The Washington Post National Weekly - January 6, 2019

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THE FIX

Trump backs himself into a wall BY

C OLBY I TKOWITZ

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ith the government shutdown, President Trump has put himself in an impossible position.

He’s tied his support for a solution entirely to securing billions of dollars to build a wall on the Mexican border.

House Democrats say that’s a total non-starter. Meanwhile Trump has rejected compromise deals and temporary solutions, some negotiated by his own allies. He’s dug in so hard, he’s left no wiggle room for himself.

On Wednesday, during a White House meeting with congressional leaders, Trump acknowledged as much, telling those in attendance that reopening the government without securing wall funds would make him look “foolish.”

But it goes even deeper than that. Consider Sen. Lindsey O. Graham’s (R-S.C.) description of Trump’s conundrum during an interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity: “If he gives in now, that’s the end of 2019 in terms of him being an effective president,” Graham said. “That’s probably the end of his presidency. Donald Trump has made a promise to the American people: He’s going to secure our border.”

On Thursday, Trump reiterated his stance in a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room. Flanked by border patrol agents, he made his case for the wall and asked each of them to speak about the necessity of increasing security along the U.S. southern border.

The president maintained that he has “never had so much support as I have in the last week over my stance on border security . . . and for, frankly, the wall, or the

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DANIEL OCHOA DE OLZA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers arrest a migrant who crossed the border fence to get into the U.S. from Tijuana.

barrier.”

Trump built his presidential candidacy on ending illegal immigration, an issue he tied — erroneously — to all sorts of problems, from crime to unemployment to drugs. Keep people out, he’s argued, and make America great again. And he has rallied his supporters around the idea of a “big, beautiful wall” as the way to do that.

Trump repeated his message enough times that it became gospel for his base. According

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 5, No. 13

to a December poll, more than two-thirds of Trump voters said building a wall is an immediate priority.

But now, entering his third year as president, Trump has not produced a wall or a way to pay for it. Instead, he’s been forced to make several concessions. As a candidate, Trump promised that Mexico would pay for the wall’s construction. That fanciful idea was almost immediately shot down by Mexico’s leaders. Instead, funding must come from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. And the wall, as it’s conceived, is steel slats.

Given that, what’s at stake for Trump is not just having to eat crow if he gives in on this issue, but the entire basis of his presidency.

Sure, Trump’s voters liked the idea of a no-nonsense outsider disrupting Washington norms and believed his business experience would be good for the economy. But Trump’s appeal to those voters has always been about preying on people’s fears, particularly fear of the “other.”

Trump’s campaign strategy from day one has gone something like this: Convince people that illegal immigrants are criminals and that Trump has the solution to protect the United States.

That’s how Trump has backed himself into a corner. He’s holding hostage several federal agencies that have nothing to do with immigration or national security over his demand for wall funding. But reopening the government without the wall money would expose as a farce his claim that a wall is necessary to defend the country.

The wall is the very essence of his presidency. Without it, as Graham basically said, what is left? n ©The Washington Post

CONTENTS POLITICS THE NATION THE WORLD COVER STORY ANIMALS BOOKS OPINION FIVE MYTHS

4 8 10 12 16 18 20 23

ON THE COVER Illustration by JADE SCHULZ for The Washington Post

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POLITICS

A crowded 2020 Democratic push Big, diverse field poised for election bids in a party still defining itself

SCOTT EISEN/GETTY IMAGES

BY A NNIE L INSKEY AND J ENNA J OHNSON

in Cambridge, Mass.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and her husband, Bruce H. Mann, and their dog, Bailey, walk to their Cambridge, Mass., home after Warren talked to reporters about her plans to run for the White House.

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he 2020 Democratic campaign to defeat President Trump launched in earnest this past week as Sen. Elizabeth Warren finally made her ambitions clear: She is running for president.

The Massachusetts Democrat’s long-expected announcement that she had filed legal paperwork to open a campaign did not reshape the race so much as mark an official start to a presidential nominating contest expected to fea-

ture one of the largest and most diverse fields of candidates in the history of either major party.

There will be older women, younger women, women of color.

There will be men of multiple shapes and ethnicities. The field will probably include billionaires, millionaires and candidates who still have college debt.

All will compete for attention not only with one another but also with the ongoing hourly drama from the White House, from which Trump already chews through news cycles at an astounding pace. The Democrats also will be in races for money, for

staff, for viral moments that garner widespread publicity, and ultimately for votes in a radically altered political and media environment.

“This is a multilevel chess game with more candidates than anyone has seen,” said Joe Trippi, a Democratic strategist. “I’m not sure anyone knows what the rules are, much less how to get through the marathon that started today.”

This collection of candidates will be emerging as the Democratic Party tries to determine how to define itself in the era of Donald Trump.

Questions abound: Should the party fight for the

white working-class voters who flocked to Trump? Or should it look to younger, nonwhite voters whose numbers are growing faster than their voting habits?

Should they tangle with Trump?

Should they rise above him? Is a fresh face needed, or an experienced hand?

“This is an important time for Democrats to discuss what we’re all about. Where do we stand as a party?” said Andrea Steele, the founder of Emerge America, an organization that encourages women to run for office. “We’re in this defining moment. We have this president in there. And every-

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POLITICS thing is at stake. Everything.”

Political observers are used to thinking about presidential candidates as occupying defined lanes. But the 2020 race will include multiple candidates for some lanes, creating mini-primaries among the more crowded sections of the party. The challenge for candidates will be to win in their lanes, while also expanding beyond that niche to forge alliances with other groups.

Warren’s Monday announcement was expected, but the continuing tension over the lineup centers on three men whose decisions whether to run could influence other challengers — former vice president Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic congressman from El Paso who retired to unsuccessfully challenge Republican incumbent Ted Cruz for a Senate seat.

Biden would have a historic advantage: In modern history, every former vice president who has sought his party’s nomination has clinched it. The best-known candidate in the race, Biden has run and lost two previous campaigns for the Democrats’ presidential nomination.

He said in November that he would not announce whether he would run until the new year.

Asked if that meant a January announcement, he said: “I wouldn’t announce if I were going to run that early. It would be too early to start it.”

Sanders, though unsuccessful in 2016, caught fire with his bold message and grumpy authenticity.

He arguably has the most to lose from Warren’s entry into the race, as they offer similar economic populist messages and reside in the same region.

O’Rourke gained national attention by raising more than $70 million, the largest Senate haul in history, in his bid to topple Cruz. A video O’Rourke tweeted questioning the wisdom of building a border wall was viewed more than 5 million times in four days.

Other candidates occupy loose niches, often overlapping ones.

The 2020 contest may also set a record for female and nonwhite candidates, their energy fueled by the party’s successes in the midterm elections.

“The goal of 2020 will be about inspiring and turning out voters who have never participated,” said

YASMINA CHAVEZ/ASSOCIATED PRESS

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MICHAEL ROBINSON CHAVEZ/THE WASHINGTON POST

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Rashad Robinson, executive director of Color of Change, a racial justice organization. “This will not be about watering down a message. This cannot just be about defeating Trump.”

Sens. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.), both black, have proved themselves popular in early-voting states, some of which are dominated by nonwhite voters.

Harris took to Twitter after Warren’s announcement to offer a recap of her 2018 accomplishments.

She also reprised a tweet that she’d sent earlier in the year: “My advice to Black girls everywhere: whenever you find yourself in a

The Democratic field of presidential candidates is expected to be crowded, with possible contenders including, from top left clockwise, former vice president Joe Biden; Sen. Bernie Sanders; Sen. Kamala D. Harris; Sen. Cory Booker; former San Antonio mayor Julián Castro, who has announced his bid; and Beto O’Rourke.

room where there aren’t a lot of people who look like you . . . remember that you have an entire community in that room with you, all of us cheering you on.”

One of the two Democrats who have officially announced their candidacies, former San Antonio mayor Julián Castro, also is expected to seek out the party’s young and minority voters. (The other official entrant is John Delaney, a Maryland congressman who is retiring from the House to pursue his bid.)

No candidate will get far without building an organization.

That’s where another division lies, between the Democrats who have already put together their teams

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and Democrats still mulling over whether to run. Booker, Harris, Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, and Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper are in the first camp.

All of them have signaled who would lead their campaigns and, in some cases, where their headquarters would be located; all have made overtures to potential staffers in early-primary states and begun making arguments about how they could win.

Other Democratic contenders are not so far along, thinking in public and in private about whether they can find a path. Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Sherrod Brown of Ohio acknowledge that they’re looking at 2020, often by saying that the idea has been put to them by supporters who want a candidate who can win.

The complicated aspect of the upcoming season is that many of these potential candidates have overlapping strengths.

Biden, Brown and Klobuchar are thought to have appeal in the Upper Midwest, the home of the many voters who abandoned the Democratic Party for Trump in 2016. Warren, Harris, Klobuchar and Gillibrand are all women.

The electorate might also have contradictory desires.

“Everyone likes a fresh face, but experience matters,” said Randi Weingarten, the president of the 1.7 million-member American Federation of Teachers.

All of the candidates will soon be making visits to early states, if they haven’t already.

Warren planned to visit Iowa this weekend, pending votes in the Senate. She hasn’t been there since 2014, when she campaigned for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Bruce Braley, who lost to Republican Joni Ernst.

On Monday, she called supporters and Democratic VIPs, including Tom Vilsack, the former Iowa governor and agriculture secretary under President Barack Obama.

He called Warren a “welcome addition” to the field.

But he also had a warning to all: “You really have to be one thousand percent committed to this.

It’s an incredible grind. And incredible set of pressure-packed days. You have to understand it’s going to be the most difficult thing you do in your life.” n ©The Washington Post

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POLITICS

Shutdown hits private sector jobs

BY K IMBERLY K INDY, L ISA R EIN, AND J OEL A CHENBACH

K

elly Dodge has a case of shutdown anxiety. She is a project manager at a Colorado tech firm that produces software for the federal government and none of her coders are getting paid.

She is increasingly worried that they will find more stable jobs elsewhere.

“It’s hard to find people who can do this work,” said Dodge, whose team is developing a tool to help companies comply with the Endangered Species Act. “I have a highly motivated and exeptional team that really cares about working for the government and doing something for natural resources.

But they feel disrespected.”

As the partial government shutdown drags on, its effects are starting to cascade far beyond the hulking agency buildings in Washington. Private companies with federal contracts are coping with chaos, confusion and uncertainty, while businesses large and small that rely on the operations of the vast federal bureaucracy are starting to feel sand in their gears.

