The Washington Post National Weekly - January 26, 2020 by The Wenatchee World

SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 2020

IN COLLABORATION WITH

ABCDE National Weekly

As the cathedral rises from the ashes, a tug of war starts over its transformation

PAGE 12 PAGE 8

The battle for Notre Dame Politics Trump’s new donors 4

World Australia’s climate uprising 10

Five myths Bipartisanship 23

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Politics

Trump is attracting a new crop of big donors Elijah Nouvelage For The Washington Post

Many are ﬁrst-time large contributors, wooed by tax cuts and exclusive gatherings BY M ICHELLE Y E H EE L EE AND A NU N ARAYANSWAMY

an Costa, who runs four apparel companies in Northern California, was never a major political donor. But last year, he made a large contribution to the GOP for the first time: $37,500 in the hope of four more years of President Trump. “That’s a big investment for anybody,” said Costa, whose only other contribution to a presidential candidate was $1,000 to Mitt Romney in 2012.“It’s like insurance that is going to help save the country. . . . It’s for me and my grandkids and

the next generations.” Trump’s vaunted political money machine is helping drive record sums to the Republican National Committee, and not just from the same donors who supported him in 2016. Enticed by exclusive gatherings and ecstatic about the president’s tax cuts, an eclectic new crop of donors is going all in, giving five and six figures to support his reelection. Their ranks include investors in a South Florida hot yoga studio, a Nigerian American real estate developer in Dallas and the head of a trucking business in Los Angeles. They have been joined by veteran

GOP donors who have returned to the fold after sitting out Trump’s 2016 campaign. The Washington Post identified at least 220 big donors to Trump’s reelection who are either new to major political giving or sat out the last presidential general election. Together, they have deluged pro-Trump fundraising committees with more than $21 million — a cash infusion that suggests a newfound enthusiasm for the president among supporters capable of writing large checks. The influx of these donors represents a shift for Trump, who criticized other candidates’ reli-

Dan Costa donated $37,500 to President Trump’s reelection campaign. “It’s like insurance that is going to help save the country.”

ance on wealthy backers during the 2016 election. This time, his campaign is actively wooing them, holding glitzy fundraisers that give people who donate large amounts a chance to mingle with his inner circle and often snap pictures with Trump himself. Trump’s take-all-comers approach this time has brought in donors with various agendas — creating legal headaches at times. Among those newly motivated to give large sums were Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman — characters in the impeachment saga whose contributions to pro-Trump committees in the hundreds of thousands

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Politics helped them quickly insert themselves into Trump’s orbit. They face campaign finance charges partly related to a six-figure donation they made to a super PAC. And Robert Hyde, a Parnas associate who claimed to be tracking a U.S. ambassador disliked by Trump, has donated more than $41,000 since 2016 to the various pro-Trump committees, records show. Hyde, a long-shot congressional candidate in Connecticut, has said he was not particularly interested in politics before Trump. In recent days, he has denied monitoring the former ambassador to Ukraine. Meanwhile, Trump is now also supported by a more traditional source of party money: longtime GOP donors who shunned him during his 2016 campaign. By and large, those wealthy establishment donors have fallen in line behind Trump’s reelection, said Lisa Spies, a longtime Republican fundraiser. Among those now on board are Dan and Farris Wilks, billionaire brothers who made their money in the fracking industry in Texas. They supported Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) in the 2016 primary race, then held back on support for Trump in the general election. But so far, they have given a combined $100,000 toward the president’s reelection. “There are very few ‘Never Trumpers’ [continuing to hold back support], and there are very few donors who are disengaged,” Spies said. Additionally, she said, Trump “has a whole new crop of donors. A lot of these people have never been involved before.” Many first-time big donors contacted by The Post were enthusiastic boosters of Trump who said they were moved to give by the president’s tax cuts, his deregulation agenda and their confidence in the economy. They expressed trust in Trump’s decision-making and shared his indignation over Democratic attacks. They viewed their contribution as an investment — not just in the country’s future but in their own personal prosperity. Several donors said they do not love everything the president tweets but find him authentic and relatable. “Sometimes I’m like, why did he do that? But at the same time, you’ve got to remember, he’s not a polished politician,” said Raul Esqueda, who gave $35,000 to support Trump’s reelection. Esqueda, who runs a commer-

Courtesy of Ejike Okpa

cial credit company in Austin and says business is booming under Trump, said he does not feel tied to a party. He said he preferred Mitt Romney over Barack Obama for president in 2012 but does not feel particularly enthusiastic about the Utah senator now. Esqueda’s newfound giving earned him an invite to the 2019 White House Christmas party. “To visit the White House, that’s cool,” Esqueda said. “You get to see all the paintings around. They have hors d’oeuvres and drinks, music. Overall, it was a nice get-together. . . . We got a lot of photographs.” Since Trump’s election, more than 1.6 million new donors have contributed to the Republican Party, in both large and small amounts, party officials said. It remains to be seen whether these donors will continue to give in such large amounts to the Republican Party or drop off once Trump leaves office. “You have a group of individuals in the country who are big supporters and big believers of the president that, much like we saw in the 2016 election, are unique to him,” said Brian O. Walsh, president of the pro-Trump super PAC America First Action, which is attracting many of these donors. “That’s the magnet that attracts them to want to participate at a higher level than ever before.” Democrats are taking note of the amounts of money flowing to the effort to reelect Trump. Democratic strategists said Trump’s ability to raise and spend massive sums from big donors to

Trump Victory, a joint fundraising committee that is drawing these new contributors, was similar to the money advantage that Obama had in his reelection battle against Romney. With the exception of the billionaires in the race, the eventual Democratic nominee likely will need a financial boost in the general election fight against Trump. “The [2020 Democratic] nominee will be broke, as Romney was against us,” said Jim Messina, Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign manager. “One point to look at is how much money Trump and the [joint committees] are raising. I have never seen spending like it. And it’s a lot on rallies, which are expensive and speak to the base.” The parent company of SOL Yoga in Fort Lauderdale and Miami, which donated $100,000 to America First Action in 2019, did not respond to requests for comment. Yu Kevin Guan, a trucking company owner who donated $235,000 to Trump Victory, also did not respond to a request for comment. Both were first-time donors under Trump. Some new donors have rapidly immersed themselves in the mixand-mingle world of private fundraisers and “donor appreciation” events. GOP fundraisers said offering such perks to new donors comes at a lower cost, because they are new to the experience. Established GOP donors have already attended marquee events such as the State of the Union address or have had private meals with previous presidential nominees.

Ejike Okpa, a Nigerian American commercial real estate developer in Dallas, poses with President Trump, who signed the photograph. Okpa gave his first major political donations to the president’s reelection: $35,000 in 2017 and $10,000 in 2018.

