Elections

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak signaled that voters will go to the polls in the fall, around the time that the United States will be in the midst of its own pivotal vote.When Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said this week that he was not likely to call a general election in Britain before the second half of the year, he was trying to douse fevered speculation that he might go to the voters as early as May. But in doing so, he set up another tantalizing prospect: that Britain and the United States could hold elections within days or weeks of each other this fall.The last time parliamentary and presidential elections coincided was in 1964, when Britain’s Labour Party ousted the long-governing Conservatives in October, and less than a month later, a Democratic president, Lyndon B. Johnson, swept aside a challenge from a right-wing Republican insurgent. The parallels to today are not lost on the excitable denizens of Britain’s political class.“It’s the stuff of gossip around London dinner tables already,” said Kim Darroch, a former British ambassador to Washington who is now a member of the House of Lords. For all the Côte du Rhône-fueled analysis, Mr. Darroch conceded, “it’s hard to reach any kind of conclusion about what it means.”That doesn’t mean political soothsayers, amateur and professional, aren’t giving it a go. Some argue that a victory by the Republican front-runner, Donald J. Trump, over President Biden — or even the prospect of one — would be so alarming that it would scare voters in Britain into sticking with Mr. Sunak’s Conservative Party, as a bid for predictability and continuity in an uncertain world.A supporter of Donald J. Trump laying out signs on Tuesday before an event in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesOthers argue that the Labour Party leader, Keir Starmer, could win over voters by reminding them of the ideological kinship between the Conservatives and Mr. Trump, who remains deeply unpopular in Britain. Mr. Trump praised Mr. Sunak last fall for saying he wanted to water down some of Britain’s ambitious climate goals. “I always knew Sunak was smart,” Mr. Trump posted on his Truth Social account.Still others pooh-pooh the suggestion that British voters would make decisions at the ballot box based on the political direction of another country, even one as close and influential as the United States. Britain’s election, analysts say, is likely to be decided by domestic concerns like the cost-of-living crisis, home-mortgage rates, immigration and the dilapidated state of the National Health Service.And yet, even the skeptics of any direct effect acknowledge that near-simultaneous elections could cause ripples on both sides of the pond, given how Britain and the United States often seem to operate under the same political weather system. Britain’s vote to leave the European Union in June 2016 is often viewed as a canary in the coal mine for Mr. Trump’s victory the following November.Already, the campaigns in both countries are beginning to echo each other, with fiery debates about immigration; the integrity — or otherwise — of political leaders; and social and cultural quarrels, from racial justice to the rights of transgender people. Those themes will be amplified as they reverberate across the ocean, with the American election forming a supersized backdrop to the British campaign.“The U.S. election will receive a huge amount of attention in the run-up to the U.K. election,” said Ben Ansell, a professor of comparative democratic institutions at Oxford University. “If the Tories run a culture-war campaign, and people are being fed a diet of wall-to-wall populism because of Trump, that could backfire on them.”Some argue that if the elections coincide, Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, could win over voters by reminding them of the similarities between the Conservatives and Mr. Trump.Justin Tallis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesProfessor Ansell identified another risk in the political synchronicity: it could magnify the damage of a disinformation campaign waged by a hostile foreign power, such as the efforts by Russian agents in Britain before the Brexit vote, and in the United States before the 2016 presidential election. “It’s a two-for-one,” he said, noting that both countries remain divided and vulnerable to such manipulation.On Thursday, Mr. Starmer appealed to Britons to move past the fury and divisiveness of the Brexit debates, promising “a politics that treads a little lighter on all of our lives.” That was reminiscent of Mr. Biden’s call in his 2021 inaugural address to “join forces, stop the shouting, and lower the temperature.”Frank Luntz, a Republican strategist who studied at Oxford and has advised Conservative Party officials, said he warned the Tories not to turn their campaign into a culture war. “It will get you votes, but it will destroy the electorate in the process,” he said he told them, pointing out that a campaign against “woke” issues had not helped Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida dislodge Mr. Trump.Mr. Sunak has vacillated in recent months between a hard-edge and more centrist approach as his party has struggled to get traction with voters. It currently lags Labour by 20 percentage points in most polls. While general elections are frequently held in the spring, Mr. Sunak appears to be playing for time in the hope that his fortunes will improve. That has drawn criticism from Mr. Starmer, who accused him of “squatting” in 10 Downing Street.