FiveThirtyEight: The Latest Swing State Polls Look Good For Biden

In Michigan, the most notable result comes from long-time Michigan pollster EPIC/MRA, which found Biden up by 12 points in a poll conducted between late May and early June, 53 percent to 41 percent. For context, in 2016 the pollster never found Hillary Clinton with more than 47 percent in a single general election poll. However, in Wisconsin, Biden’s lead might not be that secure. The Marquette Law School Poll — often seen as the gold standard in the Badger State — had Biden up only 3 points in early May, 46 percent to 43 percent. Biden and Trump also ran about even in Pennsylvania, another pivotal state in 2016, which might seem at odds with the data from Michigan and Wisconsin. But unlike those states, Pennsylvania didn’t have any surveys from highly rated pollsters, and what they found was a bit noisy — two put Trump up by 4 to 5 points, while another put Biden ahead by 9 points. We wouldn’t read too much into this yet without higher quality polling, but the inconsistent results here could be evidence that Pennsylvania will remain competitive.

As for the polling picture in the Sun Belt states — Arizona, Georgia and Texas — they all seemed more or less in line with what you would expect, once you account for Biden’s lead in the national polls and how these states voted in 2016. But they do signal potential trouble for Trump. For instance, the fact that Trump carried Arizona by 3.5 points in 2016 seems to have been erased by Biden’s polling lead. On average, Biden led by 3 points, including a high-quality early June survey from Fox News that showed him up 4 points. In Georgia and Texas, on the other hand, Trump was still in the lead, by 1 and 2 points, respectively. Yet this is not as cushy of a margin as one would expect for Trump, considering he carried Georgia by 5 points and Texas by 9 points in 2016. If this trio of states are all in play — and Arizona is possibly even leaning Democratic — that would give Biden many additional paths to 270 electoral votes. [...]

There are two big takeaways here. One, Biden is in an enviable position in many of these battleground states. However, the second takeaway — which is the caveat we mentioned earlier — is that all of these battleground states save Michigan are more Republican-leaning than the national average. In other words, most of the states that will decide the presidential election are to the right of the country as a whole, and that speaks to Trump’s advantage in the Electoral College. Should Biden continue to hold a sizable lead, the chances of an Electoral College-popular vote split will probably be low. But if the polls get closer, the odds will increase because the eventual tipping point state is almost certainly among these eight states. But as it stands now, if Trump carries Arizona along with every state that’s more Republican-leaning in those recent polls, he would almost certainly win the presidency.

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Aeon: Gentileschi. Let us not allow sexual violence to define the artist

But ever since Gentileschi made it out of art-historical obscurity in the early 20th century, her work has never moved beyond Tassi’s shadow. Early reappraisals qualified her artistic abilities with references to her ‘lascivious’ and ‘precocious’ manner. The American art historian Linda Nochlin cited the case of Gentileschi in her epochal essay ‘Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?’ (1971) to call for a ‘dispassionate, impersonal, sociological’ art history. Yet just three years later, fellow scholar Eleanor Tufts cast Gentileschi as a kind of sex-positive icon – one who, despite the trauma of her ‘introduction to the ways of love and desire’, had numerous affairs and ‘was, not surprisingly, a superb writer of love letters’. [...]

In the present moment, the confluence of commodified feminism and the #MeToo movement has produced a surge of interest in Gentileschi and in biographical interpretation of her work. With eyes on her images of violated or vengeful women, Gentileschi has become a Baroque #MeToo heroine who turned the horrors of her life into brutal painting, according to The Guardian. When one of Gentileschi’s depictions of Lucretia – a Roman noblewoman who stabbed herself in the heart after she was raped – went to auction in Paris in 2019, pre-sale publicity leaned heavily on its ‘autobiographical’ content. ‘The story of Artemisia is just like that story,’ said the auction-house specialist, ‘except that Artemisia decided on another outcome for her life.’ [...]

For Gentileschi, yet another double standard enters the picture: the readiness to separate life and art for an aggressor, against the eagerness to conflate life and art for a victim. Eric Gill; Roman Polanski; Pablo ‘each time I leave a woman, I should burn her’ Picasso. So much transcendence granted to the man-made artwork, lifted high above the abuse, however flagrant. When in 2017 Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft in East Sussex mounted an exhibition addressing Gill’s sexual abuse of his teenage daughters, the critic Rachel Cooke in The Observer wondered why this information was forced on visitors. By contrast, Gentileschi’s biography is frequently ‘forced upon’ both her work and its viewers – a process that allows sadistic relish to masquerade as gender-progressive concern, and objectifies the artist rather than recognising her immense ability.

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The Guardian: Fast-growing mini-forests spring up in Europe to aid climate

Advocates for the method say the miniature forests grow 10 times faster and become 30 times denser and 100 times more biodiverse than those planted by conventional methods. This result is achieved by planting saplings close together, three per square metre, using native varieties adapted to local conditions. A wide variety of species – ideally 30 or more – are planted to recreate the layers of a natural forest.

Scientists say such ecosystems are key to meeting climate goals, estimating that natural forests can store 40 times more carbon than single-species plantations. The Miyawaki forests are designed to regenerate land in far less time than the 70-plus years it takes a forest to recover on its own. [....]

The higher biodiversity is due partly to the forests’ young age and openness, explained Fabrice Ottburg, an animal ecologist who led the Wageningen study. This allows more sunlight to reach flowering plants that attract pollinators. Diversity is also boosted by planting multiple species, which “provide more variety in food and shelter for a higher diversity of animals like insects, snails, butterflies, amphibians, bugs, grasshoppers”, Ottburg said.

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The Guardian: Labour councils launch slavery statue review as another is removed

All statues in Labour councils across England and Wales, and across London, will be examined for links to slavery and plantation owners, their leaders have said, as an east London authority took one down off its plinth on Tuesday evening. [...]

Earlier, the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, said the capital’s landmarks – including street names, the names of public buildings and plaques – would be reviewed by a commission to ensure they reflect the capital’s diversity, with a view to removing those with links to slavery after Black Lives Matter protesters tore down a statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol.

In Manchester, the council announced a city-wide review of all the statues in Manchester “to understand their history and context”. Councillor Luthfur Rahman said members of the public would also be asked for suggestions on “missing” statues. [...]

Pressed on Sky News about where to draw the line, given Winston Churchill held some racist views, Khan said the cases of Churchill, Gandhi and Malcolm X showed that many great historical figures were not perfect and history should be taught “warts and all”. But there were clear-cut figures such as those actively involved in the slave trade and ownership who should not be celebrated, the mayor said. [...]

Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, has said it was “completely wrong” for protesters to pull down the statue of Colston and dump it in the harbour in Bristol – putting him at odds with some MPs on the left of his party – while emphasising the monument should never have been there in the first place.

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