personal statements about the outsiders

Themes and Analysis

The outsiders, by s. e. hinton.

Throughout 'The Outsiders,' Hinton engages with very important themes, showcases some interesting symbols, and uses great examples of figurative language.

Article written by Ugo Juliet

Former Lecturer. Author of multiple books. Degree from University Of Nigeria, Nsukka.

There are many themes that can be found in the novel ‘ The Outsiders ‘. However, we are going to explore only empathy, divided communities, preserving childhood innocence, self-sacrifice and honour, and individual identity.

The Outsiders Themes

Divided communities.

Divided communities are a major theme of the novel as the story revolves around two major conflicts, which are- the conflict between the Socs and greasers and the conflict between Ponyboy and his brother Darry in the Curtis family.

In the conflict between the teenagers and their gangs, the novel shows how the two groups focus on their frivolous differences  – they dress differently, socialize differently, and hang out with different girls, and how all this leads to hate and violence. However, the story also shows how the two groups depend on their conflict for their continual existence. For example, the greasers live by a motto to “stick together” against the Socs. This means that without the conflict, the individual members of the two gangs might go their own way.

The other divided community in the story can be found in Ponyboy’s immediate family. The conflict between Darry and Ponyboy is aggravated by misunderstandings, just like that of Socs and Greasers. Just like the two gangs are unable to see past their superficial differences to their deeper similarities, Darry and Ponyboy’s limited views make them misunderstand each other’s actions. Ponyboy sees his brother’s desperate attempt to deliver him from the poverty and strife of their neighbourhood as antagonism, while Darry sees Ponyboy’s quest to escape his conflict-ridden existence as irresponsibility and lack of consideration.

The ability to see things through other people’s perspectives (empathy) is predominant in the resolution of both conflicts in ‘ The Outsiders ‘. The two gangs are engrossed with the appearance and class status of their rivals which underscores the superficiality of their mutual hostility. Cherry tried to draw empathy from Ponyboy at the drive-in when she insisted that “things are rough all over” and encouraged Ponyboy to see Socs as individuals. Randy added more strength to the argument when he told Ponyboy about Bob’s troubled life, making him have compassion for Socs as an individual. Sodapop helps Ponyboy recognize that Darry’s high expectations for him are a result of love.

Preserving Childhood Innocence

The book reveals the importance of preserving hope, open-mindedness, and appreciation of beauty that are typical of childhood. Ponyboy has traits that distinguish him from others in the gang, for instance, his love of sunrises and sunsets, his daydreams about the country, and his rescue of the children from the burning church. These traits show that Ponyboy, unlike the other boys, still has preserved some of his childhood innocence and allows him to see beyond the superficial hatred between the Socs and greasers.

Dally’s rough childhood made him tough and fearsome, and he seems not to care about anything though he has a soft spot for Johnny. Johnny represents the hope that Dally has lost, and Dally strives to protect Johnny from the forces that threaten to pull him into the cycle of violence that has enveloped Dally. Johnny’s dying words touch on this theme by referencing the Robert Frost poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay.”

The poem’s message that all beautiful things fade as time passes forces the two boys to realize that they can’t hide from the realities of growing up. ‘Stay gold’, Johnny’s dying words for Ponyboy and the greasers, is also a call for them to preserve the optimism, innocence, and hope of childhood no matter what they see in the world.

Self-sacrifice and Honour

Despite the greasers’ reputation as heartless young criminals, they live by a specific and honourable code of friendship, and there are many instances in which gang and family members make selfless choices. As an example, Darry relinquished a college scholarship so he can work a full-time manual labour job to support his younger brothers. Dally, who seems apathetic, shows great loyalty to and compassion for his friends and for strangers in need. He helps Johnny and Ponyboy run away to Windrixville after Bob’s stabbing and plays a major role in the rescue of kids from the church fire. 

Individual Identity

Ponyboy, the protagonist, is a committed member of the greasers though he knows that some of his personality traits make him different from others. The greasers provide him with too great of a sense of strength and safety, and he doesn’t want to consider life outside of it. But he thought deeply about this life and what he wants to do after Bob’s death.

Again, his conversations with Johnny, Cherry, and Randy make him reflect on the road his life is taking. He begins to question the reasons for the constant fights between Socs and greasers, and he thinks hard before joining his gang to participate in the rumble. His willingness to strike friendships with the Socs indicates the development of a distinct personal identity.

Bridging social classes

‘ The Outsiders ‘ tells the story of the tension between two rival gangs, the working-class greasers and the upper-class Socs. It finally showed that the two groups have more in common in spite of the inequalities between them. The focus of the novel is on social class issues, exemplified by confrontations between the lower-class greasers and the upper-class Socs.

Ponyboy didn’t have to do anything to provoke the Socs into ganging upon him. It’s not a personal or unusual attack as the Socs regularly beat up greasers, and the greasers retaliate. Ponyboy is astonished to find out that he shares similar ideas with Cherry. This shows readers that the Socs are not all the same, and also, there is a common bond across the social classes. The preexisting tensions between the gangs cause the Socs to want to punish Johnny and Ponyboy for associating with the Soc girls. Bob tries to force Ponyboy’s head underwater at the fountain, and Johnny stabs Bob.

Analysis of key moments in The Outsiders

• One of the key moments of ‘ The Outsiders ‘ is the church fire. An abandoned church catches fire when Johnny and Ponyboy are out. On their way back, they saw the fire and together with Dally, they saved the kids that were in the scorching church. They all sustained injuries there, which later led to Johnny’s death.
• Another key moment is when Dally dies. Dallas Winston died by robbing a convenience store after being all worked up about Johnny’s death and running from the police. Dally pulls out an unloaded gun and points it to the police, and the police shoot him, and he dies.
• Another one is when Bob dies. When Johnny Cade stabs Bob, they went to Dally Winston for advice on what to do to avoid being caught by the government or Socs. Dally gives Ponyboy and Johnny some dry clothes, a gun, and fifty dollars. Dally also told them about an abandoned church on the hill in Windrixville where they can go and hide. He also promised to check up on them later.
• The fight. The greasers and Socs take it out on each other and fight at a rumble, in a lot. There are two rules during a rumble: whoever leaves first loses and you cannot use any type of weapon or “prop”. A Soc throws Pony to the ground, and Darry immediately says, “Pony, you all right?” The Socs left the rumble first, so the greasers one.
• Johnny dies. Johnny Cade got some serious injuries after rescuing some kids from a church fire. He was rushed to the hospital, where his friends kept visiting him. After the rumble, Dally and Ponyboy go to the hospital to visit Johnny, as usual. Johnny was dying and said to Ponyboy as quoted , “Stay gold Ponyboy, stay gold.” Johnny died right after he told Ponyboy to stay gold.
• Johnny Cade and Ponyboy Curtis, greasers, get jumped by five Socs at a park. Bob, a Soc, tries to drown Ponyboy in the fountain at the park. Johnny gets tackled by a Soc and flips out his switchblade, and stabs Bob with the blade.
• The Greasers go to the drive-in, meeting a cheerleader that is a Soc. Johnny, Ponyboy, and Dally sit in plastic chairs at the drive-in. These two Socs girls, Cherry and Marcia, sit in front of the greasers and watch the movie. Dally disturbs the redhead cheerleader until she gets distracted from the movie and mad. Cherry turns around and yells at Dally to remove his feet from her chair.
• Ponyboy Curtis Gets jumped. This was the first main event in the novel. Ponyboy Curtis, a greaser, gets jumped by some Socs on his way back from a movie. But his friends and brothers come to save him by fighting the Socs. 

Style, Tone, and Figurative Language in The Outsiders

Throughout the book, you will notice that S. E. Hinton is a character writer instead of an idea writer. The author also uses a variety of literary devices in the novel. That’s why the opening of the book is a very detailed introduction to each character such that by the end of the book, the reader knows each character in more detail. Again, the characters’ names are particularly descriptive. For example, Ponyboy depicts an image of a youth becoming a cowboy; Sodapop shows a bubbly personality, while Dallas Winston creates the image of the combination of a Texas city and a famous cigarette brand. 

The importance of the setting in this book cannot be overemphasized as it is through their environment that the main characters are defined. Hinton used her town of Tulsa, Oklahoma, as the setting of this book, even though she never refers to the city by name. The figurative language used in ‘ The Outsiders ‘ is mostly metaphors and personification.

Analysis of the Symbols

Sunsets and sunrises.

In the book, sunrise and sunset depict the beauty and goodness in the world, especially after Johnny compares the gold in the poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay” to the gold of the sunrises and sunsets Ponyboy enjoys. Sunset also represents the humanity of all people, regardless of the gang to which they belong. When Cherry and Ponyboy were first discussing at the drive-in, they found out that they share similar interests in the enjoyment of the same sunset from their sides of town.

Greaser Hair

The symbol of the greasers, both to themselves and to others, is their long, slick hair gang. When Ponyboy and Johnny cut and dyed their hair when they ran away to hide after Bob’s death,  they were taking a symbolic step outside the gang conflict. This made Ponyboy feel less secure but also gained him a bit of room to develop his individuality.

The Blue Mustang

The blue Mustang is a symbol that shows two things: the wealth of the Socs and the danger posed to the greasers. Anytime Ponyboy or any other greaser spots the Mustang, he knows trouble is coming. Later in the novel, Ponyboy comes to understand and feel compassion for the Socs, and the Mustang loses some of its power to intimidate.

How does Two-Bit describe the Socs?

Two-Bit Matthews describes the upper-class gang known as Socs as those that tend to gang up on one or two people and also fight among themselves. This is unlike the lower-class gang, the Greasers who usually stick together, and when two members do get into an argument.

How are greasers and Socs different besides money?

Besides money, there are many differences between the socs and the greasers. The greasers have long, greasy hair, while the Socs generally have shorter hair. The greasers are poor and live on the bad side or east of town, unlike the socs who live on the good side or the west side of town.

Which character is Ponyboy’s oldest brother that takes care of him?

The character is a 20-year-old strong, athletic greaser called Darry. When Ponyboy’s parents die in a car accident, his oldest brother, Darrel Curtis, also known as “Darry,” quit school and passed on a scholarship to take care of his brothers. He works two jobs in order to meet the responsibility at home.

Is Two-Bit mean in The Outsiders ?

Keith “Two-Bit” Mathews is 18 and a half, still a Junior in high school, and also a supporting character in the book ‘ The Outsiders ‘. He is popularly called by his nickname is called Two-Bit because he never shuts his mouth and always has to add in his “two bits”. He is not mean but is rather a fun-loving person who loves to tell jokes.

What does Two-Bit’s switchblade symbolize?

Two-Bit Matthew’s switchblade is his possession of inestimable value. He treasures it so highly because of all that it represents to him. The switchblade represents the disregard for authority for which greasers traditionally pride themselves in many ways. Firstly, the blade is stolen; secondly, it gives a sense of individual power to the owner.

How old is Cherry Valance?

Cherry is a 16-year-old girl in ‘ The Outsiders ‘ by S. E. Hinton . She is described as very beautiful with red hair and green eyes.

The Outsiders Quiz

Dive into the world of loyalty, rivalry, and self-discovery with our ' The Outsiders ' Trivia Quiz! Do you have the insight and knowledge to navigate the complex lives of the Greasers and the Socs? Accept the challenge now and prove your mastery over S. E. Hinton's timeless tale of friendship and struggle

1) What are the two rival groups in ' The Outsiders '?

2) How does Dallas react to Johnny's death?

3) Who is the author of the poem ' Nothing Gold Can Stay '?

4) What do Ponyboy and Randy discuss when Randy visits him?

5) What does Two-Bit give to Dally in the hospital?

6) What is the significance of the poem ' Nothing Gold Can Stay ' in the novel?

7) What is the result of the rumble between the Socs and the Greasers?

8) Who gets injured trying to save children from the burning church?

9) What injury does Johnny sustain from the church fire?

10) What event leads to Ponyboy and Johnny running away?

11) What weapon does Johnny use to defend Ponyboy?

12) Who is the Soc girl that Ponyboy befriends?

13) Who is the author of ' The Outsiders '?

14) What is the setting of the novel?

15) How does the novel ' The Outsiders ' end?

16) What does Johnny tell Ponyboy before he dies?

17) Who is the protagonist of ' The Outsiders '?

18) What is the name of the high school that Ponyboy and his friends attend?

19) Who helps Johnny and Ponyboy while they are hiding?

20) What happens to the church where Johnny and Ponyboy are hiding?

21) What causes Ponyboy to pass out after the rumble?

22) What happens to Johnny and Ponyboy at the park?

23) Who is Ponyboy's oldest brother?

24) What does Ponyboy realize about the Socs and the Greasers at the end of the novel?

25) How do Johnny and Ponyboy disguise themselves?

26) What does Ponyboy decide to write about for his English assignment?

27) What does Ponyboy do when he is confronted by Socs after Johnny's death?

28) What novel do Johnny and Ponyboy read while hiding?

29) What does Ponyboy do to cope with the loss of Johnny and Dallas?

30) Where do Johnny and Ponyboy hide after the park incident?

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About Ugo Juliet

Juliet Ugo is an experienced content writer and a literature expert with a passion for the written word with over a decade of experience. She is particularly interested in analyzing books, and her insightful interpretations of various genres have made her a well-known authority in the field.

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'The Outsiders' Themes

• M.A., Classics, Catholic University of Milan
• M.A., Journalism, New York University.
• B.A., Classics, Catholic University of Milan

In The Outsiders , author S. E. Hinton explores socioeconomic differences and impositions, honor codes, and group dynamics through the eyes of a 14-year-old narrator.

Rich vs. Poor

The rivalry between the greasers and the Socs, two opposing groups of teenagers, stems from their socioeconomic differences. However, as the story progresses and the characters experience personal growth, they realize that those differences do not automatically make them natural enemies. On the contrary, they discover that they share many similarities. For example, Cherry Valance, a Soc girl, and Ponyboy Curtis, the greaser narrator of the novel, bond over their love of literature, pop music, and sunsets, which indicates that personalities can transcend societal conventions. However, they remain pretty much in place. “Ponyboy... I mean... if I see you in the hall at school or someplace and don't say hi, well, it's not personal or anything, but…,” Cherry tells him when they part, indicating that she is aware of the social divides.

While the events of the novel unfold, Ponyboy begins noticing a pattern of shared experiences between Socs and greasers. All of their lives, despite the social differences, follow a path of love, fear, and sorrow. On that note, it’s one of the Socs, Randy, who remarks how pointless their bitter and violent rivalry actually is. “I'm sick of it because it doesn't do any good. You can't win, you know that, don't you?” he tells Ponyboy.

Honorable Hoodlums

Greasers abide by their idea of an honor code: they stand up for one another when facing enemies or authority figures. This is evidenced in their protectiveness of Johnny and Ponyboy, the younger and weaker members of the group. In another example of honorable actions, Dally Winston, the delinquent in the group, let himself be arrested for a crime Two-Bit committed. What’s more, while listening to Ponyboy read Gone With The Wind, Johnny compares Dally to a Southern gentleman, in that, much like them, he had a fixed code of behavior.

Group vs. Individual

At the beginning of the novel, Ponyboy is devoted to the greasers because the gang provides him with a sense of community and belonging. In contrast with the other members, though, he is bookish and dreamy. The aftermath of Bob’s death encourages him to question his motivations to belong to the greasers, and the conversations he had with Socs such as Cherry and Randy showed him that there was more to individuals than their belonging to a specific social group. On that note, when Ponyboy sets out to write his account of the past events, he does so in a way that highlights the individuality of each of his friends beyond their identity as greasers. 

Gender Relations

The conflict between the Socs and the Greasers has always been heated, but formulaic. Tensions escalate when Ponyboy, Dally, and Johnny befriend Soc girls Cherry and Marissa, with a “normal” gang conflict snowballing into a deadly brawl, an escape, and two more collateral deaths. Even internal romantic relationships don’t fare much better. Sodapop’s girlfriend, Sandy, whom he intends to marry, eventually goes to Florida after becoming pregnant by another boy.

