, the
it.” There’s the obligatory juxtaposition of poverty government pays their $1,176 monthly rent. Yet
and wealth. In Fort Greene, “French bulldogs on they “kept failing—to hold down a job, to resist

46 CITY JOURNAL
getting high,” and time runs out on the rent- their money and don’t spend it on drinking and
subsidy program. Chanel and Supreme failed to smoking” (though they spend some of it on ex-
use it, or the ample job-training, job-search, and pensive wine). Dasani’s mother, too, has a sense
drug-treatment initiatives also offered by New of humor regarding booming Brooklyn. “Among
York, to become more self-sufficient. Amaz- the ironies of gentrification, Chanel likes to
ingly, the city keeps trying. A different subsidy point out, lapdogs have become fashionable in
program pays the $1,481 rent “in full” at another the projects, while rescued pit bulls are in vogue
apartment for another year. Supreme gets a job at among whites.”
a nearby barbershop, Chanel as a seasonal parks-
maintenance worker. They’ve also got a $49,000
inheritance from the now-deceased Joanie.
But by 2010, Chanel and Supreme are no closer
I
nvisible Child often tries to draw a picture of an
uncaring government and social-services bureau-

“
to supporting them- cracy that looks down
selves. Joanie’s money on poor people—poor
runs out, and the fam- black people, espe-
ily finds itself in the
Dasani’s family is cially. But Elliott’s
Brooklyn one-room never economically reporting doesn’t sup-
shelter—the last stop,
typically, for people
displaced, nor traumatized port such a conclusion.
When one of Chanel’s
by gentrification or

”
who have refused children is born with
to take advantage of marijuana in his sys-
other government
proximity to wealth. tem, the hospital finds
help. Yet in 2014, after out because it did a
the Times runs its series, Chanel and Supreme— drug test “without informed consent.” But both
now with eight children—get a federally funded parents have a long, documented history of drug
voucher for a third apartment, on Staten Is- abuse—and domestic violence. At a Staten Island
land, costing $2,044 monthly. By no means have hospital, a school principal finds one doctor “con-
wealthier New Yorkers displaced this family. descending” and “overly eager to report suspi-
Just as Dasani’s family is never economically cions” about the family to the city’s Administration
displaced, nor are they personally traumatized for Children’s Services. But one can hardly fault
by gentrification or being in proximity to wealth. the doctor for reporting Chanel and Supreme. The
Dasani likes the view of the Empire State Build- principal is at the hospital because the police have
ing outside her shelter. “It makes me feel like brought their elementary-age son there, after find-
there’s something going on out there,” she says. ing him wandering, alone, blocks from his house,
One day in Brooklyn, Chanel and four of her in below-freezing weather. The boy, nicknamed
kids, with “two greasy boxes of pizza,” enter Fort Papa, had already showed up once at school with
Greene’s fancy wine store. Dasani is intrigued by a “nickel-sized wound in his scalp, saying that his
a wine-tasting sign and thinks it’s a good idea father had struck him with a belt.”
for her mother to relax with a few sips. It’s the When Chanel and Supreme eventually lose
perfect setup for a cringe-inducing vignette, es- custody of their children to ACS and foster care,
pecially when Chanel announces of the several Elliott seems to portray the calamity as the con-
wines on offer that “I’ma try ’em all.” The “peppy sequence of officials’ racially tinged contempt.
blonde” sommelier, the reader thinks, will look When ACS wants Chanel to take a drug test to
down on this black family, and ask if they’re go- ascertain if she has stayed clean, for example, El-
ing to buy anything. Instead, she explains each liott notes that such hair-follicle tests suffer from
wine to Chanel, with no hint of disrespect. “hair color bias” because a person with dark,
Dasani observes her wealthier Fort Greene thick hair absorbs more drugs, possibly testing
neighbors with interest. More affluent people— positive “simply from being in the same room as
“the whites,” in her child’s simplistic view—“save someone smoking crack.” Maybe so—but Chanel

WINTER 2022 47
 The Other New York

has been neglecting her children a long time and,

after she loses custody, is mostly inaccessible
by text or phone. She refuses to take the test—
with no explanation—for months. Similarly,
Supreme’s older teenage son, Khaliq, is hos-
pitalized for a psychotic fit, after smoking one
of his father’s K2-laced cigarettes. This episode
can hardly give caseworkers confidence that the
family is avoiding drugs.
When a judge, after giving Chanel and Su-
preme multiple chances to prove that they are
drug-free and capable of caring for their kids,
finally revokes custody—first from Chanel and
then later from both parents—Elliott writes that
it was partly because a caseworker, Marisol,
“misled” the judge in failing to report Chanel’s
recent clean urine test and in not giving Chanel
credit for “her efforts to meet and cooperate with
ACS.” But staying off drugs for just a few days
was not the deal; Chanel was supposed to be
clean and sober the entire time she had respon-
sibility for her children. And Chanel’s idea of
cooperation with ACS is to be unreachable for
months before suddenly showing up at Marisol’s
office, expecting the caseworker to recall each of
her case’s details instantaneously.
This is not to excuse government’s real mis-
takes, from a hospital sending a woman—Cha-
nel—with a history of addiction home with a
prescription for opioid pills to not transferring
Chanel’s food-stamp benefits immediately to
Supreme, after she initially loses custody to her
husband. There’s no excuse for government to
contract with private-sector shelter and hous-
ing providers with badly maintained proper-
ties, infested with rodents. Then again, the only
reason the door on the couple’s Staten Island
apartment is broken is that Chanel, frustrated
at not finding her keys, wrecked it on the fam-
JIM MCKNIGHT/AP PHOTO

ily’s first day there. And during the months it

took the city to transfer the food-stamp benefits,
Chanel controlled the thousands of dollars that
the city kept crediting to her benefits card and
could have bought food in Supreme’s presence

Serial felon Willie Bosket, profiled in Fox

Butterfield’s All God’s Children, resists as he is
brought to a sentencing hearing for stabbing a
prison guard.

48 CITY JOURNAL
WINTER 2022 49
 The Other New York

without seeing the children, thus not violating Chanel,” charge her with a lesser crime than the
ACS’s no-contact order. offense merits; she spends little time at Rikers.
Moreover, for every encounter with the uncar- The most serious criminal saga is that of
ing hand of government, Chanel’s family benefits Khaliq, Supreme’s son and Dasani’s stepbrother.
from government officials and charitable orga- As an underage teen, Khaliq randomly attacks
nizations invested in their success. This history “a sixty-three-year-old white woman” on Staten
starts with Chanel’s mother, Joanie, who gets her Island—apparently, an example of the “knock-
MTA job only after 1990s-era reforms get her off out game.” Elliott paraphrases Khaliq’s assess-
welfare. She calls her first day of work “the best ment on getting caught, that “it’s hard for a Black
day of my life.” Decades later, Chanel undergoes youth to get any other perception” than “as a
multiple government-paid drug-treatment pro- thief, a troublemaker, and angry.” Yet this idea
grams, including a monthlong in-patient initia- of a young black teen fated by a racist society
tive at Mount Sinai. to become a violent criminal is contradicted by
Dasani loves her Brooklyn middle school, the shocked reaction of his caseworker, an older
where teachers, counselors, and administrators white woman herself. She “never would have
are patient with the girl’s outbursts and physical believed” that Khaliq committed the crime until
violence, teaching her techniques to control her seeing his face, clearly, on video.
anger. The kids love New York’s public library. New York’s de Blasio–era justice system does
When Dasani gets accepted as a scholarship all it can to keep Khaliq out of jail. His punish-
middle school student at Pennsylvania’s Milton ment for this horrible crime: a judge asks him to
Hershey School for poor children, and enrolls at write an apology. It’s only after Khaliq commits
the boarding academy, she profits not only from many more assaults, mostly on older whites, that
an enriching education and after-school environ- a judge sends him to juvenile detention. In Sep-
ment—joining the track and cheer teams and tember 2020, a “surveillance video will show a
taking several field trips—but also from an army young man approaching a white Mercedes-Benz
of social workers and “house parents.” on Staten Island’s North Shore. The assailant—
his face obscured by a hoodie—will point a nine-

L ikewise, Dasani’s family’s increasingly fre-

quent encounters with the criminal-justice system
millimeter semiautomatic pistol at two young
men in the car, opening fire and killing one of the
men in a gang-related hit.” Four and a half months
don’t show a racist police state, as Elliott half- later, police arrest Khaliq, 19, for the murder.
heartedly implies. Supreme’s felony conviction Invisible Child does prove that Dasani and her
doesn’t keep him from finding work as a barber. seven siblings got a raw deal in one sense—the
Chanel habitually shoplifts, but she faces no se- lottery of birth. There’s no doubt, too, that Su-
rious repercussions, even when caught. When preme and Chanel, products of their own re-
Supreme attempts an armed robbery to buy food spective family dysfunctions, drew a similarly
for his children, he spends just a night in jail; bad hand. The unanswered question, though,
ACS doesn’t even notice that he’s missing from is: What more, exactly, could government have
the home, at a time when he had sole custody of done? For two decades—more, if one includes
the kids. Dasani is kicked out of her Pennsylva- the previous generations of Chanel’s and Su-
nia boarding school after several violent fights, preme’s families—New York City has provided
including “playfully” wielding a knife against a free housing, free food, free schooling, intensive
housemate. Back in New York, she keeps brawl- drug treatment and counseling, and careful gov-
ing at her Staten Island high school. Her mother, ernment supervision to help the family.
Chanel, shows up to protect her, with a “disas- Invisible Child, despite Elliott’s steering,
sembled” gun in her purse. Police don’t search doesn’t work, then, as a warning about the ills
Chanel because of their racism but because stu- of gentrification or the callousness of govern-
dents inform them that she has threatened them ment. Chanel, Supreme, and their ten children
with a gun. The cops, “perhaps out of pity for are not even a typical New York poor family, as

50 CITY JOURNAL
Elliott acknowledges. (If the author had selected streets. At nine, he set a black homeless man on
the average poor family to chronicle, she would fire. After that incident, Willie was essentially a
have chosen “a single mother with two children, ward of the state.
working a low-wage job.”) Elliott chose Dasani The state, by Bosket’s admission, did all it
because she liked the spunky preteen, whom could to help him. A juvenile judge sent him to
she met during the Bloomberg era, and appre- Wiltwyck, a residential school for troubled chil-
ciated her ability to “breathe life into the story.” dren in New York’s Hudson Valley. Supported
Dasani’s story is more about a city that spends by Eleanor Roosevelt, Wiltwyck was no abusive
vast resources yearly on poor families, with of- warehouse for throwaway kids. “At its apogee
ten-discouraging results, unless they do some- . . . there was something special about it, like the
thing to help themselves. Peace Corps,” Butterfield writes. “Visitors came
from all over the country to see how Wiltwyck

A half-decade before Dasani was born, the af-

fluent, educated people reading books about New
succeeded where others failed.” Conscientious
teachers and aides tried to teach Bosket how to
manage his rage. He called one staffer “mom.”
York City poverty weren’t worried about gentrifica- Yet Wiltwyck ultimately couldn’t handle him. He
tion but about violent crime, seen as an outgrowth of threw a chair at a pregnant social worker, kicked
being poor. All God’s Children (1995), Butterfield’s a doctor, punched a nurse, and ran away. He was
Dasani-style saga, observed that everything New committed to Bellevue Hospital as a young teen,
York had done to stop wayward poor children and but Bellevue expelled him, too, and the boy was
teens from becoming killers—”super predators,” in moved to a state “training school.” There, again
the day’s lingo—had proved futile. by his own account, the staff was caring, but he
Butterfield’s antihero was Willie Bosket, one fled the low-security facility.
of New York’s first “baby-faced killers.” In 1978, Back in Harlem, the 15-year-old committed
at 15, Bosket shot and killed two strangers on the violent robbery after robbery; he likely kicked a
subway, in separate attacks. Eleven years later, man to his death off a neighborhood roof. Police
Bosket, by then in adult prison for another vio- caught him quickly after the two subway kill-
lent crime, “stabbed a [state] prison guard in the ings. He received just a five-year juvenile sen-
chest with a five-and-and-a-half-inch shank.” tence, a well-publicized outrage that spurred
Representing himself in court in that attempted- Governor Hugh Carey to sign a law mandating
murder case, Bosket called himself “a monster that the state try younger teens accused of par-
created by the system.” Butterfield adopted as ticularly vicious crimes as adults.
his thesis the idea that government had failed Emerging from juvenile jail as a 20-year-old
Bosket, and he set out to find out how. Like El- convicted double murderer, Willie still enjoyed
liott after him, Butterfield enjoyed extraordinary official goodwill. He returned again to Harlem,
access to his subject. where he became romantically involved with
A Harlem native descended from southern a young neighbor. He told her mother that he
migrants escaping Jim Crow, Bosket had a fam- wanted to marry her, admitting, “I’m afraid it
ily background even more dysfunctional than was me who killed those men on the subway.”
Dasani’s. When his mother, Laura, was pregnant “That’s OK,” the mother said. “It’s what you do
with him, his father murdered two strangers in now that is important.” Bosket married, and “al-
a Milwaukee pawnshop and received a life sen- lowed himself to think [that] he wasn’t predesti-
tence. Like Dasani, Willie had attentive teachers nated to spend his life in prison after all.”
at his public elementary school in Harlem. One And yet, soon after, “he wanted to have some
“soft-spoken, gentle black woman . . . controlled fun” with an elderly upstairs neighbor. “You
him with a mix of firmness and affection.” But fucking faggot,” Willie yelled at him after a mi-
Willie’s mother never took much interest in him, nor argument. Brandishing a knife, he added:
and he was dangerously violent even as a pre- “I’m going to kill you.” Police arrested him. In
teen, randomly attacking people on New York’s Butterfield’s view, “it was a minor scrape,” but

WINTER 2022 51
 The Other New York

to an old man subjected to verbal abuse and a ors, and ACS caseworkers are nowhere to be found.
violent threat, it wasn’t minor. Willie got sent The book has an air of nihilistic glamour. “George,”
to prison—adult prison, this time—and, a few Jessica’s drug-kingpin boyfriend, “took her to Club
years later, tried to murder the guard, whom he 371. . . . A long line of people waited to enter. He
didn’t know, in a premeditated attack, in view of strode to the front. Girls eyed him. . . . The host-
hundreds of visitors. He was sentenced to a life ess seated the foursome in the VIP section, and a
in solitary confinement, which, decades later, he waitress appeared with a bottle of Moët. The dance
is still serving upstate. floor smelled of perfume instead of sweat. Jessica
Willie Bosket’s tale is bleakly interesting, but got up and performed a little dance for George in
it falls short of Butterfield’s broader thesis: that front of their table; everyone treated George like a
he was a “monster created by the system.” What king. . . . The night ended in two $500 suites . . .
more should government have done? New York in Teaneck, New Jersey.” A party on a yacht paid
took custody of Willie before he reached his for by drug dealers is “like prom night, but with an
teens. The state and city never treated him abu- open bar and no chaperones.”
sively. Butterfield offers a closing caution: “In the But consequences abound. Jessica, a gorgeous
closing years of the twentieth century, the num- girl with no adult supervision, is easy prey for
ber of young boys committing murder . . . has older men. After an incident at a party that most
reached epidemic proportions,” he writes. “With people, today, would consider acquaintance
the number of teenagers projected to increase rape, she gets pregnant in her early teens. She
by 20 percent over the next decade, many crimi- and her daughter live in a household full of
nologists predict that America’s homicide rate unrelated men, coming and going. When her
will rise sharply again, making the early 1990s toddler, two-year-old Serena, “started to cry
look like the good old days.” That prediction re- whenever she peed,” she takes the baby to the
inforced popular fears, but it did not come true. hospital, which diagnoses sexual abuse—but
Good policing overcame the demographics, and child-welfare officials don’t intervene. A few
violent crime plummeted. All God’s Children of- years later, Coco takes her own young daugh-
fered its affluent readers what turned out to be ter to the doctor, only to find that he thinks she
a fantasy: that poverty inevitably brought vio- “might have been molested.” He says that he
lence and that there was nothing officials could must notify the authorities—but again, nothing
do about it, as long as such inequities persisted. happens. Welfare checks come to new mothers
and grandmothers, with no strings attached.

R andom Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s 2003

tale of loosely related teenagers growing up in the
“The first week of each month, after the welfare
check came in, was best—a time to buy things
. . . . Outside, the drug dealers enjoyed a surge in
Bronx from the mid-1980s through the late 1990s, business. . . . Everything changed toward the end
bridges the eras covered by Butterfield and El- of the month, when the money ran out.”
liott. In the 1980s, New York hadn’t yet embraced The government doesn’t care about male teens
preventive policing or welfare reform. But it had and young adults, either. Cesar fails to “make it
largely given up on the well-meaning progressive to junior high”; he falls into the drug trade. He
ideas meant to help Willie Bosket. LeBlanc doesn’t is in a park one day “when an argument over a
really have a theme; what she does, writing in the basketball erupted into a shooting spree. Usu-
interregnum between expansive liberal anticrime ally, the cops weren’t so concerned about hood-
policies and aggressive conservative anticrime lums shooting at one another, but this time a
policies, is depict unrelenting chaos. bullet had grazed a two-year-old.” As a young
What’s striking about Jessica, her brother, Cesar, adult, Cesar earns a long prison sentence after
and his girlfriend, Coco—the teens LeBlanc trails he accidentally shoots his best friend, aiming for
through the South Bronx for a decade—is that, a group of rival teens. Puma, Jessica’s ex-boy-
like the Charlie Brown cartoon characters, they’re friend and Serena’s father, is shot to death while
seemingly on their own. Parents, teachers, counsel- holding another child. Law enforcement doesn’t

52 CITY JOURNAL
intrude into the South Bronx to keep small crimes put a price on her head, it moves her to a govern-
from escalating into large ones—at least, not un- ment-run group home in a different borough to
til Jessica’s pusher boyfriend, George, becomes keep her away from her new enemies. She does
such a prominent heroin dealer that he gets the eventually calm down, to a degree. After a judge
attention of the federal Drug Enforcement Ad- allows the nearly grown-up teen and her next-
ministration and, after a 1990 trial, a long fed- eldest sister to stay with their mother again, Dasani
eral prison sentence. (He’s still serving it.) Jessica graduates high school, the first in her family to do
loses her kids not to an abuse or neglect case, as so, and makes plans for community college. Her
with Dasani’s family, but when the feds convict sister Avianna, a year behind, is following the
her of narcotics conspiracy in service of George’s same path. Three of their siblings are flourishing
million-dollar-a-week business. in foster care, likely on their way to adoption; a
The displacement phenomenon in LeBlanc’s fourth, in a different foster home, graduates from

“
book is the opposite high school and plans
of gentrification: poor for college. Even Cha-
families voluntarily nel is making prog-
tiring of this life and
Displacement in ress, delivering food
fleeing the city. As LeBlanc’s book is the for Postmates during
Coco enters her twen- the pandemic and
ties, with three small
opposite of gentrification: winning back super-
poor families fleeing

”
children and a fourth vised custody of her
on the way, “a grow- younger son.
ing number of Bronx
the city. If Dasani and her
friends and neigh- siblings do get ahead,
bors . . . had moved upstate. . . . Children could it will be largely because of signature accom-
play outdoors safely. Schools were strict about plishments of the Giuliani and Bloomberg years
classwork and attendance. . . . There were jobs.” and even, to some extent, the pre-pandemic de
Coco “decided to make the move. . . . She felt that Blasio years: keeping violent crime low, encour-
no good would come of staying in the Bronx.” aging poor people to work, intervening in se-
In 2001, Jessica, released from prison, is jarred verely dysfunctional families, and emphasizing
by the changes in her home borough: “Some of the K–12 education system, which consistently
Tremont’s hungry spiritedness had been sub- gave Dasani and her siblings emotional and psy-
dued. . . . Under the policies of New York City’s chological support throughout their turbulent
prosecutorial mayor, police had frog-marched lives. The girls, by living in gentrified Brooklyn,
the dealers off the streets.” Indeed. Jessica, like have also absorbed a lesson not available to the
Dasani and Willie, is hardly a representative families that Butterfield and LeBlanc covered, liv-
specimen: most young minority women don’t do ing in crime-ridden, burned-out, late-twentieth-
hard time in federal prison for heroin sales. century Harlem and the Bronx: feeling safe
enough to walk a diverse neighborhood as chil-

A fter reading Random Family, a reader might

ask not what more the city government could have
dren, and to observe and interact with functional,
successful neighbors of all races and incomes.
Taken together, the Elliott, Butterfield, and
done to help Jessica, Coco, and Cesar, but why LeBlanc books are representative commentar-
didn’t it try to do anything? From that perspec- ies on how influential New Yorkers understood
tive, Dasani’s story, nearly four decades on from major city problems at a particular time. If they
the 1980s Bronx, is not entirely a failure. After share a common theme—albeit largely unin-
2016, Dasani doesn’t settle easily back into New tended by all three authors—it is one that would
York City after her discharge from Hershey. Stay- apply to the city in any era: that there is only so
ing with a foster family, she flirts with gang mem- much society can do to prevent people from self-
bership. When the city learns that a rival gang has destructive and socially harmful behavior.

WINTER 2022 53
 “The Least Woke
City in America”

54 CITY JOURNAL
 Miami’s increasingly
conservative political culture
reflects the influence of
immigrants fleeing socialist
dystopias.

Oliver Wiseman

T
hey’re still talking about the cara-
vans: the miles-long lines of cars,
their passengers waving Ameri-
can flags, Cuban flags, and Don-
ald Trump banners, that painted
streaks of red, white, and blue
down Calle Ocho and around
Little Havana, bringing much of Miami to a halt
for hours at a time ahead of the 2020 election.
On a recent trip to the city, those I spoke with—
Republican operatives and supporters, as well
as more impartial observers of Miami’s political
scene—described these demonstrations vividly.
The multinational, multilingual expressions of
support for a Republican presidential candi-
date were unmistakably Miami. They displayed
LUIS GOMEZ / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

a flavor of GOP enthusiasm that couldn’t hap-

pen anywhere else, at least not on this scale. The
demonstrators took cues from the city’s proud
anti-Communist past. Some of the organizers
of the events—officially known as the “Anti-
Communist and Anti-Socialist Caravans for
Freedom and Democracy”—included groups
established to fight the Cuban dictatorship. The
The city remains a cross-section of America,
chasing riches and good weather and having fun
along the way.

