Elections

I saw Rosalynn Carter angry only twice. Both occasions involved Ronald Reagan, who had crushed Jimmy Carter in the 1980 election, and both reflected her passion and decency.The first concerned a free public swimming pool in the Carters’ hometown, Plains, Ga., that they built in the 1950s. She recounted to me during an interview that when Mr. Reagan was president, local conservatives turned it into a whites-only private club. Mr. Reagan made people “comfortable with their prejudices,” she snapped.The second related to the landmark Mental Health Systems Act of 1980, a major investment in community mental health centers that Mrs. Carter spearheaded with the help of her husband’s other archrival, Senator Edward Kennedy. Sitting in her office at the Carter Center in 2015, she grew upset as she described how Mr. Reagan had defunded the ambitious program, leaving tens of thousands of people untreated. It took 30 years — until Obamacare — before ​​federal funding for community mental health treatment centers was fully resurrected with her help.Perhaps in death Mrs. Carter will finally be properly appreciated for her role as this country’s premier champion of mental health. It’s only one of the many unheralded accomplishments of a formidable and gracious woman who belongs in the first rank of influential first ladies.Over nearly 80 years, the Carters forged the longest, closest and arguably most productive high-level political partnership in American history — more seamless than those between Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt or Bill and Hillary Clinton because it lacked the personal drama of those marriages.Although each agreed that the secret to a long, happy marriage was to spend some time apart, they did almost everything together — from learning to read the Bible in Spanish before bed to dodging gunfire in Africa after the presidency and fly-fishing in Siberia when he was 90 and she was 88.The Carters were married for 77 years, a distinction enjoyed by an estimated 1,000 or so American couples. But they knew each other for an astonishing 96 years, first meeting a few days after Rosalynn Smith was born in 1927 when Jimmy’s mother, the nurse who delivered Rosalynn, brought her toddler over to see the new baby.On their first date in 1945, when Jimmy was a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy, they went to a movie neither remembered. Nearly half a century later, Jimmy wrote a poem entitled “Rosalynn”:I’d pay to sit behind her, blind to whatwas on the screen, and watch the image flickerupon her hair.I’d glow when her diminished voice would clearmy muddled thoughts, like lightning flashing ina gloomy sky.Mr. Carter said he would not have won his long-shot 1976 bid for the presidency without her charm, hard work and smart advice. Spending an astonishing 75 days campaigning in Florida, she proved instrumental in helping him prevail in a historic primary there. His victory in Florida over George Wallace all but assured his nomination and marked the end of the racist wing of the Democratic Party.Inside the White House, Mrs. Carter was the first presidential spouse with her own professional policy staff. In 1977 she assumed an unprecedented role as her husband’s personal envoy and forcefully confronted authoritarian heads of state in Latin America on their human rights abuses. She took action to combat age discrimination by working closely with the congressman Claude Pepper to loosen rules on mandatory retirement, which affected the careers of millions. And touched by the plight of the Vietnamese “boat people” fleeing Communist Vietnam, she helped persuade her husband to more than double the number of refugees admitted from Southeast Asia.Mr. Carter described their relationship as “like one person acting in concert.” Asked about his decision-making on foreign policy, he said that he confirmed his judgment with “Rosalynn, Cy” (Cyrus Vance, his secretary of state), “Zbig” (Zbigniew Brzezinski, his national security adviser) “and Ham” (Hamilton Jordan, his chief of staff). As the Time correspondent Hugh Sidey wrote in 1979, “Note the order.” On the domestic side, Mrs. Carter pushed her husband hard to appoint more women to important positions, and he did, naming five times as many women to the federal bench as all of his predecessors combined.Known as the Steel Magnolia, a nickname she liked, Mrs. Carter set off controversy when she sat in (silently) on cabinet meetings. But she was enthusiastically welcomed there as a critical part of the policy process. While most presidential aides view first ladies warily, the senior staff in the Carter White House often wished the stubborn president listened even more to his impressive wife, especially on politics, where, as Mr. Carter acknowledged, her instincts were better than his.One achievement with contemporary resonance: Mrs. Carter, along with Betty Bumpers, the wife of Senator Dale Bumpers, traveled around the country and persuaded 33 state legislatures to change their laws to require proof of vaccination for children to enter school. This led to a joke in the late 1970s: Everywhere the first lady goes, kids cry — for fear of getting a shot.In 1980, Mrs. Carter thought her husband was “seemingly pompous” in explaining why he wouldn’t make politically expedient decisions. As she recounted in her memoirs, he would say something like, “I’ll never do anything to hurt my country.” And she’d reply, “The thing you can do to hurt your country most is not get re-elected.”When Mr. Carter lost, Mrs. Carter grew depressed and wanted her husband to run for president again against Mr. Reagan. When Mr. Carter