The Washington Post National Weekly. December 8, 2019

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2019

. IN COLLABORATION WITH

ABCDE National Weekly

Trump gave states the power to ban refugees.

Conservative Utah wants more of them.

‘We value these people’ PAGE PAGE128

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the fix

The impeachment divide BY

S COTT C LEMENT

AND

E MILY G USKIN

T

Independents also are divided Political independents have been a key group to follow in impeachment polls, since several surveys this summer showed independents opposed to impeaching Trump by a margin of more than 20 percentage points, the clearest signal of political risk to Democrats if they launched hearings.

Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Wisconsin. That is a flip from an average of national polls that finds support for impeachment narrowly edging opposition, 47 percent to 43 percent.

The depressed support for impeachment in key states was first signaled by a series of New York Times-Siena College polls conducted in mid-October, which found between 51 and 53 percent opposing impeachment in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

hroughout more than two months of the Democrats’ House impeachment inquiry, two critical questions have loomed: How will the American public react to what it uncovers? And will it help or hurt President Trump’s chances at reelection?

So far, four dozen polls have been conducted since the inquiry was announced, and together they offer some clear answers.

After an initial rise, support stayed divided on impeaching and removing Trump approval rating is Trump. constant Impeaching Trump was clearly unOverall job approval ratings are the popular this summer, standing at 39 essential baseline measure of a president’s percent supporting and 48 opposing in political support, and Trump’s trendline a Washington Post average of nationalin job approval is the clearest sign of ly representative polls from June whether his popularity has increased or through late September. But later in decreased amid the impeachment inquiSeptember — after House Speaker Nanry. And it has barely moved over the past cy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced the imDrew Angerer/Getty Images few months in national polling, including peachment inquiry following a CIA the period in which impeachment supwhistleblower complaint about An excerpt from Neal Katyal’s “Impeach: The Case Against port increased in late September.

Trump’s request to the Ukrainian presi- Donald Trump” was used at an impeachment hearing In Gallup polling from mid-Septemdent to investigate former vice presi- featuring constitutional scholars on Wednesday. ber to mid-November, Trump’s approval dent Joe Biden and his son — support has tiptoed between 39 percent and 43 National polls since the start of public jumped to an even split at 46 percent in percent approving. In Quinnipiac University hearings show independents are now divided: support and opposition. polls, the story is no different: Between 38 42 percent in support and 44 percent opposed.

Since that initial jump, however, support for percent and 41 percent of registered voters impeachment has been stable. The Post’s averSupport is lower in key states approved of Trump from late September to age of nationally representative polls conductlate November.

Battleground state polls show a more ed since the start of the House’s public hearings The stability of Trump’s approval ratings negative reaction to the impeachment inquion Nov. 13 finds 47 percent of Americans affirms just how locked-in Americans are in ry, signaling more risk to Democrats and support impeaching and removing Trump, their views toward Trump, even as some potential benefit for Trump. An average of while 43 percent are opposed. That support is independents and Democrats changed their 44 percent supported impeachment, with 51 little different from the 47 percent support in opinion on whether Congress should impeach percent opposed, averaging across a dozen the two weeks before hearings began and 48 and remove him from office. n October and November polls in Arizona, percent support earlier in October.

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This publication was prepared by editors at The Washington Post for printing and distribution by our partner publications across the country. All articles and columns have previously appeared in The Post or on washingtonpost.com and have been edited to fit this format. For questions or comments regarding content, please e-mail weekly@washpost.com. If you have a question about printing quality, wish to subscribe, or would like to place a hold on delivery, please contact your local newspaper’s circulation department. © 2019 The Washington Post / Year 6, No. 9

Contents Politics The Nation The World Cover Story Feature Books Opinion Five Myths

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On the cover Somali refugee Halimo Ahmed Hassan is trying to bring her son from Somalia to Utah.

Photo by KIM RAFF for The Washington Post NOTE TO READERS National Weekly will not publish the week of Dec 29. It will resume Jan. 6, 2020.

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Politics

Impeachment articles to be drafted

Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post

Pelosi says Democrats had ‘no choice but to act’; House may vote before Christmas

BY M IKE D E B ONIS, K AROUN D EMIRJIAN AND S EUNG M IN K IM

D

emocrats announced this past week they would begin drafting articles of impeachment against President Trump, setting up a constitutional clash that Trump now says he embraces and is eager to frame on his terms when the case moves to an expected Senate trial in January.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi argued that the president’s conduct when it came to Ukraine left Democrats with “no choice but to act,” charging that Trump abused the powers of the presidency and leaving little doubt that the House will hold a vote to impeach him — possibly before Christmas.

“His actions are in defiance of the vision of our founders and the oath of office that he takes to preserve, protect and defend the Con-

stitution of the United States,” Pelosi said in a solo appearance in the Capitol on Thursday. Announcing that key chairmen would proceed with writing the impeachment charges, the speaker praised her ranks’ “somber approach to actions, which I wish the president had not made necessary.”

Pelosi did not detail a specific timeline or how expansive the articles of impeachment would be.

While Pelosi’s announcement

President Trump on Thursday tweeted at Democrats, “If you are going to impeach me, do it now, fast, so we can have a fair trial in the Senate, and so that our Country can get back to business.”

was expected for weeks, it still marked a moment in American history. Only two of the previous 44 presidents have been impeached by the House: Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998. Neither was convicted by the Senate and removed from office. Trump is likely to meet a similar fate, but the Senate trial would nonetheless occur less than a year before Election Day and will add another level of partisan ani-

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Politics mosity to a campaign that already promises to be full of rancor.

Trump on Thursday dared Democrats to act quickly, turning his focus to the Senate, where the White House has already previewed an aggressive defense strategy that could entail calling witnesses to the chamber floor.

“They have no Impeachment case and are demeaning our Country. But nothing matters to them, they have gone crazy,” he tweeted.

“Therefore I say, if you are going to impeach me, do it now, fast, so we can have a fair trial in the Senate, and so that our Country can get back to business.”

Trump demanded to call as witnesses an array of Republican targets, including Pelosi, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) and former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Republicans have also floated summoning the whistleblower, whose complaint about Trump’s dealings with Ukraine triggered the impeachment inquiry.

Later at the White House, Trump dismissed any notion he is concerned that impeachment would tarnish his legacy.