“What he stands for, the way he has approached doing things for America, just kind of intrigues me.” Ejike Okpa

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But new donors enjoy even modest gatherings, like a panel featuring a Cabinet member or drinks in the lobby of Trump’s hotel in Washington, strategists say. Their social media feeds often includeselfies with Trump loyalists and influencers, such as former White House press secretary Sean Spicer and Andre Soriano, designer of “Make America Great Again” gowns. At last month’s winter retreat for Trump Victory donors, for example, guests socialized with Trump’s family members, campaign manager Brad Parscale, Fox News’s Jeanine Pirro, Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and other major figures in Trump’s orbit, according to social media posts of attendees. Many new donors have in turn become fundraisers for Trump, recruiting people they know to give as well. Xinyue “Daniel” Lou, who gave his first major donation of more than $37,000 to Trump Victory in 2017, said he felt valued when party officials described him as an “investor” in the Republican Party. And so, he said, he urged other well-to-do people in the Chinese American community to give to Trump. Many, he said, had never been tapped by a political party before and were intrigued by Trump’s presidency. “I was privileged to be invited to a number of events” for donors, including ones where he met top White House officials and members of the Cabinet, Lou said. “Because of my political contribution and involvement, I was in those seats and I was able to have my input.” Ejike Okpa, a Nigerian American commercial real estate developer in Dallas who started a PAC called Africans for MAGA, gave his first major political donations to Trump’s reelection: $35,000 in 2017 and $10,000 in 2018. He has always preferred nontraditional candidates, he said — he gave $250 to Obama in 2008 — and he likes that Trump is a fighter and disrupter in Washington. Okpa is now a bundler for Trump Victory and boasts a collection of selfies with the president’s family, a signed copy of Donald Trump Jr.’s book and an autographed thumbsup photo with Trump. “What he stands for, the way he has approached doing things for America, just kind of intrigues me,” Okpa said. “I vote, but when you match that with a financial contribution, it’s an additional show of support and commitment.” n

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Politics

GOP bills target transgender youths BY E MILY W AX- T HIBODEAUX AND S AMANTHA S CHMIDT

epublican state lawmakers have filed a wave of bills that would ban medical professionals from treating transgender teens with hormones and sex reassignment surgery, reigniting a polarizing national debate over the rights of transgender youths and the government’s reach into doctors’ offices. More than half a dozen statehouses are considering bills that would penalize medical professionals — and, in at least one case, parents — who give young people access to puberty-blocking medicines and other treatments. Conservative lawmakers say that they are protecting vulnerable children who may be experimenting with their identity from making life-altering changes to their bodies, a characterization that advocates for transgender youths call misinformed and dangerous. South Dakota on Wednesday became the first state to take action, with a House committee passing a bill that would punish doctors who provide such treatments to people under 16 with a maximum one year in jail and a fine of up to $2,000. State Rep. Fred Deutsch (R) said he introduced the bill because the solution for “children’s identification with the opposite sex isn’t to poison their bodies with megadoses of the wrong hormones, to chemically or surgically castrate and sterilize them, or to remove healthy breasts and reproductive organs.” Similar bills have been introduced in recent weeks in South Carolina, Colorado, Florida, Oklahoma and Missouri. State lawmakers in Kentucky, Georgia and Texas have announced plans to file bills that limit transgender youths’ medical options. Missouri’s bill would report parents who consent to such treatment to child welfare officials for child abuse. Doctors also would have their licenses revoked if they perform gender-reassignment treatments.

Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post

State lawmakers propose penalties on doctors who provide transition care to those under 16 The speed and number of state bills has mobilized transgender activists, suicide prevention groups and civil rights organizations that say conservative lawmakers are gravely misinformed about medical interventions for transgender youths and are sensationalizing the issue. They say the legislative restrictions are unnecessary because the process of transitioning is methodical and rarely includes surgery before age 18. Transgender children typically transition socially first, advocates say, changing their names, pronouns and dress to match their gender identities. Sam Brinton, head of government affairs at the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention service that focuses on LGBTQ youths, compared the legislation to the controversial bathroom bills that prohibited transgender people from using locker rooms, public restrooms and other sex-segregated facilities that matched their gender identity.

In 2018, the American Academy of Pediatrics released a policy statement that recommended giving youths “access to comprehensive gender-affirming and developmentally appropriate health care,” while noting the benefits and risks of using hormones that delay puberty. But some worry that such medical intervention is being used on youths too young to understand the potential consequences. A bill under consideration in Florida would make it a felony for doctors to provide certain hormones or gender reassignment surgery to minors, even with parental consent. “A great majority of Americans and Floridians agree that a 12-year-old should not change their body in such a permanent way,” said Florida state Rep. Anthony Sabatini (R), who introduced the bill. Sabatini said he was inspired to file the legislation after learning about a divorce custody case in Texas in which a father object-

Daniel Goldman of Arlington, Va., holds up the transgender pride flag outside the Supreme Court building in October. More than half a dozen statehouses are considering bills that would punish medical professionals who give young people access to pubertyblocking medicines and other treatments.

ed to his 7-year-old child socially transitioning, which the mother encouraged. Donald Trump Jr. tweeted about the case in October, calling it “child abuse.” Some Republican lawmakers have been more hesitant. Utah state Rep. Brad Daw (R) drafted a bill that would restrict puberty blockers and hormone treatments for youths, believing that such decisions were irreversible. But then he did further research, met with advocates and spoke with families who described puberty blockers as “a lifesaver” that prevented young people from committing suicide. “You can’t just ignore that,” Daw said. He also learned that puberty restarts when youths stop taking the blockers, and said he is reconsidering what kind of bill would make the most sense. “I’m not certain of anything right now,” Daw said. “What I’m certain about is this topic is a lot more complex and lot more nuanced than I would have believed. It may not be an all or nothing.” Advocates for transgender people have called the anti-LGBTQ state bills submitted this legislative session “a slate of hate,” including a Florida statehouse bill to repeal ordinances that prohibit “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ youths. The bills are being used as an election year “scare tactic, lightening rod issue” to bring conservatives and swing voters out, said Taylor Brown, an attorney with Lambda Legal, an LGBT civil rights group. Brown worries transgender children will suffer as debates over the legislation fan the flames of the country’s bitter culture war. Transgender advocates say people supporting limitations on medical intervention for transgender youths are spreading medical inaccuracies, citing right-wing websites that accuse parents of allowing young children to undergo double mastectomies or castration as young as age 10. n