Literary Devices

Literature helps Ponyboy to make sense of the world around him and the events that unfold. He sees himself as Pip, the protagonist in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, as they’re both orphaned and they are both looked down upon for not being “gentlemen.” His reciting “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost is about the fleeting beauty of nature, which, taken in the context of The Outsiders, indicates short moments of respite in what is, generally, a hostile universe. Reading Gone with the Wind with Johnny prompts the latter to see the most uncouth greaser, Dally, as a modern iteration of a Southern Gentleman, in that, even with his lack of manners, he behaved honorably. The title “Nothing Gold Can Stay” is echoed in Johnny’s valediction of Ponyboy, in which he urges him to “Stay Gold.”

In The Outsiders, empathy is the device that enables characters to resolve conflicts, both between gangs and within a singular household.

The conflict between the Socs and the greasers is based on class prejudice and appearance, yet, beneath that façade, they all have their fair share of issues. As Cherry tells Ponyboy, “things are rough all over.” For example, the novel depicts the ultimate "bad guy," Bob, who gets killed by Johnny in retaliation, as the product of a troubled family life and neglectful parents.

In the domestic realm, Ponyboy initially has a rough time with his eldest brother, Darry, who is cold and stern towards him. Ever since their parents died, he had to work two jobs and give up on his dreams of college in order to take care of his younger brothers. Even though this did harden him, he deeply cares about his kid brother and is determined to work as hard as he can to secure a better future for him. It’s Sodapop who eventually makes these things clear for Ponyboy, as he can no longer stand to witness his two brothers bicker and fight all the time, and the two resolve to get along better in order to give Sodapop some peace of mind. 

Symbol: Hair

Greasers use their hair styling as a signifier and symbol of belonging to their gang. They wear their hair long and dress in blue jeans and T-shirts. “My hair is longer than a lot of boys wear theirs, squared off in back and long at the front and sides, but I am a greaser and most of my neighborhood rarely bothers to get a haircut,” says Ponyboy as he introduces himself in the novel—fellow greaser Steve Randle wears his in “complicated swirls.” When, during their escape, Johnny and Ponyboy have to cut and bleach their hair, they are, in a way, cutting their ties with the greasers and with the gang culture of their town. While Johnny dies a hero, Ponyboy detaches himself from the greasers/Socs diatribe after the final rumble, and commits to writing his experiences to honor Johnny’s memories.

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The Outsiders

By s. e. hinton, the outsiders themes, the socs vs. greasers.

The conflict between Socs and Greasers is introduced in Chapter 1, and escalates throughout the book. The Greasers are "poorer than the Socs and the middle class... almost like hoods; we steal things and rive old souped-up cars and hold up gas stations and have a gang fight once in a while." In contrast, the Socs are "the jet set, the West-side rich kids," who "jump greasers and wreck houses and throw beer blasts for kicks, and get editorials in the paper for being a public disgrace one day and an asset to society the next."

In Chapter 3, a conversation between Ponyboy and Cherry defines a distinction between the two groups that goes beyond money. Cherry says, "You greasers have a different set of values. You're more emotional. We're sophisticated - cool to the point of not feeling anything. Nothing is real with us." And Ponyboy agrees that "It's not money, it's feeling - you don't feel anything and we feel too violently."

In Chapter 7, as he explains why he is leaving town instead of attending the rumble, Randy explains the lose-lose situation to Ponyboy:

"You can't win, even if you whip us. You'll still be where you were before - at the bottom. And we'll still be the lucky ones with all the breaks. So it doesn't do any good, the fighting and the killing. It doesn't prove a thing. We'll forget it if you win, or if you don't. Greasers will still be greasers and Socs will still be Socs."

The theme of appearances is linked to the conflict between the Socs and the Greasers, and its importance is underlined when the Socs arrive at the rumble in Chapter 9. Ponyboy realizes that the reason the Socs never get blamed for causing trouble is because "We look hoody and they look decent." Although most of the Greasers are "pretty decent guys underneath all that grease," and the Socs are "just cold-blooded mean," it doesn't matter because "people usually go by looks."

The Greasers' hairstyle is what distinguishes them as hoods, and part of the appearance that keeps them relegated to the margins of society. Ponyboy demonstrates his belief in hair's importance by including it in his character descriptions. In the first paragraph of Chapter 1, he says, "I have light-brown, almost-red hair... longer than a lot of boys wear theirs, squared off in back and long at the front and sides, but I am a greaser and most of my neighborhood rarely bothers to get a haircut."

His hair is his pride and joy, and it is a painful identity change for him to cut it off when he and Johnny try to disguise themselves. When Johnny reveals his plan to cut it, Ponyboy narrates, "It was my pride. It was long and silky, just like Soda 's only a little redder. Our hair was tuff - we didn't have to use much grease on it. Our hair labeled us greasers, too - it was our trademark. The one thing we were proud of. Maybe we couldn't have Corvairs or madras shirts, but we could have hair."

In contrast to Ponyboy and Soda, Darry keeps his hair short. It is a demonstration of his resentment of his role as a Greaser -- as if he doesn't belong in that place in society.

Characters' eyes are used to demonstrate their emotions, and Ponyboy frequently draws attention to them. He himself has "greenish-gray eyes."

Ponyboy's view of other characters is often tied to his interpretation of their eyes; for example, he says that "Darry's eyes are his own. He's got eyes that are like two pieces of pale blue-green ice. They've got a determined set to them, like the rest of him... he would be real handsome if his eyes weren't so cold." Darry's eyes reflect Ponyboy's view of his oldest brother as "hardly human." In contrast, Sodapop's eyes are "dark brown - lively, dancing, recklessly laughing eyes that can be gentle and sympathetic one moment and blazing with anger the next."

Johnny's eyes in particular are used to reflect his emotions; for instance, when the Socs approach, his terror is always apparent in his eyes. The difference between his mother and him is clear to Ponyboy because of their eyes: "Johnnycake's eyes were fearful and sensitive; hers were cheap and hard."

Appearances

Ponyboy is very conscious of the way he and others look. It is clear in his descriptions of people as a narrator, but also in his interactions with the world. For example, in Chapter 1, when the Socs start to surround him, he "automatically hitched my thumbs in my jeans and slouched" to appear tougher. In Chapter 3, when the Socs stop the boys with Cherry and Marcia , "Two-bit took a long drag on his cigarette, Johnny slouched and hooked his thumbs in his pockets, and I stiffened." Ponyboy notes that, "We can look meaner than anything when we want to - looking tough comes in handy."

In Chapter 4, when the boys are going to ask for directions to Jay Mountain, Ponyboy sees Johnny "as a stranger might see him," and realizes that they will never pass for farm boys. He thinks, "They'll know we're hoods the minute they see us." Even though he knows Johnny is kind and gentle, "he looked hard and tough, because of his black T-shirt and his blue jeans and jacket, and because his hair was heavily greased and so long." Johnny notices the same thing about Ponyboy and tells him to "quit slouching down like a thug."

This theme is closely tied to the theme of hair as a defining characteristic for the Greasers. In Chapter 7, Ponyboy confesses, "I'd die if I got my picture in the paper with my hair looking so lousy."

As the gang leaves the house to go to the rumble in Chapter 9, Soda begins the role playing game by shouting: "I am a greaser. I am a JD and a hood. I blacken the name of our fair city. I beat up people. I rob gas stations. I am a menace to society. Man, do I have fun!" The game allows the gang mebers to get excited about their rumble, but at the same time reveals how conscious they are of their appearance to the rest of society. Appearance is what defines them and what sets them apart; it is both boon and stumbling block.

Ponyboy and Cherry like to watch sunsets, and they discover they have this in common in their conversation in Chapter 3. Ponyboy thinks, "It seemed funny to me that the sunset she saw from her patio and the one I saw from the back steps was the same one. Maybe the two different worlds we lived in weren't so different. We saw the same sunset." In Chapter 8, after Cherry says she cannot go visit Johnny in the hospital because he is the one who killed her boyfriend, Bob, Ponyboy yells at her and tells her he doesn't want her charity. After she apologizes, he lets her know he still feels a connection to her that bridges their social statuses by asking, "can you see the sunset real good from the West Side?" She is surprised, but answers yes. He says, "You can see it good from the East Side, too."

Watching the sunset becomes a link between the world of the Greasers and that of the Socs, and also hints at the kind of personality that questions things, that is always searching, that is in a way poetic.

In Chapter 7, Randy joins the ranks of those who appreciate sunsets. Ponyboy realizes, "Cherry had said her friends were too cool to feel anything, and yet she could remember watching sunsets. Randy was supposed to be too cool to feel anything, and yet there was pain in his eyes."

The Country

In Chapter 3, while Ponyboy and Johnny lie in the vacant lot watching the stars, Ponyboy dreams of the country as a place where everything is right in the world. In his fantasy, his parents are alive again, and Darry no longer has that "cold, hard look;" he is "like he used to be, eight months ago, before Mom and Dad were killed." Johnny comes to live with Ponyboy's family in the county, and Ponyboy's mother even convinces Dally Winston that "there was some good in the world after all."

The reason the country appeals to Ponyboy so much is because, "I only wanted to lie on my back under a tree and read a book or draw a picture, and not worry about being jumped or carrying a blade or ending up married to some scatterbrained broad with no sense."

In Chapter 4, when the boys jump off the train in Windrixville, Ponyboy notices that "the clouds were pink and meadow larks were singing." He thinks to himself, "This is the country... My dream's come true and I'm in the country." But later, as he looks for someone to ask directions from, he thinks to himself, "I was in the country, but I knew I wasn't going to like it as much as I'd thought I would."

Ponyboy often creates alternate realities for himself to cope with situations that he feels are unbearable. For instance, while he and Johnny watch the starts in the vacant lot in Chapter 3, he thinks, "I felt the tension growing inside of me and I knew something had to happen or I would explode." In response, he dreams about a life in the country where his parents are still alive and Darry is kind again.

He is also good at pretending when it comes to lying, and lies easily to the farmer when he asks how to get to Jay Mountain. He thinks, "I can lie so easily that it spooks me sometimes." In this case, he is creating an alternate reality to cover the fact that he and Johnny are hiding away after having committed murder.

Ponyboy is conscious of his tendency to pretend, and even his preference for his dreams over reality. In Chapter 5, he admits, "I liked my books and clouds and sunsets. Dally was so real he scared me."

Chapter 10 begins with the most obvious case yet of pretending: Ponyboy cannot grasp that Johnny has died, so he tells himself, "That still body back in the hospital wasn't Johnny." He pretends that he'll find Johnny at the house, or in the lot. This case of denial has been foreshadowed by Ponyboy's tendency to create alternate realities for himself throughout the story, but the difference is that "this time my dreaming worked. I convinced myself that he wasn't dead."

Gone with the Wind

Johnny buys this book for Ponyboy when they are staying in the abandoned church, and they kill time by reading it. Johnny doesn't understand a lot about the Civil War, but he is obsessed with the idea of southern gentlemen, "impressed with their manners and charm." He compares them to Dally, showing how he idolizes Dally even though Ponyboy doesn't see much to respect in him at the time.

When Ponyboy and Two-Bit go to visit Johnny in the hospital, he asks them to buy him a new copy of Gone with the Wind, since the old one burned in the church. When Johnny dies, he leaves his copy of the book to Ponyboy. Ponyboy links Johnny and Dally's deaths to Gone with the Wind , as he considers how they "died gallant." He can only think of "Southern gentlemen with big black eyes in blue jeans and T-shirts, Southern gentlemen crumpling under street lights."

The Outsiders Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Outsiders is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

on what page does cherry has an emotional connection

Cherry no longer looked sick, only sad. "I'll bet you think the Socs have it made. The rich kids, the West-side Socs. I'll tell you something, Ponyboy, and it may come as a surprise. We have troubles you've never even heard of. You want to know...

Chapter 7 through 9 questions

A) Soda and Sandy’s relationship is over because Sandy got pregnant and went to live with her grandmother in Florida.

"Look," Steve said, surprisingly angry, "does he have to draw you a picture? It was either that or get married, and her parents...

why do you think johhny wasn't scared, depsite the obvious danger?

Johnny is a sensitive boy. He cares for others, especially those that are helpless like the children. This is perhaps because he has felt so helpless in his own childhood. It is also probable their cigarettes started the fire.

Study Guide for The Outsiders

The Outsiders study guide contains a biography of author S. E. Hinton, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About The Outsiders
• The Outsiders Summary
• The Outsiders Video
• Character List

Essays for The Outsiders

The Outsiders essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Outsiders written by S. E. Hinton.

• Analysis of the American Reality, Possibility, and Dream found in "Nickel and Dimed" and "The Outsiders"
• Stay Gold, Ponyboy: Historical Models of Childhood in S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders
• The Socioeconomic Triggers of Juvenile Delinquency: Analysis of "The Outsiders"
• Greater Meanings in The Outsiders: A Theater, a Sunset, and a Novel

Lesson Plan for The Outsiders

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to The Outsiders
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• The Outsiders Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for The Outsiders

• Introduction

Paris 2024 apologizes for 'Last Supper' sketch after criticism

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Paris Olympics organizers apologized to anyone who was offended by a tableau that evoked Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper" during the glamorous opening ceremony, but defended the concept behind it Sunday.

The segment, which recreated the Biblical scene of Jesus Christ and his apostles sharing a last meal before crucifixion, featured drag queens, a transgender model and a naked singer made up as the Greek god of wine, Dionysus.

"Clearly there was never an intention to show disrespect to any religious group. [The opening ceremony] tried to celebrate community tolerance," Paris 2024 spokesperson Anne Descamps said at a news conference. "We believe this ambition was achieved. If people have taken any offense, we are really sorry."

The interpretation of the Greek God Dionysus makes us aware of the absurdity of violence between human beings. #Paris2024 #OpeningCeremony pic.twitter.com/FBlQNNUmvV — The Olympic Games (@Olympics) July 26, 2024

Artistic director Thomas Jolly tried to draw attention away from "The Last Supper" references after the opening ceremony, saying that hadn't been his intention.

"We wanted to talk about diversity. Diversity means being together. We wanted to include everyone, as simple as that," Jolly told reporters Saturday.

The Catholic church in France was among those criticizing the segment, calling it "mockery of Christianity."

Supporters of the tableau praised its message of inclusivity and tolerance.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Georgia website that lets people cancel voter registrations briefly displayed personal data

FILE -- Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger attends the National Association of Secretaries of State winter meeting, Thursday, Feb. 16, 2023, in Washington. A site unveiled by the Republican Raffensperger on Monday, July 29, 2024, allows people to cancel voter registrations more easily, but a glitch briefly displayed personal information of voters. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, file)

FILE -- Georgia Senate Minority Leader Gloria Butler, D–Stone Mountain, speaks at a news conference at the Georgia State Capitol on Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Atlanta. Butler said on Tuesday, July 30, 2024 that a site unveiled allowing Georgians to cancel voter registrations more easily briefly displayed personal information of voters including herself. (Matthew Pearson/WABE via AP, file)

FILE -- Voters depart a polling place during primary voting on Tuesday, May 21, 2024, in Kennesaw, Ga. A website unveiled by the Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Monday, July 29, 2024, allows people to cancel voter registrations more easily, but a glitch briefly displayed personal information of voters. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart, file)

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ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia election officials are encouraging people to use a state website to cancel voter registrations when someone moves out of state or dies, a nod to Republican concerns that there are invalid registrations on the rolls.

But Monday’s rollout of the site by Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was marred by a glitch that allowed people to access a voter’s date of birth, driver’s license number and last four numbers of a Social Security number. That’s the same information needed to verify a person’s identity and allow a registration to be canceled.

The problem, which Raffensperger spokesperson Mike Hassinger said lasted less than an hour and has now been fixed, underscored Democratic concerns that the site could allow outsiders to unjustifiably cancel voter registrations.

“If someone knows my birthdate, you could get in and pull up my information and change my registration,” state Senate Minority Leader Gloria Butler, a Stone Mountain Democrat, said Tuesday. Democratic staff showed The Associated Press a copy of a document with Butler’s information that they said was produced by the system.