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) predicted Thursday that the shutdown could last for “months and months.” While the broader U.S. economy has yet to feel sharp effects from the scaled-down federal government, economist Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics said that the impact could be significant if the shutdown continues for weeks or months.

“If it extends into the spring, it’ll start to do real damage and have real impact, because it probably signifies other things are going off the rails — the acrimony in Washington is run amok,” It’s difficult to know how that disruption might play out, Zandi added.

“Take the housing market, for example. The fact that the IRS isn’t open and verifying tax returns and W2 statements may mean that we might not get home closings,” he said. “The housing market could be severely disrupted, particularly

SAUL LOEB/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

U.S. contracting community and ordinary citizens are feeling cascading effects of funding dispute during the spring selling season.”

The shutdown is also affecting workers up and down the pay scale. In addition to the approximately 800,000 federal workers who are either furloughed or facing the prospect of working without pay, low-wage employees such as cafeteria workers and custodial staffers work for private contractors that — unlike federal employees — have little hope of getting backpay when the shutdown ends.

Pablo Lazaro, 49, works fulltime at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, but the museum hasn’t been open since New Year’s Day. His employer, Restaurant Associates, is a contractor that manages Smithsonian cafeterias.

“It’s really sad because most of the cooks they have only one job.

I’m lucky because I have a second job,” said Lazaro, who works the evening shift at DC Grill at Reagan National Airport. Lazaro, who is married with two daughters, said

his family cut back on expenses a month ago, buying less expensive Christmas gifts. His older daughter got a $100 used iPhone for Christmas instead of a new one.

“It isn’t connected yet. There is no line. I can’t afford it right now,” he said. “But she’s happy.”

The partial shutdown that began Dec. 21 has really been a sequence of shutdowns. The early repercussions were muted by the holidays and by the ability of some institutions, national parks and agencies to remain at least partially operational for a few days or longer through table-scrap funding, volunteer help and donations.

But the budgetary squeeze is intensifying as the shutdown continues.

Contractors — including security guards, suppliers and researchers — form a vast shadow government, and must abide by Byzantine regulations about whether and how to continue operations during a funding short-

A sign hangs on the door of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in D.C. stating that the museum is closed because of a partial government shutdown.

fall. Four out of every 10 people who work for the federal government are private contractors, according to 2017 research by University of New York University professor Paul C. Light.

Unlike federal civil servants, private-sector workers have limited expectation of receiving back pay from Congress or their employers when the shutdown finally ends.

“I don’t think there’s any way I can get back pay,” said Daniel Highlands, 45, a contractor who handles fraud analysis in the Boston office of the Securities and Exchange Commission and who makes $50,000 a year. “I wouldn’t say that I live paycheck to paycheck, but missing one could really hurt.”

Federal contractors often work side-by-side with civil servants, and sometimes feel like secondclass citizens. The jobs can be unstable, particularly for people working for small companies.

The government relies heavily on this shadow workforce not just to clean offices and prepare food in cafeterias, but to provide expertise that the government lacks, particularly in hard-to-hire areas such as engineering and information technology, where federal agencies have lagged behind the private sector.

Richard Furstein, 26, who leads tours around Independence Mall in Philadelphia, said business has suffered and visitors have complained about closed facilities.

Normally in January and February people can enter Independence Hall, but the building is closed, he said. And they can’t get up close to the Liberty Bell either. They can only view it through windows that do not provide a good angle on the famous crack in the bell.

Visitors from Australia and New Zealand recently said they were disappointed with the closures, and one offered a rather tart observation, Furstein recalled, saying, “Your country broke off because of a minor tax disagreement, and now your government is closed because of a minor wall disagreement.” n ©The Washington Post

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Lawmakers hail a new ‘sisterhood’ B Y E LISE V IEBECK

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emale lawmakers had to wait until 2011 to get a restroom off the floor of the House.

On Thursday for the first time, there was a line to get in.

The opening day of the 116th Congress was heavy with symbolism underscoring women’s historic gains in power as Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) retook the speaker’s gavel and more than 100 women were sworn in on the floor of the House.

Beneath the portraits of male speakers past, history seemed to be changing.

Dozens of newly elected women lined up to receive their member pins. Husbands affixed those pins to their wives’ lapels. They held tote bags, corralled relatives and quieted children.

The day served as a powerful reminder of the shifting gender dynamics of the House as Democrats ascend to power. When Pelosi arrived on Capitol Hill in 1987, there were 23 female members. As of Thursday, there are 102, nearly 90 percent of whom are Democrats.

“It’s been a work in progress,” said freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), escorting her family through the halls of the Capitol. “I look forward to ushering in further progress so that my daughters and their daughters don’t have to have these conversations about what this moment means because it would just become really normal.”

Pelosi underscored these hopes in her opening speech to the House as speaker, noting that her election comes amid the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage.

Later, she invited the children present in the chamber to join her on the dais.

“Let us pray that God may bless our work, and crown our good with brotherhood — and sisterhood — from sea to shining sea,” she said.

Women brought the allure of political celebrity to a day of celebration for Democrats.

New Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-

SUSAN WALSH/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Over 100 women are sworn in as a gender shift underscores Democrats’ rise to power in House Cortez (D-N.Y.) was mobbed by supporters as she and her aides sought to make their way through throngs of people outside of Pelosi’s office.

An anonymous Twitter account affiliated with the far right had tried to spoil her week by posting a video of Ocasio-Cortez dancing on a rooftop during college, a move that seemed only to strengthen her support online.

In another made-for-Twitter moment, Republicans audibly groaned when Ocasio-Cortez cast her vote for Pelosi for speaker.

“Sorry,” she mouthed with a smile.

Freshman Rep. Mike Levin (DCalif.) said he was inspired by his new female colleagues.

“I hope it’s the beginning of a trend, where we’re going to have gender equity hopefully in the workplace, but also here in our workplace,” said Levin, wearing a “Madam Speaker” pin. “I have a daughter here and a son here, so I

hope that they each have the same opportunity if they choose to do this someday, where gender is not an issue.”

Yet throughout the day, the reality of the political moment threatened to intrude on the festivities.

Much of the government remained closed, the product of an impasse between President Trump and Democratic leaders.

Trump congratulated Pelosi for her “tremendous achievement” of again becoming speaker but suggested he would remain firm in demanding funds for a border wall.

“There is certainly a somber note as we think about the 800,000 people who are living in economic uncertainty because of a president who won’t grow up and reopen the government because of a vanity wall,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), co-chair of the ascendant Congressional Progressive Caucus, as she reflected on the

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, left, talks with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (DN.Y.), right, and her mother, Blanca Ocasio-Cortez, during a ceremonial swearing-in on Capitol Hill during the opening session of the 116th Congress on Thursday. There are now 102 women in the U.S. House.

day.

The shutdown appeared to unite Democratic factions and, at least for a day, tamped down talk of their differences.

Female lawmakers vowed to find a way forward.

“I think right now in our country, we’re in a real crisis,” Omar said. “I look forward to the women of Congress and the female speaker all bonding together to bring about real change to reopen our government and to restore hope.”

The difference between the Democratic and Republican caucuses was striking as members assembled midday on the House floor.

To the left of the dais — the Democratic side — the typical sea of men’s suit jackets was balanced by pops of green, blue and white worn by women. Bald heads alternated with bobbed haircuts. Scanning the rows, the record number of women and lawmakers of Hispanic, Asian and African American heritage who will serve this term was clear.

To the right of the dais — the Republican side — older white men occupied nearly every seat.

Visually, granddaughters provided most of the contrast.

Freshman Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) compared the scene to “an old movie.” A former state legislator, she enters Congress as one of four women representing Pennsylvania. Last term, there were none.

“It means a lot,” Dean said of the new women in the House. “I’m optimistic because I believe that what that kind of diversity will bring is problem-solving.”

The women’s bathroom off the House floor became a natural gathering place as incoming lawmakers and their families sought to navigate the events of the day.

Once the House parliamentarian’s office, the facility opened when there were only 76 women in the lower chamber.

Gathering outside, a group of women expressed the mood by channeling singer Nina Simone.

Said one: “It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, and I’m feeling good.” n ©The Washington Post

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NATION

Unregulated and unhealthy B RADY D ENNIS in Parchment, Mich.

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he day this small town told its residents to stop drinking the water, Jennifer and Justin Koehler decided to sell their white clapboard house and move their two children elsewhere.

Sara and Matt Dean, who had relocated several years earlier from Chicago, started worrying about the health of their young son and the baby arriving soon.

And Tammy Cooper felt a welling indignation that would turn her into an activist — one who would travel to Washington to push for action on the unregulated chemicals contaminating her family’s drinking water and that of millions of other Americans.

That late July day, this town along the banks of the Kalamazoo River became the latest community affected by a ubiquitous, unregulated class of compounds known as polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. The man-made chemicals have long been used in a wide range of consumer products, including nonstick cookware, water-repellent fabrics and grease-resistant paper products, as well as in firefighting foams. But exposures have been associated with an array of health problems, among them thyroid disease, weakened immunity, infertility risks and certain cancers. The compounds do not break down in the environment.

In Parchment, where they were once used by a long-shuttered paper mill, tests found PFAS levels in the water system in excess of 1,500 parts per trillion — more than 20 times the Environmental Protection Agency’s recommended lifetime exposure limit of 70 parts per trillion.

Local officials promptly alerted residents. Michigan officials declared a state of emergency. Residents started picking up free cases of bottled water at the high school.

Within weeks, the town abandoned the municipal wells that had served 3,000 people and began getting water from nearby

DAVID KASNIC FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

Communities confront the threat of a ubiquitous class of chemicals in their drinking water Kalamazoo.

“This is not a problem you can run away from,” Cooper said.

“There are Parchments across the country.”

Harvard University researchers say public drinking-water supplies serving more than 6 million Americans have tested for the chemicals at or above the EPA’s threshold — which many experts argue should be far lower to safeguard public health. The level is only an agency guideline; the federal government does not regulate PFAS. The compounds’ presence has rattled communities from Hoosick Falls, N.Y., to Tucson. They have been particularly prevalent on or near military bases, which have long used PFAS-laden foams in training exercises.

Both houses of Congress held hearings on the problem last year, and lawmakers introduced bills to compel the government to test for PFAS chemicals nationwide and to respond wherever water and

soil polluted by them are found. In late November, the head of the EPA vowed that the agency would soon unveil a “national strategy” to address the situation.