“It’s a hoax. It’s a hoax. It’s a big, fat hoax,” Trump said in an exchange with reporters, which came during a meeting with United Nations representatives.

House Democrats have considered charges against Trump that include obstruction and bribery, according to congressional aides, as they continue to debate internally over widening the articles to cover Trump’s conduct outlined in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation as evidence that the president has repeatedly obstructed justice and solicited or welcomed foreign interference in his election bids.

The aides cautioned that the situation remains fluid. But Democratic leaders believe they have overwhelming support for articles dealing with the core of Trump’s conduct regarding Ukraine, according to two leadership aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private deliberations. Lawyers from the House Intelligence Committee, which drafted a 300page report detailing Trump’s alleged misconduct, will present the official findings in another highly-anticipated hearing be-

Tom Brenner/Reuters

“This is about the Constitution of the United States and the facts that lead to the president’s violation of his oath of office.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), seen above

fore the House Judiciary Committee on Monday.

Leading Democrats, including Pelosi and Schiff, have already identified Trump’s effort to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to launch political investigations advantageous to Trump to be what they consider bribery and an abuse of office that rises to the “high crimes and misdemeanors” standard.

Democrats allege Trump withheld a White House meeting and military aid, sought by Ukraine in the face of Russian military aggression, to force Zelensky to order official inquiries into the Bidens, as well as an unfounded theory that Kyiv conspired with Democrats to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

There is no appetite for trying to impeach Trump on grounds of treason, the third specific act listed in the Constitution’s definition of impeachable offenses, according to people familiar with the plans.

The entire GOP apparatus mounted a fierce defense of Trump as soon as Pelosi announced House Democrats’ next steps Thursday morning, with both Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and Rep. Tom Emmer (RMinn.), the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, warning of political repercussions for Democrats in November’s elections.

“Working Americans and their

families are not well-served by Democrats’ political performance art. What they really need, what they really need, are results,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in response to Pelosi’s announcement. “The only path to results is bipartisan legislation.”

Pelosi, who confirmed the House will vote this coming week on a bill to lower prescription drug prices shortly after her impeachment announcement, downplayed any potential political retribution for Democrats at the polls.

“This has absolutely nothing to do with politics,” she said.

House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) also suggested Thursday that Democrats would be free to vote as they choose on articles of impeachment without pressure from party leadership, saying in a statement that “this is not an issue that we are going to whip.”

But tensions over the impeachment inquiry and the contentious clash between the parties burst further into public view on Thursday when a reporter pressed Pelosi on whether she hates Trump — an accusation leveled by Republicans against the speaker and other Democrats.

“This is about the Constitution of the United States and the facts that lead to the president’s violation of his oath of office. And as a Catholic, I resent your using the word ‘hate’ in a sentence that addresses me. I don’t hate anyone,” an agitated Pelosi responded to the reporter, James Rosen of the Sinclair Broadcast Group. “And I still pray for the president. I pray for the president all the time. So don’t mess with me when it comes to words like that.”

Trump, clearly following the day’s news developments, responded shortly after on Twitter, taunting Pelosi for her “nervous fit.”

“She hates that we will soon have 182 great new judges and sooo much more,” the president tweeted. “Stock Market and employment records. She says she ‘prays for the President.’ I don’t believe her, not even close. Help the homeless in your district Nancy. USMCA?” The tensions also spilled onto the Democratic presidential campaign trail, when Joe Biden — campaigning in New Hampton,

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Iowa — engaged in an extraordinary exchange with an Iowa voter who pressed him on his son’s activities in Ukraine.

The younger Biden sat on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, whose owner had come under scrutiny by Ukrainian prosecutors for possible abuse of power and unlawful enrichment. As vice president at the time, Joe Biden had pressured Ukraine to fire the top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who Biden and other Western officials said was not sufficiently pursuing corruption cases.

There is no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of either Biden.

But the Iowa farmer who challenged the former vice president accused him of “selling access” through Hunter Biden’s seat on Burisma’s board, even though there is no evidence Joe Biden played any role in getting him the job.

“We all know Trump has been messing around in the Ukraine over there, holding their foreign aid . . . saying they’re going to investigate you,” said the man, who declined to identify himself. “But you on the other hand sent your son over there to get a job and work for a gas company that he had no experience with gas or nothing, to get access to the president. You’re selling access to the president just like he was.”

Biden quickly responded.

“You’re a damn liar, man. That’s not true. And no one has ever said that,” he responded.

Hunter Biden’s position on the Burisma board has become a major point of scrutiny for Republicans who have been seeking to turn the tables against Democrats on impeachment, particularly once the fight shifts to the Senate.

But top Republicans have declined to answer why the GOP did not investigate the Bidens over the issue when they held both congressional majorities in 2017 and 2018 if they are so concerned about it now.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) repeatedly dismissed the fact that information about the Bidens’ actions regarding Ukraine were public knowledge well before 2019, including in several news account.

“Did you know any of the information?” he said in response to a question from a reporter after his weekly news conference. n

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Relief and delight after NATO summit M ICHAEL B IRNBAUM in Brussels BY

N

ATO’s glassy headquarters was still standing Thursday, a day after the end of a whirlwind summit with President Trump that had threatened to blow it away.

On substance, in fact, the meeting of NATO leaders that took place just outside London was an almost normal gathering, despite fears that Trump or one of his brothers in unpredictability, French President Emmanuel Macron or Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, could derail the proceedings.

Trump stormed into the meeting summit as a disrupter and rushed out earlier than planned after fellow leaders were caught on camera laughing about his erratic style. In between his entrance and exit, though, the alliance approved a list of new measures that heartened policymakers who had been battered by years of uncertainty from the White House.

“What we prove today is that NATO delivers on substance,” said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, a usually subdued Norwegian leader who allowed himself a half grin — perhaps of relief — after he steered the group of 29 squabbling heads of state toward an almost normal conclusion. At NATO, he said, “the rhetoric is not always excellent, but substance is perfect.”

At NATO headquarters Thursday, diplomats and military officers walked in and out of the lobby Starbucks joking and ordering celebratory lattes. Ambassadors were back in their offices after the migration to London, where the summit was held at an 18th-century estate outside the city.

They pointed to a list of achievements that was summarized in a dry, two-page declaration that leaders signed on to at the meeting — not scintillating literature but nevertheless important in giving a political endorsement that sets vast bureaucracies in motion to fulfill the directions.