rejected that idea out of hand, she helped him reinvent the post-presidency by establishing the Carter Center. They traveled the globe together, “waging peace,” as they put it, supervising elections, starting impressive global health initiatives and building houses for the poor. On the road, Mrs. Carter served as note-taker in important peace talks; at home, she established fellowships for journalists covering mental health issues and, as the founder of the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers, did as much as anyone to popularize a concept that barely had a name until the 1980s.The Carters’ eight-decade love affair was one for the ages. When I was at work on my biography, Mrs. Carter shared with me her husband’s letters from sea. One of them from 1949 read:When I have been away from you this long … I feel lonely and lost, and it seems that I am not really living but just waiting to live again when you are with me.Rosalynn Carter kept those letters in a drawer close by until the day she died.Jonathan Alter is a journalist and the author of “His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life.”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, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

The former president is focusing his most vicious attacks on domestic political opponents, setting off fresh worries among autocracy experts.Donald J. Trump rose to power with political campaigns that largely attacked external targets, including immigration from predominantly Muslim countries and from south of the United States-Mexico border.But now, in his third presidential bid, some of his most vicious and debasing attacks have been leveled at domestic opponents.During a Veterans Day speech, Mr. Trump used language that echoed authoritarian leaders who rose to power in Germany and Italy in the 1930s, degrading his political adversaries as “vermin” who needed to be “rooted out.”“The threat from outside forces,” Mr. Trump said, “is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within.”This turn inward has sounded new alarms among experts on autocracy who have long worried about Mr. Trump’s praise for foreign dictators and disdain for democratic ideals. They said the former president’s increasingly intensive focus on perceived internal enemies was a hallmark of dangerous totalitarian leaders.Scholars, Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans are asking anew how much Mr. Trump resembles current strongmen abroad and how he compares to authoritarian leaders of the past. Perhaps most urgently, they are wondering whether his rhetorical turn into more fascist-sounding territory is just his latest public provocation of the left, an evolution in his beliefs or the dropping of a veil.“There are echoes of fascist rhetoric, and they’re very precise,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor at New York University who studies fascism. “The overall strategy is an obvious one of dehumanizing people so that the public will not have as much of an outcry at the things that you want to do.”Mr. Trump’s shift comes as he and his allies devise plans for a second term that would upend some of the long-held norms of American democracy and the rule of law.These ambitions include using the Justice Department to take vengeance on his political rivals, plotting a vast expansion of presidential power and installing ideologically aligned lawyers in key positions to bless his contentious actions.Mr. Trump’s allies dismiss the concerns as alarmism and cynical political attacks.Steven Cheung, a campaign spokesman, responded to criticism of the “vermin” remarks by saying it came from reactive liberals whose “sad, miserable existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.” Mr. Cheung did not respond to requests for comment for this article.Some experts on authoritarianism said that while Mr. Trump’s recent language has begun to more closely resemble that used by leaders like Hitler or Benito Mussolini, he does not quite mirror fascist leaders of the past. Still, they say, he does exhibit traits similar to current strongmen like Viktor Orban of Hungary or Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.Mr. Trump’s relatively isolationist views run counter to the hunger for empire and expansion that characterized the rule of Hitler in Germany and Mussolini in Italy. As president, he was never able to fully wield the military for political purposes, meeting resistance when he sought to deploy troops against protesters.“It’s too simplistic to reference him as a neofascist or autocrat or whatever — Trump is Trump, and he has no particular philosophy that I’ve seen after four years as president,” said former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, a Republican who served in President Barack Obama’s cabinet after 12 years as a senator from Nebraska.Still, Mr. Trump’s campaign style is “damn dangerous,” Mr. Hagel said.