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Nation

Justices take on church-state debate R OBERT B ARNES in Kalispell, Mont. BY

t is a blessed time at Stillwater Christian School, where Scripture adorns the gymnasium wall, enrollment is climbing and Head of School Jeremy Marsh awaits the four new classrooms that will be built in the spring. It is a place that embraces the beliefs that sinners avoid eternal condemnation only through Jesus Christ, that a marriage consists of one man and one woman and that “human life is of inestimable worth in all its dimensions . . . from conception through natural death.” If a family craves Stillwater’s academic rigor but not its evangelism, Marsh said, he will gently advise that “this might not be the place for them.” Parents who believe religious schools such as Stillwater absolutely are the places for their children are at the center of what could be a landmark Supreme Court case testing the constitutionality of state laws that exclude religious organizations from government funding available to others. In this case, the issue rests on whether a scholarship fund supported by tax-deductible donations can help children attending the state’s private schools, most of which are religious. A decision in their favor would “remove a major barrier to educational opportunity for children nationwide,” plaintiffs said in their brief to the Supreme Court. It is part of a movement by school choice advocates such as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to allow government support of students seeking what she recently called “faith-based education.” Said Erica Smith, a lawyer representing the parents: “If we win this case, it will be the U.S. Supreme Court once again saying that school choice is fully constitutional and it’s a good thing and it’s something parents should have.” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of

Will Dunham/Reuters

Religious-school case in Montana goes before Supreme Court skeptical of a stark dividing line Teachers, said such a ruling would be a “virtual earthquake,” devastating to the way states fund public education. And Montana told the court that, as in 37 other states, it is reasonable for its constitution to prohibit direct or indirect aid to religious organizations. “The No-Aid Clause does not prohibit any religious practice,” Montana said in its brief. “Nor does it authorize any discriminatory benefits program. It simply says that Montana will not financially aid religious schools.” But the state was called this past week before a Supreme Court increasingly skeptical of such stark lines between church and state. The Montana case is prompted by a 2015 decision by the state’s legislature to create a tax-credit program for those who wanted to donate to a scholarship fund. The program allowed dollar-for-dollar tax credits to those who donated up to $150 to an organization that provides aid to parents who

want to send their children to private school. About 70 percent of qualifying private schools in Montana are affiliated with a religion, so that meant at least some of the money would go there. And that conflicts with a section of the state constitution that prohibits public funds for “any sectarian purpose or to aid any church, school, academy, seminary, college, university, or other literary or scientific institution, controlled in whole or in part by any church, sect, or denomination.” Litigation followed, and the Montana Supreme Court ultimately struck down the program — for religious and nonreligious private schools — and said Montana’s provision did not violate religious protections in the U.S. Constitution. Kendra Espinoza was one of those who sued. Espinoza is a single mother with two daughters who said she had tears in her eyes when she attended an infor-

Kendra Espinoza, a plaintiff in a major religious rights case that was argued before the Supreme Court this past week, with her daughters Sarah, left, and Naomi, who attend Stillwater Christian School in Montana.

mational meeting about Stillwater. “The things I saw in the public school system — I didn’t like it,” Espinoza said this past month during an interview here. Public schools are restricted to giving students only half the answer, according to Espinoza: “They are taught to behave and to be good. But why? Nothing comes from a values perspective, and I really wanted that faith-based curriculum.” Espinoza took on extra work. At one point she held a yard sale — “I pretty much sold everything in my house that wasn’t tied down,” she said — to raise money for tuition. Older daughter Naomi mowed lawns and younger sister Sarah joined them to clean offices to make extra money. Full-price tuition at Stillwater this year ranges from nearly $6,900 for a kindergartner to nearly $8,700 for a high schooler. But Marsh said about half of the families at the school qualify for financial aid. Espinoza was eager to sign on when Smith’s organization, the libertarian Institute for Justice, came to Montana offering legal help. The organization has made school choice a priority and has been strategizing for years about getting the Supreme Court to take on state constitutional amendments forbidding public aid to religious schools. The plaintiffs say that Montana’s restrictions violate the U.S. Constitution and that the Montana Supreme Court’s decision to the contrary should not stand. The free-exercise clause of the First Amendment prohibits government from discriminating against religion, they say, including the parents who want to use the scholarship funds for schools that align with their faiths. But Montana, in its brief to the Supreme Court, said the state’s high court took the only option that made sense of both the state’s constitution and its obligation not to single out the religious — striking down the tax-credit program for both religious and nonreligious private schools. n

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Navajo village fears fractured future W ILL F ORD in Red Water Pond Road, N.M. BY

he village of Red Water Pond Road sits in the southeast corner of the Navajo Nation, a tiny speck in a dry valley surrounded by scrub-covered mesas. Many families have lived here for generations. The federal government wants to move them out. In what might seem a cruel echo of history, officials are relocating residents to the city of Gallup, about a half-hour away, and surrounding areas. This echo is nuanced, however. The village sits amid a Superfund site loaded with uranium mine waste. The Environmental Protection Agency aims to haul away thousands of truckloads of the radioactive waste over the next seven years. Residents do not want to stay during that work, but many fear losing their way of life. They have countered the agency’s plan with another solution: construction on a nearby mesa of an off-grid, solar-powered community designed by an architecture group at the University of New Mexico. The EPA had rejected the idea but is facing new pressure from lawmakers and community members to reexamine it. “I feel empowered with those people,” resident Edith Hood says of the university’s proposal. “I feel hope.” Red Water Pond Road has seen little reason to hope for a long time. Starting in the mid-1950s, mining companies extracted about 30 million tons of uranium from Navajo lands. It was just down the road on a July morning in 1979 that an embankment broke on a uranium tailings pond, releasing 1,000 tons of waste that traveled more than 80 miles downstream through arroyos, creeks and rivers. The Church Rock Spill remains the largest nuclear waste spill in U.S. history. Even four decades later, only scattershot mitigation has occurred. Residents, activists and some nonprofit groups have cited a variety of health concerns, in-

Steven St. John for The Washington Post

As they await a uranium cleanup, residents of Red Water Pond Road push to stay on ancestral land cluding cancer and risks to pregnancy and newborns, related to uranium contamination here. The Superfund site includes two waste piles that were once owned by Kerr-McGee/Quivira, which later became part of Anadarko Petroleum, and United Nuclear Corp., now owned by General Electric. The most immediate cleanup plan focuses on the latter site, with the EPA intending to move the mine waste to tailings piles just under a mile away but over the Navajo border. The agency says it has offered voluntary relocation to some 75 Red Water Pond Road residents. Of the residents who have accepted, nearly four dozen have moved or are preparing to do so. Many describe the process as a painful dissolution of their village. “Government is supposed to have cultural sensitivity training,” one woman said at a community meeting in September. “Where is that?” In a lengthy letter in November to several New Mexico lawmak-

ers, the EPA defended its actions to date as “consistent with all relevant laws, guidance and policies. We continue to seek collaborative solutions and appreciate the Community’s efforts to bring additional resources and perspectives to bear on the challenges posed by both short and longterm disruptions.” Residents have twice proposed alternatives to the agency’s plan. The first involved construction of temporary homes on the adjacent Standing Black Tree Mesa, a few hundred feet above the village. Federal officials cited cost and agency housing standards in saying no. They also pointed out that the EPA does not operate in a vacuum and must rely on local and federal partners; the tribal utility, for one, said providing power and water to the mesa and making other infrastructure improvements would not be feasible. That is when Hood reached out to the Indigenous Design and Planning Institute at UNM’s ar-