Virginia Mayo/Associated Press

After Trump’s early exit, weary diplomats cheer what they were able to accomplish on substance NATO set up a large new rapidresponse force to be able to speed quickly across Europe if ever there were a conflict. They committed to keeping their next-generation cellular networks secure, a U.S. priority amid fears that China’s Huawei telecommunications company could help Beijing get access to European networks as the continent upgrades to speedy 5G connections. They agreed to start thinking about the implications of China’s growing strategic power. And Turkey signed off on updated military plans to defend Eastern Europe against Russia that it had been holding up for months because it was angry that fellow members were working with Kurdish forces in Syria that Ankara views as a threat.

And Macron — who last month declared that NATO was suffering “brain death” as it catered to Trump’s single-minded focus on defense spending — was placated by a promise to set up a committee to reconsider the alliance’s

broad strategic vision.

“We were expecting worse,” said one senior NATO official after the meeting, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door meeting, which lasted three hours and in which most leaders hewed closely to their scripted talking points.

That may have been a touch boring — but boring might be good in the Trump era, given the alternatives, the official said, although some were waiting a full 24 hours after Trump’s departure to fully exhale, given his past track record of blowing up summits even after he has left.

At a 2018 meeting of the Group of Seven leaders in Canada, for example, as Air Force One pulled away, Trump withdrew his signature from a declaration in a fit of pique after feeling slighted by his hosts.

This time, though, Trump on Thursday portrayed the whole visit as a success, despite his early exit.

“Tremendous things achieved

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg appeared relieved after this past week’s summit, which saw agreement on multiple issues.

“What we prove today is that NATO delivers on substance,” he said.

for U.S. on my NATO trip. Proudly for our Country, no President has ever achieved so much in so little time,” he tweeted.

Among the Eastern European countries most vulnerable to Russia, which has been the alliance’s primary focus in recent years, there was still some nervousness about the outcome of the meeting. But the unease had less to do with Trump and more to do with Macron, who has declared he wants to reboot a dialogue with the Kremlin and that terrorism, not Russia, ought to be the primary focus for the alliance.

At the meeting, Macron tried to signal to Eastern European leaders that he did not plan to compromise their security in the name of better relations with Moscow.

“I’m under no illusions,” Macron said afterward. “But if we want to move forward in fostering stability in Europe, we need to move forward with that dialogue” with Russia.

On Monday in Paris, Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are scheduled to bring together Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for the first time. And some policymakers remain uncomfortable about what could unfold.

“The French and Germans are pushing on Ukraine. There’s no doubt about it,” said a senior NATO diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal alliance discussions. “We’re concerned that they’ll try to twist Zelensky’s arm to accept solutions that are unacceptable.”

Zelensky has declared that he wants to achieve peace in eastern Ukraine, where Russian-backed separatists have been waging war since 2014. Ukraine’s Eastern European partners fear that he could be pressured into accepting Russia’s annexation of Crimea or otherwise pushed into making a deal that would be politically unacceptable at home and that could embolden Russia to be aggressive in other vulnerable countries in the future. n

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Nation

Opioid users fight stigma of addiction BY

C HRISTOPHER R OWLAND

S

oon after getting an OxyContin prescription for back pain and arthritis in 1999, disabled coal miner James P. Craig started popping three of the narcotic pills daily, instead of the prescribed two, he said in a deposition as part of a lawsuit against the drug’s manufacturer, Purdue Pharma. Within months, he said in the deposition, he was swallowing and crushing and snorting up to seven a day to satisfy his craving.

When doctors stopped prescribing OxyContin, he said, he started buying the narcotic pain medication illegally.

“I didn’t realize what they’d do to you until it was too late,’’ Craig said in an interview from his home in rural Pathfork, Ky., an Appalachian Mountain town near the Cumberland Gap. “Within a couple of months, you don’t want to admit it, but one [pill] won’t do, and you’re running around the streets trying to buy one.’’

In a lawsuit, Craig claimed Purdue Pharma was responsible for his addiction, subsequent pain and suffering, and financial losses. The claim said Purdue Pharma failed to warn him and other plaintiffs about the addictive nature of the drug. But a U.S. district court judge disagreed in 2003. In dismissing a case brought by Craig, now 72, and other plaintiffs, including families of two who died of overdoses, the judge cited their illegal behavior and said the court would “not accept the plaintiffs’ ‘victimization’ mentality.’’

Fast forward 16 years.

More than 400,000 people have died in the national opioid epidemic, which was spawned by prescription opioids and expanded to the illegal use of heroin and fentanyl.

Purdue Pharma has filed for bankruptcy protection from more than 2,700 lawsuits brought by state and local governments, insurance companies and hospitals, claiming it deceptively marketed its prescription opioids. The company is in settlement talks, as are

Jessica Hill/Associated Press

Alleged victims fear perception of culpability will leave them out of government settlements generic drug manufacturers and large distributors and drugstore operators.

But even as government lawsuits have spurred the potential for sweeping national settlements, the continuing stigma of addiction and criminal activity remains a barrier to damage awards for the individual people who suffered the most, according to alleged victims, plaintiff lawyers and legal specialists. The one exception might be babies whose mothers were addicted during pregnancy.

Prescription opioid abusers often are perceived to share the blame for the serious harm they experienced through addiction to prescription pills, recovering users contend. Unlike those injured by asbestos, medical implants or faulty automobile bags, courts have been reluctant to accept their claim that their addiction was the result of a dangerous, improperly marketed product.

Because it was the first company to aggressively market a new

form of potent opioid product with its introduction of OxyContin in 1996, according to legal experts, Purdue Pharma was the biggest target of personal injury lawsuits as the opioid epidemic took hold in the early 2000s.

In its defense in that first wave of litigation, the company asserted in courts across the country that it should not be held liable for abusers’ misuse of OxyContin and other actions, which may have been illegal.

Purdue Pharma’s broad legal strategy echoed a position stated in an email by Richard Sackler, the former president and chairman of the family-owned company, in 2001.

“We have to hammer on the abusers in every way possible.

They are the culprits and the problem. They are reckless criminals,” Sackler wrote in the email, which was cited in a January lawsuit against Purdue Pharma and the family by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey.

A representative for Richard

Lynn Wencus of Wrentham, Mass., holds a sign with a picture of her son Jeff and wears a sign of others’ loved ones lost to opioids during a protest in 2018 at Purdue Pharma headquarters. In the past, Purdue has argued that prescription opioids were illicitly misused.