It’s another skirmish over how aggressively states should purge invalid registrations from their rolls. Democrats and Republicans have been fighting over the issue in Georgia for years, but the issue has acquired new urgency, driven by a wide-ranging national effort coordinated by Donald Trump allies to take names from rolls. Activists fueled by Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen argue that existing state cleanup efforts are woefully inadequate and that inaccuracies invite fraud. Few cases of improper out-of-state voting have been proved in Georgia or nationwide.

Until now, few people have canceled their registration. Doing so typically required mailing or emailing a form to the county where the voter formerly lived.

People who have died or have been convicted of a felony can be removed from rolls relatively quickly. But when people move away and don’t ask for their registration to be canceled, it can take years to remove them. The state must send mail to those who appear to have moved. If the people don’t respond, they are moved to inactive status. But they can still vote and their registration isn’t removed unless they don’t vote in the next two federal general elections.

Georgia has more than 8 million registered voters, including 900,000 classified as inactive.

“This is a convenient tool for any voter who wants to secure their voter registration by cancelling their old one when they move out of state,” Raffensperger said in a statement. “It will also help keep Georgia’s voter registration database up-to-date without having to rely on postcards being sent and returned by an increasingly inefficient postal system.”

He said he would encourage real estate agents to push those selling property to cancel their registrations as part of the moving process.

Republican fears of fraud have prompted a wave of voter challenges, asking Georgia counties to remove people who may have moved or registered elsewhere more quickly than specified by state and federal law. GOP lawmakers in Georgia passed a law this year that could make it easier to win such challenges.

An AP survey of Georgia’s 40 largest counties found more than 18,000 voters were challenged in 2023 and early 2024, although counties rejected most challenges. Hundreds of thousands more were filed statewide between 2020 and 2022.

Voters or relatives of people who have died can enter personal information on the website. County officials would then get a notification from the state’s computer system and remove the voters. Counties will send verification letters to voters who cancel their registrations.

If someone doesn’t have personal information, the system as of Tuesday offered to print out a blank copy of a sworn statement asking that a registration be canceled.

But for a brief time after the site was unveiled on Monday, the system preprinted the voter’s name, address, birth date, driver’s license number and last four numbers of their social security number on the affidavit. With that information, someone could then start over and cancel a registration without sending in the sworn statement.

Butler said she was “terrified” to find that information could be accessed using only a person’s name, date of birth, and county of registration.

Hassinger said in a Tuesday statement that a temporary error “is believed to be the result of a scheduled software update.”

“The error was detected and fixed within an hour,” Hassinger said.

Butler applauded the quick fix by Raffensperger’s office, but she and other Democrats said the problem only underlines that the site could be used by outsiders to cancel voter registrations.

“This portal is ripe for abuse by right-wing activists who are already submitting mass voter challenges meant to disenfranchise Georgians,” Democratic Party of Georgia Executive Director Tolulope Kevin Olasanoye said in a statement that called on Raffensperger to disable the website.

The Common App Opens Today—Here’s How To Answer Every Prompt

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Writing the Personal Statement for the Common Application

Today, the Common Application opens for the 2024–25 application cycle. As the platform opens, officially signaling the start of the college admissions season, many students are starting the daunting process of crafting their personal statements. The personal statement is a crucial opportunity to showcase individuality, character, and intellectual depth. In only 650 words, students should seek to encapsulate their authentic voice and perspective through a compelling and creative narrative. The process requires thorough brainstorming, strategy, and editing in order to produce an essay that is distinct from those of thousands of other applicants vying for seats at top colleges.

As students choose a prompt and begin brainstorming essays, here are the key points to consider in order to create a stellar essay for each prompt:

1. The Meaningful Background Prompt

Prompt: Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

This prompt invites you to share an aspect of your identity or experience that is central to who you are. Start by thoughtfully considering aspects of your identity that are unique to you; then, try to think of a specific anecdote or experience that provides a portrait of those qualities. While detail and specificity are critical for all engaging essays, they are particularly important in this one, as you should show (rather than tell ) admissions committees the things that are quintessential to who you are.

Your essay should also have a takeaway—aside from just telling admissions officers what the background, identity, interest, or talent is, you should also focus on what you’ve learned from this piece of your identity, how it has developed over time, and how you will apply it in college and beyond.

Best High-Yield Savings Accounts Of 2024

Best 5% interest savings accounts of 2024, 2. the overcoming obstacles prompt.

Prompt: The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

This prompt is an opportunity to demonstrate resilience and the capacity to learn from adversity—qualities that elite universities value highly. Begin by choosing a specific incident where you faced a significant challenge or failure—this could be an academic setback, a personal loss, or a time when you were out of your comfort zone. Students often fall into one of two common mistakes when tackling this question. First, many students rely on cliches and overused tropes. Keep in mind that admissions officers will likely read hundreds of essays recounting stories of students missing the game-winning goal or flunking a test in sophomore English. Try to select a story that only you can tell, and if you choose a topic you worry might be popular among other students, consider how you might recount it in a unique and unexpected way. On the other hand, some students fall into the opposite problem, sharing about a particularly personal, traumatic, or triggering experience that impacted them. Though it should convey personal insights, the personal statement is still a professional document, and you should not make your reader uncomfortable or unsettled by the information you share.

Finally, note that admissions officers are not primarily interested in the challenge itself, but in how you responded to the challenge. Focus on the steps you took to overcome the obstacle, what you learned about yourself in the process, and how this experience has shaped your future actions and mindset. Highlight any new skills, perspectives, or motivations that emerged from this experience, demonstrating your ability to grow and adapt in the face of adversity.

3. The Changed Perspective Prompt

Prompt: Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?

Top colleges seek to admit students who are willing to engage in critical thinking and who possess the intellectual courage to question norms or ideas. For this essay, consider beginning with an anecdote—starting the essay in media res can be an engaging way to catch the reader’s attention and quickly establish the stakes of your narrative. As you share your story, remember that the essay’s focus is to demonstrate your open-mindedness, your commitment to seeking the truth, and your willingness to engage deeply with complex issues. It also shows your ability to respect differing viewpoints while developing your own reasoned stance. As such, you should take the admissions committee through your process of growth and change step-by-step, clearly articulating how the experience impacted you and how your changed perspective will enhance their campus community should you enroll.

4. The Gratitude Prompt

Prompt: Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?

Like the two prior prompts, this prompt requires students to share a particular anecdote, and students should consider beginning with their narrative before zooming out to explore the broader theme of gratitude. Start by recounting a specific instance where someone did something for you that made you feel unexpectedly grateful. This could be a small act of kindness, a significant gesture, or a moment of support that made a lasting impression on you. Then, explore how this experience of gratitude has affected your actions or attitude. As you do so, be sure to avoid platitudes or vapid buzzwords—rather than expressing that the experience made you feel “good” or “appreciated” or the equivalent, share how it has affected your perspective or actions going forward. The best responses are those that illustrate actionable change rather than fuzzy feelings.

5. The Personal Growth Prompt

Prompt: Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

A student’s college years are all about growth and transformation, and this prompt invites students to demonstrate their capacity for self-reflection and teachability. Thus, while this prompt might invite you to describe a major event or accomplishment, what you really want to show is a transformative period and the resulting reflection. Don’t feel as though the accomplishment, event, or realization needs to be especially earth-shattering or ground-breaking—sometimes the small things can make an impression in a big way. Finally, if you do choose to write about an accomplishment, be sure that you are not bragging. The prompt is an opportunity to show self-awareness, rather than to tout your achievements.

6. The Captivating Concept Prompt

Prompt: Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

Intellectual curiosity and authentic passion are distinguishing characteristics in the landscape of top college admissions. For this prompt, zoom in on a particular topic that genuinely fascinates you, whether it’s a specific academic subject, a philosophical idea, or a creative pursuit. Many students manufacture a response to this prompt based on what they assume will impress admissions officers—but if you aren’t truly interested in Kantian ethics, an admissions officer will be able to tell. However silly, mundane, quirky, or bizarre your “captivating concept” may be, if it’s true to you—write about it!

While your response should describe how a specific aspect of this topic captivates your interest and why it resonates with you on a deeper level, it should also demonstrate how you have taken the initiative to explore this topic in unique ways. Have you sought out books on the topic? Taken an online course to elevate your knowledge? Started a club to connect with others who share your interest? Developed a passion project that mobilized your interest in service of your community?

7. Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

If none of the above prompts allow you to effectively express yourself, remember that the Common App includes an open prompt, wherein you can write on a topic of your choice! This is an excellent opportunity to share a story that doesn’t fit neatly into the other prompts but is crucial to understanding who you are. If you choose to pursue this prompt, make sure your essay is well-structured and cohesive, with a clear theme or message that ties everything together.

The Common App essay is more than just a component of your application; it’s a chance to speak directly to admissions officers and present your authentic self. Taking the time to brainstorm and edit will allow you to submit an essay that showcases your unique voice and original perspective to admissions officers at top colleges.

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'I did this as a favor': Trump doubles down after attacking 'nasty' Black journalist

David Edwards

Senior editor, david edwards has spent over a decade reporting on social justice, human rights and politics for raw story. he also writes crooks and liars. he has a background in enterprise resource planning and previously managed the network infrastructure for the north carolina department of correction..

Former President Donald Trump blasted ABC News correspondent Rachel Scott less than a week after she asked him about racist statements during an interview at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) Conference.

While speaking to live streamer Adin Ross on Monday, Trump recalled his performance at the conference.

"Well, I did this as a favor," Trump opined. "This was the Black journalists... And I did it because I thought it was a good thing to do."

"And they had a journalist – I don't know – I didn't know who she was, but she was nasty," he continued. "She was a terrible person."

Trump claimed Vice President Kamala Harris refused to speak at the event because "she can't answer questions."

"But I walk in, and this woman starts talking about – she talked about we have – let's get rid of the elephant in the room," he recalled. "And she starts talking about racism and every – I said, you didn't even say hello to me. And I'm doing them a favor by doing this."

Trump insisted that ABC News was "one of the worst." And he called Scott "horrible" and "nasty."

ALSO READ: Don't be fooled: Project 2025 is already happening

But he praised Fox News host Harris Faulkner as an "excellent" moderator.

"But I did it, and it was quite a sensation," Trump argued. "Actually, a lot of people think it was well handled."

Watch the video below or at this link .

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Do you think vice president kamala harris should be the next president, here's how you can tell trump is getting 'desperate': columnist.

Donald Trump is getting "desperate," a Vanity Fair columnist wrote Monday.

Over the weekend, Trump spoke to a Georgia audience where he relitigated his 2020 election loss and the Republican officials who refused to act on his behalf. According to contributing editor Eric Lutz, it's a tell . Trump frequently turns to racism and 2020 election conspiracies when slipping into impetuous patterns and impulsive rants.

At the rally, Trump attacked Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and other GOP lawmakers. He claimed that the recent prisoner swap was a deal that benefitted Vladimir Putin , and under his leadership, he never gave away something in return for prisoners. Further, he falsely claimed he secured 59 prisoners, a FactCheck.org analysis showed .

Read also: Top Republicans plead ignorance on Trump voting promise

"To be clear, Trump and his grievances have been the GOP’s problem for a while now; this is, after all, a party that has spent much of the last decade under Trump’s spell, excusing the inexcusable over and over again as they named him their standard-bearer for three consecutive cycles," wrote Lutz.

What Kamala Harris' candidacy has done over the past weeks is "inflame Trump’s sense of desperation and bitterness."

Trump went so far as to confess he had " gotten worse " during a July 28 rally, Lutz recalled. He explained it was an "assessment driven home" by Trump's rant questioning Harris' race during a question-and-answer session with the National Association of Black Journalists.

“She was Indian all the way,” Trump said of Harris. “All of a sudden, she made a turn, and she became a Black person.”

"Birtherism, loyalty demands, obsession with crowd sizes —we’ve heard all this before. The question, as always, is: At what point will Republicans finally decide they’ve heard enough?" asked Lutz.

All of it contributes to Trump's fall-back on racist taunts and 2020 election fraud.

Read the full column here.

'Vote for the adult in the room': Republican makes the case for Kamala Harris

The Republican mayor of Mesa, Arizona, made the case Monday for why other Republicans should back Vice President Kamala Harris's bid for the White House.

During a speech introducing himself as the co-chairman of Arizona Republicans for Harris, John Giles spoke in blunt terms about former President Donald Trump , whom his party nominated last month for the presidency for the third time.

"I think the time has come for us as Arizona Republicans to admit the obvious and to start saying the quiet part out loud," Giles said. "Our party's nominee is not qualified for office and... we need to vote for the adult in the room, and that is Kamala Harris."

Former Republican Arizona State Rep. Robin Shaw, another co-chair of Arizona Republicans for Harris, also made the case for the vice president and emphasized "character matters."

ALSO READ: Supreme Court smacks down lawsuit seeking to block Trump prosecution in New York

Giles first endorsed Harris late last month in an editorial for the Arizona Republic in which he attacked Trump and praised the Biden-Harris administration for making investments that created jobs in the state.

"Trump poses a serious threat to our nation," Giles argued in the editorial. "We can’t have a felon representing us on the national stage, let alone one who would threaten to abandon NATO and ruin our standing abroad. We are in a moment that only happens once every few generations, when we have to defend democracy, and stand up for the right to vote and our civil rights."

Ex-Trump attorney agrees to cooperate in Arizona fake electors probe

Jenna Ellis , a former attorney for Donald Trump , has reportedly agreed to cooperate in an Arizona case against so-called fake electors who plotted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

On Monday, Attorney General Kris Mayes announced that Ellis had entered a cooperation agreement in the case.

"Jenna Ellis signed the agreement earlier this morning," Mayes' office said in a statement . "The State has agreed to drop the charges against Ms. Ellis in exchange for her cooperation with the prosecution."

"This agreement represents a significant step forward in our case," Mayes said. "I am grateful to Ms. Ellis for her cooperation with our investigation and prosecution. Her insights are invaluable and will greatly aid the State in proving its case in court. As I stated when the initial charges were announced, I will not allow American democracy to be undermined - it is far too important. Today's announcement is a win for the rule of law."

Ellis had been charged with nine felonies before the agreement.

The attorney general's office said the case against 17 other defendants was ongoing.

Some of those indicted included former Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Christina Bobb, and John Eastman. Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn also faced charges.

Top Republicans plead ignorance on Trump voting promise

Exposed: trump’s personal 'affirmative action program', don’t be fooled: project 2025 is already happening.

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Social Security

Get your social security statement ( en español ), social security statement.

Your Social Security Statement (Statement) is available to view online by opening a my Social Security account. Millions of people of all ages now use these online accounts to learn about their future Social Security benefits and current earnings history.

For workers age 60 and older who do not have a my Social Security account, we currently mail Social Security Statements three months prior to your birthday.

There are many benefits to having a personal my Social Security account. It provides secure access to your Statement , allows you to change your address, verify your reported earnings, and estimate your future benefits. If you receive benefits, you can get the new and improved cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) notice earlier than you would receive it in the mail.

A growing number of forms are now available online and no longer require wet signatures, making it easier and quicker to get necessary forms to us using your account. We encourage you to submit necessary forms online.

Many of our notices are now available online. You can choose to get available notices online instead of by mail and can choose to receive email or text alerts when you have a notice available. Getting available notices online means not needing to wait for it to arrive in the mail or the notice getting lost or misplaced.

Online Statements can be accessed for people living overseas (domestic earnings only) with an ID.me account. Please visit www.ssa.gov/foreign for more information.

Sign in Create your account

Sample Statement

We redesigned the Statement to make it easier for you to read and find the information you need!

The redesigned Statement now includes a bar graph displaying your personalized retirement benefit estimates at nine different ages, depending on when you want benefits to start. It also includes your earnings history, and information on how to report an error if you find one.

We encourage you to review your Statement annually. Below, you can view a sample Statement and the valuable information it provides. Your personal Statement may include different language, depending on your situation.

• Social Security Statement Samples
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Fact Sheets Added to Statement

We have added new fact sheets to accompany the Statement . The fact sheets are designed to provide clarity and useful information, based on your age group and earnings situation. They can help you better understand Social Security programs and benefits.