WINTER 2022 55
 “The Least Woke City in America”

parades were a rejoinder to pollsters who warned Democratic assumptions about the party’s rain-
not to read too much into enthusiastic displays bow coalition.
of support for a given candidate. Miami was the Adding to this demographic and electoral shift
site of major political change in 2020, and if you are the results that Republicans in power have
watched the car parades, you saw the indicators delivered in recent years. DeSantis has overseen
earlier than most. a practical approach to the pandemic that—at
Miami-Dade, Florida’s largest county, is two- least according to the revealed preferences of
thirds Hispanic and shifted dramatically toward exiles from Democratic states—is what many
the Republicans in the last election. In 2016, Americans wanted. According to the state’s Of-
Hillary Clinton won by 64 percent to Trump’s 35 fice of Economic and Demographic Research,
percent in the county. Four years later, Joe Biden Florida grew by an estimated 329,717 new resi-
triumphed, but in a much closer contest: 53 per- dents in the 12 months to April 2021. Meantime,
cent to 46 percent. That huge swing in such a big Miami’s Republican mayor, Francis Suarez, has
county was key to Trump’s relatively straight- hustled his city onto the tech hub map, doing all
forward Florida win. In raw numbers, Trump he can to lure talent and capital from Silicon Val-
nearly doubled his vote count in Miami-Dade, ley and New York. (See “America’s Tomorrow
from 333,000 in 2016 to 617,000 in 2020. His state- City,” page 61.) Thanks to policymaking at a city
wide margin of victory, under 120,000 in 2016, and state level, Miami has become perhaps the
more than tripled, to 372,000 in 2020. most prominent counterexample to instances of
The changing habits of voters in Miami are Democratic dysfunction.
perhaps the most important part of the story of The Miami lesson is also about how much
why what was once the most coveted swing state Republicans stand to gain if they don’t neglect
in the Electoral College has taken on a reddish cities. The urban Republican has become some-
hue. What’s true on a presidential level is true on thing of an endangered species lately; at times,
a gubernatorial level. Ron DeSantis sneaked into it can feel like the GOP has given up on serious
office by just 30,000 votes in 2018. Since then, attempts to win votes in the country’s major cit-
his stock has soared; his 2022 reelection seems ies. But Miami underscores the prominent role
likely. The swing in 2020 was also enough to flip that cities can play in Republican victories. The
two South Florida House seats from blue to red. party doesn’t need to win majorities in densely
It soon became clear that the Miami results populated areas for an improved urban perfor-
were indicative of a national story of Hispanic mance to count: it just needs to pick some low-
voters shifting rightward in 2020. Latino-heavy hanging electoral fruit, make inroads into large
precincts everywhere from the Rio Grande Val- Democratic margins in metropolises, and then
ley, Texas, and Clark County, Nevada, to Pater- the path to statewide victory for Senate, guber-
son, New Jersey, and Milwaukee saw a marked natorial, and presidential candidates suddenly
move to the right. According to a Pew survey of looks clearer.
validated election voters, the nationwide Demo- The question is whether Republicans in other
cratic margin of victory among Hispanic voters cities can learn anything from South Florida. Is
dropped from 38 points to 21 points from 2016 Miami a road map? Or do its idiosyncrasies—
to 2020, with 38 percent of Hispanics voting for a especially its Cuban population, a self-selecting
second Trump term. group that fled Communism—make it a special
Florida’s growing less white and more con- case?
servative offers Republicans nationwide a feel-
good story. Florida senator Marco Rubio, him-
self a Cuban-American from Miami, has argued
that the lesson from 2020 is that his party must
A 1930s guide to Florida, published as part of
the Federal Writers’ Project, notes the miracle of
be built on a “multi-ethnic, multi-racial, work- Miami: “In less than a quarter century, miles of
ing-class coalition.” It’s not hard to see the ap- rainbow-hued dwellings, bizarre estates, ornate
peal of this vision, undercutting, as it would, hotels, and office buildings have grown from a

56 CITY JOURNAL
mangrove swamp, jungle, coral rock, and sand Among those buried there: Cuban presidents and
dunes.” Then a resort town, Miami, the guide re- senators, Nicaraguan leaders, Latin American first
ports, is, in the sporting season, “100 days of per- ladies, and Bay of Pigs veterans. The graves are a
petual carnival.” Of busy racetracks, the author reminder that city politics and geopolitics cannot
writes, “the playboy and the plowboy, the dowa- be separated in Miami. It was Miami’s status as a
ger in pearls and the sylph in shorts, the banker stage on which Caribbean and Central American
on vacation and the grifter on the prowl keep politics played out that made it, in Didion’s words:
turnstiles clicking and feed staggering sums into
the pari-mutuels.” A settlement of considerable interest, not
The city is 60 times more populous today—and exactly an American city as American cit-
no less miraculous. The same quality is still iden- ies have until recently been understood but
tifiable almost a century later: an ebullient cross- a tropical capital: long on rumor, short on

“
section of America memory, overbuilt
chasing riches and the on the chimera of
sun and having fun runaway money
along the way.
The Miami lesson and referring not to
For all this continu- is also about how New York or Bos-
ity, the biggest change ton or Los Angeles
in the last century has
much Republicans or Atlanta but to
stand to gain if they don’t

”
been demographic, Caracas and Mex-
which started with ico, to Havana and
the influx that fol-
neglect cities. to Bogotá and to
lowed after Fidel Paris and Madrid.
Castro took control of Cuba in 1959. It trans- Of American cities Miami has since 1959
formed Miami, though what today is an essential connected only to Washington, which is the
feature initially seemed an aberration. “When a peculiarity of both places, and increasingly
prince builds a palace, he does not intend a shel- the warp.
ter for paupers. When men built Miami they did
not see it as journey’s end for a tide of empty- Today, memory has displaced rumor. Once a
handed refugees,” mused the New York Times in site from which to launch invasions, coups, and
1961. “There is perhaps no large city in the nation counterrevolutions, Miami knows what other
less suited by temperament and resources to take American cities have forgotten, or never prop-
in the destitute.” The new arrivals would soon erly understood. Anti-Communism is hard-
rewrite that economic story and outperform wired into this town.
gloomy accounts of their predicament. Florida Democrats have long bet on a new
After a decade or so, Cuban-Americans had generation of Cuban-Americans letting bygones
figured out how to flex their political muscles. be bygones, and forgiving the party of Kennedy,
By the early 1970s, they were a voting bloc that a villain in Miami ever since he abandoned 1,500
politicians couldn’t ignore. Eventually, that po- Cuban exiles in the botched Bay of Pigs invasion.
litical power took on national significance. When But it hasn’t worked out that way. More than 60
Ronald Reagan came to town in 1984 and prom- years have passed since the exodus from Cuba
ised that “someday, Cuba itself will be free,” he to Miami, and Cuban-Americans remain a dis-
was the first president since JFK to visit Miami tinct—and conservative—electoral bloc.
and directly appeal to Cubans. It isn’t just Cubans who are frustrating Demo-
The late Joan Didion started her 1987 book- cratic assumptions about Latino voting habits,
length account of Miami in a graveyard. “Havana however. Today, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans,
vanities come to dust in Miami,” she wrote. If informed by political failures in their own coun-
you want to explain Miami’s weirdness, Wood- tries of origin, are crucial parts of a bloc of His-
lawn Park Cemetery is still a good place to start. panic Republicans. Add to that smaller cohorts

WINTER 2022 57
 “The Least Woke City in America”

of Latin American–origin voters who also swung created a quantifiable narrative,” he says. “Before
rightward in the last election, and something we were talking about all the migration that was
broader is happening. happening. Now we have a lot of statistics to
back it up.” He cites more than $1 trillion in total

W hen I met Suarez, the mayor of the City of

Miami (the municipality covers only the down-
value in assets under management of companies
that recently moved to the city. Many new busi-
nesses have launched, and a study of LinkedIn
town of what today is a sprawling city) in his wa- data found that Miami experienced the largest
terfront office, I asked him whether such a thing percentage increase in software and IT services
existed as Miami Republicanism, a brand of poli- workers of any American city.
tics unique to the city. Suarez was reelected in November with 79
“I think there is,” explained the trim 44-year- percent of the vote. Away from the flashy tech
old over cafecito. “And I think it stems from the hub sales pitch, he pushes an agenda that focuses
fact that a lot of us are exiles. We’ve seen first- on low taxes, combating homelessness, and en-
hand the destructive power of Communism. couraging school choice and a well-funded po-
And we know how it promises the world and lice department. In January, Suarez takes over
delivers misery. So I think that is the base of how as chairman of the Conference of Mayors, an
this Miami movement and formula is created. It organization of city leaders. From that position,
is a rejection of an ideology that is probably one he hopes to push his center-right brand of urban
of the largest frauds perpetrated on humankind.” policy on a national stage.
From that hard-earned anti-Communism Some of this, he concedes, is not replicable—
flows much else. “We are a city that believes in palm trees wave outside his office, as if a re-
capitalism,” says Suarez. “That believes in inno- minder of the city’s natural advantages were
vation as a means of democratizing opportuni- needed—but part of it is. “Miami has changed
ties.” in the last ten years,” says Suarez. “It’s become
Last March, Suarez was maybe the first pub- the prototypical city, the city that you want to
lic official with any real national profile to catch be like.”
the coronavirus. Nearly two years on, he has
emerged as one of the big political winners from
M

MARK PETERSON/REDUX
the pandemic. The son of Xavier Suarez, Miami’s iami Republicanism comes in many variet-
first Cuban-American mayor, Francis’s first foray ies. Suarez is at one end of the spectrum: a centrist,
into city politics was at two years old, when he business-friendly fixer who has frequent tussles
appeared in one of his father’s campaign com- with the more populist governor. Though not from
mercials. “Vote por Papi, por favor,” was the tod- Miami, DeSantis embodies a more raucous, brash
dler’s polite request. Republicanism, as does the former president, who
Suarez, a registered Republican, was elected to now lives 70 miles up the coast. But there seems to
the nonpartisan mayoralty himself in 2017. Since be an accommodation between the city’s GOP fac-
2020, he has been unapologetic about the oppor- tions often lacking in the rest of the country.
tunities that emerged for his city because of the The Republicans I spoke with along this spec-
coronavirus. At times, Suarez’s techno-optimist trum, whether red-hat wearers or metropolitan
hustle feels gimmicky—to demonstrate his de- Suarez supporters, identified two binding agents
termination to make Miami the crypto capital of that keep Miami Republicans pulling together:
America, he is planning to pay city employees in patriotism and a firmly held belief in freedom
bitcoin. But as mayor, he doesn’t enjoy as many and opportunity.
executive powers as his counterparts in other “In the end, everyone wants the same thing,
U.S. cities, so boosterism is one of the few ways which is a home, opportunities for prosperity
he can move the dial. and growth, and freedom,” says Ileana Garcia,
And the hype, Suarez argues, can be backed the founder of Latinas for Trump and a state
up by results. “All of these ingredients have now senator who flipped a central Miami district in

58 CITY JOURNAL
Miami-Dade, Florida’s largest county, shifted dramatically toward the Republicans and Donald Trump in
the last election.

the November 2020 election. “People are keen to a focus on enterprise, patriotism, and the Ameri-
stigmatize support for Trump and the Republi- can dream. “A lot of Latinos and Hispanics are
can Party, including from Latinos, as a cult,” says very optimistic and we love this country,” he
Garcia. “But we’re not cultish at all. What moti- says. “We believe in its ideals. When the Left and
vates us is freedom: freedom to live your life ac- the Democratic Party attacks our country or at-
cording to your values, freedom to do what you tacks our ideals or presents this very pessimistic
want with your money and freedom to live in a view of America as inherently racist and a place
country where you don’t have to have govern- where you can’t get ahead, we know all of these
ment hovering over you and telling you what to things not to be true.”
do all the time.” Cuban-American writer Alex Perez, a Miami
Armando Ibarra, chairman of Miami Young native who has written for City Journal, explained
Republicans, says that the lesson from Miami is to me that the city is “old-school American,” more

WINTER 2022 59
 “The Least Woke City in America”

so than much of the rest of the country these days. anti-woke. It has the instinctive libertarianism of
Another Miami native made a similar point. “This the small-business owner and a confidence that
is the least woke city in America,” she told me, can find expression in two kinds of Miami new-
referring to the city’s boisterous, politically incor- comer: the venture capitalist backing a fresh idea
rect spirit. Miami scrambles the progressive Left’s or the recent arrival to the U.S. betting his future
preferred racial classifications. Instead of a hier- on the American dream. It is not an angry cry
archy of intersectional identities that pits “people from those on the “wrong side of history,” nor
of color” against whites, the city is a patchwork of is it shy about fighting the culture wars. It takes
national identities and often competing loyalties: aim at a liberal political and cultural elite that
Cubans, Haitians, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, describes a country that Miami denizens don’t
Dominicans, Colombians, Jamaicans, and others. recognize.
The notion that American politics can be reduced Miami is a reminder that the rising support in
to a coalition of people of color taking on white 2020 for the GOP among nonwhite voters, and
supremacy looks silly when viewed from Miami. Hispanics in particular, cannot be disentangled
“Our heritage is always front and center,” says from the party’s performance in major cities. Ac-
Garcia. “But if you ask any non-English-speaking cording to surveys, a Latino voter is roughly as
Hispanic in Miami what they are, they will tell likely as a white voter to describe himself as con-
you Ωsoy Americano.≈ I’m American.” The frequent servative. But for decades, traditional solidari-
progressive use of the term “Latinx”—a gender- ties have trumped ideology, with conservative
ideology-compliant neologism that only 4 per- Hispanics reliably voting Democrat. That may be
cent of Hispanics say they prefer—encapsulates changing, with nonwhites starting to sort them-
how the Democrats’ increasing adoption of iden- selves more according to ideology. If that proves
tity politics turns off many nonwhite voters, es- a real trend, it would create new opportunities
pecially among the working class. for the GOP. A recent Manhattan Institute report
It is a cliché in Washington to claim that His- sketched the outlines of a “metropolitan major-
panic voters (or, for that matter, any demographic ity”: a cohort of voters in America’s large and
bloc) are “not a monolith”—but it rings particu- growing cities that is ethnically diverse (survey
larly true in Miami GOP circles, where Republi- respondents were nearly one-quarter Hispanic
cans have actually acted on this insight. “A lot of or Latino) and politically moderate. Their big-
people don’t want to be a generic Latino,” says gest worries, the polling found, are the cost of
Ibarra. “What we [Miami Young Republicans] housing, homelessness, the coronavirus, traffic,
did is embrace the customs, the parts of the cul- public safety and crime, and high taxes. And the
ture that they enjoy, that they love. Because they survey finds a very limited appetite for some of
are proud. If you’re Cuban or any other national the most prominent progressive policies being
background, you’re proud of your family’s cus- pushed at a state and city level.
toms and heritage. I think our ability to connect
with them on that basis was really key.” In that
sense, Miami’s voting blocs resemble the white-
ethnic voting groups that once dominated U.S.
A ll this suggests that Miami may not be an ab-
erration but a sign of a more competitive urban
urban politics. And the party that treats them as politics. Miami’s various Latino blocs, drawing on
such could gain the most at the ballot box. a fervent anti-Communist tradition, swung right-
Miami Republicanism is at ease with the pop- ward earlier and further than nonwhite voters in
ulist style but more optimistic and forward-look- other cities, and the city’s unique history meant
ing than recent populist currents. (The “Ameri- that it had an active, engaged local Republican
can carnage” theme of Donald Trump’s inaugural Party ready to capitalize on the opportunity. But
speech, for example, would have little resonance brave is the Democrat who waves away Miami as
in a city full of strivers like Miami.) It is infused a stand-alone case. And foolish is the Republican
with a patriotism that only a few years ago was who believes that something similar couldn’t hap-
uncontroversial in public life—and resolutely pen elsewhere.

60 CITY JOURNAL
America’s Tomorrow City
Miami seeks to build a
startup haven for tech
entrepreneurs and
cryptocurrency innovators.

Daniel Tenreiro

J
osé Miró Cardona’s six-week tenure as prime minister of
Cuba ended when Fidel Castro began unleashing firing
squads on his political enemies. Two years after Cardona’s
break with the Communist government, he ended up, as have
countless other Cubans since, in Miami. It was Miró Cardona
whom the U.S. State Department tapped to lead the Cuban
Revolutionary Council (CRC), a collection of anti-Castro ex-
iles formed in 1961 and tasked with spearheading the Bay of Pigs invasion.
In Miami, this group of doctors, lawyers, and politicians devised a wild
scheme to launch an amphibious invasion of Cuba and catalyze a popular
uprising against Castro. Few of the renegades of Brigade 2506, as the group
came to be called, had military experience. But they were products of the
conspiratorial style of politics native to Latin America, where revolutions
and counterrevolutions are dreamed up in haste and where experience and
expertise are of little importance.
To Americans today, the Bay of Pigs seems the stuff of fiction. But Mi-
ami’s Cold War–era exiles had imaginations that could outrun reality, and
their romantic ideals survived the plot’s spectacular failure. In subsequent
decades, anti-Communist groups would use Miami as a launching pad for
a series of bombings and assassinations on U.S. soil. Having once embraced
the city’s counterrevolutionaries, Washington would have to dispatch fed-
eral agents to Miami to quell anti-Castro agitation. But federal forces failed
to stop the institutionalized embrace of la lucha (the struggle) in Miami.
When Eduardo Arocena was charged in 1983 with trying to assassinate the
Cuban ambassador to the U.S., mayoral candidate Xavier Suarez donated
to his legal defense fund. Suarez’s lackluster poll numbers jumped, and he
won a close election.
Now, Francis Suarez, son of Xavier and the current mayor of Miami, has
hatched his own conspiracy, though a far more benign one—aimed not at
Havana but at San Francisco and New York, and not at counterrevolution
but economic transformation. With the help of disaffected tech investors
and hedge-fund managers, Suarez has put together a twenty-first-century
version of Brigade 2506 to dislodge the coastal enclaves’ grip on the U.S.
tech economy.
“Miami post-1960 is shaped by exiles from Cuba and Venezuela trauma-
tized by an ideology that promises the world and delivers misery,” Suarez
tells me. “That’s where this story begins.” New Miami indeed resembles Old
Miami in certain ways. Those who fled socialism have a deep appreciation

WINTER 2022 61
 America’s Tomorrow City

Mayor Francis Suarez, shown here speaking at a 2021 bitcoin conference, is leading an effort to
transform the city’s economy.

for the work of entrepreneurs, which contrib- capitalists, Suarez replied: “How can I help?” In
utes, in Suarez’s telling, to the region’s business- the ensuing weeks, Suarez built a hype machine
friendly environment. to lure startups and investment funds from coastal
metros to Miami. On Twitter and via back chan-

I t began with a tweet from technology inves-

tor Delian Asparouhov in December 2020, dur-
nels, the mayor engaged in informal exchanges
with billionaires and pseudonymous followers
alike. He began livestreaming “cafecito” talks with
ing the height of the pandemic’s first winter: “ok local entrepreneurs and, in a characteristic move,
guys hear me out, what if we move silicon valley invited Elon Musk to City Hall to discuss building
to Miami.” Echoing a mantra of California venture subterranean tunnels in Miami.

62 CITY JOURNAL
 San Francisco, by contrast, charges a Sugary
Drinks Tax, a Traffic Congestion Mitigation
Tax, and a Cigarette Litter Abatement Fee, atop
the 14.8 percent in state and local income tax
levied on top earners. California has tried sev-
eral times to classify gig workers as employees.
And if Golden State lawmakers can’t kneecap
a company, they might go after its executives.
Last year, for example, San Francisco’s board
of supervisors condemned the naming of a hos-
pital after Mark Zuckerberg, following a $75
million donation to the institution from the
Facebook founder. Not long before, a San Diego
assemblywoman posted “F-ck Elon Musk” on
Twitter.
Longtime Silicon Valley figures gave Mayor
Suarez a hand in recruitment. One was Keith Ra-
bois, an early employee at PayPal, former COO
of payments company Square, and partner at the
legendary VC firm Founders Fund. Rabois made
his fortune in the Bay Area but started searching
for a new home during the pandemic. Miami was
his choice. Over coffee at a Cuban café, he told
me that Covid-19 marked a breaking point in an
already-strained relationship between San Fran-
EVA MARIE UZCATEGUI/BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES

cisco and the tech sector. The city’s “absurdly

restrictive” Covid policies, he says, “were com-
pletely irrational and anti-science and pushed a
lot of people to escape.”
Rabois sees San Francisco’s status as a tech
hub as a historical accident, the consequence of
a clustering of angel investors in the South Bay
in the twentieth century. “Sand Hill Road is the
most boring place on the planet,” he says. “The
only reason it mattered is there was a certain set
and concentration of investors who had a slightly
different risk/reward profile than anywhere else
in the world at scale.”
Rabois used his Twitter megaphone to exhort
Suarez’s pitch was simple. Along with paying entrepreneurs and investors to join him in Mi-
zero in state and local income taxes, transplants ami. “All success is path-dependent,” he says.
to the city would enjoy the services of a respon- “You found a company, then you will it into ex-
sive government that encourages innovation. istence. In Miami, we did the same thing.” The
Miami offers an expedited electronic-permitting social-media blitz wasn’t preplanned; before be-
process and a host of incentive programs such as coming the face of Miami tech, Rabois says, he
Follow the Sun, which provides up to $150,000 had not even met the mayor. But he saw an op-
in grants to local companies. Florida has codi- portunity with Suarez, and even agreed to teach
fied the contractor status of drivers for rideshare workout classes at a local Barry’s Bootcamp to
apps such as Uber. generate buzz for the city.

WINTER 2022 63
 America’s Tomorrow City

Convinced by Rabois’s pitch, tech investors

Shervin Pishevar, David Blumberg, and Jon
S outh Florida may seem an unlikely venue for
techno-futurism. Its economy depends largely
Oringer also left San Francisco for Miami. And on real-estate speculation and tourism, as well as
when New York City emptied out during the a large number of retirees, who bring in a steady
pandemic, a significant number of investors and stream of Social Security, Medicare, and pension
bankers decamped to South Florida. Forced to payments. It’s an economic model seemingly at
conduct business from home, financiers chose odds with the small-government vision favored
the tax-free tropics of Palm Beach and Miami. by the city’s largely libertarian tech crowd.
Financial firms such as Icahn Enterprises moved And Suarez’s startup city project has not been
parts of their offices to South Florida, while without its detractors. Critics on the left see a
Goldman Sachs announced its intention to do so; starry-eyed utopianism that serves the interests
others opened de facto branches there, with em- of capital at the expense of real people. Skeptics
ployees working remotely. point out that the state lacks a university on par
with Stanford or MIT, though the University of

T he hype around Miami set off a flywheel that

seemed to bring a new business to the city every
Miami does boast an entrepreneurship center
to support startups. Journalists have derided
Suarez, a Republican, as unserious.
week. SoftBank launched a $100 million fund ded- But the incumbent cities that Miami wants to
icated to the Magic City, and Microsoft, Spotify, compete with have worn out their welcome for
and TikTok all announced plans to open South many. Silicon Valley, where our nation’s best and
Florida offices. A total of $1.1 trillion in assets un- brightest perfect ad-targeting algorithms by day
der management have moved to the city since the and dodge muggers by night, hardly resembles
campaign began. Venture-capital deal volume in the place where Apple and Intel were founded.
the greater Miami area hit a record $1.9 billion in “The Californian Ideology”—a term coined by
2020, up from $800 million the previous year. two British academics to describe the freewheel-
The sense of excitement is palpable. Miami Tech ing early 1990s ethos of Silicon Valley—rested on
Week, a spontaneous April gathering of investors a “profound faith in the emancipatory potential
and entrepreneurs, morphed from an informal of the new information technologies.” The Val-
meet-up into a Who’s Who of tech. Asparouhov ley’s tech entrepreneurs once aspired to “create
tells me that Founders Fund had initially planned a new ΩJeffersonian democracy≈ where all indi-
a small gathering for its portfolio companies but viduals [would] be able to express themselves
that a series of promotional tweets “memed the freely within cyberspace.” Now Big Tech firms
conference into existence.” “The local ecosystem devote mammoth resources to content modera-
globbed onto it, the mayor did a Ωcafecito≈ event, tion, sanitizing their platforms at the behest of
and a bunch of other venture firms decided to advertisers and politicians. Mounting cash bal-
host parties that week as well,” he says. ances at the largest tech firms suggest a dearth
One investor thus turned hype into some- of ideas. The Valley’s Big Tech companies pay
thing tangible, in what is fast becoming the well, of course, but for those looking to be at the
Miami way. With larger cities still restricting forefront of technological innovation or hoping
in-person gatherings, Miami offered a chance to work with people who truly “think different,”
to meet tech fellow travelers face-to-face. Fol- the consumer-Internet giants increasingly look
lowing the event, cryptocurrency investor like dead ends.
Balaji Srinivasan waxed poetic: “Miami Tech Likewise, the hedonistic and high-flying im-
Week shows that politicians have a new path age of Wall Street that pervades popular culture
to power, demonstrates a new way for citizens is mostly dead in New York’s overregulated,
to exert influence over governance, proves that overtaxed financial sector. Freshly minted Ivy
Silicon Valley has finally achieved its destiny of League graduates could once place exotic, mul-
decentralization, and indicates that the era of timillion-dollar bets in their first year at an in-
startup cities is now underway.” vestment bank. Now they spend as much time in

64 CITY JOURNAL
compliance workshops as in the capital markets. Carter, who left Boston during this past sum-
For better or worse, the next Jordan Belfort will mer, describes Miami as a “sanctuary, one of the
not be a penny stockbroker. most politically free cities in America.” “There’s
Miami offers not just low taxes and a friendly a huge number of Cubans and Venezuelans here
regulatory environment but a culture comfort- who completely disdain and hate socialism,” he
able with risk. Those seeking novelty can find says. “That’s incredibly refreshing when the rest
it in South Beach nightclubs, where overpaid of America is undergoing some sort of socialist
twentysomethings brush shoulders with cocaine awakening.”
kingpins, and in the city’s startups, which look At a dinner I attended in the city’s Brickell
to build a decentralized Internet instead of en- neighborhood, a crypto entrepreneur placed
terprise software tools. Free from the regulatory two AR-15 magazines on the table—a gift, he ex-
hurdles of ordinary finance, a young coder in plained, for a friend who later joined us. Young

“
Miami can play the investors spoke of the
volatile cryptocur- inevitable collapse of
rency markets by day, the U.S. financial sys-
spend $2,000 on bottle
The incumbent tem due to the Fed-
service by night, and cities that Miami wants eral Reserve’s reliance
fit in perfectly. on money-printing
to compete with have to fund federal defi-
worn out their welcome
E
”
cits. When I visited
arly this year, Su- the team at Swype,
arez introduced a reso-
for many. a cryptocurrency
lution to put bitcoin startup, they told me
on Miami’s balance sheet—an unacceptably risky with certainty that their company would be the
move for cash-strapped cities like New York and Apple of the decentralized Internet—the succes-
San Francisco. The mayor himself has disclosed sor not only to Big Tech but also to the U.S. gov-
personal holdings in cryptocurrencies and regu- ernment as we currently know it.
larly sings their praises. In September, Miami em-
braced a project called City Coins, which issues
digital tokens tied to municipalities. Investors can
now bet on the Miami token while generating rev-
M iami has long blurred the line between
creator and crook. At a restaurant in Coral Ga-
enue for the city’s coffers. bles, you never know whether the man at the
Suarez argues that crypto comes naturally next table, clad in a custom suit and impossi-
to Miami, whose exiles have firsthand experi- bly large Rolex, is a diplomat or a money-laun-
ence of hyperinflation. His constituents, he says, derer. The city is home to both crackpot coun-
value a currency system that is “not government terrevolutionaries and seasoned political pros.
controlled, and not susceptible to the things that In the same way, the Miami tech movement
have always created problems with currencies, involves both serious investors and smooth-
whether corruption, mismanagement, or excess talking hucksters. It’s not always easy to tell
government spending.” Suarez sees ballooning them apart.
federal spending as a risk to the dollar’s utility Is the Miami vanguard launching the next Bay
as a store of value, no less so because it can be Area, then, or the New Economy version of the
“manipulated” by federal authorities. Meantime, Bay of Pigs? The uncertainty is the point. Suarez’s
authorities in other states are beginning to crack campaign to lure businesses can be criticized, but
down on digital currencies: a recent order from it seeks to break free from the risk aversion that
New York’s attorney general shut down two increasingly constrains contemporary American
crypto platforms. life. For entrepreneurs dreaming up new curren-
Miami newcomers are attracted by politics cies, new Internets, and new economies, Miami
and policy alike. Cryptocurrency investor Nic is America’s city of the future.