Affected communities are still waiting.

Michigan is one of the few states where officials are trying to determine the extent of PFAS contamination. Health officials undertook statewide tests this year across 1,380 public water supplies and at more than 400 schools that operate their own wells.

“When we look for it, we tend to find it,” said Eden Wells, the state’s chief medical executive. Yet detection raises difficult questions, given the lack of regulation involving PFAS in water and the evolving research on its long-term health effects.

More is known about two particular types of the chemicals, perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), which companies phased out years ago amid growing evi-

Tammy Cooper became an activist when a water crisis began this summer in Parchment, Mich., where she and her family live. She recently traveled to Washington for a Senate hearing on the chemicals involved.

dence that both were ending up in the blood of nearly every American. But thousands of other PFAS chemicals remain in use — among the many threats, including arsenic and lead, to drinking water nationwide.

The Trump administration’s focus on the problem has been inconsistent.

Politico reported in May that the White House and EPA sought to block publication of a federal health study on the nationwide effects of PFAS contamination after one administration aide warned in an email that it could result in a “public relations nightmare.” The study from the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, which eventually was released, suggested that the EPA’s existing, nonenforceable standard is inadequate to protect public health and should be much lower.

The same month, the EPA held a PFAS “summit” with industry representatives, public health groups, tribal leaders and officials from all levels of government.

Then-administrator Scott Pruitt pledged action, saying, “There are concerns about these chemicals across the country because of their persistence, their durability, getting into the environment and impacting communities in an adverse way.”

Little has happened since then, however.

At a hearing in early fall, Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.) pressed the EPA’s director of groundwater and drinking water on when the agency might announce its plans to regulate the chemicals and finalize a drinkingwater standard. Peter Grevatt, an agency veteran who recently retired, responded that officials were continuing to visit communities and develop a long-term “management plan.” He acknowledged that it could take the agency a “number of years” to put enforceable regulations in place — if it determined that the contaminants were surfacing in enough water systems to be considered a nationwide health concern. n ©The Washington Post

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In Kansas, a battle for equality A NNIE G OWEN in Prairie Village, Kan. BY

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rotesters lined up outside, holding signs of condemnation. Oåne read “God still hates fags.” A businessman warned that Christianity would be abolished in this Kansas City suburb if the city council were to officially protect the gay community from discrimination.

Inside, new state Rep.-elect Susan Ruiz waited expectantly, weeks of debate coming down to this vote. One of three openly gay politicians elected in November’s midterms here, Ruiz was hoping to witness another momentous change in what has long been a solidly red state.

When the Prairie Village Council unanimously passed the ordinance — which prohibits discrimination against gay and transgender people in housing, employment and public services — Ruiz clapped and cheered, trading hugs with supporters.

Kansans made history this November by electing Brandon Woodard as a state representative, Ruiz, and Sharice Davids, a Native American who garnered widespread attention when she upset U.S. Rep. Kevin Yoder in Kansas’s 3rd Congressional District.

The mini-rainbow wave of gay legislators long would have been unthinkable in Kansas, a state that hasn’t chosen a Democrat for president since 1964. But the state is emerging from eight years of deeply conservative governance that left $1 billion in debt and political upheaval; amid the backlash, its voters just chose a new Democratic governor, state Sen. Laura Kelly.

Ruiz, Woodard and Davids took advantage of the changing attitudes here, along with broader anti-Trump sentiment, part of a midterm that saw a record number of LGBTQ politicians elected across the country. Openly gay candidates won 147 statelevel positions nationwide in November, and the number in Congress rose from seven to 10, according to the Victory Fund,

PHOTOS BY CHRISTOPHER SMITH FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

Activists in deep-red state see opportunity for new laws after election of three openly gay politicians which raised a record $2 million on behalf of LGBTQ candidates this election cycle.

“What happened in 2018 is going to be amplified,” said Annise Parker, the openly gay former Houston mayor who now heads the Victory Fund. “Our candidates are running everywhere.

People think the rainbow wave was part of the blue wave, and it was, but we also did well in places like Kansas, Ohio and Nebraska.

We’re going to contend in those places because that’s where we live and that’s where our candidate want to run.”

Westboro as neighbors Ground zero of the equality debate in Kansas is the corner of SW 12th Street and SW Orleans Street in Topeka, not far from the statehouse. On one side of the street sits the Westboro Baptist Church, founded by the late minister Fred Phelps, whose anti-gay protests at military funerals and

in other public spaces across the country — upheld as free speech by the Supreme Court in 2011 — have drawn scrutiny, scorn and counterprotests.

On the other side sits Equality House, a home purchased by the human rights group Planting Peace and painted the colors of the rainbow. A community center for the transgender population sits next door.

It’s a long way from 2005, when Kansans overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

The vote was a major setback for many in a nascent civil rights movement here, according to C.J. Janovy, a Kansas City journalist and author of the book “No Place Like Home: Lessons in Activism from LGBT Kansas.”

“It was crushing,” Janovy said.

“This is literally the heartland, and for people who have connections here to be in this place where people have expressed

Luc Bensimon, a transgender man, is optimistic about the future for LGBT people in Kansas.

The 2018 midterm elections saw a record number of LGBTQ politicians elected across the country.

their hostility to you so resoundingly, it was very personal and heartbreaking.”

The vote galvanized activists, later buoyed by the Supreme Court’s legalization of same-sex marriage. But at the state level, they struggled after Sam Brownback, a conservative Catholic, was elected governor in 2010. Socalled “pro-family” and “pro-religious” freedom policies found support in the governor's office.

In 2015, Brownback abruptly rescinded an ordinance that protected LGBT state employees from discrimination. Shortly before Trump was elected in 2016, Equality House was covered in ugly graffiti and peppered by gunfire, a hate crime not yet solved.

Brownback is now Trump’s ambassador for religious freedom and declined to comment through a State Department official, who said he was “focused on his role at the State Department of advancing religious freedom issues around the globe.”

Ruiz, Woodard and local activists view Kelly’s victory as a leap forward for a state with an estimated 68,000 gay and transgender residents, according to the Movement Advancement Project.

‘We have to keep trying’ The Dec. 17 move by the Prairie Village Council was one of three municipal efforts in the Kansas City suburb of Johnson County to pass ordinances protecting gay people and transgender people — moves that have been opposed by the religious right.

“These are completely unnecessary laws that will only be used to discriminate against people of faith,” said Eric Teetsel, the outgoing president of the conservative Family Policy Alliance of Kansas.

“It’s time for people to wake up and realize the foundation of civil liberties is being eroded before their very eyes.”

Ruiz plans on taking the movement further by proposing a similar anti-discrimination bill for the entire state. It’s failed many times before, she says, “but we have to keep trying.” n ©The Washington Post

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WORLD

Nicaraguans face new ‘reign of fear’ B Y I SMAEL L OPEZ O CAMPO AND M ARY B ETH S HERIDAN

M

ANAGUA, Nicaragua — Reporters for an online news site are writing their stories in secret locations. Editors of the country’s only 24-hour news network have been jailed. And employees of a major human rights organization have escaped into the mountains.

Except one.

“I am 80 years old, and I am in no condition to go up into the mountains, not even to save my life,” said Vilma Núñez, a wellknown lawyer who founded the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights.

In the past few weeks, President Daniel Ortega’s forces have launched a wave of repression against civil society groups and journalism outlets that is choking off what little remains of democracy in this Central American country.

The government recently stripped nine civil society groups of their legal standing and seized their assets. News organizations critical of the Ortega administration have been closed, and some editors have been charged with crimes including conspiracy to commit terrorist acts.

“The government is trying to shut down all political dissidence and impose a reign of fear and terror, targeting its opponents,” said Paulo Abrão, director of the human rights commission of the Organization of American States.

The crackdown marks a new stage in the government’s efforts to destroy a protest movement that emerged in April and swelled into giant demonstrations demanding Ortega’s resignation.

Police and paramilitary forces responded by opening fire on protesters. According to the OAS commission, 324 people have been killed in the uprising. The government puts the death toll at 198, including 21 police.

In December, a panel of independent investigators named by the OAS concluded that the actions by Nicaragua’s security forces could be considered crimes

INTI OCON/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Ortega has jailed editors, shuttered news outlets and stripped civil society groups of legal standing against humanity. They called for an investigation of Ortega, noting that the coordinated, sustained campaign by the national police “could only be explained by a decision taken by the maximum authorities” of the country. They also urged an investigation of the police leadership and judiciary.

Authorities kicked the investigators out of the country shortly before the report was issued. The government responded to its conclusions by accusing the investigators of ignoring deadly violence by protesters. It also alleged that they were “echoing the policies of the Government of the United States of America against Nicaragua.”

For months, the government has pursued those directly involved in the demonstrations, arresting more than 400 and prompting thousands to flee the country. Now it is intensifying its

campaign against news organizations and nonprofit groups it views as sympathetic to the protests.

Jaime Chamorro, publisher of the country’s most influential daily, La Prensa, said in an interview that the attacks on the media were worse than the censorship that occurred in the 1980s, when the leftist Sandinista government was fighting the U.S.-backed contra rebels.

Then, he noted, a war was underway. “But how do you justify the shutdown of media today, when we are living in peace?” he asked.

A ‘search for freedom’ Ortega, now 73, was a top figure in the Sandinista rebel movement that overthrew dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle in 1979.

The onetime Marxist fighter went on to lead the government until 1990, when he lost the presiden-

Riot police move in to arrest demonstrators in Managua during an October protest against President Daniel Ortega. The Organization of American States says 324 people have been killed amid the crackdown.

The government puts the toll at 198, including 21 police deaths.

tial election.

Over the next several years, as international donors sought to strengthen Nicaragua’s democracy, more than 4,000 civic groups were established, according to Felix Madariaga, the Harvardtrained director of a think tank in Managua, the Institute for Strategic Studies on Public Policy.

Ortega was reelected in 2006 and began to consolidate power.

Today, along with his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, he virtually controls many state institutions — including the courts, the national assembly, the police and the electoral council.

In the absence of strong opposition parties, civic groups and the media have effectively become a major political force, said Madariaga. That’s why it is so significant that Ortega’s government is cracking down on those groups, he told a recent panel organized by the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington.

When the protests erupted in April, “the civil society had awakened. The press was really playing a fundamental role in energizing the population in its search for freedom,” Madariaga said.

