Maraú Península: This Week’s Issue: An Exclusive Excerpt from President Obama’s Forthcoming Memoir

Plus: in the streets with Antifa, misremembering the British Empire, and the mischievous irreverence of “The Good Lord Bird.”
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Dear Readers,

This week, The New Yorker published a long piece by Barack Obama about the ferocious battle over his most transformative piece of legislation, the Affordable Care Act. In “A President Looks Back on His Toughest Fight,” which is adapted from his forthcoming memoir, “A Promised Land,” the forty-fourth President grapples with the ongoing American debate over health care: the root of the problem, the countervailing interests, the ambitions, the setbacks, the politics—“the art of the possible,” as Obama describes the process. His subject could not be more relevant: as the election approaches, and as Americans continue to suffer from the pandemic and the systemic failures it has exposed, health care is at the center of everyone’s attention. Meanwhile, Donald Trump, having failed repeatedly to kill the A.C.A. in Congress and, so far, in the courts, continues to promise that he will replace it with something far better. Soon. Very soon.

In the summer of 2019, I met with President Obama and he made it plain that the book was proving far more stubborn than he had hoped. Like many authors, he was not without help in research and fact checking, but he wrote the book himself, by hand, on yellow legal pads. Despite the familiar frustrations, the manuscript grew. At a certain point, Obama decided that, unless his publisher was willing to wait a few more years and publish a binding-busting tome, he’d be better off dividing the memoir into two volumes. “A Promised Land” ends with the rise of birtherism and Donald Trump and the killing of Osama bin Laden. (The second volume will come when it comes.)

We’re pleased to publish President Obama’s account of the A.C.A. in this year’s Power Issue, which also features Hua Hsu on the Asian-American vote, Nicholas Lemann on the future of the Republican Party, Luke Mogelson on Antifa and the radical right, fiction by Curtis Sittenfeld, and a great deal more. We thank you for reading this newsletter and hope you enjoy the issue. And, yes, please don’t forget to vote.

—David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker

President Barack Obama standing behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office while speaking on a corded telephone. He has his hand held up to his face while he leans on the back of a desk chair.

Annals of the Presidency

A President Looks Back on His Toughest Fight

The story behind the Obama Administration’s most enduring—and most contested—legacy: reforming American health care.

By Barack Obama

A color portrait of Janet Nguyen standing under a dock on the beach next to a chain link fence

U.S. Journal

Are Asian Americans the Last Undecided Voters?

The political interests of such a diverse population can be hard to target, but several groups think they’ve found a way.

By Hua Hsu

A black and white photograph of four Portland Police Bureau officers kneeling on two people while they arrest them on the sidewalk

Letter from Portland

In the Streets with Antifa

Trump is vowing to designate the movement as a terrorist organization. But its supporters believe that they are protecting their communities—and that confronting fascists with violence can be justified.

By Luke Mogelson