WINTER 2022 65
 Enter the Metaverse

66 CITY JOURNAL
 Unlike the Internet, the
dawning digital environment
promises autonomy from the
physical world.

Bruno Maçães

I
t is no coincidence that the metaverse as
a practical project emerged out of the ex-
perience of the Covid-19 pandemic. The
concept is older, tracing its origins to such
science fiction classics as Neal Stephen-
son’s Snow Crash, but the last two years
have transformed it into an actual busi-
ness proposition, capable of dictating a name
change for Facebook (now Meta) and moving
billions of dollars in capital markets.
The great migration to digital during the pan-
demic showed the enormous advantages of be-
ing able to work and live within an artificial,
secondary universe. In this universe, the laws of
space and time no longer apply, or at least they
can be bent, enhancing human powers in ways
still to explore: an end to long commutes and
the achievement of measurable increases in pro-
ductivity; the ability to participate in meetings
and conferences on different continents and on
the same day; and children still able to attend
school, even amid the worst public-health emer-
gency in a century.
Unfortunately, the limits of digital experi-
ence were no less apparent. A lot gets lost when
ANTHONY KWAN/GETTY IMAGES

human interaction takes place on a screen. The

results of remote schooling have so far proved
mixed, at best. A digital work environment soon
revealed itself as considerably more exhausting
than the real counterpart. Human beings are
built for the kind of immersive interaction that
takes place in the physical world, where all five

WINTER 2022 67
 Enter the Metaverse

senses get involved. Some of our mental abilities, possible to acquire some of the artworks, in both
including memory, suffer markedly when we are physical and virtual formats. Virtual objects, once
reduced to disembodied egos on Zoom. As for acquired, must be preserved within the metaverse.
entertainment, digital experiences are still so far One should be able to carry them to other digital
from the actual fun of going to a restaurant or a spaces, without sacrificing their virtual authentic-
music concert that nothing one tried on the Inter- ity, in a world where “virtual authenticity” is not a
net during the lockdowns measured up. contradiction in terms.
The immediate appeal of the metaverse is that Return to the virtual malls above. Users visit
it promises to marshal the virtues of digital life, a virtual car dealership where they can buy a
while addressing many of its shortcomings. In- model to be delivered to their physical homes.
stead of business meetings on Zoom, imagine They will want to test the car virtually, and they
entering a digital room and talking to our col- may also be interested in buying a virtual twin to
leagues around a virtual table, or even walking drive in the metaverse. The virtual and physical
together in an electronically conjured garden. I worlds might become increasingly integrated.
imagine the metaverse as a virtual world with An immersive three-dimensional environment
some of the characteristics of a city. There will be expresses the vision of a metaverse more fully
virtual malls, where users can move from store to and more naturally than other interfaces, but it
store and buy the products that will later be de- isn’t the innovation’s most important feature.
livered to their physical homes—a big improve- What truly distinguishes the metaverse is its au-
ment in digital shopping over the flat webpage. tonomy from the physical world. The metaverse
There will be virtual beaches where we can meet exists on its own. It has a life of its own. It creates
our friends to chat and play, much like what a genuinely alternative world. As Mark Zucker-
Fortnite already offers today, only much better. berg does not tire of pointing out, the metaverse
There will be concerts and art galleries. Is there cannot be compared with the Internet because
a reason to travel physically to Venice to visit it aims to place us within the digital experience,
the Biennale instead of jumping into the meta- inside an embodied Internet, on a more or less
verse and enjoying all the art and video installa- unending basis. One accesses the Internet. One
tions with the latest fully immersive technology? enters the metaverse.
Traveling to exotic locations could happen while The difference matters. To see why, consider
we sit in our own living room. It’s easy to imag- how the relation between user and the digital
ine the growth of a new digital economy, where environment gets turned on its head. With the
creators will be less dependent on mediators of Internet, the user remains sovereign, dictating
all kinds. Barriers to entry will likely be lower, when and how digital interactions take place. In
and audiences potentially much larger, than in the metaverse, the user finds himself entirely sur-
the real world.  rounded by the platform, and the quality of the
experiences will frequently depend on whether

T he metaverse has to be highly concurrent: this

artificial world has to be continuously updated
he or she accepts that fact.
Zuckerberg notes that nothing will prevent
us from using non-virtual technologies to enter
from the inputs of its millions, or potentially bil- the metaverse, at least in part. There are obvi-
lions, of users. The only way a virtual experience ous practical limits to the deployment of virtual-
can rival the real thing is if it acquires the same flux reality headsets, for example. If your metaverse
and complexity. It’s not enough to encounter a pre- avatar is scheduled to attend a musical concert
packaged version of reality. One wants to travel but you happen to be riding the subway in the
to a virtual Biennale in order to see what others physical world at the time, it should be possible
are preparing for us in real time; ideally, too, one just to listen to the concert on an app in your
wants to arrive with thousands of other people, phone, using regular headphones.
with whom it would be possible to interact and But the metaverse needs to be fully persistent
with whom one could share the event. It should be and continuous. If the ambition of the metaverse

68 CITY JOURNAL
is to constitute an artificial world, capable in The simplicity of Twitter’s artificial world has
time of rivaling the real one, experiences there created difficulties for its revenue model—there
must acquire meaning with reference to other ex- is only so much one can do to monetize it. Imag-
periences in the metaverse, not just those taking ine now a Twitter that you could enter in virtual
place in the real world. And this means that the reality, with advertising hanging on the walls of
metaverse should never really disappear, even a virtual room where messages are exchanged.
when a user momentarily withdraws into real One can think of a metaverse version of Twitter
life. The metaverse must persist or perdure. that features virtual stadiums, where your social
This is not to say that 3-D technology will not media followers will congregate to hear your
be a significant element of the metaverse. Once it speeches, or where you could launch your own
is established that the metaverse aims to create a entertainment programs.
persistent and continuous environment, it makes Many current social developments are early
sense to develop that environment in ways that manifestations of what the metaverse will likely
make it genuinely capable of rivaling the physi- bring. As social media laid down the initial in-
cal world. Three-dimensional technology is a frastructure for alternative realities, we witness
part of that, as are payment services, games, cur- how conspiracies of all kinds and other social
rencies, and networks. games start to erupt. Many can be better under-
stood as analogues of video games, elaborate

A spects of the metaverse have been around

for a while already. How to interpret the ad-
programs where participants take on different
roles or avatars and must follow complex rules
determining how the game should be played and
vent of social media if not as the first stage of how to perform the tasks for which social points
the metaverse? Consider Twitter. It has some of may be awarded. As the metaverse expands,
the characteristics of an artificial world, starting phenomena of wholesale dissociation from re-
with high density and including persistence and ality are bound to multiply. We may soon face
continuity, helping to explain its extraordinary a choice between building a rich metaverse and
success. Technically, Twitter is rather primitive, improving the real world, just as reality faces
a predominantly verbal medium of low band- new crises ranging from pandemics to climate
width. From a conceptual perspective, however, change. Even economic growth may eventually
it has been a revolution: a new world that users bifurcate between two concepts, one valid in the
enter rather than contemplate and that continues metaverse and the other in physical reality.
to exist and develop in their absence. Log out,
go to sleep, and when you wake up, all kinds of
developments, responses, and interactions will
have occurred.
O ne day, the Internet arrived, seemingly from
nowhere, and we got used to thinking that it
I am reminded of the story of a New York would be forever. It now seems clear that we are
executive who posted an ill-considered tweet on the cusp of a successor: the metaverse. Much
right before boarding a flight to South Africa a has been written about a clash of titans between
few years ago. While she was flying, presum- Facebook and Microsoft to decide which will con-
ably without Internet service, the tweet was trol the new virtual world to which humanity as
retweeted thousands and thousands of times a whole is supposed to migrate. Usually, though,
every hour; she was fired from her job, lost all market forces follow state forces: Is there a geopo-
her friends, and saw her life collapse like a house litical race for the metaverse?
of cards. She had disconnected from Twitter, One of China’s main think tanks recently
but the beast kept growing and moving, even in published a report on the implications of the
her absence. What makes Twitter addictive is its metaverse for national security—perhaps the
actual resemblance to the physical world in the first such reflection. The main conclusion is not
power of its autonomous operations, while being that we shall soon be fighting wars in the meta-
relatively free of many of its constraints. verse but something much more plausible and

WINTER 2022 69
 Enter the Metaverse

relevant. The report sees three immediate im-

pacts of the metaverse. First, it will be a driver
for technological innovation and, in some cases,
in areas adjacent to military interests: simulation
graphics, artificial intelligence, wearables, robot
technology, and brain-computer interface. The
second will be to move the digital ecosystem and
the digital economy to new technological plat-
forms—e-commerce will no longer take place
on current platforms, for instance. Third, the
metaverse will start to integrate the needs of the
virtual and physical worlds, as we saw above,
realizing an old ambition of the Internet age.
The report anticipates that the metaverse
could have deep consequences for the global dis-
tribution of power. It “will trigger a new round
of reshuffling” in the global technological order.
Some companies and countries will lose out; oth-
ers might have an opportunity to rise. That hap-
pened already with the Internet economy, when
Europe could not help falling behind the United
States and China was able to resist the imperium
of the large American platforms only from a
MIGUEL CANDELA/ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES

purely defensive posture.

According to the Chinese think tank, Ameri-
can authorities may hope to use the metaverse
revolution to push U.S. companies to a new and
unassailable position of global dominance, while
taking advantage of the new technology to pro-
mote American culture and American values
globally. That Meta has taken the lead is seen as
particularly ominous. 
It is easy to see why many might regard the
concept of the metaverse as excessively influ-
enced by Western ideas. The metaverse is, before
everything else, a method of escapism. Each in- sion of a revolutionary party is to call the masses
dividual gains the freedom to pursue his or her to a common project and to transform the physi-
own most personal fantasies in the metaverse. It cal world as needed to satisfy this objective—not
is as if the common world fragmented into mil- to encourage an escape to an artificial universe.
lions or billions of private universes. Science fic- Renowned blockchain expert Yu Jianing, author
tion writer Liu Cixin argues that the metaverse of a new book in China called Metaverse, has in-
is like a drug—one so powerful as to break our sisted that the metaverse must never become a
connection with the world around us. As he put virtual economy but only a tool “empowering
it, humanity is now at a fork in the road: in one the real economy.”
direction lies the exploration of outer space; the I do see one way to reconcile the metaverse
other leads inward toward virtual reality, the with CCP interests. Rather than using the
“dead end of entertainment.” metaverse to invent purely imaginary worlds,
How could the Chinese Communist Party not it would be possible to use it to create altered
regard the project as a threat? The historical mis- versions of the real world. In this sense, the

70 CITY JOURNAL
Chinese Internet is already a kind of metaverse, ticipants know only the broadest strokes of the
a virtual-reality machine giving us a vision of plan, sufficient to defend it and to communicate
the world from which certain elements have with lower levels. Others know nothing. Only
been excised. a few can see months or years in advance. The
The concept reminds me of phenomena I have metaverse would offer a range of similar pos-
written about in a different context: China’s vast sibilities to the Chinese regime. By forging dif-
global Belt and Road infrastructure-and-invest- ferent levels of virtual reality, it could establish
ment initiative. Even in its formative stage, the different levels of access for different groups,
Belt and Road is an exercise in the opacity of while ensuring a much tighter grip on how ac-
power. There is an exoteric doctrine of the ini- cess is distributed.
tiative—and then an esoteric practice, where The metaverse represents the most recent bat-
deals are agreed upon, often with no written tle between human freedom and the constraints
evidence, and where hierarchy resembles that of reality. It could also become a battle to define
of security-clearance levels of access. Some par- reality itself.

WINTER 2022 71
 The Medium Is the Menace
Ubiquitous digital media offer
potent rewards—but at
the price of eroding our sensory
and social capacities.

Andrey Mir

T
he media theorist Marshall McLuhan held that every me-
dium constitutes an extension of our physical or mental fac-
ulties. The hammer extends our fist, the spear our teeth, the
hut our skin, the wheel our feet—and electronic media our
central nervous system. By broadening human intellectual
and social faculties far beyond our natural abilities, the In-
ternet has given us incredible benefits. Never before could
humans augment their knowledge of any subject matter so quickly and eas-
ily; never before have people had so many contacts.
But everything comes at a price. Amplified abilities may provide new
powers, but they also lead, in McLuhan’s terms, to the “numbing” and
“amputation” of organs and skills formerly responsible for certain tasks. A
phone’s digital memory remembers phone numbers for us, but it cuts off
the part of our organic memory responsible for basic recall. Machines do
many things much more efficiently than people once did, but they atrophy
bodily functions, disrupting not only the preexisting sensorium but also old
physical skills and social habits. Ubiquitous digital media, with their new
reward system, threaten even more troubling changes.

E valuating the gains and losses that new media produce is an old tradition.
In Plato’s Phaedrus, god-inventor Theuth brought a gift of letters, which he
created for people, to King Thamus for approval. Theuth claimed that writing
would make the Egyptians wiser and improve their memory. Thamus replied
that writing would actually cause forgetfulness because people would “not re-
member of themselves”—they would rely on “the external written characters”
instead of their memories. Writing would become “an aid not to memory, but
to reminiscence.” People would learn a lot but know nothing. They would ap-
pear wise know-it-alls but lack real wisdom.
Both mythological figures proved right. If devices cause the “organic”
memory to deteriorate, as Thamus warned, our “practical” memory has
also improved beyond measure, supporting Theuth’s stance. You no longer

72 CITY JOURNAL Illustrations by Ryan Peltier

WINTER 2022 73
 The Medium Is the Menace

plausibly can fail to get in touch with somebody link, react to a story, or share it with others, we
just because you forgot his phone number or can help the Internet to evolve, like a bee pollinat-
fail to wish a friend a happy birthday because ing flowers, in McLuhan’s formulation. Improv-
you couldn’t remember the date. Some personal ing the relevance of online content, our day-
faculties have deteriorated, yes; but media are and-night labor of clicks enhances the Internet’s
much better at performing functions that we pre- convenience for us, which, in turn, strength-
viously did physically. ens its power over us, making us develop its
The discussion of the merits and demerits of protocols and devices. Having collapsed the
technology has continued ever since Plato. It has space between people—as well as between peo-
flared up recently, as the pace of technological ple and knowledge—the Internet has freed up
change has accelerated. Writing took millennia to the time formerly needed to cover that space. In
spread; the Internet conquered the planet in de- exchange for this service, the Internet expropri-
cades. The speed has amplified the shock, making ates our time.
the arguments of the techno-skeptic Thamus more
tangible. In the 1990s, the Internet was praised as
a great repository of knowledge. In the 2000s, it
was hailed as an environment of free communica-
A ll this labor is changing us. Digital media
alter not only our physical skills but also our
tion. But since the 2010s, it has often been consid- brain’s physiology. The human brain contains an
ered a danger—both to people and institutions. estimated 100 billion neurons, each connected to
The logic of our faculties’ migration into me- others by hundreds of synapses. Brain activity
dia, extended far enough, leads to a complete consists of the electrochemical “firing” of neu-
human resettling into media. The more our ca- ral circuits. Repeated experiences reinforce the
pabilities migrate to media, the more our power burned-through links; neurons that fire together
grows over our physical and social environ- wire together. This electrochemical blueprint of
ments—and the more essential it is to improve our thoughts and feelings, the mechanism about
the potency of our media. The migration of phys- which we still have only a limited understand-
ical abilities to, say, a stone ax dealt with only a ing, creates a self-adjusting neural network: a
tiny fraction of our needs. The Internet, by con- natural supercomputer.
trast, caters to all human collective and personal Nicholas Carr’s 2010 book, The Shallows, com-
activities. piles research showing what the Internet is do-
Indeed, we are nearly all the way there, save ing to our brains. Reading books and reading
for some physical daily routines. Media are in- online hypertext trigger “firing” in different brain
creasingly taking over our body’s work to ac- regions. Book-reading activates regions respon-
complish those physical and intellectual tasks sible for speech, memorizing, and processing vi-
better and faster, which frees up time to spend sual information. Hypertext “reading” activates
on—what else?—consuming and developing the brain regions responsible for problem-solv-
media. As McLuhan said, “[M]an becomes, as it ing and decision-making.
were, the sex organs of the machine world, as the As Carr notes, this might be beneficial for el-
bee of the plant world.” In exchange for develop- derly people. Before the Internet, they tended to
ing them, media offer us “nectar” in the form of face few intellectual challenges and make few
conveniences of all sorts. Convenience can make new acquaintances. Now they make hundreds of
humans dependent, however; and in the digital micro-decisions: To click or not to click? To like
universe, this can certainly seem at times like a or not to like? To comment or not to comment?
loss of freedom and independence. This mental labor, similar to solving simple puz-
We’re not just spending time on the Internet. zles, lasts the entire time a person is online. It
We are investing time in its improvement. If keeps the brain alert and alive at the physiologi-
value in digital capitalism is created in the very cal level, forcing it to “fire up” new synapses. In
process of a platform’s use, then we are all work- the offline world, the elderly simply never had
ing for digital capitalism. Every time we click a such a massive torrent of mental micro-tasks.

74 CITY JOURNAL
 Such exercise rewards the brain with hor- age American online), this behavior also forms
monal pleasures related to curiosity and social- a habit—a neuro-disposition, adjusted to certain
ization—important parts of the survival code interactions with the world. The brain rewires it-
of a social animal. Curiosity leads us to find self, enjoying instant reward for little effort.
food and territory, while socialization ensures For older people, the benefits may outweigh
propagation and protection. We feel elated when the damage. Their newly obtained devotion to
we reveal something interesting (as expressed in the online environment is unlikely to cause seri-
Archimedes’ “Eureka!”) or receive credit (what ous harm to their life offline. For everyone else,
Hegel called the “struggle for recognition”). though, the realignment of behavioral stimuli to
To capture more of our time and engagement, digital stimulation with micro-rewards may en-
the Internet has appropriated our hormonal danger their well-being and even physical safety.
stimuli by offering opportunities for curiosity The ease of a click gives users instant access

“
and socialization that to people, knowl-
we would never have edge—and rewards.
found offline. It offers These rewards change
the flow of micro-stim-
Sensing pleasure but people’s sensory and
uli in exchange for our not satiation, we spend social settings, causing
engagement. When the most significant,
a user sees a reaction
more and more time yet invisible, harm as-
online. This is a feature,

”
from others, thought- sociated with the In-
fully facilitated by ternet. In the physical
social media design-
not a bug. world, rewards were
ers, the brain receives naturally delayed and
a hit of dopamine, a neurotransmitter bringing demanded greater effort, to which the brain was
pleasure to reward certain behavior. According accustomed. The delayed reward was typi-
to a study at the UCLA brain-mapping center, cally well deserved, and obtaining it provided a
an fMRI scanner shows “significantly greater ac- stronger, more distinct pleasure. The hormonal
tivation in parts of the brain’s reward circuitry” rewards from food, sex, curiosity, comfort, so-
when teenagers see “likes” given to their pictures. cialization, and creativity brought vivid excite-
A scan observed neuro-patterns similar to those ments. The link between effort and reward was
when a person sees the pictures of loved ones often multilayered, too. For example, sex required
or wins money. The pleasure is minuscule and the hard labor of building relationships, but with
almost unrecognizable, but the desire to get an- that could come love and the comfort of marriage.
other hit of dopamine keeps us online; we resem- Reading a Dostoyevsky book took serious men-
ble the gambler constantly pushing the handle of tal effort but delivered the joy of an intellectual
the slot machine in the hope for the next reward. epiphany and the benefits of status socialization.
Another aspect of the same “struggle for re- Unlike rewards in the physical world, the
sponse” is known to psychologists as FOMO— reward of a click is as trifling as the effort ex-
Fear of Missing Out. Evolution made people fear pended. The low quality incites a huge demand
not staying in touch with others, not knowing for quantity: sensing a hint of pleasure but never
what they know, not getting recognition, not get- satiation, people spend more and more time on-
ting a sufficient share of social grooming. This line. This is a feature, not a bug: the social media
fear not only maintains constant users’ online ac- platform benefits from our increased engage-
tivity but leads them to intensify this activity in ment with it, which, in the material form of per-
pursuit of a better response. sonal data, is expropriated, commodified, and
Instant gratification for online activity drives profited from.
the user engagement that Internet platforms re- Billions of users get used to choosing smaller
quire to be profitable. But when practiced almost immediate rewards over larger delayed gratifi-
eight hours per day (the time spent by an aver- cation. In psychology, this choice is associated

WINTER 2022 75
 The Medium Is the Menace

with the deficit of self-control. Matched with from nomadic to sedentary culture took millen-
constantly produced but never satiating hits of nia; the migration from villages to cities took
micro-pleasure, this condition leads to a grow- centuries; the resettling onto the Internet will
ing attachment to its source—what is more com- take about 70 years.
monly known as digital addiction. Since online But present-day humans will have to live in
activity physically is almost effortless and often both worlds for a while, even as one intrudes on
requires just a click, it has no physical limitation the other. The older generations living today—
and tends to capture a user’s available time. digital immigrants—developed their basic phys-
A study showed that about 5 percent of social ical skills before the Internet. Millennials, on the
media users in the observed group were at high other hand, became the first digital natives: they
risk of addiction. There were 4.55 billion social were socialized in an environment that rewards
media users in the world in October 2021. Five not effort but mere presence expressed by clicks.
percent makes 227.5 million—that many people Since clicks are so easy to make, the exposition of
are at risk of SNS (social-network sites) addic- people’s presence to one another becomes enor-
tion, a phenomenon that psychiatrists are now mous. The reward of recognition, promised by
considering recognizing as a mental-health dis- a click, sinks in an incredible noise. In the old
order. To compare: the UN reported in 2020 that physical world, people competed through the
35 million people in the world were suffering intensity of effort; in the new digital world, they
from drug-abuse disorders. The rate of addiction compete by the intensity of presence. Hence the
risk (5 percent) among the digital population is movement toward extreme opinions, rage on
higher than the share of people using cannabis (4 social media, and political polarization, only
percent of the world population) or nonmedical natural in a society that rewards the intensity of
opioids (1.2 percent). self-identification more readily than it rewards
Those managing to avoid the risk of addiction effort.
do not avoid the larger risk of a critical detach- This development affects the entire society
ment from physical reality. When you adjust to across generations. But older people remem-
existing in the digital world, you lose the endur- ber when physical restrictions and face-to-face
ance, diligence, and resilience needed to thrive communication imposed both positive and
in the physical world. Reading loss, a shrinking negative incentives not to exaggerate personal
attention span, and weaker concentration are differences. Mitigating differences and compro-
only superficial manifestations of the brain’s ad- mising were a winning, or at least more or less
aptation to the click’s instant reward. The trans- safe, strategy in the physical world. In the digi-
formation goes deeper: if the moral principles of tal realm, the active signaling of an identity is
the physical world reward you for what you do, the condition of successful socialization. Studies
the moral principles of the digital world reward show that digitalization of social networking not
you for who you are—for simply indicating your only intensified peer pressure but also confused
presence. Thanks to digital media, your mere ex- social and physical reality for younger people.
istence online is now considered an effort, merit- If digital immigrants firmly distinguish the
ing a reward. We have yet to see the true depths old physical world from the new digital world,
of this moral transformation. for digital natives it’s all a single hybrid real-
ity where offline activities and old-fashioned

T echnological development—from the cul-

tivation of fire to the invention of the hammer,
face-to-face communications are the somewhat
disturbing, but so far unavoidable, continua-
tions of a more comfortable digital existence.
the wheel, and the remote control—has always Compared with the digital world, which confers
sought to reduce the effort needed to receive re- instant rewards for a mere click, the physical
wards. The difference today is that the transition world requires too much effort. Since more and
from the physical world to the digital world is more activities migrate into digital, digital na-
happening with astonishing rapidity. The shift tives increasingly withdraw from the physical,

76 CITY JOURNAL
WINTER 2022 77
 The Medium Is the Menace

the most unpleasant part of their hybrid reality. stinctive fear of collision start, say, driving cars?
The hybrid reality contributes to the so-called Will media evolution be there in time to replace
delayed adulthood: millennials and Generation drivers with autopilots in self-driving vehicles?
Zers have less or later sex, start fewer families, The social and political worlds are adapting,
drive fewer cars, leave parental homes later (if too. The click’s instant reward has already been
at all), and so on. changing the structure of content packaging. The
Interestingly, instead of the terms “digital na- classic template of “setting-culmination-resolu-
tives” and “digital immigrants” that Marc Pren- tion,” which used to be the structure of the com-
sky introduced in 2001, David S. White and pleted narrative and hence of many organized
Alison Le Cornu suggested in 2011 the terms activities, is becoming too time-consuming and
“visitors” and “residents” as better descriptions bulky. Linear reading of large, complete chunks
of different people’s (and generations’) engage- of information might have required time and ef-
ment with new technologies. Indeed, younger fort but helped develop rational, abstract, and
generations reside in the digital, while predigi- deliberate thinking. It is being replaced with the
tal generations just visit it, though increasingly flow of identity-signaling on Twitter and Tik-
often. However, the opposite is also true: digital Tok. And while the mainstream media hurry
residents just visit the real world for some resid- to warn that democracy is in danger, it is the
ual needs, but they always hurry to return to the overwhelming surplus of direct democracy that
digital environment. truly threatens the old democratic order. A child
The old world is still putting up a fight. Legacy of the printing press, representative democracy,
systems of family upbringing and education still which was based on rational deliberation and in-
require sizable effort in exchange for delayed re- stitutions, collapses under the pressure of direct
wards. But such a balance is unnatural for digital democracy based on digital torrents of instant
natives. Parents bribe their children with tablets identity signaling.
to keep them entertained and buy themselves Recent social and political upheavals reflect
some time. The touchscreen devices stimulate this conflict between people whose sensorium,
children’s curiosity with the click’s irresistible moral principles, and culture are based on either
instant reward and thus shape their sensorium the delayed or instant rewards offered, respec-
and their moral evolution. tively, by old and new media. Trying to hem in
Digital natives are fit for their new environ- digital youth within the old constraints of de-
ment but not for the old one. Coaches complain layed reward would require enormous effort
that teenagers are unable to hold a hockey stick and contradict the logic of the digital environ-
or do pull-ups. Digital natives’ peripheral vi- ment. Digital abstention might be an attractive
sion—required for safety in physical space—is boutique phenomenon, and some people even
deteriorating. With these deficits come advan- manage to escape social media. But in general,
tages in the digital realm. The eye is adjusting to the human species has already been altering its
tunnel vision—a digital native can see on-screen morality, neurophysiology, and sensorium to re-
details that a digital immigrant can’t see. When settle into the digital environment. The process
playing video games, digital immigrants still is massive and seemingly irreversible.
instinctively dodge bullets or blows, but digital
natives do not. Their bodies don’t perceive an
imaginary digital threat as a real one, which is
only logical. Their sensorium has readjusted to
I n 2014, Clay Shirky, a prominent new-me-
dia theorist, published in the Washington Post
ignore fake digital threats that simulate physical an interesting reflection on his failed resis-
ones. No need for an instinctive fear of heights tance to digital technology. For a long time,
or trauma: in the digital world, even death can Shirky had let his students use gadgets in
be overcome by re-spawning. Yet what will hap- class, thinking that it would be embarrass-
pen when millions of young people with poor ing to ban the very subject he was studying.
grip strength, peripheral blindness, and no in- He thought that a good professor teaching an

78 CITY JOURNAL
interesting course could keep his students fo- embryo develops features resembling gill arches,
cused. But he eventually realized that he could a tail, and so on. Modern biology does not recog-
not. No lecture about the use of the telegraph dur- nize recapitulation as a law, but this idea might
ing the Crimean War could rival a smartphone’s provide a useful metaphor.
flashing, vibrating notification that your ex just The principle of media recapitulation might be
posted a new photo. Shirky tried to comfort described as follows. To become a resourceful in-
teachers and parents, assuring them that it was dividual adapted to the modern reality of media
not their fault that they were losing their kids to consumption, a child has to go through all the ba-
gadgets; the entire tech industry—the entire pro- sic stages of the species’ media evolution through
cess of media evolution—was working against oral, literate, print, and digital eras. Children, that
them. New media recruit the best engineers, in- is, should be taught step-by-step to manipulate
vestors, scientists, and marketers to make their toys, draw, read and write, and use electronic and

“
products more engag- digital media—only in
ing. The only way to that historically estab-
defeat gadgets in the lished order. Exposure
fight for attention, he
Children should be to next-stage media, if
concluded, is to ban taught to manipulate toys, allowed prematurely,
them. would interfere with
Could success in
draw, read and write, and mastering the earlier
use electronic and digital

”
the physical world skills. No rattle, color-
require curtailing the ing book, or adventure
technologies neces-
media—in that order. novel can compete
sary for existing in the with a digital device’s
digital world? And is that even doable? Digital instant reward. If newer media are introduced
media have annihilated space and made negli- into a child’s life before older media, they inhibit
gible the efforts required for socialization. Being the child’s sensory, mental, moral, and emo-
social animals, we were bound to fall into this tional development. If a child learns how to use a
honeypot that we had built for ourselves. The touchscreen before reading, the touchscreen’s
key to digital resistance lies not in neo-Luddism appeal and speed of reward will make him a
but in media awareness. Online, our consump- less able reader. The child’s neurons will already
tion is also our labor. It does not require special be wired for an instant reward that no book can
effort, but it does require our time. Media lit- provide.
eracy is, first and foremost, time management. Just as media literacy means time manage-
Media literacy is the ability not to use media. ment, media recapitulation essentially means
Digital detox is fast becoming a healthy life- age-based media-access management. Responsi-
style trend. Various digital detox services are ble adults should identify the age ranges for giv-
already considered promising for venture in- ing a child access to each new medium: playing
vestment, and an entire industry will doubtless with toys, listening to reading aloud, indepen-
emerge. But digital detox will deal with a body dent reading, TV, gadgets, video games, time-
that the Internet has already damaged. To pro- limited access to the Internet, and, eventually,
tect the skills and functions still required for peo- unlimited access to the Internet with their own
ple to survive in the physical world from digital device. Media recapitulation will not solve the
influence, one should consider limiting digital problem of the click’s instant reward, but it could
consumption for children as they form the basic render constructive the essentially negative idea
skills needed for the physical world. of the digital ban. Media recapitulation turns a
In biology, the concept of biogenetic or embry- ban into access—step-by-step access, based on
onic recapitulation implies that “ontogeny reca- the historical dynamic of media’s influence on
pitulates phylogeny”—an individual repeats the human neurophysiology, sensorium, and social
evolution of its species. For example, the human skills.