The government’s foreignpress spokesman and other Nicaraguan officials did not respond to requests for comment. But the government has said the protests amounted to a “soft coup” supported by its opponents, including those in civil society and the media. Among those it is seeking to arrest is Madariaga, charging that he financed and trained the protesters. He denies the allegations.

The most recent government actions target some of the country’s most prominent civic and media institutions, many of whose leaders have historic ties to the Sandinista movement. For example, Confidencial, an independent news site, is run by Carlos Fernando Chamorro, a scion of one of Nicaragua’s most famous political families and the onetime editor of the Sandinista newspaper Barricada. It was shut down Dec. 14. A week later, the

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WORLD cable TV station 100% Noticias was forced off the air, and two of its editors were jailed.

La Prensa continues to operate, but its publisher, Chamorro — the uncle of the Confidencial director — said it is being strangled financially by the government.

“On top of everything, they have blocked our imports of paper and ink. We only have enough to operate for two months,” he said.

More pressure on Ortega Eight months after they started, the anti-government protests have largely been extinguished.

But it’s unclear whether the government’s increasingly repressive measures will keep Ortega in power until the 2021 election.

The economy, which had been growing steadily in recent years, shrunk by about 4 percent in 2018 as the political turmoil hit tourism and other businesses.

And international pressure is growing. On Dec. 20, President Trump signed into law a measure aimed at blocking new loans to Nicaragua by international financial institutions. His administration had already announced sanctions against senior Nicaraguan officials including Murillo, the vice president.

Meanwhile, the OAS is considering penalizing Nicaragua for violating democratic norms, a process that could lead to sanctions or to the country being suspended from the organization.

Today, almost no one envisions the rise of a foreign-backed rebel movement of the kind that fought governments in the region in the 1980s. But in Nicaragua, “there is a tradition on all sides of improvised weaponry,” said Geoff Thale, a specialist on Central America at the Washington Office on Latin America, a research and advocacy group. “You don’t get civil war out of that, but you could get violent resistance. That is a concern, especially in the countryside.”

For now, beleaguered journalists are trying to find a way to keep putting out the news. The offices of Confidencial have been occupied by police, but reporters continue to update the website, working from undisclosed locations.

“We have improvised an alternative newsroom,” said one reporter, Wilfredo Miranda. “We are working by remote control.” n ©The Washington Post

KLMNO WEEKLY

Detained American would be an unlikely spy, experts say

BY S HANE H ARRIS, P AUL S ONNE AND A MIE F ERRIS- R OTMAN

To hear the Russians tell it, American security executive Paul Whelan was a patient spy. They claim he spent years cultivating confidential sources via social media until he was arrested the other week at his room in the Metropol hotel in Moscow, allegedly having just received a flash drive containing a list of employees for a secret Russian agency.

Whelan’s family disputes allegations, filed in a Russian court on

WHELAN FAMILY

Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine arrested in Russia and charged with espionage, was visiting Moscow over the holidays for a wedding, his family said. Much is still unknown about his arrest and condition.

Thursday, that the 48-year-old Michigan man had engaged in espionage, and say he was in Russia only to attend a friend’s wedding. Much remains unknown about Whelan and what exactly the Russians believe he was doing.

Over the years, Whelan, a Marine Corps veteran, has held himself out to friends and family as a world traveler, accustomed to working closely with FBI agents and American embassy personnel. And he was deeply interested in Russia and its people. He spent considerable time and energy developing a network of contacts there. For the past decade, he has had a profile on the social media platform VKontakte, Russia’s equivalent of Facebook, which is unusual for a non-Russian. Whelan has cultivated connections there that blossomed into offline

relationships, some of his Russian friends said.

But that doesn’t make Whelan a spy, former intelligence officers said. In fact, his résumé suggests he’s perhaps the last person that the U.S. government would use to collect intelligence, they said.

“From my experience, we would almost never send someone to Russia without diplomatic immunity,” said John Sipher, who ran the CIA’s operations in Russia.

“Given the laxity of Russian laws and the aggressiveness of their espionage apparatus, we could not guarantee the safety of someone traveling under unofficial cover.”

The circumstances around Whelan’s arrest remain murky.

The few details about his supposed spy career have run in a news service, Rosbalt, operated by the wife of a former KGB officer close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Dan Hoffman, a former CIA officer who served as the agency’s chief of station in Moscow, said the Russians are likely to distort Whelan’s background to suggest he was engaged in espionage.

“As with all Russian propaganda, 90 percent of the story is true and the rest is lies,” Hoffman said.

Whelan was born in Canada and later moved to Michigan, where he embarked on a career in law enforcement in the early 1990s. He appears on some occasions to have exaggerated his credentials as a law enforcement and security expert and, according to former military colleagues, came across as naive.

In a 2013 deposition, stemming from a case in which Whelan wasn’t a party, he said that he had been a sheriff’s deputy in Washtenaw County and a police officer for the city of Chelsea.

But a representative for the Washtenaw County sheriff said the agency had no record of Whelan’s employment. And Chelsea police records show that he worked as a part-time police officer, as

well as a dispatcher, a crossing guard, and a parking officer, also in a part-time capacity, from 1990 to 1996.

In 1994, Whelan enlisted in the Marine Corps as a reservist, according to military records, and rose through the ranks to become a staff sergeant, deploying twice to Iraq and working as an administrative clerk and an administrative chief — jobs akin to office management for a military unit.

His work in the Marine Corps, which included assignments at bases in Michigan, Arizona, California and Missouri, doesn’t appear to have involved anything related to Russia.

In January 2008, Whelan was convicted in a special courtmartial for attempted larceny, three specifications of dereliction of duty, making a false official statement, wrongfully using another person’s Social Security number and 10 specifications of making and uttering checks without sufficient funds in his account, according to military court documents.

He was sentenced to 60 days’ restriction — which usually means restriction to a base — and knocked down two pay grades, according to the military court documents. According to his military record, he received a badconduct discharge and was separated from the Marine Corps on Dec. 2, 2008.

After leaving the military, Whelan entered the world of corporate security, eventually becoming the senior manager of global security and investigations at Kelly Services, a staffing firm.

But according to Kelly Services, none of that work involved Russia, although the company has an office in Moscow.

Kathy Graham, a spokeswoman for BorgWarner, an auto parts distributor where Whelan is now the director of global security, said the company had no records of Whelan ever traveling to Russia for its business, either. n ©The Washington Post

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COVER STORY

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/

Terrorist attacks will be harder to prevent

Drive-throughs will pick up the pace, smartly

Terrorism was down in 2018 — a rare say. bright spot in geopolitics this year. In These extremists are often motivated fact, data collected by the University of more by local or personal issues, such as Maryland shows that the number of Brexit or the incel movement, than by terrorist attacks has dropped every year religious wars or international jihad. In since 2015.

2019, those issues could lead to a global That may not hold in 2019. rise in the kind of attacks we’ve seen Experts attribute the decline, particrecently in the United States, like the ularly in Europe, to the Islamic State killing in October of two black shoppers losing its footing. The group “suffered at a Kroger in Kentucky: violence formidable losses in Syria carried out by individual doEXTREMISM and neighboring Iraq,” said mestic actors. This decentralBrian Levin, head of Caliized style of terrorism is parAMANDA fornia State University’s ticularly challenging for auERICKSON Center for the Study of thorities to predict and stop.

Hate and Extremism. “They lost much “I don’t expect as many attacks in the of their virtual space as well.” The name of ISIS,” said George Washington network has struggled to recruit and University professor Neil Johnson, who train followers, and lacks the capacity studies the behavior of extremists on to pull off large-scale attacks. social media. “But it wouldn’t surprise Other extremist groups haven’t fadme if there is an increase in the number ed away, though — far from it. Instead of lone-wolf attacks that come seemingof operating in large groups, extremists ly out of the blue.” n often gather online, connecting and affiliating with micro-causes and meetErickson writes about foreign affairs for The ing like-minded zealots, researchers Washington Post.

The fast-food drive-through experience es that are smaller — and thus cheaper to has changed little since the first one opened operate. in 1947. Pull your car up to a two-way Restaurants including McDonald’s speaker; tell the friendly worker what you have brought back carhops, who run want to eat; pull forward to a window to pay delivery orders to customers who wait in and receive your burger and fries. parking spaces. All of these changes are In 2019, expect to see more signs of an intended to shear seconds off customers’ overdue upgrade now underway. wait times while allowing the restaurants Certain Chipotle restaurants, for exto serve a higher volume. ample, have drive-through lanes — but Changes to the drive-through will cononly for pickup. Customers order ahead tinue next year, but they will not be swift. via the company’s mobile app The new systems are expenFOOD or website and are given a sive. Eventually, AI will enter pickup time. Dunkin’ takes it the mix. Video monitoring MAURA to the next level: The chain can gauge customer sentiJUDKIS uses geotracking technology ment; virtual agents can take to know when customers who have orders. placed mobile orders are about to arrive; In the meantime, want fries with that? their coffees are ready but not waiting Tell your app. n around getting cold. At some Chick-fil-A locations, the drive-through is the sole Judkis covers culture, food and the arts for The option. These “dark restaurants” serve Washington Post. She is a 2018 James Beard only takeout and catering orders in spacAward winner.

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COVER STORY

U.S.-China relations will worsen

Celebrity and politics will break up

President Trump regularly touts his States aims to thwart its rise. “great relationship” with Chinese PresiBut it’s not just about trade. In a dent Xi Jinping. But on matters of trade historic Oct. 4 speech, Vice President and security, the world’s two largest Pence delivered a sweeping rebuke of economies are moving ever further the world’s second-largest economy, apart. That split is likely to widen in saying that Beijing was “using political, 2019, setting up a conflict that China economic and military tools, as well as watchers are already calling “the new propaganda, to advance its influence cold war.” and benefit its interests in the CHINA Trade is the first front.

United States.” Addressing Trump has made changing Chinese moves in the South EMILY the terms of the U.S. relaChina Sea, Pence said the RAUHALA tionship with China a priUnited States “will not be ority, slapping tariffs on hundreds of intimidated, and we will not stand billions of dollars worth of Chinese down.” products. The administration has acChina’s response says much about the cused China of ripping off the United mood heading into 2019. If Washington States by propping up Chinese busirefuses to stand down, Beijing won’t nesses, forcing technology transfers, either, argued Hua Chunying, a spokesand tacitly supporting intellectual woman for China’s Foreign Ministry: property theft and cybercrime. The “No one can stop the Chinese people Dec. 1 arrest of a Chinese tech executive from steadfastly marching ahead.” n wanted for allegedly violating sanctions on Iran will only add to China’s Rauhala writes about foreign affairs for The long-standing view that the United Washington Post.

