Elections

Gail Collins: Bret, I guess we should start with things we’re thankful for this year. Don’t suppose the imminent end of the political career of the dreadful Representative George Santos rises to the level of holiday cheer.So you go first. No fair counting family and friends.Bret Stephens: It’s a depressing world, Gail, so we need to find cheer wherever we can, and the House Ethics Committee report on Santos does make for delightful reading. My favorite bit: “During the 2020 campaign, a $1,500 purchase on the campaign debit card was made at Mirza Aesthetics; this expense was not reported to the F.E.C. and was noted as ‘Botox’ in expense spreadsheets.” Santos would have been around 32 years old at the time.Gail: You’re right. Makes me cheery just hearing it.Bret: On a loftier plane, I was delighted to see Joe Biden describe Xi Jinping as, well, “a dictator” of a “Communist country” while Antony Blinken, his secretary of state, visibly winced. That was another wonderful moment.Gail: I can see how Biden felt a little cornered when a reporter asked him if he still believed Xi was a dictator. I mean, what was he supposed to say? “No, I think he’s changed a lot?”But it also does seem as if it’s the kind of question he should have been a tad better prepared to handle.Feel free to perk me up again.Bret: I loved Biden’s answer. It reminded me of Ronald Reagan calling the Soviet Union an “evil empire,” to the consternation of diplomats and pundits but to the relief of anyone who liked hearing an American president state the obvious and essential truth. I also think it’s worth celebrating the fact that inflation seems to have been tamed without cratering the rest of the economy in the process. That might not help Biden’s campaign, since a lot of price increases are now baked into the system, but at least things aren’t getting worse.OK, now your turn.Gail: Hey, this is a president who has really kept the economy under control, who has a great program for building new roads, bridges and mass transit and who always keeps climate change in mind when he’s working out an agenda.And who does not seek out cheap headlines by saying things that are both wrong and wrongheaded just to get attention.Bret: Like Elon Musk?Gail: OK, never been grateful for Elon Musk. He has, however, made me more appreciative of stupendously rich people who don’t get involved in public debates. Happy Thanksgiving, hermit billionaires!Bret: He’s also made me more appreciative of normal billionaires who, unlike him, don’t promote crackpot antisemitic conspiracy theories on their social media platforms. I’m also appreciative of companies — like IBM, Paramount, Apple and Disney — that have pulled their advertising dollars from X, formerly known as Twitter, out of disgust for his views. Now I’m rooting for Tesla owners to trade in their Model 3s for a Rivian or any other electric car that doesn’t run on a high-voltage blend of bottomless narcissism, knee-jerk bigotry and probably too much weed.Gail: Well said. Moving on to politics: I’m grateful that some Republican presidential candidates other than He Who Shall Not Be Named are getting some attention. Particularly your fave, Nikki Haley.On that topic, tell me what you think about the primaries. Trump is way ahead nationally, but do you think Haley could do something impressive in the early primaries? If, say, Chris Christie dropped out and endorsed her?Bret: My gut tells me that primary voters prefer a contest to a coronation, but then my brain remembers that the G.O.P. has turned into a cult. As the field narrows, Haley will pick up Christie voters and maybe some DeSantis voters, too. But Trump will pick up other DeSantis voters, plus Ramaswamy’s.I’m about as thankful for Trump’s dominance as I would be for a terminal cancer diagnosis. But hey, aren’t we trying to keep things optimistic?Gail: Maybe it’s my desperation that creates these imagined scenarios in which Haley impresses New Hampshire voters, who are always up for a script in which they get to pick the new star. And then the campaign gets a real jolt when Christie drops out and gives her his endorsement.Bret: I like this fantasy. Say more.Gail: Then Haley starts a serious campaign that draws terrific interest among rich Americans who don’t want a president who has to spend half his time in court trying to prove that he didn’t actually try to fix the last election, that his real estate empire isn’t just a fairyland of debt, that — I could go on. If Haley could get the serious-alternative attention and funding, it’d be quite a ride.And oh, did I mention that I’d be thankful if she rethinks her position on a six-week abortion ban bill?Bret: Gail, I bet this is the first time you wish the 1 percent were more like the majority, at least in terms of attitudes about Republican candidates. If Park Avenue got to decide the G.O.P. primary contest, Haley would be the nominee in a heartbeat.And speaking of heartbeats: Biden turns 81 this week. Happy birthday, Mr. President. May you live to 100, but please, please, please retire. We’ll all pitch in to buy you a new Corvette, at least before we have to take away the keys.Gail: Sigh. Once again, I’m gonna have to follow up my praise of Biden in office with a plea for him to leave it. If you’re in good health like he is, your 80s can be a great time of achievement. Or your 90s — look at Jimmy Carter and all his charitable work and Rosalynn Carter, who just died at 96. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good time to be president of the United States.If our president really wants to make me thankful this season, he knows what he can do.Bret: Let’s face it: There’s just not a lot to be thankful for, politically speaking. So, um, read any good books lately?Gail: Well, right now I’m on “Romney,” the Mitt biography by McKay Coppins, although Romney himself was so wildly cooperative it feels as if he should get some kind of co-author status. So far, it’s a very good read.And I just finished our colleague Adam Nagourney’s book “The Times,” which is about … well, us. Adam’s a friend and a terrific reporter. Bet anyone who’s a devoted Times reader will gobble it up.Finally, I sort of have a thing for presidential biographies, and if anybody’s looking for a really fine one, I’d recommend “Washington,” by Ron Chernow. Always good to start at the beginning.How about you?Bret: Generally, I hate books about the media by the media: Solipsism is one of the curses of our profession. But everyone who has read Adam’s book tells me it’s terrific, and I’ve promised myself to get to it before the year’s out.I’m making my way through two books right now, one to feed the mind and the other the soul. The first is the Johns Hopkins scholar Yascha Mounk’s “The Identity Trap,” an intellectual tour de force about the origins of identity politics and the threat it presents to genuine, honest, old-fashioned liberalism. The second is “My Effin’ Life,” by the greatest living Canadian: the singer and bassist Geddy Lee of the band Rush. It’s a story about how an improbable trio of geeks from Ontario rose to the pinnacle of rock ’n’ roll stardom while somehow holding on to their wits, souls and marriages.I’m sure you can’t wait to read it. I’m guessing you’d rather talk about budget negotiations.Gail: Well, one ongoing story line that’s driving me crazy is the House Republicans’ insistence that pretty much everything be tied to a cut in the I.R.S. budget.Now I know it’s natural for people to hate tax collectors. But the idea that you make the country more stable by making it easier for folks to conceal income and illicitly expand deductions is beyond me.Bret: Hope it won’t surprise you to learn that while I’m all for lowering taxes majorly, I’m also for collecting them fully. The Republican war on the I.R.S. isn’t pro-growth; it’s just anti-government.As for the big picture: We can’t go on like this, from one short-term spending bill to another, one budget crisis to another, one House speaker to another. This is banana republic governance — and by “banana,” I mean “bananas.” Pramila Jayapal, the progressive congresswoman from Seattle with whom I agree roughly once every 500 years, was right when she said, “It’s the same menu, different waiter.”Gail: In a normal — thinking non-Trump — era, the Republicans would have taken over the House by a more substantial margin. Usually happens when one party gets the presidency, as you know. Voters get nervous and want to put up some barricades against extremely partisan behavior.But this time the Republicans won by only a hair, in part because there were a number of awful Trump-promoted Republican candidates.So you’ve got a House run by a deeply inexperienced leader with a tiny majority. And everything bad that happens is going to be the Republicans’ fault.Except, I guess, if Biden’s dog Commander comes back to the White House and bites more people.Hey, before we go, happy Thanksgiving, Bret. Very grateful for the chance to converse with you every week.Bret: And to you!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

A poll can be very close to the actual result but miss the key story line. We’ll try new question forms; we might even try an experiment or two.Protecting democracy has been a potent message in recent elections. Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesBy the usual measures, last year’s midterm polls were among the most accurate on record.But in harder-to-measure ways, there’s a case those same polls were extraordinarily bad.Poll after poll seemed to tell a clear story before the election: Voters were driven more by the economy, immigration and crime than abortion and democracy, helping to raise the specter of a “red wave.”In the end, the final results looked just about like the final polls, but they told a completely different story about the election: When abortion and democracy were at stake, Democrats excelled. And while the polls had sometimes or even often showed Democrats excelling, they almost always failed to convincingly explain why they were ahead — making it seem that Democratic polling leads were fragile and tenuous.Take our own Times/Siena polls. Our results in states like Pennsylvania and Arizona were very close to the final results and showed Democrats with the lead. By all accounts, abortion and democracy were major factors helping to explain Democratic strength in these states, especially against election deniers like Doug Mastriano or Kari Lake.But although these polls performed well, they simply didn’t explain what happened. If anything, the polls were showing the conditions for a Republican win. They showed that voters wanted Republican control of the Senate. They showed that a majority of voters didn’t really care whether a candidate thought Joe Biden won the 2020 election, even though election deniers wound up being clearly punished at the ballot box. Voters said they cared more about the economy than issues like abortion or democracy, and so on.The Times/Siena polling wasn’t alone in this regard. Virtually all of the major public pollsters told the same basic story, and it’s the opposite of the story that we told after the election. If we judge these poll questions about the issues by the same standard that we judge the main election results — a comparison between the pre-election polls and what we believe to be true after the election, with the benefit of the results — I think we’d have to say this was a complete misfire.If you do this exercise for previous elections, issue polling failures look more like the norm than the exception. There just aren’t many elections when you can read a pre-election poll story, line it up with the post-election story, and say that the pre-election poll captured the most important dynamics of the election. The final CBS/NYT, Pew Research and ABC/Washington Post polls from the 2016 election, for instance, barely shed any light at all on Donald J. Trump’s strength. They contributed essentially nothing to the decade-long debate about whether the economy, racial resentment, immigration or anything else helped explain Mr. Trump’s success among white working-class voters in that election.With such a poor track record, there’s a case that “issue” polling faces a far graver crisis than “horse race” polling. I can imagine many public pollsters recoiling at that