The New Yorker Radio Hour - The Alabama Fallout, and Louise Erdrich on the Future

Episode Date: December 15, 2017

Roy Moore was a classic Trumpian candidate: a political outsider of extreme positions, rejected by the establishment and plagued by accusations of scandal. He eventually garnered the full support of Donald Trump, but Moore was finally too much for voters. A significant number of Republicans wrote other names on their ballots, and Democratic-leaning black voters turned out in force—a combination that gave Alabama its first Democrat to go to Washington in twenty years. David Remnick and the staff writer Amy Davidson Sorkin discuss what the outcome says about the President’s power and about voters’ feelings on sexual misconduct. With the recent calls for Al Franken’s resignation, congressional Democrats are trying to lay claim to the moral high ground, but Sorkin notes that the Party has yet to put the sins of Bill Clinton entirely behind it. Plus, an interview with Louise Erdrich, who says that she was inspired by Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” and by P. D. James’s “Children of Men”—works that put literature in the service of imagining the worst. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is a rule trade to buy. Observatory is straight of the block for West Boulevard and make that right. They didn't break that, but they have pretty good access to those people. You've heard him that. Self-consciously mocked that lineage. So that's happening. It seems like an incredible story here on many fronts. From one World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is the New Yorker Radio Hour,

a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. We've got a lot coming up on the show today, and we're going to start with Amy Davidson Sorkin, who's a political columnist for the New Yorker. I wanted to talk with Amy about Alabama's election of Doug Jones and what it means in Washington for the Democrats, the Republican Party, and President Trump. Do you think the election, no matter how close, was the turning point in some way for the president of the United States? taken into context with the results in New Jersey and Virginia and elsewhere.

You mean that he can't win all of the time? Yeah. It depends on how he plays it. I don't know if you saw his morning after the election tweet where he basically said... I predicted it. There's a message of this was that Trump was right all along. And that if only he'd been allowed to play it the way he wanted to, there'd be a Republican in the Senate.

right now. Is it a turning point in our assessment of Trump's moral capacities? I think there's a lot of things that we knew about him that were very much on display in this. But what we didn't... For example. Well, this is a man who called during the presidential campaign as part of appealing to votes for a complete and total ban on Muslims entering the country. Is it shocking that he would, endorse a man who doesn't believe Muslims should enter Congress. It's, it's, there's a lot going on there. But what I think we didn't know about Trump before the Alabama race that we know now is how docile he can make Republican leaders and the, how much the, you know,

mechanisms of the party are indeed in his hands. The Washington Post originally came out with a story, a very convincing story, with real deep reporting and evidence and interviewing, laying out the case that Roy Moore, a judge, a candidate for the U.S. Senate, and at that time, the overwhelming favorite, was given to acts of really repugnant moral behavior. And nevertheless, right up until the election day, you would hear. all kinds of interviews of supporters of Roy Moore who were able to, in their minds, justify continuing in their support. One of the ways that was most common was, well, if I vote against Roy Moore, it's open season for abortion, and countless thousands of children will be killed. That was the moral calculus for many people.

What did you make of the moral calculus of the more voters, and they're willing to tolerate or willingly suspend disbelief about his past? You know, it's, it's, you know, the term, the overused term, fake news. They didn't believe it. They didn't believe it. Or they believed it. Or they sort of believed it.

Or they thought maybe there was some version of it. And what they told themselves about, the Democrat. It's, it's part of a larger and troubling question that doesn't only have to do with Alabama. But I also want to go back to one thing you said about, about, about, the rationalization having to do with reproductive rights. You know, it matters that not only did a Democrat win in Alabama, but a Democrat who did not walk away from his position in favor of reproductive rights, who did not sort of back down

on that to the extent that some people in Alabama were practically begging him to do. They were like, just stop about that and you'll have no trouble. Now, did this particular election shift or understanding of what kind of behavior voters will and will not tolerate in their candidates and in their elected officials? I mean, you know, in American history, there have been some real, some real... Anybody compare to Roy Moore? Who we know about? I mean, you know, we've had times in our history when people were physically assaulting each other on the floor of the Senate. it. But what I think was striking, and again, is how much somebody who's a wildly eccentric

candidate could nonetheless count on the support of his party for quite a while. Do you think that in politics that Democrats have seized the moral high ground in any way, cumulatively? I don't think that it belongs to a party at this point. I think that their individual politicians who've been out there and taking stands. But I think that it's really too much in flux for there to be real self-congratulation at a certain point. Obviously, you can always say they were worse. But if there's a political party whose only standard is we didn't do that, then you're not very far along. Did you think the Democratic Party did the right thing