Will this be the year that finally favorite Beto O’Rourke. The candidate proves Hollywood and Washington just himself had to curb the haters who don’t mix? claimed that the singer’s Election Day Famous people and their political post came too late: “I was grateful that opinions will continue to rack up she supported us — whenever it came, it retweets, but in 2019, the celebrity was great.” endorsement will no longer be the Having a bevy of celebrities — your glitzy rubber stamp it once was, and the Katy Perrys, Mark Ruffalos, Susan Saranoise around celeb candindons, Sarah Silvermans — CELEBRITY dates will be significantly as background dancers at quieter. your campaign concert won’t HELENA During the 2018 mid- ANDREWS-DYER be a good look for aspiring terms, A-listers who normalpresidential candidates. ly steered clear of politics for fear of There’s already a celebrity in the Oval, alienating their fan bases decided to go remember. And celebrity itself is proving full steam ahead on social media — to to be something of a liability: Ask no avail. Taylor Swift backed two DemoCynthia Nixon. Maybe that’s why George cratic candidates running in her home Clooney, who was once a frequent substate of Tennessee, ending years of ject of “will he run?” speculation, has speculation about the 28-year-old singsaid celebrities shouldn’t run for presier’s political proclivities. But despite an dent. Hollywood, which has shunned immediate uptick in online voter regisWashington post-Obama, will most liketration following her October surprise ly stay out of politics until it’s safe Instagram post, Taylor’s guys lost. Naagain. n tive Houstonian Beyoncé couldn’t whip her Instagram followers into a Senate Andrews-Dyer is co-author of The Reliable win for newly anointed La La Land Source.

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KLMNO WEEKLY

Economic growth will slow — maybe by a lot President Trump and his inner circle believe that the fairly robust growth in have claimed they can take the U.S. 2018 was largely spurred by the 2017 tax economy to warp speed. Trump has cuts and by additional government repeatedly said he can achieve “4, 5 and spending, notably on the military and maybe even 6 percent” growth for many various education and health programs. years, a feat that hasn’t happened in Next year, the buzz from that economic decades.

Red Bull will start wearing off.

We won’t hit those numbers in 2019.

How low will growth go in 2019? Top Indeed, nearly every economist who forecasters suggest a range of possibilidoesn’t work in the White House beties, from a steep decline (down to 1.7 lieves that the United States percent) to a gentle slide (to ECONOMICS will see a slowdown from 2.6 percent). On the bright this year’s roughly 3 perside, almost no one is talking HEATHER cent growth figure. about a full-blown recession LONG Why? Head winds — when the economy shrinks, abound: Trump’s trade war with China is as opposed to growing more slowly. rough and could easily escalate, the FedLook for the economy to keep growing eral Reserve is raising interest rates, the through July, when the current expanstock market is volatile, and growth in sion will officially become the longest in other developed countries is slowing.

U.S. history. But by the end of 2019, there Setting the immediate tariff fights aside, will probably be much less to celebrate no one really knows what Trump’s larger — and some awkward economic facts for trade plan is. Unpredictability is the enthe president to explain. n emy of growth, and unpredictability defines this White House.

Long is an economics correspondent for The Most economists and business leaders Washington Post.

The president will remain in jeopardy Predicting what special counsel RobTrump is also in jeopardy from an inert S. Mueller III might do next is always vestigation unrelated to Russia but closely a precarious exercise. The new year tied to the special counsel’s inquiry. Allecould bring new indictments. It could gations that Trump’s former lawyer Misee a final report summarizing his conchael Cohen committed a felony while clusions. Those are big ifs. But about this acting on his client’s instructions have much, we can be (fairly) sure: stoked impeachment talk among congresThe extent and nature of President sional Democrats. Even some of Trump’s Trump’s contacts with Rusmost reliable surrogates have THE MUELLER sians will continue to be an speculated that prosecutors area of supreme political INVESTIGATION could file charges against him SHANE HARRIS once he leaves the White vulnerability. The special counsel has established that House. contacts between Trump associates and Other key lines of investigation rethe Russian government began earlier main open for Mueller: Did the president and went on longer than the president obstruct justice? Were people in Trump’s has claimed. Mueller’s team has yet to orbit in touch with Russia or WikiLeaks answer publicly whether any of those about stolen Democratic emails? And interactions involved a criminal condid he know about false testimony his spiracy. But even absent a smoking gun aides and associates gave to Congress? n of collusion, Mueller has dramatically increased the political pressure on the Harris covers intelligence and national security president. for The Washington Post.

Trump will hit the media even harder In 2018, President Trump revoked a CNN reporter’s White House credentials (and was quickly ordered by a judge to return them). He disparaged the news media as “fake news” and “the enemy of the people.” He insulted three black female reporters as “stupid.” And as the contentious year came to a close, he showed the low esteem in which he holds journalists by canceling a long-standing tradition: the White House press party.

It may sound as though this fraught

situation couldn’t get any worse. But as rises, Trump will feed more and bigger Trump fights for his political life in 2019, helpings of red meat to the MAGA-Amerhis favorite punching bag will get more icans who cheer him on at his rallies. of a pounding.

As for the reaction by journalists, The president clearly inthat’s less clear. They should NEWS MEDIA be less credulous and less distends to play to his base as aggressively as possible. tractible — and not be abMARGARET Trump supporters have been sorbed by Trump’s every outSULLIVAN taught (partly by the presirageous tweet, offended by dent’s loyalists at Fox News) to despise his every disparagement or willing to and mistrust the mainstream media. As repeat his every misstatement. legal, investigative and political pressure If necessary, journalists should go to

court, as CNN did over Jim Acosta’s press pass, to defend their rights. And they should find ways to let news consumers know the big picture of the Trump presidency, not just the drama du jour. Of course, if they follow that wise course, tensions and temperatures will soar. But that’s okay. In 2019, it’s going to happen anyway. n Sullivan is the media columnist for The Washington Post.

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ANIMALS

Infection poses threat to wild ponies S TEVE H ENDRIX in Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, Va. BY

I

n the cold months, this barrier island is a place of austere stillness, its famed wild ponies grazing along brown marshes, their long faces reflecting in waters often skimmed in ice, their seasonally shaggy coats flickering in the chill breeze.

But the offseason calm covers a foreboding anxiety. There is a danger lurking, literally, underfoot. In recent months, several of the horses have picked up a fungus-like infection in their hoofs and legs, probably by stepping in contaminated wetlands. Seven have died, including four that were euthanized just after Christmas at a field hospital set up to treat them on the Chincoteague Fairgrounds.

“Shadow, Lightning, Calceti’n and Elusive Star as well as the others received the very best care money could buy,” Denise Bowden, a spokeswoman for the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company, which manages the herd, announced on Facebook on Dec. 28. “They just couldn’t fight this off.”

Managers of the herd worry that warmer weather come spring will bring yet more infections and, potentially, a serious threat to the beloved ponies, one of the region’s iconic tourist draws and a feature of the Virginia coast for centuries.

“We’re not panicking, but we’ve never faced a situation like this before,” Bowden said as vets were still trying to save the four ponies the week before Christmas. “It’s been very, very trying.”

Most of the 150 or so horses roam loose in different parts of the refuge. But Bowden was standing next to a pen where several lateborn ponies were spending their first winter with their mothers.

Sheltering from the offshore breeze behind a line of bush, the gangly little foals alternately dozed in the sun and nudged the mares for milk. A group of three adult horses grazed in an adjacent enclosure, newly arrived gifts from Chincoteague pony raisers

MATT MCCLAIN/THE WASHINGTON POST

Seven at refuge have died of ‘swamp cancer,’ and herd managers fear more could get sick wanting to replace some of the recently lost animals.

In the middle of the compound is a long shed newly fitted with canvas sides. Inside, the four remaining infected animals were being seen regularly by two herd veterinarians. Before their deaths, about 20 volunteers from the fire company tended to their daily needs, which included removing and burning the stable muck.

The unexpected malady is pythiosis, an infection typically caused when a horse steps in water carrying a fungus-like organism known as Pythium insidiosum. Pathogens can enter small cuts or abrasions and, in some horses, create itchy, swelling lesions that will eventually become tumor-like growths. Untreated, the infection is invariably fatal.

The disease, sometimes known as swamp cancer, strikes mostly horses and dogs and has long been known in subtropical areas, including Florida. But cases are be-

coming more common in higher latitudes in recent years, with some reported as far north as Minnesota.

There have been occasional unconfirmed cases of the disease among Chincoteague ponies over the years, according to Charles Cameron, the herd’s primary veterinarian for 29 years. But he’s seen nothing like the spate that began two years ago and spiked significantly this past autumn.

It was in late summer of 2016 when volunteers spotted a mare with small sores above her hoofs.

Blood tests would confirm pythiosis and, caught early, it was successfully treated. But finding it at that initial stage may have been rare luck, as the ponies roam largely unmonitored over more than 4,000 acres. In 2017, two more infected animals were found with more advanced infections and, despite aggressive treatment, both died.

This year, one was successfully

Ponies that roam the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge risk stepping in contaminated wetlands. The fungus can enter small cuts or abrasions and lead to tumor-like growths.

treated in the spring, Cameron said. But then started a grisly run.

In late August, volunteers spotted a 13-year-old mare, Lyra, with suspect lesions. Several other cases were diagnosed in the fall, prompting managers to set up an intensive treatment regimen that has included immunotherapy and, in some cases, cutting away infected tissue surgically. The group has spent more than $25,000 on treatments.

At one point, hopes grew that at least some of the horses could be saved. But secondary infections set in and the pythiosis seemed to return in some cases. One pony died in October, another on Dec. 3.

Two weeks later, Lyra, the first case discovered this year, was euthanized after she was no longer able to stand.

It would be hard to overstate the cultural and economic role the horses have played here for centuries. They are long-feral descendants of domesticated livestock, and local legend has it that they first swam ashore as refugees from a foundering Spanish ship in the 1600s. Biologists, though, say they are more likely remnants of animals introduced by mainland settlers.

Whatever the origin story, they have long been a defining feature of island life, cared for by folks, like Bowden, who grew up with them on Chincoteague and beloved by visitors from around the world, including many entranced by the 1947 children’s classic “Misty of Chincoteague.” With about 1.3 million visitors a year, the herd is a 150-horsepower economic engine that keeps the refuge near the top of Virginia’s most popular tourist destinations.