assertion, but they can’t prove it wrong, either. The crisis facing issue polling is almost entirely non-falsifiable — just like the issue polling itself. Indeed, the fact that the problems with issue polling are so hard to quantify is probably why problems have been allowed to fester. Most pollsters probably assume they’re good at issue polling; after all, unlike with horse race polls, they’re almost never demonstrably wrong.In fairness to pollsters, the problem isn’t only that the usual questions probably don’t fully portray the attitudes of the electorate. It’s also that pollsters are trying to figure out what’s driving the behavior of voters, and that’s a different and more challenging question than simply measuring whom they’ll vote for or what they believe. These causal questions are beyond what a single poll with “issue” questions can realistically be expected to answer. The worlds of political campaigning and social science research, with everything from experimental designs to messaging testing, probably have more of the relevant tools than public pollsters.Over the next year, we’re going to try to bring some of those tools into our polling. We’ll focus more on analyzing what factors predict whether voters have “flipped” since 2020, rather than look at what attitudes prevail over a majority of the electorate. We’ll try new question forms. We might even try an experiment or two.We already tried one such experiment in our latest Times/Siena battleground state poll. We split the sample into two halves: One half was asked whether they’d vote for a typical Democrat against a Republican expressing a moderate view on abortion or democracy; the other half was given the same Democrat against a Republican expressing more conservative or MAGA views on abortion or democracy.In the next newsletter, I’ll tell you about the results of that experiment. I think it was promising. More

En manos de un candidato hábil, las encuestas preliminares pueden ser un mapa de ruta para darle un giro total a una campaña en dificultades.Mucho antes del día de las elecciones en 2004, algunos estrategas le advirtieron al presidente George W. Bush que tendría una campaña difícil porque los electores estaban angustiados por la guerra en Irak y la economía, dos temas que esperaba sortear para llegar a un segundo mandato.Los asesores de Bush se apresuraron a restructurar la campaña. Su meta fue evitar que el público centrara su atención en el presidente y su historial y lograr, más bien, presentar al opositor demócrata más probable, el senador de Massachusetts, John Kerry, veterano de la guerra de Vietnam, como alguien que cambiaba de opinión con facilidad, que no era de fiar en temas de seguridad nacional y que no podía guiar a la nación, que todavía estaba recuperándose de los ataques terroristas del 11 de septiembre.“Identificamos una debilidad que sin duda podríamos explotar en nuestro beneficio en unas elecciones que se esperaba que fueran cerradas”, explicó Karl Rove, asesor político sénior de Bush durante mucho tiempo.Ocho años después, los asesores de otro presidente en funciones, Barack Obama, gracias a su análisis de varias encuestas públicas y privadas, llegaron a la conclusión de que las inquietudes de los votantes en torno a los efectos persistentes de la Gran Recesión y la dirección de la nación podrían arruinar sus posibilidades de llegar a un segundo mandato.Siguiendo el ejemplo de Bush, Obama ajustó su campaña y, en vez de poner énfasis en los logros obtenidos durante su primer mandato, se concentró en desacreditar a su opositor, el exgobernador de Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, presentándolo como un empresario adinerado totalmente desconectado de los estadounidenses de clase trabajadora.En esta era de división y polarización, el presidente Joe Biden no es el primero en recibir datos que parecen indicar que su reelección está en riesgo. El problema es que las campañas de reelección de Bush y Obama, quienes lograron ganar un segundo mandato en la Casa Blanca, ahora más bien son prueba de que las encuestas realizadas con tanta anticipación no pueden predecir lo que ocurrirá el día de las elecciones. En manos de un candidato hábil, incluso pueden ser un mapa de ruta para darle un giro total a una campaña en dificultades.Bush y Obama eran candidatos diferentes y enfrentaban obstáculos distintos: en el caso de Bush, el embrollo de una guerra; en el de Obama, una economía nacional sacudida por la crisis financiera global de 2008. Sin embargo, ambos decidieron transformar su campana de reelección de un referendo sobre el presidente en funciones a una operación para resaltar cuánto contrastaban con un opositor que ellos mismos definieron, con anuncios televisivos fulminantes, meses antes de que Romney o Kerry fueran nominados en las convenciones de sus partidos.En el caso contrario, un presidente republicano de la era moderna que perdió las elecciones para un segundo mandato, George H.W. Bush en 1992, cometió el error de ignorar los datos mostrados por las encuestas sobre la angustia de los electores en el tema de la economía y su avidez de un cambio tras 12 años de republicanos en la Casa Blanca.Bush padre, según dijeron sus asesores en entrevistas recientes, se confió por el reconocimiento del que fue objeto por su papel al frente de la coalición que expulsó a Saddam Hussein e Irak de Kuwait, además del desdén que sentía por su opositor, un joven gobernador demócrata que había evitado el reclutamiento militar y tenía un historial de relaciones extramaritales.El expresidente Barack Obama reformuló su campaña para centrarse en desacreditar a su oponente, Mitt Romney, y mostrarlo como un empresario adinerado totalmente desconectado de los estadounidenses de clase trabajadora.Doug Mills/The New York Times“Biden tiene grandes dificultades, pero creo que es posible ganar la contienda”, aseveró David Plouffe, antiguo asesor sénior en la campaña de reelección de Obama. “Claro que comprendo que un presidente o gobernador en funciones piense que las personas deban saber más sobre sus logros. Es cierto, pero, a fin de cuentas, esto es un ejercicio comparativo. Eso fue lo que descubrimos”.La