of essentially pushing out Al Franken? I, you know, there's some, it's an interesting question in that what you ideally want is for the voters to have the chance to push people out. As the employers. Yeah, as the employers. But if you know that you don't have your party's support and you don't have the support of your colleagues, and then you do think as a politician of, you know, if these are actually causes that I believe in and it's not about me,

then you think about who could be appointed to your job. But I'm sorry that in his speech he was so deflecting. Again, it was this, why me and not Trump? And I don't think that that's the right approach at this moment. Why? Well, because it gets you into a couple of not great places, one of which is, you know, there's always somebody worse. There's always going to be something worse, and it ups what you're going to tolerate. And the other is that I think one of the big problems we have now, and we've talked about this before, is how disreputable politics seems as a profession. And if it's like, this is how politics, this is how it works, this is how Congress is, this is what you put up with if you want this guy who's going to vote for that. That's a terrible place for us to be in as a democracy.

And I would also say about Franken, though, and the Democratic Party that I think one reason, one role he played unfairly or unfairly, was being the, the party has a lot of unfinished business with Bill Clinton, you know, and. And in some ways, Al Franken was a proxy for that. That Al Franken was somehow was sacrificed to the overlooking of the sins of Bill Clinton in the past. I think that there was a feeling that that really too much had been overlooked in that, and that it hurt the party. It had hurt its standing. It had hurt Hillary Clinton's chances in 2016. and I think that there was an unpaid debt there

and there wasn't a lot to draw on. You know, thinking back also to the Clinton period, you know, when Clinton, you know, who was impeached and went through a Senate trial and was acquitted, when he was, when he was, his trial was, taking place. One of his defenders was Dale Bumper, who was the senator from Arkansas, one of them from Bill Clinton's home state. And he gave a speech that was very memorable at the time in which he basically said at one point, you know, when somebody tells you, it's not about sex, it's about sex.

And his point then was everybody who was saying, oh, it's not about Bill Clinton's affair. It's about lying, it's about perjury, it's about obstruction of justice, that they weren't telling the truth. That was just about sex. I think that what we have now is a really different understanding of that phrase and a different understanding of these dynamics. Now when, for example, the Harvey Weinstein when people say now it's not about sex, what they often mean is that the sex itself is not about sex. It's about violence. It's about power. It's about misuse of power. And I think that the complexities of that have really changed over the years, even the phrases that we use and what we tolerate. What do you think is really going to lead to real substantive change, whether it's in the

realm of politics or any other realm? Looking at politics specifically, and I always always think this is true. It's going to be the voting booth. It's got to be. That's where the costs have to be levied. Meaning more women in power. There needs to be more women who are elected. There needs to be a political cost to each party for all of that. It's, you know, if there's a, if you think of Congress as a job market or any kind of a market, things have to have a real price. Otherwise, it gets all out of whack. And, you know, some of the things we're hearing about in Congress seem to have to do with these unspoken economies of power and access. For example.

There's been a lot of reporting about, you know, a place where there are a lot of young people who aren't paid very much who are far from home-making connections. You also have lobbyists. you have money. You have a lot of what goes on in Congress is off the books. And it gets tricky, and that might be true in any closed system like that. And to make it less closed, to make it more transparent, to help people know what they're voting for. And also to have parents look at all of this

and want their children to go into politics. because if it keeps seeming so seedy, who are the congressman in 20 years going to be? Who is that? Who's drawn to that profession? Is that what you would aspire to or aspire to as a career? And if not, who's going to be running the country? Amy Davidson Sorkin, thanks so much.

Thanks, David. Amy Davidson Sorkin is a staff, Friday for the New Yorker. Coming up this hour, I'll talk with the novelist Louise Erdrick. But right now, we've got a few words from Jim Gaffigan, when we find enjoying a night at the symphony.

Clap too soon. Wait till they're done. I'm a grown man, and I don't know when to clap. Great night. Glad we're doing this. And we get to do it four more times this year. Two tickets, five concerts, plus parking. Don't

think about it. Don't think about what you could have spent that money on. Like one of those three-wheeled motorcycles. Why'd that pop in my head? I don't want one of those. He was zoned out. She noticed. No, she's pissed.