Sackler earlier this year, in a written response to the release of the email, said, “Purdue neither developed nor implemented any such strategy. . . . Like many people, Dr. Sackler has since learned a lot more about addiction, and has apologized for his insensitive language of decades past.’’

Purdue and other companies being sued have continued to rely on a defense that prescription opioids were illicitly misused. The defenses say the companies should not be held liable for such behavior and that the governments’ cases should be dismissed.

“Purdue is deeply concerned about the impact of the opioid crisis on individual victims and their families,’’ the company said in an emailed statement. But it did not directly support compensation awards for victims in its statement.

Now that governments have taken over the role of lead plaintiffs in the wave of lawsuits, opioid abusers and families of overdose victims have had little to no role in the talks with Purdue Pharma and other opioid manufacturers and distributors talks. It remains unclear when or how — or even if — individuals and their families would be compensated from the settlement proceeds.

“People have this notion that we did this to ourselves — that we made these bad choices, that it’s a moral failing not a disease,’’ said recovering opioid addict Garrett Hade, who said in bankruptcy court documents that he was prescribed OxyContin at 18 to treat injuries while skateboarding.

“Those are the types of stigmas that are attached to this. That holds sway.”

The largest Purdue Pharma settlement with a state thus far, in Oklahoma, steered nearly $200 million to the University of Oklahoma to establish a research and addiction-treatment program. Another $12 million went to local governments and $60 million for legal expenses.

None of the settlement money was earmarked directly for victim compensation. In advance of the $85 million settlement with Teva,

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Nation a generic opioid manufacturer, the Oklahoma legislature created a special fund for the money to address the opioid epidemic.

Victim-compensation funds also have not yet been floated as part of the national-level settlements being negotiated by governments and manufacturers.

The most tangible benefit for victims so far has been proposals for free anti-addiction and overdoserescue drugs to individual communities.

“There is no justice in what is happening,’’ said Hade, who has signed up as a plaintiff creditor in Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy proceeding. “I have no confidence, even if they settle with the states and the municipalities, that the money will go to the right places.’’

Hade and other alleged victims will be mounting a fight during Purdue’s bankruptcy to win direct financial compensation. Lawyers are signing up to represent victims in the bankruptcy who will attempt to show they were injured by OxyContin.

“The victims themselves didn’t realize they were victimized. They thought of themselves as drug addicts, they thought of their parents or their kids as drug addicts,’’ said Edward Neiger, a lawyer with the firm ASK representing Hade and other individuals with financial claims based on OxyContin injuries.

“They did not realize,’’ he said, “that they were addicted to opioids because there were people in a boardroom conspiring to market these drugs to them and to lie about the potential harm these drugs would cause.’’

In a court filing, Neiger has asserted a $2.5 million claim each for Hade and five others alleging personal injuries from OxyContin. For two people who lost children to overdoses, he has presented a claim for $5 million each alleging wrongful death.

Purdue Pharma has not responded to those creditor claims.

The company has denied that it caused harm to victims and said it marketed its drugs responsibly and according to Food and Drug Administration guidelines. It did not admit wrongdoing as part of the Oklahoma settlement and would not make any such admission in the proposed bankruptcy settlement with other states and local governments. n

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FAA aims to reset standards for plane seats with new tests BY

L ORI A RATANI

A

t a special center in Oklahoma City, researchers from the Federal Aviation Administration are running drills that could affect the comfort and safety of millions of airplane passengers.

More than 700 residents have been recruited to help determine whether the space between airplane seats or the size of the seats affects their ability to evacuate an aircraft.

The drills mark the first time the FAA is examining whether the trend toward smaller seats and less space on today’s planes poses safety risks to those aboard in the event of an emergency.

But consumer advocates and lawmakers are worried that the results of the tests are flawed, because the people the agency recruited don’t reflect the demographics of today’s flying public.

The FAA said the pool of volunteers includes adults between 18 and 60. Lawmakers and consumer advocates note there are no children or travelers with disabilities. The pool also does not include animals, which are a growing presence in today’s cabins, said Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.).

“You’ve got to have a representative sample,” Cohen said. “This is supposed to be a scientific study, but it’s flawed from the get-go.”

An FAA spokesman declined to address concerns about the demographics of the test pool.

The issue is of keen interest for Cohen, a frequent traveler. He, along with Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), co-wrote the provision in the 2018 FAA reauthorization bill that required the agency conduct these exercises as part of the push to set minimum standards for seat size and pitch.

There are no federal rules regarding seat size. Manufacturers, however, must demonstrate that there is enough space to allow passengers to evacuate the aircraft in 90 seconds or less.

sue ogrocki/associated press

Stacey L. Zinke-McKee, a Federal Aviation Administration official, speaks at the Oklahoma City facility where the tests are being held.

“The testing is a research project, following standard scientific methods and principles, which requires that we minimize the number of variables to allow proper interpretation of the results,” FAA spokesman Rick Breitenfeldt said. “Inclusion of variables other than the ones critical to the topic of investigation could obscure the effect of study parameters.”

As part of the study, 60 volunteers will be seated in mock airplane cabins that simulate the layout of a Boeing 737 or an Airbus A320, two common singleaisle aircraft. They’ll be instructed by flight attendants to evacuate. The seats will then be reconfigured and the tests will be run again. Each group of 60 will do the test four times. The study is being conducted by the FAA’s Cabin Safety Research Team over 12 days in November and December. The goal is to release the results of the study by next summer, Breitenfeldt said.

John Breyault, vice president of public policy, telecommunications and fraud at the National Consumers League, said the FAA can’t ignore the fact that space on airplanes is shrinking at the same time the average American is getting bigger. The shift doesn’t just affect comfort, he says — it also

could affect safety.

Seat width on many of the major airlines has shrunk from about 18.5 inches to 17 inches. And seat pitch — the distance from one point in a seat to the same point in a seat in front or behind it — has decreased from an average of 35 inches to 31 inches. On some airlines, the distance is 28 inches.

At the same time, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the average American man is about 30 pounds heavier — 198 pounds — than he was in the 1960s. The average American woman, who now weighs 170, is nearly 30 pounds heavier than she was in the 1960s. Nearly 93 million Americans, roughly 40 percent of the population, are obese.