“I’ve got lots that I want to get on with,” Mr. Sunak told reporters Thursday. He could wait until next January to hold a vote, though analysts say that was unlikely, since campaigning over the Christmas holiday would likely alienate voters and discourage party activists from canvassing door to door.Counting votes in Bath, England, during the U.K.’s last general election in 2019.Ian Walton/ReutersWith summer out for the same reason, Mr. Sunak’s most likely options are October or November (Americans will vote on Nov. 5). There are arguments for choosing either month, including that party conferences are traditionally held in early October.In October 1964, the Conservative government, led by Alec Douglas-Home, narrowly lost to Labour, led by Harold Wilson. Like Mr. Douglas-Home, Mr. Sunak is presiding over a party in power for more than 13 years. The following month, President Johnson trounced Barry Goldwater, the hard-right Republican senator from Arizona, who had declared, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.”Sixty years ago, the Atlantic was a greater divide than it is today, and the links between trans-Atlantic elections more tenuous than they are now. Mr. Trump, armed with a social media account and a penchant for lines even more provocative than Mr. Goldwater’s, could easily roil the British campaign, analysts said.And a Trump victory, they added, would pose a devilish challenge to either future British leader. While Mr. Trump treated Mr. Sunak’s predecessor, Boris Johnson, as an ideological twin, he fell out bitterly with Mr. Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, and there was little reason, they said, to hope for less drama in a second Trump term.The biggest pre-election danger — much more likely for Mr. Sunak than for Mr. Starmer, given their politics — is that Mr. Trump will make a formal endorsement, either while he is the Republican nominee or newly elected as president, said Timothy Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary, University of London.“Given how negatively most Brits feel toward Trump,” Professor Bale said, “such an endorsement is unlikely to play well for whichever of the two is unlucky enough to find favor with him.” More

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An appeals court will hear arguments on Tuesday over the former president’s attempt to shut down the federal election case. Much is riding on how — and how quickly — the issue is decided.Three years after a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol, former President Donald J. Trump will make his latest and potentially most consequential argument in the coming week for why he should not be held responsible for seeking to overturn the 2020 election.Impeachment proceedings, the House Jan. 6 committee’s inquiry and two separate criminal investigations have established a comprehensive set of facts about Mr. Trump’s deep involvement in overlapping efforts to remain in office despite having been defeated at the polls.But when — or even whether — he will ultimately face a trial on charges related to those efforts remains unclear. One of the most decisive factors in getting an answer to those questions will be the success or failure of the arguments his legal team plans to make on Tuesday in a federal appeals court in Washington.Mr. Trump’s lawyers are banking on a long shot, hoping to convince a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that the Constitution affords him complete immunity from actions he undertook as president. The assertion, while untested in the courts, has the advantage to the former president of chewing up time in the service of his strategy of trying to delay any trial until after Election Day.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican tech entrepreneur running a long-shot campaign for president, doubled down Friday on his pledge to tighten voting laws if he is elected.In his remarks in Ames, Iowa, he reiterated his promise to make English the only language on ballots. The language minority provisions of the Voting Rights Act prohibit such English-only ballots in many cases. His promise, which he has highlighted frequently in recent months, is one of many voting reforms that have become popular among Republican voters that he has seized on.“One thing I will work with Congress to deliver is a minimal federal standard for our federal elections,” he told voters at the Friday event. That standard would include “single-day voting on Election Day, as a national holiday with paper ballots, government-issued voter ID to match the voter file, and yes, English as the sole language that appears on a ballot.”Mr. Ramaswamy, who is polling far behind his Republican rivals in Iowa at fourth place, has long called for extraordinary rollbacks to voting rights in other ways as well. Early on in his campaign, he generated attention by calling for Americans under 25 to be barred from voting, unless they pass the civics test required of immigrants seeking citizenship or unless they serve in the U.S. military or as a first responder.He said over the summer that had he been in former Vice President Mike Pence’s position on Jan. 6, 2021, he would not have certified Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory until Congress agreed to pass huge changes to the electoral system.“In my capacity as president of the Senate, I would have led through that level of reform, then on that condition certified the election results,” he told NBC News in August.Mr. Ramaswamy, the son of Indian immigrants, has also called for English to be made the national language in the country.Leah McBride Mensching More