Rather than force families half an hour away to the city of Gallup while the federal government cleans nuclear waste, resident Edith Hood endorses a plan to create a solar-powered community atop a nearby mesa.

chitecture school. The question was whether housing that met EPA’s standards could be built off-grid on the mesa by employing technology such as solar power. If no utility connections are needed, concluded Hood, a fifthgeneration village native who once labored 2,000 feet below ground in the mines, “the ball will be in our court.” Professor Catherine Page Harris, who teaches in the Landscape Architecture Department, has been heading the project ever since with graduate students and community members. The result draws inspiration from the Earthships in Taos, N.M. — solar-powered houses made of recycled material — and incorporates Navajo Hogan structures in a nod to the tribe’s traditional dwellings and ceremonial homes. Doorways are positioned to face the rising sun. The design, supporters say, is both practical and symbolic. The community will not have to leave its ancestral home, and clean energy will power a village environmentally degraded by the mining industry. Lawmakers have begun weighing in. The community “is owed a culturally appropriate relocation plan that reflects the historical and familial connections to its ancestral homeland,” Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), who chairs the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, said in a statement this month. At a recent community meeting, according to Hood, an official softened the agency’s previous opposition and suggested the mesa proposal was not off the table. Still, the EPA remains skeptical, citing issues related to cost, water, roads, sewage and Navajo land-use policies. Yet Page Harris and other supporters say UNM’s designs address such obstacles and meet agency standards. Her estimate runs about $3.7 million, including road improvements. Based on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers calculations, the EPA’s pegs its relocation plan at $4.2 million. n

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Opinions

How to reduce the risks as coronavirus fears grow RONALD A. KLAIN and Nicole Lurie Klain served as White House Ebola response coordinator from 2014 to 2015 and is an adviser to the Joe Biden presidential campaign. Lurie served as assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the Department of Health and Human Services from 2009 to 2016.

With more cases likely to be reported on U.S. soil and 8,000 visitors from China arriving every day, it is too late to avoid the dangerous coronavirus in the United States. We are past the “if” question and squarely facing the “how bad will it be” phase of the response. ¶ Thus, President Trump failed his first test in dealing with the virus, by brashly asserting that the U.S. government has the coronavirus “completely under control.” While there is no reason to panic, we simply do not know, with China banning large gatherings in major cities and it’s seventhlargest city under lockdown, how serious it will become. The good news is that there have been substantial improvements to global and U.S. public-health systems since the related SARS virus struck in 2003. U.S. infectious disease response systems were particularly improved after the West African Ebola epidemic of 2014. The new coronavirus’s gene was sequenced rapidly, and a test to diagnose the disease has already been developed. The World Health Organization — properly criticized for a flaccid response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak — is moving quickly: organizing a response and meeting urgently to determine if a Public Health Emergency of International Concern should be declared. But if these are reasons to avoid the kind of fear that spread in our country during the “Ebola Autumn” of 2014, there are reasons for great concern as well. Some gaps in our disease response system were patched at that time, but serious holes remain and new ones have emerged. Policymakers need to move immediately to address four particular issues in light of the new infectious virus. First, there needs to be leadership in the White House. President Barack Obama

followed his designation of an “Ebola response coordinator” in October 2014 with a permanent office on pandemic preparedness and response in 2015. While Trump maintained this structure into 2018, John Bolton abolished it when he took over as national security adviser. With threats such as the new coronavirus requiring an “all of government” response — domestic and foreign; health and security agencies; federal, state and local authorities — someone needs to be in charge at the highest level of our government. Additionally, critical organizing structures throughout the executive branch that have been weakened in recent years — including the Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasures Enterprise — need to be reinvigorated and empowered. Second, Congress must change the way it funds epidemic responses. Congress did move on a bipartisan basis during the 2014 Ebola outbreak to fund the Obama administration’s response plan, but even that relatively prompt action created delays in vaccine development and on-the-ground response. When it comes to making a new vaccine to stop an

John G Mabanglo/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Travelers arrive Tuesday at the San Francisco International Airport, where the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention has implemented public health entry screenings for the coronavirus.

epidemic, developing treatments or deploying other countermeasures, funding delays mean countless people are infected or die as a result. Last year, Congress did beef up a fund that could be tapped by the president to respond to public-health emergencies without waiting for a specific funding bill. But these funds are limited, and Congress rejected proposals for a dedicated emerging infectious disease fund that could be used to further public-private partnerships to develop diagnostics, vaccines and treatments. These shortcomings should be addressed. Third, Congress needs to fund the full network of hospitals and treatment facilities nationwide it established after the 2014 Ebola epidemic, which enables prompt testing and isolation of patients with deadly infectious diseases. This funding is set to expire in four months, and while Congress is moving on a plan to renew the 10 most advanced such facilities, that could leave scores of American cities without the kind of testing and treatment centers that could be critical in dealing

with the new coronavirus or other future threats. Finally, policymakers in all branches and at all levels of government must let science and the best medical expertise — incomplete as it is — govern the decisions that lie ahead. The first victim of an infectious disease outbreak is often rational decision-making; fear can spread even faster than disease in an era where social media can transmit misinformation in a manner not ironically called “going viral.” Xenophobia is a particular risk; it’s unjustified when Americans returning home from a foreign trip are just as likely to carry a disease with them as immigrants or foreign tourists. Our government is filled with the best scientists, medical professionals and researchers in the world. Their expertise — not fear or politics — should guide critical decisions. The weeks ahead will be tense and challenging. But with the right leadership, adequate funding, key investments and scientifically led decisionmaking, lives can be saved and the risks and damage can be reduced. n

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1200-1220

Over the next decades, work on the nave pushed the cathedral’s spine to the west.

By 1220, the basic form of the early cathedral was essentially finished.

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1163-1182 By 1182, much of the cathedral’s choir — the liturgical core of the building, then reserved for the clergy — with its iconic flying buttresses supporting its tall walls and roof, had been completed.

Graphics by AARON STECKELBERG

An icon made, remade over the centuries By PHILIP KENNICOTT IN PARIS

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1220-1330

1859

Beginning in the mid-1220s, much of Notre Dame was remade to be more in line with contemporary architectural tastes. The two western towers were finished and a spire was added to the crossing of the nave and transept. The last major phase of the original construction ended in the mid-14th century, more than 150 years after it had begun.

