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Trumpism Beyond Trump

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Which version of the Republican Party will win out?

For years, pundits and political strategists have speculated about Donald Trump’s hold on the Republican Party. It is an essential question for the party and, as a result, the country: Could there be Trumpism without Trump? And what, exactly, would that look like?

Two weeks before the first midterm elections since Trump left office, the answer to the first question seems clear. Trumpism is embedded in the DNA of the party. Most of those who refused to pledge fealty to the former president lost their primaries or retired to avoid defeat. With only a handful of exceptions, the Republicans running for office are strongly in Trump’s camp, embracing some version of his denials of his 2020 election loss.

Candidates from Arizona to Pennsylvania have adopted his views, bombastic style and anti-establishment attitude and made them their own. Today, I will examine three Republicans who are putting forward their own versions of Trumpism — some of which might help Trump win if he were to run for president again, and others that might someday defeat him.

Rebecca Noble for The New York Times

Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor of Arizona, is the Trumpism queen of the midterms. Lake, a former news anchor who had never run for office, transformed from a nonpartisan presence on a Fox affiliate in Phoenix into an anti-establishment Republican insurgent.

Lake is running as a political outsider, bashing the media and promising to be “the fake news’s worst nightmare.” She has called the 2020 election “stolen” and “corrupt,” and said she would not have certified President Biden’s victory. Last week, in an interview with CNN, she refused to say that she would accept the results of her election if she lost.

But unlike Trump, who is easily sidetracked — recall his digressions on topics like flushing toilets — Lake is a polished speaker, the result of a quarter century in television news. She’s quick with a viral zinger and rarely says anything to upset her base. One interviewer asked her this past weekend whether she would run as Trump’s vice-presidential nominee in 2024. (Lake insisted she would remain governor if she won.)

If she wins her tightly contested race, Lake will have shown that her smoother version of Trumpism can work even in places where Trump lost.

Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, has tried to out-Trump Trump, adopting inflammatory stances that excite core conservative supporters and that position him as a 2024 front-runner.

In March, he signed legislation prohibiting classroom instruction and discussion about sexual orientation and gender identity in some elementary school grades, a law that opponents derided as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. It also placed DeSantis squarely in the culture-war debate over transgender rights, a theme he has continued to address. In a debate last night against his Democratic challenger, former Gov. Charlie Crist, DeSantis gave a graphic and inaccurate description of gender-affirming care for transgender children, suggesting falsely that doctors were “mutilating” minors.

Last month, DeSantis prompted liberal condemnation and conservative applause when he sent two chartered planeloads of undocumented migrants from Texas — hundreds of miles from the Florida state line — to Martha’s Vineyard, the moneyed Massachusetts vacation spot frequented by celebrities and former Democratic presidents. It was an idea that Stephen Miller, a Trump policy adviser, had pursued while working in the White House, but that others in the administration rejected.

And unlike Lake, who has remained loyal to Trump, DeSantis has criticized him from the right, saying that he regretted not speaking out against Trump’s early Covid shutdowns. While Lake has fielded questions about running with Trump, DeSantis seems more likely to run against him in 2024. DeSantis refused to say in last night’s debate whether he would serve a full, four-year term if re-elected. (Here are four takeaways from the debate.)

Glenn Youngkin is not running for office now — he won Virginia’s governor’s race last year — but he has emerged as an in-demand surrogate for candidates at all levels of the Trump spectrum.

Youngkin presents what some strategists think is the most politically viable national model for Republicans in a post-Trump era. He does not share Trump’s fiery style, packaging himself as a fleece-vest-wearing suburbanite who can keep Trump’s coalition intact while picking up a significant share of the suburban voters that determine elections in his home state. While he was campaigning, Youngkin liked to say he could bring together “forever Trumpers and never Trumpers.”

But on policy, he has embraced many of the issues that rally the base. He has called for a ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, prohibited the teaching of critical race theory, restricted transgender students’ rights and expressed anger over pandemic lockdowns. He acknowledges that Biden won the 2020 election, but has campaigned for election deniers, including Lake.

Youngkin has insisted that he is not yet thinking about a presidential run in 2024. But his carefully crafted national profile — as well as his meetings with megadonors in New York City — hints otherwise.

  • Fearing significant election losses, Democrats are rushing to craft a new message that acknowledges the pain of rising prices.

  • Detroit, which is 77 percent Black, may not have a Black representative in Congress for the first time since 1955.