More from our inbox:Motivating Young People to Vote for Biden‘A Glimmer of Hope’Immigration Judges Are Needed. I Volunteer!The Inmates and the CatsParents picked up their children from a reunification center in Perry, Iowa, on Thursday morning.Rachel Mummey for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “One Confirmed Dead Among Several Victims in Iowa School Shooting” (news article, Jan. 5):It has happened again, this time in Perry, Iowa, and it will keep happening until voters confront the politicians. With a majority of Americans saying they favor stricter gun laws such as universal background checks, there is no better time than now, in this election year, for voters to ask the candidates to support efforts to reduce gun violence in America.Republicans, especially recently, are demanding yes or no answers to critical questions. In town halls and at rallies and caucuses, candidates need to be confronted: Will you commit to specific steps to insure the safety of our schoolchildren, yes or no?There is no better time or place to demand yes or no answers to questions about gun safety than in Iowa in the next two weeks.David SimpsonRindge, N.H.To the Editor:I’m distressed and angered about another public school shooting — and there is still no action from state and local governments regarding protecting our children from these violent acts. As a public-school teacher and a parent, I fear for my own children as well as my students.We know we need to keep guns out of the hands of violent and mentally unstable people, but we also need to keep people who are violent out of our schools. We need changes to our laws and policies if we are going to stop this epidemic of gun violence against our children.Kathryn FamelyFalmouth, Mass.To the Editor:Re “In Nashville, Parents Believed Time Had Come for Gun Limits” (front page, Dec. 29):The parents of Tennessee children who were present during the Covenant School mass shooting last March deserve all the credit in the world for standing up to be counted in the fight against the madness of the easy access to firearms in this country.In some ways, fighting for change in an extremely red state like Tennessee is at the same time more difficult and frustrating, yet also more valuable.When a Republican or a conservative person is persuaded that we need to strengthen common-sense gun laws, eliminate the gun show loophole and ban the sale of high-speed automatic rifles, the accomplishment is greater. Most Democrats already favor such restrictions.The stories of these parents’ encounters with Tennessee lawmakers, while inspiring, are also infuriating. It seems unfathomable that a legislator would sympathize in private with these parents who are trying to make the world safer for schoolchildren, yet then vote against any measure that might actually accomplish that goal.For these parents and others frustrated and enraged by these gutless lawmakers, I can suggest one other tactic. Perhaps only the thought of political defeat would be persuasive. It may seem unpalatable for a lifelong conservative Republican to vote for the Democratic candidate, yet doing so once over this life-or-death issue may be the only way to alter the behavior of obstinate politicians.Marc SpringerBrookline, Mass.Motivating Young People to Vote for Biden Damon Winter/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Young Voters Have an Entirely Different Concept of Politics,” by Michelle Cottle (Opinion, Jan. 3):Ms. Cottle brings up the problem of President Biden’s lack of appeal to young voters. Mr. Biden’s strongest suit is still this: He’s not Donald Trump.If young voters care about the environment, all Democrats have to do is feature Mr. Trump’s “I want to drill, drill, drill!” remark in their ads, along with his comments ignoring climate change.Even more important is Mr. Trump’s nominating for the Supreme Court conservative justices who have taken away women’s rights over their own bodies.If young voters aren’t feeling motivated to vote by these issues, they should be.Christine GrafSt. Paul, Minn.To the Editor:I absolutely agree with Michelle Cottle’s observation that Bernie Sanders was crucial to Joe Biden’s support among young people in the 2020 election. If you compare this year’s primary season with the 2020 one, this year’s so far is very lackluster for the Democrats.To give it the energy of the 2020 primary season, Mr. Biden needs to put Bernie Sanders — and Elizabeth Warren — on the road again, especially on college campuses. And they need to talk about what they hope to accomplish in a second Biden administration, not just about what has been accomplished so far.These two will provide the energy and vision that young people crave and will give them the motivation to show up at the polls on Election Day.Paul MarshLansing, Mich.