“He continues to push people into corners and give voice to this polarization in our country, and the real danger is if that continues to bubble up and take hold of a majority of Congress and statehouses and governorships,” Mr. Hagel went on. “There must be compromise in a democracy because there’s only one alternative — that’s an authoritarian government.”Crowds at Mr. Trump’s events have generally affirmed his calls to drive out the political establishment, destroy the “fake news media” and remake government agencies like the Justice Department.Sophie Park for The New York TimesMr. Trump has become increasingly unrestrained with each successive campaign, a pattern that parallels the escalating stakes for him personally and politically.In 2016, he was a long-shot candidate with little to lose, and his broadsides were often paired with schoolyard taunts that drew laughs from his audiences. Four years later, Mr. Trump’s approach became angrier as he sought to cling to power, and his term ended in a deadly riot by his supporters at the Capitol.This election cycle, Mr. Trump faces more pressure than ever. In part, his decision to open an early White House campaign was an attempt to shield himself from multiple investigations, which have since resulted in the bulk of the 91 felony charges he now faces.Politically, Mr. Trump risks becoming a historic two-time loser. In the Republican Party’s nearly 168-year history, only one presidential nominee — Thomas Dewey — has lost two White House bids.Mr. Trump’s attacks sweep from the highest echelons of politics to low-level bureaucrats whom he has deemed insufficiently loyal.He has insinuated that the nation’s top military general should be executed and called for the “termination” of parts of the Constitution. If he wins back the White House, he has said, he would have “no choice” but to imprison political opponents.He has tested the legal system with broadsides against the integrity of the judiciary, railing against prosecutors, judges and, more recently, a law clerk in his New York fraud trial as “politically biased” and “out of control.”Crowds at Mr. Trump’s events have generally affirmed his calls to drive out the political establishment and to destroy the “fake news media.” Supporters do not flinch when he praises leaders like Mr. Orban, Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.Standing amid nearly two dozen American flags at an Independence Day celebration in South Carolina in July, Mr. Trump promised retribution against Mr. Biden and his family.“The gloves are off,” he said. The crowd unleashed a resounding cheer.Supporters roared in approval when Mr. Trump called Democrats in Washington “a sick nest of people that needs to be cleaned out, and cleaned out immediately.”While Mr. Trump’s fan base remains solidly behind him, his return to the White House may be decided by how swing voters and moderate Republicans respond to his approach. In 2020, those voters tanked his bid in five key battleground states, and dealt Republicans defeats in last year’s midterm elections and this month’s legislative contests in Virginia.But Mr. Trump and his team have been energized by signs that such voters so far appear to be more open to his 2024 campaign. A recent New York Times/Siena College poll found Mr. Trump leading Mr. Biden in five of the most competitive states.Mr. Biden has often sought to paint Mr. Trump as extreme, saying recently that the former president was using language that “echoes the same phrases used in Nazi Germany.” Mr. Biden also pointed to xenophobic remarks that Mr. Trump made last month during an interview with The National Pulse, a conservative website, in which he said immigrants were “poisoning the blood” of America.“There’s a lot of reasons to be against Donald Trump, but damn, he shouldn’t be president,” Mr. Biden said at a fund-raiser in San Francisco.Worries about Mr. Trump extend to some Republicans, though they are a minority in the party.“He’s absolutely ratcheting it up, and it’s very concerning,” said former Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 against Mr. Trump. “There’s just no limit to the anger and hatred in his rhetoric, and this kind of poisonous atmosphere has lowered our standards and hurts our country so much.”Mr. Trump and his team have been energized by signs that swing voters and moderate Republicans, who helped tank his 2020 re-election bid, so far appear to be more open to his 2024 campaign.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesMr. Trump’s rise to power was almost immediately accompanied by debates over whether his ascendancy, and that of other leaders around the world with similar political views, signaled a revival of fascism.Fascism is generally understood as an authoritarian, far-right system of government in which hypernationalism is a central component.It also often features a cult of personality around a strongman leader, the justification of violence or retribution against opponents, and the repeated denigration of the rule of law, said Peter Hayes, a historian who has studied the rise of fascism.Past fascist leaders appealed to a sense of victimhood to justify their actions, he said. “The idea is: ‘We’re entitled because we’ve been victimized. We’ve been cheated and robbed,’” he said.Recent polls have suggested that Americans may be more tolerant of leaders who violate established norms. A survey released last month by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 38 percent of Americans supported having a president “willing to break some rules” to “set things right” with the country. Among Republicans surveyed, 48 percent backed that view.Jennifer Mercieca, a professor at Texas A&M University who has researched political rhetoric, said Mr. Trump had wielded language as a chisel to chip away at democratic norms.“Normally, a president would use war rhetoric to prepare a nation for war against another nation,” she said. “Donald Trump uses war rhetoric domestically.” More

