“Are We on the Cusp of a New Political Order?” By Ezra Klien

I think that is the most important fact of politics right now. It has been the subject of many, many of our episodes this year. But it is interesting, I think, that the policy issues on which there once seemed so little room for compromise are now so much more open. From free trade to antitrust, from health care to outsourcing, from China to unions, there is suddenly a lot more overlap in at least the language of the two parties.

Not always a policy, but the language. And sometimes the overlap really is substantive. The Trump administration — it really was a break with the Obama administration on China. But the Biden administration was not a reversion to where Obama’s was. The Biden administration — it took what Donald Trump did on China, and it went a lot further.

What does that tell us? In his book “The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order,” the historian Gary Gerstle introduced me to this concept of political orders, these structures of political consensus that stretch over decades. There were two across the 20th century: the New Deal order, which ran from the 1930s to the 1970s, and the neoliberal order, which stretched from the ’70s to the financial crisis. And I wonder if part of what is unsettling politics right now is a random moment between orders, a moment when you can just begin to see the hazy outline of something new taking shape and both parties are in internal upheavals as they try to remake themselves, to grasp at it and respond to it.

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“Whatever Happens Next, Trump Has Already Won a Tragic Victory” By Lydia Polgreen

Some excerpts; Last month, I was in Dubai for a reporting trip and met a Palestinian American woman named Alaa’ Odeh at a dinner party. In our conversation I did something I’ve never done before: urge someone to vote for a particular candidate. Odeh said she felt genuinely torn. Could she support Kamala Harris given the Biden administration’s unstinting support of Israel, whatever the cost to civilians in Gaza? Surely, As I was leaving the dinner, we exchanged details and promised to keep in touch.

Over the past few weeks, I keep going back to that moment as the horrors in Gaza and Lebanon have escalated. A year into the war, Israel is undertaking a pitiless siege of northern Gaza, halting the already anemic flow of humanitarian aid while relentlessly attacking hospitals, crumbling apartment buildings and schools used as shelters by the displaced, asserting that Hamas fighters are hiding among medical workers and other civilians.

Meanwhile, the gyre widens in the Middle East. A growing number of scholars are coming to share the view that the slaughter in Gaza meets the legal definition of genocide. South Africa was back at the International Court of Justice this week, submitting some 750 pages of evidence to support its genocide claim against Israel.

“The problem we have is that we have too much evidence,” South Africa’s ambassador to the Netherlands told Al Jazeera.

Last week I reached out to Odeh, the Palestinian American woman I had met in Dubai.She told me that in the end she had decided not to vote. Many people in her life, she said, were voting for Jill Stein, but she decided against it.

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“Tom Hanks and Robin Wright Open a New Box” NYT

The “Forrest Gump” stars were game to reunite with Robert Zemeckis for the technical experiment of “Here.” De-aging? A static camera? They weren’t fazed.

It’s not exactly a “Forrest Gump” sequel, but the new movie “Here” does reunite the stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, and the filmmakers — the director Robert Zemeckis, screenwriter Eric Roth, composer Alan Silvestri — of that 1994 Oscar-winning favorite. Like the earlier film, the new one also travels across decades, with an unheard-of perspective.

In this case, though, the viewpoint is the camera’s: “Here” is filmed almost entirely from one locked-off shot, with a camera positioned in what becomes the living room of a century-old New England home. There are no cutaways or traditional close-ups; no montages or wide-angle transitions. It’s an experiment in cinematic formalism, inspired by Richard McGuire’s ambitious, genre-expanding 2014 graphic novel of the same name.

It really is about, why do we remember the moments that we remember?” Wright said.

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“Current Elections & Moral Dilemma for American Muslims” Brief Thought by F. Sheikh

Vice President Harris has made it clear that she will not change her current policy of blind support of Israel which is causing, with our tax dollars, genocide, crimes against humanity and total destruction of Gaza. She backed up her stand by letting a hostage family speak at Democratic Convention but refused an American surgeon to speak about his experiences at a Gaza Hospital. Harris’s supporters argue that once Harris is elected, they will pressure her to change Gaza policy. But these supporters could not convince Harris for even a small gesture of letting doctor speak at the convention. They further argue that voting for Trump is a mistake as he may be even worse. Which may be true.

Whom to vote for if both candidates may end up continuing genocide and crimes against humanity policy? Both choices are evil and there is no lesser evil here. One should be clear that no matter which candidate, Harris or Trump, one votes for, your vote is also an endorsement of genocide and crimes against humanity, because you do have a choice of third candidate. Vote for third choice may still elect Harris or Trump, but your vote did not endorse genocide or crimes against humanity. One cannot vote for Harris or Trump without crossing this moral obligation.

One may try to fall back on pragmatism and argue that Genocide and crimes against humanity has taken place in past without notice and are still taking place in other places; why make so much fuss about Gaza? All other genocides and crimes against humanity do not make Gaza Genocide and crimes against humanity kosher. Every genocide should be condemned. Additionally, Gaza Genocide and crimes against humanity are enabled by our tax dollars and makes us accomplice in this.

Lastly, neither pragmatism, nor democratic values bless genocide and crimes against humanity.