Casa Blanca de Biden ha desestimado las encuestas —incluida una realizada por The New York Times en colaboración con el Siena College que se dio a conocer recientemente— por considerarlas poco significativas tanto tiempo antes de las elecciones. Los asesores del presidente indicaron que las victorias demócratas en las elecciones de este mes demuestran que el partido y su abanderado están en una buena posición.Sin embargo, después de meses de una campaña basada en sus logros económicos con pocas señales de éxito, Biden ha comenzado a centrar su atención en Donald Trump, el expresidente republicano que probablemente sea su opositor, en particular en sus políticas de inmigración y derecho al aborto. Por este motivo ahora se transmite un anuncio en el que el expresidente aparece caminando por un campo de golf mientras se escucha al anunciante decir que Trump apoyó los recortes fiscales “para sus amigos ricos”, mientras que las empresas estadounidenses fabricantes de automóviles tuvieron que cerrar plantas.“Por supuesto que estamos considerando opciones para propiciar conversaciones en torno a Trump y MAGA (sigla del eslogan “Hagamos a Estados Unidos grandioso de nuevo”) lo más que se pueda”, comentó Kevin Munoz, vocero para la campaña de Biden. No obstante, Munoz añadió: “Estamos en una posición diferente a la de Obama y Bush. Tuvimos excelentes resultados en las elecciones de medio mandato. Hemos tenido elecciones especiales muy exitosas. Nuestra teoría se demostró de nuevo el martes pasado”.Cambiar drásticamente la dinámica de la contienda puede resultar menos fructífero para Biden que para sus predecesores. Obama y George W. Bush lograron desacreditar a Romney y Kerry porque los electores, en esa etapa temprana de la campaña para las elecciones generales, no sabían mucho de ellos.En cambio, no hay mucho que la campaña de Biden pueda decirles a los electores acerca de Trump que no sepan ya (de hecho, tampoco pueden decirles mucho sobre Biden que no sepan ya). Además, al menos hasta ahora, Trump no ha pagado ningún costo político por el tipo de declaraciones (como cuando se refirió a sus críticos como “alimañas”) que en el pasado podrían haber estropeado las probabilidades de un candidato más convencional. Hasta ahora, el hecho de que se hayan presentado acusaciones formales en su contra por 91 delitos del ámbito penal en cuatro casos solo ha afianzado su apoyo.Cuando la campaña de Bush comenzó a planificar su reelección, se enfrentó a cifras de encuestas que, si bien no eran tan inquietantes para el presidente como algunas que han salido a la luz en las últimas semanas sobre Biden, sí eran motivo de preocupación. Una encuesta realizada por el Centro de Investigaciones Pew reveló que el 46 por ciento de los encuestados dijo que las políticas económicas de Bush habían empeorado la economía y el 39 por ciento dijo que las tropas estadounidenses debían regresar de Irak lo antes posible; frente al 32 por ciento del mes anterior.“Decidimos desde el principio que queríamos que las elecciones giraran en torno a la seguridad nacional, aunque la economía fuera el tema número uno”, dijo Matthew Dowd, el principal estratega de la campaña de Bush en 2004. “Estábamos en desventaja respecto a los demócratas en materia económica. Y como parte de esa estrategia, deseábamos definir a Kerry negativamente en materia de seguridad nacional desde el principio, y como un líder débil e inseguro para poder posicionar a Bush como un líder fuerte y sólido en materia de seguridad nacional”.Al poco tiempo, la campaña de Bush estaba al aire con anuncios que atacaban a Kerry por comprometerse a revertir la Ley Patriota, la cual le otorgaba al gobierno federal mayores poderes para perseguir a terroristas. Esa ley fue aprobada poco después de los ataques del 11 de septiembre con un apoyo abrumador en el Congreso, incluido Kerry.“John Kerry. Jugando a la política con la seguridad nacional”, decía un locutor.El expresidente George W. Bush se enfrentó a cifras de encuestas que, si bien no eran tan inquietantes para el presidente como algunas que han salido a la luz en las últimas semanas sobre Biden, sí eran motivo de preocupación.Doug Mills/The New York TimesOcho años más tarde, mientras Obama preparaba su campaña de reelección, muchos estadounidenses le dijeron a los encuestadores que el país iba en la dirección equivocada y que su situación financiera era peor que antes de que Obama asumiera el cargo. Por ejemplo, una encuesta del Washington Post/ABC News encontró que tres cuartas partes de los estadounidenses decían que el país iba en la dirección equivocada.Los asesores de Obama estudiaron las campañas de reelección de otros presidentes en funciones en problemas. “Sabíamos que la mayoría de las campañas de reelección eran un referéndum”, dijo Joel Benenson, quien fue el encuestador del equipo de Obama.“También sabíamos que teníamos una crisis económica masiva que no fue en absoluto culpa de Obama. Pero también sabíamos que era el presidente en funciones y no podía culpar a su predecesor por ello. No podíamos convencerlos de que la economía estaba mejorando”.Pero Romney, dijo, “no estaba completamente formado entre los votantes”, lo que presentó una oportunidad para resaltar su riqueza y retratarlo como alguien cuyas políticas favorecerían a los ricos.Por el contrario, George H.W. Bush, dijeron sus asesores, ignoró las advertencias, confiando en que el índice de aprobación de los votantes cercano al 90 por ciento que registró después de la guerra en Kuwait hacía que su reelección estuviera casi garantizada. “La adulación de la guerra de alguna manera silenció los instintos políticos normales de muchas personas cercanas al presidente”, dijo Ron Kaufman, quien fue asesor principal de esa campaña.Rove subrayó que la posición de Biden está más deteriorada en este momento que la de Bush padre en 1992. “Bush parecía no tener ideas para el futuro, pero la gente lo consideraba un ser humano admirable”, explicó Rove. “El problema de Biden es que la gente ha llegado a la conclusión de que no puede desempeñar el trabajo, pues es demasiado viejo y no tiene ni el vigor ni la agudeza mental necesarios para hacerlo”.En encuestas recientes conducidas por el Times y el Siena College en cinco estados clave, el 71 por ciento de los participantes respondió que Biden era “demasiado viejo” para ser un presidente efectivo.Plouffe afirmó que la campaña de Biden debería aprovechar la lección que aprendió el equipo de Obama después de estudiar la campaña perdedora de Bush padre. “La gente de Bush intentó convencer a los ciudadanos de que la economía estaba en mejores condiciones de lo que pensaban”, indicó. “Algo que he aprendido es que no puedes decirles a las personas qué pensar de la economía. Ellos te dirán lo que piensan de la economía”.“Yo empezaría cada discurso con la frase: ‘Estados Unidos tiene una decisión frente a sí, ambos somos hombres blancos mayores’”, afirmó Plouffe. “‘Pero hasta ahí llegan las similitudes’”.Adam Nagourney cubre política nacional para el Times, en especial la campaña de 2024. Más de Adam Nagourney More