An effective vaccine would protect the herd, but it wouldn’t clear the pathogen from the natural habitat, Hansen said, especially with more infected horses spreading it from pool to pool. Still, the keepers of the ponies want the refuge to take action, including clearing away old barbed wire that can be exposed by storms and increase the risk of cuts. n ©The Washington Post

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TRENDS

KLMNO WEEKLY

Can Italy’s coffee routine take a jolt?

B Y C HICO H ARLAN in Treviso, Italy

T

he coffee shop would have been at home in so many other countries.

But it certainly didn’t seem Italian.

The first oddity was the menu, which included cold brews and pour-overs that are commonplace in Los Angeles or Tokyo — but almost impossible to find in Italy.

The next anomaly was the bar counter. Italians typically down their espressos while standing.

This counter had seats.

Then there were the prices.

Even in the poshest parts of Rome, an espresso — “un caffè” — sells for 1 euro, or a little more than a dollar. Here, it went for 1.50 euros. Other drinks ran as high as 3.50 euros.

When I walked into Labb Caffettin for the first time two months ago, a barista sporting an apron and a thick beard took my order, served my drink and talked a little about how the store was trying to introduce specialty coffee — call it artisanal, craft, pretentious or delicious — to a country that all but created the caffeinated life.

“The Italians don’t know they are drinking such bad coffee,” Matteo Campeotto said, lowering his voice in recognition that he was treading on sacred ground.

As a relative newcomer to Italy, I wasn’t ready to proclaim that the country that invented and perfected the espresso machine has been doing it all wrong. But already I’d been wondering why the modern coffee era, with its new brewing techniques and specialty beans, seemed to have largely passed Italy by.

Most Italian cafes are coffee time capsules. The prices are right out of the 1980s. Old-time signs like “snack bar” often adorn the front. Their soundtrack is the chatter of customers and the clatter of porcelain cups. They are part of the neighborhood.

Before my landlord handed off the keys to my rental apartment, she told me about the cafe across the street, describing with sur-

CHICO HARLAN/THE WASHINGTON POST

Cold brews and gourmet beans may never catch on, but these rebels are fighting to the bitter end prising detail the bar owner, his family members and whom I could expect to meet there. The espressos sell for 90 cents. Slot machines are in the back.

Throughout Italy, even in the smallest towns, there are similar bars maintaining similar formulas. They tend to offer pastries in the morning — sometimes homemade, often not — and stock alcohol for the 5 p.m. crowd. They serve up espresso shots that are bitter and strong. They seldom have WiFi. They do not welcome laptop workers. They never offer coffee for takeaway. And their baristas certainly never pose the kind of question that Campeotto did when I returned to the Treviso shop for a second time.

“Do you want the single-origin Kenyan beans or the house blend?”

I replied house blend was fine.

The small group of Italian rebels who are trying to promote

coffee as an artisanal product say their mission is difficult in a country with the deeply held expectation that coffee be affordable for all. That expectation is borne from the role coffee plays in Italian life. For decades, for everyone from bureaucrats to factory workers, coffee has been the best excuse to take a quick pause (or three) in the day.

Italian coffee culture is so ingrained that even Starbucks hasn’t made many inroads, only opening its first store in September in Milan. The challenge is even greater for purveyors of small-batch coffee.

“Everyone who wants to open a [specialty] coffee shop in Italy is scared,” said Davide Cobelli, who runs a training academy in Verona for specialized baristas. “It’s the problem of price.”

Italian coffee tends to rely on blends that includes the cheaper Robusta beans, noted for their

Barista Matteo Campeotto makes a drink at Labb Caffettin coffee shop in Treviso, Italy.

bitterness and lack of acidity, and common in instant coffee.

Kenneth David, the Berkeley, Calif.-based editor in chief of the Coffee Review consumer report, said a few big Italian roasters use “pretty close to the worst [beans] in the world,” but Italian baristas have the machines and craftsmanship to make the most of what they have. A higher-end roaster, Illy, uses the more-prized Arabica beans, and other roasters use Arabica as a component of their blends.

The first time I visited Labb, there were few customers.

But on my second visit, business was better. One customer specified the acidity level he wanted. Another liked the drink she ordered and bought a bag of roasted beans. Whether serving cortados or pour-overs, Campeotto talked to customers about where the beans came from and the flavor notes they provided — a strategy he said was necessary to justify the higher prices.

“It’s not a written law, but it’s written in people’s minds,” the barista said about the expected low cost. “A shop near us sells underwear for 90 euros. That is okay. But a coffee for more than 1 euro, never!”

Carisi was vague when asked about whether the business model was working, but said he wasn’t “going to be driving around with a Ferrari.” He runs a roastery and distributes beans to a small number of local restaurants. He also hosts third-wave coffee events.

Still, he said, the cocktail business was far more lucrative.

Campeotto interjected.

“This is the most difficult place in the world to open a coffee shop like this,” he said.

There were 1,000 coffee shops like this in London, he said. But those places weren’t trying to upend tradition.

“It’s not that Italian coffee has always been bad,” Campeotto said. “They have been geniuses.

The god of coffee is the Italian espresso. The problem is, they have been stuck there. They stopped.” n ©The Washington Post

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BOOKS

What makes quarterbacks so special?

N ONFICTION

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REVIEWED BY

N ATE J ACKSON

‘H QUARTERBACK Inside the Most Important Position in the National Football League

By John Feinstein Doubleday. 368 pp. $27.95

Quarterback Andrew Luck was drafted first overall in 2012 by the Indianapolis Colts to replace an NFL quarterback legend, Peyton Manning.

e is the glamour guy; the rich guy; the face of the franchise; and, when things go wrong, the guy who takes the fall.” That’s how John Feinstein breaks down the role of NFL quarterback in football fans’ minds in “Quarterback: Inside the Most Important Position in the National Football League.”

It’s a premise borne out in one vignette featuring the Baltimore Ravens’ Joe Flacco, who, after a loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, takes the blame when it’s not really his fault: Despite a receiver’s dropped ball, a struggling offensive line and no running game, Flacco faced reporters in the postgame news conference and said: “We sucked as an offense, and I’m the quarterback, so I’m responsible. It’s pretty simple.”

Quarterbacks call their teams’ plays and make the most money, and league rules are tweaked to protect them. They are the sport’s golden children. But in “Quarterback,” despite an intriguing premise, we never learn what precisely it is that makes quarterbacks the most important men on NFL teams’ 53-man rosters — we’re mostly just assured that they are.

“In thirty-two cities,” writes Feinstein, “the quarterback carries the hopes and dreams of millions of fans.” He cites quarterbacks such as Carson Wentz, “whose loss to injury would ruin a team’s season.” But by “ruin a team’s season,” he must mean “secure a championship,” because after the Philadelphia Eagles lost Wentz to injury last year, they went on to win the Super Bowl.

The NFL quarterback mold is being broken, and Feinstein doesn’t always seem to take that into account.

“Quarterback” follows four current NFL QBs — Flacco, Alex Smith, Ryan Fitzpatrick and Andrew Luck — through the ups and downs of the 2017 season, and the book is peppered with each man’s backstory for context. Feinstein’s hope was, he said, to profile smart,

MARK ZALESKI/ASSOCIATED PRESS

seasoned veterans who could let us in on the psyche of an NFL quarterback, the most high-profile position in America’s most popular sport.

Salary talk is constant, as are the statistics that (in theory, at least) determine how much players are worth to their teams. But Feinstein doesn’t provide enough context — offensive strategy, coaching philosophy, intangibles, marketability — to help the reader understand whether quarterbacks’ hefty salaries are justified.

It’s simply assumed that they are, because that’s the way it is. In “Quarterback”-world, teams’ ability to win seems to be measured by the capability of the quarterback and nothing else.

Feinstein is best when he turns explanations over to the experts.

Throughout the book, his interviews give dimension to the numbers. Behind the big plays and big contracts, beyond the caricatures and cliched sound bites, are men with families, trying to perform at a high level. Harvard graduate Fitzpatrick has been on the bumpiest ride. Drafted by the St. Louis Rams in 2005, he’s since played for six other teams: Cincinnati, Buffalo, Tennessee, Houston, the New

York Jets and now Tampa Bay. “When things go well, everyone loves you,” says Fitzpatrick.

“When they don’t, people fall out of love in a hurry.”

Luck’s career has been different. Drafted first overall in 2012 by the Indianapolis Colts to replace a legend, Peyton Manning, Luck has largely panned out, even though he’s missed chunks of the past two seasons because of a shoulder injury. “I went back to practice because that had been the plan,” he said of his early return. “I was supposed to be feeling good enough to practice, so I told myself I was — when I wasn’t.”

His identity was “tied up in being a football player,” and in the wake of injuries, says Luck, “it got to the point when I thought of football, I associated it with pain, anguish, and failure. Now I’m learning again to see — and enjoy — the game the way I once saw it.”

The NFL tends to strip the joy from the game of football. It is a dream until you achieve it, then it becomes someone else’s dream, and your role in sustaining it can become a burden. Luck seems to have found peace of mind while playing, which is rare.

The real star of “Quarterback,”

though, is Smith, traded this season to the Redskins, to whom Feinstein seemed to have had the most access. Like Luck, Smith was a No. 1 pick, but in his case, it was unexpected: “It was a little bit like, ‘Toto, we aren’t in Kansas anymore,’ ” Smith said. His first few years in the NFL, he played under a series of different offensive coordinators, which meant learning different offenses. Like languages all their own, if you don’t know an offense fluently, it’s hard to play well. When Smith finally got some coaching stability in Jim Harbaugh and things started to click, he suffered a concussion and had to miss a game. When he came back the next week, his starting job was gone, the ball turned over to the then-surging Kaepernick.

No hard feelings from Smith, though: “Kaep played very well. I understood Jim’s thinking.”

Smith is the team player every coach hopes he can find in a quarterback: a selfless, steady leader who does things the right way, which just makes his recent injury more devastating for everyone.

Football is a demanding game, even for — maybe especially for — its highly touted quarterbacks.

But what is it that makes them so great?

It’s not the lights or the cameras — it’s the action, what a quarterback does with the football in his hands. And what he does depends as much on mental agility as on physical agility. How he reacts to the dangerous swarm of human bodies moving away from him and toward him at the same time, often beautiful, always violent. It’s what every quarterback — no matter what he says when the camera is rolling — knows all too well. n Jackson played six years for the Denver Broncos. He is the author of a memoir, “Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival from Bottom of the Pile,” and “Fantasy Man: A Former NFL Player’s Descent into the Brutality of Fantasy Football.” This was written for The Washington Post.

