Elections

Plus Chileans vote on a new constitution and rickshaws lead India’s electric vehicle transition.In Europe, natural gas costs about 10 times as much as it did a year ago.Hannibal Hanschke/ReutersEurope tries to protect its economyThe war in Ukraine has roiled Europe’s economy. Now, as energy costs surge, countries are scrambling to prepare for winter.This weekend, Germany, Sweden and the Czech Republic moved to introduce measures aimed at tackling soaring energy costs and inflation; France is also embarking on its biggest conservation effort since the 1970s oil crisis.Concerns that rising prices could stoke social unrest are growing. Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in Prague on Saturday, and other protests are being planned in Germany.The moves came days after Gazprom, the Kremlin-controlled energy giant, announced an indefinite halt to the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which ends in Germany and provides gas to much of Europe. On the same day, finance ministers for the Group of 7 countries had agreed to impose a price cap on Russian oil in an effort to cut some of Moscow’s energy revenue. Here are live updates.What’s next: E.U. energy ministers are preparing for an emergency meeting this week.Other stories:The U.N. stationed two nuclear experts at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, hoping their presence would lower the risk of a catastrophic attack. But the plant lost the connection with its last remaining main external power line after shelling on Friday.Thousands turned out for Mikhail Gorbachev’s funeral in Moscow on Saturday. Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, did not attend.Ukraine’s southern counteroffensive has retaken several Russian-controlled villages. Deadly shelling continues in the east.Some Chileans worry that if the new charter is approved, it will change their country too drastically.Tomas Munita for The New York TimesChile votes on a new constitutionChile voted yesterday on whether to adopt a new constitution that would enshrine over 100 rights, more than any other nation’s charter.In a single ballot yesterday, Chileans decided whether they wanted universal public health care; the right to legal abortion; gender parity in government; empowered labor unions; greater autonomy for Indigenous groups; rights for animals and nature; and constitutional rights to housing, education, retirement benefits, internet access, clean air, water, sanitation and care “from birth to death.”The results of the vote have not yet been released. If approved, the new constitution could transform what has long been one of Latin America’s most conservative countries into one of the world’s most left-leaning societies.What’s next: Polls suggest that Chileans will reject the new charter. Many Chileans worry that it would change their country too drastically, and the country’s leftist president, Gabriel Boric, has faced plummeting approval ratings.The State of the WarPrice Cap: Finance ministers from the Group of 7 nations agreed to form an international buyers’ cartel to cap the price of Russian oil, a move that could drain President Vladimir V. Putin’s war chest.U.N. Inspection: Amid fears of a possible nuclear accident at the Zaporizhzhia power plant, a United Nations team braved shelling to conduct an inspection of the Russian-controlled station.Russia’s Military Expansion: Though Mr. Putin ordered a sharp increase in the size of Russia’s armed forces, he seems reluctant to declare a draft. Here is why.Unusual Approaches: Ukrainian troops, facing strained supply lines, are turning to jury-rigged weapons and equipment bartering among units.Details: The national vote was mandatory and followed three years of protests, campaigning and debate over the new constitution, which was written from scratch. The current constitution has roots in the brutal dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who ruled from 1973 to 1990.Indigenous rights: The most contentious proposal would define Chile as a “plurinational” state representing some of the most expansive rights for Indigenous people anywhere.A driver swapping a fresh battery into an electric moped.Atul Loke for The New York TimesIndia’s electric rickshawsIn India, low-cost mopeds and rickshaw taxis are leading the transition to electric vehicles.The two- and three-wheeled vehicles sell for as little as $1,000, a far cry from the electric car market in the U.S., where Teslas can cost more than $60,000. Even relatively cheap models can cost more than $25,000.In India, where the median income is just $2,400, competition and subsidies have made electric mopeds and rickshaws as cheap as or cheaper than internal-combustion models. The market is growing: Indian automakers sold 430,000 electric vehicles in the 12 months that ended in March, more than three times as many as they sold a year earlier. Most were two- and three-wheeled vehicles.Environmentalists and the government are celebrating the scooters as a way to clear oppressive smog. Their success could serve as a template for other developing countries — supplied, perhaps, by Indian manufacturers.Details: Rickshaw drivers in New Delhi can trade depleted batteries for fully charged ones at swapping stations. Fresh batteries cost about half as much as a full tank on a conventional vehicle.THE LATEST NEWSAsiaA U.S.-made howitzer during a drill in Taiwan last month.Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, via Agence France-Presse/ Getty ImagesThe U.S. plans to sell more than $1.1 billion worth of arms to Taiwan that are designed to repel a seaborne invasion. Beijing threatened countermeasures.Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was ousted as the president of Sri Lanka this summer, returned to the country on Friday.Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s ousted civilian leader, was sentenced to three more years in prison, with hard labor, on Friday. She now faces 20 years.An explosion at an Afghan mosque killed at least 18 people on Friday, including Mawlawi Mujib Rahman Ansari, a prominent cleric close to the Taliban.News Coming TodayBritain is about to announce its new prime minister. Liz Truss, the fervently pro-Brexit foreign secretary, is the front-runner.Kenya’s Supreme Court is expected to decide by today if the results of the country’s presidential election should stand.Defense hearings are expected to begin in the corruption trial of Argentina’s vice president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, days after she survived an assassination attack.World NewsThe U.S. economy added 315,000 jobs in August, a sign that the labor market is slowing but staying strong.Gazan officials announced the executions of five Palestinians. Two were accused of spying for Israel.Investigators seized 27 artifacts from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, saying they had been looted.What Else Is HappeningJason Allen’s “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial,” which was created using an artificial intelligence program, took first place in the digital category at the Colorado State Fair.via Jason AllenA picture generated by artificial intelligence incited controversy after winning an art prize at the Colorado State Fair.NASA again postponed the launch of its moon rocket on Saturday, this time because of a hydrogen leak.Serena Williams has likely played her final match. After a thrilling run through the early rounds of the U.S. Open, she lost to Ajla Tomljanovic of Australia.New footage of the Titanic shows the ship in detail. It also highlights the next stage in deep-sea tourism: $250,000 for a seat on a submersible to see the wreck.A Morning ReadTulsi Gowind Gowda said she liked trees “more than anything else in my life.”Priyadarshini Ravichandran for The New York TimesWhen India was under British rule, the colonizers led a huge deforestation drive in the mountains of the state of Karnataka, in southern India. One woman, Tulsi Gowind Gowda, has devoted her life to transforming the vast swaths of barren land into dense forests.ARTS AND IDEASShein is officially pronounced “she-in,” though often pronounced “sheen.”Cooper Neill for The New York TimesUnited We SheinShein, the supercheap fast-fashion megagiant, is continuing its rise in America.The craze is real: TikTok is awash with “haul” clips of people showing off their large orders. The Chinese company recently surpassed Amazon as the most downloaded shopping app in the U.S., according to a recent analysis. One couple even got engaged at a pop-up store in Texas.But the brand has also faced many controversies. Shein has been accused by critics of contributing to overconsumption and waste; selling a $2.50 swastika necklace; copying the work of designers; and offering a toddler’s jacket and tiny purse with elevated levels of lead. It has also been accused of working with suppliers that violate labor laws.It’s not enough to deter devotees. One budding fashion influencer said she saw comments about the controversies on videos “all the time,” but suggested that Shein had become a target for being an “underdog.” A video she made about her Shein wedding dress, which cost $39 Canadian, has been liked more than 900,000 times.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookJoe Lingeman for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.This pad krapow gai, a one-pan stir-fry of chicken and basil, is a riff on Thai street food.FashionA Times climate reporter tested clothes designed for rising global temperatures.TravelAsk a flight attendant: Who gets which armrests?Now Time to PlayPlay today’s Mini Crossword.Here are today’s Wordle and today’s Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaNote: Friday’s newsletter was addressed as “Your Thursday Briefing.”P.S. Natalie Kitroeff will take over as Mexico City bureau chief from Maria Abi-Habib, who’s becoming an investigative correspondent.The latest episode of “The Daily” is about Vancouver’s approach to its fentanyl crisis.You can reach Amelia and the team at [email protected]. More

Justice Department officials are debating how an unwritten rule should affect the criminal investigations into Jan. 6 and the former president’s handling of sensitive documents.WASHINGTON — As the midterm elections near, top Justice Department officials are weighing whether to temporarily scale back work in criminal investigations involving former President Donald J. Trump because of an unwritten rule forbidding overt actions that could improperly influence the vote, according to people briefed on the discussions.Under what is known as the 60-day rule, the department has traditionally avoided taking any steps in the run-up to an election that could affect how people vote, out of caution that such moves could be interpreted as abusing its power to manipulate American democracy.Mr. Trump, who is not on the ballot but wields outsize influence in the Republican Party, poses a particular dilemma for Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, whose department is conducting two investigations involving the former president. They include the sprawling inquiry into the Jan. 6 riot and his related effort to overturn the 2020 election and another into his hoarding of sensitive government documents at his Florida club and residence.A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment. But as the 60-day deadline looms this week, the highly unusual situation offers no easy answers, said Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard Law School professor and the former head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.“It’s an unwritten rule of uncertain scope, so it’s not at all clear that it applies to taking investigative steps against a noncandidate former president who is nevertheless intimately involved in the November election,” Mr. Goldsmith said. “But its purpose of avoiding any significant impact on an election seems to be implicated.”Despite its name, the 60-day rule is a general principle rather than a written law or regulation. Its breadth and limits are undefined. The Justice Department has some formal policies and guidelines that relate to the norm, but they offer little clarity to how it should apply to the present situation.The department manual prohibits deliberately selecting the timing of any official action “for the purpose of affecting any election” or to intentionally help or hurt a particular candidate or party. It is vaguer about steps that do not have that motive but might still raise that perception; in such a case, it says, officials should consult the department’s public integrity section.In recent presidential election cycles, attorneys general have also issued written memos reminding prosecutors and agents to adhere to department policy when it comes to such sensitivities. In 2020, Attorney General William P. Barr required high-level approval for investigations to