Argentina’s next president is a libertarian economist whose brash style and embrace of conspiracy theories has parallels with those of Donald J. Trump.Argentines on Sunday chose Javier Milei, a far-right libertarian who has drawn comparisons to Donald J. Trump, as their next president, a lurch to the right for a nation struggling under an economic crisis and a sign of the enduring strength of the global far right.Mr. Milei, 53, an economist and former television personality with virtually no political experience, burst onto the traditionally closed Argentine political scene with a brash style, an embrace of conspiracy theories and a series of extreme proposals that he says are needed to upend a broken economy and government.Mr. Milei drew 56 percent of the vote, with 95 percent of the ballots counted, defeating Sergio Massa, Argentina’s center-left economy minister, who had 44 percent. Mr. Massa, 51, conceded defeat even before official results were released.Mr. Milei has pledged to slash spending and taxes, close Argentina’s central bank and replace the nation’s currency with the U.S. dollar. He has also proposed banning abortion, loosening regulations on guns and considering only countries that want to “fight against socialism” as Argentina’s allies, often naming the United States and Israel as examples.In his victory speech, he attacked the political “caste” that he says has enriched themselves at the expense of average Argentines, saying “today is the end to Argentine decadence.” But he also offered an olive branch.“I want to tell all Argentines and all political leaders and all those who want to join the new Argentina: You’re going to be welcome,” he said. More

El próximo presidente del país es un economista libertario cuyo estilo osado y proclividad a las teorías conspirativas le ha valido comparaciones con Donald Trump.El domingo, los argentinos eligieron a Javier Milei, un libertario de ultraderecha que ha sido comparado con Donald Trump, como su próximo presidente, una sacudida hacia la derecha para un país que experimenta una crisis económica y una señal de lo fuerte que sigue siendo la extrema derecha en el mundo.Milei, un economista y personalidad de la televisión en el pasado, ha irrumpido en la escena política argentina, que tradicionalmente había sido muy cerrada, con un estilo osado, una propensión a las teorías de la conspiración y una serie de propuestas extremistas que, asegura, son necesarias para revertir una economía y gobiernos quebrados.Milei obtuvo casi el 56 por ciento de los votos, con el 95 por ciento de las papeletas escrutadas, derrotando a Sergio Massa, ministro de Economía argentino de centroizquierda, quien obtuvo el 44 por ciento de los votos. Massa, de 51 años, reconoció su derrota incluso antes de que se publicaran los resultados oficiales.Milei ha prometido recortar el gasto público y los impuestos, cerrar el Banco Central de Argentina y remplazar la moneda nacional, el peso, con el dólar estadounidense en caso de ganar la presidencia. También ha propuesto prohibir el aborto, hacer más laxas las leyes de portación de armas y solo considerar como países aliados de Argentina a las naciones que quieran combatir el socialismo, y a menudo pone como ejemplo a Estados Unidos e Israel.La elección de Milei es una victoria para el movimiento global de la extrema derecha que ha ganado fuerza con la elección de Trump y figuras similares, como Jair Bolsonaro en Brasil, pero que en años recientes se había tambaleado con votaciones con resultados desfavorables. Bolsonaro y Vox, el partido de ultraderecha de España, habían respaldado a Milei, y su última entrevista con alguna plataforma en inglés fue con Tucker Carlson, el exconductor de Fox News.Sin embargo, algunos analistas políticos afirmaron que el ascenso de Milei no refleja el apoyo a una ideología de extrema derecha, sino a la desesperación de muchos argentinos por un cambio.Algunos votantes comparten sus puntos de vista extremistas, “pero después hay otra gente que lo votó porque ve en Milei una forma de expresar su frustración frente a una realidad económica, política, que le resulta desagradable desde hace mucho tiempo”, dijo Carlos Pagni, un profesor de historia y columnista político de La Nación, uno de los principales periódicos de Argentina.“No miran la ideología de Milei”, dijo. “Miran que Milei está enojado y que Milei propone una ruptura”.Milei ha aceptado con agrado las comparaciones con Trump y Bolsonaro. Si bien tiene diferencias claras con esos dos políticos, entre ellas su sólida adhesión a la ideología libertaria, el estilo político de Milei tiene semejanzas con el de ellos en muchos sentidos.El ministro de Economía de centroizquierda de Argentina, Sergio Massa, tras votar el domingo en Tigre, Argentina.Rodrigo Valle/Getty ImagesAtaca con dureza a sus críticos y a los medios noticiosos, considera que el cambio climático es una artimaña socialista, argumenta que una casta turbia controla al país y hasta tiene una cabellera rebelde que se ha convertido en un meme en internet.Para muchos observadores, no obstante, las similitudes más preocupantes eran los reclamos preventivos de fraude electoral.Milei ha cuestionado de manera abierta los resultados de las elecciones estadounidenses de 2020 y la votación