| | | | |  | | By POLITICO MAGAZINE | | | |  | | 
| |  Illustration by Phil Wrigglesworth for POLITICO | If you’re reading this, you almost certainly love politics, which means you’re probably on the hunt for a political book to take on vacation this summer. But All the President’s Men is a little too obvious, and your dog-eared copy of This Town is about to fall apart from all the re-reads. We have a suggestion: Set aside the ponderous political memoirs and definitive tomes on matters of state and pick up something a little different — the kind of book you can lose yourself in, an absorbing read that may not have the Capitol on the cover, but actually has a lot to say about the state of power and politics in our time. Ahead of the July Fourth weekend, we reached out to our contributors and the broader POLITICO newsroom to find books that are fun to read and politically savvy, even if they’re not in the Zoom background of a typical politics junkie. We turned up a list of 20 works — novels, poetry collections and nonfiction titles — that use beautiful writing and propulsive narrative to untangle thorny issues, from environmentalism to authoritarianism, artificial intelligence to health care, and so much more. Get ready to kick back and lose yourself in a story you’ll enjoy — and learn from. Read the list. | | | | A message from Meta: Augmented reality glasses will give you new ways to experience history.
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| “The Constitution provides for every contingency in the executive, except a vacancy in the mind of the president.” Can you guess who made this remark about Democratic President James Buchanan? Scroll to the bottom for the answer.**
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POLITICO illustration/Photos by AP, Getty Images, iStock | The Civility Industry’s Big Recruit … Civility is all the rage in Washington. Not in politics, exactly — that’s still a bog of invective and polarization. But the business of teaching the virtues of open dialogue is booming, with think tanks, nonprofits and even a congressional caucus all aimed at calming the political waters. The latest recruit to Big Civility is Washington Post publisher Fred Ryan, who is leaving the paper to launch the Center on Public Civility at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. In a time when politics operates with the tone of an angry comment section, it’s no wonder there’s such an appetite for a little civility. But conservative and liberal critics alike see the obsession with civility as a cop-out intended to avoid taking sides on issues like abortion rights, ballot access or universal health care, “places where a country can’t just agree to disagree,” writes Michael Schaffer in this week’s Capital City column. There’s also a more matter-of-fact criticism: “If we’re spending all this money and energy on civility, how come things don’t seem to be getting any better?”
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| The Supreme Court gutted affirmative action in college admissions on Thursday, with the six conservative justices ruling that Harvard and the University of North Carolina discriminated against white and Asian American applicants. Not sure what all this means? Here are some key points to get you up to speed. (From POLITICO’s Legal Editor James Romoser): — This is another win for Clarence Thomas. In his decades on the court, he’s cared most passionately about two issues: dramatically expanding Second Amendment rights and abolishing all forms of racial affirmative action. Last June, he achieved his first goal, writing the landmark gun decision in the Bruen case. This week, he achieved the second, writing in his 58-page concurrence what Chief Justice John Roberts wouldn’t quite say in his majority opinion: For all practical purposes, the decision ends affirmative action in college admissions nationwide. — But Roberts left a carveout buried in a footnote. The ruling, he says, doesn’t apply to race-conscious programs at military academies. Ketanji Brown Jackson called out the military exemption in her dissent, saying the majority was setting up underrepresented minorities to succeed “in the bunker, not the boardroom.” — Thomas and Jackson critiqued each other in unusually caustic terms, with Thomas accusing Jackson of promoting a “race-infused worldview” and Jackson responding that Thomas was ignoring both historical and present-day facts about deep racial disparities. — The ruling opens up two new legal battlegrounds: First, to what extent can colleges adopt formally race-neutral admissions policies that are nonetheless intended to broadly promote diversity? Second, are other admissions preferences — like those for children of alumni and wealthy donors — now on the chopping block? Edward Blum, the architect of the affirmative action challenge, has already pledged to go over those preferences next.
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Grandchildren will be able to walk through grandma's 1950s childhood alongside her. Using the metaverse will help new generations better understand their family's history.
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| |  Anita Hill testifies in the Russell Caucus room on Capitol Hill in Washington, where the Senate Judiciary Committee was hearing testimony on the nomination of Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court, Oct. 11, 1991. | Greg Gibson/AP Photo | Why I Fought Clarence Thomas’ Confirmation … In October 1991, Kimberlé Crenshaw — a civil rights advocate and leading critical race theory scholar who is now a law professor at Columbia University and the University of California, Los Angeles — served on Anita Hill’s legal team as Hill testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee and alleged that Thomas sexually assaulted her. The committee, chaired by then-Senator Joe Biden, confirmed Thomas despite the allegations. Crenshaw knew the decision would have major ramifications not only for her and Hill, but all of American society. “Unfortunately, history has confirmed our fears,” she writes in this searing essay. “As national commitments to racial justice and basic civil rights continue to unravel, under what is functionally regarded as the Thomas Court, the very health of our multiracial democracy is a long-term casualty of that day.”
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| |  A man waves the Russian national flag as members of the Wagner mercenary group prepare to return to their base in Rostov-on-Don late on June 24, 2023. | AFP via Getty Images | What Prigozhin Taught Us About Putin … If you watched what happened in Russia last week — when one of Vladimir Putin’s loyal lieutenants sent his mercenaries to confront military leadership in Moscow only to end up in (possibly dubious) exile — with a sense of awe and confusion, you’re not alone. To make sense of the crisis and the impact it will have on Putin’s iron-fisted rule, we asked some of the most astute observers of Russia for their thoughts on what this all means for Moscow, for Ukraine and for the West. Some think this is the beginning of Putin’s end, while others think he’ll emerge stronger than ever. Here’s what they had to say.
| | | **Who Dissed answer: It was Republican Rep. John Sherman of Ohio, a major critic of President Buchanan, who supported the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act. politicoweekend@email.politico.com | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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