These clever beings of late-twentieth-century cosplay lured us to a grotto where the only air was pastiche.

By Doreen St. Félix

Normani is interesting because she forgoes the faux-subversive pose of winking at her own packaging. She sweats showmanship. Entertainment is her world view. She believes. And that’s a risk.

I see her as a revivalist. The elements of flippancy and irony that are popular currency among today’s referential artists are completely absent from her enterprise. In this era of post-post-everything, her sincere devotion to the pop project makes her a gutsy, somewhat daring figure.

She seems keen on revitalizing a version of pop music that is untroubled by worldly things. To kindle the moment of fleeting magic when the traffic in your brain stops, ceding to big, propulsive horns.

It took me a bit to get into “Motivation.” It took me a second to learn to not think.

Normani and the Work of the Pop Princess

Enlivening the zombie feel of the night was Normani, a twenty-three-year-old star on the brink of making something old into something new.

This requires us to forget the brown children in cages; name-calling against women of color; the Muslim ban; describing a majority-black district as a “rodent infested mess” where “no human being would want to live”

Then, remind voters that the president is race-baiting to rally his dwindling base. Remind voters that the president is trying hard to distract from his failure to deliver on his promises to lower the cost of prescription drugs, to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure and to drain his swamp.

In the face of all these dark clouds, Trump has surely determined that his only pathway to victory in 2020 is race-baiting his way to a second term.

moving on becomes a way of life — the slight at work, being followed in a store or pulled over by the police, an epithet hurled in a restaurant or on the street.

Meanwhile, the president is like a man stuck in quicksand, slowly sinking in the muck. Not surprisingly, his racist rants come when bad news is close at hand

They take great pains to show us that he has black friends, too: a photo opportunity with black pastors, lobbying for the release of a black rapper, another statistic on black unemployment. All as if to prove that the president is not a racist; he’s just concerned.

Republicans are mostly silent — “crickets,” as the kids say. Whether out of fear or weakness, some let us know that they would not choose that language, falling just short of condemning the president or calling out his racism.

If we simply ignore him because it’s too frequent and too much, we feed the narrative that this language of hate is acceptable and part of our “new normal.” We cannot.

In many swing districts, even with a sliver of progressives, they can provide the energy that Democrats will need to win, traveling to neighboring states and jurisdictions to make phone calls and knock on doors on their weekends. The Squad and the activists its members represent are not a nuisance to be dismissed.

The bottom line is that the Squad (and progressives) need Pelosi to be successful in Congress. Pelosi has the gavel, and she can repair the breach so that everyone keeps their jobs.

And, by all measures, she’s effective at her job: passing legislation, protecting her members and checking the president. Also, she knows what it’s like to hold the gavel and to lose it.

To think otherwise significantly minimizes the influence of their national audience, including nearly 7 million Twitter followers, and their ability to capture the spotlight of traditional media.

Pelosi also needs to realize that treating the Squad exactly like the colleagues she had last time she was speaker — including me — is a mistake. While she’s been masterful at navigating rough waters in the past, what matters now is how she wields that gavel going forward.

What’s not legitimate is criticizing colleagues in the media or on social media. Sorry, Squad, but your senior staff members don’t have free speech rights if it’s your name that’s on the door.

Even their legislative loss on the border funding bill was not a total loss. Recent internal incident reports from Customs and Border Protection underscore the Squad’s original concerns with the bill. That’s a legitimate policy debate.

Listen, I understand: As I have written before, I came to Congress fighting with the old establishment, but within months I came to realize that Pelosi can work for us even as she works to protect moderates. I learned quickly that I could not fall on every sword.

Democrats might begin to wonder about the impact on their base of not moving forward, especially when Mueller himself effectively handed them an impeachment referral.

Democrats should instead use the impeachment process to make the case and move public opinion against the incumbent president rather than wait for public opinion to catch up to the evidence.

Some worry that Democrats will lose their House majority, and perhaps their chance to retake the White House, by focusing on impeachment rather than health care, jobs and climate change.

Democrats should look at this differently. Mueller has given Democrats cover to present that narrative and proceed with impeachment as the appropriate process under the Constitution.

“the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal-justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing.”

How can the United States focus on the findings if a Democratic House will not singularly focus its investigations?

Unfortunately, the current approach of investigations in no fewer than six committees, multiple subpoenas, innumerable court proceedings and White House delay tactics just creates more confusion.

his inability to charge the president with obstruction because of a Justice Department policy against indicting a sitting president.

Mueller ended his chapter as special counsel but highlighted the systematic Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, the challenges of proving a criminal conspiracy and his inability to charge the president with obstruction because of a Justice Department policy against indicting a sitting president.

More people will grasp the import of the special counsel’s work if they see sworn witnesses answering questions on their screens than if they try to digest 448 pages of fairly dense legal analysis.

Some say Democrats just need to pick someone, anyone, who can defeat President Trump; recent polling indicates that several of the candidates can do that, and some are ahead by double digits. Others suggest that Democrats need to find someone who’s inspirational — someone with the power to move people to vote. Still others insist that big ideas and the ability to challenge the status quo are a “must have.”

I’m interested in candidates who convey their core values and the ability to see the big picture. But I’ll also be looking for candidates who can drill down to the granular level for solutions on the most pressing concerns of the day. I want to know how a candidate thinks about solving problems.

I have stop signs and frowny-face stickers for any candidate who knocks my identity, pits urban against rural voters, panders or talks down to voters.

I’ve come up with a debate strategy. I created a scorecard — actually, it’s more like a bingo card. It’s got the issues that matter to me across the top and the candidates (10 each night) down the side.

I’ll tune in on Wednesday and Thursday as the 20 candidates make their points, score a jab here and a counterpunch there. It’s a tough task, given 10 candidates in two hours — 12 minutes per candidate, not accounting for the time for moderators’ questions.

I’ve studied the candidates’ websites. Most are thin on policy and heavy on photographs, donation requests and feel-good slogans. Some are rich with bold ideas and a real sense of the candidate.

about the early start to the Democratic National Committee debate schedule, the criteria for admission and the number of candidates, but I’ve come around.

This would enable Americans to hear and process what happened during the 2016 election cycle and the months following. Republicans and Democrats could each control one hour and allot two 30-minute question periods, alternating sides.

During Watergate, Iran-contra and most recently the Brett M. Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, congressional committees have allowed professionals to question witnesses — to organize and consolidate questions, to allow the witness to complete his thoughts and to follow up in the immediacy of the witness’ response. This is what experienced litigators do.

House Republicans will attack Mueller’s motives and credibility. In defense of the president, they will likely hurl a few oft-repeated, never-proved accusations: Mueller was motivated by a business dispute with the president; all the investigators were Democrats conspiring against the president;

it will give President Trump and Attorney General William P. Barr the spectacle that they want. And we will be left more confused and less enlightened than we are today.

Unfortunately, if the process goes in the predictable manner of a traditional congressional hearing — five minutes per member (41 members), alternating between Democrats and Republicans, including prefatory speechmaking

Democrats should employ Dean Smith’s four-corners offense as they seek to paint a picture of “multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our elections”

but the pressure is now on House Democrats to get the process right on July 17 — to set a serious tone, to seek the truth and to open or close the debate.

Mueller’s public testimony is critical because recent reporting indicates that few Americans have read the report and, sadly, that includes members of Congress. (A new Common Cause website — willcongressact.org — will tell you whether your representatives have read the report.)

The strategy was brilliant in its simplicity: Wear out the opponent, run down the clock and wait patiently for an opening to drive to the basket. It worked — yielding low scores and a national championship.