Javier Milei has said that society is better without government. Now he is about to run Argentina’s.Javier Milei was first introduced to the Argentine public as a combative television personality with an unruly hairdo and a tendency to insult his critics. So when he entered Argentina’s presidential race last year, he was viewed by many as a sideshow.On Sunday, he was elected Argentina’s next president, and is now tasked with guiding one of Latin America’s largest economies out of one of its worst economic crises.Many Argentines awoke on Monday anxious, others hopeful, but just about everyone was uncertain about what lay ahead.Perhaps the only certainty about the country’s political and economic future was that, in three weeks, a far-right political outsider with little governing experience was set to take the reins of a government that he has vowed to upend.In other words, it is Argentina’s Donald Trump moment.Mr. Milei, a libertarian economist and freshman congressman, made clear in his victory speech on Sunday that he would move fast to overhaul the government and economy. “Argentina’s situation is critical,” he said. “The changes that our country needs are drastic. There is no place for gradualism.”Markets cheered his election, with Argentine stocks and bonds rising on U.S. exchanges (the Argentine market was closed for a holiday). Even without clarity on what he can accomplish, markets appear to view him as a better economic bet than his mostly leftist predecessors.Failed economic policies — including overspending, protectionist trade measures, suffocating international debt and the printing of more pesos to pay for it — have sent the nation of 46 million people into an economic tailspin.Annual inflation has surpassed 140 percent, the world’s third highest rate, leaving many residents rushing to spend or convert their pesos to U.S. dollars or cryptocurrencies as quickly as they can, while the country’s growing number of poor increasingly line up at food banks and soup kitchens.People collecting discarded produce outside the central market in Buenos Aires. Annual inflation has surpassed 140 percent, the world’s third highest rate.Tomas Cuesta/Getty ImagesTo fix it, Mr. Milei has proposed turning the world’s 22nd largest economy into a laboratory for radical economic ideas that have largely been untested elsewhere. Mr. Milei, 53, has said he wants to slash spending and taxes, privatize state companies, eliminate 10 of the 18 federal ministries, move public schools to a voucher system, make the public health care system insurance-based, close the nation’s central bank and replace the Argentine peso with the U.S. dollar.He identifies as an “anarcho-capitalist,” which, he has said, is a radically free-market strain of libertarianism that believes “society functions much better without a state than with a state.”Now he is the head of the state.“This is a completely new scenario we’ve never been in,” said María O’Donnell, an Argentine political journalist and radio host. “Milei has these very extravagant ideas we’ve never seen implemented anywhere in the world.”There has been little consensus among economists over the best path ahead for Argentina, but few had suggested Mr. Milei’s approach before he arrived on the scene — and few know what to expect now that he is in charge.On Monday morning, Mr. Milei already began to wobble on some of his campaign pledges. In one radio interview, he said Argentine law would restrict him from privatizing health care and education. In another, when asked about his plan to use the U.S. dollar, he responded that “the currency we adopt will be the currency that Argentines choose.”What does that mean? “I’m not sure he knows,” said Eduardo Levy Yeyati, an Argentine economist and professor.Mr. Levy Yeyati interpreted it as a sign that Mr. Milei would first aim to eliminate most restrictions on trading foreign currencies, which the Argentine government has restricted as part of its effort to prop up the value of the Argentine peso. Mr. Milei’s other comments on Monday appeared to support that idea.The Central Bank of Argentina in Buenos Aires. Mr. Milei has said he would like to replace the Argentine peso with the U.S. dollar.Agustin Marcarian/Reuters“Argentina has historically been a laboratory for weird ideas,” Mr. Levy Yeyati said, but many are never implemented because of economic and political realities.He said that he believes the same will happen with Mr. Milei, at least at first. “There will be a reality check,” he said. “Most of these proposals will still be talked about, but it will be hard to implement them in the first year.”Mr. Milei is expected to have to make political deals to carry out his plans, as his two-year-old political party controls just 10 percent of the seats in Argentina’s Senate and 15 percent in its lower house of Congress.He will most likely broker many of those deals with Mauricio Macri, Argentina’s former president, a conservative who has retained broad control over a large political party. The two met on Sunday night.Fernando Iglesias, a congressman from that conservative bloc, said that he and his colleagues were eager to help Mr. Milei fix the nation. “It’s true that he has the handicap of inexperience,” he added, “but I’m hopeful that he can put together a reasonable governing team to make the changes the country needs.”While many key people in Mr. Milei’s campaign also lack much governing experience, they have pitched that as an asset, not a liability, and many voters agreed.One person who will almost certainly have influence in the new government is Mr. Milei’s sister, Karina Milei, who ran his campaign and whom he has described as his most important adviser.In a 2021 television interview, he even compared her to Moses, the biblical figure bearing the message of God. “Kari is Moses,” he said with tears in his eyes. “I’m the one spreading the word.”Ms. Milei has been an enigma in Argentina, always present at Mr. Milei’s side but almost never speaking publicly. Not much is known about