By the late 18th century, the original spire was removed before it could collapse from decay. The cathedral remained without a spire until 1859, when one designed by EugĂ¨ne Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc was added as part of an extensive 20-year renovation. Over the next 160 years, alterations and repairs continued to be made.

2019 In the spring of 2019, the most recent renovations to the cathedral were underway. Scaffolding was erected around the spire to make repairs, and days before a massive fire broke out, 16 statues at the base of the spire were removed. On April 15, over several hours, flames raged and eventually destroyed Notre Dameâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s spire, roof and timbers within. An official cause has still not been determined, although early speculation centered on an electrical source or a discarded cigarette.

2016 photo by PATRICK KOVARIK/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

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Cover Story

Agence France-Presse /Getty Images

This month, the French general tasked with overseeing the restoration of Notre Dame confirmed some terrible news: Even now, nine months after a catastrophic fire in April destroyed the cathedral’s spire, roof and some of its vaults, its fate remains uncertain. “The cathedral is still in a state of peril,” Jean-Louis Georgelin told the French broadcaster CNews. ¶ There has been renewed anguish in France. The holidays passed without a Christmas Mass in the beloved national icon or a Christmas tree on the public square outside its richly decorated west facade. When I visited in October, I passed by only once, and it was painful to see the great church off-limits. The writer Hilaire Belloc once described Notre Dame as a matriarch whose authority is familiar, tacit and silent. But she now seems not just reticent, but mute.

As the public commission headed by Georgelin met for the first time in December, it was clear that the country was still far from any consensus on how the cathedral will be restored. Weeks earlier, Philippe Villeneuve, chief architect of the country’s historic monuments service, said in a broadcast interview that he would resign rather than allow a modern spire — as proposed by French President Emmanuel Macron — to be built atop the cathedral’s roof. In response, Georgelin told the architect to “shut his gob.” That comment made international news, although in France it wasn’t out of character for public discussion of architecture and preservation. “This debate is classic,” Philippe Barbat, director general of heritage at the French Ministry of Culture, said in an interview last fall. “Do we restore it as close as possible to what we understand by analyzing the historical context of the building, or do we try to make something more creative?” Barbat cites the glass pyramid at the Louvre, designed by I.M. Pei as a modernist intervention at the heart of one of the city’s sacred cultural spaces, as an example of the latter. And change is classic, too. Although there have been centuries during which the architecture of Notre Dame stayed mostly the same, especially after the major construction work was finished in the middle of the 13th century, it has undergone major transformations throughout its history. As France, and much of the rest of the world, contemplates what will become of the grand cathedral, it’s

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Cover Story Opposite page: People fish on the banks of the Seine in Paris near the Ile de la Cité, the island on which Notre Dame sits, on the first Sunday of spring in 1947. Left: Onlookers stand by as flames engulf the roof and spire of the church on April 15, 2019.

GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

clear that the final result will be an amalgam: of history and fantasy, the 12th century and the 21st, the imaginary building seen in art and described in literature, and a pile of stones that has been made and remade for almost nine centuries. As Notre Dame has been rebuilt and repaired over the centuries, there have been many cries of sacrilege. Shortly before the French Revolution, it was whitewashed, leading one prominent critic to grumble that the edifice had “lost its venerable color and its imposing darkness that had commended fervent respect.” And beginning in the 1840s, after decades of little maintenance, sporadic use and sometimes misguided efforts at repair, it was “restored” so thoroughly that many historians came to think of it as a 19th-century church, not a medieval one. One of the most significant transformations was probably precipitated by a fire in the 13th century, perhaps similar to the one in 2019, in the roof space above the vaults. Whether the damage forced the cathedral’s stewards to rebuild, or was simply a good pretext to update the building, isn’t clear. But the change was extensive. “Having been around for a mere sixty years, Notre Dame had already been eclipsed,” Dany Sandron of the Sorbonne and the late Andrew Tallon of Vassar write in a forthcoming book about the cathedral, based in part on their comprehensive laser measurement of Notre Dame before the 2019 fire. Elsewhere, in 13th-century France, new cathedrals were being built, and old ones disassembled and reconstructed, to make them taller, lighter and more vertical, and to introduce more light, as if they were made from taut curtains of glass, not heavy columns of stone. And so Notre Dame’s clerestory windows were enlarged, the roofs changed and the flying buttresses reconstructed, although the cathedral remained relatively dark despite its fashionable update. The second radical transformation dates, in part, to 1831, when Victor Hugo published the novel known in English as “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” The book, set in the 15th century, was a phenomenal success, and the church itself was a major character in its drama of love, lust and betrayal. Hugo intended the novel to ignite interest in France’s legacy of gothic and medieval architecture, and he succeeded. Notre Dame, then in a state of grave disrepair, was rediscovered, and various government committees and commissions were established to help the country address what we now call cultural heritage and historic preservation. Repairing Notre Dame was one of the most urgent projects, and Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, one of two architects put in charge of restoration, began to undertake extensive and controversial changes. Perhaps no one in the history of the cathedral understood it better — its quirks, structural oddities and weak spots — and no one was more passionately hostile to earlier renovations that had altered its gothic design. But Viollet-le-Duc’s definition of restoration was more like that of a contemporary theater director approaching an old script than a preservationist working with scientific and historical rigor: “To restore a