Breyault said limiting the test groups to just 60 people also doesn’t reflect the reality of air travel today. Statistics show that planes are carrying more passengers than a decade ago. Add to that other variables: Because of baggage fees, people are bringing more bags on board. More animals are also flying.

“The bottom line from our point of view is that the FAA seems determined to find any way around meaningful rulemakings that would improve evacuation safety,” Breyault said. n

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In Utah, empathy toward refugees Bipartisan backing for these immigrants suggests limits to the president’s nativist politics BY

GR I F F WI T T E in Salt Lake City

A

piel Kuot had survived war, sexual assault and life— first as an orphan, then as a single mother — in an east African refugee camp. But Utah terrified her.

She would never be welcome there, others in the camp had told her when she learned she would be resettled 9,000 miles away in a place where her black skin could mark her as an unwanted outsider.

White people, she was warned, would try to steal her young children.

“I was so scared,” the 28-year-old recounted. Then she laughed. Three years on from her arrival, “life is beautiful.

Utah is a wonderful place, the best place in the world for me.”

The admiration is apparently mutual.

This fall, President Trump signed an executive order that, for the first time, gives states and cities the authority to veto refugee resettlements. The move alarms refugee advocates, who fear a wave of xenophobic demagoguery as governors and mayors seek to prove their anti- ­immigrant credentials by banning new arrivals.

That still may happen, adding to the strain on a once world-class resettlement program that has been crippled by cuts since Trump took office.

But in Utah — deeply conservative, deeply devout, predominantly white Utah — the response has been altogether different. The governor, a Republican who aligns with Trump on most issues, wrote the president a letter in late October.

He didn’t want to keep refugees out. He didn’t want to reduce their numbers. He wanted Trump to send more.

“We empathize deeply with individuals and groups who have been forced from their homes and we love giving them a new home and a new life,” Gov. Gary R. Herbert wrote. Such newcomers, he added, have become “productive employees and responsible citizens.” They have been an asset to Utah, he said, not a liability.

Republicans in the state legislature quickly backed up their governor, daring to defy a president who has repeatedly shown an unwillingness to tolerate intraparty dissent. So did Republican members of the state’s congressional delegation.

So did Republicans in city halls. Democrats across Utah added their support.

“I have to be honest: I don’t have any idea why it’s a partisan issue nationally. It’s never been one here,” said Brad Wilson, the state’s Republican speaker of the House. “Regardless of political party, we value these people.”

Until recently, that was true for the United States as a

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9

COVER STORY Apiel Kuot, a 28-year-old refugee from what is now South Sudan, at home with her children last month in Midvale, Utah. She calls the state “the best place in the world for me.�

photos by Kim Raff for the washington post

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Cover Story

whole. Leading the world in providing refuge to people fleeing war or oppression was long a source of bipartisan pride. From Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama, every president in recent decades had sought to bolster the program, identifying it as a way to generate goodwill and prestige internationally while strengthening bonds in communities at home.

But not Trump. The president in September cut the annual number of new arrivals to a maximum of 18,000, a record low. He has repeatedly attacked refugees, suggesting they may be a “Trojan horse” intent on violence or a Muslim takeover. At an October rally in Minnesota, his supporters booed his mention of Somali refugees, then cheered when the president announced he had given states and cities the chance to block them from moving in.

“Believe me, no other president would be doing that,” Trump declared.

Yet as Utah’s response shows, there may be limits to how far even a Republican state and local officeholders are willing to go in following Trump’s nativist brand of politics.

While many in Utah support the president’s attempts to crack down on undocumented immigrants, they draw a line at his stance toward people who have come to the United States legally after waiting their turn and undergoing thorough vetting.

Since September, when Trump authorized the veto, reactions from state capitols and city halls have been more hospitable toward refugees than hostile.

Some leaders, such as the Republican governor of North Dakota, have affirmed their states want to continue receiving refugees as long as municipalities agree. Others, such as the Democratic governor of the swing state of Colorado, have said they will welcome any refugees that other states reject.

Only four years ago, in the wake of terrorist attacks in Europe that came amid a historically large influx of asylum seekers, 31 governors said they were opposed to allowing in Syrians asking for refuge.

This time, no governor or major city leader has taken Trump up on the offer to enact a ban — at least not yet. (Officials have until June to decide.)

Refugee advocates say the early responses reflect a softening of attitudes locally that is not always reflected in the hard-line stances of Trump or the hyperpartisan warfare of Washington.

“At the state level, it’s turning,” said Nazanin Ash, vice president of global policy at the International Rescue Committee (IRC).

“There’s a definite movement toward embracing refugees.”

In Utah, the embrace is nothing new. The state’s 3 million-strong population is nearly 90 percent white, and it reliably goes Republican, with voters generally favoring the party’s policies on abortion, taxes and gun rights. Utah last sided with the Democrat in a presidential contest more than half a century ago.

But the state is considerably less enamored of Trump than its GOP-loving reputation would suggest. In 2016, he won less than half the vote. Nearly a quarter of Utahns opted for native son Evan McMullin, a self-described “independent conservative” who had once worked at the United Nations’ refu­gee agency and who urged the United States not to close its borders to those most in need.

Utah’s population includes about 60,000 refugees, hailing from places such as Somalia, Congo, Syria, Iraq and Vietnam. Under Trump, the number of new arrivals has dropped precipitously, from 1,245 in 2016 to 421 last year. Still, Utah punches well above its weight, taking in more people per capita than large states such as California, Texas and New York.

When hatred toward refugees is running high elsewhere in the United States, it is not unusual for employees arriving at the IRC’s Salt Lake City office to find it has been tagged overnight not with slurs but with hearts and messages of affirmation.

“We don’t even know who’s doing it,” said executive director Natalie El-Deiry.

When the governor spoke out forcefully in defense of refugees, and against Trump’s cuts, no one was surprised. Jackie Biskupski, the Democratic mayor of Salt Lake City, said there are many issues on which she and the governor disagree. But refugees are not among them.

“It’s not a partisan issue in Utah,” said Biskupski, whose city of 200,000 is at the

Refugees Noella Mapendo, left, and Ardo Abdilahi work on the assembly line making furniture last month at Deseret Industries Manufacturing in Salt Lake City. Utah’s population includes about 60,000 refugees.

heart of a metro area that is the landing spot for most of the refugees who come to Utah.

