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| |  Illustration by Andrea D'Aquino for POLITICO | In 1930, as the Depression suffocated the United States, a young Black man named Robert Robinson, who worked as a toolmaker at the Ford Motor Plant in Detroit, got an unexpected job offer that would change his life forever. He’d be promoted to engineer status. He’d make more money than just about any Black worker in America. Free rent, a housekeeper, a car and 30 paid vacations days a year — if he’d move to the Soviet Union. Mocked by his supervisors at Ford, hungry for opportunity in a country that denied it on the basis of his race, Robinson put his fears aside. Like many other Americans who got similar offers, he said yes. But if those Americans left the racism of the American system behind, they brought their own personal racism with them. One night, as Robinson walked home on the streets of Stalingrad, a Russian co-worker told him, “Robinson, on the night you arrived … the Americans got together and decided to drown you in the river.” Published in partnership with Truly*Adventurous, this is the harrowing story of a talented Black man whose search for opportunity would require him to fight for his life — making headlines in the Soviet Union and the United States. After white American coworkers attacked him, Robinson was left to either become a pawn in the ideological chess game between Washington and Moscow, or else find a way to determine his own destiny. Read the story.
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| “The lily-livered skunk in the White House.” Can you guess who said this about President Woodrow Wilson in 1917? Scroll to the bottom for the answer.**
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Kamala Harris may be struggling with Washington insiders, but they’re making her once nerdy husband the most high-profile vice-presidential spouse in history. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo | Doug Emhoff’s a Superstar? Interesting … The last Friday in January was busy for the Kamala Harris household. The Veep was set to host a White House summit about lead-pipe replacement. Meanwhile Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff was in Poland to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day at Auschwitz. You probably only heard about one of those on Morning Joe, though. The barrier-breaking veep’s political chops are under scrutiny in grim stories by the New York Times and the Washington Post, but Emhoff seems to be a breakout star. How come? “Is that easier to do when you’re not being vetted as a possible president and subject to the crosswinds of modern U.S. politics? Yep,” writes Michael Schaffer in this week’s Capital City column. “Does a man in our society get more permission to play the loveable golden retriever sort that Washington tends to value? No doubt.” But also? Emhoff’s pretty good at this.
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| 15 percent … of Democratic men admit to having once included false or misleading information on their resumes, compared to 7 percent of Democratic women, 9 percent of Republican men and 4 percent of Republican women.
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POLITICO illustration/Photos by Hulu, HBO | The End of the World Ain’t What It Used to Be … Dystopian fiction was once preoccupied with the threat of all-powerful governments that could stamp out your rights with jackboots. The Handmaid’s Tale. 1984. The Hunger Games. But lately, the genre has taken a turn. In HBO’s new hit series The Last of Us, the government is useless at combating the fungal-brained zombie hordes. These days, the threats that make us want to stuff ourselves with popcorn aren’t omnipotent regimes; they’re external forces that weak states cannot protect us from. “In other words, we’re scared of something different now,” writes Joanna Weiss, “not evil technocrats and calculating despots, but amorphous problems like climate change and disease.”
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| If you’re from Philadelphia or Kansas City, this is your Super Bowl weekend to shine. There's nothing more D.C. than ostentatiously showing off your allegiance to somewhere else. So wear your Eagles or Chiefs gear, invite coworkers for regional delicacies and your watch party, and use the opportunity to brand yourself as not just some denizen of #thistown. But what if your home team isn’t in the big game? Here are some ways to choose sides. (From POLITICO’s Michael Schaffer.) -The partisan argument: Philly is famously blue, the city that helped put Joe Biden over the top. Plus, the Eagles are Jill Biden's team. Kansas City itself votes Democratic, but a map of Chiefs country is awfully red. Guide yourself accordingly. -The need-based argument: Both cities are acutely conscious that their glory days are behind them, but Philly's stats on crime, income, and employment are worse. If you think the game should go to the city that needs it more, you have your winner. -The star-power argument: At a moment when the NFL's hold on America is fading, Kansas City has one of the few football stars who can hold his own as a bankable TV-ad star. Eager to have the league remain a force in pop culture? Support Patrick Mahomes' employer. -The mustache factor. Kansas City's coach is one of the last mustachioed coaches in America. Philadelphia's alternates between beard and stubble. Decide for yourself.
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| |  Illustration by Davi Augusto for POLITICO | SBF’s Loser Look … The SBF who showed up at the Bahamas’ Magistrates’ Court to answer to eight counts of conspiracy, money laundering and other such white-collar crimes sure didn’t look like SBF. For one thing, he actually had on a white collar. No overlong T-shirt, no tube socks with below-the-knees shorts. “Surrounded by federal agents and lawyers, with his wild rat’s nest of hair more neatly coiffed, he looked like a garden variety Wall Street defendant facing down charges of being a tax cheat,” writes Calder McHugh. “And that was the point. For Bankman-Fried, looks have always told his story.” His sloppy-on-purpose aesthetic signaled a youthful disregard for stuffy traditions. But what does his downfall mean for other would-be influencers of his generation — who wear their perfectly curated images on their sleeves? Can they avoid being trapped in his undertow?
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Former President George H.W. Bush watches as former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach performs the coin toss at Super Bowl XXXVI in New Orleans, La. on Feb. 3, 2002. | Jeff Haynes/AFP via Getty Images | While the Eagles and Chiefs gear up for this Sunday’s game, we’re taking a look back to 2002, when former President George H.W. Bush became the first president to participate in an NFL coin toss in person. Alongside former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach and referee Bernie Kukar, Bush Sr. joined the St. Louis Rams — who won the coin toss but lost the game — and the New England Patriots in New Orleans to kick off the biggest football game of the year. The game was historic for more than just the coin toss: Super Bowl XXXVI was the first played in the month of February after the NFL postponed their season by a week following September 11. Bush returned to the Superdome for another coin toss in 2006 to honor the stadium’s reopening after Hurricane Katrina, and helped with the coin toss again for Super Bowl LI in 2017 between the Atlanta Falcons and the New England Patriots.
| | | **Who Dissed answer: It was former President Teddy Roosevelt, who shared the jab about his successor with his son, Kermit, the day news broke of the Zimmerman Telegram, a secret communication from Germany offering to ally with Mexico should the United States enter WWI. politicoweekend@email.politico.com | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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