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building,” he wrote, “is not to maintain, repair, or redo it, but to reestablish it in a finished state that may never have existed at a given time.” Viollet-le-Duc changed the windows, added decorative elements to the base of the flying buttresses, remade statues, and created wholesale many of the grotesques, chimeras and gargoyles that visitors often assume are the essence of the cathedral’s gothic character. He also built a new spire, out of wood and lead, to replace the one that had been removed in the mid-18th century because it was no longer sound. One of the most famous images of 19th-century France was an 1853 etching by Charles Meryon called “Le Stryge,” or “The Vampire,” which shows one of Viollet-le-Duc’s grotesque Notre Dame figures, its tongue sticking out contemptuously as it watches over a fantasy of old Paris. It helped to define the curiously Parisian sense that the city’s essence is woven of both beauty and squalor, that it teems with contradictions and harsh contrasts, as in a famous poem by Charles Baudelaire: “Brothels and hospitals, prison, purgatory, hell/Monstrosities flowering like a flower …” After the fire, the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine, a Paris museum that includes Viollet-le-Duc’s invaluable collection of full-scale architectural casts of historic French facades and medieval sculptural elements, displayed models, sculpture and other objects related to Notre Dame. The museum embodies the complicated legacy of Violletle-Duc, who was for much of the 20th century considered a fantasist, a Walt Disney-like figure who invented his own version of historic architecture. But he also was a meticulous observer, and the documentation he left behind may be essential to restoring Notre Dame. “We know we can construct it exactly like it was,” says Francis Rambert, director of the museum’s architectural design department. He is standing in front of Viollet-le-Duc’s model for the wooden spire, a small-scale sculptural marvel in itself. “But the question is, do we need to sacrifice all those trees?” The spire and the wood have become intertwined flash points that seem to divide French opinion not into clearly opposed ideological camps, but into myriad fragmentary alignments of opinion, as complex as one of the cathedral’s rose windows. There are environmental issues, aesthetic issues, cultural issues, patrimony issues and financial issues. Is wood necessary? Would lighter materials be better, or do the vaults need the heavy weight of wood to make them secure? Is satisfactory wood available? At one point last year, a Ghanaian company even offered to dredge up giant trees preserved and strengthened by submersion when land was flooded for a dam in Africa in 1965. The current debates and controversies have uncovered a deeper admiration for Viollet-le-Duc and his architectural changes than might have been apparent a quarter century ago. “Was he some kind of genius or someone who was a megalomaniac?” asks Barbat, the government heritage director, who adds that opinion about Viollet-le-Duc has changed markedly since the 1990s, with growing acknowledgment that his changes have become part of the cathedral’s history. Indeed, when a damaged part of the church’s Porte Rouge was repaired recently, one of Viollet-le-Duc’s elements was meticulously reproduced, a sign that preservation now includes older, 19th-century restoration efforts. In the end, it will probably be Macron who determines the new form of Notre Dame, although it’s unclear how much he will defer to experts, traditionalist voices, the Catholic Church and the concerns of preservationists. French presidents generally want to put their stamp on Paris, such as Georges Pompidou’s support for a modern cultural center, which eventually became the Centre Pompidou, a bristling postmodern architectural masterpiece, or Francois Mitterand’s championing of I.M. Pei’s Louvre pyramid project. Macron, young, arrogant and determined to chart a new middle course through the fault lines of French political life, has his perfect signature project: the restoration of an ancient building with a modern twist. “As for the decision itself, I would say that only the president can answer this,” Barbat says. “He was really involved since the night of the fire when he was present at the cathedral. Most likely he will speak about it with the head of the [commission], General Georgelin, but also the minister of culture. Afterward, I cannot answer precisely what he will decide alone in the loneliness of the presidency.” n

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KLMNO Weekly

Lifestyle

‘Momcation,’ and the baggage it holds The energizing ‘me’ time is well deserved, but is the trend a solution or a symptom?

C AITLIN G IBSON

lizabeth Haynes recites the details with all the longing and specificity of a woman describing a forbidden fantasy: First, says the 33year-old mom from Colorado, she checks into a fancy hotel and heads straight to the spa, where she relaxes in the sauna before a massage. Later, she orders a pizza to her room and eats in bed while binge-watching Netflix, then takes a long bath with a glass of wine perched on the rim of the soaking tub. She’s asleep by 8:30 p.m., and (this is the best part, she says) she doesn’t wake up for 12 hours, an indulgence that would be impossible at home with her husband and 2-year-old son. This is the cherished routine she enjoys twice a year, on her birthday and Mother’s Day. She even has a word for it. “I can’t even tell you,” Haynes says, a few days before her January birthday, “I’ve been looking forward to this momcation for weeks.” The “momcation,” for the uninitiated, is a temporary escape from the demands of modern motherhood. There wasn’t always a special designation for this — beyond simply “vacation,” or “girls’ weekend,” or “please leave me alone for an hour.” But in a society driven by catchy social media crazes, “momcation” references have increasingly saturated Instagram feeds and parenting blogs. There are listicles suggesting destinations for your next momcation or citing the telltale signs that you need one; there are Facebook groups and hashtagged posts on Instagram with moms posed happily in bathing suits on scenic beaches. A momcation might mean a hiking trip with friends or a solo day trip to a spa; it could be a quick overnight at your sister’s place across town, or a week-long escape at a resort across an ocean. But no matter the place or price tag, the momcation is always presented as a necessary act of self-care, a way to reclaim a sense of autonomy, a correction — however fleeting — of an underlying imbalance.

Illustrations by Alla Dreyvitser/The Washington Post

In concept, this is surely something any mother deserves, especially in a country where married working moms spend five more hours per week on child care, and seven more hours per week on household chores compared with married working dads, according to the Pew Research Center. Among heterosexual partnerships, mothers are most often the ones tasked with the behind-thescenes labor of managing a family: scheduling pediatrician appointments, keeping track of a growing kid’s pants size, planning meals. (Single moms, meanwhile, do everything themselves.) Throw in myriad societal hurdles — income inequality, a dearth of affordable child care and health care, sexism in the workplace, paltry parental leave policies — and who could argue against the need for relief ? But the ascent of a sassy buzzword also raises questions —

about who can actually afford a momcation, and why this escape feels so urgently necessary in the first place. What does it mean when an act of self-preservation is branded as something that only moms need and only certain moms get to experience? The burgeoning trend hasn’t gone unnoticed by travel agencies, hotels and spas, which might suggest a market responding to the demands of consumers — or maybe just capitalism masquerading as empowerment: You go, girl! . . . to Bora Bora, where seven-night “Magical Momcation” packages (complete with spa treatments and sunset-gazing on a catamaran) start at $8,900. American mothers face real problems. Is a momcation a solution, or just another symptom? Haynes, a stay-at-home mom, says she’s grateful for the popularity of the word “momcation” because it’s a validation: This is an

actual thing, and other moms are doing it, and it’s okay for you to do it, too. “There is so much guilt and pressure that comes with being a mom,” she says. “I needed my family and my friends to tell me it was okay to leave for 24 hours and to go focus on myself. So I think the semantics of ‘momcation’ are actually kind of helpful, because I think there are a lot of women who need that same permission to step away, because you know somebody is going to judge you for doing it regardless.” Ingrid Chen McCarthy, 39, agrees that having a dedicated term for this phenomenon might help some women feel empowered to ask for the break they need.She used the word “momcation” to describe her first getaway after her second child was born, when she struggled with postpartum anxiety and her husband and her mom gave her the gift of two nights at a resort hotel near their home in Greensboro, N.C., for the Chinese new year (McCarthy is Taiwanese American). Her husband, whom McCarthy describes as a dedicated partner, also takes time for himself. “I don’t mind that the ‘momcation’ thing has come into vogue, because I think it’s something more women should be able to do,” she says. “But I also totally recognize that it’s a place of privilege for me to be able to do it, on multiple levels.” My wife and I swapped traditional parenting roles. It’s been harder than we expected. To the extent that the rise of the word “momcation” signals a realization — that mothers deserve time to themselves, to engage with other aspects of their identities — it seems like progress. But only if the trend leads to an interrogation of the reasons these women so desperately need a reprieve in the first place, says Caitlyn Collins, assistant professor of sociology at Washington University in St. Louis and author of “Making Motherhood Work: How Women Manage Careers and Caregiving.” “I worry it obscures the problem,” she says. “Highlighting self-

