The Washington Post National Weekly - November 13, 2016

Nation Suicide’s toll on one Colorado county 4

World For some, refugee life is empowering 8

Food Made with loving robot care 17

Five Myths The FBI and its role in the government 23

ABCDE NATIONAL WEEKLY SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2016

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What does Trump’s win mean?

Acrid campaign brought America’s crass online ‘underbelly’ to surface.

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THE FIX

A party in search of a future BY

A ARON B LAKE

H

illary Clinton’s stunning loss in the presidential race doesn’t just leave Democrats without a president in January; it leaves them without an obvious party leader or path forward.

Now the party begins the difficult task of trying to pick up the pieces and figure out exactly who it is and what it wants to be over the next two or four years.

Below, we look at three key hurdles for the party on the leadership front.

ing with President Obama when it was called for. President Donald Trump won’t have to spend much time holding summits with Pelosi and Schumer, and they won’t be able to stand in his way nearly as much.

Vice President Biden, 73, appears done with politics.

It could be time for someone like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) or Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to take a leadership role. But both are uneasy fits for a job that tends to demand pragmatism over idealism.

1. The party has no obvious leader, and its congressional leaders don’t fit the bill.

When she launched her 2016 campaign, Clinton avoided anybody who was considered a top-tier challenger for the presidency. This was partially because she was Clinton but also because the Democratic bench wasn’t that deep. There just weren’t many Democrats ready to take that big a step, because the party’s bench in Congress and even at the governor level had been decimated by the 2010 and 2014 elections.

Now with Clinton no longer in line to be president for the next four years, it leaves the party without an obvious national leader. They don’t even have a House speaker or Senate majority leader to assume the role. Instead, they have 76-year-old House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and 65-year-old incoming Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.). Those are the highest-ranking Democrats in American government in January.

Both, of course, have shown they are savvy political operators, but neither is the face of a party — especially from an opposition standpoint. Republicans in recent years have at least had House Speaker John A. Boehner (Ohio) and then House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.) leading a chamber, forcing votes and negotiat-

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Rep. Nancy Pelosi

Sen. Charles Schumer

2. The party now must deal with an emboldened Sanders/Warren contingent.

Speaking of Sanders, the results of the election can only fire up his supporters, who were somewhat reluctant to embrace Clinton in the first place and will certainly push for a real conversation about whether the party should pursue a different, more-Bernie direction.

Some groups are already calling for a thorough self-examination.

That leaves Democrats in a situation pretty familiar to Republicans — choosing between the standard path of an establishment-friendly platform with a potentially more ideological brand of populism. The GOP’s 2012 autopsy did not really change much, but it did reflect a party torn between its base, which wanted no moderation on things like immigration reform, and its leaders, who worried about losing Latino voters for decades to come.

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. © 2016 The Washington Post / Year 3, No. 5

Republicans at least got something of a resolution to their identity crisis in this election, given Trump’s victory. Democrats have no such clarity, and there’s now a leadership vacuum in which ambitious pols can really try to push the party in a new direction. That’s an opportunity, sure, but it’s also likely to be a completely uncertain time.

3. The party is still an old party in Congress.

The results Tuesday were not all doom and gloom for the Democratic bench. The party installed two possible future leaders in safe Democratic Senate seats — state Attorney General Kamala Harris, 52, in California and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, 57, who is a former member of House leadership, in Maryland.

They also elected Rep. Tammy Duckworth, a 48-year-old Iraq veteran, in Illinois, and 52year-old former state attorney general Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada. Cortez Masto, Duckworth and Harris are all diverse, youngish female voices for the party who could carve big profiles.

But the overall picture for Democrats is decidedly not young and full of rising stars. As things stand, just 11 of the 30 youngest senators in the next Congress will be Democrats, and they’ll have just 4 of the 13 senators under 50 years old, including Duckworth.

The less-hierarchical GOP has done a good job of winning key races with younger candidates in recent years, and that filters up to the national and presidential level eventually.

This is more of a long-term issue for Democrats than an immediate concern, but it speaks to the same problem.

And yes, it’s easy to oversell the tough spot Democrats find themselves in after a difficult loss, but they have a bunch of very real questions to answer about who leads the party going forward. n

CONTENTS THE NATION THE WORLD COVER STORY ENTERTAINMENT FOOD BOOKS OPINION FIVE MYTHS

4 8 10 16 17 18 20 23

ON THE COVER Donald Trump addresses a rally in Macon, Ga., last year. On Tuesday, he was elected the next U.S. president.

File photograph by CHRISTOPHER ALUKA BERRY, Reuters

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NATION

In Colorado, a river of lost souls A MY E LLIS N UTT in La Plata County, Colo.

BY

T

he river gallops past ghost towns and plunges through canyons of quiet before tumbling into the old mining town of Durango. Legend has it that the Spanish christened these waters more than 300 years ago to honor a small band of conquistadors who died on its banks without receiving the sacrament of last rites. They called it El Rio de las Animas Perdidas.

The River of Lost Souls.

Today, some 53,000 people live in Durango and the surrounding county of La Plata. And all along the Animas, people are still dying before their time, particularly women in midlife, succumbing not to diabetes or heart disease, but to suicide.

Two-and-a-half times as many people die by suicide as homicide in the United States; among whites in 2014, it was nearly nine times as many, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although more men than women take their own lives, the rate of suicide has nearly doubled among middle-aged white women since 1999 — rising from 7 per 100,000 to 12.6 in 2014 — helping to explain a startling increase in their early mortality.

The numbers are even worse for middle-aged white women with a high school diploma or less. For them, the suicide rate has more than doubled over the past 15 years, according to a Washington Post analysis of federal health data. Most of the victims lived in small towns and rural areas, particularly in the Southeast and in mountain states, where social isolation can be acute.

Colorado has the fourth-highest suicide rate in the nation for white women ages 45 to 54.

Among Colorado counties with a population of at least 30,000, La Plata has the highest.

Since 2007, 14 middle-aged white women have killed themselves here. The Post looked at half of those cases and found striking commonalities: Most worked physically demanding jobs. Most

BONNIE JO MOUNT/THE WASHINGTON POST

White, middle-aged women are dying by suicide at record rates suffered from chronic pain. And most struggled with mental-health issues that, surviving friends and relatives say, were addressed through psychiatric medications that were ultimately ineffective.

Nationally, many mentalhealth experts have raised concerns about the growing use of such medications for everything from insomnia to ordinary loneliness. Between 1999 and 2013, psychiatric drug prescriptions shot up by 117 percent.

The number of prescriptions written by non-psychiatrists also has risen. As many as 80 percent of all antidepressant prescriptions are written by physicians who are not psychiatrists, multiple studies have found, and doctors often give the drugs to people who have received no psychiatric diagnosis. Studies also show that the drugs work only about half the time and can produce side effects, such as anxiety and sleeplessness,

that mimic worsening symptoms.

Women are far more likely than men to receive these prescriptions: In the United States today, nearly 1 in 4 white women ages 50 to 64 is taking an antidepressant, according to federal health officials.

No expert suggests that these medications are driving the uptick in suicide among this population. Research into that question is difficult, because many women on psychotropic drugs are already prone to depression and suicide.

PhRMA, which represents the nation’s biggest drug companies, declined to comment for this story.

Christine Moutier, chief medical officer of the nonprofit American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, said the presence of multiple medications may suggest that the patient’s mental illness was particularly difficult to treat.

However, Moutier added that multiple prescriptions can also suggest “suboptimal treatment.”

Pamela Beckert, 54, died of an overdose in this parking lot in Durango, Colo. “It had become so dark at the end,” her son said.

4thhighest Colorado has the fourth-highest suicide rate in the nation for white women ages 45 to 54

And for women who believe the drugs hold the promise of a cure, other medical experts said, their failure can induce a withering spiral of hopelessness.

“There’s all kinds of reasons to be depressed, and doctors are not attending to them anymore,” said Joel Paris, a professor of psychiatry at Canada’s McGill University.

“What doctors are being told is, if the patient isn’t getting better, then you need to add another two or three [medications] to the regimen.”

T

he western slope of the Rockies has always had higher-than-average suicide rates, people venturing westward in search of excitement or escape and finding neither. For Pamela Beckert, Colorado was just another place to start over.

Born in Ohio, Beckert grew up in Arizona. She was married twice but largely raised her son on her

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2016

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NATION own. After Beckert’s father died in the 1990s, and with her son grown, she became a nomad, moving first to Fort Worth, then to Durango. Nothing felt permanent, including her jobs — a waitress in a bar, a process server, a security guard for Planned Parenthood. She had trouble paying rent, and sometimes her moods vacillated wildly.

Through Medicaid, she received psychiatric medication from a Durango health clinic: Wellbutrin to raise her spirits; Lamictal to even out the mood swings; Klonopin for anxiety; Seroquel, an antipsychotic, to sleep.

Sometime in the months before her death, Beckert stopped taking all of them and began stockpiling the pills.

“It had become so dark at the end,” said Beckert’s son, Sean Dillman, who lives in Arizona. “I look back and I’ll always wonder what I could have done. But her demeanor was always the same. . . . I had no idea, no clue this is where she was at.”

No longer able to afford her apartment, Beckert bunked with a friend and worried about where she would go next. When she asked a caseworker at the clinic about temporary housing, the young woman suggested Beckert live out of her Jeep at the back of the vast Walmart parking lot. Surely no one would notice her there.

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endy Faye Miller passed that Walmart on Route 550 nearly every day for decades. Most often, she was driving home from her bartending job at the Purgatory Mountain ski area.

Miller couldn’t wait to move to Durango. She left Waterford, Mich., at 17, missing her high school graduation to follow the man who would become her first husband. That was 42 years ago.

About five miles east of downtown and half a mile past a sign that reads “Pavement Ends,” Miller lived in a mobile home until last December. A sagging porch and a tin roof secured with concrete bricks betray the home’s age.

Most days, the only sounds are distant dogs barking at strange cars and the crunch of pickups passing on the unpaved road.

In addition to tending bar, Miller shoveled snow in the winter and sprayed mosquitoes for the county in the summer. Nearly all

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By July 2015, Sieber had successfully discontinued all but one of her psychiatric medications.

“One of her worst [side effects] was sleep. She could not sleep,” said Pati Wolfe, who often joined Sieber in the struggle to withdraw from drugs. “This went on for months and months. Maybe a couple of hours a night was all she would get.”

P PHOTOS BY BONNIE JO MOUNT/THE WASHINGTON POST

her life she also cleaned homes and businesses, including the office where her daughter, Autumn Concepcion, now works. It wasn’t easy: Miller had had two back surgeries for injuries suffered while breaking up a bar fight and falling down the stairs carrying a keg of beer.

The woman with the quick smile didn’t like being alone. She was an alcoholic, according to family and friends, but careful to conceal her misery. Only her daughter saw her mother’s sadness.

“I could see her in town and she’d be fine, laughing, and then talk to her 20 minutes later at home, and it would be totally different,” Concepcion said. “Even her voice would change.”