  • On “The Ezra Klein Show,” the reporter Mark Leibovich talked about how the Republican Party fell under Trump’s influence, the subject of his new book.

  • Justice Clarence Thomas temporarily shielded Senator Lindsey Graham from having to answer a grand jury’s questions about efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.

  • Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, assured Senator Ted Kennedy in 2005 of his respect for it, according to diary excerpts in a new book.

Pool photo by Aaron Chown

  • Rishi Sunak is Britain’s prime minister. He’s the first person of color to lead the country and at 42, the youngest British prime minister in two centuries. Follow our updates.

  • Sunak and his wife are extremely wealthy — by one estimate, they are worth more than $800 million.

  • His ascent has inspired some members of Britain’s Indian diaspora, though some question his ability to relate to them.

  • A gunman killed a 16-year-old girl and a 61-year-old woman at a St. Louis high school. He died in a shootout with the police.

  • Officials at New York State’s largest Hasidic school admitted they illegally diverted millions of dollars, including from food aid for children that they spent on parties.

  • Ukrainians returning to towns that Russia had occupied are finding destruction and a lack of vital services.

  • The fashion industry is distancing itself from Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, after his antisemitic outbursts. His talent agency also dropped him.

  • #MeToo led to more diversity in the entertainment industry. But Hollywood has started to regress in subtle ways.

  • WhatsApp, the messaging platform, went down in several countries this morning.

Crime in the U.S. rose substantially in 2020. The perception that it was all in big cities run by Democrats is false, Paul Krugman writes.

Frustrated with polling? Pollsters are, too, Quoctrung Bui argues.

Detached from the working class, Rishi Sunak won’t save Britain, Kimi Chaddah says.

Mary Inhea Kang for The New York Times

New York wool festival: A decades-old fair is drawing young knitters.

Icy-white hair: Would you go “Targaryen blond”?

Rebrand: Restoration Hardware was known for selling furniture. Why is it opening restaurants?

Pickleball is expanding: Tennis is mad.

Well: It’s the time of year when you may notice symptoms of seasonal depression.

Advice from Wirecutter: A good air purifier can improve your life.

Lives Lived: The comic actor Leslie Jordan became a familiar face on shows like “Will & Grace,” then found new fame with his pandemic videos. He died at 67.

Bears beat Patriots: Led by the quarterback Justin Fields, the Chicago Bears dominated New England 33-14 on the road last night, a surprising result in the N.F.L. landscape.

The Lakers’ problem: Los Angeles is 0-3 and its point guard, Russell Westbrook, is shooting poorly. Darvin Ham, in his first year as Lakers head coach, indicated Westbrook’s role could change.

Jets trade: New York acquired the Jaguars running back James Robinson yesterday, a clear sign that the team intends to capitalize on a promising 5-2 start. The move comes after the star rookie running back Breece Hall tore his A.C.L.

Just Stop Oil, via Associated Press

In recent months, climate activists in Europe have glued themselves to paintings by Picasso and Botticelli, thrown mashed potatoes on a Monet and tossed tomato soup on a van Gogh. In a video, Phoebe Plummer, 21, who threw the soup, asked: “What is worth more: art or life?”

The activists didn’t damage the paintings (they were protected by glass) but targeted world-famous art to garner publicity for their cause. The stunts have started a conversation online. Some people are asking how defacing famous artworks helps address climate change, and Plummer has an answer: It’s to direct attention “to the questions that matter.”

For more: In The Guardian, the art historian Katy Hessel explains how the protests build on a history of using art for activism.

Kate Sears for The New York Times

Miso and butter create a simple yet flavorful pasta.

The novel “A Little Life” comes to the stage, raising the question: How much suffering can the protagonist (and the audience) endure?

In “The Women of Rothschild,” Natalie Livingstone focuses on generations of the banking family’s wives and daughters.

James Corden addressed his restaurant ban.

Now Time to Play

The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was infantry. Here is today’s puzzle.

Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Polluted air (four letters).

And here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow.

P.S. The word “forshmak” — chopped herring — appeared for the first time in The Times yesterday in a story about a new food market.

Here’s today’s front page.

“The Daily” is about the European energy crisis.

Matthew Cullen, Lauren Hard, Lauren Jackson, Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

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Source: Elections - nytimes.com

Tagcloud: Crist, CharlieDeSantis, RonElectionsinternal-storyline-noMidterm Elections (2022)Presidential Election of 2024United States Politics and Government

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