‘A Glimmer of Hope’Students playing between classes this month at the Hand in Hand school in Jerusalem.Tamir Kalifa for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “In a Jewish-Arab School, an Oasis From Division but Not From Deep Fears” (news article, Jan. 1):I was delighted to read this story on the first day of 2024. Day after day reading about the atrocities committed in Israel and the resulting horrors happening in Gaza has been so depressing. Reading 9-year-old Ben, a “religious Jew,” say that his best friend is Arab gave me a glimmer of hope for the future.Scott BaleStamford, Conn.Immigration Judges Are Needed. I Volunteer! Fred Ramos for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Migrant Surge Stretches U.S. Border Patrol Thin” (front page, Dec. 29):I am a recently retired lawyer. Your description of the unmanageable burdens immigration is placing on our resources jolted me to ponder an untapped but significant solution to the limited number of immigration judges needed to process the backlog of asylum cases (as distinguished from the more complex deportation proceedings).There are thousands of ready, willing and able retired lawyers and judges throughout our country who could be quickly trained and qualified locally or online to process asylum cases.Many in this cohort already voluntarily serve our state and federal courts as appointed and volunteer lawyers for those who cannot afford a lawyer. Many also serve as court-appointed court mediators without compensation. I suggest that activating these resources would rapidly reduce the huge backlog of asylum cases.I hereby volunteer if anyone at the Departments of Justice or Homeland Security wants my help.Les WeinsteinLos AngelesThe writer is a member of the California State Bar and a former U.S. Department of Justice trial lawyer.The Inmates and the Cats Cristobal Olivares for The New York TimesTo the Editor:I’m glad that “Cats Filled This Chilean Prison. Then, the Inmates Fell in Love” ran on the front page of the very first paper of 2024.There’s no end to bad news, and it was uplifting to read about programs that connect prisoners with animals and specifically about Chillona, “a relaxed black cat that has become the darling of a nine-man cell crammed with bunk beds.”Bonding with pets apparently leads to an increase in empathy and a decrease in recidivism. When the inmates in Santiago care for the cats, the cats, in return, offer “love, affection and acceptance.”Talk about a win-win.Carol WestonNew York More

The agency authorized Florida to purchase medicines directly from wholesalers in Canada, where prices are far cheaper. Pharmaceutical companies oppose the plan.The Food and Drug Administration has allowed Florida to import millions of dollars worth of medications from Canada at far lower prices than in the United States, overriding fierce decades-long objections from the pharmaceutical industry.The approval, issued in a letter to Florida Friday, is a major policy shift for the United States, and supporters hope it will be a significant step forward in the long and largely unsuccessful effort to rein in drug prices. Individuals in the United States are allowed to buy directly from Canadian pharmacies, but states have long wanted to be able to purchase medicines in bulk for their Medicaid programs, government clinics and prisons from Canadian wholesalers.Florida has estimated that it could save up to $150 million in its first year of the program, importing medicines that treat H.I.V., AIDS, diabetes, hepatitis C and psychiatric conditions. Other states have applied to the F.D.A. to set up similar programs.But significant hurdles remain. The pharmaceutical industry’s major lobbying organization, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, which has sued over previous importation efforts, is expected to file suit to prevent the Florida plan from going into effect. Some drug manufacturers have agreements with Canadian wholesalers not to export their medicines, and the Canadian government has already taken steps to block the export of prescription drugs that are in short supply.“Canada’s drug supply is too small to meet the demands of both American and Canadian consumers,” Maryse Durette, a spokeswoman for Health Canada, wrote in an email message. “Bulk importation will not provide an effective solution to the problem of high drug prices in the U.S.”Congress passed a law allowing drug importation two decades ago, but federal health officials delayed implementing it for years, citing safety concerns, one of the main arguments drug companies have used against it. In 2020, President Donald J. Trump pushed the law forward, announcing that states could submit importation proposals to the F.D.A. for review and authorization. President Biden added momentum the following year, instructing federal officials to keep working with states on importation plans.Florida applied and later sued the F.D.A., accusing the agency of what Gov. Ron DeSantis called a “reckless delay” in approving the request. Friday’s announcement grew out of that lawsuit; a federal judge had set a Jan. 5 deadline for the F.D.A. to act on the state’s application.Dr. Robert Califf, the F.D.A. commissioner, said in a statement that the agency will be vetting additional state applications to be sure they live up to the program’s goals.