WINTER 2022 79
 Bring Back Risk

80 CITY JOURNAL
 Our increasing aversion
to taking chances creates
dangers of its own.

Allison Schrager

J
une 24, 2013, was a clear day in
the Arizona desert. Nik Wal-
lenda walked carefully along the
two-inch-thick high wire, sus-
pended 1,500 feet (the height of
the Empire State Building) above
Hellhole Bend, a gorge near the
Grand Canyon. Wallenda prayed as he slowly
traversed the 1,400-foot wire, facing 30-mile-per-
hour winds. His pace picked up, and he broke
into a brief sprint as he reached the end, smiling
widely as he jumped off and kissed the ground.
MIKE BLAKE/REUTERS/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

The year before, Wallenda had walked across

Niagara Falls, but the American and Canadian
governments and ABC, which filmed the stunt,
required him to wear a safety harness. Not this
time. There was no harness or net. If Wallenda
fell, he was on his own.
Wallenda trains obsessively. He insists that
tightrope-walking is mostly a mental activity.
Doubting yourself after you take a risk may be

Daredevil Nik Wallenda crossing a section of the

Grand Canyon

WINTER 2022 81
 Bring Back Risk

the biggest danger of all, rivaled only by the false flourishing society and vibrant economy. Inves-
sense of security that comes from thinking that tors and entrepreneurs must take chances to find
someone else, or a safety net, will protect you if new innovations. Individuals need to do so as
you screw up. well, in order to achieve their personal and eco-
But being a tightrope walker isn’t what it used nomic potential. If well designed, regulation can
to be. Wallenda devotes significant time and help us balance risk and reward sensibly. But
energy to getting permits and complying with our goal as a society seems more and more to be
safety regulations that don’t necessarily make reducing risk at all costs.
him safer—and may even expose him to danger.
He wears a harness only if the government per-
mit or broadcaster demands it. Terry Troffer, his
father and chief rigger and safety coordinator,
C onsider the economic effects of contemporary
regulators’ reach. A bewildering tangle of fed-
told the Chicago Tribune: “It’s more of a danger eral, state, and local housing, business-licensing,
to him. If someone is walking with a harness, it’s and health-care mandates is making it harder and
easy to just say, ΩIt’s OK if I fall because I have costlier to move to a new city or to change jobs
a harness.≈ You are kind of over-relaxed. If you and rendering entrepreneurship untenable for
don’t have a harness, you know you’d better not many Americans. Entrepreneurship and open-
take the slightest misstep.” Wallenda knows that ness to new opportunities once fueled America’s
a safety net offers no guarantees. An uncle of his economic dynamism, but now the government is
died after falling into one and bouncing off it becoming our risk inhibitor, a collective helicopter
onto the hard ground. parent.
Americans have become intolerant of many Long before Covid-19, risk-taking was in-
risks that people once dealt with on a daily basis, creasingly discouraged. Between 1970 and 2019,
as the Covid-19 pandemic has shown. Even 20 the page count of the federal code of regulations
years ago, retreating to our homes for months on on business and industry thickened from 54,000
end at the government’s urging for a virus with to more than 185,000. State and local regulations
Covid’s risk profile would have been unthink- can be even more of an economic burden, espe-
able. We’ve often heard during the pandemic cially for small businesses. The number of jobs
that we can return to normal “when it is safe.” that required a license, for instance, rose from 5
Indeed, we hear the word “safe” a lot these days, percent in the 1950s to 22 percent today. Small
but it’s often an unrealistic standard that no pre- wonder that the rate of new business creation
vious generation expected. Certain Covid restric- fell 10 percent between the 1980s and 2018. Other
tions can be justified, but extreme risk-aversion factors influence this decline, including an ag-
from government bureaucrats has caused more ing population and changing market structures
harm than good—for example, shutting down that reward larger firms, but surveys from the
in-person teaching for children, who were at low National Federation of Independent Business
risk from the virus, or imposing draconian eco- consistently rank regulatory compliance as a
nomic lockdowns that caused many businesses top economic concern. An example of the state
needlessly to fail. and local bureaucratic obstacles that someone
There are many reasons for our declining risk launching a small business can face: San Francis-
tolerance. We were raised and live in a richer can Jason Yu recently spent over $200,000 seek-
society, where we need to take fewer risks. The ing permits to open an ice cream shop in 2019,
government plays a growing role in removing before giving up in frustration.
risk from our lives, from the financial system However well intentioned, many risk regula-
to the workplace and beyond. We wind up less tions can impose steep costs. Governments grant
used to confronting risk—and less prepared for tax incentives to employers, for example, to pro-
life’s inevitable shocks. vide health insurance to their workers. Later, the
This threatens not only our resilience but also, federal Affordable Care Act sought to reduce
over time, our prosperity. Risk is critical for a risks further by mandating that most companies

82 CITY JOURNAL
offer such insurance. Such measures, by driv- a low-income individual in the American econ-
ing up the price of individual insurance, have omy, risk-taking is especially expensive when
made employees less inclined to leave their jobs things go wrong, and success is less rewarding
to start a new business, and thereby lose their when it happens.
health benefits. The economy loses some of its
vitality.
The government push to reduce risk can some-
times make us more vulnerable, not less. Mis-
T he suppression of risk has other adverse eco-
nomic effects. Using Social Security records of
fortune cannot be eliminated, and we can find Americans between 1978 and 2013, economists
ourselves less hardy in the face of the bad things estimate that wages for many Americans aren’t
that still happen. The Federal Reserve, for exam- rising as fast as they once did. And researchers
ple, increasingly aims not just to take the edge also find a notable decline in wage variability—

“
off inevitable reces- that is, wages have
sions but also to keep become more predict-
its policies (or even able. Moving to more
public discussions of
Psychologists believe productive parts of
them) from sinking that taking chances and the country, starting a
the stock market. This new business, chang-
distorts the price of
confronting uncertainty ing jobs—these kinds
are crucial to personal

”
risk and our percep- of bold actions have
tion of it—and capital driven lots of wage
then flows to riskier
growth and dignity. growth and variation
places, leading to new in the past. With less
vulnerabilities in the economy. The Community of that going on, we get languishing wages and
Reinvestment Act of 1977 and subsequent itera- more entrenched inequality. It’s notable that the
tions of it sought to boost homeownership by only Americans whose wages remain variable—
subsidizing mortgages and lowering lending growing fast—are the top 5 percent of earners.
standards, giving Americans a means of building It took a pandemic for people to start quitting
low-risk wealth and security—or so the legisla- their jobs again and forming new businesses,
tion’s backers argued. But the measure distorted but government policy is working against these
the price of risk in the mortgage market, helped salutary trends by piling on risk protections. The
inflate a dangerous housing bubble, and—when Biden administration’s Build Back Better plan
that bubble burst in 2007—left many families aims to make gig work harder, heavily favors
worse off because their wealth was trapped in an unionized workers, adds more wage floors, and
illiquid, over-leveraged, and now-depreciating introduces more constraints on the economy. But
asset. such policies will only reinforce the stagnation
Low-income Americans can be hurt the most and inequality that progressives claim to be con-
by excessive risk reduction. Savings programs cerned about.
that target this population often nudge or require Risk aversion is holding many Americans
them to invest their money in low-risk bonds. back in noneconomic ways, too. Psychologists
This ensures no losses, yes; but it also means believe that taking chances and confronting un-
that their wealth can’t grow as fast—especially certainty are crucial to personal growth and our
in today’s low- or negative-interest-rate era. sense of dignity. Without them, curiosity dims
Labor-market regulations frequently discour- and a work ethic can seem pointless—why leave
age small-scale entrepreneurship and gig work, your parents’ basement? (This is why uncondi-
which many striving people use to climb the in- tional cash benefits from the government are a
come ladder. Social-welfare programs are often bad idea.) Social psychologists such as Jona-
structured so that gains in income result in lost than Haidt have argued that such as parenting,
benefits and higher marginal tax rates. If you’re which keeps kids from taking risks and handling

WINTER 2022 83
 Bring Back Risk

inevitable setbacks, is one reason that some col- A few of the risk-taking originals are still
lege students have become more anxious and alive. One is Ken Deardorff. He became Amer-
think that the mere expression of certain ideas ica’s last frontiersman, when, in 1974, the then-
can actually harm them. 29-year-old Vietnam veteran moved to the
Alaskan wilderness to become a homesteader.

A merica was founded in part on the ideal that

anyone, including those with modest means, can
By Deardorff’s time, homesteading was mostly
something that people read about in history
books. But he was always different. Born and
make their fortune here by seizing opportuni- raised in Southern California, he knew from a
ties, which often entailed bold actions. Through young age that he didn’t want the life of com-
much of human history, rigid social and economic fort and predictability to which most people
structures meant that only elites had such oppor- aspired in the postwar era. He dreamed of a
tunities. But America adopted policies that en- frontier lifestyle, where he could “wake up, raise
couraged ambition at all levels of society. the window, and shoot something.” Deardorff’s
A dramatic example was the 1862 Homestead homestead was 80 acres in the most remote part
Act. It granted free land to settlers, conditional of central Alaska, an area full of wildlife. The
on five years of continuous residency and on im- closest community, about 40 miles by boat, was
proving the land by farming or building on it. As Stony River, a mostly native village with only a
with so much else of America’s past these days, few dozen residents.
historians are taking issue with the Homestead He arrived at his claim in February 1974 with
Act for not conforming to current ideals. They two small planeloads of gear. It was 10 degrees
fail to appreciate that the act was a progressive below zero—so cold that his breath froze as he
policy that created wealth for many people who slept in his tent. Each morning, after warming
lacked it, provided that they took up the danger- himself by the fire, he’d strap on snowshoes, cut
ous work of taming the frontier. Back then, land down wild spruce trees, and work on building
was the primary form of wealth; the chance to his 12-square-foot log cabin. Once he moved

SMITH COLLECTION/GADO IMAGES/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

own it was transformative. According to histo- into the cabin, he says, his quality of life im-
rian Everett Dick, “Just as gaining an education is proved significantly because it had a stove to
the surest way to rise in society today, in colonial keep him warm. There were no roads, mail ser-
days the acquisition of property was the key to vice, or barges, so the only way to get supplies
moving upward from a low to a higher stratum. would be to take a small boat to the village. He
The property holder could vote and hold office, mostly lived off Spam and canned lima beans
but the man with no property was practically on before developing better hunting and trapping
the same political level as the indentured servant skills.
or slave.” Immigrants, single women, and former Deardoff’s wife later joined him, and they had
slaves could all qualify to homestead. a daughter. They all adapted to the Alaskan wil-
America became, at least for a few genera- derness, but their lives were never easy. They
tions, a country made up disproportionately of would often wake up to find bears surrounding
small farmers in charge of their own destiny. the cabin, though Deardorff says that aggres-
There were downsides to the risk, of course. sive moose could pose a bigger threat. The fam-
The life was hard, the land often remote; settlers ily sometimes had to climb trees, or hide their
contended with disease and dangerous wildlife. young daughter in one, to escape wildlife.
Some gave up—but many others succeeded. Be- Yet, even with the dangerous fauna and harsh
tween 1862 and 1976, when the program ended conditions, homesteading was not what it used
(except in Alaska, which remained partly unset- to be. The American economy and society had
tled), 1.6 million homesteaders claimed roughly changed. A bureaucracy had emerged that didn’t
10 percent of the land area of the United States. reward risk-taking; in fact, it discouraged it. In
Today, between 46 million and 93 million Ameri- 1979, Deardorff filed for his homestead patent
cans descend from an original homesteader. for the 80 acres, but he met with long delays and

84 CITY JOURNAL
mountains of paperwork. He finally got a patent came not risk facilitation but risk reduction, es-
in 1988 for almost 50 acres—two years after the pecially for low-income Americans.
program officially ended in Alaska. That makes
him America’s last homesteader.
Deardorff represents the passing of an era. The
Homestead Act ended chiefly because there was
R educing risk is often a worthy policy goal.
For most of history, people lived shorter lives and
not much prime land to give away anymore— were on the verge of severe poverty and starva-
but its closure also symbolized a historical shift tion. Nearly half of children died before reaching
in which the objective of government policy be- adulthood.

WINTER 2022 85
 Bring Back Risk

The industrial era brought two major develop- The wealth that technology helped generate
ments that enabled human beings to reduce the has allowed us to afford more risk reduction,
risks to themselves. We invented new technolo- which can be expensive. During the 1918 Span-
gies, and we got much wealthier. Technology ish flu pandemic, for example, America could
has allowed us to measure risk more accurately neither afford to pay people to work from home
and ameliorate it. The modern sewage system nor enable them to do so, as it could during the
eliminated the dangers of cholera and other wa- Covid-19 outbreak. Thanks to wealth and tech-
ter-borne illnesses; airbags make us safer while nology, food scarcity is less of an issue, and im-
driving. And the revolutions in computing and proved health care has reduced the incidence of
data improved our ability to predict and pro- early mortality. The wealthier we are, the more
tect against all kinds of dangers, from extreme we’re able to distribute largesse to those in need.
weather to crime. Previously, if people fell on hard times, helping

86 CITY JOURNAL
 them was more the work of charities, often reli- with starting a business favor large incumbents
gious, than the government. or those with lots of capital already at their dis-
But wealth and technology introduced new posal. Moving to a big city that offers higher pay
risks. People flocked to cities, creating new health and better opportunities requires being able to
hazards involving disease and sanitation. The ex- afford high rents right out of college, largely be-
tension of the market economy subjected every- cause zoning regulations restrict new housing
one to the shock of a recession at the same time. In construction. Encouraged by student-loan sub-
response to these developments, the state began sidies and restrictions on the ability to default
to take on a greater role in risk reduction—build- on debt (another risk distortion), recent gradu-
ing sewers, imposing food safety regulations, ates leave college saddled with financial obliga-
and, eventually, with the New Deal in the U.S. tions. These programs, which began as a way to
and similar programs in Europe, establishing make college affordable (partly because it was

“
government pensions seen as a low-risk in-
and benefits for dis- vestment), have be-
ability and unemploy- come a major factor
ment. These innova-
The government’s driving up the price
tions marked a major focus shifted from of education. Thus,
shift in our relation- a system that aimed
ship with risk. The
managing risk to originally to reduce
eliminating it—and

”
federal government risk for all has instead
was suddenly there to ossified income in-
bail you out if things
productivity stagnated. equality and limited
went wrong. our potential.
There are, to be sure, advantages and efficien-
cies in government’s assuming these responsi-
bilities. Government builds infrastructure that
we all use. National insurance can be an efficient
A fter a global pandemic, it might seem coun-
terintuitive to say that Americans need more
means of protection, since the government can risk. Nevertheless, we’re at a critical moment.
MALTE MUELLER/GETTY IMAGES

pool risk across different people and generations. The Build Back Better agenda would push the
The government plays a valuable role by compel- risk-elimination project to a new level, paying
ling people to insure against unemployment and out more government benefits to all but the
diversifying risk across different generations by highest earners. Thanks to technological inno-
issuing debt. vation, it’s easier than ever to earn a living do-
However, over the years, this risk-reduction ing remote, freelance, and gig work, all of which
role has expanded to the point of being coun- can make workers more autonomous and en-
terproductive. In some states, to take just two trepreneurial. But the changing structure of our
of innumerable examples, you can’t braid hair economy threatens to hold people back from
without hundreds of hours of expensive train- exploring these options. We should instead be
ing; or, if you’re a carmaker, you can’t sell to supporting risk-taking—with a robust safety
customers except through a dealer. Somewhere net, yes, but one that doesn’t diminish the up-
along the way, the government’s focus shifted side of risk.
from managing risk efficiently to eliminating it This is not only important for economic
entirely—and with that change, wage growth growth. As Americans like Nik Wallenda and
and productivity have stagnated. Our welfare Ken Deardorff understood, risk-taking is also
state has grown to encompass new programs about realizing our potential. The alternative to
and regulations with little thought of preserving reviving a national culture of risk-taking—recap-
the motivation to take some chances. turing some of the frontier spirit that sent Dear-
Risk-taking is becoming a luxury of wealthier dorff to the wilds of Alaska, or Wallenda up on
Americans. The costs and regulations associated a high wire—is a deliberate choice to stagnate.

WINTER 2022 87
 War of the States

88 CITY JOURNAL
 In a battle for jobs and
people, Republican governors
challenge the Biden
agenda with tax-cutting
and deregulation.

Steven Malanga

I
n 2009, facing a revenue drop-off from the
previous year’s recession, states raised
taxes collectively by $29 billion—at the
time, the largest annual hike in history.
Many of the biggest increases occurred in
Democratic-leaning states, including New
York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, which
targeted businesses and upper-income residents
especially, even as newly inaugurated president
Barack Obama touted a similar agenda in Wash-
ington. What seemed like a new taxing trend dis-
sipated, however, after the 2010 midterms, when
Republicans captured seven governorships and
full control of 23 state governments, up from just
ten before Obama’s election. The newly elected
governments quickly began cutting taxes and
reducing business regulations, setting off an in-
tense, often acerbic, state competition to attract
wealthier residents and employers. This battle
transformed the American economic map, right
up to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Now, with another pro-tax Democrat, Joe
TASOS KATOPODIS/UPI/ALAMY LIVE NEWS

Biden, in the White House and a lockdown-in-

duced recession in the rearview mirror, another
clash among the states is breaking out. Several
Democratic strongholds, claiming fiscal stress
and the need for “equity” in taxation, have ini-
tiated big increases on individuals and firms.
Meantime, a group of largely Republican-lean-
ing states have cut levies. The rise of remote
work and the vastly different Covid strategies
Virginia governor-elect Glenn Youngkin has joined
other Republican state legislative leaders in calling
for pro-growth tax cuts to boost local economies.

WINTER 2022 89
 War of the States

that states have adopted have added unique ployees opt out of union membership. Among
elements to this conflict. The Biden administra- other changes, the measure nixed a sweetheart
tion has also joined the fray. Having learned deal that the state’s teachers’ union had negoti-
from the Obama years how effective the GOP ated requiring local school districts to buy health
strategy can be, Biden is trying to blunt some Re- insurance at uncompetitive rates from a union-
publican state economic policies through federal controlled firm.
mandates. But only a year after Biden’s victory, The regulatory face-off extended to private
Republicans have already won the governorship unions. Over five years, beginning in 2012, five
and legislative control of one solidly Democratic states passed right-to-work laws ending manda-
state—Virginia. The battle over states’ futures tory unionization and allowing workers to opt
will intensify in the run-up to November’s elec- out of membership in labor organizations, bring-
tions, with 36 governorships and more than 6,000 ing to 27 the number of right-to-work states.
state legislative seats in play. What prompted that flurry of lawmaking—the
previous five states to adopt right-to-work mea-

I t’s hard to overestimate the influence that the

2010 state elections had on America’s political and
sures took nearly a half-century to do it—was
the growing perception that companies were
becoming reluctant to locate jobs in states that
economic landscape. Republicans went from com- forced unionization on workers. Indiana’s Dan-
plete control of just one-fifth of state governments iels, who previously had displayed little interest
to nearly one-half, and that momentum kept in right-to-work legislation, signed such a bill in
building until the GOP had won 33 governorships 2012, his final year in office. “During the debate,
by 2016. The party also gained a remarkable 900 which was very contentious, I was urging both
additional state legislative seats. sides not to overreact or exaggerate,” Daniels
The policy results: tax cuts, regulatory reform, said. “But I may have underestimated the impact.
and constraints on the growth of government We have had a flood of calls and inquiries [from
spending—sometimes in surprising places. Af- businesses], starting literally the day I signed the
ter New Jersey elected Republican Chris Christie bill.” Nearby Michigan and Wisconsin soon en-
in November 2009, he and a moderate Demo- acted similar legislation.
cratic legislature cut the state corporate tax and A right-to-work environment has become a
capped the rise of local property taxes. Michi- key factor in location decisions for industrial
gan Republican Rick Snyder, elected governor companies in particular. Right-to-work states ac-
in 2010, scrapped the costly Michigan Business counted for nearly 70 percent of manufacturing’s
Tax, an old-fashioned levy on gross receipts, and jobs recovery from the recession through 2019.
replaced it with a modern, less onerous corpo- Indiana gained 50,000 manufacturing jobs from
rate income tax. Later, Snyder reduced personal the time of its right-to-work conversion through
income-tax rates. Maine’s Paul LePage reduced 2019. Its next-door neighbor Illinois, once the
corporate and individual income taxes and Midwest’s manufacturing powerhouse but a re-
eliminated taxes entirely for 70,000 low-income quired unionization state, added just 6,000 jobs
families. over the same period.
Republican governors also battled unions to The impact of right-to-work has become even
slash costs and ease regulations. Indiana’s Mitch clearer over the longer term. A study by consult-
Daniels, facing opposition from government ing firm NERA of economic growth over 15 years
worker groups for his efforts to reduce spend- in right-to-work states found that private-sector
ing, rescinded, via executive order, the right of employment expanded in those locales by nearly
public employees to bargain over his reforms. 27 percent from 2001 through 2016, compared
In Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker caused with 15 percent gains in other states. Personal in-
a national furor when he enacted legislation to come rose by 6.3 percent in right-to-work states,
end public unions’ ability to bargain collectively compared with just 0.2 percent in other states.
over benefits. The law also let government em- Even during downturns, right-to-work states

90 CITY JOURNAL
proved better at retaining jobs than other states, Texas has also vastly outperformed Califor-
the study found. No wonder, then, that these nia in drawing new investment, as tracked by
states keep attracting investment. Recently, Ford Site Selection magazine. In 2020 alone, firms an-
and a foreign partner agreed to spend about $11 nounced 781 new projects in the Lone Star State,
billion to build two electric vehicle battery plantscompared with just 103 in California. None of
in Kentucky and an assembly facility and battery this is surprising if one listens to what company
maker in Tennessee, which collectively will em- executives say about business conditions, partic-
ploy more than 10,000. General Motors is spend- ularly now. Asked by Chief Executive during the
ing $2.8 billion on a new Tennessee plant, while pandemic where they were most likely to locate
Volkswagen is investing $800 million to expand new facilities, the top officers at America’s big-
its facility in the state. gest companies selected Texas as the top des-
tination, with California mentioned least often.