Miller’s daughter suggested she see a mental-health counselor in Durango. More than half of all counties in the United States — all of them rural — have no practicing psychiatrists, psychologists or social workers, according to a 2013 federal report. In La Plata County, only one mental-health clinic accepted Medicaid. Miller, unfortunately, qualified for Medicaid only part of the year, when she wasn’t earning wages above the federal poverty limit. Otherwise, she would have to pay on a sliding scale, and the scale didn’t slide quite enough.

Miller visited just once.

C

harlotte Sieber fought depression for years, and then she battled her own medications. The Sweden native was a flight attendant when she met her future husband, Brad, more than

30 years ago. They settled in a small, fruit-tree-laden enclave just north of downtown Durango, where they had two children. He was a UPS driver; she found a job in a local clothing store. But 20 years ago, after injuring her neck and back in a series of automobile accidents, she could no longer work, and she spiraled into depression.

The psychiatric medications doctors prescribed seemed to work only for a short time (when they did at all): the antidepressant Effexor, Wellbutrin, Klonopin, Seroquel. There were others, too, but none offered longterm relief.

“Multiple drugs overload the system in ways we can’t predict,” said Rene Muller, a psychologist at Johns Hopkins. “Everyone metabolizes drugs differently, which also affects how they interact with each other.”

Four years ago, Charlotte Sieber met Jennifer Roeder, who told of her own travails trying to come off psychiatric medications when they failed to help her feel less depressed.

“It was the first time she heard that maybe the drugs were hurting, not helping,” Roeder said.

Sieber began to slowly wean herself off her many medications, tapering the drugs one at a time, according to family and friends, though she often had to stop to let her body and mind recover.

“It’s really hard to withdraw from antidepressants,” said New York psychiatrist and pharmacology expert Julie Holland.

amela Beckert, 54, died Jan. 15, 2013, after telling a friend, with whom she was living, that she might be late.

“It’s going to get really, really cold. Don’t wait up for me,” Beckert told her.

A week later, friends found her body. Beckert had bought a light blanket at Walmart and a cup of tea at Starbucks, downed dozens of pills from six different bottles of psychiatric medication, then lay down in the back of her Jeep Wrangler — at the far end of the Walmart parking lot.

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FAMILY PHOTO

Top, Autumn Concepcion’s mother, Wendy Faye Miller, seen in the background, took her own life in 2015.

Above, Brad Sieber’s wife, Charlotte, hanged herself. She was 54 and had suffered from depression for years. Brad Sieber has struggled to reconcile her death: “I’m a fixer. I fix things. But I couldn’t fix Charlotte.”

endy Miller, 59, died on Dec. 14, 2015. It snowed hard all day in La Plata County and Miller was scheduled that evening to clean her daughter’s workplace, but Concepcion called to tell her they’d closed early. Miller asked her daughter to let her know when she got home safely, and at about 6 p.m. she did. Her mother texted back: “good, thank you, xoxo.”

Miller was probably already home by then, after stopping to buy a fifth of McCormick vodka, which she nearly finished that night. About 9 p.m., she was on Facebook, making plans for her 60th birthday party in January. At one point she smoked a little pot, which usually helped her sleep.

Then, sometime after 9:30 p.m., Wendy Miller crawled into bed, put a .38 Special in her mouth, and pulled the trigger.

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o one knows what Charlotte Sieber, 54, was doing in the hours before her death on Nov. 11, 2015. She was alone in her bedroom that Wednesday afternoon, with her 26-year-old son on the computer in the next room.

Sieber hanged herself from a rope thrown over a rod in a small closet in her bedroom. Later, her husband found a belt from one of her dresses, torn in half and thrown in the trash. It had taken her two tries to die. n

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NATION

Miami wants to make big banks pay R OBERT B ARNES Miami BY

T

he housing collapse of 2008 nearly broke the city of Miami. Now, its leaders have embarked on a novel and aggressive legal strategy to recoup losses from the big banks they say created the crisis with discriminatory and predatory lending practices.

It is a high-stakes effort that is being encouraged by many cities, and the banks Tuesday asked the Supreme Court to stop it before it takes root, though the justices seemed inclined to let the lawsuit proceed despite some concerns.

Miami sued Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup under the 1968 Fair Housing Act, which bars discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of housing.

The law states its purpose as providing for fair housing “throughout the United States.”

The city says that it can prove the lending institutions discriminated against Hispanic and African American residents by directing them into high-interest, risky loans. The resulting defaults destabilized Miami’s poorest neighborhoods, and the resulting loss of tax revenue sent the city to the brink of bankruptcy, they say.

“It took us three years to really start recovering,” said Miami Commissioner Francis Suarez.

“We decided unanimously as a commission that we wanted to hold the banks responsible for their lending practices, which we learned were discriminatory in nature.”

Banks have been sued by individuals and taken to task by the federal government for lending practices, but these new cases are the first in which cities are the plaintiffs and are demanding that banks be held accountable for harming their communities.

The banks counter that there is a reason such Fair Housing Act suits are novel: Congress never intended for the law to be used for such purposes.

“Municipal suits like this one were unheard of until recently, when enterprising contingency-

ANGEL VALENTIN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

The city is pursuing a novel attempt to recover its losses in the 2008 housing market collapse fee counsel began pushing them,” Bank of America told the court in its brief.

The banks warn of a “trickledown” approach that would let anyone affected by a neighborhood in decline — from the nextdoor neighbor to the corner dry cleaner — to sue under the act.

There is little debate about the theory that foreclosure leads to vacancy, then blight and lower property values for the neighborhood and city. But the banks say economic and social conditions can have as much to do with that as the original loan.

The city says that it can prove — if it gets the chance — that discriminatory lending practices caused its problems, not the general economic downturn.

Using regression analysis, it alleges in court documents that African American and Hispanic borrowers were far more likely to receive unfavorable loans than similarly situated whites. And when borrowers got into trouble,

they were less likely to be offered affordable refinancing packages.

“Clearly, higher rates were causing a much higher rate of default,” Suarez said. “We think the banks were doing it knowingly, and as a part of the pattern and practice of their business model.”

No one challenges the dire circumstances in which Miami found itself after the crash. It was the epicenter of the foreclosure problem. Suarez said that when he took office in 2009 the city had just $13 million in reserves, and if it had done nothing to curtail spending, its deficit would have reached $115 million.

Like most cities, its revenue is derived from property values, and real estate normally is relatively stable. “This was a precipitous drop,” Suarez said, and the city invoked an emergency law to slash the salaries of municipal workers and impose a hiring freeze.

“I had firefighters who from one day to the next, they’d get a 20- to 40-percent decrease in pay,” Mi-

Miami Commissioner Francis Suarez stands near a demolished vacant property.

ami Fire Chief Maurice Kemp said in an interview.

Police Chief Rodolfo Llanes said his force at one point was down about 160 officers, more than 10 percent of the workforce. And the demands on both fire and police were increasing, the chiefs said.

“Abandoned property breeds crime and also disorder,” Llanes said. “ . . . It degrades the entire neighborhood because it draws in a criminal element that will break into cars or break into houses to feed their habit.”

But just because there is a problem, it does not mean that Congress provided a solution in the Fair Housing Act, say the banks and the interest groups that support them.

The purpose of the law “is to protect minorities from housing discrimination, and to secure for all Americans the benefits of living in an integrated society,” the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said in a friend-of-the-court brief. “No one would suggest that when Congress acted to secure fair housing in 1968, it also was concerned with protecting the tax bases and budgets of cities and towns.”

Moreover, the likely result of a win by the cities would be that banks would cut back on loans in low-income neighborhoods, the Chamber says.

To go forward with the suit, Miami has to convince the Supreme Court of two things: that the act’s language permitting an “aggrieved person” to sue includes municipalities and that the alleged discriminatory practices by banks were the proximate cause of its decrease in property-tax revenue and increase in services because of property foreclosures.

Miami Senior Assistant City Attorney Henry J. Hunnefeld said the city can separate out the losses it thinks are attributable to discriminatory loans.

“All the city’s asking for is to be put back in the same place it would have been if we didn’t have discriminatory loans that resulted in foreclosures, which had all sorts of ramifications on the city,” he said.

“That’s a question of proof at trial.” n

ational marijuana use on Tuesday, while voters in a handful of Southern and deeply conservative states embraced medical marijuaSUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2016 na.

Regardless of how a stillcontested legalization vote turns out in Maine, more than 1 in 5 Americans now live in states where the recreational use of marijuana is, or soon will be, legal.

“This is the most momentous Election Day in history for the movement to end marijuana prohibition,” Rob Kampia of the Marijuana Policy Project, a group that supported a number of the legalization initiatives, said in a stateBY C HRISTOPHER NGRAHAM is ment.

“The end ofIprohibition near, and it would be a mistake for The nation’s drug-policy landthe federal government to continscape was radically altered this ue waging war on its own nonpast week.

California, Massachuviolent citizens.” settsBut and Nevada over legalized recrejubilation marijuana’s ational usequickly on Tuesday, ballot marijuana victories was temwhile in a handful of Southperedvoters by the uncertain future ern and deeply conservative states marijuana faces under Presidentembraced medical marijuana. elect Donald Trump’s Justice DeWith Maine’s vote for legalizapartment. tionTrump beinghas finalized Thursday, expressed support more than 1 in 5 Americans now for medical marijuana, saying he live in states recreationbelieves it where helps the ill people.

But alwhen use of asked marijuana is, orColorado’s soon will about be, legal.of legalized marijuana last model “This is the“I most momentous year, he said, think it’s bad, and I Election Day about in history for the feel strongly it.” movement to end proTrump has saidmarijuana he would leave the question of marijuana legalhibition,” Rob Kampia of the Mariization up toProject, states, but he alsothat has juana Policy a group surrounded himself ofwith tough supported a number the legallaw-and-order-style advisers. ization initiatives, said in a state“The of Donald ment.

“Theprospect end of prohibition is Trump next near, andasitour would bepresident a mistakeconfor cerns me government deeply,” Ethan Nadelthe federal to continmann, executive the ue waging war ondirector its ownofnonpro-legalization violent citizens.” group Drug Policy Alliance, said in amarijuana’s statement.

But jubilation over “His victories most likely to ballot wasappointees quickly temsenior positions pered bylaw theenforcement uncertain future mar— Rudy Giuliani Chris Chrisijuana faces underand President-elect tie — are no friends of marijuana Donald Trump’s Justice Departreform, nor is his vice president.” ment.

Regardless of what happens at Trump has expressed support themedical state level, marijuana remains for marijuana, saying he illegal for usesillunder federal believes it all helps people.

