Gist: It’s Partisanship, Stupid

On The Gist, the #MeToo movement is only influential insofar as its targets can feel shame and enact accountability. In the interview, biographer Robert Dallek accounts for Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ruthless pragmatism. As president, FDR made the decision to round up 120,000 Japanese Americans to “strike resonant chords with most Americans,” and he was silent on anti-lynching bills to appease Democratic segregationists who would later help him pass New Deal legislation. Dallek’s book is Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life. In the Spiel, the Alabama Senate election will come down to all registered voters, not just the roughly 26 percent who happen to be black and are reliably Democratic.