These fact sheets include:

• Retirement Ready (Fact Sheet For Workers Ages 18-48)
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Joe Rogan Mocks COVID Vaccines & Transgender People In New Netflix Special ‘Burn the Boats’

Where to Stream:

• Joe Rogan: Burn The Boats

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Joe Rogan: Burn The Boats’ On Netflix, Wherein Podcast’s Comedy Giant Talks A Big Game

What time does joe rogan’s netflix special start tonight, netflix teams with controversial comedian joe rogan for his third special, ‘joe rogan: burn the boats’, neal brennan thinks we’ve failed by turning ‘crazy good’ comedians like dave chappelle and joe rogan into moral authorities.

Joe Rogan tackled several controversial topics in the most provocative way possible during his new Netflix stand-up special Burn the Boats , which aired on Saturday.

The 56-year-old comedian and podcaster criticized COVID vaccines and took aim at transgender and gay people during his first comedy special in six years.

Rogan, who has been known to take a conservative view on such topics on his podcast, joked about how the public responded to the COVID vaccines.

“Before COVID, I would have told you that vaccines are the most important invention in human history. After COVID, I’m like, ‘I don’t think we went to the moon. I think Michelle Obama’s got a dick. I think Pizzagate is real. I think there’s direct energy weapons in Antarctica,’ ” he said.

After the audience laughed, Rogan added: “I’m just kidding — I don’t think Michelle Obama’s got a dick, but I believe all of that other sh-t.”

Rogan confessed to his audience at the Majestic Theatre in San Antonio, Texas, that he “might have” played a part in spreading vaccine misinformation, but it doesn’t bother him in the slightest.

“Here’s my take on that, sincerely: If you’re getting your vaccine advice from me, is that really my fault?” he said. “That’s not my job, kids. I’m a professional sh-t-talker. Some of the things I say make sense. A lot of them don’t. It’s up to you to figure out what’s what. That’s the fun part.”

Moving on to the topic of trans people, the comedian shared his thoughts that America has become too accepting.

“I just want to be real clear. I believe in trans people,” he said. “Because I think the world is strange and nature is strange, and nature can throw you a curveball and you believe you’re in the wrong body. And I fully support your right as an adult to do whatever you want that makes you happy. I believe in freedom, and I believe in love. But I also believe in crazy people.”

“I’m open-minded. I just want to know what happened,” he continued. “It’s almost like a pervert wizard waved a magic spell on the whole world. ‘With a wave of this wand, you can walk into the women’s locker room with a hard cock, and anybody who complains is a Nazi. Abracadabra!’ And it just works!’

Rogan added: “And everyone just accepts this new reality, and it’s f–king weird. I just think we need standards. You can’t just put lipstick on and now you can sh-t in the women’s room!”

The former host of Fear Factor also mocked gay men, saying, “I think about gay men the same way I think about mountain lions: I’m happy they’re real, but I don’t want to be surrounded by them. They’re a bunch of dudes who f-ck dudes. I don’t like my chances, OK? They’re not unicorns — they’re just men who f-ck men.”

Rogan said that he’s “not even remotely homophobic,” adding, “I’m the opposite. I wish I was gay.”

Aside from Burn the Boats , Rogan has two other comedy specials on Netflix, Joe Rogan: Strange Times (2018) and Joe Rogan: Triggered (2016).

In recent years, Rogan has been best known for his popular podcast The Joe Rogan Experience , which has drawn criticism and controversy for his COVID-19 misinformation and anti-vaccine statements.

Rogan has faced backlash over anti-vaccine statements, commentary on trans people, and his use of the N-word in older episodes of his podcast.

Burn the Boats is now streaming on Netflix.

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Parent item expand the sub menu, women’s intimates brand commando expands into men’s underwear, l’oréal takes 10 percent stake in galderma, swipe right: how fashion shopping is stealing online dating’s most iconic move, princess beatrice is named in tatler’s 2024 best dressed list, after years of viral fashion faux pas.

Other notable names on the list include Lady Victoria Starmer, James Middleton, Estelle Ogilvy, Cruz Beckham and more.

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LONDON — In the absence of Kate Middleton, all is permitted, including Princess Beatrice topping Tatler’s 2024 Best Dressed list.

The British high society magazine’s September issue named 25 people from the world of film, Formula 1 to royalty, counting Cruz Beckham at number three; Queen Camilla’s sister, Annabel Elliot at number five; rapper Eve at number 12 and more.

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“Perhaps there’s been more headlines to fill as the Princess of Wales stays out of the public eye during her recovery, but the best dressed royals have always been offering up ultra-elegant ensembles — you just have to know where to find them, even if they’re in the back rows of the balcony at Buckingham Palace,” they added.

Even though the princess has been in the background while other members of the royal family take center stage, Beatrice commanded everyone’s attention in the summer of 2020 in the midst of her father, Prince Andrew, mired in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal , and the COVID-19 crisis putting an end to the original celebration planned at St. James’s Palace.

Reflecting the restrained mood of the moment, she wore a hand-me-down, bejeweled and shimmery Norman Hartnell gown adapted for her by Queen Elizabeth II’s own dresser Angela Kelly and couturier Stewart Parvin. The late monarch was pictured in the dress in 1962, attending a performance of “Lawrence of Arabia.”

“Princess Beatrice is crowned this year’s Best Dressed in Britain owing to her steady stream of consistent chic. It can be difficult to navigate appropriate royal dressing while remaining on the forefront of modern fashion, but Beatrice has truly found her footing when it comes to this. She perfectly blurs the lines between the court and the catwalk and does it with a keen sense of personal style,” Tregaskes said.

Britain’s new first lady, Victoria Starmer, whose husband Sir Keir Starmer became U.K. prime minister on July 5 also made the cut at 10.

Until recently, she has kept a low profile. But when she does step out in public, she generally makes a statement in chic, understated silhouettes in bold monochromes in British labels, Me+Em or Edeline Lee.

Other notable names on the list include model Estelle Ogilvy at number 11 for her “cute minis and preppy knits”; Middleton’s brother James at number 15 for his “laid-back luxe” style, and novelist Plum Sykes at number 24 praised for her country chic attires.

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The Outsiders

S. e. hinton, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Despite the greasers' reputation as heartless young criminals, they live by a specific and honorable code of friendship, and there are many instances in which gang and family members make selfless choices. These choices often reflect a desire to make life better for the next generation of youths. Darry forfeited a college scholarship for a full-time manual labor job in order to support his younger brothers. Dally , who seems not to care about anything, demonstrates great loyalty to and compassion for his friends and for strangers in need. He helps Johnny and Ponyboy slip away to the rural town of Windrixville after Bob's stabbing, and he plays a key role in the church fire rescue. Dally's death is the ultimate tribute to Johnny, without whom life seemed meaningless. Ponyboy's essay is a different and perhaps more powerful response to Johnny's death. He honors both of his deceased friends by telling their story, an act of generosity intended to benefit the greater community.

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Farah Stockman

Editorial Board Member

Should a Detroit Congressional District Be a ‘Black Seat’?

This election season has been studded with stories about race, mainly because of dumb things that Donald Trump has said about “Black jobs” and Kamala Harris’s racial identity. But race is also coming up in a congressional race in Detroit, in which Democrats are trying to take out one of their own — Representative Shri Thanedar, a freshman and an Indian-born entrepreneur — in Tuesday’s primary election.

Powerful figures in Detroit, including Mayor Mike Duggan, have endorsed Thanedar’s most serious rival, City Council member Mary Waters, who is Black, arguing that Thanedar hasn’t been helpful when the city needs it. That might be payback for Thanedar’s opposition to a hefty package of tax breaks to wealthy developers. But others oppose Thanedar because they say the seat, representing a majority Black city, should be held by a Black person.

“When it’s all said and done, we’ve got to have somebody there who understands the unique needs of African Americans,” Waters told the Michigan Advance , a nonprofit news site. “Because we do have some unique needs — some of the things that we should be fighting for, when it comes to voting rights, for example.”

Thanedar, who came from humble beginnings in India and got rich from starting a pharmaceutical company in the United States after years of struggle, won the election two years ago in a nine-way contest. News outlets noted that his election marked the first time in nearly 70 years that Detroit didn’t have a Black lawmaker representing it in Congress. (The other congressional seat that includes parts of Detroit is held by Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman in Congress.)

Thanedar says that the poverty he grew up in allows him to relate to his voters in a way that other politicians can’t. In any case, he swears that his ethnicity is not important to them.

“The people on the street don’t care,” he told me. “They tell me all the time: ‘Solve our problems. Fix the crime. I don’t have public transportation. Take care of that.’” It’s the media and the establishment Democrats that created the narrative that his seat is a “Black seat,” he said. On Tuesday, in a primary that is tantamount to the general election, we will see if he’s right.

Liriel Higa

Opinion Audience Director

My Favorite Simone Biles Moment Wasn’t When She Won Gold

GOAT. Most decorated. Winningest. It sounds hokey, but the most satisfying and joyful part of the Olympics for me is not which country is leading the medal count but when the best athletes in the world show their respect and admiration for one another, especially after an underperformance. On Monday, the last day of the artistic gymnastics competition, Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles, the Americans who took silver and bronze medals in the floor exercise final, showed such sportsmanship to Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade, who won gold.

During the medal ceremony, Biles and Chiles bowed down to the Brazilian as she climbed the podium to receive her medal. Andrade had already come in second to Biles in the all-around and vault event finals , but she took advantage of Biles’s two out-of-bounds landings to take first on floor.

Andrade was runner-up to Biles at the 2023 World Championships and second to Suni Lee at the Tokyo Olympics all-around. It may have been frustrating to keep coming in second, but she has been consistently supportive over the years, saying, for instance, that it was an “honor” to compete against Biles.

For her part, Biles has acknowledged her own fallibility, and reminded us that just because she makes winning look easy does not mean that it is. After the all-around final, Biles said of Andrade: “She’s way too close. I’ve never had an athlete that close, so it definitely put me on my toes, and it brought out the best athlete in myself.”

Of course, it’s easy to be gracious when you’ve won the gold. On Monday, in what might be her final Olympic performance, Biles took the silver on floor after a disappointing fifth-place finish on the balance beam. But when Chiles suggested that they bow down to Andrade, Biles eagerly agreed, creating one of the most iconic images from these Olympics.

Chiles explained their thinking during an interview after the competition. “Why don’t we just give her her flowers,” she said. “Not only has she given Simone her flowers, but a lot of us in the United States our flowers as well. So giving it back is what makes it so beautiful. So, I felt like it was needed.”

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The Stock Market Dropped, but Don’t Freak Out

The secret to making money in the stock market is to buy low and sell high. Right? Not buy high and sell low.

So loading up on stocks when the market is breaking records and then dumping them when something bad happens is not the road to riches.

Yet that’s exactly what a lot of investors are undoubtedly doing, or contemplating, right now. I typed “Should I” into the Google search bar on Monday and the first autocomplete choice was “Should I sell my stocks now?” The third choice was “Should I sell my stocks?”

In between, by the way, was “Should I buy Nvidia stock?” Apparently, there are still some optimists out there.

I’m a journalist, not an investment adviser, so I don’t have any bright ideas for how to cope with market turmoil. I’ll just repeat the standard advice: Most of us amateurs should be long-term, buy-and-hold investors. Trying to time the ups and downs of the market rarely works.

It’s different if you have a big expense coming up soon. Then you really should think about selling stocks and putting the money in something safe, like a checking account. It would have been smarter to do that before the market broke, but better late than never.

Jeneen Interlandi

When Will the F.D.A. Crack Down on Stem Cell Clinics?

A jury in Tampa, Fla., has ordered a now-defunct stem cell clinic to pay at least $9 million in damages to more than 1,000 patients who say they were misled, lied to and put at medical risk by unscrupulous doctors offering scam therapies. The decision, nearly a decade in the making, is a welcome one for plaintiffs — and for anyone who cares about accountability.

But it will not do much for countless other patients who have been similarly duped .

Nearly a decade after a spate of mishaps first drew attention to the problem, clinics promoting dubious “adult stem cell” treatments for just about any medical condition you can think of (from autism to sexual dysfunction and diabetes) are still flourishing in the United States. These treatments are not only expensive and unproved, they can be dangerous . They have left some patients blind , others paralyzed and at least one dead.

So far, the Food and Drug Administration has made only vague gestures toward addressing the problem. In 2017, the agency said that at least some adult stem cell treatments would need to secure federal approval. Companies whose products had not been deemed an imminent threat to human health were given three years to comply with the requirement, and those with particularly risky offerings (such as products that get injected directly into the veins or the central nervous system) were threatened with imminent sanctions.

For the most part, though, nothing happened. “You’d think the F.D.A. would have taken dozens of actions,” Paul Knoepfler, a stem cell scientist at the University of California at Irvine, told me. “But it just hasn’t happened.” The agency has long maintained that it lacks the resources to do much. But critics say that what officials there really lack is resolve.

It’s easy to see where such apathy might come from. Once revered as a bulwark against snake oil medicine, the F.D.A. is now seen by many Americans as a mere tool of the pharmaceutical industry, tasked with promoting and protecting corporate profits above all else. Attempts to regulate certain products (stem cells, dietary supplements, e-cigarettes) have been met with public outcries in some cases — and with countermeasures led by interest groups meant to undermine the agency in others. A recent Supreme Court decision limiting federal regulatory powers will only make this problem worse.

The F.D.A. should be doing everything in its power to reverse this erosion of trust. It can start by drawing much more attention to the harms caused by untested products, and then working aggressively to hold the purveyors of those products to account. Class-action victories against snake oil salesmen are great. But the goal should still be to protect patients before they are harmed, not just to compensate them after the fact.

Katherine Miller

Opinion Writer and Editor

Once a Running Mate Is in Place, Harris Can Go Full Speed

Every Monday morning on The Point, we kick off the week with a tipsheet on the latest in the presidential campaign. Here’s what we’re looking at this week:

Obviously the biggest thing coming is that Kamala Harris is expected to announce her running mate early this week. Though each day of the past month or so has felt very long, it’s pretty wild how fast things have changed and how compressed the timeline has been for Democrats to nominate a candidate, cut new ads, vet a vice-presidential slate and presumably re-plan major parts of the convention, which begins Aug. 19.

Harris and her running mate will hit seven rallies in five days. They start in Philadelphia, then go to Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia (this time, Savannah), Arizona and end on Saturday in Las Vegas. That will be her second appearance in two weeks in Georgia — a state that looked pretty rough for Biden this summer. There hasn’t been a big TV interview with Harris yet, but it’s also possible she and the running mate would sit for one.

As of now, Donald Trump has one rally scheduled in Montana, to support Tim Sheehy’s bid for Senate in the state against Jon Tester. But it’s always possible they’ll add more for him or especially for JD Vance, who’s traveled a lot in the last few weeks.

By Friday, lawyers for the government and Trump are supposed to submit proposed schedules for how to proceed in the federal Jan. 6 case, with a status hearing set for next week. Although it remains very unlikely a full trial would proceed any time soon, Judge Tanya Chutkan now has to decide how to implement the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling in a hearing to determine which allegations concerned official acts of the presidency.

As our newsroom colleague Alan Feuer pointed out , “It remains unclear at this point whether Judge Chutkan will rely solely on written briefs from the two sides or whether she will schedule a more substantial hearing to consider evidence, perhaps from witnesses involved in the case, in what could resemble a mini-trial.”

Democrats Pushed Biden Aside. Is Eric Adams Next?

For Mayor Eric Adams of New York, watching his party swap President Biden for Vice President Kamala Harris had to be at least a little rattling.

Like Biden, Adams, who is up for re-election next year, is shockingly unpopular. One poll this spring found that just 16 percent of likely voters planned to vote for him. Another, taken in December, found that his approval rating had fallen to 28 percent , the lowest of any mayor since 1996.

In the past few months, three credible Democrats have announced plans to challenge the mayor, all of them from the left.

