Start Making Sense

Trump’s presidential reality show is nonstop, Naomi Klein says in Part 2 of our interview, HERE—and, as a result, people really die.  Naomi’s new book, No Is Not Enough, debuted at number two on the New York Times bestseller list.
Also: The Jared Report: Amy Wilentz talks about the most trusted man in the Trump White House—his real-estate holdings, his efforts to bring peace to the Middle East, and his first speech as a public official—sad!
And we revisit our 2003 interview with Al Franken about his number one bestseller, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. Now he has a new number-one bestseller: Al Franken, Giant of the Senate.
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It’s not enough to say “no” to Trump, Naomi Klein argues on our new podcast, HERE; we need to transform ourselves and our movement to bring about the change we need.
Also: Senate Republicans postponed voting on their “health-care” bill, after the CBO revealed its terrible consequences; Zoë Carpenter comments.
And, David Cole, national legal director of the ACLU, explains the Supreme Court’s decision to hear arguments in October about Trump’s travel ban.=
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Only 17 percent of Americans approve of Republican efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare; George Zornick says maybe that explains the secrecy of Senate Republicans in drafting their bill.
Also: Why are young people voting for old socialists?  Sarah Leonard comments on the support for Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn, and similar candidates across Europe.
And Jedediah Purdy responds to critics of Henry David Thoreau and Walden, outlining the radicalism of his politics and his writing.

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John Nichols argues that Trump should be charged by the House with obstruction of justice and abuse of power and put on trial in the Senate.
Plus: Amy Wilentz talks about the trouble with Trump’s tweets, which the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals cited Monday in their ruling rejecting his travel ban.
And: Paul Mason of The Guardian analyzes last week’s elections in Britain, and finds lessons for the American left in the historic campaign led by Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn.

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Norman Lear, who created All in the Family, reflects on why it succeeded in the Age of Nixon—and on what is different about political satire in the Age of Trump.
Plus: The Nation’s Zoë Carpenter reports on Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, who has taken the lead in fighting for an alternative to the GOP’s repeal and replacement of Obamacare.
And: Amy Goldstein of The Washington Post discusses what happened when Paul Ryan’s hometown lost its GM plant. Her new book is Janesville.

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The “new normal” of daily disasters for the White House make Trump more dangerous and irrational, Sasha Abramsky says, and more likely to adopt fascistic tactics.
Plus: conservatives argue that the courts have gone too far in rejecting Trump’s travel ban as an unconstitutional attack on Muslims—David Cole of the ACLU responds.
And Guardian columnist Paul Mason analyzes the British elections in the wake of Trump’s trip to Europe, which he calls “disastrous.”

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All budgets are political statements—Trump’s, submitted to the House on Tuesday, represents a cruel attack on the weakest and most vulnerable, in order to slash taxes for the wealthiest. And the assumptions behind the claim that it is “balanced” could generously be called “unusual.” George Zornick comments.
Plus: The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that two of North Carolina’s congressional districts had been gerrymandered to weaken the black vote in the state. Ari Berman explains.
Also: Trump’s weekend visit to Saudi Arabia was an embarrassment in many ways, and sinister in others. Joshua Holland has the details.

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Could the Democrats remove Trump from office?  Should they?  Harold Meyerson comments on the politics of impeachment, and the lessons of the Democrats’ successful effort to remove Nixon, and the Republicans’ failed effort to remove Clinton.

Also: D.D. Guttenplan reports on the Democrats’ efforts to flip a Republican House seat in the special election in Montana on May 25. The special election pits Democrat a bluegrass musician named Rob Quist against a multimillionaire.

And Amy Wilentz comments on Ivanka’s new book, Women Who Work. She calls it “a collated collection of bogus ideas and self-help puffery and platitude.”

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The leading histories of the conservative movement don’t account for the Klan enthusiasts and the “tribunes of white rage” that Trump mobilized and that he represents—that’s what Rick Perlstein argues in a mea culpa on behalf of historians of American politics.
Also: the rock-star appeal of Modern Monetary Theory for the Sanders generation. Atossa Araxia Abrahamian says that, if money is understood correctly, “debt is not the end.”
And Heather Ann Thompson talks about the Attica prison uprising of 1971 and its legacy—her book Blood in the Water won The Nation Institute’s Ridenhour award.