her past, beyond unconfirmed reports in the Argentine news media that she studied public relations in college, ran a cupcake business and co-owned a tire shop. Mr. Milei’s campaign said she would help run the transition.Mr. Milei’s sister, Karina Milei, leaving a hotel in Buenos Aires on Monday. Ms. Milei ran her brother’s campaign and is expected to run the transition.Luis Robayo/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Milei announced Monday that his justice minister would be Mariano Cúneo Libarona, a lawyer turned television pundit who rose to prominence defending celebrities, including in a 1996 drug case when he represented the soccer star Diego Maradona’s manager.His new foreign minister, Diana Mondino, an economist, told reporters that one of the government’s main foreign policy goals was to end most regulations on imports and exports. She also said that Argentina would likely not enter the BRICS club of emerging nations, as had been announced in August.“We don’t understand, with the public information available now, what the advantage would be for Argentina,” she told reporters at Mr. Milei’s victory rally on Sunday. “If you all can explain to me what the BRICS are, I’ll take advantage and learn.”Mr. Milei’s running mate, Victoria Villarruel, has spent much of her career running an organization that recognizes victims of attacks carried out by leftist guerrillas, which Argentina’s military used as justification for its bloody dictatorship from 1976 to 1983.Ms. Villarruel, who comes from an Argentine military family, has long claimed that the atrocities of the dictatorship have been overstated, claiming that 8,500 people disappeared despite declassified records showing that even the military admitted, just two years into its rule, that the number was 22,000.Ms. Villarruel and Mr. Milei were elected to Argentina’s lower house of Congress together in 2021, the first two seats for their Liberty Advances party.Mr. Milei has spent little time in Congress since, proposing his first bill just earlier this month, calling on the government to do more to bring home the roughly 25 Argentines held hostage by Hamas.Supporters of Mr. Milei celebrating in Buenos Aires on Sunday night. Argentines were reeling on Monday with what Mr. Milei could bring, both good and bad.Adriano Machado/ReutersAcross the country, Argentines were reeling on Monday with what Mr. Milei could bring, both good and bad.Micaela Sánchez, 31, an actress and drama teacher, said she and many friends were worried by Mr. Milei’s pledges to overhaul the government, his history of attacking political adversaries and his comments downplaying the atrocities of the dictatorship.“It’s really a bleak and frightening panorama for all of us who work in culture, who work with people, for those who educate, and for those in health care,” she said. “The only thing I can say is that I’m very scared and very sad.”But Yhoel Saldania, 27, a shop owner, said keeping Argentina as it is would have been far riskier than taking a bet on Mr. Milei. “The other governments promise and promise, and nothing ever changes,” he said. “We want a change that’s real.” More

The group, Fight Right, was registered in recent days as Gov. Ron DeSantis tries to boost his momentum heading into the Iowa caucuses.A new political group with ties to Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida began reserving airtime in Iowa on Monday, a surprising new player in the 2024 Republican primary that has emerged with less than two months until the Iowa caucuses.The reservations — more than $700,000 as of early Monday afternoon — were being made by an entity called Fight Right, according to AdImpact, a media-tracking company. A nonprofit by that name, Fight Right Inc., was registered in Florida last week and a super PAC with the same name was also registered with the Federal Election Commission by a Tallahassee-based treasurer, state and federal records show.The ads, which will begin on Thanksgiving, are expected to oppose Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, according to AdImpact. Ms. Haley has steadily risen in the polls, though both she and Mr. DeSantis still trail far behind the front-runner, Donald J. Trump.The emergence of a new pro-DeSantis group at this stage of the race is unusual, in part because Mr. DeSantis has worked so closely with Never Back Down, his primary super PAC, after transferring $82.5 million to the group this year.Since then, however, tensions have flared between Never Back Down and the DeSantis campaign over strategy, including over a publicly posted memo ahead of the first debate that left Mr. DeSantis angry and frustrated. Earlier in the summer, the campaign wrote a memo of its own that appeared to second-guess some of the super PAC’s tactics.The new Florida nonprofit, Fight Right Inc., listed three directors on its state filing, all of whom have ties to Mr. DeSantis, including Jeff Aaron, a Florida lawyer and DeSantis appointee who incorporated the group. The two other listed directors are David Dewhirst, a lawyer whose LinkedIn page described him as a senior adviser in the governor’s office, and Scott Ross, a managing partner at a Tallahassee lobbying firm, Capital City Consulting, which has been closely aligned with Mr. DeSantis.New entities such as Fight Right sometimes spring up in the middle of a campaign to fulfill the strategic wishes of donors, and it was unclear what specifically led to the creation of Fight Right. AdImpact showed that the same firm that has reserved Never Back Down’s advertising, AxMedia, reserved the airtime for the new group.The DeSantis campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Mr. Aaron and Mr. Ross did not respond to emails and Mr. Dewhirst could not be reached immediately.Mr. DeSantis has banked much of his candidacy on a strong showing in Iowa, where the most recent Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom poll showed Mr. Trump far ahead. Mr. Trump had 43 percent support and Mr. DeSantis was tied with Ms. Haley at 16 percent.Super PACs for Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Haley have spent millions of dollars in recent weeks attacking one another.Candidates and super PACs are legally forbidden from coordinating on strategy in private. But the DeSantis campaign and Never Back Down have worked together exceptionally closely, with the super PAC renting a bus in recent months to take the governor across Iowa and organizing campaign stops to help him fulfill his promise to appear in all of the state’s 99 counties.Over the weekend, Mr. DeSantis visited his 98th county, leaving only one remaining. He also appeared for the first time aboard his own campaign bus. More

More from our inbox:Rosalynn Carter’s ‘Incredible Life’Protests at ColumbiaBidenomics Isn’t Helping Me Damon Winter/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “A Trump-Biden Rematch Is the Election We Need,” by Carlos Lozada (column, Nov. 12):When I first saw the headline on Mr. Lozada’s column, I thought, “No way!” After reading the piece and thinking about it, I have decided that this is the one election we truly need to have.There is no greater comparison than Biden vs. Trump. It is the classic confrontation of good versus evil, and the American people need to decide whether we choose to maintain a constitutional republic, or support an authoritarian, belligerent, vindictive form of government.The twice impeached, quadruple indicted former president is a clear and present danger, while Joe Biden is a staunch defender of democracy, fairness and decency. We need this election to once and for all defeat MAGA and Trumpism, and send Donald Trump packing, if he is not in prison.There is no greater threat to the American way of life than Donald Trump, and even if Joe Biden is simply a place holder for the president who is elected in 2028, that would be far more palatable than a Trump presidency.Henry A. LowensteinNew YorkTo the Editor:Carlos Lozada argues that “we have no choice but to choose” between Donald Trump and President Biden and their dueling visions for America at the ballot box in 2024. This is, for now, a false choice.In light of the alarming polling trend regarding Mr. Biden’s re-electability, the wisest course of action for the Democrats is to urgently organize, with Mr. Biden’s blessing (he would have to be persuaded), a robust Democratic presidential primary in order to discover whom Democratic voters would turn out for in the largest numbers on Election Day.But the longer that Democratic elites delay, the Trump-Biden choice will, in short order, become one that we indeed cannot escape. If this occurs, as seems likely, it will be a choice that Mr. Biden and the Democratic establishment impose on the electorate.And if Mr. Biden comes up short at the ballot box in 2024, as the recent New York Times/Siena poll suggests he will, he and the Democratic Party’s other so-called leaders will have nobody but themselves to blame.Nicholas BuxtonNew YorkTo the Editor:Carlos Lozada writes: “Joe Biden versus Donald Trump is not the choice America wants. But it is the choice we need to face.”Yes, it is the choice we need to face, but what a risk!With Mr. Trump’s high polling numbers, it certainly seems that a significant number of people support his candidacy unequivocally. What he says and does — illegal or not — makes no difference. He evokes deep emotions and the feeling that he will settle their scores and protect them from the “woke” mob. They like Mr. Trump’s moxie and flouting of authority, but don’t listen to his actual plan of governance.He plainly wants to create an authoritarian government — put his cronies in the Justice Department and jail his political “enemies,” pack the courts and rule as his whims dictate.Yes, the best way to end Mr. Trump’s reign of influence would be to decisively defeat him in this election. But we are taking the huge risk that he could win — and end our democracy as we know it.I would rather risk losing to a Nikki Haley than take the chance on beating Mr. Trump. Unfortunately, we may not have a choice.It is the job of the Democratic candidates and the media to clearly present the facts about the likely choices in this election. And keep our fingers crossed!Carol KrainesDeerfield, Ill.To the Editor:Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota, the 54-year-old Democrat running a long-shot presidential campaign, took direct aim at President Biden and his message in a recent CNN interview.Mr. Phillips said: “I think in 2020, he was probably the only Democrat who could have beaten Donald Trump. I think in 2024, he may be among the only ones that will lose to him.”Let’s think about that, because if you do, his argument is very persuasive. Mr. Phillips is a relatively young, moderate Democrat. Millions of people are yearning for an alternative to an octogenarian Joe Biden and to an existentially dangerous to our democracy Donald Trump.In a recent poll, a “generic” Democrat matched against Mr. Trump outperformed Joe Biden by more than 10 points. We Democrats want an alternative. Just maybe we’ve found one, and his name is Dean Phillips.Ken DerowSwarthmore, Pa.Rosalynn Carter’s ‘Incredible Life’At their home in Plains, Ga., in the same place they’ve always sat.” After the