“I’m very grateful and proud of that.”

Biskupski, who has three refugees on her staff at city hall, said there are many reasons support in Utah is nearly universal.

The state’s roaring economy generates a constant demand for new workers that refugees help to meet. There are well-funded systems that provide job training, language instruction and other support to refugees to ensure a successful integration. And the diversity that refugees bring is welcomed, adding vitality and variety to the state’s arts and cultural scene.

Biskupski said it is also impossible to ignore the influence of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS).

Nearly two-thirds of the state is Mormon.

The group traces its presence in the territory that became modern Utah to a mid-19th-century flight from persecution in the eastern United States. That history helps shape its approach to refugees.

“It’s in the DNA of a lot of the residents of Utah, having pioneer forefathers who were driven from their homes because of their religious beliefs,” said Rick Foster, who manages the church’s global network of welfare operations, including support for refugees. “There’s an acute sensitivity to individuals who are suffering a similar plight.”

Of course, escapes from persecution are a common thread in the ancestry of many

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Cover Story “We love giving them a new home and a new life.”

Utah Gov. Gary R. Herbert (R), in a letter to President Trump about limits to refugees allowed in the United States

Americans, from the Mayflower on down.

But the Mormons make that narrative central to their teachings and connect it directly to the struggles of those seeking protection today.

Church leaders emphasize that refugees of all backgrounds are welcome — a departure from racist church policies of the recent past, including a ban on blacks in the priesthood that did not end until 1978.

The high percentage of young Mormons who perform missionary work abroad plays a role, as well. Utah may be landlocked, far from any international border. But its population has a comfort and familiarity with foreign cultures.

“You walk down the street in Provo and you can ask people whether they speak a second language,” said Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah), a member of the Mormon church. “Ninety percent of them will say yes.”

When Trump slashed refugee admittance numbers, which had peaked under the Obama administration at 110,000 annually, Curtis was among a small minority of Republican members of Congress who wrote to the president to object.

Curtis said he did not receive a response from the White House. The governor’s office declined to comment on its communications with the White House in response to Herbert’s letter. But in the past, the administration has defended its refu­ gee cuts, saying they were necessary to focus attention on asylum seekers arriving at the Mexican border.

Curtis did not support Trump in 2016, opting for a write-in candidate instead. But he has voted with the president about 95 percent of the time in Congress. In an interview, he said he “regrets” that the

refugee issue has become politicized while declining to criticize Trump for his part. “I’m not going to go down that rabbit hole,” he said.

Others are more blunt.

“The administration is trying to create division where none existed,” Aden Batar said.

Batar is the 52-year-old director of the refugee program at Catholic Community Services of Utah, one of two organizations, along with the IRC, that resettles new arrivals. He is also a refugee from Somalia who has raised four children in Utah after moving there a quarter-century ago.

“I’m a Muslim, but religion doesn’t divide us,” Batar said. “Catholics, Muslims, Jews, LDS. You name it, every religious organization here is helping refugees.”

When Batar was resettled in the small city of Logan, more than an hour’s drive from Salt Lake City, “there was no one who looked like me,” he said. “But no matter where you go in Utah, the community is very welcoming, very accepting.”

The politicians back up that attitude with funds and policies designed to allow smooth resettlements.

Unlike in states where refugees get only a few months of support, new arrivals in Utah have a case manager who helps guide them for two years. When refugees take their driver’s license test, an interpreter can come along for the ride. A state-run training center links new arrivals with available jobs and helps them boost their skills — everything from cooking to coding.

“My goal is not to put people into lowwage, dead-end jobs. It’s to put them on a career path,” said Asha Parekh, director of the state-funded Utah Refugee Services Office.

From left, Katy Diaz Jimenez, Yoani Peralta and Sriya Govipala attend a citizenship class at the Refugee Education and Training Center in Salt Lake City.

KLMNO Weekly

Since the training center opened four years ago, the average wage for refugees in the state has risen from around $8 an hour to over $12, with graduates finding work in fields such as information technology and manufacturing.

A half-dozen recent arrivals are in training to join the police force.

But the state’s support can do only so much when the White House’s cuts run so deep.

Parekh said that she now has far more employers looking for workers than there are refugees to fill those jobs.

Batar has had to downsize his staff in recent years as the number of new arrivals in Utah has fallen. The governor’s request notwithstanding, next year’s total could be even lower given the reduced federal cap.

That is even as the number of people forcibly displaced from their homes worldwide climbs higher, to more than 70 million.

When Batar scans the schedule of upcoming arrivals, it is mostly a blank slate.

“We have the capacity — the volunteers, the jobs, the donations, the housing. We don’t have any shortage of resources,” he said. “We just don’t have the refugees.”

For some recent arrivals hoping to reunite with relatives waiting for their turn to come to the United States, that has been devastating.

Halimo Ahmed Hassan, 50, had to leave her son behind when she fled her native Somalia and, in 2014, came to the United States. She said he had been vetted to join her by the time Trump took office. But the president’s decision to implement a travel ban on people from Somalia, as well as six other nations, scuttled those plans.

Now, with so many people in line for so few resettlement slots, Hassan has no idea when she and her son, now 16, will be together again.

“I think about him all the time,” said Hassan, wiping away tears with the hem of her pink hijab. “All the other people in America have helped me. I don’t know why the president isn’t helping.”

Kuot, the 28-year-old who feared her children would be kidnapped when she first landed in Utah, has faced no such torment.

Her children are with her, they speak fluent English and they are thriving in the public schools.

It is a far cry from her own childhood: She was born in present-day South Sudan and was a refugee in Kenya by the age of 4, her early life marked by violence, poverty and persecution.

Now she drives a minivan and lives in a two-bedroom apartment. “I feel safe,” Kuot said.

She is working part time as she raises her children, hones her computer skills and advances toward her GED. She plans to enroll in medical training and, someday soon, have a job in which she can assist others.

“People in Utah helped me and they didn’t even know me.” she said. “Why wouldn’t I do the same for people I don’t know?” n

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KLMNO Weekly

books

“Black Leopard, Red Wolf”

By Marlon James (Riverhead) FICTION | Inspired by African mythology, James, a Booker Prize winner, turns a motley group’s quest to find a missing boy into a fast-paced, fantastical adventure. These contentious companions explore a hyper-violent world of lush jungles, cities in the sky and dark forests, and they confront a catalogue of creatures: ferocious trolls, giant bats and a bloodsucking fiend made entirely of flies.