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A broke kid in a broken system

Blues, booze and restless innovation

F ICTION

N ONFICTION

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REVIEWED BY

P ETE T OSIELLO

yrant Books, an indie publisher of exacting left-ofcenter fiction, has recently stepped to the forefront of progressive literature. In August, Nico Walker’s autobiographical novel “Cherry,” a Tyrant project sold to Knopf, met rapturous acclaim for its account of a decorated Iraq War medic’s metamorphosis into a heroin-shooting bank robber. A month later, Megan Boyle’s long-simmering autofiction experiment “Liveblog” left readers captivated and cowering with its lengthy portrayal of the author’s everyday exploits. Now there’s “Welfare,” a debut novel by Canadian writer Steve Anwyll that similarly eschews the bravado of literary fiction from major publishing houses, chronicling a teenage protagonist’s descent into state-sponsored decrepitude.

In conjuring an adolescent burnout, Anwyll might have taken cues from the slacker canon of westward-slouching beatniks and Kevin Smith antiheroes. Instead, his Stan Acker assumes the lineage of J.P. Donleavy’s Sebastian Dangerfield and John Kennedy Toole’s Ignatius Reilly — although the comedy of “Welfare” is comparatively muted. A values-neutral indigent, Acker is a reflecting pool of human nature and dysfunctional institutions, casting their vagaries in grisly magnification. Where a more romantic ne’er-do-well might be afforded a comeuppance or redemption, Stan’s coming-ofage is precluded by the immediate needs of survival.

“Welfare” evokes poverty as a trial of rote drudgeries. Stan, a runaway, spends his days filling out forms and waiting to meet with apathetic caseworkers to secure his meager subsistence. He hitchhikes to distant factories, drops off job applications and is summarily jeered at for his shabby clothes and poor hygiene. He undertakes anxious attempts at tidying his noxious apartments, hoping that a government agent will deem him worthy of assistance

rather than a degenerate lost cause.

Anwyll’s rhythmic prose is constructed of staccato, bullet-point sentences. Each four-line paragraph performs an equal narrative thrust, whether advancing the external plot or demonstrating Stan’s deepening malaise during his slide from loafing to begging and stealing. Stan is obsessed by the subtle degrees and manifestations of poverty, outlining an imperative hierarchy among delivery pizza, takeout trays, boxed mac and cheese and plain white rice.

His roommate, supported by a Catholic charity rather than state welfare, might as well be a member of the leisure class.

Through its supporting cast, “Welfare” considers the pressures on those pushed against society’s margins. Bouncing between a succession of substandard living conditions, Stan encounters a rogues’ gallery of half-feral scammers, religious zealots and predatory landlords. Poor of money and spirit, the men and women cordoned into this social outskirt grow violent and defensive, resulting in gripping episodes of unforced irony. In an unforgettable scene, Stan is beaten senseless by his nextdoor neighbor, a self-identified Satanist, for entertaining a Mormon missionary who comes calling.

Stan’s desperation turns quotidian acts such as eating a sandwich and cashing a check into propulsive high-stakes drama, rendering the prospect of a Caulfield-esque breakdown literally unaffordable. Like Walker’s “Cherry,” “Welfare” is a relentless Sinclairian censure, exposing a society so fundamentally broken that full-scale upheaval seems the only solution. Yet neither the politics nor characters of these books are radical in any real sense: Their resonance lies in that these fates might befall any of your neighbors or relatives. n Tosiello is a writer and critic based in New York.

‘H WELFARE

By Steve Anwyll Tyrant. 256 pp. $15.95.

SLOWHAND The Life and Music of Eric Clapton

By Philip Norman Little, Brown. 419 pp. $30

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REVIEWED BY

P HILIP B OOTH

ave I ever been satisfied? Definitely for one night, yeah,” Eric Clapton told Rolling Stone last year. He referred fondly to a 1968 show in Philadelphia with Cream, his innovative and enormously successful band with drummer Ginger Baker and bassist Jack Bruce.

Clapton has always been driven by an unquenchable thirst for genuine satisfaction, Philip Norman contends in “Slowhand.” It’s a comprehensive and often illuminating account of the life and career of a musician who has had an outsize influence on generations of guitarists.

Norman, a former journalist best known for his 2,000-plus pages of Beatles biographies, opens with a scene at a lunch spot near the English city of Leeds in December 1969. Surrounded by young female fans, George Harrison introduces his pal Clapton as “the world’s greatest white guitarist . . .

Bert Weedon,” the author of a popular guitar tutorial. It’s a rare moment of comic relief in a 419-page tome that’s mostly as sober as its subject is not.

The sequence takes place not long after the dissolution of Cream. That breakup was characteristic of Clapton’s musical wanderings: Nearly every time he joined or started a band, his dissatisfaction or straight-up curiosity about exploring new musical terrain led him to bolt just when the group hit its artistic and/or commercial stride.

Clapton made his name with an 18-month stint in the Yardbirds, whose version of the blues chestnut “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl” featured the first truly distinctive Clapton solo. Disappointed by the group’s shift toward pop, he exited about the time “For Your Love” became its first charting U.S. single. His successors in the group included two other artists who would become rivals for the crown of top British Invasion guitarist — Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page.

True to form, Clapton joined British blues godfather John Mayall’s band in April 1965 and left a little more than a year later, before the release of Mayall’s “Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton,” which became that group’s biggest commercial success. After Cream, the supergroup Blind Faith unofficially began when drummer Baker barged his way into Clapton’s jam session with Spencer Davis Group singer-organist Steve Winwood.

Four months, one big-selling album and an arena tour later, the band broke up.

By law, rock star biographies must focus on wine and women, along with song. So Norman dutifully details Clapton’s prodigious intake of heroin, cocaine, pills and alcohol. Clapton finally committed to sobriety in 1987. The author spends much time, too, on Clapton’s infidelities and his wooing of Harrison’s wife, former model Pattie Boyd. The new couple’s marriage was rocky. After that nineyear marriage, Clapton settled into a more stable family life in 2002 when he wed Melia McEnery; they have three daughters.

The book’s darkest passage arrives with the loss of son Conor, 4, who fell from a window of the 53rd-floor Manhattan apartment where he was staying with his mother, Lory del Santo, in 1991.

“Tears in Heaven,” written for Conor, became Clapton’s secondbiggest single, and “Unplugged,” the album on which it appeared, sold 26 million copies, setting a record for live albums.

Exhaustive as it is, “Slowhand” might have delved more deeply into why Clapton’s music has resonated so strongly with the public for so long, and how other rock and blues guitarists now view the playing of the man frequently called one of the greatest six-string slingers of all time. n Booth contributes to Relix, JazzTimes and Jazziz, blogs at Jazzlands.com, and plays bass with Acme Jazz Garage. This was written for The Washington Post.

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OPINIONS

How a president shapes a nation’s public character MITT ROMNEY is a Republican from Utah who was sworn into the Senate on Thursday. He was the party’s presidential nominee in 2012.

The Trump presidency made a deep descent in December. The departures of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, the appointment of senior persons of lesser experience, the abandonment of allies who fight beside us, and the president’s thoughtless claim that America has long been a “sucker” in world affairs all defined his presidency down.

It is well known that Donald Trump was not my choice for the Republican presidential nomination. After he became the nominee, I hoped his campaign would refrain from resentment and name-calling. It did not. When he won the election, I hoped he would rise to the occasion.

His early appointments of Rex Tillerson, Jeff Sessions, Nikki Haley, Gary Cohn, H.R. McMaster, Kelly and Mattis were encouraging. But, on balance, his conduct over the past two years, particularly his actions this past month, is evidence that the president has not risen to the mantle of the office.

It is not that all of the president’s policies have been misguided. He was right to align U.S. corporate taxes with those of global competitors, to strip out excessive regulations, to crack down on China’s unfair trade practices, to reform criminal justice and to appoint conservative judges.

These are policies mainstream Republicans have promoted for years. But policies and appointments are only a part of a presidency.

To a great degree, a presidency shapes the public character of the nation. A president should demonstrate the essential qualities of honesty and integrity, and elevate the national discourse with comity and mutual respect. With the nation so divided, resentful and angry, presidential leadership in qualities of character is indispensable. And it is in this province where the incumbent’s shortfall has been

innovators to America’s economy.

America is strongest when our arms are linked with other nations. We want a unified and strong Europe, not a disintegrating union. We want stable relationships with the nations of Asia that strengthen our mutual security and prosperity.

I look forward MELINA MARA/THE WASHINGTON POST to working on The highest office needs to inspire and unite, Mitt Romney writes. these priorities with Senate Majority Leader Mitch most glaring. experiencing political McConnell (R-Ky.) and other The world is also watching. upheaval. The world needs senators.

America has long been looked American leadership, and it is Furthermore, I will act as I to for leadership. Our in America’s interest to would with any president, in economic and military provide it. A world led by or out of my party: I will strength was part of that, of authoritarian regimes is a support policies that I believe course, but our enduring world — and an America — are in the best interest of the commitment to principled with less prosperity, less country and my state, and conduct in foreign relations, freedom, less peace. oppose those that are not. and to the rights of all people To reassume our leadership I remain optimistic about to freedom and equal justice, in world politics, we must our future. In an innovation was even more esteemed. repair failings in our politics at age, Americans excel. More Trump’s words and actions home. That project begins, of importantly, noble instincts have caused dismay around course, with the highest office live in the hearts of the world. In a 2016 Pew once again acting to inspire Americans. The people of this Research Center poll, 84 and unite us. It includes great land will eschew the percent of people in Germany, political parties promoting politics of anger and fear if Britain, France, Canada and policies that strengthen us they are summoned to the Sweden believed the American rather than promote tribalism responsibility by leaders in president would “do the right by exploiting fear and homes, in churches, in thing in world affairs.” One resentment. schools, in businesses, in year later, that number had We must repair our fiscal government — who raise our fallen to 16 percent. foundation, setting a course to sights and respect the dignity This comes at a very a balanced budget. We must of every child of God — the unfortunate time. Several attract the best talent to ideal that is the essence of allies in Europe are America’s service and the best America. n

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KLMNO WEEKLY

TOM TOLES

Fixing the U.S.-China relationship JIMMY CARTER was the 39th president of the United States. This was written for The Washington Post.