be opened into candidates running for certain offices.In May, Mr. Garland reiterated Mr. Barr’s edict in a memo issued during a midterm cycle. But none of those measures specifically forbid indicting political candidates or taking investigative or prosecutorial steps that could affect an election in the last 60 days before Election Day.In October 2016, the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, departed from the Justice Department’s 60-day rule by telling Congress that the bureau was reopening its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails.Al Drago/The New York TimesA 2018 report by the Justice Department’s independent inspector general, Michael Horowitz, shed some rare insights into the 60-day rule. It examined the decisions by the former F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, less than two weeks before the 2016 election, to depart from the practice by reopening an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and by telling Congress about it. Many believe Mr. Comey’s actions contributed to her narrow loss.A section of the 2018 report cited interviews with former senior Justice Department and F.B.I. officials who acknowledged the 60-day rule as an unwritten practice that informs department decisions. (It is unclear when or how it became a recognized norm.)The report quoted one former official as saying, “People sometimes have a misimpression there’s a magic 60-day rule or 90-day rule. There isn’t. But … the closer you get to the election the more fraught it is.” Another former top official told the inspector general that while drafting rules for 2016 election year sensitivities, the department’s leaders had “considered codifying the substance of the 60-day rule, but that they rejected that approach as unworkable.”The Trump InvestigationsCard 1 of 6The Trump InvestigationsNumerous inquiries. More

Donald J. Trump and President Biden have both made recent appearances in Pennsylvania, one of the key states in November’s midterm elections.WILKES-BARRE TOWNSHIP, Pa. — In his first rally since his home was searched by the F.B.I. on Aug. 8, former President Donald J. Trump on Saturday lashed out at President Biden and federal agents, calling his Democratic rival “an enemy of the state” and the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice “vicious monsters.”In an aggrieved and combative speech in Pennsylvania, Mr. Trump stoked anger against law enforcement even as the F.B.I. and federal officials have faced an increase in threats following the search of Mr. Trump’s residence to retrieve classified documents. Mr. Trump’s remarks echoed the chain of similar, escalating attacks he wrote on his social media website this week, including posts that singled out one agent by name. That agent has retired, and his lawyers have said he did not have a role in the search. Although he faced criticism for the tirades, and some Republicans have warned about the political dangers in attacking law enforcement, the former president signaled he would yield no ground. His speech came two days after Mr. Biden warned that democratic values were under assault by forces loyal to Mr. Trump. The former president described Mr. Biden’s address as “the most vicious, hateful, and divisive speech ever delivered by an American president.” More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsAn Upset in Alaska: Mary Peltola, a Democrat, beat Sarah Palin in a special House election, adding to a series of recent wins for the party. Ms. Peltola will become the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress.Evidence Against a Red Wave: Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, it’s hard to see the once-clear signs of a Republican advantage. A strong Democratic showing in a New York special election is one of the latest examples.G.O.P.’s Dimming Hopes: Republicans are still favored in the fall House races, but former President Donald J. Trump and abortion are scrambling the picture in ways that distress party insiders.Digital Pivot: At least 10 G.O.P. candidates in competitive races have updated their websites to minimize their ties to Mr. Trump or to adjust their uncompromising stances on abortion.“You’re all enemies of the state,” Mr. Trump told thousands of supporters at his rally, where he was campaigning for Pennsylvania Republicans, including State Senator Doug Mastriano, the right-wing nominee for governor, and Mehmet Oz, the celebrity television physician and Senate candidate. “He’s an enemy of the state, you want to know the truth,” he said of Mr. Biden.He told the crowd: “It was not just my home that was raided last month. It was the hopes and dreams of every citizen who I’ve been fighting for.”Mr. Trump described America as a nation in decline, a theme that has become a staple of his post-White House campaign rallies. In Pennsylvania, he again falsely claimed he won the 2020 election and tailored his speech to highlight a spate of recent murders in Philadelphia.Mr. Biden has also spent considerable time in Pennsylvania in recent days, underscoring the political significance this year of what may be the nation’s ultimate battleground state. He cast Trumpism as an urgent threat to the nation in Philadelphia, and he also spoke in Wilkes-Barre, near the arena where Mr. Trump appeared. He is expected in Pittsburgh on Monday for a Labor Day appearance.At the rally, Mr. Trump attacked the two Democratic candidates at the top of the ticket, Josh Shapiro for governor and John Fetterman for senator. More