Clearly, Hollywood special effects are still playing catch-up with the magic our very best writers can spin.

Top 10 books of 2019 BY

BOOK WORLD REVIEWERS SARAH K. BENNING

EMBROIDERY BY

“Falter” Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?

By Bill McKibben (Henry Holt) NONFICTION | With 1989’s “The End of

Nature,” McKibben was among the first to alert the public to climate change. His latest book is a sprint through what we have done to the planet and what we can do about it now. Determined to keep the words “climate change” from fading into our “mental furniture,” he has gathered the most vivid statistics, distilled history to its juiciest turns and made the case as urgently as can be: Our existence is in jeopardy.

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BOOKS

KLMNO Weekly

“Girl, Woman, Other”

“Strangers and Cousins”

By Bernardine Evaristo (Black Cat)

By Leah Hager Cohen (Riverhead)

FICTION | The co-winner of the 2019 Booker Prize (alongside Margaret Atwood’s “The Testaments”) is composed of novella-length chapters that draw us deep into the lives of a dozen women in Britain of various backgrounds and experiences. As the novel progresses, their connections accrue gradually, allowing us moments of understanding spiked with surprise.

Evaristo skillfully weaves these tales together, creating a breathtaking symphony of black women’s voices, a cleareyed survey of contemporary challenges that is nevertheless wonderfully life-affirming.

FICTION | The tale of a quirky family planning a wedding in a tumble-down house contains all the promise of an arthritic rom-com, but, as masterfully told by Cohen, it is an absolute delight infused with the most pressing concerns of our era. The story expands to look at a historical tragedy and a current battle over an influx of ultra-Orthodox Jewish residents in the surrounding town. Cohen takes comedy seriously, and it shows in this disarmingly substantive story that’s funny, tender, provocative and wise.

“A Good Provider Is One Who Leaves” One Family and Migration in the 21st Century

By Jason DeParle (Viking) NONFICTION | A riveting multigenerational

tale of one Filipino family dispersing across the globe — from Manila to Abu Dhabi to Galveston, Tex., and so many places in between — as parents leave their kids for years at a time to send home wages many multiples of what they previously earned. As immigration emerges as a central political battleground in the Trump era, this book provides crucial insight into the global scope, shifting profiles and, above all, individual sacrifices of the migrant experience.

“Know My Name”

“On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous”

By Ocean Vuong (Penguin Press) FICTION | This debut novel by a Saigon-born

poet is labeled fiction but draws heavily on the events of the author’s life. The daring mix of historical recollection and sexual exploration is framed as a candid letter to the narrator’s mother, a volcanic woman whose life was made possible by the Vietnam War. (Her father was a U.S. soldier.) Vuong’s willingness to solve the equation of his own existence, no matter its components, is a hallmark of this poignant and lyrical work of selfdiscovery.

“Say Nothing” A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland

Doe, the sexual assault victim of Brock Turner, deliberately and triumphantly reclaims her story by drawing a clear-eyed portrait of how difficult it is for rape victims to get justice, and how the process serves as its own kind of re-victimization. In haunting prose, Miller documents a broken system, or several, which her book indicts one by one. “Know My Name” is a gut-punch, yes, but also blessedly hopeful.

By Ben Lerner (Farrar Straus Giroux) FICTION | Here is that all-too-rare masterpiece: a svelte big novel. Lerner does what only great novelists can, which is explore the condition of the whole country in the particular story of a few characters in a small town. Lerner takes us back to Kansas in the 1990s where a high school debate team star and his mother, a psychotherapist, contend with the increasingly toxic language that passes for civil discourse in America.

“The Yellow House”

By Sarah M. Broom (Grove)

By Patrick Radden Keefe (Doubleday)

By Chanel Miller (Viking) NONFICTION | Miller, formerly known as Emily

“The Topeka School”

NONFICTION | This examination of “the

Troubles” in Northern Ireland begins with the 1972 murder of Jean McConville, a widowed mother suspected of being a British informant.

Keefe interweaves her story with the rise of Dolours Price, an Irish Republican Army member who was involved in McConville’s death. With its dual portrait of a victim and a notorious revolutionary, “Say Nothing” is a cautionary tale about the zealotry of youth, the long-term consequences of violence and the politics of forgetting.

NONFICTION | Broom’s stirring memoir, the

winner of the 2019 National Book Award for nonfiction, is set in New Orleans East, a part of the city that tourists do not visit. The yellow house of the title, Broom’s family home, is the pride, hope and prison of a black, working-class family. After it is destroyed during Hurricane Katrina, it also becomes a symbol of the issues confronting us today: pernicious racism, corporate greed, displacement and the improbable arithmetic of survival as a member of the working poor. n

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KLMNO Weekly

Opinions

BY SACK FOR THE STAR TRIBUNE

We need a major redesign of life Laura L. Carstensen a professor of psychology, is the director of the Stanford Center on Longevity.

It’s time to get serious about a major redesign of life. Thirty years were added to average life expectancy in the 20th century, and rather than imagine the scores of ways we could use these years to improve quality of life, we tacked them all on at the end. Only old age got longer.

As a result, most people are anxious about the prospect of living for a century. Asked about aspirations for living to 100, typical responses are “I hope I don’t outlive my money” or “I hope I don’t get dementia.”

If we do not begin to envision what satisfying, engaged and meaningful century-long lives can look like, we will certainly fail to build worlds that can take us there.

In my view, the tension surrounding aging is due largely to the speed with which life expectancy increased. Each generation is born into a world prepared by its ancestors with knowledge, infrastructure and social norms. The human capacity to benefit from this inherited culture afforded us such extraordinary advantages that premature death was dramatically reduced in a matter of decades. Yet as longevity surged, culture did not keep up.

Long lives are not the problem.

The problem is living in cultures designed for lives half as long as the ones we have.

Retirements that span four decades are unattainable for most individuals and governments; education that

ends in the early 20s is ill-suited for longer working lives; and social norms that dictate intergenerational responsibilities between parents and young children fail to address families that include four or five living generations.