“These proposals must demonstrate the programs would result in significant cost savings to consumers without adding risk of exposure to unsafe or ineffective drugs,” Dr. Califf said.Eight other states — Colorado, Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Texas, Vermont and Wisconsin — have laws allowing for a state drug importation program, and many are seeking, or planning to seek, F.D.A. approval.Colorado’s application is pending with the F.D.A. New Hampshire’s application was rejected last year. Vermont’s was deemed incomplete; a spokeswoman said the state was waiting to see how the F.D.A. handled the applications by other states before resubmitting.Colorado officials have signaled that states may face challenges from drugmakers in Canada, among them familiar names like Pfizer, Merck and AstraZeneca. Some drugmakers have written contracts with drug-shipping companies prohibiting deliveries to the United States, Colorado officials said in a report.Drug importation has broad political and public support. A 2019 poll by KFF, a nonprofit health research group, found that nearly 80 percent of respondents favored importation from licensed Canadian pharmacies.“Importation is an idea that resonates with people,” Meredith Freed, a senior policy analyst with KFF, said. “They don’t fully understand why they pay more for the same drug than people in other countries.”With the 2024 presidential election on the horizon, candidates are looking to claim credit for efforts to reduce drug prices. President Biden is spotlighting the Inflation Reduction Act, which empowers Medicare to negotiate prices directly with drugmakers for the first time, but only for a limited number of high cost medicines. Mr. DeSantis, who is challenging Mr. Trump for the Republican nomination, is touting his import plan.Several experts in pharmaceutical policy said that importation from Canada would not address the root cause of high drug prices: the ability of pharmaceutical makers to fend off generic competition by gaming the patent system, and the federal government’s broad failure to negotiate directly with drugmakers over cost.“Seems like political theater to me, where everyone wants to say they did something to drive down the price of prescription drugs,” Nicholas Bagley, a health law expert at the University of Michigan Law School, said of Florida’s plan.Both Mr. Bagley and Dr. Aaron Kesselheim, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, said that the Inflation Reduction Act is a more direct path to lowering prices; the law’s price negotiation provisions are expected to save the federal government an estimated $98.5 billion over a decade. Drugmakers are suing to block those provisions from taking effect.A protest outside the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America in Washington in 2021. PhRMA is likely to file suit to prevent any plan from going into effect.Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWith its approval in hand, Florida has more work to do. Before it can distribute Canadian drugs, the state must send the F.D.A. details on those it plans to import. The state has to ensure that the drugs are potent and not counterfeit. It also must put F.D.A.-approved labels on medications instead of those used in Canada.The F.D.A. said it would be watching to see if the state upholds safety rules — such as the reporting of any drug side effects — and delivers significant cost savings to consumers. Florida’s approval to import lasts for two years from the date of the first drug shipment.In Canada, health officials have been casting a wary eye on the push to import from their country. In November 2020, shortly after the Trump administration announced that states could submit importation proposals, the Canadian government published its own rule to prevent manufacturers and wholesalers from exporting some drugs that are in short supply.The Canadian government is likely to further restrict exports if they begin to affect Canadians, said Amir Attaran, a law professor at the University of Ottawa. He said the numbers don’t work out for a nation of nearly 40 million to supply medications for a state with 22 million people, much less for 49 other U.S. states.“If all of a sudden Florida is able to extend a vacuum cleaner hose into this country to take what’s in the medicine chest, the supply disruption will be a completely different category,” he said. Dr. Kesselheim, of Harvard, said the F.D.A.’s authorization was unlikely to make a difference in the price of very expensive brand-name drugs, because manufacturers would block wholesalers from exporting the medicines.“I think it’s going to be hard for states to import drugs like that in any kind of scale that would make a difference in terms of lowering prices for patients,” Dr. Kesselheim said. Even so, he said, the F.D.A.’s announcement is significant because it puts to rest the notion that drug importation cannot be accomplished safely.Mr. Bagley of the University of Michigan said there was a simpler solution to high drug prices than patchwork state importation programs: Having the U.S. government negotiate with drug companies over prices, just as many other nations, including Canada, do.“This whole thing is a jerry-rigged, complicated approach to a problem that’s amenable to a pretty straightforward solution, which is that you empower the government to bargain over the price for drugs,” he said. “So instead, we’re sort of trying to exploit the machinery that Canada has created and that we were too timid to create.” More