The campaign arm of Senate Republicans had collected $181.5 million by the end of July — but spent 95 percent of it. A big investment in digital, and hyperaggressive tactics, have not paid off.It was early 2021, and Senator Rick Scott wanted to go big. The new chairman of the Senate Republican campaign arm had a mind to modernize the place. One of his first decisions was to overhaul how the group raised money online.Mr. Scott installed a new digital team, spearheaded by Trump veterans, and greenlit an enormous wave of spending on digital ads, not to promote candidates but to discover more small contributors. Soon, the committee was smashing fund-raising records. By the summer of 2021, Mr. Scott was boasting about “historic investments in digital fund-raising that are already paying dividends.”A year later, some of that braggadocio has vanished — along with most of the money.The National Republican Senatorial Committee has long been a critical part of the party apparatus, recruiting candidates, supporting them with political infrastructure, designing campaign strategy and buying television ads.By the end of July, the committee had collected a record $181.5 million — but had already spent more than 95 percent of what it had brought in. The Republican group entered August with just $23.2 million on hand, less than half of what the Senate Democratic committee had ahead of the final intense phase of the midterm elections.Now top Republicans are beginning to ask: Where did all the money go?The answer, chiefly, is that Mr. Scott’s enormous gamble on finding new online donors has been a costly financial flop in 2022, according to a New York Times analysis of federal records and interviews with people briefed on the committee’s finances. Today, the N.R.S.C. is raising less than before Mr. Scott’s digital splurge.Party leaders, including Senator Mitch McConnell, are fretting aloud that Republicans could squander their shot at retaking the Senate in 2022, with money one factor as some first-time candidates have struggled to gain traction. The N.R.S.C. was intended to be a party bulwark yet found itself recently canceling some TV ad reservations in key states.The story of how the Senate G.O.P. committee went from breaking financial records to breaking television reservations, told through interviews with more than two dozen Republican officials, actually begins with the rising revenues Mr. Scott bragged about last year.One fund-raising scheme by the N.R.S.C. involved text messages that asked provocative questions, including “Should Biden resign?” A request for cash that followed did not reveal where the money was going.Doug Mills/The New York TimesThe committee had squeezed donors with hyperaggressive new tactics. And all the money coming in obscured just how much the committee was spending advertising for donors. Then inflation sapped online giving for Republicans nationwide. And the money that had rolled in came at an ethical price.One fund-raising scheme used by the Senate committee, which has not previously been disclosed, involved sending an estimated millions of text messages that asked provocative questions — “Should Biden resign?” — followed by a request for cash: “Reply YES to donate.” Those who replied “YES” had their donation processed immediately, though the text did not reveal in advance where the money was going.Privately, some Republicans complained the tactic was exploitative. WinRed, the party’s main donation-processing platform, recently stepped in and took the unusual step of blocking the committee from engaging in the practice, according to four people familiar with the matter.The texts had been part of a concerted push that successfully juiced fund-raising, though it used methods that experts say will eventually exhaust even the most loyal givers.One internal N.R.S.C. budget document from earlier this year, obtained by The Times, shows that $23.3 million was poured into investments to find new donors between June 2021 and January 2022. In that time, the contributors the organization found gave $6.1 million — a more than $17 million deficit.Mr. Scott declined an interview request. His staff vigorously denied financial struggles, said some of the canceled television ads had been rebooked, and argued the digital spending would prove wise in time.More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsAn Upset in Alaska: Mary Peltola, a Democrat, beat Sarah Palin in a special House election, adding to a series of recent wins for the party. Ms. Peltola will become the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress.Evidence Against a Red Wave: Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, it’s hard to see the once-clear signs of a Republican advantage. A strong Democratic showing in a New York special election is one of the latest examples.G.O.P.’s Dimming Hopes: Republicans are still favored in the fall House races, but former President Donald J. Trump and abortion are scrambling the picture in ways that distress party insiders.Digital Pivot: At least 10 G.O.P. candidates in competitive races have updated their websites to minimize their ties to Mr. Trump or to adjust their uncompromising stances on abortion.“We made the investment, we’re glad we did it, it will benefit the N.R.S.C. and the party as a whole for cycles to come,” said Chris Hartline, a spokesman for Mr. Scott and the committee.Yet as Republican chances to retake the Senate have slipped, a full-blown case of finger-pointing has erupted across Washington, with Mr. Scott a prime target. His handling of the committee’s finances has become conflated with other critiques, especially a flawed field of Republicans who have found themselves outspent on television.Mr. Scott’s please-all-sides decision to stay out of contested 2022 primaries has been second-guessed, including by Mr. McConnell. Mr. Scott’s detractors accuse him of transforming the N.R.S.C. into the “National Rick Scott Committee” — and a vehicle for his presidential ambitions.“The spending wouldn’t matter if the polling numbers looked better,” said Liam Donovan, a Republican lobbyist and N.R.S.C. donor. “To the extent the red wave is receding, people look for someone to blame.”The financial fortunes of the group alone will not sink Republican chances in November. A super PAC aligned with Mr. McConnell has more than $160 million in television reservations booked after Labor Day.Mr. Hartline dismissed those questioning the group’s digital spending as “disgruntled former staff and vendors.” He said the $28 million invested had tripled its file of email addresses and phone numbers and added 160,000 donors.“Our goal is to build the biggest G.O.P. digital file to help the party now and in the future,” he said. He declined to discuss the texting scheme.Mr. Hartline said the Senate Democratic arm has more money because it had not yet spent significantly on television. Mr. Scott, he said, had strategically spent early, with nearly $30 million on ads aiding Republicans through July.That sum, however, is actually less than the $37.4 million the G.O.P. committee reported in independent expenditures for candidates as of the same date two years ago.A huge online outlayFor months last year, the National Republican Senatorial Committee was far and away the nation’s biggest online political advertiser, outspending every other party committee combined and pouring money into platforms like Google at levels almost unseen except in the fevered final days of 2020.The sums were so breathtakingly large — peaking at more than $100,000 a day on Facebook and Google — that some concerned Democrats began to study the ads, fretting that somehow Republicans had unlocked a new sustainable way to raise money online.They had not.The Senate Republican bet had been this: By spending vast amounts early, the party could vacuum up contact information for millions of potential donors who could then give repeatedly over the coming months. More

