The Real Reason Behind Trump’s War on D.E.I.

In today’s edition, how a Vermont town is using storytelling to build community and move beyond the familiar narratives of a fractured America. But, first, Susan B. Glasser’s latest column from Washington. Plus:

Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., bobbed and weaved around senators’ questions, but their own words came back to bite them.

It did not seem like a coincidence that three of the most radical of Trump’s Cabinet picks appeared in front of the Senate this week. “That this Trump trifecta faced simultaneous confirmation hearings appeared to be a masterstroke in outrage management by the Senate’s Republican scheduling gods,” Susan B. Glasser notes. “Who could possibly keep track of the overwhelming number of controversies, concerning revelations, and just plain weirdness to come out of the hearings?” Perhaps the wild news cycle provided enough public distraction to cover for senators who are eager to please the President by supporting his selections, no matter their own private misgivings. But, as Glasser watched the hearings unfold, it became clear that there would be no concealing how extreme these nominees are. Is a poor performance in front of the Senate enough to sink any of their chances? Read the column »

P.S. Marianne Faithfull, the singer, actress, and enduring icon of British sixties culture, died this week at the age of seventy-eight. In 2002, Hilton Als met up with Faithfull, who reinvented herself multiple times across the years, when she was in New York. “When I’m on tour I have to go out there and be Marianne Faithfull,” she told Als, of her nearly mythic persona. “When I’m alone, home somewhere, wherever that ends up being, I write. Then I’m just me.”