New York Magazine 10/29-11/11/18

1 New York’s latest issue was devoted to powerful women talking about power: fighting for it, winning it, losing it, wielding it (“Women and Power,” October 15–28). Laura McQuade, president and CEO of New York City’s Planned Parenthood, wrote, “In the wake of Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, which left many of us despondent and enraged, it was a pleasure to read the celebration of women’s supreme resilience and grit in this issue that explores the many facets of women’s power in a world determined to diminish us at every turn.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, we heard from readers about who was (and wasn’t) included, such as Michael Rapaport, who tweeted, “Stormy shouldn’t have made The Cut” (a nod to the story’s appearance on New York’s site the Cut). Sonya…

POLITICS SINCE DONALD TRUMP’S ELECTION has felt like a static state of misery, as the president’s approval ratings have been surprisingly stable and the only apparent variable has been each party’s chances of gaining or consolidating power in the midterms. But that reading ignores something tectonic: the rapid decay of the institutional Republican Party. Everything that was terrible about the party that nominated Trump is significantly, terrifyingly worse today. Even more distressing: It is likely to lurch further rightward regardless of the outcome of the elections. This will happen right away. It was not so long ago that most Republican professionals firmly believed the party was still theirs and Trump had merely borrowed it. The GOP Establishment, one congressional staffer told the reporter David Drucker earlier this fall, had “forced…

“When the doctor diagnosed me with HIV, he told me I had three months to live. I knew my family would be with me till the end. I just didn’t realize the end was nowhere in sight.”GRANDFATHER HECTOR XTRAVAGANZA (NO. 23)Family since 1982; founding member. THIS IS A CURRENT family portrait—not a reunion—of the legendary House of Xtravaganza, founded in 1982 as part of the city’s ballroom scene. Most people who weren’t in it didn’t know much about this world until Jennie Livingston’s groundbreaking 1990 documentary, Paris Is Burning. Madonna’s hit “Vogue” introduced a version of it to the masses, and Ryan Murphy’s fierce, soapy TV show Pose, which has been renewed for its second season for FX, is bringing it to a whole new generation. Because of the flexibility…

DIAGNOSING THE MOOD of the citizenry is a notoriously dicey proposition, as is making electoral predictions based on it. Even trusting empirical research, the polls, has been shown to be a fool’s errand. I’ve now been on the road for close to a month promoting my book, traveling from D.C. to Minneapolis to Portland, Oregon. I’ve talked to self-selected crowds of hundreds of mostly (but not all) progressive women, many (but not all) white. And for every person who tells me that my book—about the transformational power of American women’s political anger—has come out at the “perfect” (i.e., the absolute fucking worst) time, when fury over Brett Kavanaugh has gripped the nation, I’ve encountered another who’s made me doubt its very premise. “How can I feel driven again?” I’m asked.…

AMERICANS HAVE SHORT MEMORIES. But here we are in an election year. The same year in which a former student murdered 17 of his classmates in Parkland, Florida—and another student killed ten in Texas. In which at least 75 other shootings in schools barely made the news and then slipped right out of it (which often happens when victims are people of color). ¶ It’s stunning to think that these shootings—these attacks on children—aren’t being talked about constantly. ¶ One of the first recorded American school shootings took place in 1840. But the first high-school shooting that truly lodged itself in our consciousness was Columbine, in 1999, when two students wearing trench coats fatally shot 13 of their classmates. It took 45 minutes for a SWAT team to go in.…

WHY YOUNG PEOPLE DON’T VOTE... More than half of American adults plan to cast ballots in November, but only a third of people ages 18 to 29 say they will. Here, 12 young adults on why they probably won’t vote. AS TOLD TO RACHEL BASHEIN, ZAK CHENEY-RICE, AMELIA SCHONBEK, AND EMMA WHITFORD SAMANTHA AGE 22 / OLD BRIDGE, NJ / LAST VOTED: 2016 2016 was such a disillusioning experience. Going into the election, I was so proud to be in this country at this moment, so proud to be voting for Hillary Clinton. I had my Clinton sweatshirt on all day. I was on Twitter telling people that if they didn’t vote they were dead to me—like the whole thing. Watching the results come in, it was just disheartening. My…