brasileña de 2022, y durante meses ha dicho, con pruebas escasas, que la elección de primera vuelta fue amañada en su contra. Aseguró que le fueron robadas cientos de miles de papeletas en las votaciones previas de este año y advirtió que si perdía el domingo, se podría deber a que la votación había sido robada. Las autoridades electorales declararon que no había habido fraude.Milei también ha restado importancia a las atrocidades de la dictadura militar argentina de 1976 a 1983, calificándolas de “excesos” en el marco de una “guerra” contra los izquierdistas. Durante un debate nacional afirmó que el número de personas asesinadas durante la dictadura fue mucho menor que las estimaciones ampliamente aceptadas de hasta 30.000 personas.Ese discurso, aunado a sus advertencias sobre unas elecciones amañadas, suscitó una gran inquietud en Argentina sobre su posible efecto en la democracia del país. Antes de la votación, más de 20 personalidades argentinas grabaron y difundieron un video para promover los valores democráticos.Milei ahora se enfrenta a un gran desafío que prácticamente ningún otro presidente argentino ha sido capaz de resolver durante décadas: la economía nacional.Las políticas económicas fracasadas han dejado a Argentina con una de las economías más perpetuamente inestables del mundo, pero incluso para los parámetros habituales, el país se encuentra en una de sus peores crisis.La inflación anual se ha elevado por encima del 140 por ciento —la tercera tasa más alta del mundo—, más de dos de cada cinco argentinos viven ahora en la pobreza y el valor de la moneda argentina se ha desplomado. En abril de 2020, al comienzo de la pandemia, con 1 dólar se compraban 80 pesos, según un tipo de cambio no oficial basado en la valoración de la moneda por parte del mercado. Esta semana, con 1 dólar, se compraban casi 1000 pesos.Listas de votantes colgadas en un lugar de votación en Buenos Aires el domingoJuan Mabromata/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMilei ha defendido que la solución es una ruptura drástica con las viejas políticas. Su campaña se centró en la promesa de “dinamitar” el Banco Central y dolarizar la economía, para lo que destrozó maquetas del banco y levantó billetes gigantes de 100 dólares con su rostro.Su otro accesorio de campaña era una motosierra que agitaba en los mítines. La sierra representaba los profundos recortes que quiere aplicar al gobierno: bajar los impuestos, recortar las regulaciones, privatizar industrias estatales, reducir el número de ministerios federales de 18 a ocho, cambiar la educación pública a un sistema basado en vouchers y la atención de salud pública a un sistema basado en seguros, y recortar el gasto federal hasta en un 15 por ciento del producto interno bruto de Argentina.Algunos economistas y analistas políticos han afirmado que Milei carece del apoyo político y de las condiciones económicas necesarias para llevar a cabo un cambio tan radical. Su naciente partido, La Libertad Avanza, solo tiene siete de los 72 escaños del Senado y 38 de los 257 de la Cámara de Diputados.Milei ha suavizado recientemente algunas de sus propuestas tras las reacciones recibidas.Sin embargo, para muchos argentinos, Milei supondrá una grata ruptura con el peronismo, el movimiento político que ha ocupado la presidencia durante 16 de los últimos 20 años, aplicando en la mayoría de los casos políticas de izquierda que han llevado al país de la bonanza a la quiebra.Tras el declive económico más reciente y una serie de escándalos de corrupción, muchos votantes estaban desesperados por cualquier cambio, incluso a pesar de los recelos sobre la personalidad excéntrica y el temperamento provocador de Milei.Después de decir que votó a regañadientes por Milei, Silvana Cavalleri, de 58 años, una agente inmobiliaria, afirmó que no podía seguir votando por la “corrupción”. Dijo que esperaba “que Milei por lo menos sea menos corrupto”.Una bandera con un retrato de Milei en Buenos Aires el domingo.Rodrigo Abd/Associated PressMilei superó las críticas y las inquietudes sobre una serie de comportamientos inusuales durante la campaña, como sus duros ataques contra el papa, sus enfrentamientos con fans de Taylor Swift, sus afirmaciones de ser un gurú de sexo tántrico, su disfraz de superhéroe libertario y la relación estrecha con sus perros mastines, que llevan nombres de economistas conservadores y que, además, son clonados.Algunos votantes se desanimaron ante sus arrebatos en el pasado y sus comentarios extremos a lo largo de años de trabajo como experto y personalidad de la televisión.En un fragmento de un video de hace unos años, que se compartió de manera generalizada durante la campaña, Milei asegura que el gobierno es corrupto y que le roba al argentino promedio: “El Estado es el pedófilo en el jardín de infantes, con los nenes encadenados y bañados en vaselina”.La compañera de fórmula de Milei, Victoria Villarruel, también ha sido criticada por su historial de comentarios en defensa de la dictadura. Villarruel, quien procede de una familia de militares argentinos, dirige una organización que reconoce a las víctimas de atentados perpetrados por guerrilleros de izquierda antes de que los militares tomaran el poder. Ella y Milei han dicho que 8000 personas desaparecieron durante la dictadura, a pesar de que los registros muestran que incluso los militares argentinos creían que habían desaparecido 22.000 personas apenas dos años después de iniciada.Tras votar en un colegio el domingo, Villarruel criticó un mural cercano dedicado a las 30.000 personas que se cree que fueron asesinadas durante la dictadura. “Hacer pintadas de los 30.000 es como ir a un cementerio y pintar al oso Barney”, dijo, en referencia a un personaje infantil.Milei tomará posesión como presidente el 10 de diciembre, en el aniversario número 40 de la toma de posesión del primer presidente elegido democráticamente después de la caída de la dictadura militar.Natalie Alcoba More