presidency, Mrs. Carter joined her husband in doing work for Habitat for Humanity, co-founded a vaccine advocacy organization and continued to campaign to reduce the stigma of mental illness. Dustin Chambers for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Rosalynn Carter, 1927-2023: First Lady and Influential Partner to a President” (obituary, front page, Nov. 20):Rosalynn Carter walked her own path, inspiring a nation and the world along the way.Throughout her incredible life as first lady of Georgia and the first lady of the United States, Mrs. Carter did so much to address many of society’s greatest needs.She was a champion for equal rights and opportunities for women and girls; an advocate for mental health and wellness for every person; and a supporter of the often unseen and uncompensated caregivers of our children, aging loved ones and people with disabilities.Above all, the deep love shared between Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter is the definition of partnership, and their humble leadership is the definition of patriotism. She lived life by her faith.I send my love to Mr. Carter, the entire Carter family, and the countless people across our nation and the world whose lives are better, fuller and brighter because of the life and legacy of Rosalynn Carter.Paul BaconHallandale Beach, Fla.Protests at Columbia Bing Guan for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Columbia Students and Faculty Protest War and the University’s Reaction to It” (news article, Nov. 16):Columbia administrators cite “unauthorized” events and the necessary continuation of “core university activities” as primary reasons for silencing pro-Palestinian groups on campus.I don’t always agree with the politics of these groups, and I agree with the university’s finding that “threatening rhetoric and intimidation” exist at their protests. Still, the university’s actions raise these questions:What is a university if not a space for the free exchange of ideas? Is protest not a core university activity at an institution celebrated for its amplification of student voices?As long as they don’t incite violence or endanger members of our community, Columbia’s pro-Palestinian groups should be allowed to offend, frighten and protest whenever and wherever they’d like.Benjamin RubinNew YorkThe writer is a member of the Columbia University class of 2027.Bidenomics Isn’t Helping Me John ProvencherTo the Editor:Re “Bidenomics Has a Mortal Enemy, and It Isn’t Trump,” by Karen Petrou (Opinion guest essay, Nov. 19):Ms. Petrou is absolutely accurate. I am self-employed, work full time and cannot make ends meet.I’m constantly trying to determine whether to pay the bills or rent on my business; luckily, I have kind landlords. I pay a mortgage as well. I’m college educated. The last couple of weeks of every month I am generally broke and couldn’t pay anything if I had to. And this situation has gone on for years now.I really like President Biden, but I do agree that on this particular issue the administration is getting it wrong.Shannon TrimbleSan Francisco More

The Commission on Presidential Debates will host three general election forums on Sept. 16, Oct. 1 and Oct. 9.The Commission on Presidential Debates on Monday announced the dates and locations of three presidential debates to be held during the general election campaign next year, as well as one vice-presidential debate.The presidential debates are scheduled for Sept. 16 at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas; Oct. 1 at Virginia State University in Petersburg, Va.; and Oct. 9 at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. The vice-presidential debate is scheduled for Sept. 25 at Lafayette College in Easton, Pa.The moderators and formats for each debate are not expected to be announced until next year, but the events are scheduled to run for 90 minutes with no commercial breaks.The commission, which receives no funding from the government or political parties, has sponsored all general election presidential and vice-presidential debates since the 1988 election.“The United States’ general election debates, watched live worldwide, are a model for many other countries: the opportunity to hear and see leading candidates address serious issues in a fair and neutral setting,” the commission’s leaders, Frank Fahrenkopf and Antonia Hernández, said in a statement.To be eligible to participate in the debates, candidates will be required to have at least 15 percent support in national polls. In most elections, that means only the Democratic and Republican nominees are onstage, but it is not out of the question that a third-party candidate like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could qualify this cycle given voters’ deep dissatisfaction with the major-party choices.It remains to be seen whether former President Donald J. Trump, who has refused to attend the Republican primary debates, will agree to participate in the general election debates if, as appears likely, he is his party’s nominee. The Republican National Committee cut ties with the Commission on Presidential Debates last year after accusing it of bias, but it will ultimately be up to the nominee to decide whether to take part.It is also unclear whether Mr. Biden will be interested in participating. His team has not committed to debating Mr. Trump, who could be convicted of felonies before the events begin. And the Biden campaign is still upset with the commission over what it sees as lax enforcement of Covid protocols at the first debate in 2020, soon after which Mr. Trump was diagnosed with the virus.A spokesman for Mr. Biden declined to comment on Monday, and a spokesman for Mr. Trump did not comment on the record.Maggie Haberman More