Scott Stringer, the former comptroller, raised over $ 400,000 . The current comptroller, Brad Lander, has raised more than $650,000 . State Senator Zellnor Myrie raised more than $326,000 over a much shorter time period, of about two months. Thanks to the city’s generous matching fund program, each of these Democrats could mount a serious challenge.

Adams still has a sharp advantage in next year’s mayoral race, where the power of incumbency is generally overwhelming. But there is a sense in the air around City Hall that this mayor may be unusually vulnerable. The big question for Adams and these challengers — in a city where the economy is robust and crime overall is down — is why?

The federal investigation into whether Adams and his campaign illegally directed foreign funds from the Turkish government into their war chest could be one reason, particularly since Adams’s phone was seized by the F.B.I. in November. Another is the arrival of about 180,000 migrants in just over two years, a logistical, budgetary and political nightmare for City Hall, which was caught off guard.

The mayor often seems more interested in gimmicky efforts like his war against rats than the more tedious work of campaigning for the bold policies the city needs, like his excellent housing campaign, known as the City of Yes, aimed at incentivizing much-needed housing development. In a city that is not always progressive but likes to see itself as thoroughly modern, Adams’s political style — which includes a penchant for hiring cronies — feels old, and not in a good way. Other times, he just sounds plain out of touch with the views of many Democratic voters in New York, as when he defended the boorish behavior of top police officials who attacked journalists and judges on social media.

Weighing Adams’s political fortunes, one issue in particular caught my eye: the widespread anger this year, across the city, over the cuts Adams made to the city’s libraries. Pressed to make budget cuts last December, he chose to cut Sunday library service. The measure drew such ire that the funding was restored in June.

It’s getting harder to live in New York, and I think New Yorkers are growing impatient with Adams, whose City Hall often seems to lack a compass. The cost of housing is still soaring. Noise complaints are up . Though most crime is down, New Yorkers still tell pollsters that they feel less safe. It’s a sentiment probably exacerbated by an epidemic of street homelessness and an opioid crisis that has hit New York City in recent years, sending overdose deaths surging .

Adams is working on many of these issues. But three years in, there seems to be an increasing sense that he may not have a clear plan to get life in the country’s largest city firmly back on track from the pandemic that devastated it. Voters in New York may be looking for someone who does.

Paul Krugman

Opinion Columnist

A Big Oopsie for the Fed

There’s an old joke about a motorist who runs over a pedestrian, then says, “I’m sorry. Let me fix that” — so he backs up and runs over the pedestrian a second time.

Right now, the Federal Reserve is looking like that guy.

The Fed received a lot of criticism for being behind the curve in 2021 and ’22, when it was slow to raise interest rates in the face of rising inflation.

It’s not clear that this delay did significant harm. As Jared Bernstein, the chief White House economic adviser, pointed out in a recent speech , U.S. economic performance during the pandemic and its aftermath stands out among wealthy nations; we experienced similar inflation to our peers while achieving much stronger economic growth:

Still, the Fed’s credibility took a hit.

But it’s now increasingly clear that the Fed is once again behind the curve, in the opposite direction: It has waited too long to cut interest rates as inflation has subsided. Unemployment has been rising, and the latest jobs report , on Friday morning, shows that the rise has now triggered the Sahm Rule, a historically very accurate indicator that the economy has entered a recession.

I wrote about the Sahm Rule this week , warning that it might be triggered but giving reasons not to panic (a view shared by Claudia Sahm herself). And other indicators, like prime-age employment , are still holding up. Nonetheless, the Friday jobs numbers make it very clear that the Fed should have cut rates on Wednesday and probably should have begun cutting earlier this year.

The good news is that the interest rates that matter for the real economy, like 10-year bond rates and mortgage rates, are partly driven not by what the Fed has done but by expectations about what the Fed will do.

So even though the Fed has gotten behind the curve, it may still be able to head off a recession by signaling to markets that it knows that it has ground to make up; we should definitely be looking at a rate cut of half a percentage point (rather than the usual quarter-point move) at its next scheduled meeting, in September, and maybe a before-schedule cut this month if more bad news comes in.

One last point: If the Fed does the right thing, you know that Republicans will claim that it’s a political move to help Democrats. Let’s hope that Jerome Powell, the Fed chair, won’t let himself be bullied into passivity.

Nicholas Kristof

As the World Looks Elsewhere, Famine Descends on Darfur

Sudan has in this century endured genocide, civil war and partition, and now its crisis has worsened. Famine has officially been declared in part of the Darfur region in western Sudan.

Growing starvation has been apparent for many months, so this is in part a failure of the international community to apply adequate pressure on rival parties in Sudan and to provide adequate resources to address the crisis. Far more attention has been directed to conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, and while that is understandable, the upshot is that children are dying unnecessarily in Sudan.

Malnutrition is widespread around the world — about one-fifth of all children globally are physically stunted from inadequate food — but this only very rarely rises to the level of famine. In the 21st century, this is only the third official famine, after one in Somalia in 2011 and one in South Sudan in 2017.

The famine review committee, a group of independent nutrition experts, declared on Thursday that famine had officially arrived at the Zamzam camp, home to about 500,000 displaced people near the city of El Fasher in Darfur.

The cause of the famine is a civil war underway in Sudan between the army and a militia called the Rapid Support Forces, and the obstacles they have placed to impede humanitarian aid workers. Convoys of trucks have been blocked from delivering aid by the armed factions.

The international failure is particularly stark because a generation ago, Darfur was the site of the 21st century’s first genocide, as the Sudanese government backed Arab militias to slaughter members of three non-Arab Black African ethnic groups. Now the Rapid Support Forces, with backing from countries like the United Arab Emirates, are starting over and committing similar atrocities of murder and rape against the same ethnic groups.

S ome experts believe that a “repeat genocide” is underway. And whatever term one applies to the conflict in Sudan, this famine is one consequence.

“Families who fled horrific violence have been going hungry for months,” said Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the American ambassador to the United Nations, who for many months has been calling attention to the crisis. “Children have been eating dirt and leaves, and every day, babies have been starving to death.”

Nonetheless, she said, the two Sudanese armed factions “have chosen to let the Sudanese people starve, systematically blocking humanitarian corridors.” She called on them to immediately allow access and to attend peace talks scheduled for this month in Switzerland.

Genocide and famine deserve a place on top of the international agenda, and if the armed factions are not listening, we should use every diplomatic and military tool to make them back off and allow humanitarian access.

Brent Staples

The Trolls Don’t Understand Harris’s Life Story

Some participants in the roiling discussion about Vice President Kamala Harris’s racial identity are trolls like Donald Trump, who falsely claim that Harris — daughter of an Indian mother and a Black Jamaican father — hasn’t always identified as African American .

The point of this deception is to distort the life story that Harris unfortunately neglects in speeches but tells well in her 2019 memoir, “The Truths We Hold.” The book explains a great many things, including how she gravitated toward Blackness while embracing a richly complex family heritage that includes Indian, American and Caribbean dimensions.

While Harris was growing up in the East Bay area of California, her mother’s side of the family reinforced pride in her South Asian roots while giving Kamala and her sister, Maya, a strong awareness and appreciation of Indian culture. Harris also recalls her family being involved in civil rights demonstrations and gatherings of African American intellectuals.

Her mother — who had an award-winning voice — sang along to the gospel music of Aretha Franklin and the Edwin Hawkins Singers. Harris writes: “My mother understood very well that she was raising two Black daughters. She knew that her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as Black girls, and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident, proud Black women.”

Under most circumstances, a student like Harris, whose father was an economics professor at Stanford University , might have attended school there. Instead, she chose Howard University, commonly known as the Mecca of Black education, which opened its doors not long after the Civil War.

Ta-Nehisi Coates describes the campus in almost mystical terms in the book “Between The World and Me”: “The Mecca is a machine, crafted to capture and concentrate the dark energy of all African peoples and inject it directly into the student body.” While a student, Harris further steeped herself in African American culture, joining the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

Harris’s embrace of Blackness reflected her mother’s encouragement and her own conscious choices. That story will be more widely understood as she takes time to explain it.

Adam Sternbergh

Opinion Culture Editor

Would Kamala Harris Be the First Gen X President?

There’s never been a president who’s a member of Generation X. Whether that would change should Kamala Harris win in November has been a subject of online debate. Is Harris, born in 1964, Gen X? The argument only intensified after she used the phrase “say it to my face,” a distinctly Gen X sentiment.

For some, it’s an open-and-shut case: She’s not. The U.S. Census Bureau defines baby boomers as those born between 1946 and 1964. Harris was born in 1964. Case closed.

However, generational borders are open to interpretation and, over time, a certain intuitive fluidity. Consider this: Generation X the cohort got its name from “Generation X,” the 1991 novel by Douglas Coupland. (Yes, the novel was named for an existing punk band, but that band had disbanded by the early 1980s.) “Generation X” follows a trio of sardonic, disillusioned 20-somethings — some might call them slackers, another term coined around the same time — and it essentially gave culture-watchers a framework and a vocabulary (e.g., “ McJob ”) to understand a generation that was ascendant in the shadow of the boomers.

Coupland, born in 1961, was 29 when the novel was published. At the time, the novel’s own promotional copy contended it was a “salute to the generation born in the late 1950s and 1960s.” Currently, the book’s publisher offers a slightly revised timeline , calling Gen X “the generation born from 1960 to 1978,” expanding the original parameters but still including Coupland and, of course, Harris.

A more compelling argument for Harris’s Gen X bona fides might be that the boomers are named for a post-World War II boom in, well, babies. A baby born in the mid-1960s hardly seems part of a postwar uptick in ardor or optimism. Not to mention that this baby would have been a child during the most distinctive boomer cultural milestones, such as the Summer of Love (1967) and Woodstock (1969). Now consider that Harris was a 20-something in 1991, the year Nirvana released the Gen X anthem “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

Some might argue that Harris is part of Generation Jones — a cohort for the late boomers who don’t logically fit with those born in the 1940s. The problem with this argument is that Generation Jones only comes up in generational-hair-splitting arguments like this one. And if you accept the originalist interpretation, bound by Coupland’s parameters, this argument resolves in a different way. We’ve already had one Gen X president: Barack Obama, born in 1961, the same year as Coupland.

Which leads to the most important point: Generational signifiers are largely an arbitrary parlor game, so they shouldn’t be bound by hard and fast Census Bureau rules. Insofar as Harris’s political narrative might include having once been overlooked and underappreciated, she certainly feels, at least to members of Gen X, like she’s one of us.

Serge Schmemann

The Joyful Release of Evan Gershkovich Came at a High Price

That more than a dozen people unjustly incarcerated in Russia have been released is obviously great news. As a journalist who spent a decade reporting from Moscow, I am particularly elated to know that Evan Gershkovich, a fine reporter for The Wall Street Journal, does not have to spend another day in Russian detention.

The treason charge against him was a pathetic concoction. But the K.G.B. in Soviet days and Vladimir Putin’s mob today are congenitally incapable of distinguishing between reporting, spying and manipulating the public, since they regard all information as the monopoly of the state. Any independent information, especially critical information, is considered an attack on their authoritarian rule.

Seizing Gershkovich secured the Kremlin a hostage. But seizing a reporter for a major American publication also sent a signal to those foreign reporters who remain in Russia that real journalism under this regime is really dangerous, and not just for homegrown media, which has been thoroughly muzzled or driven into exile.

Putin came to power after the domestic and foreign press had thrown off the muzzles of the Soviet era, and he proceeded, especially since the invasion of Ukraine, to deliberately crush it. Many foreign journalists now try to report from outside Russia; Gershkovich tried valiantly to report from within and paid a heavy price.

So welcome home, Evan! Though we will regret the loss of your reporting from Russia. And welcome home, Alsu Kurmasheva, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Paul Whelan and all the others liberated from Russian detention. And profound thanks to the Biden administration, which doggedly pursued the exchange over months and years.

Yet even as we celebrate the liberation of these innocent people, it is hard to avoid the troubling fact that Putin has successfully used their detentions to get real criminals out of the prisons where they belong, most notably Vadim Krasikov, a Russian assassin serving a life sentence in Germany. Biden was right to do everything he could to bring back wrongfully imprisoned Americans, but the readiness of authoritarian states like Russia to seize innocent foreigners as hostages is galling. It’s why they are known as “abductor states” in Washington parlance.

With time, the details of how the complex exchange was arranged may come to light. One question that may never be answered is whether Putin calculated the pros and cons of concluding the exchange while Biden was still in office or waiting to see whether Donald Trump would be back to garner the garlands. Perhaps he concluded that with Trump’s changing political fortunes, such a complex deal was best done now.

Another question is why another American being held in Russia — Marc Fogel, a history teacher in a school for foreigners in Moscow — was not included in the exchange. Fogel was arrested in 2021 and sentenced to 14 years in a penal colony for carrying less than an ounce of marijuana, which he said he needed for medical purposes, but the State Department has never classified him as “wrongfully detained.” Why not?

Zeynep Tufekci

To Challenge Trump Directly, Give Him a Platform

When the National Association of Black Journalists announced that Donald Trump had agreed to a question-and-answer session at its annual conference, several members of the group criticized the event organizers for “platforming” the former president. Karen Attiah, a columnist at The Washington Post, even resigned her position as co-chair of the convention, saying she had not been involved in the decision “ to platform Trump in such a format.”

But inviting him was the right decision, and that was clear even before the tough-but-fair questions were asked during a highly informative session.

The idea of deplatforming, or refusing to extend a high-profile public forum to people with potentially harmful views , is not without merit. But it should not be seen as some universal response to all political figures people may find distasteful or all unpopular ideas.

It makes sense to deprive a platform to marginal or extremist figures who thrive on provocations to try to attract attention and stay relevant . Alex Jones, for example, who falsely portrayed the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting as a government-crafted hoax, generally should not be handed opportunities to spread his malicious brand , even in combative settings.

And there was a time the concept may have been appropriate for Trump: in 2016, when he was able to suck up national attention on traditional and social media while being incorrectly treated as an entertainer and given a lot of time to express his views while not being properly challenged for them. Attention is a key resource in the 21st century, and Trump excels at dominating the national conversation, with skills honed from decades of grabbing publicity to enrich himself.

But as soon as Trump became president and, later, the Republican nominee for president again, the media lost the power to deplatform him. Like it or not, he could be president again, in part because of greater support among African American voters than other recent Republican candidates, and the idea that he could be deplatformed out of his advantageous position rather than challenged and exposed makes no sense. Trump is the one with the power here, and ignoring him just adds to it.

The N.A.B.J. journalists, who have invited many past presidents and candidates to their conventions, also invited Vice President Kamala Harris. I hope Harris accepts, too, and I expect moderators to be tough but fair with her, as well.

Most voters have made up their minds, but the few who will likely determine the fate of the country — so-called low-information swing voters — need to be pressed to make informed comparisons between the candidates. Neither avoiding Trump nor treating Harris with kid gloves would help provide that.

Jamelle Bouie

Trump Ventures Into the Real World, and Can’t Handle It

Trump can’t handle the real world, donald trump faced adversarial questioning, and he didn’t take it well..

Jessica Grose

Trump’s Plan for K-12 Schools Is Absolutely Bonkers

There’s been a lot of reporting this week about how Donald Trump is trying to distance himself from Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s proposal for a conservative takeover of the U.S. government. On K-12 education, Project 2025 suggests that “ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated” — a call echoed by the Republican Party’s 2024 platform . But while Trump’s own plans for education , which he published on his website and pushed out in a newsletter, don’t explicitly propose eliminating the Department of Education (though he has said before he would abolish it ), they might actually be more bananas and less pragmatic than Project 2025’s goals.

There’s nothing in Trump’s plans about test scores, STEM, school safety, work-force readiness or really anything that concerns most normal parents. It’s pure culture-war red meat about cutting “federal funding for any school or program pushing critical race theory, gender ideology or other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content onto our children” and ranting about “Marxists” and “pink-haired Communists teaching our kids.” Both the G.O.P. platform and Project 2025 contain panic about critical race theory, though they include fewer colorful references to pinkos.

But it’s also filled with bizarre promises that the executive branch doesn’t have the authority to fulfill, including a commitment to “implement the direct election of school principals by the parents.” This is a vow Trump has made before. Last year, Libby Stanford at Education Week asked : “Can he do that?”