But law. The Obama administration when asked about Colorado’s has adopted a policy of nonintermodel of legalized marijuana last ference with stateit’s marijuana year, he said, “I think bad, and I laws, as outlined feel strongly aboutin it.”a 2013 memo byTrump then-Deputy General has saidAttorney he would leave James Cole. of marijuana legalthe question Theup Justice Department’s ization to states, but he alsoposihas tion has beenhimself that, as with long as state surrounded tough legalization efforts advisers. don’t threaten law-and-order-style certain federal priorities such “The prospect of Donald — Trump keeping marijuana out of me the asasour next president concerns hands of minors, preventing imdeeply,” Ethan Nadelmann, execupaired driving grow tive director of and the keeping pro-legalizaoperations off federal lands — it tion group Drug Policy Alliance, would exercise “prosecutorial dissaid in a statement. “His most cretion” and direct law-enforcelikely appointees to senior law enment resources to other drug priforcement positions — Rudy Giuorities, such as the opiate epidemliani and Chris Christie — are no ic. friends marijuana reform, nor is JohnofHudak, a senior fellow at his vice president.” the Brookings Institution who Regardless of what happens at studies marijuana policy, said the the state level,was marijuana remains Cole memo instrumental in illegal for Colorado all uses under federal allowing and Washinglaw. ton The stateObama to set administration up their recrehas adopted a policy of noninterational-marijuana markets.

“A lot of people forget that [recreational-marijuana markets in] Colorado and Washington were

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Hazy future for state marijuana laws Activists are jubilant over ballot wins, but Trump becomes a wild card

JONATHAN ALCORN/REUTERS

William Britt, left, and Al Moreno celebrated Tuesday after Californians voted to pass Proposition 64, which legalized the recreational use of marijuana in the state.

MA RIJ UANA O N T HE B ALL O T A RI ZO NA 205 - LEGALIZE MARIJUANA (98% OF PRECINCTS) • No Yes

M A SS AC HU SE T TS 979,743 52% 898,455 48

A R KA NS A S

4 - LEGALIZE MARIJUANA (100%) • Yes No

MO NT A N A

6 - MEDICAL MARIJUANA AMENDMENT (100%) • For 581,259 53% Against 511,977 47

182 - EXPAND MEDICAL MARIJUANA (98%) • Yes No

C AL IFO RNIA 64 - LEGALIZE MARIJUANA (100%) • Yes No

4,952,476 56% 3,920,303 44

6,495,900 71% 2,615,955 29

5 - MEDICAL MARIJUANA (100%) • Yes No

602,400 54% 503,615 46

NO RT H DA KO TA

MA I NE 1 - LEGALIZE MARIJUANA (95%) Yes No

263,622 57% 199,169 43

NE VA DA 2 - LEGALIZE MARIJUANA (100%) • Yes No

FL OR IDA 2 - EXPAND MEDICAL MARIJUANA (100%) • Yes No

1,745,388 54% 1,511,747 46

215,241 64% 122,410 36

• winner Results are unofficial Source: Associated Press 367,480 50% 364,112 50

ference with state marijuana laws, governors received guidas outlined there in a 2013 memo by ance from the Department of Justhen-Deputy Attorney General tice,” Hudak James Cole. said in an interview.

While Trump has said legalizThe Justice Department’s posiing marijuana “should be as a state tion has been that, as long state issue,” it’s unclear says legalization efforts what don’t that threaten about how he priorities would enforce certain federal — suchthe as federal law.

Hudak noted rekeeping marijuana out that of the versingofthe Obama administrahands minors, preventing imtion’s hands-off approach to maripaired driving and keeping grow juana would as simple as withoperations offbefederal lands — it drawing the Cole memo, which would exercise “prosecutorial diswould have chilling effect on cretion” and adirect law-enforceinvestment in the ment resources tomarijuana other drugbusipriness. such as the opiate epidemorities, ic. The Drug Policy Alliance’s Nadelmann agreed.a senior fellow at John Hudak, don’t thinkInstitution we’re goingwho to the“I Brookings have quite the same green studies marijuana policy, saidlight the coming out was of the new adminisCole memo instrumental in tration,” he said inand a conference allowing Colorado Washingcallstate withto reporters. ton set up their recreationBut some congressional obal-marijuana markets. servers are skeptical that there “A lot of people forget that [recwill be any appetite in a Trump reational-marijuana markets in] administration for quashing marColorado and Washington were ijuana reform. pretty much on hold until the gov“Go against millions of supernors received porters,there against states’guidance rights, from the Department of is?”

Justice,” against where the public Rep. Hudak said in an interview.

Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) said in While Trump has said legalizan interview. “It would be the ing marijuana “should be a probstate beginning of tremendous issue,” it’s the unclear what that says lems for Trump administraabout how hedon’t would enforce the tion that they need.” federal law. Hudak notedoptimisthat reBlumenauer remains tic that Congress will tackle a number of issues that have been vexing marijuana businesses in

* RESULTS AS OF TUESDAY

versing the Obama administraof access to theapproach federal banking tion’s hands-off to marisystem and their to withtake juana would be asinability simple as the same the tax Cole breaks that which other drawing memo, businesses areaentitled would have chillingto.effect on “The number ofmarijuana men and wominvestment in the busien in Congress who are now going ness. to represent legal businesses The Drugstate Policy Alliance’s Na[will see] aagreed. quantum increase” as a delmann result of thethink marijuana “I don’t we’remeasures going to passed Tuesday, have quite the Blumenauer same green said. light Beau out Kilmer, drug-policy excoming of thea new administrapert the nonprofit Rand Corp., tion,”athe said in a conference call said unlikely that changes to with it’s reporters. marijuana will be a priority But somelaw congressional observfor incoming Trump administraers are skeptical that there will be tion officials. theadminisgrand any appetite in a“In Trump scheme ofquashing top issues the new tration for marijuana readministration is going to be dealform. ing“Go with, marijuana is not to against millions of going supportbe a top priority,” Kilmer said in an ers, against states’ rights, against interview. where the public is?” Rep. Earl With 65 million people living in Blumenauer (D-Ore.) said in an states that have given the green interview. “It would be the beginlight to marijuana legalization, ning of tremendous problems for any federal crackdown “could the Trump administration that have significant political costs asthey don’t need.” sociated with it,” Kilmer said.

Blumenauer remains optimisAnd the burgeoning marijuana tic that Congress will tackle industry is likely to step up itsa number of issuesatthat lobbying efforts the have state been and vexing marijuana businesses in local levels. recent years, including their Hudak agrees that any effortlack to of access to thelegalization federal banking stop state-level will system and inability to take depend on their lawmakers’ appetite thedealing same tax that other for withbreaks the potential pobusinesses are entitled to. litical fallout from the move.

“This is a Congress that is about to repeal the Affordable Care Act,” Hudak said. “I think a Congress

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“Thetonumber womwilling do that of aremen notand going to en in Congress areof now going worry about thewho optics quashto represent stateindustry.” legal businesses ing the marijuana [will see]state a quantum as a At the level, increase” meanwhile, result of the opponents of marijuana legalizationmeasures are repassed Tuesday, Blumenauer grouping and considering howsaid. to Beauthe Kilmer, a drug-policy exaddress growing momentum pert at the RandSmart Corp., behind legalnonprofit marijuana. said it’s unlikely that changes Approaches to Marijuana, the na-to marijuana law will be a priority for tion’s leading anti-legalization incoming Trump Tuesday administration group, announced an iniofficials.

“In at thereform grand and scheme tiative aimed over-of top issues theexisting new administration sight of the marijuana is going to be dealing with, mariindustry. juana is not founder going toand be chief a top The group’s priority,” Kilmer said in anininterexecutive, Kevin Sabet, said an view.that the effort doesn’t repreemail sents a shift away from trying With 65 million people livingtoin stop legalization.

He noted that states that have given the green the group led a successful camlight to marijuana legalization, paign against acrackdown marijuana legalany federal “could ization measure inpolitical Arizona,costs which have significant aslost with with 48 percent of the sociated it,” Kilmer said.vote Tuesday.

And the burgeoning marijuana “I am feeling (strangely, maybe) industry is likely to step up its optimistic,” Sabetatwrote in an lobbying efforts the state and email. local levels. christopher.ingraham Hudak agrees that any effort to @washpost.com stop state-level legalization will depend on lawmakers’ appetite for dealing with the potential political fallout from the move.

“This is a Congress that is about to repeal the Affordable Care Act,” Hudak said. “I think a Congress and an administration that are willing to do that are not going to worry about the optics of quashing the marijuana industry.”

At the state level, meanwhile, NEXT DAY opponents of legalization are regrouping and considering how to address the growing momentum behind legal marijuana. Smart Approaches to Marijuana, the nation’s leading anti-legalization group, announced Tuesday an initiative aimed at reform and oversight of the existing marijuana industry.

The group’s founder and chief executive, Kevin Sabet, said in an email that the effort doesn’t represents a shift away from trying to stop legalization. He noted that the group led a successful campaign against a marijuana legalization measure in Arizona, which lost with 48 percent of the vote Tuesday.

“I am feeling (strangely, maybe) optimistic,” Sabet wrote in an email. n

VETERAN

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Some women find power as refugees K RISTEN C HICK Bar Elias, Lebanon BY

S

amar Hijazi stood in front of the judge of the Sunni sharia court in this Bekaa Valley village last month as he addressed her in rapid-fire bursts from behind an imposing desk.

“This is against God’s will,” he said. “If you divorce, you’ll have problems with your children. God will be against you. God won’t bless you. Will you reconsider?”

“No,” she said firmly.

The judge pronounced her divorced. Just like that, Hijazi, 45, was freed from a 33-year marriage to a man she described as abusive and domineering. The refugee from Syria’s war had long wished for such an ending, but it had never seemed possible in her old life. That changed when the family fled to Lebanon two years ago.

With shelter and food provided by aid organizations, she was less dependent on her husband. And as she began making decisions for the family and venturing out of the house alone, she felt, for the first time, self-sufficient.

When her husband delivered a beating that left bruises all over her body, she decided she had suffered enough.

“In Syria, because of the family and social pressure, I submitted to him,” she said. “But here, the circumstances we’ve passed through made me stronger. Here, I feel independent.”

For some Syrian women living in Lebanon, the bitter realities of life as a refugee have nourished an unexpected side effect: empowerment. Difficult economic and legal circumstances have pushed women to take on more responsibilities within their families, including many that were once a man’s domain. Uprooted from some familiar social constraints and exposed to programs promoting women’s rights through contact with aid groups, some of them have obtained a degree of personal autonomy they never experienced in Syria.

More than a million Syrian refugees live in Lebanon, seeking ref-

KRISTEN CHICK FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

As men face limits, their wives take on more responsibilities and discover self-sufficiency uge from a war that has raged for more than four years. Amid fears that the influx would overwhelm the fragile country, in 2014 the government began requiring visas for arriving Syrians. Last year, it introduced stringent residency requirements that made obtaining legal status impossible for many of them. That has sharply restricted mobility — and the ability to work — for men, who are more at risk of arrest for undocumented status than women.

As a result, the women shoulder much of the burden of taking care of the family. It is an enormous shift for those who in Syria never left their houses without a male relative.

“Many of these women come from conservative societies where men do everything and women stay at home,” said Nibal Al Alow, senior social counselor at Basmeh and Zeitooneh, an organization founded by Syrian expatriates that works with Syrian refugees in Lebanon. “Now they have to register

the children in school, buy the food, take children to the doctor and take care of everything. Women have taken on larger roles.”