Last year, the Stanford Center on Longevity launched an initiative called “The New Map of Life.” We began by convening a group of experts, including engineers, climate scientists, pediatricians, geriatricians, behavioral scientists, financial experts, biologists, educators, health-care providers, human resource consultants and philanthropists. We charged them with envisioning what vibrant century-long lives would look like and then began the

BY STANTIS FOR THE tribune content agency

remapping process. How do traditional models of education, work, lifestyles, social relationships, financial planning, health care, early childhood and intergenerational compacts need to change to support long lives?

We quickly agreed that it would be a mistake to replace the old rigid model of life — education first, then family and work, and finally retirement — with a new model just as rigid.

Instead, there should be many different routes, interweaving leisure, work, education and family throughout life, taking people from birth to death with places to stop, rest, change courses and repeat steps along the way. Old age alone wouldn’t last longer; rather, youth and middle age would expand, too.

We agreed that longevity demands rethinking of all stages of life, not just old age. To thrive in an age of rapid knowledge transfer, children not only need reading, math and computer literacy, but they also need to learn to think creatively and not hold on to “facts” too tightly.

They’ll need to find joy in unlearning and relearning. Teens could take breaks from high school and take internships in workplaces that intrigue them.

Education wouldn’t end in youth but rather be ever-present and

take many forms outside of classrooms, from micro-degrees to traveling the world.

Work, too, must change.

There’s every reason to expect more zigzagging in and out of the labor force — especially by employees who are caring for young children or elderly parents — and more participation by workers over 60. There is good reason to think we will work longer, but we can improve work quality with shorter workweeks, flexible scheduling and frequent “retirements.”

Financing longevity requires major rethinking. Rather than saving ever-larger pots of money for the end of life, we could pool risks in new ways. Generations may share wealth earlier than traditional bequests; we can start savings accounts at birth and allow young adults to work earlier so that compound interest can work in their favor.

Maintaining physical fitness from the beginning to end of life will be paramount. Getting children outside, encouraging sports, reducing the time we sit, and spending more time walking and moving will greatly improve individual lives.

Longer lives present us with an opportunity to redesign the way we live. The greatest risk of failure is setting the bar too low. n

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KLMNO Weekly

Five Myths

Country music BY

J OCELYN N EAL

Love it or leave it, country music — with its whiskey-soaked nostalgia and crying steel guitars, its trains, trucks and lost love — is a defining feature of the American soundscape. This fall, Ken Burns’s documentary series, along with an outpouring of Dolly Parton tributes on NPR, Netflix and the stage at the Grand Ole Opry, has trained a spotlight on the genre. Still, myths infuse many people’s understanding of country music — and some of them are integral to its appeal.

Myth No. 1 Country is white music for white people.

In fact, the genre’s signature sound has diverse roots. African American string bands were common in the late 19th and early 20th centuries — and played the same types of music, on the same types of instruments, as their white counterparts. Jimmie Rodgers, the “father of country music,” made a number of recordings with African American musicians, including Louis Armstrong. In the 1940s and ’50s, Mexican performers in the Southwest United States mixed their musical styles, including ranchera and norteño, with country.

Today, the sounds of Sam Hunt, Chris Stapleton and Sturgill Simpson unapologetically blend soul and country. Within the past year, rapper Lil Nas X had a viral hit, “Old Town Road,” that challenged listeners’ definition of the genre, and Jimmie Allen, another African American artist, debuted with a No. 1 single on country radio, a ballad called “Best Shot.” According to a survey by the Country Music Association, the genre’s fastestgrowing audience is nonwhite and Hispanic listeners.

Myth No. 2 Country music listeners are mostly working-class.

Country music is certainly rooted in the working class, but as America’s mid-century prosperity spurred migration to suburban and urban settings, the

audience changed. Beginning in the 1960s, as historian Diane Pecknold documents in “The Selling Sound,” the recently formed Country Music Association sent representatives to explain to radio station owners and advertisers that country fans were part of the middle-class consumer demographic, with plenty of disposable income.

Country music fans today have slightly higher-than-average annual household income and rates of homeownership than the general population, and are more likely to be employed as executives and professionals, according to the CMA’s “Snapshot of the Country Listener” from this year.

Myth No. 3 Country is red-state music.

But country music listeners aren’t wholly conservative. A 2016 Nielsen survey revealed that “just as many Democratic voters listen to Country radio as Republican voters” in major radio markets. Throughout its history, the genre’s strongly populist leaning has left ample room for a range of political perspectives: Country artists recorded both tributes to and parodies of the New Deal. Today, many country musicians quietly allow fans of all allegiances to assume they agree with them.

As singer-songwriter Dylan Scott told The Washington Post in 2017, “Everyone’s got an opinion. And as soon as you give your opinion, somebody’s going to hate your opinion and not

Matt McClain/The Washington Post

Neon lights shine on Nashville’s Lower Broadway, home to honky-tonks and country music. While country has roots in the working class, its listeners today are more likely to be higher-earning professionals.

buy your music.” Others, however, have declared staunch loyalties, including on the left.

In 2008, for example, songwriter Gretchen Peters objected to Sarah Palin using her song “Independence Day” at campaign events, and she donated the song’s royalties to Planned Parenthood.

Myth No. 4 In the past, there were more women in country music.

As recent years have brought much-needed attention to the gender disparity in country radio airplay, some commentators have claimed that the problem is worse today than in the 1960s and ’70s.

But a quick check of industry charts reveals that the gender split was no better back then. Billboard’s recent chart from Nov. 9 featured five solo female artists in the top 30, along with two bands or duets with female singers. Its chart from Aug. 22, 1970 — the first time Parton cracked the top 10 — had five solo female artists in the top 30, along with three male-female pairs. Some brief periods have offered exceptions to this status quo: In the 1990s, for example, women featured more prominently on

country radio. But according to an analysis by musicologist Jada Watson, representation steadily declined over the next two decades.

Today, the number of women on country radio is approximately at the same dismal level as it was 50 years ago.

Myth No. 5 Country singers write their own songs about their real lives.

Though more artists these days have at least some hand in writing the songs they record, traditionally, the country music industry has treated composition and performance as separate jobs. For decades, the professional songwriting community in Nashville largely stayed out of the spotlight: Fans are often surprised to learn that superstars such as George Straitand Reba McEntire have written few to none of their own hits, or that Blake Shelton has a writer’s credit on only two of the 25 singles he has released since 2010. n Neal, a music professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is the author of “Country Music: A Cultural and Stylistic History.”

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SUNDAY, December, 8, 2019

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