T
“
Right behind Texas
he state battle were Florida, Tennes-
over jobs has become see, North Carolina,
intense and some-
In 2020, firms and Indiana. The ex-
times personal, as announced 781 new ecutives mentioned
Republican governors taxes, regulations,
from pro-business
projects in the Lone Star and availability of tal-
State, compared with

”
states now openly ent as key factors in
woo firms and resi- their decisions, but
dents from Demo-
just 103 in California. how states handled
cratic states. When Covid also mattered
Texas ran provocative radio ads in the Golden significantly. Virus lockdowns, the magazine
State in 2013, inviting businesses to move South, noted, made executives “an increasingly restless
then–California governor Jerry Brown derided bunch,” open “to all kinds of new ideas about
the effort as “barely a fart.” The media jumped how—and, more to the point—where to do
to California’s defense, with the Sacramento Bee business.”
editorializing about Texas’s high rate of prisoner States that remained more open for business
executions and low rates of health insurance. tended to rise in executives’ estimation. South
Despite such dismissals, poaching GOP states Dakota, for instance, improved 12 spots from
have benefited at California’s expense—especially the previous magazine poll. “We’ve been free to
recently. A new study by Stanford University’s operate as we choose, not just through the pan-
Hoover Institution found that the persistent pace demic, but long before as well,” Travas Uthe, the
of companies relocating out of California accel- CEO of Trav’s Outfitter, in Watertown, South Da-
erated during the pandemic. From 2018 through kota, told Chief Executive. Blue states like Rhode
mid-2021, 265 California firms moved operations Island that were more open than their neighbors
out of the state, with those in Los Angeles and San also benefited.
Francisco Counties leading the way. Over more The struggle over Covid restrictions between
than a year of harsh lockdowns in California, the executives and state officials sometimes turned
study found, monthly relocation announcements nasty. Early in the pandemic, Elon Musk de-
had doubled. Only 27 of the businesses tracked nounced California’s decree that shut his Tesla
by the study, moreover, moved to states that are manufacturing facility in Fremont as “fascist.”
not right-to-work. Instead, places like Texas, Ten- Musk is now building a new Tesla facility in
nessee, and Arizona have grabbed the most Cali- Austin and located his high-profile space-explo-
fornia exiles. Though derided by the Bee, Texas ration venture, SpaceX, in Brownsville, Texas.
was overwhelmingly the preferred destination, (See “Liftoff in Brownsville,” Spring 2021.) Re-
attracting 114 firms, including blockbuster moves cently, he announced that Tesla’s headquarters
by Oracle and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. would move from California to Texas. Memories

WINTER 2022 91
 War of the States

of extreme Covid restrictions may last for years, a new tax war. After the lockdowns, states and cit-
one relocation expert told Chief Executive. “States ies predicted unprecedented revenue drops. One
that had strong and balanced leadership during estimate put state-tax losses at $150 billion in fiscal
Covid will probably be the best positioned for 2021. California projected a $40 billion shortfall.
short- and long-term economic growth.” Instead, economies bounced back quickly from the
Technological adjustments that companies pandemic, partly because of widespread adoption
made during Covid lockdowns are adding new of remote work and extensive federal aid from
twists to relocation battles. Remote work gives the Trump and Biden administrations—hundreds
businesses far more flexibility in where they put of billions of dollars in unemployment benefits
jobs, which will almost certainly make executives (which kept individuals spending money), busi-
more inclined to consider low-tax, low-regulation ness loans, and funding for local governments
places. A recent Moody’s Analytics study looked to fight Covid. The March 2021 Biden stimulus
at concentrations of jobs in industries where then provided local governments with an unprec-
employees are most likely to work remotely— edented $350 billion to bolster their budgets. The
including finance and business services—and revenue gusher has produced state budget sur-
ranked cities by such factors as quality of life pluses where experts had only recently predicted
and cost of living. The winners in this new work steep deficits.
world, Moody’s suggested, will probably be Nearly a dozen states, mostly Republican-gov-
small and midsize cities in the South and West, erned, have used the windfall to cut taxes. Idaho
while the losers will be big northeastern cities— reduced its corporate and individual tax rates and
including New York and the greater Washing- shrank its income-tax brackets from seven to five,
ton, D.C., metro area. Similarly, office-occupancy producing a $163 million tax cut for residents
numbers in major U.S. cities during the pandemic and businesses. The state also sent $220 million
have consistently shown that workers were far in rebates to everyone who filed tax returns in
less certain to be in the office in the biggest down- 2019. Iowa used its unexpected surplus to push
town markets, like New York, Chicago, and San forward already-planned tax cuts, saving taxpay-
Francisco, than on average in other cities. ers $298 million next fiscal year. Governor Pete
Partially in response to remote work, smaller Ricketts signed legislation cutting Nebraska’s
cities with a high quality of life are shifting eco- corporate-tax rate twice over the next two years.

ERIC GAY/AP PHOTO

nomic-development priorities from attracting Ohio dropped its top income-tax rate and raised
companies to attracting their employees. Chat- the minimum level at which lower-income resi-
tanooga and Tulsa, for instance, have begun of- dents must pay taxes from $21,100 to $25,000—
fering remote workers up to $10,000 to relocate. providing tax relief at both ends of the income
Some developers in places like Ogden, Utah, are spectrum. Other states lowering taxes included
even embarking on combined residential/com- Arizona, Wisconsin, Louisiana, and Oklahoma.
mercial projects designed to attract remote work- These moves may be only the beginning of
ers. And it’s not just northeastern cities that this the tax-cutting wars. Several Republican gover-
realignment threatens. Recently, venture capital- nors have said that they want to eliminate their
ist and Democratic strategist Bradley Tusk wrote state’s income tax eventually. West Virginia’s
that Silicon Valley firms looking to exit Califor- Jim Justice, reelected in November 2020, argues
nia are eyeing cities in Republican-governed that ending the tax is necessary to reverse the
states, including Texas, Arizona, Tennessee, and state’s population decline and spur new invest-
Georgia. Though some cities in these states, like ment. He’s angling for phased-in cuts, starting
Austin, are progressive politically, Tusk noted, with a 60 percent reduction, until income taxes
low state-tax rates are a big attraction for firms. are gone. Republican legislative leaders in Mis-
sissippi are looking at something similar, backed

Indeed, tax cuts remain a powerful tool to entice

people and firms, and the pandemic has triggered
by Governor Tate Reeves. The aim, Reeves has
told the press, is to help Mississippi compete
with other no-income-tax states like Texas and

92 CITY JOURNAL
Former governor Rick Perry sparked controversy back in 2013, when he tried to lure businesses to Texas
in ads that ran in Democratic states.

Florida, whose economies have been booming. a year, including eliminating the state sales tax
Currently, seven states have no income tax, and on groceries, suspending gas-tax hikes for a
two others—Tennessee and New Hampshire— year, cutting income taxes by doubling the stan-
don’t tax wages. dard deduction that Virginia filers can take, and
Count Virginia’s new Republican governor, requiring that voters approve local property-
Glenn Youngkin, as another potential tax-cutter. tax hikes. His chances of enacting these items
Though the fight over parents’ education rights improved substantially after Republicans also
drew the most national attention during the retook Virginia’s state legislature, part of a state-
state’s November 2021 election, voters said that wide GOP sweep. That victory, moreover, means
the economy was the biggest issue, and taxes that Virginia will remain a right-to-work state
ranked third, after education, in importance. for the foreseeable future. Democratic guberna-
Youngkin’s agenda includes tax cuts that he esti- torial candidate Terry McAuliffe, by contrast,
mates would save the average household $1,500 had criticized right-to-work.

WINTER 2022 93
 War of the States

T he Republican moves contrast sharply with

those of Democrats in high-tax states. Despite
long ranking among the nation’s highest, ranked
a dismal 42nd in economic growth over the five
$12 billion in Biden stimulus, New York heaped a years preceding the pandemic, according to one
$4.3 billion new tax burden on residents, largely study, and it has been an economic laggard for
focusing on the wealthy. Several other blue states two decades. Voters in this overwhelmingly
tried to raise taxes, only to be thwarted by resi- Democratic state showed their disapproval in
dents. Illinois governor Jay Pritzker lobbied for giving incumbent Murphy an extremely narrow
a $2 billion tax increase, which would have re- victory in his November reelection bid. Polls
quired changing the state constitution, but vot- showed that most voters favored the Republican
ers soundly rejected the idea in November 2020. position on cutting taxes over Murphy’s.
A California ballot initiative, which would have True, other factors beyond taxes, such as
rolled back provisions of the 1978 Proposition 13, workforce quality, can drive economic gains and
resulting in an estimated $12 billion tax increase business-location decisions, but what high-tax
on businesses, was similarly rejected by voters, advocates ignore is that fiscal policy doesn’t exist
despite the backing of key state Democrats. Now, in a vacuum. High taxes typically reflect a phi-
Massachusetts Democrats seek their own $2 bil- losophy of government that also imposes heavy
lion hike via a ballot initiative asking voters to regulations, which raise the cost of living for
approve a graduated income tax so that legisla- residents and the cost of doing business. In fact,
tors can raise levies on upper-income residents. virtually every state that ranks among the high-
The next battleground may be unemploy- est-taxed—including New York, New Jersey,
ment taxes—a significant cost for many firms. California, and Connecticut—shows up among
The spike in lockdown-caused joblessness has the top ten in regulatory burden and overall cost
drained state unemployment trust funds. As of of doing business, too. The inhospitable climate
early 2021, the funds in 37 states had fallen be- drives away businesses and residents alike.
low minimum levels, as determined by the U.S.
Labor Department, and 22 states collectively had
to borrow some $45 billion from the federal gov-
ernment to maintain payments. Now the bill is
O ne key progressive regulatory issue increas-
ingly affecting business is the expensive effort
coming due. While some states, including Ohio, in places like California and New York to move
Virginia, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada have used away from fossil-fuel power before alternative-
Biden stimulus money to replenish their funds, energy supplies are reliably available and af-
several Democrat-led states, including New fordable. To meet state-imposed mandates for
York and New Jersey, have opted to direct all renewable energy, California utilities have in-
the stimulus into other spending and set big in- vested heavily in new generating projects, and
creases in taxes on businesses. New Jersey, for passed the cost on to consumers. Even before
instance, boosted its unemployment taxes by 20 recent spikes in worldwide energy prices, rates
percent, or $252 million, in 2021, part of a series for Californians were soaring. Between 2011
of phased-in increases. New York businesses, for and 2019, energy prices rose by 30 percent in the
their part, face hikes ranging from 26 percent to Golden State, while remaining flat in the U.S. on
a staggering 160 percent of previous tax rates, ac- average. Though California residents use about
cording to state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. half the energy of the average American house-
Advocates for higher taxes often say that the hold because of the state’s mild climate, it costs
levies don’t drive away wealthy individuals or about the same percentage of family income to
businesses. When New Jersey raised taxes on the power a home in California as it does in most
wealthy in November 2020, Democratic gover- states in the Northeast, where chilly winters
nor Phil Murphy said, “When people say folks drive up energy use.
are going to leave, there’s no research anywhere More regulation and higher costs are immi-
that suggests that happens.” Yet New Jersey, nent. California municipalities, including Berke-
with taxes on the wealthy and on businesses ley, Menlo Park, and San Jose, have nixed new

94 CITY JOURNAL
natural-gas hookups, forcing construction of
more-expensive-to-operate all-electric homes
F acing an increasingly stark competitive divide
among the states, the Biden administration now
and commercial buildings. Towns in Silicon Val- seems intent on trying to level the playing field.
ley, including Cupertino and Mountain View, The stimulus bill, passed after it was obvious that
homes of Apple and Facebook, respectively, state revenues were rebounding, contained un-
have joined the bans. Big energy users have re- precedented language prohibiting states from us-
sponded to the high rates and growing unreli- ing any of the money “directly or indirectly” to cut
ability of the state’s electric system by locating taxes. Republican attorneys general in 21 states
new facilities elsewhere. Google has constructed sued to invalidate that provision, arguing that
giant server farms in Oregon. Intel, after com- Washington was seeking unconstitutional con-
plaining about the energy chaos that struck straints on a power traditionally reserved for the
California in the early 2000s, built a $3 billion states. In particular, the lawsuits claimed, the no-
chip-production facility in Phoenix in 2008, and tion that states couldn’t indirectly use Biden dol-
the firm recently broke ground on two new chip- lars to fund cuts—in other words, couldn’t reduce
manufacturing plants in Arizona—a $20 billion taxes if they accepted federal stimulus money,
investment. even if they had a budget surplus generated by
New York, already labeled by business execu- their own tax revenues—would have made virtu-
tives as one of the worst states to operate in, is ally any tax-cutting impossible. A federal judge
moving in California’s direction. Former gov- agreed and issued an injunction against the rule.
ernor Andrew Cuomo sacrificed thousands of Similarly, the administration’s proposed Pro-
energy jobs in economically struggling upstate tecting the Right to Organize, or PRO Act, would
communities when he banned fracking. Though eliminate the right-to-work provisions of the
New York’s electricity rates for industrial com- Taft-Hartley Act, a move that legal experts have
panies are already 50 percent higher than the called “the most significant change to United
national average, Cuomo also closed the mas- States labor law in decades.” The measure would
sive Indian Point nuclear facility in Westches- end the right of employees to opt out of joining
ter, which generated about one-quarter of New a union if their workplace is organized. It would
York City’s energy, in favor of using unreliable also single-handedly deprive right-to-work
renewable sources. He also refused to let energy states of one of the most significant characteris-
firms build natural-gas pipelines to expand sup- tics that manufacturing firms look for in decid-
ply to the state. That prompted Con Edison, a ing where to situate their plants these days. The
downstate utility, temporarily to halt natural- probable effect would not be to shift production
gas hookups in portions of its area in 2019 be- to blue states but to drive it overseas instead.
cause it couldn’t assure adequate supplies—a Thirty-six governorships are up for grabs
situation that the Business Council of Westches- in November’s elections. In 2008, after Obama
ter described, in testimony before the state Pub- won his first term, Republicans resided in just
lic Services Commission, as “a serious threat to 21 governor’s mansions. Republicans now hold
the future development and the economic health 28 governorships, which is why the new battle
not just of Westchester, but across the entire met- for jobs among the states has heated up more
ropolitan area.” quickly in this election cycle. Though there may
Energy constraints have already harmed lo- be fewer competitive governors’ races this year
cal economies. A moratorium on gas hookups than in 2010, thousands of legislative seats are
in upstate New York prompted cancellation of also in contention. Even a few major Republican
a new medical facility in Lansing, which would victories could supercharge the already-electric
have employed 100, and it stalled the opening of competitive environment among states.
other new businesses there, creating a local eco- Republicans know that they have a playbook
nomic crisis. Power-grid operators in the North- that works. Democrats were reminded of that
east warn that without greater supply lines, New in last November’s elections. The stakes this
York soon could face rolling blackouts. November will be even higher.

WINTER 2022 95
 The Fate of the Conservative
Legal Movement
Expected in June, the
Supreme Court’s ruling
in the Dobbs abortion case
will be a defining moment
in the Right’s battle
for the Constitution.

J. Joel Alicea

T
he conservative legal movement
finds itself at its most precarious
point since its inception in the
early 1970s. That might sound
implausible. The last four years
saw the appointment of three
Supreme Court justices, dozens
of appellate judges, and nearly 200 district court
judges—almost all coming from within the ranks
of the conservative legal movement. Conserva-
tives on the Supreme Court now (ostensibly)
hold a 6–3 majority, making it, in all likelihood,
the most conservative Court we will see in our
lifetimes. It would thus be easy to conclude that
the conservative legal movement is at its apogee.
But it is precisely the movement’s success that
puts it in peril. After decades of laying intel-
lectual groundwork, building institutions, and
engaging in politics, legal conservatives are in a
position to accomplish what they see as the re-
KEVIN DIETSCH/GETTY IMAGES

vival of the rule of law. But with that success has

come high expectations that the Supreme Court
will deliver on the legal goals that have sustained
the movement through many disappointments
and false starts. Foremost of those goals: overrul-
ing Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision establishing a

Pro-choice and pro-life activists demonstrate

outside the Supreme Court, October 2021.

96 CITY JOURNAL
WINTER 2022 97
 The Fate of the Conservative Legal Movement

constitutional right to abortion; and Planned Par- the Court required states to provide indigent
enthood v. Casey, the 1992 decision that reaffirmed criminal defendants with a lawyer, mandated the
Roe’s “central holding.” More than any other Su- principle of one-person-one-vote in redistrict-
preme Court decision, Roe is responsible for the ing, declared a right to use contraception, and
emergence of the conservative legal movement. required the reading of so-called Miranda Rights
If there were only one reason that the movement to those taken into police custody. All these (and
has endured for decades, it would be to see Roe many other) decisions were controversial, and
overturned. all represented dramatic departures from well-
These will be the stakes when the Supreme established constitutional law. A revolution in so
Court decides Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Or- many areas of law and social life was bound to
ganization—the lawsuit challenging the constitu- provoke a counterrevolution in law and politics,
tionality of Mississippi’s prohibition on abortions and it did.
after 15 weeks of pregnancy—this summer. As The legal counterrevolution began when
oral arguments at the Supreme Court in Decem- then–Yale law professor Robert Bork published
ber highlighted, Mississippi and its supporting an article that began laying the intellectual foun-
amici have expressly asked the Court to overrule dation for the conservative legal movement.
Roe and Casey, and Dobbs squarely presents that “Neutral Principles and Some First Amendment
issue because, as Jackson Women’s Health Or- Problems” argued that the Supreme Court’s le-
ganization asserted in its briefing and at oral ar- gitimacy rests on its ability to derive principles
gument, Mississippi’s ban “directly contravenes neutrally from the text and history of the Consti-
[Roe’s] Ωcentral holding≈ and cannot stand” if Roe tution, define those principles in a neutral man-
remains good law. This, then, is the moment the ner, and apply them impartially across cases. To
conservative legal movement has fought to bring the extent the justices instead derive principles
about. If the Court fails to overrule Roe, the ruling from their own viscera, define them arbitrarily,
will likely shatter the movement, and while (un- or apply them inconsistently, Bork wrote, they
der a proper conception of the judicial role) the “claim for the Supreme Court an institutional-
potential effect of Dobbs on the conservative legal ized role as perpetrator of limited coups d’etat.”
movement should be irrelevant to the outcome in Bork cited as a prime instance of this illegitimate
that case, it would be a significant legacy of the decision-making the Court’s opinion in Griswold
Roberts Court if Dobbs brought an end to one of v. Connecticut, the 1965 case holding that married
the most successful intellectual and political proj- couples have a constitutional right to use contra-
ects of the past half-century. ception (a right that the Court extended to un-
That demise would result not only from married individuals in the 1972 case of Eisenstadt
dashed expectations but also from intellectual v. Baird). Griswold famously (or, to most legal
tensions within the conservative legal move- conservatives, infamously) based its holding on
ment—present since its inception and now com- the notion that, while no specific provision of the
ing to the fore. The Dobbs decision will likely Constitution clearly established the right to use
either increase those tensions to the point of contraception, “specific guarantees in the Bill of
rupture or greatly alleviate them. Next summer Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations
will be a defining moment in the battle for the from those guarantees that help give them life
Constitution. and substance.” To Bork, this was emblematic of
the lawlessness of the Warren Court.

W hat we now know as the conservative le-

gal movement was born in the aftermath of the
Bork thus began charting an alternative theory
of constitutional adjudication based on neutral
principles derived from the text and history of
Warren Court, the period from 1953 through the Constitution. It was a path that would lead to
1969, when Earl Warren served as chief justice. It the development of originalism, the theory that
was a time of tremendous upheaval in American constitutional provisions must be interpreted
constitutional law. To take just a few examples, and applied in accordance with the meaning they

98 CITY JOURNAL
had when they were ratified. Subsequent works Harvard law professor James Bradley Thayer
by Justice William Rehnquist and Harvard law had articulated this principle in an 1893 lecture,
professor Raoul Berger furthered originalism’s “The Origin and Scope of the American Doctrine
development, and by 1980, it had become a rec- of Constitutional Law.” The Supreme Court,
ognized rival to the brand of progressive consti- Thayer argued, should hold a political act un-
tutional jurisprudence embodied by the Warren constitutional only “when those who have the
Court. right to make laws have not merely made a mis-
The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 proved take, but have made a very clear one—so clear
decisive to originalism’s ascendancy, ushering that it is not open to rational question.” Progres-
in a wave of judicial appointments (including of sive constitutional theorists took up Thayer’s ar-
Bork to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. gument in the early twentieth century as a way
Circuit) and the elevation of committed original- of criticizing Supreme Court decisions holding

“
ists to senior positions many early progres-
in the Department sive and New Deal
of Justice. The ap- initiatives unconsti-
pointment of Justice
By 1980, originalism tutional. But things
Rehnquist as chief had become a recognized took a turn during the
justice and of Antonin Warren Court as the
Scalia as an associ-
rival to the brand of judiciary began as-
jurisprudence embodied by sertively intervening

”
ate justice, along with
several high-profile in state and federal
speeches defending
the Warren Court. social policy, lead-
originalism delivered ing the New Dealer
by Attorney General Edwin Meese in Reagan’s justice Hugo Black to lament, in his Griswold
second term, made it clear that originalism was dissent, that the progressive Warren Court had
here to stay. It had become the default theory of betrayed the judicial-restraint principles of the
constitutional adjudication for a new coalition progressive New Deal Court.
that formed the conservative legal movement. As Princeton professor Keith Whittington
has observed, Black’s accusation of the Warren

B ut from the beginning, two major sources of

tension beset the movement: a division among
Court’s hypocrisy in Griswold became a standard
attack by early legal conservatives. Bork made
the point explicitly in his 1971 article, as did
originalists and a division between originalists and Rehnquist in an important 1976 lecture. Early
conservative non-originalists. legal conservatism, then, had a strong commit-
The first, intra-originalist tension, was between ment to judicial restraint, and it saw originalism
those who saw originalism as a means to achiev- as a way of reining in an out-of-control judiciary.
ing some other substantive end and those for An important implication of this view was that,
whom it was the only legitimate constitutional to the extent that originalism did not restrain
methodology. Those holding the instrumentalist the judiciary, it should be abandoned as having
view hoped that originalism would achieve vari- failed to serve its purpose. The instrumentalist
ous ends but were usually most concerned with commitment to originalism was contingent, not
shrinking the federal judiciary’s role in Ameri- based on deep principle.
can life after the Warren Court’s aggressive in- Unlike the instrumentalists, other legal con-
trusion into the political and social realms. They servatives saw originalism as logically entailed
advocated originalism as a way of achieving “ju- by the Constitution and the principles on which
dicial restraint,” by which they often meant that it rested. This theme, too, can be found in Bork’s
the judiciary should generally allow the demo- 1971 article. Bork argued that the basic principle
cratic process to settle controversial political and of our system is that the majority rules. But the
social questions. majority established limits on its own power

WINTER 2022 99
 The Fate of the Conservative Legal Movement

through the Constitution, and this placed the ju-

diciary in the position of having to determine,
T he second tension is equally significant. From
the beginning, legal conservatives have disagreed
through constitutional interpretation, when the about whether originalism rests on a sufficiently
majority had done so. If the Court wrongly held robust moral foundation. All constitutional theo-
that the Constitution limited majority power ries, including originalism, ultimately require
when it did not, this abetted tyranny of the mi- a moral argument for why we should obey the
nority; if the Court held that the Constitution Constitution. Even if a judge believes, based on
did not limit majority power when it actually some ostensibly morally neutral reason, that the
did, this abetted tyranny of the majority. Bork only way to interpret a historical document like
called this the Madisonian dilemma, and the the Constitution faithfully is according to its orig-
only way for the Court legitimately to draw the inal meaning, that does not show that the judge
line between majority and minority power, he should care about faithfully interpreting the Con-
maintained, was to interpret the Constitution stitution. If we are not bound by the Constitution,
in line with neutral principles, and that could the judge would be free to ignore a faithful inter-
be achieved only by deriving, defining, and ap- pretation and proceed to rewrite the Constitution
plying those principles based on the text and instead. To explain why this would be wrong, one
history of the Constitution—that is, through would need to show that the judge has an obliga-
originalism. Originalism, for Bork, was the only tion to obey the Constitution as written. More-
plausible methodology of constitutional adjudi- over, the moral stance shapes how we interpret
cation because it was logically required for the the Constitution because this tells us the purpose
legitimacy of judicial review and, by extension, of interpreting it. If, for example, a judge believes
for the Constitution. This commitment to origi- (as many progressive constitutional theorists do)
nalism was not contingent. that the only way the Constitution can have mor-
Over the next several decades, as scholars ally binding force is if its meaning can be revised
and jurists (such as Justice Scalia) helped refine without a formal constitutional amendment, then
the theoretical basis of originalism, the non- that moral justification would require rejecting
instrumentalist view became dominant within originalism and embracing a theory that allowed

BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES
conservative intellectual circles, and the judicial- judges to change the document’s meaning over
restraint view subsided, though it remained a time.
significant minority position and continues to Since originalism, like any other constitutional
play an outsize role in conservative political dis- theory, ultimately rests on a moral argument, it
course about the Court. Most legal conservatives can be challenged by those who find that argu-
came to believe that originalism was the only le- ment insufficient. As former Amherst profes-
gitimate constitutional methodology and that the sor Hadley Arkes wrote in First Things recently
Court should enforce the Constitution’s original (addressing both originalism and its statutory
meaning, regardless of how much or how little counterpart, textualism), because originalism is
intrusion was required. That explains why, for “deeply reluctant to make [the] move beyond
instance, Justices Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Ωtradition≈ and [the text] to the moral truth of the
Samuel Alito were prepared to throw out the matter,” it “indeed has nothing to say on matters
entire Affordable Care Act, in what would have of real consequence. It is a morally empty juris-
been the most important repudiation of the po- prudence.” More recently, Harvard law profes-
litical branches since the New Deal; by contrast, sor Adrian Vermeule has become the leading
Chief Justice John Roberts—the Court’s most critic of originalism from the right by contending
committed Thayerian (though never a commit- that originalism is morally bankrupt. Vermeule’s
ted originalist)—was unwilling to do so. While views are complex, but what he has written thus
the tension between instrumentalists and non- far attacks originalism from the perspective of
instrumentalists might, at first glance, appear to the natural-law tradition, in which the moral le-
be merely a matter of intellectual history, it has gitimacy of the Constitution (as a form of posi-
had enormous real-world consequences. tive law) depends on its accordance with the

100 CITY JOURNAL

From 1953 to 1969, Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren presided over a tremendous upheaval in
American constitutional law; the conservative legal movement was born in its aftermath.