I'll hold her hand. Smile. You think for what these tickets cost, the seats would at least be comfortable. Those box seats are probably pretty plush. I guess if you're about to be assassinated, you deserve to be comfortable. That guy looks like he could be an assassin.

He's got the assassin's hair. Why do I think an assassin has a certain hair type? That's probably politically incorrect on some level. Just listen to the music. Listen to the music. Hmm. It's kind of relaxing. Is it relaxing or boring?

It is relaxing. Except for the conductor flapping around like that. I know that technically orchestras need a conductor. but did they really? Like if all the musicians are really good at playing their instruments and they all have music in front of them, couldn't they just play it? I bet it annoys them when he's all,

play soft, play soft, look at my stick getting very low. Now play loud, look at my stick, way up here. You know, if I were in the orchestra, I'd probably roll my eyes. You know, subtly, you know, where the audience, they'd be like, oh my gosh, that guy, he gets it, the good-looking guy. Are they done? Do we clap now? They're not done. I mean, I knew they weren't.

A violin section seems to be where you find the more attractive women. But are they just orchestra attractive? If I were involved with one of the violinists, would I have to learn a lot of stuff about violin? Like if she asked, how did I play tonight? Would I have to be specific? Or could I just go, great? Or maybe you should totally be first chair, babe.

I know it's so political. Or maybe, Jesus, Deborah, your first chair. Why are you still so insecure? All you can think about is some other orchestra, the one you're not in. No, I'm not saying you're not good enough to play with them. Look, I think you're an amazing violinist. Oh, right. Okay, I know nothing about violin,

because when we first started dating, I just used to say you played great. Well, you know what? That was eight goddamn years ago, Deborah. I clap now, right? No one's... All right, I'm not going to clap. I'm going to wait for other people to clap.

You know, I swear with one month of practice, I could play the big drum as well as that guy. Says, in the program that is called the timpani, huh. That's the wrong name. Timpani, that sounds like someone on the Upper East Side would name their daughter. Have you mad our timpani? Anyway, I could do the Tempani solo.

Are there Tempani solos? I guess 2001 a Space Odyssey sort of had one. Wait, that's horns. I feel like at lunch everyone ignores the harpist. If she lived in a walk-up, that would be brutal. Like the cello person must be like, well, leave her. I don't have a harp. I'm talking about the big cell.

You know, like, there's different sizes. You know what? My wife is right. Classical music is really opening up my mind. Oh, they're done. Okay, everyone act like they enjoyed it. I've got it's over. Oh, God, there's more.

Thoughts while attending the first symphony in the series my wife wanted to buy. If you're thinking about buying tickets to the orchestra for Christmas this year, think carefully. That's a piece by Kirk J. Rudell, performed for us by the comedian Jim Gaffigan. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. More to come. Welcome back to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Contemporary fiction in recent years has taken something of an apocalyptic turn. Books that would have been categorized once as science fiction are being recognized as part of the mainstream of literature

right now. And that trend is affected even a writer like Louise Erdrich, whose books, although they're certainly diverse, have predominantly been historical or contemporary. Erdrich's new book, just out this fall, is called the future home of the living God. It follows the lives of a group of Ojibwe Indians who are living in rural Minnesota. Louise, you've said that storytelling for you is a kind of addiction almost. When did that addiction begin? It really began when my other addictions failed, you know, and I started understanding that I could have addictions that didn't give me really a hangover or, you know, were actually addictions that helped me in life. And the only problem was I was still smoking when I started writing. And so I believe for a long time that I couldn't write without a cigarette.

And it was hard to break that one. So you're not kidding around in a way, that there's some relationship between writing, storytelling, and less valuable kinds of addiction? Oh, I'm not kidding at all. You know, it took hold in my 20s. I was searching for it. You know, I wanted something that would be powerful enough to. keep me interested. I must have a short attention span because I had to, I was writing poetry and had to tie myself into my chair to finish my first piece of narrative. I had scarves.

I had beautiful romantic scarves. And I didn't just use a rope. Well, when you started to write, I wonder some writers rebel against the idea of being part of an identity literature, say Jewish-American literature or African-American literature, they want to be just part of American literature or just themselves. Did you have any sense that you wanted to be part of Native American literature as distinct from anything else? No, I didn't. I just, I didn't think about it. I didn't think about that at all, what it might mean. The only thing that, the only thing that crushed me about this was that I wanted to be invisible. I was extremely shy and I still go through that sometimes. I wanted to just have the books. But as a Native American person, you can't do that.