The answer: “As president,” she wrote, “Trump would have little recourse to incentivize local communities to elect school principals and no ability to require it,” because neither the president nor Congress has the power to make local districts elect principals. The idea would be costly, unpopular and impractical to pull off. There is also no grass-roots support for it.

Trump also promises that he “will create a new credentialing body that will be the gold standard, anywhere in the world, to certify teachers who embrace patriotic values, support our way of life and understand that their job is not to indoctrinate children but very simply to educate them.” The teacher pipeline is already so busted — because of low pay, a lack of respect from their communities and the aforementioned culture war vitriol — that we don’t have enough teachers to go around. It’s absurd to think that a new credentialing system with a politically motivated “patriotic” litmus test would solve any problem.

Trump claims to want to put parents “back in charge and give them the final say.” If he really meant that, he would pay more attention to what parents say they want. In the words of an opinion essay from The 74 , an education website, “Forget Hot-Button Ed Issues — Voters Want Safe Schools and Kids Who Can Read.” It’s really that simple.

This Is What Happens When Black Women Challenge Trump

One reason Donald Trump may be afraid to debate Kamala Harris is that apparently all it takes to knock him off his game is a few tough questions from a Black woman.

This is exactly what happened in Trump’s 35-minute interview with three women journalists at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago on Wednesday. Clearly rattled by the audacity of Black women tossing him sharp questions, Trump let his facade crumble and slipped into the racist, misogynistic tropes of his native tongue.

“I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?” Trump said of Vice President Harris, who is Black and Indian American. “I respect either one, but she obviously doesn’t. Because she was Indian all the way and then all of a sudden she made a turn and she went, she became a Black person. I think somebody should look into that.” This is false. Harris has always embraced her Blackness and even attended Howard University, a historically Black school.

The journalists at the event did the country a service. Much of that work was done by Rachel Scott of ABC News. Her first question was tough, factual and fair — a model of accountability journalism — and deserves to be repeated:

A lot of people did not think it was appropriate for you to be here today. You have pushed false claims about some of your rivals, from Nikki Haley to former President Barack Obama, saying that they were not born in the United States; that’s not true. You have told four congresswomen of color who are American citizens to go back to where they came from. You have used words like “animal” and “rabid” to describe Black district attorneys. You’ve attacked Black journalists, calling them a loser, saying the questions that they ask are stupid and racist. You’ve had dinner with a white supremacist at your Mar-a-Lago resort. So my question, sir, now that you are asking Black supporters to vote for you: Why should Black voters trust you after you have used language like that?

Rather than answer the question, Trump launched a personal attack on Scott, calling her “rude” for doing her job. “First of all, I don’t think I’ve ever been asked a question in such a horrible manner,” he spat at Scott. “The first question. You don’t even say hello, ‘hello, how are you?’ Are you with ABC? Because I think they’re a fake news network, a terrible network.”

He then said he loves “the Black population” of this country — a curious term that sounds like it was drilled into him by a political consultant to replace his usual, “the Blacks.”He also declared himself to be the “best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln,” to which Scott quickly replied, “Better than President Johnson, who signed the Voting Rights Act?”

To win the White House in a razor-thin race, Trump lately has strained to do an impression of someone who likes Black people and respects women. The persistent problem with this strategy is that it doesn’t hold up to reality. When he is challenged, the depth of his animus tends to spill out in public and get in the way.

Pamela Paul

Melania Trump Speaks, Indirectly, and It Speaks Volumes

One of the world’s great mysteries is what really goes on inside Donald and Melania Trump’s marriage. For a very public couple, one whose infidelities have played out garishly in court, their relationship remains remarkably opaque, largely because of Melania’s determined silence and Donald’s pervasive mendacity. Thus, the burning questions: What did she think about the jury determination in 2023 that he had committed sexual assault against E. Jean Carroll? His romp with Stormy Daniels, a porn star, that led to his felony conviction for business fraud? His comments about women bleeding or, say, grabbing women by the “vagina”? Why does she stay?

Melania has remained eerily silent on such matters, which has led only to endless speculation about her beliefs. Every dismissive flick of her wrist has been analyzed. Each tiny permutation of her resting mew face. Her occasionally startling fashion choices. The anti-Trump public’s desire for a whiff of rebellion has been so palpable, it’s tempting to believe that she was secretly on board with his felony convictions , as “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” suggested .

Of course, what happens inside any marriage is a mystery. Political marriages , whether it’s Hillary and Bill , JD and Usha , JFK and Jackie , Barack and Michelle are a constant fascination because we necessarily remain outside of them.

But Donald Trump just offered some unintentionally sad insight into how Melania really feels. In an interview last night on Fox News, in which Trump talked at length about the assassination attempt (yes, he told the story again ), Laura Ingraham asked, “What was Melania’s reaction, if you don’t mind my asking. I know this is very personal, when she learned about what happened on that field in Butler?”

“I asked her that,” Trump told Ingraham. “I said, ‘So what was your feeling?’” He went on to say that Melania can’t really talk about it. But then came a very uncharacteristic moment for Trump. He leaned far forward, exhaled abruptly and said in a rush of words, interspersed with nervous laughter:

“Which is OK because that means she likes me. Or she loves me. I mean, let’s say she could talk about it freely that wouldn’t be … I’m not so sure which is better. But, uh, she either likes or loves me and that’s nice.”

This may have been the most revelatory statement Donald Trump has made about himself or about Melania. He says she either likes him or she loves him. He’s not sure, but surprisingly and jarringly, he seemed to care. Who knew?

Arrests of Drug Kingpins Won’t Solve the Addiction Crisis

It was a plot twist made for Netflix. Ismael Zambada García, a founder of the notorious Sinaloa drug cartel , was tricked ( or forced — the details are still muddy) onto a plane in Mexico and brought to the United States to face drug conspiracy charges — and hopefully justice. He had evaded capture for decades and had a $15 million U.S. bounty on his head.

Zambada García was brought in not by U.S. or Mexican authorities but by his own godson and fellow drug trafficker, Joaquín Guzmán López (son of the infamous El Chapo ), who surrendered himself to authorities upon landing.

In the short term, the arrests could produce more violence and instability in Mexican communities that have already seen far too much of both, as rivals of every sort jockey to fill the void left by the newly captured.

They could also shake up already strained relations between the United States and Mexico, especially if Zambada García decides to offer up whatever dirty laundry he has on leaders there in exchange for some kind of leniency here.

What the arrests will not do, if history is any lesson, is stem the flow of illicit drugs out of Mexico or into the United States.

The United States invested billions of dollars in a sustained effort to stop the flow of cocaine out of Colombia in the 1980s and 1990s. Among other things, that effort helped bring about the death of Pablo Escobar in 1993 and led eventually to the waning of the notorious Colombia cartel, which was responsible for a vast majority of the global cocaine trade. Today, cocaine production is soaring, not only in Mexico (where experts say U.S. efforts in Colombia led directly to the rise of the Sinaloa kingpins) but in Colombia , too, in some of the same regions that the United States targeted so diligently for so long.

Pursuing and punishing drug traffickers is both necessary and worthwhile. These are bad people who have done terrible things. They have destroyed countless lives, both through the trafficking of fentanyl (now a leading cause of overdose deaths among American adults) and through the extreme violence that they have all made such common use of.

But arrests of drug kingpins are not the key to solving the nation’s addiction and overdose crisis. For that, we need to look within our own borders — at things like treatment , prevention and harm reduction .

Israel Can Still Avoid Regional War and Pursue a Cease-Fire

One of the great risks for the world in the latter half of this year is a wider war in the Middle East involving Iran, Lebanon and Israel. That possibility has just become more likely.

None of the parties want such a war. But each feels obliged to respond to strikes by the other in a way that ratchets up conflict and risks miscalculation and a cycle of escalation.

Today’s crisis results from what appear to be the assassinations just hours apart of Fuad Shukr, a senior member of the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, and Ismail Haniyeh, a top Hamas leader who was visiting Iran. Israel claimed responsibility for killing Shukr, although his death was not confirmed, and Israeli agents were widely presumed to be responsible for the killing of Haniyeh.

For all the danger in the coming days and weeks, there is an offramp. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel could use the double assassinations to proclaim victory and then agree to a cease-fire in Gaza. Such a deal, assuming it is still achievable, would end the slaughter in Gaza, bring some hostages home and offer a path to de-escalate the conflict in Israel’s north with Hezbollah, allowing Israelis to return to their homes near the Lebanon border.

“The best way to bring the temperature down everywhere is through the cease-fire in Gaza,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, and he’s exactly right.

But first, prepare for a Lebanese and an Iranian response to the assassinations.

Some Israelis are celebrating the killing of Haniyeh, and it’s certainly preferable to target leaders of Hamas rather than to level entire civilian neighborhoods in Gaza. But I doubt that killing Haniyeh does anything for Israel’s security. He had a reputation for being a bit more open to deals than other Hamas leaders, and he may be replaced by someone like Khaled Mashal, who approved of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack. Israel had already tried to assassinate Mashal back in 1997.

Israel feels that it has to re-establish deterrence after the Oct. 7 attacks, and Iran likewise feels it must re-establish deterrence when it suffers an assassination on its soil. The upshot is that some counter-strike on Israel by Iran or its proxies is likely soon. If we’re lucky, it won’t cause many casualties and perhaps negotiations on a cease-fire can resume; if a school or other civilian site happens to be hit, then we may see more escalation and find ourselves not on a path to a cease-fire but to a wider war.

Such a war would be devastating, far more so than the Oct. 7 attack. Hezbollah is well armed and barrages of its rockets could cause countless casualties in Israel, while Israel could in turn devastate Lebanon.

Iran, along with the Houthis in Yemen, while farther away, could add to the strikes on Israel. There could well be disruptions to oil production and to the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, raising global oil prices significantly. That would probably hurt Kamala Harris’s electoral prospects while helping President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

So let’s hope Netanyahu seizes the opportunity to declare victory and at long last fully embraces a cease-fire. But, sadly, I wouldn’t bet on it. Brace yourself.

Michelle Goldberg

Opinion Columnist, reporting from Atlanta

In Atlanta, Harris Has Dance-Party Energy

The first person I met in the long line for Kamala Harris’s rally in Atlanta on Tuesday was Tomorrow Wright, a pre-K teacher who hadn’t been planning to vote when Joe Biden was still the Democratic candidate.

“Biden and Trump, I wasn’t with neither one of them,” she said, adding that Biden had disappointed her by not doing more to cancel student loan debt. But Harris had electrified her, and she’d queued at noon for a rally — her first ever — that wouldn’t start until evening, shading herself from the brutal southern sun under a pink umbrella.

Most of the other people I met at the Georgia State Convocation Center, where around 10,000 people packed the stadium for Harris, said they’d intended to vote for Biden. But with the energy on the ground moribund, many told me they couldn’t rouse themselves to do much more for him, like go to events or volunteer.

“I’ve campaigned since ’08, and I couldn’t go campaign,” said Tammy Clabby, a longtime Democratic activist who worked for Hillary Clinton in 2016. “How could I tell a young person to vote for Joe Biden when he couldn’t finish a sentence in that debate?” Harris’s ascension, however, changed everything. Clabby compared the vibe to Barack Obama’s first electrifying run.

It was an analogy I heard over and over at the ebullient rally, which often felt like a dance party, and not just when the Grammy-winning rapper Megan Thee Stallion was performing. All the Democrats’ fervent yearning for a fighter to take on Trump, their desperate hope for hope, has converged on a woman who until just weeks ago was regularly overlooked and underestimated.

Some conservatives, seeming discombobulated by their sudden change in political fortunes, appear to think that the explosion of Democratic enthusiasm for Kamala Harris is a media psy-op.

“Is it possible to completely manufacture a cultural phenomenon by taking a vapid, leftist San Francisco Democrat and turning her into something that she’s not through nonstop gaslighting?” Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida wrote on social media.

They should keep telling themselves that.

Are Israel and Hezbollah Headed for a Dangerous Escalation?

A rocket lands on a playing field on the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, killing 12 children and teenagers. Israel vows a “severe” response, and the United States and other Western leaders urge restraint. The response comes on Tuesday: a strike on a dense residential neighborhood in southern Beirut, which Israel says was targeted against the Hezbollah commander responsible for the rocket attack. The suspense is tangible: Is this it?

Is this the next war that has been a threat to Israel and its neighbors through all the nine months of the conflict with Hamas? A war that would be far deadlier than the one in Gaza, with the Israeli Defense Force pitted against the most heavily armed militia in the Middle East, one wielding a vast arsenal of attack drones, rockets and missiles far greater and more sophisticated than anything Hamas has?

This may not be the moment. Hezbollah, the political party and militia that controls southern Lebanon, has denied that Saturday’s attack was its doing, though that may be intended more to deny responsibility for killing members of the Druse community, a small offshoot of Shia Islam who have lived on the Golan Heights since before Israel seized the area 57 years ago, and who have tried to stay clear of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Neither Israel nor the United States doubt that Hezbollah was responsible, especially given that tit-for-tat rocket attacks have been constant since the Gaza war erupted last Oct. 7. Saturday’s missile was most likely intended for a nearby Israeli base, not the Druse youngsters. Still, a strike on a non-Jewish community in Israel also put pressure on Israel to show that it cares about the security of all its citizens. In the Middle East, nothing is ever simple or binary.

The intended target on Tuesday, Fuad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah official, was killed in the attack , according to the Israeli military, and there were reports that 35 people were wounded.

It’s not clear whether Israel’s strike on Beirut, if the response ends there for now, will provoke Hezbollah to escalate the duel. But even if none of the actors involved want an all-out war at this juncture, the conditions for one to erupt will remain. Hezbollah has vowed to continue popping rockets into northern Israel so long as the fighting continues in Gaza, leading to retaliatory Israeli strikes and to the evacuation of thousands of residents from both sides of the border — 60,000 Israelis and a far greater number of Lebanese.

According to Amos Harel, a defense analyst for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, writing recently in Foreign Affairs (before the latest exchange), there is a strong longing in Israel to deal with Hezbollah “once and for all.” And in the north, Harel wrote, Israel is far better prepared for a major clash than it was in the south. In the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7, when confusion reigned along the Gaza border, three Israeli divisions were rapidly deployed to preclude Hezbollah from opening a second front.

For President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, whose reaction to a dangerous crisis will be closely scrutinized now that she is the probable Democratic candidate for president, preventing a dangerous new war, one that would reverberate across the Middle East, is a critical challenge.

It’s Not Too Late for Change in Venezuela

The Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro wants the world to believe he won Sunday’s presidential election . But nobody should believe that until he releases precinct-level vote tallies and submits to an independent audit. That authorities have failed so far to do that “tells you everything you need to know about the election,” Geoff Ramsey, a specialist on Latin America at the Atlantic Council, told me.

Maduro has done everything in his power to tilt the election in his favor, from barring rivals to arresting their campaign staff members. But even that doesn’t seem to have been enough. Now he appears to be faking the numbers and declaring victory. It’s already being called the “ mother of all stolen elections .”

Luckily, the Venezuelan opposition anticipated that Maduro would try to rig the vote, and dispatched volunteers to collect precinct-level tally sheets from voting centers across the country. The opposition says it has collected some 70 percent of such tally sheets , enough data to prove that voters overwhelmingly rejected Maduro.

And why wouldn’t they vote him out? He has presided over the worst economic collapse of any country not at war . Since 2014, the country’s economy shrank by roughly three-quarters , and about 20 percent of citizens have left, thanks to Maduro’s corruption, mismanagement of the oil industry, and U.S. sanctions brought on by his policies. Who would vote for six more years of that?

Every country in the region has suffered from Venezuela’s collapse and would benefit from its recovery. Leaders around the world — and those who prop up the Maduro regime — should ask themselves how much more Venezuela can take and insist that Maduro come clean with the precinct-level results.

“There is a lot of consensus even among governments that have been traditionally friendly to Maduro —Mexico, Brazil, Colombia — that there has to be transparency around the results,” Francisco Rodríguez, a Venezuelan economist at the University of Denver, told me.