Representative Ken Calvert, a long-serving Republican, is facing a tough re-election race in a redrawn district that now includes Palm Springs, proclaimed to be the gayest city in America.PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — Tucked away in the California desert, where windmills line the sprawling hills and rainbows adorn the crosswalks, a sizable progressive L.G.B.T.Q. community has turned a once reliably Republican stronghold into a battleground in the fight for control of Congress, giving Democrats hope for picking up a House seat that has long been beyond their reach.Representative Ken Calvert, a Republican who has served in Congress for three decades, has almost never faced a tough re-election contest in this ruby-red corner of Southern California. But a redrawn political map in the state has reshaped his district this year, adding Palm Springs, a liberal bastion that residents proclaim to be the gayest city in America. The new district lines have put his seat at risk as he faces off against an openly gay Democrat, Will Rollins, a former federal prosecutor.The shift has made Mr. Calvert’s district one of only a handful of Republican-held House seats that Democrats have a hope of flipping in November’s midterm elections, in which they are bracing for losses that could cost them the House majority. While Mr. Calvert has an edge in fund-raising and the power that comes with years of incumbency, the shifting political ground has made his re-election race more competitive than it has been in over a decade.Much of the shift has been driven by heavily L.G.B.T.Q. Palm Springs, which in this year’s primary election had the highest turnout rate in the district, with just under 54 percent of eligible voters casting a ballot, well above the 34 percent turnout level for the district overall, according to Political Data Intelligence, a California-based political and voter data firm.“People flock here from across the Inland Empire for safety and comfort,” Christy Holstege, a bisexual member of Palm Springs’ all-L.G.B.T.Q. City Council, said of the surrounding region as she gazed up at the statue of Marilyn Monroe that overlooks the city. “They know that this is a little sliver of safety, and since our turnout is high, it makes us that much more powerful.”Christy Holstege, a member of the City Council in Palm Springs, said people “know that this is a little sliver of safety.”Adam Perez for The New York TimesChad Gardner, a local business owner and chef who is gay, said he was moved by the influence that his community has in the election.Adam Perez for The New York TimesThe city was known in its early days as a retreat for Hollywood celebrities, and it later became home to thousands of gay men who relocated there during the AIDS epidemic for the warm climate, affordable housing and access to health care. It is now the epitome of kitsch and rich, with its midcentury architecture, pastel pink at every corner and a lively nightlife.Chad Gardner, a local business owner and chef who is gay, said he was moved by the influence that his community has in the election.“We do have some areas that are more conservative in the Inland Empire, so it’s going to come down to how we can energize our base,” Mr. Gardner said, lounging in a plush white chair in an air-conditioned upscale restaurant to escape the 100-degree heat on a recent morning.Mr. Calvert, who received a zero on the Human Rights Campaign’s most recent scorecard rating members of Congress on issues of interest to the L.G.B.T.Q. community, appears to have taken notice. In July, he joined 46 other Republicans in voting in favor of a bill that would recognize same-sex marriage at the federal level, a reversal after years of opposing legislation to protect L.G.B.T.Q. rights.“As I have said for years, I believe the legality of same-sex marriage is settled law and I do not support revisiting that determination,” Mr. Calvert said in a statement. He declined to be interviewed.Representative Ken Calvert has rarely faced a tough election in his three decades in Congress.Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call, via Associated PressDespite the turnabout, he may have an uphill slog to earn the backing of the gay and lesbian voters in his new district, many of whom have bitter memories of the last time Mr. Calvert faced a gay opponent.In 1994, in his race against Mark Takano, who is gay but had not yet come out publicly, Mr. Calvert circulated pink mailers questioning whether Mr. Takano would be “a congressman for Riverside … or San Francisco?” (Eight years later, Mr. Takano won election to represent a different House district in California, becoming the first openly gay person of Asian descent to serve in Congress.) More

Strip away the weird semi-fascist optics, the creepy crimson lighting and the Marines standing sentinel, and the speech Joe Biden gave on Thursday night outside Philadelphia’s Independence Hall could have been given by other prominent Democrats throughout the Trump era.The song is always the same: On the one hand, dire warnings about Trumpian authoritarianism and the need for all patriotic Republicans and independents to join the defense of American democracy; on the other, a strictly partisan agenda that offers few grounds for ideological truce, few real concessions to beliefs outside the liberal tent.In this case, Biden’s speech conflated the refusal to accept election outcomes with opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage — implying that the positions of his own Catholic Church are part of a “MAGA Republican” threat to democracy itself — while touting a State of the Union‌-style list of policy achievements, a cascade of liberal self-praise.The speech’s warning against eroding democratic norms was delivered a week after Biden’s own semi-Caesarist announcement of a $500 billion student-loan forgiveness plan without consulting Congress. And it