Americans are angry and anxious, and not just about prices, which may be driving economic sentiment more than their financial situations, economists said.By traditional measures, the economy is strong. Inflation has slowed significantly. Wages are increasing. Unemployment is near a half-century low. Job satisfaction is up.Yet Americans don’t necessarily see it that way. In the recent New York Times/Siena College poll of voters in six swing states, eight in 10 said the economy was fair or poor. Just 2 percent said it was excellent. Majorities of every group of Americans — across gender, race, age, education, geography, income and party — had an unfavorable view.To make the disconnect even more confusing, people are not acting the way they do when they believe the economy is bad. They are spending, vacationing and job-switching the way they do when they believe it’s good.Americans Are Spending More, but Consumer Optimism Is Down More

A three-judge panel is considering how to balance the former president’s free-speech rights against the need to insulate prosecutors, court personnel and potential witnesses from intimidation.Prosecutors and lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump squared off on Monday in a federal appeals court in Washington to debate the validity of the gag order placed on Mr. Trump in the criminal case accusing him of plotting to overturn the 2020 election.The hearing in front of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit followed more than a month of back-and-forth arguments about the order. It was put in place by the trial judge in October to stop Mr. Trump from maligning or threatening prosecutors, potential witnesses or court employees involved in the case.From the start, the gag order has led to a momentous clash over how to protect people taking part in the election interference case from Mr. Trump’s barrage while preserving his rights as he campaigns for president and claims that the prosecution is political persecution.When Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, an appointee of President Barack Obama, first imposed the order, she tried to thread that needle by barring Mr. Trump from lashing out at any people connected to the case — herself excepted — while still allowing him to say what he wants about what he asserts is the partisan and retaliatory nature of the case.Mr. Trump’s lawyers appealed the order almost as soon as it was imposed, deriding it as “the essence of censorship.”Each of the three judges on the appellate panel assigned to the case was nominated by a Democratic president: Judges Patricia Millett and Cornelia Pillard were both Obama appointees, and Judge Brad Garcia was appointed by President Biden.In court papers, Mr. Trump’s lawyers have told the appeals court that the order should be repealed since it violates the First Amendment. They also said it represented an effort by Judge Chutkan to “micromanage” Mr. Trump’s “core political speech” before and during a trial that is scheduled to begin in March in the midst of the Republican primary season.Prosecutors working for Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing the federal prosecutions of Mr. Trump, have fired back that courts have wide discretion to limit the statements made by criminal defendants. They say that this gag order in particular was needed because of Mr. Trump’s “near daily” attacks against Mr. Smith, Judge Chutkan and potential witnesses in the case, including former Vice President Mike Pence and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.The prosecutors have tried to position themselves as protectors of both the integrity of the judicial process and the people who take part in it, telling the appeals court that Mr. Trump’s threats on social media have sometimes had damaging effects in the real world.It is not clear how quickly the three-judge panel of the appeals court will decide on whether to rescind the gag order or keep it in place as the case moves toward its trial date. The gag order has been in abeyance for about two weeks as the court has gotten filings from the defense and the prosecution.If the order is upheld and goes back into effect, Judge Chutkan may confront an even tougher issue: how to enforce the decree if Mr. Trump violates it. A violation of a gag order is treated as a matter of contempt of court, which could result in a reprimand, a fine or imprisonment. But how that would play out is complicated.There are two types of contempt: civil, which is typically used to coerce future compliance with an order like making a recalcitrant witness testify; and criminal, which is focused on punishing past defiance of an order. Typically — though not always — judges have treated violations of gag orders as the latter type.In federal court, judges cannot unilaterally impose a fine or order someone imprisoned for criminal contempt. Rather, such an accusation is treated as a new offense that requires the appointment of a prosecutor and another trial — including a right to a decision by a jury.The battle over the federal gag order comes as a state appeals court in New York is considering the merits of two related gag orders imposed on Mr. Trump by Justice Arthur F. Engoron, who is overseeing his civil fraud trial in Manhattan.Those orders — which are also currently paused — would bar Mr. Trump or any of his lawyers from targeting Justice Engoron’s law clerk. The clerk has suffered repeated attacks by the former president and his allies, who have accused her of being a Democratic partisan. More