natural law. As nothing in originalism requires it which is why moral critics of originalism often
to accord with the natural law, Vermeule argues, use the term interchangeably with textualism.
no morally compelling argument favors it. Arkes, for instance, argued that the Bostock opin-
The moral critique of originalism came to the ion, written by the originalist and textualist Jus-
fore in the summer of 2020 when the Supreme tice Neil Gorsuch, proved that originalism lacks
Court decided Bostock v. Clayton County, which a sufficiently compelling moral account. Follow-
held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ing Bostock, the conservative legal movement
prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual expressed widespread frustration and disillusion-
orientation or transgender status. The case in- ment with originalism, as manifested by Senator
volved statutory interpretation (textualism), not Josh Hawley’s statement that Bostock “represents
constitutional interpretation (originalism). But the end of the conservative legal movement.”
the justifications for, and methodologies of, tex- My own anecdotal sense is that the Vermeulian
tualism and originalism overlap significantly, critique of originalism has gained significant

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 The Fate of the Conservative Legal Movement

momentum among younger legal conservatives of stare decisis (the idea that the Court should
since Bostock. Once again, what might seem like generally stand by its previous decisions, even if
mere intellectual history does, in fact, have po- they were wrong).
tentially profound practical consequences, since These characteristics of Roe had different po-
the triumph of the Vermeulian critique would be litical and legal effects. Politically, Roe became
the end of the originalist project that has been at the case that social conservatives would rally
the heart of legal conservatism for decades. against. While the conservative legal movement
started as a reaction against the Warren Court,

F or nearly 50 years, the goal of overruling Roe

has united all sides: instrumentalist and non-in-
it matured in reaction against the Warren and
Burger Courts. The imperative to select justices
who would overrule Roe was a major reason that
strumentalist originalists; critics of originalism’s social conservatives joined the broad coalition
morality and its defenders. It is the only case that supporting Ronald Reagan, as reflected in the
inspires such fervent agreement within the intel- 1980 Republican Party platform promising “the
lectual wing of legal conservatism. appointment of judges at all levels of the judi-
Roe is unique among modern constitutional ciary who respect traditional family values and
decisions in the intensity with which it has been the sanctity of innocent human life.”
resisted. It was, in Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s It is also the primary reason that antiabortion
words, a “breathtaking” decision; four char- voters have continued to support the Republican
acteristics of the decision engendered the im- Party in the four decades since 1980, including
mediate and enduring backlash. First, Roe was through bruising (and not always successful)
unexpected. No long series of decisions had confirmation battles. Even after the deep disap-
telegraphed the future recognition of this new pointment of the Court’s refusal to overrule Roe
right (unlike the Court’s 2015 decision in Oberge- in Casey—a refusal spearheaded by three Rea-
fell v. Hodges requiring states to recognize same- gan- and Bush-nominated justices—these vot-
sex marriages). Second, Roe was extraordinarily ers stayed with the broader conservative legal
sweeping in its implications. Roe did not merely movement, always being promised that over-
invalidate the statute challenged in that case; it ruling Roe was just around the corner. Without

BOB DAUGHERTY/AP PHOTO

(in combination with its companion case, Doe v. these voters, the legal movement would never
Bolton) effectively invalidated the abortion laws have achieved the success that it has in remaking
of all 50 states and effectively mandated that the federal judiciary, since political victories are
the right to abortion be protected all the way needed to change the orientation of legal institu-
up to the moment of birth. Third, Roe wrote into tions. Dahlia Lithwick has rightly observed that
America’s fundamental law what many Ameri- “the notion that Roe created an almost irrevers-
cans saw then, and see now, as a right to kill ba- ible political Ωbacklash≈ that led to the creation of
bies. Finally, Roe was and is widely perceived as the powerful modern conservative legal move-
having no plausible legal basis, as commentators ment is almost an article of faith among legal
from the Right and the Left stated when it was academics.”
handed down. As then–Yale law professor John Legally, Roe catalyzed the nascent conserva-
Hart Ely—a supporter of the policy outcome dic- tive legal movement. Legal conservatives from
tated by Roe—noted immediately after the deci- all camps came to see Roe as a constitutional
sion, Roe is “bad because it is bad constitutional abomination that had to be overturned. From the
law, or rather because it is not constitutional law instrumentalist perspective of judicial-restraint
and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try conservatives, Roe remains the most aggres-
to be.” Indeed, it is notable that, at the December sive judicial intervention into American social
1 oral argument in Dobbs, none of the justices or policy since Brown v. Board of Education. But
advocates who support Roe devoted much time unlike Brown, which the vast majority of origi-
to defending the decision as an original mat- nalists embrace as rightly decided, no plau-
ter, instead relying primarily on the principle sible originalist argument exists for Roe, so the

102 CITY JOURNAL

Yale law professor Robert Bork helped spark a legal counterrevolution when he argued that the Court’s
legitimacy rests on its ability to derive principles neutrally from the text and history of the Constitution.

non-instrumentalist view of originalism has al- generate significant divisions among legal conser-
ways aligned against Roe, too. Overruling Roe vatives, but that Roe is a uniquely lawless decision
would, as Justice Brett Kavanaugh put it during that must be overruled is not among them.
the Dobbs oral argument, allow the Court to re-
main “scrupulously neutral on the question of
abortion,” an issue that inspires a fervor matched
by few in American history. And because original-
D obbs has the potential to destroy this unity.
Just as the goal of overruling Roe is unique in its
ism’s moral critics within the conservative legal ability to unite the movement, the failure to over-
movement are typically social conservatives who rule Roe in Dobbs would be unique in its ability to
regard legalized abortion as a moral evil rivaled destroy the movement.
in our history only by legalized slavery, they, too, Expectations play a decisive role in this dynamic.
have unflinchingly opposed Roe. Many positions Though (again, under a proper understanding of

WINTER 2022 103

 The Fate of the Conservative Legal Movement

the judicial role) those expectations should play Regardless of why Mississippi decided to
no part in the Court’s decision in Dobbs, they are make overruling Roe the focus of its brief, it
essential in considering the potential effect of raised expectations of what the Court would do
Dobbs on the conservative legal movement. On in Dobbs. Those expectations were reinforced
the political side, the failure of the Reagan and when, in the week after Mississippi filed its brief,
Bush appointees to overrule Roe in Casey was a almost three-quarters of the amicus briefs filed
huge blow to the conservative legal movement, in support of the state called for overruling Roe
and the feeling of disgust after decades of po- and Casey. And they were solidified after oral
litical and legal efforts was palpable. Nonethe- argument, when at least five of the conservative
less, the movement pressed on over the next justices asked questions that were widely inter-
30 years. In the intervening period, two of the preted as signaling a willingness to overrule Roe
five justices who voted to reaffirm Roe’s central and Casey. With both Jackson Women’s Health
holding in Casey were replaced with committed Organization and the solicitor general likewise
originalists, as was Justice Ginsburg. Each of arguing that the Court must either reaffirm or
those replacements (Justices Alito, Kavanaugh, overrule Roe and Casey, legal conservatives now
and Amy Coney Barrett) involved tremendous expect that, after nearly 50 years of unceasing
risks and expenditures of political capital—and, effort to overrule Roe, they will finally see the
in the cases of Alito and especially Kavanaugh, Court do it. If it does not, a sense of betrayal and
perseverance through vicious confirmation bat- disillusionment will likely follow.
tles. The conservative legal movement fought That would place enormous strain on the in-
those battles with the expectation that, when tellectual fault lines within the movement. If a
the day came, the reconstituted Court would Supreme Court with a 6–3 conservative major-
finally consign Roe and Casey to the anti-canon ity consisting of five committed originalists re-
of disgraced constitutional cases, alongside its fuses to overrule Roe and Casey, it is unlikely that
segregation-defending decision in Plessy v. Fer- any originalist Court will ever do so—raising
guson (1896). serious questions within the conservative legal
That day has arrived. In its opening brief last movement about its attachment to originalism.
summer, Mississippi could have tried (uncon- Immediate recriminations and accusations of
vincingly) to argue that its abortion restriction betrayal would ensue, likely tearing the move-
was consistent with Roe and Casey, or that those ment apart. Those who offer a moral critique of
cases only had to be overruled in part. Instead, originalism would point to Dobbs as proof posi-
it adopted a more coherent approach, spending tive that originalism lacks the moral foundation
most of its brief urging the Court to overrule necessary to be a plausible constitutional meth-
the cases entirely. One reason Mississippi might odology. Vermeule has openly predicted that if
have taken that approach is that, as Notre Dame “Roe (not merely Casey) survives in any form
law professor Sherif Girgis has argued, there is without being overturned [in Dobbs], it will rep-
no logically sound way for the Court to uphold resent a shattering crisis for the conservative le-
Mississippi’s law without overruling Roe and gal movement.” If the Court fails to overrule Roe
Casey, since those cases prohibit states from ban- and Casey, there is a very good chance that Ver-
ning abortion before the child reaches viability, meule would become the most important intel-
as Mississippi’s statute does. Indeed, as noted lectual figure in whatever succeeds the current
above, Jackson Women’s Health Organization conservative legal movement.
has made precisely the same argument as Girgis Similarly, those advocating an instrumental
before the Supreme Court: “There are no half- view of originalism, especially in favor of judi-
measures here.” The organization reinforced that cial restraint, would have good reason to ques-
view at oral argument in response to questions tion whether originalism actually achieves the
by Justice Gorsuch, as did the solicitor general restrained judiciary they favor, since the failure
in support of Jackson Women’s Health Organi- to overrule Roe would keep the Court enmeshed
zation. in the most contentious social issue in America,

104 CITY JOURNAL

without clear constitutional warrant. Some may gis points out, because of the factual context of
argue that the more restrained position would Dobbs—its straight-on challenge to a core tenet
be to uphold Roe, since that would be minimally of Roe and Casey—it is impossible for the Court
disruptive to American constitutional law. But to craft a logical opinion that sets up the eventual
Chief Justice Roberts—the most committed judi- overruling of those two decisions, which was not
cial-restraint member of the Court—has shown true of the cases preceding Janus. Instead, any
himself willing to make great changes in consti- middle-ground option would have to divorce
tutional law to keep the Court out of political and the viability standard from Casey’s undue-bur-
social policy if the Court’s intervention has no den standard, which Girgis rightly argues would
firm constitutional basis. For example, he wrote fundamentally rewrite Casey in a way that would
the Court’s opinion in Rucho v. Common Cause make it very difficult for this same Court to
(2019), which held that the federal judiciary has overrule later. Second, as noted above, both Jack-

“
no authority to adju- son Women’s Health
dicate political-gerry- Organization and the
mandering challenges
to redistricting maps.
A forthright overruling solicitor general essen-
tially disavowed such
That controversial de- of Roe would alleviate a middle-ground op-
cision ended several tion in their briefs and
decades of gerryman-
the tensions within the at oral argument, and
movement and bolster its

”
dering jurisprudence, Mississippi’s briefs
but its effect was to effectively acknowl-
withdraw the Court
long-term outlook. edged that an incre-
from fraught political mentalist approach
and social battles. would be unprincipled or unworkable. Thus,
Those who believe that originalism is the only neither side in Dobbs seeks a middle ground, and
legitimate methodology of constitutional adjudi- none of the justices at oral argument—other than
cation would have no logical reason to abandon perhaps the chief justice—seemed interested in
their view, since it is not based on the results that such an approach. In light of those two factors
originalism achieves. But their theoretical argu- and the expectations of a full overruling, com-
ments would sound less convincing to an audi- mentators make a serious mistake if they think
ence that had witnessed such a seismic failure of that a timid, first-step opinion offering yet an-
originalism to translate its arguments into reality, other promise of Roe’s eventual demise would
just as those arguments have already lost some avoid a potentially fatal blow to the conservative
of their purchase after Bostock. The conservative legal movement.
legal movement has always been an intensely in-
tellectual but also intensely practical movement;
a methodology right in theory but self-defeating
in practice will not retain many adherents.
A forthright overruling of Roe, however, would
significantly alleviate the tensions within the
What if the Court instead adopts some middle movement and bolster its long-term outlook. It
ground: sustain the Mississippi statute without would, in the eyes of instrumentalist and non-
overruling Roe, but lay the groundwork for over- instrumentalist originalists alike, vindicate their
ruling Roe later? That is what the Court did in a half-century support for originalism. It would take
series of cases leading up to Janus v. AFSCME much of the wind out of the sails of originalism’s
(2018), in which the Court overruled a previous moral critics, since originalism will have been
precedent, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education the means of achieving the critics’ most earnestly
(1977), which had allowed public-sector unions sought moral goal. There is likely no avoiding
to collect union fees from nonunion members. the consequences, then, for the conservative legal
But two key factors render that step-by-step movement in Dobbs: complete victory or crisis-
approach implausible in Dobbs. First, as Gir- inducing defeat.

WINTER 2022 105

 The Supply-Chain Empire
Once an industrial
powerhouse, Pennsylvania’s
Lehigh Valley has evolved
to become the Northeast’s
logistics hub.

Charles F. McElwee

D
riving east on Pennsylvania’s I-78, bound for the high-
way’s terminus at lower Manhattan’s Holland Tunnel,
you’ll pass miles of vast farmland, spot billboards for
God and sheepskin coats, and behold the constant pres-
ence of Blue Mountain, an Appalachian ridge. As you
advance toward Allentown, trucks soon outnumber cars,
and then, as you motor closer to the state’s third-largest
city, warehouses dominate a fading landscape of cornfields. This is the
Lehigh Valley, a sprawling region that once nourished colonial America,
fueled the nation’s industrial rise, and shaped its urban skylines. Today,
thanks in part to its serendipitous location and enterprising local leader-
ship, the Valley has become a global hub for the logistics and warehousing
industry.
In an age when algorithms feed consumer demands, the Lehigh Valley
has become the East Coast’s supply-chain empire for transporting one-click
goods on interstate highways. Covering 726 square miles of suburbs and ru-
ral townships in Lehigh and Northampton Counties—centered on the cities
of Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton—the Valley adjoins metro New York
and Philadelphia and stands within one truck shift of 100 million people. As
e-commerce expanded over the past decade—and then accelerated dramati-
cally amid the pandemic—the Valley transformed into prime territory for
retailers like Amazon and Walmart but also for third-party logistics: the out-
sourced assembly and storage of companies’ products in warehouses, often
called “fulfillment” centers, and their distribution through freight services.
Warehousing growth has played a crucial role in the region’s booming
economy, thanks to its close proximity to New York City’s massive base
of online shoppers, the limited supply of land in neighboring New Jersey,
and a favorable business climate, compared with other parts of the North-
east. The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission says that the region “is on
pace to see a nearly 50 percent increase in total warehouse square footage,
just since 2015, and there’s no indication the trend will end anytime soon.”
As the commission found, between 2015 and mid-2021, Valley municipali-
ties have approved nearly 29 million square feet of new warehousing, with
an additional 13 million pending approval. In 2017, commercial real-estate
firm CBRE reported, the Valley ranked second globally, behind Seattle, “for
growth in prime industrial and logistics rents.”

106 CITY JOURNAL

MEDIANEWS GROUP/READING EAGLE/GETTY IMAGES

Covering 726 square miles of suburbs and rural townships, the Lehigh Valley stands within one truck shift
of 100 million people.

All this has meant new jobs and tax revenue CBRE executive vice president. The Valley owes
for the region’s municipalities, which in 2019 its success to the foresight of leaders who have
hit a record $43.3 billion GDP, outranking the repeatedly adapted to such challenges. During a
economies of Wyoming, Vermont, and Alaska. time of profound economic uncertainty, the Le-
But to many Valley residents, warehouses have high Valley explodes typical perceptions about
reached a saturation point, threatening to over- the Rust Belt.
whelm the already-fading agricultural com-
munity and residents’ quality of life. These are
enduring tensions. Residents—some with roots
here dating back centuries—have long struggled
I t’s impossible to understand American in-
dustrial history without the Lehigh Valley. Its
to preserve a rich heritage amid transforming capacity to make and transport goods dates to
economic realities. Even before warehouses, the early colonial days, when Moravians—a Czech
Valley had become a setting for outside invest- Protestant sect—established a religious com-
ment, demographic change, and development. munity and called it Bethlehem. It was there,
“Every phase of the Lehigh Valley’s economic near the Lehigh River, that Moravians founded
development created something we have to deal what is considered America’s first industrial
with and then we moved on,” said Bill Wolf, a park—buildings that still stand along the

WINTER 2022 107

 The Supply-Chain Empire

Monocacy Creek. For decades, they worked purchases. This led to development on farmland
as tradesmen and craftsmen in a communal south of the old Moravian commune.
economy. Over time, South Bethlehem, just across the
In the early nineteenth century, the discovery Lehigh River, became an industrial empire. By
of anthracite coal in the mountains northwest the Civil War, Asa Packer and fellow members
of the Valley—once known as “Saint Anthony’s of Mauch Chunk’s elite had decamped for South
Wilderness”—sparked entrepreneurial efforts Bethlehem, which became the railroad’s head-
that forever altered the region’s developmen- quarters. During this period, Packer established
tal course. First, nearby Mauch Chunk’s Lehigh Lehigh University, an engineering school, and
Coal & Navigation Company (LC&N)—one of an iron company began rolling iron rails for the
America’s earliest vertically integrated compa- railroad. By the early twentieth century, that
nies, established by innovative Philadelphians iron company was known as Bethlehem Steel, its
in the 1820s—discovered how to burn anthracite massive mills drawing European immigrants to
properly and built a canal system, which trans- the city’s South Side. Before World War II, Beth-
ported coal from mountainous outposts like Ha- lehem Steel came to define the Lehigh Valley,
zleton and then through the Valley and onward where riverside mills produced the beams that
to Philadelphia. Then, in the 1850s, a Mauch constructed revered architectural landmarks
Chunk–based entrepreneur named Asa Packer in Manhattan and throughout America; during
“sunk his entire personal fortune into building” the war, the firm, employing more than 30,000,
what became the Lehigh Valley Railroad, as Bur- armed the nation’s military and produced its
ton Folsom writes in Urban Capitalists. By the steel ships.
Civil War era, the 161-mile rail network, which
included a line from Mauch Chunk to Easton,
“carried more than twice the coal and freight of
its competitor, the LC&N.”
A fter the war, though, Valley leaders “started
wondering what would happen if Bethlehem
Throughout the nineteenth century, outsiders Steel somehow went away,” reported the Morn-
continued to invest in the Valley. The presence of ing Call, a local newspaper. Following a series
iron-ore deposits around Allentown—combined of steelworker strikes—including one lasting
with its proximity to the coal region—led to the 116 days in 1959—local business leaders em-
world’s first anthracite iron furnace, in nearby barked on an economic-development initiative
Catasauqua. But local leaders, especially Allen- to establish the region’s first modern industrial
town’s German Lutherans, wanted to preserve park. The establishment of Lehigh Valley Indus-
their agricultural setting. When David Thomas, trial Park (LVIP), a private, nonprofit economic-
who built the iron furnace, proposed a local rail- development organization, helped pave the way
road, “Allentown politicians objected,” fearing for the region’s economic future. Today, LVIP
that it “would damage the farms of the Lehigh counts seven industrial parks, which have at-
Valley,” recounts Folsom. Instead, regional Prot- tracted more than 500 companies—with 24,000
estant leaders invested in churches and colleges, jobs—and $1.2 billion in private investment
such as Allentown’s Muhlenberg, Bethlehem’s since 1959. “Imagine if LVIP hadn’t gotten things
Moravian, and Easton’s Lafayette. Overall, the started,” one land developer told the Morning
cultural mood reflected the region’s predomi- Call. “We would have been a two- or three-horse
nant group: the Pennsylvania Dutch, described town, and if those horses died or left town, imag-
by one historian as “the most conservative peo- ine where would we be.”
ple in America.” Instead, the Valley embraced regional co-
Ironically, it was the Moravians—the region’s ordination, foresight—and entrepreneurship.
most insular group—who assured the Valley’s As sociologist Sean Safford writes in Why the
long-term industrial development. In the mid- Garden Club Couldn’t Save Youngstown, the Val-
1840s, Bethlehem’s Moravian leaders made the ley’s “economic resilience owes much to the fact
fateful decision to permit non-Moravian land that the social structure of its civic interactions

108 CITY JOURNAL

connected key constituencies who needed to about acquiring the company’s massive site—
cooperate in the face of the region’s crisis” of accounting for nearly 20 percent of the city of
deindustrialization. In the 1970s, for example, Bethlehem’s land. The subsequent development
the Lehigh County Authority built a wastewa- of LVIP VII, the South Side industrial park, a
ter pretreatment plant near Route 100 in Upper public-private partnership, “quietly and single-
Macungie. The plant turned that area into an eco- handedly saved the city from the brink of finan-
nomic hub for beverage companies, from Schae- cial ruin,” reported the Morning Call.
fer Brewery to Kraft Foods, which could treat its LVIP VII was a massive undertaking that
industrial wastewater at the facility. spurred private investment through tax incen-
Then, in 1983, Pennsylvania governor Dick tives, a county economic-development grant,
Thornburgh created Ben Franklin Technology and, collectively, $15 million in state grants,
Partners, a state-funded economic-development and loans (fully repaid by LVIP in 2017) for

“
program that in- the brownfield, which
vests in startups and required massive in-
emerging manufac- frastructure and en-
turers. The program’s
E-commerce and the vironmental-remedia-
incubator opened in decline of old-fashioned tion work. According
Bethlehem Steel’s for- to LehighValleyLive,
mer research facili-
retail solidified the a tax abatement “has
Valley’s new position as

”
ties, which stand on spurred $193 million
the mountain above of investment and
Lehigh University’s
a warehousing hub. brings in $9.4 million
main campus. Over in annual tax revenue
the years, Ben Franklin has vetted its prospective for the city.” Overall, state and local economic-
clients to connect them with private investors. development efforts in Bethlehem’s LVIP VII
As a 2018 Pennsylvania Economy League re- led to $530 million in private investment. To-
port notes, between 2012 and 2016, Ben Franklin day, LVIP VII counts 32 employers—including
“helped to create 11,407 high-paying jobs, gener- QVC and United States Cold Storage—and more
ated $386 million in tax receipts for the state, and than 4,200 employees on 1,000 acres. Nearby,
boosted the commonwealth’s overall economy an arts-and-culture district called SteelStacks,
by $4.1 billion.” Among Ben Franklin’s success along with a casino, operates alongside Bethle-
stories are OraSure Technologies, a manufac- hem Steel’s former blast furnaces—part of the
turer of medical diagnostic kits, which last year nation’s largest revitalized brownfield.
announced a multimillion-dollar expansion. By the mid-2000s, the Valley stood in a secure
After Bethlehem Steel closed its flagship plant economic position. Even Allentown, though
in 1995, the Valley’s leaders again adapted. That struggling, remained a sizable employment base
year, the Lehigh Valley Partnership—a regional for regional universities’ graduates, who could
business group created in 1985 to promote eco- work at Fortune 500 companies such as Air Prod-
nomic growth—played the pivotal role in form- ucts and PPL Corporation. The Valley’s major
ing the Lehigh Valley Economic Development health-care providers—Lehigh Valley Health
Corporation (LVEDC), a private nonprofit that Network and Saint Luke’s—began a dramatic
merged business retention and attraction efforts expansion. The rise of e-commerce, accelerating
among the Valley’s three cities and 62 munici- the decline of old-fashioned retail, solidified the
palities. Valley’s new position as a warehousing hub.
The Valley’s embrace of regional coordina-
tion—including LVIP and LVEDC—proved
economically crucial. This was particularly evi-
dent in 2001, when, just months before it filed
B y the time the Great Recession hit, the de-
mand for next-day delivery had made the Valley
for bankruptcy, Bethlehem Steel contacted LVIP an ideal location to distribute goods throughout

WINTER 2022 109

 The Supply-Chain Empire

the East Coast. In 2007, says CBRE’s Wolf, the tities, DGI’s president told LehighValleyLive, “I
Valley already boasted an inventory of 35 mil- live in New Jersey, and I considered moving my
lion square feet of warehousing and industrial business there, but between . . . LVEDC . . . the
space. The growing third-party logistics sector county, the governor’s team, and Ben Franklin
benefited the Valley’s economy, fueling con- Technology Partners, they all made my decision
struction work, job creation, increased property very easy to stay in Pennsylvania and grow my
values, and municipal tax revenues. As LVEDC business here.” In Allentown, a special taxing dis-
president and CEO Don Cunningham told the trict has generated more than $1 billion in new
Morning Call, “The growth of this sector really and planned downtown development since its
bridged the gap during the recession.” creation by the state in 2009. The only district of
When Hurricane Sandy devastated New York its kind in Pennsylvania, Allentown’s Neighbor-
City in 2012, paralyzing the metro region’s sup- hood Improvement Zone has encouraged devel-
ply chains, the Valley again distinguished itself opment in the city’s downtown and riverfront
as the logistical setting to distribute goods to through its tax incentive.
the eastern seaboard’s consumers. Even more
multimillion-square-foot warehouses sprouted
throughout the region, including the Route 33
corridor, becoming ubiquitous sites in otherwise
T hough the warehousing frenzy has created
more than 30,000 jobs in distribution and logis-
rural and suburban settings. By the time of the tics—more than 11 percent of the region’s resi-
Covid-19 crisis, Amazon had opened three ful- dents work in the sector—local residents ques-
fillment centers, UPS had constructed a massive tion the economic benefits. Elected officials,
facility, and FedEx had completed a ground hub, moreover, are assessing the economic costs in

THE READING ROOM/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

its largest. formerly rural townships, such as Lower Macun-
As of late 2020, LVEDC reports, the region gie. “If a warehouse employs 100 people but eats
ranked among the nation’s “top 5 markets for in- up 100 acres of farmland, the Valley economy
dustrial space under construction as a percentage only nets one job per acre of precious land lost,”
of total industrial space.” By the second quarter of says Ron Beitler, a former Lower Macungie com-
2021, as CBRE found, the I-78/I-81 corridor had missioner who was elected Lehigh County com-
“the highest quarter on record” for occupancy missioner in November. In Beitler’s view, “tax-
gains in industrial space. Just this April, a New payers remain on the hook for agreements made
York real-estate group set a local record when it by prior [commissioner] boards to build new
sold a warehouse—leased to a third-party logis- infrastructure to support these warehouses.” But
tics provider for Apple—for $201.5 million. “In- as Lower Macungie farmer Mark Lichtenwalner
dustrial real estate in the Lehigh Valley is becom- wrote in the Morning Call, “farm profits can no
ing like the new Bitcoin,” Cunningham remarked. longer pay for land.” For decades, farmland has
None of the Valley’s real-estate demand or eco- disappeared in many parts of the Valley, but
nomic growth, though, would be possible with- there is a cost to this lost open space. Warehous-
out favorable business conditions—especially ing development doesn’t necessarily pay for
compared with other northeastern states, such taxpayer-funded municipal services—tax abate-
as New Jersey—or the economic-development ments, for example, can possibly delay necessary
efforts of groups like LVEDC, a marketing force revenue for qualifying Valley municipalities.
and conduit for business investment. Take the ex- “When development expands, so does the need
ample of D. Gillette Industrial Services (DGI), a and cost for more services,” such as building new
military equipment manufacturer that announced infrastructure.
its acquisition of a Valley distribution center in In recent years, though, the warehousing sec-
August. The company’s job-creating relocation tor has created a bounty of jobs for unskilled
is partly financed by a ten-year, low-interest workers. As Cunningham told the New York
state loan secured through LVEDC. Praising the Times, “to be able to make $16 an hour with a
work of the Valley’s economic-development en- high school diploma—there aren’t a lot of places

110 CITY JOURNAL

Bisected by the Lehigh River, the Valley became a center for the transport of anthracite coal in the
nineteenth century.

in the U.S. where you can do that.” This past from residential neighborhoods, for example,
holiday season, amid the global supply-chain while trucks clog traffic on two-lane country
crisis, warehouses needed more workers; one lo- roads. And, in many instances, developers are
gistics company added more than 4,700 seasonal constructing industrial properties “on spec,”
jobs. And during an acute labor shortage, reflec- an economic-development approach to entice
tive of national trends, many warehouses now tenants. This warehousing, moreover, occurs
offer higher wages, signing bonuses, and other on “greenfields,” such as farmland. “I guess
benefits. warehousing will stop when we don’t have
The chief objection concerns warehous- any more land to develop,” said planning com-
ing overdevelopment. Though Lehigh and mission chairman Greg Zebrowski. In recent
Northampton Counties have successfully pre- years, voters in several Valley municipalities
served 42,000 acres of farmland, residents worry have approved an open-space tax to check de-
about how warehousing disrupts their commu- velopment. Last November, Republican and
nities’ quality of life and imperils the region’s Democratic candidates who criticized overde-
agricultural heritage. Warehouses stand across velopment won down-ballot elections.