Increasingly, that means women are working outside the home.

The resulting economic empowerment is a major catalyst for change, giving women more say in decisions such as how the family spends its money or whether to send children to school.

For Um Mohamed, a 28-yearold mother of two, moving to Lebanon opened a door to the world beyond her home. In Syria, she rarely left the house, and never by herself. Her husband shopped for food, and she stayed home to cook and take care of the children. But in Lebanon, he doesn’t work, and she takes a minibus to a women’s empowerment center run by the Amel Association aid group in a Beirut suburb to learn how to make jewelry and decorative wall hangings that sell for small sums.

“In the beginning, my husband didn’t want me to come here, and

Samar Hijazi, a Syrian refugee, greets her grandson, Hamza, on the way home to a Bekaa Valley camp in Lebanon.

he tried to convince me not to,” said Um Mohamed, who asked that her full name not be used for fear of angering her husband. But she prevailed, partly because of their difficult financial situation.

“I’m happy about it. I feel I can come and go as I like,” she said, a smile creasing her lightly freckled face.

She now dreams about opening her own business when she eventually returns to Syria.

Yet as in Um Mohamed’s case, the increased freedom for women often stems from the disempowerment of men. Many Syrian men say they feel ashamed of being unable to provide for their families and allowing their wives to work while they sit at home.

“When you talk about what is being a man [in Syrian society], it’s the person who is responsible for the family, who provides the money and the house,” said Gisele Abichahine, a psychotherapist who works at the Men Center run

by Abaad, a civil society organization focused on gender equality.

When they can’t provide these things, she said, some channel the resulting fear and frustration into physical violence against their wives and children — a widespread problem among Syrian refugees in Lebanon, according to aid groups. Empowering women can make it worse.

Still, for many women, the change has been significant. Hijazi was married at age 12 and bore six children in quick succession.

They all lived under the thumb of her husband, who she said didn’t allow her to leave their home in a Damascus suburb without him.

She said he beat her and the children.

She decided to leave the country and lives in a spare and tidy prefabricated structure in a refugee camp in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.

It’s small, but it’s hers, and it’s safe.

At her age, Hijazi is unlikely to remarry. But even if she did, she said, she would never accept a husband who restricted her freedom.

“I want to prove to myself that I exist and I am on my own, and to be free,” she said. n

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N. Korea offers nostalgia for a price A NNA F IFIELD Dandong, China BY

T

he Chinese tourists were hesitant for a second, perhaps startled by their North Korean guide’s perfect use of Chinese curse words, perhaps surprised by the sentiment.

“F--- the Japanese devils! F--their mothers!” Mr. Lee, the guide, shouted out to a busload of visitors making a day trip across the Yalu River into Sinuiju, North Korea.

Recovering from their initial surprise, most of the middle-aged Chinese visitors joined in. “F--- the Japanese devils! F--- their mothers!” they cheered back, with whistles and clapping, in an expletive-filled echo.

It was a bonding moment between the neighbors.

The excursion into North Korea, from this border town in northeastern China, took a group of 51 Chinese tourists, by turns curious and nostalgic, into the land of the Kims. Their small green bus, which carried them over the river and back in time, was for Chinese visitors only. The people on the bus did not want to be fully identified, because it could go badly for them, but here is their account: “It’s like going back to elementary school,” said Lin, a professor from Fujian. And that was not criticism.

First stop: a central square in Sinuiju, with its new bronze statues of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, the first two generations of the world’s only communist dynasty.

The tourists were told to get gaudy bunches of flowers — at $3 a pop, that was $150 for North Korea — to place at the feet of the two Kims.

They had not even left the square before the flower vendors began clearing away the flowers and placing them back in their plastic baskets for the next wave of tourists. “They should at least wait until we leave,” said Gu, a businesswoman from Shenzhen.

“They need to work on their skills.”

Relations between Beijing and Pyongyang have become strained in recent years, as North Korean

THE WASHINGTON POST

The closed society uses well-choreographed bonding to make money off Chinese tourists leader Kim Jong Un has repeatedly defied and snubbed Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, who is three decades his senior and many multiples his power.

But even as economic and political ties wobble, tourism has become an important source of foreign revenue for North Korea, and it is more easily extracted from Chinese tourists, who tend to be obedient and sympathetic, than, say, Americans, who have proved less so.

Many Chinese come for what might be described as “communostalgia” — a chance to reminisce about the good old days of iron-fisted central planning.

With Sinuiju not having a lot of what would be called, in any other country, tourist attractions, the next stop was a museum at which the guide talked, crying, about the time Kim Il Sung visited. The unfazed Chinese tourists quietly waited for it to end.

Luckily, they soon found them-

selves in the museum gift shop, where cases displayed creams and lotions made in the local cosmetics factory — another of Sinuiju’s attractions.

“This stuff is so cheap! And it’s natural and pure. North Korea isn’t polluted like China,” Gu said.

She bought a dozen gift sets. That was $550 more for North Korea.

Back on the bus, Mr. Lee, a slickly dressed 27-year-old, started his anti-Japanese tirade, simultaneously shocking and uniting his audience. But he did allow that not all Japanese people are bad.

Then Mr. Lee led the group into a restaurant designed for tourists.

After lunch, North Korean women in bright traditional dress began singing old Red Army songs, transporting the older Chinese tourists back to their youths. Gu and her friends had tears in their eyes. “These are songs we sang when we were growing up,” one said.

Pretty, young North Korean

Chinese tourists on a one-day trip to Sinuiju, North Korea, talk with a tour guide at a cosmetics factory.

women took Chinese men with beer bellies by the hand and dragged them onstage to sing together, while the guides snapped photos.

After another gift shop, the final stop on the tour was a kindergarten, where 5-year-olds welcomed the tourists in Korean and Chinese. The most popular performance featured five boys dressed as North Korean soldiers going through field exercises.

Then out came two dressed as Japanese soldiers, with rats’ tails, and then one as a senior American officer, with a wolf’s tail. The Chinese tourists lapped it up.

“Young kids in China these days are too spoiled, too materialistic,” said Qi, a man from Liaoning province. “We should have more nationalist education in our schools. Look at North Korea.

They know how to educate kids!”

At the end of the performance, one of the guides announced that the teachers would happily accept any gifts for the children. Some tourists offered pencils, cookies and sausages they had brought from China.

On the bus, others felt bad they had nothing to give. Not to worry.

Mr. Lee had a plan.

The children had trained for a whole year for this performance, he said. “They have eaten bitterness,” he said, using a Chinese phrase for enduring hardship.

Passengers began handing over Chinese notes worth $7.50 or $15.

When they arrived at the tourist center on the border, it was time to hand over something else. This time, it was their cameras, which had to be checked for photos deemed undesirable.

As the North Koreans were censoring the photos, the guides came out with flashy individualized folders featuring pictures of each tourist at the sites they had visited.

More than half of the tourists handed over $30 for their folder — exorbitant at local prices.

“They’re very smart,” Lin said.

“While our photos were being deleted, they were selling us pictures. From the first step we took in this land, they had planned out exactly how to get our money.” n

CHIP SOMODEVILLA/THE WASHINGTON POST

Making sense of

MATT MCCLAIN/THE WASHINGTON POST

Trump’s rejection of politics as usual won support and publicly unleashed the nation’s id

BY MARC FISHER

E JABIN BOTSFORD/THE WASHINGTON POST

election 2016

ight years ago, unprecedented throngs of Americans rushed into the streets in the middle of the night.

People cried, hugged strangers, kissed cops, shared champagne. The country had just elected its first black president, and it felt as if liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats, were on the same team, if only for a rousing moment, and that team had just won the World Series.

Of course, it quickly became clear that Barack Obama had won office in a divided nation hungry for change but also mistrustful of authority, suspicious of nearly everything.

Donald Trump’s victory Tuesday night seemed unlikely to provoke any such unifying surge of goodwill and pride.

Americans on election night of 2016 had the blues — anxious about the future, miffed about the lousy choices they faced, insecure about the nation’s place in the world, bothered by each other.

A presidential election is a reflection of the national culture and mood, and if the Obama election was a statement of optimism about the radical demographic, technological and social changes of recent decades, then what did Americans’ choice of Trump really mean?

It is, some voters said, an admission of exhaustion, a collective settling for the lesser of two evils in a country where people increasingly choose not to live near, associate with or listen to those who hold opposing political views. Not quite, other voters said.

With or without Trump’s extraordinary appeal, Americans were determined this year to send the politicians a message about the pain caused by a decades-long collapse of certainties about what America looks like, what constitutes a family and how we earn a living.

Through traditional news media and new social media, an unusually captivated audience saw this campaign as a disorienting kaleidoscope of bloodcurdling anger at raucous rallies, waves of investigation and suspicion, and torrents of insults traded by candidates and their supporters. Tuesday’s vote left unresolved whether the ugly narrative of unprincipled demagogue vs. dishonest harricontinues on next page

JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES

Donald Trump supporters, above far left, cheer on election night. Above left, Trump speaks after winning. Hillary Clinton backers, bottom far left, embrace as Clinton, left, gives her concession speech the next day.

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JABIN BOTSFORD/THE WASHINGTON POST

from previous page

dan really reflects a country that has fallen into coarse, raw hatred — or if the 2016 campaign was instead a symptom of the newly pervasive power of Facebook, Twitter and other social media. The line between public and private blurred so thoroughly that nasty, hurtful comments that people once made only to their closest family members and friends were now broadcast to the world at large.

Trump is “like that doctor with the horrible bedside manner,” said Chris Love, 50, a Trump supporter and firearms academy owner who was voting in Davie, Fla. “He tells you 90 percent of your arteries are clogged. By being blunt, he’s saving your life.”

Across the ideological divide, some see this year’s surly, sour campaign as a reflection of sentiments that have been plainly visible on the Internet for a long time but that just this year exploded into open expression.

“Fear and anger and misogyny and xenophobia don’t change — they were always out there, but now those people can find each other so much more easily,” said Chip Franklin, a radio talk show host in San Francisco who built his career as a conservative, then shifted his politics to the left. “This year’s anger is the same as any year’s anger, but what’s different now is that there are 30 different ways to express that anger and share it with people who would never have seen it before. Then along came Donald Trump, willing to say whatever people wanted him to say.”

Even if he had lost, this would have been the year of Trump, a wholesale rejection of politics as usual. The thin enthusiasm for Clinton, the revival of the 1990s narrative painting her as dishonest and arrogant, and the dramatically rougher language deployed against her combined with Trump’s ability to give voice to the nation’s id. The result was a

Supporters cheer before Donald Trump arrives at a campaign event Nov. 4 at the Wilmington International Airport in North Carolina.

cavalcade of insults, threats and unchecked assertions flying under the flag of anti-political correctness.

The candidates took body blows from all sides, a level of vitriol that was commonplace in America’s first century but had calmed considerably during the decades when the three major TV networks set the nation’s political tone. This year, it was almost remarkable that no candidate got challenged to a duel.

