No One Won the Democratic Debate

How Biden, O’Rourke, Buttigieg, and others fared. Plus: America’s first taco editor takes a controversial stance. View in browser | Update your preferences Our Columnists Joe Biden at the Third Democratic Debate: the Good, the Bad, and the Record Player If the former Vice-President’s performance marked an improvement from the earlier debates, it also surely benefitted from diminished expectations. By John Cassidy The Current Beto O’Rourke’s Conversation-Shifting Answer on Guns The former congressman did not flinch when asked whether he wanted to take away people’s firearms. By Michael Luo The Current Where Was Pete Buttigieg at the Democratic Debate? It’s not that he was absent from the night entirely, but it was hard to see the candidate who had risen to the cusp of front-runner status in the 2020 field. By Eric Lach Daily Comment Something for the Democrats to Try: a Little Togetherness The old tradition of political parties pulling together only after choosing a ticket and adopting a platform may not be adequate to the present occasion. By Jim Lardner The Current Are the Democratic Presidential Debates Working? With the single exception of Elizabeth Warren, all the candidates ended the summer in essentially the same position in which they started the race. By Benjamin Wallace-Wells PAID POST The Secrets We Kept is “a gorgeous and romantic feast of a novel.” —The New York Times In a thrilling tale of secretaries turned spies, “Prescott combines Mad Men-esque period style with a spy story worthy of John Le Carré. This propulsive slice of historical fiction imagines the publication of Boris Pasternak’s subversive Doctor Zhivago as a covert Cold War drama.”–Entertainment Weekly More in the News News Desk The Rise of South Africa’s #AmINext Movement Protests following a nineteen-year-old’s murder indicate that there are ways of responding to mass violence against women that go beyond the state’s vague promises. By Rosa Lyster Dispatch A Top Opposition Leader Returns to the D.R.C. After three years of exile, can Moïse Katumbi revive democracy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo? By Nicolas Niarchos Culture and More Annals of Gastronomy America’s First Taco Editor Says That Burritos Are Actually Tacos A conversation with Texas Monthly’s José R. Ralat. By Helen Rosner Annals of Technology How Hackers Invented Kiteboarding A design process combining recklessness, imagination, and computers created one of the fastest-growing sports in history. By James Somers Humor from The New Yorker Daily Shouts I Have Perfect Pitch The sound of your lover’s voice: What key is it in? You have no idea? Thought so. By Kirk J. Rudell Daily Cartoon Friday, September 13th By Liza Donnelly Sign up for more newsletters from The New Yorker. Visit The New Yorker shop. Question about your subscription? Contact Customer Care. New Yorker digital subscribers get unlimited access to everything on newyorker.com. Log in to your account here. We’d love your feedback on this newsletter. Please send your thoughts and suggestions to TNYinbox@newyorker.com. This e-mail was sent to you by The New Yorker. To ensure delivery to your inbox (not bulk or junk folders), please add our e-mail address, NewYorker@newsletters.newyorker.com, to your address book. View our Privacy Policy Unsubscribe Copyright © Condé Nast 2019. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.