She helped propel Jimmy Carter from rural Georgia to the White House and became the most politically active first lady since Eleanor RooseveltRosalynn Carter, a true life partner to Jimmy Carter who helped propel him from rural Georgia to the White House in a single decade and became the most politically active first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt, died on Sunday in Plains, Ga. She was 96. The Carter Center in Atlanta announced her death. It had disclosed on May 30 that Mrs. Carter had dementia. “She continues to live happily at home with her husband, enjoying spring in Plains and visits with loved ones,” a statement by the center said at the time. On Friday, the center said she had entered hospice care at home.Mr. Carter, 99, the longest-living president in American history, has also been in hospice care at their home, but so far he has defied expectations. The Carter Center had announced in February that he was stopping full-scale medical care “after a series of short hospital stays,” and his family was preparing for the end. But he has hung on — and celebrated his most recent birthday on Oct. 1.Mrs. Carter was the second longest-lived first lady; Bess Truman, the widow of President Harry S. Truman, was 97 when she died in 1982.Over their nearly eight decades together, Mr. and Mrs. Carter forged the closest of bonds, developing a personal and professional symbiosis remarkable for its sheer longevity.Their extraordinary union began formally with their marriage in 1946, but, in a manner of speaking, it began long before that, with a touch of kismet, just after Rosalynn (pronounced ROSE-a-lynn) was born in Plains in 1927.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please  More

President Biden has no plans for a lavish public celebration when he turns 81 on Monday, even as Democrats search for a strategy to assuage voters’ concerns about his age by next year’s election.For many of a certain age, there comes a point when marking yet another birthday, taking note of yet another passage of the calendar, is not greeted with the same enthusiasm it once was. And that’s for people who are not even running for president.For President Biden, who turns 81 on Monday, another birthday may bring more liability than revelry, offering one more reminder of his age to an already skeptical electorate. Unlike other presidents who have celebrated birthdays with lavish political events, Mr. Biden plans to observe his milestone privately with family in Nantucket later this week.The best birthday gift the oldest president in American history could hope for would be a strategy for assuaging voters’ concerns, but that has been hard to come by. Mr. Biden and his team have taken the approach that his record of domestic legislation and international leadership should belie any worries about his capacity, even though polls have shown consistently that that line of argument has not been persuasive, at least not yet.Some Democrats argue that Mr. Biden needs to do more to draw the contrast with his likeliest Republican challenger, former President Donald J. Trump, who at 77 has himself exhibited confusion in public lately. Mr. Trump has warned that the country is on the verge of World War II, mixed up the leaders of Hungary and Turkey, and boasted of beating former President Barack Obama in the polls when of course Mr. Obama is not running. If Mr. Trump wins next year and serves out four years, he would take over the status as the country’s oldest president.Others, including some current and former administration officials, said Mr. Biden’s staff members should stop treating him like an old man they do not trust and let him interact with the public and reporters more. Some said the president needed to start getting out on the campaign trail more to show his vigor, deploy more humor to defuse the matter and even boast about his age rather than ignore it.Others, however, said he needed to be protected even more, allowed more time to rest and not sent on so many draining international trips — what some cheekily call the “Bubble Wrap” strategy, as in encasing him in Bubble Wrap for the next 12 months to make sure he does not trip and fall.If some of this is contradictory, it may be because there is no easy answer, much as Democrats have been obsessing about Mr. Biden’s age. One thing the White House cannot do is make him younger. In a recent New York Times/Siena College poll of battleground states, 71 percent said Mr. Biden was “too old” to be president, including 54 percent of his own supporters. By contrast, 39 percent said that about Mr. Trump.“He doesn’t look and speak the part,” said John B. Judis, the longtime political analyst and author with Ruy Teixeira of “Where Have All the Democrats Gone?” published earlier this month. “He’s not a commanding or charming presence on a presidential or presidential election stage.”Mr. Judis said he thought Mr. Biden had demonstrated “astonishing success” in passing major legislation building infrastructure, lowering the cost of medicine and combating climate change, and added that he planned to vote for the president himself. But he noted that presidents were expected to be both the head of government and the head of state — a prime minister and a king, if you will — and that the public performance part had eluded Mr. Biden.“I think a lot of voters, and young people in particular, who are not at all put off by his political positions or accomplishments, are put off by his utter failure as a regal persona,” Mr. Judis said. “And I don’t know how that can be fixed. Not by bicycling. Biden’s best hope in that regard is the voters’ perception of Trump as a bad or even evil father who wants to wreck the family.”Nothing irritates White House officials more than discussion of Mr. Biden’s age, which they view as an obsession of the news media that does not correspond with the energetic and mentally sharp president they describe inside the Oval Office. While Mr. Biden shuffles when he walks, talks in a low tone that can be hard to hear and sometimes confuses names and details in public, they note that he maintains a crushing schedule that would tire a younger president.In the past few weeks alone, he has devoted countless hours to managing the Israel war with Hamas while also hosting separate summit meetings with leaders from Asia, Europe and the Western Hemisphere. He made a one-day trip to Israel, flying across the world and back without stopping in a hotel room, and they said he has worked the phone endlessly to deal with high-stakes foreign crises.Asked about his forthcoming birthday, the White House did not directly address the age issue on Sunday but chose to focus on the president’s accomplishments, making the point that his long experience in Washington has paid off.