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REAL ESTATE care for women is a wonderful thing. But calling it a ‘momcation’ suggests that it’s an exception rather than the rule. So for 362 days a year you give your all, and three days a year you focus on yourself? That’s insufficient to me.” There are actual, systemic solutions, she notes: “Thirty days of paid vacation — that is the standard in other Western industrialized countries,” she says. “Why don’t we devote our time and energy to campaigning for a federal minimum of vacation days, for all workers, men and women, so that everybody has the ability to navigate work and family in a way that feels a little less insane?” Meanwhile, in the absence of societal support, the stress of motherhood is more readily commodified. “The idea that you can turn to the market to provide these solutions, by purchasing services or taking trips — that benefits companies more than women,” Collins says. It also means some mothers are left out entirely. “Low-income moms and single moms are least likely to have access to paid vacation days, and they don’t necessarily have other folks to rely on to take over when they do need a break,” Collins says. “So in my mind the ‘momcation’ reinforces class divides, and racial divides, too, because race and class are so connected in terms of inequality in the U.S. All moms deserve a break from the day-today grind.” There are also those moms who enjoy taking a momcation, or are considering a momcation, but refuse to call it a momcation. Alex Riguero, a 37-year-old mom from Los Angeles who is mulling a getaway before the arrival of her second child in June, finds the term itself too twee and trivial: “Ugh, someone needs to run that word by a branding exec. It sounds awful,” she says. “I understand the concept of ‘momcation,’ but I think that word cutesifies the real psychological need for self-care when your life is overstressed.” Darlene DiFrischia, 42, a recently divorced mom from Greeley, Colo., who went on a five-day solo trip to Venice Beach, Calif., in November, thinks “momcation” singles moms out unnecessarily. “I hate the word ‘momcation’ the

KLMNO Weekly

A millennial hole in housing market BY

C HRISTOPHER I NGRAHAM

T way I hate the word ‘man cave,’ ” she says. Privacy, balance, alone time — those are basic human needs, she says: “Let’s hashtag ‘fair division of labor’ instead of ‘momcation.’ ” Melissa Holland Mansika, 49, a mom to a 6-year-old boy in Colorado who relishes her trips away from her family, says she mostly loathesthe idea that companies “see us as stressed-out, unhappy consumers and use this pain as a means to sell us something,” she says. “The message is that this exotic locale for a momcation or this new bottle or rosé is just what we deserve and will help us with our stress, poor us.” Still, she’s already looking forward to her next non-momcation: “Just knowing that I have that break coming up is hugely stressrelieving,” she says. “One of my best friends calls them ‘the islands you swim to.’ ” And while these women are away, removed from the demands of daily life, they describe feeling restored, refreshed, rebalanced. As for after: “I’d say the feeling lasted — ” Haynes pauses to think. “Well, definitely a couple of weeks.” “Two hours after I get home, it’s like it never happened,” Mansika says. “A momcation is a Band-Aid,” McCarthy says. But so long as American mothers are left to feel they’re drowning, they’ll swim to whatever island is in sight. “This is a systemic problem that needs to be fixed,” McCarthy says. “But in the meantime, I will gladly take a momcation whenever I get a chance.” n

oday’s young adults are starting their lives on drastically different financial footing than their parents did decades ago. They pay more for such necessities as food and housing as wages have flattened, leaving many young families to incur mountains of debt and a limited path for growing wealth. A data point from the Federal Reserve, highlighted recently in a special report on housing by the Economist, underscores the differences between the financial trajectory of millennials and those of earlier generations: When baby boomers hit a median age of 35 in 1990, they owned nearly one-third of American real estate by value. In 2019, the millennial generation, with a median age of 31, owned just 4 percent. Because many millennials are entering their prime home-buying years, that gap will probably narrow by the time they see 35. But they’re not likely to reach 30 percent of the housing market — or even the 20 percent attained by the smaller Generation X at the same point in their lives. If that trend continues, “we’re looking at a generation that will have lower lifetime wealth,” said Jenny Schuetz, a housing policy expert at the Brookings Institution. “That’s bad news for the economy overall, not just millennials,” she added, because homeownership is the chief builder of wealth for the middle class. The challenge facing millennials is two-pronged. In many of America’s most desirable cities, the median price of a home is well beyond the reach of a typical salary. For the past several decades, developers in major metro areas such as New York City have built a glut of luxury condos while ignoring the needs of the middle class. Strict land-use and zoning regulations, as well as opposition to new development by many existing homeowners,

have exacerbated the problem. Millennials’ massive debt burdens also make it difficult for them to save for a down payment at any housing price. For households headed by someone younger than 35, median debt ballooned from $21,000 in 1989 to $39,000 in 2016. During that time period, the percentage of under-35 households with student loan debt more than doubled, from 17 percent to 45 percent, and their median debt more than tripled, from $5,600 to $18,500. These factors are propelling us toward an inflection point. As baby boomers slowly age out of homeownership, a projected $13.5 trillion in housing inventory will come on the market in the coming years. But millennials and younger generations might not be able to afford them. On the other hand, some of those boomers will leave their estates to their children. “Millennials whose parents are sitting on lots of housing wealth will have an easier time paying for college or coming up with a down payment — even if they don’t inherit for a while, they have a family safety net,” Schuetz said. One mystery remains, however: As things stand, the share of housing wealth accumulated by American millennials is falling — in 2016 it reached a high of 7.5 percent and has been declining steadily since. Conversely, boomers and members of the silent generation have seen their collective share of the American housing market rise about 5 percentage points since 2016. Schuetz says the reason for that drop isn’t immediately clear. It could be, for instance, that real estate owned by older generations is appreciating more rapidly in value than that owned by millennials. Regardless, the downward trend suggests that the pressures facing would-be millennial home buyers are not easing any time soon. n

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KLMNO Weekly

Opinions

BY DAVE WHAMOND

Welcoming the royals in Canada Jen Gerson is a freelance journalist based in Calgary. She is a contributing editor at Maclean’s and co-host of the Canadian politics podcast OPPO.