I hear Chinese elites claiming that Americans are conducting an “evil conspiracy” to destabilize China. I hear prominent Americans, disappointed that China has not become a democracy, claiming that China poses a threat to the American way of life. U.S. government reports declare that China is dedicated to challenging U.S. supremacy, and that it is planning to drive the United States out of Asia and reduce its influence in other countries around the world.

If top government officials embrace these dangerous notions, a modern Cold War between our two nations is not inconceivable. At this sensitive moment, misperceptions, miscalculations and failure to follow carefully defined rules of engagement in areas such as the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea could escalate into military conflict, creating a worldwide catastrophe.

The U.S. imposition of tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, and China’s retaliatory tariffs, contribute to the deteriorating relationship, hurting both countries.

The 90-day pause in further escalation of tariffs, agreed to at the Group of 20 summit in Argentina, offers the possibility of reaching a permanent agreement on U.S.-China trade.

What can we do to build on this progress and to repair the U.S.China relationship?

First, the United States’ longstanding complaints — about trade imbalances, intellectual property theft, forced technology transfers, and unfair barriers to U.S. investments and business operations in China — must be addressed quickly and effectively. Neither country should use “national security” as an excuse to obstruct the other’s legitimate commercial activities.

China needs competition for its economy to innovate and grow; pursuing a fair and reciprocal relationship is the only way for both countries to remain economically strong.

Second, Americans must acknowledge that, just as China has no right to interfere in U.S. affairs, we have no inherent

right to dictate to China how to govern its people or choose its leaders. Though even countries with the closest of relationships may critique each other at times, such engagements should never become directives or edicts; they should rather serve as a two-way street of open dialogue. China’s achievements in sustaining economic growth, alleviating abject poverty and providing developmental assistance to other countries need to be celebrated. At the same time, we cannot ignore its deficiencies in Internet censorship, policies toward minorities and religious restrictions — which should be recorded and criticized.

This balanced approach is key to ensuring that the United States and China continue to work together toward solving some of the most intractable global problems. Despite current tensions on other issues, Chinese support has been essential in our ongoing efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. Beijing also could offer crucial help in postconflict reconstruction in the Middle East and Africa, countering terrorism and extremism, and mediating other international disputes.

The United States should

return to the Paris climate accord and work with China on environmental and climatechange issues, as the epic struggle against global warming requires active participation from both nations. But I believe the easiest route to bilateral cooperation lies in Africa. Both countries are already heavily involved there in fighting disease, building infrastructure and keeping peace. Yet each nation has accused the other of economic exploitation or political manipulation. Africans — like billions of other people around the world — do not want to be forced to choose a side.

Instead, they welcome the synergy that comes from pooling resources, sharing expertise and designing complementary aid programs.

In 1979, Deng Xiaoping and I knew we were advancing the cause of peace. While today’s leaders face a different world, the cause of peace remains just as important. Leaders must bring new vision, courage and ingenuity to new challenges and opportunities, but I believe they also must accept our conviction that the United States and China need to build their futures together, for themselves and for humanity at large. n

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OPINIONS

BY RICK MCKEE FOR THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE

Helping Yemen save its history DEBORAH LEHR is founder and chair of the Antiquities Coalition.

AHMED AWAD BIN MUBARAK is Yemen’s ambassador to the United States and permanent representative of Yemen to the United Nations.

Among the many tragedies taking place in the nearly four-year conflict in Yemen — including the thousands of lives lost, the impoverishment to near-starvation of its people and the ruin of its fragile economy — is the plunder of the country’s valuable and precious ancient cultural heritage by organized criminals and violent extremists. This all-too-familiar story underscores an urgent need for the U.S. Treasury Department to use its existing sanctions regime to close the U.S. art market to Yemeni blood antiquities.

Historically, Yemen was a meeting ground for some of the earliest contacts and trade between East and West and a crossroads of the ancient incense and spice routes. As home to the legendary Queen of Sheba, stories about the treasures to be found in Yemen’s markets and the independence of its people were passed across generations, along with a famed tradition of silver design. Much of this rich history survived for millennia, as Yemen is home to four UNESCO World Heritage Sites and national museums that house priceless artifacts.

While media coverage has closely followed the fighting around some of these historic places and collections, it has sadly ignored that this history is being stripped for sale to

foreign buyers.

Yemen has warned the United Nations and the world of this illicit trade, presenting evidence that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Houthi rebels are taking a page from the Islamic State playbook by arming their cause with the plunder and sale of Yemen’s ancient treasures.

Three major museums — the Taiz National Museum, the Aden National Museum and the National Museum of Zinjibar — have been pillaged and largely cleared of their collections.

International experts have corroborated these reports, including archaeologists on the ground, the International Council of Museums and the U.N. Panel of Experts on Yemen.

There is good reason to believe that the United States is

BY JOE HELLER

a destination for pillaged Yemeni artifacts, because it remains the largest art market in the world. Research by the Antiquities Coalition demonstrates that, over the past decade, the United States has imported more than $8 million worth of declared art and antiquities from Yemen. There is reason to suspect that the total is much higher. While it is impossible to know the true scale of the illicit trade, it is distressingly familiar, as plunderers across the region have seen museums and ancient sites as opportunities to raise easy money.

Despite Washington’s growing awareness of the terrorist financing threat from cultural racketeering, U.S. markets remain wide open to conflict antiquities from Yemen. In other countries, the State Department has used available diplomatic tools to negotiate bilateral agreements to close U.S. markets to illegally imported antiquities.

Congress has also taken legislative action to sanction efforts to import illicit pieces from Iraq and Syria. But U.S. inaction in Yemen raises the likelihood that American collectors and institutions are helping sustain the country’s

violent conflict through apparently legal purchases of stolen artifacts.

The United Nations, with support from the international community including the United States, is engaged in humanitarian efforts and delicate negotiations to bring about a political solution to Yemen’s conflict in accordance with Security Council Resolution 2216 and other established terms of reference.

In the meantime, the Treasury Department should use its authorities to issue an emergency executive order adding Yemeni antiquities to the list of sanctioned items prevented from import to the United States.

Such action would enjoy broad support in Congress and should be a regular feature of efforts to the end the conflict in Yemen.

The United States is leading the fight against terrorism, violent extremism and organized crime around the world, and it also has a proud tradition of safeguarding the world’s cultural treasures during times of conflict. But it can do so much more to help Yemen today.

Let’s start by saving its history. n

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FIVE MYTHS

Brexit BY

A DAM T AYLOR

Two and a half years after Britain voted to leave the European Union, Brexit is a mess. Prime Minister Theresa May, who once opposed the policy, can’t sell the departure agreement she negotiated with the European Union, and she barely survived a no­confidence vote in her own party last month. Few in Britain believe she will make Brexit successful — and few even know what a successful Brexit would be. Indeed, after a couple of years of debate, several myths have developed.

MYTH NO. 1 A Brexit vote was inevitable.

Former prime minister David Cameron has justified his 2013 promise to hold a referendum on Britain’s membership in the E.U. by saying the situation “needed to be addressed.”

But polls from the time tell a different story. In the months before Cameron’s promise, pollsters Ipsos MORI asked Britons what the biggest issues facing their country were. Sixtyone percent said the economy, followed by 35 percent who said unemployment. Just 1 in 20 mentioned Europe. According to a BBC tally, 138 Conservative members of Parliament supported Brexit, compared with 185 who wanted to remain in the E.U. The vast majority of other parties supported staying in the bloc.

Cameron’s referendum wasn’t answering any demands from the British public. The prime minister was worried that pressure from a few euroskeptic Conservative lawmakers and the fringe anti-E.U. party UKIP would cost him a parliamentary majority in the next election.

MYTH NO. 2 Brexit spells doom for the European Union.

Immediately after Britain’s vote to leave the E.U., some predicted that it heralded the beginning of the end for the bloc. A YouGov poll from July 2016 found that many around Europe thought more countries

would leave the E.U. as a result of Brexit.

How has that panned out?

Even when populists have taken power in other nations, they haven’t pushed for their own E.U. exits. Italian Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini said last month that he is not seeking a “Brexit all’Italiana,” while Poland’s ruling party, Law and Justice, has also distanced itself from a Polish departure. France’s Marine Le Pen, a leading force in European populism, has said she no longer supports a “Frexit” — because she doesn’t think French voters want it.

This doesn’t mean Brexit is good for Europe; a no-deal departure, in particular, would hurt E.U. members. But Brussels has gained a great argument against nations seeking their own farewell: Look at what’s happening in Britain!

MYTH NO. 3 May’s recent deal is a betrayal of Brexit.

Brexiteer critics of the prime minister say the withdrawal agreement she crafted with E.U. leaders and announced last month is disloyal to the 2016 referendum.

But this idea of a “Brexit betrayal,” as hard-right protesters put it, makes little sense. The 2016 referendum asked one simple question: “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?”

Voters were asked to leave or remain — not how they should

ADRIAN DENNIS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Pro- and anti-Brexit protesters hold signs outside the Palace of Westminster in London as lawmakers discuss a withdrawal proposal.

leave or remain. In a 2017 election manifesto, May pledged to leave the E.U.’s single market and customs union. But the Conservatives lost their majority in that election: hardly a decisive mandate.

MYTH NO. 4 ‘Remain’ would easily win a second referendum.

The idea of a redo has many admirers. It’s not hard to see why. It could clear a democratic path out of the impasse, and more specific ballot language could help overcome the vague nature of the first question. A recent poll from YouGov found that 72 percent of Remain remain voters thought Remain remain would win a second referendum.

Although some polls have discovered shifts in support when they ask how people would vote in the 2016 referendum if it were held again, changing an old vote is quite different than starting from scratch. According to a survey by Deltapoll, 60 percent of Britons — voters for Leave and Remain — now say they just want the government to get on with it.

MYTH NO. 5 Brexit was an antiestablishment uprising.

Britain’s June 2016 vote left analysts around the world scrambling for a way to describe it. The Guardian’s Owen Jones dubbed it a “working class revolt,” while UKIP’s former leader Nigel Farage called it a move “against the establishment.” And it’s true that Britons with a university degree were more likely to vote Remain than those without.

But this class contest was hardly unanimous. Polling data has shown that people employed in administrative or professional roles were more likely to vote to remain than manual laborers were, but it wasn’t an overwhelming divide: Almost 4 out of 10 unskilled workers wanted to remain in the E.U. The vote was relatively close overall — and also across all different social classes: Millions and millions of working people voted against Brexit, and millions of upper-class people wanted it. n Taylor is a staff writer for The Washington Post’s foreign desk.

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