This is far from the first time that Maduro has been accused of rigging the vote. But the ability of the opposition to collect such compelling proof of it is a testament of the incredible bravery and surprising unity of the opposition under the leadership of Venezuela’s “Iron Lady,” María Corina Machado , an opposition front-runner who was barred from running.

Undaunted, Machado rallied behind Edmundo González Urrutia, a little-known former diplomat who was allowed on the ballot. Exit polls and opinion surveys suggest that he won in a landslide. Anger at Maduro’s attempts to claim victory has led to mass protests and even the toppling of a statue of Hugo Chávez . The Venezuelan people deserve better, and they know it.

Frank Bruni

Contributing Opinion Writer

Trump vs. ‘America’s Border Czar’

“Border czar.”

If Donald Trump and his campaign staff could tattoo that epithet onto Kamala Harris’s forehead or dress her in a sandwich board bearing only that phrase, they would. So it’s not surprising to encounter it at the start of the first major ad that the Trump campaign has released since Harris became the de facto Democratic nominee.

“This is America’s border czar,” says an unseen narrator, in an ominous voice, as the words “Border Czar Kamala Harris” appear onscreen, just to hammer home the designation. They’re superimposed over video of Harris, in a kaleidoscopic blouse, dancing at an unspecified celebration. Message: She’s not just out to lunch. She’s out having a blast while the country implodes.

On a scale of 1 to someone screaming that Harris is an agent of the apocalypse, the ad rates about a 9. It’s as subtle as Trump. And like him, it doesn’t play fair — in tying illegal border crossings to terrorism and in assigning her ultimate responsibility for those crossings. She was charged not with fortifying the border but with the vaguer task of working with Central American countries to deter migration by identifying and alleviating its causes.

But the ad is smart, and it’s a clear signal of what will be a main theme, possibly the main theme, in Republicans’ attacks against Harris in particular and Democrats in general. Americans are much more concerned about illegal immigration than they were in the past, and polls show that they trust Trump more than they do Democrats to hold back the tide.

That’s a big reason that Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona is on Harris’s short list of potential running mates: He represents a border state and has spoken forcefully for greater border security. Harris must persuade voters that she’s concerned about and focused on that issue.

But Trump must take care, too. The ad — which is scheduled to appear in the six top battleground states — underscores that. The colors in Harris’s blouse, the lightheartedness of her dance moves, a carefully selected snippet of remarks she made to Lester Holt of NBC News: Those details and others combine to suggest that Harris is frivolous, different, even other, especially because there’s an image of Trump in the ad, too, and he’s striding purposefully in a suit and red tie outside what appears to be the White House.

Serious man. Silly (and dangerous) woman. That’s the contrast being drawn, and it could turn off many voters.

David Firestone

Deputy Editor, the Editorial Board

Biden Is Right: End Lifetime Tenure on the Supreme Court

House Speaker Mike Johnson was probably right to describe President Biden’s Supreme Court reform proposals as “dead on arrival” in his chamber, but that’s just because Republicans don’t want anything to interfere with their 6-to-3 supermajority on the court. It wasn’t that long ago that many Republicans fully supported the most compelling of Biden’s ideas: term limits for justices.

In 2012, before he was a Republican senator from Missouri, Josh Hawley wrote an article saying that if justices knew they would not serve on the court for life, it would “foster a more circumspect attitude toward the court’s role.” The independence created by life terms, he wrote, breeds “an overconfidence in the justices’ capacity to get constitutional questions right.” (And he was in a position to know, as a former clerk for Chief Justice John Roberts.) Term limits were also supported by Senator Marco Rubio , and Senator Ted Cruz proposed putting justices up for election every eight years.

Now it’s Democrats who want to end lifetime appointments, having seen the six justices in the supermajority trample individual rights and do nothing about shameful ethical abuses within their ranks. But an 18-year maximum tenure for justices, as Biden and many others have proposed, shouldn’t be ping-ponged around by whatever faction is dissatisfied with the current court. It’s a good idea born of a mistake by the Constitution’s drafters, who weren’t able to foresee the problems caused by lifetime appointments.

For one thing, life spans were shorter then. Through the 1960s, the average term on the court was around 15 years; after 1970, it became about 26 years. The founders did not fully anticipate how a justice might become insulated from reality after serving on the court for many decades. They didn’t anticipate the potential for arrogance and corruption, as long-serving justices — like Clarence Thomas — would take lavish gifts from special interests without the possibility of penalty.

And they didn’t anticipate that a president like Donald Trump would outsource his appointment power to fierce ideological warrior groups like the Federalist Society, who scour law schools for the most conservative students, get them clerkships and then promote them at a young age for judicial openings, in hopes of keeping them on the bench for more than a quarter-century.

The United States remains the only major constitutional democracy without either term limits or a mandatory retirement age for judges on the highest court. Almost every American state, in fact, has some kind of term limit for high-court justices. Only Rhode Island has neither a term limit nor an age restriction.

Johnson says the system has worked fine for centuries, but it clearly has not. The time for change is long overdue. Biden deserves credit as the first president to join the call for an overhaul.

The Tradwife Life Is Nothing New

Hannah Neeleman , whose nom de internet is Ballerina Farm, was described as “the queen of the tradwives,” by Megan Agnew of The Times of London this month. Neeleman previously claimed to be “unfamiliar with the term,” which describes social media influencers who often promote traditional gender roles and present idealized domestic scenes.

I believe tradwives when they say they are happy living this way. But getting behind the images of Ballerina Farm confirmed what I already suspected: Being a tradwife is not appealing or aspirational for many modern women, despite how beautiful it looks in photographs.

Neeleman is an ex-Juilliard ballerina who is married to an heir to the JetBlue fortune, and the two live on a farm in Utah with their “8 littles” as she puts it in her Instagram bio . Ballerina Farm’s brand of tradwifery might best be described as internet pastoral: home-schooling children, making croissants, drinking turmeric lattes made from raw milk from the farm. The profile asks: Does Neeleman’s lifestyle represent “an empowering new model of womanhood — or a hammer blow for feminism?”

I would argue that all she represents is an old model of wealthy white womanhood, disseminated by new technology. This model valorizes the performance of motherhood if you act joyful all the time, are buoyed by an ocean of family money and can compete in a beauty pageant two weeks postpartum, as Neeleman did. But it has no material support for the human beings who have more complex feelings than a perfect facade allows.

Pitting tradwives against feminists is a trap . That makes it seem that feminists don’t care about families or hate stay-at-home parents or big families, which is false. Many feminists are stay-at-home parents, but tradwives are a separate category who tend to believe in cultural values like submitting to one’s husband.

Neeleman certainly defers to her husband, Daniel, about basically every major life decision she has made since they met in their early 20s. As Agnew notes: “Daniel wanted to live in the great Western wilds, so they did; he wanted to farm, so they do; he likes date nights once a week, so they go (they have a babysitter on those evenings); he didn’t want nannies in the house, so there aren’t any.”

Hannah Neeleman’s version of womanhood represents an age-old glorification of maternal suffering. Her family has the money to employ nannies and many people to do other household tasks, but she must go without additional child care because her husband doesn’t want her to have it. She sometimes falls so ill from exhaustion that she can’t get out of bed for a week.

While her social media feed makes her suffering appear glamorous, if you take off the pageant sequins, all that’s left is a vulnerable person, worn into the ground.

Thomas L. Friedman

Democrats Could Regret Calling Trump and His Supporters ‘Weird’

For a few days this last week I started to believe that Kamala Harris and the Democrats could come from behind and beat Donald Trump. But then I started to hear Democrats patting themselves on the back for coming up with a great new label for Trump Republicans. They are “weird.”

I cannot think of a sillier, more playground, more foolish and more counterproductive political taunt for Democrats to seize on than calling Trump and his supporters “weird.”

But weird seems to be the word of the week. As this newspaper reported, in a potential audition to be Harris’s running mate , Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota said over the weekend of Trump and his vice-presidential pick, Senator JD Vance of Ohio: “The fascists depend on us going back, but we’re not afraid of weird people. We’re a little bit creeped out, but we’re not afraid.” Just to make sure he got the point across, Walz added: “The nation found out what we’ve all known in Minnesota: These guys are just weird.”

As The Times reported, Harris, speaking at a weekend campaign event at a theater in the Berkshires, “leaned into a new Democratic attack on the former president and his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, saying that some of the swipes the men had taken against her were ‘just plain weird.’” The Times added: “Pete Buttigieg, the secretary of transportation, said Mr. Trump was getting ‘older and stranger’ while Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, called Mr. Vance ‘weird’ and ‘erratic.’”

It is now a truism that if Democrats have any hope of carrying key swing states and overcoming Trump’s advantages in the Electoral College, they have to break through to white, working-class, non-college-educated men and women, who, if they have one thing in common, feel denigrated and humiliated by Democratic, liberal, college-educated elites. They hate the people who hate Trump more than they care about any Trump policies. Therefore, the dumbest message Democrats could seize on right now is to further humiliate them as “weird.”

“It is not only a flight from substance,” noted Prof. Michael J. Sandel of Harvard, the author of “The Tyranny of Merit: Can We Find the Common Good?” “It allows Trump to tell his supporters that establishment elites look down on them, marginalize them and view them as ‘outsiders’ — people who are ‘weird.’ It plays right into Trump’s appeal to his followers that he is taking the slings and arrows of elites for them. It is a distraction from the big argument that Democrats should be running on: How we can renew the dignity of work and the dignity of working men and women.”

I don’t know what is sufficient for Harris to win, but I sure know what is necessary: a message that is dignity affirming for working-class Americans, not dignity destroying. If this campaign is descending into name-calling, no one beats Trump in that arena.

Jonathan Alter

Harris Should Pick Walz, and Then Put Shapiro and Kelly to Work

While Kamala Harris could easily make a surprise pick, I’m assuming the accuracy of reports that the short list consists of Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota.

My suggestion is that for the next 100 days, she should effectively choose all three.

At first glance, Kelly or Shapiro might seem to help more by joining the ticket. While Harris is now comfortably ahead in Minnesota, she’s behind or dead even in Arizona and Pennsylvania polls.

But this assessment doesn’t take into account what the V.P. nominee will actually do in the 14 weeks before the election: Lambaste Donald Trump, spearhead fund-raisers in big cities, back Democratic Senate candidates in close races and campaign in battleground states when Harris is elsewhere.

That’s not the best use of Kelly’s and Shapiro’s time. Kelly’s priority should be to help nail down Arizona, where he has great credibility on the border issue that threatens Harris. Likewise, Shapiro should stay put in Pennsylvania. By helping Harris reposition herself on fracking, Shapiro, who is surprisingly popular in rural Pennsylvania, can cut Trump’s margins there and help Democrats carry the state. And by not putting Shapiro on the ticket, Harris avoids splits in the party over the war in Gaza.

If Harris visits both Arizona and Pennsylvania once a week for two or three events, as she should, that’s a whopping 28 to 42 joint appearances in each state with these popular figures.

Walz, meanwhile, would spread his nimble Midwestern charm as the actual V.P. nominee. He has a résumé that looks as if it was designed in a lab: raised in a Nebraska town of 400; geography teacher and coach of football state champions; 24 years as a noncommissioned officer of the Army National Guard; moderate Democratic House member from a deeply red Minnesota district; highly effective governor with crowd-pleasing wins on cannabis, paid family leave and mandatory gun background checks, among others. He connects culturally in rural America, which would provide critical balance on a ticket headed by a member of the coastal cultural elite.

Walz last week launched the creative “they’re weird” talking point about the Trump/Vance ticket, now taken up by the whole Democratic Party, and there’s more where that came from. Vice-presidential nominees are meant to be attack dogs, a role that political consultants in Arizona and Pennsylvania say neither Kelly nor Shapiro is especially well equipped to play. Walz is already embracing that task with relish, a happy warrior who stays light and upbeat on TV.

Selecting Kelly, Shapiro or Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina would reassure moderate voters — a critical task for Harris as she faces a fierce assault for being too liberal. But there are other options for doing so. One good way to start: Harris should announce that Mitt Romney will be her secretary of defense or homeland security.

Patrick Healy

Deputy Opinion Editor

The Important Unanswered Question About Kamala Harris

For all the Democratic defections from President Biden and euphoria over Vice President Kamala Harris, there’s an important unanswered question about whether Harris can do something that Biden got very, very right in 2020: Be appealing to independent, undecided and swing voters with a centrist message emphasizing normalcy and uniting the country.

I think that message won Biden victory in the Electoral College. And a lot of Democrats are telling me two things right now: Harris will win the popular vote in November (thanks to strong margins in blue states), but it’s far from clear if she will win the Electoral College vote. She’s got to prove herself to those independent, undecided and swing voters in battleground states, or else she’s not going to win the presidency. And for all the record fund-raising and meme excitement, Harris hasn’t started indicating how she plans to do so.

Blue America is undoubtedly fired up and closing the enthusiasm gap fast against Donald Trump, and that’s a big deal — it’s what Democrats needed to do in Week 1 of the 15-week Harris presidential sprint. As we enter Week 2, I’ll be watching today for signs of a swing-voter message from two star governors and possible Harris running mates — Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan — who are jointly campaigning for Harris in the Philadelphia suburbs. And I’ll be keeping an eye on new Harris campaign ads and her next big event, in Atlanta on Tuesday.

So far, Harris has mostly been talking to friendly Democratic audiences. She is leaving it to surrogates to make her case in more challenging venues, as Pete Buttigieg did Sunday on Fox News , or speak most pointedly to swing voters and small-town Americans in purple and red areas, as Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota has.

Biden, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton won the presidency because they made real attempts — through policy ideas, speeches, campaign travel and, sometimes, criticism of their party or allies — to show that they had a measure of independence, thought for themselves and, yes, were looking out for all Americans, not just team blue. Both Bushes broke with some in the G.O.P. too (most notably on taxes and then immigration). Now that Harris has fired up the base faster than perhaps even she expected, what will she do to go beyond that base?

I’m really curious about what she says at her Atlanta event and where she plans to campaign in the days and weeks to come. And I’m also curious to see if she can really put Trump on the defensive over debating her ; she could reach a lot of those swing voters through debates, as well as prosecuting the case that Trump is unfit to lead the country again. Making a serious proposal to Trump that they meet for one debate a week starting in September would take this historic election to a new level.

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What unites Trump and Hitler: "Fierce determination and self-imposed blindness"

Why the lies and bluster keep working: for both hitler and trump, says timothy ryback, "the medium is the message", by chauncey devega.

Following last month's assassination attempt, Donald Trump briefly postured as a changed man who would strike a new tone and seek to unify the country. Of course that was a lie. At a recent rally in Minnesota , Trump told a crowd of cheering followers, "I want to be nice. They all say, ‘I think he’s changed. I think he’s changed since two weeks ago. Something affected him. No, I haven’t changed. Maybe I’ve gotten worse. Because I get angry at the incompetence that I witness every single day."

In various ways, Trump continues to channel the dark history of Adolf Hitler's rise. This is not simply an interpretation of his metaphors or vague dog-whistle statements.  Trump has literally said  he wants to purify the blood of the nation by eliminating "vermin," a term he has applied on several occasions to nonwhite immigrants. In a throwback to early 20th-century eugenics and "race science," Trump has expressed pride in his "good German genes" and racial background . Trump and his allies have floated plans for a system of concentration camps aimed at collecting and deporting migrants, refugees and undocumented immigrants. Hitler proposed strikingly similar plans before he enacted eliminationist and genocidal policies aimed at achieving them.

Trump has also reportedly praised Hitler at times, and certainly continues to admire modern-day tyrants such as Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping . Some of Trump’s most loyal allies are found among neo-Nazis and white supremacists, groups he infamously praised as including “very fine people.” He has dined with white supremacists and antisemites at Mar-a-Lago. Antisemitic hate crimes, along with violence directed at Muslims, Black people and immigrants, have greatly increased since he began to dominate the political scene.