I have to admit that I’m excited by reports that Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, will be moving to the frigid expanse I call home, even if my fellow Canadians are struggling with mixed feelings. After the couple announced their decision to step back from royal duties and spend time in North America, a poll found that more than 60 percent of Canadians would support Harry being appointed the country’s governor general, serving as the representative of the queen. On the other hand, another survey found that 73 percent of Canadians do not wish to pay for the couple’s security costs (though Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may have already agreed to foot some of the bill). While I genuinely applaud Canadians for their rare and fleeting desire for public parsimony, this strikes me as a particularly petty moment for it. Meghan and Harry are an internationally famous pair who seem to be seeking a more independent, private environment to raise their child. And if current reports hold out, they think Canada is the country in which they can do this. I, for one, am chuffed. The couple’s mere presence would give Canada a degree of added prestige, attention and social capital. Have you heard of an entity known as Destination Canada? I hadn’t. But the federal government spends $95.5 million on it annually, and it exists to somehow help the Canadian tourism industry. Harry and Meghan moving to Canada could generate more media attention

and do more for Canadian tourism at a fraction of the cost. Harry created the Invictus Games, a sporting competition for veterans, which was recently held in Toronto. And amid the royal fracas this past week, Meghan quietly visited a women’s shelter in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. There is every indication that pair intends to do some good in their adopted home — possibly more good than many of the other celebrities driving up the rents. At the same time, I doubt Harry and Meghan will do much to bolster monarchic sentiment in Canada. A 2010 poll by the Angus Reid Institute found that a solid majority of those surveyed

BY LUCKOVICH FOR THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION

would like to see an actual Canadian serve as the country’s head of state; only a third supported Canada remaining a monarchy. Academics have tried to explain the weird relationship the Canadian people and state maintain with the British crown, the vagaries of which pop up in politics whenever a politician writes to the queen in a last-ditch attempt to overturn a piece of legislation properly approved by a democratically elected government. This happens somewhat often, despite the fact that Canada has been an independent representative democracy since the reign of Queen Victoria. Still, our constitutional monarchy with duly elected responsible government works well enough, and few Canadians would welcome the interminable process of altering the constitution to change the system. Queen Elizabeth II is a personal symbol of legitimate authority that cannot be sullied by the daily ugliness of partisan politics. Though Canadians are skeptical about monarchy, nearly 70 percent reported a “mostly favourable” opinion of the queen in 2010. We will see how the considerably less popular Prince

Charles fares in the future. But in the rituals of coronation, royal weddings and baptisms, we can find a set of traditions and symbols that connect us to the past and help form a shared national identity. These are probably more important in a place like Canada, which is remote, sparsely populated and ethnically, culturally and linguistically diverse. For Harry and Meghan, Canada is the obvious choice for a quieter life, if that is what they choose over making their living off celebrity, starring in Netflix specials and moving to Los Angeles. This country also has a distinct media culture, and the journalistic bar for publishing information about a celebrity or politician’s private life is high. Dirt and gossip must meet a standard of public interest that would seem unfathomable to press in the United States and Britain. So, while I don’t expect Meghan and Harry to inspire zeal for monarchic institutions in Canada, it may do the country’s charities and international profile some good to play host to the duke and duchess. And Canada might be able to offer the young family a wholesome, more private environs in which to live their lives. n

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KLMNO Weekly

Five Myths

Bipartisanship BY

T HOMAS E . M ANN

AND

N ORMAN J . O RNSTEIN

It is common for Americans to rue the absence of bipartisanship. Even expressly partisan figures such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and President Trump have called for more crossparty collaboration. Former vice president Joe Biden has said that “no party should have too much power.” And there is even a prestigious think tank, the Bipartisan Policy Center, dedicated to the idea. The calls may be nothing new, but they have increased in intensity and volume as our times have become hyper-polarized, rendering bipartisanship the subject of many myths. Myth No. 1 Bipartisanship was the norm through most of U.S. history. NPR lamented that Sen. John McCain’s death in 2018 symbolized “the near-extinction of lawmakers who believe in seeking bipartisanship to tackle big problems.” But our history is littered with times when partisan rancor was literally deadly. As historian Joanne Freeman’s “The Field of Blood” points out, disputes between the parties included plenty of violence in Congress in the decades before the Civil War. Physical altercations between the parties abated in the 20th century, at least, but partisan conflict has remained the norm. The period from the 1930s into the 1970s, when a “conservative coalition” of Republicans and Southern Democrats worked together to form majorities, is the exception. And that bipartisanship was achieved at the cost of preserving and protecting Jim Crow. Myth No. 2 The partisan divide is driven by policy. More than specific policies, strong tribal identities and intense competition for control of government drive our partisan polarization. One psychology study found, for instance, that public views on climate change polarize when

Democrats and Republicans are told that the policies they are asked to evaluate were supported or opposed by the other party. The Affordable Care Act was designed to appeal to Republicans by adopting key elements from the GOP alternative to the 1993 Clinton health-care plan and from thenGov. Mitt Romney’s plan in Massachusetts. The unified Republican opposition was not about policy differences but was part of a deliberate strategy to oppose and delegitimize all of President Barack Obama’s major initiatives. Myth No. 3 Bipartisanship is more valued by voters than by politicians. In reality, the voters who are best informed — who make up less than a majority of voters — are also the voters most attached to parties. Reinforced by activists and partisan media, these voters expect their representatives to toe the party line, not embrace bipartisanship. This is consistent with well-demonstrated affective negative partisanship: Voters view the other party as the enemy and don’t approve of their representatives consorting with it. Myth No. 4 Major policy changes require bipartisanship. The notion that major social policy requires broad bipartisan

Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post

Sen. John McCain’s flag-draped casket rests at Washington National Cathedral during his funeral in September 2018. With McCain’s passing, some observers also mourned what they saw as the loss of bipartisanship in the Senate.

consensus has been belied by a host of examples. It is true that many Republicans joined Democrats in the final votes to pass Social Security and Medicare, and a larger number worked with the majority Democrats on improving the legislation and making sure the programs were implemented. The same happened with Democrats’ support for implementing George W. Bush’s Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit. But bitter partisan warfare and rhetoric marked the lead-up to these programs’ passage, and successes came because enough members of the majority party backed those proposals. On Medicare Part D, for instance, initial Democratic support declined dramatically in the face of partisan hardball played by then-Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate Republican leaders. The New York Times reported the day after the House vote: “A fiercely polarized House approved legislation on Saturday that would add prescription drug benefits to Medicare, after an all-night session and an extraordinary bout of Republican arm-twisting to muster a majority.”

Myth No. 5 The two parties are equally to blame for partisan squabbles. Our research has found that one party bears more of the blame. The bipartisanship that was common in the House through the mid-1970s began to fray as racial and cultural differences came to define the increasingly polarized and competitive parties. Partisan polarization began with these shifts in the coalitional bases of the parties, but Republicans, because of their increasingly homogeneous positions on race, religious traditionalism and other cultural issues, had more incentive to move right than Democrats had to move left. Today, Republicans are one of the most extreme conservative parties in the democratic world, with no members in the House and barely one in the Senate who would qualify as moderates or traditional conservatives, while Democrats look like a center-left party. n Mann is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

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