was immediately succeeded by the news that Democrats would be pouring millions in advertising into New Hampshire’s Republican Senate primary, in the hopes of making sure that the Trumpiest candidate wins through — the latest example of liberal strategists deliberately elevating figures their party and president officially consider an existential threat to the ‌Republic.The ultimate blame for nominating those unfit candidates lies with the G.O.P. electorate, not Democrats. But in the debate about the risks of Republican extremism, the debate the president just joined, it’s still important to judge the leaders of the Democratic Party by their behavior. You may believe that American democracy is threatened as at no point since the Civil War, dear reader, but they do not. They are running a political operation in which the threat to democracy is leverage, used to keep swing voters onside without having to make difficult concessions to the center or the right.It’s easy to imagine a Biden speech that offered such concessions without giving an inch in its critique of Donald Trump. The president could have acknowledged, for instance, that his own party has played some role in undermining faith in American elections, that the Republicans challenging the 2020 result were making a more dangerous use of tactics deployed by Democrats in 2004 and 2016.Or his condemnations of political violence could have encompassed the worst of the May and June 2020 rioting, the recent wave of vandalism at crisis pregnancy centers or the assassination plot against Brett Kavanaugh as well as MAGA threats.Or instead of trying to simply exploit the opportunities that the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision has created for his party, he could have played the statesman, invoked his own Catholic faith and moderate past, praised the sincerity of abortion opponents and called for a national compromise on abortion — a culture war truce, if you will, for the greater good of saving democracy itself.You can make a case for Biden refusing these gestures (or a different set pegged to different non-liberal concerns). But that case requires private beliefs that diverge from Biden’s public statements: In particular, a belief that Trumpism is actually too weak to credibly threaten the democratic order, and that it’s therefore safe to accept a small risk of, say, a Trump-instigated crisis around the vote count in 2024 if elevating Trumpists increases the odds of liberal victories overall.For actual evidence supporting such a belief, I recommend reading Julian G. Waller’s essay “Authoritarianism Here?” in the spring 2022 issue of the journal American Affairs. Surveying the literature on so-called democratic backsliding toward authoritarianism around the world, Waller argues that the models almost always involve a popular leader and a dominant party winning sweeping majorities in multiple elections, gaining the ground required to entrench their position and capture cultural institutions, all the while claiming the mantle of practicality and common sense.As you may note, this does not sound like a description of the current Republican Party — a minority coalition led by an unpopular chancer that consistently passes up opportunities to seize the political center, a party that enjoys structural advantages in the Senate and the Electoral College but consistently self-sabotages by nominating zany or incompetent candidates, a movement whose influence in most cultural institutions collapsed in the Trump era.If Jan. 6 and its aftermath made it easier to imagine a Trumpian G.O.P. precipitating a constitutional crisis, they did not make it more imaginable that it could consolidate power thereafter, in the style of Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan or Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez or any other example. Which in turn makes it relatively safe for the Democratic Party to continue using crisis-of-democracy rhetoric instrumentally, and even tacitly boost Trump within the G.O.P., instead of making the moves toward conciliation and cultural truce that a real crisis would require.Such is an implication, at least, of Waller’s analysis, and it’s my own longstanding read on Trumpism as well.That reading may well be too sanguine. But in their hearts, Joe Biden and the leaders of his party clearly think I’m right.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

I’ve watched Americans in recent years acclimate to some very grim realities. Especially since the ascension of Donald Trump, numerous tragedies and extreme policies have been met with little political consequence: schools targeted by mass murderers, immigrants treated as subhuman and autocratic regimes around the globe affirmed as allies. While Mr. Trump did fail in his re-election bid, a swing of just over 20,000 votes in the three states with the narrowest margins would have produced a win for him, and Democrats hold razor-thin majorities in the House and the Senate.In the weeks following the leak of a draft ruling in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case, which all but guaranteed the end of abortion protections under Roe v. Wade, it initially seemed this pattern would hold. About three weeks after the leak, a CNN analyst claimed that “the Republican wave is building fast” heading into the midterm elections. In late May, the highly respected election analysts at the Cook Political Report increased their estimate of how many House seats the G.O.P. would gain. The discussion was not focused on whether the November general election would be a “red wave” but rather just how big of a wave it would be.But once the actual Dobbs decision came down, everything changed. For many Americans, confronting the loss of abortion rights was different from anticipating it. In my 28 years analyzing elections, I’ve never seen anything like what’s happened in the past two months in American politics: Women are registering to vote in numbers I’ve never witnessed. I’ve run out of superlatives to describe how different this moment is, especially in light of the cycles of tragedy and eventual resignation of recent years. This is a moment to throw old political assumptions out the window and to consider that Democrats could buck historic trends this cycle.One of the first big signs that things had changed came from Kansas. After voters there defeated a constitutional amendment that would have removed abortion protections in the