Last month the states of Colorado and Maine moved to disqualify Donald Trump as a candidate in the 2024 presidential election, citing Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. In response, Trump has asked the Supreme Court to intervene on his behalf in the Colorado case and he has appealed Maine’s decision.There is a real question of whether this attempt to protect American democracy — by removing a would-be authoritarian from the ballot — is itself a threat to American democracy. Will proponents and supporters of the 14th Amendment option effectively destroy the village in order to save it?It may seem obvious, but we should remember that Trump is not an ordinary political figure. And try as some commentators might, there is no amount of smoke one could create — through strained counterfactuals, dire warnings of a slippery slope or outright dismissal of the events that make the Trump of 2024 a figure very different from the Trump of 2020 — that can obscure or occlude this basic fact.In 2020, President Trump went to the voting public of the United States and asked for another four years in office. By 51 percent to 47 percent, the voting public of the United States said no. More important, Trump lost the Electoral College, 306 to 232, meaning there were enough of those voters in just the right states to deny him a second term.The people decided. And Trump said, in so many words, that he didn’t care. What followed, according to the final report of the House Select Committee on Jan. 6, was an effort to overturn the results of the election.Trump, the committee wrote, “unlawfully pressured state officials and legislators to change the results of the election in their states.” He “oversaw an effort to obtain and transmit false electoral certificates to Congress and the National Archives.” He “summoned tens of thousands of supporters to Washington for Jan. 6,” the day Congress was slated to certify the election results, and “instructed them to march to the Capitol” so that they could “‘take back’ their country.’” He even sent a message on Twitter attacking his vice president, Mike Pence, knowing full well that “a violent attack on the Capitol was underway.”In the face of this violence, Trump “refused repeated requests over a multiple hour period that he instruct his violent supporters to disperse and leave the Capitol, and instead watched the violent attack unfold on television.” He did not deploy the National Guard, nor did he “instruct any federal law enforcement agency to assist.”Trump sought and actively tried to subvert constitutional government and overturn the results of the presidential election. And what he could not do through the arcane rules and procedures of the Electoral College, he tried to do through the threat of brute force, carried out by an actual mob.Looked at this way, the case for disqualifying Trump through the 14th Amendment is straightforward. Section 3 states that “No person shall … hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”As the legal scholar Mark A. Graber writes in an amicus brief submitted to the Colorado Supreme Court, “American jurists understood an insurrection against the United States to be an attempt by two or more persons for public reasons to obstruct by force or intimidation the implementation of federal law.” There was also a legal consensus at the time of the amendment’s drafting and ratification that an individual “engaged in insurrection whenever they knowingly incited, assisted or otherwise participated in an insurrection.”We also know that the framers of the 14th Amendment did not aim or intend to exclude the president of the United States from its terms. In 1870, the Republican-controlled Senate refused to seat Zebulon Vance, the former Confederate governor of North Carolina. It strains credulity to think that the same Republicans would have sat silent if the Democratic Party had, in 1872, nominated a former Confederate leader for the presidency.Under a plain reading of Section 3 — and given the evidence uncovered by the Jan. 6 committee — Trump cannot stand for the presidency of the United States or any other federal office, for that matter.The real issue with disqualifying Trump is less constitutional than political. Disqualification, goes the argument, would bring American democracy to the breaking point.In this line of thinking, to deny Americans their choice of presidential candidate would destroy any remaining confidence in the American political system. It would also invite Trump’s allies in the Republican Party to do the same to Democrats, weaponizing Section 3 and disqualifying candidates for any number of reasons. Disqualification would also give far more power to the courts, when the only appropriate venue for the question of Trump is the voting booth.But these objections rest on a poor foundation. They treat Trump as an ordinary candidate and Jan. 6 as a variation on ordinary politics. But as the House select committee established, Jan. 6 and the events leading up to it were nothing of the sort. And while many Americans still contest the meaning of the attack on the Capitol, many Americans also contested, in the wake of the Civil War, the meaning of secession and rebellion. That those Americans viewed Confederate military and political leaders as heroes did not somehow delegitimize the Republican effort to keep them, as much as possible, out of formal political life.What unites Trump with the former secessionists under the disqualification clause is that like them, he refused to listen to the voice of the voting public. He rejected the bedrock principle of democratic life, the peaceful transfer of power.The unspoken assumption behind the idea that Trump should be allowed on the ballot and that the public should have the chance to choose for or against him yet again is that he will respect the voice of the electorate. But we know this isn’t true. It wasn’t true after the 2016 presidential election — when, after winning the Electoral College, he sought to