WINTER 2022 111

 The Supply-Chain Empire

In most cases, though, the persistent ware- are from manufacturing companies.” Manufac-
housing development remains beyond the con- turing accounts for 16.5 percent of the Valley’s
trol of residents, or even of local elected officials. economy—a higher rate than the national share
According to Pennsylvania’s Municipalities of 12 percent.
Planning Code, localities must permit all land This manufacturing growth includes life sci-
usage, including industrial development, within ences. Pharmaceutical manufacturer U.S. Spe-
their boundaries. In 2019, for example, Allen cialty Formulations, for instance, is expanding in
Township had to approve a large warehousing Allentown as it pursues Covid vaccine innova-
complex because the municipality’s zoning map tions. OraSure, which received FDA authoriza-
permitted it. “The barn door is open. We can’t tion for a Covid rapid self-test, is also expanding.
stop you,” a township supervisor told the ware- Both companies started at Ben Franklin, the incu-
house developer, who replied: “Warehouses go bator on Lehigh University’s campus.
where the land is zoned for.” The Valley’s manufacturing heritage still
This year, regional pushback against ware- makes its presence felt. Last year, Mack Trucks,
housing development has intensified. Bethle- which first moved to Allentown in 1901, fin-
hem-area residents have expressed dismay over ished an $84 million renovation of its Macungie
proposed warehouses around Dutch Springs, cab and assembly plant. Air Products has nearly
once a limestone quarry that serviced the re- completed its $400 million headquarters. In Up-
gion’s cement industry but today among Amer- per Macungie, the Route 100 corridor—thanks
ica’s largest freshwater scuba-diving facilities. to the wastewater pretreatment plant—remains
Such examples of warehousing development, a destination for beverage-making manufactur-
or “scavenging for land,” are leading to calls for ers, including Ocean Spray. And in Hanover
the state legislature to update zoning laws. As Township, refrigerated pet-food maker Freshpet
Zebrowski put it, the Dutch Springs proposal spent $100 million expanding its manufacturing

MICHAEL NAGLE/BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES

“should not even be moving forward, but we do facility. Valley employers still struggle to find
not have the legal authority to do that, and our workers, but that regional trend preceded the
state legislators need to bring the code up to the pandemic.
century we’re living in.” He added: “We’re not
living in the nineteenth century anymore.” In fact,
in Lower Macungie, warehousing has maxed
out. “We’ve removed warehouses from all areas
F or now, the age of warehousing continues in
the Lehigh Valley, though scarce space is motivat-
of the zoning code we were legally allowed to do ing development projects in the nearby coal region.
so,” wrote Beitler, then–township commissioner, Still, Valley leaders must plan ahead for the dawn
in the Morning Call. He criticized past township of proposed high-cube warehouses, vertical facili-
decisions, when “warehouses were built . . . on ties—some reaching 180 feet tall—that would be
prime farmland, more than five miles from in- highly automated. And, as this past year showed,
terchanges and all requiring new infrastructure.” e-commerce has become only more ingrained in
He concluded: “We’re finished with them.” the economy. As CBRE found, due to rising on-
As Cunningham views it, the Valley’s “whole line shopping demands, “suppliers are shifting to
logistics, fulfillment, and e-commerce sector larger logistics footprints to accommodate faster
. . . certainly creates some challenges in land use order fulfillments and greater inventories to offset
and truck traffic,” but he also noted the domi- supply-chain disruptions.”
nant presence of regional manufacturing. “As This storied region’s latest industrial epoch
the Lehigh Valley has grown as a good region to is also transforming its demographics. Allen-
move products and deliver products and trans- town, for example, is now a majority-Hispanic
port them, it’s also been growing as a region to city. Many New York–based workers—fac-
grow products,” he told me. In fact, as LVEDC ing the realities of remote work and the city’s
found this summer, the “majority of both the cur- widespread challenges—are relocating to Val-
rent projects and future prospects being tracked ley cities and suburbs. “The Lehigh Valley is

112 CITY JOURNAL

A Walmart fulfillment center in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

becoming waterfront property, so to speak,” cate from its Jersey City headquarters to the new
says a local professor. Communities like Beth- building.
lehem now grapple with a limited supply of The waterfront project in Allentown, where
housing amid rising demand. downtown-revitalization efforts started a decade
The Valley continues to plan ahead. In Al- before, will unfold alongside the body of water
lentown, a massive public-private partnership that gave birth to the region. The Lehigh River
will develop the city’s Riverside Drive corridor, flowed through this valley long before Mora-
a three-mile brownfield site that includes an vians made crafts, trains and canal boats trans-
abandoned rail bed. One project includes the re- ported coal, workers drove to steel mills, and
development of a vacant warehouse into “River- warehouses deployed truck drivers throughout
front Lofts,” which will include apartments and the East Coast. The Lehigh Valley, which long
a wholesale distribution center. The developer, ago fueled America’s industrial revolution, will
Manhattan Building Co. (MBC), plans to relo- remain part of the nation’s economic future.

WINTER 2022 113

 William Faulkner’s Tragic Vision ally offensive statements on
race.
Michael Gorra’s The Sad-
Jonathan Clarke dest Words: William Faulkner’s
Civil War argues for Faulkner’s
In Yoknapatawpha County, the past genius and his continuing sa-
lience as a chronicler of the re-
never speaks with a single voice. gion of the Deep South known
as the Black Belt. A Smith Col-
lege professor and frequent

I n November 1952, the Ford

Foundation sent a documen-
who lived, but he is not the
man who created. That Wil-
reviewer in The New York Re-
view of Books, The Times Liter-
ary Supplement, and elsewhere,
tary crew to Oxford, Mississip- liam Faulkner was as uncom- Gorra is an astute Faulkner
pi, to create a brief portrait of promising, disillusioning, and reader. His book may gener-
William Faulkner (1897–1962), discomfiting a literary artist as ate renewed interest in his
two years after he received the America has ever produced. subject’s notoriously difficult
Nobel Prize for Literature. The Faulkner was always am- fiction. Even so, in seeking to
resulting film, William Faulkner bivalent about the attention preserve Faulkner’s reputation,
on His Native Soil, belongs to the paid to him personally. He he concedes too much to the
unfortunate category of official told The Paris Review in 1956 writer’s most motivated critics.
culture—neither distinguished that if he could start over, he Gorra argues that traditional
as a documentary nor pen- would write under a pseud- methods of reading Faulkner,
etrating in its portrayal of the onym. Time has borne out which emphasize “his repre-
setting for much of Faulkner’s his suspicion of publicity. sentations of consciousness or
work. It holds a certain fascina- Faulkner’s major period was the intricacies of his prose,”
tion, however, for its apparent 1929–42, in which he pro- are “no longer adequate.” He
desire, somewhat at the cost of duced the work that would compares Faulkner’s current
authenticity, to present a man eventually bring him the No- position with that of Joseph
whom the audience can accept. bel, including The Sound and Conrad, whose legacy was
The film’s scenes seem most- the Fury, Light in August, and called into question by Chi-
ly scripted or re-created from Absalom, Absalom, his most nua Achebe’s 1975 lecture
previous events. Faulkner chats fully realized presentations of “An Image of Africa: Racism
affably with black neighbors; the legacy of slavery, the Civil in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.”
he walks the grounds of his War, and Reconstruction in the Achebe argued that Conrad’s
home, Rowan Oak; he visits South. It is some of Faulkner’s work recapitulates the very
with childhood friends; he is later public statements, when colonialist assumptions that
plainspoken and humble. The his fame drew him into the it seemed, on first reading,
film is not an argument for fraught public discourse over to criticize. Achebe found in
Faulkner’s genius but for his civil rights, that have haunted Conrad a “residue of antipathy
BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES

common humanity—that is, for his reputation. The novels and to black people,” which moti-
a Faulkner who might be our stories that were his life’s pur- vated him to invoke Africa as
neighbor or someone we meet pose are now increasingly ob- “a place of negation,” that is,
in the town square. The entire scured behind a latticework of a “darkness,” compared with
enterprise is as wooden as an grievances—about Faulkner’s the civilized “light” of Europe.
eighth-grade production of Our relation to the myths of the Achebe’s essay wasn’t the last
Town, and the folksy Faulkner antebellum South, about Lost
of the film is an illusion. Or Cause revisionism, and about Novelist William Faulkner in his
rather: he might be the man his inconsistent and occasion- Oxford, Mississippi, home

114 CITY JOURNAL

Urbanities

WINTER 2022 115

 Urbanities

word on Conrad, who still has to shoot blacks—and then dis- who had suffered obscurity
many admirers, but it shifted ingenuously denied having and ridicule in his youth, pa-
the critical center of gravity. made the quoted statements. tiently built a celebrated body
Likewise, Gorra claims, Toni And in 1957, in an unfinished of work, and then found him-
Morrison, along with a cadre letter, he invoked an especially self overtaken by events and
of professors steeped in criti- lame defense of segregation: once again the object of deri-
cal race theory and postcolo- “All the laws in the world will sion among his people. Per-
nial perspectives, has made it not make white and non-white haps more importantly, taking
impossible to read Faulkner in people mix if one of the par- sides would have put Faulkner
the old ways. Morrison was an ties doesn’t want to. . . . I still in conflict with his own proj-
insightful but hostile reader of don’t believe the Negro wants ect, which required him to
Faulkner, and she resented the to Ωmix≈ with white people.” extend imaginative sympathy
implication that his example Faulkner’s record on civil even to characters rendered
had influenced her work. She rights is such that you can read grotesque by hatred and ob-
believed that Faulkner’s writ- it just about any way you like. session.
ing was often ingeniously eva- Gorra allows, as too few Also missing from The Sad-
sive on the issue of race. Morri- do, that a person can hold dest Words is any consideration
son claimed that early Faulkner contradictory views and that of the risks of judging long-
critics were eager to “univer- someone at the cusp of old deceased artists by how com-
salize” his work—in effect, de- age might see the necessity of fortably their attitudes fit the
clining to linger over the race social change and yet also be now-prevailing consensus.
question. The Saddest Words is unable fully to embrace it. Even Faulkner’s gentler inter-
Gorra’s effort to read Faulkner locutors often refer to his “limi-
in light of Mississippi’s long At the height of his ca- tations” as a man born in 1897
history of racial violence. reer in the 1930s and ’40s, in New Albany, Mississippi,
Faulkner’s correspondence Faulkner was seen as a failing to recognize the self-sat-
and interviews on civil rights moderate on the South’s isfaction implicit in this formu-
from the 1950s are sometimes racial questions, and lation. I do not mean that there
moving, sometimes disingenu- many white Mississippi- are two ways to see slavery,
ous, and occasionally indefen- ans viewed him with sus- or that there is any basis to
sible. He wrote to the Mem- picion. He thought World admire the Confederate cause,
phis Commercial Appeal in 1950 War II would bring a long or that those resisting integra-
to protest the lynching of a overdue shift in the coun- tion in the South had any case
black sharecropper, and again try’s social structure by to make. What should be evi-
in 1955, when Emmett Till forcing “the politicians . . . dent, though, is that Faulkner’s
was murdered, and he pro- to make good the shibbo- “limitations” are our own. We
tested: “If we in America have leth they glibly talk about no more stand outside history
reached the point in our des- freedom, liberty, human than he did. We can only hope
perate culture when we must rights.” Nevertheless he that future generations show
murder children, no matter for remained a white man us more consideration than we
what reason or what color, we of the Jim Crow South have lately taken to showing
don’t deserve to survive, and and did not always rise our predecessors.
probably won’t.” A year later, above it.
in an interview with a Brit-
ish newspaper, he drunkenly
invoked the specter of a race
As an account of Faulkner’s
basic attitudes, this summary
F aulkner’s writing was radi-
cal in form, but his vision was
war if the South were forced is more than fair. Missing, fundamentally conservative.
to integrate—averring that in perhaps, is due recognition of He valued the past as a source
such an event, he was prepared the personal anguish of a man of meaning and identity. He

116 CITY JOURNAL

 Urbanities

also viewed the past, at least

potentially, as a source of ulti-
mate values. He saw that Mis-
sissippi’s own past was full
of iniquity and terror, and yet
he could not finally repudiate
it, simply because it was the
past. If “was” and “again” are
for Faulkner “the two saddest
words,” they are also two of the
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY / ART RESOURCE, NY

most richly evocative, giving

life its tragic dimension. As he
writes in Absalom, Absalom:

[W]e exhume from old

trunks and boxes and
drawers letters without
salutation or signature,
in which men and wom-
en who once lived and
breathed are now merely
initials or nicknames. . . . An etching of Pickett’s Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg
[W]e see dimly people,
the people in whose liv- his stories their tension and main house to the ground.
ing blood and seed we urgency. Their sins follow the residents
ourselves lay dormant Some part of antebellum of Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha
and waiting . . . the pa- Mississippi spoke to Faulkner like afternoon shadows. Even
per old and faded and as an ideal. With their Toni Morrison admired what
falling to pieces, the writ- first small cache of money, she called Faulkner’s “refusal-
ing faded, almost indeci- Faulkner and his wife, Estelle, to-look-away” approach to Mis-
pherable, yet meaning- bought a crumbling mansion sissippi’s history.
ful, familiar in shape and outside Oxford. The house What Faulkner sought for
sense. was to become a source of the South was not absolution
seigneurial pride, a money but redemption, and here is
Faulkner’s entire body of pit, and finally, as Faulkner’s where he found trouble. He be-
work is an effort to satisfy and Estelle’s alcoholism ad- lieved that the imposition of in-
competing historical impulses, vanced, something of a prison. tegration by the federal govern-
to find a usable past in the Faulkner the freeholder was ment would doom both whites
history of Jefferson County, also the Faulkner whose sig- and blacks because it would
where his family had lived nature novel, Absalom, Absalom, leave their society stripped of
for generations, and yet to ac- tells the history of “Sutpen’s moral agency and therefore of
knowledge the blood—black Hundred,” a slave plantation dignity and purpose. Faulkner
and white—that was mixed “founded upon injustice and was a gradualist on integration
into the dirt beneath his feet. erected by ruthless rapac- not because he was ambivalent
This ambivalence prevented ity.” At the end of the story, about the rights of blacks but
him from being a consistent Thomas Sutpen’s mentally re- because he understood that the
friend to the civil rights move- tarded daughter, a product of new South would necessarily
ment, whose ultimate ends he her father’s relationship with have to be written over the
supported. It is also what gave one of his slaves, burns the old South, a place inseparable

WINTER 2022 117

 Urbanities

from his personal identity. The was known, had come down was motivated all his life by
renunciation of the past that in the world since then, neither a sense of having missed out.
Faulkner felt was being asked planter aristocracy nor poor Like his father, Faulkner
of Southerners was impossible whites, but part of a slender, could not settle down to a vo-
for him, given all that he had precarious middle class. Murry cation, even as it was not yet
staked on it. Falkner, William’s father, had clear that his literary ambitions
Faulkner saw that Missis- shuffled through various occu- would be realized. He was for
sippi’s blacks were its most pations before landing a mod- several years the campus post-
loyal subjects even as they est sinecure at the University of master, a job he performed
were denied the status of cit- Mississippi as a kind of genteel with studied indifference; he
izens. This is not to say that failure. spent more time writing than
Faulkner’s imaginative project As a young man, William selling stamps. And so this
was for them—it was for white seems to have lacked a stable gifted but rootless young man
Southerners, a blueprint for sense of self, as evidenced by (“It’s terrible to be young. . . .
their moral renewal. Of course, his changing his name on en- Terrible”) turned to the past as
as Faulkner himself well un- listing in the Canadian Royal a source of identity and stable
derstood, there is no “white Air Force to “Faulkner,” which values, becoming both a tren-
South” and there is no “black he believed looked more “Eng- chant critic of his society and
South.” There was only ever a lish.” He trained as a pilot but someone unusually invested
“white + black South.” Segrega- didn’t make it to Europe be- in both its singularity and its
tion was simultaneously a hard fore Armistice Day. When he universality—“To understand
legal fact, enforced by state vi- returned to Oxford, he bought the world, you must first un-
olence, and a cultural fiction. himself a bogus uniform, com- derstand a place like Mississip-
Faulkner wanted to convince plete with a cape, and lied pi.” This tension runs through
white Southerners that they about his war record. Thus his fiction, giving rise to many
shared a common destiny with did one of America’s greatest misreadings.
their black neighbors and al- novelists enter into a career Faulkner’s plea that the
ways had. He hoped, against as the town fool, “Count No federal government allow the
the grain of his experience, ’Count,” as he was known dur- former Confederate states to
that if they accepted this fact, ing his brief time as a student pursue integration on their
their opposition to civil rights at the University of Mississip- own timetable now seems
would fade away. pi. (Faulkner’s first published obviously wrong. His gradu-
novel, Soldier’s Pay, revolves alism was the result of two

T he collective past—the sol-

emn, marmoreal past that was
around the return of an avia-
tor disfigured on the Western
Front to the small town of his
basic errors. The first was that
he placed the self-respect of his
fellow white Southerners on
not just Pickett’s Charge and birth—for Faulkner, a typically equal footing with the morally
Confederate burial grounds odd form of wish fulfillment.) superior claim of black South-
but also bygone manners and Faulkner’s behavior was not as erners to equality before the
social relations—carried extra inexplicable as it might seem, law. Faulkner was right that
weight for Faulkner because given the moral prestige of the South’s process of reconcili-
he struggled with core ques- combat service in that period. ation would have to consider
tions of personal identity, espe- Hemingway served honor- the dignity of Southern whites
cially as a young man. He was ably in the Italian ambulance if it were to succeed. But he
uncertain how to carry his own corps but embellished his ex- was wrong to ask black South-
family’s history. His great- perience considerably when he erners to wait; they had already
grandfather had been a man of got home. Fitzgerald didn’t lie waited too long. Faulkner’s sec-
distinction in Jefferson County, about his war—like Faulkner, ond error was that, in his vis-
but the Falkners, as the family he never “made it over”—but ceral dislike of modernity, he

118 CITY JOURNAL

 Urbanities

drew a false equivalence be- He did not believe that whites titude but moral imagina-
tween the moral and spiritual were racially superior. He did tion. Viewed in that light,
violence of industrialization in have doubts about the capacity Faulkner’s achievement has not
the South and the murderous of black Americans to partici- been equaled by any Southern
racial violence of the Recon- pate in the democratic process, writer, white or black.
struction period. Even grant- but he regarded their incapac-
ing Faulkner his point of view
about industrialization, these
are not commensurate evils.
ity not as the product of innate
frailty but of the sustained de-
nial of their personhood by
S omewhat counterintuitively
for a famously difficult writer,
Even so, Faulkner should whites. He believed, to use a much of the best Faulkner criti-
not need apologists. There is current phrase for an old idea, cism appeared while he was
no doubt that, in a long pub- that they had suffered an in- still alive. Cleanth Brooks’s sev-
lic life in which he was often tergenerational trauma that eral volumes of essays about
drawn into civil rights issues, would take time to heal. Faulkner, published before
he sometimes spoke foolishly. Faulkner knew that black the rise of postmodernism in
These errors are forgivable in Southerners were moral credi- American literary scholarship,
context, however, and our re- tors and their white neighbors return us to an almost Edenic
fusal to forgive them 60 years moral debtors. He had the period in our understand-
later is self-righteous. somewhat quixotic aim of see- ing of the uses of literature. A
ing this debt repaid on terms Kentuckian by birth, a Rhodes

I n declining to embrace imme-

diate integration of the Jim
to which both sides would
agree. For Faulkner to have
found in black Mississippi-
Scholar, and later a professor
at Louisiana State and Vander-
bilt, Brooks was by background
Crow South, Faulkner was no ans, beaten and cowed by Jim and temperament perhaps
different from the Eisenhower Crow and often illiterate, the Faulkner’s ideal reader. Osten-
and Kennedy administrations, same basic human material sibly a formalist, Brooks, author
which, preoccupied with the of which his white neighbors of one of the founding texts of
Cold War, offered little sup- were made required both in- the New Criticism, The Well-
port to civil rights activists nate decency and indepen- Wrought Urn, was nonethe-
under mortal threat. Faulkner’s dence of thought. It is well less direct in style and a gifted
advice to the NAACP, that it to remember that many of his expositor.
should “go slow” after Brown v. fellow white Mississippians Brooks’s founding motive in
Board of Education, was echoed hated and ridiculed Faulkner William Faulkner: First Encoun-
by Attorney General Robert for these opinions. ters is to commend you to the
Kennedy’s plea to the Free- We should neither read work itself: “Any sensible ad-
dom Riders seven years later Faulkner, based on some of- vice would insist that a reader
that they “show restraint” and fensive statements he made to start by encountering the fic-
cease their campaign after they journalists, as an unredeemed tion at first hand, undistracted
were beaten in Birmingham. white supremacist, nor regard by too much critical appara-
Faulkner and Kennedy were his work, in the words of his tus. . . . This little book limits
wrong, but they were wrong excellent biographer Carl Rol- itself to such considerations
in the spirit of their times. That lyson, as “a stunning rebuke as theme, character, and plot,
must lessen their culpability, to to a society built on segrega- with some attention to the
some extent. tion and on the ideology of historical and fictional world
On the core questions, how- white supremacy.” Formula- in which the actions narrated
ever, Faulkner was right. He tions like these are too sure take place.” Here is a critic in-
did not fail to appreciate the of themselves, as Faulkner terested foremost in what the
injury done to black Americans himself never was. What we writer committed to the page
by slavery and Reconstruction. want from writers is not cer- (“theme, character, and plot”)

WINTER 2022 119

 and only secondarily with
the critic’s own interpretive
mechanics (“too much critical
apparatus”). That such humil-
ity is now considered excep-
tional tells us much about the
direction of literary studies
in the United States since the
1980s.
Irving Howe, a Jewish New
Yorker of revolutionary bent,
would seem at first an unlikely
Faulknerian. It is wonderful to
be reminded that critics are
sometimes capable of seeing
beyond the tips of their ideo-
logical noses. Howe found in
Faulkner not a fellow traveler
but a writer of rare imagina-
tive power: Faulkner wrote as a modernist but lived in a pointedly traditional style.