state in a landslide, I sought to understand how activists could have accomplished such an astounding upset. While it takes several weeks for state election officials to produce full reports on who voted in any given election, there was an immediate clue. I looked at new voter registrants in the state since the June 24 Dobbs decision. As shocking as the election result was to me, what I found was more striking than any single election statistic I can recall discovering throughout my career. Sixty-nine percent of those new registrants were women. In the six months before Dobbs, women outnumbered men by a three-point margin among new voter registrations. After Dobbs, that gender gap skyrocketed to 40 points. Women were engaged politically in a way that lacked any known precedent.Repeating the Kansas analysis across several other states, a clear pattern emerged. Nowhere were the results as stark as they were there, but no other state was facing the issue with the immediacy of an August vote on a constitutional amendment. What my team and I did find was large surges in women registering to vote relative to men, when comparing the period before June 24 and after.The pattern was clearest in states where abortion access was most at risk, and where the electoral stakes for abortion rights this November were the highest. The states with the biggest surges in women registering post-Dobbs were deep red Kansas and Idaho, with Louisiana emerging among the top five states. Key battleground states also showed large increases, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio, which are all facing statewide races in which the fate of abortion access could be decided in November.The surge in women registering and voting helped the Democrat Pat Ryan prevail over Marc Molinaro — one of the more credible Republican recruits this cycle — in New York’s fiercely contested 19th Congressional District last month. This is not the type of performance you would see in a red wave election. Among the mail and early votes cast in the district, women outnumbered men by an 18-point margin, despite accounting for about 52 percent of registered voters.With over two months until Election Day, uncertainty abounds. Election prognostication relies heavily on past precedent. Yet there is no precedent for an election centered around the removal of a constitutional right affirmed a half-century before. Every poll we consume over the closing weeks of this election will rely on a likely voter model for which we have no benchmark.The stakes are high. Going into the midterms this fall, the G.O.P. need only gain six seats in the House and one seat in the Senate to retake control of those chambers, thwarting any hope of advancing federal abortion protections or any number of other liberal priorities.Already, several Republicans seem to be sensing that they’re in trouble. In Arizona, the Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters, an ardent abortion opponent, recently wiped language advocating extreme abortion restrictions from his website.Whether the coming elections will be viewed as a red wave, a Roe wave or something in between will be decided by the actions of millions of Americans — especially, it seems, American women. As Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority decision in Dobbs: “Women are not without electoral or political power.” He was right about that. Republicans might soon find out just how much political power they have.Tom Bonier is a Democratic political strategist and the C.E.O. of TargetSmart, a data and polling firm. He teaches political science at Howard University and is a member of S.E.I.U. Local 500.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

Comments from the front-runner for prime minister, Liz Truss, suggest bumpier relations with Europe and the U.S. if she wins, with Northern Ireland getting in the way of the “special relationship.”LONDON — Three weeks after Liz Truss became Britain’s top diplomat in 2021, she told a Conservative Party conference that her country need not compete for the affection of the United States. Britons, she said, should not worry “like some teenage girl at a party if we’re not considered to be good enough.”Her line drew laughs, but little more than that, at a meeting dominated by the flamboyant figure of Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Now, though, Mr. Johnson is on his way out and Ms. Truss is the front-runner in the contest to replace him, making such provocative comments a potential clue to future policy.Should Ms. Truss emerge victorious in a party vote that will be announced on Monday, she will have a chance to flesh out the vision of a Global Britain that Mr. Johnson unveiled after the country left the European Union two years ago. Based on her record as foreign secretary, diplomats and analysts in London and Washington said, relations could get bumpier with the United States and, even more so, with Europe.Tensions between London and Brussels have already flared over legislation introduced by Ms. Truss that would upend the post-Brexit trade arrangements in Northern Ireland. She has vowed to push the new law through Parliament, stoking fears that it could trigger a trade war across the English Channel.The Biden administration is keeping close watch, anxious that the dispute could threaten a quarter-century of peace in Northern Ireland secured by the Good Friday Agreement. President Biden has asked aides to pass along his concern about the negotiations between Britain and the European Union over the trade rules.Rishi Sunak met supporters last month in Birmingham, England. During the campaign, he has promoted his credentials as a Brexiteer.Rui Vieira/Associated Press“We’re going to trundle along in a pretty bad place” in part because “she’s going to keep playing to the peanut gallery of those who are deeply committed to Brexit,” said Leslie Vinjamuri, the director of the U.S. and Americas program at Chatham House, the British research institution.