Congress, the news media and politicians overall — the usual basement dwellers in any accounting of the nation’s least-trusted institutions — fell to new lows. But the biggest shift seemed to take place on the smallest stages.

‘Devolving into tribes’ As Jane Beard waited for her prescription at the Walgreens in Edgewater, Md., a baby in a stroller caught her eye. She played a quick bit of peek-a-boo, looked up and caught the boy’s

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JAHI CHIKWENDIU/THE WASHINGTON POST

father’s eye. He smiled and leaned in: “Listen, I want to ask you something. Are you a Hillary voter? You look like a Hillary voter.”

For an instant, Beard — in yoga pants, a sweatshirt and little Ecco shoes — thought the man had sensed a kindred spirit. “You bet I am!” she replied.

Suddenly, the man unleashed a river of invective: “It’s c---s like you who are helping that c--- win. She’s a murderer.” He went on, and it didn’t get any nicer.

Rattled, Beard asked: “Why did you even come up to me? I never said a word to you. All I did was exist in the world in this store . . .”

“You exist!” the man hissed. “B----es like you exist and you’re f---ing up the country — our country.”

Beard searched for the best retort. “It’s my country, too,” she blurted. She quickly left the store, sat down in her car, caught her breath and posted about the incident on Facebook.

Within minutes, a virtual community em-

braced Beard, a former actress who coaches executives on public speaking. They bemoaned the loss of civility in so many places.

They told stories of angry confrontations launched from both sides of the divide. They said they’d refrained from putting out yard signs this year because people have gotten so riled up.

“Truly sadly, I feel just about the same way as this nut — albeit in reverse,” one of Beard’s friends wrote. “I hate that this election has brought out these feelings in me.”

But one man assured Beard that “you met an outlier. The vast majority of people are good and kind.” Another urged her to “look at the support you have catalyzed with this post.

Look at the love that holds you and everyone woven into this tapestry. That is what is real.”

Beard, who lives in Churchton, Md., near the Chesapeake Bay, had already had three Hillary signs stolen from her yard. On Halloween, she took down her latest sign, just for the

A line of voters stretches around a corner outside a Ward 46 polling place in West Philadelphia on Tuesday.

evening, “because we didn’t want people not to come to our house.”

But in the week after the drugstore confrontation, Beard, 60, found support from neighbors, including Trump supporters, one of whom ran into her at the Baltimore airport, hugged her, and said, “Oh my gosh, Jane, we can still be friends.”

Still, she struggled with the meaning of her moment in Walgreens. “People are scared,” she concluded. “That man is raising a kid that will hear that language and spout that language. Yet I was soothed by all the outpouring.

What makes me sad is that we’re devolving into tribes. I thought we were all the American tribe.”

‘Why are we enemies?’

Deep divisions and despairing dissatisfaction over politics and the nation’s direction are nothing new. “America never was America continues on next page

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MIKE CHRISTY/ARIZONA DAILY STAR VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS

from previous page

to me,” Langston Hughes wrote in “Let America Be America,” his 1935 poem. “I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart. I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars. . . . I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek — and finding only the same old stupid plan of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.”

Hughes concluded that the people, not the politicians, could “bring back our mighty dream again. . . . I swear this oath — America will be!”

That essentially American optimism has not disappeared. Many Trump supporters, drawn by their candidate’s dark vision of a lost and failing country that “I alone can fix,” thought of themselves as a movement to restore greatness.

“More than anything else, Trump picked up on a growing sense that elections don’t have much impact on the direction of the country, that power is increasingly distant from the

people,” said Chris Buskirk, publisher of American Greatness, a pro-Trump blog. Buskirk saw Trump connecting with voters on messages that had more in common with Democrats Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren than with House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.): border security, a “pro-worker” trade policy aimed at “bringing Wall Street to heel” and a foreign policy skeptical of military intervention.

That message — American jobs, America First, Fortress America — hit home with millions of people who have felt disconnected from, and disdained by, the elites for decades.

In 1996, James Dobson, the head of Focus on the Family, one of the country’s largest and most influential evangelical Christian organizations, said: “People inside the Beltway are not aware of the multiple millions of Americans out there who believe things differently than is perceived in Washington. They’re very concerned about . . . a moral meltdown in this

Trump protester Bryan Sanders is punched by a Trump supporter as he is escorted out of Trump’s rally in Tucson on March 19.

country. They’re waiting for some political figure to articulate those views. And no one does.”

Then came Trump. His unique blend of celebrity, ego and a mischievous delight in outraging the elites — as well as his confidence that he would be judged by the lax standards applied to Hollywood and sports figures rather than the unforgiving rules that govern politicians — enabled him to win over millions who heard in his message clear echoes of their late-night grumbles to friends on Facebook.

Trump’s rhetoric and character liberated some Americans to open an ugly vein of animosity. “This year has revealed our underbelly, and a lot of people don’t like what we see,” said Jim Daly, Focus on the Family’s current president. America, Daly said, has morphed into “a post-Christian society,” a “depraved culture” in which the more conservative party chose a nominee who boasted

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MARIO ANZUONI/REUTERS

of his sexual assaults.

Clinton’s decades in politics, her emotionally distanced and guarded presentation, and her legalistic language nearly smothered the revolutionary nature of her own candidacy — oddly, the possibility of electing the first female president was rarely mentioned through most of the campaign. (When some in the campaign sought to go big with the historic nature of Clinton’s candidacy, they were told by those in charge that many Americans just didn’t want to hear it.)

Was the Trump victory a statement condoning sexism, boorish behavior and coarse aggression? Would President Obama still insist, as he did last summer, that “America is not as divided as some have suggested”?

In recent days, many Americans expressed a palpable desire to relieve the tension of division that is evident in the 56 percent of Americans who, according to The Washington Post-ABC poll, were anxious about Clinton

becoming president and the 61 percent who felt that way about Trump winning.

“Everybody is against everybody. Why?” Mary White asked in Des Moines last week after two police officers were shot and killed.

She brought her son to a makeshift memorial, where she found a morsel of hope, and a question: “Look how this community has come together, people who don’t know each other. Why can’t our nation come together?

What happened between 9/11 and now? Why are we enemies?”

Every chapter in the American story so far has resolved into hope. The Civil War birthed Reconstruction. The riots and generational strife of the 1960s settled into sweeping social and cultural change.

Before the vote, the University of Virginia’s president, Teresa Sullivan, appealed to students to be civil to one another after the vote.

She taught them about the bitter election of 1800, when a pro-John Adams newspaper

A Trump piñata is burned on Wednesday by people in Los Angeles protesting the election of Donald Trump as president.

warned that Thomas Jefferson would create a nation in which “murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest will openly be taught and practiced.” Jefferson won and set about trying to get people to “unite with one heart and one mind,” to restore “that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things.”

Daly, the evangelical leader, said he intends to reach out to gay activists and abortionrights advocates “to build bridges, just trying to create discussions and friendships. I don’t know if it will work. When you try to do that, you get killed by the extremes on both sides.

The uncorking of incivility makes it hard: Discussions that used to die among friends now become unbridled castigating of other people. I’m hopeful that this election is a blip.

We’re now at a point where we cannot say that civility is a shared value, and I don’t see how we can keep our democracy together without being able to talk to each other.” n

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ENTERTAINMENT

TV boom creates a spending spree BY

D REW H ARWELL

R

ich “RJ” Rappaport barely remembers the days when he wasn’t busy renting out truckloads of sham guns and fake cocaine.

His vast prop warehouse on the outskirts of Atlanta used to see a trickle of local filmmakers, maybe a dozen a month. Now, he sees more than that every day, many of them rushing to equip the massively complicated, big-budget shoots of television’s new golden age.

His shop, RJR Props, now makes more than five times as much money as it did a few years ago, handling demands not just from traditional broadcast networks but also a corps of cable and Web titans — a jet interior for Amazon Video; a fantasy arsenal for IFC; and, for Netflix, a 100foot-tall stack of counterfeit cash.

The spending spree has also jolted the entertainment industry, setting off a scramble among the casts and crews racing to film the next big hit.

“It’s become intensely, fiercely, cutthroat competitive. Just to keep our place, I put in 90 hours a week,” Rappaport said. “It’s a business that chews people up and spits them out. I’ve never seen anyone work so hard in my life.”

The TV business is facing its biggest explosion of new productions in the medium’s history, sparking a billion-dollar arms race between established TV networks and a deep-pocketed insurgency of online streaming giants.

That boom is reshaping the industry from Atlanta to Hollywood, where even washed-up actors are suddenly in high demand and open studio space is the holy grail, said Henrik Bastin, the executive producer of “Bosch,” a gritty cop drama on Amazon. (Amazon.com chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

Craftspeople, who once went months without a gig, are fought over and recruited for shows that have become so ambitious, expensive and intricate that they’re “like making a movie each week,” Bastin said.

“There’s literally no studio

KEVIN D. LILES FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

Wealth of new productions in search of next hit creates high demand throughout the industry space in the L.A. area right now.

Cameras and equipment are flying off the shelves,” Bastin said.

Studios, he added, are locking in every cast and crew member they can with a clear message: “Don’t go anywhere.”

Desperate for buzz and worried about their survival, those networks are spending heavily in hopes of launching a prestige franchise — a “Game of Thrones” or “Breaking Bad” — that can captivate distracted audiences and pierce America’s increasingly saturated marketplace for mustbinge TV. But the wild spending is stoking fears about whether or when TV’s financial bubble might burst.

The glut of scripted dramas and comedies has dramatically boosted budgets, but it has not solved the industry’s most dire obstacle: the lack of a functioning business model for a new era of TV. “The overall television ecosystem can’t sustain this,” said Eric Schrier, president of original pro-

gramming for FX Networks, home of Emmy winners such as “The Americans” and “The People v.

O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story.”

“There are networks [investing] in original programming and scripted TV that are trying to justify their existence by being in that business,” Schrier added. “And as the consumer can’t consume all this content, the strong will survive and the weak will not be able to exist.”

The old duels of the television business were simple: big broadcasters and smaller cable channels tussling over a single box — the living-room TV set.

Now, the business is packed with new competitors, including online streaming’s expanding empires, and looking shakier than ever.

Millions of “cordcutting” American households are trimming their cable-TV bills or shifting their viewing to computer, cellphone and tablet screens altogether.

Rich “RJ” Rappaport, above, who owns a company that supplies props for video productions, says his business has increased dramatically in the past few years. “It’s become intensely, fiercely, cutthroat competitive,” he says.

The number of original scripted TV shows has roughly doubled since 2010, to more than 430 series this year, industry research from FX Networks shows. Over the same period, the cost of filming and promoting the typical episode has climbed 20 percent, to more than $4 million an hour, as competition for actors, studio space and audience has intensified.

Broadcast and basic-cable networks drove the new-show surge, but Web outlets’ rapid-fire debut of high-profile franchises egged them on. In 2010, online streamers aired four original series. In the first half of this year, they aired 49.