Channeling Hitler almost verbatim, Trump is threatening a campaign of revenge and retribution against journalists and political enemies, as part of the MAGA movement's revolutionary project to remake American society. Trump continues to amplify the Big Lie that he did not lose the 2020 election, and has repeatedly said he will not respect any election he does not win. 

Donald Trump continues to suggest that democratic elections will no longer be necessary after he regains power in 2025. He made headlines last week at the Turning Point Action Believers' Summit by urging evangelical Christians to "get out and vote, just this time." He continued, "You won't have to do it anymore. ... It'll be fixed. It'll be fine. You won't have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians. ... In four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good, you're not going to have to vote.”

That statement was purposefully ambiguous: Will Trump’s Christian followers no longer need to vote because he has  taken dictatorial power , or because those who would oppose him have been crushed, exiled or imprisoned? (His supporters, to be sure, have offered other apologetics.) He has repeatedly described the news media as the “enemy of the people,” another echo of the Nazi era, and has expressed contempt for the free speech protections embedded in the U.S. Constitution. There are almost too many other examples to list.

This is the second part of my recent interview with historian Timothy Ryback, director of the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation in The Hague and the author, most recently, of " Takeover: Hitler's Final Rise to Power ." (Read the first part here .) His earlier books on the Third Reich include " Hitler’s First Victims ," " Hitler's Private Library " and "The Last Survivor: Legacies of Dachau." Ryback's writing has also been featured in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, the Financial Times, The New York Times Magazine and elsewhere. 

In this portion of our conversation, Ryback goes deeper into the disturbing similarities between the Nazi Party’s rise to power in 1930s Germany and the Trump-MAGA movement today, focusing specifically on their similar rhetorical styles, their promises of national renewal and economic security, and their use of the legal and judicial system to undermine democracy and corrupt civil society. Ryback also highlights important differences between Hitler and Trump, and urges the American media to learn the lessons of history in order to avoid being manipulated by Trump's neofascist movement.

If you were to compare and contrast the rise of the MAGA movement to that of Hitler and the Nazis, what would be the greatest similarities and overlaps?

Hitler began his political career with seven men sitting around a table in the back room of a Munich beerhall back in the autumn of 1919. Trump entered politics descending the escalator of Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan to a media blitz. Hitler was a former frontline soldier, twice wounded and decorated for valor. Trump is a draft-dodging "billionaire." Both were convicted of felonies. And both were political outsiders who promised an alternative to the established political order and appealed to the basest nationalist instincts of the people.

Let me cite several alignments I see between the rise of the National Socialist and the MAGA movements, especially in regard to their leaders. First, taking the message to the people with the promise of economic security and securing national dignity. Hitler literally promised to make Germany great again.

Next, preaching to the base. Hitler once claimed that 37% represented 75% of 51%, i.e., that he had the relative majority of the absolute majority, and leveraged that to great effect, cooperating, sidelining or crushing right-wing challengers. Ditto Trump.

Then there's the imperviousness to public disgrace, disdain, degradation or humiliation. “I have endured so much persecution and political attacks during the 13 years of my political struggle for Germany,” Hitler wrote to one political opponent, “that I have learned to put the great cause I serve above myself.” What did fill him with bitterness, Hitler continued, was watching the “hope, belief and trust” of the people squandered by the government. It reads like a Trump screed on Truth Social.

“'I have endured so much persecution and political attacks during the 13 years of my political struggle,” Hitler wrote, 'that I have learned to put the great cause I serve above myself.' It reads like Trump on Truth Social.”

There is a fierce determination and self-imposed blindness to any setback or defeat. Both men practiced what Calvin Coolidge preached — that persistence and determination are omnipotent. I could go on, but to my mind one of the most striking similarities was brought home to me by a recent Politico article about Trump’s appeal to his MAGA minions. “It’s the laughter,” Michael Kruse wrote, describing Trump’s “stubborn and undeniable appeal” to his MAGA minions, “from repeated ridicule of his rivals to more impromptu and innocuous asides to physical pantomimes — the resulting laughter a consistent and key piece of their cadence and pull.” Kruse could just as well have been describing a Hitler rally.

We tend to think of Hitler's speeches, as presented and preserved in newsreels and documentaries, as spit-splattering rants, brimming with hatred and mendacity. In fact, Hitler’s early appeal was his toxic blend of hatred and humor. He called Alfred Hugenberg, a key political opponent, a “woof-woof,” and President Hindenburg a “gramophone record” who kept repeating himself. If God had intended the country to be ruled by elites, Hitler said at one rally, “we would all have been born with monocles.”

Hans Prinzhorn was a psychiatrist who attended a Hitler rally in spring 1930 and was struck by Hitler’s mesmerizing effect. Prinzhorn suggested that audiences responded to Hitler’s rhetorical devices — volume, rhythm, modulation, repetition — emotionally rather than rationally, which rendered him impervious to attack by political opponents. That may help explain the fierce loyalty of Trump’s MAGA base as well as his apparent imperviousness to personal scandal, criminal prosecution and political attack.

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“They keep thinking they’ve hit on a crucial point when they say Hitler’s speeches are meaningless and empty,” Prinzhorn wrote. “But intellectual judgments of the Hitler experience —  Hitler-Erlebnis  — miss the point entirely.” With Hitler, as perhaps with Trump, the medium is the message.

So what about the differences between them. First of all, how do you see the American context in this historical moment?

That 37%. As mentioned above, that was the best Hitler ever achieved in a free and open national election. That was in the 1932 presidential election, which was the only time Hitler ran for public office. The Nazi Party also got 37% in the July 1932 Reichstag elections. The New York Times called that number Hitler’s “high water mark,” and the Times was right. Hitler vowed to secure 51% in the November Reichstag elections, but he lost two million votes and four percentage points.

What does that tell you about the German political landscape? What does it tell you about America when Trump’s polling numbers, depending on the source, are easily north of 50%? There is a deep strain of conservatism, never mind radical extremism, that runs through the American electorate, which is pretty scary.

Like Hitler and the Nazis, Donald Trump and the other neofascists in the Republican Party are using the courts to advance their anti-democracy movement.

When Hitler appeared before a judge in September 1930 and outlined his plans to destroy democracy through democratic processes, the judge asked, “So, through constitutional means only?” Hitler replied with a brisk “Jawohl.” As much as the Nazis hated democracy, they understood its structures and processes as well as anyone, and exploited both with apocalyptic effectiveness.

Those who said "'Hitler's speeches are meaningless and empty,' wrote Hans Prinzhorn, 'miss the point entirely.' With Hitler, as perhaps with Trump, the medium is the message."

Hitler discovered that courtrooms were the perfect platform for his political grandstanding. He ended the 1924 Beer Hall Putsch trial, in which he was convicted of treason and sentenced to five years in prison, with the ominous warning to the judge: “You can declare us guilty a thousand times, but the eternal court of history will tear up the indictment and conviction with a smile and will acquit us.” 

Hitler's lawyer, Hans Frank, calculated that he represented his star client in more than 140 cases, mostly for defamation, which ultimately turned to Hitler’s favor. Frank observed: “His opponents always ended up causing more harm to themselves, even though they thought they were damaging this ascending figure with their slander.”

Most consequentially, Hitler used his relative majority in the Reichstag to gridlock and paralyze the legislative processes, forcing Hindenburg to rule the country by emergency decrees, essentially transforming the Weimar Republic into a constitutional dictatorship. As a Reichstag delegate, Joseph Goebbels observed, “The big joke on democracy is that it gives its mortal enemies the tools to its own destruction.” 

What similarities are there between Hitler’s attacks on the media and freedom of speech and how Trump and his propagandists are trying to silence dissent?

The press played a significant role in undermining and ultimately destroying the Weimar Republic. The "lying press," or Lügenpresse, was everywhere, on the left, right and center. The unquestioned master of “fake news” was Alfred Hugenberg, the Rupert Murdoch of the day, a right-wing media magnate who controlled more than 1,400 newspapers.  

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter , Crash Course.

While Hitler battered the Weimar Republic from the right-wing fringe, Hugenberg sought to hollow out the political center, which he knew was vital to sustaining consensus in a democratic society. He was a master of the wedge issue and flooded the public space with fake news and incendiary stories with the intent of polarizing public opinion, hollowing out the political center and letting democracy collapse of its own accord. Hugenberg used the term Katastrophenpolitik.

One of Hugenberg’s most notable pieces of fake news, to my mind, was a report that the government was enslaving German teenagers and selling them to the World War I Allies in order to service German war debts imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. Hugenberg also advanced a public referendum that called for the abrogation of the Treaty of Versailles, and the public trial and execution of any government official who had signed or helped implement the treaty’s punitive provisions.

Hannah Arendt claimed that the purpose of the political lie was not necessarily to make people believe in the lie itself, but rather “to ensure that no one believes anything anymore.” Those who can "no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong.” she wrote. “With such a people, you can do whatever you want.”

about the legacy of fascism in 2024

• Trumpism's powerful weapon against Western democracies is antisemitism
• Day two of Donald Trump's dictatorship
• Donald Trump is suddenly running scared — and he ought to be

Chauncey DeVega is a senior politics writer for Salon. His essays can also be found at  Chaunceydevega.com . He also hosts a weekly podcast,  The Chauncey DeVega Show . Chauncey can be followed on  Twitter  and  Facebook .

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. struggles for relevance as presidential campaign is remade

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A faltering debate performance, an assassination attempt and a dramatic exit from the presidential race all had one thing in common — they put Robert F. Kennedy Jr. even farther from the spotlight in the race for the White House.

Kennedy insists that his time is still coming and that President Biden’s decision to bow out in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris has driven a surge of interest in his independent campaign. But experts said they see this month’s historic events doing the opposite, pushing the independent candidate farther from relevancy.

Kennedy’s greatest recent attention came not because of news of progress in his own campaign, but when the Washington Post disclosed that he had talked to former President Trump about endorsing his campaign and taking a job in a second Trump administration.

“It sounded like he was nothing but a rank opportunist,” said Michael A. Genovese, a political scientist at Loyola Marymount University. “That was devastating for him.”

Melissa M. Smith, an expert on independent presidential candidates, said Kennedy’s path to relevancy has become even more difficult.

“The Republicans and the Democrats are just sucking all the oxygen out of the room right now,” said Smith, author of “Third Parties, Outsiders, and Renegades: Modern Challenges to the Two-Party System in Presidential Elections.” “There hasn’t been the opportunity for Kennedy to break through because there is so much stuff going on with major candidates.”

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In a telephone interview from his family’s compound in Hyannis Port, Mass., Kennedy downplayed his conversation with Trump, saying he would also be open to talking to Harris or “anybody who wants to protect children’s health” — a topic he said was part of his 90-minute conversation with Trump. (Though he acknowledged that Harris probably did not want to talk to him.)

The environmental lawyer, who lives in Los Angeles most of the year, said Biden’s exit last week “injected a lot of energy into our campaign.” He added: “We’re getting a giant surge in volunteers, in contributions and in social engagement.”

The new campaign funds claimed by Kennedy’s camp have not yet shown up in Federal Election Commission records. Reports filed with the election agency showed that American Values 2024, the super PAC backing Kennedy, raised just $228,000 in June. His own campaign raised $5.4 million, while banking heavily on the $2.5 million donated by his running mate, Nicole Shanahan. But it spent more: $6.2 million.

Kennedy’s campaign had $5.6 million in cash at the end of June, a tiny fraction of the $128 million banked by Trump and the $96 million held by Harris, FEC records show. And that was before the vice president reportedly enjoyed a surge of donations, after Biden endorsed her to become the Democratic nominee.

The independent candidate also had to go on the defensive after a Vanity Fair article reported that a weekend babysitter accused him of sexual assault when she was in her early 20s and worked for the Kennedy family in the 1990s. Text messages revealed that the candidate apologized to the woman after publication of the article, but Kennedy told reporters he recalled nothing about the alleged attacks.

Independent and third-party candidates traditionally struggle to draw the attention of those running for the major parties. One exception came in June 1992, when businessman Ross Perot surged into a brief lead, ahead of President George H.W. Bush and Democratic challenger Bill Clinton. Perot faded, and Clinton went on to victory.

Perot had enough traction that the Commission on Presidential Debates included him in all three debates in fall 1992. Kennedy’s exclusion from last month’s debate exemplified the challenge he faces.

More than 51 million Americans watched television coverage of the showdown, with Biden’s rambling and vague performance prompting a groundswell for him to leave the race. Kennedy countered by simulcasting his own answers to the debate questions. The YouTube program got fewer than 800,000 streams.

“There is only so much room for news, and it’s hard to see how he can get a lot of news attention unless he does something completely unheard of or outlandish,” said Smith, a professor of communications at Mississippi University for Women. “He has the misfortune to be in this campaign where something unprecedented happens, putting so much focus on Harris. And it’s really hard to outdo Trump, for drawing attention.”

Genovese said Kennedy faces an additional hurdle: At 70, he offered a slightly younger option for Americans displeased with having to choose between two of the oldest candidates in history — Biden, 81, and Trump, 78. Harris, 59, is now a far more youthful alternative.

“When we had the two least popular candidates in history on the ballot, or that prospect, I think a third-party candidate might be someone you take a look at,” Genovese said. “But with Harris’ entry into the race, that takes age off the table. I think a lot of Democrats are going to come home to her.”

Kennedy argued that disappointment with both parties festers and will help him in the long run. Last week, he announced an “America Strong” initiative — meant to draw the sort of nonpartisan unity exhibited after facing natural disasters.

“What we have not had is a unity government,” Kennedy said, “headed by an independent president, beholden to no party, free from corporate influence, owing no favors to the Washington establishment, and ready to recruit the best ideas from both parties and from all those who have been left out.”

While he has criticized both parties, Kennedy’s has focused more of his wrath of late on the Democrats — the party of his father, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, and his uncle, President Kennedy.

He chastised Harris, saying she had been “playing a lead role in assuring the country that President Biden had no cognitive impairment. And I think people now realize that was not true.”

How did Doug Emhoff hear Biden was out? After taking a SoulCycle class in WeHo

Emhoff said Biden’s announcement caught him by surprise. He had just finished a SoulCycle class in West Hollywood and didn’t have his phone.

July 25, 2024

“I think Americans want to be able to trust their leaders,” he added, “and there is an appearance, at least, that she put her political ambitions ahead of our national interests.”

While Kennedy has been an energetic campaigner and draws a fanatical following among some Americans, most national polls have shown his support lingering in the single digits. He has been viewed by many as a fringe candidate, with the scientific and medical mainstream rejecting his claims that vaccines commonly injure people and can cause autism.

He excoriated both Trump and Democrats for the “500-day lockdown” that followed the spread of COVID-19 in 2020. He called the shutdown of churches, public gatherings and the tracing of health data part of “the greatest assault on the Constitution in American history.”

Kennedy announced in October that he would drop his bid for the Democratic nomination and run as an independent.

After Biden’s exit, Kennedy torched the president for his quick “anointment” of Harris. He said the Democratic nominee should be chosen, instead, based on a series of “zero-margin-of-error polls,” measuring which candidate stood the most likely to defeat Trump.

“And if they did that, by the way, I would win,” Kennedy said. He pointed to a poll conducted for his campaign that showed him besting the Republican.

A New York Times-Siena poll released Thursday found Harris and Trump in a virtual dead heat nationally, with the Republican leading by 1 percentage point among likely voters. With Kennedy and other independent and third-party candidates added to the mix, the poll showed Harris with a 1-percentage-point lead over Trump, with Kennedy a distant third at 5%.

Kennedy’s criticism of Democrats have provoked anger and disdain in the party, including from members of his extended family, members of one of America’s great political dynasties.

After news of the recent confab between Kennedy and Trump, the Democratic National Committee released a scathing statement.

Said DNC spokesman Matt Corridoni: “That RFK Jr. was engaging in the same backroom political deals that he claims to despise shows that he knows his spoiler candidacy isn’t going to land him in the White House.”

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James Rainey has covered multiple presidential elections, the media and the environment, mostly at the Los Angeles Times, which he first joined in 1984. He was part of Times teams that won three Pulitzer Prizes.

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