Encased in Amber

When Joe Biden entered the White House he had a lot of campaign promises to fulfill. The country, and the world for that matter, were still reeling from the devastation of COVID-19. The economy was in a freefall and American foreign relations were in a state of chaos. On January 6 a riot of hundreds launched an attack on Capitol Hill. Biden’s administration was supposed to bring some stability to the country and the world. But did his four years in office do so? Reviewing Bob Woodward’s War for our Fall Books issue, Matt Duss takes stock of the Biden administration’s handling of the two major conflicts that erupted during his years as president. “As one of the first volleys in an intra-Washington battle over how the Biden administration and, more specifically, its foreign policy decisions will be interpreted,” Duss writes, “War reflects how the Democratic Party establishment desperately wants to see itself: as ultimately responsible and competent, whatever your own eyes may tell you.” For those hoping to preserve the center’s grip on the Democratic Party, Biden was always “the adult in the room, the steady hand on the tiller, even in the midst of two horrifying and increasingly destructive wars.” And yet the record of his term suggested otherwise, in Gaza and also in the run up to the 2024 presidential elections. “Woodward wants us to believe that, despite the evidence of our lying eyes, the Biden administration’s commitment to process was enough,” Duss concludes. “But Trump’s reelection represents a refutation of that dodge. He is the consequence that the elites running the Democratic Party are now forced to confront—along with the rest of us.” Read “The Catastrophe of Democratic Foreign Policy”

Sometimes Called Love

For James Baldwin, love was at the center of his public and private life. It transformed his writing, his novels, his criticism. It deepened and defined his political commitments and activism. And it shaped his travels around the world. “Love was what drew him out of a cocoon of pessimism and frustration and back into public life, whether to discuss race relations on talk shows, to speak at rallies for incarcerated Black Power organizers, or to meet with then–Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy,” writes novelist and critic Elias Rodrigues in our Fall Books issue. “While Baldwin was persecuted in part because of whom he loved, it was love that impelled him to attempt to bring about a more utopian future in which such persecution was not possible.” A new biography by Nicholas Boggs explores both his private and public avowals of love, his desire for connection and his insistence that to change the world one had to make it a place where men and women could love each other–where they could stand next to each other as equals and recognize their common humanity. For Baldwin, Rodriques concludes, “love was not just a compass but a renewable resource that kept him going throughout his life. And it is this same love that keeps his memory alive today, when people still turn to [him] to understand our new trying times, long after he has passed.” Read “James Baldwin’s Radical Politics of Love”