“Because of President Biden’s decades of experience in public service and deep relationships with leaders in Congress, he passed legislation that has helped to create more than 14 million jobs, lower prescription drug costs, invest in America’s infrastructure and technology and led to the strongest economic recovery in the developed world,” Ben LaBolt, the White House communications director, said in a statement.“He has revitalized alliances on the world stage — cultivated over many years — to promote America’s interests and respond forcefully when global crises arise,” Mr. LaBolt added.Simon Rosenberg, a veteran Democratic strategist, said the White House should lean even more into the benefits of Mr. Biden’s age rather than be defensive.“He’s been successful because of his age, not in spite of it,” Mr. Rosenberg said. “We’re all going to have to make that case because it’s true. We can’t run away from the age issue. It’s going to be a major part of the conversation, but we would be making a political mistake if we don’t contest it more aggressively.”Margie Omero, a Democratic pollster, said there were naturally limits to what the White House could do. “Nothing anyone, even a president, can do to avoid having a birthday,” she said. “President Biden should continue to do what he’s been doing: connecting personally with people, making jokes about the coverage and highlighting his administration’s accomplishments.”Some party strategists argued that age had dominated the discussion about Mr. Biden lately in part because the president had not yet fully engaged in the contest against Mr. Trump. At the end of the day, they said, Democrats and independents who may be leery of a president who would be 86 at the end of a second term will conclude that it is better to support an octogenarian they agree with than another soon-to-be octogenarian they consider a threat to democracy, abortion rights and other issues that matter to them.“This issue, like many others, will fade once the campaign moves into the general election phase,” said Brian Fallon, a former adviser to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. “Once the race gets reframed as a choice, it will be impossible for Republicans to try to weaponize the issue of age when their own nominee would also be over 80 in his next term.”If that were to work, it would be the best birthday gift Mr. Biden could hope for when he turns 82 next year. It is, of course, a big if. More

Gov. Greg Abbott threw his support behind the former president in the Republican presidential primary at an event near the southern border.Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas endorsed former President Donald J. Trump on Sunday in an appearance near the southern border, echoing Mr. Trump’s talk about an existential crisis of illegal immigration.“I’m here to tell you that there is no way, no way that America can continue under the leadership of Joe Biden as our president,” Mr. Abbott said in Edinburg, Texas, after he and Mr. Trump greeted Border Patrol agents. “We need a president who’s going to secure the border. We need a president who’s going to restore law and order in the United States of America.”Mr. Abbott, a three-term governor with a strongly conservative record, castigated President Biden for reversing Trump-era policies that had expedited deportations and required asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while awaiting hearings, and claimed that Mr. Biden was facilitating terrorism.Mr. Abbott has taken extraordinary measures on border crossings during the Biden administration — including putting razor wire along the border and buoys in the Rio Grande — that have injured many migrants. Under his administration, Texas has also bused tens of thousands of newly arrived migrants around the country, frequently to big cities run by Democrats.His aggressive policies align him closely with Mr. Trump, whose plans if elected to a second term include detaining undocumented immigrants in camps, relying on a form of expulsion that doesn’t involve due process hearings, and deputizing local police officers and National Guard troops from Republican-led states to carry out immigration raids.Mr. Trump took to the microphone after the endorsement and gave an unusually short speech: just 10 minutes long, compared with his 75-minute address in Iowa on Saturday and nearly two hours in New Hampshire last weekend. Mr. Trump’s appearance at the border did not bear resemblance to his typical campaign events this year, and it was not widely open to supporters.“We’re going to make the governor’s job very easy,” he said, suggesting that his immigration policies would remove the need for Mr. Abbott to handle the issue and claiming falsely that Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris had never visited the border.“Our country is going to hell,” he added, before returning to familiar territory of demonizing his political opponents: “We have some people that either they don’t care, they’re not very smart or they hate our country, and nobody really knows the answer.”Both this weekend and last, he had railed at length against President Biden and vowed vengeance upon his opponents, whom he described as “vermin” who posed a greater threat to the country than any outside force — rhetoric reminiscent of fascist dictators like Hitler and Mussolini.Mr. Trump has received endorsements from a number of Republican governors in addition to Mr. Abbott, including Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas, Henry McMaster of South Carolina and Kristi Noem of South Dakota.However, he did not secure the endorsement of Gov. Kim Reynolds, Iowa’s popular governor, who is instead backing Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. More