You know, you have to tell people who you are. You feel you have to represent beyond the book. Well, you have to establish your tribal identity because there's so many people who write books that are ostensibly native, but they're not Native American writers. And so you really have to tell where you're enrolled or where your family is or, you know, you don't have to be enrolled. You could be a descendant, but you have to come from a community and a family and a background that's Native American. It's tribal. So how did that play out? I remember very distinctly just a couple of years out of college reading your first novel, Love Medicine, a wonderful book, which won the National Book. Critic Circle Award in 1984. I think you were probably just around 30 at that time.

Yeah, I just had my, okay, I had my baby, Persia. I just, she'd just been born, and I was pregnant again, and that book came out, and then the next year, when I had my second baby, the bee queen came out. It was insane. I don't know how that happened. That's a lot of fertility all at once. I don't I don't know how that happened. Yeah, and I think, you know, seeing as women are just coming out with everything, I just want to say that what happened was really impossible. How do you mean? I mean that I look back and I think I must have been really losing my mind most of the time

because you can't do that. And then it took five more years for me to write a book, and that was more doable. That would make a little more sense. This book is really a departure in some sense. They're native characters grappling with their culture and their families and their ups and downs of life as many of your character. They always have. But the story takes place in some indeterminate time in the future in the midst of a ecological crisis and a political crisis. There are food shortages and power outages.

And the government is rounding up and detaining of all things pregnant women. And so given the apocalyptic mood of our current politics, or at least some of us feel that way, the book feels timely in a terrible way. You started working on this, though, long before, like 16 years ago. How did this book come to be? So I started writing it long before, and the only nod to current events in it is Mother. Now, mother is basically, she's a kind of scary, pseudo-motherly entrapment figure who seems immune to shut down computers and can just come on at any screen at any time, right?

Mother. She's Karen Pence. And my daughter and I have been following Karen Pants, and Pants, too, because, you know, that's the next lineup. I mean, we're like one chocolate cake clogged artery away from pens, or maybe it'll be the double scoop of ice cream and then conk, you know? So there we are. I have to ask this, and maybe you'll reject the premise totally out of hand, but is it possible in terms of the way influence does or does not work,

that there are echoes of the Handmaid's tale, Margaret Atwood's great dystopian novel in this book. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I hope it can be read in some ways as an homage because, you know, I loved that book. When I started the book and I wrote the book, it wasn't the cultural touchstone that it is now. And also, children of men, this shows a lot to children of men that P.D. James novel. Sure. Yeah. and to Ursula LaGuin and Left Hand of Darkness, all kinds of books.

You know, those were really the books I read as a teenager that got me very excited about literature. I think in the acknowledgments or the author's note you referred to it as having to be excavated from some old computer. What happened? Well, I abandoned it because I just didn't think he was going to go anywhere. It was in one of those, I love those Jetson-looking computers. Do you remember the IMAX with the sort of round colored plastic bags? Those were beautiful. I loved them.

And so I didn't want to leave it behind. So you left a novel in it. For a long time. And then the I-Cube came out. You remember the IQ? I do. The Thunderbird of computers. It's a really nice computer.

So then transferred it into the cube. And then, you know, I thought, damn, it'll be safe in the cube. But it wasn't. And so... Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You don't even think to print it out or put it on a disc or something. It's just sitting in a cube. A floppy, floppy disk.

Yeah, I was on floppy disks. It was on... I had floppy disks. Okay, so you were all backed up. I'm just making sure. I was all backed up. Now, Louise, the threats to the bodies of Native American women are just not. a matter of dystopian fiction. As I understand,

an American Indians are two and a half times more likely to experience sexual assault crimes compared to other races, according to the DOJ, the Department of Justice. Exactly. Was that very much on your mind as you wrote this book? It was more in my mind as I wrote The Roundhouse, but there is inevitably echoes in this book. Most of those crimes are committed by non-natives, knowing that, on reservation land. It's very hard to get the attention of the authorities because you have to go to federal authorities for this crime.

