New York Magazine 4/16-4/29/18

1 With essays by Jonathan Chait and David Cay Johnston and an exhaustive calendar of “501 Days in Swampland,” New York catalogued the boundless greed and graft that have become the hallmarks of the Trump administration (“The Stench of It,” April 2–15). “For Trump,” dsimon commented, “everything is transactional, so he believes that everything is transactional for everyone else. He can’t seem to imagine anyone acting out of a sense of public service or the general good.” Larry Slonim responded, “Lawsuits need to be filed and pressed in the federal district and appellate courts by state attorneys general. It’s so far proven to be the only effective avenue left to the public.” Steve Spaulding tweeted, “It’s clear that norms discouraging abuses of power and conflicts of interests are simply not…

Cynthia Nixon has deftly made the decaying, infuriating transit system a central campaign issue. How much she, or anyone, can do about it is an open question. The intensity of the subway’s troubles is new, but the problems themselves are not. JUNE 15, 1970 “Subway Roulette: The Game Is Getting Dangerous” “DELAYED TRAINS, begrimed windows, broken lights, incorrect signs, tattered advertising posters, the detritus of thousands of shifting, shuffling feet, a swaying, tortured ride with every man’s elbow your enemy—can anything be done about the appalling day-to-day state of the New York subways? … Roughly a third of the stations, mostly on the oldest line, the IRT, for example, are without running water. ‘Confidentially,’ a cleaners’ supervisor told me, ‘we use the closest hydrant.’” —Thomas R. Brooks JANUARY 26, 1981…

DAVID BROOKS, the New York Times op-ed page’s long-standing ambassador from the center-right, recently wrote a self-flagellatory column about the failure of anti-Trump Republicans to influence their own tribe. It was remarkable not for what it said but for what it didn’t. After lingering over the grim evidence—President Trump’s approval rating still hovers in the low 40s, and, more important, he commands the near unanimous support of the Republican base—Brooks concluded, “A lot of us never-Trumpers assumed momentum would be on our side as his scandals and incompetences mounted. It hasn’t turned out that way.” What implications might be drawn from the implacable support of the party base for the manifestly incompetent, scandal-ridden party leader? One might entertain the conclusion that no combination of facts and logic can dislodge the…

SEVEN YEARS AGO, Erin Zapcica petite, muscular woman with hair dyed the raven-feather hue of Snow White’s—walked into Medieval Times in New Jersey, looking for a job. She was an aspiring actress who had just moved to the area (18 minutes away from Port Authority) to be closer to classes and auditions. Zapcic got hired in the gift shop and a month later was promoted to “bar wench”; after a few more months, she worked her way into the show’s cast, as one of the four rotating princesses who wait for a knight or a king to rescue them, two shows a day, three days a week. At that time, it never really occurred to Zapcic, now 29, that she might one day sit on the throne or that perhaps…

WE MET ONLY a few hours ago, and already New York City’s second-most-powerful politician has told me about the moment he learned he was HIV-positive, his former cocaine habit, his mother’s love life, his desire for a husband and kids, and how he barely gets laid. He has also invited me over to his tiny studio apartment so I can see precisely how small it is and presented me with a proposed theme for a potential 2021 mayoral run: “Stop Fucking With Us.” The slogan is not exactly bumper-sticker-ready yet, but to even the casual observer, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson has glitterbombed the city’s staid political scene since assuming the post in January. Flip through social media, and it’s hard to miss videos of Johnson, 35, belting out Lady…

SOMETHING HAS GONE WRONG WITH the internet. Even Mark Zuckerberg knows it. Testifying before Congress, the Facebook CEO ticked off a list of everything his platform has screwed up, from fake news and foreign meddling in the 2016 election to hate speech and data privacy. “We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility,” he confessed. Then he added the words that everyone was waiting for: “I’m sorry.” There have always been outsiders who criticized the tech industry—even if their concerns have been drowned out by the oohs and aahs of consumers, investors, and journalists. But today, the most dire warnings are coming from the heart of Silicon Valley itself. The man who oversaw the creation of the original iPhone believes the device he helped build is too addictive.…