Streaming’s biggest behemoths, Netflix and Amazon, have more than doubled their yearly spending on original programming since 2013, to $7.5 billion last year, more money than the film industries of entire countries, including Australia and South Korea, data from investment researcher IHS Markit show.

Those companies are spending “shock-and-awe levels of money,” as one cable executive said, in hopes viewers will abandon oldschool TV and embrace their Webfirst universe. Netflix says it will produce 1,000 hours of original programming next year, up from 600 hours this year.

The money has touched off a feeding frenzy for TV studios such as Lionsgate, where executives refer to themselves as “content mercenaries,” pursuing projects for broadcasters, cablers, streamers, video sites and anyone else willing to pay up.

Kevin Beggs, chairman of Lionsgate’s television group, said he has seen a flurry of networks and streamers eager to buy their own attention-grabbing TV franchise.

But the overwhelming pace and competition has also made it tougher for any one show to stand out.

“So many networks need their defining show, and we’ve made a business of doing that,” Beggs said. But “you’ve got to work a lot harder to get everyone’s attention. . . . You never know which one is going to be the one.” n

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Artisanal pizza made with robot care BY

M AURA J UDKIS

W

hen robots inevitably take over our planet, as the dystopian vision of science-fiction writers foretells, we’ll lose our jobs, our freedom, our humanity.

But take comfort in one thing the robots will provide for us lowly carbon-based life-forms: artisanal pizza.

They’re already making it in a commercial kitchen in the heart of Silicon Valley: Two robots named Pepe and Giorgio squirt sauce on dough, and another robot, Marta, spreads it. A robotic arm named Bruno puts the pizza in the oven. They don’t operate independently from humans yet — two or three people still load the dough onto the conveyor and sprinkle cheese and toppings — but Zume Pizza in Mountain View, Calif., expects to be fully automated by spring, delivering made-to-order, customizable pizzas in as little as seven minutes.

Say it with a straight face: artisanal robotic pizza. Like jumbo shrimp and boneless ribs, it seems like a culinary oxymoron.

For many years, our culture has fostered a movement that rewards people who grow and prepare food with thoughtfulness, by hand. We’re all about knowing your farmer, shopping small and local, and caring about the human stories behind the food we eat.

In seemingly direct contrast to that stands technology. Some of the same purveyors who are part of that movement are looking for ways to maximize efficiency and cut costs as their businesses grow.

“There’s a connotation with ‘artisan’ that speaks to an artist behind it,” said Sarah Weiner, director of the Good Food Foundation. “I am not sure that robots have evolved to the point where they can convey emotion and meaning.”

Maybe not, but there are now robots that can reflect and simulate emotions. And technology is moving quickly: Engineers are developing robots to automate single tasks, but experts predict

JASON TSAY/ZUME

that, eventually, artificial intelligence could become as common a kitchen tool as a whisk.

“It’s easy to take two things that seem completely at odds with each other and assume that there’s a tension,” said Zume Pizza co-founder and co-chief executive Julia Collins. “That doesn’t exist in this case. Robots are enabling us to deliver artisanal food.”

How can something made by the steely mechanical hand of a robot be considered artisanal? It further stretches the definition of a word that is already in danger of becoming little more than marketing-speak, for sure. But Collins and others in the field assert that if the base ingredients, processes and technique come from artisanal origins, the food itself can be considered artisanal.

“Food has to be made with love,” said Collins. “That’s why humans make the food, and when I say ‘make the food,’ humans do all of the scratch cooking” at Zume. That means making the dough, which is aged for up to 24 hours, and the sauce, which Collins said comes from “singlesource organic dry-farmed toma-

We have the technology to build it better, faster — and its use may soon spread A robot named Bruno helps make pizza at Zume Pizza in Mountain View, Calif.

toes” and is made using executive chef Aaron Butkus’s grandmother’s recipe. Humans also must chop and prep the toppings, which are all locally sourced and use seasonal produce. Robots assemble and cook the pies; at peak capacity, they can make 288 every hour.

Apparently, we don’t want our food to look like it’s made by robots. Zume has taken particular care to ensure that: The machine they are commissioning to press the dough will create three slightly different shapes. Because the tomatoes are hand-crushed, the consistency of the sauce changes, so Marta the robot spreads it differently with every pie — “perfectly but not too perfectly,” said Collins. And the menu is constantly changing.

“If I see too much homogeneity, I know that something is wrong with our creative process,” said Collins.

They don’t hide the fact that the pizzas are made by robots, but they don’t promote it on their website, either. Given the company’s location in a community full of programmers and engineers,

it’s part of the appeal.

The automation doesn’t stop in the kitchen: The delivery-only pizza joint has special patented food trucks that bake your pizza en route, in an oven that turns on automatically 31/2 minutes before the truck delivers it to your house after following an algorithmically optimized route. It eliminates dwell time, which is pizza-biz lingo for “that horrible time when it’s in a cardboard box in the back of a Camry,” said Collins. She foresees a fleet of cook-en-route delivery vehicles serving people across the country, and not just bringing pizza. Zume can have the food at your door minutes after you place the order, by front-loading the truck with the most popular pizzas and circling neighborhoods on busy nights.

Pizza isn’t the only food that’s getting a robotic boost. Momentum Machines announced plans to open a robot-operated burger joint in San Francisco, with systems that will allow diners to customize their blend of ground meat. There are robot noodlemakers in Japan and robot cocktailmakers in Italy. Casabots in San Jose has invented Sally, the salad robot — she’s essentially a fully contained, mechanized Sweetgreen — and they’re setting their sights next on burritos. Even the San Francisco Mission District’s artisanal darling Tartine has discussed automating its bread baking.

Technology yet to come could further blur the artisan-robot divide. There are already robots that can quantify taste. One was created in Thailand in 2014 to combat the adulteration of flavors in Thai food and to set standards for the taste of classic dishes. And an engineering Ph.D student at Berkeley has been exploring the use of virtual reality to teach robots human motions. A human wearing a VR headset could demonstrate culinary tasks, such as knife use or deboning a duck, that the robot could emulate. Eventually, those robots could be able to prepare entire meals in the style of their teachers. n

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BOOKS

Fact-checking in a post-truth age N ONFICTION

L DECIDING WHAT’S TRUE The Rise of Political Fact-Checking in American Journalism

By Lucas Graves Columbia.

324 pp. $30 paperback

l

REVIEWED BY

H EIDI M OORE

et’s get one thing out of the way: Yes, Donald Trump makes a cameo appearance in Lucas Graves’s new book on the importance of factchecking, and no, it’s not flattering. In this timely book, “Deciding What’s True: The Rise of Political Fact-Checking in American Journalism,” Graves inevitably addresses Trump and his truthfulness. He notes that PolitiFact’s judgments on the 2016 race found that only 5 percent of Trump’s statements ranked more than “Half-True” by mid-2015, a far lower rate than any of his opponents.

(His truthfulness hasn’t changed much since then.)

Graves dryly concludes that “fact-checking appears to do a good job of catching out those politicians who exhibit a flagrant disregard for truth.” But he shies away from branding any politician a liar, noting that fact-checkers never use the term. “This would require knowing someone’s heart,” he writes. He casts aspersions on very few people, and that civility offers a balm to the weary political soul this year.

As Graves traces the rise of factchecking, he also illustrates the decline of political discourse into a steady drip of misinformation.

Politicians are attached to their narratives, on which their careers depend. The traditional gatekeepers — daily political journalists — are, in his description, frequently hemmed in by their attachment to objectivity. These journalistic customs may be why Hillary Clinton, in each debate, referred viewers to live fact checks of her opponent run by her own staff. But the impact of fact-checking may be limited anyway because of the partisanship of readers who often prefer their Facebook feeds for news because they affirm their preexisting political opinions.

In the 1980s, journalists factchecked Ronald Reagan, “who came to the White House with a well-established reputation for error and exaggeration,” in Graves’s

FRANK JOHNSTON/THE WASHINGTON POST

President Ronald Reagan attracted fact-checkers because of his “reputation for error and exaggeration,” Lucas Graves writes.

words. Newspapers, particularly The Washington Post, truthsquadded every one of Reagan’s news conferences until readers demonstrated so little concern that the paper backed off, according to former Post reporter Walter Pincus: “It’s up to the Democrats to catch people, not us. We would quote both sides.”

In 1992, however, the impulse came back: Major networks and newspapers launched teams to fact-check advertising in the presidential race between George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. By 2004, a George W. Bush administration official mocked a reporter for being part of the “reality-based community,” which he said was divorced from the political power of “history’s actors,” who create their own realities. In 2012, Nobel Prize laureate Paul Krugman talked about the “post-truth” era of politics.

Some of the strongest opponents of political fact-checking are

top editors and reporters who were trained in a determinedly objective practice of journalism, reporting both sides of an issue but taking neither. (The academic Jay Rosen has derided this as the “view from nowhere.”) Graves points out that then-New York Times editor Jill Abramson argued that fact-checking in a straight news article would cause readers to see the paper as a combatant, not an arbiter, in political battles. Graves acknowledges the uneasiness that journalists and fact-checkers alike have. Factchecking was not intended “to clean up politics,” a goal that those involved in the process saw “as obviously futile and possibly inappropriate,” Graves writes.

But there’s still an urge to free reporters of studious objectivity, Graves suggests. Journalism risks becoming less relevant the more it sticks to an unrealistic bird’s-eye view that doesn’t mediate events or interpret for the reader. “Ulti-

mately, the most lasting impact of the fact-checking movement may be in giving political reporters new license to embrace the muckraking, reformist impulse that is both so vital and so tenuous in professional journalism,” Graves concludes.

It’s hard to envy the fact-checkers their work. Correcting the facts of history happens only with considerable discomfort on all sides: To his credit, Graves never pretends in this fairly brief book that fact-checking is easy. It’s time-consuming; it encounters resistance from politicians, readers and journalists alike; and oh, by the way, no one can quite agree on what a fact is. The discussion of what constitutes a fact forms a big chunk of the book, and deservedly so: Nuance is the hardest part of factchecking work.

Another major problem with fact-checking that the book sidesteps is the burden on the reader.

They not only have to read the news but then seek out fact checks of what they just read. It’s a lot of work — more than most people are willing to put in.

Another core problem is the power — or lack of power — of facts themselves. Since facts are subjective, their ability to change minds may be more limited than we think, particularly in elections like this one where fact checks have taken a back seat to the rush of emotion. Political campaigns rely on intangibles: charisma, credibility, communication style. As far as politics go, facts can’t fix us.

Graves’s book will appeal to those who are interested in politics and journalism and the intersection of the two, which is to say, the entirety of the Internet commenter class. For those looking for context and a sense of how we got here, it is a foundational work. n Moore is a digital-media strategy consultant based in New York and a former editor, columnist and reporter for publications including the Guardian U.S. and the Wall Street Journal.

