A pressing book that takes it as a given that Russia helped Trump in 2016 and will do so in 2020 without immediate action.
A comprehensive legal analysis of Russia’s tinkering with the 2016 presidential race.
Donald Trump vigorously denies Russian interference and aid today, but he didn’t always. Indeed, writes Ohlin, vice dean of law at Cornell University, his open call for Russia to ferret out the secrets in Hillary Clinton’s emails constitutes criminal solicitation, “the most salient legal category for understanding the significance of Trump’s behavior.” Solicitation involves asking another party to commit a crime, which differs from a conspiracy; solicitation constitutes a crime whether or not the party being asked actually carries through with it. Similarly, Ohlin argues that the most salient legal category under which to consider the whole program of Russian interference—and now Iranian and Chinese hackers are getting into the game—is the violation of “the American people’s right of self-determination.” Working under that theory requires the author to make his way through a thicket of sometimes contending laws and doctrines, and readers without grounding in the law may feel lost at times. In the end, though, Ohlin draws fine distinctions between self-determination and sovereignty, with legal implications for both. He also considers electoral interference by means of manipulating social media and other cyberattacks to be a virtual declaration of war, “thus making the election interference an opening salvo in an armed conflict.” Ohlin argues that Congress should address the issue of foreign involvement in elections by “explicitly criminalizing” it, which may fall afoul of First Amendment and international human rights considerations—to which the author responds that even political speech can be regulated without violating constitutional guarantees. The better course would be for social media platforms to self-regulate, which would “avoid any First Amendment issue because there would be no state action.”
A pressing book that takes it as a given that Russia helped Trump in 2016 and will do so in 2020 without immediate action.Pub Date: June 30, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-108-79682-8
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Cambridge Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.
Documenting perilous times.
In his most recent behind-the-scenes account of political power and how it is wielded, Woodward synthesizes several narrative strands, from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel to the 2024 presidential campaign. Woodward’s clear, gripping storytelling benefits from his legendary access to prominent figures and a structure of propulsive chapters. The run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is tense (if occasionally repetitive), as a cast of geopolitical insiders try to divine Vladimir Putin’s intent: “Doubt among allies, the public and among Ukrainians meant valuable time and space for Putin to maneuver.” Against this backdrop, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham implores Donald Trump to run again, notwithstanding the former president’s denial of his 2020 defeat. This provides unwelcome distraction for President Biden, portrayed as a thoughtful, compassionate lifetime politico who could not outrace time, as demonstrated in the June 2024 debate. Throughout, Trump’s prevarications and his supporters’ cynicism provide an unsettling counterpoint to warnings provided by everyone from former Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley to Vice President Kamala Harris, who calls a second Trump term a likely “death knell for American democracy.” The author’s ambitious scope shows him at the top of his capabilities. He concludes with these unsettling words: “Based on my reporting, Trump’s language and conduct has at times presented risks to national security—both during his presidency and afterward.”
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781668052273
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
IN THE NEWS
PERSPECTIVES
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.
Bearing witness to oppression.
Award-winning journalist and MacArthur Fellow Coates probes the narratives that shape our perception of the world through his reports on three journeys: to Dakar, Senegal, the last stop for Black Africans “before the genocide and rebirth of the Middle Passage”; to Chapin, South Carolina, where controversy erupted over a writing teacher’s use of Between the World and Me in class; and to Israel and Palestine, where he spent 10 days in a “Holy Land of barbed wire, settlers, and outrageous guns.” By addressing the essays to students in his writing workshop at Howard University in 2022, Coates makes a literary choice similar to the letter to his son that informed Between the World and Me; as in that book, the choice creates a sense of intimacy between writer and reader. Interweaving autobiography and reportage, Coates examines race, his identity as a Black American, and his role as a public intellectual. In Dakar, he is haunted by ghosts of his ancestors and “the shade of Niggerology,” a pseudoscientific narrative put forth to justify enslavement by portraying Blacks as inferior. In South Carolina, the 22-acre State House grounds, dotted with Confederate statues, continue to impart a narrative of white supremacy. His trip to the Middle East inspires the longest and most impassioned essay: “I don’t think I ever, in my life, felt the glare of racism burn stranger and more intense than in Israel,” he writes. In his complex analysis, he sees the trauma of the Holocaust playing a role in Israel’s tactics in the Middle East: “The wars against the Palestinians and their Arab allies were a kind of theater in which ‘weak Jews’ who went ‘like lambs to slaughter’ were supplanted by Israelis who would ‘fight back.’” Roiled by what he witnessed, Coates feels speechless, unable to adequately convey Palestinians’ agony; their reality “demands new messengers, tasked as we all are, with nothing less than saving the world.”
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9780593230381
Page Count: 176
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
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