In his best work today is impressive only in admissions standards—but this

Faulkner has striven with its obtuseness. Here is a selec- is literary criticism as practiced
themes of a depth and tion of essay titles in The New by apparatchiks.
consequence seldom ap- Cambridge Companion to Wil- Faulkner knew that he made
proached by his Ameri- liam Faulkner (2015): “A New great demands on readers.
can contemporaries. He Region of the World: Faulkner, He would not have conceded,
has grappled with the in- Glissant, and the Caribbean”; however, that those readers
herited biases of his tradi- “Faulkner and Biopolitics”; needed the ministrations of a
tion, breaking through to “New Media Ecology”; and specialist to understand him.
a tragic realization that, at “Queer Faulkner: Whores, Asked by The Paris Review
least in part, they are in- Queers, and the Transgressive what a would-be Faulknerian
adequate and wrong. He South.” The critical impulse should do who found his work
has dramatized, as have here is not to promote greater impenetrable even after sev-
few other American nov- understanding of Faulkner’s eral readings, Faulkner replied
elists, the problem of liv- work but to demonstrate a par- haughtily, “Read it again.” Ac-
ing in a historical moment ticular analytical skill set de- cessibility was not high on his
suspended between a rived from literary values that list of literary values. He be-
dead past and an unavail- Brooks and his peers would lieved that what was required
able future; dramatized scarcely have recognized. The to confront his defamiliariz-
it in his own terms, as a collection obscures not only ing and frequently unconsol-
clash between historical Faulkner’s particular value but ing novels was not specialized
mores no longer valued also why anyone not deranged training but sustained spiritual
or relevant and a time of by intellectual vanity would effort. Even as he was deter-
moral uncertainty and op- want to study American litera- minedly innovative in form
portunism. ture at all. The contributors to and technique, Faulkner insist-
The New Cambridge Faulkner are ed that his work be understood
By contrast, much of the well-credentialed graduates of in elemental terms, as that of a
academic Faulkner criticism Ph.D. programs with daunting man confronting the difficulties

120 CITY JOURNAL

 Urbanities

of the “soul divided against it- his contemporaries, Heming- Oxfordians nearly every day
self.” This understanding is pre- way and Fitzgerald, are not. of his life. He did not stint in
cisely what graduate study in In a 1945 letter to Malcolm giving them a substantial place
the humanities no longer even Cowley, the critic who a year in Yoknapatawpha, sometimes
purports to seek. later would consolidate the even a place of honor. For him,
Mississippian’s reputation with they were both distinct as indi-
MARIO DE BIASI/MONDADORI PORTFOLIO/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

T hough many still regard

Faulkner as the greatest Ameri-
A Portable Faulkner, Heming-
way wrote: “[Faulkner] has
the most talent of anybody
viduals and collectively keepers
of a flame.
The 1952 Ford Founda-
can novelist, a countercurrent and he just needs a sort of tion documentary ends with
of complaint has always exist- conscience that isn’t there.” the restaging of a speech that
ed, sometimes having to do Hemingway’s complaint is Faulkner had given the year
with his difficulty and some- not about Faulkner’s personal before at the high school
times with his gloominess. morality but his artistic cold- graduation of his daughter,
Faulkner’s syntax is frequently ness. What was often missing Jill. We don’t know what
disorienting. His stories are from Faulkner’s conception of Faulkner actually told Jill and
often told out of chronological authorship was the audience her classmates, but the docu-
order and through the voices of itself. Faulkner may hector us, mentary version is a reprise of
multiple narrators. His world- bore us, test our resolve, but his Nobel address. Despite his
view is broadly pessimistic, and what he will never do—even suspicion of personal public-
even admired characters often in Sanctuary, a sexually explicit ity, there is no question that
come to bad ends. The pleasure novel that he claimed to have he was greatly moved by the
we take in him is the bitter- written for money—is gratify Swedish Academy’s honor,
sweet one of recognition, of see- us. Like James Joyce, Faulkner which he considered “was not
ing human nature represented might have had as his aesthetic made to me as a man, but to
without illusion or favor. credo: “The reader be damned.” my work.” Somewhat unchar-
It is a truism that the mod- Contemporary Mississippi acteristically, he struck a note
ernist novel abjures much of writer Jesmyn Ward has said of hardiness and resilience:
what gave its Victorian prede- that Faulkner’s achievement
cessor meaning. In Faulkner, was initially an obstacle to her I believe that man will
however, the distance from own writing but that his failure not merely endure: he
bourgeois values is extreme. to create completely realized will prevail. He is immor-
Consider all that is missing black characters finally gave tal, not because he alone
in his writing. He rarely rep- her an opening. It is true that among creatures has an
resents the ordinary world of Faulkner did not say all that inexhaustible voice, but
work. There is little conven- could possibly be said about because he has a soul, a
tional social life. Courtship is black Mississippians—but spirit capable of compas-
mostly absent, and sex is path- then, he did not claim to do so. sion and sacrifice and
ological. Faulkner simply was Faulkner understood the risks endurance. The poet’s,
not greatly interested in the of “writing from the outside,” the writer’s, duty is to
mean of human behavior, or as he put it; “the only terms write about these things.
in social convention, and so he [the writer] does know are It is his privilege to help
was not invested in many of within his experience.” He did man endure by lifting his
the traditional purposes of the it anyway—“there should be heart, by reminding him
novel, whose gregariousness no limits to what he attempts.” of the courage and honor
and gossip have been so essen- Even so, he was not quite as and hope and pride and
tial to its durability. Faulkner’s “outside” as the race-essentialist compassion and pity and
world is alien in its manners vision of human identity might sacrifice which have been
and assumptions, as those of suppose. He spoke with black the glory of his past.

WINTER 2022 121

 Weighing Our Losses of what would happen if the
most extreme protective mea-
Theodore Dalrymple sures were not taken. We had
grown almost inured to such
predictions, however: Impe-
Reflections on the pandemic rial College London’s Neil
Ferguson, for example, who
predicted up to 500,000 deaths
from Covid-19 in the United
Kingdom alone if his advice

N othing is more entertain- Royal Society) that, by 2020,

on strict lockdowns was not
heeded, had in 2001 predicted

ALBERTO PEZZALI/ZUMA PRESS/NEWSCOM

ing than an apocalypse—pro- bio-error (viral escape from a (admittedly, as a worst-case
vided, of course, that it hap- laboratory) or bioterror will scenario) up to 150,000 deaths
pens elsewhere or remains in have killed 1 million people. in the coming years from
an imaginary realm and does But having read these books, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease,
not intrude into our everyday all by highly informed men, I contracted from having eaten
lives. got on with life, as if they re- meat infected with mad cow
Intermittently over the past ferred to life on a planet not disease. Since then, approxi-
few decades, I have read for my own: for the trouble with mately 50 deaths from the dis-
enjoyment books about fu- prophecies of a forthcoming ease have occurred—just two
ture viral pandemics, thrill- apocalypse, as with those of since 2011.
ing to them with that mixture stock-market crashes, is that But dismissing apocalyp-
of fear and disbelief essential one needs to know not just tic predictions or projections
to the pleasure of any horror that they will happen, but when because they always proved
story. Appearing in 1996, for they will happen. wrong in the past is impru-
example, Virus X, by Frank Then came Covid. I was not dent. (Predictions are asser-
Ryan, a British physician and sure what to think of the pan- tions of what will happen,
evolutionary biologist, warned demic when it struck, and am while projections are assertions
that “new plagues every bit still not quite sure. Like many, of what might happen if pres-
as deadly as anything seen in I suspect, I find myself veer- ent trends continue, the two
previous history threaten our ing, or careening, from one often being confounded.) The
species” and foresaw the pos- opinion to another. Sometimes, problem is that of induction,
sibility of human extinction. In I think that it is not so much brilliantly expounded by Ber-
2005, a French book, Pandémie, the illness but the response to trand Russell in The Problems
by Jean-Philippe Derenne and it that is the more damaging. of Philosophy:
François Bricaire—respectively, At other times, I think that
a pneumonologist and tropi- governments had little choice Domestic animals ex-
cal disease doctor—foretold but to act as they did. On this pect food when they see
accurately all the measures subject, I lack fixed convic- the person who usually
that most Western countries tions. feeds them. We know that
would take 15 years later dur- Epidemiologists, along all these rather crude ex-
ing the Covid-19 pandemic. with pathologists regarded pectations of uniformity
And in 2011, Stanford biology as the nerds and autists of are liable to be mislead-
professor Nathan Wolfe pub- the medical profession, sud- ing. The man who has
lished The Viral Storm, which, denly rose to prominence, fed the chicken every day
among other things, quoted even to stardom, with the throughout its life wrings
the prediction by Sir Martin pandemic—some because of its neck instead, showing
Rees (onetime president of the their apocalyptic predictions that more refined views

122 CITY JOURNAL

 as to the uniformity of son will need luck to be right population; it was not even the
nature would have been in situations with many un- 1720 plague in Marseille that
useful to the chicken. knowns. killed a third of the popula-
tion of Provence but spread no
Thus, it would not be wise
to conclude that, because all
previous dire predictions or
M y first instinct about the
Covid-19 pandemic was that it
farther (and never returned).
And seasonal flu kills many
thousands each year—the
projections were false or exag- had been blown out of all pro- variation in the death rate is
gerated, we may safely dismiss portion. Had we not been here considerable, by at least a fac-
them in the present or future before, with viral epidemics, tor of five—without the gen-
as false or exaggerated: provid- such as bird flu, that were ex- eral public batting an eyelid. It
ed only that they are founded pected to decimate the world’s gets on with life. Why all the
upon reasonable assumptions population but passed more or fuss, then, over Covid?
and the current state of knowl- less unnoticed, apart from an To overestimate a threat can
edge rather than on ignorance initial panic? And had we not be dangerous. In September
and superstition. They might, been through the Asian flu of 1939, at the outset of World
after all, be true. 1957 and the Hong Kong flu of War II, nearly 600 more peo-
This, in turn, means that we 1968, which had left almost no ple died in accidents on British
can never entirely free our- trace in our memories, despite roads as a result of the black-
selves from fear, even if it is having killed far more people out decreed that month than
merely subliminal. It is not than Covid seemed likely to during the same period the
true that the only thing we kill (at least, early in the pan- previous year, without a single
have to fear is fear itself: in- demic), at a time when the air raid having taken place, or
souciance in the face of real population was only half or a single bomb having fallen.
danger can be just as devastat- two-thirds of what it is now? If road traffic deaths had con-
ing, if not more so. But even This was no Black Death that tinued at this rate throughout
the wisest, best-informed per- wiped out a third of Europe’s the war, almost half as many

WINTER 2022 123

 Oh, to be in England

people would have died in icy, it often seemed as if that grist to the antiracists’ mill, as
such accidents as died from of euthanasia of the very old if all differences in outcome
the bombing itself. This did (except that the death pro- between groups could result
not happen because a substan- cured was far from easeful) only from racial prejudice and
tial decrease in traffic ensued; had been adopted, in Britain, discrimination, which the self-
as to how many more would France, Sweden, and the Unit- appointed engineers of human
have died in the bombing had ed States. No attempts were souls must root out. (See “Does
no blackout been imposed, we made to protect old people’s Covid Discriminate?,” Summer
cannot know. Controlled ex- homes; on the contrary, elderly 2020.)
periments during a crisis are people known to be carrying It was likely, besides, that
not easy to perform. the virus were sent back to many of the elderly would
The costs of the economic such homes, seeding the dis- have preferred to run the risk
blackout that was an impor- ease like colonial troops giv- of death rather than have lived
tant part of the response to ing smallpox-infested blankets in total isolation and would
Covid-19 almost everywhere to hostile natives. If a deliber- not have followed mere advice
in the West—costs not only ate policy had been adopted to to self-isolate, even if it had
in money but in misery and cull a population that was a been possible to do so. The
ill health—cannot be known burden on society, as elephants objection that, if followed, my
for certain, but the attempt to are culled in national parks in policy might have led to hos-
measure them will occupy aca- Africa when they get too nu- pitals being quickly stretched
demics for years to come. Of merous, the results would not beyond their capacity to cope
course, they will need double- have been distinguishable. by an influx of desperately ill
entry bookkeeping, to offset Whether my imagined pol- old people was surely a per-
any benefits against the costs. icy would have worked is fectly reasonable one—though
Academic exercises of this na- unknowable, since it was not whether it would have proved
ture, however, can never quite tried. There were obvious dif- correct, we shall never know.
capture reality: and future ac- ficulties with it, but no policy Lockdowns applied to ev-
counts will have to navigate could ever have been perfect eryone except “essential”
between the Scylla of exag- or without its disadvantag- workers—not only hospi-
geration and the Charybdis of es. As Doctor Johnson put it tal staff but delivery people,
underestimate—just as policy- in Rasselas, if one must meet shop assistants, maintainers
makers have had to navigate every objection in advance, of public utilities, and factory
during the epidemic. nothing will ever be ventured. employees—in short, a gamut
When it became obvious, Obviously, not all old people of individuals necessary to
as it soon did, that the illness lived in such a way that they the continuation of daily life,
did not affect every section of could easily be protected from who were mostly of low so-
the population equally—but contact with younger carri- cial status. This reminded me
that in its dangerous form, it ers of the virus—for example, of George Orwell’s famous
was largely confined to the el- those in multigenerational remark that our civilization is
derly and a few other, easily households, more prevalent based upon coal and that the
identified, groups—I thought among people originating coal miner was second in civi-
that the focus should be on from the Indian subcontinent, lizational importance only to
preventing the transmission who also suffer disproportion- the man who plowed the soil.
of the virus to these popula- ately from diabetes, another Commentators tend to re-
tions, with everyone else left predisposing factor of serious gard such workers—often im-
to go about business as usual Covid disease. That they have migrants and typically poorly
to develop the natural herd had higher death rates than paid—as archetypal victims of
immunity that would end the the general population, as was exploitation. Certainly, their
epidemic. Instead of this pol- only to be expected, became lives must be hard, especially

124 CITY JOURNAL

 Oh, to be in England

in large, high-rent cities, where no thought to the possibility ics, has variously claimed that
they must live in cramped that causes of death are re- the virus did not exist; that
conditions or, alternatively, corded differently in different the illness was no worse than
endure long and exhaust- countries, or that the care with the flu; that George Soros and
ing daily journeys to work. which certification is carried Bill Gates created it with the
Spending the lockdowns and out is unequal between coun- intention of reducing women’s
quarantines alternately in a tries, or even within countries. fertility, thereby gaining con-
small town in England and in We simply conclude that if the trol over the world; and that
Paris, I learned to appreciate death rate per million in one the use of Covid vaccines is
such people’s helpfulness and country is, say, 1,400 per mil- comparable with the Nazi
good humor as a triumph of lion and, in another, 1,800 per genocide. Corbyn distributed
the human spirit over what I million, the first must have a leaflets to this effect in an
would have considered great better policy than the second. area of London with a high
adversity, had I faced it my- We allow no intervening vari- proportion of ethnic minority
self. If nothing else, the pan- ables, such as the age structure groups, some already inclined
demic gave us all opportunity or density of the population, to believe that vaccines were
to reflect on much that we had or the prevalence of obesity intended as an assault on their
previously taken for granted. or diabetes, to obtrude on our fertility. Mad as all this may
interpretation. Moreover, at be, Corbyn has presided over

L ike many, I began daily

to examine the statistics from
any one time, we regard the
statistics as definitive, as if
the whole episode were over
rallies of as many as 10,000
people—and this, in a country,
Britain, with one of the lowest
around the world, like an and the latest statistics were rates of vaccine skepticism in
anxious investor scanning the the last word on it. And we the West.
share prices to find happiness, derive a certain satisfaction— No doubt governmental
foresee doom, or face disaster. though we don’t admit to it— confusion was both cause and
The strange thing about num- that some country has statistics consequence of this cacophony
bers is that they confer a real- worse than our own. of opinion. Just listening to
ity, a solidity, to whatever is Suddenly, the world grew the science, as Greta Thunberg
supposed to be enumerated by full of epidemiologists, clinical has enjoined us to do with re-
them, irrespective of their reli- pharmacologists, and immu- gard to global warming, was
ability. When one considers a nologists—amateurs, of course, impossible for governments
statistical table, critical thought but thanks to the Internet, all because science is not straight-
is apt to decline, or even to with access to immense quan- forwardly a body of doctrine,
evaporate. The meaning of the tities of information (includ- especially in a situation, such
numbers seems evident at first ing misinformation)—often as the pandemic, with so many
glance: country X is doing bet- endowed with the belief that unknown variables. Masks ini-
ter than country Y, the reason a statistic, by the mere fact of tially were not made compul-
being that country X has ad- having been published, must sory in France; the government
opted a policy that country Y refer to a corresponding real- claimed that they were ineffec-
has not. ity. Not surprisingly, a cacoph- tive. Only a little later, when
In this world of ideal com- ony of opinion soon erupted, mask-wearing had been made
parative statistics, no margin ranging from the reasonable compulsory, did it emerge that
of error exists, let alone danger and the well-informed to the the reason masks had previ-
that what is being measured frankly psychotic. Piers Cor- ously not been advised was
and compared is not strictly byn, for example, brother of that there weren’t any avail-
comparable. For example, in the former leader of the Brit- able at the time. This lack of
comparing death rates per mil- ish Labour party and who veracity only added to the
lion of the population, we give holds a degree in astrophys- mistrust of government that

WINTER 2022 125

 Oh, to be in England

inevitably occurs when officials Netherlands, they remained not bear too much uncertainty:
make a policy U-turn: the pol- open. Was this because of the humans then turn to conspir-
icy changes, but the supposed difference in the two coun- acy theories or cults to allevi-
authority with which it is tries’ situations and dictated ate their sense of helplessness.
made remains, like the grin of by “the science,” or was it ar- That is why discussions of
the Cheshire cat. People may bitrary, the result of two ideas Covid so quickly become ar-
be prepared to forgive and plucked from the air by politi- guments: most people who are
forget error, but they are less cians, civil servants, and their not sure of their ground make
willing to overlook mendacity. advisors? Clearly, the Dutch up for it by dogmatism.
In France, the mask fiasco policy was preferable, insofar
was all the worse because,
between 2005 and 2010, the
government had stockpiled 2.2
as it was slightly less restric-
tive and economically damag-
ing, but was it any the worse
T here is one small thing
that, to my shame, I have
billion masks precisely in prep- from the standpoint of public learned thanks to the epi-
aration for a pandemic such as health? And how would one demic. An old person, whom I
the current one. France was determine whether this was so know well, has mildly irritated
thus fully prepared, in this re- or not? me for some years by claim-
spect, for the 2009 H1N1 in- The obvious answer is: “By ing that, for him, eating is a
fluenza pandemic, which, as the results.” On the crude terrible corvée. In fact, getting
it turned out, killed just 342 measure of Covid mortal- him to eat, in order to keep
people in the country. The ity, keeping the shops open his body and soul together,
minister of health was severely was certainly no worse, and has been a terrible corvée—for
criticized, and then demoted, perhaps better, than keeping others. Then a doctor friend
for having spent (and suppos- them closed, for mortality was of mine, aged 71, contracted
edly wasted) about $1.2 billion consistently higher in France Covid and lost his sense of
on the masks, which proved than in the Netherlands. But smell and therefore could taste
unneeded. The lesson was so many intervening variables almost nothing. It has not re-
learned, but unfortunately the might have led to this result turned, several months later.
wrong one: that it was better, that even limited conclusions This has caused me, for the
politically, to be unprepared about the differing policies first time, to enter imaginative-
for something that did happen would be almost impossible. ly into the world of someone
than prepared for something Yet if retrospective conclu- who tastes nothing. In these
that didn’t. sions are impossible, taking circumstances, eating must be
prospective decisions must rely a corvée rather than a pleasure,

D uring the first lockdown

(I am beginning to forget how
on something other than pure
evidence: intuition, perhaps, or
prejudice, the Dutch attaching
a tedious and repetitive task
akin to brushing one’s teeth
or tying one’s shoelaces. The
many we have had), I traveled more importance to commerce old man who irritated me
from France to the Netherlands than the French, who prefer had probably lost his sense of
by train. I spoke at a colloqui- powerful, centralized admin- smell, but it was only when
um, my attendance granting istration. my friend lost his sense of
me exemption from the travel Where uncertainty is inevi- smell that I took the trouble to
restrictions then in force for table but the stakes are high, think about what such a loss
most of the population. The re- tempers are likely to flare and would mean. Perhaps I will
strictions differed in certain re- people to claim insights into learn to be less easily irritated
spects in the two countries: for the nature of things that they by others if I henceforth say
example, in France, all shops do not have. Humankind, said to myself, “Remember anos-
other than grocery stores and T. S. Eliot, cannot bear too mia”—the absence of the sense
pharmacies were closed; in the much reality, but it also can- of smell.

126 CITY JOURNAL

 Contributors

J. Joel Alicea is an assistant Heather Mac Donald is the Tevi Troy is a senior fellow at
professor of law at the Catho- Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
lic University of America, Co- the Manhattan Institute, a con- His latest book is Fight House:
lumbus School of Law. tributing editor of City Journal, Rivalries in the White House
and the author of The Diversity from Truman to Trump.
Jonathan Clarke is a lawyer, Delusion: How Race and Gender
essayist, and critic living in Pandering Corrupt the Universi- Oliver Wiseman is the author
New York. ty and Undermine Our Culture. of The Spectator’s “DC Diary”
and a 2020–21 Novak Journal-
Jose Corpas, a native of Steven Malanga is the senior ism Fellow.
Brooklyn, is the author of two editor of City Journal and the
boxing books, including Black George M. Yeager Fellow at Soundings:
Ink. He is currently working on the Manhattan Institute. Seth Barron is managing edi-
a biography of Luis Firpo. tor of The American Mind and
Charles F. McElwee is the the author of The Last Days of
Theodore Dalrymple is a editor of RealClear’s Public New York. Chris Pope is a se-
contributing editor of City Affairs page on Pennsylva- nior fellow at the Manhattan
Journal, a senior fellow at the nia. Follow him on Twitter Institute. Leif Rasmussen is
Manhattan Institute, and the @CFMcElwee. a Ph.D. candidate in computer
author of many books, includ- science at Northwestern Uni-
ing Out into the Beautiful World Andrey Mir is a media re- versity.
and Grief and Other Stories. searcher and the author of
Postjournalism and the Death of Artists:
Nicole Gelinas is a City Jour- Newspapers. Tim Clayton is a freelance pho-
nal contributing editor, a se- tographer and former sports
nior fellow at the Manhattan Leor Sapir teaches and writes photographer who has covered
Institute, and the author of about American government eight Olympic Games and re-
After the Fall: Saving Capitalism and political philosophy. ceived many awards for his
from Wall Street—and Washing- work. Martin Elfman is a Bar-
ton. Allison Schrager is a senior celona-based Spanish-Argentin-
fellow at the Manhattan Insti- ian freelance illustrator whose
Martin Gurri is a former CIA tute, a contributing editor of work has been featured in ma-
analyst and the author of The City Journal, and the author jor newspapers, including the
Revolt of the Public and the Cri- of An Economist Walks into a Wall Street Journal and the New
sis of Authority in the New Mil- Brothel: And Other Unexpected York Times. Ryan Peltier is a
lennium. Places to Understand Risk. Minneapolis-based artist, illus-
trator, and teacher whose work
Bruno Maçães is a senior fel- Daniel Tenreiro is the Thom- has appeared in such publica-
low at the Hudson Institute and as L. Rhodes Journalism Fel- tions as the New York Times and
the author of History Has Begun: low at National Review. The New Yorker. For cover artist
The Birth of a New America. Geoffrey Johnson, see page 2.

WINTER 2022 127

 Brooklyn Diarist

Death of a Julio was about 30 and had One day, I heard Mr. Hall
come from either Mexico or a yelling, “Get out!” He was shuf-
Homeless Man place that sounded like “Ha-la- fling toward his empty drive-
wa-la.” He might have had a way. Mr. Hall, who no longer
Jose Corpas speech impediment; his Eng- drives, hadn’t used his drive-
lish was poor. The men spoke way in ages. Julio and his

O n most days during my

morning walks, it’s just me,
to one another in an indigenous
dialect. The only one I could
clearly understand was the one
friends had found a purpose
for it.
“They’re using my driveway
my bulldog, and the brighten- they called “El Viejo.” as their toilet,” he said, point-
ing sky. One day, last August, When the weather was warm, ing to two homeless men rising
before honking cars crowded El Viejo would sit on a crate from a squat in the rear of his
Ditmas Avenue, an ambulance next to Julio, smoking weed and driveway. Under the rosebush,
stood in the middle of the street, telling everyone who passed by next to the hydrangea, were
a motionless body covered in a to have a good day. He was piles of excrement.
white sheet on the ground in about 70 and, if what he says The men were belligerent but
front of it. is true, he used to “shoot faces listened when I told them, “You
The ambulance was parked off” in Vietnam. “Shoot them in guys gotta clean that up.” There
in front of Mr. and Mrs. Hall’s the front—they get a hole in the was nothing around that they
home, next door to the small back of their head. Shoot them could use, so I reached into my
business I own. I saw them in the back—their face blows pocket and handed them one
peering out their living-room off.” One day when I was near- of the poop bags that I use for
window, the blue and red lights by, his cell phone rang. It was my dog.
of the ambulance transforming his daughter, he said, before be- City agencies could not
their complexions every few sec- coming annoyed and raising his force the men to stay at a shel-
onds. He can help, they told the voice at her. I left. ter. Instead, they stayed in the
EMTs, motioning toward me. I once gave the men a bag streets, sleeping, eating, fight-
“What’s his name?” an EMT of apples. They ate quickly and ing—and driving away busi-
asked, gesturing toward the chucked the cores on the pave- ness. When they weren’t in
body. ment. “Over there,” I said, point- sight, their broken bottles and
“Nobody knows,” I replied. ing to the trash can at the cor- piles of feces were.
I called him Julio, but may- ner. They left. Whenever I was nearby, they
be it was Refugio. From about The men showed up later, stayed away from Mr. Hall’s
April 2020, he and eight other asking for money. “Here’s 20 driveway. And they weren’t
homeless men had slept in a if you sweep the front,” I told around when Julio was lifted
huddle of dirty quilts in front them. They refused. I offered into the back of an ambulance.
of the so-called nonessential them bags so that they could I glanced at the driveway, and
businesses ordered by Gov- collect cans. They walked away. then went into my store and re-
ernor Andrew Cuomo to lock I rarely saw them during the turned with cleaning supplies.
their doors. For a few months, winter, but by spring 2021, they I barely heard when Mr. and
these men had the streets to had returned. Passersby would Mrs. Hall thanked me from
themselves. leave beer and Chinese takeout their window as I rinsed away
Because of Covid, they had by their quilts. Julio and the oth- the stench of urine. A river of
been released from mental fa- ers would leave behind trash suds made its way down the
cilities and prisons. When re- and urine. Fights often broke sidewalk and into the gut-
strictions were eased, returning out among them. They threw ter and stopped in almost the
business owners found more bottles and drew blood. The po- same spot where a man with
than rats to shoo away when lice said that they couldn’t do no name and no home took his
they rolled up their gates. anything about it. final breaths.

128 CITY JOURNAL

 “A N I DEA- CE NTE R E D LI F E O F T H E
NOTED ECONOMI S T AN D PO LI T I CAL
COMMENTATO R. . . . T H I S WI LL
BE VA L UA BLE TO ST UDE N T S O F
ECONOMI CS, BLAC K CO N S E RVAT I S M,
A ND P UB LI C PO LI CY.”
– KIRKUS REVIEWS
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STEVE FORBES
C H A I R M A N A N D E D I TO R- I N - C H I E F O F F O R B E S M E D I A

“Entertaining and educating while linking history,

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