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BOOKS

KLMNO WEEKLY

Meyer fans sure to get sucked in again

Inspiration, minus the intonation

F ICTION

N ONFICTION l

J

l

REVIEWED BY

K EITH D ONOHUE

ust over a decade ago, Stephenie Meyer published “Twilight,” the first of her books about a teenager who falls in love with a vampire. Insanely popular — the Twilight series has sold more than 155 million copies worldwide — Meyer’s books spawned a cottage industry. In addition to the blockbuster sciencefiction novel “The Host,” there were also the movies based on the books, and an enormous fan following that turned this onetime receptionist into one of the most popular authors in the world.

Meyer’s new novel, “The Chemist,” has no vampires or aliens or anything supernatural to steal your soul while you’re reading. But this espionage action story will no doubt tighten her grip on her devoted readers. Its main character is much like Jason Bourne, to whom the novel is dedicated affectionately. More accurately, it is a romance novel cleverly nesting inside a thriller. And what a strange romance it is.

The tale opens with an extended scene describing in great detail the precautions taken by the titular chemist. Wrung out from a long day of stealing books from a distant library, the chemist sets booby traps, arranges a fake body — complete with stage blood — in a bed, and goes off to sleep in the bathtub wearing a gas mask for protection.

Yes, it seems that someone is out to get her. For the past three years, she has been on the run from a top-secret U.S. government agency determined to kill her.

Trained by that same nameless department, she has become an interrogator who uses her psychological tactics and biochemistry skills to extract confessions from terrorists and other bad guys. The department killed her kindly old lab partner and nearly eliminated her, so she is paranoid and overcautious, assuming multiple identities and disguises — all of which are described in gleeful, almost fetishistic, detail.

Given the chance to come in

from the cold, Alex (not her real name) agrees to a department plan to apprehend a seemingly innocuous high school teacher who they claim is part of an intricate plot to release a deadly virus. She drugs him and whisks him off to a makeshift lab in West Virginia where she begins to torture him with carefully calibrated injections.

Saved by an ex-CIA black-ops renegade in Kevlar armor, the teacher falls in love with the torturer. Not all at once, mind you, but he quickly forgives her once she explains the reasons behind her sadistic behavior. Together with the commando and his superbly trained dog, Alex and the teacher set in motion a counterplan to get the bad guys.

The plot features all of the expected motifs of the genre: double switches, innocent mistakes that compound the dangers, the lurid technical capacities of gadgets and weaponry and opiates, the politician gone as rogue as the Manchurian candidate’s mother, and even the obligatory tone of simmering hatred between two members of the team that turns into mutual respect and admiration.

The writing and bantering dialogue never fully escape a cataclysm of cliches. But one does not read Meyer for her style. Her appeal is emotional rather than aesthetic, and she knows how to control dramatic tension as skillfully as any of the Bourne movies. The pages turn themselves.

The sexual power struggle just below the surface of Meyer’s novels may well be the key to her broad appeal. In the “Twilight” books, the balance was clearly tilted in the vampire’s favor. In “The Chemist,” the roles reverse, and Alex literally calls the shots. Who says the author’s not a feminist?

Meyer’s legion of addicted fans will lap up this chemical romance.

As for me, I’m off to the library to detox. n Donohue’s latest novel, “The Motion of Puppets,” was published last month.

B THE CHEMIST

By Stephenie Meyer Little, Brown. 528 pp. $28

THE LYRICS 1961-2012

By Bob Dylan Simon & Schuster.

679 pp. $60

REVIEWED BY

G EOFF E DGERS

ob Dylan has never been one to spend too much time — or any time — explaining his music.

“I’ll let other people decide what they are,” he said recently when asked about his lyrics. “The academics, they ought to know.”

The academics have certainly tried — contemplating, decoding and teaching the master everywhere from Princeton to Dartmouth to Harvard. Obsessive fans trade alternative versions of “Tangled up in Blue” like orange juice futures, hunting for clues in the shift of a pronoun. He is Homer, he is Conrad, he is a genius, a plagiarist, a prankster, the closest thing we have to Shakespeare. And now Dylan is a Nobel Prize winner — an honor he (finally) agreed to accept in person, “if it’s at all possible.” No wonder Simon & Schuster is hustling out this $60, 679-page edition of “The Lyrics: 1961-2012.”

This isn’t music. This is art!

Except that music has always been high art, whether it’s Skip James’s eerie falsetto or Mahler’s Ninth. The question is what you get when a song is stripped of its sound. Years ago, you got a joke, as comedian Steve Allen rudely mocked Little Richard by soberly reading every growl and moan of “Tutti Frutti.” And no less an authority than Christopher Ricks, the world’s premiere Dylanologist, raised the issue two years ago in an interview. He compared examining song lyrics to reading the screenplay for “Citizen Kane”: “The words in the movie are terrifically good,” he said, “but they only constitute part of the art that it is.”

Let’s note that Ricks wasn’t dismissing the idea, merely discussing it. In 2014, he and sisters Lisa and Julie Nemrow edited the first edition of Dylan’s lyrics to stretch to 2012. But their collection differed from this new release. Its appearance was stunning, with album covers re-created. And the content was richer, too, with an introduction by Ricks, songs an-

notated and multiple, alternative versions of Dylan’s studio recordings listed. That edition also listed for $299, although you can pick up one of the 50 copies Dylan signed on eBay for a cool $150,000.

The new “Lyrics” volume is stripped down, tracking Mr. Zimmerman from his self-titled debut to “Roll on John” without offering much else. Reproduced, handwritten or typed lyric sheets mark each chapter break, but there’s no explanation of what they signify. Are these Dylan’s original versions?

Later drafts? Decorations? And do they represent the wholesale changes that reveal key aspects of Dylan’s approach or just the natural process any writer undertakes?

There’s no answer here, neither is there any desire to discriminate between the high and low points of Dylan’s massive catalogue. The same font delivers the poetic majesty of “Visions of Johanna” and the embarrassing plonk of “Wiggle Wiggle,” a song that includes the line: “Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a bowl of soup.”

It would be nice for the book to offer more. The fact is, lyrics these days are as easy and free as a Google search, and they usually come with guitar chords attached.

The online service Genius can offer a breakdown of “Subterranean Homesick Blues” reference by reference. To combat this or create “added value,” as the marketers call it, “The Lyrics” should have beefed up the texts by including Ricks, Greil Marcus or another smart Dylan authority. Alternative song versions — clearly annotated — also would have been enlightening.

We’re left largely with the words we’ve already grown familiar with — only without the stereo on. That, in itself, does have value. Any bookshelf would be well served by a hard-bound, stamped and authorized copy of the great songwriter’s work. n Edgers is a national arts reporter for The Washington Post.

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OPINIONS

Stop saying ‘This isn’t my America.’ Sorry, but it is.

MONICA HESSE is a staff writer for the Post Style section. She frequently writes about culture, the Web and the intersection of the two.

So this is America, after all. It’s not the one many of us hoped we lived in right now, but it’s the one verified by the electoral map, and it’s the one that others of us have feared we lived in for a very long time.

All through the election, Hillary Clinton’s surrogates tried to repudiate the possibility of a Donald Trump presidency and all of its strident, fear­laden rhetoric.

America is better than that, they said. Those values aren’t American; those values don’t represent us.

All through Tuesday night, Wolf Blitzer and John King bickered in front of their CNN Magic Wall about the “surprise” and “upset” of Trump’s victory. No one saw it coming, they said. Nobody could explain it. It wasn’t until the wee, exhausted hours of Wednesday morning that Van Jones, an African American political commenter, broke in with a shaking, emotional voice and offered his explanation: “This was a white­lash,” he said. “This was a white­lash against a changing country. It was a white­lash against a black president, in part. And that’s the part where the pain comes.”

What if America isn’t better than that? What if this was America all along?

Not the America that welcomed immigrant “huddled masses,” but the America that kidnapped African slaves and made them build a country, brick by brick and cotton field by cotton field. Not the America that lets women work and dress and worship as they please, but the America in which a man who sexually assaults one of them can be imprisoned for only three months. Not the America pulled along by hope but the America pushed along by aggression.

The people who were truly shocked by the outcome are those who have never experienced certain behaviors of the citizenry. Good men don’t realize that when women are walking alone, every single block

can feel like a gantlet of harassment. It’s no wonder they don’t realize this — bad men make sure to treat women politely when women are accompanied by male friends.

Good white people don’t fully understand why people of color fear encounters with the police, because the police have been mostly kind to them.

“I’m seeing so many posts, from mostly white friends, saying, ‘America, I don’t even know you,’ ” says Wendy Tien, a Milwaukee attorney and secondgeneration Taiwanese American.

“And I’m thinking, ‘Where have you been? What do you mean you don’t know this America?

Why haven’t you seen it?’ I’ve seen it. I see it all the time.”

AARON P. BERNSTEIN/GETTY IMAGES

A man watches results come in at the election night event in New York for presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who lost to Donald Trump.

On Twitter, after news organizations predicted the Republican candidate’s win, a woman wrote, “America: We knew this was in us. We usually like to pretend it’s a mistake or something we can ignore or mock. We can’t do that anymore.”

Analysts have been poring over the numbers, announcing that this was not really an election about race, but about class. There were, after all, counties that voted for Barack Obama in 2012 and this year voted for Donald Trump. This was not really an election about gender, but about one particular woman that many people, including in her own party, hated. This was not really an election about xenophobia, they said, but an election about freetrade agreements and jobs.

This might all be true. Nobody can look inside the hearts of voters and determine with certainty what makes one candidate viscerally more appealing than another. Could this election, for some voters, have been a culmination of many factors? Economics, race, geography and gender?

America’s history has never been a simple narrative.

“On Election Day, my white friends were posting pictures of Susan B. Anthony and talking

about how great it was to honor her,” says Joylyn Hopkins, a consultant in Washington, who is black. “And my black friends were commenting — yes, Susan B. Anthony did those things, but she was also extremely racist.

We need to stop this thinking, where people are all good or all bad.”

This is America, the America that we built, the America that we all live in. But if this election taught us anything, it’s that we haven’t all been living in it in the same way.

“Now do you believe us?” tweeted Xeni Jardin, an editor in California, early Wednesday morning. “Us girls and women?

Now do you believe Americans who are not white when they say white supremacy prevails?”

Jardin, who is white, grew up in a Southern city across from a prison, where she remembers that mostly white spectators would gather with coolers to celebrate the executions of mostly black inmates. But, she says, polite people didn’t discuss such things, just like they didn’t discuss sexual violence or other mistreatment of women.

It just existed, quietly, part of the rotten underbelly of that America.

Now it exists, loudly, part of the blaring horn of this one. n

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2016

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21

OPINIONS

TOM TOLES

A guess at Trump’s foreign policy DAVID IGNATIUS writes a twice-a-week foreign affairs column and contributes to the PostPartisan blog.

Donald Trump proclaimed “America First” on his way to his headspinning victory in Tuesday’s presidential election, and the success of that message will rock many foreign capitals where leaders have feared that Trump would alter the basics of U.S. foreign policy.