“There is a swath of Britain that doesn’t like being dependent on the United States or the European Union,” Ms. Vinjamuri said. “She is completely aligned with a vision of Britain being global, strong, sovereign and, most of all, independent.”That Brexit-inflected message has helped Ms. Truss pile up a commanding lead in the polls over her opponent, Rishi Sunak, even if he performed well in the final debates of the campaign. But some of the pressures will mount regardless of which candidate is victorious. Mr. Sunak, too, has pledged to push through the Northern Ireland bill, and he promotes his credentials as a Brexiteer. (Ms. Truss opposed Brexit before becoming a fervent proponent of it after the 2016 referendum.)Britain’s role in the world is shaped by forces larger than the next occupant of 10 Downing Street. Having cast itself off from the European Union, Britain can act as more of a free agent, seeking its own relations with great powers like China. But it has lost its role as a bridge between the United States and Europe, becoming a less influential player on global issues like Russia’s war in Ukraine.In that crisis and others, including Iran’s nuclear program, Britain is likely to keep aligning itself with the United States. Mr. Johnson has acted as a kind of wingman to Mr. Biden on Ukraine, encouraging him to impose harsher sanctions on Russia and ship heavier weapons to the Ukrainian army.Loyalists marching last year in Portadown, Northern Ireland, to protest trade rules that require border checks on goods flowing from mainland Britain to the North, as part of a Brexit deal with the European Union.Paulo Nunes dos Santos for The New York TimesMs. Truss would most likely double down on Mr. Johnson’s backing of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. She has presented herself as a hawk on Russia, using language that at times goes further than that of American officials. But her most memorable diplomatic encounter, with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, in February, was marred when Russian officials claimed to reporters that she was ignorant of Russian geography in a private exchange with Mr. Lavrov.While Ms. Truss lived with her family in Canada for a year as a child, she is not a globe-trotting figure like Mr. Sunak, who has an M.B.A. from Stanford, owns a home in Santa Monica, Calif., and until recently held a U.S. green card. Mr. Johnson was born in New York City and renounced his American citizenship only in 2016.For all of his Brexit bluster, which appealed to former President Donald J. Trump but grated on Mr. Biden, Mr. Johnson regularly expressed his affinity for the United States. In his last appearance as prime minister in the House of Commons in July, Mr. Johnson offered his successor some parting advice, borrowed from his hero, Winston Churchill: “Stay close to the Americans.”Ms. Truss, by contrast, shows little reverence for the “special relationship” between Britain and the United States. “It’s special, but not exclusive,” she said at the party conference last year, noting that Britain had other important allies like Australia, India and European countries, notably the Baltic States.“Words matter,” Ms. Vinjamuri said, “and they matter especially when the U.S. is in a period of elections and political upheaval.”Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain with President Biden in June during a NATO meeting in Spain. In the final moments of his last appearance as prime minister in the House of Commons in July, Mr. Johnson offered his successor some advice: “Stay close to the Americans.”Jonathan Ernst/ReutersMs. Truss’s most ambitious outreach to Washington came during the Trump years and ended in frustration. As trade secretary, she led negotiations for a trans-Atlantic trade agreement with Mr. Trump’s trade representative, Robert E. Lighthizer. He recalled her as an energetic, well-briefed free trader.The talks, however, petered out with Mr. Trump’s defeat in 2020, and Mr. Biden has shown little interest in reviving them. That means Ms. Truss will have to find other common ground with him, beyond Ukraine.“Brits expect their prime minister to have a good personal relationship with the American president,” said Kim Darroch, a former British ambassador to Washington. “If they’re not getting on, that will get picked up and commented on, probably critically.”Perhaps stung by her previous statements about foreign leaders, Ms. Truss has steered clear of American politics. Asked by a journalist last week if she viewed Mr. Trump as a friend or foe, she said, “I’m not going to comment on future potential presidential runners,” adding, “We have to work with whoever is in the White House.”She was less diplomatic when it came to continental Europe, particularly France. “The jury is out,” she said, when she was asked the friend-or-foe question about President Emmanuel Macron of France. That drew a backhanded reply from Mr. Macron, who said Britain was a friend, regardless of its leader.Peter Westmacott, another former British envoy to Washington, likened Ms. Truss’s remarks to those of a candidate in an American primary — in this case, aimed at the 160,000 or so members of the Conservative Party who are voting for a new leader. If she wins, he predicted, she will pivot back to the center.Still, he said her campaign messaging had done damage that went beyond France. She floated the idea of Britain sending asylum seekers to Turkey in addition to Rwanda, a proposal swiftly shot down by the Turkish government.President Emmanuel Macron of France last month in Paris. He said Britain was a friend of France, regardless of its leader.Yoan Valat/EPA, via Shutterstock“I hope she will also conclude before too long that the U.K. has every interest in finding allies in Europe to help limit the damage caused by Brexit, energy prices and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” Mr. Westmacott said.A trade war with the European Union is far from inevitable. European officials may choose to hold off on major retaliation until the Northern Ireland legislation gets through Parliament. That process could drag on for months, given the fierce resistance the bill is likely to face in the House of Lords, where many members view it as a breach of international law and a power grab by cabinet ministers.The dilemma for Ms. Truss, if she wins, is that her political ascent has been powered by her cultivation of the party’s Brexiteer wing. That will make it hard for her to give ground in the dispute with Brussels. And Britain’s relations with the European Union are increasingly inseparable from its relations with the United States.“The U.K.-E.U. relationship looks more destructive in the short term,” said Mujtaba Rahman, an analyst at the political risk consultancy, Eurasia Group. “It’s going to subtract from the level of credibility she’ll enjoy in Washington.”“All roads run through Europe,” he said. More