GETTING THINGS RIGHT.

• Author: Lueders, Bill
• Position: EDITOR'S NOTE - Editorial

There is a correction on page 12 of this issue to which I would like to call your attention. It is about how our obituary for a longtime contributor who died May 30 at age fifty-seven ran under the headline, "Mark Anthony Rolo, 1962-2000," when of course this should have been "1962-2020." This errant stab at a keyboard, committed by me, withstood a careful review by at least seven readers, some more than once, as with everything that appears in this magazine.

It is not the world's greatest error--most readers either looked past it, as we apparently did, or quickly figured it out. But I am struck by how much it stings. That's because, in an era in which lies have become as common as dust, those of us at The Progressive care about getting things right. Our in-progress copy is riddled with posted comments about what footnote on what page of what report backs up what we say. Our online and digital versions of magazine stories have dozens of links to substantiating sources.

When I wrote elsewhere in this issue that the death toll from COVID-19has amounted to roughly two 9/1 Is each week since mid-March, a side note did the math: "Weeks from March 15 to September 23: twenty-eight. Estimated U.S. death toll as of September 23: 200,000-plus. 200,000 divided by twenty-eight: 7,142 dead each week on average. Death toll on 9/11: 2,977."

But in the age in which we live, caring about factual accuracy has become almost quaint. Our President and his allies lie without compunction. Conspiracy theories abound. Politicians and prognosticators think they can create their own reality.

They can't. Despite all of these distortions, truth matters. The record of this President is what it is, not what he pretends it to be.

That's the focus of this issue of the magazine, with articles on Trump's lawlessness and corruption by David Rosen, Mike Kuhlenbeck, and Bill Blum; on the damage he has done to the environment by Lena Moffitt, David Helvarg, and Bill McKibben; on public health by Natalie Shure, reproductive rights by Kalena Thomhave, the immigration system...