Making predictions about Trump’s foreign policy is difficult, given his lack of experience. But the most likely bet is that as president he will seek to do what he promised during the campaign in breaking from current U.S. approaches to Russia, the Middle East, Europe and Asia.

Traveling abroad over the past year, I heard concern about Trump’s candidacy from senior officials in more than a dozen countries. He was viewed as an inexperienced and unreliable figure who might dismantle traditional U.S. commitments and alliances.

A Trump foreign policy, based on his statements, will bring an intense “realist” focus on U.S. national interests and a rejection of costly U.S. engagements abroad. It will probably bring these changes: l A move to improve relations with a combative, assertive Russia. Trump stressed

repeatedly during the campaign, at some political cost, that he would work with President Vladimir Putin. “I think I’d be able to get along with him,” he said in September at a televised forum hosted by NBC’s Matt Lauer. “If he says great things about me, I’m gonna say great things about him. . . . I mean, the man has very strong control over a country.”

Trump also discounted allegations that Russian hackers had meddled in the presidential election. “I doubt it, I doubt it,” Trump said when asked in an Oct. 19 debate about a statement

by Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. accusing “Russia’s senior-most officials” of approving hacking of Democratic Party websites.

Trump’s denial led some Democrats to argue that electing Trump had been Russia’s real goal. l A joint military effort with Russia and Syrian President

Bashar al-Assad to defeat the Islamic State. Trump proposed this shared campaign during that same debate.

Trump also promised repeatedly that he would step up the U.S. military campaign against the Islamic State and replace U.S. generals who were insufficiently combative. But he has been vague about what he plans to do in Iraq and Syria. l A new push for European allies to pay more for their own defense. It’s unlikely that Trump will dismantle NATO, as critics charged during the campaign. He said in a debate that Clinton was telling “just another lie” when she accused him of undermining commitments to defend NATO allies and Asian partners such as Japan and South Korea. But he never retreated from an April 27 speech in which he said “the U.S. must be prepared to let these countries defend themselves,” even if that means letting them acquire nuclear weapons.

In Europe, Trump’s victory is likely to reinforce the trend toward politicians expressing similar right-wing, nationalist views. The avatar of this neonationalism was the surprise victory of Brexit supporters in June’s referendum in Britain, and there are comparable movements in France, Germany, Italy and

Spain. President Trump will have to decide whether to embrace such movements, which could destabilize the European Union. l An attempt to alter the terms of trade in Asia by renegotiating trade pacts and forcing China to revalue its currency. It’s hard to predict how this combative approach to globalization will play out. Often, Trump’s extreme rhetoric and threats against business partners are tactics in what he famously described as “the art of the deal.” A China that’s already experiencing a bubble economy might well be vulnerable to U.S. economic pressure. But the most likely outcome of Trump’s protectionist rhetoric will be a global economic downturn, many analysts have argued.

Trump’s campaign was premised on the idea that his approach would “make America great again.” His presidency will test that proposition. But many analysts argue that by putting America’s interests first so nakedly, he may push many U.S. allies in Europe and Asia to make their own deals with a newly assertive Russia and a rising China.

Undoing globalization isn’t possible. But undermining America’s leadership in that system would be all too easy. n

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22

OPINIONS

BY MARGULIES

This female Muslim voted Trump ASRA Q. NOMANI is a former Wall Street Journal reporter and a cofounder of the Muslim Reform Movement.

A lot is being said now about the “silent secret Trump supporters.”

This is my confession — and explanation: I — a 51-year-old, a Muslim, an immigrant woman “of color” — am one of those silent voters for Donald Trump. And I’m not a “bigot,” “racist,” “chauvinist” or “white supremacist,” as Trump voters are being called, nor part of some “whitelash.”

In 2008, as a lifelong liberal and proud daughter of West Virginia, a state born on the correct side of history on slavery, I moved to historically conservative Virginia only because the state had helped elect Barack Obama as the first African American U.S. president.

But, then, for much of this past year, I have kept my electoral preference secret: I was leaning toward Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Tuesday evening, I marked my ballot for president, coloring in the circle beside the names of Trump and his running mate, Mike Pence.

After Hillary Clinton called Trump to concede, making him America’s president-elect, a friend on Twitter wrote a message of apology to the world, saying there are millions of Americans who don’t share Trump’s “hatred/ division/ignorance.” She ended:

“Ashamed of millions that do.”

That would presumably include me — but it doesn’t, and that is where the dismissal of voter concerns about Clinton led to her defeat. I most certainly reject the trifecta of “hatred/ division/ignorance.” I support the Democratic Party’s position on abortion, same-sex marriage and climate change.

But I am a single mother who can’t afford health insurance under Obamacare. The president’s mortgage-loan modification program didn’t help me. Tuesday, I drove into Virginia from my home town of Morgantown, W.Va., where I see rural America and ordinary Americans, like me, still struggling to make ends meet, after eight years of the Obama administration.

Finally, as a liberal Muslim who has experienced, firsthand, Islamic extremism in this world, I

KLMNO WEEKLY

BY MATT DAVIES

have been opposed to the decision

by President Obama, Clinton and the Democratic Party to tap dance around the “Islam” in Islamic State. Of course, Trump’s rhetoric has been far more than indelicate and folks can have policy differences with his recommendations, but, to me, it has been exaggerated and demonized by the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, their media channels, such as Al Jazeera, and their proxies in the West, in a convenient distraction from the issue that most worries me: extremist Islam of the kind that has spilled blood from the hallways of the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai to the dance floor of the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.

By mid-October, it was one Aug. 17, 2014, email from the WikiLeaks trove of Clinton emails that poisoned the well for me. In it, Clinton told aide John Podesta: “We need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL,” the politically correct name for the Islamic State, “and other radical Sunni groups in the region.”

The revelations of multimillion-dollar donations to the Clinton Foundation from

Qatar and Saudi Arabia killed my support for Clinton. I reject Trump’s “locker room” banter, the idea of a “wall” between the United States and Mexico and a plan to “ban” Muslims. But I trust the United States and don’t buy the political hyperbole that demonized Trump and his supporters.

Before the election, a journalist from India emailed me, asking: What are your thoughts being a Muslim in “Trump’s America”?

I wrote that as a child of India, arriving in the United States at the age of 4 in the summer of 1969, I have absolutely no fears about being a Muslim in a “Trump America.” The checks and balances in America and our rich history of social justice and civil rights will never allow the fearmongering that has been attached to candidate Trump’s rhetoric to come to fruition.

What worried me the most was the influence of theocratic Muslim dictatorships, including Qatar and Saudi Arabia, in a Hillary Clinton America.

We have to stand up with moral courage against not just hate against Muslims, but hate by Muslims, so that everyone can live with sukhun, or peace of mind.

He didn’t get the email. I didn’t resend it, afraid of the wrath I’d receive. But, then, I voted. n

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2016

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KLMNO WEEKLY

FIVE MYTHS

The FBI BY

G ARRETT M . G RAFF

FBI Director James B. Comey announced days before the election that new evidence of unknown importance had surfaced in the inves­ tigation of Hillary Clinton’s email server. He later said there was nothing new there, but it shined a light on the bureau’s unique role in Washington. Here are some myths about its culture and power.

MYTH NO. 1 The FBI isn’t political.

While the FBI may technically be nonpartisan, it has long been one of the most politically astute institutions in the government.

Its files have regularly been deployed as political weapons, from the 1948 election — in which Director J. Edgar Hoover backed Thomas Dewey over Harry Truman — to Watergate, where leaks from then-Deputy Director Mark Felt helped bring down Richard Nixon.

Moreover, the bureau spent much of the 20th century as something akin to America’s “morality police,” shifting resources decade by decade to combat perceived threats to the nation’s social fabric, from Harlem Renaissance authors in the 1930s to antiwar activists in the 1960s to “deadbeat dads” in the 1990s.

During his 48-year tenure, Hoover used the power of the traditionally conservative bureau to cozy up to powerful politicians and to bludgeon, publicly and privately, civil rights leaders, political dissidents, gays and especially communists.

Comey has made a point to try to stand against that era, but the bureau (and particularly its director) retains a black belt in behind-the-scenes political judo.

It uses its reputation for integrity, moral authority and justice to push presidents and lawmakers to back its programs and budget requests.

Presidents know: You don’t want to be on your FBI director’s bad side.

MYTH NO. 2 The FBI director can’t be fired.

Ever since director-for-life Hoover died in May 1972, FBI chiefs have been appointed to a congressionally mandated, nonrenewable 10-year term.

But that fixed term doesn’t limit how or why a president can remove an FBI director, and, according to U.S. law, a firing doesn’t have to be “for cause.”

When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, Director William Sessions was already under siege for mismanagement. A scathing 161page inspector general report said he misused government transportation and engaged in other abuses of his office.

Clinton, with the recommendation of Attorney General Janet Reno, fired Sessions after the director refused to resign.

attorney general and provoked a showdown with the George W. Bush White House over the legality of the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program, he enlisted the help of FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Comey has said he knew that if he alone threatened to resign, he might fail, but if Mueller threatened to join him, the White House would be forced to revise the program. The gambit worked.

MYTH NO. 3 The White House controls the FBI director.

The FBI is part of the Justice Department, so technically the director reports up through the attorney general and to the White House. But the FBI, which runs public-corruption and espionage investigations, operates with nearly unprecedented independence within the executive branch, especially when it comes to political inquiries. Past attorneys general have almost always deferred to the bureau.

An FBI director’s perceived mantle of integrity can be a powerful bureaucratic weapon.

In 2004, when Comey was deputy

MYTH NO. 4 The FBI had been trying to help Clinton.

In fact, the bureau is decidedly not Clinton territory; a Guardian article quoted an agent as saying it’s “Trumpland.” Generally, I’ve found agents to be conservative, and there’s probably no political family in America with whom the bureau has had a worse relationship than the Clintons.

The first best-selling anti-Clinton tell-all came from an FBI agent, Gary Aldrich, posted to the White House in the 1990s, who trashed the family in “Unlimited Access.”

The relationship only went downhill from there. After firing Sessions, Bill Clinton appointed Louis Freeh as his FBI director,

KEVIN LAMARQUE/REUTERS

FBI Director James B. Comey has said the bureau’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email server was “entirely apolitical.”

only to see Freeh dedicate much of the rest of the 1990s to investigating him for scandals from Filegate to Whitewater to Monica Lewinsky.

MYTH NO. 5 The new probe didn’t need to be revealed before election.

Numerous critics have argued that Comey — who announced that the bureau had begun looking into Clinton’s emails again less than two weeks before Election Day — should have tried harder not to affect the election.

According to his aides in multiple news reports, Comey thought the news would probably have leaked anyway, making the bureau look even more like it was protecting Clinton. While most FBI offices are tight-lipped and unlikely to hint of an unfolding investigation, the New York field office — the bureau’s largest and most powerful, and home to the investigation of Anthony Weiner that uncovered the new laptop — is notoriously leaky and hard for an FBI director to control. n Graff is the author of “The Threat Matrix: The FBI at War.”

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2016

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