You have to go to the FBI, and everyone's backed up. The jurisdictional issues are so arcane. So it's... So tribal courts don't have access to cases. like that? Tribal courts handle a lot, and that's what we're working toward. We want to be able to handle crimes that occur on reservation land, crimes of all sorts. Little by little, tribal court justice and autonomy has been eroded. What are the odds of that reform ever coming? Well, at this point, in history, we don't even... Before he was president, Donald Trump,

clashed repeatedly with Native Americans. One of the running fights was about casinos, and he saw those casinos on reservations as a threat to his own businesses, and he sued the government over them. He argued that he was being discriminated against it. At one point, he said, if I remember right, I think I might have more Indian blood in me than a lot of those so-called Indians that are trying to open up the reservations. He said that, the President of the United States. I'm just like, oh, my God. Well, there it is. Yes, I know it is there.

And we're actually trying to, I mean, I am anyway, trying to keep somewhat of a low profile. I don't want Donald's attention. We don't want Donald's attention, you know. It's all bad attention. Well, but it's inescapable, isn't it? I hope he doesn't turn his attention on Native Americans. Louise Erdrick, the author of Love Medicine and many other books, novels, poetry, and essays. And her new novel is called Future Home of the Love,

living God. In The New Yorker, we just published a short story that did something very unusual for a work of fiction. It's called Cat Person. And not long after it was posted, it went, forgive the cliche, absolutely viral. It quickly became our most red piece of fiction online ever. And it spawned half a dozen think pieces in other publications. Before he got out of the car, he said darkly, like a warning, just so you know, I have cats. I know, she said. We texted about them, remember? Cat Person is a story about a date, and it looks at desire, power, and consent in a way that hit a nerve for a lot of readers. Here's the author Kristen Rupinion, reading from Cat Person. Well, this is my house, he said flatly, pushing the door open.

The room they were in was dimly lit and full of objects, all of which, as her eyes adjusted, resolved into familiarity. He had two large, full bookcases, a shelf of vinyl record, a collection of board games and a lot of art, or at least posters that had been hung in frames instead of being tacked or taped to the wall. I like it, she said truthfully, and as she did, she identified the emotion she was feeling as relief.

It occurred to her that she'd never gone to someone's house to have sex before. Because she'd dated only guys her age, there had always been some element of sneaking around to avoid roommates. It was new and a little frightening to be so completely on someone else's turf, and the fact that Robert's house gave evidence of his having interests that she shared,

if only in their broadest categories, art, games, books, music, struck her as a reassuring endorsement of her choice. As she thought this, she saw that Robert was watching her closely, observing the impression the room had made. And as though fear weren't quite ready to release its hold on her, she had the brief, wild idea that maybe this was not a room at all, but a trap meant to lure her into the false belief that Robert was a normal person, a person like her, when in fact all the other rooms in the house were empty

or full of horrors, corpses, or kidnap victims, or chains. But then he was kissing her, throwing her bag and their coats on the couch and ushering her into the bedroom, groping her ass and pawing at her chest with the avid clumsiness of that first kiss. The bedroom wasn't empty, though it was emptier than the living room.

He didn't have a bed frame, just a mattress and a box spring on the floor. There was a bottle of whiskey on his dresser, and he took a swig from it, then handed it to her and kneeled down and opened his laptop, an action that confused her until she understood that he was putting on music. Margot sat on the bed while Robert took off his shirt and unbuckled his pants, pulling them down to his ankles before realizing that he was still wearing his shoes and bending over to untie them. Looking at him like that, so awkwardly bent, his belly thick and soft and covered with hair, Margot recoiled. But the thought of what it would take to stop what she had said in motion was overwhelming. It would require an amount of tact and gentleness that she felt was impossible to summon. It wasn't that she was scared he would try to force her to do something against her will,

but that insisting that they stopped now, after everything she'd done to push this forward, would make her seem spoiled and capricious as if she'd ordered something at a restaurant, and then, once the food arrived, had changed her mind and sent it back. That's Kristen Rupennian, reading from her story, Catperson. You can hear her read the whole story in the writer's voice podcast at new yorker.com slash podcast. And that's it for today. Thanks for listening to The New Yorker Radio Hour.

Please join us next week for some holiday surprises. See you then. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards with additional music by Alexis Quadrado. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Boutin, Ave Carrillo, Riann & Corby, Jill Duboff, Karen Frillman, David Krasnow, Sarah Nix, Michael Rayfield, Mithelie Rowe, and Stephen Valentino, with help from Susan Morrison, Emma Allen, Derek John, Johnny Vince Evans, Terence Bernardo, Ted Canyas, Stefania, Taladrid, Camila Osorio, Emily Mann, and Jessica Henderson. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Turina Endowment Fund.