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Two Black legislators are expelled, then a trans lawmaker is censured. The political scientist Jacob Grumbach explains why state legislatures are making anti-democratic moves—and why the national culture wars seem to dominate even the most local politics. The contributing writer Joshua Yaffa offers a tribute to his friend and fellow Russia reporter Evan Gershkovich, the first American journalist imprisoned for espionage by Russia since the Cold War. Yaffa and Gershkovich met after Gershkovich arrived in Moscow in 2017, and they grew close in the years that followed. “Evan was not sanguine or Pollyannaish or naïve about the context in which he was working,” Yaffa tells Remnick. “He understood this was a very different Russia than the one he had arrived to.” And the staff writer Burkhard Bilger, who grew up in a German family in Oklahoma, is out with a new book chronicling his years-long quest to understand his family’s Nazi ties. He talks with Sabine Bode, a journalist who encourages Germans who were children during the Second World War to speak about their unacknowledged trauma.
Have State Legislatures Gone Rogue?
Two Black legislators are expelled, then a trans lawmaker is censured. The political scientist Jacob Grumbach explains why state legislatures are making anti-democratic moves.
Joshua Yaffa on Evan Gershkovich, a Colleague and Friend
The two journalists were foreign correspondents in Moscow. Gershkovich is now being held in a Russian prison, accused by the regime of espionage.
Germany’s Traumatized Kriegskinder Speak Out
Burkhard Bilger talks about the generation of Germans who were children during the Second World War. After decades of silence, they are just beginning to acknowledge their trauma.
The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