delegitimize the popular vote victory of his opponent as fraud — and it was put into stark relief after the 2020 presidential election.Trump is not simply a candidate who does not believe in the norms, values and institutions we call American democracy — although that is troubling enough. Trump is all that and a former president who used the power of his office to try to overturn constitutional government in the United States.Is it antidemocratic to disqualify Trump for office and deny him a place on the ballot? Does it violate the spirit of democratic life to deny voters the choice of a onetime officeholder who tried, under threat of violence, to deny them their right to choose? Does it threaten the constitutional order to use the clear text of the Constitution to hold a former constitutional officer accountable for his efforts to overturn that order?The answer is no, of course not. There is no rule that says democracies must give endless and unlimited grace to those who used the public trust to conspire, for all the world to see, against them. Voters are free to choose a Republican candidate for president; they are free to choose a Republican with Trump’s politics. But if we take the Constitution seriously, then Trump, by dint of his own actions, should be off the board.Not that he will be. The best odds are that the Supreme Court of the United States will punt the issue of Section 3 in a way that allows Trump to run on every ballot in every state. And while it will be tempting to attribute this outcome to the ideological composition of the court — as well as the fact that Trump appointed three of its nine members — I think it will, if it happens, have as much to do with the zone of exception that exists around the former president.If Trump has a political superpower, it’s that other people believe he has political superpowers. They believe that any effort to hold him accountable will backfire. They believe that he will always ride a wave of backlash to victory. They believe that challenging him on anything other than his terms will leave him stronger than ever.Most of this is false. But to the extent that it is true, it has less to do with the missed shots — to borrow an aphorism from professional sports — than it does with the ones not taken in the first place.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X and Threads. More

Harry Dunn, a former police officer who defended the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, will run for US Congress in Maryland.On Friday, a day ahead of the third anniversary of the deadly riot, Dunn said via X, formerly known as Twitter: “On January 6, I defended our democracy from insurrectionists as a Capitol police officer. After, President Biden honoured me with the Presidential Citizens Medal.“Today, I’m running for Congress, to stop Trump’s Maga extremists and ensure it never happens again.”“Maga” is short for Trump’s campaign slogan, Make America Great Again.Nine deaths have been linked to the attack on the Capitol on 6 January 2021, which happened when Donald Trump told supporters to “fight like hell” to block certification of his election defeat by Joe Biden.The attack failed. But one police officer, Brian Sicknick, died the next day. Other officers killed themselves.Dunn – a commanding presence at 6ft 7in and 325lbs, once an offensive lineman in college football – was one of a group of officers who acquired a public profile after the riot, testifying before the House January 6 committee, appearing on television and releasing an autobiography, Standing My Ground.He will now run for Congress in Maryland’s third district, a solidly Democratic seat north-east of Washington represented by John Sarbanes, re-elected eight times but not running this year. The primary, which Dunn now joins, will be held on 14 May.In an announcement video, Dunn appeared amid a re-enactment of January 6, a Trump flag seen in the background as actors re-created the Capitol riot.Dunn took aim at Republicans in Congress now ranged behind Trump as he seeks the GOP presidential nomination again.“I swore an oath to protect our constitution, to protect our democracy,” Dunn said. “It’s what allowed me to protect some members of Congress who I knew were bigots, who helped fan the flames that started all of this.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I put country above self. The problem is, a lot of them did not. Some of the same people who stood behind us when we protected them went back on the floor of Congress and stood behind Trump. They voted to acquit him [in his ensuing impeachment trial]. And worst of all, they deny the violence and trauma that led to the death of some of my fellow officers.”Trump now faces 91 criminal charges (17 concerning election subversion), numerous civil trials, and attempts to keep him off the ballot in Colorado and Maine under the 14th amendment to the US constitution, meant to stop insurrectionists running for office. Nonetheless, he leads Republican primary polling by huge margins.“I couldn’t stand by and watch,” Dunn said. “I had another role to play. I used my voice to speak out. And a few weeks ago, I left the force after more than 15 years of service, so that today I can announce I’m running for Congress.“We can’t ever let this happen again, and you’ve heard it from Trump himself: he is hellbent on finishing what he started this day … I believe every one of us has a role to play in this fight. So join me. We’ve got a democracy to protect.” More